Fig. 300.—French MS., XIII. Cent. From Didron.
From Aubrey’s plan of the Overton circle constituting the head of the serpent at Avebury, it will be seen that the neck was carefully modelled, and that a pair of barrows appeared at the mouth (see ante, [page 335]). This head of the Eve or serpent was a stone circle distant about a mile from the larger peripheries, and the whole design covered upwards of two miles of country. As already noted the serpent was the symbol of immortality and rejuvenescence, because it periodically sloughed its skin and reappeared in one more beautiful.
Fig. 301.—From Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism (Inman, C. W.).[561]
That the two and the three circles were taken over intact by Christianity is evident from the emblems illustrated on p. 499, and that the French possessed the tradition of Good Eva or the Good Serpent is manifest from Fig. 300.
The Iberian inscription around Fig. 301—a French example—has not been deciphered, but it is sufficiently evident that the emblem represents the Iberian Jupiter with Juno and the Tree of Life.
Fig. 302.—God the Father, without a Nimbus and Beardless, Condemning Adam to Till the Ground and Eve to Spin the Wool. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
The Jews or Judeans of to-day are known indifferently as either Jews or Hebrews, and it would seem that Jou was “Hebrew,” or, as the Italians write the word, Ebrea: the French for Jew is juif, evidently the same title as Jove or Jehovah.