The Italian for blue—the colour of the deep water and of the high Heavens—is also turchino, and on 23rd April (French Avril), blue coats used to be worn in England in honour of the national saint whose red cross on a white ground has immemorially been our Naval Ensign.[290] St. George figured particularly in the Furry or Flora dance at Helston, and the month of Avril, a period when the earth is opening up its treasures, seemingly derives its name from Ver or Vera, the “daughter deare” of Flora. On 23rd April “the riding of the George” was a principal solemnity in certain parts of England: on St. George’s Day a White Horse used to stand harnessed at the end of St. George’s Chapel in St. Martin’s Church, Strand, and the Duncannon Street, which now runs along the south side of this church, argues the erstwhile existence either here or somewhere of a dun or down of cannon. A cannon is a gun, and our Dragoon guards are supposed to have derived their title from the dragons or fire-arms with which they were armed. The inference is that the first inventors of the gun, cannon, or dragon, entertained the pleasing fancy that their weapon was the fire-spouting worm.[291] The dragon was the emblem of the Cynbro or Kymry: associated with the red cross of St. George it is the cognisance of London, and a fearsome dragon stands to-day at the boundary of the city on the site of Temple Bar.
In the reign of Elizabeth an injunction was issued that “there shall be neither George nor Margaret,” an implication that Margaret was once the recognised Consort of St. George, and the expression “riding of the George,” points to the probability that the White Horse, even if riderless, was known as “the George”. The White Horse of Kent with its legend Invicta implies—unless Heraldry is weak in its grammar—not a horse but a mare: George was Invictus or the Unconquerable, and, as will be seen, there are good reasons to suppose that the White Horse and White Mare were indigenous to Britain long before the times of the Saxon Hengist and Horsa. It is now generally accepted that Hengist, which meant horse, and Horsa, which meant mare, were mythical characters. With the coming of the Saxons no doubt the worship of the White Horse revived for it was an emblem of Hanover, and in Hanover cream-coloured horses were reserved for the use of royalty alone. With the notorious Hanoverian Georges may be connoted the fact that opposite St. George’s Island at Looe (Cornwall) is a strand or market-place named Hannafore: at Hinover in Sussex a white horse was carved into the hillside.
Fig. 108.—From The Scouring of the White Horse (Hughes, T.).
Fig. 109.—British. From A New Description of England (1724).
