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American Indian Myths and Legends

10 best books like American Indian Myths and Legends (Richard Erdoes): Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, Book of the Hopi, The Norse Myths, African Folktales, Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies, A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore, Latin American Folktales, Favorite Folktales from Around the World, Folktales from India, Norwegian Folktales

Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World
AuthorJack Weatherford
ISBN0449904962
" As entertaining as it is thoughtful....Few contemporary writers have Weatherford's talent for making the deep sweep of history seem vital and immediate."
THE WASHINGTON POST
After 500 years, the world's huge debt to the wisdom of the Indians of the Americas has finally been explored in...
Book of the Hopi
AuthorFrank Waters
ISBN0140045279
In this "strange and wonderful book," some thirty elders of the ancient Hopi tribe of Northern Arizona freely reveal for the first time in written form the Hopi world-view of life. The Hopis have kept this view a secret for countless generations, and this book was made possible only as a result of their...
The Norse Myths
AuthorKevin Crossley-Holland
Here are thirty-two classic myths that bring the Viking world vividly to life. The mythic legacy of the Scandinavians includes a cycle of stories filled with magnificent images from pre-Christian Europe. Gods, humans, and monstrous beasts engage in prodigious drinking bouts, contests of strength,...
African Folktales
AuthorRoger D. Abrahams
Just like the others, I really enjoyed the tales, but not the commentary, which seemed excessive, superficial and a justification for the white scientist to have his name on the cover. Also, the grouping was weird (I would prefer by tribe), and the pictures of art objects seemed to be attached to fairy...
Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies
AuthorMoss Roberts
Quite a treasury. I liked the numerous short fables even better than the stories. And the introduction, that gives just a bit of historical context, esp. re the rivalry between the Confucians and the Taoists, is helpful.

My favorite is one of the very shortest:

"The Missing Axe

"A...
A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore
AuthorW.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (pronounced /ˈjeɪts/) was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the...
Latin American Folktales
AuthorJohn Bierhorst
The wisdom and artistry of Latin America's storytellers preserve one of the world's richest folktale traditions—combining the lore of medieval Europe, the ancient Near East, and pre-Columbian America. Among the essential characters are the quiet man's wife who knew the Devil's secrets, the...
Favorite Folktales from Around the World
AuthorJane Yolen
Yolen, Jane. Favorite Folktales from Around the World (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) (1986).
Hero
The Iroquois story of "The Flying Head" tells the folktale of a giant head with wings that came out of its cheeks and a mouth full of fangs. This giant head would fly at night looking...
Folktales from India
AuthorA.K. Ramanujan
An enchanting collection of 110 tales, translated from twenty-two different languages, that are by turns harrowing and comic, sardonic and allegorical, mysterious and romantic. Gods disguised as beggars and beasts, animals enacting Machiavellian intrigues, sagacious jesters and magical storytellers,...
Norwegian Folktales
AuthorPeter Christen Asbjørnsen
Long a treasure in Norway, the folktales collected by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe have been acclaimed for their richness of humor, fullness of life, and depth of understanding since they first appeared in translation more than a hundred years ago. The Norwegian folktales, said Jacob...
Arab Folktales
AuthorInea Bushnaq
ISBN0394751795
While containing a broad sampling of folktales from the Arab people, there are a few problems that consistently bothered me about this book. The author, in her commentary, claims that "the true Arab is the desert nomad," an idea which folklorist Dwight Reynolds has said is culturally inaccurate and...
Irish Folk Tales
AuthorHenry Glassie
Robust and funny, sorrowful and heroic, this collection of 125 lively tales tells the story of Ireland. Spanning the centuries from the first wars of the ancient Irish kings through the Celtic Renaissance of Yeats to our own time, they are set in cities, villages, fields and forestsfrom the wild Gaelic...
Japanese Tales
AuthorRoyall Tyler
Here are two hundred and twenty dazzling tales from medieval Japan, tales that welcome us into a fabulous, faraway world populated by saints and scoundrels, ghosts and magical healers, and a vast assortment of deities and demons. Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these...
Swedish Folktales and Legends
AuthorLone Thygesen Blecher
ISBN0816645752
Swedish Folktales and Legends is a diverse and representative collection of stories from Sweden's centuries-old folklore tradition. Ranging from the ribald to the romantic, from the rustic to the mythical, these are lively translations of 150 tales drawn from unique sources including the Swedish...
Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
AuthorJohn Fire Lame Deer
ISBN0671888021
Lame Deer Storyteller, rebel, medicine man, Lame Deer was born almost a century ago on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A full-blooded Sioux, he was many things in the white man's world -- rodeo clown, painter, prisioner. But, above all, he was a holy man of the Lakota tribe. Seeker of Vision...
The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux
AuthorBlack Elk
ISBN0806121246
Black Elk of the Sioux has been recognized as one of the truly remarkable men of his time in the matter of religious belief and practice. Shortly before his death in August, 1950, when he was the "keeper of the sacred pipe," he said, "It is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which...
500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians
AuthorAlvin M. Josephy Jr.
ISBN0517163942
Very interesting; does a good job of summarizing the "entirety" of The Indians of North America. It does have a rather left-wing bent to it (and I can be very left wing). It treats in almost all cases the Indians as if they are noble and beautiful and somehow more spiritual than the average human while describing...
Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota
AuthorWallace Black Elk
ISBN0062500740
I wanted to like this book more than 3 stars... it probably deserves more than that. But I fall into the category of people Black Elk refers to as "educated". Which means I've been to school, college, etc and some of the more basic truths have probably been schooled right out of me. I did like the ideas he talks...
Northern Tales: Stories from the Native Peoples of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic Regions
AuthorHoward Norman
ISBN0375702679
From Greenland to Siberia, from Alaska to Japan, from Canada to North Pole, here are more than one hundred folktales from more than thirty tribal peoples who make their home in the arctic and subarctic regions.By turns tragic and comic, fantastic and earthy, uncanny and profound, these tales transport...
Best-Loved Folktales of the World
AuthorJoanna Cole
ISBN0385189494
A great compendium of stories with the common hidden theme which you can find if you read them with your heart.

Some favorites:

Maid Lena: This story reveals that the source of our lack of energy and courage is the result of something being “dead at our center,” and the necessity...
Yiddish Folktales
AuthorBeatrice Silverman Weinreich
Filled with princesses and witches, dybbuks and wonder-working rebbes, the two hundred marvelous tales that make up this delightful compendium were gathered during the 1920s and 1930s by ethnographers in the small towns and villages of Eastern Europe. Collected from people of all walks of life,...
Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World
AuthorBarbara C. Sproul
ISBN0060675012
This was a big DID NOT FINISH for me. I love mythology, and I've been trying to broaden my understanding of it. I picked up this book hoping to get a taste of various mythologies from the perspective of each people's creation myth. What I got was a lot of long-winded, rambling, dry overviews.

I didn't...
Celtic Myths and Legends
AuthorPeter Berresford Ellis
ISBN0786711078
This is an enchantingly told collection of the stirring sagas of gods and goddesses, fabulous beasts, strange creatures, and such heroes as Cuchulain, Fingal, and King Arthur from the ancient Celtic world. Included are popular myths and legends from all six Celtic cultures of Western Europe-Irish,...
In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World
AuthorVirginia Hamilton
ISBN0152387420
I read this book of creation stories and cosmogonies from around the world out-loud to my 8-year-old daughter to try and balance out the Christian stories that she is deluged by in American culture. Many children have no idea that predominant western religions did not develop in a vacuum, but are threads...
Encyclopedia of Gods: Over 2,500 Deities of the World
AuthorMichael Jordan
ISBN0816029091
Since the beginning of time, the same mysteries have puzzled people on every continent; the same fears have beset them. They have attempted to explain the mysteries and allay the fears in the same way - through the worship of gods. Deities have been identified with the human psyche for at least 60,000...
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