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 Perugia—probably the same word as Phrygia. The local saint of Perugia, 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.

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 brethren, children, 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 parsons 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 Overton Hill.

Lying in the sea a mile or so off the Cornish town of St. Just are a pair of conical bergs or pyramids 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 Phœnicians 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 Partholon or Bartholon, 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 Χ ΡHêΧ.Ρ., 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:—

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 solitary 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 zealous 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 Barbury Castle, Boreham Downs, Bradenstoke, Overton Hill, and Olivers 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 Calabria 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 Lansdown, Lynham, 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 Alberich, 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 Berwickshire, at Cockburnlaw, and the remarkable recurrence of Bur, or Burra, in these place-names is obviously due to something more than chance.

At Brookland 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 pickly 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 barnacle, 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 Chilperic and Alberic.

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, Berrynarbor, the Brendon Hills, Paracombe and Baggy Point; in the Totnes neighbourhood are Bigbury, 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, Purfleet near Barking, and Brandon 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 Totnose, 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—

They answer—

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

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]