Bedtime Stories

Once upon a time there lived a lion in a forest. One day after a heavy meal. It was sleeping under a tree. After a while, there came a mouse and it started to play on the lion. Suddenly the lion got up with anger and looked for those who disturbed its nice sleep. Then it saw a small mouse standing trembling with fear. The lion jumped on it and started to kill it. The mouse requested the lion to forgive it. The lion felt pity and left it. The mouse ran away. On another day, the lion was caught in a net by a hunter. The mouse came there and cut the net. Thus it escaped. There after, the mouse and the lion became friends. They lived happily in the forest afterwards.

A farmer said to his wife, “You are lazy. You work slowly and lethargically. You waste your time." The wife was angry at the words of her husband. She said to her husband, “You are wrong. Stay at home tomorrow. I will go to field. I will do your work there. Will you do my works at home here?" The farmer said happily, “Very well. I will do your works back at home." The wife said, “Milk the cow. Feed the pigs. Wash the utensils. Take care of our hen. Spin the yarn." The woman went to the field. The farmer stayed back at home. He took a vessel and went to the cow to milk it. He tried to milk the cow. He received a good kick. He then went to the pig-sty. He hit his head against the beam. He went to feed the hen. He forgot to spin. The wife returned from the field when it turned evening. The farmer hung down his head in shame. Thereafter he did not find fault with his wife. They lived happily together for a long time.

Once upon a time there was a little boy who became very ill. He had to spend all day in bed, unable to move. Because other children weren't allowed to come near him, he suffered greatly, and spent his days feeling sad and blue. There wasn't much he could do except look out of the window. Time passed, and his feeling of despair just grew. Until one day he saw a strange shape in the window. It was a penguin eating a sausage sandwich. The penguin squeezed in through the open window, said "good afternoon" to the boy, turned around, and left again. Of course, the boy was very surprised. He was still trying to work out what had happened, when outside his window he saw a monkey in a nappy, busy blowing up a balloon. At first the boy asked himself what that could possibly be, but after a while, as more and more crazy-looking characters appeared out the window, he burst out laughing and found it hard to stop. Anyone wanting to stop laughing would never be helped by seeing a pig playing a tambourine, an elephant jumping on a trampoline, or a dog wearing a pair of glasses and talking about nothing except politics. The little boy didn't tell anyone about this because who would have believed him? Even so, those strange characters ended up putting joy back in his heart, and in his body. Before long, his health had improved so much that he was able to go back to school again. There he got to talk to his friends, and tell them all the strange things he had seen. While he was talking to his best friend he saw something sticking out of his friend's school bag. The boy asked his friend what it was, and he was so insistent that finally his friend had to show him what was in the bag: There, inside, were all the fancy-dress suits and disguises that his best friend had been using to try to cheer the little boy up! And from that day on, the little boy always did his best to make sure that no one felt sad and alone.

Gail the Whale lived in a small salty lake. She was the only whale in that territory, and she led a very comfortable life. In fact, this easy life made her a bit fussy. But, one year, there was such an incredibly hot summer that the lake's water really warmed up. Gail, used to such an ideal existence, could hardly stand the hot water. A little fish, which had spent some time in a child's goldfish bowl, told Gail that humans used fans to cool themselves down in summer. From then on, Gail the Whale couldn't think of anything else apart from how to build her very own fan. Everyone told her that she was overreacting, and that the hot weather would soon pass, but Gail got to work, constructing her enormous fan. When it was finally finished, she started fanning away at herself. Unlucky for the fish! The giant fan beat the little lake's waters so strongly that huge waves rolled right across it. The waves crashed onto the lakeshore, leaving the lake half empty, and Gail stranded in only a few inches of water. "You couldn't just hang on for while. You had to empty the lake," some unhappy-looking fish berated her. "So impatient! So selfish!" others shouted. But the worst of it for Gail was not the insults, but the fact that with so little water around her, the heat was becoming unbearable. Preparing herself to die of heatstroke, she said her goodbyes to all her friends, and they asked for her forgiveness. She assured them all that if she were to live again she would be stronger and learn to put up with life's discomforts. Yet, once again, Gail the Whale was overreacting. She managed to survive those hot days without dying, although, of course, she suffered. When the next rains arrived, the lake filled up again, and the weather improved. Naturally, Gail had to keep her promise, and show everyone that she had learned not to be so dependent on comfort, so impatient, and so fussy

A boy and a girl were playing together. The boy had a collection of marbles. The girl has some sweets with her. The boy told the girl that he would give her all his marbles in exchange for the sweets with her. The girl agreed. The boy kept the most beautiful and the biggest marbles with him and gave her the remaining marbles. The girl gave him all her sweets as she promised. That night the girl slept peacefully. But the boy could not sleep as he kept wondering if the girl has hidden some sweets from him the way he had hidden the best marbles from her.

There was once a boy who would never get dressed when his parents told him to, nor would he put on what they wanted him to after his bath. He preferred to dress in a much stranger manner, but above all, he liked to take his time. His parents were always in a rush, and wanted him to be a lot quicker, but the boy didn't like this, and he would slow down even more. One day, his parents were in their usual hurry, and they got so angry when he refused to dress, that they told him that he would have to go out naked. The boy didn't mind this in the least. So out they went. While the boy was standing naked outside his house, waiting for his parents to bring the car, along came the local pig farmer. The pig farmer was hard of hearing and had poor eyesight. Not only that, but he'd also forgotten to put his glasses on that day. When he saw the little boy's pink skin, he thought it was one of his pigs. And, with a bit of shouting, prodding, and pushing, the farmer managed to get the boy safely back to a pigsty. The boy protested the whole way there, but as the farmer was almost deaf, his complaints didn't help him. And there he was for the whole day, living amongst the pigs, thought to be a pig, and sharing their food and home. Finally, though, his parents found him. The boy had had such a regrettable day that never again did he want to be mistaken for anything other than a human being. Nowadays he's the first to get dressed, and look perfectly neat and tidy, just like those children in the clothes catalogues

Once upon a time there was a river. This river was rather unfriendly and lonesome. The river could not remember how long ago he had decided that he no longer wanted to put up with anything or anyone. He lived alone, refusing to share his water with any fish, plant or animal. And so his life went on, sadly and filled with loneliness, for many centuries. One day, a little girl with a goldfish bowl came to the bank of this river. In the bowl lived Scamp, her favourite little fish. The girl was about to move to another country, and she wouldn't be able to take Scamp with her. So she had decided to give Scamp his freedom. When Scamp fell into the river, he immediately felt the river's loneliness. Scamp tried talking to the river, but the river told Scamp to go away. Now, Scamp was a very happy little fish, and he wasn't going to give up so easily. He asked and asked, swam and swam, and finally he started jumping in and out of the water. The river, feeling all the jumping and splashing, started to laugh. It tickled! After a while, this put the river in such a good mood that he started talking to Scamp. Almost without knowing it, by the end of that day, Scamp and the river had become very good friends. The river spent that night thinking about how much fun it was to have friends, and how much he had missed by not having them. He asked himself why he had never had them, but he couldn't remember. The next morning, Scamp woke the river with a few playful splashes... and that was when the river remembered why he had decided to be such an unfriendly river: He remembered that he was very ticklish, and that he wouldn't have been able to stand it! Now he remembered perfectly how he had told everyone to scoot, that he wasn't going to put up with all that tickling. But, remembering how sad and lonely he had felt for so many years, the river realised that although it may sometimes be a bit inconvenient or uncomfortable, it was always better to have friends and to try to be happy.

Once upon a time, a hippopotamus lived in a river next to a big and solitary tree. One day, a bird came and nested in the tree. The songs and the flight of the bird caused such envy in the hippo that he couldn't think of anything else. Every day he would lament the fact that he had been born a hippo. This, despite the many times the bird told the hippo he was so lucky to be so big and such a good swimmer. Finally, the hippo made his mind up that he would come out of the river, climb the tree, go out to perch on a branch, and start singing. However, when he tried to climb the tree it was all too clear that the hippo didn't have wings, nor claws to climb with, and neither could he hop. Realising that he would never manage it, he angrily rammed his whole weight against the tree until it came crashing to the ground. Then, triumphantly, he stepped onto the leaves of the fallen tree, and began singing. Unfortunately, hippos can't sing either. All that came from his mouth were horrible noises, and when the other animals heard this they all gathered round to make fun of the hippo standing on the branch of a fallen tree, trying to sing like a bird. He was so embarrassed by this that he decided to never again regret being a hippo. He also felt bad about having knocked the tree over. He used all his strength to raise the tree back up again, replant it, and look after it until it had completely recovered.

Once upon a time lived on a cloud that was grown up over a very beautiful country. One day, she saw another much bigger cloud and she felt so much envy, than the cloud decided that in order to get bigger and grow more, her water would never abandon her, and will never start raining again. Indeed, the cloud grew up, while his country was getting dried. First, rivers dried up, then people, animals, plants, and finally, the whole country became a desert. The cloud did not care much, but she also did not realize that by being over a desert there was no place where she could obtain new water to keep growing. So slowly, the cloud began to lose size, and was unable to do anything to stop it . The cloud then realized her mistake, and that her greed and selfishness were the cause of her vanishing; but just before evaporating, when she was just a sigh of cotton, there started blowing a gentle breeze. The cloud was so small and weighed so little that the wind took her far away, to a faraway beautiful country, where once again she recovered her original size. Having learned this lesson, our cloud remained small and modest, but she became so generous when raining, that her new country became even greener, giving away to all people there the most beautiful rainbow in the world.

Once there lived a grumpy king. He never used to laugh nor allow anyone in the kingdom to laugh. One day, a small boy couldn't control his laughter. Later, scared of the punishment, he thought of a plan. He wrote a funny story and converted it into a drama. Then he went to the palace and asked the king, "May I present my drama to you?" the king let him do it. Then the boy started the play. In the end, he came to the funniest part of the story which made the king laugh. All people present in the court were amazed. The king then allowed everybody to laugh. Everyone then lived happily thereafter.