Stories: Did you mean...?

The term 'mythology' comes from the Greek mythos (story-of-the-people) and logos (word or speech), meaning the spoken story of a people. Every civilization of the ancient world developed a belief system, which is characterized as 'mythology'...

The Lakota Sioux, like other tribal nations, had many versions of a creation story but all involved Wakan Tanka (Great Mystery or Great Spirit), the supreme creative power in the universe, who made all things and so caused all to be related...

Ghost stories were the earliest form of literature in ancient China. They were almost certainly part of a very old oral tradition before writing developed during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) and they continue to be popular in China today...

In Norse belief, the soul of the deceased might wind up in any one of a number of afterlife realms. There was Valhalla, the realm of Odin where the dead warriors drank, fought, and told stories, Folkvangr ('the Field of the People'), the...

Ghost stories have existed for thousands of years, often in similar forms and frequently dealing with the same themes, in many of the most ancient cultures. The writer H.P. Lovecraft once wrote, "As may naturally be expected of a form so...

Martyrologies, a unique genre of Christian literature, appeared from the 2nd century CE. A martyrology tells the story of the suffering and ordeals of a Christian martyr and details their trial and execution. A shared element of martyrologies...

The nativity of Jesus of Nazareth is told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Christian theology, the existence of two nativity stories by two different writers provided a prooftext for the historicity of the event. However, the two versions...

Herodotus' Histories with their historical, geographical, ethnographic, and religious aspects, have always been a source of delight and interest, not only for generations of readers, students, and storytellers, but also for artists. A complete...

How the Turtle Went to War (also Turtle Goes to War) is a Native American legend commonly associated with the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux nations, but the narrative also appears in the stories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee...

In this interview, World History Encyclopedia talks to author and scholar Gordon Campbell all about his new book Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth published by Oxford University Press. Kelly (WHE): Thanks for joining me today...