Introduction
When looking to find out about the mythology of the historic Celts and Irish, to recognize their subculture and faith as they understood all of them the one’s centuries and millennia ago, having a scholarly, authoritative reference book to lean on may be a godsend (pun 100% intended). And that’s precisely why we prepare this listing of Irish and Celtic mythology dictionaries, encyclopedias, and different works of reference.
1. Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by Peter Berresford Ellis
The Celts had been one of the excellent founding civilizations of Europe and the primary North European humans to emerge into recorded history, generating a colorful labyrinth of mythological stories and sagas that have motivated the literary traditions of Europe and the world.
The first A-Z reference of its kind, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology is a charming and available manual to the gods and goddesses, the heroes and heroines, the mystical weapons, splendid beasts, and otherworld entities that populate the myths of this wealthy European culture. Like A Dictionary of Irish Mythology earlier than it, that is a who is who and what is what of the epic Celtic sagas and stories.
Predated best through Greek and Latin through virtue of the truth that the Celtic languages had been now no longer written till the early Christian era, Celtic mythology is an improvement from miles in advance oral subculture containing voices from the sunrise of European civilization. The peoples of those Celtic cultures live on these days at the western seaboard of Europe–the Irish, Manx, and Scots, who make up the Goidelic- (or Gaelic) speaking department of Celts, and the Welsh, Cornish, and Brentons, who constitute the Brythonic-talking department.
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2. Early Irish Myths and Sagas translated by Jeffrey Gantz
Now we come to the primary sources of Celtic mythology from the historical and medieval worlds – in English translation, of course. Since the unmarried best supply of our modern understanding of Celtic mythology and faith comes from Old Irish literary works, any listing of number one assets at the Celts should begin with one’s Irish pieces.
Early Irish Myths and Sagas is an anthology of most of the most vital of those texts, and it’s the proper area for a person new to Old Irish literature to begin. These are epic memories of adventure, heroism, romance, mystery, and magic – greatly interesting and shifting as well as educational.
First written down in the 8th century AD, those early Irish tales depict a much older world – component myth, component legend, and component history. Rich with magic and achingly beautiful, they talk of a land of heroic battles, extreme love, and warrior ideals, wherein the otherworld is explored and guys mingle freely with the gods. From the brilliant adventures of the incredible Celtic hero Cu Chulainn, to the stunning ‘Exile of the Sons of Uisliu’ – a story of treachery, honor, and romance – those are masterpieces of ardor and vitality, and shape the inspiration for the Irish literary tradition: a mythic legacy that became an effective impact at the work of Yeats, Synge, and Joyce.
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3. Celtic Gods and Heroes by Marie-Louise Sjoestedt
Just about every book at the Celts that become posted after the 1940s cites Marie-Louise Sjoestedt’s Celtic Gods and Heroes frequently, and with exact reason. This book has stood the check of time remarkably well, and stays the necessary scholarly advent to Celtic mythology.
While Sjoestedt does retell many of the most essential stories of Celtic mythology, the ones tales are embedded inside conceptual discussions of Celtic mythology and religion. The factor isn’t the stories themselves, however instead what the stories display to us about how the Celts skilled the sector and its divine inhabitants.
“Noted French scholar and linguist discusses the gods of the continental Celts, the beginnings of mythology in Ireland, heroes, and the two main training of Irish deities: mother-goddesses — local, rural spirits of fertility or of war — and chieftain-gods: country-wide deities who’re magicians, nurturers, craftsmen, and protectors of the people.”
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4. Celtic Myth and Religion by Sharon Paice Macleod
This book gives a complete evaluation of Celtic mythology and religion, encompassing several components of formality and belief. Topics encompass the presence of the Celtic Otherworld and its inhabitants, cosmology and sacred cycles, information texts, mythological symbolism, folklore and legends, and an appreciation of the herbal world.
Evidence is drawn from the archaeology of sacred sites, ethnographic debts of the historic Celts and their beliefs, medieval manuscripts, poetic and visionary literature, and early present-day debts of people healers and seers. New translations of poems, prayers, inscriptions, and songs from the early period as well as the folklore tradition (Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Manx) supplement the text. Information of this type has by no means earlier than been gathered as a compendium of the indigenous information of the Celtic-talking peoples, whose traditions have persisted in numerous forms for nearly 3 thousand years.
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5. Gods and Goddesses of Ireland: A Guide to Irish Deities by Morgan Daimler
A concise manual to the Gods and Goddesses of pagan Ireland, their history, mythology, and symbols. Rooted in the beyond but still energetic in the globe today, the Gods and Goddesses of Ireland have constantly been effective forces that could bless or challenge, however frequently the maximum tough factor is to certainly discover facts about them. This quick introductory text appears at quite a few special Irish deities, not unusual places and greater obscure, from their historic roots to the contemporary-day practices related to honoring them in, an encyclopedia-fashion book with entries in easy-to-use sections.
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6. Celtic Mythology by Proinsias Mac Cana
Proinsias Mac Cana’s Celtic Mythology is, like Sjoestedt’s Celtic Gods and Heroes, a book that you’ll discover referenced over and over again in the scholarly literature and in the derivative, “me too” introductory books on Celtic mythology. It’s some other one of the landmark works in this field.
Like Sjoestedt, Mac Cana considers the fabric conceptually and analytically. When he recounts a story from Celtic mythology, it’s to illustrate a larger factor about the Celtic worldview, now no longer to in reality inform a tale. His writing fashion is phenomenally lucid and to-the-factor, which permits him to bring a completely huge quantity of records and thoughts in a noticeably quick space. Also, like Sjoestedt, he’s most interested in the underlying styles in Celtic mythology and religion and doesn’t assume that the reader has any previous understanding of the Celts.
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7. Celtic Heritage by Alwyn and Brinley Rees
In Celtic Heritage, the Rees brothers offer in-intensity attention to a few of the habitual thoughts in Celtic mythology, with a selected eye for that means of those motifs and the positions they occupied in the shape of Celtic mythology and faith as a whole.
But the book specializes in exclusive topics than Sjoestedt or Mac Cana (above) do. It also attracts notably later people’s traditions from the Celtic lands, in particular Wales and Ireland, and compares them with what we understand of pre-Christian Celtic faith.
In addition to offering a wealthy and precise study of a stunning and compelling cosmology and philosophy, the book is frequently capable of showing that echoes of this cosmology and philosophy have resounded powerfully in people’s traditions nicely into the modern era.
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8. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson
Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson becomes one of the giants of the scholarly have a look at the mythology and faith of the Norse and different Germanic peoples. Most of her books, including Gods and Myths of Northern Europe and The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe, had been written for a wider audience, and they’ve delighted, inspired, and inspired students and laypeople alike for lots decades.
Toward the top of her very efficient life, she became interested in the mythology and faith of one of the Germanic peoples’ neighbors, the Celts. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe become her highest success for the duration of this period.
The book compares the mythology and faith of the Celts to that of the Norse and different Germanic peoples, illustrating a few of the effective and compelling commonalities between the 2 traditions. This method is particularly crucial because the sources of our information about the Celts and Germanic peoples are few in range and written at a past due date, usually by folks who had already transformed to Christianity.
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9. The Tain by Thomas Kinsella
The Tain Bo Cuailnge (“Cattle Raid of Cooley”) is a prose epic that paperwork the center-piece of the so-called “Ulster cycle” of Celtic mythology. It tells the tale of the bold deeds of Cu Chulainn, a son of the god Lugh and possibly most of all the Celtic heroes.
While the story is basically involved with happenings among humans, numerous Celtic divinities make appearances at numerous points, and pupils debate the degree to which some of the human characters themselves are sincerely deities whose proper identities may were censored by the Christian priests who recorded the tale. Thomas Kinsella’s translation is quite evocative and complete in existence and energy.
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10. The Celtic Heroic Aeg by John T. Koch and John Carey
Continuing with the number one asset, Koch and Carey’s The Celtic Heroic Age is an anthology of texts from historical and medieval writers about the pre-Christian mythology and faith of the Celts. Some of the writings blanketed on this quantity can be acquainted with the ones who’ve already examined Early Irish Myths and Sagas, The Tain, and the Mabinogion. However, the various different portions blanketed right here will now no longer be. These consist of lesser-acknowledged however nonetheless especially applicable texts from the Celtic nations themselves, from historical inscriptions to medieval folktales.
But the actual centerpiece of The Celtic Heroic Age is the writings of the Celts from historical Greek and Roman authors, which might be one of the most good-sized sources for our current know-how of the Celts’ world, which includes, of course, their mythology and faith. All of the good-sized classical sources are right here, which includes Julius Caesar, Posidonius, Tacitus, Strabo, and lots of others. Collecting all of them right here in a single quantity, collectively with such a lot of different texts at the Celts, is an accomplishment that will be of notable cost to any severe student of the Celtic world.
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Conclusion
This listing changed into written with the aim of supporting you to do precisely that. Here, I gift ten of the great introductory books in the field, together with descriptions that can be designed that will help you determine which book or books on Celtic mythology are a great fit for what you for my part are searching for. The Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as the Norse, shared very similar mythologies. This shouldn’t be surprising, in view that they shared similar methods of life, lived in similar lands, spoke comparable languages, and shared a common ancestry. So if you’re into Norse mythology, probabilities are you’d get lots out of Celtic mythology, too.
