The Virago Book of Fairy Tales

Neither here nor elsewhere lived a king . . .

These fairy tales come from all around the word and each has a female protagonist. Angela Carter selected them for Virago but didn't re-write them at all, so the story collected from a small child who heard it from her baby-sitter is in childish language and shows childish preoccupations, while most of the Eskimo stories are X-rated. Fairy tales often have a formulaic opening that tells the listener that the story is not expected to be believed, and although the African stories in this collection tend to end quite abruptly, other cultures have traditional ways to end fairy tales, like these two variants of the traditional English ending, one from America and the other from England:

And her and Jack got married, and they done all right. Some folks say they lived happy ever after.

and

So the gentleman turned back home again, and married the farmer's daughter, and if they don't live happy for ever after, that's nothing to do with you or me. ( )