Book Review: Landscapes of Cult and Kingship

Bliadhna Mhath Ùr! Happy New Year!

I hope your 2018 is off to a good start... Round these parts we celebrated Hogmanay in typical rock 'n roll fashion by cleaning the house from top to toe, feeling less smug once said cleaning magically produced a massive pile of laundry to get through, and then finally sitting down to relax of an evening with Shaun of the Dead before ringing the bells in with the Beeb, while Mungo looked rather worried about whether or not the house-cleaning meant my mother was coming to visit.

But onto another review!

Landscapes of Cult and Kingship: Archaeology and Text
Roseanne Schot, Conor Newman and Edel Bhreathnach (Eds.)

This is both one of the most amazing and most frustrating books I've ever read.

It's amazing because it's a collection of essays that are pretty much all firmly dealing with my areas of interest, while it's frustrating because – and do excuse my language – there's absolutely no fucking way to actually own this book at the moment. And that doesn't look like it's likely to change in the near future as far as I can tell.

The good news (ish) is that some of the chapters are available online in pdf format, so you can get a taster for yourself (hopefully these links all work):

• The sacral landscape of Tara: a preliminary exploration – Conor Newman
• From cult centre to royal centre: monuments, myths and other revelations at Uisneach – Roseanne Schot
• Continuity, Cult and Contest – John Waddell

The book itself is the product of a conference that was held at NUI Galway back in 2009 (the book being published two years later), and it aims to explore the sacral and religious aspects of kingship and how it relates to the landscape – both in terms of the archaeology its left behind, as well as the way these things are expressed in literature, historical practices, and so on. This inter-disciplinary approach is one of the things I appreciate the most about this book (besides the content itself), and it's very much becoming the in thing these days, so hopefully there will be more to come.

I mentioned in my last review, for Brian Lacey's Lug's Forgotten Donegal Kingdom, that I have a longstanding interest in exploring how the gods relate to the landscape and the people of pre-Christian Ireland (and Scotland and Man, of course, but they're not the focus here). This book is another one for the bookshelf if that's what you're looking for as well, though it concentrates less on the gods and more on what a ritual landscape really means and how it works (or, more to the point, how it might have). As a collection of articles that covers a broad selection of subjects relating specifically to cult and kingship, it's a very different book compared with Lacey's own, which has a far narrower focus.

There are plenty of familiar faces to be found contributing to this book, some of them like John Waddell and Brian Lacey have books I've previously reviewed, while others like Edel Bhreathnach are authors whose books I've yet to get around to reviewing, plus a few others who're on my wishlist (like this one). There are also some authors I've not heard of before, but for the most part they're all solid contributions. Out of them all I think there are only really two that didn't really blow me away – the first chapter, which just seemed to strike an odd tone, to me, considering the rest of the book, and a much later chapter, Marie Lecomte-Tilouine's "Imperial snake and eternal fires: mythified power in a Himalayan sacred site of royalty (Dullu, Nepal)," that had very little to do with anything Irish at all – I appreciated the striking similarities it suggests, but personally don't feel it's helpful to rely too heavily on a comparative approach.

I'll concentrate on some of the chapters that stood out to me the most here (though that by no means implies the others are less worthy of note... I just don't want to waffle on too much), and I'll start with Conor Newman's "The Sacral Landscape of Tara" as an especially thought-provoking contribution; while I sometimes struggled to keep up with some of Teh Big Wurdz and felt it relied on a comparative approach a little too heavily at times, I liked it because it gives an excellent overview of the subject but didn't shy away from offering an interpretation of what it all means, especially in terms of Tara as a ritual landscape. This means bringing together the historical traditions as well, like the stories of the Dindshenchas that relate to the area (not just Tara itself, but the broader complex of the Tara-Skryne valley), and I think that this is the sort of thing that's incredibly important to anyone who wants to try to reconstruct an ancient belief system – not in the sense of reviving an ancient concept of sacral kingship (tell me a hideous-looking hag sovereignty goddess came along and slept with you before transforming into a beautiful young maiden who then made you king and I'm going to think something's terribly wrong with your beer goggles, mm'kay?), but in the sense of how a landscape is seen in symbolic, ceremonial terms; how it's used, what it means, what it makes us see and think, how it helps channel the flow of our religious experiences and our senses on a personal and communal level... It's all deliberate, it all has a purpose.

This brings us neatly onto Bridgette Slavin article a couple of chapters later on, which is titled "Supernatural arts, the landscape and kingship in early Irish texts." Here she makes the point that since the landscape is experienced through our senses, and its form can be used to channel and shape our own sense of it, any change in the landscape therefore changes our perception of it, and how we relate to it. These changes are therefore significant, and this is true in a literal sense, but it's also something that's important in a literary sense, as we see in so many tales where the state of a king's reign is often reflected in the state of his kingdom around him. As Slavin adds, however, there is often a connection between the supernatural arts of the druids, filid and (later on) the saints, with that of the king; they act as a sort of intermediary between the king and the land, being both the king's protector, but also the human agent through which a king might ultimately meet his downfall (Cairbre's curse against Bres for his lack of hospitality, for example). This is a fascinating chapter and well worth a read, I think; it's a shame that this one isn't available online because it really does offer some great insights.

John Waddell's contribution builds on a similar sort of theme as Newman's chapter but with a broader scope, looking at the landscape as a whole (not just the Tara complex itself). He argues – convincingly, I think – that the landscape shouldn't be looked at in simple "ritual" terms, but in mythological and historical terms as well; the landscape, and the way it came to be used – as a ritual centre, as part of a mythological story, an expression of cosmology or cosmogony, as a legal, political boundary or centre – are all intertwined. Politics and religion are hard to untangle in pre-Christian terms, but as Waddell argues, this carried on well into the medieval period as well, precisely because it was so hard to untangle. He also gives some examples of how the gods in the landscape are used over time to articulate certain things; the continuing importance of Áine in the Knockainey area means that she crops up in prophecy poems that was intended to comment on certain political alliances in the thirteenth century, where she is still portrayed as a guardian spirit, if not goddess outright. He also points to an entry in the Annals of Tigernach where the poet Gilla Lugan describes the cause of a plague (spoiler: demons did it) based on information relayed to him personally by Óengus mac Ind Óc, son of the Dagda.* As Waddell himself comments, "There is no reason to suppose that the power of ancestors had diminished; if anything, they played as great a role as ever in the social and cosmological order of the tribal societies of the time." It seems the same goes for the gods, too, up to a point.

Roseanne Schot's exploration of Uisneach and its significance answered a lot of questions for me, and she focuses especially on the site's connections with fire as well as water, noting that the stories surrounding Uisneach itself often focus on origins – especially in terms of manifesting various "primordial waters." This has fascinating implications as far as the subject of creation myths go, but considering the frequent associations between rivers and sovereignty in general, it also brings up some food for thought in that area too. As Schot goes on to illustrate, it's no wonder that Uisneach also has associations with Lug. As Schot sees it, Lug is the "archetypal, omniscient 'king'," so his links with Uisneach, as a sacred centre, as well as a royal centre, make sense (but what about Núadu...?).

Lacey's chapter here, titled "Three ‘royal sites’ in Co. Donegal," is what prompted me to hunt out his book, and for the most part you'll find that they both complement one another nicely. To a degree this chapter is more of the same from the book itself, but that's no bad thing, really, since we get a bit more depth than the book itself has space for – especially in relation to the connection between Lug and local saints such as St Begley (Beag Laoch, meaning "little warrior" or, perhaps originally, Beg Lug, "little Lug"). It offers up some good food for thought for anyone who's interested in Lug, but the broader implications are fascinating too – if this happened to Lug, which other deities got the same treatment that we aren't yet aware of?

One more chapter bears a mention, and that's Elizabeth Fitzpatrick's (et al) "Evoking the white mare: the cult landscape of Sgiath Gabhra and its medieval perception in Gaelic Fir Mhanach," which gives a great overview of the whole horse controversy – the one where Giraldus Cambrensis described an inauguration ritual which involved the new king "embracing" a horse (yes, in that way) before killing it, bathing in its broth and then eating as much meat and drinking as much of the broth as possible. There's long been a debate on how accurate the description is; old Gerald certainly had an agenda and had no desire to be too complimentary about the Irish (he was reporting to the new Norman overlords, after all), so how far can he be trusted on this? Especially when it's unlikely that he ever actually witnessed such a ceremony himself. Some feel he went out of his way to describe as many lurid and frankly damningly barbaric details as he could possibly come up with. Others point to the similarities in the over all description with that of the ancient Vedic asvamedha ceremony, which suggests there may have been at least a grain of truth in Giraldus's description... Unfortunately it doesn't go into details about the significance of horses in Irish tradition (as they relate to sovereignty), but the chapter does go on to conclude that such a ceremony is unlikely to have taken place during the time of the Méig Uidhir inauguration ceremonies (from the thirteenth century), at least. It also goes on to describe another ceremony – the rite of the single shoe – which was used by various dynasties as a way of laying claim to the kingship; the shoe, being left at a certain spot, was meant to be symbolic of the claim the shoe's owner had to the succession.

On the whole this is a very academic book that I'm not sure has an especially mass appeal. In that respect I can understand that it's very niche, which probably explains its limited availability (print on demand, please?), and really it's not going to be of much help to the beginner – at first, anyway. Some prior knowledge of the subject would be useful, for sure. Nonetheless, I think it's an important contribution to the subject that would be complemented nicely by a number of volumes, some of which are – unfortunately – just as hard to get hold of now. That said, if you manage to get hold of Edel Bhreathnach's The Kingship and Landscape of Tara or Bart Jaski's Early Irish Kingship and Succession, Elizabeth Fitzpatrick's Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c.1100-1600: A Cultural Landscape Study, and Francis John Byrne's Irish Kings and High Kings, you're probably off to a good start.

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* The Annals of Tigernach – T1084.4

A great pestilence in this year, which killed a fourth of the men of Ireland. It began in the south, and spread throughout the four quarters of Ireland. This is the causa causans of that pestilence, to wit, demons that came out of the northern isles of the world, to with, three battalions, and in each battalion there were thiry and ten hundred and two thousand, as Oengus Óg, the son of the Dagda, related to Giolla Lugan, who used to haunt the fairy-mound every year on Halloween. And he himself beheld at Maistiu one battalion of them which was destroying Leinster. Even so they were see by Giolla Lugan's son, and wherever their heat and fury reached, there their venom was taken, for there was a sword of fire out of the gullet of each of them, and evey one of them was as high as the clouds of heaven, so that is the cause of this pestilence.

Book Review: Lug's Forgotten Donegal Kingdom

Guess who's been back at the library...

I have a few book reviews to catch up on, but my kids have been spreading various viruses instead of festive cheer these past few weeks. So that happened.

Onto the review:

Lug's Forgotten Donegal Kingdom: The archaeology, history and folklore of the Síl Lugdach of Cloghaneely
Brian Lacey

One of the things I've always been interested in is learning more about how the gods relate to the landscape and the people of pre-Christian Ireland, because the two are so heavily intertwined. We know that certain kingdoms traced their origins back to certain deities, who they saw as ancestors, and then they named themselves after those deities, and they named important places after them, too. And so the gods became attached to places and people, and people being as they are, they tried to expand beyond the boundaries of their influence and spread their power into other territories. When they succeeded, new alliances were formed, dynastic families intermarried, and this meant that as smaller kingdoms became subsumed into more powerful dynasties, or aligned with them in other ways, they too adopted the genealogies and the connections to certain deities. And so we see one of the ways that the gods spread, working their way into the lives of other peoples and other places...

I've yet to find a book that gives a comprehensive view of what this might have looked like for Ireland as a whole, if it were to be mapped out, mainly because I think a huge amount of work is yet to be done before that can happen, and the idea itself presents a few problems that aren't necessarily easy to overcome. But this book here is a contribution to the topic, concentrating on a specific area and a specific people in Donegal, and exploring the connections that Lug has with a certain people who at one time claimed a part of Donegal as their home.

The connection has only relatively recently been established; as Lacey himself notes, the suggestion of Lug's involvement in the area was only posited in 1995, by Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig, who noted that the area of the Síl Lugdach (whose name means "the offspring (seed) of Lugaid") was once occupied by a people who called themselves the Luigne, whose name means "the descendants of Lug." The question arose, then: Is the Síl Lugdach's eponymous "Lugaid" actually Lug in disguise?

Not to give a massive spoiler, but I think the answer is a convincing yes. The name Lugaid is obviously derived from "Lug" itself, and Lacey looks at the genealogical material that's survived, along with the early dynastic poetry and other historical materials to show how the genealogies were manipulated to essentially "invent" the Síl Lugdach's eponymous ancestor, who is really a euhemerised version of Lug himself, something that was obviously done in the Christian period. Place-name evidence, archaeology and folklore are also brought in to show just how entrenched Lug's associations are with the area, and how he survived for so long. One of the more interesting and unusual things that Lacey explores, in this respect, is the fact that Lug himself may have evolved into (or inspired) at least one local saint (Begley/Beaglaoch) in the area, just as saints such as Brigit, Latiaran and Gobnait are thought to have similar origins elsewhere in Ireland.

Broadly speaking the evidence is split up into a chronological order in the book, with the various chapters concentrating on a certain timeframe and bringing in the different types of evidence being introduced as necessary. The folklore helps to bridge the gap between the early evidence and the more modern period, and it largely concentrates on the Lugnasad sites, as well as the local legends in the area. The local stories of Balor's fight to avert his prophesied demise at the hands of an un-named grandchild is the most obvious example here, even though the stories don't tend to explicitly name Lug himself. This in itself may be significant. The archaeology supplements the evidence of the Lugnasad sites, and also points to possible sites where the Síl Lugdach kings would have been inaugurated, or where they ruled from. These also preserve the name of Lug, indicating their significance; when you think about it, it's remarkable how these things survived, even when so much has changed and so much time has passed.

Also included is a chapter that explores Lug himself – as an Irish god, but also as a god with Celtic counterparts to be found elsewhere, so that we get a broader context as well. I think this is possibly (and sadly) the weakest link in the book, but even here it's not that it's bad or wrong per se; it's mostly down to the fact that it seems clear that this isn't the area in which the author's most comfortable or perhaps knowledgeable in terms of the issues and the kind of research that's been done here (or it comes across that way, to me). Over all the chapter here felt a little superficial, and the references that are given aren't necessarily the best or most up to date. The discussion of the meaning of his name, for instance, gives a couple of ideas that have been put forth (neither of which are especially favoured these days). More than that, though, the subject is a debate that rages on, and I think the uncertainty and controversy surrounding it is worth mentioning, at least, even if there's no space to get into the nitty gritty of it.

Even at his least certain, Lacey does bring up some great points, though. One thing that stood out, to me, was where he points out that in Cath Maige Tuired, the text goes out of its way to note that Lug's foster-father is "Eochu Garb mac Dúach." Lacey comments that this is an "unidentified man," but he thinks that the name is suggestive, since one of the Síl Lugdach's neighbours were called the Cenél Duach (a kingdom they eventually expanded into). So there's a possibility that the name was chosen deliberately, because Eochu Garb could act as a mythological representative of the political ties that existed between the two neighbouring kingdoms at the time. To me, this is a fascinating suggestion, but it gets even more interesting when it becomes obvious that Eochu Garb isn't just some random name the author of the text came up with. He's not the most well-known figure, but he is well-established in the mythology as the husband of Tailltiu, and he is also the grandson of Bres – Lug's adversary in Cath Maige Tuired, whose life he eventually spares in exchange for some key agricultural knowledge. Given Lug's association with agriculture, through his associations with Tailltiu and through his bargaining with Bres to get the specific information he wanted (when is best to plough, sow, and reap), I think Eochu Garb may have more significance here than it otherwise might appear.

That's not to say that Eochu Garb doesn't, or couldn't, reflect the political connections as Lacey suggests. I think it's possible that the genealogical connections involved add a further element to all of it; one of the current trends that's developing in academic work relating to the myths is looking at the genealogies of the Tuatha Dé Danann as a whole and looking at what they can tell us. This is something Mark Williams touched on in his book last year, noting that some of the names in the genealogies seem to express processes relating to poetic composition. It's clear over all that the genealogies of the Tuatha Dé Danann (as outlined in the Lebor Gabála Érenn) are artificial to some degree, at least, and the filid may have used them to show off or enshrine certain ideas or ideals that were important to their profession. But where there do seem to be authentic elements, the connections we find do sometimes seem to reflect the landscape of Ireland as well – the Dagda and Bóand's connections to the Boyne region, with their affair resulting in the birth of Óengus, who wins the brug from his father (or his mother's husband, depending on the version of the story you're looking at). Etc.

This is actually a pretty minor point in the grand scheme of the book, but I wanted to mention it because this is the kind of thing I like to find in a book. I want to be informed, but I like to be inspired as well. Even on a relatively throw-away comment that doesn't form a major part of the book as a whole. The work that Lacey's done here is – if not totally unique – unusual, and it's refreshing, too.

So I really appreciate the work that Lacey's done here (and elsewhere – this is not the only place he's written on the subject, but I think it's perhaps the most accessible in terms of being able to physically own a copy). I think it's important to consider these sorts of connections in the way we view the gods in general. The way the gods relate to the landscape and the people are so intertwined, but these connections are clearly reflected in the way the gods interact with one another, and are related to one another, too. And it also tells us a lot about how they've survived.

It would be wonderful to see more books like this coming out, which concentrate on other areas of Ireland. What kind of picture would we see emerging then? I'd highly recommend this book to anyone – not just anyone who has an interest in Lug, or because they have heritage from Donegal and want to know more about the area (though both are good reasons to pick up the book as well), but because it reflects an important area of research that I feel is invaluable in terms of our understanding. On the whole, I think it's pretty good as an introductory level book, but the reader might benefit from having their own understanding of the basics, at the least. Since it's a fairly niche sort of topic, it's probably not going to appeal to the absolute noob anyway,

Book Review: Archaeology and Celtic Myth: An Exploration

Back in June last year, my father-in-law died very suddenly. I posted about it a while ago, and as anyone who's lost a parent or significant figure in their life will know, it's not something that's always easy to deal with. It's a terrible loss, whether it's imminently anticipated or not.

My father-in-law was unfailingly generous and accepting of others into his family, and he was kind enough to leave something for his children and their spouses with the stipulation that we should use at least some of it to buy ourselves something "selfish," instead of doing something boring and sensible with it. Naturally I immediately trawled Amazon and bought a shit ton of books.

In his honour, I ended up getting:

• Ireland in the Medieval World, AD400-1000: Landscape, Kingship and Religion – Edel Bhreathnach
• Introduction to Early Irish Literature – Muireann Ni Bhrolchain
• The Kingship and Landscape of Tara – Edel Bhreathnach
• Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative (Studies in Celtic History) – Ralph O'Connor
• Early Christian Ireland – T. M. Charles-Edwards
• Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic) – Andrew Sneddon
• Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies – Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm
• The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Studies in Early Modern European History) – Julian Goodare
• Celtic Curses – Bernard Mees
• Celtic Christianity and Nature: The Early Irish and Hebridean Traditions – Mary Low
• In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature – J.P. Mallory

Some of these I've already read but had to return them to the library and I really wanted a copy of my own. One of them I swear I already bought but couldn't find it, so decided to replace it.

I'm slowly working through the pile (I won't necessarily read them all, but I intend to get through most of them) and without further ado, here comes the next review:

Archaeology and Celtic Myth: An Exploration
John Waddell

I've not read any of John Waddell's books before, but I did enjoy his article on 'The Cave of Crúachain and the Otherworld' in the Celtic Cosmology book. He's also got some fascinating lectures you can watch on Youtube, which he credits as being the "motivation" behind ultimately producing the book I'm reviewing here. For the most part, though, I ordered this one after my interest was piqued in seeing it referenced more than a few times in another book I'd been reading and thought it might be worth a look.

As the title suggests, we're looking at the points where archaeology and myth collide here, so in some respects it covers a similar sort of ground as Mallory's In Search of the Irish Dreamtime (that I've just reviewed) in discussing the two. On the whole, though, Waddell's interest isn't in looking at whether or not the archaeology can support the myth, or vice versa (as Mallory does), but instead he tries to combine the two strands to paint a more comprehensive picture of a whole, focusing on various aspects of pre-Christian belief and practice. In this respect, I think they make a nice complement to one another, but would also say that this particular book is probably going to provide more immediately satisfying material to Gaelic Polytheists who want to focus more on exploring concepts surrounding religious belief and practice.

I think it's safe to say that Waddell comes from a very different school of thought than Mallory does, being far more invested in solar mythology/deities and, in places, a keen interest in bringing in comparative examples from other Celtic cultures or Indo-European evidence. Shades of Miranda Green surface with the solar stuff and it's really not something I can ever get on board with, but I found it wasn't too difficult to read around those bits. As much as I might disagree, it's always good to read views that oppose or challenge your own, sometimes.

The book brings together everything in a fascinating way and I think it's definitely going to be a good read for Gaelic Polytheists. Waddell focuses especially on the mythology and archaeology relating to some of the best-known ritual sites in Ireland (Newgrange, Rathcroghan, Emain Macha, and Tara) and tackles matters surrounding sacral kingship, sovereignty goddesses, cosmology, and the Otherworld (his chapter, 'In Pursuit of the Otherworld,' nicely complementing the article from the Celtic Cosmology book I linked to above, and covering similar areas). His descriptions of the sites – what the archaeologists found in their excavations, and how those findings have been interpreted – are easy to understand, even if you don't have a background in archaeology.

There's some genuinely interesting stuff here and I particularly enjoyed the second chapter, 'The Otherworld hall on the Boyne,' where Waddell focuses on Newgrange and its related monuments in the area, as well as its association with Bóand, the Dagda, and their son, Óengus mac Ind Óc, and its possible cosmological significance. The later chapters that cover various aspects of sovereignty (goddesses, sacral kingship, ritual sites involved in inauguration, etc) are also good, and I especially appreciated the discussions on the "horse cult" as it relates to Irish kingship. I'm not entirely sure that "cult" is the right word, to be honest, but it is something that lurks in the background of kingship, and it's not isolated to Ireland alone – it seems to be a genuinely "Celtic" concept, and it often gets overlooked so it's refreshing to see the subject being discussed in more detail than it usually is in books like this, which tend to focus more on sacred marriages and sovereignty goddesses and not much else. That, too, is focused on, though.

The last chapter focuses on sacral kingship and draws heavily on Gaulish examples of "princely" burials in discussing some key themes of pre-Christian belief and the concept of "decommissioning" a king, which are demonstrated in the elaborate burials we find in Gaul, but only really hinted at in Ireland. Waddell is careful to make it clear that the "princely" label isn't exactly helpful (just because the burials are rich and elaborate, it doesn't mean they're royal, and the label is unnecessarily distracting and potentially misleading...), which is important. Normally I'm not so keen on such a heavy reliance on bringing in comparative material, but aside from the fact that I found it all genuinely interesting, I think the chapter did a really good job in providing some food for thought on the subject, and in linking it all back to Ireland. Sometimes it's refreshing to step outside of your own comfort zone and look at things a little differently.

All in all, I really enjoyed the book, in spite of my strong disagreement with the reliance on solar mythology and symbolism. Although it's pretty short it provides some good food for thought and it's one I'll certainly be coming back to when I'm doing research on various subjects. It's a good one for the bookshelf, and it definitely isn't one that requires an academic level of knowledge or an in-depth background in Celtic Studies – it's aimed squarely at the academic and non-academic, and welcomes a broad audience. Nonetheless, I think you'll get more out of it when you have some background reading under your belt so you can take your own critical view of the ideas and concepts that are outlined here.

Book Review: In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature

In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature
J.P. Mallory

I've previously reviewed another book by the same author – The Origins of the Irish – and I really really liked it (for its witty and engaging tone as much as the content in general). So in some respects it's hard not to compare the two, perhaps especially so when this particular book has been written as something of a companion piece to the first one.

Back in the 1960s Kenneth Jackson came out with the idea that early Irish literature provided us with a "window on the Iron Age," since (he argued) the tales preserved pre-Christian beliefs and concepts that had been passed on by an oral tradition that valued consistency and integrity of the content it conveyed. While Christian elements had been added, strip them away and you could get something close to the pre-Christian original...

It's an idea that's been much-debated in academia since, and Mallory himself has weighed in on the subject previously, in an article in Ulidia ("Windows on the Iron Age: 1964–1994"), as well as his Aspects of The Táin (as the editor and a contributor), for example. Dreamtime, then, is essentially an expansion of his previous work, taking a critical look at what the literature tells us about material culture (and to a lesser extent, beliefs), and whether or not the archaeology supports what the tales tell us. For example, tales that take place at well-known sites such as Emain Macha or Tara give the impression that these places were occupied as (essentially) royal centres in the Iron Age. They also mention things like weaponry that we might assume are indeed Iron Age in origin, if we can actually assume that the tales were composed in that time frame and were never changed to any significant degree.

I'll try not to give too many spoilers here, but the results that Mallory outlines may or may not shock you, depending on what your opinions are on the matter... Regardless, it's pretty thorough and convincing.

For the non-expert, the book does a good job of giving an introduction to the major elements that you need to know in order to form your own opinions (if that's your thing) and keep up with what's going on – the history of the manuscript tradition itself, an overview of the stories, and the context in which they were written. Then we focus on the major areas where archaeology and mythology collide, so we can explore how the two may or may not match up. This includes material culture in general (clothing, dyes, jewellery, games, etc.), warfare and weaponry, transport, the landscape and environment, and matters surrounding death and burial, based on what we see as archaeologists, and what the literature tells us.

It's an interesting idea for a book and over all it does a good job of proving its point. The first few chapters, with the introductory material, really runs the risk of being overdone and boring but Mallory's wit and engaging style really helps to put a fresh spin on things. Like his The Origins of the Irish, we're introduced to a character who helps take the reader on the book's journey. In Origins, it was Niall of the Nine Hostages, our quintessential Irishman, while here we have various incarnations of Katu-butos, Cattubuttas, or (ultimately) Cathbad – a theoretical fili, or professional poet and tradition-bearer, who would have been responsible for telling the stories we're dealing with. The different names relate to the different linguistic periods we're dealing with – Proto-Irish through to medieval Irish, based on the evidence we have to hand (linguistic, literary, archaeological, though primarily the latter two), and thus the audiences the storyteller is targeting specifically.

Over all, I found some parts of the book more interesting to read than others. It got off to a great start, and it takes an unusual approach in looking at the Lebor Gabála (for example) and emphasising its supposed historical context for each of the invasions the story outlines, based on the Irish annals. Creating an explicit timeline for that is pretty interesting when you compare it to what was actually happening at the time as far as we know from the archaeological record, and it helps set the tone for what we find in later chapters. It's all very thorough, but in doing so I felt that some of the later chapters got bogged down in details I wasn't particularly interested in, and it began to drag a little. To an extent that may be because the subject matter was something I wasn't overly keen on, but then again the writing did sometimes veer into simply listing facts, rather than commenting much on them. Even so, that didn't last for long, and even where I felt things got bogged down I can definitely see that if anyone's interested in the finer points of life in the Iron Age or early medieval period, this is absolutely invaluable – or if you're a fiction author looking to write an authentic period novel, or a re-enactor of some sort, say, then it has almost everything you need to know about where people lived, what they wore, and what they ate, and so forth. And of course, it appeals to the geeks and nerds like me.

Considering the scope of the book, it more than fulfils its stated aims, and it really does offer a lot to the reader. It's also rather unique in its focus and the information it gives, and I can certainly appreciate that. Books like this – presenting reliable, factual information that's easily accessible and (mostly) engaging to the non-expert as much as the expert – are few and far between.

Whereas Origins offers a far broader scope, Dreamtime narrows in on a more specific area and offers a lot more detail. The title of this particular volume, as you might gather, takes inspiration from the Australian aboriginal peoples, "who recognized a sacred time in which both the natural world and human culture and traditions originated and that these beginnings still resonate in the spiritual life of people today." Mallory sees a similarity between these aboriginal stories (their purpose and aims) and this concept, and the myths of the Irish that survive into modern times. I see his point even though I wonder about the value in bothering to use the term in the first place. He recognises that appropriating (or mis-appropriating) the term may not be the best way to frame the Irish traditions we're dealing with here, and he apologises for that, but nonetheless ultimately can't resist the concept. I do wonder why he bothered, given the fact that he acknowledges the potentially problematic nature of it, but I'm not Australian or Aboriginal and I don't really feel qualified to condone or condemn on that front. Still, I can't help but feel that choosing such a title both detracts and distracts from the contents of the book as whole.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy it, and I think it will be one of those books that I'll come back to time and time again. It's not always easy for an archaeologist to really delve into literature and give a decent, critical overview of it, as well as the issues surrounding it (Miranda Green...) so Mallory deserves recognition for that. But more than that, it's just a good read.

Book Review: Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth

As I mentioned in my last post, I was lucky enough to be offered a review copy of Mark Williams' new book. This is a first for me – usually my reviews come from books I've either bought or borrowed from the university library (including Mark Williams' previous book, Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales, 700-1700). Another first here is the fact that my website, Tairis, gets a footnote mention in the penultimate chapter (of an actual book!).

I'm honoured to have been offered a review copy, and I think it's only right and proper to be up-front about these things lest I be accused of having something to hide or undue bias. With that out of the way, let's get to the review...

Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth
Mark Williams

So we'll start with a quick overview of what this book is about... On the face of it, the aim is simple: To trace the evolution of the gods of Ireland throughout history, from the very earliest evidence through to the modern day.

As you might imagine, if you want to achieve this in any kind of thorough way, you're not going to do it in a few pages: More like 570+ (which for the price, is a bargain, really). Given the huge scope of the book it's split into two parts, with both of them having a very different focus from the other. The first part concentrates on the very earliest evidence through to the Middle Ages, and the context of their portrayal during a time of conversion and then, later, established Christianity. The second part has a more contemporary focus in looking at the way the gods were (essentially) rediscovered by the early Celtic scholars at the very dawn of Celtic Studies (as an academic discipline), and how they were then adopted by the movers and shakers of the nineteenth century Celtic Revival, and into the present day.

If the former is more your area of interest then the latter may not muster much enthusiasm in you – and vice versa – but the result it actually quite fascinating, and it's just one of the many things that make me so enthusiastic about this book. One thing part two hammers home is how much the Celtic Revival, and those early academics, has influenced out modern perceptions of the gods, whether we're conscious of it or not. In general, it also helps that the writing isn't dry and dense; there's a dry humour, and it's easy to get swept up in the arguments put forth.

There are a lot of books out there that talk about the literature in the context of how they were produced; how the monks who recorded them may have changed things, left things out and whatnot. This has been done many many times, and of course it's an important part of the conversation when you're talking about this kind of thing. What those books don't tend to do is explicitly lay out how that treatment may have changed over time and link it to how the gods are portrayed as a result, in a straightforward, linear fashion, or discuss what that can tell us about them. You might find articles and case studies, but I'm hard pressed to think of something that compiles it all into one volume outright. This is exactly what Williams aims to do, using examples of particular myths to make his points. I think in doing so he raises a lot of important questions and implications that we – as Gaelic Polytheists – would benefit in thinking about and discussing (I'll get to some examples in a minute, though). The same goes for those more interested in the academics or the literature for literature's sake.

The first half of the book is packed full of things that will be of interest to Gaelic Polytheists, and I think it offers a lot of good food for thought. The first chapter (which you can preview here) gives an overview of the kind of evidence we can draw on in finding the gods, and gives a kind of case study of two different deities – one of whom survived into the manuscript tradition (Lug), while the other didn't: *Loigodeva, who lends her name to the Corcu Loígde of Munster. Straight away we're reminded that the evidence is, in many respects, rather arbitrary. We see what remains, but we don't know how much was lost. It also stresses the localised nature (or origins, more to the point) of the gods.

Further on it's suggested that the story of Dian Cécht's murder of his own son, Miach, in Cath Maige Tuired, is a later addition to the tale (and I think John Carey's comments in A Single Ray of the Sun, where he points out that the first recorded deaths of the gods only start appearing in the tenth century or so, a century later than the bulk of CMT was written). The discussion of the tale here is fascinating, picking up on points – like the way the tale mirrors so many elements in so many subtle ways – I'd never considered before.

Part one finishes with Williams pointing out that after the Middle Ages we enter into something of a wilderness, as it were, where the gods "fade" until we come to the nineteenth century. It's not that they're forgotten, as such, but by this point their divine nature isn't especially relevant. On the face of it he's not wrong, but I think it would've been useful to have some discussion of the Historical Cycle – which emphasises the role of the sovereignty goddess – and how that concept became so important in the aislinge poetry of this period, due to the political climate of the time. As the book itself shows, the popularity of certain deities ebbed and flowed over the centuries, and if anything I think the big thing about this period was that the Tuatha Dé Danann were sidelined by the desire of Ireland's greatest poets to assert their nation's sovereignty, drawing on their mythological heritage.

In part two we delve into the world of the early academics of "Celtology" (as Celtic Studies was then called), the Revivalists who followed, into more contemporary literature, music, art, and Celtic Paganism. What really stood out here was the discussion of how the Revivalists essentially "adopted" Óengus mac Ind Óc and turned him into the quintessential "love god" as he's so often called today. I've long wondered about how – and why – that happened, when it's not really reflected in the myths as a whole. Off on a tangent from this, as Yeats' wonky efforts at filling in the gaps that were left in the myth of The Wooing of Étaín shows, this section can be taken as a lesson in the limitations of "reconstruction" (in whichever sense of the word you want to consider – academic, literary, mythological, religious...), especially when we blind ourselves to anything other than our own biases. A complete version of the tale wasn't available until the 1930s, and so Yeats was working on limited information. As a result, he assumed that Étaín left Midir to be with Óengus because after all, we alllll know he's a love god, right? How wrong he was!

My biggest quibble with the book comes with Chapter 9, which turns its attention to Scotland, and how figures such as William Sharp (better known as "Fiona Macleod") followed in Macpherson's footsteps and adopted the gods of the Tuatha Dé Danann as their own. There's also some discussion of the more influential folklore collectors of the day – including, of course, Alexander Carmichael. The "pagan nature" of Shony and Bride can be found here as well, and it's this part in particular that I felt was dealt without as much nuance as elsewhere; excellent points are made, but I would have liked to have seen a more rounded, balanced discussion when there wasn't really much room to manoeuvre at all. There are other times I felt the same, but not to such a degree as here.

As we get to the present, Williams touches on Celtic Paganism, amongst other things (including some wonderfully bad poetry that includes the lines, "Leaning on sword-hilts, their great paps dark as warts/Within the gleam of breast, their scrota bulged in shadow.") It's refreshing to see something like Celtic Paganism – and Celtic Reconstructionism, for once – tackled in a book like this, not just at all, but without condescension or being patronising to boot. Once again we see the vogue for certain gods change as attitudes and influences do; whereas Óengus was arguably the most important and popular in the imagination of the Revivalists and beyond, even up until the late twentieth century, at the turn of the century we start to see goddesses taking over – the Morrígan, Brigid, and the Cailleach are now far more significant than any others today. It would have been nice to see this expanded on within the chapter – why is this the case? How did this come about? Perhaps this is fodder for another book.

It has to be said, this book is not a simple introduction of the gods in the Irish pantheon (if you can even argue such exists...) – the nuts and bolts of who they are, what they do, who they're related to, etc. If that's what you're looking then I recommend you look elsewhere. This is very much a literary, not literal, overview of how the gods were (and are) perceived. And while this book is definitely aimed at a more general audience than academics alone, I think at least a basic level of knowledge about Irish mythology and literature would benefit the reader. For the most part the book succeeds in introducing need-to-know academic concepts, movements, or jargon in a way that won't overwhelm the non-expert, and there's a handy pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book that will certainly be useful for a lot of readers, but the sheer size and scope of the book might be a little daunting for a total beginner.

Given the monumental aims and scope of the book, it's inevitable that some things didn't make the cut, and to be fair, Williams himself is well aware of this. While there may be room for so much more to be said, what you get here is a good start, and – to compare it with his first book, while I think that one deals with a more niche subject and fills a much-needed hole there, this one made me realise that there was a hole I never really knew existed in the first place until I was showed it. There's so much to talk about here, and it's only the beginning. I think Ireland's Immortals would do well to grace your bookshelves.

Book Review: Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past

Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past
Edited by Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm

I think I've mentioned wanting this book a couple of times before here on the blog, but thanks to the price tag – £95 (and not much less second-hand) – this is not a book that I'm ever going to be able to afford. I expect the same goes for a lot of people, which is a real shame because it's a seriously good read.

I really do understand that books are expensive to produce and a profit is difficult to come by on volumes like this, but I do wish there was some sort of happy medium to be found. The price tag unfortunately means it's really only ever going to be something you'll find in an academic library, unless second-hand prices come down. Seeing as the book was only published last year I was surprised and pleased to find it available at my university library, so damn skippy I'm borrowing it.

So with the whinging out the way I'll get onto what the book actually is: It's a collection of articles that were originally presented in 2008 at a colloquium in Helsinki, and (as the title suggests) they're all looking at various aspects of what we might call "Celtic Religion." There's a very critical approach throughout the volume, and the topics include a focus on how approaches to "Celtic" religion have changed and evolved over the years (i.e. is there a Celtic religion?), what the material we have available can actually tell us about religious belief, and the way historical approaches to those beliefs evolved as well.

All in all this is a pretty slim volume with only seven articles, so it's a fairly quick read and not as much of a hard slog as most books like this tend to be. There are obviously some articles that grabbed my interest more than others, but one in particular that seemed rather incongruous when grouped together with the rest; this one dealt with purely Biblical material, and while it was a good read in itself it seemed rather out of place with the rest.

The first article, from Alexandra Bergholm and Katja Ritari, asks "'Celtic Religion': Is this a Valid Concept?" (Short answer being no, not really) and it does a fantastic job of introducing the rest of the book in general, but also giving a very brief and critical overview of the issues involved in undertaking such studies. This is the kind of important stuff you want to have a good idea of if you're going to make your own study of the field.

Next up is Jacqueline Borsje's "Celtic Spells and Counterspells," which focuses mostly on Irish material but with some other examples brought in for comparison. Not only is her analyses of these "spells and counterspells" fascinating, but she uses them as a frame for discussing how we can use the historical sources to learn what we can about pre-Christian beliefs – what they can and can't tell us, what we can even if it's not stated explicitly, and so on. Again, this is really good, important stuff even though some of it may already seem pretty obvious to you.

John Carey's "The Old Gods of Ireland in the Later Middle Ages" is also a solid contribution, and it kind of picks up on some elements Carey covered in his first chapter of A Spear of the Sun and then expands on them, namely how the scribes of the Middle Ages dealt with the gods and grappled with their identity and place in a Biblical scheme. In some ways this may be a topic that's been well-covered already, but I found some bits and pieces here that added to my understanding of the subject and were of genuine interest. Along with Borsje's article, I'd highly recommend a read.

The next few articles were interesting to me but I didn't feel they added as much as the previous ones in terms of religion or myth specifically. Even so, Robin Chapman Stacey's article on "Ancient Irish Law Revisited" had some good stuff with applying the same sort of critical approach to the law tracts as Borsje did with her chapter, so if that's your thing I'd recommend adding it to your list of things to read.

The final chapter, however, is one of the chunkier articles in the volume, and I thought it offered a lot of good food for thought. This one is Jane Webster's "A Dirty Window on the Iron Age? Recent Developments in the Archaeology of Pre-Roman Celtic Religion," and it begins with a (fairly provocative, perhaps) quote from John Collis that states, "I am sceptical that there is anything we can label as 'Celtic religion.'" The chapter is a nice bookend to the introduction from Bergholm and Ritari, and Webster contributes a critical look at what archaeology, specifically, can offer us, as well as what it has offered us in the past. She begins with a broad overview of recent archaeological developments in the field, detailing the various approaches and interpretations that have been taken to the material, using some of the bigger names in archaeology as examples for critiquing and explaining further. We then move on to look at the limitations of archaeology in terms of how it can't give us much certainty or specifics about druids, or issues around sacrifice, and so on.

As the first volume in a new series (titled "New Approaches to Celtic Religion and Mythology") I think it's a really good start and I look forward to seeing the rest of the series come out and exploring other areas in more detail. To be clear, this is not a book that's going to give you a detailed description of what "Celtic Religion" looked like, which I'm sure is going to be frustrating to some if you go by the title alone. The book doesn't really offer much in the way of certainties at all, but it does offer something that's all too often lacking in "Celtic Pagan" spheres, and that's an emphasis on critical thinking and approaching the material on its own terms. It's a real shame that the cost of the book is so prohibitive because for that alone I really would recommend you read it if you can get hold of a copy. If you have access to a library that can get hold of it for you then I think it's definitely worth a try.

Book Review: The Origins of the Irish

The Origins of the Irish
J. P. Mallory

Given the recent announcement that proof of an Irish Paleolithic has finally been discovered, this review is both timely and a perfect example of how quickly things can change and our whole idea of history (or prehistory, in this case) can be rewritten thanks to something so small and seemingly insignificant as a few scratches on a bear bone...

So all in all, in spite of the fact that this book was only released in 2013 it's already out of date in some respects. Such is the way of things in this field, no?

Up until recently I'd heard of this book but didn't know much about it. More than that, I have to admit the title kind of put me off wanting to know more because it struck me as one of those books that was going to be little more than guff and wind that failed to hide a sad and slightly racist agenda behind some dodgy attempts at science. If I hadn't picked it up in a bookshop I would probably still be thinking that.

I'm glad to say I was wrong in my assumption, and that I did, in fact, really enjoy this book. In searching for the origins of the Irish – where, exactly, the people of Ireland came from, including how they got there – Mallory takes a look at the archaeology, the early historical evidence, linguistics, and (still fairly fledgling area of) genetics. Before we get to all of that, though, we begin right at the beginning, with a whistlestop tour of the Big Bang and how the Earth changed over the first few billions of years until we reach the general layout of continents we have today. We are, ultimately, star dust, after all.

The book is pretty ambitious in its scope, in trying to weave all of these various strands together to give a coherent answer to the initial question. The answer we end up with isn't conclusive, by any means, but it would hardly be reasonable to expect one given the kind of evidence we're dealing with here. It's inevitable that a book like this is going to raise more questions than it answers, and there's a risk that the reader will be left confused or dissatisfied rather than illuminated. My feeling, by the end of it all, is that there may be uncertainty, unknowns, and unknowables, but it's a great ride. This is an extremely well-written book – engaging, witty, clearly and logically structured with the minimum of jargon thrown at the reader. It's not glossy or colourful, perhaps, but it doesn't need to be.

Right at the beginning we're introduced to Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish king who Mallory suggests is our ideal "Irishman" – an identifiably historical figure who lived right at the cusp of Ireland's early historical period when, it's suggested, Irish people had a definite sense of being "Irish." This is, of course, open to debate, but for the sake of argument let's just go with it. Throughout the book we return to Niall as we wonder about all the things that had to happen throughout the pre-history of Ireland for such a person, in such a time and such a place, to come about – someone who, as Mallory points out, had a non-Irish mother. It's not ethnicity we're looking for here; it's about identity. With all the various peoples and influences that have had a bearing on Ireland, the real point of this book is how do we define an "Irish" person anyway?

A good chunk of the book is taken up with the archaeology as we stroll through the Mesolithic period, the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age (bearing in mind, of course, that there was no discernible Paleolithic period in Ireland at the time of writing). Mallory does a good job of laying out the evidence for what life was like for people of each of these periods – how they lived, what they might have believed, how society and technology changed and evolved, and why these things happened. Of course, we can only deal with theories and speculation for the most part here, and Mallory deftly outlines old theories and new, and discusses the pros and cons for each of them. It's clear which theories Mallory himself favours as we go along but he allows room for the reader to draw their own conclusions, too.

Once we've dealt with the archaeology, there's a chapter on the literary evidence – looking at the origin story of Lebor Gabála Érenn especially – followed by chapters on genetics and linguistics. I have to admit that I instinctively balk when genetics tend to come up, because it's so often used as thinly veiled attempts at arguing about genetic purity and crap like that, but I think Mallory deals with the subject sensitively and evenly here. I'm no linguist but the content here is solid and brings up some nifty points, too. Finally, the last chapter brings everything together to make the final conclusions,

A book like this could easily be dry and dense, but that's really not the case here. It packs in a lot of detail, and I think perhaps it would be of benefit if you have at least a vague idea of archaeology and the basics of the field; the jargon is kept to a minimum but for the total noob it might be a bit overwhelming or distracting; not a major problem, but something some might appreciate knowing going in. Each chapter finishes with a very simplified summary of the major points raised, which is a definite plus.

I can't say I agreed wholeheartedly with everything in the book. In particular I quibbled with a few details in the chapter on the literature, but any disagreements I had were minor and there's nothing that I'd say was just plain wrong. Over all this is a fantastic overview of the subject and it's something I've been looking for for a long time. This is a book I'd highly recommend to anyone.

Book Review: The Celtic Evil Eye and Related Mythological Motifs in Medieval Ireland

The Celtic Evil Eye and Related Mythological Motifs in Medieval Ireland
Jacqueline Borsje

Not the pithiest of titles, but it tells you just about everything you need to know here; what you see is what you get.

I'd had my eye on this book for a good while now, but given the price tag – not actually that bad, for an academic book, but more than I usually spend on myself – I'd been hoping it would turn up at the university library sooner rather than later. I'm often hesitant to buy books without a good preview because you never know what you're going to get – there's a book, The Seer in Celtic and Other Traditions by Hilda Ellis-Davidson that I was intrigued by for a long while, and it costs just a wee bit more than this one. When I found a copy at the library, though, it turned out there was only one or two essays in it that I was interested in (the book mostly deals with "Other Traditions"). If I'd bought it myself I would've been disappointed.

This time, though, Borsje's book didn't seem like it was going to be available via the library any time soon so I eventually broke down and decided to splurge; as much as I may be cautious, I'm also kind of impatient... I figured that given everything I've ever read by Jacqueline Borsje, I wasn't likely to be disappointed here – I'm a big fan of her work. And lucky for me I wasn't disappointed at all – this one is well worth the price tag (would that I could afford this one, though. That's definitely going to be a "wait for the university library").

So here's a quick idea of what this book is all about – it's a collection of articles written by Borsje over the years, all of them dealing with various aspects or elements about the concept of the evil eye, or drochshúil, in Irish mythology. Each article forms a chapter, and you might already be familiar with some of them since some of the articles are available elsewhere (though I'm not sure most of them are published in English?). Chapter One, for instance, is 'The Evil Eye' in early Irish literature and law, co-written with Fergus Kelly, though here Kelly's contributions (on the law texts that deal with the subject of the evil eye) have been updated and are split off into an appendix. The other articles have been adapted a little as well, so that they make a more coherent volume all together. The final chapter is specially written for the book, and while Borsje notes that the book can be read in any order – each chapter is self-contained – the over all layout has a logic and flow to it that works well.

I really enjoyed this book and found so much here that's useful to my interests or just plain interesting. I started off using little post-its to tag bits I knew I'd want to come back to and ended up giving up trying to colour code things with some semblance of order because I ran out of post-its in the requisite colour. Given the nature of the evil eye the book touches on folk practice (and how it relates to, or reflects, the beliefs articulated in the myths) as well as the mythology itself, and it also deals with certain areas of magical practice – corrgúinecht and the power of words in particular. The ritual nature of this practice, and the bestowing of the evil eye (in certain instances) is also dealt with. As much as it might be tempting to thing of the evil eye as little more than a literary motif, it's clear from the early Irish laws as much as folk practice that the concept is very real. Even today it's still a very relevant part of everyday life (as I've experienced myself – when the kids were babies people were always very keen to bless them and show their goodwill by giving them a silver coin).

As far as the mythology goes, there's a lot of focus on The Second Battle of Mag Tured (CMT) and The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (TBDD) because of the characters found there – Balor of the Evil Eye in CMT, and Nár Túathcháech in TBDD, for example – and the instances of corrgúinecht that are mentioned (or implied), which may involve the casting of the evil eye. There are plenty of other tales referenced as well, like the Death of Cú Chulainn, but given the importance of the first two, Borsje includes translations of both tales in the appendices. These are primarily based on the translations given by Whitley Stokes (partly because they're out of copyright now), with some updates and additional bits (mainly the more obscure rosc parts, though not all of them, unfortunately) based on the work of academics like Kim McCone and Ralph O'Connor (who's book on Da Derga's Hostel is referenced in glowing terms). The translation of TBDD includes a note, from O'Connor's book, on the meaning of the stream of names given by the hag (Cailb, though identified as Badb, or the Morrígan), which is something I've been looking for for a while; O'Connor's book is definitely bumped up my reading list now. Really, the translations and notes that accompany them are almost worth buying Borsje's book for that alone.

Because the chapters were originally published as individual articles there's a bit of repetition in places, especially (I noticed) when it comes to the discussion of the meaning and nuances of the term "túathcháech." It's not so repetitive that I minded it, though, and there's some genuinely meaty stuff to get stuck into. In particular, I'd wondered about the relation between the Tuatha Dé Danann being said to have come from the "north" and the traditionally negative connotations of that direction for a while now, and this is something that Borsje touches on (chapter 4, 'Encounters with One-Eyed Beings'). There's also a good discussion on why it's the eyes, or specifically an eye, that's so intricately associated with ill-wishing or cursing.

The last chapter, which is titled 'The Power of Words: The Intricacy of the Motif of the Evil Eye' (though it covers somewhat similar ground as in Druids, Deer, and Words of Power) was an especially good read, though it's hard for me to pick just one stand-out chapter. It gives a good overview of who might cast the evil eye the methods used to protect against the evil eye, in the form of prayer like St Patrick's Lorica (otherwise known as The Deer's Cry, or Faíd Fiada), amongst others. A common element of these prayers is protecting against the evil eye by surrounding oneself in spiritual armour – binding blessings to yourself in every direction, and every part of the body. This "surrounding" is also founds in other means of protection, like the crios Bríde ('girdle of Bríde') and the practice of leaving things like ribbons out for the saint's blessing – something that has intriguing implications about how old these practices might be. It brought up a lot of comparisons with the caimeachadh prayers in the Carmina Gadelica for me, which I think may be an avenue to explore.

One thing I would've liked to have seen is more of a discussion on the way Boann loses an eye (and a leg and an arm) in the Dindshenchas tale about the Boyne, and the similarities between that and the stance taken during the performance of córrguinecht and the prophecy performed by Cailb in TBDD. It's something I've wondered about for a while, and it was something that came to the fore again when Borsje delved into the symbolism of "one-eyedness" and its association with knowledge (just one possible meaning, and depending on context). An index would have been nice too...

This is a very dense read – engaging but certainly not the kind of thing you're likely to devour in one sitting – and I think it's only going to appeal to people who have a real interest in the subject. If you do have any interest in this kind of thing, though, then I think it's an essential book to add to your shelf. It's certainly a book I'm going to be referring back to a lot.

Book Review: Constructing Gender in Medieval Ireland

This is another book I got from the library during the school holidays (and of course after confidently declaring that it "won't take long" to get through them all, I'm two books down and due to return them in two days....).

Before I get into the review itself, I think it's worth mentioning an article I read a while back that's titled 'One Flesh, Two Sexes, Three Genders?' by Jacqueline Murray, which you can find in a book called Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe, edited by Lisa Bitel and Felice Lifshitz. This was another library find, and while I didn't read the whole book (it wasn't quite what I was looking for – there wasn't much on Ireland at all), Murray's article caught my eye and had quite a bit of interesting food for thought, which I think is relevant in terms of discussing the book I'm about to review. For one, it introduced me to the concept of the "third gender," which the article broadly equated with a "clergy gender."

This third gender essentially encapsulates the idea that people who devoted themselves to religious life in medieval Europe in effect othered themselves from otherwise normal expectations of their gender. Whereas "normally" men and women occupied fairly well-defined roles based on their gender – getting married, having babies, taking on certain kinds of domestic roles or duties, etc. (for example, the focus of a child's education was very different depending on whether you were a girl or a boy, in preparation for those kinds of roles you'd be expected to take on as an adult) – people who dedicated themselves to a religious life as priests, monks, nuns, or hermits, effectively stepped outside of those expectations. Instead of a "normal" life, they were expected to be celibate and couldn't marry, and in the case of monks and nuns, they might live in fairly secluded, women- or men-only monasteries or nunneries, with only limited contact with those of the opposite sex. Because of this, there was more leeway in terms of the kinds of roles that they might take on – having to adopt roles that weren't typically associated with their gender. In secular society, things like that might be frowned upon, but the rules were different for religious dedicants (of one kind or another), whether out of necessity or for other reasons, so it was more accepted and expected, arguably, than people who occupied other areas of society.

To be clear, this is a concept that isn't explicitly articulated in medieval Europe – there's very much a gender binary view of "male" and "female"/"man" and "woman" (hence the examples of "gender norms" I gave above) – so this "third gender" is something that's implied, more than anything. So in practical terms, it's more of an academic concept that can be useful in discussing certain subjects, though it's by no means necessarily universally accepted and agreed upon. It's also a relatively recent concept, as far as I'm aware, and not something you'll encounter in most books that find their way onto reading lists you might find on various websites.

Anyway. Onto the review. Yes, it's time to talk about the cross-dressing nuns (or lack thereof).

Constructing Gender in Medieval Ireland
Sarah Sheehan and Ann Dooley (Editors)


There aren't very many books that deal exclusively with gender or sexuality in terms of Irish studies, so this volume here goes some way towards filling that gap (as the editors themselves note). Although it should be said from the start that if you're looking for any in-depth articles about attitudes towards anything other than heterosexual relationships or sexuality, you're going to have to look somewhere else, I'm afraid.

The book contains nine articles from nine different authors, and as usual I'll concentrate on the ones I found to be the most interesting, throught-provoking, or useful. Some of them weren't as engaging for me as others were, but the ones I did enjoy gave me a lot to think about, especially because the authors consider not just the historical view of things – this is what we see in the sources, so when we put it all together this is how we see society was, etc. – but they also consider how historians have dealt with the materials before now and how different approaches, different ideas and social attitudes or trends, and personal biases, have influenced our own interpretation of things as the field of Celtic Studies has evolved. This is especially important when we consider some of the better-known figures in Irish myth, like Medb and Macha, who both present a very atypical expression of gender expectations of the time, and both of them are discussed at various points in the book.

We get off to a good start with the first article by Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, with a look at 'Travelers and Settled Folk: Women, Honor, and Shame in Medieval Ireland.' It's an obvious choice to put first because this article introduces the differences in expectations between men and women, and the kinds of gender roles that were expected of them (by and large), which are important to understand in helping us interpret what we find in Irish myths, laws, and other historical sources. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, and these are considered as well, and in particular Ní Dhonnchadha touches on the topics of female poets and warriors – both of whom would have had to travel as part of their jobs.

A large part of the issues surrounding travel were on safety and sexual propriety, and the latter point follows on nicely into chapter 2, 'Sex in the Civitas: Early Irish Intellectuals and their Vision of Women' by Catherine Swift. Swift starts off with a quote from Yeats – "After Cuchulain, we think most of certain great queens – of angry amorous Maeve with her long pale face, of Findabair... of Deirdre who might be some mild modern housewife but for her prophetic vision... I think it might be proud Emer... who will linger longest in the memory, whether she is the newly married wife fighting for precedence, fierce as some beautiful bird or the confident housewife who would waken her husband from his magic sleep with mocking words" – noting that these references to "queens and housewives" speaks more to Yeats' own view and expectations of women than how it was for the women he's talking about; Emer or Deirdre, as women of high status, were hardly housewives. They had servants and slaves to be doing all of that while they had the freedom to pursue all the things expected of a lady of good breeding. From this we move on to how these attitudes are prevalent throughout time, especially when it comes to looking at the kind of sexual mores we find in early Ireland. Aside from the myths, which often play with themes of gender expectations and sexuality, our view is mainly involved by the men of the Church who wrote extensively about what marriage should be, how sex should be, and the kind of penances that should be performed when transgressions were made, and they had their own biases, of course, and the views they espoused are often contradicted by the myths.

This article has a lot of post-it notes from me, and another one that got the same treatment was Amy C. Mulligan's 'Playing for Power: Macha Mongrúad's Sovereign Performance,' which takes a fascinating look at the story of Macha Mongrúad's reign. Mulligan discusses a lot of good points about the story, though I anticipate her view that the Macha we see here is not an expression of a divinity per se, but is rather a figure who contains elements of a sovereignty goddess, is not something that will be met with universal agreement...

Skipping ahead to the cross-dressing nuns ('They Kept Their Skirts On: Gender-Bending Motifs in Early Irish Hagiography,' by Judith L. Bishop), this was another article I greatly enjoyed, and it's what made me mention the stuff about third gender above, because it seems to fit in with the "gender-transgressive" theme of the article, especially in the sense that it's specifically in the context of religious expression and attitudes towards gender. In particular, one of the main threads of the article here is that gender transgressive acts in Irish hagiography ("saint's lives"), where saints are forced, or choose, to dress in clothes that are the opposite of their gender, just aren't a thing, even though it's clear that the stories of such saints from further afield were definitely known to the Irish. It's interesting, then, that there aren't any stories of Irish saints that picked up this theme and ran with it, even though we do see, in a broader sense, there are certainly examples of saints who engage in "gender-transgressive" acts – Brigid being ordained a bishop, say, even though women can't normally be bishops. In spite of this fact, the ordainment is said to have been accepted and Brigid remained a bishop, although as Bishop notes, she's never seen performing the trappings of a bishop. In fact, there are references made about the fact that she's unable to fulfil certain roles associated with that of a bishop specifically because of her gender.

There's plenty more that's worth a read here, but I don't want to go on for too long. As much as I'd recommend the book, I think it's probably going to appeal to people who've already got a pretty good grounding in the basics and/or have an interest in this particular area of study. This is very much an academic read, so if you're looking for some light bedtime reading, I don't think I'd count this one as falling into that column...

I did feel that (at times) different articles touched on themes that had already been dealt with elsewhere, in a way that felt rather repetitive. That's only a very minor quibble, though, and perhaps it's inevitable when it comes to a book that's so focused on a particular theme. I suppose my biggest disappointment is the lack of any discussion of anything other than heterosexual relationships. For one, scant though the evidence is for lesbians (or bisexual women, etc. Perhaps I should say "Women who sleep with women, though not necessarily exclusively?") and "playful mating," we do have the tale of Niall Frossach that I think would be worthy of attention from the kind of approach towards gender theory and gender studies found here... So I guess, in conclusion: More please. And more diversity? That would be very much appreciated.

Review: Studies in Irish Mythology

Before I get into the review of Grigory Bondarenko's book (AKA my new favourite book, ever), I'll just make a note of the new page I've created where all the book reviews I've done here on the blog are listed and linked to, arranged by subject matter.

Studies in Irish Mythology
Grigory Bondarenko

As I noted when I blogged about my trip to the library, where I picked this book up along with a bunch of others, this one is a compilation of sixteen articles and essays written by Bondarenko over the course of around ten years. You can find some of the articles compiled in this volume freely available online, so if you want a taster of what you'll be getting, here they are:

• Cú Roí and Syvatogor: A Study in Cthonic
• Autochthons and Otherworlds in Celtic and Slavic
• The Dindshenchas of Irarus: the king, the druid and the probable tree
• The King in Exile in Airne Fíngein: Power and Pursuit in Early Irish Literature
• Conn Cétchathach and the Image of Ideal Kingship in Early Medieval Ireland
• Oral Past and Written Present in 'The Finding of the Táin'
• The Migration of the Soul in Early Irish Tales (different title in pdf)

I'm going to assume that most people who find this review don't read Russian, but I'll link to the first chapter as well, and note that the version given in the book is most definitely in English, unlike that version online. And as a bonus, here's a preview of the book.

But don't let the availability of these articles put you off from investing in getting the book for your probably overcrowded shelves; it's well worth it, and I'll definitely be adding it to mine on a permanent basis. You'll have to buy directly from the publisher, from the looks of it, but it's reasonably priced compared to a lot of academic books these days.

Although focusing on Irish mythology, most of the chapters take a rather comparative approach, making comparisons with Slavic or Russian myth in some places, or drawing on Indo-European, Gaulish or Welsh evidence to help support an argument in others. It's something that's easy to over-do (see, for example, the Rees brothers' Celtic Heritage) but I think here, for the most part, the comparative approach genuinely complements what Bondarenko is trying to do, rather than detracts from it. Many of the chapters deal with various aspects of cosmology and attempt to dig out evidence of pre-Christian ritual or belief, so a comparative approach can be helpful in figuring out what we should be looking for, for one.

It's this cosmological and pre-Christian stuff that I'm most interested in (in case you hadn't guessed), and I found a number of the chapters to be extremely illuminating. There's an article on 'The migration of the soul in Early Irish tales,' (link above) which is especially good, and I think it will definitely be of interest to anyone looking for a rundown of the evidence and the different ways that the evidence has been approached and interpreted. There's also a bit of a tangent about the word carddes, which can be interpreted as being 'a friendly agreement,' and which is found in relation to the agreement of peace between the Milesians and the Tuatha Dé Danann mentioned in De Gabail in t-Sida. That's also touched on in an earlier chapter, which is also worth a read.

The final chapter, 'Fintan mac Bóchra: Irish synthetic history revisited,' makes a good companion piece to the article on the migration of souls, since it deals with Fintan and Tuán mac Cairell, both of whom are said to have transformed into different kinds of animals as a way of surviving many thousands of years, and who are often cited as examples for supporting evidence of the belief in metempsychosis (the transmigration of the soul, which can include and encompass reincarnation). Fintan is said to have been the only person to have survived the Flood, who then lived for thousands of years until he related the history of Ireland to an audience (and then died), and Bondarenko gives an overview of the possible meanings of his name and the various interpretations academics have made over the years in terms of who, or what, Fintan is – a god, an example of a "primordial man," and so on. All of this is especially interesting if you have a thing for cosmogony/creation myths, and if that's not enough there's also some meaty stuff on the concept of silence or "dumbness" in relation to revelation and obtaining hidden knowledge, and possible hints of its use in ritual.

Some of the earlier chapters deal with various aspects of the tale Airne Fíngein ('Fíngen's Vigil'), which relates the events surrounding the birth of Conn Cétchatach, one of Ireland's most reknowned legendary kings. Here again we have some good stuff to mull over – aspects of "ideal kingship" in Ireland, the possible meaning of Conn's name and his epithet "Cétchathach," usually interpreted as "Conn of the Hundred Battles," but, as Bondarenko notes, the epithet could mean "a hundred treaties," or perhaps even "first-warlike." Conn, meanwhile, can have connotations of "protuberance, boss, chief, head," or "sense, reason." At Conn's birth, Airne Fíngein mentions the spontaneous appearance of the five royal roads of Ireland, and the meaning and symbolism of these are explored in a chapter of their own, which also appears in the Celtic Cosmology book I reviewed not too long ago.

As the article on 'The Case of Five Directions' notes, fives are a common grouping in Irish myth – five royal roads, five directions, five sacred trees (bile), and so on. A couple of chapters look at various aspects relating to the sacred trees of Ireland, including one on 'The alliterative poem Eó Rossa from the Dindshenchas.' This is a poem that describes the tree (possibly a yew), and it includes some intriguing lines, including one that calls the tree "dor nime/door of heaven," which has been interpreted in some CR circles as being evidence that the bile spans the three realms. Bondarenko gives a detailed and fascinating analysis of many of the lines from the poem, including this one (noting the possible Biblical references it makes), and it makes for a thought-provoking read.

One of the later chapters, 'Goidelic Hydronyms in Ptolemy's Geography: Myth Behind the Name,' is an article that puts the comaparative approach that Bondarenko favours to particular good use. This one was of especial interest for the discussion of Boann and her relation to a river name Ptolemy notes that's likely to correspond with the Boyne river, and Bondarenko brings in the comparative evidence to explore the meaning of the name, mentioning Indo-European theories, Gaulish evidence of similar names, as well as the Dindshenchas stories relating to Boann (and similar tales, like that of Shannon/Sinann), in discussing the possibilities. Although Bondarenko makes his own views clear, he makes an effort to cover different angles and other approaches, so it's easy to make your own mind up or hunt up those other academics while you chew on it.

I'll finish off with mentioning one final article that stood out for me – another one on a Dindshenchas poem, but this time it's a translation of a rosc poem that hasn't been translated before. Both Edward Gwynn and Whitley Stokes, who translated the bulk of the Dindshenchas between them, left this one out, apparently because of the difficult and obscure nature of the language, and they didn't even mention it (except for a brief reference to it by Stokes in his own privately printed compilation of his translations). This fact in itself is interesting to me, and Bondarenko goes on to offer a translation and analysis of the poem, which centres around five heroes who must defend themselves from "phantoms, ancient armies" from the Otherworld, who come out to attack them during the Feast of Tara at Samhain. Again, it links in with a number of details described in Airne Fíngein, starting with mention of the five royal roads that appeared at the birth of Conn.  

There's so much more here besides the few tidbits I've covered so far, and it really does make for a good read. I can't say I don't have my disagreements, or questions, here or there, and I can't say every single chapter was of as much interest to me as the ones I've mentioned above, but there's nothing here that makes me want to throw the book at the nearest wall and then stomp on it (I do quibble and grumble over the questionable use of "shaman/shamanism" in the first few chapters, though). Even where I wasn't so interested in the subject being discussed, I can say that at least I learned something new.

This isn't a book that I'd recommend for a total noob; it's certainly a hefty and dense read that isn't aimed at a general, populist audience, and I think it would really benefit from being approached with an already decent foundation of knowledge with regards to Irish mythology and the study of it. As academic works go, the language used is fairly accessible – I don't think you'll be overwhelmed by jargon – but it's the nature of the beast that these things can be rather dry, especially if it's not your usual kind of bedtime reading.

If you feel like you've read all the 101 books you can stomach and you're looking for something with more depth to it, then I'd say definitely add this to your wish list. If you're interested in all things Irish cosmology then I'd suggest you have done with it and just order a copy now...  And if you take my advice then I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Book Review: Singing with Blackbirds

This isn't one of the books I got from the library recently (still working through those), but I decided it's worth a review... I Have Notes.


Singing with Blackbirds: The Survival of Primal Celtic Shamanism in Later Folk-Tradition
Stuart A. Harris-Logan

Let's start with the blurb on the back of the book:

Singing with Blackbirds is an investigation of the survival of primal Celtic Shamanism in later folk-traditions of Gaelic speaking peoples. This is an insightful and intelligent work that brings together areas of study not normally combined.

Going by this alone, it's obvious that this book has clear and lofty aims. I'll say right out, though, once you get into the nitty gritty of it all, those aims will probably end up leaving you with more questions than answers (and not in a good way). It certainly did me...

I'll admit that I have something of a bias against anything that claims to be "Celtic Shamanism," and to be fair to the author, he's well aware of some of the criticisms that are aimed towards the use of the label (or "shamanism" in general). So perhaps I'm predisposed to be skeptical of books like this, but I'd like to think that even if I'm not keen on principle I can at least give valid reasons for any criticisms I might have beyond some kind of knee-jerk reaction. I hope so. Harris-Logan mentions "encountering a lot of hostility from a number of groups which took exception to my research," so I'm sure it will come as no surprise to the author himself that there are those who might be critical (though I wouldn't say I'm especially hostile, personally...). Because of this, at the back of the book there's a section called "Apologia," where Harris-Logan gives a very useful outline of his reasons for using the term, and the crux of it boils down to this:

"Arguments against the use of 'shaman' and shamanism' as ethnological terms appear to be founded on the notion that they are not derived from a Celtic language. If we were to retrict its use merely to it's [sic] native culture, then only Tungusic shamans could be defined as such... 

"Restricting our vocabulary in this way makes an exercise in intercultural comparison both awkward and limited. Without an umbrella term, how are we able to hold one technique up against the other? ...I need a term to compare the practices of the Kwakiutl hamatsa and the Irish gelta. I need a term to compare the Buryat shaman's and Cú Chulainn's visionary experiences. I need a term to compare the spirit dance with rituals found to be taking place in latter day Coll and Uist. In short, I need 'shamanism'." (p133)

But I want to be clear that it's not simply the principle of using a loanword that I object to here. It's the fact that such a word describes a specific set of practices of a specific people, and I feel it's impossible to separate the original word from its culture and specific meaning within that culture. I feel it's wrong to try. Co-opting that word, adapting and generalising it to assume that the ritual practices of disparate are all one homogenous thing does a disservice to all of those practices, to my mind, especially when there are more accurate words from those cultures languages to describe them better.

On top of that, there's the fact that "shamanism" (in the popular sense) has been used to apply to a set of beliefs and practices that are highly problematic (see links, above). Not just "problematic," but mired in racism and rampant appropriation. It's unfortunate that Harris-Logan uses the very author responsible for kicking that all off – Michael Harner – along with at least one of Harner's students in order to try to prove the points he makes throughout the book, and this is something that certainly casts a negative over the whole book for me.

So there's the principle of the thing that I object to, yes. But it's also the fact that such an approach just doesn't hold up under any kind of academic scrutiny, and Harris-Logan himself is keen to emphasise that Celtic Studies has a lot to offer this kind of subject. The very problems I have with "core shamanism's" (as Harner himself calls it) approach in general underpin the approach Harris-Logan takes throughout the whole volume, as well: context is ignored, and comparative evidence is relied on heavily, even though the evidence comes from completely unrelated cultures and so have only limited bearing upon one another (more often than not). For instance, we're told that the Celts had totems and power animals, just like Native Americans do, even though he doesn't really define what these actually mean to Native Americans (or if they're even universal or exactly the same between tribes). The logic goes that totems are a thing somewhere in the world, therefore it follows that the exact same concept exists amongst the Celts because animals appear in a spiritual, similar-seeming context, too. Ergo, shamanism. And so it goes. What the evidence amongst the Celts – and amongst the different Celtic cultures themselves – suggests isn't considered.

In general, no matter which culture is being referenced, they're all treated as if they're talking about the same thing. On a very basic, broadly generalised level, there are similarities between many cultures, even those who never came into direct contact with one another, to be sure – we're all human, after all. But here, Harris-Logan draws on evidence from all over the world to show that shamanism is found in Celtic cultures, and at times it feels like he focuses more on non-Celtic cultures to prove a point than he does the actual Celtic cultures that we're supposed to be looking at.

Where there are clear relationships between cultures, they're treated as though they're one and the same, to the point where I'm not really sure if this book is supposed to be about "Celtic" Shamanism or "Gaelic" Shamanism. One of the people who contributed a glowing endorsement for the back cover seems to be similarly confused (referring only to "Gaelic Shamanism" despite the book's title), and I can only assume that this is presumably because it doesn't matter, because it all goes back to a primal (which seems to mean "universal") set of practices, anyway. (Which makes me wonder... why bother with slapping on a cultural label at all?)

But let's get down to the nuts and bolts, not just the general approach. The evidence is often twisted to fit the point the author's trying to make, even when the evidence is very obviously lacking, and one of the worst examples of this is in Harris-Logan's attempt to prove that drumming – as an element of shamanic practice that's "a crucial technique to most shamanic cultures, a catalyst for the spirit journey..." (p27) was also a thing for the pre-Christian Celts. He acknowledges that there isn't any overt evidence for this – no archaeological evidence, nothing in iconography or myth that outright describes or shows ritualistic drumming – but he goes on to argue that the "wheel" iconography found in Gaulish depictions of religious art, like this one shown on the Gundestrup cauldron:

Interior plate 'C' of the Gundestrup Cauldron. Source: Wikipedia

Is really a drum (in spite of the fact that these wheels consistently have way more spokes than the "shamanic drums" he compares them to, which only have four – rather like some bodhrán designs, which are relatively modern in origin as instruments go). Obviously this leaves something of a hurdle for the Gaels, because the Gaulish evidence doesn't apply and drumming is never mentioned in any of the myths, so here he argues that drumming was such an obvious part of practice that it wasn't necessary to reference it overtly, and also points to examples where he argues that an oblique reference to a drum is being made – interpreting passages and names from Irish myth that refer to wheels as secretly referring to the shamanic drum (though why not just say it outright if it's something that's so obvious and pervasive a practice? If it's no great secret, why the secrecy?). The significance of all this, Harris-Logan argues, is that, "This may be suggestive of a shamanic spirit journey." (p31)

Ultimately, Harris-Logan concludes:

"With the weight of this evidence it is impossible to discount the theory that the early Celts possessed drums. I agree with Trevarthen's note that the drum is a very primitive instrument possessed by most cultures across the globe (whether operating within a shamanic mode of perception or not), and it would be surprising if early Celtic tribes did not possess this basic instrument." (p33)

I find this whole argument to be extremely tenuous at best.

The meaning and etymology of certain words are discussed at several points, but actual meanings are often ignored in favour of personal interpretations that have no factual basis. Take "imbas" for example, which eDIL defines as "great knowledge; poetic talent, inspiration; fore-knowledge; magic lore," and breaks it down as coming from two words, "imb-ḟiuss or imb-ḟess." (Note: the wee dots above the 'f' in both examples there indicates lenition, which effectively kills the 'f' sound altogether). Harris-Logan, on the other hand, asserts that:

"The etymology of the term imbas (often translated as 'inspired' or 'poetic knowledge') is commonly given as 'in the hands' im (in) + bas (hands). It is also possible, though, that bás may have been intended instead of bas. If this is true, then a more correct translation would be 'in death' – supporting the shamanic mode of perception surviving in the modern Scots Gaelic language." (p48)

Although I'd still disagree with his conclusions here, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with assertions like this if the author was clear that this was either his own opinion, or could back it up with citations and a discussion of why he feels the eDIL etymology is wrong and why he discounts it. Phrases like "commonly given" don't help here, either, in trying to suggest this is a firm and accepted fact when it isn't.

In some cases, to be fair, he does make his linguistic speculations (or acceptance of other authors' speculations) more clear – such as the speculation that dán may be more accurately translated as "co-creative power" or even "shamanism" rather than "skill, art, gift, fate," (though I still disagree with his argument here). Elsewhere, however, he makes more spurious claims, like his mention of the dance called "cailleach an dùdain" (described by Carmichael in the Carmina Gadelica, in reference to a Michaelmas tradition) as evidence of birds having ritual significance in Gaelic "shamanic" practice. This is based on his translating the phrase to mean 'dance of the smoky owl,' which I can only assume is his own interpretation because it really means 'The Old Woman of the Mill-Dust.' Cailleach-oidhche means "owl," which is probably where he's coming from, but there's absolutely no supporting evidence for his interpretation here, and again he's stating something as fact when it's far from being the case. Things like this undermines any actual points that are being made because he's simply stretching the evidence to fit the picture as he wants it to.

The book is split into three main sections, the first section being titled "Druids and Drums: The Instruments of Ecstasy," and the second "Gaining Possession of a Sacrality." These two sections are primarily devoted to illustrating Harris-Logan's view of how the Celts were obviously a "shamanic" culture, based on comparative sources from all over the world. In the third section of the book – which is titled "A Shaman in the Gàidhealtachd?" – the majority of evidence is drawn from the Carmina Gadelica, with various prayers being given to support Harris-Logan's assertion that shamanism is evidenced in later folklore. My problem here is that no consideration is given to the context of the prayers – who said them, why, how – or how old they might be, what influences there might be evident in them, or whether or not Carmichael might have helped to "improve" the verses, to support or detract from the point that's being made. A prayer for justice (Ora Ceartas) is given, for example (along with several other prayers of varying purpose), but after the previous two sections, which go to great lengths to show that shamans were specialists of their arts – it wasn't something that everyone did, or was open to anyone who wanted to know more; the rituals and arts of the shaman were the purview and privilege of the shamans alone – the third chapter leaves me wondering how prayers like this (which were said by anyone in a situation where such a prayer was needed) are evidence of shamanism? If the rituals and specialist knowledge of shamans was known only to initiates, how and why did shamanism become more "public" in the Gàidhealtachd? This isn't addressed by Harris-Logan at all.

None of the prayers, or the myths that are discussed throughout the book, are viewed critically at all. At several points in the book the druid Mug Ruith is used to illustrate evidence of "shamanism," but the fact that the stories involve Mug Ruith are quite late, and Mug Ruith himself is presented as a "druid" through a very Christian lens, is ignored (see, for example, the discussion of Mug Ruith in Fiery Shapes). Harris-Logan himself argues for a more academic approach in dealing with the material, but over all I can't help but feel that he fails to illustrate one.

I can't say I found everything to be a total negative, though, and I don't want to sound like I'm totally hating on the book. In spite of my total disagreement with the majority of his interpretations and the over all point of the book, some of it was interesting and he draws on a diverse amount of evidence to support his arguments. As a fluent Gaelic speaker, he also gives his own translations of some of the prayers given in the Carmina Gadelica, and while they don't seem to be wildly different from Carmichael's own translations – just a few tweaks here and there – they do at least seem reliable (though I'll note that I'm not a fluent-speaker, by any stretch!) and are a little more up to date in language.

I also appreciated his discussion of how Gaelic works – the way only things that are integral to us, like family, or body parts, are spoken of with "possessive" phrases. To say "my hand" you say "mo lamh," which is literally "my" (mo) "hand" (lamh), but to say "my husband," or "my wife" you say "an duine agam," which literally means "the man (husband) that is at me." This isn't the first time I've seen such a thing discussed, but I've not really seen it discussed in any detail, and it's refreshing to read about this stuff from fluent speaker.

Again, however, there's a problem with some of the stuff that interested me because it's unreferenced and so I'm not sure how reliable it is. In particular, there's a note that tells the reader that the phrase ri traghadh 's ri lionadh, "With the ebb and with the flow" is "the name given to a traditional form of Gaelic singing." I recognise the phrase from a prayer that Carmichael gives in Volume II of the Carmina Gadelica (it's a prayer that we outlined in our Children and Family in Gaelic Polytheism article on the Gaol Naofa website, and expanded on as well), but I've never heard of it being applied to a form of singing and can't find anything to back this up. But if this is the case I'd certainly be interested to know more, especially if it sheds light on the prayer Carmichael gave, which is simply titled "Fuigheal/Fragment."

Ultimately, there just aren't enough interesting tidbits to make up for all of the problems I find with the book over all, and I couldn't recommend it. I think you're better off going straight to the source, so to speak, getting hold of the Carmina Gadelica and reading the myths yourself. Learn about the hisory and society these things come from, as much as you can. Context is important.