Fairy Tale - Schöne Märchen

Wise king Christoph intends to abdicate and enjoy a carefree twilight, but has no son and hesitates to enthrone either of his daughters, the eldest two Isabella and Eugenia having flawed characters and petty obsessions, while junior princess Amélie more resembles their berated mother, queen Louisa. The king plans to let the crown go to the daughter who makes the most convincing declaration of pious love for him, but while hers sisters claim to love him more then their beloved jewels viz. fashion, Amelie infuriates him by saying 'as a daughter can only lover father, more precious then salt', he stays on and banishes her 'until salt proves more valuable'. She wanders off, disguised as journeyman Anton, still tempting fate with her smart mouth, but resolves to return after meeting again wandering African 'prince' Tabor on his natural science expedition, who lusts for her since a sharp-tongued meeting, and loyalty markers are called as true feelings combine with a ruinous salt shortage.

(Bearskin Prince) Aging king Wenzel's only son and heir, prince Marius, was his father's pride and joy, but showed no interest in state matters, absorbed by fashionable flirt and idle pleasures, taking no suitable suitor serious. On a pleasure ride trough the forest, Marius is caught in the net trap of a devil. They agree that Marius will be released but can only return home is he finds true love within a limited time. Alas for him, the additional challenge is to do so while covered in live bear fur, making him appear a dangerous monstrosity. Wandering hungry, 'bear Marius' gets shot-wounded by mean widow Hedwig and her lazy son Kilian, but is hidden, fed and nursed by their constantly abused maid Elise, who falls in love with the 'bear man'.

Maddened by grief over his late queen, King Tobald decides to wed their only daughter Lotte, the only female resembling her. Having failed to put him off by exorbitant demands, she puts on the unique cloak made of all fur types in the realm and flees over the border, carrying only her mother's three-party golden seduction kit and the king's miniaturized gifts while posing as a poor girl. King Jacob finds her while hunting and orders her into court chef Mathis' scullery. He appreciates her zeal and culinary talents, helping him put the best dishes ever before the king, who is determined to find out about the gastronomic phenomenon, yet she makes that difficult.

Arrogant spoiled princess Isabella of Gerania haughtily rejects all suitors, even prince Richard of Begonia, whom she liked in a previous anonymous meeting. Finally her exasperated royal father gives her hand to the first-come beggar. Richard disguises himself as such in secret, helped only by his sister Maximiliane, hoping to pull of an operation taming the shrew by making her earn her keep, but gradually despairs as her pride persists.

Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, a girl goes on a quest to save her village from an evil king.

With Hansel and Gretel's woodcutter father being too poor to provide for the family, their stepmother persuades him to abandon them while foraging in the forest. Wandering hungry, they find and feast on a witch's cabin made of gingerbread covered in all kinds of candy and other treats. The seemingly hospitable crone owner soon cages Hansel to be fattened as her own feast, while Gretel serves as her maid. the pair must outsmart the hag to survive and escape or be eaten.

Petty ruling prince Gundolf decides to abdicate and promises his crown to the son among his three who can bring him the land's finest carpet, following the wind blowing for each a feather from a stuffed hunting trophy. The ambitious eldest, Gerhard, and the lazy second-born glutton Gebhard, who struck a deal to help him and be allowed to continue his parasitical lifestyle, cheat and bring home mediocre carpets, trusting the generally-mocked Gustav, a kind and helpful animal lover, won't find anything as his feather drifts into the forest. But a magic wood cave dweller, which he once saved as a frog, gives him a champion carpet. The trusted court marshal Julius, who considers naive, simple Gustav childishly unfit, convinces the monarch to disqualify the results and set a new quest, but the pattern is repeated.

Adaptation of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale.

After a peasant joins the royal army, never to return from war, his wife raises their daughters Schneeweißchen and Rosenrot as if he may return ant day and keeps telling stories how wonderful he is, having chased all dwarfs. The realm being impoverished and threatened with famine, prince Jacob convinces his father to let him sell the treasury to buy sowing-seed, but is surprised by an evil dwarf who transforms him into a bear. A gang of wandering dwarfs is tired of lacking cave or treasure, so their chief tricks one into winning some for them. He ends up at the sisters' humble homestead, but keeps getting caught with his beard -where his magic power resides- or countered by the protective spell of the rose garden. The king is meanwhile tricked by a fraudster into confiding his last gold for speculation on the stock market to the crook. The courtiers are horrified to be ordered to form a bear hunt party.

A young, bored king will lose his throne to his married nephew unless he weds before reaching thirty. To his mother's despair, the king has no interest in the suitors she has parading for twelve years, only caring for astronomy. A landless farmer's daughter cunningly abuses this passion to attract royal attention and successfully ask for land the family can farm. Having found a golden mortar on it, the honest father brings it to his majesty, but is jailed, suspected of holding back a golden pestle. The daughter gets him freed by winning a riddle dare, with the unsolicited extra price of became the royal fiancee. That ill-considered engagement is easily compromised by challenging the king's misrule on an absurd foal claim.

On a Lower Saxony petty farm, the aging cat, dog, rooster and donkey see their hope of a happy old day smashes overhearing the spineless farmer Georg's second wife Martha say they need to marry off her stepdaughter Lisa to wealthier farmer Hans Sittler and kill off the over date animals. So they run for their loves, with a vague plan to become city musicians in Bremen. Lisa also flees thither, being in love with farmhand Johann, unaware Martha signed him up for a ship sailing from that very port. The three parties deal with hardships on the road, including a band of robbers, but gradually team up and devise a grand plan.

In a tiny kingdom, a goose herd girl seizes her chance for 'revenge' on royal heiress Elisabeth whose haughty entourage once humiliated the maiden by ordering her to fetch water for a drunk the princess didn't even want. Indeed she is part of the train with magic horse Florian when the princess is sent to her betrothed, king Gustav's studly son Leopold. Thus the maiden sheds the third of the queen's blood drops shed to protect the princess and forces her, by near-drowning, to accept an identity-swap.

Poor but confident and resourceful tailor David trusts, after killing seven flies in one swat, he's a match for any challenge and sets out to prove himself in the wide world. After luck and cunning help him deal with giant Lothar, he arrives at the castle of petty king Ernst, who is ruled by constant migraine and his ambitious, manipulative court counselor Klaus, who desires to succeed by winning brat princess Paula's hand and claims to be the only savior who can rid the land of three supernatural dangers. David's costume-embroidered motto 'seven at once' however is misread as a warrior's tally, and he eagerly accepts to win the princess, who teases but likes him, and half the country by dealing with the giant brothers, then both other dangers, and having triumphed each time Klaus's last attempt to deal with his commoner rival.

A beautiful girl with very long hair, living in a house with a witch, falls in love with a prince.

Since the death of villager Weber, his widow lives from weaving. Docile daughter Marie helps her with spinning and all other chores, inseparable from pouch Strupi, while her sister Louise invokes delicate hands to do very little for her upkeep. Exhausted from spinning, Marie pricks herself, looses the spool in a water pit and trying to retrieve it, falls in, but emerges in the fairy land of Mrs. Holle. Having been kind and helpful to every creature and talking objects, she's welcomed and praised for cheerfully helping with seasonal chores, which regulate life on earth. Longing to her family, she asks and gets to be returned, with the spool and her dress turned into gold and gets a hero's welcome. Louise can't stand being utterly ignored, jealously pricks herself and jumps into the pit, but in Hole's land remains as rude and lazy, before being returned through the same magical gate, which rewards to merit: as dark and dirty as her selfish heart, with a wise advice as an only prize.

A king without a son invites eligible royals and other high aristocrats for his eldest daughter princess Sophie's 18th birthday party, expecting her to get engaged with a suitable one, such as interested prince Friedrich. She also receives her late mother's most prized legate, a golden ball allegedly magically inspiring wise decisions, but loses it playing by the castle park lake. While a man lurks around, a talking frog promises to retrieve the ball if she takes him in as her companion. He keeps the deal, Sophie runs off leaving only a pearl string she first offered, but when the frog comes demand his prize at the royal dinner, and proves himself a talented singer, the king orders her to keep her promise, clearly unwillingly. Only when he exhausts her patience and is smashed against her bedroom wall, his evil fairy spell is broken and he re-assumes the shape of neighboring Brabant's heir, prince Floris. Now she falls in love and dumps Frederic to the king's horror, but must wait anxiously if he will return.

Raised on a farm, energetic fearless Fynn is eager to be join uncle August in the royal castle as apprentice in the stables. He's quickly humiliated having inadvertently dared prince Eric to sword sparring, but gets discrete lessons from his surprisingly able kin. Like many high aristocrats around, Eric boldly sets out to win a princess's hand and royal crown in a century-long enchanted castle, but is fatally defeated by its impenetrable envelop of thorny vines. Having learned more from August about the curse, Fynn also has a go, but differently and with better results.

After Brüderchen and Schwesterchen's (German for young/dear brother/sister) mother's death, their dad finds a new wife and mother for them. But she's a witch who poisons him and reduces the siblings to slaves for her and their nasty stepsister. After an escape attempt, the witch transforms the boy into a deer. When he finally has a run in the woods, the young king's hunting party wounds it badly. By tracking his prey, the ruler discovers and falls in love with his sister. The whole family moves into the royal palace, where the witch tries new tricks.

*King Gustav's crown prince Moritz, an avid hunter refusing to pick a suitable bride, only has an instant crush on an unidentified fresh girl he meets while she stops him from shooting a deer. It's miller Gisbert's headstrong daughter Lisa. Overheard from the castle bragging absurdly is daughter can do anything, even spin gold from straw, the miller must either accept punishment for lies or prove his words. Lis is locked up in a castle tower with straw and a spinning wheel, desperate the task is impossible, hence doomed. At night appears a measly character, who offers to do it for her heirloom necklace. As the king demands more, threatening the miller's while family, Rumpelstilzchen returns, setting as price her last heirloom, mothers' ring. The king demanding even more, his price rises to her firstborn. Prince Moritz discovered she's his wood flame, but is locked up. However the king catches a gold allergy and passes the crown to his son, who marries Lisa and has a son himself a year later. Rumpelstilzchen demands delivery, granting a last chance to keep the baby prince: is she guesses his name within a day.

Good soldier Jakob expect the promised pay on top of glory after a victorious war, but king Karl gives only his standard speech and worthless medals. Returning home wounded and penniless, Jacob passes out, trying to boil his wrecked shoes in the forest. He's spotted by the witch, who seduces him as a foxy woman and, as he smells a rat and seeks to run, tricks him as last favor to fetch from her well an ever-shining blue lamp. Not gullible enough to hand it over first, he's dropped down, but finds lightening the lamp awakes a stylish European equivalent of a jinn, Lampman, who can give him anything. Seeking revenge, he demands Karl's most prized possession. Initially displeased with the crown princess Augustine, promised in marriage to seal a warlike dynastic alliance, Jacob and she soon fall in love. Their plans to liberate her get Jacob on the gallows at her arranged wedding day with warrior prince Philipp, the only hope being the lamp, which only thieving beggar knave Johann, which he spared arrest, knows enough about.

In a drought-tormented peasant town, Andrees hopes to wed Maren, daughter of the richest valley landowner who sells rare water for dried-up hill pastures. He however refuses her hand to the son of a widow whose husband foolishly limited himself to hill cattle, hence is about to lose all, yet he jocularly promises to allow the wedding and scrap the debt as a wedding gift if the couple manages to end the drought by awaking the legendary rain fairy. The youngsters set out to find her, countered by the fire master, a demon who thrives in heat waves. They must combine their skills and improvise.

King Alexander is happy with his commoner-born queen Marie, but their three children are puppies (actually switched at the queen mother Eliza's orders by chamberlain Corbinian, who put each in a basket in the river), then she dies mysteriously. 12 years later, the king still mourns, refusing to remarry any princess picked by his mother. Then on a hunting trip, he meets Theo, Fritz, and Lotte, three foundlings--who greatly resemble his late wife--raised by farmer Hank and his wife. Eliza decides to dispose of the princes by tricking them into attempting to seek infallible answers from the bird of truth, which requires two equally magical gifts, each likely to be transformed at failure into rocks.

The king orders his haughty daughter to pick a groom, but she insults every suitor at first sight. One prince, whom she met undercover at the market, persists, and accepts a seemingly impossible task: bringing as 'wedding gift' the magical tree that sings and chimes. He sets out into the dark forest for it, where he bumps into a mean spirit who has it and sets a high price: himself if her lack of love stops it from singing. This happening, he's caught in a magical bubble around a barren cave, forced to survive on dug-up roots and an impossible task of chopping wood to buy his freedom. The king sets out to find them, also reaches the spirit, and bargains the tree for the first creature that will meet him from the castle, unaware it will be his daughter. The prince and princess are kept together, his love having been turned into bitterness, yet forced to collaborate to survive, they grow closer and ultimately take on the spirit.

Pre-teen foundling Emil and slightly older middle class orphan Inga seek to comfort each-other in the pitiful conditions at Mrs. Landfried's orphanage. She sells the shoes the produce in a Dickensian poorhouse workshop but keeps most profits, only ambitious eldest turned foreman Franz gets a bonus. For Christmas, the kids must sell I town the sets of matchsticks she bargained as bonus with the shoes, the winner gets a goose helping, sub)standard sale means a caning. After chasing the duo from the lucrative market, Frans wins and even gets to cane Emil, but lets him off with loud pretense. Inga ran away, dreaming in the rundown family home of her late parents welcoming her home whenever she strikes a match. Emil informs the homonymous friendly cop they met on the market, who sees the tyrant is replaced by a proper administrator.

A retelling of The Princess and The Pea. The princess runs away and finds work at an orphanage to avoid marrying a prince she has never met. She unknowingly meets him while they are both pretending to be commoners which leaves him to decide whether he should follow his heart or marry for the good of the kingdom. Little does he know that he can do both.