While on their way to Bremen, four aging animals who are no longer of any use to their masters find a new home after outwitting a gang of robbers.

In "Rumpelstiltskin" a miller's careless boast that his clever daughter can "spin gold from straw" is forced by the king to make good on this claim. A little man arrives to help the miller's daughter in exchange for her firstborn child. When the daughter, who by now is the queen, gives birth to a child, the little man comes to collect. He agrees to release the queen from her promise if she can learn the imp's name. According to researchers at Durham...