Sinbad (no, not that Sinbad) is probably the 3rd most famous story from a collection titled "One Thousand and One Nights". It's a story of loss, hardship, and redemption...and then partying so hard that you forget all that loss, hardship, and redemption and need to do it all over again. Six more times. On the plus side, [...]
Today's story is about a man who is also a spider. A spider....person... from Native American folklore. I'm not sure if trademark law prohibits me from describing an anthropomorphic male spider in the most succinct terms, but we're going to be safe. Anyway, Iktomi does whatever a spider can, and also a few things a spider [...]
The surprisingly brutal original story of the ugly duckling
Don't, under any circumstances, trust the Midas touch. The king of unforced errors, Midas is a well-known figure in mythology mainly because of horrible decision making and lack of foresight. They say any publicity is good publicity, and I hope that is the case for Midas, who took a bad choice and used it to propel himself to everlasting notoriety. [...]
Wrapping up this two-part series on Morgan le Fay, we'll see her devious schemes within schemes come to fruition with one aim in mind: killing King Arthur and seizing the throne for herself. The creature this week is fish man, from Spain. He's kind of like a superhero if all superheroes did was lay around and [...]
Sorceress. Confidant. Traitor. Sister. All of those words describe Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur's half-sister. She is by far the most complex character I've come across in the Arthurian legends, but she's constantly portrayed in the medieval and early modern texts as a one-note traitorous baddy who is evil because she's an evil sorceress and evil [...]
I wanted to name this episode "it's not easy being green," but it really is. The Green Knight had his head chopped off last episode...but still carried it out of the most uncomfortable Christmas dinner ever. Really, it's not easy being Gawain, who has to go present his neck in payment. Except it really is easy [...]
You probably had to read the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in high school. I know I did, and it's a great story. There are beheadings, green guys, confusing interactions with ladies. It might be one of the most violent non-Die Hard Christmas stories. Anyway, everyone knows that. You probably don't know the story I'll [...]
You know how to make your stories completely resistant to any ridicule from a future podcaster? Make them as ridiculous as possible. The stories of Paul Bunyan arose from the camps of lumberjacks in the US in the 1880s, but he spread to be a nationwide symbol of American strength and a pioneer spirit. Except that [...]
The story of Oedipus is fun until it isn't. I've met people with varying degrees of familiarity with the story. Some are familiar only with the central premise of the story, while others' knowledge only extends to a certain disgusting little complex popularized by a similarly-disgusting Viennese psychologist. Regardless, the story of Oedipus is a fascinating commentary [...]