Are you ready to get sleepy? Well that's what Driftoff is all about.

Sometimes at the end of the day your mind insists on telling new stories, yet these stories

make you worry and keep you awake. So allow me to distract your mind tonight by telling it a different story, a calming story.

I'm your host Joanne, and tonight's bedtime story is called East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a Norwegian

tale later collected by Andrew Lange in his blue fairy book, a tale of a white bear and a resilient heroine

and her difficult quest to rescue her prince. And so my friend, with a day now behind you, succumb to your pillow soft

and deep and follow my voice towards restful sleep. Once upon a time there was a poor husband who had so many children that he hadn't much of either food or clothing to give them.

Pretty children they all were, but the prettiest was the youngest daughter who was so lovely there was

no end to her loveliness.

So one day on a Thursday evening late at the fall of the year, the weather was so

wild and rough outside and it was so cruelly dark, and rain fell, and wind blew

till the walls of the cottage shook again.

There they all sat round the fire, busy with this thing and that,

but just then, all at once, something gave three taps on the window pane.

Then the father went out to see what was the matter, and when he got outdoors, what should he see, but a great big white bear.

Good evening to you, said the white bear.

The same to you, said the man.

Will you give me your youngest daughter? If you will, I'll make you as

rich as you are poor now, said the bear. Well, the man would not be at all sorry to be so rich, but still he thought he must have a bit of

the talk with his daughter first.

So he went in and told them how there was a great white bear waiting outside who had

given his word to make them so rich if he could only have the youngest

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