Book picks similar to
A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language, Part B: Folk Legends by Katharine M. Briggs
folklore
non-fiction
albion-folk-tales
reference
Keep Out! Top Secret Places Governments Don't Want You to Know about
Nick Redfern - 2011
It is at these secret facilities that for decades, clandestine research has reportedly been undertaken into crashed UFOs, deceased alien entities, bizarre creatures and unknown animals, lethal viruses, biological warfare, mind-control experimentation, and much, much more.Whether situated deep under the ocean, far below the ground, or within the heart of remote, fortified desert locales, these and many other supersecret places are guarded with a near paranoid zeal by those in power who wish to keep their secrets buried and locked far away from prying eyes.And they have succeeded.Until now.
Working for the Royals
Brian Hoey - 2014
It is by far the most famous building in the world and the lady who lives there, Queen Elizabeth 11, is easily the most famous woman on the planet. Her Majesty employs some 1,200 men and women, full and part-time, permanent and temporary in her various Royal residences with over 400 working for her at Buckingham Palace alone. So, what is she like to work for? Is she a generous employer? Does she encourage friendliness among those whose salaries she pays or does she prefer to keep her distance? Is it true she hates her servants to have facial hair – beards or moustaches? Why do the housemaids have to vacuum while walking backwards at all times? How are the servants told to react when they meet the Queen or any member of her family? What’s the money like? In many ways Her Majesty is a model employer, providing food, drink and accommodation, at the best address in London, to her staff, but one thing she does not offer is high wages. So why do most of them stay for many years? This book gives all the answers from the inside. Brian Hoey has written 26 books about Britain’s Royal Family and as a former reporter and presenter with BBC Television and Radio he has interviewed Prince Charles, Princess Anne ( whose official biography he wrote), the Duke of Edinburgh and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Hoey was a television commentator at the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981 and again, sadly, in 1997 at the funeral of Diana, He has also interviewed many of Hollywood’s Royalty including; Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Ray Milland, Cary Grant, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons and he conducted the final TV interview with Charlie Chaplin.
The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the 12th Century
T.H. White
Trees felled in the wrong season breed termites. If eels are drowned in wine, those who drink it get a loathing for liquor.These and similar flights of fancy were articles of faith in the twelfth century — the era of the fascinating Latin prose bestiary translated in this volume. The translator is T. H. White, author of The Once and Future King and outstanding medievalist. Of The Book of Beasts, White writes: "No Latin prose bestiary has ever before been printed, even in Latin. This is the first and only English translation in print."The bestiary was a bestseller in the Middle Ages, a kind of natural history cum-zoological survey that presumed to describe the animals of the world and to point out the human traits they exemplified. Combining the surprisingly accurate with the endearingly phantasmagorical, the bestiarists came up with a bewildering array of real and exotic creatures. The behavior or attributes of the animals often functioned as a metaphor for teaching religious, moral, and political precepts.In addition to a multitude of real mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish, described here with varying degrees of zoological accuracy, the bestiarist introduces a swarm of fanciful denizens thought to haunt the Dark Ages: manticore, a creature with a man's face, a lion's body, and a ravenous appetite for human flesh; dragon or draco, the biggest serpent and the embodiment of the Devil; amphivia, a fish that could walk on land and swim in the sea; jaculus, a flying serpent; the familiar phoenix; the griffin; and other exotic fauna.Much of the charm of this edition lies in the copious footnotes compiled by T. H. White. With immense erudition, wit, grace, and a singular lack of condescension, the author illuminates literary, scientific, historical, linguistic, and other aspects of the bestiarist's catalog. He further enhances the volume with informative discussions of the history of the bestiary from its origins in remote oral traditions; through Herodotus, Pliny and Aristotle; during the medieval period and the Renaissance; and up to Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors (1646). Both amusing and amazing, The Book of Beasts is not only a rich survey of the proto-zoology on which much of our later science is based, but also a revealing, illustrated examination of how pre-scientific man perceived the earth's creatures.
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology
Cory O'Brien - 2013
In reality, mythology is more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified. Wait, it all makes sense now. In Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, Cory O’Brien, creator of Myths RETOLD!, sets the stories straight. These are rude, crude, totally sacred texts told the way they were meant to be told: loudly, and with lots of four-letter words. Skeptical? Here are just a few gems to consider: � Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed. � The entire Egyptian universe was saved because Sekhmet just got too hammered to keep murdering everyone. � The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies. � The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace. And there’s more dysfunctional goodness where that came from.
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
Robert Graves - 1948
In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.
Underground London
Stephen Smith - 2004
It's a journey through the passages and tunnels of the city, the bunkers and tunnels, crypts and shadows. As well as being a contemporary tour of underground London, it's also an exploration through time: Queen Boudicca lies beneath Platform 10 at King's Cross (legend has it); Dick Turpin fled the Bow Street Runners along secret passages leading from the cellar of the Spaniards pub in North London; the remains of a pre-Christian Mithraic temple have been found near the Bank of England; on the platforms of the now defunct King William Street Underground, posters still warn that 'Careless talk costs lives'. Stephen Smith uncovers the secrets of the city by walking through sewers, tunnels under such places as Hampton Court, ghost tube stations, and long lost rivers such as the Fleet and the Tyburn. This is 'alternative' history at its best.
Supernatural Lore of Pennsylvania: Ghosts, Monsters and Miracles
Thomas White - 2014
Phantom trains chug down the now removed rails of the P&LE Railroad line on the Great Allegheny Passage. A wild ape boy is said to roam the Chester swamps, while the weeping Squonk wanders the hemlock-shrouded hills of central Pennsylvania, lamenting his hideousness. On dark nights, the ghosts of Betty Knox and her Union soldier beau still search for each other at Dunbar Creek. Join Thomas White and company as they go in search of the truth behind the legends of supernatural Pennsylvania.
Sailing Made Easy
The American Sailing Asa - 2010
Incorporated in the textbook are useful illustrations and exceptional photographs of complex sailing concepts. There are also quizzes at the end of each chapter, and a glossary to help those new to sailing to navigate their way through the extensive nautical terminology.
Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History
Alan Charles Kors - 1972
Now greatly expanded, the classic anthology of contemporary texts reexamines the phenomenon of witchcraft, taking into account the remarkable scholarship since the book's publication almost thirty years ago.Spanning the period from 400 to 1700, the second edition of Witchcraft in Europe assembles nearly twice as many primary documents as the first, many newly translated, along with new illustrations that trace the development of witch-beliefs from late Mediterranean antiquity through the Enlightenment. Trial records, inquisitors' reports, eyewitness statements, and witches' confessions, along with striking contemporary illustrations depicting the career of the Devil and his works, testify to the hundreds of years of terror that enslaved an entire continent.Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, and other thinkers are quoted at length in order to determine the intellectual, perceptual, and legal processes by which folklore was transformed into systematic demonology and persecution. Together with explanatory notes, introductory essays--which have been revised to reflect current research--and a new bibliography, the documents gathered in Witchcraft in Europe vividly illumine the dark side of the European mind.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Ebenezer Cobham Brewer - 1870
Celebrating the 125th anniversary of its original publication, this expanded and updated edition of a classic reference features a new, simplified organization.
Writing Horror
Mort Castle - 1997
This definitive anthology enables you to learn from some of the genre's biggest names as they share their wisdom on developing horror that will shock and excite readers and editors alike.
Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs
John Lindow - 2001
These fascinating entries identify particular deities and giants, as well as the places where they dwell and the varied and wily means by which they forge their existence and battle one another. We meet Thor, one of the most powerful gods, who specializes in killing giants using a hammer made for him by dwarfs, not to mention myriad trolls, ogres, humans and strange animals. We learn of the ongoing struggle between the gods, who create the cosmos, and the jotnar, or giants, who aim to destroy it. In the enchanted world where this mythology takes place, we encounter turbulent rivers, majestic mountains, dense forests, storms, fierce winters, eagles, ravens, salmon and snakes in a landscape closely resembling Scandinavia. Beings travel on ships and on horseback; they eat slaughtered meat and drink mead.Spanning from the inception of the universe and the birth of human beings to the universe's destruction and the mythic future, these sparkling tales of creation and destruction, death and rebirth, gods and heroes will entertain readers and offer insight into the relationship between Scandinavian myth, history, and culture.
Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths
Charlene Spretnak - 1978
In Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, Charlene Spretnak recreates, the original, goddess-centered myths and illuminates the contemporary emergence of a spirituality based on our embeddedness in nature.
Experiencing the Lifespan
Janet Belsky - 2006
In 2007, Janet Belsky's "Experiencing the Lifespan" was published to widespread instructor and student acclaim, ultimately winning the 2008 Textbook Excellence Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association. Now that breakthrough text returns in a rigorously updated edition that explores the lifespan by combining the latest research with a practicing psychologist's understanding of people, and a teacher's understanding of students and classroom dynamics. And again, all of this in the right number of pages to fit comfortably in a single term course.
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
Richard H. Wilkinson - 2003
From lavish tomb paintings and imposing temple reliefs to humble household shrines, countless tributes throughout Egypt reflect the richness and complexity of their mythology. This book examines the evolution, worship, and eventual decline of the numerous gods and goddesses—from minor household figures such as Bes and Taweret to the all-powerful deities Amun and Rethat made Egypt the most completely theocratic society of the ancient world, and made Egyptians, according to Herodotus, "more religious than any other people." • "Rise and Fall of the Gods" considers the origins of Egypt's deities, their struggles to control cosmic forces, and their eventual decline. • "Nature of the Gods" examines the forms, appearances, and manifestations of the deities, as well as the transcendence of preeminent deities such as Amun. • "Worship of the Gods" introduces the rituals and mysteries of formal Egyptian worship, including the importance of temples and festivals. • "Kingship and the Gods" discusses the all-important position of the king, who served as a bridge between the gods and humanity. • "The Many Faces of the Divine" is a unique catalogue of Egypt's gods and goddesses grouped according to their primary forms, discussing their iconography, mythology, and worship, and their influence over time.With hundreds of illustrations and specially commissioned drawings, this is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the deities that lay at the heart of Egyptian religion and society.