[Illustration: FIG. 18.--From _An Essay on Ancient Coins, Medals, and Gems_ (Walsh, R.).] Eastern tradition states that St. Christopher, or St. Kit, was a Canaanitish giant, 12 feet in stature, having the head of a dog. The kilted figure represented in the Gnostic cameo here illustrated, is seemingly that same Kitman, or Kaadman, Bandog, or Good Dog, and _chien_, the French for dog, Irish _chuyn_, may be equated with _geon_, _geant_, or _giant_. The worship of the _chien_ was carried in the Near East to such a pitch that a great city named Cynopolis or Dog-Town existed in its honour. The priests of Cynopolis, who maintained a golden image of their divine _kuon_ or _chien_, termed themselves Kuons, and these _kuons_ or dog-ministers were, according to some authorities, the original Cohen family. A beautiful relievo of Adonis and his dog has been unearthed at Albano in Etruria; Fig. 13 is accompanied by bandogs(?); Albania in Asia Minor is mentioned by Maundeville as abounding in fierce dogs, and in Albion, where we still retain memories of the Dog Days, it will be shown to be probable that sacred dogs were maintained near London at the mysteriously named Isle of Dogs. Until the past fifty years the traditions of this island at Barking were so uncanny that the site remained inviolate and unbuilt over. Whence, I think, it may originally have been a _kennel_ or _Cynopolis_, where the _kuons_ of the Cantians or Candians were religiously maintained.[134] We shall deal more fully with the cult and symbolism of the dog in a future chapter entitled "The Hound of Heaven". Not only in England, but also in Ireland, place-names having reference to the dog are so persistent that Sir J. Rhys surmised the dog was originally a totem in that country. In connection with _chuyn_, the Irish for dog, it may be noted that one of the titles of St. Patrick--whence all Irishmen are known as Paddies--was Taljean or Talchon, and moreover that Crete was alternatively known to the ancients as Telchinea. In Cornish and in Welsh _tal_ meant high; in old English it meant valiant, whence Shakespeare says, "Thou'rt a _tall_ fellow"; in the Mediterranean the Maltese _twil_; Arabic _twil_ meant _tall_ and hence we may conclude that the present predominant meaning of our _tall_ was once far spread, Talchon meaning either _tall geon_ or _tall chein_, _i.e._, dog-headed giant Christopher. The outer inscription around Fig. 18 is described as "altogether barbarous and obscure," but as far as can be deciphered the remaining words--"a corruption of Hebrew and Greek--signify 'the sun or star has shone'".[135] I have already suggested a connection between _John_, _geon_, _chien_, _shine_, _shone_, _sheen_, and _sun_.