English Mythology

Susan Michaels was once the hottest reporter on the Beltway Beat until a major scandal ruined her life and left her writing stories about alien babies and Elvis sightings. Life as she once knew it is over, or so she thinks until she gets a lead on the biggest story in town: The Seattle Slayer. She heads to the local animal shelter, expecting a tip on the latest rash of killings. Instead, she gets a story about the mayor feeding citizens to a ring of vampires. Yeah, just another day in her life.

Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths. After examining the nature of science and pseudoscience and their relation to cryptozoology, Loxton and Prothero take on Bigfoot; the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and its cross-cultural incarnations; the Loch Ness monster and its highly publicized sightings; the evolution of the Great Sea Serpent; and more.

Jason spends his time trying to protect Dragon Haven and understand the dragon misfits now that he has prevented Lorach from using them. He searches for more misfits, but quickly learns he won't be able to save them all. When word of an attack on the Dragon Guard suggests Lorach is renewing their attempt to destroy the rebellion, Jason leaves to investigate. What he finds changes everything he knows about the misfits. Saving the dragons means risking everything he's gained. If he fails, the rebellion will fail and Dragon Haven will fall.

What did Japanese mythology say about the beginning of the universe? How did Oedipus become the classic tragic hero in Greek mythology? Who brought about the origin of death in Maori mythology? With vivid retellings of famous legends, Myths and Legends makes it easier than ever before to understand the stories that are central to every culture.

"Among the many whose labour has been laid under contribution in the following pages there are certain scholars whose published work, or personal advice, has been specially illuminating, and to whom specific acknowledgment is therefore due. Like many others I owe to Sir J. G. Frazer the initial inspiration which set me, as I may truly say, on the road to the Grail Castle."

The modern practice of medicine and psychology grew out of the ancient Greek healing tradition, said to be founded by Asklepios, god of healing and dreams. For two thousand years the system spread all over the Mediterranean world and planted the roots of Western medicine and psychology by offering ritual and holistic practices that recognized that healing begins at the soul level. Yet, since that time, the spiritually based practices were cast aside, leaving behind only the scientific medical techniques that dominate health care today.

Invoking Mnemosyne—Greek goddess of memory and eloquence, daughter of Heaven and Earth, mother of the Muses, and archetypal deity of the Asklepion dream temple tradition—this book initiates you into full dream consciousness, offering a lucid-dreaming ritual experience in the spirit of the Mystery Schools of antiquity. Sharing her more than a decade of research on Sleep Temples and Mystery Schools of the Esoteric Tradition, lucid-dreaming instructor Sarah Janes explores the evolution of imagination, memory, and consciousness throughout the ages.

Countless would-be readers and listeners of Finnegans Wake - James Joyce's 1939 masterwork, on which he labored for a third of his life - have given up after a few pages and "dismissed the book as a perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to understanding the fascinating world of Finnegans Wake.

With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera. A born witch, she’s discovered that she can capture the souls of the dead on film. Her supernatural skills don’t go unnoticed by the enigmatic Josef Svoboda. He’s recruiting a team of sorcerers to infiltrate the front lines, where the bloodshed of combat has resurrected foul creatures. Petra’s unique abilities will be needed against the most dangerous enemies of all—those ever present, undead, and unseen.

AD 935 - Late Winter, City of Jorvik. Einar is destined to be a great Icelandic warrior. He has already defeated the men sent to kill him by his notorious father, Jarl Thorfinn, the 'Skull Cleaver' of Orkney. He has a gift that makes him lethal in battle. Yet he has cast it all off to be a bard. When three men attack him, Einar's poetry provides little protection. Luckily, the skilled archer and Norse-Irish princess Affreca saves him. She'd assumed Einar had left to raise an army, challenge Thorfinn and seize the Jarldom of Orkney. Now she's determined to set him back onto his rightful path.

Hirka is stranded in a rotting world, with nothing but a raven and a notebook to connect her to the life she left behind in Ym. She came in search of her family, believing that she could protect Rime and the rest of Ym from the ancient evil of the blind. Instead, what Hirka finds in this new world are people willing to do anything for the blessing—or the curse—of eternal life. And for Rime, the threat of the blind is only growing stronger… Separated by worlds, unsure who to trust, and in danger from all sides, Hirka and Rime fight to end a thousand-year quest for power and revenge.

Herc Beal knows who he's named after—a mythical hero—but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules's amazing feats in real life, he's skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod—and not a single Hydra in sight.

In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla’s beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother’s eerie yet enchanting storytelling. By firelight she spun tall tales of spirits in the nearby forest and waters who could heal - or harm - on a whim. But of course those were only stories.

Myths, as Mary Midgley argues in this powerful audiobook, are everywhere. In political thought they sit at the heart of theories of human nature and the social contract; in economics in the pursuit of self interest; and in science the idea of human beings as machines, which originates in the 17th century, is a today a potent force. Far from being the opposite of science, however, Midgley argues that myth is a central part of it. Myths are neither lies nor mere stories, but a network of powerful symbols for interpreting the world.

There's no peace for this recently resurrected valkyrie. Asgard's greatest enemy intends to claim both the realm of the gods and the realm of humans for himself, and with the army he's amassed, the odds aren't on our side. Even worse? It turns out the gods aren't so immortal after all. If this power-hungry giant gets his way, my four new lovers will lose not just their home but their lives as well.

“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia.

Twin sisters, Mercy and Hunter are witches, direct descendants of the Goode family, the founders of their town. After the murder of their mother at the hands of a foul demon, they have become the protectors of the Gates to different underworlds–ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and the darkest of creatures exist.

If you're looking for a captivating collection of Inca myths, then pay attention.... This audiobook includes four captivating manuscripts: Maya Mythology, Aztec Mythology, Inca Mythology, and Central American Mythology.

Beginning with a new translation of The Elucidation by foremost esotericist Gareth Knight and Caitlín Matthews, the authors provide a complete commentary on the poem, revealing a startling alternative cause of the Wasteland and the Grail quest, one which has a profound resonance with our own times. They examine the forgotten story of the Faery Wars and explain the Faery Accord, an agreement that once existed between humans and the Faery and upon which the spiritual and physical health of the land depends.

Waking after a month on the brink of death, Ethan Chase is stunned to learn that the Veil that conceals the fey from human sight was temporarily torn away. Although humankind’s glimpse of the world of Faery lasted just a brief moment, the human world was cast into chaos, and the emotion and glamour produced by fear and wonder has renewed the tremendous power of the Forgotten Queen. Now she is at the forefront of an uprising against the courts of Faery - a reckoning that will have cataclysmic effects on the Nevernever.