In Germany, Frei or Frey meant a privileged place or sanctuary: in London such a sanctuary until recently existed around the church of St. Mary Offery, or Overy (now St. Saviours, Southwark), and in a subsequent chapter we shall consider certain local traditions which permit the equation of St. Mary Overy, and of the Brixton-Camberwell river Effra, with the Fairy Ovary of the Universe. The Gaelic and Welsh for an opening or mouth is aber, whence Aberdeen is held to mean the mouth of the Don: but at Lochaber or Loch Apor this interpretation cannot apply, and it is not improbable that Aberdeen on the river Don was primarily a Pictish Abri town—a Britain or Prydain. As the capital of Caledonia is Edinburgh or Dunedin, it may be suggested that the whole of Caledonia stern and wild was originally a Kille, or church of Don.
At Braavalla, in Osturgothland, there are remains of a marvellous “stone town,” whence we may assume that this site was originally a Braavalla, or abri valley: the chief of the Irish Barony of Barrymore who was entitled “The Barry” is said to have inhabited an enchanted brugh in one of the Nagles Hills. Near New Grange in Ireland there is a remarkable dolmen known locally as the house or tomb of Lady “Vera, or Birra”:[877] five miles distant is Bellingham, and I have little doubt that every fairy dun or fairy town, the supposed local home of Bellinga, the Lord Angel or the Beautiful Angel, was synonymously a “Britain”; that Briton and Barton are mere variants of the same word is evident from such place-names as Dumbarton, originally Dunbrettan.
Fig. 459.—New Grange, Ireland.
Fig. I The Barrow at New Grange
Fig. II Section of the Tumulus
Fig. III Section of the Gallery & Dome
Fig. 460—Kit’s Coty, near Maidstone.