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Rating: 
Summary: Inventive versions of old stories seem new here!
Review: An excellent collection of folktales, this book was originally published in England in the early 1960's. Graphic woodblock prints from the original publication make the pages of great interest. The tales themselves, although following standard folktale patterns, seem new and fascinating. There's a cumulative tale (like "The Old Woman and Her Pig") that uses a sparrow sitting on a stalk of grass and issuing a whole series of demands. Eventually the story unwinds, each person or thing does his assigned job, and the grass begins to sway and sing "Rockabye, bad little sparrow." There is a rooster (Chanticleer) whose friend the cat saves him from the fox--time after time; a billy goat and a sheep who work together to outwit the wolves who want to eat them; a cat (Pan Kotsky) who has all the other animals convinced that he will tear them to pieces. When they finally scatter, leaving Pan Kotsky alone in a tree, he warily comes down--scared to death! In another tale, even though God provides first a mare, then a ram and finally a pig for the wolf to eat, he never gets to eat them or the tailor that God points out as his last chance. A motif that recurs in one story is that of the old dog who has outgrown his usefulness-what shall he do now? In this case, a wolf arranges events so the dog can save his master's baby, and once again he is a favored pet. In return the dog sees that the wolf gets food.
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