Byways in British Archaeology

To weave romance and mystery around the four points of the compass might appear an impossible task, yet this feat was successfully performed by our rude forefathers, to whose primitive minds the plain, undeviating phenomena of Nature conveyed comfort or warning. A few simple superstitions, bequeathed from father to son, and ever amplified throughout a thousand generations, became at last a somewhat complex body of doctrine. This accumulated lore is now being rapidly scattered to the winds by the growth of science and the spread of education, but stray fragments may still be gathered by the student.

The magnetic compass, of which the history is a little uncertain (see p. 228, supra), may be put aside in our present inquiry, since it belongs to a state of society of comparatively high development. The unembellished teaching which is to be examined dates far earlier than the birth of science in the Middle Ages, or the period of the introduction of the magnetic needle into Europe. We shall find, however, that the folk-lore of the Cardinal Points received many additions at the hands of Mediaeval symbolists. The mythology of that epoch has, indeed, been fitly compared to a complex alloy, formed by the blending of pure ores from various sources. The traditions of previous ages were retained, and blended, but new material was thrown into the crucible.

Certain patent facts would appeal even to the elementary minds of the Stone Age men. These folk saw the sun rise daily in the East, traverse the sky by way of the South, and finally set at evening in the West. Birth and brightness were followed by ascendancy and power; the descent led to disappearance and darkness. There was the dawn, followed by warm beams which dispersed both gloom and vapour. The blue South yielded the heat of noonday, at which time the sunbeams were genial, even in the depth of winter. But when the dying sun had withdrawn for the day, primitive men would experience discomfort and uneasy forebodings. This disappearance of the great luminary, the lord and giver of life, was a permanent mystery; the rebirth next morning was even more perplexing. At a later period, the men of China and North America, of Greece and Rome, evolved curious explanations of these phenomena, but at first only the physical effects of the sun’s apparent movements would concern the barbaric mind.

Very early in the growth of ideas man would learn that the position of the sun was a good index of direction. It has been mooted whether the most ancient method of denoting direction, that is, “orientation” in its wider sense, was not to describe the speaker’s surroundings, or to indicate natural features known to him and his fellows[833]. Thus, a hunter might speak of a place by reference to some prominent rock or tree; his direction might, in the same way, be told in terms of the prevailing winds. One is nevertheless driven to believe that simple observations of the sun’s position would be made almost as soon as man began to take notice of any natural features or occurrences whatever; in either case, any slight priority of method is of such trivial account as to be negligible.

Seeing that the East and West points are much more clearly marked than the North and South, one would naturally expect that the ancients found those points more convenient as standards. To make accurate use of the North-to-South direction, one would either need to have an approximate method of determining time by the length of shadows, or to know how to find the Pole Star or the Great Bear by night. The modern schoolboy is occasionally taught to reckon his position by facing the East, and long ago Canon Isaac Taylor suggested that some of the early Aryan peoples similarly took the East as their standard[834]. According to this authority, the place-name Deccan is connected with the Latin dexter, the right hand, that is, the right hand as the observer faces the East. On this view, Deccan would be the right-hand, or South country. As an analogy, Taylor cites the Arabic word yemin, which means both right-hand and South (whence el-Yemen for Southern Arabia)[835]. These ideas have received considerable modern support. The Welsh name for South, dehau, like the Old Irish dess (Mod. Irish, deas) means also right-hand[836]. Hence we get Deheu-dir, the South land, for South Wales, and the Brit-Latin adjectives, dextralis, Southern; sinistralis, Northern. So, too, the Continental names, Texel and Teisterbant, are supposed to mean places lying towards the South[837]. Similarly, with the Eskimos, the words used for North and South correspond with those used for the sides of the body[838].

The Jewish rabbis taught that man was born with his face towards the East; hence the right and left hand directions were respectively indicative of good and evil[839]. We infer this from the New Testament parable, wherein the sheep are set on the right hand and the goats on the left. Our words dexterous and sinister have a groundwork of the old belief to support them; the latter word, at least, is not exclusively concerned with physical awkwardness or ineptitude. The superstition concerning the left-hand colours the current meaning. A difficulty, however, arises when we discover that the Roman augurs deemed the left side indicative of good-luck. How can the two ideas be reconciled? Schrader conjectures that the East, and not the North side, was intended as the equivalent of the left hand, the supposition being that the soothsayer faced the South in his divination. Seyffert states this as a fact, adding that, in ancient Greece, augurs looked towards the North[840]. The Greek usage seems to be reflected in Homer’s frequent employment of δεξιός, in the sense of favourable, or boding good, with respect to the flight of birds and other omens. It would appear that the Latin poets (e.g. Virgil and Livy) copied the Greek idea and mode of expression, using the cognate word dexter to denote skilful or fortunate. This theory implies that the restricted meaning of dexter is borrowed, and is not directly derived from Roman augury. Moreover, since the Roman diviner faced the South, dexter could not be applied to that point of the compass.

To this extent, then, the attempt to connect the word with Deccan and similar place-names breaks down. The main conclusion, nevertheless, is little affected, namely, that words of this character were often employed to distinguish the Cardinal Points. The pitfall to be avoided is the assumption that superstitions and beliefs everywhere take precisely the same form of expression. Professor Skeat traces a connection, for example, between the Malay word kidal (= South), and kidul (= left-handed)[841]. This relationship would suggest that the standard point for observation was the West, not the East. In Greece and Rome, as we have seen, the North and South respectively were so chosen.

In some districts, where the distinctive names of the four Cardinal Points have been fully accepted, the reverse principle is seen at work: the peasant, instead of using the terms “right hand” and “left hand” to signify East and West, applies the compass points to indicate position with respect to the body. Thus, in some parts of Scotland, one still hears such expressions as “the East trouser pocket[842].” And Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming tells of an old Highland woman who inquired at the post-office whether the envelope should be stamped in the East or the West corner[843].

A little detail respecting the folk-lore of the Cardinal Points may not be unacceptable. Taking first the East, we find that this quarter, besides serving as the point of determination for certain races whose speech was of the Aryan stock, was the reputed home of deities. We have seen that folk of many climes turned to the East in prayer. That portion of the firmament was symbolical of hope, and purity, and fulness of life. Milton speaks of

as if the grandeur of dawn could not be overlooked by the most unresponsive eye. St Augustine considers the East emblematic of the “Light of Heaven.” How important this point of the compass was esteemed by Christian and pagan architects is proved by the practice of orientation—the word itself marks out the idea. Hawker, of Morwenstow, ever mystical in his beliefs, declared that the East was the realm of oracles and represented the special throne of God, while the West was the domain of the people—the Galilee of all nations[844].

The South, the region of warmth and midday, has always been beloved by the religious, as well as the superstitious, of most countries, especially in the Northern parts of the world. The prose Eddas speak of the Southern edge of heaven as the everlasting abode of righteous men. Again, one of the roots of the magic tree Yggdrasill springs from the warm South side, over the Urdur fountain. The preference for the South is well seen in ecclesiastical matters. The churchyard cross usually stands on the South side of the church (Fig. 62). As will be shown in Chapter IX., on this side the churchyard yew is most generally found. The Southern doorway is somewhat more common than the Northern; where both exist, the Southern is more in favour with the worshippers. On a balance of observations, I find that the Southern side of a church is more

Fig. 62. Churchyard cross, on the South side of Bakewell church, Derbyshire. The cross, which belongs to the latter half of the eighth century, is complete, except the top arm. It exhibits foliage and fine interlaced work, with sculptured figures illustrating the Life and Death of Christ. (See Vict. Hist. of Derby, I. pp. 280, 287.) The cross is supposed to indicate a pre-Conquest burial ground.

elaborately decorated than the Northern (cf. p. 239, supra, and the reservation there made), a fact illustrated in the mouldings and capitals (Fig. 63), the window tracery and the painted glass. The bishop’s throne is customarily placed on the South side of the cathedral. The so-called “low side windows” (Fig. 64) occur most frequently in the South walls. Those curious oblique passages, known as squints or hagioscopes, cut through church walls (cf. p. 148, supra), are most commonly Southern features, in which case they often point directly to the Southern entrance of the building. In this country, we are accustomed to look for the cloisters of a Benedictine abbey on the South side of the church, but in Italy the covered way usually lies to the North[845]. Here, all symbolism seems to be stripped away, and primal considerations of comfort gain the ascendancy. Our variable climate renders a sunny outlook desirable, and we notice efforts to secure this end in the familiar arrangement of old farmsteads, where the barns and enclosures frequently stand to the South of the dwelling. In a hot country, like Italy, coolness and shade would be sought, hence we find the dissimilar ground plan of the Italian abbeys.

Fig. 63. Capitals, Seaford church, Sussex, (c. A.D. 1190.) A, from the North arcade, bears the ordinary stiff-leaved foliage of the period. B, from the South arcade, has elaborate carvings representing the Crucifixion, the Stoning of Stephen, and the Baptism of Christ.

But if the arrangement of the cloisters be adjudged a mere matter of economy and convenience, there exist well-rooted superstitions which cannot be so explained. “The front of everything to the South,” is an old Irish maxim, and though, as Mr W. G. Wood-Martin suggests, the saying may have reference to the ceremony of making the deiseal, or right-hand circle, yet the words are pregnant of folk-custom. Formerly the Irish ploughman turned the head of his horses towards the South before yoking or unyoking. Taking an English example, we find that in Suffolk, wherever the churches possessed both a

North and a South entrance, it was the practice to carry the coffin into the building by the South door, allow it to rest at the West end of the aisle, and then take it out by the North door[846]. In Lincolnshire, the North door was entirely reserved for funerals, the South and West doors being used for weddings and christenings[847]. At baptisms, again, there was a prevalent belief that the Holy Spirit entered the church by the South door, while the devil departed through the opening opposite—the Devil’s Door (Fig. 65). Lastly, to abbreviate our list of superstitions, Pennant may be cited, to the effect that in North Wales the mourners used to bring the corpse into the churchyard by means of the South gate only[848]. With this we may compare the Welsh superstition that a healing spring should have an outlet towards the South, and should be visited at midsummer. Girls who wished to know their lovers’ intentions were accustomed to spread a pocket-handkerchief over the water of the well. If the waters pushed the handkerchief towards the South, so Sir John Rhŷs informs us, the lovers were honest and honourable; if the article shifted Northwards, the omen was bad. These marked preferences for the South prove that the motive involved was sentimental as well as physical.

We have referred to the superstitions connected with the East and the South, and we now follow the sun to the region where he descends into the dark underworld. Professor Tylor neatly expresses the symbolism of these three positions: “Man’s life in dawning beauty, in midday glory, in evening death[849].” The West, then, represents the kingdom of the dead, and, by transfer of ideas, the territory of alien peoples. A natural metaphor makes it the abode of shadow, of sleep, of ignorance of the Divine. In sharp contrast to these ideas is the teaching of certain races that the West is the Garden-land, the Earthly Paradise, “the new heaven and the new earth[850].” Such notions, so directly contradictory to the first-mentioned, seem to indicate worship paid to the setting sun (cf. p. 217, supra).

The older advocates of the Asiatic origin of the Aryan peoples were led captive by the proverb, “Ex oriente lux.” This phrase doubtless influenced philologists like Pott and Müller, while to Grimm must be credited the complementary epigram, “the irresistible impulse towards the West[851].” Along with the fallacy hidden in these aphorisms there is some amount of truth. Berkeley’s assertion, “Westward the course of Empire takes its way,” is historically justified, and is still apposite to a large degree. The more modern idea, expressed by Kipling, “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet[852],” though correct as a key to manners and customs, may be much canvassed if applied to actual migrations of men. To carry our parallels further would lead us to the purely fanciful, and would evoke the derision of the scornful. Yet the mention of one more whimsical belief may be pardoned on the ground of its age. Peter Heylyn gave utterance to the idea two and a half centuries ago, though it is likely that he was a borrower from earlier geographers. He tells us that the poets turn their faces to the West, the Fortunate Islands, “so memorized and chanted by them.” To the poets, then, the North is the right hand, the South is left. But to the “Augures of old, and in our days, to Priests and Men in holy Orders, [who] usually in sacrifice and divine oblations convert themselves unto the East,” the South is the right hand. Astronomers face the South, because in that way the motions of the planets may best be observed.

If the West, according to one superstition, is the realm of death, what shall be said of the North? From that quarter no sunny rays are sent forth. The North blast brings ice and snow. A time-honoured tradition makes all fogs and storms rise from the Northern heavens[854]. Even to-day the Wiltshire peasant avers that thunder always comes from the North, though the sound may reach the ear from another direction[855]. The Northern slopes of an undulating meadow are overrun with moss and tussocks of coarse grass. But lichens, lovers of sunlight, avoid the North side of trees. An East-to-West wall built further North of East than 41° 26´ can, in latitude 51° N., receive no rays of the sun except on the South side. In the same manner a chancel which is deflected very much towards the North gets no sunshine on that side, except in the early morning, and then only in the summer season. Let hardy souls, like Kingsley, extol the North wind, if they desire, but the mass of men will still hold the icy blast in detestation. Hence the superstitions regarding the North are closely knit with physical dislike and discomfort, and rest on a basis of sound reason.

Bearing these facts in mind, we are not astonished to learn that early beliefs allocated the North to the Spirit of Evil. The idea is rife throughout the heathen legends of Northern nations[856]. The underworld, in Teutonic mythology, is placed under the third root of the ash tree, Yggdrasill, “low down toward the North,” where there is cold, eternal night. In this mist-hell, the unhappy sojourner wanders down valleys deep and dark; he enters joyless caverns; oftentimes, too, he hears the roaring of the waterfall which belongs to the demons[857]. Nor are such ideas confined to heathen folk. Again and again, in the Old Testament, especially in Job and Isaiah, “the sides of the North” are represented as the abode of the Prince of Darkness[858]. Even the New Testament has faint allusions to the same belief. Naturally, then, English literature became permeated with this idea. Shakespeare, all-embracing in his references to prevailing superstitions, makes La Pucelle invoke demons—“substitutes under the lordly monarch of the North[859].” In Paradise Lost we are told how the banded powers of Satan appear in “the spacious North,” where the arch-rebel has erected his throne[860]. Milton recurs to the idea several times; thus, in one of the sonnets, we meet with the epithet, “the false North[861].” Later poets, perhaps unconsciously imitating Milton, have expressed the same fancy. Kirke White, in the Christiad, the poem on which, as Southey tells us, the hapless young poet bestowed most pains, placed his hosts of demons among the impenetrable fogs and lamenting gales—

These illustrations show that the Northern quarter of the heavens was the source of much superstition. The simple childish myth was often amplified. Origen taught that the place of everlasting damnation was at the earth’s centre, and that the entrance was situated at the North Pole. Each time the Aurora Borealis flashed, the gates of hell opened anew, and the wicked on earth were warned of their doom[863]. The doctrine of fear of the North creeps in everywhere. The parish church, according to some writers, is most suitably built on the North side of the graveyard, so that it may not cast a shadow on the graves[864]. This “rule” is undoubtedly beset by many transgressions, but it embodies a tendency, and I have noticed some remarkable confirmations. Many churchyards have but a very narrow strip of ground lying to the North of the edifice. In spite of these instances, I consider that the generalization is too definite, and that the alleged reason lacks adequate support. The superstition concerning the Northern, or Devil’s door, on the contrary, is general and well-authenticated.

Fig. 66. Gateway, at Eastern entrance to St Stephen’s church, Coleman Street, London. The carving (5 feet × 2½ feet) on the upper portion was originally over the North gateway. The subject is the Day of Judgement, and the figures are in high relief. The Judge is seen enthroned above, Satan is falling from heaven, and the dead are rising from their coffins. Representations of this kind are often called “Dooms.”

The building itself affords evidence of the current superstition. Part of this testimony was put forward, inferentially, when the South was being considered; one or two additional facts may now be noticed. On the Northern gate of the church, there were sometimes represented the terrible scenes connected with the Last Judgement. An elaborate example of this treatment formerly existed over the Northern gateway of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and another at St Stephen’s, Coleman Street (Fig. 66), though in each case the craftsman’s work now occupies a different position[865]. Gloomy subjects, like the one mentioned, were also reserved for the North face of the church by those Mediaeval sculptors whose sermons in stone warned many long-past generations. Rheims Cathedral has the terrors of the Last Day thus depicted on its North side. The arrangements of the church services also show traces of the influence now under discussion. In the North of Europe, where the usual rule for orienting churches is observed, the Gospel is read from the North side of the altar, so that, according to Mediaeval symbolism, light may be given “to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death[866].” Or, as Durandus has it, the North side is allotted to sinners, and the Gospel calls sinners to repentance[867]. Conversely, the Epistle is read from the South side, the abode of the faithful and the converted. If one person has to read both the Epistle and the Gospel, he crosses from the South to the North before reading the latter service.

To account for this change of position, other reasons have been advanced. Some writers think that the spread of the Word from the South to the North is intended; others declare that the crossing over was a matter of mere convenience. Moreover, while a similar custom prevailed in the early churches of Rome, the position of the reader in those days was to the right or left of the celebrant; consequently, where the building was not alined East and West, the mystical interpretation could not apply. Whatever be the origin or the date of the introduction of the custom, it seems fairly conclusive that some such symbolical meaning was understood during the Mediaeval period[868]. Nevertheless, we should be on our guard against the meticulous and over-strained interpretations which the symbolists are wont to produce for the most trivial ceremonies and occurrences. Most readers will recall the passage in Ecclesiastes concerning the fall of the tree to the South, or to the North. On these expressions, Coverdale, in his treatise entitled “Praying for the Dead,” bases a far-fetched fragment of symbolism. It runs as follows: “As men die, so shall they arise; if in faith in the Lord, towards the South, they need no prayers; they are happy, and shall arise in glory presently; if in unbelief, without the Lord, towards the North then are they past all help, in the damned state presently, and shall rise in eternal shame[869].”

To descend to the prosaic affairs of life, we notice some curious facts which seem to confirm the evil reputation of the North. It may be deemed a trifle, but why did our ancestors, under the old open-field system of cultivation, divide their territories into East, West, and South Fields[870], not North? To reply that, since the land was cultivated chiefly under a three-field system, with its three-course rotation of crops, one quarter of the compass must necessarily be omitted, is scarcely satisfactory. Why should it be the North particularly which is avoided in the allotment of areas and in the nomenclature? Besides, where the two-field system was in vogue, we commonly find East and West, rather than North and South. One does not wish to press such nice points, but was it by chance that in the old Lombardic boundary treaties the Northern tract was styled “nulla ora[871]”? Undoubtedly, it is a fair response to say that these matters were instinctively settled on principles of convenience and physical comfort. The motive for the choice was at first probably thus simple, but supplementary ideas sprang up, and tended to harden the preference into a rule. One or two further illustrations will now be given.

A study of the ancient Pilgrims’ Way of the South of England shows that the Mediaeval wayfarers, and, doubtless, the far earlier prehistoric folk, preferred to travel along the Southern slope of the hills, and consistently avoided the Northern. The Southern, or drier, side of a stream was also selected, wherever the pathway chanced to follow a watercourse for a short distance. Mr Hilaire Belloc states that he has counted but four exceptions to this rule in the whole course of the Mediaeval Pilgrims’ Way. And, again, where the Mediaeval track leads to a church, Mr Belloc asserts that it passes on the South side, leaving the building on the North[872]. One exception seems to have been overlooked by Mr Belloc—the church of Paddlesworth, near Snodland, in Kent, which has the Pilgrims’ Way passing by its North door. Another apparent exception, at Puttenham, Surrey, is accounted for by a modern diversion of the old road.

Isaac Taylor, writing to prove the predilection of our forefathers for the South, once asserted that there are more villages named Sutton than Norton, Weston, or Aston[873]. He gave no statistics in support of his contention, but the clue seemed worth following. I have therefore examined the place-names contained in the most recent Post Office Guide, and have supplemented these from other lists. All village-names consisting of a single compounded word, one member of which is clearly derived from the Cardinal Points, were counted and classified. Doubtful examples were set aside; many others, though disguised under curious orthographies, were properly included. The result showed