In Wicca, 21-year-old Harmony Nice--a YouTube and Instagram star with 700,000 followers--offers modern readers a guide to overcoming obstacles and maximizing happiness. She offers practical guidance on:using crystals, wands, tarot cards, and magical toolssetting up an altarintroductory spells for health and protectionfinding your own witchy path--solitary or with a covenWith beautiful illustrations throughout, Wicca offers readers spiritual authenticity, a hint of glamour, and a perfect guide to infusing their lives with spiritual purpose, confidence, and resilience.

    People, Beings and BeastsWhere does the boogeyman come from?What creatures feast on faithful men?How do you defeat a minotaur?What really riles a dragon?Where would you find real-life werewolves?What happened to Atlantis?From dragons, vampires, werewolves and fairies to flying carpets, lost cities and modern-day mysteries,this delightful compendium of over 250 weird and wonderful legends, myths and monsters will entertain and astound anyone

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

    A book that has definitions & explanation about numerous signs & symbols

    I fear that, without it, I would feel invisible.   BABA YAGA: When you seek others this way, you are invisible nonetheless. Yr shawl is covered in mirrors in which others admire themselves; this is why they greet you so passionately. It is good to be seen, but it is better to see. Find a being to look hard into, & you will see yrself and what is more than you.  In age-old Slavic fairy tales, the witch Baba Yaga is sought out by those with a burning need for guidance. In contemporary life, Baba Yaga—a dangerous, slippery oracle—answered earnest questions on The Hairpin for years. These pages collect her most poignant, surreal, and humorous exchanges along with all-new questions and answers for those seeking her mystical advice.

    Like Ken Jennings and Mary Roach, Kaplan serves as a friendly armchair guide to the world of the supernatural. From the strengthening powers of Viking mead, to the super soldiers in movies like Captain America, Kaplan ranges across cultures and time periods to point out that there is often much more to these enduring magical narratives than mere fantasy. Informative and entertaining, Science of the Magical explores our world through the compelling scope of natural and human history and cutting-edge science.

    All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.” —Samuel Johnson   Ghosts are woven into the very fabric of life. In Britain, every town, village, and great house has a spectral resident, and their enduring popularity in literature, art, folklore, and film attests to their continuing power to fascinate, terrify, and inspire. Our conceptions of ghosts—the fears they provoke, the forms they take—are connected to the conventions and beliefs of each particular era, from the marauding undead of the Middle Ages to the psychologically charged presences of our own age. The ghost is no less than the mirror of the times.   Organized chronologically, this new cultural history features a dazzling range of artists and writers, including William Hogarth, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Susan Hiller and Jeremy Deller; John Donne, William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Percy and Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Muriel Spark, Hilary Mantel, and Sarah Waters.

    This superb sourcebook contains many new translations of seminal Celtic texts, including stories, poems, and prose pieces, some dating from as far back as the seventh century. Key ingredients in this rich cauldron of ancient lore include sections on: . Shamanic Memory, including chapters on: The Memory of the Earth--The Memory of the Trees--The Memory of Animals--and The Memory of Ancestors . Vision Poets, Druids, and Shamanic Guardians, including chapters on: Initiations--ShapeshiftingóDru . . . and Vision Poets . The Bright Knowledge, including chapters on: Prophecy and Divination--Healing and Soul Restoration-Dreams and Visions . Otherworldly Journeys, including chapters on: The Journey Quest--The House of the Sidhe. These ancient tales are accompanied by detailed commentaries, comprehensive background material, and practical shamanic insights. This wide-ranging sourcebook contains new translations of seminal texts, and is a must-have for any devotee of one the world's richest religious traditions.

    This book has become a classic in its field. Paul Beyerl, a respected author on herbs calls it "…an essential reference book by students of herbalism and magick alike … Scott's personable charm touches every page… I highly recommend this book." And Jeanne Rose, famous author of books on herbs and developer of an herbal course says "I love books like this … It is accessible, easy to read, and with its encompassing index (all too often neglected), simple to use as well." Over 200,000 people already have this book and use it frequently.In this edition of the book (it's expanded and revised on the 15th anniversary of original publication) you will find the magical properties and folklore of over 400 herbs! You'll also find lists of herbs based on their magical powers, their genders, their planetary rulers, and more. Perhaps the most important list is the folk name cross-reference. With that information, when a recipe calls for "bramble, " you'll know it needs blackberry. Or if the magic calls for "enebro," you'll know you that is juniper.The main part of this book is the listings of the herbs. Each one includes names, associations, and magical attributions. Violets can be used for protection, luck, love, and more. Primrose is for protection and love. Garlic is for protection, healing, exorcism, lust, and prevention of theft.This book is considered a classic. It is probably consulted more than any other book on this subject. If you want to learn the secrets of magical herbs, this book is a must!

    They have attempted to explain the mysteries and allay the fears in the same way - through the worship of gods. Deities have been identified with the human psyche for at least 60,000 years. Encyclopedia of Gods offers concise information on more than 2,500 of these deities, from the most ancient gods of polytheistic societies - Hittite, Sumerian, Mesopotamian - to the most contemporary gods of the major monotheistic religions - Allah, God, Yahweh. Among the cultures included are African peoples, Albanian, Pre-Islamic Arabian, Aztec, Babylonian, Buddhist, Canaanite, Celtic, Egyptian, Native American, Etruscan, Germanic, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Persian, Polynesian, and Shinto. The Encyclopedia includes not only the most significant gods of each culture but minor deities as well. Here you will find information not only on Zeus, Thor and Astarte but also on Tozi, the Aztec goddess of healing, Annamurti, the Hindu patron deity of the kitchen, and Nyakaya, the Shilluk crocodile goddess. Each entry provides details on what culture worshiped the god, the role of the god, and the characteristics and symbols used in identification. In the case of the more important personalities, references in art and literature and known dates of worship are also provided. Indexes by civilization and role of the god enable the researcher to compare gods across cultures or to find information on specific topics of interest. Encyclopedia of Gods will be indispensable to students and researchers in religions, anthropology, history and archaeology. It will also provide endless information for thereader interested in mythology and legend.

    Odin All Father crossed the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard. Thor defended Asgard with his mighty hammer. Mischievous Loki was constantly getting into trouble with the other gods, and dragons and giants walked free. This collection of Norse sagas retold by author Padraic Colum gives us a sense of that magical time when the world was filled with powers and wonders we can hardly imagine.

    Steeped in folklore and fantasy, it is a rich and diverse account of the part that fairies and fairy stories have played in culture and society.The pretty pastel world of gauzy-winged things who grant wishes and make dreams come true--as brought to you by Disney's fairies flitting across a woodland glade, or Tinkerbell's magic wand--is predated by a darker, denser world of gorgons, goblins, and gellos; the ancient antecedents of Shakespeare's mischievous Puck or J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. For, as Diane Purkiss explains in this engrossing history, ancient fairies were born of fear: fear of the dark, of death, and of other great rites of passage, birth and sex. To understand the importance of these early fairies to pre-industrial peoples, we need to recover that sense of dread.This book begins with the earliest manifestations of fairies in ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. The child-killing demons and nymphs of these cultures are the joint ancestors of the medieval fairies of northern Europe, when fairy figures provided a bridge between the secular and the sacred. Fairies abducted babies and virgins, spirited away young men who were seduced by fairy queens and remained suspended in liminal states.Tamed by Shakespeare's view of the spirit world, Victorian fairies fluttered across the theater stage and the pages of children's books to reappear a century later as detergent trade marks and alien abductors. In learning about these often strange and mysterious creatures, we learn something about ourselves--our fears and our desires.

    Other fabulous beasts are clearly inventions, existing only in a mythical landscape of our own collective creation. Bit the inicorn strikes us as more than imaginary. It seems possible, even probable—a creature so likely that it ought to exist. In this magnificently illustrated book, the author takes us on a tour of unicorn lore—from China and apan to India, the Near East, and urope—from ancient times through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and into the present. Tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, sculptures and paintings, zoological illustrations, advertisements, and original art especially commissioned for this book wll captivate all of us who are willing to submit to the magical charms of this fabulous and irresistible creature. More beautiful and appealing than the dragon, more mysterious and powerful than the elves and fairies, the unicorn as symbol and as legend is brilliantly brought to life in this colorful history.

    The lyrical passages and poetic images, the wry humor, the tall-tale extravagance, and the homely realism of the 'Kalevala' come through with extraordinary effectiveness.

    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