Showing titles in Customs & Traditions

Drawing on the expertise of twenty-four renowned practitioners, this book features contemporary folk traditions from all over North America. Diverse as the landscapes they thrive on, these authentic practices will expand your worldview and inspire you to enrich your own spirituality. Explore the history, tools, and spiritual beliefs of many different paths of folk magic from Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

Discover 51 of the most common and not-so-common cat gods, goddesses, deities, and demons from around the world and how to incorporate their Divine Feline Energy into your daily life. Throughout time, felines have played a sacred role in human life. Archeologists have found cat remains buried...

Initially published in 1775, A Journey to the Western Isles recounts a three-month trip to upper Scotland that Samuel Johnson undertook with James Boswell a couple of years previously. During their adventure, they discover a novel culture, stunning landscapes and welcoming locals – all described in Johnson's captivating prose.

From New York Times bestselling author and legendary Jeopardy! host and champion Ken Jennings comes a hilarious travel guide to the afterlife, exploring to die for destinations from literature, mythology, and pop culture. Ever wonder which circles of Dante’s Inferno have the nicest...

An encyclopedic A-to-Z guide, this beautifully illustrated volume offers hundreds of rich, fascinating definitions of 700 major and minor characters, creatures, and places of classical mythology. Classical Mythology A-to-Z is a comprehensive and engrossing guide to Greek and Roman mythology...

A cultural history of the goddess of love, from a New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian. Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit...

For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Dress codes evolved along with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always reflected struggles for power and status.

Alaska’s recent history is one of massive changes: Western contact, colonization, climate change. But some stories have survived—including stories of mysterious creatures that may still be out there.

The rituals and pageantry of courtship in the 19th century can seem foreign to us today. Some of us may look back and see a more romantic age, while others will see a minefield of strict rules and stuffy protocol. Either way you look at it, it was worlds away from what dating is in the 21st century. In the six lessons of A Courtly History: Romance in the 19th Century, Professor Stephanie Insley Hershinow gives you a look at the complex and ever-evolving rules of romance in 19th-century Britain. Along the way, you will see why this fascinating era keeps drawing us back to novels and Netflix.

In Unveiling Tartaria, explore the forgotten world of an enigmatic civilization that once spanned continents. This book delves into ancient maps, architectural anomalies, and suppressed historical accounts to uncover clues about Tartaria’s true nature. Could the Great Mud Flood have buried its cities? Did advanced knowledge and technology vanish along with it? Why do mainstream narratives seem to overlook this part of history?

At first sight, modern-day Egypt is an unruly and chaotic place: a cacophony of sounds, an overload of smells, and a swirling visual feast. Ancient church domes and medieval minarets share the same space with fast-food chains and chic air-conditioned cafes. Egyptian society has undergone dramatic changes in recent years, yet tradition and deeply conservative views prevail. Culture Smart! Egypt explores the codes and paradoxes of Egyptian life, outlines the country's history, and shows the forces that have shaped its sensibility.

Discover fascinating ancient Japanese fairy tales as well as the folk tales of the Ainu/Aino. The first book in this collection, titled Japanese Fairy Tales, was written by Iwaya Sazanami and translated by Yei Theodora Ozaki, a 20th-century translator of Japanese short stories and fairy tales. The second book in this collection is a rare one that is not usually available in audio format: Aino Folk-Tales by Basil Chamberlain, one of the most prominent British Japanologists active in Japan during the latter half of the 19th century.

The most popular mythological creature in the human imagination, dragons have provoked fear and fascination for their lethal venom and crushing coils, and as avatars of the Antichrist, servants of Satan, couriers of the damned to hell, portents of disaster, and harbingers of the last days. Here are accounts spanning millennia and continents of these monsters that mark the boundary between the known and the unknown.

Don't pack anxiety in your suitcase! Listening to Tanzania - Culture Smart! before you go, will ease your travel, help you to make friends, and avoid confusion. Tanzania - Culture Smart! will help you to understand local manners, customs, and laws. Tanzania - Culture Smart! goes the extra mile to help you brush up on your cultural small talk and will make you confident in leaving your comfort zone far behind.

Jason and the Golden Fleece is one of the finest tales of Ancient Greece, an epic journey of adventure and trial standing beside similar stories of Perseus, Theseus and the Labours of Heracles. The finest classic account comes from Apollonius of Rhodes, the Greek poet of the 3rd century BCE and librarian at Alexandria. Though less well-known than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and much shorter, it is an epic poem which is both exciting and moving, with remarkably vivid portraits of the main characters, Jason and Medea.

In Gather, anthropologist Ashanté M. Reese argues for a new vision of food justice that centers the resilience of Black communities and argues that community nourishment deserves as much consideration as individual health. Highlighting four spaces of gathering—gardens, family reunions, repasts, and protests—Reese offers rich, on-the-ground studies of the places and people who make up the food justice movement.

From feminist fairies to blood-sucking temptresses, half-human harpies, and protective Vodou goddesses, these are women who go beyond long-haired, smiling stereotypes. Their stories are so powerful, so entrancing, that they have survived for millennia. Lovingly retold and updated, Kate Hodges places each heroine, rebel, and provocateur firmly at the center of their own narrative.

Unveil the secrets of an ancient civilization renowned for its mystique and splendor through E.A. Wallis Budge’s unabridged collection. This expertly curated trilogy, featuring Legends of the Gods, Egyptian Magic, and The Book of the Dead, invites you to explore the depths of Egyptian mythology, magic, and the afterlife.

How did humans, a species of self-centered apes, come to care about others? Since Darwin, scientists have tried to answer this question using evolutionary theory. In The Kindness of Strangers, psychologist Michael E. McCullough shows why they have failed and offers a new explanation instead. From the moment nomadic humans first settled down until the aftermath of the Second World War, our species has confronted repeated crises that we could only survive by changing our behavior.

All over the world, people have reported encounters with a race of tiny people who are neither human nor deity. This book reclaims that lost, rich heritage of working with faery folk that our Pagan ancestors took for granted. Edain McCoy teaches how to work with faeries in a mutually beneficial way. Practice rituals and spells in which faeries can participate, and discover tips to help facilitate faery contact.