The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 1136 pages
• Published by: HarperOne
• Edition: 1st Edition November 30, 1983
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 006250925X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0062509253
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 2.1 inches
• Weighs: 2.8 pounds

Product Review
This fascinating, scholarly hodgepodge spotlights the feminist underpinnings of myth, religion, and culture. Before being lionized as zaftig Norse angels who guided strong warriors to Valhalla, Valkyries may have offered rebirth through cannibalization. "Little Red Riding Hood" was based on Diana, goddess of the hunt. Marriage was once considered a sin, not a sacred union: St. Bernard once proclaimed "it was easier for a man to bring the dead back to life than to live with a lady without endangering his soul." A few of the other topics expounded upon are the Milky Way, Cinderella, the moon, and males giving birth. While some of the references put a cranky feminist spin on words that might in context have different meaning--St. Paul's oft-quoted "better to marry than to burn," for example--much in this vast tome will dazzle dabblers and intellectuals alike.

Product Description
Do You Know

• where the legend of a cat's nine lives comes from?
  
  
• why "mama" is a word understood in nearly all languages?
  
  
• how the custom of kissing began?
  
  
• whether there really was a female pope?
  
  
• why Cinderella's glass slipper was so important to the Prince?

The answers to these and countless other intriguing questions are given in this compulsively readable, feminist encyclopedia. Twenty-five years in preparation, this unique, comprehensive sourcebook focuses on mythology anthropology, religion, and sexuality to uncover precisely what other encyclopedias leave out or misrepresent. The Woman's Encyclopedia presents the fascinating stories behind word origins, legends, superstitions, and customs. A browser's delight and an indispensable resource, it offers 1,350 entries on magic, witchcraft, fairies, elves, giants, goddesses, gods, and psychological anomalies such as demonic possession; the mystical meanings of sun, moon, earth, sea, time, and space; ideas of the soul, reincarnation, creation and doomsday; ancient and modern attitudes toward sex, prostitution, romance, rape, warfare, death and sin, and more.

Tracing these concepts to their prepatriarchal origins, Barbara G. Walker explores a "thousand hidden pockets of history and custom in addition to the valuable material recovered by archaeologists, orientalists, and other scholars."

Not only a enyclopedia of fascinating lore and scholarship, The Woman's Encyclopedia is a revolutionary book that offers a rare opportunity for both women and men to see our cultural heritage in a fresh light, and draw upon the past for a more humane future.

Reader Reviews
There are a lot of people who want to believe this book is an accurate source of information about mythology and history. Wishing does not make it so. Some of the reviewers claim that the only reason people say bad things about it is that they are trying to defend Christianity and are closed-minded because of their faith. I am an atheist and mythology scholar who has no faith to defend, and I still think this book is pure nonsense. It appears to me that Walker's supporters are the ones doing it out of faith and dogma and refusing to face facts. As others have pointed out, all you need to do is follow her footnotes. It may look impressive when she makes three statements in a paragraph and cites three references to back her up, but it's a lot less impressive when you actually have those books and they don't say at all what she claims they do. I've done it (I have a large library of mythology books), but so can you. Go to a library and pick a few to look up. You'll probably be shocked at the differences in what she claims those sources say and what they really do. The only ones that I have found so far that seem to be at all similar are a handful of others also in the neo-pagan movement (Graves, Stone and Gimbutas being the main three). Here is just the highlights of a few of many errors in just one entry: "Mara Exceedingly ancient name of the Goddess-as-Crone" The first sentence isn't even done yet and already it's got the crone theory that she tries to push on everything (none of the figures of Mara have anything to do with crones) and capitalizes the term for religious purposes. And, to top it off, all but the relatively recent (last 500 years or so) references to characters named Mara say that Mara is a male figure, not female. So this exceedingly ancient name isn't a crone and isn't even a goddess. Then we have: "The gypsies, with their traditions rooted in Hinduism, knew Mara to be the death goddess who trapped the soul of the Enchanted Huntsman in a mirror and caused his death--" I bought the book she references, guess what... Mara in this relatively recent fairy tale is a gypsy girl, not a goddess. The one doing the magic is the Devil (called as such, the typical Christian male one). Mara loved the huntsman and didn't want him to die. Walker's summary of it doesn't accurately describe the tale at all. Her description of it ends: "a myth that paralleled ancient Pelasgian stories of the death of Dionysus" (in another reference in the book she outright calls Mara's huntsman "Dionysus" and doesn't claim it's a parallel but the exact figure even though it's more than a thousands years later and the wrong country -- the book isn't even internally self-consistent). If you look up the Dionysus myth that she conflates the gypsy folklore with, you'll find that they aren't related at all, except by the loosest of wishful thinking interpretations. And then later in this entry she references supposed related goddesses like Mari, etc. that *no other source anywhere* (excepting those who borrowed from this book) has any records or even hints at. A lot of the entries are like this, in that they talk about feminine names that were never thought of as goddesses by any source out there, but she assumes they must have been because of her bias and a lot of twisting and misunderstanding of linguistics. And that's just one entry. Researching the other things she writes about turns up just as many errors and outright distortions. She'll mention a specific moon goddess, reference an obscure 100-year old book in her footnote to support it, but looking it up shows that the original author was talking about a moon god, not a goddess. She'll talk about a trinity of Egyptian goddesses but actual research shows that they weren't thought of as such. It's so bad that I have not yet found a single entry in the entire book that doesn't have at least one major error, and it's usually several per paragraph. I have nothing against pagan beliefs, and I think they are probably one of the most healthy religious faiths that exist. Pointing out that this book is horrible isn't attacking a belief system, it's attacking incredibly flawed and biased research. There are enough real historical goddess beliefs that nobody should have to make them up if they want to look to them for personal growth and religious faith. It's too bad that Walker was so insecure that she felt the need to twist everything all around, and it's even more of a shame that some people feel the need to defend her. Walker was wrong, which doesn't make paganism or feminism any weaker. You are only weak if you insist upon basing your own personal self-image upon the delusions of a highly discredited author.