My great-great grandfather and I were the best of friends, although we never met

Silence is another element we find in classic fairy tales — girls muted by magic or sworn to silence in order to break enchantment. In “The Wild Swans,” a princess is imprisoned by her stepmother,...

Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size...

For most of human history, ‘literature,’ both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written — heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most...

An old man spoke to his grandson. “My child,” he said. “Inside everyone there is a battle between two wolves. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is...

It’s a pook, a messenger…spy is more like it,” Kern explained sourly. “This one will tattle, and I’ll never hear the end of it when I go back.” An eyebrow lifted. “Consorting with a human.

…The man who stood before her was taller and stranger than anyone she had ever encountered. His unkempt hair was a long dark brown, partially braided and twisted around twigs, the tips of his pointed...

There is a folk-tale about a shoemaker and his wife who were so poor that they had to send their many children out into the world to make a living. The lads went through many...

These tales, without exception, express the truth that justice triumphs in the end. They all contain the idea that it is worth while to fight for the truth, in any situation.In this fight man is...

The life of the hero of the tale is, at the outset, overshadowed by bitter and hopeless struggles; one doubts that the little swineherd will ever be able to vanquish the awful Dragon with the...

The words of the bards come down the centuries to us, warm with living breath.