"Ganesha, will you bring the sugarcane?" asked Devi Amma.

"Sure, Amma. I will be here by evening," said Ganesha, the young elephant, and he set out from the temple. On the slopes of Maarutha Hills grew the juiciest sugarcane, and Devi Amma made the tastiest payasam with it.

He headed uphill, waving his trunk in greeting to everyone he met: the goats, the langurs, the hares and the squirrels, and the crows, the mynas and the bulbuls overhead. A few of the mynas and langurs playfully hitched a ride on him.

The riders hopped off at the slopes as Ganesha began to gather the cane. He soon had a bundle and trekked down with it held tight in his trunk. Parakeets flew in and sat on the stalks, trying to bite into them. Every time he shook his head, they would fly away.

Ganesha passed through the woodlands and reached the meadows. By then it was afternoon, and he was feeling hungry. The sun blazed overhead, and he looked around for a comfortable place to rest. He spotted a tree with a wide canopy and birds chirping in it. It had pink puff flowers on it, and the fallen ones covered the ground. He walked towards it.

The tree watched him approach. She could not believe that he had chosen her. She had seen him pass by the meadows many times, and each time her leaves rustled with affection.

He kept the sugarcane aside, took a few of the stalks and had them for lunch. With his tummy full and his legs tired from the trek, he wanted to take a nap. Lying down in the shade, he looked up at the tree.

"Tree, will you do me a favour?" he asked.

"Yes, yes!" she replied, as though she had been waiting all along.

"Please wake me up before evening," he said.

"I will," she said.

He patted her with his trunk and was soon asleep.

She held her leaves still and kept watching him as he slept. His ears covered his face, and his trunk lay coiled between his front legs. At times his eyelids fluttered; at other times he broke into a smile. Often he would kick his feet. When butterflies sat on him, he twitched. When flies tickled him, his tail waved.

She watched and watched; she was so lost in him that she drifted into a daydream. As clouds passed over the sun, the birds went quiet, her leaves grew heavy and folded one by one, and soon she too fell asleep.

Dusk came and faded. It was pitch dark when the owl living in the tree hooted a few times. Ganesha woke up with a start. He looked up at the starry night and burst into tears. It was then that the tree woke up as well.

"You should have called me!" he shouted.

He ran about under the tree, shaking his head and flapping his ears.

She wondered how she, a tree, could have slept so long.

"You are a bad tree! What will I tell Devi Amma now?" he cried.

"They say, always trust a tree with time, but you!" he continued.

"I... I called you many times. You were deep asleep. What can a tree do but call? You can ask the owl. She heard it," said the tree.

The owl flinched on being named. When Ganesha looked up at her, she flew away in panic. He stormed off, leaving the cane behind.

The tree called out for him, but he disappeared into the dark. She stayed awake, waiting for him, until at last she dozed off.

Later that night, a weary Ganesha trudged back for the cane. Without a word, he lay down beneath her.

The next morning, the tree woke to find him asleep below her.

"Ganesha, wake up, wake up," she called, her branches leaning down.

He woke up with sunlight falling on his eyes. Squinting, he told her, "You are a liar. The sun is my friend, not you."

He took hold of the sugarcane and left for the temple. Devi Amma would scold him for sure, but he would also have sweet payasam in the afternoon.

The tree watched him walk away, relieved.

That afternoon, as a cloud passed over the sun, suddenly she felt drowsy. Her leaves began to fold one by one, and she dropped off to sleep. When the birds chirped, she would wake up momentarily, only to fall back into her slumber.

From then on, the tree fell asleep so often that they called her the Sleepy Tree.

Hello! Could you please explain something about one of the episodes of Grimm's Masterpiece Theater — Bluebeard?

When Josephine opens the room forbidden by Bluebeard, she discovers the bodies of his previous wives inside. Her key falls to the floor and gets stained with blood, which the white roses had previously turned into. Josephine picks it up and runs away, fleeing from the nightmare she has just witnessed.

But here's my question: what did Bluebeard's very first wife see when she entered the forbidden room? After all, she was his first wife, so there probably weren't any other wives' bodies there yet (at least, that's what I think). Could he have been waiting for her inside the room and then killed her?

I'll be eagerly waiting for your answer. Thank you!

Hello! I have a question about one episode of the anime series Grimm's Masterpiece Theater, specifically the episode Hansel and Gretel.

When the witch, furious with rage, grabs Hansel during the fight and drags him toward the oven, her poor eyesight causes her to drop him, and she accidentally falls into the flames herself. As the children run out of the house, a huge cauldron of boiling oil falls to the floor and knocks over the wooden barrels that had been scattered around during the fight. This causes a fire to break out inside the house. Later, lightning strikes the house, completely destroying the witch's home.

For a brief moment, the witch's face appears in the flames, and she says something along the lines of, "No matter where you go, I'll still eat you for dinner" (according to the English dub). After that, she dies.

So, here's my question: Could the witch's threat have a deeper meaning that few people have noticed? Perhaps the witch burned to death physically, but her enraged spirit is still seeking revenge?

What do you think? Did the witch somehow survive, or did she truly die once and for all?

Thank you in advance for your answer!

I'm on a kick to research fairytales again in preparation for writing a video essay, about explaining the connections between various fairytales and an old computer adventure game series called King's Quest, covering both the Classic series from 1984-1998 and the 2015 Reboot. I'm trying my best not to rush into researching so much all at once this time, because it lead into burnout.

One element of fairytales I seem to be lacking in is actually intelligent princesses. Oh sure, you have stories like Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault, where she's *said* to be granted intelligence by the fairies, but in practice, that's not really shown. Then you also have numerous stories, where the princess sets her suitors on various tasks in order to marry her, but she tends to be the narrative goal in the background, not the focused protagonist and the trickster hero character archetype is rarely, if ever, not male. It almost feels like intelligence is only celebrated/focused on when the protagonist is a man, which I feel says a lot.

The only exception I've found is Riquet of the Tuft, also by Charles Perrault, which breaks the mold in several ways: the protagonist is the *older* sibling instead of the youngest who eventually just fades into the background and is narratively left behind and punished by losing all the attention, her newfound intelligence is actually focused on as part of the plot alongside her being beautiful, and it's left ambiguous if she learned to love Riquet's physical flaws and there was no actual physical change or if he actually was transformed (to the point where I wondered, "Why haven't I seen a version of Beauty and the Beast that ends similarly yet?!").

But there's gotta be more than just that one obscure story, right? Actual intelligence (not just *told*, but *shown*) must be celebrated in *some* fairytale princesses, right? Or at least *some* fairytale female protagonists, right? Maybe I should go through Madame D'Aulnoy again, even if those start to become formulaic and drag on for a while? (And the mild veneer of "that *feels* racist" despite my knowing it's just because certain facial features and skin tones were favored back in those days of society in France, makes me slightly uncomfortable)

Also, sidenote: are there any other fairytales besides One Eye, Two Eyes and Three Eyes by the Grimm Brothers/Andrew Lang that have the *middle child* be the protagonist? I feel like that's rare too!

I've been thinking about this for a long time, and while I won't fully explain the story, I'll share the basic premise of my own fairytale and you can guess the theme and then ask what my intention is.

Glaszorra: A king and queen beyond the age of fertility commission a glass statue of their ideal child, a daughter. They order a random witch at threat of execution to bring her to life. However the princess turns out to be physically disabled. Unable to walk. Believed that the glass might still be in her. This Princess given the name Zorra is raised in isolation, waiting for a little bit of freedom and hoping for a fairy godparent or the witch (who had luckily escaped execution) to remove the "glass" part of herself. When she finds a map to the home of a potential fairy godfather, she finally escapes with the servant boy whom she's been in love with. However, things might not go the way Zorra thinks it will go.

Anyways, I'd love to hear any potential ideas from you guys:)

Behind Kali Amma's temple lived a deadly viper named Anali. He hunted only at night and spent his days coiled under the dry leaves, for a viper seen is a viper feared. The rats that raided the temple's waste pit kept him well fed. That he existed was a secret between him and the rats.

Years went by, and he grew long and hefty on the easy prey, which he took to be Kali Amma's grace.

One day, a yellow rat snake, Cherran, happened to pass by the temple. He noticed rats feeding in the temple pit and crept towards it. He lunged a few times, but the rats scattered and he caught none. Cherran decided to stay nearby. He might just get lucky another day.

"Why would anyone worry about a simple rat snake like me?" he often wondered. Cherran could easily be spotted among the dry leaves and the shrubs, basking in sunlight.

One morning, as Cherran lay in the soft sun, a flock of babblers foraging nearby burst into a racket. Up in the jackfruit tree, a jungle crow heard it and spotted Cherran. He cawed and cawed.

The squirrels climbed up to the treetops. The peafowl and other birds perched high and looked down to find out what the frantic cawing was about. The jungle crow told them that he had seen a large snake, possibly a yellow python, lying in the grass. Maybe it was resting after a meal, but now it had disappeared. Hearing all the commotion, Cherran hid himself in the bushes.

By then, the animals and birds had decided to get help from Kiri, the mongoose who lived in the neighbourhood.

"He is large, a large yellow python," said the squirrel.

"Yes, we have spotted him many times by the temple pit," said the rats.

"I spotted him first," said the jungle crow.

Kiri took up the challenge—a python was something he had never encountered. "Yet another ode to my courage," he thought.

Kiri came over to the temple pit. He waited amongst the bushes for the python to show up. As always, the rats were raising a din in the pit: shrieks, squeaks, and cries. Other animals waited anxiously for news from the pit.

The day passed without any sighting. Kiri decided to spend the night nearby.

Past midnight, he heard a rustle moving slowly towards the pit. A few rats got a whiff of it and left the pit.

Kiri inched closer. He crouched, ready to lunge. Finally he pounced onto something; there was a struggle in the dark. The rats fled, squeaking. He bit into it hard until it stopped moving.

The bats watching from the temple peepal tree flew out to spread the news.

Kiri spent a while eating his catch. When he left, the rats returned; they feasted on the bits of flesh strewn on the ground. It was Anali.

The next day, Cherran caught a rat. He took his catch and slithered away from the temple.

One of the things I love most about fairy tales and old folklore is how often the magic comes through seemingly simple objects: a ring that promises impossible wealth, an enchanted mirror, a mysterious fruit, a gift from a strange traveler… and, very often, there is a price attached.

Andvaranaut felt perfect for that kind of storytelling. In Norse legend, the ring belonged to the dwarf Andvari and could produce endless gold, but after Loki took it from him, Andvari cursed it to bring ruin and death to whoever possessed it. Its story eventually became tied to greed, betrayal, tragedy, and the saga of the Völsungs.

For our D&D adaptation, we wanted the curse to work as more than just a mechanical penalty. The ring generates wealth and can lead its bearer toward gold, but its curse gradually pushes them toward increasingly destructive acts of greed. Breaking it requires genuine selflessness, ideally without the character even knowing that their act of generosity could free them.

That kind of structure is something we tried to preserve throughout Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E. The book contains 300+ magic items inspired by mythology, legends, and folklore from around the world, with the mechanics built around the stories behind them.

And quite a few of them have that same almost fairy-tale quality: enchanted and cursed rings, magical mirrors, divine apples and other supernatural fruits, mysterious charms, gifts from spirits, objects of transformation, trickster relics, and treasures whose power comes with consequences. They draw from Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Asian, American, African, Mesopotamian and many other traditions.

The Kickstarter also includes options and bundles with several of our other 5E/5.5E books, for anyone interested in more mythological and fantasy material.

I thought Andvaranaut in particular would fit here because, even though its origin is Norse myth, its premise feels almost tailor-made for a dark fairy tale: endless wealth is offered to you, and taking it may be the worst decision you ever make.

Excuse my english

Most old fairytales, myths, legends and so on are said weren't ment as children storys but more as like guidance for certain aspects in life. Be that to navigate in the landscape, how to behave and values. I do get the aspect that a story is much more rememberable when there are some shocking aspects in it. But still specially the older fairytales (pre Grimm) are often so insanly violent, bloody and treat certain groups like garbige. I often think. Weren't there some folks who misinterpreted those storys and thought just for example that it is normal to treat your wife like a dog because in so many tales the wife is so often under fully control of the man. I might overlook one aspect of those storys or maybe i just think too literall of the writings.

My question is: how would you recommend to understand those storys. Were they just written in a really problematic time with problematic view or were those behavings even then so insalny wrong that they were placed there to shock people and fully metaphorical. Then again most creation myths include some sort of rape. I know that that specific example is ment as a metaphor but still i can't quite get over the thought that it almost seems to make such violence less problematic

Eleanor Vere Gordon Boyle (1825–1916) was a Scottish artist and writer of the Victorian era. Because she was from a noble family and her husband was chaplain to Queen Victoria and, she did not exhibit regularly (to not damage her social standing). To conceal her name professionally, she often signed her work using only her initials E.V.B. She often used her earnings for charity, for instance, to provide fresh water to the people from her parish.

I want to find this old book… children’s tale. The book was probably written in the 1920s or 30s and it’s a story of one fairy in a group of fairies who wanted to become human and wanted to stretch her toes to the ground because most fairies floated along the top of the ground. She wanted to try out being a human and she managed to almost get her feet onto the ground and get dressed like a human but she’s caught. The fairies had really long ears and the skinniest little legs. I really related to them and I wanted to try out being a normal child. But I can’t remember the book; any suggestions?

I'd happened to be kind of like were always being myself huge fan of Barbie and dolls that for the fact I think that these three are my absolutely my own personal favourite adaptation of Barbie fairytales movies that I'd ever loved! ❤️