Books: What to Know
Myths That Still Shape Movies
The plot, the people, the point and the ending — then the Boovie film, where there is one.
Popular Myth & Legend
Story guides
The story in one page
The Odyssey
One war, ten years lost at sea, and several gods with grudges.
Homer · myth · 1 on Boovie
The story in one page
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
A bored girl follows a rabbit into a world where eating cake changes your height and logic is optional.
Lewis Carroll · novel · 1 on Boovie
The story in one page
The Mabinogion
A giant king crosses a sea on foot while his sister’s wedding feast is ruined by a very angry brother.
Charlotte Lady Schreiber · myth
The story in one page
Four Arthurian Romances
Knights errant, runaway sparrow-hawks, and swords for bridges: the standard operating procedure for Arthur's table.
de Troyes active 12th century Chrétien · collection
The story in one page
The Frogs
Dionysus goes to the Underworld to rescue a poet, but the candidates won't stop bickering.
Aristophanes · play
The story in one page
Orlando Furioso
A paladin goes mad, a hippogriff visits the moon, and two lovers fight fate to start an Italian dynasty.
Lodovico Ariosto · myth
The story in one page
Andersen's Fairy Tales
A Flea competes for a princess’s hand, a tree regrets growing up, and two rogues weave a suit of nothing.
H. C. Andersen · collection
The story in one page
The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism
A young philosopher argues the Greeks were only beautiful because they were profoundly miserable.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche · history
The story in one page
The Iliad
A king steals a hero’s girl, a hero sulks in his tent, and Troy pays the price in blood.
Homer · myth
The story in one page
The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
A Portuguese explorer braves unmapped oceans, jealous gods, and hostile merchants to trade pepper for national glory.
Luís de Camões · myth
The story in one page
Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales
A prince brings a rose, a princess brings a pea, and everyone is vaguely dissatisfied.
H. C. Andersen · collection
The story in one page
Grimm's Fairy Stories
A king blows feathers into the wind to pick an heir while a soldier negotiates a living bear-skin suit.
Jacob Grimm · collection
The story in one page
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
A boy pulls a sword from a stone, founds an elite fellowship, and watches it crumble through betrayal and magic.
Thomas Sir -1471 Malory · myth
The story in one page
Oedipus King of Thebes
Thebes is dying of plague, and King Oedipus hunts the murderer to end it.
Sophocles · play
The story in one page
Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem
A monster terrorizes a royal mead-hall for twelve years; a visitor from across the sea decides to fix it.
J. Lesslie Hall · myth
The story in one page
Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Complete
A poet walks through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; he sees exactly what you might expect.
Dante Alighieri · myth
The story in one page
The Nibelungenlied
Siegfried fights dragons, wins a queen, and ruins everything for his in-laws.
G. H. Needler · Myth
The story in one page
The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'
A Victorian doctor examines how John Milton built a universe using both ancient myths and the latest telescope discoveries.
Thomas Nathaniel Orchard · history
The story in one page
Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
A statesman and his friend debate whether virtue can actually outrun a really bad week.
Marcus Tullius Cicero · Expository Philosophy
The story in one page
The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga); with Excerpts from the Poetic Edda
A family tree grows around a divine sword, but its branches eventually buckle under the weight of cursed dragon treasure.
Eiríkr Magnússon · myth
The story in one page
Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
A farmer explains the weather, gods fight for their lives, and the missing chapters of the Trojan War finally appear.
Hesiod · poetry
The story in one page
Critias
A philosopher describes a perfect prehistoric Athens and the wealthy island empire that collapsed after losing its divine spark.
Plato · dialogue
The story in one page
The Fables of La Fontaine
The wolf is hungry, the fox is lying, and the ant is busy judging everyone.
Jean de La Fontaine · Poetry
The story in one page
Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
A courtier decodes the secrets of power, the anatomy of anger, and the hidden political manuals buried inside ancient Greek myths.
Francis Bacon · collection
The story in one page
The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII
Gods pursue nymphs, heroes sail for gold, and humans turn into trees, birds, or stars at the slightest divine whim.
Ovid · poetry
The story in one page
Le Morte Darthur
One king, a round table, and a collection of knights who mostly just hit each other.
Thomas Sir -1471 Malory · Myth
The story in one page
The House of Atreus; Being the Agamemnon, the Libation bearers, and the Furies
A king returns from war to a murderous wife, starting a cycle of family killings that only a trial can end.
Aeschylus · collection
The story in one page
The Authoress of the Odyssey
An amateur sleuth scans the Odyssey for clues that Homer was actually a woman.
Samuel Butler · ideas
The story in one page
The Birds
Two men leave Athens to start a city in the clouds. Birds take over.
Aristophanes · play
The story in one page
The Agamemnon of Aeschylus
A king returns from ten years of war to find his welcome mat is a death trap.
Aeschylus · play
The story in one page
The Seven Plays in English Verse
A king discovers his parentage, a sister breaks the law, and gods never stop watching.
Sophocles · collection
The story in one page
The Argonautica
A king fears a one-sandaled man, so he sends fifty heroes on a boat toward a very dangerous sheepskin.
Rhodius Apollonius · poetry
The story in one page
The Aeneid
A survivor flees a burning city, survives a goddess's grudge, and finally finds a place to land.
Virgil · myth
The story in one page
Medea of Euripides
Jason leaves his wife for a princess, failing to anticipate her rather extreme plan for alimony.
Euripides · Play
The story in one page
The Song of Roland
A king spends seven years conquering Spain, but his rear guard loses everything in an afternoon.
C. K. Scott-Moncrieff · myth
The story in one page
The Epic of Gilgamish
A prehistoric king dreams of falling stars while a wild satyr learns that beer and bread are the keys to civilization.
Stephen Langdon · myth
The story in one page
The Story of Beowulf, Translated from Anglo-Saxon into Modern English Prose
The Danish king has a pest problem in his living room, and a Geat offers to handle it.
Ernest J. B. Kirtlan · novel
The story in one page
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
Ten stories where the woods are dangerous, the cats are devious, and magic rarely simplifies anything.
Charles Perrault · collection
The story in one page
Twenty-Two Goblins
A king must carry a talkative goblin across a cemetery without speaking, or risk his head literally exploding.
Arthur W. Ryder · myth
The story in one page
Three hundred Aesop’s fables
A frog gets pelted with stones and points out the obvious to the neighborhood children.
Aesop · collection
The story in one page
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Two ancient tablets surface, and a pair of academics spend decades arguing about the translation.
Morris Jastrow · myth
The story in one page
The Golden Asse
A man obsessed with sorcery accidentally transforms into a donkey. Staying that way is harder.
Apuleius · novel
The story in one page
Fairy dreams
A prince kneels, a hermit chats with ospreys, and the frost paints pictures on a bedroom window.
Jane G. Austin · collection
The library
2,535 myth & legend
In the library
'Round the Year in Myth and Song
Florence Holbrook · poetry
In the library
'Round the yule-log: Christmas in Norway
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen · short story
In the library
"Gombo Zhèbes." Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs
Lafcadio Hearn · reference
In the library
"Out of the East": Reveries and Studies in New Japan
Lafcadio Hearn · myth
In the library
1000 Mythological Characters Briefly Described
Edward Sylvester Ellis · reference
In the library
A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales
myth
In the library
A Book of Cornwall
S. Baring-Gould · myth
In the library
A Book of Giants: Tales of Very Tall Men of Myth, Legend, History, and Science.
Henry Wysham Lanier · myth
In the library
A Book of Myths
Jean Lang · myth
In the library
A Book of Old Ballads — Complete
Beverley Nichols · poetry
In the library
A Book of Old Ballads — Volume 1
Beverley Nichols · poetry
In the library
A Book of Old Ballads — Volume 2
Beverley Nichols · poetry
In the library
A Book of Old Ballads — Volume 3
Beverley Nichols · poetry
In the library
A Book of Old Ballads — Volume 4
Beverley Nichols · poetry
In the library
A Book of the Pyrenees
S. Baring-Gould · travel
In the library
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon
S. Baring-Gould · myth
In the library
A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall
S. Baring-Gould · myth
In the library
A Bundle of Ballads
Henry Morley · poetry
In the library
A Burlesque Translation of Homer
Thomas active Bridges · myth
In the library
A Celtic Psaltery
Alfred Perceval Graves · poetry
In the library
A Child's Book of Saints
William Canton · myth
In the library
A Child's Story Garden
Elizabeth Heber · myth
In the library
A Chinese Wonder Book
Norman Hinsdale Pitman · myth
In the library
A classical dictionary
John Lemprière · reference
In the library
A Collection of Ballads
Andrew Lang · poetry
In the library
A Collection of Scotch Proverbs
Pappity Stampoy · myth
In the library
A creel of Irish stories
Jane Barlow · short story
In the library
A Digit of the Moon: A Hindoo Love Story
F. W. Bain · novel
In the library
A dramatization of Longfellow's Hiawatha: A spectacular drama in six acts
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · play
In the library
A Draught of the Blue, together with An Essence of the Dusk
F. W. Bain · novel
In the library
A Farmer's Wife: The Story of Ruth
James Hartwell Willard · myth
In the library
A Fleece of Gold; Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
Charles Stewart Given · myth
In the library
A floral fantasy in an old English garden
Walter Crane · poetry
In the library
A Golfing Idyll; Or, The Skipper's Round with the Deil On the Links of St. Andrews
Violet Flint · poetry
In the library
A Group of Eastern Romances and Stories from the Persian, Tamil and Urdu
W. A. Clouston · myth
In the library
A Guide to Mythology
Helen A. Clarke · collection
In the library
A handy dictionary of mythology
Thomas Preston · reference
In the library
A Heroine of France: The Story of Joan of Arc
Evelyn Everett-Green · novel
In the library
A History of Nursery Rhymes
Percy B. Green · myth
In the library
A House of Pomegranates
Oscar Wilde · myth
In the library
A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine · collection
In the library
A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla
Leigh Hunt · ideas
In the library
A Kidnapped Santa Claus
L. Frank Baum · novel
In the library
A kiss for Cinderella: A comedy
J. M. Barrie · play
In the library
A Legend of Goat Island
Peter A. Porter · poetry
In the library
A Little Book of Filipino Riddles
Frederick Starr · myth
In the library
A Maid in Arcady
Ralph Henry Barbour · novel
In the library
A marvelous history of Mary of Nimmegen
Harry Morgan Ayres · play