The figures beneath each entry give reference numbers for the Bibliography
As Iman Wilkens reveal extraordinary theories concerning the classical works THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY by Homer and their origin, so does Comyns Beaumont shake the generally assumptions of the most 'well-known' works from the antiquity in his book THE RIDDLE OF PREHISTORIC BRITAIN published in 1945. To bring the reader the optional clues from this book we record here the author's foreword in full: 'At this philosophical study envisages an entirely new outlook on the past history of the world in which the British Isles emerge as the predominant influence, I owe it to the reader to afford some explanation of how I came to venture so ambitious an effort. Over thirty years ago I must confess that I stumbled rather than deliberately walked into a recognition that the history of remote days as passed down was based on false premises in regard to the most famous ancient peoples, both in regard to geography and chronology. I was brought to the conviction that the Atlantic and not the Mediterranean was the focus of world civilization, and as I pursued my researches I found to my own astonishment that this path led me ultimately to the direction of the British Isles, and that they, with the Scandinavian Peninsula - originally itself an island - emerged from obscurity as the true motherland of the Aryan or Nordic Race, the biblical Adamites, and dominated the ancient world long before the Flood of Noah. My investigations had started with the puzzle of the drowning of the supposedly lost island of Atlantis, but as the search continued with an open mind gradually the quest narrowed to one infinitely nearer home, and eventually assumed the proportions which Plato ascribed to it as an inland-continent from whence the 'continent opposite' - namely America - was approached by the way of islands. 'Atlantis', in a word, stood revealed as the British Islands, then of considerably greater size apart from Scandinavia, with her attendant isles, enjoying a delicious temperate clime, from whence was evolved the first of mankind, signifying the white blond race, the Aryan peoples, from whom the Greeks and other Celts - who migrated in part to the Mediterranean later - first arose.
Atlantis was drawn in one way or another into the vortex of the earliest Graeco-Phoenician myths of Oceanus, of the 'earth-shaker' Poseidon, the Gorgons, the Cyclops and others, all for definite reasons pointing to the North Atlantic Ocean. This, if correct, rules out the Canaries or Azores (as some have identified with Atlantis), or the regions of Morocco where the so-called Atlas Mountains are a misnomer altogether, but advances the British Isles and the Scandinavian mass, formerly at one with Northern Britain or separated only by a wider river and strait. In short, for a variety of reasons I was impelled to identify Atlantis with the British Isles. It transpired that the prehistory of the Atlanteans and the race of Adam possessed peculiar similarities. The supermen of Plato's island were drowned in a flood like the Adamites, the Giants of the old time, men of renown, the men whose thoughts became wholly evil, destroyed in what is called the Flood or universal Deluge. The cause advanced for their destruction was in effect the same in both cases, they being accused of having mastered too many of the secrets of, as we should say, science, or, as the ancients termed it, the gods. Their attainments, identifiable at least in part from various sources, gradually revealed a remarkable civilization, one in which flourished many and great walled cities, towns and villages, these often adorned with majestic temples and palaces; with main highways supported by multitudinous navigable canals and rivers; with a highly developed agriculture producing the fruits of the earth, while other tracts were used to rear horses, cattle, and sheep; with many ports and a mercantile marine which sailed the main to the most distant lands and brought home cargoes of wealth. It was divided into ten states like the ten tribes of Israel (of whom we really know so little), although one, the direct descendants of Atlas, hence Atlanteans, dominated the rest, and whose king or chief ruler was, Primus Inter Pares, an ecclesiastical monarch, a superman, in fact a divinity, regarded by all as a living God, the sole intermediary between the celestial deities and all human flesh. In his hands was all ecclesiastical and temporal power, and this theocrat, arch-magus, or, as described, 'His Anointed', was the most absolute despot the world has ever known, for he controlled not only the bodies but the minds of all from the highest to the lowest. All knowledge lay in his hands, delegated to those priests who were initiated into the sublime mysteries, whereby scientific knowledge was completely confined to the few of the highest caste and was made a profound mystery of mysteries. The day arrived when this civilization collapsed. To a considerable extent it was prefaced by signs of internal deterioration, the growth of tyranny, ambition, greed, and a slackening of moral principles. The ruling caste learned too much of nature's secrets and developed them for the purposes of selfish aims. They had mastered appliances of science to a degree which in several respects owed little to modern science, or, to avoid exaggeration, of a few decades ago, with the main difference that today the pursuit of science is open to all, whereas in the distant day an immence gulf lay between the knowledge of the priestly initiates, which was pronounced divine, and that of their subjects and slaves.
The day arrived when the closely guarded secrets of their magic arts in the use of fire and even of the air were betrayed to kings afar off and led to savage wars of invasion, where rival creeds and ambitions fought one another with bitter hatred. Meanwhile, threatened for some time by untoward meteorological happenings, such as strange plagues of insects, earthquakes, and volcanoes going into eruption, of a sudden the most terrible catastrophe afflicted this erstwhile happy land, struggling desperately against its invaders from the east. It what was we call the Flood of Noah, to the Hellenes the Deluge of Deucalion or Ogyges, and had other names besides. This prodigious event was by no means local and inundation was only one of its tremendous legacies to future generations. It approached earth from the celestial north-east and flung itself upon an unhappy world, shattering civilization at its very core. It mainly afflicted directly the northern regions of Europe, but with prodigious speed flung outliers in scattered portions of America. Its epicentre lay in Scandinavia and the British Isles, commemorated since by many an epic and legend placed geographically altogether wrongly by historians and theologists, and it established among other effects the region of the Greek and Celtic Hades, the Place of Burning, which can be identified. It caused directly the greatest havoc over an immense area such as mankind had never experienced before and has been spared since. It obliterated many landmarks and elevated others. It permanently affected the world's climate towards greater extremes of cold and damp, lengethened the solar year by enlarging the world's orbit. It shaped world history by compelling the flight of survivors to other less inhospitable climes and led in considerable degree to the diversion of the Aryans. It inundated the British Isles for a period to a great extent except the higher lands. It was the drowning of Atlantis.
The Flood immortalizes the collision of a fallen Planet, later termed Satan, actually a cometary body, with our Earth. It is a subject of drama such as metaphysicians have rarely dreamed of in their philosophy. Historians write of the dispersion of the Aryans without the faintest idea of the cause which drove them in great hordes from their primordial homes to distant regions.
Much of the classic and scripture history as it is interpreted, based on altogether false assumptions and a totally mistaken conception of the arena of this event, is necessarily at variance with fact. Even today our astronomers, with a few exceptions, ridicule the possibility that a celestial body, and certainly a comet, would be able to effect a disaster such as I have outlined, although the evidence of such potentiality is abundant. I have myself written two books on the subject which were more or less boycotted by the professional scientists to whom any theory opposed to their own dogma is apparently anathema. I made a lengthy study of the meteorology of the ancients, namely that of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Druids, who devoted much attention to this subject, as is not surprising, and it was full recognition of this vital aspect of celestial science which led me perforce to the study in detail of prehistory. With such a subject I have naturally employed a variety of classic and sacred records.
The history of pagan religions, based mainly on this Credo of their seers, has proved of considerable value, for the discarded deities such as Cronus-Saturn, the Tyrian Hercules, and Bacchus-Dionysus, in their various ways, offer a gold-mine of information related to the religious motives which guided their wise men in their aims. Other ancient gods of great account were, especially, Hermes, in a category all his own, Osiris and Apollo, and with these are wrapped up folk-lore, legends, customs, myths, and not least, perhaps, place-names. The reader will have recognized from these introductory words that if the earliest Aryan civilization as reflected in the Old Testament, the Greek, and other souces were centred in the north of Europe, and especially in the Scandinavian and British lands, it follows conversely that the present regions from whence our forefathers are believed to have derived their origin, that is to say in the Middle and Near East, Egypt and the Mediterranean countries, are credited with a civilization to which thay are in no sense entitled, and which they only inherited by migrations from the north.
As a matter of fact, anthropology has proved the correctness of this view again and again, showing that the white race never originally entered Europe from Asia. In such circumstances we should open our minds to the facts and realize that the ancient civilization of Ur of the Chaldeans, of the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the Greeks in its origins must have emanated from the north, where they can and should be traced to their true habitats. This is my endeavour, and to throw a new light on the great achievements of our remote ancestors, and thus to restore Britain to the proud position she may claim as the real motherland of world civilization, the heart of a once great Celtic Empire which taught the world.'
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Nedimean chief who settled in Great Britain and gave name to that country.
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Whenever the Romans occupied a new colony they were careful to propitiate the genius of the land. Britannia was the personified genia of Britain and was first depicted on a coin of Antoninus Pius (d. AD 161). Latterly, Britannia, with the attributes and weapons of Minerva, appeared on coins during the reign of Charles II in 1665, and became the symbol of the British Empire. She is the last remaining personification of Britain's native Sovereignty.
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Sole relics of Celtic empire, on its downfall; Maev, Grania, Findabair, Deirdre, and Boadicea, women who figure in myths of British Isles.
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As an Introduction to British Mythology, R. J. Stewart writes in his book THE WATERS OF THE GAP: British Mythology is a vast and complicated subject, as indeed is all mythology. How often have we heard the phrase... 'well, it's only a myth, after all...' or something similar? Many people, often quite intelligent people, think that myths are nothing more nor less than the idle fantasies of simple minds, the amusement of our ignorant ancestors who were not enlightened by technology or television. The word 'myth' is frequently used to mean 'that which is untrue', but a myth is by no means identical with a lie, and only very carefully constructed lies can emerge in time as myths by fitting into an existing mythical framework. What, then is a myth, what is this 'mythical framework'? Firstly, it must be admitted, frankly confessed, that myths do contain a large proportion of illogical material in their content, and that they should never be considered as literal truth. A brief look at any ortodox religion will show how difficult it is to take myths and wrench them into factual reality or history by use of authority or legality.- More important is the fact that myths in general do not represent superficial ignorance, or lack of perception on the part of their originators. Myths were not, as has often been suggested, mere rationalisations of phenomena in nature, for they were symbolic of known processes that occur in the interrelationship of humankind and the environment. Ancient symbology was not an attempt at explanation, but a suggestion of pattern, of integration, whereby categorisation or analysis was less than mutual interaction between humans, the natural world, and the mysterious powers that originated all life and events. The processes shown in myths still hold good today, though the action is often transferred to slightly less obvious levels.
The reaction with hostile powers of nature, for example, may have become the struggle to exist within an economic system... but the ways to balance and realisation shown in the old stories about gods, goddesses and heroes, still apply to the human psyche. Three main branches are derived from the roots of pagan mythology and its related practices. The first is formal religion, with its various special organisations, sects and offshoots. The second is mental therapy, which is a modern re-statement of the human inner processes and patterns once symbolised by myth and magic. This second branch uses the same material as the first, but with marginally different methods and a formidable technical jargon, neatly sidestepping the existence or non-existence of 'god'. The third branch is folklore, including at its most complex levels modern occultism, and mysticism derived from pagan and Christian unorthodox or 'heretical' sources. Folklore is an amorphous mass of loosely related symbols, in the form of tales, images, plays, song, music and ritual drama. This third branch has inherited most from the pagan past, for it has been maintained by a strong oral tradition, where material is handed down through the centuries with remarkable continuity, and is refreshed by a constant regeneration of the basic mythical themes on a spontaneous or conscious level; the same level wherein such myths first developed. Folklore is by no means a lost subject, or something that disappeared with the destruction of widespread rural communities. It exists in many different forms, right in the heart of the big city, and still lives in many country districts isolated enough to have traditions traceable to the medieval period or earlier. Furthermore, folklore grows and transmutes often dull subjects into living symbols which may be recognised as myths.
Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate this continuing process, without overcomplicated arguments and references is by example, by telling a thoroughly modern folktale. We can see how this tale is actually part of 'British mythology', as it came from English people in modern London, but can betraced back to typical pagan imagery and belief from the pre-Christian era.
A few years ago, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, a very popular musician called Jimi Hendrix captured the imagination of millions of people. He set new standards of profiency and style for electric guitar that radically changed the music industry. He followed a remarkably successful career; then committed suicide. Not long after Hendrix's death, I was recording music in a London studio, and the technicians there told me a tale which was surely untrue. A black musician, who was a Hendrix look-alike, had arrived to record. During his session, he suddenly broke into a superb guitar solo, as good as the recently dead Hendrix at his best. He emerged from the sound-stage grey and shaking, asking what had happened...had he passed out? No, was the reply, he had recorded a brilliant track... but when the tapes were played back... they were blank! Now this is a folktale, of the kind that people scoff at yet still tell with conviction about all kinds of subjects. It is also a folktale in a modern professional context, emerging in a very hard businesslike world. Like many folktales, it was only transferred to a limited group or family, and did not ever achieve more than local currency. It was limited to its own professional 'village', in exactly the same way that old rituals, superstitions or songs were regionally confined in the past. Like these localised sources of folklore, our sample story uses basic images and patterns which we know were part of actual religious belief and usage. The elements present are
The Celtic pantheon certainly exists, but not in the regular manner defined by classical studies. The diffusion referred to exists for several reasons. First, the actual source material is often garbled and obscure, as much of it derives from fragments set down in the middle ages, when much of the old lore was being deliberately or accidentally forgotten. Other elements are derived from oral tradition, from tales in which all but the bare bones have been eroded away by time. Secondly, a great number of the pagan practices and tales were ruthlessly and bloodily suppressed, so it is rather remarkable that so much has survived, in any form at all. Early researchers, mainly in the nineteenth century, had very little to work on that was recognisably 'Celtic', and were limited by the conditioning of their social status and a Christian and classical education. This educational restriction tended to colour translation and research, editing and presentation of British myth. It is only in the recent years that the strict new translations of early Welsh, Irish, Scottish and medieval pagan tales in general have begun to appear for intelligent commentary and careful re-assessment. Finally, there is another and major problem. British mythology is diffuse! It was not connected to a central cult, or a major god or goddess with specific worship centres and rules of behaviour or ritual. This concept may be particularly difficult for us to grasp, for we are used to the centralised Christian worship and dogma, which was derived from the Roman political state worship that is absorbed. The British gods and goddesses are numerous, and very colourful, but there was no defined hierarchy, or even 'religion' in the modern sense of the words. To understand this non-system, we have to remember that pagan worship was environmental, and that each sacred place had its own god, goddess or power. In Britain these were very local indeed, hardly moving from their regular sites and habitual homes. To merely make a list, therefore, of deities in Britain, or even in the wider Celtic realms of Europe, is only to add to the confusion. Statistical and rational analysis may not hold good throughout, for many deities occur only once, while others occur frequently, but these are not necessarily the main powers of our hypothetical Celtic pantheon.
The value of myth is that it offers keys to understanding, often to understanding of many different types or aspects of knowledge at once. To the ancients the value of such keys was invested in ritual, where magic was made in accordance with observed signs and seasons and places, and was thought to bring fertility and benefit from the Otherworld to human and animal recipients. Even the above is something of a simplification of the purpose of ritual, but it serves as a loose definition for our present context, giving some of the main 'aims' of the pagan holistic world-view. Nowadays we do not hold such beliefs, but the keys can still work to unlock areas of awareness long neclected, shadowy and shut, to let the light into them for our own benefit. Myths can still give meaning and pattern to life, and are not in conflict with a modern or religious attitude. Most science and religion is upheld by its own mythology in any case. The best way to come to grips with the slippery British myth is to grasp the root elements of it. These hold good throughout all myth and folklore, and can be used to define and correlate apparently obscure examples into a system of reference. The system is not rigid, however, for it is based upon a cycle, or spiral, a pattern which is derived originally from seasonal worship. We can expect it to go around and around, but be different every time it recommences... like the flow of the years themselves. To produce a theoretical method for understanding the connective elements in British mythology is not enough. Such a theory has to be supported by a mass of literary evidence ranging through numerous special fields of study, which make considerable demands upon the reader...not the least of which is that of time. Anyone who had read any of the famous works on folklore or myth will know just how demanding such studies are. There is another way to approach the problem, a way by which the reader can establish some firm concepts, some essential central keys which link the ancient world with the myths and tales handed down from various sources. We can use a model...and there is a very good example of a British site, combined with classical Roman and Greek elements, which shows the principle areas of native myth and worship in practice. If the evidence from this site, Aquae Sulis, is combined with lirerary and folklore material relating to its physical remains as uncovered by archaeology, a model of mythology in practice can be built up. This model may be used, with care and caution, as a comparative example for study of un-sited British myths, or of other less researched and less well documented sites. The use of Aquae Sulis as the model is not random, for it is one of the most striking, most complete and best documented sites known in Britain, and the visible remains are from a period well suited for evidence and comparison, that of the Roman development of the West Country of England; when Celtic culture and Roman civilisation merged together and produced a flowering of symbolic and inscriptive material in the Temple and baths around the Hot Springs. Myths have a curious habit of standing values upon their heads, of sudden reversals and rapid changes of fortune for obscure reasons once thought of as the whims of the gods and goddesses by later mis-interpretors of the pagan viewpoint. Some of these reasons are revealed in the book THE WATERS OF THE GAP, which like the myths themselves, have an intertwined multiple value, for they are a study of the mythology of one specific and remarkable place in Britain, yet also offer keys to the themes of British lore in general, and to the less obvious or transparent secrets of overall mythology. There are two main characters in the tale: the goddess Sulis-Minerva, in whose Temple burnt an Eternal Flame, and her "son", or protected hero, Bladud, who was a mythical king of Britain and like the Sun itself flew through the upper air on wings. So direct and widespread are these two images, that we can trace their pattern to a parallel from an earlier culture, that of Egypt...but this is not to suggest that the Egyptian counterparts were in any way the originals, for such myths flower independantly wherever there are people. The Goddess Neitha, a Weaver, was often identified by the Greeks with their goddess Athena. Athena became, in time, the Roman Minerva, to whom the Temple of Sulis Minerva (at Bath, England) was partly dedicated. The main centre of worship for Neitha was at Säis in Lower Egypt, and during her annual festival, innumerable lamps were kept alight in her honour. The Classical writers Plutarch and Proclus both state that her temple bore the following inscription: "I AM ALL THAT HAS BEEN, THAT IS, AND THAT WILL BE: AND NO MAN HATH LIFTED MY VEIL. THE SUN WAS MY CHILD".
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