Displays

The idea of a Mother or Earth Goddess has become a rallying-point for a generation weary of male-oriented religions. But is the idea of Goddess at the dawn of civilization a historical fact, or just consoling fiction? In this text, historians and archaeologists speak about this topic. From predynastic Egypt to classical Greece and early North West Europe to the Celts, they review the most recent evidence.

Draws together and interpets the varied evidence for the pagan religion of the early Saxons. The evidence is mainly taken from England rather than using later Scandinavian material and back projecting it into early England. Much is gleaned from funeral rites.

Like all human activities, ritual customs, intended to gain advantage or avert disaster by supernatural means, have left their mark on the archaeological record. Yet archaeologists are often reluctant to recognize evidence of behavior that has no obvious material purpose. Even where they realize that something unusual has occurred, they will put forward every other possible explanation in terms of accident or functional utility, however improbable. For the first time, Ralph Merrifield systematically looks at the evidence for European ritual from prehistoric times to the present day. In examining different kinds of ritual, superstition and magic whether animal sacrifice, offerings to earth and water, spells and charms, or antidotes to witchcraft he shows how common patterns of activity have continued with little alteration over the centuries. Through fundamental changes of religious belief from primitive animism to developed paganism, from paganism to Christianity, from traditional Catholicism to Protestantism, and even from religious faith to scientific rationalism the same kinds of simple ritual have survived to give comfort and a sense of security. Profusely illustrated, this provocative and readable study will not only be required reading for archaeologists at all levels, but will also appeal to all those interested in folklore and the oddities of human behavior."

The Book of English Magic explores the curious and little-known fact that of all the countries in the world, England has the richest history of magical lore and practice. English authors such as J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, and J.K.Rowling, dominate the world of magic in fiction, but from the earliest times, England has also acted as home to generations of eccentrics and scholars who have researched and explored every conceivable kind of occult art. Most people are torn between a fascination with magic and an almost instinctive fear of the occult, of a world redolent with superstition and illusion. And yet more people now practice magic in England than at any time in her history. The Book of English Magic explores this hidden story, from its first stirrings to our present-day fascination with all things magical. Along the way readers are offered a rich menu of magical things to do and places to visit.

The beginnings, development and gradual end of stone circles are explored in this illustrated guide, combining colour photography with scientific survey. Their significance and use, with astronomical alignments to the sun and moon and today's beliefs that human sacrifices were part of the rituals in the megalithic rings are explained.

Cultures and civilizations all over the world have had beliefs that focused on a female deity who was identified with nature, the earth, birth, death and regeneration. These Goddesses had many different names and attributes, but what united them was a belief in their power to change lives and provide nurture and well being for humankind. The later 20th century and early 21st century have seen a huge revival of interest in Goddess spirituality, as so many people become aware of the fragility of our environment and climate change.

This new work offers an exhaustive survey of one of the world's most fertile and exciting mythological traditions. It covers the persons, themes, concepts, places, and creatures of Celtic mythology, in all its ancient and modern traditions, in 4000 entries ranging from brief definitions to extended essays on major tale cycles. An introductory essay explains who the Celts were, explores the history of the Celtic revival, and examines the meaning and role of mythology and tradition. An invaluable pronunciation guide for the major Celtic languages, a topic index of entries, thorough cross-references within Celtic mythology and to other mythologies, such as Classical and Norse, enables the reader to see the relationship between Celtic mythology, later Irish literature, and other literary and mythological traditions. The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology is the first place to turn for an authoritative guide to this colorful world of tragedy, revenge, honor, and heroism of Celtic myth.

"This dictionary, with more than 1000 articles, provides a comprehensive survey of all important aspects of Celtic religion and culture, covering both the prehistoric continental Celts and the later, medieval culture that found written form long after the Celts had settled in the British Isles." "Articles in the dictionary also cover the interaction between Celtic and Roman civilisations, and the seminal input of medieval Celtic legend into the Arthurian tradition. The continental and insular Celtic languages, both ancient and modern, are described, and there is a full account of the Celtic deities known to us from the inscriptions and iconography of the classical world. Celtic art and agriculture, the Ossian myth, the Irish Renaissance, and the history of Celtic studies are among other areas treated in depth."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Arguing that the sources for the ancient druids are too few and unreliable to establish any certainties, Hutton reverses the traditional balance of interest to look at the many ways in which Druids have been imagined in Britain since 1500.

Combines fact and folklore in exploring the history and culture of the mysterious Celtic priests.

Through study of sculpture, vases, and other cult objects from southeastern Europe, Gimbutas sketches the village culture that evolved there before it was overwhelmed by the patriarchal Indo-Europeans. The goddess incarnating the creative principle as Source and Giver of All, fertility images, mythical animals, and other artifacts are analyzed for their mythic and social significance in this beautifully illustrated study.

This fascinating overview of Celts and their religion covers all aspects of the gods, ritual customs, cult-objects, and sacred places of the ancient Celtic peoples   Covering 500 BC to AD 400, and embracing the whole of the Celtic world from Ireland to Australia, this rewarding overview of the evidence for Celtic religions, beliefs, and practices uses modern scholarship to bring an obscure, but captivating part of European history to life. First, this it introduces the Celts and the evidence they have left behind, and places them in their geographical and chronological context. It then covers the various cults of the sun and the sky; the mother-goddesses and fertility; war, death and the underworld; water gods and healers; animals and animism; and symbolism and imagery. 

Thousands of years ago, people in Britain painstakingly arranged huge blocks of stone into careful circles. The most famous of these rings is Stonehenge, but elsewhere in England there are remains of other awe-inspiring prehistoric stone circles as well. For those who are enthralled by these enigmatic rings, this book offers fascinating explanations of their many mysteries. Archaeologist Aubrey Burl, for more than thirty years a specialist in the study of stone circles, selects a dozen attractive and evocative rings to illuminate particular archaeological questions-the purpose of stone circles, their construction, age, design, distribution, art, legends, and relation to astronomy. Burl investigates the legends that surround the Rollright Stones of Oxfordshire, for example, and finds that stories of girls turning to stone and of stones going for a midnight drink in the river are mainly fables of the eighteenth century or later. At Stanton Drew near Bristol, three rings provide a vivid example of prehistoric landscaping. Burl offers sometimes surprising answers to questions about Stonehenge: how were its bluestones transported from southwest Wales, why was its Slaughter Stone not used for sacrifice, and why is Stonehenge-the most British of stone circles-not a stone circle and not British? Burl concludes by reconstructing the social history of Swinside in the Lake District, describing the builders, their way of life, and the ceremonies they performed inside their lovely ring.

This classic 1900s title has been republished in a modern, accessible form and includes a collection of myths and legends of Britain and Ireland such as Cuchulainn, Marriage of Sir Gawain and Robin Hood.

Stop off at any English village or town or wander through the countryside and you will almost certainly brush up against some deep-rooted local myth or legend - whether it's the pub that claims to have given lodgings to Dick Turpin, or the haunted stately home, or the hill that is supposed to contain buried treasure, or the grave that is said to mark the last resting place of Robin Hood. This magnificent new and lavishly illustrated survey looks at all these stories, county by county, explaining when they date from, how they arose and what basis - if any - they have in fact. If you want to know how Devil's Dyke in Sussex got its name, or why medieval stories link King Arthur with Lanercost Priory in Cumberland, or where Cornish legends about the evil Jan Tregeagle come from, then The Lore of the Landwill provide the answers and show you at the same time just how deeply embedded in our culture myth and legend have become.

The universality of the magical beliefs which have existed throughout Europe from the time of the Romans to the present has been hidden by a focus on the sensational aspects of magic, and on witch trials in particular. The Magical Universe shows how magical beliefs and practices permeated all aspects of work and of family life, and profoundly influenced the approach of men and women to health and healing, birth, marriage and death. Magic offered the hope of protection in a dangerous and uncertain world, if the correct rituals were observed. Magical beliefs borrowed from and were incorporated in church rites. Such beliefs, shared by the powerful as well as the poor, lasted remarkably late in many rural areas and have still not completely vanished.

Atlantic Europe is the zone par excellence of megalithic monuments, which encompass a wide range of earthen and stone constructions from inpressive stone circles to modest chambered tombs. A single basic concept lies behind this volume - that the intrinsic qualities encountered within the diverse landscapes pf Atlantic Europe both informed the settings chosen for the monuments and played a role in determining their form and visual appearance. Monuments and Landscape in Atlantic Europe goes significantly beyond the limits of existing debate by inviting archaeologists from different countries with the Atlantic zone (including Britain, France, Ireland, Spain and Sweden) to examine the relationship between landscape features and prehistoric monuments in their specialist regions. By placing the issue within a broader regional and intellectual context, the authors illustrate the diversity of current archaeological ideas and approaches converging around this central theme.

"It was the seventh-century Chronicle of Fredegar which first gave the Franks a Trojan ancestry, and the lineage stuck. This fascinating new study shows how, even as late as the sixteenth century, historians and poets found the lure of the eponymic hero Francus, the Glorious Druids and the Great Celtic Past irresistible. It describes how, obsessed with the origins of their country and the prevailing nationalism of the age, early sixteenth-century writers were largely uncritical of their highly spurious sources - even acknowledged forgeries such as those of Annius of Viterbo. However, a desire to replace fiction with fact gradually took hold as the Renaissance progressed, and National Myths examines the reasons for this change of mood and discusses the emotional satisfaction afforded by a belief in the Trojan and Gallic legends." "With its topical themes of nationalism and the politicisation of history, this book sheds new light on Renaissance historiography and on the history of ideas in general."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

One of the most important works of modern anthropology. Written against the backdrop of the student uprisings of the late 1960s, the book took seriously the revolutionary fervour of the times, but instead of seeking to destroy the rituals and symbols that can govern and oppress, Mary Douglas saw instead that if transformation were needed, it could only be made possible through better understanding. Expressed with clarity and dynamism, the passionate analysis which follows remains one of the most insightful and rewarding studies of human behaviour ever written.

Britain's pagan past, with its mysterious monuments, atmospheric sites, enigmatic artifacts, bloodthirsty legends, and cryptic inscriptions, is both enthralling and perplexing to a resident of the twenty-first century. In this ambitious and thoroughly up-to-date book, Ronald Hutton reveals the long development, rapid suppression, and enduring cultural significance of paganism, from the Paleolithic era to the coming of Christianity. He draws on an array of recently discovered evidence and shows how new findings have radically transformed understandings of belief and ritual in Britain before the arrival of organized religion.   Setting forth a chronological narrative, along the way Hutton makes side visits to explore specific locations of ancient pagan activity. He includes the well-known sacred sites--Stonehenge, Avebury, Seahenge, Maiden Castle, Anglesey--as well as more obscure locations across the mainland and coastal islands. In tireless pursuit of the elusive "why" of pagan behavior, Hutton astonishes with the breadth of his understanding of Britain's deep past and inspires with the originality of his insights.

The extraordinary Scandinavian myth cycle is one of the most enduring, exciting, dramatic and compelling of the world's great stories. A series of intertwined tales which together form a strange and fantastical world teeming with gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, battles and couplings, the Norse myths are as exciting to read as they are of vast cultural and historical importance. Taking us from the creation of the world through the building of Asgard's Wall to the final end in Ragnorak, and featuring the exploits and adventures of such legendary figures as Odin, Thor and Loki, The Penguin Book of the Norse Myths brings alive the passion, cruelty and heroism of these unforgettable stories.

A concise history of the goddess-like figures who evade both Christian and pagan traditions, from the medieval period to the present day   In this riveting account, renowned scholar Ronald Hutton explores the history of deity-like figures in Christian Europe. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology, literature, and history, Hutton shows how hags, witches, the Fairy Queen, and the Green Man all came to be, and how they changed over the centuries.   Looking closely at four main figures--Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, the Mistress of the Night, and the Old Woman of Gaelic tradition--Hutton challenges decades of debate around the female figures who have long been thought versions of pre-Christian goddesses. He makes the compelling case that these goddess figures found in the European imagination did not descend from the pre-Christian ancient world, yet have nothing Christian about them. It was in fact nineteenth-century scholars who attempted to establish the narrative of pagan survival that persists today.

This is the most comprehensive collection of articles on ritual ever assembled. The book includes selections by internationally known scholars such as Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz, as well as innovative piece s that illustrate the extraordinary interdisciplinary range of contemporary ritual studies. Grimes has drawn readings from the entire range of ritual--encompassing its secular, political and dramatic expressions as well as its religious ones.

Highly readable and entertaining, Ronald Hutton's acclaimed work is the first comprehensive account of the religious and secular rituals of late medieval and early modern England.

Roy Rappaport argues that religion is central to the continuing evolution of life, although it has been been displaced from its original position of intellectual authority by the rise of modern science. His book, which could be construed as in some degree religious as well as about religion, insists that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches to the study of humankind, he mounts a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, seeing it as co-extensive with the invention of language and hence of culture as we know it. At the same time he assembles the fullest study yet of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and has been central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from anthropology, history, philosophy, comparative religion, and elsewhere.

The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments - including Stonehenge - were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Starting in the Mesolithic and carrying his analysis through to the Late Bronze Age, Richard Bradley sheds light on this complex period and the changing consciousness of these prehistoric peoples. The Significance of Monuments studies the importance of monuments tracing their history from their first creation over six thousand years later. Part One discusses how monuments first developed and their role in developing a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. Other features of the prehistoric landscape - such as mounds and enclosures - across Continental Europe are also examined. Part Two studies how such monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society through a series of detailed case studies. The Significance of Monuments is an indispensable text for all students of European prehistory. It is also an enlightening read for professional archaeologists and all those interested in this fascinating period.

Explores the practices and philosophies of witchcraft and Goddess religion.
Witchcraft as Goddess Religion -- The World View of Witchcraft -- The Coven -- Creating Sacred Space -- The Goddess -- The God -- Magical Symbols -- Energy: The Cone of Power -- Trance -- Initiation -- Moon Rituals -- The Wheel of the Year -- Creating Religion: Toward the Future -- Ten Years Later: Commentary on Chapters One through Thirteen -- Twenty Years Later: Commentary on Chapters One through Thirteen.

From the twelve days of Christmas to the Spring traditions of Valentine, Shrovetide, and Easter eggs, through May Day revels and Midsummer fires, and on to the waning of the year, Harvest Home, and Hallowe'en; Ronald Hutton takes us on a fascinating journey through the ritual year in Britain. His comprehensive study covers all the British Isles and the whole sweep of history from the earliest written records to the present day. Great and lesser, ancient and modern, Christian and pagan, all rituals are treated with the same attention. The result is a colourful and absorbing account in which Ronald Hutton illuminates the history of the calender we live by, and challenges many commonly held assumptions about the customs of the past and the festivals of the present. Stations of the Sun is the first complete scholarly work to cover the full span of British rituals, challenging the work of specialists from the late Victorian period onwards, reworking our picture of the field thoroughly, and raising issues for historians of every period.

The author's study of 1998 is brought up to date in the light of the latest archaeological evidence. The author shows how Stonehenge can help us to understand the Neolithic and Bronze Age timber circles of Britain and Ireland and how theses timber circles aid our understanding of Stonehenge.

For hundreds of years Stonehenge has been both an enigma and an inspiration to archaeologists, tourists, mystics, astronomers, artists, poets and visionaries. The real monument has been often obscured by their imagined and claimed versions of Stonehenge. This revised and enlarged edition of Christopher Chippindale's prize-winning classic account brings the story of Stonehenge right up to date. It describes in two new chapters the startling ideas and insights of the latest field research. In a radical reinterpretation, Stonehenge with its cold rocks is seen as the place of the dead, and another site - over the horizon - as the place of the living, built in wood, and complete with houses and paved ways. In another theory, Stonehenge is a place of healing. Alongside the quest to understand Stonehenge are the taxing practicalities of caring for a 4,000 years old site that was never designed to cope with a million visitors a year, and how to preserve the monument for millennia to come.

The sun is universally acknowledged as the source of life, of fertility, and of good fortune, and so has been worshipped by all cultures. This book presents myth and legend, and offers new and old ways of celebrating the turning of the seasons.

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben is the rare writer whose ideas and works have a broad appeal across many fields, and his devoted fans are not just philosophers, but readers of political and legal theory, sociology, and literary criticism as well. Agamben's intuition and meditation are fascinating, and not least when he turns his critical eye to the mysteries and contradictions of early religion. The Unspeakable Girl: The Myth and Mystery of Kore is a book of three richly detailed treatments of the myth of Kore. Kore, also called Persephone, and referred to poetically by the Greeks as "the unspeakable girl," was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus who was abducted by Hades and made queen of the netherworld. Kore and her story gave rise to a mysterious cult at Eleusis, the site of the well where Demeter mourned her lost daughter. This book opens with an innovative and insightful essay that focuses on the mysterious indeterminacy of the figure of Kore/Persephone--at once a woman and a girl, a virgin and a mother--as well as the attendant divisions of speech and silence, the sacred and the profane, the animal and the human, and the mortal and the divine. Here, tracing these dichotomies, Agamben is in top form, able to articulate paradoxes that in another writer's hands might be ineffable. In the second and third parts of the book the reader is treated to a series of beautiful paintings by acclaimed artist Monica Ferrando, as well as her translation of crucial Greek and Latin source materials. As a whole, The Unspeakable Girl will not only be welcomed by Agamben's many readers across the disciplines, but also by enthusiasts of classical mythology in general.

Witchcraft continues to play a role in the modern European imagination and in its cultures. This book brings together studies of its most important modern manifestations, including a new history of English Wicca, and satanic abuse mythology.

Taking the reader into the heart of one of the fastest-growing religious movements in North America, Sabina Magliocco reveals how the disciplines of anthropology and folklore were fundamental to the early development of Neo-Paganism and the revival of witchcraft. Magliocco examines the roots that this religious movement has in a Western spiritual tradition of mysticism disavowed by the Enlightenment. She explores, too, how modern Pagans and Witches are imaginatively reclaiming discarded practices and beliefs to create religions more in keeping with their personal experience of the world as sacred and filled with meaning. Neo-Pagan religions focus on experience, rather than belief, and many contemporary practitioners have had mystical experiences. They seek a context that normalizes them and creates in them new spiritual dimensions that involve change in ordinary consciousness. Magliocco analyzes magical practices and rituals of Neo-Paganism as art forms that reanimate the cosmos and stimulate the imagination of its practitioners. She discusses rituals that are put together using materials from a variety of cultural and historical sources, and examines the cultural politics surrounding the movement--how the Neo-Pagan movement creates identity by contrasting itself against the dominant culture and how it can be understood in the context of early twenty-first-century identity politics. Witching Culture is the first ethnography of this religious movement to focus specifically on the role of anthropology and folklore in its formation, on experiences that are central to its practice, and on what it reveals about identity and belief in twenty-first-century North America.