Looking for info; Top Five #1

[curgoth]

I'm looking for new sources of various things, so I'm going to start posting "Top Fives", asking for peoples' favourites.

To start with, I'm looking for mythology books. I want actual readable stories, rather than narrative novelizations or reference/analyses of the myths.

What are your top five (or top one, if that's all you can come up with) books for mythological stories? Bonus points for anything that doesn't focus exclusively on Greco-Roman myths.

Comments

[evilmonk.livejournal.com]

i heart cuhulain (probably spelling that wrong) ancient warrior who used a magical spear to fight. loose ties with arthurian legends (morgain<->morrigan). I will try and dig out the book tonight. I think it is called "midieval myths" we used it in history classes in college.

[rumbeverage.livejournal.com]

How about The Kalevala. Its Finnish and a good read! :P

[curgoth]

Any suggestions for a good translation? Or is there likely to be more than one?

[henchminion.livejournal.com]

Evilmonk is thinking of the Táin Bó Cúailgne, <a href="http://vassun.vassar.edu/~sttaylor/Cooley/>The Cattle Raid of Cooley</a>, an eighth-century Irish epic. For Norse stuff, the Poetic Edda is good fun too.

[curgoth]

Any recommendations for translations of either the Cattle Raid or the Eddas? My Gaelic and Old Norse are a little rusty. :)

[henchminion.livejournal.com]

That's weird; Livejournal chopped off most of my comment. There's an online translation of the Tain here, though I think the one by Thomas Kinsella from Oxford University Press may be a nicer read.

For the Poetic Edda, I have the translation by Lee Hollander from the University of Texas Press and I like that one well enough.

[curgoth]

The full comment came through in my e-mail - there was a missing quote at the start of the URL, which caused the restr of the comment to get eaten.

I'll take a look for the translations of the Cattle Raid and the Edda.

Hmmm...

[lightning-rider.livejournal.com]

well I think American Gods by Neil Gaiman, would be number 1 as I remember it the best. Not a re-telling of myths per say but it does have alot of mythological characters in it- including Odin.

Just So Stories by Kipling. I have a wonderfully old copy of these stories and rather love them.

Last Call by Tim Powers- It's like American Gods in that it has a mish mash of mythos.

Sorry that's all I have right now... If I remember more I'll try to find my way back here

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

Joseph Campbell wrote a book called The Hero With a Thousand Faces that's supposed to be pretty good, and a whole series called The Masks of God, which is almost exactly as you describe. I haven't read them yet but they're on my list.

[curgoth]

Is it actual myth, or metamyth?