• The Boy and the Trolls
    May 3 2022

    The Boy and the Trolls was written by Walter Stenstrom.

    Born ( 1881 ) in Malilla, he became an author, comedy writer, and lecturer. 

     Walters parents were the pharmacist Axel Fabian Stenström and Ingeborg Olivia Abrahamsson. He graduated in 1900 and in 1904 became a pharmacology candidate.

    He was active as a theater man and managing director of Skådebanan , but also wrote some fairy tale plays.

    Other children tales include 'The Princess who wouldn't eat porridge' and 'The gingerbread men in the gingerbreadt tin'.

    Walter passed away in 1926.

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    38 mins
  • The Prince Without a Shadow
    Apr 28 2022

    The Prince Without a Shadow was written by Jeanna Oterdahl (1897-1965) Jeanna Oterdahl was the daughter of Captain Philip Oterdahl and Eva Frögren. She was the eldest of five siblings. After graduating as a teacher in Stockholm in 1901, Oterdahl was employed at Mathilda Hall's school in Gothenburg (where she herself was a student) but at the same time devoted herself to extensive writing. In the 1920s, she reduced her teaching hours and focused on writing. Several of her morning rallies were broadcast on radio all over Sweden, including a speech in the spring of 1944 in which she condemned anti-Semitism . There are several similar examples of her anti-fascism. Among other things, she was critical of the permit traffic through Sweden. Her main role model was Natanael Beskow and Oterdahl became a member of his association, the Association for Christian Social Life . Around 1950, she joined the Quakers , but as early as 1927, one of her characters had met the Quakers. Oterdahl became a frequently hired lecturer (often with the subheading "non-profit goods") in a number of subjects: women's history , the place of childhood in literary history, inferiority complexes and old age.  These lectures probably gave her a different audience than her books. Oterdahl was a well-known author during her lifetime, but has gradually been more and more forgotten. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, she is not mentioned in major literary biographies or even very much in special dictionaries, something that may be due to the fact that she is seen as a children's writer or a psalm writer. Jeanna Oterdahl is buried in a family grave at Östra kyrkogården in Gothenburg. She was unmarried. 

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    34 mins
  • The Wedding of Mrs. Fox
    Jul 5 2021
    "The Wedding of Mrs. Fox" (German: Die Hochzeit der Frau Füchsin) is two German fairy tales collected under the same title by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as number 38. It was included in all editions, and is classified as Aarne-Thompson type 65, 1350, 1352*, and 1510.  The second version of the tale was told to the Grimms by Ludovico Brentano Jordis, who also wrote down "The Lion and the Frog" for the brothers.
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    16 mins
  • Hansel and Gretel
    Jun 7 2021
    "Hansel and Gretel" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in Grimm's Fairy Tales. Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister abandoned in a forest, where they fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a house made of gingerbread, cake, and pastries. Read is the last Brothers Grimm version put to paper. This episode includes some history on how the tale was written.
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    37 mins
  • The Maiden Without Hands
    May 27 2021
    The Maiden Without Hands comes from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, ( Brothers Grimm ) "Das Mädchen ohne Hände," Kinder- und Hausmärchen, gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm [Children's and Household Tales -- Grimms' Fairy Tales], 7th edition, vol. 1 (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1857), no. 31, pp. 162-68. A shorter, simpler version of this tale was included in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812). The tale was expanded and revised for the second edition (1819).
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    24 mins
  • The Twelve Brothers
    May 21 2021

    "The Twelve Brothers" (German: Die zwölf Brüder) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales (KHM 9). Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book

    It is of Aarne-Thompson type 451 ("The Brothers Who Were Turned into Birds"), which is commonly found throughout Europe.  Other variants of the Aarne-Thompson type include The Six Swans, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, The Seven Ravens, and The Magic Swan Geese.

    The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1812, and substantially rewritten in the second edition (1819). Their sources were Julia R. Ramus (1792–1862) and Charlotte R. Ramus (1793–1858).


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    25 mins
  • The Companionship of the Cat and the Mouse
    May 18 2021

    The Companionship of the Cat and the Mouse  (German: Katze und Maus in Gesellschaft) is a tale written by the Brothers Grimm.

    A shorter version of the tale was included in the Brothers Grimm's manuscript collection of 1808, and published in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1812. Their version is based upon an oral tradition communicated by Gretchen Wild (1787–1819) in Kassel.[2]


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    13 mins
  • The True Story of Lakshmibai
    Mar 23 2021
    The True Story of Lakshmibai. Read by Mily Mumford
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    22 mins