Author Tarquin Hall finds folk tales a perfect fuel for the imagination
My English godfather collected folktales from around the world and made recordings of them on audio cassette. I could always count on finding the latest in my Christmas stocking. One year it might be Legends from Arabia about magical gazelles and battles with hideous afreets; the next, Native American fables , the Algonquin version of Cinderella, for example.

More than Chaucer and Dickens, these stories formed my literary heritage. And even now, as I fast approach 40, I rarely go to sleep without first reading one or two folktales from the collections on my shelves. My favourite is the canon of teaching stories known in India as the Panchatantra. By far, the best version in English is Kalila and Dimna, Fables of Friendship and Betrayal by the American writer, Ramsay Wood.

Beautifully written with Twainian wit, the yarns themselves are magical, but their journey is even more so. These tales were first told at the time of the Buddha in 450 BC. Since then, irrespective of mere borders, they have crossed deserts, mountains and oceans, penetrating most cultures. Their influence is to be found in the works of Machiavelli, Aesop, La Fontaine, Uncle Remus, even Shakespeare. They are claimed by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.

The premise is simple. King Dabschelim is a vain, cruel monarch but a prophecy forces him to seek the sage, Bidpai. Bidpai relates to the King the stories of Kalila and Dimna, brother jackals, who plot and scheme against their fellow beasts for supremacy in the animal kingdom. By listening to them, Dabschelim inherits a wisdom more valuable than the rubies, diamonds and emeralds in his treasury.

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