I wanted to learn more about the ancient religious practices of the very diverse Gauls and ways in which modern devotees work with that information. Instead I got a history of the online Gaulish Reconstruction polytheist clique, links to other people's blogs to learn more about almost everything mentioned, no background on the Gaulish cultures through history, and an ADF ritual outline. If it cost $5 I'd give it 3.5 stars, but I expect more than an hour read for this price. There's very little information about a handful of deities, some of whom were never worshipped by the Gauls, but only found in Briton. I was surprised by how much UPG was included, as it could easily influence readers new to the topic. It would have been much more interesting to read about WHY the Gaulish version of virtues were chosen, WHY the author associates Maponos with being killed by a boar, WHY the author needs a Gatekeeper deity when there's no evidence that the ancient Gauls did, or WHY Brigantia is a necessary hearth Goddess, as she is the Goddess of a powerful tribe in the British mountains. The entire WHY he has come to these conclusions is left for the reader to research their own, which makes it good only for some possible resources. There's a lot of space dedicated to a calendar that no one understands, with his arbitrary choices for how to use it. A LOT of space is devoted to Gaulish words for societal structure that he agrees have no real use today, but could be changed to mean titles of groups and their members. The cosmology is basically that of any ADF Indo-European people with some guesses.
There's no diversity in the ritual outline to match the information we have about the many different regions of Gaul and the migration east. There's no information about the diversity in how other Gaulish polytheists understand the cosmology, how to worship and their resources. The author does to his credit state that the book is just his version of the religion, but for this to be a well rounded introduction to Gaulish reconstructed polytheism, it seems that it'd have to be an anthology. He offers little bits, especially in his knowledge of the language, and names people whose work I really wish were included. With so many links, it really should have been a website.
If you are hoping to understand the Gaulish peoples, their wide ranging religious practices, their many deities, and learn a Gaulish, not-ADF, ritual outline, this is not the book for you. However, it's the ONLY book and at least the information is mostly accurate and he is clear about his own UPG and choices. There's just so much missing and frankly, you'd be better off reading the resource material, which are mostly websites with about the same amount of information. The only book that provides a lot more insight from a historical perspective is the anthology Steel Bars, Sacred Waters, which I'd suggest as a foundation with this book (if it's half-price), Sir Barry Cunliffe's the Celts, then some blogs, and a lot of academia.edu papers as you go deeper.
Am grateful that SOMETHING is available, but dearly hope that this is only the beginning.
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![Ancient Fire: An Introduction to Gaulish Celtic Polytheism by [Segomâros Widugeni, Manny Tejeda-Moreno]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41pwoGx-WxL._SY346_.jpg)
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