In addition to dene holes on the coast of Durham and at Dunstable there are dene holes in the dun, down, or hill overlooking Kit’s Coty: it may reasonably be surmised that the latter were inhabited by the drui or wise men who constructed not only Kit’s Coty but also the other extensive megalithic remains which exist in the neighbourhood. The well-known cave at St. Andrews contains many curious Pictish sculptures, and the connection between antrou (or Andrew), a cave, and trou, a hole, extends to the words entrails, intricate, and under. Practically all the “Mighty Childs” of mythology are represented as having sprung from caves or underground: Jupiter or Chi (the chi or [Greek: ch] is the cross of Andrew[917]) was cave-born and worshipped in a cave; Dionysos was said to have been nurtured in a cave; Hermes was born at the mouth of a cave, and it is remarkable that, whereas a cave is still shown as the birthplace of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem, St. Jerome complained that in his day the pagans celebrated the worship of Thammuz, or Adonis, i.e., Adon, at that very cave.
Etymology everywhere confirms the supposition that underlying cave construction and governing worship within caves was a connection, in idea, between the cave and the Mother of Existence or the Womb of Nature. The “Womb of Being” is a common phrase applied to Divinity, and in Scotland the little pits which were constructed by the aborigines are still known as weems, from wamha, meaning a cave. In Lowland Scotch wame meant womb, and wamha, a cave, is obviously akin not only to wame but also to womb, Old English wambe; indeed the cave was considered so necessary a feature of Mithra-worship that where natural cavities did not exist artificial ones were constructed. The standard reason given for Mithraic cave-worship was that the cave mystically signified “the descent of the soul into the sublunary regions and its regression thence”. Doubtless this sophisticated notion at one period prevailed: that all sorts of Mysteries were enacted within caves is too well known to need emphasis, and I think that the seemingly unaccountable apses within the Chislehurst labyrinth may have served a serious and important purpose in troglodite philosophy.
Fig. 466.—Section of Royston Cave traced from a drawing in Cliff Castles and Cliff Dwellings of Europe (Baring-Gould, S.).
Fig. 467.—From Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism (Inman, C. W.).
The celebrated cave at Royston is remarkably bell-shaped; many of the barrows at Stonehenge were bell-formed, and in Ceylon the gigantic bell-formed pyramids there known as Dagobas are connected by etymologists with gabba, which means not only shrine but also womb. In the design on p. 783, Isis, the Great Mother, is surrounded by a cartouche or halo of bell-like objects: the sistrum of Isis which was a symbol of the Gate of Life was decorated with bells; bells formed an essential element of the sacerdotal vestments of the Israelites; bells are a characteristic of modern Oriental religious usage, and in Celtic Christianity the bell was regarded—according to C. W. King—as “the actual type of the Godhead”.[918]
Fig. 468.
[To face page 788.