Family Folktales

A man provides costly aid but later receives help from an unlikely source in this Spanish tale.

Kindness to a crane leads to a wonderful gift – but watch out for greedy relatives!

Unable to find an appropriate master for his son to apprentice with, a man is thrilled to find someone willing to take him on – until the stranger flies off with the lad. Now the father must begin a quest to locate and try to rescue his son.

A weaver needing work takes a job as a shepherd – but wait until you hear how foolish he and some other weavers are!

An old peasant is tricked by a wicked tanuki into doing something terrible. Now the peasant and his friend, a hare, must work together to bring about the tanuki’s demise.

The filmed versions of this story that you’ve seen stay pretty close to this version of this tale. If you enjoyed the versions by Disney or Cocteau, you’ll like this too!

A young man called Dullhead by his family is kind to a stranger and is rewarded with a golden goose. When a young woman finds the goose irresistible, she also finds herself stuck to it, along with a flock of others! Dullhead decides to use these silly people to try and win the hand of a princess – but what will the king say to that?

A poor man with too many mouths to feed agrees to give his youngest daughter to a giant lizard to raise. The girl is raised like a princess, with lovely manners – and a bad attitude. That attitude may lead her into a difficult situation when she marries the king!

After being disowned by his father for marrying without his knowledge, a once-wealthy young man descends into poverty. Although his brother shows him some kindness and he has some small success, his greedy sister-in-law plunges him into legal turmoil. Can he refute the charges against him, or will he lose his life?

A princess has spent her entire life in an underground palace, and now that she is of marriageable age, the king has set a challenge: find the princess, and you shall marry her. Try and fail, and you lose your life. Is this clever young man clever enough to outwit the king?

In this Icelandic tale, a princess must avoid a forced marriage to a giant, and outwit a witch and that giant’s ghost so she can save her beloved foster brother from living half his life as a lion!

A young emperor falls in love with a neighboring princess, only to find that his ambassadors are arranging a marriage to her less-desirable older sister, who is outraged at the emperor’s choice of her younger sister. She convinces her father to exile the younger princess in a tower in the desert with the older sister’s nurse as a companion and guard, but the emperor finds her, though he is serious...

A King is eager to marry, but insists that his bride should be as beautiful as the sun. So how does he end up married to an elderly witch?

When a maiden decides she must have a sprig of rosemary, she ends up finding her true love. But when her actions cause him to vanish, she begins a quest that will take her farther than she ever imagined in order to find him again.

When Lizina is rejected by her mother (who much prefers Lizina’s older sister, Peppina), she goes to work in a house filled with cats. She finds great success there, so much so that her greedy sister decides to try her own luck with the cats. But which sister will live happily ever after?

When a man’s dead wife is restored to him, can he obey the one rule that will return her to him forever? Find out in this tale from the Iroquois.

A man dies while trying to keep wild animals from stealing his chickens, and the animals band together to take his body for their dinner. But what will the six hungry beasts do when their food starts to run out?

This is three stories in one! All feature the cunning Jackal and his equally tricky sons – will any of them survive the telling of these tales?

A man discovers that the kettle he’s found is really a tanuki! What will happen when he sells it to a tradesman without telling the secret?

A hard-hearted man learns that an infant in a poor family is fated to claim all his property. To what lengths will he go to ensure this doesn’t happen – and will he succeed?

A stone-cutter is content with his life until he is exposed to the life of a rich man. When his wish for such a life is granted, he wishes to be greater and stronger until the mountain spirit grants one last wish.

A widowed man with a son and a daughter (she is known as Maiden Bright-Eye) marries a cruel woman with a daughter of her own who cannot equal Maiden Bright-Eye in any way. After Maiden Bright-Eye is rewarded for her kindness and her stepsister punished for her cruelty, the king decides to marry Maiden Bright-Eye. Will Maiden Bright-Eye get her happily ever after, or will her cruel stepsister?

Three princes go hunting with their stepsister, agreeing along the way to spare the lives of several animals in exchange for the young of those animals. When the oldest is betrayed by the stepsister – well, dragons, death, and peril ensue.

It’s a battle of wits for the Liar’s Crown in this Serbian tale! Who will tell the tallest tale?

For almost seven years, people have tried to reach the golden castle on top of the Glass Mountain; will anyone ever reach the princess who lives there?