Aeon hath seen age after age in long succession roll,
But like a serpent which has cast its skin,
Rose to new life in youthful vigour strong.
Commenting on this passage Owen Morgan observes: “The expression ‘cast his skin’ alluded to the idea that the Sun of the old year had his body destroyed in the heavens at noon on each 20th December, by the Power of Darkness”.[213] The Gnostics considered there were thirty divine Powers or Rulers, corresponding obviously to the days of the month, and these Powers they termed Aeons: among the Greeks aeon meant an enormously vast tract of time; in Welsh Ion means Leader or Lord.
The story of Vidforull or Magus gains in interest in view of his mystic age of 330, or ten times 33, and the emerging-ex-post incident may have some connection with the nomenclature of the flame-flowered staff or post now termed a Hollyhock, or Holy Hock. One of the miracles attributed to St. Kit—a miracle which we are told was the means of converting eight thousand men to Christianity—was the budding of his staff. “Christopher set his staff in the earth, and when he arose on the morn he found his staff like a palmier bearing flowers, leaves, and dates.” Kit or Kate is the same word as “Kaad,” and there is a serpent represented on the post or staff at St. Alban’s Kaadman, figured on p. 110. The serpent was universally the symbol of subtlety and deep wisdom, and among the Celts it was, because it periodically sloughed its skin, regarded as the emblem of regeneration and rejuvenescence.[214]
The Hawk, which is the remaining symbol of the Kaadman (Fig. 16), was the uch or high-flying bird, which soared sun-wise and hovered overworld eyeing or ogling the below with penetrating and all-seeing vision. It is difficult to see any rational connection between hawk and heave—a connection which for some mysterious reason the authorities connote—but the hawk was unquestionably an emblem of the Most High. A hawker is a harokel, Hercules, or merchant, and with Maga may be connoted magazine, which means storehouse. In Celtic mako or maga means “I feed”; in Welsh magu means breed, and to nurse; in Welsh magad is brood. It is to this root that obviously may be assigned the Gaelic Mac or Mc, which means “breed of” or “children of”. In the Isle of Man, the inhabitants claimed to be descended from the fairies, whence perhaps the MacAuliffes of Albany originally claimed to be children of the Elf. Among the Berbers of Africa Mac has precisely the same meaning as among the Gaels, and among the Tudas of India mag also means children of. “Surely after this,” says a commentator, “the McPhersons and McGregors of our Highland glens need not hesitate to claim as Scotch cousins the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula.”[215]
There are many tales current in Cornwall of a famous witch known as “Maggie Figgie,” and a particular rock on one of the most impressive headlands of the Duchy is entitled “Maggy Figgie’s Chair”. Here, it is said, Maggie was wont to seat herself when calling to her aid the spirits of the storm, and upon this dizzy height she swung to and fro as the storms far below rolled in from the Atlantic. Just as Maggie is radically make, so is figgy related to fake. The many-seeded fica or fig was the symbol of the Mother of Millions, and the same root is responsible for fecund, and probably for phooka, which is the Irish for Fairy or Elf. Feckless means without resource, shiftless, incompetent, and incapable; vague means wandering, and the word vagabond is probably due to the beneficent phooka or Wanderer. That Pan was not only a hill and wood deity, but also a sea-vagabond is implied by the invocation:—
Io! Io! Pan! Pan!
Oh Pan thou ocean Wanderer.[216]
In Northumberland among the Fern Islands is a rock known as the Megstone, and in Westmorland is the famous megalithic monument, known as Long Meg and her Daughters. The daughters were here represented by seventy-two stones placed in a circle (there are now only sixty-seven), and Long Meg herself, who is said to have been the last of the Titans, is identified with an outstanding rock, which is recorded as measuring 18 feet in height, and 15 feet in circumference. The monument is situated on what is called The Maiden Way, and the measurement 15 is therefore significant, for the number 15 was peculiarly the Maiden’s number, and “when she was fifteen years of age” is almost a standard formula in the lives of the Saints. We shall meet with fifteen in connection with the Virgin Mary, who, we shall note, was reputed to have lived to the age of seventy-two. The circle of “the Merry Maidens” near St. Just is 72 feet in diameter, and the Nine Maidens near Penzance is also 72 feet in diameter.[217] Christ the Corner Stone is said to have had seventy-two disciples, and the seventy-two stones of Long Meg’s circle have probably some relation to the seventy-two dodecans into which the Chaldean and Egyptian Zodiac was divided. In connection with magu, the Welsh for nurse, it is worth noting that St. Margaret, or St. Meg, is said to have been delivered to a nurse to be kept, but on a certain day, when she was fifteen years of age and kept the sheep of her nurse, her circumstances took a sudden change for the worse.