Old Teutonic ideas concerning the dead were not very defined. Souls were conceived as in the air, sweeping past on the winds; they formed the phantom host accompanying the wild huntsmen of popular tradition. Or they might be dwelling in the hills, perhaps feasting there with Odhin, before Valhalla was known... -from then entry for Hel, the early Scandinavian abode of the dead From "Aah" (an Egyptian moon god) to "Ziudsuddu" (the Sumerian hero of the Creation), this is a deliciously browsable dictionary of the folklore of Europe, the ancient Americas, and the Near and Far East. Originally published in 1912 and weaving connections between the deities and legendary heroes of diverse traditions-are Krishna and Arthur spiritual brothers?-this will delight readers of mythology and comparative religion. Scottish occultist LEWIS SPENCE (1874-1955) was a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and vice president of the Scottish Anthropological and Folklore Society. A renowned scholar of the Atlantis myth, he authored numerous books of mythology, folklore, and the occult, including The History of Atlantis (1926), The Occult Causes of the Present War (1940), and The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain (1945). MARIAN EDWARDES also wrote A Pocket Lexicon & Concordance to the Temple Shakespeare and translated (with Edgar Taylor) Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm.
