Three episodes went live prematurely on the podcast or blog earlier this year. This post, and the one which accompanies it today, are the transcripts for those stories. * OF all the pupils at the knight school Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy was among the least promising. He was tall and sturdy, but his instructors soon discovered that…
Read MoreM. R. James – The Ash-Tree
This is for an episode of the podcast which went live early. It’s a short story by M.R. James. Statistics for the monster are found at the end of this post. … Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the smaller country-houses with which it is studded—the rather dank little buildings, usually in the…
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Algernon Blackwood : Ancient Lights
A description of a conscious space: in Ars Magica terms, a faerie embodied as a copse of woodland. Statistics in November. Thanks to Dennis Smith for reading this into the public domain through Librivox. *** From Southwater, where he left the train, the road led due west. That he knew; for the rest he trusted to…
Read MoreA pair of handy podcast episodes
I’d like to flag a wonderful episode of In Our Time, which has a history of automata. Also, I’d like to flag that the Cryptid Keeper has an episode on the tatzelwurm. If we add an episode by FoodStuff / Savor about the herb basil, we have enough material for a far better way of…
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Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Volumes 2 and 3
I’m continuing to cut down Bottrell for the Cornwall gazetteer. The Fuggo : a place to delve, and a spirit “ABOUT a furlong south-west of Trove, but on a tenement of Boleigh, is the Fuggo. It consists of a cave about six feet high, five feet wide, and near forty long, faced on each side with rough stones, across…
Read MoreRing the bells and open the gates! It’s the Games From Folktales August 2018 transcripts!
Sorry about the lack of art assets this month – my time was spent on Episode 150.
Dunsany: Taking up Picadilly
A short Dunsany episode, but one of my favourite stories from him. Thanks to Thomas Copeland for reading this into the public domain through Librivox. Taking up Picadilly Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off—or so they seemed.…
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The Ring of Gyges
In the Republic, there’s a thought experiment that a faerie or demon might make real in Mythic Europe. A shepherd named Gyges finds the grave of a king, after an earth tremor, and removes a ring from it. When he places the ring upon his finger and twists it, he becomes invisible. He uses this…
Read MoreGames From Folktales Episode 150: Cornwall
Thank you to everyone who has supported Games From Folktales for 150 episodes! Here’s a little gift: the first edition of the Cornwall gazetteer I’ve been promising. Click to access cornwall-edition-1.pdf I call it the first edition, because at some point I hope to extend the section on saga seeds, and have a map professionally…
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Mujina by Lafcadio Hearn
This folktale by Lafcardio Hearn was used to create the minions of an enemy published in “Antagonists”. Mujina, by Lafcardio Hearn. On the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka,—which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do not know why it is called the Slope of the Province of…
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