Episode 57 – Silence is Golden – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 57 Show Notes

Source: Jewish Folklore

This week on MYTH, it’s time for the Valentine’s Day special! You’ll see why you shouldn’t bother a woman who doesn’t want to talk to you, that magical death plants are apparently super common, and that you should never trust mysterious old women. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll learn that gazelles are more dangerous than you thought. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 57, “Silence is Golden”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Both today’s main story and our Gods and Monsters segment come from the book Jewish Folktales, collected by Pinhas Sadeh. These stories are incredibly fun to read as well as being mostly stories that aren’t part of the folk tale mainstay. This story is a bizarre, twisty take on fairy tale romance that feels very much in the true spirit of Saint Valentine.
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, there lived a king with his beautiful daughter. As is so often the case, the Queen was nowhere to be seen and her absence is never acknowledged. The story doesn’t say, but I can only presume that the princess took her mother’s loss hard as she apparently refused to speak. At all, even well into adulthood. The king was more than a trifle annoyed by this, not least because her refusal to talk made it difficult to arrange a proper marriage for her with another noble family. Exasperated with her stubborn insistence on silence, the king hung a sign on the palace gates: ‘If you can make the princess talk, you can marry her.’
This news caused quite a stir, and I’m honestly surprised that only 97 young men showed up at the appointed time to try their hand at making this reluctant woman speak and thus secure a very nice life. In stories like this, the line is usually out the door and around the block, but maybe the little caveat at the bottom of the sign had something to do with that. To make sure that only those who were truly committed to marrying the princess (or more likely, were desperate enough to figure they had nothing to lose), the king had ordered that anyone could make the attempt, but if he failed to make his daughter speak, he would be executed. In short order, there were 97 severed heads mounted on spikes along the city walls as a warning to anyone else foolish enough to try their hand at this seemingly impossible task.
Now, in a distant part of this kingdom, there lived an old couple with three children. The father had died suddenly, leaving the family penniless. That’s barely an exaggeration – the man had been deeply in debt, and everything that they owned apart from the house they lived in had been seized to pay his debts. The eldest son looked around at the empty house, then at the small town and its utter lack of any prospects for his making enough money to care for his mother and siblings, and he decided it was up to him to fix his father’s mess. “Mother, something’s gotta change or we’re all gonna die. May I have your blessing to leave our little village and travel? Maybe I can find my fortune somewhere else and save us all.” His mother, already grieving the double blow of losing her husband and everything that she owned in one fell swoop, was heartbroken at the thought of losing one of her children as well, but she could see as well as her son could that they didn’t really have another choice. Tearfully, she packed a small bundle of food from their meager supplies and saw him off on his journey.
The young man set out on the only road out of town and, before long, found himself approaching the kingdom’s capital city. If there was anywhere for a young man to make a name for himself in his homeland, it was here. He heard snatches of rumor as he walked through the city streets and, intrigued, he went to the palace gates and read the sign for himself. The rotting heads of the men who had tried and died before scowled down at him from their perches atop the walls, warning him not to be a dumbass like they had been. The young man stared at the heads for a long time before shrugging. “I don’t have any other options and who knows? Maybe I’ll be luckier than they were!”
He marched up to the guards and told them that he was here in answer to the sign. Shaking their heads at another foolish dead man walking, they brought him inside the palace and turned him over to the servants. He was bathed, shaved, and dressed in fresh clothes (which was something of a strange experience for a poor man unused to having strange people handling his naked body), then he was led to the princess’ room. He bowed politely to this silent young woman and began to regale her with the best stories he knew, the sweetest songs he’d ever heard, and the most puzzling riddles he could think of. Alas for the young man, it was no use. Though he tried from sundown to sunup, the princess never cracked her lips. As the light of dawn crept over the land, the poor young man was dragged away and beheaded, and his sightless eyes joined the previous 97 young men atop the palace walls.
The young man’s mother waited for days for her son to come home, and cried harder and harder each day that no word came. The second son couldn’t stand to watch his mother suffer so, and he decided that something must have happened to his elder brother and it was up to him to go and make things right. “Mother, give me leave to go after my older brother. Sitting here and waiting isn’t doing anything, and I’m going crazy with the waiting besides! Maybe fortune will smile on me if I set out in search of it. Fortune favors the bold, right?” The old woman was terrified that she was about to send a second son off to die in a futile quest to help her eldest, but what could she do? He was right, and they didn’t really have another choice. Tearfully, she packed another small bundle with most of their remaining food and saw him on his way.
Like his brother before, the second son followed the only road until it came to the capital city and, hearing rumors about the silent princess, he too headed for the palace gates. He gazed long at each of the 98 heads impaled there and, when he came to the end of the line, he saw the remains of a face he knew well, and he wept for his poor dead brother. “You were a good man, brother – you didn’t deserve such a shitty fate. You won’t die in vain though, I swear it. Perhaps I’ll be luckier than you were and be the one to make the princess speak.” Following in the steps of his brother’s ghost, he too presented himself to the guards, was spruced up by the servants, and taken to the princess’ chambers. He spent the whole night telling tall tales, making jokes, and reciting poetry, but none of it moved this silent young woman and he too failed to make her speak. As dawn crept over the land, he was taken away and executed, and his severed head was placed on a spike next to his brother’s so that they might rot away together, the smallest of small mercies.
More days passed, and neither son returned home. Their mother’s eyes were red and bleary from constant weeping, and she gazed upon her youngest son, who was also the bravest of the three brothers, with a bone-deep horror of what she knew was going to happen next. Sure enough, Arwa-Harag-Mazar, which means “Puller-Outer of Trees by their Roots”, came to her with a determined look on his face that she knew only too well. “Mother, both of my older brothers have gone out into the world to find their fortune, and neither has returned to tell the tale. I beg your leave to go after them. With luck, I can find them and bring them back home.” Weeping openly, his mother consented. She wanted desperately to refuse him, but she also knew that he was stubborn as an ox when he had his heart set on something (hence his name), and she knew that he would go off after his brothers with or without her blessing. At least this way, he wouldn’t have to sneak off like a thief in the night, and her last memory of him wouldn’t have to be a fight. She packed the smallest bundle yet, with every morsel of food left in the house, and saw him on his way.
Arwa-Harag-Mazar followed the spectres of his dead, departed brothers and soon came to the capital city along the same road. He too found his way to the palace gates and gazed long upon the 99 rotting heads decorating the parapets. He recognized the awful, decrepit faces of his two brothers and wept for their deaths. “My poor brothers! What sins did you commit to deserve such a horrible fate?” Here, Arwa-Harag-Mazar showed greater wisdom than either of his brothers. Rather than marching directly to the guards and asking to be shown in, he found a little coffee shop nearby, ordered a drink, and stared up at the severed heads warning him of the dire consequences of failing what he was thinking about attempting.
The owner saw the young man staring at the unhappy dead and tried to deter him from accepting the challenge. He had seen 99 young men walk into the palace, and none had ever walked out again. They had gone with their stories, their poems, their songs, their jokes, and their riddles, and none of it had done any of them any good, and he warned that it wouldn’t do Arwa-Harag-Mazar any good either. The young man nodded absent-mindedly and the shopkeeper wandered away, muttering to himself about the damned foolishness of youth.
Arwa-Harag-Mazar was far from a fool though, and he took the kind man’s advice to heart. Clearly, everyone had tried some variation on the same things, and it hadn’t worked for any of them. If he went into the palace without a plan, he’d meet the same fate as his brothers, and leave his poor mother alone and heartbroken with no hope of ever seeing any of her sons again. He stayed until his coffee was gone, and then headed to the palace gates, an idea percolating in his brain.
As before, the servants got the young man cleaned and presentable for the princess and then dropped him off in her chambers. Unlike the 99 men before, however, Arwa-Harag-Mazar completely ignored the princess. He didn’t look at her, he didn’t greet her, and he said not a single word. The princess was seated in her usual chair in one corner of the room, so Arwa-Harag-Mazar went and sat in another corner of the room and ignored the shit out of her. Hours passed without any sound but the quiet susurration of their breathing.
Finally, as dawn was creeping closer towards the horizon, Arwa-Harag-Mazar moved for the first time the whole night. Still completely ignoring the princess, he pulled a small candle out of his pocket and began to speak to it, pausing to let it respond, and laughing occasionally at its witticisms. The princess was dumbfounded by this insane behavior. “What the hell are you doing? Are you completely mad? You can’t talk to a candlestick!” Arwa-Harag-Mazar smiled. Bingo.
The guard posted outside the room dropped his sword at the impossible sound of a young woman’s voice coming from the princess’ chambers. He’d never heard her speak before, obviously, but there was no doubt that it was really her and not the young man trying a falsetto impression (which I’m sure at least one of the 99 dead men had tried). When dawn came and they opened her door, Arwa-Harag-Mazar tried to throw her over his shoulder and get the hell out of Dodge. The guard held up a hand, and the young man paused. “You’ve won the challenge, no doubt about it, but it would be a huge scandal if you just up and left with the princess like this. The king might have my head for it. Could you please stay long enough to get her father’s blessing and let him marry you two properly, per the terms of the challenge?” Arwa-Harag-Mazar thought that this was a fair request and agreed to wait.
A messenger was sent, and the grand vizier soon arrived on the scene. There’s always a grand vizier, and he’s pretty much always a selfish asshole; this vizier was no exception. He’d actually been the one to suggest beheading anyone who tried to win the princess’ hand and failed because, inevitably, he had a son of his own and intended to marry the princess off to him to increase his own power. He figured that if he could make the price so steep that no one was willing to try for her hand anymore, he’d be able to convince the king to accept his son as a suitor without any fuss. The guards relayed the story of Arwa-Harag-Mazar’s success, and the vizier was naturally quietly furious.
He wasn’t an evil grand vizier for nothing though, and so he promised to take the message directly to the king immediately. And he did, but not without putting as much doubt and concern in his voice as humanly possible. “My liege, if this dirty peasant is really as clever and brave as he claims to be, then surely he can pass a simple test (never mind the fact that he’d already passed the only test in the rules). Tell him to bring you the Rooster that Sings – if he does, then he is worthy to marry your daughter; if not, then he clearly cheated and should be put to death!” The king had some hesitation, but the vizier had spent years earning his trust and so he was convinced.
The young man was finally brought before the king, fully expecting to be congratulated on his success. “Young man, you have beaten the challenge and won the right to my daughter’s hand, but would you mind doing your father-in-law to be a small favor? Could you bring me the Rooster that Sings?” Arwa-Harag-Mazar had never heard of the Rooster that Sings, nor did he have any idea where to find it, but he wasn’t about to admit defeat to the king. He had too much pride for that, and too much confidence in his own cleverness. Besides, you only got one chance to make a first impression, and he wanted his new father-in-law to like him so that there weren’t any accidental assassinations on to remove him from the family after the wedding. “No problem, your highness. Nothing could be easier.”
Because this is a fairy tale, and fairy tale heroes have strange powers for no reason whatsoever, Arwa-Harag-Mazar took a page from Episode 40 and gave the princess three flower pots with small plants in them. “These are for you. Make sure you water them all once a week. If the first one dies, you’ll know that one-third of my strength is gone; if the second dies, two-thirds is gone; and if the third dies, I too have died.” With no further explanation, he said goodbye to his betrothed, saddled up, and headed out.
He rode for a month, presumably asking around the countryside about this supposed singing rooster, until he eventually came to a crossroads with a most peculiar road sign. One arm said ‘If you go this way, you’ll never return!’; the other said ‘Have a nice trip!’ This left the young man with a conundrum. The road that promised a safe, pleasant journey seemed the obvious choice, but it could be a trap and besides – he wasn’t out questing for a nice vacation, but for adventure. He decided to head down the road of no return and let the chips fall where they may.
He rode down this unexpectedly gentle road until he came to an old woman. Surely she wasn’t the threat, right? She looked up at the young man as he rode her way. “Oh, you poor fool!” “Hey, nobody asked your opinion.” “That’s true, so I guess I’ll give you some more advice you didn’t ask for. If you’re smart enough to listen to me, you might just survive this journey. Keep riding until you come to a large field dotted with tall trees. In the center of this field lives the Rooster that Sings (which I presume you’re seeking or you wouldn’t be way the hell out here). It’s guarded by a monster though, because of course it is. If you try to approach the rooster’s cage, you’ll be devoured by the seven-headed beast. Hide and watch the awful creature first: if it’s eyes are open, it’s actually asleep and you can approach with caution; if they’re closed, it’s awake and waiting. Even if you make it out of the woods alive with the rooster, you’ll still have to pass through three more dangers.”
The young man was initially annoyed at this presumptuous and condescending old woman, but she was offering him all kinds of unexpected exposition, so he decided to encourage her. “And what might these three dangers be?” “The first is a path that ends in the middle of itself. When you get there, you must say ‘What a lovely path this is! If only I had all the king my father’s horses with me, I would break into a jig.’ As soon as you speak these words, the path will continue on for you. Next, you’ll come to an impassable swamp at the bottom of a valley. When you get there, say ‘How sweet is the honey in this valley! If someone were to bring it to my father the king, I would gladly eat it.’ The swamp will dry up and you will be able to cross the valley. Last, you will come to another valley, this one drowned in fresh blood, putrid pus, and wild beasts. When you get to this awful place, say ‘What good butter this is! If I had my father the king’s bread with me now, I would spread this tasty butter on it.’ This valley will also dry up, and the wild beasts will scatter, freeing you to return home with the rooster.”
This is all some incredibly specific and wildly impossible to guess requirements to pass these utterly insane obstacles, and so the young man thanked the incredible deus ex machina that had brought the only person around who could have possibly kept him from dying in a number of very unusual ways across his path and headed towards his destiny. He rode for a time, and soon saw a large wood rising in the distance, exactly as the old woman had promised. He approached with great caution until he could see the massive form of the seven-headed beast and, beyond, the rooster in his cage. The monster’s eyes were shut tight on all seven heads and, although the monster didn’t move, the young man waited to see if the old woman had been right. Camping in whatever meager shelter he could find and trying to preserve his dangerously low food, Arwa-Harag-Mazar waited and watched for three months which, according to the tale, are like a single day to this peculiar monster.
Finally, Arwa-Harag-Mazar saw the beast’s eyes open slowly and could see a subtle shift in the way the creature held itself, signifying that it was indeed finally asleep. He crept cautiously into the field, slipped a small ring of keys from the creature’s claws, and opened the rooster’s cage, praying that it wouldn’t start crowing at him. The little bird was mercifully silent, watching him with curious eyes as he crept back out of the field, mounted his horse, and raced back the way he had come.
Even though it had only taken him a month to reach the field in the first place, he rode for another three months down the path away from the seven-headed monster until finally he came to the end of any clear path, which was the middle of the perilous road if the old woman was to be believed. Back in said field, the monster had finished its three-month sleep and woke up to find its keys in the lock of the rooster’s cage, and the cage itself empty. There was only one path in or out of this field, and the monster bellowed in challenge and lumbered off in pursuit of the chicken thief.
As far as I can tell, the strange magic of the perilous path did not affect the monster, which makes as much sense as anything else in this story, and so it was able to catch up to Arwa-Harag-Mazar in no time at all. It reached out it’s wickedly sharp claws to seize the terrified young man when the old woman’s advice rose up in his memory. “What a lovely path this is! If only I had all my father the king’s horses, I would break into a jig.” The path immediately opened up before him, allowing him to heel his horse into a gallop and stay just a little bit ahead of the slavering beast.
He soon came to the swampy valley, and this time he was prepared with the odd passphrase. “How sweet is the honey in this valley! If someone were to bring it to my father the king, I would gladly eat it.” As promised, the valley dried up, allowing him to cross, but the distance between himself and the monster had shrunk. Desperately, he raced for the second valley and the final obstacle. He blurted out the words without slowing down this time, mere inches away from death. “What good butter this is! If I had the king my father’s bread with me, I would gladly eat it.” This valley too was immediately made safe and Arwa-Harag-Mazar fled across it.
The story doesn’t explain this next bit, but he apparently arrives almost immediately at the old woman’s hut with the monster nowhere to be seen. I can only presume that it was somehow bound to the perilous path and was unable to follow him out of the last valley. Either way, the old woman greeted him as a conquering hero. “You’re a brave fellow indeed, but you must be exhausted after such an ordeal. Come, rest the night in my home. After you’ve eaten and slept, you can continue on your way.” Without waiting for a response, she turned to her yard, sowed some barley seed, grew it, reaped it, threshed it, ground it, and made him a bowl of simply the best couscous he had ever had, all in exactly one minute because why the fuck not.
While she was engaged in this flurry of impossible activity, the rooster spoke to Arwa-Harag-Mazar because sure that might as well happen too. “You poor fool! I pity you. After enduring so much to come and get me, this tricky old woman is going to steal me away the moment you close your eyes. I like you though, so I’ll give you a fighting chance. When she comes back to serve you the couscous, watch her very, very closely. When she does so, she will take out two staves, one silver and the other gold. If she strikes with the silver staff, she’ll transform you into a dog and if she touches you with the gold, you’ll turn back into a man. You need to wrest the silver staff from her and hit her with it instead. Otherwise, my new friend, you’re fucked.”
The old woman comes back holding a bowl of couscous, a silver staff, and a golden staff, and the young man steals the silver one, hits her with it, turns her into a dog, and ties her up with a bit of rope to keep her from running away. Seriously. It’s that easy – no muss, no fuss, no struggle, just wham, bam, doggy ma’am. Safe from the scheming old woman, who had apparently been waiting along this path for who knows how long waiting for the right fool to come along and retrieve the rooster for her (I presume because she’s not fast enough to get away from the monster, although the story offers no explanation whatsoever), the young man set out for the capital.
Meanwhile, back in the palace, the princess had gone up to the roof to water the three plants her husband had left behind. Apparently absence really does make the heart grow fonder, for she had fallen completely in love with the man she had spent exactly one mostly-silent and uneventful night with while he was gone. She saw that two of the plants had died in the night, but the third had sprouted a fresh green leaf. Remembering his words, she knew that though he had come perilously close to his own death, he had succeeded in his quest. Delighted to find that he was alive and safe, the princess who had gone for most of her life without so much as speaking began to sing and dance. From the window in his office, the grand vizier watched this strange sight and somehow correctly deduced that Arwa-Harag-Mazar had succeeded and vowed to have the fellow killed before he could return. But don’t worry, because he’s going to do absolutely nothing else in the story for no reason whatsoever. I guess the story must have forgotten about him in the excitement of finishing up. Oh well.
The next day, the king went up onto the roof with his daughter. As he was looking out over the horizon, he saw a figure on horseback trotting towards the castle. As he came closer, the king could see the rooster nestled under one arm and a dog on a long rope following behind. The king knew that this had to be his about-to-be son-in-law and sent out a welcoming party for this incredible, brave young man. Arwa-Harag-Mazar was brought into the palace, spruced up a bit, and then ushered into the princess’ room. The young couple was married straight away, and then proceeded to stay in the princess’ chambers for ten straight days.
On the tenth day, the young man emerged and asked his father-in-law to gather his advisors, generals, officials, and viziers to come and see what he had brought back from his harrowing journey. Once everyone was assembled on the roof, he took the bird out of its cage, tied it to the castle, and asked it to regale everyone with its songs and poetry. The rooster spread its wings, puffed itself up self-importantly, and squawked loudly in what was unmistakably a throat-clear. Then it began to sing a wondrous song with a hauntingly beautiful melody, then proceeded to recite original poems of such grandeur that it reduced grown men to tears. Once the performance was finished, Arwa-Harag-Mazar brought forth the dog. Taking the golden staff, he touched the dog, transforming it instantly back into the old woman, much to the amazement of the onlookers.
That done, the young man stepped forward to tell the incredible tale of his adventures, but the rooster interrupted and begged leave to be the one to tell the story. Arwa-Harag-Mazar granted his permission, and the rooster launched into the story, delighting in every detail, and not leaving out a single twist or turn or narrow escape. By the end of this epic, the king and his advisors were all very much impressed with their new prince. He was clearly the best they could possibly have hoped for to marry the once-silent princess. Once he had gotten over the shock of his son-in-law’s heroism, the king asked him what he intended to do next. “Take my wife back home to my mother’s.”
After everything that he had just heard, the king felt like he didn’t really have much of a choice but to relent and accept this unwelcome decision. He hoped that the couple wouldn’t stay away from the palace too long, but he couldn’t begrudge the young man wanting to see his mother again or to introduce her to his new bride. Turning the old woman back into a dog with the silver staff, he sat the princess behind him on his horse and rode off for home.
His mother wept openly as he rode up to the house, for she had been convinced that he was lost along with his two brothers (who had never returned and who she still had no definitive word of). He dismounted and helped the princess down from the horse, then gave her the abridged version of everything that had happened, including the unhappy news that both of his brothers were dead. “You see this young woman, mother? Both of my brothers died because of her.” With that, he drew a sword and, in one swift and completely surprising move, beheaded his wife, the princess. He then sent her head back to her father the king with a letter which read: ‘99 heads rolled because of your daughter. Here is one more to make it an even hundred!”
And…that’s it. That’s how it ends. Thanks, I hate it. Seriously, everything about this ending is utterly bonkers and needlessly cruel. The princess is arguably the only person in the story who bears absolutely no blame for anything that happened. It was the vizier who dreamed up the execution twist to the king’s proclamation, and it was the king who agreed to and carried it out. Each of the dead young men had walked into that situation with their eyes wide open and clearly knew the risks, since the king had made no secret about the punishment for failure. I think it’s borderline evil of the king to make that decree, but he wasn’t exactly twisting anyone’s arm to take the challenge, including the two brothers who had each looked at the long line of severed heads and decided ‘Maybe I’ll get lucky.’ He’s also pretty much guaranteed that the king is not going to rest until the man who murdered his daughter is brought to justice and executed, and magical staves or no, one man is no match for an army. He and his mother are probably goners, especially since he doesn’t appear to have come home with any money or food or, indeed, any means of supporting himself or his mother, which was explicitly what he set out to do. On the other hand, if you’re familiar with the story of the martyrdom of Saint Valentine, it seemed appropriate to include a story about a couple getting married followed by a beheading.
And so, with the innocent punished and the wicked completely ignored, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s story, in keeping with our Valentine’s theme, is a different version of the tale of the silent princess.
Sadeh’s book indicates that this story is a different (and much less convoluted) version of the main story, and it only seemed right to include this much less bonkers version. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still coocoo pants bananas, but without all of the needless magic and poorly justified murder. Once, long ago, there lived an old king who had three sons. The king was dying, and he knew it, so he summoned his children to him. “My dear sons, I am leaving each of you a magical fig tree: if you ever see its leaves wilt, then you will know that its owner has died. As for me, set my white horse free to run where it wills, and bury me wherever it stops.” And with these final words, the king died.
The three sons honored their father’s final wish and set his horse free, following it until it finally stopped at the foot of a mountain. There, they dug a grave for the old king and buried him with only themselves to mourn. As was custom, the eldest son inherited the kingdom. One day, he was out exploring his new responsibility and happened upon the place where they had buried his father. He decided to go and pay his respects, but as he approached the grave, he saw a gazelle bounding across the field. It was a magnificent animal, and he immediately gave chase, determined to hunt the beast down and claim it as his prize. The gazelle, unusually crafty for its kind, leapt into a well and hid from the young king.
For three days and nights, the man waited for the beast to emerge from its hiding place, but it stayed put. He finally gave this whole thing up as not really worth it anymore, and continued on his way until he came to a city he had never visited before. It was striking, for along the city walls, above the gate, were impaled 80 skulls. “That’s weird. What’s the deal with all the skulls? It’s pretty macabre.” A passerby heard his idle comment and decided to answer what had been intended as a rhetorical question. “There is a princess in this city who refuses to talk. She never says a single word, nor answers anyone’s questions. It has been decreed that whomever can get her to talk will marry her and inherit the kingdom, but any who try and fail must lose their heads. Each of those 80 skulls once belonged to a young man who thought he was up to the task.”
The young king did the only practical and responsible thing for the new monarch of a neighboring kingdom to do and decided to head home and talk it over with his brothers and advisors. Just kidding, he declared that he would be the one to marry the princess and marched immediately into the city, responsibilities be damned. He went straight in to see her and talked with her until he was blue in the face, but he never got a single peep out of her and so, king or no, he was seized and beheaded, and his royal skull was added to the walls.
Meanwhile, back in the city, the young king’s subjects were going about their day and running the kingdom in their monarch’s absence until the first magical fig tree bequeathed by the old king suddenly withered and died. Everyone knew that this meant the king was dead, long live the king. The second brother was crowned almost immediately, and life went on. He became curious about the fate of his brother, since all he knew was that he had met his demise while off wandering the kingdom all alone. Learning absolutely nothing from his brother’s example, he too went exploring all alone and soon came to the place where they had buried the old king. He too was led astray by the strangely intelligent gazelle and came to the city of the silent princess. He also tried to win her hand and instead lost his head. His fig tree withered and died, leaving the third and youngest son in charge. The king is dead, long live the king. Again.
Learning nothing from the example of his two dead elder siblings, again, he too went off alone in search of some news about the fate of his brothers, came to the mountain where their father was buried, and caught sight of the strange gazelle. Like his brothers before him, he gave chase, but unlike them, he actually managed to catch the damned thing. I mean that literally, for when he demanded to know who the hell this asshole was, the gazelle replied that he was a demon. He then told the young king all about the city of the silent princess and it’s skeletal decor. In return for his freedom, the demon promised to tell the king how to safely win the princess’ hand.
The king considered this offer for all of half a second before agreeing. “When you enter the princess’ room, my sister and I (did I mention I have a sister? I have a sister) will turn ourselves into doves and hide beneath her bed. As soon as the servants bring her dinner, grab it and eat every last bite of it. Then, knock on the table and the two of us will emerge and transform into two young men with dancing girls and musicians.” It seems odd that two demons are somehow going to become a whole bunch of people, but magic I guess. Like I said, coocoo-pants bananas.
The king thanked the demon, because his father had taught him to always be polite, then went to the grim city to meet the princess. He did exactly as instructed, and when the doves had become young men, he told the princess a story. “Once, three workmen came to me for judgment. The first, a carpenter, had found a log and carved it into the form of a young woman. The second, a tailor, had sewn fine clothes for this wooden woman and dressed her in them. The third, a smith, had breathed life into her with his bellows, which I guess were magic or something, but that’s not important. Each had a part in her creation, and the question was: to which of the three men did she belong. I determined that she belonged to the carpenter.”
The princess snorted in indignation. “That’s ridiculous! She belongs to the smith, who breathed life into her!” Personally, I would have argued that she belonged to herself, being a fucking living, sentient woman and all, but nobody asked me. The king smiled. “You are right, of course, but you have now spoken, which means that you belong to me.” The princess conceded that he was right and the two were soon married and returned to the young man’s kingdom to live out their days happily. I have no idea what happened to the kingdom she was from (presumably there was a king or something in charge there, but he’s never mentioned and no explanation is given) or why any of this murder nonsense was necessary in the first place, or whether she was in league with the demon gazelle, but hey – at least we get a happy fairy tale ending!
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you like what you’ve heard, I’d appreciate a review on iTunes. These reviews really help increase the show’s standing and let more people know it exists. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, we’ll journey to the ancient empire of the Maya to learn about the greatest threat in the jungle – a bunny rabbit. You’ll find out that animals have weak points just like video game bosses, that some fashion is to die for, and that armadillos make good pack animals. Then, in Gods and Monsters, I am vengeance! I am the night! I am Batgod! That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.