Like the ancient Greeks, the Siwash of the Northwest invest the unseen world with spiritual intelligence. Every tree has a soul; the forests were peopled with good and evil genii,...
There was once, over seven times seven countries, a poor woman who had a son, and he decided to go into service. So he said to his mother, "Mother, fill my bag and let me go out to...
Jackal, it is said, came once to Dove, who lived on the top of a rock, and said, "Give me one of your little ones." Dove answered, "I shall not do anything of the kind." Jackal sai...
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...
It was once thought that kind Fairies took compassion on good folk, who were unable to accomplish in due time their undertakings, and finished in the night these works for them; an...
Somewhere, I don't know where, even beyond the Operencian Seas, there was once a maid. She had lost her father and mother, but she loved the handsomest lad in the village where she...
I. There once lived a certain raja, who had three wives. The two elder had two sons each, and the younger only one, whose name was Lelha. [12] The four sons of the first two wives...
Should young persons wish to know whether their husbands were to be bachelors, or their wives spinsters, the following test was to be resorted to:-- Three persons were necessary to...
Many small stone utensils found in the ground, the use, or the origin, of which was unknown to the finders, were formerly attributed to the Fairies. Thus, flint arrow-heads were ca...
There was once a Raja who in spite of having many wives was childless; and his great desire was to have a son. He made many vows and performed every ceremony that was recommended t...
There was once a Tsaritsa who had no child, and greatly desired one, so the soothsayers said to her, "Bid them catch thee a pike, bid them boil its head and nothing but its head, e...
Ages ago, when this world was new, having been created but a short while, two Chinese boys left their native country and started out on their travels to discover things new and str...
The Old Man of the Sea (Atui koro ekashi) is a monster able to swallow ships and whales. In shape it resembles a bag, and the suction of its mouth causes a frightfully rapid curren...
There were two brothers, whose parents died, leaving them orphans when very young. The name of the elder was Jhorea, and of the younger Jhore. On the death of their parents, the tw...
Many are the tales of prophecy that have been preserved to us from war times. In the beginning of King Philip's war in Connecticut, in 1675, it was reported that the firing of the...
As in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts are common,--so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to look at them; and if on a wild night in t...
It is a good many years since Mrs. Mary Jones, Corlanau, Llandinorwig, Carnarvonshire, told me the following tale. The scene of the story is the unenclosed mountain between Corlana...
The height that rises a mile or so to the south of Newark, Delaware, is called Iron Hill, because it is rich in hematite ore, but about the time of General Howe's advance to the Br...
Now the animals all suspected some trick in this case, and the Turkey in particular was heard to say that he would contrive to get even. Soon afterward he saw the Terrapin coming b...
Umatilla, chief of the Indians at the Cascades of the Columbia, was one of the few red men of his time who favored peace with the white settlers and lent no countenance to the fier...
In a certain village there lived a mother and her son. The boy tended goats in the forest. One day he found a spot of ground, where he thought rice would grow well. So he went home...
Somewhere, nowhere, in another kingdom, in the Empire of Thrice-ten, lived--whether 'twas a Tsar and a Tsaritsa, or only a Prince and a Princess, I know not, but anyhow they had tw...
BY GERALD GRIFFEN When Ireland had kings of her own--when there was no such thing as a coat made of red cloth in the country--when there was plenty in men's houses, and peace and q...
Once upon a time a cowherd lost a calf and while looking for it he was benighted in the jungle; for he was afraid to go home lest he should be scolded for losing the calf. He had w...
Once upon a time there were seven brothers who were all married and each had one child and the brothers arranged to engage a boy to carry the children about; so they sent for a boy...
The place of Macon, Georgia, in the early part of this century was marked only by an inn. One of its guests was a man who had stopped there on the way to Alabama, where he had boug...
Through brisk November days young Kedar and his trusty slave, Lauto, hunted along the Calawassee, with hope to get a shot at a buck--a buck that wore a single horn and that eluded...
In his firelit parlor, in his little house at Valley Forge, old Michael Kuch sits talking with his daughter. But though it is Christmas eve the talk has little cheer in it. The hou...
In Dead Man's Canon--a deep gorge that is lateral to the once populated valley of the Rio de Chelly, Arizona--stands a stark spire of weathered sandstone, its top rising eight hund...
Gods and demi-gods as vast as their mountains are celebrated in the traditionary chants of the Hawaiians. While the largest island in the group seems to have been their favorite re...