Lal Behari Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal

Record summary

Lal Behari Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal records Bengali oral narratives collected and translated in the nineteenth century, including stories involving ghosts, witches, enchanted beings and revenant-like figures. The collection is useful for identifying recurring motifs, narrative settings and local categories that may otherwise be mislabeled as individual apparition reports. It also exposes the mediation introduced by a colonial-era collector writing in English. Researchers should identify the exact tale before comparing it with a modern case and should account for oral variation, editorial shaping and uncertain provenance of particular stories.