China
Explore Chinese folk tales, legends and literary adventures, including stories preserved through older translated collections. Source notes identify the version followed and distinguish its imagined world from historical or religious commentary.
80 stories are in this region right now.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Heartless Husband
A woman survives her husband's attempt to drown her; her adopted parents expose him and then press for a reconciliation.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Halos of the Saints
A peeping mandarin is blinded by the God of War’s red halo, and a fox tells a proud scholar that his head shows nothing but black fog.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Great Flood
A boy adopts a beggar-woman as his grandmother, and her gifts of a pearl jar and a tiny boat carry him through a flood to a royal wedding.
Chinese Folk Tales
The God of War
Guan Yu swears brotherhood in a peach orchard, fights with unbeatable courage, dies a loyal captive, and as a spirit learns a lesson about fate from a monk.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Golden Canister
A slave-girl skilled with the sword slips into an enemy count’s bedroom by night and takes his golden canister, ending a war before it begins.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Girl with the Horse’s Head or the Silkworm Goddess
A daughter's promise to a horse, her father's response and a magical transformation form this troubling legend of silk's origin.
Chinese Folk Tales
The God of the City
A drowned spirit renounces gaining freedom through another death, then becomes a city god in a story that tests mercy against collective punishment.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Ghost Who Was Foiled
Camping outside an old temple, a soldier follows a pale ghost in a red gown into a village and catches her trying to lure a young mother to her death.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Frog Princess
Sia's marriage to a frog-princess is broken repeatedly by his abuse; the tale ends with a reconciliation whose terms invite scrutiny.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Flying Ogre
A wandering monk hides a barefoot girl in red inside a giant hollow tree, until a heavenly rider on a lightning-fast horse reveals what she really is.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Fire-God
Dschu Yung taught people to use fire and became the Fire-God, who later rides along disguised as a girl in red and warns a polite rich man of a blaze.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Flower-Elves
On a moonlit night a hermit scholar hosts four lovely sisters and their eighteen gusty aunts, then learns who his guests really are when a storm comes.