Celtic Fantasy
Some writers take Celtic elements and create their own Fantasy worlds. Katherine Kerr does this with her Deverry books. Her characters go through several reincarnations to resolve their burdens. She includes elves, dwarves and dragons in her complex world of magic and honor. The first novels in the series are Daggerspell, Darkspell, The Bristling Wood and The Dragon Revenant.
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison moved her Celts into space for her Science Fantasies of the Keltiad. In her series, the Celts fled Earth to found a new empire in space. They encounter humans again and begin a new alliance. Her books are full of Celtic and Arthurian elements. The first book in the series is The Copper Crown.
Other sources for writers have been Scottish and Irish myths and folklore. Deborah Turner Harris wrote a trilogy of a fantasy Scotland that never existed. In Caledon of the Mists, The Queen of Ashes and The City of Exile she weaves the dark tale of a Scotland trying to free itself from an oppressive England. Ireland is the home of a race of elven beings from another world.
Morgan Llywelyn uses Irish myths to tell some of her tales of Celtic Fantasy. Her books have a strong overlay of the supernatural in ancient Ireland. The Elementals is a collection of four stories of the dounding of Ireland after the Flood. In The Horse Goddess, she takes readers to the beginning of Celtic history with its strong heroes and heroines. Later books tell of the mythic Irish heroes Finn Mac Cool and Cuchulain.
Have writers exhuasted the depths of available Celtic material for ideas? Certainly not. New writers like Kate Forsyth and Sarah Isidore are bringing us new books with Celtic elements. As William Butler Yeats said, "none can measure of how great importance it may be to coming times, for every new fountain of legends is a new intoxication for the imagination of the world. It comes at a time when the imagination of the world is as ready, as it was at the coming of the tales of Arthur and the Grail, for a new intoxication." (from "Celtic Myth and English-Language Fantasy Literature: Possible New Directions" by C.W. Sullivan III, Journal of the Fantastic, Winter 1998) As long as there are new visions coming from writers, there will be Celtic Fantasy.
Books:
The Pool of Two Moons, The Witches of Eilannen by Kate Forsyth
The Daughters of Bast by Sarah Isidore
A Time
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