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 noted that the _juge_ or showman seats himself amid shaws,
upon a toothill or barrow, and doubtless just such eager crowds as
collected round Æneas gathered in the ancient hippodrome which once
occupied the surroundings of St. John's Church by Aubrey Walk,
Kensington. "St John's Church," says Mitton, "stands on a hill, once a
grassy mound within the hippodrome enclosure, which is marked in a
contemporary map 'Hill for pedestrians,' apparently a sort of natural
grand-stand."[491] A large tract of this district was formerly covered
by a race-course known as the hippodrome. "It stretched," continues
Mitton, "northward in a great ellipse, and then trended north-west and
ended up roughly where is now the Triangle at the west-end of St.
Quintin Avenue. It was used for both flat-racing and steeplechasing, and
the steeplechase course was more than 2 miles in length. The place was
very popular being within easy reach of London, but the ground was never
very good for the purpose as it was marshy."[492]
That the grassy mound or natural grand-stand of St. John was once sacred
to the divine Ecne, Chinea, or Hackney, and that this King John or King
Han was symbolised by an Invictus or prancing courser is implied from
the lines of a Bardic poet: "Lo, he is brought from the firm enclosure
with his light-coloured bounding steeds--even the sovereign ON, the
ancient, the generous Feeder".[493] We have seen that in Ireland Sengann
meant Old Gann, and that "Saint" John of Kensington was originally
Sinjohn, Holy John, or Elgin, seems to be somewhat further implied from
the neighbouring Elgin Crescent, Elgin Avenue, and Howley Street.
The Fulham place almost immediately adjacent, considered in conjunction
with Fowell Street, suggests that here, as at the more western Fulham,
was a home of Foals or wild Fowl, or perhaps of Fal, the Irish
Centaur-god.
The sovereign On, the ancient Courser "of the blushing purple and the
potent number," was mighty _Hu_, whose name New, or _Ancient Yew_, is, I
think, perpetuated at Newbury--where _Hew_son is still a family name--at
Newington Padox (said to be for _paddocks_) in Warsickshire, at
Newington near Wye, in Kent, and possibly at other _New_markets or tons,
which are intimately associated with horse-racing. With the river Noe in
Derbyshire may be connoted Noe, the British form of Noah: The Newburns
in Scotland and Northumberland can hardly have been so named because
they were novel or new rivers, and in view of the fact that British
mythology combined Noah's ark (Welsh _arch_) with a mare, it may be
questioned whether the place-name Newark (originally Newarcha), really
meant as at present supposed _New Work_.[494] It may be that the Trojan
horse story was purely mythological, and had originally relation to the
supposition that mankind all emerged from the body of the Solar Horse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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