The Talking Thrush And Other Tales From India

Enter a world where a jackal passes the best judgement, a goat and tigress can be best friends, and the cruel always get their due...

The stories in this book are a part of a large collection of Indian folk tales recorded by the British researcher William Crooke on his travels through the country. An Indophile with a keen interest in India’s people and their varied cultures, Crooke looked at folk lore and local stories as a great way to know more about the culture and the people of India. The stories in this book are a part of a large collection created by Crooke in the course of an ethnological survey of the north-west provinces and Oudh. Some were recorded straight from the lips of the jungle-dwellers of Mirzapur, others were collected by his local assistant, and yet others came from village teachers.

The more than 40 tales in this book, such as ‘The Grateful Goat’ (The goat's wit and generosity outmatche all those around him!), ‘The King of Mice’ (You don’t want to mess with the inhabitants of Mouseland!) and ‘The Valiant Blackbird’ (A blackbird takes on a king to save his wife!), feature interesting and clever characters, both humans and animals. These stories – some popular, others half-forgotten – passed on orally from generation to generation, have made their way into this book, making it both a fascinating and rare collection.