Curious Myths of the Middle Ages

A collection of essays surveys popular medieval legends and beliefs, retelling narratives and tracing their variants and sources. It treats a range of motifs and figures—including wanderers, priest-kings, miracle-sleepers, impostors, heroic archers, prodigious animals, tailed men, lunar folklore, numerical superstitions, divination practices, and visions of paradise—and explains how these stories circulated and changed. Drawing on chronicles, travelers’ reports, and folk tradition, the author compares literary and oral attestations and discusses the cultural and religious forces that shaped each tale. Occasional illustrations and critical commentary highlight the mingling of myth and historical report in medieval imagination.