A review by granite
Celtic Gods, Celtic Goddesses by R.J. Stewart

3.0

I enjoyed reading this very much, and especially enjoyed the line drawings (one of which I recognized as a stone I'd leaned against quite casually in a churchyard in Ireland, so that was delightful) but Stewart has some odd quirks of writing -- his insistence on using "therapy" as a stand-in for any reference to healing or medicine is... very disarming, and he abandons a subject nearly as soon as he brings it up only to return to it some thirty pages later without warning. I had trouble following some of his assertions about Greco-Roman parallels with Celtic deities (I remain thoroughly unconvinced that Brigit and Athena have anything to do with each other, likewise Lugh and Apollo), and while he clearly had some Ideas about serpents and goddesses, I never actually figured out what he was talking about. His non-separation of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and other Celtic territories also made it pretty difficult to follow.

...I know it sounds like I didn't actually enjoy this but I promise I did. I learned a lot of stories I didn't know and got context for the ones I did, and I'm planning to check out his source works.