Glow Fables › Fairy Tales
The fairy tales that families have told for two hundred years: the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault and the English tales collected by Joseph Jacobs.
We follow the old printed versions closely, and tell the frightening parts gently for children aged 3 to 8. Every story is read aloud with subtitles and music, in glowing paper-cut scenes.
13 stories · each one read aloud with subtitles · free
While the Three Bears take a walk until their porridge cools, a little girl called Goldilocks walks into their house and tries their porridge, chairs and beds. The Bears come home, find her asleep in the Little Wee Bear’s bed, and she jumps out of the window and runs home.
Moral: Wait to be asked in, and never take what is not yours.
▶ Watch & listen
Left in the forest, Hansel and Gretel find their way home by moonlit white pebbles, but the next time birds eat their breadcrumbs and they come to a house of bread and cake. The old woman inside is a wicked witch, until clever Gretel tricks her and the children return home to their father.
Moral: Brave and clever together, Hansel and Gretel found their way home.
▶ Watch & listen
An acorn falls on Henny-penny's head, and she is sure the sky is falling, so she sets off to tell the king with Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey and Turkey-lurkey. Sly Foxy-woxy offers to show them the way, but at the dark hole of his cave they turn tail and run home just in time.
Moral: Don't believe everything you hear. Find out what is true before you run and tell.
▶ Watch & listen
Jack swaps the family cow for a handful of magic beans, and overnight they grow into a beanstalk that reaches the sky. Up in the giant’s house he wins a bag of gold, a hen that lays golden eggs and a singing golden harp, then chops the beanstalk down just in time.
Moral: Be brave, and great things can grow from the smallest beans.
▶ Watch & listen
Little Red Riding Hood leaves the path to pick flowers, and the Wolf reaches Grandmother’s cottage first and gobbles her up, then the girl too. A passing huntsman snips them both free, safe and sound, and the Wolf runs off for good.
Moral: Stay on the path, and mind what your mother tells you.
▶ Watch & listen
A miller’s youngest son gets nothing but a cat, but the cat asks for a bag and a pair of boots and makes his poor master into the Marquis of Carabas. With clever tricks he wins him fine clothes, the King’s favor, and an ogre’s castle, and the Marquis marries the Princess.
Moral: Cleverness and hard work can be worth more than a great fortune.
▶ Watch & listen
An old Donkey, Hound, Cat and Rooster, no longer wanted at home, set off together to be town musicians in Bremen. In a dark forest they find a robbers’ house, scare the robbers away with their music, and make it their happy home.
Moral: Old friends, working together, can do what none of them could do alone.
▶ Watch & listen
A poor shoemaker cuts out his last leather at night, and every morning the shoes are finished. At Christmas time he and his wife watch by candlelight, see two tiny elves at work, and thank them with little clothes.
Moral: One good turn deserves another. Be thankful to those who help you.
▶ Watch & listen
Two tricksters promise a vain Emperor clothes that foolish people cannot see, and weave nothing at empty looms. Everyone pretends to admire them, until a little child in the procession says, “But the Emperor has nothing at all on!”
Moral: Tell the truth, even when everyone else is pretending. Be brave enough to say what you see.
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A prince searches the whole world for a real princess, and one stormy night a soaking-wet girl knocks at the city gate and says she is one. The old queen hides a single pea under twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds, and in the morning the princess has not slept a wink.
Moral: You cannot always tell who someone really is from how they look at the door.
▶ Watch & listen
Three little pigs build houses of straw, sticks and bricks, and a hungry Wolf blows the first two down. Only the strong brick house stands, and when the Wolf comes down the chimney, he lands in a pot of water and runs away for good.
Moral: Work hard and build well, and you will be safe and sound.
▶ Watch & listen
The last egg in the mother duck's nest hatches into a big gray duckling, and everyone in the farmyard teases him until he runs away. After a long, lonely winter he flies to a garden in spring, bends to the water, and sees that he has grown into a beautiful white swan.
Moral: Don't judge anyone by how they look. A good heart is never proud.
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A girl no bigger than a thumb is born in a tulip, then carried off by a toad, a cockchafer and a long, cold winter. She saves a frozen swallow, and in the end he flies her to the warm countries, where the king of the flowers names her Maia.
Moral: Kindness is never wasted.
▶ Watch & listen
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