Serpent, Siren, Maelstrom, and Myth: Sea Stories and Folktales from Around the World -- Gerry Smyth, Paperback

An entrancing collection of myths and legends of the sea

The sea is beautiful and alluring, but it is also dangerous and deadly. Above all, it is unknowable and untamable. Storytelling offered our ancestors a means to understand and interact with the natural world, and in time these stories coalesced into the mythological systems of the world. And the ocean features in every mythological system in history.

To reflect and explore this phenomenon, Gerry Smyth gathers together myths and folktales from cultures around the world: Native American, Caribbean, Polynesian, Persian, Indian, Scandinavian, and European. Just as these stories have been passed down through generations, he brings his own narrative interpretation with additional discussion on their meaning. Stories are divided into seven sections--Origin Stories; Gods and Humans; Voyages; Lost Places, Imagined Spaces; Weather and Nature; Down to the Sea in Ships; and Fabulous Beasts--and embellished with artworks, paintings, medieval illuminations, maps, and sailor sketches drawn from the wide-ranging collections of the British Library.

Author: Gerry Smyth
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 08/05/2025
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9780295754505

About the Author

Gerry Smyth is a musician, actor, playwright, and professor of Irish cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University. He is author of the best-selling Sailor Song: The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas.