Customer Reviews

Celtic Myths (Legendary Past)

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Dr. Miranda Green has written many books on many aspects of Celtic culture and literature. This inexpensive book is intended to be a short introduction to Celtic mythology and the culture whose beliefs and customs gave birth to those myths. This book is also appropriate for readers ages 12-14. Those who want more in-depth exploration of the myths and the culture should consider The Irish Literary Tradition by J. E. Caerwyn Williams and Patrick K. Ford or Celtic Heritage by Alwyn and Brinley Rees.

This book is an archaeological approach to basic Celtic beliefs. It is not a detailed study of Celtic myth and legend, nor is it meant to be. It covers beliefs such as the significance of water forms (springs, rivers, etc), sky and sun myths and deities and how a sky god of some kind was found throughout the Celtic world, and many other common views of the Celts.

This is a major undertaking considering "Celtic" covers 800 years of pre-history and history and a people that at one point covered most of Europe and parts of Asia Minor. These people has different languages (yes, Celtic, but as similar in some cases as English is to German or less so), different rituals, and different Gods. So to bring an underlying commonality of beliefs to that diversity is impressive. Most of the information here is presented from the hard facts (literally - archaeological remains), and is probably the best, compact source of the basic beliefs of Celtic culture out there.

I'd like to note, I picked this book up at an Archaeological convention, and it is published by the University of Texas; it is very thorough, minimally biased, and well grounded in scholarship.

A good, short introductory reference book for those interested in exploring and understanding the basic belief system and history behind Celtic mythological tales (The Mabinogion, the Fianna, et al).