KacheliTV

KacheliTV — the world's stories, read aloud.

Looking for a story to fall asleep to, to ride with on a long drive, or to share at bedtime? Start here.

We read the folk tales and classics of every culture on Earth — complete and unabridged, never excerpts — in fresh English translations, performed by our cast of voices. The fairy tales of Ireland and Japan. The legends of India and Nigeria. Jamaica, the Netherlands, the Cherokee, the Norse — and the Russia of Pushkin and Krylov. The stories your grandmother knew, and stories from shores you've never heard — every culture in the spotlight, no one missed.

New tales arrive every week. Pick a shelf, press play, and let the world's grandmothers talk you to sleep.

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From The Dog You Chose LLC, Gulfport, Florida. Public-domain sources, told with respect.

Find us:

YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@KacheliTVFlorida

Telegram — https://t.me/kacheliTV

Website — https://dogyouchose.com

The Dog You Chose books — https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYSTBLQ3

Our cast is a company of AI-generated voices, performing fresh in-house translations of public-domain works from every culture.

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S119 · E3
October 23 · 23 min
Choctaw Tales, Part 3: The Council of the Bones · The Dispersal and the Settling · The Growth of the Settlements
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Choctaw Tales, Part 3: The Council of the Bones · The Dispersal and the Settling · The Growth of the Settlements Part Three of our Choctaw Tales steps back to the deliberation that made the great mound of Nanih Waiya possible. The minko has seen that the nation's burden of bones — the sacks of their dead, carried through forty-three years of wandering until the dead outnumber the living — will break the people if the journey goes on. The leaders' council will not touch the question, and the old Isht ahullo warns that the spirits will answer any casting-away of the relics with hunger, disease and death. So the chief dismisses the council, calls the whole nation to the dance ground, and asks them plainly, in bright sunlight, to gather their fathers' bones into one beautiful resting place — and an old man who has carried his own father's bones since boyhood rises to answer him. Then the telling follows the nation in the years after the mound was finished: the dispersal to the hunting grounds, the planting of larger crops and the building of good houses, and the growth of the settlements along the creeks of their new home. This episode tells a portion of Lincecum's translation, not the whole of it: the mound of the sacred pole and the departure of the conjurers are not told here, and no completeness is claimed for the Skukhaanumpula, the traditional history Chata Immataha related and Lincecum translated only in part. Stories in this episode: 0:36 Introduction 2:02 The Council of the Bones 19:54 The Dispersal and the Settling 21:37 The Growth of the Settlements Source: "Choctaw Traditions about their Settlement in Mississippi and the Origin of their Mounds" by Gideon Lincecum, in Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol. VIII (1904) — Lincecum's translation of a portion of the Skukhaanumpula, as related by Chata Immataha — public domain. Narrated by Orson. Music: "Lightning Crash" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories. Choctaw tales, Choctaw folklore, Gideon Lincecum, Nanih Waiya, Chata Immataha, Skukhaanumpula, Council of the Bones, Native American folk tales, KacheliTV
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S105 · E2
October 23 · 25 min
Basque Tales — Part 2: The Fairy-Queen Godmother · The Step-Mother and Step-Daughter · Beauty and the Beast
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Basque Tales — Part 2: The Fairy-Queen Godmother · The Step-Mother and Step-Daughter · Beauty and the Beast Three legends from the Basque country, collected chiefly in the Labourd and published by the Reverend Wentworth Webster in Basque Legends (1879) — a fairy queen's god-daughter, a kind step-mother, and a serpent who was a king's son, told as the Basque storytellers told them. Pretty-Rose flies from her godmother's mountain house in a flying chariot, and the little dog Rose wins back her diamond glint; a step-mother sends her step-daughter into the king's bedroom at midnight for a sash and a watch-chain, and so makes her a queen; and Fifine keeps her word to the serpent Azor, burns his skin at the stroke of midnight, and finds a king's son. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 1:40 The Fairy-Queen Godmother 10:54 The Step-Mother and Step-Daughter 13:39 Beauty and the Beast Source: Basque Legends, collected by Wentworth Webster (Griffith and Farran, 1879, second edition) — public domain; read from the Project Gutenberg edition. Narrated by Magnolia. Music: "Before the Pines End" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories. Basque tales, Basque legends, Wentworth Webster, fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast, the Fairy-Queen Godmother, European folklore, bedtime stories, KacheliTV
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S97 · E2
October 23 · 23 min
Georgian Folk Tales — Part 2: The Prince Who Befriended the Beasts · The Priest's Youngest Son · The King and the Sage
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Georgian Folk Tales — Part 2: The Prince Who Befriended the Beasts · The Priest's Youngest Son · The King and the Sage Season 97 · Episode 2 — the second part of the Georgian shelf of KacheliTV World Classics: folk tales from Georgia, read aloud in Marjory Wardrop's English translation. THE BOOK BEHIND THIS EPISODE Georgian Folk Tales (London: David Nutt, 1894), translated by Marjory Wardrop (1869–1909) — the first volume of the Grimm Library and the first attempt to translate into English any part of the secular literature of the Georgian people. Wardrop took her tales from three collections: the Georgian tales proper from the collection edited by Mr. Aghniashvili (Tiflis, 1891); the Mingrelian tales from Professor A. A. Tsagareli's Mingrelian Studies (St. Petersburg, 1880), collected by him in Mingrelia in 1876–79; and the Gurian tales from an anonymous collection (St. Petersburg, 1884). Every tale in the book was read and screened under this shelf's content rule before anything was built. The tales that are not told stand named, each with its reason, in the shelf register — the excluded tales are not told, and no completeness is claimed for the book. IN THIS EPISODE 0:35 Introduction 2:44 The Prince Who Befriended the Beasts — a youngest prince frees the rare fish he was sent to catch, saves a deer, an eagle and a jackal on the road, and is hidden by each of them in turn — in the sea, in the sky, on the mountains, and under the very floor — from the maiden queen whose mirror finds everyone. 14:11 The Priest's Youngest Son — the only brother who keeps the psalter watch over his father rides three gift horses to the castle: a third of the way, two thirds of the way, and at last right up to the top, to kiss the princess. 16:57 The King and the Sage — Shah Ali offers three hundred pieces of gold to whoever can ask him a question he must answer "That is Impossible"; all the wits of the town fail, until Nasr-Eddin arrives with two great empty jars and a story about his father's loan. Narration: Felix. Music: the instrumental theme "The River's Dying Vision" is heard at the opening and at the close, and in a short excerpt between the stories; there is no music under the narration. Georgian folk tales, Marjory Wardrop, Georgian Folk Tales 1894, Mingrelian tales, Gurian tales, Prince Who Befriended the Beasts, Nasr-Eddin, folk tales, KacheliTV
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S66 · E2
October 23 · 22 min
Folk Tales of Afghanistan — Part 2: The Poor Wood-seller · There Is Nothing Impossible · Faith versus Sanctity · The Henpecked Husbands
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Afghanistan — Part 2: The Poor Wood-seller · There Is Nothing Impossible · Faith versus Sanctity · The Henpecked Husbands Thirteen more tales of the Pathans of the Bannu valley, on the Afghan frontier, collected and translated by S. S. Thorburn of the Indian Civil Service and published in his Bannu; or, Our Afghan Frontier (London, 1876) — the remaining humorous and moral tales of his first class, and the opening tales of his second class, the comic and jocular tales. A wood-seller cheated out of his ox wins it back with a bargain taken literally. Solomon, stripped of his sacred ring, wanders unknown and marries the sweeper's daughter whose impossible wish set the tale going. A traveller steeps his fine robe in the ghi he was served, because it was his clothes that were entertained. A Vizier buries a donkey, raises a shrine over it, and proves to his King that faith, not sanctity, answers prayer. And two henpecked husbands divide an old man's salute between them. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 1:51 The Poor Wood-seller 3:28 There Is Nothing Impossible 6:40 The Way to Win a Lawsuit 7:26 Host and Guest 8:36 The Tables Turned 9:41 The Invitation Accepted 10:40 Hospitality Returned 11:58 The Choice of a Wife 13:51 Faith versus Sanctity 17:04 The Henpecked Husbands 19:11 Which Is the Fool? 20:08 An Irishism 20:49 The Height of Folly Source: Bannu; or, Our Afghan Frontier (London, 1876) by S. S. Thorburn — public domain. Reading texts are faithful in-house renderings of Thorburn's printed English. A few tales of the chapter that turn on bloodshed are left untold, as this programme leaves such tales aside; they are named in this episode's notes. Narrated by Amos. Music: "Glacial Forest 3" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories. Afghan folk tales, Pathan tales, Bannu, Thorburn, Afghan frontier stories, trickster tales, bedtime stories, KacheliTV
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S99 · E2
October 23 · 22 min
Serbian Folk Tales — Part 2: Who Asks Little, Gets Much · The Dream of the King's Son | Serbian Folk-lore (1874), Mijatovich from Karadžić | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Serbian Folk Tales — Part 2: Who Asks Little, Gets Much · The Dream of the King's Son | Serbian Folk-lore (1874), Mijatovich from Karadžić | KacheliTV World Classics Serbia's folk tales, read aloud — Part Two of the World Classics shelf that opened with The Wise Girl and The Three Suitors. These are tales from Serbian Folk-lore, the book in which Madame Elodie L. Mijatovich selected and translated into English the folk tales gathered by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, the father of Serbian folk-literature scholarship. The book was first published at London in 1874; this reading follows its second edition, of 1899, and the tales stand in the order she printed them. Stories in this episode: 00:35 Introduction — Part Two of the shelf: Mijatovich's Serbian Folk-lore, Karadžić's collection behind it, and how this shelf chooses what it builds. 02:06 Who Asks Little, Gets Much — three brothers share a single pear-tree. An angel in beggar's form tests each of them, then grants each the life he wishes for: a river of wine, a field of sheep — or almost nothing at all. 10:22 The Dream of the King's Son — a prince is driven from his father's palace for a dream. In a cave he finds a blind old man, a golden horse, a golden greyhound and a golden hen — and on the ninth mountain, the fairies who took the old man's sight. 21:46 Closing Words The source. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787–1864) gathered these tales from Serbia's village story-tellers and published his Serbian folk tales at Vienna in 1853. Elodie Lawton Mijatovich (1825–1908) translated the tales into English for Serbian Folk-lore (London, 1874; second edition 1899). The copy read from is Project Gutenberg #45321. Of the book's twenty-six tales, twenty-one are excluded under this shelf's rule against depicted violence and harm, one is benched by adjudication, and the four that passed screening are built across Parts 1 and 2; this episode completes the shelf's screened set. Every excluded tale stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register — nothing is silently dropped, and no completeness is claimed that the exclusions contradict. Music: the instrumental theme is heard at the opening and the close, and as a short separator between the two stories. No music plays beneath the narration. Read by Bruno for KacheliTV World Classics. Serbian folk tales, Serbian fairy tales, Serbia folklore, Vuk Karadzic, Elodie Mijatovich, Serbian Folk-lore 1874, folk tales read aloud, world folk tales, KacheliTV World Classics
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S76 · E2
October 23 · 23 min
Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India — Part 2: Cheating the Priest and Other Tales
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India — Part 2: Cheating the Priest and Other Tales Part Two of the shelf: seven more tales from Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899) by Katherine Neville Fleeson, who lived among the Laos people, learned their language, and wrote these tales down as they were told to her, when they had never been written down before. Billed by collector and book, as tales of the Laos country in the old kingdom of Siam; not a survey of all the peoples of Laos, and no completeness is claimed. Fleeson's book holds forty-eight tales; the tales passed over at this gate are named, with their reasons, in the shelf register. Cheating the Priest — a man and his wife, who have no daughter at all, take a rain-shelter-refusing priest's gifts on the promise of their "beautiful daughter", then report her dead. The Ungrateful Fisherman — a crow makes a poor fisherman a ruler; years on, he drives all crows from his fields, and is carried back to his poor house. The Legend of the Rice — why the rice has been small-grained, and gathered by hand, ever since a widow struck a grain in anger. Love's Secrets — a god turns a faithful woodsman's wood to gold, and a laggard's wood to snakes. Strife and Peace — a hundred pieces of silver test a couple that always quarrels, and a couple that never does. Honesty Rewarded — a poor family will not say the chow's silver and gold axes are theirs, and is given all three. The Magic Well — a sick prince, an old man's vision, and the well high in the face of a mountain rock, whose water heals him. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 2:06 Cheating the Priest 5:16 The Ungrateful Fisherman 8:10 The Legend of the Rice 10:06 Love's Secrets 13:22 Strife and Peace 16:46 Honesty Rewarded 19:19 The Magic Well Katherine Neville Fleeson, Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India (Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899) — public domain. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Music: theme, "Avian Impressions" — heard at the opening and the close, and as a short separator between the stories; the tales themselves are read dry. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S77 · E2
October 23 · 24 min
Greenlandic Inuit Tales — Part 2: Sitliarnat · The Kivigtok · Arnarsarsuak, the Kivigtok Woman
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Greenlandic Inuit Tales — Part 2: Sitliarnat · The Kivigtok · Arnarsarsuak, the Kivigtok Woman Part Two of the Greenland shelf: Greenlandic Inuit tales, from Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1875) by Dr Henry Rink (1819–1893) — the Danish geologist who spent sixteen winters and twenty-two summers in Greenland, collected these tales from Greenlandic tellers, and translated them from the Danish himself; the English edition was edited by Dr Robert Brown (1842–1895). Billed by collector and book, as the tales Rink gathered in Greenland; not a survey of all Greenlandic tradition, and no completeness is claimed. The tales were screened in the order they stand in Rink's book under this shelf's standing rule, and a great many were set aside — every one stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register. Sitliarnat — three brothers, drifted away on an iceberg to an unknown shore, are taken in by an old couple whose lost provider comes home pale and weaponless; years later the old man turns into a bear and pushes their iceberg across the open sea, and the brothers keep their promise when the bald-headed bear comes to their shore. The Kivigtok — a young man who fled from mankind to a cave in the rocks is found by his father and brothers after two summers of searching, agrees to come home, and gives them the slip at the very last moment. Arnarsarsuak, the Kivigtok Woman — a young woman who fled her home returns years later, drawn by her own song, to the two orphans who had once shown her kindness, and raises a family in which bear cubs and children are nursed side by side. Chapters: 0:35 Introduction 2:21 Sitliarnat 12:17 The Kivigtok 15:42 Arnarsarsuak, the Kivigtok Woman Henry Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo (William Blackwood and Sons, 1875) — public domain. Narrated by Scratch. Music: the episode's theme, "Istanbul Cello Nocturne" — heard at the introduction, as a short separator between the tales, and at the close; the tales themselves are read dry. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S61 · E2
October 23 · 27 min
Korean Folk Tales — Part 2: The Story of Chang To-Ryong · Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Korean Folk Tales — Part 2: The Story of Chang To-Ryong · Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer Two more tales from Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (London and New York, 1913), translated from the Korean of Im Bang and Yi Ryuk by James S. Gale (1863–1937), who lived in Korea for many years. Billed by book, authors and translator, as Gale printed them; not a survey of all Korean tales, and no completeness is claimed. Part 1 heard the book's first tale, Charan; this second part continues in the book's own order with its second and fourth tales. (The third, A Story of the Fox, is set aside under this shelf's standing rules — a fox's attack in scene — and the exclusion is registered by name in our catalogue.) The Story of Chang To-Ryong — in the days of King Chung-jong, a dirty, ugly beggar of forty begs in Bell Street, Seoul, and the proud magician Chon U-chi dismounts and prostrates himself before him in fear. A kind undergraduate befriends the beggar, mourns his corpse when it is carried out of the city — and twenty years later, lost among the hills of Chulla, is feasted by him in a palace of the genii, for Chang was no beggar but a spirit-man whose exile on earth had ended. Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer — Gale's notes give the marvels first: a book recalled word for word from a single glance, the speech of birds and beasts understood, every envoy's language spoken in Peking without study. Then the proof: taking tea with his aunt, Puk-Chang looks south and sees her overdue servant, at that very moment, crossing Bird Pass — and getting a beating there for riding past a gentleman at dinner. The servant's own account, when he returns, matches in the smallest detail. Chapters: 0:35 Introduction 2:27 The Story of Chang To-Ryong 16:14 Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer Im Bang and Yi Ryuk, Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies, translated by James S. Gale (London: J. M. Dent & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1913) — public domain. Narrated by Mira. Music: "The Cello's Unfinished Promise 2" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between the stories; no music under the reading. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S79 · E2
October 23 · 21 min
Italian Popular Tales — Part 2: The Story of Catherine and Her Fate · The Crumb in the Beard
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Italian Popular Tales — Part 2: The Story of Catherine and Her Fate · The Crumb in the Beard Part Two of the Italy shelf: Italian popular tales, from Italian Popular Tales (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1885) by Thomas Frederick Crane (1844–1927), Professor of the Romance Languages in Cornell University, who collected these stories from the great Italian collections of his day — above all the Sicilian tales of Giuseppe Pitrè of Palermo, to whom the book is dedicated — and translated them into English himself. Billed by collector and book, as the tales Crane gathered; not a survey of all Italian tradition, and no completeness is claimed. The tales were screened in the order they stand in Crane's second chapter under this shelf's standing rule, and a great many were set aside — every one stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register. The Story of Catherine and Her Fate — a rich merchant's daughter, offered her happiness in youth or in old age, chooses old age; her Fate, a tall lady with a wheel, ruins her from post to post for seven years, until a little skein of silk, weighed against a king's treasures and his crown itself, will not balance. The Crumb in the Beard — Princess Stella, hidden behind a door at her father's banquet, finds a fault in every suitor but one, and him she calls dirty for a crumb on his beard; then a singing voice from the baker's shop below her window undoes all her pride. Chapters: 0:35 Introduction 1:42 The Story of Catherine and Her Fate 11:32 The Crumb in the Beard Thomas Frederick Crane, Italian Popular Tales (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1885) — public domain. Narrated by Violetta. Music: opening and closing theme, "The Spring Remembers," also heard as a short separator between the stories — the tales themselves are read dry. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S119 · E2
October 23 · 26 min
Choctaw Tales, Part 2: The Creation Legend · The Journey's End at Nunih Waya · Raising the Great Mound
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Choctaw Tales, Part 2: The Creation Legend · The Journey's End at Nunih Waya · Raising the Great Mound Part Two of our Choctaw Tales opens with the oldest-printed telling of how the peoples came forth from Nanih Waiya — the Muscogees first, then the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, and last the Choctaws, who stayed and made this land their home — as Isaac Pistonatubbee told it in his native tongue to Henry Sale Halbert. Then Gideon Lincecum's translation of the Skukhaanumpula, the traditional history related to him by the Choctaw elder Chata Immataha, carries the great journey to its end: the sacred pole dances and stands still beside the leaning hill, and a nation that has carried the bones of its dead through forty-three years of wandering gathers them into one great monumental grave — the mound of Nanih Waiya — and from that great grave the custom of the mound graves arises. This episode tells a portion of Lincecum's translation, not the whole of it: the great council that consented to the mound, the mound of the sacred pole, and the later years at Nunih Waya are not told here. The translation's closing chapters, in which the Chickasaws attack the Choctaw hunting camps and the nation prepares for war, are excluded under this library's standing rule against enacted violence, and the plague that befell the Chickasaws on their own journey is likewise left out. Stories in this episode: 0:36 Introduction 2:31 The Choctaw Creation Legend 4:31 The Journey's End at Nunih Waya 12:56 Raising the Great Mound 22:15 Of Mound Graves Sources: "The Choctaw Creation Legend" by H. S. Halbert, in Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol. IV (1901), and "Choctaw Traditions about their Settlement in Mississippi and the Origin of their Mounds" by Gideon Lincecum, in Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol. VIII (1904) — Lincecum's translation of a portion of the Skukhaanumpula, as related by Chata Immataha — both public domain. Narrated by Benedetto. Music: "Calm After the Current" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories. Choctaw tales, Choctaw folklore, Gideon Lincecum, Henry Halbert, Nanih Waiya, Chata Immataha, Skukhaanumpula, Native American folk tales, KacheliTV
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S118 · E2
October 23 · 22 min
Peruvian Folk Tales — Part 2: An Original Lawsuit · The Little Fish · Drink, Father — It Gives You Life
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Peruvian Folk Tales — Part 2: An Original Lawsuit · The Little Fish · Drink, Father — It Gives You Life Three more tales of old Peru from the Tradiciones Peruanas of Ricardo Palma (1833–1919) — heard here in a fresh English translation made for this series from the Second Series of 1874, with one tale carried over from the First. Two proud carriages meet at a Lima street corner, and neither coachman will give way: the whole titled city gathers, the Viceroy washes his hands of the science of heraldry, and the carriages stand in the street for two years while a king in Spain decides — and the passers-by decide the wheels. A cacique of Mansiche gives his Spanish godbrother a burial vault full of gold — a little fish with emerald eyes — on one sworn condition, and watches what a broken oath makes of a man. And a lady governing Peru in her husband's absence tests a suspected spy in the only way that cannot be faked: she sits him down to dinner, and waits for him to drink. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 1:48 An Original Lawsuit 9:45 The Little Fish 17:29 Drink, Father — It Gives You Life Source: Tradiciones Peruanas, Primera Serie (Lima, 1872) and Segunda Serie (Lima, 1874) by Ricardo Palma, read in the Barcelona edition of 1893 — public domain; fresh in-house English translation. Narrated by Lulu. Music: "2-20" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories. Peruvian folk tales, Ricardo Palma, Tradiciones Peruanas, Lima legends, colonial Peru tales, Peruvian traditions, trickster tales, bedtime stories, KacheliTV
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S115 · E2
October 23 · 23 min
Faroese Folk Tales — Part 2: Oli the Shepherd · The Hidden Man in Gudstein · Upsala-Paetur · Steffan the Wizard · Fugloy · The Judgement Stones · The Mitten Friend · If I Cut You Here, I Lose You There
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Faroese Folk Tales — Part 2: Oli the Shepherd · The Hidden Man in Gudstein · Upsala-Paetur · Steffan the Wizard · Fugloy · The Judgement Stones · The Mitten Friend · If I Cut You Here, I Lose You There Eight more tales from the Faroe Islands, from Jakob Jakobsen's Faroese Folk Legends and Fairy Tales (1898–1901), in a fresh translation made for KacheliTV. A crow steals a shepherd's knife in the outfield — and the knife, and the crow that was no crow, draw Oli across the sea to a widow's house in Norway, where the fish he eats is not all it seems. A hidden man in the stone called Gudstein presses his courtship on a farmer's wife, until she turns his own counsel against him. Upsala-Paetur, who never kept a feast at home, travels through the snow to the most unkind house in the Faroes — and keeps the best Christmas of his life there. The wizard Steffan holds a boy standing fast with a word, and drives a rival's ill-will into a tussock. The island of Fugloy floats on the sea until the priests outstare its trolls. A bribe in a mitten splits the Judgement Stones. An unseen voice that once asked for wool for mittens calls out of a storm to save the man who gave it. And a stranger girl, faced with a piece of meat she wants at both ends, finds the way to taste them both. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 1:50 Oli the Shepherd and the Stolen Knife 6:37 The Hidden Man in Gudstein 8:07 Upsala-Paetur and the Christmas at Gasadal 15:53 Steffan the Wizard, Out on Bo 17:49 Fugloy, the Floating Island 19:09 The Judgement Stones 20:08 The Mitten Friend 21:20 If I Cut You Here, I Lose You There Source: Færøske Folkesagn og Æventyr (Faroese Folk Legends and Fairy Tales), edited by Jakob Jakobsen (S. L. Møllers Bogtrykkeri, Copenhagen, 1898–1901) — public domain. The translation was made fresh for KacheliTV from Jakobsen's Faroese text. Narrated by Orson. Music: "2-26" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories. Faroese folk tales, Faroe Islands, Jakob Jakobsen, hidden folk, wizards, floating island, folk tales, bedtime stories, KacheliTV
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S119 · E1
October 22 · 24 min
Choctaw Tales: The Migration Legend · Kwanokasha · Okwa Naholo · The Hunter and the Alligator
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Eleven tellings of the Choctaw people, taken from the two books that carried them into print. Henry Sale Halbert, who lived among the Mississippi Choctaws for fifteen years and spoke their language, printed the legends of Nanih Waiya, the sacred mound, as the Reverend Peter Folsom and the Six Towns teller Ilaishtubbee gave them to him. At Bayou Lacomb in Louisiana, the tellers Pisatuntema, Heleema and Ahojeobe told their myths to David I. Bushnell Jr. of the Smithsonian Institution, who printed them in 1909. The prophet's pole leans each morning toward the day's road, until at Nanih Waiya it stands still — and a great rain parts two brothers into two kindred nations. The first Choctaws crawl forth from the mound and are laid along its rampart to dry in the sun, and a crow and an orphan child bring corn into the world. Kwanokasha, the little spirit of the cave, offers every wandering child a knife, poisonous herbs, or the herbs of healing. And a hunter who will not leave a stranded alligator to die carries him to the water on his own shoulder — and is repaid with the teaching that made him great. Stories in this episode: 0:54 Introduction 2:52 The Migration Legend 6:20 The Creation at the Mound 7:26 The Law of the Iksa 8:54 How Corn Was Found 10:31 Creation Myth 12:40 Kwanokasha 15:03 Kashehotapalo 16:07 Okwa Naholo 18:35 Why 'Possum Has a Large Mouth 20:10 The Hunter and the Alligator 23:14 Hoklonote'she Sources: "Nanih Waiya, the Sacred Mound of the Choctaws" by H. S. Halbert, in Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol. II (Oxford, Mississippi, 1899), and The Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana by David I. Bushnell, Jr. (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 48, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1909) — both public domain. Narrated by Indomitable Minecart. Music: "Ancient Canopy" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S107 · E2
October 22 · 28 min
Zulu Tales — Part 2: Umdhlubu and the Frog · The Origin of Baboons
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Two more tales of the Zulus, taken down in their own words and translated by the Reverend Canon Henry Callaway for his Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (1868) — stories told in the kraals of Natal, many of them by women to children. Umdhlubu, the king's beloved little daughter, is lost in the valley through the plotting of her father's other wives, and is found and raised in a stranger's kraal — until a great frog comes out of the river, swallows her treasures and herself, and carries her home, refusing every threat with the same words: "I am but a frog; I will not be killed." And in the first telling of the Origin of Baboons, a whole tribe of idlers fastens pick-handles behind them, grows tails, and goes to live on the precipices. Stories in this episode: 0:50 Introduction 2:09 Umdhlubu and the Frog 26:49 The Origin of Baboons Source: Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, collected and translated by Henry Callaway (Trübner and Co., 1868) — public domain. Narrated by Felix. Music: "Santa Fe Springs 2" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S112 · E2
October 22 · 22 min
Vietnamese Folk Tales — Part 2: The Man of the Thirty Sous · From Cat Back to Cat · Master Binh
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Vietnamese Folk Tales — Part 2: The Man of the Thirty Sous · From Cat Back to Cat · Master Binh Eight tales from Vietnam, gathered by Antony Landes, the French administrator in Cochinchina who mastered the language of the country and set down the tales its story-tellers told, in Contes et légendes annamites (Saigon, 1886). Why do some beards grow in three neat tufts, and others land scattered, wherever they fall? How did the dog get his fourth leg, the duck her second, and why do the birds bob three times when they land? A day labourer whose destiny pays him exactly thirty sous — no less, and never more — is offered the whole wealth of the kingdom, and asks for thirty sous. A son walks into the forest to find the mother who left him, and disobeys one warning too many. The simpleton Binh of Sadec strokes sick children back to health, and keeps a secret the prefect is the first to guess. The village notables feast and argue their way from Sky to Cloud to Wind to Wall to Rat, hunting a grander name for a girl called Cat. A lazy wife strikes the grain of rice with her broom, and makes it small for ever. And a frightened messenger, bullied by serpents into turning Heaven's message upside down, gives mankind its mortality — and is kicked down to earth in a very humble shape. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 2:11 The Origin of the Beard 4:02 The Dog, the Duck and the Birds 6:33 The Man of the Thirty Sous 9:42 The Son in Search of His Mother 11:28 Master Binh 14:05 From Cat Back to Cat 18:50 The Grain of Rice 20:11 The Origin of the Dung Beetle Source: Contes et légendes annamites, collected by A. Landes (Imprimerie Coloniale, Saigon, 1886) — public domain; translated fresh into English for KacheliTV. Narrated by Silas. Music: "The Spring Remembers" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S118 · E1
October 22 · 24 min
Peruvian Folk Tales — Part 1: Well, I Am a Beauty — and a Castellanos · A Luxury Preacher · The Cayetanas · The Devil-Possessed
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Peruvian Folk Tales — Part 1: Well, I Am a Beauty — and a Castellanos · A Luxury Preacher · The Cayetanas · The Devil-Possessed Four tales of old Lima from the Tradiciones Peruanas of Ricardo Palma (1833–1919), the Peruvian writer who gathered the legends, scandals and street wisdom of the viceregal capital into short, sly masterpieces — heard here in a fresh English translation made for this series from the First Series of 1872. A kept beauty outshines the Viceroy's own beloved at the Feast of the Rosary, parading a lapdog in a collar of solid gold and diamonds — and then gives dog and collar away to save a hospital. A Dominican friar who has never preached in his life is hired cheap for the Good Friday sermon, and tells the town of Huacho first that they will all be damned, and then that they may yet be saved. A priest's house of devout women in cassocks and beaver hats is sung out of existence by the street boys of Lima. And in Ica, a road labourer turned moneylender buys himself the title of Don with an eight-day ball — then waits in terror for the Devil he believes is coming, while his friend who swore never to enter a church receives his funeral honours there all the same. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 2:03 Well, I Am a Beauty — and a Castellanos 7:57 A Luxury Preacher 13:08 The Cayetanas 16:36 The Devil-Possessed Source: Tradiciones Peruanas, Primera Serie (Lima, 1872) by Ricardo Palma, read in the Barcelona edition of 1893 — public domain; fresh in-house English translation. Narrated by Bruno. Music: "Winter Palace Rhapsody" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S106 · E2
October 22 · 25 min
Madagascar Tales — Part 2: The Three Wives of Andriamihanina · Tsiantsiva and Her Servant · Zalahifina and Zavavifina · Ngano
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Madagascar Tales — Part 2: The Three Wives of Andriamihanina · Tsiantsiva and Her Servant · Zalahifina and Zavavifina · Ngano Four tales from Madagascar, collected by Charles Renel and published in Paris in 1910 in his Contes de Madagascar — heard in English in a fresh translation made for this series, from Betsimisaraka, Sakalava and Antankarana storytellers. A husband leaves his three wives a riddle about beef, and only one wife reads it rightly. A bridegroom rides away from the wedding with the wrong bride. A woman who will marry only a man who bears her own name finds him — and when he is seized on the road for a witch, her wit talks him free. And Ngano, the boy who answered every question with a riddle, outwits a king. Stories in this episode: 0:53 Introduction 1:38 The Three Wives of Andriamihanina 3:44 Tsiantsiva and Her Servant 7:06 Zalahifina and Zavavifina 15:49 Ngano Source: Contes de Madagascar, collected by Charles Renel (Ernest Leroux, Paris, 1910) — public domain; translated from the French for KacheliTV. Narrated by Amos. Music: "Before the Pines End" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S108 · E2
October 22 · 36 min
Sioux Tales — Part 2: Iktomi and the Coyote · The Badger and the Bear · The Toad and the Boy
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Sioux Tales — Part 2: Iktomi and the Coyote · The Badger and the Bear · The Toad and the Boy Three more legends of the Dakota, retold by Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird), the Yankton Dakota writer who heard them from the old story-tellers of both Dakotas and carried them, root and all, into English in Old Indian Legends (1901). Iktomi the spider fairy is back, and this time the joke is on him: the coyote he carries home for a roast is only playing dead, and means to enjoy the ride. Then a great black bear, grown fat on the badger family's open-handed kindness, repays it by driving them out of their own dwelling — and learns what answer the Great Spirit sends to a hungry father's prayer, when the Avenger comes and justice is done without a single arrow loosed. And the episode closes beside the marshy lakes, where a mother has searched ten long years for her stolen baby, and a wild boy hears a voice that makes his eyes grow wet. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 2:01 Iktomi and the Coyote 9:54 The Badger and the Bear 25:44 The Toad and the Boy Source: Old Indian Legends, retold by Zitkala-Sa (Ginn & Company, 1901) — public domain. Narrated by Morgana. Music: "Winter Palace Rhapsody 2" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S116 · E1
October 22 · 23 min
Persian Folk Tales — Part 1: The Washerman's Story · The Hidden Treasure · The Deaf Man and His Sick Friend · The Gardener and the Little Bird
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Persian Folk Tales — Part 1: The Washerman's Story · The Hidden Treasure · The Deaf Man and His Sick Friend · The Gardener and the Little Bird Four tales from Persia, translated from the Persian by Edward Rehatsek of Bombay and printed at Glasgow in 1889 in A Group of Eastern Romances and Stories, edited by W. A. Clouston. Behind them stands the Mahbub ul-Kulub, the beloved Persian story collection from which Rehatsek drew them — and this episode opens a new KacheliTV shelf, our season of Persian folk tales. A washerman at his river bank is visited by three dove-maidens in turn, and loses all three to his own fickleness — for, as they tell him, the first condition of love is fidelity. In Damascus, a poor man's buried gold vanishes from under a jujube-tree, and it takes a lunatic's chance remark and a little boy's quick wits to trace it to the one honest man who dug there for medicine. A deaf man rehearses a visit of condolence all the way down the road, and every answer his sick friend gives him is the opposite of the one he expects. And in a garden at Balkh, a little bird caught in a net talks for its life, buys its freedom with three maxims — and watches the gardener break every one of them within the hour. Stories in this episode: 0:35 Introduction 2:12 The Washerman's Story 5:29 The Hidden Treasure 12:40 The Deaf Man and His Sick Friend 15:08 The Gardener and the Little Bird Source: A Group of Eastern Romances and Stories from the Persian, Tamil, and Urdu, edited by W. A. Clouston (Glasgow, 1889); the Persian tales translated by Edward Rehatsek from the Mahbub ul-Kulub — public domain. Narrated by Scratch. Music: "Subterranean Earth" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
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S104 · E2
October 22 · 32 min
Chinese Tales — Part 2: The Fox and the Tiger · The Fox and the Raven · The Spirits of the Yellow River · The Dragon-Princess · Fox-Fire
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Chinese Tales — Part 2: The Fox and the Tiger · The Fox and the Raven · The Spirits of the Yellow River · The Dragon-Princess · Fox-Fire Season 104 · Episode 2 — the Chinese shelf of KacheliTV World Classics continues: tales from China, read aloud in the English translation printed in 1921. THE BOOK BEHIND THIS EPISODE The Chinese Fairy Book, edited by Dr. R. Wilhelm and translated after the original sources by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1921). Wilhelm lived and worked in China for many years and gathered these tales from Chinese sources; Martens's translation carries them into English. Every tale in this programme was read in full and screened under this shelf's content rule before anything was built. Five more tales from the book's two folk sections are told here: the two short fox fables from the nursery tales, and three from the nature and animal tales, among them the Dragon-Princess, the longest tale of the shelf so far. The book's legends of the gods, its tales of saints and magicians, its ghost stories, and its historic and literary pieces stand benched by name for later parts; the tales in which harm is done are excluded by name in the shelf register, and no completeness is claimed for the book. IN THIS EPISODE 0:35 Introduction 1:54 The Fox and the Tiger — a fox borrows the tiger's terror and walks the broad highway ahead of him, while the travelers flee from them both. 3:43 The Fox and the Raven — a fox praises a raven out of the meat in his beak, and leaves him a lesson about flattery. 5:24 The Spirits of the Yellow River — the river-kings of the Yellow River, who love a play above all things, and the little golden snake who watches the performance from the altar bowl. 18:38 The Dragon-Princess — the emperor's messengers descend to the dragon-castle beneath the Sea of Dungting and trade gifts with the princess who guards the Dragon-King's pearls. 29:01 Fox-Fire — a farmer steals a fox's ball of fire and prospers by it for thirty years, until the fox comes back for its treasure. Narration: Mira. Music: the instrumental theme "Golden Monologue" is heard at the opening and at the close, and in a short excerpt between the stories; there is no music under the narration.
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