Educational Values in Rodop Folk Tales

Tales have an important place and value in transferring and adopting national and universal values. Tales as a genre in folk literature are very rich in terms of language features and values. Tales deal with humans’ common feelings and thoughts before nature and life. Individuals of a society and particularly children find and acquire an important part of experiences preparing them for future in fabulous tales. This feature of theirs makes them a very important resource for children and children’s literature in addition to the education of society and transferring values. Tales have a very important role in developing children’s imagination, their ability to perceive abstract concepts and language skills. The child finds an environment similar to which he/she lives in the literary work created for him/her. S/he catches the opportunity to make connections and comparisons between the written or the told and the lived. Tales not only perform all these educational functions and duties but also entertain. Tales through symbolic elements they bear open the doors of a very different world to their readers and listeners. When symbolic and imaginary elements are taken out of tales making this environment entertaining with a style specific to them, real life comes out. In the present study, the tales published with the title “Rodop Turkish Folk Tales” compiled by Emil Boev and Hayriye Memova from the Turks living in Bulgaria will be examined in terms of values they include