The Weaving Maiden was such a dutiful worker, she would never leave her loom. Her father said, “You should go out and have some fun!” She said, “Sorrow, age-long sorrow, shall come upon the Weaving Maiden when she leaves her loom.” Her father put no...
When the Festival of Bon arrived, the time of returning souls, the good folk of Yedo took lanterns and visited the graves of their loved ones. They would bring us food and flowers to care for us. On the night of the thirteenth day of the seventh month, my beloved...
What am I to do? My wife, the mother of my sons, has been taken away by Koschei the Deathless. My two elder sons have gone off to search for her and they haven’t returned. And now my youngest, Ivan, is asking for my blessing to go on his own search. How can I...
Everyone was terrified for me because I had been promised to a snake. But I couldn’t wait to meet my destiny. The snake slithered into the garden and as soon as I saw him, I loved him. He wound around me and kissed me, and then I followed him to a room in the...
Perhaps I tried too hard to please my neighbors. I was too kind. I created false expectations, rivalries and the jealousies. The long and the short is, I was always at war. Shortly after I married, I lost a hard battle and we had to retreat behind the walls of my...
I found the entrance to the old well, and I went down a flight of stairs that descended into darkness. They were broad, white slabs of alabaster, gleaming in the shadows. Even the sound of my bare feet on the stone echoed in that lonely place, and when one of my water...
She wore me on her finger over the course of many years. He had forgotten her, but still she wore me. Then one day, she took me off and put me in the pocket of her red dress. She wore that red dress to her lover’s wedding feast. That night, the spell that had...
Julia is weeping because she afraid that I will be seduced by the siren I’ve heard in the woods. In her upset, she goes and takes a seashell from a treasure box. Then she sings into it in her pure, beautiful voice. She gives the shell to me and tells me to put...
My elf wife and I were happy, but every now and then she would disappear. I asked her one day, “What can I do to keep you from vanishing into the other world?” “Dear husband, I am bound to go, even against my will, and there is only one way to stop...
My husband has shut me in a tower with my baby girl so that she will not be taken by the fairies. I promised her to them, and now the fairies are furious. I have betrayed them! They’ve unleashed a dragon and it’s ripping through countryside and eating...
