Books like Household Tales by Jacob Grimm

Marie de France is regarded as the first female poet writing in French. Most of the details of her life are lost to history, and even though she was thought to have lived and composed mostly in England—perhaps at the court of King Henry II—she herself says she is of France. The Lais were likely composed in the 1170s in the Anglo-Norman language, the language of the Norman conquerors of England.

The lais, or lays, are a collection of twelve medieval poems attributed to Marie, telling tales of chivalry, knights, ladies, and love lost and found. A streak of the fantastical runs through them: ships sail themselves without a crew, animals speak, and knights shapeshift to werewolves or hawks—the better to fly into ladies’ towers.

Baital Pachisi, also known as Vikram-Betaal, is a collection of Hindu tales featuring King Vikramaditya as the hero. Eleven of these tales were adapted from Sanskrit to English by Richard F. Burton as Vikram and the Vampire.

A tantric yogi is after King Vikram’s life because of the wrongdoings of his father. He fools the brave king into bringing him Baital (a vampire) hanging from a siras tree. Baital, in turn, traps the king in an endless loop of stories. If King Vikram answers any question posed by the vampire during his storytelling, the vampire will escape back to the tree, and the king will have to start again. Will King Vikram be able to escape Baital’s trap? What doom awaits the king when finally meets his nemesis?