Category: excerpts

By Martini Fisher Posted on

BOOK TALK: Giants

Most European giants are represented as being evil and cruel. The term “giant” and the reputation for cruelty derives  from the Gigantes of Greek mythology, who were savage creatures with men’s bodies and serpentine legs.
According to Hesiod, they were children of Gaia and Uranus, born from the blood of Uranus after he had been castrated by his son Cronus. In a war between the Gigantes and the gods of Olympus, called the Gigantomachy, the gods prevailed and the giants were slain or restrained.

By Martini Fisher Posted on

BOOK TALK: Djinns

In English djinns are called genies, a name that came indirectly from the same ancient Semitic root “GNN” (meaning concealment or invisibility) as the Arabic word “djinn”. From this root the Romans got “genius”, referring to a guardian spirit of a person or place. In PreIslamic Arabia the djinns were often worshipped much as the Romans worshipped their “household” gods – they were considered to be the protective and helpful gods of a person, family, household or location – the “genius” of a person or place.

By Martini Fisher Posted on

BOOK TALK: Dragons

Dragons or large serpent-like creatures are so common in mythology and folklore that we should suspect that there are some grains of truth behind them that we have lost sight of – something more than just imagination and fairy stories. Modern dragon lore is mainly fantasy – few of the people who write about them have ever encountered even one little dragon. Apart from occasional tales of sea serpents no reliable reports of dragon sightings have reached Euroamerica in the past eight hundred years, but early in the seventeenth century some European naturalists were still writing about them as if they were common knowledge.