All this is held a fable: but who first
Made and recited it, hath in this fable
Shadowed a truth.[796]
From the group of so-called Sun and Fire Symbols here reproduced, it will be seen that the svastika or “Fare ye well” cross assumed multifarious forms: in Thrace, the emblem was evidently known as the embria, for there are in existence coins of the town of Mesembria, whereon the legend Mesembria, meaning the (city of the) midday sun, is figured by the syllable Mes, followed by the svastika as the equivalent of Embria.[797]
Fig. 427.—Sun and Fire Symbols from Denmark of the later Bronze Age. From Symbolism of the East and West (Murray-Aynsley).
The whirling bird-headed wheel on [page 709] is a peculiarly interesting example of the British rood, or rota of ruth; as also is No. 40 of Fig. 201 (ante, [p. 364]) where the peacock is transformed into a svastika: the pear-shaped visage on the obverse of this coin may be connoted with the Scotch word pearie, meaning a pear-shaped spinning-top, and the seven ains or balls may be connoted with the statement of Maundeville, that he was shown seven springs which gushed out from a spot where once upon a time Jesus Christ had played with children.
No. 43 of the contemned sceattae (p. 364) evidently represents the legendary Bird of Fire, which, together with the peacock and the eagle, I have discussed elsewhere: this splendid and mysterious bird—as those familiar with Russian ballet are aware—came nightly to an apple-tree, but there is no reason to assume that the apple was its only or peculiar nourishment. The Mystic Boughs illustrated on [page 627] (Figs. 379 to 384) may well have been the mistletoe or any other berried or fruit-bearing branch: in Fig. 397 ([p. 635]) the Maiden is holding what is seemingly a three-leaved lily, doubtless corresponding to the old English Judge’s bough or wand, now discontinued, and only faintly remembered by a trifling nosegay.[798]
Symbolists are aware that in Christian and Pagan art, birds pecking at either fruit or flowers denote the souls of the blessed feeding upon the joys of Paradise: all winged things typified the Angels or celestial Intelligences who were deemed to flash like birds through the air, and the reader will not fail to note the angelic birds sitting in Queen Mary’s tree (Fig. 425, [p. 686]).
There is a delicious story of a Little Bird in Irish folk-tale, and among the literature of the Trouveres or Troubadours, there is A Lay of the Little Bird which it is painful to curtail: it runs as follows: “Once upon a time, more than a hundred years ago, there lived a rich villein whose name I cannot now tell, who owned meadows and woods and waters, and all things which go to the making of a rich man. His manor was so fair and so delightsome that all the world did not contain its peer. My true story would seem to you but idle fable if I set its beauty before you, for verily I believe that never yet was built so strong a keep and so gracious a tower. A river flowed around this fair domain, and enclosed an orchard planted with all manner of fruitful trees. This sweet fief was builded by a certain knight, whose heir sold it to a villein; for thus pass baronies from hand to hand, and town and manor change their master, always falling from bad to worse. The orchard was fair beyond content. Herbs grew there of every fashion, more than I am able to name. But at least I can tell you that so sweet was the savour of roses and other flowers and simples, that sick persons, borne within that garden in a litter, walked forth sound and well for having passed the night in so lovely a place. Indeed, so smooth and level was the sward, so tall the trees, so various the fruit, that the cunning gardener must surely have been a magician, as appears by certain infallible proofs.