Fifteen gentle old tales from China, Japan and Korea, told in a soft Scottish voice by lantern light: a house spirit who turns the sandals round on a snowy night, a child who comes down the water stair with the rain, a craftsman whose carriage always points south, two brothers who trade their tools, a family who out-rhyme the scholars, and a farmer who leaves a bowl out for a bullfrog. Each story is a little slower, and a little simpler, than the one before, until the last few are hardly stories at all: fireflies over a lotus pond, a single stem in the grey light, a silver river of stars, a harp that waits in a valley, and a mended bowl in a dewy garden.
The stories
- 1:42 The Dokkaebi Who Turned the Sandals Around 11 min
- 13:57 The Child Who Came Down the Water Stair 13 min
- 27:47 The Fog That Would Not Lift 14 min
- 42:49 The Brothers Who Traded Hands 13 min
- 57:11 Flour on the Sleeve 12 min
- 1:10:32 The Farmer Who Left a Bowl for the Bullfrog 12 min
- 1:23:42 The Stranger in the Bronze 12 min
- 1:36:58 The Red Thread and the Moonlit Courtyard 12 min
- 1:50:28 The Willow That Learned to Bend 11 min
- 2:03:09 The Valley That Listened 13 min
- 2:16:55 The Moon on the Lotus Pond 12 min
- 2:30:04 One Stem in the Grey Light 11 min
- 2:42:44 The Silver River and the Bridge of Wings 11 min
- 2:55:24 The Harp That Waited in the Valley 12 min
- 3:09:08 The Mended Bowl in the Dewy Garden 13 min
Retold from
- Japanese Fairy Tales, by Grace James
- Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki
- Japanese Fairy World, by William Elliot Griffis
- Korean Fairy Tales, by William Elliot Griffis
- The Book of Tea, by Okakura Kakuzō
- The Chinese Fairy Book, edited by Richard Wilhelm