Short Story by Angela Carter. A magical being living in harmony with nature seduces young women traveling through his forest domain. The women are powerless to resist. When he tires of one, he transforms her into a bird, cages her, and adds the cage to his collection of other "birds".
Grade 5-6 Story by Howard Pyle. A princess vows to marry whoever brings her water from the “Fountain of Life”. A king sends a servant to get some, and falsely claims the prize. The doubtful princess sets him two more tasks, one of which requires cutting off the servant’s hand.
Quick Read by Jorge Borges. A traveler arrives at an isolated woodcutter’s hut claiming to be an exiled king descended from Odin, the Norse king of the gods. He then makes a fatal mistake, showing the woodcutter the disk of Odin, the only one-dimensional object in the universe.
Novelette by Jhumpa Lahiri. A doctor’s translator who moonlights as a tour guide fantasizes that the wife in an Indian-American family he takes sightseeing has a romantic interest in him. Rather than love, she wants his help to find a “cure” for a foolish mistake she once made.
Short Story by Conrad Aiken. A psychological horror fantasy in which a young boy’s growing fascination with snow and imagined snowfalls cause him to lose touch with reality. In the disturbing climax, the boy’s “snow voices” come alive and he completely withdraws into himself as they tell him a story.