Hellen, the mythical ancestor from whom the Hellenes attributed their national descent, may possibly be recognised not only as the Long Man or Lanky Man of country superstition but also in Partholon or Bartholon, the alleged son of Terah (Troy?), who is said to have landed with an expedition at Imber Scene in Ireland within 300 years after the Flood. Partholon, Father Good Holon (?) or Pure Good Holon (?) is said to have had three sons “whose names having been conferred on localities where they are still extant their memories have been thus perpetuated so that they seem still to live among us”. This passage, quoted from Silvester Giraldus,[357] who was surnamed Cambrensis because he was a Welshman, permits the assumption that a similar practice prevailed also elsewhere, and if in the time of Giraldus (1146) place-names had survived since the Flood, there is no reason to suppose that they have since ceased to exist.
Hellen was the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who correspond to the Noah and Alpha of our British mythology: after floating for nine days during the Flood the world was said to have been re-peopled by these twain, two-one, giant or joint pair, who created men by casting stones over their shoulders. In the Christian emblem here illustrated the divine Père or Parent, is being assisted by an angel, peri, or phairy, and it is possible that the Prestons of Britain were at one time Pyrrha stones. As the syllable zance of Penzance is always understood as san, holy, possibly the two Brisons may be translated into Pair Holy: with the Greek Pyrrha-Flood story may be connoted Peirun the name of the Chinese Noah.
Fig. 178.—An Angel assisting the Creator. Italian Miniature of the XIII. Cent. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
The church of St. Just was originally known as Lafroodha, which is understood to have meant laf church and rhooda,[358] “a corruption of the Saxon word rood or cross”. Rhooda is, however, much older than Saxon, rhoda is the Greek for rose, and the Rhodian Greeks used the rose as their national symbol. The immediate surroundings of the Dane John at Durovernum are known to this day as Rodau’s Town, and we shall consider Rhoda at greater length in subsequent chapters.
In the church of Roodha or St. Just there is standing a so-called “Silus stone” which was discovered in 1834, during alterations to the chancel: this object has carved upon it Silus hic jacet, the Greek letters Χ ΡHêΧ.Ρ., and a crosier, whence it has been surmised that Silus was a priest or pastor. Mr. J. Harris Stone inquires: “Who was Silus? No one has yet discovered,” and he adds: “It is a reasonable conjecture that he was one of those early British bishops who preached the Gospel before the mission of Augustine.”
Fig. 179.—Iberian coin of Rhoda, now Rosas. From Akerman.
I agree that he was British, but I am inclined to place him still farther back, and to assign his name at any rate to the Selli, under which title the priests of Epirus were known. The Selli were pre-eminently the custodians at Dodona, whence Homer’s reference:—
Great King, Dodona’s Lord, Pelasgian Jove,