検索キーワード： 民話・神話の研究

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.

Like every other being in our world, fantastical creatures have been forced to adapt to the climate, industrial, and cultural changes of the modern era. Countless formerly common creatures including akeki and cave trolls have been driven out by urban sprawl and climate change while others, like ether sprites and brownies, have been able to thrive in abundance, creating homes in city environments.

Women today are banding together in magical ways to celebrate and encourage one another, and many are turning to the sacred goddesses of the past to guide their way. Your Goddess Year provides a calendar of 52 goddesses along with fascinating background information, herstory, and reasons why invoking her power can strengthen and benefit you in your day-to-day life.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

In The Heretic’s Handbook, the internationally bestselling author of The Secret History of the World has collected and codified ancient, secret wisdom from around the world, formulating a complete philosophy on how to live a happy and successful life. An acclaimed author and public speaker, Black shows how this body of knowledge has been declared ‘heretical’ both by the established church and by today’s atheistic intellectual elite.

This is the first book written by a practitioner that presents the history, culture, and practical magic of La Santa Muerte to the English-speaking world. As the patron saint of lost causes, the LGBT community, addicts, and anyone who has been marginalized by society, La Santa Muerte has a following of millions - and she's only becoming more popular. Join author Tomás Prower as he gives step-by-step instructions for spells, magic, and prayers for practical results and long-term goals, including money, love, sex, healing, legal issues, protection, and more.

Japanese folklore is abundant with tales of ghostly creatures and the supernatural. In Haunted Japan, author Catrien Ross reveals the legends that have been passed down for generations and continue to terrify us today.

From feminist fairies to blood-sucking temptresses, half-human harpies, and protective Vodou goddesses, these are women who go beyond long-haired, smiling stereotypes. Their stories are so powerful, so entrancing, that they have survived for millennia. Lovingly retold and updated, Kate Hodges places each heroine, rebel, and provocateur firmly at the center of their own narrative.

The Way of Fire and Ice reimagines Norse Paganism with mystical practices and rituals for today's world as well as tips for building community and resisting fascism. This approach to working with Norse deities and beliefs is a living, adaptable tradition, representing a strong alternative to the reconstructionist perspectives of Asatru and Heathenry.

Superstition: A Very Short Introduction explores the nature and history of superstition from antiquity to the present. For two millennia, superstition was a label derisively applied to foreign religions and unacceptable religious practices, and its primary purpose was used to separate groups and assert religious and social authority. After the Enlightenment, the superstition label was still used to define groups, but the new dividing line was between reason and unreason. Today, superstitious belief and behavior remain widespread, and highly educated people are not immune.

They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin's haunting account of the women of Camp Etna - an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues - even thrives - to this very day.

Zecharia Sitchin’s best-selling series The Earth Chronicles provided humanity’s side of the story concerning our origins at the hands of the Anunnaki, “those who from heaven to earth came.” In The Lost Book of Enki we now view this saga from the perspective of Lord Enki, an Anunnaki leader revered in antiquity as a god, who tells the story of these extraterrestrials’ arrival on Earth from the planet Nibiru.

Passed down through generations, the Slavic practice of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery is still alive and well in Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus, as well as the Balkans and the Baltic states. There are still witches who whisper upon tied knots to curse or heal, sorceresses who shapeshift into animals or household objects, magicians who cast spells for love or good fortune, and common folk who seek their aid for daily problems big and small. Natasha Helvin explores in detail the folk history and practice of Russian sorcery and Eastern Slavic magical rites.

Exploring the folk customs and magical traditions of guilds and rural fraternities such as the Shoemakers and Horsemen and the secrets guarded by the Free Gardeners, Witches, Toadmen, and Bonesmen, Nigel Pennick shows how the common working people of the Fens belonged to secret societies based on their specific trade. He details the hidden aspects of rural life most historians ignore - the magical current that flowed through the lives of working people - and describes the secret rites, ceremonies, oaths, and initiation rituals of the guilds and fraternities to which the folk belonged.

Drawing directly from the actual surviving Icelandic books of magic, Stephen Flowers presents a complete system of magic based on Icelandic lore and magical practices from the 16th century onward. He explores the history of magic in Iceland in pagan and early Christian times and reveals specific practical techniques and ritual templates that readers can adapt to their unique purposes. Illustrating traditional Icelandic magical practices and the Icelanders’ attitudes toward them, he shares original translations of Icelandic folktales.

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.

Drawing on both her Native American (Hopi) heritage and her Norwegian upbringing, renowned mystic and intuitive healer Sonja Grace shares original wisdom tales, received through her heart and soul, to take you on a journey into the magic of Raven and Bear and the healing power of Earth Medicine. Each story is embedded with ancient teachings to inspire you to live closer to the Earth.

Navigating the world of dating can be like wandering an enchanted forest, full of creatures with peculiar habits and baffling behavior. In Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur, Francesca Lia Block provides a guide to this often-treacherous terrain, classifying all those mystifying men and women into various types of mythical forest fauna - Fauns and Werewolves, Mermaids and Banshees. After answering questions to determine your own type, you can learn to identify others.

"One of the few places left to look for meaning in our contemporary culture is in story and myth," suggests Michael Meade. Weaving rhythm and words, this master storyteller, drummer, and scholar of mythology takes us on a compelling journey of self-discovery down the "roads of fire and water". Through two timeless stories - "The Spirit in the Bottle" and "The Water of Life" - we will learn how to relocate the spirit in our lives and awaken "the elder", an inner wisdom source.

A controversial examination of the influence and presence of the Norse god Odin in contemporary history and culture.