A Critical Review and Update of Robert Graves "The White Goddess" - An Investigation

Robert Graves "The White Goddess" was first published in 1948, with a revised and updated edition published in 1974.
Some parts of the book have been so disagreeable to the academic community that the whole book has gotten discredited.
(The disagreeable parts were his theories on Ogham.)

Other parts of "The White Goddess", especially Graves' thoughts on poetry and inspiration, are still just as powerful,
and just as inspiring to aspiring poets and artists as ever, and for that, I hardly recommend the read.

However, there is another thread in "The White Goddess", a theory that some of the important poems that has come down to us from this period encode a secret history about the victory of a battle of alphabets, and religions.

A lot of new information has come to us through archaeology since 1948, and the new ability to study DNA connections is forcing re-evaluation of much accepted thinking. This page is an investigation into whether the historical thesis presented in the book still hold up.

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SUMMARY OF THE BOOK:
The main theme of the book consists of Graves diving into three poems written by Amergin, and finding clues to an alphabet in them, including a changeover from a 13-consonant alphabet to a 15-consonant alphabet, with much larger implications.

Graves argues that a 13-consonant alphabet he calls the "Beth-Luis-Nion" (page 165)
B L N F S H D T C M G P R
which he found in Roderick O'Flaherty's Ogygia.
When you add the vowels (A E I O U), still missing, from modern English, are: J K P Q V W X Y Z.

gave place to a 15-consonant alphabet, which Graves calls the "Boibel-Loth" (page 113)
B L F S N H D T C Q M G Ng (FF or Z) R
Graves calls it "a Goidelic alphabet, called Ogham", which he got from:
- Brynmor-Jones and Rhys: History of the Welsh People
- Dr. Macalister: Secret Languages of Ireland.

[This is also called] Q-Celt, or Goidelic, because it contain a Q but no P;
Goidels from the Continent were established in SE Britain 200 years before the
Belgic (P-Celt) invasions from Gaul in the early fourth century B.C.

When you add the vowels (A E I O U), still missing, from modern English, are: J K P V W X Y.
So the two new letters are Ng and (FF or Z), and there is a Q instead of a P.

Let me stop here and say how incredibly powerful the knowledge of an alphabet would have been at the time. We take the alphabet for granted now-a-days, just a prosaic mnemonic. But imagine a time when there was no established alphabet, just many signs, not fully codified and universally established, then the first idea of the alphabet must have been extremely powerful - the idea that one could limit the order of the universe to being described with just 13 or whatever signs, that this could describe the whole universe. It must have been breathtaking and magical.

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We will consider the following key questions:
1) Was the date used by Grave for the arrival of the Tuatha de Danaan to Britain, the standard in 1948, correct? (No.)

2) Are the new dates for the Tuatha de Danaan, 1900-1700 BCE, possible date for the events postulated in "The White Goddess"?
Could the events described in "The White Goddess" have taken place in 1900 BCE? (Yes, but unlikely.)

3) Could the events described in "The White Goddess" have taken place in 1700 BCE? (Yes.)

4) Was there an alphabet in existence in 1700 BCE that had 13 consonants? (Yes.)

5) Was there a Semitic language spoken in Britain around 1700 BCE? (Yes.)

The Smoking Gun - Proof that there were Semites in Britain.

6) What was happening in the world in 1700 BCE that supports the possibility of the arrival of a new alphabet in Britain, as described in "The White Goddess", taking place at that time? (Background)

What was happening in the world in 1700 BCE that supports the possibility of the arrival of a new alphabet in Britain, as described in "The White Goddess", taking place at that time? (Pertinent question)

7) Is there evidence of a power struggle? (Yes.)

8) Could a new alphabet have arrived in Britain in 1700 BCE? (Yes.)

9) Was there an Ogham alphabet in use in Britain?

10) Could the events described in "The White Goddess" taken place in the 1300s, and relate to the Tuath de Danaan defending against a new influx?

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CONTINUE ON TO MORE DISCUSSION OF ROBERT GRAVES' THE WHITE GODDESS