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

That the people of Cardia associated their angel or ange with cardo, a hinge or angle is manifest from the coin illustrated in Fig. 336.

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

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

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

The surnames Inch, Ince, and Ennis, are all usually connoted with enys or ins, the Celtic and evidently more primitive form of insula, an island, ea or Eye.

The Inge family may possibly have come from the Channel Islands or insulæ, where as we have seen the Ange Queen, presumably the Lady of the Isles or inces, was represented on the coinage, and the Lord of the Channel Isles seems to have been Pixtil or Pixy tall. That this Pixy tall was alternatively ange tall is possibly implied by the name Anchetil, borne by the Vicomte du Bessin who owned one of the two fiefs into which Guernsey was anciently divided. It will be remembered that in the ceremony of the Chevauchee de St. Michel, eleven Vavasseurs functioned in the festival; further, that the lance-bearer carried a wand 11¼ feet long. The Welsh form of the name Michael is Mihangel, and as Michael was the Leader of all angels, the mi of this British mihangel may be equated with the Irish mo which, as previously noted, meant greatest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We know from Cæsar that the Gauls who were “extremely devoted to superstitious rites,” sent their young men to Britain for instruction in Druidic philosophy: we also know that it was customary when a war was declared to vow all captured treasures to the gods: “In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots, nor does it often happen that anyone disregarding the sanctity of the case dares either to secrete in his house things captured or take away those deposited: and the most severe punishment with torture has been established for such a deed”.[647] As British customs “did not differ much” from those of Gaul it is thus almost a certainty that Stonehenge was for long periods a vast national treasure-house and Valhalla.

Notwithstanding the abundance of barrows, earthworks, and other evidences of prehistoric population it is probable that Salisbury Plain was always a green spot, and we are safe in assuming that Choir Gawr was the seat of Gorsedds. By immemorial law and custom the Gorsedd had always to be held on a green spot, in a conspicuous place in full view and hearing of country and aristocracy, in the face of the sun, the Eye of Light, and under the expansive freedom of the sky that all might see and hear. As sedum is the Latin for seat, and there seems to be some uncertainty as to what the term Gorsedd really meant, I may be permitted to throw out the suggestion that it was a Session, Seat, or Sitting of the Gaurs or Augurs: by Matthew Arnold the British Gorsedd is described as the “oldest educational institution in Europe,” and moreover as an institution not known out of Britain.

Slightly over a mile from Stonehenge or Choir Gawr is the nearest village now known as Amesbury, originally written Ambrosbury or Ambresbury: here was the meeting-place of Synods even in historic times, and here was a monastery which is believed to have taken its name from Ambrosius Aurelius, a British chief. It is more probable that the monastery and the town were alike dedicated to the “Saint” Ambrose, particulars of whose life may be found in De Voragine’s Golden Legend. According to this authority the name Ambrose may be said “of ambor in Greek which is to say as father of light, and soir that is a little child, that is a father of many sons by spiritual generations, clear and full of light”. Or, says De Voragine, “Ambrose is said of a stone named ambra which is much sweet, oderant, and precious, and also it is much precious in the church”. That amber was likewise precious in the eyes of the heathen is obvious from its frequent presence in prehistoric tombs, and from the vast estimation in which it was held by the Druids. Not only was the golden amber esteemed as an emblem of the golden sun, but its magical magnetic properties caused it to be valued by the ancients as even more precious than gold. There was also a poetic notion connecting amber and Apollo, thus expressed by a Greek poet:—

It will be remembered that Salisbury Plain was sometimes known as Ellendown, with which name may be connoted the statement of Pausanias that Olen the Hyperborean was the first prophet of Delphi.[649]

On turning to The Golden Legend we seem to get a memory of the Tears of Apollo in the statement that St. Ambrose was of such great compassion “that when any confessed to him his sin he wept so bitterly that he would make the sinner to weep”. The sympathies of St. Ambrose, and his astonishing tendency to dissolve into tears, are again emphasised by the statement that he wept sore even when he heard of the demise of any bishop, “and when it was demanded of him why he wept for the death of good men for he ought better to make joy, because they went to Heaven,” Ambrose made answer that he shed tears because it was so difficult to find any man to do well in such offices. The legend continues, “He was of so great stedfastness and so established in his purpose that he would not leave for dread nor for grief that might be done to him”. In connection with this proverbial constancy it may be noted that at the village of Constantine there is a Longstone—the largest in Cornwall—measuring 20 feet high and known as Maen Amber, or the Amber Stone: this was apparently known also as Men Perhen, and was broken up into gateposts in 1764. In the same parish is a shaped stone which Borlase describes as “like the Greek letter omega, somewhat resembling a cap”: from the illustration furnished by Borlase it is evident that this monument is a knob very carefully modelled and the measurements recorded, 30 feet in girth, eleven feet high,[650] imply that it was imminently an Elphinstone, Perhenstone, or Bryanstone. With this constantly recurrent combination of 30 and 11 feet, may here be connoted the measurements of the walls of Richborough or Rutupiæ: according to the locally-published Short Account “the north wall is the most perfect of the three that remain, 10 feet 8 inches in thickness and nearly 30 feet in height; the winding courses of tiles to the outer facing are in nearly their original state”.[651] The winding courses here mentioned consists of five rows of a red brick, and if one allows for inevitable detritus the original measurements of the quadrangle walls may reasonably be assumed as having been 30 × 11 feet: the solid mass of masonry upon which Rutupiæ’s cross is superimposed reaches “downward about 30 feet from the surface”. Four or five hundred yards from the castle and upon the very summit of the hill are the remains of an amphitheatre in the form of an egg measuring 200 × 160 feet. To this, the first walled amphitheatre discovered in the country, there were three entrances upon inclined planes, North, South, and West.

The first miracle recorded of St. Ambrose is to the effect that when an infant lying in the cradle a swarm of bees descended on his mouth; then they departed and flew up in the air so high that they might not be seen. Greek mythology relates that the infant Zeus was fed by bees in his cradle upon Mount Ida, and a variant of the same fairy-tale represents Zeus as feeding daily in Ambrosia—

Ambrosia, the fabled food of the gods, appears to have been honey: it is said that the Amber stones were anointed with Ambrosia, hence it is significant to find in immediate proximity to each other the place-names Honeycrock and Amberstone in Sussex. The Russians have an extraordinary idea that Ambrosia emanated from horses’ heads,[653] and as there is a “Horse Eye Level” closely adjacent to the Sussex Honeycrock and Amberstone we may assume that the neighbouring Hailsham, supposed to mean “Home of Aela or Eile,” was originally an Ellie or Elphin Home. Layamon refers to Stonehenge, “a plain that was pleasant besides Ambresbury,” as Aelenge, which probably meant Ellie or Elphin meadow, for ing or inge was a synonym for meadow. The correct assumption may possibly be that all flowery meads were the recognised haunts of the anges or ingles: the fairy rings are usually found in meadows, and the poets feigned Proserpine in a meadow gathering flowers ere she was ravished below by Pluto: as late as 1788 an English poet expressed the current belief, “’Tis said the fairy people meet beneath the bracken shade on mead and hill”.

Across the Sussex mead known as Horse Eye Level runs a “Snapsons Drove”: Snap is a curious parental name and is here perhaps connected with Snave, a Kentish village, presumably associated with San Aphe or San Ap.[654] Not only was the hipha or hobby horse decorated with a knop or knob, but a radical feature of its performance seems to have been movable jaws with which by means of a string the actor snapped at all and sundry: were these snappers, I wonder, the origin of the Snapes and Snapsons? In view of the fact that the surname Leaper is authoritatively connoted with an entry in a fifteenth century account-book: “To one that leped at Chestre 6s. 8d.,” the suggestion may possibly be worth consideration.

In Sussex there are two Ambershams and an Amberley: in Hants is Amberwood. St. Ambrose is recorded to have been born in Rome, whence it is probable that he was the ancient divinity of Umbria: in Derbyshire there is a river Amber, and in Yorkshire a Humber, which the authorities regard as probably an aspirated form of cumber, “confluence”. The magnetic properties of amber, which certainly cause a humber or confluence, may have originated this meaning; in any case cumber and umber are radically the same word. Probably Humberstones and Amberstones will be found on further inquiry to be as plentiful as Prestons or Peri stones: there is a Humberstone in Lincolnshire, another at Leicester, near Bicester is Ambrosden, and at Epping Forest is Ambresbury. This Epping Ambresbury, known alternatively as Ambers’ Banks, is admittedly a British oppidum: the remains cover 12 acres of ground and are situated on the highest plateau in the forest. As there is an Ambergate near Buxton it is noteworthy that Ambers’ Banks in Epping are adjacent to Beak Hill, Buckhurst Hill, and High Beech Green. I have already connoted Puck or Bogie with the beech tree, and it is probable that Fairmead Plain by High Beech Green was the Fairy mead where once the pixies gathered: close by is Bury Wood, and there is no doubt the neighbourhood of Epping and Upton was always very British.

In old English amber or omber meant a pitcher—query a honey-crock[655]—whence the authorities translate the various Amberleys as meadow of the pitcher, and Ambergate, near Buxton, as “probably pitcher road”. The Amber Hill near Boston, we are told, “will be from Old English amber from its shape,” but as it is extremely unusual to find hills in the form of a pitcher this etymology seems questionable. At the Wiltshire Ambresbury there is a Mount Ambrosius at the foot of which, according to local tradition, used to exist a college of Druidesses,[656] in which connection it is noteworthy that just as Silbury Hill is distant about a mile from the Avebury Circle, so Mount Ambrosius is equally distant from Choir Gawr.

To Amber may be assigned the words umpire and empire; Oberon, the lovely child, is haply described as the Emperor of Fairyland, whence also no doubt he was the lord and master of the Empyrean. When dealing elsewhere with the word amber I suggested that it meant radically Sun Father,[657] and there are episodes in the life of St. Ambrose which support this interpretation, e.g., “it happened that an enchanter called devils to him and sent them to St. Ambrose for to annoy and grieve him, but the devils returned and said that they might not approach to his gate because there was a great fire all about his house”. Among the Persians it was customary to halo their divinities, not with a circle but with a pyre or pyramid of fire, and in all probability to the auburn Auberon the Emperor of the Empyrean may be assigned not only burn and brand, but also bran in the sense of bran new. That St. Ambrose was Barnaby Bright or the White god of day is implied by the anecdote “a fire in the manner of a shield covered his head, and entered into his mouth: then became his face as white as any snow, and anon it came again to his first form”.[658] The basis of this story would seem to have been a picture representing Ambrose with fire not entering into, but emerging from, his mouth and forming a surrounding halo “in the manner of a shield”. Embers now mean ashes, and the Ember Days of Christianity probably trace backward to the immemorial times of prehistoric fire-worship. At Parton, near Salisbury, one meets with the curious surname Godber: and doubtless inquiry would establish a connection between this Godber of Parton and Godfrey.

The weekly fair at Ambresbury used to be held on Friday; the maid Freya, to whom Friday owes its name, was evidently Fire Eye; the Latin feriæ were the hey-days or holidays dedicated to some fairy. Fairs were held customarily on the festival of the local saint, frequently even to-day within ancient earthworks: the most famous Midsummer Fair used to be that held at Barnwell: Feronia, the ancient Italian divinity at whose festival a great fair was held, and the first-fruits of the field offered, is, as has been shown, equivalent to Beronia or Oberon.

According to Borlase there is in Anglesea “a horse-shoe 22 paces in diameter called Brangwyn or Supreme court; it lies in a place called Tre’r Drew or Druids’ Town”.[659] Stonehenge consists of a circle enclosing a horse-shoe or hoof—the footprint and sign of Hipha the White Mare, or Ephialtes the Night Mare, and a variant of this idea is expressed in the circle enclosing a triangle as exhibited in the Christian emblem on p. 571. That Christianity did not always conceive the All Father as the Ancient of Days is evident from Fig. 341, where the central Power is depicted within the writhings of what is seemingly an acanthus wreath: the Cunob fairy on the British coin illustrated ante, page 528, is extending what is either a ball of fire or else a wreath. The word wraith, meaning apparition, is connoted by Skeat with an Icelandic term meaning “a pile of stones to warn a wayfarer,” hence this heap may be connoted with rath the Irish, and rhaith the Welsh, for a fairy dun or hill. Skeat further connotes wraith with the Norwegian word vardyvle, meaning “a guardian or attendant spirit seen to follow or precede one,” and he suggests that vardyvle meant ward evil. Certainly the wraiths who haunted the raths were supposed to ward off evil, and the giant Wreath,[660] who was popularly associated with Portreath near Redruth, was in all probability the same wraith that originated the place-name Cape Wrath. In Welsh a speech is called ar raith or on the mound, hence we may link rhetoric to this idea, and assume that the raths were the seats of public eloquence as we know they were.

As wreath means a circle it is no doubt the same word as rota, a wheel, and Rodehengenne or Stonehengels may have meant the Wheel Angels. The cruciform rath, illustrated ante, page 55, is pre-eminently a rota, and in Fig. 343 Christ is represented in a circle supported by four somewhat unaerial Evangelists or Angels.

Mount Ida in Phrygia was the reputed seat of the Dactyli, a word which means fingers, and these mysterious Powers were sometimes identified with the Cabiri. The Dactyli, or fingers, are described as fabulous beings to whom the discovery of iron and the art of working it by means of fire was ascribed, and as the philosophy of Phairie is always grounded upon some childishly simple basis, it is probable that the Elphin eleven in its elementary sense represented the ten fingers controlled by Emperor Brain. The digits are magic little workmen who level mountains and rear palaces at the bidding of their lord and master Brain: the word digit, French doight, is in fact Good god, and dactyli is the same word plus a final yli.

In Folklore as an Historical Science Sir Laurence Gomme lays some stress upon a tale which is common alike to Britain and Brittany, and is therefore supposed to be of earlier date than the separation of Britons and Bretons. This tale which centres at London, is to the effect that a countryman once upon a time dreamed there was a priceless treasure hidden at London Bridge: he therefore started on a quest to London where on arrival he was observed loitering and was interrogated by a bystander. On learning the purpose of his trip the Cockney laughed heartily at such simplicity, and jestingly related how he himself had also dreamed a dream to the effect that there was treasure buried in the countryman’s own village. On his return home the rustic, thinking the matter over, decided to dig where the cockney had facetiously indicated, whereupon to his astonishment he actually found a pot containing treasure. On the first pot unearthed was an inscription reading—

Encouraged he dug again, whereupon to his greater astonishment he found a second pot bearing the same inscription: again he dug and found a third pot even yet more valuable. This fabulously ancient tale is notably identified with Upsall in Yorkshire; it is, we are told, “a constant tradition of the neighbourhood, and the identical bush yet exists (or did in 1860) beneath which the treasure was found; a burtree or elder.”[661] Upsall was originally written Upeshale and Hupsale (primarily Ap’s Hall?) and the idea is a happy one, for in mythology it is undeniably true that the deeper one delves the richer proves the treasure trove. In suggesting that eleven may have been the number of the ten digits guided and controlled by the Brain one may thus not only remark the injunction to the Jews: “Thou shalt make curtains of goatshair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: eleven curtains shalt thou make,”[662] but one may note also the probable elucidation of this Hebrew symbolism:—

Assuming that in the simplest sense the elphin eleven were the ten digits and the Brain, one may compare with this combination the ten Powers or qualities which according to the Cabala emanated from “The Most Ancient One”. “He has given existence to all things. He made ten lights spring forth from His midst, lights which shone with the forms which they had borrowed from Him and which shed everywhere the light of a brilliant day. The Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, is a high beacon, and we know Him only by His lights which illuminate our eyes so abundantly. His Holy Name is no other thing than these lights.”[664]

According to The Golden Legend the Emperor of Constantinople applied to St. Ambrose to receive the sacred mysteries, and that Ambrose was Vera or Truth is hinted by the testimony of the Emperor. “I have found a man of truth, my master Ambrose, and such a man ought to be a bishop.” The word bishop, Anglo-Saxon biscop, supposed to mean overseer, is like the Greek episcopus, radically op, an eye.[665] Egyptian archæologists tell us that in Egypt the Coptic Land of the Great Optic, even the very games had a religious significance; whence there was probably some ethical idea behind the British “jingling match by eleven blind-folded men and one unmasked and hung with bells”. This joyous and diverting jeu is mentioned as part of the sports-programme at the celebrated Scouring of the White Horse: we have already noted the blind-folded Little Leaf Man, led blind Amor-like from house to house, also the Blind Man who is said to have sat for eleven years in the Church of St. Maur (or Amour?), and among other sports at the Scouring, eleven enters again into an account of chasing the fore wheel of a wagon down the hill slope. The trundling of a fiery wheel—which doubtless took place at the several British Trendle Hills—is a well-known feature of European solar ceremonies: the greater interest of the Scouring item is perhaps in the number of competitors: “eleven on ’em started and amongst ’em a sweep-chimley and a millard [milord], and the millard tripped up the sweep-chimley and made the zoot fly a good ’un—the wheel ran pretty nigh down to the springs that time”.[666]

The Jewish conception of The Most Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, reappears in Jupiter Ammon, whose sobriquet of Ammon meant the hidden one: “Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself”. In England the game of Hide and Seek used to be known as Hooper’s Hide,[667] and this curious connection between Jupiter, the Hidden one, and Hooper’s Hide somewhat strengthens my earlier surmise that Hooper = Iupiter.

In the opinion of Sir John Evans “there can be little doubt” of the head upon the obverse of Fig. 344 being intended for Jupiter Ammon;[668] in Cornish Blind Man’s Hide and Seek, the players used to shout “Vesey, vasey vum: Buckaboo has come!”[669]

If as now suggested the wheel and the “spindle whorl” were alike symbols of the Eye of Heaven, it is equally probable that the amber, and many other variety of bead, was also a talismanic eyeball:[670] among grave deposits the blue bead was very popular, assumedly for the reason that blue was the colour of heaven. Large quantities of blue “whorls” were discovered by Schliemann[671] at Mykenæ, and among the many varieties of beads found in Britain one in particular is described as “of a Prussian Blue colour with three circular grooves round the circumference, filled with white paste”.[672] This design of three circles reappears in Fig. 347 taken from the base of a British Incense-cup; likewise in a group of rock sculpturings (Fig. 348) found at Kirkmabreck in Kirkcudbrightshire. Mr. Ludovic Mann, who sees traces of astronomical intention in this sculpture, writes: “If the pre-historic peoples of Scotland and indeed Europe had this conception, then the Universe to their mind would consist of eleven units, namely, the nine celestial bodies already referred to, and the Central Fire and the ‘Counter-Earth’. Very probably they knew also of elliptical motions. Oddly enough the cult of eleven units (which I detected some fifteen years ago) representing the universe can be discerned in the art of the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Scotland and over a much wider area. For example, in nearly all the cases of Scottish necklaces of beads of the Bronze Age which have survived intact, it will be found that they consist of a number of beads which is eleven or a multiple of eleven. I have, for example, a fine Bronze Age necklace from Wigtownshire consisting of 187 beads (that is of 17 × 11) and a triangular centre piece. The same curious recurrence of the number and its multiples can often be detected in the number of standing stones in a circle, in the number of stones placed in slightly converging rows found in Caithness, Sutherland, some parts of England, Wales, and in Brittany. The number eleven is occasionally involved in the Bronze Age pottery decorations, and in the patterns on certain ornaments and relics of the Bronze Age.... The Cult of eleven seems to survive in the numerous names of Allah, who was known by ninety-nine names, and hence it is invariably the case that the Mahommedan has a necklace consisting of either eleven or a multiple of eleven beads but not exceeding ninety-nine, as he is supposed to repeat one of the names for each bead which he tells.”[673]

We have seen that the rudraksha or eye of the god S’iva seeds are usually eleven faceted, and my surmise that the whorls of Troy were universal Eyes is further implied by the group here illustrated. According to Thomas, our British Troy Towns or Caer Troiau were originally astronomical observatories, and he derives the word troiau from the verb troi to turn, or from tro signifying a flux of time:—[674]

The Trojan whorls are unquestionably tyres or tours, and the notion of an eye is in some instances clearly imparted to them by radiations which resemble those of the iris. The wavy lines of No. 1835 and 1840 probably denote water or the spirit, in No. 1847 the “Jupiter chain” of our Solido coin reappears; the astral specks on 1841 and 1844 may be connoted with the stars and planets, and in 1833 the sense of rolling or movement is clearly indicated.