In a village where a plague called the dream sickness slipped from house to house, a man lay dying. The sisters wish for their husbands to be revealed but one of them…let’s just say that she got far more than she bargained for. On a knife-bright day at the edge of an overgrown garden, three sisters pricked their fingers on a briar and let their blood fall to the earth. Unfortunately for her, Alice proves very, very difficult to get rid of. And all she can think of is a way to get rid of Alice. When Alice was born her eyes were black from end to end, and the midwife didn’t stay long enough to wash her. The skinned maiden does not forgive, nor does she forget. Upon some pretty poor advice, he finds a way to capture her – but not her heart. They reached up and peeled the fur from their necks, from their faces and shoulders and limbs…Ī young maiden within a bearskin catches the eye of a prince. After one particularly bad tantrum, she finds a rumor – a legend – that will allow her to punish her parents. But her hidden, rotten core begins flaring up the older she gets. Jenny was the much-wanted child of two otherwise childless parents. In the course of time she bore a child, a pink and white and beautiful child, with a core of hidden decay. The toymaker arrived in town on the back of rumors so vicious they cut the tongue.Įleanor and her brother were fascinated by the brilliant clockwork toys but the fascination soon turns sinister…ultimately extracting a terrible, terrible price that no one was prepared to pay. At least that’s what her father and paternal grandmother has told her. Hansa has been forbidden from looking out the window at night for if the moon touches here…something awful would happen. That isn’t enough to make a tale, but to her the moon spoke back. One of them finds a way out…and the other…well…let’s just say that the other won’t be traveling any time soon. But the new wife was not pleased to be a mother and she locks the daughters in the house. There once was a rich merchant who had a wife and two daughters. The voice she heard was so thin and rustling, she could almost believe it was leaves against the window.

Tales from the hinterland