Folklore Mythology category: 2054 books

Myths tell us much about a people. And all cultures have creation myths. The myths collected by the author in this book tell us about the rich and varied lives and imagination of the first Americans. They vary from simple to complex and all attempt to answer the question of human origin. Native Americans...

“[A] startlingly original history that traces the obscure origins and tangled relationships of the Orpheus myth from ancient times through today” (Library Journal).   For at least two and a half millennia, the figure of Orpheus has haunted humanity. Half-man, half-god, musician, magician, theologian,...

Maria Kvilhaug has researched the archeaology and background to the Eddas, Poems and Sagas of Northern literature and Historical folk lore data. In translating the original ancient Norse manuscripts the book approaches the Poems as metaphor for traditional ritual and rites of passage in the ancient...

Beowulf, like The Iliad and The Odyssey, is a foundational work of Western literature that originated in mysterious circumstances. In The Transmission of Beowulf, Leonard Neidorf addresses philological questions that are fundamental to the study of the poem. Is Beowulf the product of unitary or composite...

This lively and entertaining collection of folk tales from the Scottish Borders is rich in stories tall and true, ancient and recent, dark and funny, powerful and fantastical. Here you will find tales of Thomas the Rhymer, Tam Linn, the Lochmabon Harper, Muckle Moued Meg, and Michael Scott the wizard....

Tom Muir takes you on a magical journey through the mysterious Orkney Islands, where the past and present meet. Using the ancient stories that were told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, we hear how the islands were created from the teeth of a monster, how a giant created lochs and hills...

These traditional stories and local legends have been handed down by storytellers for centuries. As folk tales reveal a lot about the people who invented them, this book provides a link to the ethics and way of life of generations of Kentish people. Herein you will find the intriguing tales of Brave...

A combination of therapy and expertise in literature, this book explains the six archetypes derived from 4,000 years of literature and how they may guide unhappy people seeking meaning in their lives. Holding up the great books as the best way to understand these timeless story elements, the discussion...

A lively, stimulating and engaging retelling of purakau - Maori myths - by contemporary Maori writers. Ka mua, ka muri . . . Ancient Maori creation myths, portrayals of larger-than-life heroes and tales of engrossing magical beings have endured through the ages. Some hail back to Hawaiki, some are...

Can you recognize the stench of a troll’s lair? Where is the best place to find a two-headed giant? What is the safest way to observe a dragon? These fantastic creatures and others may not be real, but what if they were? This handy field guide gives you everything you need to study these dangerous monsters of the imagination.

Emerging from a people with an absolute belief in ‘the little folk’, the fairy tales of Ireland are part of one of the richest folk literatures in the world. In this wonderful collection of stories by some of Ireland’s finest writers, including Carleton, Yeats and Lady Wilde, a legion...

All the selections in Richard M. Dorson's Folktales Told around the World were recorded by expert collectors, and the majority of them are published here for the first time. The tales presented are told in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North and South America, and Oceania. Unlike other collections...

Baba Yaga is an ambiguous and fascinating figure. She appears in traditional Russian folktales as a monstrous and hungry cannibal, or as a canny inquisitor of the adolescent hero or heroine of the tale. In new translations and with an introduction by Sibelan Forrester, Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of...

First written down in the eighth century AD, these early Irish stories depict a far older world - part myth, part legend and part history. Rich with magic and achingly beautiful, they speak of a land of heroic battles, intense love and warrior ideals, in which the otherworld is explored and men mingle...