Flood Stories from Around the World by Mark Isaak Copyright © 2002 [Last Revision: Sept. 2, 2002] [Back to Mark Isaak's home page] Introduction The stories below are flood stories from the world's folklore. I have included stories here if (1) they are stories; (2) they are folklore, not historical accounts or fiction by a known author; and (3) they involve a flood. In most borderline cases, I included the story here anyway. For example, one story (Hopi) tells of a flood which was avoided and never occurred. My method for collecting these stories is simply to collect every flood story I find. I have omitted a few extremely fragmentary accounts, such as sources that say "These people have a legend of a flood in which most people were killed" and little or nothing more. The stories are summarized both to save space and to avoid copyright infringements, but I have attempted to preserve all the motifs and all the names that were given in the cited account. However, where the story gives intricate account of events before and/or after the flood (such as in the Zhuang story of Bubo vs. the Thunder God), some of the details peripheral to the flood itself may have been summarized out of existence. In a few cases, two or more overlapping and non-contradictory fragments from the same culture were combined into one summary. Complete references are given at the end; consult them for more details. Within each continent or region, stories are grouped by language family. See here for elaboration of the language groups which, as best I can determine, the stories belong to. I am sure there are many more flood stories which could be included here. As I find them, I will add them. I welcome feedback, especially new flood stories, from others. Index by Region Clicking the above will take you to a page offsite with the index and all of the stories Mark Isaak has collected.