Books by Claude Lecouteux

A comprehensive handbook of more than 1,000 magical words, phrases, symbols, and secret alphabets

A thorough reference to the many deities, magical beings, mythical places, and ancient customs of the Norse and Germanic regions of Europe

MYTHOLOGY Otherworldly beings--among them werewolves, witches, and fairies--have figured in our stories and dreams since the Middle Ages. But as Claude Lecouteux shows, their roots reach back to a much older Western European belief system that predates Christianity. Through his study of Germano-Scandinavian myths and legends, as well as those from other areas of Europe, he has uncovered the almost forgotten concept that every individual has three souls, and that one of these souls--the Double--can, in animal or human form, leave the physical body and journey where it chooses. While there were many people during the Middle Ages who experienced this phenomenon involuntarily, there were others--witches--who were able to provoke it at will, thus attracting the persecution of the Church. In a thorough study of the medieval soul, the author reveals eerie and surprising accounts of contact with the Double and otherworldly phenomena, such as second sight and psychic foreknowledge. He shows that far from being fantasy or vague superstition, fairies, witches, and werewolves all attest to an ancient and continuous vision of both our world and the world beyond. CLAUDE LECOUTEUX is a professor of medieval literature and civilization at the Sorbonne. He is the author of nine other books exploring the true nature of medieval beliefs in the afterlife and the supernatural. He lives in Paris.

An extensive look at the cartography and folklore of the afterlife worlds as seen by our ancestors

A comprehensive examination of the intertwined mythology, folklore, and literary history of the little people.

A comprehensive study of the use of talismans and amulets in the Western Mystery Tradition.

GHOSTS / PAGANISM The impermeable border the modern world sees existing between that of the living and the dead was not visible to our ancestors. The dead could--and did--cross back and forth at will. The pagan mind had no fear of death, but some of the dead were definitely to be dreaded: those who failed to go peacefully into the afterlife and remained on this side in order to right a wrong that had befallen them personally or to ensure that the moral code promoted by their ancestors was being respected. These dead individuals were a far cry from the amorphous ectoplasm that is featured in modern ghost stories. These earlier visitors from beyond the grave--known as revenants--slept, ate, and fought just like the living, even when, like Klaufi of the Svarfdaela Saga, they carried their heads in their arms. Revenants were part of the ancestor worship prevalent in the pagan world and still practiced in indigenous cultures such as the Fang and Kota of equatorial Africa, among others. The church, eager to supplant this familial faith with its own, engineered the transformation of the corporeal revenant into the disembodied ghost of modern times, which could then be easily discounted as a figment of the imagination or the work of the devil. The sanctified grounds of the church cemetery replaced the burial mounds on the family farm, where the ancestors remained as an integral part of the living community. This exile to the formal graveyard, ironically enough, has contributed to the great loss of the sacred that characterizes the modern world. CLAUDE LECOUTEUX is a former professor of medieval literature and civilization at the Sorbonne. He is the author of numerous books on medieval and pagan afterlife beliefs, including Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies. He lives in Paris.