Folklore Mythology category: 2054 books

From the international bestselling author of Red Herrings and White Elephants—a curious guide to the hidden histories of classic nursery rhymes. Who was Mary Quite Contrary, or Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? Do Jack and Jill actually represent...

The fairy tales collected by the brothers Grimm are among the best known and most widely-read stories in western literature. In recent years commentators such as Bruno Bettelheim have, usually from a psychological perspective, pondered the underlying meaning of the stories, why children are so enthralled...

This volume contains mystical writings of Max Heindel on the little understood subject of Nature Spirits and Nature Forces. To speak of ethers as an avenue of forces conveys no meaning to the average mind, because force is invisible. But to an occult investigator the forces are not merely names such...

Interested in learning more about the religious rites, beliefs and practices of different cultures around the world? Check out W. H. Davenport Adams' Curiosities of Superstition. This important early work of comparative religious study highlights similarities and differences of sacred practices throughout history and around the globe.

The Big Book of Fairy Tales holds true to the rule, that sometimes – the oldest fairy tales are the best! Here is a collection of some of the finest stories from around the globe, including classics from Arabian Nights such as ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Sinbad the Sailor’, Hans Christian Andersen’s...

Wendy Doniger's foundational study is both modern in its engagement with a diverse range of religions and refreshingly classic in its transhistorical, cross-cultural approach. By responsibly analyzing patterns and themes across context, Doniger reinvigorates the comparative reading of religion, tapping...

"Throughout the whole vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet [looked upon] with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious...

Legend of the Rainbow Warriors is a journalist's account of one of the core myths of America, and an electrifying exploration of how that myth is playing out in real time. One dominant myth is formed by advertising images of vast, luxurious wealth-the myth of materialism. Another myth is conjured...

For poets, priests, and politicians--and especially ordinary Germans--in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the image of the loving nuclear family gathered around the Christmas tree symbolized the unity of the nation at large. German Christmas was supposedly organic, a product of the winter solstice...

A complete guide to the theory, practice, and history of Mazdan magic, the first organized system of magic • Provides a complete curriculum of magical study and initiation centered on exercises keyed to the sacred Zoroastrian calendar • Details advanced magical rituals and practices...

The Creed of Half Japan by Arthur Lloyd A comprehensive history of Mahayana Buddhism, particularly in Japan, and possible ties to Gnosticism and early Christianity. Includes two translated texts from the Nichiren school. This is a scholarly study of the evolution of Mahayana Buddhism...

The profound influence of ancient cosmologies on our ideas about the human spirit • Shows how ancient myths contain a sophisticated understanding of our relationship to the cosmos, derived from thousands of years of observation of the night sky • Explains how ideas of the mind and...

Progelomena To The Study Of Greek Religion by Jane Ellen Harrison Jane Harrison examines the festivals of ancient Greek religion to identify the primitive "substratum" of ritual and its persistence in the realm of classical religious observance and literature. In Harrison's preface...

From the jail cell that once held John Dillinger to quaint shops with dark beginnings, the restless spirits of Crown Point purportedly result from a century-old hex. Legend had it that a caravan of gypsies found themselves unfairly exiled from town. Forced to leave their beloved dead behind in unmarked...