Irish Trees: Myths, Legends & Folklore

Rating:
Summary: Lots of scholarship, some excessive speculation
Review: There's tons of original source material in there, drawn from the Dindsenchas, the Acallam na Senórach, and the Book of Ballymote, as well as from many other reliable historical sources. But I found much of the first 200 pages of the book really frustrating, because the author makes these guesses about what should be where and what trees should be associated with what letter of the ogham alphabet. There was a mix of "oh, cool, I'd never seen that bit of folklore" and "what an interesting association, that tree never struck me like that" side by side with "what crack are you smoking?" and "where did that come from? I want a citation!". Yet the author has obviously done their research, and done it well and thoroughly, so it's not just fluffbunny Paganism running rampant, bibbling about Atlantis crystal spirit power all the way.

I loved the full page color illustrations; I think they really added to the sensory experience of the book. Mac Coitir does eventually explain "this is why I think Nion is wild cherry and not ash", et cetera, but that section is practically the last thing in the book. By that point, I've already had 200 pages to get all outraged at the apparantly arbitrary and unsubstantiated associations. If the explanations had come first, or at least been mentioned ("later we will explore..."), it would have saved me a lot of outrage. [grin] He explains his reasoning well, but with rather more speculation than I'm comfortable with. He's obviously steeped in scholarship and not afraid to dive into Old Irish linguistics, and that rocks. He constructs plausible theories for language shift and alphabet development. He cites sources I haven't read already, and my Amazon wishlist is suddenly bigger. [grin] That rocks too. But I think that on some of these associations, he's really reaching, and the answer should be "I don't know" or "we don't have enough evidence" or even "this is my pet theory" rather than "This is how it should be/is/was!". Helloooo, Graves!

His biggest sin is perhaps an understandable one -- when the extant body of Irish evidence is lacking, he turns to other cultures. It's a very strong temptation... but I was somewhat annoyed at "here's what the Greeks thought of the pine tree, here's what the Norse had to say about the ash". Those cultures have their own rich traditions, but they don't necessarily bear on Celtic symbolism. If I wanted a book on cross-cultural tree folklore, I would have gotten one. (I own several, in fact.)

Although I don't agree with all of his conclusions, I loved the last 40 pages of the book for its in depth exposition and exploration of Old Irish, modern Irish, botany, and folklore. Lots of interesting little finds in there, and a thousand jumping off points for further research. Now if only he'd told me why he thinks Ogham is a result of the Latin alphabet... I've heard that theory aired before, but would like to see some support for it. I now have lots to think about, and he sent me diving for my dictionaries a lot, but there are also places that I so strongly disagree with him.