...to ask for your favourite fairytales/myths/stories

[CatherineTheTiny]

Hi you all,

I am taking care of a very lovely 8-year old who loves stories of all kind and always keeps asking for another one. We make up our own "1-Sentence-Stories" (1 sentence me, one him and so on) and do lots of other things with storytelling too.
However, I am leaving in summer and as a goodbye present I want to give him his own storybook, made of our own stories, some stories I wrote myself and I want a section with myths and fairytales from all over the world. I'd really appreciate if you could just write down your (or your kids') favourite tales that are not your average Grimm's fairy tales ;)
Thank you all in advance

I love the Little Mermaid, Princess Furball, the Marsh King's Daughter...Furball is an old traditional one and the other two are by Andersen. There's a Native American one called the Rough Faced Girl which is a version of Cinderella.

Oh, and the Wild Swans (by Andersen) and the Goose Girl. And Baba Yaga.
I'll stop now

Baba yaga is a favourite here.

There's some fab Norse myths too - my kids like the one where Loki convinces Thor to dress in a wedding dress and pretend to marry a frost giant in order to get his hammer back.

The Norse myth is here.

Thank you @Zoni and @Stompy

I like Tir Na Nog

Alice in wonderland.

What a lovely idea!

If you can find it, the story of Jack Rowlands, who rescues his sister from the king in the hill, a fairy.

I know it from a song arranged by Martin Carthy, which you should be able to find on Spotify.

Another thumbs up for Norse myths. My favourite is Thor's visit to Utgard, when the giants deceive him with various illusions.

My favourites are Oscar Wilde’s stories. The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, The Fisherman and his Soul, The Nightingale and the Rose...

My dad used to tell me the story of the lion and the mouse...where the lion has the thorn stuck in his paw and the mouse pulls it out, but exchanged me for the mouse, me and the lion then became best of friends and I rode to school on him etc... I really loved that

I loved Brer Rabbit as a kid, and my fave is Brer Rabbit and the Briar patch - and kids love that insight into human nature.

Also the story of Pandora's box just keeps on giving as you get older. Is Hope actually a gift? Or just another curse? So much to discuss and ponder with a child of any age.

There are also lots of very good stories from southern Africa: Rudyard Kipling certainly got his inspiration from some of them. A book called Madiba Magic (a collection of the great Nelson Mandela's faves) is worth checking out.

Thank you all so much, those are great suggestions and so far away from that old "Princess is waiting for Prince Charming to save her bum"-narrative (He is really sick of it and so am I)

The Lamptom Worm. My favourite from growing up. There is an old legend and a song.

I tell my son stories from The Tain, The Mabinogion and The Epic of Gilgamesh. They are some of the very oldest and though a little editing of adult elements is needed, they have brilliant adventures in them.

Liam and the fairy cattle

Babba yaga is favourite here too,

The mermaid of zennor.

zoni if you like the wild swans story, you would love a book called daughter of forest by Juliet Marrillier. It's the first book in the seven waters series.

I use to read stories out of a Celtic myths book, but I can't find it now.

What a lovely idea!

My favourite folk stories are about the kelpies.

Gilgamesh. And the tale of Narcissus. Some African folk tales are wonderful and often fables. I love your idea. There’s actually a wonderful book called, ‘Tell me a story in the dark’ which has loads of conversational myths and legends for oral storytelling with children. It’s wonderful.

Gobbolino the witches cat, I always enjoyed when younger.

My nana used to tell me some kind of Eastern European folk tale when I was little that always seemed faintly unsettling...

A princess went into the woods one day and met some evil pixies having a party. She danced with them and they spun her round and round until she died [sceptical] The handsome prince came looking for her but the pixies propped her corpse up in the window of a tall tower. They put plums in her mouth to round out her cheeks to make it look like she was smiling, so the price thought she was alive and well and went away.

The End

I think they were goblins actually, not pixies.

What a wonderful idea for a gift!

DD is eight and obsessed with folk tales, myths and legends.
She tends towards the gory/scary though. What stories does your little friend like already?

Crazy, that’s right up DDs street! Where was your Nanna from?

Thank you all for your amazing suggestions, I am pretty sure he will love them.

@Arseface
He likes all kinds but at the moment he's either in "nonsense-stories" (yesterday he told me about a fat sausage who got Type 3-Diabetes, because Type 1 and 2 added up) but he also demands "scary stories" quite often or tries to re-tell horror movie trailers as his own stories (it's hilarious tbh) so gore is definitely good (in moderation of course)

I was a big fan of Pip the pixie by Enid Blyton when I was that age. It’s how I can still tell a male sparrow from a female sparrow and how I learned why the leaves fall in autom. 😊