Chapter VI: Puck (1)

"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, _alias_ Robin Goodfellow, was known as this "Man in the Oak," and he considers that the word _pixy_ "is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutive _sy_ being added to Puck like Bet_sy_, Nan_cy_, Dix_ie_".[255] It is probable that this adjectival _si_ recurring in _sw_eet, _so_oth, _su_ave, _sw_an, etc., may be equated with the Sanscrit _su_, which, as in _sw_astika, is a synonym for the Greek _eu_, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious. When used as an affix, this "endearing diminutive" yields _spook_, 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 Holy _Ghost_ was--in the modern sense--essentially _ghastly_. Skeat suggests that _ghost_ (of uncertain origin) "is perhaps allied to Icelandic _geisa_, to rage like fire, and to Gothic _us-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 as _te_ in Celtic meant good, it may be permissible to modernise _ghoste_, also _Kostey_ of the egg, into _great 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 a _pawky_ little pickle; in Brittany the dolmens are known as _poukelays_ or 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 from Bookham 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 word _puck_ or _peg_, 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 reason to 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 Welsh _bogel_ means the _navel_, also _centre of a wheel_, and hence Margaret or Peggy may be equated with the nave or peg of the white-rayed Marguerite or _Day'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 contrariety of 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 adjective _mo_--derived seemingly from Mo or Ma, the Great Mother--meant _greatest_, and was thus used irrespective of sex.

The French word _lune_, like _moon_ and _choon_, is radically _une_, the initial consonants being merely adjectival, and is just as sexless as our _one_, Scotch _ane_. In Germany _hunne_ means _giant_, and the term "Hun," meant radically anyone formidable or gigantic.

The Cornish for _full moon_ is _cann_, which is a slightly decayed form of _ak ann_ or _great one_, and this word _can_, or _khan_, meaning prince, ruler, _king_ or great one, is traceable in numerous parts of the world. _Can_ or _chan_ was Egyptian for _lord_ or _prince; can_ was a title of the kings of ancient Mexico; _khan_ is 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 China _kong_ means _king_, and in modern England _king_ is a slightly decayed form of the Teutonic _konig_ or _kinig_. The ancient British word for _mighty chief_ was _chun_ or _cun_, and we meet with this infinitely older word than _king_ as a participle of royal titles such as _Cun_obelinus, _Cun_oval, _Cun_omor and the like. The same affix was used in a similar sense by the Greeks, whence Apollo was styled _Cun_ades and also _Cun_nins. The Cornish for _prince_ was _kyn_, and this term, as also the Irish _cun_, meaning _chief_, is evidently far more primitive than the modern _king_, which seems to have returned to us through Saxon channels. Prof. Skeat expresses his opinion that the term _king_ meant "literally a man of good birth," and he identifies it with the old High German _chunig_. Other authorities equate it with the Sanscrit _janaka_, meaning _father_, whence it is maintained that the original meaning of the word was "father of a tribe". Similarly the word _queen_ is derived by our dictionaries from the Greek _gyne_, a woman, or the Sanscrit _jani_, "all from root _gan_, to produce, from which are _genus_, _kin_, _king_, etc."

The word _chen_ in Cornish meant _cause_, and there is no doubt a connection between this term and _kyn_, the Cornish for _prince_; the connection, however, is principally in the second syllable, and I see no reason to doubt my previous conclusions formulated elsewhere, that _kyn_ or _king_ originally meant _great one_, or _high one_, whereas _chun_, _jani_, _gyne_, etc., meant _aged_ one.

One of the first kings of the Isle of Man was Hacon or Hakon, a name which the dictionaries define as having meant _high kin_. In this etymology _ha_ is evidently equated with _high_ and _con_ or _kon_ with _kin_, but it is equally likely that Hakon or Haakon meant originally _uch on_ the _high one_. In Cornish the adjective _ughan_ or _aughan_ meant _supreme_: the Icelandic for queen is _kona_, and there is no more radical distinction between _king_ and the disyllabic _kween_, than there is between the Christian names _Ion_, _Ian_, and the monosyllabic _Han_.

_Janaka_, the Sanscrit for _father_, is seemingly allied to the English adjective _jannock_ or _jonnack_, which may be equated more or less with _canny_. _Un_canny means something unwholesome, unpleasant, disagreeable; in Cornish _cun_ meant _sweet_ or affable, and we still speak of sweets as _candies_.

In Gaelic _cenn_ or _ken_ meant _head_, the highest peak in the Himalayas is Mount Kun; one of the supreme summits of Africa is Mount Kenia, and in _Genesis_ (14-19) the Hebrew word _Konah_ is translated into English as "the Most High God". Of this Supreme Sprite the _cone_ or 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 adjective _big_ is of unknown origin and has no Anglo-Saxon equivalent. In Norway _bugge_ means a strong man, but in Germany _bigge_ denoted a little child--as also a pig. The site of Troy--the famous Troy--is marked on modern maps _Bigha_, the Basque for _eye_ is _beguia_; _bega_ is Celtic for _life_. 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 all these sites were named after _beguia_, the _Big Eye_, or _Buggaboo_, the _Big 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 the _buck_ were regarded as the rays of the uprising sun or _Big 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 is _elaphos_, which is radically _elaf_, 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 Phoenician letter _alef_".[265]

Peg or Peggy is the same word as _pig_, 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 the _bacco_ or _bacon_ lived 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 that _hog_ is the same as _oak_, and _swine_ is identical with _swan_. So also _Meg_ is connected with _muc_ or _moch_ which were the Celtic terms for _hog_. 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 Phoenician priests were also self-styled _Swine_, 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 that CUNO was the Spook King is obvious from Figs. 52 and 57, where the features face fore and aft like those of Janus. The word Cunobeline, Cunbelin, or Cymbeline, described by the dictionaries as a Cornish name meaning "lord of the Sun," is composed seemingly of _King 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 the _ded_ pillar is evident from Fig. 59.

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 who assumed 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 means _ploughman_, with the Blue or Celestial Boar, which, because it ploughed with its snout along the earth, was termed _boar, i.e., boer_ or farmer. With _bacco_ or _bacon_ may be connoted _boukolos_, the Greek for cowherd, whence _bucolic_. The cattle of Apollo, or the Sun, are a familiar feature of Greek mythology.

The female bacon, which _inter alia_ was 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 word _lily_ is _all 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 of the _moch_ caused it, like the fly or _mouche_, to be reverenced as a symbol of Ked, Cadi, Katy, or Katerina, whose name means the Pure one or the All Pure. The connection between _hog_ and _cock_ is apparent in the French _coche_ or _cochon_ (origin unknown). _Cochon_ is allied to _cigne_, the French for swan, Latin, _cygnus_, Greek, _kuknos_; the voice of the goose or swan is said to be its _cackle_, and the Egyptians gave to their All Father Goose a sobriquet which the authorities translate into "The Great Cackler".

Among the meanings assigned to the Hebrew _og_ is "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 the _geis_ or swan is facing fore and aft, like Cuno, which is radically the same _Great Uno_ as Juno or Megale, to whom the goose was sacred. _Geyser_, a gush or spring, is the same word as _geeser_, 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 Wayz_goose_ is a jovial holiday or festival, _gust_ or _gusto_ means 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 into _Universal 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 de_pict_ed 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:--

A cutty black sow on every style
Spinning and carding each November eve.

In Ireland Pooka was essentially a November spirit, and elsewhere November was pre-eminently the time of All Hallows or All Angels. _Hallow_ is the same word as _elle_ the Scandinavian for _elf_ or _fairy_, and at Michaelmas or Hallowe'en, pixies, spooks, and bogies were notoriously all-abroad:--

On November eve
A Bogie on every stile.

The time of All Hallows, or Michaelmas used to be known as Hoketide, a festival which in England was more particularly held upon St. Blaze's Day; and at that cheerless period the people used to light bonfires or make blazes for the purpose of "lighting souls out of Purgatory". In Wales a huge fire was lighted by each household and into the ashes of this _bon_fire, this _alban_ or _elphin_ fire,[269] every member of the family threw a _white_ or "Alban," or an _elphin_ stone, kneeling in prayer around the dying fire.[270] In the Isle of Man Hallowtide was known as Hollantide,[271] which again permits the equation of St. Hellen or Elen and her train with Long Meg and her daughters. On the occasion of the Hallow or Ellie-time saffron or yellow cakes, said to be emblematical of the fires of purgatory, used to be eaten. To run _amok_ in the East means a _fiery fury_--the words are the same; and that _bake_ (or _beeak_ as in Yorkshire dialect) meant fire is obvious from the synonymous _cook_. _Coch_ is Welsh for red, and the flaming red poppy or corn_cock_le, French--_coquelicot_, was no doubt the symbol of the solar poppy, pope, or pap. The Irish for pap or breast is _cich_, and in Welsh _cycho_ means a hive, or anything of concave or hivelike shape. Possibly here we have the origin of _quick_ in its sense of living or alive.

One of the features of Michaelmas in Scotland was the concoction and cooking of a giant _cake_, bun, or bannock. According to Martin this was "enormously large, and compounded of different ingredients. This cake belonged to the Archangel, and had its name from him. Every one in each family, whether strangers or domestics, had his portion of this kind of shew-bread, and had of course some tithe to the friendship and protection of Michael."[272] In Hertfordshire during a corresponding period of "joy, plenty, and universal benevolence," the young men assembled in the fields choosing a very active leader who then led them a Puck-like chase through bush and through briar, for the sake of diversion selecting a route through ponds, ditches, and places of difficult passage.[273] The term _Ganging_ Day applied to this festival may be connoted with the Singin 'een of the Scotch Hogmanay, and with the leader of St. Micah's rout may be connoted _demagog_. This word, meaning popular leader, is attributed to _demos_, people, and _agogos_, leading, but more seemingly it is _Dame Gog_ or _Good Mother Gog_.

In Durham is a Pickburn or Pigburn; _beck_ is a generic term for a small stream; in Devon is a river Becky, and in Monmouthshire a river Beeg. In Kent is Bekesbourne, and Pegwell Bay near St. Margarets in Kent, may be connoted with Backwell or Bachwell in Somerset. In Herefordshire is a British earthwork, known as Bach Camp, and on Bucton Moor in Northumberland there are two earth circles. In Devonshire is Buckland-Egg, or Egg-Buckland, and with the various Boxmoors, Boxgroves, Boxdales, and Boxleys may be connoted the Box river which passes Keynton and crosses Akeman Street. A Christmas _box_ is a boon or a gift, a box or receptacle is the same word as _pyx_; and that the evergreen undying box-tree was esteemed sacred, is evident from the words of Isaiah: "I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine tree, and the box tree together".[274]

_Bacon_, radically _bac_, in neighbouring tongues varies into _baco_, _bakke_, _bak_, and _bache_. Bacon is a family name immortally associated with St. Albans, and it is probable that Trebiggan--a vast man with arms so long that he could take men out of the ships passing by Land's End, and place them on the Long Ships--was the Eternal Biggan or Beginning. In British Romance there figures a mystic Lady Tryamour, whose name is obviously _Tri_ or _Three Love_, and it is probable that Giant Trebiggan was the pagan Trinity, or Triton, whose emblem was the three-spiked trident. Triton _alias_ Neptune was the reputed Father of Giant Albion, and the shell-haired deity represented on Figs. 62 to 64 is probably Albon, for the inscription in Iberian characters reads BLBAN. In the East Bel was a generic term meaning _lord_: in the West it seemingly meant, just as it does to-day, _fine_ or _beautiful_. The city of BLBAN or _beautiful Ban_ is now Bilbao, and the three fish on this coin are analogous to the trident, and to numberless other emblems of the Triune.

The radiating fan of the cockle shell connects it with the Corn-cockle as the Dawn, standing jocund on the misty mountain tops, is related to the flaming midday Sun. All _conchas_, particularly the _echinea_ or "St. Cuthbert's Bead," were symbols of St. Katherine or Cuddy, and in Art St. Jacques or St. Jack was always represented with a shell. _Coquille_, the French for shell, is the same word as _goggle_, and in England the _cockle_ was popularly connected with a strange custom known as Hot Cockles or Cockle Bread. Full particulars of this practice are given by Hazlitt, who observes: "I entertain a conviction that with respect to these hot cockles, and likewise to leap-candle, we are merely on the threshhold of the enquiry ... the question stands at present much as if one had picked up by accident the husk of some lost substance.... Speaking conjecturally, but with certain sidelights to encourage, this seems a case of the insensible degradation of rite into custom."[275]

Shells are one of the most common deposits in prehistoric graves, and at Boston in Lincolnshire stone coffins have been found completely filled with cockle-shells. There would thus seem to be some connection between Ickanhoe, the ancient name for Boston, a town of the Iceni, situated on the Ichenield Way, and the _echinea_ or _concha_. As the cockle was particularly the symbol of Birth, the presence of these shells in coffins may be attributed to a hope of New Birth and a belief that Death was the _yoni_ or Gate of Life.

The word _inimical_ implies _un-amicable_, or unfriendly, whence Michael was seemingly the Friend of Man. _Maculate_ means spotted, and the coins here illustrated, believed to have been minted at St. Albans, obviously feature no physical King but rather the Kaadman or Good Man of St. Albans in his dual aspect of age and youth. The starry, spotted, or maculate effigy is apparently an attempt to depict the astral or spiritual King, for it was an ancient idea that the spirit-body and the spirit-world were made of a so-called stellar-matter--a notion which has recently been revived by the Theosophists who speak of the astral body and the astral plane. Our modern _breath_, old English _breeth_, is evidently the Welsh _brith_ which means spotted, and it is to this root that Sir John Rhys attributes the term Brython or Britain, finding in it a reference to that painting or tattooing of the body which distinguished the Picts.[276] The word _tattoo_, Maori _tatau_, is the Celtic _tata_ meaning father, and the implication seems to follow that the custom of _tattooing_ arose from picking, dotting, or maculating the tribal totem or caste-mark.

In the Old English representation here illustrated either St. Peter or God the Father is conspicuously tattooed or spotted; Pan was always assigned a _pan_ther's skin, or spotted cloak.

A _speck_ is a minute spot, and among the ancients a speck or dot within a circle was the symbol of the central Spook or Spectre. This, like all other emblems, was understood in a personal and a cosmic sense, the little speck and circle representing the soul surrounded by its round of influence and duties; the Cosmic speck, the Supreme Spirit, and the circle the entire Universe. In many instances the dot and ring seems to have stood for the pupil in the iris of the eye. In addition it is evident that [circled dot] was an emblem of the Breast, and hieroglyphed the speck in the centre of the zone or sein, for the Greek letter _theta_ written--[circled dot] is identical with _teta, teat, tada, dot_ or _dad_. The dotted effigy on the coins supposedly minted at St. Albans may be connoted with the curious fact that in Welsh the word _alban_ meant _a primary point_.[277]

_Speck_ is the root of _speculum_, a mirror, and it might be suggested by the materialist that the first reflection in a metal mirror was assumed to be a spook. The mirror is an attribute of nearly every ancient Deity, and the British Druids seem to have had some system of flashing the sunlight on to the crowd by means of what was termed by the Bards, the Speculum of the Pervading Glance. _Specula_ means a watch-tower, and _spectrum_ means vision. _Speech, speak_, and _spoke_, point to the probability that speech was deemed to be the voice of the indwelling spook or spectre, which etymology is at any rate preferable to the official surmise "all, perhaps, from Teutonic base _sprek_--to make a noise".

The Egyptian hieroglyph here illustrated depicts the speculum of Thoth, a deity whom the Phoenicians rendered Taut, and to whom they attributed the invention of the alphabet and all other arts. The whole land of Egypt was known among other designations as "the land of the Eye," and by the Egyptians as also by the Etrurians, the symbolic blue Eye of Horus was carried constantly as an amulet against bad luck. Fig. 69 is an Egyptian die-stamp, and Figs. 70 to 72 are British coins of which the intricate symbolism will be considered in due course. The arms of Fig. 73 are extended into the act of benediction, and _utat_, the Egyptian word for this symbol, resolves into the soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious Tat. That the _utat_ or eye was familiar in Europe is evidenced by the Kio coin here illustrated.

_Spica_, which is also the same word as spook, meant ear of corn; the wheatear is proverbially the Staff of Life, and _loaf_, old English _loof_, is the same word as _life_. Not infrequently the _Bona Dea_ was represented holding a loaf in her extended hand, and the same idea was doubtless expressed by the two breasts upon a dish with which St. Agatha, whose name means _Good_, is represented. Christianity accounts for this curious emblem by a legend that St. Agatha was tortured by having her breasts cut off, and it is quite possible that this nasty tale is correctly translated; the original tyrant or torturer being probably Winter, or the reaper Death, which cuts short the fruit fulness of Spring. In the Tartar emblem herewith the Phrygian-capped Deity is holding, like St. Agatha, the symbol of the teat or feeder, or _fodder_.[278]

The wheatear or spica, or _buck_-wheat was a frequent emblem on our British coins, and to account for this it has been suggested that the British did a considerable export trade in corn; but unfortunately for this theory the _spica_ figures frequently upon the coins of Spain and Gaul. As a symbol the buckwheat typified plenty, but in addition to the wheatear proper there appear kindred objects which have been surmised to be, perhaps, fishbones, perhaps fern-leaves. There is no doubt that these mysterious objects are variants of the so-called "_ded_" amulet, which in Egypt was the symbol of the backbone of the God of Life. This amulet, of which the hieroglyph has been rendered variously as _ded_, _didu_, _tet_, and _tat_, has an ancestry of amazing antiquity, and according to Mackenzie, "in Paleolithic times, at least 20,000 years ago, the spine of the fish was laid on the corpse when it was entombed, just as the 'ded,' amulet, which was the symbol of the backbone of Osiris, was laid on the neck of the Egyptian mummy".[279] Frequently this "ded" emblem took the form of a column or pillar, which symbolised the eternal support and stability of the universe. On the summit of Fig. 85 is a bug, _cock_roach, or _cock_chafer: in Etruria as in Egypt the bug amulet or _scarabeus_ was as popular as the Eye of Horus.

In Fig. 68 the spectral Eye was supported by Thoth, whose name varies into Thot, Taut, and numerous intermediate forms, which equate it with _ded_ or _dad_: similarly it will be found that practically every place-name constituted from Tot or Tat varies into Dot or Dad, _e.g._, Llan_dud_no, where is found the cradle of St. _Tud_no. Sometimes the Egyptians represented two or more pillars termed _deddu_, and this word is traceable in Trinidad, an island which, on account of its three great peaks, was named after _trinidad_, the Spanish for trinity. But _trinidad_ is evidently a very old Iberian word, for its British form was _drindod_, as in the place-name Llandrindod or "Holy Enclosure of the Trinity". The three great mounts on Trinidad, and the three famous medicinal springs at Llandrindod Wells render it probable that the site of Llan_drindod_ was originally a pagan dedication to the _trine teat_, or _triune dad_.

Amid numerous hut circles at Llandudno is a rocking stone known as Cryd-Tudno, or the Cradle of Tudno. Who was the St. Tudno of Llandudno whose cradle or cot, like Kit's Coty in Kent, has been thus preserved in folk-memory? The few facts related of him are manifestly fabulous, but the name itself seemingly preserves one of the numerous sites where the Almighty Child of Christmas Day was worshipped, and the _no_ of _Tudno_ may be connoted with _new_, Greek, _neo_, Danish, _ny_, allied to Sanscrit, _no_, hence _new_, "that which is now".

At Llanamlleck in Wales there is a cromlech known as St. Illtyd's House, near which is a rude upright stone known as Maen-Illtyd, or Illtyd-stone. We may connote this _Ill_tyd with _All_-tyd or All Father, in which respect Illtyd corresponds with the Scandinavian _Ilmatar_, _Almatar_, or All Mother.

It is told of Saint Illtyd that he befriended a hunted stag, and that like Semele, the wife of Jove, his wife was stricken with blindness for daring to approach too near him. The association of Illtyd with a stag is peculiarly significant in view of the fact that at Llandudno, leading to the cot or cradle of St. Tudno, are the remains of an avenue of standing stones called by a name which signifies "the High Road of the Deer". The branching antlers of the deer being emblems of the dayspring, the rising or _new_ sun, is a fact somewhat confirmatory of the supposition that the Cradle of Tudno was the shrine of the new or Rising Tud, and in all probability the High Road of the Deer was once the scene of some very curious ceremonies.

Many of our old churches even to-day contain in their lofts antlers which formed part of the wardrobe of the ancient mummers or guise dancers.

In the Ephesian coin herewith Diana--the _divine Ana_--the many-breasted Alma Mater, is depicted in the form of a pillar-palm tree between two stags. Among the golden treasures found by Schliemann at Mykenæ, were ornaments representing two stags on the top of a date palm tree with three fronds.[280] The _date_ palm may be connoted with the _ded_ pillar, and the triple-fronded date of Mykenæ with the trindod or drindod of Britain.

The honeysuckle, termed conventionally a palmette, is classically represented as either seven or nine-lobed, and this symbol of the Dayspring or of Wisdom was common alike both East and West. The palm branch is merely another form of the fern or fish-bone, and the word palm is radically _alma_, the all nourisher. The palm leaf appears on one of the stones at New Grange, but as Fergusson remarks, "how a knowledge of this Eastern plant reached New Grange is by no means clear".[281] The _feather_ was a further emblem of the same spiritual _father_, _feeder_, or _fodder_, and in Egypt Ma or Truth was represented with a single-feather headdress (_ante_, p. 136). From the mistletoe to the fern, a sprig of any kind was regarded as the spright, spirit, or spurt of new life or new _Thought_ (_Thaut?_), and the forms of this young sprig are innumerable. The gist, ghost, or essence of the Maypole was that it should be a sprout well budded out, whence to this day at Saffron Walden the children on Mayday sing:--

A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is a sprout that is well budded out,
The work of our Lord's hands.

_Teat_ may be equated with the Gaulish _tout_, the whole or All, and it is probable that the Pelasgian shrine of Dodona was dedicated to that _All One_ or _Father One_. It is noteworthy that the sway of the pre-Grecian Pelasgians extended over the whole of the Ionian coast "beginning from Mykale":[282] this Mykale (_Megale or Michael?_) district is now Albania, and its capital is Janina, _query_ Queen Ina?

It is probable that Kenna, the fairy princess of Kensington who is reputed to have loved Albion, was can_na_, the _New King_ or _New Queen_. On the river Canna in Wales is Llan_gan_ or Llanganna: Llan_gan_ on the river Taff is dedicated to St. Canna, and Llan_gain_ to St. Synin. All these dedications are seemingly survivals of _King_, _Queen_, or _Saint_, Ina, Una, Une, ain or one. In Cornwall there are several St. Euny's Wells: near Evesham is Honeybourne, and in Sussex is a Honey Child. Upon Honeychurch the authorities comment, "The connection between a church and honey is not very obvious, and this is probably Church of _Huna_". Quite likely, but not, I think, a Saxon settler.

The ancients supposed that the world was shaped like a bun, and they imagined it as supported by the tet or pillar of the Almighty. It is therefore possible that the Toadstool or Mushroom derived its name not because toads never sit upon it, but because it was held to be a perfect emblem of the earth. In some districts the Mushroom is named "Pooka's foot,"[283] and as the earth is proverbially God's footstool, the Toad-stool was held seemingly to be the stool of earth supported on the _ded_, or pillar of Titan. The Fairy Titania, who probably once held sway in Tottenham Court Road, may be connoted with the French _teton_, a teat; _tetine_, an udder; _teter_, to milk; and _tetin_, a nipple.

It is probable that "The Five Wells" at Taddington, "the Five Kings at Doddington," where also is "the Duddo Stone," likewise Dod Law at Doddington; Dowdeswell, Dudsbury, and the Cornish Dodman, are all referable originally to the fairy Titan or the celestial Daddy.

In accordance with universal wont this Titan or Almighty, "this senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid," was conceived as anon a tiny toddling tot or Tom-tit-tot, anon as Old Tithonus, the doddering dotard: the Swedish for _death_ or _dead_ is _dod_; the German is _tod_. _Tod_ is an English term for a fox, and Thot was the fox or _jackal_-headed maker-of-tracts or guide: thought is invariably the guide to every action, and Divine Thought is the final bar to which the human soul comes up for judgment. It has already been seen that in Europe the holder of the sword and scales was Michael, and there is reason to suppose that the Dog-headed titanic Christopher, who is said to have ferried travellers _pick-a-back_ across a river, was at one time an exquisite conception of Great Puck or Father Death carrying his children over the mystic river. By the _pagans_--the unsophisticated villagers among whom Pucca mostly survived--Death was conceived as not invariably or necessarily frightful, but sometimes as a lovely youth. In Fig. 91 Death is Amor or Young Love, and in Fig. 90 an angel occupies the place of Giant Christopher: the words _death_ and _dead_ are identical with _dad_ and _tod_.

The Christian emblems herewith represent Christ supported by the Father or Mother upon a veil or scarf, which is probably intended for the rainbow or spectrum: the pagan Europa was represented, _vide_ Fig. 93, holding a similar emblem. According to mythology, Iris or the Rainbow was like Thot or Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, and the symbolists delighted to blend into their hieroglyphs that same elusive ambiguity as separates Iris from Eros and the blend of colours in the spectrum.

In the ninth century a learned monk expressed the opinion that only two words of the old Iberian language had then survived: one of these was _fern_, meaning _anything good_, and with it we may connote the Fern Islands among which stands the Megstone. Ferns, the ancient capital of Leinster, attributes its foundation to a St. Mogue, and St. Mogue's Well is still existing in the precincts of Ferns Abbey. The equation of Long Meg and her Daughters with Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins is supported by the tradition that the original name of St. Ursula's husband was Holofernes,[284] seemingly Holy Ferns or Holy Phoroneus. What is described as "the highest term in Grecian history" was the ancestral Inachus, the father of a certain Phoroneus. The fabulous Inachus[285]--probably the Gaelic divinity Oengus[286]--is the _Ancient Mighty Life_, and Phoroneus is radically fern or frond. There figures in Irish mythology "a very ancient deity" whose name, judging from inscriptions, was Feron or Vorenn, and it is noteworthy that Oengus is associated particularly with New Grange, where the fern palm leaf emblem has been preserved. The Dutch for _fern_ is _varen_, and the root of all these terms is _fer_ or _ver_: the Latin _ferre_ is the root of _fertile_, etc., and in connection with the Welsh _ver_, which means essence, may be noted _ver_ the Spring and _vert_, green, whence _verdant, verdure, vernal,_ and _infernal_(?).

Among the ferns whose spine-like fishbone fronds seemingly caused them to be accepted as emblems of the fertile Dayspring or the permeating Spirit of all Life, the _osmunda_ was particularly associated with the Saints and Gods: in the Tyrol it is still placed over doors for Good Luck, and one species of Osmunda (_Crispa_) is in Norway called St. Olaf's Beard. This is termed by Gerarde the Herb Christopher, and the Latin _crispa_ somewhat connects it with Christopher. The name Osmund is Teutonic for _divine protector_, but more radically Osmunda was _oes munda_, or the _Life of the World_. In Devonshire the Pennyroyal is also known as _organ_, _organy_, _organie_, or _origane_, all of which are radically the same as _origin_.

to [ ] from Akerman.
Nos. [ ] to [ ] from Evans.]

The British coins inscribed Ver are believed to have emanated from Verulam or St. Albans, but the same VER, VIR, or kindred legend is found upon the coins of Iberia and Gaul. It is not improbable that Verulam was at one time the chief city in Albion, but the place which now claims to be the mother city is Canterbury or Duro_vern_. The ancient name of Canterbury is supposed to have been bestowed upon it by the Romans, and to have denoted _evergreen_; but Canterbury is not physically more evergreen than every other spot in verdant England: Canterbury is, however, permeated with relics, memories, and traditions of St. George; and St. George is still addressed in Palestine as the "evergreen green one". Green was the symbol of rejuvenescence and immortality, and "the Green Man" of our English Inn Signs, as also the Jack-in-Green who used to figure along with Maid Marian and the Hobby Horse in the festivities of May Day, was representative of the May King or the Lord of Life. The colour green, according to the Ecclesiastical authorities, still signifies "hope, plenty, mirth, youth, and prosperity": as the colour of living vegetation, it was adopted as a symbol of life, and Angels and Saints, _particularly St. John_, are represented clad in green. In Gaul the Green Man was evidently conceived as Ver Galant, and the two cups, one inverted, in all probability implied Life and Death. According to Christian Legend, St. George was tortured by being forced to drink two cups, whereof the one was prepared to make him mad, the other to kill him by poison. The prosperity of an emblem lies entirely in the Eye, and it is probable that all the alleged dolours to which George was subjected are nothing more than the morbid misconceptions of men whose minds dwelt normally on things most miserable and conceived little higher. Thus seemingly the light-shod Mercury was degraded into George's alleged torture of being "made to run in red hot shoes": the heavy pillars laid upon him suggest that he was once depicted bearing up the pillars of the world: the wheel covered with razors and knives to which he was attached imply the solar wheel of Kate or Catarina: the posts to which he was fastened by the feet and hands were seemingly a variant of the _deddu_, and the sledge hammers with which he was beaten were, like many other of the excruciating torments of the "saint," merely and inoffensively the emblems of the Heavenly Hercules or Invictus.

Maid Marion, who was not infrequently associated with St. George, is radically _Maid Big Ion_, or _Fairy Ion_, and that St. George was also a marine saint is obvious from the various Channels which still bear his name. The ensign of the Navy is the red cross on a white ground, known originally as the Christofer or Jack, and in Fig. 106 the Green Man is represented with the scales of a Merman, or Blue John. The Italian for blue is _vera_; _vera_ means _true_; "true blue" is proverbial; and that Old George was Trajan, Tarchon, Tarragone, or _Dragon_ is obvious from the dragon-slaying incident. Little George has already been identified by Baring-Gould with Tammuz, the Adonis, or Beauty, who is identified with the Sun:[287] "Thou shining and vanishing in the beauteous circle of the Horæ, dwelling at one time in gloomy Tartarus, at another elevating thyself to Olympus, giving ripeness to the fruits".[288]

The St. George of Diospolis, the City of Light, who by the early Christians was hailed as "the Mighty Man," the "Star of the Morning," and the "Sun of Truth," figures in Cornwall, particularly at Helston, where there is still danced the so-called _Furry_ dance: Helston, moreover, claims to show the great granite stone which was intended to cover the mouth of the Nether Regions, but St. Michael met Satan carrying it and made him drop it.

It is unnecessary to labour the obvious identity between Saints George and Michael: "George," meaning _husbandman_, _i.e._, the Almighty in a bucolic aspect, is merely another title for the archangel, but more radically it may be traced to _geo_ (as in _ge_ology, _ge_ography, _ge_ometry) and _urge_, _i.e._, _earth urge_. It is physically true that farmers urge the earth to yield her increase, and until quite recently, relics of the festival of the sacred plough survived in Britain. Within living memory farmers in Cornwall turned the first sod to the formula "In the name of God let us begin":[289] in China, where the Emperor himself turns the first sod, much of the ancient ceremonies still survive.

The legend of St. George and the dragon has had its local habitation fixed in many districts notably in Berkshire at the vale of the White Horse. The famous George of Cappadocia is first heard of as "a purveyor of provisions for the Army of Constantinople," and he was subsequently associated with a certain Dracontius (_i.e._, _dragon_), "Master of the Mint". The same legend is assigned at Lambton in England not to George but to "_John_ that slew ye worm": in Turkey St. George is known as Oros, which is obviously Horus or Eros, the Lord of the Horæ or hours, and the English dragon-slayer Conyers of _Sockburn_ is presumably King Yers, whose burn or brook was presumably named after Shock or Jock. In some parts of England a bogey dog is known under the title of "Old Shock," and in connection with Conyers and John that slew ye worm may be noted near Conway the famous Llandudno headlands, Great and Little _Orme_ or _Worm_.

The St. George of Scandinavia is named Gest: that Gest was the great _Gust_ or Mighty Wind is probable, and it is more likely that Windsor, a world-famous seat of St. George, meant, not as is assumed _winding shore_, but _wind sire_. That St. George was the Ruler of the gusts or winds is implied by the fact that among the Finns, anyone brawling on St. George's Day was in danger of suffering from storms and tempests. The murmuring of the wind in the oak groves of Dodona was held to be the voice of Zeus, and the will of the All Father was there further deduced by means of a three-chained whip hanging over a metal basin from the hand of the statue of a boy. From the movements of these chains, agitated by the wind and blown by the gusts till they tinkled against the bowl, the will of the _Ghost_ was guessed, and the word _guess_ seemingly implies that guessing was regarded as the operation of the good or bad _geis_ within. In Windsor Great Forest stood the famous Oak or Picktree, where Puck, _alias_ Herne the Hunter, appeared occasionally in the form of an antlered Buck. The supposition that St. George was the great _Gush_ or _geyser_ is strengthened by the fact that near the Cornish Padstow, Petrock-Stowe, or the stowe of the Great Pater, there is a well called St. George's Well. This well is described as a "mere spring which gushes from a rock," and the legend states that the water gushed forth immediately St. George had trodden on the spot and has ne'er since ceased to flow.

The Italian for blue--the colour of the deep water and of the high Heavens--is also _turchino_, and on 23rd April (French _Avril_), blue coats used to be worn in England in honour of the national saint whose red cross on a white ground has immemorially been our Naval Ensign.[290] St. George figured particularly in the Furry or Flora dance at Helston, and the month of _Avril_, a period when the earth is opening up its treasures, seemingly derives its name from Ver or Vera, the "daughter deare" of Flora. On 23rd April "the riding of the George" was a principal solemnity in certain parts of England: on St. George's Day a White Horse used to stand harnessed at the end of St. George's Chapel in St. Martin's Church, Strand, and the Duncannon Street, which now runs along the south side of this church, argues the erstwhile existence either here or somewhere of a dun or down of cannon. A cannon is a gun, and our Dragoon guards are supposed to have derived their title from the dragons or fire-arms with which they were armed. The inference is that the first inventors of the gun, cannon, or dragon, entertained the pleasing fancy that their weapon was the fire-spouting worm.[291] The dragon was the emblem of the _Cyn_bro or Kymry: associated with the red cross of St. George it is the cognisance of London, and a fearsome dragon stands to-day at the boundary of the city on the site of Temple Bar.

In the reign of Elizabeth an injunction was issued that "there shall be neither George nor Margaret," an implication that Margaret was once the recognised Consort of St. George, and the expression "riding of the George," points to the probability that the White Horse, even if riderless, was known as "the George". The White Horse of Kent with its legend INVICTA implies--unless Heraldry is weak in its grammar--not a horse but a mare: George was Invictus or the Unconquerable, and, as will be seen, there are good reasons to suppose that the White Horse and White Mare were indigenous to Britain long before the times of the Saxon Hengist and Horsa. It is now generally accepted that Hengist, which meant _horse_, and Horsa, which meant _mare_, were mythical characters. With the coming of the Saxons no doubt the worship of the White Horse revived for it was an emblem of Hanover, and in Hanover cream-coloured horses were reserved for the use of royalty alone. With the notorious Hanoverian Georges may be connoted the fact that opposite St. George's Island at Looe (Cornwall) is a strand or market-place named Hannafore: at Hinover in Sussex a white horse was carved into the hillside.