Folklore & Mythology Books

CHAPTER ONE The Cicons.—The Fruit of the Lotos-tree.—Polyphemus and the Cyclops.—The Kingdom of the Winds, and God Aeolus's Fatal Present.—TheLaestrygonian Man-eaters. This history tells of the wanderings of Ulysses and his followers in their return from Troy, after the destruction of that famous city of Asia by the Grecians. He was inflamed with a desire of seeing again, after a ten... 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...

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...

I. The Prologue One night at the palace of Cruachan in Connacht, a dispute arose between Queen Medb, the sometime wife of Conchobar, king of Ulster, and her consort Ailill, as to the amount of their respective possessions. It may be remarked in passing that in those days in Ireland, married women retained their private fortune independent of their husbands, as well as the dowry secured to them in... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. SOME KIND OF RELIGION FOUND AMONG ALL MEN--CLASSIFICATIONS OF RELIGIONS--THE PURPOSE OF RELIGIONS--RELIGIONS OF RITE AND OF CREED--THE MYTH GROWS IN THE FIRST OF THESE--INTENT AND MEANING OF THE MYTH. PROCESSES OF MYTH-BUILDING IN AMERICA--PERSONIFICATION. PARONYMS AND HOMONYMS--OTOSIS--POLYONOMY--HENOTHEISM--BORROWING--RHETORICAL FIGURES--ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONS. ESOTERIC... more...

THE BOYHOOD AND PARENTS OF ULYSSES Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece, there lived a king named Laertes.  His kingdom was small and mountainous.  People used to say that Ithaca “lay like a shield upon the sea,” which sounds as if it were a flat country.  But in those times shields were very large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow between... more...

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...

The earliest authentic account we can obtain of the birth of this learned and celebrated writer, is from the Register Book of Eton College, in which he is entered "of Chatham, in the county of Kent, of the age of twelve years, in 1730,"—consequently, born in 1718. Whence a difference has arisen between the dates in this entry, and the inscription on his monument, hereafter given, we are... more...

PART I.—MYTHS. INTRODUCTION. Before entering upon the many strange beliefs of the ancient Greeks, and the extraordinary number of gods they worshipped, we must first consider what kind of beings these divinities were. In appearance, the gods were supposed to resemble mortals, whom, however, they far surpassed in beauty, grandeur, and strength; they were also more commanding in stature, height being... more...

PREFACE Just as a little child holds out its hands to catch the sunbeams, to feel and to grasp what, so its eyes tell it, is actually there, so, down through the ages, men have stretched out their hands in eager endeavour to know their God. And because only through the human was the divine knowable, the old peoples of the earth made gods of their heroes and not unfrequently endowed these gods with as... more...