Eps. 66 The Law of Surprise : Hans the Hedgehog

Inspired by a listener request, and the debut of season two of The Witcher on Netflix, Katrina and Geoff get into The Law of Surprise. If you’re anything like Geoff, the origins of this tradition may surprise you, as will its relationship to the story of “Hans the Hedgehog” as collected by the Grimm brothers. Come for the fun facts you can use to impress your friends, and stay for a delightfully strange story about the worlds second most famous hedgehog.

Show Notes:
At the top of this episode, Geoff makes sure to correct himself from the last episode when he said that February 2nd was a Tuesday. It is going to be a Wednesday. This is a calendar podcast.

Moving onto the episode, Katrina introduces our topic, which is firmly framed around Netflix’s series The Witcher.

A couple months ago, Folkwise asked me to join part of their all day live event playing Witcher 3 to promote their  “Text Club” (which is a million times better than a Book Club because it includes way more than books) called Folk Cited. Their first text that they were going to be looking at was “The Last Wish” from The Witcher book series. Katrina obviously wanted to join in that fun and so she finally decided to watch the first season of The Witcher. Geoff had been trying to get Katrina to watch the show since it came out in December 2019 but it took Folkwise to get her to actually do it.

SEASON ONE SPOILERS FOR THE WITCHER

During the first season, in Episode 4 Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials, Katrina watched as a knight came into a banquet hall and as his helmet was ripped off and he was revealed to have a hedgehog like head, Katrina gasped knowing exactly what was happening and that the Princess was owed to this hedgehog man. But…we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Back in 2020 when we were doing the Beauty and the Beast series, an audience member reached out and asked if we were going to be doing “Hans My Hedgehog”. At the time, we had to say no because we didn’t have time for it and didn’t have a lot to add to the discussion about the tale or in relation to the series we were doing.

But seeing how Andrzej Sapkowski used the story within his world of The Witcher, we finally have something interesting to talk about, The Law of Surprise. After Season One was released in December of 2019, people started Googling, “What is the Law of Surprise? Is the Law of Surprise really an ancient tradition?”

Andrzej Sapkowski invented the phrase “The Law of Surprise” but what it is describing is a noted motif that is inside of the Thompson Motif Index. S 240 “Child unwittingly promised”. This is close to motif S 210 “Child sold or promised” which we might be familiar with from tales like Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, or Rumplestiltskin. But with S 240 “Child unwittingly promised”, a parent (usually the dad) gives away what he does not know he has.

How this happens has a bit of variety to it. “The first thing born on your farm in spring.” “The first to greet you on your return home.” Or Katrina’s personal favorite “Nix, Naught, Nothing”.

In “Nix, Naught, Nothing” found in Joseph Jacobs’ collection of tales called “English Tales”, the king away from home doesn’t know that a child has been born at home. His wife, not knowing what to name the child, named it “Nix, Naught, Nothing”. The king on his return home was helped over a body of water by a giant who told the king that all he would owe when he got home was “Nix, Naught, Nothing”. The king unwittingly and eagerly agreed to this simple payment. When he got home however, he discovered to his horror what he had done.

Before Geoffrey really gets into the tale, he has a bit of a meltdown about having children. And then launches into a discussion about the joy and pains of wanting children and then getting them.

Then he gets into the story of Hans My Hedgehog or Hans the Hedgehog.

It is the story of a rich man who desperately wanted to have a child but he and his wife couldn’t get pregnant. The townspeople were very insensitive to him and so one day he said, “I wish that I could have a child, even if it is a hedgehog.”

Pretty soon after this, his wife became pregnant and when she gave birth, they were both shocked and horrified to find that this baby was half hedgehog (on top) and a half human (on bottom). They didn’t really know what to do with this baby and so they put him behind the stove to keep warm and out of sight. And that was how he was raised for 8 years.

The years go by and pretty soon, Hans the Hedgehog decides to head out into the world to raise pigs out in the woods. His father was happy to watch him go because for many years he wished that he had no child at all.

Out in the woods, watching his herd of pigs and playing his bagpipes, Hans is living his best life. One day, a lost king hears the bagpipes playing and follows the sound. Seeing Hans he asks for directions out of these woods. Hans promises to show him the way out as long as the king promises, “I will give you the first thing that greets me on my return home.”

When he gets home, his daughter, the princess, runs out of the castle to greet him. Horrified, the king tells his daughter what he promised and quickly decides in his heart not to follow through with his deal with Hans.

Out in the woods, another king is wandering around lost but follows the sounds of the bagpipes to Hans. Once again, Hans promises to help him if the king promises to give to Hans the first thing that greets the King when he gets home. The King promises and the same thing happens. The king’s beautiful daughter runs out of the house to greet her father who she had been worried about because he had been gone for so long.

This daughter was willing to marry Hans to help her father honor his promise.

Some time passes, and Hans goes to the kingdom of the first king asking for his Child Surprise (he doesn’t call in that but I’m riding this Witcher train). The king reluctantly gives Hans his daughter and they start to ride away in a carriage. But Hans knew that she didn’t really want to honor the promise that was made and rips off her dress and pricks her with his hedgehog spikes. Then he kicks her out of the carriage and she is scarred and disgraced (this is probably a coded reference for SA but we don’t go into that in this episode).

Hans then goes onto the second king’s kingdom to claim his reward. The princess was willing and waiting because she wanted to honor his father’s promise and reward the person who had helped her father when he was lost in the woods. They are married and on their wedding night, the princess is willing to lie in bed with her new husband but was worried about his quills. He assures her that nothing bad is going to happen to her.

Before bed, Hans told the King to have 4 guards stay by the bedroom door. At night, Hans would remove his hedgehog skin and leave it on the floor. The guards needed to run in, grab the hedgehog skin, and throw it into the fire.

They do exactly that and the hedgehog skin goes up in flame. Hans is on the bed covered in soot and they quickly wash him off to discover that Hans is now a beautiful human man. The kingdom rejoices and the marriage celebration is a grand affair.

Sometimes later, Hans returns home to present himself to his father and much to the annoyance of Geoff and Katrina, the father goes to live with his now fully human son, even though the dad was a big jerk the entire story.

Geoff and Katrina get slightly off topic discussing that sometimes there are weird things in stories, like never mentioning a character again once they stop serving a purpose for the action of the tale. There are several features often found in fairy tales that are there to make it easier for oral storytellers to remember the action inside of the tale.

Geoff and Katrina finish up the episode by recapping The Law of Surprise and teasing other Witcher episodes to come.

Books Used:

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

The Storyteller by Boom! Studio

Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm

TV Shows Used:
The Witcher Season 1 Episode 4: Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials

The Storyteller Series 1 Episode 5: Hans My Hedgehog by Jim Henson Company

Eps. 65 These Stories are (not) for Children: King Thrushbeard and The Three Snakes Leaves

Katrina and Geoff get sent questions about fairy tales and folklore fairly frequently and this year we want to focus on answering those questions. We’re starting off the year by answering the question, “Are fairy tales for children? And what are the most important fairy tales to tell my children?” It isn’t a quick answer, but using Katrina’s background in Early Childhood Development and Geoff’s unsuspecting son, we examine two stories from the Grimm Brothers’ collection to examine this question.

Show Notes:
In this episode, Geoff and Katrina are introducing the new project for 2022, which is a new focus on answering our audience’s questions AND taking audience requests.

Geoff starts off by misinforming people about the exciting date of “Twos-day” which he believed to be on February 2nd, 2022 (02/02/2022). That date is actually on a Wednesday. BUT we now know, even though it wasn’t revealed in this episode, that “Twos-day” is going to be on February 22nd, 2022 (02/22/2022). That date falls perfectly on a Tuesday AND it has one more two than previously thought.

We also had the opportunity to be on an episode of WokeTales Podcast on January 5th where we talked with the host Vipul about “The Lay of Thrym”, an exciting story from the Poetic Edda where Thor goes on a quest to recover his stolen hammer and he teams up with his brother Loki. Definitely worth a listen. The story is fun AND the discussion around gender bending and cultural gender norms is interesting.

Our first episode of the year (and our project of answering questions from our incredible audience), is focused on the question, “How important is it for children to learn folk and fairy tales in their original form – I find a lot of children have heard retellings of tales but haven’t heard the original. How important is it for them to learn them and if so, are there certain ages you recommend they learn them by? And which tales are the most important for them to learn?”

This question is also the question that started Katrina on her journey into learning about fairy tales and folktales, which eventually led us to developing this blog and then podcast. Some early childhood curriculums have a large focus on fairy tales and Katrina was researching these curriculums for her children.

After grabbing a copy of The Brothers Grimm collection, Katrina realized that she didn’t find all these stories appropriate for her children and she started to research if these stories were originally meant for children. She quickly discovered that not all of the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm were for children. Not only that, but stories that were even older versions of the same tale types, weren’t being performed in front of children. All of that research led to more research, which turned into this podcast.

We then launch into a discussion about how the idea of “original” fairy tales is flawed because there are no real original versions to oral storytelling traditions. So the idea that children need to know the “originals” of any fairy tales is flawed. Just as the storytellers of old did not feel the need to stay loyal and true to any concrete version, we don’t need to feel an obligation to give our children the oldest version, nor do we need to tell them the most graphic and violent versions.

Then Katrina reworks the question from the top of the episode to, “How important is it for children to learn folk and fairy tales from antiquity? Which ones are the most important? Which ones are the best?”

Katrina immediately counters with a question. What are you trying to teach your kids?

Reading stories to children is one of the most important things that a parent can do. One of the reasons that it is so important is because stories give an opportunity for children to hear about situations and feelings that they haven’t encountered yet. Or maybe they have encountered them but need to see examples of problem solving or emotional regulation in healthier ways.

These old folk and fairy tales shouldn’t be withheld from children because children are too “weak” today and can’t handle heavy subject matters. That simply isn’t true. Children are capable of hearing about heavy topics like racism, death, and divorce. They can understand the pain of cruelty and helplessness.

But folk and fairy tales should be looked at to see, “What is this story teaching? Either explicitly or implicitly?”

Geoff was reading a book called “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions” by Dan Ariely and talked about how human nature causes people to take their own sides. Because of this, sometimes it is easier to teach when we remove ourselves from the situation and look down into a story as a 3rd party. Outside of the situation it makes it easier for everyone (In this discussion, children) to look at a situation without as much bias and without feeling called out.

Katrina talks about how she recently bought herself the children’s book “Death in a Nut” which is based on a folktale that we had discussed in an episode of the same name. Most people who heard that episode probably didn’t think “this story is for children” but children see death in their own lives. Whether the death of a pet, grandparent, parent, sibling, or friend. And they would understand the pain of death and a story like “Death in a Nut” would be helpful to read to that child.

Another consideration when choosing a story for children is, “Are the values of the culture reflected in this story, teaching values that I want for my children?”

The episode then moves into the story telling portion focusing on stories that Katrina found on the list for one curriculum for children. The first tale is “The Three Snake Leaves”.

In this story, a man and his son are struggling financially and the son decides to leave home and join the military. The son was very valiant in his military career and was able to rally his comrades into victories on the battlefield. When the king heard about this, he wanted to meet this man and reward him for bravery. The king gave him riches and accolades. But the man wanted the king’s daughter. But the king’s daughter wanted her husband to promise to be entombed with her when she died. Like…even if he was entombed alive. This man wasn’t deterred and promised what she wanted. They were quickly married.

Obviously, almost immediately in the story, his wife got sick and died. Obviously. It would be weird if she didn’t.

The man was clearly horrified to be entombed alive with his wife but he really had no way out. The king was going to make sure that his son in law followed through with his promise to his daughter. 

He was entombed with his wife but shortly after, he sees a snake slither out of a hole in the wall. He kills it so that it doesn’t desecrate the body of his dead wife. But a second snake shows up with magic leaves and brings the dead snake back to life. Once alive, the snakes slither away. The man then takes the magic leaves and places them on his wife and is amazed that she came back to life.

They are released from the tomb and return to life as normal. The man made sure to bring the magic leaves with him when they left the tomb. Except that his wife didn’t come back exactly right in the head. She now wasn’t in love with her husband any more.

On a ship, she fell in love with the Skipper and decided to murder her loyal husband. Her and the Skipper throw him into the ocean and head back to the kingdom to start their lives together. But the servant of the man quickly hops in a smaller boat and saves the man from the ocean and places the magic leaves on him as well.

They manage to get back to the kingdom before the wife and the Skipper. They tell the king what happened and he tells the man to hide so that the King can ask her daughter what happened. Obviously she lies and then is bamboozled when he jumps out from his hiding place. The wife and Skipper are punished and put to death. The End…Good Night children.

After pointing out elements that are in this tale that we’ve also seen in past episodes, we discuss what about this tale would present issues to consider if using them with children. Geoff reveals that he read this story to his son before he realized what it was about which really added to the conversation in the episode. Interestingly, one of the issues that his son had with the tale was when the wife stopped loving her husband. This points out an interesting idea that children aren’t necessarily troubled by the things that we think they would be troubled by. Buried alive? Chopping up snakes? Murder? Nope. Not troubling for some kids. But a wife that has stopped loving her husband? Troubling for some kids.

It also shows how stories will naturally lead to questions that will make for good connections in the real world. Why does the wife stop loving her husband? Will my mom stop loving my dad? 

These questions aren’t bad. These conversations are important to have with your children. Parents have a responsibility to answer uncomfortable questions. And stories can be a good way to have these conversations started and these questions answered. The question becomes, is this story going to be the right way to bring it up?

Luckily, the tradition of storytelling tells us that it is okay to change stories to fit your purposes. Folklore changes as culture changes and that’s okay. So if you want to tell your children a story but there are parts that don’t sit right with you, you are free to change whatever you need to. Change the gender of the characters. Use exciting modern language. Whatever you need to do to keep your audience of children engaged.

After this brief discussion, Katrina retells the story of King Thrushbeard , which is a tale that is very close to The Taming of the Shrew on the ATU Index (ATU 901).

The story starts with a beautiful princess whose sharp tongue and rudeness is legendary throughout the kingdom. So much so that when she makes fun of a visiting king, the nickname for him stuck and he was called King Thrushbeard for the rest of the story. 

Her father was mortified by her rudeness and he decides to give her away to the first beggar that comes through the kingdom. A few days later, he has the opportunity when a man shows up to play his instrument and ask for a bit of payment. He ends up leaving with the princess and taking her back to his place…which was a shack in the outskirts of the kingdom of King Thrushbeard.

She tried to be helpful for awhile but there isn’t a lot of work that she is suited for. Finally she ends up as a kitchen maid in the local palace. A few weeks later, the King is going to be celebrating his marriage and the castle is bustling with preparations. The day of the wedding arrives and King Thrushbeard gets his revenge by humiliating the old princess in front of the royal court that came to celebrate his wedding to…her.

After the story, Geoff and Katrina discuss how the message of “it’s important to be kind to others” in this story, is very much overshadowed by the awful behavior of all of the characters involved. There are many many children’s books that can be found with a message of being kind to others that don’t also include messages about “taming women” by abusing them. This is an example of how some of these stories written down in the 1800’s reflect the values of the people in the 1800’s and we need to examine if those values are the values that we want to instill in children today.

Geoff and Katrina wrap up this episode by answering one of the final parts of the question from the beginning. “What folktales are the most important to teach our children? Which retellings are best?” And once again, we answer that question with a question. “What folktales have the most importance to you and your family? What cultural tales are the most important in your cultural traditions?”

Cinderella is NOT more important than Momotaro for children to learn.

Stories are important for children and for humanity. And deciding which ones are the most relevant to you is a deeply.

Books Used:

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely

Death in a Nut by Eric Maddern and Paul Hess

Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm

“The Monkey’s Paw” a short story by W.W. Jacobs

Eps. 62 Dream Divination : The Thousand and One Nights

Katrina and Geoff talk about dreams! This week we learn a new word, oneiromancy, the use of dreams to foretell the future, and use it as a vehicle to explore the difference between folk belief and religious mythology (and the very specific definition of myth used in the study of folklore). We cover a bunch of quick stories in this episode all related to dreams. First Katrina walks us through the Biblical story of Joseph who used the ability to interpret dreams to win the favor of the pharaoh. Then Geoff retells the (surprisingly kind of historical?) love story of “al-Mutawakkil and Mahbuba,” from The Thousand and One Nights. And finally Katrina ends the episode with another tale from The Nights, “The Rich Man Who Lost and then Regained His Money.” 

Ep. 61 Middle Eastern Cinderella Tales

Geoff and Katrina have been podcasting for two years! In this, slightly delayed, two year anniversary episode, Katrina and Geoff retell some more Cinderella tales. This time from the Middle East! In the process, we get a chance to look back on familiar themes and story elements from other tale types besides ATU 510A (the common grouping of “Cinderella” tales from cultures around the world). 

Eps. 60 Sindbad the Sailor

Katrina and Geoff go sailing… seven times! That’s right, we’re getting into the Sindbad the Sailor cycles of stories from The Thousand and One Nights. Sindbad is one of those characters with massive name recognition throughout the western world but you’d be hard pressed to find someone who could actually tell you anything about his travels. Well after today YOU can be that someone. Also hear the surprisingly convoluted way that this ancient set of tales was added to The Thousand and One Nights surprisingly recently. Spoiler alert: It involves Fairy Tellers Frenemy #1, Antoine Galland. Because of course it does…

Show Notes:
In another installment of the Thousand and One Nights project, Katrina and Geoff take us into the story of Sindbad the Sailor. This is a character that most people have probably heard of before but might not be familiar with any of his journeys that are written about in the Thousand and One Nights. But that will all change today, because Katrina and Geoff are about to tell 4 of the 7 journeys of Sindbad.

Katrina starts off by explaining how Sindbad the Sailor is NOT a Thousand and One Nights original but is also NOT an orphan tale. Katrina hates telling people about orphan tales and so she is thrilled to get to talk about how Antoine Galland found the Sindbad the Sailor cycle of tales on a trip to Constantiople and translated the tales into French to try his hand at selling folklore, like his contemporary Charles Perrault. These tales were such a success that he decided to continue this work by translating The Thousand and One Nights. In his 3rd volume of tales from The Thousand and One Nights, he used the Sindbad the Sailor cycle of tales again. Ever since then, they have been included in other works of The Thousand and One Nights. They are not considered orphan tales because they have a parent manuscript from an Arabic source. The Sindbad the Sailor cycle of tales is considered to have been created after the Assasid Dynasty but during the Islamic Golden Age.  

The tale starts with Sindbad the Porter carrying groceries for a customer and stopping to rest on a bench next to a merchant’s extravagant home. While sitting outside the home, he recites a poem about the wealth that Fate awards to some and that others suffer in a way that the rich would never understand. He was overheard by the people in the house and they invited him in to dine with them and recite his poem to their faces.

It is then revealed that the owner of the house and the host of the party is none other than Sindbad the Sailor himself. He tells Sindbad the Porter that even though he is rich, he does know what it is like to suffer and toil. And with that, he begins to tell his tale.

His first voyage begins with him taking a boat to Basra and then getting onto a merchant ship and heading into the sea. They went from island to island, port to port with great success. One of the most beautiful islands turned out to be not an island at all. It was a giant fish that quickly dove down into the water. Sindbad found some flotsam to hold onto until he eventually got to land. He looks around until he finds a man who ends up being a groom of a local king. Sindbad witnesses another wonder of the seas, sea horses. Not to be confused with seahorses. 

Sindbad is then taken back to the local kingdom where he gets a job working as a port clerk. While he is there, he meets up with the same ship of people who he had started his voyage with and they were able to sail him back home to his family in Baghdad.

Sindbad the Porter was amazed by this story and Sindbad the Sailor promises him another tale the next day. Sindbad the Porter decides that he wants to hear more of these amazing tales so he comes the next day to hear the story of the second voyage.

The second voyage starts again with Sindbad the Sailor going from Baghdad to Basra and then out into the sea. The journey started out pretty standard until he falls asleep on an island and is accidentally left behind by the ship’s crew. While he is looking around for help, he finds a giant Ruk egg. He ties himself to the mother Ruk and it flies him to a new location…but a much worse location. It is a land full of diamonds, no food or water, just diamonds…and giant snakes. He is helped out of the valley almost the same way that he got in, tricking the Ruk into giving him a ride.

At the top of the mountain, he meets a group of sailors who had come to the valley to get the diamonds. They are amazed by the story of his travels and agree to help him get home to Basra.

Katrina and Geoff, skip over the 3rd voyage and instead move forward to the 4th voyage. Sindbad went back out to sea but very quickly, the whole ship sank in a massive storm at sea. Sindbad once again finds some flotsam to ride on but this time, many of his shipmates make it onto the flotsam too. They make their way to an island where naked men come out of the forest and take the shipmates to their leader. When the shipmates get to this leader, his naked men start to present a bizarre feast. Sindbad doesn’t eat but watches in horror as his shipmates start to change before his eyes. The naked men and their leader are cannibals who are fattening the shipmates up to eat them.

Sindbad is able to escape and flees to a country with a good king who takes Sindbad in. Sindbad notices that this king doesn’t ride his horse with a saddle and when he finds out that that is because no one knows what saddles are, he quickly starts a business to produce them and gets rich. With his riches, the king awards Sindbad with his daughter to marry. Sindbad is happy with his marriage until he finds out that if his bride dies, according to local custom, he will be thrown into a burial pit with her.

As Fate would have it, his wife gets sick and dies and Sindbad is thrown into the burial pit with her along with 7 days worth of provisions. He makes his provisions last long enough for him to live until another funeral is held and he murders the living spouse and takes their provisions. He continues doing this until he finds a way out and gets onto a ship that can take him back to Basra.

Geoff then tells the 6th voyage of Sindbad, which is the last one that we cover in this episode. This time Sindbad gets on a boat that accidentally sails too far into unknown seas and a storm with strong winds destroys their boat on the rocks of an island covered with the flotsam and jetsam of many many other shipwrecks. Unfortunately there was no food on the island to sustain the shipmates who were stranded there. As they started to die, the survivors would give them a proper burial until finally, only Sindbad was alive. In a dark moment, he dug himself a grave so that he would be buried in sand by the wind when he died. But before he dies, he decides to try one last plan. He builds a raft and gets onto the mountain stream that takes him under the mountain through narrow passages.

On the other side of this underground river, he is found by people from this remote kingdom. Sindbad tells the King about Baghdad and the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. The king is so impressed by what he is hearing about the Caliph of Baghdad and decides to prepare presents to take back to Harun al-Rashid. He sent Sindbad to deliver these gifts. Sindbad does just that and when he meets in front of Harun al-Rashid, he gives Harun al-Rashid the presents from this far away kingdom and tells the caliph the tales of his voyage. Harun al-Rashid is fascinated by the tale and has his scribes write it down so that it can be placed into the House of Wisdom.

When Sindbad the Sailor was done telling his tales to Sindbad the Porter, the latter agreed that Sindbad the Sailor hadn’t lived a life of privilege but one of hard work and toil and that he deserved all of the riches that he had. And the two Sindbad’s lived out their days as friends.

With the tales finished being told, Katrina and Geoff talk about the literary message of this tale. Sindbad the Sailor and Sindbad the Porter have the same name which means “Dweller of Sind”. This is used to emphasize that we might all start off the same but through our actions and Fate, our lives can take us in many directions. You may be rich or poor today but there is no telling what the future will hold. Fate is a major part of this story as Sindbad doesn’t do a lot to make sense of the good luck that he has except for his one personality trait that keeps him moving instead of giving up. Geoff also talks about the importance of stories instead of the stories. 

Then Katrina and Geoff talk about the strange creatures and far away lands inside of the stories. Katrina shares a quote about how these elements in the Sindbad stories are similar to real life voyages from that time and also legends that are contemporary to Sindbad. In this time period it was very hard to know what was real and what was fantasy.

Katrina then wraps up by talking about how well this story fits into The Thousand and One Nights even though it was a cycle of tales that wasn’t inside the collection until the early modern period. These stories not only were inspired by stories and journey tales with ancient origins but it has been a story that has inspired many other stories in our modern literature, until the name Sindbad has become synonymous with epic travelers on the high seas.

Books Used:

The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights Volume 2 translated by Malcolm C. Lyons

Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Eps. 59 Haunted Japan

Katrina and Geoff ain’t afraid of no ghosts! In this episode, we kick off spooky season by diving into the world of Japanese ghosts. We explore what different types of ghost stories we tell say about us and our culture. And we learn that stories of ghosts hitching a ride in taxis are so common that basically every taxi driver in Japan expects to experience it for  themselves at least once.

This episode is also in partnership with Aloreing, who has created a podcast play list on Spotify that you can find here with other podcasts sharing spooky content for October.

Show Notes:

In this episode, Geoff and Katrina dive into “Spooky Season” with stories about Japanese Ghosts, and of course, the culture that helps to shape these stories into what the people who tell them want to say about our relationships in this life and the next.

Katrina first discusses the Obon Festival. Since Geoff lived in Japan for two years he was already acquainted with the festivities and told a little bit about his personal experience. The Obon Festival is a holiday that celebrates the ancestral dead. Lights are lit to welcome them into the home of the family and then at the end of the festival, lights are again used to return them to the land beyond the living. 

Katrina starts off the storytelling with a Buddhist story that is connected to the Obon Festival, where a follower of the Buddha finds out that his mother, after her death, has been changed into a Hungry Ghost (a lower level on the way to reaching Enlightenment) and is suffering. He uses his works in this life to help secure her a better place on the path to Enlightenment and when he succeeds he rejoices with dance.

With that foundation laid, Katrina explains how ghost stories, while often trivialized, can teach us very valuable things about the cultures that tell them.

Before getting too far along in retelling ghost stories of Japan, Geoff and Katrina talk about where they sit on the spectrum of belief in ghosts. It quickly turns into a conversation about “Experience-Centered” stories and folk beliefs. While Geoff and Katrina can’t say with absolute certainty that ghosts are real or imagined, they both agreed that people are experiencing SOMETHING.

Katrina then tells a tale called “Hell in Broad Day” in Japanese Tales put out by Panteon Press and translated by Royall Tyler. In this tale, a group of brothers find out that their mother hasn’t risen into Tori Heaven but is suffering for the wrong doings in her life. The brothers work with their community to write the Lotus Sutra until their mother is relieved of her suffering and can go into Tori Heaven. Katrina retold this story to show how the idea of “unfinished business” can differ in other cultures because of what people theologically believe in. This story also shows the obligation that Japanese people still feel towards their loved ones who have died.

Then we moved to stories that include ghostly spirits that are more frightening than beloved mothers. Katrina then retells the tale “She Died Long Ago” from Japanese Tales translated by Royall Tyler. In this story, a man abandoned his wife to work for the city government. His wife waits for them in their old house but he never returns while he lives his best life in the city, including finding another woman to enjoy. Classic scumbag move. When the local leader who had appointed him ended his job, he traveled back to his home town and decided to visit his wife. He then has a frightful experience that teaches him the importance of taking care of relationships while he is alive and reinforces the obligations for proper burial customs to help the spirits of our dead to rest.

This story shows that our relationships carrying on after we die and we have obligations to our dead but it also shows that we have a responsibility to the living. We have to honor our relationships while we are alive and we need to honor our dead. This story also hints at the ideas in Japanese culture about the importance of appropriate action for proper burial. Geoff and Katrina also debate whether the woman in this story could be considered a vengeful ghost.

Then Katrina retells the story of a vengeful spirit in the tale of “Nangkubo, The Mountain Hermit” that she found in Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends by Barre Toelken and Michiko Iwasaka. In this story, a mountain hermit is found to be unacceptable in the town that he lives near. The governor, tired of feeling weirded out by this hermit’s supposed magic, orders the hermit to be executed. The hermit warns the people that if they follow through with this education, generations of their family and this whole town will be cursed. They don’t listen and the spirit of the hermit follows through on the threat.

Lastly, Katrina brings us back to tsunami ghosts that they talked about last year in connection with the devastating tsunami that took place in Japan in 2011. In those stories, taxi drivers are known to give last rides to ghosts. Katrina found while researching for this episode that taxi drivers have been giving rides to ghosts in Japan for almost as long as taxis have existed. Katrina wraps up by telling a tale about a taxi driver who gives a spirit a ride to multiple cities until arriving at the end of the funeral rites for this woman and meeting her family.

Ghost stories aren’t a unique concept to Japanese culture. In fact, they aren’t unique to any culture. They exist around the world and are retold by the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the orthodox religious and the atheist. But when ghost stories are looked at and examined closely, the fingerprints of the culture that they came from are still all over them. Because of these differences and what they mean to the people who retell them, there are so many beautiful and meaningful cultural messages embedded in them.

Books Used:

Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Ghost Legends by Barre Toelken and Michiko Iwasaka

Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore by Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas

Ghostland by Colin Dickey (Katrina will never stop recommending this book to people)

The Terror that Comes in the Night: An Experience-centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions by David Hufford

Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies by Lynne S. McNeill

Japanese Tales edited and translated by Royall Tyler

Eps. 58 Harun al-Rashid

Katrina and Geoff talk caliphs, real and imagined! In this episode, Katrina and Geoff retell the tale “Harun al-Rashid and the Second Caliph” from The Thousand and One Nights. But first Katrina tells us who Harun al-Rashid was in real life (along with a cast full of real characters). The Thousand and One Nights is filled with stories featuring Harun al-Rashid and looking back to the 8th and 9th centuries gives us a clearer understanding of why this Abbasid ruler is so important in the folk culture.

Show Notes:

In this episode, Katrina and Geoff answer the question, Who is Harun al-Rashid and why is he in so many stories of the Thousand and One Nights?

Unlike many characters in the Thousand and One Nights, Harun al-Rashid is the same caliph in every story that makes reference to him or includes him in the narrative of the tale.  That is because he was a historical figure, the 5th caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, who existed at the same time as the Nights, in their earliest and simplest form, were beginning to come together. Harun al-Rashid was such a well known and popular figure long after his death that he continued to live in the minds, and the stories, of the people of Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age and well beyond.

Katrina starts the episode off with a quick run down of the names of characters we are about to encounter in the tale and their real life historical counterparts, including a historical touch point for a beloved character in the Disney movie Aladdin (spoiler alert: it is NOT Ja’far). 

Next, Katrina starts the story of “Harun al-Rashid and the Second Caliph”, where we find our titular character feeling bored and wanting to go out into the city of Baghdad to find something interesting to do. While he and his little entourage are out in the city, they discover that there is a man who is pretending to be the caliph as he floats on a barge on the Tigris every night. Knowing for a FACT that the real caliph is NOT on that barge, they are very interested to find out who this mystery caliph is.

They hatch a plan to get an invitation into this man’s palace and spend an evening eating decadent food, delicious wine (but not Harun al-Rashid for religious reasons), and charming entertainment. It is when the entertainment starts that their host starts to get…weird.

After watching their host break down sobbing and tearing up his clothes listening to songs of love lost, Ja’far, with the encouragement of Harun al-Rashid, asks this mysterious “caliph” the meaning behind his actions and appearance.

Then Geoff, speaking for the second caliph, recounts the events that have lead to this moment. He confesses that he isn’t a caliph at all (shocker…*sarcasm*) but is in fact, the son of a jeweler, Muhammad Ali. Don’t worry, we make plenty of Muhammad Ali jokes, including a clever little rhyme from Geoff.

When a beautiful woman stops by the jewelry store looking for a special piece of jewelry, Muhammad Ali knows exactly the right piece. He pulls out a necklace for her which she loves. She asks him to bring it back to her place and when he gets to her place, she makes her move. It seems that she’s been watching him from afar and wants to marry him. Immediately. And a qadi, or judge, is summoned for a wedding.

After a month of time spent together, Muhammad Ali’s wife tells him that she is going to the bathes but he must promise not to leave her couch until she gets back. Like most folktale protagonists, Muhammad Ali promises to do exactly that, only to immediately be called away, to the caliph’s wife’s harem, causing him to break his promise to his own wife. Breaking trust with his wife has led him to this point in front of the real caliph, crying into his glass of wine wishing for his wife back.

Katrina finishes up the story of Harun al-Rashid and the Second Caliph, with Harun al-Rashid doing what he can to restore love lost to ensure happiness for Muhammad Ali.

Katrina and Geoff then discuss the different elements in the tales they found noteworthy. Katrina briefly talks about the literary similarities to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald which she doesn’t know if it is relevant or purely the product of her own bizarre mind. Then she talks about “harem politics” and why Muhammad Ali being summoned to sing as a performer for the caliph’s wife would upset his brand new wife.

Lastly, Katrina brings it full circle as she again talks about the historical figure of Harun al-Rashid. Not only is it amazing that a real caliph ended up in some of the tales in the Thousand and One Nights but the REASON that he was included, might have been because without his guidance while he was in power as the caliph, the group of tales as we know them might have never existed. The Abbasid dynasty saw the rise of the Translation Movement, a period of time when works of math, science, engineering, and astrology from different countries and multiple languages were being translated and compiled into a House of Wisdom. Harun al-Rashid’s encouragement of these works helped to create an environment that could have produced a group of tales such as the Thousand and One Nights.

Books Used:

The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights Volume One translated by Malcolm C. Lyons

Two Queens of Baghdad: Mother and Wife of Harun al-Rashid by Nabia Abbott

Eps. 57 Chu Cuoi the Moon Boy

Katrina and Geoff kick off the holiday season! That’s right, the holidays are just around the corner, starting with the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, an immensely important holiday throughout eastern Asia. In celebration, Katrina retells a Vietnamese folktale brought to our attention by a listener suggestion. We also discuss another tale from Vietnam about why some people believe that they see the image of a very important rabbit on the moon.

In this episode of the podcast, Geoff and Katrina start off the end of the year holiday season by talking about the Mid Autumn Moon Festival in eastern Asia. Last year we celebrated by telling the story of Chang’e the Chinese Goddess of the Moon (Ep. 32) and after that episode came out, a friend of Katrina (thank you Amy!) sent a message about a story that her father, a Vietnamese American, used to tell her when she was little around the Mid Autumn Moon Festival. Katrina immediately put it on the schedule for September 2021 and after a year, the time has finally arrived to talk about “Chu Cuoi the Moon Boy”.

Katrina and Geoff first discuss how no one version of this story is the “most correct” version and so if your Vietnamese parent told you this story in a different way from our podcast, that is perfect and beautiful. It means that the folktale is still alive within the culture.

The version of this story that Katrina and Geoff ended up using is from Vietnamese Children’s Favorite Stories retold by Tran Thi Minh Phuoc that is put out by Tuttle Publishing. And in this book the story is titled, “Mr. Cuoi Under the Banyan Tree”.

Katrina then retells the story of “Chu Cuoi the Moon Boy”. The tale starts with Chu Cuoi discovering a magic Banyan tree when he watches a tiger use the leaves from said tree to heal her injured cub. He moves the Banyan tree over to his own garden and later uses the leaves to save the life of a local woman who becomes his wife. But tragedy strikes when dirty water falls onto the magical Banyan tree and Chu Cuoi is taken up to the moon to live for eternity. On the 15th day of the 8th month of the year (Full Moon of the 8th moon/MidAutumn Moon), people can look up at the moon and try to see Chu Cuoi and his Banyan Tree on the moon.

Geoff and Katrina discuss the fascination with the moon and stories that are created around the world. It is the closest celestial body to earth and we get to see the same side of it all of the time. They also discuss which came first, the stories or the pictures that people think that they see on the surface of the moon.

The conversation naturally turns to the Jade Rabbit on the moon. Katrina was already familiar with the story of The Hare on the Moon, which is a story about how Rabbit was honored by Buddha for its selflessness. It is a story that she has retold in The Fairy Teller’s Instagram stories (that can still be found in the highlights). So she wasn’t too startled when she found a very similar story retold in Vietnamese Children’s Favorite Stories, as Tho Ngoc, the Jade Rabbit.

Katrina retells the story of The Jade Rabbit, a rabbit who was always trying her best to be an example of loving kindness to all of her friends. As the animals of the forest became better and better friends and community citizens through her good example, a “genie” decides to put their goodness to the test. During this test, they prove to be the kindest animals in the forests and rabbit is rewarded for a selfless act.

This leads Katrina and Geoff to have a conversation about what this story teaches about selflessness and self sacrifice. They wonder if Jade Rabbit went too far or if different types of stories, such as local stories about hero firefighters, also teach these lessons. These stories are used to reinforce the cultural value behind being willing to die for the well being of others in the community. But Geoff and Katrina wonder if our generations interest in mental illness, makes us uncomfortable with the idea of being a martyr for our cultural values.

Katrina and Geoff wrap up this episode talking about the significance of the Banyan tree in the story of Chu Cuoi. There are many plants that make their appearances in folktales and it is usually because they are plants with interesting characteristics and the Banyan tree is no exception.

Books Used:
Vietnamese Children’s Favorite Stories by Tran Thi Minh Phuoc

Eps. 55 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Katrina and Geoff get medieval! Many have wondered how Hollywood could take the 50 page poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and turn it into a 2 hour movie. Well buckle up, because we’ve taken that same poem and turned it into a 2 hour podcast! To start this episode, Katrina gives us a quick and dirty rundown of European history, and introduces us to the world of Arthurian legend (or as Geoff likes to call it, The Arthurian Literary Universe). Katrina then regales us with a retelling based on the absolutely BEAUTIFUL translation by none other than J.R.R. Tolkien. Afterwards, Geoff gives us a run down of differences between the poem and the recently released film, The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel. And our intrepid hosts discuss what these differences say about the cultural values of the 14th and 21st centuries respectively.

Show Notes:
In this episode, Geoff and Katrina talk about the recently released movie, The Green Knight, and the Arthurian legend that it is based on. Geoff went to see the movie with a friend and they both walked out of the theater thinking, “What cultural context am I missing? What does “The Green Knight” mean? What is the background of this story?”

Katrina gives a very fast and dirty background to Arthurian legends since we haven’t covered them at all on the podcast yet. Was there ever a real King Arthur? Well that is definitely still unknown and debated by historians and scholars of the Dark Ages. But this was the time period that the stories of King Arthur started to grow out of and it was in 1136 in the book History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, that stories of King Arthur started to be written down before they spread throughout Europe. Also, Geoffrey of The Fairy Tellers would like you to note that his name is spelled the same way of Geoffrey of Monmouth which is proof positive (to him at least) that his way of spelling his name is the right way.
For this episode, Geoff and Katrina both read a translation of the poem that was produced by J.R.R.Tolkien, called “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and we highly recommend reading this translation. J.R.R.Tolkien does an incredible job maintaining the metering and rhythm of the poem, as well as the alliteration in it. A translation is necessary since the original poem was written in Middle English and not Modern English. In the episode, we talk a little bit about why that distinction matters.

Katrina also gives a little backstory on the manuscript that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight comes from because there is a certain air of mystery surrounding the single remaining copy of this poem that was written in the late 14th century. The first mystery is that the author is completely unknown even though their writing skills make it clear that they must have been highly educated. In this one poem, they weave together a story that contains motifs from other King Arthur tales but also motifs that existed in tales outside of The Green Knight, such as The Beheading Game and An Exchange of Winnings.

Then Katrina gives a retelling of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, where we get to go on the strange journey of Sir Gawain as he tries to prove his bravery and what it means to be a Christian knight and also a representative of King Arthur’s Round Table. Sir Gawain rises to the challenge on New Year’s Day to behead a magical being. Thrust on a journey where orges, trolls, and dragons only get a mere mention in a single stanza in this alliterative poem, it quickly becomes clear that the author of this tale doesn’t want to disgust the monsters in our lives but the battles that rage within ourselves.

Lord and Lady Bertilak welcome Sir Gawain into their home while he waits for the day of his scheduled beheading with the Green Knight, but things quickly take a turn for the weird and inappropriate after Sir Gawain makes a deal with Lord Bertilak  and when Lady Bertilak decides that she wants to learn more about “courtly love” from a Knight from King Arthur’s court. Katrina wraps up the story by telling about a mysterious inscription written in different handwriting on the manuscript of this tale that ties into The Order of the Garter, which is an Order of Knights that still exists today and was founded around the same time that this poem was penned.

After the retelling, Geoff discusses the similarities and differences that highlight how the movie from A24, The Green Knight, and what that says about our 21st century values and the values of the author in the 14th century. How can a story penned in the 14th century, be changed and shaped to still tell a tale that is both intensely odd and deeply poignant? Does being willing to die for your values, prove that you are ready to live your life with those same values? 

Resources Used:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by J.R.R.Tolkien
King Arthur: History and Legend; Dorsey Armstrong “The Great Courses”

Eps. 53 The Taming of the Shrew

Katrina and Geoff talk Shakespeare! In this episode Katrina educates us on the tale type that was the basis of The Taming of the Shrew. Even though the tale type far predates Shakespeare’s play, scholars straight up retconned the name to match his title because it was just that big of a deal! We discuss what Shakespeare changed and why and how the tradition of folklore adaptation continues to this day (or at least until the release of 10 Things I Hate About You in 1999).

Content Warning: Domestic and Psychological Abuse

Note: Katrina was recording in a different environment for this week so there is quite a bit of echo. I’ll make sure she doesn’t record while on the toilet going forward so it doesn’t happen again!

Show Notes:
In this episode, Geoff and Katrina turn to the Bard, William Shakespeare! A long time listener (hi Meg!) of the podcast recommended a book, Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories by Charlotte Artese, and Katrina can never pass up a good book recommendation.
Hoping to do an episode on Shakespeare and The Thousand and One Nights, Katrina instead went down a rabbit hole of research into The Taming of the Shrew. While definitely not Katrina’s favorite folktale type, the mysteries behind Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew piqued her interest.

The first tale that Geoff and Katrina explore, is “The Frolicksome Duke” (ATU 1531 Lord for a Day), which is the tale type that sets up the frame narrative of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In this tale, a Duke finds a local man passed out drunk in the road and decides to play a trick on him. The Duke has his servants dress up the man so that when he wakes up, he will think that he is really a Duke. Looking at the ending of this tale gives us some insight into what Shakespeare’s audience would have been expecting from a tale that they were probably already familiar with and also what we as a modern day audience are missing from the play. It is still up for debate whether William Shakespeare himself left the frame story unresolved or if the real ending to the play is lost to time.

Next, Katrina makes Geoff retell “The Most Obedient Wife” (ATU 901 Taming of the Shrew) because she dislikes the story so much that she decided Geoff would retell it in a less sarcastic tone. But luckily, Geoff still leans pretty hard into sarcastic tongue in cheek comments. It turns out that even Geoff isn’t a fan of psychologically or physically abusive marriages, even in folktale form.

After hearing both of these tale types, Katrina and Geoff discuss how William Shakespeare combined these tales into one play. They also discuss what William Shakespeare added to the tale to create more meaning in the message of the play.

Geoff makes a great point that in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, the scriptwriters did the same thing that William Shakespeare did. They took a known story and changed things in it to subvert expectations and create brand new commentary.
Finally, Geoff and Katrina discuss Christopher Sly, the Lord for the Day in The Taming of the Shrew and what knowing the ending of the folktale can add to the play.

Books Used:
Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories by Charlotte Artese
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare