THE FIRE KINDLERS - CHAPTER 1

FROM AEGEAN SEAS TO ALBION'S SHORES

December 1938.

Members of our family who have referred to the various dictionaries of English names have no doubt felt rather disappointed at the rather commonplace derivations suggested by the authors for our name. One authority sees the name grouped with "Perkiss", "Perkins", and "Perkes", derived from the good old Anglo-Saxon word "perch", meaning a small person who dwelt on or near a perch. Another, more imaginative, would interpret the name as meaning a little son of Peter. He quotes Will Langland as using the word "Perkin" with this meaning, son of Peter, and reasons that "-ie" as a suffix in old English meant a small person, e.g., "Willie", and that the "e" was dropped and the "s" added for the sake of euphony. A more recent and I believe more accurate authority states that the name is not Anglo-Saxon but that of a European immigrant, but he gives no clue as to its meaning.

Obviously these are all speculative theories, the result of perfectly logical deductive reasoning. They never satisfied me. I have always had an intuition that a name so ancient, and which has been so carefully preserved throughout the ages by those who have borne it must have a meaning of deep significance. I believe that I have evidence to prove that my intuition was right.

Partly as a result of my researches into the origin of our family and partly by accident I have discovered a meaning which is so obvious as to exclude all doubt from my mind.

The late Lord Palmerston said of us that we were the oldest of Anglo-Saxon families. No doubt that accounts for the dictionaries of nomenclature taking it for granted that the name had an Anglo-Saxon meaning. Records show that the name has been in Britain as long at least as the Anglo-Saxons. It is in the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror. And, in the record known as King Alfred's Doomsday Book, the name, spelled as it is today, Purkis, appears as the holder of considerable property in what is now known as the New Forest, where descendants are yet dwelling today. I think Lord Palmerston could not have been personally acquainted with the family or he would not have mistaken us for Anglo-Saxons. It is most remarkable that after two thousand years in England, in which time the r e surely must have been some inter-marriage with Anglo-Saxons, there is so little in type, appearance or character that is suggestive of the Anglo-Saxon. The Purkis family are generally dark in hair and complexion; they have finely built, well-proportioned bodies, high foreheads, and long, narrow heads.

An archaeologist friend, who was regarded as an expert in classifying skulls and skeletons, recognized our type as Greek, without any hesitation whatever.

The character confirms this also. We are liberty-loving, public spirited, deep thinkers, aesthetic, cultured, fond of travel, as were the Greeks.

I never seriously entertained the "Greek theory" of our origin, however, until one day, in the Reference Library at Toronto, I chanced upon a record of a fragment of a drama by Aeschylus entitled IlpoµvØevð Ilvpkaeus. At once the meaning of our name became clear, as well as the reason why it had been preserved so carefully for over two milleniums Written letter for letter in English characters, the title of the drama would be "Prometheus Purkaeus". Now, the diphthong " ae " is pronounced "i" and substituted with this letter as a rule in English. Names ending with a "us" are given an " is " sound and generally have come to be written so, and so we have "Purkis" as the precise English equivalent of " Ilvpkaeus." The meaning of the title of the play is "Prometheus, the Fire Kindler", or more literally, "Forethought, the Fire Kindler". Our ancestors have been known to have been engaged in ancient times in that most ancient of all crafts and industries, charcoal burning, and members of the family have adhered to it as a sacred tradition all through the ages, and are still engaged in it at the present day.

Prometheus, it will be recalled, brought fire from Olympus in a hollow reed and gave it to mortals, according to Greek mythology, and instructed man in its use. Thus it will be seen that the first Fire Kindlers were the founders of human civilization.

Among all primitive peoples, those whose prerogative it was to kindle fire, or to guard it, were priests, and the primitive structure that sheltered the fire from the wind and rain became the first temple.

The Prytaneum is the centre of civilization whence each and all the wondrous arts whereby man has enriched the world have sprung. The Fire Kindlers who felled trees and burnt wood until experience taught them how to make coals that would glow and retain great heat were the pioneers of human industry.

It was then but a step to the making of tools, for, noticing the change in the nature of the soil where the fire had burnt, they were not long in learning how to smelt the iron ores and make instruments of metal.

From the Prytaneum also has come the awakening of man's spiritual nature. Fire, so mysterious so useful, so dreadful, was the object and centre of the earliest forms of worship; it was the connecting link between spirit and matter.

From the altar of Prometheus in Athens a torch race was run each year. Whenever the fire went out in the "Regia" of the temple of Vesta, all the offices of government stopped until the-fire was re-kindled.

No Greek soldiers ever went into battle without fire from the prytaneum being borne with them. When the Israelites journeyed across the wilderness the pillar of fire went before them. All the Greek colonists took fire with them from the altar of Hestia. The Fire Kindler, therefore, was perhaps the most important and certainly the most indispensible member of the primitive Greek community. He was at once a priest and a leader of industry. He also seems to have had a good deal to do with the government of the " Polis " in the earliest times.

As the history of our family is followed all down through the ages, it is most truly rernarkable how this ancient genius for leadership in religion, industry and local government asserts itself from time, to time.

Having been converted to the "Greek theory" I set out for England a few months later determined to hunt all over Hampshire for some possible Greek ancesto rs and for some clue as to how and why they came there. I little anticipated when I set sail how successful I should be, and how much I should learn. I knew that the Greeks had been in the habit of going to Cornwall for tin, and that they hauled it overland to the east coast. I had heard in school of Pytheas sailing around the British Isles in 325 B.C., but I had forgotten about it at the time. I planned to make a search of the ruins of Roman villas in the Isle of Wight, as well as the "Greek Road". However, it was to be at Winchester, where my father was born, while I was looking for family records of a much more recent date, that I was to find the object of my quest, the evidence of and the reason for a settlement of Greeks on England's shores.

It was at Winchester that I met Mr. Ward-Evans, Hon. Archaeologist of that city. He informed me that when excavations were being made for the erection of the new Woolworth Building, in the High Street, in the previous year, he had found fragments of hides, bone s of cattle, pieces of woven cloth, plants used for dyeing, Greek pottery, and many Greek coins. This, he said, was the remains of a Greek trading post. Two thousand years ago the River Itchen was navigable as far as Winchester. The city was no doubt f o unded on its present site on that account. The Greek traders sailed up the river and traded their rich woven cloths for hides with the "Belgae" who then inhabited those parts. They (the Belgae) were more civilized and better farmers than the British, an d soon their trade grew to such proportions that buyers settled there and bought up cattle and herbs as well as hides, and kept them there until the ships came in laden with goods from the Mediterranean.

These were the first free traders, the beginning of the "nation of shopkeepers". Mr. Ward-Evans believes from the evidence of relics as well as from the number of people of Greek type to be found in Hampshire that this Greek settlement must have been of considerable size. Beneath the high altar of the Cat hedral, in the crypt, can he seen the well of Apollo, believed by some to have been part of a temple of Apollo, erected by the Greeks.

Naturally, the Greeks when they went to settle in the cool Northern Isle, took their Fire-Kindler with them to keep them warm, and so we see the reason for the coming of our forefathers to Britain's shores as well as the commencement of the charcoal burning industry in Britain.

In addition to the perpetuation of the charcoal burning, the Purkis family have kept other fires burning down through the centuries.

They have ever kindled and kept alive in the hearts of their fellow countrymen the Grecian love of the good, the beautiful, and the true; they have fanned the flame of freedom; they have stood for justice and order.

As we further peruse the story of the Fire Kindlers we shall see how remarkably faithful they have been to that old Greek tradition - how they have

" caught the pure Promethean fire

"One from another, each crying as he went down

"To one that waited, crowned with youth and joy,

" 'Take thou the splendour, carry it out of sight,

"Into the great new age I must not know,

"Into the great new realm I must not tread'."

(Noyes).