This book was published two years ago. I intended to review it much earlier, but with one thing and another I didn't get it done. Still, I suspect many readers won't have heard of it, let alone read it, so I offer my review now.
Epona, Hidden Goddess of the Celts
I'm always pleased to see a book about a horse goddess. Research on them can be frustrating and time consuming, so it's nice to have a collection of ideas and references in one place. Cook has gathered up quite a bit of the evidence relating to Epona in this book, including a few things readers won't have seen, or might not be expecting. His own fondness for Epona as a goddess also occasionally shines through in the more factual sections.
| My first leaf through this book felt promising. There are certainly lots of citations, and a useful bibliography. That usually bodes well. However, lots of footnotes do not, on their own, make a work of scholarship. Although the title of this book refers to Epona as both hidden and Celtic, the author seems to feel that the best way to reveal Her is not through focusing on the Celts, their relationships to their deities and to the horse, but by taking us down the long and winding road of classical antiquity. Not being a student of that part of history, I found some of the topics fascinating, but trying to see their links to Epona strained my credulity, and ultimately my patience. The Celts, with the exception of the Romanized few, did not leave inscriptions to deities, and certainly left no written literature during the Roman period. It is only because Epona was so widely and enthusiastically adopted by the Roman cavalry, many of |  |
whom were Celts, that we have so much material evidence, and a few contemporary written mentions, of this goddess. Cook takes us in search of Epona's Greco-Roman antecedents, when in fact, there is no reason to believe that these exist. Are there deities who share associations with Epona in Roman, Greek and other pantheons? Yes, but that doesn't mean that they relate directly to Epona. However, as the book unfolds, Anatolians, Phrygians, Arcadians, Eleusians and even Egyptians are pressed into service, as required, to help paint a fanciful picture of the Epona-who-might-have-been.
In the prologue, Cook warns us that aspects of the book may shock some readers. Indeed, they might, although I wasn't shocked, personally. This warning refers, I'm sure, to the final section of the book, in which the author reports on interviews with several contemporary, self-styled priestesses of Epona, from various parts of the world, and their male acolytes. Each of these informants tells a similar story in which ritual use of a scourge or other means of inflicting pain is applied by the priestess to her willing male counterpart. Reasons given for this included the woman's need to express her rage and the man's need to learn submission to the female principle/Goddess.
As I say, this didn't shock me, but it certainly surprised me. The author interviewed six women and three men for this section of the book. (All these informants are given full anonymity, which is understandable, but also makes this part of the work impossible to confirm.) While self-declared priestesses of Epona are probably fairly rare, this still seems a small sample, especially considering that the subjects hail from five different countries. Regardless of the sample size, it is extremely surprising that all of them appear to have such similar stories. In my experience, it is rare for several Pagans to have the same personal gnossis or practices around a particular deity, at least unless they are all members of the same group. Use of the scourge is not unknown (but probably not all that common) in groups with a Gardnerian influence, for example, but if all Cook's informants are in some way connected, he doesn't mention it, nor does he share his method of seeking them out. I can't help but think that he was either intentionally looking only in places where he would find this, or that he didn't consider any other form of devotion worthy of reporting. The author gives us little else about the beliefs or practices of these individuals.
Leaving that to one side, if you are interested in Epona, there should be things in this book to interest you. There are plenty of illustrations of artifacts, and exploration of their meanings, and a considered look at some of the inscriptions to Epona, as well as an interesting discussion of sovereignty. The book is also well laced with the goddess theory, and belief in a matriarchal golden age somewhere in our human past. The author is comfortable conflating or making strong connections between many different deities. How the reader receives these ideas will depend on their own beliefs.
When you know where this book is headed, then it is easier to understand why the author insists on following a route through a variety of ancient religions not usually associated with the Celts. While he doesn't directly say so, it seems that his many references to non-Celtic religious thought, and analogies and associations between Epona and non-Celtic deities, are in service to arriving at the conclusion that the modern practices described above are the inevitable, or correct, method of devotion to Epona in the present day. However, Cook falls just short of plainly stating this as his thesis. If you have a controversial theory which you feel is correct, especially on a religious level, and that theory is worthy of the effort of writing a 300 page book with over 1,200 footnotes, then why not just state it outright? I think this book would have made more sense if he'd done that.
I'm am glad that someone has written a book on Epona. I believe that She deserves more attention and understanding than She is getting, both on a scholarly level and a devotional one. This book adds a little piece to that puzzle, but I feel it is not in the same league as Jhenah Telyndru's recent book on Rhiannon, which I reviewed here. I hope that we will be seeing more non-fiction books on the horse goddesses in the next few years, and that this won't be the final word on Epona.
Epona Hidden Goddess of the Celts, by P.D. MacKenzie Cook is published by Avalonia, London. It's available from Amazon and other booksellers.
In the prologue, Cook warns us that aspects of the book may shock some readers. Indeed, they might, although I wasn't shocked, personally. This warning refers, I'm sure, to the final section of the book, in which the author reports on interviews with several contemporary, self-styled priestesses of Epona, from various parts of the world, and their male acolytes. Each of these informants tells a similar story in which ritual use of a scourge or other means of inflicting pain is applied by the priestess to her willing male counterpart. Reasons given for this included the woman's need to express her rage and the man's need to learn submission to the female principle/Goddess.
As I say, this didn't shock me, but it certainly surprised me. The author interviewed six women and three men for this section of the book. (All these informants are given full anonymity, which is understandable, but also makes this part of the work impossible to confirm.) While self-declared priestesses of Epona are probably fairly rare, this still seems a small sample, especially considering that the subjects hail from five different countries. Regardless of the sample size, it is extremely surprising that all of them appear to have such similar stories. In my experience, it is rare for several Pagans to have the same personal gnossis or practices around a particular deity, at least unless they are all members of the same group. Use of the scourge is not unknown (but probably not all that common) in groups with a Gardnerian influence, for example, but if all Cook's informants are in some way connected, he doesn't mention it, nor does he share his method of seeking them out. I can't help but think that he was either intentionally looking only in places where he would find this, or that he didn't consider any other form of devotion worthy of reporting. The author gives us little else about the beliefs or practices of these individuals.
Leaving that to one side, if you are interested in Epona, there should be things in this book to interest you. There are plenty of illustrations of artifacts, and exploration of their meanings, and a considered look at some of the inscriptions to Epona, as well as an interesting discussion of sovereignty. The book is also well laced with the goddess theory, and belief in a matriarchal golden age somewhere in our human past. The author is comfortable conflating or making strong connections between many different deities. How the reader receives these ideas will depend on their own beliefs.
When you know where this book is headed, then it is easier to understand why the author insists on following a route through a variety of ancient religions not usually associated with the Celts. While he doesn't directly say so, it seems that his many references to non-Celtic religious thought, and analogies and associations between Epona and non-Celtic deities, are in service to arriving at the conclusion that the modern practices described above are the inevitable, or correct, method of devotion to Epona in the present day. However, Cook falls just short of plainly stating this as his thesis. If you have a controversial theory which you feel is correct, especially on a religious level, and that theory is worthy of the effort of writing a 300 page book with over 1,200 footnotes, then why not just state it outright? I think this book would have made more sense if he'd done that.
I'm am glad that someone has written a book on Epona. I believe that She deserves more attention and understanding than She is getting, both on a scholarly level and a devotional one. This book adds a little piece to that puzzle, but I feel it is not in the same league as Jhenah Telyndru's recent book on Rhiannon, which I reviewed here. I hope that we will be seeing more non-fiction books on the horse goddesses in the next few years, and that this won't be the final word on Epona.
Epona Hidden Goddess of the Celts, by P.D. MacKenzie Cook is published by Avalonia, London. It's available from Amazon and other booksellers.
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