THE SCATHACH AND MAEVE'S DAUGHTERS

In the eighth century, a Scathach (a Celtic shape-shifter who embodies ""the magical spirit of human survival"") appears to Maeve Moira as an old woman who endows her and her female descendants with powerful qualities for survival: for generations to come, they will be tender and swift as the doe, loyal as the she-wolf, and as fiercely able to preserve themselves and their loved ones as the dragon. Taking place at 400-year intervals, three more stories follow: Maeve Gwenna, assisted by the Scathach in the form of an eagle, escapes an unwelcome suitor and flees to a Welsh valley where she makes a new alliance with a young Viking; Maeve Brigitta helps her community through a brutal winter in 17th-century Canada with the help of an Iroquois medicine woman who demonstrates a cure for scurvy; and, in the near future, Maeve Nicole is a young vet coping with urban blight when the Scathach turns up (in the book's funniest scenes) as a bag lady--and also as a parrot. The idea is promising, and the details often interesting (though wild melons in the Canadian wilderness don't seem likely); but the development of each period is sketchy, while the heritage of fine qualities is not exhibited to particularly telling effect in any of the generations. Only mildly interesting.