**Note: this is a different episode than episode 1 of the member podcast. I completely re-did it. It's the first written version of Sleeping Beauty, put down to paper in the 1600s by the Neapolitan writer Giambattista Basile. And it's horrifying. The creature is elephant rat. It's an elephant whose also a rat sometimes. No [...]
The king is annoyed. All of these people want to make him work. It's just...not fair. Sure, they're starving and about to riot in the streets, but actually showing up to work is really going to cut into his sitting around time. Unfortunately, he might not have a choice. The people are getting angry, and that [...]
A father makes a promise he can't keep. It's kind of not his fault, though. Being a new parent is super tiring.
Joaquin is out of control. He is riding through town, doubling the rewards on his own wanted posters. He has cowed or killed anyone who has tried to stop him, and he thinks he is untouchable. He's not wrong, either. The only people who know his face are either very trusted or very dead. Still, the [...]
It's 1850. The gold rush in the wild west, and Joaquin Murrieta seeks a better life in the US state of California, only recently taken from Mexico in the Mexican-American War. He tries to play by the rules and live by the laws, but everything keeps getting taken from him over and over again. Tired of [...]
The story of the Vizier and the sage Duban, from 1001 nights, where a sage helps out a king with the mindset of a toddler when it comes to medicines
The story of Meng Jiangnu and the Great Wall is one of the four great folktales of China. It's the story of love, tyranny, and standing up for what is right, no matter the cost. If you like your evil creatures without any way to defeat them whatsoever, then this week's creature might be for you. [...]
Three lifetimes, two guardians, one objective: get back home. In our long overdue first foray into stories from India, it's the story of Jaya and Vijaya, the gatekeepers to Vishnu's celestial abode and the fateful decision they made one day that would change everything. It's the story of a demon that, reborn across generations and millennia, [...]
The prince is having a bad day...because the prince is having a great day. His life is just too easy. Too awesome. He is suffering from too much luxury. It's definitely not because he's into a girl who doesn't like him back. Nope. Not at all. Ok, it totally is. But don't tell his mom. The [...]
Iktomi, the white spider, asks his friend Coyote, the coyote, over for dinner. It does not go well. The creature this week is the sea hare! It's a hare! In the sea! Except that it was named by people that have apparently never seen a hare! Music: "The Confrontation" by Podington Bear The (real) sea hare: [...]