He has been a trickster, a shaman, a divine child; he has been a sacrificial victim, a consort of the earth goddess, a warrior, a sky king; and the creator, a distant and impersonal immensity. He is the male divine, seen in the many gods of myth, and his life story is told here in this graceful and illuminating account by David Leeming and Jake Page.
Illustrating their points with materials ranging from the prehistoric cave paintings to the mystic Jewish Kabbalah, from the ancient Indian Vedas to tales of the North American Indians and other myths from around the world, Leeming and Page...

"God made Heaven, and then, after measuring the space underneath with a ball of thread, he began to form the earth. A mole asked to help, and God gave him the thread to hold while he wove the patterns of the earth. Sometimes the mole would let out too much thread, and finally the earth grew too large for the space under heaven. The mole was so upset that he hid under the earth. God sent the bee to look for him; he wanted the mole's advice on what to do about the mistake. The bee found the mole and he just laughed at the idea of advising God. The bee, however, hid in a flower and overheard the...

An old woman lives still among the broken slopes of the mountains in the land of the Tarahumara Indians. No one knows exactly where. She is sometimes seen standing along the highway near El Paso, hauling wood near Oaxaca, or even hitching a ride on a semi rig. She is the bone woman, the gatherer, La Loba. She collects bones, especially those of wolves. When she has collected enough bones to make a whole wolf, she sings over the skeleton, and it begins to grow flesh and fur. She sings some more and the wolf becomes strong; then it breathes. La Loba keeps singing and soon the wolf leaps up and...

He has been a trickster, a shaman, a divine child; he has been a sacrificial victim, a consort of the earth goddess, a warrior, a sky king; and the creator, a distant and impersonal immensity. He is the male divine, seen in the many gods of myth, and his life story is told here in this graceful and illuminating account by David Leeming and Jake Page.
Illustrating their points with materials ranging from the prehistoric cave paintings to the mystic Jewish Kabbalah, from the ancient Indian Vedas to tales of the North American Indians and other myths from around the world, Leeming and Page...

This marvelous collection brings together the great myths and legends of the United States--from the creation stories of the first inhabitants, to the tall tales of the Western frontier, to the legendary outlaws of the 1920s, and beyond. This thoroughly engaging anthology is sweeping in its scope, embracing Big Foot and Windigo, Hiawatha and Uncle Sam, Paul Revere and Billy the Kid, and even the Iroquois Flying Head and Elvis. In the book's section on dogmas and icons, for instance, Leeming and Page discuss the American melting pot, the notion of manifest destiny, and the imposing historical...

What makes something mythic? What do mythic events and narratives have to do with us? In Mythology, David Leeming offers an unusual and effective approach to the subject of mythology by stressing universal themes through myths of many cultures. This anthology collects a wide array of narrative texts from the Bible to English literature to interpretations by Joseph Campbell, C.G. Jung, and others, which illustrate how myths serve whole societies in our universal search for meaning.
Leeming illustrates the various stages or rites of passage of the mythic universal hero, from birth to...

Meet the supreme Gautama Buddha, the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesa, and Chang O--the Lunar Toad who is Chinese goddess of the Moon. Journey to the sacred Cambodian ruins of Angkor and golden Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. Discover myths like the Stone and the Banana of Indonesian origin and the Indian Churning of the Ocean of Milk, and explore archetypal themes such as the hero quest, sacrifice, and descent to the underworld. Myth expert David Leeming plumbs the exotic depths of Eastern spirituality to present a vivid portrait of the many mythologies of the Asian continent. In handy A...

What makes something mythic? What do mythic events and narratives have to do with us? In Mythology, David Leeming offers an unusual and effective approach to the subject of mythology by stressing universal themes through myths of many cultures. This anthology collects a wide array of narrative texts from the Bible to English literature to interpretations by Joseph Campbell, C.G. Jung, and others, which illustrate how myths serve whole societies in our universal search for meaning.
Leeming illustrates the various stages or rites of passage of the mythic universal hero, from birth to...

"From Iceland to India, from prehistoric cave paintings and fertility figurines to such modern-day 'myths' as the invisible hand, the Oedipal conflict and Schrodinger's cat, Leeming's intriguing treatise on comparative mythology covers a lot of ground. Out of this enormous variety of information, Leeming, a professor of comparative literature and author of The World of Myth, discerns a coherent, distinctive European mythical tradition.... His wide-ranging, well-written treatment contains a wealth of insights on the development of Western culture." --PW Online

Esteemed scholar David Leeming, who has authored more than twelve books on mythology, here offers the first comprehensive narrative study of the mythology of the Middle East, that tumultuous region that was the cradle of civilization.
Leeming begins with a brief, engaging history of the Middle East, spanning Neolithic cultures, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, the invention of writing and the rise of Egypt and Babylonia, Israel and Roman rule, and the early history of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of the mythology of the region, covering...