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Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic
By Sophus Helle. 2021
A poem for the ages, freshly and accessibly translated by an international rising star, bringing together scholarly precision and poetic…
graceGilgamesh is a Babylonian epic from three thousand years ago, which tells of King Gilgamesh&’s deep love for the wild man Enkidu and his pursuit of immortality when Enkidu dies. It is a story about love between men, loss and grief, the confrontation with death, the destruction of nature, insomnia and restlessness, finding peace in one&’s community, the voice of women, the folly of gods, heroes, and monsters—and more. Millennia after its composition, Gilgamesh continues to speak to us in myriad ways. Translating directly from the Akkadian, Sophus Helle offers a literary translation that reproduces the original epic&’s poetic effects, including its succinct clarity and enchanting cadence. An introduction and five accompanying essays unpack the history and main themes of the epic, guiding readers to a deeper appreciation of this ancient masterpiece.Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain
By Amy Jeffs. 2021
A TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR Soaked in mist and old…
magic, Storyland is a new illustrated mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes.It begins between the Creation and Noah's Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans.These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered: Brutus, Albina, Scota, Arthur and Bladud among them. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary. We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge and Wayland's Smithy, spanning the length of Britain from the archipelago of Orkney to as far south as Cornwall; mountains and lakes such as Snowdon and Loch Etive and rivers including the Ness, the Soar and the story-silted Thames in a vivid, beautiful tale of our land steeped in myth. It Illuminates a collective memory that still informs the identity and political ambition of these places.In Storyland, Jeffs reimagines these myths of homeland, exile and migration, kinship, loyalty, betrayal, love and loss in a landscape brimming with wonder.Oral Epic Traditions in China and Beyond (China Perspectives)
By Chao Gejin. 2022
This volume is the masterpiece of Chao Gejin, one of the best-known Chinese scholars of Epic studies, representing his most…
influential works on the change of the nature of the Epic across the twentieth century. The discussion ranges from Homeric and Indo-European epics to renewed discoveries of age-old African and Asian epics. The author details developments in research from Parry and Lord’s work on Serbo-Croat oral poetry to his own research on the Mongol heroic epic. The book traces the formation of theoretical systems such as Oral Formulaic Theory, Ethnopoetics and Performance Theory, and ends with the author’s explorations of the 20th-century Mongolian bard Arimpil’s singing of his native epic poetry. Using methods that previous scholars used to demonstrate the fundamentally oral nature of the Homeric epic, Chao brings to light the poetic richness of the still-living Mongol oral epic tradition. Students and scholars of epic studies, literature, folklore and anthropology will find this an essential reference.The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales
By Nicholas Jubber. 2022
The surprising origins and people behind the world's most influential magical tales: the people who told and re-shaped them, the…
landscapes that forged them, and the cultures that formed them and were in turn formed by them.Fairy-Tales are not just fairy-tales: they are records of historical phenomena, telling us something about how Western civilisation was formed. In The Fairy-Tellers' Trail, award-winning travel-writer Nick Jubber explores their secret history of fairy-tales: the people who told them, the landscapes that forged them, and the cultures that formed them. While there are certain names inextricably entwined with the concept of a fairy-tale, such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, the most significant tellers are long buried under the more celebrated figures who have taken the credit for their stories - people like the Syrian storyteller Youhenna Diab and the Wild Sisters of Cassel. Without them we would never have heard of Aladdin, his Magic Lamp or the adventures of Hansel and Gretel. Tracking these stories to their sources carries us through the steaming cities of Southern Italy and across the Mediterranean to the dust-clogged alleys of the Maghreb, under the fretting leaves of the Black Forest, deep into the tundra of Siberia and across the snowy hills of Lapland.From North Africa and Siberia, this audiobook illuminates the complicated relationship between Western civilisation and the 'Eastern' cultures it borrowed from, and the strange lives of our long lost fairy-tellers.(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton LimitedStoryland: A New Mythology of Britain
By Amy Jeffs. 2021
Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland tells a history of Britain and the politics of its people through medieval…
eyes. Grounded in research, related as fiction, it begins before the Great Flood, with a troop of African giants quarrying stones. Later, the first migrants enter the Atlantic, calling themselves the Scoti and Britons, followed by the English and the Normans, crossing the North Sea. Storyland is ancient Britain as you have never seen it before, mediated by the modern aesthetic of its linocut illustrations. It is filled with places we know today and characters half-remembered: Lear in Leicester, Merlin in Stonehenge, Grim in Grimsby, St Columba on the River Ness. Storyland is a tale of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong.(P)2021 Quercus Editions LimitedThe story of the Siege of Troy from the infamous Helen and her sister Klytemnestra's points of view - a…
tale of secrets, passion and revenge from the women behind mythology's most devastating war.Two sisters parted. Two women blamed. Two stories reclaimed.'Required reading for fans of Circe . . . a remarkable, thrilling debut' - Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth AvenueFor millennia, two women have been blamed for the fall of a mighty civilisation - but now it's time to hear their side of the story . . .As princesses of Sparta, Helen and Klytemnestra have known nothing but luxury and plenty. With their high birth and unrivalled beauty, they are the envy of all of Greece.Such privilege comes at a high price, though, and their destinies are not theirs to command. While still only girls they are separated and married off to legendary foreign kings Agamemnon and Menelaus, never to meet again. Their duty is now to give birth to the heirs society demands and be the meek, submissive queens their men expect.But when the weight of their husbands' neglect, cruelty and ambition becomes too heavy to bear, they must push against the constraints of their sex to carve new lives for themselves - and in doing so make waves that will ripple throughout the next three thousand years.Perfect for readers of Circe and Ariadne, Daughters of Sparta is a vivid and illuminating retelling of the Siege of Troy that tells the story of mythology's most vilified women from their own mouths at long last.Helen of Troy and her sister Klytemnestra are reimagined in this gorgeous retelling of the classic Greek myth - not as women defined by their husbands and lovers but as battle-weary survivors of a patriarchal society who take control of their own destiny. Absolutely riveting!' - Alka Joshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton LtdMyths in Minutes (IN MINUTES)
By Neil Philip. 2017
The world's great fables, sagas and legends dramatically retold.Myths are the greatest stories ever told. Passed down over millennia, they…
are the templates for all our stories, with their eternal themes of creation and destruction, fate and cunning, heroism and cruelty, sensuality and war. Retold here are nearly 200 myths - from Prometheus defying Zeus to create man to the destruction of Troy; and from valiant battles against Frost Giants and Cyclopes to the heroic quests for the Golden Fleece and Holy Grail - including a commentary on their origins, common themes and meanings. Compellingly written, concise and with each myth illustrated with an iconic image, Myths in Minutes is the perfect way to understand and enjoy the world's major fables. Includes the great Ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian legends: The Labours of Heracles; The Gods of Olympus; Zeus defeats the Titans; Hades and the Underworld; Theseus and the Minotaur; The Gorgons; Perseus and Andromeda; Oedipus and the Sphinx; The Judgment of Paris; The Trojan Horse; The Odyssey; Jason and The Golden Fleece; Romulus, Remus and the Founding of Rome; Mars, the God of War; The Eye of Ra; The Murder and Resurrection of Osiris; and more.The best of Celtic, Norse, Eastern, American, Oceanic and African myths: Gilgamesh and the Great Flood; Odin's Great Sacrifice; Thor's Adventures in the Land of the Giants; The Treachery of Loki; Ragnarok - The Last Battle; The Eight Immortals; The War Between the Sun and the Stars; Quetzalcoatl, The Plumed Serpent; Ganesh, the Elephant-headed; Ananse and the Sky God; King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; the age-old stories of the Aboriginal Dreaming; and many; many more.Every Tongue Got to Confess
By Zora Neale Hurston. 2001
Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her…
travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s.The bittersweet and often hilarious tales -- which range from longer narratives about God, the Devil, white folk, and mistaken identity to witty one-liners -- reveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community. Together, this collection of nearly 500 folktales weaves a vibrant tapestry that celebrates African American life in the rural South and represents a major part of Zora Neale Hurston's literary legacy.Monkey: A Journey to the West
By David Kherdian. 1992
Part spiritual pilgrimage, part historical epic, the folk novel Journey to the West, which came to be known as Monkey,…
is the most popular classic of Asian literature. Originally written in the sixteenth century, it is the story of the adventures of the rogue-trickster Monkey and his encounters with a bizarre cast of characters as he travels to India with the Buddhist pilgrim Tripitaka in search of sacred scriptures. Much more than a picaresque adventure novel, Monkey is a profound allegory of the struggle that must occur before spiritual transformation is possible. David Kherdian's masterful telling brings this classic of Chinese literature to life in a way that is true to the scope and depth of the original.The Watkins Book of English Folktales
By Neil Philip. 2022
This is a golden treasury of over one hundred English folktales captured in the form they were first collected in past…
centuries. Read these classic tales as they would have been told when storytelling was a living art – when the audience believed in boggarts and hobgoblins, local witches and will-o&’-the-wisps, ghosts and giants, cunning foxes and royal frogs. Find &“Jack the Giantkiller&”, &“Tom Tit Tot&” and other quintessentially English favourites, alongside interesting borrowings, such as an English version of the Grimms&’ &“Little Snow White&” – as well as bedtime frighteners, including &“Captain Murderer&”, as told to Charles Dickens by his childhood nurse.Neil Philip has provided a full introduction and source notes on each story that illustrate each tale&’s journey from mouth to page, and what has happened to them on the way. These tales rank among the finest English short stories of all time in their richness of metaphor and plot and their great verbal dash and daring.Irish Fairy Tales and Folklore
By W. B. Yeats. 2022
A classic collection of Irish fairy tales and lore by Nobel Peace Prize-winning author and poet W. B. YeatsOriginally published…
as two separate volumes in 1800s, this premier collection of Irish stories edited and compiled W. B. Yeats is the perfect gift for any lover of Irish literature and folklore. The lyrical prose and rich cultural heritage of each tale will captivate and enchant readers of all ages and keep them entertained for hours on end.This volume contains more than seventy classic Irish stories, including timeless characters and mythology passed down for generations such as:The Trooping FairiesChangelingsTir-na-n-ógThe LepracaunThe Kildare PookaHow Thomas Connolly met the BansheeAnd many more!Dictionary of Norse Myth & Legend
By Andrew Orchard. 1997
From Loki to Thor, Ragnarok to BeowulfA gripping and truly mesmerising delve into the Norse legendsFrom bestselling books to blockbusting…
Hollywood movies, the myths of the Scandinavian gods and heroes are part of the modern day landscape.For over a millennium before the arrival of Christianity, the legends permeated everyday life in Iceland and the northern reaches of Europe. Since that time, they have been perpetuated in literature and the arts in forms as diverse as Tolkien and Wagner, graphic novels to the world of Marvel. This book covers the entire cast of supernatural beings, from gods to trolls, heroes to monsters, and deals with the social and historical background to the myths, topics such as burial rites, sacrificial practices and runes.Dictionary of Norse Myth & Legend
By Andrew Orchard. 1997
From Loki to Thor, Ragnarok to BeowulfA gripping and truly mesmerising delve into the Norse legendsFrom bestselling books to blockbusting…
Hollywood movies, the myths of the Scandinavian gods and heroes are part of the modern day landscape.For over a millennium before the arrival of Christianity, the legends permeated everyday life in Iceland and the northern reaches of Europe. Since that time, they have been perpetuated in literature and the arts in forms as diverse as Tolkien and Wagner, graphic novels to the world of Marvel. This book covers the entire cast of supernatural beings, from gods to trolls, heroes to monsters, and deals with the social and historical background to the myths, topics such as burial rites, sacrificial practices and runes.The Enchanted Boot: Italian Fairy Tales and Their Tellers (The Donald Haase Series in Fairy-Tale Studies)
By Prof. Nancy L. Canepa. 2023
This comprehensive collection of Italian tales in English encourages a revisitation of the fairy-tale canon in light of some of…
the most fascinating material that has often been excluded from it. In the United States, we tend to associate fairy tales with children and are most familiar with the tales of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and Disney. But the first literary fairy tales appeared in Renaissance Italy, and long before the Grimms there was already a rich and sophisticated tradition that included hundreds of tales, including many of those today considered "classic." The authors featured in this volume have, over the centuries, explored and interrogated the intersections between elite and popular cultures and oral and literary narratives, just as they have investigated the ways in which fairy tales have been and continue to be rewritten as expressions of both collective identities and individual sensibilities. The fairy tale in its Italian incarnations provides a striking example of how this genre is a potent vehicle for expressing cultural aspirations and anxieties as well as for imagining different ways of narrating shared futures.Le Morte D'arthur: The Winchester Manuscript (Oxford World's Classics Ser.)
By Thomas Malory, Helen Cooper. 2008
The greatest English version of the stories of King Arthur, Le Morte D'Arthur was completed in 1469-70 by Sir Thomas…
Malory, "knight prisoner." This edition is the first designed for the general reader to be based on the "Winchester manuscript" which represents what Malory wrote more closely than the version printed by William Caxton. Extensively annotated, this edition is highly user-friendly.Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers
By Sarah Iles Johnston. 2023
An entrancing new telling of ancient Greek myths“This book is a triumph! . . . [A] magnificent retelling of the…
Greek myths.”—Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series“Move over, Edith Hamilton! Sarah Iles Johnston has hit the magical refresh button on Greek myths.”—Maria Tatar, author of The Heroine with 1001 FacesGripping tales that abound with fantastic characters and astonishing twists and turns, Greek myths confront what it means to be mortal in a world of powerful forces beyond human control. Little wonder that they continue to fascinate readers thousands of years after they were first told. Gods and Mortals is a major new telling of ancient Greek myths by one of the world’s preeminent experts. In a fresh, vibrant, and compelling style that draws readers into the lives of the characters, Sarah Iles Johnston offers new narrations of all the best-known tales as well as others that are seldom told, taking readers on an enthralling journey from the origin of the cosmos to the aftermath of the Trojan War.Some of the mortals in these stories are cursed by the gods, while luckier ones are blessed with resourcefulness and resilience. Gods transform themselves into animals, humans, and shimmering gold to visit the earth in disguise—where they sometimes transform offending mortals into new forms, too: a wolf, a spider, a craggy rock. Other mortals—both women and men—use their wits and strength to conquer the monsters created by the gods—gorgons, dragons, harpies, fire-breathing bulls.Featuring captivating original illustrations by Tristan Johnston, Gods and Mortals highlights the rich connections between the different characters and stories, draws attention to the often-overlooked perspectives of female characters, and stays true both to the tales and to the world in which ancient people lived. The result is an engaging and entertaining new take on the Greek myths.The Shadow of Perseus
By Claire Heywood. 2023
History remembers him as a hero. But the women who knew him best remember a different man...Perseus grows up wanting…
to be a hero, but he cannot become one if his mother Danae still sees him as a boy. When his stepfather Polydektes casts him away on a voyage across the sea, Perseus is determined to fulfil the great destiny of the son of a god and the grandson of a king. But the line between heroism and monstrosity is thin, and when Perseus attempts to seduce first gentle Medusa and then beautiful Andromeda, before finally reuniting with Danae, they each learn of the dangers of resisting a boy prepared to risk it all for greatness . . .Mother Goose Refigured: A Critical Translation of Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales (Series in Fairy-Tale Studies)
By Christine A. Jones. 2016
Charles Perrault published Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (“Stories or Tales of the Past”) in France in 1697 during…
what scholars call the first “vogue” of tales produced by learned French writers. The genre that we now know so well was new and an uncommon kind of literature in the epic world of Louis XIV’s court. This inaugural collection of French fairy tales features characters like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Puss in Boots that over the course of the eighteenth century became icons of social history in France and abroad. Translating the original Histoires ou Contes means grappling not only with the strangeness of seventeenth-century French but also with the ubiquity and familiarity of plots and heroines in their famous English personae. From its very first translation in 1729, Histoires ou Contes has depended heavily on its English translations for the genesis of character names and enduring recognition. This dependability makes new, innovative translation challenging. For example, can Perrault’s invented name “Cendrillon” be retranslated into anything other than “Cinderella”? And what would happen to our understanding of the tale if it were? Is it possible to sidestep the Anglophone tradition and view the seventeenth-century French anew? Why not leave Cinderella alone, as she is deeply ingrained in cultural lore and beloved the way she is? Such questions inspired the translations of these tales in Mother Goose Refigured, which aim to generate new critical interest in heroines and heroes that seem frozen in time. The book offers introductory essays on the history of interpretation and translation, before retranslating each of the Histoires ou Contes with the aim to prove that if Perrault’s is a classical frame of reference, these tales nonetheless exhibit strikingly modern strategies. Designed for scholars, their classrooms, and other adult readers of fairy tales, Mother Goose Refigured promises to inspire new academic interpretations of the Mother Goose tales, particularly among readers who do not have access to the original French and have relied for their critical inquiries on traditional renderings of the tales.Fairy Tales Transformed?: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder
By Cristina Bacchilega. 2013
Fairy-tale adaptations are ubiquitous in modern popular culture, but readers and scholars alike may take for granted the many voices…
and traditions folded into today's tales. In Fairy Tales Transformed?: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder, accomplished fairy-tale scholar Cristina Bacchilega traces what she terms a "fairy-tale web" of multivocal influences in modern adaptations, asking how tales have been changed by and for the early twenty-first century. Dealing mainly with literary and cinematic adaptations for adults and young adults, Bacchilega investigates the linked and yet divergent social projects these fairy tales imagine, their participation and competition in multiple genre and media systems, and their relation to a politics of wonder that contests a naturalized hierarchy of Euro-American literary fairy tale over folktale and other wonder genres. Bacchilega begins by assessing changes in contemporary understandings and adaptations of the Euro-American fairy tale since the 1970s, and introduces the fairy-tale web as a network of reading and writing practices with a long history shaped by forces of gender politics, capitalism, and colonialism. In the chapters that follow, Bacchilega considers a range of texts, from high profile films like Disney's Enchanted, Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, and Catherine Breillat's Bluebeard to literary adaptations like Nalo Hopkinson's Skin Folk, Emma Donoghue's Kissing the Witch, and Bill Willingham's popular comics series, Fables. She looks at the fairy-tale web from a number of approaches, including adaptation as "activist response" in Chapter 1, as remediation within convergence culture in Chapter 2, and a space of genre mixing in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 connects adaptation with issues of translation and stereotyping to discuss mainstream North American adaptations of The Arabian Nights as "media text" in post-9/11 globalized culture. Bacchilega's epilogue invites scholars to intensify their attention to multimedia fairy-tale traditions and the relationship of folk and fairy tales with other cultures' wonder genres. Scholars of fairy-tale studies will enjoy Bacchilega's significant new study of contemporary adaptations.Mythology For Dummies
By Amy Hackney Blackwell, Christopher W. Blackwell. 2023
Discover (or rediscover!) history’s greatest myths and legends From Grendel and Beowulf to Poseidon, Medusa, and Hercules, the gods, monsters,…
and heroes of mythology are endlessly weird and fascinating. And if you’re looking for a helpful companion to this wild collection of creatures, humans, and deities, you’ve found it! Mythology For Dummies delivers the straight goods on history’s most popular myths, helping you make sense of even the most complicated ancient stories. You’ll learn about the origins of your favorite myths, their cultural impact, and more. Discover: The coolest mythological characters, including intrepid Odysseus, the volatile gods of Mount Olympus, and Thor and Loki How ancient mythology intersects with our daily lives in pop culture, high culture, and everything in between Mythological destinations, like Atlantis, and famous sites from Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologyAn engrossing guide to some of the most enduring and interesting tales from throughout history, Mythology For Dummies serves up the inside scoop on almost every myth or legend you’d care to learn more about.