Showing results by author "Brothers Grimm" in All Categories

A peasant has seven sons and no daughter. Finally a daughter is born, but is sickly. The father sends his sons to fetch water for her, in the German version to be baptized, in the Greek version to take water from a healing spring. In their haste, they drop the jug in the well. When they do not return, their father thinks that they have gone off to play and curses them and so they turn into ravens.

In the tale, a spoiled princess reluctantly befriends the Frog Prince, whom she met after dropping a golden ball into a pond under a linden tree, and he retrieves it for her in exchange for her friendship. The Frog Prince, who is under a wicked fairy's spell, magically transforms back into a handsome prince.

A wealthy and pious couple pray every day for God to grant them a child. One winter, under the juniper tree in the courtyard, the wife peels an apple. She cuts her finger and drops of blood fall onto the snow. This leads her to wish for a child to be as white as snow and as red as blood. Six months later, the wife becomes gravely ill from eating juniper berries and asks her husband to bury her beneath the juniper tree if she dies. A month later, she gives birth to a baby boy as white as snow and as red as blood.

Two sons of a king went out to seek their fortunes, but fell into disorderly ways. The third and youngest son, Simpleton, went out to find them, but they mocked him. They traveled on, and Simpleton prevented his brothers from destroying an ant hill, killing some ducks, and suffocating a bee hive with smoke.

The plot is set in motion when a king finds that golden apples that grow on a tree in his garden are going missing. It is found out that the apples are being taken by a golden bird. A single feather from the bird is worth a fortune. The kings three sons each go out in turn to search for the golden bird.

A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for him three years, without having been paid any wages. At last it came into the man's head that he would not go on thus without pay any longer; so he went to his master, and said, "I have worked hard for you a long time, I will trust to you to give me what I deserve to have for my trouble." The farmer was a sad miser, and knew that his man was very simple-hearted; so he took out threepence, and gave him for every year's service a penny.

The doctor told him to buy an ABC book with a rooster up front, sell his oxen and cart to buy doctor's equipment and clothing, and advertise himself as "Doctor Know-All." Crabbe takes this advice serious and soon becomes a doctor under this name.

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. To hide this, she used flour she bought at a fair to dry it. Frederick was furious hearing this.

A forester found a baby in a bird's nest and brought him back to be raised with his daughter Lenchen. They called the child Fundevogel or Foundling-Bird, and he and Lenchen loved each other. One day Lenchen saw the cook carrying many buckets of water to the house and asked what she was doing.

Hans has been working hard for seven years but wishes to return to see his poor mother. His master pays him his wages which amounts to a lump of gold the size of his head. Hans puts the gold in a handkerchief and starts out on his journey jogging but soon becomes tired. He spots a rider on horseback and seeing the ease at which the horse travels he offers to exchange his lump of gold for the horse. Happy with the exchange, the man gives him the horse and Hans rides off. The horse bolts and Hans gets bucked off, whereupon he meets a shepherd who convinces Hans to trade his horse for a cow. 

Briar Rose is a classic fairy tale about a princess who is cursed to sleep for a hundred years by an evil fairy, to be awakened by a handsome prince at the end of them. The good fairy, realizing that the princess would be frightened if alone when she awakens, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace asleep, to awaken when the princess does.

Clever Elsie, my favorite Grimms' fairy tale, is about a silly, slothful woman who won't change her ways. Her husband, Hans, catches her asleep near the field where he has sent her to work, so he throws a net woven with little bells over her head, goes home and locks the door.

There was once a king, whose queen had hair of the purest gold, and was so beautiful that her match was not to be met with on the whole face of the earth. But this beautiful queen fell ill, and when she felt that her end drew near she called the king to her and said, 'Promise me that you will never marry again, unless you meet with a wife who is as beautiful as I am, and who has golden hair like mine.' Then when the king in his grief promised all she asked, she shut her eyes and died.

Clever Gretel is a tale where a greedy but crafty servant outwits her master. It was first published in the second edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1819.

A cat and a mouse, contrary to the custom of their kinds, become friends, such good friends that they decide to share a home. That they might have something to fall back on in time of need, they buy a pot of fat and hide it away in a nook of a church for safekeeping. After a short time, the cat tells her housemate that one of her relations has given birth and that the mouse's friend has been asked to be godmother. Instead of going to a christening, though, the cat goes to the nook of the church and eats the top layer of the fat in the pot. 

Clever Hans is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm about a boy who ruins his engagement with a girl through a variety of comedic events. The title is claimed by most people to be ironic.

Ashputtel is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world. The protagonist is a young woman living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between around 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.

Classic fairy tales are an essential part of children's development; if they are sometimes a little scary, it is because children need imagery to conjure and get rid of their fears in a symbolic, healthy way. Our audiobook collection means to bring together the fairy tales, stories, myths and legends which have fed the children of many generations in the years when the imagination is awakening and craving stimulus and material to work upon. This compilation includes folk tales, classic tales by Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen, and stories from the "Arabian Nights".

Classic tales and stories are an fundamental part of children's development, as they awaken imagination and bring essential teachings. These stories inspire children through important archetypes and symbolic imagery; they will bring them into a journey in fantastic worlds, full of possibilities and wonders. This specially designed compilation includes classic folk tales, famous stories by Hans Christian Andersen and fairy tales.

Classic fairy tales and stories are an essential part of children's development. Our audiobook collection means to bring together the fairy tales, stories, myths and legends which have fed the children of many generations in the years when the imagination is awakening and craving stimulus and material to work upon.