Читать книгу Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present - John Timbs - Страница 5

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itherto we have but glanced at the dwelling-places of our ancestors, chiefly from existing evidences. Of the general condition of the people before the Roman Conquest, we find this picturesque account in Lappenberg's able work on the Anglo-Saxon Kings. The earliest inhabitants of Britain, as far as we know, were probably of that great family, the main branches of which, distinguished by the designation of Celts, spread themselves so widely over middle and western Europe. They crossed over from the neighbouring country of Gaul. At a later period, the Belgæ, actuated by martial restlessness or the love of plunder, assailed the southern and western coasts of the island, and settled there, driving the Celts into the inland country. Lappenberg's life-like picture of the condition of these people is as follows:—

"In the southern parts of England, which had become more civilized through commerce, the cultivation of grain, to which the mildness of the climate was favourable, had been greatly improved by the art of marling. The daily consumption was taken from the unthrashed corn, preserved in caves, which they prepared for food, but did not bake as bread. Horticulture was not in use among them, nor the art of making cheese; yet the great number of buildings, of people, and of cattle, appeared striking to the Romans. Copper and bits of iron, according to weight, served as money. Their custom of painting themselves with blue and green, for the purpose of terrifying their enemies, as well as that of tattooing, was retained till a later period by the Picts of the North. At certain sacrifices, even the women, painted in a similar manner, resembling Ethiopians, went about without clothing. Long locks and mustachios were general. Like the Gauls, they decorated the middle finger with a ring. Their round simple huts of reeds or wood resembled those of that people; and the Gaulish chequered coloured mantles are still in common use in the Scottish Highlands. Their clothing, more especially that of the Belgic tribes of the south, enveloped the whole body; a girdle encircled the waist, and chains of metal hung about the breast. The hilts of their huge pointless swords were adorned with the teeth of marine animals; their shields were small. The custom of fighting in chariots, on the axles of which scythes were fastened, and in the management of which they showed great skill, was peculiar to this and some other of the Celtic nations, in a generally level country, and where the horses were not sufficiently powerful to be used for cavalry. The charioteer was the superior person; the servant bore the weapons. They began their attacks with taunting songs and deafening howls. Their fortresses or towns consisted in the natural defence of impenetrable forests. In the interior of the country were found only the more rugged characteristics of a people engaged in the rearing of cattle; which, together with the chase, supplied skins for clothing, and milk and flesh for food. The northern part of the country seems in great measure to have been abandoned to the shaft and javelin of the roving hunter, as skilful as he was bold. Simplicity, integrity, temperance, with a proneness to dissension, are mentioned as the leading characteristics of the nation. The reputation of bravery was more especially ascribed to the Norman races."

The only persons in Britain who possessed any knowledge before the Roman invasion, and even for some considerable time after it, were the Druids: the real extent of their attainments is, however, doubtful and superficial, from the fact that, though they were acquainted with the Greek letters, they taught almost entirely by memory, and committed little or nothing to writing. A summary of what is known concerning Druidical knowledge is contained in the following particulars:—Concerning the universe, they believed that it should never be entirely destroyed or annihilated, though it was expected to suffer a succession of violent changes and revolutions, by the predominating powers of fire and water. They professed to have great knowledge of the movements of the heavens and stars; indeed, their religion required some attention to astronomy, since they paid considerable regard to the changes of the moon. Their time was computed by nights, according to very ancient practice, by moons or months; and by years, when the planet had gone the revolutions of the seasons. That at least they knew the reversion of the seasons, as adapted to agricultural purposes, is evident from the fact, that Cæsar landed in Britain on the 26th day of August, when he states that the harvest was all completed, excepting one field, which was more backward than the rest of the country.

The sacred animal of the Druids' religion was the milk-white bull; the sacred bird, the wren; the sacred tree, the oak; the sacred plant, the mistletoe; the sacred herbs, the trefoil and the vervain; the sacred form, that of three divine letters or rays, in the shape of a cross, symbolizing the triple aspect of God. The sacred herbs and plant, with another plant, hyssop, the emblem of fortitude in adversity, were gathered on the sixth day of the moon. The great festivals of Druidism were three: the solstitial festivals of the rise and fall of the year, and the winter festival. At the spring festival, the bâltân, or sacred fire, was brought down by means of a burning-glass from the sun. No hearth in the island was held sacred till the fire on it had been relit from the bâltân. The bâltân became the Easter festival of Christianity, as the mid-winter festival, in which the mistletoe was cut with the golden sickle from the sacred oak, became Christmas. The mistletoe, with its three berries, was the symbol of the Deity in his triple aspect—its growth on the oak, of the incarnation of the Deity in man.

The canonicals of the Arch-Druid were extremely gorgeous. On his head he wore a tiara of gold, in his girdle the gem of augury, on his breast the ior morain, or breast-plate of judgment; below it, the glan neidr, or draconic egg: on the forefinger of the right hand, the signet ring of the order; on the forefinger of the left, the gem of inspiration. Before him were borne the volume of esoteric mysteries, and the golden implement with which the mistletoe was gathered. His robe was of a white linen, with a broad purple border.

The sickle with which the mistletoe was cut could not have been of gold, though so described. Stukeley maintains that the Druids cut the mistletoe with their upright hatchets of brass, called celts, put at the end of their staffs. The kind of mistletoe found to this day in Greece is the same with that found in England; and Sir James Smith, the distinguished botanist, contends that when the superstitions of the East travelled westward, our Druids adopted the Greek mistletoe as being more holy or efficacious than any other. The Druids, doubtless, dispensed the plant at a high price: "as late as the seventeenth century peculiar efficacy was attached to it, and a piece hung round the neck was considered a safeguard against witches." (W. Sandys, F.S.A.)

It is concluded that the Druids possessed some knowledge of arithmetic, using the Greek characters as figures, in the public and private computations mentioned by Cæsar; they were not unacquainted with mensuration, geometry, and geography, because, as judges, they decided disputes about the limits of fields, and are even said to have been engaged in determining the measure of the world. Their mechanical skill, and particularly their acquaintance with the lever, is generally argued from the enormous blocks of Stonehenge, and the numerous other massive erections of rude stone which are yet remaining in many parts of the kingdom, and which are commonly attributed to these times.

The remains of the mystic monument of Stonehenge, which stands in the midst of Salisbury Plain, have been variously explained, as to the purpose for which Stonehenge was reared. When perfect, it consisted of two circles and two ellipses of upright stones, concentric, and environed by a bank and ditch; and outside this boundary, of a single upright stone, and a sacred way, via sacra, or cursus. One writer has beheld in Stonehenge a work of antediluvians, and another, a sanctuary of the Danes; and Inigo Jones, a temple of the Romans. By the Saxons it was termed Stonhengist, the hanging stones; and thence came Stonehenge, of which we have this terrible historic legend:—

Ebusa, brother of Hengist, with his brother Octa, landed on the Frith of Forth with an armament of five hundred vessels. The Britons flew to arms. A conference was proposed by Hengist, and accepted by Vortigern. It was held at Stonehenge (Hengist's Stones), and attended by most of the nobility of Britain. On the sixth day, at the high feast, when the sun was declining, was perpetrated the "Massacre of the Long Knives," the blackest crime, with the exception of that of St. Bartholomew, in the annals of any nation. The signal for the Saxons to prepare to plunge their knives, concealed in their boots and under their military cloaks, into the breasts of their gallant, unsuspicious conquerors was, "Let us now speak of friendship and love." The signal for action were the words, "Nemet your Saxas," ("Out with your knives,") and the raising of the banner of Hengist—a white horse on a red field—over the head of Vortigern. Four hundred and eighty of the Christian chivalry of Britain fell before sunset by the hand of the pagan assassins; three only of name—Eidol Count of Gloucester, and the Princes of Vendotia and Cambria—escaping, the first by almost superhuman courage and presence of mind. Priests, ambassadors, bards, and the boyish scions of many noble families, were piled together in one appalling spectacle on the site of the banquet, "Moel Œore"—the Mound of Carnage, about three hundred yards north of the great Temple.

A learned band of inquirers are induced to consider Stonehenge as a Druidic temple, reared on the solitary plain long before Roman, Dane, or Saxon had set foot within the country. Still, Stonehenge was the work of two distinct eras: the smaller circles are attributed to the Celtic Britons, and the other to the Belgæ. There is a common notion that the stones cannot be counted twice alike; but when Charles II. visited Stonehenge in 1651, he counted and re-counted the stones, and proved to his satisfaction the fallacy of this notion.[4]

A few months since, Professor Nielson, in a paper read to the Ethnological Society, considered that Stonehenge was a temple of early fire-worshippers, and of pre-Druidical origin, and belonging to the "Bronze Period" of the northern archæologists. The remains of Stonehenge, he remarked, are placed, not on the summit, but on the declivity of a hill surrounded by numerous barrows, from which bronze articles have been exhumed, with others of flint, but never any of iron. He considers that fire-worshippers preceded Druids in Britain and Gaul, and gives what he regards as numerous proofs of the building of such stone open temples by colonies of Phœnicians. Circles of large stones, exactly identical in description with those called Celtic or Druidical, he continued, are found in countries where neither Celts nor Druids ever existed; but who knows at what time the ancient religion of this country may be truly said to have been pre-Druidical or pre-Celtic in its principles? From various considerations the author of the paper thinks there may be sufficient reason to regard the remains of Stonehenge as Phœnician, and connected with the rites of Baal, or the early worship of fire.

Mr. Fergusson and others say that to the Buddhists rather than to the Druids we owe Stonehenge. It is also thought to have been an assemblage of burial-places.

A popular poet has thus apostrophised this mysterious circle and its historical associations:

"Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle!

Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore

To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore,

Huge frame of giant hands, the mighty pile,

To entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile:

Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore,

Taught 'mid thy mighty maze their mystic lore:

Or Danish chiefs, enrich'd with savage spoil,

To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine,

Rear'd the rude heap: or in thy hallow'd round,

Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line:

Or here those kings in solemn state were crown'd:

Studious to trace thy wondrous origin,

We muse on many an ancient tale renown'd."

Warton.

The Druids were suspected of magic, which, Pliny remarks, derived its origin from medicine. They highly esteemed a kind of stone, or fossil, called Anginum Ovum, or Serpents' Egg, which should make the possessor superior in all disputes, and procure the favour of great persons. It was in the form of a ring of glass, either plain or streaked, and was asserted to be produced by the united salivas of a cluster of serpents, raised up in the air by their hissing; when, to be perfectly efficacious, it was to be caught in a clean white cloth before it fell to the ground, the person who received it instantly mounting a swift horse, and riding away at full speed from the rage of the serpents, who pursued him with like rapidity, until they arrived at a river. It has been supposed that these charms were no other than rings of painted glass; and, as it is allowed that the British had home manufactures of glass, it seems that there were imitations of them sold at an equally high price with the real amulet. Their genuineness was to be tried by their setting them in gold, and observing if they swam against the stream when cast into the water; they were, in fact, beads of glass, and the notion of their rare virtues exactly accords with the African exposition in the present day of the Aggry beads. Sir Richard Colt Hoare found one of the Druidic beads in a barrow in Wiltshire, in material resembling little figures found with the mummies in Egypt, and to be seen in the British Museum. "This curious bead," says Sir Richard Hoare, "has two circular lines, of opaque sky-blue and white, and seems to represent a serpent entwined round a centre, which is perforated. This was certainly one of the Glain Neidyr of the Britons; derived from Glain, which is pure and holy, and Neidyr, a snake."[5]

The accounts we have of the Druidical orations and discourses afford some notion of their admitted eloquence, which was of a lofty, impassioned, and mysterious character. Their counsel was equally solicited and regarded; and those orators who succeeded the Druids in the Western Islands seem to have possessed no less power, since, if one of them asked anything even of the greatest inhabitant, as his dress, horse, or arms, it was immediately given up to him—sometimes from respect, and sometimes from fear of being satirized, which was considered a great dishonour. The British chieftains, also, appear to have been gifted with considerable oratorical powers when they addressed their soldiers before a battle; as Tacitus translates the British names of such by "incentives to war."

The Druids were the only physicians and surgeons to the Britons; in which professions they blended some knowledge of natural medicines, with the general superstitions by which they were characterised. The practice of the healing art has ever commanded the esteem of the rudest nations; hence it was the obvious policy of the priests or Druids to study the properties of plants. Their famous Mistletoe, or All-heal, we have seen, was a cure in many diseases, an antidote to poisons, and a sure remedy against infection. We have in the present day a popular remedy for cuts and other wounds, sold under the name of Heal-all. Another plant, called Samulus, or Marsh-wort, which grew chiefly in damp places, was believed to be of excellent effect in preserving the health of swine or oxen, when it had been bruised and put into their water-troughs. But it was required to be gathered fasting and with the left hand, without looking back when it was being plucked. A kind of hedge hyssop, called Selago, was esteemed to be a general charm and preservative from sudden accidents and misfortunes; and it was to be gathered with nearly the same ceremony as the mistletoe. To these may be added Vervain, the herb Britannica, which was either the great Water-dock, or scurvy-grass; besides several other plants, the virtues of which, however, were greatly augmented by the rites in plucking them; superstitions not entirely out of use, while the old herbals were regarded as books of medicine. We gather from Pliny's Natural History some hints on the preparation of these materials, showing that sometimes the juices were extracted by bruising and steeping them in cold water, and sometimes by boiling them; that they were occasionally infused in a liquor which he calls wine; that they were administered in fumigations; and that the dried leaves, stalks, and roots of plants, were also used to impart a virtue to various liquids. The almost solitary shop of the herbalist in our great market in Covent Garden, will thus carry the mind's eye back through many centuries.

It appears that the Druids prepared ointments and salves from vegetables. Of their surgery nothing is certainly known, though much has been conjectured of their acquaintance with anatomy, from the barbarity of their human sacrifices; but it is probable that their practice extended only to the plainer branches of the art, as healing of wounds, setting of fractured bones, reducing dislocations, &c.; all which were perhaps conducted with great rudeness, though with considerable ceremony. It has been asserted that one of the Druid doctors, called Hierophilus, read lectures on the bodies of upwards of 700 living men, to display the wonders and secrets of the human fabric.

The Greek letters were used by the Druids for keeping the public or private records, the only matters which they reduced to writing. The Druid schools and seminaries were held in the caves such as we have already described, or in the recesses of the sacred groves and forests of Britain. The most eminent academy is said to have been in the Isle of Anglesey, near the residence of the Arch-Druid; and there are still two spots there called "the Place of Studies," and "the Astronomer's Circle." The British youth, separated from their parents, were under Druidical instruction until they were fourteen, and no one was capable of a public employment who had not been educated by a Druid. The Roman invasion, however, greatly improved the Druidical plan of instruction; since Julius Agricola was careful that the sons of the principal Britons should be taught the liberal sciences. His endeavours were considerably assisted by the expulsion of the Druids, which took place about this period; and also by the ability of the British youth, whom he declared to excel the Roman. The ranks of the priests were recruited from the noblest families of the early Britons: their education, which often extended over a period of twenty years, comprehended the whole sciences of the age; and beside their sacred calling, they were invested with power to decide civil disputes. Their dwellings and temples were situated in the thickest oak groves, which were sacred to the Supreme Deity.

No sculptured stones or storied bricks have ever been found of this period; nothing but weapons of stone, of bronze, and lastly, of iron, remain to attest the slow progress of a rude people towards a higher stage of civilization, in the arts relating to the chase and to war. As the Gauls used to ornament their shields and helmets with brass images of animals and horns, it is not improbable that some rude endeavour decorated the armour of the Britons. Whatever their skill might be, it was, doubtless, greatly improved by the Romans, since their bas-reliefs and effigies have been found in different parts of the kingdom; and as early as a.d. 61, not twenty years after the invasion of Claudius Cæsar, a statue of Liberty was erected at Camulodunum, or Colchester.

The early custom of painting the body has been incidentally mentioned. The Southern Britons stained their bodies with woad, deep blue, or a general tint; the Northern Britons added something of design by tracing upon their limbs figures of herbs, flowers, and trees, and all kinds of animals. It is doubtful whether in these arts they were improved by the Romans; since the delineation of deities, which Gildas mentions, on the walls of the British houses, are said by him only to resemble demons.

Although Cæsar describes the natives of Britain as a hardy race of shepherds, whose simple wants were provided for in their own country, even then the commerce of Britain was of considerable importance; since the tin of Cornwall, and the hides of the vast flocks of cattle, had already induced the merchants of Phœnicia to visit and settle on our southern shores. They are believed to have supplied the Eastern world with Cornish tin, of such important use in the manufacture of bronze tools, weapons, and helmets of antiquity.[6]

The principal and most ancient exports from Britain were, besides its famous tin, lead and copper; but lime and chalk, salt, corn, cattle, skins, earthenware, horses, staves, and native dogs, which appear always to have been held in great estimation, were also carried thence. The largest and finest pearls, too, are said to have been found on the British coasts; and the wicker baskets of Britain are celebrated by Martial and Juvenal as luxuries in Rome. And from Rome, the Britons received ivory, bridles, gold chains, amber cups, and drinking glasses.

There are few remains of the ornaments in use amongst the Britons at a very early period: there are many relics, however, of that just preceding the Roman Conquest. We find torques or chains for the neck and wrists coarsely manufactured, like curb-chains. Beads were also in use. Many of the most ancient ornaments were cruciform. With the Roman Conquest came in the Roman ornamentation. This does not seem to have been modified by its introduction into Britain. The Romans imported Rome bodily into Britain, as was their custom in all the conquered countries, and the Britons were too uncivilized to make improvements on what was presented to them. For this reason it is that there is the greatest difficulty to distinguish between pure Roman and Anglo-Roman ornaments.

That the Britons both understood and practised the art of working in metals, is ascertained from the relics of their weapons, as axes, spear and arrow heads, swords, &c. which are yet extant; and it is supposed that tin was the first ore which they discovered and refined. Lead they found in great abundance, very near the surface. The British iron was of uncommon occurrence, and was much prized, since it was used in personal ornaments, and was even formed into rings and tallies for money. This then precious metal has contributed more than any other to the greatness of England in those mighty works of our own times, her railways and vast ships of passage and war.

All the Britons, except the Druids, were trained early to war. Their most ancient weapons were bows, reed-arrows with flint or bone heads, quivers of basket-work, oaken spears; and flint battle-axes, which are now considered to have been called celts, though there is no connexion between this word and the name of the nation, Celtæ. The British forces included infantry, cavalry, and such as fought from war-chariots. The southern foot soldiers wore a coarse woollen tunic, and over it a cloak reaching below the middle, the legs and thighs being covered with close garments. They had brass helmets, breastplates full of hooks, and long swords suspended from an iron or brazen girdle. They also carried large darts, with iron shafts eighteen inches long; and shields of wicker or wood. The inland foot soldiers were more lightly armed, with spears and small shields, and dressed in skins of oxen. The Caledonians and other northerns usually fought naked, with only a light target; their weapons pointless swords and short spears. The British cavalry were mounted upon small but strong horses, without saddles, and their arms were mostly the same as those of the infantry. The soldiers of the war-chariots were mostly the chiefs of the nation, and the flower of the British youth. Their chariots were of wicker, upon wooden wheels, with hooks and scythe blades of bronze attached to the axles, with which the charioteer mowed down the enemy. Other chariots contained several persons, who darted lances; both machines broke the hostile ranks, and threw an army into confusion. Their number must have been very great; since Cassibellaunus, after he had disbanded his army, had still 4,000 remaining.

Primitive British vessels have occasionally been found embedded in morasses. In 1866, there was discovered at Warningcamp, about a mile from South Stoke, in Sussex, a canoe, in widening a ditch, or sewer, which empties itself into the river Arun: although now narrow, it appears to have been, until recently, of much greater extent, and at one time must have formed an important estuary of the river, for in the soil are now seen several thousands of shells of fresh-water fish. About four feet beneath the surface the end of the canoe was found. It proved to be 13½ feet long, and consisted of the hollowed trunk of an oak tree; but bears evidence of design, for having insertions cut on the edge, in which it is evident three seats had been secured for the boatmen. It is perhaps not so interesting as the canoe discovered at Stoke about twenty years ago, and now in the British Museum, because it is not so perfect. Still, it would appear of the greatest antiquity, from its extremely rude form. The canoe is the general vessel of New Zealand, the present state and people of which country are thought to exhibit more nearly than any other land the condition of Britain when the Romans entered it nearly eighteen centuries since.