Ririro.com - Short Stories

Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket finds Lucy Rose dreading her aunt's overstuffed hamper of homemade treats as they travel by train to spend Christmas with family. When a blizzard strands their train deep in the woods, the passengers — a wounded soldier, a struggling young mother, a lonely shop girl, and a cold sealskin lady — face a cheerless Christmas with no food and no celebration. What follows...

"The Philanthropist's Christmas" follows wealthy Mr. Carter, a man who channels his fortune into grand public causes while shutting out individual human need with practiced efficiency. On Christmas Eve, a walk through the city without his beloved lost terrier Skiddles leads him to an unexpected encounter: a cheerful boy hauling a tree to a bedridden child named Bill. When a familiar bark from behi...

"The Greatest Of These" is a Christmas short story set on the windswept Dakota frontier, where two bachelors — wry Charlie Moore and steady Nels — learn on Christmas Eve that their neighbours, the Roneys, cannot afford gifts for their seven children. Without hesitation, the two men load fifty bushels of their best wheat onto a sled and deliver it secretly in the dead of night, outwitting a furious...

"Mr. Bluff's Experiences Of Holidays" follows Bachelor Bluff, a man without family or festive circle, who dreads every holiday as a day of crushing loneliness. Dining alone at his club on Christmas, he spots a pale, wild-eyed girl pressing her hungry face against the window in the snow. That brief glimpse pulls him into the cold streets, a hamper of food, and a widow's home—and the bitter bachelor...

"How Christmas Came to the Santa Maria Flats" follows twenty-six children living in a grand apartment building whose strict lease forbids almost everything — and, worse, seems to block Santa Claus entirely. With no wide chimney and both front and back entrances guarded, the children grow quietly desperate as Christmas Eve approaches. Their shared dread binds them across floors and families, until...

"Christmas On Big Rattle" finds solitary trapper John Archer spending Christmas Eve at his remote wilderness camp, having spent two days dismantling his own traps out of seasonal compassion. His quiet night is shattered when Sacobie Bear, a Micmac man near death from cold and hunger, collapses through his door after a desperate trek from Fox Harbor. Archer revives him with brandy, feeds him bacon...

"Christmas In The Alley" follows old Ann, a tireless washerwoman who shelters destitute families in her alley tenement despite her own grinding poverty and her husband John's bitter complaints. On Christmas Eve, with no food in the house and a daughter without shoes, Ann faces her bleakest night yet. Unknown to her, a city missionary has told wealthy friends of her quiet sacrifices — and what arri...

"The Queerest Christmas" follows Betty Luther, a boarding-school girl left behind during the Christmas holidays after her family loses its money. Bracing herself for a day of loneliness and tears, Betty instead finds herself drawn into one act of helping after another — sewing dolls for a charity mission, writing verse for place cards, playing the organ at a moonlit Christmas Eve service, teaching...

"The Little Sister's Vacation" follows fifteen-year-old Peggy Brower through an exhausting Christmas week, as she cooks, tends babies, and misses church, sleigh rides, and her best friend's party while her grown siblings settle happily into the holiday. Her cheerful efficiency makes her invisible to nearly everyone — until her father notices the dark circles under her bright eyes. When Peggy final...

"The Juniper Tree" is one of the darkest fairy tales the Brothers Grimm ever recorded, following a young boy whose cruel stepmother kills him, dismembers his body, and feeds him to his unknowing father. His devoted little sister Marleen buries his bones beneath the magical juniper tree, from which he is reborn as a singing bird. The boy-bird haunts three craftsmen with his mournful song, collectin...

"The Silent Cavalier" tells the story of Jesus Maria, a young Flemish knight who follows a monk's cryptic prophecy across the sea to the volcanic island of Fayal in the Azores. There he falls hopelessly in love with a Portuguese settler's daughter named Ida — yet his sacred vow never to marry means he cannot speak a single word of his feelings. Torn between devotion and duty, he retreats to a herm...

"'Tis Faith Which Saves" is a Portuguese folk tale set on the island of Fayal, where a young woman lies gravely ill and begs her betrothed to fetch miracle-working relics from a sacred image on the nearby island of St. Michael. But the young man is distracted by a new love, returns empty-handed, and in desperation shaves splinters from the boat's wooden side to pass off as the holy relics. When hi...

"The Old Woman And The Knight" is a fairy tale set in the age of King Arthur, where a disgraced knight must answer a dangerous riddle to save his life: what do women desire most? With a year to find the answer and failure meaning death, he wanders desperately until a withered old hag offers him the solution — at a steep price. The knight must choose between honor and revulsion, and his wife forces...

"The Fair Unknown" follows a handsome young man who knows only the nickname his mother gave him — Beau-fys — when he rides to King Arthur's court seeking knighthood. Arthur dubs him Le Beau Disconus, the Fair Unknown, and sends him on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Lady of Synadown. Doubted at every turn by the sharp-tongued maiden Elene, the young knight must face a fearsome guardian of...

Havelok Wins Back His Kingdom follows Havelok, the rightful heir to Denmark's throne, as he struggles to reclaim what a treacherous earl stole from him. Guided by a prophetic light and an angel's voice, and aided by loyal allies including Grim's three sons, Havelok faces fierce thieves, suspicious lords, and armed enemies before his true identity is finally revealed. A parallel injustice unfolds i...

"Havelok Married Against His Will" follows Havelok, a prince raised in poverty by the fisherman Grim, who sends him to Lincoln to survive a famine. Working as a cook's servant, Havelok's extraordinary strength draws the attention of the scheming Earl Godrich, who sees a chance to sideline the rightful heiress Goldborough by marrying her to a mere kitchen hand. Under threat of death, both Havelok a...

The King of Suddenne follows Horn, a prince determined to reclaim his kingdom from the Saracens before he'll take Rimenhild as his bride. Refusing to accept her hand while his father's death goes unavenged and his birthright remains lost, Horn gathers loyal knights and sets sail for Suddenne. But even after victory in battle, a treacherous ally named Fikenhild abducts Rimenhild, forcing Horn into...

"How Pwyll Outwitted Gawl" is a Celtic legend in which Pwyll, a Welsh lord, spots a mysterious golden-clad woman on horseback who cannot be overtaken — until he asks her to stop for love's sake. She is Rhiannon, who has chosen him over a powerful rival named Gawl. When Gawl exploits Pwyll's rash promise to claim Rhiannon at a feast, Pwyll disguises himself as a beggar and lures his enemy into a ma...

"The Adventure Of The Lion" follows Owain, a disgraced knight who abandons civilisation after being publicly shamed for abandoning his wife, the Countess of the Fountain. Stripped of honour and dignity, he wanders wild mountains until a kind noblewoman restores him. Journeying onward, Owain saves a lion from a serpent — and the grateful beast becomes his fierce companion. When Owain discovers that...

Gawain's Adventure In Search Of Owain opens with King Arthur consumed by grief over the three-year disappearance of his knight Owain. Gawain convinces Arthur to ride out with his household to find him, guided by Kynon through a landscape of enchanted fountains, thunderstorms, and a fearless black knight who defeats every man in Arthur's retinue. Gawain himself rides out in disguise and battles the...

The Cricket on the Hearth is a fairy tale short story by Charles Dickens in which a cheerful cricket's chirping on the hearth of carrier John Peerybingle becomes the living heartbeat of his home. When the toy-merchant Tackleton plants seeds of suspicion about John's young wife Dot, the warmth of that humble hearth is thrown into shadow. Jealousy and grief war against years of tender devotion, whil...

The Chimes is a short story by Charles Dickens following Trotty Veck, an aging ticket-porter who shivers outside a church door waiting for work, finding companionship only in the bells above him. When pompous gentlemen convince him that the poor are born wicked and have no right to happiness, Trotty's spirit breaks — until the Chimes drag him into a ghostly vision of what awaits his beloved daught...

"At the 'Cadian Ball" draws readers into a single charged night on the Louisiana prairie, where desire and social order pull against each other. Bobinôt drags himself to a Cajun dance knowing Calixta — vivid, untameable, and impossible to forget — will be there. When the brooding planter Alcée Laballière arrives fresh from financial ruin, he and Calixta drift into the shadows together, leaving Bob...

"The Ransom of Red Chief" is a comic short story in which two small-time swindlers, Sam and Bill, kidnap a ten-year-old boy from a sleepy Alabama town to fund their next con. Their scheme unravels almost instantly — the boy, who gleefully rechristens himself Red Chief, terrorizes his captors with slingshots, attempted scalpings, and relentless demands for play. As Bill's nerves buckle under ninety...

"The Storm" unfolds during a fierce Louisiana tempest that traps Calixta alone at home while her husband Bobint and young son Bibi wait out the weather at a nearby store. When her former lover Alcée Laballière rides in seeking shelter from the downpour, the charged atmosphere between them quickly overtakes the danger outside. Chopin weaves desire, guilt, and a startling emotional freedom across fi...