100 books like Celtic Myth in the 21st Century

By Emily Lyle (editor),

Here are 100 books that Celtic Myth in the 21st Century fans have personally recommended if you like Celtic Myth in the 21st Century. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Pagan Celtic Britain

Sharon Paice MacLeod Author Of Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Mythic Origins, Sovereignty and Liminality

From my list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!

Sharon's book list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology

Sharon Paice MacLeod Why did Sharon love this book?

This classic and unsurpassed study of iconography and literature pertaining to deities and various types of symbolism found in Celtic myth, I think has often been overlooked by students... as well as by enthusiasts, who inexplicably prefer trying to discern the veracities of topics related to Celtic paganism through online chat rooms, where many posts (including heated arguments and mind-boggling claims and posturing) rarely seem to culminate in any kind of helpful or accurate conclusions. And readers and seekers deserve better!

I would highly recommend that people step away from the phone, and pick up this book! So many of the questions that never seem to get answered on social media are both answered and clarified in this excellent work (which I use myself!). The chapters talk about a variety of gods and goddesses, and mythic themes (with examples from Britain, Ireland, Gaul, and the Continent) including horned gods, the…

By Anne Ross,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Pagan Celtic Britain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Although some aspects of pre-Roman and pre-Christian beliefs remain shrouded in mystery, the author of this comprehensive, profusely illustrated volume contends that neither the Roman invasion of Britain nor the coming of Christianity eliminated pagan religious practice. Dr Anne Ross, who speaks Gaelic and Welsh, writes from wide experience of living in Celtic speaking communities where she has traced vernacular tradition. She employs archaeological and anthropological evidence, as well as folklore, to provide broad insight into the early Celtic world. She begins by examining Celtic places of worship, the shrines and sanctuaries in which sacred objects were housed and from…


Book cover of The Celtic Heroic Age: Literary Sources for Ancient Celtic Europe and Early Ireland and Wales

Sharon Paice MacLeod Author Of Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Mythic Origins, Sovereignty and Liminality

From my list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!

Sharon's book list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology

Sharon Paice MacLeod Why did Sharon love this book?

This is an incredibly useful and totally indispensable resource that provides excellent translations of well-known and lesser-known writings about the Celts from the Iron Age and the Medieval Era.

Many people don't realize that there are really bad translations of some of these materials floating around the internet, and there's no need for that. The editors and translators of this classic anthology are top-notch, and whether the accounts or texts come from Greek, Latin, Gaulish, Old Irish, or Middle Welsh sources, students and enthusiasts can rely upon them.

Because it is a sourcebook, it doesn't provide any commentary, so that's important to know upfront (and fear not: see below). As such, some of the material may not make sense to some readers - or can lead to erroneous claims and inaccurate conclusions - if one doesn't know the history of the text, the historical context, and the secondary studies that…

By John T. Koch (editor), John Carey (editor),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Celtic Heroic Age as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A new edition of an invaluable collection of literary sources, all in translation, for Celtic Europe and early Ireland and Wales. The selections are divided into three sections: the first is classical authors on the ancient celts-a huge selection including both the well-known-Herodotos, Plato, Aristotle, Livy, Diogenes Laertius, and Cicero-and the obscure-Pseudo-Scymnus, Lampridius, Vopsicus, Clement of Alexandria and Ptolemy I. The second is early Irish and Hiberno-Latin sources including early Irish dynastic poetry and numerous tales from the Ulster cycle and the third consists of Brittonic sources, mostly Welsh.


Book cover of Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga

Sharon Paice MacLeod Author Of Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Mythic Origins, Sovereignty and Liminality

From my list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!

Sharon's book list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology

Sharon Paice MacLeod Why did Sharon love this book?

So how does one interpret early Celtic literature?

Here is a prime example of how it's done, and done right. This anthology contains some of Emeritus Professor Tomás Ó Cathasaigh's most important studies and essays about early Irish literature, including mythic literature... and shows how much training, knowledge, and insight a person needs to not only to make sense of early Irish literature, but to really illuminate and understand it.

Tomás was my Old Irish teacher at Harvard, and it was truly an honour and blessing to sit at the knee of a master, as they say. He would blush to read such a gushing statement, as he was always so humble about his work, and understated in regards to his incredible knowledge and achievements.

His dry wit was unparalleled, as were his classes, which were intense to say the least. We were held to very high standards, and because…

By Tomas O. Cathasaigh, Matthieu Boyd (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga offers thirty-one previously published essays by Tomas O Cathasaigh, which together constitute a magisterial survey of early Irish narrative literature in the vernacular.

O Cathasaigh has been called "the father of early Irish literary criticism," with writings among the most influential in the field. He pioneered the analysis of the classic early Irish tales as literary texts, a breakthrough at a time when they were valued mainly as repositories of grammatical forms, historical data, and mythological debris. All four of the Mythological, Ulster, King, and Finn Cycles are…


Book cover of Celts and the Classical World

Sharon Paice MacLeod Author Of Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Mythic Origins, Sovereignty and Liminality

From my list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!

Sharon's book list on authentic Celtic mythology, religion, and cosmology

Sharon Paice MacLeod Why did Sharon love this book?

I really think this book has also been underappreciated and overlooked by students and enthusiasts.

It contains a remarkable (and again) unsurpassed collection of written sources from the Iron Age in regard to the history, culture, and religions of the Celtic speaking peoples of ancient Europe. In some places it focuses on interactions between the Celts and population groups from the Mediterranean and other parts of ancient Europe.

But it also goes into a great deal of detail about the Celts themselves; where they lived; the names and activities of many of their leaders, warriors, druids, and others; and fascinating information about their cultures, beliefs, and religions... in accurate historical context which makes for a very engaging - and at times a surprising read.

Without a proper understanding of the historical realities, and the context from which information derives... whether Greek and Roman accounts, inscriptions, other written sources, archeology, and…

By David Rankin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Celts and the Classical World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Standard work in the field which was OP

No competition

Recent surge of interest in the Celtic Studies

Multidisciplinary, easily approachable

Includes 4 new pages on the Roman camp outside of Dublin


Book cover of Celtic Myths and Legends

Luke Eastwood Author Of Kerry Folk Tales

From my list on Celtic Mythology and Folkore.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a student of Druidry since the mid-1990s and I have also had a passion for history and mythology since I received a children’s version of “The Twelve Labours of Hercules” when I was around 7 years old. I’ve read pretty much all the major stories and texts in relation to Celtic myth and Druid lore (particularly from Ireland), sometimes in multiple versions, so I think I have a fair idea of what is useful or worth reading.

Luke's book list on Celtic Mythology and Folkore

Luke Eastwood Why did Luke love this book?

This book is over 100 years old but it is still one of the best compilations of mythology about Ireland and Wales.

It gives potted versions of the stories, an excellent summary of what the myths are about, covering a vast number of them. It also has some lovely black and white illustrations.

By T.W. Rolleston,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Celtic Myths and Legends as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This splendidly illustrated study by the distinguished Celticist T. W. Rolleston masterfully retells the great Celtic myths and illuminates the world that spawned them. Focusing principally on Irish myths, the book first takes up the history and religion of the Celts, the myths of the Irish invasion and the early Milesian kings.
What follows is pure enchantment as you enter the timeless world of heroic tales centered around the Ulster king Conor mac Nessa and the Red Branch Order of chivalry (Ultonian cycle). These are followed by the tales of the Ossianic cycle, which center on the figure of Finn…


Book cover of Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth

Peadar Ó Guilín Author Of The Call

From my list on exploring Irish mythology.

Why am I passionate about this?

In Ireland, there’s barely a rock or a hedge that doesn’t have a story attached to it. Lots of them are dark, some are sexy and many are downright hilarious. I myself grew up near a river whose name in the Irish language means “eyeballs”. We lived a short but rocky drive from Gleann Nimhe, A.K.A., “Poisoned Glen”, and the origins of these names lie in tales that are even more twisted than you might expect. My very Catholic school relished enthralling its overcrowded classrooms with these pagan stories. We were introduced to gods and saints, famous slaughters, and tragic heroines. For some of us, it sank in. Deep.

Peadar's book list on exploring Irish mythology

Peadar Ó Guilín Why did Peadar love this book?

This is a fascinating look at the perceptions of Irish mythology at different points throughout our history. There’s always a lot of fuss on the internet about fantasy writers who get our mythology “wrong”, but Mark Williams shows that the legends themselves and their themes have evolved constantly to reflect the concerns and mores of the times and of the storytellers themselves. Ireland’s Immortals is almost an academic proof of the thesis laid out in Robert Holdstock’s brilliant novel, Mythago Wood, which -- it goes without saying -- I also highly recommend.

By Mark Williams,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ireland's Immortals as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A sweeping history of Ireland's native gods, from Iron Age cult and medieval saga to the Celtic Revival and contemporary fiction

Ireland's Immortals tells the story of one of the world's great mythologies. The first account of the gods of Irish myth to take in the whole sweep of Irish literature in both the nation's languages, the book describes how Ireland's pagan divinities were transformed into literary characters in the medieval Christian era-and how they were recast again during the Celtic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A lively narrative of supernatural beings and their fascinating and…


Book cover of Faerie Tale

Adele Morris Author Of The Lost Soul

From my list on blending myth and magic into an unputdownable tale.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a Scottish born Australian writer I grew up reading tales from Celtic and Norse mythology and always wanted them to be fact. With a passion for history, including tales of lost civilizations, and with a deeply rooted love of story, I have spent decades exploring how myth and story intertwine. Where do our stories come from? I have fantasized for many hours about what it would be like if there was an older magical world beneath ours. My first novel, The Lost Soul, began when I asked myself one question: What if myth was true? 

Adele's book list on blending myth and magic into an unputdownable tale

Adele Morris Why did Adele love this book?

Raymond E Feist takes a Celtic legend, massages it, and transports it to the new world with such ease that I could really believe the Hill of the Elf King existed in New York state. An earth-based fantasy from an author that has a wonderful knack of making his characters jump off the page, the tale hints at an unseen world. A fantastical world of powerful beings that exists deep below the land. 

I love the thought that just below the level of our modern urban world is another world of otherworldly beings where even a simple stroll in nature can take a turn for the worst when we don’t understand the land we are walking on. Throw in an ancient Irish legend and you have the recipe for disaster.

By Raymond E. Feist,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Faerie Tale as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reissued in spectacular new cover of Feist's chilling dark fantasy

Successful screenwriter Phil Hastings decides to move his family from sunny California to a ramshackle farmhouse in New York State. The idea is to take some time out, relax and pick up the threads of his career as a novelist.

Good plan, bad choice. The place they choose is surrounded by ancient woodland. The house they choose is the centrepoint of a centuries-old evil intent on making its presence felt to intruders.


Book cover of The Girl of Dorcha Wood

Mandi Oyster Author Of Dacia Wolf & the Prophecy

From my list on fantasy to take you away.

Why am I passionate about this?

Picking up a fantasy novel and getting away from real-world problems is an escape for me. Even though many of these issues don’t exist in our lives, we can still learn from the way the characters deal with their struggles. We can find compassion and empathy and maybe see that there are two sides to every story. Along the way, we also get to see stunning vistas and amazing, mythical creatures.

Mandi's book list on fantasy to take you away

Mandi Oyster Why did Mandi love this book?

In The Girl of Dorcha Wood Ward leads her readers on an emotional journey of love and loss that is filled with innocence, betrayal, love, pain, bitterness, and revenge.

Her characters are incredibly realistic. She has a way of making you feel like you’ve known them all your life. The setting is well-written and almost feels like home.

By Kristin Ward,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Girl of Dorcha Wood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Treacherous.
Evil.
Dark.
Dorcha Wood is all of these.

And none of them.

The people of Felmore talk of Dorcha Wood in whispers, if they speak of it at all. There is danger in the dark forest. Monstrous things, remnants of the Aos Sí, lurk in the shadows, hunting the unwary should one be careless enough to cross those borders.

But to seventeen-year-old Fiadh, Dorcha Wood is home. A haven. It speaks to her in the rustle of the wind through the leaves, in the wild things that come to her hand. It is a forest whose secrets become known…


Book cover of The Mabinogion

Helen Fulton Author Of The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature

From my list on Wales and Welsh culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was lucky enough to be introduced to medieval Welsh literature when I was an undergraduate, and the Welsh language mesmerised me. It is so unlike any other language that I had come across and translating texts from Welsh into English was as absorbing as code-cracking. My apprenticeship as a scholar was long and hard and I soon realised that my particular contribution was to make Welsh literature accessible to non-Welsh speakers, not simply through translations, but by aligning the Welsh tradition with the wider literary cultures of Europe. I want Wales and its two literatures to take their place as two of the great literatures of Europe.

Helen's book list on Wales and Welsh culture

Helen Fulton Why did Helen love this book?

I first read the tales of The Mabinogion when I was an undergraduate and their amazing otherness helped to propel me towards a career researching medieval Welsh literature.

These prose tales were composed in Welsh between 1100 and 1300. Four of the tales are linked together and are known as ‘The Four Branches of the Mabinogi’. Other tales include two original Arthurian stories, a dream vision set in the Roman British past, and three tales based on the French Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes.

In this rich mixture of genres, otherworldly women marry heroic men, warfare between Wales and Ireland destroys a generation, and Arthur strides the land as the king of the whole island of Britain. Sioned Davies’s translation is the latest and best, capturing all the drama and apparent simplicity of the original Welsh texts.

By Sioned Davies (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Mabinogion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I cannot be killed indoors,' he said, 'nor out of doors; I cannot be killed on horseback, nor on foot.' 'Well,' she said, 'how can you be killed?'

Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history - these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as the Mabinogion. They tell of Gwydion the shape-shifter, who can create a woman out of flowers; of Math the magician whose feet must lie in the lap of a virgin; of hanging a pregnant mouse…


Book cover of At Swim-Two-Birds

Daniel Ben-Horin Author Of Substantial Justice

From my list on funny international classics you (may) have not heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

Humor is based on surprise and the ‘foreign’ is often surprising. As I traveled all over the world for work, I searched out local authors and found myself laughing. It started with At Swim Two Birds and has never stopped.

Daniel's book list on funny international classics you (may) have not heard of

Daniel Ben-Horin Why did Daniel love this book?

In the summer of 1968, I was 20 and spent the summer pretty much banally in Israel and Europe. Around me, the world was on fire, but I was inside my own head.

Eventually, I washed up in Dublin, where I walked in a cold rain to Dorset Street, there to recreate Leopold Bloom’s pork kidney purchase from Dlugacz, the butcher. There was no Dlugacz on Dorset, but there was another butcher who stuffed into stiff pink butcher paper something that glistened and oozed. My plan was to fry it up, as Leopold had, on the hotplate in my rented room. It did not go well. I was felled intestinally in dramatic fashion; pity there was no one to observe. 

Somehow, in my travels, I had obtained a copy of At Swim Two-Birds, and now, my insides recreating The Troubles, I wanly reached for it and read the first paragraph:…

By Flann O'Brien,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked At Swim-Two-Birds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing. Hilariously funny and inventive, At Swim-Two-Birds…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Celtic mythology, spirituality, and cosmology?

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