Short Stories Fairy Tales

Pass through fairy tales into the magic of invisible worlds in these opulent stories by a beloved fantasy icon and author of the classic Riddlemaster trilogy.

Remember the Monster Stick? The greatest and most dangerous fishing-rod ever? What about Buck, who simply "ain't no ordinary dog"? Anyone who has seen the Lepp boys perform or read their book The Monster Stick will never forget them. In this recording, we revisit West Virginia with Bil Lepp as he tells some of the stories that made his brother, Paul, and himself repeat winners of the West Virginia State Liars Contest.

A young woman hunts for her wayward shadow at the school where she first learned magic - while another faces a test she never studied for as ice envelopes the world. The tasks assigned a bookish boy lead him to fateful encounters with lizards, owls, trolls, and a feisty, sarcastic cat. A bear wedding is cause for celebration, the spinning wheel and the tower in the briar hedge get to tell their own stories, and a kitchen maid finds out that a lost princess is more than she seems. The sea witch reveals what she hoped to gain when she took the mermaid's voice.

Meet Syrenka, a little mermaid who must convince her father the Sea King, not to start a war against the humans. Except she had become the very thing he despised...she is secretly living on land as a human. A fairy tale fantasy adventure prequel! This short story takes place after the events in Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid and before Roy Mauritsen’s epic Shards of the Glass Slipper series.

Dragonrider Academy is a secret society I’m not even supposed to know exists. It has knights with talking swords, professors who breathe fire, and a hot guy named Killian who seriously gets on my nerves. It’s his fault I’m stuck here in the first place. He wants me to be his partner and face all the challenges Dragonrider Academy has to offer. He says we’re fated to be together, that I was the one who called him! Crazy talk. Or is it?

“Deluge” is a stand-alone backstory of two characters from the Paternus trilogy. In this short story, myths, fables, and legends from around the world are combined to recount the adventures of Fintán mac Bóchra and Myrddin Wyllt in ancient Ireland and tell the “true” tale of the global disaster known as the Great Flood.

A novel about the rich stories of small places, from the Nobel Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Books of Jacob and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead A woman settles in a remote Polish village where she knows no one. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the...

Eloise Blake has been fascinated by Prospect House, the shadowy Gothic house opposite, ever since she moved to the village of Hookfield. When its new owner turns out to be crime author Ross Farrell, Eloise is determined not to be distracted by him. Love, she thinks, is only true in fairy tales. But is Ross the Prince Charming she thought didn’t exist, or is he a beast in disguise?

Dive into the magical world of French fairy tales and folklore as you embark on a language-learning adventure like no other! This unique audio collection combines the enchantment of French fairy tales and folklore with the fundamentals of French grammar and vocabulary, creating an immersive learning experience that will captivate your imagination.

These delightful stories capture the very essence of India. These stories are set in both the rustic setting of laid back villages, where time has almost stopped, and the modern settings of cities, where everyone is in a hurry to reach somewhere, yesterday. Simple stories, simple ideas, simple thoughts remind one of the simple life that once existed and is now more and more getting lost as we are drawn inexorably into the speedy web of things.

> Berserker is a stand-alone short story, framed as a missing chapter from Paternus, the urban fantasy, mythic fiction novel, by Dyrk Ashton. It tells of the time when one of the characters finally met his father, many centuries ago.

Alortia, an evil and cunning monster collects champions in his menagerie in the underworld. Who's next? Beowulf.

The man notes that his mind reading abilities must have been off. This was not easy to communicate with this two limbed, female human without sound emitting from his own mouth. Using his voice to communicate would give him all of the proof that he needed regarding the alliance. Apparently, making breakfast for this female was not a good idea.

The North Wind's fearsome reputation precedes him: "I haunt the human walrus hunters that live in my land. They are cautious of me - for I frostbite them, kick them about like shuttlecocks. I blow them into deep crevasses - then I crush them with my mighty icebergs! For pleasure, I freeze their smashed bodies and like jewels of red sapphire, they sink to decorate the bottom of my cold sea!" The New Tempest is Hans Christian Andersen's fable reimagined as a fearsome storm that aims to wreak havoc on the world below, today. The New Tempest takes the classic fantasy adventure and paints it with a story instantly epic, and yet, all its own. In the midst of a land torn by a treacherous war, a father must protect his daughter from the storm, and only one being can aid his desperate cause: the mysterious South Wind, dwelling in secrecy, who truly wields power over life, death, and destiny.

Seductresses and she-monsters, nymphs and demi-goddesses, populate the famous myths of Ovid's Metamorphoses. But what happens when the story of the chase comes in the voice of the woman fleeing her rape? When the beloved coolly returns the seducer's gaze? When tales of monstrous transfiguration are sung by those transformed? In voices both mythic and modern, Wake, Siren revisits each account of love, loss, rape, revenge, and change. It lays bare the violence that undergirds and lurks in the heart of Ovid’s narratives.

Jason is born the son of King Aeson. His destiny is to rule Iolcus, the land that his father's brother, King Pelias, has taken from him. When Jason comes of age, he returns to Iolcus. But the king is not yet willing to give up his throne. So he cunningly persuades Jason to accept a dare to bring back the famous Golden Fleece of Colchis. Jason accepts the challenge, unaware that he is being conned into a dangerous and perhaps fatal journey far, far from the land he loves.

A collection of short stories of rural Ireland in the classic Irish mode: full of love (and sex), melancholy and magic, bedecked in some of the most gorgeous prose being written today—from the author of the wildly acclaimed Night Boat to Tangier. With three novels and two short story...

In this original collection from Skyboat Media and Blackstone Publishing, Elizabeth Gaskell showcases the height of gothic fiction's ability to delight in the otherworldly and to dig deep into what truly haunts us. Set against the backdrop of the Salem witch trials, "Lois the Witch" reveals much about the complicity of mankind. Recently orphaned, Lois is forced to leave the English parsonage that had been her home and sail to America.

In the tradition of his best-selling debut novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason's Metamorphica transforms Ovid's epic poem of endless transformation. It reimagines the stories of Narcissus, Pygmalion and Galatea, Midas, and Atalanta and strings them together like the stars in constellations - even Ovid becomes a story. It's as though the ancient mythologies had been rewritten by Borges or Calvino.

Ruskin Bond, one of India’s most-loved writers has been charming kids with his simple captivating stories. ‘The Little Princess’ – a haunting dreamlike story by Ruskin Bond wanders in the fantasy world! It is a story of two children, one in the present and one from the past.