| Music and the Celtic Otherworld: From Ireland to Iona |
||
Music and the Celtic Otherworld: From Ireland to Iona. By Karen Ralls-MacLeod. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 211. Index, bibliography, appendix. $50.00 cloth, $22.00 paper. Music and the Celtic Otherworld aims to demonstrate the important role that music, especially supernatural music, plays in Irish folklore and literature through collecting and cataloging the references to music within such texts. In addition, the author suggests a "continuity in imagery" through music across the separate worlds of the supernatural and the mundane and a "parallel imagery used across the divide of the overtly primal [i.e., pagan] and the overtly Christian contexts" (p. 182)-again, through the depiction of music in some form. The author contends that this portrayal of music as a connector between the earthly world and the supernatural world reflects a certain worldview of medieval Irish society (all references are taken from written sources of early medieval Irish literature): a vision of life as "an ever-moving, ever-changing, ever-shifting reality including both what we now call the mundane, everyday and the supernatural Otherworld" (p. 182). According to claims made on its dust jacket, Ralls-MacLeod's book is "the first ever comprehensive collection of references [to music] from primary source material in translation from early Celtic tales, folklore, ballads, place-lore, saints' lives, poetry and proverbs." Thus it is of value as a sourcebook for scholars of Celtic folklore, though not an entertaining read for the average Celtic music fan or Ireland enthusiast. This is especially so because it is unfortunately devoid of any illustrations, other than the fetching jacket photograph of Pan with his pipes. Given its organization by chapters into the subject areas of "Performers," "Instruments," "Effects," "Places," and Times," the lack of illustration is not only disappointing but detracts from the subject: what does the Irish harp look like that the author so thoroughly describes? Why not include a photograph of "the carved stone high crosses of Ireland [which] show instruments which appear to be four-sided, rather than the three-side harp more familiar to us today" (p. 53)? Likewise, there are centuries of art from which to select in order to represent the supernatural or Otherworld places Ralls-MacLeod describes, as well as contemporary landscape scenes which would fit well into her discussion of "everyday places where music is heard in the normal, mundane affairs of daily life" (p. 116). Nevertheless, Music and the Celtic Otherworld is a useful index for folkloric musical motifs. For example, the "Effects" chapter includes references to the following: "Effects of Saint's music with beneficial, protective effects," "Music causes a trance-like sleep state in hermit," " Saint's music with destructive, cursing effects." In addition, for scholars of fairy lore and the supernatural, the book is a useful compendium of references to early sources. Alice Morrison Mordoh |
