Folklore Timeline
Trace the historical evolution of storytelling from ancient oral traditions to modern academic archives.
Collection
6th Century BCE
Aesop's Fables
Ancient Greece
The earliest known collection of fables attributed to the legendary storyteller Aesop.
Recording
9th Century CE
Ye Xian (Cinderella)
China
The oldest recorded variant of the Cinderella story, appearing in 'Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang'.
Publication
14th Century
The Decameron
Italy
Giovanni Boccaccio's collection of 100 tales, many of which draw from oral folklore traditions.
Translation
1704
One Thousand and One Nights
Middle East / France
Antoine Galland's French translation introduces Scheherazade's tales to the Western world.
Collection
1812
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Germany
The Brothers Grimm publish 'Children's and Household Tales', revolutionizing folklore studies.
Academic
1910
The ATU Index
Global
Antti Aarne publishes the first systematic classification system for folktales.