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"In recent years there has been a significant growth in interest of the so-called 'law in context' extending legal studies beyond black letter law. This book looks at the relationship between statute law and legal practice. It examines how law is applied in reality and more precisely how law is perceived by the general public in contrast to the legal profession. The authors look at a number of themes that are central to examining ways in which myths about law are formed, and how there is inevitably a constitutive power aspect to this myth making. At the same time they explore to what extent law itself creates and sustains myths. The book will be of general interest to a number of different disciplines such as legal theory, general law, criminology and sociology."--

The paper discusses some mythological characters―demons, masqueraders, zoo- and anthropomorphic dolls―found in the popular beliefs of the peoples of Dagestan and manifested in children's games, calendar holidays, and in the rainmaking rituals. The characteristic feature of these figures is that they are depicted in folk imagination as having herbal nature.

This article deals with selected aspects of popular belief in post-Reformation England as compared to the pre-Reformation popular tradition of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Through a discussion of the politics of superstition and religiously-shaped concepts of reason in Early Modern England, this article discusses medicinal magic, and the power of objects and words in the context of religion and popular belief, focusing in particular on leprosy and exorcism. By examining the Protestant understanding of the supernatural as well as its polemical importance, the article investigates the perseverance of popular belief after the Reformation and outlines some of the reasons and politics behind this perseverance, while also examining the role of the supernatural in the culture of belief in Early Modern England by tracing the presence and importance of particular beliefs in popular imagination and in the way religion and confessional rhetoric made use of popular beliefs. ; This research is supported by the generous funding of the Polish National Science Centre, project no. 2013/09/N/HS2/02213.

"'The world today is as furiously religious as it ever was.' This quote from Peter Berger now appears to be undisputed in the contemporary social and cultural sciences. A look around the globe reveals that modernization does not necessarily lead to a decline of religion, neither in society nor in the minds of individuals.( ..) Southeast Asia in particular presents a rich field of inquiry into the dynamics of these "modernities" that have produced and shaped a wide variety of religious phenomena. With case studies from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam, these contributions reveal contemporary religious practices in Southeast Asia as thoroughly modern manifestations of uncertainties, moral disquiet and unequal rewards in the contemporary moment."--Publisher's description