A retelling of the tale of twelve princesses who dance secretly all night long, and the soldier who follows them and discovers where they dance.

An old rice farmer and his wife are repaid for their kindness and generosity.

Tales of magical creatures have been told across the world for generations... but are these stories merely flights of fancy, or is there any truth to the legends of unicorns and dragons, centaurs and griffins? Presented as the notebook of a 1920s zoologist, this lavish volume sets out to answer this question, revealing the hidden world of the magical beasts that live among us. Within these pages you will meet bizarre and beautiful creatures from around...

In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groups--including the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazak--and the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk...

"In a world where new technologies are being developed at a dizzying pace, how can we best approach oral genres that represent heritage? Taking an innovative and interdisciplinary approach, this volume explores the idea of sharing as a model to construct and disseminate the knowledge of literary heritage with the people who are represented by and in it. Expert contributors interweave sociological analysis with an appraisal of the transformative impact...

Celebrates the seasons of the year through poems from the legends of such Native American tribes as the Cherokee, Cree, and Sioux.

The flowering thorn expresses the dual nature of the ballad: at once a distinctive expression of European tradition, but also somewhat tricky to approach from a scholarly perspective, requiring a range of disciplines to illuminate its rich composition.