Human beings tell each other tales, be they fireside or through the visual media of movies. This collection of short stories are modern tales told with the feel of ancient legends. From the tale of a bargain made for vengence to what might happen after the Norse end of the worl, Ragnarok, these tales are but echoes of Elder Times. The ten previously published tales have been re-edited and there is one entirely new story collected together in this book.

A collection of folktales from long ago about the Northwest Coast of North America and the Indians who lived there.

From comic books to summer blockbusters, all people enjoy art in some form or another. However, few of us can effectively explain why certain books, movies, and songs resonate so profoundly within us. In Echoes of Eden, Jerram Barrs helps us identify the significance of artistic expression as it reflects the extraordinary creativity and unmatched beauty of the Creator God. Additionally, Barrs provides the key elements for evaluating and defining great art: (1) The glory of the original creation; (2) The tragedy of the curse of sin; (3) The hope of final redemption and renewal. These three qualifiers are then put to the test as Barrs investigates five of the world's most influential authors who serve as ideal case studies in the exploration of the foundations and significance of great art.

Sounding 1: BEFORE 1840 The notes, journals and characters of Aboriginal Protectors William Thomas and his Chief George Robinson form the backbone of this compilation. With this ethnographic material we learn something of the Kulin worldview into this mostly white-fella history. Sounding 1: Before 1840 describes the initial British and European experiences, events, observations, intentions, self-serving judgements, ignorance, naivete, treachery and so on when they found Oz and proclaimed the continent theirs by the now obvious fiction of terra nullius – Latin legalese for ‘land belonging to no people’. The reader may enjoy separating the grains of truth from the chaff propaganda of Empire capitalism or racist / sectarian Christian bible dogma that was the self-serving mindset of the white land-takers. Batman and Fawkner’s land-hunting deals with local koori’s along with the re-emergence of the remarkable wild white castaway Buckley made their mark on the first settlement at Melbourne. The focus widens in 1836 with Surveyor-General Major Mitchell’s and his Wuradjuri guides ‘conquering the interior’ from the Murray near Mildura to the Western District at Portland and then back north-east across the state to the Murray upstream at Albury. His wheel tracks opened up Victoria from the north. First contact race interactions at Port Phillip and the notion of cultural-coexistence during the first five years leads to the role of ‘successful battler’ and publican Fawkner in the colonial invasion process from Kulin country to sheep-run to city. Sounding 1 then winds up with Melbourne’s first executions and descriptions of Port Phillip as the money melting pot forming the Melbourne hub of world capitalism. Twentieth century academic studies now identify native religion, language zones, tribal locations and clan heads at the time of dispossession by pirate capitalism. In describing the Australian land-rush the chapter echoes oscillate between history, sociology, race theory, trade and class wars, whaling and sealing, imperialism and the monopoly East India Company army mates all pitted against the ‘vanishing race’ of hunter-gathering ‘savages’. The dispossession was virtually complete in Victoria before the 1850’s gold rushes transformed the sheep-runs into banker’s dividend wealth for the ‘winners’. Sounding 2: DISPOSSESSION AT MELBOURNE: Sounding 2 unfolds gently with a wistful early Melbourne memoir involving Batman’s lost lawyer Gellibrand in 1836 but then we confront the frontier ‘kill or be killed’ point of necessity. The violent life, times and fate of mass murderer Fred Taylor who was first employed as overseer for banker Swanston’s Bellarine peninsula land-grab sets the local dispossession tone. Taylor’s repeated atrocities today exposes a credibility gap in Oz – between civilized progress and slaughter, that now looms over all else in Victoria’s birth as an independent state in 1851. The winter of 1837 saw the first violent death of a white squatter and his servant by ‘savage natives’ north-west of Williamstown at Mt Cotterell. Town leaders such as Fawkner and ‘police chief’ Henry Batman formed a posse that also included clan heads from both the Melbourne and Geelong tribal areas. Buckley refused to take part in the vigilante party and its punitive actions belied the humanitarian standards expressed in Batman’s treaty deed. This revenge slaughter and destruction of ‘villages’ by the white invaders forced the Sydney government to investigate and so began administering ‘law and order’ at Port Phillip. By 1838 Sydney trumped Batman’s land-grab and the penal government of NSW on the one hand executing eight ‘whites’ for killing what the newspapers called ‘savages’, while on the other hand providing sufficient speedy cavalry to tackle black resistance in Victoria at places such as west of Colac and near Benalla after the Faithfull massacre. The arrival in 1839 of first governor La Trobe and the Aboriginal Protectorate plan then unfolds the development of town civic structures while tribal life disintegrates. Government and private measures to ‘tame the naked Melbourne natives’ culminated with the dawn Merri Creek round-up in October 1840 of hundreds of Kulins by Major Lettsom’s redcoats and townsmen. This appears as the death blow to tribal life, and with the first shiploads of migrating British colonists arriving in 1841, near genocide for the Kulin, Mara, Kurnai and Murray River first-peoples.

Hello, my name is Echo. Priya Echo is a super nerdy, shy lab scientist at university when one day an experiment goes wrong and gives her magic powers! After falling into her own dream land, she discovers that she has echo powers! Priya awakens and soon meets three kick ass girls who let her into their group, Nadine, Felicia and Dominique. Her so-called friends, who are really bad at not using peer pressure, set her up with a cute guy named Eric. He just wants a normal girlfriend and cannot seem to figure her out. Then one day the university is visited by a famous wizard named Telenon. After a standoff, Priya learns that he wants to steal the entire world's magic. The shy lab girl must learn how to become a brave hero. That is simple enough. Priya already has amazing powers. There is just one tiny little problem. She is too silly! Can Priya learn to be less silly in time to save the world? Maybe she'll end up as one of those legendary heroes with a crazy sword! Come Find Out! A wonderful read for lovers of fantasy, recommended 18 years of age and up.

The pagan mythology of the Vikings offers a rich metaphor for consciousness. This book presents the cosmography of Norse mythology as a landscape of human inner life. Each of the nine worlds of this cosmography is viewed as a symbol of a distinct type of consciousness that is emblematic of a particular perspective or way of relating to others. Individual gods and goddesses are considered nuanced personifications of their worlds. The philosophy of pagan mythology is explored by comparing and contrasting the Sayings of Odin from the Norse Edda with the Christian Ten Commandments.

On a gray September day, on an island off the coast of Sweden, six -year -old Jens Davidsson ventured out of his backyard, walked out into a fog, and vanished….Now twenty years have passed, and in this magnificent debut novel of suspense—a runaway bestseller in Sweden—the boy’s mother returns to the place where her son disappeared, drawn by a chilling package sent in the mail… In it, lovingly wrapped, is one of Jens’ sandals—sandals Julia Davidsson put on her son’s feet that very last morning. Now, with only a handful of clues, Julia and her father are questioning islanders who were present the day Jens vanished—and making a shocking connection to Öland’s most notorious murder case: the killing spree of a wealthy young man who fled the island and died years before Jens was even born. Suddenly the island that once seemed so achingly familiar turns strange and dangerous… Until Julia finds herself facing truths she never imagined—about what really happened on that September day twenty years ago, about who may have crossed paths with little Jens in the fog, and how a child could truly vanish without a trace…until now.

WOW! After spending more than fifty years in the world of aviation and aerospace, Satpal Singh picks up a pen to write. Stories and verses flow right out of his heart. This collection brings out his passion for the study of human behaviour in this world of exploitation and deprivation. Rarely do we find writings that are wake up calls. His presentation Echo of Silence brings out a barrage of questions, and all his poems are bound to create ripples in the minds of its readers. All his poems will touch your heart. Will the silent majority ever break its silence? Will women fight back and come out of the evil of objectification and refuse allurements? He proves that women are not gullible as the leading lady of Only 4 mm spurns lucrative offers to stand up against the mighty corporate so that she is not used as a tool for demeaning women. The hero of the story Love Begets Love, Lucas, back after his journalistic assignment in Afghanistan, meets his love Illaria in the romantic ambience of Switzerland, and the past is forgotten. Two young persons meet by chance, all alone in dire circumstances, and fantastic things are likely to happen as portrayed in And It Happened. A must-read for all to enjoy and think. You may not be able to leave after starting.