Bedtime World Tour

Bedtime World Tour
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Every night, Bedtime World Tour visits a different culture's oral tradition and tells one of its folktales — from the Arctic to the Amazon, East Asia to West Africa. Genuine, credited stories, retold in the same quiet, warm voice and ending not on a stated moral but on a single image to fall asleep to. Gentle enough for children, calming enough for the adults reading to them. Each episode is tagged by region and by how rare the tale is, so you always know which corner of the world you're in tonight.

  1. 3d ago

    The Firebird — Eastern Europe & Slavic (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    The last episode of Season One. Tonight we travel to Russia, where a Tsar counts the golden apples on his tree each morning and keeps finding one gone. His youngest son sits up in the dark to watch, and at midnight the garden fills with light. Ivan comes away holding one tail feather that will not stop burning — and then rides out across three far kingdoms on the back of a grey wolf who tells him exactly what not to touch, twice, and forgives him both times. Russian tradition. "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf" was collected by AlexanderAfanasyev in *Narodnye russkie skazki* (*Russian Fairy Tales*), published in eight volumes between1855 and 1867 — the collection that made Afanasyev the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm.Classified ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess" (the quest for the golden bird). Famously illustrated by Ivan Bilibin, and the source of the Firebird figure Stravinsky drew on for his 1910 ballet. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, Russia, Russian fairy tale, Slavic, Eastern Europe, Firebird, Zhar-ptitsa, Ivan Tsarevich, grey wolf, Afanasyev, ATU 550, sleep story, kids story, season finale

    The Firebird — Eastern Europe & Slavic (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  2. 4d ago

    How Maui Slowed the Sun — Oceania & Pacific (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we go back out into the Pacific for the second great deed of Māui — the one that gave the world its long afternoons. In the old days the sun ran across the sky so fast that nothing could ever be finished: the food was never cooked through, the nets were never mended, and everyone was tired and behind. So Māui and his brothers plaited rope for weeks, travelled east only by night, and waited in the dark at the pit where the sun comes up. Polynesian tradition, told across the Pacific — among the Māori of Aotearoa, in the Cook andSociety Islands, and in Hawai'i, where the deed is set on Haleakalā. The oldest published record isSir George Grey's *Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race asFurnished by Their Priests and Chiefs* (1855), drawn largely from manuscripts supplied by the Ngāti Rangiwewehi chief Te Rangikāheke. Also collected in W. D. Westervelt's *Legends of Maui, a Demi-God of Polynesia* (1910). The Māori telling turns on the plaited flax ropes and the enchanted jawbone ofMāui's grandmother Murirangawhenua. Companion piece to S1E09, *Maui Fishes Up the Land*. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, Maui, Maori, Polynesia, Oceania, Pacific, New Zealand, Aotearoa, Hawaii, snaring the sun, George Grey, sleep story, kids story, mythology

    How Maui Slowed the Sun — Oceania & Pacific (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  3. 5d ago

    The Fisherman and the Jinni — Middle East & Persia (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we return to the Thousand and One Nights for one of the very first tales Scheherazade tells. An old fisherman casts his net four times a day and no more. The first three casts bring up a dead donkey, a pitcher of mud and a load of broken glass. The fourth brings up a sealed copper jar — and what comes out of it is three thousand years old, enormous, and in a very bad mood. All the fisherman has is that he can think, and that the jinni is in a hurry. Arab tradition, from *One Thousand and One Nights* (*Alf Layla wa-Layla*), where it is the secondtop-level tale told by Scheherazade and itself frames further stories, including "The Vizier andthe Sage Duban." Best known in English through Sir Richard Francis Burton's 1885 translation, *TheBook of the Thousand Nights and a Night*, Volume 1. The jar is stopped with the seal of Solomon —the motif that binds the jinni. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, Arabian Nights, One Thousand and One Nights, Middle East, Arab, jinni, genie, Solomon's seal, Burton, Scheherazade, sleep story, kids story, mythology

    The Fisherman and the Jinni — Middle East & Persia (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  4. 6d ago

    How Night Came to the Amazon — Andean & Amazonian (Lesser-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we travel to the great slow rivers of the Amazon, to a time before there was any such thing as night. The world was all one endless day, and nothing had ever closed its eyes. But the daughter of the Great Serpent had grown up in the cool shadows at the bottom of the river, and she was fading in all that light — so three servants were sent down to fetch back a little of the dark. They were told not to open the bag. About the loveliest possible episode to fall asleep to. Brazilian / Amazonian tradition. Recorded as "How Night Came" in Elsie Spicer Eells, *Fairy Tales from Brazil: How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore* (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1917) — a collection of eighteen Brazilian folk stories, available in full through Project Gutenberg. The tale is an originmyth for night, the morning star, the dawn chorus, and the night-calling birds. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, Brazil, Amazon, Amazonian, South America, Great Serpent, origin myth,how night came, Elsie Spicer Eells, sleep story, kids story, creation story

    How Night Came to the Amazon — Andean & Amazonian (Lesser-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  5. Aug 12

    The Blue Jackal — South Asia (Lesser-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we travel to India, to the Panchatantra, for the small and slightly sad story of a hungry jackal named Chandarava who runs from a pack of dogs, falls into a washerman's vat of indigo, and climbs out a colour no animal has ever been. The forest crowns him king. He rules for a year. And then, one evening at dusk, he hears his own people singing out in the scrub — and forgets himselffor exactly as long as it takes to answer. Indian tradition, from the *Panchatantra* — the Sanskrit collection of animal fables composed around the 3rd century BCE and among the most widely travelled books in the world, carried intoPersian, Arabic and eventually most European languages. The jackal is named Chandarava in theSanskrit text; the tale appears in the book's section on losing what you have gained. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, India, Panchatantra, Sanskrit, South Asia, Chandarava, blue jackal, animal fable, indigo, sleep story, kids story, fable

    The Blue Jackal — South Asia (Lesser-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  6. Aug 11

    East of the Sun and West of the Moon — Northern Europe & Scandinavia (Lesser-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we travel to Norway — deep pine forest, long winter dark — for the story of a farmer's youngest daughter who rides away on the back of a great white bear. When one drop of candle wax undoes everything, she sets out to find a castle nobody can find, walking out the soles of her shoes and asking each of the four winds in turn until the North Wind carries her so far his heels drag through the sea. Norwegian tradition. Collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe from variants recordedin the Ringerike and Telemark regions, and first published in 1844 as No. 42 of *Norske Folkeeventyr*(*Anden Deel*), later renumbered No. 41 in the 1852 edition. Brought into English by Sir George Webbe Dasent in *Popular Tales from the Norse* (1859) and included by Andrew Lang in *The Blue Fairy Book*(1889). Classified ATU 425A, "The Animal (Monster) as Bridegroom" — the Search for the Lost Husband cycle; roughly 80 Norwegian variants have been recorded, including *White-Bear-King-Valemon*.Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show sotomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, Norway, Norwegian, Scandinavia, Asbjornsen and Moe, white bear, troll,North Wind, ATU 425A, sleep story, kids story, fairy tale, Nordic folklore

    East of the Sun and West of the Moon — Northern Europe & Scandinavia (Lesser-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  7. Aug 10

    The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd — East Asia (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we travel to China, for a love story people have been telling — and looking up at — for more than two thousand years. A poor cowherd with one old ox meets the youngest daughter of heaven, whose work is weaving the clouds. They build a small ordinary life together, until the sky takes her back and a silver hairpin opens a river of stars between them. And once a year, every magpie in the world goes up to do something about it. Chinese tradition. The tale of Niulang (the cowherd, the star Altair) and Zhinü (the weaver girl, the star Vega) is one of China's Four Great Folktales. The earliest surviving reference is a versein the *Shijing* (*Classic of Poetry*), in the "Xiaoya" / Lesser Odes section — roughly 2,600 years old. The two stars were personified into a full narrative by the end of the Later Han, and the version known today — the Silver River, the annual crossing — took shape during the Six Dynasties period (265–589 CE). It remains the basis of the Qixi festival, held on the seventh night of the seventh lunar month. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, China, Chinese mythology, East Asia, Qixi, Niulang, Zhinu, Weaver Girl,Cowherd, Milky Way, magpie bridge, sleep story, kids story, love story

    The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd — East Asia (Well-Known) | Bedtime World Tour

  8. Aug 9

    Quetzalcoatl and the Grain of Maize — Mesoamerica & Caribbean (Rare) | Bedtime World Tour

    Tonight we travel to ancient Mexico, to the world of the Aztecs, for the story of how the people were first fed. When the new humans are hungry and nothing will nourish them, the gentle feathered god Quetzalcóatl spots a red ant carrying a single golden grain of corn — and to follow her into the mountain where it grows, he must shrink himself smaller than a grain of sand. A luminous origin tale of maize, patience, and a god's love for his people. Aztec / Nahua tradition, Mesoamerica. The discovery of maize is a documented Aztec myth: theFeathered Serpent Quetzalcóatl follows a red ant to Tonacatépetl, the "Mountain of Sustenance,"turns himself into an ant to enter it, and brings maize to humankind — recorded in the colonial Nahua sources (the *Leyenda de los Soles* / "Legend of the Suns," 1558) and retold widely (e.g.Mexicolore). A "Rare" tale in the slate. Original prose retelling. A world folktale every night, told to help you fall asleep. Follow the show so tomorrow night's story finds you too. bedtime story, folktale, Aztec, Nahua, Mesoamerica, Mexico, Quetzalcoatl, maize, corn, Tonacatepetl, sleep story, kids story, mythology, creation story

    Quetzalcoatl and the Grain of Maize — Mesoamerica & Caribbean (Rare) | Bedtime World Tour
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About

Every night, Bedtime World Tour visits a different culture's oral tradition and tells one of its folktales — from the Arctic to the Amazon, East Asia to West Africa. Genuine, credited stories, retold in the same quiet, warm voice and ending not on a stated moral but on a single image to fall asleep to. Gentle enough for children, calming enough for the adults reading to them. Each episode is tagged by region and by how rare the tale is, so you always know which corner of the world you're in tonight.

Information

  • Creator
    Bedtime World Tour
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Bedtime World Tour
  • Show Website
    Bedtime World Tour