She takes us from the Paleolithic period and the myths of the hunters right up to the “Great Western Transformation” of the last five hundred years and the discrediting of myth by science. The history of myth is the history of humanity, our stories and beliefs, our curiosity and attempts to understand the world, which link us to our ancestors and each other. Heralding a major series of retellings of international myths by authors from around the world, Armstrong’s characteristically insightful and eloquent book serves as a brilliant and thought-provoking introduction to myth in the broadest sense—and explains why if we dismiss it, we do so at our peril.

    Examining heroic myths in the light of modern psychology, it considers not only the patterns and stages of mythology but also its relevance to our lives today--and to the life of any person seeking a fully realized existence.Myth, according to Campbell, is the projection of a culture's dreams onto a large screen; Campbell's book, like Star Wars, the film it helped inspire, is an exploration of the big-picture moments from the stage that is our world. It is a must-have resource for both experienced students of mythology and the explorer just beginning to approach myth as a source of knowledge.

    Tolkien's creativity and the sources of his inspiration. Shippey shows in detail how Tolkien's professional background led him to write "The Hobbit" and how he created a timeless charm for millions of readers.

    Beginning with its first publication as a cautionary tale on the perils of seduction, written in reaction to the licentiousness of the court of Louis XIV, Orenstein traces the many lives the tale has lived since then, from its appearance in modern advertisements for cosmetics and automobiles, the inspiration it brought to poets such as Anne Sexton, and its starring role in pornographic films. In Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, Red appears as seductress, hapless victim, riot grrrrl, femme fatale, and even she-wolf, as Orenstein shows how through centuries of different guises, the story has served as a barometer of social and sexual mores pertaining to women. Full of fascinating history, generous wit, and intelligent analysis, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked proves that the story of one young girl's trip through the woods continues to be one of our most compelling modern myths.

    It’s less great when you turn up to find him dead on the floor, and an armored giant dressed like a freaking ancient warrior standing over his body though.Ares, the God of War, has lost his power and the only way for him to get it back? Me. Apparently, I’m a goddess. One with the power of war. I mean, it does explain a lot.To my relief, Joshua, my shrink and only friend, isn’t really dead. He’s been kidnapped and taken to Olympus—the world where I’m supposed to belong. I vow to do whatever it takes to find him. But Ares has other plans for me. He wants my power, and the easiest way for him to get it is to kill me.When Hades suggests a compromise, I’m forced to work side-by-side with a giant, murderous warrior god. One with far too many secrets. Ares might be the brute everyone thinks he is, but I’m no angel. He awakens a power within me that I’ve failed to control my whole life.And I soon discover that Joshua isn’t the only one that needs saving.This is the complete collection of The Ares Trials, including The Warrior God, The Savage God and The Golden God. It is intended for adults and is packed with magic, mythology and enemies-to-lovers soulmate romance!

    Both evoke a similar sensation in us — we find them beautiful and magical, but also spooky, sometimes horrifying.In this fascinating book, Maitland argues that the two forms are intimately connected: the mysterious secrets and silences, gifts and perils of the forests were both the background and the source of fairytales. Yet both forests and fairy stories are at risk and their loss deprives us of our cultural lifeblood. Maitland visits forests through the seasons, from the exquisite green of a beechwood in spring, to the muffled stillness of a snowy pine wood in winter. She camps with her son Adam, whose beautiful photographs are included in the book; she takes a barefoot walk through Epping Forest with Robert Macfarlane; she walks with a mushroom expert through an oak wood, and with a miner through the Forest of Dean. Maitland ends each chapter with a unique, imaginitive re-telling of a fairystory.Written with Sara's wonderful clarity and conversational grace, Gossip from the Forest is a magical and unique blend of nature writing, history and imaginative fiction.

    An examination of Le Guin's career, from her obscure beginnings in the science fiction magazines to her rapid rise to the top in the 1970's.

    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.

    In this elegant and thought-provoking collection of original essays, Kate Bernheimer brings together twenty-eight leading women writers to discuss how these stories helped shape their imaginations, their craft, and our culture. In poetic narratives, personal histories, and penetrating commentary, the assembled authors bare their soul and challenge received wisdom. Eclectic and wide-ranging, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is essential reading for anyone who has ever been bewitched by the strange and fanciful realm of fairy tales.Contributors include: Alice Adams, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Rosellen Brown, A. S. Byatt, Kathryn Davis, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Deborah Eisenberg, Maria Flook, Patricia Foster, Vivian Gornick, Lucy Grealy, bell hooks, Fanny Howe, Fern Kupfer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carole Maso, Jane Miller, Lydia Millet, Joyce Carol Oates, Connie Porter, Francine Prose, Linda Gray Sexton, Midori Snyder, Fay Weldon, Joy Williams, Terri Windling.

    These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, and been passed down from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale. But what is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they try and communicate to us about morality, sexuality, and society? The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances and time; their history is entangled with folklore and myth, and their inspiration draws on ideas about nature and the supernatural, imagination and fantasy, psychoanalysis, and feminism. Marina Warner has loved fairy tales over her long writing career, and she explores here a multitude of tales through the ages, their different manifestations on the page, the stage, and the screen. From the phenomenal rise of Victorian and Edwardian literature to contemporary children's stories, Warner unfolds a glittering array of examples, from classics such as Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and The Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers' Hansel and Gretel, and Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid, to modern-day realizations including Walt Disney's Snow White and gothic interpretations such as Pan's Labyrinth. In ten succinct chapters, Marina Warner digs into a rich collection of fairy tales in their brilliant and fantastical variations, in order to define a genre and evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time and history. She makes a persuasive case for fairy tale as a crucial repository of human understanding and culture.

    Drawing on examples from diverse American groups and experiences, this text gives the student a strong foundation—from the field’s history and major terms to theories, interpretive approaches, and fieldwork.Many teachers of undergraduates find the available folklore textbooks too complex or unwieldy for an introductory level course. It is precisely this criticism that Living Folklore addresses; while comprehensive and rigorous, the book is specifically intended to meet the needs of those students who are just beginning their study of the discipline. Its real strength lies in how it combines carefully articulated foundational concepts with relevant examples and a student-oriented teaching philosophy.

    Pages: 54. Chapters: Characters, Places, The Heroes of Olympus books, The Heroes of Olympus characters, The Heroes of Olympus events, The Heroes of Olympus places, Alcatraz Island, Aphrodite's Cabin, Apollo's Cabin, Ares' Cabin, Artemis' Cabin, Athena's Cabin, Atlantis, Bermuda Triangle, Bunker 9, Camp Half-Blood Forest, Carlsbad Caverns, Daedalus' Workshop, Demeter's Cabin, Dionysus' Cabin, DOA Recording Studios, Door of Orpheus, Elysium, Empire State Building, Gila Claw, Arizona, Hall of the Gods, Hecate's Cabin, Hermes' Cabin, Hoover Dam, Jamestown, Virginia, Junkyard of the Gods, Long Island, Mississippi River, Monster Doughnut, Mount Etna, Mount Olympus, Mount Othrys, Mount Saint Helens, Poseidon's Cabin, River Styx, San Francisco, Tartarus, The Big House, The Big House Attic, The Garden of the Hesperides, The Sea of Monsters, Waterland, Westover Hall, Yancy Academy, Zeus' Fist, The Lost Hero, The Mark of Athena, The Son of Neptune, Ella, Enceladus, Hazel Levesque, Lupa, Polybotes, Deaths, Important Dates, Romance, The Feast of Fortuna, The Quest for Hera, The Quest for Thanatos, Aphrodite's Cabin, Battle of Mount Othrys, Grand Canyon, Greece, Hephaestus' Cabin, Hera's Cabin, Long Island, Monocle Motors, Mount Diablo, Mount Olympus, Mount Othrys, River Styx, San Francisco, The Big House, United States of America, Wilderness School, Wolf House, Zeus' cabin. Excerpt: Alcatraz Island is a famous prison island located in the San Francisco Bay. Kamp 's prison is directly underneath the known Alcatraz prison. Briares, a hundred-handed elder brother of the Cyclopes, was held there by Kamp . Percy, Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover helped him escape into the Labyrinth. In the mortal world, Alcatraz is a famous national park that was used as a maximum security prison by the United States government. The island was first discovered in 1775 by the Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala. He called it "La ...

    In this intimate history, Valerie Paradiz tells the real story of the greatest literary collaboration of the nineteenth century, and gives the long-lost narrators of these beloved tales their due. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were major German intellects of their time, contemporaries of both Goethe and Schiller. But as Paradiz reveals here, the romantic image of the two brothers traveling the countryside, transcribing tales told to them by peasants, is far from the truth. More than half of the tales the Grimm brothers collected were contributed by women friends from the upper classes. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars and the high years of German romanticism, Clever Maids chronicles this most fascinating enterprise in literary history, and illuminates the ways the Grimm tales-with their mythic portrayals of courage, sacrifice, and betrayal-still resonate so powerfully today.

    Not since Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment has the underlying significance of fantasy and fairy tales been so insightfully and entertainingly mined.

    Inlanders may be skeptical regarding the sometimes miraculous, often horror-filled tales that make up coastal folklore, but Outer Bankers accept the incredible as fact.The phenomena of the Outer Banks range from phosphorescent lights appearing and disappearing over Pamlico Sound to the strange fate of a crewless ship marooned on deadly Diamond Shoals. Legendary heroes such as Captain Jim Baum Gaskill are often truly heroic.. or they may be scurrilous, like Old Quork and Blackbeard. But they all loom larger than life, with deeds and personalities unique to coastal Carolina. But this book is more than a collection of coastal legends. It is an affectionate portrait of the people who daily pull a living out of the treacherous waters of the Atlantic... and a tribute to the hardiness and courage that has made the Banker a rare breed... a breed whose true stories are, indeed, stranger than fiction.