Figs. 259 and 260.—Gaulish. From Akerman.
The French roue meaning a wheel, and rue, a roadway, are probably not decayed forms of the Latin rota but ruder, more rudimentary, and more radical: like the Candian Rhea, the Egyptian Ra or Re, and our ray, they are probably the Irish rhi, the Spanish rey, and the French roi.
There is a river Rea in Shropshire and a second river Rea upon which stands Birmingham: that this Rea was connected with the Candian Rhea is possible from the existence at Birmingham of a Canwell, or Canewell. Near Cambourne, or Cambre, is the rhe druth (Redruth) which the authorities decode into stream of the Druids. Running through the village of Berriew in Wales, is a rivulet named the Rhiw, and rising on Bardon Hill, Leicestershire, is “the bright and clear little river Sence”. As the word mens, or mind, is usually assigned to Minerva, Rhea was possibly the origin of reason, or St. Rhea, and to Rhi Vera may be assigned river and revere; a reverie is a brown study.
According to Persian philosophy the soul of man was fivefold in its essence, one-fifth being “the Roun, or Rouan, the principle of practical judgment, imagination, volition”:[470] another fifth, “the Okho or principle of conscience,” seemingly corresponds to what western philosophers termed the Ego or I myself.
In the neighbourhood of Brough in Westmorland is an ancient cross within an ancient camp, known as Rey Cross, and that Leicester or Ratae—which stands upon the antique Via Devana or Divine Way—was intimately related with the Holy Rood is obvious from the modern Red Cross Street and High Cross Street.
The ruddy Rood was no doubt radically the rolling four-spoked wheel, felloe, felly, periphery, or brim, and although perhaps Reading denoted as is officially supposed, “Town of the Children of Reada,” the name Read, Reid, Rea, Wray, Ray, etc., did not only mean ruddy or red-haired. I question whether Ripon really owes its title as supposed to ripa, the Latin for bank of a stream.
The town hall of Reading is situated at Valpy Street in Forbury Gardens on what is known as The Forbury, seemingly the Fire Barrow or prehistoric Forum, and doubtless a holy fire once burned ruddily at Rednal or Wredinhal near Bromsgrove. In Welsh rhedyn means fern, whence the authorities translate Reddanick in Cornwall into the ferny place: the connection, however, is probably as remote and imaginary as that between Redesdale and reeds.
The place-name Rothwell, anciently Rodewelle, is no doubt with reason assumed to be “well of the rood or cross”. Ruth means pity, and the ruddy cross of St. John, now (almost) universally sacrosanct to Pity, was, I think, probably the original Holy Rood. The knights of St. John possessed at Barrow in Leicester or Ratae a site now known as Rothley Temple, and as th, t, and d, are universally interchangeable it is likely that this Rothley was once Roth lea or Rood Lea. Similarly Redruth, in view of the neighbouring Carn Bre, was probably not “Stream of the Druids,” but an abri of the Red Rood. The sacred rod or pole known generally as the Maypole was almost invariably surmounted by one or more rotæ, or wheels, and the name “Radipole rood” at Fulham (nearly opposite Epple St.) renders it likely that the Maypole was once known alternatively as the Rood Pole. From the Maypoles flew frequently the ruddy cross of Christopher or George.
In British mythology there figures a goddess of great loveliness named Arianrod, which means in Welsh the “Silver Wheel”: the Persians held that their Jupiter was the whole circuit of heaven, and Arianrhod, or “Silver Wheel,” was undoubtedly the starry welkin, the Wheel Queen, or the Vulcan of Good Law. With Wayland Smith may be connoted the river Welland of Rutland and Rataeland.