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For most of human history, our accumulated wisdom was carried in a single, spellbinding chain of transmission: the folktale. Passed from voice to voice, generation to generation, these stories were – and remain – an instruction manual to the world.
The World Story Bank gathers the folktales and traditional stories of humanity — from all points of the compass — and returns them, alive, to the world. Each episode is a single tale, told simply, named with the tradition it comes from.
An initiative of the Scheherazade Foundation, the World Story Bank exists to gather this fragile and ancient wisdom, to protect it, and to rewild it back into modern culture. The project was launched in London in 2024, and celebrated its first anniversary in 2025 at an event hosted by Queen Camilla at Clarence House.
Listening and retelling keeps the stories alive.
https://www.sf.charity/world-story-bank
THE STAR WIFE
Once in the long ago there was a young warrior who went out alone to hunt.
He went where he had never been before, and found himself in a dense forest where pine trees grew tall and straight.
He pressed through the bushes, and came at length to an open space where there were no trees or shrubs.
He looked closely and saw that in the grass there was a circle which appeared to have been trodden by many feet.
As he stood wondering what had made the circle, he heard a strange noise above him, like an enormous bird flying in the air.
He looked up and saw a black speck very high in the blue.
‘I will hide and see what this is all about,’ he said. And so he lay low in the bushes.
As he remained hidden, he heard sweet music; then he looked up and saw that the black speck was coming nearer to the Earth.
He saw that it was a strange basket made of reeds, and in it were sitting twelve young women, each beating a drum, making the music that was so soft to his ear.
Every one of the women was exceptionally beautiful, but he could see that one was even more beautiful than the others, and as soon as he spied her, the warrior fell in love.
When the basket touched the ground, the women sprang out. They joined hands and danced upon the grass in the magic circle.
And the one whom the warrior had fallen in love with danced even more gracefully than the others.
He watched until he could keep still no longer: as the heavenly woman danced close to his hiding place, he jumped up and tried to catch her floating silvery robe.
But in an instant all the women had leapt back into the basket, and it rose quickly into the sky.
‘She is gone!’ the warrior cried. ‘Why did I try to touch her? I will never see her again!’
And he hung his head, sadder than he had ever been in his life. And yet, somehow, he retained a hope that one day he might see the beautiful woman once more.
‘I shall come again tomorrow,’ he said to himself.
‘I shall come again for as long as it takes until I see her.’
So he made a trail through the woods so that he might find the same spot the following day. Then he went home and fell asleep, dreaming all night of the woman he had seen in the magic circle.
The next day he returned to the forest, and when he reached the fairy ring, he changed himself into an opossum; for he wore a magic belt and could change himself into anything he wished.
Just as before, the women descended from the sky in their basket.
Again they danced.
Again the one he loved seemed more beautiful than the rest.
He crept out from the bushes towards her and was very near, when she cried:
‘What a horrid creature! Run!’
And again the fairy beings sprang into the basket and were borne away.
The warrior was now in despair. That night he dreamed of the woman again and the next day he returned to the ring.
This time he found a hollow stump nearby full of mice, and said:
‘I will change into a little mouse. Then she will not fear me.’
And so he scampered into the stump with the other mice just as the basket descended.
At once he caught sight of the beautiful young woman.
‘She is even fairer than I dreamed,’ he said.
Then he nibbled at the other mice until they all ran out of the tree stump.
Seeing the mice scattering over the ground, the heavenly women cried:
‘Let us run after them!’
And they skipped through the grass trying to keep up with them.
The warrior watched, and as the woman he loved drew near, he deliberately ran in front of her.
‘Here’s one!’ she cried. And she stooped down and caught him in her hands.
But as she held him, he suddenly changed back into a man. The woman was shocked, but before she could run away, the warrior pressed her close to him.
The other women jumped back into the basket and at once disappeared, and the warrior was left alone with his beloved.
‘Do not be afraid,’ he whispered to her.
‘I will not harm you. I am a great warrior and hunter. Stay with me, and I will hunt many deer. Many buffalo shall come to my wigwam. You shall have plenty of meat to eat, and warm robes to wear and soft moccasins.’
And as she listened to him, the heavenly woman fell in love with him as well.
So he led her to his lodge and she became his wife. And the Bird of Happiness folded its wings above his lodge pole and stayed there.
Many moons passed. A son came to them, and the warrior was very happy.
His wife seemed more beautiful each day. She had ever the softest skins to lie on, the softest robes to wear, as much meat to eat as they wanted.
And yet, she was not happy.
She longed for her home in the fair Star-land, for she was a daughter of the stars.
Often, when her husband was hunting, she wept and wept for her father and her family.
One day, when her husband had gone out once more, she wept more bitterly than before and could not bear her loneliness any longer.
She made for herself an osier basket and placed her baby son and some food inside, then stole away to the fairy ring in the woodland.
There she seated herself beside the boy in the basket, raised her eyes and sang. And the basket was lifted up to the sky and she was swept from sight.
Her husband heard the music and ran to the fairy ring. But he arrived just to see her being borne away.
‘Come back, my beloved Star Wife!’ he cried. ‘Come back!’
But she did not heed his call.
The warrior went back to his lodge alone, and there he mourned for many moons.
Every night when the stars shone, he stood beneath them and raised his arms towards the sky.
‘Star Chief,’ he cried. ‘Have pity! Send me back my wife and child!’
But the Star Chief did not answer.
Then the warrior raised his arms again.
‘Star Wife,’ he cried. ‘Come back to me!’
But she did not return to his lodge.
‘Star Son, come back!’ the warrior cried out. And from above he heard a little cry.
But the boy did not come. So the warrior returned to his lodge, alone.
Meanwhile, the Star Wife was happy to be back in the sky, but the boy longed for his father. And after some time had passed the Star Wife began to long for him as well, and she grew sad.
This her father, the Great Star Chief, saw, and he spoke to her:
‘Daughter, you are sad. When you were on the Earth you longed for your home. Here you mourn for your husband. Return now with your son and bring him to live with us. Thus will you be always happy.
‘Tell him I wait to welcome him. He shall bring with him one of each kind of animal he hunts, and they shall be in the sky with us.’
So the Star Wife took her son and descended to the Earth; and her husband embraced his wife and child and was happy once more.
Then she told him all that her father had said, and he answered:
‘My days here are leaden-shod when you are gone. Soon the time will come for me to pass to the Happy Hunting Grounds without you. If therefore we may dwell together in the Star-land, I am happy. I will go.
‘But now I must go hunting.’
So he took his bow and arrows, and he shot a bear and a buffalo and many other beasts and birds. These he took with him, and he and his wife and his son were borne upwards to the Star-land. And Earth knew them no more.
Today they may be seen among the stars which shine on a summer night: the hunter and his wife and son, the bear he brought, and the other animals he hunted.
For they all now live happily there in the radiant Star-land.