Fairy Tale Fix - 41: Just Follow Instructions

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

In this episode, we're joined by Robbie from the Could've Been Heroes podcast! Robbie actually brings us to tears (well, at least Abbie) when he reads Instructions by Neil Gaiman, and then reads us one of his favorite tales The Crane Wife (in which someone definitely doesn't follow important fairy tale instructions). Abbie randomly chooses a couple of stories from the Brothers Grimm and reads A Tale With A Riddle and The Golden Key.

Okay, I'm going to cut it at 50 seconds. Oh my God, that was the longest 50 seconds of my whole life. I know. That's always the hardest part. I can't believe how long a minute is. I'm Abby. I'm Abby. I'm Kelsey. We are now hanging out with Robbie, who is from Could Have Been Heroes podcast, and got the glorious experience of sitting here for our usual top of the episode minute of silence,

where we just stare at each other awkwardly for a whole minute. And try not to laugh or make a sound i made it about 30 seconds before i tried to do like light comedy improv because i can't be alone with my thoughts uh well tell us tell us a little bit more about that ravi tell us a little bit about you tell us a little bit about your damage tell us a little bit more about that Ravi tell us a little bit about you tell us a little bit about your damage tell us a little bit about your podcast what what is up hi I'm Ravi I apparently can't be left alone with my thoughts for even 60 seconds and I think that it's this I think that it's this urge to share all of the nonsense constantly going on in my own head that led me to be a writer and storyteller at a young age. And then my grandmother, seeing that I was a huge nerd before I

knew what such things were, decided to read me The Hobbit every summer for a few summers. And then she read me... Yeah, I know. It's so lovely. And then once I got old enough to understand a little bit more complexity, we did Lord of the Rings. And so I became pretty obsessed with books. And, um, my parents used to do this thing where they're like,

all right, listen, when we go to a store, you can't, uh, just have whatever toys you want. But my mom never like mitigated books. She's like,

you can have books. If you're going to read, I'll buy, I'll buy your books. I'll find a way to buy your books solid idea that's yeah and i of course immediately found a loophole where i found a game that was book based so i got into dungeons and dragons very very quickly i mean i these, these books at the back of a game store and was like, Oh my God, this is everything. And so I became very obsessed with these and I convinced my grandmother to, uh, be my first player. And so she led a little band of hobbits to save some farmland. And I've been addicted ever to, to role-playing games ever since, uh, because it is a

hodgepodge of all of the things that I love and again allows me to get all of the thoughts and horrors inside of my brain and inflict them and share them with other people so during COVID apparently a bunch of my other friends were feeling this urge to like not be alone with all of the nonsense in their head and so we wanted to put something positive positive out into the world so we started a podcast and we started a podcast in our favorite setting, which is called Farital, which is a mispronunciation of fairy tale. Robbie, I was today years old when I actually realized that that was supposed to be like. It's based on a story where like there are these like legendary ancient characters in far ital that have like always been there and one of them is uh the the based on the a character from the seven

servants that like the man who could hear everything right and he was so upset by constantly hearing all of these cacophonies of like whispers and hiccups and stuff even in ancient even in like distant lands that he eventually like traveled out into the nothing where there isn't anything and he started to hear voices there too but what he was hearing was our voices from the world above like the place where fairy tales come from and he heard people talking about people and places and things that he knew and he they're referring to them as farrytals but they were because it was so far away he like it was muffled so it's just a mispronunciation of him hearing him hearing that and it stuck so that's incredible

that's so much fun yeah uh the backstory that like i have told twice in the 20 years that we've been running this game and no one knows except you guys now so uh you're welcome hooray we've got all the secrets but yeah we just really needed the like the familiarity and the variety we were playing in like a dark fantasy setting at the time and it was really fucking oh brutal and heavy which was really cool but then when the world got very brutal and heavy uh but we didn't want to go to like something that was just too light or frivolous. So we wound up going to our fairy tale setting where it is everything. It's it's the darkest of the dark and the lightest of the light.

So that's that we got hooked on that one. And we've been doing that for a while. Yeah. And I've got to say, like, you do manage to do a really nice blend of whimsy and sort of fairy tale nasty darkness. Could have been Heroes is a really it's a really fun podcast. I've I highly recommend it to all of our listeners. If you like if you just like fairy tales, but more and people inventing new ones and your entire cast is so weird in the funnest way possible. Yeah, they are a bunch of bed knobs and broomsticks, but they are just wonderful.

And we've all been friends in real life for a really long time. Like Josh and I, who plays Zenitor on the dead wizard on the show, is my best friend since high school. And I'm 38 now. So, yeah, we've been nerding it up for a while now well Kelsey and I can relate we've also we've also been friends for a really long time since junior yes oh that's so sweet I love that you got you know you can kind of just tell your hearts are all stitched together you know you can you can tell that's very true kelsey is my favorite person yeah oh that's so sweet i have i have all my favorite i have all my favorite people in my podcast too i even uh brought it

up to my my good friend amanda who uh is on a show called wine and crime and she was a little show called wine and crime you may have heard a little show called queen and cream and uh when i brought it up i was literally just asking her for podcast advice like i'm like hey i think i want to do like an rpg like storytelling thing and she was like yeah that sounds great i'm in and i was like oh i was not trying to i was not trying to uh recruit you for this but that's even better amazing of course and now of course i couldn't have imagined of you know doing it without the manatee witch i was just about to say like is it isn't amanda playing a manatee character who thinks she's a wizard but it's actually like a sorcerer or a warlock or yeah

it's she thinks she's like a healer like a white witch and in fact she's like got like all of this like dark spooky like gingerbread witch like like children luring gingerbread witch inside of her so she's like constantly fighting such a funny concept against her like dark nature and uh-huh yeah we kind of put that in for all of them like all of the characters have something called a sacred curse where um like the the red hood character has the the like big bad wolf curse so she's slowly turning into like a wolf monster and has to like fight against that like darker side of her story so anyway sorry i don't i now i'm now i'm just full nerding into our our show so that's probably

plenty of that where can uh tell us where our listeners can find you, find your podcast and find you on Instagram, etc. Oh, yeah. We have all of our socials should be under CBH pod and our website, which I'm so proud of. I did all of this art and stuff and then commissioned art from this incredible artist named who goes whose handle is sicking star on Instagram and Twitter. She's Australian and she and her wife are amazing and i'm such a fan of their art was so happy that they uh convinced her to do some commissions for me for um to do our character like uh montages um we got they're gorgeous aren't they so i was i was so amazed and i i was doing uh all of the art on my own. And so I had done art of all of the characters and then I just kind of handed it off to like a real pro and was like, yay, this is the best money I ever spent. Yeah.

So we're really proud of our website, which is that could have been heroes dot com. And then, yeah, you can find us on all the all the appy app stores on our show. I do bookend. all the all the appy app stores on our show i do bookend so i do like a um like a chunk of pros at the beginning and at the end to try to like they are wonderful i mean and you do you really do a phenomenal job like yeah aaron and i produce the shit out of those segments and like since it's since it's not uh live or improv we can kind of like, you know, do fun voice audio, like alterations and. Like you did with the dragon in the most recent episode. Oh yeah, you heard that?

Okay, I'm so proud. I'm so proud of the dragon. So good. Yeah. Yes, that, that was, I was so proud of that one. We had been away for two weeks. We went to Universal and Disney uh, universal and Disney, which I've never been to. And, and for a giant baby man, child, like I am, I can't believe I'd

never been to these places, but so, uh, we went to Orlando and then I finally got to see my parents again after not seeing them for a year and a half because of the plague lands. And it was awesome. It was such a good trip, but then we got back and I'm like, shit, I haven't written anything at all in two weeks. And so I apparently was hungry and I wrote that dragon thing and I was really proud of it. So thank you. Yeah, if you want to listen to that,

go listen to episode 49. It's called A Devil's in the Details. And the first 10 minutes are, Robbie wrote a beautiful fairy tale and also voiced, which it's amazing. It sounds to me like the beginning of a video game series like oh nice like it's kind of setting the story up and it's just awesome definitely give it a listen yeah awesome it was really fun yeah that was a lot of fun to to put

together but so so at the beginning i do these chunks give... I can't believe I found the thread of the story still after I tangented three times. But so I told my Aunt Kimmy to listen to it. She listened to it. She heard the opening, which is more traditional storytelling style. And she got that. And then it started into the actual... There's multiple characters and they're talking to each other. And we're actually playing the game and rolling dice and stuff to determine success.

She doesn't understand any of that so she sends me a text she sends me a text and she's like um i don't understand why everyone keeps interrupting you uh you're trying to tell them the story and things and then they just keep interrupting you with like questions and oh that's so funny yeah just literally no frame of reference for what like an rpg a ctrpg is or like how it's a collaborative storytelling effort like they just like there's just no frame of reference i agree usually before we move on to sort of uh actually getting into some fairy tales and making kelsey's mom happy yay kelsey mom. We do have a couple of questions that we typically like to ask people who come on the show. Awesome. The first one being what is your favorite

childhood fairy tale, Robbie? I knew you were going to ask me this, of course. You told me several times that you would be asking me this. And I was like, you you know what it'll be better if i give an organic answer and instead i'm just stalling uh okay um so the hobbit sort of counts for me i know it is it's more modern and more traditional but it was sort of my first um introduction to stories that aren't just about what they're about you know like they're yeah um so that was kind of the first story i heard where i was like oh this is about more than just the stuff i'm hearing there's like a whole world and a whole set of rules and a whole like universe that this sort of attaches me to so god that is so true yeah it's just one of the best things about lord of the rings for me personally it's just the lore behind it it's never ending yeah it's a window into a world that feels real and it was

it's one of the seminal works that does that so okay so that's like that's like just sort of like a more of a what's my favorite you know or my most most like fundamental fantasy story uh i would say i think the hobbit totally counts oh yeah because tilky based tilky meant it to be like a bedtime story for his own children so yeah yeah i think that one um my the other one probably uh the last unicorn was another one that like oh so good yes devastated my whole life like changed my whole life when i watched it for the first time. The story and then the book as well. And again, these are all longer form kind of. But if I had to pick like a traditional Grimm's fairy tale,

that is my absolute favorite. Oh, God. Red Riding Hood or Sleeping Beauty. I just can't. That's kind of like our two favorites. Those are Kelsey and I's favorites. I mean, they are the two different forms of just full iconic. Yeah.

And again, about so much more than they seem to be. I'm so excited to get into Red Riding Hood eventually. Oh, I can't wait. Yeah, we have. Let's get into it then because you're reading us two stories today because the first one isn't like traditionally a fairy tale. Yes, it isn't. The first story that I really wanted to share with you guys is called Instructions by Neil Gaiman. It is sort of a poem. It is about a character that kind of finds themselves suddenly in a fairy tale.

And the whole story is instructions on how to navigate this fairy tale successfully. And if you find yourself in a whimsical, magical thing, here are things you should do. Here are things you shouldn't do. And so it isn't exactly like one with like a plot you know it doesn't have that because it doesn't it doesn't fit your guys's like traditional structure but i love it so much and it has like a really dear you know spot in my heart for a lot of reasons and um so i wanted to pick i wanted to share that if i got to share something absolutely yeah i'm really excited to hear it because uh neil gaiman is um

an author an author that i've always really liked i read uh i read a few of his books in high school and obviously like uh really really like a lot of things like i i loved i loved american gods and i loved uh stardust and i loved um i really loved good omens. Good omens. I think remains like one of my favorite things ever. He said that he's ever done forever. He wrote that by mail with Terry Pratchett. I know they nailed the script back and forth to each other. I can't believe how good that is. Yeah.

And they're like, and it just, it to this day, I think it's still one of, it's still one of the pieces of, um, fiction that inspires me the most, uh, in, in sort of my own creative efforts i i love it so much um so but i've never actually

read instructions even though i've heard of it so i am super excited to hear it yeah it appeared in a short story collection called fragile things that's where i saw it first um and then i actually had um a tragedy in my life my little sister died and i was reading through this book just you know sort of like a ghost just kind of sifting through stuff that i liked trying to find some purchase and um i came across this story instructions that i hadn't read in a while and And as I read it, it like hit me completely differently than it ever had. Instead of instructions for someone on how to like navigate a fairy tale, I saw it as someone who has departed

like instructions on how to like navigate what comes next or for a person just navigating life in general. Like I think I like, I like saw the matrix of this story, you know, in a whole different way.

And so I actually read it at her funeral. I didn't quite get through it all myself, but I had a couple of friends. Amanda was up there and she read, you know, the other half of it. Once I sort of cracked, there's a spot in the middle.

You'll, you'll know where it is, where you'll be like, oh yeah, that would be hard to get through. But so, so she finished it. And then I i i rounded down and read the last few lines and apparently um someone there knew um neil gaiman's uh ex-wife and they're you know still very close and they were talking and it came up this oh you're this story got read at a funeral and you know uh long story short or long story

long the uh an illus a beautiful illustrated version of it signed by neil gaiman showed up at my house a few like a few weeks later and is now my most treasured possession and i have started and stopped thank you letters to him for you know 15 years now and and never quite managed to send one out because it always winds up feeling kind of hollow and all that but yeah like how do you capture like the depth of that sort of feeling yeah yeah all you know your writing changed my life and gave like made my soul sing like and and inspired me to do basically everything that i do and uh and then you showed me deep compassion and kindness uh when i was at my lowest point in my whole life and thanks so yeah so uh yeah it's just kind of i'll just go talk about it on a podcast 15 years later

and then we'll do that yeah things have a habit of getting back around to him apparently so i'm sure he'll yeah he'll feel the gratitude just put it out there and hopefully yeah i mean anyway instructions by neil gaiman oh and the inscription he put on the inside it says for robbie with respect and best wishes neil gaiman. He used my preferred name. That's so wonderful. Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never saw before. Say please before you open the latch and go through. Walk down the path.

A red metal imp hangs from the green painted front door as a knocker. Do not touch it. It will bite your fingers. Walk through the house, take nothing, eat nothing. However, if any creature tells you that it hungers, feed it. If it tells you that it is dirty, clean it. If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain. From the back garden, you will be able to

see the wild wood. The deep well you walk past leads to Winter's Realm. There is another land at the bottom of it. If you turn around here, you can walk back safely. You will lose no face. I will think no less of you. Once through the garden, you will be in the wood. The trees are old. Eyes peer from the undergrowth. Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She may ask for something.

Give it to her. She will point the way to the castle. Inside it are three princesses. Do not trust the youngest. Walk on. In the clearing beyond the castle, the twelve months sit about a fire, warming their feet, exchanging tales. They may do favors for you if you are polite.

You may pick strawberries in December's frost. Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where you are going. The river can be crossed by the ferry. The ferry man will take you. The answer to his question is this. If he hands the oar to his passenger, he will be free to leave the boat. Only tell him this from a safe distance. If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.

Remember that giants sleep too soundly, that witches are often betrayed by their appetites. Dragons have one soft spot somewhere, always. Hearts can be well hidden and you betray them with your tongue. Do not be jealous of your sister. Know that diamonds and roses are as uncomfortable when they tumble from one's lips as toads and frogs. Colder too and sharper and they cut. Remember your name. Do not lose hope.

What you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart and trust your story. When you come back, return the way you came. Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid. Do not forget your manners, do not look back. Ride the wise eagle, you will not fall. Ride the silver fish, you will not drown. Ride the gray wolf, hold tightly to its fur.

There is a worm at the heart of the tower. That is why it will not stand. When you reach the little house, the place your journey started, you will recognize it. Although it will seem much smaller than you remember. Walk up the path and through the garden gate. You never saw before,

but once. And then go home or make a home or rest. Okay, well, I'm crying. Me too. That's so beautiful. Yeah. I can totally see how that would be. I'm surprised you got through it without choking up.

Just now? Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not surprised you couldn't get through it without choking up at your sister's funeral oh yeah yeah i had i had help just in case because that's uh yeah oh that was really beautiful yeah gorgeous isn't that lovely and also i don't know just the message in general it's really important it's really wonderful and good advice to get through fairy tales oh absolutely the specifics are hot notch yeah like i could totally see like kelsey the entire time was nodding like just going like oh yeah i remember that oh

i remember talking about that in toads and diamonds yeah i love the toads and diamonds reference i remember wouldn't that be just as unpleasant yeah yeah yeah a lot of the that's in our show one of the things we do is all of the characters have like a classic fairy tale kind of curse. And it's a blessing too, because it gives you all kinds of power and it brings you back from the dead and it does all these awesome things. But like, remember those blessings and curses are interchangeable.

The, the, you know, um, exactly, exactly. The, uh,

everything, I mean, it's the, anything you touch turns to gold, a sort of situation like that is a horrifying curse, even though it's, you know, you could make you the richest person ever. Right. It's got like short term benefits. But imagine living your whole life this way. Remember, they're permanent.

You know, yeah, exactly. Any line in that. I mean, I don't even know how long it is it's like maybe a hundred lines tops and each one is uh just peeled right off of some thing that is like etched on all of our hearts because we i don't know we just sort of know these stories like you can't get away from them and that whole hero with a thousand faces effect is so real like like the story the other story that i was going to tell today is The Crane Wife. And that is the Japanese tale about a guy who marries a crane. It's a short story to make that.

Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. The Crane Wife is indeed. I'm putting that in my prediction. The Crane Wife is indeed about a crane wife. But there's a culture and society that has a version of this and there is a there are versions of it in uh you know half a dozen other uh other cultures about a man who finds a woman and she's also a bird i mean there's swan you know the swan lake the the black uh odette and odile that whole you know there's so many of these and they're all sort of the same and um uh i don't

know you know dragons exist in every culture and the hero who goes on a journey and fights his father is in every culture i mean like we are all just so connected and i think that's why abby and i enjoy these fairy tales so much is we also studied anthropology so we studied a lot of different cultures and it's fun watching them be so different but so similar and i'll have all these important you know tropes and just kind of life lessons that go across culture yeah and they just echo they just echo in these different societies and they they reverberate back to us just a little bit differently depending on what they bounce off of. But the original sound

was the same for all of them. There's something in us that needs these stories so much. And just something that's completely common about the human experience. Man, and boy, don't we fucking need shit

that binds us together. Holy crap, yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much for Holy crap. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for reading that. Yeah. Thank you. I had definitely never heard that before. And now I'm going to have to go buy that book.

Yes. There, the, the, there is a version of it. You can get it like on probably any appropriate and, and beneficial booksellers. I'm sure there are many more.

Yeah. We'll probably find the link for it on IndieBound and post it in our chat box. There we go. Yeah, awesome. Get the illustrated by Charles Vess version. Everything you'll need to know on your journey instructions. Oh, I'm definitely buying that. I need that on my bookshelf.

For myself and for my niece. Yes. Yeah, it's really thin. It's not very expensive. I think it's like 15 bucks. Well worth it. This is an incredible... Let me hawk for...

I'm happy to let you hawk for Neil Gaiman as long as you want. This is an incredible buy if you want to... Yeah. We're all about buying the fairy tale books that we read from and supporting local bookstores and all about all about that we recommend using bookshop.org it's like an organization that's like amazon to kind of help you support local bookstores but also have the like you know ease of purchasing it online awesome yes that's great honestly the best way to find the books you're looking for is like the internet so if there is a website that you want to buy books from,

choose Indie bound or bookshop.org. Yes. Yes. But this is a great, this is a great thing to have on your bookshelf for sure. Robbie, you've got a tough act to follow and that tough act is yourself. Oh,

you're going to have to do a second story. Yeah. Maybe just cut that one and put it at the end like if you want like we could do that no i love it where it is i think it's perfect i think it's good to keep all those things in mind as we sort of head into our into our next fairy tale so that's a good point that's a great point yeah all right so this story is from japanese folklore and it is called tsuru no ongeichi the crane Crane Wife. Okay, let's see. My three predictions for The Crane Wife.

The protagonist encounters his wife first as a bird is going to be prediction number one for me. Rock solid. Sounds very likely. Prediction number two, he is a poor fellow. He is a peasant. And prediction number three, she carries his children away with her at the end.

Oh, scandal. Can I just say that i love the uh predictions because of how what we were talking about before we're like all of these stories are like somehow like human echoes that just travel around the planet and they do it i i just love it i think it's a great idea yeah yeah i mean me me too i. I really enjoy it because so many of these stories are like super tropey in a way that can be predicted. But also, we found that so many fairy tales also surprise you with subverting the trope. Yeah. Okay, I am going to predict that the husband doesn't follow instructions. Hey! Hey! Tied to our first one, didn't't follow instructions. Hey! Like, oh, I'm tied to our first one.

Didn't follow the instructions. Does not follow instructions. And they never do. Can confirm. I'm going to predict the crane wife stays at the end. Ooh. I don't actually think that's going to happen, but that's what I wanted to happen i want

to throw it out there my third prediction is that there is a witch or wizard involved odette and odile right yeah fun at least i hope i want i mean you can never go wrong magic yeah never go wrong when you you want uh some grumpy magic in there i just think that would be fun although i don't know we haven't done too many japanese fairy tales we've only done a few so we don't really have the tropes for them down in quite the same way yet. Well, just wait. I think you guys might be in for some pleasant surprises with your predictions there. Fabulous.

I'm so excited. All right, Robbie, lay it on us. Tell us all about it. All right. The Crane Wife. Long, long ago in a far-off land, there lived a young man. One day, while working on his farm a brilliant

white crane came swooping down and crashed to the ground at his feet the man noticed an arrow pierced through one of its wings taking pity on the crane he pulled out the arrow and cleaned the wound thanks to his care the bird was soon able to fly again. The young man sent the crane back to the sky saying, be careful to avoid hunters. The crane circled three times over his head, let out a cry as if in thanks, and then flew away.

Solid. He's following some of the instructions so far. He's doing great. He's doing great. Like ease the pain of injured creatures. If it's dirty, clean it. If it's great. He's doing great. Ease the pain of injured creatures. If it's dirty, clean it. If it's injured, heal it. Nailing it. He's doing great. Also, Robbie, I can't help but notice that you're reading

this story in the exact same style you do the opening segments of your podcast. I usually do those in my lorewinkle sage voice, which goes, as the day grew dark the young man made his way home yeah so that's that's uh i'm sparing you the the wizard voice uh it might be tonally a little weird in your show but a little weird but i do love it yeah it's so

good as the day grew dark the young man made his way home. When he arrived, he was surprised by the sight of a beautiful woman whom he had never seen before standing in the doorway. Shocker. Welcome home. I am your wife, said the woman. Holy shit, said the young man. No. The young man was surprised and said, I am very poor and cannot support you the woman answered

pointing to a small sack don't worry i have plenty of rice and began preparing dinner the young man was puzzled but the two began a happy life together and the rice sack mysteriously remained full always. Oh, I love it. One day, the wife asked the young man to build her a weaving room. When it was completed, she said,

you must promise never to peek inside. With that, she shut herself up in the room. The young man waited patiently for her to come out. Finally, after seven days, the sound of the loom stopped, and his wife, who had become very thin, stepped out of the room holding the most beautiful cloth he had ever seen. Take this cloth to the marketplace, and it will sell for a high price, said the wife. The next day, the young man brought it to town and just as she said it sold

for many coins happy he returned home you take one arrow out of one bird and you are set for life boom talk about that magical gratitude there you go i also like that he tried to like argue with her a little bit first he's just like i'm so poor are you sure you have the right person totally he's like listen i suck i don't think i don't know if you want to come in and be my with your magical rice sack you're very beautiful and he's like super nervous you out of my league are you sure you have the right door it's like me when i started dating aaron i'm like are you wait am i tricking you somehow i feel like i'm tricking you i did i just you you seem like kind of a fairy creature yourself so i i am a bit of a trickster and i do beguile aaron found you very

beguiling i i do cavort and caper and i have been known to beguile yeah i've often dated above my uh my pay grade if you know what i mean like punched above my weight by just uh being charming and persistent um so yeah the wife then returned to the room and resumed weaving curiosity began to overtake the man who wondered how can she weave such beautiful cloth with no thread soon he could stand it no longer i've seen a more unhappy version of it where they where he becomes he starts to become greedy and asks her to weave more and more often and he becomes more and more like obsessed with like where is all of his money coming from and stuff but um this was a nicely written version it doesn't have that in it so much but that's kind of an important part of this is that he starts to become greedy and he

wants more and he pushes her to do this more and more often we feel less bad for him when he doesn't follow instructions yeah and bottom desperate to know his wife's secret peeked into the room to his great shock his wife was gone instead a crane sat intently in the room weaving a cloth plucking out its own feathers for thread the bird then noticed the young man the own the young man peek in and said, I am the crane that you saved. I wanted to repay you, so I became your wife. But now that you have seen my true form, I can stay here no longer. Then handing the man the finished cloth, it said, I leave you this to remember me by.

The crane then abruptly flew off into the sky and disappeared forever. Oh, my God. I know. Isn't that awesome? That's awesome. So I think that that was like a very gentle version of the story. I hadn't, I hadn't seen that ending.

I just saw that it was like really nicely written, but I think that the part where the part where he like starts to push her, like weave us more, weave us more. I need more to sell and all of that is kind of an important part of the story that that version left out um specifically because she's getting thinner and thinner as this goes on and because she's literally like tearing parts of herself away to to make this and she was willing to do that she was willing to do that to to repay him because she

loved him and she was grateful but his like greed and curiosity and um follow instructions fucking follow instructions yeah yeah and and it's like i'd like because that's such a um a really like visceral image of like him creaking the door open and then there's this like really thin crane that is literally prying using its own body to to fuel this like this process that will like that will make him prosperous and i and it's just and like the the sheer in like on like ungratefulness of uh not of like yeah i don't know it's it's yeah i feel like that's a little different from stories we've heard in that kind of fashion before is usually the protagonist is very lovable and just kind of goofy and doesn't really think about it and

just kind of forgets you know what the wife told him not to do and so he does it right like it's definitely more malicious sounding yeah yeah some of the versions that i've seen are that pin the the fall of this this story on his on his greed and that he was pushing her and pushing her and then because now like so much of his livelihood and his his new way of life that he has become accustomed to rests on her ability to do this magical thing. He has to know, how does she do this? What if she leaves me? It's that whole, like, a spouse

becomes so paranoid about their partner's behavior that their suspicion is what ends the marriage and their cruelty over their insecurity rots the marriage from from within so yeah and how's a much stronger moral because of that so i love that yeah i'm sorry when i got to the end and i'm like wait he's not being greedy in this part he's not i had to i had to shove it in but

that was one of the better written versions that i had seen so yeah because that's definitely what drives what like as kelsey said what drives home the moral um better of of like so yeah that's definitely what drives what like as Kelsey said what drives home the moral um better of of like yeah no that's I'm kind of at a loss for words of of how um interesting that story is and how different it is that's really cool from other stories of type do you do you have a fix for the crane wife well what's interesting is i picked the crane wife because in our show there is a character named queen lavaline who is based on the norse uh like or kind of the german version of this story um i again while that that these completely different cultures have such similar stories um like there's the swan lake story with the the odette and odile

and the enchanter and all that stuff but then there's the the legend of the swan maiden which is this young man hunting through the woods sees a beautiful stunning woman bathing naked in a waterfall um like a pond and he realizes that on the shore is the skin of or like the feathers and skin of a kind of like a selkie story exactly it's very much like the selkie um it's just a different animal and so he takes the the like he he steals the swan skin and hides it and then she like follows him and becomes very like kind of subservient to him and he has children with her and and then she like follows him and becomes very like kind of subservient to him and he has children with her and and then eventually she discovers where her swan skin is puts it on and flies away leaving him with the children it's it's literally like you know how the um irish and

celtic like stories along the coast had the selkie and they explained like why isn't mommy with daddy anymore well she was a selkie and she ran away back to the sea because she had to be with the sea well no she just didn't love daddy anymore and she made her escape yeah daddy was a mean drunk and she freaking escaped so but it's it's basically that version so we we made a version of that where lavaline the character that she plays um is held captive by this king for years and years as his like trophy wife um until one day this sort of the the less achieving younger brother of rumple silkskin comes through her wall offers her a deal uh where she's able to

slip something into her um a husband's tea to like remove his kingly powers from him and then she tortures him until she until he tells her where the swanskin is effectively like waterboarding him in the pond that he captured her from and so that and then she escaped so we sort of took it into a a very dark sort of yeah i don't know feminist revenge place and i was you know kathy kathy who plays that character i was like all about it um but so she she gave up um an unhatched egg that she had been secreting away um uh in the deal and all that so so we sort of took a crack at finishing at fixing and putting a fix on this anyway or modernizing it at least right on this like tail type yeah so i i don't know i think i honestly think that maybe i would raise the stakes i would i would have it

be longer i would have it be over years where she she's supporting them and they have children together and and and i and i would push more of the narrative that what it is it's not just curiosity it's not just like just like errant curiosity it's like greed and it's toxic masculinity like he's he realizes that she's the breadwinner all of my money and all of my power is, is from her. And I can't stand that anymore. And so when he, when he breaks in, it's more of a betrayal and less of like an errant, like whoopsie Daisy.

Yeah. So that when she, she leaves and takes the children and it is more of a, of a blow. And it is more sort of deserved than just like, I got curious and peeked in. Like I would really try to ram that impact that way.

Yeah. So I would probably make it worse and more devastating and more upsetting. That would be my fix. I think it would, I think it would land that lesson better, you know, even better than it does now where it just kind of, he got kind of greedy and pushed her too much.

And I want it to be full emotional trauma is what i'm saying well that's how you really drive the lesson home you know yeah exactly what about you kelsey i love that actually i mean i think it already had a bigger impact because of the way you read it but i love the idea of just having it be more important longer you know i feel like with a lot of these fairy tales, I just want more of the story. I know, I would love a full, like a novella of this where she slowly wastes away and, you know,

but she loves him, so she's willing to do it. But then he gets in his head. And she comes back for revenge. I like that idea. Yeah, like that's the sequel. Oh, wait, she comes back and starts, he wakes up and starts noticing that like his hair and like bits of his skin are snipped off.

Cause she's, cause she's like, she needs to take back like the parts of herself that she snipped away for him. And she's like, no, I'm going to come, I'm going to come like collect the matter that I lost.

Oh man. Like really get it like that. Like, cause that was going to be kind of what I would want to see is I'd really want to get more into the body horror of it all. Oh yeah. Because just the, the imagery was so striking with like you lose using her feathers to fuel

the loom. So I love that idea of she comes back and she just starts snipping bits of him off. That's awesome. Yeah. Not gory or bloody but he just wakes up and like one of his fingers is missing or something like um i mean there you could always do the whole like uh her beauty is so incredible in her crane form while she's

weaving that he goes blind and his eyes melt out of his head or something like that like you you know but i like this i like this more Like, you know, but I like this. I like this more cold calculated, you know? Yep. I also like the idea of their children turning into cranes and going off with their mother. Yeah, that's awesome. I think that is something that I've missed in a couple of these stories.

We've read, you know, like similar ones where it's a animal husbandry. And I just love the idea of like the children turn into cranes too and go off with her there is a a really schlocky funny uh i'm a huge i don't know if you could tell this about me but i'm a huge horror fan um there's a really there's a funny schlocky uh if you're looking for like a great b movie uh it's called tales from the dark side and it is a little anthology about a witch who has captured a boy it's modern but this witch has captured a boy and she's got him in a cell and she's preparing to cook him.

But he starts telling her stories like to stall her for time. Oh, what is it called? A little Scheherazade thrown in there? Yeah, Scheherazade. Exactly. Yeah. A very B grade Scheherazade. Yes, definitely like a different different vibe yeah but so she

tells him these like these scary stories i think it's called tales from the dark side i'm pretty sure that's right um that's amazing and also a huge horror fan oh yes and anthology fans so yes there are not so much horror does so well in snippets um just like you know let's let's be honest most of the most of the grim fairy tales are horror stories absolutely and they do very well at short so so the first one is it's got like steve buscemi in it and it's a like a mummy story and but anyway the last one is this this man is out at night drunk and he sees this hideous monstrous gargoyle thing that attacks this man and rips his head off and bites his throat out and eats him.

And then she turns to him and sees him and they like make eye contact. And then the creature, you know, uh, tells him like not to tell anyone or something like that. And then it flies away. And then eventually he finds this incredibly gorgeous woman shows up at his house and the two of them become like emotionally connected and they have like a marriage that lasts for years and they have children together.

And then eventually in a drunken stupor one night, he's so close to this woman. He loves her so much that he's like, listen, I got to tell you this story about this fucked up thing that I saw. This monster swooped down and it ate this guy it right in front of me and then it made me promise that i wouldn't tell anybody isn't that crazy and then she goes and then she goes oh no you promised you wouldn't tell and then her skin starts to fall off and wings start to grow out of her back and and she's and and she's like you promised you wouldn't tell and then she he hears screaming from the children's room because the children are also monsters turning into monsters and then his wife his wife eats him and then they all fly off together that sounds amazing sorry i spoiled the whole thing i'm really sorry yeah it is streaming on

hbo max i just looked it up because i'm watching that tonight it sounds so fucking good i will go watch it over lunch with erin when we're done yeah oh my god but it's basically the same story as the crane wife just with more gore so i guess it's what we wanted it does exist that's yeah someone else already fixed this kind of story and made it more terrible oh my god um so we still have a few minutes left so i think we have time because i want to give robbie the opportunity to make predictions yes we as well so i am going to flip through my book and then rob, you tell me when to stop. This is the complete first edition of the original folk and fairy tales of

the brothers. Grimm. Wow. Who made it? This is translated and edited by Jack Zipes. Nice. Okay. Yeah,

that sounds amazing. It's a, it's pretty cool. And there's a lot of the reason why I like to use this one for randomized readings. And I know Kelsey does too, is there's a lot of short The reason why I like to use this one for randomized readings, and I know Kelsey does too, is there's a lot of short ones. Good, good, good, yeah.

In it. So there'll definitely be a short one nearby to whichever page you stop me on. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to start. It's probably frozen. No, I just was trying to be funny by making it super long. Maybe you go through the whole book. And I was like,

all right, all right. We got it. We got into the appendices in the back. Yeah. Read that. Read that. I'll read the appendices.

That was a stupid joke. I'm sorry. I'm just going to go backwards from like the closest story to the back. Yeah. Read the last one. I'm just going to read the very last story. Cause that one will just never get read otherwise. Fair enough, you know.

Right, because who's going to be an idiot like me and be like, no, I want to go way to the back. Abby, actually, when we do randomized reading, sometimes Abby will use her die. Yeah, sometimes I roll for it. If it's a thicker book like this, I'll do a D100. Oh, yes. Awesome. Speaking of which, my partner Aaron makes really beautiful cast resin dye. He got into dice making when we started our podcast.

So just saying, if you guys want some sweet... I actually had been planning on ordering dice from Aaron because... Oh, my God. Okay. I looked at it. It's at nearly as dice, right? Yes.

On Instagram. That's his Instagram. We can, we can share pictures of it. His dice are beautiful. Yeah. And what he loves to do the most is to get like a description of a character or a story or something like that.

And then like, yeah, do it like based on like what they would look like if you cast polymorph on them and turn them into dice. Oh, nice. I've definitely been planning on working with Aaron on some dice. Oh, that's awesome. He does beautiful work.

I just keep forgetting. Oh, no. It's all good. So I actually landed on two extremely short ones. It's two in a row, and they're each two paragraphs long. So Kelsey and Robbie, you may each have one prediction for a tale with a riddle, a tale with a riddle.

What do you think a tale with a riddle is about? You go first. You've done this. You've done this more often than a tale with a riddle and a short grim story can i just predict that it's really fucked up yes because that's i feel like that's a safe bet actually you know what i'm gonna predict that there's a correct guess that the person the the protagonist or hero of the story gets it right. Ooh, I like that. That's a great prediction.

My prediction is that there is no actual riddle. Yep. That sounds right. All right, let's hear it. A tale with a riddle. Three women were turned into flowers that stood in a field. However, one of them was permitted to spend the night in her own home.

Once, as dawn drew near and she had to return to her companions in the field to become a flower again, she said to her husband, If you come and pick me this morning, I'll be set free and I'll be able to stay with you forever. And this is exactly what happened. Now the question is how her husband was able to recognize her for the three flowers were all the same without any distinguishing mark. Do either of you have a guess? Because it turns out that the story itself is a riddle.

So why can't I answer? It is a riddle. Oh my God. Answers to riddles are always like so obvious once you hear it. Right. So it's going to be something like we could conceivably think of and then go oh god we're so stupid for not thinking of that yep and that's what's gonna happen because i have no idea i'm so terrible at riddles how much dead air do you want to have to

cut out while i sit here and like how bad i mean how badly do you want to figure it out yourself i'm open to whatever i've got nothing to do this afternoon god damn it um aaron help he just goes now you're on your own that's no fair calling in your spouse man can i phone a friend what was that guy's name regis regis regis philbin is it because he picked her before she turned back into a flower? Because it was that morning? I'm trying to think. Okay.

Nope. She's like, because it's before, it's right before dawn, right? I'm picturing her going through a horribly slow. She left for the field before dawn, yeah. Then she's in this horribly slow transformation into a flower. And he's like, that one, the one that's still happening and he's like that one the one that's still yeah that one that was still my wife no so i think you okay here's my here's my actual guess uh something about because i think that flowers some flowers like close at night and open in the morning so maybe it was something with that where like she

was already she had already like opened up or that doesn't make any sense because that's all flowers all three flowers are exactly the same well then how about the one closest to his house yeah do you just want me to tell you the answer okay we're idiots well i'm an idiot since she had spent the night in the house and not the field the dew had not fallen on her as it had the other two. Oh my God. There was no dew. That wasn't in the riddle at all. There was no dew on her.

That's a good solution. I think all of our answers were totally fine because that wasn't in like beginning part of the riddle like they normally are. If they had put in there like a dewy field a dewy field you might have guessed it every morning in the dewy field you know she would have to turn back into a dew covered flower no so i think um i think screw that story i hate that story awesome well you did get a point robbie no i love it you did get a point, Robbie. No, I love it. You did get a point. There was a correct answer to the riddle. Yeah, I did get one.

Even if it was a dumb answer and a dumb riddle. No, the fix for this riddle is definitely including something about morning dew somewhere in the story. Exactly. You have to include the solution somewhere in the text. Well, I just wonder if because it's so much older, people just kind of spent more time outside near dawn and would maybe have just been able to guess that. It might not be a perfect translation too. Yes, it's also translated from like ye old German.

Yeah, which is just like, you know, two people hitting a rock together in a field somewhere. Like ancient german is just rock smashing yeah so that's probably pretty hard to translate all right uh we're gonna move on to the next to the next two paragraph story the golden key what is the golden key about i was my prediction oh did you say first you go first no i was gonna because i had a feeling what yours might be because of what your last one was and i was gonna try to rush it and steal it from you oh are you gonna are you gonna say that there's no that there is no key

that the golden key is not actually a key that's my prediction gotcha gotcha that was not gonna be mine it was not gonna be mine you can have it it good um mine is going to be because i just can't get blue beard stories out of my mind the golden key goes to a room the protagonist was told not to enter the shit that is that those are based on is so scary um i predict that the bird has a key has the oh there's a bird that has a key nice yeah all Yeah. All right. Birds and keys. I love it. Birds and keys. You love these things. I feel like birds and keys go together.

That's okay. This is the golden key. During winter, when the snow was once very deep, a poor boy had to go outside and gather wood on a sled. After he had finally collected enough wood and had piled it on his sled, he decided not to go home right away because he was freezing so much. Instead, he thought he would make a fire to warm himself up a bit. So he began scraping the snow away, and as he cleared the ground, he discovered a golden key.

Where there's a key, he thought, there must also be a lock. So he dug farther into the ground and found a little iron casket. If only the key will fit, he thought, for there were bound to be wonderful and precious things in the casket. He searched, but he couldn't find a keyhole. Finally, he found a very tiny one and tried the key, which fit perfectly. So he turned the key around once. And now we must wait until he unlocks the casket completely. And that's when we'll see what's lying inside the end.

That's fun. What? There wasn't a keyhole, but then there was. What? That's fun. That was nothing. It's a troll. It's like a...

Yeah. That was nothing. It's a troll. It's like a... Yeah. It's just like one of those fairy tales where he's like, and I was there, but then he's still asleep and we're going to find out what happens later. And I'm done with the story at the end. I honestly can't imagine why that one isn't more popular and why Disney has never picked up a boy with his arm in a hole in the ground unlocking a casket there's honestly so much potential to that story oh my god i mean there's nothing else about it is he cursed now to

is he stuck there for all time yes you know what that's the fix for this story is that we finish it by saying the boy's arm is stuck in the hole forever and he wastes away there until he's a little skeleton. And then a toad jumps on his face. Maybe we do a point of maybe the fix is there's a point of view cut and we go to someone else who sees an old man in the snow and he's turning a key in a casket that's like in the ground and the guy's like hey what are you doing and he's like i'm getting a wealth of incredible treasure and rubies and jewels just as soon as i finish turning this lock uh in this in this in this uh in this treasure chest because he and he's just been doing it for decades because it's a magical curse and then you'd be like oh he got enchanted and now he's stuck there i like it i like it that's a good one god oh my god um well that was a blast and i love

that that is the last one in that book that is incredible the very last i i have to i wonder if jack zipes arranged well because because he just translated it so this is the way that the book has been laid out you know for centuries this is just a translation so I'm wondering if that's how the Brothers Grimm laid out their first edition on purpose Grimm Brothers pranked us from

ancient past yeah that's amazing the drunk person telling this story just got bored and lost interest. And then he passed out. He's going to open it one day and then, whoa, it'll be cool. Then we'll know. Then we'll know.

The brothers are going to be like, hey, we'll ask him later. We'll ask him how it is. We'll get back to it. And they don't. And then they didn't. They still put it in, though. They still included the story. Oh, there are so many like that that yeah they're especially especially in russian fairy tales i think i feel like a lot of the

shorter ones end like that and it's just so like yeah and he's still sleeping there to this day and we don't know what happened in the end and then she made the turnip soup and the turnip soup is turnip soup and one day it will be a turnip again at the end. Like, you know, oh, turnip soup story, yeah. There's a metaphor in there about the cyclical nature of life and death and

something. No, it's about soup. It's soup. Just soup. It's just about soup. It's a story. The metaphor is about how soup is soup mostly. I, you know, honestly,

I could imagine, you know, being at a tavern on days, some old man's telling me that story. I would listen. I love it. Of course. Oh yeah.

If it had a nice accent, I'd pay full attention to anything basically. Like I'm sure what you're saying is wise somehow. So I'm just going to sit here and give it. Give it way more depth and meaning. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so deep. So deep. Yeah, sometimes it's just a little boy with his arm in the ground.

Sometimes it's just a kid stuck in a hole. And you know, that's life. That's life. That's just how life works. Sometimes it's just a kid with his arm in a hole unlocking a casket. That you'll never get to know what's inside. That's actually, you know what? Holy shit.

That's actually a really good lesson. Sometimes you don't get to freaking know the end of the story. Screw you. Life's not fair. Life's not fucking fair, is it? Isn't it? Isn't it't it wow that's actually amazing i'm really glad that we were able to find what was meaningful about that absolutely nothing story that's amazing i love it go team it's now one of my new favorites the golden key oh you should definitely incorporate that as a plot line on CBH.

Yeah. And then the mystical casket creaks and slowly starts to open. And then we just do a quick like smash edit to like farther into the episode and just, and refuse to acknowledge that it ever happened. I love it. Done. Done.

Perfect. Thank you, Robbie. So much for coming on fairytale fix. This has been an absolute blast. Done. Done. Perfect. Thank you, Robbie, so much for coming on fairytale fix. This has been an absolute blast. Yay. Just remind everybody where they can find you at. Could have been heroes.

Yeah. So you can find us on anywhere you get your podcasts. It's could have been heroes. We are a nonsense comedy, horror, fairytale, fantasy, actual play with a lot of silliness and a

absolutely lovely cast full of people and also i'm there and um you're also lovely i try um and uh you can find us at could have been heroes.com and cbh pod at instagram twitter we even started a tiktok where we where we uh make ourselves laugh at least so um so that's good so yeah cbhpod on all the socials and uh yeah give us a listen and thank you so much fairy tale fix i love you guys uh i also have to say when you guys uh the two of you came on and did our um uh scare the rich um christmas carol themed ghosts terrorizing rich people in victorian london into being better people or in a few cases murdering them accidentally or on purpose yeah that was a blast we raised a thousand dollars for did you guys hear the final number was like

twelve hundred dollars or something it was that's so's so cool. For charity, or not charity, but for the direct action campaign that we were raising money for. And I was so proud of it. And you guys were great. And I would, oh my gosh, I would love to play with you guys again anytime, so.

Yeah, ditto. Yeah, that was really fun. Yeah, it was a real treat. Oh, you can find that on our Twitch, which we're starting to do more stuff with. It should be CBHh stream at twitch tv yes definitely go check that out um you're you're all just so much fun to play with um definitely definitely want to come back you can see these two superstars as uh as uh ghost uh ghost dickens and uh ghost um

as Ghost Dickens and Ghost... Hans Christian Andersen. Yeah, I was going to say as Ghost Wes Anderson. And then I was like, well, that isn't right. That would be very different. That would be very different. Yeah, as Ghost Hans Christian Andersen. Oh my God, Kelsey was so funny in particular. Like, Kelsey, you cracked me up that entire time.

You were hilarious i was so honored to be uh one of your your your early ttrpg experiences yeah that was the second ttrpg game i've ever played i got to be hans christian anderson you crushed it difficult for me because he's a very sad boy and i am a very yeah you just played this you just played this heartbroken emo boy. It was wonderful. It was great. I tried very hard. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Yeah, and Abby got to play Charles Dickens, who Hans Christian Andersen just absolutely adored. I know, you two had such good energy. It was really sweet. I loved it. So that's going to do it for us today once again thank

you all so much for tuning in to fairy tale fix if you enjoyed the show please subscribe and leave us a review on apple or stitcher and then also go leave could have been heroes a review on apple or stitcher anywhere else that they will allow you to leave reviews it genuinely helps podcasts like

small indie podcasts like ours move up in the various algorithms. So please go do that. If you love our show and you want to support us further, you can get extra episodes, merch, books, and other bonus content at our Patreon by signing up at fairytalefix.cash. And you can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at fairytalefixpod. And you can email us your favorite fairy tales, folklore, nursery rhymes,

random anecdotes, books you love, stuff like that at info at FairytaleFixPod.com. Also, we have a lovely Discord where we all hang out and talk about fantasy and nerdy stuff. So if you want to come chat with us on Discord, you can probably find a way to

it. Yeah, the CBH Discord is a lot of fun. We can put a link to it in our show notes for this episode. That would be awesome. Yeah, I'll give you guys a way to it or uh yeah the cbh discord is what is a lot of fun we can put a link to it in our in our show that would be that would be awesome yeah i'll give you guys a link for it i think we need to link ours again while we're at it too because we also uh you can come chat with us yeah let me get on there i'm gonna come hell yeah i'm gonna come say some things perfect um And so after years and years of putting up with his utter bullshit,

the crane wife finally had the excuse she needed to take the money to take the kids and fly back to Cranetopolis where she lived out the rest of her days as a badass boss bitch. And the little boy is still turning that key to this day. Arms stuck in the ground, turning and turning and turning,

locked in an eternal curse from which she will never come out. And we'll never get to know what is in the box because life isn't fair. Life isn't fair. is in the box because life isn't fair. Life isn't fair. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.