It covers the years 1938 to 1948, her work as a midwife in Chengtu and then going to London with her husband, who was a military attaché there. Also her training as a doctor, the start of the last phase of the Chinese Civil War, in which her husband died fighting for the Kuomintang.She gives a vivid picture of the final years of Kuomintang rule in mainland China, and of reactions to the Japanese invasion. She also tells how she came to write her first book, Destination Chungking. This was actually a joint work, written from her notes but revised by an established writer.

    A selchie, a seal transformed into human form, lives on land with a lonely fisherman and his wife, until the day a great storm threatens the fisherman's life.

    has stood as the book in its field; this new edition secures that position. Scholars, music lovers, and general readers will all find it rewarding, whether for the first or second time." -- Journal of the West "A book to be read, re-read, and savored." -- Southwest ReviewSince its first publication in 1968, Bill C. Malone's Country Music, U.S.A. has won universal acclaim as the definitive history of American country music. Starting with the music's folk roots in the rural South, it traces country music from the early days of radio to the beginning of the twenty-first century. This second revised edition includes an extensive new chapter that continues the story from 1985 to 2000, along with anannotated listing of books and recordings which came out during that time.

    The farm's watchful tomten lends a quiet helping hand during the two days of the Swedish Christmas celebration when the regular farm chores must be attended to in addition to holiday festivities.

    Helen Creighton, is one of Canada's best-loved and most respected folklorists. This fascinating and engaging companion to the author's best-selling Bluenose Ghosts welcomes readers into a world of forerunners, enchantment, dreams, divination, buried treasure, guardian ghosts, home remedies, and mystical occurrences. These unique tales have been passed on from generation to generation of Nova Scotia's families.

    This Deluxe Edition of Children's Stories of the Bible from the Old and New Testaments has been carefully checked for accuracy and has been approved by religious advisory consultants, comprising of clergymen from the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths.

    Fascinating as a tale of late Victorian obsessions, as a story of two different people and cultures, or simply as an insight into of one of the deepest strands of Hebridean culture, Strange Things is a text of tradition, folklore, manipulation, charlatanism and fraud, now reprinted for the first time since 1968.

    The author, F Marian McNeill, succeeded in capturing and bringing to life many traditions and customs of old before they died out or were influenced by the modern era. The Silver Branch of the sacred apple tree, laden with crystal blossoms of golden fruit, is in Celtic mythology the equivalent of the Golden Bough of classical mythology – the symbolic bond between the world we know and the Otherworld.In the first volume of the Silver Bough, the author deals generally with Scottish folk-lore and folk belief, with chapters on ethnic origins, the Druids, the Celtic gods, the slow transition to Christianity, magic, the fairy faith, second sight, selkies, changelings and the witch cult. In volumes two and three she explored in some depth the foundations of many of these beliefs and rituals through the Calendar of Scottish national festivals, in which we find enshrined many of the fascinating folk customs of our ancestors. This fourth volume turns our attention to the Local Festivals of Scotland. As man makes greater and greater advances in the understanding and control of his physical environment, the river between the known and the unknown gradually changes its course, and the subjects of the simpler beliefs of former times become part of the new territory of knowledge. The Silver Bough maps out the old course of the waterway that in Celtic belief winds between here and beyond, and reveals the very roots of the Scottish people’s distinctive customs and way of life. The Silver Bough is a large and important work which involved many years of research into both living and recorded lore. Its genesis lies, perhaps, in the author’s subconscious need to reconcile the old primitive world she had glimpsed in childhood with the sophisticated modern world she later entered. “I do not believe that you can exaggerate the importance of the preservation of old ways and customs, and all those little things which bind a man to his native place. Today we live in difficult times. The steam-roller of progress is flattening out many of our old institutions, and there is a danger of a general decline in idiom and distinctive quality in our Scottish life. The only way to counteract this peril is to preserve jealously all these elder things which are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. For, remember, no man can face the future with courage and confidence unless it is solidly founded upon the past. And conversely, no problem will be too hard, no situation too strange, if we can link it with what we know and love” F Marian McNeill

    From these islands have come myths of the raging, lonely sea, the misty moors, and the fabled people who have lived there.In Sea-Spell and Moor-Magic, Sorche Nic Leodhas recounts ten stories from different islands in the Hebrides, including one from the mythical land of Eilean-h-oige. From the baker who won the heart of a princess, to the lord who sailed to avenge an insult to his king, to the lass who saved the life of a water bull, these lovely tales show the beauty and mystery of the Scottish Western Isles.

    43 stories include "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Nix Nought Nothing," and many more. 65 illustrations.

    Each era has seen variations in the roles of he Prince, the Odette-Odile Swan Queen, the Queen Mother, as performed by distinguished dancers, and as portrayed by notable graphic artists. Petipa borrowed from a German legend; the present retelling goes back to a different traditional version to let the reader know that the sorcerer's wickedness was defeated by Prince Siegfried, and the lovers were united.

    Contains: The Giant and the Cobbler / How Big-Mouth Wrestled the Giant / The Brave Little Tailor.

    Many of the favorite tales which English-speaking peoples carry with them from childhood come from a long tradition—stories as familiar to Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, and their many contemporaries as they are to us."This is a fine, homely feast, immediately intelligble. . . ."—Times Educational Supplement ". . . should be of special concern to Americans since many of the tales are parallel to or the source of our own folk stories."—Choice "This is entertainment, to be sure, but is also part of man's attempts to comprehend his world."—Quartet "Folktales of England is by all odds the most satisfactory general collection of folktales to come out of England since the advent of modern collection and classification techniques."—Ernest W. Baughman, Journal of American Folklore