Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, and literary critic, best known for his collections of fairy tales, notably the "Fairy Books" series, which includes titles like "The Blue Fairy Book" and "The Red Fairy Book." He was also a prolific scholar, contributing to the fields of anthropology, history, and folklore with works such as "Custom and Myth" and "Myth, Ritual, and Religion." Lang's work in popularizing folk and fairy tales has had a lasting influence on children's literature and the study of mythology.

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CHAPTER I—HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN, AND HOW NORMAN LESLIE FLED OUT OF FIFE It is not of my own will, nor for my own glory, that I, Norman Leslie, sometime of Pitcullo, and in religion called Brother Norman, of the Order of Benedictines, of Dunfermline, indite this book.  But on my coming out of France, in the year of our Lord One thousand four hundred and fifty-nine, it was laid on me by my... more...

CHAPTER I.  SCOTLAND AND THE ROMANS. If we could see in a magic mirror the country now called Scotland as it was when the Romans under Agricola (81 A.D.) crossed the Border, we should recognise little but the familiar hills and mountains.  The rivers, in the plains, overflowed their present banks; dense forests of oak and pine, haunted by great red deer, elks, and boars, covered land that has long... more...

CHAPTER I: ADVENTURES AMONG BOOKS I In an age of reminiscences, is there room for the confessions of a veteran, who remembers a great deal about books and very little about people?  I have often wondered that a Biographia Literaria has so seldom been attempted—a biography or autobiography of a man in his relations with other minds.  Coleridge, to be sure, gave this name to a work of his, but he... more...

THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER These papers do not boast of great sport.  They are truthful, not like the tales some fishers tell.  They should appeal to many sympathies.  There is no false modesty in the confidence with which I esteem myself a duffer, at fishing.  Some men are born duffers; others, unlike persons of genius, become so by an infinite capacity for not taking pains.  Others, again,... more...

INTRODUCTION There is nothing in artistic poetry quite akin to “Aucassin and Nicolete.” By a rare piece of good fortune the one manuscript of the Song-Story has escaped those waves of time, which have wrecked the bark of Menander, and left of Sappho but a few floating fragments.  The very form of the tale is peculiar; we have nothing else from the twelfth or thirteenth century in the alternate... more...

PREFACE. Since the first publication of Cock Lane and Common-Sense in 1894, nothing has occurred to alter greatly the author’s opinions.  He has tried to make the Folklore Society see that such things as modern reports of wraiths, ghosts, ‘fire-walking,’ ‘corpse-lights,’ ‘crystal-gazing,’ and so on, are within their province, and within the province of anthropology.  In this attempt he... more...

PREFACE. Since the first publication of Custom and Myth, many other works have appeared, dealing on the same principles with matters of belief, fable and ritual. Were the book to be re-written, numerous fresh pieces of evidence might be adduced in support of its conclusions. In Mr. Frazer’s Golden Bough (Macmillan) the student will find a carefully conceived argument, and a large collection of... more...

INTRODUCTION. Though some of the essays in this volume have appeared in various serials, the majority of them were written expressly for their present purpose, and they are now arranged in a designed order.  During some years of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies, I have become more and more impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of the prevalent method of comparative mythology.  That... more...

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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. As I sat, one evening, idly musing on memories of roers and Boers, and contemplating the horns of a weendigo I had shot in Labrador and the head of a Moo Cow from Canada, I was roused by a ring at the door bell. A literary friend to whom I have shown your MS. says a weendigo is Ojibbeway for a cannibal. And why do you shoot poor Moo Cows?—Publisher. Mere slip of the pen.... more...

BOOK I—THE COMING OF PARIS Of the coming of Paris to the house of Menelaus, King of Lacedaemon, and of the tale Paris told concerning his past life. I. All day within the palace of the King   In Lacedaemon, was there revelry,Since Menelaus with the dawn did spring   Forth from his carven couch, and, climbing high   The tower of outlook, gazed along the dryWhite road that runs to Pylos through... more...

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