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Mythology, Legends & Folklore — page 4
413 public-domain mythology, legends & folklore books, summarised. Page 4 of 9.
Irish Fairy Tales
Unknown
This collection serves as a portal into a vanishing landscape, where the boundary between the mundane world and a mischievous, often perilous, supernatural realm remains dangerously thin. It gathers the voices of Ireland’s oral tradition, preserving tales that feel less like bedtime stories and more like warnings…
The Golden Maiden, and other folk tales and fairy stories told in Armenia
A. G. (Apraham Garabed) Seklemian
The mountains of Armenia whisper secrets of ancient giants, magic eagles, and the unpredictable whims of fate. These folk tales capture the soul of a people through legends that endure as long as the snows on Ararat.
Tales From Jókai
Mór Jókai
A Hungarian master of the romantic tradition spins tales that bridge the gap between historical gravity and the surreal, offering a vivid window into a world of vanished empires and enduring human folly.
The Lilac Fairy Book
Andrew Lang
These are stories gathered from across the globe, whispered through generations and finally captured on the page. They serve as a vast, enchanted map of the human imagination, where the ordinary world constantly bleeds into the impossible.
Hindu literature
Toru Dutt
This collection gathers the foundational spirit of ancient Indian storytelling, distilling grand epics and moral fables into accessible, lyrical verse. It serves as a bridge, inviting readers into a world where gods, beasts, and kings speak in the language of eternal wisdom.
Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle
D. R. (David Russell) McAnally
This collection gathers the spirited, oral traditions of the Irish countryside, capturing the humor, pathos, and supernatural dread that once animated daily life in the Emerald Isle. It serves as a vivid transcription of a vanishing world, where folklore and reality frequently collide.
The high deeds of Finn, and other bardic romances of ancient Ireland
T. W. (Thomas William) Rolleston
These legendary cycles preserve the vibrant, shifting spirit of ancient Ireland, where the boundary between the human heart and the enchanted world remains perpetually thin.
Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (Volume 2 of 2)
Rhys, John, Sir
The ancient hills of Wales and the Isle of Man hold memories of submerged cities, sleeping kings, and the rhythmic, hidden lives of the little people. This work invites the reader to walk those landscapes and listen to the ghosts of a vanishing oral tradition.
A Little Book of Filipino Riddles
Unknown
The riddle serves as a universal mirror, capturing the wit of a culture through the simple, playful act of describing the world without naming it. This collection preserves a fleeting oral tradition that transforms the mundane—pigs, stars, tools, and fruit—into objects of mystery.
In Ghostly Japan
Lafcadio Hearn
A collection of literary sketches and folklore, this work captures the haunting intersection of Buddhist philosophy and the supernatural in late nineteenth-century Japan. It serves as a bridge between the fading traditions of the Edo period and the encroaching modernity of the Meiji era.
Sumerian Hymns from Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum
Frederick Augustus Vanderburgh
The echoes of ancient Mesopotamia arrive through these fragile, weathered fragments, offering a rare glimpse into the devotional life and linguistic mysteries of a lost world. This monograph serves as both an scholarly inquiry and a preservation of sacred song, bridging the vast distance between modern inquiry and…
The Norwegian Fairy Book
Klara Stroebe
These tales of mountain spirits and sea-folk capture the rugged, untamed spirit of the North, where magic is as common as the morning mist and twice as dangerous.
The Rāmāyana, Volume 2. Āranya, Kishkindhā, and Sundara Kāndam
Valmiki
A exiled prince wanders the deep woods, a demon king steals his bride, and a devotion stronger than mountains spans the southern sea.
The Rāmāyana, Volume 1. Bālakāndam and Ayodhyākāndam
Valmiki
A righteous prince is exiled on the eve of his coronation to fulfill an old promise, trading his crown for a forest life while his family and kingdom fracture in his absence.
Primitive & Mediaeval Japanese Texts: Transliterated into Roman with introductions, notes and glossaries
Unknown
A early-Japanese textual voyage through ancient imperial long-lays, folk tales, courtly prefaces, and drama.
Vidyāpati: Bangīya padābali
Vidyāpati Thākura
Love is a fire that consumes the self to reveal the divine within.
Vikram and the Vampire
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Bound by a solemn oath, a brave king trudges through the dark to carry a corpse, only to find a cunning spirit inside it that demands he solve a series of perplexing riddles.
The Queen of the Air: Being a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm
John Ruskin
The vital powers of nature find their highest expression in the quiet order of human virtue, the truth of noble art, and the life-sustaining clarity of the air.
Time and the Gods
Lord Dunsany
When the dreams of gods take physical form, they raise cities of gleaming marble—yet behind every divine creation stalks a dark, swarthy servant named Time, waiting to tear down what the immortals have built.
Legends of Ma-ui—a demi god of Polynesia, and of his mother Hina
W. D. (William Drake) Westervelt
Maui is a trickster of light and shadow, whose legendary deeds reshape the world—snaring the sun to slow its course, lifting the sky to make room for man, and pulling islands from the deep ocean floor.
Tales of the Samurai: Stories Illustrating Bushido, the Moral Principles of the Japanese Knighthood
Asataro Miyamori
Duty, sacrifice, and strict moral honor govern life and death in a world where samurai principles define humanity.
Philippine Folk-Tales
Clara Kern Bayliss
Across tropical forests, distant heavens, and the underworld, clever tricksters outwit monsters, humble suitors achieve royal impossible tasks, and ancient deities nurture the spirits of the dead.
Warriors of Old Japan, and Other Stories
Yei Theodora Ozaki
Mighty archers, vanquished lords, phantom armies, and hidden princesses leap to life across a legendary tapestry of medieval Japanese heroic tales and gentle domestic wonder.
Tales from the Fjeld: A Second Series of Popular Tales
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
Magic, clever trickery, and rugged wildness collide across the Norwegian mountains as clever peasants, adventurous youngest sons, and cunning beasts outwit overbearing monarchs, vengeful trolls, and fate itself.
The Grey Fairy Book
Unknown
These folktales, gathered from across the globe, act as a kaleidoscope of human imagination, where familiar motifs of magic, greed, and transformation are shaken into endless, vibrant combinations.
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume 1 (of 3)
H. (Henry) Parker
The wisdom and wit of the Sri Lankan countryside live in these pages, where clever jackals, vengeful spirits, and resourceful villagers navigate a world governed by fate, humor, and the unpredictable whims of nature.
The Legends of the Jews
Louis Ginzberg
This expansive collection weaves together the vast tapestry of Jewish oral tradition, transforming sparse biblical accounts into vivid, human-centered narratives. It offers a portal into a world where ancient legends breathe life into the history of prophets, kings, and heroes.
The Baitâl Pachchisi
John T. (John Thompson) Platts
A legendary king undertakes a series of perilous nocturnal journeys to retrieve a shape-shifting sprite, whose cryptic riddles test the limits of human morality and judicial wisdom.
The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales
Richard Garnett
These stories offer a wry, erudite look at the foibles of gods, philosophers, and historical figures. They suggest that human wisdom is often just a fragile mask for absurdity.
Stories of Old Greece and Rome
Emilie K. (Emilie Kip) Baker
These tales of ancient gods and heroes illuminate the foundational myths of Western culture, tracing the turbulent lives of deities and the tragic, often heroic, journeys of men.
Tales of the Punjab: Folklore of India
Flora Annie Webster Steel
A vibrant collection of oral tradition, these tales capture the wit, magic, and moral complexity of a culture where jackals outsmart crocodiles and kings gamble their lives away on a roll of the dice.
The Popol Vuh: The Mythic and Heroic Sagas of the Kichés of Central America
Lewis Spence
This exploration offers a rare window into the mythic heart of the Kiché people, revealing a foundational narrative of gods, giants, and the arduous struggle for human existence in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Stories and folk-lore of West Cornwall. Third Series
William Bottrell
The vanishing echoes of a rugged, ancient landscape find their final preservation in this collection of legends, where the line between the living and the spectral is drawn with a firm, traditional hand.
Welsh Fairy Tales
William Elliot Griffis
These tales emerge from a rich, ancient cultural bedrock, where the line between the natural world and the realm of myth is forever blurred by mist, music, and the shifting geography of the Welsh hills.
Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems
Henry Hart Milman
The ancient legend of a king and his queen separated by divine malice and reunited by the strength of their devotion is a foundational tale of classical Indian literature. This translation captures the solemn, sweeping beauty of a story that has endured as a cornerstone of epic tradition.
Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources
Unknown
These tales offer a window into the rich, supernatural tapestry of Slavonic imagination, where ordinary lives intersect with ancient, haunting forces.
The story of Eros & Psyche (retold from Apuleius)
Edward Carpenter
This retelling of a foundational myth explores the trials of love and the human spirit through a blend of classical narrative and evocative Victorian poetry. It serves as both a fable of transformation and a meditation on the search for meaning in a changing world.
The Bible, King James version, Book 66: Revelation
Anonymous
This prophetic account chronicles a cosmic struggle between divine authority and earthly rebellion, culminating in the total renewal of heaven and earth. Through vivid, symbolic visions, it offers a dramatic resolution to the history of humanity.
Stories and Pictures
Isaac Loeb Peretz
These sketches of Eastern European Jewish life capture the quiet, often agonizing struggle for dignity amidst poverty, tradition, and the gathering shadows of the nineteenth century.
The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story
Gordon Hall Gerould
A long-standing narrative tradition follows a hero who pays to bury a stranger’s remains, only to have that debt repaid by a ghost who shepherds him through impossible trials and marriage.
The Edda, Volume 2: The Heroic Mythology of the North
Lucy Winifred Faraday
This scholarly examination traces the ancient Germanic heroic tradition as preserved in the fragmented, often brutal poems of the Norse Edda. It serves as an essential guide to the evolution of Northern legend, mapping how oral tales of gods and warriors transformed across centuries and cultures.
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
Andrew Lang
In this collection of spectral accounts, we explore the boundary between the vivid theater of the human mind and the persistent, unsettling history of reported apparitions.
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)
Valmiki
A profound dialogue on the nature of reality and consciousness, where ultimate freedom is found not by fleeing the world, but by dissolving the illusion of self.
In the Days of Giants: A Book of Norse Tales
Abbie Farwell Brown
A struggle between the warmth of the spring and the bitter frost of the mountains plays out through the lives of the northern gods. Their world begins in magical creation, thrives on trickery, and ends in inescapable twilight.
The Student's Mythology: A Compendium of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Hindoo, Chinese, Thibetian, Scandinavian, Celtic, Aztec, and Peruvian Mythologies
Catherine Ann White
A world forged by human necessity moves through ages of gold, silver, iron, and stone, populated by gods and mortals whose choices shape the sky and earth.
Moorish Literature: Comprising Romantic Ballads, Tales of the Berbers, Stories of the Kabyles, Folk-Lore, and National Traditions
Unknown
Beneath the harsh expanse of North African landscapes, a tapestry of voices spins tales of honor, vengeance, and magical wonder.
Armenian Legends and Poems
Unknown
In a landscape carved by centuries of survival, these verses gather the voices of a resilient culture, tracing a path through love, myth, and enduring devotion.
The King of Ireland's Son
Padraic Colum
A young prince loses a high-stakes game of cards to an enigmatic old man, setting off an epic journey across enchanted Irish realms to win back his freedom and his true love.