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 [...]
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 [...]
These are two stories from Japanese fairy tales. I don't want to ruin them, so I can't say too much, but they are amazing. One is about a boy who draws pictures of cats, much to the detriment of his job and a ridiculous amount of ancient books. The other story is about a kind fisherman [...]
Finishing up the twelve labors, Hercules fights way, way too many things: a giant boar, a giant bull, vicious birds, man-eating horses, the three-headed hell hound Cerberus, and more, all as penance for his crime. The creature of the week are invisible weasel brothers that might give you a small cut or two...or might cut off [...]
The story of Hercules is one part gritty, serious tragedy and two parts over-the-top monster fights. This week, in the origin story of one of the greatest mythological heroes of the western world, we get to see the human side of the demigod before the story goes completely off-the-rails and it's just one big monster fight [...]
Instead of one long story, this week I'm telling four stories about canines from folklore from all around the world. We'll go back to the Norse gods and goddesses where Loki will make more poor choices. Then I'll talk about the legend of the black dog of the UK and Ireland. There's the weird and hilarious [...]
A short supplemental on one of the inspirations for Merlin, a man named Myrddin the Wyllt, a Welsh warrior bard who went insane after seeing his friends die on the battlefield and ran off to a life in the forest. It would have been fine if people didn't keep dragging him back to civilization...or if he [...]