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They enter’d each a bath, and by the hands

Of maidens laved, and oil’d, and cloath’d again

With shaggy mantles, and resplendent vests,

Sat both enthroned at Menelaus’ side.

Time does not alter the radical characteristics of any race, and the outstanding qualities of the Britons—the traditional “remnant of Droia,” are still very much to-day what they were in the time of Diodorus the Sicilian. “They are,” said he, “of much sincerity and integrity far from the craft and knavery of men among us.”[120] So great was the Trojan reputation for law and order that the Greeks who owed their code of laws to Crete paid Minos the supreme compliment of making him the Lord Chief Justice of the World of Shades. It will probably prove that the droits, laws, rights, or dues of “Dieu et mon Droit” are traceable to those of Troy, as also perhaps the Triads or triple axioms of the Drui or Druids. To put a man on trial was originally perhaps to try or test him at the sacred tree: the triadic form of ancient maxims had doubtless some relation to the Persian Trinity of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and these three virtues were symbolised by the trefoil or shamrock. The Hebrew for law is tora or thorah, the Hill of Tara in Ireland (middle-Irish, Temair), is popularly associated with the trefoil symbol of the Trinity (Welsh, Drindod); that three, trois, or drei was associated by the game of Troy is obvious from Virgil’s reference to the “triple groups dividing,” and that the trefoil was venerated in Crete would appear from Mr. Mackenzie’s statement: “Of special interest, too, is a clover-leaf ornament—an anticipation of the Irish devotion to the shamrock”.[121]

The primitive trysts were probably at the old Trysting Trees; trust means reliability and credit and truce means peace. Among rude nations the men who carried with them Peace, Law, and Order must naturally have been deemed supermen or gods, hence perhaps why in Scandinavia Tyr meant god. Our Thursday is from Thor—a divinity who was sometimes assigned three eyes—and our Tuesday from Tyr, who was supposed to be the Scandinavian Joupiter. The plural form of Tyr meant “glorious ones,” and according to The Edda, not only were the Danes and Scandinavians wanderers from Troy or Tyrkland, but Asgard itself—the Scandinavian Paradise—preserved the old usages and customs brought from Troy.[122]

Homer by sidelights indicates that the Trojans were nice in their domestic arrangements, took fastidious care of their attire, and were confirmed lovers of fresh air. Thus Telemachus—

Open’d his broad chamber-valves, and sat

On his couch-side: then putting off his vest

Of softest texture, placed it in the hands

Of the attendant dame discrete, who first

Folding it with exactest care, beside

His bed suspended it, and, going forth,

Drew by its silver ring the portal close,

And fasten’d it with bolt and brace secure.

There lay Telemachus, on finest wool

Reposed, contemplating all night his course

Prescribed by Pallas to the Pylian shore.[123]

The word “Trojan” was used in Shakespeare’s time to mean a boon companion, a jonnock tyro, or a plucky fellow, and it is worthy of note that the trusty lads of Homer’s time passed, as does the Briton of to-day, their liquor scrupulously from left to right:—

So spake Jove’s daughter; they obedient heard.

The heralds, then, pour’d water on their hands,

And the attendant youths, filling the cups,

Served them from left to right.[124]

One of the most remarkable marvels of Cretan archæology is the up-to-date drainage system, and that the Tyrrhenians were equally particular is recorded apparently for all time by the Titanic evidence of the still-standing Cloaca Maxima or great main drain of Rome.

The word Troy carries inevitable memories of Helen whose beauty was such utter perfection that “the Helen of one’s Troy” has become a phrase. The name Helen is philologically allied to Helios the Sun, and is generally interpreted to mean torch, shiner, or giver of light. The Greeks called themselves Hellenes, after Hellen their eponymous divine leader. Oriental nations termed the Hellenes, Iones, and there is little doubt that Helen and Ione were originally synonymous. In Etruria was the city of Hellana, and we shall meet St. Helen in Great Britain, from Helenium, the old name for Land’s End, to Great St. Helen’s and Little St. Helen’s in London. St. Helen, the lone daughter of Old King Cole, the merry old soul, figures in Wales and Cumberland as Elen the Leader of Hosts, whose memory is preserved not only in Elaine the Lily Maid, but also in connection with ancient roadways such as Elen’s Road, and Elen’s Causeway. These, suggests Squire, “seem to show that the paths on which armies marched were ascribed or dedicated to her”.[125] Helen’s name was seemingly bestowed not only on our rivers, such as the Elen, Alone, or Alne and Allan Water, but it likewise seems to have become the generic term lan meaning holy enclosure, entering into innumerable place-names—London[126] among others—which will be discussed in course. The character in which Helen was esteemed may be judged from the Welsh adjective alain, which means “exceeding fair, lovely, bright”. Not only in Wales but also in Ireland Allen seems to have been synonymous with beauty, whence the authorities translate the place-name Derryallen to mean oakwood beautiful. In Arthurian romance Elaine or Elen figures as the sister of Sir Tirre,[127] as the builder of the highest fortress in Arvon, and as sitting lone or alone in a sea-girt castle on a throne of ruddy gold. It is said that so transcendent was her beauty that it would be no more easy to look into her face than to gaze at the sun when his rays were most irresistible. It would thus seem that Howel, said to be Elen’s brother, may be equated with hoel, the Celtic for Sun, and that Elen herself, like Diana, was the glorious twin-sister of Helios or Apollo.

The principal relics of St. Helena are possessed by the city of Treves, and at Therapne in Greece there was a special sanctuary of Helena the divinely fair daughter of Zeus and a swan. “Troy weight,” so called, originated, it is supposed, from the droits or standards of a famous fair held at Troyes in France.

From time immemorial Crete seems to have been associated with the symbol of the cross. This pre-Christian Cross of Crete was the equi-limbed Cross of St. John (Irish Shane) which form is also the Red Cross of St. George. In earlier times this cross was termed the Jack—a familiar form of “the John”—and it was also entitled “the Christopher”. In India the cave temple of Madura, where Kristna[128]-worship is predominant, is cruciform, and the svastika or solar cross, a variant of John’s Cross, is in one of its Indian forms known as the Jaina cross and the talisman of the Jaina kings.

“It must never be forgotten,” said a prince of the Anglican Church preaching recently at St. Paul’s, “that the cross was primarily an instrument of torture.” Among a certain school, who in Apostolic phrase deem themselves of all men most miserable, this conception is firmly fixed and seemingly it ever has been. It was Calvinistic doctrine that all pain and suffering came from the All Father, and that all pleasure and joy originated from the Evil One. Thus to Christianity the Latin Cross has been the symbol of misery and the concrete conception of Christian Ideal is the agonised Face of the Old Masters. This dismal verity was exemplified afresh by the melancholy poster which was recently scattered broadcast over England by the National Mission engineered by the Bishop of London. Even the Mexican cross, consisting of four hearts vis a vis (Fig. D)—a form which occurs sometimes in Europe—has been daubed with imaginary gore, and with reference to this inoffensive emblem the author of The Cross: Heathen and Christian complacently writes: “The lady to whom I have just alluded considers (and I think with great propriety) that the circle of crosses formed by groups of four hearts represents hearts sacrificed to the gods; the dot on each signifying blood”.[2]

Fig. 15.—From The Cross: Heathen and Christian (Brock, M.).

But we shall meet with these same dots on prehistoric British cross-coins as also on the “spindle whorls” of the most ancient Troy, and it will be seen that, apart from the word svastika which intrinsically means it is well, the svastika or pre-Christian cross was an emblem not of Melancholia but Joy. The English word joy and the French word jeu have, I think, been derived from Jou, just as jovial is traceable from Jove, and jocund to Jock or Jack. Pagans were the children of Joy and worshipped with a joyful noise before the Lord, and with sacred jeux or games. The word cross is in all probability the same as charis which means charity, and akin to chrestos which means good. Cres, the son of Jou, after whom the Cretans were termed Eteocretes, is an elementary form of Christopher, and the burning cross with which the legends state Christopher was tortured by being branded on the brow was more probably the Christofer or Jack—the Fiery Cross, with which irresistible talisman the clansmen of Albany were summoned together. Similarly the solar wheel of Katherine or The Pure One was supposed by the mediæval monks—whose minds were permanently bent on melancholia and torture—to have been some frightful implement of knives and spikes by which Kate or Kitt, the Pure Maiden, was torn into pieces. It will be seen in due course that almost every single “torture” sign of the supposed martyrs was in reality the pre-Christian emblem of some pagan divinity whence the saintly legends were ignorantly and mistakenly evolved.

When the Saxon monks came into power, in the manner characteristic of their race, they “tarried” the old British monasteries and sacred mounds, bringing to light many curious and extraordinary things. At St. Albans they overthrew and filled up all the subterranean crypts of the ancient city as well as certain labyrinthine passages which extended even under the bed of the river. The most world-famous labyrinth was that at Gnossus which has not yet been uncovered, but every Etrurian place of any import had its accompanying catacombs, and in the chapter on “Dene holes” we shall direct attention to corresponding labyrinths which remain intact in England even to-day.

When pillaging at St. Albans the Saxons found not only anchors, oars, and parts of ships, imputing that St. Albans was once a port, but they also uncovered the foundations of “a vast palace”. “Here,” says Wright,[129] “they found a hollow in the wall like a cupboard in which were a number of books and rolls, which were written in ancient characters and language that could only be read by one learned monk named Unwona. He declared that they were written in the ancient British language, that they contained ‘the invocations and rites of the idolatrous citizens of Waertamceaster,’ with the exception of one which contained the authentic life of St. Albans.” And as the Abbot before mentioned “diligently turned up the earth” where the ruins of Verulamium appeared, he found many other interesting things—pots and amphoras elegantly formed of pottery turned on the lathe, glass vessels, ruins of temples, altars overturned, idols, and various kinds of coins.

Many of the jewels and idols then uncovered remained long in the possession of the Abbey, and are scheduled in the Ecclesiastical inventories together with a memorandum of the human weaknesses against which each object was supposed to possess a talismanic value. Thus Pegasus or Bellerophon is noted as food for warriors, giving them boldness and swiftness in flight; Andromeda as affording power of conciliating love between man and woman; Hercules slaying a lion, as a singular defence to combatants. The figure of Mercury on a gem rendered the possessor wise and persuasive; a dog and a lion on the same stone was a sovereign remedy against dropsy and the pestilence; and so on and so forth.

“I am convinced,” says Wright, “that a large portion of the reliques of saints shown in the Middle Ages, were taken from the barrows or graves of the early population of the countries in which they were shown. It was well understood that those mounds were of a sepulchral character, and there were probably few of them which had not a legend attached. When the earlier Christian missionaries and the later monks of Western Europe wished to consecrate a site their imagination easily converted the tenant of the lonely mound into a primitive saint—the tumulus was ransacked and the bones were found—and the monastery or even a cathedral was erected over the site which had been consecrated by the mystics rites of an earlier age.”[130] After purification by a special form of exorcism the pagan pictures were accepted into Christian service, the designs being construed into Christian doctrines far from the purpose of the things themselves.

Fig. 16.—“Kaadman.” From Essays on Archæological Subjects (Wright, T.).

Among the monkish loot at St. Albans was an ancient cameo herewith reproduced. This particular jewel was supposed to be of great efficacy and was entitled Kaadman; “perhaps,” suggests Wright, “another mode of spelling cadmeus or cameus”. But in view of the fact that Alban means all good, it was more probably the picture of a sacred figure which the natives recognised as the original Kaadman, i.e., Guidman or the Good Man.[131] The jewels found at St. Albans being unquestionably Gnostic it is quite within the bounds of probability that the Kaadman seal was an “idol” of what the Gnostics entitled Adam Caedmon or Adam Kadman. According to C. W. King the Adam Kadman or Primitive Man of Gnosticism, was the generative and conceptive principle of life and heat, Who manifested Himself in ten emanations or types of all creation.[132] In Irish cad means holy; good and cad are the same word, whence Kaadman and the surnames Cadman and Goodman were probably once one. The word Albon or Albion means as it stands all good, or all well, and the river Beane, like the river Boyne—over whom presided the beneficent goddess Boanna—means bien, good, or bene well. The Herefordshire Beane was alternatively known as the river Beneficia, a name which to the modern etymologer working on standard lines confessedly “yields a curious conundrum”.[133]

The Anglo-Saxon Abbot of St. Albans after having assured himself that the idolatrous books before-mentioned proved that the pagan British worshipped Phœbus, and Mercury consigned them to the flames with the same self-complacency as the Monk Patrick burnt 180—some say 300—MSS. relative to the Irish Druids. These being deemed “unfit to be transmitted to posterity,” posterity is proportionately the poorer.

Phœbus was the British Heol, Howel, or the Sun, and Mercury, was, as Cæsar said, the Hercules of Britain. The snake-encircled club of Kaadman is the equivalent to the caduceus or snake-twined rod of Mercury; the human image in the hand of Kaadman implies with some probability that “Kaadman” was the All Father or the Maker of Mankind. We shall see subsequently that the Maker of All was personified as Michael or Mickle, and that St. Mickle and All Angels or All Saints stood for the Great Muckle leading the Mickle—“many a mickel makes a muckle”. St. Michael is the patron saint of Gorhambury, a suburb of St. Albans, and in Christian Art St. Michæl is almost invariably represented with the scales and other attributes of Anubis, the Mercury of Egypt. Both Anubis of Egypt and Mercury of Rome were connected with the dog, and Anubis was generally represented with the head of a dog or jackal. In The Gnostics and their Remains, King illustrates on plate F a dog or jackal-headed man which is subscribed with the name MICHAH, and it is probable the word make is closely associated with Micah or Mike.

ANUBIS.

Fig. 17.

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]

Fig. 18.—From An Essay on Ancient Coins, Medals, and Gems (Walsh, R.).

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.

It is probable that not only the literature of the saints but also many of the national traditions of our own and other lands arose from the misinterpretation of the symbolic signs and figures which preceded writing. The “diabolical idols” of Britain, as Gildas admitted, far exceeded those in Egypt; similarly in Crete, the fantastic hieroglyphics not yet read or understood far out-Egypted Egypt. The Christian Fathers fell foul with Gnostic philosophers for the supposed insult of representing Christ on the Cross with the head of an ass; but it is quite likely that the Gnostic intention—the ass being the symbol of meekness—was to portray Christ’s meekness, and that no insult was intended. A notable instance of the way in which ignorant and facetious aliens misconstrued the meaning of national or tribal emblems has been preserved in the dialogue of a globe-trotting Greek who lived in the second century of the present era. The incident, as self-recorded by the chatty but unintelligent Greek, is Englished by Sir John Rhys as follows: “The Celts call Heracles in the language of their country Ogmios, and they make very strange representations of the god. With them he is an extremely old man, with a bald forehead and his few remaining hairs quite grey; his skin is wrinkled and embrowned by the sun to that degree of swarthiness which is characteristic of men who have grown old in a seafaring life: in fact, you would fancy him rather to be a Charon or Japetus, one of the dwellers in Tartarus, or anybody rather than Heracles. But although he is of this description he is, nevertheless, attired like Heracles, for he has on him the lion’s skin, and he has a club in his right hand; he is duly equipped with a quiver, and his left hand displays a bow stretched out: in these respects he is quite Heracles. It struck me, then, that the Celts took such liberties with the appearance of Heracles in order to insult the gods of the Greeks and avenge themselves on him in their painting, because he once made a raid on their territory, when in search of the herds of Geryon he harrassed most of the western peoples. I have not, however, mentioned the most whimsical part of the picture, for this old man Heracles draws after him a great number of men bound by their ears, and the bonds are slender cords wrought of gold and amber, like necklaces of the most beautiful make; and although they are dragged on by such weak ties, they never try to run away, though they could easily do it: nor do they at all resist or struggle against them, planting their feet in the ground and throwing their weight back in the direction contrary to that in which they are being led. Quite the reverse: they follow with joyful countenance in a merry mood, and praising him who leads them pressing on one and all, and slackening their chains in their eagerness to proceed: in fact, they look like men who would be grieved should they be set free. But that which seemed to me the most absurd thing of all I will not hesitate also to tell you: the painter, you see, had nowhere to fix the ends of the cords, since the right hand of the god held the club and his left the bow; so he pierced the tip of his tongue, and represented the people as drawn on from it, and the god turns a smiling countenance towards those whom he is leading. Now I stood a long time looking at these things, and wondered, perplexed and indignant. But a certain Celt standing by, who knew something about our ways, as he showed by speaking good Greek—a man who was quite a philosopher, I take it, in local matters—said to me, ‘Stranger, I will tell you the secret of the painting, for you seem very much troubled about it. We Celts do not consider the power of speech to be Hermes, as you Greeks do, but we represent it by means of Heracles, because he is much stronger than Hermes. Nor should you wonder at his being represented as an old man, for the power of words is wont to show its perfection in the aged; for your poets are no doubt right when they say that the thoughts of young men turn with every wind, and that age has something wiser to tell us than youth. And so it is that honey pours from the tongue of that Nestor of yours, and the Trojan orators speak with one voice of the delicacy of the lily, a voice well covered, so to say, with bloom; for the bloom of flowers, if my memory does not fail me, has the term lilies applied to it. So if this old man Heracles, by the power of speech, draws men after him, tied to his tongue by their ears, you have no reason to wonder, as you must be aware of the close connection between the ears and the tongue. Nor is there any injury done him by this latter being pierced; for I remember, said he, learning while among you some comic iambics, to the effect that all chattering fellows have the tongue bored at the tip. In a word, we Celts are of opinion that Heracles himself performed everything by the power of words, as he was a wise fellow, and that most of his compulsion was effected by persuasion. His weapons, I take it, are his utterances, which are sharp and well-aimed, swift to pierce the mind; and you too say that words have wings.’ Thus far the Celt.”[136]

The moral of this incident may be applied to the svastika cross, an ubiquitous symbol or trade-mark which Andrew Lang surmised might after all have merely been “a bit of natural ornament”. The sign of the cross will be more fully considered subsequently, but meanwhile one may regard the svastika as the trade-mark of Troy. The Cornish for cross was treus, and among the ancients the cross was the symbol of truce.[137] The Sanscrit name svastika is composed of su, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing, or propitious, and asti (Greek esto), meaning being. It was universally the symbol of the Good Being or St. Albion, or St. All Well; it retains its meaning in its name, and was the counterpart to the Dove which symbolisms Innocence, Peace, Simplicity, and Goodwill. There is no doubt that the two emblems were the insignia of the prehistoric Giants, Titans, or followers of the Good Sun or Shine, or Sunshine, men who trekked from one or several centres, to India, Tartary, China, and Japan. Moreover, these trekkers whom we shall trace in America and Polynesia, were seafaring and not overland folk, otherwise we should not find the Cyclopean buildings with their concomitant symbols in Africa, Mexico, Peru, and the islands of the Pacific.

The svastika in its simpler form is the cross of St. Andrew, Scotch Hender or Hendrie. In British the epithet hen meant old or ancient, so that the cross of Hen drie is verbally the cross of old or ancient Drew, Droia, or Troy. This is also historically true, for the svastika has been found under the ruins of the ten or dozen Troys which occupy the immemorial site near Smyrna.

Our legends state that Bru or Brut, after tarrying awhile at Alba in Etruria, travelled by sea into Gaul, where he founded the city of Tours. Thence after sundry bickers with the Gauls he passed onward into Britain which acquired its name from Brute, its first Duke or Leader. We shall connote Britannia, whose first official portraits are here given, with the Cretan Goddess Britomart, which meant in Greek “sweet maiden”. One of these Britannia figures has her finger to her lips, or head, in seemingly the same attitude as the consort of the Giant Dog, and the interpretation is probably identical with that placed by Dr. Walsh upon that gnostic jewel. “Among the Egyptians,” he says, “it was deemed impossible to worship the deity in a manner worthy by words, adopting the sentiments of Plato—that it was difficult to find the nature of the Maker and Father of the Universe, or to convey an idea of him to the people by a verbal description—and they imagined therefore the deity Harpocrates who presided over silence and was always represented as inculcating it by holding his finger on his lips”. We know from Cæsar that secrecy was a predominant feature of the Drui or Druidic system, and for this custom the reasons are thus given in a Bardic triad: “The Three necessary but reluctant duties of the bards of the Isle of Britain: Secrecy, for the sake of peace and the public good; invective lamentation demanded by justice; and the unsheathing of the sword against the lawless and the predatory”.

Britain is in Welsh Prydain, and, according to some Welsh scholars, the root of Prydain is discovered in the epithet pryd, which signifies precious, dear, fair, or beautiful. This, assumed Thomas, “was at a very early date accepted as a surname in the British royal family of the island”.[138] I think this Welsh scholar was right and that not only Britomart the “sweet maiden,” but also St. Bride, “the Mary of the Gael,” were the archetypes of Britannia; St. Bride is alternatively St. Brighit, whence, in all probability, the adjective bright. At Brightlingsea in Essex is a Sindry or Sin derry island(?); in the West of England many villages have a so-called ‘sentry field,’ and undoubtedly these were originally the saintuaries, centres, and sanctuaries of the districts. To take sentry meant originally to seek refuge, and the primary meaning of terrible was sacred. Thus we find even in mediæval times, Westminster alluded to by monkish writers as a locus terribilis or sacred place. The moots or courts at Brightlingsea were known as Brodhulls, whence it would appear that the Moothill or Toothill of elsewhere was known occasionally as a Brod or Brutus Hill.

Some of the Britannias on page 120 have the aspect of young men rather than maidens, and there is no doubt that Brut was regarded as androginous or indeterminately as youth or maiden. We shall trace him or her at Broadstairs, a corruption of Bridestow, at Bradwell, at Bradport, at Bridlington, and in very many more directions. From Pryd come probably the words pride, prude, and proud, and in the opinion of our neighbours these qualities are among our national defects. Claiming a proud descent we are admittedly a dour people, and our neighbours deem us triste, yet, nevertheless trustworthy, and inclined to truce.

On the shield of one of the first Britannias is a bull’s head, whence it may be assumed the bull was anciently as nowadays associated with John Bull. At British festivals our predecessors used to antic in the guise of a bull, and the bull-headed actor was entitled “The Broad”. The bull was intimately connected with Crete; Britomart was the Lady of All Creatures, and seemingly the brutes in general were named either after her or Brut. The British word for bull was tarw, the Spanish is toro; in Etruria we find the City of Turin or Torino using as its cognisance a rampant bull; and I have little doubt that the fabulous Minotaur was a physical brute actually maintained in the terrible recesses of some yet-to-be-discovered labyrinth. The subterranean mausoleums of the Sacred Bulls of Egypt are among the greatest of the great monuments of that country; the bull-fights of Spain were almost without doubt the direct descendants of sacred festivals, wherein the slaying of the Mithraic Bull was dramatically presented, but in Crete itself the bull-fights seem to have been amicable gymnastic games wherein the most marvellous feats of agility were displayed. Illustrations of these graceful and intrepid performances are still extant on Cretan frieze and vase, the colours being as fresh to-day as when laid on 3000 years ago.

Fig. 19.—From An Essay on Medals (Pinkerton, J.).

In Britain the national sport seems to have been bull-baiting, and the dogs associated with that pastime presumably were bull-dogs. Doggedness is one of the ingrained qualities of our race; of recent years the bull-dog has been promoted into symbolic evidence of our tenacity and doggedness. Our mariners are sea-dogs, and the modern bards vouch us to be in general boys of the bull-dog breed. The mascot bull-dogs in the shops at this moment serve the same end as the mascot emblems and mysterious hieroglyphics of the ancients, and the Egyptian who carried a scarabæus or an Eye of Horus, acted without doubt from the same simple, homely impulse as drives the modern Englishman to hang up the picture of a repulsive animal subscribed, “What we have we’ll hold”.

The prehistoric dog or jackal symbolised not tenacity or courage, but the maker of tracks, for the well-authenticated reason that dogs were considered the best guides to practicable courses in the wilderness. Bull-headed men and dog-headed men are represented constantly in Cretan Art, and these in all likelihood symbolised the primeval bull-dogs who trekked into so many of the wild and trackless places of the world.

The Welsh have a saying, “Tra Mor, Tra Brython,” which means, “as long as there is sea so long will there be Britons”. Centuries ago, Diodorus of Sicily mentioned the Kelts as “having an immemorial taste for foreign expeditions and adventurous wars, and he goes on to describe them as ‘irritable, prompt to fight, in other respects simple and guileless,’ thus, according with Strabo, who sums up the Celtic temperament as being simple and spontaneous, willingly taking in hand the cause of the oppressed”.[139]

Diodorus also mentions the Kelts as clothed sometimes “in tissues of variegated colours,” which calls to mind the tartans of the Alban McAlpines, Ians, Jocks, Sanders, Hendries, and others of that ilk.

The dictionaries define the name Andrew as meaning a man, whence androgynous and anthropology; in Cornish antrou meant lord or master, and these early McAndrews were doubtless masterly, tyrannical, dour, derring-doers, inconceivably daring in der-doing. To try means make an effort, and we speak proverbially of “working like a Trojan”. The corollary is that tired feeling which must have sorely tried the tyros or young recruits. After daring and trying and tiring, these dour men eventually turned adre, which is Cornish for homeward. Whether their hearts were turned Troy-ward in the Ægean or to some small unsung British tre or Troynovant, who can tell? “I am now in Jerusalem where Christ was born,” wrote a modern argonaut to his mother, but, he added, “I wish I were in Wigan where I was born.”