In Pantomime—which has admittedly an ancestry of august antiquity—the counterpart to Pierrot is Columbine, or the Little Dove; doubtless the same Maiden as the Virgin Martyr of St. Columb, Cornwall: this parish is situated in what was termed “The Hundred of Pydar”; in Welsh Bibles Peter is rendered Pedr, and one of the Welsh bards refers to Stonehenge as “the melodious quaternion of Pedyr”: in Cornwall there is also a Padstow or Petroxstowe, and there is no doubt that Peter, like Patrick, was the Supreme Padre or Parent. According to the native ancient ecclesiastical records of Wales known as the Iolo MSS., the native name of St. Patrick was Maenwyn, which means stone sacred: hence one may assume that the island of Battersea or Patrixeye was the abode of the padres who ministered at the neighbouring shrine of St. Peter or petra, the Rock upon which the church of Christ is traditionally built.
Fig. 420.—From A New Description of England (1724).
At Patrixbourne in Kent was a seat known as Bifrons, once in the possession of a family named Cheyneys:[773] whether there be any connection between this estate named Bifrons and Bifrons, or Two fronted, a sobriquet applied to Janus, I am unaware: the connection Cheyneys—Bifrons—Patrixbourne is, however, the more curious inasmuch as they immediately neighbour a Bekesbourne, and on referring to Peckham we find that a so-termed Janus bifrons was unearthed there some centuries ago. The peculiarity of this Peckham Janus is that, unlike any other Janus-head I know, it obviously represents a Pater and Mater, and not two Paters, or a big and little Peter. The feminine of Janus is Jane or Iona, and at Iona in Scotland there existed prior to the Reformation when they were thrown into the sea, some remarkable petræ, to wit, three noble marble globes placed in three stone basins, which the inhabitants turned three times round according to the course of the sun:[774] these were known as clacha brath or Stones of Judgment.
Tradition connects St. Columba of Iona in the Hebrides with Loch Aber, or, as it was sometimes written, Loch Apor, and among the stories which the honest Adamnan received and recorded “nothing doubting from a certain religious, ancient priest,” is one to the effect that Columba on a memorable occasion, turning aside to the nearest rock, prayed a little while on bended knees, and rising up after prayer blessed the brow of the same rock, from which thereupon water bubbled up and flowed forth abundantly. With the twelve-mouthed petra or rock of Moses which, according to Rabbinic tradition, followed the Israelites into the wilderness, may be connoted the rock-gushing fountain at Petrockstowe, Cornwall. That St. Patrick was Shony the Ocean-deity, to whom the Hebrideans used to pour out libations, is deducible from the legend that on the day of St. Patrick’s festival the fish all rise from the sea, pass in procession before his altar, and then disappear. The personality of the great St. Patrick of the Paddys is so remarkably obscure that some hagiographers conclude there were seven persons known by that name; others distinguish three, and others recognise two, one of whom was known as “Sen Patrick,” i.e., the senile or senior Patrick: there is little doubt that the archetypal Patrick was represented indifferently as young and old and as either seven, three, two, or one: whence perhaps the perplexity and confusion of the hagiographers.
It is not improbable that the Orchard Street at Westminster may mark the site of a burial ground or “Peter’s Orchard,” similar to that which was uncovered in Wiltshire in 1852: this was found on a farm at Seagry, one part of which had immemorially been known as “Peter’s Orchard”.[775] From generation to generation it had been handed down that in a certain field on this farm a church was built upon the site of an ancient heathen burial ground, and the persistence of the heathen tradition is seemingly presumptive evidence, not only of inestimable age, but of the memory of a pre-Christian Peter.
It may be assumed that “Peter’s Orchard” was originally an apple orchard or an Avalon similar to the “Heaven’s Walls,” which were discovered some years ago near Royston: these “walls,” immediately contiguous to the Icknield or Acnal Way, were merely some strips of unenclosed but cultivated land which in ancient deeds from time immemorial had been called “Heaven’s Walls”. Traditional awe attached to this spot, and village children were afraid to traverse it after dark, when it was said to be frequented by supernatural beings: in 1821 some labourers digging for gravel on this haunted spot inadvertently discovered a wall enclosing a rectangular space containing numerous deposits of sepulchral urns, and it then became clear that here was one of those plots of ground environed by walls to which the Romans gave the name of ustrinum.[776]
The old Welsh graveyards were frequently circular, and there is a notable example of this at Llanfairfechan: the Llanfair here means holy enclosure of Fair or Mairy, and it is probable that Fechan’s round churchyard was a symbol of the Fire Ball or Fay King. At Fore in Ireland the Solar wheel figures notably at the church of “Saint” Fechan on an ancient doorway illustrated herewith. That the Latin ustrinum was associated with the Uster or Easter of resurrection is likely enough, for both Romans and Greeks had a practice of planting roses in their graveyards: as late as 1724 the inhabitants of Ockley or Aclea in Surrey had “a custom here, time immemorial, of planting rose trees in the graves, especially by the young men and maidens that have lost their lovers, and the churchyard is now full of them”.[777] That “The Walls of Heaven” by Royston was associated with roses is implied by the name Royston, which was evidently a rose-town, for it figures in old records as Crux Roies, Croyrois, and Villa de cruce Rosia. The expression “God’s Acre” still survives, seemingly from that remote time when St. Kit of Royston, the pre-Christian “God,” was worshipped at innumerable Godshills, Godstones, Gaddesdens, and Goodacres.
Fig. 421.—From The Age of the Saints (Borlase, W. C.).