Chapter 33

Fig. 473.—Sculpture on the Wall of St. Clement’s Cave, Hastings.[To face page797.

Fig. 473.—Sculpture on the Wall of St. Clement’s Cave, Hastings.

[To face page797.

The cauldron of British mythology was known occasionally as Pwyll’s Cauldron, Pwyll, the chief of the Underworld, being the infernal or Plutonic form of the Three Apollos. Referring to the Italian tale of King Arthur’s entrance into the innermost caverns of the earth, Herbert observes: “Valvasone’s account of this place is a justdescription of the Cor upon Mount Ambri, and goes to identify it with the mystical Ynys Avallon (Island of Apples). All that he says of it is in wide departure from the tales which he might have read in Galfridus and Giraldus. But when we further see that he places within its recesses the cauldron of deified nature or Keridwen, it truly moves our wonder whence this matter can have come into his pages.”[942]Doubtless Herbert would have puzzled still more in view of what is apparently the same mystic cauldron, bowl, or tureen carved upon the walls of St. Clement’s Caves at Hastings.[943]

Presumably the St. Clement of these caves which have been variously ascribed to the Romans and the Danes, was a relative of St. Clement Dane in London by St. Dunstan in the West: the Hastings Caves are situated over what is marked on the Ordnance map as Torfield, and as this is immediately adjacent to a St. Andrew it is probable that the Anderida range, which commences hereby and terminates at the Chislehurst Caves, was all once dedicated to the ancient and eternal Ida.Antreis a generic term for cave, and astroumeans hole, the wordantrouis also equivalent toold hole. When first visiting the famous Merlin’s Cave at Tintagel or Dunechein, where it is said that Arthuror Artur, the mystic Mighty Child, was cast up by the ninth wave into the arms of the Great Magician, my companion’s sense of romance received a nasty jar on learning that Merlin’s Cave was known locally as “The Old Hole”: it may be, however, that this term was an exact rendering of the older Kelticantrou, which is literallyold hole: the Tray Cliff in Derbyshire, where is situated the Blue John Mine, may well have been thetroucliff.

The highest point of the highland covering St. Clement’s Caves is known as “The Ladies’ Parlour”; at the foot of this is Sandringham Hotel, whence—in view of the neighbouring St. Andrew and Tor field—it is possible that “Sandringham”[944]was here, as elsewhere, ahome of the children of Sander: immediately adjacent is a Braybrook, and a Bromsgrove Road. Near Reigate is a Broome Park which we are told “in the romantic era rejoiced in the name of Tranquil Dale”:[945]the neighbouring Buckland, Boxhill, and Pixhome Lane may be connoted with Bexhill by Hastings, and there are further traditional connections between the two localities. Under the dun upon which stand the remains of Reigate Castle are a series of caves, and besides the series of caves under the castle there are many others of much greater dimensions to the east, west, and south sides:[946]my authority continues, “Here many of the side tunnels are sealed up; one of these is said to go to Reigate Priory—which is possible—but another which isreputed to go to Hastings, impels one to draw the line somewhere”.[947]

We have seen that Brom and Bron were obviously once one and the same, and there is very little doubt that the Bromme of Broompark or Tranquil Dale was the same Peri or Power as was presumably connected with Purley, and as the Bourne or Baron associated with Reigate. In one of the Reigate caverns is a large pool of clear water which is said to appear once in seven years, and is still known as Bourne water:[948]under the castle is a so-called Baron’s Cave which is about 150 feet long, with a vaulted roof and a circular end with a ledge or seat around it. In popular estimation this is where the Barons met prior to the signing of Magna Charta: possibly they did, and without doubt many representatives ofTheBaron—good, bad, bold, and indifferent—from time to time sat and conferred upon the same ledge. From the Baron’s Cave a long inclined plane led to a stairway of masonwork which extended to the top of the mound.

Reigate now consists of a pair of ancient Manors, of which one was Howleigh; the adjacentAgland Moor, as alsoOxted, suggests the troglodyte King Og of Edrei.Among the Reigate caves is one denominated “The Dungeon”:Tintagel was known alternatively not only asDundagel, but also asDunechein, evidently the same word as the greatDaneJohn tumulus at Canterbury. The meaning of this term depends like every other word upon its context; adungeonis a down-under or dene hole, the keep ordonjonof a castle is its main tower or summit: similarly the word dunhill is identical with dene hole;abyssnow means a yawning depth, but on page 224 Abyss was represented as a dunhill.

From the cavern at Pentonville, known as Merlin’s Cave, used to run a subterranean passage: modern Pentonville takes its title from a ground landlord named Penton, a tenant who presumably derived his patronymic either from that particularpentonor from one elsewhere. In connection with the termpenit is curious to find that at Penselwood in Somerset there are what were estimated to be 22,000 “pen pits”: these pits are described as being in general of the form which mathematicians term the frustrum of a cone, not of like size one with another, but from 10 to 50 feet over at top and from 5 to 20 feet in the bottom.[949]I have already surmised that the various Selwoods, Selgroves, and Selhursts were so named because they contained the cells of the austereselli: by Penselwood is Wincanton, a place supposed to have derived its title from “probably a man’s name; nasalised form ofHwicca,cf.Whixley, and seeton”; but in view of the innumerablecone-shaped cells hereabout, it would seem more feasible thatcantonmeantcone town. We have already illustrated the marvellous cone tomb said to have once existed in Etruria: in connection with this it isfurther recorded that within the basement King Porsenna made an inextricable labyrinth, into which if one ventured without a clue, there he must remain for he never could find the way out again; according to Mrs. Hamilton Gray the labyrinth of a counterpart of this tomb still exists, “but its locality is unascertained”.

There are said to be pits similar to the Wincanton pen pits in Berkshire, there known as Coles pits: we have already connoted St. Nichol of the tub-miracle, likewise King Cole of the Great Bowl with Yule the Wheel or Whole. The Bowl of Cole was without doubt the same as thepair dadeni, or Magic Cauldron ofPwyllwhich Arthur “spoiled” from Hades: withPaul’sCray may be connoted the not-far-distant Pol Hill overlooking Sevenoaks. Otford, originally Ottanford, underlies Pol Hill, which was no doubt a dun of the celestial Pol,aliasPluto, or Aidoneus: in the graveyard at Ottanford may be seen memorials of the Polhill family, a name evidently analogous to Penton of Pentonville.

The memory of our ancestors dwelling habitually in either pen pits, dene holes, or cole pits, has been preserved in Layamon’sBrut, where it is recorded: “At Totnes, Constantin the fair and all his host came ashore; thither came the bold man—well was he brave!—and with him 2000 knights such as no king possessed. Forth they gan march into London, and sent after knights over all the kingdom, and every brave man, that speedily he should come anon. The Britons heard that,where they dwelt in the pits, in earth and in stocks they hid them (like) badgers, in wood and in wilderness, in heath and in fen, so that well nigh no man might find any Briton, except they were in castle, or in burgh inclosed fast. When theyheard of this word, that Constantin was in the land,then came out of the mountsmany thousand men; they leapt out of the wood as if it were deer. Many hundred thousand marched toward London, by street and by weald all it forth pressed; and the brave women put on them men’s clothes, and they forth journeyed toward the army.”

It has been assumed that the means of exit from the dene holes, and from the subterranean city with which they communicated, was a notched pole, and it is difficult to see how any other method was feasible: in this connection the Mandan Indians of North America have a curious legend suggestive of the idea that they must have sprung from some troglodite race. The whole Mandan nation, it is said, once resided in one large village underground near a subterranean lake; a grape-vine extended its roots down to their habitation and gave them a view of the light. Some of the most adventurous climbed up the vine and were delighted with the sight of the earth which they found covered with buffalo and rich with every kind of fruit: men, women, and children ascended by means of the vine (the notched pole?), but when about half the nation had attained the surface of the earth a big or buxom woman, who was clambering up the vine, broke it with her weight and closed upon herself and the rest the light of the Sun. There is seemingly some like relation between this legend and the tradition held by certain hill tribes of the old Konkan kingdom in India, who have a belief that their ancestors came out of a cave in the earth. In connection with this Konkan tale, and with the fact that the Concanii of Spain fed on horses, it may here be noted that not only do traces of the horse occur in the most ancient caves, but that vast deposits of horse bones point to the probabilitythat horses were eaten sacrificially in caves.[950]In the Baron’s Cave at Reigate, “There are many bas relief sculptures, Roman soldiers’ heads, grotesque masks of monks, horses’ heads and other subjects which can only be guessed at”:[951]these idle scribblings have been assigned to the Roman soldiery, who are supposed at one time to have garrisoned the castle, and the explanation is not improbable: the favourite divinity of the Roman soldiery was Mithra, the Invincible White Horse, and several admittedly Mithraic Caves have been identified in Britain.[952]It hasalways been supposed that these were the work of Roman invaders, and in this connection it should be noted that deep in the bowels of the Chislehurst labyrinth there is a clean-cut well about 70 feet deep lined with Roman cement: but granting that the Romans made use of a ready-made cave, it is improbable that they were responsible for the vast net-work of passages which are known to extend under that part of Kent. There is—I believe—a well in the heart of the Great Pyramid; a deep subterranean well exists in one of the series of caves at Reigate.

In his article on the Chislehurst Caves Mr. Nichols inquires, “might not the shafts of these dene holes have lent themselves to the study of the heavenly bodies?” That the Druids were adepts at astronomy is testified by various classical writers, and according to Dr. Smith there are sites in Anglesey still known in Welsh as “the city ofthe Astronomers,” the Place of Studies, and the Astronomers’ Circle.[953]There was a famous Holy Well in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, and it would almost seem that a well was an integral adjunct of the sacred duns: according to Miss Gordon “there is a well of unknown antiquity at Pentonville under Sadlers Wells Theatre (Clerkenwell), lined with masonry of ancient date throughout its entire depth, similar to the prehistoric wells we have already mentioned in the Windsor Table Mound, on the Wallingford Mound, and the Well used by the first Astronomer Royal at Greenwich”.[954]But masonry-lined wells situated in the very bowels of the earth as at Chislehurst and Reigate cannot have served any astronomic purpose; they must, one would think, have been constructed principally for ritualistic reasons. At Sewell, near Dunstable, immediately next to Maiden Bower there once existed a very remarkable dene hole: this is marked on the Ordnance Maps as “site of well,” but in the opinion of Worthington Smith, “this dene hole was never meant for a well”. It was recently destroyed by railway constructors who explored it to the depth of 116 feet; but, says Worthington Smith, “amateur excavators afterwards excavated the hole to a much greater depth and found more bones and broken pots. The base has never been reached. The work was on the top of a very steep and high bank.”[955]On Mount Pleasant at Dunstable was a well 350 feet deep,[956]and any people capable of sinking a narrow shaft to this depth must obviously have been far removed from the savagery of the prime.

In 1835 atTinwell, in Rutlandshire, the singular discovery was made of a large subterranean cavern supported in the centre by a stone pillar: this chamber proved on investigation to be “an oblong square extending in length to between 30 and 40 yards, and in breadth to about 8 feet. The sides are of stone, the ceiling is flat, and at one end are two doorways bricked up.”[957]About forty years ago, at Donseil in France—or rather in a field belonging to the commune of Saint Sulpice leDonseil[958]—a ploughman’s horse sank suddenly into a hole: the grotto which this accident revealed was found to have been cut out from soft grey granite in an excellent state of preservation and is thus described: “After passing through the narrow entrance, you make your way with some difficulty down a sloping gallery some 15 yards in length, to a depth beneath the surface of nearly 20 feet; this portion is in the worst condition. Then you find yourself in acircular gallerymeasuring about 65 feet in circumference,with the roof supported by a huge pillar, 18 feet in diameter. It is worth noticing that the walls, which are hewn out of the granite, are not vertical, but convex like an egg. At 19 feet to the left of the inclined corridor, and at an elevation of 30 inches above the level of the soil of the circular gallery, we come upon a small opening, through which it is just possible for a man to squeeze himself: it gives access to a gallerythirty-threefeet long, at the bottom of which a loftier and more spacious gallery has been begun, but, apparently, not completed.”[959]

Fig. 474. PLAN OF THE GROTTO AT MARGATE.

I invite the reader to note the significance of these measurements and to compare the general design of the Donseilsouterrainwith the form of Fig. 474: this is the ground plan of a grotto which was accidentally discovered by some schoolboys in 1835, and exists to-day in the side ofDaneHill, Margate. Its form is very similar to the apparent design of the great two-mile Sanctuary at Avebury, see page 351, and its situation—a dene or valley on the side of a hill—coincides exactly with that of the small Candian cave-shrines dedicated to the serpent goddess. In Candia no temples have been discovered but only small and insignificant household shrines: “It is possible,” says Mr. Hall, “that the worship of the gods on a great scale was only carried out in the open air, or the palace court, or in a grave or cave not far distant. Certainly the sacred places to which pilgrimage was made and at which votive offerings were presented, were such groves, rocky gorges, and caves.”[960]

The sanctity of Cretan caves is indisputably proved by the immense number of votive offerings therein found, in many cases encrusted and preserved by stalagmites and stalactites. Among the house shrines of the Mother Goddess and her Son remain pathetic relics of the adoration paid by her worshippers: one of these saved almost intact by Sir Arthur Evans is described as a small room or cell, smaller even than the tiny chapels that dot the hills of Crete to-day—a place where one or two might pray, leave an offering and enjoy community with the divinity rudely represented on the altar ... one-third of the space was for the worshipper, another third for the gifts, the last third for the goddess.[961]

There are diminutivesouterrainsin Cornwall notably at St. Euny in the parish of Sancreed where the gift niches still remain intact: in many instances these “Giants Holts” are in serpentine form, and the serpentine form of the Margate Grotto is unmistakable. The Mother Goddess of Crete has been found figured with serpents in her hands and coiling round her shoulders: according to Mr. Mackenzie: “Her mysteries were performed in caves as were also the Paleolithic mysteries. In the caves there were sacred serpents, and it may be that the prophetic priestesses who entered them were serpent charmers: cave worship was of immense antiquity. The cave was evidently regarded as the door of the Underworld in which dwelt the snake-form of Mother Earth.”[962]

Fig. 475.—Ground plan ofSouterrainat St. Euny’s, Sancreed, Cornwall.

It has been seen that the serpent because of sloughing its skin was the emblem of rejuvenescence, regeneration,and New Birth; it is likely that the wordsanctusis radically the same assnag, meaning a short branch, and assnake, which in Anglo-Saxon wassnaca: it is certain that thesnake trouor snake cave was one of the most primitivesanctuaries.[963]Not only is the Margate Grotto constructed in serpentine form, but upon one of the panels of its walls is a Tree of Life, of which two of the scrolls consist of horned serpents: these are most skilfully worked in shells, and from the mouth of each serpent is emerging the triple tongue of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word.

The word dean, Frenchdoyen, is supposed to be the Latindecanumthe accusative of decanus, one set over ten soldiers or ten monks: it is, as already suggested, more probable that the original deans were the priests of Diane, and that they worshipped in dene holes, in dens, in denes, on downs, and at dunhills. The wordgrotis probably the same askirit, the Turkish form of Crete, and as theKeridwenorKerid Holyof Britain. The ministers of the Cretan Magna Mater were entitledcuretes, and the modern curate may in all likelihood claim a verbal descent from the Keridwen or Sancreed whose name is behind ourgreat, crude, andcradle. The Magna Mater of Kirid or Crete was sometimes as already mentioned depicted with a cat upon her head: I have equated the wordcatwith Kate, Kitty, or Ked, and in all probability the catacombs of Rome anciently Janicula were originally built in her honour. In Scotlandsouterrainsare termedweems, a word whichis undoubtedly affiliated both in form and idea with womb, tomb, and coombe: the British bards allude frequently to the grave as being the matrix or womb of Ked; as archæologists are well aware, primitive burials frequently consisted of contracting the body into the form of the fœtus, depositing it thus in a stone cist, chest, or “coty”: and there is little doubt that the St. Anne who figures so prolifically in the catacombs of Janicula, was like St. Anne of Brittany the pre-Christian Anne, Jana, or Diane.

At Caddington by Dunstable there is a Dame Ellen’s Wood; Caddington itself is understood to have meant—“the hill meadow of Cedd or Ceadda,” and among the prehistoric tombs found in this neighbourhood was the interment illustrated on page 64. It has been cheerily suggested that “the child may have been buried alive with its mother”: it may, but it equally may not; the pathetic surround of sea-urchins or popularly-called fairy loaves points to sentiment of some sort, particularly in view of the tradition that whoso keeps a specimen of the fairy loaf in his house shall never lack bread.[964]Echinus, the Latin for sea-urchin, is radically the same word as Janus; in the Margate grotto an echinus forms the centre of most of the conchological suns or stars with which the walls are decorated, and a large echinus appears in each of the four top corners of the oblong chamber.

I have suggested that the Kentish Rye, a town which once stood on a conical islet and near to which is an earthwork known nowadays as Rhee wall, was once dedicated to Rhea or Maria, and that Margate owes its designation to the same Ma Rhea or Mother Queen. According to “Morien”Rhiwas a Celtic title of the Almighty, and isthe root of the wordrhinwedd(Virtue): according to Rhysrhimeantqueen, and was a poetic term for a lady: according to ThomasRheais the feminine noun ofrhi, prince or king; it would thence follow thatregina, like the French name Rejane, meant originally Queen Gyne, either Queen Woman or Royal Jeanne. There are numerous Ryhalls, Ryhills, and in Durham is a Ryton which figured anciently as Ruyton, Rutune, andRuginton: near Kingston is Raynes Park, and at Hackney, in the neighbourhood of the Seven Sisters and Kingsland Roads, is Wren’s Park.

That the Candians colonised the North of Africa is generally supposed, whence it becomes likely that the marvellous excavations atRuawere related to the worship of the serpentineRhea: these are mentioned by Livingstone who wrote: “Tribes live in underground houses in Rua. Some excavations are said to be 30 miles long, and have running rills in them; a whole district can stand a siege in them. The ‘writings’ therein, I have been told by some of the people, are drawings of animals and not letters, otherwise I should have gone to see them.”[965]

The word grotesque admittedly originated from the fantastic designs found so frequently within grottos or grots, and if the natives of Rua could construct asouterrain30 miles in extent, I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of the tradition that the natives of Reigate had run a tunnel towards Rye which is within a few miles of St. Clement’s Caves at Hastings. Thegateof Margate and Reigate meansopening;wrymeans awry or twisting, and we may probably find the original name of Reigate in the neighbouring place-name Wray Common.

The Snake grotto at Margate, which is situated almostbelow a small house named “Rosanna Lodge,” is decorated throughout with a most marvellous and beautiful mosaic of shellwork, the like of which certainly exists nowhere else in Britain: the dominant notes of this decoration are roses or rosettes, and raisins or grapes; over the small altar in the oblong chamber, at the extremity, are rising the rays of the Sun. The shells used as a groundwork for this decorative scheme were the yellow periwinkle now naturally grey with antiquity but which, when fresh, must, when illuminated, have produced an effect of golden and surpassing beauty. In the shrines of Candia large numbers of sea-shells, artificially tinted in various colours, have come to light:[966]that the altar at the Cantian Margate grotto was constructed to hold a lamp or a candle cannot be doubted, in which connection one may connote a statement by “Morien” that “All shell grottos with a candle in it (sic) were a symbol of the cave of the sun near the margin of the ocean with the soul of the sun in it”.[967]There is indeed little doubt that the snake trou under Rosanna Lodge was, like the grotto at St. Sulpice le Donseil, dedicated to le Donseil ordonna sol. At the mouth of the shrine is a figurine seated, of which, unfortunately, the head is missing, but the right hand is still holding a cup: in Fig. 44ante, page 167, Reason is holding a similar cup into which is distillingla rosee, or the dew of Heaven—doubtless the same goblet as was said to be offered to mortals by the fairy Idunns; their earthly representatives, the Aeddons, may be assumed once to have dwelt in the Dane Park or at Addington Street, now leading to Dane Hill where the grotto remains.

We have connected the Cup of Reason with the mystic Cauldron of Keridwen, or “cauldron of four spaces,” and have noted among the recipe “the liquor that bees have collectedand resin,” to be prepared “when there is a calm dew falling”: another Bard alludes to “the gold-encircled liquor contained in the golden cup,” and I have little doubt that resin, rosin, or rosine was valued and venerated as being, like amber, the petrified tears of Apollo. I do not suggest that the Rosanna Lodge in the dene at Margate has any direct relation to the grotto of Reason beneath, but there is evidently a close connection with the small figurine holding a cup and the Lady Rosamond of Rosamond’s Well at Woodstock. “There was,” says Herbert, “a popular notion of an infernal maze extending from the bottom of Rosamond’s Well”: this labyrinth almost certainly once existed, for as late as 1718 there were to be seen by the pool at Woodstock the foundations of a very large building which were believed to be the remains of Rosamond’s Labyrinth.[968]

The story of Fair Rosamond being compelled to swallow poison is precisely on a par with the monkish legend that St. George was “tortured by being forced to drink a poisoned cup,” and how the Rosamond story originated is fairly obvious from the fact that on her alleged tombstone, “among other fine sculptures was engraven the figure of a cup. This, which perhaps at first was an accidental ornament (perhaps only the chalice), might in aftertimes suggest the notion that she was poisoned; at least this construction was put upon it when the stone came to be demolished after the nunnery was dissolved.” The above is the opinion of an archæologist who died in 1632, and itis in all probability sound: the actual site of Rosamond’s Bower at Woodstock seems to have been known as Godstone, and it was presumably the ancient Ked Stone that gave birth to the distorted legend. According to the Ballad of Fair Rosamond, that maiden was a ladye brighte, and most peerlesse was her beautye founde:—

Her crisped locks like threads of goldAppeared to each man’s sighte,Her sparkling eyes like Orient pearlsDid cast a heavenlye light.The blood within her crystal cheekesDid such a colour driveAs though the lillye and the roseFor mastership did strive.

Her crisped locks like threads of goldAppeared to each man’s sighte,Her sparkling eyes like Orient pearlsDid cast a heavenlye light.

Her crisped locks like threads of gold

Appeared to each man’s sighte,

Her sparkling eyes like Orient pearls

Did cast a heavenlye light.

The blood within her crystal cheekesDid such a colour driveAs though the lillye and the roseFor mastership did strive.

The blood within her crystal cheekes

Did such a colour drive

As though the lillye and the rose

For mastership did strive.

The ballad continues that the enamoured King—

At Woodstock builded such a bowerThe like was never seene,Most curiously that bower was builtOf stone and timber strongAn hundered and fifty doors[969]Did to this bower belong,And they so cunninglye contrivedWith turnings round about,That none but with a clue of threadCould enter in or out.

At Woodstock builded such a bower

The like was never seene,

Most curiously that bower was built

Of stone and timber strong

An hundered and fifty doors[969]

Did to this bower belong,

And they so cunninglye contrived

With turnings round about,

That none but with a clue of thread

Could enter in or out.

According to Drayton, Rosamond’s Bower consisted of vaults underground arched and walled with brick and stone: Stow in hisAnnalsquotes an obituary stone reading,Hic jacet in tumba Rosa Mundi; non Rosa Munda, non redolet sed olet, which may be Anglicised into, Here lies entombed a mundane Rosa not the Rose of the World; she is not redolent, but “foully doth she stinke”. I am inclined, however, to believe that the traditional Rosamondwas really and indeed the “cleane flower” and that the ignorant monks added calumny to their other perversions. History frigidly but very fortunately relates that “the tombstone of Rosamond Clifford was taken up at Godstone and broken in pieces, and that upon it were interchangeable weavings drawn out and decked with roses red and green and the picture of the cup, out of which she drank the poison given her by the Queen, carved in stone”.[970]At the Cornish village of Sancreed,i.e., San Kerid or St. Ked, engraved upon the famous nine foot cross is a similar cup or chalice, out of which rises a tapering fleur de lys: with the wordcreedmay be connoted the fact that the artist of Kirid or Crete, “with a true instinct for beauty, chose as his favourite flowers the lovely lily and iris, the wild gladiolus and crocus, all natives of the Mediterranean basin, and the last three, if not the lily, of his own soil”.[971]Opinions differ as to whether the Sancreed lily is a spear head or a fleur de lys: they also differ as to the precise meaning of the cup: in the opinion of Mr. J. Harris Stone, “the vessel or chalice is roughly heart-shaped—that is the main body of it—and the head of the so-called spear is distinctly divided and has cross-pieces which, being recurved, doubtless gave rise to the lily theory of the origin. Now there was an ancient Egyptian cross of the Latin variety rising out of a heart like the mediæval emblem ofCor in Cruce, Crux in Corde, and this is irresistibly brought to my mind when looking at this Sancreed cross. The emblem I am alluding to is that of Goodness.”[972]

Fig. 476.—The famous Sancreed Cross. FromThe Cornish Riviera(Stone, J. Harris). [To face page816.

With this theory I am in sympathy, and it may bereasonably suggested that the alleged “tombstone” of Rosamond at Godstone was actually a carved megalith analogous to that at Sancreed: the carving on the latter may be comparatively modern, but in all probability the rock itself is the originalcrudeCreed stone, Ked stone, or Good stone, touched up and partly recut.

The Rose is the familiar emblem of St. George or Oros who, according to some accounts, was the son of Princess Sophia the Wise: his legs were of massive silver up to the knees, and his arms were of pure gold from the elbows to the wrists. According to other traditions George was born at Coventry, and “is reported to have been marked at his birth (forsooth!) with a red bloody cross on his right hand”.[973]The first adventure of St. George was the salvation of a fair and precious princess named Sabra from a foul dragon who venomed the people with his breath and this adventure is located at Silene: with this Silene may be connoted the innocent Una, who in some accounts occupies the position of the Lady Sabra: Sabra is suggestive of Sabrina, the little Goddess of the river Severn, whose name we have connected with the soft, gentle, pleasing and propitious Brina: that St. Burinea, the pretty daughter of Angus whose memory is sanctified as the patron of St Burian’s or Eglosberrie, was originallypureUna is more likely than that this alleged Maiden was an historic personage of the sixth century.

The series of excavations at Reigate, of which the principal is the Baron’s Cave, extends to a Red Cross Inn which marks the vicinity where stood the chapel of the Holy Cross, belonging to the Priory of the Virgin and Holy Cross: about a mile from Reigate in a little brook (theBourne Water) used to stand a great stone stained red by the victims of a water Kelpie, who had his lair beneath. The Kelpie was exorcised by a vicar of Buckland: nevertheless the stone remained an object of awe to the people, which, says Mr. Ogilvie, “was regarded as a vile superstition by a late vicar who had the stone removed to demonstrate to his parishioners that there was nothing under it, but some of the old folks remember the story yet”.[974]Part of Reigate is known as Red Hill, obviously from the red sandstone which abounds there: at Bristol or Bristowe,i.e., the Stockade of Bri, the most famous church is that of St. Mary Redcliffe: the Mew stone off Devonshire is red cliff, the inscriptions at Sinai are always on red stone, and there is little doubt that red rock was particularly esteemed to be the symbol of gracious Aine, the Love Mother. In Domesday the Redcliff of St. Mary appears as Redeclive,[975]and may thus also have meant Rood Cleeve: in London we have a Ratcliffe Highway, and in Kensington a Redcliffe Square.

Fig. 477.—Iberian. From Akerman

In what is now the Green Park, Mayfair, used to be a Rosamond’s Pool: with Rosamond, the Rose of the World, and Rosanna—whose name may be connoted with the inscriptionRu NhoorQueen New,[976]which occurs on oneof the Sancreed crosses may also be connoted St. Rosalie of Sicily or Hypereia, whose grotto and fete still excite “an almost incredible enthusiasm”. The legend of St. Rosalie represents her as—

Something much too fair and goodFor human nature’s daily food,

Something much too fair and good

For human nature’s daily food,

and her mysterious evanishment is accounted for by the tradition that, disgusted by the frivolous life and empty gaiety of courts, she voluntarily retired herself into an obscure cavern, where her remains are now supposed to be buried under wreaths of imperishable roses which are deposited by angels.[977]

Fig. 478.—Kerris Roundago. FromAntiquities of Cornwall.

Fig. 479.—Christ, with a Nimbus Resembling a Flat Cap, or Casquette. From a Carving on Wood in the Stalls of Notre Dame d’Amiens. XVI. Cent. From Didron.

According to ecclesiastical legend the beloved St. Rosalie—whose fete is celebrated in Sicily on the day of St. Januarius—was the daughter of a certain Tancred, the first King of Sicily: it is not unlikely that this Tancred was Don Cred or Lord Cred, a relation of the Cornish Sancreed.[978]Sancreed is supposed to derive its name as being “an abstract dedication to the Holy Creed”: but it is alternatively known as Sancris: the Cretans, or Kiridians, or Eteocretes claimed Cres the Son of Jupiter by the nymphIdea as their first King, and they traced their descent from Cres. In a subsequent volume we shall consider this Cres at greater length, and shall track him to India in the form of Kristna, to whose grace the subterranean cross at Madura seems to have been dedicated. In Celticcrismeant pure, holy;criosmeant the Sun:[979]the principal site of Apollo-worship was the island of Crissa; in England Christy[980]is a familiar surname, and I am convinced that the Christ tradition in Britain owed little to the Roman mission of Augustine, but was of far older origin. We may perhaps trace the original transit of Cris to Sancris at Carissa, now Carixa, in Spain: among the numerous coins of this district some as figured herewith bear the legendCaris, some bear the head of the young Hercules, others a female head.[981]As in classic LatinCwas invariably pronounced hard, it is probable that the maiden Caris was Ceres, and that the Cretan pair are responsible for Kerris Roundago, an egg-like monument near Sancreed; also for Cresswell in Durham where is the famous Robin Hood Cave:[982]one may further trace Caris at Carisbrook near Ryde, at the diminutive Criss Brook near Maidstone, and at the streamlet Crise in Santerre.

The town of Carissa, now Carixa, may be connoted with the synonymouscrossorcrux: the Cornish forcrosswascrows, and at Crows-an-Rha, near St. Buryans, there is a celebrated wayside cross or crouch.[983]That Caris wascarusordear, and that he was the inception ofcharisor charity will also eventually be seen: I have elsewhere suggested thatcharis, orlove, was originally ’k Eros or Great Eros; in the Christian emblem here illustrated Christ is associated with a rose cross, which is fabricated from the four hearts, and thus constitutes theRosa mystica. At Kerris Roundago are four megaliths.

Fig. 480.Fig. 481.

Fig. 480.

Fig. 481.

The Sancris cup or chalice[984]might legitimately be termed acruse: Christ’s first miracle was the conversion of a cruse or can of water into wine, and the site of this miracle was Cana. Thesouterrainof St. Sulpice le Donseil is situated in a district known as La Creuse, and the solitarypillar in the heart of this grotto, as also that in the Margate grotto, and that in thesouterrainat Tinwell, were probably symbols of what the British Bard describes as “Christ the concealed pillar of peace”. The Celtic Christs here reproduced from an article inThe Open Courtby Dr. Paul Carus are probably developments of ancient Prestons or Jupiter Stones: the connection between these crude Christs and Cres, the Son of Jupiter, by the nymph Idea, is probably continuous and unbroken.

A cruse corresponds symbolically to a cauldron or a cup: according to Herbert, “The Cauldron of the Bards was connected by them with Mary in that particular capacity which forms the portentous feature in St. Brighid (viz., herbeing Christ’s Mother) to the verge of identification. The reason was that divine objects considered by them essentially, and, as it were, sacramentally as being Christ, were prepared within and produced out of that sacred and womb-like receptacle.” He then quotes two bardic extracts to the following effect:—

(1) The One Man and our Cauldron,And our deed, and our word,With the bright pure Mary daughter of Anne.(2) Christ, Creator, Emperor and our Mead,Christ the Concealed, pillar of peace,Christ, Son of Mary and of my Cauldron, a pure pedigree![985]

(1) The One Man and our Cauldron,And our deed, and our word,With the bright pure Mary daughter of Anne.

(1) The One Man and our Cauldron,

And our deed, and our word,

With the bright pure Mary daughter of Anne.

(2) Christ, Creator, Emperor and our Mead,Christ the Concealed, pillar of peace,Christ, Son of Mary and of my Cauldron, a pure pedigree![985]

(2) Christ, Creator, Emperor and our Mead,

Christ the Concealed, pillar of peace,

Christ, Son of Mary and of my Cauldron, a pure pedigree![985]

The likelihood is that the solitary great Jasper stone in the roof of the four-columned hall at Edrei, the Capital of King Og, was similarly a symbol of the ideal Corner Stone or the Concealed Pillar of Peace.

At Mykenae the celebrated titanic gateway is ornamented by two lions guarding or supporting a solitarypillar or numeral 1: at other times a figure of the Magna Mater takes the place of thisOne, and it is probable that the Io of Mykenae was originally My Kene,i.e., Mother Queen or, more radically, Mother Great One. That Io was represented by the horns or crescent moon is obvious from the innumerable idols in the form of cows horns found at Mykenae: we have already connected Cain, Cann, and Kenna with the moon orchoon, Latinluna, Frenchlune, otherwise Cynthia or Diana.

Not only was Crete or Candia essentially an island of caves, but the district of the British Cantii seems if anything to have been even more riddled:canteenis a generic term for cellar or cool cave, and the origin of this word is not known. In Mexicocunmeantpudenda muliebris, in Londoncunnyandcuntcarry the same meaning, and withcenote, the Mexican forcistern, may be connoted our English rivers Kennet and Kent. Dr. Guest refers to the cauldron ofCendwen (Keridwen): according to Davidson the magic cup of the Cabiri corresponded to theCondyCup[986]of the Gnostics which is the same as that in whichGuion(Mercury) made his beverage—the beverage of knowledge or divine Kenning, the philosophical Mercury of the mediæval alchemists. Sometimes the Egg or Cup was encircled by two serpents said to represent the Igneous and Humid principles of Nature in conjunction: it is not improbable that the spirals found alike at Mykenae and New Grange represented this dual coil, spire, or maze of Life, and the Coil Dance or the Snail’s Creep, which was until recently executed in Cornwall, may have borne some relation to this notion.[987]

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