UPDATED 05/10/2026
About Old Folklore
Folktales, Creatures, Gods, Legends & Beliefs from Around the World
OldFolklore.com is a global digital library dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories, beliefs and traditions through which cultures have understood the world.
Our collection brings together folktales, myths and legends, gods and deities, mythical creatures, spirits and demons, epic heroes, proverbs, rituals, traditions and other forms of folk belief from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Oceania and beyond.
From stories passed from one generation to another around fires and family gatherings to accounts of supernatural beings, sacred traditions and legendary heroes, Old Folklore explores the extraordinary diversity of humanity’s storytelling heritage.
Our aim is simple: to make the world’s folklore easier to discover, read and preserve.
What We Do
Old Folklore collects, organises and presents folklore from cultures around the world.
Our growing library includes traditional folktales from hundreds of peoples and places; myths about gods, creation and the supernatural; legends of heroes, rulers and extraordinary events; accounts of mythical creatures, spirits and demons; traditional proverbs and wisdom; rituals, customs and beliefs; and educational material explaining folklore, oral literature and traditional storytelling.
Where appropriate, stories are presented in accessible language while retaining their cultural setting, traditional themes and narrative character.
We also organise the collection geographically, allowing readers to explore folklore from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Oceania and the United States, as well as individual countries, regions and cultural traditions.
A Library of Folktales
Folktales are at the heart of Old Folklore.
For generations, communities have used stories to entertain, teach, warn, explain and remember. Animals speak. Tricksters outwit kings. Heroes confront impossible dangers. Spirits reward kindness or punish greed. Ordinary people encounter extraordinary worlds.
These stories travelled through oral tradition long before many were written down, changing as storytellers carried them between families, villages and generations.
Old Folklore brings these traditions together in one searchable global collection, allowing readers to move from an African trickster tale to a European fairy tale, an Asian legend, an Indigenous American narrative or an Oceanian creation tradition while appreciating the cultural setting from which each emerged.
Beyond the Stories
Folklore is more than a collection of old tales.
It encompasses the beliefs, customs, symbols, supernatural beings, rituals and shared knowledge through which communities make sense of life.
That is why Old Folklore also explores subjects including:
Mythical Creatures — beings found in traditional belief and storytelling.
Gods & Deities — divine figures and sacred traditions from cultures around the world.
Myths & Legends — narratives of creation, heroes, supernatural events and cultural memory.
Epic Heroes — legendary figures whose stories have endured across generations.
Spirits & Demons — supernatural beings believed to haunt, protect, punish or guide.
Proverbs — traditional wisdom expressed through generations of shared language.
Rituals & Traditions — practices through which communities express belief, identity and continuity.
Folklore Studies — resources for understanding oral literature, folk narrative, cultural memory and the study of traditional knowledge.
Why Folklore Matters
Folklore is one of humanity’s oldest ways of preserving knowledge.
Long before modern publishing, communities used stories to explain creation, transmit values, preserve memories, entertain children, confront fear and make sense of the unknown.
A trickster story from West Africa, a mountain spirit from Japan, a sea legend from Ireland or a creation narrative from Oceania may emerge from very different cultures, yet each reveals something about the people who told it and the questions human beings have asked across centuries.
These traditions should not disappear simply because the world has changed.
Old Folklore exists to help keep them discoverable.
One Global Folklore Library
OldFolklore.com has grown through the consolidation of several specialised folklore collections that previously focused separately on Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Oceania, the United States and traditional folktales more broadly.
Rather than maintaining these collections as isolated websites, they are being brought together within OldFolklore.com as one global folklore library.
This allows readers to search, browse and move between cultures without having to navigate multiple websites, while giving individual regions and traditions dedicated spaces within the larger archive.
The former domains remain part of Old Folklore’s publishing history, but OldFolklore.com is now the central home of the collection.
Who We Are
OldFolklore.com (Old Folklore) is a project of HN & Legacy Limited, a cultural preservation company interested in history, storytelling, education and digital heritage.
Our work is built around the belief that digital publishing can help preserve traditional knowledge while making it accessible to readers far beyond the communities and geographical boundaries in which individual traditions originated.
As the collection grows, we aim to develop Old Folklore beyond written articles through illustration, audio storytelling, educational resources and other ways of experiencing traditional narratives and cultural knowledge.
A Living Archive of Human Imagination
Old Folklore is not simply a collection of things that people once believed.
Folklore continues to influence literature, language, religion, popular culture, identity and the stories people tell today.
It connects generations.
It carries memories.
It preserves fears, humour, wisdom, imagination and wonder.
OldFolklore.com is a place to discover those stories, from every corner of the world and to help ensure that they continue to be read, remembered and shared.