Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine (Forgotten Books) - Tapa blanda

Book Description:

"This is Lewis Spence's retelling of the legends and sagas of the Rhine, particularly the lore of the portion which passes through western Germany, organized geographically from north to south. Many of these tales have supernatural or pagan elements, although most are set in the middle ages, with the crusades, chivalry, knights, damsels in distress and castles as stock set dressing. Many stories center around desperate bargains with the devil. One of the best parts of this book is Spence's discussion of the historical basis of the Nibelunglied, its relation to the Icelandic Volsung saga, and other lesser known Mediaeval sagas.

Although Spence's style can be a bit stuffy at times, this collection is very readable and is still a good introduction for English readers to the lore of the storied Rhine valley." (Quote from sacred-texts.com)

Table of Contents:

Publisher's Preface; Introduction; Topographical And Historical; The Rhine In Folklore And Literature; Cleves To The LÖwenburg; Drachenfels To Rheinstein; Falkenburg To Auerbach; Worms And The Nibelungenlied; Heidelberg To SÄckingen

About the Publisher:

Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, Esoteric and Mythology. www.forgottenbooks.org

Forgotten Books is about sharing information, not about making money. All books are priced at wholesale prices. We are also the only publisher we know of to print in large sans-serif font, which is proven to make the text easier to read and put less strain on your eyes.

About the Author:

"James Lewis Thomas Chalmbers Spence (November 25, 1874 - March 3, 1955) was a Scottish journalist, folklorist, poet and occult scholar.

A prolific writer, Spence has been credited in reviving the study of Scottish folklore. After an early career in Scotland as a journalist, about 1906 he began to take a keen interest folklore and mythology. He wrote about Brythonic rites and traditions in The Mysteries of Britain (1905). In this book, Spence theorized that the original Britons were descendants of a people that migrated from Northwest Africa and were probably related to the Berbers and the Basques-this claim is being supported by recent DNA studies.

He then turned to ancient Mexican and Central American mythology. In 1908, he published The Popul Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiche Mayas. This was followed by A Dictionary of Mythology in 1910 and numerous additional volumes.

Spence's researches into the mythology and culture of the New World, together with his examination of the cultures of western Europe and north-west Africa, led him almost inevitably onto the question of Atlantis. During the 1920s he published a series of books which sought to rescue the topic from the occultists who had more or less brought it into disrepute. These works, amongst which were The Problem of Atlantis (1924) and History of Atlantis (1927), continued the line of research inaugurated by Ignatius Donnelly and looked at the lost island as a Bronze Age civilization, a civilization which formed a cultural link with the New World, and which was invoked by him (as also by Donnelly earlier) as an explanation for the striking parallels between the early civilizations of the Old and New Worlds. Spence's erudition and scholarship was impressive; yet the conclusions he reached have been almost universally rejected by mainstream scholarship. Nevertheless, he seems to have had some influence upon the ideas of controversial author Immanuel Velikovsky, whose work continues to cause intense argument and rancorous debate.

Spence's 1940 book Occult Causes of the Present War seems to have been the first book in the field of Nazi occultism.

Over his long career, he published more than forty books, many of which remain in print to this day. Spence was also the founder of the Scottish National..." (Quote from wikipedia.org)