Fig. 93.—Iberian. From Akerman.
Fig. 94.—From Christian Iconography (Didron).
The Christian emblems herewith represent Christ supported by the Father or Mother upon a veil or scarf, which is probably intended for the rainbow or spectrum: the pagan Europa was represented, vide Fig. 93, holding a similar emblem. According to mythology, Iris or the Rainbow was like Thot or Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, and the symbolists delighted to blend into their hieroglyphs that same elusive ambiguity as separates Iris from Eros and the blend of colours in the spectrum.
In the ninth century a learned monk expressed the opinion that only two words of the old Iberian language had then survived: one of these was fern, meaning anything good, and with it we may connote the Fern Islands among which stands the Megstone. Ferns, the ancient capital of Leinster, attributes its foundation to a St. Mogue, and St. Mogue’s Well is still existing in the precincts of Ferns Abbey. The equation of Long Meg and her Daughters with Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins is supported by the tradition that the original name of St. Ursula’s husband was Holofernes,[284] seemingly Holy Ferns or Holy Phoroneus. What is described as “the highest term in Grecian history” was the ancestral Inachus, the father of a certain Phoroneus. The fabulous Inachus[285]—probably the Gaelic divinity Oengus[286]—is the Ancient Mighty Life, and Phoroneus is radically fern or frond. There figures in Irish mythology “a very ancient deity” whose name, judging from inscriptions, was Feron or Vorenn, and it is noteworthy that Oengus is associated particularly with New Grange, where the fern palm leaf emblem has been preserved. The Dutch for fern is varen, and the root of all these terms is fer or ver: the Latin ferre is the root of fertile, etc., and in connection with the Welsh ver, which means essence, may be noted ver the Spring and vert, green, whence verdant, verdure, vernal, and infernal(?).
Among the ferns whose spine-like fishbone fronds seemingly caused them to be accepted as emblems of the fertile Dayspring or the permeating Spirit of all Life, the osmunda was particularly associated with the Saints and Gods: in the Tyrol it is still placed over doors for Good Luck, and one species of Osmunda (Crispa) is in Norway called St. Olaf’s Beard. This is termed by Gerarde the Herb Christopher, and the Latin crispa somewhat connects it with Christopher. The name Osmund is Teutonic for divine protector, but more radically Osmunda was oes munda, or the Life of the World. In Devonshire the Pennyroyal is also known as organ, organy, organie, or origane, all of which are radically the same as origin.
