After delivering the manuscript to the legendary Bran Castle in Romania, Barkeley—a Romanian orphan himself—realizes to his horror that he's become a prisoner to the son of Vlad Dracul. To earn his freedom, Barkeley must decipher cryptic messages hidden in the text of the original Dracula that reveal the burial sites of certain Dracul family members. Barkeley's only hope is to ensure that he does not exhaust his usefulness to his captor until he’s able to escape. Soon he discovers secrets about his own lineage that suggest his selection for the task was more than coincidence. In this knowledge may lie Barkeley's salvation—or his doom. For now he must choose between a coward's flight and a mortal conflict against an ancient foe. Building on actual international events surrounding the publication of Bram Stoker's original novel, Royce Prouty has written a spellbinding debut novel that ranges from 1890s Chicago, London, and Transylvania to the perilous present.

    A name of horror, depravity and the darkest sensuality. Yet the real Dracula was just as alluring, just as terrifying, his tale not one of a monster but of a man... and a contradiction.His tale is told by those who knew him best. The only woman he ever loved...and whom he had to sacrifice. His closest comrade...and traitor. And his priest, betraying the secrets of the confessional to reveal the mind of the man history would forever remember as The Impaler. This is the story of the man behind the legend...as it has never been told before.

    Only now are we coming to a fuller appreciation of the nature and role of myth in human history. In these five lectures originally prepared for Canadian radio, Claude Lévi-Strauss offers, in brief summations, the insights of a lifetime spent interpreting myths and trying to discover their significance for human understanding. The lectures begin with a discussion of the historical split between mythology and science and the evidence that mythic levels of understanding are being reintegrated in our approach to knowledge. In an extension of this theme, Professor Lévi-Strauss analyzes what we have called “primitive thinking” and discusses some universal features of human mythology. The final two lectures outline the functional relationship between mythology and history and the structural relationship between mythology and music.

    Heather Lynn. Evil Archaeology investigates the archaeological record for artifacts and evidence of evil entities, revealing how demons from the ancient world may be dwelling among us. It also looks at the history and lore behind real relics, believed to be haunted, and includes historical accounts of demonic possession, as far back as the accounts of King Solomon invoking demons to help him build his famed Temple. Is there really a prehistoric fertility goddess figure that has been known to bring death to the families of anyone who holds it? Are there real vampire graveyards? Can the archaeological record prove the existence of demons and malevolent entities? Some tantalizing questions Evil Archaeology addresses include: •What is the origin of demons? •What role did Sumerian demons play in the development of civilization? •Are curses real? Can material objects contain evil? What about places? •What can we do to protect ourselves, according to historical records? •Was Jesus an exorcist? If this sounds all too disturbing, try not to worry. Evil Archaeology also includes ways to protect yourself and loved ones against malevolent forces, as well as practical advice from experienced exorcists and demonologists.

    Whether you believe these urban myths or not, they have the power to unnerve and enthral us all.

    In six hundred years, the Celts had produced some of the finest artistic and scientific masterpieces of the ancient world. In 58 BC, Julius Caesar marched over the Alps, bringing slavery and genocide to western Europe. Within eight years the Celts of what is now France were utterly annihilated, and in another hundred years the Romans had overrun Britain. It is astonishing how little remains of this great civilization. While planning a bicycling trip along the Heraklean Way, the ancient route from Portugal to the Alps, Graham Robb discovered a door to that forgotten world--a beautiful and precise pattern of towns and holy places based on astronomical and geometrical measurements: this was the three-dimensional "Middle Earth" of the Celts. As coordinates and coincidences revealed themselves across the continent, a map of the Celtic world emerged as a miraculously preserved archival document.Robb--"one of the more unusual and appealing historians currently striding the planet" (New York Times)--here reveals the ancient secrets of the Celts, demonstrates the lasting influence of Druid science, and recharts the exploration of the world and the spread of Christianity. A pioneering history grounded in a real-life historical treasure hunt, The Discovery of Middle Earth offers nothing less than an entirely new understanding of the birth of modern Europe.

    This makes it an easy read. There is a useful Historical Timeline which allows the reader to follow the complexities of Egyptian history and locate the mythology within the development of the country. Inside you will read about... ✓ A Timeline for Ancient Egypt ✓ Historical Egypt ✓ The Myth Of Creation ✓ The Pantheon Of Gods ✓ Mythology In Day To Day Ancient Egypt ✓ The Central Role Of The Temple And Some Temple Rituals ✓ Sources Of The History Of Egyptian Mythology ✓ The Underworld And Life After Death ✓ Pyramids And Their Locations The book includes the myths of the creation in some detail and introduces the top Deities in a Pantheon of over two thousand God and Goddesses. The presence and importance of the Nile is discussed and details of daily life, including the rituals followed in the temples, essentially the backbone of the economy, are well covered.

    Illustrated with woodcuts.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    Nor is it a collection of bizarre facts, though the Angel of the Bizarre might well find himself at home in it. It is not a scientific contribution, a vehicle for an exotic teaching, a testament, a document, a fable. It is simply an account - at times figurative, at times factual - of a first excursion into some as yet scarcely explored realms of consciousness. The Morning of the Magicians is a classic of radical literature, a book that has challenged assumptions and conventional knowledge for decades. It has shaken the foundations of beliefs all over the world and may be the most influential book published in the twentieth century. Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier spent years searching "through all the regions of consciousness, to the frontiers of science and tradition" and opened their minds to any fact or theory that went beyond the frontier of current theories. The result is this remarkable work, and the stream of possibilities that it contains: Do mutants exist, are they a future form of man? Does extrasensory perception reveal that human consciousness has advanced beyond its currently accepted limits? What connects the ancient art of alchemy and modern atomic physics?

    The tales drawn together in this book, from a wide range of medieval sources, span the centuries from the dawn of Christianity to the age of the Plantagenets. The Norse gods which peopled the Anglo-Saxon past survive in Beowulf; Cuchulainn, Taliesin and the magician Merlin take shape from Celtic mythology; and saints include Helena who brought a piece of the True Cross to Britain, and Joseph of Arimathea whose staff grew into the Glastonbury thorn. Tales of the British Arthur are followed by legends of later heroes, including Harold, Hereward and Godiva. These figures and many others were part of a familiar national mythology on which Shakespeare drew for Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet, creating the famous versions that are known today. Here the original stories are presented. RICHARD BARBER's other books include The Holy Grail, King Arthur: Hero and Legend, Arthurian Legends: An Anthology and The Knight and Chivalry.

    Rich with magic and achingly beautiful, they speak of a land of heroic battles, intense love and warrior ideals, in which the otherworld is explored and men mingle freely with the gods. From the vivid adventures of the great Celtic hero Cu Chulaind, to the stunning 'Exile of the Sons of Uisliu' - a tale of treachery, honour and romance - these are masterpieces of passion and vitality, and form the foundation for the Irish literary tradition: a mythic legacy that was a powerful influence on the work of Yeats, Synge and Joyce.

    These are stories that passed down through the ages virtually unaltered in their telling. To those who told and listened to them, they expressed something fundamental about Irish culture and the Irish way of life. The stories in this volume feature a wide variety of fantastic beings, including ghosts, witches, fairies, and changelings, but several feature creatures that are virtually exclusive to Ireland: the banshee, the merrow, the pooka, and the leprechaun. Read these tales of frightening supernatural horrors, brave folk heroes, and everyday people clever enough to outwith the devil, and you'll agree that they could only take place on Irish soil.

    “The group of beliefs which constituted what for convenience' sake is called the Egyptian religion in an existence of some thousands of years passed through nearly every phase known to the student of comparative mythology. If the theologians of ancient Egypt found it impossible to form a pantheon of deities with any hope of consistency, assigning to each god or goddess his or her proper position in the divine galaxy as ruling over a definite sphere, cosmic or psychical, it may be asked in what manner the modern mythologist is better equipped to reduce to order elements so recondite and difficult of elucidation as the mythic shapes of the divinities worshipped in the Nile Valley.”

    However, more than just "tales," this city of mystery has spawned numerous paranormal investigations and drawn countless ghost hunters to its ancient streets. Additionally, New Orleans also has the reputation of being the most vampirically active city in the country. In 1994, native New Orleanian Sidney Smith created HAUNTED HISTORY TOURS, a company dedicated to studying and touring properties alleged to be haunted. The results of many years of research have led to the creation of this body of work. First printed in 1997, the book is the most definitive to date on hauntings and vampire activity in New Orleans. Kalila Smith is the author and principal researcher of the material within these pages and is the founder of the New Orleans Paranormal and Occult Research Society. Kalila has been interviewed many times by the History Channel, Travel Channel, Discovery, Fox News, Sci Fi, MTV, CNN and more. Additionally, Haunted History Tours has been recommended by the Travel Channel as "The #1 Tour in New Orleans!" In addition, MTV called the tour... "a must do...an event not to miss!"

    A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages—and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs—were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?  The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story.