Yaroslav the Wise: Did you mean...?

There were over 200 gods and goddesses worshipped throughout ancient China, but if one were to count every deity or spirit, the number would be over 1,000. Each town, village, city, field, farm, and sometimes even separate plot in a graveyard...

In ancient Egypt, if a woman were having difficulty conceiving a child, she might spend an evening in a Bes Chamber (also known as an incubation chamber) located within a temple. Bes was the god of childbirth, sexuality, fertility, among...

The Myth of Etana is the story of the Sumerian antediluvian King of Kish who ascends to heaven on an eagle to request the Plant of Birth from the gods so that he might have a son. Etana is named as the first king of Kish in the Sumerian King...

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 One Above, and predicted 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 values and standards. It is among the oldest...

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 and appears...

The First World War (1914-18) stimulated a great wave of literary output, not least in the field of poetry. In an era when photography and film were still in their infancy, poems, especially those written by direct participants, were regularly...

The poem called The Lay of Greybeard (Old Norse: Hárbarðsljóð) is one story from Norse mythology that relates an intriguing verbal fight between two of its essential gods, Thor and Odin. The poem consists of 60 stanzas and is found complete...

The Hymn to Nisaba (circa 3rd millennium BCE) is a poem praising Nisaba, the Sumerian goddess of writing and accounts who also served as scribe of the gods. The poem is officially dedicated to Enki, the god of wisdom (sometimes given as her...

The Dialogue of Pessimism (c. 1000 BCE) is a Babylonian poem featuring a master and his slave in ten exchanges during which the master proposes an action, and the slave gives reasons for and against its pursuit. The piece has been interpreted...