It is reasonable to equate St. Anne of the Catacombs with “Pope Joan” of Engelheim, and it is probable that the original Vatican was the terrestrial seat of the celestial Peter, the Fate Queen or Fate King: with St. Peter’s Mount may be connoted the Arabian City of Petra which is entirely hewn out of the solid rock. The connection between the Irish Owen, or Oin, and the Patrick of Patrick’s Purgatory has already been considered, and that Janus or Janicula was the St. Peter of the Vatican is very generally admitted: we shall subsequently consider Janus in connection with St. Januarius or January; at Naples there are upwards of two miles of catacombs, and the Capo di Chino, under which these occur, may probably be identified with the St. Januarius whose name they bear.
Fig. 483.—Seventeenth Century Printer’s Mark.
That Janus, the janitor of the Gates of Heaven and of all other gates, was a personification of immortal Time is sufficiently obvious from the attributes which were assigned to him; that the Patrick of Ireland was also the Lord of the 365 days is to be implied from the statement of Nennius that St. Patrick “at the beginning” founded 365 churches and ordained 365 bishops.[994] I was recently accosted in the street by a North-Briton who inquired “what dame is it?”: on my failure to catch his meaning his companion pointed to my watch chain and repeated the inquiry “what time, is it”; but even without such vivid evidence it is clear that dame and time are mere variants of the same word. It is proverbial that Truth, alias Una, alias Vera, is the daughter of Time: that Time is also the custodian of Truth is a similar commonplace: Time is the same word as Tom, and Tom is a contracted form of Thomas which the dictionaries define as meaning twin, i.e., twain: Thomas is the same name as Tammuz, a Phrygian title of Adonis, and in Fig. 404 (ante, [p. 639]), Time was emblemised as the Twain or Pair; in Fig. 483, Father Time is identified with Veritas or Truth, for the legend runs, “Truth in time brings hidden things to light”.[995] The Lady Cynethryth, who dwells proverbially at the bottom of a well, is, of course, daily being brought to light; it is, however, unusual to find her thus depicted clambering from a dene hole or a den. In all probability the “Sir Thomas” who figures in the ballad as Fair Rosamond’s custodian was originally Sir Tammuz, Tom, or Time—
And you Sir Thomas whom I truste
To bee my loves defence,
Be careful of my gallant Rose
When I am parted hence.
The relentless Queen who appears so prominently in the story may be connoted with the cruel Stepmother who figures in the Cinderella cycle of tales—a ruthless lady whom I have considered elsewhere. The silken thread by which the Queen reached Rosamond—to whose foot, like Jupiter’s chain, it was attached—is paralleled by the thread with which Ariadne guided the fickle Theseus. In an unhappy hour the Queen overcomes the trusty Thomas, and guided by the silken thread—
Went where the Ladye Rosamonde