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6o Symbolism of the East and West
this family may have adopted this symbol as a play upon their
name, or what seems perhaps more likely, that the name was
derived from the crest. We have thus endeavoured to trace
the outcome of the Trinacria of Sicily, and of the three-legged
Manx-Man from the Scandinavian triskele of the Bronze Age
(See Plate I, fig 12) and the Roman type of the same symbol
with the serpents' heads. A singular superstition exists still
in some parts of England. In Gloucestershire and in Here-
fordshire it is a not uncommon circumstance to see on the
e.xternal walls of some of the older houses one or two pieces
of hoop iron of the forms (1) and sometimes as /^ — \ /^
in (2). It seems evident that they cannot V Y
render much, if an)', support to the ^ t-A^
(2) building, since they are bolted to it at one '''
point only. An interesting explanation regarding the virtue
which the common people attach to these irons was given a
few years ago by an old servant of our family, a Gloucester-
shire man, who died at an advanced age : his years went
with the century. When asked the reason of their S form,
he replied, " that the irons were made thus in order to protect
the house from fire, as well as from falling- down." On beinor
told this, a lady friend, who in her childhood resided in
Camberwell, when it was not the populous suburb it has
since become, said, " she well remembered one of their
women servants giving the same reason for their presence
on the house. The late professor, Sir Charles Newton, in
a lecture delivered in December 1893, o" t^^e monuments
of Lycian art, alludes to an interesting series of Lycian silver
coins, which he refers to the period between the conquest
of Lycia under Cyrus and the overthrow of the Persian