A fresh instalment of magical history from the author of The Witch and The Triumph of the Moon focused on female deities who maintained relevance and power in Christian Europe.
 
This book centres on four female deities that appear throughout Europe: Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, the Mistress of the Night, and the Cailleach of Gaelic folklore to explore the idea of whether these figures represented a continuity of pre-Christian religion after the rise of Christianity. In place of an introduction, this book begins with a chapter explaining the concept of ‘pagan survival’. This chapter demonstrates the context of previous research and beliefs surrounding the continuation of pre-Christian religious practices after Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe. A belief in unbroken lines of paganism including and often emphasising goddess worship was the foundation for many modern pagan belief systems, making this book a valuable resource for those interested in the religious and cultural history of Europe and in the history of paganism as it exists today. The epilogue of this book explores the concept of the Green Man, perhaps one of the most recognisable faces of ‘pagan survival’ ideology in the British Isles. This inclusion further situates Hutton’s latest book as an important piece of work within the scholarship of pre-Christian belief in Europe.
 
London: Yale University Press, 2023. Paperback, 245 pages. New.