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pippagrace's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
A staple of any Irish mythology or ancient literature course, and a great read for all other situations. Deirdre did nothing wrong, she was a victim of her circumstance.
cillliangorm's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
The language used is so unique and poetic that it is enriching. The stories serve well to show what Celtic Ireland was. Though the use of the old Irish translation of names and place names makes the stories not feel connected to Ireland and confusing even to an Irish person like myself. Some of the stories over faithfulness to the original text makes them suffer as a result.
caidyn's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
3.25
Decent collection. I did like that they had common characters and there were introductions before the stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
wayfaring_witch's review against another edition
4.0
My favorite part was the intro that gave some cultural and historical context to these myths. As with any collection of stories, I enjoyed some more than others.
danahuff's review against another edition
5.0
As with The Mabinogion, readers will find much magic and and enjoyment in these ancient Irish stories.
cub_jones's review against another edition
4.0
Not much on narrative about half the time, as like a lot of myth it requires the presence and charisma of a storyteller to bring it fully to life, but in all other respects--power of truly strange description, beautiful language that ranges from the terse to the highly and vividly romantic and graphic, humor, and powerful themes, this is pretty fantastic and wonderfully alien. And it should be noted that much of the strongest material there is, in fact, delightfully wild narratively as well--cycles, regeneration, epic romances spanning hundreds of years and multiple generations. There are a couple of stories that go on a bit only to crash unspectacularly, or meander or simply not get up to much of anything, though this is understandable given the fascinating way--explained in the excellent introduction--these were finally written down in the first place.