The house of joy

In Short

This volume gathers original literary fairy tales defined by shape-shifting, dangerous curses, and the tension between mortal affection and magical powers. Across its stories, human hearts collide with supernatural law: a forester's daughter is turned into a peahen destined to peck out her foster-brother's heart; a princess falls in love with a grey heron and trades her human skin for wings; a tailor’s son outwits dark enchantments using magic shoes; and an elderly couple stumbles into an orchard where time runs backward. The collection has endured because Housman pairs traditional fairy-tale architecture with an unexpected, deeply felt emotional complexity.

The Story

The narratives in the collection follow characters driven into conflict with magical forces, where survival and happiness require unexpected sacrifices. In one central tale, a Queen has a recurring dream that her infant son will die in his twentieth year at the hands of his foster-sister, the forester's daughter. To avert the prophecy, a family fairy spirit is summoned, and the baby girl vanishes. Years later, eight white peahens dwell in a high elm tree, bound by a spell that forces them to seek the death of their royal foster-brother to regain their true forms. When the Prince presents his bare chest to be slain, the foster-sister peahen, overwhelmed by memory and pity, weeping by his side, refuses to strike the fatal blow. Though her silence dooms her to lose her human voice among her sisters, her love alters the trajectory of the curse.

Other tales examine the consequences of magic when it intersects with devotion and greed. A simple gardener and his wife nurture a nursery of red roses that act almost like their children, responding to tender reproaches with drops of dew and providing a rare, rose-flavored honey. Elsewhere, a proud Queen conquers the realm of the White King, only to fall hopelessly in love with his unyielding marble statue; through dark magic, she bestows the statue with human senses, but her victory remains hollow when the stone figure ultimately flees to marry a humble waiting-woman, leaving the Queen to be consumed by deadly nightshade.

In another story, a Princess from the Moon drops her mother's precious pearl down a light beam to Earth. Descending to retrieve it, she is snared by a wicked gnome who demands her hand in marriage. A wandering terrestrial Prince, equipped with a pair of magical travelling shoes left to him by his father, finds her in the gnome's garden. To free her, he must fill a dry pool with water so it can reflect the full moon and serve as a portal home. Even when the gnome transforms the Princess into a plant, the Prince's devotion restores her, and together they leap through the watery reflection back to the lunar court, hurling the magic shoes back down to crush their tormentor.

The collection concludes on notes of wistful resolution. In the story of the heron-princess, royal parents allow their daughter to transform into a bird so she can remain with the heron she loves, creating a generation of wild bird-children who struggle against their grandmother's attempt to force them into pure humanity by burning their feather-skins. In a final quiet tale, an elderly ferryman and his wife wander into a magical valley where time flows backward. As they walk deeper, their aging bodies regress to youth, then childhood, and finally infancy, where they are gently scooped up by a young, radiant Father Time, asleep together in their old boat.

How It Unfolds

The prophecy of the twin babes A Queen dreams that her infant son will be killed in his twentieth year by his foster-sister, leading the family fairy to spirit the forester’s daughter away.

The peahens in the elm The lost sister returns as one of eight transformed peahens, but when she steps down to peck out the prince's heart, her affection stays her beak, sacrificing her own speech to spare his life.

The garden of companionable roses A childless couple pours their devotion into cultivating red roses, treating each plant as a living family member that responds directly to their words and affection.

The White King's stone heart A conqueror Queen falls in love with a statue of her defeated rival, animating it with human senses only to lose him to a waiting-woman while she is ensnared by poisonous vines.

The magical shoes and the loom Lubin, an honest cobbler's apprentice, discovers a traveller's dancing shoes and uses their enchantment to uncover a princess weaving her sisters' golden hair into a sinister mantle.

The fall from the Moon Princess Berenice slips down a moonbeam to retrieve a lost pearl, only to be imprisoned in a dry garden by an avaricious gnome seeking to force her into marriage.

The reflection in the pool A wandering Prince fills a dry basin to capture the full moon's image, allowing the lunar princess to speak the magic words and escape through the water back to her celestial home.

The return of youth An aging ferryman and his wife cross into an enchanted realm where every step backward turns back their age, eventually leaving them as crowing infants cradled by Father Time.

The People

• The Prince and his Foster-Sister: Bound by an infant nurse-bond, the Prince willingly exposes his bare breast to fulfill a fatal dream, while the sister, transformed into a white peahen, chooses perpetual silence over slaying the brother she once nursed alongside.
• The Rose-Gardener and his Wife: A gentle, sweet-tempered couple who accept their childlessness by treating their rose bushes as offspring, speaking to them by name and gathering unique honey that gains fame across the countryside.
• The Queen and the White King: A ruthless monarch whose victory over a rival ruler turns to despair when she falls in love with his marble statue; the White King remains proud and unyielding, preferring his humble waiting-woman to the monarch who ruined his lands.
• Lubin: An honest cobbler's son who refuses to steal a pair of magical self-dancing shoes, using his simple craft, integrity, and sharp observation to break dark enchantments in a royal household.
• Princess Berenice and the Earth Prince: A curious celestial maiden who strays to Earth after a lost pearl, and the displaced younger royal who uses his father's old travelling shoes and relentless labor to return her to the sky.

In Its Own Voice

“Then so fair he looked to her, and so gentle in his youth, that she had pity on him, and stood weeping by his side, and laying her head against his, whispered, ‘O, brother, once we lay as babes together and were nursed at the same breast! How can I peck out your heart?’”

A transformed peahen pauses over the sleeping prince she was commanded to kill, choosing mercy over her own liberation.

“The colour of the roses was in their faces, and the colour of the rose was in their hearts; to her man she was the most beautiful and dearest of sweethearts, to his wife he was the best and kindest of lovers.”

The narrator describes the enduring, quiet devotion of the childless rose-gardeners whose lives are shaped by the flowers they tend.

“Then the Prince laid his lips against the reflection of the Earth’s shadow, crying, ‘Open, open to me, for I am a child of the Earth!’”

The Prince uses the mirror of a still pool to unlock the watery threshold separating the terrestrial world from the land of the Moon.

What It's Really About

Beneath their traditional surface of kings, gnomes, and fairy godmothers, the stories in The House of Joy examine the tension between devotion and ownership. Housman repeatedly explores how genuine love requires releasing control over the beloved. The Queen who conquers the White King discovers that power cannot command affection; her attempt to possess his likeness only leads to her own ruin. Conversely, parents and lovers who accept their partners as they are—such as the King and Queen who allow their daughter to become a heron, or the Prince who labors to return Berenice to the sky—find a deeper, albeit complicated, fulfillment. The book asks whether human happiness is best found by clinging to mortal ambition or by yielding to the quiet, natural transformations of time and fate.

Why Read It Today

The House of Joy will appeal to readers who appreciate classic literary fairy tales in the vein of Hans Christian Andersen or Oscar Wilde. Housman’s prose is deliberate, rhythmic, and visual, avoiding modern cynical subversions in favor of genuine romantic gravity and subtle melancholy.

The reading experience feels like stepping into a tapestry; the imagery—dancing red shoes, moonbeams sliding into green earth, white peahens roosting in dark elms—is stark and memorable. It does not rush its narrative beats, relying instead on cadence and repetition to build a dreamlike atmosphere.

Modern readers should be prepared for the formal, somewhat archaic cadence of late 19th-century prose, complete with traditional fairy-tale phrasing, passive sentence structures, and stylized moral starkness. Cruelty and loss are present alongside the wonder, and characters often accept bizarre or tragic fates without complaint. Yet for those willing to lean into its quiet, enchanted rhythm, the collection offers an evocative exploration of sacrifice, love, and the mysterious laws of fairytale worlds.