Strangers Tell The Oldest Stories

Strangers Tell The Oldest Stories is a travel-framed collection of forgotten and lesser-known folk tales from Eastern Europe, retold through the eyes of a solo woman traveller moving by bus, train, ferry, and foot through border cities, mountain towns, old ports, hostels, bookshops, bakeries, and borrowed rooms.

In this book, folklore does not appear as something preserved behind glass. It arrives through conversation: a stranger on a ferry, a woman in a bookshop, someone at a hostel table while rain presses against the windows, a local voice near a statue by the sea.

From the Carpathian forests to the coast of Montenegro, from Lithuanian farmhouses to Estonian islands, Slovak mountains, and Belarusian memories carried in exile, these stories bring back forest spirits, storm-makers, tricksters, river beings, cursed dancers, foolish bargains, faithful animals, lonely devils, and women waiting by the water.

Part travel memoir, part folklore collection, and part meditation on memory, longing, exile, and belonging, Strangers Tell The Oldest Stories asks what survives when borders shift, languages fade, and people leave home.

Perhaps the answer is simple: stories do.

For readers who love myth, slow travel, Eastern Europe, atmospheric storytelling, and books that feel like being told a secret in a café on a rainy afternoon.