Folk-Tales of Bengal
Completed Fiction
Short Story
3.6K reads
757 votes
21 parts
339 min read
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Talking tigers, clever jackals, seven brothers turned into champa flowers, princesses who sleep for years under a magician's curse, and the ever-resourceful trickster who outwits kings and demons alike: this collection gathers the folk tales that Bengali grandmothers told by lamplight for generations. First set down in English by the Reverend Lal Behari Dey in 1883, these stories of Life's Secret, The Indigent Brahman, and the fearsome Rakshasas preserve a whole world of village wisdom, moral riddles, and pure enchantment, and remain one of the earliest and most important collections of South Asian folklore ever published.
Last updated August 4, 2026 · Public Domain
The Lore Awards
- Winner Fantasy 2026
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Table of Contents
1
Phakir Chand
2
The Indigent Brahman
3
The Story of the Rakshasas
4
The Story of Swet-Basanta
5
The Evil Eye of Sani
6
The Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled
7
The Story of Prince Sobur
8
The Origin of Opium
9
Strike but Hear
10
The Adventures of Two Thieves and of their Sons
11
The Ghost-Brahman
12
The Man who wished to be Perfect
13
A Ghostly Wife
14
The Story of a Brahmadaitya
15
The Story of a Hiraman
16
The Origin of Rubies
17
The Match-making Jackal
18
The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead
19
The Ghost who was Afraid of being Bagged
20
The Field of Bones
21
The Bald Wife
