With the Cornish Well known as Joan’s Pitcher may be connoted the variety of large bottle called a demijohn: according to Skeat this curious term is from the French damejeanne, Spanish damajuana—“Much disputed but not of Eastern origin. The French form is right as it stands though often much perverted. From French dame (Spanish dama), lady; and Jeanne (Spanish Juana), Joan, Jane.” In our word pitcher the t has been wrongly inserted, the French picher is the German becher, Greek bikos, and all these terms including beaker are radically Peggy, Puck or Big. Pitchers are one of the commonest sepulchral offerings, and we are told that the Iberian bronze-working brachycephalic invaders of Britain introduced the type of sepulchral ceramic known as the beaker or drinking cup: “This vessel,” says Dr. Munro, “was almost invariably deposited beside the body, and supposed to have contained food for the soul of the departed on its way to the other world.”[320]
The German form of Peggy or Margaret is Gretchen, which resolves into Great Chun or Great Mighty Chief: Margot and Marghet may be rendered Big God or Fairy God or Mother Good.
That the pitcher, demijohn, or jug was regarded in some connection with the Big Mother or Great Queen is obvious from the examples illustrated, and the apparition of this emblem on the coins of Tours may be connoted with the female-breasted jugs which were described by Schliemann as “very frequent” in the ruins of Troy. Similar objects were found at Mykenæ in connection with which Schliemann observes: “With regard to this vase with the female breasts similar vases were found on the islands of Thera (Santorin) and Therassia in the ruins of the prehistoric cities which, as before stated, were covered by an eruption of that great central volcano which is believed by competent geologists to have sunk and disappeared about 1700 to 1800 B.C.”.[321] It is peculiarly noticeable that the dame Jeanne or jug is thus associated in particular with Troy, Etruria, Therassia, Thera (Santorin), the Turones, and Tours.
The centre stone of megalithic circles constituted the speck or dot within the circle of the feeder or pap, and not infrequently one finds a Longstone termed either The Fiddler or The Piper. The incident of the Pied Piper is said to have occurred at Hamelyn on June 26th, 1284, during the feast of St. John and St. Paul. The street known as Bungen Strasse through which the Piper went followed by the enraptured children is still sacred to the extent that bridal and other processions are compelled to cease their music as they traverse it: Bungen of Bungen Street may thus seemingly be equated with bon John or St. John on whose feast day the miracle is said to have happened. The Hamelyn Piper who—
... blew three notes, such sweet
Soft notes as never yet musician’s cunning
Gave to the enraptured air,
may be connoted with Pan or Father An, and the mountain now called Koppenberg, into which the Hamelyn children were allured, was obviously Arcadia or the happy land of Pan: the berg of Koppenberg is no doubt relatively modern, and the original name, Koppen, resolves into cop, kopje, or hill-top of Pan. The Land of the Pied Piper was manifestly Himmel, which is the German for heaven, and it may also be the source of the place-name Hamelyn.
He led us, he said, to a joyous land