On the Edge of a Dream: The Women of Celtic Myth and Legend

by Jennifer Heath

Book Overview

Weaving fragments of ancient epic texts and the richness of oral tradition, Jennifer Heath brings alive 15 tales from pre-Christian Ireland featuring the powerful, wild, and wise women of Celtic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452279380
• ISBN13: 9780452279384
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Be swept away

I love Celtic legends, especially stories about goddesses and heroines. Unfortunately, the Celtic legends have been revised, sanitized, and edited over the centuries to the point that sometimes they can seem very dry--as if all the spirit has been sucked out of them. And then there's _On the Edge of Dream_.Jennifer Heath draws on the oral tradition of stories handed down by her mother, plus written sources, blending different versions of stories together into an enchanting brew. She doesn't just retell the stories the way we've always heard them, she spices them up, adds a dash of feminism here and there, and breathes new emotional life into them. I cry every time I read the scene where Pwyll, lacking the words to apologize to Rhiannon, simply carries her into the court, the way she has carried all visitors for the past seven years.You'll especially like this if you liked Caitlin Matthews' _Celtic Love_. Both are collections of old Celtic stories told with new-found emotional "oomph" by women with true bardic talent.

A Bold retelling of 15 Celtic tales

Jennifer Heath has covered new territory within the pages of her most fantastic book. Instead of penning another tired re-retelling of the Christian version of the 15 tales included among the pages, she dared to employ the combination of ten plus years of research with imagination and remembrance.On The Edge Of Dream spotlights the women of the Celts as equals among their male counterparts, both in their ferocity and their love, but never in a feministic tone. And yes, a couple of the characters in her book actually engage(never explicitly) in that most wonderful of humane motion...sex!If you're at all interested in gaining a new perspective on Celtic tradition, read this book, you will not be disappointed.

What an awesome book!

This book was just awesome! I couldn't put it down. She was factual and gave the reader a chance to enter another world. The 15 stories in this book are of no compare. I recommend this to anyone who wants to know about the women of Celtic myth. She told the stories with such magic I felt as if I were there.

This book was terrific!

This book, "On the Edge of a Dream," was by far the best Celtic mythology book I have ever read. For once, there is an author out there discussing the ancient Celtic peoples who is neither dry and too scholary nor too New Agey. Jennifer Heath approaches each one of these fifteen stories with wit and humor. I highly reccomend this book to anyone who enjoyed "Women Who Run With the Wolves" by another author, this book is in the same vein. The only negative thing I found about "On The Edge of Dream" was that it was too short. I wanted her to continue to tell even more stories.

Storytelling at its finest

Jennifer Heath is a storyteller in the ancient tribal sense: someone who, while faithful to tradition, makes the old stories fresh and new. Irish mythology has suffered more than most from being sanitized, dogmatized, and politicized; she recreates the myths believably as reflections of a world view and moral sense that are worlds away from their 19th-century redactors'. And the tales are well told, too: there's broad humor and wrenching tragedy; the courtship of the goddess Fand by the wily sea-god Manaan Mac Lir is delightful; and I was tickled to see Cuchulain, who tends to be "chevalier sans peur et sans reproche" in the "orthodox" version of the myths, depicted as a faithless and not overly bright jock. My only criticism: I wish the book were longer; I was sorry when it ended!