I'm looking for indie rock songs based on folk tales, in the vein of Anathallo's "Hanasakajijii" suite and The Decemberists' "The Crane Wife", and "The Tain".

Thanks!

Joanna Newsom kind of wrote her own folktales for her brilliant album, Ys. You would do very well to check that one out!

Alasdair Roberts covered a bunch of old English (Irish also I think) folk story-songs in his album No Earthly Man. I think they're all murder stories as well.

There was some discussion of this here, although not exclusively about folk stories.

If you move from folk tales to folk SONGS, you can open the door to things like Espers' The Weed Tree or the new Isobel Campbell record, which feature folk songs covered by indie bands.

Nick Cave is good for some of this as well, between his murder ballads record and the retelling of the Orpheus story.