Customer Reviews

Celtic Myths and Legends (Celtic, Irish)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent, accurate and detailed work of research. The author has done his homework and reviewed many original sources to give us an awesome insight on the life of the celts and their mithology.

However i didn't give it 5 stars for some political reasons:

1) The author tries every once in a while to "prove" the arian lineage of the celts (it seems that his favorite image of the celts is one of tall, blonde people, when everybody knows that celts were in a rather wide range of height, hair and skin colors).

2) The author blames the druids for the decline in celtic civilization (he considers them more an anchor than the engine behind technological and geopolitical advancements).

3) His vision of the world is a Western vision, not a celtic vision. He speaks about the "menacing and horrifying world of supernatural and Nature" (i'm not sure if that's the correct phrase since i have the spanish translation), something that's opposed to the point of view within the legends.

However, if you can read the book "with a grain of salt", you'll find a treasure of knowledge, well balanced by the independent view of a great researcher.

This book, written about 1911 and reproduced many times, is an important historical and mostly complete view of the Celtic people, their culture, legends, religion, and relation to their influence on the development of western civilisation. However, this is not a book for light reading or for those with limited reading capability. It was written in the scholastic style, prevalant at the time. It is somewhat like a textbook, and was probably intended for collegiate or theological education. What makes this book important to anyone wishing to learn about the Celtic peoples, is the very accurate depiction of the myths and characters that comprise the Celtic pantheon. It not only depicts the mythology, but a very accurate depiction of the historical and cultural development of the Celts throughout Europe. It is well suited to individuals engaged in learning about pagan beliefs, or undergoing study of Celtic mystical belief systems for their spiritual development. Serious readers should not be inhibited from completion of this book, due to it's somewhat difficult and scholastic prose. If you want to learn all the necessary legends that influenced the development of modern Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and (partially) British culture, this book is an essential addition to your library. For more specific information on Celtic witchcraft, Druidic lifestyle, or current adaptations of Celtic paganism, more modern and specific texts would be needed for further study.

This book provides a good scholarly overview of the old Irish myths. However, if you are looking for a good book with which to learn the myths or to read to your children, this is not it. What it gains in analysis it loses in storytelling. A good book but only to a point.

This is a great book that gives insight into the Celtic myths and legends. At first it is a hard book to start reading. The first chapter or two are slow reads, but after that it gets a lot better. If you want to know about the Celt's and their myths its a great book.

This book is meant to give the reader a general conception of the subject of the Celtic myths. The stories are too abundant to be added in their full content in a volume of this size.

Celtic Myths and Legends breaks the myths into eight chapters starting with Celts in Ancient History, Religion of the Celts and takes the reader on a trip through the Irish Invasion Myths, Early Milesian Kings, Ultonian Cycle, Ossianic Cycle, Voyage of Maeldun and Myths and Tales of the Cymry. There is a brief, but insightful explanation of the Arthurian Myths. The numerous black and white illustrations reveal the rich clothing and armor of the ancient Celts.

I have read many books on the Celtic myths and this one was the most helpful to me. I like the way the stories are broken up into shorter paragraphs with subtitles to make them easier to read and understand. There are dates given as to when these tales may have been written and when some of the legendary characters may have lived. The dates were really helpful to me and made it easier for me to understand the stories. It is interesting to see how the stories change as Christianity takes over. I think this is a great book for students and general readers who are interested in the Celtic myths.

Another reviewer was also put off by Rolleston's insistence on establishing some sort of Aryan racial heritage for the Celts. In 1917 certainly he meant no harm, but in hindsight that kind of talk makes a modern reader shudder. Other than that, I found the book to be a useful, workmanlike overview of Celtic history and legendry. Most surprising and enlightening to me were the Invasion legend cycles and a chapter discussing the "megalith people" and the mysterious dolmens, henges, and barrows that dot the countryside. Nice also to see authentic Celtic and Cymric names in the text, and a pronunciation guide at the back of the book. The writing style is dry and elegant, like most scholarly works of that time period ... I've struggled through much duller material, so I did not find it difficult. I noticed however, that Rolleston has a tendency to change verb tenses between paragraphs while telling a story, which really distracted me every time it happened: "Finn went here, did this, was ready for battle," and then suddenly to present tense "Finn is standing alone looking across the river. He challenges whoever." Tense changes are jarring, and that's something they taught us NOT TO DO in elementary school. I'm surprised an academic writer in the early 20th century could get away with it. Where was his editor?
The tales in this book are told very briefly, with much of the interesting detail stripped away or skipped over ("here a long passage of curious adventures brings the characters to the gates of the dun...") Sometimes I got the feeling Rolleston was writing for an audience that was already familiar with the material he was presenting. Frequently names pop up with no explanation of who they are, leaving you to flip frantically back to see if you missed something.
Overall, this is a pleasant introduction to get you started on an exploration of Celtic lore. It'll whet the appetite of the merely curious but you will need to seek out other sources to flesh out the bare-bones version of the tales Rolleston presents here.

Rolleston's book was the first book I read that placed the Celtic myths in a context that could be understood through a timeline. Most scholarly books on this topic group the stories as subject, but this book placed them in 'chronological' order. I would highly recommend this book.

Despite the fact that this book is almost a century old, it is a remarkable and exhaustive collection of both Gaelic (Irish) and Cymric (Welsh) legends. I have not even read all of it yet, but I am utterly impressed with the sections that I have. An analysis of how Arthurian legend grew out of (and eventually separate from) Celtic oral tales, the only retelling of the Voyage of Maeldun that I've seen in such a volume as this, and a wide variety of tales from the Ossianic cycle are only a few of this books excellent features. Best of all is the handling of the Irish invasion myths. I had read three accounts of this cycle of Gaelic mythology, but this was the first one where I was able to keep track of who was who among the many characters and groups that walk on and off the stage. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Celtic mythology, whether they are whetting their curiosity for the first time or are already familiar with that body of remarkable literature.

This is a decent introduction and survey of Welsh and Irish myths and legends as well as a relatively underrated introduction to Celtic studies, religion, archaeology, etc. The flaw of the book is that it suggests that it is more comprehensive than it is.

A number of element of this book are no doubt controversial-- Rolleston's emphasis on Anglo-Celtic theories for example will no doubt be challenging to some readers. However, speaking as an amateur Germanicist these theories have some merit even a hundred years after the work was originally published. The evidence of Celtic roots being borrowed into Old Germanic is strong (even if overblown in Rolleston's introduction), and the joint development of "Anglo-Celtic" artwork in the Middle Ages including most notably the Book of Lindisfarne show to my mind that bilateral influence occurred. Often times, however these theories are rejected for essentially political reasons-- the fear that accepting them legitimises the Anglo-Saxon invasions of England, the Norman or Viking invasions of Ireland, etc. Consequently they are prevalent in Germanic studies departments but not in Celtic studies departments....

On to the mythology... This book provides excerpts from the stories of the major groups of surviving Welsh and Irish myths and legends: The Book of Invasions, the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle, and the Mabinogion. These are not comprehensive collections but may be enough to provide an overview of the subject for some readers.

On the whole, recommended.

Celtic Myths and LegendsRolleston's book should be purchased for the seventy six illustrations alone. They are stunning.The break down of three family trees are quite informative. The eight chapters take you from about 500 BCE, their relationship to Rome and Greece and what Rolleston calls the "true Celtic race." Rolleston covers the ancient tribes that fought each other for control of Eire; then goes into more specific myths about people and their actions through historical times. This is done through cycles: Ultonian and Ossianic are the ones touched on here. This book also tells the story of Deidre in a less dramatic way. The highlight of this book is the story of the Dan'aan-s. Anyone interested in Irish or Celtic culture should know about the Tuatha De Danann.

If you are interested in working on Celtic culture, buy this book. Its quite informative. Even if you aren't, just read it. Its not just for academics.