Bedtime stories are a door to other worlds, a stimulus for the imagination that encloses a magical moment of connection between you and your children . That is why we want to give you the best stories that you can tell to the little ones with all the tenderness before being delivered to the arms of Morpheus.
And in addition to being beautiful and relaxing stories, they all contain a moral that will make children and adults learn while enjoying.
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ARTICLE CONTENT:
1. Short bedtime stories.
2. Children’s bedtime stories.
3. Bedtime stories for adults. The best short bedtime stories
These stories are among the best short stories, which you can easily remember and treasure magical and fun stories. We begin with a story written by Leo Tolstoy himself, and continue with fables and stories that will delight children and adults. 1. The tsar and the shirt
Once upon a time there was a tsar who was very ill. One day he announced to his subjects that the man who managed to cure him would receive half of his domain. The wise men of the court urgently met to find a solution, and one of them had a brilliant idea.: “If they find a happy man on earth and put his shirt on the Tsar, he will be cured.
So the tsar sent all his emissaries to look for a happy man in his kingdom, but as much as they searched and searched, they could not find one . The one who was rich was sick, and the one who was healthy was poor. Those who were healthy and rich complained all day about his wife and his children. Everyone always wanted something more.
But one day the Tsar’s son walked past a humble hutand I hear someone say: “Thanks to the life I have worked for, I have eaten well, and now I can lie down to sleep. How happy I am!”. They had finally found it. The Tsar’s son brought the soldiers and ordered them to take off the man’s shirt to take it to his father.
But when they entered his hut to fulfill his mission, they realized that the happy man was so poor that he had no shirt . 2. The legend of the rabbit and the moon
Aztec legend tells that once the god Quetzalcoatl abandoned his feathered serpent appearance to become a man and discover the world. So fascinated was he with his landscapes that the god made man walked and walked until it was night. Then, tired and hungry, he stopped by the side of the road.
While he was resting a rabbit passed by his side and seeing him exhausted and hungry he offered him some of his grass . However, the dying man reminded him that he was a man and did not eat grass, so the rabbit told him: “I have nothing more to offer you, and I am an insignificant creature. Please eat me and resume your journey.”
Moved by the noble gesture, the man regained his feathered serpent form and raised the rabbit to the top of the moon .. Then she lowered him back to earth and told him: “You are not an insignificant creature, and your reflection in the moon will tell all men the story of your goodness.” 3. The old lion and the fox
In the forest kingdom, an old lion had such weak teeth and claws that he could no longer get food. That is why he devised a macabre plan: he invented that he was sick and called all the animals one by one to visit him in his cave. When they came to his call, he devoured them in one bite.
The fox also went to visit him, but she was very cunning and waiting at a safe distance asked the old lion about his state of health. He told her that he was very sick, and asked her to go into his cave for a while. However, the fox declined the invitation and asked him: Why are there animal tracks entering your cave and none of those coming out
? Moral: learn from the mistakes of others to avoid your own . 4. The donkey and the horse
A peasant accompanied by a horse and a donkey carried merchandise from one town to another, and all the packages rested on the back of the poor donkey. This one, who was beginning to feel tired, asked his friend the horse to help him share the load . This, selfish and lazy, refused outright, and both continued walking.
Halfway, the donkey could not resist and collapsed on his legs victim of fatigue. The peasant, feeling sorry for the animal, untied the jars and bundles, and looking around him thought that the most practical thing would be to load the merchandise on the back of the horse .
This is how the lack of solidarity and selfishness of the horse ended up condemning him to carry all the merchandise during the remainder of the journey. 5. The honest woodcutter
A woodcutter made a living cutting firewood every day to support his family. But one day the ax slipped from his hands and fell into the river. Desperate, the woodcutter sat down to cry, and a forest nymph who heard his cryI appear before him. “What’s the matter with you, good man,” he said. “I have lost my axe,” replied the woodcutter.
The nymph plunged into the waters of the river and rescued a golden axe, but the woodcutter said that this was not her tool. So the nymph dived again, and pulled out a silver axe. “Is this your axe, good man
?” I ask. “No, ma’am,” she replied. Finally he took out the ax from the woodcutter, and he accepted it crying with happiness : “This is mine!”.
Amazed by the honesty that the woodcutter had shown, the nymph gave him her axe, and also gave him the gold and silver ones. The best children’s bedtime stories
The following children’s bedtime stories are an open door to imagination and magic. They are perfect to explain to your children before going to sleep, and in them you will find everything from fables to classic Disney stories and princess stories. 6. The Golden Goose
Once upon a time there was a man who had three sons. The youngest of the three was called Tontin , and he was the object of ridicule and contempt, marginalized by all the others. One day, the eldest son wanted to go to the forest to look for firewood, and his mother gave him bread and milk so that he would not go hungry. Already in the forest he met a little man with gray hair who greeted him courteously. The little man, hungry and thirstyHe asked for some bread and milk, but the eldest son stood him up and went on his way. When he started to cut down the tree, he hurt his arm with the ax and had to return home, as punishment for his behavior.
The second son left for the forest with the same intention, and meeting the little man again, he also denied him bread and milk. While he was chopping wood he was injured with the axe , and had to return home.
So, Clumsy asked to go to the forest to get firewood. On the way he met the little man. “If you like, we can share my cake and sour milk,” he told her. And they both sat down to eat. As a reward, the little man gave him a gift : “There is an old tree, cut it down and you will find something at the root”. The man said goodbye, and disappeared.
Clumsy went to the tree and felled it. As he fell, he found at the root a goose with golden feathers . He took it and went to the inn to spend the night.
The innkeeper had three daughters who, seeing the goose, were curious. As soon as Clumsy was out, her eldest took the goose by her wing but her finger and hand got stuck to it . The second, as soon as I touched her sister, she stayed attached to her. The third, despite the warnings of her sisters, suffered the same fate.
Short stories to fall asleep. | Image by: Nong Vang.
The next morning, Clumsy took the goose in his arms without worrying about the three girls who were still attached. In the forest they found the priest, who told the girls: “Aren’t you ashamed, following a young man through the field like this
“, and when he wanted to separate them, he also got stuck.
When the sacristan saw the priest in this guise, he said to him: “Where are you going in such a hurry?
Don’t forget that today we have a baptism.” Taking him by the coat, he stayed glued. Then the priest asked two peasants to free them , but as soon as they touched the sacristan, they stayed stuck. And there were already seven running after Clumsy.
And so they came to a city ruled by a king who had a daughter so serious that he could never laugh. Laughing had decreed that whoever made her laugh at her would marry her. Knowing this, Clumsy appeared before the princess with his train of followers.. Seeing them running one after another, he began to laugh out loud without stopping.
Clumsy won the princess’s heart, and the two married and lived happily ever after. 7. The princess and the salt
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there was a king who lived with his three daughters. One day, when asked how much they loved her, the oldest replied: “More than gold and silver”; the median said: “more than diamonds and rubies”; and the little girl answered: “I love you more than salt” . The king, enraged at being compared to a common species, banished his youngest daughter.
But a pitying cook from the king’s palace took the princess into her hut and taught her how to cook. The girl was a good workerand she was grateful to the cook, but her heart was still sad every time she thought of her father and the misinterpretation she had made of his words.
Some time later, the king organized a great banquet for the nobles of the city. When the girl found out about her, she asked her protector to let her cook for her father and her guests. When the time came, the table was full of dishes that looked the most succulent. Tasting his favorite, the king said, “This food has no salt. Bring the cook.”
The king’s daughter appeared before her father. “How could you forget something as important as salt
?”, asked the king. The young woman replied: “One day you banished your youngest daughter for comparing love to salt. However, your affection gave flavor to her life, just as salt gives flavor to your plate”.
The king recognized his daughter upon hearing these words, and he felt ashamed. He begged her to forgive him and agree to return to the palace . This is how the king never again doubted the love of his daughter. 8. The jumping dwarf
Once upon a time there was a carpenter who, wanting to impress the king, told him that his daughter spun so well that he turned straw into gold. The king took her to the palace and locked her in a stable.full of straw: “Here is a spinning wheel and a reel. Until you turn straw into gold you will not leave this room.” The princess wept disconsolately; She, well, she didn’t know how to do it…
Upon hearing her cries, a jumping dwarf appeared who, upon discovering the young woman’s concern, proposed to turn the straw into gold in exchange for her necklace . The carpenter’s daughter gave him the necklace, and the dwarf turned the straw into gold.
The next morning, the king, amazed, took the girl to a larger room with more straw to turn it into more gold. The dwarf then asked for the ring, and in return he made gold threads from the straw. So the greedy king promised the carpenter’s daughter that he would marry her if he turned the largest straw room into gold.
The dwarf offered the young woman one last barter: she should give him her first child. This is how the girl married the king, and soon after they both had a son. One night the dwarf appeared to take his reward, but the queen implored him not to take her son from her. “If you guess my name, I will disappear forever,” she told him.
The dwarf gave her a week of time, and throughout the days the queen questioned all the inhabitants of her kingdom until she found a peasant who claimed to have seen a jumping dwarf singing a song: “In the afternoon I knead the bread, at night I will bake it. Tomorrow I will stay with the queen’s son. The little one will be called the same as me, his name will be Rumpelstiltskin! ”.
When the dwarf appeared again before the queen, she told him: “Your name is Rumpelstiltskin”, and the jumping dwarf disappeared forever . 9. Rapunzel
Once upon a time there was a couple who wanted to have a baby, until that wish came true. Through their window they could see a vast garden bordered by a wall . Nobody dared to enter it, because they said that a very evil witch lived inside. One day, the pregnant woman tasted the herbs in the garden, and became seriously ill.
Her husband, desperate, entered the garden of the witch and unearthed a handful of spinach with which he prepared a salad to feed his wife . The next day he went for more, but this time the witch surprised him: “How dare you enter my garden”, she told him, and swore revenge for the theft of the spinach.
Telling him that he had done it out of necessity, to cure his wife, the witch calmed down and offered him all the spinach he wanted in exchange for offering him the first child they had : “I will be his mother, with me he will be happy and he will never lack you are welcome”.
To save his wife’s life, the man agreed, and as soon as she gave birth, the witch took the girl and named her Rapunzel. She is she grew up as the most beautiful of her and, at twelve years old, the witch locked her in a tower with no access other than a window on top. When the witch wanted to enter, she asked the girl to let her braid fall .
The years passed and one day the king’s son was riding through the thick forest when he was attracted by the voice of Rapunzel singing a beautiful song . The prince wanted to climb up to it, but could not find any access door. Every day, the king’s son returned to the tower to listen to Rapunzel’s song.
One day, while spying on the girl, she saw the witch approach and say, “Rapunzel, let your braid fall.” Knowing how to climb the tower, the prince returned at night and shouted: “Rapunzel, let your braid fall.” Thinking she was the witch, Rapunzel dropped her braid, which the prince managed to climb onto the balcony .
At first he was scared, but when the prince told her that he had fallen in love with her voice and that if she wanted to marry hers, she happily accepted . To escape from the tower, the prince brought her every night a bit of thread with which she wove a ladder. One day the witch went up and she saw the ladder, so she got very angry: “You have betrayed me!”.
The evil witch, in a fit, cut Rapunzel’s long hair and when the prince arrived, he threw it for her to climb. But when she arrived she did not see Rapunzel , but the witch: “You will never see her again”, he told her. Then he, desperate, he jumped from the tower and fell on some thorns, going blind.
For many years, the prince wandered through the forest blindly searching for his beloved, until one day he stumbled upon a lake and there he heard a voice that he recognized instantly. When Rapunzel saw the prince, he pounced on her crying, and his tears fell on his eyes giving her back her sight. Rapunzel and the prince got married and lived happily ever after . 10. Aladdin and the genie with the lamp
In a distant city in China, a young man named Aladdin preferred to spend hours playing with his friends than helping his father and mother. One day, a rich and strange man approached him in order to deceive him. Introducing himself as the brother of his deceased father, he proposed to his mother to travel with the boy around the world.
Hoping to see her son become a good man, her mother agreed. The next day, the man took Aladdin to a secluded forest and dug a ditch in the ground: “Go down this ditch until you find a cavern. In it you will find a wall with a hole where you will find a lamp. Bring it on!”
He was actually a sorcerer who had traveled a long distance to find the lamp. As Aladdin was afraid to go down, he offered him the only thing he had, a ring with great powers that would serve as protection. The boy did so, but when he went up again he heard the man whisper: “When you give me the lamp, I will lock you up forever.”
“Help me up, only then will I give you the lamp”, said Aladdin, and before his refusal to give him what he asked for , the sorcerer closed the ditch. Not remembering that he was wearing the ring, Aladdin rubbed his hands together in prayer when a genie appeared out of nowhere. At the wishes of the young man, he made him return home instantly.
Already at home, Aladdin felt curious and rubbed the lamp, from which another genie came out, even bigger, who fulfilled all his wishes. He thus lived quietly, until one day when he saw the sultan’s daughter he fell in love with her . With the help of the genie he filled a trunk with jewels and sent them to the palace through his mother: “This is a gift from my son, Aladdin.”
The sultan was amazed, but demanded many more riches: “When I consider that I have received what is due, I will give consent to marry my daughter.” After filling it with gold , Aladdin received permission to marry the princess, and he went to live in the palace taking the lamp with him.
In these, the sorcerer found out everything, and he appeared at the palace offering the princess to change the old lamps for new ones. So he got the magic lamp, and asked the genie to make the princess and the palace disappear , and take them with him to a distant land. When he returned, Aladdin realized that the palace and the princess had disappeared.
Rubbing his eyes while he cried, the genie of the ring appeared, granting his wish to take it to the sorcerer and the princess . Meeting with the princess in the highest tower of the palace, she told him that the magician did not separate from the lamp. Following Aladdin’s advice, the princess put the sorcerer to sleep with some powder.
So she managed to recover the lamp and run to her husband, who by rubbing it managed to free the genie: “Take me and the princess to China , and leave the sorcerer here forever.” And that’s how Aladdin and the princess managed to live happily ever after. The best bedtime stories for adults
There are also beautiful, relaxing, and inspiring stories for adults. We begin with a moving story by Haruki Murakami, continue with a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and end with a metaphor about the human species. 11. On meeting the 100% perfect girl one morning in April
One beautiful April morning, on a narrow street in the chic neighborhood of Harajuku, in Tokyo, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. To tell the truth, she wasn’t that pretty. She doesn’t stand out in a particular way , her clothes are nothing special. But even so, she knows from 50 meters away: she is the 100% perfect woman for me.
I just ran into her on the street. She was going west, and I was going east. She was a beautiful April morning. I would have liked to talk to her. Half an hour would have been all: just asking her about her, telling her about me, explaining the intricacies of fate that led to our meeting on a narrow street in Harajuku one fine morning in April 1981 .
After talking, we would have eaten somewhere, perhaps seen a Woody Allen movie, or stopped at a hotel bar for cocktails. With any luck, we could have ended up in bed. Potentiality knocks at the door of my heart.
Perhaps the simple truth: “Good morning. You are the perfect girl for me.” No, she wouldn’t believe it. “Sorry,” he might say, “She may be the perfect woman for you , but you’re not the perfect man for me.” She would never recover from that shock.
Stories of different authors to sleep. | Image by: Kinga Cichewicz.
We passed a flower shop. The asphalt is damp and I feel the smell of roses. I dare not speak to him. She wears a white sweater and in her right hand she holds a white envelope that lacks a stamp. I gather that she has written someone a letter. I walk a little further and turn around. She is lost in the crowd .
Now, of course, she knew exactly what she should have said. It would have been a long speech, if she had started with “Once upon a time” and ended with “A sad story, don’t you think
”. Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. The boy was 18, and the girl was 16. He wasn’t particularly handsome, and neither was she. They were just a lonely man and woman like everyone else. But they believed with all their hearts that somewhere in the world there was a man and a woman perfect for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And the miracle happened. One day, the two met on a street . He told her, “I have been looking for you all my life. You will not believe it, but you are the perfect woman for me. And she said, “And you are the perfect man for me. Exactly how it sounded to you.”
As they sat chatting, however, a small shadow of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it okay for someone’s dreams to come true so easily?. So, the boy told him: “Let’s try it. If we really are the perfect love, then we will meet sometime, somewhere, no doubt. And then we’ll get married.”
And then they parted ways. She went to the East, and he went to the West .
One winter, the boy and the girl fell ill with a terrible flu. And after fighting between life and death, they lost the memory of their earliest years. When they realized their heads were empty . However, thanks to their efforts, they were able to reacquire the knowledge and feeling that brought them back to normal.
They also experienced love again. Sometimes, at most, 75%. Time passed with frightening rapidity, andsoon the boy was 32 years old, and she was 30 .
One beautiful April morning the boy was walking from West to East while the girl was walking from East to West, both on the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street . The faintest glimmer of their lost memories shimmered for a brief moment in their hearts.
They each felt a rumble in their chest. And they knew it. She is the perfect woman for me. He is the perfect man for me. But the glow of his memories was too dim , and his thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years before. Without a word they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.
A sad story, don’t you think?
Yes, that’s what I should have told him. She is the perfect woman for me . He is the perfect man for me. 12. Shadows
The year had been a year of terror and feelings more intense than terror, for which there are no men on earth. For many wonders and signs had occurred , and far away and everywhere, over sea and land, the black wings of the plague hovered.
In a gloomy city called Ptolemais, in a noble palace, seven of us stood one night before flasks of red wine. And there was no other entrance to our chamber than the tall bronze door, and that door had been cast by the craftsman Corinnos with a lock that secured from within.
In the gloomy room, black hangings kept the outside world from our lives, but omen and Evil could not be excluded. We were surrounded by material and spiritual things, the heaviness of the atmosphere, the feeling of suffocation, of anxiety . And above all, for this terrible state of existence when the senses are alive and awake while the faculties lie dormant.
The purple wine reminded us of blood because in that chamber lay another of us, young Zoilo, dead and shrouded . His face, convulsed by the plague, and his eyes, where death had only half extinguished the fire of pestilence, seemed to be interested in our joy, as the dead are interested in the joy of those who are going to die. .
And behold, little by little from the black hangings a deep and indefinite shadow fell, which was not the shadow of a man or a god, nor of any familiar thing. And the shadow stopped in front of the bronze arch and without moving remained raised in front of the feet of the young Zoilo shrouded.
And in the end I, Oinos, speaking in a very low voice, asked the shadow what his abode was and his name, and it said: “I am Shadow, and my abode is next to the Ptolemais catacombs.”
And then the seven of us got up in horror and stood trembling, shaken, pale. Because the tone of the shadow’s voice was not that of a single being, but that of a multitude of beings, and it penetrated our ears with the familiar and well-remembered accents of a thousand and a thousand dead friends. 13. The knight and the world
Once upon a time there was one of those knights who triumph in all the stories and fables and who, tired of so much success, decided to visit the real world. Upon arrival, he saw that there were no princesses to save or dragons to defeat , but very sad people, running from one side to another without speaking to each other and with the same frightened face as the beings in the stories he used to save. .
Suddenly, the knight had found a new and exciting adventure: to discover why those beings were sad and afraid if dragons did not exist in that world. Tired of searching without finding an answer,He decided to ask a wise man : “What is that invisible being that frightens the inhabitants of this world
”. The sage replied: “You cannot defeat him, it is a losing battle.” And I explain that since in this world there were no ogres or dragons, each one invented an enemy tailored to him.
Tired of fighting the invisible enemies, the knight went for a walk and stumbled over his own state, falling headfirst at the roaring laughter of a poor peasant passing by. Seeing the gleam of happiness in his eyes, the knight realized that he did not need a sword and shield , but a reason to smile.
And that was how the knight once again achieved his victory in the story: at the head of an army of liberators, he dedicated himself to filling the human world with smiles.
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