Folklore History

Amazons - fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world - were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.

The ancient Romans have one of the richest collections of myths of all the early civilizations. In this book you can discover all the most important Roman gods, important Roman myths, the history of Rome, and much more.

Japan is a single nation, but its origins are so old, and often, so fragmented, that unified mythology and folklore can be difficult to point to. Still, there are some key texts, tales, and characters we can focus on which will give us a pretty good sense of Japanese mythology. In this audiobook, you'll discover stories of mystery, horror, and romance while simultaneously learning about the Japanese culture.

""Simply the most exciting book on black folklore and culture I have ever read."" --Roger D. Abrahams Mules and Men is the first great collection of black America's folk world. In the 1930's, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her ""native village"" of Eatonville, Florida to record the oral...

Discover the Spirit of Ireland through an Epic Exploration of Irish History and Myths.

The Ghost of Bellamy Bridge: A Southern Gothic Tale of Love, Loss, and Eternal Vigil delves deep into one of Florida's most compelling supernatural legends. This meticulously researched exploration traces the tragic story of Elizabeth Jane Bellamy, whose 1837 wedding day accident transformed her into the South's most famous spectral bride.

Heroes, gods, and mortals. The Greek myths are the founding narratives of Western civilization: to understand them is to know the origins of philosophy, literature, art, science, law, and more. Indeed, as Luc Ferry shows in this masterful book, they remain a great store of wisdom, as relevant to our lives today as ever before.

Over their long lives, Greek myths have expressed a myriad of meanings. This erudite yet accessible exploration examines how the world's most influential myths have survived to the present, and how they have shaped our ideas on everything from family and society to sexuality and culture.

Did you know that a hippogriff is supposedly the offspring of a horse and a griffin? Or that a Greek sphinx generally has a male face, whereas an Egyptian one has a female visage? Where does the skunk ape roam, and how can you spot a kitsune in human form? Is Slenderman the most frightening mythical creature, or is that honor bestowed on the fearsome gashadokuro? This fantastic book introduces the listener to more than 100 mythical beasts and legendary creatures.

Join us as we enter the Ancient Norse Realms, and journey into a captivating world of gods and goddesses, mythical creatures, and legendary heroes.

A landmark anthology of queer Greek and Roman love stories that reclaim and celebrate homosexual love and sensuality, from artist Luke Edward Hall and award-winning poet Seán Hewitt. For centuries, evidence of queer love in the ancient world has either been ignored or suppressed. Even today...

Spanning several centuries of history in the Pacific, The Legends and Myths of Hawaiʻi: Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People is a collection of Hawaiian stories that were preserved through the ages by oral tradition and documented for posterity by King David Kalākaua in 1887. This massive tome recalls the tales of chiefs and kings, explorers and pirates, prophets, sorceresses, and renegades. This is the first in a series of 22 parts.

Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science Dr. Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein's monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal.

I’m sure you’ve heard the name Thor, especially with all the superhero movies. In this book, we’ll tell you all about how he was born and all of the interesting things he did. But before all that, we’ll also take a quick look at what myths are, where they come from, and why they’re important.

Revolution is a bloodthirsty business . . . especially when vampires are involved. It is 1793 and the French Revolution is in full swing. Vampires—usually rich and aristocratic—have slaked the guillotine’s thirst in large numbers. The mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, a disguised British noble...

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. We follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings.

The Holy Grail, the kingdom of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, and the magical sword Excalibur are all key ingredients of the legends surrounding King Arthur. But who was he really, where did he come from, and how much of what we read about him in stories that date back to the Dark Ages is true? So far, historians have failed to show that King Arthur really existed at all, and for a good reason—they have been looking in the wrong place. In this book, Alistair Moffat shatters all existing assumptions about Britain's most enigmatic hero.

Together, these three volumes form an essential collection for anyone fascinated by mythology, folklore, and the cultural heritage of Japan. Each story in this anthology is not just a tale. It's a window into the ancient soul of Japan, its people, and its enduring legacy.

Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh - these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature of civilization, representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom.

From monsters to witches and ancient libraries to lost islands, The Life Fantastic seeks to trace the origins of ideas, their surprising paths, and unexpected ways in which they interact and manifest throughout history. By digging around the roots of literary genres, popular stories, and ancient myths, Noa propels the listener back and forth through time, from high to popular culture, from art to politics and religion, on a journey to ever-expanding horizons. This is an invitation to explore the collective subconscious of Western culture.