Dark and Twisty Tales: folk stories and fairy tales for the unafraid.

Belching up toads, paper dresses, beheadings and murder, this story has them all. I love this Grimm fairytale from the Philip Pullman collection, and I hope you do too? This is the last episode in Season Three, so please write me a review and remember, storytelling is thirsty work! https://ko-fi.com/voxchops

An old man in velvet pantaloons is befriended by a little boy with a toy soldier, however the soldier is NOT happy about this, has a tantrum and finds himself lost in the cracks and buried in an open grave, only to be found years later.

Reynard the Fox is a bit tricky and tricks his wife that he's dead to see if she'll marry again ... never a good plan.

Childhood sweethearts Tamlane and Janet were all set until he 'disappeared' before their wedding day. He was off with the fairies (that's what you get for riding your horse 'widershins' around the hill), but it's OK, because she rescues him, by knocking him off his horse and holding on really tight while he changes into lots of things, then she chucks him in a pond. Perfect love story on so many levels. The actual Scottish story is as deep and dark and twisty as you like with green kirtles being lifted and babies born of fairy fathers etc, but this version is the one from Joseph Jacobs 'English Fairy Tales', so apologies to all my Scottish friends. As usual I improvised the melody over the verse, in this instance it was the Elfin Queen singing. If you want to listen to a classic rendition of this story in song, have a listen to Fairport Convention's Tam Lin.

A very clever and vengeful sparrow gets his own back after his buddy the dog comes a cropper. Many things get chopped with an axe by accident and many other things get pecked out ... corks and eyes mostly. The moral? Please feed your dogs yummy things ... and don't underestimate a sparrow!

A very short story about a boy called Jack, a bone bread eating giant and his favourite dog ... shame about the dog.

A 'lucky' boy escapes death is helped by two old ladies (because he was so polite and good looking) is very courageous ... and also a bit of a know it all.

So there's a narcissistic cannibalistic witch Queen, a Prince who thinks it would be cool to have a pretty dead girl in a glass coffin for a trophy and 7 little people who, while kind at heart, should get an education on domestic labor stereotypes. Nothing to see here.

Youngest son rides fox, gets girl and gold.

Independently wealthy senior citizen robbed by teen and locked in oven. Harsh.

When the moon gets curious and snagged on a branch and then dragged into the bog by witches and bogles ... yeah that.

Chanticleer a canny rooster and his wife Partlet, have adventures, that usually involve nuts, carts, deceit, slavery, violence, cannibalism and death. I also have no idea what Mr. Korbes did to deserve that. Do you?

Welcome to the first episode of Season Three! Mom, needs a nap, hero can't stop snacking and a bewitched Princess can't stop spinning around and around her glass mountain... hmmm sound familiar?

Less frog kissing and more frog splatting really and then at the end a weirdly obsessed servant has been to the blacksmiths...

Come on, who can resist a story about a half boy, half hedgehog, who rides a cockerel and plays the bagpipes? Credit must be given to my husband, son and his friend for providing pig noises in this episode and to 'FreeSound' and 'digifishmusic', 'Inchadney' and 'luis-audp' for their various piping recordings. xox

A not very dark or twisty episode this week, but a favorite of mine since childhood. The darkness I suppose lies in the fact that all these animals were going to get starved, drowned or decapitated because they had been deemed to old to be useful. I love the fact that they decide to start a band in their golden years...they're not the first and they won't be the last!

Like the earlier story I read Binnorie from the British Isles, this story also has a magical singing bone involved which identifies it's killer. Who could it be I wonder? I improvised a little tune for the poem in the story, one of my favorite things to do. It feels appropriately dark and plaintive. Enjoy!

When a little girl is just not satisfied unless she has the stars in the sky to play with...what could possibly go wrong?

Playing with fairies and fires...hmm that sounds like a plan. From Joseph Jacobs 'English Fairy Tales' The song at the end is called 'Fairy Frolic' from my album 'Lullaby Island' which you can download on amazon or itunes or here https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/nortonjulia My Own Self In a tiny house in the North Countrie, far away from any town or village, there lived not long ago, a poor widow all alone with her little son, a six-year-old boy. The house-door opened straight on to the hill-side and all round about were moorlands and huge stones, and swampy hollows; never a house nor a sign of life wherever you might look, for their nearest neighbours were the "ferlies" in the glen below, and the "will-o'-the-wisps" in the long grass along the pathside. And many a tale she could tell of the "good folk" calling to each other in the oak-trees, and the twinkling lights hopping on to the very window sill, on dark nights; but in spite of the loneliness, she lived on from year to year in the little house, perhaps because she was never asked to pay any rent for it. But she did not care to sit up late, when the fire burnt low, and no one knew what might be about; so, when they had had their supper she would make up a good fire and go off to bed, so that if anything terrible did happen, she could always hide her head under the bed-clothes. This, however, was far too early to please her little son; so when she called him to bed, he would go on playing beside the fire, as if he did not hear her. He had always been bad to do with since the day he was born, and his mother did not often care to cross him; indeed, the more she tried to make him obey her, the less heed he paid to anything she said, so it usually ended by his taking his own way. But one night, just at the fore-end of winter, the widow could not make up her mind to go off to bed, and leave him playing by the fireside; for the wind was tugging at the door, and rattling the window-panes, and well she knew that on such a night, fairies and such like were bound to be out and about, and bent on mischief. So she tried to coax the boy into going at once to bed: "The safest bed to bide in, such a night as this!" she said: but no, he wouldn't. Then she threatened to "give him the stick," but it was no use. The more she begged and scolded, the more he shook his head; and when at last she lost patience and cried that the fairies would surely come and fetch him away, he only laughed and said he wished they would, for he would like one to play with. At that his mother burst into tears, and went off to bed in despair, certain that after such words something dreadful would happen; while her naughty little son sat on his stool by the fire, not at all put out by her crying. But he had not long been sitting there alone, when he heard a fluttering sound near him in the chimney and presently down by his side dropped the tiniest wee girl you could think of; she was not a span high, and had hair like spun silver, eyes as green as grass, and cheeks red as June roses. The little boy looked at her with surprise. "Oh!" said he; "what do they call ye?" "My own self," she said in a shrill but sweet little voice, and she looked at him too. "And what do they call ye?" "Just my own self too!" he answered cautiously; and with that they began to play together. She certainly showed him some fine games. She made animals out of the ashes that looked and moved like life; and trees with green leaves waving over tiny houses, with men and women an inch high in them, who, when she breathed on them, fell to walking and talking quite properly. But the fire was getting low, and the light dim, and presently the little boy stirred the coals with a stick to make them blaze; when out jumped a red-hot cinder, and where should it fall, but on the fairy child's tiny foot. Thereupon she set up such a squeal, that the boy dropped the stick, and clapped his hands to his ears but it grew to so shrill a screech, that it was like all the wind in the world whistling through one tiny keyhole. There was a sound in the chimney again, but this time the little boy did not wait to see what it was, but bolted off to bed, where he hid under the blankets and listened in fear and trembling to what went on. A voice came from the chimney speaking sharply: "Who's there, and what's wrong?" it said. "It's my own self," sobbed the fairy-child; "and my foot's burnt sore. O-o-h!" "Who did it?" said the voice angrily; this time it sounded nearer, and the boy, peeping from under the clothes, could see a white face looking out from the chimney-opening. "Just my own self too!" said the fairy-child again. "Then if ye did it your own self," cried the elf-mother shrilly, "what's the use o' making all this fash about it?"—and with that she stretched out a long thin arm, and caught the creature by its ear, and, shaking it roughly, pulled it after her, out of sight up the chimney. The little boy lay awake a long time, listening, in case the fairy-mother should come back after all; and next evening after supper, his mother was surprised to find that he was willing to go to bed whenever she liked. "He's taking a turn for the better at last!" she said to herself; but he was thinking just then that, when next a fairy came to play with him, he might not get off quite so easily as he had done this time.

Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lyin' eyes?