Among the megalithic remains in Brittany there have been found ornaments of jade, a material which, until recently, was supposed not to exist except in China or Japan. At Carnac, near the town of Elven, is the world-famed megalithic ruin now consisting of eleven rows of rocks, said to number “somewhere between nine and ten thousand”. As for many years these relics have been habitually broken up and used for building and road-making purposes, it is not unlikely that originally there were 1000 rocks in each of the eleven rows, totalling in all to the mystic 11,000. We shall see in a later chapter that Elphin stones were frequently eleven feet high: our word eleven is elf in Dutch, ellifir in Icelandic, ainlif or einlif in Gothic; but why this number should thus have been associated with the elves I am unable to decide, nor can I surmise why the authorities connote the word eleven with lika, which means “remaining,” or with linguere, which means “to leave”. In modern Etruria it is believed by the descendants of the Etruscans that the old Etruscan deities of the woods and fields still live in the world as spirits, and among the ancient Etrurians it was held that in the spiritual world the rich man and the poor man, the master and the servant, were all upon one level or all even.[231] Our word heaven is radically even and ange, the French for angel is the same word as onze meaning eleven.
The Golden Legend associates St. Maur with the Church of St. Maurice, where a blind man named Lieven is said to have sat for eleven years.[232] This marked connection between Maurice and eleven renders it probable that St. Maurice was the same King Maurus of Britain as was reputed to be the father of St. Ursula. The precise site of the monarch’s domain is not mentioned, but as Cornwall claims him the probabilities are that his seat was St. Levan. St. Maurus of the Church Calendar is reputed to have walked on the waters, and he is represented in Art as holding the weights and measures with which he is said to have made the correct allotment of bread and wine to his monks. These supposed “measures” are tantamount to St. Michael’s scales, which were sometimes assigned by Christianity to God the Father.
Fig. 49.—The Trinity in One Single God, holding the Balances and the Compasses. From an Italian Miniature of the XIII. Cent.
From Christian Iconography (Didron).
Ursula, as the daughter of Maurus, would have been Maura, and in face of the walking-on-the-sea story she was, no doubt, the Mairymaid, Merrowmaid, or Mermaid. Of St. Margaret we read that after her body had been broiled with burning brands, the blessed Virgin, without any hurt, issued out of the water. That St. Michael was associated in Art with a similar incident is evident from his miraculous preservation of a woman “wrapped in the floods of the sea”. St. Michael “kept this wife all whole, and she was delivered and childed among the waves in the middle of the sea”.[233] The Latin word mergere, i.e., Margery, means to sink into the sea, and emerge means to rise out of the sea. In Cornwall Margery Daw is elevated into Saint Margery Daw, and we may assume that her celebrated see-saw was the eternal merging and emerging of the Sun and Moon.
The Cornish pinnacle associated with Maggie Figgy of St. Levan may be connoted with a monolith overlooking Loch Leven and entitled, “Carlin Maggie” or “Witch Maggie”. This precipitous rock is precisely the same granite formation as is Maggie Figgy’s Chair, and legend says that it originated from Maggie “flyting” the devil who turned her into stone.[234] The Scotch Loch Leven is known locally as Loch Eleven, “because it is eleven miles round, is surrounded by eleven hills, is fed or drained by eleven streams, has eleven islands, is tenanted by eleven kinds of fish”.[235] It was also said to have been surrounded by the estates of eleven lairds.
At Dunfermline is St. Margaret’s Stone, “probably the last remnant of a Druid circle or a cromlech”.[236]
The megalithic Long Meg in Westmorland, standing by what is termed the “Maiden Way,” is in close proximity to Hunsonby. The Dutch for sun is zon, the German is sonne, whence Hunsonby in all probability was once deemed a by or abode of Hunson the ancient sun or zone.
The circle of Long Meg is an enceinte, i.e., an incinctus, circuit or enclosure; that St. Margaret of Christendom was the patroness of all enceinte women is obvious from Brand’s reference to St. Margaret’s Day, as a time “when all come to church that are, or hope to be, with child that year”. Sein is the French for bosom, and that Ursula of the 11,000 virgins was a personification of the Good Mother of the Universe or Bosom of the World may be further implied by the fact that she corresponds, according to Baring-Gould, with the Teutonic Holda. Holda or Holle (the Holy), is a gentle Lady, ever accompanied by the souls of maidens and children who are under her care. Surrounded by these bright-eyed followers she sits in a mountain of crystal, and comes forth at times to scatter the winter snow, vivify the spring earth, or bless the fruits of autumn.