GR = Folklore (including some fairy tale materials)
GT = Manners and Customs
P-PZ = Literature, including fairy tale traditions in various languages
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When you search, limit to Books & Media CSULB
Some of the titles may be available digitally, some in hard copy on our bookshelves, some both!
Notable Books and Encyclopedias on Folklore & Mythology
Andrews, Tamra. Nectar & Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology.
Bastian, Dawn E. Handbook of Native American Mythology.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends.
Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology.
Castro, Rafaela. Dictionary of Chicano Folklore.
Encyclopedia of American Folklife. 4v.
Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife. 3v.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths.
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. 3v.
Frazier, James George, Sir. The Golden Bough.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology.
Hansen, William F. Handbook of Classical Mythology.
Knowles, Elizabeth. Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
Leeming, David Adams. The Oxford Companion to World Mythology.
Leeming, David Adams. A Dictionary of Asian Mythology.
Lewis, James R. UFOs and Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Myth.
MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology.
Man, Myth, and Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion, and the Unknown. [1995 edition; for earlier edition, 1970]
Heavily illustrated encyclopedia with many short entries.
Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs [book]. 2v.
Opie, Iona, & Moira Tatem. A Dictionary of Superstitions.
Read, Kay Almere, & Jason J. Gonzalez. Handbook of Mesoamerican Mythology.
Rose, Carol. Giants, Monsters, & Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth.
Sax, Boria. The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend, and Literature.
Seal, Graham. Encyclopedia of Folk Heroes.
Simpson, Jacqueline, & Steve Roud. A Dictionary of English Folklore.
Slatta, Richard W. The Mythical West: An Encyclopedia of Legend, Folklore, and Popular Culture.
Steele, Paul R., & Catherine J. Allen. Handbook of Inca Mythology.
Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. 6v.
Watts, Donald. Dictionary of Plant Lore.
Zipes, Jack, ed. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales.
Notable Websites Related to Folk Tales & Mythology
This site includes "retellings of American folktales, Native American myths and legends, tall tales, weather folklore and ghost stories from each and every one of the 50 United States. You can read about all sorts of famous characters like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Daniel Boone, and many more." There are also lesson plans and teacher's resources, ESL readings, tongue twisters, and more. A fun site!
"The Encyclopedia Mythica is an online encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, and legends. It currently contains over 6,100 entries on gods and goddesses, heroes, legendary creatures and beings from all over the world. Some of the topics you can find here, are about: gendary animals such as unicorns and dragons; mythical objects like Excalibur and Mjollnir; gods and goddesses from many religions, including Greek, Japanese, Hindu, and Native American; imaginative places such as Atlantis, Avalon, and Thule; supernatural creatures such as ghosts, gnomes, leprechauns, and fairies; . . . and much, much more."
The Online Medieval & Classical Library
"The Online Medieval and Classical Library (OMACL) is a collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization." You may search by title, author, genre, or language.
Currently Perseus includes materials on Classics, Papyri [non-literary papyri from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods]; English Renaissance [primary and secondary sources in early modern English literature]; London [the Edwin C. Bolles Collection on the history of London from its founding to the 19th century]; California, the Midwest, and Chesapeake [the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection of books on these regions]; Tufts University [primary and secondary sources on the host institution]; Boyle [works and diaries of scientist Robert Boyle]; and electronic exhibits on the Olympic Games and on Hercules/Herakles."
SurLaLune Fairy Tales features 49 annotated fairy tales (from Baba Yaga to the Ugly Duckling), including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations. Also discover over 1,600 folktales & fairy tales from around the world in more than 40 full-text eBooks. A discussion forum is also available.
The Mythic Imagination Institute "creates experiences of the mystery and metaphor in myth and story through art,hands-on activity and cross-disciplinary conversation . . . [conducts] conference and performance festivals . . . endeavor to bring together artists, scientists, business people, psychologists, scholars, performers, educators, philosophers, writers, astronauts, farmers and anyone else who'd like to be a part of it through the common medium of story . . . "
"A partnership of the American Folklore Society and the Indiana University Libraries, Open Folklore is a scholarly resource devoted to increasing the number and variety of open access resources, published and unpublished, that are available for the field of folklore studies and the communities with whom folklore scholars partner."
Other Related Resources
Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time
The name of the site says it all. The Museum of Hoaxes, which hosts this site, also hosts the Top 10 Worst April Fool's Day Hoaxes Ever. Consider some of these hoaxes to be kissing cousins of the Urban Legend.
Considered to be, by many, "the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation."
"What is an urban legend? An apocryphal, secondhand story, told as true and just plausible enough to be believed..." Check them out at this fascinating site!
The first archive of electronic texts, Project Gutenberg provides simple ASCII text of thousands of public domain (out-of-copyright) books.
Alex: A Catalogue of Electronic Texts on the Internet.
The Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts is a collection of public domain documents from American and English literature as well as Western philosophy.
"Digital Book Index provides access to more than 65,000 titles records . . . [it] gathers both commercial and non-commercial eBooks from more than 1800 publishers and private publishing organizations. Titles range from the Ancient Agriculture to Space Flight. An extensive Reference section includes more than 2000 Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Thesauri, Glossaries, Bibliographies, Timelines, Chronologies, Literary Histories, and includes, as well, a section on Writing & Style Guides . . ."
The Online Books Page [University of Pennsylvania]
"The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet.
Text Archive: Internet Archive Open-Access Text Archive
"This collection is free and open for everyone to use."