Customer Reviews

Lady With a Mead Cup: Ritual Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tene to the Viking Age

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Whether as Wife, Seeress, or Sovereign, the high-born lady was the king-maker for her people. No new-age wishfullment here. The Author cites archeological finds, medieval texts and histories and established cultural norms for the period under study. Her world may have been circumscribed by tradition, but within her circle she wielded considerable power. The Author also presents evidence for a stronger Celtic influence on Teutonic culture than previously accepted. A wealth of information, not for the casual reader; no titilating tales of witchcraft or Goddess worship or 'uppity women'.

EDIT: This review was written when used copies were going for $1,000 or more. The current prices of ~$80 are more than worth it.

Rede Seeker's review above is dead-on. This is well researched and crucial to reconstruction of ancient European religious practices. However, it is available in pretty much any library in the world (just request it through InterLibrary Loan or your local equivalent). Plus, it only has re-reading value to serious grad students. I would pay a couple hundred dollars for it, since it is out of print, but the prices listed here recently are ridiculous. If you need the info in this book, save your thousand dollars and visit your local library.

In this work, Michael Enright tackles the question of the sumbel/symbel ceremony in Anglo-Saxon England and Viking-Age Scandinavia. Drawing on a comparative of Germanic historiographies, ethnographies, epics, and archaeology, as well as similar material from the Celts, he puts together a compelling picture of the role of women in forming and maintaining the war band in these cultures, with forays into weaving, magic, prophesy, and the like.

This work is exceptionally important to the understanding of Germanic and Celtic concepts of gender, contract, social order, and magic. The author's thinking is clear, and his style accessible. His attention to detail is good.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone studying this or related topics, from academics to Reconstructionist Neopagans.

This is quite a detailed, well-researched volume. It builds a picure of the comitatus, the war band, in La Tene through into the Viking period, focusing on continental Celto-Germanic lands. The opening theme is of the lady (slave? High-born queen?) who offers an alcoholic beverage in a ritualistic manner to first, the leader of the war band, and then to the others in descending order of rank, cementing the brotherhood of the war band. The author tends to repeat himself a bit and wander a bit, but neither fact is intrusive. Incredible research and first-rate documentation on a topic which hasn't been addressed in such detail before, to my knowledge. There is a fair amount of information/conjecture on Woden (Odin), but Thor, whom the Romans (and Tacitus) equated with Jupiter, the primary sky god, isn't mentioned at all. Likewise, Tyr/Tu/Tiw, the spear-bearing battle & honor god has no mention. I would have liked to see some mention of both of these, but since the focus is on the elite, rather than the peasantry, these two gods may not have had as much impact in that society. This is a valuable addition to my library, and I highly recommend it.