I fled to a rock cavern after my brother, Susa the Impetuous, came to the High Heavens and wrecked havoc, tangling me in the threads of my loom. I went inside and rolled a rock in front of the cave's mouth. All went dark outside. In the cavern, bright light streamed...
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Underworld Speaking
A grey-bearded stranger comes and goes from here. He stamps the ground three times with his left foot and I open a secret door. Then he comes down from above and enters my thick darkness. Here, the earth and water, trees and plants, birds and beasts are only pale...
Queen Who is Taken to the Underworld
I was bored sitting in that dusty old castle, waiting for my husband to end his wars. Several times I went out on the hunt, riding in a small carriage drawn by two horses. One day when the hunters went after a wild boar, I turned my horses in the opposite direction. I...
Evil Enchanter Disempowered
How did he do it? That nothing of a boy must have found the princess I shut into The Castle of the Golden Sun. How did he get there? It wasn't on any map. And why would he listen to the princess? She wasn't attractive. I had turned her into a withered old crone. Yet...
Hall of Prisoners
What I contain in my spacious vault has not been seen for a long time. My floors are covered in polished stones and inscribed with symbols that are known only to magicians. Hollow niches are cut into my walls, and they hold glass vases where people’s spirits are...
Fisherman’s Son Who Finds Three Black Princesses
After I escaped the enemy, I came to a great forest on a high mountain. As I approached the cliff, the mountain wall opened before me. I entered a great enchanted castle. The tables, chairs, and benches were hung in black. Then three princesses appeared who were...
Blind Tailor
When I woke beneath the gallows I did not know where I was. The shoemaker had taken out my eyes in exchange for a bit of bread. He had left me there to die, and that is exactly what would have happened had I not heard two hanged men speaking to one another. "Brother,"...
Little Match Girl
I make my living selling matches on the street. They burn so prettily, why won't anyone buy them? I know, because they already have light in their homes, and so much warmth. Oh, what warmth! I don't have any of that. I'm freezing cold but I don't want to go home...
Hidden Hut of the Spinners
I am hidden in the trees, and I shelter three sisters who spin from dawn to dusk. No one sees them, except the sun by day, the moon by night, and the eyes of the stars. And me. I see them. I see how they work with no rest. I see how the old woman hoards the gold flax...
Grey Woman
We only have one eye between the three of us, and we're passing it back and forth. "Sister, what do you see? Do you see the old times long back?" I grope for the eye in her hand. "No sister," she says. "Well, come on, then, give me the eye and let me see." "I gave it...
Labyrinth of Despair
Woe to those who pass the dragons at my gate and come into this desolate wood! Here, human hands reach out of the ground, and miserable people roam the cypress wood. They have cords tied around their necks, and when they meet, they become attached and fall to the...
Iron Castle
I am made of iron, and I hold all the wizard's possessions. I have recently received an army of men who have turned to stone. On the wizard's command, the soldiers froze. One was caught in the act of running away, another was brandishing a sword, and another was...
Far-Seeing Fairy Godmother
I watch the princess ride away into the star-lit desert on a snow-white donkey. She's looking for a four-leafed herb that grows on the point of a rocky ridge. It's the only thing that will save her husband's life. I told her where to find it, but she cannot know the...
Great Gloomy Wood
In the darkest part of my interior, where the trees are thickest, a witch lives in a stone hut. She has outgrown it. She can hardly fit into it. She has to lie down with her head at the door and her feet in the corners. She has no friends. Not even her cat and her dog...
Drawn Curtain
The old woman, pretending to be a chambermaid, closed me and shut out the light. In the dark, many terrible things happened. The chambermaid took the weakened queen to the bath, and suffocated her in the hellish heat of the fire she made in the room. Then she put her...
Golden Ball
I was so happy when the princess tossed me in the air. Me, the very image of the bright sun! Now I'm sinking down into the murky waters of the well. Where is the bottom? There doesn't seem to be any bottom. It's cold down here, and getting blacker by the moment. How...
Sun Ball
I have seen many things, and some of them are very dark, but the little princess was my joy. Her beauty astonished me every time I shone on her. She had a favorite toy, a golden ball, the spitting image of me. But then one day, her golden ball disappeared. It was...