Creating Form from the Mist: The Wisdom of Women in Celtic Myth and Culture

Rating:
Summary: A GOOD REVIEW OF MAJOR CELTIC MYTHIC WOMEN
Review: I really enjoyed the content of this book. The author introduces you to each character & then suggests how the modern reader can gleam meaning from the myth to enrich their own lives. She covers Branwen, Arianrhod, Brighid, warrior women, Rhiannon, Ceridwen, Morgan, etc. I found her insights to be sound & very interesting. I was never bored with this book & found much meaning in the myths that I could relate to.
The only problem with this book is the same problem I encounter everytime I read a book by this publishing company: the book appears to have not been edited. There are so many typos it's astonishing. This publishing company puts out many excellent titles, but for heaven's sake, they MUST start editing their books! Not doing so takes away credibility from them, as well as the author.
If you can get by all the flubs, & you want to explore the women in Celtic myth written in an engaging way, you'll like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Unprofessional at best
Review: It's obvious this book has never been proofread. It got to the point I wanted to take a blue pencil to it. The photos were reproduced very badly and the other art was extremely amateurish.

The premise is faulty. There was no matriarchial society in the Celtic or pre-Celtic society. Women had far more power than they did under Christianity or Roman rule, but they were not the rulers. The myth of a matriarchial society is just that--a myth. The leaps in logic are so huge that the Titanic could be sailed through without hitting the iceberg. Not every goddess was an aspect of the mother goddess--each goddess was an individual personality in her own right and had individual and separate tasks. Ceridwen and Morrigan aren't happy go lucky goddesses--they're dark. And gods were indeed as important as goddesses. And how the author makes these leaps...claiming to know what was in Ceridwen's cauldron for instance. I'd like to know where she came by that information.

Perhaps I should have looked at the bibliography before I started reading. The author cites The Mists of Avalon as a direct source. That was entirely a work of fiction, i.e. made up. The history wasn't even researched well. There are no ancient rituals written up. Not to mention MZB was actually a Christian, a religion the author of this book seems to have an issue with.

The entire book reads like an early college thesis. The blind leaps in logic, lack of research, and undiscerning eye created the type of book that sometimes makes me embarrassed to call myself a Pagan.