This book held a lot of good information as a reference volume, but it made for VERY dry reading. It is overloaded with archealogical references, and sice it is written in order of topic and not region, it is very disjointed. It is hard to follow the history, myths, and beliefs when they are spread out over several chapters. I find that by the time I get to a second mention of a myth or regional story, I've forgotten what I read about it in a previous chapter! It is especially not a good book for a beginner just trying to get an overview of older pagan traditions.