AN ESSAY IN DECIPHERING PREHISTORY FROM MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS, EARTHWORKS, CUSTOMS, COINS, PLACE-NAMES, AND FAERIE SUPERSTITIONS BY HAROLD BAYLEY AUTHOR OF “THE SHAKESPEARE SYMPHONY,” “A NEW LIGHT ON THE RENAISSANCE,” “THE LOST LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLISM,” ETC. “One by one tiny fragments of testimony accumulate attesting such a survival and continuance of folk memory as few men of to-day have suspected.”— Johnson LONDON CHAPMAN & HALL LTD. 11 HENRIETTA STREET 1919 TO W. L. GROVES WHO HAS GREAT

Plautus, a dramatic writer, and one of the great poets of antiquity, who lived from one to two centuries before the Christian era; was mentioned in the last section. In his Pænulus, is the tale of some young persons said to have been stolen from Carthage, by pirates, taken to Calydonia, and there sold; one of these was Agorastocles, a young man; the others were two daughters of Hanno, and Giddeneme, their nurse. Hanno, after long search, discovered the place where his daughters were concealed, a

On page 312 I stated that in Kent the light cloudlets of a summer day were known as “Perry-dancers”: as I am unable to trace any printed authority for this statement it is possible that it was a mis-remembrance of the following passage from Ritson’s “Dissertation on Fairies,” prefacing English Folklore and Legends , London, 1890: “Le Grand is of opinion that what is called Fairy comes to us from the Orientals, and that it is their genies which have produced our fairies ... whether this be so or

In Wookey Hole Mr. H. E. Balch quotes the following important passage from Gildas: “A blind people [the Britons], they paid divine honour to the mountains, wells, and streams. Their altars were pillars of stone inscribed with emblems of the sun and moon, or of a beast or bird which symbolised some force of nature ”. This passage justifies the supposition that the inscribed “barnacles,” elephants, etc., were symbolic, and supports the contention that a people using such subtleties were far from “

In view of the fact that Halifax claimed to possess the Holy Face of St. John, and that four roads centred there in the form of a cross at the chapel of St. John, it is interesting to note that the four cross-roads of Glastonbury are similarly associated with St. John. In the words of a local guidebook, “From the Tor, a walk will bring you to Weary-All Hill to view the town, and it is curious to note that from this hill it seems to be laid out as a perfect cross, St. John’s Church being the cent

Since the preceding pages were in the press I have come into the possession of La Religion des Gaulois by Jacques Martin (Paris, 1727). This standard writer favours the idea that druid is derived from the Celtic deru , meaning an oak, but he also makes a remarkable statement to the following effect: “If the opinion of P. Pezron was well founded one should also say that certain people of Crete whom one called Druites , because their country was full of oaks, made a trade of magic and enchantment,

Now if any brother or well-wisher shall conscientiously doubt or be dissatisfied, touching any particular point contained in this treatise, because of my speaking to many things in a little room: and if he or they shall be serious in so doing, and will befriend me so far, and do me that courtesy, to send to me before they condemn me, and let me know their scruples in a few words of writing, I shall look upon myself obliged both in affection and reason, to endeavour to give them full satisfaction

There were a number of anomalies in the Index, which have been corrected or completed to make the text useful. Punctuation has been made regular. Some entries had no page references at all, and no attempt was made to provide them....