Once upon a time, in the winter time, when deep snow laid
the ground, a poor boy was forced to go out on a sledge to gather timber. When
he had fetched it together, and packed it, he hoped, as he was so darn cold,
not to go home at once, but to light a fire and warm himself up a little.
So he
scraped away the snow, and as he was thus clearing the ground, he discovered a
tiny golden key. Hereupon he thought that where the key was, there must be a lock
also, so he dug in the ground and found a small iron chest. “The key fits in
here!” he thought; no doubt there are precious things in that little box. He
searched and searched, but there was no keyhole.
At last he founded one, but it
was so small that it was hardly visible. He tried it, and the key fitted it
perfectly. Then he turned it open, and we must wait until he has quite unlocked
it and opened the lid, and then we shall learn what wonderful things were lying
in that box.
Grimm's Fairy Tale: The Golden Key (YouTube)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anJnMPHsEHc)
Story was adapted from FairyTales.Co (http://www.fairytales.co/the_golden_key.html)
There
was once a lived a Prince, who wanted a Princess, however, she must be a real
Princess. He traveled all around the world to find one, but something was
always wrong. There were a lot of princesses, but whether they were real
princesses or not, he had great trouble in finding out; there was always
something which wasn't right about them. So at last he went home, and he was
very sad because he wanted a real princess so desperately.
One evening there was a very
horrible storm; the thunder and the rain poured down in the torrents; it was a
fearful night.
In the middle of the storm
somebody knocked at the town’s gate, and the old King himself was sent to open
it.
It was a Princess who stood
outside, but she was in a terrible state due to the rain and the storm. The
water streamed out of her hair, her clothes and her shoes, but she said that
she was a real Princess.
'Well we shall soon see if that is
true,' thought the old Queen. She went into the bedroom, took all the bed
clothes off and placed a pea on the bedstead. She then took twenty mattresses
and piled them on top of the pea, then twenty feather beds on top of the
mattresses. This was where the Princess was going to sleep that stormy night.
In the morning they asked her how
she slept.
'Oh terribly bad!' replied the
Princess. 'I hardly closed my eyes the last night! Heaven knows what was in the
bed. I seemed to be lying upon some hard thing, and my whole body is black and
blue this morning. It was terrible!'
They saw at once that she must be
a real Princess because she felt the pea, even through twenty mattresses and
twenty feather beds. Nobody but a real Princess could have such a delicate
skin.
So the Prince took her to be his
wife, for now he was sure that he had found a real Princess, and the pea was
placed into the Museum, where it may still be if no one had stolen it.
Now this is a true story.
The Princess and The Pea (YouTube)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ct68qfIKwY)
Story adapted from FairyTales.Co (http://www.fairytales.co/the_princess_and_the_pea.html)
Once upon a time there was a hare who’s always boasted how he had
the ability to run faster than anyone else. He was always teasing the tortoise
because it was so slow. Then one day, the annoyed tortoise yelled back: “Who do
you think you are? There’s no doubt you are fast, but even you can be beaten!”
The hare burst into laughter.
“Me? Beaten in a race? By whom? Not
you, of course! I bet nobody in the world could win me, I’m too fast. Why don’t
you give it a try?”
Annoyed by such boastful act, the
tortoise accepted the challenge. A course was planned, and the next day at daybreak
they stood at the starting line. The hare yawned sleepily as the tamed tortoise
trudged off slowly. After the hare saw how slow his rival was, he decided to
fall asleep on his feet, and to have a quick nap. “Take your time!” he said.
“I’ll have 40 winks and catch up with you in a minute.”
The hare woke with a start from a peaceful
sleep and looked round, looking for the tortoise. But he was only a short
distance away, having barely covered a third of the race. With a sigh of relief,
the hare decided might as well he has breakfast also, and off he went to eat
some cabbages. The heavy meal and the scorching hot sun made his eyelids droop.
With a careless look at the tortoise, which is now halfway along the course, the
hare decided to have another nap before swinging past the finishing line. And
smiling at the thought of the look the tortoise’s face would have when it saw
the hare sped by, he fell fast asleep and was snoring happily.
The sun started to sink, and the tortoise
that had been plodding towards the winning post since morning, was only a yard
from the finish. At that very point, the hare woke up. He could see the
tortoise a speck in the distance and he ran as fast as it could. He leaped and
bounded at a great rate, his tongue lolling, and gasping for air. Just a little
more and he’d be first at the finishing line. But the hare’s last leap was just
too late, for the tortoise had beaten him. Poor hare! Tired and in disgrace, he
slumped down beside the
tortoise who was silently smiling at him.
“Slowly does it every time!” said the tortoise.
Living Books - The Tortoise and The Hair (YouTube)
