Eager to get his children to stop fighting, a father tells them a story about dragons and kings; things take a disappointing turn when the children realize that their father doesn't know the end of his own story.

Year after year, villagers visit a well in the night to pay the gentleman who lives there a penny and wish for food, revenge, or familial bliss. And while the gentleman in the well may grant each villager their wish, he also tends to take more than just a penny from each who pay him a visit.

An eerie description of characteristic fairy tale elements and how they are embodied in characters.

A father tells a story about his deceased wife and the wild traditions they used to have involving alcohol as well as the disapproval his mother-in-law had about their relationship.

When a village's beloved schoolteacher disappears just as mysteriously as she arrived an entire century earlier, the townspeople are left to contend with her legacy and lessons.

When a strange boy arrives in her small town of Little Nova to live with the local Hmong shaman, a young girl thinks she might finally have a friend to confide in. After the boy gets a mysterious illness and other inexplicable things start to happen around them, the girl isn't so sure the stories she was told as a child are just stories after all.

A woman tells a story about a fox who, to great consequences, raises a human child.

In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

After her grandmother—her last living relative—dies, a poor young Chinese girl in a small village that treats her cruelly finds hope in a unique flower. Ultimately, her deepest untold desires are granted.

A young girl spends her summer mostly alone, weaving in and out of the townspeople's lives and fantasizing about princesses and fairy godmothers