t now,
save one singular fact, namely, that there were two Godivas in the
cavalcade, and one of them was black. Southam was part of the property
possessed by Earl Leofric; and it has been suggested that this is enough
to account for the commemoration of Godgifu. It would no doubt be an
excellent reason for affixing her renowned name to a periodical ceremony
already performed there. But it would hardly be a reason for
commemorating her extortion of privileges in which the inhabitants of
Southam did not share; and it would leave the black lady unexplained.
She may, indeed, have been a mere travesty, though the hypothesis would
be anything but free from difficulty. Here, again, if we have recourse
to the comparison of ceremonies, we may obtain some light. Among the
tribes of the Gold Coast of Africa the wives of men who have gone to war
make a daily procession through the town. They are stark naked, painted
all over with white, and decorated with beads and charms. Any man who is
found in the town is attacked and driven away. And on the occasion of a
battle the women imitate the actions the men are thought to be
performing, with guns, sticks, and knives. The Gold Coast is a long way
off; but not only do black women there paint themselves white in their
sacred rites, white women in Britain have painted themselves, if not
black, at least a dark blue. Pliny records that both matrons and
unmarried girls among the Britons in the first century of the Christian
era were in the habit of staining themselves all over with the juice of
the woad; and he adds that, thus rivalling the swarthy hue of the
AEthiopians, they go on these occasions in a state of nature. We are
sometimes taught that when the English invaded Britain, the natives whom
they found here were all driven out or massacred. There are, however,
many reasons for doubting that this wholesale destruction was as
complete as has been imagined. The name of Coventry betrays in its
termination a Celtic element; and this could hardly have entered into it
had there not been in the neighbourhood a considerable British-speaking
population. What is more likely than that at Southam this population
continued and preserved its customs, and that one of such customs was
that very religious rite of which Pliny speaks? Unhappily he tells us
nothing about the rite itself, nor the deity in whose honour it was
performed. But it would not involve a great stretch of fancy to suppose
that in the b