You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘sacrifice’ tag.
Herein are 25 famous stories from The Greek, German, English, Spanish Scandinavian, Danish, French, Russian, Bohemian, Italian and other sources. These stories are further brought to life by 24 full colour plates
The myths and legends gathered here have appealed and will continue to appeal to every age. Nowhere in the realm of fiction are there stories to compare with those which took form centuries ago when the human race was in its childhood—stories so intimately connected with the life and history and religion of the great peoples of antiquity that they have become an integral part of our own civilization. These are a heritage of wealth to every child that is born into the world. Myths and legends like:
Prometheus The Friend Of Man, The Labors Of Hercules, The Gorgon’s Head, The Golden Fleece, The Cyclops, The Sack Of Troy, Beowulf And Grendel, The Good King Arthur and many, many more.
This volume is sure to keep you and your young ones enchanted for hours, if not because of the content, then because of their quality.
Format: eBook – Mobi/Kindle, ePub, PDF
Just loaded for it’s proof run LEGENDS AND STORIES FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD, NANTUCKET AND BLOCK ISLAND. 21 legends and stories from the Cape Cod area which goes back to at least 1602.
Table of contents is:
MARTHA’S VINEYARD AND NANTUCKET
LOVE AND TREASON
THE HEADLESS SKELETON OF SWAMPTOWN
THE CROW AND CAT OF HOPKINSHILL
THE OLD STONE MILL
THE ORIGIN OF A NAME
MICAH ROOD APPLES
A DINNER AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
THE NEW HAVEN STORM SHIP
THE WINDAM FROGS
THE LAMB OF SACRIFICE
MOODUS NOISES
HADDAM ENCHANTMENTS
BLOCK ISLAND
THE BUCCANEER
ROBERT LOCKWOOD’S FATE
LOVE AND RUM
THE WHOLE HISTORY OF GRANDFATHER’S CHAIR
THE LOYALISTS OF MASSACHUSETTS
PUNISHMENT FOR WEARING LONG HAIR IN NEW ENGLAND
SCHOOL DISCIPLINE IN THE STATE OF MASSACHSETTS
THE SCHOOLMASTER’S SOLILOQUY
THE STORY OF KING PHILIP (of the Wampanoag tribe)
Cover – Legends and Stories from Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Block Island
On this day in 1895, the Delagoa Bay (Maputo, Mozambique) Railway opened in South-Africa by President Paul Kruger. The link connected the Transvaal (Boer) Republic with the coast without having to go through the British controlled ports of Port Natal (Durban) or Cape Town.
As such we bring you a South African folktale of heroism during the “Groot Trek” (Great Trek) inland from the Cape Colony. This story occurred in about 1843 approximately 50 years before the Boer Wars (yes, plural, there were 2 Boer Wars)……..
Rachel de Beer (1831–1843) (sometimes known by the diminutive form, Racheltjie) is an Afrikaner heroine who gave her life in order to save that of her brother. She was the daughter of George Stephanus de Beer (b. 1794).
The fable goes that in the winter months of 1843 Rachel was part of a trek from the Orange Free State to the south-eastern Transvaal. During one of their nightly stopovers, the members of the trek realised that a calf called Frikkie, much-beloved by their children, was missing.
A search party was formed, in which Rachel and her six-year old brother also took part. However, during the gathering dusk Rachel and her brother got separated from the search party and became lost. As the night progressed it got very cold and started snowing.
Realising that their chances of survival were slim, Rachel found an abandoned anthill, hollowed out by an aardvark, took off her clothes, put them on her brother and commanded him to get into the hollowed-out anthill. She then lay in front of the opening of the anthill in order to keep out the cold.
The children were found the next morning by the trekking party. Rachel was dead, but her brother had survived.
Note: The story of Rachel de Beer is entrenched in the Afrikaner culture, which is evident by the number of streets and schools named after her.
ONCE upon a time there lived a man whose one wish and prayer was to get rich. Day and night he thought of nothing else, and at last his prayers were granted, and he became very wealthy. Now being so rich, and having so much to lose, he felt that it would be a terrible thing to die and leave all his possessions behind; so he made up his mind to set out in search of a land where there was no death. He got ready for his journey, took leave of his wife, and started. Whenever he came to a new country the first question that he asked was whether people died in that land, and when he heard that they did, he set out again on his quest. At last he reached a country where he was told that the people did not even know the meaning of the word death. Our traveller was delighted when he heard this, and said:
‘But surely there are great numbers of people in your land, if no one ever dies?’
`No,’ they replied, `there are not great numbers, for you see from time to time a voice is heard calling first one and then another, and whoever hears that voice gets up and goes away, and never comes back.’
`And do they see the person who calls them,’ he asked, `or do they only hear his voice?’
`They both see and hear him,’ was the answer.
Well, the man was amazed when he heard that the people were stupid enough to follow the voice, though they knew that if they went when it called them they would never return. And he went back to his own home and got all his possessions together, and, taking his wife and family, he set out resolved to go and live in that country where the people did not die, but where instead they heard a voice calling them, which they followed into a land from which they never returned. For he had made up his own mind that when he or any of his family heard that voice they would pay no heed to it, however loudly it called.
After he had settled down in his new home, and had got everything in order about him, he warned his wife and family that, unless they wanted to die, they must on no account listen to a voice which they might someday hear calling them.
For some years everything went well with them, and they lived happily in their new home. But one day, while they were all sit-ting together round the table, his wife suddenly started up, exclaiming in a loud voice:
`I am coming! I am coming!’
And she began to look round the room for her fur coat, but her husband jumped up, and taking firm hold of her by the hand, held her fast, and reproached her, saying:
`Don’t you remember what I told you? Stay where you are unless you wish to die.’
`But don’t you hear that voice calling me?’ she answered. `I am merely going to see why I am wanted. I shall come back directly.’
So she fought and struggled to get away from her husband, and to go where the voice summoned. But he would not let her go, and had all the doors of the house shut and bolted. When she saw that he had done this, she said:
‘Very well, dear husband, I shall do what you wish, and remain where I am.’
So her husband believed that it was all right, and that she had thought better of it, and had got over her mad impulse to obey the voice. But a few minutes later she made a sudden dash for one of the doors, opened it and darted out, followed by her husband. He caught her by the fur coat, and begged and implored her not to go, for if she did she would certainly never return. She said nothing, but let her arms fall backwards, and suddenly bending herself forward, she slipped out of the coat, leaving it in her husband’s hands. He, poor man, seemed turned to stone as he gazed after her hurrying away from him, and calling at the top of her voice, as she ran:
`I am coming! I am coming!’
When she was quite out of sight her husband recovered his wits and went back into his house, murmuring:
`If she is so foolish as to wish to die, I can’t help it. I warned and implored her to pay no heed to that voice, however loudly it might call.’
Well, days and weeks and months and years passed, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the household. But one day the man was at the barber’s as usual, being shaved. The shop was full of people, and his chin had just been covered with a lather of soap, when, suddenly starting up from the chair, he called out in a loud voice:
`I won’t come, do you hear? I won’t come!’
The barber and the other people in the shop listened to him with amazement. But again looking towards the door, he exclaimed:
`I tell you, once and for all, I do not mean to come, so go away.’
And a few minutes later he called out again:
`Go away, I tell you, or it will be the worse for you. You may call as much as you like but you will never get me to come.’
And he got so angry that you might have thought that someone was actually standing at the door, tormenting him. At last he jumped up, and caught the razor out of the barber’s hand, exclaiming:
`Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the future.’
And he rushed out of the house as if he were running after someone, whom no one else saw. The barber, determined not to lose his razor, pursued the man, and they both continued running at full speed till they had got well out of the town, when all of a sudden the man fell head foremost down a precipice, and never was seen again. So he too, like the others, had been forced against his will to follow the voice that called him.
The barber, who went home whistling and congratulating himself on the escape he had made, described what had happened, and it was noised abroad in the country that the people who had gone away, and had never returned, had all fallen into that pit; for till then they had never known what had happened to those who had heard the voice and obeyed its call.
But when crowds of people went out from the town to examine the ill-fated pit that had swallowed up such numbers, and yet never seemed to be full, they could discover nothing. All that they could see was a vast plain, that looked as if it had been there since the beginning of the world. And from that time the people of the country began to die like ordinary mortals all the world over.
http://abelapublishing.com/the-book-of-hairy-fairy-tales-and-folklore_p26352875.htm
– a new release GBP4.99, €5.99, US$6.99, C$6.99, A$9.99
Folklore and Fairytales - Free Stories for Children 