Brian Wright (3)

Deep Breath. I'm going to try not to channel my ranty sarky slightly sweary self too much.

It's not a badly written book, however it suffers badly from a few things,

ALTAR FFS not Alter. To Alter is to change, you don't set up a little alter (p236) you set up an Altar.

CITATION PLEASE, pretty please, with sugar on top? This book made me want to stamp it all over with this (and now I understand the people on Wikipedia who do this to articles), "it is thought" and "there are some theories" should have citations. Seriously, the author is supposed to be a fecking lecturer, this is shoddy work.

Use of the word Celtic and traditional made me quite ranty. Celtic covers a lot of ground and they are not all the same. There was no Greater Celtic Supernation.

The bibliography missed out on the Folklore commission information in the "further reading" section, so here: http://www.ucd.ie/irishfolklore/en/ add this to your store. He mentions it in the text, but no mention of how to get to it.

He doesn't get the séimhiú or h in the Irish language and how it works. It's not the Bhaírds, it's Baírds, and anyway you can use Bard, it's a legit translation. "An Claiḋeaṁ Soluis" is written in modern Irish as An Claidheamh Soluis, not Claideam, this is basic stuff that Irish folk (and to a large extent a quick internet check) will tell you!

Also, he forgets to mention that actually cattle were the main unit of currency, and not just males.

I couldn't really put my finger on it, but this book rubbed me up the wrong way, it didn't ring right, or true, and it just made me want to have a long chat with the author, probably also with Sean O Duinn (whose book Rites of Brigid I would actually recommend over this one and that he doesn't include in his "further reading" section.

The thesis that Brigid is an import from fleeing British Druids is interesting and sounds like one that could do with a bit of research, but it needs proper reserch with CITATIONS!!!

Scores a Must Try Harder from me, and made me quite ranty while reading it. I read it in small bursts and nearly gave up several times, but resisted. When I finished it there would have been a happy dance if I hadn't been in work. It's the kind of work that comes across as being by a new-age pagan who is "inspired" rather than a serious scholar who did the hard graft.

I failed not to channel snark and annoyance, oops.… (lisätietoja)