Folklore meets devotional allegory
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As a fan of folklore and fairy tales, I knew of Nachman of Bratslav but had never felt the need to read his tales. And here’s why: it’s a very mixed bag, with some of the tropes of fairy tales—princes and wishes, kings wielding absolute power, princesses and their unsuitable suitors—but also faith-based scene turns and endings. Translated from the original Yiddish, they retain the flavour of oral tales as they were when first recorded, with plot points that dead end, internal logic disagreements and things that just don’t make sense.

But they’re not meant to. These a rare text from a time that no-one alive remembers, yet these are wonder tales with a recognised author, which is a rarity given how few of these exist globally. Take them for what they are, a portal into an otherwise unknowable past and enter the mindset of another culture.

An intriguing set of stories, from an enigmatic voice of the early 1800s. Many it has to be said are just too convoluted, being story-within-a-story-within-a-story, or not really – as the translators ultimately admit – that fun to read, but the plainer ones are actually quite grand and enjoyable, when you come across them. They range from the very simple lesson of the King who refused Jewish people to bear emblems of their faith, to much less religiously-focused stuff, such as a lovelorn princess on her frankly quite bizarre adventures. Best is the saga of a beauty and a merchant's son who seem fated to not have an equivalent status and be allowed to marry. There is a prince made of jewels (or is there?), people swap lots in life, and a great store is held by religious intent, and intelligence, as much as the typical gains of the fairy tales these so closely resemble, like wealth and barely consenting brides.

All told this is a bit too much of a curate's egg – the things are not fully easy to grasp, and even without the structure issues the ultimate purpose of these stories can be absent. Some aren't even complete. It's for a niche market, for the curious, for the completist when it comes to old folkloric ideas, and for people who wonder how someone born in 1772 can declare the "steward of the treasury" (ie Chancellor of the Exchequer) "quite a simpleton", and predict 2025's Britain so damnably accurately. As a read, it's not the most recommendable three stars.

An intriguing collection of religious tales that handle questions of morality through allegory and fairytale-esque writing . This collection packs a punch for an short story reader, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The Podolian Nights,' a title inspired by the 'Thousand and One Nights,' is an interesting collection of distinct tales that were narrated as religious morality stories in gatherings by a deeply religious man who just lost his son. Each of the tales reflects all these elements, and the result is a bunch of complex accounts of deeply cryptic style and structure that offer their readers the possibility for numerous interpretations at different levels.

NACHMAN OF BRATSLAV (1772-1810) came from a prominent Hassidic family and lived in Ukraine. In 1802, he met Nathan Sternhartz, who began recording all of Nachman's lessons and who would go on to transcribe the stories in this collection. In 1815 this book was first published in Yiddish and Hebrew.
Jordan Finkin, Adam Kirsch, Robert Adler Peckarar have taken the Yiddish texts and poured them into delightfully easy to read English.
The stories are reminiscent of a mix between fairy tales and allegories. Considering a devout Hassidic man wrote these, they are pretty wild Owing to the time they were written in, every protagonist and person of importance is a man.
It’s a true delight that English speaking readers can delve into 200 year old stories. Some short, some longer all pack a punch. I would recommend this for readers who love well rounded, weird short stories.