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
It will be remarked that Barbarie is represented by a _pair_, which is
suggestive of the Dioscuri or Heavenly Twins, and on referring to the
life of St. Barbara we find her recorded as the daughter of Dioscorus,
and as having been born at Heliopolis, or the city of the sun. The
Dioscuri--those far-famed heroes Castor and Pollux--were said to have
been born out of an egg laid by Leda the Swan: elsewhere the Dioscuri
were known as the Cabiri, a term which is radically _abiri_. It is
probable that St. Barbara was once represented with the emblems of the
two Dioscuri or Cabiri, for one of her "tortures" is said to have been
that she should be hanged between two forked trees. These two trees were
doubtless two sprigs such as shown in Fig. 191 or two flowering pillars
between which the Virgin was extended Andrew-wise in benediction. The
next torture recorded of St. Barbara was the scorching of her sides with
burning lamps, from which we may deduce that the Virgin was once
depicted with two great lights on either side. Next, St. Barbara's
oppressors made her strongly to be beaten, "and hurted her head with a
mallet": the Slav deity Peroon was always depicted with a mallet, and
the hammer or axe was practically a universal symbol of _Power_. As
already noted, Peroon, the God with a mallet, has been equated by some
scholars with Varuna of India; in Etruria the God of Death was generally
represented with a great hammer, and the mallet with which St. Barbara
was "hurted" may be further equated with the celebrated Hammer of Thor.
The gigantic hammer cut into the hillside at Tours, and associated in
popular estimation with Charles Martel, in view of the name Tours is far
more likely to have been the hammer of Thor, who, as we have seen, was
assigned to Troy.
We are told that St. Barbara's father imprisoned his daughter within a
high and strong _tour_, _tor_, or _tower_, that no man should see her
because of her great beauty: this incident is common alike to
fairy-tale--notably at Tory Island--and hagiology, and one meets
persistently with the peerless princess imprisoned in a peel, broch, or
tower. In Fig. 192 is represented a so-called Trinity of Evil, but in
all probability this is a faithful reproduction of the Iberian Aber or
Aubrey, _i.e._, the trindod seated upon his symbolic _tor_, _tower_, or
_broch_. The strokes at the toes, like the more accentuated lines from
the fingers of Fig. 193, denoted the streaming light, and when we read
that one of the exquisite tortures inflicted upon St. George was the
thrusting of poisoned thorns into his finger-nails it is a reasonable
conclusion that St. George was likewise represented with rayed fingers.
The feast of St. Ibar in Hibernia is held upon 23rd April or _Aperil_,
which is also St. George's Day.
[Illustration: FIG. 192.--The Trinity of Evil. From a French
Miniature of the XIII. Cent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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