FOOTNOTES:

Fig. 50.—FromChristian Iconography(Didron).

In this emblem here reproduced Chaos or Abyssus is figured as the youthful apex of a primeval peak; at the base are geese, and the creatures midway are evidently seals. Thesealis the silliest of gentle creatures, and being amphibious was probably the symbol ofCeli, the Concealed One, whose name occurs so frequently in British Mythology. Tosealone’s eyelids means to close them, and the blind old man named Lieven, who sat in the porch of St. Maurice’s foreleven years, may be connoted with Homer the blind and wandering old Bard, who dwelt upon the rocky islet of Chios, querychaos? Among the LatinsAmoror Love was the oldest of the gods, being the child of Nox or Chaos: Love—“this senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid”[245]—is proverbially blind, and the words Amor, Amour, are probably not only Homer, but likewise St. Omer. The British (Welsh) form of Homer is Omyr: the authorship of Homer has always been a matter of perplexity, and the personality of the blind old bard of Chios will doubtless remain an enigma until such time as the individuality of “Old Moore,” “Aunt Judy,” and other pseudonyms is unravelled. It has always been the custom of story-tellers to attribute their legends to a fabulous origin, and the most famous collection of fairy-tales ever produced was published in France under the titleContes de la Mere Oie—“The Tales of Mother Goose”. Goose is radically the same word asgas, a term which was coined by a Belgian chemist in 1644 from the Greekchaos: the Irish for swan isgeis, and all the geese tribe are gassy birds which gasp.

In a subsequent chapter we shall analysegooseintoag’oos, the MightyOoze, whence the ancients scientifically supposed all life to have originated, and shall equateoozewithhoes, the Welsh word forlife, and withOuseorOise, a generic British river name. Inhuss, the German forgoose, we may recognise theoosewithout its adjectival ‘g’.

With the Blind Old Bard of Chios may be connoted the Cornish longstone known as “The Old Man,”[246]or “The Fiddler,” also a second longstone known as “The BlindFiddler”.[247]Inbecauseorby causewe pronouncecause“koz,” and in Slav fairy-tales as elsewhere there is frequent mention of an Enchanter entitledKostey, whose strength and vitality lay in a monstrous egg. The nameKosteymay be connoted withCystennyns,[248]an old Cornish and Welsh form of Constantine: at the village of Constantine in Cornwall there is what Borlase describes as a vast egg-like stone placed on the points of two natural rocks, and pointing due North and South. This Tolmen or Meantol—“an egg-shaped block of granitethirty-threefeet long, andeighteenfeet broad, supposed by some antiquaries to be Druidical, is here on a barren hill 690 feet high”.[249]The Greek for egg isoon, and oureggmay be connoted not only withEcho—the supposed voice of Ech?—but also withegg, meaning to urge on, to instigate, to vitalise, or render agog.

The acorn is an egg within a cup, and the Danish form ofoakiseegoreg: the oak tree was pre-eminently the symbol of the Most High, and the Germaneichemay be connoted withuchthe British for high. The Druids paid a reverential homage to the oak, worshipping under its form the god Teut or Teutates: this latter word is understood to have meant “the god of the people,”[250]and the termteutis apparently the Frenchtout, meaningallor the total. The reason suggested by Sir James Frazer for oak-worship is the fact that the Monarch of the Forest was struck more frequently by lightning than any meaner tree, and that therefore it was deemed to be the favouredone of the Fire god. But to rive one’s best beloved with a thunderbolt is a more peculiar and even better dissembled token of affection than the celebrated kicking-down-stairs. According to the author ofThe Language and Sentiment of Flowers[251]the oak was consecrated to Jupiter because it had sheltered him at his birth on Mount Lycaeus; hence it was regarded as the emblem of hospitality, and to give an oak branch was equivalent to “You are welcome”. That the oak tree was originally a Food provider orFeed for allis implied by the words addressed to the Queen of Heaven by Apuleus inThe Golden Ass: “Thou who didst banish the savage nutriment of the ancient acorn, and pointing out a better food, dost, etc.”

It has already been suggested thatderryordru, an oak or tree, was equivalent totre, an abode or Troy, and there is perhaps a connection between this root andterebinth, the Tyrian term for an oak tree. That the oak was regarded as the symbol of hospitality is exceedingly probable, and one of the earliest references to the tree is the story of Abraham’s hospitable entertainment given underneath the Oak of Mamre. The same idea is recurrent in the legend of Philemon and Baucis, which relates that on the mountains of Phrygia there once dwelt an aged, poor, but loving couple. One night Jupiter and Mercury, garbed in the disguise of two mysterious strangers who had sought in vain for hospitality elsewhere, craved the shelter of this Darby and Joan.[252]With alacrity it was granted, and suchwas the awe inspired by the majestic Elder that Baucis desired to sacrifice a goose which they possessed. But the bird escaped, and fluttering to the feet of the disguised gods Jupiter protected it, and bade their aged hosts to spare it. On leaving, the Wanderer asked what boon he could confer, and what gift worthy of the gods they would demand. “Let us not be divided by death, O Jupiter,” was the reply: whereupon the Wandering One conjured their mean cottage into a noble palace wherein they dwelt happily for many years. The story concludes that Baucis merged gradually into a linden tree, and Philemon into an oak, which two trees henceforward intertwined their branches at the door of Jupiter’s Temple.

The name Philemon is seeminglyphilo, which meanslove of, andmon, man or men, and at the time this fairy-tale was concoctedLove of Man, or hospitality, would appear to have been the motif of the allegorist.

We British pre-eminently boast our ships and our men as being Hearts of Oak: the Druids used to summon their assemblies by the sending of an oak-branch, and at the national games of Etruria the diadem calledEtrusca Corona, a garland of oak leaves with jewelled acorns, was held over the head of the victor.[253]There is little doubt that Honor Oak, Gospel Oak, Sevenoaks, etc., derived their titles from oaks once sacred to theUchor High, theAllonor Alone, who was alternatively the Seven Kings or the Three Kings. “It is strange,” says Squire, “to find Gael and Briton combining to voice almost in the same words this doctrine of the mystical Celts, who while stillin a state of semi-barbarism saw with some of the greatest of ancient and modern philosophers the One in the Many, and a single Essence in all the manifold forms of life.”[254]

FOOTNOTES:[193]Virgil,The Æneid, Bk. III., c. liii.[194]Cf.Geoffrey’sHistories of the Kings of Britain(Everyman’s Library), p. 202.[195]Virgil,The Æneid, Bk. III., 37.[196]Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 50.[197]xx. 8.[198]Wood, E. J.Giants and Dwarfs, p. 54.[199]Chap. xxvi.[200]The Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 116.[201]Wood, E.J.,Giants and Dwarfs, p. 5.[202]The Romance of Names, p. 65.[203]Hone, W.,Ancient Mysteries, p. 264.[204]Wright, T.,Patrick’s Purgatory, p. 56.[205]Courtney, Miss M. L.,Cornish Feasts and Folklore, p. 28.[206]Bartholomew, J. G.,A Survey Gazetteer of the British Islands, I. 612.[207]The duplicationcock, as inhaycock, also meant a hill.[208]Quoted from Brand’sAntiquities, p. 42.[209]Cf.Urlin, Miss Ethel,Festivals, Holydays, and Saint Days, p. 2.[210]Anwyl, E.,Celtic Religion.[211]Anwyl, E.,Celtic Religion, p. 40.[212]Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 637-40.[213]“Morien”Light of Britannia, p. 262.[214]The phallic symbolism of the serpent has been over-stressed so obtrusively by other writers, that it is unnecessary here to enlarge upon that aspect of the subject.[215]Baldwin, J. D.,Prehistoric Nations, p. 240.[216]Sophocles,Ajax, 694-700.[217]Windle, Sir B. C. A.,Remains of the Prehistoric Age in Britain, p. 198.[218]The Golden Legend, V. 182-3.[219]The ancient name “hoar rock,” or white rock in the wood, may have referred to the white god probably once there worshipped, for actually there are no white rocks at St. Michael’s, or anywhere else in Cornwall.[220]The Golden Legendrecords an apparition of St. Michael at a town named Tumba.[221]Wood, E. J.,Giants and Dwarfs, p. 91.[222]Cf.Friend, Rev. Hilderic,Flowers and Folklore, II., p. 455.[223]“Morien,”Light of Brittania, p. 27.[224]Anon,A New Description of England and Wales(1724), p. 121.[225]Dennis, G.,Cities and Centuries of Etruria, p. 31.[226]Munro, R.,Prehistoric Britain, p. 223.[227]Barddas, p. 222.[228]Kains-Jackson,Our Ancient Monuments, p. 112. Fergusson states “about 330 feet”.[229]Vol. vi., p. 64.[230]Vol. vi., p. 66.[231]Gray, Mrs. Hamilton,Sepulchres of Etruria.[232]Vol., iii., p. 73.[233]Golden Legend, vol. v., p. 184.[234]Simpkins, J. E.,Fife, p. 4;County Folklore, vol. vii.[235]Simpkins, J. E.,Kinross-shire, p. 377.[236]Ibid., p. 241.[237]Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 336.[238]I am unable to lay my hand on the reference for this Elen’s Causeway in Westmoreland.[239]Anon.,A New Description of England, 1724, p. 318.[240]Symbolical Language, p. 37.[241]Golden Legend, vol. v., p. 189.[242]Cornish Feasts and Folklore, p. 131.[243]Golden Legend, vol. v., p. 181.[244]Jubainville, D’arbois de,Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 140.[245]Shakespeare,Love’s Labour’s Lost, iii., 1.[246]Ossian, the hero poet of Gaeldom, is represented as old, blind, and solitary.[247]Cf.Windle, Sir B.C.A.,Remains of the Prehistoric Age, pp. 197-8.[248]Salmon, A.L.,Cornwall, p. 88.[249]Wilson, J.M.,The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, i., p. 484.[250]Anwyl, E.,Celtic Religion, p. 39.[251]“L.V.,” London (undated).[252]I do not think this proverbially loving couple were exclusively Scotch. Thedarbies,i.e., handcuffs or clutches of the law may be connoted with Gascoigne’s line (1576): “To bind such babes infather Darbie’sbands”. “Old Joan” figures as one of the characters in the festivities of Plough Monday, and in Cornwall any very ancient woman was denominated “Aunt Jenny”.[253]Gray, Mrs. Hamilton,Sepulchres of Ancient Etruria, p. 131.[254]The Mythology of the British Islands, p. 125.

[193]Virgil,The Æneid, Bk. III., c. liii.

[194]Cf.Geoffrey’sHistories of the Kings of Britain(Everyman’s Library), p. 202.

[195]Virgil,The Æneid, Bk. III., 37.

[196]Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 50.

[197]xx. 8.

[198]Wood, E. J.Giants and Dwarfs, p. 54.

[199]Chap. xxvi.

[200]The Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 116.

[201]Wood, E.J.,Giants and Dwarfs, p. 5.

[202]The Romance of Names, p. 65.

[203]Hone, W.,Ancient Mysteries, p. 264.

[204]Wright, T.,Patrick’s Purgatory, p. 56.

[205]Courtney, Miss M. L.,Cornish Feasts and Folklore, p. 28.

[206]Bartholomew, J. G.,A Survey Gazetteer of the British Islands, I. 612.

[207]The duplicationcock, as inhaycock, also meant a hill.

[208]Quoted from Brand’sAntiquities, p. 42.

[209]Cf.Urlin, Miss Ethel,Festivals, Holydays, and Saint Days, p. 2.

[210]Anwyl, E.,Celtic Religion.

[211]Anwyl, E.,Celtic Religion, p. 40.

[212]Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 637-40.

[213]“Morien”Light of Britannia, p. 262.

[214]The phallic symbolism of the serpent has been over-stressed so obtrusively by other writers, that it is unnecessary here to enlarge upon that aspect of the subject.

[215]Baldwin, J. D.,Prehistoric Nations, p. 240.

[216]Sophocles,Ajax, 694-700.

[217]Windle, Sir B. C. A.,Remains of the Prehistoric Age in Britain, p. 198.

[218]The Golden Legend, V. 182-3.

[219]The ancient name “hoar rock,” or white rock in the wood, may have referred to the white god probably once there worshipped, for actually there are no white rocks at St. Michael’s, or anywhere else in Cornwall.

[220]The Golden Legendrecords an apparition of St. Michael at a town named Tumba.

[221]Wood, E. J.,Giants and Dwarfs, p. 91.

[222]Cf.Friend, Rev. Hilderic,Flowers and Folklore, II., p. 455.

[223]“Morien,”Light of Brittania, p. 27.

[224]Anon,A New Description of England and Wales(1724), p. 121.

[225]Dennis, G.,Cities and Centuries of Etruria, p. 31.

[226]Munro, R.,Prehistoric Britain, p. 223.

[227]Barddas, p. 222.

[228]Kains-Jackson,Our Ancient Monuments, p. 112. Fergusson states “about 330 feet”.

[229]Vol. vi., p. 64.

[230]Vol. vi., p. 66.

[231]Gray, Mrs. Hamilton,Sepulchres of Etruria.

[232]Vol., iii., p. 73.

[233]Golden Legend, vol. v., p. 184.

[234]Simpkins, J. E.,Fife, p. 4;County Folklore, vol. vii.

[235]Simpkins, J. E.,Kinross-shire, p. 377.

[236]Ibid., p. 241.

[237]Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 336.

[238]I am unable to lay my hand on the reference for this Elen’s Causeway in Westmoreland.

[239]Anon.,A New Description of England, 1724, p. 318.

[240]Symbolical Language, p. 37.

[241]Golden Legend, vol. v., p. 189.

[242]Cornish Feasts and Folklore, p. 131.

[243]Golden Legend, vol. v., p. 181.

[244]Jubainville, D’arbois de,Irish Mythological Cycle, p. 140.

[245]Shakespeare,Love’s Labour’s Lost, iii., 1.

[246]Ossian, the hero poet of Gaeldom, is represented as old, blind, and solitary.

[247]Cf.Windle, Sir B.C.A.,Remains of the Prehistoric Age, pp. 197-8.

[248]Salmon, A.L.,Cornwall, p. 88.

[249]Wilson, J.M.,The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, i., p. 484.

[250]Anwyl, E.,Celtic Religion, p. 39.

[251]“L.V.,” London (undated).

[252]I do not think this proverbially loving couple were exclusively Scotch. Thedarbies,i.e., handcuffs or clutches of the law may be connoted with Gascoigne’s line (1576): “To bind such babes infather Darbie’sbands”. “Old Joan” figures as one of the characters in the festivities of Plough Monday, and in Cornwall any very ancient woman was denominated “Aunt Jenny”.

[253]Gray, Mrs. Hamilton,Sepulchres of Ancient Etruria, p. 131.

[254]The Mythology of the British Islands, p. 125.

“Do you imagine that Robin Goodfellow—a mere name to you—conveys anything like the meaning to your mind that it did to those for whom the name represented a still living belief, and who had the stories about him at their fingers’ ends? Or let me ask you, Why did the fairies dance on moonlight nights? or, Have you ever thought why it is that in English literature, and in English literature alone, the fairy realm finds a place in the highest works of imagination?”—F. S. Hartland.

In British Faërie there figures prominently a certain “Man in the Oak”: according to Keightley, Puck,aliasRobin Goodfellow, was known as this “Man in the Oak,” and he considers that the wordpixy“is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutivesybeing added to Puck like Betsy, Nancy, Dixie”.[255]It is probable that this adjectivalsirecurring insweet,sooth,suave,swan, etc., may be equated with the Sanscritsu, which, as inswastika, is a synonym for the Greekeu, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious. When used as an affix, this “endearing diminutive” yieldsspook, which was seemingly once “dear little Pook,” or “soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious Puck”. In Wales the fairies were known as “Mothers’ Blessings,” and although spook now carries a sinister sense, there is no more reason to suppose that “dear little Pook” was primarily malignant than to suggest that the HolyGhostwas—in the modern sense—essentiallyghastly. Skeat suggests thatghost(of uncertain origin) “is perhaps allied to Icelandicgeisa, to rage like fire, and to Gothicus-gais-yan, to terrify”. Some may be aghast at this suggestion, others, who cannot conceive the Supreme Sprite except as a raging and consuming fury, will commend it. In the preceding chapter I suggested that the elementary derivation of ghost was’goes, the Great Life or Essence, and astein Celtic meant good, it may be permissible to moderniseghoste, alsoKosteyof the egg, intogreat life good.

That there was a good and a bad Puck is to be inferred from the West of England belief in Bucca Gwidden, the white or good spirit, and Bucca Dhu, the black, malevolent one.[256]Puck, like Dan Cupid, figures in popular estimation as apawkylittle pickle; in Brittany the dolmens are known aspoukelaysor Puck stones, and the particular haunts of Puck were heaths and desert places. The place-name Picktree suggests one of Puck’s sacred oaks; Pickthorne was presumably one of Puck’s hawthorns, and the various Pickwells, Pickhills, Pickmeres, etc., were once, in all probability,spook-haunted. The highest point at Peckham, near London, is Honor Oak or One Tree Hill, and Peckhams or Puckhomes are plentiful in the South of England. One of them was inferentially near Ockham, at Great and Little Bookham, where the common or forest consists practically solely of the three pre-eminently fairy-trees—oak, hawthorne, and holly. The summit of the Buckland Hills, above Mickleham, is the celebrated, box-planted Boxhill, and at its foot runs Pixham or Pixholme Lane. On the height, nearly opposite Pixham Lane, the Ordnance Map marks Pigdon, but the roadway fromBookham to Boxhill is known, not as Pigdon Hill, but Bagden Hill. In all probability the terms Pigdon and Bagden are the original British forms of the more modern Pixham and Bok’s Hill.

In the North of England Puck seems more generally Peg, whence the fairy of the river Ribble was known as Peg O’Nell, and the nymph of the Tees, as Peg Powler.[257]Peg—a synonym for Margaret—is generally interpreted as having meant pearl.

The wordpuckorpeg, which varies in different parts of the country into pug, pouke, pwcca, poake, pucke, puckle, and phooka, becomes elsewhere bucca, bug, bogie, bogle, boggart, buggaboo, and bugbear.

According to all accounts the Pucks, like the Buccas, were divided into two classes, “good and bad,” and it was only the clergy who maintained that “one and the same malignant fiend meddled in both”. As Scott rightly observes: “Before leaving the subject of fairy superstition in England we may remark that it was of a more playful and gentle, less wild and necromantic character, than that received among the sister people. The amusements of the southern fairies were light and sportive; their resentments were satisfied with pinching or scratching the objects of their displeasure; their peculiar sense of cleanliness rewarded the housewives with the silver token in the shoe; their nicety was extreme concerning any coarseness or negligence which could offend their delicacy; and I cannot discern, except, perhaps, from the insinuations of some scrupulous divines, that they were vassals to or in close alliance with the infernals, as there is too much reasonto believe was the case with their North British sisterhood.”[258]

The elemental Bog is the Slavonic term for God,[259]and when the early translators of the Bible rendered “terror by night” as “bugs by night” they probably had spooks or bogies in their mind. In Etruria as in Egypt the bug or maybug was revered as the symbol of the Creator Bog, because the Egyptian beetle has a curious habit of creating small pellets or balls of mud. In Welshbogelmeans thenavel, alsocentre of a wheel, and hence Margaret or Peggy may be equated with the nave or peg of the white-rayed Marguerite orDay’s Eye.[260]

It must constantly be borne in mind that the ancients never stereotyped their Ideal, hence there was invariably a vagueness about the form and features of prehistoric Joy, and Shakespeare’s reference to Dan Cupid as a “senior-junior, giant-dwarf,” may be equally applied to every Elf and Pixy. It is unquestionable that in England as in Scandinavia and Germany “giants and dwarfs were originally identical phenomenon”.[261]

In the words of an Orphic Hymn “Jove is both male and an immortal maid”: Venus was sometimes represented with a beard, and as the Supreme Parent was indiscriminately regarded as either male or female, or as both combined, an occasional contradiction of form is not to be unexpected. The authorities attribute the contrarietyof sex which is sometimes assigned to the Cornish saints as being due to carelessness on the part of transcribers, but in this case the monks may be exonerated, as the greater probability is that they faithfully transmitted the pagan legends. The Moon, which, speaking generally, was essentially a symbol of the Mother, was among some races,e.g., the Teutons and the Egyptians, regarded as masculine. In Italy at certain festivals the men dressed in women’s garments, worshipped the Moon as Lunus, and the women dressed like men, as Luna. In Wales the Cadi, as we have seen, was dressed partially as a woman, partially as a man, and in all probability the cassock of the modern priest is a survival of the ambiguous duality of Kate or Good. In Irish the adjectivemo—derived seemingly from Mo or Ma, the Great Mother—meantgreatest, and was thus used irrespective of sex.

The French wordlune, likemoonandchoon, is radicallyune, the initial consonants being merely adjectival, and is just as sexless as ourone, Scotchane. In Germanyhunnemeansgiant, and the term “Hun,” meant radically anyone formidable or gigantic.

The Cornish forfull mooniscann, which is a slightly decayed form ofak annorgreat one, and this wordcan, orkhan, meaning prince, ruler,kingor great one, is traceable in numerous parts of the world.Canorchanwas Egyptian forlordorprince; canwas a title of the kings of ancient Mexico;khanis still used to-day by the kings of Tartary and Burmah and by the governors of provinces in Persia, Afghanistan, and other countries of Central Asia. In Chinakongmeansking, and in modern Englandkingis a slightly decayed form of the Teutonickonigorkinig. The ancient British word formighty chiefwaschunorcun, and we meet with this infinitely older word thankingas a participle of royal titles such asCunobelinus,Cunoval,Cunomor and the like. The same affix was used in a similar sense by the Greeks, whence Apollo was styledCunades and alsoCunnins. The Cornish forprincewaskyn, and this term, as also the Irishcun, meaningchief, is evidently far more primitive than the modernking, which seems to have returned to us through Saxon channels. Prof. Skeat expresses his opinion that the termkingmeant “literally a man of good birth,” and he identifies it with the old High Germanchunig. Other authorities equate it with the Sanscritjanaka, meaningfather, whence it is maintained that the original meaning of the word was “father of a tribe”. Similarly the wordqueenis derived by our dictionaries from the Greekgyne, a woman, or the Sanscritjani, “all from rootgan, to produce, from which aregenus,kin,king, etc.”

The wordchenin Cornish meantcause, and there is no doubt a connection between this term andkyn, the Cornish forprince; the connection, however, is principally in the second syllable, and I see no reason to doubt my previous conclusions formulated elsewhere, thatkynorkingoriginally meantgreat one, orhigh one, whereaschun,jani,gyne, etc., meantagedone.

One of the first kings of the Isle of Man was Hacon or Hakon, a name which the dictionaries define as having meanthigh kin. In this etymologyhais evidently equated withhighandconorkonwithkin, but it is equally likely that Hakon or Haakon meant originallyuch onthehigh one. In Cornish the adjectiveughanoraughanmeantsupreme: the Icelandic for queen iskona, and there is no more radical distinction betweenkingand the disyllabickween, than there is between the Christian namesIon,Ian, and the monosyllabicHan.

Janaka, the Sanscrit forfather, is seemingly allied to the English adjectivejannockorjonnack, which may be equated more or less withcanny.Uncanny means something unwholesome, unpleasant, disagreeable; in Cornishcunmeantsweetor affable, and we still speak of sweets ascandies.

Fig.51.—FromThe Sepulchres of Etruria(Gray, Mrs. Hamilton).

In Gaeliccennorkenmeanthead, the highest peak in the Himalayas is Mount Kun; one of the supreme summits of Africa is Mount Kenia, and inGenesis(14-19) the Hebrew wordKonahis translated into English as “the Most High God”. Of this Supreme Sprite theconeor pyramid was a symbol, and the reverence in which this form was held at Albano in Etruria may be estimated from the monument here depicted.[262]In times gone by khans,cuns, or kings were not only deemed to be moral and intellectual gods, but in some localities bigness of person was cultivated. The Maoris of New Zealand, whose tattooings are identical in certain respects with the complicated spirals found on megaliths in Brittany and Ireland, and who in all their wide wanderings have carried with them a totemic dove, used to believe bigness to be a royal essence. “Every means were used to acquire this dignity; a large person was thought to be of the highest importance; to acquire this extra size, the child of a chief was generally provided with many nurses, each contributing to his support by robbing their own offspring of their natural sustenance; thus, whilst they were half-starved, miserable-looking little creatures, the chief’s child was the contrary, and early became remarkable by its good appearance.”[263]

The British adjectivebigis of unknown origin and has no Anglo-Saxon equivalent. In Norwaybuggemeans a strong man, but in Germanybiggedenoted a little child—as also a pig. The site of Troy—the famous Troy—is marked on modern mapsBigha, the Basque foreyeisbeguia;begais Celtic forlife. A fabulous St. Bega is the patron-saint of Cumberland; there is a Baggy Point near Barnstaple, and a Bigbury near Totnes—the alleged landing place of the Trojans. Close to Canterbury are some highlands also known as Bigbury, and it is probable that allthese sites were named afterbeguia, theBig Eye, orBuggaboo, theBig Father.

At Canterbury paleolithic implements have been found which supply proof of human occupation at a time when the British Islands formed part of the Continent, and, according to a scholarly but anonymous chronology exhibited in a Canterbury Hotel, “Neolithic, bronze, and iron ages show continuous occupation during the whole prehistoric period. The configuration of the city boundaries and the still existing traces of the ancient road in connection with the stronghold at Bigbury indicate that a populous community was settled on the site of the present Canterbury at least as early as the Iron Age.”

The branching antlers of thebuckwere regarded as the rays of the uprising sun orBig Eye, and a sacred procession, headed by the antlers of a buck raised upon a pole, was continued by the clergy of St. Paul’s Cathedral as late as the seventeenth century.[264]A scandalised observer of this ceremony in 1726 describes “the whole company blowing hunters’ horns in a sort of hideous manner, and with this rude pomp they go up to the High Altar and offer it there. You would think them all the mad votaries of Diana!” On this occasion, evidently in accordance with immemorial wont, the Dean and Chapter wore special vestments, the one embroidered with bucks, the other with does. The buck was seemingly associated with Puck, for it was popularly supposed that a spectre appeared periodically in Herne’s Oak at Windsor headed with the horns of a buck. So too was Father Christmas or St. Nicholas represented as riding Diana-like in a chariot drawn by bucks.

The Greek for buck or stag iselaphos, which is radicallyelaf, and it is a singular coincidence that among the Cretan paleolithic folk in the Fourth Glacial Period “Certain signs carved on a fragment of reindeer horn are specially interesting from the primitive anticipation that they present of the Phœnician letteralef”.[265]

Peg or Peggy is the same word aspig, and it is generally supposed that the pig was regarded as an incarnation of the “Man in the Oak,”i.e., Puck or Buck, because thebaccoorbaconlived on acorns. There is little doubt that the Saint Baccho of the Church Calendar is connected with the worship of the earlier Bacchus, for the date of St. Baccho’s festival coincides with the vintage festival of Bacchus. The symbolism of the pig or bacco will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, meanwhile one may here note thathogis the same asoak, andswineis identical withswan. So alsoMegis connected withmucormochwhich were the Celtic terms forhog. Among the appellations of ancient Ireland was Muc Inis,[266]or Hog Island and Moccus, or the pig, was one of the Celtic sobriquets for Mercury. The Druids termed themselves “Swine of Mon,”[267]the Phœnician priests were also self-styledSwine, and there is a Welsh poem in which the bard’s opening advice to his disciples is—“Give ear little pigs”.

The pig figures so frequently upon Gaulish coins that M. de la Saussaye supposed it with great reason to have been a national symbol. That the hog was also a venerated British emblem is evident from the coins here illustrated, and thatCUNOwas the Spook King is obvious from Figs. 52 and 57, where the features face fore and aft likethose of Janus. The word Cunobeline, Cunbelin, or Cymbeline, described by the dictionaries as a Cornish name meaning “lord of the Sun,” is composed seemingly ofKing Belin. Belin, a title of the Sun God, is found also in Gaul, notably on the coinage of the Belindi: Belin is featured as in Fig. 58, and that the sacred Horse of Belin was associated with thededpillar is evident from Fig. 59.

Figs.52 to 57.—British. FromAncient Coins(Akerman, J. Y.).

Figs.58 to 59.—Gaulish. Fromibid.

Commenting upon Fig. 52 a numismatist has observed: “This seems made for two young women’s faces,” but whether Cunobelin’s wives, sisters, or children, he knows not. In Britain doubtless there were many kings whoassumed the title of Cunobelin, just as in Egypt there were many Pharoahs; but it is no more rational to suppose that the designs on ancient coins are the portraits of historic kings, their wives, their sisters, their cousins, or their aunts, than it would be for an archæologist to imagine that the dragon incident on our modern sovereigns was an episode in the career of his present Majesty King George.

We shall subsequently connect George, whose name meansploughman, with the Blue or Celestial Boar, which, because it ploughed with its snout along the earth, was termedboar, i.e., boeror farmer. Withbaccoorbaconmay be connotedboukolos, the Greek for cowherd, whencebucolic. The cattle of Apollo, or the Sun, are a familiar feature of Greek mythology.

Fig.60.—Gaulish. From Akerman.

The female bacon, whichinter aliawas the symbol of fecundity, was credited with a mystic thirty teats. The sow figures prominently in British mythology as an emblem of Ked, and was seemingly venerated as a symbol of the Universal Feeder. The little pig in Fig. 60, a coin of the Santones, whose capital is marked by the modern town of Saintes, is associated with a fleur-de-lis, the emblem of purity. The wordlilyisall holy; the porker was associated with the notoriously pure St. Antony as well as with Ked or Kate, the immaculate Magna Mater, and although beyond these indications I have no evidence for the suggestion, I strongly suspect that the scavenging habits ofthemochcaused it, like the fly ormouche, to be reverenced as a symbol of Ked, Cadi, Katy, or Katerina, whose name means the Pure one or the All Pure. The connection betweenhogandcockis apparent in the Frenchcocheorcochon(origin unknown).Cochonis allied tocigne, the French for swan, Latin,cygnus, Greek,kuknos; the voice of the goose or swan is said to be itscackle, and the Egyptians gave to their All Father Goose a sobriquet which the authorities translate into “The Great Cackler”.

Fig. 61.—Swan with Two Necks. (Bank’s Collection, 1785).FromThe History of Signboards(Larwood & Hotten).

Among the meanings assigned to the Hebrewogis “long necked,” and it is not improbable that the mysterious Inn sign of the “Swan with two necks” was originally an emblem of Mother and Father Goose. In Fig. 61 thegeisor swan is facing fore and aft, like Cuno, which is radically the sameGreat Unoas Juno or Megale, to whom the goose was sacred.Geyser, a gush or spring, is the same word asgeeser, and there was a famous swan with two necks at Goswell Road, where the word Goswell implies an erstwhile well of Gos, Goose, or the Gush.[268]A Wayzgooseis a jovial holiday or festival,gustorgustomeans enjoyment, and the Greengoose Fair, which used to be held at Stratford, may be connoted with the “Goose-Intentos,” a festival which was customarily held on the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost, the time when the Holy Ghost descended in the form of “cloven tongues,” resolves intoUniversal Good Ghost.

The Santones, whose emblem was the Pig and Fleur-de-lis, were neighbours of the Pictones. Our British Picts, the first British tribe known by name to history, are generally supposed to have derived their title because they depicted pictures on their bodies. In West Cornwall there are rude stone huts known locally as Picts’ Houses, but whether these are attributed to the Picts or the Pixies it is difficult to say. In Scotland the “Pechs” were obviously elves, for they are supposed to have been short, wee men with long arms, and such huge feet that on rainy days they stood upside down and used their feet as umbrellas. That the Picts’ Houses of Cornwall were attributed to the Pechs is probable from the Scottish belief, “Oh, ay, they were great builders the Pechs; they built a’ the auld castles in the country. They stood a’ in a row from the quarry to the building stance, and elka ane handed forward the stanes to his neighbour till the hale was bigget.”

That the pig and the bogie were intimately associated is evidenced by a Welsh saying quoted by Sir John Rhys:—

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