folk story

On a trip through northern India, the writer Michael Benanav was guided by the age-old epic folk story of “Rajula Malushahi,” which led him to a series of unexpected places through the Himalayas.

In a typical Kate Folk story, a woman in an unsatisfying relationship with a man falls or is pushed out of her own life and into obsession.

For his 2003 book “Beautiful Blackbird,” he illustrated a Zambian folk story by turning to paper collage, using his mother’s needlepoint scissors to cut avian characters out of brightly colored paper, without using a stencil or drawing lines on the page.

While the figure of the stepmother had been the antagonist in most versions of the folk story, Disney's Tremaine was a villain to rank among the studio's many infamous examples of monstrous women.

You might have heard of figures like Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney, each playing a key role in popularising the folk story for a new generation.