author
Cecil Henry Bompas
1868–1956
Best known for bringing Santal folktales into English, this British civil servant left behind a lively record of storytelling traditions from eastern India. His work still stands out for its mix of myth, humor, and glimpses of everyday life.
1 Audiobook
Folklore of the Santal Parganas
by Cecil Henry Bompas
About the author
Born on May 31, 1868, Cecil Henry Bompas was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge before joining the Indian Civil Service in the late 1880s. He spent much of his career in Bengal, where official duties ran alongside a deep interest in local languages, oral tradition, and folklore.
He is most closely associated with Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909), a collection that brought stories of the Santal people to English-language readers. The book is remembered not simply as a set of tales, but as an early attempt to preserve a rich storytelling tradition in print.
Bompas died on January 22, 1956. Today he is remembered less as a public figure than as a careful collector and translator whose work helped keep a body of traditional narrative alive for later readers.