Cinderbiter: Celtic Poems

by Martin Shaw, Tony Hoagland

Dramatic new retellings of Celtic poetry’s great lyrics and legends

Cinderbiter collects tales and poems originally composed and performed centuries ago in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, when notions of history and authorship were indistinguishable from the oral traditions of myth and storytelling. In the spirit of recasting these legends and voices for new audiences, celebrated mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw and award-winning poet Tony Hoagland have created extraordinary new versions of these bardic lyrics, folkloric sagas, and heroes’ journeys, as they have never been rendered before.

In long, shaggy tales of the unlikely ascensions of previously unknown heroes such as Cinderbiter, in the shrouded origin stories of figures such as Arthur and Merlin, and in anonymous flickering lyrics of elegy, praise, and heartbreak, these poems retain at once the rapturous, supernatural imagination of the deep past layered with an austere, devout allegiance to the Christian faith. Shaw and Hoagland’s collaboration summons the power within this storehouse of the Celtic mind to arrive at this rare book—distinctive, audacious, and tuned to our time and condition with a convincing resonance.

Genres: Poetry, Ireland, Mythology

128 pages, Paperback

Published July 7, 2020

About the author

Dr Martin Shaw is an acclaimed teacher of myth. Author of the award-winning Mythteller trilogy (A Branch from the Lightning Tree, Snowy Tower, Scatterlings), he founded the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University, whilst being director of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK.

He has introduced thousands of people to mythology and how it penetrates modern life. For twenty years Shaw has been a wilderness rites of passage guide, working with at-risk youth, the sick, returning veterans and many women and men seeking a deeper life.

His translations of Gaelic poetry and folklore (with Tony Hoagland) have been published in Orion Magazine, Poetry International, Kenyon Review, Poetry Magazine and the Mississippi Review.

Shaw’s most recent books include The Night Wages, Cinderbiter, Wolf Milk, Courting the Wild Twin, All Those Barbarians, Wolferland and his Lorca translations, Courting the Dawn (with Stephan Harding). His essay and conversation with Ai Weiwei on myth and migration was released by the Marciano Arts foundation.

For more on Martin Shaw’s work:
cistamystica.com | drmartinshaw.com | schoolofmyth.com | martinshaw.substack.com

Reviews

[Andrew]

This collection has blown open areas of my mind and my heart I didn't know existed. There is something different here that Shaw and Hoagland have brought out, unlike any verse I've sunk my teeth into. There's a melancholy here and there, and there's utter, rapturous joy in the process of living. There's God and trees lurking in the margins, birds and monks flitting about, forests and horned women knocking at your door to sit by your dying embers to card their wool. Mumbling, tonsured beer-makers and yarrow-charmed women make guest appearances (in fact, I wonder if a good number of these unnamed poets were women who were kept out of the Irish bardic schools' initiatory processes).

I can't really explain why these pieces (and Shaw's work with story and with language in general) make me feel so alive and connected to something grand. It's quite literally amazing. I keep wanting to go to there; I don't ever want to be finished with this.

"To remember is a ringing pain of brightness."

[Shawn]

This is my first exposure to Celtic myth and folklore in poetic form, which I enjoyed reading. To be honest, I couldn’t figure out what the image on the book cover was supposed to represent. I finally gave up, did a search, and landed on Google’s AI for help. “The cover … visually evokes the primordial, oceanic, and mythic scale of the titular sea serpent/worm from the book’s Hebridean and Celtic folklore.” I never would have guessed. :-/

[Jessica]

This book was beautiful! Poems and stories that originally derived from oral tradition in Celtic lands were translated in a stunning way to deliver a powerful book of poetry that is classic and beautiful but not at all old fashioned. This book was a beautiful bit of my heritage turned in to a format that was easily accessible.

[Joseph]

deeply gorgeous

[Alexandra]

A decent collection of poems of translated works. It tells the author and time period. Not the type of collection for me. Get some further information as well. The multiple paged one seems more story-like.

[Lorna]

A modernized collection of old Celtic poems with dynamic versions of familiar folk-hero tales.

I enjoy myths, legends and poetry so it seemed natural for me to give Cinderbiter a spin. I was peripherally aware of some Celtic legends, but not all which made reading this a new experience for me. I did enjoy the modernization, the language upacdates definitely made these poems accessible to the modern day reader. I also felt that Shaw and Hoagland did give us snappy, lyrical versions of the poetry.

However, I'm not sure if it was my ignorance, that I wasn't particularly feeling this book at this particular moment or that I didn't care for the style of the poetry. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't quite grasping the meaning or the tales (very well could be ignorance!) and sometimes I just did not enjoy the poems.

Overall, an okay read, but not one I would rave about.

[Gijs Limonard]

Did not enjoy this volume as much as I hoped for; Martin Shaw is a recent discovery for me, and after reading his magisterial Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us my interest was peaked; be sure to check out his Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass and Bardskull.

[Amanda]

Fantastic - I'd never heard any of the longer poems (except bits of the one on Merlin). Poetic and very readable.


"If you know the language
you can hear the lament;
mountain stream, and wailing bird
and catchless nets from the lake" p55

"Samhain is the name of the season,
the great un-tethering of boundaries
between living and dead,
the chariot-swift faery,
and the boundless denizens of night." P71

"Only the Big Woman of the house is awake,
working by candle
nailed fast to her evening task, the carding of wool.

She is deep in the hut of herself.

Something haunches through sleet outside
to the old door,
and sets up a clamor,"p104

[Pody]

One of the most gorgeous books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. You could read this book all in one sitting, and you could spend a year reading slowly and soaking in the language and depth it holds. I'll be rereading this for the rest of my life.

[Allison]

Beautiful poems. Slow reading, but better read aloud

[Angela Natividad]

There is so much magic in this volume of poetry and tales from the land.

[Amy]

Quite beautiful and full of magic. The fairytale poems are especially nice.

[Oliver]

I enjoyed being exposed to stories I didn't know. I found the language too lush and poetic at times, if that can be said of a poem! Still, I enjoyed the adventure.

[peter]

Worth the price of admission just for Cinderbiter, a story rich with buried meaning and mystery.

[Emma Goldman]

Beautiful creations drawn from Celtic legend, folklore, and poetry. A mixture of myth, praise songs, and personal meditations.

[Laura Andrews]

These were so dreamy.

[libreroaming]

An eclectic selection of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh oral poetry translated and modernized. I got to learn a little about Ifor Hael. And the Fionn tellings were very well crafted wordsmith-wise.

[Shawn Small]

Cinderbiter is one of Shaw's masterpieces.

[Jonathan King]

Enchanting, mesmerizing, enthralling, stirring. The mythic and poetic language jolts one awake, a window open to another way to inhabit language, to see, to feel.

[Gregory Williams]

Certainly a unique read, this is a collection of Celtic Poems brought to a modern life by Shaw and his co-author Hoagland. In the readings of many ancient and medieval poems and bard stories, you can feel the beating heart of a culture, even when you're not quite sure what's happening within each allegorical story. Colorful, descriptive and fantastical, they bring to a modern world poems that might otherwise be lost to antiquity.

[Lys]

It's poetry month, and I'm reading Hoagland cause I love him.
Then there's Irish myth, and I'm feeling all nostalgic about my time in Eire last year.
That said, as lovely as much of this was, it was also a tad of a slog. It didn't have quite the beauty that I associate with Hoagland. But there was beauty, there was myth, and I learned some things I didn't know.

[Kenzie]

If you love Celtic myth, this is a treat. I've been reading this alongside more primary mythic texts, such as the third branch of the Mabinogion, the adventures of Fionn, and the story of Midir and Etain. The language in this book has really added to my appreciation of the stories, and I've also enjoyed being introduced to poems that I would not otherwise have encountered.

[Spencer Quayle]

Frontyard library find, mildly disappointing.

[Nicholas Kotar]

Gorgeous.

[Lynette]

Martin Shaw enchanted me with his versions of these Celtic poems and tales. So vivid.
I'm sadly lacking in my familiarity with Celtic poetry, but I'm hooked now!