Scope
By Pagan literature we mean writing that comes from, or closely documents, polytheistic and nature-centered religion: the religions of the ancient Mediterranean, the Near East, and northern Europe; the folk custom and belief in which fragments of them survived, or were later imagined to survive; and the contemporary Pagan religions that have grown up since the middle of the twentieth century.
"Pagan" began as an outsider's word. The Latin paganus meant a country dweller or a civilian, and Christians of the fourth century applied it to those who kept the old worship. It became a name people chose for themselves only in modern times. We use it broadly and without prejudice.
| Class | What is shelved there |
|---|---|
| B 1 | Ancient Mediterranean and Near East: Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman religion; hymns, myths, and funerary texts in translation; the mystery religions |
| B 2 | Northern Europe: Norse and Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, and Finnic sources; the Eddas and sagas, the Mabinogion, the Irish cycles, the Kalevala |
| B 3 | Folklore and comparative religion: folk custom, fairy lore, seasonal festivals, ancestor veneration, and the classic comparative studies |
| B 4 | Revival and reconstruction: Druidry, Heathenry, and the reconstructed Hellenic, Roman, Egyptian, and other polytheisms |
| B 5 | Modern Pagan witchcraft and Wicca: liturgy, Books of Shadows in print, Goddess spirituality, the Wheel of the Year |
| B 6 | Modern Paganism in general: histories, community studies, ethics, theology, and memoir |
Strengths
- A nearly complete shelf of English translations of the Homeric and Orphic hymns, from the eighteenth century to the present, which lets a reader hear how each age rendered the same prayers.
- Parallel translations of the Poetic and Prose Eddas, with grammars and dictionaries of Old Norse shelved in the Tower.
- Some six hundred practitioner titles from 1950 to 2000, many long out of print, given by covens and groves along the Pacific coast.
- A working collection on the seasonal customs of the British Isles and their afterlife in the modern Wheel of the Year.
Where to begin
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Theogony Hesiod. Greek, about 700 BCE. B 1
The earliest systematic account of the Greek gods: the birth of the cosmos from Chaos, the generations of the gods, and the victory of Zeus. Short, strange, and the starting point for nearly everything later said about Greek myth.
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The Homeric Hymns Greek, mostly seventh to fifth century BCE. B 1
Thirty-three hymns in the epic style, attributed to Homer in antiquity. The long hymns to Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite are the fullest surviving narratives of those gods, and the Hymn to Demeter is our chief literary witness to the story behind the Eleusinian mysteries.
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The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) Apuleius. Latin, second century CE. B 1
A comic novel whose hero is turned into a donkey by careless magic and restored by the goddess Isis. The eleventh book is the most detailed literary account of initiation into a mystery religion to survive from antiquity.
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The Poetic Edda Old Norse. Preserved chiefly in a manuscript of about 1270. B 2
Anonymous mythological and heroic poems, among them the Voluspa, a seeress's vision of the world's making and ending, and the Havamal, the sayings of Odin. Written down in Christian Iceland from older oral tradition.
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The Mabinogion Middle Welsh. Preserved in manuscripts of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. B 2
Eleven prose tales, of which the Four Branches are the core. They are medieval literature and not a Pagan scripture, but figures such as Rhiannon, Lleu, and Bran carry clear echoes of older Celtic gods.
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Drawing Down the Moon Margot Adler. 1979, with revised editions to 2006. B 6
A journalist's sympathetic and clear-eyed survey of Witches, Druids, and other Pagans in the United States, based on interviews and questionnaires. Still the best single portrait of the movement in its formative decades.
A note on sources
Very little ancient Pagan literature was written as scripture. Much of what survives comes to us through poets and antiquarians, and often through Christian scribes writing centuries after conversion, as with the Eddas and the Irish and Welsh tales. Our catalog notes say who wrote each source down, and when.
Related research guides
- Witchcraft and Modern Paganism
- Gnostic and Neoplatonic Texts, for the philosophy of late antique Paganism
- Divination and Tarot, for oracles and omens