From Publishers Weekly
The life of the ancient Irish hero Fionn Mac Cumhal is brought to its close in the resounding conclusion to the trilogy begun in Master of Earth and Water. In his weary maturity, Fionn and his fianna (national guard) serve the Ard Ri (High King) Cormac mac Airt while striving to keep blood feuds from destroying his country, Eriu. He himself succumbs to a feud when his protege and dear friend, Diarmuid mac Duibhne, runs off with his promised wife, Grainne, daughter of the High King. While Fionn and his men pursue the fugitives for years, his son Oisin by his long-lost love, the Sidhe Sabd, experiences his own unhappy love. Though evading an attempt to embroil him in a war among the Sidhe, the ancient fairy people of Eriu, Fionn falls victim to treachery and hatred among humans. The authors poetically portray a lost culture, breathing life into ancient myths.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Booklist
In the final volume of their trilogy based on the Fionn cycle of ancient Ireland, Paxson and Martine-Barnes face a difficult task: to make a sympathetic romantic hero out of the aging Fionn while staying true to their novels' sources. This is the Fionn who chases poor Diarmuid and his beloved Grianne across Ireland, who loses his beloved son first to anger and then to Faerie, and who is finally overcome by younger warriors. But the authors both sustain the compellingly fierce character of Fionn from their earlier works and deal forthrightly with his foolhardy and sometimes cruel actions. In a magical ending, Fionn is whisked away to an intermediary world between this one and the next, where goddesses tend him as he sleeps until Ireland needs his strength again. A marvelous conclusion to an unusually effective series.
Patricia Monaghan
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
