Showing results for "Ann" in Customs & Traditions

Explore the world of Hungarian Paganism with this book's impressive collection of history, lore, and traditions from the Carpathian basin. The Hungarian people, also known as the Magyars, fused pre-Christian and Christian beliefs into their identity, and that fusion remains today. Exploring mythology, daily life, magic, and life passages, this book reveals the old ways of Hungarian practitioners.

Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows, and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war - to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings.

Icelanders believe in elves. Why does that make you laugh?, asks Nancy Marie Brown, in this wonderfully quirky exploration of our interaction with nature. Looking for answers in history, science, religion, and art—from ancient times to today—Brown finds that each discipline defines what is real and unreal, natural and supernatural, demonstrated and theoretical, alive and inert. Each has its own way of perceiving and valuing the world around us. And each discipline defines what an Icelander might call an elf.