Human Voices Wake Us

The Great Myths #10: The Book of Invasions (Celtic)


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An episode from 7/7/21: In this third episode on Celtic mythology, I read a summary of that massive work of poetry and prose that combined the efforts of generations' of medieval Irish scholars and earlier storytellers into a weird, brilliant and ungainly whole: the Lebor Gabála Érenn, otherwise known as the Book of Invasions. I also discuss why, with some of this mythological and folkloric material, reading a summary and not the original is preferable.  

The summary I read comes from James MacKillop's Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. The 5-volume English translation of the entire Lebor Gabála Érenn (published by the Irish Texts Society) can be purchased in hardcover here; however, each volume is now available for download as .pdfs, here

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Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to [email protected].

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