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Mythology
Long defined by popular film adaptations that have reductively portrayed Aladdin as a simplistic rags-to-riches story for children, this work of dazzling imagination--and occasionally dark themes--finally comes to vibrant new life. "In the capital of one of China's vast and wealthy kingdoms," begins Shahrazad-- the tale's imperiled-yet-ingenious storyteller--there lived Aladdin, a rebellious fifteen-year-old who falls prey to a double-crossing sorcerer and is ultimately saved by the ruse of a princess.
One of the best-loved folktales of all time, Aladdin has been capturing the imagination of readers, illustrators, and filmmakers since an eighteenth-century French publication first added the tale to The Arabian Nights. Yet, modern English translators have elided the story's enchanting whimsy and mesmerizing rhythms. Now, translator Yasmine Seale and literary scholar Paulo Lemos Horta offer an elegant, eminently readable rendition of Aladdin in what is destined to be a classic for decades to come.
The nurturing Earth Goddess, the Great Mother worshipped at the dawn of civilizationhistorical fact or consoling fiction?
While Goddess mythologies proliferate and the public devours books by artists, psychotherapists, and enthusiastic amateurs, it is remarkable that those in the field of prehistory have remained largely silent. Did Goddess worship really exist? What actually remains from the earliest cultures, and what can it tell us? What can we learn about the early stages of human religion from the study of prehistoric carvings, pictures, pottery, figurines, and temples?
In "Ancient Goddesses," historians and archaeologists write accessibly about this intriguing and controversial topic for the first time. Considering a number of significant early civilizationsPredynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt; Old Europe; Early North West Europe; Celtic civilization; the Prehistoric Aegean; Malta; the Ancient Near East; Old Testament Israel; Catalhoyuk; and Archaic Greecethese experts review the most recent evidence so that readers can make up their own minds.
Contributors include Ruth Tringham and Margaret Conkey, University of California, Berkeley; Lynn Meskell, New College, Oxford; Fekri Hassan, University College, London; Karel van der Toorn, University of Amsterdam; Joan Westenholz, Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem; Elizabeth Shee Twohig, University College, Cork; Caroline Malone, New Hall, Cambridge; Mary Voyatzis, University of Arizona; and Miranda Green, University of Wales College."
In the ancient world, magic was everywhere. The supernatural abounded, turning flowers into fruit and caterpillars into butterflies. In a time before scientists studied weather patterns and figured out what caused the Earth's most mysterious phenomena, it was magic that packed a cloud full of energy until it exploded with thunderbolts. It was everyday magic, but it was still magical.
In Ancient Magic, author Philip Matyszak ushers readers into that world, showing how ancient Greeks and Romans concocted love potions and cast curses, how they talked to the dead and protected themselves from evil spirits. He takes readers to a world where gods interacted with humans and where people could not only talk to spirits and deities, but could themselves become divine.
Ancient Magic presents us with a new understanding of the role of magic, combining a classical historiography with a practical how-to guide. Using a wide array of sources and lavish illustrations, this book offers an engaging and accessible way into the supernatural for all.
The book is divided into two parts: an interpretive section that concerns symbols in general and a "dictionary" that lists hundreds of symbols and explains their origins, their resemblances to other symbols, and the belief systems behind them. In the first section, Stevens takes the ideas of C. G. Jung a stage further, asserting not only that we possess an innate symbol-forming propensity that exists as a creative and integral part of our psychic make-up, but also that the human mind evolved this capacity as a result of selection pressures encountered by our species in the course of its evolutionary history. Stevens argues that symbol formation has an adaptive function: it promotes our grasp on reality and in dreams often corrects deficient modes of psychological functioning. In the second section, Stevens examines symbols under four headings: "The Physical Environment, " "Culture and Psyche, " "People, Animals, and Plants, " and "The Body." Many of the symbols are illustrate in the book's rich variety of woodcuts. From the ancient symbol of the serpent to the archetypal masculine and feminine, from the earth to the stars, from the primordial landscape o the savannah to the mysterious depths of the sea, Stevens traces a host of common symbols back through time to reveal their psychodynamic functioning and looks at their deep-rooted effects on the lives of modern men, women, and children.
The spread of the Arthurian legend during the course of the twelfth century is one of the most remarkable phenomena in literary history. Arthurian Chronicles looks at two unsung but deserving poets who contributed to the diffusion of the legend, Wace who preceded the more famous Chretien de Troyes, and Layamon, who followed him.
Wace was of an inquiring turn of mind, with, for his day, a scholarly and sceptical approach to lais, marvellous tales, and fables. `Not all lies, nor all true, all foolishness, nor all sense. So much have the story-tellers told, and so much have the makers of fables fabled to embellish their stories, that they have made all seem fable, ' he writes. He was the first to mention the famous Round Table.
In Layamon's Brut, Arthur, hero and emperor, makes his first appearance in English vernacular literature. It is Layamon who tells of the elves that attended on the infant Arthur and endowed him with gifts and qualities; he also launched Arthur after his last battle to Argante in Avallon, to be healed of his wounds.
In this English language prose translation of the Wace and Layamon Arthurian poems, the folk-tale ferocity of Arthur is made as exciting to the readers as to the poets who contributed so much to Arthur's legend.
Originally published by J.M. Dent & Sons,1962.
A century after its debut, Waite's work remains among the best sources of information on occult subjects related to the study of the supernatural. Although the author does not condone the practice of black magic, he defends occult practitioners and praises the disciplines of astrology and alchemy. Modern readers will find this book an extraordinarily complete tour of the history of magic, replete with details of casting spells, conjuring spirits, and other occult practices.
The Book of Symbols combines original and incisive essays about particular symbols with representative images from all parts of the world and all eras of history. The highly readable texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol's psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shadow, the ways in which diverse cultures have engaged a symbolic image--all these factors are taken into consideration.
Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche's unexpected convergences. There are no pat definitions of the kind that tend to collapse a symbol; a still vital symbol remains partially unknown, compels our attention and unfolds in new meanings and manifestations over time. Rather than merely categorize, The Book of Symbols illuminates how to move from the visual experience of a symbolic image in art, religion, life, or dreams to directly experiencing its personal and psychological resonance.The Book of Symbols sets new standards for thoughtful exploration of symbols and their meanings, and will appeal to a wide range of readers: artists, designers, dreamers and dream interpreters, psychotherapists, self-helpers, gamers, comic book readers, religious and spiritual searchers, writers, students, and anyone curious about the power of archetypal images.
The first English publication of Sami folktales from Scandinavia collected and illustrated in the early twentieth century
Although versions of tales about wizards and magical reindeer from northern Scandinavia are found in European folk and fairytale collections, stories told by the indigenous Nordic Sami themselves are rare in English translation. The stories in By the Fire, collected by the Danish artist and ethnographer Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958) during her travels in the early twentieth century among the nomadic Sami in Swedish Sápmi, are the exception--and a matchless pleasure, granting entry to a fascinating world of wonder and peril, of nature imbued with spirits, and strangers to be outwitted with gumption and craft.
Between 1907 and 1916 Demant Hatt recorded tales of magic animals, otherworldly girls who marry Sami men, and cannibalistic ogres or Stallos. Many of her storytellers were women, and the memorable tales included in this collection tell of plucky girls and women who outfox their attackers (whether Russian bandits, mysterious Dog-Turks, or Swedish farmers) and save their people. Here as well are tales of ghosts and pestilent spirits, murdered babies who come back to haunt their parents, and legends in which the Sami are both persecuted by their enemies and cleverly resistant. By the Fire, first published in Danish in 1922, features Demant Hatt's original linoleum prints, incorporating and transforming her visual memories of Sápmi in a style influenced by the northern European Expressionists after World War I.
With Demant Hatt's field notes and commentary and translator Barbara Sjoholm's Afterword (accompanied by photographs), this first English publication of By the Fire is at once a significant contribution to the canon of world literature, a unique glimpse into Sami culture, and a testament to the enduring art of storytelling.
A collection of radical political fairy tales--some in English for the first time--from one of the great female practitioners of the genre
Hermynia Zur Mühlen (1883-1951), one of the twentieth century's great political writers, was not seemingly destined for a revolutionary, unconventional literary career. Born in Vienna to an aristocratic Catholic family, Zur Mühlen married an Estonian count. But she rebelled, leaving her upper-class life to be with the Hungarian writer and Communist Stefan Klein, and supporting herself through translations and publications. Altogether, Zur Mühlen wrote thirty novels, mysteries, and story collections, and translated around 150 works, including those of Upton Sinclair, John Galsworthy, and Edna Ferber. A wonderful new addition to the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales presents English readers with a selection of Zur Mühlen's best political fairy tales, some translated from German for the first time.
In contrast to the classical tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, Zur Mühlen's candid, forthright stories focus on social justice and the plight of the working class, with innovative plots intended to raise the political consciousness of readers young and old. For example, in "The Glasses," readers are encouraged to rip off the glasses that deceive them, while in "The Carriage Horse," horses organize a union to resist their working and living conditions. In "The Broom," a young worker learns how to sweep away injustice.
With an informative introduction by Jack Zipes and period illustrations by George Grosz, John Heartfield, Heinrich Vogeler, and Karl Holtz, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales revives the legacy of a notable female artist whose literary and political work remains relevant in our own time.
Starting with a discussion of how myths are transmitted and by whom, Aldhouse-Green continues with an account of Irish and Welsh myths, their key actors and motifs, and themes such as heroes, animals, women, environment, and the Otherworld. The book concludes with a look at the influence of monastic chroniclers on the tales, which they preserved and adapted.
Boxed features, quotes from primary texts and contemporary sources, two-color illustrations, photographs, and drawings all come together to create a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in Celtic history or the history of myth as well as anyone who simply loves a good story.
Comic Sagas and Tales from Iceland brings together the very finest Icelandic stories from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, a time of civil unrest and social upheaval. With feuding families and moments of grotesque violence, the sagas see such classic mythological figures as murdered fathers, disguised beggars, corrupt chieftains, and avenging sons who do battle with axes, words, and cunning. The tales, meanwhile, follow heroes and comical fools through dreams, voyages, and religious conversions in medieval Iceland and beyond. Shaped by Iceland's oral culture and its people's conversion to Christianity, these stories are works of ironic humor and stylistic innovation. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The compilation ranges from the more familiar creatures such as dragons, griffins, and mermen to now-obscure beings: the lamia, the lamb-tree, the moon woman, and the circhos, to name a few. Some tales offer unusual takes on swans, bears, cats, and other ordinary animals. Since underwater exploration was impractical until the 20th century, a particularly rich vein of folklore centers on sea creatures. Dating from approximately 1890, this fascinating volume is profusely illustrated with 130 images. A detailed index provides easy reference.
A Glossary of Proper Names and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world's oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh's adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings, the Epic of Gilgamesh is, above all, about mankind's eternal struggle with the fear of death. The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian. Andrew George's gripping translation brilliantly combines these into a fluent narrative and will long rank as the definitive English Gilgamesh. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A new verse rendering of the great epic of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the oldest works in Western Literature. Ferry makes Gilgamesh available in the kind of energetic and readable translation that Robert Fitzgerald and Richard Lattimore have provided for.
Included are some of Campbell's first groundbreaking essays: "Bios and Mythos" and "Primitive Man as Metaphysician," both of which examine the biological basis and necessity for story and mythology, and establish mythology as a basic function or fact of nature. Campbell's essay "Mythogenesis" turns from the natural and biological to the cultural and historical -- the rise, flowering, and decline of a particular myth, a single American Indian legend. Campbell explores how the myth was born, as well as the personal experiences of the visionary medicine man through whose memory the myth was preserved.
This new paperback edition joins other reissues and previously unpublished works as part of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell.
An enchanting collection that introduces the author and activist Naomi Mitchison to a new generation of readers
The Fourth Pig, originally published in 1936, is a wide-ranging collection of fairy tales, poems, and ballads that reflect the hopes and forebodings of their era but also resonate with those of today. From a retelling of "Hansel and Gretel" to the experimental title story, a dark departure from "The Three Little Pigs," this book is a testament to the talents of Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999), who was an irrepressible phenomenon--a prominent Scottish political activist as well as a prolific author. Mitchison's work, exemplified by the tales in this superb new edition, is stamped with her characteristic sharp wit, magical invention, and vivid political and social consciousness. Marina Warner, the celebrated scholar of myths and fairy tales and writer of fiction, provides an insightful introduction to Mitchison as a remarkable writer and personality.
Gabriel's Palace offers a treasury of 150 pithy and powerful tales, involving experiences of union with the divine, out-of-body travel, encounters with angels and demons, possession by spirits holy and pernicious, and more. Schwartz provides an informative introduction placing these remarkable tales firmly in the context of centuries of post-biblical Jewish tradition. The body of the text presents spellbinding tales from the Talmud, Zohar, the Hasidic masters, and an enormous range of other sources. Here are stories of Shimon bar Yohai, reputed to be the author of the Zohar; Isaac Luria, known as the Ari, who was the central figure among the Safed mystics of the 16th century; Israel ben Eliezer, known as Baal Shem Tov, who founded Hasidism; Elimelech of Lizensk, possessor of legendary mystical powers; and Nachman of Bratslav, the great storyteller whose wandering spirit is said to protect his followers to this day. Together, these tales paint a vivid picture of "a world of signs and symbols, where everything that took place had meaning, a world of mythic proportions....A world in which the spirits of the dead were no longer invisible, nor the angels," where the master and his disciples labor to repair the world so that the footsteps of the Messiah might be heard.
Drawn from rabbinic, kabbalistic, folk, and Hasidic sources, these collected tales form a rich genre all their own. In Gabriel's Palace, the powerful tradition of Jewish mysticism comes to life in clear, contemporary English.
Reflections on a lost poem and its rediscovery by contemporary poets
Gilgamesh is the most ancient long poem known to exist. It is also the newest classic in the canon of world literature. Lost for centuries to the sands of the Middle East but found again in the 1850s, it tells the story of a great king, his heroism, and his eventual defeat. It is a story of monsters, gods, and cataclysms, and of intimate friendship and love. Acclaimed literary historian Michael Schmidt provides a unique meditation on the rediscovery of Gilgamesh and its profound influence on poets today. Schmidt describes how the poem is a work in progress even now, an undertaking that has drawn on the talents and obsessions of an unlikely cast of characters, from archaeologists and museum curators to tomb raiders and jihadis. Fragments of the poem, incised on clay tablets, were scattered across a huge expanse of desert when it was recovered in the nineteenth century. The poem had to be reassembled, its languages deciphered. The discovery of a pre-Noah flood story was front-page news on both sides of the Atlantic, and the poem's allure only continues to grow as additional cuneiform tablets come to light. Its translation, interpretation, and integration are ongoing. In this illuminating book, Schmidt discusses the special fascination Gilgamesh holds for contemporary poets, arguing that part of its appeal is its captivating otherness. He reflects on the work of leading poets such as Charles Olson, Louis Zukofsky, and Yusef Komunyakaa, whose own encounters with the poem are revelatory, and he reads its many translations and editions to bring it vividly to life for readers.
The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life--and even invented real automated machines
The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life--and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, life through craft. In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements--and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines. Revealing how science has always been driven by imagination, and how some of today's most advanced tech innovations were foreshadowed in ancient myth, Gods and Robots is a gripping new story of mythology for the age of AI.
Michael Wood's In Search of Myths & Heroes explores four remarkable legends that have endured from ancient eras to modern times.
Shangri-la: The Paradise Myth
From Babylonia to ancient Tibet to Frank Capra's movie Lost Horizon--the story of an earthly paradise has been immortalized through the ages. But was there a real Shangri-la?
Jason & the Golden Fleece: The Hero's Quest
Possibly the oldest story in world literature and one still told today--from Gilgamesh to Star Wars--Jason's quest is that of a young man who must venture into the unknown to complete an impossible task. It is a story of bravery, treachery, and love, but what price must our hero pay for achieving his "mission impossible"?
The Queen of Sheba: The Woman of Power
The tale of Sheba, told for more than two and half millennia in Arabia, the Near East, Africa, and Europe, is the story of a woman who is a founder of nations, a fantasy lover, the personification of wisdom, adored and demonized in equal measure. Is this the fate of powerful women even today?
Arthur: The Once & Future King
Arthur, said to have ruled in a golden age, had his power broken by human weakness and greed. His story, the myth of the king who will one day return, is echoed in nearly every culture in the world. But who was Arthur and why do we need to believe in him and his future reign?
Copub: BBC
Once upon a time, there lived a humble juggler, Barnaby by name, who was skillful but suffered every winter from poverty. A devotee of the Virgin, he had few failings apart from enjoying drink a little too much. One day he met a monk, who persuaded him to enter a monastery. All the brethren had exceptional skills to exercise on behalf of Mary, but the juggler felt he had nothing worthy to offer. Finally, he had the notion to juggle copper balls and knives before the altar of the Virgin in the chapel. The others caught him in the act and deemed his behavior madness, but after seeing the Mother of God descend to soothe him, they realized that he was blessed.
Writers, illustrators, and musicians from the Middle Ages to the present have loved this simple, medieval tale. In 1890, Anatole France (1844-1924) adapted the original poem as the short story "Le jongleur de Notre-Dame." Dumbarton Oaks is pleased to bring this version back into print for the enjoyment of modern audiences, featuring a translation by Jan M. Ziolkowski and Art Deco illustrations by Maurice Lalau (1881-1961), faithfully reproduced from a 1924 printing.
An in-depth exploration of the sometimes charming, sometimes gruesome feline creatures and ghosts of Japan. Davisson illuminates the vast realm of kaibyō, or supernatural cats, with historical and modern cultural context. Lushly illustrated in full color with dozens of ukiyo-e prints and drawings. A must-have book for the Japanophile and cat-lover alike! First in a forthcoming series about the supernatural animals of Japan.
"Kaibyō The Supernatural Cats of Japan is an extremely diverting and stunningly produced celebration of the phantom feline in its myriad of manifestations--some alluring, others humorous and many outright terrifying. Award-winning translator, writer, lecturer, manga scholar, Japanese folklore expert and author of Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost, Zach Davisson is the ideal guide to this furred and fanged underworld. An expertly researched and engagingly penned text is embellished by the inclusion of an intriguing selection of uncanny cat tales by other authors and centuries' old legends newly-translated by Mr. Davisson. The publishers must be congratulated for creating a book of extraordinary lavishness. Although a paperback release, no expense has been spared in an exquisitely-designed book brimming with a toothsome array of full-color artwork reproductions."
review by Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino, co-authors of Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati and The Marchesa Casati: Portraits of a Muse
Zack Davisson is an award-winning translator, writer, and scholar of Japanese folklore and ghosts. He is the author of Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost (Chin Music Press), translator of Eisner Award-winning and Harvey-nominated Shigeru Mizuki's Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan, and a 2014 nominee of the Japanese-US Friendship Commission Translation Prize. Other translation works include the famous folklore comic Kitaro (Drawn and Quarterly) and the works of Satoshi Kon (Dark Horse).