Baba Yaga is a witch famous throughout Russia for eating children, but this Babushka Baba Yaga is a lonely old woman who just wants a grandchild?to love."Kids will respond to the joyful story of the outsider who gets to join in, and Polacco's richly patterned paintings of Russian peasant life on the edge of the woods are full of light and color." -- Booklist"A warm, lively tale, neatly mixing new and old and illustrated with Polacco's usual energetic action, bright folk patterns, and affectionate characterizations." --Kirkus Reviews

    

    In simple but vivid detail, Velma Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community and forgiveness "speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness and wisdom" (Ursula K. Le Guin).

    Haktak digs up a curious brass pot in his garden and decides to carry his coin purse in it. When Mrs. Haktak's hairpin slips into the pot, she reaches in and pulls out two coin purses and two hairpins--this is a magic pot!

    Like the original, this new version separates Old Testament and New Testament sections and contains 106 Bible stories based on the New International Reader's Version.

    Long ago, the first man and woman quarreled. The woman left in anger, but the Sun sent tempting berries to Earth to slow the wife's retreat. Luminous paintings perfectly complement the simple, lyrical text. "Complete harmony of text and pictures: altogether lovely." -- Kirkus Reviews, pointer reviewJoseph Bruchac is an award-winning storyteller whose books for children include Eagle Song, Children of the Longhouse, and Arrow to the Sun (all Dial). He lives in Greenfield Center, New York. Anna Vojtech lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

    These botanical heirlooms, such as flowering almond, blackberry lily, and night-blooming cereus, usually can't be found in neighborhood garden centers; about the only way to obtain a passalong plant is to beg a cutting from the fortunate gardener who has one. In this lively and sometimes irreverent book (don't miss the chapter on yard art), Steve Bender and Felder Rushing describe 117 such plants, giving particulars on hardiness, size, uses in the garden, and horticultural requirements. They present this information in the informal, chatty, and sometimes humorous manner that your next-door neighbor might use when giving you a cutting of her treasured Confederate rose. And, of course, because they are discussing passalong plants, they note the best method of sharing each plant with other gardeners. Because you might not spy a banana shrub or sweet pea in your neighborhood, the authors list mail-order sources for the heirloom plants described. They also give tips on how to organize your own plant swap. Although the authors live in and write about the South, many of the plants they discuss will grow elsewhere. from the book Amid the clamor of press releases touting the newest, improved versions of this bulb or that perennial, what keeps people interested in old-fashioned plants? Nostalgia, for one thing. It's hard not to feel a special fondness for that Confederate rose, night-blooming cereus, or alstroemeria lovingly tended by your grandmother when you were a child. Such heirloom plants evoke memories of your first garden, of relatives and neighbors that have since passed on, of prized bushes you accidentally annihilated with your bicycle. Recall the time you first received a particular plant, and you'll recall the person who gave it to you.

    Faeries are real, and you can learn to commune with a whole world of unseen beings, including elves, devas, and nature spirits. With an open mind and a little patience, you can begin to recognize their presence all around you. This book will help you deepen your connection to the natural world as you explore the magical, mystical world of the faerie folk.Discover hidden truths in faerie tales and use them as pathways into the faerie realm Learn the basic habitats, powers and behaviors of faeries, elves, and other nature spirits Read personal accounts of actual faerie encounters Invoke fire spirits for traditional psychic readings Share the magic and knowledge of twenty tree spirits Find the elementals--gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders--with which you resonate most Contact water sprites, mermaids and other water spirits Find wood nymphs and thelady of the woods raw dragons into your environment with the right fragrances Attract a faerie godmother into your life Recapture the magic and wonder of a world where trees still speak and every flower tells a story. Explore the faerie realm--a place where faerie tales can and do come true.

    But the wolf she met on the way to Granny's was so charming and urbane. What could be the harm of telling him that she was on her way to Granny's pretty yellow house on the other side of the woods? Who could be a better escort than the big-eyed, long armed, big-toothed wolf?

    To each, artist Jae Ray brings her rich, glowing colors, her elegant sense of figure and form, and her gift for detail.A Zulu tales tells of the indomitable Unanana, who rescues her two children from an elephant's belly. From Japan comes the story of a timeless shimmering kingdom beneath the sea. In a rousing African-American story, a band of witches get their comeuppance. Fantastic transformations, diguises, magical objects, and spirits reveal a powerful world beyond the senses, a world that influences justice and happiness in human affairs.While suggesting the diversity of the earth's people, this gorgeous collection, crafted for reading aloud or alone, also shows - through themes of kindness, courge, stadfastness, and love, - how much we all share.

    Magnificent illustrations and captivating texts tell the legends of Africa.

    At such times, the earth becomes arid, life becomes devoid of meaning, the ground of culture cracks and splits, and gaps develop among peoples and between people and nature. Only water can bring the piece back together, awaken seeds hidden in the ground, and enliven the parched Tree of Life." One of the most important ways to call forth the water of life is through story. For years Michael Meade has been steeped in stories, some from the ground of his own life, others from the ancient rivers of Celtic, European, and African myth. Still others emerge from years spent as a teacher, listening to the stories that both men and women carry. From these stories he derives medicine for healing individual wounds and uncovers rituals for the remaking of community. Through stories that explore and illuminate the lives of men, Meade examines the wounds that often arise between father and son and the spells that can exist between mother and child. These "troubles" are investigated from psychological and mythological perspectives in order to uncover the layers of meaning embedded in life experiences and to discover the seeds of healing. At the core of the book are stories of initiatory events that mark a man's or a woman's soul over and pull a person deeper into life than he or she would normally choose to go. Seen as tempering through fire and water, these events decide who a person is, cause some power to erupt from inside, or strip everything away until all that remains is one's essential self. Attuned to our modern needs - the wounds of divorce, addiction, and loss, the moral abandonment of children, the gap between the genders - and our mythic inheritance, Men and the Water of Life offers narratives that reflect and resonate with the oldest parts of the human psyche - the place where things began and the place where things can begin again.

    Illustrated by award-winning artists.

    But can he find out where Sky Chief keeps it? And if he does, will he be able to escape without being discovered? His dream seems impossible, but if anyone can find a way to bring light to the world, wise and clever Raven can!

    In fact original fairy tales are still being written. Over the last century and a half many well-known authors have used the characters and settings and themes of traditional tales such as 'Cinderella', 'Hansel and Gretel', and 'Beauty and the Beast' to produce new and characteristic works of wonder and enchantment. The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales brings together forty of the best of these stories by British and American writers from John Ruskin and Nathaniel Hawthorne to I. B. Singer and Angela Carter. These tales are full of princes and princesses, witches and dragons and talking animals, magic objects, evil spells, and unexpected endings. Some of their authors, like John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde, use the form to point a social or spiritual moral; others such as Jeanne Desy and Richard Kennedy, turn the traditional stories inside out to extraordinary effect. James Thurber, Bernard Malamud, and Donald Barthelme, among many others, bring the characters and plots of the traditional fairy tale into the contemporary world to make satiric comments on modern life. The literary skill, wit, and sophistication of these stories appeal to an adult audience, even though some of them were originally written for children. They include light-hearted comic fairy stories like Charles Dickens's 'The Magic Fishbone' and L. F. Baum's 'The Queen of Quok', thoughtful and often moving tales like Lord Dunsany's 'The Kith of the Elf Folk' and Philip K. Dick's 'The King of the Elves', and profoundly disturbing ones like Lucy LaneClifford's 'The New Mother', and Ursula Le Guin's 'The Wife's Story'. Together they prove that the fairy tale is not only one of the most popular and enduring forms, but a significant and continually developing part of literature.Uncle David's nonsensical story about giants and fairies / Catherine Sinclair --Feathertop / Nathaniel Hawthorne --The King of the Golden River / John Ruskin --The story of Fairyfoot / Frances Browne --The light princess / George MacDonald --The magic fishbone / Charles Dickens --A toy princess / Mary De Morgan --The new mother / Lucy Lane Clifford --Good luck is better than gold / Juliana Horatia Ewing --The apple of contentment / Howard Pyle --The griffin and the minor canon / Frank Stockton --The selfish giant / Oscar Wilde --The rooted lover / Laurence Housman --The song of the morrow / Robert Louis Stevenson --The reluctant dragon / Kenneth Grahame --The book of beasts / E. Nesbit --The Queen of Quok / L.F. Baum --The magic ship / H.G. Wells --The Kith of the elf-folk / Lord Dunsany --The story of Blixie Bimber and the power of the gold buckskin whincher / Carl Sandburg --The lovely myfanwy / Walter De la Mare --The troll / T.H. White --Gertrude's child / Richard Hughes --The unicorn in the garden / James Thurber --Bluebeard's daugher / Sylvia Townsend Warner --The chaser / John Collier --The King of the elves / Philip K. Dick --In the family / Naomi Mitchison --The jewbird / Bernard Malamud --Menaseh's dream / I.B. Singer --The glass mountain / Donald Barthelme --Prince Amilec / Tanith Lee --Petronella / Jay Williams --The man who had seen the rope trick / Joan Aiken --The courtship of Mr Lyon / Angela Carter --The princess who stood on her own two feet / Jeanne Desy --The wife's story / Ursula Le Guin --The river maid / Jane Yolen --The porcelain man / Richard Kennedy --Old man Potchikoo / Louise Erdrich

    Dramatic, arresting, and richly colored pastel illustrations. Full color.

    BEAGLEILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE BARR "Although the wombat is real and the dragon is not, nobody knows what a wombat looks like and everyone knows what a dragon looks like." Not a novel, not a book of short stories, Adventures in Unhistory is a book of the fantastic--a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and--revealed at last--the Secret of Hyperborea. The facts are here, the foundations behind rumors, legends, and the imaginations of generations of tale-spinners. But far from being dry recitals, these meditations, or lectures, or deadpan prose performances are as lively, as crazily inventive, as witty as the best fiction of the author, a writer praised by Gardner Dozois as "one of the great short story writers of our times." Who, on the subject of Dragons, could write coldly, dispassionately, guided only by logic?  Certainly not Avram Davidson. Certain facts, these facts, deserve more than recitation; they deserve flourish, verve, gusto, style--the late, great Avram Davidson's unique voice.  That prose which, in the words of Peter S. Beagle's Preface to this volume, "cries out to be read aloud."

    Charmingly illustrated.

    Now, in Gabriel's Palace, scholar Howard Schwartz has collected the greatest of these stories, sacred and secular, in a marvelously readable anthology. 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.

    He did not know he was hearing anything special, but he was, in fact, learning a number of stories that came to America through Scots-Irish immigrants. These stories were still told in the Appalachians during the 1950s and centered around Jack, a universal legendary figure who, by various names, is found in nearly every culture. Jack is that everyman who encounters trials common to all: earning a living, winning a mate, subduing tyrants and ogres of all kinds. Jack wins by conquering his own timidity, by engaging his own wit, by plodding along, or simply by blind luck. Like each of us, Jack seeks to make sense of the world and to find his way in it. These stories from Appalachia America will make readers laugh as well as teach them about the importance of caring, fairness and resourcefulness.

    

    Presented in both English and the original languages, these works offer unique insights into the worldview and lives of pre-literate peoples in various stages of cultural and social development. The poems reveal the beliefs, perceptions, and artistic genius of fifteen peoples scattered across Northern Europe from Scandinavia, deep into Russia and beyond the Urals, and of the Hungarians in Central Europe. Magnificently produced, with more than forty-five illustrations, the book begins with contexualizing essays on the Finno-Ugrian peoples, oral poetry, and the beliefs and ritual practices reflected in the poems. The poems themselves are arranged thematically, according to such topics as cosmology, hunting, agriculture, animal husbandry, love, marriage, healing, and death. They are followed by a poem-by-poem commentary which contextualizes and explicates the text.

    folk-stories of the Innu people of Eastern Canada

    'A strange, compelling book... an undoubted success.' —The New York Times

    Four artists, independently regressed into their suppressed memories, tell the same details of their 1976 abduction. Richly illustrated by the artists who were abducted. Indexed

    Eckbert the Fair is a compelling study in paranoia and retribution; The Runenberg a story of the mind-destroying power of Nature. In Kleist’s The Betrothal on Santo Domingo, conflict and persecution during the slave revolt of 1803 on Haiti symbolise a world-view in which evil seems destined to prevail over good. The Earthquake in Chile, despite its brevity perhaps the most epic of all Kleist’s stories, presents an extraordinary pile-up of cataclysmic events, at the high-point of which the horror is turned on its head.E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Jesuit Chapel in G. and Don Giovanni, the latter containing a celebrated and influential interpretation of Mozart’s opera, show the conflict between art and life and the Romantic vision of the artistic vocation.This volume of new translations contains several works which, though highly characteristic of their authors, are not readily available elsewhere in English.

    Mermaids and medicine women, spirits of the wind, water, and woods inhabit this book of Ojibwa myths, exquisitely illustrated by Maxine Noel, a member of Oglala Sioux.

    It is simultaneously an ethnographic inquiry into the nature of art, an introduction to modern Turkey, and a model study of folk art, combining the theories of folklore, anthropology, cultural geography, and art history. Describing his research in the cities, towns, and mountain villages, Glassie ranges widely across media. He tells of architecture, calligraphy, woodworking, and earthenware, but lays particular emphasis on the brilliant, underglaze-painted ceramics of Kutahya and the rich, piled carpets for which Turkey has been famed for centuries. While searching for the traits that define art and the stylistic complexities that characterize Turkish creativity, Glassie focuses on the artists and their theories and practices as well as the works they produce. The result is an account of the current state of Islamic art and a comprehensive analysis of a deep and lively artistic tradition.

    These classic stories portray that part of the male psyche that is normally buried under conventional male roles, heroic ideals, and patriarchal ambitions, breaking dramatically with traditional masculine values and typical stereotypes.

    books

    In more than three hundred major entries, alphabetically arranged by subject, artworks are listed in chronological order, delineating the history of artistic interest in the subject, including painting, sculpture, music, dance, opera, drama, and literature over the last seven centuries. By bringing together information heretofore segregated by discipline, time period, or other constraint, Jane Davidson Reid has created an invaluable tool for the study of the history of the arts in the Western world. Ranging from Achilles to Zeus, entries cover all the important mythic beings of the classical world, from gods, goddesses, and heroes to nymphs, shepherds, and satyrs. A headnote to each entry identifies the subject, briefly describes relevant events and episodes recounted in Greek and Roman myths, and explains thematic cross-currents represented in the list of artworks that follows. A list of classical literary sources follows the headnote. Each listing of an artwork includes the artist's name, the title of the work, and the date of its creation, publication, or first performance, as appropriate. Also noted are the medium or genre of the work, the present location of works in the fine arts, and other pertinent information. Sources of data on each artwork appear in each listing. Enhanced by a comprehensive system of cross-references, a complete list of the sources of data cited in the listings, and an extensive artist index, which will enable readers to locate works by a given artist across numerous entries, this work presents its vast body of data in a way that is easily accessible to specialist and nonspecialist alike. No other work equals its interdisciplinary scope; no other work matches its usefulness to historians of the arts; and no other work possesses its appeal to scholars, students, and general readers interested in classical mythology and its enduring popularity in Western traditions of artistic expression.

    When you've done your best, the authors give you answers that have come down through time. Can you outthink the sages, or will they help you out of a tight spot?

    

    Supplementing each tale is a table of facts about the story's leading animal. A map of Africa shows where the animals live and migrate.

    When a Japanese woodcutter breaks his promise and describes his encounter with a terrifying snow woman, he loses his wife and must make a dangerous journey to win her back.

    The hungry giant is tricked out of his delightful supper.

    Tom Cowan has pursued this theme in a lyrical cross-cultural exploration of shamanism and the Celtic imagination that examines the myths and tales of the ancient Celtic poets and storytellers, and outlines techniques used to access the shaman's world.Tom Cowan is the author of 'How to Top Into Your Own Genius' and coauthor of 'Power of the Witch and Love Magic'."An engrossing, intelligent, and shamanically well-informed work that is an important gift to all those Westerners seeking a knowledge of Celtic shamanism"MICHAEL HARNER, PH. D., author of 'The Way of the Shaman'"An important and fascinating work on Celtic shamanism. Highly recommended"SERGE KAHILI KING, author of 'Urban Shaman'"A fascinating and entertaining study…(illuminating) glimpses of an original Celtic shamanism that appears in British and Irish folklore and literary remains. 'Fire in the Head' also offers an account of Celtic supernaturalism in general, and unveils the mysterious background of certain folk heroes, such as Robin Hood"AKE HULTKRANTZ, author of 'Native Religions of North America'"A remarkable exploration of shamanism (using) cross-cultural myths to explain the history and roots of the Celtic spirit"SANDRA INGERMAN, author of 'Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self'

    Tells the story of Biddy Early who was a remarkable woman who possessed extraordinary powers and natural gifts of knowing the unknown.

    Folklorist Cinda K. Baldwin examines not only many traditional pottery forms but also the methods by which they were thrown, glazed, decorated, and fired.Among the topics on which Baldwin focuses are the contributions of slaves and freed blacks to the pottery industry, including the remarkable work of the potter named Dave, who marked his wares with brief verse inscriptions, including this one found on a large food-storage container: “Great & Noble Jar, / hold sheep, goat, and bear.”The book is illustrated with nearly two hundred photographs (including fifteen color plates), maps, and drawings and includes an index of South Carolina potters.

    Each book describes these customs as they are seen through the eyes of the participants and discusses how Native American people maintain their cultural identities in contemporary society.

    Klinkenberg has spent much of his adulthood traveling about the state that he calls home searching out what remains of the real Florida and real Floridians, preserving them in words for all time. In this delightful and loving book, Floridians and visitors alike will find a Florida far removed from Disney World, dangerous cities and crowded beaches.

    The only thing known for sure about the identity of the ghost is who she is not! One of the first things incoming VI freshmen hear is the tragic story of a young girl who died while a student there in the 1920s. Vera's scandalous love affair and suicide are described within these pages. While the author was researching known facts, there was a surprising development -- and he tells the rest of the story.No one knows for sure how many ghosts haunt the well-known Martha Washington Inn, but one regular visitor is a genteel, fiddle-playing shade from the past... The world-famous Barter Theater is haunted by the spirit of the man who founded it.... And a ghost (or two) could be lurking in a museum building that was once a tavern on The Wilderness Road.As noted in the Introduction by author Sharyn McCrumb, southwest Virginia abounds in legends and "the ghosts outnumber the people". You will meet some interesting members of this phantom citizenry in the two dozen tales that Price has included in this book of hauntings.

    Lively, imaginative narrative, sprinkled with Basque phrases. Vibrant watercolor images. Glossary of Basque terms and pronunciation key.

    

    No single institution in this region has had a more profound cultural impact than the countless African-American churches that accent the landscape. Landmarks to some, places of spiritual refuge to others, "home church" to devoted members, these sacred spaces have been planned, built, decorated, and maintained by local communities. They provide a sustaining force in both symbol and practice. The forty duotone plates in this book include landscapes with churches, church interiors, cemeteries, baptismal lakes and bayous, and black congregations. This is an elegant testimony to the persistence, creativity, and communal symbolism of the church and its affiliated expressions. In the accompanying text Rankin draws upon his interviews with preachers and church members and upon documentary recordings of church services. In the introductory essay Charles Reagan Wilson examines the symbolic meanings of sacred space and discusses the historical and cultural importance of the African-American church in the Delta.

    Illustrations were inspired by the setting for Perrault's original tale.

    His close reading of the individual texts leads to illuminating intertextual parallels, drawn through an archetypal perspective, which creates coherence among the many recurring image-patterns and motifs.The haunting is an incursion into the male ego's dominion: the female demon is seen as a usurper or intruder; she inhabits and insidiously attempts to exert her influence, to feminize the male. These demands include the impelling need to acknowledge male femininity, or androgyny. Ignoring this drive, which Andriano views as instinctual and archetypal, often results in what the Romantics called nympholepsy, and what Carl Jung called anima-possession.Although the notion that men need to acknowledge their own femininity is not new, the realization that doing so involves coming to terms not only with Eros (in its widest sense) but also with Thanatos has never been sufficiently emphasized, except perhaps by the post-Jungian James Hillman, by whose work Andriano is especially influenced. This book clearly and succinctly demonstrates that fear of the inner feminine prevents a man from ever fully maturing; his anima remains that of a child (he can only view women as girls or mothers), and he never comes to know, much less to love, the dark side of his soul, his own lady of darkness.

    This highly entertaining reference book presents the popular lore, social history, and practical uses of nearly seven hundred native flowers.

    From tiny Johnny-jump-ups to velvety violas, these multihued blossoms have inspired artists, textile designers, and even cooks, and stationery, keepsakes, and embroidered linens have immortalized the flower that means "thoughts of you." Now Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead, gardening and herb experts extraordinaire, offer A Potpourri of Pansies, a beautifully illustrated tribute to their very favorite flower.Pansies are among the easiest flowers to cultivate, both indoors and out, and because they are simple to dry, they can be used in myriad decorative ways, such as fragrant potpourris or embellished candles. Chris and Emelie showcase the versatile pansy with recipes, gardening hints, simple bouquets, and trivia and lore. Pansy lovers will rejoice in this gorgeous celebration of a perennially popular flower.

    Many selections are local to New England; others are known elsewhere in the United States. A substantial number are related to English, Scottish, and other European traditional music.Among the songs in this volume are Did You Ever See a Lassie?; Here Come Three Dukes a-Riding; London Bridge; The Twelve Days of Christmas; The Girl I Left Behind Me; Pop! Goes the Weasel; Speed the Plough; Steamboat Quickstep; Virginia Reel; Blow the Man Down; Rio Grande; Shenandoah, or The Wide Missouri; Whisky Johnnie; A Bear Went Over the Mountain; The Brookfield Murder; The Devil and the Farmer's Wife; A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go, and many more.In addition to piano accompaniment for each song, the author has provided complete instructions for the singing games and country dances, historical notes on the songs, information about the singers, and other material. A fascinating introduction to the history and lore of New England folk music, this practical guide is indispensable for sing-alongs, dances, school programs, and other functions.

    Although the country was very peaceful, the Shoguns of the Tokugawa family ruled with an iron hand. In this atmosphere of oppression and cruelty people found consolation in stories and fairy tales in which wisdom and justice always overcame evil and tyranny. They expressed the people's longing and hopes for a dignified life without fear, and that is whrer the stories aoubt Judge Ooka belong.

    These fanciful, brightly colored figures created by rural Mexican woodcarvers reflect the myths and traditions still very much a part of the carvers' daily lives. A spectacular gallery of over 160 full-color photographs beautifully portrays these artisans and their work, while an informative text examines the intricacies of the carvers' craft. The only volume devoted exclusively to this distinctive and magical art form, Oaxacan Woodcarving will inspire and inform anyone with an interest in folk art, photography, or anthropology.

    Full color.