Category: Episodes
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Daughter of the Sword
daughter of the sword South Africa This coming-of-age story comes from Ethel L. McPherson of Cape Town. She credits her stories as retellings from Zulu and Sesotho translations by the Nursery Tales of Bishop Callaway, published in 1868 and the Treasury of Basuto Folklore by M.Jacottet. The birth of a daughter A long time ago, […]
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The Story Bag
The Story Bag. In the spirit of the Lunar New Year, our story will be from Korea! Lunar New Year has many different names and countries like China, Korea, Vietnam, and Malaysia all celebrated January 22nd, 2023! We do cover the story of the Moon Goddess from the Mid-Autumn festival so if you want more […]
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Sparrow Shorts: The Cottager and His Cat
The Cottager and His Cat Happy New Year, Travellers! Welcome back to the Enchanted Forest. I hope you all had a lovely holiday season and are as eager as we are for another exciting year full of new and old stories! This week, Fox is out in the winter wonderland, searching high and low for […]
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The Oak King and the Holly King
Greetings Travellers! Welcome back to Tales from the Enchanted Forest with your animal companions Fox and Sparrow! This blog post is dedicated to our last episode of 2022, the Legend of the Holly King and the Oak King. We have taken all the various retellings of this story and created a yuletide patchwork story to […]
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Why the Sea is Salt
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe have an odd Christmas story featuring ham, an outhouse and a magic quern that churns out whatever your heart desires. Come join us for a pointlessly fun winter tale to find a Norse explanation for why the Sea is Salt! Show notes, sources and Five Fantastic Finds included!
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Chang’e and Hou Yi: The Lady of the Moon
Chang’e and Hou Yi are two popular characters from Chinese legends, with him as the famed archer and her as the Lady of the Moon. Read about their love story and all the variations of the tale.
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The Mermaid Wife and Other Selkie Stories
The Mermaid Wife and other Selkie stories covers the Scottish story as well as sources, fun facts about mermaids and migratory folktales!
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Aesop’s Fables
Fantasy encompasses a wide, wide spectrum of writing. We have beast fables, we have gothic, we have tales of vampires and werewolves, and we have sword and sorcery; we have epics from Homer, and there is just so much out there that we put under the umbrella of ‘fantasy.’ – Robin Hobb Mel Shaw’s painting, […]
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Saint George: House of the Dragon Slayer
The famous legend of “Saint George and the Dragon” is as iconic to the English as Jack and the Beanstalk and a Christmas Carol. The original story was a lot more intense than the abridged version we all know. For our ‘Five Fantastic Finds’ you can hear about religious myths and canon, damsels in distress, […]
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Tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab
The tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab is one of the greatest in the epic literature world. Listen to the story here or below! Kay Kavus’ reign was eventful, but sadly, not all that happened was productive or good. Kavus was captured again, started many more conflicts, and got deceived into building a chariot to fly […]
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Rostam: Horsin’ Around
It’s finally time for Rostam! Our previous episode kicked off our trilogy on the Shahnameh or “Book of Kings,” an epic by Ferdowsi on the history of Persia’s Greatest Kings and Heroes. We last spoke of the Hero Sam and his son Zal so if you are interested in knowing more about them, then make […]
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Shahnameh: Sam, Zal and Rudabeh
The Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) by Hakim Abu al-Qasim Mansur is one of the world’s greatest Epic poems, detailing the history of Iran’s Kings and Heroes. He is known as “Ferdowsi Tusi,” which is actually a title meaning “The Tusi Poet from Paradise”. The work has morphed with every retelling, and the stories have […]
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Star Wars: Fairy Tale Or Fantasy?
Sparrow tries to convince Fox that Star Wars is truly a fairy tale. But Fox is not quite convinced. Hear the debate and let us know if you think Star Wars is a fairy tale or just a fantasy.
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The Mitten: Ukrainian Folktale
We have used many different versions of “The Mitten” from Barbara Suwyn, Irina Zheleznova, Svitlana Yakovenko, Pavlo Chubynsky (1878) and Ivan Rudchenko (1870). Today, we have a famous folktale from Ukraine that some of our travellers might have heard already! The story of the mitten has been translated from Ukrainian into many different languages and retold in children’s books! One […]
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Beauty and Pockface: Skin Deep
Cinderella is unconquerable when accounting for the number of retellings, adaptations, variants and popularity. Most of these adaptations focus on the Charles Perrault version of Cinderella (The Little Glass Slipper) when there are many other variants to choose from! One of these variants called “Yeh-Hsien” is the earliest recorded Cinderella tale, written in c.850 C.E […]
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