The Storyteller

- Season 1

(1988)

A barren peasant woman, desperately craving a child, naively says aloud that she wouldn't care what it looks like. Soon enough, she gives birth to a baby who resembles a hedgehog, much to the father's dismay and the scorn of the villagers.

A carefree, absent-minded boy who is never scared goes on a strange journey to discover fear.

The Storyteller recounts the time he was caught making a fool of the royal cook and, as punishment meted out by the King, must tell one story a day for a year. All goes well until the very last day when he suffers from storyteller's block.

Seeking to avert a prophecy which foretells of a seventh son someday supplanting the current king, the unscrupulous monarch seeks out this luck child and attempts to do away with him. But those blessed with luck cannot be undone.

Because of kind acts toward three beggars, an honest soldier returning from war is given a magical sack, an unbeatable deck of cards, a ruby whistle and a comparable dance, which he uses to save a kingdom and to foil Death.

A witch weds a widowed king. Finding that his children pose a threat to her, she transforms the three boys into ravens. The girl escapes but is told she must remain silent for three years, or the boys will be trapped in raven form forever.

A beautiful princess seeking to escape an arranged marriage, flees to a distant kingdom and disguises herself as a loathsome hag. But then she falls in love with the new kingdom's prince.

On the whole, giants are benign creatures, harmless to none, unless of course the giant hasn't a heart. A curious prince is fooled into freeing one such heartless giant from the king's dungeon.

A white lion comes to the aid of a girl being held under the cruel care of a troll.