This award‐winning site is the result of the labours of one man ‐ not Heracles the Greek hero, but Michael F. Lindemans, the Dutch hero. Here there are 6,000 articles, 300 illustrations, maps and genealogy tables, all relating to mythology and folklore.
The site is well designed and easy to follow by using a navigation bar which is permanently displayed. The encyclopedia is divided into sections by mythology area, some of its other features being a pronunciation guide, a search facility and an image gallery.
The coverage is comprehensive, its main strength lying not surprisingly with Greek, Roman, Celtic and American mythologies. Incidentally, the American culture seems to refer to North America, but curiously it is filed alphabetically under Native American. There are strong representations also from other cultures such as Judaic, Haitian and Chinese. I was pleased and encouraged to see the Mayan, Latvian and Polynesian folklores and mythologies mentioned in some detail.
The Web site, although built and developed by Mr Lindemans, takes contributions from anyone with an interest. The site’s editorial board comes together periodically to approve material which is to be included. So in some respects this is not all the work of one man; however on close inspection of the list of contributions one notes that of the 6,000 or so articles Mr Lindemans has written 586.
Of the site’s main features the guides to pronunciation and the genealogy tables were particularly useful. The pronunciation guide for English speakers is prefaced by some useful comments, and indeed doubles valuably as a dictionary. The genealogy tables add some graphic content and are useful in themselves as a way of giving an overview. Truly remarkable is the table showing the lineage of the god Zeus!
This site is a good starting point for any investigation into mythology and folklore and as a bonus it also has a large page of links introducing other Web sites in this field.
