mythology
The juicy history of the apple
Greeks, Romans, Norse and Celts all rooted their fertility myths in the apple – and through its association with the Garden of Eden it came to symbolise irresistible temptation
The Great God Pan is all things to all men
Pan’s name is thought to derive from ‘paean’, the ancient Greek verb meaning ‘to pasture’. His half-man, half-goat form reflected…
The symbolism of Orion, the hunter of the heavens
What happened in the rites of Eleusis is a mystery. So are all the unwritten parts of human history. Our…
Deep in the forest’s mysteries: The Cloven, by Brian Catling, reviewed
Brian Catling’s great trilogy takes its title from The Vorrh, his first volume. This final book fulfills all the promises…
How scary is dairy?
For tens of thousands of years, humans have been domesticating other mammals — cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats, camels, llamas, donkeys,…
Hot Milk’s heroine has snaky curls and a basilisk stare
With ‘both arms stretched out like a starfish, her long hair floating like seaweed at the sides of her body’,…
Pine by Laura Mason; Lily, by Marcia Reiss - review
After the success of their animal series of monographs, Reaktion Books have had the clever idea of doing something similar…
