As it is passed along, the details of the stories change, although the essential parts remain the same.  True folklore admits no authorship.  The accumulated storehouse of what humankind experienced, learned, and practiced across the ages, folklore reveals people’s efforts to explain their interpretations of the relationships among human beings as well as their fears and dislikes.  It records the cultural patterns of the society from which it stems and gives expression to deep, universal emotions.  Folklore includes all of the anonymous creations, the accumulated wisdom, and art of everyday people: legends, myths, nursery rhymes, fables, fairy tales, games, songs, dances, hero tales, proverbs, and epics.  Estonian folklore includes all these genres.

Folklore is not merely the product of a society without writing.  Books had been printed in the Estonian language since the sixteenth century.  Furthermore, the brothers Grimm (Jakob 1785-1863; Wilhelm 1786-1859) collected fairy tales from an illiterate peasantry where well-educated individuals also lived(Kinder-und Hausmarchen was published in 1812).

The first collection of Estonian folk stories, Eesti rahva ennemuistsed jutud (Old Estonian Fairy Tales), were compiled and published in 1866 by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald.  This collection impressively illustrated the rich heritage of Estonian folklore and has remained his most well-known work and the most popular collection of Estonian fairy tales.  Over the past hundred years, Estonian fairy tales have been translated into English, German, French, Spanish, and several other languages.

The intensive study and interest in preserving folklore have resulted in the collection of a large volume of authentic materials and more than one hundred thousand items of folklore have been recorded, cataloged, and classified in Estonian archives.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Estonia, with a population only slightly over a million, was the ninth largest book-producing country in Europe, and its literature was highly regarded in European literary circles.

Folktales: The old farmer

The term folktale, as used in English, is inclusive, referring to all kinds of traditional narrative.  The Estonian folktale is distinctly international in character.  It was carried from one country to another by soldiers and traders.