Chapter X: Happy England (1)

"In the old time every Wood and Grove, Field and Meadow, Hill and
Cave, Sea and River, was tenanted by tribes and communities of the
great Fairy Family, and at least one of its members was a resident
in every House and Homestead where the kindly virtues of charity
and hospitality were practised and cherished. This was the faith of
our forefathers--a graceful, trustful faith, peopling the whole
earth with beings whose mission was to watch over and protect all
helpless and innocent things, to encourage the good, to comfort the
forlorn, to punish the wicked, and to thwart and subdue the
overbearing."--ANON, _The Fairy Family_, 1857.

"It is very much better to believe in a number of gods than in none
at all."--W. B. YEATS.

It is generally supposed that the site of London has been in continuous occupation since that remote period when the flint-knappers chipped their implements at Gray's Inn, and the pile-dwelling communities, whose traces have been found in the neighbourhood of London Stone, drove their first stakes into the surrounding marshes. Not only are there in London the material evidences of antediluvian occupation, but "the fact remains that in the city of London there are more survivals from past history than can be found within the compass of any other British city, or of any other area in Britain."[593]

Sir Laurence Gomme assigns some importance to the place-name "Britaine Street"--now "Little Britain"--where, according to Stow, the Earls of Britain were lodged, but it is probable that in _Up_well, _Eb_gate, _Ab_church, _Ape_church or _Up_church, we may identify relics of an infinitely greater antiquity.

When Cæsar paid his flying visit to these islands he learned at the mouth of the Thames that what he terms an _oppidum_ or stronghold of the British was not far distant, and that a considerable number of men and cattle were there assembled. As it has been maintained that London was the stronghold here referred to, the term _oppidum_ may possibly have been a British word, Cæsar's testimony being: "_The Britons apply_ the name of _oppidum_ to any woodland spot difficult to access, and fortified with a rampart and trench to which they are in the habit of resorting in order to escape a hostile raid".[594] That the _dum_ of _oppidum_ was equivalent to _dun_ is manifest from the place-name Dumbarton, which was originally Dunbrettan.

In view of the natural situation of St. Alban's there is a growing opinion among archæologists that London, and not St. Alban's, was the stronghold which stood the shock of Roman conquest when Cæsar took the _oppidum_ of Cassivellaunus.

The inscriptions EP, EPPI, and IPPI figure frequently on British coins, and there were probably local hobby stones, hobby towns, and _oppi duns_ in the tribal centre of every settlement of hobby-horse worshippers. In Durham is Hoppyland Park, near Bridgewater is Hopstone, near Yarmouth is Hopton, and Hopwells; and Hopwood's, Happy Valley's, Hope Dale's, Hope Point's, Hopgreen's, Hippesley's and Apsley's may be found in numerous directions. It is noteworthy that none of these terms can have had any relation to the hop plant, for the word _hops_ is not recorded until the fifteenth century; nor, speaking generally, have they any direct connection with _hope_, meaning "the point of the low land mounting the hill whence the top can be seen".[595]

The word _hope_, meaning expectation, is in Danish _haab_, in German _hoffe_: Hopwood, near Hopton, is at Alvechurch (Elf Church?), apart from which straw one would be justified in the assumption that Hop, Hob, or Hoph, where it occurs in place-names, had originally reference to Hob-with-a-canstick, _alias_ Hop-o'-my-Thumb. The Hebrew expression for the witch of Endor, consulted by King Saul, is _ob_ or _oub_, but in Deuteronomy xviii. 11, the term _oph_ is used to denote a familiar spirit.[596] As we find a reference in Shakespeare to "urchins, _ouphes_, and fairies," the English ouphes would seem to have been one of the orders of the Elphin realm: the authorities equate it with _alph_ or _alp_, and the word has probably survived in the decadence of Kipling's "muddied _oaf_".

Offa, the proper name, is translated by the dictionaries as meaning _mild_, _gentle_: it is further remarkable that the root _oph_, _op_, or _ob_, is very usually associated with things diminutive and small. In Welsh _of_ or _ov_ means "atoms, first principles";[597] in French _oeuf_, in Latin _ova_, means an egg; the little egg-like berry of the hawthorn is termed a _hip_; to _ebb_ is to diminish, and in S.W. Wiltshire is "a _small_ river," named the Ebbe. Hob, with his flickering candlestick, or the homely Hob crouching on the hob, seems rarely to have been thought of otherwise than as the child Elf, such as that superscribed EP upon the British coin here illustrated: yet to the _ub_iquitous Hob may no doubt be assigned _up_, which means aloft or overhead, and _hoop_, the symbol of the Sun or Eye of Heaven.

Within and all around the _oppida_ the military and sacerdotal hubbub was undoubtedly at times uproarious, and the vociferation used on these occasions may account for the word _hubbub_,[598] a term which according to Skeat was "imitative". This authority adds to his conjecture: "formerly also _whoobub_, a confused noise. Hubbub was confused with _hoop-hoop_, re-duplication of _hoop_ and _whoobub_ with _whoop-hoop_." But even had our ancestors mingled _hip! hip!_ in their muddled minds even then the confusion would have been excusable.

_Ope_, when occurring in proper-names such as Panope or Europe, is usually translated Eye--thus, Panope as _Universal Eye_, and Europa as _Broad Eye_. The small red eye-like or optical berries of the hawthorn are termed _hips_ or haws, and it is probable that once upon a time the hips were deemed the elphin eyes of Hob, the Ubiquitous or Everywhere. In India the favourite bead in rosaries is the seed named _rudraksha_, which means "the Eye of the god Rudra or S'iva": Rudra, or the _ruddy one_, is the Hub or centre of the Hindoo pantheon, and S'iva, his more familiar name (now understood to mean "kindly, gracious, or propitious") is more radically "dear little Iva or Ipha". In India millions of S'eva stones are still worshipped, and the _rudraksha_ seeds or Eyes of S'iva are generally cut with eleven facets,[599] evidently symbolising the eleven Beings which are said to have sprung from the dual personalities--male and female--of the Creative Principle.

_Epine_, the French for thorn, is ultimately akin to Hobany, and _hip_ may evidently be equated with the friendly Hob. According to Bryant Hip or Hipha was a title of the Phoenician Prime Parent, and it is probable that our _Hip! Hip! Hip!_--the parallel of the Alban _Albani! Albani!_--long antedated the _Hurrah!_

The Hobdays and the Abdys of Albion may be connoted with _Good Hob_, and that this Robin Goodfellow or benevolent elf was the personification of shrewdness and cunning is implied by _apt_ and in_ept_, and that happy little Hob was considered to be pretty is implied by _hübsch_, the Teutonic for _pretty_: the word _pretty_ is essentially _British_, and the piratical habits of the early British are brought home to them by the word _pirate_. We shall, however, subsequently see that _pirates_ originally meant "attempters" or men who _tried_.

The surname Hepburn argues the existence at some time of a Hep bourne or brook; in Northumberland is Hepborne or Haybourne, which the authorities suppose meant "burn, brook, with the hips, the fruit of the wild rose": but hips must always have been as ubiquitous and plentiful as sparrows. In Yorkshire is Hepworth, anciently written Heppeword, and this is confidently interpreted as meaning _Farm of Heppo_: in view, however, of our hobby-horse festivals, it is equally probable that in the Hepbourne the Kelpie, the water horse, or _hippa_ was believed to lurk, and one may question the historic reality of farmer Heppo.

The hobby horse was principally associated with the festivals of May-Day, but it also figured at Yule Tide. On Christmas Eve either a wooden horse head or a horse's skull was decked with ribbons and carried from door to door on the summit of a pole supported by a man cloaked with a sheet: this figure was known as "Old Hob":[600] in Welsh _hap_ means fortune--either good or bad.

Apparently the last recorded instance of the Hobby-Horse dance occurred at Abbot's Bromley, on which occasion a man carrying the image of a horse between his legs, and armed with a bow and arrow (the emblems of Barry the Sovereign Archer), played the part of Hobby: with him were six companions wearing reindeer heads (the emblems of the Dayspring) who danced the hey and other ancient dances. Tollett supposes the famous hobby horse to be the King of the May "though he now appears as a juggler and a buffoon with a crimson foot-cloth fretted with gold, the golden bit, the purple bridle, and studded with gold, the man's purple mantle with a golden border which is latticed with purple, his golden crown, purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop".[601]

A _knop_ or _knob_ means a boss, protuberance, or rosebud--originally, of course, a wild rosebud which precedes the hip--and it is probably the same word as the CUNOB which occurs so frequently in British coins. In Fig. 314 CUNOB occurs alone, and I am not sure that Figs. 315 and 318 should not be read ELINI CUNOB. The knob figured not only on our Hobby Horse, but also as a symbol on the head-dress of Tyrian kings, and there is very little doubt that the charming small figure on the obverse of CUNOB ELINI is intended for King Ob, or Ep. There is a Knap Hill at Avebury, a Knapton in Yorkshire, and a Knapwell in Suffolk: Knebworth in Herts was Chenepenorde in Domesday, and the imaginary farmer Cnapa or Cnebba, to whom these place-names are assigned, may be equated with the afore-mentioned farmer Heppo of Hepworth.

Knaves Castle (Lichfield), now a small mound--a _heap_?--is ascribed to "_cnafa_, a boy or servant, later a knave, a rogue": Cupid is a notorious little rogue, nevertheless, proverbially Love makes the world go round, and constitutes its nave, navel, hub, or boss: with _snob_ Skeat connotes _snopp_, meaning a boy or anything _stumpy_.

In course of time like _boss_, Dutch _baas_, _knob_ seems to have been applied generally to mean a lord or master, and the Londoner who takes an agreeable interest in the "nobs"[602](and occasional _snobs_) riding in Hyde Park is possibly following an ancestral custom dating from the time when the Ring was originally constructed. Apsley House, now standing at the east end of Rotten Row, occupies the site of the park ranger's lodge, the Ranger was a highly important personage, and it is not improbable that the site of Apsley House was once known as Ap's lea or meadow. The immediately adjacent Stanhope Gate and Stanhope Street, or Stanhope in Durham, may mark the site of a stone hippa or horse similar to the famous stone horse in Brittany upon which--I believe to this day--women superstitiously seat themselves with the same purpose as they sit upon the Brahan stone in Ireland: Bryanstone Square in London is not more than a mile from Stanhope Street and Apsley House.

The Breton statue of Quinipily may be deemed a portrait of _holy Queen Ip_, and Gwennap, near Redruth, where is a famous amphitheatre, was probably a Queen Hip lea or seat of the same Queen's worship.

Gwen Ap was presumably the same as Queen Aph or Godiva, the Lady of the White Horse, and Godrevy on the opposite side of St. Ives Bay may be equated with _Good rhi Evy_, or Good Queen Evie. A few miles from Liskeard there is a village named St. Ive, which the natives pronounce _St. Eve_: the more western, better-known Saint Ive's, is mentioned in a document of 1546 as "Seynt Iysse," and what apparently is this same dedication reappears at a place four miles west of Wadebridge termed St. Issey. "Whose name is it," inquires W. C. Borlase, "that the parish of St. Issey bears?" He suggests somewhat wildly that it may be the same as Elidius, corrupted to Liddy, Ide, or Idgy, endeavouring to prove that this Elidius is the same as the great Welsh Teilo.

It would be simpler and more reasonable to assume that St. Issey is a trifling corruption of "Eseye," which was one of the titles of the old British Mother of Life. The goddess Esseye--alternatively and better known as Keridwen--is described by Owen in his _Cambrian Biography_ as "a female personage, in the mythology of the Britons considered as _the first of womankind_, having nearly the same attributes with Venus, in whom are personified the generative powers".

With Eseye and with St. Issey, _alias_ St. Ive, may be connoted the deserted town of Hesy in Judea: on the mound now known as Tell el Hesy, or the hill town of Hesy, the remains of at least eight super-imposed prehistoric cities have been excavated, and among the discoveries on this site was a limestone lampstand subscribed on the base APHEBAL.[603] The winged maiden found at the same time is essentially Cretan, and it is not an unreasonable assumption that on this _Aphe_ fragment of pottery from Hesy we have a contemporary portrait of the Candian Aphaia or Britomart, _alias_ Hesy, or St. Issy, or St. Ive: the British Eseye was alternatively known as Cendwen.

The British built their _oppida_ not infrequently in the form of an eye or optic, and also of an oeuf, ova, or egg. The perfect symmetry of these designs point conclusively to the probability that the earthworks were not mere strongholds scratched together anyhow for mere defence: the British burial places or barrows were similarly either circular or oval, and that the Scotch dun illustrated in Fig. 324 was British, is implied not only by its name Boreland-Mote, but by its existence at a place named Parton, this word, like the Barton of Dumbarton, no doubt signifying Dun Brettan or Briton.

Egypt was known as "The Land of the Eye":[604] the amulet of the All-seeing Eye was perhaps even more popular in Egypt than in Etruria, and the mysterious and unaccountable objects called "spindle whorls," which occur so profusely in British tombs, and which also have been found in countless numbers underneath Troy, were probably Eye amulets, rudely representative of the human iris. The Trojan examples here illustrated are conspicuously decorated with the British _Broad_ Arrow, which is said to have been the symbol of the Awen or Holy Spirit. In their accounts of the traditional symbols, speech, letters, and signs of Britain, according to their preservation by means of memory, voice, and usages of the Chair and Gorsedd, the Welsh Bards asserted that the three strokes of the Broad Arrow or bardic hieroglyph for God originated from three diverging rays of light seen descending towards the earth. Out of these three strokes were constituted all the letters of the bardic alphabet, the three strokes / | \ reading in these characters respectively 0 1 0, and thus spelling the mystic OHIO or YEW; hence it would seem that this never-to-be-pronounced Name[605] was a faerie conception originating in the mind of some primitive poet philosophising from a cloud-encumbered sunrise or sunset. According to tradition there were five ages of letters: "The first was the age of the three letters, which above all represented the Name of God, and which were a sign of Goodness and Truth, and Understanding and Equity, of whatsoever kind they might be".[606] On these rays, it is said, were inscribed every kind and variety of Science and Knowledge, and on His return to Heaven the Almighty Architect is described as--

Followed with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tun'd
Angelic harmonies.

The philosophers of Egypt believed that the universe was created by the pronunciation of the divine name; similarly the British bards taught that: "The universe is matter as ordered and systematised by the intelligence of God. It was created by God's pronouncing His own name--at the sound of which light and the heavens sprang into existence. The name of God is itself a creative power. What in itself that name is, is known to God only. All music or natural melody is a faint and broken echo of the creative name."[607]

Everywhere and in everything the Druids recognised this celestial Trinity: not only did their Hierarchy consist of three orders, _i.e._, Druids, Bards, and Seers, each group being again subdivided into three, but also, as we have seen, they uttered their Triads or aphorisms in triple form. There is little doubt that the same idea animated the Persian philosophy of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and Micah's triple exordium: "Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly". The bards say distinctly: "The three mystic letters signify the three attributes of God, namely, Love, Knowledge, and Truth, and it is out of these three that justice springs, and without one of the three there can be no justice".[608]

This is a simpler philosophy than the incomprehensibilities of the Athanasian Creed,[609] and it was seemingly drilled with such living and abiding force into the minds of the Folk, that even to-day the Druidic Litanies or Chants of the Creed still persist. Throughout Italy and Sicily the Chant of the Creed is known as The Twelve Words of Verita or Truth, and it is generally put into the mouth of the popular Saint Nicholas of _Bari_.[610] The Sicilian or Hyperean festival of the Bara has already been noted _ante_, p. 320.

The British chant quoted _ante_, page 373, continues: "What will be our three boys"? "What will be our four"? five? six? and onwards up to twelve, but always the refrain is--

My only ain she walks alane
And ever mair has dune, boys.

In Irish mythology we are told that the Triad similarly "infected everything," hence Trinities such as Oendia (the one god), Caindea (the gentle god), and Trendia (the mighty god): other accounts specify the three children of the Boyne goddess, as Tear Bringer, Smile Bringer, and Sleep Bringer: the word _sleep_ is in all probability a corruption of _sil Eep_.

Among the Trojan "spindle whorls" some are decorated with four awens, corresponding seemingly to the Four Kings of the Wheel of Fortune; others with three groups constituting a total of nine strokes. As each ray represented a form of Truth, the number nine--which as already noted is invariably true to itself--was essentially the symbol of Truth, and that this idea was absorbed by Christianity is obvious from representations such as Figs. 326 and 327.

At Sancreed in Cornwall--supposedly a dedication to the holy Creed--there is a remarkable "cross" which is actually a holed stone on a shank:[611] and in the same parish is a "castle" which was once evidently a very perfect Eye. In the Scilly Islands, lying within a stone circle, is what might be a millstone with a square hole in its centre: this Borlase ranks among the holed stones of Cornwall, and that it was a symbol of the Great Eye is a reasonable inference from the name Salla Key where it is still lying. We have seen the symbolic Eye on the KIO coin illustrated _ante_, page 253; the word _eye_ pronounced frequently _oy_ and _ee_, is the same as the _hey_ of _Heydays_ and the Shepherds' Dance or _Hey_, hence in all probability Salla Key or Salakee Downs[612] were originally sacred to the festivals of _Sala Kee_, _i.e._, silly, innocent, or happy, '_Kee_ or _Great Eye_. The old plural of _eye_ was _eyen_ or _een_, and it is not unlikely that the primeval Ian, John, or Sinjohn, was worshipped as the joint Sun and Moon, or Eyes of Day and Night. On the hobby-horse coins here illustrated, the body consists of two curiously conspicuous circles or _eyen_, possibly representing the _awen_.

My only _ane_ she walks alane
And ever mair has dune, boys.

On Salla Key Downs is Inisidgen Hill, which takes its name from an opposite island: in old MSS. this appears as _Enys au geon_, which the authorities assume meant "Island of St. John". _Geon_, however, was the Cornish for _giant_; on Salla Key Downs is "Giant's Castle," and close at hand is the Giant's Chair: this is a solid stone worked into the form of an arm-chair: "It looks like a work of art rather than nature, and, according to tradition, it was here the Arch Druid was wont to sit and watch the rising Sun".[613] The neighbouring island of Great Ganilly was thus in all probability sacred to _Geon_, the Great King, or Queen Holy.

The Saints' days, heydays, and holidays of our predecessors seem to have been so numerous that the wonder is that there was ever any time to work: apparently from such evidence as the Bean-setting dance, even the ancient sowing was accomplished to the measure of a song, and the festivities in connection with old Harvest Homes are too multifarious and familiar to need comment.

The attitude of the clergy towards these ancient festivals seems to have been uniform and consistent.

These teach that dancing is a Jezebel,
And barley-break the ready way to hell;
The morrice-idols, Whitsun-ales, can be
But profane relics of a jubilee.[614]

One of the greatest difficulties of the English Church was to suppress the dancing which the populace--supported by immemorial custom--insisted upon maintaining, even within the churches and the churchyards. Even to-day English churches possess reindeer heads and other paraphernalia of archaic feasts, and in Paris, as recently as the seventeenth century, the clergy and singing boys might have been seen dancing at Easter in the churches.[615] In Cornwall on the road from Temple to Bradford Bridge is a stone circle known as The Trippet Stones, and doubtless many churches occupy the sites of similar places where from time immemorial the Folk tripped it jubilantly on jubilees: custom notoriously dies hard.

In the Eastern counties of England the two principal reapers were known as the Harvest Lord and Lady, who presided over the Hoppings, and other festivities of the season. Sometimes the Harvest Lady was known as the Hop Queen,[616] and this important potentate may be connoted with the harvest doll which, in Kent particularly, was termed the Ivy Girl. As Prof. Weekley connotes the surname Hoppe with Hobbs, Hobson, and Hopkins, we may infer from the name _Hopkin_son, there must once have been a Hop King as well as a Hop Queen, and the rôle of this English Hopkin was probably similar to that enacted by other Jack-in-Greens, King-of-the-Years, or Spirit-of-the-Years. The pomp and circumstance of the parallel of the Hopkin ceremony in Greece may be judged from the following particulars: "They wreathe," says Plato, "a pole of olive wood with laurel and various flowers. On the top is fitted a bronze globe from which they suspend smaller ones. Midway round the pole they place a lesser globe, binding it with purple fillets, but the end of the pole is decked with saffron. By the topmost globe they mean the sun, to which they actually compare Apollo. The globe beneath this is the moon; the smaller globes hung on are the stars and constellations, and the fillets are the course of the year, for they make them 365 in number. The Daphnephoria is headed by a boy, both whose parents are alive, and his nearest male relation carries the filleted pole. The Laurel-Bearer himself, who follows next, holds on to the laurel; he has his hair hanging loose, he wears a golden wreath, and he is dressed out in a splendid robe to his feet and he wears light shoes. There follows him a band of maidens holding out boughs before them, to enforce the supplication of the hymns."[617]

With this Greek festival of the Laurel-Bearer may be connoted the "one traditional dance connected with all our old festivals and merry makings" in Guernsey, and known as _A mon beau Laurier_. In this ceremony the dancers join hands, whirl round, curtsey, and kiss a central object, in later days either a man or a woman, but, in the opinion of Miss Carey, "perhaps originally either a sacred stone or a primeval altar".[618] Adulation of this character is calculated to create _snobs_, the word as we have seen being fundamentally connected with _stump_. I have already suggested a connection between the salutation _A mon beau Laurier_ and the kissing or bussing of Paul's stump at Billingsgate, which is situated almost immediately next Ebgate. On Mount Hube, in Jersey, have been found the remains of a supposed Druidic temple, and doubtless Mount _Hube_, like Apechurch or Abechurch, was a primitive Hopeton, _oppidum_, or Abbey.

The Hoop is a frequent inn sign generally associated with some additional symbol such as is implied in the familiar old signs, Swan-on-the-Hoop, Cock-on-the-Hoop, Crown-on-the-Hoop, Angel-on-the-Hoop, Falcon-on-the Hoop, and Bunch-of-Grapes-on-the-Hoop.[619] That the hoop or circle was a sacred form need not be laboured, for the majority of our megalithic monuments are circular, and there is no doubt that these rude circles are not simply and solely "adjuncts of stone age burials," but were the primitive temples of the Hoop Lady or Fairy Queen. It was customary to represent the Hop Lady within hoops or wheels; and that the Virgin was regarded indifferently as either One, Two, Three or Four is clear from the indeterminate number of dolls which served on occasion as the idola or ideal. In Irish _oun_ or _ain_ means the cycle or course of the seasons, and the great Queen Anu or Aine who was regarded as the boss, hub, or centre of the Mighty Wheel may be equated with Una, the Fairy Queen.

The Druids are said to have considered it impious to enclose or cover their temples, presumably for the same reasons as prevailed among the Persians. These are explained by Cicero who tells us that in the expedition of Xerxes into Greece all the Grecian temples were destroyed at the instigation of the Magi because the Grecians were so impious as to enclose those gods within walls who ought to have all things around them open and free, their temple being the universal world. In Homer's time--

On rough-hewn stones within the sacred cirque
Convok'd the hoary sages sat.

and there is little doubt that similarly in these islands the priest-chiefs held their solemn and ceremonial sessions.

The word Druid is in disfavour among modern archæologists; nevertheless, apparently all over Britain the Druids were traditionally associated in the popular memory with megalithic monuments. Martin, in the relation of his Tour of the Hebrides, made in the middle of the eighteenth century, observes: "In the Western Islands where there are many, what are called by the common people _Druin Crunny_, that is Druids' Circles," and the same observer recounts: "I inquired of the inhabitants what tradition they had concerning these stones, and they told me it was a place appointed for worship in the time of heathenism, and that the chief Druid stood near the big stone in the centre from whence he addressed himself to the people that surrounded him".[620]

There is presumptive and direct evidence that the stone circles of Britain served the combined uses of Temple, Sepulchre, Place of Assembly, and Law Court. The custom of choosing princes by nobles standing in a circle upon rocks, prevailed until comparatively recent times, and Edmund Spenser, writing in 1596 on the State of Ireland, thus described an installation ceremony: "One of the Lords arose and holding in his hand a white wand perfectly straight and without the slightest bend, he presented it to the chieftain-elect with the following words, 'Receive the emblematic wand of thy dignity, now let the unsullied whiteness and straightness of this wand be thy model in all thy acts, so that no calumnious tongue can expose the slightest stain on the purity of thy life, nor any favoured friend ever seduce thee from dealing out even-handed justice to all'."[621]

The white wand figuring in this ceremony is evidently the magic rod or fairy wand with which the Elphin Queen is conventionally equipped, and which was figured in the hand of the Cretan "Hob," _ante_, page 494.

Sometimes in lieu of a centre stone the circles contained stone chairs. Many of these old Druidic thrones have been broken up into gate-posts or horse-troughs, but several are still in existence, and some are decorated with a carving of two footprints. These two footprints were in all probability one of the innumerable forms in which the perennial Pair were represented, _vide_ the Vedic invocation: "Like two lips speaking sweetly to the mouth, like two breasts feed us that we may live. Like two nostrils as guardians of the body, like two ears be inclined to listen to us. Like two hands holding our strength together ... like two hoofs rushing in quickly," etc.

In the British coin here illustrated the Giant Pair are featured as joint steeds: "Coming early like two heroes on their chariots ... ye bright ones every day come hither like two charioteers, O ye strong ones! Like two winds, like two streams your motion is eternal; like _two eyes_[622] come with your sight toward us! Like two hands most useful to the body; _like two feet_ lead us towards wealth."[623]

Occasionally the two footprints are found cut into simple rock: in Scotland the King of the Isles used to be crowned at Islay, standing on a stone with a deep impression on the top of it made on purpose to receive his feet. The meaning of the feet symbol in Britain is not known, but Scotch tradition maintained that it represented the size of the feet of Albany's first chieftain. On Adam's Peak in Ceylon (ancient _Tafrobani_) there is a super-sacred footprint which is still the goal of millions of devout pilgrims, and on referring to India where the foot emblem is familiar we find it explained as very ancient, and used by the Buddhists in remembrance of their great leader Buddha. In the tenth century a Hindu poet sang:--

In my heart I place the feet
The Golden feet of God.

and it would thus seem that the primeval Highlander anticipated by many centuries Longfellow's trite lines on great men, happily, however, before departing, graving the symbolic footprints of his "first Chieftain," not upon the sands of Time, but on the solid rocks.

The Ancients, believing that God was centred in His Universe, a point within a circle was a proper and expressive hieroglyph for Pan or All. The centre stone of the rock circles probably stood similarly for God, and the surrounding stones for the subsidiary Principalities and Powers thus symbolising the idea: "Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order is centred; Lord of all things visible and invisible, Prince of mankind, Protector of the Universe".[624] A tallstone or a longstone is physically and objectively the figure one, 1.

If it were possible to track the subsidiary Powers of the Eternal One to their inception we should, I suspect, find them to have been personifications of Virtues, and this would seem to apply not merely to such familiar Trinities as Faith, Hope, and Charity; Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word, but to quartets, quintets, sextets, and septets such as the Seven Kings or Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, _i.e._, "Ye gifte of wisdome; ye gifte of pittie; ye gifte of strengthe; ye gifte of comfaite; ye gifte of understandinge; ye gifte of counyinge; ye gifte of dreede".

The Persian Trinity of Thought, Deed, and Word, is perfectly expressed in the three supposed Orders of the Christian hierarchy. As stated in _The Golden Legend_ these are--sovereign Love as touching the order of Seraphim, perfect Knowledge, and perpetual Fruition or usance. "There be some," continues De Voragine, "that overcome and dominate over all vices in themselves, and they by right be called of the world, gods among men."[625]

It is related of King Arthur that he carried a shield named Prydwen, and if the reader will trouble to count the dots ranged round the centre boss of the shield on page 120 the number will be found to be _eleven_. At Kingston on Thames, where the present market stone is believed to be the surviving centre-piece of a stone-circle, a brass ring ornamented with _eleven_ bosses was discovered.[626] In Etruria _eleven_ mystic shields were held in immense veneration:[627] it will further be noted that the majority of the wheatears on British and Celtiberian coins consist of _eleven_ corns.

The word _eleven_, like its French equivalent _onze_, _ange_, or _angel_, points to the probability that for some reason eleven was essentially the number sacred to the _elven_, _anges_, or _onzes_. Elphinstone, a fairly common surname, implies the erstwhile existence of many Elphinstones: there is an Alphian rock in Yorkshire; bronze urns have been excavated at Alphamstone in Essex, and the supposititious Aelfin, to whom the Alphington in Exeter is attributed, was far more probably Elphin.

The dimensions of many so-called longstones--whether solitary or in the centres of circles--point to the probability that menhirs or standing-stones were frequently and preferably 11 feet high. In Cornwall alone I have noted the following examples of which the measurements are extracted from _The Victoria County History_. The longstone at Trenuggo, Sancreed, now measures 11 feet 2 inches; that at Sithney 11 feet; that at Burras "about 10 feet," that at Parl 12 feet; and that at Bosava 10 feet. In the parish of St. Buryan the longstones standing at Pridden, Goon Rith, Boscawen Ros, and Trelew, now measure respectively 11 feet 6 inches, 10 feet 6 inches, 10 feet, and 10 feet 4 inches.

If one takes into account such casualties of time as weathering, washing away of subsoil, upcrop of undergrowth, subsidence, and other accidents, the preceding figures are somewhat presumptive that each of the monuments in question was originally designed to stand 11 feet high.

Frequently a circle of stones is designated The Nine Maids, or The Virgin Sisters, or The Merry Maidens. The Nine Maidens is suggestive of the Nine Muses, and of the nine notorious Druidesses, which dwelt upon the Island of Sein in Brittany. The Merry Maidens may be equated with the Fairy or Peri Maidens, and that this phairy theory holds good likewise in Spain is probable from the fact that at Pau there is a circle of nine stones called La Naou _Peyros_.[628]

"When we inquired," says Keightley, "after the fairy system in Spain, we were told that there was no such thing for that the Inquisition had long since eradicated such ideas." He adds, however, "we must express our doubt of the truth of this charge": I concur that not even the Inquisition was capable of carrying out such fundamental destruction as the obliteration of all peyros. Probably the old plural for peri or fairy was _peren_ or _feren_, in which case the great Fernacre circle in the parish of St. Breward, Cornwall, was presumably the sacred eye or hoop of some considerable neighbourhood. About 160 feet eastward of Fernacre (which is one of the largest circles in Cornwall), and in line with the summit of _Brown_ Willy (the highest hill in Cornwall) is a small erect stone. The neighbouring Row Tor (_Roi_ Tor or _Rey_ Tor?) rises due north of Fernacre circle, and as the editors of _Cornwall_ point out: "If as might appear probable this very exact alignment north and south, east and west, was intentional, and part of a plan where Fernacre was the pivot of the whole, it is a curious feature that the three circles mentioned should have been so effectively hidden from each other by intervening hills".[629]

The major portion of this district is the property of an Onslow family; there is an Onslow Gardens near Alvastone Place in Kensington, and there is a probability that every Alvastone, Elphinstone, or _On_slow neighbourhood was believed to be inhabited by _Elven_ or _Anges_: it is indeed due to this superstition that the relatively few megalithic monuments which still exist have escaped damnation, the destruction where it has actually occurred having been sometimes due to a deliberate and bigoted determination, "to brave ridiculous legends and superstitions".[630] Naturally the prevalent and protective superstitions were fostered and encouraged by prehistoric thinkers for the reasons doubtless quite rightly surmised by an eighteenth century archæologist who wrote: "But the truth of the story is, it was a burying place of the Britons before the calling in of the heathen sexton (_sic_ query _Saxon_) into this Kingdom. And this fable invented by the Britons was to prevent the ripping up of the bones of their ancestors." The demise of similar fables under the corrosive influence of modern kultur, has involved the destruction of countless other stone-monuments, so that even of Cornwall, their natural home, Mr. T. Quiller Couch was constrained to write: "Within my remembrance the cromlech, the holy well, the way-side cross and inscribed stone, have gone before the utilitarian greed of the farmer and the road man, and the undeserved neglect of that hateful being, the _cui bono_ man".

Parish Councils of to-day do not fear to commit vandalisms which private individuals in the past shrank from perpetrating.[631] A Welsh "Stonehenge" at Eithbed, Pembrokeshire, shown on large-scale Ordinance maps issued last century, has disappeared from the latest maps of the district, and a few years ago an archæologist who visited the site reported that the age-worn stones had been broken up to build ugly houses close by--"veritable monuments of shame".

In the Isle of _Pur_beck near _Bourne_mouth, _Brank_sea, _Bronks_ea (Bronk's _ea_ or island) _Branks_ome and numerous other _Bron_ place-names which imply that the district was once haunted by Oberon, is a barrow called Puckstone, and on the top of this barrow, now thrown down, is a megalith said to measure 10 feet 8 inches. In all probability this was once 11 feet long, and was the Puckstone or Elphinstone of that neighbourhood: near Anglesea at Llandudno is a famous longstone which again is _eleven_ feet high.

In Glamorganshire there is a village known as Angel Town, and in Pembroke is Angle or Nangle: Adamnan, in his _Life of Columba_, records that the saint opened his books and "read them on the Hill of the Angels, where once on a time the citizens of the Heavenly Country were seen to descend to hold conversation with the blessed man". Upon this his editor comments: "this is the knoll called 'great fairies hill'. Not far away is the 'little fairies hill'. The fairies hills of pagan mythology became angels hills in the minds of the early Christian saints."[632] One may be permitted to question whether this metamorphosis really occurred, and whether the idea of Anges or Angles is not actually older than even the Onslows or _ange_ lows. The Irish trinity of St. Patrick, St. Bride, and St. Columba, are said all to lie buried in one spot at Dunence, and the place-name _Dunence_ seemingly implies that that site was an _on's low_, or _dun ange_. The term _angel_ is now understood to mean radically a messenger, but the primary sense must have been deeper than this: in English _ingle_--as in inglenook--meant _fire_, and according to Skeat it also meant a darling or a paramour. Obviously _ingle_ is here the same word as _angel_, and presumably the more primitive Englishman tactfully addressed his consort as "mine ingle". The Gaelic and the Irish for fire is _aingeal_; we have seen that the burnebee or ladybird was connected with fire, and that similarly St. Barneby's Day was associated with Barnebee _Bright_: hence the festival held at _Engle_wood, or _Ingle_wood (Cumberland) yearly on the day of St. Barnabas would appear to have been a primitive fire or _aingeal_ ceremony. It is described as follows: "At Hesket in Cumberland yearly on St. Barnabas Day by the highway side under a Thorn tree according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air, is kept the Court for the whole Forest of Englewood, the 'Englyssh wood' of the ballad of Adam Bel".[633]

Stonehenge used to be entitled Stonehengels, which may be modernised into the _Stone Angels_,[634] each stone presumably standing as a representative of one or other of the angelic hierarchy. When the Saxons met the British in friendly conference at Stonehenge--apparently even then the national centre--each Saxon chieftain treacherously carried a knife which at a given signal he plunged into the body of his unarmed, unsuspecting neighbour; subsequently, it is said, hanging the corpses of the British royalties on the cross rocks of Stonehenge: hence ever after this exhibition of Teutonic _realpolitik_ Stonehenge has been assumed to mean the Hanging Stones, or Gallow Stones.[635] We find, however, that Stonehenge was known as Sta_hengues_ or Est_anges_, a plural form which may be connoted with Hengesdun or Hengston Hill in Cornwall: Stonehenge also appears under the form Senhange, which may have meant either _Old Ange_ or _San Ange_, and as the priests of ancient cults almost invariably assumed the character and titles of their divinity it is probable that the Druids were once known as _Anges_. In Irish the word _aonge_ is said to have meant _magician_ or _sorcerer_, which is precisely the character assigned by popular opinion to the Druids. In _Rode hengenne_, another title of Stonehenge,[636] we have apparently the older plural hen_gen_ with the adjectival _rood_ or _ruddy_, whence Stonehenge would seem to have been a shrine of the Red Rood Anges.

As this monument was without doubt a national centre it is probable that as I have elsewhere suggested Stonehenge meant also the _Stone Hinge_: the word _cardinal_ means radically hinge; the original Roman cardinals whose round red hats probably typified the ruddy sun, were the priests of Janus, who was entitled the Hinge, and there is no reason to suppose that the same idea was not equally current in England.

That the people of CARDIA associated their _angel_ or _ange_ with _cardo_, a _hinge_ or _angle_ is manifest from the coin illustrated in Fig. 336.

According to Prof. Weekley, "_Ing_, the name of a demi-god, seems to have been early confused with the Christian _angel_ in the prefix _Engel_ common in German names, _e.g._, Engelhardt anglicised as _Engleheart_. In Anglo-Saxon we find both _Ing_ and _Ingel_. The modern name Ingoll represents Ingweald (Ingold) and _Inglett_ is a diminutive of similar origin. The cheerful _Inglebright_ is from Inglebeort. The simple _Ing_ has given through Norse Ingwar the Scottish _Ivor_."[637] But is it not possible that Ivor never came through Ingwar, but was radically a synonym--_fairy_ = _Ing_, or _fire_ = _ingle_? Inga is a Scandinavian maiden-name, and if the Inge family--of gloomy repute--are unable to trace any cheerier origin it may be suggested that they came from the Isle of Man where the folk claim to be the descendants of fairies or anges: "The Manks confidently assert that the first inhabitants of their island were fairies, and that these little people have still their residence amongst them. They call them the 'Good people,' and say they live in wilds and forests, and mountains, and shun great cities because of the wickedness acted therein."[638]

As there is no known etymology for _inch_ and _ounce_ it is not improbable that these diminutive measures were connected with the popular idea of the _ange's_ size and weight: Queen Mab, according to Shakespeare, was "no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman," and she weighed certainly not more than an ounce. The origin of Queen Mab is supposedly Habundia, or La Dame Abonde, discussed in a preceding chapter, and there connoted with Eubonia, Hobany, and Hob: in Welsh Mab means _baby boy_, and the priests of this little king were known as the Mabinogi, whence the _Mabinogion_, or books of the Mabinogi.

Whether there is any reason to connect the three places in Ireland entitled Inchequin with the _Ange Queen_, or the Inchlaw (a hill in Fifeshire) with the Inch Queen Mab I have had no opportunity of inquiring.

The surnames Inch, Ince, and Ennis, are all usually connoted with _enys_ or _ins_, the Celtic and evidently more primitive form of _in_sula, an island, _ea_ or _Eye_.

The Inge family may possibly have come from the Channel Islands or _insulæ_, where as we have seen the Ange Queen, presumably the Lady of the Isles or _inces_, was represented on the coinage, and the Lord of the Channel Isles seems to have been Pixtil or _Pixy tall_. That this _Pixy tall_ was alternatively _ange tall_ is possibly implied by the name Anchetil, borne by the Vicomte du Bessin who owned one of the two fiefs into which Guernsey was anciently divided. It will be remembered that in the ceremony of the Chevauchee de St. Michel, _eleven_ Vavasseurs functioned in the festival; further, that the lance-bearer carried a wand 11-1/4 feet long. The Welsh form of the name _Michael_ is _Mihangel_, and as Michael was the Leader of all angels, the _mi_ of this British mihangel may be equated with the Irish _mo_ which, as previously noted, meant _greatest_.

As Albion or _albi en_, is the equivalent to Elphin or _elven_, it is obvious that England--or _Inghil_terra, as some nations term it--is a synonym for Albion, in both cases the meaning being Land of the Elves or Angels. For some reason--possibly the Masonic idea of the right angle, rectitude, and square dealing--_angle_ was connected with _angel_, and in the coin here illustrated the angel has her head fixed in a photographic pose by an angle. In Germany and Scandinavia, Engelland means the mystic land of unborn souls, and that the Angles who inhabited the banks of the _Elbe_ (Latin _Alva_) believed not only in the existence of this spiritual Engelland, but also in the living existence of Alps, Elves, Anges, or Angels is a well-recognised fact. The Scandinavians traced their origin to a primal pair named Lif and Lifthraser: according to Rydberg it was the creed of the Teuton that on arriving with a good record at "the green worlds of the gods"; "Here he finds not only those with whom he became personally acquainted while on earth, but he may also visit and converse with ancestors from the beginning of time, and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the history of all past generations told by persons who were eye-witnesses".[639] The fate of the evil-living Teuton was believed to be far different, nevertheless, in sharp distinction to the Christian doctrine that all unbaptised children are lost souls, and that infants scarce a span in size might be seen crawling on the fiery floor of hell, even the "dull and creeping Saxon" held that every one who died in tender years was received into the care of a Being friendly to the young, who introduced them into the happy groves of immortality.

The suggestion that the land of the Angels derived its title from the angelic superstitions of the inhabitants, may be connoted with seemingly a parallel case in Sweden, _i.e._, the province of Elfland. According to Walter Scott this district "had probably its name from some remnant of ancient superstition":[640] during the witch-finding mania of the sixteenth century at one village alone in Elfland, upwards of 300 children "were found more or less perfect in a tale as full of impossible absurdities as ever was told round a nursery fire". Fifteen of these hapless little visionaries were led to death, and thirty-six were lashed weekly at the church doors for a whole year: an unprofitable "conspiracy" for the poor little "plotters"!

There figures in Teutonic mythology not only Lif the first parent, but also a divinity named Alf who is described as young, but of a fine exterior, and of such remarkably white splendour that rays of light seemed to issue from his silvery locks. Whether the Anglo-Saxons, like the Germans, attributed any significance to _eleven_ I do not know: if they did not the grave here illustrated which was found in the white chalk of Adisham, Kent, must be assigned to some other race. It is described by its excavator as follows: "The grave which was cut very neatly out of the rock chalk was full 5 feet deep; it was of the exact shape of a cross whose legs pointed very minutely to the four cardinal points of the compass; and _it was every way eleven feet long_ and about 4 feet broad. At each extremity was a little cover or arched hole each about 12 inches broad, and about 14 inches high, all very neatly cut like so many little fireplaces for about a foot beyond the grave into the chalk."[641] It would seem possible that these crescentic corner holes were actually ingle nooks, and one may surmise a primitive lying-in-state with corner fires in lieu of candles. As the Saxons of the fifth and sixth centuries were notoriously in need of conversion to the Cross it is difficult to assign this crucial sepulchre to any of their tribes.

Whether Albion was ever known as Inghilterra or Ingland before the advent of the Angles from the Elbe need not be here discussed, but, at any rate, it seems highly unlikely that Anglesea, the sanctuary or Holyhead of British Druidism, derived its name from Teutonic invaders who can hardly have penetrated into that remote corner for long after their first friendly arrival. At the end of the second century Tertullian made the surprising and very puzzling statement: "Places in Britain hitherto unvisited by the Romans were subjected to Christianity":[642] that the cross was not introduced by the Romans is obvious from the apparition of this emblem on our coinage one to two hundred years before the Roman invasion; the famous megalithic monument at Lewis in the Hebrides is cruciform, and the equally famed pyramid at New Grange is tunnelled in the form of a cross.

According to Pownal, New Grange was constructed by the Magi "or _Gaurs_ as they were sometimes called":[643] Stonehenge or Stonehengels is referred to by the British Bards as Choir _Gawr_, a term which is of questioned origin: the largest stone circle in Ireland is that by Lough _Gur_; the amphitheatre at St. Just is known as Plan an Guare or _Plain of Guare_, and the place-name _Gor_hambury or Verulam, where are the remains of a very perfect amphitheatre, suggests that this circle, as also that at Lough Gur, and Choir Gawr, was, like Bangor, a home, seat, or Gorsedd of the Gaurs or Aonges. Doubtless the _gaurs_ of Britain like the _guru_ or holy men of India, and the _augurs_ of Rome, indulged in augury: in Hebrew _gor_ means a congregation, and that the ancients congregated in and around stone circles choiring, and gyrating in a _gyre_ or wheel, is evident from the statement of Diodorus Siculus, which is now very generally accepted as referring to Stonehenge or Choir Gawr. "The inhabitants [of Hyperborea] are great worshippers of Apollo to whom they sing many many hymns. To this god they have consecrated a large territory in the midst of which they have a magnificent round temple replenished with the richest offerings. Their very city is dedicated to him, and is full of musicians and players on various instruments who every day celebrate his benefits and perfections."

Among the superstitions of the British was the idyll that the music of the Druids' harps wafted the soul of the deceased into heaven: these harps were constructed with the same mysterious regard to the number three as characterised the whole of the magic or Druidic philosophy: the British harp was triangular, its strings were three, and its tuning keys were three-armed: it was thus essentially a harp of Tara. That the British were most admirable songsters and musicians is vouched for in numerous directions, and that Stonehenge was the Hinge of the national religion is evident from the fact that it is mentioned in a Welsh Triad as one of the "Three Great _Cors_ of Britain in which there were 2400 saints, that is, there were 100 for every hour of the day and night, in rotation perpetuating the praise of God without intermission".[644] That similar _choirs_ existed among the _gaurs_ of ancient Ireland would appear from an incident recorded in the life of St. Columba: the popularity of this saint was, we are told, so great, even among the pagan Magi, that 1200 poets who were in Convention brought with them a poem in his praise: they sang this panegyric with music and chorus, "and a surpassing music it was"; indeed, so impressive was the effect that the saint felt a sudden emotion of complacency and gave way to temporary vanity.

The circle of St. Just was not only known as _Plan an guare_, but also as _Guirimir_, which has been assumed to be a contraction of _Guiri mirkl_, signifying in Cornish a _mirkl_ or _miracle_ play.[645] Doubtless not only Miracle Plays, but sports and interludes of every description were centred in the circles: that the Druids were competent and attractive entertainers is probable in view of the fact that the Arch Druid of Tara is shown as a leaping juggler with golden ear-clasps, and a speckled coat: he tosses swords and balls into the air "and like the buzzing of bees on a beautiful day is the motion of each passing the other".[646]

The circles were similarly the sites of athletic sports, duels, and other "martial challenges": the prize fight of yesterday was fought in a ring, and the ring still retains its popular hold. The Celts customarily banquetted in a circle with the most valiant chieftain occupying the post of honour in the centre.