Query: Collection of world "fairy" stories?

[womzilla]

Can you recommend a collection of traditional magic stories that includes stories from outside Western and Central Europe?

I'm looking for something like the equivalent of Andrew Lang's [Color] Fairy Books, but wider-ranging.

Comments

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Have you checked all the later Lang's Fairy Books? He ran out of western fairy tales and did range very far. Also try Sur La Lune.

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books
By Laura Gibbs at http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/
A wonderful site with ALL Lang's fairy tales, clickable in lots of ways, or search for key words in text
by source of story
by title of story

Sur La Lune -- surlalunefairytales.com

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Sorry your comment got held as spam--I think it was the two embedded urls and the somewhat mechanical formatting.

Thanks for the recommendation of the Lang index. As I noted to papersky below, I haven't read all that much of the Lang and had no idea he had ventured outside his continent. According to the index, even in the Lilac book (1910, the last original volume), most of the stories are European, but there are Punjabi, Oceaniac, central African, and Pashto stories, so that's cool.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Iirc Lang started branching out pretty early, within the first four books? Then in some later books he found some more closer to home.

I wouldn't vouch for his accuracy especially in the foreign ones. He was sort of collecting broad outlines of motifs and editing them for sales. Profitable series, had to fill out each year's volume.

Iirc there's a way to search by origin at the Lang site I gave.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Hans Baumann Hero Legends of the World.

James Rirodan Fairy and Folk Tales From Around the World.

Edward Holmes Fairy Tales Around thw World.

Van Gool Treasury of the World's Fairy Tales.

And I also totally recommend the Time Life Enchanted World series -- they're coffee table books with lots of pictures, but they have retellings of stories from the whole planet, very well done, and with pictures in the style of the country.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

What age is the kid? Or is this for you? The Time Life ones are pricy, but you can often get them second hand and they are absolutely worth it. The Baumann is aged for a slightly older audience than Lang -- say eight rather than six.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

This is for me, but I thought a collection of "fairy stories" would be most likely to get the weird stories that are really part of cultural currency.

Since I haven't read much of the Lang, I hadn't quite realized how young it's pitched. I have all of those electronically; I should read through them some time.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Ditto papersky--is this for you or a gift/recommendation? We do have stuff from other cultures in CC, but not in one volume. But you know that!

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Pantheon has a really good series of books of "FOO-ish Folk Tales." I'm not sure how much they have from Asia, but I know they have African and Native American books.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

"The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library"? I'll check it out.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Heh. Turns out we have two volumes of it--African and Native American. Thanks for the recommendation!