Short stories in the genre Folktale / Mythology

Listing 31 stories.

A young man leaves his traditional village behind to travel and work on distant planets. Throughout his interplanetary journeys, he must constantly reevaluate his understandings of truth, tradition, and love as he seeks a fulfilling life of his own, independent of what is expected from him.

In a mythological kingdom, a woman is forced to marry the greedy king, causing the separation and imprisonment of her and her children and forcing the family to escape and reunite.

When a village's beloved schoolteacher disappears just as mysteriously as she arrived an entire century earlier, the townspeople are left to contend with her legacy and lessons.

Loanna asks her Iya why everyone calls her two-headed and Iya tells the story of what happened just before Loanna was born; how she bartered with the god Ajala to receive two heads instead of one.

When a Master's student in anthropology researches the Highlands of Scotland with his hunting dog by his side, he encounters an elderly couple who teach him about the local culture and traditions.

Warrior Dossouye crosses paths with the cursed song-teller Gimmile, never to be the same again.

A boy runs away from an abusive household and a magical figure from a cautionary tale: the Fool-Killer. Fear of the Fool-Killer shapes his whole life as he tries his best to live honestly and un-foolishly.

An Ethiopian prince from AD 1148 travels the country developing groundbreaking technology with the help of a farmer's daughter, whom he soon falls in love with. When he eventually becomes king, he realizes it is not just his country that he must lead to prosperity but the entire planet.

A dwarfish wizard learns how to spin straw into gold to help the miller's daughter out of the kindness of his heart. But then he realizes her situation might be the way to get what he's always wanted—a child.

Ancient, doomed Moggadeet struggles to overcome the deadly cold in order to save their beloved Lillyloo from the harsh, alien world they inhabit together.