BRONZE URN AND CAULDRON (circa 500 b.c.)
(British Museum)
Vessels such as these are unknown outside the British Isles.
A prominent god whose worship appears to have been widespread was connected with the apple tree, which in the Underworld and Islands of the Blest was the "Tree of Life". Ancient beliefs and ceremonies connected with the apple cult survive in those districts in southern England where the curious custom is observed of "wassailing" the apple trees on Christmas Eve or Twelfth Night.194 The "wassailers" visit the tree and sing a song in which each apple is asked to bear
Hat-fulls, lap-fulls,
Sack-fulls, pocket-fulls.
Cider is poured about the roots of apple trees. This ceremony appears to have been originally an elaborate one. The tom-tit or some other small bird was connected with the apple tree, as was the robin or wren of other cults with the oak tree. At the wassailing ceremony a boy climbed up into a tree and impersonated the bird. It may be that in Pagan times a boy was sacrificed to the god of the tree. That the bird (in some cases it was the robin red-breast) was hunted and sacrificed is indicated by old English folk-songs beginning like the following:
Old Robin is dead and gone to his grave,
Hum! Ha! gone to his grave;
They planted an apple tree over his head,
Hum! Ha! over his head.
In England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland a deity, or a group of deities in the Underworld, was associated with a magic cauldron, or as it is called in Gaelic a "pot of plenty". Heroes or gods obtain possession of this cauldron, which provides an inexhaustible food supply and much treasure, or is used for purposes of divination. It appears to have been Christianized into the "Holy Grail", to obtain possession of which Arthurian knights set out on perilous journeys.
Originally the pot was a symbol of the mother goddess, who renewed youth, provided food for all, and was the source of treasure, luck, victory, and wisdom. This goddess was associated with the mother cow and the life-prolonging pearls that were searched for by early Eastern prospectors. There are references to cows and pearls in Welsh and Gaelic poems and legends regarding the pot. An old Welsh poem in the Book of Taliesin says of the cauldron:
By the breath of nine maidens it would be kindled.
The head of Hades' cauldron—what is it like?
A rim it has, with pearls round its border:
It boils not coward's food: it would not be perjured.
This extract is from the poem known as "Preidden Annwfn" ("Harryings of Hades"), translated by the late Professor Sir John Rhys. Arthur and his heroes visit Hades to obtain the cauldron, and reference is made to the "Speckled Ox". Arthur, in another story, obtains the cauldron from Ireland. It is full of money. The Welsh god Bran gives to a king of Ireland a magic cauldron which restores to life those dead men who are placed in it. A Gaelic narrative relates the story of Cuchullin's harrying of Hades, which is called "Dun Scaith". Cuchullin's assailants issue from a pit in the centre of Dun Scaith in forms of serpents, toads, and sharp-beaked monsters. He wins the victory and carries away three magic cows and a cauldron that gives inexhaustible supplies of food, gold, and silver.
The pot figures in various mythologies. It was a symbol of the mother goddess Hathor of ancient Egypt and of the mother goddess of Troy, and it figures in Indian religious literature. In Gaelic lore the knife which cuts inexhaustible supplies of flesh from a dry bone is evidently another symbol of the deity.
The talismans possessed by the Dananns were the cauldron, the sword and spear of Lugh, and the Lia Fail (or Stone of Destiny)195, which reminds one of the three Japanese symbols, the solar mirror, the dragon sword, and the tama (a pearl or round stone) kept in a Shinto shrine at Ise. The goddess's "life substance" was likewise in fruits like the Celestial apples, nuts, rowan berries, &c., of the Celts, and the grapes, pomegranates, &c., of other peoples, and in herbs like the mugwort and mandrake. Her animals were associated with rivers. The name of the River Boyne signifies "white cow". Tarf (bull) appears in several river names, as also does the goddess name Deva (Devona) in the Devon, Dee, &c. Philologists have shown that Ness, the Inverness-shire river, is identical with Nestos in Thrace and Neda in Greece. The goddess Belisama (the goddess of war) was identified with the Mersey.
Goddess groups, usually triads, were as common in Gaul as they were in ancient Crete. These deities were sometimes called the "Mothers", as in Marne, the famous French river, and in the Welsh Y Mamau, one of the names of the "fairies".
Other names of goddess groups include Proximæ (kinswoman), Niskai (water spirits), and Dervonnæ (oak spirits). The Romans took over these and other groups of ancient deities and the beliefs about their origin in the mythical sea they were supposed to cross or rise from. Gaelic references to "the coracle of the fairy woman" or "supernatural woman" are of special interest in this connection, especially when it is found that the "coracle" is a sea-shell which, by the way, figures as a canopy symbol in some of the sculptured groups of Romano-British grouped goddesses who sometimes bear baskets of apples, sheafs of grain, &c. When the shell provides inexhaustible supplies of curative or knowledge-conferring milk, it links with the symbolic pot.
Most of the ancient deities had local names, and consequently a number of Gaulish gods were identified by the Romans with Apollo, including Borvo, whose name lingers in Bourbon, Grannos of Aquæ Granni (Aix la Chapelle), Mogounus, whose name has been shortened to Mainz, &c. The gods Taranucus (thunderer), Uxellĭmus (the highest), &c., were identified with Jupiter; Dunatis (fort god), Albiorix (world king), Caturix (battle king), Belatucadros (brilliant in war), Cocidius, &c., were identified with Mars. The name of the god Camŭlos clings to Colchester (Camulodunun). There are Romano-British inscriptions that refer to the ancient gods under various Celtic names. A popular deity was the god of Silvanus, who conferred health and was, no doubt, identified with a tree or herb.
It is uncertain at what period beliefs connected with stars were introduced into the British Isles.196 As we have seen, the Welsh deities were connected with certain star groups. "Three Celtic goddesses", writes Anwyl, referring to Gaul, "whose worship attained to highest development were Damona (the goddess of cattle), Sirona (the aged one or the star goddess), and Epŏna (the goddess of horses). These names are Indo-European." An Irish poem by a bard who is supposed to have lived in the ninth century refers to the Christian saint Ciaran of Saigir as a man of stellar origin:
Liadaine (his mother) was asleep
On her bed.
When she turned her face to heaven
A star fell into her mouth.
Thence was born the marvellous child
Ciaran of Saigir who is proclaimed to thee.
In the north and north-west Highlands the aurora borealis is called Na Fir Chlis ("the nimble men") and "the merry dancers". They are regarded as fairies (supernatural beings) like the sea "fairies" Na Fir Ghorm ("blue men"), who were probably sea gods.
The religious beliefs of the Romans were on no higher a level than those of the ancient Britons and Gaels.
CHAPTER XVII
Historical Summary
The evidence dealt with in the foregoing chapters throws considerable light on the history of early man in Britain. We really know more about pre-Roman times than about that obscure period of Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement which followed on the withdrawal of the Roman army of occupation, yet historians, as a rule, regard it as "pre-historic" and outside their sphere of interest. As there are no inscriptions and no documents to render articulate the archæological Ages of Stone and Bronze, they find it impossible to draw any definite conclusions.
It can be urged, however, in criticism of this attitude, that the relics of the so-called "pre-historic age" may be found to be even more reliable than some contemporary documents of the "historic" period. Not a few of these are obviously biassed and prejudiced, while some are so vague and fragmentary that the conclusions drawn from them cannot be otherwise than hypothetical in character. A plainer, clearer, and more reliable story is revealed by the bones and the artifacts and the surviving relics of the intellectual life of our remote ancestors than by the writings of some early chroniclers and some early historians. It is possible, for instance, in consequence of the scanty evidence available, to hold widely diverging views regarding the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic problems. Pro-Teutonic and pro-Celtic protagonists involve us invariably in bitter controversy. That contemporary documentary evidence, even when somewhat voluminous, may fail to yield a clear record of facts is evident from the literature that deals, for instance, with the part played by Mary Queen of Scots in the Darnley conspiracy and in the events that led to her execution.
The term "pre-historic" is one that should be discarded. It is possible, as has been shown, to write, although in outline, the history of certain ancient race movements, of the growth and decay of the civilization revealed by the cavern art of Aurignacian and Magdalenian times, of early trade and of early shipping. The history of art goes back for thousands of years before the Classic Age dawned in Greece; the history of trade can be traced to that remote period when Red Sea shells were imported into Italy by Crô-Magnon man; and the history of British shipping can be shown to be as old as those dug-outs that foundered in ancient Scottish river beds before the last land movement had ceased.
The history of man really begins when and where we find the first clear traces of his activities, and as it is possible to write not only regarding the movements of the Crô-Magnon races, but of their beliefs as revealed by burial customs, their use of body paint, the importance attached to shell and other talismans, and their wonderful and high attainments in the arts and crafts, the European historical period can be said to begin in the post-Glacial epoch when tundra conditions prevailed in Central and Western Europe and Italy was connected with the North African coast.
In the case of ancient Egypt, historical data have been gleaned from archæological remains as well as from religious texts and brief records of historical events. The history of Egyptian agriculture has been traced back beyond the dawn of the Dynastic Age and to that inarticulate period before the hieroglyphic system of writing had been invented, by the discovery in the stomachs of the bodies of proto-Egyptians, naturally preserved in hot dry sands, of husks of barley and of millet native to the land of Egypt.197
The historical data so industriously accumulated in Egypt and Babylonia have enabled excavators to date certain finds in Crete, and to frame a chronological system for the ancient civilization of that island. Other relics afford proof of cultural contact between Crete and the mainland, as far westward as Spain, where traces of Cretan activities have been discovered. With the aid of comparative evidence, much light is thrown, too, on the history of the ancient Hittites, who have left inscriptions that have not yet been deciphered. The discoveries made by Siret in Spain and Portugal of unmistakable evidence of Egyptian and Babylonian cultural influence, trade, and colonization are, therefore, to be welcomed. The comparative evidence in this connection provides a more reliable basis than has hitherto been available for Western European archæology. It is possible for the historian to date approximately the beginning of the export trade in jet from England—apparently from Whitby in Yorkshire—and of the export trade in amber from the Baltic, and the opening of the sea routes between Spain and Northern Europe. The further discovery of Egyptian beads in south-western England, in association with relics of the English "Bronze Age", is of far-reaching importance. A "prehistoric" period surely ceases to be "prehistoric" when its relics can be dated even approximately. The English jet found in Spain takes us back till about 2500 b.c., and the Egyptian beads found in England till about 1300 b.c.
The dating of these and other relics raises the question whether historians should accept, without qualification, or at all, the system of "Ages" adopted by archæologists. Terms like "Palæolithic" (Old Stone) and "Neolithic" (New Stone) are, in most areas, without precise chronological significance. As applied in the historical sense, they tend to obscure the fact that the former applies to a most prolonged period during which more than one civilization arose, flourished, and decayed. In the so-called "Old Stone Age" flint was worked with a degree of skill never surpassed in the "New Stone Age", as Aurignacian and Solutrean artifacts testify; it was also sometimes badly worked from poorly selected material, as in Magdalenian times, when bone and horn were utilized to such an extent that archæologists would be justified in referring to a "Bone and Horn Age".
Before the Neolithic industry was introduced into Western Europe and the so-called "Neolithic Age" dawned, as it ended, at various periods in various areas, great climatic changes took place, and the distribution of sea and land changed more than once. Withal, considerable race movements took place in Central and Western Europe. In time new habits of life were introduced into our native land that influenced more profoundly the subsequent history of Britain than could have been possibly accomplished by a new method of working flint. The most important cultural change was effected by the introduction of the agricultural mode of life.
It is important to bear in mind in this connection that the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia were based on the agricultural mode of life, and that when this mode of life passed into Europe a complex culture was transported with it from the area of origin. It was the early agriculturists who developed shipbuilding and the art of navigation, who first worked metals, and set a religious value on gold and silver, on pearls, and on certain precious stones, and sent out prospectors to search for precious metals and precious gems in distant lands. The importance of agriculture in the history of civilization cannot be overestimated. In so far as our native land is concerned, a new epoch was inaugurated when the first agriculturist tilled the soil, sowed imported barley seeds, using imported implements, and practising strange ceremonies at sowing, and ultimately at harvest time, that had origin in a far-distant "cradle" of civilization, and still linger in our midst as folk-lore evidence, testifies to the full. In ancient times the ceremonies were regarded as being of as much importance as the implements, and the associated myths were connected with the agriculturists' Calendar, as the Scottish Gaelic Calendar bears testimony.
Instead, therefore, of dividing the early history of man in Britain into periods, named after the materials from which he made implements and weapons, these should be divided so as to throw light on habits of life and habits of thought. The early stages of civilization can be referred to as the "Pre-Agricultural", and those that follow as the "Early Agricultural".
Under "Pre-Agricultural" come the culture stages, or rather the industries known as (1) Aurignacian, (2) Solutrean, and (3) Magdalenian. These do not have the same chronological significance everywhere in Europe, for the Solutrean industry never disturbed or supplemented the Aurignacian in Italy or in Spain south of the Cantabrian Mountains, nor did Aurignacian penetrate into Hungary, where the first stage of Modern Man's activities was the Solutrean. The three stages, however, existed during the post-Glacial period, when man hunted the reindeer and other animals favouring similar climatic conditions. The French archæologists have named this the "Reindeer Age". Three later industries were introduced into Europe during the Pre-Agricultural Age. These are known as (1) Azilian, (2) Tardenoisian, and (3) Maglemosian. The ice-cap was retreating, the reindeer and other tundra animals moved northward, and the red deer arrived in Central and Western Europe. We can, therefore, refer to the latter part of the Pre-Agricultural times as the "Early Red Deer Age".
There is Continental evidence to show that the Neolithic industry was practised prior to the introduction of the agricultural mode of life. The "Early Agricultural Age", therefore, cuts into the archæological "Neolithic Age" in France. Whether or not it does so in Britain is uncertain.
At the dawn of the British "Early Agricultural Age" cultural influences were beginning to "flow" from centres of ancient civilization, if not directly, at any rate indirectly. As has been indicated in the foregoing pages, the Neolithic industry was practised in Britain by a people who had a distinct social organization and engaged in trade. Some Neolithic flints were of Eastern type or origin. The introduction of bronze from the Continent appears to have been effected by seafaring traders, and there is no evidence that it changed the prevailing habits of thought and life. Our ancestors did not change their skins and their ideas when they began to use and manufacture bronze. A section of them adopted a new industry, but before doing so they had engaged in the search for gold. This is shown by the fact that they settled on the granite in Devon and Cornwall, while yet they were using flints of Neolithic form which had been made elsewhere. Iron working was ultimately introduced. The Bronze and Iron "Ages" of the archæologists can be included in the historian's "Early Agricultural Age", because agriculture continued to be the most important factor in the economic life of Britain. It was the basis of its civilization; it rendered possible the development of mining and of various industries, and the promotion of trade by land and sea. In time the Celtic peoples—that is, peoples who spoke Celtic dialects—arrived in Britain. The Celtic movement was in progress at 500 b.c., and had not ended after Julius Cæsar invaded southern England. It was finally arrested by the Roman occupation, but continued in Ireland. When it really commenced is uncertain; the earliest Celts may have used bronze only.
The various Ages, according to the system suggested, are as follows:—
1. The Pre-Agricultural Age.
Sub-divisions: (A) the Reindeer Age with the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian industries; (B) the Early Red Deer Age with the Azilian, Tardenoisian, and Maglemosian industries.
2. The Early Agricultural Age.
Sub-divisions: (A) the Pre-Celtic Age with the Neolithic, copper and bronze industries; (B) the Celtic Age with the bronze, iron, and enamel industries.
3. The Romano-British Age.
Including in Scotland (A) the Caledonian Age and (B) the Early Scoto-Pictish Age; and in Ireland the Cuchullin Age, during which bronze and iron were used.
The view favoured by some historians that our ancestors were, prior to the Roman invasion, mere "savages" can no longer obtain. It is clearly without justification. Nor are we justified in perpetuating the equally hazardous theory that early British culture was of indigenous origin, and passed through a series of evolutionary stages in isolation until the country offered sufficient attractions to induce first the Celts and afterwards the Romans to conquer it. The correct and historical view appears to be that from the earliest times Britain was subjected to racial and cultural "drifts" from the Continent, and that the latter outnumbered the former.
In the Pre-Agricultural Age Crô-Magnon colonists reached England and Wales while yet in the Aurignacian stage of civilization. As much is indicated by the evidence of the Paviland cave in South Wales. At a later period, proto-Solutrean influence, which had entered Western Europe from North Africa, filtered into England, and can be traced in those caverns that have yielded evidence of occupation. The pure Solutrean culture subsequently swept from Eastern Europe as far westward as Northern Spain, but Britain, like Southern Spain and Italy, remained immune to it. Magdalenian culture then arose and became widespread. It had relations with the earlier Aurignacian and owed nothing to Solutrean. England yields undoubted traces of its influence, which operated vigorously at a time when Scotland was yet largely covered with ice. Certain elements in Aurignacian and Magdalenian cultures appear to have persisted in our midst until comparatively recent times, especially in connection with burial customs and myths regarding the "sleeping heroes" in burial caverns.
The so-called "Transition Period" between the Upper Palæolithic and Neolithic Ages is well represented, especially in Scotland, where the land rose after early man's arrival, and even after the introduction of shipping. As England was sinking when Scotland was rising, English traces of the period are difficult to find. This "Transition Period" was of greater duration than the archæological "Neolithic Age".
Of special interest is the light thrown by relics of the "Transition Period" on the race problem. Apparently the Crô-Magnons and other peoples of the Magdalenian Age were settled in Britain when the intruders, who had broken up Magdalenian civilization on the Continent, began to arrive. These were (1) the Azilians of Iberian (Mediterranean) type; (2) the Tardenoisians, who came through Italy from North Africa, and were likewise, it would appear, of Mediterranean racial type; and (3) the Maglemosians, who were mainly a fair, tall people of Northern type. The close proximity of Azilian and Maglemosian stations in western Scotland—at the MacArthur cave (Azilian) and the Drumvaragie shelter (Maglemosian) at Oban, for instance—suggests that in the course of time racial intermixture took place. That all the fair peoples of England, Scotland, and Ireland are descended from Celts or Norwegians is a theory which has not taken into account the presence in these islands at an early period, and before the introduction of the Neolithic industry, of the carriers from the Baltic area of Maglemosian culture.
We next pass to the so-called Neolithic stage of culture,198 and find it affords fuller and more definite evidence regarding the early history of our native land. As has been shown, there are data which indicate that there was no haphazard distribution of the population of England when the Neolithic industry and the agricultural mode of life were introduced. The theory must be discarded that "Neolithic man" was a wanderer, whose movements depended entirely on those of the wild animals he hunted, as well as the further theory that stone implements and weapons were not used after the introduction of metals. There were, as can be gathered from the evidence afforded by archæological remains, settled village communities, and centres of industry in the Age referred to by archæologists as "Neolithic". The Early Agricultural Age had dawned. Sections of the population engaged in agriculture, sections were miners and workers of flint, sections were hunters and fishermen, sections searched for gold, pigments for body paint, material for ornaments of religious value, &c., and sections engaged in trade, not only with English and Scottish peoples, but with those of the Continent. The English Channel, and probably the North Sea, were crossed by hardy mariners who engaged in trade.
At an early period in the Early Agricultural Age and before bronze working was introduced, England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, were influenced more directly than had hitherto been the case by the high civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and especially by their colonies in South-western Europe. The recent Spanish finds indicate that a great "wave" of high Oriental culture was in motion in Spain as far back as 2500 b.c., and perhaps at an even earlier period. Included among Babylonian and Egyptian relics in Spain are, as has been stated, jet from Whitby, Yorkshire, and amber from the Baltic. Apparently the colonists had trading relations with Britain. Whether the "Tin Land", which was occupied by a people owing allegiance to Sargon of Akkad, was ancient Britain is quite uncertain. It was more probably some part of Western Europe. That Western European influence was reaching Britain before the last land movement had ceased is made evident by the fact that the ancient boat with a cork plug, which was found in Clyde silt at Glasgow, lay 25 feet above the present sea-level. The cork plug undoubtedly came from Spain or Italy, and the boat is of Mediterranean type.199 It is evident that long before the introduction of bronze working the coasts of Britain were being explored by enterprizing prospectors, and that the virgin riches of our native land were being exploited. In this connection it is of importance to find that the earliest metal artifacts introduced into our native islands were brought by traders, and that those that reached England were mainly of Gaulish type, while those that reached Ireland were Spanish. The Neolithic industry does not appear to have been widespread in Ireland, where copper artifacts were in use at a very early period.
A large battle-axe of pure copper, described by Sir David Brewster in 1822 (Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Vol. VI, p. 357), was found at a depth of 20 feet in Ratho Bog, near Edinburgh. Above it were 9 feet of moss, 7 feet of sand, and 4 feet of hard black till-clay. "It must have been deposited along with the blue clay", wrote Brewster, "prior to the formation of the superincumbent stratum of sand, and must have existed before the diluvial operations by which that stratum was formed. This opinion of its antiquity is strongly confirmed by the peculiarity of its shape, and the nature of its composition." The Spanish discoveries have revived interest in this important find.
As has been indicated, jet, pearls, gold, and tin appear to have been searched for and found before bronze working became a British industry. That the early prospectors had experience in locating and working metals before they reached this country there can be little doubt. There was a psychological motive for their adventurous voyages to unknown lands. The distribution of the megalithic monuments and graves indicates that metals were found and worked in south-western England, in Wales, in Derbyshire, and Cumberland, that jet was worked at Whitby, and that metals were located in Ireland and Scotland. Gold must have been widely distributed during the period of the great thaw. It is unlikely that traces of alluvial gold, which had been located and well worked in ancient times, should remain until the present time. In Scotland no traces of gold can now be found in a number of districts where, according to the records, it was worked as late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the surviving Scottish megalithic monuments may mark the sites of ancient goldfields that were abandoned in early times when the supplies of precious metal became exhausted. The great circles of Callernish in Lewis and Stennis in Orkney are records of activity in semi-barren areas. Large communities could not have been attracted to these outlying islands to live on the produce of land or sea. Traces of metals, &c., indicate that, in both areas in ancient times, the builders of megalithic monuments settled in remote areas in Britain for the same reason as they settled on parts of the Continent. A gold rod has been discovered in association with the "Druid Temple" at Leys, near Inverness. The Inverness group of circles may well have been those of gold-seekers. In Aberdeenshire a group of megalithic monuments appears to have been erected by searchers for pearls. Gold was found in this county in the time of the Stuart kings.
The close association of megalithic monuments with ancient mine workings makes it impossible to resist the conclusion that the worship of trees and wells was closely connected with the religion of which the megalithic monuments are records. Siret shows that the symbolic markings on typical stone monuments are identical with those of the tree cult. Folk-lore and philological data tend to support this view. From the root nem are derived the Celtic names of the pearl, heaven, the grove, and the shrine within the grove (see Chap. XIII). The Celts appear to have embraced the Druidic system of the earlier Iberians in Western Europe, whose culture had been derived from that of the Oriental colonists.
The Oriental mother goddess was connected with the sacred tree, with gold and gems, with pearls, with rivers, lakes, and the sea, with the sky and with the heavenly bodies, long centuries before the Palm-tree cult was introduced into Spain by Oriental colonists. The symbolism of pearls links with that of jet, the symbolism of jet with that of Baltic amber, and the symbolism of Baltic amber with that of Adriatic amber and of Mediterranean coral. All these sacred things were supposed to contain, like jasper and turquoise in Egypt, the "life substance" of the mother goddess who had her origin in water and her dwelling in a tree, and was connected with the sky and "the waters above the firmament". Coral was supposed to be her sea tree, and jet, amber, silver, and gold were supposed to grow from her fertilizing tears. Beliefs about "grown gold" were quite rife in mediæval Britain.200
It should not surprise us, therefore, to find traces of Oriental religious conceptions in ancient Britain and Ireland. These have apparently passed from country to country, from people to people, from language to language, and down the Ages without suffering great change. Even when mixed with ideas imported from other areas, they have preserved their original fundamental significance. The Hebridean "maiden-queen" goddess, who dwells in a tree and provides milk from a sea-shell, has a history rooted in a distant area of origin, where the goddess who personified the life-giving shell was connected with the cow and the sky (the Milky Way), as was the goddess Hathor, the Egyptian Aphrodite. The tendency to locate imported religious beliefs no doubt provides the reason why the original palm tree of the goddess was replaced in Britain by the hazel, the elm, the rowan, the apple tree, the oak, &c.