British Folk Tales and Legends

In this sampler of folk-tales Katharine Briggs presents her reader with a selection of classics, favourites and little-known oddities from across the spectrum. The book is headed by an informative Introduction, which provides a brief overview of the collection and study of folklore, the classification of folk tales and the scholarly consensus (or lack of consensus) on the subject. The Introduction contains valuable information about the growth and transmission of traditional stories; with the footnotes that follow each tale, it gives a fascinating insight into their meaning and social context. The tales themselves are drawn from a larger wellspring - Briggs's own Dictionary of British Folk-Tales - and as such this is an attempt to represent a much wider canvas in an approachable volume, an aim the book achieves comfortably. It is split into 18 sections according to the grand scheme of folk-tale classification, and includes both well-known and obscure instances of each type. Familiar tales appear in their original forms - 'Rumpelstiltskin' as 'Tom Tit-Tot', for instance - and many of the stories are transcribed in the dialect of the area to which they belong, lending authenticity to Briggs's rebellion against 'the prettified, airy-fairy stories foisted upon children'. It will be enjoyed by anyone who likes fairy tales and is interested in their wider context, but is particularly aimed at students of linguistics, sociology and oral tradition. (Kirkus UK)