Episode 139 – Long Live the King – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 139 Show Notes

Source: Arthurian Legend

This week on MYTH, we’re traveling back to ye olde London for the strange birth of the legendary King Arthur. You’ll see that destiny can be written across the sky, that even a half-dead king is better than nothing, and that it’s easy to abuse magic. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll seek help for an endless swarm of rats. 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 139, “Long Live the King”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
We’re heading back through the mists of Avalon to the world of Arthurian legend and to the origins of the legendary king himself. We’ll be using Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur as the primary source for this tale, which more or less picks up from where Episode 98’s origins of the wizard Merlin left off. As mentioned before, Malory was heavily influenced by the centuries earlier History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth and tells a very similar origin story for King Arthur.
When we last left our heroes, the King of Britain was Aurelius Ambroisus who, along with his brother Uther, had retaken the land from the usurper Vortigern and his invading Saxon allies. Years passed since that time and Aurelius fell ill. Vortigern’s son Paschent, who had escaped his father’s immolation, had grown into a vengeful adult and returned to Britain at the head of an invading army of traitors and Saxons. Unable to take the field himself, he sends his brother Uther in his place along with the country’s greatest magician, Merlin. As they marched, the sky above was split by the blazing form of a dazzling comet. Everyone who saw it agreed that it looked uncannily like a fiery dragon, especially the wizard who saw in its shining form a prophecy: the death of the good but ill Aurelius and the rise of the glorious Uther.
Heartened by this mystic sign, the Brittons marched on the Saxons and routed them, driving Paschent back with his tail between his legs. Uther returned victorious and took the name that most people today know him by – Pendragon, which means ‘the dragon’s head’. This means both the literal dragon’s head, but also a more poetic head warrior. His victorious return is dampened somewhat by the fact that King Aurelius was dead, poisoned by an assassin while Uther was away. The king is dead, long live the king.
King Uther reigned strongly and well, but this was a time of conflict and betrayal so it was not without its wars. During the long string of battles across the land, the king was often aided by the mighty Duke of Cornwall, Tintagil (or Gorlois in other version). Wanting to honor his most trusted and powerful retainer, Uther summoned Duke Tintagil to the capital along with his lady wife, Igraine for a feast. The Lady Igraine was famed throughout the lands as both an incredibly wise and beautiful woman. Uther found himself fully agreeing with this assessment and figured hey, it’s good to be the king right? Who wouldn’t want to sleep with a handsome, brave king? Even if she’s, you know, married to one of your greatest allies?
At the feast held that night in honor of the visiting dignitaries, Uther made a pass at Igraine, essentially asking ‘if I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?’ Uther was too powerful to slap and storm off (at least here in the midst of his power), but Igraine managed to turn him down more or less gracefully. She was understandably pissed at the king’s slimy fuckboy behavior and informed her husband as soon as she could get him alone. “It seems that our less-than-honorable king has only brought us here to try and get into my pants. I’m getting the sense that he’s not used to being told ‘no’ so I’m worried about what he might try if we stay here in his castle tonight. We should leave now. If we ride through the night, we can be back behind the stout walls of our own castle before he knows we’re gone.”
Tintagil loved his wife and respected her wise counsel, so that’s exactly what they did. In the midst of their revelry, neither Uther nor any of his counselors realized that the couple was gone until they were safely away. When Uther did try to go and make a second, more forceful pass at Igraine, he was pissed as hell to realize she had left. He took it as a personal insult (which it kind of was, but he had made the first and much larger insult by hitting on a married and very disinterested woman) and called together his privy council.
The king’s advisers were more yes-men than actual advisers, so they vigorously nodded their heads in assent at the suggestion that Tintagil had gravely insulted the king. A messenger was sent out immediately to instruct the Duke of Cornwall to return to the capital immediately to apologize or it would mean war between the two of them. The Duke understandably refused to do such a ridiculous thing and sent the messengers back with that reply. As Igraine had suspected, Uther didn’t like being told no and he went into a red rage. His message back warned Tintagil that within 40 days, he would be pulled screaming from whatever castle he thought he could hide in. No walls, no matter how stout, could stop the king’s wrath.
The Dukedom of Cornwall had several strong castles, so Tintagil had two of them made ready for war. He made his war camp in the closer one, Castle Terrabil, and sent his wife to the stronger location, Castle Tintagil. Uther would be sure to assault the castle arrayed with the Duke and his strongest warriors. Splitting his force between two fortresses was maybe not the best strategic plan, but it would hopefully ensure that Igraine remained safe. Castle Terrabil was chosen specifically because it had multiple defensible and hidden exits. If worse came to worst, the Duke could slip out the back and escape Uther and his army, riding to meet up with his wife and his second, much stronger fort.
As predicted, Uther soon arrived with his host and laid siege to Castle Terrabil. The war between them was brutal and bloody, with many men on both sides hacked to pieces to bleed out in the muddy earth. Despite the violence, neither side could gain the advantage. As the war raged on, Uther’s desperate desire for the Lady Igraine only grew stronger and his rage at her husband for keeping her from him grew more furious. This awful combination swirled inside the king until he fell ill from it. Worried about the king’s unexpected sickness, the great knight Sir Ulfius came to the king in private to ask what was going on. “I like you, Ulfius, so I’ll tell you. I am deeply and wholly in love with the lovely Igrain and the denial of that love and the anger at her being kept from me is making me literally and physically ill. Unless I can sleep with her, this case of royal blue balls is going to keep me from ever being well again. I must have her, Ulfius!”
The noble knight was loyal to his king and he was also wise enough to recognize a problem that was beyond his ability to solve. He also knew who to ask for help with tricky problems like this – the wizard. He set out at once to seek out Merlin, who he soon found disguised as a beggar for reasons known only to him. He listened intently as Ulfius laid out the situation, then he nodded sagely. “I can do this thing. Return to King Uther and tell him that if he will swear to reward me what I desire, then I shall ensure that he has everything that he desires in turn.” Open-ended bargains are risky, but Ulfius decided this was worth it. Uther had given the knight his blessing for this task, so he agreed to the half-demon magician’s terms. “Excellent. Return to the king and I’ll be right behind you.”
Ulfius was thrilled by this news and galloped back to Uther Pendragon to relay his success. He was a little confused by the absence of a wizard but accepted the fact that wizards moved in their own time and could not be hurried by mere knights. As promised, Merlin wasn’t long in coming and, to his credit, he reiterated the terms of the deal he had laid out with Ulfius and got Uther’s enthusiastic consent to them before proceeding. He may be the son of a literal demon, but he’s not a monster. Uther swore by the four evangelists to give Merlin whatever he asked for, whatever it might be.
“Excellent. Here is what’s going to happen, your highness. I’m going to get you your night of passion with Igraine in Castle Tintagil. When I do, you’re going to get her pregnant with a child – I have foreseen it. When that child is born, you will deliver it to me to raise as I see fit. My methods and my reason are my own. Are we agreed?” Uther wasn’t terribly concerned about a theoretical child who might never exist (and certainly wouldn’t unless Merlin held up his end of the bargain), so this was a cheap price in his mind. “Deal.”
“Amazing. Alright, prepare yourself your highness, because tonight is the night that you fuck the Duchess. I am going to disguise you to look like the Duke of Cornwall himself and your loyal knight Ulfius will become Sir Jordanus, Tintagil’s loyal bannerman. This illusion will get you past the guards but don’t press it by answering too many questions. If you don’t act like Tintagil, they might get suspicious – instead, say you’ve missed Igraine so badly that it has made you ill and that you need to be with her alone all night. Get to bed, have your fun, and stay there until I come for you in the morning. Castle Tintagil is only ten miles from here, so ride out as soon as I finish this spell. Now hold still.”
The sun was setting as Uther and Ulfius rode away from the siege of Terrabil for their dark, secret reasons. The Duke’s spies saw the king leaving and reported this incredible opportunity. Tintagil couldn’t begin to understand why Uther would abandon his men like this, but he fully intended to capitalize on it. He led a sortie out through one of the hidden posterns to harry the king’s forces under the cover of darkness. It worked. Sort of. The king’s men were caught flat-footed and bloodied, but Duke Tintagil was slain in the battle. And so King Uther won the war while he was busy trying to sleep with his foe’s wife without the king’s army ever breaching the castle walls.
Of course, neither Uther nor Igraine knew that the Duke was dead when they slipped away to a private room inside Castle Tintagil only three hours later. Igraine couldn’t help but notice that her “husband” fucked her like it was the very first time (because it was). And yes, this is absolutely rape by deception, just like that horrifying moment in Revenge of the Nerds that was somehow played for laughs. They went multiple rounds and then passed out into a sweaty, exhausted heap until Merlin roused the king at dawn the next morning. Kissing his pretend wife/assault victim goodbye and pretending to return to the war, Uther left Igraine none the wiser. Worse, Merlin’s prophecy proved to be completely true – when Uther slipped back out of the castle with the wizard in the morning, he left Igraine pregnant with his child.
With the rising sun came word that Duke Tintagil was dead and that he had been dead since the previous sunset. Lady Igraine was understandably confused as to how her lord husband could have slipped out of her bed this morning after another round of furious lovemaking when he had apparently fallen dead on some knight’s sword hours before. She had no way of knowing if it was his dead spirit, some kind of fae in disguise, or something even more impossible so she kept her mouth shut and told no one what had happened.
With Tintagil dead, there was no one to continue the hostilities. Speaking with his barons (who were still assembled with Uther’s host), it was decided that the best way to ensure peace going forward would be for the king to secure the hand of the late Duke’s widow in marriage. Having just discovered firsthand how feisty she was in bed, Uther was very, very on board with his plan. Igraine was a practical woman and so, when Ulfius returned to Castle Tintagil with word of Uther’s offer of marriage, she realized that this was the best possible way out of this mess for her. If she’d realized that the king had been the one to assault her in disguise she might have felt differently, but she didn’t. Not then.
With the King marrying the new Queen, her existing daughters needed to be married off to suitable matches (which could also be used to strengthen alliances for the kingdom). King Lot of Lothian and of Orkney was wed to Margase, the eldest daughter. They would soon give birth to a son they would name Gawain, who would become one of the most famous Knights of the Round Table. King Nentres of Garlot was wed to Elaine, the second eldest daughter. The youngest daughter Morgan, later known as Morgan le Fay or Morgan the Fairy, was sent to a nunnery. In Robert de Boron’s poem Merlin, this is because she was an illegitimate daughter but no other contemporary sources agree with that. At the nunnery, she would become well-educated in typical subjects as well as the much more esoteric disciplines of sorcery and necromancy. You know, typical convent stuff. According to Malory, she was later wed to King Uriens of Gore (because the nunnery was used more as boarding school than final destination).
It wasn’t long after the wedding that Igraine’s pregnancy began to show. It wasn’t hard to do the math and so Uther realized that either Igraine had gotten knocked up on the wedding night or (if Merlin was right) it had been the night that her first husband had died. As they were laying in bed that night, the king asked his lady wife about her pregnancy, begging her to tell him the truth about who the child’s father was by the sacred bonds of their wedding vows.
Igraine sighed deeply. This secret had been weighing on her and here at last was the perfect opening to unburden herself of it. Heart racing, Igraine told her new husband about the mysterious knight who had come to her in the guise of her late husband mere hours after his unexpected death. Uther rejoiced at this, realizing that Merlin’s words had come true – this was his first child. “Don’t worry, my love – I believe you. In fact, I know for a fact that what you say is true because – and you’re not gonna believe this – I was actually the person who slept with you that night under the illusion of Tintagil’s face. Your child is actually our child.” The story claims that the queen was overjoyed at this revelation, but I have to wonder if she’s more relieved that she’s not about to be turned out into poverty as a single mother with no prospects for carrying a bastard. She has to be at least a little conflicted about learning that her new husband deceived and betrayed her on such a fundamental level. That’s gotta be a hard pill to swallow but, given the king’s power, it’s not like she has a choice about it now.
Their joy, however conflicted, was to be short lived. No sooner had Uther confirmed that his wife’s growing child was his trueborn heir than Merlin popped up. “Remember our deal, Uther. As soon as this kid pops out, he’s mine. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him. I won’t raise him myself, that would be a terrible idea. No, I plan on having him raised as a foster by one of your lords, a faithful man named Sir Ector. He controls a large swath of land in England and Wales and will make a good home for your child. Send for this knight and instruct him to have his wife breastfeed your child. His newborn son will need to be breastfed by a wet nurse instead, so make sure he agrees to that. Once everyone is on board, send him home. As soon as your kid is born, bring him to me by the outer gate. I mean it – immediately. Don’t wait to baptize him, don’t wait to name him. Send him the very second he leaves your wife’s vagina, understand?”
All was done as Merlin decreed. Uther had already committed to this deal before he slept with Igraine, so it wasn’t like he could back out now. Sir Ector was paid handsomely to commit to this somewhat unusual arrangement (I doubt he was thrilled to hear that the king’s son would be taking his own son’s place at his wife’s bosom). In due time, Igraine went into labor and gave birth to a son. Uther ordered two of his most trusted knights and two of his wife’s most trusted handmaids to wrap the newborn baby in cloth of gold and deliver it to Merlin. The wizard promptly carried the boy personally to Sir Ector and brought over a priest to baptize the child. Ector christened his new foster son, naming him Arthur. And so now, at last, King Arthur has arrived in our great story.
For two years, Uther and Igraine lived in marital bliss (or whatever passes for it when your relationship begins with insults, war, and sexual assault). No good thing lasts forever (nor even any mediocre thing) and in time, Uther fell terribly ill. The invading Saxons had been beaten back by Uther under the great comet of his draconic destiny, but they were far from defeated. They seized the opportunity presented by the king’s weakness to attack his kingdom once more. With Uther unable to take the field and command his armies, his men were badly routed, leaving a trail of their own dead and dying behind.
Uther was understandably unhappy with this string of defeats, so he sought out Merlin’s counsel. “The answer is simple, my liege. Your hosts fall because they do not have you there to lead them; therefore, you must find a way to lead your army, even if we have to tie you into the saddle. Only with your brilliant generalship can you achieve victory.” And that’s basically what they did, only instead of a saddle, they sent the king to war in a horse-drawn litter. He rode his little cart north to St. Alban to meet his army as they clashed with the invading Saxons. The opposing army laughed at the sight of it, calling Uther the half-dead king. Invigorated, they charged. Under Uther’s leadership however, the Briton’s army carried the day with Sir Ulfius and Sir Brastias both doing valiant deeds upon the field of battle. The Saxons were defeated and fled north, leaving their own corpses behind for once.
His crown secure once more, Uther returned to London to celebrate his success. The strain of the trip by horse cart and the stress of commanding the battle had taken their toll on the ailing king however. In some versions, it was not illness but Saxon poison that befell the king. Either way, he collapsed in his palace and was carried to his bed, unable to move or even to speak for three straight days. Worried about the obvious poor health of their ruler, the Uther’s leading barons sought the advice of the king’s wizard, but he had no help to offer. “There is nothing to be done. God’s will shall be done. Tomorrow morning, all of you gather at the king’s chamber and I can assure you that the king will speak.” Trusting Merlin (at least enough to come back to check on their king the next day), they did as they were bid.
The morning came and the king didn’t seem any better when the barons gathered. Shushing them, Merlin approached Uther alone. “My liege, I have a question for you here before the lords of the land. Sir, shall your son Arthur be king after your time on the throne has ended? Will you name him your heir?” At these words, Uther sat up in his bed, turned to Merlin, and spoke. “I give him God’s blessing and mine and bid him claim the crown when my soul has flown to heaven.”
And then he fell back to his bed, his chest still, his eyes staring. The king was dead. Long live the king. Of course, even though Uther had named his son as his heir, the boy was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t be put on the throne as a puppet of one of the barons – and more importantly, he couldn’t meet an untimely accident and leave the throne vacant (which is why Merlin had spirited him away). Even so, the king’s death left a power vacuum, one that every baron in the land rushed to fill. The kingdom descended into fire and blood as warring armies struggled in vain to take the throne.
And so, with all of England engulfed in civil war, 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 infamous trickster is the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
The Pied Piper is one of those figures from folklore who appears all over popular media from the fictional company at the center of HBO’s Silicon Valley to the Rat King villain from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As the title suggests, it was originally a tale centered around the very real town of Hamelin in Lower Saxony, Germany. As we saw in the main tale, the Saxons came over to England in force and they brought many of their traditions and tales with them, including this one. The version I’m using was collected in More English Fairy Tales edited by Joseph Jacobs and moves the story to the Welsh town of Newtown, but it’s otherwise the same story.
Once upon a time, there was a sleepy little town known as Newtown (or, as we mentioned, originally Hamelin). Only, back then, it wasn’t actually all that sleepy. See, this little town had something of a rat problem. And by that, I mean that it was so infested with the furry little plague machines that you practically couldn’t move without stepping on one. They had chewed their way into every last barn, corn rick, store room, and cupboard around. They hollowed out the cheese wheels, gnawed holes in the sugar bags, and even drained the mead and beer barrels. Even when you tried to bury your foodstores to keep the rats away, they would dig a hole above and dangle down, each one climbing the tail of the one above, to reach and ransack it.
And as bad as all that was, the townsfolk could have dealt with the rats if that had been the worst of it. But of course, it wasn’t. See, it wasn’t just that the rats ate all of the food, and it wasn’t even that they left little rat pellets on every damned surface. The biggest problem was the incessant squeaking and squealing, the rustling and rummaging. No one in town could get a wink of sleep at night for the infernal racket made by the ravenous rats. Mothers would sit up all night listening to the ceaseless noise and watch their sleeping children (especially the infants) so that the rats wouldn’t steal in at night and feast on their soft, helpless faces. Yeah, rats can be scary when there are enough of them.
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably asking yourself right about now why this town didn’t just invest in a few good rat-catching cats. Well, it turns out that they tried. The cats put up a good fight and took down quite a few rats, but in the end they were simply swarmed by an overwhelming tide of squealing vermin. Those that survived made their bloody, limping escape to the fields and refused to ever return. Well then, how about poison? They tried that too, but there always seemed to be two rats for every corpse they found (and the bloated, rotting corpses of the poisoned rats nearly led to its own plague). They even tried hiring every rat-catcher for miles around, but none of them had any more luck and had to eventually slink away in failure.
The Mayor called an emergency meeting with the town council to try and figure out what could be done about the rats, but no one had any new ideas. They’d tried literally everything that they could think of. Rack their brains though they might, they couldn’t knock any good ideas loose. As the council was despairing of ever solving their awful rat problem, in ran the town beadle (basically a cop for the local parish). “Your honors, a very strange man just walked into town. He looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before but he wants to see all of you.” Eager for a distraction, the Mayor accepted the meeting.
The fellow who walked into the town council was every bit as odd as the beadle had suggested. He was tall and thin with bright, piercing eyes but it was his clothes that truly drew the eye. They were a literal riot of color, bright patches of every hue you could imagine (and maybe even a few you’d never thought of before). The young man smiled and made a sweeping bow. “My esteemed sirs, I am the Pied Piper. I’ve heard tell of your little rat problem and I have come to offer my services. What would you offer to pay me if I could promise to rid you of every single last rat in your fair town?”
Well now, that was an intriguing offer. The town was sick to death of rats but, as much as they hated those squeaking rodents, they hated spending money even more. They tried their best to haggle him down but the Piper knew his worth and he knew he had the town over a barrel, so he refused to budge. After some time, the town was forced to agree to pay the Piper fifty pounds (which was an enormous sum at the time). For his part, the Piper agreed that he would not see a single red cent until every last rat was removed from the town. It seemed a fair bargain and both sides were more or less content.
No sooner was the agreement made than the Piper stepped out of the town hall, pulled out his pipe, and put it to his lips. The sound he made wasn’t so much music as it was a strange, shrill keening that pierced its way through every house in town. In fact, it sounded a little like the frantic squeaking of the rats themselves. As the warbling tune carried across the air, rats began to pour out of every attic and basement, every nook and cranny in the town. Large rats and small ones, old rats and young ones, fat rats and skinny ones – all of them crowded around the feet of the playing piper. As they gathered, he began to dance along down main street and, to the town’s surprise, the rats followed eagerly after, their little noses upturned to look at the source of the strange music as their feet pattered along the cobblestones.
The Pied Piper kept a watchful eye on the rats, slowing to a crawl now and again to let the smaller and the slower rats catch up. No straggler was allowed to remain behind. This strange procession wound its way up Silver Street and down Gold Street until they came to the harbor at the edge of town. The townsfolk gathered as they went, peering curiously out of windows and doors and calling their thanks and blessings for the Piper. Without missing a beat, the tall stranger stepped into a small boat and shoved it out to the deeper water. The rats hopped off the docks and splashed into the waves, swimming happily along behind him with their little noses just barely sticking above the surface.
They stayed out there in the harbor like this for hours with the rats mostly managing to keep their heads above water until the tide went out. Although the rats had proved to be strong swimmers, the retreating tide replaced the water with thick, sticky mud. The rats couldn’t swim in that; in fact, they couldn’t even walk in it. They sank into the muck and stuck fast, unable to escape as the tide slowly came back in. As the town watched, every last little rat nose disappeared under the waves and drowned. All of the rats were dead.
Satisfied, the Pied Piper finally stopped his warbling tune and rowed back to shore. Not a single rat followed him. He expected to hear shouting and cheering or at least a happy hubbub, but it was eerily quiet. See, the tide of rats had been more than a nuisance to the town – it had literally devoured their stocks, leaving the town coffers very, very empty. They had agreed to pay him fifty pounds for ridding them of rats, sure, but had he really earned that by just stepping into a boat and playing some shitty music? The town council could have done that themselves without the Piper’s help if they’d just thought of it (but they hadn’t and they were never going to, which is, you know, why they hired him in the first place – plus, I don’t think they could play magical rat music). It wasn’t like the town had the fifty pounds anyway, so what did he really expect?
The Mayor swaggered up to the Pied Piper with a sneering smile. “Come on, my good man, surely you can’t really expect us to pay you fifty pounds? It’s just not a reasonable price for the work you did. Let’s agree on, say, twenty? That seems fair.” The Piper frowned. “That wasn’t the deal. We agreed on fifty pounds once all the rats were gone, and as you can all plainly see, the rats are indeed gone. Pay up, and quickly if you know what’s good for you. I can play many different tunes on this little pipe.”
The Mayor threw back his head and laughed at this, and the town joined in the cruel merriment. “Is that supposed to be a threat, asshole? Who the fuck are you? No one, that’s who – just some wandering vagabond. The rats are all dead, as you so helpfully mentioned. I doubt very much that you can bring them back so fuck it – do your worst.” With another sneering laugh, the Mayor turned on his heel and walked away. The Pied Piper sighed. “I tried to warn you.”
He pulled out his pipe again. The tune that issued forth this time couldn’t have been more different than the one that had hypnotized the rats. Instead of high-pitched squealing, this music was jaunty and joyous. You could practically hear the bubbling laughter and the carefree games in every note. The townsfolk laughed all the louder. Was that all this asshole had? A happy song? But the laughter soon quieted as they noticed something odd. From the schoolhouse and the playgrounds and the nurseries throughout the town, the little children began to pour out to flock around the Piper.
Dancing and laughing, the children followed happily along in the Piper’s wake as he skipped his way back up Gold Street and down Silver Street. They could only watch in horror as the procession wound its way between the oak trees of the forest beyond the town’s limits and began to vanish. Maybe it was shock and guilt that rooted their feet to the ground; maybe it was some magic in the Piper’s tune. Whatever it was, they just watched and waited until no echo remained of the lilting music or the laughing children. They were gone, and they never came back. So let that be a lesson to you – honor your deals, especially when you make them to magical wandering strangers.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth, on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod, and on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. 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.
Next time, we’re heading to a small village in Japan to meet a very fancy rat family. You’ll learn that the sun is a swell guy, that much like Vault dwellers in Fallout, rats are okey dokey with cousin stuff, and that walls are naturally curious dudes. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a jellyfish is going to try to talk a monkey out of his liver. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.