Changing sea levels in the English Channel

Here are a couple of insights into the Celtic Books.

Marshes south of Albany

Origins 8:15
In the South, below the white lands of Albany, there were marshes.

I’ve scratched my head a lot over this statement in the Kolbrin, since I live in southern England and there aren’t any significant marshes. Albion (Ancient Greek: Ἀλβίων) is the oldest known name for the island of Great Britain, ‘Alban’ in Welsh, so that’s where ‘Albany’ comes from - no problem there. But south of Albany there are no marshes.

Last week, I happened to watch a TV Open University documentary series called ‘Landscape Mysteries’ presented by the zoologist and broadcaster Professor Aubrey Manning. In his episode ‘Secrets of the Flood’ he investigates the Solent, the southern strip of sea dividing the Isle of Wight from mainland Britain. Recently, divers and archaeologists have found a lot of evidence of ancient human occupation on the seabed of the Solent. They began by combing the seabed at low tide, then sent divers out into deeper water. The further out to sea they dived, the more ancient the evidence they found. Not only have they discovered that sea levels there have risen considerably over the past 8,000 years; seabed-core samples they have taken show that for much of that 8,000 years, the area of the Solent and all along the southern coast was not sea at all, but marshland.

Mount of Lud

Britain Book 5:36

He came shipborne to Rafinia, which is by the Mount of Lud, against Ardmoal.

Also connected to changing sea levels is another name I believe I’ve tracked down - the Mount of Lud. I’ve already established (see Joseph of Arimathea’s sea-route) that Rafinia was Richborough near Sandwich in Kent. However, I’ve only ever heard the name ‘Lud’ in connection with London (Ludgate), and if you look at a map, London cannot be described as ‘by’/beside Rafinia, which is way out to the east in Kent.

Graham Robb says in his book The Ancient Paths: discovering the lost map of Celtic Europe that a suburb of the French harbour of Dunkirk on the English Channel was once a tidal island called Lugdunum, sharing its name with Laon, Leiden, Loudun, Lyon and perhaps London. The name means ‘fortress of Lugh’, the Celtic god of light. It is thought to have been an international trading post like St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Dunkirk is very near Richborough/Sandwich and can be described as ‘by’ it.

VERY interesting leads Yvonne.