246 THE ANCIENT LABYRINTH OR MAZE AT SAFFRON WALDEN.
These labyrinths or Mazes, in various forms, can be traced back to a very
remote period, until their origin is lost. By some antiquarians they are supposed
to have had their origin in the plan of the ancient City of Troy. Our Welsh
descendants of the Ancient Britons tell us that their ancestors originally came
from Troy ; but let this be as it may, it is a curious coincidence that the Welsh
shepherds to this day cut upon the turf a labyrinth called by them Caerdroia, i.e.
the Walls or Citadel of Troy, upon which they play a game that is supposed to
commemorate their Trojan origin. We are also told, in Gough's edition of
"Camden's Britannia," that the Maze at Pimpern, in Dorset, bore the designation
of "Troy Town," and plenty of evidence might be adduced, had we time, to show
that the ancient city of Troy in name, if not in any other way, was connected
with these labyrinths.4
Among the ancient Egyptians, these labyrinths or mazes took the form of caverns
for the burial of their dead.
The Maze or labyrinth is found on the reverses of some of the Greek coins.
These are supposed to represent that famous one that formerly existed at Crete, of
which Pliny gives us an account.
At Comberton, near Cambridge, there exists a Maze similar to the one at Saffron
Walden, and Wright (in a note to his "History of Essex," vol. ii, p. 124) informs
us that the inhabitants of that parish held a feast at this spot every three years, at
about the time of Easter, from which fact he adduces the idea that they were sacred
symbols among the ancient inhabitants of this country, possibly from the days of
the ancient Britons. However this may be, it seems that in the course of time
these mythological labyrinths or mazes were adopted by the Christians as an
emblem of the complicated folds of sin by which man is environed, and these de-
signs were consequently introduced into churches. The remains of the illustrations
of this idea are handed down to our time in the designs on the pavements, &c., in
many churches and cathedrals on the Continent.
After a time these mazes were made to serve other purposes ; for we find, when
the period of the Crusades began to wane, and the actors in those remarkable ad-
ventures were drawing their part of the history of the Church to a close, other
sacred spots nearer home and much easier of access than Jerusalem had been made
centres for the attractions of pilgrims. When, again, these had all passed their
meridian, and began to be looked upon as obsolete by their lethargic devotees,
then it was that the Church in its indulgence fixed upon these labyrinths or Mazes
as instruments through which the performance of penance for non-fulfilment of
vows of pilgrimages to the Holy Land might be performed. Ultimately the mazes
were generally used as the means of penance for sins of omission and commission,
penitents being ordered to follow out all the sinuous courses of these labyrinths
upon their hands and knees, and to repeat so many prayers in the circuit at fixed
stations, and others when they reached the centre. Such practices in modern
times have been replaced by others more in accordance with the march of in-
figures some of them, as noted; One in the vicinity of Solway, Cumberland, one formerly existing
on Ripon Common (figured ; diameter 60 feet), and one at Asenby, in Yorkshire ; at Alkborough
(figured diameter, 44 feet,), Lough, Appleby, and Horncastle, all in Lincolnshire; one formerly
existing near St. Ann's Well, Stutton (figured ; diameter 51 feet), and at Clifton, Notts ; one at
Wing (figured ; diameter, 40 feet), and Lyddington,in Rutland ; one at Boughton Green (figured;
diameter, 37 feet), Northamptonshire; one at Comberton (called the "Mazes") Cambridgeshire ;
at Saffron Walden (figured), Essex ; one at St. Catherine's Hill (figured ; called the "Mize-
Maze" ), Winchester, Hants ; one at West Ashton, Wilts ; on the Cotswold Hills, Gloucester-
shire; one formerly existing at Pimpern (figured) and at Leigh (called the "Miz-Maze") in
Yetminster, Dorset.—Ed.
4 "The herdsmen still cut on the grassy plains of Burgh and Rackliff Marshes a labyrinthine
figure, termed 'the Walls of Troy' ("Notes and Queries,' ser. ii. vol. v. p. 212),—Ed.