Fig. 462.—Ground plan of a section of the Chislehurst caves, from an article by Mr. W. J. Nichols, published in The Journal of the British Archæological Association, 1903.
In County Down we have a labyrinthine connection of cell with cell, and in some parts of Kent the same principle appears to have been at work culminating in the extraordinary subterranean labyrinth known as “The Chislehurst Caves”: these quarryings, hewn out of the chalk, cover in seemingly unbroken sequence—superposed layer upon layer—an enormous area, under the Chislehurst district: between 20 and 30 miles of extended burrowings have, it is said, already been located, yet it is suspected that more remain to be discovered. Commenting upon this extraordinary labyrinth Mr. W. J. Nichols, a Vice-President of the British Archæological Association, has observed: “Not far from this shaft we see one of the most interesting sights that these caves can show us: a series of galleries, with rectangular crossings, containing many chambers of semicircular, or apsidal form, to the number of thirty or more—some having altar-tables formed in the chalk, within a point or two of true orientation. This may be accidental, but the fact remains; and the theory is supported by the discovery of an adjoining chamber, apparently intended for the officiating priest. There is an air of profound mystery pervading the place: a hundred indications suggest that it was a subterranean Stonehenge; and one is struck with a sense of wonder, and even of awe, as the dim lamplight reveals the extraordinary works which surround us.”
In the caverns of Mithra twelve apses corresponding to the twelve signs of the Zodiac used to be customary: the thirty apses at Chislehurst may have had some relation to the thirty dies or days, and if the number of niches extended to thirty-three this total should be connoted with the thirty-three elementary giants considered in an earlier chapter.
There are no signs of the Chislehurst Caverns having at any time been used systematically as human abodes, but in other parts of the world similar sites have been converted into villages: one such existing at Troo in France is thus described by Baring-Gould: “What makes Troo specially interesting is that the whole height is like a sponge perforated with passages giving access to halls, some of which are circular and lead into stone chambers; and most of the houses are wholly or in part underground. The caves that are inhabited are staged one above another, some reached by stairs that are little better than ladders, and the subterranean passages leading from them form a labyrinth within the bowels of the hill and run in superposed stories.”[909] The name of this subterranean city of Troo may be connected with trou, the French generic term for a hole or pit: the Provençal form of trou is trauc, which etymologists identify with traugum, the Latin for a cave or den. The Latin traugum (origin unknown) is radically the same as troglos, the Greek for a cave, whence the modern term troglodite or cave dweller, and it is not unlikely that the dene of denehole is the same word as den: the Provençal trauc may be connoted with the English place-name Thurrock, which is on the Essex side of the river Thames, and is famous for the large number of deneholes that still exist there.
The place-name Thurrock and the word trauc, meaning a cave, may evidently be equated with the two first syllables of traugum and troglos. According to my theories the primitive meaning of tur og was Eternal, or Enduring Og, and it is thus a felicitous coincidence that Og, the famous King of Bashan, was a troglodite: the ruins of his capital named Edrei, which was situated in the Zanite Hills, still exist, and are thus described by a modern explorer: “We took with us a box of matches and two candles. After we had gone down the slope for some time, we came to a dozen rooms which, at present, are used as goat stalls and store-rooms for straw. The passage became gradually smaller, until at last we were compelled to lie down flat and creep along. This extremely difficult and uncomfortable progress lasted for about eight minutes, when we were obliged to jump down a steep well, several feet in depth. Here I noticed that the younger of my two attendants had remained behind, being afraid to follow us; but probably it was more from fear of the unknown European, than of the dark and winding passages before us. We now found ourselves in a broad street, which had dwellings on both sides, whose height and width left nothing to be desired. The temperature was mild, the air free from unpleasant odours, and I felt not the smallest difficulty in breathing. Further along there were several cross-streets, and my guide called my attention to a hole in the ceiling for air, like three others which I afterwards saw, now closed from above. Soon after we came to a market-place, where, for a long distance, on both sides of the pretty broad street were numerous shops in the walls, exactly in the style of the shops seen in Syrian cities. After a while we turned into a side street, where a great hall, whose roof was supported by four pillars, attracted my attention. The roof, or ceiling, was formed of a single slab of jasper, perfectly smooth and of immense size, in which I was unable to perceive the slightest crack.”[910] The here-described holes in the ceiling for air “now closed from above” correspond very closely to the shafts running up here and there from the Chislehurst caves to the private gardens overhead.
In connection with the troglodite town of Troo, and with the French word trou meaning a hole, it is worthy of note that a subterranean chamber or “Giant’s Holt,” exists at Trew in Cornwall, and a similar one at the village of Trewoofe: the name Trewoofe suggests the word trough, a generic term for a scooped or hollowed-out receptacle: we have already noted that in the west of England a small ship is still called a trow; the Anglo-Saxon for a trough was troh, the German is trog, the Danish is trug, and the Swedish trag.
The artificial cave at Trewoofe also suggests a connection with the famous Cave-oracle in Livadia known as the Den of Trophonius: this celebrated oracle contained small niches for the reception of gift-offerings and there are curious little wall-holes in some of the Cornish souterrains which cannot, so far as one can judge, have filled any other purpose than that served by the niches in the Cave of Trophonius. The calcareous mountain in which the oracle of Trophonius was situated is tunnelled by a number of other excavations, but over the entrance to what is believed to be the veritable prophetic grotto is graved the mysterious word Chibolet, or, according to others, Zeus Boulaioz, meaning Zeus the Counsellor. The Greek for counsellor is bouleutes, and the radical bouleut of this term is curiously suggestive of Bolleit, the name applied to two of the Cornish subterranean chambers, i.e., the Bolleit Cave in the parish of St. Eval and the Bolleit Cave near St. Buryan: the latter of these sites includes a stone circle and other monolithic remains which are believed by antiquarians to mark the site of some battle; whence the name Bolleit is by modern etymologers interpreted as having meant field of blood, but it exceeds the bounds of coincidence that there should also be a Bolleit cave elsewhere, and the greater probability would seem that these Cornish souterrains were sacred spots serving among other uses the purposes of Oracle and Counsel Chambers. If the disputed inscription over the Trophonian Den really read Chibolet it would decode agreeably in accordance with my theories into Chi or Jou the Counsellor; but I am unaware that the Greek Zeus was ever known locally as Chi.[911]
The celebrated Blue John cave of Derbyshire—where we have noted Chee Dale—is situated in Tray Cliff, and in the neighbouring “Thor’s Cave” have been found the remains of prehistoric man: similar remains have been unearthed at Thurrock where the dene holes are conspicuously abundant, and in view of the persistent recurrence of the cave-root tur or trou it is worth noting that cave making was a marked characteristic of the people of Tyre: “Wherever the Tyrians penetrated, to Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, similar burial places have been discovered.”[912] According to Baring-Gould all the subterranean dwellings of Europe bear a marked resemblance to the troglodite town of King Og at Edrei—a veritable Tartarus or Underworld—and the drei of Edrei is no doubt a variant of trou, Troo, Trew or Troy, for, as already seen, in the Welsh language “Troy town” is Caer Droia or Caer Drei.
One has to consider three forms or amplifications of the same phenomenon: (1) the single cave; (2) several caves connected to one another by serpentine tunnels; (3) a labyrinth or honeycomb of caves leading one out of the other and ranged layer upon layer. Etymology and mythology alike point to the probability, if not the certainty, that among the ancients a cave, natural or artificial, was regarded as the symbol of, and to some extent a facsimile of the intricate Womb of Creation, or of Mother Nature. “Man in his primitive state,” says a recent writer, “considers himself to have emerged from some cave; in fact, from the entrails of the Earth. Nearly all American creation-myths regard men as thus emanating from the bowels of the great terrestrial mother.”[913]