TRACKING THE GRIFFIN

A. L. McClanan. Griffinology, the Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art. Reaktion Books, 2024.

A book previously reviewed in Magonia (1) suggested that the image of this mythical beast was created in Greece and the ancient Near East as a result of travellers finding the fossil remains of prehistoric creatures, particularly the protoceratops. These bones were often found on or near the surface in the areas to the north of the Caspian Sea, and the story of the griffin was built around them.

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THE RETURN OF PAN

Paul Robichaud. Pan, the Great God’s Modern Return. Reaktion Books, 2021.

‘The Greek god Pan...cosmic god of All; symbol of bestial lust; demon; protector of forests; cipher for Stuart monarchs; symbol of the latent powers in nature; terrifying god of the abyss; source of occult knowledge; symbol of gay love; guardian of wild animals; Horned God of the witches; ruler of nature spirits; archetype of the unconscious; and many more.’

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THE OBJECT IS THE SUBJECT

Theresa Bane. Encyclopedia of Mythological Objects. McFarland, 2020.

This book, as the rather overused cliché puts it, does “what it says on the tin”. It is the latest in a series of serviceable reference volumes from Ms Bane on topics such as ‘Demons’, ‘Beast and Monsters’ and ‘Giants and Humanoids, amongst others. 

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TAILS OF THE SEA

Vaughn Scribner. Merpeople, A Human History. Reaktion Books, 2020.

I think it could be a good idea for people to start reading Merpeople at Chapter Three, and as a mental exercise going through it substituting for the word ‘mermaid’ the letters 'UFO'. Some readers might think that mermaids are entirely fictional and fantasy characters, and unlike other Fortean topics, could never have been considered as actual, physical creatures. This book shows just how wrong that idea is. 

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THE GODS OF IRISH MYTH

Mark Williams. Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth. Princeton University Press 2016

Despite being close neighbours, the cultures of England and Ireland are quite different in many respects. In England, you would expect a book entitled 'England's Immortals' to glorify and celebrate its sporting heroes. Try a Google search of the phrase and you will find that the majority of results are related to football, followed by rugby and cricket.
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KEEPING IN SHAPE

John B. Kachuba. Shapeshifters - A History. Reaktion Books. 2019

All of us are shapeshifters whether we realise it or not. Simply to grow is to change shape, and it is all too human to find that, for whatever reasons, we have grown rather too much for our liking. So it is a common experience to want to change the shape and appearance of our human body for the better, and this is naturally within our power to achieve with sustained effort of will and action over time. 

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THE YEARS OF THE DRAGON

Eleanor Parker. Dragon Lords - The History and Legends of Viking England. I.B. Tauris, 2018.

Remember "1066 and All That"? If there is one date and event that we never forget from all of those history lessons in our schooldays it is the Norman invasion of 1066 and the victory of King William the Conqueror over King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. 

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THE GREAT ESCAPE

Serinity Young. Women Who Fly: Goddesses, Witches, Mystics, and Other Airborne Females. Oxford University Press, 2018.

This is in many ways a joy of a book – certainly an unusual joy for an academic feminist book. Without ever resorting to the tedious or impenetrable jargon (oh mercy!) so beloved of far too many grant-seeking scholars, it delivers a hard-hitting historical analysis in plain, but glowing, English. 
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AFTER THE TWILIGHT

Jon Karl Helgason. Echoes Of Valhalla; The Afterlife of the Eddas and Sagas. Reaktion Books 2017.

The Snorra Edda is one of the oldest manuscripts we have that recounts the medieval Icelandic sagas. Dating from 1220 it was compiled and partly written by Snorri Sturluson. Three years ago I was in Reykjavik hoping to view the Snorra Edda and other manuscripts at the National Library of Iceland.

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VAMP 'TILL READY

Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan. (Editors) The Supernatural Revamped: From Timeworn Legends to Twenty-First-Century Chic. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016.

Familiar words often have unusual or obscure origins. Everyone knows the meaning of the word 'revamped', to improve the form, structure or appearance of something. But what of the word 'vamp' itself? Of course I had to check an etymological dictionary to discover that in this case it means the upper front part of a shoe.
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GREAT BIRDS OF FIRE

Joseph Nigg. The Phoenix; An Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast. University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Herodotus, who coined the term ‘history’ with his survey of the then known world, with particular reference to the wars between the Greeks and the Persians, introduced the Phoenix in his chapter on Egypt. The word had previously been used to mean ‘date-palm’, but here it was a bird that lived in Arabia. Extraordinarily long-lived, a new one was born only once every five hundred years, just at the time that the old one died.
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THE IRISH PANTHEON

Morgan Daimler. Gods and Goddesses of Ireland—A Guide to Irish Deities. Moon Books, 2016.

Here's a question to test your general knowledge: How many Gods and Goddesses of Ireland could you name? I asked myself this question on being presented with this book and had to admit I knew none of them for certain. 

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THE GODDESS THAT DARE NOT SPEAK HER NAME

Chris Morgan. Isis; Goddess of Egypt and India. Mandrake of Oxford, 2016.

The authors’ subject has brought about an unexpected problem. “Because of certain events happening in the political sphere just now, it has become difficult to use her name without risking confusion with a terrorist group, which uses a similar acronym. As always I think the goddess will outlive these ephemeral worldly events.”
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AMAZONS: ARMED, DANGEROUS ... AND REAL

Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World, Princeton University Press, 2015.

Until very recently in the West, the adjective ‘Amazon’ was something of an insult. If any admiration was involved in its use, it was grudging and more often than not, unconscious in a Freudian kind of way. To a typical educated Victorian, for example, to call a woman an ‘Amazon’ was to imply a rather butch, strapping harpy – possibly a whiz at sports and horse-riding and threateningly autonomous. She would also be possessed of none of the vacuous tittering modesty so prized in women of their own era.

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EGYPTIAN DAYS

Robert Bauval and Ahmed Osman. The Soul of Ancient Egypt: Restoring The Spiritual Engine of the World. Bear and Co. 2015.

"Don't judge a book by its cover" is a well-known metaphorical phrase meaning that one should not pre-judge a thing by its outward appearance alone. It would also apply literally to the book under review here. From the first impression of the cover one would expect a book that is more esoteric or occult in its content than turns out to be the case.

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IRISH EYES

Jo Kerrigan. Old Ways Old Secrets - Pagan Ireland. The O'Brien Press, 2015.

Jo Kerrigan grew up amid the wild beauties of West Cork. After some years working as a writer, journalist and academic in the UK, having studied Medieval History at Oxford University, she returned to home ground where she continues to write regularly for Irish and international newspapers and magazines.
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THE MONSTERS OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY

Damien Kempf and Maria L. Gilbert. Mediaeval Monsters. British Library, 2015.

The various monsters and mysterious creatures described in this book need not detain cryptozoologists using Brian Parson’s excellent guide to monster hunting that was recently reviewed in Magonia, as these mystery animals exist only in the pages of medieval manuscripts, mostly from the British Library.
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NORTHERN ECHOES

Anders Winroth. The Age of the Vikings. Princeton University Press, 2014.

This is a little different from the type of books we normally review in Magonia, being a straightforward historical account of the Viking era, rather than a study of Norse mythology and beliefs. However, the Viking seem to have created a mythology of their own in modern popular belief.
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FEEDING THE TROLLS

John Lindow. Trolls: An Unnatural History. Reaktion Books, 2014.

There is a difference of opinion on the use of the word ‘troll’ to describe someone who is something of a nuisance on Internet fora. Wikipedia notes that apart from the word describing an ugly dwarf and by comparison the uglier characters on the Internet, it may also be derived from “the fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat”, presumably to drag unwitting participants into the troll’s little game.
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MERLIN: THE MAN, MYTH, AND MAGIC

Anne Lawrence-Mathers. The True History of Merlin the Magician. Yale University Press, 2012.

This intriguing volume centres around one fact that seems incongruous from the viewpoint of the contemporary world: for around four hundred years Merlin, who came to be known as the sorcerer of King Arthur, was considered to be a real person. It is the extraordinary journey of a fictional character that influences the medieval world much more than most real people.
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