Friendship & Loyalty
Read 100 folk tales about friendship and loyalty — stories that celebrate the bonds between companions, the sacrifices friends make for each other, and the transformative power of genuine human connection. These moral stories about friendship show children how true friends stand by each other through adversity, and why loyalty is among the most treasured virtues in every culture.
Chinese Folk Tales
All Ages
The Constable
The Constable: In a city in the neighborhood of Kaiutschou there once lived a constable by the name of Dung. One day when he returned from a hunt after thieves
Arabian Nights
All Ages
The Story of the Slave Kafur
An enslaved boy in the Arabian Nights tells one lie a year. The year his lie convinces a whole household their master is dead, and the master that his household is dead, a city is thrown into mourning over corpses that never existed - a comic, unsettling parable on the runaway speed of a falsehood.
Arabian Nights
All Ages
The Barber’s Story of Himself
The comic Arabian Nights tale of the self-styled Silent Barber - the busybody who climbs uninvited into a stranger's boat, lands in chains before the Caliph, and still cannot hear how he sounds.
Japanese Folk Tales
All Ages
How An Old Man Lost His Wen
How An Old Man Lost His Wen: Many, many years ago there lived a good old man who had a wen like a tennis-ball growing out of his right cheek. This lump was a
Panchatantra Stories
All Ages
The Timid Hare and the Flight of the Beasts
The Timid Hare and the Flight of the Beasts: Once upon a time when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a young lion. And when fully
Indian Folk Tales
All Ages
A Crow And His Three Friends
A Crow And His Three Friends: In a lush forest that stretched from the foothills of the Vindhya mountains to the banks of a winding river, there lived a crow
Indian Folk Tales
Ages 3-5
The Soothsayers Son 2
The Soothsayers Son 2: Thus a Soothsayer when on his death-bed wrote the horoscope of his second son, and bequeathed it to him as his only property, leaving
Indian Folk Tales
Ages 3-5
The Soothsayers Son
The Soothsayers Son: A soothsayer when on his deathbed wrote out the horoscope of his second son, whose name was Gangazara, and bequeathed it to him as his
Aesop's Fables
Ages 3-5
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid: Deep in the big blue ocean, there lived Meena, a Little Mermaid. Meena loved listening to her Grandma’s stories of the world beyond the
Panchatantra Stories
Ages 9-12
The Grain of Corn
A farmer plants a single grain of corn and cultivates it into an abundant harvest through faith and hard work.
Aesop's Fables
Ages 3-5
The Hermits Daughter
The Hermits Daughter: Near a town in India called Ikshumati, on a beautiful wide river, with trees belonging to a great forest near its banks, there dwelt a
Aesop's Fables
Ages 3-5
Re-uniting old friends through social media
Re-uniting old friends through social media: The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct through the windows. Rays of sun shining through them