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
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.
[Illustration: FIG. 188.--From _A Guide to Avebury_ (Cox, R.
Hippesley).]
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]
[Illustration: FIG. 189.--British. From Evans.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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