Dec 21, 2017

The Man Who Had No Story is one of those stories about stories. Many times, they depict not only the origin of a particular story, but of all stories everywhere. (As it happens, we're currently performing one of these, Anansi and the Story Box, live on stage.) Others, like this one, show how you find amazing stories in...

Nov 16, 2017

Lazy Hans and Gretchen, from Germany, is about two very lazy people, and of course it's a moralistic tale about how being lazy leads to ruin. But it's also one of the "don't count your chickens before they hatch" stories that go all the way back to ancient times -- the story about the milkmaid spilling her pail of milk...

Oct 21, 2017

The Goblin's Bridge is one of those stories about someone making a bad deal with a supernatural being. They (the stories, not necessarily the beings) are especially common in Germany and Scandinavia and sometimes involve a person making a deal for his soul with the devil. (The type has come to America in the form of The...

Sep 24, 2017

The Three Advices is a story of the prescient type; quite often, in such stories the main character has a number of odd items which happen to be exactly what he or she needs to solve problems that come up. In this case, the items are not physical objects, but pieces of advice that help the hero avoid danger for himself...

Aug 22, 2017

The Monkey and the Boar is a tale from Japan about two animal chums who outwit the humans who pose a problem for them. It uses the motif of the staged rescue, which has been used a number of times in movies and TV shows. This story appealed to us in part because when we visited Japan in 2006, we saw a young man with...