Three weeksbefore the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place,And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps,And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps,And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell,A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well:Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man gives willinglee,For these three nightes are alwayes thought unfortunate to bee;Wherein they are affrayde of sprites and cankred witches spight,And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.[208]
Three weeksbefore the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place,And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps,And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps,And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell,A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well:Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man gives willinglee,For these three nightes are alwayes thought unfortunate to bee;Wherein they are affrayde of sprites and cankred witches spight,And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.[208]
Three weeksbefore the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,
And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place,
And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps,
And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps,
And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell,
A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well:
Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man gives willinglee,
For these three nightes are alwayes thought unfortunate to bee;
Wherein they are affrayde of sprites and cankred witches spight,
And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.[208]
During Hogmanay it was customary for youths to go in procession from house to house singing chants of heroic origin:—
As we used to do in old King Henry’s day,Sing fellows, sing Hagman heigh!
As we used to do in old King Henry’s day,Sing fellows, sing Hagman heigh!
As we used to do in old King Henry’s day,
Sing fellows, sing Hagman heigh!
The King Henry here mentioned is probably not one of the Tudors, but the more primitive Nick or Old Harry,and the percipient divine who thundered against the popular festival: “Sirs, do you know what Hagmane signifies? It isthe Devil be in the house! That’s the meaning of itsHebrew original,” had undoubtedly good grounds for his denunciation.
But the still more original meaning of Hagman was in all probability theuchman, or high man, or giant man. According to Hellenic mythology Hercules was the son of Jove and Alcmena: the name Alcmena is apparently the feminine form ofAllorHoly Acmen—whence indirectly the wordacumenor “sharp mind”—the two formsmenaandmanseemingly figure in Scotch custom asHogmanay, and as theHagmanof “Sing Hagman heigh!”[209]
One of the great Roman roads of Britain is known as Akeman Street, and as it happens that this prehistoric highway passes Bath it has been gravely suggested that it derived its title from the gouty, aching men who limped along to Bath to take the waters. But asmanis the same word asmainthe word Akeman Street resolves more reasonably intoHigh MainStreet, which is precisely what it was.
In some parts of England fairy-rings are known as Hag-tracks, whence seemingly fairies were sometimes known as hags: at Lough Crew in Ireland, there is a cabalistically-decorated stone throne known as “the Hag’s Chair”.
In Mid-Walesagueis known asy wrach, which means the hag or the old hag; the notion being thatague(and allaches?) were smitings of the ugly old Hag, or “awd Goggie”. Various indications seem to point to the conclusion that the aboriginal “bedrock” Og or Gog was a Tyrian or Turanian Deity, and that in the eyes of theHellenes and Trojans anything to do with Og wasugly,i.e., Ug-like andugsome.
In the county of Fife the last night of the dying year used to be known as Singin-e’en, a designation which is connected with the carols sung on that occasion. ButSinginmay, and in all probability did, mean Sinjohn, for the CelticGeonorgiantwas Ogmius the Mighty Muse, andchanting was attributed to this world-enchanter. As already seen he was pictured leading the children of men tongue-tied by his eloquence, and it is not improbable that Ogmius is equivalent to Mighty Muse, formusein Greek ismousa. According to Assyrian mythology the God of wondrous and enchanting Wisdom rose daily from the sea and was named Oannes—obviously a Hellenised form of John or Yan. Among the Aryan nationsanmeant mind, and this term is clearly responsible forinaneor withoutane. The dictionaries attributeinaneto a “root unknown,” but the same root is at the base ofanima, the soul, whenceanimateor living. Oannes, who was evidently the Great Acumen or Almighty Mind is said to have emerged daily from the ocean in order to instruct mankind, and he may be connoted with the Hebridian sea-god Shony. In the image of the benevolent Oannes reproduced overleaf it will be noted he is crowned with the cross of Allbein or All Well.
In Brittany there are legends of a sea-maid of enchanting song, and wondrous acumen named Mary Morgan, and thisincantatricecorresponds to Morgan le fay or Morgiana. The Welsh for Mary is Fair, and the fairies of Celtic countries were known as the Mairies,[210]whence “Mary Morgan” was no doubt “Fairy Morgan”. In Celticmorormawralso meant big, whence Morgan may be equated withbig ganand Morgiana with either Big Jane or Fairy Giana. This fairy Biggyneor Bigwomanwas known alternatively in the East asMerjan Banouand in Italy as Fata or Maga.
It is authoritatively assumed that the wordcogitateis fromco“together” andagere“to drive,” but “driving together” is not cogitation. The rootcogwhich occurs incogent,cogitate,cognisance, andcognitionis more probably an implication that Gog like Oannes was deemed to be the Lord of the Deep wisdom: Gog, in fact, stands to Oannes or Yan in the same relation as Jack stands to John: the one is seemingly a synonym for the other.
Figs.46 and 47.—FromCurious Myths of the Middle Ages(Baring-Gould).
Figs.46 and 47.—FromCurious Myths of the Middle Ages(Baring-Gould).
The wordmagicimplies a connection with Maga or Magog: in Greekmegameans great, and the combined idea of great and wise is extended intomagus,magister, andmagician. The Latinmagnusandmagnaare respectively Mag Unus and Mag Una: Mogounus was one of the titles applied to St. Patrick, and it was also a sobriquet of the Celtic Sun God.[211]
One of the stories of the Wandering Jew represents him as benevolently assisting a weaver namedKokotto discover treasure, and in an Icelandic legend of the same Wanderer he is entitled Magus. On Magus being interrogated as to his name he replied that he was called “Vidforull,” which looks curiously like “Feed for all,” or “Food for all”. The story relates that Magus possessed the marvellous capability of periodically casting his skin, and of becoming on each occasion younger than before. The first time he accomplished this magic feat he was 330 years old—a significant age—and in face of an astonished audience he gave a repetition of the wonderful performance. Baring his head and stroking himself all over the body, he rolled together the skin he was in and lay down before a staff or post muttering to himself: “Away with age, that I may have my desire”. After lying awhile motionless he suddenly worked himself head foremost into the post, which thereupon closed over him and became again solid. Soon, however, the bemazed onlookers heard a great noise in the post, which began gradually to bulge at one end, and after a few convulsive movements the feet of Magus appeared, followed in due course by the rest of his body. After this bewildering feat Magus lay for awhile as though dead, but when the beholders were least expecting it he sprang suddenly up, rolled the skin from off his head, saluted the King, and behold “they saw that he was no other than a beardless youth and fair faced”.[212]
This magic change is not only suggestive of the two-faced Janus, but also of Aeon, one of the British titles for the Sun:—
Aeon hath seen age after age in long succession roll,But like a serpent which has cast its skin,Rose to new life in youthful vigour strong.
Aeon hath seen age after age in long succession roll,But like a serpent which has cast its skin,Rose to new life in youthful vigour strong.
Aeon hath seen age after age in long succession roll,
But like a serpent which has cast its skin,
Rose to new life in youthful vigour strong.
Commenting on this passage Owen Morgan observes: “The expression ‘cast his skin’ alluded to the idea that the Sun of the old year had his body destroyed in the heavens at noon on each 20th December, by the Power of Darkness”.[213]The Gnostics considered there were thirty divine Powers or Rulers, corresponding obviously to the days of the month, and these Powers they termed Aeons: among the Greeksaeonmeant an enormously vast tract of time; in WelshIonmeans Leader or Lord.
The story of Vidforull or Magus gains in interest in view of his mystic age of 330, or ten times 33, and the emerging-ex-post incident may have some connection with the nomenclature of the flame-flowered staff or post now termed a Hollyhock, orHoly Hock. One of the miracles attributed to St. Kit—a miracle which we are told was the means of convertingeightthousand men to Christianity—was the budding of his staff. “Christopher set his staff in the earth, and when he arose on the morn he found his staff like a palmier bearing flowers, leaves, and dates.” Kit or Kate is the same word as “Kaad,” and there is a serpent represented on the post or staff at St. Alban’s Kaadman, figured on p. 110. The serpent was universally the symbol of subtlety and deep wisdom, and among the Celts it was, because it periodically sloughed its skin, regarded as the emblem of regeneration and rejuvenescence.[214]
TheHawk, which is the remaining symbol of the Kaadman (Fig. 16), was theuchor high-flying bird, which soared sun-wise and hovered overworld eyeing or ogling the below with penetrating and all-seeing vision. It is difficult to see any rational connection betweenhawkandheave—a connection which for some mysterious reason the authorities connote—but the hawk was unquestionably an emblem of the Most High. A hawker is a harokel, Hercules, or merchant, and withMagamay be connotedmagazine, which means storehouse. In Celticmakoormagameans “I feed”; in Welshmagumeansbreed, and tonurse; in Welshmagadisbrood. It is to this root that obviously may be assigned the Gaelic Mac or Mc, which means “breed of” or “children of”. In the Isle of Man, the inhabitants claimed to be descended from the fairies, whence perhaps the MacAuliffes of Albany originally claimed to be children of the Elf. Among the Berbers of AfricaMachas precisely the same meaning as among the Gaels, and among the Tudas of Indiamagalso meanschildren of. “Surely after this,” says a commentator, “the McPhersons and McGregors of our Highland glens need not hesitate to claim as Scotch cousins the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula.”[215]
There are many tales current in Cornwall of a famous witch known as “Maggie Figgie,” and a particular rock on one of the most impressive headlands of the Duchy is entitled “Maggy Figgie’s Chair”. Here, it is said, Maggie was wont to seat herself when calling to her aid the spirits of the storm, and upon this dizzy height she swung to and fro as the storms far below rolled in from the Atlantic. Just asMaggieis radicallymake, so isfiggyrelated tofake. The many-seededficaorfigwas the symbol of the Mother of Millions, and the same root is responsible forfecund, and probably forphooka, which is the Irish for Fairy or Elf.Fecklessmeans without resource, shiftless, incompetent, and incapable;vaguemeans wandering, and the word vagabond is probably due to the beneficentphookaor Wanderer. That Pan was not only a hill and wood deity, but also a sea-vagabond is implied by the invocation:—
Io! Io! Pan! Pan!Oh Pan thouocean Wanderer.[216]
Io! Io! Pan! Pan!Oh Pan thouocean Wanderer.[216]
Io! Io! Pan! Pan!
Oh Pan thouocean Wanderer.[216]
In Northumberland among the Fern Islands is a rock known as the Megstone, and in Westmorland is the famous megalithic monument, known as Long Meg and her Daughters. The daughters were here represented by seventy-two stones placed in a circle (there are now only sixty-seven), and Long Meg herself, who is said to have been the last of the Titans, is identified with an outstanding rock, which is recorded as measuring 18 feet in height, and 15 feet in circumference. The monument is situated on what is called The Maiden Way, and the measurement 15 is therefore significant, for the number 15 was peculiarly the Maiden’s number, and “when she was fifteen years of age” is almost a standard formula in the lives of the Saints. We shall meet with fifteen in connection with the Virgin Mary, who, we shall note, was reputed to have lived to the age of seventy-two. The circle of “the Merry Maidens” near St. Just is 72 feet in diameter, and the Nine Maidens near Penzance is also 72 feet in diameter.[217]Christ the Corner Stone is said to have had seventy-two disciples, and theseventy-two stones of Long Meg’s circle have probably some relation to the seventy-two dodecans into which the Chaldean and Egyptian Zodiac was divided. In connection withmagu, the Welsh for nurse, it is worth noting that St. Margaret, or St. Meg, is said to have been delivered to a nurse to be kept, but on a certain day, when she was fifteen years of age and kept the sheep of her nurse, her circumstances took a sudden change for the worse.
Fig.48.—Long Meg and her Daughters. FromOur Ancient Monuments(Kains-Jackson).
Fig.48.—Long Meg and her Daughters. FromOur Ancient Monuments(Kains-Jackson).
The Parthenon, or Maiden’s House, at Athens was supported by fifteen pairs of columns; the number eighteen is twice nine, and in all probability stood for the divine twain, Meg and Mike, Michal and St. Michael. The duality of St. Michael which is portrayed in Fig. 200, page 363, was no doubt also symbolised by the two rocks, which, according toThe Golden Legend, Michael removed and replaced by a single piece of stone of marble. A second apparition recorded of St. Michael states that the saint stood on a stone of marble, and anon, because the people had great penury and need of water, there flowed out so much water that unto this day they be sustained by the benefit thereof.[218]This is evidently the same miracle as that illustrated in Fig. 21, onpage 130, and in this connection it is noticeable that in the neighbourhood of Mickleham (Surrey) are Margery Hall, Mogadur, and Mug’s well.
Meg is a primitive form of Margaret, and in Art St. Margaret is always represented as the counterpart of St. Michael with a vanquished dragon at her feet. To account for this emblem the hagiographers relate that St. Margaret was swallowed by a dragon, but that the cross which she happened to be holding caused the creature to burst, whereupon St. Margaret emerged from its stomach unscathed.
There is a counterpart to Maggie Figgie’s chair at St. Michael’s Mount, but in the latter case “Kader Migell” was a hallowed site. “Who knows not Mighell’s Mount and chair, the pilgrims Holy vaunt?” According to Carew this original “chair,” outside the castle, was a bad seat in a craggy place, somewhat dangerous of access.
St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall used to be known as Dinsul, which the authorities suggest wasdun sol, or the Sun Hill. Very probably this was so, and there is an equal probability that it meant alsodin seul,i.e., the hill ofLe SeulorLa Seule, the Solitary or Alone.[219]In the Old Testament Michal figures as the daughter of KingSaul, which is curious in view of St. Michael’s Mount being named Dinseul. St. Michael’s in Brittany and St. Michael’s elsewhere are dedicatedad duas tumbas, which means the two tumuli or tumps.[220]At St. Albans, the sacredprocessions started from two tumps ortoothills, and it may be suggested these symbolised the twoteatsof the primeval parent. In Ireland at Killarney are two mounts now termed The Paps, but originally known as The Paps of Anu,i.e., the IrishMagna Mater. Similar “Paps” are common in other parts of Britain, and there is little doubt thatmam, the Welsh for a gently rising hill, has an intimate relation to mammal or teat. The Toothills were wheretoutorallcongregated together in convocation, and in all probability every toot hill originally represented the teat of Tad, or Dad, the Celtictata, or daddy. Toot hills are alternatively known as moot hills, and this latter term may be connoted withmaeth, the Welsh fornourishment: near Sunderland are two round-topped rocks named Maiden Paps.
Mickleham in Surrey is situated at the base of Tot Hill: Tothill Street at Westminster marks the locality of an historic toot hill standing in Tothill Fields, and at Westminster the memory of St. Margaret has seemingly survived in dual form—as the ecclesiastical St. Margaret whose church nestles up against the Abbey of St. Peter, and as the popular giantess Long Meg. This celebrated heroine “did not only pass all the rest of her country in the length of her proportion, but every limbe was so fit to her talnesse that she seemed the picture and shape of some tall man cast in a woman mould”. In times gone by a “huge” stone in the cloisters of Westminster used to be pointed out to visitors as the very gravestone of Long Meg,[221]and this “long, large, and entire” piece of rock may be connoted with the Megstone of the Fern Islands and the Long Meg of Cumberland. In 1635 therewas publishedThe Life of Long Meg of Westminster, containing the mad merry pranks she played in her lifetime, not only in performing sundry quarrels with divers ruffians about London, but also how valiantly she behaved herself in the “Warres of Bolloinge”.
This allusion to Bolloinge suggests that the chivalrous and intrepid Long Meg was famous at Bulloigne, and that the name of that place is cognate with Bellona, the Goddess of War. That the valiant St. Margaret was as unconquerable as Micah wasinvictus, may be judged from the sacred legend that the devil once appeared before her in the likeness of a man, whereupon, after a short parley, “she caught him by the head and threw him to the ground, and set her right foot on his neck saying: ‘Lie still, thou fiend, under the feet of a woman’. The devil then cried: ‘O Blessed Margaret, I am overcome’”.
As St. Michael was the Leader of All Angels, so St. Margaret was the Mother of All Children, and the circle of Long Meg was evidently a mighty delineation of the Marguerite, Marigold, or Daisy. The Celts, with their exquisite imagination, figured the daisy or marguerite as the symbol of innocence and the newly-born. There is a Celtic legend to the effect that every unborn babe taken from earth becomes a spirit which scatters down upon the earth some new and lovely flower to cheer its parents. “We have seen,” runs an Irish tale, “the infant you regret reclining on a light mist; it approached us, and shed on our fields a harvest of new flowers. Look, oh, Malvina! among these flowers we distinguish one with a golden disc surrounded by silver leaves: a sweet tinge of crimson adorns its delicate rays; waved by a gentle wind we might call it a little infant playing in a green meadow, andthe flower of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills of Cromla. Since that day the daughters of Morven have consecrated the Daisy to infancy. It is called the flower of innocence; the flower of the new-born.”[222]
The Scotch form of Margaret is Maisie, and from the wordmuggy, meaning a warm, light mist, it would seem that Maisie or Maggy was the divinity of mists and moisture. It was widely supposed that the mists of Mother Earth, commingling with the beams of the Father Sun, were together the source of all juvenescence and life. According to Owen Morgan, “Ked’s influence from below was supposed to be exercised by exhalations, the breathings as it were of the Great Mother,”[223]and it is still a British belief that—
Mist in spring is the source of wine,Mist in summer is the source of heat,Mist in autumn is the source of rain,Mist in winter is the source of snow.
Mist in spring is the source of wine,Mist in summer is the source of heat,Mist in autumn is the source of rain,Mist in winter is the source of snow.
Mist in spring is the source of wine,
Mist in summer is the source of heat,
Mist in autumn is the source of rain,
Mist in winter is the source of snow.
Maggie or Maisie being thus probably the Maid of the Mist, or Mistress of the Moisture, and there being no known etymology forfog, the unpopular Maggie Figgie who sat in her chair charming the spirits of the ocean, was perhaps the ill-omened MaggieFoggy.
It is a world-wide characteristic of the Earth Mother to appear anon as a baleful hag, anon as a lovely maid, and in all probability to “Maid Margaret that was so meeke and milde,” may be attributed the adjectivemeek. In London an ass, in Cockney parlance, is amoke; Christ was said to ride upon an ass as symbolic of his meekness, and as already noted Christ by the Gnostics was represented asass-headed. The worship of the Golden Ass persisted in Europe until a comparatively late period; ajennyis a female moke, a jackass is the masculine of Jenny.
At St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall is a Jack the Giant-Killer’s Well. The French name Michelet means “little Michael,” and that Great Michael was Cain the Wandering One is implied by the tradition that St. Kayne visited St. Michael’s Mount, and conferred certain powers upon the stone seat or Kader Mighel situated so dizzily amid the crags. The orthodoxy of this St. Kayne—who appears again at Keynsham—was evidently more than suspect, and according to Norden “this Kayne is said to be a woman-saynte, but it better resemblethkayne, the devil who had the shape of a man”. At Keynsham St. Kayne is popularly supposed to have turned serpents into stone, and there is no doubt that his or her name was intimately associated with the serpent. The Celtic names Kean and Kenny are translated to meanvast, but in Cornishkenmeant pity, andken,cunning, andcannyall imply knowledge and deep wisdom. In Welsh,cainmeanssunand alsofair;candere, to glow, is, of course, connected withcandescent,candid, andcandour.
The seat on St. Michael’s Tower is the counterpart to Maggie Figgie’s Chair, which is near the village of St. Levan, and in the previous chapter it was seen thatLevanorElvanwas a synonym forelbanorAlban. The family name at St. Michael’s Mount is St. Levan, and the usual abode of Maggie Figgie is assigned to the adjacent village of St. Levan. The chief fact recorded of St. Levan is his cell shown at Bodellen, near which is his seat—a rock splitin two. He is also associated with a chad fish, entitled “chuck child,” to account for which a ridiculous story hasbeen concocted to the effect that St. Levan once caught a chad, whichchokeda child. Like the cod the chad was perhaps so named because of its amazing fecundity, and the termchuck childwas probably once Jack, the child Michael, or the giant-killing Jack, whose well stands on St. Michael’s Mount. It is not improbable that “chuck,” like Jack, is an inflexion of Gog, and that it is an almost pure survival of the Britishuch uchorhigh high. The great festival of Gog and Magog in Cockaigne was unquestionably on Lord Mayor’s Show Day, and this used originally to fall—or rather the Lord Mayor was usually chosen—on Michaelmas Day.[224]
In addition to associating St. Levan with the chad or “chuck child,” legend also connects St. Levan with a woman named Johanna. W. C. Borlase observes that Carew calls him St. Siluan, and that this form is still retained in the euphonious name of an estate Selena. Selena was a title under which the Mother of Night, the consort of Cain, the Man in the Moon, was worshipped by the Greeks. With regard to theSelof Selena or Silenus it will be seen as we proceed thatsilly,Seeley, etc., did not imply idiocy, but thatsilly, as in Scotland where it meantholy, and as in the Germanselig, primarily meantinnocent. We speak to-day of “silly sheep”; in the Middle Ages Christ was termed the silly Babe, and the county of Suffolk still vaunts itself as Silly Suffolk. Silene or Selina would thus imply the Innocent or Holy Una: her counterpart Silenus was usually represented as a jovial, genial, and merry patriarch. Selenus, like Janus, was apparently the Old Father Christmas, and Selena orCynthia seemingly the maiden Cain, Kayne, St. Kenna, or Jana.
At Treleven, thetreor the Home of Leven, there is a Lady’s Well said to possess exceptional healing properties, and the power of conferring great vigour and might to the constitution.Levinin Old English meant the lightning flash,Levantwas the uprising, the Orient, or the East, andlevanteis Italian for the wind. According to Etruscan mythology, there wereeleventhunderbolts orlevinswielded by Nine Great Gods,[225]and that the number eleven was associated with Long Meg of Westmorland, would appear from the fact that her circle measured “about 1100 feet in circumference”. With this measurement may be connoted the British camp on Herefordshire Beacon, “which takes the form of an irregular oval 1100 yards in length,”[226]and that 1100 implied some special sanctity may be gathered from the bardic lines—
The age of Jesus, the fair and energetic HuIn God’s Truth was eleven hundred.[227]
The age of Jesus, the fair and energetic HuIn God’s Truth was eleven hundred.[227]
The age of Jesus, the fair and energetic Hu
In God’s Truth was eleven hundred.[227]
The more usually assumed age of Jesus,i.e., thirty-three, may be connoted with the persistent thirty-threes elsewhere considered. The diameter of the circle of Long Meg and her Daughters is stated as 330 feet,[228]a measurement which seemingly has some relation to the 330 years of age assigned to Magus when he accomplished his magic change.
Christianity has retained the memory of a St. Ursula and 11,000 virgins, but it has been a puzzle to hagiographers to account for the “11” or 11,000 so persistently associated with her. In his essay on the legend, Baring-Gould refers to it as being “generated out of worsethan nothing,” lamenting this and kindred stories. “Alas! too often they are but apples of Sodom, fair-cheeked, but containing the dust and ashes of heathenism”. But the story of St. Ursula is essentially beautiful; moreover, it is essentially British.The Golden Legendtells us that Ursula was a British princess, and Cornwall claims, with a probability of right, that she was Cornish. Her mother was named Daria, her cousin Adrian, and there is a clear memory of the Darian, Adrian, Droian, or Trojan games perpetrated in the incident whichThe Golden Legendthus records: “By the counsel of the Queen the Virgins were gathered together from diverse realms, and she was leader of them, and at the last she suffered martyrdom with them. And then the condition made, all things were made ready. Then the Queen shewed her counsel to the Knights of her Company, and made them all to swear this new chivalry, and then began they to make diverse plays and games of battle as to run here and there, and feigned many manners of plays. And for all that they left not their purpose, and sometimes they returned from this play at midday, and sometimes unnethe at evensong time. And the barons and great lords assembled them to see the fair games and disports, and all had joy and pleasure in beholding them, and also marvel.”[229]
From this account it would appear that twice a day the followers of St. Ursula joyed themselves and the onlookers by a sacred ballet, which no doubt symbolised in its convolutions the ethereal Harmony and the ordered movements of the Stars. Her consort’s name is given as Ethereus, whence Ursula herself must have been Etherea, the Ethereal maid, conceived in all likelihood at the idyllicisland Doliche, Idea, Aeria, Candia, or Crete. The name Ursula meansbear, and it was supposed that around the seven stars of Arcturus, the immovable Great Bear, all the lesser stars wheeled in an everlasting procession. Of this giant’s wheel or marguerite, Margaret, or Peggie, was seemingly deemed to be the axle,peg, or Golden Eye, and this idea apparently underlies Homer:—
... the axle of the Sky,The Bear revolving points hisGolden Eye.
... the axle of the Sky,The Bear revolving points hisGolden Eye.
... the axle of the Sky,
The Bear revolving points hisGolden Eye.
Having quitted Britain, St. Ursula and her train of 11,000 maidens underwent various vicissitudes. Eventually circumstances took them to Cologne, whereupon, to quoteThe Golden Legend, “When the Huns saw them they began to run upon them with a great cry and araged like wolves on sheep, and slew all this great multitude”.[230]From time to time the monks of Cologne have unearthed large deposits of children’s bones which have piously been claimed to be authentic relics of the 11,000 martyrs.
In China and Japan the Great Mother is represented pouring forth the bubbling waters of creation from a vase, and in every bubble is depicted a small babe. This Goddess Kwanyon, known as theeleven facedandthousand handed, is represented at the temple of San-ju-San-gen-do by 33,333 images, and her name resolves, as will be seen, into Queen Yon. The name China, French Chine, is John, and Japon or Yapon, the land of the Rising Sun, whose cognisance is the Marguerite or Golden Daisy, whose priests are termedbonzes, and whose national cry isbanzai, is radically the same as the BritishEuboniaor Hobany, La Dame Abonde, the Giver ofAbundance.
Among the megalithic remains in Brittany there have been found ornaments of jade, a material which, until recently, was supposed not to exist except in China or Japan. At Carnac, near the town of Elven, is the world-famed megalithic ruin now consisting of eleven rows of rocks, said to number “somewhere between nine and ten thousand”. As for many years these relics have been habitually broken up and used for building and road-making purposes, it is not unlikely that originally there were 1000 rocks in each of the eleven rows, totalling in all to the mystic 11,000. We shall see in a later chapter thatElphinstones were frequentlyelevenfeet high: our wordeleveniselfin Dutch,ellifirin Icelandic,ainliforeinlifin Gothic; but why this number should thus have been associated with the elves I am unable to decide, nor can I surmise why the authorities connote the wordelevenwithlika, which means “remaining,” or withlinguere, which means “to leave”. In modern Etruria it is believed by the descendants of the Etruscans that the old Etruscan deities of the woods and fields still live in the world as spirits, and among the ancient Etrurians it was held that in the spiritual world the rich man and the poor man, the master and the servant, were all upon one level or alleven.[231]Our wordheavenis radicallyevenandange, the French forangelis the same word asonzemeaningeleven.
The Golden Legendassociates St. Maur with the Church of St. Maurice, where a blind man named Lieven is said to have sat for eleven years.[232]This marked connection between Maurice and eleven renders it probable that St. Maurice was the same King Maurus of Britain as wasreputed to be the father of St. Ursula. The precise site of the monarch’s domain is not mentioned, but as Cornwall claims him the probabilities are that his seat was St. Levan. St. Maurus of the Church Calendar is reputed to have walked on the waters, and he is represented in Art as holding the weights and measures with which he is said to have made the correct allotment of bread and wine to hismonks. These supposed “measures” are tantamount to St. Michael’s scales, which were sometimes assigned by Christianity to God the Father.
Fig.49.—The Trinity in One Single God, holding the Balances and the Compasses. From an Italian Miniature of the XIII. Cent.FromChristian Iconography(Didron).
Fig.49.—The Trinity in One Single God, holding the Balances and the Compasses. From an Italian Miniature of the XIII. Cent.FromChristian Iconography(Didron).
Ursula, as the daughter of Maurus, would have been Maura, and in face of the walking-on-the-sea story she was, no doubt, the Mairymaid, Merrowmaid, or Mermaid. Of St. Margaret we read that after her body had been broiled with burning brands, the blessed Virgin, without any hurt, issued out of the water. That St. Michael was associated in Art with a similar incident is evident from his miraculous preservation of a woman “wrapped in the floods of the sea”. St. Michael “kept this wife all whole, and she was delivered and childed among the waves in the middle of the sea”.[233]The Latin wordmergere,i.e., Margery, means to sink into the sea, andemergemeans to rise out of the sea. In Cornwall Margery Daw is elevated intoSaintMargery Daw, and we may assume that her celebrated see-saw was the eternal merging and emerging of the Sun and Moon.
The Cornish pinnacle associated with Maggie Figgy of St. Levan may be connoted with a monolith overlooking Loch Leven and entitled, “Carlin Maggie” or “Witch Maggie”. This precipitous rock is precisely the same granite formation as is Maggie Figgy’s Chair, and legend says that it originated from Maggie “flyting” the devil who turned her into stone.[234]The Scotch Loch Leven is known locally as Loch Eleven, “because it is eleven miles round, is surrounded by eleven hills, is fed or drained by eleven streams, has eleven islands, is tenanted by elevenkinds of fish”.[235]It was also said to have been surrounded by the estates of eleven lairds.
At Dunfermline is St. Margaret’s Stone, “probably the last remnant of a Druid circle or a cromlech”.[236]
The megalithic Long Meg in Westmorland, standing by what is termed the “Maiden Way,” is in close proximity to Hunsonby. The Dutch forsuniszon, the German issonne, whence Hunsonby in all probability was once deemed abyorabodeofHunsontheancient sunorzone.
The circle of Long Meg is anenceinte,i.e., anincinctus, circuit or enclosure; that St. Margaret of Christendom was the patroness of allenceintewomen is obvious from Brand’s reference to St. Margaret’s Day, as a time “when all come to church that are, or hope to be, with child that year”.Seinis the French for bosom, and that Ursula of the 11,000 virgins was a personification of the Good Mother of the Universe or Bosom of the World may be further implied by the fact that she corresponds, according to Baring-Gould, with the Teutonic Holda. Holda or Holle (the Holy), is a gentle Lady, ever accompanied by the souls of maidens and children who are under her care. Surrounded by these bright-eyed followers she sits in a mountain of crystal, and comes forth at times to scatter the winter snow, vivify the spring earth, or bless the fruits of autumn.
The kindly Mother Holle was sometimes entitled Gode,[237]whence we may connote Margot, Marghet, or Marget with Big Good, or Big God. In Cornwall the Holly tree is termed Aunt Mary’s tree, which, I think, is equal to AuntMaura’s tree, St. Maur being tantamount to St. Fairy or St. Big.
According to Sir John Rhys, Elen the Fair of Britain figures like St. Ursula as the leader of the heavenly virgins; St. Levan’s cell is shown at Bodellen in St. Levan, and as in Cornwallbod—as in Bodmin—meantabode of, one may resolve Bodellen into theabode of Ellen, and equate Ellen or Helen with Long Meg or St. Michael.
We may recognise St. Kayne in the Kendale-Lonsdale district of North Britain, where also in the neighbourhood of the rivers Ken or Can, and Lone or Lune is a maiden way and an Elen’s Causeway.[238]On the river Can is a famous waterfall at Levens, and in the same neighbourhood a seat of the ancient Machel family. In 1724 there existed at Winander Mere “the carcass of an ancient city,”[239]and it is not improbable that theanderof Winander is related to the divine Thorgut, whose effigy from a coin is reproduced in a later chapter (Fig 422, p. 675). Kendal or Candale has always been famous for its British “cottons and coarse cloaths”.
In Etruria and elsewhere good genii were represented as winged elves—old pluralelven—and the wordmoucheimplies that not only butterflies and moths, but also all winged flies were deemed to be the children of Michael or Michelet. According to Payne Knight, “The common Fly, being in its first stage of existence a principal agent in dissolving and dissipating all putrescent bodies, was adopted as an emblem of the Deity”.[240]Thus it would seem thatnot only themouches, but likewise themaggotswere deemed to be among Maggie’s millions, fighting like the Hosts of Michael against filth, decay, and death.
The connection between flies or mouches, and the elves or elven, seems to have been appreciated in the past, forThe Golden Legendlikens the lost souls of Heaven,i.e., the elven of popular opinion, to flies: “By the divine dispensation they descend oft unto us in earth, as like it hath been shewn to some holy men. They fly about us as flies, they be innumerable, and like flies they fill the air without number.”[241]Even to-day it is supposed that the spirits of holy wells appear occasionally in the form of flies, and there is little doubt that Beelzebub, the “Lord of flies,”aliasLucifer, whose name literally means “Light Bringer,” was once innocuous and beautiful.
In Cornwall flies seem to have been known as “Mother Margarets” (a fact of which I was unaware when equatingmouchewith Michelet or Meg), for according to Miss Courtney, “Three hundred fathoms below the ground at Cook’s Kitchen Mine, near Cambourne, swarms of flies may be heard buzzing, called by the men for some unknown reason ‘Mother Margarets’”.[242]Whether these subterranean “Mother Margarets” are peculiar to Cook’s Kitchen Mine, and whether Cook has any relation to Gog and to the Cocinians who in deep caverns dwelt, I am unable to trace.
That St. Michael was Lord of the Muckle and the Mickle, is supported in the statement that “he was prince of the synagogue of the Jews”.[243]The wordsynagogueisunderstood to have meant—a bringing together, a congregation; but this was evidently a secondary sense, due, perhaps, to the fact that the earliest synagogues were not held beneath a roof, but were congregations in sacred plains or hill-sides. It may reasonably be assumed that synagogues were prayer meetings in honour primarily of San Agog, St. Michael, or the Leader and Bringer together of all souls.
By the Greeks the sobriquet Megale was applied to Juno the pomegranate—holding Mother of Millions, and the bird pre-eminently sacred to Juno was the Goose. The cackling of Juno’s or Megale’s sacred geese saved the Capitol, and the Goose of Michaelmas Day is seemingly that same sacred bird. In Scotland St. Michael’s Day was associated with the payment of so-called cane geese, the wordcaneorkainhere being supposed to be the Gaeliccean, which meanthead, and its original sense, a duty paid by a tenant to his landlord in kind. The worddueis the same asdieu, and the association of St. Keyne with Michael renders it probable that the cane goose was primarily adieuoffering or an offering to the Head King Cun, or Chun. Etymology would suggest that the cane goose was preferably agander.
Even in the time of the Romans, the Goose was sacred in Britain, and East and West it seems to have been an emblem of the Unseen Origin. In India, Brahma, the Breath of Life, was represented riding on a goose, and by the Egyptians the Sun was supposed to be a Golden Egg laid by the primeval Goose. The little yellow egg orgooseberry was seemingly—judged by its otherwise inexplicable name—likened to the Golden Egg laid by Old Mother Goose. Among the symbols elsewhere dealt with weresome representative of a goose from whose mouth a curious flame-like emission was emerging. I am still of the opinion that this was intended to depict the Fire or Breath of Life, and that the hissing habits of the Swan and Goose caused those birds to be elevated into the eminence as symbols of the Breath. The wordgooseorgeeseis radicallyghost, which literally means spirit or breath; it is also the same ascausewith which may be connotedchaos. According to Irish mythology that which existed at the beginning was Chaos, the Father of Darkness or Night, subsequently came the Earth who produced the mountains, and the sea, and the sky.[244]