Mythology and Folklore

"That is the substance, this the shadow; that the reality, this the dream." -- E.S. Phelps

"Therefore, even the lover of myth is in a sense a philosopher; for myth is composed of wonders." -- Aristotle Myth and Meaning | General Mythology | Myth Publications | Myth, Literature, and the Arts | Classical Mythology | Women in Mythology | Non-European World Mythology Norse and European Myth | Celtic Myth and Faery Lore | The Arthurian Legends | Tales of Robin Hood | The Traveling Peoples | Myth and Magic | Modern Myth & Divination

Myth and Meaning:

The famous myth scholar Joseph Campbell is one of my heroes. Here you can find an email discussion community devoted to Professor Campbell.

One of Campbell's students, author and filmmaker Phil Cousineau, is also online.

Myth is an important part of the psychology of Carl Jung, one of Campbell's primary influences. Here's an excellent Jung Organization in Atlanta. I've written two articles on mythic topics for their newsletter.

Mythology Web features articles, essays, resources, and an excellent discussion forum.

One of the classic pioneering early works in the field of comparative mythology, Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, is available online. A monumental study in comparative folklore, magic and religion, The Golden Bough shows parallels between the rites and beliefs, superstitions and taboos of early cultures and those of Christianity. It had a great impact on psychology and literature and remains an early classic anthropological resource.

Telling My Story is a healing community for dream work and personal mythology. Myth and Meaning was inspired by Professor Campbell's works.

Feeling a little adventurous? Like surprises? Then visit the Legendary Site of the Week! Here's an archive of articles and references on myth and meaning.

You may want to start with these Weekly Articles and Discussions on Folklore.

Myth and Culture is a woman's look at myth's relevance in the modern world. Myth and Metaphor is another look at the meaning of myth in both modern and historical contexts.

Living Myths is also a site well worth visiting, with indepth explorations of story and myth cycles and their relevance.

The Ringing Rocks Foundation works independently and with partners to research, document, and help conserve diverse global wisdom traditions and their healing practices. Through photography, audio and video recordings, and preservation of artifacts, cultural ways are documented and archived for study.

Legends collects resources on folklore, fairytales, and myth. It is a priceless, amazing resource!

Morgana's Observatory includes a wealth of myth references, including some on world myth, religion, modern myth, paganism, Christianity, and feminist mysticism that I haven't seen anywhere else.

General Mythology:

The Encyclopedia Mythica may be one of the most important mythology resources to be found on the Internet. This is an always-growing collection of detailed entries on characters, stories, and motifs from myth cycles from around the world. I recommend it highly.

The Probert Encyclopaedia of Mythology offers a comprehensive Who's Who of the world's mythologies, arranged by tradition for easy reference.

The Myth Encyclopedia provides additional detailed articles explaining both classical (Greek and Roman) as well as less widely known cycles from Africa, Persia, and more.

Myth Search offers a searchable database and discussion forum. This is a great place to start when you have a specific tale that needs tracking, a subject that needs researching, or a question that needs answering.

The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is a well-organized resource.

Godchecker offers another cross cultural mythology encyclopedia, presenting excellent information with a sense of fun and humor. The site has recently been updated to include mythic deities from Finland, Lapland, and China, and even includes Oceanic myth.

Sacred Texts offers an online virtual library of texts and myth sources from a dizzying spectrum of cultures from all over the world. You’ll find sacred texts from the world’s major religions, ancient sagas and myths, poetry, occult references, and even some of the ancient sources for Tolkien’s books. This is a truly wonderful resource—a veritable online Library of Alexandria—and a terrific place to begin your research or just to browse and read.

Here is another excellent resource for electronic myth and folklore texts.

The Library at the University of Miami has a very well organized selection of dictionary and encyclopedia-style articles on myth and folklore topics, arranged by geographic region.

Mythic Crossroads is another fine guide to online resources, especially online texts and sources. Myths and Legends: a resource site with well organized references.

Winged Sandals may be aimed primary at kids and young adults, but the media-rich content, featuring animation, interactivity, and games to teach classical mythology, will be of ineterest to all. It's an absolutel delight!

Here's an excellent annotated index of World Mythology with links to commentary, tales grouped by region, and more. This is truly a fabulous resource and a real treasure for lovers of myths and legends everywhere.

The complete text of the classic resource Bulfinch's Mythology is online.

This collection of myth and folklore is organized by region. This is another excellent guide to folklore and myth on the Web. Timeless Myths is a well organized site with references on Classical, Norse, Arthurian, and Celtic myths. As you might guess, Mything Links provides an annotated list of online references. Well done!

The Big Myth is an amazing animated collection of creation myths from all over the world. site makes a marvelous educational resource allowing teachers all over the world to give students a global perspective on creation mythology.

Transformations is a searchable database that contains contemporary texts that transform traditional texts of several types: classical myth, Shakespeare, fairy tales, and stories from the Bible. A visitor to the site can enter a variety of search terms, from Category (e.g. myth, Shakespeare) to Genre (e.g. poem, story, young adult novel, film), to Subject (e.g. Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, Othello), and the database will respond with a list of modern texts, with full publishing information on each.

This site contains books groups, news, links, and other resources about myth and anthropology. I'm also very imrpessed by Mythology: A Comprehensive Resource.

This site, Coriosolite Expert System, deals with coinage and the mythic symbols that appear on them.

Mythography explores mythology and art with information about the classic stories of heroes and gods... from the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, to the legends of the Celts. The Mythography website also presents resources and reference materials about mythology, including recommended books and lexicons that explain Greek, Roman, and Celtic terms and words.

Mythhome is also a good site for world myth, with timelines and resources arranged by culture.

Spiritwalk offers an excellent collection of mythology links.

Myth-Folklore online also offers some terrific resources.

Decoding Myth offers an interesting take on mythology from an astronomical viewpoint.

"For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies
before it can be dissected. It is possible, I think, to be
moved by the power of myth and yet to misunderstand
the sensation, to ascribe it wholly to something else
that is also present: to metrical art, style, or verbal skill."

"I believe that legends and myth are largely made of truth,
and indeed present aspects of it that can only be perceived
in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of
this kind were discovered and must always reappear."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien

Myth Publications:

Spring Publications is offering some truly important works on myth and psychology by such authors as James Hillman, Nor Hall, Mircea Eliade, Ginette Paris, Thomas Moore, and, of course, one Joseph Campbell. This is an excellent and critical resource for some very hard-to-find works in the subject of art, psychology, religion, and myth.

Parabola Magazine is my favorite magazine. It's always filled with insightful content and it's put together by a great bunch of folks.

The Green Man Review is an online cultural arts magazine focusing on my and folk roots.

Rambles is an online review of folk and roots related literature, music, media, performance, and more.

The American Folklore Society publishes scholarly journals.

Myth, Literature and the Arts:

The Mythopoeic Society is an excellent source for the mythic influences of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. This is a fascinating look at Mythology in Western Art.

Aaron Shepard has put together a page of resources for storytellers.

Song of the Siren is a mythopoeic journal for mythological fiction creative works inspired by mythology, folklore, and dream; and seeing the relevance of mythic thinking in everyday modern life. You'll find artwork, flash fiction, stories, poems, and more. This site really impressed me.

Here's a page on the Origin and Evolution of Fairy Tales, here are the Grimm Tales, here's a collection of Fairy Tales from Around the World.

The Legends fairy tale page is priceless. The University of Maryland has a good Fairy Tale library.

Speaking of fairy tales, here you will find an online forum for the discussion of fairytales and folklore. The participants are a lively, erudite, well-informed bunch. You even find such luminaries as Jane Yolen, Terri Windling, and Clarisa Pinkola Estes participating now and again.

Endicott Studio is home to a number of modern mythmakers, including authors Teri Windling and Charles de Lint and artist Tom Canty. It's well worth a visit!

Here is a fascinating essay on Mythology and Ideology in Italian Renaissance Art.

"The only difference between a story and the truth is how often the story is told."
-- J. Gregory Keyes, The Waterborn

Classical Mythology:

Looking for Greek and Roman myths? Click here.

Nuria Juncosa, a spanish artist living at Amsterdam, has created two beautiful Flash animation films based on two of the romantic conquests of Zeus: The Rape of Europa and Leda and the Swan.

This is the Mother Lode of Greek and Roman Myth references, texts, essays, and resources. Look no further!

Glossary of Allusions to Ancient Greek and Roman Myth in Word and Phrase: this lexicon defines a variety of words and phrases found in English language and literature, and explains how the terms are related to Classical Mythology. Each entry offers an authoritative treatment of one of the principal accounts of its mythological associations. After the main entries, there are two appendices containing cross-references between ancient Greek and Roman names of gods and goddesses. The first appendix provides information about mythological roles of principal ancient Greek gods and goddesses and their Roman counterparts, while the second appendix describes symbols typically associated with a number of ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. At the end of the glossary, there is a list of references and sources containing complete information about each work cited.

Here is The Greek Thelemic Tradition, a plateau of information on the Greek Mystery Tradition today and the progress/evolution of Threskia.

MythWeb offers more on Greek myth, including an encyclopedia.

Women in Myth:

Clio is a fascinating page about women in religion and mythology. Here's an annotated bibliography of Women in Classical Mythology.

This essay, The Dionysiac Mysteries and the Thesmophoria, is fascinating.

Okay, it's not entirely mythology, but Diotima: Women and Gender in the Ancient World is an excellent place on the net to begin research on women in ancient history. It provides a search engine, essays, images, anthologies and bibliographies for research.

Here is a helpful bibliography of Women in Folklore.

This site lists Goddesses from Celtic Myth.

Non-European World Myth:

Interested in Hittite, Canaanite, Hawaiian, Sumerian or Assyro-Babylonian myth cycles? Here is a useful FAQ on Sumerian Myth and this page on ancient cultures contains information on various ancient myth cycles.

Or are you interested in Voodoo? Here's a site on Vodoun Creation Mythology, and here is Vodoun Culture, a truly excellent site that takes an encyclopedic approach to Haitian Sacred Tradition.

Here's a gold mine of Native American mythology resources. This is a resource for Native American storytelling and one for Native American religion and spirituality. Here, you'll find an index of online Native American texts . This page also addresses Native American religion. This page offers Myths and Legends for American Indian Youth.

Here, you'll find an extensive bibliography of Raven Tales. Here is a page for Pacific Northwest Raven tales and here you'll find Inupait Raven tales.

Click here for my own take on Raven!

This is an excellent page on Aboriginal Dreamtime from Australia. This amazing site features mythic masks inspired by the ancient traditions of Australia. Here, you can explore Mayan Folklore. This site is an absolutely amazing resource for Aboriginal artists working with myth in Australia.

MythHome has a good page on Asian Mythology.

Here is a good place to start your exploration of Japanese Mythology. Start here or here for Chinese Mythology.

Visit here or here for Indian/Hindu Mythology.

Here is a page on Korean Myth. This is the mythic tale of the first King of Korea and here is the Korean Creation Myth.

On this page, you'll discover a nice resource on Ancient Mythology in Egypt. This site feature the complete Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Norse and European Myth:

If you're a Viking at heart, here's a guide to the Norse Gods. Here's a Family Album from Asgard, and here's another .

Of course, Norse myth all starts with the Poetic Edda.

This a solid, if brief, Norse reference, and this is an encyclopedia of Norse myth.

This may stretch the definition a bit, but it's too funny not to include. Behold National Lampoon's take on Thor and Loki as college roommates.

The Child Ballads, traditional balladsof England and Scotland collected by Francis Child, are collected online. This is a treasure!

Here's an online treasure trove of ancient sources of European bardic tales, including Welsh, Irish, German, and more. Explore some of the earliest versions of the Arthurian legends, Celtic and Nordic myth, and more.

This site seeks to safeguard Eurpean folklore and traditions.

The Beings of the Woods of Sweden collects stories about the mystical and magical beings that lives in our endless woods.... If you visit the Dark Woods you will meet ugly Trolls, Beautiful Fairies and a Woodnymph! You can also read some great poems by the Swedish poet Gustav Froding, who wrote many poems about the beings in the woods.


"I have this dread that afflicts me . . . it is that, somehow, we have lost the power to generate new 
 mythologies for a technological age.  We are withdrawing into another age's mythotypes, an age 
 when the issues were so much simpler, clearly defined, and could be solved with one stroke of a 
 sword called something like Durththane. We have created a comfortable, sanitized, pseudo feudal 
 world of trolls and orcs and mages and swords and sorcery, big-breasted women in scanty armour 
 and dungeonmasters; a world where evil is a host of angry goblins threatening to take over Hobbitland 
 and not starvation in the Horn of Africa, child slavery in Filipino sweatshops, Columbian drug squirarchs, 
 unbridled free market forces, secret police, the destruction of the ozone layer, child pornography,  snuff 
 videos, the death of the whales, and the desecration of the rain forests. Where is the mythic archetype 
 who will save us from ecological catastrophe, or credit card debit? Where are the Sagas and Eddas of 
 the Great Cities? Where are our Cuchulains and Rolands and Arthurs? Why do we turn back to these 
 simplistic heroes of simplistic days, when black was black and white biological washing-powder white? 
 Where are the Translators who can shape our dreams and dreads, our hopes and fears, into the heroes 
 and villains of the Oil Age?"
             -- Ian MacDonald,  King of Morning, Queen of Day, Bantam Spectra Books

Celtic Myth and Faerie Lore:

Lisala, a self-described "Digital Medievalist," has put together one of the very best Celtic sites to be found anywhere on the World Wide Web.

The Celtic Heart is also terrific. This Irish Myth site is priceless.

Luminarium may be the best Celtic Myth site of all, or one of them, anyway. Don't miss the Book of Kells or these Irish Sites.

Andrew Lang's multi-colored Fairy Books are available online!

This Directory of Irish folklore is very well done. Visit the Scottish Celtic Heritage Trust for more. Here's a page on the folklore and myth of the Orkney Islands, just north of Scotland.

Visions of Albion offers a Bard's-eye View of Britain, including a druidical magical mystery tour through Logres, Alba, Cymru and the Isle of Women in poetry and images.

Here's a page on Celtic Myth with an emphasis on culture and religion in ancient times. Here's an Introduction to the Children of Danu from Celtic lore.

Here's a collection of resources all connected to the Tam Lin motif, a Scottish story of a young girl who must rescue her lover from the queen of the faeries.

This site branches beyond myth into all sorts of Celtic lore, including art, religion, literature, and music.

The Timeless Myths Celtic page offers guides to mythic characters and tales of the Celtic lands. This site lists Goddesses from Celtic Myth.

This excellent site on Welsh folklore and fairy tales is part of a larger site on the culture, history, and language of Wales.

The Florence Harkness Biblical Library of Case Western University's Reserve Library scanned the entire text of the classic work The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland by Charles Squire as it was first published in 1906 and captured it as several .pdf files. You can purchase several modern reprints of this wonderful book, but it's fun to read it in its original printing. Of particular interest is the last chapter which traces the familiar Authurian heros and their stories back to their original rootstock as Welsh and Irish deities.

Want to learn more about the Fair Folk? Try the excellent Faerie Bibliography, the e-fairy guide, the Faerie Dictionary, or Irish fairy lore.

Some of my favorite Scottish tales involve The Selkie Folk. You can also click here for more Selkie lore.

Faerie Lands Forlorn is a new website devoted to fairy tales and fairy lore in the literary and visual arts, featuring complete illustrated fairytales, illustrated fairy-theme ballads and poetry and free and shareware fairy fonts and clip-art.

No Celtic collection would be complete with the Green Man:

For I am gone to the fairy people.
Make the most of your other child
Who prays with you by the village steeple.
I am gone away to the woods and wild.

-- Lord Dunsany, "The Fairy Child"

The Arthurian Legends:

The Camelot Project and Celtic Twilight are two of the best places on the Web to begin your research into the Arthurian Legends. The Camelot project contains an exhaustive collection of original sources, while Celtic Twilight offers an online encyclopedia, a wealth of links, literature, and much more. In fact, Celtic Twlight has recently added a fun new page on Arthurian comics. I recommend both highly.

The Sword and the Grail is my own take on the mythic and archetypal symbolism of the Arthurian legends. Here's my novel, The Widening Gyre , another look at the Arthur tales.

Here's a cool Holy Grail site with lots of good links. This site offers looks at various historical and mythic theories and legends on the nature of the Grail and its fate.

Want to do some reading? Start with the Arthurian Booklist and then visit King Arthur Books. Here are some Medieval texts on the Web.

Here is another index of Arthurian links and resources. Camelot & Arthurian Legend has information and art on the major characters from the myth of Camelot as well as a Camelot art gallery and info on the lesser known characters from the legend.

Lancelot's Castle is a fun site. The Quest is a student-run web page with very good information on the Arthurian Legends. It has a section on the origins of the legend, a section on different characters of the Legend, Arthurian Locations throughout England, and more. There is a very good Arthurian Art Gallery, and even a page on Arthurian games.

Here you can enjoy audio recordings of Arthurian material in Middle and Early Modern English. You can also find resources for teaching the Arthurian legends to all ages, from kindergarten children all the way to graduate students.

Arthuriana is a scholarly journal of Arthurian studies. Recommended! Some of the same scholars were involved in collecting these Arthurian links.

Faces of Arthur presentes a variety of views, opinions, and representations of King Arthur through the ages.

The Timeless Myths page on the Arthurian Legends offers guides to the characters and tales.

Looking for information on the historical sources for Arthurian myth? Click here for one view of this question and a summary of most of the recent academic work on this issue. The site also has a links page.

If you're a fan of the Arthur stories, you might enjoy a virtual tour of Glastonbury Tor, the one-time isle of Avalon.

Tom Green of Oxford University has put together these outstanding Arthurian pages:

Here's a resource on History and the Arthurian Legend. This is another collection of Arthurian links, but it is one of the best. This collection of Arthur, Knights of the Round Table, and Camelot links is stunning. Voice of the Shuttle is another outstanding collection of King Arthur links and references.

This truly outstanding site is a Web-based educational resource designed for teachers interested in Arthur and the Matter of Britian. It includes literature, art, geography, history, science and more.

The may be a little off topic, but you can learn about Arthurian films at Medieval Studies at the Movies: A Basic Reference Guide to Medieval Subjects on Film and Television.

This is an interesting site on some of the archeological work being done at South Cadbury, the bronze age hill fort that may have been Camelot.

Robin Hood:

The Robin Hood Project is brought to you by the same learned folks who created the Camelot Project. Their standards are high.

Legends features Robin Hood resources.

Look no further for a bibliography of Robin Hood links all dedicated to the famous bold outlaw.

You'll also enjoy these Robin Hood Ballads. Also see the Child Ballads, below (under European Myth).

Download the full text of Howard Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood!

Here's a wealth of on-line Robin Hood texts.

The Traveling Peoples:

Interested in the myths and mysteries of the Gypsies and the traveling peoples of the world? This page has a treasure chest of Gypsy links and resources.

Here's a page about the Travelling Peoples of Scotland and Ireland.

Here's another well-crafted Romani (Gypsy) site.

Myth and Magic:

Adam McLean's Alchemy Website is a huge and wonderful site (over 700 pages) exploring Alchemy in every form imaginable, including art, music, paintings, symbols, research, hermetic texts, link lists, current resources and more.

Interested in lore and legends of the merfolk? Dive right in!

This site features magic, parapsychology, aliens and more -- check out The Paraweb.

This is a fun dictionary page featuring descriptions of all sorts of mythical creatures, from dragons to faeries.

Modern Myth and Divination :

Here you'll find of the most fascinating modern myths ever, one that evolved around Miami's street children. Amazing!

Timeless Myths is focused on investigating the facts and history urban myths, ancient legends and tales inbetween, from old wives tales to the Sidhe, King Arthur, and Robin Hood.

Here's a terrific site on the history, myth, and folklore of Santa Claus.

Teachers and students will be interested in Myth Writing With Jane Yolen. Here you can learn to write a myth — a story that explains a natural phenomenon in a creative way. You'll also find writing strategies and a few warm-up activities to get you started. Last but not least, you'll write a myth of your own. Complete the workshop, and you'll receive a personalized Certificate of Achievement signed by Jane Yolen, one of the most prolific and respected authors of children’s fiction!

This site is dedicated to American Folklore.

Interested in Urban Legends and Modern Mythology? Click here! Here's a good index of urban legend resources.

Scopes is all about urban myth, although (sadly) their goal seems to be to dispell them.

Tallystar's CyberRetreat has some fascinating myth links and resources. Check it out!

If you're a fantasy writer like me, or if you're interested in mysticism or archetypal psychology, you've scrolled down to the right place. Want to know what's ahead? Here is a site where you can have your Tarot cards read online. This is another groovy Tarot site. Both sites let you choose from a variety of decks and layout spreads. If you're interested in the connections between Qabala and Tarot, click here. It's cool. The Glastonbury Tarot is my favorite of all.

Or, if you prefer something a bit different, try the Voice of the Woods oracle or Brian Froud's Faery Oracle. Fun.

You can find your horoscope here or here.

Visit the Library and the Writer's Desk!

If you're interested in King Arthur and the Matter of Britain or contemporary
urban fantasy fiction, please read a sample of my novel, The Widening Gyre.

Here are some great on-line Religion and Philosophy resources.

These are my favorite Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Cool Stuff links.

This is some of my very favorite Celtic, folk and classic rock music.

The is me, and this is my homepage.