This tale about everybody having to die doesn’t set too well with me.

King of the uncharactered, the Voynich manuscript takes cipher sleuthing to velum-unraveling heights. Antiquarian Wilfred Voynich purchased it from...

The phrase “Gothic church umbrella” doesn’t convey grotesquery, yet this was the gargoyle’s original purpose, their spouted heads diverting...

Unlikely to star in a fairy tale anytime soon, flies nonetheless play a role in the Grimm Brothers’ “The Brave Little Tailor.” A breakfast...

No tour of fictional turtles is complete without mention of the Chinese Bixi

Sometimes, house-dwelling bears and house-dwelling humans can actually seem to get along.

Once in the woods, the criminals chicken out and simply abandon the children

In the Slavic fairy tale “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” a dying mother gives her young daughter Vasilisa a wooden doll. The mother tells Vasilisa: “When...

In many a Turkish tale, Keloğlan, or Bald Boy, is a follicly-challenged country boy, who either bumbles or connives his way to good fortune. In some...