In the generalization of ornament attempted in the first volume of
the 'Stones of Venice,' I supposed the Norman _zigzag_ (and with some
practical truth) to be derived from the angular notches with which the
blow of an axe can most easily decorate, or at least vary, the solid
edge of a square fillet. My good friend, and supporter, and for some
time back the single trustee of St. George's Guild, Mr. George Baker,
having come to Oxford on Guild business, I happened to show him the
photographs of the front of Iffley church, which had been collected
for this lecture; and immediately afterwards, in taking him through
the schools, stopped to show him the Athena of Ægina as one of
the most important of the Greek examples lately obtained for us by
Professor Richmond. The statue is (rightly) so placed that in looking
up to it, the plait of hair across the forehead is seen in a steeply
curved arch. "Why," says Mr. Baker, pointing to it, "there's the
Norman arch of Iffley." Sure enough, there it exactly was: and a
moment's reflection showed me how easily, and with what instinctive
fitness, the Norman builders, looking to the Greeks as their absolute
masters in sculpture, and recognizing also, during the Crusades, the
hieroglyphic use of the zigzag, for water, by the Egyptians, might
have adopted this easily attained decoration at once as the sign of
the element over which they reigned, and of the power of the Greek
goddess who ruled both it and them.

I do not in the least press your acceptance of such a tradition,
nor for the rest, do I care myself whence any method of ornament is
derived, if only, as a stranger, you bid it reverent welcome. But much
probability is added to the conjecture by the indisputable transition
of the Greek egg and arrow moulding into the floral cornices of Saxon
and other twelfth century cathedrals in Central France. These and