CHAPTER VII

OBERON

"O queen, whom Jove hath willed To found this new-born city, here to reign, And stubborn tribes with justice to refrain, We, Troy's poor fugitives, implore thy grace, Storm-tost and wandering over every main,-- Forbid the flames our vessels to deface, Mark our afflicted plight, and spare a pious race.

"We come not hither with the sword to rend Your Libyan homes, and shoreward drive the prey. Nay, no such violence our thoughts intend." --VIRGIL, _Æneid_, I., lxix., 57.

The old Welsh poets commemorate what they term Three National Pillars of the Island of Britain, to wit: "First--Hu, the vast of size, first brought the nation of the Cymry to the Isle of Britain; and from the summer land called Deffrobani they came (namely, the place where Constantinople now is), and through Mor Tawch, the placid or pacific sea, they came up to the Isle of Britain and Armorica, where they remained. Second--Prydain, son of Aedd the Great, first erected a government and a kingdom over Ynys Prydain, and previous to that time there was but little gentleness and ordinance, save a superiority of oppression. Third--Dyfnwal Moelmud--and he was the first that made a discrimination of mutual rights and statute law, and customs, and privileges of land and nation, and on account of these things were they called the three pillars of the Cymry."[323]

The Kymbri of Cambria claim themselves to be of the same race as the Kimmeroi, from whom the Crimea takes its name, also that Cumberland is likewise a land of the Cumbers. The authorities now usually explain the term Kymbri as meaning _fellow countrymen_, and when occurring in place-names such as Kemper, Quimper, Comber, Kember, Cymner, etc., it is invariably expounded to mean _confluence_: the word would thus seem to have had imposed upon it precisely the same meaning as _synagogue_, _i.e._, a coming together or congregation, and it remains to inquire why this was so.

The _Kym_bri were also known as _Cyn_bro, and the interchangeability of _kym_ and _kin_ is seemingly universal: the _Khan_ of Tartary was synonymously the _Cham_ of Tartary; our _Cam_bridge is still academically _Can_tabrigia, a _com_pact is a _con_tract, and the identity between _cum_ and _con_ might be demonstrated by innumerable instances. This being so, it is highly likely that the Kymbri were followers of _King Bri_, otherwise King Aubrey, of the Iberii or Iberian race. In Celtic _aber_ or _ebyr_--as at _Aber_deen, _Aber_ystwith, etc.--meant a place of confluence of streams, burns, or brooks; and _aber_ seems thus to have been synonymous with _cam_ber.

Ireland, or _Iber_nia, as it figures in old maps, now _Hiber_nia, traces its title to a certain Heber, and until the time of Henry VII., when the custom was prohibited, the Hibernians used to rush into battle with perfervid cries of _Aber!_[324] It is a recognised peculiarity of the Gaelic language to stress the first of any two syllables, whereas in Welsh the accent falls invariably upon the second: given therefore one and the same word "Aubrey," a Welshman should theoretically pronounce it 'Brey, and an Irishman Aubr'; that is precisely what seems to have happened, whence there is a probability that the Heber and "St. Ibar" of Hibernia and the Bri of Cambria are references to one and the same immigrants.

Having "cambred" Heber with Bri, or Bru, and finding them both assigned traditionally to the Ægean, it is permissible to read the preliminary vowels of Heber or Huber, as the Greek _eu_, and to assume that Aubrey was the soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious Brey. _Bri_tain is the Welsh _Pry_dain, Hu was pronounced He, and it is thus not improbable that _Pry_ was originally _Pere He_, or Father Hu, and that the traditions of Hu and Bru referred originally to the same race.

_Hyper_, the Greek for _upper_, is radically the same word as Iupiter or _Iu pere_, and if it be true that the French _pere_ is a phonetically decayed form of _pater_, then again, 'Pry or 'Bru may be regarded as a corrosion of Iupiter.

Hu the Mighty, the National Pillar or ded, who has survived as the "I'll be _He_" of children's games, was indubitably the Jupiter of Great Britain, and he was probably the "Hooper" of Hooper's Blind, or Blind Man's Buff. According to the Triads, Hu obtained his dominion over Britain not by war or bloodshed, but by justice and peace: he instructed his people in the art of agriculture; divided them into federated tribes as a first step towards civil government, and laid the foundations of literature and history by the institution of Bardism.[325] In Celtic, _barra_ meant a Court of Justice, in which sense it has survived in London, at Loth_bury_ and Alderman_bury_. The pious Trojans claimed "the stubborn tribes with justice to refrain," and it is possible that _barri_ the Cornish for _divide_ or separate also owes its origin to Bri or _pere He_, who was the first to divide them into federated tribes. Among the Iberians _berri_ meant a _city_, and this word is no doubt akin to our _borough_.

In Hibernia, the Land of Heber, Aubrey or Oberon, it is said that every parish has its green and thorn, where the little people are believed to hold their merry meetings, and to dance in frolic rounds.[326] A _pari_sh, Greek _paroika_, is an orderly division, and as often as not the civic centre was a fairy stone: according to Sir Laurence Gomme, who made a special study of the primitive communities, when and where a village was established a stone was ceremoniously set up, and to this _pierre_ the headman of the village made an offering once a year.[327]

Situated in Fore Street, Totnes, there stands to-day the so-called Brutus Stone, from which the Mayor of Totnes still reads official proclamations. At Brightlingsea we have noted the existence of a _Broad_moot: there is a _Brad_stone in Devon, a Bradeston in Norfolk, and elsewhere these Brude or Brutus stones were evidently known as _pre_ stones. The innumerable "Prestons" of this country were originally, I am convinced, not as is supposed "Priests Towns," but _Pre Stones i.e._, Perry or Fairy Stones. King James in his book on _Demonology_ spells fairy--Phairy; in Kent the cirrhus cloudlets of a summer day are termed the "Perry Dancers," and the _phairies_ of Britain probably differed but slightly, if at all, from the _per_ii or _per_is of _Per_sia.[328]

Among the Greeks every town and village had its so-called "Luck," or protecting Goddess who specially controlled its fortunes, and by Pindar this Presiding Care is entitled _pherepolis_, _i.e._, the peri or phairy of the city.

The various Purleys and Purtons of England are assigned by the authorities to _peru_ a pear, and supposed to have been pear-tree meadows or pear-tree hills, but I question whether pear-growing was ever the national industry that the persistent prevalence of _peru_ in place-names would thus imply.

Around the _pre-stones_ of each village our forerunners indubitably used to _pray_, and in the memoirs of a certain St. Sampson we have an interesting account of an interrupted Pray-meeting--"Now it came to pass, on a certain day as he journeyed through a certain district which they call Tricurius (the hundred of Trigg), he heard, on his left hand to be exact, men worshipping (at) a certain shrine, after the custom of the Bacchantes, by means of a play in honour of an image. Thereupon he beckoned to his brothers that they should stand still and be silent while he himself, quietly descending from his chariot to the ground, and standing upon his feet and observing those who worshipped the idol, saw in front of them, resting on the summit of a certain hill an abominable image. On this hill I myself have been, and have adored, and with my hand have traced the sign of the cross which St. Sampson, with his own hand, carved by means of an iron instrument on a _standing stone_. When St. Sampson saw it (the image), selecting two only of the brothers to be with him, he hastened quickly towards them, their chief, Guedianus, standing at their head, and gently admonished them that they ought not to forsake the one God who created all things and worship an idol. And when they pleaded as an excuse that it was not wrong to keep the festival of their progenitors in a play, some being furious, some mocking, but some being of saner mind strongly urging him to go away, straightway the power of God was made clearly manifest. For a certain boy driving horses at full speed fell from a swift horse to the ground, and twisting his head under him as he fell headlong, remained, just as he was flung, little else than a lifeless corpse." The "corpse" was seemingly but a severe stun, for an hour or so later, St. Sampson by the power of prayer successfully restored the patient to life, in view of which miracle Guedianus and all his tribe prostrated themselves at St. Sampson's feet, and "utterly destroyed the idol".[329]

The idol here mentioned if not itself a standing stone, was admittedly associated with one, and happily many of these Aubrey or Bryanstones are still standing. One of the most celebrated antiquities of Cornwall is the so-named _men scryfa_ or "inscribed rock," and the inscription running from top to bottom reads--RIALOBRAN CUNOVAL FIL.

As history knows nothing of any "Rialobran, son of Cunoval," one may suggest that Rialobran was the _Ryall_ or _Royal Obran_, _Obreon_ or _Oberon_, the _bren_ or Prince of Phairyland who figures so largely in the Romance of mediæval Europe. The Rialobran stone of Cornwall may be connoted with the ceremonial _perron du roy_ still standing in the Channel Islands, and with the numerous _Browny_ stones of Scotland. In Cornwall the phairy _brownies_ seem to have been as familiar as in Scotland[330]: in the Hebrides--and as the Saint of this neighbourhood is St. Bride, the word Hebrides may perhaps be rendered _eu Bride_--every family of any importance once possessed a most obliging household Browny. Martin, writing in the eighteenth century, says: "A spirit by the country people called Browny was frequently seen in all the most considerable families in these Isles and North of Scotland in the shape of a tall man, but within these twenty or thirty years past he is seen but rarely." As the cromlechs of Brittany are termed _poukelays_ or "puck stones," it is possible that the _dolmens_ or _tolmens_ of there and elsewhere were associated with the fairy _tall man_. Still speaking of the Hebrides Martin goes on to say: "Below the chapels there is a flat thin stone called Brownie's stone, upon which the ancient inhabitants offered a cow's milk every Sunday, but this custom is now quite abolished". The official interpretation of dolmen is _daul_ or _table stone_, but it is quite likely that the word _tolmen_ is capable of more than one correct explanation.

The Cornish Rialobran was in all probability originally the same as the local St. Perran or St. Piran, whose sanctuary was marked by the parish of Lan_bron_ or Lam_borne_. There is a Cornish circle known as Perran Round and the celebrated Saint who figures as, Perran, Piran, Bron, and Borne,[331] is probably the same as Perun the Slav Jupiter. From a stone held in the hand of Perun's image the sacred fire used annually to be struck and endeavours have been made to equate this Western Jupiter with the Indian Varuna. That there was a large Perran family is obvious from the statement that "till within the last fifty years the registers of the parish from the earliest period bear the Christian name of 'Perran,' which was transmitted from father to son; but now the custom has ceased".[332] Thus possibly St. Perran was not only the original of the modern Perrin family, but also of the far larger Byrons and Brownes. Further inquiry will probably permit the equation of Rialobran or St. Bron or Borne with St. Bruno, and as Oberon figures in the traditions of Kensington it is possible that the Bryanstone Square in that district, into which leads Brawn Street, marks the site of another Brownie or Rialobran stone. This Bryanstone district was the home of the Byron family, and the surname Brinsmead implies the existence here or elsewhere a Brin's mead or meadow.

The Brownies are occasionally known as "knockers," whence the "knocking stone" which still stands in Brahan Wood, Dingwall, might no doubt be rightly entitled a Brahan, Bryan, or Brownie Stone.[333]

Legend at Kensington--in which neighbourhood is not only Bryanstone Square but also on the summit of Campden Hill an Aubrey Walk--relates that Kenna, the fairy princess of Kensington Gardens, was beloved by Albion the Son of Oberon; hence we may probably relate young Kenna with Morgana the Fay, or _big Gana_, the alleged Mother of Oberon.[334] Mediæval tales represent the radiant Oberon not only as splendid, as a meteor, and as a raiser of storms, but likewise as the childlike God of Love and beauteous as an angel newly born.

At once the storm is fled; serenely mild Heav'n smiles around, bright rays the sky adorn While beauteous as an angel newly born Beams in the roseate day spring, glow'd _the child_ A lily stalk his graceful limbs, sustain'd Round his smooth neck an ivory horn was chain'd Yet lovely as he was on all around Strange horror stole, for stern the fairy frown'd.[335]

It is not unlikely that the Princess Kenna was Ken _new_ or the Crescent Moon, and the consociation at Kensington of Kenna with Oberon, permits not only the connotation of Oberon with his Fay mother Morgana, but also permits the supposition that Cuneval, the parent of Rialobran, was either _Cune strong_ or _valiant_. It is obvious that the most valiant and most valorous would inevitably become rulers, whence perhaps why in Celtic _bren_ became a generic term for _prince_: the words _bren_ and _prince_ are radically the same, and stand in the same relation to one another as St. Bron to his variant St. Piran.

Oberon or Obreon, the leader of the Brownies, Elves, or Alpes, may I think be further traced in Cornwall at Carn Galva, for this Carn of Galva, _Mighty_ Elf or Alva, was, it is said, once the seat of a benignant giant named Holi_burn_. The existence of Alva or Ellie-stones is implied by the fairly common surnames Alvastone, Allistone, and Ellistone, and it is probable that Livingstone was originally the same name as Elphinstone.

From the Aubry, Obrean, Peron stones, or Brownlows were probably promulgated the celebrated _Brehon_ laws:[336] as is well known the primitive Prince or Baron sat or stood in the centre of his _barrow_, _burra_, or _bury_, and ranged around him each at his particular stone stood the subordinate _peers_, _brehons_ (lawyers), and _barons_ of the realm. A _peer_ means an equal, and it is therefore quite likely that the _Pre_stons of Britain mark circles where the village peers held their parish or parochial meetings.

With the English Preston the Rev. J. B. Johnston connotes Presteign, and he adds: "In Welsh Presteign is Llanandras, or Church of St. Andrews".[337] This illuminating fact enables us to connect the Perry stones with the cross of St. Andrew or _Ancient Troy_, and as Troy was an offshoot of Khandia we may reasonably accept Crete as the starting-point of Aubrey's worldwide tours. That Candia was the home of the gentle magna mater is implied by the ubiquitous dove: in Hibernia the name Caindea is translated as being Gaelic for _gentle goddess_, and we shall later connect this lady with "Kate Kennedy," whose festival is still commemorated at St. Andrews.

To the East of Cape Khondhro in Crete, and directly opposite the town of Candia or Herakleion, lies the islet of Dhia: in Celtic _dia_, _dieu_, or _duw_ meant God,[338] and as in Celtic _Hugh_ meant _mind_, we may translate _dieu_ as having primarily implied _good Hu_, the good Mind or _Brain_. In a personal sense the Brain is the Lord of Wits, whence perhaps why _Obreon_--as Keightley spells Oberon--was said to be the Emperor of Fairyland, attended by a court and special courtiers, among whom are mentioned _Perri_wiggen, _Perri_winkle, and Puck.

At the south-eastern extremity of Dhia is a colossal spike, peak, or _pier_, entitled Cape Apiri, and we may connote Apiri with the Iberian town named Ipareo. The coinage of Ipareo pourtrays "a sphinx walking to the left," at other times it depicted the Trinacria or walking legs of Sicily and the Isle of Man. The Three Legs of Sicily were represented with the face of Apollo, as the hub or _bogel_, and the ancient name of Sicily was _Hyper_eia. On the Feast Day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sicilians or Hypereians hold what they still term the "Festival of the _Bara_". An immense machine of about 50 feet high is constructed, designing to represent heaven; and in the midst is placed a young female personating the Virgin, with an image of Jesus on her right hand; round the Virgin twelve little children turn vertically, representing so many seraphim, and below them twelve more children turn horizontally, as cherubim; lower down in the machine a sun turns vertically, with a child at the extremity of each of the four principal radii of his circle, who ascend and descend with his rotation, yet always in an erect posture; and still lower, reaching within about 7 feet of the ground, are placed twelve boys who turn horizontally without intermission around the principal figure, designing thereby to exhibit the twelve apostles, who were collected from all corners of the earth, to be present at the decease of the Virgin, and witness her miraculous assumption. This huge machine is drawn about the principal streets by sturdy monks, and it is regarded as a particular favour to any family to admit their children in this divine exhibition, although the poor infants themselves do not seem long to enjoy the honours they receive as seraphim, cherubim, and apostles; the constant twirling they receive in the air making some of them fall asleep, many of them sick, and others more grievously ill.[339]

Not only this Hypereian Feast but the machine itself is termed the _Bara_, whence it is evident that, like St. Michael, _Aubrey_ or Aber the Confluence, was regarded as the Camber, Synagogue, Yule or Holy Whole, and the fact that the Sicilian Bara is held upon the day of St. Alipius indicates some intimate connection with St. Alf or Alpi. The Walking Sphinx of the Iparean coins is identified by M. Lenormant as the Phoenician deity Aion, and according to Akerman the type was doubtless chosen in compliment to Albinus, who was born at Hadrumetum, a town not far from Carthage.[340] What was the precise connection between this Aion and Albinus I am unaware.

Among the coins of Iberia some bear the inscriptions ILIBERI, ILIBEREKEN, and ILIBERINEKEN, which accord with Pliny's reference to the Iliberi or Liberini. Liber was the Latin title of the God of Plenty, whence _liberal_, _liberty_, _labour_, etc., and seemingly the _Elibers_ or Liberins deified these virtues as attributes of the Holy Aubrey or the Holy Brain-King.

Directly opposite Albania, the country of the _Epirotes_--known anciently as _Epirus_--is _Cantabria_ at the heel of Italy, and we meet again with the Cantabares in Iberia where they occupied Cantabria which comprised Alava. It may be noted in passing that in Epirus the olive was a supersacred tree: according to Miss Harrison--some of whose words I have italicised--this Moria, or Fate Tree, was the _very life_ of Athens; the _life_ of the _olive_ which fed her and lighted her was the _very life_ of the city. When the Persian host sacked the Acropolis they burnt the holy olive, and it seemed that all was over. But next day it put forth a new shoot and the people knew that the city's life still _lived_. Sophocles sang of the glory of the wondrous _life-tree_ of Athens:--

The untended, the self-planted, self-defended from the foe, Sea-grey, children-nurturing olive tree that here delights to grow, None may take nor touch nor harm it, headstrong youth nor age grown bold For the round of Morian Zeus has been its watcher from of old; He beholds it, and, Athene, thy own sea-grey eyes behold.

From _Epirus_ one is attracted to the river _Iberus_ or _Ebro_ which is bounded by the _Pyrenees_, and had the town of _Hibera_ towards its mouth. Of the Iberian people in general Dr. Lardner states: "They are represented as tenacious of freedom, but those who inhabited the coasts were probably still more so of gain". I am at a loss to know why this offensive suggestion is gratuitously put forward, as the Iberians are said to have been remarkably slender and active and to have held corpulency in much abhorrence.[341] Of the Spanish Cantabres we are told that the consciousness of their strength gave them an air of calm dignity and a decision in their purposes not found in any other people of the Peninsula. "Their loud wailings at funerals, and many other of their customs strongly resemble those of the Irish."[342]

_Pere_ and _parent_ are radically the same word, and that the Iberians reverenced their _peres_ is obvious from the fact that _parricides_ were conducted beyond the bounds of the Kingdom and there slain; their very bones being considered too polluted to repose in their native soil.[343]

Lardner refers to the unbending resolution, persevering energy, and native grandeur of the Cantabrians, but he contemptuously rejects Strabo's "precious information" that some of the Spanish tribes had for 6000 years possessed writing, metrical poems, and even laws. In view of the superior number of Druidical remains which are found in certain parts of Spain it is not improbable that the Barduti of Iberia corresponded with the Bards or Boreadæ of Britain.

There are many references in the classics to certain so-called Hyperboreans, in particular the oft-quoted passage from Diodorus of Sicily or Hypereia: "Hecataeus and some other ancient writers report that there is an island about the bigness of Sicily, situated in the ocean, opposite to the northern coast of Celtica (Gaul), inhabited by a people called Hyperboreans, because they are 'beyond the north wind'. The climate is excellent, and the soil is fertile, yielding double crops. The inhabitants 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."

Claims to being the original Hyperborea have been put in by scholars from time to time on behalf of Stonehenge, the Hebrides, Hibernia, Scythia, Tartary, and Muscovy, "stretching quite to Scandinavia or Sweden and Norway": the locality is still unsettled and will probably remain so, for there is some reason to suppose that the Hyperboreans were a sect or order akin perhaps to the Albigenses, Cathari, Bridge Builders, Comacine Masters, Templars, and other Gnostic organizations of the Dark Ages.

The chief Primary Bard of the West was entitled Taliesin, which Welsh scholars translate into _Radiant Brow_: the _brow_ is the seat of the _brain_, and the two words stand to each other in the same relation as Aubrey to Auberon.

Commenting upon the Elphin _bairn_, illustrated in Fig. 162, Akerman observes that it is supposed to illustrate the Gaulish myth of the Druid Abaris to whom Apollo is said to have given an arrow on which he travelled magically through the air. It is an historic fact that a physical Abaris visited Athens where he created a most favourable impression; it is likewise a fact that Irish literature possesses the account of a person called Abhras, which perfectly agrees with the description of the Hyperborean Abaris of Diodorus and Himerius. The classic Abaris went to Greece to whip up subscriptions for a temple: the Irish Abhras is said to have gone to distant parts in quest of knowledge, returning by way of Scotland where he remained seven years and founded a new system of religion. In Irish Abar means "God the first Cause," and as in Ireland _cad_ (which is our _good_) meant _holy_, the magic word Abracadabra may be reasonably resolved into _Abra, Good Abra_. As already mentioned the Irish cried _Aber!_ when rushing into battle, and the word was no doubt used likewise at peaceful feasts and festivals. The inference would thus seem that the title of Abaris was assumed by the chief Druid or High Priest who personified during his tenure of office the archetypal Abaris. It is well known that the priest or king enacted in his own person the mysteries of the faith; and it is not improbable that chief Guedianus, whose sacred play was so rudely disturbed by St. Sampson, was personifying at the time the _Good Janus_ or Genius.

If my suggestion that Taliesin or _Radiant Brow_ was a generic title assumed by every Primary-Chief-Bard in Britain for the time being be correct, it is likely that the same principle applied elsewhere than in Wales. The first bard mentioned in Ireland was Amergin, which resolves into _Love King_, and may thus be equated with Homer the blind old man of Chios. The supposedly staid and gloomy Etrurians attributed all their laws and wisdom to an elphin child who was unexpectedly thrown up from the soil by a plough. As the Etrurian name for Cupid was Epeur, in all probability the aged child on Fig. 171 represents this elphin high-brow, and with _Epeur_ may be connoted the Etrurian _Per_ugia--probably the same word as Phrygia. The local saint of Peru_gia_, the _land of Peru_ (_?_) was known as Good John of Perugia: in Hibernia St. Ibar is mentioned as being "like John the Baptist".[344]

It was the custom in Etruria to represent _good genii_ as birds: birds sporting amid foliage are even to-day accepted and understood as symbolic of good genii in Paradise, and birds or _brids_, as we used to spell them, are of course Nature's little singing men, _i.e._, _bards_ or _boreadæ_. A percipient observer of the Pictish inscriptions found in Scotland has recently pointed out that, "With the exception of the eagle which conveys a special meaning, shown in many early Scottish stones, the image of a bird is a sign of good omen. Winged creatures, indeed, almost always stand for angelic and spiritual things, whether in pagan or Christian times. The bird symbol involved the conception of ethereality or spirituality. The bird _motif_ occurs in the decoration of metallic objects in the British Islands during the early centuries in this era. I have found in Wigtownshire the image of a bird in bronze. It belongs to a time early in this era. It occurs within the pentacle symbol engraved on a pebble from the Broch of Burrian, Orkney. Birds are shown within the pedestal of a cross at Farr. Birds with a similar symbolism are found on the Shandwick stone, and on a stone at St. Vigeans. They are of frequent occurrence in foliageous work, often with the three-berried branch or with the three-lobed leaf, as at Closeburn. The pagan conception, absorbed into the early Christian ideas, was that the bird represented the disembodied spirit which was reputed to voyage here and there with a lightning celerity, like the flash of a swallow on the wing."[345]

The Bards of Britain attributed the foundation of their order to Hu the First Pillar of the Island, and to unravel the personality of the early Bards will no doubt prove as impracticable as the disclosure of Homer, Amergin, Old Moore, and Old Parr.

No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat, Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.

As St. Bride, whose name may be connoted with _brid_ or _bird_, was the goddess of eloquence and poetry, the Welsh term Prydain is no doubt cognate with _prydu_ the Welsh for "to compose poetry". Probably _prate_, mediæval _praten_, meant originally to _preach_ in a fervid, voluble, and sententious manner, but in any case it is impossible to agree with Skeat that _prate_ was "of imitative origin". Imitative of what--a _parrot_?

The _hyper_ of Hyperborean is our word _upper_; _over_, German _uber_, means _aloft_, which is radically _alof_, and _exuberant_ and _exhuberance_ resolve into, _from or out of Auberon_: the _bryony_ is a creeper of notoriously exuberant growth, in Greek _bruein_ means to teem or grow luxuriantly.

With the river Ebro may be connoted the South Spanish town of Ebora or Epora which is within a few miles of Andura. The coins of this city are inscribed EPORA, AIPORA, and IIPORA, and the "bare bearded head to the right within a laurel garland" may here no doubt be identified with Hyperion, the father of Helios the Sun. In Homer, Helios himself is alluded to as Hyperion, which is the same name as our Auberon: the coins of the Tarragonensian town of Pria, which has been sometimes confused with Baria, in the south of Spain, figure a bull and are inscribed Prianen.

There are in existence certain coins figuring an ear of corn, a pellet, a crescent, the head of Hercules, and a club, inscribed ABRA: the site of this city is unknown, but is believed to have been near Cadiz.

On the banks of the Tagus there was a city named Libora and its coins pourtrayed a horse: in the opinion of Akerman the unbridled horse was the symbol of _liberty_, and it is quite likely that among other interpretations this was one, for it is beyond question that symbolism was never fettered into one solitary and stereotyped form.

The ancient Libora is now known as Talavera la Reyna which may seemingly be modernised into _Tall Vera, the Queen_. The Tarraconensian town of Barea--whose emblem was the thistle--is now known as Vera: the old Portuguese Ebora is now Evora, _uber_ is the German for _over_; Varvara is the Cretan form of Barbara, and it is quite obvious that in various directions Vera and Bera with their derivatives were synonymous terms.

It would seem that Aubrey or Avery toured with his cross into _Helvetia_, planting it particularly at _Ginevra_, now Geneva, and there for the moment we may leave him amid the _Alpine_ Oberland at Berne.

The ancient town of Berne memorises in its museum a famed St. Bernard dog named "Barry," which saved the lives of forty travellers: this "Barry" associated with Oberthal may be connoted with "Perro," a shepherd's dog in Wales, whose curious name Borrow was surprised to find corresponded with _perro_, the generic term for _dog_ in Spain.[346]

_Berne_ still maintains its erstwhile sacred Bruin or _bears_ in their bear-pit, but the Gaulish Eburs or Iburii seemingly reverenced not Bruin but the _boar_, _vide_ the EBUR coin here illustrated. The capital of the ancient Eburii is now Evreux, and they seem, no doubt for some excellent reason, to have been confused with the Cenomani, a people seemingly akin to our British Cenomagni, Iceni, or Cantii.

Fig. 174, bearing the inscription EBURO, is a coin of the Eburones who inhabited the neighbourhood of Liége. It is a noteworthy fact that the people of Liége are admittedly conspicuous as the most courteous and charming of all Belgians. Their coins were inscribed EBUR, EBURO, and sometimes COM--a curious and unexplained legend which occurs frequently upon the tokens of Britain.

The Celtiberian town of Cunbaria is now known as La Maria, the Kimmeroi were synonymously the Kymbri, and it is not improbable that these dual terms have survived in the _compère_ and _commère_ of modern France. The _pères_ or priests of France, like the parsons, priests, and presbyters of Britain, assign to infants at Baptism a God-Father and a God-Mother, which the French term respectively _parrain_ and _marrain_. _Compère_ and _commère_ figure not only in the Church but also in the Theatre, and it is more than likely that the _commère_ and _compère_ of the modern Revue are the direct descendants of the patriarchal _Abaris_, _Abhras_, _Priest_, and _Presbyter_ of prehistoric times.

On the Sierra de _Elvira_ near Granada used to stand Ilibiris whose coins are inscribed ILIBERI, ILBRS, ILIBERRIS, LIBER, ILBERNEN, ILBRNAKN, ILBREKN, and these legends may be connoted with the famous Irish Leprechaun, Lobaircin, or Lubarkin who figures less prominently in England as the Lubrican or Lubberkin. Sometimes the Irish knock off the _holy_ and refer simply to "_a little prechaun_," but the more usual form is Lubarkin:[347] this most remarkable of the fairy tribe in Ireland is supposed to be peculiar to that island, but one would probably have once met with him at Brecon, or Brychain at Brecknock, at Brechin in Forfarshire, at Birchington in Kent, at Barking near London, and in many more directions. In connection with Iberia in the West there occur references to a giant Bergyon, who may be connoted with Burchun of the Asiatic Buratys. The religion of these Buratys was, said Bell, downright paganism of the grossest kind: he adds the information, "they talk, indeed, of an Almighty and Good Being who created all things, whom they call Burchun; but seem bewildered in obscure and fabulous notions concerning His nature and government".[348] Inquiries may prove that these Burchun-worshipping Buratys were of the Asiatic Iberian race which Strabo supposed were descendants of the Western Iberi.[349]

In addition to Barking near London (Domesday _Berchinges_) there is a Birchin Lane, and buried away in obscurity, opposite the Old Bailey in London, there is standing to-day a small open court entitled Prujean Square. In connection with this may be connoted the tradition that the origin of the societies of the inns of court is to be found in the law schools existing in the city: the first of these legal institutions entitled Johnstone's Inn,[350] was situated in Newgate; and the vulgarity of the name Johnstone raises a suspicion that Johnstones were as plentiful in Scotland as Prestons in England, both alike being Aubry or Bryanstones, where the Brehon laws were enunciated and administered. Whether the present Prujean Square marks the site of the original Johnstone, whence Johnstone's Inn, is a matter which may possibly be settled by future inquiry, but the word Prujean, which is _père John_, renders it extremely likely that the original Johnstone of Johnstone's Inn, Newgate, was alternatively _père_ Johnstone. If this were so, Prujean Square marks the primary Law Court of the Old Bailey, and at some remote period the officers of the Law merely stepped across the road into more commodious premises.

The Governors of Gray's Inn, another most ancient Law School, are entitled "the Ancients"; _equity_ is radically the same word as _equus_, a horse; and the Mayors, or Mares, of Britain and Brittany seemingly represented the mare-headed Demeter or Good Mother. _Juge_ is _geegee_, our judges still wear _horse_-hair wigs of office, and the figure on the British coin here illustrated looks singularly like a _brehon_ or _barrister_ who has been called to the Bar.

It is common knowledge that the primitive _Bar_ was a _barrow_, from the summit of which the Druid, King, or Abaris administered justice, and around which presumably were ranged each at his stone the prehistoric barristers or _abaristers_? Even until the eighteenth century the lawyers were assigned each a pillar in St. Paul's Church, and at their respective pillars the Men of Law administered advice. On the summit of Prestonbury Rings in Devonshire evidently once stood a phairie stone, and the name of Prestonpans in Scotland suggests that Prestons were not unknown in Albany.

The laws of Greece were admittedly derived from Crete, and such was the reputation of King Minos that the mythologists made him the Judge of the Under-world. Lycurgus, the Cretan, would not permit his Code to be committed to writing, deeming it more permanent if engraved upon the brain: the Brehon laws of Ireland were enunciated in rhymed triplets termed Celestial Judgments, and the most ancient Law Codes of all nations are assigned without exception to Bards and a divine origin.

Not only were laws enunciated from barrows, but the dead were buried in a barrow, and the knees of the deceased were tucked up under his chin so that the body assumed the position of an unborn child: in Welsh _bru_ meant the belly or matrix, in Cornish _bry_ meant breast, and the notion seems to have been that the body of the deceased was restored as it were into Abraham's bosom whence it had sprung.[351]

It is a remarkable fact that neither in the Greek nor Latin language is there any equivalent to the word _barrow_, whence it would seem, judging also from the immense number of round and oval barrows found in Britain, that these islands were pre-eminently the home of the barrow, and that the barrow was essentially a British institution.

Connected with _barrow_ is the civic _borough_, also the _berg_ or hill: in Cornish _bre_, _bar_, or _per_ meant hill,[352] and _bar_ meant top or summit; _birua_ is the Basque for head, and in Gaelic _barra_ meant supposedly _mount of the circle_.[353]

In Cornish _bron_ meant breast or pap, and one of the most popular heroines of Welsh Romance is the beautiful Bronwen or Branwen, a name which the authorities translate as meaning _Bosom White_. In old English _bosom_ was written _bosen_, and as _en_ was our ancient plural, as in brethr_en_, childr_en_, etc., it is probable that not only did _bosen_ mean the bosses but that _bron_ or breast was originally _bru en_, _bre en_ or _bar en_, _i.e._, the tops or hills. This symbol of the Great Mother was represented frequently by two hills--from the Paps of Anu down to twin barrows, and it was also represented mathematically by two circles.

In Celtic _bryn_ meant hillock or hill, in Cornish _bern_ meant a hayrick, and that the _mows_ or hayricks were made in the form of _bron_, the breast, may be implied from ancient Inn Signs of the Barley Mow. _Bara_ was Cornish for _bread_; in the same language _barn_ meant to judge, _barner_ a judge, and there is good reason to suppose that the tithe barns connected with Monasteries and Churches served originally not merely as store-houses, but as Courts of Justice, theatres, and centres of religion. In Cornish _bronter_ meant priest, _priest_ is the same word as _breast_, and the notion of _par_sons being pastors, feeders, or fathers is commemorated in the words themselves. In Cornish _brein_ or _brenn_ meant royal and supreme; the sacred centre stone of King's County in Ireland was situated at Birr, and _birua_ has already been noted as being the Basque for _head_. The probability of these words being connected is strengthened by Keightley's observation: "There must by the way some time or other have been an intimate connection between Spain and England, so many of our familiar words seem to have a Spanish origin".[354]

In addition to the famous earthwork at _Abury_ in Wilts there is a less familiar one at _Eubury_ in Gloucestershire: at Redbourne in Herts is a "camp" known as "_Aubrey's_" or "_Aubury_," whence it would seem that _abri_, the generic term for a shelter or refuge, might also have originated in Britain.[355] The colossal _abri_ at Abury, or Aubrey, consisted of two circles within a greater one, and at the head of the avenue facing due east it will be noticed that Aubrey, the seventeenth-century antiquary, records twin barrows situated on what is now _Over_ton Hill.

Lying in the sea a mile or so off the Cornish town of St. Just are a _pair_ of conical _ber_gs or _pyr_amids known as the Brisons, and opposite these is a little bay named Priest's Cove. There is no known etymology for Brisons, but it has been suggested that these remarkable burgs were once used as prisons: probably they were, for the stocks were frequently placed at the church door, and without doubt the ancient holy places served on necessity as prisons as well as Courts of St. Just. In the vicarage garden at St. Just was found a small bronze bull, and as the Phoenicians have been washed out of reckoning we may assign this idol either to the Britons who, until recently wassailed under the guise of a bull termed "the Broad,"[356] or to the Bronze-age Cretans, among whom the Bull or Minotaur was sacred. Perhaps instead of "Cretans" it would be more just to say Hellenes, for the headland opposite the Brisons was known originally as Cape Helenus, and there are the ruins of St. Hellen's Chapel still upon it.

Hellen, the mythical ancestor from whom the Hellenes attributed their national descent, may possibly be recognised not only as the Long Man or Lanky Man of country superstition but also in Parth_olon_ or Barth_olon_, the alleged son of Terah (Troy?), who is said to have landed with an expedition at Imber Scene in Ireland within 300 years after the Flood. Partholon, _Father Good Holon_ (?) or _Pure Good Holon_ (?) is said to have had three sons "whose names having been conferred on localities where they are still extant their memories have been thus perpetuated so that they seem still to live among us". This passage, quoted from Silvester Giraldus,[357] who was surnamed Cambrensis because he was a Welshman, permits the assumption that a similar practice prevailed also elsewhere, and if in the time of Giraldus (1146) place-names had survived since the Flood, there is no reason to suppose that they have since ceased to exist.

Hellen was the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who correspond to the Noah and Alpha of our British mythology: after floating for nine days during the Flood the world was said to have been re-peopled by these twain, _two-one_, giant or _joint_ pair, who created men by casting stones over their shoulders. In the Christian emblem here illustrated the divine Père or Parent, is being assisted by an angel, _peri_, or phairy, and it is possible that the Prestons of Britain were at one time Pyrrha stones. As the syllable _zance_ of Penzance is always understood as _san_, holy, possibly the two Brisons may be translated into _Pair Holy_: with the Greek Pyrrha-Flood story may be connoted Peirun the name of the Chinese Noah.

The church of St. Just was originally known as Lafroodha, which is understood to have meant _laf_ church and _rhooda_,[358] "a corruption of the Saxon word rood or cross". Rhooda is, however, much older than Saxon, _rhoda_ is the Greek for rose, and the Rhodian Greeks used the rose as their national symbol. The immediate surroundings of the Dane John at Durovernum are known to this day as Rodau's Town, and we shall consider Rhoda at greater length in subsequent chapters.

In the church of Roodha or St. Just there is standing a so-called "Silus stone" which was discovered in 1834, during alterations to the chancel: this object has carved upon it SILUS HIC JACET, the Greek letters [Greek: Ch.R.], and a crosier, whence it has been surmised that Silus was a priest or pastor. Mr. J. Harris Stone inquires: "Who was Silus? No one has yet discovered," and he adds: "It is a reasonable conjecture that he was one of those early British bishops who preached the Gospel before the mission of Augustine."

I agree that he was British, but I am inclined to place him still farther back, and to assign his name at any rate to the Selli, under which title the priests of Epirus were known. The Selli were pre-eminently the custodians at Dodona, whence Homer's reference:--

Great King, Dodona's Lord, Pelasgian Jove, Who dwell'st on high, and rul'st with sov'reign sway, Dodona's wintry heights; where dwell around Thy Sellian priests, men of unwashen feet, That on the bare ground sleep.

The Spartan courage and simplicity of the British papas is sufficiently exemplified by their voyages to Iceland and to the storm-tossed islands of the Hebrides, where they have left names such as Papa Stour, Papa Westray, etc. One may assume that the _selli_ of Dodona--as probably also the _salii_ or augurs of Etruria--lived originally in _cells_ either single or in clusters which became the foundations of later monasteries: Silus may thus be connoted with _solus_, and the word _celibate_ suggests that the _selli_ led _soli_tary lives.

Close to Perry Court, in Kent, is Selgrove, and the numerous Selstons, Seldens, Selsdens, Selwoods, and Selhursts, were in all probability hills, woods, denes, and groves where the Selli congregated, and celebrated the benefits and perfections of the Solus or Alone. Near Birmingham is Selly Oak, which may be connoted with _allon_, the Hebrew for oak, and with the fact that the oak groves of the _selli_ at Dodona were universally renowned. The Scilly Islands and Selsea or Sels Island in Hampshire may be connoted with Selby or Selebi, the abode of the _selli_ (_?_), in Yorkshire, now Selby Abbey. In Devonshire is _Zeal_ Monachorum, and judging by what was accomplished we may define the _selli_ as _zeal_ous and celestial-minded souls. In Welsh _celli_ means a _grove_; in Latin _sylva_ means a _wood_; it is notorious that the Druids worshipped in groves, and it is not unlikely that Silbury Hill was particularly the selli's hill or barrow. On the other hand the pervasiveness of _Bury_ at Abury as exemplified in the immediately adjacent _Bar_bury Castle, _Bore_ham Downs, _Brad_enstoke, _Over_ton Hill, and Oli_vers_ Castle, makes it likely that the _Sil_ of Silbury may have been the Sol of Solway and Salisbury Crags.

In Ireland our soft _cell_ is _kil_, whence Kilkenny, Kilbride, and upwards of 1400 place-names, all meaning _cell of_, or _holy to_ so and so. The enormous prevalence of this hard _kil_ in Ireland renders it probable that the word carried the same meaning in many other directions, notably at Cal_abria_ in Etruria: the wandering priests of Asia Minor and the near East were known as Calanders, a word probably equivalent to Santander, and as has been seen every Welsh Preston was a Llanandras or church of Andrew.

At Haverfordwest there is a place named Berea, upon which the Rev. J. B. Johnston comments: "Welsh Non-conformists love to name their chapels and villages around them so": among the Hebrew Pharisees there existed a mystic _haburah_ or _fellowship_;[359] and the Welsh word _Berea_, probably connected with _abri_, meaning a sanctuary, is associated by Mr. Johnston with the passage in Acts xvii., _i.e._: "And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and _Silas_ by night into Berea". That Paul preached from an _abri_, or Mount Pleasant, is implied by the statement that he stood in the midst of Mars Hill, whence he admonished his listeners against their altars to the Unknown God. It was traditionally believed that St. Paul preached not only to the people of Cornwall, but also to Londoners from Parliament Hill, where a prehistoric stone still stands.

That Hellen was once a familiar name at Abury is implied by _Lans_down, _Lyn_ham, and perhaps Calne or _uch alne_ the _Great Alone_. Both the river Colne in Lancashire and the village of Calne near Abury are attributed as possibly to _calon_, the Welsh for heart or centre: the word _centre_ is radically San Troy, as also is _saintuary_ or _sanctuary_. Stukeley speaks particularly of Overton Hill as being the sanctuary, but the entire district was traditionally sacrosanct, and it was popularly supposed that reptiles died on entering the precincts: of the Hyperboreans, Diodorus expressly records they had consecrated a large territory.

The village of Abury was occasionally spelled Avereberie, at other times Albury, and with this latter form may be connoted Alberich,[360] the German equivalent to Auberon. Chilperic, a variant of Alberich, is stated by Camden to be due to a German custom of prefacing certain names with _ch_ or _k_, a contracted form of _king_: I was unaware of this fact when first formulating my theory that an initial _K_ meant _great_.

It is considered that Alberich meant _Elf rich_, and the official supposition is that the French Alberon, or Auberon, was made in Germany: according to Keightley, the German Albs or Elves have fallen from the popular creed, but in most of the traditions respecting them we recognise benevolence as one of the principal traits of their character.[361]

Alberich may, as is generally supposed, have meant Albe_rich_, or _Albe wealthy_, but _brich_, _brick_, _brook_, etc., are fundamental terms and are radically _ber uch_. Brightlingsea--of which there are 193 variants of spelling--is pronounced by the natives Bricklesea, and there are innumerable British Brockleas, Brixtons, Brixhams, Brockhursts, etc.

Among the many unsolved problems of archæology are the Hebridean _brochs_, which are hollow towers of dry built masonry formed like truncated cones. These erections, peculiar to Scotland, are found mainly in the Hebrides, and there is a surprising uniformity in their design and construction. Among the most notable brochs are those situated at Burray, Borrowston, Burrafirth, Burraness, Birstane, Burgar, Brindister, Birsay and in _Ber_wickshire, at Cockburnlaw, and the remarkable recurrence of _Bur_, or _Burra_, in these place-names is obviously due to something more than chance.

At _Brook_land Church in Kent--within a few miles of Camber Castle--a triplex conical belfrey or _berg_ of wooden construction is standing, not on the tower, but on the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of the sacred edifice. The amazing cone-tomb illustrated on page 237 is that of Lars Porsenna, which means Lord Porsenna, and the bergs or conical pair of _Brison_ rocks lying off Priest's Cove at St. Just may be connoted not only with the word parson but with Parsons and Porsenna. Malory, in _Morte d'Arthur_, mentions an eminent Dame Brisen, adding that: "This Brisen was one of the greatest enchantresses that was at that time in the world living."[362]

There is a famous broch at Burrian in the Orkneys; near St. Just are the parishes of St. Buryan and St. Veryan, both of which are identified with an ancient Eglosberrie, _i.e._, the _eglise_, close, or cloister of Berrie. A berry is a diminutive egg, and in some parts of the country gooseberries are known as deberries.[363] _De berry_ seemingly means _good_ or _divine_ berry, and the _pick_ly character of the gooseberry bush no doubt added to the sanctity: from the word goosegog _gog_ was seemingly once a term equivalent to _berry_; a goose is often termed a _barn_acle, and the phantom dog--sometimes a bear--entitled the _bargeist_ or _barguest_ was no doubt a popular degradation of the Hound of Heaven. Two hounds in leash are known as a _brache_, which is the same word as brace, meaning pair: in connection with the supposition that the Brisons were originally prisons may be noted that barnacles were primarily a pair of curbs or handcuffs.

From the typical ground plan of two brochs here given it will be seen that their form was that of a wheel, and it is possible that the flanged spokes of these essential _abris_ were based upon the svastika notion of a rolling, running trinacria such as that of Hyperea and of the Isle of Man. Brochs are in some directions known as _peels_, and at Peel Castle, in the Isle of Man, legend points to a grave 30 yards long as being that of Eubonia's first king: a curious tradition, says Squire, credits him with three legs, and it is these limbs arranged like the spokes of a wheel that appear on the arms of the Island.[364]

In connection with the giant's grave at Peel may be connoted the legend in Rome that St. Paul was there beheaded "at the Three Fountains". The exact spot is there shown where the milk spouted from his apostolic arteries, and where moreover his head, after it had done preaching, took three jumps to the honour of the Holy Trinity, and at each spot on which it jumped there instantly sprang up a spring of living water which retains to this day a plain and distinct taste of milk.[365] This story of three jumps is paralleled in Leicester by a legend of Giant Bell who took three mighty leaps and is said to be buried at Belgrave:[366] Bell is the same word as Paul and Peel.

The Lord of the Isle of Man is said to have swept swift as the spring wind over land and sea upon a horse named Splendid Mane: the Mahommedans tell of a milk-white steed named _Al Borak_, each of whose strides were equal to the furthest range of human vision: in Chaucer's time English carmen addressed their steeds as _brok_, and in Arabic _el boraka_ means _the blessing_. _Broch_ is the same word as _brooch_, and upon ancient brooches a _brok_, as in Fig. 187, was sometimes represented: the magnificent ancestral brooches of the Highland families will be found on investigation frequently to be replete with ancient symbolism, the centre jewel representing the All-seeing Eye. _Broch_ or _broca_ means a pin or spike, and _prick_ means dot or speck: _prick_, like _brok_, also meant horse, and every one is familiar with the gallant knight who "pricks," _i.e._, rides on horseback o'er the plain. _Prick_ and _brok_ thus obviously stand in the same relation to each other as Chil_peric_ and Al_beric_.

The phairy first king of the Isle of Man was regarded as the special patron of sea-faring men, by whom he was invoked as "Lord of Headlands," and in this connection Berry Head at Brixham, Barras Head at Tintagel, and Barham or Barenham Down in Kent are interesting. The southern coast of Wales is sprinkled liberally with _Bru_ place-names from St. Bride's Bay wherein is Ramsey Island, known anciently as _ynis y Bru_, the Isle of Bru, to Burry river and Barry Isle next Sulli Isle (the _selli_ isle?).

Aubrey or Auberon may be said almost to pervade the West and South of England: at Barnstaple or Barn Market we meet with High Bray, river Bray, Bratton, Burnham, Braunton, _Berryn_arbor, the Brendon Hills, Paracombe and _Baggy_ Point; in the Totnes neighbourhood are _Big_bury, Burr Island, Beer Head, Berry Head, Branscombe, Branshill, and Prawle Point, which last may be connoted with the rivers Barle, Bark, and Brue. It is perhaps noteworthy that the three spots associated until the historic period with flint-knapping[367] are _Beer_ Head in Devon, _Pur_fleet near Barking, and _Bran_don in Suffolk.

Totnes being the traditional landing-place of Bru it is interesting to find in that immediate district two Prestons, a Pruston, Barton, Bourton or Borton, Brookhill, Bructon, Brixham, Prescott, Parmount, Berry Pomeroy, Prestonberry and Preston Castle or Shandy's Hill.[368] Ebrington suggests an _ington_ or town of the children of Ebr; Alvington may be similarly connected with Alph, and Ilbert and Brent seemingly imply the _Holy Ber_ or _Bren_. The True Street by Totnes may be connoted with the adjacent Dreyton, and Bosomzeal Cross in all probability once bore in the centre, or bogel, the boss which customarily forms the eye of Celtic crosses. Hu being the first of the three deddu, tatu, or pillars, the term Totnes probably as in Shoeburyness meant Tot_nose_, and the adjacent Dodbrooke, Doddiscombleigh, and Daddy's Hole may all be connoted with the Celtic _tad_, _dad_, or _daddy_. With the Doddi of Doddiscombleigh or _Doddy's Valley Meadow_, may be connoted the gigantic and commanding Cornish headland known as Dodman. The Hollicombe by Preston was presumably the holy Coombe, and Halwell, at one time a Holy Well: in this neighbourhood of Kent's Cavern and Kent's Copse are Kingston and Okenbury; at Kingston-on-Thames is Canbury Park, and it is extremely likely that the true etymology of Kingston is not _King's Town_ but _King Stone_, _i.e._, a synonymous term for Preston and the same word as Johnstone.

If as now suggested Bru was _père Hu_ we may recognise Hu at Hoodown which, at Totnes, where it occurs, evidently does _not_ mean a low-lying spit of land but, as at Plymouth Hoe or Haw, implied a hill. In view of the preceding group of local names it is difficult to assume that some imaginative Mayor of Totnes started the custom of issuing his proclamations from the so-called Brutus Stone in Fore Street merely to flatter an obscure Welsh poet who had vain-gloriously uttered the tradition that the British were the remnants of Droia: it is far more probable that the Mayor and corporation of Totnes had never heard of Taliesin, and that they stolidly followed an immemorial wont.

With the church of St. Just or Roodha, and with the Rodau of Rodau's Town neighbouring the Danejohn at Canterbury or Durovernum, we shall subsequently connote Rutland or Rutaland and the neighbouring Leicester, anciently known as Ratæ. The highest peak in Leicestershire is Bardon Hill, followed, in order of altitude, by "Old John" in Bradgate Park, Bredon, and Barrow Hill.

Adjacent to Ticehurst in Sussex--a hurst which is locally attributed to a fairy named Tice--may be found the curious place-names Threeleo Cross and Bewl Bri. These names are the more remarkable being found in the proximity of Priestland, Parson's Green, Barham, and Heart's Delight. Under the circumstances I think Threeleo Cross must have been a tri holy or three-legged cross, and that Huggins Hall, which marks the highest ground of the district, was Huge or High King's Hall: in close proximity are Queen's Street, Maydeacon House, Grovehurst, and Great Old Hay.

With _Bredon_ in Leicestershire, a district where the tradition of a three-jumping giant, as has been seen, prevailed, may be connoted the prehistoric camp, or _abri_, of Bradenstoke, and that Abury itself was regarded as a vast _trinacria_ is probable from the fact that in the words of a quite impartial archæologist: "The _triangle_ of downs surrounding Avebury may be considered the hub of England and from it radiates the great lines of hills like the spokes of a wheel, the Coltswolds to the north, the Mendips to the west, the Dorsetshire Hills to the south west, Salisbury Plain to the south, the continuation of the North and South Downs to the east, and the high chalk ridge of the Berkshire Downs north-east to the Chilterns."[369]

In this quotation I have ventured to italicise the word _triangle_ which idea again is recurrent in the passage: "The Downs round Avebury are the meeting-place of three main watersheds of the country and are the centre from which the great lines of hills radiate north-east, and west through the Kingdom. Here at the junction of the hills we find the largest prehistoric temple in the world with Silbury, the largest artificial earth mound in Europe, close by."[370]

The assertion by Stukeley that Avebury described the form of a circle traversed by serpentine stone avenues has been ridiculed by less well-informed archæologists, largely on the ground that no similar erection existed elsewhere in the world. But on the British coin here illustrated a cognate form is issuing from the eagle's beak, and in Fig. 190 (a Danish emblem of the Bronze Age), the Great Worm or Dragon, which typified the Infinite, is supporting a wheel to which the designer has successfully imparted the idea of movement.

Five miles N.-E. of Abury there stands on the summit of a commanding hill the natural great fortress known as Barbury Castle, surrounded by the remains of numerous banks and ditches. The name Barbara--a duplication of Bar--is in its Cretan form Varvary, and it was seemingly the Iberian or Ivernian equivalent of "Very God of Very God," otherwise Father of Fathers, or Abracadabra. In Britain, and particularly in Ireland, children still play a game entitled, The Town of Barbarie, which is thus described: "Some boys line up in a row, one of whom is called the prince. Two others get out on the road and join hands and represent the town of Barbarie. One of the boys from the row then comes up to the pair, walks around them and asks--

Will you surrender, will you surrender The town of Barbarie?

They answer--

We won't surrender, we won't surrender, The town of Barbarie.

Being unsuccessful, he goes back to the prince and tells him that they won't surrender. The prince then says--

Take one of my good soldiers.

This is done, and the whole row of boys are brought up one after the other till the town is taken by their parting the joined hands of the pair who represent the town of Barbarie."[371]

It will be remarked that Barbarie is represented by a _pair_, which is suggestive of the Dioscuri or Heavenly Twins, and on referring to the life of St. Barbara we find her recorded as the daughter of Dioscorus, and as having been born at Heliopolis, or the city of the sun. The Dioscuri--those far-famed heroes Castor and Pollux--were said to have been born out of an egg laid by Leda the Swan: elsewhere the Dioscuri were known as the Cabiri, a term which is radically _abiri_. It is probable that St. Barbara was once represented with the emblems of the two Dioscuri or Cabiri, for one of her "tortures" is said to have been that she should be hanged between two forked trees. These two trees were doubtless two sprigs such as shown in Fig. 191 or two flowering pillars between which the Virgin was extended Andrew-wise in benediction. The next torture recorded of St. Barbara was the scorching of her sides with burning lamps, from which we may deduce that the Virgin was once depicted with two great lights on either side. Next, St. Barbara's oppressors made her strongly to be beaten, "and hurted her head with a mallet": the Slav deity Peroon was always depicted with a mallet, and the hammer or axe was practically a universal symbol of _Power_. As already noted, Peroon, the God with a mallet, has been equated by some scholars with Varuna of India; in Etruria the God of Death was generally represented with a great hammer, and the mallet with which St. Barbara was "hurted" may be further equated with the celebrated Hammer of Thor.

The gigantic hammer cut into the hillside at Tours, and associated in popular estimation with Charles Martel, in view of the name Tours is far more likely to have been the hammer of Thor, who, as we have seen, was assigned to Troy.

We are told that St. Barbara's father imprisoned his daughter within a high and strong _tour_, _tor_, or _tower_, that no man should see her because of her great beauty: this incident is common alike to fairy-tale--notably at Tory Island--and hagiology, and one meets persistently with the peerless princess imprisoned in a peel, broch, or tower. In Fig. 192 is represented a so-called Trinity of Evil, but in all probability this is a faithful reproduction of the Iberian Aber or Aubrey, _i.e._, the trindod seated upon his symbolic _tor_, _tower_, or _broch_. The strokes at the toes, like the more accentuated lines from the fingers of Fig. 193, denoted the streaming light, and when we read that one of the exquisite tortures inflicted upon St. George was the thrusting of poisoned thorns into his finger-nails it is a reasonable conclusion that St. George was likewise represented with rayed fingers. The feast of St. Ibar in Hibernia is held upon 23rd April or _Aperil_, which is also St. George's Day.

St. Barbara, we are told, was marvellously carried on a stone into a high mountain, on which _two_ shepherds kept their sheep, "the which saw her fly"; and it is apparent in all directions that Barbara was peculiarly identified with the Two-One Twain or Pair. Barbara is popularly contracted into Babs or Bab, and the little Barbara or Babette may probably be identified with the Babchild of Kent. The coin here illustrated was unearthed at the village of Babchild, known also as Bacchild, and its centre evidently represents the world _pap_, Pope, _paab_, or _baba_: in Christian Art the All Father is represented as a Pope, and as twin Popes, and likewise as a two-faced Person.

There is little doubt that the pre-Christian Pope was sometimes represented as a mother and child, and it was probably the discovery of one of these images or pictures that started the horrible scandal of Pope Joan or Papesse Jeanne. It is said that this accomplished but unhappy lady occupied the papal-chair for a period of two years five months under the title of John the _Eighth_, but having publicly become the mother of a little son her life ended in infamy and ill odour. To commemorate this shocking and incredible event a monument representing the Papess with her baby was, we are told, erected on the actual spot which was accordingly declared accursed to all ages: but as the incident thus memorised occurred as long ago as the ninth century, it is more probable that the statue was the source of the story and not _vice versa_. According to some accounts Joan was baptised Hagnes which is the feminine form of Hagon or Acon: others said her name was Margaret, and that she was the daughter of an English missionary who had left England to preach to the Saxons. At the time of the Reformation Germany seized with avidity upon the scandal as being useful for propaganda purposes, and with that delicacy of touch for which the Lutherans were distinguished, embroidered the tale with characteristic embellishments. According to Baring-Gould the stout Germans, not relishing the notion of Joan being a daughter of the Fatherland, palmed her off on England, but "I have little doubt myself," he adds, "that Pope Joan is an impersonification of the great whore of Babylon seated on the Seven Hills":[372] on the contrary, I think she was more probably a personification of the Consort of St. Peter the Rock, and the Keeper of the Keys of Heaven's Gate. Among Joan's sobriquets was Jutt, which is believed to have been "a nickname surely!": more seemingly Jutt was a Latinised form of Kud, Ked, Kate, or Chad, and Engelheim, or _Angel Home_, the alleged birth-place of Jutt, was either entirely mystical, or perhaps Anglesea, if not Engel Land.

The father of Jutt's child was said to have been Satan himself, who, on the occasion of the birth, was seen and heard fluttering overhead, crowing and chanting in an unmusical voice:--

Papa pater patrum, Papissae pandito partum Et tibi tunc eadem de corpore quando recedam.

This description would seem to have been derived from some ancient picture in which the Papa was represented either as a fluttering or chanting cock, or as cockheaded. Such representations were common among the Gnostics, and the legend, _papa-pater-patrum_, Father, Father of Fathers, is curiously suggestive of Barbara or Varvary: in the Gnostic emblem here reproduced is the counterpart to the cock-headed deity, and the reverse is obviously Vera, Una, or the naked Truth.

Gretchen, the German for Margaret, being _Great Jane_, will account for Pope Joan, and Gerberta, another of her names is radically Berta: Bertha, or Peratha, among the Germans is equated with Perchta, and translated "Bright One," or the "Shining One": the same roots are found in St. Cuth_bert_, or _Cudbright_ as he becomes in Kirkcudbrightshire.

The child of Papesse Jeanne, Gerberta, Hagnes or Jutt was deemed to be Antichrist: according to other accounts the mother of the feared and anticipated Antichrist was a very aged woman, of race unknown, called Fort Juda. Fort Juda was probably _Strong Judy_, Judy, the wife of Punch, being evidently a form of the very aged wife of Pan, the goat-headed symbol of Gott.[373] As Peter was the Janitor of the Gate, so Kate or Ked was similarly connected with the _Gate_ which is the same word as Gott or Goat: the Gnostic _God_ here represented is a seven-goat solar wheel.

The horns and head of the goat still figure in representations of Old Nick, and there is no doubt that the horns of the crescent moon, under the form of Io, the heifer, were particularly worshipped at Byzantium: this City of the Golden Horn, now known as Constantinople, to which it will be remembered the British Chronicles assign our origin, was founded by a colony of Greeks from Megara, and in Scandinavia it is still known as Megalopolis, or the City of Michael; its ancient name Byzantium will probably prove to have been connected with _byzan_ or _bosen_, the bosses or paps, and Pera, the Christian district which borders the Bosphorus, may be connoted with Epeur.

Fig. 200, reproduced from a Byzantine bronze pound weight, is supposed to represent "two military saints," but it more probably portrays the celestial pair, Micah and Maggie. Their bucklers are designed in the form of marguerites or marigolds; the A under the right hand figure is Alpha, whence we may perhaps equate this saint with Alpha, the consort of Noah. The spear-head under the other Invictus is the "Broad" arrow of Britain, and the meaning of this spear-head or arrow of Broad will be subsequently considered. It will be noticed that the stars which form the background are the triple dots, and the five-fruited tree is in all probability the Tree of Alpha, Aleph, or _Life_. Why _five_ was identified with _vif_ or _vive_, _i.e._, life, I am unable to surmise, but that it was thus connected will become apparent as we proceed.

The Arabic form of Constantinople is Kustantiniya, which compares curiously with Kystennyns, one of the old variants of the Cornish village named Constantine. There is a markedly Byzantine style about the group of British coins here reproduced, and Nos. 45 and 46 manifestly illustrate the Dioscuri, Twins, or Cabiri. The Greek word for _brothers_ or twins is _adelphi_, and as according to Bryant the Semitic _ad_ or _ada_ meant first we may translate _adelphi_ into First Elphi or First Fay-ther. The head of No. 49, which is obviously an heraldic or symbolic figure, consists of the three circles, intricate symbolism underlies the Byzantine reliquary cross here illustrated, and the same fantastic system is behind the Gnostic paper-mark represented on Fig. 203. In this it will be noted the eyes are represented by what are seemingly two feathers: the feather was a symbol of the Father, and will be noted in the Alephant emblem illustrated on page 160.

In Fig. 204 the Celestial Invictus is depicted as a Trinity; three feathers are the emblem of the British Prince of Wales, and there is evidently some recondite meaning in the legend that St. Barbara insisted upon her father making three windows in a certain building on the grounds that "_three_ windows lighten all the world and all creatures". Upon Dioscorus inquiring of his daughter why she had upset his arrangements for two windows, Barbara's reply is reported to have been: "These three fenestras or windows betoken clearly the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the which be three persons and One Very God". The word _person_ is radically the same as _appear_ and _appearance_, and the portrayal of the Supreme Power as One, Two, or Three seems evidently to have been merely a matter of inclination: Queen Vera or Virtue may be regarded as One or as the Three Graces or Virtues. The mythic mother of St. David is said to have been Gwen of the Three Paps, and this St. Gwen Tierbron, or Queen of the Three Breasts, may be equated with the Lady Triamour, and with the patron of Llandrindod or St. _triune dad_ Wells. On the horse ornament illustrated _ante_ (No. 14, Fig. 134, p. 286), three hearts are represented: on Fig. 205 three circles, together with a palm branch,[374] associated with the national horse.

The emblems on page 499 depict two flying wheels, and likewise Three-in-One: near St. Just in Cornwall used to be three interlaced stone circles, and the phenomenon of three circles is noticeable elsewhere; there is little doubt, says Westropp, that in the three rings of Dunainy on the Knockainy Hill the triad of gods, Eogabal, Feri, and Aine, were supposed to dwell.[375]

Avebury consists of two circles within one, and that "Avereberie" was regarded as the great periphery may be concluded from the name _Avereberie_ which is equivalent to periphery, Varvary, or Barbara. The bird emblem existing at _Farr_ is suggestive that the county of Forfar was once inhabited by worshippers of Varvara, Barbara, the Fair of Fairs, or Fire of Fires.

Having set his labourers to work, the legend continues that Barbara's father departed thence and went into a far country, where he long sojourned: the Greeks used the word _barbaroi_ to mean not ruffians but those who lived or came from _abroad_; the same sense is born by the Hebrew word _obr_, and it is to this root that anthropologists assign the name _Hebrew_ which they interpret as meaning men who came from _abroad_.

It is noteworthy that, according to Herodotus, the messengers of the Hyperboreans who came from abroad, _i.e._, _barbaroi_, were entitled by the Delians, "_Perpherees_" and held in great honour:[376] the inverted commas are original, whence it would seem that _perpheree_ was a local pronunciation of _hyperboreæ_.

The general impression is that the Hebrew, or _Ebrea_ as the Italians spell it, derived his title from _Abra_ham whose name means Father of a Multitude. At _Hebron_ Abraham, the son of Terah, entertained three Elves or Angels: "He saw three and worshipped one":[377] at Hebron Abram bought a piece of land from a merchant named Ephron,[378] and I cannot believe that Ephron really meant, as we are told, _of a calf_; it is more probable that he derived his title from Hebron where Ephron was evidently a landowner. Tacitus records a tradition that the Hebrews were originally "natives of the Isle of Crete,"[379] and my suggestion that the Jews were the Jous gains somewhat from the fact that York--a notorious seat of ancient Jewry--was originally known as Eboracum or Eboracon. Our chroniclers state that York was founded by a King Ebrauc, the Archbishop of York signs himself to-day "Ebor," and the river Eure used at one time to be known as the Ebor: the Spanish river Ebro was sometimes referred to as the Iber.[380]

An interesting example of the Cabiri or Adelphi once existed at the Kentish village of Biddenden where the embossed seven-spiked ladies here illustrated, known as the Biddenden Maids, used to be impressed on cakes which were distributed in the village church on Easter Sunday. This custom was connected with a charity consisting of "twenty acres of land called the Bread and Cheese Land lying in _five_ pieces given by persons unknown, the rent to be distributed among the poor of this parish". The name of the two maidens is stated to have been Preston, and that this was alternatively a name for Biddenden is somewhat confirmed by an adjacent Broadstone, Fairbourne, and Bardinlea. Whether it is permissible here to read Bardinlea as Bard's meadow I do not know, but considered in connection with the local charity from five pieces of land it is curious to find that according to the laws of Dyvnwal Moelmud, the different functionaries of the Bardic Gorsedd had a right each to _five_ acres of land in virtue of their office, were entitled to maintenance wherever they went, had freedom from taxes, no person was to wear a naked weapon in their presence, and their word was always paramount.[381] In view of this ordinance it almost looks as though the charitable five acres at Biddenden were the survival of some such privileged survival.

As Biddy is a familiar form of Bridget or Bride, Biddenden may be understood as the dun or den of the Biddys, and the modern sense of our adjective _bad_ is, it is to be feared, an implication either that the followers of the Biddy's fell from grace, or that at any rate newer comers deemed them to have done so. The German for _both_ is _beide_, but that _both_ the _Bid_denden maidens were bad is unlikely: the brace of chickabiddies[382] illustrated overleaf may perhaps have fallen a little short of the designer's ideals, yet they were undoubtedly deemed fit and good, otherwise they would not have survived. That their admirers, while seeing Both or Twain, worshipped Ane is obviously possible from the popular "Heathen chant" here quoted from Miss Eckenstein's _Comparative Study of Nursery Rhymes_:--

1. We will a' gae sing, boys, Where will we begin, boys? We'll begin the way we should, And we'll begin at ane, boys.

O, what will be our ane, boys? O, what will be our ane, boys? --My only ane she walks alane, And evermair has dune, boys.

2. Now we will a' gae sing, boys; Where will we begin, boys? We'll begin where we left aff, And we'll begin at twa, boys.

What will be our twa, boys? --Twa's the lily and the rose That shine baith red and green, boys, My only ane she walks alane, And evermair has dune, boys.

In the near neighbourhood of Biddenden are Peckham, Buckman's Green, Buckhill, and Buggles, or Boglesden: the two bogles now under consideration were possibly responsible for the neighbouring Duesden, _i.e._ the Dieu's den or the Two's den. According to Skeat the word _bad_, mediæval _badde_, is formed from the Anglo-Saxon _baeddel_, meaning an hermaphrodite; all ancient deities seem to have been regarded as hermaphrodites, and it is impossible to tell from the Britannia, Bride, or Biddy figures on p. 120 whether Bru or Brut was a man or a maid. Apollo was occasionally represented in a skirt; Venus was sometimes represented with a beard; the beard on the obverse of No. 46, on p. 364, is highly accentuated, and that this feature was a peculiarity of Cumbrian belief is to be inferred from the life of Saint Uncumber. St. Uncumber, or _Old Queen Ber_, was one of the seven daughters born at a birth to the King of Portugal, and the story runs that her father wanting her to marry the prince of Sicily, she grew whiskers, "which so enraged him that he had her crucified".[383]

One may infer that the fabricator of this pious story concocted it from some picture of a bearded virgin extended like Andrew on the Solar wheel: close to Biddenden is Old Surrender, perhaps originally a den or shrine of Old _Sire_ Ander.[384]

At Broadstone, by Biddenden, we find Judge House, and doubtless the village _juge_ once administered justice at that broad stone. In Kent the paps are known colloquially as _bubs_ or _bubbies_: by Biddenden is a Pope's Hall, and a Bubhurst or Bubwood, which further permit the equation of the Preston Maids with Babs, Babby, or Barbara. St. Barbara was not only born at Heliopolis, but her tomb is described by Maundeville as being at Babylon, by which he means not Babylon in Chaldea, but Heliopolis in Egypt. In _The Welsh People_ Sir J. Morris Jones establishes many remarkable relationships between the language of Wales and the Hamitic language of early Egypt; in 1881 Gerald Massey published a list of upwards of 3000 similarities between British and Egyptian words[385]; and _In Malta and the Mediterranean Race_, Mr. R. N. Bradley prints the following extraordinary statement from Col. W. G. MacPherson of the Army Medical Service: "When I was in Morocco City, in 1896, I met a Gaelic-speaking missionary doctor who had come out there and went into the Sus country (Trans-atlas), where 'Shluh' is the language spoken, just as it is the language of the Berber tribes in the Cis-atlas country. He told me that the words seemed familiar to him, and, after listening to the natives speaking among themselves, found they were speaking a Gaelic dialect, much of which he could follow. This confirmed my own observation regarding the names of the Berber tribes I myself had come across, namely, the Bini M'Tir, the Bini M'Touga, and the Bini M'Ghil. The 'Bini' is simply the Arabic for 'Children of,' and is tacked on by the Arabs to the 'M' of the Berbers, which means 'sons of' and is exactly the same as the Irish 'M,' or Gaelic 'Mac'. Hence the M'Tir, M'Touga, and M'Ghil, become in our country MacTiers, the MacDougalls, and the MacGills. I prepared a paper on this subject which was read by my friend Dr. George Mackay of Edinburgh, at the Pan-Celtic Congress there in 1907, I think, or it may have been 1908. It caused a leading article to be written in the _Scotsman_, I believe, but otherwise it does not appear to have received much attention."

As it is an axiom of modern etymology to ignore any statements which cannot be squared with historical documents it is hardly a matter of surprise that Col. MacPherson's statements have hitherto received no consideration. But apart from the fact that certain Berber tribes still speak Gaelic, the Berbers are a highly interesting people: they extend all over the North of Africa, and the country between Upper Egypt and Abyssinia is known as Barbara or Barba. The word _Africa_ was also written _Aparica_, and the Berbers, apart from founding the Old Kingdom of _Bornou_ and the city of Timbuctoo, had an important seat at _Berryan_. They had in the past magnificent and stately temples, used the Arabic alphabet, and the Touriacks--the purest, proudest, most numerous, and most lordly family of the Berbers--have an alphabet of their own for which they claim great antiquity: they have also a considerable native literature.[386] The Touriack alphabet is almost identical with that used by the Tyrians in later times, and the name Touriack is thus probably connected with Tyre and Troy. In 1821, a traveller described the Touriacks as "the finest race of men I ever saw--tall, straight, and handsome, with a certain air of independence and pride that is very imposing. They are generally white, that is to say, comparatively so, the dark brown of their complexion being occasioned only by the heat of the climate. Their arms and bodies, where constantly covered, are as white as those of many Europeans."[387]

To Britons the Berbers should be peculiarly interesting, as anthropologists have already declared that the primitive Scotch race were formed from "the great Iberian family, the same stock as the Berbers of North Africa": Laing and Huxley further affirm that among these Scotch aborigines they recognise the existence of men "of a very superior character".[388] It will probably prove that the "St. Barbe" of Gaul--a name connected with the megalithic monuments at Carnac--originated from Barba, or Berber influences: with this Gaulish St. Barbe may be connoted the fact that the pastors of the heretical Albigenses, whose headquarters were at the town of Albi, were for some unknown reason entitled _barbes_.

A traveller in 1845 describes the Berbers or Touriacks as very white, always clothed, and wearing pantaloons like Europeans. The word _pantaloon_ comes from Venice where the patron saint is St. Pantaleone, but the British for pantaloons is _breeks_ or _breeches_. It was a distinction of the British to wear breeks: Sir John Rhys attributes the word Briton to "cloth and its congeners," and when, _circa_ 500 B.C., the celebrated Abaris visited Athens his hosts were evidently impressed by his attire: "He came, not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with a bow in his hand, a quiver hanging on his shoulders, a plaid wrapped about his body, a gilded belt encircling his loins, and trousers reaching from the waist down to the soles of his feet. He was easy in his address; affable and pleasant in his conversation; active in his despatch, and secret in his management of great affairs; quick in judging of present accuracies; and ready to take his part in any sudden emergency; provident withal in guarding against futurity; diligent in the quest of wisdom; fond of friendship; trusting very little to fortune, yet having the entire confidence of others, and trusted with everything for his prudence. He spoke Greek with fluency, and whenever he moved his tongue you would imagine him to be some one out of the midst of the academy or very Lyceum."[389]

I have suggested that Abaris or Abharas was a generic term for Druid or Chief Druid, and it is likely that the celebrated Arabian philosopher Averrhoes, who was born in Spain A.D. 1126, was entitled Averroes (his real name seems to have been Ibn Roshd) in respect of his famous philosophy: it is noteworthy that the Berbers were known alternatively as Barabbras.[390]

In No. 41, on p. 364, two small brethren are like Romulus and Remus sucking nourishment from a wolf. This animal is the supposed ancestor of all the dog-tribe: the word _wolf_ is _eu olf_, and the term _bitch_, applied to all females of the wolf tribe, is radically _pige_, _peggy_, or _Puck_. The Bitch-nourished Brethren are radically _bre_, for the _-ther_ of _brother_ is the same adjective as occurs in fa_ther_, mo_ther_, and sis_ter_.

Taliesin, the mystic title of the Welsh Chief Druid of the West, is translated as having meant _radiant brow_: the brow is the covering of the brain, and in No. 2, on p. 120, Britannia is pointing to her brow. In No. 3 of the same plate she is represented in the remarkable and unusual attitude of gazing up to Heaven: it will be remembered that, according to Cæsar, Britain was the cradle of the Druidic Philosophy, and that those wishing to perfect themselves in the system visited this country; that the Britons prided themselves on their brains is possibly the true inference to be drawn from the two curious coins now under consideration.

The President of Celtic poetry and bardic music is said to have been a being of gigantic height named Bran: it is to Bran the Blessed that tradition assigns the introduction of the Cross into Britain, and when Bran died his head is stated to have been deposited under the White Tower of London, where it acted as a talisman against foreign aggression. One of the disastrous blunders alleged against King Arthur was the declaration that he disdained to hold the realm of England, except in virtue of his own prowess,[391] and Romance affirms that he disinterred the magic head of the Blessed Bran, thereby bringing untold woes upon the land. As a parallel to this story may be connoted the historic fact that when the Romans in 390 B.C. inquired the name of the barbaric general who had led the Celts victoriously against them, the Celtic officer replied by giving the name of the God to whom he attributed the success of his arms, and whom he figured to himself as seated invisible in a chariot, a javelin in his hand, while he guided the victorious host over the bodies of its enemies.[392] Now the name of this invisible chief under whom the Gaulish conquerors of Rome and Delphi claimed to fight, was Brennos, whom De Jubainville equates with Brian, the First of the Three divine Sons of Dana, or Brigit, the _Bona Dea_ of Britain. The highest town in France, and the principal arsenal and depot of the French Alps is entitled Briancon, and as this place was known to the Romans as Brigantium, we may connote Briancon with King Brian. Brigan may probably be equated with the fabulous Bregon of Hibernia, with Bergion of Iberia, and with St. Brychan of Wales, who is said to have been the parent of fifty sons and daughters, "all saints". The Hibernian super-King, entitled Brian Boru, had his seat at Tara, and from him may be said to have descended all the O'Briens, the Brownes, and the Byrons. The name Burgoyne is assigned to Burgundy, and it is probable that inquiry would prove a close connection between the Burgundii and giant Burgion of Iberia. In the Triads the Welsh prince Brychan is designated as sprung from one of the three holy families of Prydain: through Breconshire, or Brecknock, runs the river Bran; and that Awbrey was a family name in Brecon is implied by the existence in the priory church of St. John, or Holyrood, of tombs to the Awbreys.

When the head of the beneficent and blessed Bran was deposited at London it is said to have rested there for a long time with the eyes looking towards France. One of the most remarkable and mysterious of the Pictish symbols, found alike in Picardy and Pictland generally, is the so-called butterfly design of which three typical examples are here illustrated. What it seems to represent is _Browen_ or the _Brows_, but it is also an excellent bird, butterfly, or _papillon_: or as we speak familiarly of using our brains, and as the grey matter of the brain actually consists of two divisions, which scientists entitle the _cerebrum_ and the _cerebellum_, the two-browed butterfly might not illogically be designated the brains. Both Canon Greenwell and Sir Arthur Evans have drawn attention to similar representations of the human face on early objects from Troy and the Ægean; the same symbol is found on sculptured menhirs of the Marne and Gard valleys in France, while clay vessels with this ornament, belonging to the early age of metal, have been found in Spain. The "butterfly" is seen on gold roundels from the earliest (shaft) graves at Mycenæ, and as Sir Hercules Read has rightly said, "everything points to the transmission of that influence to the British Isles by way of Spain".[393]

The Scandinavians assigned three eyes to Thor, and Thor, as has been seen, was attributed by them to Troy. On the stone illustrated on p. 381, now built into the church at Dingwall--a name which means _court hill_--three circles are on one side and two upon the other: some of the Trojan idols are three-eyed and some are "butterflies". Is it possible that this Elphin little face, or _papillon_, was the precursor of the modern cherub or Amoretto, and that it was the Puck of the Iberian Picts, who conceived their Babchild or Bacchild as peeping, _pry_ing, touting, and _peer_ing perpetually upon mankind? The ancients imagined that every worthy soul became a star, whence it is possible that the small blue flower we call a periwinkle was, like the daisy, a symbol of the fairy, phairy, or peri _peri_scope. In Devonshire the speedwell (_Veronica +chamædrys_) is known as Angels' Eyes; in Wales it is entitled the Eye of Christ:[394] the word _periwinkle_ may be connoted with the phairies Periwinkle, and Perriwiggen, who figure in the court of Oberon.

In the magnificent emblem here illustrated the Pillar of the Universe, "to Whom all thoughts and desires are known, from Whom no secrets are hid," is supporting a great universe zoned round and round by Eyes, Cherubs, or Amoretti, and the earth within is represented by a cone or berg. In Fig. 221 the Creator is depicted as animating nine choirs of Amoretti by means of three rays or _breaths_, and as will be shown subsequently the creation of the world by means of three rays or beams of light from heaven was an elemental feature of British philosophy.

The periwinkle, known in some districts as the cockle, may, I think, be regarded as a prehistoric symbol of the world-without-end query:--

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.

The term cockle was applied not only to the periwinkle and the poppy, but likewise to the burdock, whose prickly _burrs_ are obviously a very perfect emblem of the Central Pyre, Fire, Burn, or Brand. In Italy the barberry, or berberis, is known as the Holy Thorn, as it is supposed that from this bush of _pricks_ and prickles was woven Christ's crown of thorns. As a home of the spooks the _brakes_ or _bracken_ rivalled the hawthorn,[395] and it was generally believed that by eating fern or bracken seed one became invisible. Witches were supposed to detest bracken, because it bears on its root the character C, the initial of the holy name Christ, "which may be plainly seen on cutting the root horizontally". Commenting on this belief the author of _Flowers and Folklore_ remarks: "A friend suggests, however, that the letter intended is not the English C, but the Greek X (Chi), the initial letter of the word _Christos_ which really resembles the marks on the root of the bracken."[396]

In Cornish _broch_ denoted the yew tree, the sanctity of which is implied by the frequency with which a brace or pair of yews are found in churchyards. The yew is probably the longest living of all trees, accredited instances occurring of its antiquity to the extent of 1400 years, and at Fortingal in _Perth_shire there is a famous yew tree which has been estimated to be 3000 years of age. This is deemed to be the most venerable specimen of living European vegetation, but at _Bra_bourne, in Kent, used to be a superannuated yew which claimed precedence in point of age even over that of Perthshire. A third claimant (2000 years) is that at Hensor (the _ancient sire_?) in Buckinghamshire, and a fourth exists at Buckland near Dover.[397]

The _yew_ (Irish _eo_), named in all probability after Io, or Hu the Jupiter,[398] or Ancient Sire of Britain, is found growing profusely in company with the box on the white chalky brow of Boxhill overlooking Juniper Hall. The foot of this slope around which creeps the placid little river Mole is now entitled _Bur_ford Bridge, but before the first bridge was here built, the site was seemingly known as Bur ford. The neighbouring Dorking, through which runs the Pipbrook, is equivalent to Tor King, Tarchon, or Troy King, and there is a likelihood that the Perseus who redeemed Andromeda, the _Ancient Troy Maid_, was a member of the same family. In the Iberian coin herewith inscribed Ho, which is ascribed to Ilipa or Ilipala, one may perhaps trace Hu, _i.e._, _Hugh_ the _mind_ or _brain_ in transit to these islands.

To the yews on Boxhill one may legitimately apply the lines which Sir William Watson penned at the neighbouring Newlands or the lands of the self-renewing Ancient Yew:--

Old Emperor Yew, fantastic sire, Girt with thy guard of dotard Kings, What ages hast thou seen retire Into the dusk of alien things?

From Newlands Corner where the yews--the self-seeded descendants of immemorial ancestors--are thickly dotted, is a prospect unsurpassed in England.

The beech trees which are also a feature in the neighbourhood of Boxhill irresistibly turn one's mind to the immortal beeches at _Burn_ham in Bucks. Bucks supposedly derives its name from the patronymic Bucca or Bucco, and this district was thus presumably a seat of the Bucca, Pukka, or Puck King, _alias_ Auberon, to whom at Burnham the _beech_ or _boc_ would appear to have been peculiarly dedicated. There is a Burnham near Brightlingsea; a Burnby near Pocklington, a Burnham on the river Brue, a Burn in Brayton parish, Yorks; a river Burn or Brun in Lancashire, a river Burry in Glamorganshire, and in Norfolk a Burnham-Ulph. In Brancaster Bay are what are termed "Burnham Grounds"; hereabouts are Burnham Westgate, Burnham Deepdale, Burnham Overy, etc., and the local fishermen maintain "there are three other Burnhams under Brancaster Bay".[399] Doubtless the sea has claimed large tracts of Oberon's empire, but from Brean Down, Brown Willy, and Perran Round in the West to the famous Birrenswerk in Annandale, and the equally famous Bran Ditch in Cambridgeshire, the name of the Tall Man is ubiquitous. Among the innumerable Brandons or Branhills, Brandon Hill in Suffolk, where the flint knappers have continued their chipping uninterruptedly since old Neolithic times, may claim an honourable pre-eminence.

FOOTNOTES:

[323] _Cf._ Thomas, J. J., _Brit. Antiquissima_, p. 29.

[324] Hone, W., _Everyday Book_, i., 502.

[325] Squire, C., _Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland_, p. 52.

[326] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 338.

[327] _Cf._ Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 143.

[328] Among the many Prestons I have enquired into is one with which I am conversant near Faversham. Here the Manor House is known as Perry Court; similarly there is a Perry Court at a second Preston situated a few miles distant. In the neighbourhood are Perry woods. There is a modern "Purston" at Pontefract, which figured in Domesday under the form "Prestun".

[329] Taylor, Rev. T., _Celtic Christianity of Cornwall_, p. 33.

[330] Courtney, Miss M. L., _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 123.

[331] Haslam, Wm., _Perranzabuloe_.

[332] _Ibid._, p. 60.

[333] "Mr. W. Mackenzie, Procurator Fiscal of Cromarty, writes me from Dingwall (10th September, 1917), as follows: 'We are not without some traces and traditions of phallic worship here. There is a stone in the _Brahan_ Wood which is said to be a "knocking stone". Barren women sat in close contact upon it for the purpose of becoming fertile. It serves the purpose of the mandrake in the East. I have seen the stone. It lies in the Brahan Wood about three miles from Dingwall.'"--Frazer, Sir J. G., quoted from _Folklore_, 1918, p. 219.

[334] Guerber, H. A., _Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages_, p. 219.

[335] Guerber, H. A., _Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages_, p. 221.

[336] "The Brehon laws are the most archaic system of law and jurisprudence of Western Europe. This was the code of the ancient Gaels, or Keltic-speaking Irish, which existed in an unwritten form long before it was brought into harmony with Christian sentiments.... It is impossible to study these laws and the manners and customs of the early Irish, together with their land tenure, and to compare them with the laws of Manu, and with the light thrown on the Aryans of India by the Sanskrit writings without coming to the conclusion that they had a common origin."--Macnamara, N. C., _Origin and Character of the British People_, p. 94.

[337] _Place-names of England and Wales_, p. 406.

[338] Of the Teutonic _Tiw_, Dr. Taylor observes: "This word was used as the name of the Deity by all the Aryan nations. The Sanskrit _deva_, the Greek _theos_, the Latin _deus_, the Lithuanian _dewas_, the Erse _dia_, and the Welsh _dew_ are all identical in meaning. The etymology of the word seems to point to the corruption of a pure monotheistic faith." In Chaldaic and in Hebrew _di_ meant the Omnipotent, in Irish _de_ meant _goddess_, and in Cornish _da_ or _ta_ meant _good_. From the elementary form _de_, _di_, or _da_, one traces ramifications such as the Celtic _dia_ or _duw_ meaning a _god_. In Sanskrit Dya was the bright heavenly deity who may be equated with the Teutonic _Tiu_, whence our Tuesday, and with the Sanskrit Dyaus, which is equivalent to the Greek Zeus. The same radical _d_' is the base of _dies_, and of _dieu_; of _div_ the Armenian for _day_; of _div_ the Sanskrit for _shine_; of _Diva_ the Sanskrit for _day_. Our ancestors used to believe that the river Deva or Dee sprang from two sources, and that after a very short course its waters passed entire and unmixed through a large lake carrying out the same quantity of water that it brought in.

The word "Dee" seems widely and almost universally to have meant _good_ or _divine_, and it may no doubt be equated with the "Saint Day" who figures so prominently in place-names, and the Christian Calendar.

[339] Hone, W., _Everyday Book_, i., 1118.

[340] _Ancient Coins_, p. 3.

[341] Lardner, D., _History of Spain and Portugal_, vol. i, p. 18.

[342] _Ibid._, p. 13.

[343] _Ibid._, p. 6.

[344] Macalister, R. A. S., _Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad._, xxxiv., C., 10-11.

[345] Mann, L. M., _Archaic Sculpturings_, p. 34.

[346] _Wild Wales_ (Everyman's Library), p. 258.

[347] Keightley, _Fairy Mythology_, p. 523.

[348] Bell's _Travels_, i., 248.

[349] _Cf._ Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticæ_, i., 61.

[350] Bellot, H. H. L., _The Temple_, p. 12.

[351] That there is nothing far-fetched in this possibility is proved by a Vedic Hymn _circa_ 2500 B.C.: "Enter, O lifeless one, the mother earth, the widespread earth, soft as a maiden in her arms rest free from sin. Let now the earth gently close around you even as a mother gently wraps her infant child in soft robes. Let now the fathers keep safe thy resting-place, and let Yama, the first mortal who passed the portals of Death, prepare thee for a new abiding place."

[352] Near Land's End is _Bar_tinny or _Per_tinny, which is understood to have meant _Hill of the Fire_.

[353] At Bradfield is a British camp on _Bar_ley Hill. Notable earthwork _abris_ exist at _Bray_ford, _Bor_ingdon Camp, "Old _Barrow_," _Parra_combe, and _Pre_stonbury in Devonshire: at _Buri_ton, and _Bury_ Hill in Hampshire: at _Bree_don Hill, _Burrough_-on-the-hill, and _Bury_ Camp in Leicestershire: at _Borough_ Hill in Northamptonshire: at _Burrow_ Wood, _Bury_ Ditches, _Bury_ Walls, and Caer_bre_ in Shropshire: at Carn Brea in Cornwall: at _Bourton_, and _Bury_ Castle, in Somerset: at _Bar_moor in Warwickshire: at _Bar_bury, _Bury_ Camp, and _Bury_ Hill in Wiltshire: at _Berrow_ in Worcestershire. Earthworks are also to be found on _Brow_ downs, _Bray_ downs, _Bray_ woods, and _Bury_ woods in various directions.

[354] F. M., p. 464.

[355] "Camps of indubitably British date, Saxon, and Norman entrenchments, to say nothing of minor matters such as dykes and mounds and so-called amphitheatres, all are accredited to a people who very probably had nothing at all to do with many of them."--Allcroft, A. Hadrian, _Earthwork of England_, p. 289.

[356] The Bull's head will have been noted on the buckler of Britannia, _ante_, p. 120.

[357] Bohn's Library, p. 114.

[358] Stone, J. Harris, _England's Riviera_.

[359] Abelson, J., _Jewish Mysticism_, p. 31.

[360] The authorities equate the names Alberic and Avery.

[361] F. M., p. 206.

[362] Book xl., chap. i.

[363] Friend, Rev. H., _Flowers and Folklore_, ii., 474.

[364] _Myths of Ancient Britain_, p. 18.

[365] Taylor, Rev. R., _Diegesis_, p. 271.

[366] Wood, E. J., _Giants and Dwarfs_, p. 44.

[367] Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 185.

[368] _Cf._ Shandwick or Shandfort _ante_, p. 327, also Shanid, p. 55.

[369] Cox, R. Hippesley, _A Guide to Avebury_, p. 55.

[370] _Ibid._

[371] _Folklore_, XXIX., i., p. 182.

[372] _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages._

[373] Jupiter is said to have been suckled by a goat.

[374] The Sanscrit for _palm_ is _toddy_--whence the drink of that name.

[375] _Proc. of Royal Irish Acad._, xxxiv., C., 3, 4.

[376] Book IV., 33.

[377] Maundeville, in his Travels, mentions that near Hebron, "a sacerdotal city, that is a sanctuary on the Mount of Mamre, is an oak tree which the Saracens call _dirpe_, which is of Abraham's time, and people called it the dry tree. They say that it has been there since the beginning of the world, and that it was once green and bore leaves, till the time that our Lord died on the cross, and then it died, and so did all the trees that were then in the world."--_Travels in the East_, p. 162.

[378] _Gen._ xxiii.

[379] _History_, v., 2.

[380] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticæ_, i., 54.

[381] _Barddas_, p. xxx.

[382] _Vide_ inscription _Chuck_hurst?

[383] Dawson, L. H., _A Book of the Saints_, p. 221.

[384] Skeat considers that _Sirrah_ is "a contemptuous extension of _sire_, perhaps by addition of _ah!_ or _ha!_ (so Minsheu); Old French _sire_, Provencial _sira_".

[385] _A Book of the Beginnings._

[386] "The Berbers, their language, and their books ought to be fully explored and studied. Archæology and linguistic science have lavished enthusiastic and toilsome study on subjects much less worthy of attention, for these Berbers present the remains of a great civilisation, much older than Rome or Hellas, and of one of the most important peoples of antiquity. Here are 'ruins' more promising, and, in certain respects, more important, than the buried ruins of Nineveh; but they have failed to get proper attention, partly because a false chronology has made it impossible to see their meaning and comprehend their importance. The Berbers represent ancient communities whose importance was beginning to decline before Rome appeared, and which were probably contemporary with ancient Chaldea and the old monarchy of Egypt."--Baldwin, J. D., _Prehistoric Nations_, p. 340.

[387] _Ibid._, p. 342.

[388] Laing, S., and Huxley, T. H., _The Prehistoric Remains of Caithness_, pp. 70, 71.

[389] Quoted from Higgens, G., _Celtic Druids_.

[390] Latham, R. G., _The Varieties of Man_, p. 500.

[391] "Thy prowess I allow, yet this remember is the gift of Heaven."--Homer.

[392] De Jubainville, _Irish Myth. Cycle_, p. 84.

[393] _A Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_ (B. M.).

[394] Wright, E. M., _Rustic Speech and Folklore_, p. 334.

[395] Rev. Hilderic Friend. This gentleman adds: "Interesting as the study proves, we shall none of us regret that the English nation is daily becoming more and more intelligent and enlightened, and is leaving such follies to the heathen and the past" (vol. ii., 568).

[396] As bracken is the plural of brake, fern was once presumably the plural of _pher_.

[397] See Johnson, W., _Byways in British Archæology_, 375-7.

[398] Since writing I find that Didron, in vol. ii. of _Christian Iconography_, p. 180, illustrates a drawing of Jupiter upon which he comments, "a crown of yew leaves surrounds his head".

[399] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticæ_, i., 12.