Turkish Fairy Tales, Folk Tales and Fables

“The Padishah gave orders to fell the tree.” Illustration by Willy Pogany. Published in Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales (1913), George G. Harrap & Co.

Read Turkish fairy tales collected from authors such as Dr. Ignácz Kúnos and Andrew Lang. Jump to full list of Turkish tales.

About: Turkish folklore is full of stories featuring supernatural creatures such as dragons, elves, wizards, genies (called “dews”) and more. Here you may find stories with a similar theme or plot to those of the Brothers Grimm or other European fairy tales. For instance, the tale The Brother and Sister shares the same story elements as the Grimm fairy tale Brother and Sister, however, is a bit more violent. On the whole, Turkish fairy tales, particularly those by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos, author of Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales, could be considered violent by today’s standards. However, they are a priceless part of the region’s folklore — even folklorist Andrew Lang found a few tales to include in his fairy tale collections, rewriting them for a younger crowd. Robert Nisbet Bain was also infatuated with Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales, and published his own collection translated from the Hungarian edition.