Folktales are stories passed on from one person to another by word of mouth. These tales were not written down, but existed only in the memory of mankind. It is only now, as the tradition of oral story-telling is giving way to books and television, that such tales are being collected and written down.

Many folktales seek to explain the world around us. Early cultures often made up these stories to explain what they could not understand in the world around them.Some such stories are:

Why the Sky is So High - a folktale from Bengal, India
Why the Sea is Salt - a folktale from Karelia

Sometimes stories grow up around real people and places.One such tale is that of:

Dick Whittington and His Cat - an English folktale