Sleepbound (free)

Hansel and Gretel
A Sleepbound Bedtime Retelling

Tonight's reading is free. Over 500 more — and every new one first — are on Sleepbound Premium. Free for 7 days, cancel any time.
→ Supercast: sleepboundstudios.supercast.com
→ Patreon: patreon.com/c/SleepBound

Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:
→ Sleepbound Nights — original cosy bedtime stories for grown-ups: Apple Podcasts
→ Sleepbound Soundscapes — ambient sleep music, no narration: Apple Podcasts

Tonight we step back to the edge of the great forest — Hansel with the wooden wren in his pocket, Gretel watching for the white bird among the bean-rows, and their father humming a slow going-down tune into the dark after them. The hunger hasn't come yet. The good years are still going by, quiet as a stream. This is a slow, fairy-tale reading for sleep — soft spoken, no music. No urgency. Just the woodcutter's fire, the sound of cold water over mossy stone, and two children who know the wood the way other children know the rooms of a house. We've taken the old story and breathed more room into it — room for summer afternoons by the spring, for a little birch-bark boat, for the warmth of a remembered voice. It's a bedtime telling: unhurried, close, and made for the hour when the world shrinks to the small gold reach of the firelight. Settle in. There's no rush to what comes next.

Thanks for making space for stories like this one. Sweet dreams.

— Ian & Alex
💤 This story is for you if
  • You fall asleep better with a voice than with silence
  • You love fairy tales told slowly, with room to breathe
  • You want something gentle enough to actually let go
  • Cottages at the forest's edge and firelit evenings are your kind of bedtime
🌙 Best experienced
Headphones on. Lights off. Somewhere warm.
Let the going-down tune do the rest.

Includes mentions of: Food, Loss, Animals, Fire, Weather, Forest, Children.

What is Sleepbound (free)?

Bedtime audiobooks for grown-ups — read slowly enough to fall asleep to.

Classic literature, read softly through the long quiet hours: Austen and Wilde, Grimm and Le Guin, ghost stories and country houses and long sea voyages. No music. No drama. Just the page, the voice, and somewhere warm to lie down. Nothing bad happens. That's deliberate.

Episodes run long on purpose — an hour, four hours, sometimes a whole book in one sitting — so the thing doesn't end and wake you.

Want the rest of it? Over 500 readings across our three shows, ad-free, with new members-only episodes every week:

→ Supercast — all three Sleepbound shows in one app. Free for 7 days, cancel any time:
https://sleepboundstudios.supercast.com
→ Patreon — the same readings, plus the community:
https://www.patreon.com/c/SleepBound

Just me and Ian and the writers. Recorded gently, for sleep.