period of the later Stone Age, in the nomadic Hunting Stage of the early world before the institution of agriculture, marriage, and the settled life.1 Part-olon's invasion of Ireland (which, we have seen, occurred about 400 B.C.) is referred to in the Irish-Scot books as "the second" of the great traditional waves of immigration which flowed into that land." The first of these traditional waves of immigration into Old Erin, in so-called pre-diluvian times, is of especial interest and historical importance, as it seems to preserve a genuine memory of the first peopling of Ireland in the prehistoric Stone Age. This first traditional migration of people into Erin is significantly stated in the Irish-Scot records, as cited in the heading, to have been led by a woman, Ceasair or Cesair. This tradition of a woman leader appears to me to afford the clue to the matrilinear custom (or parentage and succession through the mother and not through the father), which Mother-right," according to the Irish and Pict Chronicles, prevailed in early Erin (see later). This custom is admittedly a vestige of the primitive Matriarchy, or rule by Mothers, which was, according to leading authorities, the earliest stage of the Family in primitive society, in the hunting stage of the Stone Age, when promiscuity prevailed in the primeval hordes before the institution of Fatherhood and Marriage (see Fig. 20 for archaic Hittite rock-sculpture of a matriarch). This tradition, therefore, that the first immigrants to Ireland were led by a woman is in agreement with what leading scientific anthropologists have elicited in regard to primitive society, and is, therefore, probably a genuine tradition. It is also in keeping with the first occupation of Erin having occurred in the Neolithic or Late Stone Age period (a period usually stated to extend from about 10000 B.C. to about 1500 B.C. or later), as is established by the archæological evidence in Ireland. It is also in agreement with the physical type of the early aborigines of This chapter was written before the appearance of Prof. Macalister's work on Ancient Ireland, and is in no way modified by the latter. Book of Invasions by Friar Michael O'Clery, 1627, based on Book of Ballymote fol. 12, and Book of Leinster, etc.; B.O.I., 14, etc.; and K.H.I.J. 63. BAN, FEIN OR VAN MATRIARCHS IN IRELAND 93 Hibernia, as elicited by excavations, and of the bulk of the present-day population, who are mostly of the dark, smallerstatured, long narrow-headed "Iberian" or "Mediterranean" type (see Chapter XII.), as opposed to the element of the tall fair Aryans, the Irish "Scots" of Bede and other early writers, now presumably located mostly in Ulster. FIG. 20.-A prehistoric Matriarch of the Vans (?) of the Stone Age. From a Hittite rock-sculpture near Smyrna. (After Martin.') Note the primitive type with low forehead and eyebrow ridges. The name of this first Matriarch of Erin, "Ceasair," appears to be cognate with "Kvasir" of the Gothic Eddas, who was the" wise man" of the sacred magic jar or cauldron, and a hostage given by the Wans, Vans or "Fens" (presumably the "Fene" or " Fein" title of the early Irish) to the Goths. While the Matriarch of the Vans and priestess This rock-cut bust was carved at the entrance to a sacred grotto, presumably of the Mother-cult, near the alpine village of Buja, to east of Smyrna, and near Karabel, with its Hittite sculpturings. Its drawing by A. Martin is given by Perrot (P.A.P. 68). 2 A.Y.E. 160 etc.; and V.D. 361. of the cauldron, was herself the "wise-woman" wise-woman" or wizardess and priestess of the Serpent and other demonist totemistic cults in primitive times-cults which survived into the modern world as witchcraft. This Matriarch Ceasair, or Cesara, is reported to have landed with her horde at Dunn-m Barc or " The fort of the Barks or [Skin-] Boats," now Duna-mark in Bantry Bay on the south-west coast of Erin--the bay adjoining Part-olon's traditional landing place at Scene in Kenmare Bay. This name "Bantry Bay," means "Bay of the Shore of the Bans, and is in series with "Fin-tragh Bay" or Bay of the Shore of the Fins further north, in which "Ban " or " Fin" appears to be an ethnic title of this matriarchist horde. The next neighbouring town on the east is Ban-don or “ Town of the Bans," with a river of that name, which attests the great antiquity of that title; and to its north is Ban-teer, and further east along the south coast is Bann-ow River, and the Bann River in Wexford, which, we shall see, is associated with a stand made by the tribe of this matriarch against later invaders, and the Boinne or Boyne River on the east coast, admittedly named after the River-goddess" Boann," with the old Irish epic town of Finn-abair (or Fenn-or), and vast prehistoric dolmen tumuli at New Grange with intertwined Serpent symbols, all presumably belong to this same series of the Ban, Fen or Van horde, or its descendants. Indeed, we find in Ptolemy's map of Ireland, drawn before 140 A.D., that the tribe inhabitating the south-west of Ireland, from Kerry, where Cesair landed, and extending through Cork to Waterford were still called by Ptolemy " Ioueoni-oi" (i.e. "Weoni" or "Veoni," the Greeks having no W or V) which we shall see is a dialectic variant of "Wan," "Van" or "Ban." And the chief seat of Cesair's descendants at the epoch of Part-olon's invasion of Erin, and where he defeated these aborigines, was called "The plain of Itha," 1 Trag or Tracht" shore or strand," compare C.A.N., 359. P.G. lib. secundus, C. ii, p. 29; and map I (p.2) in Europa tabula. This map with a Greek verse is reproduced in British Museum Early Maps No. 3 postcard series. FEIN, FIAN, BAN & VAN NAMES 95 which was thus presumably so named after "The plain of Ida," which in the Gothic Eddas was the chief seat of the Van or Fen Matriarch and her Serpent-worshipping darkcomplexioned dwarfs. The name Ban" or or "Bean," by which this Irish Matriarch as well as her country is called,' literally means in Irish " Fian," "female" or "woman," and is thus probably cognate with the matriarchist tribal title of Van or Wan and Fene; and its cognate is applied to the traditional aboriginal dwarf people of both Ireland and Alban, who were popularly associated in legends and myth with the Picts. It also seems to be the source of the later popular term, "Fene" or "Fein" for those claiming to be aboriginal Irish. Those primitive Fenes, Fins or Bans appear, I think, to be clearly the primordial, aboriginal, dark dwarf race "Van" or " Fen" in the Gothic Edda Epics, who were the chief enemies of the Goths, in the solar cult of the latter. And, significantly, this primitive dark race of Van of "The plain of Ida" is called in the Eddas (which I have found to be truly historical records of the rise of the Aryans) "The Blue Legs," implying that they painted their skins with blue pigment, which suggests that they were the primitive ancestors of the" Picts," as they now are seen to be. This same "Van" or "Ban" people, moreover, were, as we shall see clearly, at least in the later Stone Age, the early aborigines of Alban or Britain. Their name survives widely in the many prehistoric earth-work defensive ramparts and ditches over the country, still known as "Wans' Ditch" or "Wans' Dyke " used synonymously with Picts' Dyke." 1 In addition to the Ban and Fin local names noted, it will be seen in the text cited in heading that the whole of Ireland was called "Ban-bha" or Ban the Good (?)." M.F.P. passim. •"Blain legiom" in Volu-spa Edda, E.C. 1. 20, and cf. Ed. N., p.2, verse 9, and Ed. V.P., i, 1941, 38. " P.E.C. 3, p. xiii., notes that those Wans' Dykes which have been excavated were Roman "or" post-Roman" in the cultural objects found. This, however, merely implies that these prehistoric Wans' Dykes which are in best preservation occupied such good strategic positions that they were utilized by the Romans and in post-Roman times, just as we shall find the Romans utilized old pre-Roman Briton roads, such as Watling Street," by repairing and appropriating them. " This ancient ethnic name of "Wan" or "Ban" also survives broadcast in many places in Britain especially in the neighbourhood of these old Wan's Ditches and subterranean "Picts' Houses," and the so-called, though erroneously so, "Early Briton settlements.” Instances of the survival of such ancient "Van" and "Ban❞ names in Britain are cited below. In examining these series of the ethnic name "Van" in different dialects we shall see the dialectic equivalency of the labials B, P, F and V, and the interchange of the latter with W, the OU or IOU of the Greeks, which are all dialectic variations in spelling the same name, well recognized by philologists. [Instances of the survival of these "Van" and "Ban " ethnic names in Britain are seen in the following:-Wan-stead near Houndsditch east of London, Wands-worth, Fins-bury, Finchley, Banbury, with its legend of "an old woman," Wantage, Wainfleet on the Wash, Wensley, Winslow, Win-chester, the Venta or Vends of the Romans, Win-chelsea, Windsor, Ventnor, Wendover, Windermere with Wans' Fell Pike, numerous Ban-tons, Bangor or "Circle of the Bans" on the Welsh coast, with so-called "Druid " circles and its namesake on Belfast Loch, and Banchory in Aberdeenshire with the same meaning and prehistoric circles" and an early seat of the Picts. And there are several Roman station names at important pre-Roman towns and villages bearing the fore-name of "Vindo" and "Venta " in series with Pent-land as an ancient title for Mid-Scotland, surviving in the "Pent-land" Hills of Lothian, and in the "Pent-land" Frith for the sea-channel on the extreme north of Britain, which "Vent" and " Pent," we shall see, is in series with Vindia " as an ancient title of a Western Van region in Asia Minor. (see Map). 3 In Wales the famous "Van Lake" was until lately a place of popular pilgrimage for the Welsh, and significantly it was sacred to a fairy Lady of the Lake, presumably a deified Van matriarch-priestess; and South Wales, in which it was situated, was called Vened-ocia or Vent-uria (the Gwynned of the Welsh), and the ancient Briton capital there, Caerleon, was called by the Romans" Venta Silurum"; and Gwent, i.e., See also M.I.S., 295. The first Christian missionary to the Picts, St. Fernan, a disciple of Paladius, died here in 431 A.D. • R.H.L., 422. •S.C.P., 153, as late as the twelfth century A.D. |