Jorinda and Joringel

Quick Answer

Why This Story Works for Bedtime

It’s romantic but steady: danger is clear, yet the emotional core is hope. The ending is a comforting ‘rescue and reunion,’ which can feel reassuring before sleep for older kids.

Story Synopsis

Jorinda and Joringel are young and deeply in love, wandering together near a mysterious forest. Everyone knows one warning: stay away from the old castle within the woods, where a witch lives. Yet the path is easy to lose, and the sunlight makes the danger feel unreal—until dusk comes and the air changes. As they draw too close, the witch’s power snaps shut around them. Jorinda is seized and transformed into a nightingale, trapped among many other birds that were once girls. Joringel is frozen by a spell—awake, terrified, and unable to move—forced to watch helplessly. When the witch leaves, the spell loosens, but Jorinda is gone. Joringel searches and searches, calling for her, hearing only bird-song in answer. Grief follows him home. For a long time, he can do nothing but work, wait, and keep loving what he cannot reach. Then a dream gives him a clue: a rare red flower with a pearl of dew that can break the witch’s enchantments. The quest becomes one of patience as much as bravery. Joringel travels, learns, and endures until he finds the flower. With it, he returns to the castle and, at last, can enter without being trapped. Inside, he touches the enchanted bird—and Jorinda becomes herself again. The witch’s power breaks, the other girls are freed, and the story ends with reunion and relief: love that waited, acted, and returned with gentleness.

Story Excerpt

There was once an old castle standing deep in a wide, thick forest. Its walls were dark with age, and its windows looked like quiet, watchful eyes. In that castle lived an old woman all alone — an old woman who was a witch. In the daytime, she did not always look like an old woman. Sometimes she slipped into the shape of a cat that padded softly through the brush. Sometimes she became a screech - owl that rested in the branches and stared with shining eyes. But when evening came, she returned to her own human form. She had a strange power over animals. She could call wild creatures close with a sound that seemed like whispering wind. And if any person came within a hundred paces of her castle, that person would suddenly be forced to stand still — like a statue — unable to move until the witch chose to set them free. Worst of all, when an innocent maiden wandered into that circle, the witch would change her into a bird. Then she would shut the little bird into a woven wicker cage and carry it into a room inside the castle. The witch had so many cages — about seven thousand — filled with rare birds that the air in that room was always trembling with soft wings and frightened songs. Not far from that forest…

In One Glance