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Mythology, Legends & Folklore — page 2
450 public-domain mythology, legends & folklore books, summarised. Page 2 of 10.
The Substance of a Dream
F. W. (Francis William) Bain
Ensnared by a vivid dream of a peerless beauty, a wandering prince renounces his birthright to pursue an elusive star, only to find that his dream made him a helpless pawn in a cruel game.
Stories from the Pentamerone
Giambattista Basile
A princess who cannot laugh sets in motion a sprawling cycle of Neapolitan fairy tales, where foolish sons find fortune in broken statues and princes fall in love with magical maidens.
Folk-Tales of Bengal
Lal Behari Day
Ancient oral traditions come to life in a world of enchanted waters, perilous ogres, and clever transformations.
A doorway in Fairyland
Laurence Housman
Love, longing, and quiet enchantment intertwine across a realm where wind becomes a husband and wooden puppets bleed for devotion.
Russian Folk-Tales
A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich) Afanas'ev
Where ancient pagan spirits linger in every brook and forest clearing, human cunning and supernatural magic collide across a vast landscape of wonder and threat.
Gods and Fighting Men: The story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory
Lady Gregory
A magical mist parts over ancient Ireland, revealing a world of gods who descend into mortals, giant warriors who race across windy bogs, and tragic lovers fleeing through enchanted forests.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Songling Pu
Step across the threshold between the living world and the underworld, where vengeful spirits, miraculous beasts, corrupt officials, and eccentric immortals continuously test human morality.
The Edda, Volume 1: The Divine Mythology of the North
Lucy Winifred Faraday
A clear, scholarly guide to northern paganism, this study dismantles common misconceptions about the Icelandic Eddas to reveal the vibrant, dramatic, and surprisingly original world of Norse myth.
The Hyborian Age
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A sweeping fictional chronicle maps thousands of years of forgotten human civilization, detailing how brutal cataclysms, migrating empires, and relentless barbarian invasions repeatedly reshape the geography and peoples of an ancient Earth.
Korean folk tales
Pang Im
To enter this collection of early seventeenth-century Korean lore is to cross into a landscape where the boundary between mortal existence and the spirit realm is as thin as a paper screen.
Jewish children
Sholem Aleichem
A world of quiet childhood longing opens up through small, bright windows into traditional Jewish life.
The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts
Maurice Maeterlinck
A woodcutter's two children set out on a magical quest for a elusive blue bird, only to discover that true happiness was waiting right where they started.
Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth From Hawaii
Nathaniel Bright Emerson
In the volcanic wilderness of early Hawaii, a fiery goddess and her loyal sister wage a silent, magical war over the mortal man who holds both their hearts.
Myths & Legends of Japan
F. Hadland (Frederick Hadland) Davis
A collection of spirits, deities, and mortals, this volume gathers the foundational tales and folklore of an island nation, blending ancient creation myths with the quiet, domestic magic of daily life.
Hawaiian folk tales
Unknown
These legends offer a window into a world where the line between the human and the divine is as thin as the sea mist, and where nature itself pulses with ancient, living power.
Legends, Tales and Poems
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Shadows of the past and the restless stirrings of the human heart converge in this haunting collection. Through a blend of prose legends and lyrical verse, the reader enters a world where the boundary between the material and the supernatural dissolves, leaving only the indelible mark of mystery.
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The fables and folk-lore of a strange people
Kalakaua, David, King of Hawaii
This collection captures the vibrant, supernatural spirit of ancient Hawaii through the eyes of its final reigning monarch, weaving together ancestral mythology and the dramatic history of a shifting island kingdom.
Korean Fairy Tales
William Elliot Griffis
This collection offers a window into the folklore and ancient spirit of Korea, presenting a tapestry of legends, animal fables, and moral parables that shaped the cultural imagination of the Land of Morning Splendor.
A Prose English Translation of Vishnupuranam: (Based on Professor H. H. Wilson's translation.)
H. H. (Horace Hayman) Wilson
The divine majesty of Vishnu breathes through this ancient tapestry of creation, dissolution, and the rhythmic return of the soul to its source. It serves as a foundational bridge between the cosmic infinite and the human search for righteousness.
Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
Unknown
This rigorous, encyclopedic study of ancient sexuality functions as a clinical survey of the erotic customs, anatomy, and social perversions that characterized the classical world. It presents a systematic, detached classification of human desire as recorded in the literature of Greece and Rome.
Theocritus, translated into English Verse
Theocritus
The natural world, from the whisper of pine trees to the stinging heat of midsummer, serves as the stage for these timeless dramas of human longing, labor, and loss. These poems capture the voices of shepherds, lovers, and city dwellers with a vividness that bridges the chasm between ancient Alexandria and the…
Kalevala, The Land of the Heroes, Volume One
W. F. (William Forsell) Kirby
In a landscape shaped by song, heroes weave reality from words and iron, forging a nation’s identity through ancient myth and relentless, magical ambition.
Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable
Thomas Bulfinch
Through the lens of ancient storytelling, this collection breathes life into the gods, heroes, and tragic figures of antiquity, connecting their timeless struggles to the literary imagination of Western culture.
The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin-American
Hartley Burr Alexander
Across the vast expanse of the Western Hemisphere, indigenous cultures fashioned intricate cosmologies, balance-seeking rituals, and profound myths to explain their place within a living universe.
Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa
Elphinstone Dayrell
Ancient forest rivalries, treacherous spirits, and the sharp wit of tricksters govern the living landscape of Southern Nigeria, where breaking a vow or crossing a boundary carries consequences carved directly into the natural world.
Myths of China and Japan: with illustrations in colour & monochrome after paintings and photographs
Donald A. (Donald Alexander) Mackenzie
Far Eastern myths are not isolated creations of a secluded East, but vibrant threads woven from ancient global trade, migrating beliefs, and shared human longings.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Songling Pu
Uncanny phenomena break through everyday routine, revealing how human desire, moral frailty, and hidden spiritual debts constantly reshape reality.
Welsh Folk-Lore: a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales
Elias Owen
A parish priest walks the lonely mountain roads of nineteenth-century North Wales, gathering fairy tales, death omens, and phantom hounds from the lips of elderly villagers before their ancient lore fades forever.
Maha-bharata: The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse
Romesh Chunder Dutt
A fallen kingdom's rightful heirs endure exile, fiery trials, and a devastating civil war to reclaim their crown and restore righteousness to a broken world.
The Story of Siegfried
James Baldwin
Before mortal history was recorded, ancient storytellers wove the mysteries of nature and human destiny into a grand tapestry of gods, dragons, and doomed heroes.
Legends of the Gods: The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations
Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir
Ancient Egyptian scribes carved their deepest anxieties and highest hopes into stone, creating a mythic universe where gods aged, serpents bit the sun, and magic alone sustained the cosmic order.
Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (Volume 1 of 2)
Rhys, John, Sir
A field worker walks through the mist-shrouded valleys of Wales and the Isle of Man, gathering the vanishing threads of ancient myth before modern life unravels them forever.
The Legends of the Jews
Louis Ginzberg
Ancient tales of cosmic creation, warring giant clans, and patriarchs who wrestle with angels unfold in a vast tapestry of rabbinic lore. Beyond the spare lines of the biblical text lies a hidden world of vibrant, complex folklore.
Ancient legends, Mystic Charms & Superstitions of Ireland: With sketches of the Irish past
Lady Wilde
The veil between the ordinary world and the realm of the spirit is thin in Ireland, where ancient enchantments still linger in the stones, the wells, and the very air. This collection gathers the echoes of a vanishing culture, preserving the myths, superstitions, and historic memories that once defined the Irish…
The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose: Virata Parva
Kisari Mohan Ganguli
The exiled heroes must navigate a perilous thirteenth year in disguise, living among their enemies without revealing their true identities to survive.
Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry
Kuno Meyer
This collection gathers the earliest lyrical voices of Ireland, preserving a fragile, intimate world of hermits, bards, and nature-lovers from the dawn of Western literature.
Buddhist birth stories
Robert Cæsar Childers
These ancient narratives trace the spiritual evolution of a soul through countless lives, illustrating how wisdom and compassion eventually culminate in the attainment of Buddhahood. They serve as both a foundational moral framework and a historical bridge between the cultures of the East and West.
Hebraic Literature
Unknown
This collection serves as a window into the vast, intricate architecture of the Talmud and the broader body of Hebraic thought. It captures the essential temperament of a people who viewed the interpretation of law as the primary language of their relationship with the Divine.
Lyra Celtica: An Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry
Unknown
This wide-ranging collection gathers the voices of a fractured, dreaming race, spanning from the ancient, ghost-haunted bards of the early Gael to the delicate, modern lyrical stirrings of the late nineteenth century. It is a map of the Celtic imagination, tracing the deep-rooted connections between language,…
Indian Legends of Minnesota
Unknown
This collection gathers nineteenth-century poetic interpretations of regional folklore, anchoring the geography of Minnesota in the romanticized memory of the people who inhabited its lakes and forests. It preserves a specific era’s literary fascination with the vanishing frontier.
The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country
W. F. (William Forsell) Kirby
A collection of ancient myths and spirited folk-tales, these pages offer a rare window into a landscape of giants, sorcerers, and the elemental forces of the Baltic spirit.
The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari: Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2)
James S. (James Seguin) De Benneville
A haunting cycle of betrayal and retribution unfurls in the shadows of Edo, where the fragile threads of honor are severed by greed and the relentless weight of the past. This narrative reconstructs the classic Japanese tragedy of O'Iwa, weaving together historical atmosphere and the spectral consequences of a…
The Haunters & The Haunted: Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural
Unknown
The boundary between the quick and the dead is porous, held together by ancient terrors, lingering guilt, and the relentless pull of the human will. This collection charts that uneasy borderland, where the ordinary world is constantly punctured by the inexplicable.
The Wind Among the Reeds
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
These verses weave the ancient, ghostly echoes of Irish folklore into a delicate tapestry of longing, where the boundaries between the human heart and the shifting wind dissolve.
The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies
Robert Kirk
A seventeenth-century Scottish minister meticulously documents the hidden, parallel society of fairies living among us, blurring the lines between folklore, theology, and the early stirrings of psychical research.
The influence of the stars
Rosa Baughan
This compendium serves as a comprehensive manual for the divinatory arts, offering a structured window into how the heavens, the hands, and the human face were once believed to dictate the course of individual destiny.
Moon Lore
Timothy Harley
The silver disc above holds a thousand faces, shaped by the fears, hopes, and prayers of human history. This exploration of our oldest celestial companion reveals the moon as a mirror for the collective imagination.
Legends & Romances of Brittany
Lewis Spence
Brittany possesses a landscape where the ancient past and the supernatural remain stubbornly present. This collection serves as a portal into that world, mapping the intersection of history, myth, and the enduring Breton spirit.