Nature & Animals
Talking animals, enchanted landscapes and stories explaining natural features appear in this theme. Animal characters may act like people, while a legendary origin may carry symbolic meaning. Read them as stories and use the source notes to distinguish a tale’s explanation from a factual claim about wildlife or the natural world.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Grateful Ghost
Riding to the state examination, a scholar hears sneezing from the roots of a roadside vine and finds a skull, and that night its spirit visits him in a dream.
Korean Folk Tales
The Boxed-up Governor
A pompous governor who calls dancing girls goblins falls for a shy woman at his gate, never suspecting she is a dancing girl sent by the Mayor to trick him.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Cursed by the Snake
When servants kill a giant snake found coiled in a flour jar and burn its body, deadly smoke fills a minister’s mansion and leaves the land cursed.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Cat-Kin and the Queen Mother
A farmer’s daughter named for a pussy willow calls up the Heavenly Queen Mother, who carries her by dragon chariot to the Island of Gems.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
A Story of the Fox
Alone at night in his father’s garden pavilion, a governor’s young son is visited by a pretty stranger he suspects is really a shape-changing fox.
Korean Folk Tales
A Frog for a Husband
A giant bullfrog moves in with a poor old farmer, fills his house with treasure, then insists on marrying the loveliest girl in the next village.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Russet Dog
The Russet Dog, the clever Highland fox, tricks a hunter, a cock and the poor wolf over and over, until one careless joke finally costs him dearly.
Celtic Folk Tales
The Little White Cat
Eileen delays a forced marriage with three impossible balls of fairy dew, while the Little White Cat guides a prince through enchanted islands to obtain her rescue.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Lad with the Goat-Skin
Tom, a poor widow’s son dressed only in a goat-skin, wins three magic gifts from giants and sets out to make the gloomy princess of Dublin laugh three times.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Enchanted Cave
Prince Cuglas chases a deer into a cave and finds himself in the realm of a fairy queen who loves him, while his true love, Princess Ailinn, waits at Tara.
Celtic Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Black Horse
A king’s youngest son swaps a lame old pony for a black horse that can go anywhere in the world, then must fetch a Greek princess for the Prince Underwaves.
African Folk Tales
The Tail of the Princess Elephant
To honour his dead mother, Kwesi steals the princess elephant’s tail, escapes with his juju’s help, then must survive the beautiful bride she becomes.