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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 “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.2. 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.”

2 [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 g, and Ed. V-P., i, 1941, 38.

+P.E.C. 3, p. xili., notes that those Wans’ Dykes which have been excavated were “* Roman ”’ or“ post-Roman ’’ in the cultural objectsfound. 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.

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