Hello there and welcome to this episode of Down to Sleep, the podcast of softly spoken stories to help you get a good night's rest.

This is a compiled episode. It is a bunch of short stories by Oscar Wilde, including The Selfish Giant and the Happy Prince.

These were originally read for Patreon, and I'm now sharing them here with you. If you want to hear every episode first and exclusively, join the Patreon and support the podcast at patreon.com slash down to sleep. There you can get complete readings, you get two episodes every week. You get books that I can't put here like Jurassic Park, Twilight, Lord of the Rings,

as well as versions with relaxing rain sounds behind like I'm reading to you whilst there's a storm going on outside.

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slash down to sleep.

Thank you for listening.

Let's tuck you in, and we'll begin.

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde.

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the giant's garden.

It was a large, lovely garden with soft green grass.

Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars.

And there were twelve peach trees that in the springtime broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl.

And in the autumn, or rich fruit.

The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly

that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them.

How happy we are here, they cried to each other.

One day, the giant came back.

He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years.

After the seven years were over, he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was

limited, and he determined to return to his own castle.

When he arrived, he saw the children playing in the garden.

...