Secrets

Stories with the Secrets theme:

• The King with the Horse’s Ears Aug 13, 2025

  

  There was once a king whose ears were the ears of a horse. They were not ugly as such things go, but they were unmistakable, and the king—being vain as a magpie—hid them beneath a velvet cap and commanded that none should speak of them on pain of silence forever.

  Each spring, the hair beneath the cap grew hot and restive, and the king needed a barber with careful hands. That year they chose young Donnchadh, a barber whose razors were kind and whose eyes knew how to look away.

• The Fairy Midwife Aug 11, 2025

  

  In the green hills of County Cork, where the mist rises from the valleys at dawn and ancient stone circles mark the places where the old gods once walked, there lived a midwife whose skill was renowned throughout the land. Bridget O’Brien was her name, and it was said that no woman ever lost a child under her care, and no mother ever failed to recover from even the most difficult birth. But what the people did not know was that Bridget’s greatest skill lay not in the mortal world, but in attending births that took place beyond the veil that separates our realm from the land of the fairies.