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Penny Wagers

James Hart

Instead of analyzing myths and folklore, it's much more fun to walk through 'em. Why not grab your shoes and come along? You can also find me on Substack.

pennywagers.substack.com
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  • 23 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 12 min
  • English

Episodes 23

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  • April 21 · 20 min

    Fionn and the Raven

    Check out more of Joe Heaney’s storytelling on his website. I, too, have met the Short Little Man. He didn’t look anything like Fionn’s companion, of course. Things are different in North America. It was a day or two before I moved to Australia. One thing I still needed to do was drive back to my office and pick up my bike. (I built it myself, so no way was I going to abandon it.) It was a Saturday. I never visited my office on the weekend, which should have put me on my guard to begin with. Outside of routine, your office really isn’t your office. Once-familiar places can become haunts for the surreal and unexpected. I parked half a block from the entrance. All I had to do was walk up the hill, use my card to open the garage, get to the bike rack, walk my bike to my car and drive off. It should’ve taken about four minutes. I was busying myself looking for quarters for the meter—they still used change then—when he walked up to me. Started in with the whole dance that everyone who works in D.C. is familiar with. Excuse me do you have any money or spare change for some food and some etc. I absently replied with something about only having a card on me and waved him off. He was having none of it. He planted himself in front of me, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Come on, man, I’m just trying to get something to eat!” “Yeah?” I said. “Whadda ya want?” Without skipping a beat, he said, “A burger.” Right behind him, over his shoulder and across the street, there was a Five Guys. Something you should know about Five Guys burgers: They’re a big chain in America now, but they started in D.C. I can’t vouch for the ones you’ll find in strip malls in Ohio, New York or Pennsylvania, but the D.C. Five Guys are something else entirely. Never frozen, perfectly sourced patties that come with fries freshly bathed in peanut oil. Not with a stick could you ever beat those burgers. You can’t really argue with a guy who knows what he wants. So we walked across the street and we both had some Five Guys. I remember the confusion on the cashier’s face and a couple of stolen glances by other customers, but other than that it was a fairly normal affair. He didn’t order anything extravagant and neither did I. I don’t remember whether we got our tray of peanuts. Then we ate and went our separate ways. I like this story for a whole lot of reasons. Not least because it’ll allow you to put one over on the Film Studies majors out there. “It all started with Seven Samurai, did it? Well, listen to this!” It also reminds me of the story of the Road to Emmaus. Recall that Fionn asked God to guide him before he even stepped out the door. It’s eye-opening, what that can truly entail. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

  • April 14 · 7 min

    Snake Woman's Treasure

    Weird story, right? Was the woman some kind of witch, or princess under an enchantment? What finally got into the bones of the old man to take to the forest that day? What I like about the story is that, short as it is, it doesn’t accommodate such questions. Instead, it invites you to practice what a Disney animator friend of mine calls confusion tolerance. Part of that is knowing that sometimes you have to ask different questions. For me, the story has a lot of time imagery to it. An old man getting older. A deadline that coincides with the shift between maximum potential to waning energies. And strange prognostications about the future told from nature’s perspective. The story reminds me of what I find myself remembering each time I spend a serious stint out in the woods: modern life has put us into orbit. We’re going a million miles an hour standing still. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

  • April 6 · 25 min

    The Red Silk Ribbon

    There’s a lot in this story I like to sit with. For starters, I wonder if anyone out there can relate to the fisherman father. Actually, no I don’t. I wonder if in this place and time there’s anyone who can’t. All the fish in all the world are nothing compared to the one thing you don’t even know you have. Yeah, that sits with me, too. It’s interesting that Lucas decides to be a cooper. Why a cooper? There aren’t too many of those in the old stories. But here are a few things I know about coopers: * They’re in some ways the neurosurgeons of carpentry. Coopers are not highly but unbelievably skilled. * Their work involves the four elements: earth and fire help separate air from water. * The job of a cooper is to seal in spirits. There’s a lot going on with the dead horse. Horses can be a kind of balanced perspective in the old stories: half-wild, half domesticated, and many of them can talk. What does it mean to find a dead horse in the forest? Going back to coopers again, please do watch part of the video I shared above. As incredibly precise as their work is, they don’t rely too much on mechanical measurement. Everything’s proportional—everything in their work must relate to everything else. And so their knack for balance and proportionality is learned by repetition that becomes intuition. It’s the bear who wants to call Lucas back, but it’s the fox who acts as messenger. Foxes certainly do have big Hermes energy. Fox wisdom I believe is well-understood, but look what happens in the inn. Lucas doesn’t just go all Hulkamania on the gamblers and flatten them out with folding chairs—he becomes the ant first. Ant wisdom seems to involve careful positioning and quietly going about one’s work. You don’t bring out the bear until it’s the right time and right place. The falcon has the best vantage point out of all of them, and can easily fly over its obstacles. Lucas becomes the falcon last. The three identical sisters are interesting. The king seems to have some sense of the need for a middle way for his kingdom but sacrificed too much of his village’s future to find it. That can certainly be a problem. When the mermaid returns, we now see clearly that tears and sorrow seem to bring her around. I think it would be a mistake to consider her a simply evil entity. Good luck eliminating the mermaids in your own life—try as you might to avoid them along the coast, they’ll just find you later in the forest. Mermaids are things to be dealt with. If you’re a fairy tale geek like me, you might hear echoes of The Handless Maiden in the fisherman-and-mermaid scene, or The Lindworm Prince when we get to the cauldrons. I would caution you against waving your hand and saying, “oh yes oh yes, I know that archetype, I know the lesson here.” High school, English lit and Substack posts like this one have lied to you, I’m sorry to say. Stories don’t serve you best by being analyzed, interpreted or diagnosed. Their purpose is not to be written about in some “take” or blue book. It’s a disgrace we consider them mere cultural artifacts, and any teacher who has taught you to read one in search of an Allegorical Answer Key to reveal what each character “symbolizes” hasn’t done you any favors. As I mentioned earlier, no king is just a king. The king is your future potential. The king is the culture. The king is the ego, the pre-frontal cortex, government authority and the spirit of the age. These stories are supposed to resonate in that way. They’re older than us, they’ve had entire cultures as co-authors, and they all have their own bends in the road they’re trying to walk us through. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe

Showing 21–23 of 23 episodes