Folk tales and fairy stories are an endless well to fall down, and I have just started my descent, relatively speaking. I’m certainly no expert! But I know what I like, and I like the way stories from central and eastern Europe feel.
I like the seamless connections to an older religion and way of life, sometimes disguised and sometimes just… not. I like their cruelty and pragmatism, their way of handling the strange and sublime that presages magical realism. I like the way they view animals, and things that might not exactly be animals.
Andrus Kivirähk’sMees, Kes Teadis Ussisõnu (The Man Who Spoke Snakish) is an absolutely delightful contemporary novel that draws heavily on Baltic (specifically Estonian) folklore. It was a big inspiration for this game. Many elements in Zhenya’s Wonder Tales owe a debt to Kivirähk’s beautiful writing (And Christopher Moseley’s lyrical translation).
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev’s Народные Русские Сказки (Russian Folk Tales) is a classic source of Slavic tales and is available in several accessible translations. Karel Jaromír Erben’s Sto Prostonárodních Pohádek A Pověstí Slovanských V Nářečích Původních (One Hundred Slavic Folk Tales and Legends in Original Dialects) covers similar ground, but skews a little further west and incorporates Czech and Polish tales like O królewiczu Niespodzianku (Prince Unexpected) very well. It is also easy to track down in translation. The stories in these volumes were meticulously collected nearly two centuries ago, but perhaps that’s for the best— they remain closer to their sources, even if the translations are a bit stilted by modern standards.
I hope Zhenya’s Wonder Tales piques your interest, and you look further into these and other texts. We’ve only scratched the surface—many great wonder tales await you!
