The Anathemata
The Lady of the Pool (continued)
[page 160]At the Fisher with the ring, ’pon Cornhill3
which was the first hill-site in Brutes Albion
to be made other for the lifted Sign.
Where ’Wellin Fletcher, Wildgoose Lane,a b’ ste’lyard merchants wharf, reckoned to see Old King Cole him solid self standing next Lucy’s stone at service time, in a candidate’s vesture;b about when they fetch the big fair- garnished percher,c lighted to the fonted water, after the fourfold and blest dividing of it, to conjoin with, make quick and fertile, that innocent creature; just ’fore they start up the Kirry lees’nsd of the Whit Sat’d’y, cap ’n.1
Which fletcher’s skimble-skamble tale makes a’ honest body feel all ov’rishe an’ druidical: May the Sign fend me from his Welshery!
David Jones notes
3 In London usage the second syllable in ‘Cornhill’ takes the stress accent.
St Peter-upon-Cornhill was, in twelfth-century popular tradition, the oldest Christian church in London and was believed to have been the seat of the first metropolitans and to have been founded by ‘Lucius son of King Cole’.
A stone commemorating the legendary foundation by Lucius stood in the church in the sixteenth century and here druids were believed to have received baptism. What this curious tangle of legend reflects we do not know, but it is to be noted that the site is very near the accepted site of the basilica and chief forum of Roman London, on the higher ground east of the valley of the Walbrook. There is other high ground west of that stream and these twin acclivities have continued to determine the focal points: the Guildhall, the Old Bailey and St Paul’s on the one hand and the Leadenhall, Lloyds and the Royal Exchange on the other. It is probable that this site has very ancient sacred associations, Christian and pre-Christian Roman and, conceivably, pre-Roman.
1 The ritual of blessing the font at Easter is repeated at Whitsun; the Paschal candle extinguished on Ascension Day is specially re-lit to be again immersed in the newly blessed water in the ‘womb of this divine font’ as the liturgy says.
additional notes
a ’Wellin Fletcher: Not, I think, an actual historical person. Wellin = Llewelyn, a generic Welshman, who like the Welsh bosun earlier, tells tall stories — though the Wildgoose Lane where he lives by the stilyard merchants wharf is indeed mentioned in Stow. (A stilyard or steelyard is a simple balance for weighing foodstuffs etc.) A fletcher is one who fletches arrows, i.e. adds feathers, often of the goose, to increase aerodynamic stability; hence a suggestion of the surname for the Welshman.
The Welsh did indeed have a reputation for skimble-skamble: cf. King Henry IV Part I, Act 3 scene 1 lines 147-154. Hotspur is speaking of Owen Glendower:
. . . sometime he angers me
With telling me of the mouldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith.
b candidate’s vesture: Old King Cole is about to be baptised.
c fair-garnished percher: the Paschal candle of DJ note 1. ‘percher’ because it is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, often represented by a dove.
d Kirry lees’n: lavenderese for Kyrie Eleison.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
e ov’rish: (all-overish) nervouse, uneasy, apprehensive.
comments
Here we leave the seafaring tales and return to the celebration of the feast of the Holy Cross in London churches which we left on page 128.