My wife gave me this book as a present the day before yesterday, and I found it so interesting that I read it in one sitting. David Day is a good a writer, and he has written other books such as
A Tolkien Bestiary and the
Illustrated Encyclopedia of Middle Earth. Alan Lee’s illustrations in this book are excellent, and this alone makes the book worth the purchase!
The biggest problem with this book is a complete lack of annotation and a bibliography, raising the question in my mind as to where Mr. Day got his information and what his primary sources were. As I’m no expert in mythology, I have no way of critically evaluating Mr. Day’s facts or conclusions. There are some errors in Mr. Day’s other books, which brings me to wonder if there are errors in his treatment of other mythologies.
However, I recently helped a colleague research for an article about medieval alchemy, and many of the facts in this regard are fresh in my mind. In regards to chapter 14, I found some of Mr. Day’s facts and comments spurious. For example:
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By the first century AD, Gnostic religion and Western alchemical doctrine were largely indistinguishable. This eventually proved to be unfortunate for the older tradition of alchemy.
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Quite simply there was no such thing as Western alchemical doctrine in the first century AD. The Romans had a low regard for alchemy in general. The bronze and iron production industry was “de-mystified” by the Romans, and the notion of transmutation of metals was disseminated to the west only at a latter date. His connection between Chinese and Persian alchemy to Christian Gnosticism is extremely far fetched, anyway. The only real connection is similar imagery used by some Gnostic cults, but not in actual doctrine. There were no Gnostic cults that doctrinally practiced alchemy.
Further:
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A cornerstone of Western alchemical belief is the teaching of the third-century scholar and visionary, Zosimos of Panopolis.
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This is not true. There is no indication from my research of medieval alchemy that Zosimos of Panopolis’ writings played any significant role in the dissemination of alchemical technology or practice in the west. If anything, his writings are a post-Renaissance discovery.
On the other hand, I was impressed with the misnamed chapter 12. Other than the fact that the chapter should have been named “Hebrew Legends” instead of “Biblical Legends” (because there was very little biblical information in this chapter), it was done very well, and as far as I know, very accurately.
All in all, this was a great book, and provides an excellent introduction to ancient mythologies while at the same time giving a lot of insight into Tolkien’s mythology. For those of you who are more inquisitive, though, this book will only wet the appetite.
[ April 25, 2003: Message edited by: Bill Ferny ]