Library Research Guides: English 114: Great Myths and Legends: Websites

Useful Web Sources

These websites offer background, interpretation, and criticism of folklore, fairy tales, myths, and legends.

Internet Sacred Text Archive
Largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric.
Encyclopedia Mythica
An internet encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, and religion.
Ancient History Encyclopedia
A reliable, comprehensive encyclopedia of ancient history.
Godchecker: Your Guide to the Gods
A compilation of nearly four thousand weird and wonderful Gods, Supreme Beings, Demons, Spirits and Fabulous Beasts from all over the world. Fun and informative.
Symbols.com
A unique online encyclopedia that contains everything about symbols, signs, flags and glyphs arranged by categories such as culture, country, religion, and more.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Originally published in 1870, and now in its 17th edition, the dictionary, which contains approximately 16,000 entries, is a compendium of allusions, idioms, mythology, place names, historical and fictional figures and events, nicknames, foreign terms, and famous phrases and quotations.
Breezes from Wonderland: Maria Tatar's Forum for Storytelling, Folklore, and Children's Literature
Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology.

Folklore and Fairy Tale Collections

These websites offer collections of folklore and fairy tales from around the world. Some sites are devoted to stories from all cultures, while others cover just one region or tale. This is just an introduction to the material available on the web. See the "Think about..." box on the lower left of this page for help evaluating websites you visit.

Folklinks: Folk and Fairy-tale Sites
Extensive links to a broad range resources on folk and fairy tale studies from a leading authority in the field. There is a lot of content on this site, so spend some time exploring.
World of Tales
Folktales from around the world including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America among others.
Regional Folklore and Mythology
Links to information about global folklore and mythology topics broken down by cultural and geographical region.
SurLaLune Fairytales
49 annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, and modern interpretations plus over 1,600 folktales & fairy tales from around the world in more than 40 full-text books.
Fairytalez.com
With more than 2,500 stories, this site is the largest collection of fairy tales, folktales, and fables on the web.
Oban's Myths, Legends and Fables
A collections of folklore, myths, legends, and fables with a Native American and international twist.
Aaron Shepard's World of Stories - Folk Tales, Myths, Legends, More
Find folktales, fairy tales, tall tales, myths, legends, magical tales, and sacred stories, plus original fables, humor, and historical fiction by Aaron Shepard.
Gateway to the Classics: Fairy Stories Every Child Should Know
39 fairy tales from around the world from The Baldwin Project.
American Folklore
E. S. Schlosser has compiled materials on folklore, including tall tales, spooky stories, heros and villains and even nursery rhymes, Schlosser recommends viewing this site "while eating marshmallows around a campfire under a starry sky."
Hans Christian Andersen's Works
The most comprehensive collection of translations of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales on the web.
Grimm Brothers Tales
209 tales collected by the brothers Grimm.
Encyclopedia Mythica: Greek Mythology
Traditional tales concerning the gods, heroes, and rituals of the ancient Greeks.
Encyclopedia Mythica: Roman Mythology
The beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula from ancient times until the ascendancy of Christianity in the fourth century.
Encyclopedia Mythica: Norse Mythology
The collective myths of the Scandinavians (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland).
Fables of Aesop
A comprehensive collection of the most famous fabulist's tales.
Words to the Wise: Aesop's Fables Interactive Book
The Aesop for Children interactive book is designed to be enjoyed by readers of any age. The book contains over 140 classic fables, accompanied by beautiful illustrations and interactive animations.
The Camelot Project
The Camelot Project is a database of Arthurian texts, images, bibliographies, and basic information.
The Robin Hood Project
The Robin Hood Project is designed to make available a database of texts, images, bibliographies, and basic information about the Robin Hood stories and other outlaw tales.
The Cinderella Bibliography
Every culture possesses a Cinderella story, and the tale’s components reflect its international and timeless history.

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books

Andrew Lang collected fairy tales from a wide variety of sources between 1889 and 1910.

You can find all of the books freely available on the web:

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books
Links to digital versions of the original texts, assembled by D.L. Ashliman.
LibriVox: Andrew Lang's Fairy Books
LibriVox's mission is "To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet." 12 of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books are presented here in audiobook form.

English 114: Great Myths and Legends

Most of America's Folk Heroes in One Map!

Think about...

Eagle-Headed Deity

Useful Web Sources

These websites offer background, interpretation, and criticism of folklore, fairy tales, myths, and legends.

Folklore and Fairy Tale Collections

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books

Andrew Lang collected fairy tales from a wide variety of sources between 1889 and 1910.