Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine by Lewis Spence

Description

Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine is a book by Lewis Spence, first published in 1915, that offers a romantic and richly detailed collection of folklore and myths drawn from the Rhine River region. Spence, a Scottish folklorist and mythologist, organizes the tales geographically — from the Rhine's mouth to its source — evoking the atmosphere of travelers aboard steamboats listening to legends as they pass castles, abbeys, and rocky landscapes. His treatment strikes a balance between scholarly insight and the “mysterious glamour” so prized in German storytelling, presenting characters like Siegfried, the Lorelei, Brunhild, Lohengrin, crusading knights, and supernatural beings in vivid retellings. While Spence’s broader reputation includes speculative and sometimes controversial theories (e.g., on Atlantis), this volume is valued for its evocative storytelling rather than academic rigor. Today, Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine endures as both an entertaining anthology of classic European legends and a cultural artifact capturing the romantic revival of folklore studies in its era.

This book is available for free download in PDF, EPUB, and Kindle formats. Or you can read it online. No registration is required. Just click the links below the donation buttons.