A House of Pomegranates contains four short fairy tales by Wilde. In The Young King, we are warned against the love of beauty and luxury. The Birthday of the Infanta is a poignant story about the King of Spain’s daughter, who is celebrating her twelfth birthday. The Fisherman and his Soul is the longest of the four stories, about a fisherman who falls in love with a mermaid and sacrifices his soul for her. The Star-Child, about a child who is found by a woodcutter after a shooting star falls from the sky.