Then spite of Fate we’ll thus combined stand
And like true brothers still walk hand in hand.
Driven from their throne by usurpers, nevertheless, towards the end of the play, “the two right Kings of Brentford descend in the clouds singing in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before them in green”. Adjacent to Brentford is the village of Twickenham where at the parish church used to prevail a custom of giving away on Easter Day the divided fragments of two great cakes.[717] This apparently innocuous ceremony was, however, in 1645 deemed to be a superstitious relic and was accordingly suppressed. We have seen that charity-cakes were distributed at Biddenden in commemoration of the Twin Sisters; we have also seen that St. Michael was associated with a great cake named after him, hence it is exceedingly probable that Twickenham of the Two Easter Cakes was a seat of the Two or Twa Kings who survived in the traditions of the neighbouring Breninford or King’s Ford.
Figs. 366 to 370.—British. From Akerman.
That the Two or Twa Kings of Twickenham were associated with Two Fires is suggested by the alternative name Twittanham: in Celtic tan meant fire, and the term has survived in tandsticker, i.e., fire-sticks, or matches: it has also survived in tinder, “anything for kindling fires from a spark,” and in etincelle, the French for spark. In Etruria Jupiter was known as Tino or Tin, and on the British Star-hero coin here illustrated the legend reads Tin: the town of Tolentino, with which one of the St. Nicholas’s was associated in combination with a star, was probably a shrine of Tall Ancient Tino; in modern Greece Tino is a contracted form of Constantine. The Beltan or Beltein fires were frequently in pairs or twins, and there is a saying still current in Ireland—“I am between Bels fires,” meaning “I am on the horns of a dilemma”. The Dioscuri or Two Kings were always associated with fires or stars: they were the beau-ideal warriors or War Boys, and to them was probably sacred the “Warboy’s Wood” in Huntingdon, where on May Day the poor used to go “sticking” or gathering fuel. The Dioscuri occur frequently on Roman coins, and it will be noticed that the British Warboy is often represented with a star, and with the palm branch of Invictus. On the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary it is said that an angel appeared before her bearing “a bough of the palm of paradise—and the palm shone by right great clearness and was like to a green rod whose leaves shone like to the morrow star”.[718] There is very little doubt that the mysterious fish-bone, fern-leaf, spike, ear of corn, or back-bone, which figures so frequently among the “what-nots” of our ancient coinage represented the green and magic rod of Paradise.
Fig. 371.—Star or Bush (MS., circa 1425). From The History of Signboards (Larwood & Hotten).
At Twickenham is Bushey Park, which is assumed to have derived its name from the bushes in which it abounded: for some reason our ancestors combined their Bush and Star inn-signs into one, vide the design herewith: we have already traced a connection between bougie—a candle, and the Bogie whose habitation was the brakes and bushes: whence it is not unlikely that Bushey Park derived its title from the Elphin fires, Will-o-the-wisps, or bougies which must have danced nightly when Twickenham was little better than a swamp. The Rev. J. B. Johnston decodes Bushey into “Byssa’s” isle or peninsula, and it is not improbable that Bushey in Hertfordshire bears the same interpretation, only I do not think that the supposititious Byssa, Bissei, or Bisi was an Anglo-Saxon. That “Bisi” was Bogie or Puck is perhaps implied further by the place-name Denbies facing Boxhill: we have already noted in this district Bagdon, Pigdon, Bookham, and Pixham, whence Denbies, situated on the brow of Pigdon or Bagdon, suggests that here seemingly was the actual Bissei’s den. The supposititious Bissei assigned to Bushey may be connoted with the giant Bosow who dwelt by repute on Buzza’s Hill just beyond Hugh Town, St. Mary’s. According to Miss Courtney the Cornish family of Bosow are traceable to the giant of Buzza’s Hill.[719] Presumably to Puck or Bog, are similarly traceable the common surnames Begg, Bog, etc.
By the Italians the phosphorescent lights or bougies of St. Elmo are known not as Castor and Pollux, but as the fires of St. Peter and St. Nicholas: the name Nicholas is considered to mean “Victory of the People”; in Greek nike means victory: we have seen that in Russia Nicholas was equated with St. Michael, in face of which facts it is presumptive that St. Nicholas was Invictus, or the Unconquerable. In London, at Paternoster Lane used to stand “the fair parish church of St. Michael called Paternoster,”[720] and that St. Nicholas was originally “Our Father” or Paternoster is implied by the corporate seal of Yarmouth: this represents St. Nicholas supported on either side by angels, and bears the inscription O Pastor Vere Tibi Subjectis Miserere. It must surely have savoured of heresy to hail the supposed Nicholas of Patara in Lycia as O Pastor Vere, unless in popular estimation St. Nicholas was actually the Great Pastor or True Feeder: that Nicholas was indeterminately either the Father or the Mother is deducible from the fact that in Scotland the name Nicholas is commonly bestowed on girls.