Mythopedia : A Brief Compendium of Natural History Lore

From acclaimed folklorist and historian Adrienne Mayor, an enchanting collection of the ancient myths that emerged out of the wonders-and disasters-of the natural worldMythopedia is a fun, fact-filled A-Z treasury of myths inspired by natural events.Bringing together fifty legends from antiquity to the present, this delightfully entertaining book takes you around the world to explore sunken kingdoms and lost cities, accursed mountains and treacherous terrains, and lethal lakes and singing sand dunes, explaining the historical background and latest science underlying each tale. As soon as humans invented language, they told stories to explain mysterious things they observed around them-on land, in the seas, and in the skies.Even though these tales are expressed in poetic or supernatural language, they contain surprisingly accurate insights and even eyewitness descriptions of catastrophic events millennia ago.Drawing on her unique insights as a pioneer in the exciting new field of geomyt