Yaroslav the Wise: Did you mean...?

Religion and superstition went hand in hand in Colonial America, and one’s belief in the first confirmed the validity of the second. The colonists' worldview was completely informed by religion and so everything...

A Very Useful Epistle (Epistre tres utile, 1539) is an open letter by the female reformer Marie Dentière (l. c. 1495-1561) to Marguerite of Navarre (l. 1492-1549) advocating for a greater role for women in the...

The Instructions of Shuruppag (circa 2500/2000 BCE) is the most famous work of the genre of Sumerian wisdom literature whose purpose was to encourage proper behavior in conformity with cultural...

Cratinus was a highly successful writer of Attic Old Comedy, but the very fragmentary nature of his surviving plays means that he is not as well remembered as Aristophanes (eleven of whose plays come down to us intact). Despite...

Alcohol played an integral part in Norse culture. People drank ale more than water because the brew had to be boiled as part of the process and so was safer to drink. The Norse of Scandinavia had...

The Frog Princess is a Slavic folktale focusing on the importance of recognizing someone’s inner beauty, regardless of their outward appearance, as well as the possibility of redemption after failure. The tale has many variants...

The Hidatsa Sun Dance Ritual (also known as Hidatsa Sun Dance) is a Native American story of the Hidatsa nation illustrating the practice of an individual initiating the Sun Dance for personal reasons, in this case, to...

Women in ancient Egypt were regarded as the equals of men in every aspect save that of occupation. The man was the head of the household and nation, but women ran the home and contributed to the stability of that nation as...

The Life and Death of Sweet Medicine is a Cheyenne tale of the great prophet and law-giver Sweet Medicine who received the sacred Four Arrows, structure of government, and rules of society from Maheo, the Wise...

Zeno of Citium (c. 336 – 265 BCE) was the founder of the Stoic School of philosophy in Athens, which taught that the Logos (Universal Reason) was the greatest good in life and living in accordance...