Mother’s Nursery Tales: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Mother’s Nursery Tales, credited to Katharine Pyle, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Mother’s Nursery Tales by Katharine Pyle. Read in English by Phil Chenevert; Bekaroo; Lydia; Emily Tisheuar; Lynne Thompson; alicethefairy; Scott Bennett; Sonia; Reeses118; Jade Hjelstrom; Georgann Fennell; Kana McKay; Jude Ellis; chelstex; Larry Wilson; James K. White; anjpatel Perhaps you did not know that fairy tales were ever truths, but they are—the best and oldest of them. That does not mean they are facts like the things you see around you or learn from history books. Facts and truths are as different as the body and the spirit. Facts are like the body that we can see and touch and measure; we cannot see or measure the Spirit, but it is there. No one knows who first told them, nor where nor when. Perhaps none of them was told by any one particular person. Perhaps they just grew upon the Tree of Wisdom when the world was young, like shining fruit, and our wise and simple first parents plucked them, and gave them to their children to play with, and to taste. These are not new fairy-tales, the ones in this book that has been newly made for you and placed in your hands. They are old fairy-tales gathered together, some from one country, and some from another. They are old, old, old. As old as the hills or the human race,—as old as truth itself. Long ago, even so long ago as when your grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother was a little rosy-cheeked girl, and your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather was a noisy shouting little boy, these stories were old.They could not harm the children, these fruits from the tree of wisdom, for each one was a lovely globe of truth, rich and wholesome to the taste. Magic fruit, for one could eat and eat, and still the fruit was there as perfect as ever to be handed down through generations, until at last it comes to you, as beautiful as in those days of long ago - Summary by from the introduction

Recording facts

• Recording title: Mother’s Nursery Tales
• Author credits: Katharine Pyle
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 35
• Listed recording duration: 6:36:17

Opening tracks: first 24 of 35

1. 00 - Introduction — 3:36
2. 01 - The Sleeping Beauty — 13:15
3. 02 - Jack and the Bean Stalk — 14:29
4. 03 - Beauty and the Beast — 18:47
5. 04 - Jack-the-Giant-Killer — 26:12
6. 05 - The Three Wishes — 4:08
7. 06 - The Goose Girl — 12:17
8. 07 - The Little Old Woman and Her Pig — 9:12
9. 08 - The White Cat — 12:46
10. 09 - Brittle-Legs — 11:51
11. 10 - “I Went Up One Pair of Stairs,” etc — 3:49
12. 11 - The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean — 4:15
13. 12 - The Water-Sprite — 5:44
14. 13 - Star Jewels — 4:28
15. 14 - Sweet Porridge — 5:03
16. 15 - Chicken-Diddle — 6:12
17. 16 - A Pack of Ragamuffins — 9:13
18. 17 - The Frog Prince — 8:50
19. 18 - The Wolf and the Five Little Goats — 10:52
20. 19 - The Golden Goose — 17:12
21. 20 - The Three Spinners — 7:37
22. 21 - Goldilocks and the Three Bears — 9:50
23. 22 - The Three Little Pigs — 14:00
24. 23 - The Golden Key — 1:57

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.