The tales of this collection were collected by Giorgis Venetoulias in Kythnos (Thermia) in the spring and summer of 1994. When he started recording the tales, he was indescribably pessimistic about the outcome of the project. The only fairy tales he had written down until then were those of his grandmother and two or three more that he happened to hear a few years ago from two grumpy compatriots. Fortunately, the result of the effort disproved his initial misgivings, since in a time when almost nothing has been left standing, forty-eight fairy tales and fairy-related genres (animal fables, gentle tales) were saved from oblivion.
