Do you think that legends are all about princes and princesses, knights and heroes, giants and monsters? Well, they aren't always. The stories in this book are about girls like you and girls you might know: clever, strong, brave and resourceful. Here you can read the story of Vasilisa, who wasn't afraid of the deep dark forest; Mollie Whuppie, who knew how to trick a giant; Tipingi, who was able to call on her friends to help her get out of trouble; Seren, who used her love of singing to help others; and many more fearless characters. Storyteller Fiona Collins has chosen the best of the old tales from all around the world and reworked them into new and exciting versions to be enjoyed by everyone, accompanied by magical illustrations by talented artist Ed Fisher.

Until now, scholarly analysis of Elizabethan processions has always regarded them as having been successful in their function as propaganda, and has always found them to have effectively 'won over' the common people - that group of the population at whom they were chiefly aimed. Both her Royal entries and progresses were regarded as effective public relations exercises, the population gaining access to the Queen and thus being encouraged to remain loyal subjects. This book represents a new approach to this subject by investigating whether this was actually the case - that is, whether the common people were actually won over by these spectacular rituals. By examining original documents that have thus far been ignored, as well as re-examining others from the perspective of the common people, the book casts a new light on Elizabethan processions.

From one-of-a-kind hand made fashion to commercially made highly decorative apparel, wearable art has become an important category for both collectors of vintage costume and of unique contemporary fashion. This book, with more than 500 color photographs, is the first to cover both vintage and new wearable art. Chapters on different categories of apparel present this compelling topic at its best. Not necessarily museum art, but real wearable creations, from the antique to the present, the creations presented in this book complimented by an extensive illustrated glossary, bibliography, and a value guide will delight anyone interested in fashion, art, and the unusual and beautiful.

Inspired by the success of The Son of a Duck is a Floater, Apricots Tomorrow and Unload your own Donkey, this gathering of Italian proverbs is intended to bring to its readers a smile of recognition from the discovery of a pooled aphoristic wit. Each proverb is given a literal translation and an English equivalent. These are sometimes identical, perhaps because of their Biblical or Latin origin, sometimes they are bizarrely askance as the title illustrates. Illustrated by Kathryn Lamb throughout.

Reprinted by popular demand, this book tells the story of St Joseph of Arimathea and the legend of his journey to Britain as a metal merchant seeking tin. Tradition states that on this journey he was accompanied by none other than Jesus, who at this stage was a young boy. This title reveals the events of St Joseph's time at Glastonbury, and explores the legend behind this intriguing story. Britain is proverbially rich in monuments of the past, but of all the ancient places with outward and visible links with antiquity this little Somerset town is unique. For it is not only bestowed with visible evidences, wrought in stone, of generations long departed, but it is also steeped in fascinating legend and tradition. One of these later traditions states that Glastonbury was the very cradle of English Christianity, where an infant church was planted by those who personally knew Jesus. This is a truly fascinating and innovative perspective on the story of St Joseph of Arimathea, which promises to enthral the reader.

Addressing the subject of clothing in relation to such fundamental issues as national identity, social distinction, gender, the body, religion and politics, Clothing Culture, 1350-1650 provides a springboard into one of the most fascinating yet least understood aspects of social and cultural history. Nowhere in medieval and early modern European society was its hierarchical and social divisions more obviously reflected than in the sphere of clothing. Indeed, one of the few constant themes of writers, chroniclers, diarists and commentators from Chaucer to Pepys was the subject of fashion and clothes. Whether it was lauding the magnificence of court, warning against the vanity of fashion, describing the latest modes, or decrying the habit of the lower orders to ape the dress of their social superiors, people throughout history have been fascinated by the symbolism, power and messages that clothes can project. Yet despite this contemporary interest, clothing as a subject of historical enquiry has been a largely neglected field of academic study. Whilst it has been discussed in relation to various disciplines, it has not in many cases found a place as a central topic of analysis in its own right. The essays presented in this volume form part of a growing recent trend to put fashion and clothing back into the centre ground of historical research. From Russia to Rome, Ireland to France, this volume contains a wealth of examples of the numerous ways clothing was shaped by, and helped to shape, medieval and early modern European society. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the study of clothing can illuminate other facets of life and why it deserves to be treated as a central, rather than peripheral, facet of European history.

By combining their expertise in English literature and anthropology, Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana bring to these folktales an integral method of study that unites a sensitivity to language with a deep appreciation for culture. As native Palestinians, the authors are well suited to their task. Over the course of several years, they collected tales from the regions of the Galilee, Gaza, and the West Bank, determining which were the most widely known and appreciated and selecting the ones that best represent the Palestinian Arab folk narrative tradition. Great care has been taken with the translations to maintain the original flavor, humor, and cultural nuances in tales that are at once earthy and whimsical and that also parallel stories found in the larger Arab folk tradition. Featuring a new foreword by Ibtisam Barakat, Speak, Bird, Speak Again is an essential text in Palestinian culture and a must for those who want to deepen their understanding of an enduring people.

From Georgian England and Edith Wharton's New York to the contemporary International Debutante Ball, the presentation of young women into society has persisted. In this "sharply observed" (The New Yorker) exploration of the debutante ritual, Kristen Richardson uncovers its extensive cultural influence in Britain and the United States, how daughters in these countries have come to marry, and the ritual's spread around the world-reaching France, Russia and China. The Season gives voice to an array of complex feelings about being put on display, and about what these women's futures in society might be.

In "Intoxicated Identities, " Tim Mitchell provides a novel and well-grounded framework for understanding subjective drinking experiences from the Aztecs to the present day in areas as diverse as Chiapas, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Texas and California.
Power drinking plays a crucial role in Mexican religion, politics, fine arts and ritual spousal abuse. Mexico ranks number one in deaths from cirrhosis, and Mexican Americans are twice as likely to be arrested for drunken driving as blacks or whites. With methods and concepts derived from an extraordinary range of disciplines, Mitchell explains how Mexican culture reinforces heavy drinking. He analyzes supply (nationalistic marketing strategies) but emphasizes demand (psychocultural motivations unique to Mexico). He chronicles the joys and sorrows of a borrachera, or drinking binge, and explores this altered state of consciousness on its own terms, not from any temperance or anti-alcohol perspective.

If there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread--or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. In this book, renowned fairy-tale expert Jack Zipes presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold--and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world.

Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, Zipes presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and how, in our own time, they continue to change through their adaptation in an ever-growing variety of media. In making his case, Zipes considers a wide range of fascinating examples, including fairy tales told, collected, and written by women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's film adaptation of Perrault's "Bluebeard"; and contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that critique canonical print versions.

While we may never be able to fully explain fairy tales, "The Irresistible Fairy Tale" provides a powerful theory of how and why they evolved--and why we still use them to make meaning of our lives.

For over two decades, Phyllis Galembo has documented cultural and religious traditions in Africa and among the African Diaspora. Traveling widely throughout western and central Africa, and regularly to Haiti, her subjects are participants in masquerade events-traditional African ceremonies and contemporary costume parties and carnivals- who use costume, body paint, and masks to create mythic characters. Sometimes entertaining and humorous, often dark and frightening, her portraits document and describe the transformative power of the mask. With a title derived from the Haitian Creole word maske, meaning "to wear a mask", this album features a selection of over a hundred of the best of Galembo's masquerade photographs to date organized in country-based chapters, each with her own commentary. The book is introduced by art historian and curator Chika Okeke-Agulu (himself a masquerade participant during his childhood in Nigeria), for whom Galembo's photographs raise questions about the survival and evolution of masquerade tradition in the twenty-first century.

County Kilkenny abounds in folk tales, myths and legends and a selection of the best, drawn from historical sources and newly recorded local reminiscence, have been brought to life here by local storyteller Anne Farrell. Kilkenny is the place where, legend has it, St Evin and St Molin once had to have their dispute settled by a shoal of fish; where the infamous Countess of Ormond brought fear and terror to the people of Grannagh; and where an imprudent local man decided to find out if the supposedly bottomless 'Kerry holes' would live up to their reputation. It is also said to be the home of a plethora of strange and magical creatures and stories abound of encounters with fairies, ghosts, banshees, shape-shifters and an army of cats who fought an epic battle near Dunmore Caves. From age-old legends and fantastical myths, to amusing anecdotes and cautionary tales, this collection is a heady mix of bloodthirsty, funny, passionate and moving stories. It will take you into a remarkable world where you can let your imagination run wild.

This fascinating, detailed book provides a sweeping survey of the hats produced by the company whose name is synonymous with cowboys and the Wild West. Surprisingly, though, the John B. Stetson Company was based in Philadelphia and produced all manner of headwear. Over 500 illustrations display never-before-worn Stetson hats (men's and women's alike), hat boxes, miniature boxes, and a surprisingly large number of collectible items associated with this most famous hat company. Original research charts the development of of the company, and individuals closely related with the firm provide their memories. Hat styles from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth get a review, and for those lucky enough to own one of these valuable collectibles, there are tips on how to wear and care for vintage and modern Stetsons. Values for the hats illustrated, an extensive bibliography, and an index are included.

'This book is a tribute to expert nursing. It should be seen as a celebration of all that is good in nursing. It also sets out the path for nursing that is centred on relationships - the essence of person-centred nursing is based on the quality of relationships both between nurse the client and others and also between nurses their colleagues and peers. Increasingly it is a challenge for nurses to hold on to humanistic care when we practice in a world of healthcare which is performance and fiscally driven. The concept of partnership and reciprocity runs through the book like a golden thread gleaming in a rich tapestry of person-centred practice expressed via the perspectives of the contributors. Expert practitioners working with people who have dementia have led the way in the development of person centred practice.' Pauline Ford Advisor in Gerontological Nursing Royal College of Nursing 'This book is a compendium of contemporary dementia care practice. It provides knowledge that is the foundation for a clear path to successful care outcomes. It clearly leaves no room for the ignorance that produced the uncertainty and inconsistency of past practices. If dementia can be likened to a journey of highs and lows this book shows us how to eliminate the negatives and accentuate the positives.' Bob Price Director Alzheimer Education Australia

The first English publication of Sami folktales from Scandinavia collected and illustrated in the early twentieth century Although versions of tales about wizards and magical reindeer from northern Scandinavia are found in European folk and fairytale collections, stories told by the indigenous Nordic Sami themselves are rare in English translation. The stories in By the Fire, collected by the Danish artist and ethnographer Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958) during her travels in the early twentieth century among the nomadic Sami in Swedish Sapmi, are the exception-and a matchless pleasure, granting entry to a fascinating world of wonder and peril, of nature imbued with spirits, and strangers to be outwitted with gumption and craft. Between 1907 and 1916 Demant Hatt recorded tales of magic animals, otherworldly girls who marry Sami men, and cannibalistic ogres or Stallos. Many of her storytellers were women, and the memorable tales included in this collection tell of plucky girls and women who outfox their attackers (whether Russian bandits, mysterious Dog-Turks, or Swedish farmers) and save their people. Here as well are tales of ghosts and pestilent spirits, murdered babies who come back to haunt their parents, and legends in which the Sami are both persecuted by their enemies and cleverly resistant. By the Fire, first published in Danish in 1922, features Demant Hatt's original linoleum prints, incorporating and transforming her visual memories of Sapmi in a style influenced by the northern European Expressionists after World War I. With Demant Hatt's field notes and commentary and translator Barbara Sjoholm's Afterword (accompanied by photographs), this first English publication of By the Fire is at once a significant contribution to the canon of world literature, a unique glimpse into Sami culture, and a testament to the enduring art of storytelling.

Aleksei Fedorovich Losev (1893-1988) was among the greatest Russian philosophers, thinkers and classicists of the twentieth century. A contemporary of Mikhail Bakhtin, and a scholar of astonishing erudition, his work remained almost unknown to the public until the fall of communism in 1990. The Dialectics of Myth, published here for the first time in the English language, remains his foremost achievement. Setting out a provocative and spiritually informed account of the way that myth informs secular and religious ideologies, it challenges limited interpretations of myths as mere poetic allegories, primitive scientific constructs, or channels for religious dogma and political fabrication. Insisting upon the miraculous elements of myth, the book creates a powerful and readable defence for mythic experience as a genuine part of consciousness, reality and being.

The interaction of poetry and politics has shaped Joan into a transnational myth dedicated to the most contradictory causes. No other character has inspired a more impressive list of writers, but no other myth possesses the malleability required to serve rival camps. Whatever their distortions of fact for art's sake, these famed authors deployed an extensive knowledge of known records. The quality of the exchanges between the best creative and philosophical minds of preceding centuries, their capacity for reading, range of interests, literary judgment, critical shrewdness, all offer priceless models of investigation for our times. A close inquiry into the makings of the legendary heroine brings to light various false impressions still endorsed today by a number of noteworthy historians and literary critics. This collection of essays, updated for the English language edition, follows Joan of Arc in the Western consciousness, throughout the chain of texts, fictions, comments, from the time of her launching into celebrity by Jean Gerson and Christine de Pizan to the most recent stage and film versions. D. Goy-Blanquet investigates the exchanges between England, France and Germany, down to Joan's nationalisation by Michelet. Francoise Michaud-Frejaville studies, through little known seventeenth-century versions, a period of decline in the heroine's popularity, with Jean Chapelain's much decried Pucelle at its lowest ebb. Nadia Margolis picks up the thread from Michelet to explore the background of frenzied political quarrels, and personal self-identifications, for possession of the nineteenth-century heroine, down to their ultimate appropriation, that by the National Front. Jacques Darras questions Peguy and the warmongers who used Joan as a firebrand against pacifists like Jean Jaures, down to the singular fate of Anouilh's L'Alouette, and beyond them the nationalistic strains which continue to infect the French political scene. An essay composed especially for this

How long has a corpse been staring out at passengers on the tube? Was London Bridge really shipped abroad by an American thinking he'd bought Tower Bridge? Did the Queen really mix with the crowds as a princess on VE Day? And did Hitler actually want to live in Balham? Where are there razor blades hidden and where did all these parakeets come from? Did they really belong to Jimi Hendrix? Urban legends are the funny, frightening and fierce folklore people share. Just like the early folk tales that came before them, which were attempts to explain the spiritual world, these tales are formed from reactions to spectacular events in the modern world, and reflect our current values. From royal rumours to subterranean legends, Scott Wood has researched and written about them with a sense of wonder, humour and a keen eye. He finds the truth, the myth and the lies amongst these tales.

Cannibalism is the breaking of the ultimate taboo. Yet during the later Middle Ages and early years of the Renaissance, mythological, historical and contemporary accounts of cannibalism became particularly popular. Consuming Passions synthesizes and analyses the most interesting of those late medieval and early modern responses to Eucharistic teaching and debate that manifest themselves in the trope of cannibalism.

Within popular culture, death is not the end, but instead a space where the dead can exert agency whilst entertaining the consumer. Popular culture enables the dead to be consumed by the living on a mass global scale, actively engaging them with issues of mortality. This book develops the sociological intersectionality between death, the dead and popular culture by examining the agency of the dead. Drawing upon the posthumous careers of the celebrity dead and organ transplantation mythology in popular culture the dead are shown to not be hampered by death but to benefit from the symbolic and economic value they can generate. Meanwhile the fictional dead - the Undead and the dead in crime drama - are conceptualised through morbid sensibility and morbid space to mobilise consumer consideration of mortality and even challenge the public wisdom that contemporary Western society is in death denial and that death is taboo. Death and the dead, within the parameters of popular culture, form a palatable and normative bridge between viewers and mortality, iterating the innate value and hidden depths of popular culture in the study of contemporary society. This book will be of interest to anybody who researches death, popular culture and questions of mortality.

Richly represented in the Russian folktale tradition, the legends are religious tales (types 750-849 in the Aame-Thompson index) in a peasant village setting. Among the standard themes is the return of Christ, who wanders through rural Russia with his disciples. Satan appears here too, as do a cast of spirits and lesser devils. Pre-Christian gods may be recognized in tales of saints Ilya and Nikolai (Elijah and Saint Nicholas). The hapless peasant in these tales - cheated, betrayed, impoverished, foolish, orphaned, crippled - take the reader deep into the traditional village culture of Russia and into the imperfect human quest for moral choice and justice on this earth.

Cultural practices have the potential to cause human suffering. The Tension Between Culture and Human Rights critically interrogates the relationship between culture and human rights across Africa and offers strategies for pedagogy and practice that social workers and educators may use.Drawing on Afrocentricity and emancipatory social work as antidotes to colonial power and dehumanization, this collection challenges cultural practices that violate human rights, and the dichotomous and taken-for-granted assumptions in the cultural representations between the West and the Rest of the world. Engaging critically with cultural traditions while affirming Indigenous knowledge and practices, it is unafraid to deal frankly with uncomfortable truths. Each chapter explores a specific aspect of African cultural norms and practices and their impacts on human rights and human dignity, paying special attention to the intersections of politics, economics, race, class, gender, and cultural expression. Going beyond analysis, this collection offers a range of practical approaches to understanding and intervention rooted in emancipatory social work. It offers a pathway to develop critical reflexivity and to reframe epistemologies for education and practice. This is essential reading not only for students and practitioners of social work, but for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of African cultures and practices.