The Fairy Tellers

The Fairy Tellers
  • 4.6 (42)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Welcome to The Fairy Tellers podcast! We explore what myths, legends, folklore, fables, and fairy tales say about cultures both then and now. So grab a hot cup of cocoa and a comfy seat while we retell you a thing.

  1. FEB 21

    #128 Snow White and Rose Red

    In this episode, Katrina and Geoff continue on with this year's curriculum project by talking about the psychoanalytic approach to fairy tales. We're talking Freud. We're talking Jung. We're talking Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment. But mostly we are talking about the story Snow White and Rose Red, found in the Brothers Grimm collection. In this story, a bear comes to stay with these two girls in their idyllic cottage all winter. But what can it teach a child's subconscious mind about sexuality before marriage? Everything. Or...maybe nothing. Understanding different lens and frameworks that fairy tales have been examined through is important. What's also important, is to understand when to question at what point those lens become cloudy.

    1h 18m

  2. FEB 7

    #127 Banish the Ghosts and Welcome the Fairies

    February is the time of year where we are all sitting in liminal space. We're waiting for the seasons to shift and change. In this episode, Katrina and Geoff are embracing this space and retelling tales of ghosts and fairies. Do the dead walk among us? Are they partying way too hard? Which would you prefer? Ghosts or fairies? Katrina begins the episode by talking about Daniel Crowley, the anthropologist and partygoer.  Then Geoffrey tells a completely different tale about a Daniel Crowley that was a coffin-maker and partygoer. Finally Katrina pulls us away from ghosts to talk about strange men that we meet on the side of the road.

    1h 18m

  3. JAN 17

    #126 Vladimir Propp

    New Year, New Project! In this episode, Katrina and Geoff kick off their new project and take a break from talking about ATU tale types and motif indexes, to discuss a different way of examining tales, structuralism! Now, don't run off all at once! We're going to break down Vladimir Propp's approach to tales and discuss how being able to recognize Baba Yaga as a villain or a donor character actually makes it a very powerful tool to analyzing these wonder tales. Katrina and Geoff take turns retelling tales so that we can use Vladimir's functions to see what is and what is not in the tales. And they also discuss what works about this approach and what doesn't.

    1h 57m

  4. 12/14/2025

    #125 The Mead of Poetry

    In this episode, Katrina and Geoff journey into Norse mythology. The tale of The Mead of Poetry has many twists and turns with a wide cast of characters from dwarves, giants, and gods. How does a vat of godly spittle turn into a much sought after beverage? Its a winding road that Katrina is happy to travel in search of the gift of storytelling.   Check out: Not My Fantasy Podcast and our latest episode with them where we talk about Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

    1h 19m

  5. 11/22/2025

    #124 Hero and Leander

    In this episode, Geoff and Katrina issue two rare corrections. After falsely claiming in episode #123 that there isn't an ATU type 666, they set the record straight by apologizing for the terrible lie and righting their wrongs. With the tale of Hero and Leander, they show that everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes (like tempting Fate) are worse than others but even Renaissance historians got things wrong and had to reverse course. They once thought that the story of Hero and Leander pre-dated Homer by mixing up two guys with the same name. Next, Geoff and Katrina apologize for mixing up two guys with the same first name. Giovanni Boccaccio and Giovanni Straparola were both Italian storytellers but were alive over a hundred years apart and the later recorded an ATU type 666 variant in his collection of tales that Katrina retells to finish off the episode. Will they banish themselves to a hut on an island to repent of their sins? Nope. So hopefully this episode is repentance enough.

    1h 26m

  6. 11/08/2025

    #123 ATU 67 The Fox and Brainrot

    In this episode, Katrina is back from another year of the American Folklore Conference. She talks about the fun of academic conferences and being around the same nerds that understand a good ATU type joke. In the course of some of that joking, Katrina ended up with a ribbon on her name tag that said ATU SIX SEVEN, which then prompted academics to ask her "What's ATU 67" which allowed her to take part in current slang that made her "cringe". So in honor of being cringe, Katrina and Geoff dive into this tale type, that takes us to Aesop Fables and also to Irish Folktales featuring fox being as clever as ever. And for good measure, Geoff retells ATU 670, with a story from France. Come with us on our exploration of brainrot!

    1h 10m

  7. 10/18/2025

    #122 Prince Marcassin

    Content Warning: Suicide and Murder In this episode, Geoff and Katrina dive back into the world of the French salons to talk about Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy and further their discussion on Specters of the Marvelous: Race and the Development of the European Fairy Tale by Kimberly J. Lau. While France was spreading their imperial reach, the imagination of the French salons were abuzz with travelogues coming back from the "New World". Katrina retells the tale of Prince Marcassin, the prince that was born a wild boar. Will the power of love save him? No. Put probably something will...even if it is just meddling fairies.

    2h 26m

  8. 09/20/2025

    #121 Eat the Rich (Or Turn Them Into Worms)

    In this episode, Geoff and Katrina discuss stories that look at the corrupting power of wealth. While doing an Instagram challenge in July, by Tish Black (author of Ebony, Blood, and Snow: New Stories from Old Tales), Katrina kept finding stories from around the world talking about how growing wealth can cause a degrading of the soul. They take three of those tales and retell them while discussing, Should a person be able to live an evil life as long as they read their bible? Would you love me if I was an evil CEO worm? Is there a way to live without causing harm? Are ghosts shadows of the scales of time collapsing in on themselves? And most importantly, how do demonic pots run on their little three legs? We might not be philosophers but at least we aren't billionaires.

    1h 32m
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4.6
out of 5
42 Ratings

About

Welcome to The Fairy Tellers podcast! We explore what myths, legends, folklore, fables, and fairy tales say about cultures both then and now. So grab a hot cup of cocoa and a comfy seat while we retell you a thing.

Information

  • Creator
    The Fairy Tellers
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    140
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Fairy Tellers

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