Fig. 144.—From Barthelemy.
Fig. 145.—Iberian. From Akerman.
Abdera, now Adra, is a Spanish town on the shores of the Mediterranean, founded, according to Strabo, by the Tyrians, and the name thus seems to connote a tre of Ab or Hob. I have elsewhere endeavoured to prove that King Solomon, the Mighty Controller of the Jinns, was the Eye of Heaven or the Sun, and this emblem appears in the triangle or delta of Fig. 145: the corresponding inscription on Fig. 145 are Phœnician characters, reading The sun,[314] and the curious fish-pillars are almost certainly a variant of the deddu. In Ireland a Salmon of Wisdom enters largely into Folklore: the word salmon is Solomon or Wisdom, as also is solemn: in Latin solemn is solennis, upon which Skeat comments: “Annual, occurring yearly, like a religious rite, religious, solemn, Latin sollus, entire, complete: annus, a year. Hence solemn—returning at the end of a complete year. The old Latin sollus is cognate with Welsh holl, whole, entire.” The cognomen Solomon occurs several times in the lists of British Kings, and one may see it figuring to-day on Cornish shop-fronts in the form of variants such as Sleeman, Slyman, etc. Solomon may be resolved into the Sol man, the Seul man, the Silly[315] (innocent) man, or the Sly man, the Cunning man, or Magus. The “Sea horse” to the right, illustrated by Akerman on Plate XX, No. 8, is a coin of the Gaulish Magusa, and bears the inscription Magus which, as will be remembered, was a title of the Wandering Jew.
Maundrell, the English traveller, describing his journey in the seventeenth century to Jerusalem, has recorded that, “Our quarters, this first night, we took up at the Honeykhan, a place of but indifferent accommodation, about one hour and a half west of Aleppo”. He goes on to say: “It must here be noted that, in travelling this country, a man does not meet with a market-town and inns every night, as in England. The best reception you can find here is either under your own tent, if the season permit, or else in certain public lodgments, founded in charity for the use of travellers. These are called by the Turks khani; and are seated sometimes in the towns and villages, sometimes at convenient distances upon the open road. They are built in fashion of a cloister, encompassing a court of 30 or 40 yards square, more or less, according to the measure of the founder’s ability or charity. At these places all comers are free to take shelter, paying only a small fee to the khan-keeper (khanji), and very often without that acknowledgment; but one must expect nothing here but bare walls. As for other accommodations of meat, drink, bed, fire, provender, with these it must be every one’s care to furnish himself.”[316]
The main roads of Britain were once seemingly furnished with similar shelters which were known as Coldharbours, and the Coldharbour Lanes of Peckham and elsewhere mark the sites of such refuges.
The Eastern khans, “built in fashion of a cloister,” find their parallel in the enclosed form of all primitive shelters, and the words close and cloister are radically eccles, eglos, or eglise. Whence the authorities suppose Beccles in Silly Suffolk to be a corruption of beau eglise or Beautiful Church: but to whom was this “beautiful church” first reared and dedicated, and by what name did the inhabitants of Beccles know their village? The surname Clowes, which may be connoted with Santa Claus, is still prevalent at Beccles, a town which belonged anciently to Bury Abbey.
The patron saint of English inns, travellers, and cross-roads, was the Canaanitish Christopher, and the earliest block prints representing Kit were “evidently made for pasting against the walls in inns, and other places frequented by travellers and pilgrims.”[317] Kit’s intercession was thought efficacious against all dangers, either by fire, flood, or earthquake, hence his picture was sometimes painted in colossal size and occupied the whole height of the building whether church or inn. The red cross of St. John of Jerusalem was the Christopher; travellers carried images of Cuddy as charms, and the equation of St. John with Canaanitish Christopher will account for Christopher’s Houses being entitled Inns,[318] or Johns, or Khans. Under the travellers’ images of Christopher used to be printed the inscription, “Whosoever sees the image of St. Christopher shall that day not feel any sickness,” or alternatively, “The day that you see St. Christopher’s face, that day shall you not die an evil death”. The emblem on [page 262], was, I think, wrongly guessed by Didron as “the spirit of youth”: it is more probably a variant of Christopher, or the Spirit of Love, helping the palmer or pilgrim of life.