Evin of the Trees

The theory of a matriarchal society

 
SPOILER ALERT: 
this post contains details which reveal 
some plot elements in Evin of the Trees

I first came across Graves's The White Goddess in the late 70s. It is an obscure, complex work, at times confusing and alienating - those who quote in Ancient Greek without providing a translation come across as erudite yes, but also arrogant. Here is an admirable summary of his thesis from Wikipedia's entry on Ogham (pron. oyam), the alphabet of the druids:

Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R.A.S Macalister...and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle-east in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Moon-goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called 'the people of the sea' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BCE, taking their religious beliefs with them. At some early stage these teachings were encoded in alphabet form by poets in order to pass on their worship of the goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves therefore looked at the tree alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic". Although his theories have been disregarded by modern scholars...they have been taken up with enthusiasm by the neopagan movement. 

Far from being a neopagan, I nevertheless found these ideas fascinating, tantalizing and stimulating. They would make a fruitful backdrop for a story set in a distant age when mother goddess worship flourished and a powerful secret was born: the art of writing.

Choosing England (Alba in the story) as the location was perverse, since few have hypothesized mother goddess worship in the British Isles. It was poetic licence: I wanted to explore the idea that Britain's standing stones might have harked back beyond the druids to more ancient cults.

William Stukeley's 18th century reconstruction of the ancient site at Avebury, my source for the Grove at Daraghair

There are three peoples in Evin of the Trees: the Old People, the remnants of the nomadic Stone Age hunter-gatherer tribes; the Children of the Mother, the early Bronze Age communities living in settlements, farming and trading far afield, and linked in some way with the Minoan civilization, but living peacefully alongside the Old People and sharing Mother Goddess worship with them; and the invading Sons of the Glaive, the vanguard of the middle Bronze Age horse-riding tribes originating in eastern Europe and the steppes, the first Indo-Europeans and worshippers of a male deity associated with the sun.

Although there is no evidence of a Mother Goddess cult in Ancient Britain, much less evidence that the art of writing reached Britain in the Bronze age, it was appealing to play with these ideas. 

That ancient writing was maintained for religious, political and other purposes as a secret art is not improbable; if other crafts could guard their secrets, why not protect that of the scribe?  Even the making of bread and mead were possibly sacred secrets at some time in the distant past.  

Graves's intriguing theories reinforced the possibility that writing and worship might have been linked: in this case, writing and goddess worship.

the potential of internet research

Months of research and note-taking ensued, an exciting time of discovery. This is the beauty of writing an historical novel, even if it is an 'alternative history': you need to do research. And with the internet burgeoning at that time it was a pleasure to explore and discover. Living in Milan rather than in an English-speaking city, I did not have the same access to books on the subjects that interested me: the internet was a treasure-chest. I was constantly astonished at the generosity of individuals, associations and institutions for sharing their knowledge and know-how.

reconstructed roundhouse, Flag Fen, UK

Although in the final edit many of the juicy details  were discarded: I was not writing a dissertation on life in the Bronze Age but a story. Yet delving into the past was utterly enjoyable and has been for two subsequent historical novels, The Dove of Montségur and Dante's Gift the first set in medieval Languedoc and the second in medieval Italy.

the treasures of the internet