By Claremarket and the church of St. Clement Dane stood Holywell Street, somewhat north of which was yet another well called—according to Stow—Dame Annis the Clear, and not far from it, but somewhat West, was also one other clear water called Perilous Pond. This “perilous” was probably once peri lass, i.e., perry lass, or pure lass, and the neighbouring Clerkenwell (although the city clerks or clerken may in all likelihood have congregated there on summer evenings), was once seemingly sacred to the same type of phairy as the Irish call a cluricanne.[828] The original Clerken, or Cluricanne, was in all probability the resplendent clarus, clear, shining, Glare King, or Glory King: but it is equally likely that the -ken of Clerken was the endearing diminutive kin, as in Lambkin. That St. Clare was adored by her disciples is clear from The Golden Legend, where among other interesting data we are told: “She was crowned with a crown right clear shining that the obscurity of the night was changed into clearness of midday”: we are further told that once upon a time as a certain friar was preaching in her presence: “a right fair child was to fore St. Clare, and abode there a great part of the sermon”. It is thus permissible to assume that this marvellous holy woman, whose doctrine shall “enlumine all the world,” was originally depicted in company of the customary Holy Child, or the Little Glory King.
The original Clerken Well stood in what is now named Ray Street, and quite close to it is Braynes Row; not far distant was Brown’s Wood.[829] The name Sinclair implies an order or a tribe of Sinclair followers, and that the St. Dunstan by St. Clement’s Dane and Claremarket was something more than a monk is obvious from the tradition that “Our Lord shewed miracles for him ere he was born”: the marvel in point is that on a certain Candlemas Day the candle of his Mother Quendred[830] miraculously burned full bright so that others came and lighted their tapers at the taper of St. Dunstan’s mother; the interpretation placed upon this marvel was that her unborn child should give light to all England by his holy living.[831]
Fig. 445.—Gaulish. From Akerman.
As recorded in The Golden Legend the life of poor St. Clare was one long dolorous great moan and sorrow: it is mentioned, however, that she had a sister Agnes and that these two sisters loved marvellously together. We may thus assume that the celestial twins were Ignis, fire and Clare, light: Agnes is the Latin for lamb, and this symbol of Innocence is among the two or three out of lost multitudes which have been preserved by the Christian Church. In the illustration herewith the lambkin, in conjunction with a star, appears upon a coin of the Gaulish people whose chief town was Agatha: its real name, according to Akerman, was Agatha Tyke, and its foundation has been attributed both to the Rhodians and the Phoceans. Agatha is Greek for good, and tyke meant fortune or good luck: the effigy is described as being a bare head of Diana to the right and without doubt Diana, or the divine Una, was typified both by ignis the fire, and by agnes the lamb: in India Agni is represented riding on a male agnes, and in Christian art the Deity was figured as a ram.
Fig. 446.—Agni.
