 However, "The White Goddess" was accepted as history by many non-scholarly readers.According to Ronald Hutton, the book "remains a major source of confusion about the ancient Celts and influences many un-scholarly views of Celtic paganism".Hilda Ellis Davidson criticised Graves as having "misled many innocent readers with his eloquent but deceptive statements about a nebulous goddess in early Celtic literature", and stated that he was "no authority" on the subject matter he presented.