Celtic Myths

The World's Greatest Myths and Legends

by Jake Jackson (Editor)

Despite not belonging to a geographically unified race, the Celts left a rich legacy of myths, legends, customs and folklore, which are among the oldest and more enduring in Europe. Populated by gods, High Kings, wilful Queens, noble warriors, fairies, giants and witches, the Celtic myths are unsurpassed in their variety and power. This new book is a dazzling collection of the most gripping Celtic tales, vividly retold, gather together the legends and sagas of this ancient culture in a tribute to the heroism, romance and mystery of the Celtic people.

Part of a new series on The World's Greatest Myths and Legends, these books capture the mystery and drama of ancient legends through all the key stories and folktales featuring gods, heroes, monsters and animals, as well as common themes such as creation, love, death and courage. Each book features an introduction to the history, landscape, characters and culture of the mythology.

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, Research, History, Classics, Ireland, Paganism

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2014

About the author

SF and dark fantasy author but also a writer/creator of practical music books - Beginner's Guide to Reading Music, Guitar Chords, Piano Chords, Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary and How to Play Guitar. Other publications include Advanced Guitar Chords, Advanced Piano Chords, Chords for Kids, How to Play the Electric Guitar, Piano & Keyboard Chords, Scales and Modes and Play Flamenco. Also editor of Mythology books 

Released EP Jakesongs on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, LastFM, etc and on CDBaby. Lifelong passion for fantastic worlds of any kind, from movies to fiction, art to music, posters, album and paperback book covers.

Jake Jackson is the artist name for Nick Wells, Publisher of Flame Tree Press / Flame Tree Publishing.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I found the language used easier to follow than in the Scottish, with less archaic use. However, the language use was formal and in a storytelling sonorousness. It had the fairytale rule of three quite often.
I actually liked the Cucuilann tales, it was in keeping and I think this is probably better to my liking than Tain Bo Culach, which can be grotesque- I know I'm squeamish!!! I found him likeable here.
I loved the stories in the Invasion cycle and fell asleep to dreams of swans.
Some of the Finn stories( Fenian cycle) meaning fair one) were told differently here.
I liked all of the stories, none of them were creepy or chilling or had a chilling twist. The twists were good though and I enjoyed the reasoned language. Also often I found something fey was happening and the reader, author, didn't know why, which may confuse. This is like a bargain, or a consequence or a bond.

[I V A N A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compilation of Celtic myths. Pretty good In terms of range, but some of the versions kind of suck because the language is awkward; I know they’re translations but it reads weirdly when some use a certain vocab while others use another, if that makes sense? But def great range and really interesting seeing the continuation of the mythology. I enjoyed the intros to the stories too!

[Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good variety of kinds of myths, with some context provided in the inteoductions to each section. However, I agree with other reviewers that some of the phrasing in the translation was awkward, and sometimes spellings were strange among otherwise English words.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book of myths.

[Acacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely, quick read. Many of the myths are quite short, and so it was easy to pick up and set down through out the day. The arrangement by theme/purpose was interesting, but I would have liked to have known more context for the individual myths. They have some temporal and geographic spread which was obvious upon the reading, and would have helped the reader understand them more.

[Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly charming set of legends and fairy tales set in the Celtic pantheon and mythos, this was a FAST read for me. There are places where the patois of Ireland and Scotland come through clear as a bell, other places where the editor might well have taken a degree in English at Oxford. In all cases, the tales come through, blowing one's mind with the imagery.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent intro for someone like me who had next to no knowledge of Celtic myths. It made me want to learn more, but all of the spelling/grammar/formatting errors drove me bonkers. The language varied greatly. Some stories were written in Shakespearean English, others were very contemporary in tone. Very unpolished.

[Rachel Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was really looking forward to reading this book because I love exploring mythology, but somehow the author managed to make the myths mind numbingly boring and extremely misogynistic. Did not enjoy at all.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stories but slap dash editing just like the others in this series. Typos and inconsistency in dialect use make it a more difficult read than it ought to be.

[Erika Muñoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as stories goes, this book was full of Celtics lure and culture. I loved learning about their myths and how they viewed their diety system.

[Madison W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love mythology, so I was excited to read more about myths from a culture I wasn’t too familiar with. I liked pretty much all of them! Especially the ones about mischievous fairies. It’s so different than how fairies are portrayed in most popular culture today, but also a little similar. The best example I can think of is Tinkerbell. She’s portrayed as super dainty, pretty, etc, but is also gets into trouble. I was excited to rescue about the selkies, as they were the only Celtic mythological creature I was familiar with due to a graphic novel I read that used the concept. So, overall, I enjoyed the stories and I am happy to have knowledge of Celtic myths under my belt. The only issue I really had with the book was just the nature of it being an anthology that is mostly translated. The language felt really weird and hard to read sometimes. It felt ramble-y and awkward in places, probably because they were written versions of oral tellings I assume.

[E B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an introductory text for the Tuatha Dé canon by any means. If you have no knowledge of the ancient cycles then prepare for a lot of googling in order to understand who all these people are or what is going on. This is more a side effect of ancient Irish mythology in general than Jackson’s effectiveness as an editor. One or two stories were poorly translated to the point of being almost unreadable but most were handled quite well, particularly those from the Mythological Cycle. I appreciated the thematic variety in the tales about witches and fae, which dominate this book’s second half.

[Erica Nichol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the brief histories and cultural lessons in the beginning of the book and before each section. Not sure if any of the stories were abridged. Editing could have been a wee bit better. Overall, lovely introduction to Celtic myths.

[Conrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I prefer this over the previous two myths & legends books I read. It had more continuous stories than short pointless stories. I am surprised, with these taking place mostly in Ireland and Scotland, only 1 Leprechaun story and no lochness monster.

[Lurena Fields Hatfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and strait forward. A good beginning research style book.

[Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

good soup
very informative

[MaryMargaret]

History at the beginning telling about the earliest Celtic tales with stories worth telling in the 2nd half of the book. I'm glad I read it!

[Ashly · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a good book, but there wasn't anything very eye catching so it was hard to stay focused

[Zoe Wiest · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a lot of great stories in it, but it tends to start dragging along after the second or third story of each section.

[Tyler Reymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seeing where so many tropes and blueprints of modern storytelling come from was really cool. This book was fun and I felt like I learned a lot about where so many classics really come from!

[Dimitri Alexei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well compiled

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed Celtic Myths as a read, but I found out by accident that one of the stories, The Daughter of Duart, has absolutely no source. After searching I couldn’t find any version of the story outside this collection, which left me with doubts about the accuracy of the rest of the content. Looking into this I found a few other weird inconsistencies, which makes me wonder what else might stand out to someone with a better understanding of the mythology.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good compilation of Celtic myths, as it says in the title.

[Pat Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories. Begs the question, 'how sure do you have to be that the fairy folk have replaced your baby with a changeling before you throw it in the fire?'