Queens of the Wild
Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe: An Investigation

** Thanks to NetGalley, Ronald Hutton, and Yale University Press for this ARC ** Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe: An Investigation is available for purchase now! In this account of four figures - Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, the Mistress of the Night, and the Old Woman of Gae......more

This book is a very, very, in depth look at the narrative surrounding female figures of supposedly pagan origins. But although the subject matter deserves to be explored further, I could not help but feel conflicted by this offering. Hutton offers up four main archetypes for the reader’s perusal, ye......more

Ronald Hutton is something of an iconoclast here, demolishing common ideas about folkloric figures by tracing the way they have been interpreted in the last 200 years. He considers four figures -- the "Earth Mother," the Fairie Queen, the "Queen of the Night," and the Cailleach -- and analyzes how e......more

I received this via NetGalley. As an Arts student of the late 90s, who did do some mythology-type subjects, I have vaguely come across some of the ideas that Hutton explodes here. So that was quite the trip. The main idea: that the four concepts, or beings, or narrative tools - Mother Earth, the Fai......more

Another book on characters held dear by women throughout history. They lived on in popular belief because of "silly old women" who needed symbols to comfort them in a society that antagonized them in every single possible way (just like now). It is so nice, however, to live in an age where we can lo......more