Sir James George Frazer originally set out to discover the origins of one ancient custom in Classical Rome - the plucking of the Golden Bough from a tree in the sacred grove of Diana, and the murderous succession of the priesthood there - and was led by his invetigations into a twenty-five year study of primitive customs, superstitions, magic and myth throughout the world. The monumental thirteen-volume work which resulted has been a rich source of anthropological material and a literary masterpiece for more than half a century. Both the wealth of his illustrative material and the broad sweep of his argument can be appreciated in this very readable single volume.

Gustav Davidson's classic text, A dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels, is the result of sixteen years of research in Talmudic, gnostic, cabalistic, apocalyptic, patristic, and legendary texts. The classic reference work on angels is beautifully illustrated and its reissue coincides with the resurgence of belief in angels in America. This well researched and exquisitely illustrated dictionary is a wonderful collectable for all those who believe in angels, miracles, lore, and faith.

Spanning more than 400 years of America's past, this book brings together, for the first time, entries on the ways Americans have mythologized both the many wars the nation has fought and the men and women connected with those conflicts. Focusing on significant representations in popular culture, it provides information on fiction, drama, poems, songs, film and television, art, memorials, photographs, documentaries, and cartoons. From the colonial wars before 1775 to our 1997 peacekeeper role in Bosnia, the work briefly explores the historical background of each war period, enabling the reader to place the almost 500 entries into their proper context. The book includes particularly large sections dealing with the popular culture of the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Indian Wars West of the Mississippi, World War II, and Vietnam. It has been designed to be a useful reference tool for anyone interested in America's many wars, to provide answers, to teach, to inspire, and most of all, to be enjoyed.

This book explores and explains stories about the mythic outlaw, who from the Middle Ages to the present day has stood up for the values of natural law and true justice. Analysing the whole sequence of Robin Hood adventures, it begins with the medieval tradition, including early poems and the long-surviving sung ballads, and goes on to look at two variant Robins: the Scottish version, here named Rabbie Hood, and gentrified Robin, the exiled Earl of Huntington, now partnered by Lady Marian. The nineteenth century re-imagined Robin as a modern figure - a lover of nature, Marian, England and the rights of the ordinary man. In novels and films he has developed into an international figure of freedom, while Marian's role has grown in a modern feminist context. Even to this day, the Robin Hood myth continues to reproduce itself, constantly discovering new forms and new meanings. -- .

Focusing on the body as a visual and discursive platform across public space, we study marginalization as a sociocultural practice and hegemonic schema. Whereas mass incarceration and law enforcement readily feature in discussions of institutionalized racism, we differently highlight understudied sites of normalization and exclusion. Our combined effort centers upon physical contexts (skeletons, pageant stages, gentrifying neighborhoods), discursive spaces (medical textbooks, legal battles, dance pedagogy, vampire narratives) and philosophical arenas (morality, genocide, physician-assisted suicide, cryonic preservation, transfeminism) to deconstruct seemingly intrinsic connections between body and behavior, Whiteness and normativity.

A potent pantheon of gods, heroes engaged in epic battles, fearsome mythical creatures and supernatural transformations - such fantastical elements infuse Greek myths with a wonder and excitement that's hard to beat. These tales of love, courage, conflict and intrigue, shared for thousands of years, still exercise a powerful influence on our modern lives. This comprehensive collection of mythic stories brings to life the origins of the Greek gods and their dominion over the world of humankind. Here you'll find Zeus and hades, Artemis and Aphrodite, with stories of demi-gods and humans alike. Jason and the Argonauts, Perseus the Gordon-Slayer and the heart-breaking tales of Troy sit alongside myths of crime and punishment, love and courage and the adventures of Heracles. Part of Flame Tree's epic collection of myths and legends, classic tales and modern short stories.

Telling the Seasons takes us on a journey through the twelve months of the year with stories, customs and celebrations. Drawing on the changing patterns of nature and the rich tapestry of folklore from the British Isles, it is a colourful guide into how and why we continue to celebrate the seasons. Here are magical myths of the sun and moon, earthy tales of walking stones and talking trees and lively legends of the spirits of each season. Original drawings, sayings, songs, recipes and rhymes, combine into a 'spell-book' of the seasons. Martin Maudsley tells tales around the year to children and adults, specialising in stories of the natural world and local landscapes. He can be found leading seasonal celebrations from firelit winter wassails to bright May Day mornings in rural Dorset where he lives.

In Hans Christian Andersen in American Literary Criticism of the Nineteenth Century, Herbert Rowland argues that the literary criticism accompanying the publication of Hans Christian Andersen's works in the United States compares favorably in scope, perceptiveness, and chronological coverage with the few other national receptions of Andersen outside of Denmark. Rowland contends that American commentators made it abundantly evident that, in addition to his fairy tales, Andersen wrote several novels, travelogues, and an autobiography which were all of more than common interest. In the process, Rowland shows that American commentators "naturalized" Andersen in the United States by confronting the sensationalism in the journalism and literature of the time with the perceived wholesomeness of Andersen's writing, deploying his long fiction on both sides of the debate over the nature and relative value of the romance and the novel, and drawing on two of his works to support their positions on slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Despite the homogenization of American life, areas of strong regional consciousness still persist in the United States, and there is a growing interest in regionalism among the public and among academics. In response to that interest ten folklorists here describe and interpret a variety of American regional cultures in the twentieth century. Their book is the first to deal specifically with regional culture and the first to employ the perspective of folklore in the study of regional identity and consciousness. The authors range widely over the United States, from the Eastern Shore to the Pacific Northwest, from the Southern Mountains to the Great Plains. They look at a variety of cultural expressions and practices -- legends, anecdotes, songs, foodways, architecture, and crafts. Tying their work together is a common consideration of how regional culture shapes and is shaped by the consciousness of living in a special place. In exploring this dimension of regional culture the authors consider the influence of natural environment and historical experience on the development of regional culture, the role of ethnicity in regional consciousness, the tensions between insiders and outsiders that stem from a sense of regional identity, and the changes in culture in response to social and economic change. With its focus on cultural manifestations and its folkloristic perspective this book provides a fresh and needed contribution to regional studies. Written in a clear, readable style, it will appeal to general readers interested in American regions and their cultures. At the same time the research and analytical approach make it useful not only to folklorists but to cultural geographers, anthropologists, and other scholars of regional studies.

This book is an interdisciplinary synthesis and interpretation about the experience of light as revealed in a wide range of art and literature from Paleolithic to Roman times. Humanistic in spirit and in its handling of facts, it marshals a substantial body of scholarship to develop an explication of light as a central, even dramatic, reality of human existence and experience in diverse cultural settings. David S. Herrstrom underscores our intimacy with light-not only its constant presence in our life but its insinuating character. Focusing on our encounters with light and ways of making sense of these, this book is concerned with the personal and cultural impact of light, exploring our resistance to and acceptance of light. Its approach is unique. The book's true subject is the individual's relationship with light, rather than the investigation of light's essential nature. It tells the story of light seducing individuals down through the ages. Consequently, it is not concerned with the "progress" of scientific inquiries into the physical properties and behavior of light (optical science), but rather with subjective reactions to it as reflected in art (Paleolithic through Roman), architecture (Egyptian, Grecian, Roman), mythology and religion (Paleolithic, Egyptian), and literature (e.g., Akhenaten, Plato, Aeschylus, Lucretius, John the Evangelist, Plotinus, and Augustine). This book celebrates the complexity of our relation to light's character. No individual experience of light is "truer" than any other; none improves on any previous experience of light's "tidal pull" on us. And the wondrous variety of these encounters has yielded a richly layered tapestry of human experience. By its broad scope and interdisciplinary approach, this pioneering book is without precedent.

Featuring places such as Loch Ness, to the depths of the Devil's Sea of Japan, 'The World's Weirdest Places' reveals the sheer astonishing scale of strangeness that dominates our planet.

Breaking box office records around the globe, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has achieved an unparalleled level of success and gripped the imaginations of fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. Using the field of religious studies, this is the first book to analyze the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from multiple world religious traditions. By exploring how the characters and events of the MCU resemble religious themes and ancient mythic stories, this book places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films, alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the monsters, shadow-selves, and familial conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. As a result, we can appreciate how the films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.

Laurence Coupe offers students a comprehensive overview of the development of myth, showing how mythic themes, structures and symbols persist in literature and entertainment today. This introductory volume: illustrates the relation between myth, culture and literature with discussions of poetry, fiction, film and popular song explores uses made of the term 'myth' within the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, cultural studies, feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis discusses the association between modernism, postmodernism, myth and history familiarizes the reader with themes such as the dying god, the quest for the Grail, the relation between 'chaos' and 'cosmos', and the vision of the end of time demonstrates the growing importance of the green dimension of myth. Fully updated and revised in this new edition, Myth is both a concise introduction and a useful tool to students first approaching the topic, while also a valuable contribution to the study of myth.

Far from being a static or eroding cultural inheritance from the past, the supernatural has continually been appropriated and updated to accommodate and express social, cultural, economic and environmental anxieties. SHORTLISTED for the 2020 Katharine Briggs Award. Since the Enlightenment, supernatural beliefs and practices have largely been derided as ignorant and un-modern - even anti-modern - and cities, being the ultimate symbol of progress and rationality, have not been thought to harbour magic. Scholars have long assumed that the world of the supernatural withered under the impact of urbanisation; yet, as numerous books, films and T.V. series from Hellboy to Being Human to the Harry Potterfranchise show, contemporary culture remains fascinated by urban-based legends and fantasy. This collection seeks to spur interest in the urban supernatural and argues for its prevalence, importance and vitality by presenting a rich cultural history of the complex relationship between supernatural beliefs and practices, imagination and storytelling, and urbanisation. Grouped around themes of enchantment, anxiety and spectrality, it explores urban supernatural cultures on five continents between the late eighteenth century and the present day. The book advances a ground-breaking exploration of the communal and cultural function of urban supernatural ideas, demonstrating howthey have continually been appropriated and updated to express and accommodate socio-cultural, economic and environmental anxieties and needs. Drawing together a diverse range of academic approaches, with contributions from historians, geographers, anthropologists, folklorists and literary scholars, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of how urban environments, both past and present, inform our imaginations, cultural insecurities and spatial fears. KARL BELL is Reader in Cultural and Social History at the University of Portsmouth. CONTRIBUTORS: Karl Bell, Oliver Betts, Alex Bevan, Tracy Fahey, Deirdre Flynn, Maria del Pilar Blanco, William Pooley, Elena Pryamikova, David J. Puglia, William Redwood, Morag Rose, Alevtina Solovyova, Tom Sykes, Natalya Veselkova, Mikhail Vandyshev, David Waldron, Sharn Waldron, Felicity Wood

Featuring nearly 500 samples of folklore, including stories, artifacts, rituals, and beliefs, New World Witchery is one of the most comprehensive collections of witchcraft and folk magic ever written. This treasure trove of witchery is designed to help you integrate folk traditions into your life and deepen your understanding of magic. Folklore expert Cory Thomas Hutcheson guides you to the crossroads of folk magic, where you ll learn about different practices and try them for yourself. Explore chapters on magical heritage, divination, flying, familiars, magical protection, spirit communication, and more. This in-depth, accessible book also provides brief profiles of significant folk magicians, healers, and seers, so you can both meet the practitioners and experience their craft.

What cases are you engaged in at present?' 'Are you stopping many teeth just now?' 'What people have you converted lately?' Do ladies put these questions to the men - lawyers, dentists, clergymen, and so forth - who happen to sit next them at dinner parties? I do not know whether ladies thus indicate their interest in the occupations of their casual neighbours at the hospitable board. But if they do not know me, or do not know me well, they generally ask 'Are you writing anything now?' (as if they should ask a painter 'Are you painting anything now?' or a lawyer 'Have you any cases at present?'). Sometimes they are more definite and inquire 'What are you writing now?' as if I must be writing something - which, indeed, is the case, though I dislike being reminded of it. It is an awkward question, because the fair being does not care a bawbee what I am writing; nor would she be much enlightened if I replied 'Madam, I am engaged on a treatise intended to prove that Normal is prior to Conceptional Totemism' - though that answer would be as true in fact as obscure in significance. The best plan seems to be to answer that I have entirely abandoned mere literature, and am contemplating a book on 'The Causes of Early Blight in the Potato, ' a melancholy circumstance which threatens to deprive us of our chief esculent root.

This book, first published in 1990, is a thematic analysis of five tales of early vernacular Chinese literature. Interest in vernacular stories is increasing in the study of Chinese literature, as their importance is being recognised as a key part of the oral traditional narrative. From the analysis of the five Chinese tales in light of literary, historical, philological sources and folkloristic methodologies we may see to what extent tales of an intrinsically religious nature can offer meanings in the oral tradition.

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a prolific Scots man of letters, a poet, novelist, literary critic and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day. Lang was one of the founders of the study of Psychical Research, and his other writings on anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897), Magic and Religion (1901) and The Secret of the Totem (1905). He was a Homeric scholar of conservative views. Other works include Homer and the Epic (1893); a prose translation of The Homeric Hymns (1899), with literary and mythological essays in which he draws parallels between Greek myths and other mythologies; and Homer and his Age (1906). He also wrote Ballades in Blue China (1880) and Rhymes la Mode (1884).

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.

Women Writing Wonder: An Anthology of Subversive Nineteenth-Century British, French, and German Fairy Tales is a translation and critical edition that fills a current gap in fairy-tale scholarship by making accessible texts written by nineteenth-century British, French, and German women authors who used the genre of the fairy tale to address issues such as class, race, and female agency. These shared themes crossed national borders are due to both communication among these writers and changes in nineteenth-century European societies that similarly affected women in Western Europe. In effect, the combined texts reveal a common, transnational tradition of fairy tales by women writers who grapple with gender, sexual, social, and racial issues in a post-French Revolution Europe. The anthology provides insight into the ways the fairy tale served as a vehicle for women writers-often marginalized and excluded from more official or public genres-to engage in very serious debates. Women Writing Wonder, divided into three parts by country, features tales that depict relationships that cross class and racial divides, thus challenging normative marriage practices; critically examine traditional fairy-tale tropes, such as ""happily ever after"" and the need for a woman to marry; challenge the perception that fairy-tale collecting, editing, and creation was male work, associated particularly with the Grimms; and demonstrate the role of women in the development of the emerging field of children's literature and moral tales. Through their tales, these women question, among other issues, the genre of the fairy tale itself, playing with the conventional fairy-tale narrative to compose their proto-feminist tales. By bringing these tales together, editors and translators Julie L. J. Koehler, Shandi Lynne Wagner, Anne E. Duggan, and Adrion Dula hope both to foreground women writers' important contributions to the genre and to challenge common assumptions about what a fairy tale is for scholars, students, and general readers.

A retelling of Disney Encanto featuring stunning development art from the original Disney Studio artists. Since its release, Encanto has become an instant classic thanks to its magical story, relatable characters and catchy songs from Tony (R), Grammy (R) and Pulitzer Prize-winner, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Encanto won Best Animated Feature Film at the 2022 Academy Awards (R). Enjoy the hit movie through this retelling of the story, accompanied by concept art from the original Walt Disney Animation Studios artists. Alongside the art, fascinating facts about each piece of art give an insight into the design process behind the iconic movie. Also featured is a foreword from Yvett Merino, Producer at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. The beautiful hardback features a textured finish, stunning foil and illustrated endpapers to ensure this is a book to treasure for years to come. This is the perfect gift for all those who have been enchanted by the magic of Encanto!

Wide-ranging study of the myth of Medea, concentrating on but not exclusively confined to its medieval incarnation. The legends of Jason and Medea illustrate how disparate and sometimes contradictory stories were combined in the creation of the first secular princely quest, how that quest functioned as a benchmark of western chronology, and howthat in turn assured the stories' position as part of the legends of Troy. The innovations of Euripides and Apollonius were imitated throughout Antiquity, and examples of murderous mothers illustrated the lethal disruptions of which women could be capable. For many medieval authors - Dante, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Gower, Christine de Pizan and others -the problem of a hero who betrays his oath and a heroine who murders and escapes offered insoluble and tragicsubjects. This study discusses how the legends contribute not only to ideas of history, but also to conceptions of the power and ruthlessness of women. RUTH MORSE is Professeur des Universites at UniversiteParis VII.