Polish Fairy Tales

By Cecile Walton, 1817-1866 1817-1866, Antoni Józef Gliński

Book Overview

Step into a world of enchanted forests, mysterious kingdoms, magical creatures, and timeless wonder in this classic collection of tales from Polish folklore.

In Polish Fairy Tales, readers enter a realm of princes and princesses, water nymphs, dragons, dwarfs, enchanted animals, and extraordinary adventures. Selected from the much larger collection of A. J. Glinski, first published at Wilna in 1862, these stories were drawn from the folklore of the peasantry of the eastern provinces of Poland and neighboring regions then commonly known as White Russia.

According to translator Maude Ashurst Biggs, Glinski recorded the tales as they were related to him by the peasants themselves, preserving stories with roots in a much older oral tradition. In preparing them for English readers, Biggs considerably shortened the originals, whose storytelling was marked by repetition, rhyme, and passages of rhythmic prose reminiscent of the ancient ballad.

Within these pages, a frog becomes a princess, a fearsome basilisk must be outwitted, a bride is carried away by a whirlwind, water nymphs cross the path of a good ferryman, and magical objects possess astonishing powers. Heroes and heroines journey through strange lands and face enchantments, dangerous creatures, difficult trials, and unexpected transformations. Throughout the tales, courage, kindness, loyalty, and ingenuity contend with greed, cruelty, and deception.

These stories also reveal fascinating similarities to the fairy-tale traditions of Germany, the Celtic lands, and even India, reflecting motifs that appear across widely separated cultures. Yet they retain the distinctive atmosphere of the Eastern European folk tradition from which Glinski collected them.

Accompanied by Cecile Walton's evocative illustrations, Polish Fairy Tales offers a fascinating glimpse into the stories once told and retold among the people of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. Rich in magic, adventure, transformation, and wonder, this carefully restored edition brings Glinski's remarkable collection of traditional tales to a new generation of readers.

Ideal for readers interested in fairy tales, folklore, mythology, and Slavic culture, Polish Fairy Tales is an enchanting journey into the imaginative world of old Poland.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1542832144
• ISBN13: 9781542832144
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"