“The Lady or the Tiger?” is one of the most anthologized short stories for adolescents and teens, often appearing in literature collections and possessing a unique place in the short story genre: it leaves the ending to the reader, or the listener, in our case. The plot is left unresolved.

Shipwrecked sailors are forced to promise yearly human sacrifices to appease a terrible serpent with seven heads. How will the childless king and queen bring an end to the deaths?

Welcome back to The Spark, NPL's podcast about art and creativity.

Today, we're joined by members of NPL's Wishing Chair Productions to discuss all things puppetry and the history of this decades-old partnership between puppeteers and your local library system.

Find out more about Wishing Chair Productions and their shows at https://library.nashville.org/wishing-chair-productions

Join us for The Spark every third Thursday!

Theme song by Joey Frevola

A boy boasts of how he will kill a wolf; how will he react when he thinks a wolf is near?

When an emperor learns of a nightingale who sings beautifully in his garden, he makes the bird a guest of his court. When the emperor receives a mechanical nightingale as a gift he forgets about the real one, who takes the opportunity to escape the palace. But when the emperor is taken ill, can his mechanical bird comfort him?