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hannah_figgins's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
marcasdeb's review
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
mhanlon's review against another edition
4.0
Good stuff. Not your straightforward, easily untangleable mythology like the Greeks with a pantheon of gods gathering in the one place. Lady Gregory's compilation is a head-stealing romp of fights and cows and great feats and an eye-gouging array of letters making up each name that graces the page.
katiemoten's review against another edition
3.0
This is a difficult book to read. I suspect it's bought by many people as a gift on a trip to Ireland, and then never read. The reason it's hard to read is because it's written almost as if it was translated directly from Irish, and I suspect it was, at least in part. It has a very lilting quality, very old-fashioned. If you're familiar with the Irish language (I am), then you can recognise that the speech pattern and the order of the words are very similar to how one would speak in Irish. It does have that very lilting, song-like quality, like I said, and you get into the rhythm, eventually, but it isn't an easy read.
So I can't say I recommend it as an anthology of Irish myth, at least not for non-Irish people. There are anthologies of Irish mythology that are much easier to engage with for people who want to know the stories, but don't want to deal with the difficult style.
Gregory's collection was written at a time when the Irish were trying to reclaim their culture, and she collects all the old legends here that every Irish child encounters when they're small, and, despite the difficulty, the language is beautiful, so this is an important book. I think it's more one for scholars than the general reader, though.
Aside from this collection not being the best for general readers, I wouldn't recommend this edition. There's a lot of text per page and quite narrow margins.
So I can't say I recommend it as an anthology of Irish myth, at least not for non-Irish people. There are anthologies of Irish mythology that are much easier to engage with for people who want to know the stories, but don't want to deal with the difficult style.
Gregory's collection was written at a time when the Irish were trying to reclaim their culture, and she collects all the old legends here that every Irish child encounters when they're small, and, despite the difficulty, the language is beautiful, so this is an important book. I think it's more one for scholars than the general reader, though.
Aside from this collection not being the best for general readers, I wouldn't recommend this edition. There's a lot of text per page and quite narrow margins.
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