Tales From Western Europe

Across France, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Andorra, stories slip along riverways and mountain passes, across market squares and chapel steps, from hearthside to hayloft, and from one tongue to the next. In these pages you will find sly peasants and proud princes, saints and sinners, talking beasts and meddling fairies, bargains struck at dusk, and small acts of courage that alter whole worlds. Some tales glitter, some bite, and some sit quietly for a moment before they change what you thought you knew.

This collection gathers folktales, fairy tales and legends shaped by Western Europe's patchwork of landscapes and peoples, the vine rows, the canal towns, the high snowlines, and the stubborn little valleys. Here are old tricks and old truths, retold with a clear voice and a feel for place. Read them aloud, read them late, and let them do what they have always done best, which is to keep wonder close, and to make the darkness less daunting.