Finding Folktales
For hundreds of years, people around the world have been sharing thousands of folktales with countless variations. As a storyteller, you have a wealth of wonderful stories to choose from. While searching through folktale collections is often very fun, it can be quite daunting to find the right story for you, especially if you're short on time. Thankfully, you can help yourself save time and effort before you begin your search by taking the following into consideration:
Consider What's Expected of You:
Who is your audience? Where will you tell your story? Is there a theme or prompt you must follow? How much time do you have to tell?
The kind of story you'd tell friends around a campfire probably isn't the same kind of story you'd tell at a preschool story time, so think about who you're telling your story to and the context in which you're telling it. Your audience will probably have expectations for the type of story you will tell, so they may tune out or leave if you don't meet them. Additionally, any event planners or directors may have expectations about the subject matter or length of your telling, and your professionalism may be at risk if you don't meet them. Know what is expected of you before you start searching for a story.
Consider What You Have Access To:
Where can you find good stories? Who can help you? How much time do you have to prepare?
When it comes to accessing a large repository of folktales to search through, your local library is going to be your best destination. The 398.2 section of the library is where you can find folktales. Most children's librarians offer story time programs, and they are often familiar with popular and favorite collections or retellings. Additionally, selection sources from professionals (see the next section "Selection Sources" for recommendations) can help you find high quality tales. Finally, don't count out stories from your own family members and experiences, which can be rich material for your storytelling. Be realistic about your time limitations and what stories you'll have access to before you start searching for a story.
Consider What Your Strengths Are:
What kinds of stories do you like? What are your strengths as a storyteller? How can you make a story your own?
If you are having fun telling your story, then it's likely that your audience will have fun listening to you! Find stories or subjects that appeal to your interests. Assess your storytelling style so you can utilize your personal strengths. Do you enjoy being funny? Are you expressive with your body language? Do you like using puppets or props? When you are trying to decide if a story is right for you, imagine how you can put your own unique spin on it.
Selection Sources
Several accomplished storytellers have compiled guides that can help you find stories. These selection sources include high-quality stories that are helpfully organized with the educator/librarian/parent/performer in mind. To save lots of time and effort, it's highly recommended that beginning storytellers start their search from one of these sources.
Sourcebooks and Guides
If you're looking for a comprehensive reference tool for classic children's folktales, Margaret Read MacDonald's The Storyteller's Sourcebook is the first and, perhaps, remains the best published text in the field. MacDonald began creating this resource as part of her PhD dissertation, and then she published the completed volume in 1982 and a supplement with materials from 1983-1999. The sourcebook is organized using the Aarne-Thompson folklore index.
Storytelling guides by professional storytellers often include lists of excellent folktale collections in addition to useful advice for beginning storytellers. Browsing through these guides, you'll find mentions of works by established folklorists as well as some hidden gems. Some guides also include descriptions of how the author tells the story. While it's important to make a story your own (see the Crafting Tales section of this site), learning how the pros tell a version of your story can reveal some valuable insight into what more experienced tellers find appealing and interesting about it.
Check out some of the recommended storytelling sourcebooks and guides below:
Storyteller's Sourcebook (First Edition) by ISBN: 0810304716Publication Date: 1982-03-01The first edition of this comprehensive sourcebook on children's folktale collections is organized by motif, title, subject, and ethnicity and geography. As it covers collections up to 1982, some of the books listed are out of print or hard to find. Using Sith Thompson's motif index may be difficult at first to one unfamiliar with folklore categories, but you won't find a more extensive list anywhere else.
Storyteller's Sourcebook, 1983-1999 (Second Edition) by ISBN: 0810354853Publication Date: 2001-02-07This second edition serves as a supplement to the first edition, covering collections published from 1983-1999. It features 800 new books from that time period organized in the same categories as the original edition. Combined with the first edition, this is the most expansive list of children's folktale collections published in the 20th century.
Folktales Aloud by ISBN: 9780838911358Publication Date: 2013-12-02Del Negro's storytelling guide somewhat follows the Gradual Release of Responsibility teaching model. For each age group (3-6, 6-9, 9-12, and 12-14), the author first offers a quick overview filled with practical advice for storytelling. Then, she provides "story coaching" by retelling a folktale with detailed descriptions of how one could perform it for kids. Finally, she offers a few more stories for the storyteller to practice on their own. At the end, there are several helpful bibliographies featuring recommended folktale collections and resources.
The Handbook for Storytellers by ISBN: 9780838911006Publication Date: 2015-02-24This book, along with its equally good companion, The Handbook for Storytime Programs, offers a wealth of ideas for storytelling programs in a variety of contexts. Not only does it feature practical advice in planning and organizing your program, but the second half of the book is overflowing with folktale and fairy tale recommendations. Perfect for teachers and children's librarians.- Stories: A List of Stories to Tell and to Read Aloud byPublication Date: 1974Compiled by generations of influential librarians from the New York Public Library, including Augusta Baker, this list includes over 400 tales and poems for storytelling programs. Each story listing includes a notable book adaptation as well as a brief summary or quote providing the flavor of the story. Supplemental background materials and sound recordings are also listed. The subject index is organized into convenient topics, such as "Tales from Many Lands," "Clever and Heroic Women," and "Action and Participation Stories." From 1927 to 1990, a total of 8 editions have been published. Many of the selected stories are tried-and-true classics, but several of the books are out of print and hard to find.
The Storyteller's Start-Up Book by ISBN: 0874833043Publication Date: 2005-12-19Another gem from Margaret Read MacDonald, this guide offers advice on finding and crafting stories in a variety of contexts. Lists of relevant story collections are included, and 12 international folktales are featured with "Tips for Telling" after each one. MacDonald's books are very approachable for the beginning storyteller, which is why she appears so frequently on this site!
Storytelling by ISBN: 9781440872082Publication Date: 2021-06-24This essential storytelling guide offers a fantastic series of bibliographies in the back, easily categorized by type: picture books, folktale collection, age groupings, flannel boards, etc. A seriously impressive range of recommended tales from the notable storyteller Janice Del Negro. This book appears in other relevant sections of this site because it's just that useful.
Folktale Collections
These books feature the folktales you are looking for! Collections can be arranged by ethnicity & geography, theme & subject matter, or any number topics. Not all collections are created equal, however. Using the critical skills mentioned in the "Finding Folktales" and "Who Has a Right to Tell a Story?" sections of this page, you should try to discern the quality of the collection before selecting a story from it. There are too many great collections to list on one single page, so be sure to click over to the "Notable Storytellers" page of this site to find more excellent sources.
Check out some recommended folktale collections below:
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm by ISBN: 9780670024971Publication Date: 2012-11-08Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, writes a superior translation of 50 of the best Brothers Grimm stories in this collection. He weaves together interesting elements from the multiple existing versions of each story with his own beautiful yet concise imagery. These classic stories are a pleasure to read and to tell.
Favorite Folktales from Around the World by ISBN: 0394751884Publication Date: 1988-08-12This enormous international collection features over 150 folktales retold by world-class storytellers. Topics cover the breadth of the human experience, from aging to falling love to death and beyond. Most stories are fairly short, and the variety of tones and archetypes means you will likely find a good story for just about any kind of program. Note that this is one of the few collections included on this list that is not expressly written with children in mind, so make sure your selected tale is developmentally appropriate. This is part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library, which has several other collections from around the world.
Kindness Tales by ISBN: 9781947301665Publication Date: 2020-09-07What could be more timely than a book about kindness in today's divided and often hostile world? Kindness Tales contains more than forty folktales that illustrate the transformative power of kindness through leading, sharing, and caring for one another.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by ISBN: 0397319266Publication Date: 2006-01-24A perennial favorite among children, this collection features spooky folktales and songs that have given children the shivers and giggles for generations. Along with equally creepy illustrations, the book features story notes and a bibliography at the end. Schwartz wrote two more Scary Stories collections. While the stories within are superb, their popularity may mean some audience members have already heard them, potentially lessening their impact.
Too Good to Be True by ISBN: 9780393347159Publication Date: 2014-10-06Urban legends are a type of folklore that purports to be true. This large collection of mostly short tales range from frightening to funny. Having started with The Vanishing Hitchhiker in 1981, Brunvand has written multiple volumes on urban legends from around the country, making him the foremost expert on these fun tales, several of which you may remember hearing from when you were a child!
Online Resources
Unless you know where to go, searching online for good folktales is more difficult than it seems. Countless sites with poorly written stories of dubious origin clog up most search engine results. The handful of sites below are meant to be a starting place to finding stories and storytellers. If you come across a folktale online that you like, make sure you can verify its authenticity elsewhere.
Check out some of the best online resources for children's folktales below:
- August House PublishersAugust House, a book publisher specializing in high-quality collections and adaptations of folktales. In addition to a searchable book catalogue, they also lesson plans, reading lists, and various other educational resources related to storytelling. Many of the story collections mentioned throughout this site come from August House.
- National Storytelling NetworkThe official website of the National Storytelling Network, an association for professional and amateur storytellers. The site includes upcoming storytelling events, an active listserv, and a storyteller directory, where you can find professional storytellers in your state.
- Storytelling, Self, SocietyA peer-reviewed journal that addresses issues in storytelling across professions and disciplines. Recent issues have covered topics such as the state of storytelling during the pandemic, digital storytelling, and storytelling across cultures. Educators and librarians will find several relevant articles about children's storytelling efforts.
Who Has a Right to Tell a Story?
Sharing folktales from different cultures can be great fun and quite rewarding. You get to teach others about new perspectives and traditions while also bridging cultural gaps with universal themes and emotional empathy. However, the transmission of folktales throughout history has not always been equal. Many wonderful stories have reached Western audiences through colonialism, slavery, and cultural appropriation. As a society, we must reckon with this ugly history to find ways to share folktales in a respectful and culturally sensitive way.
So then, can you tell a story that's not from your own culture?
There's not an easy answer that works for every occasion, but if you are willing to put in the work, you should be able to answer, "Yes... with some caveats." If you tell a story from a different culture, then you're obligated to do everything in your power to tell it as thoughtfully as you can:
- Research the story and its context within its culture
- Listen to other people from the original culture tell the story
- Ask for permission, if possible, or feedback from others
- Pay attention to the language you use in your version: Does the language respect and reflect the story's original culture?
- Cite your sources
- Admit your mistakes and learn from them
If you take your job as a storyteller seriously, and if you tell stories with appreciation and respect towards the source material and your audience, then your listeners will accept your role as a steward of others' stories.
For further suggestions and authoritative insight on this issue, check out the sources below:
- Hearne, Betsy. "Swapping Tales and Stealing Stories: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Folklore in Children's Literature." Library Trends, vol. 27, no. 3, December 1999.Hearne returns with insights about ethical storytelling in response to discussions she had and observations she made in the years following her original feature on evaluating picture books. She raises the question, "Who owns a tale?" On one hand, stories cannot be removed from their sociopolitical context and even well-meaning storytellers run the risk of appropriating from other cultures. On the other hand, stories tend to take on a life of their own, making original ownership murky, and many popular folktales are "culturally adaptable" and deserve to be shared with a wide audience. Without any clear-cut answers available, individual storytellers owe it to their audience to share their knowledge of the origins of the folktale during their retelling.
- Hearne, Betsy. “Cite the Source: Reducing Cultural Chaos in Picture Books.” School Library Journal, vol. 39, no. 7, July 1993.The first article in the seminal two-part feature that provides librarians with criteria for judging the quality of picture-book folktales. In “Part One,” Hearne argues that picture books must provide the original source of the folktale, its cultural context, and an explanation of adaptation choices. Citing this information is beneficial for both the storytellers, who can better discern the quality of the story, and the listeners, who can better understand the context and meaning of the story.
- Hearne, Betsy. “Respect the Source: Reducing Cultural Chaos in Picture Books.” School Library Journal, vol. 39, no. 8, Aug. 1993.The second article in the seminal two-part feature that provides librarians with criteria for judging the quality of picture-book folktales. In “Part Two,” Hearne argues that picture books should also be evaluated based on their narrative and visual choices in relation to the original source and context. Creators can establish authority over a tale by gaining knowledge and experience of its original culture. Adapting a tale from one culture to another requires a great deal of respect and consideration, or else the picture book may present negative stereotypes or erase important cultural elements. Hearne calls for librarians to consider the citation of the original source as well as the cultural authenticity of the adaptation when selecting picture books to purchase.
American Trickster by ISBN: 9781783481118Publication Date: 2019-06-18The "Uncle Remus" tales of Brer Rabbit are perhaps the most well-known examples of cultural appropriation within the history of folklore. This trickster served as a figure of resistance among African American slaves until it was hijacked by white creators and repurposed to soften the United States' legacy of slavery for white audiences. Marshall's superb book reveals the hidden history and power of Brer Rabbit. This is a superb resource for storytellers who want to learn more about the complicated cultural context of this important American folk hero.- Storytelling by ISBN: 9781440872082Publication Date: 2021-06-24The relevant chapter from this essential storytelling guide is titled "Storytelling with Folktales: History, Community, and Appropriation." Co-authors Janice Del Negro and Donna Washington provide insight into issues surrounding authorship and cultural appropriation in storytelling. The authors encourage librarians and educators to tell stories that reflect the population they serve and create emotional empathy with others. They warn that even well-meaning storytellers can be guilty of misappropriation if they don't understand the full context behind a story. Storytellers must do the hard work of researching the story so they remain true to the story and culture. The chapter ends with useful suggestions to keep in mind while selecting and crafting the story.
