Deep in the forest: one hundred Estonian fairy tales about the forest and its people

Estonian folklore collections are some of the largest in the world. Almost half of the Estonian territory is covered by forests and since they have always played an important role in Estonians’ lives, there are many fairy tales about forests. This book contains such stories.

This superb compilation is for both adults and children. The book has a preface and an afterword. Most of the stories are pretty short but there are some longer ones as well. At the end of each story there is a date and a place, when and where it was written down. The stories are divided into 10 parts. There are interesting facts between the sections as well. For example, we can find out, that animal tales are the earliest of all. Animals behave in these stories like half-animals, half-humans. Fox is clever and canny, wolf is sometimes dim-witted, whereas hare is cowardly. 

There is an interesting story named The Fern Blossom, where a man went into the forest on Midsummer Eve to look for his lost horse. Suddenly wolves and bears started chasing the man. Some voice insisted to kick off the shoe and a fern blossom fell out of there. Animals wanted it for themselves. But maybe they weren’t animals at all, maybe they were spirits? To this day there is a tradition to go to the forest looking for a fern blossom on Midsummer night.

Illustrator Kadri Roosi has made interesting small pictures, related to each story.