All Stories
Browse our complete collection of folk tales, Panchatantra stories, and moral stories from around the world.
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
The Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden
A golden cow flies a poor herd boy to the Sea of Heaven, where he marries the Weaving Maiden until she draws the Silver River across the sky.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Kindly Magician
A spendthrift saved three times by a mysterious old man must keep perfect silence while the old man brews the elixir of life, whatever visions come.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The King of Huai Nan
Eight old men who can turn into boys teach a Han prince their magic arts, and when rebellion comes they carry him off to immortality.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The King of the Ants
In a haunted house a scholar watches a tiny king hunt on his bed and fish in his ink saucer, until the little king’s boasting goes too far.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Kingdom of the Ogres
A merchant shipwrecked among ogres wins his life by cooking for them, marries an ogre-girl, and years later his son brings the whole family home.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Lady of the Moon
Tschang O swallows her husband’s herb of immortality and floats up to the moon, where a Tang emperor later visits her halls of crystal.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Little Hunting Dog
Tiny horsemen hunt the fleas in a scholar’s room and ride away, leaving behind an ant-sized hunting dog that becomes his most treasured companion.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Magic Cask
A farmer digs up a jar that copies whatever falls into it, grows rich on coins, then loses everything through the way he treats his grandfather.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away
A whirlwind carries a girl to the top of a towering pagoda, where a polite student who is secretly a winged ogre keeps her until her brother comes.
Chinese Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
The Miserly Farmer
A farmer refuses a ragged monk a single pear, then gapes as the monk grows a magic pear tree in the market and hands its fruit to the whole crowd.
Chinese Folk Tales
The Monk of the Yangtze-Kiang
A rain-dragon loses a bet and his head, and the guilt-stricken emperor sends a monk who was set adrift as a baby to bring sutras back from India.