From Alice Hemming, the bestselling author of The Midnight Unicorn, comes an exciting unicorn fairytale in the Dark Unicorns series. If you thought you'd heard every fairy tale, then think again... Long ago, a cruel winter plagued the land and people started to mysteriously disappear. A girl called Violet heard all the stories and the rumours that an evil unicorn was behind it all. Years later, when a terrible winter descends once more. Violet's True Love, Nicolas, goes missing. Realising that the old stories must be true, Violet embarks on a risky journey to the far North, not only leaving behind her home but her family and wealth too. The journey will push her to her limits, yet she will also find help, friendship and comfort in the most unlikely places. And one thing is for sure: Nicolas is out there and he needs Violet's help. But how long will he survive in the bitter cold of winter? Enchanting dark fairy tales with magical unicorns, fearsome villains and inspiring heroines Perfect for fans of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief Great for people who love fairy tales, Disney and unicorns DARK UNICORNS - COLLECT THEM ALL! The Midnight Unicorn Paperback eBook The Darkest Unicorn Paperback eBook The Cursed Unicorn Paperback eBook The Blazing Unicorn Paperback eBook The Frozen Unicorn Paperback eBook

The building of human towers (castells) is a centuries-old competitive practice where hundreds of men, women, and children gather in Catalan squares to create breathtaking edifices through a feat of collective athleticism. The result is a great spectacle of suffering and overcoming, tension and release. Catalonia's Human Towers is an ethnographic look at the thriving castells practice—a symbol of Catalan cultural heritage and identity amid debates around autonomy versus subsummation by the Spanish state. While the main function of building castells is to grow community through a low-cost, intergenerational, and inclusive leisure activity, Mariann Vaczi reveals that this unique sport also provides a social base, image, and vocabulary for the pro-independence movement. Highlighting the intersection of folklore, performance, and self-determination, Catalonia's Human Towers captures the subtle and unconscious processes by which the body becomes politicized and ideology becomes embodied, with all the risks and precarities of collective constructions.

The author has undertaken extensive research on the history of folk beliefs connected with communication with the supernatural sphere. In this text, she examines the relics of European shamanism in early modern sources, and the techniques and belief-systems of mediators found in the records of witchcraft trials from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Pocs also explores the kinds of communication systems known to early modern Hungarians, the role of these systems in everyday village life, and how they were connected to contemporary European systems. On the basis of her material and analysis, she contributes a number of details and identifies types of mediators and systems which function up to the twentieth century.

This is an engaging account of the world of the Vikings and their gods. As the Vikings began to migrate overseas as raiders or settlers in the late eighth century, there is evidence that this new way of life, centred on warfare, commerce and exploration, brought with it a warrior ethos that gradually became codified in the Viking myths, notably in the cult of Odin, the god of war, magic and poetry, and chief god in the Norse pantheon. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when most of Scandinavia had long since been converted to Christianity, form perhaps the most important era in the history of Norse mythology: only at this point were the myths of Thor, Freyr and Odin first recorded in written form. Using archaeological sources to take us further back in time than any written document, the accounts of foreign writers like the Roman historian Tacitus, and the most important repository of stories of the gods, old Norse poetry and the Edda, Christopher Abram leads the reader into the lost world of the Norse gods.

Through her childhood reminiscences, Zinaida Longortova brings to life a remote region in far-northern Russia. Extrapolating the folklore and mythology of the Khanty people from her experiences - set around the simple story of a wounded elk calf - the author explores the bonds between humans and nature. Yet whilst this is a novella about a little known indigenous group, the narrative succeeds in harnessing powerful emotions which speak to us all. A timeless story, at once both joyful and melancholy, Blue River is a beguiling tale for all age groups.

THE ELDER EDDAS OF SAEMUND SIGFUSSON. Translated from the Original Old Norse Text into English BY BENJAMIN THORPE. Originally published in 1906. PHOTOGRAPHS: Frontispiece Gunnar ( Guother). Page Siegfried Awakens Brynhild ' 159 Death of Atli 247 A Feast in Valhalla 331 ' s Rune Song 44 Lay of Hymir 48 Lay of Thrym, or the Hammer Recovered 53 Lay of the Dwarf Alvis 57 Lay of Harbard . . . . 63 Journey, or Lay of Skirmr 71 Lay of Rig 78 s Compotation, or Loki's Altercation 84 Lay of Fiolsvith 95 Lay of Hyndla 103 Incantation of Groa 109 Song of the Sun Ill Lay of Volund 121 Lay of Helgi Harvard's Son 137 First Lay of Helgi Hundingcide 137 Second Lay of Helgi Hundingcide 144 > tli's End 155 Lay of Sigurd, or Gnpir's Prophecy 157 Lay of Fafnir 172. Contents include: Gudrun's Incitement 248 The Lay of Hamdir 351 THE YOUNGER EDDAS OF STURLESON. The Deluding of Gylfi 256 Of the Primordial State of the Universe 259 Origin of the Frost-Giants 260 Of the Cow Audhumla, and Birth of Odin 262 The Making of Heaven and Earth 263 Creation of Man and Woman 265 Night and Day, Sun and Moon 266 Wolves that Pursue the Sun and Moon _. 267 The Way that Leads to Heaven 268 The Golden Age 269 Origin of the Dwarfs, and Norns of Destiny 270 The Ash Yggdrasill and Mimer's Well 271 The Norns that Tend Yggdrasill 273 The Wind and the Seasons 275 Thor and His Hammer - 277 Balder and Njord 278 Njord and His Wife Skadi 279 The God Frey and Goddess Freyja 280 Tyr and Other Gods 281 Hodur the Blind, Assassin of Baldur 283 Loki and His Progeny 284 Binding the Wolf Fenrir 285 The Goddesses and their Attributes 289 Frey, and Gerda the Beautiful 291 The Joys of Valhalla 293 The Wonderful Horse Sleipnir 297 The Ship Adapted to Sail on Sea or Land 299 Thor's Adventures in the Land of Giants 300 The Death of Baldur 315 Baldur in the Abode of the Dead 319 Loki's Capture and Punishment 321 Destruction of the Universe 323 Restoration of the Universe 327 How Loki Carried Away Iduna 329 The Origin of Poetry 331 Odin Beguiles the Daughter of Baugi 333 Glossary 335.

Over the past two decades, a steady stream of recordings, videos, feature films, festivals, and concerts has presented the music of Balkan Gypsies, or Roma, to Western audiences, who have greeted them with exceptional enthusiasm. Yet, as author Carol Silverman notes, "Roma are revered as musicians and reviled as people." In this book, Silverman introduces readers to the people and cultures who produce this music, offering a sensitive and incisive analysis of how Romani musicians address the challenges of discrimination. Focusing on southeastern Europe then moving to the diaspora, her book examines the music within Romani communities, the lives and careers of outstanding musicians, and the marketing of music in the electronic media and "world music" concert circuit. Silverman touches on the way that the Roma exemplify many qualities- adaptability, cultural hybridity, transnationalism-that are taken to characterize late modern experience. Rather than just celebrating these qualities, she presents the musicians as complicated, pragmatic individuals who work creatively within the many constraints that inform their lives. As both a performer and presenter on the world music circuit, Silverman has worked extensively with Romani communities for more than two decades both in their home countries and in the diaspora. At a time when the political and economic plight of European Roma and the popularity of their music are objects of international attention, Silverman's book is incredibly timely.

In his captivating study of faith and class, John Hayes examines the ways folk religion in the early twentieth century allowed the South's poor - both white and black - to listen, borrow, and learn from each other about what it meant to live as Christians in a world of severe struggle. Beneath the well-documented religious forms of the New South, people caught in the region's poverty crafted a distinct folk Christianity that spoke from the margins of capitalist development, giving voice to modern phenomena like alienation and disenchantment. Through haunting songs of Death, mystical tales of conversion, grassroots sacramental displays, and an ethic of neighborliness, impoverished folk Christians looked for the sacred in their midst and affirmed the value of this life in this world. From Tom Watson and W. E. B. Du Bois over a century ago to political commentators today, many have ruminated on how despite material commonalities, the poor of the South have been perennially divided by racism. Through his excavation of a folk Christianity of the poor, which fused strands of African and European tradition into a new synthesis, John Hayes recovers a historically contingent moment of interracial exchange generated in hardship.

Text extracted from opening pages of book: THE ELDER EDDA AND ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN DRAMA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS C. F. CLAY, MANAGER LONDON: FETTER LANE, E. G. 4 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. BOMBAY \ CALCUTTA LMACMILLAN AND co., Lm MADRAS j TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Fig. i. Plate from a helmet found at Vcntlel in Uppland. Fig. 2. Bronze plate from Torsluncla, Oland, Sweden. Fig. j. Bronze plate from Torshmda, Olund, Sweden, AND ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN DRAMA BY BERTHA S. PHILLPOTTS, O. B. E., Lirr. D. Formerly Pfeiflfer Student of Girton College, Cambridge Late Lady Carlisle Research Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford Principal of Westfield College ( University of London) Author of Kindred and Clan CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1920 PREFACE THIS book was begun in the spring of 1914, and only two chapters were unwritten in March 1916. In adding these two chapters in 1920 I have endeavoured to bring the rest of the book up to date, but the occupations of the intervening years left little time to keep abreast of the advances of scholarship, and the endeavour has not been wholly successful. My task has not been lightened by the loss of a note-book and some pages of the MS. through causes connected with the war, and I am conscious that there is much to apologise for. But it seemed better to publish the book as it is, with all its imperfections, than to wait for the uncertain hour when I could attempt an elaborate revision and expansion. My aim is simply to place before scholars a theory of the dramatic origin of the older Eddie poems. I shall be satisfied if I have made clear the grounds which have forced me to formulatethe theory: should there be any truth in it, others, better fitted than I, will work it out in all its many bearings on history, religion and literature. The dedication intimates that this book is my gift to Somer villc College, In a more fundamental sense it is the gift of Somerville College to me. It is the product of my tenure of the Lady Carlisle Research Fellowship, and the central idea of the book occurred to me while I was trying to present a rational picture of early Scandinavian literature to the College Literary and Philosophical Society. The idea struck root in favourable soil Miss Pope, Tutor in Modern Languages at Somerville, was working at a theory of the genesis of the Old French epic: Pro fessor Gilbert Murray, Vice-President of the College, was always ready to stimulate and illumine discussion on the relation of epic and drama: Miss Spens of Lady Margaret Hall was writing her book on Shakespeare's indebtedness to folk-drama, Moreover I think that the air of Oxford was friendly to the growth of a theory viii PREFACE like mine, and gave me courage to act on the belief that a clear understanding of the form of primitive Scandinavian literature was an essential preliminary to an understanding of primitive Scandinavian history. It was only after I had written the first part of the book an attempt to solve a literary problem on purely literary lines that I was able to realise the significance of the heroic poems of the Edda as a source for Scandinavian history and religion from the sixth century onwards. Since the theories put forward have a direct bearing on the problem of Greek tragedy, and may also be of interest to mediaevalists, I have assumed that some of my readers maybe unacquainted with Old Norse, and have accordingly given my quotations in English, adding the original in the notes wherever there is any doubt as to the reading. I had originally planned to give translations of the more important poems in an appendix, but joyfully abandoned the project on finding that there is some hope that the poet and scholar who has made Greek tragedy live in English dress may do a similar service to the heroic poems of the Edda. In the meantime readers may be referred to the trans lations in Vigfiisson and Powell's Corpus Poetmim Borc

Baring-Gould's eye-opening history of lycanthropy - the werewolf curse - delves deep into the lore, unearthing various historical cases, several of which date back to Ancient or Medieval times. The concept of a human transforming into a wolf has ancient origins, with several Greek and Roman authors such as Virgil, Ovid, Herodotus and Pliny raising the concept in their poetry and other writings. Rumors of sorcery that could induce a human to change was attributed to magicians in far off places such as Scythia, and such beliefs were widely held. Later, the Norse civilization's mythology introduced lycanthropy and other kinds of transformation. Humans as wolves, bears, birds and other beasts were said to appear in the northern wilds; the Norse God Odin took the form of a bird on regular occasions. Berserker warriors would clad themselves in wolf skins; Bj rn, son of Ulfheoin, was famed for his ability to shift between human and wolf forms.

By analysing the folk stories and personal narratives of a cross-section of Palestinians, Sirhan offers a detailed study of how content and sociolinguistic variables affect a narrator's language use and linguistic behaviour. This book will be of interest to anyone engaged with narrative discourse, gender discourse, Arabic studies and linguistics.

The supernatural lore of Ancient Greece and Rome is vividly brought to life in these pages.The literature of Classical antiquity bristles with horrible witches, mysterious wizards, terrifying ghosts, magic books, curses, voodoo-dolls, even werewolves, vampires and Frankenstein's monsters. Many of these tales have directly shaped our own culture's lore of magic and ghosts, and consequently, these tales speak to us today with great immediacy.This book covers a period of over a thousand years that witnessed some massive historical and cultural changes, including the advent of Christianity. Ancient culture was generally conservative and this is particularly true of its notions of ghosts and witches, which are strongly bound up with traditional tales and folklore of various kinds. Such tales preserve and conserve ideas about ghosts and witchcraft, and they survive to achieve this effect precisely because they are wonderfully engaging.

Lipsi is a small Greek island in the southeast Aegean Sea. There, the local oral tradition weaves the island's history from the mythical Calypso to this day, relating stories of people from a distant past and of those who are still leaving their mark, until the day they become memories and stories as well. This eternal time of an endless repetition, as perceived by today's inhabitants, is projected onto space making a narrative landscape through material constructions, collective bodily movements, and supernatural apparitions. The result of long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this book refers to the community of Lipsi as an example of the correlations between popular cosmologies, official religion, and the development of a symbolic landscape, along with the formation of collective identities and representations in the context of a "cultural and social experience of the world."

The Musical Playground is a new and fascinating account of the musical play of school-aged children. Based on fifteen years of ethnomusicological field research in urban and rural school playgrounds around the globe, Kathryn Marsh provides unique insights into children's musical playground activities across a comprehensive scope of social, cultural, and national contexts.
With a sophisticated synthesis of ethnomusicological and music education approaches, Marsh examines sung and chanted games, singing and dance routines associated with popular music and sports chants, and more improvised and spontaneous chants, taunts, and rhythmic movements. The book's index of more than 300 game genres is a valuable reference to readers in the field of children's folklore, providing a unique map of game distribution across an array of cultures and geographical locations. On the companion website, readers will be able to view on streamed video, field recordings of children's musical play throughout the wide range of locations and cultures that form the core of Marsh's study, allowing them to better understand the music, movement, and textual characteristics of musical games and interactions. Copious notated musical examples throughout the book and the website demonstrate characteristics of game genres, children's generative practices, and reflections of cultural influences on game practice, and valuable, practical recommendations are made for developing pedagogies which reflect more child-centred and less Eurocentric views of children's play, musical learning, and musical creativity.
Marsh brings readers to playgrounds in Australia, Norway, the USA, the United Kingdom, and Korea, offering them an important and innovative study of how children transmit, maintain, and transform the games of the playground. The Musical Playground will appeal to practitioners and researchers in music education, ethnomusicology, and folklore.