Inside the archive

A small blog, built on very old stories

Four of us, one shared desk, and a love of old stories that has pulled us toward dusty libraries and forgotten archives for the better part of a decade. We still chase the same questions we started with — where a myth came from, and who first dared to tell it.

Woodworker planing a board at a long workbench

How it started

It began with one old book

Pansecret Sweets Store started in a borrowed corner of a university library, with one old book of half-translated legends and a notebook of retellings that mostly missed the mark. We kept at it anyway, chasing footnotes into older and older sources.

The desk is bigger now and the archive is finally ours, but every legend is still researched one story at a time, by writers who put their name to what they publish and trace each tale back to where it was first spoken or written down.

We publish less than we could. Choosing fewer legends means we can trace each one back through its oldest sources, check the translations, and still get the story out before the trail goes cold.

If a retelling doesn't ring true to the oral tradition it came from, it doesn't go up at all — we would rather hold a story back than get it wrong.

Hands shaping wet clay on a potter's wheel

Sources

Myth, legend and oral tale

We draw from archives and collections we have visited ourselves, pulling only as many threads as we can properly translate before the trail grows cold.

Fragments of half-lost tales get woven into shorter retellings, and every translation is done here from the original text rather than borrowed from someone else's summary.

At the writing desk

The storytellers behind it

Anouk R.Myth and legend

Writes every legend that reaches the page.

Teo V.Wood and joinery

Cuts, joins and oils everything wooden.

Sena K.Cloth and dye

Dyes the cloth in small batches and packs each order.

Process

Myths Carved in Old Stones

Legends

We start on paper and stay there until the shape is right.

Fables

Everything is made in the room next door, by the same hands.

Old Books

Each piece is checked, signed and wrapped before it leaves.

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