Fig. 399.—From An Essay on Ancient Gems (Walsh, R.).
Fig. 400.—Gaulish. From Akerman.
Figs. 401 and 402.—Gaulish. From Akerman.
Accompanying the Pictish inscription in question were the elaborate barnacles or spectacles reproduced ante, [page 495]: in Crete the barnacles, as illustrated on page 494, are found humanised by a small winged figure holding a wand, and the general effect of the two circles when superimposed is that of the figure 8. The nine-rayed Abracax lion as portrayed by the Gnostics, and doubtless a variant of Abracadabra, has its serpentine body twined into an 8; on a Longstone in Brittany there is a figure holding an 8 tipped staff, and the same emblem will be noticed on the coins of the Longostaliti, a Gaulish people who seemingly were so ghoulish as to venerate a calix or cauldron: from the pair dadeni or cauldron of renaissance represented on these astral coins it will be noticed there are emerging two stars and other interesting nicknacks. The locks of hair on the astral figure represented on the coins of Marseilles—a city founded by a colony of Phocean Greeks from Ionia—number exactly eight: in Scotland we have traced the memory of eight ancient hags, the Mothers of the World: in Valencia we have noted the procession of eight scrupulously coiffured Giants, and there is very little doubt that the eight survivors of the Flood,[741] by whom the world was re-peopled, is a re-statement of the same idea of the Gods of the four quarters and their Consorts. In connection with the Ogdoad or Octet of eight gods one may connote the curious erection which once decorated the London Guildhall, the seat of Gogmagog:[742] here, “on each side of the flight of steps was an octangular turreted gallery, balustraded, having an office in each, appropriated to the hallkeeper: these galleries assumed the appearance of arbours from being each surrounded by six palm-trees in ironwork, the foliage of which gave support to a large balcony, having in front a clock (with three dials) elaborately ornamented, and underneath a representation of the Sun, resplendent with gilding; the clock frame was of oak. At the angles were the cardinal virtues, and on the top a curious figure of Time with a young child in his arms.”[743] At the village of Thame-on-Thames, which the authorities state meant rest, quiet, otherwise tame or kindly, gentle Time, there is a celebrated figure of St. Kitt, alias Father Time, with the little figure of New Time or Change upon his shoulder. In Etruria a parallel idea would seem to have been current, for Mrs. Hamilton Gray describes an Etruscan work of art inscribed “Isis nourishing Horus, or Truth teaching Time”.[744] It is most unusual to find the Twins depicted as old men, or Bald ones with the mystic Lock of Horus on their foreheads, but in the eighteenth-century emblem here reproduced the intention of the deviser is unmistakable, and the central Sun is supported by two Times.