Indian fairy tales

Indian fairy tales

Though Indian fairy tales are the earliest in existence, yet they are also from another point of view the youngest. The story of modern India has been well dipped into during the last quarter of a century, though the immense range of the country leaves room for any number of additional workers and collections. Even so far as the materials already collected go, a large number of the commonest incidents in European folk-tales have been found in India. Whether brought there or born there, we have scarcely any criterion for judging; but as some of those still current among the folk in India can be traced back more than a millennium, the presumption is in favour of an Indian origin.

Content

The lion and the crane

How the Raja's son won the pincess Labam

The Lambikin

Punchkin

The broken pot

The magic fiddle

The cruel crane outwitted

Loving Laili

The tiger, the Brahman and the jackal

The shootsayer's son

Harisarman

The charmed ring

The talkative tortoise

A lac of rupees for a piece of advice

The gold-giving serpent

The son of seven queens

A lesson for kings

Pride goeth before a fall

Raja Rasalu

The ass in the lion's skin

The farmer and the money-lender

The boy who had a moon on his forehead and a sun on his chin

The prince and the fakir

Why the fish laughed

The demon with the matted hair

The Ivory city and it's fairy princess

Sun, Moon and Wind go out to dinner

How the wicked sons were duped

The pigeon and the crow

Selected and edited by Joseph Jacobs