Mythology

A guide to ancient Celtic wisdom and spirituality presents folklore, rituals, crafts, blessings, guided meditations, and traditional recipes.

'These legends are the action-packed stories - of ancient heroes, huge battles, attempted invasions, prophecies and spells, clashes between the underworld and the real world, abductions, love affairs and feasts - which have fascinated the Irish mind for more than 2,000 years .

The novel that set the stage for his modern classic, The Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's phantasmagoric epic Omar Khayyam Shakil had three mothers who shared everything.

The most comprehensive collection of classic Russian tales available in English introduces readers to universal fairy-tale figures and to such uniquely Russian characters such as Koshchey the Deathless, Baba Yaga, the Swan Maiden, and the glorious Firebird. Beautifully illustrated, the more than 175 tales culled from a landmark multi-volume collection by the outstanding Russian ethnographer Aleksandr Afanas'ev reveal a rich, robust world of the imagination.Translated by Norbert GutermanIllustrated by Alexander AlexeieffWith black-and-white illustrations throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

My Heart My Mother looks at many different aspects of Egyptian religion from the role of Hathor-Sekhmet, the serpent eye goddess, in the cult of Osiris, to the reliefs in the temple at Abydos, and more general discussions of temple life, ancestor ritual, death, rebirth and regeneration. An original piece of work on female divinities and their role in the passage of the pharaohs from death to rebirth that takes us beyond the New Kingdom period and into the Greco-Roman world.

A beautifully crafted, enriching saga inspired by East Asian mythology, The Melancholy of Untold History is Minsoo Kangs debut novel, steeped in history like R.F. Kuangs Babel, epic in scope like Anthony Doerrs Cloud Cuckoo Land, and lyrically exciting like David Mitchells Cloud Atlas, interweaving four complex yet entertaining stories as they shape and create a nations literary narrative through the themes of love and grief.A history professor mourning his wife. His young protgs search for a path forward. Four witty mountain gods with much to say and not enough time to listen. A gifted storyteller bringing a world into being out of thin air...Famous for his dispelling of the national myth, the Historian understands the power of narrative. He has inspired another young professor to search for her own truths, while trying to understand the way fiction creates fact and how sometimes the past can only be understood by filling in holes with a new narrative. Which is exactly what he needs when his wife passes away to parse meaning out of a world that no longer makes sense. Together the protg and the Historian find comfort in each other. Yet they know their time together is fleeting, as time usually is. Only the gods have an abundance of time, and yetthe two discovereven that might not be so clear cut. Part of their homelands myth tells of four gods who squabbled and argued and destroyed and rebuilt time and again. Or did they?Because, of course, even the gods need mouthpieces on earth. And the one the Historian knows ofthe elusive Storytellermay have just been spinning tales for his own amusement and, ultimately, revenge. By fabricating the exploits of the gods, he could have set a course for certain events to unfold and a particular story to survive today. Spanning 3,000 years and multiple voiceswith tales within tales woven expertly togetherThe Melancholy of Untold History reveals a people and its individuals who seek to confront the hardships of life through storytelling. Mixing the East Asian mythos with a postmodern approach to standard sci-fi/fantasy narrative tropes, Minsoo Kang has created a challenging, beautiful, sad, humorous, and ultimately unforgettable novel of love, grief, and myth-making.

Myths and legends capture the intensity of human experience - but there are gaps in the stories. Thoroughly relatable, Later, Icarus uncovers what happens beyond the headlines, in the aftermath. These are the voices of ordinary people in poetry - the legends and the forgotten - as they reveal their own truths, and experience what comes next

My search for the origins of the whale culture has now taken me from the first findings on the East coast of Greenland across the Arctic Ocean and down the Bering Sea to the Aleutian Islands. Here I have found evidence that they originated in the Pacific, which brings us to Japan and the Yonaguni monument. Here it becomes evident that the Whale culture originated from hunter-gatherers, on the Eurasian Mammoth step, who have begun to hunt seals and whales in the Sea of Japan and have then crossed over to Japan from where their culture has adapted to the rich hunting waters of the Pacific during the ice age. The abundance of hunting game has led them to be very successful in the Pacific and to have the resources to develop their unique culture, where they lived on and hunted from the ice cover on the Ocean. On the journey from Japan across the Pacific we find evidence on Hawaii that causes us to take a detour to Kiritimati.There we find evidence that very specific ocean currents during the ice age created a continent of ice in the pacific during the ice age with very rich waters both to the north and south of this ice continent on which the whale culture established a civilization that must have been the real lost continent of Mu. From this continent the whale culture of Mu could cover the entire pacific in their airships based on whale skin and bone. In our continued search we come to Tahiti and New Caledonia to find the source of the specific conditions in the ocean currents that led to the formation of the ice continent of Mu and how these conditions started to collapse and led to the decline of the Whale culture in the Pacific. We thus end up following the whale culture to New Zealand, where it tries to adapt to the missing sea ice and follows the ice south towards the Antarctic before disappearing.

This exquisite book builds on ongoing trends for re-telling classical and medieval stories from the perspective of female characters. Powerful tales are presented alongside some of the most exquisite examples of art to survive from the eighth to the sixteenth centuries.

She's a killer in disguise. He's determined to make her his queen.As a deep sea death-dealer, Enna Valomir's life is simple: kill the siren, deliver the body, collect the reward. There's just one problem. Enna owes a mermaid her life, and in the cutthroat waters of the Abyss, that's a lifelong blood oath of service.When the mermaid orders her to kill the Abyssal Princess, Enna is pulled into an impersonation scheme with no choice but to infiltrate a gaudy surface court and help the mermaid win the heart-and throne-of its unwitting future king.But Prince Soren isn't interested in courting the so-called Abyssal Princess, or any power-hungry princess, for that matter. He's finally met his match in her fierce and mysterious handmaid, and he'll be damned if he can't have Enna for his queen instead.Breaking a blood oath means death, but Enna falls for Soren anyway. Now she must watch him descend into a ruin of her own making, or warn him of the ruse-and die.Part of the Sirens of Adria dark fantasy romance series, Of Song and Scepter is a standalone little mermaid retelling for readers who like their fairytales morally grey.

'A modern-day bard.' Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles'Shaw has so much wisdom and knowledge about the old stories, it emanates from his pores.' John Densmore, The Doors'Through feral tales and poetic exegesis, Martin Shaw makes you re-see the world, as a place of adventure and of initiation, as perfect home and as perfectly other. What a gift.' David Keenan, author of Xstabeth'I can still remember the first time I heard Martin Shaw tell a story. The tale that emerged was like a living thing, bounding around, throwing itself at us there listening. I had never heard anything like it before.' Paul Kingsnorth, Booker shortlisted author of The WakeToday, as we are confronted by not one, but many crossroads in our lives - identity, technology, love, seduction, politics - celebrated mythologist and wilderness guide Martin Shaw delivers Smoke Hole - three ancient myths that serve as metaphors for our world today. Assailed by the seductive promises of social media and shadowed by a pandemic that brought loneliness to an all-time high, Martin argues that we are losing our sense of direction, our sense of self. He invites us to use these stories to help find 'a commons for the imagination, a place to breathe deeper, feel steadier and become acquainted with rapture.' Smoke Hole is a passionate call to arms and an invitation to use these stories to face the complexities of contemporary life, from fake news to parenthood, climate crises, addictive technology and more. Available now as a podcast! Subscribe to Smoke Hole Sessions to hear amazing conversations between Martin Shaw and some of our most admired writers, actors, comedians, musicians and more, including Sir Mark Rylance and Tommy Tiernan (Derry Girls).

Merry Christmas! is a moving, reimagined version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol for the 21st Century.