Spanning the centuries from the first wars of the ancient Irish kings through the Celtic Renaissance of Yeats to our own time, they are set in cities, villages, fields and forestsfrom the wild Gaelic western coast to the modern streets of Dublin and Belfast.Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    Not a single human-made sound can be heard at night, just the noise of birds and animals rustling in the dark forest outside.Her witchlike grandmother dispenses advice and herbal medicine to the village, but she’s tight lipped about their family history. Something must have happened, but what? Determined to find out, Simi disobeys her grandmother and goes exploring. Caught in the sinking red quicksand of a forbidden lake, her fantastical journey begins …Winner of the 2019 Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition, Children of the Quicksands is a richly imagined magical realist adventure set in West Africa by a new voice in children’s writing, Efua Traoré.

    Preparing for the Obon ceremony is boring. Then the local kids take an interest in Saki and she sees an opportunity for some fun, even if it means disrespecting her family's ancestral shrine on a malicious dare.But as Saki rings the sacred bell, the darkness shifts. A death curse has been invoked... and Saki has three nights to undo it. With the help of three spirit guides and some unexpected friends, Saki must prove her worth - or say good-bye to the world of the living forever.

    In course of time ice piled over the Well, and out of it grew something they called Ymir, the father of the terrible Frost Giants. Ymir was fed on the milk of a magic cow who licked the ice, and with it salt from the Well of Life. As she licked with her tongue, she formed the first of the gods, the Ǣsir, who was called Buri. Buri had a son Borr, and Borr was the father of Odin. Odin and his brothers overcame the ice and frost giants. They thrust Ymir down into the Yawning Void, and of his body they made the world we live in. They set the sea in a ring about the world, and planted the World Tree, the Ash Yggdrasill, to hold it in place. From this making of the world, to Ragnarok, the last Great Battle, Roger Lancelyn Green tells the story in one continuous narrative. It is easy to read, and there is a clear rhythm carrying through to the final climax. He has taken his material from original sources, of which he gives a brief account in his foreword. “The interest in these myths often preceded reading abilty, but this telling will be found good to read aloud, and boys and gtirls from 10 up will easily manage it for themselves. “

    (It's common knowledge that goats are a chupacabra's favorite food!) One night, tired of living in fear, the impetuous goats whip out their trusty candelabra and head off to find the beast and scare it away before it can find them. Little do they know that candelabras are the chupacabra's third-favorite food . . . and he isn't about to stop there. This chupacabra has quite the appetite, and the goats are in for a big surprise!

    Notable for their magnificent, jewel-like color illustrations by Bilibin, these traditional tales include "The Frog Princess," "Vassilissa the Beautiful," and "The White Duck." Though Russian Fairy Tales in the Pantheon Folklore Library is a book for adults, it has sold over 30,000 copies.

    What little secret would scare three terrible giants?. Why would a giant tremble at the sight of a butterfly?. Do giants throw temper tantrums?The answers to these questions are found in three mesmerizing tales of giants and a child. But the giants that crash and bellow through this book are unlike the giants of folklore. They behave in the most unusual manner, and find themselves in the most peculiar situations. What do these cantankerous, yet sympathetic giants have in common? They encounter a small little boy, who towers over the giants by way of wit and common sense. David L. Harrison's classic collection, richly illustrated by Philippe Fix, has been translated into ten languages and sold close to a million copies in it original edition. Now this Christopher Award-winning book is available again to a new generation of children.

    Including Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, Cinderella, Thumbelina, and Hansel and Gretel, as well as many others, this collection provides a historical introduction for each tale and a general Introduction which traces the history of fairy tales collected in Asia and Europe long before they appeared in English.

      Here are Paul Bunyan, that king-sized lumberjack who could fell “ten white pines with a single swing”; John Henry, with his mighty hammer; Mose, old New York’s biggest, bravest fireman; Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, who could “outgrin, outsnort, outrun, outlift, outsneeze, outsleep, outlie any varmint”; and other uniquely American characters, together in one superb collection.   In the tradition of the original nineteenth-century storytellers, Mary Pope Osborne compiles, edits, and adds her own two cents’ worth—and also supplies fascinating historical headnotes. Michael McCurdy’s robust colored wood engravings recall an earlier time, perfectly capturing all the vitality of the men and women who carved a new country out of the North American wilderness.

    The world's best-loved children's stories set in large type for easy reading.-- Over 100 illustrations in each book

    Many of the most highly regarded citizens leaped from windows or jumped into the Rhone, screaming that their heads were made of copper, their bodies wrapped in snakes, their limbs swollen to gigantic size or shrunken to tiny appendages. Others ran through the streets, claiming to be chased by "bandits with donkey ears", by tigers, lions & other terrifying apparitions. Animals went berserk. Dogs ripped bark from trees until their teeth fell out. Cats dragged themselves along the floor in grotesque contortions. Ducks strutted like penguins. Villagers & animals died right & left. Bit by bit, the story behind the tragedy in Pont-St-Esprit--a tiny Provencial village of twisted streets that looks much today as it did in the Middle Ages--unfolded to doctors & toxcologists. That story, one of the most bizarre in modern medical history, is movingly recounted in The Day of St. Anthony's Fire. Throughout the Middle Ages & during other times in history, similar hallucinatory outbreaks occurred. They were called St. Anthony's Fire because it was believed that only prayers to the saint could hold the disease in check. Even modern medicine could find no way to check the disease. Drugs failed to bring even temporary relief. Hundreds in the village suffered for weeks, with total agonizing insomnia, never knowing when they might once more suddenly go berserk. The cause of St. Anthony's Fire was known since early history to be ergot, a mold found on rye grain that at rare times inexplicably became posionous enough to create monstrous hallucinations & death. In '51 little significance was attached to the fact that the base of ergot was lysergic acid, also the base for LSD, a drug just coming to the attention of scientists at the time--a drug so powerful that one eye-dropperful could cause as many as 5000 people to hallucinate for hours. At this point, the story becomes a vividly absorbing medical detective story demonstrating the possibility that a strange, spontaneous form of LSD might have caused the human tragedy that came to the hapless villagers of Pont-St-Esprit.

    Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these tales reflect the Japanese worldview during a classic period in Japanese civilization. Masterfully edited and translated by the acclaimed translator of The Tale of Genji, these stories ably balance the lyrical and the dramatic, the ribald and the profound, offering a window into a long-vanished though perennially fascinating culture.

    Children meet Bragi, the god of poetry, and the famous Valkyrie maidens, among other gods, goddesses, heroes, and giants. Illustrations throughout depict the wondrous other world of Norse folklore and its fantastical Northern landscape.

    Illustrated with woodcuts.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    When a rebellion against British colonizers spreads, she must choose between relative safety in a British household or standing up for herself and her people.India, 1857Meera's future has been planned for her for as long as she can remember. As a child, her parents married her to a boy from a neighboring village whom she barely knows. Later, on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, she prepares to leave her family to live with her husband's--just as her strict religion dictates. But that night, Indian soldiers mutiny against their British commanders and destroy the British ammunition depot, burning down parts of Delhi. Riots follow, and Meera's husband is killed. Upon hearing the news, Meera's father insists that she follow the dictates of their fringe religious sect: She must end her life by throwing herself on her husband's funeral pyre.Risking everything, Meera runs away, escaping into the chaos of the rebellion. But her newfound freedom is short-lived, as she is forced to become a servant in the house of a high-ranking British East India Company captain. Slowly through her work, she gains confidence, new friends, new skills--and sometimes her life even feels peaceful. But one day, Meera stumbles upon the captain's secret stock of ammunition, destined to be used by the British to continue colonizing India and control its citizens.Will Meera do her part to take down the British colonists and alert the rebellion of the stockpile? Or will she stay safe and let others make decisions for her? It really comes down to this: how much fire must a girl face to finally write her own destiny?