A man is changed into a flea and must bring his future parents together in order to become human again. A woman convinces a river god to cure her sick son, but the remedy has mixed consequences. A young man must choose whether to be close to his wife's soul or body. And two deaf mutes transcend their physical existence in the garden of dreams. Strange and fantastical, these fairy tales of Béla Balázs (1884-1949), Hungarian writer, film critic, and famous librettist of Bluebeard's Castle , reflect his profound interest in friendship, alienation, and Taoist philosophy. Translated and introduced by Jack Zipes, one of the world's leading authorities on fairy tales, The Cloak of Dreams brings together sixteen of Balázs's unique and haunting stories. Written in 1921, these fairy tales were originally published with twenty images drawn in the Chinese style by painter Mariette Lydis, and this new edition includes a selection of Lydis's brilliant illustrations. Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balázs's work: wandering protagonists, mysterious woods and mountains, solitude, and magical transformation. His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies. Unusual, wondrous fairy tales that examine the world's cruelties and twists of fate, The Cloak of Dreams will entertain, startle, and intrigue.

Here available in English for the first time, in a splendid translation by Brian Stableford, The Mirror of Legends, one of the important collections of French Symbolist Bernard Lazare (1865-1903), offers a melange of stories based on Greek, mythological and Biblical sources. In prose coiling as effusively as the smoke from a swinging censer, the esoteric lore of centuries is paraded before the reader in this series of incantatory poem-like tales that form an eclectic myth-cycle of their own. A mixture of erudition, heretical speculation and heightened lyricism, The Mirror of Legends presents a unique artistic statement of metaphysics, aesthetics and ethics.

This illustrated book recounts the story of The Magic Pomegranate, a well-known Jewish folktale. In this engaging story, three brothers journey to three different lands in search of adventure. When they meet again, each brother has brought back a gift from his travels. One brother has an enchanted looking glass. Another has a flying carpet. The third brother has a magic pomegranate. But no sooner have the brothers begun to enjoy their gifts than they learn some troubling news: a princess in a far-off kingdom has fallen ill. Only the brothers and their magic gifts can save her. Will the brothers be able to help the princess? Which gift will make her well? Read this enchanting story to find out.

A classic tale adopted to a modern setting. We all, children and adults alike, have different inner voices telling us what to do. In this episode, David, 8, is tasked with babysitting his baby sister while Mommy goes to the store. (Daddy is in the other room.) David hears his friends playing ball outdoors. David's Bad King tells him to join them. His Good King says no! He is torn even more when his friends call him out to join them! What will David do?! What would you do? Based on an ancient parable of "the wisest man who ever lived."

Mythopoetic Musings is a gathering of essays and reworked lectures written by Christine Downing during the years since the 2006 publication of her earlier collection Gleanings. Many represent returns to the themes and images, the stories and writers, that have played a central role in her writing and teaching since she began her scholarly career. Amplifications not retractions. As always, they intertwine the academic and the personal and communicate her conviction that a genuinely depth psychological engagement with any theme will inevitably lead us to ourselves. Our stories. As she says, "I have been a teacher and a writer, but really what I have been is a story-teller. I think I can safely tell myself, I'll never stop being one."

" ... not a large book, but that makes all the more admirable the way the author succeeds in doing justice to so many of the most important subjects in folkloristics. This book is a key work, and should be made compulsory reading in every university in which folkloristics is studied." --Jon Hnefill Aoalsteinsson, Asian Folklore Studies "With this book Alan Dundes has once again demonstrated what a brilliant essayist he is: learned, thought-provoking and entertaining. He has much inspiration to give to anthropologists, and he is quite indispensable to folklore scholarship." --Bengt af Klintberg, Ethnos "If there were still a question whether Alan Dundes is America's leading folklorist, then the essays in this volume ... should dispel it once and for all. An internationally acclaimed scholar is at work here, for whom foUclore really matters in all of its varied aspects." --Wolfgang Mieder, University of Vennont "A maverick folklorist, Alan Dundes challenges his colleagues and readers with erudition and candor. His essays are insightful and entertaining, exploring folklore with an amazing breadth. " --Dan Ben-Amos, University of Pennsylvania "As always, a reader is dazzled by the range of Dundes erudition. He doesn't just cite things, he digests them."-Gary Alan Fine, University of Minnesota "For over two decades, he has been a major voice urging folklorists (and historians and literary critics, for that manner) to move beyond mere description to true interpretation of cultural texts in their contexts. These essays continue that message, and they do so with fresh power." --Jay Mechling, University of California, Davis "These recent essays from the pen of a passionate folklorist include two classics on the history of the field. The Fabrication of 'Fakelore' and The Anthropologist and the Comparative Method in Folklore' are required reading for anyone seriously interested in folklore as a discipline." --Barbara Kirshenblan-Gimblett, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

Paperback. Pub Date: October 2008 Pages: 256 Publisher: HARVILL SECKER Marta is raised by her grandmother in her house in Trieste. a safe haven of stories. Books and enchantment She knows that her mother died when she was young and she believes that her father is a Turkish prince. But. as she grows older and this fairy tale disintegrates. Marta feels only anger towards her grandmother for withholding information about her parents. When her grandmother dies. Marta is alone in the world. One day . in the dusty attic. she finds a box belonging to her mother which may help to uncover her own past. With clues found in her mother's journal and a worn photograph. Marta decides to track down her father. who she believes may still be alive . Feeling the need to escape her grandmother's house. which is populated by secrets. Marta embarks on a journey to Israel. seeking what is left of...

With the help of his friends, a kind straw scarecrow is able to prove he is scarier than Toho the Terrible.

Bloody Mary in the Mirror mixes Sigmund Freud with vampires and The Little Mermaid to see what new light psychoanalysis can bring to folklore techniques and forms. Ever since Freud published his analysis of Jewish jokes in 1905 and his disciple Otto Rank followed with his groundbreaking The Myth of the Birth of the Hero in 1909, the psychoanalytic study of folklore has been an acknowledged part of applied psychoanalysis. However, psychoanalysts, handicapped by their limited knowledge of folklore techniques, have tended to confine their efforts to the Bible, to classical mythology, and to the Grimm fairy tales. Most folklorists have been slow to consider psychoanalysis as a method of interpreting folklore. One notable exception is folklorist Alan Dundes. In the seven fascinating essays of Bloody Mary in the Mirror, psychoanalytic theory illuminates such folklore genres as legend (in the vampire tale), folktale (in the ancient Egyptian tale of two brothers), custom (in fraternity hazing and ritual fasting), and games (in the modern Greek game of ""Long Donkey""). One of two essays Dundes co-authored with his daughter Lauren Dundes, professor of sociology at Western Maryland College, successfully probes the content of Disney's The Little Mermaid, yielding new insights into this popular reworking of a Hans Christian Andersen favorite. Among folk rituals investigated is the girl's game of ""Bloody Mary."" Elementary or middle school-age girls huddle in a darkened bathroom awaiting the appearance in the mirror of a frightening apparition. The plausible analysis of this well-known--if somewhat puzzling--American rite is one of many surprising and enlightening finds in this book. All of the essays in this remarkable volume create new takes on old traditions. Bloody Mary in the Mirror is an expedition into psychoanalytic folklore techniques and constitutes a giant step towards realizing the potential Freud's work promises for folklore studies. Alan Dundes is professor of anthropology and folklore at the University of California, Berkeley. Among many others, his books include Interpreting Folklore (1980) and From Game to War and Other Psychoanalytic Essays on Folklore (1997). He edited Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore (1991), which was published by University Press of Mississippi.

made into a corollary

The Troll Music

The new wizard tries to solve all the town's problems, but carelessness with his own magic tears creates a tragedy instead.

A husband does not believe it when his wife tells him that their crying baby is comforted by a huge eagle who flies down with its sharp talons and alights on the baby.

Explores to what extent the folklore of a given group reflects the particular character of that group through a study of German culture and folklore.

Tales of Innocence and Experience is a captivating exploration of the relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter as a second baby is about to be born. Alive to the special sweetness of the relationship, Figes also explores the darker side of childhood. How in fairytales such as 'Snow White', 'Little Red Riding Hood' and 'Hansel and Gretel' difficult emotions like jealousy and anger, fear of death and abandonment are evoked and transformed by the storyteller's art. It is at this point that the author evokes a fairy tale of her own privileged Berlin childhood which was brutally shattered when her family escaped from the Nazis to England, leaving behind her much loved grandparents, who later perished in Dachau. As Eva Figes says, 'Women lose their innocence, not with loss of virginity, but with childbirth', but a new child around allows the grandmother the chance we all seek to sneak back into the garden of innocence.

Joyzelle is a play in four acts written by Maurice Maeterlinck. This edition is translated into English by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos and Alfred Sutro. The play is a tragic fairy tale about Joyzelle, a fairy queen, who leaves her realm and falls in love with a mortal. Her actions set off a series of events that lead to her own destruction and the downfall of her realm. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Product Description The sequel to the bestselling Angel is an explosive tale of love, lies and fame, set in the glitzy world of footballers’ wives and girlfriends. Angel Summer looks as if she has found her happy ever after. She’s married to the love of her life, sexy footballer Cal, they have a beautiful baby girl, and Angel is Britain’s top glamour model. But all is not as it seems and there is heartache in store. Angel’s worst nightmares come to life when an old flame of Cal’s comes back on the scene and suddenly Angel is fighting to save her marriage and herself . . . From the Trade Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap An explosive and highly charged tale of love, lies and celebrity. Angel Summer looks as if she has found her happy ever after. She’s married to the love of her life, sexy footballer Cal, they have a beautiful baby girl and Angel is Britain’s top glamour model. But all is not as it seems and there is heartache in store. When Cal is transferred to AC Milan, instead of embracing the WAG lifestyle of designer shopping and pampering, Angel feels isolated being so far away from her family and friends. Surrounded by beautiful people, will Angel and Cal pull together or will they turn elsewhere to seek comfort? Things only get more complicated for Angel when an old flame of Cal's comes back on the scene and suddenly Angel is fighting to save her marriage, and herself.. . From the Back Cover Praise for Angel: 'The Perfect sexy summer read' heat 'A page turner... it is brilliant' Evening Standard 'The perfect post-modern fairy tale' Glamour Praise for Crystal: 'Peppered with cutting asides and a directness you can only imagine coming from Katie Price, it's a fun, blisteringly paced yet fluffy novel' Cosmopolitan 'Crystal is charming. Gloriously infectious' Evening Standard About the Author Katie Price is Jordan, one of the UK's top celebrities. She is an ex-glamour model, TV presenter, author, singer, mother and wife. She currently lives in Sussex with her husband Peter Andre, her sons and her daughter.