A Karaman folk tale: two stepsisters, a magical yellow ox, and a golden shoe. Full translated text as told by Vahap Aras, with sources and Turkish original.
An English translation of a long Şahmaran (serpent-queen) tale from the Turkish "Binbir Gece Masalları" (Arabian Nights) tradition: a lazy boy named Hasip Keramüddin is abandoned i
A short folk tale from the Muş region: the youngest of three brothers stays awake to guard the family's apple tree, follows a thief into a cave, and wins brides for himself and his
A div steals the jewelled pomegranates from a sultan’s tree each year. The youngest son follows him down a well into the world below. A Khorasan tale of the Anka bird.
A dung beetle sets out to find a husband, insisting on being addressed by her grand rhyming name. An Anatolian animal tale collected by Pertev Naili Boratav.
An Old Uyghur Buddhist tale from the Altun Yaruk Sudur: three princes come upon a starving tigress in the forest, and the youngest gives up his own body to save her and her cubs —
A fox loses his tail to an old woman’s pitch-smeared bowl, and must work backwards through a chain of creatures to win it back. A Khorasan chain tale.
A Yozgat tale from Namık Aslan's thesis on the motifs and types of Yozgat folk tales: a schoolboy sets out with a staff cut from a holy thornbush to take his sister back from a seven-headed dev, and ends up seven layers beneath the earth.
An Anatolian tale from Tahir Alangu's Billur Köşk collection: a padishah's tenth daughter, raised in secret as a son, rides out on a black horse and wins a destiny of her own.
A Turkish tale from Naki Tezel's collection: Hızır tells a padishah that his new mosque wants a golden nightingale from beyond Mount Kaf, and the youngest of three sons rides out to fetch it.
A short Kastamonu animal tale, recorded from Sait Tekin: a hungry wolf swears to eat the first animal he meets on the road, and is talked out of his dinner three times running.
A Kazdağı tale recorded from Şerife Nine: three orphaned sisters dig up nine jars of gold under a basil plant, and the youngest answers a prince's teasing riddle with one of her own.
A tale from the Kalila and Dimna cycle: the bears sack the monkeys' island, and the monkey king's vizier takes his revenge with nothing but a lie and a long walk into the desert.
