Description
On this riveting account, renowned scholar Ronald Hutton explores the history of deity-like figures in Christian Europe. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology, literature, and history, Hutton shows how hags, witches, the Fairy Queen, and the Green Man all came to be, and how they changed over the centuries.
Having a look closely at four main figures―Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, the Mistress of the Night, and the Old Woman of Gaelic tradition―Hutton challenges decades of debate across the female figures who have long been thought versions of pre-Christian goddesses. He makes the compelling case that these goddess figures found within the European imagination didn’t descend from the pre-Christian ancient world, yet have nothing Christian about them. It was once in truth nineteenth-century scholars who attempted to determine the narrative of pagan survival that persists as of late.
