Irena is a character in the story-within-a-story in “Telling Fairy Tales.” She’s a Polish woman whom Karol falls in love with while he’s stationed in the Middle East. Irena tells a story of her own, in which a king falls in love with a bear. After they have sex, the king banishes the bear out of shame—and the bear gives birth to a daughter who, like her, is cursed to make men fall in love with her.