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.

Free always — here and on every podcast app. Prefer no commercials? Find us on Apple Podcasts.

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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S186 · E1
Yesterday · 52 min
Castaways and Islands — Part 1: Robinson Crusoe — The Wreck and the First Days
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Castaways and Islands — Part 1: Robinson Crusoe — The Wreck and the First Days A new KacheliTV shelf opens: Castaways and Islands — the great survival stories of world literature, beginning with the castaway against whom all others are measured. In Part 1 of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, a stubborn York mariner defies his father's counsel, survives slavery and prosperity in Brazil, and sails once more — into the storm that leaves him the only living soul on an uninhabited island. The wreck, the first night ashore, the raft, the voyages of salvage, and the building of his first fortification: the making-and-enduring heart of the book, in Defoe's own words. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Crusoe's beginnings are told in our introduction; the reading then runs in five movements, from the storm of 1659 to the cave behind the tent. Part 2 will follow his first year: the journal, the crops, the earthquake and the sickness, and the slow manufacture of a life from wreckage. In this episode: 0:35 Introduction 2:27 The Storm and the Wreck 15:57 The First Night Ashore 20:22 The Raft 32:09 The Voyages of Salvage 46:11 The First Fortification Source: Daniel Defoe, "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (London, 1719), read from the Project Gutenberg edition (PG #521). Public domain. Music: opening, closing and separator themes from "Before the Pines End 2", from the KacheliTV house instrumental pool. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse for KacheliTV.
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S187 · E1
Tuesday · 53 min
The Gothic Shelf — Part 1: The Castle of Otranto — The Helmet in the Courtyard
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Gothic Shelf — Part 1: The Castle of Otranto — The Helmet in the Courtyard A wedding morning in the castle of Otranto begins with a horror no one can explain: the young Prince Conrad is found dead in the courtyard, crushed beneath an enormous helmet — a hundred times larger than any helmet ever made for a human head, and crowned with black feathers. His father Manfred, Prince of Otranto, holds his title by an old and doubtful claim, and an ancient prophecy hangs over the house: the castle shall pass from the present family when the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it. What Manfred does next — to the bride, to his wife, and to a young peasant who dares to remark that the helmet resembles the one on the statue of Alfonso the Good — opens the first Gothic novel ever written: Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), the book that invented haunted castles, persecuted heroines, and things in armour that should not be there. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 0:35 — Introduction 1:39 — The Castle of Otranto — Part One Part One of the novel is told whole, exactly as Walpole printed it in the first chapter — the wedding morning, the helmet in the courtyard, the sentence passed on the peasant Theodore, and Isabella's flight through the vaults beneath the castle. One honest note for the listener: the catastrophe itself happens before the tale opens and is discovered, not staged; Walpole's chapter describes what was found, in the heightened language of 1764. The edition's own introduction and the author's period prefaces are apparatus, and are not narrated. Part Two continues the novel in the next part of this season. Music: opening and closing themes from Tabla_Horizon. Source: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764), from Project Gutenberg eBook #696 (Cassell's National Library edition) — public domain. The Gothic Shelf is an ongoing KacheliTV season of classic Gothic tales, told in parts; no completeness is claimed for the season. Retold aloud by KacheliTV — World Classics, Read Aloud.
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S185 · E1
Tuesday · 1 hr 8 min
Tales of Music — Part 1: The Nightingale · The Bremen Town Musicians · Maese Pérez, the Organist
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales of Music — Part 1: The Nightingale · The Bremen Town Musicians · Maese Pérez, the Organist | KacheliTV World Classics Part One of Tales of Music, a new shelf on KacheliTV: stories in which music itself does the work — a song that talks Death out of an emperor's bedroom, four old animals who mean to earn their bread as town musicians, and an organ in Seville that some said did not stop when its master died. In Hans Christian Andersen's "The Nightingale" (1843), a plain grey bird out-sings the jewelled machine that replaced her at court, and returns unsummoned when the Emperor lies dying. The Brothers Grimm's "The Bremen Town Musicians" sends a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster down the road to Bremen, and into a robbers' supper they were never invited to. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's "Maese Pérez, the Organist" tells of the blind organist of Santa Inés, whose playing all Seville crossed the city to hear — and of the midnight mass a year after his death, when the organ was heard again. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 02:00 The Nightingale 24:32 The Bremen Town Musicians 32:10 Maese Pérez, the Organist All three tales are told whole and complete. The Bécquer is told in a fresh translation made for KacheliTV from his Spanish; the Andersen is read in H. W. Dulcken's translation and the Grimm in Margaret Hunt's (1884). Bécquer's church is the tale's scenery — its engine is the music; nothing is preached. Music: 'Tabla Horizon' (instrumental theme) opens and closes the programme and sounds briefly between the tales; there is no music under the narration. Sources: Hans Christian Andersen, "The Nightingale", Project Gutenberg eBook #71096 (Dulcken translation); Brothers Grimm, "The Bremen Town Musicians", in Household Tales, Margaret Hunt translation (1884), Project Gutenberg eBook #5314; Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, "Maese Pérez, el organista", Obras (1885), Spanish text via Wikisource, translated for KacheliTV. All public domain. Recorded for KacheliTV. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S189 · E1
Tuesday · 1 hr 16 min
Edgar Allan Poe — Part 1: The Raven · The Bells · Ulalume · Annabel Lee · Eldorado · A Dream Within a Dream · Lenore · The Purloined Letter
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Edgar Allan Poe — Part 1: The Raven · The Bells · Ulalume · Annabel Lee · Eldorado · A Dream Within a Dream · Lenore · The Purloined Letter | KacheliTV World Classics A new shelf opens on KacheliTV, and it belongs to mitroFun: the raven himself hosts and reads this Edgar Allan Poe season, as his own book. Part One gathers seven poems and a tale. A scholar sits up past midnight while a bird at his chamber door will say only one word; church bells, sleigh bells, wedding bells and the iron bells of the fire alarm ring out the whole of a life; a lover walks by night to the tomb of Ulalume and to the sepulchre of Annabel Lee by the sounding sea; a knight rides after Eldorado; and the evening ends in Paris, where the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin takes up the case of a stolen letter — a letter hidden, as no one but Dupin could see, in plain sight. Poe published these pieces between 1843 and 1849, the last in the year of his death at forty. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 02:19 The Raven 11:15 The Bells 15:51 Ulalume 20:57 Annabel Lee 23:23 Eldorado 24:33 A Dream Within a Dream 25:53 Lenore 28:24 The Purloined Letter Every piece is told whole and complete. The edition's scholarly apparatus is not read; Poe's texts only. In "The Bells", the poem's four sections are headed aloud by their numbers, so the structure carries in audio. One misprint in the copy ("lamplght") is read as the word Poe printed in every other edition: "lamplight". Music: 'Before the Pines End' (instrumental theme) opens and closes the programme and sounds briefly between the pieces; there is no music under the narration. Source: Edgar Allan Poe, works of 1843–1849, from Project Gutenberg eBook #25525 (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition), public domain. Recorded for KacheliTV. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S184 · E1
Tuesday · 1 hr 12 min
Ghost Stories for the Dark — Part 1: The Mezzotint · Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Ghost Stories for the Dark — Part 1: The Mezzotint · Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book | KacheliTV World Classics Part One of Ghost Stories for the Dark, a new shelf on KacheliTV, opens with M. R. James — Provost of King's College, Cambridge, who wrote his ghost stories to read aloud to friends at Christmas, and whose Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) made him the acknowledged master of the English ghost story. Two complete tales are told here. In "The Mezzotint", a college museum buys a quiet little engraving of an English country house — a picture that will not stay the same picture twice, and that is slowly showing its new owners something it saw one night in 1802. In "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book", an English traveller in the decayed French town of St Bertrand de Comminges is pressed to buy a marvellous old scrap-book from a frightened sacristan, and learns, alone in his inn room that night, why the Canon who made it was feared in his parish for two hundred years. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 01:58 The Mezzotint 35:25 Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book Both tales are told whole and complete. James's scholarly footnotes are apparatus, not tale: the note merely identifying a manuscript fragment is not read; his two footnotes that belong to the story itself are read in place. The Latin inscriptions in "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" are read as James printed them, together with his own translations, which he gives in the text. Nothing else is altered. Music: 'Tabla Horizon' (instrumental theme) opens and closes the programme and sounds briefly between the tales; there is no music under the narration. Source: M. R. James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), Project Gutenberg eBook #8486, public domain. Recorded for KacheliTV. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S183 · E1
Tuesday · 1 hr 13 min
Love Tales of the World — Part 1: Aucassin and Nicolette
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Love Tales of the World — Part 1: Aucassin and Nicolette | KacheliTV World Classics Part One of Love Tales of the World, a new shelf on KacheliTV, opens with the most singular love story the Middle Ages have left us: Aucassin and Nicolette, the one surviving chantefable — a song-story — of medieval France, made by an unknown poet in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and heard here in Andrew Lang's English translation of 1887. Aucassin, the young son of Count Garin of Beaucaire, loves Nicolette, a girl carried from Carthage as a child and raised in the town, and for her sake he will not be a knight, nor take arms, nor do anything that is asked of him — unless the asking ends with Nicolette. His father forbids it. What follows is the merriest and tenderest of all the old romances, and it belongs, from first to last, as much to Nicolette as to him. The song-story is told as it was made: the tale alternates between the spoken word and the sung verse, and you will hear the old cues as they come — "Here singeth one" — when the story passes into song. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 01:53 Aucassin and Nicolette The chantefable is told whole and complete. The edition's introduction, the translator's prefatory poem and his notes are apparatus around the tale, not part of it, and are not read here. One period term is neutrally rendered in the reading: the verse line naming "Mahound" is read with the place it stands for, Carthage; nothing else is altered. Music: 'Falling Leaves at the Ice Cliffs' (instrumental theme) opens and closes the programme; there is no music under the narration. Source: "Aucassin and Nicolete", anonymous Old French chantefable (12th–13th century), in Andrew Lang's English translation (1887), Project Gutenberg eBook #1578, public domain. Recorded for KacheliTV. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S62 · E2
Tuesday · 36 min
Folk Tales of Portugal — Part 2: The Rabbit · The Maiden and the Beast · The Aunts · The Cabbage Stalk | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Portugal, Part Two returns to Consiglieri Pedroso's Portuguese Folk-Tales (London, 1882), in Henriqueta Monteiro's English translation, and reads on in the book's own order — four tales told as printed: a rabbit who carried off a princess's garter, her handkerchief, and her gold necklet, and was a prince by night in a palace where only hands were seen; a maiden who kept her promise to a voice in an empty palace one visit too few; three aunts whose very large eyes, very large ears, and very long arms saved a bride from her grandmother's boasting; and a little maid who climbed down her own cabbage stalk to a palace underground, and wore out a pair of iron shoes to win its prince back. One passage note, at its true weight: the second tale ends in sorrow — a father dies, the beast dies with his broken spell, and the maiden dies of grief. Nothing is softened and nothing is added. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this episode: 1:52 — The Rabbit 11:05 — The Maiden and the Beast 22:44 — The Aunts 28:15 — The Cabbage Stalk Of the book's thirty tales, five are now told across Parts One and Two. At this part's gate thirteen more were read in full: the four told here, and nine set aside by name in the shelf register under the house rule — among them "The Enchanted Maiden," "The Tower of Ill Luck," and "The Maiden with the Rose on Her Forehead" — each because its plot turns on depicted killing, cruelty, or matter this shelf does not carry. Ten tales stand unscreened for a later part. No more than that is claimed. Source: Consiglieri Pedroso, "Portuguese Folk-Tales," translated by Henriqueta Monteiro (London: Elliot Stock, for the Folk-Lore Society, 1882) — public domain; copy from the Internet Archive. Read as printed. Narrated by Orson. Music: "Gangster_Piano_Symphony" — opening and closing theme, heard again briefly between the tales. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S103 · E11
Tuesday · 20 min
The Musical Break — Glacial Lightning Triumph
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Season 103 · Episode 11 — the eleventh of the Musical Break specials on KacheliTV World Classics. Tonight's musical break is the wild one: six pieces of ice, storm and racing water — each introduced by your host, Benedetto, and played in full. We begin in the dark with Three Pairs of Yellow Eyes — something in the treeline is watching, and the music knows what it is before we do. Glacial Forest follows: a wood of blue ice and held breath, beautiful and entirely indifferent. Then the sky breaks — Lightning Crash, the storm arriving all at once, and Urgent Rhythms keeps the pulse racing, hooves and heartbeats and no time to waste. The River's Dying Vision slows us into wonder, one last bright picture on dark water, and Sweeping Triumph brings us home at full sail — banners up, weather beaten, the whole horizon applauding. THE PROGRAMME 0:00 Three Pairs of Yellow Eyes 3:36 Glacial Forest 7:03 Lightning Crash 10:24 Urgent Rhythms 13:44 The River's Dying Vision 17:04 Sweeping Triumph THE MUSIC Six instrumentals from the house library, played here in full: Three Pairs of Yellow Eyes · Glacial Forest · Lightning Crash · Urgent Rhythms · The River's Dying Vision · Sweeping Triumph. Every piece is announced before it plays; between the announcements the music stands alone, with no words over it at all. Music: instrumentals from the house library, played in full. Spoken introductions by Benedetto, your Musical Break host — the music itself is wordless throughout.
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S103 · E10
Tuesday · 21 min
The Musical Break — Pines Before Dawn
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Season 103 · Episode 10 — the tenth of the Musical Break specials on KacheliTV World Classics. Tonight's musical break keeps the hours between dusk and dawn: six pieces of rivers, palaces and pine forests — each introduced by your host, Benedetto, and played in full. We begin with Convergence at Dusk, where the day folds itself away and every road bends toward evening. The Longest Night by the River follows — one man, one fire, one slow black river that refuses to hurry. Winter Palace Rhapsody turns the night to crystal: ballrooms of frost and chandeliers of ice. Before the Pines End walks the last dark mile of the forest, where the trees stand closer than friends, and Tabla Horizon lifts the eyes to where the drum-skin of the earth meets the sky. We close with Raga at Dawn — the first light, played the way the old masters taught: slowly, then all at once, like the sun remembering the world. THE PROGRAMME 0:00 Convergence at Dusk 3:34 The Longest Night by the River 6:34 Winter Palace Rhapsody 10:00 Before the Pines End 13:29 Tabla Horizon 17:06 Raga at Dawn THE MUSIC Six instrumentals from the house library, played here in full: Convergence at Dusk · The Longest Night by the River · Winter Palace Rhapsody · Before the Pines End · Tabla Horizon · Raga at Dawn. Every piece is announced before it plays; between the announcements the music stands alone, with no words over it at all. Music: instrumentals from the house library, played in full. Spoken introductions by Benedetto, your Musical Break host — the music itself is wordless throughout.
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S103 · E9
Tuesday · 21 min
The Musical Break — Napoli Cypress Night
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Season 103 · Episode 9 — the ninth of the Musical Break specials on KacheliTV World Classics. Tonight's musical break travels the Mediterranean and beyond: six pieces of fire, earth, flowers and farewell — each introduced by your host, Benedetto, and played in full. We begin with Napoli in Fiamme — Naples in flames: Vesuvius glowing over the bay, mandolins and momentum, a city that dances on the edge of fire. Cypress in the Soil follows, deep-rooted and solemn, the dark green sentinels of a Mediterranean hillside standing over old stone. Then Noche de Cempasúchil, the night of the marigolds — golden flowers lit like small lanterns for the beloved dead. La Rive des Esprits drifts along the riverbank of spirits, where the water carries voices just below hearing, and Pastoral Awe opens the fields at dawn, wide and hushed and golden. We close with La Partenza, the departure: a ship, a shore, a hand raised and held a moment too long. THE PROGRAMME 0:00 Napoli in Fiamme 3:47 Cypress in the Soil 7:17 Noche de Cempasúchil 11:10 La Rive des Esprits 14:43 Pastoral Awe 18:00 La Partenza THE MUSIC Six instrumentals from the house library, played here in full: Napoli in Fiamme · Cypress in the Soil · Noche de Cempasúchil · La Rive des Esprits · Pastoral Awe · La Partenza. Every piece is announced before it plays; between the announcements the music stands alone, with no words over it at all. Music: instrumentals from the house library, played in full. Spoken introductions by Benedetto, your Musical Break host — the music itself is wordless throughout.
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S151 · E2
Tuesday · 34 min
Folk Tales of Frisia — Part 2: Hans Without a Care · The Plum Boy · The Clever Sheep-Thief · How the Pigs Learned to Root · The Herring and the Flounder · The Old Woman Who Found a Wooden Duit | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Frisia — Part 2: Hans Without a Care · The Plum Boy · The Clever Sheep-Thief · How the Pigs Learned to Root · The Herring and the Flounder · The Old Woman Who Found a Wooden Duit | KacheliTV World Classics Six more tales from the Frisian fireside, in fresh English translations from Waling Dykstra's great nineteenth-century collection of Frisian folk life. Hans Without a Care trusts his luck once too often; a plum boy's appetite wins him a kingdom and a bride; a sheep-thief talks his way out of the noose; and three short beast tales explain how pigs learned to root, why the herring and the flounder look as they do, and what an old woman did with the wooden duit she found. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 02:21 Hans Without a Care (Hans zonder zorgen) 05:53 The Plum Boy (De pruimejongen) 20:39 The Clever Sheep-Thief (De listige schapendief) 25:21 How the Pigs Learned to Root (Hoe de zwijnen wroeten hebben geleerd) 29:04 The Herring and the Flounder (De haring en de bot) 30:19 The Old Woman Who Found a Wooden Duit (Van het oude vrouwtje dat een houten duitje vond) Seven further pieces in Dykstra's tale-book — Asschepooster, Het wonderpaardje, De tooverflesch, De wereld wil vergaan, Het erwtje en het boontje, Waarom honden elkaar beruiken?, and Dokter Faust te Leeuwarden — are held for a separate ruling and do not appear here; this episode does not claim to be the complete collection. Music: 'Gangster_Piano_Symphony' (instrumental theme) opens and closes the programme and sounds between the tales. Source: Waling Dykstra, Uit Friesland's volksleven van vroeger en later, Deel 2 (Leeuwarden, 1892–96), public domain; told here in a fresh English translation made for this programme. Recorded for KacheliTV. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S180 · E2
Tuesday · 35 min
Folk Tales of Senegal — Part 2 (Twelve Tales from Zeltner, 1913) | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Senegal — Part 2: The Hunter, the Crocodile and the Hare · The Hyena, the Hippopotamus and the Elephant · The Serpent of the Diaoubé · The Hollow Tree · The Livestock of the Djinn · The Dance of the Djinn · The Djinn's Counsels · The Woman Who Befriended the Gennia · The Hare Who Farmed · The Goatskin · The Trial · The Lion's Track Part Two returns to Franz de Zeltner's Contes du Sénégal et du Niger (Paris, 1913), heard here in fresh English translations from the French. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this part: - The Hunter, the Crocodile and the Hare — a hunter ferries a crocodile home, and the crocodile demands to eat him; a hare judges by re-enacting the case. - The Hyena, the Hippopotamus and the Elephant — the hyena pays her debts with a diseased cow and a thrown-away goat; the elephant pulls a rope all day against an unseen opponent. - The Serpent of the Diaoubé — a brother born a serpent comes home by night to the milk calabash, and leaves two small things that never fail. - The Hollow Tree — Kalidou flees a lion into a hollow tree, rides an ostrich out of slavery, and loses a treasure by telling. - The Livestock of the Djinn — a blind man strikes a djinn's heifer he cannot see, and pays for the lesson. - The Dance of the Djinn — a herdsman watches the djinn dance by night — and dances with them. - The Djinn's Counsels — three counsels bought from a djinn: patience, trust, and the word that is kept back. - The Woman Who Befriended the Gennia — a woman spares a strange creature and is carried into the country of the djinn, coming home with a ring. - The Hare Who Farmed — the hare talks the elephant and the hippopotamus into farming his field for him. - The Goatskin — a dying man's joke about a goatskin of stones makes his cousin rich. - The Trial — a husband stands accused over twelve cats and a pot of butter; three proverbs decide the case. - The Lion's Track — asked which is worse, ingratitude or pity, a courtier answers his king with a story. The tales: 02:04 — The Hunter, the Crocodile and the Hare 06:27 — The Hyena, the Hippopotamus and the Elephant 10:25 — The Serpent of the Diaoubé 12:57 — The Hollow Tree 16:29 — The Livestock of the Djinn 17:37 — The Dance of the Djinn 18:47 — The Djinn's Counsels 19:51 — The Woman Who Befriended the Gennia 22:15 — The Hare Who Farmed 25:28 — The Goatskin 29:32 — The Trial 32:43 — The Lion's Track Source and rights: Senegambian tales from Bérenger-Féraud (1885) and Franz de Zeltner (1913), in fresh in-house English translation from the French for this performance. Bérenger-Féraud's Recueil de contes populaires de la Sénégambie (Paris, 1885; the author died in 1900) was fully carried into Part 1. Zeltner's Contes du Sénégal et du Niger (Paris, 1913; the author died in 1930) is in the public domain; collected 1904–1912 in the colony of Haut Sénégal-Niger, and not individually provenance-tagged, as his book states. Read in full for this part and not read aloud, under this shelf's content screen: The Hyena, the Hare and the Lioness; The Hyena and the Millet Beer; The Koba; Samba Gueladjié; The Three Brothers; The Cow's Hump; The Disobedient Bride; Djidé of Djenné; The Tuareg Giants; The Wounded Djinn; The Blacksmith; The Hare's Tricks; The Gennia Turned to Wind; The Two Kings; and The Tricks of Women — as were the fenced items (the Soundiata block, The Chicken Leg, The Three Chests, The Old Mare, The Hyena and the Hare, Little Ballah) and the origin notes, essays, riddles and proverbs. No completeness for Zeltner's volume is claimed. Narrated by Silas. Music: Rain of the Celestial Court. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S144 · E2
Tuesday · 35 min
Folk Tales of Estonia — Part 2: Cinderella · The Maiden at the Vaskjala Bridge · The Cave-Dwellers · The Good Deed Rewarded | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Estonia — Part 2 (Cinderella · The Maiden at the Vaskjala Bridge · The Spirit of the Whirlwind · The Will o' the Wisps · The Cave-Dwellers · The Good Deed Rewarded) Part two of our Estonian shelf. Six more folk tales of Estonia, heard in the English renderings of W. F. Kirby's The Hero of Esthonia (London, 1895), which Kirby compiled from the Estonian collections of Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald and of Jannsen; Kreutzwald is known to have shaped the tales he gathered into literary form, and they are heard here as the book prints them. In Cinderella — Tuhka Triinu, Ash-Katie — a motherless girl is dressed for the king's ball by the little guardian of her mother's rowan-tree. In The Maiden at the Vaskjala Bridge, the Moon takes a pure maiden's face up into the sky, where it gazes down still. Two short tales of Jannsen's follow: the spirit of the whirlwind, who carries off the man who forgets the spell, and the will o' the wisps of the Parika heath. In The Cave-Dwellers, a traveller lost in a snowstorm is feasted by the master of the underground treasures, whose little smiths pound out the gold of the world. And in The Good Deed Rewarded, a stranger woken before the storm repays the countryman who woke him with a hat that does his soldier's service in his stead and a sack of money carried home as fast as thought. The episode opens and closes with its theme, heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 1:57 Cinderella 5:09 The Maiden at the Vaskjala Bridge 8:59 The Spirit of the Whirlwind 10:42 The Will o' the Wisps 12:10 The Cave-Dwellers 29:48 The Good Deed Rewarded Sixteen more tales of the book are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: The Grateful Prince · Slyboots · The Gold-Spinners · The Wood of Tontla · The Orphan Boy and the Hell-Hounds · Bluebeard (The Wife-Murderer) · The Dragon-Slayer (The Lucky Rouble) · The Two Brothers and the Frost · The Soldier and the Devil · The Twelve Daughters · The Faithless Fisherman · The Compassionate Woodcutter · The Royal Herd-Boy · The Mermaid · The Gifted Brothers · The Magician's Heirs. Also excluded are the book's first part — Kirby's digest of the Kalevipoeg epic — and its war ballad The Herald of War; many further tales and notices stand on the bench for later parts of this shelf. No claim of completeness for the book is made. From The Hero of Esthonia by W. F. Kirby (1895), public domain — Cinderella, The Maiden at the Vaskjala Bridge, The Cave-Dwellers and The Good Deed Rewarded after Kreutzwald, The Spirit of the Whirlwind and The Will o' the Wisps after Jannsen, complete and in book order, in Kirby's English renderings. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Theme: "Tabla Horizon." KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S145 · E2
Tuesday · 30 min
Folk Tales of the Cook Islands — Part 2 (Nine Tales from Gill, 1876) | KacheliTV World Classics
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of the Cook Islands — Part 2 (A Chase That Never Ends · The Woman in the Moon · A Celestial Fish-Hook · The Sky Raised · The Taairangi, or Porpoise · Numeration and the Art of Fishing Invented · Origin of Pigs at Rarotonga · The Fairies at Terangai's Fête · The Fairy of the Fountain) Part two of the shelf. Nine more tales from Myths and Songs from the South Pacific by the Rev. William Wyatt Gill (London, 1876), collected by Gill himself, chiefly on Mangaia and Rarotonga; heard here in Gill's own English, as printed, and in the book's own order. In A Chase That Never Ends, the twins Inseparable and her brother, wronged over a midnight supper of fish, flee their parents into the sky — and the chase among the stars has never ended since. In The Woman in the Moon, Ina is taken up by Marama the Moon as his wife, and her tapa-beating is the white clouds, her cast-aside stones the thunder. In A Celestial Fish-Hook, Vatea baits his great hook and fishes the island of Tongareva up out of the deep. In The Sky Raised — the Manihiki telling — Maui and Ru lift the heavens together on their backs and adze them smooth. The Taairangi tells how the porpoise came to be, and how the small fish reached the great ocean; Numeration and the Art of Fishing Invented tells how counting began, with a net full of fish named one by one and let go again. In Origin of Pigs at Rarotonga, the blind Maaru dies blessing his dutiful son, and the first pigs in the island follow the boy home from the grave. And in two fairy tales of Rarotonga, the peerless ones climb up through the gorges to dance at the fête of Terangai, and the fairy of the fountain of Vaitipi becomes a chief's wife — and cannot stay. The episode opens and closes with its theme, "LOVE," heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this episode: 1:50 — A Chase That Never Ends 5:49 — The Woman in the Moon 9:15 — A Celestial Fish-Hook 11:34 — The Sky Raised 13:19 — The Taairangi, or Porpoise 15:34 — Numeration and the Art of Fishing Invented 17:27 — Origin of Pigs at Rarotonga 23:50 — The Fairies at Terangai's Fête 25:45 — The Fairy of the Fountain Much else in Gill's book is not read on this shelf. Twelve tales stand excluded by name after full readings: The Fire-God's Secret · The Sky Raised; or, The Origin of Pumice Stone · The Sun Made Captive · The Wisdom of Manihiki · Maui Enslaving the Sun · The Myth of the Cocoa-Nut Tree · The Iron-Wood Tree · Ina's Voyage to the Sacred Isle · A Bachelor God in Search of a Wife · Perils of Beauty · Rata's Canoe · The Adventures of Ngaru — the book's chapter on human sacrifices stands excluded as a whole section, and this part's fresh readings added one more exclusion, The Sun and Moon, whose infant is cut in two to make the two lights. The legendary history that opens the chapter of deified men, with its fratricides, is likewise not read. The creation myths, the spirit-world doctrine, the death-talks and dirges, the songs, and the calendar chapters stand benched as exposition rather than tales; two pieces are held for a ruling — the spirit-world adventure from Part 1, and the opening of the fairy chapter, whose peerless ones are daughters of the spirit-eater Miru. Material Gill himself flags as Tahitian or Samoan is not billed to this shelf. No claim of completeness for the book is made. From Myths and Songs from the South Pacific by William Wyatt Gill (London, 1876), public domain — the nine tales complete as printed and in book order, in the author's own English. Narrated by Violetta. Theme: LOVE. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S90 · E2
Tuesday · 39 min
The Pagans of North Borneo — Part 2: Murut Deer-Lore, the Monster of Benoni and a Kayan Myth, with the Sea Dyak Legend of Siu
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! North Borneo's old pagan world, in the second of our two evenings from the Brunei Bay country: the Murut belief that the souls of the dead pass into deer, and the deer that wore a necklace of many-coloured beads; the axe and the chisel a dead man borrowed and could not return; the gentle monster of Benoni, who never did harm to anyone; a Kayan myth of the girl who became a dok; and the long Sea Dyak legend of Siu, who learned the speech of birds. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this episode: 0:00 Introduction 1:57 The Deer with the Beaded Necklace 5:32 The Axe and the Chisel 7:09 The Monster of Benoni 9:24 The Girl Who Became a Dok 11:09 The Story of Siu 38:34 Closing Sources: Owen Rutter, The Pagans of North Borneo (1929) and British North Borneo (1922); Charles Hose and William McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912); Edwin Herbert Gomes, Children of Borneo (1912) — all public domain, read here in the authors' own words. Some of the legends Rutter prints rest in part on the field notes of Capt. A. B. C. Francis and Mr. F. W. Fraser, whose death years could not be proven; every narrated word is Rutter's own published prose. One passage in the deer-lore and the totemism prose around the Kayan myth were trimmed where they met the surrounding ethnography, and Gomes's chapter is billed as what it is — Sea Dyak tales of the Sarawak coast, the old Brunei tributary shore. Music: opening and closing theme, with short theme separators between the tales — "Love", from KacheliTV's own music library. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud. New episodes from the world's folk-tale shelves every week.
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S100 · E2
Tuesday · 31 min
Icelandic Legends — Part 2: Moertholl · Grey-man
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Icelandic Legends — Part 2: Moertholl · Grey-man Season 100 · Episode 2 — the Icelandic shelf of KacheliTV World Classics continues: legends and folk tales from Iceland, read aloud in the English translation of George E. J. Powell and Eirikur Magnusson. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. THE BOOKS BEHIND THIS EPISODE Both tales are read from Icelandic Legends, collected by Jon Arnason, the librarian of Reykjavik, who gathered the folk tales of Iceland from tellers all over the island — the Second Series, published at London by Longmans, Green, and Co. in 1866, in the translation of George E. J. Powell and Eirikur Magnusson. Moertholl is read from the book's Tales, and Grey-man from its Comic Stories, in the order they stand in the book. Every piece considered for this episode was read and screened under this shelf's content rule before anything was built: of the pieces read in full, two are told here. The rest stand named, each with its reason, in the shelf register — the excluded pieces are not told, and no completeness is claimed for the book. IN THIS EPISODE 0:35 Introduction 1:31 Moertholl — the earl's daughter whose tears turn to gold, doomed on her wedding night to fly out of the window as a sparrow, and the faithful Helga who takes her place for three nights. 13:19 Grey-man — the merry thief who came out of a sack, fed a poor carl and his wife on the king's mutton, and stole, one after another, the king's ox, the king's sheets, and at last the king and queen themselves. Narration: Amos. Music: the instrumental theme "LOVE" 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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S64 · E2
Tuesday · 41 min
Folk Tales of Brazil — Part 2 (Cova da Linda Flor · The Devil's Protection · The Youngest Brother · The Three Counsels · The Vulture and the Toad · The Ant and the Snow)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Brazil — Part 2 (Cova da Linda Flor · The Devil's Protection · The Youngest Brother · The Three Counsels · The Vulture and the Toad · The Ant and the Snow) Part Two of the Brazil shelf reads on in "Contos Populares do Brasil," gathered by Sylvio Romero and first published in 1885, in a fresh English translation made for this library. Romero's book stands in three parts — tales of European origin, tales of Indigenous origin, and tales of African and mixed origin — and this part draws on all three, told in the book's order. An enchanted princess saves the king who hid her clothes at the river, and is forgotten for her pains; a prince fated to die by hanging is defended by the devil whose painted figure he had restored; a youngest brother swims the sea with a sponge and a wand; a poor man is paid for three years' labour with three counsels; a toad rides to a feast in the sky inside a guitar; and an ant asks the snow, the sun, and everything stronger than itself who is strongest of all. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this episode: 02:00 — Cova da Linda Flor 15:17 — The Devil's Protection 21:45 — The Youngest Brother 26:33 — The Three Counsels 33:30 — The Vulture and the Toad 36:22 — The Ant and the Snow Of the tales screened for this part, six are told here. Three were excluded by name under the house rule, each because its plot turns on depicted killing or cruelty — among them "João mais Maria" and "A Fonte das Três Comadres" — and "Dona Labismina," held since Part 1, still stands held for a separate ruling, neither built nor excluded. The rest of the book's second and third sections stands unscreened for later parts. No more than that is claimed. Sylvio Romero, Contos Populares do Brasil (first published 1885; fourth edition, Livraria Francisco Alves, Rio de Janeiro, 1907) — public domain. Fresh in-house English translation. Narrated by Felix. Music: opening and closing theme, "Gangster Piano Symphony" — heard at the introduction and the close, and briefly between the tales; the tales themselves are read dry. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S58 · E2
Tuesday · 37 min
Tales of the Mossi — Part 2 (The Bush King and Somba · The Battle of the Animals · The Animals' Invitations · Kinkirsi and the Grain · The Sorcerer's Sons · The Three Suitors · The Child of the Unloved Wife · The Orphan Girl's Tooth Ornament)
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Tales of the Mossi — Part 2 (The Bush King and Somba · The Battle of the Animals · The Animals' Invitations · Kinkirsi and the Grain · The Sorcerer's Sons · The Three Suitors · The Child of the Unloved Wife · The Orphan Girl's Tooth Ornament) Eight more tales from the Mossi country of the Volta plateau, in what is today Burkina Faso. Somba the hare talks the Lion, King of the Bush, into being tied to a tree, and then dines at the king's own feast disguised as the son of the termites. A rooster's army of bees and birds wins a formal battle against the elephant without a blow struck. A wasp and a toad visit each other's families and politely starve one another. The little millet wins Kinkirsi's daughter by breaking the thunder-stone. Three scorned sons of a sorcerer cross a river by parting it, by walking on a cloak, and by walking beneath it with a burning brand. A bride faced with three wonder-working suitors decides she cannot choose. The unloved third wife builds a fortune out of a handful of spoiled maize. And a mocked orphan girl, sent down the wrong road, comes home with gold and silver in her smile. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Source: Leo Frobenius, "Atlantis: Tales from the West Sudan" (Erzählungen aus dem Westsudan), Atlantis Vol. VIII (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1922), Chapter VIII, "Tales of the Mossi" — Tales 107, 108, 110, 111, 114, 118, 119 and 121, read in book order in a fresh English translation from the German made for this episode. Public-domain text; the reading follows the Internet Archive copy of the 1922 edition. Notes on the reading: the animal names are the book's own, glossed as its appendix gives them — Somba the hare, Katere the jackal, Uobogo the elephant, Uego-naba (Djigimde) the lion, Kango the guinea fowl, Buruogo the crowned crane, Norogo the young rooster, Kossemkonde the red-legged eagle, Simfu the bees. In "The Battle of the Animals," one closing line is kept at the source's weight: a stork of the winning side eats the frogs of the losing side. In "The Sorcerer's Sons," the father's contemptuous word for his sons is the book's, kept because each son answers it by name. Seven other tales of the same chapter were read in full and left out under this shelf's standing rule that stories turning on depicted violence are excluded rather than softened: No. 112 (the jackal slaughtered in the Kinkirsi's place), No. 113 (a wager won by secretly visiting the walled-up girl), No. 115 (the strong boy's depicted killings), No. 116 (killings, on a tale of a woman seeking her own death), No. 117 (elephants shot, in a nine-line sketch), No. 122 (parents killed and cooked, their daughter forced to eat), and No. 123 (a creation account, held with the sacred texts). One further tale, No. 120, "The Diligent Girl and the Lazy Girl," passed the screen and is held for a later part on length. With Part 1's six exclusions, this Part 2 is a second selection from the chapter, not the complete Mossi collection. Narrated by Benedetto. Music: opening and closing theme with short separators between the tales, "Rain_of_the_Celestial_Court". Chapters: 00:00 Opening theme 02:08 The Bush King and Somba 09:39 The Battle of the Animals 15:08 The Animals' Invitations 19:18 Kinkirsi and the Grain 22:15 The Sorcerer's Sons 25:41 The Three Suitors 28:32 The Child of the Unloved Wife 33:09 The Orphan Girl's Tooth Ornament 🎧 Podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/kachelitv/
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S177 · E2
Monday · 34 min
Latvian Folk Tales, Part Two
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Latvian Folk Tales, Part Two returns to Ansis Lerhis-Puškaitis's Latvian Folk Legends and Fairy Tales (Jelgava, 1891) and reads on in the book's own order — eight tales in a fresh English translation made for KacheliTV: a foolish brother repaid by the animals he spared, a rooster taken into a manor's arms, a traveller who wrestled the Devil until cockcrow, a horse of silver, gold, and diamond, three clever princes at a castle without doors, a princess hidden in dresses of stars, of the moon, and of the sun, a diamond rider, and an easy-going prince sent to steal a princess's shoes and dress by night — and to bring them back before morning. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this episode: 1:57 — How the Animals Helped the Foolish Brother 5:46 — Why the Rooster Was Taken into Some Manors' Arms 8:06 — How a Traveller Healed the Lord's Daughter 13:08 — The Silver, the Gold, and the Diamond Horse 19:01 — The Clever Princes 20:52 — The Dress of Stars, the Dress of the Moon, and the Dress of the Sun 23:55 — The Diamond Rider 29:53 — The Easy-Going Prince Source: Ansis Lerhis-Puškaitis, "Latviešu tautas teikas un pasakas" (Latvian Folk Legends and Fairy Tales), Part 1, Jelgava, 1891 — public domain; copy from the Latvian National Library (DOM). Fresh in-house English translation. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Music: "Tabla_Horizon" — opening and closing theme, heard again briefly between the tales. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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S178 · E2
Sunday · 26 min
Folk Tales of New Caledonia — Part 2: The Cyclone · Kanak Music and Dance · The Rat and the Octopus · How the Takata Bohendiou Read Rain Instead of Fine Weather
Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of New Caledonia — Part 2: The Cyclone · Kanak Music and Dance · The Rat and the Octopus · How the Takata Bohendiou Read Rain Instead of Fine Weather Part Two completes our reading of Louise Michel's 1885 collection with the four pieces Part One held back, in the book's own order: her storm memoir of two cyclones lived through at Noumea, her account of Kanak music and the pilou-pilou dance, Charles Malato's animal fable of the rat and the octopus, and the tale of the takata Bohendiou, the healer-seer who read rain instead of fine weather. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this part: - The Cyclone — Michel's own storm memoir: the immense calm, the night the sea and sky merged over Noumea, and the shore the morning after, where an octopus opens its human eye among the shells. - Kanak Music and Dance — the rounds of the pilou-pilou, quarter-tones soft as drops of water on leaves, bamboos struck in cadence, and the great historical dance in which the tribe lives in the sun and dies in the shade. - The Rat and the Octopus — the fable Charles Malato gathered on the great land: a rat who eats the sugar-cane canoe his friends built him, and the kind octopus who carries him ashore and is repaid so badly for it. - How the Takata Bohendiou Read Rain Instead of Fine Weather — the old takata, answerable for his prophecies, promises the tribes a fine sun for their ambush, sleeps three days on niaouli flowers, and lets the cyclone answer for him. The pieces: 01:45 — The Cyclone 10:24 — Kanak Music and Dance 13:55 — The Rat and the Octopus 19:16 — How the Takata Bohendiou Read Rain Instead of Fine Weather Source and rights: Kanak legends and tales as collected by Louise Michel in Legendes et chants de gestes canaques (Paris, 1885), in fresh in-house English translation from the French for this performance. Michel died in 1905; Charles Malato, who gathered the rat and octopus fable printed in her book, died in 1938 (death year re-proved from authority records at the Part One build). The book and its makers are in the public domain. Screened for this shelf and not read: The First Ouainth (meal) of human flesh, set aside by class, as were The War as told by the Kanak of Noumea, The Daughters of the Chief of Belep, The Breaths, and Medieval Customs in Caledonia, each read in full and set aside under this shelf's content screen. With Part One, these two episodes read every narrative piece of Michel's collection that passed the shelf's screen; no completeness for Kanak folklore is claimed — this is Michel's collection, billed as her book presents it. Narrated by Scratch. Music: Tabla Horizon — opening and closing theme, with a short instrumental separator between stories, and no music under the narration. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
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