Fig. 308.—British. From Evans.
The wheel of Fortune was sometimes represented by four kings, one on each quadrant, and this emblem was used not only as an inn-sign, but also in churches, notably in Norfolk—the land of the Ikeni. The authors of A History of Signboards cite continental examples surviving at Sienna, and in San Zeno at Verona. The wheels of San Zeno, Sienna, or Verona may be connoted with the Sceatta wheel-coin figured in No. 39 of [page 364] ante, and with the seemingly revolving seals on the coin here illustrated.[568] The Sceatta four beasts connected by astral spokes are probably intended to denote seals, the phoca or seal having, as we have seen (ante, [page 224]), been associated with Chaos or Cause. In all probability the phoca was a token of the Phocean Greeks who founded Marseilles: the phoca was pre-eminently associated with Proteus, and in the Faroe Islands they have a curious idea that seals are the soldiers of Pharaoh who was drowned in the sea. Pharaoh, or Peraa, as the Egyptian wrote it, was doubtless the representative Priest-King of Phra, the Egyptian Sun-god, and the drowning of Pharaoh in the Red Sea was probably once a phairy-tale based on the blood-red demise of a summer sun sinking beneath the watery horizon.
On Midsummer Day in England children used to chant—
Barnaby Bright, Barnaby Bright,
The longest day and the shortest night,
whence it would appear that Barnaby was the auburn[569] divinity who was further connected with the burnie bee, lady bird, or “Heaven’s little chicken”. The rhyme—
Burnie bee, Burnie bee, fly away home
Your house is on fire, your children will burn,
is supposed by Mannhardt to have been a charm intended to speed the sun across the dangers of sunset, in other words, the house on fire, or welkin of the West.