BookMusings: (Re)Discovering Pagan Literature
A lively discussion of ancient and modern Pagan literature -- including children's books, graphic novels, science fiction, fantasy, and mysteries -- along with interviews, author highlights, and profiles of Pagan publishers.
Book Review: The Ruin of Beltany Ring
Title: The Ruin of Beltany Ring: A Collection of Pagan Poems and Tales
Publisher: Triskele Media Press
Author: CS MacCath
Price: $8.00 US (paperback)/ $5.00 US (digital)
Pages: 82 pp
ISBN: 9781482535181
My first exposure to the works of CS MacCath was in the pages of PanGaia. "Bringing Woden to the Little Green Men" was utterly unique: a Pagan science fiction poem. I had never before read anything like it. I was stunned, totally jealous, and completely enthralled. Yes, this. I wanted to read more of this.
Needless to say, I gave a little squee of delight when MacCath submitted some of her poems a few years later to my literary ezine, Eternal Haunted Summer. I snatched them up right away. I even cajoled (or conned or begged) MacCath into submitting her short story "Yundah" to The Shining Cities, the Pagan science fiction anthology I was editing.
When MacCath informed me that she was self-publishing a collection of her poetry and fiction, there was more squeeing. -- Okay, I'm passionate and excited about modern polytheist literature. Like that's a surprise?
I am happy to report that The Ruin of Beltany Ring is a wonderful, thoroughly engaging, always amazing anthology. Though familiar with a few of the works, most were new to me. I spent a happy few hours lost in magical worlds populated by seal-women, lame Gods, furious Goddesses, eco-warrior fairies, anima loci, and Wiccan lawyers. In "Ink for the Dead" a tattoo artist is guided by the whispers of spirits, while a man facing a life crisis dreams a possible future in "My Ammonite Baby." The spirit of a place speaks to a lost, sorrowful woman in "When I Arrived, This Is What She Said," while "Hephaestus" contemplates the many blows which made Him while he hammers metal into art. The stone ring of the title has its own age-old story to tell, while the unnamed narrator of "God-Touched" agonizes over the divide between human and divine.
MacCath has a real gift for crafting imagery. For instance, these lines from the poem "Fetters":
There, behind the chemical burn of cubicle food, / A fall of sun-warmed apricots, orange and sweet. / There, beneath a smooth mortuary of concrete, / Billions of seeds, patient as suns, wait to uncurl.
Or, this passage from the Celtic myth-inspired "Two Servants of the Morrighan" in which the narrator reminds us:
She doesn't exist to grant us permission, / and we are the least of Her concerns. / "Keep pace or step aside. zdo the work or pass the tool. / Speak the truth or shut up."
MacCath is currently at work on another collection, as well as a science fiction epic, Petals of the Twenty Thousand Blossom. I impatiently await both. In the meanwhile, I highly recommend The Ruin of Beltany Ring -- grab a copy, along with Erynn Rowan Laurie's Fireflies at Absolute Zero and Oracles: A Pilgrimage by Catherynne M Valente, and spend a few hours lost to beauty, cruelty, and wonder.
Comments
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Thursday, 22 August 2013
Alex Bledsoe *scribbling note to self* Thanks for the tip!
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Thursday, 22 August 2013Anne, who else is on that list? I would love to read more. I have found some exquisitely told stories dealing with spirituality and pagan themes among the Interstitial Arts Foundation's anthologies-- and find that the mode of storytelling itself woven through much of the fiction, regardless of genre, reflects a certain non-linear mindset akin to spiritual experience.
Thanks. -
Thursday, 22 August 2013
You know that you and this column are ABSOLUTELY terrible for expanding my wish-list of books, both illustrated and not? And library checkouts. Keep it up!
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Thursday, 22 August 2013
Heeee.
Happy to help keep you in books and libraries open.· nolongerhere likes this comment. -
Thursday, 22 August 2013I've been remiss not to mention Deborah Blake! I'm sure I'll think of more folks over time.
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Thursday, 22 August 2013
Maaaybe a themed w&p issue on modern Pagan/polytheist literature ...? *big puppy dog eyes*
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Thursday, 22 August 2013
Oh, honey, I'd love to. But after the financial drubbing I (and Llewellyn, too) took on this book http://www.amazon.com/The-Pagan-Anthology-Short-Fiction/dp/0738712698, I don't think so.
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Monday, 18 November 2013
...maybe the timing would be better now for someone else to release a similar project. It's five years later, and a LOT of pop culture has happened in between to shift tastes.
Or maybe someone should put her editorial experience on books to work assembling gems from the pages of her own magazine... -
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
@Shirl: *blinks innocently* Yeah, okay; some kind of anniversary edition of Eternal Haunted Summer is a good idea. Just a matter of finding the time ….
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MacCath is indeed, a very talented writer. I'm pretty proud to say that in addition to publishing "Bringing Woden..." we also published her story "Ammonite Baby," the heartbreaking "Yundah," and the title story of this collection, in our pages. She's one of the few Pagan fiction writers (Alex Bledsoe, who we are interviewing in our fall issue of W&P being another), who is equally talented at writing from a Pagan POV and turning out fabulous fiction. The intersection of those two categories is vanishingly small, and she's a true star in that sky.