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 is remarkable that Greek mythology was thus familiar to the
supposedly blue-painted savages of Britain. Nor is the instance
solitary, for at Bradford a Septennial festival used to be held in
honour of Jason and the Golden Fleece,[93] and at Achill in Ireland
there is a custom which seemingly connects Achill and Achilles.
Pausanias tells the tale of young Achilles attired in female garb and
living among maidens, and to this day the peasantry of Achill Island on
the north-west coast of Ireland dresses its boys as girls for the
supposed purpose of deceiving a boy-seeking devil.[94] Are these and
other coincidences which will be adduced due to chance, to independent
working of the primitive mind, or to intercourse with a maritime people
who were not restricted by the Pillars of Hercules?
The exit of the Phoenicians has created a dilemma which impels Mr.
Donald A. Mackenzie to inquire: "By whom were Egyptian beads carried to
Britain between 1500 B.C. and 1400 B.C.? Certainly not the
Phoenicians. The sea-traders of the Mediterranean were at the time the
Cretans. Whether or not their merchants visited England we have no means
of knowing."[95] There are, however, sure and certain sources of
information if one looks into the indelible evidence of fairy-tales,
monuments, language, traditions, and place-names.
Ammianus Marcellinus records that it was a traditional belief among the
Gauls that "a few Trojans fleeing from the Greeks and dispersed occupied
these places then uninhabited".[96] The similar tradition pervading
early British literature we shall consider in due course and detail.
This legend runs broadly that Bru or Brutus, after sailing for thirty
days and thirty nights, landed at Totnes, whence after slaying the giant
Gogmagog and his followers he marched to Troynovant or New Troy now
named London.
It was generally believed that this supposed fiction was a fabrication
by Geoffrey of Monmouth, but it was subsequently discovered in the
historical poems of Tyssilia, a Welsh Bard. According to a poem
attributed to Taliesin, the semi-mythical "Chief of the Bards of the
West," whose reputation Sir J. Morris Jones has recently so brilliantly
resuscitated,[97] "A numerous race, fierce, they are said to have been,
were thy original colonists Britain first of Isles. Natives of a country
in Asia, and the city of Gafiz. Said to have been a skilful people, but
the district is unknown which was mother to these children, warlike
adventurers on the sea. Clad in their long dress who could equal them?
Their skill is celebrated, they were the dread of Europe."
According to the Welsh Triads the first-comer to these islands was not
Bru, but a mysterious and mighty Hu: "The first of the three chieftains
who established the colony was Hu the Mighty, who came with the original
settlers. They came over the hazy sea from the summer country, which is
called Deffrobani; that is where Constantinople now stands."[98]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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