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Folklore

Transcending the Human Viewpoint

By Madeleine Feeny

I allowed myself to be very playful and unafraid, and to try everything.

The Gut Demons

By Melaka Portuguese Oral Tradition

“When you go in search of food, you must do so at night, and you must only go with your head and intestines.”

Translated from Melaka Portuguese by Sara Frederica Santa Maria

Multilingual

Treasures

By Mohamed Magani

She tapped the photo and said, “When I am dead, this is the photo of me I want you to keep.”

Translated from French by Edward Gauvin

The Forsaken

Listen, all of you, to what will later be said of the Forsaken by one of their descendants.

Translated from French by Edward Gauvin

Adabai

Their nayffara is a flutelike instrument heavy with history, deeply immersed in sorrow.

Translated from Arabic by Sawad Hussain

Thunderbird

“It seems that Noor set fire to another student’s backpack.”

Translated from Arabic by M. Lynx Qualey

Deceptive Simplicity: International Children’s Literature

I often feel that adults forget what children’s stories are capable of.

Enduring Tales: The Qatari Oral Tradition

By Autumn Watts

The stories are abundant with social wisdom, moral instruction, and cultural knowledge.

The Sunni and His Friend

By Qatari Oral Tradition

Cats. Carry cats!

Translated from Arabic by Tariq Ahmed

Al Fisaikra

By Qatari Oral Tradition

Set me free and I'll make you rich.

Translated from Arabic by Kholoud Saleh

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

Fatoum and Hamoud and Hamed

By Qatari Oral Tradition

The mother sheep would warn her children of the wolf that prowled the town.

Translated from Arabic by Rana Elmaghraby

Erlina’s Sugilanon

By Tito Genova Valiente

Actually, the night Erlina first saw an Onglo was the night the creature was regenerating his power.

Across Mountains and Valleys: Stories of Migration from the Kinnaur and Spiti Valleys

By Arshia Sattar

Despite their specificity, these tales transcend the places that produced them and throb with a universal appeal.

The Story of Sunni and Bhunku

By Himalayan Oral Tradition

Why, oh why, did you not come back immediately?

Translated from Lahouli by Noor Zaheer

The Girl Who Turned into a Crocodile

By Himalayan Oral Tradition

She struggled and fought back and tried to save herself but could not overcome the great crocodile that had taken hold of her.

Translated from Lahouli by Noor Zaheer

When the Deer Moved Away

By Himalayan Oral Tradition

Deeku refused to understand the close bond between the humans and the deer and their dependence on each other.

Translated from Lahouli by Noor Zaheer

The Great Lord Pabori

“I am the Great Lord Pabori, who eats the roast of seven lions!”

Translated from Sindhi by Musharraf Ali Farooqi

The Stork and the She-Stork

“I was a fool. I will die and you will live. Return to our young now!”

Translated from Sindhi by Musharraf Ali Farooqi

The Two Sparrows

The cat said, “If I fetch him from down here, what will you give me?”

Translated from Sindhi by Musharraf Ali Farooqi

The Folktales of Sindh: An Introduction

By Musharraf Ali Farooqi

It is likely that in the folktales preserved in the Sindhi language, we can find the structures and traces of the earliest stories from the Indus Valley Civilization.