Books in Pantheon Fairy Tale series

This addition to the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library completes Roger Abrahams's masterful survey of taletelling in the black world by showing the vital forms African stories took as they entered the New World. These 107 tales come from the canefields of the antebellum South, the villages of Caribbean islands, and the streets of contemporary Philadelphia. Throbbing with life, they range from earthy comedy (in recounting the scandalous doings of tricksters Rabbit and Fox) to inventive "just-so" stories explaining why the world is the way it is, to moral fables about encounters between masters and slaves, kings and servants, black and white. Together, they robustly demonstrate the ways an uprooted people have drawn from the traditions of their past to fashion a life -- and with it, a whole new and vital culture -- in the New World.

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A definitive compilation of more than two hundred traditional fairy tales, compiled by the Brothers Grimm, includes the stories of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow-White, H nsel and Gretel, Little Red-Cap, and Briar Rose, among others, accompanied by explanatory and historical material, as well as commentary by Joseph Campbell.

The wisdom and artistry of Latin America's storytellers preserve one of the world's richest folktale traditions--combining the lore of medieval Europe, the ancient Near East, and pre-Columbian America. Among the essential characters are the quiet man's wife who knew the Devil's secrets, the tree daughters who robbed their father's grave, and the wife in disguise who married her own husband--not to mention the Bear's son, the tricksters Fox and Monkey, the two compadres, and the classic rogue Pedro de Urdemalas.Gathered from twenty countries, including the United States, the stories are here brought together in a core collection of one hundred tales arranged in the form of a velorio, or wake, the most frequent occasion for public storytelling. The tales are preceded by a selection of early Colonial legends foreshadowing the themes of Latino folklore and are followed by a carefully chosen group of modern Indian myths that replay the basic stories in a contrasting key. Riddles, chain riddles, and folk prayers, part and parcel of the velorio along with folktales, are introduced at appropriate junctures.The collection is unprecedented in size and scope, and most of the tales have not been translated into English before. The result is the first panoramic anthology of Hispano-American folk narratives in any language--meant to be dipped into at random or read straight through from "Once and twice makes thrice upon a time" to "They were happy as the dickens and ate chickens."