From: The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Robert Graves, Undated.
Chapter Four: The White Goddess, p. 56.
Since the close connexion here suggested between ancient British, Greek, and Hebrew religion will not be easily accepted, I wish to make it immediately clear that I am not a British Israelite or anything of that sort.
My reading of the case is that at different periods in the second millennium BC a confederacy of mercantile tribes, called in Egypt "the People of the Sea," were displaced from the Aegean area by invaders from the north-east and south-east; that some of these wandered north, along already established trade-routes, and eventually reached Britain and Ireland; and that others wandered west, also along established trade-routes, some elements reaching Ireland by way of North Africa nd Spain.
Still others invaded Syria and Canaan, among them the Philistines, who captured the shrine of Hebron in southern Judaea from the Edomite clan of Caleb; but the Calebites ("Dog-men"), allies of the Israeli tribe of Judah, recovered it about two hundred years later and took over a great part of the Philistine region at the same time.
These borrowings were eventually harmonized in the Pentateuch with a body of Semitic, Indo-European and Asiatic myth which composed the religious traditions of the mixed Israelite confederacy.
The connection, then between the early myths of the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Celts is that all three races were civilized by the same Aegean people whom they conquered and absorbed.
And this is not merely antiquarian interest, for the popular appeal of modern Catholicism, is, despite the patriarchal Trinity and the all-male priesthood, based rather on the Aegean Mother-and-Son religious tradition, to which it has slowly reverted, than on its Aramaean or Indo-European "warrior-god" elements.
Antiquarian: relating to or dealing in antiques or rare books.
Began to go down this rabbit hole when I first came across
and began to read The White Goddess
by Robert Graves
literary cycles (mythos)
A literary cycle is a group of stories focused on common figures, often (though not necessarily) based on mythical figures or loosely on historical ones. Cycles which deal with an entire country are sometimes referred to as matters. A fictional cycle is often referred to as a mythos. Matter of Britain, e.g. the Arthurian tales; Matter of France.
The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. The 12th-century Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), widely popular in its day, is a central component of the Matter of Britain.
Because "myth" is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted for "mythos" instead. "Mythos" now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a body of interconnected myths or stories, especially those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. It is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies, such as the world building of H. P. Lovecraft.
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages for the world.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (US: August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of Anglo-American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "Cthulhu" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Richard L. Tierney, a writer who also wrote Mythos tales, later applied the term "Derleth Mythos" to distinguish Lovecraft's works from Derleth's later stories, which modify key tenets of the Mythos. Authors of Lovecraftian horror in particular frequently use elements of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.
Lovecraft's work, mostly published in pulp magazines, never had the same sort of influence on literature as his high-modernist literary contemporaries such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. However, his impact is still broadly and deeply felt in some of the most celebrated authors of contemporary fiction. The fantasias of Jorge Luis Borges display a marked resemblance to some of Lovecraft's more dream-influenced work. Borges also dedicated his story, "There Are More Things" to Lovecraft, though he also considered Lovecraft "an involuntary parodist of Poe."
The book.
Introduction.
Chapter One. Poets and Gleeman.
Chapter Two. The Battle of the Trees.
Chapter Three. Dog, Roebuck and Lapwing.
Chapter Four: The White Goddess.
Chapter Five. Gwion's Riddle.
Chapter Six. A Visit To Spiral Castle.
Chapter Seven: Gwion's Riddle Solved.
Chapter Eight:
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