mourning and death with exaltation by the ancient Celts, customs that the Greeks and Latins remarked on with some surprise.

Both the deities and human heroes and heroines are no mere physical beauties with empty heads. Their intellectual attributes are equal to their physical capabilities. And they are totally human in that they are subject to all the natural virtues and vices. No sin is exempt from practice by the gods or the humans. Their world, both this one and the Otherworld, is one of rural happiness, a world in which they indulge in all the pleasures of life in an idealised form: love of nature, art, poetry, games, feasting, and heroic combat. Celtic mythology is essentially a heroic one, although the Irish stories belong to a more ancient Heroic Age, while the Welsh stories have more the gloss of a medieval courtly quality.

Celtic mythology is one of the bright gems of European and, I would venture, world culture. It is both unique and dynamic, a mythology that ought to be as well known and valued as that of ancient Greece and Rome. Professor Kenneth Jackson, in A Celtic Miscellany (1951), pointed out that the uniqueness of Celtic myth lies in the fact that the Celts “are inclined to desert the natural and possible for the impossible and supernatural, chiefly in the form of fantastic exaggeration. One should not misunderstand this, however; it was not done in all seriousness, but for its own sake, for the fun of the thing.”

Above all, as we tackle the Celtic myths, we should never forget that quality of mischievous fun that runs throughout them. They are meant to be enjoyed as well as learnt from.