The mysteriousness of the land, and its otherworldly powers are a source of scepticism and distrust in many tales.

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group.

There are tales that are simply warnings ; they warn against doing something that may harm in some way.

Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events ; others are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the American Old West, or the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of Buddhist religious art ( which depict the Jataka tales ) as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya paintings in Sri Lanka .< ref >

Below are some of these controversial tales.

Some of the previous lives of the Buddha as a bodhisattva are featured in the Jātaka tales.

# Part II: Chapter 2: 4-7 are the Court tales of Daniel and his companions living amongst the Babylonians.

The rhyming songs, poems and tales written in the form of ballads often relate to the itinerant and rebellious spirit of Australia in The Bush, and the authors and performers are often referred to as bush bards.

As with most lurid tales of native cannibalism, these stories are treated with a great deal of scrutiny, as accusations of cannibalism were often used as justifications for the subjugation or destruction of " savages ".

These are not fairy tales my dear Cowper but actual gruesome reality in the heart of this poor, benighted savage land.

Max and Moritz was a series of severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter (" Shockheaded Peter "); in one, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill and consumed by a flock of geese.

Like The Black Diamonds, it uses a medieval, Arabian Nights – like setting, and the Arabian Nights, like the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the works of Edgar Allan Poe, are known to have strongly influenced Smith's early writing, as did William Beckford's Vathek.

Amongst Smith's science fiction tales are stories set on Mars and the invented planet of Xiccarph.

In the tales no human is ever described as stronger than Conan, although several are mentioned as taller ( such as the strangler Baal-pteor ) or of larger bulk.

Indeed, his straightforward nature and barbarism are constants in all the tales.

The tales ( mostly written in verse although some are in prose ) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.

" The tales that comprise a fragment are closely related and contain internal indications of their order of presentation, usually with one character speaking to and then stepping aside for another character.

The anecdotes are literary, and late ; however, in the founding tales of the Greek colony of Gela, founded in the 680s on the southwest coast of Sicily, a tradition was preserved that the Greeks had seized cult images wrought by Daedalus from their local predecessors, the Sicani.

They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva.

Folklore ( or lore ) consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group.

With these and similar tales he was entertaining his English friends, all of whom he was seeing when he was not showing Blackman the sights of London and its environs.

Ben E. Perry ( compiler of the " Perry Index " of Aesop's fables ) has argued controversially that some of the Buddhist Jataka tales and some of the fables in the Panchatantra may have been influenced by similar Greek and Near Eastern ones.

Also, the heroines of both tales have similar names: the meaning of Guinever is " White Phantom ", while Olwen equates with " of the white track.

This prank is remarkably similar to the eighth history of the classic German prankster tales of Till Eulenspiegel.

Some other tales are similar, such as the Sumerian story of the goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld.

Shape-shifters, similar to werewolves, are common in tales from all over the world, most notably amongst the Native Americans, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves.

In later traditions Lyonesse is said to have sunk beneath the waves some time after the Tristan stories take place, making it similar to Ys and other lost lands in medieval Celtic tales, and perhaps connecting it with the Isles of Scilly.

D ' Aulnoy's book has a remarkably similar structure to the Nights, with the tales told by a female narrator.

Ethnographers collected fairy tales over the world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia ; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his " coloured " fairy books series.

Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures.

For instance, many similar tales exist about a daimyo challenging a ninja to prove his worth, usually by stealing his pillow or weapon while he slept.

Most other Dark Lords have similar tales of frustration, kept all the more unbearable because the flicker of the possibility of success is never truly extinguished.

" By contrast, in Anouilh's pièces roses or " pink plays " were comedies where fantasy dominated with an atmosphere similar to that of fairy tales.

Literary forms that share similar themes include stories of the American frontier, the gaucho literature of Argentina and tales of the settlement of the Australian Outback.

Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work The Silmarillion, which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Nordic literature.

It is also speculated by some modern writers that, as the more well-known goddess, and later saint, the legends of numerous " minor " goddesses with similar associations may have over time been incorporated into the symbology, worship and tales of Brigid.

All of these similar tales of abduction by another suitor – and this allegory includes Lancelot, who whisks her away when she is condemned to burn at the stake for their adultery – are demonstrative of a recurring Hades-snatches-Persephone theme, positing that Guinevere is like the otherworld bride Étaín, who Midir, king of the Underworld, carries off from her earthly life after she has forgotten her past.

It is also possible that the tradition of an " apple " island among the British was influenced by Irish legends concerning the otherworld island home of Manannán mac Lir and Lugh, Emain Ablach ( also the Old Irish poetic name for the Isle of Man ), where Ablach means " Having Apple Trees " – derived from Old Irish aball (" apple ")— and is similar to the Middle Welsh name Afallach, which was used to replace the name Avalon in medieval Welsh translations of French and Latin Arthurian tales ).

) They intend to listen to various tales of depravity from four veteran prostitutes, which will inspire them to engage in similar activities with their victims.

Later similar tales often took place on fictional planets.

Milton William Cooper, for one, featured similar tales in some of his writings.

Many of the stories also conclude with miracle tales and similar wonderlore from accounts of those who called upon that saint for aid or used the saint's relics.

" The White Dove ", " Mister Fox " and " Fitcher's Bird " are tales similar to " Bluebeard ".