Fairytales or “wonder tales” are fascinating for children and adults alike, and Ragini and Shar are no exception! This episode took us from the interesting journeys taken by the ancient Indian folk tales familiar to us as the “Panchatantra” to a gruesome possible reality behind the popular story of Bluebeard (hint: it involves a Frenchman, Joan of Arc and and it’s not the beginning of a joke).

While the usual suspects like Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault and the Grimm brother do make appearances, we tried very hard to add facts and anecdotes into the mix that you probably haven’t heard before - we hadn’t! From the miraculous discovery of a shred of historical literature to a treasure trove of 500 buried fairytales, this segment had it all!

We also talked about medical conditions named after fairytale characters as well as an article by John Massie about the interesting actual medical conditions that fairytale characters could suffer from! Some might even have you feeling sympathetic to villains and villainesses or maybe we’re just soft! Link below to this extremely interesting piece of writing.

We ended with the usual - questions and answer about our place in the universe. In short, the Goldilocks might have been a troubled little girl but the Goldilocks Zone is a pretty great place for everyone in it. May its reign be long and prosperous!

Enjoy!

Links of Interest:

Inspiration for some fairytales could have come from these places!

Some Fairytales could be 6000 years old

Conventions of Fairytales - an interesting read!

John Massie’s Article

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Indian Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs

Now stop trawling through this blog post for more info and listen to the episode!

Episode edited by: Mohit Shandilya

Music for the episode: Charita Arora