Stories are all around us.

They're in the TV and movies we so adore, in the video games we play, and of course in the books we read. They're in newspapers and magazines, too; in the conversations we share with old friends, and with new ones. They're on our mobile phones, in aeroplanes, in submarines, and even in our dreams.

Our obsession with, and craving for, stories rests squarely with the way we are so absorbed by them, just as it does with the way we don't need to continually consider how and why they work.

Most of the time, when reading or listening to stories, we forget that these tales have been shaped through the passage of time. Like pebbles in a river smoothed by rushing waters, they were honed through centuries of telling and retelling.

The stories contained in this anthology are a fragment of a tradition that has shaped humanity, just as it has been shaped by humanity.

At The Scheherazade Foundation we regard stories and storytelling as an achievement of our species equal in significance to the development of language, art, and architecture.

We invite you to dip into the tales in this small treasury - gleaned as they are from various corners of the world - to reflect about them, and to consider the wisdom they hold.