Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

This Armenian story is a good example of a fairy tale with no fairies and no magic – but that’s more than made up for by the excellent trick the sharp-witted, poor-but-proud little heroine plays on a very gullible prince who is none of those thin...

This fascinating story from JF Campbell’s ‘Popular Tales of the West Highlands’ (1860) opens with a mutually beneficial arrangement - perhaps of long standing - between a mortal woman and a ‘woman of peace’ from a nearby brugh or elf-mound.

This is another story from Robert Chambers’ ‘Popular Rhymes of Scotland’. It's told in Scots and the original spelling of the title is ‘The Wal at the Warld’s End’. It likely dates back to at least the mid 16thcentury, since a list of tit...

Art by Yoshi Yoshitani This wonderfully vigorous story from Norway was collected in 'Norske Folkeeventyr', by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, and translated into English by Sir George W Dasent in ‘Popular Tales from the North’ (1859).

MR FOXThis is one of my top ten favourite fairy tales. It is old – perhaps the oldest known version of the ‘Bluebeard’ story, though as I wrote in my book of essays on fairy tales, ‘Seven Miles of Steel Thistles’, I think it’s a great dea...

THE NETTLE SPINNERAnother dark fairy tale: this is a Flemish story, 'La Fileuse d’Orties', from ‘Contes du roi Cambrinus’ (1872) collected by Charles Deulin. The English translation was made by Leonora Blanche Alleyne (Mrs Andrew Lang) for ‘T...