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Mythology, Legends & Folklore
413 public-domain mythology, legends & folklore books, summarised. Page 1 of 9.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana: Translated From the Sanscrit in Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding Remarks
Vatsyayana
Discover a meticulous blueprint for the art of living, where the pursuit of pleasure is balanced by the steady demands of duty and the careful stewardship of a household.
Fawn in the wood
Unknown
A royal quest for connection is thwarted by a slighted spirit, transforming a sheltered princess into a creature of the woods who must overcome a curse to find the heart she already loves.
The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse
Valmiki
A prince of peerless virtue is exiled to the wilderness, setting in motion a vast, cosmic struggle where gods and demons collide to reclaim a stolen queen and restore the balance of the world.
Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore
William Ralston Shedden Ralston
Deep in the dark woods and snow-swept plains of old Russia, a mother returns from the grave to suckle her living child, and a merchant’s cat brings down the wrath of heaven. These are the forgotten voices of a world where the boundary between the living and the spirit realm is thinner than a winter coat.
A Book of Myths
Jean Lang
The ancient stories we tell are mirrors, reflecting both the divine aspirations of our ancestors and the unchanging, vibrant reality of the human heart. Through myth, we see that while the world shifts, our joys and sorrows remain constant.
Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome
E. M. Berens
A simple wicker basket, a stolen spark of fire, and a jar that holds the world’s sorrows: the ancient gods wake and walk again in these pages.
Italian Popular Tales
Thomas Frederick Crane
Step into a world where peasants outwit kings, magic balls of yarn secure freedom, and the line between the human and the supernatural is as thin as a whisper. These tales capture the enduring heartbeat of Italian folk culture through the voices of those who told them.
Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise: With a Study
Thomas Washington Talley
These rhythmic echoes of a vanished world preserve the wit, warnings, and wild imagination of African American life as it once hummed in the fields, kitchens, and cabins of the American South.
The Song Celestial
Arnold, Edwin, Sir
A war prince and a divine charioteer stand between two armies and turn a battlefield into a debate about action, duty, death, and the shape of reality.
The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths
Padraic Colum
A vivid tapestry of gods, giants, heroes, and cosmic battles unfolds in a world where wisdom is won at great cost and the fate of all hangs on the brink of destruction and renewal.
The First Book of Adam and Eve
Rutherford Hayes Platt
A vivid retelling of the earliest human story, blending sorrow, hope, and divine promise in a world forever changed by a single transgression.
The Younger Edda
Snorri Sturluson
HOOK A vast cosmos unfolds from primordial chaos, where gods and giants clash, heroes rise, and the fate of worlds is sealed in a tapestry of myth, magic, and poetic art.
Indian Poetry: Containing "The Indian Song of Songs," from the Sanskrit of the Gîta Govinda of Jayadeva, Two books from "The Iliad Of India" (Mahábhárata), "Proverbial Wisdom" from the Shlokas of the Hitopadesa, and other Oriental Poems
Arnold, Edwin, Sir
A journey through the heart of ancient Indian literature unfolds, revealing love, war, wisdom, and divine longing in vivid poetic voices that bridge cultures and centuries.
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
HOOK A world where spirits shape the winds, monsters lurk beneath lakes, and a half-divine hero brings order, wisdom, and hope to the tribes of the North American wilderness.
Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought
C. G. (Carl Gustav) Jung
A primal energy courses through human history, casting the same vivid patterns of myth, vision, and longing into modern minds as it did into ancient cultures.
Philippine Folk Tales
Unknown
Mythic wonder and raw human impulse collide in these native tales, where glowing brides light the night and ordinary men trick giant monsters to survive.
Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2
John Roby
A domain of shadowy valleys, haunted halls, and ancient ruins where forgotten history yields to supernatural terror and human folly.
Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen
Alexander Chodzko
Underneath the snow-bound forests and enchanted castles of Slavic folklore lies a world where the humblest outcast holds the key to the ultimate reward.
Aesop, in Rhyme: Old Friends in a New Dress
Aesop
Animal encounters and sharp human miscalculations unfold through rhyming verse, turning classic lessons on pride, greed, and survival into lively, memorable vignettes.
Kalevala : the Epic Poem of Finland
John Martin Crawford
Ancient Finnish singers frame creation, love, magic, and war as songs. Chanted words can fell an enemy, construct a ship, or bend the elements to human will.
Helen Redeemed and Other Poems
Maurice Hewlett
High above a doomed city, a queen barters her pride to an abandoned king while gods flee into the morning mist and a wooden snare sits at the gates.
Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan
Toru Dutt
A devoted wife confronts the god of death to reclaim her husband's soul in a sweeping collection of classical Indian legends and deeply felt personal lyrics.
Myths and Legends of China
E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner
This comprehensive survey of Chinese mythology gathers the foundational stories, spirits, and celestial hierarchies that have shaped the moral and imaginative landscape of the Chinese people for centuries.
The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson
Snorri Sturluson
This collection of ancient poems and prose narratives preserves the bedrock of Norse mythology, capturing the tragic grandeur of gods and heroes as they face their inevitable doom.
The poetic Edda
Henry Adams Bellows
The dawn of the North begins here, where gods and heroes clash in a cycle of inexorable fate, burning vengeance, and profound, ancient wisdom.
Hypolympia
Edmund Gosse
A company of Greek gods arrives in a northern island world that makes immortality feel thin and unreal. Exile turns their habits, loves, and powers into strange, often comic tests of what they are without Olympus.
Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian
Anonymous
Through a collection of mythic narratives and moral parables, these accounts offer an enduring glimpse into the imaginative landscapes and cultural beliefs of North American indigenous peoples.
The Wendigo
Algernon Blackwood
The primal terror of the Canadian wilderness takes hold in this unsettling tale, where a hunting party encounters an ancient, malevolent force that dissolves the boundaries between man and myth.
Japanese Fairy Tales
Yei Theodora Ozaki
This collection of Japanese folklore invites readers into a world of moral instruction, supernatural wonder, and cultural tradition. Originally compiled at the turn of the twentieth century to introduce Western audiences to the richness of Japanese storytelling, these tales endure because they balance the uncanny…
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
Lafcadio Hearn
The haunting beauty of Japanese folklore finds its most evocative expression in these tales of the uncanny, where the boundaries between the living, the dead, and the natural world dissolve into mist.
Pagan Passions
Randall Garrett
In a future where ancient deities walk among us, a humble teacher is suddenly thrust into the divine hierarchy, only to discover that the gods are mere caretakers of a cosmic machine.
The Book of Mormon
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
An ancient family flees Jerusalem on the eve of destruction, sailing across the ocean to found competing civilizations whose thousand-year epic of faith, war, and divine visitation is engraved upon golden plates.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)
Songling Pu
Whispers of ghosts, foxes, and shape-shifters illuminate the hidden moral landscape and everyday passions of Qing Dynasty China.
Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas
H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber
A world forged from ice and fire hangs in a delicate, doomed balance between golden halls and the crawling cold.
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts
Herbert Silberer
This study reveals how ancient esoteric doctrines, alchemy, and secret societies map precisely onto modern unconscious psychology, transforming obscure mystical allegories into a unified science of human mental development.
Bulfinch's Mythology
Thomas Bulfinch
In a world where gods, knights, and monsters constantly rewrite the fates of empires, human passion remains the most dangerous power of all.
Belgian Fairy Tales
William Elliot Griffis
Long ago, two distinct peoples brought their courage and toil together, making a land of soft fields, bustling windmills, and iron beneath the ground. Across these plains and forests, magical creatures moved alongside human history.
Zoological Mythology
Angelo De Gubernatis
Across global folklore, animals are never just animals; they are the vivid, forgotten vocabulary of ancient sky myths.
Indian Fairy Tales
Unknown
Tales of wonder and transformation flow from the ancient soil of India, bridging the divide between the mysterious East and the familiar West.
The Initiates of the Flame
Manly P. (Manly Palmer) Hall
The pursuit of hidden wisdom is a lifelong, internal pilgrimage, where every human soul functions as a temple guarding an eternal, divine fire. This text serves as a guide for those seeking to reconnect with that inner flame through the study of ancient symbols.
East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
These are the foundational legends of the North, where ancient trolls roam, royal secrets are hidden behind glass hills, and the line between the human world and the supernatural is as thin as a mountain mist.
Jamaica Anansi stories
Martha Warren Beckwith
Anansi the spider is the ultimate survivor, a trickster whose wit turns the tables on power, greed, and the dangers of the natural world. These tales capture the sharp, rhythmic voice of Jamaican oral tradition, where intelligence always outweighs brute strength.
The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria
W. (William) Scott-Elliot
Ancient cataclysms swallowed entire continents, leaving behind only echoes of lost civilizations that once shaped the destiny of the human race. These chronicles reveal the hidden geography and spiritual evolution of peoples long forgotten by modern history.
West African Folk-Tales
Unknown
The wit of the spider is a double-edged sword, carving paths through the forest of human and animal life where greed often meets a fitting, if unexpected, end.
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
Unknown
This anthology serves as a vital record of a vanishing oral tradition, capturing the supernatural landscape of Ireland through the voices, superstitions, and imaginations of its rural people.
Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works
Kālidāsa
These enduring Sanskrit masterpieces capture the heartbeat of human emotion, weaving tales of love, loss, and restoration that resonate across centuries with singular, crystalline beauty. Through poetry and drama, they map the vast landscape of the human heart.
Irish Fairy Tales
James Stephens
A shape-shifter tells ten thousand years of history to a saint, and a young hero leaps over hares to master his own strength.
The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Thomas Keightley
To cross the threshold into ancient folklore is to discover that humanity's fears, hopes, and visions of the unseen world are remarkably universal. This sprawling treasury gathers the spectral inhabitants, magical traditions, and haunting legends of the world under one comprehensive roof.