It will be remarked that Barbarie is represented by a pair, which is suggestive of the Dioscuri or Heavenly Twins, and on referring to the life of St. Barbara we find her recorded as the daughter of Dioscorus, and as having been born at Heliopolis, or the city of the sun. The Dioscuri—those far-famed heroes Castor and Pollux—were said to have been born out of an egg laid by Leda the Swan: elsewhere the Dioscuri were known as the Cabiri, a term which is radically abiri. It is probable that St. Barbara was once represented with the emblems of the two Dioscuri or Cabiri, for one of her “tortures” is said to have been that she should be hanged between two forked trees. These two trees were doubtless two sprigs such as shown in Fig. 191 or two flowering pillars between which the Virgin was extended Andrew-wise in benediction. The next torture recorded of St. Barbara was the scorching of her sides with burning lamps, from which we may deduce that the Virgin was once depicted with two great lights on either side. Next, St. Barbara’s oppressors made her strongly to be beaten, “and hurted her head with a mallet”: the Slav deity Peroon was always depicted with a mallet, and the hammer or axe was practically a universal symbol of Power. As already noted, Peroon, the God with a mallet, has been equated by some scholars with Varuna of India; in Etruria the God of Death was generally represented with a great hammer, and the mallet with which St. Barbara was “hurted” may be further equated with the celebrated Hammer of Thor.
The gigantic hammer cut into the hillside at Tours, and associated in popular estimation with Charles Martel, in view of the name Tours is far more likely to have been the hammer of Thor, who, as we have seen, was assigned to Troy.
We are told that St. Barbara’s father imprisoned his daughter within a high and strong tour, tor, or tower, that no man should see her because of her great beauty: this incident is common alike to fairy-tale—notably at Tory Island—and hagiology, and one meets persistently with the peerless princess imprisoned in a peel, broch, or tower. In Fig. 192 is represented a so-called Trinity of Evil, but in all probability this is a faithful reproduction of the Iberian Aber or Aubrey, i.e., the trindod seated upon his symbolic tor, tower, or broch. The strokes at the toes, like the more accentuated lines from the fingers of Fig. 193, denoted the streaming light, and when we read that one of the exquisite tortures inflicted upon St. George was the thrusting of poisoned thorns into his finger-nails it is a reasonable conclusion that St. George was likewise represented with rayed fingers. The feast of St. Ibar in Hibernia is held upon 23rd April or Aperil, which is also St. George’s Day.
Fig. 192.—The Trinity of Evil. From a French Miniature of the XIII. Cent.
Fig. 193.—God the Father Wearing a Lozenge-Shaped Nimbus. Miniature of the XIV. Cent. Italian Manuscript in the Bibliotheque Royale.
From Christian Iconography (Didron).
St. Barbara, we are told, was marvellously carried on a stone into a high mountain, on which two shepherds kept their sheep, “the which saw her fly”; and it is apparent in all directions that Barbara was peculiarly identified with the Two-One Twain or Pair. Barbara is popularly contracted into Babs or Bab, and the little Barbara or Babette may probably be identified with the Babchild of Kent. The coin here illustrated was unearthed at the village of Babchild, known also as Bacchild, and its centre evidently represents the world pap, Pope, paab, or baba: in Christian Art the All Father is represented as a Pope, and as twin Popes, and likewise as a two-faced Person.
