About

Firefly Tales is an independent audio drama studio. We tell legends, folk tales and local stories: sometimes dark, sometimes enchanting, always rooted in a particular place and time. We began with Dark Slavic Tales, Polish folk tales, and Sea Legends from coasts around the world. More series are on the way, including stories for kids.

Close to the sources

We go back to the earliest records we can find: notes of 19th-century collectors, old collections of legends, ballads and sagas, and sometimes several variants of the same story or accounts from a single village. Wherever possible, we read them in the original, in a scan or in a period edition.

We do not copy them word for word, though. We take them as inspiration and retell them, keeping as many details as we can: place names, old beliefs, words and customs that usually vanish from popular versions. We want to show every story in an unusual way, so that it plays like a proper audio drama.

In every episode we disclose two things: the sources (author, title, edition and page, with a link to the scan when one is online) and what we added ourselves: names, dialogue, scenes, endings. You hear it at the end of the episode, and the full list is on the episode page. If we could not check a source, we do not list it.

People and tools

Choosing the stories, working with the sources and shaping each one is our work. We use AI tools to help write the scripts and to create voices, music and illustrations, including ElevenLabs (voices, music) and Midjourney (illustrations). We say so plainly, because listeners have a right to know.

In Polish and in English

We record in English as well, so that more people can discover these remarkable stories. Many of them are being prettified, simplified or simply forgotten, and they deserve to be told in full. In Polish the series are called Klechdy po zmroku and Morskie legendy.