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Fairy Tales & Folklore Audiobooks
Browse Fairy Tales & Folklore audiobooks, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
In Briar Rose, better known as Sleeping Beauty, seven good fairies are invited to be godmothers to an infant princess. An old, overlooked fairy feels slighted and puts a deadly curse on the princess. A kind fairy modulates the curse from death to 100 years of deep sleep which can be broken by the kiss of a handsome prince. This combination of princess, sleep enchantment and rescue by prince exists in multiple folk tales going back as early as the narrative Perceforest, composed between 1330 and 1344.
In this tale, twelve princesses, each of astounding beauty, are locked in their shared bedroom by their father each night. Vexed to discover that their dancing shoes show signs of wear every morning, the king demands an explanation, which they refuse to give. The king offers his kingdom and marriage to any of his daughters as a reward to the man who solves the mystery. However, if the mystery remains unsolved after three nights, the erstwhile suitor will be put to death. After many entrants fail, a wise old soldier finally cracks the case.
In The Goose Girl a princess's maid turns on her mistress while traveling and forces her to switch roles with her. The False princess then kills the princess's horse to keep it from talking and forces the real princess to herd geese with the boy Conrad. Conrad begins to notice strange things about the new goose-girl and informs the king. Will the false princess be discovered?
In the Brothers Grimm version of Tom Thumb, a lonely couple hopes for a child, even, the wife says, if it were no bigger than my thumb. To their delight, their wishes come true and the boy is named Tom Thumb for his diminutive stature. The boy is crafty and helps his father by directing the family horse to haul firewood by standing in his ear and whispering commands. Embarking on several adventures, Tom displays a knack for tricking the slow-witted people who attempt to take advantage of Tom's unique size.
Ashputtel, or Cinderella, is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward. In it, a young girl is forced by her cruel stepmother and stepsisters to a life of servitude. Sleeping next to the fireplace, she earns the nickname Ashputtel. Elements of the Grimm treatment of this story are much more intense than other versions (Perrault and Disney, for example), with the stepsisters experiencing a more violent conclusion. The theme of the persecuted heroine whose attributes go unrecognized has remained popular in modern storytelling, movies and media.
In Snowdrop (or Snow White) a queen sewing by the window during a snowfall pricks her finger. Admiring the drops of blood on the snow, she wishes for a daughter as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as black as this ebony window frame! The queen dies after giving birth to Snowdrop. The girl's stepmother, a vain and vindictive woman with a magic mirror, plots to eliminate Snowdrop, who grows more beautiful by the day. Snowdrop is left in the forest to die but takes shelter with seven dwarfs who become her protector when the evil stepmother learns she is still alive.
Snow-White, fair-haired, quiet and shy, and Rose-Red, dark-haired, outspoken and lively, are two little girls living with their mother in a small cottage by the woods. They give shelter on a winter night to a kindly bear, who treats them gently and returns every night. In the summer, the girls encounter a wicked dwarf whose beard is stuck in a tree. Freeing the dwarf, the girls are met with loud ungrateful recriminations for cutting his beard. More episodes of rescuing the dwarf from various perils transpire in a similar fashion. In the end, the bear comes to aid of the girls.
In The Golden Bird a king who has been robbed of a golden apple commands his gardener's sons to watch the tree. Seeing that the thief is a golden bird, the youngest son tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off. Fascinated by the feather, the king decides he wants the whole bird. The gardener's son and his two brothers must make fateful choices in what turns into a fearsome quest to capture the bird.
The Juniper Tree is a German fairy tale containing themes of child abuse, murder and cannibalism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales. In it, a boy is murdered and made into a stew by his evil stepmother, who buries his bones beneath a juniper tree outside their house. The boy is reincarnated as a bird who flies forth from the tree and enlists the townspeople to help him exact revenge. It is thought that the Grimm version of this tale was adapted from painter Philipp Otto Runge's The Almond Tree.
In Hansel and Gretel, a famine has settled over the land. The children of a poor woodcutter are abandoned in the woods by their cruel stepmother who believes she and her husband will starve as a result of providing for the children. Days of wandering lead them to a beautiful cottage made of gingerbread and candy, which the children begin to eat. Lured inside by an old woman who promises hot baths, soft beds and more delicious food, the children are captured and enslaved by what turns out to be a cannibalistic witch. The resourceful children must rely on their wits to make a daring escape.
In Iron Hans a series of huntsmen disappear in a mysterious forest. It is eventually discovered that an iron-skinned man is dragging passersby into the lake where he lives. The man is captured by the king and subsequently released by a sympathetic prince, who then must flee the kingdom. The prince, with the help of the iron-skinned man defeats an army and wins the hand of a princess. The prince is reunited with his parents and Iron Hans is revealed to be a normal man who was under a spell and released from it by the prince who was found to be pure of heart.
In The Valiant Little Tailor a tailor parleys his success at killing seven flies in one stroke into a string of unlikely successes. Making a belt with the words Seven at one blow written on it, the gullible townspeople assume the tailor to have amazing strength. After a contest in which he tricks a giant into believing he is stronger, the tailor persuades the king he can rid the kingdom of giants. In exchange for this the king offers his daughter's hand in marriage and half his kingdom. When the king balks on this promise and creates more conditions, the tailor must again rely on his wits to prove his bravery.
