Seize The Horse Witch Fabricated By Sheila Fulton Offered As Audio Books

didn't like this much as the tone and atmosphere was grieving the entire book, and the boy's life was hopeless.
The ending was ambiguous. You were left thinking wow, what will he find to give his life meaning and purpose The front cover says it was set in IronAge Scotland but the clan of the Raven seemed to follow the Morrigan Irish so may be some crossover there.


Arawn is raised by his grandfather in the swamp, a hard man, His grandfather was a lord but forced out when his son Arawn's father marries one of the horse people and brings her home.
He let her stay there but then the Clanlord Cernach comes and destroys the place, Arawn's uncle takes over but their people are decimated, forbidden to practice their religion, etc, All his life, Arawn is told his mother was a witch who seduced men, etc, When he's about fourteen they go to live with the clan run by his uncle and he is trained as a warrior and makes a

few friends after some time.
Then he finds out he was welcomed back so they can give him to the Clanlord as a hostage as will be a new battle against the horse people.


The raven goddess is harsh and violent and he is drawn to the horse goddess but wait.
First he is sold into slavery secretly, by his auntinlaw who hates him and eventually he ends up in the islands where the horse people live.
There he is welcomed as a prince and will marry a princess he falls in love with, but he fails to follow the disgusting rite of passage into the clan where has to sleep with an old crone in the guise of the horse goddess, so they want to kill him and he leaves them.


He ends up with some villagers in farming not clan life but they get slaughtered by bandits, one of whom knows him and takes him to Cernach, where they are all gathering for the war vs the horse people.
He refuses to fight but when his friends from the raven side are killed he joins in.
At the end he and his ravencousin's wife are alone on the beach and go together towards a village always a connection between the two of them, will they go off together

Arawn concludes that the horse and raven goddess are the same woman and he wants nothing of either of them.
Really interesting, but very mournful and grim, Arawn consistently loses everything and everyone he ever loved or valued, This was beautifully written but relentlessly dark and brutal, I know the name "Arawn" from Lloyd Alexander's series, but I think there is more to it than that version.


This story speaks of an orphaned boy whose parents are from seperate, warring peoples the people of the raven goddess and the people of the horse goddess.
He knows nothing of himself apart from the fact that he is a shame to his father's people and that noone will speak up for him.
The book starts bleakly enough and does not really ever rise from that, although at times there is friendship and love.
Always there is a price to pay, do not trust the relief in the calmer parts of the book, because this book is not about that.
Always there must be brutality and suffering, anything or anyone innocent is marked out for it,

In the end between the horse people and the raven people, Arawn must make choices and find his place.
He finds it in various ways, always interrupted and the ending too may be a temporary reprieve.
It's hard to believe in it,

There is war, torture, abuse, bullying and all in all this is a hard, horrifying book to read.
At least sex in it tends to be consensual, There are so many characters, too many with similar names starting with C, that I kept getting confused.
I had to read slowly because it was quite traumatic,

If you don't mind a violent, brutal world then it's probably worth a read, Interesting historical fiction, with a likable main character who goes through some fairly big ordeals, The ancient society is well created and the different morals are interesting to try and relate to.
This book took me a few reads too really "get it" because of the language but overall a good read, set in Iron Age Scotland the orphan Arawn.
Exiled with his grandfather as a child because his father, royalty in the clan of Num Dubh fell in love with Macha, a priestess of the horse people.
Now Arawn returns to Num Dubh, called by his uncle Morged but still finds himself outcast and bullied until he finally searches out his roots with the magical and mysetrious horse people.
I found myself swept away with Arawn on his journey to prove himself and discover his past.
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