Chapter VI: Puck (2)

The White Horse--which subsequently became the Hobby Horse, or the Hob's Horse, of our popular revels--has been carved upon certain downs in England and Scotland for untold centuries. That these animals were designedly white is implied by an example on the brown heather hills of Mormond in Aberdeenshire: here the subsoil is black and the required white has been obtained by filling in the figure with white felspar stones.[292] It will be noticed that the White Horse at Uffington as reproduced overleaf is beaked like a bird, and has a remarkable dot-and-circle eye: in Figs. 110 to 113 the animal is similarly beaked, and in Fig. 111 the object in the bill is seemingly an egg. The designer of Fig. 109 has introduced apparently a goose or swan's head, and also a sprig or branch. The word BODUOC may or may not have a relation to Boudicca or Boadicea of the Ikeni--whose territories are marked by the Ichnield Way of to-day--but in any case _Boudig_ in Welsh meant victory or Victorina, whence the "very peculiar horse" on this coin may be regarded as a prehistoric Invicta. The St. George of Persia there known as Mithras was similarly worshipped under the guise of a white horse, and Mithras was similarly "Invictus". The winged genius surmounting the horse on Fig. 114, a coin of the Tarragona, Tarchon, or _dragon_ district--is described as "Victory flying," and there is little doubt that the idea of White Horse or Invictus was far spread. At Edgehill there used to be a Red Horse carved into the soil, and the tenancy of the neighbouring Red Horse Farm was held on the condition that the tenant scoured the Red Horse annually _on Palm Sunday_: the palm is the emblem of Invictus, and it will be noticed how frequently the palm branch appears in conjunction with the horse on our British coinage.

The story of St. George treading on the Padstow Rock, and the subsequent gush of water, is immediately suggestive of the Pegasus legend. Pegasus, the winged steed of the Muses, which, with a stroke of its hoof, caused a fountain to gush forth, is supposed to have been thus named because he made his first appearance near the _sources_--Greek _pegai_--of Oceanus. It is obvious, however, from the coins of Britain, Spain, and Gaul, that Pegasus--occasionally astral-winged and hawk-headed--was very much at home in these regions, and it is not improbable that _pegasus_ was originally the Celtic _Peg Esus_. The god Esus of Western Europe--one of whose portraits is here given--was not only King Death, but he is identified by De Jubainville with Cuchulainn, the Achilles or Young Sun God of Ireland.[293] Esus, the counterpart of Isis, was probably the divinity worshipped at Uzes in Gaul, a coin of which town, representing a seven-rayed sprig springing from a brute, is here reproduced, and that King Esus or King Osis was the Lord of profound speculation, is somewhat implied by _gnosis_, the Greek word for knowledge. Tacitus mentions that the neighing of the sacred white horse of the Druids was regarded as oracular; the voice of a horse is termed its neigh, from which it would seem horses were regarded as super-intelligent animals which _knew_.[294] The inscription CUN or CUNO which occurs so frequently on the horse coins of Western Europe is seemingly akin to _ken_, the root of _know_, _knew_, _canny_, and _cunning_. In India the elephant _Ganesa_--seemingly a feminine form of _Genesis_ and _Gnosis_--was deemed to be the Lord of all knowledge.

In connection with Pegasus may be noted Buk_ephalus_, the famed steed of Alexander. The Inscriptions EPPILLUS and EPPI[295] occur on the Kentish coins, Figs. 122 and 123; _hipha_ or _hippa_ was the Phoenician for a mare; in Scotland the nightmare is known as _ephi_altus; a _hippo_drome is a horse course, whence, perhaps, Bukephalus may be translated Big Eppilus. The little elf or elve under a bent sprig is presumably Bog or Puck, and in connection with the _Eagle_-headed Pegasus of Fig. 164 may be noted the Puckstone by the megalithic _Aggle_ Stone at Pur_beck_, where is a St. Alban's Head.[296]

Whether or not Pegasus was Big Esus or Peg or Puck Esus is immaterial, but it is quite beyond controversy that the animals now under consideration are Elphin Steeds and that they are not the "deplorable abortions" which numismatists imagine. The recognised authorities are utterly contemptuous towards our coinage, to which they apply terms such as "very rude," "an attempt to represent a horse," "barbarous imitation," and so forth; but I am persuaded that the craftsmen who fabricated these archaic coins were quite competent to draw straightforward objects had such been their intent. Akerman is seriously indignant at the indefiniteness of the object which resembles a fishbone and "has been called a fern leaf," and he sums up his feelings by opining that this uncouth representation may be as much the result of incompetent workmanship as of successive fruitless attempts at imitation.[297]

Incompetent comprehension would condemn Figs. 124 to 129, particularly the draughtsmanship of the head: it is hardly credible, yet, says Akerman, the small winged elf in these coins "apparently escaped the observation of M. de Saulcy". They emanated from the Tarragonian town of Ana or Ona, and are somewhat suggestive of the mythic tale that Minerva sprang from the head of Jove: the horses on the Gaulish coin illustrated in Fig. 130, which is attributed either to Verdun or Vermandois, are inscribed VERO IOVE and that Jou was the White Horse is, to some extent, implied by our elementary words _Gee_ and _Geho_. According to Hazlitt "the exclamation Geho! Geho! which carmen use to their horses is not peculiar to this country, as I have heard it used in France":[298] it is probable that the Jehu who drove furiously was a memory of the solar charioteer; it is further probable that the story of Io, the divinely fair daughter of Inachus, who was said to have been pursued over the world by a malignant gadfly, originated in the lumpish imagination of some one who had in front of him just such elfin emblems as the pixy horse now under consideration. That in reality the gadfly was a good _mouche_ is implied by the term gad: the inscription KIO on Fig. 74 (p. 253) reads Great Io or Great Eye, and in connection with the remarkable optic of the White Horse at Uffington may be connoted the place-name Horse Eye near _Bex_hill. The curious place-name Beckjay in Shropshire is suggestive of Big Jew or Joy: the blue-crested monarch of the woods we call a jay (Spanish, _gayo_, "of doubtful origin") was probably the bird of Jay or Joy--just as _picus_ or the crested woodpecker was admittedly Jupiter's bird--and the Jaye's Park in Surrey, which is in the immediate neighbourhood of Godstone, Gadbrooke, and Kitlands, was seemingly associated at some period with Good Jay or Joy.

We speak ironically to-day of our "Jehus," and the word _hack_ still survives: in Chaucer's time English carters encouraged their horses with the exclamation Heck![299] the Irish for _horse_ was _ech_, and the inscription beneath the effigy on Fig. 131, a Tarragonian coin, reads, according to Akerman, EKK. That the _hack_ was connected in idea with the oak is somewhat implied by a horse ornament in my possession, the eye or centre of which is represented by an oak corn or _ac_orn. In the North of England the elves seem to have been known as _hags_, for fairy rings are there known as _hag_ tracks. The word _hackney_ is identical with Boudicca's tribe the Ikeni, and it is believed that Cæsar's reference to the Cenimagni or Cenomagni refers to the Ikeni: whence it is probable that the Ikeni, like the Cantii, were worshippers of Invicta, the Great Hackney, the _Ceni Magna_ or Hackney Magna.

The water horse which figures overleaf may be connoted with the Scotch kelpie, which is radically _ek Elpi_ or _Elfi_: the kelpie or water horse of Scotch fairy lore is a ghastly spook, just as Alpa in Scandinavia is a ghoul and _Ephialtes_ in Albany or Scotland is a nightmare: but there must almost certainly have been a White Kelpie, for the Greeks held a national horse race which they termed the Calpe, and Calpe is the name of the mountain which forms the European side of the Pillars of Hercules. From the surnames Killbye and Gilbey one may perhaps deduce a tribe who were followers of _'K Alpe_ the _Great All Feeder_: that the kelpie was regarded as the fourfold feeder is obvious from the four most unnatural teats depicted on the Pixtil coin of Fig. 133.

The Welsh form of Alphin is Elphin, and the Cornish height known as Godolphin--whence the family name Godolphin--implies, like Robin Goodfellow, _Good Elphin_. With Elphin, Alban, and Hobany may be connected the Celtic Goddess Epona, "the tutelar deity of horses and probably originally a horse totem". To Epona may safely be assigned the word _pony_; Irish _poni_; Scotch _powney_, all of which the authorities connect with _pullus_, the Latin for _foal_: it is quite true there is a _p_ in both. We have already traced a connection between neighing, knowing, kenning, and cunning, and there is seemingly a further connection between Epona, the Goddess of Horses, and _opine_, for according to Plato the horse signified "reason and _opinion_ coursing about through natural things".[300]

British horses used to be known familiarly as Joan, and the term _jennet_ presumably meant _Little Joan_: the Italian for a _hackney_ is _chinea_. At Hackney, which now forms part of London, there is an Abney Park which was once, it may be, associated with Hobany or Epona: the main street of Hackney or Haconey (which originally contained the Manor of Hoxton) is Mare Street; and this _mare_ was seemingly the Ken_mure_ whose traces are perpetuated in Kenmure Road, Hackney. At the corner of Seven Sisters Road is the church of St. Olave, and the neighbouring Alvington Street suggests that this Kingsland Road district was once a town or down of Alvin the Elphin King. Godolphin Hill in Cornwall was alternatively known as Godolcan, and there is every reason to suppose that Elphin was the good old king, the good all-king, and the good holy king.

Hackney was seemingly once one of the many congregating "Londons," and we may recognise Elen or Ollan in London Fields, London Lane, Lyne Grove, Olinda (or Good Olin) Road, Londesborough Road, Ellingfort (or Strong Ellin) Road, Lenthall (or Tall Elen) Road. In Linscott Street there stood probably at one time a Cot, Cromlech, or "Kit's Coty," and at the neighbouring Dalston[301] was very possibly a Tallstone, equivalent to the Cornish _tal carn_ or _high rock_.

The adjective _long_ or _lanky_ is probably of Hellenic origin, and the giants or long men sometimes carved in hill-sides (as at Cerne Abbas) were like all Longstones once perhaps representations of Helen.

The Town Hall at Hackney stands on a plot of ground known as Hackney Grove, and the neighbouring Mildmay Park and Mildmay Grove suggest a grove or sanctuary of the Mild May or Mary. That Pegasus was known familiarly in this district is implied by the White Horse Inn on Hackney Marshes and by its neighbour "The Flying Horse": Hackney neighbours Homerton, and that the national Hackney or _mare_ was Homer or Amour is obvious from Fig. 135, where a heart, the universal emblem of _amour_, is represented at its Hub, navel, or bogel. According to Sir John Evans the "principal characteristic" of Fig. 136 is "the heart-shaped figure between the forelegs of the horse, the meaning of which I am at a loss to discover":[302] but any yokel could have told Sir John the meaning of the heart or hearts which are still carved into tree trunks, and were rarely anything else than the emblems of Amor. The observant Londoner will not fail to notice particularly on May Day--the Mary or Mother Day--when our Cockney horses parade in much of their immemorial finery and pomp--that golden hearts, stringed in long sequences over the harness, are conspicuous among the half-moons, stars, and other prehistoric emblems of the Bona dea or pre-Christian Mary.

Hackney includes the churches of St. Mary, St. Michael, and St. Jude: Jude is the same word as _good_, and the St. Jude of Scripture who was surnamed Thadee, and was said to be the son of Alpheus, is apparently Good Tadi or Daddy, _alias_ St. Alban the All Good, the Kaadman. St. Jude is also St. Chad, and there was a celebrated Chadwell[303] at the end of the Marylebone Road now known as St. Pancras or King's Cross: at King's Cross there is a locality still known as Alpha Place.

At Hackney is a Gayhurst Road, which may imply an erstwhile hurst or wood of Gay or Jay, and "at the south end of Springfield Road there is a curious and interesting little hamlet lying on the water's edge. The streets are very steep, and some of them extremely narrow--mere passages like the wynds in Edinburgh."[304] This little hamlet is "encircled" by Mount Pleasant Lane, whence one may assume that the eminence itself was known at some time or other as Mount Pleasant.

The "Mount Pleasant" at Hackney may be connoted with the more famous "Mount Pleasant" at Dun Ainy, Knock Ainy, or the Hill of Aine in Limerick. The "_pleasant_ hills" of Ireland were defined as "_ceremonial_ hills," and it was particularly on the night of All Hallows that the immemorial ceremonies were there observed. To this day Aine or Ana, a beautiful and gracious water-spirit, "the best-natured of women," is reverenced at Knockainy, and the legend persists that "Aine promised to save bloodshed if the hill were given to her till the end of the world".[305] That Mount Pleasant at Hackney or Hackoney was similarly dedicated to High Aine or Ana is an inference to which the facts seem clearly to point.

It would also be permissible to interpret Hackney as Oaken Island, in which light it may be connoted with Glastonbury, the word _glaston_ being generally supposed to be _glasten_, the British for oak. Glastonbury, the celebrated Avalon, Apple Island, Apollo Island, or Isle of Rest, was a world-famous "Mount Pleasant," and on its most elevated height there stands St. Michael's Tower. Glastonbury itself,[306] "its two streets forming a perfect cross," is almost engirdled by a little river named the _Brue_. The French town _Bray_ is in the so-called Santerre or Holy-land district: the remains of a megalithic _santerre_, _saintuarie_ or sanctuary are still standing at Abury or Aubury in Wiltshire, and we may equate this place-name with _abri_, a generic term in French, "origin unknown," for _sanctuary_ or refuge.

Near Bray, Santerre, is Auber's Ridge, which may be connoted with Aubrey Walk, the highest spot in Kensington, and it would seem that _Abury's_, _abris_, or "Mount Pleasants" were once plentiful in the bundle of communities, townships, parishes, and lordships which have now merged into the Greater London: Ebury Square in the South-West may mark one, and Highbury in the North, with its neighbouring "Mount Pleasant," another.

The immortal Mount Pleasant of the Muses was named Helicon, and from here sprang the celebrated fountains Aganippe and Hippocrene. At Holywell in Wales there is a village called Halkin lying at the foot of a hill named Helygen: there is a Heligan Hill in Cornwall, and a river Olcan in Hereford: there is an Alconbury in Hunts, and an Elkington (Domesday Alchinton) at Louth. An Elk is a gigantic buck whose radiating antlers are so fern-like that a genus has appropriately been designated the Elk fern. Ilkley in Yorkshire is thought to be the Olicana of Ptolemy, and there is standing to-day at Ramsgate a Holy Cone or Helicon modernised into "Hallicondane". The _dane_ here probably implies a _dun_ or hill-fort, and the _Hallicon_ itself consists of a peak crossed by four roads.[307] This Ramsgate Hallicondane, which stands by Allington Park, may have been a _dun_ of the Elle or Elf King: in France Hellequin is associated with Columbine, and the little figure labelled CUIN (_infra_, p. 397 Fig. 336), may be identified with this virgin. The Alcantara district to which this Cuin coin has been attributed was, it may safely be assumed, a _tara_, _tre_, or _troy_ of Alcan.

On the top of Tory Hill in Kilkenny, _i.e._, _Kenny's Church_, stood a pagan altar: the more famous Tara or Temair is associated primarily with a "son of Ollcain"; it is said next to have passed into the possession of a certain Cain, and to have been known as _Druim Cain_ or "Cain's Ridge".[308]

Halcyon days mean blissful, pleasant, radiant, ideal, days, and of the Holy King or All King the blue jewelled King-fisher or Halcyon seems to have been a symbol. Whether there be any connection between Elgin and the Irish Hooligans, or whether these trace their origin to the "son of Ollcain," I do not know. From the colossal Kinia and Acongagua down to the humblest _peg_, every _peak_ seems to have been similarly named. The pimple is a diminutive hill or _pock_, and the _pykes_ of Cumberland are the _peaks_ of Derbyshire. At the summit of the Peak District stands Buxton, claiming to be the highest market-town in England: around Buxton, formerly written "Bawkestanes," still stand cromlechs and other Poukelays or Buk stones: Backhouse is a surname in the Buxton district, and the original Backhouses may well have worshipped either Bacchus, _i.e._, St. Baccho, or the gentle Baucis who merged into a Linden tree.

Near Buxton are the sources of the river Wye, and by Wye in Kent, near Kennington, we find Olantigh Park, St. Alban's Court, Mount Pleasant, Little London, and Trey Town: by the church at Wye are two inns, named respectively "The Old Flying Horse," and "The New Flying Horse"; Wye races are still held upon an egg-shaped course, and close to Kennington Oval--which I am unable to trace beyond its earlier condition of a market-garden--stands a celebrated "White Horse Inn". At Kennington by Wye a roadside inn sign is "The Golden Ball," which once presumably implied the Sun or Sol, for in the immediate neighbourhood is Soles Court.

The horse was a constantly recurring emblem in the coins of Hispania, and the object on the Iberian coin here illustrated is defined by Akerman as "an apex": the appearance of this symbol, seemingly a spike or peg posed upon a teathill, on an Iberian or Aubreyan coin is evidence of its sanctity in West Europe. Theologians of the Dark Ages have been ridiculed for debating the number of angels that could stand upon a pin-point, but it is more than probable that the question was a subject of discussion long before their time: the Chinese believe that "at the beginning of Creation the chaos floated as a fish skims along the surface of a river; from whence arose something like a _thorn_ or _pickle_, which, being capable of motion and variation, became a soul or spirit".[309] The fairy sanctity of the thorn bush would therefore seem to have arisen from its _spikes_, and the abundance of these emblems would naturally elevate it into the house or abode of _spooks_: the burning bush, in which form the Almighty is said to have appeared before Moses, was, according to Rabbinical tradition, a thorn bush: the Elluf and the Alvah trees--the _aleph_ or the _alpha_ trees?--are described as large thorned species of Acacia; and the spiky acacia, Greek _Akakia_, is related to _akis_, a point or thorn.

One of the attributes of the Man-in-the-Moon is a Thorn Bush, whence Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Moonshine, "This thorn bush is my thorn bush; and this dog my dog". The Man-in-the-Moon being identified with _Cain_, it becomes interesting to note that the surname Kennett is accepted as a Norman diminutive of _chien_, a dog.[310] On p. 149--a mediæval papermark--the Wanderer is surmounted by a bush; a bush is a little tree, and the word _bush_ (of unknown origin) is a variant of Bogie--also of _bougie_, the French for candle: bushes and briars were the acknowledged haunts of Bogie, _alias_ Hobany or Hob-with-a-canstick or bougie.

_Bouche_ used to be an English word meaning meat and drink, whence Stow, referring to the English archers, says they had _bouch_ of court (to wit, meat and drink) and great wages of sixpence by the day.[311] In Rome and elsewhere a suspended bush was the sign of an inn, whence the expression "Good wine needs no bush": the _bouche_ or mouth is where meat and drink goes in, similarly _mouth_ may be connoted with the British _meath_, meaning nourishment. _Peck_ is also an old word for provender, and we still speak of feeling peckish.[312]

The word _bucket_--allied to Anglo-Saxon _buc_, meaning a pitcher--implies that this variety of large can or mug was used for peck purposes: the illustration herewith, representing the decoration on a bronze bucket found at Lake Maggiore, consists of speck-centred circles, and dotted, spectral, or maculate geese, bucks, and horses.

It is unnecessary to dilate on the great importance played in civic life by inns: numberless place-names are directly traceable to inn-signs; and the brewing of church ales, considered in conjunction with facts which will be noted in a subsequent chapter, make it almost certain that churches once dispensed food and drink and that _inn_ was originally an earlier name for church. Among the inscriptions of the catacombs is one which the authorities believe marks the sepulchre of a brewer: but these pictographs are without exception emblems, and it is more likely that the design in question (Fig. 140) stands for "that Brewer,"[313] the Lord of the Vineyard, or the Vinedresser. The Green Man with his Still implies a brewer; the distilling of Benedictine is still an ecclesiastical occupation, and the word _brew_ suggests that brewing was once the peculiar privilege of the _pères_ or priests who brewed the sacred ales. The word _keg_ is the same as the familiar Black _Jack_, and under _jug_ Skeat writes: "Drinking vessels of all kinds were formerly called _jocks_, _jills_, and _jugs_, all of which represent Christian names. Jug and Judge were usual as pet female names, and equivalent to Jenny or Joan."

The Hackney inn known as "The Flying Horse" may possibly owe its foundation and sign to the Templars, who possessed property in Hackney: the Templars' badge of Pegasus still persists in the Temple at Whitefriars, and the circular churches of the Templars had certainly some symbolic connection with Sun or Golden Ball. At Jerusalem, the ideal city which was always deemed to be the hub, bogel, or navel of the world, there are some extraordinary rock-hewn water tanks, known as the stables of King Solomon: Jerusalem was known as Hierosolyma or Holy Solyma, and that Solyma, Salem, or Peace was associated in Europe with the horse is clear from the coin of the Gaulish tribe known as the Solmariaca (Fig. 141). The animal here represented is treading under foot a dragon or scorpion, and the Solmariaca, whose city is now Soulosse, were seemingly followers of Solmariak, the Sol Mary, or Fairy. The aim of the _Free_masons is the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon or Wisdom, and it is quite evident that the front view of a temple on Fig. 142 is not the representation of a material building such as the Houses of Parliament now depicted on our modern paper-money. The centre of Fig. 142 is a four-specked cross, the centre-piece of Fig. 143 is the six-breasted Virgin, and Fig. 144 is a very elaborated pantheon, hierarchy, or habitation of All Hallows: the inscription reads BASILICA ULPIA, _i.e._, _The Church_ Ulpia.

Abdera, now Adra, is a Spanish town on the shores of the Mediterranean, founded, according to Strabo, by the Tyrians, and the name thus seems to connote a _tre_ of _Ab_ or Hob. I have elsewhere endeavoured to prove that King Solomon, the Mighty Controller of the Jinns, was the Eye of Heaven or the Sun, and this emblem appears in the triangle or delta of Fig. 145: the corresponding inscription on Fig. 145 are Phoenician characters, reading THE SUN,[314] and the curious fish-pillars are almost certainly a variant of the _deddu_. In Ireland a Salmon of Wisdom enters largely into Folklore: the word _salmon_ is Solomon or Wisdom, as also is _solemn_: in Latin _solemn_ is _solennis_, upon which Skeat comments: "Annual, occurring yearly, like a religious rite, religious, solemn, Latin _sollus_, entire, complete: _annus_, a year. Hence _solemn_--returning at the end of a complete year. The old Latin _sollus_ is cognate with Welsh _holl_, whole, entire." The cognomen Solomon occurs several times in the lists of British Kings, and one may see it figuring to-day on Cornish shop-fronts in the form of variants such as Sleeman, Slyman, etc. Solomon may be resolved into the Sol man, the Seul man, the Silly[315] (innocent) man, or the Sly man, the Cunning man, or Magus. The "Sea horse" to the right, illustrated by Akerman on Plate XX, No. 8, is a coin of the Gaulish Magusa, and bears the inscription Magus which, as will be remembered, was a title of the Wandering Jew.

Maundrell, the English traveller, describing his journey in the seventeenth century to Jerusalem, has recorded that, "Our quarters, this first night, we took up at the Honeykhan, a place of but indifferent accommodation, about one hour and a half west of Aleppo". He goes on to say: "It must here be noted that, in travelling this country, a man does not meet with a market-town and inns every night, as in England. The best reception you can find here is either under your own tent, if the season permit, or else in certain public lodgments, founded in charity for the use of travellers. These are called by the Turks _khani_; and are seated sometimes in the towns and villages, sometimes at convenient distances upon the open road. They are built in fashion of a cloister, encompassing a court of 30 or 40 yards square, more or less, according to the measure of the founder's ability or charity. At these places all comers are free to take shelter, paying only a small fee to the khan-keeper (khanji), and very often without that acknowledgment; but one must expect nothing here but bare walls. As for other accommodations of meat, drink, bed, fire, provender, with these it must be every one's care to furnish himself."[316]

The main roads of Britain were once seemingly furnished with similar shelters which were known as Coldharbours, and the Coldharbour Lanes of Peckham and elsewhere mark the sites of such refuges.

The Eastern khans, "built in fashion of a cloister," find their parallel in the enclosed form of all primitive shelters, and the words _close_ and _cloister_ are radically _eccles_, _eglos_, or _eglise_. Whence the authorities suppose Beccles in Silly Suffolk to be a corruption of _beau eglise_ or Beautiful Church: but to whom was this "beautiful church" first reared and dedicated, and by what name did the inhabitants of Beccles know their village? The surname Clowes, which may be connoted with Santa Claus, is still prevalent at Beccles, a town which belonged anciently to _Bury_ Abbey.

The patron saint of English inns, travellers, and cross-roads, was the Canaanitish Christopher, and the earliest block prints representing Kit were "evidently made for pasting against the walls in inns, and other places frequented by travellers and pilgrims."[317] Kit's intercession was thought efficacious against all dangers, either by fire, flood, or earthquake, hence his picture was sometimes painted in colossal size and occupied the whole height of the building whether church or inn. The red cross of St. John of Jerusalem was the _Christopher_; travellers carried images of Cuddy as charms, and the equation of St. John with Canaanitish Christopher will account for Christopher's Houses being entitled Inns,[318] or Johns, or Khans. Under the travellers' images of Christopher used to be printed the inscription, "Whosoever sees the image of St. Christopher shall that day not feel any sickness," or alternatively, "The day that you see St. Christopher's face, that day shall you not die an evil death". The emblem on page 262, was, I think, wrongly guessed by Didron as "the spirit of youth": it is more probably a variant of Christopher, or the Spirit of Love, helping the palmer or pilgrim of life.

Fig. 146, a coin of the Turones, whose ancient capital is now Tours, consists of a specky or spectral horse accompanied by an urn: this urn was the symbol of the Virgin, and the reader will be familiar with a well-known modern picture in which La Source is ambiguously represented as a maiden standing with a pitcher at a spring. _Yver_ is Norse for a _warm bubbling spring_, and on the coins of Vergingetorix we find the pitcher and the horse: the word _virgin_ is equivalent to _Spring Queen_, and as _ceto_ figures largely in British mythology as the ark, box, or womb of Ked, it is probable that Virgingetorix may be interpreted King Virgin Keto. In Gaul _rex_ meant King or Queen, but this word is less radical than the Spanish _rey_, French _roi_, British _rhi_: according to Sir John Rhys, "the old Irish _ri_, genitive _rig_, king, and _rigan_ queen would be somewhat analogous, although the Welsh _rhian_, the equivalent of the Irish _rigan_, differs in being mostly a poetic term for a lady who need not be royal".[319] The name Maria, which in Spain is bestowed indiscriminately upon men and women, would therefore seem to be _Mother Queen_, and _Rhea_, the Great Mother of Candia, might be interpreted as _the Princess_ or _the Queen_.

Among inscriptions to the Gaulish Apollo the most common are those in which he is entitled Albiorix and Toutiorix: these are understood by the authorities as having meant respectively "King of the World," and "King of the People".

With the Cornish Well known as Joan's Pitcher may be connoted the variety of large bottle called a _demijohn_: according to Skeat this curious term is from the French _damejeanne_, Spanish _damajuana_--"Much disputed but _not_ of Eastern origin. The French form is right as it stands though often much perverted. From French _dame_ (Spanish _dama_), lady; and Jeanne (Spanish Juana), Joan, Jane." In our word _pitcher_ the _t_ has been wrongly inserted, the French _picher_ is the German _becher_, Greek _bikos_, and all these terms including _beaker_ are radically Peggy, Puck or Big. Pitchers are one of the commonest sepulchral offerings, and we are told that the Iberian bronze-working brachycephalic invaders of Britain introduced the type of sepulchral ceramic known as the beaker or drinking cup: "This vessel," says Dr. Munro, "was almost invariably deposited beside the body, and supposed to have contained food for the soul of the departed on its way to the other world."[320]

The German form of Peggy or Margaret is Gretchen, which resolves into Great _Chun_ or Great _Mighty Chief_: Margot and Marghet may be rendered _Big God_ or _Fairy God_ or _Mother Good_.

That the pitcher, demijohn, or jug was regarded in some connection with the Big Mother or Great Queen is obvious from the examples illustrated, and the apparition of this emblem on the coins of Tours may be connoted with the female-breasted jugs which were described by Schliemann as "very frequent" in the ruins of Troy. Similar objects were found at Mykenæ in connection with which Schliemann observes: "With regard to this vase with the female breasts similar vases were found on the islands of Thera (Santorin) and Therassia in the ruins of the prehistoric cities which, as before stated, were covered by an eruption of that great central volcano which is believed by competent geologists to have sunk and disappeared about 1700 to 1800 B.C.".[321] It is peculiarly noticeable that the dame Jeanne or jug is thus associated in particular with Troy, Etruria, Therassia, Thera (Santorin), the Turones, and Tours.

The centre stone of megalithic circles constituted the speck or dot within the circle of the feeder or pap, and not infrequently one finds a Longstone termed either The Fiddler or The Piper. The incident of the Pied Piper is said to have occurred at Hamelyn on June 26th, 1284, during the feast of St. John and St. Paul. The street known as Bungen Strasse through which the Piper went followed by the enraptured children is still sacred to the extent that bridal and other processions are compelled to cease their music as they traverse it: Bungen of Bungen Street may thus seemingly be equated with _bon John_ or St. John on whose feast day the miracle is said to have happened. The Hamelyn Piper who--

... blew three notes, such sweet
Soft notes as never yet musician's cunning
Gave to the enraptured air,

may be connoted with Pan or _Father An_, and the mountain now called Koppenberg, into which the Hamelyn children were allured, was obviously Arcadia or the happy land of Pan: the _berg_ of Koppenberg is no doubt relatively modern, and the original name, Koppen, resolves into _cop_, _kopje_, or _hill-top of Pan_. The Land of the Pied Piper was manifestly _Himmel_, which is the German for _heaven_, and it may also be the source of the place-name Hamelyn.

He led us, he said, to a joyous land
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new.

The story of the Piper and the children is found also in Abyssinia, and likewise among the Minussinchen Tartars: the word Minnusinchen looks very like small _Sinchen_ or beloved Sinchen, and with this _Sinchen_ or _bungen_ may be connoted the Tartar _panshen_ or pope, and also Gian Ben Gian, the Arabian name for the All Ruler of the Golden Age. That Cupid was known among the Tartars is somewhat implied by the divinity illustrated on p. 699.

The Tartar story makes the mysterious Piper a foal which courses round the world, and with our _pony_ may be connoted _tarpon_, the Tartar word for the wild horse of the Asiatic steppes. _Cano_ is the Latin for _I sing_, and on Figs. 152 and 153 the Great Enchantress or Incantatrice is represented with the Pipes of Pan: among the wonders in the land of Hamelyn's Piper were horses with eagles' wings and these, together with the celestial foal and other elphin marvels, are to be found depicted on the tokens of prehistoric Albion. The tale of the Pied Piper may be connoted with the emblem of Ogmius leading his tongue-tied willing captives, and in Fig. 158 the mighty Muse is playing in human form upon his lute. In Fig. 160 the story of St. Michael or St. George is being played by a Pegasus, and in Fig. 158 CUNO is represented as a radiant elf. The arrow on Fig. 163 connects the exquisitely executed little figure with Cupid, Eros, or Amor--the oldest of the Gods--and probably this particular cherub was known as Puck, for his coin was issued in the Channel Islands by a people who inscribed their tokens _Pooc_tika, _Buc_ato, _Pix_til, and _Pich_til, _i.e._, _Pich tall_ or _chief_(?).

It is not improbable that this young sprig was known as the Little Leaf Man, for in Thuringia as soon as the trees began to bud out, the children used to assemble on a Sunday and dress one of their playmates with shoots and sprigs: he was covered so thoroughly as to be rendered blind, whereupon two of his companions, taking him by the hand lest he should stumble, led him dancing and singing from home to home. Amor, like Homer, was reputed blind, and the what-nots on Fig. 167 may possibly be _leaves_, the symbols of the _living, loving Elf_, or _Life_--"this senior-junior, giant-dwarf Dan Cupid".

It was practically a universal pagan custom to celebrate the return of Spring by carrying away and destroying a rude idol of the old Dad or Death:--

Now carry we Death out of the village,
The new Summer into the village,
Welcome, dear Summer,
Green little corn.

In other parts of Bohemia--and the curious reader will find several Bohemias on the Ordnance maps of England--the song varies; it is not Summer that comes back but Life:--

We have carried away Death,
And brought back Life.[322]

At the feast of the Ascension in Transylvania, the image of Death is clothed gaudily in the dress of a girl: having wound throughout the village supported by two girls the image is stripped of its finery and flung into the river; the dress, however, is assumed by one of the girls and the procession returns singing a hymn. "Thus," says Miss Harrison, "it is clear that the girl is a sort of resuscitated Death." In other words, like the May Queen she symbolised the Virgin or Fairy Queen--Vera or Una, the Spirit, Sprout, or Spirit of the Universe, the Fair Ovary of Everything who is represented on the summit of the Christmas Tree: in Latin _virgo_ means not only a virgin but also a sprig or sprout.

FOOTNOTES:

[255] _Fairy Mythology_, p. 298.

[256] Courtney, Miss, _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 129.

[257] Hope, R. C., _Sacred Wells_.

[258] _Demonology and Witchcraft_.

[259] At the time of writing the Servians say they are putting
their trust in "Bog and Britannia".

[260] This is an official etymology. It is the one and only poetic
idea admitted into Skeat's Dictionary.

[261] _Cf._ Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 159.

[262] Pliny relates Varro's description as follows: "King Porsenna
was buried beneath the city of Clusium, in a place where he
left a monument of himself in rectangular stone. Each side
was 300 feet long and 50 feet high, and within the basement
he made an inextricable labyrinth, into which if anyone
ventured without a clue, there he must remain, for he never
could find the way out again. Above this base stood five
pyramids, one in the centre and four at the angles, each of
them 75 feet in circumference at the base, and 150 feet high,
tapering to the top so as to be covered by a cupola of
bronze. From this there hung by chains a peal of bells,
which, when agitated by the wind, sounded to a great
distance. Above this cupola rose four other pyramids, each
100 feet high, and above these again, another story of five
pyramids, which towered to a height so marvellous and
improbable, that Varro hesitates to affirm their altitude."
And in this he was wise, for he had already said more upon
the subject than was credible. However, any one who has seen
the tomb of Aruns, the son of Porsenna, near the gate of
Albano, will be struck with the similarity of style, which,
comparing small things with great, existed between the
monuments of father and son. Those who have never been in
Italy may like to know that this tomb of Aruns is said to
have been built by Porsenna, for the young Prince who fell
there in battle with the Latins, and with the Greeks from
Cuma, and it is certainly the work of Etruscan masons. Five
pyramids rise from a base of 55 sq. feet, and the centre one
contains a small chamber, in which was found, about fifty
years since, an urn full of ashes.--Gray, Mrs. Hamilton,
_Sepulchres of Etruria_, p. 450.

[263] Taylor, R., _Te Ika A Maui_, or _New Zealand and its
Inhabitants_, p. 352.

[264] _Cf._ Stow, _London_.

[265] Evans, Sir Arthur, quoted in _Crete of Pre-hellenic Europe_,
p. 32.

[266] Bonwick _Irish Druids and Old Irish Religion_, p. 230.

[267] Anwyl, E.

[268] It is not unlikely that the Goss and Cass families of to-day
are the descendants of the British tribe referred to by the
Romans as the Cassi.

[269] The Welsh for alban or alpin is elphin.

[270] Urlin, Miss Ethel M., _Festivals, Holy Days, and Saints'
Days_, p. 192.

[271] _Ibid._, p. 196.

[272] _Cf._ Hone, W., _Everyday Book_, vol. i., col. 1340.

[273] _Cf._ Hone, W., _Everyday Book_, vol. i., col. 1340.

[274] xli. 19.

[275] _Faiths and Folklore_, i., 332.

[276] _Celtic Britain_, p. 211. Sir John frequently changed his
mind.

[277] _Barddas_, p. 416.

[278] The Phrygian Cap was symbolic.

[279] _Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe_, p. xxxii.

[280] _Mykenæ_, p. 179.

[281] _Rude Stone Monuments_, p. 207.

[282] Baldwin, J. G., _Prehistoric Nations_, p. 162.

[283] Keightley, _Fairy Mythology_, p. 317.

[284] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 608.

[285] Rhys, Sir J., _Celtic Britain_, p. 271.

[286] The Celtic Angus is translated _excellent virtue_.

[287] _Cf._ Baring-Gould, Rev. S., _Curious Myths_, pp. 266-316.

[288] _Orphic Hymn_, lv., 5, 10, and 11.

[289] Courtney, Miss M. L., _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 136.

[290] From prehistoric times this ensign seems to have been known
as "the Jack," and the immutability of the fabulous element
was evidenced anew during the present year when on 23rd April
the Admiral on shore wirelessed to the Zeebrugge raiding
force: "England and St. George". To this was returned the
reply: "We'll give a twist to the dragon's tail".

[291] Since writing I find this surmise to be well founded. At the
present moment there is a Persian cannon (A.D. 1547) captured
at Bagdad, now on exhibition in London. It bears an
inscription to the effect:--

"'Succour is from God, and victory is at hand.'
The Commander of Victory and Help, the Shah,
Desiring to blot out all trace of the Turks,
Ordered Dglev to make this gun.
Wherever it goes it burns up lives,
It spits forth flames like a dragon.
It sets the world of the Turks on fire."

[292] Wise, T. A., _History of Paganism in Caledonia_, p. 114.

[293] _Irish Mytho. Cycle_, p. 229.

[294] The Norwegian for _neigh_ is _kn_eggya, the Danish, _gn_egge.

[295] There is no evidence to support the supposition that Eppillus
may have been an English king.

[296] An omniscient _eagle_ was associated with _Achill_ (Ireland).

[297] _Ancient Coins of the Romans Relating to Britain_, p. 197.

[298] _Faiths and Folklore_, vol. i., p. 329.

[299] _Faiths and Folklore_, vol. i., p. 329.

[300] Madeley, E., _The Science of Correspondence_, p. 194.

[301] Dalston in Cumberland is assumed to have been a town in the
dale or _dale's town_. But surely "towns" were never thus
anonymous?

[302] P. 299.

[303] Compare also Shadwell in East London, "said to be St. Chad's
Well".

[304] Mitton, G. E., _Hackney_, p. 11.

[305] _Cf._ Westropp, T. J., _Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy_,
vol. xxxiv., Sec. C., Nos. 3 and 4.

[306] Walters, J. Cuming, _The Lost Land of King Arthur_, p. 219.

[307] One of these has been slightly diverted by the exigencies of
the railway station.

[308] Macalister, R. A. S., _Temair Breg: A Study of the Remains
and Traditions of Tara, Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy_, sec. C., Nos. 10 and 11, p. 284.

[309] Picard, _Ceremonies of Idolatrous People_, vol. iv., p. 291.

[310] Weekley, E., _Romance of Names_, p. 224.

[311] _Survey of London_ (Everyman's Library), p. 416.

[312] The Peck family may have been inn-keepers or dealers in peck
or fodder, but more probably, like the Bucks and the Boggs,
they may trace their descent much farther.

[313] See _infra_, p. 689.

[314] Akerman, J. Y., _Ancient Coins_, p. 17.

[315] There is a river Slee or Slea in Lincolnshire.

[316] _Travels in the East_ (Bohn's Library), p. 384.

[317] Larwood & Hotten, _The History of Signboards_, p. 285.

[318] It is simply futile to refer the word _inn_ to "within,
indoors" (see Skeat).

[319] _Celtic Britain_, p. 66. It is therefore feasible that Wrens
Park, by Mildmay Park, Hackney, was primarily _reines_ Park.

[320] _Prehistoric Britain_, p. 247.

[321] _Mykenæ_, p. 293.

[322] _Ancient Art and Ritual_, pp. 70 and 71.