I am a landmark in this country. People can see me from miles away. A high and mighty princess inhabits my high apartments, and she can see the whole kingdom through my twelve windows. Through the first window she can see more clearly than any human being, in every...
The princess has announced that she won’t marry any man who can’t solve her riddle. My two clever tailor friends think they’ll have the riddle sewn up in no time. They think I’m useless, and that I should stay at home, but I’m going too,...
I looked all around the world in search of fear, because I didn’t know what fear was. I wasn’t afraid of the living or the dead. One day, I came into a large town square crowded with people. A pigeon had been set loose over the crowd and he landed on my...
You will think my story is dumb. Of course it is. All my stories are dumb! I’m always making a goose of myself. The important thing is, I made a princess laugh. A very serious princess. Until she met me she had not met a man who could her make her laugh because...
The stone floor is heaving. The giant is coming up from below, shaking the house and raging like a thunderstorm. I run to my maids. “Come with your cauldron of pitch! Make haste!” The earth splits and we pour the pitch into the widening crack. I can see...
I flew beside him, hoping he would think of me. He was in a race with a cunning witch who kept slipping past him. But he had the power to change his shape. He wished himself into a pigeon, then a crow, and then a hawk, but still, he fell behind. His eyes grew dim and...
The other suitors tried to climb the glass mountain by using horses that were shod with sharp nails. They didn’t make it. Even the golden knight didn’t make it. When he hit bottom, I heard his bones rattle in his battered golden armor like dry peas in a...
The cat has caught the king of mice, and he isn’t going to let him go until we find the magic ring. I’m the tiniest mouse in the castle but I stepped forward and I said, “I know where the ring is because I live in the room of the princess. Every...
The lord of the castle permits me to stay overnight in the old tower, but he warns me that it is full of wild dogs. They bark without stopping, and will devour a man in the wee hours. I have no fear of dogs because I know their language. I ask the lord of the castle...
My brothers call me Cinderlad because I like to tend the fire. Well, they may call me what they will, but they were too scared to spend St. John’s night in the barn, and watch to see how the grass disappeared. I got into the barn and lay down, and after about an...
