Today is part one of two where we are talking to Emily Michel about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about winning a contest with your first writing, telling yourself stories, taking 7 years to get your first book to a publishable state, joining groups to help hone your craft, learning as you go what works for you to get your books published and promoted, figuring out that plotting doesn’t work for your creative process, and using books and editing to help calm your brain.

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Emily Michel [pronounced Michael] read her first fairy tale before kindergarten and has been fascinated with speculative fiction of all kinds ever since. She’s traveled the world as a military family member, calling many places in the US and Europe home. She settled in Arizona a few years ago with her husband and kids.

When not writing, Emily reads, walks, crochets, and pets her feline overlords. She has volunteered her time to community organizations for the past twenty years and looks forward to taking a break in 2023 to concentrate on her writing and editing, which is a nice way of saying she’s tired and needs some “me time.” She is occasionally dragged out of the house for something called "socializing."

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Welcome to Freya's.

Fairy tales.

We believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author's version as possible.

I am your host.

Freya victoria I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I am also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the show notes.

Be sure to check out our website and sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.

Today is part one of two where we are talking to Emily Michael about her novels.

Over the next two weeks, you will hear about winning a contest with your first writing, telling yourself stories, taking seven years to get your first book to a publishable state, joining groups to help hone your craft, learning as you go.

What works for you to get your books published and promoted, figuring out that plotting doesn't work for your creative process, and using books and editing to help calm your brain.

A Memory of Wings an angels and Demons Paranormal Romance Memory Duology Book One how far will H***'s top assassin go to save the angel he was sent to kill?

Demon hitman shaqs craves freedom.

Stuck on earth and bedeviled by his past sins, he drowns the urge to finish his last job with drugs and sex.

Unable to ignore the impulse any longer, Shaq stalks his target and in a split second that will change everything, chooses to spare her life.

Fearless Guardian angel Keoni hates demons, but when an age old enemy protects her from an explosion that kills her friend, she makes a deal with her devil to hunt down the murderer.

Keoni begins to question everything she once knew to be true about good and evil.

Entangled in the events that sealed the gates to Heaven and H***, shax is torn between saving his own skin and his forbidden love for this angel.

And while they discover pieces of a puzzle that may reopen the way home, Keoni struggles to trust her new partner and fights their growing passion.

Will this unholy alliance tear the universe apart?

A Redemption of Wings an Enemies to Lovers paranormal Romance memory Duology book Two warrior angel demon Assassin will she brave the depths of h*** to save him?

Guardian angel Keoni feels powerless.

She's lost everything she ever knew and now is trapped in purgatory with the one being she trusts the demons sent to kill her, but saved her instead.

As they search for a way to escape the wretched souls and gloomy monotony of limbo, her desire for the assassin grows to maddening heights.

Shax knows one thing he loves Keoni.

He didn't dare hope she would return his feelings, but when their budding relationship takes a passionate turn, he breaks free from an eternity of torment, finally changing after all this time, shaq's vows to become worthy of her.

Keoni can no longer deny her heart, but if she rebuilds the gates to heaven and h*** to save the fabric of the cosmos, she will doom her lover to fiery damnation.

And though Shax is willing to sacrifice his freedom, his life, even his immortal soul, he fears the powerful forces arrayed against them will be his beloved's ruin.

Can they save all of creation without losing each other?

The podcast is Freya's Fairy Tales, and that is fairy tales in two ways.

Fairy tales are something that we watched or read or listened to as children.

It's also the journey for you to spend weeks, months, years working on your book.

To hold that in your hands at the very end is a fairy tale for you as the author.

So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid and did your favorite change as you got older?

Definitely changed as I got older.

The first fairy tale I remember is Cinderella.

Okay.

I liked it.

But when I was about seven or eight years old, I was gifted a Grimm's Fairy Tale.

Okay.

Book illustrated grimm's fairy Tale.

And that Cinderella was nothing like Cinderella.

It wasn't?

Are you sure?

But I liked some of the lesser known fairy tales, like the Robert Bridegroom, the Bremertown Musicians, the Pied Piper.

I mean, I knew about, but so some of the darker ones really caught my attention when I was youngish.

And then in high school, Beauty and the Beast came out, and I liked The Little Mermaid.

I love Beauty and the Beast.

Yeah, Beauty and the Beast is my favorite.

So at what age did you start writing at all?

Second grade.

Okay.

I actually won, like, a little district competition for writing in second grade, which is funny.

And I dedicated one of my books to my second grade teacher because she planted that seed.

It took decades to grow, but she planted that seed.

And so did you write the whole time, or did you just write in second grade and then stop on and off?

I did a little bit throughout elementary school.

In high school, I was very much on the college track.

And when you're taking a lot of those honors programs, they focus very much on essay writing.

And really the only creative writing we got was the occasional poetry, which does not work for my brain.

Same.

Our senior speech.

And in junior year, we were in this special class.

I was in this special class that was American Literature and American History taught together.

Okay.

And our final at the end of the year was a play.

We had to create a play using things that we had learned over the course of the year and make it a national.

It was a three act play, like three scenes from three different time periods and drawing on the literature and history that we had learned.

Okay.

And so my team and I wrote.

The play together with no poetry.

With no poetry.

So you get through high school, and when did you start writing your first full length novel?

Whether you published that one or not, when did you start writing that one?

2012.

Okay.

In my infinite wisdom, I married a soldier.

Okay.

To say that my life was a bit chaotic and stressful after September 11 of 2001 would be a mild understatement.

And then I had children, so a lot of I would tell myself stories.

I never realized that this is not a normal thing to do.

What is normal?

Until I joined the writing community and I realized that I was a writer the whole time.

I was just telling the stories to myself instead of getting them on paper and telling them to other people.

Okay.

And so the last deployment my husband went on in 2012, my kids were in school, and I finally had some time to sit down and start writing it out.

It took almost seven years to get it to publishable status okay.

But, yeah, I started writing that novel in 2012.

But you did publish it?

I did self publish it in 19 so about four years ago now.

I saw that you actually have seven books out now.

Yes.

So the first one took you seven years as you typed the end, what did you do after you had gotten the initial first draft done?

After I got the initial first draft done, it took me another 18 months to get it to publishable.

Status okay.

I realized there was a lot I didn't know, and I found a Romance Writers of America group in my town okay.

And joined that.

And there were just so many great workshops about the craft of writing, the business of writing, and I was finally able to wrap my head around the editing process and get that sucker edited.

So did you self edit the first one?

I self edited so weird to me.

I self edited up to a point, and then I found a freelance editor to take it to the next level.

So we had money stashed away for all kinds of projects, and we decided to use it on this one.

So was it seven years to write the first draft or seven years in total with the 18 months of editing and all that?

Seven years in total.

From the time I first put it on paper or computer to when it came out, it was just a little under.

It was like six and a half, six and three quarters, something like that.

So you started in 2012, so it's about 2019 at this point.

What were you doing?

You get it up for sale.

What did you do to kind of promote that first book?

Yeah.

Nothing.

Okay.

Very, very little.

I learned enough through the RWA workshops that I had a website, I had social media presence, so I was able to announce it.

But my followings were very small at that point.

What I was afraid of was I would sit on it and not publish it.

And so I'm like, Let me just get it out there, and I will learn how to do the self publishing thing.

I learn how to do the marketing thing.

Not the best way to go about it, but what I've learned since is that it's not that bad to do it either, because, especially as a self publisher, you really don't have a lot to work with with marketing and advertising until you have two book.

Yeah, I've seen of all the authors that I've seen across, like TikTok, very few start talking about their book until I mean, most of them will start, like, a couple of weeks out, maybe.

But very rare is the author who talks about it more than a couple of weeks ahead of time.

Most of them that I see, it's like after the books have already published, then they start talking about or they have the proof copy in their hands already or whatever.

But it's not standard that I've noticed for people to start talking about it super far in advance, to have that market already built up.

So I feel like that's pretty standard in a way.

But also, you're right.

It is a lot easier to learn how to market when you have something to market instead of being like, oh, it'll be available in a couple of months.

All of a sudden, all of the terms that people had been throwing out, like permafree and ku and all of those things countdown deals, it started making sense when I actually had a book to play with with those.

Right.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing it my way, but I was very much afraid that I would lose my nerve.

I would never publish this thing.

I would sit on it for way too long.

And so I just published it.

I'm like, we'll see what happens.

Right?

So seven years for the first book, and now you have six more.

So what did you learn or streamline between one and two a lot.

That first book is such a learning experience.

You don't know what works for you, so you're trying a lot of different things.

The second book, you've at least weeded out the things that you know for sure don't work.

Yeah.

You're still not entirely sure what your process is, but at least you know some of the things that really don't work for you.

This was the second book in a trilogy, and my first draft of the first book actually had the beginning of the story and the end of the story.

So book one and book three.

So book two, I actually wrote and got to a publishable state in about a year.

Only had like a couple of scenes in mind, and so I wrote most of it in about a year.

Okay.

And I learned about Scrivener in that time frame, and that really works for my writing process.

I know it doesn't work for everyone's, but it really helped me navigate through the actual documents and it helped me with timelines, especially with this book.

The two main characters are kind of separated.

Okay.

So you almost have like, two novellas things are going on at the same time, but they don't interact very much.

And so it really helped me file away what order these scenes were going in because that's one of the benefits of Scrivener.

You can drag and drop chapters and scenes very easily.

So in how many books were you in before you feel like you kind of started to figure out marketing, or do you still feel like you haven't?

I mean, I know it changes all the time, but you'll feel like you have some kind of a grasp on it at some point in time.

I would say now four years and seven books in.

I think I finally am starting to understand it.

I don't always implement things because that doesn't always feel right.

I've always been weird with marketing, and I've studied it a little bit and it feels bad asking people to buy your thing, even though how else are you going to create more of the thing?

Right.

That's a weird thing in my brain, but yeah, I think I'm finally starting to get a handle on it.

Six or seven books in.

So you got your first book out, didn't really do any marketing.

Got six more books out.

How long does it take you to do a book now versus book two?

Took a year.

Of course, we're 2019.

We're only four years after that.

And you've got quite a few books out since then.

So you've shortened something.

Yeah.

It's been anywhere from about it tends to be about 18 months, one year to 18 months.

Okay.

The current book I'm working on, which goes to the editor in the middle of June.

Okay.

I know this is going to be after June, but six months from the time I put pen to paper to when it's going to the editor, and then I'm probably going to sit on it because it's a holiday book.

So it does make sense to me to release it quickly after we're done with the edits.

Right.

You want to wait till see, I'm also working on a book that happens to its first in a series, happens to take place around Christmas.

And I'm like, I'm not going to wait till next Christmas.

I don't know if I'm going to be done by this Christmas.

We're going to release it whenever it's ready, even if that's in the spring.

I don't care.

It just happens to take place at Christmas.

The end.

The rest of the series will not, but whatever.

So you have streamlined that considerably from about five and a half years writing to six months.

That's considerably better.

Yeah, well, this one is special.

It just grabbed my attention and it almost wrote itself.

Okay.

Which is weird.

Not the first time I've heard it.

But yeah, so this one is special.

Most of them take more, like I binge write.

So I do the nano rhymo.

I will get a draft out in three to eight weeks, depending on how long the book is.

And then I sit on it for a while usually and then edit it three to twelve months later.

Okay, so what are some things that you really learned during the workshops that you went to that you feel like helped you?

Oh my goodness, there were so many.

So we had Julia Quinn came to talk to our group about writing dialogue.

So that was helpful.

Just not only from someone who'd been doing it for a while, but someone.

Who'S kind of figured out how to get their stuff on Netflix just a little bit.

This was before the deal was announced.

I think it was announced not too long after.

But we had people come in and talk about goal, motivation, conflict, like how to get those things into your story, a little bit about the hero's journey, people talking about how to make yourself sit down and write.

It really covered so many things.

And then all the marketing stuff.

So I learned about permafree, I learned about newsletters, I learned about the marketing newsletters, like BookBub and fussy librarian and things like that.

So just taking all of these pieces and being able to slowly implement it and try it out and see what works for me.

Okay, now where does you said this most recent book was personal, but where have the inspiration for your books come from?

So, let's see.

My first trilogy, the Witchy Paranormal, starting with Witch Hazel in Will, Spain.

It's an allegory for my experiences as a military spouse.

Okay, so we have a young widow who finds love again, because that's one of your worries as a military spouse, know things are dangerous and what happens if and then the next book is kind of like the allegory for a deployment, what happens when situations separate people in love.

And then the third book is about reuniting and coming up with your new normal.

So it's in a very witchy paranormal sense, but it's not but the plotline themes are there.

My second series, which is Enemies to Lovers, Angels and Demons series, starting with a Memory of Wings.

Honestly, it was like one of those visions.

I had a vision of a scene and it just was like, well, what's going on here?

And it was an archangel pulling up an angel out of the snow and saying, hey, yeah, guess what?

You're more human now, and you have to navigate the human world.

And then that just developed into a duology.

Okay.

And so that's five books.

We have two more to go.

And then I have my fairy tale retellings.

So the first book has been published.

It came out April of 22, and I've drafted the next two books, and that is a Snow White retelling.

And again, it was an errant thought.

I was supposed to be writing the sequel to that Angels and Demons series, and then it's like, oh, what if I wrote a gender flipped Snow White retelling where the princess rescues her prince instead?

And this was about ten days before Nanorimo started.

Okay.

I did whatever planning I could in ten days.

Short time.

Yeah.

Sat down and wrote it, and that was about 18 months to get it from that draft to the published.

Okay.

And then we have the one, the Christmas one.

That's the Christmas one, which will be out later this year.

And that one, again, it was vaguely inspired by around the holidays.

There was, like, a bad Santa movie with the guy from Stranger Things.

Okay.

And they were describing a scene, and I'm like, oh, what if it was that?

But the guy's not an a******.

He'S a good guy.

He just had a really rough night.

Fair.

And it sat in my head for about a week, and it just wouldn't leave.

So I'm like, let me write down the scene.

And then I wrote down the scene.

And then on a Friday night and then 10,000 words later on Sunday night, I'm like, yeah, I think I have a new book right now that took me about six weeks to write, and then yeah, it's going to the editor in a few weeks.

So you're going through your edits now, I imagine.

Yeah, I'm at the Polishing phase where I'm doing what I call a duck hunt, where I go in and pick out all the overused words and evaluate them.

Some of them I keep.

Some of them I'm like, no, that can go.

Or we could change that for a similar word.

Yeah, there's keep, delete, change, or rephrase.

Okay.

Makes sense.

A change would be like a swap, but sometimes you rephrase it so that way you get rid of it altogether.

You've used the same exact phrase 20 times.

You should probably say it different now.

I did notice, and I do have to ask, as an audiobook narrator, I see you have no audiobooks.

Are there any plans for those?

I really want to do audiobooks.

I believe very much in accessibility, and I love listening to audiobooks.

I find it a very immersive experience.

It's, in fact, something I do with my youngest kid.

I have to drive them to and from school every day, and we pick an audiobook and listen to the audiobook on our commute.

And it's a wonderful bonding experience.

We enjoy listening to it together.

I've always enjoyed listening to audiobooks, but the initial layout can be a bit steep, and so I'm trying to go about things in a different way.

This will be because I am so bad at marketing.

This will probably be the first year I'm able to turn a profit, and then I can reinvest in things like audiobooks.

So when you say steep, I've heard many a lie about how much it costs to make audiobooks.

My most common number I've heard is it costs $10,000 to make an audiobook.

I am guessing that's close to the number you've heard.

No, I've heard yes, it can be up to that amount, especially if you're getting some sort of celebrity narrator.

Well, yeah, of course.

But the number I've heard a little bit more from more beginning is more around the 2500 mark.

Yes.

A 2500 would be about a ten hour audiobook, which equates to about 100,000 words.

Okay.

So mine would be a little under that because I don't write stories that are that long.

So typically, just so you know, the standard starting what is it called, union rate.

Like, the starting rate for narrators is $250 per finished hour, finished hours, roughly 9300 to 10,000 words.

Okay.

So that's assuming you're not doing royalty share or anything like that.

That is like, what we're supposed to start at.

I know royalty share is a possibility.

I just would really worry that the book would flop.

And so I don't want to take that risk with somebody else's livelihood if it was just me.

Well, I remember a couple weeks ago, Paige Reisenfeld, who's a narrator, did a video on royalty share and how yes, it is a risk that neither of us make money on.

I do a lot of royalty share, and so it is a risk, but it's a risk that I'm obviously willing to take if I'm going to do your book.

So are you currently marketing your book?

Is your book getting reviews?

I've seen books that are up for audition for royalty share that have been out for ten years and have like, five reviews.

I'm like, you're not doing anything to market your book if you only have five reviews or it's so awful.

No one wants to leave a review if you only have five in ten years.

I'm not going to risk that.

But if it's been out for there's some that just went up.

Gosh, I just saw one yesterday where it's been out for a month and already has, like, 500 reviews on it.

I'm like, you are doing something to get that scene.

And so if I'm going to throw my hat in the ring with a royalty share on that project, it's like, I will probably do very well.

So is the author marketing it?

Is it getting reviews?

Are the reviews good?

Because if the reviews are not good, that's also not good.

Does the COVID match the genre?

It doesn't have to be like, you don't have to have paid a professional to do it, but do you have the know how to make it look like a professional cover?

All those things are what I evaluate when I'm looking at royalty share, but not every narrator's process is different for that.

And obviously upfront payment is always great, too.

$250 an hour for most.

And obviously the more accents the narrator adds and stuff like that, longer they've been doing it, more coaching they've had is typically going to raise the cost.

But yeah, celebrities obviously going to cost way more than standard normal people that aren't famous.

Yeah, I remember hearing Natalie notice.

Did an interview.

Yeah.

Hearing ten grand.

I'm like, no.

Yeah, I heard Natalie Nautis did an interview, and someone had come to her with some I think she said it had to do with, like, Nazis or something, but it was not sensitivity done at all.

And so she threw out some gigantic number because she didn't really want to do the book.

So she's like, we're just going to throw out an insane number?

And then they were like, okay.

And she's like, I still don't want to do the book.

Yeah, fair.

I imagine I hope that the day comes where I could throw out some outrageous number.

People be like, okay.

But also, I'm like, I feel like I was taking advantage a little bit, depending on the book, of course.

I wouldn't do any super racist ones.

I say that as I'm currently narrating one that takes place in prison.

So there is a lot of terms that would make sense for a prison scenario.

Not terms that I would use normally, but it makes sense for the scenario.

Like, you would expect the gang members to be slinging terms back and forth.

It makes sense.

Can't do it on TikTok.

So you have the Christmas book coming out.

You generally said that you sit on a book for a while.

So do you have another one that you've been working on in the meantime?

What's coming next?

So I have the two books in the fairy tale the next two books in the fairy tale series are drafted.

Right.

The second book was a mess.

I don't know what went wrong, but I'm probably going to have to rewrite at least a third of it okay.

To make it where I want it to go.

And I think some of it, it was just I was trying to do something a little too complicated with the plot, and I need to go back and simplify that a bit more.

Okay.

But the third book was easier, and so I'm planning on releasing those in 2024.

Okay.

So as soon as this book kind of gets edited, then I will dive back into the book.

Two of those fairy tales and start revising that.

Okay.

And so that's kind of your what are you doing now to promote these books that are coming out?

I know you found me on TikTok, so clearly you're on there doing something.

Yeah.

So I talk about my books.

I probably should talk about them more, but I always feel weird.

Yeah.

I started a backup account that I just do, like, book marketing videos for.

I'm doing it kind of as an experiment to see what happens.

I am on Facebook.

I occasionally do, like, permafree for one of my books again, trying to get readers.

I do newsletters.

I do oh, goodness.

What else?

Oh, I just did a story graph giveaway.

Okay.

And what do you feel like, has?

I imagine you're not running all of those at the exact same time.

And I know every author, not every promotional thing is going to work for every author.

Just like not every kind of TikTok video works to promote every genre of book.

But what do you feel for you?

Has worked the best, taking my books.

Wide and putting a book on free for an extended period of time.

So I put my first book out there in February and March for free and saw an uptick across the board on all of my books.

Okay, so you do the first in the series free, and then they have to pay for the other ones.

Right.

Which is fairly standard with series.

I've noticed a lot of authors will do that, especially ones that do, like, really long series.

I have a squirrel brain.

And I probably will not do much longer than a trilogy, though.

That original trilogy.

I could see two spin off books, but I haven't written those yet.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

The genres that you do tend to see the longer series is more like romance stuff where they'll do like it's just interconnected standalones that go on.

But really most have a set.

There's three or there's four.

There's however many books, and then it goes to the next thing.

I think Golden Angel has a couple of series that have been going on forever.

Or a lot of the series, I think, have similar names.

And I just think that it's the same series going on forever, but it's really like a different similar named series but other genres.

And I've talked about this on here before, genres like fantasy.

I feel like it's important to have that.

You have the story arc of the three, four, five books, however long you have planned to arc it, and then you stop and your arc is done like it should be.

You don't keep dragging it on unnecessarily.

Now, I like authors like AK Mulford, who does like the novellas in between.

Right.

That I think is also know you follow a side character for a book or whatever, but you have your arc and then you.

Stop.

You have had your big battle.

We're done.

Emily liked the Grimm's fairy tales.

As a kid.

She mentioned several that stand out to her, including Cinderella, The Robber Bridegroom, among others.

The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore.

The brothers are among the best known storytellers of folktales popularizing stories such as cinderella, the frog prince, hansler and Gretel, little red riding hood, rapunzel Rumpel stiltskin, sleeping beauty and snow white.

Their first collection of folktales children's and household tales began publication in 1812.

The Brothers Grimm spent their formative years in the town of Hanao.

Their father's death in 1796 caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers many years after.

Both brothers attended the University of Marburg, where they developed a curiosity about German folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folktales.

The rise in Romanticism in 19th century Europe revived interest in traditional folk stories, which, to the Brothers Grim, represented a pure form of national literature and culture.

With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folktales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies.

Between 1812 and 1857, their first collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200.

In addition to writing and modifying folktales, the brothers wrote collections of well respected Germanic and Scandinavian mythologies, and in 1838, they began writing a definitive German dictionary, which they were unable to finish during their lifetimes.

The popularity of the Grimm's collected folktales has endured well.

The tales are available in more than 100 translations and have been adapted by renowned filmmakers including Lottie Reinegger and Walt Disney, with films such as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.

In the mid 20th century, the tales were used as propaganda by N*** Germany.

Later in the 20th century, psychologists such as Bruno Bettelheim reaffirmed the value of the work, in spite of the cruelty and violence in original versions of some of the tales, which were eventually sanitized by the Grimms themselves.

Today we'll be reading The Robber Bridegroom by the Brothers Grimm.

Don't forget we're reading Les Mort de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble Knights of the Roundtable on our Patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Robber Bridegroom there was once a miller who had a beautiful daughter, and as she was grown up, he was anxious that she should be well married and provided for.

He said to himself, I will give her to the first suitable man who comes and asks for her hand.

Not long after, a suitor appeared.

And as he appeared to be very rich, and the miller could see nothing in him with which to find fault, he betrothed his daughter to him, but the girl did not care for the man, as a girl ought to care for her betrothed husband.

She did not feel that she could trust him, and she could not look at him nor think of him without an inward shudder.

One day he said to her, you have not yet paid me a visit, although we've been betrothed for some time.

I do not know where your house is, she answered.

My house is out there in the dark forest, he said.

She tried to excuse herself by saying that she would not be able to find the way.

Thither her betrothed only replied, you must come and see me next Sunday.

I've already invited guests for that day, and that you may not mistake the way.

I will strew ashes along the path.

When Sunday came and it was time for the girl to start, a feeling of dread came over her which she could not explain, and that she might be able to find her path again.

She filled her pockets with peas and lentils to sprinkle on the ground as she went along.

On reaching the entrance to the forest, she found the path strewn with ashes, and these she followed, throwing down some peas on either side of her at every step she took.

She walked the whole day until she came to the deepest, darkest part of the forest.

There she saw a lonely house, looking so grim and mysterious that it did not please her at all.

She stepped inside, but not a soul was to be seen, and a great silence reigned throughout.

Suddenly a voice cried, turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, linger not in this murderer's lair.

The girl looked up and saw that the voice came from a bird hanging in a cage on the wall.

Again it cried, turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, linger not in this murderer's lair.

The girl passed on, going from room to room of the house, but they were all empty, and still she saw no one.

At last she came to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman who could not keep her head from shaking.

Can you tell me, asked the girl, if my betrothed husband lives here?

You poor child, answered the old woman, what a place for you to come to.

This is a murderer's den.

You think yourself a promised bride and that your marriage will soon take place, but it is with death that you will keep your marriage feast.

Look.

Do you see that large cauldron of water which I'm obliged to keep on the fire?

As soon as they have you in their power, they will kill you without mercy and cook you and eat you, for they are eaters of men.

If I do not take pity on you and save you, you would be lost.

Thereupon the old woman led her behind a large cask which quite hid her from view.

Keep as still as a mouse, she said.

Do not move or speak, or it will be all over with you.

Tonight, when the robbers are all asleep.

We will flee together.

I have long been waiting for an opportunity to escape.

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the Godless crew returned, dragging another young girl along with them.

They were all drunk and paid no heed to her cries and lamentations.

They gave her wine to drink three glasses full, one of white wine, one of red and one of yellow.

And with that her heart gave way and she died.

Then they tore off her dainty clothing, laid her on a table and cut her beautiful body into pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.

The poor betrothed girl crouched, trembling and shuddering behind the cask for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by the robbers.

One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on the little finger of the murdered girl and as he could not draw it off easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger.

But the finger sprang into the air and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was hiding there.

The robber took a light and began looking for it, but he could not find it.

Have you looked behind the large cask?

Said one of the others.

But the old woman called out come.

And eat your suppers and let the thing be till tomorrow the finger won't run away.

The old woman is right, said the robbers, and they ceased looking for the finger and sat down.

The old woman then mixed a sleeping draught with their wine and before long they were all lying on the floor of the cellar, fast asleep and snoring.

As soon as the girl was assured of this, she came from behind the cask.

She was obliged to step over the bodies of the sleepers who were lying close together and every moment she was filled with renewed dread, lest she should awaken them.

But God helped her so that she passed safely over them.

And then she and the old woman went upstairs, opened the door and hastened as fast as they could.

From the murderer's den.

They found the ashes scattered by the wind but the peas and lentils had sprouted and grown sufficiently above the ground to guide them in the moonlight along the path.

All night long they walked, and it was morning before they reached the mill.

Then the girl told her father all that had happened.

The day came that had been fixed for the marriage.

The bridegroom arrived and also a large company of guests for the miller had taken care to invite all his friends and relations as they sat at the feast.

Each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale.

The bride sat still and did not say a word.

And you, my love, said the bridegroom, turning to her, is there no tale you know?

Tell us something.

I will tell you a dream then, said the bride, I went alone through a forest, and came at last to a house.

Not a soul could I find within, but a bird that was hanging in a cage on the wall cried, Turn back, turn back.

Young maiden fair, linger not in this murderer's lair.

And again a second time, it said these words my darling, this is only a dream.

I went on through the house from room to room, but they were all empty, and everything was so grim and mysterious.

At last I went down to the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman who could not keep her head still.

I asked her if my betrothed lived there, and she answered, ah, you poor child.

You are come to a murderer's den.

Your betrothed does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterwards cook and eat you.

My darling, this is only a dream.

The old woman hid me behind a large cask, and scarcely had she done this.

When the robbers returned home, dragging a young girl along with them, they gave her three kinds of wine to drink white, red and yellow.

And with that she died.

My darling, this is only a dream.

Then they tore off her dainty clothing and cut her beautiful body into pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.

My darling, this is only a dream.

And one of the robbers saw that there was a gold ring still left on her finger, and as it was difficult to draw off, he took a hatchet and cut off her finger.

But the finger sprang into the air and fell behind a great cask into my lap.

And here is the finger with the ring.

And with these words, the bride drew forth the finger and showed it to the assembled guests.

The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and tried to escape.

But the guests seized him and held him fast.

They delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were condemned to death for their wicked deeds.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.