First off this is an amazing collection of mythical creatures, many of them were even new to me, and the illustrations are amazing. With that said, is the information legit? I have other mythology books and sometimes I’ve noticed authors embellishing or inventing information, so I wanted to know how truthful to the real stories this book is.
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Posted by I_am_strange_
8 Comments
It’s truly peak
This book looks intriguing, even with my limited knowledge of Polish.
Is it purely fantasy or a actual folklore told to polish children through the ages ?
It looks legit.
I had this book some years ago and loved it! (I probably still “have it” at my parents’ place somewhere. I can’t speak as to how legit it is, but there must be information about the sources and recopilation (?) work done to write it somewhere.
Well, most of “slavic” mitology is made up by XIXth century poets and such is the case with this books as well.
It has very pretty images, some interesting concepts and overall its very well made, but it is still a product of much later fantasy. If you look at the “sources” in the book it’s pretty open and not even hidden – there are few texts it cites older than the XIXth cent.
Yes, it’s really good and accurate.
All of that is pure XIX century fantasy. Nice to read but if you think this is legit mythology then no. Scientifically speaking, we know jackshit about the actual folklore from the past. We didn’t wrote anything, noone wrote about us. Or at least not alot.
The big issue with “slavic mythology” is that most of it was made up around XX century, and its very unlikely that anyone from back then actually held these beliefs.
The same could be said about any other mythology though…