derived their Colbren, the wood of credibility, the staves on which their runes were cut. Bren, or Pren, is the REN; just as PREF, the snake, is the REF. The REN is the branch, and ren (Eg.), means to call by name. COEL answers to Kher (Eg.), the word, to speak, utterance, speech, voice. Thus, the Coelbren is the branch of the word, the wood of speech, identical with the REN (renpu) of Taht, and the emblem of that branch, which was the word, or Logos, impersonated as the British DovYDD.1

Pliny tells us," that the Druids hold nothing in greater reverence than the mistletoe, and the tree upon which it grows, so that it be an oak. They choose forests of oaks, for the sake of the tree itself, and perform no sacred rites without oak leaves; so that one might fancy they had even been called for this reason, turning the word into Greek, Druids. But whatever grows upon these trees they hold to have been sent from heaven, and to be a sign that the Deity himself had chosen the tree for his own. The thing, however, is very rarely found, and when found, is gathered with much ceremony; and, above all, on the sixth day of the moon, by which these men reckon the beginnings of their months and years, and of their cycle of thirty years (the Egyptian SutHeb), because the moon has then sufficient power, yet has not reached half its size. Addressing it in their own language, by the epithet of All-healing; after duly preparing sacrifices and banquets under the tree, they bring to the spot two white bulls, the horns of which are then, for the first time, garlanded. The priest, clothed in a white dress, ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe with a golden knife; it is caught in a white cloak. Thereupon they slay the victims, with a prayer that the Deity may prosper his own gift to them, to whom he had given it. They fancy that by drinking it, fertility is given to any barren animal, and that it is a remedy against all poisons."

1 A Book of the Beginnings, by Gerald Massey, Esq. 2 vols. Williams and Norgate, 14, Henrietta Street, London. 1881. Price 32s.

The Leek, or onion, worn by the Welsh as a national symbol, is one of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Leeks and onions were identified with the young Sun-god Abon, at Byblos. They were exhibited in pots, with other vegetables, called the Gardens of the Deity. The Welsh wore the leek in honour of Hu, one of whose names was Aeddon. The onion, with its heat and its circles, was a symbol of the sun-god Hu, in Egypt. It was named after him, the HUT. One sign of Ha, in the hieroglyphics, is the Tebhut, or winged disk of the Sun, sign of the great God, the Lord of Heaven, and the Giver of life. It is the solar disk spread out. The leek, or sprouting onion (Hut) of Wales, is equally a Tebhut and type of the solar god and source of life.

In the British mythology, we have the solar bull, and the solar birth-place, identified with the sign Taurus, the Bull. The birth-place is where the sun rises at the time of the vernal equinox; and this, in the Druidic cult, is continually identified with the Bull, which must have been over four thousand years ago, as the equinox entered that sign 6,190 years since (dating from the year 1880), and left it 4,035 years ago.1

The Scarabæus, or beetle (see p. 31), than which no symbol was more reverenced in Egypt, was the likeness in which the god Khepr was fashioned, as the Former and Transformer. He is represented as rolling the solar disk, and has the title of Khepr-Ra. But transformer of time, of one cycle into another, is the idea conveyed. Khepr was the type of transformation, the Egyptian mode of figuring immortality as continuity, and the Beetle was stationed on that part of the zodiac where Cancer (the Crab) is now. This point was the beginning and end of the solsticial year (June 24th). Khepr clasped the zodiacal circle of the sun with one hand to each half of the whole. Here he received the sun, and passed it on in what is termed his boat, the golden boat of the sun, which was of a lunette form, in which the sun's disk appeared to ride, from the east to the west, where it sets, 1 A Book of the Beginnings, by Gerald Massey.

and after passing through the darkness of Hades (the night), rises again in the east, bringing with him the souls of the faithful departed, whom he has rescued from the dreaded dragon Apophis, in the wonder-world.

Khepr was also identified with the Sun itself, that went round for ever, and ringed the world with the safety of light continually renewed. Khepr, in his boat, is the antithesis of the Deluge. Khepr-Ra is, literally, the sunbeetle; and this symbol of continuity, transformation, and resurrection, was so profoundly lavished in burial of the dead, that the ancient scarabæi are plentiful in Egypt to this day.

The beetle appeared on the Nile banks in the month previous to that of the inundation, the month of Nebirth, and formed its ark in the shape of a round ball of earth, in which it encased its seed against the coming flood, to save up and reproduce its seed in due season. This ball it buries with itself in the soil. The inundation lasts for three months, at the end of which time the scarab emblem of Khepr, the beetle, that went underground to make his transformation, issues forth once more in the shape of his own seed. Moufet, in his Theatrum Insectorum, says the beetle has no female, but shapes its own from itself. For it dies once in a year, and from its own corruption, like a phoenix, it lives again, as Moninus witnesseth, by the heat of the sun. It was depicted as rolling the sun through the heavens, and that course ended visibly with sunset. It made the annual circle, and was thus the symbol of a year; hence, said to die, and be renewed once a year. The beetle was that celestial sign in which the solar year ended, and a new year began.

1 A Book of the Beginnings, by Gerald Massey.

ΑΖΟΥ

Chequée or and azure.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ENGLISH LORDS OF BROMFIELD AND IÂL. THE EARLS OF WARREN AND SURREY.

THE first of the family of Warren who came to England,' was William, Earl of Warren, in Normandy, who was created Earl of Surrey. 1st. William Rufus, according to Dugdale, but created Earl by William the Conqueror, according to Brooke. He founded the Priory of Lewes, in Sussex, and died 24th June, A.D. 1088, and was buried at Lewes. He married Gundreda, daughter of William the Conqueror, who died in childbed, 27th May 1085, and was buried at Lewes, by whom he had issue-1. William, his successor; 2. Reginald; and two daughters, Edith, who married, first, Gerard de Gornay, and, secondly, Drew de Monceaux; and another daughter, who was wife of Ermise de Colingis.

II. William, Earl of Warren and Surrey, who died. 10th May, A.D. 1136, and was buried at Lewes. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh, Count of Vermandois, and widow of Robert, Count of Millent, by whom he had issue two sons and two daughters-1.

1 Bank's Dormant and Extinct Baronage. Brayley's Hist. of Surrey, vol. i, 113.

William, his successor; 2. Reginald, Baron Warren, of Wirmgay; Gundred, who married Roger, Earl of Warwick; and Adeline, wife of Henry, son of David, King of Scotland.

III. William, Earl of Warren and Surrey. In A.D. 1147, he went to the Holy Land, where he was slain, 1145, and was buried at Lewes. He married Alice, who died 4th December 1174, daughter of William Talvace, son of Robert de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, by whom he had issue one only daughter and heiress, Isabel, Countess of Warren and Surrey, who died 13th July, A.D. 1199, and was buried at Lewes. She married, first, William, Count de Blois, natural son of King Stephen, who, in her right, became Fourth Earl of Warren and Surrey. He bore gules, three pellets, vairé, on a chief or, an eagle displayed gules, membered azure, and died without issue, in October, A.D. 1160. The Countess married, secondly, Hamiline Plantagenet (natural son of Geoffroi, Count of Anjou), who bore azure, semée of fleurs-de-lis of France, and a border of England; and also checky or and azure for Warren, on his becoming fifth Earl, by right of his wife. He died 3rd June, A.D. 1201, leaving issue,

VI. William, Earl of Warren and Surrey. In 1216, John, King of England, assailed by the formidable insurrection of his Barons, and most powerful subjects, and being menaced by Louis, the Dauphin of France, sought to form an alliance with the Welsh Princes and Chieftains. This they refused to grant him, and in revenge, he destroyed the castles of Hay and Radnor, and two of the castles of the Fitz Alans, Colynwy, and Oswestry, which last was burnt to the ground. Earl William died 27th May 1240, and was buried at Lewes. He married, first, Maude, daughter of William de Albini, Earl of Arundel, by whom he had no issue. He married, secondly, Maude, sister and co-heir of Anselme Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who died A.D. 1248, and was buried in Tintern Abbey, by whom he had issue,

1 See p. 162.