I met John after he had returned from the war. I was mending my net in my hut when I heard him come up to the house and sit on the steps. I invited him in, poured him some wine, and cooked him some fried fish. He told me how he’d nearly been beaten to death in a...
The wonderful gazelle killed a seven-headed snake and freed the slaves imprisoned in this house. Even my master the sultan owes his riches to the gazelle. Because of the gazelle, he married the sultan’s daughter. But when he became a rich sultan, he forgot the...
My father wanted to marry me and I absolutely refused! I consulted my fairy godmother and she advised me to ask him for impossible things. But he gave me everything I asked for. The only way out of the awful predicament was to ask my father for a fur coat made from...
I watch from the sky as the old night-owl flies to the window of the mountain hut. He cries, “Uhu!” three times to summon the old woman’s daughter. She steps out into the night air and walks over the meadows and into the valley. She comes to a spring...
I was the firstborn prince, but from the moment of my birth, my mother denied my existence. I made my way to the hills and lived off the land. I ate mice, and then I ate rodents, and then I ate lambs, and then I ate children. When my brother set off to marry and take...
