Series / The Storyteller

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One of Jim Henson's hidden gems, The Storyteller featured an enigmatic Trickster Mentor and his pet dog, sharing European folk tales with the audience. Wittily told with clever narration and artful animatronics, this short-lived series (thirteen episodes total) remains the best-kept secret of Henson's history.

The first set of nine episodes featured John Hurt as the Storyteller and Brian Henson voicing the Dog. Set in a vaguely 16th Century European world, the tales told were rather obscure by American standards not always having the standard "happy ending" modern audiences are accustomed to, and much more mature and darker then what most kids read. The duo were always sitting comfortably by the fire, while the Dog would function as a Greek Chorus asking questions and making snarky comments.

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A follow-up, The Storyteller: Greek Myths, featured a different Storyteller played by Michael Gambon, but with the same Dog, and more well-known tales. Set in Ancient Greece, roughly a thousand years after Theseus killed the Minotaur, this Storyteller is a more dubious character, having come to the Isle of Crete to rob the dead, or as he puts it, "exchange their coins for smaller valuables". He and the Dog ended up being chased into the Labyrinth by the angry locals. Now trapped, the two wander for an exit, and the Storyteller is reminded of the ancient myths by the artifacts he finds scattered across the Labyrinth, such as Orpheus' lyre and a bust of Daedalus. This incarnation was a Mini Series that was four episodes long, and unlike the first series, had a definite beginning and end.

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Since the end of the show further stories have been released in comic form. A graphic novel with nine stories (one of which, "The Witch Baby", adapted an unproduced series script) came out in September 2011 by Archaia Entertainment. A four issue mini-series entitled The StoryTeller: Witches was also released by the same company in 2014 and likewise adapted an unproduced script ("Vasilissa the Beautiful"). That was followed by up by seven further four issue mini-series', each themed around a different class of mythical being, including:

• The Storyteller: Dragons (2015-2016)
• The Storyteller: Giants (2016-2017)
• The Storyteller: Fairies (2017-2018)
• The Storyteller: Sirens (2019)
• The Storyteller: Ghosts (2020)
• The Storyteller: Tricksters (2021)
• The Storyteller: Shapeshifters (2022)

In 2019, it was announced that Neil Gaiman would write a revival of the series. Incorporating more serialized elements in the framing story, the new series would explore more of the Storyteller's origins and place him in a northern kingdom where stories have become forbidden. This seems to have entered Development Hell.

In the U.S., NBC didn't run the whole first series initially, so The Jim Henson Hour used the unaired stories as the second half of several episodes. Greek Myths didn't air in the U.S. at all until HBO picked both series up at the end of The '90s!

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Tropes used in this series:

• Abusive Parents: The troll in "The True Bride" is one to Anja, giving her difficult tasks with unreasonable time constraints and physically beating her with "the contradiction stick." His death is given much celebration.
• Accidental Murder: Daedalus murders his nephew Talos in a brief fit of insanity, fueled by jealously and anger over his wishes that Icarus was more like him.
• Accidental Proposal: In "Sapsorrow," a king needing a new wife proclaims that whichever woman's finger fits the late queen's ring will become his bride. His youngest daughter Sapsorrow comes upon her older sisters trying to put on the ring, and when they drop it, she picks it up and slips it on her own finger for safekeeping. When her father arrives and sees that the ring fits her perfectly, the law obligates him to marry her, forcing Sapsorrow to flee the kingdom to avoid marrying her own father.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The king in "Sapsorrow", unlike the one in similar versions of the tale (such as Perrault's "Donkeyskin" or Robin McKinley's novel Deerskin), does not lust after his daughter. He has no desire to marry her, nor she him, but their hands are tied: the law of the land dictates that a woman whom the royal wedding ring fits can and must marry the king.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In most tellings of "Orpheus and Eurydice", Hades is touched by Orpheus' music and grants his request to bring Eurydice back. Here, Hades is unmoved by the music and it takes Persephone groveling at his feet to get him to acquiesce. Also, Persephone seems depressed in her marriage to Hades, while most versions of the mythology have them as one of the few genuinely happy relationships among the gods.
• Adapted Out: The king and the princess from The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was are omitted from Fearnot. Instead of being sent into the haunted castle with the promise of marriage to a princess if he can survive its horrors, Fearnot is taken there by the Canon Foreigner Mr. McKay, who agrees to teach the boy what fear is in exchange for money, and in the end, he marries Lidia, his sweetheart from his village.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Describing the Thought Lion's movement in "The True Bride":
  Storyteller: Huge strides, impossible speeds, over cliff and cavern, crevasse and chasm, cave and canyon, helter-skelter...
• Affably Evil: The Cook in "The Luck Child". Despite being the self-confessed "nastiest" of a band of thieves who claims he would happily slit a sleeping boy's throat, he takes pity on Lucky when he learns of what the evil king tries to do to him, and helps him out several times with a sanguine attitude and lovable charm.
• Always Chaotic Evil: In "The True Bride", trolls are said to be this, unable to stand even each other.
• Ambiguously Human: The Storyteller himself. While there's nothing explicitly saying that he isn't human, his ears and nose, combined with his overall demeanor, give the impression that he might be some kind of fae.
• Anthology: Each episode is a self-contained story. The unifying elements are the similar settings (Medieval Europe or Ancient Greece, depending on the series), and the duo of the Storyteller and the dog.
• Arc Number: "The Three Ravens" has 3 as its primary number: 3 of the king's four children turn into ravens. To turn them back, the fourth must remain silent for 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. Over that time, she gives birth to 3 sons, all of whom go missing. Also Played for Laughs at the end, as she breaks her silence 3 minutes too soon, resulting in her youngest brother's left arm remaining a raven's wing forever. Not that he minds.
• The Atoner: The princess in "Hans, My Hedgehog" decides to wander the Earth to find Hans, doing so in penance for breaking her promise.
• A Year and a Day: In "Hans, My Hedgehog," when the king promises Hans the first thing to greet him when he returns to his kingdom, Hans says that he'll collect his reward after this amount of time. The king agrees, as he thinks that the first thing to greet him will be his dog, as he always does. Unfortunately, fate has a different plan in store for him, and it's not his dog who greets him, but his daughter.
• Barred from the Afterlife: In "The Soldier and Death", a soldier becomes Enemies with Death by trapping it in a magic sack and hanging it from a tall tree. Because of this, Death is too afraid to claim him when it's released, Heaven wouldn't take him for his sins, and Hell was afraid he'd take over.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In "The Luck Child", the Storyteller describes the setting (implied to be Russia) as "ruled by two cold hearts". The first is the cruel, greedy, and tyrannical king, and the second is the Griffon, a rampaging monster with a taste for human flesh.
• Big Damn Heroes: In "The Three Ravens," the witch is about to burn the princess at the stake, but her brothers fly up and begin attacking the witch, causing the witch to drop the torch and accidentally light herself on fire.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The witch in "The Three Ravens".
• Blessed with Suck: The soldier in "The Soldier and Death" becomes immortal because Death is too afraid to come near him. As time passes, he discovers the drawbacks of this situation.
• Bookends: The first chronological episode of the Greek Myths series was "Theseus and the Minotaur", in which the Storyteller and the Dog are chased into the Labyrinth and the Storyteller tells how the Minotaur was defeated. The last was "Daedalus and Icarus", in which the Storyteller tells how the Labyrinth was created, and the Storyteller and the Dog manage to trigger a secret exit and escape.
• Born Lucky: Lucky from, well, "The Luck Child". He survives being thrown off a cliff as an infant, an oblivious suicide mission results in his marriage to the princess, and he manages (with some assistance) to grab a golden feather from the man-eating Griffon. The Storyteller even goes into detail about the idea before beginning the story properly.
  Storyteller: (as he puts his hands over a candle flame, then walks over to his chair, keeping his hands together) Sometimes people are born lucky. You imagine that if they open their hands, there'd be a little piece of sunshine. (he opens his hands, and a glow starts to come from within) A personal piece. It lights them up. Everyone loves these people. They're lit up. (he blows the glow out) Cats sit on their laps.
  Dog: What!
  Storyteller: It's luck. It's a gift. It's a blessing, and therefore can't be undone. (he dramatically leans in close to the audience) This is also true of prophecies.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • The Dog often interjects and interrupts stories that he finds disagreeable. In "Sapsorrow", he even argues with the stepsisters, appearing in the scene alongside them.
  • He does it again in "The Heartless Giant," appearing in the scene where Leo seemingly loses the egg acting as the giant's heart down the well. (The other characters are never shown to notice or interact with him, so it could be closer to projecting himself into the visuals only.)
  • Perhaps most notably, in "Hans, My Hedgehog," he thinks the Storyteller is telling the story incorrectly and takes over telling the story for a short time.
  • The Storyteller himself appears in "Hans, My Hedgehog" to read Tarot for the king, something that doesn't otherwise happen except in "A Story Short". He smiles at the camera and assures the audience that he's very good at this. (He and his tarot reading abilities would have also appeared in-story in "The Witch Baby" had it been filmed.)
• British Brevity: Technically the co-producing companies were British and American, but it definitely counts: One season of 9 episodes, and one season of 4 episodes, and Jim Henson regarded it as his artistic masterpiece.
  • The series was originally supposed to have a full season. Its short run (and limited scheduling over three years) was due to how expensive it was to produce.
• Character Witness: In "A Story Short", the Storyteller is helped out of his predicament by a beggar he aided.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: During the card game in "The Soldier and Death":
  Devil #1: Is he cheating?
  Devil #2: Well I am, and I'm still losing!
  Devil #3: Me too.
• Chekhov's Boomerang:
  • The bottomless pit in "The True Bride" is a downplayed example. It only comes up twice, but it kills both the troll and the trollop.
  • The magic sack in "The Soldier and Death", which has the power to entrap any creature inside of itself if its current owner says something along the lines of "Get in the sack!" A beggar gives the titular soldier the sack in exchange for the last of his biscuits, and the soldier uses it to catch a goose to eat at a nearby inn, a devil in the abandoned castle so he can ask a favor later, and later Death itself to save the Tsar's life. When Death is released from the sack and flees from him, he tries to convince a Heaven-bound soul to say "Get in the sack!" to him once on the other side, but it never does because there is apparently no memory of mortal life in Heaven.
• Darker and Edgier: Greek Myths definitely has a darker tone than the fairy tales. Then again, they are Greek myths.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Storyteller himself is the main character of "A Story Short". Aside from a bit part in "Hans, My Hedgehog", he doesn't directly appear in any other stories.
• Deadpan Snarker: The Dog in the original, especially when heckling The Storyteller. Greek Myths made him more of a hyperactive Audience Surrogate, but he still had his moments.
• Deal with the Devil: Repeatedly in "The Soldier and Death", and with a rather unusual spin on it each time. Firstly, the Soldier offers to play the devils in a game of cards, secretly using his enchanted deck of cards to cheat his way to total victory and win their entire set of coffers — 40 barrels full of golden coins. When the angry devils threaten to eat him, he instead traps them all in his magical sack, bashing them furiously against the walls and floor until they swear to leave the land and never return. But he catches the slowest devil and demands his promise of service, before breaking off the devil's hoof as a reminder of his oath. Years later, when his son takes ill, he remembers his devilish servant and calls him forth; when the devil uses an enchanted crystal goblet full of magical water to heal the Soldier's son, the Soldier gives the devil back his hoof and releases him from his promise in exchange for the goblet with its water. Finally, after becoming Enemies with Death and tiring of life, the Soldier attempts to give himself to Hell, only to find the devils refuse to take him. So he takes advantage of their fear to demand a map showing him how to walk to Heaven and 200 souls freed from their torments, in hopes that this will make the angels let him in.
• Death by Adaptation: "Daedalus and Icarus" sees Daedalus murder his nephew Talos, jealous that the boy has more talent than his own son. In the early myths, Talos is rescued by Athena and transformed into a patridge, but he actually dies here. A bird is later seen mocking Daedalus for the crime, possibly in reference to this.
• Death Takes a Holiday: "The Soldier and Death", although it's not so much taking a holiday as it is being trapped in an enchanted sack.
• Delusions of Eloquence: In "The True Bride", both the Troll and his daughter the Trollop speak in a strange manner, with word choices that suggest they don't quite know the meanings of all the words they're using. The Storyteller even lampshades this by saying that trolls are always contradicting themselves.
• Determinator: The princess in "Hans, My Hedgehog" wanders the Earth to the point where she wears three pairs of iron shoes down to nothing, and her hair turns snow white.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "The Soldier and Death", the soldier attempts to trick his way into Heaven by handing his magic sack to one of the souls waiting to enter, asking the soul to call him into the sack once he is within Heaven. However, the Storyteller reveals that all souls who enter Heaven lose all memory of their mortal lives, so the soul has no idea why he has a sack or what he's supposed to do with it. As such, the soldier remains Barred from the Afterlife and left to wander the earth without his magic sack.
• Dissonant Serenity: In "Daedalus and Icarus", the title characters have been thrown into the Labyrinth. While Icarus is scared out of his wits that he'll be eaten by the Minotaur, Daedalus isn't scared in the least, calmly counting the steps to the secret exit.
• A Dog Named "Dog": When the dog was interviewed for Muppet Magazine, it was revealed that his name is Dog.
  • In "Sapsorrow", when one of the bad sisters attempts to marry the prince and appears to fit the slipper, she says to call her "Princess Badsister."
• Double Meaning: "The True Bride" uses the word "trollop" as a term for a female troll, but it's also a somewhat antiquated British insult for a promiscuous woman, which fits the Trollop's desire to collect handsome men.
• Downer Ending: "The Soldier and Death", and all of the Greek Myths, except that of Perseus.
• The Dreaded: The Soldier is able to strike fear into any demon, as well as Death itself. Unfortunately, this comes back to bite him when Death refuses to take him out of its fear, and the demons deny him access to Hell (as well the fact that he was too sinful to be allowed into Heaven) when he grows tired of living.
• Easily Forgiven: Sapsorrow's prince, even though forced her to kill and cook her animal friends.
• Elective Mute: The princess from "The Three Ravens" must remain silent for three years, three months, three weeks, and three days in order to free her brothers from their curse; she's not even allowed to write.
• Empty Shell: Daedelus is shown as one of these at the end of his story, spending all his time making toys based upon his lost son Icarus.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Two examples.
  • "The Luck Child": When Lucky is sent to the palace with a letter from the evil king, he falls into a Thieves' Cave. The little man there, self-proclaimed "the nastiest", drugs him with tainted goulash and plans to rob and kill him. Then he reads the letter from the king, which commands that the Queen orders Lucky to be chopped into a thousand pieces as soon as she reads it. Disgusted, the little man forges a new letter that instead commands Lucky to marry the princess, and leaves the boy to wake up at the edge of the forest with the palace in sight.
  • "The Heartless Giant": The eponymous giant tricks Prince Leo into letting him escape the dungeon, and proceeds to go on a rampage throughout the kingdom as soon as he's loose. However, he conspicuously never harms Leo and is actually quite friendly to him, even as he knows that the prince is trying to kill him to undo his mistake. Much like the similarly heartless Davy Jones of Pirates of the Caribbean, the giant embodies the Tin Man trope and is presented sympathetically.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Though in this case the trope is utilized in a way that is far faithful to the mythology than most examples. In "Orpheus and Eurydice" Hades is portrayed as cruel and pitiless, totally unmoved by Orpheus' song. Though while he revels in being feared, he isn't going out of his way to be evil as keeping people dead is his job. He also loves his wife Persephone; though the episode does point out Hades' kidnapping and shows Perspehone likely hates her own husband, when she gets on her knees to beg Hades to give Orpheus Eurydice, Hades' doesn't even hesitate to give into her request.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Prince Leo from "The Heartless Giant". He lets the imprisoned Giant escape, and the latter goes right back to rampaging and even petrifies his brothers, destroying his innocence and naivety.
• Fearless Fool: Fearnot, who is portrayed as rather naïve and frankly a little stupid in addition to being fearless, so he sets out on a quest to find out what fear is.
• Forced Transformation:
  • In "A Story Short", the other beggar turns the Storyteller into a hare, and then a flea, after winning him in a bet.
  • The witch does this to the three princes in "The Three Ravens". Their sister must become an Elective Mute for three years, three months, three weeks and three days in order to break the curse.
• For the Evulz: The pond sprite from "Fearnot" doesn't have a reason for drowning his victims; it's just what he does.
  Pond Sprite: ...And I drown them.
  Fearnot: Why?
  Pond Sprite: Because!
• Framing Device:
  • In the original series, the Storyteller is sitting by the fire with his Dog as he tells each story.
  • In the "Greek Myth" series is more elaborate, the Storyteller is trapped in the Labyrinth for robbing the dead, and in between telling myths, he keeps searching for a way out.
• Friend to All Living Things: Sapsorrow, from the episode of the same name.
• Grimmification: Averted; the stories are about as dark as their un-bowdlerized originals, and neither add nor subtract grimness.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: Twice in "Sapsorrow" - first a ring, which starts the trouble, and later, the iconic slipper which resolves it.
• Greek Chorus: Occasionally, the Dog will pipe in with sarcasm, observations, and banter with the Storyteller.
• Happily Ever After: For many stories in the first series.
• Honorary Princess: In The True Bride, Anja was a poor orphan essentially enslaved by an abusive troll. When the Thought Lion appears to help her fulfill the troll's impossible demands, the last one he grants is to build a castle in one day, including a room with a bottomless pit that the troll falls into. Now free, Anja lives in the castle, where she is provided everything she needs (nice dresses, food, servants) and is considered a princess by the neighborhood, to the point that princes travel to woo her.
• "How I Wrote This Article" Article: In "A Story Short", the Storyteller is forced to tell a new story every day for a year after toying with the royal chef. On the last day, due to an outlandish series of events, he doesn't have time to think up a new story, so he tells the story of why he couldn't.
• Hulk Speak: The Griffon from "The Luck Child". It also shrieks and uses onomatopoeia in an almost comical way. It's interesting to gauge the reaction small children have to it, given that its speech patterns resemble their own and are vaguely lovable, but the creature itself is still Nightmare Fuel.
• Idiot Hero: "Fearnot" from the story of the same name, who has no idea what fear is and gets into some incredibly stupid situations to try and find out just what it is, triumphing by dumb luck.
• Improbable Infant Survival:
  • Played with in "The Three Ravens". The witch tries to have all of the princess' infant children killed, but they are rescued by her brothers, who she cursed into ravens.
  • Played mostly straight in "The Luck Child". At the beginning of the story, the evil king throws baby Lucky off a cliff and into the raging sea below, but the child's blanket snags on a branch on the way down, unraveling and dropping baby Lucky safely on the soft sand, where he's found by a peasant couple. Like many other developments in the story, this is attributed to the boy having supernaturally good luck.
• Insistent Terminology: The griffon from "The Luck Child" insists that it is a bird.
• Karma Houdini: In "The Luck Child," the monstrous man-eating griffon goes undefeated, suffering only the loss of one of its golden feathers, which it doesn't even notice.
• Karmic Trickster: The Beggar from "A Story Short". He turns up to torment the cook (because he's an asshole) and the Storyteller (because he helped him at the beginning of the story, and all that grief made for a fantastic story on a day when the Storyteller was facing execution for not having a story to tell).
• Killed Offscreen: In "The Luck Child," when Lucky falls into a Thieves' Cave, the little man there mentions that his barbarian sisters that would kill him if he was there when they got home. Later, when Lucky finds him in the griffon's castle, he mentions that his sisters are there too, though it's hard to say exactly where... while nudging a nearby skull with his foot.
• Large Ham: The narrator of Greek Myths. The original Storyteller also has his moments, but not as many.
• Leitmotif: Each episode gave their respective protagonists one. A standout example is the ruby-esque whistling (to paraphrase the titular Storyteller) from "The Soldier and Death," which is used both out-of-universe in the musical score and in-universe as the titular soldier's Character Tic.
• Lemony Narrator: While the Storyteller of the original will usually tell the story normally, he occasionally delves into this territory when responding to the Dog, or when he's getting into the more intense moments of the stories. Like this moment from "The Soldier and Death":
  Storyteller: "Death, a prisoner." The news went from one of the Tsar's 50 wives to the other, spread through the town as fast as gossip, which is what it was and nothing travels faster. And within four and a half minutes, the whole town knew. And within seventeen minutes, the whole country knew. And by the following morning, it was the talking point of a thousand languages! "Death, a prisoner!" "Muerte, un prisionare!" "Tot, ein Gefangener!" "Smierz uns Nize!" (Beat) I've forgotten the Greek...
  Dog: Ed mellitistone fon Thanatos.
  Storyteller: (as if saying "that's it, thank you") Exactly.
• Made a Slave: After her parents died, Anya from The True Bride was taken in by the Troll to be his slave. Later, after she is free and becomes a princess, her husband is brainwashed and taken in by the Troll's daughter, the Trollop. According to a village woman Anya talks to, she likes to collect handsome men and keep them as ornaments, or rather, "ornamen".
• Malicious Slander: Rather subtly done in "The Three Ravens", when the witch leads people to the conclusion that the princess killed her own babies, largely by planting seeds of doubt. In reality, she was the culprit.
• Music Soothes the Savage Beast: In "Fearnot," the titular character is a fearless fool whose only skill is in playing the violin. This skill saves him from a terrible pond monster whose only goal in life is drowning people; enchanted by the music, the monster leaves his pond and travels to Ireland, where the song came from, much to the joy of everyone who lived near the pond.
• No Name Given: The Storyteller and his dog count, but across all nine of the original series stories, the number of characters that have names barely cracks double digits:
  • "Fearnot" has the most at 3: the title character, his sleazy but good-natured companion Mr. McKay, and his lover Lydia.
  • "Sapsorrow" has 2: the title character (who also goes by "Straggletag" for a time) and, barely counting, her wicked sister, Princess Badsister.
  • "Hans, My Hedgehog" has 2: the title character and Wagger, the royal dog who's only seen in shadow. The deuteragonist princess has a unique title (Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie) but not a name.
  • "The Heartless Giant" only has the protagonist, Prince Leo.
  • "The Luck Child" only has the title character, Lucky.
  • "The Soldier and Death" has Death.
  • "The True Bride" only has the title character, Anja.
  • "A Story Short" features the storyteller, his wife, the beggar, the cook, the king, the queen, and the prince. None of them have names.
  • "The Three Ravens" has the king, his deceased wife, his three sons, his daughter, the wicked witch, the prince, his father, and the princess's three sons. None of them have names.
• Not Quite Back to Normal: The dog points out that, despite the curse being broken, the princess in "The Three Ravens" wasn't able to stay quiet for the entire three years, three months, three weeks, and three days. The Storyteller confirms that she was off by three minutes, which resulted in her youngest brother still having a wing in place of an arm, but he also says that the kid saw no reason to complain.
• Not Staying for Breakfast: Theseus pulls this on Ariadne; tragedy results.
• The Oath-Breaker: Theseus promised his mother not to leave her side, his father to raise white sails rather than black if he survives his trip to Crete, and Ariadne to take her home with him if she helped him escape the labyrinth. He ends up breaking all three promises.
• Old Beggar Test: A lesson that the Storyteller learns in "A Story Short", alluded to before he begins telling the story:
  Storyteller: Yes...yesterday, I forgot a story. And that is why I went straight out and gave my supper to a beggar.
  Dog: Our supper.
  Storyteller: Now, of course, this will strike fools as foolish and wise men as wise. A fool eats his last potato, a wise man plants it. Apart from which, everyone knows beggars are never what they seem.
• Offing the Offspring: The heroine in "The Three Ravens" is accused of doing this by the witch who has become her new stepmother.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: John Hurt's Storyteller is always wearing a patchwork dressing gown.
• Parental Incest: The first half of the plot in "Sapsorrow" has the king trying to search for a bride, but he can only marry someone whose finger fits the royal wedding ring. After many failed suitors, Sapsorrow's wicked sisters try on the ring while nobody else is looking, not because they want to marry their father, but because they want to keep their inheritance. Sapsorrow gets dragged into the mess and the ring ends up on her own finger, where it fits perfectly. She, her father, and her sisters are horrified, but the law remains: incest or not, the woman whose finger fits the ring must marry the king. Sapsorrow disguises herself as Straggletag, a creature of fur and feathers, and leaves her kingdom to avoid this.
• The Prophecy: Rather common on the show. "Perseus and the Gorgon" even goes so far as to show the Oracle telling the plot-kicking prophecy to Acrisius.
• The Problem with Fighting Death: The soldier from "The Soldier and Death" isn't reaped by Death once he's freed it, and neither Heaven nor Hell will take him.
• Rags to Royalty: Several examples, including Anja in "The True Bride" and Lucky in "The Luck Child." Sapsorrow, in the episode of the same name, goes from royalty to rags to royalty again.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The Storyteller frequently does this during his narrations, so casually that you might not notice if you're not looking for it.
• Robbing the Dead: Michael Gambon's Greek Storyteller does this in his first (chronological) episode "Theseus and the Minotaur", or as he puts it "exchanging their coins for smaller valuables" on the Isle of Crete. In Ancient Greece, this was seen as a grave offense, since the dead needed money to pay Charon the ferryman to cross the River Styx. He and the Dog get chased into the Labyrinth by angry locals, setting up the framing device.
• Rule of Three: Unsurprisingly, this one's all over the various fairy tales:
  • In "Hans, My Hedgehog", the princess must keep Hans' secret for three nights to break his curse. When she fails, he flees the castle and she goes looking for him by walking the Earth, wearing out the soles of three pairs of iron shoes before finally finding him.
  • In "The Luck Child", the king tries and fails to kill Lucky three times.
  • In "The Soldier and Death", the soldier meets three old beggars and gives each of them one of his three biscuits; each of them gives him something back, but it's the third beggar who gives him the magic deck of cards and the magic sack that get him through most of the story.
  • In "Sapsorrow", the eponymous princess buys time to make her "Straggletag" disguise by requesting three fabulous dresses, then later wears the dresses to three balls to dance with the prince before accidentally leaving her slipper behind.
  • In "The True Bride", the Thought Lion accomplishes three of the troll's impossible tasks for Anja before killing him, and gives Anja three gifts, with which she bargains with the trollop for three nights with her betrothed.
  • In "The Three Ravens", the princess is forbidden to speak for three years, three months, three weeks and three days to save her three brothers from a curse. This becomes a lot more difficult when she is accused of murdering her three infant children. And she speaks too soon by three minutes, so her youngest brother keeps a wing.
• Sadistic Choice: The princess in "The Three Ravens" must not say a word for three years, three months, three weeks, and three days, or else her brothers will remain cursed as ravens forever. As hard as that is at first, it gets even worse when she learns that her new beau's stepmother is the same witch that cursed her brothers and murdered her father. If she tries to warn anyone, her brothers will suffer, but if she keeps quiet (as she tries to do), her new loved ones (including her own children) will suffer and she'll get the blame for it.
• Scheherezade Gambit: "A Story Short" has the Storyteller himself challenged to give the king a new story every day for a year, with food, lodging, and a gold piece for every day he succeeds, and death by boiling oil if he fails. It's only on the final day that he finally runs out of stories, but a friendly beggar he helped get fed in the opening act gives him a fantastic dream vision for a final story.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In "The Luck Child", the reason the king wants to kill Lucky is because of a prophecy that signifies the Luck Child will someday take his throne. His attempts to have Lucky circumspectly killed result in this happening.
• Shirtless Scene: True to their many famous sculptures (or at least as true as you can get without pissing the censors off), Perseus and Theseus get at least one in their respective Greek Myths episodes. Also true to the sculptures, their physiques aren't too shabby either. Also briefly applies to the three brothers in "The Three Ravens", as they're changing into their cursed shirts.
• Small Reference Pools: This series uses this trope to its advantage by dramatizing only obscure fairy tales. Greek Myths, less so, since most of the tales they covered are relatively well-known among Mythology enthusiasts.
• Sore Loser: The devils in "The Soldier and Death". After the Soldier beats them in cards, they decide to attack him. Luckily, the Soldier uses his magic sack to subdue them.
• Spin-Off: The Storyteller: Greek Myths.
• Stone Soup: Appears in "A Story Short", but with the Broken Aesop that rather than learning the value of cooperation, the cook is infuriated at being deceived and humiliated, and demands that the soup makers be executed for theft. In the end, though, he changes his ways.
• The Storyteller: Our narrators, and the main characters of the series. Such an archetypical example that they're never given any name at all. John Hurt's Storyteller tells stories to his dog in a dilapidated house by a roaring fire, while Michael Gambon's Storyteller wanders around the Labyrinth of Minos as the Framing Device for the stories within the episodes. John Hurt's Storyteller appears in two stories directly, the first being "Hans, My Hedgehog", where he poses as a fortuneteller and gets thrown in the dugeon for offending the king with his fortune, only to be pardoned in celebration of the princess' wedding. The second is his Day in the Limelight episode "A Story Short", where he becomes a royal storyteller, but runs out of stories before the last story mandated by his agreement with the King.
• Story Arc: The framing device for "The Greek Myths". The Storyteller and the Dog have been chased into Labyrinth for robbing the dead, and they spend their time trying to find a way out. They do at the end of Daedalus and Icarus.
• Sympathy for the Hero: The thief who goes in to kill Lucky in "The Luck Child" genuinely feels sorry for what the child will suffer should the king's orders be carried out, so he changes them.
• Taken for Granite:
  • The eponymous "Heartless Giant" turns Leo's brothers to stone, along with several others. When they are freed, it's revealed that they were alive and conscious the whole time, forced to witness the giant's crimes. It's a factor in their decision to kill the Giant by destroying his heart, despite Leo's conviction that the giant would turn good if his heart was restored.
  • Used for good in the myth of Perseus, who uses Medusa's severed head to petrify Atlas, allowing him to hold up the sky without straining. Then used for revenge against the king.
• Til Murder Do Us Part: In "The Three Ravens", after the witch curses the princes into ravens and the princess flees, the King's fear and grief overpower the love enchantment she cast on him. Annoyed, she kills him and starts over with a different king, whose only son is already an adult.
• Tin Man: The title character of "The Heartless Giant" claims to be "heartless", but he shows plenty of emotion and even falls into Even Evil Has Standards.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Fearnot's lack of fear also seems to make him extremely foolish. However, this also means that when the village bullies pretend to be a "wordle" (a creature they claim is twice as bad as a troll), or when Mr. McKay tries to con/mug him, he totally misses what's going on and therefore cannot be tricked.
• Tragic Monster: The Minotaur in "Theseus and the Minotaur" is portrayed as one, with much more focus on his human side than his animal side.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: The story of Daedalus has this message. After causing the deaths of his son and nephew, Daedalus tries to live a good life, but the attempts are sabotaged by King Minos. Daedalus later takes a terrible form of revenge on Minos, but in doing so, he realizes that he's destroyed any chance of happiness or being a good person, and is totally emotionally broken.
• Villainous BSoD: The "heartless" giant.
• Visual Pun: Death Takes a Holiday, because they've been sacked.
• Waistcoat of Style: John Hurt's Storyteller wears a nice red one under his dressing gown.
• Wandering Jew: At the end of "The Soldier and Death", the soldier has been Barred from the Afterlife, since Death refuses to claim him, Heaven will not take him because of his sins, and Hell will not take him for fear that he will take over. After he attempts and fails to trick his way into Heaven, the soldier is left to walk the earth for all eternity.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: The titular soldier from "The Soldier and Death" captures Death in a magic sack, and is convinced to set it free after seeing elderly men and women in the streets, waiting for a peaceful death that will never come. The only problem with this is that Death is so traumatized from being trapped in the sack that it refuses to come near the soldier. Afterwards, both Heaven and Hell refuse to accept him after he gets sick of life.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Though he won't admit it, Daedalus wishes that the slow and clumsy Icarus was more like his cousin Talos instead.
• Wicked Stepmother: Twice over in "The Three Ravens". The same witch becomes the evil stepmother to the princess, and later to her husband.
• Win-Win Ending: Downplayed in "Sapsorrow". The titular princess is about to marry the prince, but the stepsisters mention that their father died, so the law that originally forced Sapsorrow marry him is no longer in effect, and although neither of them gets to marry the prince, considering they both were worried that they would lose their inheritance if their father got remarried, his passing (with no mention that he managed to marry somebody else) means that they would have gotten whatever inheritance they were entitled to.
• Wonder Child: "Hans, My Hedgehog".
• You Can't Fight Fate: Perseus was prophesied to kill his grandfather. Despite everything the man does to prevent this, Perseus bears him no ill will and has no desire to fulfill the prophecy. It still happens in the end, purely by accident.
• You No Take Candle:
  • The Griffon in "The Luck Child".
  • In "The True Bride", the Troll and the Trollop speak in a mix of this and Delusions of Eloquence.

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