The name Barnabas or Barnaby is defined as meaning son of the master or son of comfort; Bernher is explained as lord of many children, and hence it would seem that St. Barnaby may be modernised into Bairnsfather. In this connection the British Bryanstones may be connoted with the Irish Bernesbeg and with “The Stone of the Fruitful Fairy”. Bertram is defined by the authorities as meaning fair and pure, and Ferdy or Ferdinand, the Spanish equivalent of this name, may be connoted with the English Faraday.
Fig. 309.—Jehovah, as the God of Battles. Italian Miniature, close of the XII. Cent. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
Fig. 310.—Emblem of the Deity. Nineveh (Layard).
The surname Barry, with which presumably may be equated variants such as Berry and Bray, is translated as being Celtic for good marksman: the Cretans were famed archers, and the archery of the English yeomen was in its time perhaps not less famous. If Barry meant good marksman, it is to be inferred that the archetypal Barry was Jou, Jupiter, or Jehovah as here represented, and as there is no known etymology for yeoman, it may be that the original yeomen were like the Barrys, “good marksmen”. The Greeks portrayed Apollo, and the Tyrians Adad, as a Sovereign Archer, and as the lord of an unerring bow. The name Adad is seemingly ad-ad, a duplication of Ad probably once meaning Head Head, or Haut Haut,[570] and the Celtic dad or tad is presumably a corroded form of Adad. The famous archer Robin Hood, now generally accepted as a myth survival, will be considered later; meanwhile it may here be noted that the authorities derive the surnames Taddy, Addy, Adkin, Aitkin, etc., from Adam. One may connote Adkin or Little Ad with Hudkin, a Dutch and German elf akin to Robin Goodfellow: “Hudkin is a very familiar devil, who will do nobody hurt, except he receive injury; but he cannot abide that, nor yet be mocked. He talketh with men friendly, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly. There go as many tales upon this Hudkin in some parts of Germany as there did in England on Robin Goodfellow.”[571] To this Hud the Leicestershire place-name Odestone or Odstone near Twycross—query Two or Twa cross—may be due.
I have suggested that the word bosom or bosen, was originally the plural of boss, whence it is probable that the name Barnebas meant the Bairn, Boss, or teat. The word bosse was also used to denote a fountain or gush, and the Boss Alley, which is still standing near St. Paul’s, may mark either the site of a spring, or more probably of what was known as St. Paul’s Stump. As late as 1714 the porters of Billingsgate used to invite the passer-by to buss or kiss Paul’s Stump; if he complied they gave him a name, and he was compelled to choose a godfather: if he refused to conform to the custom he was lifted up and bumped heavily against the stump. This must have been the relic of an extremely ancient formality, and it is not unlikely that the Church of Boston in Norfolk covers the site of a similar stump: Boston, originally Ickenhoe, a haw or hill of Icken, is situated in what was once the territory of the Ikeni, and its church tower to this day is known as “Boston Stump”. At Boskenna (bos or abode of ikenna?) in the parish of St. Buryan, Cornwall, is a stone circle, and a cromlech “thought to have been the seat of an arch Druid”. The chief street of Boston is named Burgate, there is a Burgate at Canterbury near which are Bossenden Woods, and Bysing Wood.
In the West of England the numerous bos- prefixes generally mean abode: one of the earliest abodes was the beehive hut, which was essentially a boss.
At Porlock (Somerset) is Bossington Beacon; there is a Bossington near Broughton, and a Bosley at Prestbury, Cheshire. In the immediate proximity of Bosse Alley, London, Stow mentions a Brickels Lane, and there still remains a Brick Hill, Brooks Wharf, and Broken Wharf. It is not improbable that the river Walbrook which did not run around the walls of London but passed immediately through the heart of the city was named after Brook or Alberick, or Oberon: in any case the generic terms burn, brook, and bourne (Gothic brunna, a spring or well), have to be accounted for, and we may seemingly watch them forming at the English river Brue, and at least two English bournes, burns, or brooks known as Barrow.
We have already considered the pair of military saints famous at Byzantium or St. Michael’s Town: in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield, Cheshire, is a Bosley: the Bosmere district in Cumberland includes a Mickfield, in view of which it becomes interesting to note, near Old Jewry, in London, the parish church of St. Michael, called St. Michael at Bassings hall. With Michael at Bassings hall may be connoted St. Michael of Guernsey, an island once divided into two great fiefs, of which one was the property of Anchetil Vicomte du Bessin. The bussing of St. Paul’s Stump or the Bosse of Billingsgate had evidently its parallel in the Fief du Bessin, for Miss Carey in her account of the Chevauchee of St. Michael observes that, “the one traditional dance connected with all our old festivals and merry-makings has always been the one known as A mon beau Laurier, where the dancers join hands and whirl round, curtsey, and kiss a central object”.[572]