Eclipse of the Sun [Paperback]

Janet McCrickard (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Gothic Image (1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 090636213X
• ISBN-13: 978-0906362136
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,665,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sun Goddesses and Moon Gods, August 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Eclipse of the Sun (Paperback)

This book is a wonderful reference for those wanting to learn about sun goddeses. the book is well researched and very entertaining. the author provides myth and evidence of sun goddesses from many different cultures all over the world. she also spends time debunking the belief that all goddesses are moon or earth goddesses and that the sun is alway male. she does a very good job at this, showing how and why these misconceptions arose.the author calls herself a "spiritual feminist" but she seems to be hostile towards neo-paganism. she seems to be fancinated with sun goddesses but she doesn't believe in them. a disturbing quote from the book about the sun and the moon is "they are as inane as two house bricks: they are not persons, they are less than persons. They only have divine...qualities insofar as humans choose to give such qualities to them". for pagans, who believe the univesre is indeed divine, comments like these can offend. another problem i had with the book was the way the author seems to want to redefine many goddesses as sun goddesses without real evidence. such as when the moon is a god she says that his wife is probably a sun goddess. this seems like a huge leap to take for someone who prides herself on the rational.despite the draw backs this book is really indespensible to those who want to understand the Goddess in her totality. for those who want to learn more about moon gods, the book is not as complete on that subject. the author really devotes the vast majority of the book to sun goddesses. in the end i am more than convinced that goddesses are the sun at least as much as they are the moon.i highly recommend this book to all pagans, goddess wimmin, and lovers of mythology. it really is a very good book and extremely valuble for its scholarship.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eclipse of the Sun - McCrickard, September 13, 2009

By 

sun worshipper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eclipse of the Sun (Paperback)

Table of Contents
acknowledgments - page xv
introduction - page xvii
chapter 1 - the woman who stands on the moon - page 1
chapter 2 - not a job for a woman - page 9
chapter 3 - the true feminine - page 21
chapter 4 - the paths of the moon and the sun - page 33
chapter 5 - holy blood, holy moon - page 41
chapter 6 - the sun, the moon and mother earth - page 51
chapter 7 - great female possessor of noon (japan) - page 61
chapter 8 - dearest goddess, mother sun (baltic lands) - page 73
chapter 9 - fair maiden bright sun (russia and the slavonic lands) - page 85
chapter 10 - sun-woman of ireland (the british isles) - page 95
chapter 11 - grandmother sun, good lady (the basque country) - page 105
chapter 12 - she who makes the day glad (germany and northern europe) - page 111
chapter 13 - mother of hte merciful rays (finno-ungria and siberia) - page 121
chapter 14 - the great warmer (alaska, greenland and the arctic) - page 127
chapter 15 - great sun, six-killer (north america) - page 133
chapter 16 - tales of hte sky-women (south america) - page 145
chapter 17 - goddess of life (australia) - page 149
chapter 18 - she who darts forth her rays (arabia) - page 159
chapter 19 - shakti power of the sun's light (tribal india) - page 169
chapter 20 - she who maintains the world (hindu india) - page 177
chapter 21 - fiery needles (armenia and georgia) - page 185
chapter 22 - she who dwells in the spacious disc (egypt) - page 191
chapter 23 - lady sun, light of the gods (canaan/syria) - page 199
chapter 24 - mistress of the righteous judgement (anatolia) - page 205
chapter 25 - far-seeing mother of the eyes (rome and greece) - page 213
chapter 26 - releasing the sun - page 221
notes on the text - page 231
bibliography - page 257
index - page 269

From the back cover:
eclipse of the sun is a unique compendium of sun-goddesses and moon-gods, the first sourcebook of its kind and the only publication to delve deeply into this neglected aspect of mythology. ... Challenging the popularly accepted idea that the sun is normally and naturally a male god, the author presents a wealth of myth, symbol and folklore from cultures worldwide, showing that sun-goddesses are neither rare nor anomalous, but that the feminine solar tradition has been deliberately suppressed - not only by patriarchal scholars, but also my the feminist spirituality movement.

My review:
I liked it. Very good. Could've used more citations, but that's okay.