In the final years of the Soviet Union and into the 1990s, Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel at an unprecedented rate, bringing about profound changes in Israeli society and the way immigrants understood their own identity. In this volume ex-Soviets in Israel reflect on their immigration experiences, allowing readers to explore this transitional cultural group directly through immigrants' thoughts, memories, and feelings, rather than physical artifacts like magazines, films, or books. Drawing on their fieldwork as well as on analyses of the Russian-language Israeli media and Internet forums, Larisa Fialkova and Maria N. Yelenevskaya present a collage of cultural and folk traditions--from Slavic to Soviet, Jewish, and Muslim--to demonstrate that the mythology of Soviet Jews in Israel is still in the making. The authors begin by discussing their research strategies, explaining the sources used as material for the study, and analyzing the demographic profile of the immigrants interviewed for the project. Chapters use immigrants' personal recollections to both find fragments of Jewish tradition that survived despite the assimilation policy in the USSR and show how traditional folk perception of the Other affected immigrants' interaction with members of their receiving society. The authors also investigate how immigrants' perception of time and space affected their integration, consider the mythology of Fate and Lucky Coincidences as a means of fighting immigrant stress, examine folk-linguistics and the role of the lay-person's view of languages in the life of the immigrant community, and analyze the transformation of folklore genres and images of the country of origin under new conditions. As the biggest immigration wave from a single country in Israel's history, the ex-Soviet Jews make a fascinating case study for a variety of disciplines. Ex-Soviets in Israel will be of interest to scholars who work in Jewish and immigration studies, modern folklore, anthropology, and sociolinguistics.

First published in a Yiddish edition in 1958, Profiles of a Lost World is an incomparable source of information about Eastern Europe before World War II as well as an invaluable touchstone for understanding a rich and complex cultural environment. Hirsz Abramowicz (1881-1960), a prominent Jewish educator, writer, and cultural activist, knew that world and wrote about it, and his writings provide a rare eyewitness account of Jewish life during the first half of the twentieth century.

Abramowicz was a witness to war, revolution, and major cultural transformations in the Jewish world. His essays, written and originally published in Yiddish between 1920 and 1955, document the local history of Lithuanian Jewry in rural and small-town settings, and in the city of Vilna -- the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" -- which was a major center of East European Jewish intellectual and cultural life. They shed important light on the daily life of Jews and the flourishing of modern Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe during the early twentieth century and offer a personal perspective on the rise of Jewish radical politics.

The collection incorporates local history of Lithuanian Jewry, shtetl folklore, observations on rural occupations, Jewish education, and life under German occupation during World War I. It also includes a series of profiles of leading social and intellectual Jewish personalities of the authors day, from traditional scholars to revolutionaries. Together the selections provide a unique blend of social and personal history and a window on a lost world.

Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2000. Relationships between dress and the body have existed in European and Anatolian folk cultures well into the twentieth century. Traditional cultures have long held the belief that certain articles of dress could protect the body from harm by warding off the 'evil eye,' bring fertility to new brides, or assure human control of supernatural powers. Ritual fringes, archaic motifs, and colors such as black and red were believed to have powerful, magical effects. This absorbing and interdisciplinary book examines dress in a broad range of folk cultures - from Turkey, Greece, and Slovakia to Norway, Latvia, and Lithuania, to name but a few. Authors reveal the connection between folk dress and ancient myths, cults and rituals, as well as the communicative aspects of folk dress. How is an individual attired in a specific ensemble located within a community? Is the community the gendered one of women, the village of residence, the larger geographical region or the nation? The intriguing connections between dress and the supernatural beliefs of agrarian communities, as well as the reinvention of such beliefs as part of nationalism, are also discussed. This book represents a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on the cultural meanings of dress, as well as to material culture, anthropology, folklore, art history, ethnohistory, and linguistics. Nominated for Millia Davenport award

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Arizona Myths and Legends explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Arizona's history. From strange Grand Canyon deaths, to ghosts at the Hotel Vendome, and the last stagecoach robbery, settle in to learn all the scintillating and unsettling details of the Grand Canyon State's mysterious history.

This book by renowned anthropologist Harald Haarmann illuminates the acquisition of knowledge, and the meanings underlying forms of knowledge, in a broad temporal scope, ranging from the Neolithic through the modern era. Spiritual knowledge is at the heart of this work, which views myth and religion encoded in Neolithic female figurines and revived in the contemporary "primitive" artwork of artists such as Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore. Within such a framework, this study employs the knowledge and insights of the relatively new, and very important, interdisciplinary field of archaeomythology, which ties together information from archaeology, DNA studies, mythology, anthropology, classical studies, other ancient language studies, and linguistics. This study does so with a wealth of information in these fields, offering meaningful resolutions to many questions regarding antiquity, and shedding light upon several previously misunderstood phenomena, from the true function of Stonehenge (that its purpose was not astronomical), to the fact that there could not have been a mass movement of agriculturalists from Anatolia to Europe (this is a currently hotly contested issue), to important Eurasian religious beliefs and mythological motifs (with an excellent discussion of shamanism), to systems of writing (with a wonderful discourse upon ancient writing systems), religious expression, and mythology of the exceptionally significant cultures of Old Europe (Neolithic southeastern Europe). The book further discourses upon the legacy of this culture in Minoan and then Greek culture, Old European (pre-Indo-European) lexical items (that is, substrate vocabulary) in Greek, and finally the preservation of Neolithic spirituality in Modern Art. With this interdisciplinary approach, the study demonstrates that all of the subjects of this manuscript are interconnected, in a powerful wholeness. Ancient knowledge, Ancient know-how, Ancient reasoning is an unprecedented study that will appeal across many disciplines, including archaeology, mythology, anthropology, classical studies, ancient language studies, and linguistics. The book also includes many images that will prove helpful to the reader.

Charles MacKay's groundbreaking examination of a staggering variety of popular delusions, crazes and mass follies is presented here in full with no abridgements. The text concentrates on a wide variety of phenomena which had occurred over the centuries prior to this book's publication in 1841. Mackay begins by examining economic bubbles, such as the infamous Tulipomania, wherein Dutch tulips rocketed in value amid claims they could be substituted for actual currency. As we progress further, the scope of the book broadens into several more exotic fields of mass self-deception. Mackay turns his attention to the witch hunts of the 17th and 18th centuries, the practice of alchemy, the phenomena of haunted houses, the vast and varied practices of fortune telling and the search for the philosopher's stone, to name but a handful of subjects. Today, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds is distinguished as an expansive, well-researched and somewhat eccentric work of social history.

In order to learn the fascinating story of plants and the development of human civilisation. No other book covers so much - from sacred mushrooms to GM crops, from the religions of the seasons and harvest to the hobby of gardening - and is able to convey both the mysterious and the practical with equal ease and in an accessible, intelligent style. The future of the planet depends upon such knowledge and empathy.

Chart your way across continents and oceans built from the stuff of myths and legends and you will pass the winged Pegasus of Ancient Greece, come face to face with Anansi the Spider in West Africa and fly over the powerful Thunderbird of North America. Combining mythology and folklore from all across the globe, this 1000-piece jigsaw enables you to experience the fabled creatures in their places of creation, all from the comfort of your living room. 1000-PIECE PUZZLE: The 1000-piece fantastical jigsaw puzzle features the world as you've never seen it before: a magical place full of mythical creatures! FUN, COLOURFUL ILLUSTRATIONS: Feast your eyes on a the variety of colourful artwork across the mythical world map. Combining mythology and folklore from all across the globe. POSTER INCLUDED: Includes a keepsake fold out poster with a guide to the illustration. EASY HANDLING: The 1000 puzzle pieces are thick and sturdy, and the back sides are a white matte finish. The completed puzzle measures A2 in size and the jigsaw puzzle box measures 267 x 267 x 48mm. GIFTS: The perfect gift for anyone with the imagination and passion of the mythical world. Beautifully designed, The Mythical World Puzzle was created by Good Wives and Warriors, an internationally renowned duo of illustrators, and creator of Laurence King Publishing titles Myth Match and Mythopedia.

Untying the Knot collects eighteen previously unpublished essays on the riddle-a genre of discourse found in virtually every human culture. Hasan-Rokem and Shulman have drawn these essays from a variety of cultural perspectives and disciplines; linguists, anthropologists, folklorists, and religion and literature scholars consider riddling practices in Hebrew, Finnish, Indian languages, Chinese, and classical Greek. The authors seek to understand the peculiar expressive power of the riddle, and the cultural logic of its particular uses; they scrutinize the riddle's logical structure and linguistic strategies, as well as its affinity to neighboring genres such as enigmas, puzzles, oracular prophecy, proverbs, and dreams. In this way, they begin to answer how riddles relate to the conceptual structures of a particular culture, and how they come to represent a culture's cosmology or cognitive map of the world. More importantly, these essays reveal the human need for symbolic ordering-riddles being one such form of cultural ritual.

Each episode included in this book explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Texas's history. From rumors of Jean Lafitte's buried treasures to the hanging of Chipita Rodriguez and the love story of Frenchy McCormick, Texas Myths and Legends makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the state's most fascinating and compelling stories.

Lewis Island in Lambertville, New Jersey, is the site of the Lewis Fishery, the last haul seine American shad fishery on the nontidal Delaware River. The Lewis family has fished in the same spot since 1888 and operated the fishery through five generations. The extended Lewis family, its fishery's crew, and the Lambertville community connect with people throughout the region, including environmentalists concerned about the river. It was a Lewis who raised the alarm and helped resurrect a polluted river and its biosphere. While this once exclusively masculine activity is central to the tiny island, today men, women, and children fish, living out a sense of place, belonging, and sustainability. In Another Haul: Narrative Stewardship and Cultural Sustainability at the Lewis Family Fishery, author Charlie Groth highlights the traditional, vernacular, and everyday cultural expressions of the family and crew to understand how community, culture, and the environment intersect. Groth argues there is a system of narrative here that combines verbal activities and everyday activities. On the basis of over two decades of participation and observation, interviews, surveys, and a wide variety of published sources, Groth identifies a phenomenon she calls ""narrative stewardship."" This narrative system, emphasizing place, community, and commitment, in turn, encourages environmental and cultural stewardship, tradition, and community. Intricate and embedded, the system appears invisible, but careful study unpacks and untangles how people, often unconsciously, foster sustainability. Though an ethnography of an occupation, the volume encourages readers to consider what arises as special about all cultures and what needs to be seen and preserved.

A marvelous book, at once comprehensive and highly readable, a fascinating analysis of doomsday cults and apocalyptic anxiety. --Michael Owen Jones, University of California, Los Angeles The End of the World As We Know It makes accessible to both scholars and general readers the amazing panorama of millenarian scenarios abounding in America at the end of the millennium. --Robert S. Ellwood, University of Southern California Will stand for some time as the best survey and analysis of the meaning and place of apocalypticism and millennialism in American culture. --Religion and Literature Fascinating and] intelligent . . . should be required reading. --Psychotronic From religious tomes to current folk prophesies, recorded history reveals a plethora of narratives predicting or showcasing the end of the world. The incident at Waco, the subway bombing by the Japanese cult Aum Supreme Truth, and the tragedy at Jonestown are just a few examples of such apocalyptic scenarios. And these are not isolated incidents; millions of Americans today believe the end of the world is inevitable, either by a divinely ordained plan, nuclear catastrophe, extraterrestrial invasion, or gradual environmental decay, Examining the doomsday scenarios and apocalyptic predictions of visionaries, televangelists, survivalists, and various other endtimes enthusiasts, as well as popular culture, film, music, fashion, and humor, Daniel Wojcik sheds new light on America's fascination with worldly destruction and transformation. He explores the origins of contemporary apocalyptic beliefs and compares religious and secular apocalyptic speculation, showing us the routes our belief systems have traveled over the centuries to arrive at the dawn of a new millennium. Included in his sweeping examination are premillennial prophecy traditions, prophecies associated with visions of the Virgin Mary, secular ideas about nuclear apocalypse, the transformation of apocalyptic prophecy in the post-Cold War era, and emerging apocalyptic ideas associated with UFOs and extraterrestrials. Timely, yet of lasting importance, The End of the World as We Know It is a comprehensive cultural and historical portrait of an age-old phenomenon and a fascinating guide to contemporary apocalyptic fever. Daniel Wojcik is Associate Professor of English and Folklore at the University of Oregon and author of Punk and Neo-Tribal Body Art. He received his Ph.D. in Folklore and Mythology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (1834 - 1924) was an English hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. His folkloric studies resulted in The Book of Werewolves, one of the most frequently cited studies of lycanthropy.

A pioneer in the strange art and ambiguous science of zo phagy-that is, of studying animals by eating them-British natural historian FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND (1826-1880) was a wildly popular speaker and writer of the Victorian era. In his classic four-volume Curiosities of Natural History, published between 1857 and 1872, he shared his love of creatures exotic and mysterious with readers who devoured his charming and erudite essays much in the same way he devoured his animal subjects. "If there is one person that I would have expected to have captured a sea serpent in the 19th century for the sole purpose of eating it, it would be Frank Buckland," writes cryptozoologist Loren Coleman in his new introduction to Buckland's series. One of the founding grandfathers of cryptozoology, the discipline that investigates animal mysteries, Buckland was not "a wild-eyed 'true believer' in anything strange," insists Coleman, but brought, instead, "a skeptical, open-minded approach" to his work. Indeed, here, in the "third series" of Curiosities of Natural History, Buckland's erudition is clear in his animated discussions of, among many other things, a monster lobster, a zoological auction, traps for wild monkeys, the sensation of camel-riding, and determining the temperature of a porpoise's breath. This new edition, a replica of the 1888 "Popular Edition," is part of Cosimo's Loren Coleman Presents series. LOREN COLEMAN is author of numerous books of cryptozoology, including Bigfoot : The True Story of Apes in America and Mothman and Other Curious Encounters.

The Druids and the Arthurian legends are all most of us know about early Britain, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (4500 BC-AD 43). Drawing on archaeological discoveries and medieval Welsh texts like the Mabinogion, this book explores the religious beliefs of the ancient Britons before the coming of Christianity, beginning with the megaliths-structures like Stonehenge-and the role they played in prehistoric astronomy. Topics include the mysterious Beaker people of the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age evidence of the Druids, the Roman period and the Dark Ages. The author discusses the myths of King Arthur and what they tell us about paganism, as well as what early churches and monasteries reveal about the enigmatic Druids.

This unique and fascinating volume features every type of deity from every culture in all regions of the world, from prehistory to the present. Guide to the Gods features the familiar gods and goddesses of the ancient Near East, as well as those of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas: deities associated with creation, with the heavens, with the earth, with the weather, and with nearly every aspect of human life-from love, sex, marriage, and economic endeavors to prophecy, ritual, magic, and healing. The deities are categorized by function and attribute, and entries are alphabetized within each category. Every entry includes at least one citation to a printed primary or secondary source. Guide to the Gods represents a major contribution to the fields of anthropology, religious studies, and folklore. Students, scholars, researchers, and writers will find it an invaluable research tool. This work is an entertaining and important reference source that will be a necessary addition to public, academic, and school library collections. A-Z entries in each category that include at least one citation to a printed primary or secondary source