Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs offers a comprehensive reference guide for distinctly American proverbs. Compiled by Wolfgang Mieder, a key figure in the field of proverb studies, this compendium features nearly 1,500 proverbs with American origins, spanning the 17th century to present day, including a scholarly introduction exploring the history of proverbs in America, the structure and variants of these proverbs, known authors and sources, and cultural values expressed in these proverbs. Along with a comprehensive bibliography of proverb collections and interpretive scholarship, this dictionary offers a glimpse into the history of American social and cultural attitudes through uniquely American language.

Comprising three parts, this book is a companion volume to The Boggart: Folklore, History, Place-Names and Dialect. Part one, 'Boggart Ephemera', is a selection of about 40,000 words of nineteenth-century boggart writing (particularly material that is difficult to find in libraries). Part two presents a catalogue of 'Boggart Names' (place-names and personal names, totalling over 10,000 words). Finally, part three contains the entire 'Boggart Census' - a compendium of ground-breaking grassroots research. This census includes more than a thousand responses, totalling some 80,000 words, from older respondents in the north-west of England, to the question: 'What is a boggart?' The Boggart Sourcebook will be of interest to folklorists, historians and dialect scholars. It provides the three corpora on which the innovative monograph, The Boggart, is based.

" Headless visions -- howls and moans -- ghostly ladies dressed in black and white -- a fiddling spirit dancing on the road. Such are the sights and sounds that inhabit the pages of Lynwood Montell's Kentucky Ghosts. This collection is representative of the rich tradition of ghost or "haint" tales passed on through the ages and across cultures as a way of dealing with death and the lore of the spirit world. In retelling the tales, Montell has included details about architecture, geography, and local culture. Each tale is told in the voice of the narrator who believe the story to be true. And, who knows... ?

Known to be a masterpiece of freethought literature. The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors has been out of print but sought after for many years. A small part of it was reprinted in The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read in 1994, thereby causing renewed interest. Many people are unaware that before Christianity there were 15 other religions that also had a savior who died for their sins, then arose from the dead. Graves gives all the details inside, plus much more found in common like the immaculate conception of the gods, virgin born gods, magi, shepherds and angles who visit the infant saviors, the birthday of the gods being December 25th, plus an explanation as to how Jesus began to be worshipped as a God. Some scholars are suggesting that Jesus had spent time in India. One chapter in this book discusses 346 striking analogies between Christ and Chrishna, the Hindu god. Could this same story have travelled from India rather than the man himself? Could this everpresent story, "the greatest story ever told, " be the common link between all early religions? Has the purpose of religion, in general, been designed to provide all of mankind with a common set of beliefs, to keep us from learning the real truth for ourselves? It is difficult to answer these questions, and it probably always will be, but this book offers us a small step closer to the answers. It shows that Christianity is not alone and special in its beliefs, and may cause us to explore further into the origins of religion.

A luminous translation of Arabic tales of enchantment and wonder Known to us only through North African manuscripts, and translated into English for the first time, A Hundred and One Nights is a marvelous example of the rich tradition of popular Arabic storytelling. Like its more famous sibling, the Thousand and One Nights, this collection opens with the frame story of Shahrazad, the gifted vizier's daughter who recounts imaginative tales night after night in an effort to distract the murderous king from taking her life. A Hundred and One Nights features an almost entirely different set of stories, however, each one more thrilling, amusing, and disturbing than the last. In them, we encounter tales of epic warriors, buried treasures, disappearing brides, cannibal demon women, fatal shipwrecks, and clever ruses, where human strength and ingenuity play out against a backdrop of inexorable, inscrutable fate. Although these tales draw on motifs and story elements that circulated across cultures, A Hundred and One Nights is distinctly rooted in Arabic literary culture and the Islamic tradition. It is also likely much older than Thousand and One Nights, drawing on Indian and Chinese antecedents. This careful edition and vibrant translation of A Hundred and One Nights promises to transport readers, new and veteran alike, into its fantastical realms of magic and wonder. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

The Lancelot-Grail Reader is a single-volume condensation of the complete five-volume translation of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles of Arthurian romance. Like the original, published by Garland in 1993-96, the present volume is the work of a team of translations directed by Norris J. Lacy. It has been edited for students and Arthurian enthusiasts in general.
Dating from early thirteenth century, the Vulgate Cycle relates the entire course of Arthurian legend, from the early history of the Grail to Arthur's death. The Post-Vulgate Cycle, also anonymous, is a rehandling of the Vulgate material dating to 1230-40. In order to increase the utility of the one-volume version, the translators has offered long passages, which are linked by narrative summaries that permit the reader to follow the entire narrative. The general editor has also provided a concise introduction and suggestions for further reading to complement and enhance the text.
The team of translators includes Norris J. Lacy (General Editor), Martha Asher, E. Jane Burns, Carleton E. Carroll, Carol J. Chase, William W. Kibler, Roberta L. Krueger, Rupert T. Pickens, and Samuel N. Rosenberg.

Traditional Egyptian folktales have a flavour and vivacity that until now has proved impossible to render in translation. Here, Elizabeth Wickett presents a translation into English of five rich and vivid tales from Upper Egypt that accurately captures the drama, wit and vitality of Egyptian oral narrative in performance. The stories include the tale of Maimuna, the slave girl of Mecca, crucified for her beliefs, and the erotic tale of Aziza, the flamboyant daughter of the Sultan of Tunis, who attempts to seduce and capture the handsome and innocent Yunis. The author explores the broader literary and social significance of each tale, as well as the aesthetics of performance, gender issues, and parallels with other Egyptian and Near Eastern tales. It is a unique record of a disappearing and little known tradition.

This engaging introduction to the Russian folktale considers the origin, structure, and language of folktales; tale-tellers and their audiences; the relationship of folktales to Russian ritual life; and the folktale types that will be presented in translation in subsequent volumes of The Complete Russian Folktale.

CONTENTS

I. The Folktale in Russia

What Is a Folktale? -- Kinds of Folktales

Structure -- Classification

The Narrative -- The Narrator -- The Audience

The Language of the Folktale

II. Recordings and Collections

III. Priests, Skomorokhs, and Tellers of Tales

IV. The Russian Ritual Milieu

Ditheism -- The Ancient Heritage

Creation Myths -- Sacrifices

Rituals of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Russia

V. The Russian Folktale as a Source for Understanding Ritual

The Bear Rituals in Folk Tradition

The Horse in Ancient Eurasian Tradition and the Russian Folktale

The Horse in Slavic Ritual and Folktale

VI. The Complete Russian Folktale: An Overview

Animal Tales -- Wondertales -- The Legends

The Tales of Everyday Life -- The Anecdotes

Have you heard the story of 'Bang Bang' Dudley, who roamed the streets of Dublin shooting anyone who caught his eye? Or of 'Lugs' Brannigan, the city's most famous detective? Do you know who the real Molly Malone was, or the story of Marsh's Library, or how the devil himself came to the Hellfire Club? These and many more accounts of Dubliners and Dublin City fill this book, as told by Brendan Nolan, a professional storyteller who has been recording these tales for decades. These are the stories of real Dublin, the stories that are passed from generation to generation and which give this city its unique character. To know Dublin is to know these characters, these stories, and the legends which have grown up around them.

Where did the Red Hand, the famous symbol of Ulster, originate? It's the hand of Heremon, a chief so keen to be first to lay claim to the land that he cut his own hand off the threw it from a ship! Not all legends from Ulster are so gory, of course, and in this collection we meet The Great Brown Bull, The Horsemen of Aileach, Paiste, The Great Black Pig, Maeve MacQuillan, Fintan, Febor and Fia and, of course, Colmcille and the Book of Movilla. Evocatively illustrated by Conor Busuttil, this collection of myths from Ireland's northern province will enthrall readers young and old.

The authors sort fact from fiction to provide the most convincing and detailed account of King Arthur that has ever been compiled. This intriguing work of historical detection unlocks the solution to one of the greatest mysteries of the world. Readers will learn the true identity of Arthur, the sixth-century king of the Britons, as well as the locations of his courts and long-forgotten battle sites. Most importantly, the authors reveal the secret of the mysterious Isle of Avalon and Arthur's resting place in a Breton church. The authors examine key literary sources, and provide fascinating answers to questions that have baffled historians for centuries. This is a controversial book, for academic historians have tended to dismiss the possibility of any solution being achieved for the mystery of King Arthur. Barber and Pykitt present a convincing and conclusive answer to this riddle.

The book is a research on the syncretism of the Argentinian rural bandits. The project follows the footsteps of Gauchito Gil and San la Muerte, two of many folk saints not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church but which are flourishing in Argentina. The Gauchito Gil is a legendary character of Argentina's popular culture. He was allegedly born in the area of Pay Ubre, nowadays Mercedes, Corrientes, possibly in the 1840s, and died on 8 January 1878. He became a mystical symbol of bravery stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. The book includes evocative pictures of the quacks, the pilgrims, the prayer centres, the gauchos arriving on horses to Mercedes the 8 January to celebrate the death of Gauchito Gil, those saved /cured by miracles, the most radical bandits with Gauchito tatooed, the Catholic Church representatives, and so on. Devotees of San La Muerte, which is depicted as a male skeletal figure holding a scythe, make offerings in hopes of favors ranging from health, fortune and protection to revenge. Toni Meneguzzo took the photographs included in the book in different Argentinian areas: Corrientes, El Chaco, Missione and Buenos Aires. The book includes texts by Andreas Sala, Daphne Angles, Jean Blanchaert, Tommaso Basilio and Toni Meneguzzo.

Stories are the backbone of ethnographic research. During fieldwork, subjects describe their lives through stories. Afterward ethnographers come home from their journeys with stories of their own about their experiences in the field. Storytime in India is an exploration of the stories that come out of ethnographic fieldwork. Helen Priscilla Myers and Umesh Chandra Pandey examine the ways in which their research collecting Bhojpuri wedding songs became interwoven with the stories of their lives, their work together, and their shared experience reading The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope. Moving through these intertwined stories, the reader learns about the complete Bhojpuri wedding tradition through songs sung by Gangajali and access to the original song recordings and their translations. In the interludes, Pandey reads and interprets The Eustace Diamonds, confronting the reader with the ever-present influence of colonialism, both in India and in ethnographic fieldwork. Interwoven throughout are stories of the everyday, highlighting the ups and downs of the ethnographic experience. Storytime in India combines the style of the Victorian novel with the structure of traditional Indian village tales, in which stories are told within stories. This book questions how we can and should present ethnography as well as what we really learn in the field. As Myers and Pandey ultimately conclude, writers of scholarly books are storytellers themselves and scholarly books are a form of art, just like the traditions they study.

Ukrainian epic, or dumy, were first recorded from blind mendicant minstrels in the nineteenth century. Yet they reflect events dating back to as early as the 1300's. Ukrainian Epic and Historical Song provides new translations in contemporary English. It also explains the historical events celebrated in epic and other historical songs: fierce battles, rebellion against tyranny, the struggles of captivity, the joys of escape from slavery. Natalie Kononenko's expert translation and analysis of Ukrainian epics provides a sweeping social history of folklore that is vital to Ukrainian identity. A translation of at least one variant of every known epic is included. Whereas earlier trends in folklore scholarship emphasized genre purity and compartmentalization, Kononenko critically examines the events about which songs were sung. Her emphasis on the lives of ordinary people rather than on leaders reshapes our understanding of how epics were composed and performed. Kononenko's ground-breaking analysis also illuminates Ukrainian self-understanding and explains how songs preserve and perpetuate historical memory. Scholars interested in epic song, history, and general folklore will benefit from this work. Members of the Ukrainian diaspora will find new appreciation of Ukrainian folklore.

Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (1916) explores Hawaiian folktales and myths collected by W. D. Westervelt. Connecting the origin story of Hawaii to the traditions of other Polynesian cultures, Westervelt provides an invaluable resource for understanding the historical and geographical scope of Hawaiian culture. Beginning with the origin story of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, Westervelt introduces his groundbreaking collection of legends on the volcanic nature of the Hawaiian Islands. When the goddess Pele comes to the island of Hawaii seeking a permanent home, she finds Ai-laau, another god of fire, already in possession of the territory. Despite his fearsome power over creation and destruction, Ai-laau disappeared the moment he became aware of Pele's presence. Having traveled across the limitless ocean, her name was already known far and wide, along with her reputation for strength, anger, and envy. Establishing herself within the crater of Kilauea, Pele quickly took command over the gods, ghost-gods, and the people inhabiting the islands. Central to Hawaiian history and religion, Pele continues to be celebrated in Hawaii and across the Pacific today. With a professionally designed cover and manuscript, this edition of W. D. Westervelt's Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes is a classic of Hawaiian literature reimagined for modern readers. Add this beautiful edition to your bookshelf, or enjoy the digital edition on any e-book device.

It's a familiar story: a beautiful woman is abducted and her husband journeys to recover her. This story's best-known incarnation is also a central Greek myth-the abduction of Helen that led to the Trojan War. Stealing Helen surveys a vast range of folktales and texts exhibiting the story pattern of the abducted beautiful wife and makes a detailed comparison with the Helen of Troy myth. Lowell Edmunds shows that certain Sanskrit, Welsh, and Old Irish texts suggest there was an Indo-European story of the abducted wife before the Helen myth of the Iliad became known. Investigating Helen's status in ancient Greek sources, Edmunds argues that if Helen was just one trope of the abducted wife, the quest for Helen's origin in Spartan cult can be abandoned, as can the quest for an Indo-European goddess who grew into the Helen myth. He explains that Helen was not a divine essence but a narrative figure that could replicate itself as needed, at various times or places in ancient Greece. Edmunds recovers some of these narrative Helens, such as those of the Pythagoreans and of Simon Magus, which then inspired the Helens of the Faust legend and Goethe. Stealing Helen offers a detailed critique of prevailing views behind the "real" Helen and presents an eye-opening exploration of the many sources for this international mythical and literary icon.

In this magnificent reference book, the powerful and evocative mythologies of the East are revealed in all their glory. An instantly accessible A to Z structure, fully cross-referenced throughout, details the pantheon of gods of the East. The book splendidly recreates the rise of many cultures. Travel through exotic realms of high adventure, thrill at the exploits of warrior-gods, and become immersed in legend and folklore that bring to life the ancient stories that influence society in much of Asia today. Drawing together the legends of many incredibly diverse cultures, in a highly readable and accessible style, it is a classic reference on the subject.