Titoli in Studi su folklore e mitologia

هل تساءلت يومًا عن أصول الشر؟ ومن هم أرباب الشر في الحضارات القديمة؟ وكيف تغير مفهوم الشر عبر الزمن؟ منذ فجر التاريخ، سعى الإنسان لفهم مفهوم الشر، تلك القوة...

Monsters, in all their terrifying glory, have preoccupied humans since we began telling stories. But where did these stories come from? In Monsterland, award-winning author Nicholas Jubber goes on a journey to discover more about the monsters we’ve invented, lurking in the dark and the wild places of the earth—giants, dragons, ogres, zombies, ghosts, demons—all with one thing in common: their ability to terrify.

The origin of a saviour in the guise of a little child is traceable to Child-Horus, who brought new life to Egypt every year as the Messu of the inundation. This was Horus in his pre-solar and pre-human characters of the fish, the shoot of the papyrus, or the branch of the endless years. In a later stage the image of Horus on his papyrus represented the young god as solar cause in creation.

Here, Cosimo proudly presents Book 7 of Ancient Egypt, in which Massey explains how Egyptian wisdom–which greatly concerns itself with matters of the womb and birth, water, and the offspring of gods–was appropriated by the Hebrew holy books, and explains how the Hebrew account of creation is a clear repetition of Egyptian mythology.

It goes unappreciated by modern Egyptologists, but it is embraced by those who savor the concept of a “hidden history” of humanity, and those who approach all human knowledge from the perspective of the esoteric. Gerard Massey’s massive Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World–first published in 1907 and the crowning achievement of the self-taught scholar–redefines the roots of Christianity via Egypt, proposing that Egyptian mythology was the basis for Jewish and Christian beliefs.

Celtic Hedge Witchery delves into the secret liminal space exemplified by the English hedgerows and expands the listener's understanding of how to truly embody the witchcraft life. Joey Morris reaches out across the spiritual ecosystem to teach ideas and methods of the hedgerow. Listeners learn how to connect to their natural witchcraft, find the sacred landscape within themselves, and commune and benefit from working with spirits. Spell work, recipes, meditative guides, and evocative poetry guide the listener in connecting with the Celtic gods and in crossing the hedge into the Otherworld.

Dioses y Mitos de los Egipcios es un fascinante recorrido por el vasto y enigmático mundo de la mitología del antiguo Egipto. Desde los poderosos dioses creadores como Ra y Atum, hasta las deidades del inframundo como Osiris y Anubis, este libro desentraña los relatos que dieron forma a una de las civilizaciones más influyentes de la historia.

The religion of the ancient Greeks has lain dormant for too long. In Hellenismos, Tony Mierzwicki shows how to bring it back in all of its primal glory. Learn how to forge personal relationships with the ancient Greek deities. Recreate the practices of the Greeks and enjoy the richness of their spiritual practices.

Here, Sarah Clegg takes us on a journey through midwinter to explore the lesser-known Christmas traditions, from English mummers plays and Austrian Krampus runs, to modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge and the night in Finland when a young girl is crowned with candles as St Lucy—a martyred Christian girl who also appears as a witch leading a procession of the dead.

Demonic temptresses–from siren-mermaids to Lilith–are well known today, and their mythology focuses around the seductive danger they pose to men. But the root of these figures can be traced back 4,000 years and in their earliest incarnations they were in fact demons worshipped and feared by women.

This collection investigates the origins of our most intriguing old-fashioned superstitions, many of which we still find ourselves abiding by today. Hundreds of the beliefs passed down through the generations have their foundations in our ancestors' efforts to ward off evil, which they blamed for hardship, illness, and injustice in times when life was, as often as not, "nasty, brutish and short." 

The mythologies of the world are collective cultural dreams, and as such should be analyzed first from cultural perspectives. How do myths of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, for instance, reflect the realities of the Egyptian and Greek cultures? When compared, however, mythologies reveal certain universal themes or motifs that point to larger trans-cultural issues such as the place of the human species in creation or the nature of deity as a concept. World Mythology: A Very Short Introduction is organized around the universal motifs.

Zoologist Jo Wimpenny turns a critical eye to Aesop's fables to discover whether there is any scientific truth to their portrayal of the animal kingdom. She brings the tales into the twenty-first century, introducing the latest findings on the most fascinating branches of ethological research—the study of why animals do the things they do. In each chapter she interrogates a classic fable and a different topic—future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation and deception—concluding with a verdict on the veracity of each fable's portrayal from a scientific perspective.

All over the world, people have reported encounters with a race of tiny people who are neither human nor deity. This book reclaims that lost, rich heritage of working with faery folk that our Pagan ancestors took for granted. Edain McCoy teaches how to work with faeries in a mutually beneficial way. Practice rituals and spells in which faeries can participate, and discover tips to help facilitate faery contact.

Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture's focus on youthfulness. In her exciting new book, mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie explores these archetypes, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples, women can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and their elder years as a path to dynamic power.

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. We follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings.

Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them—and still living them—today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called "modern myths." But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did.  

The fields of folklore have never been more popular—a recent resurgence of interest in traditional beliefs and customs, coupled with morbid curiosities in folk horror, historic witchcraft cases and our superstitious past, have led to an intersection of ideas that is driving people to seek out more information. Tracey Norman (author of the acclaimed play WITCH) and Mark Norman (creator of The Folklore Podcast) lead you on an exploration of those more salubrious facets of our past.

The Holy Grail, the kingdom of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, and the magical sword Excalibur are all key ingredients of the legends surrounding King Arthur. But who was he really, where did he come from, and how much of what we read about him in stories that date back to the Dark Ages is true? So far, historians have failed to show that King Arthur really existed at all, and for a good reason—they have been looking in the wrong place. In this book, Alistair Moffat shatters all existing assumptions about Britain's most enigmatic hero.

In the US and Canada, spiritualism's primary focus was on communication between the living and the dead. The spiritual tradition traveled around the world, especially in Latin America, where it evolved in different ways. The Puerto Rican influence on modern Western magic is profound but largely unheralded. Beginning in the early 20th century, Puerto Rican immigrants to the US introduced espiritismo to the US spiritual landscape, strongly affecting the way magic was practiced. Hector Salva's book places Puerto Rican espiritismo in this broader perspective.