Fig. 447.—From Christian Iconography (Didron).
At the Cornish town of St. Enns, St. Anns, or St. Agnes, the name of St. Agnes—a paragon of maiden virtue—is coupled with a Giant Bolster, a mighty man who is said to have held possession of a neighbouring hill, sometimes known as Bury-anack: at the base of this hill exists a very interesting and undoubtedly most ancient earthwork known as “The Bolster”.[832] As Anak meant giant,[833] Bury Anack was seemingly the abri, brugh, bri, or fairy palace of this particular Anak, and if we spell Bolster with an e he emerges at once into Belstar, the Beautiful Star who is represented in association with Agnes on page 719: probably the maligned Bolster of Cornwall had another of his abris at Bellister Castle on the Tyne, now a crumbling mass of ruins.
Some accounts mention the Clerkenwell pool of Annis the Clear as being that of Agnes the Clear: opposite the famous Angel of this neighbourhood is Claremont Square, and about half a mile eastward is Shepherdess Walk; that the Shepherdess of this walk was Diane, i.e., Sinclair the counterpart of Adonis, the Shepherd of the twinkling stars, is somewhat implied by Peerless Street, which leads into Shepherdess Walk. Perilous Pool at Clerkenwell was sometimes known as Peerless Pool: it has been seen that the hags or fairies were associated with this Islington district which still contains a Paradise Passage, and of both “Perilous” and “Peerless” I think the correct reading should be peri lass; it will be remembered that the peris were quite familiar to England as evidenced by the feathery clouds or “perry dancers,” and the numerous Pre Stones and Perry Vales.[834] In Red Cross Street, Clerkenwell, are or were Deane’s Gardens; at Clarence Street, Islington, the name Danbury Street implies the existence either there or elsewhere of a Dan barrow.
Opposite Clare Market and the churches of St. Dunstan and St. Clement Dane is situated the Temple of which the circular church, situated in Tanfield Court,[835] is dedicated to St. Anne: St. Anne, the mother of St. Mary, is the patron saint of Brittany, where she has been identified with Ma or Cybele, the Magna Mater of Mount Ida; that Anna was the consort of Joachim or the Joy King I do not doubt, and in her aspect of a Fury or Black Virgin she was in all probability the oak-haunting Black Annis of Leicestershire: “there was one flabby eye in her head”. In view of the famous round church of St. Mary the Virgin it is permissible to speculate whether the “small circular hut of stone,” in which Black Mary of Black Mary’s Hole was reputed to have dwelt on the banks of the Fleet, Bagnigge or Holeburn (now Holborn) was or was not the original Eye dun of the Pixy, or Big Nikke.
The emblems associated with the Temple and its circular church are three; the Flying Horse or Pegasus; two men or twain riding on a single horse (probably the Two Kings) and the Agnus Dei: in the emblem herewith this last is standing on a dun whence are flowing the four rivers of Eden. The lamb was essentially an emblem of St. John who, in Art, is generally represented with it; whence it is significant that in Celtic the word for lamb is identical with the name Ion, the Welsh being oen, the Cornish oin, the Breton oan, the Gaelic uan, and the Manx eayn. That Sinjohn was always sunshine and the sheen, never apparently darkness, is implied by the Basque words egun meaning day, and Agandia or Astartea meaning Sunday. The Basque for God is jainco, the Ugrian was jen, and the Basque jain, meaning lord or master, is evidently synonymous with the Spanish don or donna.
Fig. 448.—Divine Lamb, with a Circular Nimbus, not Cruciform, Marked with the Monogram of Christ, and the A and Ω. Sculptured on a Sarcophagus in the Vatican. The earliest ages of Christianity. From Christian Iconography (Didron).]
In addition to St. Annes opposite St. Dunstans, and St. Clement Dane there is a church of St. Anne in Dean Street, Soho: Ann of Ireland was alternatively Danu, and it is clear from many evidences that the initial d or t was generally adjectival. The Cornish for down or dune is oon, and Duke was largely correct when he surmised in connection with St. Anne’s Hill, Avebury: “I cannot help thinking that from Diana and Dian were struck off the appellations Anna and Ann, and that the feriæ, or festival of the goddess, was superseded by the fair, as now held, of the saint. I shall now be told that the fane of the hunting goddess would never have been seated on this high and bare hill, that the Romans would have given her a habitation amidst the woods and groves, but here Callimachus comes to my aid. In his beautiful Hymn on Diana he feigns her to entreat her father Jupiter, ‘also give me all hills and mountains’.”
Not only is Diana (Artemis) made to say “give me all hills and mountains,” but Callimachus continues, “for rarely will Artemis go down into the cities”: hence it is probable that all denes, duns, and downs were dedicated to Diana. In Armenia, Maundeville mentions having visited a city on a mountain seven miles high named Dayne which was founded by Noah; near by is the city of Any or Anni, in which he says were one thousand churches. Among the rock inscriptions here illustrated, which are attributed to the Jews when migrating across Sinai from Egypt, will be noticed the name Aine prefixed by a thau cross: the mountain rocks of the Sinai Peninsular bear thousands of illegible inscriptions which from time to time fall down—as illustrated—in the ravines; by some they are attributed to the race who built Petra.[836] I am unable to offer any suggestion as to how this Roman lettering Aine finds itself in so curious a milieu.