Reviewed by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus
Hearthstone (a.k.a. Hester Butler-Ehle) writes a blog that has the same title as this book, and she has also written a book called Hearth and Field: A Heathen Prayer Book (2012); both books are also available on Kindle. The title of the work comes from the piles of stones in the middle of agricultural fields that end up being piled up over time, which in the author’s words “represent those pieces of the world that keep on resurfacing, no matter what we do to move them to somewhere more convenient for us” (p. 9). It is a fascinating and intriguing image, and likewise the book itself is a wonderful collection of devotional invocations to a very large number of Celtic (specifically Gaulish, British, Welsh, and Irish) deities.
[Snip] The book is in three sections: the first is “Gods of Ireland”; the second (and shortest) is “Gods of Wales”; and the third (and longest) is “Gods of Gaul & Britain.” It is impressive that the Gaulish gods, of whom we often know so little (other than their names and the likely areas in which some of them were worshipped), receive such attention and devotion in Hearthstone’s works.
