primitive village, and the foundations of many circular huts: among these foundations have been found a considerable quantity of crude pottery, and an ancient handmill which the authorities assign to about 2000 B.C. We have seen that the goddesses of Celtdom were known as the Maira, Matrona, Matres, or Matra (the mothers): further, that the Welsh for Mary is Fair, whence the assumption becomes pressing that the "Saint " Mary of the Scillies was primarily the Merry Fairy. The author of The English Language points out that in Old English merry meant originally no more than "agreeable, pleasing". Heaven and Jerusalem were described by old poets as "merry" places; and the word had supposedly no more than this signification in the phrase "Merry England," into which we read a more modern interpretation.' That the Scillies were permeated with the Fairy Faith is sufficiently obvious; at Hugh Town we find the ubiquitous Silver Street, and the neighbouring Holvear Hill was not improbably holy to Vera.

Near the Island of St. Helen's is a group of rocks marked upon the map as Golden Ball Bar; near by is an islet named Foreman. The farthest sentinel of the Scillies is an islet named the Bishop, now famous to all sea-farers for its phare. It is quite certain that no human Bishop would ever have selected as his residence an abode so horribly exposed, whence it is more likely that the Bishop here commemorated was the Burnebishop or Boy Bishop whose ceremonies were maintained until recent years, notably and particularly at Cambrai. In England it is curious to find the Lady-bird or Burnie Bee equated with a Bishop, yet it was so; and hence the rhyme :

1 P. 142,

Bishop, Bishop Burnebee, tell me when my wedding will be,
Fly to the east, fly to the west,
Fly to them that I love best.

In connection with the Island of St. Agnes it may be noted that ignis is the Latin for fire, whence it is possible that the islets, Big Smith and Little Smith, Burnt Island and Monglow, all had some relation to the Fieryman, Fairy Man, or Foreman: it is also possible that the neighbouring Camperdizil Point is connected with deiseul, the Scotch ejaculation, and with dazzle. Troy Town in St. Agnes is almost environed by Smith Sound, and this curious combination of names points seemingly to some connection between the Cambers and the metal smiths.1

It will be remembered that Agnes was a title of the Papesse Jeanne, who was said to have come from Engelheim or Angel's Home: in Germany the Lady Bird used to be known as the Lady Mary's Key-bearer, and exhorted to fly to Engelland: "Insect of Mary, fly away, fly away, to Engelland. Engelland is locked, its key is broken." 2 Sometimes the invocation ran: "Gold chafer up and away to thy high storey to thy Mother Anne, who gives thee bread and cheese. 'Tis better than bitter death." 3

Thanks to an uncultured and tenacious love of Phairie, the keys of rural Engelland have not yet been broken, nor happily is Engelland locked. Our history books tell us of

1 Writing not in connection with either Monglow or Camperdizil Miss Gordon observes: "We may conjure up the scene where the watery stretches reflected in molten gold the pillars of fire' symbolising the presence of God; we seem to behold the reverend forms of the white clad Druids revolving in the mystic Deasil' dance from East to West around the glowing pile, and so following the course of the Sun, the image of the Deity".Prehistoric London, p. 72.

2 Eckenstein, L., Comp. St. Nursery Rhymes, p. 97.

P. 98.

a splendid pun perpetrated by a Bishop of many centuries. ago: noticing some captured English children in the market-place at Rome, he woefully exclaimed that had they been baptised then would they have been non Angli sed angeli. Has this episcopal pleasantry been overrated? or was the good Bishop punning unconsciously deeper than he intended?

1 Skeat believed pun meant something punched out of shape. Is it not more probably connected with the Hebrew pun meaning dubious?

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CHAPTER XI

THE FAIR MAID

'We could not blot out from English poetry its visions of the fairyland without a sense of irreparable loss. No other literature save that of Greece alone can vie with ours in its pictures of the land of fantasy and glamour, or has brought back from that mysterious realm of unfading beauty treasures of more exquisite and enduring charm."-ALFRED NUTT.

"We have already shown how long and how faithfully the Gaelic and Welsh peasants clung to their old gods in spite of all the efforts of the clerics to explain them as ancient kings, or transform them into wonderworking saints, or to ban them as demons of Hell."-CHARLES SQUIRE. IN the preceding chapter it was shown that the number eleven was for some reason peculiarly identified with the Elven, or Elves: in Germany eleven seems to have carried a somewhat similar significance, for on the eleventh day of the eleventh month was always inaugurated the Carnival season which was celebrated by weekly festivities which increased in mirthful intensity until Shrove Tuesday. Commenting upon this custom it has been pointed out that The fates seem to have displayed a remarkable sense of artistry in decreeing that the Great War should cease at the moment when it did, for the hostilities came to an end at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month ".2

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Etymologists connect the word Fate with fay; the expression fate is radically good fay, and it is merely a matter of choice whether Fate or the Fates be regarded as 1 The Evening Standard, 12th Nov., 1918. 593

38

2 Ibid.

Three or as One: moreover the aspect of Fate, whether grim or beautiful, differs invariably to the same extent as that of the two fairy mothers which Kingsley introduces into The Water Babies, the delicious Lady Doasyou wouldbedoneby and the forbidding Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.

The Greek Moirae or Fates were represented as either three austere maidens or as three aged hags: the Celtic mairae, of which Rice Holmes observes that "no deities were nearer to the hearts of Celtic peasants," were repre

FIG. 353.-Printer's Ornament (English, 1724).

sented in groups of three; their aspect was that of gentle, serious, motherly women holding new-born infants in their hands, or bearing fruits and flowers in their laps; and many offerings were made to them by country folk in gratitude for their care of farm, and flock, and home.1

In the Etrurian bucket illustrated on page 474, the Magna Mater or Fate was represented with two children, one white the other black: in the emblems herewith the supporting Pair are depicted as two Amoretti, and the Central Fire, Force, or Tryamour is portrayed by three hearts blazing with the fire of Charity. There is indeed no doubt that the Three Charities, Three Graces, and Three Fates were merely presentations of the one unchanging