Folklore studies / Study of myth Books

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Book SynopsisAlmost three centuries have passed since the oldest manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights arrived in Europe. Since then, the Nights have occupied the minds of scholars world-wide, in particular the questions of origin, composition, language and literary form. In this book, Muhsin Mahdi, whose critical edition of the text brought so much praise, explores the complex literary history of the Nights, bringing to fruition the search for the archetype that constituted the core of the surviving editions, and treating the fascinating story of the growth of the collection of stories that we now know as The Thousand and One Nights.

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Book SynopsisThis book analyzes the role of oral stories in Chinese witch-hunts. Successive chapters deal with the implications of Chinese versions of the Little Red Riding Hood story; the use of parts of the adult human body, children and foetuses, to draw out their life-force; attacks by mysterious creatures, causing open wounds, suffocation, the loss of hair and the like; the presence of a Drought Demon in the corpses of recently deceased women; and finally the emperor forcibly recruiting unmarried women for his harem. Of interest to historians and anthropologists working on oral traditions, folklore and witch-hunts (also from a comparative perspective), but also to those working on anti-Christian movements and the intersection of popular fears and political history in China.

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Book SynopsisThis volume brings together fourteen articles that reappraise the productivity of Stoker’s Dracula and the strong influence it still exerts on today’s generations. The volume explores various multimodal and multimedia adaptations of the book, by critically examining its literary, cinematic, theatrical, televised and artistic versions. In so doing, it reassesses the origins, evolution, imagery, mythology, theory and criticism of Gothic fiction and of the Gothic (sub)culture. The volume is innovative in that it congregates various angles to the Gothic phenomenon, providing an overview of the interdisciplinary relationships between different cultural, artistic and creative reworkings of the Gothic in general and of Stoker’s legacy in particular.Trade Review“Dracula and the Gothic in Literature, Pop Culture and the Arts is an interdisciplinary collection of articles put together by Isabel Ermida that focuses on the development of the vampire figure from its early inception as a literary personage and a representation of the demonic East European Other in the eyes of Victorian society to its ever-evolving symbolism in contemporary fiction, film, and other media. […] the analytical framework and overview of the ever-evolving vampire literature that this collection offers is an important contribution to Gothic (and Dracula) studies as a field, and will be beneficial to scholars, students, and those who have a general interest in the vampire figure or the Gothic genre as a whole” - Svitlana Krys and Andrew Malmquist, MacEwan University, in: H-Russia, H-Net Reviews, October 2016Table of ContentsGothic Old and New: Introduction Isabel Ermida PART I - Gothic Spaces, or the (De)Colonization of a Genre “The Son of the Vampire”: Greek Gothic, or Gothic Greece? Álvaro García Marín The Old and New Dracula Castle:
The Poienari Fortress in Dracula Sequels and Travel Memoirs Marius-Mircea Crișan Dracula Orientalized Raphaella Delores Gomez Empire, Monsters and Barbarians: Uncanny Echoes and Reconfigurations of Stoker’s Dracula in Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians Rogers Asempasah Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood: An Antomy of the American Gothic Carlos Azevedo PART II - Multimodal Representations of the Gothic – From the Screen to the Stage and the Arts Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931): The Vampire Wears a Dress Coat Dorota Babilas Aurally Bloodcurdling: Representing Dracula and His Brethren in BBC Radio Drama Leslie McMurtry “Land of Apparitions”: The Depiction of Ghosts and Other Supernatural Occurrences in the First Gothic Plays Eva Čoupková Gothic Architecture, Castles and Villains: Transgression, Decay and the Gothic Locus Horribilis Fanny Lacôte PART III - Postmodern Gothic – Identity Transformations of the Vampire Postmodern Gothic: Teen Vampires Joana Passos Vampires “On a Special Diet”: Identity and the Body in Contemporary Media Texts Lea Gerhards Forever Young, Though Forever Changing:
Evolution of the Vampire Maria Antónia Lima Who’s Afraid of Don Juan? Vampirism and Seduction Maria do Carmo Mendes Destroying and Creating Identity: Vampires, Chaos and Society in Angela Carter’s “The Scarlet House” Inês Botelho Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book Synopsis‘Celtic’ and ‘Gothic’: both words refer today to both ancient tribes and modern styles. ‘Celtic’ is associated with harp music, native knitwear, and spirituality; ‘Gothic’ with medieval cathedrals, rock bands, and horror fiction. The eleven essays collected together here chart some of the curious and unexpected ways in which the Celts and the Goths were appropriated and reinvented in Britain and other European countries through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries – becoming not just mythologised races, but lending their names to abstract principles and entire value systems. Contributed by experts in literature, archaeology, history, and Celtic studies, the essays range from broad surveys to specific case-studies, and together demonstrate the complicated interplay that has always existed between ‘Celticism’ and ‘Gothicism’. Contributors are: John Collis, Robert DeMaria, Jr., Tom Duggett, Tim Fulford, Nick Groom, Amy Hale, Ronald Hutton, Joep Leerssen, Dafydd Moore, Joanne Parker, Juan Miguel Zarandona.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ... ix List of Illustrations ... x Notes on Contributors ... xi Myths of Celtic and Gothic Origin: An Introduction ... 1 Joanne Parker Part 1 The Gothic 1 Tribal Ancestors and Moral Role Patterns ... 13 Joep Leerssen 2 Eighteenth-Century Gothic before The Castle of Otranto ... 26 Nick Groom 3 Johnson and the Teutonic Roots of English ... 47 Robert DeMaria, Jr.> 4 Wordsworth’s Gothic Education ... 66 Tom Duggett 5 A Tale of Two Kings: The ‘Celtic’ Arthur and the ‘Gothic’ Alfred ... 97 Joanne Parker Part 2 The Celtic 6 The Rediscovery of the British Druids ... 119 Ronald Hutton 7 Ossianism and the Arthurian Revival: The Case of Richard Hole’s Arthur; or the Northern Enchantment (1789) ... 134 Dafydd Moore 8 Strange Meetings: the Romantic Poets and the Stone Circles of the Lake District ... 156 Tim Fulford 9 Reigning with Swords of Meteoric Iron: Archangel Michael and the British New Jerusalem ... 174 Amy Hale 10 From Pondal (1835–1917) to Cabanillas (1876–1956): Ossian and Arthur in the Making of a Celtic Galicia ... 189 Juan Miguel Zarandona 11 The Role of Alesia, Bibracte and Gergovia in the Mythology of the French State ... 209 John Collis Select Bibliography ... 229 Index ... 250

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Book SynopsisIn Storytelling in Bali, Hildred Geertz makes a case for the importance of the role of informal storytelling as an engine of social change in Bali in the 1930s. This is a study of more than 200 texts dictated by the painters of the village of Batuan in 1936 to the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. It is completed by three years field work in Batuan in the 1980s. The tales reveal a set of strong ambivalences about the magical powers of kings, priests and sorcerers, and about social strains within villages and families. These narratives were related in the daily settings of home and coffee shop and also in the spectacular dance-dramas of the time.Trade Review"L’étude que Hildred Geertz nous livre ici de la tradition orale à Batuan constitue un complément bienvenu à son travail précédemment publié sur ce village. Rigoureusement étayé et élégamment rédigé, appuyé sur une longue expérience de terrain, son dernier ouvrage fournit un accès inédit à l’univers mental traditionnel des Balinais." – Michel Picard, in Archipel 97 (2019), p. 299-301. "This book uses the unexpected tactics of approaching a hidden oral tradition by means of analyzing the tales related to paintings. […] I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Indonesian or Balinese folkloristics. The extensive databases in both appendices provide an essential reference for story-telling research in insular Southeast Asia." – Aone van Engelenhoven, Leiden University, in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 174 (2018), p. 291–362. "Hildred Geertz's study of sotrytelling in Batuan is a welcome addition to the work that she has previously published on this village. It is both rigorously researched and wirtten beautifully - with the assurance of an anthropologist who has a long experience of fieldwork on Bali. It will prove invaluable for readers of English who will have access, for the first time, to the tales that are still so much part of Balinese traditional lore." – Michel Picard, Centre Asie du Sud-Est, in Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 33.1 (2018), p. 202-26.Table of ContentsChapter One: Storytelling in Pre-Modern Bali Chapter Two: The World of the Storytellers Chapter Three: The Circulation of Popular Tales Chapter Four: Interpreting the Batuan Tales Chapter Five: Storytelling as an Engine of Social Change Bibliography Index Appendix 1: The Batuan Painter/Storytellers Appendix 2: The Batuan Texts in English, with Annotations and Illustrations

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Book SynopsisIn Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth, editors Misty Urban, Deva Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes offer an invigorating international and interdisciplinary examination of the legendary fairy Melusine. Along with fresh insights into the popular French and German traditions, these essays investigate Melusine’s English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese counterparts and explore her roots in philosophy, folklore, and classical myth. Combining approaches from art history, history, alchemy, literature, cultural studies, and medievalism, applying rigorous critical lenses ranging from feminism and comparative literature to film and monster theory, this volume brings Melusine scholarship into the twenty-first century with twenty lively and evocative essays that reassess this powerful figure’s multiple meanings and illuminate her dynamic resonances across cultures and time. Contributors are Anna Casas Aguilar, Jennifer Alberghini, Frederika Bain, Anna-Lisa Baumeister, Albrecht Classen, Chera A. Cole, Tania M. Colwell, Zoë Enstone, Stacey L. Hahn, Deva F. Kemmis, Ana Pairet, Pit Péporté, Simone Pfleger, Caroline Prud’Homme, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Renata Schellenberg, Misty Urban, Angela Jane Weisl, Lydia Zeldenrust, and Zifeng Zhao.Trade Review"This magnificent book combines the research of twenty interdisciplinary scholars who meticulously investigate the eponymous footprint of Melusine from a wide variety of literary as well as artistic approaches. It illustrates how richly this theriomorphic monstrous snake woman has contributed to the culture of so many European countries, and extends as far afield as China, in a study that clearly indicates the continuing fascination of this most enchanting and threatening figure. Melusine is here variously discussed as an instructive exemplar of Christian piety, a powerful mother who desires to humanize herself through marriage into the chivalric, religious order of her age, a transformative figure unifying humanity with nature, an abject object of the gaze, a fairy who functions as a monstrous Other in the mirror of romance, and a metaphor for transgressive feminine prowess. This enthralling work contributes extensively to Melusinia, reading the fairy serpentine hybrid as a symbolic force who never remains contained within any boundaries that may attempt to inscribe her." Gillian M. E. Alban (author of Melusine the Serpent Goddess in A. S. Byatt’s Possession and in Mythology (2003) and The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’s Fiction: Petrifying, Maternal and Redemptive (2017). "Essential reading not only for medievalists, but also for scholars focused on fairy tale and folklore studies, cultural studies, feminist theory, gender theory, and postmodernist theory. Melusine’s Footprint reinvigorates the study of the Melusine tale and her depiction in various texts from the Medieval period through contemporary representations. The analyses vary theoretically and render new interpretations, keeping Melusine alive for scholars in the humanities and the social sciences". Sylvia Veronica Morin, in Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 30 (1), (2019).Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction Part I. Bodies and Texts: Mapping Melusine in Art and Print 1 The Tail of Melusine: Hybridity, Mutability, and the Accessible Other Frederika Bain 2 Polycorporality and Heteromorphia: Untangling Melusine's Mixed Bodies Ana Pairet 3 Mermaid, Mother, Monster, and More: Portraits of the Fairy Woman in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Melusine Narratives Caroline Prud'Homme 4 The Melusine Figure in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century German Literature and Art: Cultural-Historical Information within the Pictorial Program Albrecht Classen 5 The Alchemical Transformation of Melusine Melissa Ridley Elmes Part II. Mother, Muse: Melusine and Political Identity 6 Architecture and Empire in Historia de la linda Melosina Anna Casas Aguilar 7 The Lady with the Serpent's Tail: Hybridity and the Dutch Meluzine Lydia Zeldenrust 8 Matriarchs and Mother Tongues: The Middle English Romans of Partenay Jennifer Alberghini 9 Melusine and Luxembourg: A Double Memory Pit Péporté Part III. Theoretical Transformations: Readings and Refigurations 10 Youth and Rebellion in Jean d'Arras' Roman de Mélusine Stacey L. Hahn 11 The Promise of (Un)Happiness in Thüring von Ringoltingen's Melusine Simone Pfleger 12 Half Lady, Half Serpent: Melusine's Monstrous Body and the Discourse of Romance Angela Jane Weisl 13 Passing as a "Humayn Woman": Hybridity and Salvation in the Middle English Melusine Chera A. Cole 14 Melusine and Purgatorial Punishment: The Changing Nature of Fays Zoë Enstone 15 Metamorphoses of Snake Women: Melusine and Madam White Zifeng Zhao Part IV. Melusines Medieval to Modern 16 Goethe and Die neue Melusine: A Critical Reinterpretation Renata Schellenberg 17 "Listening Down the Hall": An Epistemological Consideration of the Encounter with Melusine in the Germanic Literary Tradition Deva F. Kemmis 18 Woman, Abject, Animal: Refigurations of Melusine in Frischmuth, Jelinek, and EXPORT Anna-Lisa Baumeister 19 How the Dragon Ate the Woman: The Fate of Melusine in English Misty Urban 20 Melusines Past, Present, and Future: An Afterword Tania M. Colwell Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThroughout the early modern period, the nymph remained a powerful figure that inspired and informed the cultural imagination in many different ways. Far from being merely a symbol of the classical legacy, the nymph was invested with a surprisingly broad range of meanings. Working on the basis of these assumptions, and thus challenging Aby Warburg’s famous reflections on the nympha that both portrayed her as cultural archetype and reduced her to a marginal figure, the contributions in this volume seek to uncover the multifarious roles played by nymphs in literature, drama, music, the visual arts, garden architecture, and indeed intellectual culture tout court, and thereby explore the true significance of this well-known figure for the early modern age. Contributors: Barbara Baert, Mira Becker-Sawatzky, Agata Anna Chrzanowska, Karl Enenkel, Wolfgang Fuhrmann, Michaela Kaufmann, Andreas Keller, Eva-Bettina Krems, Damaris Leimgruber, Tobias Leuker, Christian Peters, Christoph Pieper, Bernd Roling, and Anita Traninger.Trade Review“This volume fills a gap in scholarship in terms of the breadth and rigor of its engagement with the construction of the nymph as an early modern cultural emblem. [...] The numerous, high-quality color reproductions of art objects ranging from paintings to garden statuary enhance the studies included and give a fuller understanding of the multimodal nature of the representations of the nymph. The breadth of mediums examined and the geographic range are particularly appreciated, as they capture the reality of this figure’s prevalence in early modern Europe. This is, in fact, the greatest strength of the volume, as it productively elucidates a range of manifestations, fulfilling the promise it makes to explore this idyllic figure throughout early modern culture.” Melinda A. Cro, Kansas State University. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Summer 2020), pp. 718–719.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors List of Illustrations 1 Introduction: The Figure of the Nymph in Early Modern Culture  Anita Traninger and Karl A.E. Enenkel Part 1: Nymphs Between the Visual Arts and Literature 2 Pleasures of the Imagination: Narrating the Nymph, from Boccaccio to Lope De Vega  Anita Traninger 3 Salmacis, Hermaphrodite, and the Inversion of Gender: Allegorical Interpretations and Pictorial Representations of an Ovidian Myth, ca. 1300–1770  Karl Enenkel 4 The Sleeping Nymph Revisited: Ekphrasis, Genius Loci and Silence  Barbara Baert 5 ‘Who, Then, is the “Nympha”?’ An Iconographic Analysis of the Figure of the Maid in the Tornabuoni Frescoes  Agata Anna Chrzanowska Part 2: Literary Representations 6 Lamenting, Dancing, Praising: The Multilayered Presence of Nymphs in Florentine Elegiac Poetry of the Quattrocento  Christoph Pieper 7 An Epiphanic Figure with the Power To Bind: Lia’s Role in Boccaccio’s Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine  Tobias Leuker 8 Renaissance Nymphs as Intermediaries in Early Modern German Territorial Politics  Andreas Keller 9 Discursive Sisters of the Arts, Raw Material of Inspiration: The Early Pegnitz Flower Society’s Nymphs  Damaris Leimgruber Part 3: Garden Architecture 10 The Mediality of the Nymph in the Cultural Context of Pirro Visconti’s Villa at Lainate  Mira Becker-Sawatzky 11 Nymphs Bathing in the King’s Garden: La Granja de San Ildefonso and Caserta  Eva-Bettina Krems Part 4: Music 12 Venez plorer ma desolation: Lamenting and Mourning Nymphs in Culture and Music Around 1500  Wolfgang Fuhrmann 13 The Nymph’s Voice as an Acoustic Reflection of the Self  Michaela Kaufmann Part 5: Aetiology and Antiquarianism 14 Founding Sisters: Nymphs and Aetiology in Humanist Latin Poetry  Christian Peters 15 Our White Ladies on the Graves: Historicisations of Nymphs in Early Modern Antiquarianism  Bernd Roling Index Nominum

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Book SynopsisThis anthology of essays, Northern Myths, Modern Identities, explores the various ways in which ancient mythologies have been cultivated in the cultural construction of ethnic, national and supra-national identities from 1800 to the present. How were Old Norse, Finno-Ugric and Frisian myths employed as rhetorical devices in national narratives? And how did (and do) these new interpretations convey a sense of ‘northernness’? This volume approaches these issues from an interdisciplinary and international perspective, and brings together case studies from Scandinavia, the Baltic region, Friesland, Britain, the United States and even Japan. Thus, it provides a unique insight into the reception history and uses of northern myths in the present, and their role in the creation of modern identities. Contributors are: Tim van Gerven, Gylfi Gunnlaugsson, Simon Halink, Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson, Otto S. Knottnerus, Joep Leerssen, Daisy Neijmann, Han Nijdam, Robert A. Saunders, Katja Schulz, Tom Shippey, Carline Tromp, and Kendra Willson.Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables  About the Authors  Northern Myths, Modern Identities: An Introduction  Simon Halink Part 1: Imagining the North  1The North: A Cultural Stereotype between Metaphor and Racial Essentialism  Joep Leerssen  2Within or Outside Europe? Modernists and Anti-modernists Visiting Iceland in the Mid-nineteenth Century  Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson  3Is Nordic Mythology Nordic or National, or Both? Competing National Appropriations of Nordic Mythology in Early Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia  Tim van Gerven Ancient Heritage, New Meaning  4Norse Myths, Nordic Identities: The Divergent Case of Icelandic Romanticism  Gylfi Gunnlaugsson  5Redbad, the Once and Future King of the Frisians  Han Nijdam and Otto S. Knottnerus  6Norse Mythology in Icelandic Fiction about the Second World War  Daisy L. Neijmann  7Of Gods and Men: Uses and Abuses of Neo-Paganism by Nationalist Movements in the “North”  Robert A. Saunders Part 3: Travelling Ideas and Artistic Expressions  8Heirs of Lönnrot: From Longfellow to Tolkien  Tom Shippey  9Kalevala in International Masks: A JapaneseAino and Kalevala dell’arte  Kendra Willson  10The Quest of Gangleri: Theosophy and Old Norse Mythology in Iceland  Simon Halink Part 4: Beyond the Nation?  11Crossing the Borders: Loki and the Decline of the Nation State  Katja Schulz  12Apocalypse Now: Norse Gods and the End of the Nation  Carline Tromp  Index of Names and Subjects

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Book SynopsisFor generations, Central Asian Muslims have told legends of medieval rulers who waged war, died in battle, and achieved sainthood. Among the Uyghurs of East Turkistan (present-day Xinjiang, China), some of the most beloved legends tell of the warrior-saint Satuq Bughra Khan and his descendants, the rulers of the Qarakhanid dynasty. To this day, these tales are recited at the saints' shrines and retold on any occasion. Warrior Saints of the Silk Road introduces this rich literary tradition, presenting the first complete English translation of the Qarakhanid narrative cycle along with an accessible commentary. At once mesmerizing, moving, and disturbing, these legends are essential texts in Central Asia's religious heritage as well as fine, enduring works of mystical literature.Table of ContentsForeword Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction 1 Introduction 2 The Setting 3 Notes on the Manuscript, the Transcription, and the Translation Translation 4 The Translation 5 The Narrative and Its Meanings Bibliography The Manuscript: Transcription The Manuscript: Facsimile

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Book SynopsisThe 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations in Istanbul offers the first holistic examination of an Ottoman public festival through an in-depth inquiry into different components of the 1720 event. Through a critical and combined analysis of the hitherto unknown archival sources along with the textual and pictorial narratives on the topic, the book vividly illustrates the festival’s organizational details and preparations, its complex rites (related to consumption, exchange, competition), and its representation in court-commissioned illustrated festival books (sūrnāmes). To analyze all these phases in a holistic manner, the book employs an interdisciplinary approach by using the methodological tools of history, art history, and performance studies and thus, provides a new methodological and conceptual framework for the study of Ottoman celebrations.Table of Contents Note on Transliteration and Translation  Acknowledgments  List of Figures and Tables  Introduction  1The Reign of Ahmed III and the 1720 Festival  2Historiographical Framework  3Previous Research on Ottoman Festivals  4This Book  1Preparing the Festival  1In Search of Utensils  1.1Borrowing From Court Institutions and Purchasing From the Market  1.2Borrowing Utensils From Officials and City Dwellers  2Food Provisioning  3Making Nahils and Candy Gardens  3.1Officials, Merchants, and Craftsmen Working Together  4Registering the Names of Uncircumcised Boys and Performers  4.1Boys Registered for the Circumcision  4.2Performers Registered for the Festival  2Staging the Festival  1Food-Related Events  1.1Distribution of Food Allowances  1.2Donations Through Food  1.3“They Ate His Food, Drank His Sherbet”: Imperial Banquets  2Spectacles on Land and Sea  2.1Marvelous Shows Enacted  2.2Some Events as Performances  2.3Guild Parades  3Gifting  3.1Monetary Gifts to Attendants and Performers  3.2Robes of Honor to Dignitaries and Officials  3.3Providing Circumcision and Clothing for Boys  3.4A Piece of Jewelry or a Simple Candlestick: Obligatory Gifts Presented to the Sultan  3Representing the Festival  1Commissioning Process of the Illustrated Sūrnāmes  1.1Supervision of the Project  1.2Painters Working for the Illustrated Sūrnāmes  1.3The 1720 Festival Paintings in the Ottoman Book Painting Tradition  2Iconography and Image-Making  3Narrating the 1720 Festival in Imagery  3.1Serial Images of Processions and Guild Parades  3.2Narrating the Public Celebrations of the 1720 Festival in Imagery  Conclusions  Selected Bibliography  Index

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Book SynopsisMythic Imagination Today is an illustrated guide to the interpenetration of mythology and science throughout the ages. This monograph brings alive our collective need for story to guide the rules, roles, and relationships of everyday life. Whereas mythology is born primarily of perception and imagination, science emerges from systematic observation and experimentation. Both disciplines arise from endless curiosity about the workings of the Universe combined with creative urges to transform inner and outer worlds. Both disciplines are located within open neural wiring that gives rise to uniquely human capacities for learning, memory, and metaphor. Terry Marks-Tarlow explores the origins of story within the social brain; mythmakers and myths from multiple cultures; and how contemporary sciences of chaos and complexity theories and fractal geometry dovetail with ancient wisdom. The ancient Greek myth of Psyche and Eros is unpacked in detail—origins of the very concepts of ‘psyche’ and ‘psychology’.Table of ContentsMythic Imagination Today  The Interpenetration of Mythology and Science  Terry Marks-Tarlow  Abstract  Keywords  Introduction  1 Myths and Mythmaking  2 Introducing the New Sciences  2.13 The Magic of Mythology  3 Psyche and Eros Today  4 Foundations: Curiosity, Memory and Metaphor  Acknowledgments  References

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Book SynopsisThe first book that deals with the territorial cults of early Japan by focusing on how such cults were founded in ownerless regions. Numerous ancient Japanese myths and legends are discussed to show that the typical founding ritual was a two-phase ritual that turned the territory into a horizontal microcosm, complete with its own ‘terrestrial heaven’ inhabited by local deities. Reversing Mircea Eliade’s popular thesis, the author concludes that the concept of the human-made horizontal microcosm is not a reflection but the source of the religious concept of the macrocosm with gods dwelling high up in the sky. The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.Table of ContentsContents Preface List of Figures Introduction  The Problem of the Pre-Shinto Cults  Territorial Cults  The Focus on Early Japan  Japan’s Protohistory  Innovations Introduced by the Taika Reform  Different Versions of the Same Story in Nihon Shoki  The God Age Mythology  The Fudoki Mythology  The Method of Interpretation  The Theoretical Model  The Structure of the Book  Various Notes 1 Divination  Divining with Things Thrown and Falling Down  Divining the Place for Founding a Shrine  Absurd Uses of the Falling Motif  Realistic Methods Exaggerated  Land Divination Typically Performed in Front  Divining with Things Cast Overboard  Floating a Wisteria Twig to Find the Right Place  Letting a Cooking Set Float to Enemy Land  Susanoo and the Floating Chopsticks  Kisakahime and the Lost Bow and Arrow  Articles to Play on the Sea  Floats Used for Divining  Divining in Boats  Later Survivals: The Religious Use of Wood Drifted Ashore  Conclusion 2 The Story of Yato no Kami  The Topography  The Mountain Entrance  The Lacking First Part of the Story  The Yashiro at the Upper Boundary  Matachi’s Ritual Procedure Reconstructed  Mibu no Muraji Maro and the Divine Snakes  Moving a Shrine to Another Site  The Location of the Ancient Pond  The New Conditions in the Ritsuryō State  Conclusions 3 Making a Large Territory in Harima  Ame no Hiboko and Iwa no Ōkami  Ame no Hiboko’s Arrival  The Claiming Ceremony on Iibo Hill  Other Claiming Stories  The Iibo Hill and Its Special Relation to the Iwa Jinja  Hardening the Land  A Model of the Grand-Scale Land-Making Myth?  The Two Foundations of the Iwa Shrine  Conclusions 4 Making and Ceding the Land in the God Age  The God Age Mythology: An Overview according to Kojiki  The Land-Making Myth  Sukunabikona  Ōnamuchi as a Beginner in Land-Making  The Land-Ceding Myth according to Kojiki  The Land-Ceding Myth according to Nihon Shoki  Kojiki and Nihon Shoki: Two Different Doctrines  Consequences of the Land-Ceding Myth  Conclusion 5 Ninigi’s Descent and His Territory in Kyushu  The Title Sentence Pattern  The Two Main Versions of the Myth  Cape Kasasa as a Place on the Way to Takachiho  Ninigi’s Arrival at the Coast  Ninigi Questions the Master of the Land at Cape Kasasa  Ninigi at Cape Kasasa  Takama no Hara as a Horizontally Distant Heaven  Ninigi’s Descendants Living in Kyushu  The Conquest of Yamato  Conclusion 6 The Foundation of the Izumo Shrine  Ōkuninushi’s Place of Hiding and Waiting  Prince Homuchiwake Worships the Great God of Izumo  Ashihara no Shikoo and the Worship at Iwakuma  Mt. Kannabi and the Sokinoya Shrine  A Suitable Site at the Foot of Mt. Kannabi  The Political Aspect  The Foundation of the Shrine at Kizuki  The Land-Pulling Myth and the Four Kannabi of Izumo  Summing Up 7 The Foundation of the Ise Shrine  The Later Version of the Foundation Story  Name-Asking as a Form of Claiming  Pillow Words Alluding to Land-Making Myths  The Topography of the Isuzu Valley  Sarutahiko and a Heaven in the Mountains  The Precinct of the Inner Shrine (Naikū)  From Simple to Complex Cult Systems  Sarutahiko’s Destiny  Summing Up 8 Characteristics of Territorial Cults  Divination as the Primary Rite  Variants of the Cult Contract  The Cult Contract and the State Ritual after the Taika Reform  Founder Worship  Shrine and Tomb  The Guardian Deity Is Excluded from the Land Opened Up  Nature Spirits Can Become Manifest in Wild Animals  The Guardian Deity Is Believed to Control the Local Weather  Calamities Blamed on Some Mistake in the Ritual  Cult Places Could Be Moved to Enlarge the Agricultural Land  The Mountain God as a Multifunctional Deity  The Mountain Entrance and the Torii  Boundary Marks  Tabooed Mountain Areas  The Bipolar Structure of Territories  The Chigi Cross as a Symbol  The Name of the Kami Land  The Age of the Yorishiro Concept  The Land-Making Motif in Creation Myths  Conclusion 9 Sacred Groves and Cult Marks  Yashikigami Worship  A Sacred Grove on Hirado Island  The Garō Yama of Tanegashima  The Sacred Forest of the Ōmiwa Shrine  The Matsushita Shrine and the Somin Sanctuary  Cult Marks Replaced by Shrine Buildings  Yorishiro and Ogishiro  The Shimenawa and the Straw Snake  Claiming Signs Made by Binding or Knotting Growing Plants  Pacifying the Site  Ancient Land-Claiming and the Rural Gathering Economy  Sign-Making Dealt with in Ethnographic Studies 10 Comparative Notes  The Settlement of Iceland  Founding Sacred Groves and Colonies in Ancient Greece  The Vedic Tradition  Opening Up Land in Shifting Cultivation  From Terrestrial Heavens to the Heaven in the Sky Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMyths of Europe focuses on the identity of Europe, seeking to re-assess its cultural, literary and political traditions in the context of the 21st century. Over 20 authors – historians, political scientists, literary scholars, art and cultural historians – from five countries here enter into a debate. How far are the myths by which Europe has defined itself for centuries relevant to its role in global politics after 9/11? Can ‘Old Europe’ maintain its traditional identity now that the European Union includes countries previously supposed to be on its periphery? How has Europe handled relations with the non-European Other in the past and how is it reacting now to an influx of immigrants and asylum seekers? It becomes clear that founding myths such as Hamlet and St Nicholas have helped construct the European consciousness but also that these and other European myths have disturbing Eurocentric implications. Are these myths still viable today and, if so, to what extent and for what purpose? This volume sits on the interface between culture and politics and is important reading for all those interested in the transmission of myth and in both the past and the future of Europe.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Richard LITTLEJOHNS and Sara SONCINI: Introduction: Myths of Europe, and Myths of Europe Manfred PFISTER: Europa/Europe: Myths and Muddles Guido PADUANO: Electras and Hamlet Mark RAWLINSON: Myths of Europe: Ted Hughes’s Tales from Ovid Pierangiolo BERRETTONI: Myths of Masculinity: Adonis and Heracles Graham JONES: St Nicholas, Icon of Mercantile Virtues: Transition and Continuity of a European Myth Elena ROSSI: Re-writing a Myth: Dryden’s Amphitryon and its Sources Roberta FERRARI: ‘A Foundling at the Crossroads’: Fielding, Tradition(s) and a ‘Dantesque’ Reading of Tom Jones Antje STEINHOEFEL: Viewing the Moon: Between Myth and Astronomy in the Age of the Enlightenment Alessandra GREGO: George Eliot’s Use of Scriptural Typology: Incarnation of Ideas Mario CURRELI: Myth and the Folklore of the Sea in Conrad Darko SUVIN: Some Differentiations within the Concepts of ‘Myth’ Andrea BINELLI: Places of Myth in Ireland Richard LITTLEJOHNS: Everlasting Peace and Medieval Europe. Romantic Myth-Making in Novalis’s Europa Nuria LÓPEZ: British Women versus Indian Women: the Victorian Myth of European Superiority Andrew HAMMOND: Frontier Myths: Travel Writing on Europe’s Eastern Border Tony KUSHNER: West is Best: Britain and European Immigration during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Donald BLOXHAM: Changing Perceptions of State Violence: Turkey’s ‘Westward’ Development through Anglo-Saxon Eyes Nicholas WATKINS: From Fascism to the Bomb: Marino Marini and the Undermining and Destruction of the Classical European Horseman Sara SONCINI: New Order, New Borders: Post-Cold War Europe on the British Stage Silvia ROSS: The Myth of the Etruscans in Travel Literature in English Tom LAWSON: The Myth of the European Civil War Notes on Contributors

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