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As I was going to St. Ives (British History)
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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As I was going to St. Ives...
...I uncovered a conspiracy.

I was looking at what the Victoria County History has to say about ancient earthworks in the county of Bedford. 'Ancient' was a catch-all term, so I'm still looking up the latest datings, but the immediate points of interest are:

a) "Waulud's Bank" is given as the alternative to Wallud Bank, which is pretty much the clincher for "Walled Bank".

b) Waulud's Bank is said to be a unique D-shaped enclosure, with the river forming the straight side; and for it's age, that may well be true. But at a later date, D-shaped enclosures are not at all uncommon: if anything, they're characteristic of (certain) Viking settlements here and in Scandinavia. The interesting thing is that Waulud's Bank at the source of the Lea was one of the defined points on the boundary of the Danelaw.

c) When the VCH was written, the Wellhead of the Lea, now known as Five Springs, was known for its seven springs. We've discussed the "true source" issue before: it seems that King Alfred designated Wellhead/Five Springs as the source, still marked on the Ordnance Survey map, perhaps because, as it strikes me, the river was probably navigable all the way to Waulud's Bank.


Anyway, some of the earthworks around and about are on the River Ivel. Funny name. Hard to find anything definitive on it: some say it means fork {V = F and L = R?}; some say it's also rendered Yeo per the several rivers Yeo in the West Country. Yeo is supposed to be Saxon for river or water ("cf. French l'eau"). {If it was Yeo to the Saxons, how did it turn to Givel in Domesday and back to Yeo nowadays...?} Whether river or fork, why aren't there zillions of Ivels and Yeos all over the country?

Never mind. I noticed that the Ivel joins the Great Ouse and flows through St. Ives, so I thought that was worth a look. And that's where the "conspiracy" arises. There are 3 St. Ives in England:

i) Cambridgeshire, on the Great Ouse. An important market town: hence the riddle. Known as Slepe until some bright spark decided some bones they dug up belonged to St. Ivo. Allegedly.
ii) Dorset. Sleepy retirement village near the New Forest. Barely warrants a mention.
iii) Cornwall, on the coast. Formerly Porth Ia {Plenty of scope for pursuing a Yeo = Ia connection, no doubt.}. The Legend is that Saint Ia crossed the Irish Sea on a pickled cabbage leaf, was turfed out of the first place she landed by Customs and welcomed with open arms by the second (though she was later martyred there).

Note that

i) St. Ives is near Cambridge.
ii) St. Ives is near Canford Bottom.
iii) St. Ives is near Camborne.

All Cam + riverine term. {Although orthodoxy denies Camborne is "Cam(b) bourn/stream". Rather than Anglo-Saxon camb for hill spur, they say it's from Celtic cambo for bend in river -- which, being a long way into Cornwall, it might well be.}

And note that

i) St. Ives is named for St. Ivo, a Persian hermit.
ii) St. Ives is named for St. Ivo, Patron Saint of Brittany, lawyers and orphans.
iii) St. Ives is named for St. Ia (or Hia), a clearly mythical virgin who arrived in a boat without oars.

Ivo was either a Persian or a Breton, depending on who you ask. Interesting that there's a Welsh myth that they came from Persia to found Troy and then Wales... And interesting that Wilkens says Brittany was allied to Troy.

The name Ivo, Yves, Yvon, Yvette, Erwan, Ivor, Igor and the rest come from iv, i.e. yew. {Cf. Yeo.}

Since V = U, iv can be pronounced "yew". But if you pronounce U "uh", then iv is "Ia".

So, the same story is told three times over, across the south of England. {More or less equally spaced, too. Where do those ancient trackways go...?} And to cap it off, the only place left called Slepe is also in Dorset, only about 15 miles from St. Ives!

KomoriKid, Keimpe and other Wilkensians might also be interested to note that Tempsford, at the confluence of the Ivel and the Great Ouse, was written Tamiseforde in Domesday, supposedly meaning "ford on the road to the Thames" (i.e. the Great North Road out of London) which seems utterly unlikely but begs interesting questions about what these rivers' names refer to.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Utterly fascinating, Dan. I s'pose you noted that Waluud might as easily be a corruption of "well-head" as of "walled".

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?


But what does it really mean?
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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This is what I had to say about it last year...

====================

A Man with Seven Wives.

Obviously then, his wives are seven females. Do we know any other famous groups of seven females?

The Pleiades. The Seven Sisters.

Are all the man's wives sisters?

According to this crackpot site...

The Pleiades, or 'Seven Sisters' were a very important seasonal marker to all ancient peoples living in the northern hemisphere and Geoffrey of Monmouth has some cause to mention them in his 'Prophecies of Merlin' (which may nowadays be found as part of his The History of the Kings of Britain).

But are there not other "Seven Sisters?"

Yes. A number of stone circles have been called by the name "seven sisters." There's one in Ireland for instance.

There is an apparent stone barrow called the Seven Sisters located in Durdham Down.

There are also Seven Sisters in Sussex -- "The Seven Sisters is the name given to the chalk cliffs lying between Cuckmere Haven and Beachy Head on the Sussex Downs."

There's also a place called "Seven Sisters" "near Neath, Glam."

There's a fellow in Corwall who is building his own stone circle which he calls "The Seven Sisters." Most curiously, he has placed an eighth stone at the center which he says "represents man." From where did he get this notion? This was in fact what I had expected to find in the ancient stone circles -- and eigth stone representing the "Man" with seven wives.

What do all of these Seven Sisters have in common? Well...none of them are going to St. Ives. They're not going anywhere!
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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And I continued...

=====================

Looking at this site (Standing Stones of Cornwall) I discovered that there's a St. Ives near Cornwall and, also, "Cornwall is justly noted for its prehistoric stone circles, megalithic tombs and curious rock formations." Among these is one group known as "The Merry Maiden Stones."

There are 19 of these though.

But none of 'em are going to St. Ives.

================

All this led on into Robin Hood. But that all deserves its own thread perhaps. Or maybe we can add Robin to the Arthur discussion?
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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By the way...the total number of "kits, cats, sacks, wives" is 2800. But of course, none of them are going to St. Ives.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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The St. Ives jingle refers to the Cambridgeshire St. Ives, according to Google anyway, and it boasted a "premiere fair" as a result of a charter granted by Henry I. Cats were probably prized as rat-catchers, especially during plague outbreaks.

Could Wallud have any connection with Wold, as in Stow-on-the-Wold, another town which, "until recent times", was supplied with water from springs underneath the town?
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Mick Harper
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Cats probably prized as rat-catchers, especially during plague outbreaks.

Pfooey. Rats' (fleas) weren't known to be involved with the plague until the twentieth century. (Nor were they necessarily right in the twentieth century, in my opinion.) Cats (and dogs) were in fact routinely killed when plague broke out.

However, cats are involved as witches' familiars, and the number seven (seventh son of a seventh son etc...what is the status of a son of a seventh wife?) is similarly 'mystical'.

Could Wallud have any connection with Wold, as in Stow-on-the-Wold, another town which, "until recent times", was supplied with water from springs underneath the town?

Good point. We still haven't got to the bottom of why the Megalithics were obsessed with peripatetic water sources.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Good point.

Wold seems a bit general to me -- "bank on the downs" -- but possible.

Note that "wallud" is a spelling of walled, but would be a corruption of wellhead.

We still haven't got to the bottom of why the Megalithics were obsessed with peripatetic water sources.

NB. My wife recently noticed that mirror = mere, as in lake, smooth water surface, mystic portal, scrying... all that stuff. At the very least, the Celts and the Greeks were into this, innit.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Going back to the seven sisters, he said that originally the Wellhead of the Lea had seven springs. Were there really seven or was it wish fulfillment, a sort of celestial symmetry?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Going back to the seven sisters, he said that originally the Wellhead of the Lea had seven springs. Were there really seven or was it wish fulfillment, a sort of celestial symmetry?

Good question. The diagram in the Victoria County History doesn't show 7 individual springs, but it does show 3 branches in the immediate vicinity of Waulud's Bank. There are now only 2, so it looks like a little re-engineering has been done. The two remaining channels appear to drain into the river rather than out of it -- at least until the area was built up and the rain catchment changed -- which means the "true source" is some few miles further along from that marked clearly on the maps. Perhaps the source is marked there for mystical reasons -- seven and springs are about as mystical as you can get -- perhaps the same mystical reasons that the enclosure was built there in the first place.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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According to www.rhymes.org.uk/as_i_was_going_to_st_ives.htm the "St Ives" in question is indeed the one near Cornwall where are found the Merry Maiden Stones.
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Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Getting back to St Ives and the River Ivel.

Why is SEVEN significant?
Seven springs at the Wellhead
The rhyme is in sequences of Seven (wives, sacks, cats etc.)

Wilkens equates the rivers Ivel and the Hiz (which could be considered as one river) to be the Trojan river Heptaporos which literally means 'Seven fords'. It's the 'Seven' that's important.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Why is SEVEN significant?

The short answer (or non-answer) is that seven is always significant. In the Who Were The Anglo-Saxons Really? thread I equated seven to

sept/septum/sect... sex/section/seax... the Virgin Number... "the cut-off number"... 7 looks like a slash on purpose... sever... severe... River Severn... sew... hew... Devon... even... Avon... eve/even/evening... every... Iberians/Hibernians.

Notice that the numbers 1 to 10 are cut by the Golden Section between 6 and 7.
The numbers 1 to 12 are cut by the Golden Section between 7 and 8.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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So this must be why the seventh son of a seventh son is thought to have magical powers.

BTW -- in my own family, my Great Grandfather was the seventh son of a seventh son and it is widely reported that he posessed the power to stop bleeding with the simple laying on of hands. I have no idea what to make of the legend but my own father, who knew my Great Grandfather of course, reports the story of his grandfather "healing" a haemophiliac who was reportedly dying on the operating table (saved only because the surgeon was aware of the local stories told of my great grandfather's healing powers).

It's probably all just made up. But when you see how Phi is interwoven into the very fabric of the universe you can't help but begin to appreciate our cosmos as a magical place where everything becomes possible (a view made all the more compelling when one is continuously confronted by the failures of dry science to understand our world).

Regardless, our ancestors clearly believed that a seventh son of a seventh son was a magical persona. So why the seventh of a seventh? Why a son only and not daughters as well? Is it related to the fraternal "struggle in the womb" science appears on the cusp of discovering?
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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I finally went back and located the original mention I made of the pleaides and stone circles on the GHMB. Unfortunately, many of the URLs in this ancient post no longer work.

I am wondering if anyone here is familiar with "The Nine Ladies" stone circle and whether this formation might be close to the Merry Maidens we were initially discussing.

Also...I would like to locate that map I originally referenced. I've not been able to find anything similar as yet.
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