Hollow Places (Christopher Hadley).

"Christopher Hadley's Hollow Places" - это книга, которая исследует легенды о великанах, драконах и духах - как они появились на свет и почему они до сих пор имеют большое значение. Автор поставил перед собой вопрос: "как люди прошлого могли поверить в эти фантастические истории?", и пытается раскрыть их смысл и как это помогает нам понимать настоящее.

"Hollow Places" погружает нас в маргинальные области истории - в ущерб Байе, где собирались странные существа, древние леса, где секреты скрываются в пустых деревьях - а также в манускрипты 19 века, где антиквары разгадывали загадки, касающиеся народных героев. Книга возвращает читателя в церковь елизаветинской Англии, на башню со стороной 660 метров, чтобы рассмотреть, как двоечники и грабежи разбили город.

Christopher Hadley's Hollow Places takes a quest through centuries of historical legends in order to explore an important topic that has always pondered the human mind: what are the truths embedded in mythologies and stories? What connections lie between the metaphorical terrors we cling to and our preconscious desires?

Revisiting the English folklore, Hadley mines the origins of deeply-rooted sprites, monsters and villains, searching selectively through the shinier facts and the more intriguing details, shedding light upon the intrigues by which most marginalized traditions survive in our collective imagination. Guided by the enchanting but also frightening narrative of legendary Piers Shank's epoch-spanning hunt for a beast of legend, Hollow Places winds its journey in figuring out where authentic lore resides and whether or not the traditional mythos may bring us clues into understanding our nature today. Along its lengthy journey of insights gained from major and obscure textual sources, the book deftly addresses deeper questions of identity, superstition and collective memory. Hollow Places delves into matters that unravel, appealing simultaneously to enthusiasts, anthropologists, archivists and trained literary minds. Hadley creates intriguing pathways of speculation and analysis, chock-full of fascinating literary, cultural and intellectual intrigue.

Twenty chapters smooth their way through the rocky terrain, occasionally interspersing caveats, where Hadley revisits her arguments, offers alternative explanations and intensifies the fire of curiosity toward further exploration. An erudite landscape spanning antique woodlands, former battlefields, stained glass windows, sermons and Georgia May Japes, this highly ambitious project of fact seeking blends the joy of carrying on cultural cross-disciplinarity with a disarming charm that draws one anchorless quandary after another. Of interest to both those with curiosity for legends and folk tales of biblical and medieval roots, as well as enthusiasts of history, theory, media and literature, Hollow Places will make an impactful and enlightening travel for any reader.