And can we talk about the characters! O'Shea does a wonderful job of blending Irish mythology and folk tales with real-world Galway and creatures of her own creation. We see heroic eels and earwigs, Serena Begley the divining donkey, and brave Cú Rua the fox, to name just a few. Can I just say, there are not NEARLY enough eels and earwigs presented as the 'good guys' in fiction? Authors, get on Queen O'Shea's level! Her imagination here is just unmatched, and so fun.

Tomboy and Girly Girl: Melodie and Breda are a villainous version, with Melodie being the sweet/romantic one, and Breda being the more blunt one. urn:oclc:record:1391561261 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier houndsofmorrigan0000oshe_w2k5 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2g2346bffb Invoice 1652 Isbn 0823405958 Lccn 85016435 Ocr tesseract 5.3.0-3-g9920 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.19 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-0001098 Openlibrary_edition Along their way, the brother and sister meet many strange and wonderful people, including many figures from Celtic mythology and more from O'Shea's vivid imagination and there is an emphasis on the importance of charity, hospitality to strangers and kindness to everybody, regardless of their appearance. Good deeds done for weaker people often return to act in Pidge and Brigit's favour, and for all that this is a tale of pagan mythology, there is a distinctly Christian tone. The character of the Dagda for example, seems to be allegorical in nature, although whether this is intentional, I can't say. At this the waters of the lake murmured against her. They went in angry ripples to the lake shore and formed little eddies there that spoke to the earth in low whispers. "Listen to us," they said. "What were the words of the ancient scribe? What did he say? - Man's flesh is of the earth, his blood of the sea, his breath of the wind, his bones of the stones, his soul of the spirit. - Thus he said, did he not?"I adore this book! Thirteen years in the writing, and one of only three works that Galway-born author Pat O'Shea ever published - the two others being Finn Mac Cool and the Small Men of Deeds, a slender collection of retold tales from the Fionn Cycle, and an early-reader entitled The Magic Bottle - this sprawling children's fantasy is a masterpiece, and simply a joy to read! I love pretty much everything about it, from its wealth of folkloric references to its discursive style, and included it in the course I taught in college, on the connections between folklore and children's fantasy literature. I hope, in fact, to incorporate it into my dissertation, on that distant day when I finally get myself to grad school. In poor health and well into her fifties at the time of that novel's first sudden success, she completed only a few chapters of the unpublished sequel in the subsequent decades, although those also remain highly regarded in their own right. Sugar Bowl: The land in the hidden valley. The more Disney-Oirish aspects and locations of the quest. Giant Spider: Mawleogs and his clan are a whole family of them! However, they're firmly on the good side, and they love acrobatics and singing songs. Her writing for the theatre was supported by David Scase, director of the Library Theatre, Manchester, and his successor Tony Colegate, and four of her one-act plays were produced by the Library Theatre. Her play The King's Ears was commissioned by BBC Northern Ireland. In 1971 she worked on a sketch comedy show for Granada Television called Flat Earth, but this was not successful. [4] [5] [2] [3] [6]

Lccn 98031280 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR) Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.11 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Openlibrary OL370548M Openlibrary_editionurn:lcp:houndsofmorrigan00oshe:epub:2cfbec19-42e8-4be8-a96a-fc62b4d74429 Extramarc OhioLINK Library Catalog Foldoutcount 0 Identifier houndsofmorrigan00oshe Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8vb25x61 Invoice 1213 Isbn 9780064472050 Then a crow landed on his shoulder and he is said to have finally drifted off to sleep for good. Now, the Morrigan was known to transform into a crow… was it her that had the final laugh? Who knows! The Morrigan Symbol Now, some incorrectly associate her with Celtic Symbols– like the Celtic Knots in the image above, but this isn’t accurate. Dato che la maggior parte del libro è un semplice mostrare il mondo fatato, senza reali pericoli o problemi, sarebbe benissimo potuto essere più breve. Invece no, e alla fine il libro risulta di quasi 500 pagine. Has a straightforward, classic plot - children attempt a journey, aided by magical allies, to find an item that will allow them to cast down a villain, while the villain's minions follow them. Many of the minor characters are original and fun or have interesting mythological basis.

IndieView with Taya Okerlund, author of Hurricane Coltrane". The Indie View. 6 February 2017 . Retrieved 18 October 2017. The Goddess Morrigan first appeared to encounter Cu Chulainn while he was defending the province of Ulster from Queen Maeve and her army. The Hounds of the Mórrígan” by Pat O’Shea is a relatively unknown book. I occasionally come across Irishmen who remember having read it in school or a children’s fantasy enthusiast, who has at least heard of the story, but rarely have I met anyone who loves this book as much as I do. He managed to grab his famous sling-shot in time and used it to fire a stone into the eye of the Morrigan Goddess, who was temporarily blinded. Gregory, Lady. Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory. With a preface by W. B. Yeats. New York: Scribner, 1904.

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The Irish Times wrote that "the unspoilt countryside around Lough Corrib provided the inspiration" for the book. [3] Links to Celtic mythology [ edit ] She began her career writing for the theatre, supported by David Scase, director of the Library Theatre, Manchester and his successor Tony Colegate in the late 1960s. But neither theatre writing nor writing for television worked out and from 1969 she began to write alone on a number of projects: short stories, poems, an unpublished comic novel, and eventually she started The Hounds of the Morrigan, largely to please herself, her family and friends and their children, with little expectation of publication. The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books’’ at the University of Chicago said that "The prose is rather relentlessly ornamented, but the images are always concrete and, like the narrative, have vigorous strength." [7] In 1988 O'Shea published a second children's book, Finn Mac Cool and the Small Men of Deeds, through the publisher Holiday. It was a retelling of folklore tales, illustrated by Stephen Lavis. [8] In 1987 Horn Book Magazine included it in their annual list of notable children's books, giving it a Horn Book Fanfare Best books of the year award. [9] This is the only fantasy quest novel I can think of where Good seems to have the upper hand on Evil. This is not Middle Earth where Evil is so obviously superior and Good is so faulty and unaided. Here the children are protected, reassured and guided every step along the journey. Even when things seem terribly dangerous, they are saved by one Deus Ex Machina after another. The evil Morrigan obey the cosmic rules that keep The Dagda-- the good god-- on top and the children safe from their evil plans. And although we sometimes wonder if the children can pull off their quest, we never doubt that good will somehow win in the end.

Sutherland, Zena; Betsy Hearne; Roger Sutton (1991). The Best in Children's Books, 1985-1990. University of Chicago Press. p.80. ISBN 0-226-78064-3.The adventures the kids have will feel both familiar and new to adults and even kids familiar with Tolkein and the conventions of classic European "quest" fairy tales. They travel a winding road to protect (or retrieve) powerful magic, they meet a dense and lively array of fully-realized characters, they encounter mythical figures as well as wholly original creations, they battle pure evil as well as simple weakness and despicable collaboration. Sure, you know this pattern as well as you know the story of Pinocchio, but it can still surprise and charm you when it's in the hands of someone as talented as this writer. Si scatena così la caccia ad Olc-Glas: da una parte le forze del bene, che guidano i due bambini in un lungo viaggio per trovare un amuleto con il quale distruggere le pagine del serpente; dall’altra parte la Morrigan nei suoi tre aspetti, che vuole assorbire il suo veleno per diventare nuvamente potente come un tempo. Ah, it is a sad and puzzling fate to share the world with man, but what can we do? My poor vixen - she could charm anything but the hounds, will I never forget it." According to legend, she delivered this message after she appeared as a crow (often mistaken for a raven) and flew overhead during a war. It’s said that her appearance would either terrify those fighting or inspire them to fight for their life. The Goddess Morrí gan and Cuchulainn