front cover of George Magoon and the Down East Game War
George Magoon and the Down East Game War
History, Folklore, and the Law
Edward D. Ives
University of Illinois Press, 1988
George Magoon (1851-1929), a notorious
  moose and deer poacher in Maine, was the hero of scores of funny stories of
  how he outwitted game wardens. Preserving these oral histories, Edward Ives
  documents Magoon's life and explores his significance as a folk hero within
  the context of the conservation movement, the cult of the sportsman, and Maine's
  increasingly restrictive game laws.
"A rich and subtle book, an
  important work by a major scholar. . . . It is a major contribution to folklore
  studies, and to history and American studies as well."
  -- Journal of American Folklore
 
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front cover of Ghosts
Ghosts
A Haunted History
Lisa Morton
Reaktion Books, 2015
From that cheerful puff of smoke known as Casper to the hunkiest potter living or dead, Sam Wheat, there is probably no more iconic entity in supernatural history than the ghost. And these are just recent examples. From the earliest writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh to today’s ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, Lisa Morton uses her scholarly prowess—more powerful than any proton pack—to wrangle together history’s most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes.  

Tracing the ghost’s constantly shifting contours, Morton asks the most direct question—What exactly is a ghost?—and examines related entities such as poltergeists, wraiths, and revenants. She asks how a ghost is related to a soul, and she outlines all the different kinds of ghosts there are. To do so, she visits the spirits of the classical world, including the five-part Egyptian soul and the first haunted-house, conceived in the Roman playwright Plautus’s comedy, Mostellaria. She confronts us with the frightening phantoms of the Middle Ages—who could incinerate priests and devour children—and reminds us of the nineteenth-century rise of Spiritualism, a religion essentially devoted to ghosts. She visits with the Indian bhuta and goes to the Hungry Ghost Festival in China, and of course she spends time in Mexico, where ghosts have a particularly strong grip on belief and culture. Along the way she gathers the ectoplasmic residues seeping from books and film reels, from the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto to the 2007 blockbuster Paranormal Activity, from the stories of Ann Radcliffe to those of Stephen King.

Wide-ranging, informative, and slicked with over fifty unearthly images, Ghosts is an entertaining read of a cultural phenomenon that will delight anyone, whether they believe in ghosts or not. 
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front cover of Ghosts Along Cumberland
Ghosts Along Cumberland
Deathlore Kentucky Foothills
William Lynwood Montell
University of Tennessee Press, 1975

A fascinating collection of ghost stories, tales of the supernatural, death beliefs and death sayings that remain as a vestige of the part in south central Kentucky's "Pennyrile" region.

"This unique and extremely valuable book adds considerably to the area of folklore studies in the United States.  The material which Montell obtained in his field work is superb."
--Don Yoder.

"This book is to be recommended to both folklorists and those non-folklorists who read folklore for enjoyment alone.  It makes an important contribution to the study of deathlore and, it is to be hoped, will draw added attention to this multi-generic subject area."
--David J. Hufford, Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin.  

"Professor Montell's book can well be viewed as a standard of excellence: a direct, articulate and cataloged approach for future study and implementation in the fields of folklore and oral history."
--Joan Perkal, Oral History Association Newsletter.  

"The book gives fascinating accounts of death beliefs, death omens, folk beliefs associated with the dead, and in the major section, ghosts narratives.  A fine combination of scholarship and chilling narration to be relished by firelight in an old deserted house in the hills."
--Book Forum.  

"Professor Montell has arranged beliefs and experiences about death of a particular group of people in such a way that a whole new aspect of the people's lives comes to focus."
--Loyal Jones, The Filson Club HIstory Quarterly.  


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front cover of Global Tarantella
Global Tarantella
Reinventing Southern Italian Folk Music and Dances
Incoronata Inserra
University of Illinois Press, 2017
Tarantella, a genre of Southern Italian folk music and dance, is an international phenomenon--seen and heard in popular festivals, performed across the Italian diaspora, even adapted for New Age spiritual practices. The boom in popularity has diversified tarantella in practice while setting it within a host of new, unexpected contexts. Incoronata Inserra ventures into the history, global circulation, and recontextualization of this fascinating genre. Examining tarantella's changing image and role among Italians and Italian Americans, Inserra illuminates how factors like tourism, translation, and world music venues have shifted the ethics of place embedded in the tarantella cultural tradition. Once rural, religious, and rooted, tarantella now thrives in settings urban, secular, migrant, and ethnic. Inserra reveals how the genre's changing dynamics contribute to reimagining Southern Italian identity. At the same time, they translate tarantella into a different kind of performance that serves new social and cultural groups and purposes. Indeed, as Inserra shows, tarantella's global growth promotes a reassessment of gender relations in the Italian South and helps create space for Italian and Italian-American women to reclaim gendered aspects of the genre.
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front cover of Gods and Heroes of the Greeks
Gods and Heroes of the Greeks
The "Library" of Apollodorus
Michael Simpson
University of Massachusetts Press, 1976
We are currently updating our website and have not yet posted complete information for this title. Many of our books are in the Google preview program, which allows readers to view up to 20% of the book. If this title is active in the program, you will find the Google Preview button in the sidebar below.
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front cover of Gods, Demons, and Others
Gods, Demons, and Others
R. K. Narayan llustrated by R. K. Laxman
University of Chicago Press, 1993
Following in the footsteps of the storytellers of his native India, R. K. Narayan has produced his own versions of tales taken from the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. Carefully selecting those stories which include the strongest characters, and omitting the theological or social commentary that would have drawn out the telling, Narayan informs these fascinating myths with his urbane humor and graceful style.

"Mr. Narayan gives vitality and an original viewpoint to the most ancient of legends, lacing them with his own blend of satire, pertinent explanation and thoughtful commentary."—Santha Rama Rau, New York Times

"Narayan's narrative style is swift, firm, graceful, and lucid . . . thoroughly knowledgeable, skillful, entertaining. One could hardly hope for more."—Rosanne Klass, Times Literary Supplement

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front cover of The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead
THE HISTORY OF A FOLK STORY
Gordon Hall GerouldIntroduction by Norm Cohen
University of Illinois Press, 2000
In this classic study, originally published in 1908, Gordon Hall Gerould explores a body of literature devoted to the ghosts of the departed, lost souls who showed gratitude to those who took care of their bodies and assisted in getting rid of demons. Typically, the grateful dead stories concern a young hero who takes on the responsibility of seeing that an unburied corpse receives a proper burial. A stranger who offers to accompany and assist him turns out to be the ghost of the dead man, repaying the hero for his good deed.
 
Gerould surveys more than a hundred grateful dead stories, tracing their lineages, describing their common traits, and unraveling their variations. Through a close study of secular as well as religious stories, Gerould demonstrates the remarkable durability and adaptability of the grateful dead.
 
With this book, Gerould established methods that laid the foundations for modern folklore scholarship. Norm Cohen's introduction places Gerould and his legacy in this historical context.
 
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front cover of Griffinology
Griffinology
The Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art
A. L. McClanan
Reaktion Books
Feathered with illustrations, a deep dive into the meaning of this half-lion, half-bird creature over millennia of human history.
 
Griffinology is a fascinating exploration of the mythical creature’s many depictions in human culture. Drawing on a wealth of historical and literary sources, this book shows how the griffin has captured the imagination of people for over five thousand years, representing power, transcendence, and even divinity. It explores the history and symbolism of griffins in art, from their appearances in ancient Egyptian magic wands to medieval bestiaries, and from medieval coats of arms to modern corporate logos. The use of the griffin as a symbol of power and protection is surveyed throughout history and into modern times, such as in the Harry Potter series. Beautifully illustrated, this book should appeal to all those interested in monsters, magic, and the mystical, as well as art and history.
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