The legendary feats of Davy Crockett, who could tree a ghost, ride his thirty-seven-foot-long alligator up Niagara Falls, and drink up the Mississippi River, are common knowledge to devotees of this nineteenth-century comic superhero. But what may come as a surprise to many is that the legendary frontiersman also served as the fictional narrator of a collection of outrageous tall tales about women in the same Crocket Almanacs in which he "recorded" his own adventures. Conceived as a marketing device by nineteenth-century publishers hoping to gain a share of the lucrative almanac market, such stories made these slim volumes the best-selling and longest-running series of comic almanacs published in the United States before the Civil War. Booking back at them now, the Crocket Almanacs offer a true "fun house mirror" view of the culture of antebellum America.

This collection of Cuban legends, compiled by the ronowned essayist and literary critic Salvador Bueno, brings readers the best of a time-honored tradition of storytelling in Cuba. These tales, passed on from generation to generation throughout the island, are here retold by a diverse group of prominent Cuban literary figures. Their stories embrace a broad spectrum of Cuban history from the remote past to the modern era. The book features stories of the Taino and Siboney, the island's original inhabitants, accompanied by narratives about Afro-Cuban religious and cultural traditions, and finally tales that are typically ""Cuban"" because they illustrate both the cohesion of the various strands - Hispanic, African, and indigenous - that define Cuban nationality and the patriotism and love of freedom exemplified in the celebrated struggles against Spanish colonialism. Cuban Legends brings to life the stories of unforgettable people and words that have survived the passage of time. They are both witty and wise, and capture the essential spirit of Cuban culture.

Myth and Knowing is by far the most comprehensive world mythology textbook. The text/reader format provides both jargon-free discussions of current themes and thinkers in the ongoing scholarly conversation about myth and a broad selection of complete myths chosen for literary merit and the cultural sensitivity of their translations. Rather than being genre-driven, the book emphasizes the psychological, religious, and cultural meanings of myth, presenting these with the intent of fostering in students a love of literature.

Kansas Myths and Legends explores unusual events, unsolved crimes, and legends in Kansas's history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in Kansas history. The more than a dozen stories answer questions such as: Is it possible that a family of four living on the Kansas prairie got away with serial murder for more than three years and escaped to another part of the country to continue their killing spree? Are there still remnants of a late widow's fortune buried throughout her property? Is the well-marked grave of Buffalo Bill Cody indeed his final resting place, or did some loyal friends surreptitiously remove him from Colorado and fulfill his last wish to be buried near his namesake town? From rumors of the Dalton gang's buried treasures to the disappearance of an entire town, Kansas Myths and Legends makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the state's most fascinating and compelling stories.

Since their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardic Jews have managed to maintain their Jewish faith and Spanish group identity and have developed a uniquely Judeo-Spanish culture wherever they settled. Among the important cultural ties within these Sephardic groups are Judeo-Spanish folktales, stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, either in the distinct language of the group, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), or in other languages, such as Hebrew. In ""The Heart Is a Mirror"", Tamar Alexander-Frizer examines the folk narratives of Sephardic Jews to view them both in relation to universal narrative traditions and the traditions of Jewish culture.In part 1, Alexander-Frizer investigates the relationship between folk literature and group identity via the stories' connection to Hebrew canonical sources, their historical connection to the land of origin, their treatment of prominent family members and historical events, and their connection to the surrounding culture in the lands of the Spanish Diaspora. Part 2 contains an analysis of several important genres and subgenres present in the folktales, including legends, ethical tales, fairy tales, novellas, and humorous tales. Finally, in part 3, Alexander-Frizer discusses the art of storytelling, introducing the other theatrical and rhetorical aspects tied up in the Sephardic folktales, such as the storyteller, the audience, and the circumstances of time and place.This thorough and thought-provoking study is based on a corpus of over four thousand stories told by descendents of the Spanish Diaspora. An introduction addresses methodological problems that arise from the need to define the stories as Judeo-Spanish in character, as well as from methods of recording and publishing them in anthologies. Jewish studies scholars, as well as those interested in folktale studies, will gain much from this fascinating and readable volume.

Ireland has a rich mythological tradition that stretches back for centuries, and much of this folklore tells tales of the fantastic. During the Irish Renaissance, authors such as William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory resurrected Irish folklore in their literary and dramatic works, thus restoring the popularity of Irish myth and legend. Since the Irish Renaissance, many Irish authors have continued to incorporate Celtic folklore in their novels. This book examines how various conventions from Irish folklore have been subsumed in twelve Irish novels published between 1912 and 1948, including works by James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, Mervyn Wall, Darrell Figgis, Eimar O'Duffy, and James Stephens. The volume explores how these writers have incorporated in their own works such conventions as heroic obligations, metamorphoses, and the blending of pagan and Christian myths.

In an episodic overview of Joyce's "Ulysses," specific Irish source works are discussed, including the Irish "imram" or sea voyage, and the "bruidhean" adventure, or entrapment episode. The conventions of "geis," metamorphosis, and the Ossianic tradition are studied in "Finnegans Wake," alongside a traditional Irish ballad, "The Annals of the Four Masters," and the "Acallamh na Senorach" In Flann O'Brien's "At Swim-Two-Birds, /i> and "The Third Policeman," an innovative approach to parody is shown. Mervyn Wall operates as a sometimes unwitting commentator on Irish hero tales, via comic irony and inverted motifs, while Darrell Figgis recalls the passing of Celtic heroic traditions in his bitter satire of Saint Patrick and Ois DEGREESD'in's legendary dispute, in "The Return of the Hero." Eimar O'Duffy's satire of modern Ireland mourns the end of Celtic heroic values in a fantasy that is overwhelmingly pessimistic in tone, while James Stephens extols the virtues of the imagination in "The Crock of Gold" and "The Demi-Gods."

A fresh and sympathetic investigation of the depiction of wolves in early medieval literature, recuperating their reputation. The best-known wolves of Old English literature are the Beasts of Battle, alongside ravens and eagles as ravenous heralds of doom who haunt the battlefield in the hope of fresh meat plucked from still-warm bodies. Yet to reduce these animals to mere corpse-scavengers is to deny that they are frequently imbued with a variety of far more nuanced meanings elsewhere in the corpus. Two such meanings are inherited from ancient and medieval European lupine motifs: the superstition that the wolf could steal a person's speech, and the perceived contiguous natures of wolves and human outlaws. Tracing the history of these associations and the evidence to suggest that they were known to writers working in early medieval England, this book provides new, animal-centric readings of Wulf and Eadwacer, Abbo of Fleury and AElfric's Passiones Eadmundi, and Beowulf, placing these texts within a lupine literary network that transcends time and place. By exploring the intricate, contradictory, and even sympathetic depictions of the wolves and wolf-like entities found within these texts, this book banishes all notions of the medieval wolf as the one-dimensional, man-eating creature that it is so often understood to be.

This book provides students, instructors, and lay-readers with a cross-cultural understanding of storytelling as an art form that has existed for centuries, from the first spoken and sung stories to those that are drawn and performed today. This book serves as an indispensable resource for students and scholars interested in storytelling and in multicultural approaches to the arts. By taking an evolutionary approach, this book begins with a discussion of origin stories and continues through history to stories of the 21st century. The text not only engages the stories themselves, it also explains how individuals from all disciplines, from doctors and lawyers to priests and journalists, use stories to focus their readers' and listeners' attention and influence them. This text addresses stories and storytelling across both time (thousands of years) and geography, including in-depth descriptions of storytelling practices occurring in more than 40 different cultures around the world. Part I consists of thematic essays, exploring such topics as the history of storytelling, common elements across cultures, different media, lessons stories teach us, and storytelling today. Part II looks at more than 40 different cultures, with entries following the same outline: Overview, Storytellers: Who Tell the Stories, and When, Creation Mythologies, Teaching Tales and Values, and Cultural Preservation. Several tales/tale excerpts accompany each entry. Describes the earliest evidence of storytelling, which dates back thousands of years, and discusses how we can learn about our ancestors and their lives and concerns going all the way back to the stories depicted in the cave art they left behind Discusses how the content of stories has changed over time, influenced by such things as the development of agriculture, the establishment of the first urban centers, the invention of the printing press, widespread literacy, the industrial revolution, and scientific discoveries Explains how our response to storytelling-why stories interest us and why we continue to tell and listen to stories-is an inheritance from our ancient ancestors Investigates storytelling practices from more than 40 different culture groups around the world Incorporates text and translations of original stories told across cultures, almost verbatim, for thousands of years

Folktales of Mizoram is a translated collection of sixty-six short stories from northeast India taken up for a critical evaluation. The stories depict a typical Mizo culture in spirit and practice. This study focuses on the transformation of oral literature into written narratives. Folk practices, folk medicine, folk narratives, traditional songs, and received wisdom dominate these stories. A more insightful approach into folk narratives and songs emphasizes the world of new hermeneutics. The land, the culture, the language, the traditions have been remarkably explored through an elegant reading and evaluation of this collection. Antiquity speaks through the folk tales. The spirit of folktales becomes one of unique exploration of hermeneutics in the end.

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 "fourth series" of Curiosities of Natural History, Buckland's erudition is clear in his animated discussions of, among many other things, measuring a French giant, the "woolly woman of Hayti," performing fleas, six thousand parakeets, the intemperance of salmon, and fossil pork. 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.

From the mysterious disappearance of hijacker D.B. Cooper to persistent rumors of bigfoot, this selection of thirteen stories from Oregon's past explores some of the Beaver State's most compelling mysteries and debunks some of its most famous myths. Read about the mysterious disappearances of several people over the years around Mount Emily, relive the gruesome discovery of three murdered trappers near the Deschutes River, and learn why many people believe an eleven-ton meteorite might be hidden in the mountains of southwestern Oregon.

Dartmoor Legends By Eva C. Roberts 296 pages Contents include: The magic mist - The vengeance of belus - The bards of the wood of Wistman - The story of the spinners rock - The golden maze - The legend of the grey wethers - The nymph Tamara - The wrath of Taranis - The pixies of Ockington wood - The legend of the Abbots way - The legend of Guile bridge Originally published in 1912. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

How much of what we know about the history of the Old West is true? In this new book, author Michael Rutter looks at the legend and lore behind such notorious figures as Billy the Kid and Calamity Jane and the stories of famous gun fights and battles, telling what really happened. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but these 12 legends stand up to scrutiny, and this book will be a must-read for all western history buffs.

Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, by J.W. Powell, Director, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Ethnography.

Covering figures ranging from Catherine Monvoisin to Vlad the Impaler, and describing murders committed in ancient aristocracies to those attributed to vampires, witches, and werewolves, this book documents the historic reality of serial murder. The majority of serial murder studies support the consensus that serial murder is essentially an American crime-a flawed assumption, as the United States has existed for less than 250 years. What is far more likely is that the perverse urge to repeatedly and intentionally kill has existed throughout human history, and that a substantial percentage of serial murders throughout ancient times, the middle ages, and the pre-modern era were attributed to imaginative surrogate explanations: dragons, demons, vampires, werewolves, and witches. Legends, Monsters, or Serial Murderers? The Real Story Behind an Ancient Crime dispels the interrelated misconceptions that serial murder is an American crime and a relatively recent phenomenon, making the novel argument that serial murder is a historic reality-an unrecognized fact in ancient times. Noted serial murderers such as the Roman Locuta (The Poisoner); Gilles De Rais of France, a prolific serial killer of children; Andres Bichel of Bavaria; and Chinese aristocratic serial killer T'zu-Hsi are spotlighted. This book provides a unique perspective that integrates supernatural interpretations of serial killing with the history of true crime, reanimating mythic entities of horror stories and presenting them as real criminals.