Sept. 8. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



191 



audi Connor ; and Argollcensls is Napoli di Mal- 

 vasia, in Greece. I cannot point to any worlc 

 where bishoprics, as they existed in the four- 

 teenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth centuries, can be 

 found specially enumerated; but lists of all bishop- 

 rics are given in various books on Canon Law, for 

 instance in the Prompta Bibliotheca of Ferraris. 



F. C. H. 



PRIESTS HIDlNG-PIiACES, ETC. 



(Vol. xii., pp. 14. 149.) 



Having perused with pleasure the notices of 

 priests' hiding-places which have appeared in 

 " N. & Q.," I thought a brief account of a visit 

 which I paid some few years since to the old 

 manor-house of Chelvey, co. Somerset, might not 

 be without interest to some of your readers. 



Chelvey Court stands at a short distance from 

 the Bristol and Exeter railway, and was once a 

 very extensive pile of building, surrounded by a 

 park which contained a warren and swanery. It 

 has undergone the fate of many a fine old mansion : 

 fully half has entirely disappeared, the remaining 

 portion is converted into a farm-house ; but many 

 of the unoccupied rooms are covered with the 

 accumulated dust of years, the ceilings partly 

 fallen in, the wainscoting stripped from the walls, 

 and the windows blocked up. Over the porch 

 are the arms of Tynte ; but that family did not 

 possess the manor until Edward Tynte, who died 

 in 1629, became lord of it, as the inscription upon 

 his tomb in the adjacent church tells us, "by his 

 own purchase ; " and portions of the house seem to 

 be of an older date. 



Having heard a vague report that a movable 

 panel had been accidentally discovered in this 

 house, I inquired whether there was any truth in 

 the statement, expecting to find it was only one 

 of the tales of secret doors and passages which one 

 constantly hears of in old houses, and so rarely 

 (comparatively) finds. In this instance the report 

 proved to be correct ; and, after having passed 

 through many dilapidated apartments, I was 

 shown into a small panelled room, in which I was 

 informed the discovery had been made. My con- 

 ductress, however, professed not to have examined 

 the aperture, but said they closed it up again 

 hastily, and had not since been able to find the 

 spring by which the panel was opened. For some 

 unexplained reason she was evidently disinclined 

 to have any farther investigation made in the 

 matter, but led me to the adjoining room, which 

 was much larger, and panelled in exactly the 

 same manner : here she showed me a cupboard, 

 the floor of which (now nailed down) had been 

 formerly movable ; underneath was a short flight 

 of steps, which again ascended, and led to a pretty 

 long but very narrow room at the back of the 

 No, 306.] 



fireplace. This hiding room was, she informed 

 me, furnished with a piece of iron projecting from 

 the wall, to hold a candle, and was also provided 

 with a small fireplace. W. A. 



Bourton-on-the-Water, co. Gloucester. — I shall 

 be much obliged if your correspondent A. C. M., 

 who has given so interesting an account of the 

 secret chamber in the ancient manor-house of 

 Bourton-on-the-Water, can inform me whether 

 any engraving or drawing of the old house, before 

 any part of it was demolished, or of the old 

 church, now exists. W. A. 



" CTBELE AND " SIBYLLA. 



(Vol.xii., p. 110.) 



Faber, on the Cabiri (vol. li. p. 431.), does not 

 justify his notion that the priestesses of Cybele 

 were Sibyllse. This is an original idea of his own, 

 unknown to antiquity. The word KvStiXis, in the 

 Cassandra of Lycophron (v. 1170.), is thus illus- 

 trated by the scholiast Tzetzes : 



"'O 'iTTTTiova^ Kvj3r)\t(' ttji/ 'Feav Keyei, rrapa to ec Ku^e'AA^, 

 iroAei ^puytas, Tifiacrdai, ovtos Se toi' TreKeKvy." 



"Hipponax calls Rhea Cybele, because she was honoured 

 in Gi/bella, a city of Phrygia: the word Cyhelis means 

 hatchet." 



Cybele was the wife of Saturn=Xp($i'os=Time, 

 and she represented mystically the cultivated 

 earth*: hence the myth that Time (Chronos) 

 devoured all the children f he had by his sister 

 and wife, the Earth=Kt;g7jAr)='P6a (i. e. he de- 

 voured all the productions of the earth), except- 

 ing Z€i(s=:Jnpiter=the air, Neptune=water, and 

 Pluto=the kingdom of the dead=a57jj, all three 

 clearly beyond the consumptive powers of ancient 

 Time, who was himself destroyed, and was suc- 

 ceeded by these three ruling powers in nature, 

 Jupiter (the air) taking possession of the earth. J 



The priests of Cybele=Bona Dea were well 

 known as Corylantes or GalU, characterised in 

 pems by the sickle (Winckelmann, Gesch. Steine 

 des Stosch, p. 324.), proper to Saturn, and em- 

 blematic of time and of emasculation. 



Cybele is represented as a pregnant woman 

 sitting on a lioness, the right hand elevated ; on 

 the one side the sun, on the other the crescent 

 moon ; also, with lightning in her right hand ; a 

 lioness, sometimes standing, sometimes walking ; 

 a sceptre in the left hand, and a star under her. 

 Sometimes on a car drawn by four lions ; also 



* Kv;8r)Ai?, the hatchet, is the first implement of ini- 

 tiatory civilisation now, as it was in the mythic ages. 



t Hesiod., Theog. v. 446. &c. ; Apollod. i. 1. § 5, &c. ; 

 Pausan. x. 24. § 5. 



J In Him we live and move and have our being." — 

 Acts xvii. 28. 



