Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Angels, Gold and Lust: John Dee and the Philosopher's Stone (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Part Two: When Tudor polymath John Dee meets a man who claims he can speak with angels, his path to understanding the universe suddenly becomes clear. At their instruction, the pair begin searching for the fabled philosopher's stone. But the angels grow increasingly demanding, and soon Dee must confront a terrible ultimatum. Centuries later, a strange incident in a French town suggests that angels may still be with us. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. Pushkin. This is the second of two episodes about Elizabethan scholar John D. Last episode, Dee's predictions secured the favour of Queen Elizabeth, but a scheme he backed to find the Northwest Passage ended in humiliation. At the castle of Traybon in southern Bohemia,

a plume of thick, grey smoke rises from the roof of the gatehouse. The year is 1586, and inside, an experiment is underway. A glass vessel, shaped like an egg, sits atop a furnace. A young man wearing a cowl hunches over it, feeding charcoal into the stack. He's been doing this for weeks now, at regular and frequent intervals. In the time before thermometers, controlling temperature is a delicate art. This furnace and the glass egg on top must remain at a constant. At the other end of the room is an older man, John D, the famous mathematician.

John D is focusing intently on the glass vessel, quill, scratching into parchment as he takes notes. He's hoping to see a change in the mysterious white matter inside it. No, he's willing it to change, to turn deep red. a sure sign that they're on the right path. Their backer, the nobleman who owns Traybon Castle, needs results. Dee himself has bet everything, his career, his standing, his home, on this venture, and the cow-clad man hunched over the furnace. They've been iterating with all sorts of ingredients, salts,

Earth suspended in water, horse manure, menstrual blood. Their objective, to bring forth a substance that has been sought for centuries, but seldom, if ever, obtained. A substance so powerful that it can force base metal into gold and even keep a man from death. John D. and his associate are searching for the fabled philosophies. a chill autumn wind whips around the castle walls whistling through cracks in the masonry john d puts down his quill and waits i'm tim harford and you're listening to cautionary tales

john d believed that numbers held the key to the universe and he'd bet on navigation an exploration as the tools to reveal its hidden architecture. Around his 50th birthday, he'd championed a mission to find the Northwest Passage. When it failed, Dee was devastated. He lost his reputation, his money, and his self-confidence. Seeking a second chance at unraveling nature's secrets, he turned to the world of spirits. Good Christians believed in angels and in their ability to see the future. It was more transgressive, though, to actively seek their advice.

The people who did this were called scryers. They would speak to angels and spirits by looking into a shiny showstone, such as a mirror or a crystal ball. Since scrying meant bypassing the church, it wasn't uncommon. to find that a scryer was on the run, and because of their sensitivity to the occult, they also tended to be rather eccentric. Dee's first scrying partner ended up in court

facing criminal charges, but then a mysterious stranger appeared at Dee's door under portentous skies of deep arterial red. The stranger introduced himself as Edward. Talbot, a distant kin to the Talbot Earls of Shrewsbury. He was young, walked with the aid of a staff, and kept his head covered by a hood. He also seemed to be intelligent and better educated than the average scryer. There was something captivating about him. Dee decided to give him a chance. In March 1582,

Tollbert knelt in Dee's study amid stacks of books and manuscripts and peered into a dark, gleaming mirror. Dee himself retreated to a nearby room to pray. A few minutes later, he heard Talbot cry out, and he hurried back. The angel Uriel had made contact. Dee was hooked. and he wasted no time in asking Uriel, via Talbot, about the mysterious angelic language, a lost tongue encoded in a divine cipher

that was believed to mirror the structure of creation. Talbot's next revelation was extraordinary. The Archangel Michael would help Dee recover the angelic language. D.D. was all. If this was true, it would unlock the prize that he had long sought, the hidden workings of the universe, and he would be instrumental in restoring lost knowledge to humanity. What must I do to have the sight and presence of Michael, that blessed angel? Invoke our presence with sincerity. These things are revealed in virtue, not by force.

Dee was grateful and relieved. Talbot was reporting exactly what he'd hoped for. Talbot's sudden appearance in Mortlake raised a few eyebrows. His past was murky, and some of the villagers said that he was wanted forging documents. Forgery carried a lasting punishment, the brutal clipping of the ears. Talbot always kept his ears carefully hidden beneath his cowl. And on the odd occasion anyone caught sight of them, one of them appeared curiously diminished.

Dee had his doubts about the man, but he managed to suppress them. Scriars were itinerant by nature, so a nebulous past was normal. And besides, Talbot was prodigiously talented. His visions majestic and elaborate. Dee recorded them all in his diary, convinced that he'd at last found the partner he'd been looking for. His entries were detailed and methodical. Within days, the Scrier's visions

escalated. The great archangel Michael appeared in the mirror, sword in hand. And there was a man there too. He was kneeling with his back to Talbot who couldn't see his face. The archangel tapped the man with his blade, as though dubbing a knight. Then the man rose and turned, and the scryer revealed his identity. He did resemble me, John D. In countenance. The D of Talbot's vision had been anointed, chosen for some higher task. It was a seductive story, one that the real flesh and blood D simply couldn't resist.

Talbot and D continued scrying together. Each session de-led them in the same preparatory ritual. They washed, shaved, dressed in fresh clothes, read from the scriptures, and prayed facing all four points of the compass. As the months passed, more angels identified themselves, explaining their places in the spiritual hierarchy. Talbot had exhausting, apocalyptic visions of fire and brimstone that left his heart palpitating furiously.

And Archangel Michael began to dictate a holy table of numbers with a sacred sigil at its centre. It was all going rather well, until it wasn't. A few months later, Dee wrote a grim note in his diary. I have confirmed that Talbot was a Kossoner. A Kossiner was a fraud. Fast forward nearly 450 years to the town of Agde in France. It's 2020, and Gilles d'Haut is speaking with his father.

That might seem unexceptional, but for one detail. Gilles D'Ore's father died over 20 years ago. A woman called Sophia Martinez has helped them reconnect. Martinez describes herself as a medium, hypnotherapist and healer, a specialist in the cleansing of energy for people and places. Her clients have included doctors, architects and police officers, and she comes highly recommended. D'Ateau himself used to be a secret service officer, but he's now the mayor of Agd.

His father ran for mayor too, but he passed away just before the votes were cast. D'Etaire took up the torch, and he's held office since 2001. He misses his father immensely. As time passes, he continues to consult Martinez. One day, when Dator is in his office at the town hall, his phone buzzes, its dark, gleaming screen lighting up. The call is from a withheld number. Hello?

The voice is guttural and rasping. Who is this? Angel Michael. Prince of the heavenly host. The Archangel Michael? leader of God's army. On the phone? To him?

If Dittor is stunned, he's also credulous. As journalist Leo Sheik reports in the podcast series, The Mystic and the Mayor, he manages to answer the great angel. He asks him about the afterlife. And Michael tells D'Tor that he has messages for him.

from his father. The calls keep coming. Before long, Michael asks the mayor to call him Papa. In Mortlake, 1582, John D. had made a discovery. His scryer's name wasn't Edward Talbot, but Edward Kelly. And he certainly wasn't related to the Talbot Earls of Shrewsbury. He'd given his master a fake identity. Talbot, or rather Kelly, defended himself. He got his hands on Dee's diary, and beneath the charge of Cousner, he scrawled his own affronted entry. A horrible and slanderous lie.

When Dee's wife Jane learned of the Scrier's treachery, she flew into a marvellous rage. She'd never like the man. He was mercurial and prone to wild, drunken outbursts. According to Dee, her fury lasted all evening and all night. Dee agreed that Kelly's deceit was abominable, but it was all so true that a fake name didn't automatically make him less talented. Quite the opposite, in fact, skill at scrying. often went hand in hand with peculiarity.

Dee now faced a dilemma. On the one hand, Jane detested the man and wanted him gone from her house. On the other, they'd been making good progress in their work. The angelic language glittered just ahead. But without Kelly, the signal from the heavens would go cold. Should he abandon the project? Or choose to trust Kelly and plow on?

His wife or his scryor? Cautionary tales will return. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we enter into...

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Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Dee managed to suppress his doubts. A few months later, he reunited with Kelly and offered him a place in his household. Jane Dee's loathing was palpable, but there was nothing she could do.

Her husband was spellbound. Dee pledged Kelly a salary of £50 per year. He was in debt and struggling for an income, but he was heartened by a reassuring forecast. The Queen's glowing favour would soon return. The Queen's favour did not return. and other courtiers gave him the cold shoulder. But the angels had a ready explanation. Whom God commonly chooseth shall be whom the princes of the earth disdain.

Dee's isolation was a badge of honour, proof of his cosmic significance. Trouble reared its head again. Kelly told Dee that a London surgeon, was hounding him over some fraudulent scheme, his wife Joanna had been forced into hiding. Dee wasn't too concerned. More pressing was that he couldn't obey the angel's latest command. They were to leave England because the apocalypse was coming.

But they had no money for passage or lodgings. For now, they were stuck. In spring 1583, as Dee and Kelly were busy transcribing the angelic language, Prince Lasky of Poland paid a visit to the English court. A distinctive figure, Lasky wore his long white beard, tucked into his belt, and golden yellow shoes that curled at the toes. He was charismatic, fabulously wealthy, and a favourite of a favourite of his belt. his king. The prince took an interest in Dee and Kelly's work and he visited them in

Mortlake with a high-stakes question for the angels. Would he, Lasky, be the next king of Poland? Yes, said the angels. The crown would very soon be his. Did Dee and Kelly believe this forecast? it calculated flattery. D, after all, had once profited by predicting the rise to power of Queen Elizabeth herself. Lasky was thrilled, offered to fund a journey in Europe, and pledged D a salary of 50 pounds per year. To the angel whisperer Kelly, he offered twice as much. But then, D. learned that the Queen's spies had made a shocking discovery. Lasky was not beloved by the King of Poland. In fact, he'd been exiled by him. He was also broke, having burned through his fortune raising private armies in a bid for the throne, and he'd run up enormous bills all over England. Had Dee and Kelly fooled him,

or had he fooled them? It got worse. Lasky started claims. that he was related by blood to Queen Elizabeth and spreading pamphlets about his own popularity. As suspicion of the Polish prince grew, Dee realized that he'd hitched his wagon to a falling star. He decided not to quit, but to flee. He scrambled to borrow 400 pounds and packed several hundred books,

the showstone, and his most prized position. his perspective class, a kind of forerunner of the telescope. And so the Lord Albert Lasky, I, Mr. E. Kelly, our wives, my children. We went toward our ships below Gravesend. One dark night in September 1583, they slipped past their creditors and sailed for Holland. Dee, Kelly and their families trudged through the Netherlands and across northern Germany lodging at drafty inns. Lasky, meanwhile, glided between the great houses of Europe,

enjoying all the privileges of his rank. It soon turned bitterly cold. Jane D., charged with managing a household and three small children on the move, must have been miserable. Dee himself agonised over his decision to leave, and he made the right choice? The angels revealed that he'd passed the point of no return.

England now viewed him as a renegade. In February 1584, the exhausted party reached the prince's ice-bound home of Lasko. The welcome was even chillier than the climate. Lady Lasky took an instant dislike to her husband's ragtag entourage, and it soon became clear that the prince's dire finances couldn't support them for long. The angels now appeared to have a change of heart, ordering that Dee and Kelly abandon their bankrupt patron

and head to the golden city of Prague, of a make-or-break mission awaited them. Prague was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the heart of a sprawling empire that covered much of modern-day Central Europe. From his soaring castle high above the city, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II ruled over a patchwork of lands that stretched from the Baltic to the Alps. Rudolf was obsessed with the occult

and his castle was crammed with eclectic objects have asked cabinets of curiosities that included clockwork automata vials of virgin's blood shrivelled mandrake roots an enormous narwhal tusk and what he claimed were the leathery remains of a dragon

Below the Imperial Palace was a nest of winding streets where astrologers and alchemists lived and worked. Rudolf was particularly interested in the philosopher's stone, a powerful substance that promised to transmute base metals into gold and supply an elixir of eternal youth. Monarchs everywhere craved the stone. and Rudolf kept a stable of alchemists on his payroll. They laboured in secret subterranean labs, away from the disapproving eyes of the Catholic Church.

As the summer sun beat down, these loaded wagons rattled into Prague. Here, Kelly's focus shifted. Curious about the philosopher's stone and its lucrative potential. He began experimenting with a mysterious red powder that he said he'd found back in England. The angels, however, were restless.

They announced that unless Dee delivered a shocking ultimatum to Emperor Rudolf, Satan would harm his beloved wife and children. A cunning and vicious stratagem. Dee was appalled. But what choice did he have? Declimed to the imperial castle, where he was ushered past displays of dissected frogs and magical amulets

and admitted to Rudolph's privy chamber. The emperor had been told that the clever visitor from England had something useful to say to him. He waited, expectantly, surrounded by his courtiers, de-stealed himself and began. The angel of the Lord hath appeared to me, and rebuketh you for your sins. The courtiers fell silent. Hear me, and you shall triumph.

If you will not hear me, God will throw you headlong down from your seat. A chill fell over the chamber. The Emperor simply stared. Then he calmly rejected Dee's invitation to a scrying session and dismissed him. Shortly after this disastrous encounter, the Papal Nuncio in Prague accused Dee and Kelly of heresy, necromancy and other prohibited arts. Rudolph had no interest in protecting them. They had just six days to find a new home.

Isolated and penniless, D and Kelly had nowhere to go. They huddled in dirty, crowded quarters and begged their old patron Lasky for money. The messages from beyond again changed. It seemed that it seemed that. But the angels wanted Dee and Kelly to focus on a new assignment, the philosopher's stone. They ordered that Dee retire his showstone and burn his records. Dee was baffled as to how this fit their mission to decode the angelic language, but exhausted, he went along with it.

But the prompting of Kelly's angels, Dee and his family had plodded from the court of Queen Elizabeth to Lasky, from Lasky to Emperor Rudolf, and their journey still wasn't finished. Now wealthy nobleman Count Willem Rozenberg took an interest in the pair. He invited them to his castle in Traybon, southern Bohemia, where he gave them a laboratory, and every, every single. everything they needed to pursue the philosopher's stone. Kelly took the lead, wielding that strange red powder. D, the great scholar, now acted as assistant. Word of their experiments spread. The Tsar of Russia sent two merchants to Traybon with a lucrative offer of employment.

Kelly declined. But before they left, he gave them a dazzling performance. Adding a tiny grain of his red powder to a crucible of mercury, he miraculously produced what he said was an ounce of the best gold. And as Kelly's reputation grew, so too did his wealth. In early 1587, he returned from a trip with an opulent gold necklace, valued at a staggering 300 ducats. He didn't give it to his own wife.

He gave it to Jane D. Cautionary tales will return after the break. Experience Harry Stiles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Stiles. IR Radio wants to send you in a mate across. The Pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.C.A., tickets, and $1,000 cash. Here we got to! Download the free IHartRadio app. Listen to IHart new music for 10 minutes. Enter to win. Every day is another chance to see Harry Styles.

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Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. August 2023. At a lavish wedding in the south of France, a hundred white chairs line a path to an altar framed with angel wings. Local medium Sophia Martinez is getting married. Walking her down the aisle in the role of proud father figure

is none other than long-serving mayor of Agde, Gilles d'Eto. De Tour isn't the only client here. A number of the wedding guests have also engaged Martinez's services. Today they enjoy live music and two buffets. It's a beautiful wedding, and it looks expensive. A couple of months later, the mayor's ex-wife, Geraldine Sanchez-D'Hour, walks into the Aged police station with a strange story.

She, too, has been consulting Sophia Martinez. Recently, she started receiving phone calls from a rasping guttural voice that purports to be the Archangel Michael. The voice, which asks to be called Papa, knows all sorts of details about her private life. And it's begun requesting favours for Martinez. Sanchez de Torre later withdraws her complaint,

but by then, the police have heard. from others. They've been contacted by the rasping voice too, and at least one worried about its influence on the mayor. An official investigation is opened. The police can't bring the Archangel Michael in for questioning, so instead they follow the money. Spring 1587, Traybon. By now, D has been tethered to Kelly for more than three. grueling years. The angel's requests had dwindled. Then, in April, her spirit appeared to Kelly in the form of a young girl. She tantalizingly offered to reveal God's secrets, but there was a requirement that Dee and Kelly had to fulfill first. It wasn't prayer or alchemy, but unity.

They were to share everything in common, including their wives. Dee was horrified. Nothing is unlawful which is lawful unto God. Came the convenient spiritual loophole. Dee and Kelly were warned that if they refused to obey the command, the consequences would be disastrous. The mysterious red powder, their meal ticket, would turn to dust. The angels would vanish, and the secrets of the universe would be locked away forever.

Dee adored his wife. Yet, what choice did he have? He'd staked everything on the angels. When, grief-stricken, he finally told Jane about their latest order. Her reaction shattered him. She fell a weeping and a trembling for a question. quarter of an hour, and I pacified her as well I could. Dee tried to persuade Jane that they must follow God's will.

Eventually, she agreed. I trust, though I give myself thus to be used, that God will turn me into a stone before he would suffer me in my obedience to receive any shame or inconvenience. D and Kelly drew up a contract, a cold, legalistic document that formalised the common use of their wives. John D. was a wants in a generation polymath. He was phenomenally intelligent, yet he made choices that were decidedly foolish. He fretted about Kelly's checkered part. and he knew that he was a liar, but he still chose to trust him.

He followed Kelly into isolation and squalor, and he offended an emperor on his say-so. Why? One answer lies in the spirit of the age. Dee truly believed that God was beneficent and wanted good things for him. The existence of angels was a fact. Difficulties were simply divine trials. and far from being a red flag, Kelly's volatility and strangeness

proved that his soul was sensitive to the supernatural. Dee also had a very real need for patronage, one way or another, he had to produce results. But there's another explanation at play here too. As the psychologist Dan Cahan has argued, we don't always use our intellect to seek the truth, but to preserve our sense of who we think we are. He calls this process identity protective cognition.

What we believe isn't just a reflection of what we know. It's a badge of membership to our tribe. Our beliefs allow us to belong. John D's tribe was the intellectual elite of Europe. He saw himself as the man who would decode the hidden architecture of the universe, even as he became less and less relevant to the people in power. Edward Kelly, of course, never turned mercury into gold. Charlottons had all sorts of tricks, preloaded crucibles, hidden pellets, slight of hand.

This was stage magic, and the showmanship that made Kelly a compelling, Cryer probably also made him a convincing alchemist. D. understood stagecraft. Decades earlier he'd shocked an audience at Cambridge University with a mechanical beetle that was so lifelike, they thought he'd bewitched it. But by the time he reached Bohemia, Dee was too bought in to see the hoax in front of him. Because the more you give up for a vision, the more you have to believe it. To admit that Edward Kelly was a fraud would mean admitting that John D. was no longer a brilliant scholar, but an impoverished old man who'd been deceived by a common trickster. The truth was far too painful for John D. to

face. And so, in a long, slow process of self-preservation, he chose to believe the lie. In May 1587, Dee made a terse entry in his diary. Pactam, factum. The agreement had been executed. He'd sacrificed his wife to Kelly's angels. That summer, Queen Elizabeth sent envoys to Traybon. They wanted Kelly, and they ignored Dee entirely. At the castle, tensions boiled over. Jane Dee was pregnant, and John Dee was ever more dependent on Kelly,

who frequently erupted into violent outbursts, irritated that Dee was hanging on. In an effort to make peace, Dee wrote Kelly and his wife charitable letters, but to no avail. Privately, he was afraid, encrypting his diary in an increasingly complicated code. In October, Kelly and his wife Joanna told the household servants that Dee was in league with the devil. Panicked, Dee tried again to tell him. turn the tide, he gave Kelly his most prized possession, his perspective glass, that telescope-like device that tricked the eye and made small objects seem large. Kelly took it, but he had no use for a scholar's instrument.

He passed it to Rosenberg, who passed it to the emperor. D's perspective glass, his treasured window into the laws of nature, was tucked away to gather dust in Rudolph's cabinets of curiosities. Rosenberg, too, was irked by Dee's presence. As far as he was concerned, the man was a dead weight. He ordered Dee to leave Trayvon and arranged for Kelly to be moved to another laboratory. In February 1588, Dee gave up. He handed Kelly his books on alchemy and what

him right away. In modern-day act, investigators made a startling discovery. Between 2020 and 2023, there were over 3,000 phone calls between Gilles de Torre and Sophia Martinez. Martinez has since admitted to playing the Archangel Michael. She reportedly revealed to police that she's an accomplished ventriloquist and gave them a demonstration of Michael's grasping voice. Protect Sophia. Protect Sophia. The voice is said to have implored.

Take care of her and her people. The case against Dutour is that he allegedly obeyed the voice, using public funds to pay for Martinez's birthday party and contribute to her wedding, arranging four municipal contractors to renovate her home, funding holidays to Thailand. and securing jobs for her family at the town hall. De Tour no longer holds the keys to Uggd.

In 2024, he resigned. He was also charged with corruption and misappropriation of public funds. Martinez was charged with fraud and concealment. As of recording, they're both awaiting trial. Both Detour and Martinez deny the criminal charge. and they are presumed innocent until judgment, but neither of them seems to deny the spiritual influence. Dator's lawyer has claimed that he was exploited, vulnerable in his grief for his late father, and according to the prosecutor, Martinez has regretted her behavior,

attributing her claims about D' Tor's father to a downward spiral from which she couldn't escape. It's tempting to file John D. away as a relic from a distant time. But the storian Uggd, nearly 450 years later, would suggest that channels of special unimpeachable knowledge have an enduring appeal. Shortly after John D. and Edward Kelly parted ways, and nine months after the wife-swapping agreement, Jane D., gave birth to a baby boy. She and her husband named him Theodorus Trebonianus, Gift of God at Trebon. The D's were out of options,

and they began the arduous journey back to England. John D. He held on to hope that Kelly would have a change of heart and follow them. Instead, painful news arrived from Rudolph's court. The emperor had given. and Kelly a castle and lands and made him a baron of bohemia. D was crushed. A further blow awaited him in England. When he reached Mortlake, he discovered that his cottage had been ransacked by his creditors. Many of his most precious tomes on geography, horology, Arabic and Hebrew

had been taken, and his magnificent library lay in ruins. Dee found himself totally irrelevant at court. He eventually accepted a job in the north as Warden of Christ's College, Manchester. It was a respectable enough role, but hundreds of miles from the corridors of power. Jane Dee had followed her husband across Europe, raising their children on the road and submitting to Kelly's dark wife-swapping command. In Manchester, her journey came to an end.

She succumbed to the deadly plague that was ravaging the city and passed away in 1605, aged 50. As for John D, he returned to London and lived into his 80s, buried by Manusquist. scripts, white-haired, penniless. He worked with Scriers until his very last days, ever convinced that the universe would give up its deepest secrets if he only knew how to ask. There are various accounts of what became of Edward Kelly. Some say that he had a fight with an influential alchemist at Rudolph's court and ended up in prison.

Others that he faked his own death. Others still that he fled to Russia. You can believe what you like. After all, John D did. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at timharford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilley.

It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio and Dan Jackson. Ben Nadaf Haferi edited the scripts. It features the voice talents of Melanie Guthridge, Genevieve Gaunt, Ed Gohan, Stella Harford, Bessaya Monroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible

without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really does make a difference to us. And if you want to hear it, add-free and receive a bonus audio episode,

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