They include "The New Babylonian Creation", which was recited at the new year festival in honour of the god Marduk and his conquest of Tiamat, "Inanna's Journey to Hell", in which the goddess of fertility descends into a gloomy wasteland of devils and darkness, and "Adapa: the Man", a story of man's fall from grace, not through disobedience but through blind obedience. N.K. Sanders also translated "The Epic of Gilgamesh".

    It traces the development of the stories from prehistoric India and Pharaonic Egypt to modern times. It explores the history of the translation, and explains the ways in which its contents have been added to, plagiarized and imitated. Above all, the book uses the stories as a guide to the social history and the counterculture of the medieval Near East and the world of the storyteller, the snake charmer, the burglar, the sorcerer, the drug addict, the treasure hunter and the adulterer.

    From the Irish merrows who come on land to search for human husbands to the fake Fiji Mermaid made popular by P.T Barnum, these sea maidens (and sometimes men) can be found in folklore and mythology from every tradition in the world.Inside this captivating collection, complete with beautiful illustrations throughout, you'll discover the myths surrounding these enigmatic beings, explore the common symbols associated with them, and learn tales of merfolk from around the world. Dive into Mermaids and get swept away!

    Ancient interpretation of myth is represented here in selections from the allegorists Heraclitus, Cornutus and Fulgentius, the rationalists Palaephatus and Diodorus of Sicily, and the philosophers and historians Plato, Herodotus and Thucydides. Appendices treat evidence from inscriptions, papyri and Linear B tablets and include a thematic index, a mythological dictionary, and genealogies. A thoughtful Introduction supports students working with the primary sources and the other resources offered here; an extensive note to instructors offers suggestions on how to incorporate this book into their courses.

    Its pages are animated with colorful tales of the fairy folk in all their many guises: the changeling, the banshee, the headless dullahan, the leprechaun, the merrow, and the ever-mischievous pooka. In addition, this volume includes tales of ghosts, witches and fairy doctors, priests and saints, encounters with the devil, titans of Ireland's historical past, as well as popular treasure legends.Contents: The trooping fairies. The cave fairies --Popular notions considering the Sidhe race --Changelings --The solitary fairies. The lepracaun, the cluricaun, and the Far Darrig --The pooka --The banshee and the dullahan --Ghosts --Witches and fairy doctors --T'yeer-na-n-oge --Priests and saints --The devil --Giants --Rocks and stones --Treasure legends --Legends of the western islands --Kings, queens, princesses, earls, and robbers

    Out of alleys of Cairo and Bedouin tents, from the Moroccan laborers and Syrian peasants, this collection of 130 tales comes from Arab worlds from North Africa to the Holy Land.

    Men and women are killed indiscriminately but Authun demands that no child be touched. He is acting on prophecy. A prophecy that tells him that the Saxons have stolen a child from the Gods. If Authun, in turn, takes the child and raises him as an heir, the child will lead his people to glory. But Athun discovers not one child, but twin baby boys. Ensuring that his faithful warriors, witness to what has happened, die during the raid Authun takes the children and their mother home, back to the witches who live on the troll wall. And he places his destiny in their hands.And so begins a stunning multi-volume fantasy epic that will take a werewolf from his beginnings as the heir to a brutal viking king, down through the ages. It is a journey that will see him hunt for his lost love through centuries and lives, and see the endless battle between the wolf, Odin and Loki - the eternal trickster - spill over into countless bloody conflicts from our history, and over into our lives.This is the myth of the werewolf as it has never been told before and marks the beginning of an extraordinary new fantasy series from Gollancz.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    The Latin poet Statius reworks a familiar story from Greek myth, dramatized long before by Aeschylus in his tragedy Seven against Thebes. Statius chose his subject well: the Rome of his day, ruled by the emperor Domitian, was not too distant from the civil wars that had threatened the survival of the empire. Published in 92 A.D., the Thebaid was an immediate success, and its fame grew in succeeding centuries. It reached its peak of popularity in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, influencing Dante, Chaucer, and perhaps Shakespeare. In recent times, however, it has received perhaps less attention than it deserves, in large part because there has been no accessible, dynamic translation of the work into English.Charles Stanley Ross offers a compelling version of the Thebaid rendered into forceful, modern English. Casting Statius's Latin hexameter into a lively iambic pentameter more natural to the modern ear, Ross frees the work from the archaic formality that has marred previous translations. His translation reinvigorates the Thebaid as a whole: its meditative first half and its violent second half; its intimate portrayal of defeat and retribution, and the need to seek justice at any cost. In a wide-ranging introduction, Ross provides an overview of the poem: its composition, reception and legacy; its major themes and literary influences; and its place in Statius' life. And in a helpful series of notes, he offers background information on the major characters and incidents.

    A "Who's Who" of fairyland, with entries by fairy name and additional legends, songs, and anecdotes within each entry.

    Lyly’s Endymion (1588) represents his famous Euphuistic style at its best and also gives us vintage Lyly as courtier and dramatist. In this love comedy, Lyly retells an ancient legend of the prolonged sleep of the man with whom the moon (Cynthia) fell in love. The fable is piquantly relevant to Queen Elizabeth and her exasperated if adoring courtiers. This edition makes a new and compelling argument for the relevance of Endymion to the threat of the Spanish Armada invasion of 1588 and to the role of the Earl of Oxford in England’s politics of that troubled decade. Full commentary is provided on every aspect of the play, including its philosophical allegory about the relation of the moon to mortal life on earth.

    Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered to be an intense and challenging read. The Cantos is generally considered one of the most significant works of modernist poetry in the 20th century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance and culture are integral to the work's content.The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as well as quotations in European languages other than English. A close reader will normally require a scholarly commentary to help understand the text. The range of allusion to historical events is broad, and abrupt changes occur with little transition.There is also wide geographical reference. Pound added to his earlier interests in the classical Mediterranean culture and East Asia selective topics from medieval and early modern Italy and Provence, the beginnings of the United States, England of the 17th century, and details from Africa he had obtained from Leo Frobenius. Many references in the text lack explanation. Pound initially believed that he possessed poetic and rhetorical techniques which would themselves generate significance, but as time passed he became more concerned with the messages he wished to convey.The section he wrote at the end of World War II, begun while he was interned in American-occupied Italy, has become known as The Pisan Cantos. It was awarded the first Bollingen Prize in 1948. There were many repercussions, since this in effect honoured a poet who was under indictment for treason. :::Delmore Schwartz said about The Cantos, "They are one of the touchstones of modern poetry." William Carlos Williams said, "[Pound] discloses history by its odor, by the feel of it—in the words; fuses it with the words, present and past, to MAKE his Cantos. Make them."Since the 1969 revised edition, the Italian Cantos LXXII and LXXIII (as well as a 1966 fragment concluding the work) have been added. Now appearing for the first time is Pound's recently found English translation of Italian Canto LXXII.

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    The eloquent and dramatic epic poem captures the terrible anger of Achilles, "the best of the Achaeans," over a grave insult to his personal honor and relates its tragic result--a chain of consequences that proves devastating for the Greek forces besieging Troy, for noble Trojans, and for Achilles himself. The poet gives us compelling characterizations of his protagonists as well as a remarkable study of the heroic code in antiquity. The works attributed to Homer include the two oldest and greatest European epic poems, the Odyssey and the Iliad. These have been published in the Loeb Classical Library for three quarters of a century, the Greek text facing a faithful and literate prose translation by A. T. Murray. William F. Wyatt now brings the Loeb's Iliad up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray's admirable style but is written for today's readers.

    In this account of the Viking world, every aspect of Viking life is examined. Important chapters on ships, runes and religion have been contributed by specialist authors, and the text is complemented by illustrations, including maps and reconstruction drawings. Photographs, many of them especially commissioned, portray the brilliant products of the Vikings' culture and the beauty and harshness of the natural world they faced.