folklore

Water as the final pathway to death is baked into Japanese folklore, which tells of the Sanzu River where a soul must pay money to cross into the afterlife.

Staged in the early hours of the morning to suit American TV, the atmosphere inside the venue belongs in British sporting folklore.

"I want to tell stories about our places and histories, our proverbs, folklore and poetry," he says.

Remove the veil of folklore, and the plot isn’t too different from Oliphant’s career as an unrestrained cartoonist, whose satirical illustrations drew the ire of power-hungry politicians and like-minded megalomaniacs all over the world.

And death follows in books about talking corpses, cemetery folklore and the darkest days of World War II. Here’s a sampling of this fall’s bounty.