The Folktale Project
Every week The Folktale Project brings you new folklore, fairytales, myths and legends from around the world. Some tales you've heard before and some brand new.
- Update frequency
- every 5 days
- Average duration
- 9 minutes
- Episodes
- 1352
- Years Active
- 2016 - 2025
The Devil's Match - A Czechoslovak Folktale
Once upon a time there was a poor farmer who lived in a wretched tumble-down cottage beyond the village and whose farm consisted of a miserable little field no bigger than your hand. His children wer…
Stingy Jack - An Irish Folktale
Stingy Jack was a miserable, old drunk who loved playing tricks on anyone and everyone. One dark, Halloween night, Jack ran into the Devil himself in a local public house. Jack tricked the Devil by o…
General Moulton and The Devil - An American Folktale
Jonathan Moulton, of Hampton, was a general of consequence in the colonial wars, but a man not always trusted in other than military matters. It was even hinted that his first wife died before her ti…
The Wizard-Dervish - A Turkish Folktale
A long time ago lived a Padishah who had no son.
As he was taking a walk with his lala one day, they came to a well, near which they stopped to wish. A dervish suddenly appeared and cried: "All hail,…
The Liver - A Turkish Folktale
An old woman once fancied some liver to eat, so she gave her daughter a few paras with which to buy a portion. "Wash it in the pond and bring it straight home," she said. The girl went accordingly to…
The Creation - A Turkish Folktale
Allah, the most gracious God, whose dwelling, place is the seventh heaven, completed the work of creation. Seven planes has the heaven and seven planes also the earth--the abode of evil spirits. In t…
Parsley - An Italian Folktale
There was, once upon a time, a woman named Pascadozzia, and one day, when she was standing at her window, which looked into the garden of an ogress, she saw such a fine bed of parsley that she almost…
The Ant and The Mouse - An Italian Folktale
There was once an ant who, while sweeping her house one day, found three quattrini, and began to say: “What shall I buy? What shall I buy? Shall I buy meat? No, because meat has bones, and I should c…
The Ass That Lays Money - An Italian Folktale
There was once a poor widow with an only son, and whose brother-in-law was a steward. One day she said to her child: “Go to your uncle and ask him to give you something to keep you from starving.”
Th…
The Little Hunting Dog - A Chinese Folktale
Once upon a time, in the city of Shansi, there lived a scholar who found the company of others too noisy for him. So he made his home in a Buddhist temple. Yet he suffered because there were always s…
A Legend of Confucius - A Chinese Folktale
When Confucius came to the earth, the Kilin, that strange beast which is the prince of all four-footed animals, and only appears when there is a great man on earth, sought the child and spat out a ja…
Fox-Fire - A Chinese Folktale
Once upon a time there was a strong young farmer who came home late one evening from market. His way led him past the gardens of a wealthy gentleman, in which stood a number of tall buildings. Sudden…
The Dancers - A German Folktale
The Sabbath-day drew to a close in the summer-tide of the year of grace one thousand and one, and the rustics of Ramersdorf amused themselves with a dance, as was their wont to do, in the courtyard o…
The Flaming Castle - A German Folktale
Upon a high mountain in the Tyrol there stands an old castle, in which there burns a fire every night, and the flashes of that fire are so large that they rise up over the walls, and may be seen far …
The Conclave of Corpses - A German Folktale
Some three hundred years since, when the convent of Kreutzberg was in its glory, one of the monks who dwelt therein, wishing to ascertain something of the hereafter of those whose bodies lay all unde…
The Wanderers - A Maori Folktale
Somewhere far across the sea lies Hawa-iki, that wonderful Motherland where the sun’s rays glow from early dawn to sudden night. Nobody knows now where that old land is, nobody has ever found it agai…
On The Moon - A Maori Folktale
When Shining-Eyes threw the Fire-that-never- goes-out into the sky it was only a flaming stick, but it grew rounder and wider and cooler, until at last it became a great Moon-land. It was a wonderlan…
Wonderwings - A New Zealand Fairy Tale
Poppypink sat up in bed and yawned. "Why is everybody getting up so early?" she asked. "Is it a holiday?"
The older fairies were dressing themselves and brushing their long fine hair. "Wonderwings is…
Ermine and The Hunter
Far away in the Canadian North Country an old man lived with his wife and children. They lived far from other people, but they were never lonely, for they had much work to do. The old man was a great…
The Tobacco Fairy from The Blue Hills
A man and his wife and two little children were living long ago on the shores of a lake surrounded by large trees, deep in the Canadian forest. They lived very happily together, and as game was plent…