Chinese Folk-Tales

This book contains 29 distinct folk stories from the Chinese domain, translated by sinologist and professor William Dolby. A wealth of Chinese folk-stories exists, and these are some of the most classical of the rang of such tales, no doubt recorded with varying degrees of sensitivity and fidelity, some woodenly, some over-laconically, some verbosely and some conveying more fully the sparkling imagination that would undoubtedly have held the traditional listeners enthralled.

Folk traditions in China have been rich thriving and varied. Here is a selection of tales that are sometimes lusty, sometimes delicate and exquisite, their lively themes involving wit, adventure, ingenious why-so stories, monsters, magic, music, moon-cakes, shape-shifting, dragons, ogres, a catastrophically high-jumping silk-worm, and a bride-snatching maple-leaf demon.

Owing to both traditional and modern social conditions and educational preferences, rich folk traditions have been largely kept apart from overt influence on orthodox literature, and even written literature as a whole, although there have been notable exceptions, such as the tale of Liu Ch'en and Juan Chao in the fairy paradise. The folkloric collecting of the past century or so has revealed both the huge extent of this exclusion and the enormous potential of folk literature for thematic and stylistic inspiration to future creativity in all directions.