The Twa Corbies, preparing to dine on the dead knight below, from “Some British Ballads,” 1919, by Arthur Rackham, (Wikimedia Commons)....

“It’s no use, dear boy. The shadmocks aren’t going away. We have to learn to live with them.” My impression of how the fictional world of...

Hild, unable to bear the deaths of her lover and father, raises their bodies with the bodies of their warriors, leading to an endless...

Gluskabe turning man into a cedar tree. Scraping on birchbark by Tomah Joseph 1884. (Image from Wikipedia). I never read a piece of...

Just before dawn, Rockport, Maine August 26 (photo by author). The Native tribes of New England formed the Wabanaki Confederacy....

A summer hare enjoying clover in my yard in southern New Hampshire. (Photo by author.) Summer has been here for a couple of weeks now and...

The author contemplating another round of phantasmagorical excess at the House on the Rock, Spring Green, Wisconsin. Photo by Rachel...

Batraz blasts down from the heavens, landing in the hearth of the Narts, the force of it burying him to his thighs, by artist Andrew...

Too much of a good thing isn't always fabulous. A hero of Jangar drinks a bowl of wine it would take sixty men to lift, a common...

The Saga of King Hrólf Kraki features two warriors, man and son, who fight as bears. The father is cursed to roam as a bear by day. The...

Detail of Sludge, the Catoblepas, a wall-mounted sculpture by author, paper mache and mixed media, inspired by an illustration by David...

A fountain in Vladikavkaz, Russia with the Nart Sosruquo, dancing on the edge of a magic bowl. (Image courtesy Lhiten Hatko.) A range of...

“The lady lamented, sorrowed with songs...the greatest fire of the slain, roared before the mound” (Beowulf, 1117-1120; Benjamin Slade...

Dawn in southern New Hampshire, the first week of February. The light is returning. Every day the afternoon seems to last longer and...

Danish King Hrothgar with his nephew Hrothulf, cutting down the Heathobards as Heorot Hall burns, following the failed wedding union...

A winter festival performer from Christiansand, Norway, playing a Julebukk, a figure who goes door to door between Christmas and New...

My Christmas eve recording of the traditional Norwegian Christmas carol "Haugebonden." A farmer and a gnome meet on a cold evening on...

Freya and Svipdag, by the illustrator John Bauer. This is one of several stories I had never read about before reading Viktor Rydberg's...

The Abenaki's Promethean Gluscabe, outside the Millbrook Heritage Centre in Nova Scotia, Canada, part of the ancient lands stretching as...

My original article, published in the Eagle Tribune about my search for the historical Dracula, and the author, twenty years ago this...