8 h 5 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 5 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a rock, a bay, or a passing wind holds a story of gods, spirits, and ancestors?
Hawaiian Folk Tales, gathered and edited by Thomas G. Thrum, brings together legends from the Hawaiian Islands. These stories pass from elder to child through speech and chant. In their world, gods, ancestors, and spirits share the land with ordinary people, while heroes bend nature to their will.
The collection explores gods and heroes, little people, guardian ancestors, and the stories attached to places. Hawaiian tradition names Kane, Ku, Lono, and Kanaloa among its great gods. The Menehune appear as small, hardworking builders of stone. Across these tales, a rock, a bay, or a wind can carry a memory worth keeping.
What you’ll discover
- Stories carried in memory Discover traditions preserved through storytelling, chant, and dance, then gathered here for later readers.
- Gods behind the elements Explore how Hawaiian tradition connects divine powers with sky, rain, farming, war, and sea.
- Builders of the forest Meet the Menehune, remembered for great stone works often completed in a single night.
- Ancestors close at hand Enter tales where guardian ancestors and spirits share the land with ordinary people.
- Places with a story Find legends that explain a standing rock, a named bay, or a particular wind.
Who will love it
This book is for readers who love myths and legends, tales told around a fire, and the lore of islands and oceans. It suits anyone curious about Polynesian culture.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Stories belong to real places
- Maui uses wit to help family
- Pele shapes land and demands respect
- Love seeks a road through death
- Knowledge gives healers and priests authority
- Shared work gives the Menehune power
- Love and jealousy mark the landscape
- The sea asks for respect
- Places keep stories and values alive
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- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Hawaiian Folk Tales in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Hawaiian Folk Tales
A boy snares the sun with coconut rope and a shark god's son hides a second mouth in the tales of Hawaii.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you do if your mother's cloth never dried because the days were too short? In Hawaiian Folk Tales, a young man named Maui twists coconut fiber into a cord and goes up a mountain to catch the sun.
Hawaiian Folk Tales at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 30 min3 h 35 min fast, 5 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 64,800 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Old chants echo stories from other lands
The opening chapter, by the Reverend C. M. Hyde, asks a puzzling question. Why do some old Hawaiian legends resemble the history of the Old Testament? He builds his answer from the work of Judge Fornander, who gathered the chants of the islands.
In the creation chant, three gods named Kane, Ku, and Lono break apart the endless night and let light into space. They shape the first man from red earth and breathe into his nose, and he lives. A woman is made from his rib while he sleeps. Another legend tells of a flood, in which Nuu builds a great vessel and lands on Mauna Kea.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
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- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Hawaiian Folk Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/hawaiian-folk-tales.
Hawaiian folk tales. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/hawaiian-folk-tales
Hawaiian Folk Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/hawaiian-folk-tales.
@book{anonymous2026hawaiian,
title = {Hawaiian Folk Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/hawaiian-folk-tales}
}
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What is Hawaiian Folk Tales about?
It is a collection of Hawaiian myths and legends gathered by Thomas G. Thrum. It includes creation chants, the trickster Maui, the goddess Pele, journeys to the land of the dead, the Menehune builders, love stories, and tales of sea gods and sharks.
Who is Maui in Hawaiian legend?
In this book, Maui is a clever son of Hina who snares the sun with a cord of coconut fiber so his mother's cloth can dry. Maui-mua, one of Maui and Hina's sons, wins fire from the alae, the mud hens who guard it.
Who are the Menehune?
The Menehune are a small, skilled people said to live in the hills of the islands. Legend credits them with building dams, canoes, and temples in a single night, humming as they work.
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