Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy

Dimitra Fimi is Senior Lecturer in Fantasy and Children’s Literature at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She has published monographs on J.R.R. Tolkien and Celtic-inspired children’s Fantasy, as well as articles and essays on myth and Fantasy, medievalism, world-building, adaptation, artlangs and visual culture. She has co-edited Tolkien’s manuscripts on invented languages, and has won awards for her books and essays. She sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Tolkien Research and co-edits the Perspectives on Fantasy series. Alistair J. P. Sims is an independent scholar, bookseller and publisher at Books on the Hill, Clevedon, with a PhD in archaeology from Bangor University (2014). He has published on fantasy literature and archaeology in Fantasy Art and Studies (2019) and Proceedings of the 2nd European Symposium in Celtic Studies (2017).

List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Series Editors’ Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on Spelling

Introduction, Dr Dimitra Fimi (University of Glasgow, UK)

Part 1: Celticity as Fantastic Intrusion
1. Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Celtic Fairy Realm in Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Dr K. A. Laity (College of Saint Rose, USA)
2. The Evolution of Alan Garner’s Celticity in Boneland, Gwendolen Grant (Independent Scholar)
3. Woman as Goddess in the Irish Fantasies of Jodi McIsaac, Kris Swank (Pima Community College, USA)

Part 2: Celtic Fantasy Worlds and Heroes
4. The Heroic Biographies Of Cú Chulainn and Connavar in the Rigante Series, Alistair J. P. Sims (Independent Scholar)
5. Classical Ethnography and the World(s) of the Rigante, Anthony Smart (York St John University, UK)
6. Celts in Spaaaaace!, Cheryl Morgan (Independent Scholar)

Part 3: Celtic Fantasy Beyond the Anglophone
7. From Vertigen to Frontier: The Fate of the Sidhes in Léa Silhol’s Fiction, Viviane Bergue (Independent scholar)
8. ‘Chaidh e nas doimhne agus nas doimhne ann an seann theacsaichean’: Gaelic history and legend in An Sgoil Dhubh by Iain F. MacLeòid, Duncan Sneddon (University of Edinburgh, UK)

Part 4: Fantastic Perceptions of Celticity
9. The Celtic Tarot in Speculative Fiction, Juliette Wood (Cardiff University, UK)
10. Celtic Appropriation in Twenty-First-Century Fantasy Fan Perceptions, Angela R. Cox (Ball State University, USA)

Index