An old donkey who can no longer haul heavy loads overhears his master's plan to kill him and eat him. So, he runs away to the town of Bremen to become a musician. Along the way, he meets a dog, a cat, and a rooster who join him.
With their father out seeking food during a famine, a brother and sister are lured by their cruel stepmother into the forest to avoid having to feed them. Hansel and Gretel return the first time with a trail of pebbles, but the second lose their way when the breadcrumbs they're forced to use are eaten by birds. They follow a magnificent bird to a house of gingerbread, but it turns out to be a trap, inhabited by a child-eating witch.
A girl encounters a mysterious frog while playing. The frog is actually a prince who was cursed and turned into a frog.
A young girl travels to her grandmothers house and encounters a wolf who pretends to be her grandmother in an effort to eat the young girl.
A young simpleton is kind to an old man who bestows onto him the knowledge of a golden goose that brings him great fortune.
A cat uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand in marriage of a princess for his penniless and low-born master.
Two sisters are visited in winter by a talking bear, but he leaves in the spring speaking of riches to protect and an evil spell. Then Snow White and Rose Red keep encountering a helpless but cold gnome, and later a prince seeking his lost brother.
A princess, Snow White, runs into trouble when an evil, power-hungry queen marries her father and tries to kill her out of vanity. Aided by the Seven Dwarves and a handsome prince Snow White deposes the queen.
A soldier is unjustly compensated by his money-loving king and princess. Forced to fend for himself, he meets five remarkable friends: a strongman, one who can run faster than any other human, one whose bare head can create ice and snow, one whose breath extends for a distance, and one who can see and shoot for miles. The soldier inspires them to follow him, then they decide to stop the cruelty of the country's rulers.
A sickened king is told he needs the Water of Life from the Evil Forest to recover. His elder selfish son Franz seeks it to reclaim his inheritance from his brother. But after insulting and threatening a gnome, he is trapped in the Valley of No Return. Prince Joesf goes and gets the gnome's help for his respect, and is directed by the North Wind. He enters an enchanted castle which appears periodically, rescues an imprisoned princess whom he falls in love with, and collects the water. But on the way back through the valley he rescues Franz, who replaces his water with a poisoned supply so Josef will be suspected of treachery.
Josephine's dreams of marrying a prince seem to come true when one sends for her in her forest home. Though her brothers are wary of her wedding a man none of them has met, she accepts eagerly - but is startled by his striking beard of blue. The prince, who provides Josephine with every luxury until she becomes haughty, has only one locked, mismatched room in his castle he will not discuss. When he leaves her with his keys and instructions to see that one is not used, Josephine is lured by it to the forbidden room, and a terrible secret.
When Jorinde and her fiancé Joringel visit the woods, its witch they unknowingly encountered earlier draws them to her home and turns Jorinde into a nightingale and takes her as she does every maid she meets. After being unable to move to stop it, Joringel is driven out of the woods by her magic with only a puzzling message from Jorinde, and can't see a way to best the magic to free her.
A king and a queen hold a great feast to celebrate the birth of their one and only child, a baby girl. In hopes that they will bestow blessings upon her daughter. They exclude to invite one particular guest. But the overlooked guest makes an appearance at the party regardless, and for the parents’ slight she curses the daughter, that on her fifteenth birthday she shall prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. It is only by the grace of of the good fairies that the curse is altered, so that Briar Rose falls into a deep slumber for a hundred years, only to be awakened by the kiss of a prince.
An aged, near-deaf sheepdog is about to be killed by his master since he is no longer ferocious. Warned by the cat, Sultan approaches a wolf he's made peace with over the years. The wolf offers to "capture" the farmer's baby so Sultan will return with him, be seen as a hero, and be spared. The plan succeeds (though Sultan attacks not remembering it's an act), and Sultan offers to repay him. But the wolf, expecting this, guesses he'll be rewarded with livestock. When he comes as agreed to collect, he goes after the sheep and Sultan confronts him, joined by the farmer, and is challenged to a fight.
Beautiful but arrogant Princess Helena mocks every king's appearance at a gathering for her to choose a husband. Her father responds by giving her to the next humble man to visit: a musician from the kingdom belonging to "Grizzle Beard", the suitor she insulted most. She is forced to accept a poor lifestyle and responsibilities, meaning she is hindered by her unwillingness to help or accept others.
Three soldiers attempt to desert the army and are close to being caught. A spirit named Beelzebub happens by and offers them an escape in return for servitude. Their only path to freedom is solving a series of riddles.
Princess Genevieve keeps dancing the night through, which the king only knows since she goes through a large supply of shoes. He begins to guard her to learn how, only for her sisters Julia and Louise to convince her to let them join her. Their father confines them to their chamber doubting they were in the castle since no one saw them, but it stops nothing. He offers one of their hands to the man who can discover their secret in three nights but imprisonment for those who cannot, and the princesses give every watcher wine with sleeping potion. When foreign veteran Peter takes the challenge, he does not take the drink and follows them. But under the castle he finds a dreadful truth even the sisters don't know.
A kind and pious young girl loses her mother and struggles with her father remarrying an unkind woman with two awful daughters who treat her poorly. When the stepsisters find out they have been invited to a ball being held for the prince to find a bride, they ask Cinderella to comb their hair and brush their shoes, but tell her she cannot go with them. Cinderella wears beautiful clothing and shoes provided by a fairy godmother to the Prince's ball, and the prince, smitten with her, tries to walk her home, only for her to run away before he can discover who she is.
