L: Ladon to Lyonesse 169
people, as they tramp around the outline of the intaglio seven times every Whitsunday
to preserve the image. Whitsunday, or “Pentecost,” is a festival celebrated every
seventh Sunday after Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost on
Christ’s disciples after his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, and
marks the beginning of the Church’s mission throughout the world. “Whitsunday”
supposedly derives from special white gowns worn by the newly baptized. But all this
may be a Christian gloss over an original significance that was deliberately syncretized
by Church officials anxious to dilute and absorb “pagan” practices.
While the seven annual scourings of the White Horse parallel the seven
Sundays following Easter and ending with “White Sunday,” 7 was, many centuries
before, regarded as the numeral of the completion of cycles by the Greek math-
ematician Pythagoras, and his followers, including Plato, throughout the Classical
World. Moreover, the British hill-figure is deeply pre-Christian, even pre-Celtic,
dating to 1200 B.C. This is also the most important time horizon in Atlantean
studies, because it brackets the final destruction in 1198 B.C. Some survivors from
the catastrophe may have immigrated to England, where they created the White
Horse intaglio to commemorate the first lady of their lost homeland while celebrat-
ing their renewed life in Britain. These were possibly the original sentiments taken
over by the analogous death and resurrection of Christ at Pentecost. Even the
very term, “Whitsunday,” may not have been occasioned by Christian baptismal
garb, but more likely arose from the White Horse itself. Pentecost is only known
in Britain as “Whitsunday” (that is, “White Sunday”).
The cult of the white horse persisted throughout Celtic times, Roman occu-
pation, and centuries after in the British worship of Epona, from which our word
“pony” derives. White horse ceremonies rooted in prehistory are still performed at
some seaside villages in the British Isles, and are always associated with sailing. A
particularly Atlantean example is Samhain, (pronounced sovanorsowan), or “end
of summer” celebration, a survivor from deep antiquity. In parts of Ireland’s County
Cork, the Samhain procession features a man wearing the facsimile of a horse’s
head and a white robe. In this costume he is referred to as the “White Mare,” and
leads his celebrants down to the seaside. There he wades out into the water, pours a
sacrificial libation, then recites a prayerful request for a good fishing harvest. This
ritual occurs each November 1, the anniversary of the destruction of Atlantis.
The Greeks commonly envisioned foaming waves as “whites horses,” so
Leukippe was appropriately named. The Earth Mother Goddess Demeter was
sometimes referred to as Leukippe, the White Mare of Life. As Demeter was part
of the Atlantean mystery cult, The Navel of the World, Leukippe may have been
its original and central figure. In a North American plains’ version of the Great
Flood, ancestors of the Lakota Sioux were saved by a sea-god who rises up from
the waves riding a great white horse.Lifthraser and Lif
In Norse myth, the husband and wife who survived a world-ending flood to
repopulate the world. Every Scandinavian is a descendant of Lifthraser and Lif.