Stories about a clever man who lived by his wits as his pockets were always empty.

The spirit of good luck outwits the spirit of bad luck and helps a poor but honest peasant lad marry the king's daughter.

One of England's most beloved writers for children--and winner of the Carnegie Medal, the Regina Medal, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award--retells one of the best-loved fairy tales of all time.

Tales of magic and wonder can be found in every phase of Jewish literature, from the sacred to the secular. The fairy tale in particular--set in enchanted lands and populated with a variety of human and supernatural beings, both good and evil--holds a very special place in the Jewish tradition. For in the fairy tale, where good and evil engage in a timeless struggle, we have a clear reflection of the Jewish world view, where faith in God can defeat the evil impulse. In Elijah's Violin, Howard Schwartz offers a sumptuous collection of thirty-six Jewish fairy tales from virtually every corner of the world. At once otherworldy and earthy, pious and playful, these celebrated tales from Morocco and India, Spain and Eastern Europe, Babylon and Egypt, illustrate not only their Jewish character but also their universality of themes. Invoking the biblical tale of David and Goliath, we read as King David defeats the giant by hovering above its spear in King David and the Giant. In the romantic tale of The Princess in the Tower, a variant of Rapunzel, we watch as the cautious King Solomon recognizes the vanity in trying to prevent Providence from taking place. And we see the religious nature of the quest for Elijah's violin in the title story. The successful completion of the king's quest enables the violin's imprisoned melodies, emblematic of the Jewish spirit, to be set free. Throughout this richly illustrated collection, one can find the quests and riddles of the traditional fairy tale along with the divine intervention that characterizes the Jewish fairy tale. Skillfully translated, these stories will captivate children and adults alike in which romance and magic become enchantingly entwined with faith, duty, and wisdom.

Sherwood Forest comes alive in this spirited retelling of the mighty battle that launched the friendship between Robin Hood and Little John. The illustrations are lush with the textures and colors of Sherwood Forest, to which readers are transported in this beguiling version of a long-loved tale.--Booklist. Full color.

Noted folklorist Howard Schwartz retells 12 Jewish tales from around the world. Each tale combines elements of magic with a link to a Jewish holiday, giving new perspectives on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, Purim, and Passover--plus Shabbat, the weekly Sabbath. These memorable stories of holiday miracles and miraculous escapes have been passed down orally for thousands of years. Now the best of them--from "A Flock of Angels" to "The Enchanted Menorah" and "The Magic Winecup"--have been collected, and enriched by Monique Passicot's luminous illustrations.

It was 1994: post-Liz Phair, mid-Courtney Love, just shy of Alanis Morissette. After seven years of slogging it out in the Boston music scene, Jen Trynin took a hard look at herself and gave "making it" one last shot. It worked. Suddenly Trynin became the spark that set off one of the most heated bidding wars of the year. Major labels vied for her, to the tune of millions of dollars in deals. Lawyers, managers, and booking agents clamored for her attention. Billboard put her on the cover. Everyone knew she was the Next Big Thing. But then she wasn't. In a series of dizzying, hilarious, heartbreaking snapshots, Trynin captures what it's like to be catapulted to the edge of rock stardom, only to plummet back down to earth. Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be is the story of a girl who got what she wished for--and lived happily ever after anyway.

" ... 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

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.

The first fifteen pages of this learned study are the ones of chief interest to students of the classics. In the Memoirs of the Four Worthies or Lords of the Liang Dynasty , written by Chang Yüe (667-730 A.D.), a story is told about an island in the Western Sea (Mediterranean) where there is an inaccessible ravine in which precious stones lie. The inhabitants throw flesh into this ravine. Birds pick up the flesh in their beaks and as they fly, they drop the precious stones. The men of the country are clever workers of gems, which are called Fu-lin after the name of the country. Fu-lin is the Chinese name for some part of the Roman Empire, probably Syria. A legend similar in all its essential features is found in Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus in the fourth century. Dr. Laufer points out the close likeness of this legend to the story of the Arabians and their curious method of obtaining cinnamon told by Herodotus iii. 111, and to a somewhat similar tale in Pliny N.H. xxxviii. 33, but prudently refrains from attempting to link them closely. The source of the legend he finds in the Hellenistic Orient. To one already impressed with the fact that Hellenistic artistic motives influenced early Chinese and even Japanese art in a marked degree, the thesis is in itself reasonable, and Dr. Laufer's proofs are convincing. There are two further points of interest in this study for the classicist and archaeologist. The author is convinced (pp. 42-46) that the adamas of the ancients was actually the diamond, but concludes that ancient gem-workers did not understand the process of cutting and polishing diamonds to add to their luster (pp. 46-50). The study contains other information which will be attractive chiefly to Sinologists and to those interested in the history of the diamond. In this pamphlet Dr. Laufer has presented another useful link of the broken chain of evidence which connects Hellenistic-Roman civilization with the Far East. Curiously enough the classical archaeologist and the classicist seem to regard the evidence upon this new sphere of Greek influence either with suspicion or with apathy. - Classical Philology [1918]

The most complete guide to the ancient world-wide system of celestial metaphor, sometimes called Astro-theology, which forms the foundation for virtually all of the scriptures, myths, and sacred stories of humanity -- including the texts we call the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible. Explore the scriptures and myths of humanity in a new light as you learn to hear the language in which they are all actually speaking: the language of the stars. Star Myths of the World and How to Interpret Them is a series of volumes exploring the amazing evidence of an ancient, world-wide system of metaphor which underlies all of the world's myths, and points to the conclusion that they are all closely related. Learn how to understand the clues and symbols in the stories which point to specific constellations, and how the constellations fit into the larger heavenly cycles, all of which are used by the ancient wisdom given to our ancestors as a precious inheritance, with information for our benefit and blessing. Volume One explored evidence that this system is worldwide, sampling a few representative myths and stories from ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient India, ancient China and Japan, and myths from various cultures in Australia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific. Volume Two explored the massive evidence that the Greek myths are built on the same worldwide system, examining specific myths, gods, and goddesses -- as well as both the Iliad and Odyssey in depth, for their celestial patterns. Volume Three provides a broad survey of the celestial foundations of some of the most well-known stories and characters in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, complete with hundreds of full-color illustrations and star charts.