In this colorful history, Nicholas Rogers takes a lively, entertaining look at the cultural origins and development of one of the most popular holidays of the year. Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, from classical history to Hollywood films, Rogers traces Halloween as it emerged from the Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), picked up elements of the Christian Hallowtide (All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day), arrived in North America as an Irish and Scottish festival, and evolved into an unofficial but large-scale holiday by the early 20th century. He examines the 1970s and '80s phenomena of Halloween sadism (razor blades in apples) and inner-city violence (arson in Detroit), as well as the immense influence of the horror film genre on the reinvention of Halloween as a terror-fest. Throughout his vivid account, Rogers shows how Halloween remains, at its core, a night of inversion, when social norms are turned upside down, and a temporary freedom of expression reigns supreme. He examines how this very license has prompted censure by the religious Right, occasional outrage from law enforcement officials, and appropriation by Left-leaning political groups. Engagingly written and based on extensive research, Halloween is the definitive history of the most bewitching day of the year, illuminating the intricate history and shifting cultural forces behind this enduring trick-or-treat holiday.

    

    It's a step by step training book with no extraneous material. It covers everything from the day you get your puppy to the finished dog.The first book written about the retriever with new commands and using the Dummy-Launch, a new training device co-developed by the author, making training easier for you and your dog.The first book to show the complete training procedures step by step in picture sequence. It covers every facet of the training. It will show you not only what to expect of your dog but what your dog can expect of you. You will be able tosee how to do it. It's written with humor - fun for you and your dog.WATER DOG is A REVOLUTIONARY RAPID TRAINING METHOD.

    In the early 1950's he took a journey to seek the legend out, in the Hebrides, on the east coast of Scotland, on the west coast of Ireland - places where magic co-exists with reality and pre-Christian traditions and beliefs somehow endure. He gives us here the fruits of his search as he found it, and tells us something of the men, women, and children from whom he heard the stories. He also tells of his own encounters with seals, and the dreamlike hold that these have had on him. The result is, in the words of his friend Seamus Heaney, a poetic achievement - a work of "intuitive understanding, perfect grace, and perfect pitch."

    Fascinated by the romantic aspects of medieval culture and the vivid, jewel-like colors of Quattrocento art, the movement abhored the Classical poses and composition of Raphael and those influenced by him—hence the group's name—and the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the original Pre-Raphaelites were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form a seven-member "brotherhood". Its influence on many later British artists was extensive, and Rossetti's work is now seen as a precursor of the wider European Symbolist movement. This book examines the group's emergence, development, influence, and subsequent demise.About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations

    A comprehensive study of Celtic mythology, legend, and poetry provides background information on the Celts, Ancient Britons, and Druids, and includes the tales of such noted figures as Cuchulain, Blodeuweek, Branwen, and Fenn.

    It will be used in reference to those countries and districtswhich, in historic times, have been at one time or other mainly of Celticspeech. It does not follow that all the races which spoke a form of theCeltic tongue, a tongue of the Indo-European family, were all of the samestock. Indeed, ethnological and archaeological evidence tends toestablish clearly that, in Gaul and Britain, for example, man had livedfor ages before the introduction of any variety of Aryan or Indo-Europeanspeech, and this was probably the case throughout the whole of Westernand Southern Europe. Further, in the light of comparative philology, ithas now become abundantly clear that the forms of Indo-European speechwhich we call Celtic are most closely related to those of the Italicfamily, of which family Latin is the best known representative. Fromthis it follows that we are to look for the centre of dissemination ofAryan Celtic speech in some district of Europe that could have been thenatural centre of dissemination also for the Italic languages. From thiscommon centre, through conquest and the commercial intercourse whichfollowed it, the tribes which spoke the various forms of Celtic andItalic speech spread into the districts occupied by them in historictimes. The common centre of radiation for Celtic and Italic speech wasprobably in the districts of Noricum and Pannonia, the modern Carniola,Carinthia, etc., and the neighbouring parts of the Danube valley. Theconquering Aryan-speaking Celts and Italians formed a militaryaristocracy, and their success in extending the range of their languageswas largely due to their skill in arms, combined, in all probability,with a talent for administration. This military aristocracy was ofkindred type to that which carried Aryan speech into India and Persia,Armenia and Greece, not to speak of the original speakers of the Teutonicand Slavonic tongues. In view of the necessity of discovering a centre,whence the Indo-European or Aryan languages in general could haveradiated Eastwards, as well as Westwards, the tendency to-day is toregard these tongues as having been spoken originally in some districtbetween the Carpathians and the Steppes, in the form of kindred dialectsof a common speech. Some branches of the tribes which spoke thesedialects penetrated into Central Europe, doubtless along the Danube, and,from the Danube valley, extended their conquests together with theirvarious forms of Aryan speech into Southern and Western Europe. Theproportion of conquerors to conquered was not uniform in all thecountries where they held sway, so that the amount of Aryan blood intheir resultant population varied greatly. In most cases, the familiesof the original conquerors, by their skill in the art of war and acertain instinct of government, succeeded in making their own tongues thedominant media of communication in the lands where they ruled, with theresult that most of the languages of Europe to-day are of the Aryan orIndo-European type. It does not, however, follow necessarily from thisthat the early religious ideas or the artistic civilisation of countriesnow Aryan in speech, came necessarily from the conquerors rather than theconquered. In the last century it was long held that in countries ofAryan speech the essential features of their civilisation, theirreligious ideas, their social institutions, nay, more, their inhabitantsthemselves, were of Aryan origin.

    Celtic Britain reconstructs the peopling of Britain — through a study of genetics, climatology, archaeology, language, culture, and history — and overturns that myth and others. The Anglo-Saxons, who supposedly conquered the Celts, contributed only five to ten percent of the British gene pool. The "Atlantic Celts," long believed to have migrated to Britain from Central Europe around 300 BC during the Iron Age, can be linked genetically to the people of Basque country. And linguistic evidence suggests that, besides Celtic languages, a Germanic-type language similar to Norse was also spoken in Britain long before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. In this groundbreaking study, Stephen Oppenheimer explaines the surprising roots of the present-day cultural identities of the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh.

    A proud and independent nation developed from a number of smaller states; brilliant art and a unique way of life flourished, although the evidence of this, unfortunately, is often sketchy.A noted Celtic scholar, Nora Chadwick spent much of her life researching this field. Here she describes the rise and spread of the Celts and their arrival in the British Isles in about the eighth century BC. Chapters on their literature and art, their institutions and religion, punctuate the historical narrative and provide an illuminating insight into the Celtic way of life.

    'Running Well' shows runners how to minimise the risks of injury and other problems by showing the difference between training and straining, avoiding overtraining, varying speed and distance, keeping the running muscles strong and supple and honing technique.

    The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs and early medieval historical traditions. While some details may hark back to older Iron Age traditions, each of the tales is the product of a developed medieval Welsh narrative tradition, both oral and written.Lady Charlotte Guest in the mid 19th century was the first to publish English translations of the collection, popularising the name "Mabinogion". The stories appear in either or both of two medieval Welsh manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch or Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch, written c.1350, and the Red Book of Hergest or Llyfr Coch Hergest, written c.1382 – 1410, tho texts or fragments of some of the tales have been preserved in earlier 13th century and later mss.Scholars agree that the tales are older than the existing mss, but disagree over just how much older. The different texts originated at different times. Debate has focused on the dating of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Sir Ifor Williams offered a date prior to 1100, based on linguistic and historical arguments, while later Saunders Lewis set forth a number of arguments for a date between 1170 and 1190; Th Charles-Edwards, in a paper published in 1970, discussed both viewpoints, and while critical of the arguments of both scholars, noted that the language of the stories fits the 11th century. More recently, Patrick Sims-Williams argued for a plausible range of about 1060 to 1200, the current scholarly consensus.

    It's a chunky book of 400 questions that range from the heinous to the nauseating to the downright disturbing, each a field-tested conversation starter—because no matter how strange or far-fetched, Would You Rather...? knows that choice provokes thinking, and thinking is fun. Some questions, like a Rorschach test, reveal values: Would you rather . . . Age only from the neck up -OR- age only from the neck down? Be stupid and rich -OR- smart and poor? Some delight in their own grossness: Eat three earthworms -OR- wear a necklace made of them on your wedding day? Be trapped in an elevator with wet dogs -OR- three fat men with bad breath? Some churn up prejudices: Lose your mate to the same sex as yourself -OR- the opposite sex? Some create that squirming sensation: Get a bad case of poison ivy way up inside your nose -OR- inside your inner ear? Or ethical dilemmas: Be president of a firm that poaches endangered species -OR- work for a corrupt politician? And some are just deliciously absurd: Catch a porcupine thrown from a second-story window -OR- a skunk thrown from the same window? Each question is followed up with related, often off-the-wall information, from odd trivia to dumb jokes to the occasional practical advice (go for the skunk—the porcupine's got 30,000 quills, while tomato juice will take away the skunk smell).

    Music of the western classical tradition spanning some 14 centuries -- from the emergence of Gregorian chant to the sounds of the present day -- is illustrated by 150 musical examples.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Long celebrated as a pathbreaking achievement in the social history of the ancient world, M.I. Finley's brilliant study remains, as classicist Bernard Knox notes in his introduction to this new edition, "as indispensable to the professional as it is accessible to the general reader"--a fundamental companion for students of Homer and Homeric Greece.