Covers the myths and legends of the Russian Empire at its greatest extent as well as other Slavic people and countries. Includes historical, geographical, and biographical background information.
Summary: Covers the myths and legends of the Russian Empire at its greatest extent as well as other Slavic people and countries. Includes historical, geographical, and biographical background information
This volume offers the first comprehensive guide in English to the myth and legend of the Russian Empire and other Slavic countries and peoples. There are few stories more stirring than those of ancient Russia. Russian and other Slavic beliefs weave a rich tapestry in which real-world elements coexist with those from fantasy, such as dragons, monsters, and shape-changing wolves. Though Russia adopted Christianity as the state religion in A.D. 988, paganism remained popular through the end of the 19th century and survives in isolated pockets even today. In Russian myth and legend, Christian themes are interwoven with pagan ideas: dragons fight priests, saints encounter nymphs, and witches enter the kingdom of heaven. Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend includes extensive historical, geographical, and biographical background to deepen the reader's understanding of the myth and legend. Numerous illustrations are included in this fascinating volume, which will be of great interest to students, scholars, and everyone who wishes to explore the cultural heritage of ancient Russia.
"Here there be dragons"--this notation was often made on ancient maps to indicate the edges of the known world and what lay beyond. Heroes who ventured there were only as great as the beasts they encountered. This encyclopedia contains more than 2,200 monsters of myth and folklore, who both made life difficult for humans and fought by their side. Entries describe the appearance, behavior, and cultural origin of mythic creatures well-known and obscure, collected from traditions around the world.
Contains alphabetically arranged entries that describe the imaginary creatures found in legends, religions, folklore, oral history, and theologies around the world.
Of all the anomalous phenomenon reported, ghost sightings are by far the most common. The words "ghost" and "spirit" are used interchangeably in American English but in other cultures the lingering souls of the departed are not to be confused with ancestral spirits, demonic spirits, numens or poltergeists. This encyclopedia lists hundreds of entities of the spirit realm--from aatxe to zuzeca--from world mythology and folklore.
Fairies have been revered and feared, sometimes simultaneously, throughout recorded history. This encyclopedia of concise entries, from the A-senee-ki-waku of northeastern North America to the Zips of Central America and Mexico, includes more than 2,500 individual beings and species of fairy and nature spirits from a wide range of mythologies and religions from all over the globe.
Moss has significantly revised his text and bibliography in this second edition to reflect new research findings and controversies on numerous subjects. He has also brought the history up to date by revising the post-Soviet material, which now covers events from the end of 1991 up to the present day. This new edition retains the features of the successful first edition that have made it a popular choice in universities and colleges throughout the US, Canada and around the world.
Slavic mythology is very little known to the Western public. Also a group of researchers from seven different countries (Australia, France, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, Ukraine) has made the choice to translate recent works on the subject into English. Eight of the articles in this volume study different aspects of ancient Slavic mythology, while one is a synthesis of the Baltic mythology and religion. With the contributions of Ji
Every culture has in its folklore and mythology beings of immense size and strength, as well as other preternatural humanoids great or small who walk among us, serving the divine or fulfilling their own agendas. This book catalogs the lore and legends of more than 1,000 different humanoid species and individual beings, including the Titans, Valkyries, Jotnar, yōkai, biblical giants, elves, ogres, trolls and many more.