Mermaid and Other Water Spirit Tales from Around the World PDF Download

Author: Heidi Anne Heiner
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781463565541
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 828

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Book Description
Appearing under many different guises, mermaids have a long, varied history dating back many centuries. Our modern day perception of mermaids is primarily based upon the mermaids and merrows of northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland, as well as the sirens of ancient Greece. However, water spirits of some type exist in almost every culture situated near bodies of water, be they oceans, lakes, rivers or even wells and springs. This collection gathers together examples of the earliest scholarship on mermaids and their folkloric relatives, including several articles about their history from ancient times to the nineteenth century when mermaids captured the public and literary imagination during the folklore renaissance of the 1800s. In addition to the articles, over 150 tales and ballads about mermaids and other water spirits from around the world are compiled into this one convenient anthology. The emphasis is on the European mermaid in her many guises, but stories from Africa, Asia, and the Americas are also included. Whether you are a mermaid enthusiast or a student of folklore, this anthology offers a diverse array of tales with a unifying theme that both entertains and educates, all gathered for the first time in one helpful collection.

Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Publisher: Turtleback Books
ISBN: 9780613181853
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Enchanting tales of sea nymphs from twelve cultures, including Chinese, Iranian, African, and Native American, are eloquently retold by the author in this acclaimed collection. Four-color with gold leaf illustrations.

Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780439047814
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
Enchanting tales of sea nymphs from twelve cultures, including Chinese, Iranian, African, and Native American, are eloquently retold by a master storyteller and illustrated in the distinctive style of each culture. Reprint.

Author: Heidi Anne Heiner
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781469970448
Category : Beauty and the beast
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Beauty and the Beast is inarguably one of the most beloved-if not the most-beloved fairy tale in modern times. While Cinderella is better known, Beauty and the Beast is most often voted the favorite among readers. The tale has definite literary origins. It was written by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve in 1740 as a novella length book. Villeneuve drew upon folklore for her inspiration as well as other literary predecessors. Her story was then adapted and rewritten by Madame Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1757 into the version we most easily recognize today. The tale is part of a larger group of folktales-Animal Bridegroom stories-known in countless variations throughout Europe and Asia as well as Africa and the Americas. Starting with the story of Cupid and Psyche from the second century A.D. and continuing to modern times, Animal Bridegroom stories have warned and thrilled readers for at least two millennia. This collection offers over 180 Animal Bridegroom tales from around the world. Some of the tales are new translations, a few appearing for the first time in English. Whether you are a student of folklore or an armchair enthusiast, this anthology offers a diverse array of tales with a unifying theme that both entertains and educates, all gathered for the first time in one impressive collection.

Author: Cristina Bacchilega
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143133721
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
*Includes "The Little Mermaid," now a major motion picture from Disney starring Halle Bailey and directed by Rob Marshall* Dive into centuries of mermaid lore with these captivating tales from around the world. A Penguin Classic Among the oldest and most popular mythical beings, mermaids and other merfolk have captured the imagination since long before Ariel sold her voice to a sea witch in the beloved Disney film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." As far back as the eighth century B.C., sailors in Homer's Odyssey stuffed wax in their ears to resist the Sirens, who lured men to their watery deaths with song. More than two thousand years later, the gullible New York public lined up to witness a mummified "mermaid" specimen that the enterprising showman P. T. Barnum swore was real. The Penguin Book of Mermaids is a treasury of such tales about merfolk and water spirits from different cultures, ranging from Scottish selkies to Hindu water-serpents to Chilean sea fairies. A third of the selections are published here in English for the first time, and all are accompanied by commentary that explores their undercurrents, showing us how public perceptions of this popular mythical hybrid--at once a human and a fish--illuminate issues of gender, spirituality, ecology, and sexuality. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author: Elyrria Swann
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1644114518
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
• 2022 Coalition of Visionary Resources Gold Award • Details how to connect to water as a living presence and develop personal and spiritual connections with fish and other aquatic animals • Explains how to embody the vibration of water in your energy field by integrating archetypes of water spirits and watery concepts such as empathy, unconditional love, eco-consciousness, and stillness • Shares the author’s personal experiences, beginning at age 10, with astral mermaids, water spirits, and other magical creatures Anyone can become a mermaid. To do so, you must develop the vibration of water in your energy field and learn to perceive as mermaids do. In this how-to guide, Elyrria Swann shares her personal experiences, beginning at age 10, with astral mermaids, water spirits, and other magical creatures and offers wisdom and practical lessons from the watery kingdom to reveal the path to becoming a mermaid. Swann details how to connect to water as a living presence and awaken to its magic, as she did as a child. Exploring how to develop mermaid energies, she shows how to make friends with fish and develop personal and spiritual connections with them and other aquatic animals, including how to communicate through dreams, meditations, and visions. She explains how to embody the vibration of water in your energy field by integrating archetypes of water spirits and watery concepts such as empathy, unconditional love, eco-consciousness, and stillness. She explores how to develop relationships with astral allies like krakens, gorgon medusas, and selkies as well as protection techniques to use when making contact with spiritual beings. Channeling the merfolk she has built personal relationships with, Swann sheds light on the inner workings of the mermaid realm, offering insight into their innermost thoughts, states of being, and how they live. Presenting a user’s manual for incarnated merpeople, the author shares the message of the mermaids to help unite the mermaid and human worlds and protect our oceans as well as to help us develop emotionally, evolve spiritually, and ascend to higher vibrational dimensions.

Author: Lucy Fraser
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814342450
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Lucy Fraser’s The Pleasures of Metamorphosis: Japanese and English Fairy Tale Transformations of "The Little Mermaid" explores Japanese and English transformations of Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 Danish fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" by focusing on pleasure as a means to analyze the huge variety of texts that transform a canonical fairy tale such as Andersen’s. Fraser examines over twenty Japanese and English transformations, including literary texts, illustrated books, films, and television series. This monograph also draws upon criticism in both Japanese and English, meeting a need in Western fairy-tale studies for more culturally diverse perspectives. Fraser provides a model for critical cross-cultural fairy tale analysis in her examination of the journey of a single fairy tale across two languages. The book begins with the various approaches to reading and writing fairy tales, with a history of "The Little Mermaid" in Japanese and English culture. Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea are discussed as examples that simulate pleasurable physical experiences through animation’s tools of music and voice, and visual effects of movement and metamorphosis. Fraser then explores the literary effects of the fairy tale by male authors, such as Oscar Wilde, Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, and Abe Kobo, who invoke familiar fairy-tale conventions and delineate some of the pleasures of what can be painful enchantment with a mermaid or with the fairy tale itself. The author examines the portrayals of the mermaid in three short stories by Matsumoto Yuko, Kurahashi Yumiko, and Ogawa Yoko, engaging with familiar fairy tales, reference to fairy-tale research, and reflections on the immersive experience of reading. Women characters and authors are also hyperaware of the possible meanings of Andersen’s "The Little Mermaid" and of the fairy tale itself, furthering the discussion with Nonaka Hiiragi’s novel Ningyo-hime no kutsu, and D[di?]’s novel Sento no ningyo-hime to majo no mori, as well as an episode of the science fiction television series Dark Angel. Fraser concludes that the "pleasure" framework is useful for a cross-cultural study of creative engagements with and transformations of a particular fairy tale. Few studies have examined Japanese fairy-tale transformations to the extent that Fraser has, presenting fascinating information that will intrigue fairy-tale scholars and those wanting to learn more about the representation of pleasure behind the imaginative and fantastical.

Author: Cristina Bacchilega
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525505571
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Dive into centuries of mermaid lore with these captivating tales from around the world. A Penguin Classic Among the oldest and most popular mythical beings, mermaids and other merfolk have captured the imagination since long before Ariel sold her voice to a sea witch in the beloved Disney film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." As far back as the eighth century B.C., sailors in Homer's Odyssey stuffed wax in their ears to resist the Sirens, who lured men to their watery deaths with song. More than two thousand years later, the gullible New York public lined up to witness a mummified "mermaid" specimen that the enterprising showman P. T. Barnum swore was real. The Penguin Book of Mermaids is a treasury of such tales about merfolk and water spirits from different cultures, ranging from Scottish selkies to Hindu water-serpents to Chilean sea fairies. A third of the selections are published here in English for the first time, and all are accompanied by commentary that explores their undercurrents, showing us how public perceptions of this popular mythical hybrid--at once a human and a fish--illuminate issues of gender, spirituality, ecology, and sexuality.

Author: Philip Hayward
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0861969510
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Emerging from the confluence of Greco-Roman mythology and regional folklore, the mermaid has been an enduring motif in Western culture since the medieval period. It has also been disseminated more widely, initially through Western trade and colonisation and, more recently, through the increasing globalisation of media products and outlets. Scaled for Success offers the first detailed overview of the mermaids dispersal outside Europe. Complementing previous studies of the interrelationship between the mermaid and Mami Wata spirit in West Africa, this volume addresses the mermaids presence in a range of Middle Eastern, Asian, Australian, Latin American and North American contexts. Individual chapters identify the manner in which the mermaid has been variously syncretised and/or resignified in contexts as diverse as Indian public statuary, Thai cinema and Coney Islands annual Mermaid Parade. Rather than lingering as a relic of a bygone age, the mermaid emerges as a versatile, dynamic and, above all, polyvalent figure. Her prominence exemplifies the manner in which contemporary media-lore has extended the currency of established folkloric figures in new and often surprising ways. Analysing aspects of religious symbolism, visual art, literature and contemporary popular culture, this copiously illustrated volume profiles an intriguing and highly diverse phenomenon. Philip Hayward is editor of the journal Shima and holds adjunct professor positions at the University of Technology Sydney and at Southern Cross University. His previous volume, Making a Splash: Mermaids (and Mermen) in 20th and 21st Century Audiovisual Media, was published by John Libbey Publishing/Indiana University Press in 2017.

Author: William R. Mistele
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583943951
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Undines—from the Latin root unda, which means “wave”— are water elementals, or spirits of the water world. Like their fellow elementals—salamanders (fire), sylphs (air), and gnomes (earth)—undines are united with, and personify, their element. First mentioned in the alchemical works of medieval botanist Paracelsus, undines appear throughout European folklore. Who are these mysterious creatures of lakes, oceans, and waterfalls? Undines takes readers directly into the water spirits’ realm through stories, personal encounters, and interviews with such luminaries as Istiphul, the undine queen whose presence embodies the magical essence of the feminine. Whether seen as fact or fairy tale, Undines presents archetypal truths and insights into human nature. The powers and abilities that undines display are latent in us all and crucial to humanity’s evolution (or mere survival): harmony with nature, empathy and compassion, a deep capacity to love, and a cooperative rather than combative relationship to the world. Undines will appeal broadly to readers of mythology, fantasy, and fairy tales, particularly to practitioners that work with nature spirits and elemental beings—Druids, Wiccans, pagans, and those interested in magic and mysticism.