It is a remarkable fact that neither in the Greek nor Latin language is there any equivalent to the word barrow, whence it would seem, judging also from the immense number of round and oval barrows found in Britain, that these islands were pre-eminently the home of the barrow, and that the barrow was essentially a British institution.
Connected with barrow is the civic borough, also the berg or hill: in Cornish bre, bar, or per meant hill,[352] and bar meant top or summit; birua is the Basque for head, and in Gaelic barra meant supposedly mount of the circle.[353]
In Cornish bron meant breast or pap, and one of the most popular heroines of Welsh Romance is the beautiful Bronwen or Branwen, a name which the authorities translate as meaning Bosom White. In old English bosom was written bosen, and as en was our ancient plural, as in brethren, children, etc., it is probable that not only did bosen mean the bosses but that bron or breast was originally bru en, bre en or bar en, i.e., the tops or hills. This symbol of the Great Mother was represented frequently by two hills—from the Paps of Anu down to twin barrows, and it was also represented mathematically by two circles.
In Celtic bryn meant hillock or hill, in Cornish bern meant a hayrick, and that the mows or hayricks were made in the form of bron, the breast, may be implied from ancient Inn Signs of the Barley Mow. Bara was Cornish for bread; in the same language barn meant to judge, barner a judge, and there is good reason to suppose that the tithe barns connected with Monasteries and Churches served originally not merely as store-houses, but as Courts of Justice, theatres, and centres of religion. In Cornish bronter meant priest, priest is the same word as breast, and the notion of parsons being pastors, feeders, or fathers is commemorated in the words themselves. In Cornish brein or brenn meant royal and supreme; the sacred centre stone of King’s County in Ireland was situated at Birr, and birua has already been noted as being the Basque for head. The probability of these words being connected is strengthened by Keightley’s observation: “There must by the way some time or other have been an intimate connection between Spain and England, so many of our familiar words seem to have a Spanish origin”.[354]
Fig. 176.—From A Guide to Avebury (Cox, R. Hippesley).
In addition to the famous earthwork at Abury in Wilts there is a less familiar one at Eubury in Gloucestershire: at Redbourne in Herts is a “camp” known as “Aubrey’s” or “Aubury,” whence it would seem that abri, the generic term for a shelter or refuge, might also have originated in Britain.[355] The colossal abri at Abury, or Aubrey, consisted of two circles within a greater one, and at the head of the avenue facing due east it will be noticed that Aubrey, the seventeenth-century antiquary, records twin barrows situated on what is now Overton Hill.
Fig. 177.—Avebury “restored”.
Lying in the sea a mile or so off the Cornish town of St. Just are a pair of conical bergs or pyramids known as the Brisons, and opposite these is a little bay named Priest’s Cove. There is no known etymology for Brisons, but it has been suggested that these remarkable burgs were once used as prisons: probably they were, for the stocks were frequently placed at the church door, and without doubt the ancient holy places served on necessity as prisons as well as Courts of St. Just. In the vicarage garden at St. Just was found a small bronze bull, and as the Phœnicians have been washed out of reckoning we may assign this idol either to the Britons who, until recently wassailed under the guise of a bull termed “the Broad,”[356] or to the Bronze-age Cretans, among whom the Bull or Minotaur was sacred. Perhaps instead of “Cretans” it would be more just to say Hellenes, for the headland opposite the Brisons was known originally as Cape Helenus, and there are the ruins of St. Hellen’s Chapel still upon it.