Customer Reviews

The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore (Facts on File Library of Religion and Mythology)

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I am a student of Irish folklore and have really found this book to be one of my favorites. Like another reviewer said, it is lacking in translation and some of the entries aren't as fleshed out as I would like. Maybe I overlooked these because I knew enough Gaelic to know all translations of certain words. But there were some aspects in Celtic folklore that I hadn't yet run across.

This book was able to give me a basic overview to get an idea of what I was looking at and then move on to a more in depth research of the subject. If you're looking for a perfect, all-encapsulating encyclopedia, this isn't it. But if you just want the overview on a wide variety of topics, The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore is a great starting point.

It's bad when an author's socio-political motivations mar potentially decent scholarship. Case-in-point is the term Dub (Dubh, Dubhlinn, Dubhlin) - a term meaning 'black', 'dark'. Instead of indicating both, the author chose to define the term solely as 'dark'. Of course I questioned, why? Examining a number of references to places and characters, particularly characters, that normally are designated as 'Black' in Irish mythology and history, have now been transformed to 'dark' by the author instead. I then queried, could this be in response to the on-going discussion of the presence of 'Black' people that permeate Irish history and mythology, and an attempt to transform them instead to 'dark' White people? Also, Dubh-linn (Dublin), is now, according to the author 'Dark-pool' instead of Black-pool. What ever the case, consider another encyclopedia or dictionary on Celtic (Irish) mythology and history, in addition to this one, else run the risk of being left in the 'dark' on certain matters. See, as a better reference, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology - James Mackillop.

I admittedly didn't look through it, as I bought it new for my best friend's Christmas, but it was very nice. I'd have expected it to be heavier and more geekishly school book-like but it's not, and I'm sure my friend will love it.