We all tell the same stories. It's something I learned as a little girl reading books like "Told In Norway" or "Fairy Tales From Around the World". EVERYONE tells the story of Cinderella. Not with a fairy godmother and glass slppers. (The slippers were a misunderstanding.) But the story of a young girl mistreated by a step family, who is helped to a better life through magic, and recognized through her shoes, is pretty near universal.

Rumplestiltskin has cousins named Tom Tit Tot and Whuppity Stoorie, who make deals and vanish if you say their names.

I was reading, recently, a book of Jewish folktales and encountered a variant of the Merchant of Venice story, pound of flesh and all.