Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form. The focus in this book has been on preserving the elemental structure of oral tradition without embellishment. But, this is a distinctive literary collection, one that gathers a dozen fairy tales which come from the Croatian national folklore tradition. This is also a contemporary English-language version that respects the ancient Slavic mythology of pre-Christian Croatia. And, through exceptionally communicative translations, Dasha C. Nisula has elevated them to be superlative examples of a how common plots, motifs, and elements of the fairy tale are their own best explanation--that is, the tale's meaning is contained in the totality of the threadline in the story. And these are 12 great stories! The book also includes a detailed introduction to Croatian fairy tales, and, in a historical and cultural sense, to the wider genre of fairy tales. In this bilingual edition the Croatian and English-in-translation are presented together, accompanied by a selection of original colour artworks by the cover artist, Josip Botteri Dini.