It is evident that Vere is here the equivalent of Proserpine, the Maid who was condemned to spend one-half her time in Hades, and that “Verray” was occasionally noxious is implied by the old sense attributed to this word of nightmare, e.g., Chaucer:—

Some authorities connoted this word verray with Werra, a Sclavonic deity, and the connection is probably well founded: the Cornish Furry dance was also termed the Flora dance.

The name Proserpine is seemingly akin to Pure Serpent—the same Serpent, perhaps, whose form is represented in extenso at Avebury: the Bona Dea of Crete was figured holding serpents and the nude figure on the left of Fig. 279 has been ingeniously, and, I think, rightly interpreted by Borlase as Truth, or Vera. It was doubtless some such similar emblem as originated the ridiculous story that St. Christine of Tyre was “tortured” by having live serpents placed at her breasts: “The two asps hung at her breasts and did her no harm, and the two adders wound them about her neck and licked up her sweat.”[542] Not only is this suffering Christine assigned to Tyre (in Italy), but she is said to have been enclosed in a certain tower and to have been set upon a burning tour or wheel. Christine is the feminine of Christ, and that Christ was identified with Sophia or Wisdom is obvious from the design herewith.

The Sicilian coins of Janus depicted Columba or the Dove, and the same symbol of the Cretan, Epheia, Britomart, Athene, or Rhea figures in the hand of the Elf on page 627, and on the reverse of other British coins illustrated on the same page. The Dove is the acknowledged symbol of the Holy Ghost, yet the symbolists depicted even the immaculate Dove as duplex: the six wings of the parti-coloured Columba have in all probability an ultimate connection with the six beneficent world-supervisors of the Persian philosophy.

In the Christian emblem below, the Holy Ghost is represented as a Child floating on the Waters of Chaos between the circles of Day and Night, and that the Supreme was the Parent alike of both Good and Evil is expressed in the verse: “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.” The preceding sentence runs: “There is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else.”[543] That this idea was prevalent among the Druids of the west is strongly to be inferred from an ancient chant still current among the Bretons, which begins—

The Magna Mater of Fig. 266 might thus appropriately have been known as Fate, Destiny, Necessity, or Fortune. Fortuna is radically for, and with the Fortunes or fates may be connoted the English fairies known as Portunes. The Portunes are said to be peculiar to England, and are known by the French as Neptunes: the English Portunes are represented as diminutive little people who, “if anything is to be carried into the house, or any laborious work to be done, lend a hand and finish it sooner than any man could”.[545] A jocular and amiable little people who loved to warm themselves at the fire.

Among the heathen chants of the Spanish peasantry is one in which the number One stands for the wheel of Fortune, and the number six “for the loves you hold”. These six loves may be connoted with the six pinions of the Dove illustrated on page 486, and that Janus of the Dove was regarded as the Chaos, Ghost, or Cause is obvious from the words which are put into his mouth by Ovid: “The ancients called me Chaos (for I am the original substance). Observe, how I can unfold the deeds of past times. This lucid air, and the three other bodies which remain, fire, water, and earth, formed one heap.[546] As soon as this mass was liberated from the strife of its own discordant association, it sought new abodes. Fire flew upwards: air occupied the next position, and earth and water, forming the land and sea, filled the middle space. Then I, who was a globe, and formless, assumed a countenance and limbs worthy of a god. Even now, as a slight indication of my primitive appearance, my front and back are the same.”

In the mouth of Fig. 283 is the wheel of the four quarters, and variants of this wheel-cross form the design of a very large percentage of English coins: I here use the word English in preference to British as “there was no native coinage either in Scotland, Wales, or Ireland”: in England alone have prehistoric British coins been found,[547] and in England alone apparently were they coined. Somewhat the same conclusions are indicated by the wheel-cross which is peculiar to Wales, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man: neither in Scotland or Ireland does the circular form exist.[548]

Among the seals of Crete there has been found one figuring a ship and two half-moons: it has been supposed that this token signified that the devotee had ventured on a two months’ voyage and signalised the successful exploit by the fabrication of an ex voto; but if the subject in question actually represents a material vessel one may question whether the mariner could successfully have negotiated even a two hours’ trip. The pair of crescents which figure so frequently on the wheel-cross coins of Britain probably implied the twin lily-white maids of Druidic folk-song, and the superstitions in connection with this symbol of the two sickles—the word is essentially the same as cycle, Greek kuklos—seem in Anglesea or Mona even to linger yet.[549] Among sepulchral offerings found in a prehistoric barrow near Bridlington or Burlington, were “two pieces of flint chipped into the form of crescents,”[550] and it is possible that Ida the Flame bearer, whose name is popularly connected with flame bearer or Flamborough Head, was not the Anglian chieftain, but the divine Ida, Head, or Flame to whom all Forelands and Headlands were dedicated. With Bridlington or Burlington may be connoted the fact that this town of the children of Brid is situated in the Deira district, which was occupied by the Parisii: this name is by some authorities believed to be only a corruption of that of the Frisii, originally settlers from the opposite coast of Friesland.

The Etruscan name for Juno was Cupra, which may be connoted with Cabira, one of the titles of Venus, also with Cabura, the name of a fountain in Mesopotamia wherein Juno was said to bathe himself. The mysterious deities known as the Cabiri are described as “mystic divinities (? Phœnician origin) worshipped in various parts of the ancient world. The meaning of their name, their character, and nature are quite uncertain”.[551] Faber, in his Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri, states that the Cabiri were the same as the Abiri:[552] in Hebrew Cabirim means the Mighty Ones, and there is seemingly little doubt that Cabiri was originally great abiri. In Candia or Talchinea, the Cabiri were worshipped as the Telchines, and as chin or khan meant in Asia Minor Priest as well as King, and as the offices of Priest and King were anciently affiliated, the term talchin (which as we have seen was applied to St. Patrick) meant seemingly tall or chief King-Priest. The custom of Priest-Kings adopting the style and titles of their divinities renders it probable that the historical Telchins worshipped an archetypal Talchin. The original Telchins are described by Diodorus, as first inhabiting Rhodes, and the Colossus of Rhodes was probably an image of the divine Tall King or Chief King.

It is related that Rhea entrusted the infant Neptune to the care of the Telchines who were children of the sea, and that the child sea-god was reared by them in conjunction with Caphira or Cabira, the daughter of Oceanus. As Faber observes: “Caphira is evidently a mere variation of Cabira,” and he translates Cabira as Great Goddess: in view of the evidence already adduced one might likewise translate it Great Power, Great Pyre, or Great Phairy. The Cabiri are often equated with the Dioscuri or Great Pair, and these Twain were not infrequently expressed symbolically by Twin circles.

The emblem of the double disc, “barnacle,” or “spectacle ornament” is found most frequently in Scotland where it is attributed to the Picts: sometimes the discs are undecorated, others are elaborated by a zigzag or zed, which apparently signified the Central and sustaining Power, Fire, or Force. Figs. 287 and 288 from Crete represent the discs transfixed by a broca or spike and the winged ange or angel with a wand—the magic rod or wand which invariably denoted Power—may be designated King Eros. In Scotland the central brocco, i.e., skewer, shoot, or stalk is found sprouting into what one might term broccoli, and in Fig. 291 the dotted eyes, wheels, or paps are elaborated into sevens which possibly may have symbolised the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Notable examples of this disc ornament occur at Doo Cave in Fife, and as the Scotch refer to a Dovecote as “Doocot,” it may be suggested that Doo Cave was a Dove Cave sacred to the deux, or duo, or Dieu. Other well-known specimens are found on a so-called “Brodie” stone and on the Inchbrayock stone in Forfarshire. Forfar, I have already suggested, was a land of St. Varvary: Overkirkhope, where the symbol also occurs, was presumably the hope or hill of Over, or uber, Church, and Ferriby,[553] in Lincolnshire, where the emblem is again found, was in all probability a by or abode of Ferri. The name Cupar may be connoted with Cupra—the Juno of Etruria—and Inchbrayock is radically Bray or Brock.

Sometimes the discs—which might be termed Brick a Brack or, Bride’s Bairns—are centred by what looks like a tree (French arbre) or, in comparison with Fig. 295, from the catacombs, might be an anchor: it has no doubt rightly been assumed that this and similar carvings symbolised the Tree of Life with Adam and Eve on either hand. According to a recent writer: “The symbol group of a man and woman on either side of a tree with a serpent at times introduced is of pre-Christian origin. The figures narrowly considered as Adam and Eve and broadly as the human family are accompanied by the Tree which stands for Knowledge, and the serpent which represents Wisdom. This old world-wide symbol seems to crop up in Pictland twisted and changed in a curious fashion.”[554] One of these fantastic forms is, I think, the feathered elphin or antennaed solar face of Fig. 293.

Among the ancients the word Eva, not only denoted life, but it also meant serpent: the jumbled traditions of the Hebrews associated Eve and the Serpent unfavourably, but according to an early sect of Gnostic Christians known as the Ophites, i.e., Evites, or “Serpentites,” the Serpent of Genesis was a personification of the Good principle, who instructed Eve in all the learning of the world which has descended to us. There is frequent mention in the Old Testament of a people called the Hivites or Hevites, so called because, like the Christian Ophites, they were worshippers of the serpent. We meet again with Eff the serpent in F the fifth letter of the alphabet: this letter, according to Dr. Isaac Taylor, was formed originally like a horned or sacred serpent, and the two strokes of our F are the surviving traces of the two horns.[555]

The term Hivites is sometimes interpreted to mean Midlanders, which seems reasonable as they lived in the middle of Canaan. In connection with these serpent-worshipping Midlanders or Hivites it is significant that not only is the English Avebury described as being “situated in the very centre or heart of our country,”[556] but that it is geographically the very nave or bogel of the surrounding neighbourhood.

Eva is in all probability the source of the word ivy, German epheu, for the evergreen ivy is notoriously a long-lived plant, and even by the early Christian Church[557] Ivy was accepted as the emblem of life and immortality. As immortality was the primary dogma of the Druids, hence perhaps why they and their co-worshippers decked themselves with wreaths of this undying and seemingly immortal plant.[558] The figure of the Græco-Egyptian “Jupiter,” known as Serapis, appears (supported by the Twins) surrounded by an ivy wreath, and that the ancient Jews ivy-decked themselves like the British on festival occasions is evident from the words of Tacitus: “Their priests it is true made use of fifes and cymbals: they were crowned with wreaths of ivy, and a vine wrought in gold was seen in their temple”.[559] The leaf on the British Viri coin here illustrated has been held to be a vine “which does not appear to have been borrowed from any Roman coin,” but, continues Sir John Evans, “whether this was an original type to signify the fertility of the soil in respect of vines or adapted from some other source it is hard to say”.[560] If the device be a Vine leaf it probably symbolised the True Vine; if a fig leaf it undoubtedly was the sign of Maggie Figgy, the Mother of Millions, and the Ovary of Everything: the Sunday before Easter used to be known as Fig Sunday, and on this occasion figs were eaten in large quantities.

From Aubrey’s plan of the Overton circle constituting the head of the serpent at Avebury, it will be seen that the neck was carefully modelled, and that a pair of barrows appeared at the mouth (see ante, page 335). This head of the Eve or serpent was a stone circle distant about a mile from the larger peripheries, and the whole design covered upwards of two miles of country. As already noted the serpent was the symbol of immortality and rejuvenescence, because it periodically sloughed its skin and reappeared in one more beautiful.

That the two and the three circles were taken over intact by Christianity is evident from the emblems illustrated on p. 499, and that the French possessed the tradition of Good Eva or the Good Serpent is manifest from Fig. 300.

The Iberian inscription around Fig. 301—a French example—has not been deciphered, but it is sufficiently evident that the emblem represents the Iberian Jupiter with Juno and the Tree of Life.

The Jews or Judeans of to-day are known indifferently as either Jews or Hebrews, and it would seem that Jou was “Hebrew,” or, as the Italians write the word, Ebrea: the French for Jew is juif, evidently the same title as Jove or Jehovah.

In Fig. 302, Jehovah is rather surprisingly represented as a puer or boy: as already mentioned, the Eros of Etruria was named Epeur, and it is possible that the London church of St. Peter le Poor—which stood in Brode Street next Pawlet or Little Paul House—was originally a shrine of Jupiter the puer, or Jupiter the Boy.[562]

In the design now under consideration the Family consists of three—the Almighty and Adam and Eve—but frequently the holy group consists of five, the additional two probably being Cain and Abel, Cain who slew his brother Abel, being obviously Night or Evil. In the emblems here illustrated which are defined by Briquet as “cars”; four cycles are supported by a broca or spike, constituting the mystic five. In Jewish mysticism the Chariot of Jehovah, or Yahve, was regarded as “a kind of mystic way leading up to the final-goal of the soul”.[563]

The number of the Cabiri was indeterminate, and there is a probability that the sacerdotal Solar Chariot of the Cabiri, whether four or two-wheeled, originated the term cabriolet, whence our modern cab. I have elsewhere reproduced two pillars bearing the legend Cab, and we might assume that the two-wheeled vehicle illustrated, ante, page 454, represented a cab were it not for the official etymology of cabriolet. This term, we are told, is from cabriole, a caper, leap of a goat, “from its supposed lightness”.[564] I have never observed a cab either skipping like a ram, or capering like a goat; and in the days before springs the alleged skittishness of the cab must have been even less marked. In any case the particular vehicle illustrated ante, page 454, cannot with propriety be termed “a caperer,” for it is reproduced by the editor of Adamnan’s Life of Columba, as being no doubt the type of car in which the Saint, even without his lynch pins, successfully drove a sedate and undeviating course.

The goat or caper was a familiar emblem of Jupiter, and our words kid and goat are doubtless the German gott: the horns and the hoofs of the Solar goat—see ante, page 361—are perpetuated in the current notions of “Old Nick,” and in many parts of Europe Saints Nicholas and Michael are equated;[565] hence there is very little doubt that these two once occupied the position of the two Cabiri, Nick or Nixy being nox or night, and Michael—Light or Day.

The Gaulish coin here illustrated is described by Akerman, as “Two goats (?) on their hind legs face to face; the whole within a beaded circle”: on the reverse is a hog, and some other animal represented with a broccus, or saw on its back. As this is a coin of the people inhabiting Agedincum Senonum (now Sens), the revolving twain are probably gedin—either goats, kids, or gods, and the baroque animal with the broccus on its back may be identified with a boar. There is not much evidence in this coin, which was found at Brettenham, Norfolk, of “degradation” from the Macedonian stater illustrated ante, page 394, nevertheless, Sir John Evans sturdily maintains: “the degeneration of the head of Apollo into two boars and a wheel, impossible as it may at first appear, is in fact but a comparatively easy transition when once the head has been reduced into a form of regular pattern”.[566]

The Meigle in Perthshire, where the two-wheeled barrow or barouche was inscribed on the Thane stone, may be equated with St. Michael, and upon another stone at the same Meigle there occurs a carving which is defined as a group of four men placed in svastika form, one hand of each man holding the foot of the other. The author of Archaic Sculpturings describes this attitude as indicating the unbreakable character of the association of each figure with its neighbours, and expresses the opinion: “This elaborate variant of the symbol seems to symbolise aptly the four quarters of the earth, each quarter being represented by a man. The four quarters make a complete circle, and therefore all humanity, through love and affinity, should join from the four parts and form one inseparable bond of brotherhood.”[567]

The wheel of Fortune was sometimes represented by four kings, one on each quadrant, and this emblem was used not only as an inn-sign, but also in churches, notably in Norfolk—the land of the Ikeni. The authors of A History of Signboards cite continental examples surviving at Sienna, and in San Zeno at Verona. The wheels of San Zeno, Sienna, or Verona may be connoted with the Sceatta wheel-coin figured in No. 39 of page 364 ante, and with the seemingly revolving seals on the coin here illustrated.[568] The Sceatta four beasts connected by astral spokes are probably intended to denote seals, the phoca or seal having, as we have seen (ante, page 224), been associated with Chaos or Cause. In all probability the phoca was a token of the Phocean Greeks who founded Marseilles: the phoca was pre-eminently associated with Proteus, and in the Faroe Islands they have a curious idea that seals are the soldiers of Pharaoh who was drowned in the sea. Pharaoh, or Peraa, as the Egyptian wrote it, was doubtless the representative Priest-King of Phra, the Egyptian Sun-god, and the drowning of Pharaoh in the Red Sea was probably once a phairy-tale based on the blood-red demise of a summer sun sinking beneath the watery horizon.

On Midsummer Day in England children used to chant—

whence it would appear that Barnaby was the auburn[569] divinity who was further connected with the burnie bee, lady bird, or “Heaven’s little chicken”. The rhyme—

is supposed by Mannhardt to have been a charm intended to speed the sun across the dangers of sunset, in other words, the house on fire, or welkin of the West.

The name Barnabas or Barnaby is defined as meaning son of the master or son of comfort; Bernher is explained as lord of many children, and hence it would seem that St. Barnaby may be modernised into Bairnsfather. In this connection the British Bryanstones may be connoted with the Irish Bernesbeg and with “The Stone of the Fruitful Fairy”. Bertram is defined by the authorities as meaning fair and pure, and Ferdy or Ferdinand, the Spanish equivalent of this name, may be connoted with the English Faraday.

The surname Barry, with which presumably may be equated variants such as Berry and Bray, is translated as being Celtic for good marksman: the Cretans were famed archers, and the archery of the English yeomen was in its time perhaps not less famous. If Barry meant good marksman, it is to be inferred that the archetypal Barry was Jou, Jupiter, or Jehovah as here represented, and as there is no known etymology for yeoman, it may be that the original yeomen were like the Barrys, “good marksmen”. The Greeks portrayed Apollo, and the Tyrians Adad, as a Sovereign Archer, and as the lord of an unerring bow. The name Adad is seemingly ad-ad, a duplication of Ad probably once meaning Head Head, or Haut Haut,[570] and the Celtic dad or tad is presumably a corroded form of Adad. The famous archer Robin Hood, now generally accepted as a myth survival, will be considered later; meanwhile it may here be noted that the authorities derive the surnames Taddy, Addy, Adkin, Aitkin, etc., from Adam. One may connote Adkin or Little Ad with Hudkin, a Dutch and German elf akin to Robin Goodfellow: “Hudkin is a very familiar devil, who will do nobody hurt, except he receive injury; but he cannot abide that, nor yet be mocked. He talketh with men friendly, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly. There go as many tales upon this Hudkin in some parts of Germany as there did in England on Robin Goodfellow.”[571] To this Hud the Leicestershire place-name Odestone or Odstone near Twycross—query Two or Twa cross—may be due.

I have suggested that the word bosom or bosen, was originally the plural of boss, whence it is probable that the name Barnebas meant the Bairn, Boss, or teat. The word bosse was also used to denote a fountain or gush, and the Boss Alley, which is still standing near St. Paul’s, may mark either the site of a spring, or more probably of what was known as St. Paul’s Stump. As late as 1714 the porters of Billingsgate used to invite the passer-by to buss or kiss Paul’s Stump; if he complied they gave him a name, and he was compelled to choose a godfather: if he refused to conform to the custom he was lifted up and bumped heavily against the stump. This must have been the relic of an extremely ancient formality, and it is not unlikely that the Church of Boston in Norfolk covers the site of a similar stump: Boston, originally Ickenhoe, a haw or hill of Icken, is situated in what was once the territory of the Ikeni, and its church tower to this day is known as “Boston Stump”. At Boskenna (bos or abode of ikenna?) in the parish of St. Buryan, Cornwall, is a stone circle, and a cromlech “thought to have been the seat of an arch Druid”. The chief street of Boston is named Burgate, there is a Burgate at Canterbury near which are Bossenden Woods, and Bysing Wood.

In the West of England the numerous bos- prefixes generally mean abode: one of the earliest abodes was the beehive hut, which was essentially a boss.

At Porlock (Somerset) is Bossington Beacon; there is a Bossington near Broughton, and a Bosley at Prestbury, Cheshire. In the immediate proximity of Bosse Alley, London, Stow mentions a Brickels Lane, and there still remains a Brick Hill, Brooks Wharf, and Broken Wharf. It is not improbable that the river Walbrook which did not run around the walls of London but passed immediately through the heart of the city was named after Brook or Alberick, or Oberon: in any case the generic terms burn, brook, and bourne (Gothic brunna, a spring or well), have to be accounted for, and we may seemingly watch them forming at the English river Brue, and at least two English bournes, burns, or brooks known as Barrow.

We have already considered the pair of military saints famous at Byzantium or St. Michael’s Town: in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield, Cheshire, is a Bosley: the Bosmere district in Cumberland includes a Mickfield, in view of which it becomes interesting to note, near Old Jewry, in London, the parish church of St. Michael, called St. Michael at Bassings hall. With Michael at Bassings hall may be connoted St. Michael of Guernsey, an island once divided into two great fiefs, of which one was the property of Anchetil Vicomte du Bessin. The bussing of St. Paul’s Stump or the Bosse of Billingsgate had evidently its parallel in the Fief du Bessin, for Miss Carey in her account of the Chevauchee of St. Michael observes that, “the one traditional dance connected with all our old festivals and merry-makings has always been the one known as A mon beau Laurier, where the dancers join hands and whirl round, curtsey, and kiss a central object”.[572]

We may reasonably assume that John Barton, who is mentioned by Stow as a great benefactor to the church of St. Michael, was either John Briton, or John of some particular Barton, possibly of the neighbouring Pardon Churchyard. The adjacent Bosse Alley is next Huggen Lane, wherein is the Church of All Hallows, and running past the church of St. Michael at Bassings hall is another Hugan Lane. Gyne, as in gynæcology, is Greek for woman, whence the gyne or queen of the Ikenian Ickenhoe or Boston Stump, may have meant simply woman, maiden, queen, or “a flaunting extravagant quean”. Somewhat east from the Sun tavern,[573] on the north side of this Michael’s church, is Mayden Lane, “now so called,” says Stow, “but of old time Ingene Lane, or Ing Lane”: “down lower,” he continues, “is Silver Street (I think of Silversmiths dwelling there)”. It has been seen that Silver Streets are ubiquitous in England, and as this Silver Street is in the immediate proximity of Adle Street and Ladle Lane, there is some presumption that Silver was here the Leda, or Lady, or Ideal, by whom it was said that Jupiter in the form of a swan became the Parent of the Heavenly twins or Fairbairns. We have considered the sign of the Swan with two necks as found near Goswell Road, and the neighbouring Goose Lane, Windgoose Lane, Pentecost Lane, and Chiswell Street are all in this connection interesting. I have already suggested that Angus, Aengus, or Oengus, the pre-Celtic divinity of New Grange, meant ancient goose: Oengus was alternatively known as Sen-gann or Old Gann, connected with whom were two young Ganns who were described sometimes as the sons of Old Gann, sometimes as his father. In the opinion of Prof. Macalister Oengus, alias Dagda mor, the Great Good Fire, alias Sengann, “was not originally son of the two youths, but father of the two youths, and he thus falls into line with other storm gods as the parent of Dioscuri.”[574]

There is little doubt that Aengus, the ancient goose, the Father of St. Bride, was Sengann the Old Gander, and in connection with St. Michael’s goose it is noteworthy that Sinann, the Goddess of the Shannon, was alternatively entitled Macha. Mr. Westropp informs[575] us that Sengann was the god of the Ganganoi who inhabited Connaught, hence no doubt he was the same as Great King Conn, and Sinann was the same as Good Queen Eda.

At the north end of London Bridge stands Old Swan Pier, upon the site of which was once Ebgate, an ancient water-gate. “In place of this gate,” says Stow, “is now a narrow passage to the Thames called Ebgate Lane, but more commonly the Old Swan.” Ebgate may be connoted with the neighbouring Abchurch Lane, where still stands what Stow termed “the parish church of St. Marie Abchurch, Apechurch, or Upchurch, as I have read it,” and this same root seemingly occurs in the Upwell of St. Olave Upwell distant only a few hundred yards. This spot accurately marks the hub of ancient London, and there is here still standing the once-famous London stone: “some have imagined,” says Stow, “the same to be set up by one John, or Thomas Londonstone, dwelling there against, but more likely it is that such men have taken name of the stone than the stone of them”.

There is little doubt that London stone, where oaths were sworn and proclamations posted, was the Perry stone of the men who made the six main roads or tribal tracks which centred there, of which great wheel Abchurch formed seemingly the hob or hub. Abchurch was in all probability originally a church of Hob, and it may aptly be described as one of the many primitive abbeys: there is an Ibstone at Wallingford, which the modern authorities—like the “John Londonstone” theorists of Stow’s time—urge, was probably Ipa’s stone: there is an Ipsley at Redditch, assumed to be either aspentree meadow or perhaps Aeppas mead. Ipstones at Cheadle, we are told, “may be from a man as above”; of Hipswell in Yorkshire Mr. Johnston concludes, “there is no name at all likely here, so this must be well at the hipple or little heap”. But as Hipswell figures in Leland as Ipreswell, is there any absolute must about the “hipple,” and is it not possible that Ipres or Hipswell may have been dedicated to the same hipha or hip, the Prime Parent of our Hip! Hip! Hip! who was alternatively the Ypre of Ypres Hall and Upwell by Abchurch? At Halifax there is a Hipperholme which appeared in Domesday as Huperun, and here the authorities are really and seriously nonplussed. “It seems hard to explain Huper or Hipper. There is nothing like it in Onom, unless it be Hygebeort or Hubert; but it may be a dissimilated form of hipple, hupple, and mean ‘at the little heaps’.”[576]

Let us quit these imaginary “little heaps” and consider the position at the Halifax Hipperholme, or Huperun. The church here occupied the site of an ancient hermitage said to have been dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the Father of hermits, and to have possessed as a sacred relic the alleged true face of St. John: my authority continues that this attracted great numbers of pilgrims who “approached by four ways, which afterwards formed the main town thoroughfares concentrating at the parish church; and it is supposed to have given rise to the name Halifax, either in the sense of Holy Face with reference to the face of St. John, or in the sense of Holy ways with reference to the four roads, the word fax being Old Norman French for highways”.[577] More recent authorities have compared the word with Carfax at Oxford, which is said to mean Holy fork, or Holy road, converging as in a fork. The roads at Carfax constitute a four-limbed cross; Oxenford used to be considered “the admeasured centre of the whole island”;[578] it was alternatively known as Rhydychain, whence I do not think that Rhydychain meant a ford for oxen, but more probably either Rood King, or Ruddy King.