A fierce troll challenges a smart little boy in this book filled with funny riddles and rebus-like drawings. "The swift, puckish story and its plucky hero will appeal tremendously, especially to the many children inspired to play toll-bridge by The Three Billy Goats Gruff."--Publishers Weekly

While climbing Mt. Baldy, Treva outwits some trolls who want to steal her dog.

While climbing Mt. Baldy, Treva outwits some trolls who want to steal her dog.

Kuriose Figuren, minutiöse Studien nicht ebenmäßiger Gesichter, szenische ›Wimmelbilder‹ und Maskenfiguren der Commedia all'improvviso: 125 Zeichnungen Lodovico Ottavio Burnacinis (1636–1707) im Bestand des Theatermuseums in Wien sind den Themen Groteske und Comoedie zuzuordnen. Geprägt von leuchtenden Farben und lustvoller Veränderung ›natürlicher‹ Proportionen, zeugen sie von einem Menschenbild, in dem die Grenzen zwischen dem Pflanzlichen, Tierischen, Mechanischen und Humanen verschwimmen. In dieser Konfusion erzeugt die Unheimlichkeit des Un- oder Andersförmigen das Lachen. Die Wiederentdeckung der ikonografisch bemerkenswerten Blätter Burnacinis regte zu einer multidisziplinären Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema der Groteske und ihrer Rezeption an. Die zwei Abschnitte dieses Bandes befassen sich mit den Vorbildern Burnacinis und der zeitgenössischen Ikonografie des Grotesken, mit grotesken Praktiken in Literatur, Theater und Film bis in die Gegenwart sowie mit der Groteske als ästhetischer Kategorie.

The Goths-a rumored people first known by history around the river Vistula in present Poland-was the people that more than other contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. It was however also the Goths who preserved the Roman culture against other Germanic tribes. Earlier it has been generally assumed the Goths originated in Scandinavia but during the 20th c. many scholars have grown skeptical. The author has, using both Classical and Nordic sources and supplementary sciences, made probable there is an intimate connection between the Goths and the Nordic countries. Consequently it is quite possible that at least part of the Goths have a Nordic origin. The book rests on the basic hypothesis that the Goths are not a people but a number of tribes and peoples united through a common religious/cultic origin. The old dispute concerning the relationship between Svear and Gautar also gets quite a new meaning. The book is interdisciplinary and embraces history, religion, arts, linguistics and archaeology. In 1999 Ingemar Nordgren received his Ph.D. at Odense University, Denmark The book builds to a considerable extent on his dissertation but has been updated and partly rewritten with brand new material.

The language of crime has a long and venerable history - in fact, the first collection of words specifically used by criminals, Hye-Way to the Spittel House, dates from as early as 1531. Jonathon Green is our national expert on slang, and in Crooked Talk he looks at five hundred years of crooks and conmen - from the hedge-creepers and counterfeit cranks of the sixteenth century to the blaggers and burners of the twenty-first - as well as the swag, the hideouts, the getaway vehicles and the 'tools of the trade'. Not to mention a substantial detour into the world of prisons that faced those unlucky enough to be caught by the boys in blue. If you have ever wondered when the police were first referred to as pigs, why prison guards became known as redraws, or what precisely the subtle art of dipology involves, then this book has all the answers.

A revolutionary tool that has changed the way we use words, the Random House Word Menu functions in four ways: it is a thesaurus with definitions; a dictionary divided into word categories; a reverse dictionary; and a collection of glossaries. A writer's right hand and a browser's delight, this reference contains thousands of entries in over 800 categories.