Showing results by narrator "Cheryl Bassett" in All Categories

"The Water of Life" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 97. A king was dying. An old man told his sons that the water of life would save him. Each one set out in turn. The two older ones, setting out in hopes of being the heir, were rude to a dwarf on the way and became trapped in ravines. When the youngest son went the dwarf asked where he was going, and he told him. The dwarf told him it was in a castle, and gave him an iron wand to open the gates and two loaves to feed to the lions inside.

"Bearskin" is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, as tale no. 101. A man was a soldier, but when war ended, his parents were dead, and his brothers had no place for him. - A green-coated man with a cloven hoof appeared to him and offered to make him rich if he would for seven years not cut his hair, clip his nails, bathe, or pray, and wear a coat and cloak that he would give him. At the end, if he survived, he would be rich and free. If he died during the time, the devil would have him.

There lived a tailor who had only one son, and he was extremely small, not any larger than your thumb, and so was called Tom Thumb. - However, he was a courageous little fellow, and he told his father, "Father, I am determined to go into the world to seek my fortune." - "Very well, my son," answered the old man, and taking a big darning needle, he made a top to it of sealing wax, and gave it to Tom Thumb, saying: "There is a sword for you to use to defend yourself on your journeyings.

"Thumbling" is a German fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm. There was once a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat and span. Then said he, "How sad it is that we have no children! With us all is so quiet, and in other houses it is noisy and lively.

A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843; the first edition was illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an old miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

"Little One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 130. A woman had three daughters: The eldest had one eye in the middle of her forehead, the second had two eyes like ordinary people, the third had three eyes; two on the sides of her head and a third in the middle of her forehead. Her mother and sisters scorned Little Two Eyes because she was like other people and treated her badly, leaving her only their leftovers to eat...

"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. A lonely couple, who wants a child, lives next to a walled garden belonging to an evil witch named Dame Gothel. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices some rapunzel, growing in the garden and longs for it. She refuses to eat anything else and gets sick, and the husband begins to fear for her life.

"Frederick and Catherine" (also called "Freddy and Katy Lizzy") is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales, number 59. Frederick and Catherine were husband and wife. He left to do his work. She started to fry a sausage and thought she could get a beer while it cooked. In the cellar, drawing it, she realized the dog was loose and might eat the sausage, but the dog had already done so, and she chased it but could not catch it. Meanwhile, the keg of beer emptied itself into the cellar.

The Canterville Ghost is a novella by Oscar Wilde. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in two parts in The Court and Society Review, 23 February and 2 March 1887. The story is about an American family who move to a castle haunted by the ghost of a dead nobleman, who killed his wife and was starved to death by his wife's brothers. It has been adapted for the stage and screen several times.

"Oh, If I Could But Shiver!" is a German folktale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is tale number 4 in the collection. It was also included by Andrew Lang in The Blue Fairy Book (1889). - The Grimms' first, 1812 edition contained a much shorter version, "Good Bowling and Card Playing". - It is classified as its own Aarne-Thompson index type 326 of a male protagonist's unsuccessful attempts to learn fear, which eventually leads to his awareness of mortality. A father had two sons.

"The Frog Prince" or "Iron Henry" is a fairy tale, best known through the Brothers Grimm's written version; traditionally it is the first story in their collection. - Although the story is best known today through the Grimm Brothers' rendition of it, parts of it may extend back until at least Roman times; a version of the story is apparently referred to in Petronius's Satyricon, in which the character Trimalchio remarks that, "qui fuit rana nunc est rex" ("The man who was once a frog is now a king.").

"A Dog's Tale" is a short story written by Mark Twain. It first appeared in the December 1903 issue of Harper's Magazine. In January of the following year it was extracted into a stand-alone pamphlet published for the National Anti-Vivisection Society. Still later in 1904 it was expanded into a book published by Harper & Brothers.

The Six Swans is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm as tale number 49. A King gets lost in a forest, and an old woman helps him, on the condition that he marry her beautiful daughter. The King has a bad feeling about this but accepts anyway. He has six sons and a daughter from his first marriage, however, and fears that the children will be targeted by his new wife; so he sends them away and visits them in secret...