Albanian Folktales and Legends
SynopsisPlot
Folktales are still very much alive in the mountains of Albania, a land of haunted history. They are recited in the evenings after a day’s work or out in the fields, are learned by heart and pass, as if immortal, from one generation to the next. Whose imagination could not be captured by the cunning of the Scurfhead, by the demands of the Earthly Beauty, by the heroic feats of Muji and Halil or by the appearance of a fiery Kulshedra in the forest?
Story
About this book
This collection gathers traditional Albanian folktales alongside prose retellings of well-known Albanian legends. The stories come from an oral tradition still active in the mountainous regions of Albania, where tales have long been recited in the evenings after work or out in the fields, passed from one generation to the next through memory and repetition. Robert Elsie, a scholar of Albanian language and culture, compiled and translated the material for an English-reading audience.
The cast of characters drawn from this tradition includes figures familiar across Albanian storytelling. Among them are Muji and Halil, heroes of a cycle of northern Albanian epic songs, and creatures such as the Kulshedra, a fire-breathing serpent-like being from Albanian mythology. Other figures, like the Scurfhead and the Earthly Beauty, appear in tales that follow patterns found in oral traditions across the Balkans and beyond, mixing cunning, impossible tasks, and encounters with supernatural forces.
Albania's mountainous interior helped preserve regional oral traditions longer than in many parts of Europe. The isolation of highland communities meant that stories circulated locally for centuries before scholars began recording them in written form. This volume offers a window into that body of material in English translation.
