Fairytales and Mythology Archives - Classical Education Books

The Ramayana

sarah — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 20:11:56 +0000

A delightfully straightforward and lyrical retelling of the ancient Indian epic of loyalty, betrayal, redemption, and insight into the true nature of life — one of history’s most sacred ethical works, rendered with completeness and sterling accuracy for the modern reader.

Here is one of the world’s most hallowed works of sacred literature, the grand, sweeping epic of the divine bowman and warrior Rama and his struggles with evil, power, duplicity, and avarice. The Ramayana is one of the foundations of world literature and one of humanity’s most ancient and treasured ethical and spiritual works.

Includes an introduction by scholar Michael Sternfeld.

Companion Resources:

Beautiful Feet Books Ancient History: Senior High Pack

The post The Ramayana appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Legend of the North

sarah — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 22:31:49 +0000

Sample

Amitok is the smallest and the weakest of the pups born to the white wolf family. His brother Skal is strong, and he quickly emerges as the natural leader who will one day take over the job of their father, old Tuluk, to lead the wolf pack. But Amitok is swift and smart, and Skal is proud and reckless, and it is Skal’s foolishness that leads to the brothers’ terrifying encounter with a snow bear. When the battle is over, Amitok finds himself alone on the ice. He drifts for days, until the spirit of his father’s father, Kivvik, appears to lead him to safety.

It was a white man’s gun that killed Kivvik. The man took the hide from his body. Later it was the wolverine who ate the flesh and broke the bones to suck out the marrow. But they did not take the spirit of Kivvik, the great white wolf. Kivvik’s spirit gives strength and direction to Amitok, and Amitok grows from a timid pup into a great wolf able to follow Kivvik. Now far from his family and the land he knows, Amitok must use that strength to make his way home across the great Arctic tundra, a journey that will change him forever. But it is when Amitok and Kivvik come to interact with the men who inhabit their barren land that their story becomes a legend of the north.

This is a mighty fable, a legend of the Inuit that Sullivan portrays artfully.

The post Legend of the North appeared first on Classical Education Books.

The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (Paperback)

AWiebe — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 18:23:02 +0000

Sample

Discover Christ through Ancient Myths!

Join renowned author Dr. Louis Markos on an unparalleled adventure for the modern Christian! In the spirit of C. S. Lewis, whose own acceptance of Christ hinged on his understanding that Christ is the myth become fact, The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes mines wisdom of eternal value from the great storehouses of Greek and Roman mythology and traces the links that bind those myths to the Bible and the Christian life.

The Myth Made Fact takes its readers on an exploration of Greco-Roman characters, art, and stories—one that spans 50 myths and sheds new light on the legends of Hercules, Orpheus, Jason, Phaedra, Oedipus, and many more! The journey through myth unfolds through six unique parts, each pointing beyond the lustful and wrathful Olympian gods to the One Holy Creator who stands, like Aslan, at the back of all our stories.

Part I: Journeys and Origins
Part II: Platonic Myths
Part III: The Four Great Heroes
Part IV: The Tragic House of Thebes
Part V: The Tragic House of Atreus
Part VI: Love Lost and Found

The Myth Made Fact offers distinct insight into how the common people of pagan Greece and Rome received their myths and used them as guides to virtuous living. By doing so, Dr. Markos helps his readers receive myth in the right spirit: not as historical tales that contradict the Bible, but as testimonies to the yearnings of people who lacked clear revelation but nevertheless hungered and thirsted for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

The post The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (Paperback) appeared first on Classical Education Books.

The Odyssey

shipping — Mon, 23 May 2022 17:19:27 +0000

Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer’s best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning modern-verse translation. “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.” So begins Robert Fagles’ magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in the New York Times Book Review hails as “a distinguished achievement.”

If the Iliad is the world’s greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature’s grandest evocation of an everyman’s journey through life. Odysseus’ reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

In the myths and legends retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer’s original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox’s superb introduction and textual commentary provide insightful background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles’s translation. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the general reader, to captivate a new generation of Homer’s students. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition features French flaps and deckle-edged paper.

The post The Odyssey appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Sophocles I: Antigone/Oedipus the King/Oedipus at Colonus (Complete Greek Tragedies) Third Edition

shipping — Fri, 20 May 2022 00:07:20 +0000

Series edited by David Grene & Richmond Lattimore.

The post Sophocles I: Antigone/Oedipus the King/Oedipus at Colonus (Complete Greek Tragedies) Third Edition appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Tales of the Greek Heroes

CEBAdmin — Mon, 16 May 2022 23:48:30 +0000

The mysterious and exciting legends of the gods and heroes in Ancient Greece, from the adventures of Perseus, the labours of Heracles, the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, to Odysseus and the Trojan wars. Introduced with wit and humour by Rick Riordan, creator of the highly successful Percy Jackson series.

The post Tales of the Greek Heroes appeared first on Classical Education Books.

The Adventures of Odysseus & The Tale of Troy

sarah — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 22:43:14 +0000

Sample

In this retelling of the Odyssey, Padraic Colum introduces young readers to Odysseus, the Greek hero of the Trojan War who has been away from his home and his family for twenty years.

The Adventures of Odysseus & The Tale of Troy has all the essentials of Homer’s epic: the son, Telemachus, searching for news about his father; the faithful wife, Penelope, refusing to marry again despite a throng of suitors; and Odysseus himself, struggling against monsters, storms, and the wrath of gods to be reunited with his family and regain his place as king of Ithaka.

The post The Adventures of Odysseus & The Tale of Troy appeared first on Classical Education Books.

The Complete Fairy Tales

sarah — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 03:38:39 +0000

The subjects are those of traditional fantasy: good and wicked fairies, children embarking on elaborate quests, and journeys into unsettling dreamworlds.

Within this familiar imaginative landscape, his children’s stories were profoundly experimental, questioning the association of childhood with purity and innocence, and the need to separate fairy tale wonder from adult scepticism and disbelief.…

The post The Complete Fairy Tales appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Tales of Wonder Set

CEBAdmin — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 06:27:25 +0000

Tales of Wonder Volume I provides eight of the most popular (and essential) fairy tales ever told, as recorded by the Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen. Included within each story are questions to ask while reading aloud to your children or students. At the end of each tale are additional questions to ask after the reading, as well as tips for listening for echoes. No matter how old your students are, Tales of Wonder offers a context for contemplative reading and deep thinking about some of the most lively and enjoyable stories ever told.

Tales Wonder Volume 1
Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, The Little Mermaid, Rumpelstiltskin, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella

Tales of Wonder Volume II provides eight more of the most popular (and essential) fairy tales ever told, as recorded by Andrew Lang, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen. Included within each story are questions to ask while reading aloud to your children or students. At the end of each tale are additional questions to ask after the reading, as well as tips for listening for echoes. No matter how old your students are, Tales of Wonder offers a context for contemplative reading and deep thinking about some of the most lively and enjoyable stories ever told.

Tales of Wonder Volume 2:
Sleeping Beauty, The Emperor’s New Suit, The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, The Three Little Pigs, The Golden Goose, Jack and the Beanstalk

“[The fairy tale] stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: The reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.” – C.S Lewis

The post Tales of Wonder Set appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Phantastes

CEBAdmin — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 20:58:43 +0000

Introduction by C. S. Lewis

In October 1857, George MacDonald wrote what he described as “a kind of fairy tale, in the hope that it will pay me better than the more evidently serious work.” This was Phantastes–one of MacDonald’s most important works; a work which so overwhelmed C. S. Lewis that a few hours after he began reading it he knew he “had crossed a great frontier.”

The book is about the narrator’s (Anodos) dream-like adventures in fairyland, where he confronts tree-spirits and the shadow, sojourns to the palace of the fairy queen, and searches for the spirit of the earth. The tale is vintage MacDonald, conveying a profound sadness and a poignant longing for death.

The post Phantastes appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Selections from The Blue Fairy Book (Second Edition)

CEBAdmin — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:30:47 +0000

Sample

Fairy tales didn’t start with Disney. Learn the real stories behind some of the greatest tales of all time. These timeless fairy tales help children imagine how they want to live their lives. The original fairy tales don’t always have a perfect ending and help illuminate right and wrong in a gentle way. Open your child’s imagination and love for literature with these wonderful stories from The Blue Fairy Book.

Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess
Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper
Beauty and the Beast
Why the Sea is Salt
Felicia and the Pot of Pinks
Snow-White and Rose-Red
Toads and Diamonds
The Princess on the Glass Hill
Prince Darling
Hansel and Grettel

Companion Resources:

The Blue Fairy Book – Student Guide
The Blue Fairy Book – Teacher Guide
The Blue Fairy Book Set

The post Selections from The Blue Fairy Book (Second Edition) appeared first on Classical Education Books.

Classical Mythology A to Z

CEBAdmin — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 21:40:35 +0000

An encyclopedic A-to-Z guide, this beautifully illustrated volume offers hundreds of rich, fascinating definitions of 700 major and minor characters, creatures, and places of classical mythology. Classical Mythology A-to-Z is a comprehensive and engrossing guide to Greek and Roman mythology. Written by Annette Giesecke, PhD, Professor of Classics and Chair of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies [...]

The post Classical Mythology A to Z appeared first on Classical Education Books.