RECOMMENDED READING

(Note: a general bibliography follows this list...)

Works which everybody in our grove should have read,
simply to be able to know what’s going on…

The SINGLE best/essential book?

• Bonewits's Essential Guide to Druidism by Isaac Bonewits (2006)
  http://www.amazon.com/Bonewitss-Essential-Guide-Druidism-Bonewits/dp/0806527102

LORE and PRIMARY SOURCES:

• The MABINOGION*: Welsh wonder tales surviving from 11th century texts.

Translations by J.Ganz or Ford (avoid Lady Charlotte Guest’s)
Be familiar with at least the “Four Branches”:

Learn here all that is known of:
Pywll, Arawn, Rhiannon, Bran and Branwen, Mannawyddan, Gwydion, Math,
Arianhrod, Llew and Bloddeudd.
Related Mabinogion texts (in some but not all collections) give us our only knowledge of:
Modron & Mabon, Cerridwen & Taliesin.

• HYMN to DEMETER* by Homer.

The original story of Demeter and her daughter the Kore (Persephone), Hades, Hecate and Zeus,

• The POETIC EDDA* translated by W.H. Auden (or others)

Also known as the "Elder Edda", the two segments most important therein are:
“Voluspa” (The Sybil’s Prophecy) and “Havamal” (Words of the High One).
Learn here about the Northern folks’ stories of the creation and the end of the world, the world-tree and the nine worlds, the Norns, Odin and the origin of the runes.

Mircea Eliade: (to understand the universal elements in the structure of the ADF liturgy...)

• The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954). The first chapters are of particular importance. In his own words, this was Eliade’s most representative work.
  
• The Sacred and the Profane (1959)

Isaac Bonewits (-founder of ADF)

• Bonewits's Essential Guide to Druidism (2006)
• Neopagan Rites (2003), Issac’s long awaited book on Neopagan Liturgy
• Isaac’s website: http://www.neopagan.net - Virtually everything there is useful.
• The World of the Druids -by Miranda Greene.

There are many books in the “all-about the Druid’s” catagory, I consider this one to be very well suited to our needs were you only to have one volume. Other traditional favorites: “The Druids” by Stuart Piggott and “The Druids”Peter Berresford-Ellis.

• Stations of the Sun Ronald Hutton, Oxford (1996). Among his many other very useful works this book clarifies what is actually known and (most alarmingly,) what is not known about the folk calendar of the British Isles. Grim news for most pagans but absolutely essential.
• Ceisiwr Serith http://www.ceisiwrserith.com/pier/index.htm

-Various works by ADF’s best active scholar; particularly useful are his introductory essays on IndoEuropean studies For those of you who (understandably) could not make it through Mallory’s “In Search of the Indo-Europeans”, learn here the basics of IE, PIE, Georges Dumezil and comparative mythology. Many useful essays on these and other topics can be found at Cei’s website.

• The ADF Website http://www.adf.org -particularly the essays by Ian Corrigan; little of Issac’s original material survives at the site; Ian pretty much picked up where Issac left off...

EXTRA CREDIT: IRISH

The Book of Invasions*
Learn here what there is to know about the Tuatha de Dannan, the Fir Bolg and the Fomorians, Lugh, Nuada, Bres, Tuan, Amergin, Aengus Mac Og and Brigid.

Tain bo Cullaigne* “The Cattle Raid of Cooley” translated by Kinsella.
Learn here what we know of Cuchullain, Mabve, Conchobar, the Morrigan

(*) = “Primary Sources”: These are the ancient texts, translated into modern English. In most cases, huge bodies of speculative lore has been spun-up around these stories and their characters in the last 100 years which leaves the beginner with the impression that there is actually much more known about them than there actually is. Most of these sources are “sole-sources” from which everything we encounter at the popular level has descended.

Works Cited List / GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Earrach of Pittsburgh, Sassafras Grove, ADF

Berresford-Ellis, Peter. The Druids. London: Constable & Co, Ltd, 1994.

Bonewits, Isaac. Bonewit's Essential Guide to Druidism. New York: Citadel Press, 2006.

Branston, Brian. The Lost Gods of England. London: Thames & Hudson, 1957.

Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gaedelica. Edinburgh, UK: Lindesfarne Press, 1992, (orig. published 1900).

Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1957.

Eliade, Mircea. Images and Symbols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.

Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954.

Green, Miranda. The World of the Druids. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997.

Hutton, Ronald. Stations of the Sun. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996.

James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts, Ancient People or Modern Invention? Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

Kendrick, T. D. The Druids. London: Senate, Studio Editions Ltd, 1927.

Kondratiev, Alexei. The Apple Branch (a.k.a. "Celtic Rituals"). Ireland: Collins Press, 1998.

MacKillop, James. Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998.

MacMullen, Ramsey, and Eugene N Lane. Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C.E. a sourcebook. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

Piggott, Stuart. The Druids. London: Thames & Hudson, 1968.

Raftery, Barry and McIntosh, Jane editors. Atlas of the Celts. Firefly, London, 2001

Rees, Alwyn & Brynley. Celtic Heritage. London: Thames & Hudson, 1961.

Shirley-Price, Leo, and revsd. by R.E Latham. Bede: A History of the English Church and People. Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books Ltd, 1955.

Taylor, Paul B, and W. H Auden. The Elder Edda - a selection. New York: Vintage / Random House, 1967.

Wallace, Faith. Bede: The Reckoning of Time. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1999.