Tales of the Punjab

Tales of the Punjab (1894) is a collection of stories translated and collected by Flora Annie Steel. Collected while Steel lived with her husband in the north of the Indian subcontinent, Tales of the Punjab was a successful introduction to legends and stories from the Punjab region for children and adults back home in England. Published while India remained under the control of the British Empire, Steel’s collection puts a decidedly Western twist on the stories she learned from local women while advocating for education reform. In a village in the Punjab, as the sun sets on an exceedingly hot day, the local people return from the fields to prepare dinner and settle down for the evening. As they await the cooling winds of midnight in order to sleep outside, the villagers gather around a local storyteller. Possessing a wide knowledge of legends, tales, and history, he calmly begins to speak to his gathered audience. “Sir Buzz” is the story of a woman and her son who are left in dire poverty following the death of her husband, a soldier. Although young, the boy dreams of setting out into the world in order to bring something home for his mother. Finding six shillings in the pocket of an old coat, he leaves his home only to run into an injured tigress. Unable to remove a thorn from her paw, she asks the boy for his assistance, and offers him a mysterious reward. In “The Rat’s Wedding,” a rat takes shelter underground during a steady rainstorm. In his digging, he discovers a root, which he takes with him on his journey homeward once the rain subsides. Looking forward to using the root for himself, he encounters an old man struggling to light a fire with wood soaked through with rain. Exchanging his root for a piece of food, the generous rat continues on his way. Tales of the Punjab is a collection of forty-three instructive, humorous, and authentic stories translated by Flora Annie Steel. This edition of Flora Annie Steel’s Tales of the Punjab is a classic of Anglo-Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.

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