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
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.
[Illustration: FIG. 178.--An Angel assisting the Creator. Italian
Miniature of the XIII. Cent. From _Christian
Iconography_ (Didron).]
The church of St. Just was originally known as Lafroodha, which is
understood to have meant _laf_ church and _rhooda_,[358] "a corruption
of the Saxon word rood or cross". Rhooda is, however, much older than
Saxon, _rhoda_ is the Greek for rose, and the Rhodian Greeks used the
rose as their national symbol. The immediate surroundings of the Dane
John at Durovernum are known to this day as Rodau's Town, and we shall
consider Rhoda at greater length in subsequent chapters.
In the church of Roodha or St. Just there is standing a so-called "Silus
stone" which was discovered in 1834, during alterations to the chancel:
this object has carved upon it SILUS HIC JACET, the Greek letters
[Greek: Ch.R.], and a crosier, whence it has been surmised that Silus
was a priest or pastor. Mr. J. Harris Stone inquires: "Who was Silus? No
one has yet discovered," and he adds: "It is a reasonable conjecture
that he was one of those early British bishops who preached the Gospel
before the mission of Augustine."
[Illustration: FIG. 179.--Iberian coin of Rhoda, now Rosas. From
Akerman.]
I agree that he was British, but I am inclined to place him still
farther back, and to assign his name at any rate to the Selli, under
which title the priests of Epirus were known. The Selli were
pre-eminently the custodians at Dodona, whence Homer's reference:--
Great King, Dodona's Lord, Pelasgian Jove,
Who dwell'st on high, and rul'st with sov'reign sway,
Dodona's wintry heights; where dwell around
Thy Sellian priests, men of unwashen feet,
That on the bare ground sleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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