Folklore & Mythology Books

The Divine Mythology of the North The Icelandic Eddas are the only vernacular record of Germanic heathendom as it developed during the four centuries which in England saw the destruction of nearly all traces of the heathen system. The so-called Elder Edda is a collection of some thirty poems, mythic and heroic in substance, interspersed with short pieces of prose, which survives in a thirteenth-century... more...

GERAINT THE SON OF ERBIN.   Arthur was accustomed to hold his Court at Caerlleon upon Usk.  And there he held it seven Easters, and five Christmases.  And once upon a time he held his Court there at Whitsuntide.  For Caerlleon was the place most easy of access in his dominions, both by sea and by land.  And there were assembled nine crowned kings, who were his tributaries, and likewise earls and... more...

PHŒNIX and PHŒNICES. As there has been much uncertainty about the purport and extent of these terms; and they are of great consequence in the course of history; I will endeavour to state their true meaning. Phoinic, or Poinic, was an Egyptian and Canaanitish term of honour; from whence were formed Φοινιξ, Φοινικες, Φοινικοεις of the Greeks, and Phoinic, Poinicus, Poinicius of... more...

PREFACE. Some explanation is due to the reader of the form and scope of these elaborations of the lectures which I have given at the John Rylands Library during the last three winters. They deal with a wide range of topics, and the thread which binds them more or less intimately into one connected story is only imperfectly expressed in the title "The Evolution of the Dragon". The book has been... more...

PREFACE TO NEW IMPRESSION. When this book first appeared (1886), the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, "Amurath to Amurath succeeds"; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH. Myth, as it is understood by us, and as It will be developed and explained in this work, cannot be defined in summary terms, since its multiform and comprehensive nature embraces and includes all primitive action, as well as much which is consecutive and historical in the intelligence and feelings of man, with respect to the immediate and the reflex... 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...

MYTHS OF GREECE AND ROME BAUCIS AND PHILEMON ADAPTED BY C.E. SMITH One evening, in times long ago, old Philemon and his wife Baucis sat at their cottage door watching the sunset. They had eaten their supper and were enjoying a quiet talk about their garden, and their cow, and the fruit trees on which the pears and apples were beginning to ripen. But their talk was very much disturbed by rude shouts and... more...

THE RUINOUS FACE When the siege of Troy had been ten years doing, and most of the chieftains were dead, both of those afield and those who held the walls; and some had departed in their ships, and all who remained were leaden-hearted; there was one who felt the rage of war insatiate in his bowels: Menelaus, yellow-haired King of the Argives. He, indeed, rested not day or night, but knew the fever... more...

CHAP. I.—OLYMPUS. am going to tell you the history of the most wonderful people who ever lived.  But I have to begin with a good deal that is not true; for the people who descended from Japhet’s son Javan, and lived in the beautiful islands and peninsulas called Greece, were not trained in the knowledge of God like the Israelites, but had to guess for themselves.  They made strange stories,... more...