The Dragon at War, by Gordon R. Dickson - I thought this installment from the series was more interesting than the last, due largely to the more fantastic aspects of it. This time, the King of France is planning to invade England, and his sorcerer has gotten some ferocious sea serpents on their side. On the advice of Carolinus, his teacher of magic, Jim Eckert goes to seek help from a kraken, only to find out he has his own agenda. There's also a friendly giant from the sea who helps out, and the wolf Aargh and small dragon Secoh come back into the story.

I did not watch the recent Odyssey movie. I'm not saying I won't someday, but I think it looked a bit dull from the previews. But then, are previews ever really trustworthy? I did see mentions that it left out some of the most entertaining parts of the story, like the bag of winds and Odysseus telling Polyphemus his name was Nobody. And there's apparently a really corny line towards the end about the Age of Bronze coming to an end. How would anyone IN the Bronze Age have known that we'd call it that later on?

Here are my thoughts on some other books I've finished recently, besides the John Mandeville one. The Oracle of Maracoor, by Gregory Maguire - The second book of the Another Day series has Elphaba's granddaughter Rain escape from prison with the ten-year-old Cossy during an invasion. Some kind of rift in reality leads to mythical creatures showing up in Maracoor, including some harpies who join them on their journey. A few Winged Monkeys also appear, and Iskinaary the Goose returns. The party seeks out the titular Oracle, who turns out to be the Wizard of Oz again, as his balloon brought him to this country after he fled the Emerald City.

I was intending to include this in a post with other book reviews, but I think it deserves its own entry. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was a pretty fascinating read. It purports to be the memoirs of a fourteenth-century English knight who traveled as far as China. There's no evidence that this author even existed, let alone that he visited any of the places he mentions. Researchers have found that a lot of his descriptions come pretty much directly from other sources, and a lot of it is obviously untrue anyway, although it likely reflects legends and hearsay of the time.

Since the most recent book I've read involves the legend of the Flying Dutchman, I figure I should give an overview of that story. I actually thought I already had, but I can't find it through a Google search. The first reference to the ghost ship, probably based on sightings of a mirage on the waters, appeared in 1795; but it's likely the myth itself predates that. Later, the legend became more specific, focusing on one Captain Vanderdecker or Vanderdecken, who was cursed after insisting on sailing around the Cape of Good Hope despite unfavorable weather conditions, and then swearing that he would round the cape if it took until doomsday.

Breverton's Phantasmagoria: A Compendium of Monsters, Myths and Legends, by Terry Breverton - This is a collection of myths and legends, some ancient and others pretty recent. They include people, places, artifacts, and both mythical animals and weird beliefs about real animals. There's a lot of interesting stuff, but it's not organized very well and the entries tend to be quite brief Most of the legends are just recorded at face value, even when they've been pretty well debunked. It's good for a starting point, and it has a lot of cool pictures.

I know I've mentioned the Reynard the Fox cycle a few times, but I don't think I've ever really gone into detail about it. The version of the story I read is the nineteenth-century adaptation by Henry Morley, which was based on William Caxton's fifteenth-century translation from Dutch. The tales were popular throughout Europe, and are thought to have originated in oral form in France or Germany. The idea of using animals as characters to represent human traits was familiar at least since the time of Aesop, and these stories use some of the standard characterizations, particularly the fox as trickster and the lion as king.

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning - I got this in a package deal with Cthulhu Saves the World, also from Zeboyd Games, and this one came first. I believe there's now a version with souped-up graphics, but that's not the one I have. Since I played Cthulhu first, however, this feels like a prototype. And no, there are no other Breath of Deaths, which I guess puts the game in the same category as Leonard Part VI, although this is actually funny. That's a pretty short game, and this is even shorter.

The Carnelian Cube, by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt - These two authors collaborated on the Harold Shea stories. I've enjoyed other stuff by Sprague de Camp, while the two I read by Pratt solo, The Blue Star and The Well of the Unicorn, didn't grab me. Oh, well. In this book, the archaeologist Arthur Finch finds a magical cube that can transfer someone between worlds based on their desires. He first wants a more rational world, and finds one where he has a job as a poet, but everyone is defined only by their occupations, and there are some strange rules about names and language.

I thought I might take a look at some of the folklore and mythology in Peer Gynt, especially since I've been thinking about trolls recently. I remember seeing an abridged version of Henrik Ibsen's play in college, and the trolls and the Button-Moulder stuck with me. I read the script online, although that isn't usually the best way to fully absorb plays. It jumps around a lot, with Peter traveling all around the world and encountering both realistic and fantastic situations. I've seen Goethe's Faust cited as similar in some ways, and they have the same feel of the characters moving around without a lot of reason and without it affecting them much.

ALT: a black and white pixel art of a tree with a crying face in a forest