A world classic. The Golden Bough describes our ancestors' primitive methods of worship, sex practices, strange rituals and festivals. Disproving the popular thought that primitive life was simple, this monumental survey shows that savage man was enmeshed in a tangle of magic, taboos, and superstitions. Revealed here is the evolution of man from savagery to civilization, from the modification of his weird and often bloodthirsty customs to the entry of lasting moral, ethical, and spiritual values.
From fire-stealing Prometheus to scene-stealing Helen of Troy, from Jason and his golden fleece to Oedipus and his mother, this collection of classic tales from Greek mythology demonstrates the inexhaustible vitality of a timeless cultural legacy. These stories of heroes and powerful gods and goddesses are set forth simply and movingly, in language that retains the power and drama of the original works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer.
Introduction by Werner JaegerWith black-and-white illustrations throughout
Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library
Presents a colorful, lavishly illustrated history of the mythic unicorn, covering the lore of ancient Greece, Arabia, India, and the Far East as well as Victorian England and modern science fiction
Mexican-American traditions are richly nourished by the folkways of three cultures: Indian, Spanish, and Mexican. This comprehensive look at the Mexican-American world includes a range of traditional proverbs, riddles, stories and folksongs; folk narrative, from Pancho Villa to urban ghosts, saints to revolutionaries; customs, from household shrines to irrigation rituals to charreadas, or Mexican-style rodeos; children's games, home remedies, folk foods, crafts, dress, and more.Besides its wide range of folk genres, Mexican-American Folklore is also broad-ranging in space--it covers the entire American Southwest, and in time, it includes material from several generations back, as well as very recent adaptations of customs to modern life. These stories teach readers the importance of courage, resourcefulness and respect for Mexican-American traditions.
This is the first paperbound edition of a standard reference volume long familiar to students of China and Chinese culture. The work of a scholarly English resident of China, it is an illustrated encyclopedia with hundreds of concise, clear, and authoritative articles outlining the meaning of Chinese symbols and art motives, arranged alphabetically by concept.
Special emphasis is placed on those historical, legendary, or supernatural persons, animals, and objects that recur frequently as symbols or emblems in the art and literature (of Japan and Korea, as well as of China): Lao Tzu, the phoenix, the Eight Immortals, the Twelve Ornaments, and so on. Chinese customs and observances are recorded, and there are numerous articles on general topics (agriculture, medicine, astrology, costume, drama); arts and crafts (carpets, lacquer, shop signs, calligraphy); religion and folk beliefs; natural history; music; and many other subjects. Includes 402 illustrations.
Compares and contrasts the themes of myths and legends in different cultures around the world
Volume two of Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory's powerful and elegaic version of the Arthurian legend, recounts the adventures of Sir Tristram de Liones and the treachery of Sir Mordred, and follows Sir Launcelot's quest for The Holy Grail, his fatally divided loyalties, and his great, forbidden love for the beautiful Queen Guenever. Culminating in an account of Arthur's final battle against the scheming, deceitful Mordred, this is the definitive re-telling of the Arthurian myth, weaving a story of adultery, treachery and ultimately--in its tragic finale--death. Edited and published by William Caxton in 1485, Malory's moving prose romance looks back to an idealised Medieval age of chivalry, drawing on French and English verse sources to create an epic masterpiece of passion, enchantment, war and betrayal.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Long ago the ancestors of the Greeks, Romans, and Hindus were one people living on the Eurasian steppes. At the core of their religion was the shamanic trance, a natural state but one in which consciousness achieves a profound level of inner awareness. Over the course of millennia, the Indo-Europeans divided and migrated into Europe and the Indian subcontinent. The knowledge of shamanic trance retreated from everyday awareness and was carried on in the form of myths and distilled into spiritual practices--most notably in the Indian tradition of yoga. J. Nigro Sansonese compares the myths of Greece as well as those of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the yogic practices of India and concludes that myths are esoteric descriptions of what occurs within the human body, especially the human nervous system, during trance. In this light, the myths provide a detailed map of the shamanic state of consciousness that is our natural heritage.
This book carries on from the works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell to show how the portrayal of consciousness embodied in myth can be extended to a reappraisal of the laws of physics; before they are descriptions of the world, these laws--like myths--are descriptions of the human nervous system.
