# Children’s Stories — Character guide

> Key figures in Children’s Stories by Oscar Wilde.

- [the young Fisherman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/young_fisherman.md): He works the tides alone, reading wind and water for a living, and the night his net comes up heavy with a sleeping Mermaid he trades her freedom for a promise of song that fills his nets. What begins as a shrewd arrange
- [the Star-Child](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/star_child.md): Taken in against the Woodcutter's wife's better judgment, he grows up white and delicate among swarthy village children, and his beauty becomes his excuse for contempt. He calls his playmates servants, stones the blind a
- [the little Dwarf](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/little_dwarf.md): He is brought to the palace as a curiosity, a grotesque little performer to amuse the Infanta and her court on her special day. He dances his heart out, believing the laughter and applause are admiration, and never suspe
- [Little Hans](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/hans.md): Little Hans works his garden through every season, sharing flowers and fruit freely, and speaks of the rich Miller with unshakable devotion. The Miller talks beautifully about friendship while taking Hans's time, his whe
- [the young King](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/young_king.md): Found by hunters and revealed as the old King's heir, he trades sheepskin for embroidered robes and wanders Joyeuse in a daze of delight, chafing at court ceremony yet dazzled by every jewel. He is still half a woodland 
- [the Witch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/witch.md): She lives at the head of the bay, red hair loose and hemlock in hand, and senses the Fisherman's approach by the itching of her palm before he arrives. She offers him exactly what he wants, but only at a cost she is care
- [the Remarkable Rocket](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/rocket.md): The Remarkable Rocket holds court among the fireworks assembled for a royal wedding, treating every other rocket as an inferior being unworthy of his company. His vanity is so complete that he mistakes his own dampness f
- [the Nightingale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/nightingale.md): The Nightingale overhears a young student weeping because he cannot find a red rose to give his beloved, and she resolves to help him, though he barely notices her. She understands love as something the student only talk
- [the Swallow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/swallow.md): The Swallow plans to join his companions at the Second Cataract, where the river-horse and the yellow lions wait, but the Happy Prince's pleas keep him in the city one night longer. He has a good heart and weeps when ask
- [the Selfish Giant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/selfish_giant.md): The Giant returns from seven years with his friend the Cornish ogre to find children playing in his garden, and he builds a high wall and a notice board to keep them out. Winter settles permanently on his grounds while S
- [the Priest](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/priest.md): The Priest stands between the ordinary faithful and the strange desires that pull the young Fisherman toward the sea and the Star-Child toward his own mysterious origins. He speaks with the authority of doctrine, insisti
- [Avarice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/avarice.md): A personification of greed encountered by the young King in a dream.
- [big Hugh the Miller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/hugh_miller.md): Big Hugh the Miller owns a hundred sacks of flour, six milch cows, and a large flock of sheep, yet he never gives Little Hans anything, not even in winter when Hans goes hungry. He leans over the garden wall to pluck nos
- [Death](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/death.md): A personified figure who appears in the young King's dream visions.
- [a Green Linnet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/green_linnet.md): A bird who narrates the story of the Devoted Friend.
- [The Flowers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/flowers.md): Anthropomorphic flowers that speak in the Giant's garden.
- [the Soul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/soul.md): When the Fisherman begs to be rid of his soul so he may join the Sea-folk, the Priest thunders that it is the noblest part of man, while the merchants mock it as worth less than a clipped coin. The Soul thus begins its s
- [the Infanta](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/children_s_stories_se/characters/infanta.md): The Infanta of Spain rules her birthday terrace with her mother's pretty petulance and proud curved mouth, while the King watches from a window, still wedded to Sorrow three years after the Queen's death. Her whimsical c

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