1000 Mythological Characters Briefly Described
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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Publisher Description
In this volume published in 1935, American writer Edward Sylvester Ellis provides a youth’s dictionary of Greek and Roman mythology, with brief descriptions of mythological characters in alphabetical order.
Customer Reviews
Very Biased
I’m a writer so I was anticipating this might give me an edge of research for mythological figures of different cultures, but it leans far too heavily into Roman culture. It as much as gives Roman names/identities to figures that were never associated with them. Before you use any of the information in this book I would HIGHLY suggest that you filter the information they give you through a few sources online.
Leaves A Lot To Be Desired
It is obvious, reading this, that the author mainly focuses on Greco-Roman myth.
That’s all well and good. The problem is that the title gave me the impression that the author would describe characters from all over the world in a decent amount of detail.
He only describes the Greco-Roman characters in any amount of detail, and even then he gets some things wrong, like Hecate being an aspect of Persephone (they’re two separate characters; in fact, Hecate helped Demeter look for Persephone).
Other characters barely get a sentence’s worth of mention. Hindu (or Hindoo, as he spells it) deities’ entries go like this:
“Brahma - creator of the universe.”
And that’s it. Celtic and Nordic deities’ entries also lack information, and some of the information is just flat-out wrong. Huginn and Muninn weren’t gods; they were simply the ravens of Odin, symbolizing thought and memory. If you read either of the Eddas, you’ll know that Snorri Sturluson never calls them gods.
My advice: read the holy texts of whichever mythology you’re interested in, and not this. A book like this should give the same amount of attention to all of the mythologies it aims to cover, rather than only a couple of them.