Il Libro Blu delle Fate di Andrew Lang, raccolta composta e pubblicata nel 1898 dal folclorista ed erudito inglese, racchiude in sé alcune delle più belle suggestioni favolistiche della storia. Dalla favola originale che ha ispirato La Bella e La Bestia, a favole scozzesi tradotte per la prima volta in italiano, questo libro condurrà grandi e piccoli in un affascinante viaggio alle radici della cultura e della nostra immaginazione.

IL LIBRO BLU DELLE FATE

After the heavy rain of a thunderstorm has washed the soil, it sometimes happens that a child, or a rustic, finds a wedge-shaped piece of metal or a few triangular flints in a field or near a road. There was no such piece of metal, there were no such flints, lying there yesterday, and the finder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he has lighted. He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines that the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a "thunderbolt, " or that the bits of flint are "elf-shots, " the heads of fairy arrows. Such things are still treasured in remote nooks of England, and the "thunderbolt" is applied to cure certain maladies by its touch.

As for the fairy arrows, we know that even in ancient Etruria they were looked on as magical, for we sometimes see their points set, as amulets, in the gold of Etruscan necklaces. In Perugia the arrowheads are still sold as charms. All educated people, of course, have long been aware that the metal wedge is a celt, or ancient bronze axe-head, and that it was not fairies, but the forgotten peoples of this island who used the arrows with the tips of flint. Thunder is only so far connected with them that the heavy rains loosen the surface soil, and lay bare its long hidden secrets.

Folklore and Mythology

Il y avait une fois un jeune roi nommé Souci, qui fut élevé par la fée Girouette ; sans cesse elle passait d’un avis à un autre, d’un sentiments à un désir ; d’une volonté déterminée à un doute ; ainsi rien ne pouvait être fixe dans sa conduite, et par conséquent dans une cour où elle était maîtresse absolue…

Le bal des douze princesses & autres contes

If you were looking for the definitive Fairy Tales anthology, consider yourself lucky, because you just found it!

"The Big Book of Fairy Tales" gathers together more than 1500 tales, which makes it truly unique in its kind.

Here you will find some of the finest stories from around the globe, including classics from The Thousand and One Nights such as 'Aladdin' and 'Sinbad the Sailor', Hans Christian Andersen's complete tales ('The Ugly Ducking', 'Little Tin Soldier', 'The Little Match girl' and many more), The Brothers Grimm's complete tales, Charles Perrault's complete stories (such as 'Blue Beard', 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Puss in Boots') and other tales with less well known literary lineages.

The Big Book of Fairy Tales (1500+ fairy tales: Cinderella, Rapunzel, The Sleeping Beauty, The Ugly Ducking, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, The Happy Prince...)

The visitor to Abbotsford, looking up at the ceiling of the hall, beholds, in the painted shields, the heraldic record of the "heredity" of Sir Walter Scott. In his time the doctrine of heredity had not won its way into the realm of popular science, but no man was more interested in pedigree than the Laird. His ancestors were part of himself, though he was not descended from a "Duke of Buccleuch of the fourteenth century, " as the Dictionary of National Biography declares, with English innocence. Three of the shields are occupied by white cloudlets on a blue ground; the arms of certain of the Rutherford ancestors, cadets of Hunthill, could not be traced. For the rest, if we are among those who believe that genius comes from the Celtic race alone, we learn with glee that the poet was not without his share of Celtic blood. He descended, on the female side, from the Macdougals of Makerston, and the Macdougals are perhaps the oldest family in Scotland, are certainly among the four or five oldest families. But they stood for the English cause against Bruce, a sorrow, no doubt, to their famous descendant.

Sir Walter Scott

The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them, and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses.

People in different countries tell them differently, but they are always the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at the Cape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only in matters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meeting lions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold countries. There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales, just because long ago there were plenty of kings in the country. A gentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of king in Scotland in very old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, never forgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly in this century, in all sorts of languages. These ancient stories are the contents of the Fairy books.

The Arabian Nights Entertainments

JOAN OF ARC was perhaps the most wonderful person who ever lived in the world. The story of her life is so strange that we could scarcely believe it to be true, if all that happened to her had not been told by people in a court of law, and written down by her deadly enemies, while she was still alive. She was burned to death when she was only nineteen: she was not seventeen when she first led the armies of France to victory, and delivered her country from the English.

Joan was the daughter of a poor man, in a little country village. She had never learned to read, or write, or mount a horse. Yet she was so wise that many learned men could not puzzle her by questions: she was one of the best riders in France; one of the most skilled in aiming cannons, and so great a general that she defeated the English again and again, and her army was never beaten till her King deserted her. She was so brave that severe wounds could not stop her from leading on her soldiers, and so tender-hearted that she would comfort the wounded English on the field of battle, and protect them from cruelty. She was so good that her enemies could not find one true story to tell against her in the least thing; and she was so modest that in the height of her glory she was wishing to be at home in her father's cottage, sewing or spinning beside her mother.

The Life of Joan of Arc

The archaeologist studies human life in its material remains; he tracks progress (and occasional degeneration) from the rudely chipped flints in the ancient gravel beds, to the polished stone weapon, and thence to the ages of bronze and iron. He is guided by material "survivals"-ancient arms, implements, and ornaments. The student of Institutions has a similar method. He finds his relics of the uncivilised past in agricultural usages, in archaic methods of allotment of land, in odd marriage customs, things rudimentary-fossil relics, as it were, of an early social and political condition. The archaeologist and the student of Institutions compare these relics, material or customary, with the weapons, pottery, implements, or again with the habitual law and usage of existing savage or barbaric races, and demonstrate that our weapons and tools, and our laws and manners, have been slowly evolved out of lower conditions, even out of savage conditions.

The anthropological method in mythology is the same. In civilised religion and myth we find rudimentary survivals, fossils of rite and creed, ideas absolutely incongruous with the environing morality, philosophy, and science of Greece and India. Parallels to these things, so out of keeping with civilisation, we recognise in the creeds and rites of the lower races, even of cannibals; but there the creeds and rites are not incongruous with their environment of knowledge and culture. There they are as natural and inevitable as the flint-headed spear or marriage by capture. We argue, therefore, that religions and mythical faiths and rituals which, among Greeks and Indians, are inexplicably incongruous have lived on from an age in which they were natural and inevitable, an age of savagery.

Modern Mythology

Si nous possédons les registres du procès en réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc (1450-1456) avec les témoignages donnés sous la foi du serment de plus de cent vingt témoins oculaires qui avaient connu la Pucelle à différentes périodes, de son enfance jusqu'à son martyre, de nombreuses zones d'ombre pèsent encore sur la vie et la mort d'un des plus célèbres personnages de l'Histoire de France.Le principal défaut du procès de réhabilitation est ce fait singulier, que deux personnes seulement furent appelées à donner leur témoignage sur les événements de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc, compris entre l'échec à Paris en septembre 1429 et sa prise à Compiègne en mai 1430. Aucune question ne fut posée sur cette période à son confesseur Pasquerel, par exemple, ni à son écuyer d'Aulon, omission qui ne saurait avoir son excuse dans le seul désir de ménager les sentiments du roi Charles VII.C'est en ce basant sur ces incohérences qu'Andrew Lang affûte au début du XXe siècle ses hypothèses, adoptant des méthodes d'investigation dignes de celles la police scientifique. Le silence sur l'action de Jeanne d'Arc entre 1429 et 1430 ainsi que d'autres faits troublants relatés dans les annexes de ce livre de 1908 donnent corps à une clef de lecture totalement originale et inédite dans les travaux publiés jusqu'ici sur la vie de la Pucelle de France.

La Pucelle de France : Histoire de la vie et de la mort de Jeanne d'Arc

The question of the origin of totemism has more than the merely curious or antiquarian interest of an historic or prehistoric mystery. In the course of the inquiry we may be able to discern and discriminate the relative contributions of unreflecting passion, on one hand, and of deliberate reason, on the other, to the structure of the earliest extant form of human society.

The word 'Totem' is taken from the language of a tribe living near Lake Superior, in North America. It signifies the symbol or device of a gens or tribal division, that by which it is distinguished from all other such divisions. The kind of objects used as totems by the aborigines of North America may be seen from the names of the gentes into which the Ojibwa tribe is divided. These are twenty-three in number, and the totemic devices belonging to them comprise nine quadrupeds (the chief of which are the Wolf, the Bear, the Beaver, and the Turtle), eight birds, five fishes, and one reptile, the snake. There are numerous other totems among the American tribes, and they are not taken from the animal kingdom only...

Totem and Totemism - Origin and Theories

When this book first appeared, the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, "Amurath to Amurath succeeds"; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the anthropological position was the "ghost theory" of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the "Animistic" theory of Mr. E. R. Tylor, according to whom the propitiation of ancestral and other spirits leads to polytheism, and thence to monotheism. In the second edition of this work the author argued that the belief in a "relatively supreme being, " anthropomorphic was as old as, and might be even older, than animistic religion.

Rituals, Myths and Religions

The Iliad has had a far-reaching impact on Western literature and culture, inspiring writers, artists and classical composers across the ages. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by classicist, writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes, author of A Thousand Ships and host of her own BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics. Paris, a Trojan prince, wins Helen as his prize for judging a beauty contest between three goddesses, and abducts her from her Greek husband Menelaos. The Greeks, enraged by his audacity, sail to Troy and begin a long siege of the city. The Iliad is set in the tenth year of the war. Achilles - the greatest Greek warrior - is angry with his commander, Agamemnon, for failing to show him respect. He refuses to fight any longer, which is catastrophic for the Greeks, and results in personal tragedy for Achilles, too. With themes of war, rage, grief and love, The Iliad remains powerful and enthralling more than 2, 700 years after it was composed. This edition is translated into prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers.

The Iliad

Is there any human institution which can be safely called "Totemism"? Is there any possibility of defining, or even describing Totemism? Is it legitimate-is it even possible, with due regard for "methodology" and logic-to seek for the "normal" form of Totemism, and to trace it through many Protean changes, produced by various causes, social and speculative? I think it possible to discern the main type of Totemism, and to account for divergences.

Totemism

The theory that Francis Bacon was, in the main, the author of "Shakespeare's plays, " has now been for fifty years before the learned world. Its advocates have met with less support than they had reason to expect. Their methods, their logic, and their hypotheses closely resemble those applied by many British and foreign scholars to Homer; and by critics of the very Highest School to Holy Writ. Yet the Baconian theory is universally rejected in England by the professors and historians of English literature; and generally by students who have no profession save that of Letters. The Baconians, however, do not lack the countenance and assistance of highly distinguished persons, whose names are famous where those of mere men of letters are unknown; and in circles where the title of "Professor" is not duly respected.

Livres