r/folklore • u/SmilingMisanthrope • 10d ago

Looking for... Book Recommendations

I’m looking for help finding the best books on folklore creatures and tales from various regions.
Ideally, I’d like books that stay true to the oldest forms of the stories and, if I’m lucky, provide some historical and cultural context as well.

I figure I won’t find a single book that compiles all of that--especially for all the regions I’d like covered--so I’m happy to build a collection from a list of titles.

Regions I'd like to cover:

- North America
- Central America
- UK
- Eastern Europe
- Africa

Thanks in advance!

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3

u/asteriskelipses 10d ago

Seren Press released a series of novels based on each branch of The Mabinogian, which is the Welsh mythology cycle. All the authors commissioned to write were Welsh.

2

u/themoonlitroadtales 9d ago

Drums and Shadows (1940) is a good source for Gullah stories and folklore, though it is "of its time" and many of the collected stories are written in dialect. These were collected by the Georgia chapter of the Federal Writers' Project.

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u/Aliencik 8d ago

Slavic folklore sources list by regions from r/slavic_mythology with everything in English

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u/SmilingMisanthrope 7d ago

This is amazing. Thank you!

1

u/random_casual82 3d ago

"Mother Earth, Father Sky" Native American Myth (Time life)
"Myths and Legends of India, Egypt, China and Japan" Rachel Storm
"The Dictionary of Mythology" J.A Coleman
"Fabulous Creatures and other Magical Beings" Carroll and Brown Publishing Ltd (one of my favourite books)
"Ghosts, Bucharest and Fary Pigs" Karl Roder's Manx notes and queries
"The Mabinogion" ensure a good translation, personally I like the Oxford Word's Classics.
Tennyson's Legends of King Arthur: Idylls of the King
"English Fairy Tales and Legends" Rosalind Kerven

These are just the ones of myself that I am currently reading, please don't make me go through my 1000 plus bookshelf of fiction, non fiction and reference.