In this tale the swallow was originally a servant of Holy Sunday. Holy Sunday, going to church, told her servant, whom she had left at home, that she was to prepare the dinner for her, and that she should take care that it should neither be too hot nor too cold, but just as she […]

Once upon a time there was a widow who had one only child. She had a flock of sheep and a magic dog. The widow died, and the girl was left quite alone. So she took the flock of sheep and went to feed them in the mountain, accompanied only by her faithful little dog. […]

It is a story of a mother-in-law, who, like all mothers-in-law, treated her daughter-in-law in a most cruel manner. Whatever the young woman did was not right. Her mother-in-law persecuted her from morning till evening, and gave her neither peace nor rest. One day, seeing that she could not get rid of her by any […]

Once upon a time some Eskimo children were playing in the wet clay by the seashore. They were making tiny toy houses of the clay. These houses they fastened high on the face of the cliff. The children chattered and laughed. They ran gaily to and fro in their happy play. The people of the […]

Canadian Eskimo’s say that in the long ago, before it had all been quite settled whether the human creatures on this earth of ours were to remain in human form or to take the form of birds and animals, or whether the birds and animals were to be changed into human creatures, a group of […]

The Basques tell that once upon a time a bit of straw was blown into the Blessed Virgins eye. The redbreast (in Basque Chindorra), who was sitting on a bush close at hand, beheld her tears. What did he do? He flew off at once to tell the swallow, and then, carrying in his bill […]

A species of marmot is native in Poland and in nearby Galicia, as well as in the lands to the east as far as central Asia. It is also very common in Eastern Siberia. There, as elsewhere, the little animal is called Bobac. Under the shoulder of the Bobac, in the flesh, may be found […]