And now, borne seaward from the river stream
Of the Oceanus, we plow’d again
The spacious Deep, and reach’d th’ Ææan Isle,
Where, daughter of the dawn, Aurora takes
Her choral sports, and whence the sun ascends.[843]
According to Josephus, the Garden of Eden “was watered by one river which ran round about the whole earth,[844] and was parted into four parts,” and this immemorial tradition was expressed upon the circular and sacred cakes of ancient nations which were the forerunners of our Good Friday’s Hot Cross Buns. Associated with the pagan Eucharists here illustrated[845] will be noted Eros—whose name is at the base of eucharist—also what seemingly is the Old Pater. In Egypt the cross cake was a hieroglyph for “civilised land,” and was composed of the richest materials including milk and honey, the familiar attributes of Canaan or the Promised Land. The remarkable earthwork cross at Banwell has no doubt some relation to the Alban cross on our Easter bun, Greek boun, and the so-termed Pixies’ Garden illustrated in Fig. 433(A), probably was once permeated by the same phairy imagination as perceived Paradise in the dusty “Walls of Heaven,” “Peter’s Orchard,” and “Johanna’s Garden”.
Fig. 451.—Love-Feast with Wine and Bread. Relief in the Kircher Museum at Rome, presumably pagan. After Roller, pl. LIV. 7.
