Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore

Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore (1863) was historian Walter Keating Kelly's one and only book on mythology, and it sought to popularize for English-speaking audiences the exciting new science of mythology being developed in Germany. The author was particularly taken with German Sanskrit scholar Adalbert Kuhn's idea that the earliest Indo-European myths were associated primarily with thunder and lightning. Today, Keating's book remains the most important and influential English language source for Kuhn's ideas, as his works were not translated into English in his own time. Keating, however, did more than report the German findings; he illustrated and expanded upon them with incidents from English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish lore. Consequently, the Curiosities is a treasure-house of comparative mythology and folklore, recording hundreds of myths and legends, famous and obscure. In these pages are stories of the sun and of storms, of werewolves and the Wild Hunt, of witches and wishing rods.The Curiosities was extremely influential in its time, widely-cited in Victorian scholarship and widely read among both scholars and the general public, who were fascinated by its expert explication of obscure myths and legends. It is widely believed to have been instrumental in stimulating the collection of British folklore, and it remains a foundational text for the study of Indo-European mythology and folklore. This edition is an unabridged republication of the 1863 first edition published by Chapman and Hall.