Tall Tails: Animal Legends and Real Science for Kids

Four Fireflies Audio
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Stories for Kids
  • Updated Weekly

Why does the tortoise have a cracked shell? Why does the bear have a short tail? On Tall Tails, storyteller Wren shares animal origin legends from cultures around the world, and his friend Dr. Moss, a very excited biologist with a magnifying glass named Gerald, keeps jumping in with the real science. Two stories, one big question, and a whole lot of interrupting. For curious kids ages 5 to 12 and the grown-ups who listen along. Tall Tails is made by a family using AI voices and AI writing tools, and every episode is fact-checked.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    Ep 3 | Leggy: Why Do Spiders Have Such Skinny Legs?

    Why do spiders have such long, skinny legs? Wren tells a trickster tale and a myth about the greatest weaver who ever lived, and Dr. Moss (and Gerald) zoom in on the real spider. In the Anansi story from the Akan people of Ghana, Kwaku Anansi wants to eat at eight friends' houses without helping with a single chore, so he ties a thread to each of his eight legs. What could go wrong? In the ancient Greek myth told by the Roman poet Ovid, Arachne brags that she can out-weave the goddess Athena, and the contest changes her forever. Then we learn how spiders straighten their legs with no stretching muscles at all, why spider silk is so tough, and how some spiders fly without wings. 0:00 Cold open 0:34 Welcome to Tall Tails 1:12 Tale One: Anansi and the Eight Dinners (Akan, Ghana) 7:31 Where in the World? 8:31 Tale Two: Arachne and the Weaving Contest (ancient Greece) 13:46 Tale or Tail? 17:57 Weird But True 18:48 Fact Frenzy! 20:05 Sign-off Where the stories come from: Anansi stories come from the Akan people of Ghana and are told in many, many ways. Our version of how Anansi got his skinny legs follows a modern retelling by Farida Salifu. Arachne's story is best known from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, written about two thousand years ago. Ovid calls the goddess Minerva, the Roman name for Athena. How this show is made: Tall Tails is made by a family with four kids around the target age range of the show. The voices of Wren, Dr. Moss and every other character are generated with AI voice tools, and the scripts are written with help from AI and fact-checked before release. Next time: why can't the kiwi and the emu fly? Stay wild, and stay curious! © 2026 720 Connections LLC

  2. 1d ago

    Ep 2 | Fishing for Trouble: Why Does the Bear Have a Short Tail?

    Why does the bear have such a stumpy little tail? Wren tells two stories from opposite sides of the ocean, and they turn out to be almost the same story. Dr. Moss (and Gerald) can't believe it. In the story from Norway, sly Fox shows up with a string of fish and tells hungry Bear exactly how he caught them: dangle your tail through a hole in the ice and wait. In the Haudenosaunee story, Bear has the longest, shiniest tail in the forest and won't stop showing it off, until Fox sets up the very same icy trick. Then we find out how big a bear's tail really is, how brown bears actually catch salmon, why some scientists say bears aren't true hibernators, and how a sleeping bear can go months without eating, drinking or going to the bathroom. 0:00 Cold open 0:46 Welcome to Tall Tails 1:19 Tale One: Why the Bear Is Stumpy-Tailed (Norway) 6:46 Where in the World? 7:41 Tale Two: How Bear Lost His Tail (Haudenosaunee) 14:23 Tale or Tail? 18:01 Weird But True 18:38 Fact Frenzy! 19:47 Sign-off Where the stories come from: Why the Bear Is Stumpy-Tailed was collected in Norway by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in the 1840s and translated into English by George Webbe Dasent. The old version is only a few sentences long, so Wren tells it the long way. How Bear Lost His Tail is a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) story. We follow the version in Joseph Bruchac's book of Haudenosaunee stories. There are many versions, and other Native nations tell this story too. We encourage you to look for it told by Haudenosaunee storytellers themselves. New here? Start with Episode 1, Shell Shocked: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0GTsxZQEE6XASGn7KbNrdj?si=SyMCKU9qSxW-m6CAgydQgA How this show is made: Tall Tails is made by a family with four kids around the target age range of the show. The voices of Wren, Dr. Moss and every other character are generated with AI voice tools, and the scripts are written with help from AI and fact-checked before release. Next time: why do spiders have such skinny legs? Stay wild, and stay curious! © 2026 720 Connections LLC

  3. 2d ago

    Ep 1 | Shell Shocked: Why Does the Tortoise Have a Cracked Shell?

    Why does the tortoise have a shell that looks like somebody dropped it? Wren tells two old stories that answer that question, and Dr. Moss (and Gerald) explain what's really going on.In the Igbo story from southeastern Nigeria, clever, hungry Tortoise borrows feathers from the birds to get to a feast in the sky, and pays for his tricks on the way down. In the Cherokee story from the mountains of North Carolina, Terrapin outsmarts a pack of wolves and makes a splashy escape. Then we find out what a tortoise shell is made of, why a turtle can never crawl out of it, and how vets fix a broken one.0:00 Cold open0:43 Welcome to Tall Tails1:17 Tale One: Tortoise and the Feast in the Sky (Igbo, Nigeria)7:42 Where in the World?8:34 Tale Two: The Terrapin's Escape from the Wolves (Cherokee, North Carolina)13:52 Tale or Tail?19:03 Weird But True19:44 Fact Frenzy!21:06 Sign-offWhere the stories come from:Tortoise and the Feast in the Sky is a traditional Igbo folktale told in many versions. The version we follow is the one Chinua Achebe retells in his novel Things Fall Apart (1958).The Terrapin's Escape from the Wolves was written down from Eastern Cherokee storytellers in western North Carolina by James Mooney, starting in 1887, and published in Myths of the Cherokee (1900).These stories belong to the Igbo and Cherokee peoples. We tell them with respect and encourage you to look for versions told by Igbo and Cherokee storytellers themselves.A note on the animals: opossums (with an O) live only in the Americas, so the opossum in the Cherokee story is the North American kind.How this show is made: Tall Tails is made by a family with four kids around the target age range of the show. The voices of Wren, Dr. Moss and every character are generated with AI voice tools, and the scripts are written with help from AI and fact-checked before release.Next time: why does the bear have such a short tail?Stay wild, and stay curious!© 2026 720 Connections LLC

  • 3 Episodes

About

Why does the tortoise have a cracked shell? Why does the bear have a short tail? On Tall Tails, storyteller Wren shares animal origin legends from cultures around the world, and his friend Dr. Moss, a very excited biologist with a magnifying glass named Gerald, keeps jumping in with the real science. Two stories, one big question, and a whole lot of interrupting. For curious kids ages 5 to 12 and the grown-ups who listen along. Tall Tails is made by a family using AI voices and AI writing tools, and every episode is fact-checked.

Information