This wonderfully colorful and appealing anthology gathers more than 130 Native American legends, many told to the authors by elder storytellers and tribal historians.

    It begins between the Creation and Noah's Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans. These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered: Brutus, Albina, Scota, Arthur and Bladud among them.Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary. We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge and Wayland's Smithy, spanning the length of Britain from the archipelago of Orkney to as far south as Cornwall; mountains and lakes such as Snowdon and Loch Etive and rivers including the Ness, the Soar and the story-silted Thames in a vivid, beautiful tale of our land steeped in myth. It Illuminates a collective memory that still informs the identity and political ambition of these places.In Storyland, Jeffs reimagines these myths of homeland, exile and migration, kinship, loyalty, betrayal, love and loss in a landscape brimming with wonder.

    Finfolk, seal-people and the Makers of Dreams. Within these pages are the little-known stories of Scotland, collected and retold by an oral storyteller who performs them throughout the world. From folk-tales and local legends to ancient epics, these stories will astonish and delight readers everywhere.Daniel Allison is an acclaimed oral storyteller who performs everywhere from schools and prisons to global festivals. He hosts the House of Legends Podcast and is the author of The Bone Flute, Silverborn, Scottish Myths & Legends and Finn & The Fianna.

    These tales are richly populated by spirits and ghosts seeking revenge; by grief-stricken women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny - all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc.The collection will include The Mistletoe Bride, La Fille de Melisande, Red Letter Day, The Lending Library, The House on the Hill...

    But who were these strange and mysterious folk? The Book of Viking Myths retells the stories of the Viking people, with myths of their gods and goddesses, monsters, and great heroes. From tales of the beautiful and powerful Freyja, to the gold-toothed Heimdallr, to the wolf Fenrir, Peter Archer explores all the figures and tales that make up Norse mythology. Along with these legends of seafaring, dwarves, giants, and the exploits of Thor, you will also discover the influences that Viking culture has had on our own lives. It’s a true exploration of Nordic culture—and a glimpse into the history and lore of these fabled Nordic warriors.

    Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. Together they compose a secret history, at once intimate and panoramic, of modern times.

    Here are Icarus flying too close to the sun, mighty Hercules, Achilles and that darn heel, the Trojans and their wooden horse, brave Perseus and beautiful Andromeda, wandering Odysseus and steadfast Penelope. Their stories and the stories of the powerful gods and goddesses who punish and reward, who fall in love with and are enraged by the humans they have created, are set forth simply but movingly, in language that retains the power and drama of the original works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer. In Gustav Schwab’s masterful retelling, they are made accessible to readers of all ages.Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    Written in Iceland a century after the close of the Viking Age, it tells ancient stories of the Norse creation epic and recounts the battles that follow as gods, giants, dwarves and elves struggle for survival. It also preserves the oral memory of heroes, warrior kings and queens. In clear prose interspersed with powerful verse, the Edda provides unparalleled insight into the gods' tragic realisation that the future holds one final cataclysmic battle, Ragnarok, when the world will be destroyed. These tales from the pagan era have proved to be among the most influential of all myths and legends, inspiring modern works as diverse as Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.This new translation by Jesse Byock captures the strength and subtlety of the original, while his introduction sets the tales fully in the context of Norse mythology. This edition also includes detailed notes and appendices.

    W. Rolleston masterfully retells the great Celtic myths and illuminates the world that spawned them. Focusing principally on Irish myths, the book first takes up the history and religion of the Celts, the myths of the Irish invasion and the early Milesian kings.What follows is pure enchantment as you enter the timeless world of heroic tales centered around the Ulster king Conor mac Nessa and the Red Branch Order of chivalry (Ultonian cycle). These are followed by the tales of the Ossianic cycle, which center on the figure of Finn mac Cumhal, whose son Oisín (or Ossian) was a poet and warrior, and the traditional author of most of the tales. Next comes a summary of the Voyage of Maeldūn, a brilliant and curious piece of invention that exemplifies the genre of "wonder-voyages" — adventures purely in the region of romance, out of earthly space and time. Finally, the author recounts a selection of the myths and tales of the Cymry (Welsh).In these pages, readers will delight in the favorite and familiar tales of Cuchulain, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Grail, Deirdre, and many more figures that haunt the shadowy, twilight world of Celtic legend. The magic of that world is further brought to life in more than 50 imaginative full-page illustrations by Stephen Reid, Arthur G. Bell, and the famed illustrator J. C. Leyendecker. Reprinted here in its first paperback edition, Celtic Myths and Legends also includes several helpful genealogical tables: Gods of the House of Dōn, Gods of the House of Llyr, and Arthur and His Kin, as well as a useful glossary.

    Compiled by an American—the United States consul for Wales in the late nineteenth century—this volume was the work of several years’ labour.Scouring the hills and valleys of Wales after falling in love with the land, the author wrote down the oral traditions, stories, myths, and legends related to him by the people he met on his travels. The result was a spectacular work, divided up into four sections: “Faerie Realm,” the “Spirit-World,” “Quaint Old Customs,” and “Bells, Wells, Stones, and Dragons.”In this book, the reader will not only learn of the greatest Welsh legends (including King Arthur, Iolo ap Hugh, the Green Lady of Caerphilly), but also of the local fairy stories and even the superstitions of ancient—and not so ancient—Wales.Rarely has a nation’s mythos and essence been so elegantly captured as in this work. The legacy of Welsh mythology and folklore has entered the vocabulary of modern English, and spread around the world, being some of the oldest tales in all Europe.As the author states in his introduction:“In a certain sense Wales may be spoken of as the cradle of fairy legend. It is not now disputed that from the Welsh were borrowed many of the first subjects of composition in the literature of all the cultivated peoples of Europe.”This edition has been completely reset, contains the full text and all the wonderful—and hand restored—illustrations of the original work. It is a literary treasure of the first class.— Written on the back of the Second Edition, 2017

    He first revisits the old stories--Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others--and then holds them up against the life and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style, Trickster Makes This World ranks among the great works of modern cultural criticism.

    "Matthews...offers a very attractively presented collection...wonderfully illustrated...Not since the offerings of Jeremiah Curtin, W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and others at the turn of the century has such a collection been assembled....most were culled from various books and obscure journals that have long been out of print....Each story is followed by a short yet informative note on the tale and its sources, and there is a good bibliography and index. This book would be attractive to younger readers as well as adults interested in Celtic traditions and is recommended for most public and academic libraries."--Library Journal. "...collection is varied and brilliant...beautiful illustrations are bold and colorful."--KLIATT.

    Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories.Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity.

    This prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between the years 980 and 1010, tells the story of pre- Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century. As a window on the world, "Shahnameh" belongs in the company of such literary masterpieces as Dante's "Divine Comedy," the plays of Shakespeare, the epics of Homer- classics whose reach and range bring whole cultures into view. In its pages are unforgettable moments of national triumph and failure, human courage and cruelty, blissful love and bitter grief.In tracing the roots of Iran, "Shahnameh" initially draws on the depths of legend and then carries its story into historical times, when ancient Persia was swept into an expanding Islamic empire. Now Dick Davis, the greatest modern translator of Persian poetry, has revisited that poem, turning the finest stories of Ferdowsi's original into an elegant combination of prose and verse. For the first time in English, in the most complete form possible, readers can experience "Shahnameh" in the same way that Iranian storytellers have lovingly conveyed it in Persian for the past thousand years.

    There is tremendous variety in this volume including the stories of Kuay Yin, the compassionate Buddhist goddess; Durga, the fierce Hindu warrior goddess; lx Chel, an ancient Mayan goddess; Changing Woman, the man-faceted Navajo deity, and more. Each story in this dynamic collection is accompanied by an exquisite portrait by the late, supremely gifted illustrator Trina Schart Hyman