But only the girl who proves she can see him will be his bride. The two beautiful but spoiled daughters of a poor village man try their best to be chosen, but it is their Rough-Face-Girl sister, scarred on her face and arms from tending fires, who sees the Invisible Being in the wonder of the natural world.The dramatic illustrations reflect the vibrant earth colors of the native landscape and the wisdom and sensitivity of the protagonist.

    The Classic Fairy Tales focuses on six tale types: "Little Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast," "Snow White," "Cinderella," "Bluebeard," and "Hansel and Gretel," and presents multicultural variants and sophisticated literary rescriptings. Also reprinted are tales by Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde."Criticism" gathers twelve essays that interpret aspects of fairy tales, including their social origins, historical evolution, psychological drama, gender issues, and national identities.A Selected Bibliography is included.

    A new rendition of a beloved classic by award-winning author/illustrator team Jim Aylesworth and Barbara McClintock.Run! Run! Fast as you can! You can't catch me! I'm the Gingerbread Man! I've run from a husband! I've run from a wife! I've run from a butcher with a carving knife! I've run from a cow, and a muddy old sow, and I'll run from you, too! I can! I can!Jim Aylesworth's fresh, spirited tale --- to be read LOUD out loud --- and Barbara McClintock's expressive, exquisitely drawn characters combine to create a glorious new rendition of the favorite story about that sassy but delicious little cookie.

    Gathered from around the world, from regions as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe, from North and South American Indian cultures and New World settlers, from Asia and the Middle East, these 100 folktales celebrate strong female heroines.Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters is for all women who are searching to define who they are, to redefine the world and shape their collective sensibility. It is for men who want to know more about what it means to be a woman. It is for our daughters and our sons, so that they can learn to value all kinds of courage, courage in battle and the courage of love. It is for all of us to help build a more just vision of woman.

    To their surprise, villager after villager refuses to share, each one closing the door with a bang. As they sit to rest beside a well, one of the travelers observes that if the townspeople have no food to share, they must be "in greater need than we are." With that, the travelers demonstrate their special recipe for a magical soup, using a stone as a starter. All they need is a carrot, which a young girl volunteers. Not to be outdone, another villager contributes a potato, and the soup grows as others bring corn, celery, and other vegetables and seasonings. In this cumulative retelling of an ancient and widely circulated legend, author Heather Forest shows us that when each person makes a small contribution, "the collective impact can be huge." Susan Gaber's paintings portray the optimism and timelessness of a story that celebrates teamwork and generosity. This story about community teaches readers the importance of sharing, generosity and vegetables!Winner of Parents' Choice Award & Bank Street College: Best Children's Books of the Year

    the richness of their work underscores the beauty of the legend, preserving this story for generations to come.

     Everyone knows some version of this popular children's hand-clapping rhyme, but in this adaptation, the elephant's fateful jump over the fence is just the beginning of the fun. Popular children's author Mary Ann Hoberman has elaborated on this well known tale to create an absurdly funny story children will want to sing, chant, read, and clap to again and again.

    It covers the persons, themes, concepts, places, and creatures of Celtic mythology, in all its ancient and modern traditions, in 4000 entries ranging from brief definitions to extended essays on major tale cycles. An introductory essay explains who the Celts were, explores the history of the Celtic revival, and examines the meaning and role of mythology and tradition. An invaluable pronunciation guide for the major Celtic languages, a topic index of entries, thorough cross-references within Celtic mythology and to other mythologies, such as Classical and Norse, enables the reader to see the relationship between Celtic mythology, later Irish literature, and other literary and mythological traditions. The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology is the first place to turn for an authoritative guide to this colorful world of tragedy, revenge, honor, and heroism of Celtic myth.

    Three clever billy goats outwit a big, ugly troll that lives under the bridge they must cross on their way up the mountain.

    Brimming with stories, activities, folklore, and recipes, this popular holiday gift book traces the history behind traditions of the season and provides practical suggestions for celebrating the Winter Solstice as a joyous, life-affirming festival.

    It does more than make one healthy, it creates lust and knowledge, ecstasy and mythological insight. In Witchcraft Medicine the authors take the reader on a journey that examines the women who mix the potions and become the healers; the legacy of Hecate; the demonization of nature's healing powers and sensuousness; the sorceress as shaman; and the plants associated with witches and devils. They explore important seasonal festivals and the plants associated with them, such as wolf's claw and calendula as herbs of the solstice and alder as an herb of the time of the dead--Samhain or Halloween. They also look at the history of forbidden medicine from the Inquisition to current drug laws, with an eye toward how the sacred plants of our forebears can be used once again.

    Although at first glance and to its many devotees Inari worship may seem to be a unified phenomenon, it is in fact exceedingly multiple, noncodified, and noncentralized. No single regulating institution, dogma, scripture, or myth centers the practice. In this exceptionally insightful study, the author explores the worship of Inari in the context of homogeneity and diversity in Japan. The shape-shifting fox and the wish-fulfilling jewel, the main symbols of Inari, serve as interpretive metaphors to describe the simultaneously shared yet infinitely diverse meanings that cluster around the deity. That such diversity exists without the apparent knowledge of Inari worshippers is explained by the use of several communicative strategies that minimize the exchange of substantive information. Shared generalized meanings (tatemae) are articulated while private meanings and complexities (honne) are left unspoken. The appearance of unity is reinforced by a set of symbols representing fertility, change, and growth in ways that can be interpreted and understood by many individuals of various ages and occupations.The Fox and the Jewel describes the rich complexity of Inari worship in contemporary Japan. It explores questions of institutional and popular power in religion, demonstrates the ways people make religious figures personally meaningful, and documents the kinds of communicative styles that preserve the appearance of homogeneity in the face of astonishing factionalism.

    It features stories told by Davey Arch, Robert Bushyhead, Edna Chekelelee, Marie Junaluska, Kathi Smith Littlejohn, and Freeman Owle--six Cherokee storytellers who learned their art and their stories from family and community. The tales gathered here include animal stories, creation myths, legends, and ghost stories as well as family tales and stories about such events in Cherokee history as the Trail of Tears. Taken together, they demonstrate that storytelling is a living, vital tradition. As new stories are added and old stories are changed or forgotten, Cherokee storytelling grows and evolves. In an introductory essay, Barbara Duncan writes about the Cherokee storytelling tradition and explains the oral poetics style in which the stories are presented. This format effectively conveys the rhythmic, oral quality of the living storytelling tradition, allowing the reader to hear the voice of the storyteller.

    In this traditional Chinese tale, a poor man receives a treasure of gold and discovers the true value of simple pleasures.

    Book by Harry Smith

     This retelling of a traditional Japanese folktale teaches readers young or old a lesson about life and love.

    Songs, stories, images, and films about frightening monsters have always been invented to allay the very terrors that our sleep of reason conjures up. Warner shows how these images and stories, while they may unfold along different lines - scaring, lulling, or making mock - have the strategic simultaneous purpose of both arousing and controlling the underlying fear. In analysis of material long overlooked by cultural critics, historians, and even psychologists, Warner revises our understanding of storytelling in our contemporary culture. She asks us to reconsider the unintended consequences of our age-old, outmoded notions about masculine identity and about racial stereotyping, and warns us of the dangerous, unthinking ways we perpetuate the bogeyman.

    Olsen place the oldest English writings in an entirely different perspective. Keeping the classroom teacher’s needs foremost in mind, Raffel and Olsen organize the major old English poems (except Beowulf) and new prose selections so as to facilitate both reading and studying. A general introduction provides an up-to-date and detailed historical account of the Anglo-Saxon period, and concise introductions open the literature sections of the book and many of the translations. Raffel’s masterly translations of Old English poetry, praised as fine poems in their own right, reproduce much of the flavor as well as the sense of the originals. With more than 1800 newly translated lines and many revised older translations, the poems in this volume are organized into four genres—elegies, heroic poems, religious poems, and wisdom poetry. Raffel’s new translations include more than twenty poem-riddles, with proposed solutions in a separate section. Prose translations—grouped in historical, testamentary and legal, religious, social and instructional, and medical and magical categories—feature writings by King Alfred, Aelfric, and Wulfstan, among others.

    The Legend of White Buffalo Woman tells the inspiring story of the first peace pipe, presented to the Lakota people to connect them to the Great Spirit, who will guide them through the hardships of life.

    Stretching from the prairies of Louisiana to the oil towns of East Texas, it is ruled over by accordion-squeezing, washboard-wielding musicians like Clifton Chenier, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Boozoo Chavis. This is the kingdom of zydeco. Eh toi!

    It's about using the unique and specialized talents of that animal, plant, or object. Nothing makes this technique and method more clear than the Shapeshifter Tarot.This amazing 81-card deck follows the traditional pattern, although the names of many of the Major Arcana cards have been shifted to fit the more Pagan approach to this deck. For example, the Fool becomes Initiation, the Magician changes to the Sorcerer, and the Hermit becomes The Seer. Three additional cards, The Double, The Journey, and The Dreamer are part of the tradition on which this is based and will add additional meaning to your readings and personal work.And there's more This boxed set comes with a 264-page book. Of course it has vivid interpretations of all the cards, revealing their symbolism and divinatory meanings. It also includes sample readings, key words to make readings easy, how to meditate with the cards, using the deck for spellworking, and the skill of shapeshifting itself.Combined with brilliant art of transcendent majesty and beauty, this uniquely shamanic deck is simply one of the most powerful Tarot decks available today. It is also one of the most potent tools for Pagans of all traditions. Whether you want this deck for personal work or for giving readings, one thing is very clear: you'll want to get and use this deck every day

    Robert Schenkkan's 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play The Kentucky Cycle once again adopted these stereotypes, recasting the American myth as a story of repeated failure and poverty--the failure of the American spirit and the poverty of the American soul. Dismayed by national critics' lack of attention to the negative depictions of mountain people in the play, a group of Appalachian scholars rallied against the stereotypical representations of the region's people. In Back Talk from Appalachia, these writers talk back to the American mainstream, confronting head-on those who view their home region one-dimensionally. The essays, written by historians, literary scholars, sociologists, creative writers, and activists, provide a variety of responses. Some examine the sources of Appalachian mythology in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature. Others reveal personal experiences and examples of grassroots activism that confound and contradict accepted images of ""hillbillies."" The volume ends with a series of critiques aimed directly at The Kentucky Cycle and similar contemporary works that highlight the sociological, political, and cultural assumptions about Appalachia fueling today's false stereotypes.

    3 Sword in the Stone - Boy Merlin tells evil king, red dragon slain is his future, hides son Arthur for Uther. 4 Island of the Lost Children - Griffin flies Dutch Prince Hagen to isle with Hilda and princesses. 5 Roland - Count Ganelon from Charlemagne in France, betrays to pagan Spaniards, who flee when devout Roland sounds horn 6 Werewolf - Faithless wife hides clothes so Sir Marrok stays animal. 7 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Youngest Camelot knight beheads green bearded stranger with own axe, after promising to allow return on New Year Day.8 Robin Hood and his Merry Men - archer disguised in red beggar robes and eye patch contests for Sheriff's gold arrow. 9 Chanticleer and the Fox - Fable where fox captures rooster by flattery.

    Haunting illustrations complement the text beautifully.

    Every tale returns to the most basic question: What is fair?With tales from Africa, Asia, and Europe, from Irish, Jews, and Muslims, from American schools and courtrooms, The Cow of No Color is truly an international gathering. Ranging from tricks to watch for in playground games to big issues to ponder for a lifetime, here is a book with insights and challenges for every member of every family.

    

    Now, in "The Book of Sea Monsters," these unnatural creatures of the elements are brought to unnerving reality by award-winning artist Bob Eggleton. Exploring the myth, legend, scientific documentation and ficiton inspired by these strange beasts at the edge of imagination, "The Book of Sea Monsters" will thrill and fascinate all lovers of mythology, legend, and the many secrets of the sea.

    So begins the story of Hanuman the monkey who believes he has lost his magic after leaping all the way to the sun. For children ages 7 and up.

    They have written their names inside each front cover and pored over the colorful pictures. Parents have shared Golden moments with their children, thanks to the happy hours spent with the books.

    The diverse tales, selected for their rich histories, spiritual writings and adventurous characters, offer the perfect bed-time--or any other time--activities for parents, grandparents, siblings or babysitters. The book includes 50 beautiful drawings that capture the spirit of these tales, legends, lore and fables. The narratives are faithful adaptations of the oral and written stories passed down through the centuries. They include Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Paula Fox.

    A dramatic series that captures, culture by culture, the information that never makes it into the history books: strange stories, mystic rites, angry gods, vision quests.

    4 maps.

    The irrepressible trickster from the award-winning Aunt Nancy and Old Man Trouble ousts a houseguest with a hitch in his git-along.

    Mentioned in the Talmud and elaborated on in the Midrash and Kabbalistic writings, Lilith is said to be Adam's first partner. While the figure of Lilith may be as old as Jewish culture itself, until recently her stories were told primarily by men and their depiction of Lilith was consistent: she was a witch, a temptress, a dangerous, evil woman. This anthology offers a vivid, provocative, and enlightening sampling of Jewish women's responses to the Lilith myth.

    Miguel, the cleverest of the pigs, sees through the wolf's artificially sugared tricks, and ultimately destroys the wolf's power to deceive others.

    The assumption that we all know what a dragon is, has been so deeply rooted in our cultural imagination that scholars speak casually of dragons as if the word required no interpretation. In this book the author deploys the techniques and theories of modern literary criticism texts to illuminate the function and meaning of dragons in the medieval Germanic world.

    Contents: King Tut the boy king --The shrimp squad --The blue box mystery --Hale-Bopp: the 'Wow' comet --Face painting --Puffin stuff --Beauty-ful music --A case of the giggles --Amazing but true --Hercules and the hero tree --Tara Lipinski: princess of the ice --They're just eggs-traordinary --A pencil garden --Temper, temper, Donald! --Mysterious maidens of the sea --In the middle of the action! --The joke's on you!

    This book's contents range from Native American love stories to Davy Crockett's account of killing a bear with a knife, from Brer Rabbit's mischief to Johnny Appleseed's good deeds, from hilarious yarns about mosquitoes to eerie encounters with the devil.

    A day of family reunions, meals, and fun, Halloween brings people of all ages together with rhyming, storytelling, family fireworks, and community bonfires. Perhaps most important, it has become a day that transcends the social conflict found in this often troubled nation. Through the extensive use of interviews, The Hallowed Eve offers a fascinating look at the various customs, both past and present, that mark the celebration of the holiday. Looking through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, and religious affiliation, Jack Santino examines how the traditions exist in a nonthreatening, celebratory way to provide a model of how life could be in Northern Ireland. Halloween, concludes Santino, is a marriage of death and life, a joining of cultural opposites: indoor and outdoor, domesticity and wildness, female and male, young and old.

    Performed for the purpose of religious worship, this fusion of dance, song, and percussion survives today in the Bolton Community of McIntosh County, Georgia. Incorporating oral history, first-person accounts, musical transcriptions, photographs, and drawings, Shout Because You're Free documents a group of performers known as the McIntosh County Shouters.Derived from African practices, the ring shout combines call-and-response singing, the percussion of a stick or broom on a wood floor, and hand-clapping and foot-tapping. First described in depth by outside observers on the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia during the Civil War, the ring shout was presumed to have died out in active practice until 1980, when the shouters in the Bolton community first came to the public's attention.Shout Because You're Free is the result of sixteen years of research and fieldwork by Art and Margo Rosenbaum, authors of Folk Visions and Voices. The book includes descriptions of present-day community shouts, a chapter on the history of the shout's African origins, the recollections of early outside observers, and later folklorists' comments. In addition, the tunes and texts of twenty-five shout songs performed by the McIntosh County Shouters are transcribed by ethnomusicologist Johann S. Buis.Shout Because You're Free is a fascinating look at a unique living tradition that demonstrates ties to Africa, slavery, and Emancipation while interweaving these influences with worship and oneness with the spirit.

    Kelly mines a rich seam of humour and sadness out of the resilience of a people rich in hospitality and generosity, imagination, culture and tradition.

    Circumpolar Native peoples today experience strikingly different and often competing systems of narrative and knowledge. These systems include traditional oral stories; the authoritative, literate voice of the modern state; and the narrative forms used by academic disciplines to represent them to outsiders. Pressured by other systems of narrative and truth, how do Native peoples use their stories and find them still meaningful in the late twentieth century? Why does storytelling continue to thrive? What can anthropologists learn from the structure and performance of indigenous narratives to become better academic storytellers themselves? Cruikshank addresses these questions by deftly blending the stories gathered from her own fieldwork with interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives on dialogue and storytelling, including the insights of Walter Benjamin, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Harold Innis. Her analysis reveals the many ways in which the artistry and structure of storytelling mediate between social action and local knowledge in indigenous northern communities.

    Violent ghosts, lost souls, and strange specters all wander spookily through these stories--and the creepy illustrations heighten the horror. Read a bone-chilling account of a night in a haunted house, and of a ghost who scared a dog to death. What would you do if a spirit kept messing things up after you, stealing clothes and food, and trying to wrap you in its arms? And one museum in Toronto appears to have more on the grounds than just fine art! Fly through time with a pilot who saw into the future --and foretold tragedy. Watch with astonishment as poltergeists wreak havoc, tapping and banging, turning lights on and off, and throwing over furniture. Meet a doll you won't want to play with, and a demonic hairdresser who'll really give you a bad hair day! The spirit of one sad boy, though, wanted only to see justice done. Many first-hand accounts tell of ghost ships, runaway trains, and phantom planes. Could they be true? Engineer J.M. Pinkney thought so. During a train voyage in 1892 he watched horrified as a fast-moving locomotive headed directly for his train. Pinkney didn't believe his friends when they claimed that the "daredevil driver" was a dead man, until he learned that the train had arrived safely at the station--without any driver. Don't let the icy grip of fear grow too tight--if you can help it! Sterling 352 pages, 4 3/16 x 5 1/4.

    In this journey through a year in the strange and colorful life of the trolls we get to know them as we observe them on winter fishing trips and warm summer evenings.

    Like FLORA BRITANNICA, this selection includes personal anecdotes, observations and regional knowledge of people from all over Britain.

    The fourteen stories in this collection are some of his favorites, previously published in The Ox of the Wonderful Horns; Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum (Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration); and Lion and the Ostrich Chicks (Coretta Scott King Honor Book). Retold with rich, musical narration, and illustrated with Mr. Bryan's distinctive paintings, these tales are full of fun and magic and a few lessons to be learned. They are tales of tricksters, chieftains, and both wise and foolish creatures. You will learn why Frog and Snake never play together, or why Bush Cow and Elephant are bad friends, or of the problems that a husband has because he likes to count spoonfuls. Although the stories come from many parts of Africa, they are full of the universal human spirit, to be shared and treasured for every generation, uh-huh.

    Which 12 gods and goddesses ruled from Mount Olympus'? Who are the Fates, the Graces, the Muses? How did Theseus slay the monstrous Minotaur and escape from its labyrinth? What was the one thing to remain inside Pandora's vase? Each entry is illustrated with a rich selection of images drawn from statuary, painting, pottery, frescoes and mosaics, and includes the subject's lineage, personality and symbol.- 50 individually die-cute cards- Full color throughout- Knowledge at your fingertips- For the whole family

    Grouped in four progressive levels, Read and Share books - available individually for the first time - are specially selected for qualities that encourage literacy skills and a love of reading.Sixteen top-quality books with notes for extending reading fun inspire the confidence parents and children need to experience the joys of reading . . . together. Plus an informative Parents’ Handbook!What is Read and Share?—An expert selection of sixteen high-quality picture books by superb authors and illustrators, featuring a multicultural array of subjects, including poetry and rhymes, traditional songs, stories, and information books —Four progressive levels - Beginnings, Early Steps, Next Steps, and Taking Off - each including four fabulous picture books—Two full spreads inside each book offering suggestions and activities inspired by the story, designed to help parents and children get the most out of each book - and build a foundation for reading success—A separate 24-page, full-color Parents’ Handbook providing extensive practical information and detailed answers to many of the questions parents ask about encouraging their children’s literacy

    It honors a tiny band of heroes, armed with little more than their faith in God, who defeated a mighty empire and proved that miracles truly do happen for those with the courage to believe in them. Eric A. Kimmel presents a wonderful Hanukkah compilation, filled with the history and flavor of this unique holiday. From familiar legends to contemporary stories, from delicious recipes to children's games, this is a treasury that will entertain and engage the whole family.

    Chicken meets a hungry crocodile. These and other Dan tales are engagingly retold with dramatic black-and-white linoleum prints.

    Ranging from Native American love stories to Davy Crockett's account of killing a bear with a knife, from Brer Rabbit's mischief to Johnny Appleseed's good deeds, from hilarious yarns about killer mosquitoes to eerie encounters with the devil, A Treasury of North American Folk Tales overflows with the bounty of American tradition.

    It tells the story of how the ancient Edo conceived of the world and how they attempted both to explain the origins of their human existence on earth and to interpret their environment.

    Gentry took this tradition to heart, and her legacy includes ballads, songs, stories, and riddles. Smith provides a full biography of this vibrant woman and the tradition into which she was born, presenting seventy of Gentry's song

    This new edition of George Mitchell’s collected photographs, interviews, songs, and field recordings makes this rich cultural heritage available to a new generation. Mitchell proves that the lower Chattahoochee Valley people “have something to dance about” and celebrates this “hotbed of great traditional Southern music . . . the only form of music that’s taken the entire world by storm.”Through Mitchell’s eyes and ears, we experience the indomitable spirit of a community and a way of life that might otherwise have been undocumented. He recorded “Field hollers and drum beating . . . old time blues and fiddle tunes galore . . . spirituals and gospel . . . country and jazz.” The photographs capture lands and faces worn and strengthened by generations of hard work. A field of neatly baled hay faces a photograph of an array of prized possessions; a slippered foot stands firmly beside a “cornshick” mop; an old woman sits in a church pew with her eyes closed and arms spread wide. These images offer a glimpse into the lives and memories of the people Mitchell met.In Celebration of a Legacy focuses on a community and the changing nature of tradition. Originally part of a 1981 arts festival and exhibition sponsored by the Columbus Museum, the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts, the reissued book and compact disc recordings command our attention today. Mitchell relates the preservation of art and culture in the lower Chattahoochee Valley to the wider world and calls us to a new awareness of our shared human legacy.