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
Yellow is not only the colour of the golden sun, but it is similarly
that of the moon, and at the festivals of the _yellow_ Lights of Heaven
our ancestors most assuredly _halloe'd_, _yelled_, _yawled_, and
_yowled_. The Cornish for the sun is _houl_, the Breton is _heol_, the
Welsh is _hayl_, and until recently in English churches the congregation
used at Yule Tide to _hail_ the day with shouts or _yells_ of Yole,
Yole, Yole! or Ule, Ule, Ule! The festival of Yule is a reunion, a
coming together in amity of the All, and as in Welsh _y_ meant _the_,
the words _whole_, and _Yule_ were perhaps originally _ye all_ or _the
all_. An _alloy_ is a mixture or medley, anything _allowed_ is according
to _law_, and _hallow_ is the same word as _holy_.
The word Alban is pronounced Olbun, and in Welsh _Ol_, meant not only
_all_, but also the Supreme Being. The Dictionaries translate the
Semitic _El_ as having meant _God_ or _Power_, and it is so rendered
when found amid names such as Beth_el_, Uri_el_, _El_eazar,[147] etc.
But among the Semitic races the deity El was subdivided into a number of
Baalim or secondary divinities emanating from El, and it would thus seem
that although the Phoenicians may have forgotten the fact, _El_ meant
among them what _All_ does amongst us. According to Anderson, El was
primarily Israel's God and only later did He come to be regarded as the
God of the Universe--"Rising in dignity as the national idea was
enlarged, El became more just and righteous, more and more superior to
all the other gods, till at last He was defined to be the Supreme Ruler
of Nature, the One and only Lord".[148]
The motto of Cornwall is "One and All," and among the Celtic races there
is still current a monotheistic folk-song which is supposed to be the
relic of a Druidic ritual or catechism. This opens with the question in
chorus, "What is your one O"? to which the answer is returned:--
One is _all alone_,
And ever doth remain so.
There figures in the Celtic memory a Saint Allen or St. Elwyn, and this
"saint" may be modernised into St. "Alone" or St. "_All one_": his
third variant Elian is equivalent to Holy Ane or Holy One.[149]
The Greek philosophers entertained a maxim that Jove, Pluto, Phoebus,
Bacchus, all were one and they accepted as a formula the phrase "All is
one". In India Brahma was entitled "The Eternal All" and in the
_Bhagavad Gita_ the Soul of the world is thus adored:--
O infinite Lord of Gods! the world's abode,
Thou undivided art, o'er all supreme,
Thou art the first of Gods, the ancient Sire,
The treasure-house supreme of all the worlds.
The Knowing and the Known, the highest seat.
From Thee the All has sprung, O Boundless Form!
Varuna, Vazu, Agni, Yama thou,
The Moon; the Sire and Grandsire too of men.
The infinite in power, of boundless force,
The All thou dost embrace; the "Thou art All".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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