This compilation by Katharine M. Briggs, a prestigious English folklorist, is the most complete of the long and fruitful tradition that this genre has in the British Isles. We find here a wide gallery of characters: princesses and witches, fairies and elves, demons and dragons, kings with a heart of gold, all free from the ethereal and embellished halo that prevailed in the versions that were told to children for much of the 20th century.

Through extensive documentation and a careful introduction to each of its sections, Katharine M. Briggs leads us through the exciting world of popular traditions, oral narration, legends, fables, tales of enchantment, humorous tales and a series of variants that constitutes that other history that does not appear in the treaties, but that keeps the memory alive of the fantasy of the peoples.