Fig. 20.—From Analysis of Ancient Mythology (Bryant, J.).
In the group of coins here illustrated it will be noticed that the Mater Deorum is conventionally throned upon a rock. “Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord my Rock,” wrote the Psalmist, and the inhabitants of Albion probably once harmonised in their ideas with the Kafirs of India, who still say of the stones they worship, “This stands for God, but we know not his shape.” In Cornwall, within living memory, the Druidic stones were believed in some mysterious way to be sacred to existence, and the materialistic theory which attributes all primitive worship to fear or self-interest, will find it hard to account satisfactorily for stone worship. Cold, impassive stone, neither feeds, nor warms, nor clothes, yet, as Toland says: “’Tis certain that all nations meant by these stones without statues the eternal stability and power of the Deity, and that He could not be represented by any similitude, nor under any figure whatsoever”.
Fig. 21.—Christ and His Apostles, under the form of Lambs or of Sheep. (Latin sculpture; first centuries of the Church.)
From Christian Iconography (Didron).
It is asserted by one of the classical authors that stones were considered superior in two respects, first in being not subject to death, and second in not being harmful. That Albion was harmless and beneficent is implied by the adjectives bien, bonny, benevolent, bounteous, and benignant. That St. Alban was similarly conceived is implied by the statement that this Lord’s son of the City of Verulam was “a well disposed and seemly young man,” who “always loved to do hospitality granting meat and drink wherever necessary”. That St. Alban was not only Alpa, the All Feeder, but that he was also Alpe, the High One and the Rock whence gushed a “living water,” is clear from the statement: “Then at the last they came to the hill where this holy Alban should finish and end his life, in which place lay a great multitude of people nigh dead for heat of the sun, and for thirst. And then anon the wind blew afresh, cool, and also at the feet of this holy man Alban sprang up a fair well whereof all the people marvelled to see the cold water spring up in the hot sandy ground, and so high on the top of an hill, which water flowed all about and in large streams running down the hill. And then the people ran to the water and drank so that they were well refreshed, and then by the merits of St. Alban their thirst was clean quenched. But yet for all the great goodness that was showed they thirsted strongly for the blood of this holy man.”[146]
From this and other miraculous incidents in the life of St. Alban it would appear that the original compilers had in front of them some cartoons, cameos, or symbolic pictures of “The Kaadman,” which had probably been recovered from the ruins of the ancient city. The authenticity of St. Alban’s “life” is further implied by the frequency with which allusions are made to the blazing heat of the sun, a sunshine so great, so conspicuous, that it burnt and scalded the feet of the sightseers. The Latin for yellow, which is the colour of the golden sun, is galbinus, a word which like Kalbion resolves into ’g albinus, the high or mighty Albanus. From galbinus the French authorities derive their word jaune, but jaune is simply Joan, Jeanne, shine, shone, or sheen.
In Hebrew Albanah or Lebanah properly signifies the moon, and albon means strength and power, but more radically these terms may be connoted with our English surname Alibone and understood as either holy good, wholly good, or all good.
Yellow is not only the colour of the golden sun, but it is similarly that of the moon, and at the festivals of the yellow Lights of Heaven our ancestors most assuredly halloe’d, yelled, yawled, and yowled. The Cornish for the sun is houl, the Breton is heol, the Welsh is hayl, and until recently in English churches the congregation used at Yule Tide to hail the day with shouts or yells of Yole, Yole, Yole! or Ule, Ule, Ule! The festival of Yule is a reunion, a coming together in amity of the All, and as in Welsh y meant the, the words whole, and Yule were perhaps originally ye all or the all. An alloy is a mixture or medley, anything allowed is according to law, and hallow is the same word as holy.
The word Alban is pronounced Olbun, and in Welsh Ol, meant not only all, but also the Supreme Being. The Dictionaries translate the Semitic El as having meant God or Power, and it is so rendered when found amid names such as Bethel, Uriel, Eleazar,[147] etc. But among the Semitic races the deity El was subdivided into a number of Baalim or secondary divinities emanating from El, and it would thus seem that although the Phœnicians may have forgotten the fact, El meant among them what All does amongst us. According to Anderson, El was primarily Israel’s God and only later did He come to be regarded as the God of the Universe—“Rising in dignity as the national idea was enlarged, El became more just and righteous, more and more superior to all the other gods, till at last He was defined to be the Supreme Ruler of Nature, the One and only Lord”.[148]