Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Macbain Alexander
Title : Celtic mythology and religion
Year : 1885

Link download : Macbain_Alexander_-_Celtic_mythology_and_religion.zip

Preface. The following work, all save from page 105 to the end, appeared in the Celtic Magazine in 1883-4, and is here reprinted from the Magazine type. Hence it is that it is reproduced " with all its imperfections on its head," and the critic must be asked, before condemning details at least, to note the list of corrections appended to this preface. The intention of this series of papers was to popularise the subject of Mythology, and to apply its principles to the elucida tion of Celtic beliefs, tales, and traditions. I wished to place clearly before my Gaelic brethren the exact position which the religious beliefs of the Celts held in the European kinship, to clear up the misty subject of " Druidism," and to reconstruct, from the shattered materials to hand, the Pantheon of their Gaelic ancestors. This I undertook, knowing that in the last part of my object the rehabilitation of the Gaelic Olympus my results must only be tentative, for the material for reconstruction is dif ficult to deal with, and much of it is in MSS. unedited. ...