Joanne Findon, Bound and Free: Voices of Mortal and Otherworld Women in Medieval Irish Literature. Studies and Texts, 236. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2024, x , 219 pp.

A statuette of a naked Gaulish dancer, her image appearing on its front and back covers, makes Bound and Free a book to catch one’s eye; and its subject (women in Irish saga) raises expectations. The study has two parts, the first (on mortal women) having three chapters. We start with Nes, mother-figure in The Conception of Cú Chulainn, a love story composed in about 800 C.E. There is more about love thereafter with Deirdre of the Sorrows (famous from Synge’s play of 1909) and analysis of the feminine in her tale’s ninth-century original. Also of the ninth century (and concluding this section) is The Death of Aífe’s Only Son, a somber narrative, for its subject is a youth killed by his own father, the Ulster champion Cú Chulainn.