The Glass Coffin in the Forest

A young tailor, lost deep in an unfamiliar forest after wandering off the main road while traveling for work, spotted a small light in the distance and followed it to an enchanted castle, empty of any visible inhabitants except for a bull and a stag who seemed strangely aware and sorrowful, as though trapped in forms not truly their own.

Exploring the silent halls, he came upon a locked room and, using a mysterious key left conveniently nearby, opened it to find a glass coffin containing a beautiful young woman who appeared to be sleeping rather than dead, perfectly preserved and untouched by time. A written account nearby explained her plight: a wicked sorcerer, wanting to force her into marriage against her will, had cursed her into this suspended sleep and transformed her brother into the very bull the tailor had seen, when both had refused his demand.

Rather than flee the dangerous, uncanny castle, the ordinary tailor — possessing no magic or special power of his own, only stubborn courage — searched until he found and confronted the sorcerer himself, engaging him in a fierce duel and, through sheer determination rather than any advantage of skill, managing to defeat him. The moment the sorcerer fell, both curses broke at once: the woman woke from her glass prison, and her brother was restored from bull to man. She married the tailor in gratitude, not for any special power he possessed, but for the plain courage of an ordinary man who chose to act rather than run from something far beyond his understanding.