Preserving Timeless
Folktales for Generations
Explore stories that connect us to our roots, carrying the voices and wisdom of our ancestors across generations. These timeless tales not only preserve cultural traditions and values but also reveal the universal themes, emotions, and lessons that shape the human experience. Through the art of storytelling, they bridge the past and the present, allowing us to see ourselves in the lives of those who came before and reminding us of the shared journey that unites all people.
Good Will Grow Out of Good: Folktale from India
Good Will Grow Out of Good: Folktale from India In a certain town there reigned a king named Patnîpriya, (i.e., lover of his wife.) to whose court, a poor old Brâhmiṇ, named Pâpabhîru, (i.e., a shudder at sin.) came every morning, with a yellow lime in his hand, and presenting it to the king, pronounced a benediction in Tamil:— Nanmai vidaittâl, nanmai vil̤aiyum: Tîmai vidaittâl, tîmai vijaiyum: Nanmaiyum tîmaiyum pinvara kâṇalâm. “If good is sown,
The Gardener’s Cunning Wife: Folktale from India
The Gardener’s Cunning Wife: Folktale from India In a certain village there lived with his wife a poor gardener who cultivated greens in a small patch in the backyard of his house. They were in thirty little beds, half of which he would water every day. This occupied him from the fifth to the fifteenth ghaṭikâ (a Sanskrit technical term referring a division of time (24 minutes). There are 60 ghaṭikās in a single lunar day
The Tiger Guest: Chinese Folklore
The Tiger Guest: Chinese Folklore A young man named Kung, a native of Min-chou, on his way to the examination at Hsi-ngan, rested awhile in an inn, and ordered some wine to drink. Just then a very tall and noble-looking stranger walked in, and, seating himself by the side of Kung, entered into conversation with him. Kung offered him a cup of wine, which the stranger did not refuse; saying, at the same time, that
The Painted Skin: Chinese Folklore
The Painted Skin: Chinese Folklore At T‘ai-yüan there lived a man named Wang. One morning he was out walking when he met a young lady carrying a bundle and hurrying along by herself. As she moved along with some difficulty, (Impeded, of course, by her small feet. This practice is said to have originated about A.D. 970, with Yao Niang, the concubine of the pretender Li Yü, who wished to make her feet like the “new
The Thunder God: Chinese Folklore
The Thunder God: Chinese Folklore Lê Yün-hao and Hsia P‘ing-tzŭ lived as boys in the same village, and when they grew up read with the same tutor, becoming the firmest of friends. Hsia was a clever fellow, and had acquired some reputation even at the early age of ten. Lê was not a bit envious, but rather looked up to him, and Hsia in return helped his friend very much with his studies, so that he,
The Scholars on the Hill: Chinese Folklore
The Scholars on the Hill: Chinese Folklore There was a certain scholar who, passing through Su-ch‘ien on his way to Nanking, where he was going to try for his master’s degree, happened to fall in with three other gentlemen, all graduates like himself, and was so charmed with their unusual refinement that he purchased a quantity of wine, and begged them to join him in drinking it. While thus pleasantly employed, his three friends told