THE 10 BEST CELTIC MYTHOLOGY BOOKS

For the reader who’s looking for an entertaining introduction to Celtic mythology that focuses squarely on the stories themselves, Peter Berresford Ellis’s Celtic Myths and Legends delivers that exceptionally well. His retellings of the Celtic tales make for a very fun and pleasurable read.

Ellis is a talented and esteemed Celtic scholar as well as creative writer, and although the book is completely nontechnical, jargon-free, and reads as fiction rather than nonfiction, the reader can sense that this is the work of an accomplished professional in the field.

The book assumes no prior knowledge of Celtic mythology whatsoever, and is highly accessible and newbie-friendly. On the whole, Celtic Myths and Legends is probably the best book on the subject for most total beginners.

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Just about every book on the Celts that was published after the 1940s cites Marie-Louise Sjoestedt’s Celtic Gods and Heroes frequently, and with good reason. This book has stood the test of time remarkably well, and remains the quintessential scholarly introduction to Celtic mythology.

While Sjoestedt does retell a few of the most important tales of Celtic mythology, those stories are embedded within conceptual discussions of Celtic mythology and religion. The point is not the stories themselves, but rather what the stories show us about how the Celts experienced the world and its divine inhabitants. Accordingly, Sjoestedt groups her material according to some of the major themes in Celtic religion so that those themes can be explored in depth.

Her writing style is another one of this book’s major strengths. While intellectually rigorous, the book is never dry. At times, the words seem to glow on the page. And despite its rigor, the book assumes no prior knowledge of its subject. Highly recommended for anyone who’s looking for a scholarly, conceptual introduction to Celtic mythology and religion.

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Proinsias Mac Cana’s Celtic Mythology (hey, I warned you that these books all have deceptively generic names) is, like Sjoestedt’s Celtic Gods and Heroes, a book that you’ll find referenced over and over again in the scholarly literature and in the derivative, “me too” introductory books on Celtic mythology. It’s another one of the landmark works in this field.

Like Sjoestedt, Mac Cana considers the material conceptually and analytically. When he recounts a story from Celtic mythology, it’s to illustrate a bigger point about the Celtic worldview, not to simply tell a story. His writing style is outstandingly lucid and to-the-point, which enables him to convey a very large amount of information and ideas in a relatively short space. Also like Sjoestedt, he’s most interested in the underlying patterns in Celtic mythology and religion, and doesn’t assume that the reader has any prior knowledge of the Celts.

Mac Cana’s Celtic Mythology and Sjoestedt’s Celtic Gods and Heroes complement each other very nicely, with differences in emphasis that contribute to a fuller picture than you’d be able to glean from either book alone. 

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In Celtic Heritage, the Rees brothers provide an in-depth consideration of many of the recurring ideas in Celtic mythology, with a particular eye for the meaning of these motifs and the positions they occupied within the structure of Celtic mythology and religion as a whole.

But the book focuses on different themes than Sjoestedt or Mac Cana (above) do. It also draws extensively from later folk traditions from the Celtic lands, especially Wales and Ireland, and compares them with what we know of pre-Christian Celtic religion.

In addition to providing a rich and detailed look at a beautiful and compelling cosmology and philosophy, the book is often able to demonstrate that echoes of this cosmology and philosophy have resounded powerfully in folk traditions well into the modern era.

While the book doesn’t assume any prior knowledge, it’s certainly helpful to have read something like Sjoestedt or Mac Cana (above) before tackling this one due to its level of detail. 

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Now we come to the primary sources on Celtic mythology from the ancient and medieval worlds – in English translation, of course. Since the single greatest source of our current knowledge of Celtic mythology and religion comes from Old Irish literary works, any list of primary sources on the Celts should start with those Irish pieces. (For those of you who are familiar with Norse/Germanic mythology and religion, Irish literary sources occupy roughly the same position with regards to the mythology and religion of the Celts as do the Icelandic literary sources with regards to the mythology and religion of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples.)

Early Irish Myths and Sagas is an anthology of many of the most important of these texts, and it’s the perfect place for someone new to Old Irish literature to start. These are epic tales of adventure, heroism, romance, mystery, and magic – greatly entertaining and moving as well as educational. 

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The Táin Bó Cuailnge (“Cattle Raid of Cooley”) is a prose epic that forms the centerpiece of the so-called “Ulster cycle” of Celtic mythology. It tells the story of the formidable deeds of Cú Chulainn, a son of the god Lugh and perhaps the foremost of all of the Celtic heroes.

While the tale is largely concerned with happenings amongst humans, several Celtic divinities make appearances at various points, and scholars debate the degree to which many of the human characters themselves are actually deities whose true identities may have been censored by the Christian monks who recorded the story. Thomas Kinsella’s translation is highly evocative and full of life and energy.

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The Mabinogion is a collection of Welsh stories that were written down in the fourteenth century, but whose origins lie in oral traditions from earlier times. Scholars debate just how old these stories actually are, and just how much authentic Celtic mythology they contain. But the Mabinogion does contain numerous mythological elements, many of which have certain parallels in the surviving records of the mythology of Ireland and Gaul. Whether one sees those elements as genuine pre-Christian survivals, whimsical productions of a later age, or some combination of both, the Mabinogion is a text with which one must grapple in forming one’s own views about Celtic mythology and religion. Fortunately, if you’re into medieval romances, the Mabinogion should be right up your alley, anyway.

While the writing style of many of the other available translations is wooden and awkward, Davies’s is flowing and natural, with no affected loftiness nor affected casualness. And while many editions of the Mabinogion only present select parts of it, this edition presents the work in its entirety.

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Continuing with the primary sources, Koch and Carey’s The Celtic Heroic Age is an anthology of texts from ancient and medieval writers on the pre-Christian mythology and religion of the Celts. Some of the writings included in this volume will be familiar to those who have already read Early Irish Myths and Sagas, The Tain, and the Mabinogion. However, many of the other pieces included here will not be. These include lesser-known but still highly relevant texts from the Celtic countries themselves, from ancient inscriptions to medieval folktales.

But the real centerpiece of The Celtic Heroic Age is the writings on the Celts from ancient Greek and Roman authors, which are one of the most significant sources for our current knowledge of the Celts’ world, including, of course, their mythology and religion. All of the significant classical sources are here, including Julius Caesar, Posidonius, Tacitus, Strabo, and many others. Collecting them all here in one volume, together with so many other texts on the Celts, is an accomplishment that will be of great value to any serious student of the Celtic world. 

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