A calm bedtime story for a mind that will not shut off at night, about a dune that gives way underfoot and the room beneath it. Prince Freddie falls through the ceiling of a library holding everything the sea has ever carried to this shore, catalogued on hand-lettered cards by Francisco, an octopus in spectacles with eight arms all doing something useful. There are bottles and charts and a great many boots. There is a card for a pearl that is no longer there. A slow, absorbing story about things being kept, things being only remembered, and how good it feels when someone else is doing the sorting.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 26, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A calm bedtime story for an anxious mind at night, about a young cloud who has landed on the sea and will not get up again. It is her first morning, she is supposed to be high above the water where clouds live and work, and she has decided against it. Prince Freddie wades in to his knees, sits down facing her, and is quite good at waiting. Then Nimbus Junior comes down in a thoughtful spiral with a story about a first December storm and no useful advice whatsoever. A slow, kind story about fear and first times not being the same thing, and about the morning happening anyway.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 25, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 29 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A calm bedtime story for when you wake in the night and can't get back to sleep, set in a little clock shop above the harbour at siesta hour. A small brass clock has been left outside Tiempo Honesto before the shutters went up, with no name and no note, ticking steadily and perfectly backwards. Señor Tiempo checks it over and finds nothing wrong with it at all, only a maker who meant it. Prince Freddie sits beside the workbench through a long golden afternoon while the hands move the other way. A slow, warm story about something being very good and very strange, and not needing to explain itself.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 24, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 27 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A calm bedtime story to help settle a wound-up nervous system, set at first light on a flat rock at the western end of the beach. Prince Freddie goes back to sit with the old fisherman, this time on purpose. There is a rod in the water, a thermos, a gannet working the waves, and a second cup handed across without ceremony when Mateo rows in around the headland. Almost nothing is said. A fish is caught, admired and let go. A slow, quiet story about the kind of company that asks nothing of you, and about arrangements that hold together without ever being explained.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 23, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 26 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A calm bedtime story for when you can't switch your brain off, about an evening that refuses to end. The light should be turning from gold to copper to grey, but the sun is still hanging above the water, not setting, not moving. Prince Freddie walks the length of the beach to ask her why, sits down on the warm sand, and waits. It turns out she has noticed something on the water she had not looked at properly in years, and the moon and about forty stars are waiting politely for her to finish. A slow, warm story about being allowed to linger, and about the evening arriving anyway.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 22, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 28 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A calm bedtime story for when your mind won't slow down, set on a Spanish beach in the off season. The tourists have gone, the volleyball nets are down, and the low winter sun leaves long shadows and warm sun-puddles in the sand. Prince Freddie and his human walk the shore together with nobody to account to, collecting the deeper, less worn shells the winter storms bring in, keeping some and returning others. A slow, unhurried story about a quieter version of a familiar place, and about how good it is to have nothing to do and all morning to do it in.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 21, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 31 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A calm sleep story for a racing mind, and for the fast friend who learns to wait. Tia arrives at great speed with news: there is something in the cliff beyond the headland. In a hidden sea chamber lit by one column of pale light, a seal pup is waiting for the tide to drop and open the way home, and Freddie shows that the kindest thing to do is sit quietly beside it until the sea opens the door on its own. An adventure that resolves by doing almost nothing, at exactly the tide's pace.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and carry you down into sleep. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 20, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 26 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A quiet bedtime story to calm your nervous system, spent watching small, unhurried work done well. On a flat rock at the eastern end of the beach, a small dark crab is arranging her found colours in a curved line: rose-pink sea glass, an amber stone, a curl of pale kelp. It is not for anything. It is just arranged. Prince Freddie sits down on the sand and watches the rose-pink catch the last light and go briefly extraordinary.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are calm sleep stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 19, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 26 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A gentle bedtime story for the 3am wake-up, told under a rising moon on the rocks. Eight hermit crabs are stuck in shells they have outgrown, waiting for one new shell to start the exchange, and the answer turns out to be resting quietly on the windowsill of Freddie's own cottage. One by one, by moonlight, every crab moves into a home that finally fits, and little Petra draws herself in for the first time in three days. A story about letting go of what you have outgrown, at exactly the right speed.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are slow bedtime stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and carry you down into sleep. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 18, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 34 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.

A slow sleep story for a ruminating mind, beginning with a beeswax-sealed green bottle at the tide line. Inside is an unsigned message from a long way off that describes Freddie's own beach exactly: the lighthouse that sweeps every twelve seconds, the fountain with the silver fish, the small prince who walks the tideline. No one can say who wrote it, and Freddie decides the question does not need an answer. He re-corks the bottle and gives it back to the sea. A story about letting a mystery stay a mystery.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried bedtime stories for grown-ups, written to quiet a busy mind and soften the end of the day. You are not meant to reach the end.

How to listen: lie down, dim the light, and let the words do the walking. If you drift off before the last line, the story has done its job.

Follow Prince Freddie: Sleep Stories for Adults for a new story to fall asleep to. Read the written stories at stories.princefreddie.com and find everything at princefreddie.com.

If this one ends before you do, there is a longer telling. The Settle, Night 17, is the same story told twice, slower the second time, 26 minutes over a steady sea, with an ending you are not meant to hear. settle.princefreddie.com

Every story is written by the Prince Freddie studio and read by a calm synthetic voice.

Press play, and let the day settle.