I was sure that the walls of the room had been built thickly enough to prevent a ray of candlelight from entering, but it did enter, and my husband was turned into a dove. When I came to him, he was sitting on the bed. “For seven years I must fly about the...
When Youri and I were children, we decided to go up the mountain and climb to the lake where the undines lived. It was hard going, and I became hobbled by a stone in my shoe. At last, I grew too weary to climb on, and, besides, it was getting dark. I lay down on a...
Yes, well you can call me Airy Fairy if you wish. Some people call me Inconstancy, but my formal name is Girouette. Yes, I think that’s it. I like to change my name. I’m never sure about anything. I have one idea, and then it is replaced by another, and I...
My father made me work hard, and the one thing I wanted for myself—a sprig of rosemary—would not be pulled out of the ground. The harder I pulled, the more the plant resisted, but I was not about to be beaten. I tore it out of the ground, and then a lot of things...
The Lion asked me to do something impossible—and by that, I do not mean spinning a cloak for a giant out of the hair of a princess. I did that task, and others that I really suffered to accomplish. But how can I possibly do this task? He has asked me to kill him, cut...
“Now, my Lady, you wait here,” I told her. It was a dark glen and not a place she was used to. Not like the castles where we had stayed with my relations. There was more I needed to tell my new wife. “Sit yourself on that stone,” I said....
Last night, a woman came to my door. She sat outside and told her story. I crept to the door and listened. She said she had fallen in love fell with a prince who was a wolf by day and a man by night. Then a servant threw his wolf-skin into the fire, and he disappeared...
Everything is messed up, absolutely everything. I never should have taken those young lovers to the island. I’d forgotten that the waters had been poisoned by that silly, blundering fairy Dindonette. I wasn’t thinking when I took them in my vessel. We just...
I was once a snow-white page, perfect and pristine. I wanted to be the bearer of good news and inspired words. One day, the king’s mother picked me up wrote upon my face: “My darling son, I am writing to send you the happy news that your wife has given...
We were chasing a peculiar deer with a ring on its horns, and Prince Ring was determined to catch it. We chased it all day, until our horses began to founder beneath us. At last the prince’s horse gave way, and a darkness fell upon us that was so black we could...