Two children lived close to one another, in the city of Thebes, a boy and a girl. Their lives where changed when the mirror of Set was shattered, the shards scattering and piercing the eyes of mankind. Ill-will fell upon the boy, and too easily, he was lured away by the kisses of the cruel and deadly Desert Queen.
His friend, brave Kiya, left the city she knew well to see him, journeying south into the Upper Kingdom and the lands beyond, crossing deserts and mountains, aided by those whom she met there, to find her way to the Desert Queen’s palace and save her friend.

The cotton-harvester’s daughter was a clever girl, but her father was a foolish man. He had no sons, and so he would declare the accomplishments of his daughter - be they true or false - to entice a husband from a greater rank to look upon her.
His greatest lie was that she could spin cotton into gold. It was a foolish lie, which reached the ears of a handsome, but greedy Prince. He desired the gold, and the young woman was imprisoned and commanded to spin all the cotton she had picked into gold.
But she was not to do it alone.

As winter falls, the herd of Áire’s family are divided into smaller herds to be tended over the bitterest months. With their family spread wide, Áire takes meat from a fresh slaughter to her grandmother, who tends the smallest herd, furthest inland.
Winter is a trying time for all, not least the beasts of the wild. When Áire reaches her grandmother’s Iavvu, the fire is burning low, and Áire knows that something is wrong.
Resting amid the furs, there is a figure, with bright, big eyes, and white, white teeth. It is not her grandmother.

Captain Dormer was the leader of an exploratory expedition into new reaches of space, seeking out planets with potential for settlement. Her ship was caught in the orbit of a planet nicknamed the witch’s eye, forcing her into the choice of risking all their lives trying to escape through an asteroid field and using what little power the ship had left, or sending out a beacon and waiting for help to come.
As time passed and no aid came, people grew afraid and hungry. Captain Dormer took the only solution she could see, putting in place the emergency protocol, which sent the whole crew to sleep in stasis pods. She watched over them as long as she could, but soon, she too had to close herself in a pod.
Days, weeks, months, years went by, until a salvage crew picked up the beacon and a ship dared to come close enough. The Captain of the ship made his way aboard and found a vast chamber filled with sealed stasis pods, and in the one closest to the door, a woman lay, as if asleep, and the Captain reached for the controls and woke her.

Thumbelina’s mother was gifted a single seed from a beggar woman. The seed, when planted, grew into a beautiful flower, and at the heart of that flower there was a tiny, beautiful girl.
Stolen away in the night by a toad, Thumbelina fled the advances of many unwanted suitors, moles and mice, and crickets and creatures of the dirt and the air.
She made her way through the world until, at last, in a flower field many miles from the place of her birth, she met people as tiny as she, and found a home at last.

The master Bunraku carver longs for a son. He carves a puppet with such love and devotion that the puppet takes on life of its own, but it is not the well-behaved son that the carver prayed for.
Dismissive of his origins and his creator, the puppet boy seeks mischief and trouble wherever it may be found. A kitsune guides him onto a dangerous path and it is only by the intervention of Buddha that he returns to safer roads.
With time, through prayer and honour and sacrifice, he pleases Buddha and becomes a real boy.

Mikko and Tove are a pair of petty thieves and con men. A raven than can supposedly lead them to a place of wealth and plenty comes into their hands during a scam, and while on the run, they accidentally end up hiding out on the longboat of Eric the Red on one of his raiding parties.
When they’re found and tossed overboard, they miraculously end up on the often-raided Pictish lands.With no way to get home, Mikko convinces Tove that the raven is a true treasure finder, and they follow it, only to end up tangled up in a rivalry between the clans of the new land they’ve come to with no sign of the treasure and only a thief called Ceanna to help them.

The young girl loses a precious object - possibly a pendant or lip plate or something of the variety (golden balls, I suspect, less common in the middle of the rain forest) - in the river and a frog offers to find it for her in exchange that she lets him sleep in the hammock beside her.
The girl is doubtful and wary, particularly as the frog is of a poisonous variety, but he fetches her precious item from the bottom of the pool with a lot of effort because he is very tiny.
The girl takes her possession and flees, but the frog holds her to her arrangement and seeks her in her village. Reluctantly, she agrees to let him sleep in her hammock, and come the morning, she has something of a surprise.

Beauty’s father is driving his cattle to water, and his daughter asks him to bring back a single piece of fruit for her when he returns. He plucks a fig from a wild fig tree that is miraculously fruiting in the wilderness, only to be accosted by a terrible beast that demands recompense for his theft. The price is the first creature to greet him upon his return, and that creature is his daughter.
Beauty goes willingly, as it was she who asked for the fruit, and finds that while the beast is terrifying and beastly to look at, he is not all he appears to be at first sight.

The Disney variations, because some of the imagery in them is so strong.

The Disney variations, because some of the imagery in them is so strong.