Dark And Twisty Tales

A folk story where the gal saves the day, including fighting a Dragon, flying a Griffin and utilizing some very special chickens...really.

A mean spirit and a quick tongue are a tricky combination, you may just find yourself married to the first beggar that comes along...that old chestnut.

I am very excited to say that this is episode number 10 of Dark and Twisty Tales, I really hope you've been enjoying them. If you'd like to support my efforts, please rate and review at itunes and share with all your friends. Thank you so much! Julia

Apparently this was the story that inspired Robert Bly to start the Iron John movement back in the 90's.  Now, however you might feel about hairy men lost in the woods this story is very weird...indeed.

Ok, so if you build a house made of gingerbread and sugar in the middle of the woods in an attempt to lure children to be baked in the oven so you can eat them...you better hope you don't meet Gretel!

Feeling broke and exhausted...I know, make a deal with the devil, what could possibly go wrong?  There are so many versions of this story, which is weird because it's so horrible. But is has some really poetic images too and a lovely happy ending to redeem it. I saw a theatrical version of this a few years back called 'The Wild Bride', by Knee High Theatre. I LOVEd it.  http://www.kneehigh.co.uk/show/the-wild-bride.php I didn't use as many sound effects for this one because I didn't think it needed them as much, but I did improvise some little song bits for the middle. I hope you like it :) Julia

or Trusty John. In some variants, a king on his deathbed orders his servant, Trusty John, not to let his son see a certain room, which holds a portrait of a princess. In all variants, when the new king comes to power, he forces his way into the room. Instantly, he falls in love with the princess.  To win her. Trusty John tells him to prepare a ship with all manner of rich treasure, and then either sails with it himself, or has the king sail with him, to her country. The princess is lured aboard by the goods, and the ship sets sail, carrying her off. While they travel, John hears three ravens. One says that as soon as they reach shore, a horse will come; if the king mounts it, it will carry him off or dash him and the princess to pieces. The solution is for someone to kill the horse, but anyone who reveals this by stating it out loud would have his legs turn to stone up to the knees. The second raven says (with variations in different tellings) that the king would be killed by wine at the wedding feast if it w

The Elves and the Shoemaker" is an often copied and re-made 1806 story about a poor shoemaker who receives much-needed help from elves. The original story is the first of three fairy tales, contained as entry 39 in the German 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' under the common title "Die Wichtelmänner". In her translation of 1884 Margaret Hunt chose The Elves as title for these three stories.

A friend recently gave me Philip Pullman's 'Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm', I can't recommend it highly enough. This story is from there. He says "As quite often in Grimm, we have two separate story types sewn together here. Once the hunter has the bird's heart and the wishing cloak, he could in theory go on to any kind of adventure. The story of the cabbage (sometimes translated as lettuce) which turns whoever eats it into a donkey has no logical connection with the first part of the story, but they fit together very well."

Catskin is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs, in More English Fairy Tales.[1] Marian Roalfe Cox, in her pioneering study of Cinderella, identified as one of the basic types, the Unnatural Father, contrasting with Cinderella itself and Cap O' Rushes. Indeed, some translators of Allerleirauh titled that story Catskin despite the differences between the German and English tales.

A very dark story about jealously, murder and a magical instrument being made out of the corpse! For me the song came first, this version I'm singing is different to any other I've come across, although this is a great link for some backstory: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-2-sisters-and-1-murder-inspired-500-songs I learned the version I'm singing from an old cassette tape recording from a library archive when I was researching women and folk songs 30 years ago. It has always been a favorite, although the melody I know is pretty repetitive, the magical and macabre hopefully keep your attention. I'd love to hear what you think.

A darker version of the well known Cinderella story was recorded by the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century. The tale is called "Aschenputtel". This version is much more intense than most others in that Cinderella's father did not die and the stepsisters mutilate their feet to fit in the golden slipper. There is no fairy godmother, but help instead comes from a wishing tree that the heroine planted on her mother's grave. The stepsisters suffer a terrible punishment for their cruelty.