Once upon a time there was a family, that is, a man, a woman, and their wee little son. They lived in a smallish house in a nice neighborhood far away from the noise and bustle of the city, and that was just how they liked it.

There was only one problem. The little house was haunted by a boggart.

Now, the man had never seen the boggart. The woman had never seen the boggart. But they were absolutely sure this was only true because the boggart took great pains to hide himself away. They knew he was there anyway.

Like, one time, their wee little son saw a giant shadow on his wall, with many legs and long thin things sticking out of its little head. Or another time, he’d complained of tiredness because he’d been up all night listening to something hum just inside his bedroom. Bits of food disappeared from his little table, and sometimes they’d find remnants of what appeared to be a tiny tea party.

One time, he’d complained, saying “Bogger” and pointing at the wall behind his mother. Just as she’d turned to look, a clock had fallen off the wall for no reason whatsoever. After that, she cleaned the wee little boy up (there were some boogers on his fingers, as he was prone to picking his wee little nose), and immediately told her husband they needed to move.

He prepared, but without much effort. You see, this man understood boggarts. He knew that he would spend a good deal of time packing and cleaning and buying and getting ready and such, until the final day, when he let his neighbors know he was going. At that point, he was sure the boggart would announce its intention of coming along.

You can imagine his surprise when nothing happened.

He and his family rode off one morning with no interruptions or bother. The little boy never complained of the boggart again.

And, back in their old house, a cricket crawled into a patch of sunlight on the floor and curled up to take a nap.

When the man returned the next week to pick up the rest of his family’s belongings, he found his house redecorated, with lovely pictures of crickets all over the wall. He never did find out why.

The End.

Source: The Boggart, English folktale

Once upon a time, there was a troll who lived under a bridge. Now, this was a troll who lived for quiet. He liked nothing better than to curl up on the couch with a nice book and a hot cup of tea. Unfortunately, living under a creaky bridge, the troll often found his quiet time interrupted by the “creeeeaaak creeeeaak” of the bridge swinging in the wind or the “trip trap trip trap” of his neighbors in the animal kingdom crossing the bridge.

Being a clever troll, he managed to keep things under control by hopping on top of his bridge and threatening to eat the trespasser in question unless he or she could offer up a better substitute. They invariably did, and never crossed the bridge themselves again.

Recently, however, the troll had encountered a more serious problem: three little goats by the name of Gruffsome. Now, the three billygoats Gruffsome lived just north of the bridge, and they spent many a summer day running back and forth across it, jumping and stomping and yelling until the troll thought he might have to eat his own ears just to get some quiet. More worrisome still, the three little Gruffsomes were clever, and had long called his bluff: when he threatened the little one, the little one would tell him to wait for his older brother. The older brother would tell him to wait for his oldest brother, and the oldest brother would swear an elephant or some otherwise imaginary but delicious animal was on the way.

The troll didn’t really want to kill and eat any of the goats, but he was starting to think he didn’t have any other options.

He decided first to try other threats. Give them homework! Make them clean! Tell their mother! But the little goats just laughed and ran away, only to come trip-trapping back over the bridge moments later.

He tried to make the bridge as inhospitable as possible, by cooking bad smelling things and turning his television all the way up. But the little goats ignored it all, running back and forth over the bridge.

He tried to engage the little goats in awkward conversation, figuring they’d be so bored they’d never return, but instead, all three began to seek him out, to tell him about missing teeth and trips to the hillside and surprisingly late bedtimes.

Why would nothing work? Finally, he got so frustrated, so angry, he lost his temper, and pulled the bridge down with his bare hands. He had an uncomfortable fall, but the bridge came down, and after that, there was no more activity above to interrupt his rest.

He should have been happy. But, as time passed, he found himself listening for the “trip trap, trip trap” of the three little goats. How hard could it be, he wondered, to build a bridge?

Source: The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Norwegian Folktale

Once upon a time, there a lived a king and a queen who very much wanted a child.  Any child.

Or, a pet.  After hoping and thinking and wishing for some time, the queen conceded that she’d be happy with even just a ferret.

Sometimes, you really do have to be careful what you wish for, especially if you are prone to wishing out loud. You never know who’s listening.

Nine months later, the queen gave birth to a ferret.

Considering all the wishing and whatnot, the queen and king decided to make the best of the situation and lavished upon the ferret all the love they would have lavished upon some innocent boy or girl.  They named him Jackson. They dressed him up in little suits and told him he was the smartest and most handsome boy around.

In time, Jackson grew, so that one day he stood as tall as his parents.  But he was still, you know, a ferret.  A very tall ferret.

And one day, Jackson the very tall ferret decided he needed to find true love, and informed his parents of his plan to do so.

Now, his parents knew that Jackson might have a hard time of it, since human girls were so rarely interested in marrying fully grown ferrets. However, they couldn’t hurt his pride by telling him so, and instead tried to warn him:

“Girls may be intimidated because they aren’t as smart as you.”

Or:

“Girls may be afraid because they’ve never seen anyone as handsome as you.”

They were very surprised to hear that the very first nobleman Jackson had encountered had offered up his second daughter.

Here’s what they didn’t know:

Some time ago, the nobleman had thrown a party, and failed to invite one of the faeries.

But another faery, who was at the party, had had a little too much fun, and turned his second daughter into a ferret.

Jackson found out about this just in time to temporarily cancel the wedding, and consult every holy man, magic man, and veterinarian in town about the state of his bride to be.

The vet gave him eye drops.

The holy man gave him holy water.

The magic man gave him a bag of mysterious powder.

That night, Jackson sneaked into the other ferret’s room and sprinkled all three substances over her. Then he closed the door behind him, and waited patiently for morning.

He never did find out which had done it, but by the next morning, a beautiful young woman woke up and brushed a few stray ferret hairs from her body. The wedding was back on!

Some time after it was over, and Jackson had become accustomed to married life, his wife made a decision.

She visited the holy man.

She visited the magic man.

She visited the veterinarian.

They all told her the same thing:  Jackson was a ferret.  And she was screwed.

The End.

Source: Prince Hedgehog, Russian folktale

Once upon a time there was man who worked in a junkyard.  He was happy enough with his life and work, but still dreamed of one day making enough money to forget about the junkyard, or any other work, forever.

Now, most of the time he spent his days making sure piles of waste did not topple over each other or defusing potentially dangerous situations. One day, however, he came upon something he’d never seen before: a robot. A real robot, with dull red eyes and an antenna protruding from its head. The robot lay slumped against a pile of pizza boxes and used needles, with a panel on its back hanging open. The man shrugged, and kicked the panel back into place.

He was already walking away when he heard the beep. And the next beep. And the next, followed by a sound of gears shifting. He turned to see the robot standing just behind him, focusing its now bright red eyes. He barely managed to escape the lasers shot at him before running home. Being attacked by a killer robot, he reasoned, warranted a sick day.

When he went back to work the next morning, the robot was gone. But still, it had been such a shocking event that he thought about little else until something happened that made him forget all about it.

A woman came into his life. A beautiful woman, too, with pale skin and slick black hair. She asked him for a date, and soon, she’d moved into his home. He couldn’t have been happier about the whole thing.

Until, of course, she presented him with a gift, her specialty, she said: a supercomputer. It ran fast and processed multiple applications with no lag, and worked more intuitively than any computer he’d used, ever. He loved it almost as much as his new live in lady friend.

Until, of course, he saw an opportunity for things to get even better. His new supercomputer had attracted quite a lot of attention, and he found himself considering the offers of several people to sell the computer. Finally, he got an amazing offer: for a brand new better than anything ever before computer, a mysterious stranger would pay him enough to retire happily.

But, she said no. She said his computer was the only one she meant to make. She said making another, better, one would take too much out of her. But it was a great opportunity, and so he kept hounding her until she gave in, mentioning in an offhand passive aggressive sort of way that the effort might even kill her. Or him.

She made him promise one thing: that he wouldn’t try to watch her make the computer, no matter how long it took or how curious he got about it. He promised, and was content.

Until, of course, the project started to drag on. She was way off schedule, and seemed absentminded, forgetful, slow moving. He just wanted to see what was wrong, so he opened the door.

And sitting at the workbench was the robot. Her front panel was open, wires pouring from her chest into the half completed computer sitting in front of her. But when the robot saw him there, she closed the panel and faced him completely.

Her eyes began to glow red.

The End.

Source: The Crane Wife, Japanese folktale