Clever, Kind, Tricky, and Sly: A Bulgarian Folktale Sampler

By Priscilla Howe

Translations of forty-two Bulgarian folktales, together with introductory essay and notes for teachers and storytellers following each story, with a list of Resources Cited.
Each folktale expresses an aspect of Bulgarian folk culture, presents characters who are clever enough to avoid ill-conceived courtship, kind enough to esteem even the poorest of neighbors, tricky enough to evade shysters, or sly enough to remain independent in the face of great power. Each of these traits has helped the Bulgarian people survive and thrive in a relatively poor, mountainous environment for more than fourteen centuries. In celebrating these traits and others, the folktales collected here honor the character of a people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parkhurst Brothers Publishers Inc
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781624911569

Book preview

One Woman’s Journey into Bulgarian Folktales

I fell in love with Bulgaria in 1982, during a summer seminar in the university town of Veliko Turnovo. I arrived there by luck, by loving languages, and by saying why not? when offered chances. I studied French and Russian at the University of Vermont and, when I spent my year abroad in Belgium (so confusing, these B-L-G countries), I took as many Slavic courses as I could. One day my professor offered a class in Bulgarian. Why not? My Bulgarian teacher offered me the chance to go on the summer seminar, three weeks of study, and one week at the Black Sea, for free. Why not? I had a great time, then went home to Vermont to finish my bachelor’s degree. I returned to Bulgaria to study the language in 1983-84. I immersed myself in the culture. During the Cold War era, there weren’t many Americans in Bulgaria, so I rarely spoke English. That proved to be the best way to learn the language.

I went on to become a Slavic librarian, then a children’s librarian, until I finally found my calling as a storyteller. In 1993, I took the leap into storytelling full-time. In my travels telling stories around the US and around the world, I began to tell Bulgarian folktales that I had translated. Doing so kept me dreaming of going back to Bulgaria to look for stories.

In 2015, my chance presented itself: I received a Fulbright Scholarship to research stories at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum (IEFSEM) of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. I spent five months looking for animal tales and trickster stories to translate and tell. The folktales in this collection are from the archives of the IEFSEM, the archives of the House of Humor and Satire in Gabrovo, from various printed and online folktale collections, and from friends and acquaintances. The stories from Kuzman Shapkarev’s nineteenth-century collection Bulgarski prikaski i viarovaniia su pribavlenie na niakolko Makedonovlashki i Albanski include tales from present-day Northern Macedonia. Still, as he labeled them Bulgarian, I’ve included them (the political issue of Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia is well beyond the scope of this short introduction).

Disclaimer: This is not an official Fulbright Program publication. The views expressed here are entirely my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

About Bulgaria

Bulgaria is located in Eastern Europe, bordered by Turkey and the Black Sea to the east, Greece to the south, Northern Macedonia and Serbia to the west, and Romania across the Danube River to the north. Bulgaria is approximately the size of Tennessee. The landscape includes mountain ranges (some rounded like those in the Eastern U.S. and some pointed like the Rockies), plains like Kansas, hot springs, and caves like Arkansas. Ancient Thracians lived in what is now Bulgaria and archaeological digs often turn up Thracian gold. The discovery of archaeological sites delayed subway construction in Sofia. The central metro station has an ongoing exhibit of some of the archaeological