A short character study looking deeper into the weirdness that is the character of the famous Russian witch Baba Yaga and why she might be the way she is. Note: this isn't the Fairy Tale Friday episode, just a little bonus one :)
The story of a young woman, her magic doll, and a witch who may be the most terrifying - or the most ridiculous - person you've ever seen. You'll also see that you should definitely not trust a gift from a witch. Especially if that gift is a human skull...that's on fire. On the creature of the week, [...]
In this Russian Fairy Tale from the same collections as the stories of Koschei the Deathless, we find a prince who goes on a quest for the firebird. This leads us into a Russian nesting quest situation, where he ends up on a quest-within-a-quest-within-a-quest. We'll also follow his doofus brothers, who decide that taking an extended [...]
The end of the saga of this legendary king has Viking battles, magic cows, and a long con to take over England. Ragnar's poor planning when it comes to cementing his legacy blows up in his face, and we catch up with Aslaug, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild, and the atrociously ugly couple that murdered [...]
Hey everyone! First, thank you so much for supporting the podcast. Here is the first Fairy Tale Friday episode. If you didn't hear the podcast last week, it's the fairly-horrifying tale of Sleeping Beauty. There's a creature of the week, too! The story of a drunk man from Irish folklore who is the possible origin of [...]
People throughout history, before they died, have seen something...strange. They have seen ghostly doubles haunting their steps, foretelling their doom. These things are called doppelgängers, and while they mean something different now - basically someone that looks like you - their folklore origins are something far more ominous and sinister. This episode is about the shadowy [...]
The tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, legendary Viking king and main character of the History Channel series "Vikings" and the many women in his life you absolutely do not want to mess with. It contains Viking battles, murder, betrayal, and heartbreak, uncommonly-ugly peasants, and, of course, a dragon fight. For the creature of the week, if anyone [...]
As promised, here are the pictures of the pig-faced lady. These first two are prints from the 1600s. They are very accurate. Ouch, indeed. These later ones were from the craze in the 1800s This first one is one of the articles mentioned in the show The engraving of the Manchester Square pig-faced lady Want color? [...]
For over 200 years in western Europe, there was a pervasive belief among large portions of the population that the upper classes in society were hiding something - women horribly cursed with the heads of pigs . Not an insult or a metaphor, no, these were women who were thought literally to be pigs from the [...]
This was one of the more comprehensive public domain versions I could find: Long, long ago in the province of Tango there lived on the shore of Japan in the little fishing village of Mizu-no-ye a young fisherman named Urashima Taro. His father had been a fisherman before him, and his skill had more than doubly [...]