The Story of Puss in Boots and Other Tales (1988, Golden Fairy Tale Collection, Peter Haddock, text by Peter Holeinone, illus. Tony Wolf)

Text by Peter Holeinone

Illustrated by Tony Wolf

© Dami Editore, Italy

ISBN 0-7105-0498-5

Published by Peter Haddock Limited, Bridlington, England

Printed in Italy

Amilcare Pizzi Arti Grafiche S.p.A. Cinisello B. (Milano - Italia) - 1988

Photo: My collection

The Story of Puss in Boots and Other Tales, with text by Peter Holeinone and illustrations by Tony Wolf, was published in about 1988 by Peter Haddock Limited as part of their Golden Fairy Tale Collection. The series was originally published in Italian as La Storia Del Gatto Con Gli Stivali e Tante Altre in 1986 by Dami Editore. For more information about the series, including links to my reviews of other books in the series, see Golden Fairy Tale Collection (Peter Haddock Ltd).

Cover, front and back matter

This blue hardcover book spotlighting Puss in Boots appears to be the fourth book of the Golden Fairy Tale Collection. 

The covers of all the books have the same golden framing (plants entwined with fairy tale motifs), with a central picture. For this book, the central picture is an illustration that does not appear in the book but encapsulates the energetic mood of the title character Puss in Boots, as he races down a dirt path in his signature boots, the mill of his master's family in the background. 

The front and back endpapers are a bright pink. A golden contents page (with the same plant and motif frame as the cover) appears before the copyright page and title page.

Contents page

Photo: My collection

The contents page in the Italian edition has a line at the bottom which translates as "Loosely adapted from Basile, Perrault." However, only the first and final two stories of the collection can be traced to Basile and Perrault. Perhaps this is why the English edition says nothing of the sources.

Like the other books in this collection, the title page features an elderly cat (wearing a bonnet, shawl, and apron), sitting in a wooden rocking chair and reading the books of the collection to a group of young mice. 

Contents (9 stories across 47 pages):

• Puss in Boots
• Til Ulenspighel
• The Peasant, The Snake and the Fox
• The Witch in the Tower
• The Seven Old Samurai
• The Unlucky Warrior
• The Red Dragon
• Dopey Dennis
• The Sleeping Princess

The collection is paginated from pages 10–55, the first story, "Puss in Boots", starting on page 9 (unpaginated). Page 56 (unpaginated) is blank white, as is the final page (the other side of the back loose endpaper).

Puss in Boots

"Puss in Boots" is tale type 545B, a subtype of 545 ("The Cat as Helper"). The earliest published versions are Italian – Giovanni Francesco Straparola's Constantino Fortunato (c. 1550-1553) and Giambattista Basile's Cagliosi (1634). Charles Perrault's Le Maître Chat ou le Chat Botte (1697) is considered the most popular and influential version, but I mention the earlier Italian versions here as we know that this collection of fairy tales was first published in Italian.¹ 

Like the other books in this collection, the opening story begins before its title, with a few sentences following a large 'Once upon a time' and a large illustration. 

First page of the first story in the book, "Puss in Boots"

Photo: My collection

As in the other books, I found this format a bit peculiar to read, as it looks like an epigraph before the story begins on the following page, but we're clearly not meant to read it this way as the first paragraph on the next page makes little sense without taking the paragraph on the former page into account. With the inclusion of this first page, the story is retold over nine pages.

Despite my thoughts about potential influences from early Italian sources, this version remains closer to Perrault's than either of the Italian predecessors. As in Perrault's tale, there are three brothers who are sons of a miller; the eldest inherits the mill, the middle son a donkey, and the youngest the cat.

In this retelling, the cat brings a rabbit to the king, courtesy of the Marquis of Carabas, followed by other gifts of game. Everyone becomes very interested in the Marquis. When the cat learns the king and queen are taking the princess for a carriage ride, he pushes his master into the river and calls the carriage for help. While they get the miller's son into new clothes he rushes ahead and tells all the peasants to say, when asked, that their master is the Marquis of Carabas or "you will all be sorry". At the castle, the cat tricks the ogre into turning into a mouse so he can eat him, the carriage arrives, and the wedding is arranged.

A few things about this retelling stand out:

• when his master is "glum" about only inheriting a cat, the cat says it is worth more than "a half-ruined mill" and a "mangy donkey"
• we're told the cat's master wasn't surprised when the cat started talking, "for it was quite common for cats to talk in those days"
• the cat pushing its unwilling master into the water was new
• there are a few questions and comments from the queen and princess about the handsomeness of the Marquis
• one line felt slightly out of character for the setting (likely intended for comedy) when the king receives the first gift from the cat and says "Oh ... thanks so much" – compare this with the Queen's more formal response: "This Marquis of Carabas is indeed a very courteous gentleman."

The illustrations paint a late medieval/early modern scene (16th-17th century), with characters in doublets and breeches, courtiers with neck ruffs, and a queen with a heart-shaped hennin. Puss wears boots that come up to his hips, a red open coat with decorative gold piping, and a cavalier hat with jaunty feather.

Two notes of interest are the carriage, painted to resemble the British monarchy's gold state coach, and the ogre, who just looks like a very large, fat man (except for slightly pointed ears).

Til Ulenspighel

This story, told over six pages, features German folk hero Till Eulenspiegel, whose pranks feature in many tales. (Note there are many spelling variations of his name). 

In this retelling, we are introduced to a little boy whose mischief and tricks are such that people "can't help smiling". However, his fellow citizens don't always "see the funny side". Til would trick and tease everyone, and they would complain to his father. Til pleads innocence, and to prove to his father that other people dislike him for no reason, he goes for a ride on the donkey with his father to the market. Til hides a sign on the donkey that says "Whoever reads this is a donkey." People shake their fists and shout how horrid he is and his father is none the wiser.

All Til wants is to amuse himself and others, so he starts "to weary" of folks disliking him. One day when "a company of wandering entertainers" come to town Til is impressed and thinks if he does these kinds of tricks he may win people's approval. He practices then walks a tightrope above the river. He does well and impresses them until his mother cuts the rope and then they make fun of him and he comes up with a plan for revenge.

Til says he will repeat the trick, this time over the main road. "Everyone rushed to watch, hoping to see him fall off and hurt himself." Til says to make the trick harder he'll carry a sack on his back. He asks everyone in the crowd to give him their left shoe, then when he gets to the middle of the tight rope he dumps the load on the road, causing a kerfuffle as everyone tries to find their shoes.

Ha! He who laughs last laughs longest!

The story of Till walking a tightrope and throwing down shoes is well-known (if one knows who Till is – e.g. it's the cover image of Michael Rosen's The Wicked Tricks of Till Owlyglass (1989)). 

The story of Till riding a donkey with his father while carrying a rude sign is less commonly known. The original stories have been sanitised for children in much the same way other fairy and folktales have been. (In the original circa 1515 chapbook, chapter 2 shows Till baring his bottom to moon the townsfolk from the back of the donkey then sticking his tongue out at them from the front of the donkey while his father rides on, oblivious.)²

The illustrations for this story are more cartoonish than those of "Puss in Boots", the people reminding me a little of the art of Stephen Cartwright. I enjoyed the crowded town scenes, with many individual figures to look at and finely detailed cross-hatched drawings of the town buildings.

The Peasant, The Snake and the Fox

This story is a retelling of tale type 155 ("Ingratitude is the world's reward").³ As folktale types go, this is not a popular one in the modern world, especially in stories for children, where it seems that most stories teach the importance of being kind to others.

In this retelling, told over six pages, a peasant hears a snake calling for help from beneath a rock. The snake promises not to bite him if he lets him out, but as soon as the peasant frees him the snake tries to bite him.

"Why did you do that?" The snake replied, "Because every good deed is rewarded by an evil one, didn't you know that?"

The peasant thinks that can't be right and the snake says if they ask others and they agree with the snake then it can bite the peasant. They agree to this deal. Their first encounter is with a horse, who agrees with the snake and tells a story of loyalty to a master that was rewarded by ingratitude. The peasant insists one story is not enough to win the snake its bike so they ask a sheep, who also agrees with the snake, as it obeys its master and never complains but gets sheared regularly. 

The deciding round is a fox, who the peasant approaches secretly. The fox also agrees with the snake but the peasant promises the fox that if it disagrees in front of the snake then the peasant will give it "a present of a piglet, a lamb or a goose". The fox agrees to this deal.

When the fox states that "A good dead is always rewarded by another good deed", they go back to the source to review what happened, and trick the snake into getting stuck back in the hole. 

The peasant is happy with the fox's good deed, and reiterates his promise of a present, but when the fox goes to the farm that evening the peasant appears with two snarling dogs and a gun.

The fox trotted away, sad and disappointed, muttering, "and they say I'm cunning! The cunning one is that peasant. Oh well, that poor snake was probably right, good deeds are repaid with bad deeds," and off he went, his tail between his legs, into the wood.

The illustrations show a old man who appears to be in Balkan or Eastern European folk dress, wearing a tall hat and a thin-collared white shirt, purple vest, and wide trousers. He also wears a wide belt that carries a scythe. The watercolour scenes are in a palette of pale brown and chalky white, presenting a thin late autumn/early winter. Dark clouds gather in the skies as the time comes for the man to betray the fox.

The Witch in the Tower

I am unable to locate any source for this story about the son of Watanabi, who can be identifed as Watanabe no Tsuro, a legendary samurai who had a legendary sword, first known as Higekiri, then Onikirimaru (oni-slayer). The Italian story, as published in the Dame Editore collection in 1986, was titled "La spada di Watanabi" ("The sword of Watanabi").  

There is a famous story about Watanabe dispatching an oni at either Modoribashi Bridge or the gate of Rajōmon/Rashōmon in Kyoto. This story, which features the severing and later reattachment of an oni's arm, can be found in many variants, including in Yei Theodora Ozaki's Japanese Fairy Tales (where it is called "The Ogre of Rashomon").⁴

I can't, however, find any record of a story about Watanabe's son dispatching another oni with his father's sword. It's possible this story exists but is not yet translated into English. As this collection was first published in Italian, the writer was likely using Italian (rather than English) sources. 

This is a short tale, told over two pages. It describes how a "fierce witch" with a "fiery sword" has taken control of the tower over the city gate in the city of Kyoto and the people are afraid. She opens and closes the gate on a whim, endangering the people. All the samurai who have tried to stop her were killed.

The people think if only the bravest samurai of all, Watanabi, was still with them, all would be well. But he is dead and his son, who has his sword, is only a young boy. Nevertheless, Watanabi's son decides to fight the witch. She sees him coming but dismisses him as a threat, only to be blinded by the light of the sword up close, and dispatched by the young boy.

"In his father's memory and in honour of his sword, the boy had freed the city of Kyoto."

The illustrations by Tony Wolf show a long-nosed, blue-haired witch in jandals and a kimono brandishing a fiery sword, the tower gate in the background behind her. A dead samurai lies at her feet. Over the page, a young boy in a short kimono holds a katana above his head in celebration. The illustration is signed "Oda Taro", which is one of the known pseudonyms of Antonio Lupatelli (aka Tony Wolf).

Detail from "The Witch in the Tower"

Photo: My collection

The Seven Old Samurai

I've been able to identify this story as a very unusual retelling of the tale of Shuten-dōji, a well-known legend in Japan. In this legend (which is considered part of the otogi-zōshi genre), the villain, Shuten-dōji, is a very powerful oni, described in various English translations and retellings as a giant, goblin, ogre, or demon. The story is sometime referred to as "The Tale of Oeyama" (called "The Goblin of Oyeyama" in Yei Theodora Ozaki's Warrior's of Old Japan and Other Stories).⁵

In common versions of the tale of Shuten-dōji, the Emperor asks Minamoto no Raikō (also known as Minamoto no Yorimitsu) to gather a group to face the demon king Shuten-doji at his hideaway in the mountains. The oni have kidnapped many people, including the Emperor's daughter, and keep them for a while then eat them. The samurai disguise themselves as priests and pilgrims because they take a cautious approach to battling this formidable oni. Three gods in disguise as old men give the samurai a magic sake to kill the oni and the samurai win the day.

In Holeinone's retelling, told over four pages, the villains are not oni but robbers/bandits. There is no mention of kidnapping young people and eating them; instead, the robbers are raiding and murdering, causing havoc.

The Emperor sent for one of the last remaining Samurai, old Raiko...

He asks Raiko to lead an army to wipe out the robbers. Raiko says he is too old to command an army but if he takes six old samurai like himself he can do it. They dress as "humble pilgrims" so the bandits do not think them any threat, but they best them by offering them poisoned sake.

Although this retelling is clearly quite different from the original Shuten-dōji tale, it is wonderful in its own way, as a story about a group of men past their prime who prove they are still valuable by using their courage and wits to win the day:

And so, the seven Samurai, too old to wield a sword, served the Emperor for the last time.

It also fits in with a genre of romanticised stories of the decline of the samurai.

There are four illustrations, two signed by "Oda Taro". The first image is of the robbers charging out of a ransacked house; they wear kimonos and armour and their leader rides a horse. The second image is of an old Raiko, crouched before the Emperor. 

I think my favourite image of the set is of the seven samurai, wrapped in cloaks, trudging in a line up the mountain, passing over a small village of houses; trees are bending in the wind alongside them, and brown shadows mirror the trees, while brown lines represent rain slanting down. 

The final image is of three bandits in their death throes in the foreground, while in the background, Raiko, now in his samurai regalia but hunched with age, stands over them.

The Unlucky Warrior

I've been able to identify this story as an unusual retelling of the Japanese story commonly translated into English as "My Lord Bag of Rice".⁶ The Italian story, as published in the Dame Editore collection in 1986, was titled "Il re del lago" ("The King of the Lake"). 

This story, told over four pages, is about a samurai called Hido, who is "[v]aliant and strong" but through bad luck always ends up on the losing side of battles and so people began to say he brings bad luck and don't want him to work for them. He decides to try his luck in a new locale where no-one knows him.

One day while travelling he reaches the edge of a lake and sees that the only bridge across is "blocked by an enormous snake" that breathes red smoke. As it is sleeping, Hido just steps over it, and this act of bravery causes the snake to transform into a man and congratulate him. The snake is really the king of the lake, who has been seeking a brave samurai to fight off a dragon that has is terrorising the king's people, who all live in "a great city protected by a crystal ball" in the lake. 

Hido warns the king that others think he brings bad luck and the king says "I never believe what I hear, only what I see". He takes Hido underwater to the city where Hido reveals he has only three arrows.

They are poisoned, but even if they weren't, they would still be enough, because if the Dragon doesn't stop with three arrows in him, I wouldn't have time to fire any more.

Hido battles the dragon on the bridge. The first two don't stop him, but Hido remembers hearing that the only poison to stop a dragon is a man's saliva, so he transfers saliva onto the arrow with his fingers, and defeats the dragon. 

So Hido knew that not only had he defeated the Dragon, he had overcome his bad luck.

This story differs greatly from common retellings of "My Lord Bag of Rice", in which a character named Hidesato (Fujiwara no Hidesato, also known as Tawara Toda or Tawara no Tota – Rice-bag Toda) does not appear to be in any way described as unlucky. This version also doesn't feature the gift-giving at the end of the tale, particularly the inexhaustible bag of rice which gives the character his name. Other key differences are that in other versions the dragon is described as a "centipede" and, while Hido fires only three arrows in each story, they are not poisoned, except by his saliva at the end; instead, in one version (Basil Hill Chamberlain's) the centipede itself oozes poison.

The first illustration, again signed "Oda Taro", covers two pages and shows the samurai bravely stepping over the sleeping snake, the waters of the lake brown and choppy behind him, and bridge railings in red and black alongside.

A second image is of Hido dining with the king of the lake, two women waiting on them, and a third shows a roaring red dragon, faced down by Hido and his drawn bow (separated by a wall of text).

The Red Dragon

Told over two pages, this short story is an etiological myth (also known as a "pourquoi" (why) story) explaining how the animals got their different features. It's provenance is uncertain and it may be an original literary tale. I've found several other versions online, but none that provide a convincing source for the tale.⁷ 

One claims it is an Aboriginal story, but this seems highly unlikely as the animals featured in the various versions are African. If these animals are original to the story then it's far more likely it is a folktale from some part of Africa. Neither Aboriginal nor African tales feature dragons, however, so if this tale is based on real folklore (rather than being a literary creation), the 'dragon' is likely a 'serpent' in the original. 

In this telling, a long time ago all the animals (except for the lion, tiger, and butterflies) looked alike. Then one day a red dragon arrived, saying he had seen in the stars that the world was about to come to an end. He offers to carry everyone to a different "planet" that is safer. The lion isn't afraid and says he'll stay but the other animals all fight to get on the dragon's back.

The dragon takes off but the load is heavy and they are scared and don't keep still, so eventually the dragon crashes to the ground. The accident causes the animals to fall off in such a way that they each gain their features (e.g. snake loses legs, rhino bumps head and grows a horn).

There is a single cartoonish illustration of a yellow-brown dragon with tufts of red hair, carrying a crocodile, giraffe (with a butterfly), rhinoceros, elephant, hippopotamus, and hyena.

Dopey Dennis

This story is a retelling of "Vardiello" from Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone.⁸ The Italian Dami Editore version is called "Vardiello" and I can only think that the decision to call the character "Dopey Dennis" in the English version is drawing on traditions of "Dennis the Menace" (the well-meaning but bungling US Dennis is a little in sync with Vardiello!).

Told over eight pages, this retelling begins:

Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Dennis. Everyone called him Dopey because... well, read on and you will see why.

His mother goes out and tells him to make sure nobody goes near the broody hen sitting on her eggs, to keep the house tidy, and not to touch the jar in the cupboard that's full of poison.

Dennis gets off to a cracking start (pun intended!) by accidentally killing the hen then sitting on the eggs himself and breaking them. Worried about his mother's reaction, he decides to make her lunch, so roasts the hen and starts pouring wine from a barrel. He is distracted by the cat stealing the cooking hen, so he chases it around the kitchen, making a mess. When he discovers the flood of wine in the cellar he pours flour over it to soak it up. 

Worrying again about his mother's reaction, he decides to kill himself by drinking the poison, but at the last minute decides that is "silly" as "[n]obody should ever eat poison" so he hides instead. His mother returns home and finds him hiding but instead of punishing him she sends him out to sell a roll of cloth at the market. He leaves it at the foot of a statue he believes has agreed to buy it, and when his mother sends him back to get money for it, he beats the statue and discovers gold inside it. His mother is "exasperated" at his nonsensical explanation of where he got the gold and throws a bowl of fruit at him. He thinks it is "raining dry figs and sultanas". 

As then goes about telling of finding some gold, he's called before a magistrate, but when they understand that he believes he got the gold from a statue on the day it rained dry figs and sultanas they exchange looks and are "certain that Dennis really was dopey".

"You can go home now, lad, you're free!"

And so Dennis went home and lived there happily with his mother. A bit dopey, yes, but he never did anybody any harm, and that's all that counts.

This is a faithful retelling of the original story. However, the story has been cleaned up for a modern audience. In the original:

• Vardiello actually swallows what he believes to be poison and climbs into the oven to die, but luckily what he consumed was just a stomach tonic (here the tonic he takes is a group of nuts; in Holeinone's version, the poison he nearly eats is harmless cream)
• it's clearer that the reason Vardiello leaves the cloth with a statue is because he takes too literally his mother's warning "not to do business with people of too many words" 
• Vardiello's mother deliberately throws raisins and figs over him as she realises he will blab about the gold and she doesn't want him to be believed
• rather than being sent home free to live happily ever after, Vardiello is sent to a "hospital with the competence to judge such cases" (and it doesn't take too much imagination to realise that that a medieval hospital for the 'insane' would not be a bright future).

The illustrations show Dennis in his many scenes of disaster. He wears a blue coat with a white ruff and a round white hat. His mother appears quite young, in a pink gown and with a white hat with pink ribbon. The final scenes are of Dennis trying to catch the raining figs and sultanas and of him speaking to three magistrates in white wigs.

The Sleeping Princess

This story, told over six pages, is a retelling of "Sleeping Beauty". "Sleeping Beauty" is tale type¹ 410 ("The Sleeping Beauty"). Although the first fully developed literary version is considered the Italian version by Giambattista Basile, elements of the story appear in many earlier tales (including the Völsunga saga). Most modern versions draw from elements of later well-developed versions, namely the French version by Charles Perrault ("The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood"), and the German version by the Brothers Grimm ("Little Brier-Rose").⁹ 

In this retelling, a queen who has "a beautiful baby daughter" invites "all the fairies in the kingdom to the christening, but unfortunately forgot to invite one of them, who was a bit of a witch as well". There is no big scene of recriminations from that fairy – we're just told that "she came anyway, but as she passed the baby's cradle" she cursed her to die at sixteen by injuring herself with a spindle. The good fairy changes the curse to a sleeping one.

The queen "was always very careful to keep her [daughter] away from spindles". However, on her sixteenth birthday she wandered through the castle and found an old servant spinning. When she asks to see the spindle the old woman hands it to her and "she pricked herself with it." 

The queen calls court doctors, wizards, and the good fairy for help. The latter explains that love will break the curse:

"If a man of pure heart were to fall in love with her, that would bring her back to life!"

The queen is "so heart-broken" that she dies a few days later. They lay the princess on her bed and the fairy feels sorry that when she wakens all she will see is strangers so she casts a spell to make everyone in the castle fall asleep. Years go by and a "dense forest" grows around the castle.

A prince from a country close by "[y]oung, handsome and melancholy" but seeks solitude and adventure so decides to explore the forest. He makes it through the woods and rides into the castle. He tries to wake up the people he finds, and "[as] though led by a hand in the complete silence" he finds the princess sleeping. 

For a long time he stood gazing at her face, so full of serenity, so peaceful, lovely and pure, and he felt spring to his heart that love he had always been searching for and never found.

He kisses her hand to wake her and she exclaims that she was waiting for him in her dream. Everyone wakes and a few days later the prince and princess marry. The ending draws attention to the unreality of fairy tales:

They lived happily every after, as they always do in fairy tales, not quite so often, however, in real life.

This was a very interesting retelling of "Sleeping Beauty":

• there is no father in the story
• no gifts/virtues are bestowed by the good fairies
• the invitation for the witchy fairy was simply forgotten
• there is no mention of destroying all the spindles in the kingdom
• in many versions of this story the old woman with the spindle is the wicked fairy disguised, but here she is just a servant who runs terrified to tell the queen
• the queen dies of a broken heart (in some versions the parents leave; in others they are part of the sleeping curse and wake with the princess)
• it's specified that the prince must have a pure heart
• there are no thorns, just a dense forest
• there is no mention of other princes trying and failing to reach the castle
• there are no helpful people telling the prince what lies within the forest
• the prince kisses her hand (rather than her lips).

The images by Tony Wolf paint a late medieval/Renaissance setting. In the first image, the baby princess lies in a golden bassinet. Four young fairy women show shock and horror, while one older, wizened fairy holding a wand hunches over the princess, her hands like claws. The young fairies wear cone-shaped hennin with white veils while the older fairy wears a purple escoffion with yellow interior that looks like brains, a long blue veil falling behind her. Her dress looks to be an older style than the younger fairies.

The second image is of a frightened old woman in servant dress reaching out towards the princess, who holds a hand to her head as she faints into sleep. 

The third image shows the good fairy, dressed in pink, casting a spell on the people of the castle, who lie sleeping on different steps down a long stairway, guards in armour at the bottom. One of the young women who lies sleeping is reminiscent of Disney's Snow White!

A woman of the court similar in appearance to Disney's Snow White

Detail from "The Sleeping Princess"

Photo: My collection

The final images are of the prince, holding his horse's head, and peering through greenery at the castle, kneeling by the side of the sleeping beauty and kissing her hand, then a wedding scene, where the prince and princess stand together in a ballroom, musicians playing in the foreground and nobility dancing in the background. The prince wears a red velvet doublet with trunk hose and the princess wears a Renaissance-style blue gown with an embroidered golden bodice and two embroidered golden vertical bands across the skirts.

Summary

This is a fantastic collection of two well-known fairy tales and seven fairytales and folktales not commonly known in English. Peter Holeinone's writing is fresh and accessible and pairs perfectly with the engaging illustrations by Tony Wolf.

Footnotes

¹ Tale types are a way of classifying fairy tales and folk tales that have the same characteristics. For more information, see Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (Wikipedia). You can read Giovanni Francesco Straparola's Constantino Fortunato (c. 1550-1553), Giambattista Basile's Cagliosi (1634), and Charles Perrault's Le Maître Chat ou le Chat Botte (1697) translated into English online – see Puss in Boots (D. L. Ashliman). 

² You can read an English translation of the original chapbook by Paul Oppenheimer on the Internet Archive/Open Library.

³  You can read a variety of stories of tale type 155 online. See Ingratitude is the World's Reward (D. L. Ashliman). The title of this story in the Italian version of this publication is "La Volpe, Il Serpente e Il Contadino" ("The Fox, the Snake, and the Farmer"). I'm not sure of the exact source for this retelling, as from reading those on D. L. Ashliman's site it seems a combination of the Greek and Scandinavian versions. There may be an Italian source version not translated into English.

⁴ Japanese supernatural beings (yōkai) are of many types. The "oni" are generally translated into English as demons, ogres, trolls, etc. You can read Yei Theodora Ozaki's "Ogre of Rashomon" online – see Japanese Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg).

⁵ The many versions of “Shuten Dōji” are apparently the most famous monster-conquering stories in the genre of otogi zōshi (a genre of popular Japanese short illustrated prose narratives primarily written during the Muromachi period (1336–1573) and early Edo period). You can read Yei Theodora Ozaki's "The Goblin of Oyeyama" online – see Warrior's of Old Japan and Other Stories (Project Gutenberg). Note there is a popular theory that the Shuten-dōji and his oni followers were historically a group of bandits – see Noriko T. Reider's Japanese Demon Lore: Oni From Ancient Times to the Present, p.19.

⁶ You can read several versions of this tale in English online. For the first translation into English (1887), see Basil Hill Chamberlain's "My Lord Bag o' Rice" (Wikimedia Commons). For Yei Theodora Ozaki's (1903) translation of the tale (based on the retelling by Sazanami Iwaya), see "My Lord Bag of Rice" in Japanese Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg).

⁷ The Italian story, as published in the Dame Editore collection in 1986, was similarly titled "La leggenda del drago rosso" ("The legend of the red dragon")). Other sources I have found referring to this story include: Understanding Text, Education World, and PlanetOzKids.

⁸ You can read an English translation of "Vardiello" by Nancy L. Canepa online – see Giambattista Basile's The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones (Internet Archive/Open Library). Canepa's translation is the first unabridged English translation taken directly from the original Neapolitan text and considered the most faithful to the original while remaining readable.

⁹ You can read the Perrault, Grimm, and other historical versions online – see Sleeping Beauty (as translated and/or edited by D. L. Ashliman).