#world folklore

Everyone knows once upon a time, but did you know that countless cultures have their variation of how classic stories begin, and one one from Welsh is, "A long time ago," similar to a few others from other cultures that go, "A long long time ago."

But, some, like Lithuanian go: "Beyond nine seas, beyond nine lagoons," similar to the Czech, "Beyond seven mountain ranges, beyond seven rivers."

These are some variations from Arab texts: This happened or maybe it did not. The time is long past and much is forgot.

There was or there was not—is anything sure or certain but the greatness of Allah?—a king so powerful that man and Djinn bowed before him.

This is how many Hausa tales are begun “A story, a story. Let it go, let it come.”

And of course, we have one that is a combination and modern invention that has become part of media culture and storied greatness: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." <3

These are just some. But it's been among the most wonderful part of my research before I began putting down the first words for Tales of Tremaine. But the art of storytelling is one of the most human things there is. It's central to us, and it has passed long and far by tongue and time over lands and through cultures. Some beginnings are so similar to each other, some not so much.

But then you see the threads between them in the stories, the themes, tropes, archetypes, motifs. But the traditions span the world. They are old. They are cool. And they are beautiful.

I have read a lot less this year than in the last couple of years. I'm not going to beat my previous record of 129 books, that's for sure. But I feel like I've hit a decent stride of quality over quantity with this batch (also, one of them is over 600 pages long)

26. The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, edited by Jeffery Andrew Weinstock. For anyone who is remotely interested in either monsters or literature, this book is a must-read. Yes, I know it’s an A-Z encyclopedia format and is more than 600 pages long. You can skip around, or read it in chunks. This book is the perfect tool for thinking with monsters, and is an excellent reference tool for using monsters intelligently in a project, or just as a collection of “oh, I should check that out”. It’s not perfect. All kaiju are lumped together under “Godzilla”, which barely gets two pages. Pokemon gets a single, very dismissive, paragraph. On the other hand, the entry for Harry Potter is ridiculously long and very fannish, and the “HP Lovecraft, Monsters in” article ignores Lovecraft’s racism entirely (because it’s written by ST Joshi, who else?). My biggest complaint is the lack of a general Mad Scientist entry—mad scientists are the monster of the 20th century, and both psychopaths and witches get generic entries as well as specific examples. My two biggest highlights are “Women, Monstrous”, which is a college level course in institutional misogyny and how it has been celebrated by some authors and subverted by others; and "Nick of the Woods", which is possibly the most influential American novel that has been almost entirely forgotten in the modern era. You can draw a direct line from Nick of the Woods to everything from Marvel movies to Wounded Knee.

27. Tasting History by Max Miller, with Ann Volkwein. “Tasting History with Max Miller” is one of my favorite YouTube series, and the book of the show doesn’t disappoint. It’s beautiful, with color photos of the food and images of historical characters and events. Most of the recipes come from existing episodes, and so the stories therein are familiar, but not told identically, and there are some that have new lore to go with old recipes. Or lore covered in the show, but a different recipe because the one that was made for the video wasn’t very good. Also, my copy is signed! Max Miller came to a local book fair, so I got to hear a book talk and then get my copy signed afterwards. And that was… two months ago? My reading really has slowed down!

28. Birds: Myth, Lore and Legend by Rachel Warren Chadd and Marianne Taylor. This book collects legendry about birds from around the world, and compares the stories that different cultures tell about the same animal with the animal’s actual ecology and behavior. A fair amount of the stories were new to me, which I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting the science to be as well! For example, the book talks about a paper that suggests that lyrebird foraging is important for reducing wildfires, as they help to break up mats of eucalyptus leaves and encourage decomposition. Also, as can probably be expected in a book about birds, there’s a lot of very nice photography.

29. The Cat’s Meow by Jonathan Losos. Losos is an evolutionary biologist (he’s the guy doing all of the studies with convergent evolution in Caribbean lizards) who got the domestic cat bug, and this is his book about the evolution of domestic cats. It’s written in a very readable style and goes into quite a bit of depth on how we know what we know. So individual scientists and breeders are profiled for topics like, which population of wildcats do domestic cats descend from? How does the behavior of feral cats in the Australian Outback differ from feral cats in rural Georgia? How is a new breed developed from a single individual? Losos also shares plenty of anecdotes about his own cats, as any loving cat owner would, and shares his “million dollar idea” with the reader. Saber toothed housecats, bred for both long canine teeth and a calm, indoor-friendly disposition.

Mermaid for Animal Alphabets.

The reason I did two of them is because of a bunch of stuff that I don’t feel like typing right now and isn’t worth explaining.

Researching the Hydra was so much fun I thought I’d provide facts with very Animal Alphabets monster. Researching the mermaid has proved that I can’t do that anymore. There’s just too much information to sort out I can’t do it justice within a week. I’d like to provide some information with these things if I’m going to make it through the whole alphabet but I’m going to have to find a better way to do it. Maybe I’ll just include quotes from my monster books instead writing the facts myself or maybe I’ll just include one story from one of my books. Or maybe I just won’t include any facts at all since I haven’t had that many people telling me how much they loved my Hydra facts. Whatever I do, it’s going to depend on what the next monster is.

Anyway I’ve already done too much research for this and I’m not going to waste it so here’s some real facts about the mermaid.

Mermaids have their own culture and language but can also speak the human language of the nearest coastal settlement

When not in their undersea kingdoms mermaids can be found sunning themselves on rocks, combing their hair and looking at themselves in their looking glasses.

Seeing a mermaid at sea often portents of misfortune and disaster since they’re known for causing storms and enchanting sailors with their alluring voices into crashing their ships on the ocean rocks.

Mermaids are incredibly long lived and take a long time to age. Once a mermaid reaches their prime they retain the appearance of a mature human woman for the rest of their lives

In medieval times mermaids were regarded as symbols of lust and sin.

Mermaid skin has been described as being very fair with a pearly sheen and also being so strong that it could be used to make souls of boots that can last up to three years or more

Mermaids can see the future

Mermaids can assume human form either by removing their skin or using a magical item such a cloak, cap, or necklace.

A human who gets a hold of a mermaid’s skin or whatever they use to take human form can bargain with the mermaid to give the item back in exchange for wishes or, what seems to be more common in these stories, hide the item from the mermaid and force her to marry him. The mermaid will stay married to human until she gets her magic item back. Then she’ll immediately return to the sea.

Children of born from the union of a mermaid and human have webbed fingers and toes which make them excellent swimmers but not so good for anything else

Inspired by the fantastic list of world folklore books at School Library Journal, we threw together our own list, made up of staff favorites and lesser-known titles from picture books to adult fiction and nonfiction.

We didn't include fairy tales on this list, though some of the titles (like Dreams and Shadows, The Tale of the Firebird, and East) have fairy tale elements.  We were looking more for books featuring heroic quests and epic tales, rather than princesses and dragons.  That's another list.  And or course, this list isn't cumulative, just a brief selection of some great books!

And here's the master list of titles featured on our chart:

Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott

Arrow to the Sun by Gerald McDermott

Mole's Hill by Lois Ehlert

Love and Roast Chicken by Barbara Knutson

Night Dancer by Marcia K. Vaughan

The Tale of the Firebird by Genaddy Spirin

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Michael Morpurgo

The Odyssey by Gillian Cross

The Talking Eggs by Robert D. San Souci

Mythlopedia:  All In The Family by Steven Otfinoski

The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton

Porch Lies by Patricia C. McKissack

Not One Damsel In Distress by Jane Yolen

Tatterhood and Other Tales edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin

Boys of Blur by Nathan D. Wilson

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White

East by Edith Pattou

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Loki's Wolves by Kelley Armstrong

The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton

Perseus:  Destiny's Call by Ryan Foley

Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

Texting the Underworld by Ellen Booraem

Troy by Adele Geras

Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Daughter of the Forest  by Juliet Marillier

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Grendel by John Gardner

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

On Monsters by Stephen T. Asma

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde