Curious Myths of the Muddle Ages: The Sangreal, Pope Joan, The Wandering Jew, and Otherw by Sabine Baring-Gould.
DESCRIPTION: Softcover: 378 pages. Publisher: Dover Publishing; (2005). One of the most brilliant and eclectic thinkers in Victorian England, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was intrigued by the grotesque and often savage history of the Middle Ages. The noted author and folklorist’s fascination with the period resulted in this absorbing compilation of vintage takes surrounding such figures as William Tell and the Man in the Moon.
Twenty-four legendary figures; among others, Saint Patrick, the Pied Piper, the Knights of the Holy Grail, and St. George and the Dragon, are all rejuvenated in this collection for a new audience. In addition to outlines of the myths, the author provides an objective analysis of their origins, relevance, and the extent of their basis in fact. Fascinating sources include Christian adaptations of prehistoric legends, misinterpretations of actual events, and outright fabrications.
Accompanying illustrations provide a visual appreciation for these timeless classics. A marvelous introduction to age-old stories, this oft-cited work will be of value and interest to students, scholars, and other readers. This is the unabridged Dover republication of the original edition published in 1894. Five plates of illustrations and eleven line drawings.
CONDITION: New, never read.
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PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
REVIEW: The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould was an English Victorian hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. His bibliography lists over 500 separate publications. He is particularly remembered as a writer of hymns, the best-known being Onward, Christian Soldiers and Now the Day Is Over. His education at The King's School, Warwick lasted just a few months in 1846; he caught whooping-cough and was ordered to go abroad for the sake of his health. He then went up to Cambridge earning the degrees of B.A. in 1857, then M.A. in 1860 from Clare College.
He regarded as his principal achievement the collection of folk songs that he made with the help of the ordinary people of Devon and Cornwall. His first book of songs, Songs of the West (1889–91), was the first collection published for the mass market. Baring-Gould produced a second collection called A Garland of Country Songs. For a second edition of Songs of the West (1905), he collaborated with the collector Cecil Sharp. They also produced English Folk Songs for Schools in 1907. This collection of 53 songs was adopted for the UK schools curriculum for the next 60 years.
Baring-Gould wrote many novels, a collection of ghost stories, a 16-volume “Lives of the Saints”, and the biography of the eccentric poet-vicar of Morwenstow, Robert Stephen Hawker. His folkloric studies resulted in “The Book of Were-Wolves” (1865), one of the most frequently cited studies of lycanthropy. One of his most enduringly popular works was “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages”, first published in two parts in 1866 and 1868, and republished in many other editions since then. Each of the book's twenty-four chapters deals with a particular medieval superstition and its variants and antecedents.
Stories of his eccentricity were exaggerated, but he did in fact marry a mill girl of 16, and "had her educated" for two years. When he was 34, Baring-Gould, a curate in Horbury, Yorkshire at the time, had met Grace Taylor, an illiterate, 16-year-old mill worker, and had married her in 1868. The marriage lasted for 48 years, and the couple had 15 children. This extraordinary liaison helped inspire George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and, subsequently, the musical “My Fair Lady”.
REVIEW: The legends surrounding William Tell, Saint Patrick, the Pied Piper, and the knights of the Holy Grail are but a few of familiar stories surveyed in this classic collection of folklore. In addition to outlines of the myths, the author provides an objective analysis of their origins, relevance, and the extent of their basis in fact.
REVIEW: Absorbing compilation of vintage tales surrounding such figures as William Tell, Saint Patrick, the Pied Piper, the Knights of the Holy Grail, and the Man in the Moon, complete with introductory essays on their mythological or historical origins. 5 plates of illustrations; 11 line drawings.
REVIEW: From the perspective of Victorian England, folklorist Baring-Gould (1834-1924) retells some well known and more obscure medieval stories. Among other familiar ones are William Tell, Prester John, the Man in the Moon, Saint Patrick's purgatory, the piper of Hameln, swan-maidens, and Theophilus.
REVIEW: The first and most interesting of the subjects treated in the book "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages" is the myth of the Wandering Jew. This is a myth which, based on familiar texts of Scripture, and from its intimate connection with the mysteries of the future life appealing directly to the superstitious tendency existing in almost every human heart, has had a more extended circulation and attracted a more general belief than any other since the Christian era. The remaining subjects treated include "Prester John," "The Divining-Rod," "The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus," "William Tell," "The Dog Gellert," "Tailed Men," "Antichrist and Pope Joan," "The Man in the Moon," "The Mountain of Venus," "Fatality of Numbers," and "The Terrestrial Paradise." Absolutely absorbing and highly recommended!
REVIEW: An immensely readable volume collecting together all those strange and compelling myths of the Middle Ages including The Wandering Jew; Prester John; Divining Rod; Seven Sleepers of Ephesus; William Tell; The Dog Gellert; Tailed Men; Antichrist and Pope Joan; Man in the Moon; Mountain of Venus; Fatality of Numbers; Terrestrial Paradise.
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