The spooky season has wound down for another year, and now we are faced with the long dark of the winter—what I’ve come to know as a time for myth and a time for stories.
In my own mythology studies, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle immensely with the transition from Greco-Roman mythology to Norse. In 2015, I discovered Jackson Crawford’s translation of the Poetic Edda, a work that truly made these stories accessible for curious laymen readers such as myself.
Like many of those who read The Book Haunt, my mythological background is Greco-
Roman and Norse. Andrew Paciorek’s Black Earth: A Field Guide to the Slavic Otherworld was a venture into the unknown for me; a journey into a mythology and a worldview that was both alien and familiar.
First, I have to give credit where it’s due.
Paciorek’s descriptions and explanations of each of the gods made them relatable for someone brand new to Slavic mythology. There are at least a handful of parallels between Slavic and other European mythologies that the author made sure to note, but this commentary was grounded in well-researched reality.
The Book Haunt 