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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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  • S176 · E1
    Saturday · 35 min

    Guernsey Folk Tales — Part 1: The Broken Kettle · Fairy Neighbours · Le Petit Colin · The Fairy Bakers · The Changeling · Building of the Castel Church · The Guernsey Lily · Mermaids + Four More from Demons and Goblins | KacheliTV World Classics

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Guernsey Folk Tales — Part 1: The Broken Kettle · Fairy Neighbours · Le Petit Colin · The Fairy Bakers · The Changeling · Building of the Castel Church · The Guernsey Lily · Mermaids + Four More from Demons and Goblins | KacheliTV World Classics Part One opens a new shelf: Guernsey Folk Lore, the great collection made from the manuscripts of Sir Edgar MacCulloch and edited by Edith F. Carey. Twelve short pieces come in the book's own order, first from its chapter of Fairies and then from Demons and Goblins: a kettle mended for unseen neighbours, a cart borrowed by night, a fairy servant, bakers who come after dark, a changeling, a church the fairies would not leave where men had put it, the Guernsey lily, mermaids on the sands, hidden treasure, two haunted houses, a dole of loaves, and an enchanted horse. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this part: - The Broken Kettle — two ploughmen find a broken kettle in a furrow, and an unseen voice asks them to have it mended. - Fairy Neighbours — the fairies borrow a cart by night, and always bring it back, its ironwork repaired with silver. - Le Petit Colin — a fairy farm servant who leaves the moment a voice from a haunted hill tells him Grand Colin is dead. - The Fairy Bakers — Petit Colin bakes by night in a farmhouse oven, until the master takes his wife's place at the spinning wheel. - The Changeling — a mother hears her cradle-child speak with an ancient voice, and knows what the fairies have done. - Building of the Castel Church — three nights running, the fairies carry the church's stones and tools away in their aprons. - The Guernsey Lily — a fairy husband leaves his Guernsey wife's family a bulb to remember her by, planted above Vazon Bay. - Mermaids — an old man of the Forest parish sees six mermaids disporting on the sands below Petit Bot Bay. - Hidden Treasures — flames hover over buried gold, and its guardian demon plays shells and trickery against the diggers. - The Spectre of the Grentmaisons — a closed and empty mansion, with fearful noises, strange lights, and a shaggy beast at its walls. - The Dole of Loaves at Le Laurier — a bread charity for the poor, a calf-like spectre laid by prayer, and the night the dole was withheld. - The Enchanted Horse — a white horse stretches to carry a dozen young men, and sets them all down in a muddy marsh. The tales: 01:28 — The Broken Kettle 03:41 — Fairy Neighbours 06:00 — Le Petit Colin 08:34 — The Fairy Bakers 15:28 — The Changeling 18:41 — Building of the Castel Church 20:30 — The Guernsey Lily 22:19 — Mermaids 23:36 — Hidden Treasures 26:57 — The Spectre of the Grentmaisons 29:10 — The Dole of Loaves at Le Laurier 33:54 — The Enchanted Horse Source and rights: the pieces performed here are from Guernsey Folk Lore (London: Elliot Stock, 1903), from the manuscripts of Sir Edgar MacCulloch (died 1896), edited by Edith F. Carey (died 1935), read from the complete public-domain text at Project Gutenberg. This shelf is Guernsey only; no completeness for the book is claimed. Screened for this part and not read: The Invasion of Guernsey by the Fairies, The Fairies and the Nurse, The Fairies and the Midwife, and Le Gibet des Faies, each set aside under this shelf's content screen; Herodias stands held with sacred material. The witch-trial records of the Witches and Witchcraft chapter are not narrated and stand benched, as do the Charms chapter (surveyed, practice-description, not read), the Devil chapter, the remaining Demons and Goblins pieces, Story Telling, and Historical Reminiscences, all held for Part 2. Where the book prints Guernsey-French verse, the performance speaks the book's own English translation. Narrated by Amos. Music: Lightning Crash — opening and closing theme only.

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  • S171 · E2
    Saturday · 45 min

    Turkish Folk Tales — Part 2: The Silent Princess · Kara Mustafa the Hero · The Fish-Peri | KacheliTV World Classics

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Turkish Folk Tales — Part 2: The Silent Princess · Kara Mustafa the Hero · The Fish-Peri Part Two of our Turkish shelf turns to Ignác Kúnos's later collection, Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales, gathered from the storytellers of Stamboul: a princess who will not speak and the prince who crosses three mountains with a talking nightingale to win a word from her, a timid husband whose knife makes him a hero to forty Dews, and a fisherman whose mysterious wife sets the Padishah five impossible tasks. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In this part: - The Silent Princess — a prince breaks an old woman's jugs three times, and her parting words set him lovesick for a princess who has never spoken; her castle is ringed by the fame of suitors who failed before him, but he brings a nightingale, and holds conversation with a lamp-stand, a wall-stand, and a door. - Kara Mustafa the Hero — the most timid husband in the world draws his rusty knife across spilt honey, kills sixty flies at a stroke and seventy at the second, and has it engraved on the blade; forty Dews believe every word of it, and boiling water, iron balls, and a wrestling bout cannot shake their faith. - The Fish-Peri — a poor fisherman keeps one fine fish alive in a well, and finds his house swept and tidied by unseen hands; when the Padishah covets the fish-peri maiden, she answers each impossible task — a palace in the sea, a crystal bridge, a feast for a whole land, a mule from an egg, and a day-old infant who can walk and talk. The tales: 01:27 — The Silent Princess 21:55 — Kara Mustafa the Hero 35:03 — The Fish-Peri Source and rights: the tales performed here are from Ignác Kúnos, Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales (London: George G. Harrap, 1913), read from the complete public-domain text at the Internet Sacred Text Archive. Kúnos died in 1945; the book and its maker are in the public domain. The shelf's first volume, Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales (1901), translated by R. Nisbet Bain, stands behind Part 1. Screened for this part and not read: the six remaining tales of the 1901 volume — The Stag-Prince, The Three Orange-Peris, The Horse-Devil and the Witch, The Wind-Demon, The Forty Princes and the Seven-Headed Dragon, and The World's Most Beauteous Damsel — each read in full and set aside under this shelf's content screen, as were the 1913 tellings of The Brother and Sister, Fear, The Three Orange Peris, The Wizard-Dervish, and The Horse-Dew and the Witch; The Creation is a sacred account and stands parked. Held for a ruling and not read: Stone-Patience and Knife-Patience, and The Golden-Haired Children. Excluded by name and not read: The Magic Turban, the Magic Whip, and the Magic Carpet; The Cinder-Youth; Mad Mehmed; The Rose-Beauty; The Serpent-Peri and the Magic Mirror; and The Padishah of the Forty Peris. The four Roumanian Fairy Tales printed at the back of the 1901 volume are Romanian material and are not read here. No completeness for either Kúnos volume is claimed, and every other tale in them stands unscreened and unread. Narrated by Bruno. Music: Blazing Fire — 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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  • S167 · E2
    Saturday · 50 min

    Folk Tales of Corsica — Part 2

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Corsica — Part 2 Four more Corsican tales from J.-B. Frédéric Ortoli's "Les contes populaires de l'île de Corse" (Paris, 1883), in a fresh in-house English translation made for this series — selected tales from the Tallano district and Porto-Vecchio in southern Corsica, told to the collector by the people named below. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. In The Girl Who Loved the Nightingale, Belladonna — who can change herself into whatever she wishes — will marry no one but the nightingale that sings every morning on the pomegranate tree, and neither lock nor chaplain can hold her. In The Two Boxes, a prince forced to marry against his heart teaches his father, with a box of rough gold and a box of wrought silver, which wife is which. In Marie, the King's Daughter, a princess whose modest answer enrages her father flees in a donkey's skin, keeps goats, and loses a shoe so small that no one else in the kingdom can wear it. And in Ditu Migniulellu, a girl no bigger than a little finger, with the sweetest voice in the world, is found singing inside a cooking pot — and a king's son swears an oath he then spends three balls trying to escape. The tales: 0:52 — The Girl Who Loved the Nightingale (told in 1881 by Alexandre d'Aurelio, of Olmiccia-di-Tallano) 8:42 — The Two Boxes (told in 1881 by Joseph Quilichini, at Poggio-di-Tallano) 14:31 — Marie, the King's Daughter (told in 1881 by Mademoiselle Adélaïde de Alma, of Porto-Vecchio) 25:02 — Ditu Migniulellu (told in 1881 by Marie Orion, of Olmiccia-di-Tallano) Source: Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Ortoli (1861–1907), "Les contes populaires de l'île de Corse," Paris: Maisonneuve et Cie, 1883 — public domain; lawful copy via the Internet Archive. Fresh in-house English translation from the French; no existing translation used. These are selected tales, not the complete volume. The volume's vendetta and bandit tales and its devil-pact material are excluded as a class under this channel's standing content law. Held for a future ruling: The Three Apples of Mariucella, The Three Brothers and the Virgin, and The Shepherd and the Month of March. Excluded by name: The Three Toads, The Donkey of the Golden Sequins, The Priest and His Mistress, and Malia. Screened for this episode and also excluded: The Enchanted Ring and The Fountain of Rose Water. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Music: the theme (Urgent Rhythms) opens and closes this episode and returns briefly between the stories. No music plays under the narration. Season 167 — Folk Tales of Corsica, Episode 2. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S59 · E2
    Saturday · 34 min

    Folk Tales of Czechia — Part 2 (A Clever Lass, The Soldier and the Devil, Old Nick and Kitty, The Knight Bambus, Francis and Martin, Witches at the Cross, The Witch and the Horseshoes, The Haunted Mill)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of Czechia — Part 2 (A Clever Lass, The Soldier and the Devil, Old Nick and Kitty, The Knight Bambus, Francis and Martin, Witches at the Cross, The Witch and the Horseshoes, The Haunted Mill) Part Two of the Czechia shelf brings eight more tales told whole from "Czech Folk Tales," selected and translated by Dr. Josef Baudiš and published in London in 1917. Six of them come from Kubín's tales of the Kladsko country and two from the journal Český Lid, and Baudiš's English is what is read here, faithfully as printed. The book holds twenty-three tales; eleven are now told across Parts One and Two, and no more than that is claimed. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. A Clever Lass — a shepherd's daughter whose counsel outwits the king who would marry her, and who takes home from her parting the thing she likes best. The Soldier and the Devil — a discharged soldier with three pennies and three boons plays cards with the devil at a haunted mill, loses his treasures to a card-playing countess, and grows horns from an apple before he wins them back. Old Nick and Kitty — the spinster who would dance with Old Nick himself gets her wish, and neither the devil nor the shepherd who takes her off his hands can be rid of her. The Knight Bambus — a poor gamekeeper finds the robber-knight enchanted as a fox, keeping three heaps of gold in a ruined castle, and is undone by telling his wife. Francis and Martin — two lads spy on a miser's buried baskets and win them by ploughing the threshing-floor with three black goats. And three short pieces to close: Witches at the Cross, The Witch and the Horseshoes, and The Haunted Mill. Passage notes, carried as printed and declared: in The Soldier and the Devil, the devil's attempt to tear the soldier fails outright, and the hammering he gets in the knapsack is comic torment with no injury narrated; in Old Nick and Kitty, Kitty is thrown into the pond and is expressly not drowned, unharmed; in The Knight Bambus, the shot that hits the enchanted fox is reported in a single clause with no wound described; in The Witch and the Horseshoes, the shoeing is told in a single clause with no pain narrated; in The Haunted Mill, the bear's beating of the Waternick is comic chastisement with no injury narrated. Screened and excluded by name at this part's screen, as the nine Part One exclusions were before them: Three Doves (the dragon tears the hero in two on the page; a raven's head is pulled off as a test; the close turns on beheadings), The Man Who Met Misery (the ogre's eyes are pierced with a dagger; the hero's finger is broken off), and Nine at a Blow (the giant splits the dragon in twain; the giant is tricked into breaking his neck). With the Part One register — The Twelve Months, Víťazko, Boots, Cloak, and Ring, Silly Jura, The Bear, the Eagle, and the Fish, Shepherd Hynek, The Three Roses, The Enchanted Princesses, and The Twin Brothers — twelve of the book's twenty-three tales stand excluded by name, and no completeness is claimed. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 1:53 A Clever Lass 7:53 The Soldier and the Devil 14:18 Old Nick and Kitty 18:30 The Knight Bambus 23:55 Francis and Martin 28:39 Witches at the Cross 30:14 The Witch and the Horseshoes 32:03 The Haunted Mill Josef Baudiš, Czech Folk Tales (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1917) — public domain. Narrated by Scratch. Music: theme, "Lightning Crash" — heard at the opening, between the tales, and at the close; the tales themselves are read dry. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud. Czech folk tales · Bohemian folk tales · Moravian folk tales · Czech fairy tales · Josef Baudiš · Slavic folk tales · world folk tales · free audiobook

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  • S148 · E2
    Saturday · 30 min

    Folk Tales of Malta — Part 2: Little Wrinkle-Rag · The Priest Don Isidoro · The Niece · The Jackal and the Hedgehog · Dschahan and the Chickpeas | 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 Malta — Part 2 (Little Wrinkle-Rag · The Priest Don Isidoro · The Niece · The Jackal and the Hedgehog · Dschahan and the Chickpeas) Part two of the Maltese shelf. Five more folk tales of Malta, taken down by dictation on Malta and Gozo in the spring of 1903 and printed in Hans Stumme's Maltesische Märchen (Leipzig, 1904), heard in a fresh English translation made for KacheliTV from Stumme's German. In Little Wrinkle-Rag, a rag doll hung in a wheat field to frighten the birds sings that she will marry the king's son — and, through three balls, a diamond ring and four rusks, she does. In The Priest Don Isidoro, a schoolmaster priest who can hardly breathe on his walks is told he is carrying too heavy a load, takes it into his head that he is with child, and finds out on a garden tree what he was really carrying. In The Niece, a poor woman reads a poster seeking the dead lady's Maltese relatives, presents herself as the niece, and talks her way in one night into the keys of a fortune — where the tale, exactly as printed, leaves her. In The Jackal and the Hedgehog, the hedgehog beats the jackal twice at dividing a harvest — tops against bottoms, and bottoms against tops — and once more, with his three brothers' help, at a race. And in Dschahan and the Chickpeas, one centime's worth of chickpeas becomes, step by step — cock, sow, cow — eight pounds sterling. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Urgent Rhythms, heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 2:04 Little Wrinkle-Rag 13:17 The Priest Don Isidoro 16:45 The Niece 21:15 The Jackal and the Hedgehog 26:01 Dschahan and the Chickpeas The five tales read here stand as the screened bench of Stumme's book, held from Part 1; with them, every tale that passed the shelf's full screen has now been read. Twenty more of the book's tales are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: Little Ball · The Princess Who Slept a Hundred Years · The Golden Eagle · The Letter · The Fisherman's Son · Dschahan (the first) · Dschahan (the second) · The Ape That Carried Off a Girl · Angiolina · Sun and Moon · The Seven-Headed Serpent · The Seven Crooked Lemons · The Golden Lion · The Capuchins · The Gentleman in the Box · Caterina · The Schoolmistress · The Three Accusations · The Seven-Headed Dragon · The Man and His Sister. A twenty-first tale, The Seven Sleepers, is a saint legend and stands parked with the sacred texts. Seven further tales stand benched for a later ruling and are not read here: The Cat · The Three Wishes · Diamantina · The Priest Don Paulo · Margherita · Dschahan and the Chickpea (the fuller telling) · Of a Boy Who Fled from His Parents' House. The book's poems and riddles are not tales and are not read on this shelf. No claim of completeness for the book is made. From Maltesische Märchen, Gedichte und Rätsel by Hans Stumme (Leipzig, 1904), public domain — in book order, in a fresh English translation from Stumme's German made for KacheliTV. Narrated by Orson. Theme: Urgent Rhythms. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud. Season 148, Episode 2.

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  • S161 · E2
    Saturday · 33 min

    Altai Tales — Part 2 (The Creation of the World · The End of the World)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Two pieces stand at the head of the Altai legends, and they belong together. In the Creation of the World, before the earth was finished, all was water, and God and one man more flew over it as black geese. The man dives for earth and hides a handful in his mouth to make land of his own; spat out, it becomes the little marsh hillocks, and God names him Erlik. Under the one tree of nine branches the first people eat of the five branches toward sunrise and are forbidden the other four — until the snake, with the Devil inside her, persuades Edji, and Edji smears the fruit into Torongoi's mouth. There follow the judgments, Erlik's making of a heaven of his own and its fall — whence came the rocks and the mountain forests — his forge, where frog, snake, bear and camel spring from under the hammer, and God's long farewell, in which he leaves the people in the care of Mandy-Shire, Mai-Tere, Shal-Jime and Japkara. The End of the World then tells, twice over — as the Teleuts tell it and as the Altaians tell it — how it will be when the sky is iron and the black earth burns: the nine black stones breaking on the sea floor, the herb kongol and its locusts, and the last descent of the heroes. Fresh in-house English translations from the German texts, made for this series — no existing translation used. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:58 The Creation of the World 27:15 The End of the World Source: Wilhelm Radlov, Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens, Part I (St. Petersburg, 1866) — tales and legends of the Altai people (Altaians and Teleuts), recorded by Radlov on his Siberian journeys. Public domain. Passage note, placed in front: in the Creation tale, God's farewell speech contains a clause of reported doctrine concerning the self-killed — a spoken ruling, inside the speech, on which of the dead are "taken"; nothing is enacted, depicted or instructed anywhere in the piece. The closing piece is apocalyptic prophecy in the reported register, foretold and not enacted. Both pieces are carried whole, as printed. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left for later parts or held under the channel's content rules: Die drei Diebe, Dschuksunbai und der Fliegenteufel, Kudai looks at the earth, Är Taschtu and Ak Kān stand on the bench for later parts; the warrior tales of Tardanak, Täktäbäi Märgän and Kan Püdäi, The Two Princes, Schünü, The Literate Boy and Janar Kusch remain excluded; the seer's tale of Altain Sain Salam and The Official's Son are held for review; the prayer and blessing formulas stand parked with the sacred texts; Tschiwalkow's fables belong to another collector's voice. No completeness is claimed for the volume. Music: opening and closing theme, with a short separator between the tales — Crimson Peak. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S166 · E2
    Saturday · 33 min

    Folk Tales of the Iroquois — Part 2 (The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds · The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters · A Bird in Search of a Mate · Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son · The Moose Woman)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Folk Tales of the Iroquois — Part 2 (The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds · The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters · A Bird in Search of a Mate · Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son · The Moose Woman) Part two of the Iroquois shelf. Five Seneca tales of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), collected by Jeremiah Curtin and Erminnie A. Smith, heard in the collectors' English exactly as printed. In The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds, the younger of two brothers learns his songs from the birds themselves, wears first two turkey feathers and then a turkey-skin pouch that grows fast to his body until he is Turkey in earnest — and when a woman full of witchcraft carries his brother away to the West, it is Turkey who pulls free of the skin and sends Moose running to bring his brother home, for from birds came all the songs and dances. In The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters, hunters of the Seneca Reservation throw away meat when game is plentiful and starve when it fails, until a pigmy rebukes their wastefulness, forgives them, feeds them in a cavern, and carries them home in the night. In A Bird in Search of a Mate, a young woman sings along the river bank for a husband, refuses the deer who would feed her on moss and the bear who offers hawthorn berries and roots, and chooses the singer who promises seeds — and the two become the first birds of Spring. In Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son, old Swan sends her daughters with marriage bread to Split Face, and Owl steals their basket and plays the bridegroom before the girls see through him, reach the long house, and bring their mother home to live by Earthquake's fire. And in The Moose Woman, a hunter's unseen forest wife — who is of the Moose family — cooks and tans for him in his cabin until he breaks his promise and marries in the village, loses his power over game, and follows the trail of little moccasins his children leave for him, to be forgiven. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Imperial Violin Masquerade, heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 0:37 The Boy Who Learned the Songs of Birds 11:44 The Pigmies and the Greedy Hunters 14:25 A Bird in Search of a Mate 17:37 Swan's Daughters Marry Earthquake's Son 22:20 The Moose Woman Passage notes, carried as printed and declared: in the opening tale two turkeys are killed at the boy's request, for feathers and for a pouch — a summarised line each, craft and subsistence; the witch-women's intent to kill the brother is reported in the telling and never enacted, and the brother is rescued unharmed. The remaining tales of these collections are not read in this part. Held for the owner's ruling by name: The Friendship of an Otter · The Old Man's Lessons to His Nephew · How the Bear Lost His Tail · Origin of the Constellations · Origin of Wampum · the creation narratives (The Creation of Men · The Creation of Man · A Genesis Tradition · A Tale of the Sky World). Ceremonial and sacred material in these collections — the Thanksgiving Address liturgy, the cosmology and medicine-society material — is held by class and is not read. Excluded by name: The Man-Eating Wife, the Little Old Woman and the Morning Star · Coon Deceives Crawfish · The Crawfish and the Raccoon · The Fox and the Rabbit · The Race Between the Turtle and the Bear · The Snake with Two Heads · Infant Nursed by Bears · Origin of Tobacco. The two other tellings of the chipmunk story stand unused — one telling only was read, in Part 1. No claim of completeness for these collections is made. From Jeremiah Curtin's Seneca Indian Myths (1923) and Erminnie A. Smith's Myths of the Iroquois (1883) — all public domain, the collectors' English as printed; these are their texts, not new translations. Narrated by Violetta. Theme: Imperial Violin Masquerade. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S164 · E2
    Saturday · 30 min

    Folk Tales of Sardinia — Part 2 (Once There Was · The Girl Who Hated Smoke · The Greedy Girl · The Cheating Widow · The Little Whistle · The Foolish Shepherd · The Three Stupid Girls · The Devil)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Part two of the Sardinia shelf. Eight more folk tales of Sardinia from the south of the island, the Campidano, collected by Francesco Mango with Emilia Lippi-Mango and published in his Novelline popolari sarde (1890) — heard here in a fresh English translation made from Mango's own Italian. These are the eight tales that stood on the bench after Part 1: the whole of the volume's remaining screened stock. In Once There Was, a rich merchant offers his shop to whoever can tell him a story without once saying “once there was,” and two brothers lose their father's reins and saddle at the game before the youngest wins the shop with a melon. In The Girl Who Hated Smoke, the bride who would not have a smoking husband finds her silent bridegroom's trouble and begs him to smoke. In The Greedy Girl, a rich husband cures his wife of eating nothing but pasta reale — not by forbidding it, but by serving her everything else. In The Cheating Widow, a widow lives by her swindles — a goldsmith's watches, a dead child's burial turned to blackmail, a sea captain's silver — until she sells her three victims as slaves and is arrested; the child in that story was already dead of natural causes before she ever took him up, and the tale is carried exactly as printed. In The Little Whistle, Angiolino's magic whistle makes the whole world dance — his father, a judge, a priest, and Death herself — and wins him his promised place. In The Foolish Shepherd, Michele Fico forgets his own name on his wedding night and is locked out by his own rule. In The Three Stupid Girls, a mother's one warning is undone by three sentences of nonsense. And in The Devil, a youngest daughter marries a gentleman who is not what he seems, and the condemned souls in his locked room — one of whom tells, among her sins, that she killed her husband, a thing reported only and never shown — teach her how to be rid of him. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Blazing Fire, heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 2:26 Once There Was 6:14 The Girl Who Hated Smoke 8:25 The Greedy Girl 11:32 The Cheating Widow 16:20 The Little Whistle 20:23 The Foolish Shepherd 23:21 The Three Stupid Girls 25:12 The Devil With this part, all eight tales that stood on the bench of Mango's volume have now been read; the bench is empty. Held for the owner's ruling by name: The Leaf of the Rose · The Poor Woman's Daughter. Excluded by name: The Fisherman and the Devil · The Death of the Poor Man · The Mother and the Daughter · The Master and the Servant · Solomon's Counsels · The Two Godfathers · The Prince and His Wife · The Three Sisters · The Two Godmothers · The Schoolmistress and the Stepdaughter · The Thirteen Bandits. No claim of completeness for Mango's book is made. From Novelline popolari sarde, by Francesco Mango (Palermo, 1890), public domain — the Campidanese tales of southern Sardinia in a fresh English translation from Mango's Italian. Narrated by Benedetto. Theme: Blazing Fire. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud. Season 164, Episode 2.

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  • S153 · E2
    Saturday · 34 min

    Ojibwe and Algonquian Tales — Part 2 (The Celestial Sisters · Sheem, or The Forsaken Boy · The Two Jeebi-Ug, or A Trial of Feeling)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Part two of the shelf. Three more tales from Algic Researches (New York, 1839), Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's landmark collection of Ojibwe and other Algonquian oral tradition — a record made with his wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1800–1842), whose own Ojibwe family's stories stand behind many of its pages — read here in the English of the 1839 edition, as printed, in the order of the volumes. In The Celestial Sisters, a Shawnee tale, Waupee the White Hawk finds a ring worn in a prairie where no path leads, and watches twelve sisters come down from the sky in a basket to dance; he wins the youngest for his bride, loses her to the stars, and follows her up at last on a white hawk's feather. In Sheem, or The Forsaken Boy, a dying father charges his children never to forsake their youngest brother; the charge is broken, and the forsaken boy, kept alive by the kindness of wolves, is found by his brother in the act of becoming one. And in The Two Jeebi-Ug, or A Trial of Feeling, two pale strangers out of the winter forest are taken into a hunter's lodge and fed through the season — and only at their parting say who they are, and what their one strange rudeness at his table was sent to prove. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Blazing Fire, heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 2:49 The Celestial Sisters 13:11 Sheem, or The Forsaken Boy 25:53 The Two Jeebi-Ug, or A Trial of Feeling In The Celestial Sisters the passage notes of the screen stand as printed: the sisters, striking in jest at a stump, kill the mice that run out of it, in a single sentence; and hunting, the hero's livelihood, runs through the tale in summary — the Star father's present is a tail, a foot or a wing of each kind of bird and animal the hunter kills. Sheem is read whole as printed; Schoolcraft's bracketed editorial moral, printed after the tale, is apparatus and is not read. Five narratives of the collection are held for a ruling — the sacred and ceremonial tales Iadilla and Mon-Daw-Min, Leelinau, Git-Chee-Gau-Zinee and Paradise Opened to the Indians — and three more (Iosco, Wassamo and The Grave Light) were not cleared for this build; twenty-four further tales are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading. Three tales passed the screen and stand on the bench for later parts of this shelf. The shelf is billed as what it is — Ojibwe and Algonquian tales in Schoolcraft's literary retellings of 1839, crediting Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and Jane Johnston Schoolcraft — and no claim of completeness for the collection is made. From Algic Researches by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1839), public domain — The Celestial Sisters and Sheem from the first volume, The Two Jeebi-Ug from the second, complete and in the order read here, in the English of the original edition, not a new translation. Narrated by Magnolia. Theme: Blazing Fire. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud. Season 153, Episode 2.

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  • S146 · E2
    Saturday · 41 min

    Folk Tales of Liberia — Part 2: The Man and the Goat · The Deer and the Snail · The Mori Man and the Secret · and Fourteen More Vai Tales | KacheliTV World Classics

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Part two. Seventeen more Vai tales of Liberia's Cape Mount country, collected on the ground by George W. Ellis during his eight years as Secretary of the United States Legation in Liberia, and published in Chapter IX of his Negro Culture in West Africa (New York, 1914); heard here in a fresh telling in standard English. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. A hunter cuts his own rope and tries to talk his way out of the chase; three brothers break a country pot and find a town; Spider rides the Deer to a bride; a little horn gives two blind men their sight, and jealousy takes it back; the Goat bluffs the Elephant with a rock; three doctor-brothers cross a river on smoke, thread, and arrows; a bride-test of a house on a rock is answered by a dish of crabs; the Snail's people win a race the Deer cannot lose; the Tide argues with the Minnow; brothers with a glass, a hammock, and a medicine race death itself; two story-tellers build a bird and the tree it must sit in; a cooked bird under one cover starts a theft trial; an old lady, a plantain, and a sleeping fine of fifty dollars meet in court; a blind man feels his way out of a drowning pact; a poor man's marriage ends in a judge's unanswered question; two thieves are undone by a sheep's teeth; and a Mori man — a Muslim scholar and teacher — gathers a hundred best friends to prove that a secret cannot be kept. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Blazing Fire, heard also briefly between the stories. Passage notes, as printed and carried here under their notes: in Three Rival Brothers, the King's bride-price demand is spoken at the outset and the quest is abandoned unfulfilled, the princess's offstage death is reversed by medicine, and the brothers' closing fight is one clause, parted by the people; in Two Poor Men, one clause has a bird "that he had shot" brought for cooking, as setup only; in The Deer and the Snail, the wager's stake is spoken in the bet and never imposed; in Poor Man and King's Daughter, the hard choice is proposed and debated only, and the judge declines to decide. Chapters 1:02 The Man and the Goat 2:56 The Three Brothers and the Town 6:14 The Race for a Wife 8:35 The Two Blind Men 11:10 Why the Elephant Runs from the Goat 12:25 Rival Brothers 14:06 The Man and the Crabs 16:37 The Deer and the Snail 19:27 The Tide and the Minnow 20:40 Three Rival Brothers 24:12 Rival Story-Tellers 26:05 Two Poor Men 29:15 The Old Lady and the Little Boy 31:20 The Blind and Legless Men 33:56 Poor Man and King's Daughter 36:27 The Two Thieves 38:55 The Mori Man and the Secret From Negro Culture in West Africa by George W. Ellis (New York, 1914), public domain — stories 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 31, 34 and 37, complete and in book order, in a fresh telling in standard English. Twenty items of Chapter IX are excluded by name after full readings (the full register stands in Part 1's notes), and six are held for a ruling; no claim of completeness for the book is made. Narrated by Felix. Theme: Blazing Fire. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S139 · E2
    Saturday · 32 min

    Folk Tales of Vanuatu — Part 2: The Little Orphan · Tagaro's Departure · How Tagaro Made the Sea · Molgon and Molwor | KacheliTV World Classics

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Part two of Folk Tales of Vanuatu. Four more Vanuatu folk tales collected and translated by R. H. Codrington in The Melanesians (Clarendon Press, 1891), read as Codrington printed them, complete and in the order given here. In The Little Orphan, from Mota in the Banks Islands, a fatherless boy, scorned by the children of fathers and neglected by his uncle's household, is taken up by Ro Som, Money herself, who raises him through every rank of the suqe — his uncle's "I'll beat you" is spoken only, and the pigs killed along the way are the suqe feast slaughters, listed in passing. In Tagaro's Departure, from Aurora Island (Maewo), a thief's attempt on Tagaro's pig sends him away in his canoe with all the good things of the world — all but one fire-brand, thrown back. In How Tagaro Made the Sea, also from Aurora Island, two boys look behind the forbidden wall of Tagaro's pool, one stone is thrown down, and the sea runs out upon the world, while the old woman who lies in its path is said to have turned into a stone. And in Molgon and Molwor, from Vanua Lava in the Banks Islands, the elder brother forgets the younger in the sun and finds him dead, revives him with his tears, and in the end both brothers turn into stones in the stream — the death is by sun and neglect, lamented in the tale, not an enacted killing. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Urgent Rhythms, heard also briefly between the stories. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 2:31 The Little Orphan 23:42 Tagaro's Departure 24:54 How Tagaro Made the Sea 27:03 Molgon and Molwor Seventeen further Vanuatu tales of the same chapter are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: The Birds' Voyage · The Shark and the Snake · The Hen and Her Chickens · The Origin of Poisoned Arrows · How Tagaro the Little Found Fish · The Story of Dilingavuv · A Story About an Eel · The Ghost-Wife · The Little Owl · The Winged Wife · The Story of Taso · About Betawerai a Snake · The Story of Basi and Dovaowari · The Story of Deitari · Tarkeke · The Woman and the Ghost · About Merambuto and Tagaro. One more, A Story About Tagaro the Little, is held for the owner's ruling by name and is not read here. Part One read six tales of the chapter; the chapter's three Solomon Islands tales belong to another shelf. No claim of completeness for the book is made. From The Melanesians by R. H. Codrington (1891), public domain — the Vanuatu stories of Chapter XIX. Narrated by Amos. Theme: Urgent Rhythms. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S46 · E2
    Saturday · 48 min

    Folk Tales of Angola — Part 2 (The Four Uouas · The Blacksmith and the Blackbirds · Dinianga dia Ngombe and Deer · Two Men, One Woman · A Father-in-Law and his Son-in-Law · The Past and the Future · and Six Animal Tales)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Twelve more folk tales of the Kimbundu people of Angola, told by their own storytellers and written down by the Swiss linguist Héli Chatelain for his Folk-Tales of Angola (1894) — the first great printed collection of Kimbundu tales, with the Ki-mbundu text and his literal English translations side by side. Our tellings are Chatelain's own translations, told as he printed them. Narrated by Morgana. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. The Four Uouas — Four sisters, one name between them. A suitor may marry all four or none — and four bundles of rats decide which wife he keeps. The Blacksmith and the Blackbirds — The Blackbirds all look alike, and every one denies the debt. Blacksmith cannot name his debtor — until the Turtle-dove judges the case. Dinianga dia Ngombe and Deer — The hunter shoots, kills and flays his deer — and the deer stands up out of its hide and argues the shame of it with him. Lion and Wolf — Lion boasts there is none stronger. Wolf, from the thicket, names two who are — and the chase decides nothing. Elephant and Frog — Frog tells the girls that Elephant is his horse. Then, on the road, he rides him there to prove it. Jackal and Hare — Hare hides in a hole and opens two big eyes. Jackal meets an omen, and runs home crying. Squirrel and the Kingship — "To-day, at once." Squirrel's one demand is the whole tale — and it costs him a crown. Dog and the Kingship — The mats are spread, the chair is set, the lord is seated — and then Dog sees the breast of a fowl. Frog and his Two Wives — East wife and West wife cook mush at the same moment, and both send for Frog at once. His croak is the answer. Two Men, One Woman — Her father demands a living deer. Two suitors hunt it; the one who gives up is the one the elders choose. A Father-in-Law and his Son-in-Law — "A darkness like the gloom of a blind eye" is answered by "a moonlight of bald-head shine" — and six old men judge the exchange. The Past and the Future — Whence-we-come is praised and Where-we-go refused a drink, until the judge explains which name deserves the palm-wine. Notes on the tellings: In the third tale, the deer Dinianga shoots and flays stands up alive out of its hide and walks away whole — no death stands in the tale. In the first tale the forty rats are trapped and cooked as food. In the tenth tale a beating is spoken of only in the elders' reasoning, as their ground for refusing the fierce suitor and choosing the gentle one; no blow is struck in any tale. Source: Héli Chatelain, Folk-Tales of Angola (Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society, Vol. I, 1894) — public domain; Chatelain's printed translations, OCR repairs only. Narrated by Morgana. Music: opening and closing theme, "Subterranean Earth," heard again briefly between the tales; no music plays under the reading. Chapters: 02:10 The Four Uouas 15:05 The Blacksmith and the Blackbirds 20:25 Dinianga dia Ngombe and Deer 23:18 Lion and Wolf 24:43 Elephant and Frog 26:54 Jackal and Hare 29:09 Squirrel and the Kingship 30:27 Dog and the Kingship 32:18 Frog and his Two Wives 34:25 Two Men, One Woman 41:47 A Father-in-Law and his Son-in-Law 46:31 The Past and the Future

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  • S18 · E21
    Saturday · 34 min

    Northern Tales, Part 21 — The Tom-Cat and the Cock · Elk's Head · A Small Girl · Yaghishna · The Stone Wife · The Snow-Bunting · White-Cap the Duck · Three Brothers · The Monster and the Fish Trap

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Nine tales in the book's own order — the last of the children's stories told on the Kolyma, then the Markova tales recorded by Sophie Bogoras in the winter of 1900. The Tom-Cat sings the Fox's daughters out of the burrow with a golden dulcimer and brings the Cock home. A family eats an elk's head and a mare's tongue, and nobody in that house stays dead for long. A prayed-for boy is outworked by the little sister who arrives after him. Yaghishna offers to adopt a girl who will only accept on one condition — that Yaghishna die very shortly. A Lamut man's stone wife comes to life, and the water girl under the river is shot, mourned, and sung back by her spoonbill sisters. A stingy old man locks his wife out of the fat reindeer meat, and the Snow-Bunting — alone of all the birds — shows her the road to other people. White-Cap the duck answers her granddaughter in goose talk. Three brothers — Grass-Leg, Bladder, and Little-Finger — come to three absurd ends over a pot of blood-soup. And a monster eats nine storehouses of dried fish in nine days, then goes looking for a village. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:49 Story of the Tom-Cat and the Cock 06:17 Story of Elk's Head 08:28 Story of a Small Girl 11:13 Story about Yaghishna (second telling) 13:40 Lamut Tale — The Stone Wife 20:29 A Markova Tale — The Old Woman and the Snow-Bunting 26:40 A Markova Tale — White-Cap the Duck 29:28 A Markova Tale — Grass-Leg, Bladder, and Little-Finger 30:36 A Lamut Tale — The Monster and the Fish Trap Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: the Tom-Cat and the Cock by Mary Shkuleff, aged fourteen, Pokhotsk, summer 1895; Elk's Head by Marie Dauroff, aged fifteen, Nishne-Kolymsk, summer 1896; A Small Girl by Kitty, called the Lamut girl, aged twelve, Nishne-Kolymsk, summer 1896; Yaghishna by Annie Korkin, aged fourteen, Pokhotsk, summer 1895; the Stone Wife and the Snow-Bunting by Anne Sosykin, Markova, recorded by Mrs. Sophie Bogoras, winter 1900; White-Cap, the Three Brothers, and the Monster and the Fish Trap by Mary Alin and Katherine Alin, Markova, recorded by Mrs. Sophie Bogoras, winter 1900. Fresh in-house rendering, heard as screened: Elk's Head and White-Cap stand whole; in the Tom-Cat the closing thrashing is softened to a scolding; in A Small Girl the spanking is softened and the closing axe blow is not carried; in Yaghishna the blows are not carried; in the Stone Wife one blood sentence is not carried; in the Snow-Bunting the old woman's masked oaths are rendered plainly; in the Three Brothers the father's closing blow is not carried; in the Monster the closing examination is not carried. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: N.151 A Lamut Tale is excluded whole at this part's full-read screen — the invaders' cannibal feast is its substance. N.152 A Yukaghir Tale is excluded whole at the same screen — its trick turns on a mutilation no cut can remove. N.156 Sister and Brother Married stands excluded whole under the shelf's register; its page was not used. Two tales read and passed at this screen — the Yukaghir tale of the lazy man (N.158) and the Chuvantzi tale of Póndandi (N.159) — were not built here; the pack had already reached its length, and Part 22 opens with them in order. The tales after them are not yet fully screened; the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts. Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Crimson Peak. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S174 · E1
    Saturday · 1 hr 9 min

    Legends of Canada — Part 1 (La Chasse-Galerie · The Beast with the Long Tail · Macloune)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! KacheliTV opens a new shelf: the French-Canadian settler legends of the Saint Lawrence parishes, from Honoré Beaugrand's La Chasse Galerie (Montreal, 1900), in a fresh translation made for this programme. In a Gatineau timber shanty on New Year's Eve, Joe the cook tells how eight shantymen swore a conditional oath, flew a bark canoe a hundred leagues through the moonlit sky to dance at Lavaltrie and Contrecoeur, and woke in a snowbank with nothing worse than a black eye. Then Fanfan Lazette meets the beast with the long tail on the Dautraye road, holds on through a quarter-hour grapple, and cuts the great red tail off at the root at the bridge — and the parish arbitration that follows establishes whose beast it truly was. Last, Macloune of Lanoraie: the poor pedlar, frail and halting of speech, whom the whole village loved, and whose marriage to Marichette Joyelle the curé forbade — a love story the parish itself judged more kindly than its priest and its doctor did. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:29 La Chasse-Galerie 25:45 The Beast with the Long Tail 47:18 Macloune Source: Honoré Beaugrand, La chasse galerie: Légendes canadiennes (Montreal, 1900) — public domain; text from Project Gutenberg eBook #16210. Fresh in-house English translation from the French, made for KacheliTV. The Beast with the Long Tail is carried entire as printed, exactly as the book gives it — the grapple, the tail cut off at the root, the river, and the closing arbitration record. In Macloune, the period description of the hero's disabled body is rendered with dignity rather than in the book's cruel terms, and a period term for the Indigenous basket-maker is given a neutral modern rendering; the tales themselves are otherwise whole. Two further legends of the 1900 collection are not in this programme: Le Loup-Garou and Le Père Louison are excluded by name under this channel's standing content law, and no completeness is claimed for the collection. This shelf presents French-Canadian settler legends only. Music: Urgent Rhythms, as opening and closing theme and as a short separator between stories; no music under the narration.

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  • S173 · E1
    Saturday · 34 min

    Folk Tales of Slovenia — Part 1 (The Young Lady · The Gold-Feather Bird · The Deaf Forest)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! A new shelf opens in the Gorjanci Mountains of Slovenia, with three Slovenian folk tales and legends of the Gorjanci, as collected and told by Janez Trdina. The lady of Mihovo Castle, seven years abed, shelters a poor leper beggar against her servants' will, and his gift — a wondrous Gorjanci root — sends her to the spring that gives her back her health, her strength and her youth. Foolish Mikec stacks a hay-mound to the top of the wonder-tree, wins the Gold-Feather Bird's feather, which grants three written petitions, and spends them on an emperor's daughter, on her dowry, and on sending her back. And the pedlar Pavle, who wagers on a Sunday morning that he can cross the unblessed Deaf Forest where no bell is ever heard, meets its phantom horrors face to face, until prayer brings back his shadow and the road to Novo Mesto. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 02:08 The Young Lady 08:06 The Gold-Feather Bird 18:59 The Deaf Forest Source: Janez Trdina (1830–1905), Bajke in povesti o Gorjancih ("Tales and Stories of the Gorjanci Mountains"), first published in Ljubljanski zvon, 1882–88; book form in Zbrani spisi, Ljubljana, 1904 — public domain. Fresh in-house translation from the Slovenian, made for this programme. The three tales stand whole, as printed: in The Gold-Feather Bird, the opening tells in summary that earlier climbers for the feather slipped, fell and were killed — background mortality in two sentences, nothing enacted; in The Deaf Forest, admitted to this programme by name, the phantom apparition sequence — torn and bloody limbs and bones, a grinning dead head, an eye on a red strand, dissolving into a snail and dry knots — is carried entire as printed; no act of violence is done by anyone in the tale, and its closing prayer and moral stand. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: The Flower Garden, The Enchanted Castle and Jutrovica stand benched under the shelf's sacred-texts park — Christ and the Holy Three Kings walk in them as characters — and were not used. Excluded whole under the shelf's register, and not read: The Giants, The Bird of Paradise, The Vila, The Werewolf, The Wild Man, The Water Man, The Dead Man's Shirt and Midsummer Night. This programme bills itself as Slovenian folk tales and legends of the Gorjanci Mountains, as collected and told by Janez Trdina — never as a complete Trdina and never as a survey of the whole country; the volume's religious tales stand benched whole, and the longer pieces of the 1906 volume stand unscreened on the bench. Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Crimson Peak. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S18 · E20
    Saturday · 34 min

    Northern Tales — Part 20 of 22 (The Fish-Woman · Machekur · The Mouse and the Snow-Bunting · A Christmas Story · Transformed Bears · Kundarik · Yaghishna · Five Brothers · A Crazy Old Man · Two Girls)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Ten tales from the Kolyma country, told in the eighteen nineties and written down by Bogoras — the last Kolyma tales, then the children's stories. A poor man angles up the fish-girl Shérkala, who keeps his house in secret till he burns her fish skin. Machekur eats too much of the Mice-Girls' pudding, and their bladder prank bursts at home. The Mouse eats her guest the Snow-Bunting's stores first and then shares none of her own, until March saves the starved guest. Girls at Christmas divination are saved from a fire-breathing stove by saucepans worn as caps. A hunter helps a weeping bear bury his drowned mate, and finds a gold ring under her skin and a crucifix on his breast — two lovers who could not turn human again. Kundarik outwits the child-eating Yaghishna twice, and another girl opens her forbidden storehouse and takes her charmed reindeer across the river. Five brothers are taken by storm and ice. A crazy old man throws away three storehouses of food on a dream. And two girls whom no knife can wound lose nothing to Yaghishna's fire-breathing horses. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 02:03 Story of the Fish-Woman 05:46 A Story of Machekur 07:53 The Mouse and the Snow-Bunting 12:21 A Christmas Story 14:23 Story of Transformed Bears 18:07 Story of Kundarik 21:15 Story about Yaghishna 26:06 Story of Five Brothers 29:07 Story about a Crazy Old Man 31:54 Story about Two Girls Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: the Fish-Woman by Innocent Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir man, summer 1896; Machekur by Mary Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir woman, summer 1896; the Mouse and the Snow-Bunting by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, summer 1896; A Christmas Story by Mary Dauroff, a Russian creole woman, summer 1896 — all at Pokhotsk; Transformed Bears by John Sukhomyasoff, a Russian creole, clerk of the church, at Nishne-Kolymsk, summer 1896; Kundarik, Yaghishna, Five Brothers, Two Girls and A Crazy Old Man by Mary Shkuleff (printed Marie for the last), a Russian creole girl, at Pokhotsk, summer 1895. Fresh in-house rendering, heard exactly as screened: Machekur, the Mouse and the Snow-Bunting (ending "etc.", as printed), A Christmas Story and Five Brothers stand whole; the Fish-Woman's roe beat is softened; Transformed Bears' climax is carried without gore; Kundarik's two tricks are carried without their gore; in Yaghishna the blows, the tearing threat, the burst-belly drowning and the closing body-part verse is not carried — the escape stands whole; in A Crazy Old Man the closing accidents at the kettle are not carried; in Two Girls the heart-stab and trampling are condensed and the taper burning is not carried; the tale ends on its printed coda. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: N.132 Yukaghir Manners is held for the owner's ruling — its substance is a funerary rite — and its page was not used. N.136 Story of a Foolish Woman and N.137 Story of the Forest Demon are excluded whole under the shelf's register — wife abuse ending in torture; a father–son fight to a graphic killing. N.139 Story of an Old Woman and her Three Daughters is excluded whole — a mother does all three daughters to death. N.142 Story of Hungry Children is held by name and untouched. The tales after N.145 are not yet fully screened, so none was jumped ahead to; the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts. Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Bandoneo, Street Romance. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S21 · E18
    Saturday · 33 min

    The Gatiloke — Part 18 of 23 (The Rabbit and the Pnau Fruit · The Two Skas · The Trechieh-Kam Bird · The Hunter Santuk · The Brahmin Adinnapubbaka)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Gatiloke closes its eighth part and opens its ninth. A ripe pnau fruit falls beside a sleeping rabbit, and the whole forest flees a danger that was never there, until the lion traces the panic home. A bat, caught in turn by two skas who keep opposite vows, talks his way out of both their mouths. A small bird warns the sparrows against the seed in the gardener's hand — and is ignored, until the net is woven and the flock is taken in it, caged, to be sold and eaten. A fisherman, certain his snagged hook holds a great fish, ruins his house and injures his eye over a catch that does not exist. And the brahmin who had never given lets his son sicken and die untreated rather than pay a doctor, and learns what all his keeping was worth. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. The episode opens and closes with Lightning Crash as its theme, heard also briefly between the stories. Narrated by Lulu. Chapters: 01:32 — The Rabbit and the Pnau Fruit 08:08 — The Two Skas Who Parted Ways to Find Food 13:41 — The Trechieh-Kam Bird and the Little Creatures 19:05 — The Hunter Santuk 25:12 — The Brahmin Adinnapubbaka From the Gatiloke by Suttantaprija Ind (1859–1924), Cambodia's treasury of Khmer folk tales, first published in parts in Phnom Penh in 1914–1921 — public domain, and told here in a fresh in-house English rendering made from the Khmer text, in the book's own order. Earlier holds stand as recorded in the collection's written register and in the descriptions of Parts 1–17: the question-chapter of the rascal who should be feared; Bhikkhu Sok, the Pnong teacher; the Singha-To who wanted the chief's daughter; the crocodile and the cart-driver; the hunter and the parrot; the fable of the old woman whom desire unmade; the abbot and his two students; the deer, the crow and the jackal; the jackal and the elephant; the lion and the frog; the rabbit and the tigress; and the goatherd boy — each held back under house rule until it is ruled on by name. One further tale of the book's sixth part — the tale of the village cat and the chap-puk bird — is likewise held back under house rule: its matter is a killing and an eating in the tale's open scene, twice over, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place. Two tales at the close of the book's seventh part are likewise held back under house rule until they are ruled on by name: the lion who loved a cow, whose matter is a poisoning plotted and done, upon a tale of desire; and the monkey and the great hermit, whose matter is a sexual act done by guile on an unwilling other, as the tale's whole engine. Three tales of the book's eighth part are likewise held back under house rule until they are ruled on by name: the servant who killed the watch-crowing rooster, whose matter is a killing plotted in thought and done in secret, as the tale's whole engine; the couple who kept a ska, whose matter is a child dead by a snake's bite and a faithful creature struck down in anger, as the tale's climax; and the bear and the pongro tree, whose matter is a killing directed by one and done by another's axe, as the tale's close. The book's earlier item in this part, the tale of the man who knew how to play the gong, has no text in the collection's transcription as it stands; its collation is still owed, and it was passed in its place. One further tale of the book's eighth part — Chao Vaen, who went to buy spectacles to read broken letters — stands unfinished in the collection's transcription as it stands, its telling breaking off before its close; its collation is still owed, and it was passed in its place. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S67 · E4
    Saturday · 45 min

    Folk Tales of the Solomon Islands — Part 4 (The Story of the Yam · The Appearance of a Ghost · Siho i Salo, 'Descended from the Sky' · The Story of the Flying Snake · The Story of Sau mamare i ta'alu)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Five tales from Mala, Ulawa and Sa'a, in the southeast Solomon Islands, told exactly as Walter G. Ivens printed them in 1927. A fisherman's hook catches in a yam rooted in the sand beneath the sea, and the hidden yam becomes the food of all the villages, carried from landing to landing with its incantations. A murdered priest's ghost comes to two girls cooking yam soup, and their quick wits turn him away unharmed. Siho i Salo, Descended from the Sky, the man-eating ghost whose ears are like pandanus umbrellas, empties the canoe house by night, eats the whole pig Porotaki throws him, and ends as the appointed guardian of the garden and the forest. A stolen wife is followed across the sea to Mala and brought home by stealth, and Lady Chop Forest works her planting miracles in a garden measured in hundreds of fathoms. And Sau mamare i ta'alu is drawn up to the sky in a net, and her husband Uheli memu climbs the lengthening areca nut, is fanned back to life on a strange beach, and descends with her at the feast. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 02:30 The Story of the Yam 08:33 The Appearance of a Ghost 09:34 Siho i Salo, 'Descended from the Sky' 25:20 The Story of the Flying Snake 37:39 The Story of Sau mamare i ta'alu Passage notes, exactly as told: in The Story of the Yam, eight pigs offered in sacrifice stand in one line of ceremonial description. In The Appearance of a Ghost, the priest's killing is one clause of backstory; the scene itself is the two girls' harmless trick on his ghost. In Siho i Salo, the man-eating ghost eats no one — the men slip away, and Porotaki feeds him a whole pig, which he eats raw in one vivid passage (bones cracking, the ground running with blood); he ends as the garden's appointed guardian. In The Story of the Flying Snake, a war is declared against the stolen wife's hosts in a single clause as an off-page consequence and is never depicted; the tale's body is the flight and the planting miracles. In The Story of Sau mamare i ta'alu, the killing of Topo i salo is a single clause at the climax of an abduction-and-recovery tale whose substance is the journey and the recovery; the alternate ending printed with it carries no killing. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, by name: The Story of Lord Mweo, the Familiar of a Shark (Ulawa), which stands between Siho i Salo and the Flying Snake in the book, and The Story of Puungilalamoa (Sa'a), which stands next after these tales — excluded whole under this shelf's written register, and never narrated. This part tells five tales of Mala, Ulawa and Sa'a from Ivens's folklore chapter, and the shelf claims no completeness that its exclusions contradict. Source: Walter G. Ivens, Melanesians of the South-East Solomon Islands (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1927) — stories of Mala, Ulawa and Sa'a, public domain. Narrated by Magnolia. Music: opening and closing theme, "Blazing Fire", with the same theme as a short separator between stories; no music under the narration. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S15 · E20
    Saturday · 36 min

    Folk Tales of India — Part 20 of 80 (The Ivory City and its Fairy Princess · How the Wicked Sons were Duped · The Pigeon and the Crow) | KacheliTV World Classics

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Three tales from Joseph Jacobs' Indian Fairy Tales. In the first and longest, a prince whose stray arrow grazes a merchant's wife is banished from his father's kingdom, and sets out into exile with the vizier's son, who will not leave him; together they escape a robbers' tower, follow the reflection in a lotus lake to the Ivory City, and win the fairy princess Gulizar — surviving her poisoned pilaw, and clearing her name by a stratagem of a pearl necklace and a graveyard fakir. In the second, a rich old man, abused by the sons he has already enriched, is rescued by a friend's trick: four bags of stones and gravel, passed off as a repaid debt, make the sons attentive again until the day of his death — when the bags are opened. In the third, a Jataka, the Bodhisatta lives as a pigeon in a rich man's kitchen, and watches a greedy crow, who would not be warned, steal the cook's dainty dish and come to grief for it. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Stories: 00:45 The Ivory City and its Fairy Princess 30:22 How the Wicked Sons were Duped 32:42 The Pigeon and the Crow A note on what is not read here. One tale that stands between these in Jacobs' book is not read, under the shelf's standing rule that a tale-type is told once, in its strongest telling: Sun, Moon, and Wind go out to Dinner (Jacobs 27) is a variant of a tale this shelf tells from Mary Frere's collection. It is named here and in the shelf's records, not silently dropped; the shelf as a whole makes no claim to completeness. A note on The Ivory City and its Fairy Princess. The stray arrow that opens the tale does not kill: it grazes the merchant's wife, who faints, and recovers — the tale itself is clear on the point, and the shelf's register records the census summary's "accidental killing" as a false alarm inside the tale. The death sentences spoken in its courts are threats that are never carried out. The tale is read here exactly as Jacobs printed it. From Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892), public domain; Project Gutenberg #7128 — the Panchatantra and Jataka tales Jacobs retold from the older collections, told here as Jacobs printed them. Narrated by Orson. Music: "Lightning Crash" — instrumental opening and closing theme, with short instrumental separators between the stories. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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  • S18 · E19
    Friday · 32 min

    Northern Tales — Part 19 of 22 (A Hunting Tale · Story about the Bad Merchant · Sea-Wanderers · The Big Pike)

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Four tales from the Kolyma country, told in the eighteen nineties and written down by Waldemar Bogoras. Three hunting companions share twenty sable skins unfairly, until the old man by the birch tree — who was once turned into a wolf, and then into a bunch of grass — teaches them what an unfair share costs, and the birch tree beside his house becomes a woman again. The brother who stayed at home catches the Bad Merchant with the merchant's own silver-inlaid lance and sets his workman free. A boatload of sea-wanderers sails three years among wonders — the fox people under the bank, the one-sided fishers, and the people who live on steam — and comes home to wives who had mourned them for dead. And on a Lena-country lake lives a pike so large that its cheek bones once sheltered a man, and the fisherman who met its two eyes on the water would never eat pike again. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 01:39 A Hunting Tale 12:38 Story about the Bad Merchant 19:04 Sea-Wanderers 29:13 The Big Pike Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), recorded for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: N.123 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian Creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896; N.124 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1895; N.126 told by Innocent Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir man, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896; N.130 told by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, at Pokhotsk, summer 1896. Fresh in-house English rendering, heard exactly as screened: the hunting tale and the Big Pike stand whole as printed; in the Bad Merchant, a single sentence of violation and the closing speculation about the prisoners' fate are not carried; in Sea-Wanderers, one island episode — a house with racks of dried human flesh — is left out whole, and the voyage sails on without it. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design. Left out of this part, in book order and by name: N.125 Stepmother and Stepdaughter and N.127 The Tale of La'la (first telling) are excluded whole under the shelf's register — the first turns on habitual stepmother cruelty and ends in a girl torn in two; the second is a war raid and revenge killing from first to last. N.128, the second telling of La'la, stands down as its variant and is never narrated — with the first telling excluded, the La'la story leaves the shelf entirely. Also held by name for the owner's ruling, and untouched: N.116 The She-Monster, N.117 The Monster with Iron Teeth, N.118 The Girl from the Grave-Box, N.119 and N.120 Small-Pox (both versions), N.129 The Woman's Head, and N.142 Story of Hungry Children. This part tells Kolyma tales only, and the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts. Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Falling Leaves at the Ice Cliffs. KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

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