Fairies, demons, and nature spirits : 'small gods' at the margins of Christendom / Michael Ostling, editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ostling, Michael, editor.

Series:

Palgrave historical studies in witchcraft and magic

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity and other religions--Primitive--History.

Christianity and other religions.

Folklore--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Folklore.

Mythology--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Mythology.

Polytheism.

Paganism.

Magic.

Religion.

Witchcraft.

Christianity.

History.

Europe.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xv, 366 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Palgrave Macmillan, [2018]

Summary:

"This book examines the fairies, demons, and nature spirits haunting the margins of Christendom from late-antique Egypt to early modern Scotland to contemporary Amazonia. Contributions from anthropologists, folklorists, historians and religionists explore Christian strategies of encompassment and marginalization, and the `small gods' undisciplined tendency to evade such efforts at exorcism. Lurking in forest or fairy-mound, chuckling in dark corners of the home or of the demoniac's body, the small gods both define and disturb the borders of a religion that is endlessly syncretistic and in endless, active denial of its own syncretism. The book will be of interest to students of folklore, indigenous Christianity, the history of science, and comparative religion."-- Back cover.

Contents:

Introduction : where've all the good people gone? / Michael Ostling

Part I. Demonization and its discontents

The threat of headless beings : constructing the demonic in Christian Egypt / David Frankfiirter

Secrets of the Sid : the supernatural in medieval Irish texts / Lisa Bitel

The good, the bad and the unholy : ambivalent angels in the Middle Ages / Coree Newman

Between fallen angels and nature spirits : Russian demonology of the early modern period / Dmitriy Antonov

Crisis at the border : Amazonian relations with spirits and others / Artionka Capiberibe

Part II. Enlightenment and its ambiguities

Between humans and angels : scientific uses for fairies in early modern Scotland / Julian Goodare

The Alfar, the clerics and the enlightenment : conceptions of the supernatural in the age of reason in Iceland / Terry Gunnell

The devil and the spirit world in nineteenth-century Estonia : from christianization to folklorization / Ülo Valk

Dreaming of snakes in contemporary Zambia : small gods and the secular / Johanneke Kroesbergen-Kamps

Part III. Remnants, relocations, and re-enchantments

Small gods, small demons : remnants of an archaic fairy cult in central and south-eastern Europe / Èva Pócs

Who owns the world? : recognizing the repressed small gods of Southeast Asia / Lorraine V. Aragon

Spirits, Christians and capitalists in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea / Michael Wood

"Reconnecting to everything" : fairies in contemporary paganism / Sabina Magliocco

Afterword / Ronald Hutton.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137585196

1137585196

OCLC:

1028535324