[488] At Bickley (Kent) is Shawfield Park.
[489] The neighbouring “Canholes” will be considered in a later chapter.
[490] Æneid, Bk. V., 39.
[491] Kensington, p. 89.
[492] Ibid., p. 89.
[493] Davies, E., Mytho. of Ancient Druids, p. 528.
[494] The oldest church in Ireland (the Oratory of Gallerus) is described as exactly like an upturned boat, and the nave or ship of every modern sanctuary perpetuates both in form and name the ancient notion of Noah’s Ark, or the Ark of Safety. The ruins of Newark Priory, near Woking, are situated in a marshy mead amid seven branches of the river Wey which even now at times turn the site into a swamp. There is a Newark in Leicestershire and a Newark in St. John’s Parish, Peterborough; here the land is flat and mostly arable. At Newark, in Notts, the situation was seemingly once just such a wilderness of waters as surrounded Newark Priory, in Send Parish, Woking. The ship of Isis, symbolizing the fecund Ark of Nature, figured prominently in popular custom, and the subject demands a chapter at the very least.
[495] Keffil meaning horse is still used in Worcestershire, and Herefordshire. “This is a pure Welsh word nor need one feel much surprised at finding it in use in counties where the Saxon and the Brython must have had many dealings in horse flesh. But what is significant is the manner in which it is used, for it is employed only for horses of the poorest type, or as a word of abuse from one person to another as when one says—‘you great keffil,’ meaning you clumsy idiot.”—Windle, B. C. A., Life in Early Britain, p. 209.
[496] “The Icenians took up arms, a brave and warlike people.”—Tacitus, Annals.
[497] Windle, B. C. A., Life in Early Britain, p. 210.