Old Deccan Days; Or, Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in Southern India

In 1865, a young girl named Mary Frere traveled across the Deccan plateau with her father, the British Governor of Bombay. During the journey, she transcribed 24 folktales from her Indian nursemaid - stories that had been told orally for generations. The result was the first collection of Indian folklore ever published in English, and it remains among the most remarkable. These aren't European fairy tales in exotic dress. They're stranger, older, governed by different logic. Beautiful princesses outwit demons. Women refuse to yield. Gods walk among mortals and animals hold the secrets of human destinies. Evil magicians transform their enemies into plants. Rakshases devour the careless. The magic operates by its own fierce rules, where kindness is rewarded but so is cunning, where the powerful are not always good and the powerless are rarely helpless. This is storytelling at its most essential - alive with the particular wisdom and wildness of Southern Indian oral tradition.