Archaic England : $b an essay in deciphering prehistory from megalithic monuments, earthworks, customs, coins, place-names, and faerie superstitionsBayley, Harold
History
Archaic England : $b an essay in deciphering prehistory from megalithic monuments, earthworks, customs, coins, place-names, and faerie superstitions
Bayley, Harold
Archaeology; England -- Antiquities
The honeysuckle, termed conventionally a palmette, is classically
represented as either seven or nine-lobed, and this symbol of the
Dayspring or of Wisdom was common alike both East and West. The palm
branch is merely another form of the fern or fish-bone, and the word
palm is radically _alma_, the all nourisher. The palm leaf appears on
one of the stones at New Grange, but as Fergusson remarks, "how a
knowledge of this Eastern plant reached New Grange is by no means
clear".[281] The _feather_ was a further emblem of the same spiritual
_father_, _feeder_, or _fodder_, and in Egypt Ma or Truth was
represented with a single-feather headdress (_ante_, p. 136). From the
mistletoe to the fern, a sprig of any kind was regarded as the
spright, spirit, or spurt of new life or new _Thought_ (_Thaut?_), and
the forms of this young sprig are innumerable. The gist, ghost, or
essence of the Maypole was that it should be a sprout well budded out,
whence to this day at Saffron Walden the children on Mayday sing:--
A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is a sprout that is well budded out,
The work of our Lord's hands.
[Illustration: FIG. 88.--From _Irish Antiquities Pagan and
Christian_ (Wakeman).]
_Teat_ may be equated with the Gaulish _tout_, the whole or All, and it
is probable that the Pelasgian shrine of Dodona was dedicated to that
_All One_ or _Father One_. It is noteworthy that the sway of the
pre-Grecian Pelasgians extended over the whole of the Ionian coast
"beginning from Mykale":[282] this Mykale (_Megale or Michael?_)
district is now Albania, and its capital is Janina, _query_ Queen Ina?
It is probable that Kenna, the fairy princess of Kensington who is
reputed to have loved Albion, was can_na_, the _New King_ or _New
Queen_. On the river Canna in Wales is Llan_gan_ or Llanganna: Llan_gan_
on the river Taff is dedicated to St. Canna, and Llan_gain_ to St.
Synin. All these dedications are seemingly survivals of _King_, _Queen_,
or _Saint_, Ina, Una, Une, ain or one. In Cornwall there are several St.
Euny's Wells: near Evesham is Honeybourne, and in Sussex is a Honey
Child. Upon Honeychurch the authorities comment, "The connection between
a church and honey is not very obvious, and this is probably Church of
_Huna_". Quite likely, but not, I think, a Saxon settler.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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