The white bear carried me to his castle which was very grand and made my father's castle look quite poor. I would live happily, the bear promised, and I would have nothing else to do but to tend the fire and see that it never went out. The bear went away by day, but...
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Cold Lady
One winter evening, I put my seven children to bed and tucked them in warmly. Then I went to join my husband in the next room. The charcoal glowed in the hibachi and all the doors of the house were tightly shut, for it was bitterly cold outside, and the first big...
King Who is Left Alone
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 give it...
Princess Engaged to a Spellbound Snake
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 castle....
Childless Queen Who is Given an Egg
I hid my unhappiness from my husband, but when he was not with me, I often wept. I didn’t seem able to conceive. One day, when the king had gone to war, I couldn't bear being in the castle. The air was suffocating me. I went out, wandered in the garden, and came to a...
Prince Who Loves a Pea-Hen
I have fallen in love with a pea-hen! I met her when I was keeping watch because every night my father’s golden apple trees were getting stripped of their fruit. I woke at midnight and saw nine golden pea-hens land in the tree. The ninth hen fluttered to the ground...
King With a Slipper
When I was out hunting a boar one day, I ran down a hill in my sandals and caught a thorn in my foot. The thorn festered and my foot became so swollen and sore than I couldn't put any weight on it. I heard about an illustrious physician, and I summoned him to my...
Grandmother Wolf
Where had my grandson gone? I searched for him everywhere. While I was searching, I went to Mink’s cottage to buy some sea urchins’ eggs. As soon as I got inside, I saw the wolf skin which I guessed belonged to my grandson. “I knew he was dead – I knew it! I knew it!”...
King Who Loses His Wife
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...
Ian the Privileged Prince
I was much loved by my mother and father, and I grew up tall and strong and handsome. I learned to run and shoot, and I could swim and dive better than any lad my age in the isles of the west. I knew how to sail, I sang with the harp, and I liked nothing better than...
Knight of Grianaig
My three daughters were as beautiful as they were kind, and much loved by people throughout the isles of the West. Then one day, as they sat on the rocks on the edge of the sea, dipping their feet in the water, a great beast arose from under the waves and swept them...
Gopani-Kufa the King
One day when I was hunting, I came upon a strange sight. A python had wrapped himself around an antelope, and the antelope had stabbed the python. He had pinned him to a tree. The python couldn't move, and the antelope couldn't get his horn out of the tree. Each of...
Lover of the Lost Princess
There was a great crevasse in the king's glass mountain, and he declared that anyone who could cross it without falling into the void would be able to marry his daughter. Well, I loved his daughter already, and I was prepared to do anything for her. When the time came...
Lime-Tree
The hapless maiden sat at my foot and waited for her true love to return. He had gone into the world to get his father's blessing. I doubted that he would ever find his way back. The sun set and rose again, set and rose, and rose again. On the fourth day, the maiden...
Queen Mother of the Raven
My baby daughter was fidgety and noisy and I could not quiet her. She wanted to be in my arms, and every time I put her down, she cried. Finally, I became impatient with her. I went to the window, and when I saw the ravens flying around the palace, I said, "I wish you...
Tired Old Griffin
I live by the Red Sea, and I've had a peaceful life over the last couple of centuries. Recently, however, my peace has been disturbed by a battle that has been raging between a lion and a dragon. They are royals, of course. The lion is a prince, and the dragon is a...
Lion Prince
During the day I took my rest under a tree in the forest and listened to the lark sing. No one in the world was dearer to me than the lark. Then one day, a man and his servant came along. They saw the lark sitting at the top of the tree, and the man told his servant...
Curious Wife of the Fisherman
My husband was supposed to keep the source of our wealth a secret, but I simply couldn't be kept in the dark. I had to know where it came from! He told me that he had caught a golden fish, and, in exchange for his liberty, the fish gave him a fine castle with an...
Milkmaid Queen
Our little empire is even smaller than Petaldo's parents' kingdom. It's really only a dairy farm, but we are very happy. Every day, I go to the dairy, and, in addition to making my cheeses, I make a little barley cake and a tiny cream cheese. Then I put them under the...
Dorani’s Invisible Husband
The gardener asked me why I was looking so sad, and I told him the reason. "My wife Dorani is as lovely as the stars, but she won't speak to me. Every night she leaves me, and goes back to her father's house." The old gardener gave me six small packets of powder and...
Queen Who Helps Her Son Escape
When our son returned from his long sea voyage, he told us that he had caught the Golden-Headed Fish whose blood would cure his father's blindness. However, there was no time left to bring the fish home. The physician who knew how to make the salve would be gone. So...
Queen Who Loses Her Child
We tried to have a child for years, and at last we were blessed with a little boy. One day, at the height of a most intoxicating summer, when my son was sleeping in the garden in his golden cradle, and the king and I were absorbed in planning his future, a dark shadow...
Old Friend of Sparrow
I am an old man with a hard-hearted wife, and she's only gotten meaner over the years. I try to ignore her. I light my pipe and go sit out on the porch. I listen to birdsong and tune my ears to something else other than her scolding tongue. Now she's done something I...
Gerda’s Red Shoes
Gerda had lost her friend Kay. He had disappeared. "Kay is dead and gone," she said to the sun. But the sun said, "I don't believe it." The sparrows didn't believe it, either. That's when Gerda came to get us, her brand-new red shoes. She put us on her feet, walked us...
Queen Who Eats a Plant to Conceive
I cannot give my husband a child, and now he has gone away. If I have a child by the time he returns, he said, he will love me "beyond measure," but if I do not, he will part with me forever. I won't be having a child with him away, now, will I? Unless he wishes me to...
Beauty’s Father
I have lost everything. I have even lost hope. I spent a miserable night crouched in the hollow of a tree while the storm raged around me. The howling wolves kept me awake all night, not to mention the howling voices in my mind. I have nothing to give my children....
Bereft Chief
I followed the path that the old ones spoke about, and it led me to the Land of Souls. I came to the hut of an old man clothed in skins. He told me to rest. How could I rest? I had to find the soul of my wife. Why did she die just before our wedding feast? Where did...
Queen Who Wants to Keep Her Child
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 everyone. The...
Blind Prince
For years I wandered in the wilderness, a blind man, eating roots and berries. I wept for the loss of my wife. I should have taken her away sooner. I should have protected her. Where had she gone? What had happened to her? I was blind in every way. I had been...
Wind Wizard of Finland
Only a good wind can heal the heart that a bad wind has broken. That's what I told the king's messenger. A week later I flew on the winds to speak directly to the king. Respectfully, I told him that his son's illness was caused by an evil wind. A magic ball had...
Handless Maiden’s Mother
"Why does she have to leave, husband? We have the money to support her for the rest of her life. She doesn't need to go off into the wild forest! How well will she fare, with no hands? You brought this evil upon her, you must fix it!" My husband sits at the table,...
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...
Dove of Peace
When the dwarves put the princess in the crystal coffin, the forest fell silent, and it has been silent ever since. First, the Owl came and watched over her. Then the Raven came and watched. When the Raven's time ended, I came and settled on the shoulder of the dwarf...
Tom Thumb’s Mother
My husband thinks that we should leave our little boys in the forest when they're out tying fagots tomorrow. I can't do it! Yet, we're so desperately poor. Not one of them is old enough to earn a living. The youngest is puny, and he hardly ever speaks a word. When he...
Hunting Friend of Prince Ring
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 no...
Black Bull of Norroway
"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. "And don't move a hand or a...
Witch Who Beheads Her Own Daughter
Last night I took an axe and chopped off the head of my stepdaughter while she was sleeping. I thought, 'Ha, now there will be no more fuss about who gets all the pretty things. My daughter will get them all!' This morning, I called upstairs for my girl. She was late...
Sorrowful, Dying King
I cannot recover from the death of my wife. I lie in bed, laboring for breath, wheezing under the great weight on my chest. What is this? A bird with brilliant plumage is fluttering at my window. She's lighting on the lintel. Her feathers are sky-blue and gold, and...
Abandoned Sweetheart
Roland went away to see his father and make arrangements for our wedding. I had nowhere to go, and so I decided to stay in the field. I used the magic wand to turn myself into a red stone land-mark. I waited and I waited for Roland to return. He never came back. At...
Invisible Prince
When I was born and my future was foretold, my parents were so upset by my life of perilous adventures that a Fairy comforted them by giving me a little pebble. Whenever I put the pebble in my mouth, I would become invisible. I met many ordeals and escaped the worst...
Overtaken Queen
I was playing with my two-year-old son on the boat deck while my husband and the crew napped below. We were having a lovely afternoon when I noticed something black coming toward us from the sea. As it approached, I saw that the figure was a fearfully ugly witch...
Flower-Wreathed Princess
I leave home, riding on the back of a white wolf. When we stop to rest in the forest, he asks me, "What would your father do if this forest belonged to him?" "He would cut down the trees and turn it into a beautiful park and gardens, and he and his courtiers would...
Scolded King
I had been napping below the ship deck when I was suddenly woken by the sound of my little son crying. He could not be comforted. My wife was standing over me, holding him and scolding me for leaving her alone on the deck while the crew slept. She had every right to...
Mother of the Sunchild
The Sunball gave me a daughter on the condition that after twelve years, he would have her back. But I wouldn't let him have her! I shut all the doors and windows of my house, and I stopped up all the chinks and holes. I kept Letiko hidden away where the Sunball...
Moon Over the Spring
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 with three old...
Aged Maiden Toupette
I am locked in a tower. My guardian, the genius Kristopo, has put me here because I have refused to marry him. I will never consent. I only love Cornichon. The fairies raised us together, and we are intended for one another. However, terrible things have happened. The...
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...
Prunella’s Mother
I had a daughter, but she disappeared. She was only seven! I was waiting for her to come back from school, and she never came home. My sweet little girl, Prunella, that's what I called her because she always came home with a plum she had picked from a tree.... She'll...
Tiny in the Big World
The marsh, the river, the meadow, the whole world was too big for me! When winter came I wandered into a cornfield that had been harvested. Only the dry, bare stubble stuck out of the frozen ground, and the stalks were like a forest to me. I was so cold I thought for...
Dame Fortune
Fortunatus hardly remembers having fortune. His father squandered it before he was ten. At sixteen, he went off to find his own fortune. He found work as a page for the Earl of Flanders, and before you knew it, he had won the heart of the Earl's daughter. They were...
Seal Woman
He has taken my pelt so I must marry him or freeze to death. I will go to that cold place. I will raise the children and assume the role of a domesticated person. But I will return to the wild one day. And the wild will return to me. The Seal Woman in Sealskin, from...
Poor Miller
I used to have more money than I knew what to do with. But sorrow comes like a thief in the night, and all of a sudden, I lost everything. I couldn't even call the mill my own. One morning when I went down to the pond, a nixy rose out of water. She called me by name...
Woman Who Loses Everything
I begged him not to go, but he had to leave me. But it was too late! He had trusted me to keep his secret. But I had betrayed him. I shed light on him before he was ready to be seen. And all because of my mother’s suspicions! "Where will I find you?" I cried. He said...
Grieving Shepherdess
I watch my sheep in the meadow. I try not to remember the old days when I was blissfully married to the best of all men. I try not to remember the siren's grip on him and the flood that divided us. Tonight, another shepherd has taken out his flute. He is playing the...
Merchant Father
I can tell you firsthand that the wealthiest merchant can lose his fortune overnight, and fall into the direst poverty! My house burned to the ground quite suddenly. My six sons and six daughters fortunately survived the fire, but all the splendid furniture, the...
Niece of the Bereft Husband
Uncle told us a strange story. He said that when they had gone out to the camp, his wife had turned into a doll. He took us to the site where they had camped, and, to our amazement, we saw a life-sized doll lying under the skins. At first we couldn't believe it. We...