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
Fishsave
There was once upon a time a little baby whose father was Japanese ambassador to the court of China, and whose mother was a Chinese lady. While this child was still in its infancy the ambassador had …
The Language of the Birds
Somewhere in a town in holy Russia, there lived a rich merchant with his wife. He had an only son, a dear, bright, and brave boy called Ivan. One lovely day Ivan sat at the dinner table with his pare…
The Story of the Seven Sisters and The Faithful Lovers
In the dream time, many ages ago, the cluster of stars which we now know as the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, were seven beautiful ice maidens. Their parents were a great rugged mountain whose dark…
The Haunted Mill
Among the settlers in the Adirondacks, forty or fifty years ago, was Henry Clymer, from Brooklyn, who went up to Little Black Creek and tried to make a farm out of the gnarly, stumpy land; but being …
Whirlwind and Panther
Once, in a Seneca village, a party of men was preparing to go on a hunting expedition. In that village was a young man whom people thought was foolish, not strong of mind. He knew that hunters were g…
Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes
In a certain village on the Yukon River there once lived four brothers and a sister. The sister's companion was the youngest boy, of whom she was very fond. This boy was lazy and could never be made …
Violet
Envy is a wind which blows with such violence, that it throws down the props of the reputation of good men, and levels with the ground the crops of good fortune. But, very often, as a punishment from…
The Blinded Giant
At Dalton, near Thirsk, in Yorkshire, is a mill. It has quite recently been rebuilt; but when I was at Dalton, six years ago, the old building stood. In front of the house was a long mound, which wen…
Agnes Surriage
When, in 1742, Sir Henry Frankland, collector of the port of Boston, went to Marblehead to inquire into the smuggling that was pretty boldly carried on, he put up at the Fountain Inn. As he entered t…
The Palace of the Eagles
East of the Land of the Rising Sun there dwelled a king who spent all his days and half his nights in pleasure. His kingdom was on the edge of the world, according to the knowledge of those times, an…
The Hen Trips in the Mountain
Once upon a time there was an old widow who lived in a remote village tight by a hill with her three daughters. She was so poor that she owned nothing but a hen, and this she held as dearly as the ap…
The Finest Liar in the World
So the beardless one began to lie with all his might, and when he was tired of inventing new lies the boy said to him, 'My good fellow, if THAT is all you can do it is not much! Listen to me, and I w…
The Old Street Lamp
Did you ever hear the story of the old street lamp? It is not remarkably interesting, but for once you may as well listen to it.
It was a most respectable old lamp, which had seen many, many years of…
The Nail
A merchant had done well at the fair. He had sold all his wares, and filled his moneybag with gold and silver. He now wanted to make his way toward home, and to be in his own house before nightfall. …
The Three Princesses In Kvittenland
Once upon a time there was a fisherman who lived close by the castle and fished for the king’s table. One day when he was out fishing, he caught nothing, no matter how he baited his hooks—whether he …
The Chrysanthemum Show
Yoshi-san and his Grandmother go to visit the great temple at Shiba. They walk up its steep stairs, and arrive at the lacquered threshold. Here they place aside their wooden clogs, throw a few coins …
The Windham Frogs
On a cloudy night in July, 1758, the people of Windham, Connecticut, were awakened by screams and shrill voices. Some sprang up and looked to the priming of their muskets, for they were sure that the…
The Child in the Grave
There was mourning in the house, sorrow in every heart. The youngest child, a boy four years old, the joy and hope of his parents, had died. There still remained to them two daughters, the elder of w…
The Crumbling Silver
There is a clay bank on Little Neck, Long Island, where metallic nodules are now and then exposed by rain. Rustics declare them to be silver, and account for their crumbling on the theory that the me…
Father Frost
In a far-away country, somewhere in Russia, there lived a stepmother who had a stepdaughter and also a daughter of her own. Her own daughter was dear to her, and always whatever she did the mother wa…