“You can’t go,” said the animals.
“You are too small and you are far too slow.”

The rains have stopped falling, so all the animals are hungry, and they don’t know how to wake the magical tree which would feed them all. Surely the brave lion or huge elephant or clever chimpanzees will save them. Why would they need the help of a small slow tortoise?

A merchant finds a beautiful bright stripy tiger trapped in a pit, and helps the tiger out. Then the tiger tries to eat him. Is that fair? They can’t agree, so they ask lots of other animals (and plants) whether it’s fair to repay a good deed with a bad one.

This is a story about a hungry wolf and a clever lamb, built from many of my favourite trickster tales about small weak edible animals escaping from the jaws of bigger stronger dafter predators.

A little girl in the forest is tricked and trapped by a big furry animal. But this isn’t Red Riding Hood. Masha meets a bear not a wolf, and the bear doesn’t want to eat Masha, he wants her to cook and clean for him.