World Mythology

The introduction to this well-planned and methodically organised collection points an interesting contrast between myth as culture and mythology as an academic study. Both aspects are represented in this book which selects and presents myths and legends from around the world and discusses each of them in both cultural and academic contexts. Those of us who recall huge-multi-volume collections of myths and legends from single countries or cultures will wonder at the rashness of claiming to condense the whole world into a single quarto-format manageable volume. The editors readily admit that “A broad collection of this kind is necessarily based...