"The Blessing of Pan is told from the perspective of Elderick Anwrel, the mild-mannered reverend of the community of Wolding. Anwrel is increasingly disturbed by a haunting, compelling tune played by a boy, Tommy Duffin, who has fashioned a pipe made from reeds. The tune, as the story unfolds, exercises an unwholesome influence on the population of Wolding – first the young women, then the young men, and then the other inhabitants – even Anwrel’s wife, are compelled to dance to the tune of the pipes on nearby Wold Hill, atop which is a megalithic site – the “Old Stones of Wolding”. Finally, Anwrel himself joins the people in their revelry, performing a pagan sacrifice" --Enfolding.org.

From ancient myth to contemporary art and literature, a beguiling look at the many incarnations of the mischievous—and culturally immortal—god Pan, now in paperback. Pan—he of the cloven hoof and lustful grin, beckoning through the trees. From classical myth to modern literature, film, and music, the god Pan has long fascinated and terrified the western imagination. “Panic” is the name given to the peculiar feeling we experience in his presence. Still, the ways in which Pan has been imagined have varied wildly—fitting for a god whose very name the ancients confused with the Greek word meaning “all.” Part-goat, part-man, Pan bridges the divide between the human and animal worlds. In exquisite prose, Paul Robichaud explores how Pan has been imagined in mythology, art, literature, music, spirituality, and popular culture through the centuries. At times, Pan is a dangerous, destabilizing force; sometimes, a source of fertility and renewal. His portrayals reveal shifting anxieties about our own animal impulses and our relationship to nature. Always the outsider, he has been the god of choice for gay writers, occult practitioners, and New Age mystics. And although ancient sources announced his death, he has lived on through the work of Arthur Machen, Gustav Mahler, Kenneth Grahame, D. H. Lawrence, and countless others. Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return traces his intoxicating dance.

Dion Fortune’s esoteric novels were written as guides to magic and inner development to be used along with her great nonfiction work The Mystical Qabalah. This book shows how to work with her most popular creations, exploring how the stories and characters can help you integrate the secrets of the Tree of Life and discover what Fortune called “the keys to the temple.” Authors Penny Billington and Ian Rees show how to use Fortune’s brilliant insights to gain a direct sense of being present in your body, master the art of the embodied imagination, discover your vitality, and open up to the clarity and love that arise from the root of your being. With an exploration of Fortune’s writings, experiential practices, and a hands-on workbook section, you will learn to utilize the wealth of esoteric wisdom found in The Mystical Qabalah, The Goat-Foot God, The Sea Priestess, The Winged Bull, and Moon Magic. Praise: “This wonderful evocation of Dion Fortune’s esoteric novels offers initiatory and practical pathways to the neophyte and reader!”—Caitlín & John Matthews, authors of The Lost Book of the Grail

From the publication of his first book in 1905 until his death, Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) was an immensely popular Anglo-Irish writer. He has long been admired in the realms of fantasy, horror, and supernatural fiction and was a friend and colleague of writers W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, James Stephens, and Oliver St. John Gogarty. In recent years he has enjoyed a resurgence as a pioneering fantasy writer and an immense influence on later work in the genre. Critical Essays on Lord Dunsany is the first volume to assemble studies of Dunsany’s short fiction, novels, plays, and memoirs, as well as discussions of his influence on such writers as J. R. R. Tolkien and H. P. Lovecraft. The book also contains early articles and reviews by Yeats, Lovecraft, H. L. Mencken, Rebecca West, and Arthur C. Clarke. Seven original essays by leading contemporary scholars on Dunsany examine the use of medieval archetypes in his fantasy novels; the distinctiveness of his recurring character, clubman Joseph Jorkens; the influence of Don Quixote on his first novel, The Chronicles of Rodriguez (1922); the treatment of religion in his later novels; and other subjects. This anthology presents a comprehensive snapshot of Dunsany’s distinctive work and his contribution to fantasy fiction and world literature. Making a case for the continued study of this neglected but hugely influential writer, Critical Essays on Lord Dunsany will be of great interest to enthusiasts of Dunsany’s work as well as students and scholars of fantasy, horror, the supernatural, and Irish literature.

Like its companion volume, "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction", this massive reference of 4,000 entries covers all aspects of fantasy, from literature to art.

This book reveals the unique contribution made by the three founding fathers of British fantasy—Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison and J. R. R. Tolkien—to our culture’s perennial reassessment of the meanings of time, death and eternity. It traces the poetic, philosophical and theological roots of the striking preoccupation with mortality and temporality that defines the imagined worlds of early fantasy fiction, and gives both the form of such fiction and its ideas the attention they deserve. Dunsany, Eddison and Tolkien raise some of the oldest questions in existence: about the limits of nature, human and divine; cosmic creation and destruction; the immortality conferred by art and memory; and the paradoxes and uncertainties generated by the universal experience of transience, the fear of annihilation and the desire for transcendence. But they respond to those questions by means of thought experiments that have no precedent in modern literary history. This book has won the '2021 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award' for Myth and Fantasy Studies.

Ronald Hutton is known for his colourful and provocative writings on original subjects. This work is no exception: for the first full-scale scholarly study of the only religion England has ever given the world; that of modern pagan witchcraft, which has now spread from English shores across four continents. Hutton examines the nature of that religion and its development, and offers a microhistory of attitudes to paganism, witchcraft, and magic in British society since 1800. Its pages reveal village cunning folk, Victorian ritual magicians, classicists and archaeologists, leaders of woodcraft and scouting movements, Freemasons, and members of rural secret societies. We also find some of the leading of figures of English literature, from the Romantic poets to W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves, as well as the main personalities who have represented pagan witchcraft to the world since 1950. Densely researched, Triumph of the Moon presents an authoritative insight into a hitherto little-known aspect of modern social history.