Fig. 121.
The story of St. George treading on the Padstow Rock, and the subsequent gush of water, is immediately suggestive of the Pegasus legend. Pegasus, the winged steed of the Muses, which, with a stroke of its hoof, caused a fountain to gush forth, is supposed to have been thus named because he made his first appearance near the sources—Greek pegai—of Oceanus. It is obvious, however, from the coins of Britain, Spain, and Gaul, that Pegasus—occasionally astral-winged and hawk-headed—was very much at home in these regions, and it is not improbable that pegasus was originally the Celtic Peg Esus. The god Esus of Western Europe—one of whose portraits is here given—was not only King Death, but he is identified by De Jubainville with Cuchulainn, the Achilles or Young Sun God of Ireland.[293] Esus, the counterpart of Isis, was probably the divinity worshipped at Uzes in Gaul, a coin of which town, representing a seven-rayed sprig springing from a brute, is here reproduced, and that King Esus or King Osis was the Lord of profound speculation, is somewhat implied by gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. Tacitus mentions that the neighing of the sacred white horse of the Druids was regarded as oracular; the voice of a horse is termed its neigh, from which it would seem horses were regarded as super-intelligent animals which knew.[294] The inscription CUN or CUNO which occurs so frequently on the horse coins of Western Europe is seemingly akin to ken, the root of know, knew, canny, and cunning. In India the elephant Ganesa—seemingly a feminine form of Genesis and Gnosis—was deemed to be the Lord of all knowledge.
In connection with Pegasus may be noted Bukephalus, the famed steed of Alexander. The Inscriptions EPPILLUS and EPPI[295] occur on the Kentish coins, Figs. 122 and 123; hipha or hippa was the Phœnician for a mare; in Scotland the nightmare is known as ephialtus; a hippodrome is a horse course, whence, perhaps, Bukephalus may be translated Big Eppilus. The little elf or elve under a bent sprig is presumably Bog or Puck, and in connection with the Eagle-headed Pegasus of Fig. 164 may be noted the Puckstone by the megalithic Aggle Stone at Purbeck, where is a St. Alban’s Head.[296]
Figs. 122 and 123.—British. From Akerman.
Whether or not Pegasus was Big Esus or Peg or Puck Esus is immaterial, but it is quite beyond controversy that the animals now under consideration are Elphin Steeds and that they are not the “deplorable abortions” which numismatists imagine. The recognised authorities are utterly contemptuous towards our coinage, to which they apply terms such as “very rude,” “an attempt to represent a horse,” “barbarous imitation,” and so forth; but I am persuaded that the craftsmen who fabricated these archaic coins were quite competent to draw straightforward objects had such been their intent. Akerman is seriously indignant at the indefiniteness of the object which resembles a fishbone and “has been called a fern leaf,” and he sums up his feelings by opining that this uncouth representation may be as much the result of incompetent workmanship as of successive fruitless attempts at imitation.[297]
Figs. 124 to 127.—Iberian. From Barthelemy.