Tiidu the Piper

An Estonian fairy tale, this version was published in the Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, in 1903.

Once upon a time there lived a poor man who had more children than bread to feed them with. However, they were strong and willing, and soon learned to make themselves of use to their father and mother, and when they were old enough they went out to service, and everyone was very glad to get them for servants, for they worked hard and were always cheerful. Out of all the ten or eleven, there was only one who gave his parents any trouble, and this was a big lazy boy whose name was Tiidu. Neither scoldings nor beatings nor kind words had any effect on him, and the older he grew the idler he got. He spent his winters crouching close to a warm stove, and his summers asleep under a shady tree; and if he was not doing either of these things he was playing tunes on his flute.

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Spruce, Queen of The Grass Snakes

A Lithuanian fairy tale, this version is from Tales of The Amber Sea, compiled and translated by Irina Zheleznova in 1974.

Long, long ago, in times gone by, there lived an old man and an old woman. They had twelve sons and three daughters the youngest of whom was called Spruce.

One summer evening the sisters went for a bathe. They swam and splashed about, and, having had their fill of it, climbed out on shore and reached for their clothes. Spruce looked, and there, coiled up in the sleeve of her shift, she saw a grass snake! What was she to do? Her older sister snatched up a stake in order to chase it out but the grass snake turned to Spruce and said in a human voice:

“Spruce my dear, promise to marry me and then I’ll crawl out myself.”

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The Bear Who Married a Peasant’s Daughter

A Latvian fairy tale, this version is from Tales of The Amber Sea, compiled and translated by Irina Zheleznova in 1974.

Once upon a time there lived an old peasant. He was not badly off except that his wife had died leaving him alone with their only daughter.

Now, all of the peasant’s kin, not counting some in-laws, lived far away from him, and one day making up his mind to pay them a visit, he left his daughter at home by herself and drove away.

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The Gold Axe

A Latvian tale, this version is taken from the 1938 anthology Wonder Tales from Baltic Wizards by Frances Jenkins Olcott.

Once on a time, in a farmhouse, a young Maiden sat spinning by the light of a burning pine-splinter. The farmer’s wife and her daughter–the farmer had been dead for three years–were asleep already, for they were very lazy and liked to play the grand lady.

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The Greatest Loafer of Them All

A Lithuanian fairy tale, this version is from Tales of The Amber Sea, compiled and translated by Irina Zheleznova in 1974.

Once there lived a king whose only daughter, though fair and of a marriageable age, was still husbandless and in danger of remaining an old maid. Many suitors, rich and not so rich, brave and not so brave, learned men and fools,, came to plead for the princess’s hand but not one could please the king. A strange man was this king: in winter he rode about in a cart and summer, in a sledge; he wore his clothes back to front, walked backward instead of forward, and his beard, so they said, grew not on his chin but on his forehead.

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