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May Reads with Fox
May 2026 was a month full of fairy-tales, fantasy, and folklore all with a heaping side dish of feminine rage. While some hit the mark, others fell short in our round-up. Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for giving us advanced copies of each of the following for review: Burn the Sea by Mona Tewari (Bindery Books) Psyche by Forrest Gladstone (Bosque Publishing) We Dance upon Demons by Vaishnavi Patel (S&S/Saga Press) Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou (Penguin) Burn the Sea by Mona Tewari (4/5) Mona Tewari’s “Burn the Sea” came out a few weeks ago and its a…
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Advanced Reader Copy Reviews with Fox
Aicha by Soraya Bouazzaoui Folklore and History behind the Fiction The setting of the story is based on the Siege of Mazagan (later El-Jadida) in 1769. It was the last port held by the Portuguese under the banner of King Joseph I of Portugal before the Siege of the Sultan which serves as the buildup in the book. Aicha can refer to the folklore character “Aicha Kandicha” a Djinn who looks like a beautiful woman (or woman possessed by a Djinn) with hooved feet that tempts men to their death. The folklore of her being a “temptress” could come from…
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The Snow Maiden: A Faerie Tale
Russia, 15 minute read The Snow Maiden, born to Father Frost and Spring has to protect herself from the indignant Sun God, but can she protect her icy heart? Happy New Years, Travellers! There are very few New Year’s stories or folktales that I could find, but I became fixated on King Frost, also known as Father Frost. I wanted to uncover the origins of the character- his stories, his symbolism, and anything else I could find. This research led me to Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden. I did recently release our first episode of 2026 which was the “King Frost…
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The Cobbler’s Son and the Serpent
The Cobbler’s Son and the Serpent Welcome travelers to another spooky tale to tell around the Campfire! If you missed our last post, you can read all about the Murder Maggot of Minnesota here! Now, I originally found this tale in Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World by David Holt and Bill Mooney, which includes “The Tale of the Haunted Forest” as a folktale from Uzbekistan. However, after looking into the references and trying to trace its origins, I was surprised to discover that the story actually comes from a collection of Central Asian folktales compiled by…
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Campfire Tales: The Murder Maggot of Minnesota
The Murder Maggot of Minnesota Listen to our Campfire Tales now! Imagine you’re a teenager sitting around a campfire, it is a dark and stormy night. Your teenage counselor begins a story that makes the hair on your arms stand up and sends shivers down your spine. They hold a flashlight under their face, casting eerie shadows as they reach the scariest part- and then suddenly, you hear something rustling in the trees. Everyone lets out a collective scream! That is precisely the feeling we want to embody in our campfire tale today! Of course, fairytales and folklore may be…
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Graceless Heart, Florence and Sculpture Myths
In 15th-century Volterra, sculptress Ravenna Maffei enters a competition hosted by a secretive, immortal family who offer an invaluable boon to the victor. Desperate to win so she can save her brother, Ravenna reveals a rare magical talent—a dangerous act in a city where magic is forbidden. Her revelation makes her a target, and she is kidnapped by the Luni family and taken to Florence, a city of breathtaking beauty and cutthroat ambition. There, Ravenna is forced into an impossible task where failure means certain death at the hands of Saturnino dei Luni, the family’s enigmatic and merciless heir. Some…
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Food Folklore and Children’s Books
Recently, I have been reading more children’s books and one trend I have noticed is the rise in books about food! Now, this may be because as a Canadian immigrant (and something most immigrants can attest to) food has always been a constant source of embarrassment, history and comfort. I know it’s hard to believe nowadays because food is no longer such a big deal and multiculturalism (at least when it comes to food in some places) is ‘cool.’ The number of fusion restaurants opening at any given time or trending recipes circulating social media can attest to it. However,…
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The Shamans and Swords of K-Pop Demon Hunters
The Shamans and Swords of K-Pop Demon Hunters Welcome to Tales from the Box Office where Fox and Sparrow moonlight as TV and Movie reviewers who focus on the myths and monsters behind the fictional folklore fanfare! In this part, we will focus on Shamanism and Huntr/x. K-Pop Demon Hunters is the blockbuster of the summer and it was only just released in June! The movie which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation and co-directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans features a fictional K-Pop girl group called Huntr/x who just so happen to also be demon hunters. This post…
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Mullah Nasruddin
As many of our listeners know, the month of Ramadan is when Muslims worldwide fast and give thanks for all they have. Last year for Ramadan and Eid, we told the moral tales of the Wise Fool, a folk figure known as Mullah Nasruddin and now, following Eid al-Adha, we have our post! Of course, this is just one of his names since his tales come from many different regions. In Turkey, for example, he is known as Nasreddin Hodja of Anatolia and is believed to have been a real historical figure from the Seljuk empire. These stories are not…
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The Cleaning Pooka of Kildare
Irish Fairies are a hot topic in the folklore world, so whether you are looking for a romanceable one or just a lovable sidekick, there are plenty of fair folk to choose from. A personal favourite of mine is the cleaning variety, but I might be biased since I’ve just finished the Emily Wilde series about Professor Wilde’s scholarly adventures as a dryadologist. This story isn’t about the aloof and haughty fair folk, though we will hopefully cover them in detail later. Today, we have the trickster phantom fairy called the Puca or Pooka. These solitary creatures can take on…
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The Apothecary and the Mermaid
This episode was released last February to celebrate African-American storytelling traditions. For those of our listeners not from Canada or the United States, every February, we celebrate Black History Month with an emphasis in schools on learning about the slave trade, the Underground Railroad and the civil rights movement. Now, on this podcast, we aim to cover a wide variety of international stories, and while we’ve covered North American Native tales, this will be our first African American story. America is truly a mosaic of legends, fairy tales and folktales that are as rich and unique as the generations of…
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The Crystal Casket
The Crystal Casket Italian, 16 minute read Enjoy Giuseppe Pitrè’s Tuscan tale with us as we dive into the Eagle revenge story of the century. This story has fairies, a Witch who is frankly bad at her job, an evil stepmother, a casket obsessed King and his bewildered mother! Oh and our Snow White character, Ermellina! Who may or may not be twelve years old. This Tuscan tale comes to us from the 1883 book Italian Popular Tales. The collector, Thomas Fredrick Cane, was an American academic and lawyer who was passionate about languages, medieval history and folklore. While working…
Tales from the Enchanted Forest 