Mytologi

Henk Versnel's work in the field of ancient religion has been seminal: this volume explores and celebrates his oeuvre in honour of the 80th birthday, based on a roundtable held in Oegstgeest on 7 and 8 October, 2016.

This book is your ultimate guide to Japan's scariest creatures! Yokai come in every imaginable shape and form--from frightening ghosts and cruel demons to cute fairies and enchanted animals. They can be evil monsters, harmless tricksters or prophets of doom, depending on their inclination. This book profiles 100 of the most fascinating Yokai, including: Tengu: A powerful Yokai that often takes human form with wings and a large nose who lives in mountains and forestsKappa: A deadly Yokai that lives near rivers and drags passersby into the water to drownPeroritaro: A grotesque Yokai that looks like blubbering child and has an appetite for greedy childrenBaku: A monstrous Yokai with an elephant's head, a bear's body, a rhino's eyes, an ox's tail and a tiger's legs that aids humans by devouring their nightmaresAnd many more!Yokai expert Masami Kinoshita has been documenting Yokai in folklore, and in real life, for many years. This book presents her most interesting findings and has over 175 full-color illustrations that vividly depict the appearances of these weird creatures. No matter their origins, each Yokai has a strange and wonderful story that is sure to amaze you!

Exploring the role of the incest prohibition in human societies

Fall into the magic land of the Mythos along with its brave and forgotten daughter.Yevliesza has been caring for her ailing father when she is summoned home to a world she has never seen. Using a hidden portal, she enters the realm of Numinat, a myth world arisen from legend. Although she is the daughter of witches, she was raised in the modern age with little knowledge of their customs and none of their magic.For the the last leg of her journey, she flies on the back of a dragon. When a storm splits open the sky, Yevliesza is caught in its blinding light. She arrives at the medieval city-palace severely damaged, forever marked as an outsider.In this kingdom of deep powers, she is devoid of magic. Determined to claim her place, she must counter dangerous court intrigues and a sorceress who intends to see this foreigner cast from the great Tower.Yevliesza may find protection with a powerful lord if her heart can bear the penalty of his conditions. In the end, however, she must find her own path if she is to survive. But what she discovers is a perilous magic that, once revealed, may make her a permanent outcast.A high fantasy from acclaimed fantasy and science fiction world-builder Kay Kenyon.

"A wide-ranging collection of insights from legendary mythologist Joseph Campbell compiled from rare and previously unpublished interviews. Includes some of Campbell's most thoughtful responses to an array of interviewers, including the historian Studs Terkel, journalists from notable publications, and even audience members at various seminars"--

In this approachable and fascinating biography of the galaxy, an astrophysicist and folklorist details everything humans have discovered—from the Milky Way's formation to its eventual death, and what else there is to learn about the universe we call home.  After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All one hundred billion stars and fifty undecillion tons of gas of it. It all began some thirteen billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe's primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born. Since then, the galaxy has watched as dark energy pushed away its first friends, as humans mythologized its name and purpose, and as galactic archaeologists have worked to determine its true age (rude). The Milky Way has absorbed supermassive (an actual technical term) black holes, made enemies of a few galactic neighbors, and mourned the deaths of countless stars. Our home galaxy has even fallen in love. After all this time, the Milky Way finally feels that it's amassed enough experience for the juicy tell-all we've all been waiting for. Its fascinating autobiography recounts the history and future of the universe in accessible but scientific detail, presenting a summary of human astronomical knowledge thus far that is unquestionably out of this world.   NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND SCIENCENET NAMED A BEST AUDIOBOOK OF 2022 BY BOOKPAGE

Marigold and Rose is a magical and incandescent fiction from the Nobel laureate Louise Glück."Marigold was absorbed in her book; she had gotten as far as the V." So begins Marigold and Rose, Louise Glück's astonishing chronicle of the first year in the life of twin girls. Imagine a fairy tale that is also a multigenerational saga; a piece for two hands that is also a symphony; a poem that is also, in the spirit of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, an incandescent act of autobiography.Here are the elements you'd expect to find in a story of infant twins: Father and Mother, Grandmother and Other Grandmother, bath time and naptime-but more than that, Marigold and Rose is an investigation of the great mystery of language and of time itself, of what is and what has been and what will be. "Outside the playpen there were day and night. What did they add up to? Time was what they added up to. Rain arrived, then snow." The twins learn to climb stairs, they regard each other like criminals through the bars of their cribs, they begin to speak. "It was evening. Rose was smiling placidly in the bathtub playing with the squirting elephant, which, according to Mother, represented patience, strength, loyalty and wisdom. How does she do it, Marigold thought, knowing what we know."Simultaneously sad and funny, and shot through with a sense of stoic wonder, this small miracle of a book, following thirteen books of poetry and two collections of essays, is unlike anything Glück has written, while at the same time it is inevitable, transcendent.