Old Celtic Romances

Celtic stories are amazing. Most have been handed down from one generation to another. This people believe in keeping their heritage alive. They used to only do it orally through story-tellers. They were meant to memorize each of the poems, tales and even the historic tales and to share them with others. It is not unusual, then, for the story tellers to be given a house of honor and to be highly respected.

The author who brought the tales together is a folklorist who translated the tales from the Gaelic manuscript into today's English. Many are based on real-life events. Included in these romances are tales of warriors, maidens, monsters and mermaids. There are 13 in all including "The Overflowing of Lough Neagh," "Connia of the Golden Hair and the Fairy Maiden," and "The Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees.

The compiler of these tales made an admission in his prologue that when he erred it was on the side of keeping the sense of the language instead of a literal translation. There are also footnotes throughout the book to help to clarify words or places.

This book is a reproduction which means some of the elements may not be ideal. The font is rather small throughout but more so in the poetry.

Those who are interested in the history of the Celts, like I am, would enjoy this book.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.