There are English, Spanish, French, an German Stories. There are tales from the Norse and Gaelic mythology, from the Russian and the East Indian.
Kate Douglas Wiggin in her introduction says, "Old nurses and village crones have repeated them by the fireside and in the chimney corner; shepherds and cowboys have recounted them by the brookside, until the children of the world have all learned them by heart, bequeathing them, generation after generation, as a priceless legacy to their own children."