The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

VANS & FOMOR ABORIGINES 107

prehistoric monoliths and series of nine standing stones, called “ Maiden” Stones or ‘“‘ The Nine Maidens,” still standing in many parts of Ireland and Britain. These Maiden Stones symbolized the old Van Matriarchs, who are called ‘‘ The Nine Mothers” in the Eddas, and who were afterwards idealized into Virgin Mothers and accorded divine honours by their Van votaries. And their idol-stones are often decorated with effigies of the Serpent.

This now appears to explain the prehistoric Van origin of the “ Maiden Stones” of the pre-Aryan period, so numerous throughout the land; as, for instance, ‘“The Maiden Stone”’ standing at the foot of Mt. Bennachie to the west of the Newton Stone, and also “ The Serpent Stone’’ monolith with large sculptured Serpent, which stood not far from the site of the Newton Stone, and now placed alongside the latter. It also accounts for the first time for the frequency of the name “ Bride’ in early Christian Celtic Church names in Scottish Pict-land as well as Ireland, as “ Kil-Bride’’ or “ Church of Bride.” It now becomes apparent that on the introduction of Christianity into Britain the old pagan Matriarchist goddess “ Brigid” or “ Bride ’’ of the aborigines was for proselytizing purposes admitted into the Roman Catholic Church and canonized as a Christian saint, and appropriate legends regarding her invented.

The descendants of the Irish Matriarch Cesair and her horde appear to have been called Fomor, or Umor.+ This seems evidenced by the tradition that Cesair’s was the first migration of people into Ireland and that the second was that of Part-olon, and that the latter was opposed by the ferocious tribe of ‘‘ demons ” called Fomor.

The tribal name “ Fomor’’ has been attempted to be explained by conjectural Celtic etymologies variously as “ Giants’ and conflictingly as ‘‘ Dwarfs under the Sea.’ “ Fomor,” I find, however, is obviously a dialectic variant of the name of a chief of a clan of the dwarf tribes of the Vans,

? Also written Ughmor. K.H.1., 68., etc.; and see R.H.L., 583.

* The Fomors have been conflictingly called both ‘* giants ” and “‘ dwarfs under the sea’’ by different Celtic scholars seeking conjecturally for

a meaning of the name by means of modern Aryan-Celtic speech, but these meanings are admittedly mere guesses. See R.H.L., 591.