This collection is a celebration of diversity. There are tales from Asia and India, Central and South America, and North America and the Pacific.

Through marvellous stories of emperors, princesses, dragons, fishes and birds, we see the fabulous variety of customs and beliefs in our world.

This collection forms a pair with "The Nightingale that Shrieked".

The stories in the two collections were originally published together in "The Young Oxford Book of Folk Tales".