Fig. 476.—The famous Sancreed Cross. From The Cornish Riviera (Stone, J. Harris). [To face page 816.
With this theory I am in sympathy, and it may be reasonably suggested that the alleged “tombstone” of Rosamond at Godstone was actually a carved megalith analogous to that at Sancreed: the carving on the latter may be comparatively modern, but in all probability the rock itself is the original crude Creed stone, Ked stone, or Good stone, touched up and partly recut.
The Rose is the familiar emblem of St. George or Oros who, according to some accounts, was the son of Princess Sophia the Wise: his legs were of massive silver up to the knees, and his arms were of pure gold from the elbows to the wrists. According to other traditions George was born at Coventry, and “is reported to have been marked at his birth (forsooth!) with a red bloody cross on his right hand”.[973] The first adventure of St. George was the salvation of a fair and precious princess named Sabra from a foul dragon who venomed the people with his breath and this adventure is located at Silene: with this Silene may be connoted the innocent Una, who in some accounts occupies the position of the Lady Sabra: Sabra is suggestive of Sabrina, the little Goddess of the river Severn, whose name we have connected with the soft, gentle, pleasing and propitious Brina: that St. Burinea, the pretty daughter of Angus whose memory is sanctified as the patron of St Burian’s or Eglosberrie, was originally pure Una is more likely than that this alleged Maiden was an historic personage of the sixth century.
The series of excavations at Reigate, of which the principal is the Baron’s Cave, extends to a Red Cross Inn which marks the vicinity where stood the chapel of the Holy Cross, belonging to the Priory of the Virgin and Holy Cross: about a mile from Reigate in a little brook (the Bourne Water) used to stand a great stone stained red by the victims of a water Kelpie, who had his lair beneath. The Kelpie was exorcised by a vicar of Buckland: nevertheless the stone remained an object of awe to the people, which, says Mr. Ogilvie, “was regarded as a vile superstition by a late vicar who had the stone removed to demonstrate to his parishioners that there was nothing under it, but some of the old folks remember the story yet”.[974] Part of Reigate is known as Red Hill, obviously from the red sandstone which abounds there: at Bristol or Bristowe, i.e., the Stockade of Bri, the most famous church is that of St. Mary Redcliffe: the Mew stone off Devonshire is red cliff, the inscriptions at Sinai are always on red stone, and there is little doubt that red rock was particularly esteemed to be the symbol of gracious Aine, the Love Mother. In Domesday the Redcliff of St. Mary appears as Redeclive,[975] and may thus also have meant Rood Cleeve: in London we have a Ratcliffe Highway, and in Kensington a Redcliffe Square.
Fig. 477.—Iberian. From Akerman
In what is now the Green Park, Mayfair, used to be a Rosamond’s Pool: with Rosamond, the Rose of the World, and Rosanna—whose name may be connoted with the inscription Ru Nho or Queen New,[976] which occurs on one of the Sancreed crosses may also be connoted St. Rosalie of Sicily or Hypereia, whose grotto and fete still excite “an almost incredible enthusiasm”. The legend of St. Rosalie represents her as—
Something much too fair and good
For human nature’s daily food,
and her mysterious evanishment is accounted for by the tradition that, disgusted by the frivolous life and empty gaiety of courts, she voluntarily retired herself into an obscure cavern, where her remains are now supposed to be buried under wreaths of imperishable roses which are deposited by angels.[977]