This story begins on Beijing's winter streets and does not end until you plant your next garden. It is the story of the life of a god and the liberation of magic. Come along on a trip through winding streets and bamboo forest, but don't be surprised when you arrive somewhere you never expected. And before you drink your next glass of kvass, remember the danger...

CONTENTS MYTHOLOGY LEGENDS FOLK TALES REFERENCES INDEX

Jasmyn has suffered more loss than she can bear, but she finds hope when she learns of her grandmother's darkest secret: magic that can reverse time itself. Along with her coven sisters, she journeys to the only place the enchantment will work—the Isle of Enid. Although Jasmyn never learned the spell, she hopes the island's supernatural forces will give her insight and help her turn back the clock. But Jasmyn isn't the only one after this magic. Ryland, an immortal seer, devises a plan to use the spell to go back centuries to kill Finna, Jasmyn's great-grandmother, and change the fate of his people. If he succeeds, Ryland will erase Finna's bloodline from history. Jasmyn's entire family, her sole existence, is at stake, and time is running out.

This book brings together a group of experts on Taiwan who attempt to analyse change on this dynamic island during the whole of the twentieth century. Thus in contrast to many works on Taiwan, this book shows just how important the Japanese colonial antecedents were to the formation of today's Taiwan and help us to understand the complexity of the problems this island will face in the twenty-first century.

During the Song (960-1279), all educated Chinese men traveled frequently, journeying long distances to attend school and take civil service examinations. They crisscrossed the country to assume government posts, report back to the capital, and return home between assignments and to attend to family matters. Based on a wide array of texts, Transformative Journeys analyzes the impact of travel on this group of elite men and the places they visited. In the first part of the book, Cong Ellen Zhang considers the practical aspects of travel during the Song in the context of state mobilization of and assistance to government travelers, including the infrastructure of waterways and highways, the bureaucratic procedures entailed in official travel, and the means of transport and types of lodging. The second part of the book focuses on elite activities on the road, especially the elaborate farewell banquets, welcoming ceremonies, and visits to famous places. Zhang argues convincingly that abundant travel experience became integral to Song elite identity and status, greatly strengthening the social and cultural coherence of the practitioners. In promoting their experience of traveling across a large empire, Song elite men firmly established their position as the country’s political, social, and cultural leaders. The literary compositions and physical traces they left behind also formed an overlapping web of collective memories, continually enhancing local pride and defining the place of various localities in the cultural geography of the country. Transformative Journeys sheds new light on the nature of Chinese literati, their dominance of culture and society, and China’s social and cultural integration. Those interested in premodern China and travel literature will find a wealth of material previously unavailable to Western readers.

This handbook is specially designed to meet the needs of both Chinese and English readers, researchers, and translators who are interested in Chinese culture. The Chinese cultural terms included in this book cover almost all the aspects of Chinese culture, literary, artistic, religious, philosophical, folkloric, classical, vernacular and so on. As many of them have not their English equivalents, the authors have tried to find the corresponding English terms for them as much as possible so that they can be conductive to the readers' grasp of the Chinese cultural terms and phrases when they read or translate a Chinese book about Chinese culture. This book is indispensible and very useful to sinologists, Chinese-English translators and tour guides.

This highly engaging volume by one of Korea’s leading scholars of comparative mythology – the the first study of its kind in English – provides a valuable introduction to centuries-old beliefs, myths and folk tales relating to Cosmology and Flood, Birth and Agriculture, Messengers of the Underworld, Shamans, Disease, Good Fortune, Love and Family, Gods of Village Shrines, and Heroes. Containing thirty traditional stories, the book is fully illustrated throughout and contains a wide variety of Korean art, including rare shamanist paintings, as well as the work of some contemporary Korean artists. All the stories, based on Korean oral tradition, have been retold by the author according to their main plot and meaning because the original texts’ songs by shamans, containing many obsolete words and obscure idioms, are not easily understood today. The original title and source, including text notes, are provided at the end of each story. The author’s Introduction sets out the historical background and significance of the myths that appear here. He also provides full details of each of the Korean gods and their roles in mythology. While being a welcome addition to the literature on Korean culture for the non-specialist, An Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology also provides an invaluable reference source for scholars and researchers in the fields of East Asian Mythology and Anthropology, as well as Korean History, Religion and Literature.

The great city of Merridon, and indeed the whole world, is under threat from The Shadow of Darkness and his fearful army of twisted soldiers. These dark forces are gaining strength and planning to destroy the few remaining White Lights, the guardians of good. The fair Eleanor, keeper of the White Lights, asks her leading knight, Lobian, to undertake a daring quest to the Imperial Mountains in order to find and fulfill an ancient prophecy. After many dangerous adventures, the stage is set for the greatest battle of all: the battle to save the White Lights and all that they cherish. This action-packed science fiction novel will thrill readers of all ages with its depiction of light versus darkness, a quest for a prophecy and a race against time, as well as love, friendship, and betrayal.

In a world where dragons rule the skies while people claim the land, the dragon population is dwindling fast, thanks to hunters. Inside the safety of nesting caves, where magic spells keep strangers away, eggs hold dragons who will one day hatch, grow, and make the long journey to Smoking Mountain to join the dragon society. Odessa, a little bronze dragon, grows quickly while practicing his flying skills-until the day he unwittingly endangers the rest of the dragons. He is asked to leave immediately and reluctantly heads south. But he becomes lost and decides to return home and hide deep within a nesting cave. As he remains concealed for years, Odessa comes to accept his solitary existence without any idea that the dragons, fearing extinction, have decided to trust people with the fate of their young. Three teens are chosen to accompany the latest hatchlings to Smoking Mountain to protect them from hunters. This sets in motion a chain of events that prompts Odessa to reveal himself and embark on a dangerous quest with a young dragon friend to find fairies who disappeared hundreds of years ago. In this charming fantasy, two dragons must rely on their ingenuity and instincts to find the fairies before the nets come down and change their lives forever.