The Hounds of the Morrigan [Hardcover]

Pat O'Shea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1986 | Age Level: 10 and up

When a ten-year-old boy finds an old book of magic in a bookshop in Ireland, the forces of good and evil gather to do battle over it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

O'Shea makes her debut in this book that one wishes would go on past its spellbinding length, almost 500 pages. Although the writing took 10 years, sure it reads as if it were no trouble at all, at all for the author. As have many of her fellow native Irish storytellers, she finds inspiration in the island's legendary heroes. But her uproariously funny, scarely, suspenseful fairy tale is entirely original. The enchantment begins at once as two evil spirits fly to Galway to await The Morrigan, Great Queen: "All the time invisible; except once, when they swooped down on a basking shark and frightened it silly. . . All the time silent; except when they tapped their teeth with their finger-nails and sent lightning. . . ." In the city, the spirits become two strange women on a motorbike, followed by their hounds. "All this because a boy was about to buy a book in the second-hand bookshop, in the small grey city." The boy is Patrick Joseph (Pidge), urged by something he doesn't understand to own the ancient, tattered pages; it looks very boring. But he takes "A Book of Patrick's Writing" home and it throws him, as well as his five-year-old sister Brigit, into the war on the side of noble Cuchulain against wicked Morrigan. Moving into the house near to the children, the demonic females fail again and again to steal the miraculous volume. Pidge and Brigit escape by a hair's breadth from each deadly trapat times saved by fairies in the guise of tinkers, frequently by the mischief created by silver-tongued Brigit, a genius at telling lies that frustrate the foe. All the while, Cuchulain's valiant army and The Morrigan's forces are rushing to a decisive battle. In an astonishing finale, O'Shea describes a lyrical moment when Pidge and Brigit try to remember who has left gifts for them . . . and why.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8 After he unwittingly releases an evil force long imprisoned in an old Irish manuscript, Pidge and his little sister, Brigit, are drawn into a series of adventures to help the good god, the Dagda, destroy this evil before it is found and used against the world by the Morrigan, Celtic tripartite goddess of battle. The Morrigan, in both hilarious and terrifying personae, is seen mostly in mod guise as a pair of motorcycle-riding hags, who set up a command post in Galway to observe and meddle with the action. (In one terrific touch, their fingerprint, suspended in air, becomes elsewhere a maze to entrap the children.) Their mean sense of humor lets them create a "watch frog" (who speaks in bog-Irish malapropisms); comb their blue and red hair with a live hedgehog; and make chess moves by sticking pins into chess pieces given temporary life. And constantly, their shape-changing, flick-tongued, slyand dominatedhounds track the children, but they may not kill unless they see their quarry run. The unfolding quest baffles and challenges the pair as it will readers, as shapes shift and dreams take on independent life. The writing is wonderful, but inventive to distraction; one can lose track of names and allusions to earlier events as episodes multiply, and some of the episodes seem superfluous. (The glossary is for traditional material only.) Large collections should have this book, by a new Irish writer, and those libraries with dedicated readers of fantasy should try it. Ruth M. McConnell, San Antonio Public Library
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 469 pages
• Publisher: Holiday House; First American Edition edition (March 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823405958
• ISBN-13: 978-0823405954
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,231,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book!, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hounds of the Morrigan (Mass Market Paperback)

I first read The Hounds Of The Morrigan in elementary school. Recently while at the library, it caught my eye again, almost like Pidge in the story. This is a wonderful novel - the characters are as alive as any people I've met, the setting is amazing, and, especially for a childrens book, the plots and subplots are intricate and complex. But fascinating - it's almost hypnotic - this is the only book I have ever seriously not been physically able to put down while reading it. Anybody looking for (I mean anybody, from 10 to much older) a really good fantasy and the quest you wished for devoutly as a child, a crash course in Irish mythology, and the kind of book will probably never come along again - read this book. It's well worth it. I wish Pat O'Shea would write another book like this - perhaps someday she will. Until then, read this one and hope. Come on, Pidge and Briget are waiting!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sigh, May 16, 2003

By 

Katherine Lothlorien (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hounds of the Morrigan (Paperback)

This is a masterpiece.
Look, I can rave about as many books as I read (and I will) but in the end, this book is my very favourite. It took ten years to write and is, quite frankly, brilliant.
It has (almost) everything that recommends a book to me. Warm, endearing protagonists (Pidge and Brigit are two of the most delightful heroes to grace children's literature), truly threatening bad guys, humour, suspense, scary bits, happy bits, bits that make your scalp tingle, and bits that make your heart sing. It's about friendship, and love, and courage, and good versus evil. It's about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It's ostensibly a children's story, but is strengthened by some challenging concepts. Its length, which would normally be limiting, merely prolongs the absolute delight to be found in this book. The plot is engrossing, although slow moving to start off with and references to Irish mythology lend an air of familiarity to the story.
The true strength of the book though, lies in its characters. Everyone in this book has a story. Every character is fully dimensional. You can picture Puddeneen having his life made cheerfully miserable by Miss Fancy just as strongly as you can picture Brigit growing into a vibrant, intelligent young woman and Puddeneen is a talking frog. That is how well O'Shea does her job.
I could never understand why 'His Dark Materials' etc were any more popular than this truly marvellous book. I recommend it above all others. It's beautiful.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real magical fantasy., November 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hounds of the Morrigan (Mass Market Paperback)

Some books stretch the bounds of credulity with unexplained magical feats, but with this book I just didn't care; it makes no pretensions to be other than what it is - a children's fairy story, where anything can and does happen; monsters, giants, shapeshifters, witches, magic, talking animals - this book has the lot. It made me want to read it out loud to my grand-daughter, if it wasn't so long! It has that (now) outdated 'story-book' delivery to it that is somehow very appropriate to the plot and characters; short, descriptive sentences without waffle or padding convey the gist of the story using exactly the right words and phraseology - no wading through paragraphs of tortuous description. Brigit steals the show with her feisty 'I can do anything and I'm not afraid of YOU' attitude and the other characterisations are so good, you can 'see' each one in your mind's eye. Ideal material for a film, but I fear that Terry Gilliam is the only one good enough to do it justice. I loved it - read it with a child's open mind and you will too - a real joy!