I initially bought this book for use as a reference with which to construct a seminar on the symbolic meaning of animals in Celtic culture.

While the book is well researched, it draws examples almost exclusively from iconography, physical evidence, and classical texts. It does use these resources to develop an accurate picture of the Celts as a farming culture but it fails utterly to connect this reconstructed reality with the myths.

Inclusion of at least one map showing the locations of the archeology sites referenced would have been helpful. Green jumps from country to country and even across continents so often within sections that it becomes difficult to tell to which branch of the Celts she is referring.

Green's visual examples seem randomly placed throughout the book, often chapters ahead of the section which refers to it. It made it difficult to examine examples without flipping through the book and disrupting concentration. The examples provided are mostly sketches, unnecessary when there are obviously stock photos available of the pieces in question.

Many sections are repetitive, using nearly the same wording for the chapter as expressed in previous pages. Green seems to have an aversion toward discussing the religious and mythological aspects of the site findings because she nearly always glosses over it with a single sentence stating that the representations of the animal in question probably had ritual uses or were used in sacred rites.

As a general overview of Celtic iconography, artwork, and an analysis of artifacts found in ritual pits this is a solid scholastic work. As a discussion on the significance of animals in Celtic life and mythology, it falls short.

This reads more like someone's doctoral thesis than a scholastic publication intended for a wider audience. ( )