Zitkala-Sa was an important and influential Yankton Dakota Sioux writer, educator, and political activist. Born in 1876 on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, she spent her life working to bring the history and cultural concerns of Native Americans to the attention of the broader public. “American Indian Stories and Old Indian Legends” collects two of her more important publications that document and preserve the history of her people, as well ...
First published in 1890, “The Red Fairy Book” is the second in a series of collections of fairy tales from around the world edited by Andrew Lang, the Scottish novelist, poet and literary critic, with translations and retellings by his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne, and others. Lang and Alleyne would go on to publish popular collections of fairy tales and poetry for over twenty years. Lang and Alleyne achieved great commercial success with “The ...
“Myths and Legends of Japan”, written in 1913, was an immediate best-seller when it was first released. With the Meiji Restoration, Japan began a period of modernization in the late 19th century that would open up the country to the rest of the world for the first time. This allowed historians like F. Hadland Davis, the author of “Myths and Legends of Japan”, an unprecedented opportunity to study and introduce Japanese culture to Western audienc ...
Written during the early Qing Dynasty, “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” is a collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales by Chinese author Pu Songling. The work, which was published posthumously sometime between 1740 and 1766, is comprised of stories varying in length. While the main characters of this book apparently are ghosts, foxes, immortals, and demons, Pu Songling is more focused on the real lives of common folk of his time. F ...
Thought to have been first written down in the 12th century by an author who is still unknown, “The Nibelungenlied”, translated from Middle High German as “The Song of the Nibelungs”, is an epic German poem reflecting the oral tradition, heroic motifs, and actual events and individuals from the 5th and 6th centuries. This remarkable work begins with an assurance of both joy and sorrow, though ultimately tragedy reins in “The Nibelungenlied”. The ...
German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach’s romance story “Parzival” tells the whirlwind tale of a young man’s life as a knight in search for the Holy Grail. It follows the medieval heroic story of Parzival as he tries to balance his desire for love with his quest for the Grail. At first, Parzival is childish and ignorant, and his bad choices prohibit him from obtaining the Grail. Only through purging his soul through a number of trials and hardships i ...
Considered to be one of the finest of the Icelandic sagas, “Njal’s Saga” or “The Story of Burnt Njal” was written sometime in the thirteenth century by an unknown author and is the longest and most developed of the Icelandic sagas. The source material for the saga was historical but probably drawn largely from oral tradition. The story relates events that took place between 960 and 1020 AD, involving blood feuds in the Icelandic Commonwealth. It ...
“The Kalevala” is a collection of Finnish and Karelian poetry, compiled by Elias Lonnrot from oral folklore and mythology. Lonnrot was a physician, botanist, and linguist, who in 1828 began collecting folk songs and poetry of Finland, traveling extensively in order to obtain his sources. “The Kalevala”, first published in 1835, is considered to be one of the most important works of Finnish literature, and regarded as the national epic of Finland ...
During his lifetime Australian Folklorist Joseph Jacobs would become one of the most important English authorities on folklore. Beginning in 1888, Jacobs began publishing his anthologies of popular world myths and legends. Drawing upon numerous literary sources Jacobs would popularize what have become some of the world’s best known folktales. In this 1891 collection of “Celtic Fairy Tales” Jacobs turned his attention for the first time to the my ...
