Psychoanalyst Jean Bolen's career soared in the early 1980s when Goddesses in Everywoman was published. Thousands of women readers became fascinated with identifying their own inner goddesses and using these archetypes to guide themselves to greater self–esteem, creativity, and happiness.Bolen's radical idea was that just as women used to be unconscious of the powerful effects that cultural stereotypes had on them, they were also unconscious of powerful archetypal forces within them that influence what they do and how they feel, and which account for major differences among them. Bolen believes that an understanding of these inner patterns and their interrelationships offers reassuring, true–to–life alternatives that take women far beyond such restrictive dichotomies as masculine/feminine, mother/lover, careerist/housewife. And she demonstrates in this book how understanding them can provide the key to self–knowledge and wholeness.Dr. Bolen introduced these patterns in the guise of seven archetypal goddesses, or personality types, with whom all women could identify, from the autonomous Artemis and the cool Athena to the nurturing Demeter and the creative Aphrodite, and explains how to decide which to cultivate and which to overcome, and how to tap the power of these enduring archetypes to become a better "heroine" in one's own life story.

    The book looks at the myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria, and how these ancient tales reflect the beliefs and development of these early civilizations. The historical narrative of the book begins with the early Sumerian Age and concludes thirty centuries later with the periods of the Persian and Greek Empires.

    Under her, women's roles were far more prominent than in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Stone describes this ancient system and, with its disintegration, the decline in women's status. Index, maps and illustrations.

    They were life's fruitfulness and all the generations of mankind, both those who are to come and those already born.The Hawaiian gods were like great chiefs from far lands who visited among the people, entering their daily lives sometimes as humans or animals, sometimes taking residence in a stone or wooden idol. As years passed, the families of gods grew and included the trickster Maui, who snared the sun, and fiery Pele of the volcano.Ancient Hawaiian lived by the animistic philosophy that assigned living souls to animals, trees, stones, stars, and clouds, as well as to humans. Religion and mythology were interwoven in Hawaiian culture; and local legends and genealogies were preserved in song, chant, and narrative.Martha Beckwith was the first scholar to chart a path through the hundreds of books, articles, and little-known manuscripts that recorded the oral narratives of the Hawaiian people. Her book has become a classic work of folklore and ethnology, and the definitive treatment of Hawaiian mythology.With an introduction by Katherine Luomala.

    This is a collection of Scottish fairy tales, folk tales and legends, which have been passed on from generation to generation, and have been brought together in this one volume.

    The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago. The author's conclusions are persuasive: at the core is not material riches but a secret - a secret of explosive and controversial proportions, which radiates out from the little Pyrenees village all the way to contemporary politics and the entire edifice of the Christian faith. It involves nothing less than... the Holy Grail.

    Expertly researched and compiled by an authority on the subject, with detailed illustrations to help wayfarers identify the 13 major varieties of these elusive fairy folk of the Emerald Isle, this pocket-size volume is indispensible both in the field and back in the (relative) safety of hearth and home. With information on habitat, history, and fairy customs at their fingertips, readers will be well prepared for encounters with saucy leprechauns, kindly grogochs, and even headless dullahans. A word to the wise: Take it along, or take your chances!

    A study of Arthurian romance and legend which draws together the different strands of Arthurian myth, from sources as diverse as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Malory, Chretien de Troyes, the Mabinogion, and the English Gawain cycles.

    Honoured for their gifts and feared for their wrath, the fairies remind us to respect both the world we live in and forces we cannot see.In Meeting the Other Crowd, Eddie Lenihan presents a book about a hidden Ireland, a land of mysterious taboos, dangers, other worldly abductions, enchantments and much more. It is a world which most Irish people acknowledge exists, but which few of them, except the very oldest or professional folklorists, know much more about.Eddie Lenihan opens our eyes to this invisible world with the passion and bluntness of a great storyteller. In doing so he provides one of the finest collections of Irish folklore in modern times.

    'A Brief History of Witchcraft' sets out to explore how the witch phenomenon began in medieval Europe and how it has continued to haunt us for the next 500 years.

    The first account of the gods of Irish myth to take in the whole sweep of Irish literature in both the nation's languages, the book describes how Ireland's pagan divinities were transformed into literary characters in the medieval Christian era--and how they were recast again during the Celtic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A lively narrative of supernatural beings and their fascinating and sometimes bizarre stories, Mark Williams's comprehensive history traces how these gods--known as the Tuatha De Danann--have shifted shape across the centuries, from Iron Age cult to medieval saga to today's young-adult fiction.We meet the heroic Lug; the Morrigan, crow goddess of battle; the fire goddess Brigit, who moonlights as a Christian saint; the mist-cloaked sea god Manannan mac Lir; and the ageless fairies who inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's immortal elves. Medieval clerics speculated that the Irish divinities might be devils, angels, or enchanters. W. B. Yeats invoked them to reimagine the national condition, while his friend George Russell beheld them in visions and understood them to be local versions of Hindu deities. The book also tells how the Scots repackaged Ireland's divine beings as the gods of the Gael on both sides of the sea--and how Irish mythology continues to influence popular culture far beyond Ireland.An unmatched chronicle of the Irish gods, Ireland's Immortals illuminates why these mythical beings have loomed so large in the world's imagination for so long.