Kjǫlsigʀ’s Reviews > The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year > Status Update

How is this one so far?

It largely remains to be seen - so far the author is still 'setting the mood'. When I was still in high school I was gifted the only other Markâle book that I've read, Celtic Civilization. It was a highly flawed but imaginatively stimulating and enjoyable introduction for me to a lot of the often-more-responsibly-handled ancient source material that I've less casually plumbed ever since. Markâle, to point to the heart of the matter, is a Breton, and this gives him a rare and charming insight into some of those wonderful folk traditions - as well as a pale resemblance of more mainline-French chauvinism and the kind of flattering sloppy-scholarship that is so endemic when Yugoslavs, Balts, and Ukrainians feel the need to make up histories and identities that they prefer to reality. Of course, to touch upon the 'meta' level of such 'histories', that's exactly what happened with the Arthurian tales over time. All in all, he often makes things up that he thinks are cool, his linguistics and etymology in particular can be just awful, - and yet, when it came to that first book of his that I read as a kid, I can still at times find him charming (when understood for what he represents).

Sorry you asked?