Fabulous Creatures, Mythical Monsters, and Animal Power Symbols: A Handbook

by Cassandra Eason

Eason provides an extensive overview of the mythology, legends, and folklore surrounding fabulous and strange fantasy creatures from diffferent lands and ages, from Chinese dragons and the Native North American thunderbird to the demon hounds of Celtic and Norse legend. She describes how in various ages and cultures people have identified with the idealized qualities of wise creatures as a source of power and better understanding of their own personalities and used the behavior of birds and other sacred creatures to gain oracular information in Ancient Egypt and the Classical and Celtic worlds.

This book offers both traditional and little known folklore and legend about familiar real life creatures such as the horse, the cat, and the raven and delves into the weird and wonderful world of saints who claimed to change into deer and modern cryptozoological monsters such as Bigfoot, Mothman, and lake and sea monsters, as well as the rationale behind animal or headed deities of the Aztecs, Egyptians, and Celts in whose name people went to war.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mythology, Research

181 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 2007

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection of folklore of all stripes, from most regions of the world. The author has clearly collected these stories for almost a lifetime, and often done her own oral-legend field research. It's almost a blizzard of stories, and for those who demand relevance it can seem scattered. But the mix of lore on well-known or legendary beasts grows into a symphony of powerful themes, where animals have always filled our hopes and dreams. The book is not so much about animals themselves as the myths we make about them. It suggests our enormous debt to animal encounters, and the vast poverty of eliminating them from our lives.

[Erva · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some animal meanings deserves mentioning but it won't redeem how butchered the parts about creatures and monsters. The real cause of we are reading this book. You won't gain anything with this book even if you are begginner. This book looks like the writer knows the knowledge but she just wrote down the things are too boring and unnecessary to remember naturally. Don't expect much. The book cover is amazing but it's all there is for this book.

[Liv · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dissapointing. In short - everything and nothing at all.

[Jane Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book presents an overview on myths and legends, really general, nothing in depth, good for a beginner, someone that doesn't who doesn't posses knowledge on the subject. Still, a good book, even if it didn't add too much to what I already knew.