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Faith Moore
Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this is Summer Session. Normally on Storytime for Grown Ups we read classic literature a few chapters at a time with a few notes along the way. Like an audiobook with built in notes. But during the summer we switch things up a little. From now until September, we will be in Summer Session, which is sort of like a college class, only fun. This summer we're exploring fairy tales and their relationship to the books we've read this year on storytime and storytelling more broadly. We'll do this in once a week episodes which will drop on Mondays. If this doesn't sound like your thing, don't worry. Storytime will be back with a new book in September. But for now, brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. Class is in session. Hi everyone. Welcome back. I'm really happy to be back with you. I missed you for the time that I was away. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Spencer though. That was really fun to do and I hope that you guys had fun listening to it. But I'm back and I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you to those of you who joined us for tea time. That was really fun last week. We had a lovely chat and I'm just always so grateful to find you all there in the drawing room at tea time. So thank you to those of you who are supporting the show by being a part of the drawing room. Even if you didn't make it to tea time or if you're in the house guest level, whatever you're doing over there, thank you for being a part of that. And for those of you who are not a part of the drawing room but would like to be, it's not too late. Another tea time will come again. So if you are interested in that, just scroll down, scroll into the show notes and take a look at the links that are there and one of them will guide you to the page where you can sign up to be a part of the Drawing Room, which is our online community. It's where we meet after the show and we chat with each other about all kinds of things. It's lovely over there, very active. So if you go over there, you will find new friends, I guarantee it. So I hope that you will check that out if you're interested. All right, so you may have noticed that it's August. Happy August. But also I keep telling you that in August the trailer for September's book is going to drop. So you may be wondering when exactly is that going to happen? Because yes, here we are in August. When in August? Well, you're gonna have to wait a little bit longer, but I will tell you the trailer is going to drop on August 21st. It's a Thursday, so you'll get something in your podcast feed on Thursday as a way to remind you that coming up in September, you will be getting Monday and Thursday episod. So August 21st, it's a Thursday. Your podcast feed will automatically deliver you the trailer for September's book. I've already created it. It's all queued up and ready to go and I cannot wait for you to hear it. I cannot wait for you to find out what we're going to be reading and I cannot wait to hear what you think. So none of this will happen. No podcast trailers will be dropping into your feed unless you are subscribed. So please make sure that you're subscribed to this show. And if you've been enjoying the show, this is a great time to please tap the five stars and leave a positive review. If you have a minute, I would love to get the word out there even more and have even more people listening when we start in September with this mystery book, which will be revealed on August 21st. Or if you can just spread the word by texting a link to the show or to a specific episode to someone that you think might might like it, that hasn't heard of it before. That's a great way to spread the word as well. And just a reminder, there are lots of great links in the show notes. I just mentioned the one to the drawing room, but also we still have merchandise. There's all kinds of cool stuff that you can buy with Storytime for Grown Ups imagery on it and the logo and different pictures for different books, all created by our wonderful designer, Cynthia Angulo. And I hope you'll check that out and where your Storytime merch proudly I wear mine to the gym. Nobody has yet asked me what Storytime for Grown Ups is, but maybe one of those days, or maybe somebody is just seeing it and not saying anything to me and then going home and googling it. That's what I hope. So if you wear your merch out in the world, maybe that will also happen to you or you might make a new friend because maybe somebody else is listening to the show. So anyway, check out the links and of course also you'll find the link to contact me, which I hope you will do, and make sure many of you have been contacting me in the two weeks since we talked about maidenhood. Those two episodes that we did on maidenhood, we talked about Snow White. And then last time we were doing that, we read three very interesting and somewhat disturbing versions of Sleeping Beauty. And then I went away, which was cruel of me. But I'm back now and I've been keeping and saving all of your messages. So what I'd like to do today is first to read you some of the comments and questions that I got after the Sleeping Beauty episode. And I would like to revisit that for a minute and revisit this topic of maidenhood and talk a little bit about what we heard because there was a lot going on in that last episode and I know that we have things to discuss. So I'm going to read some questions and comments. I'm going to talk for a little while about Sleeping Beauty and this concept of maidenhood and fairy tales a little bit. And then we're going to move on to something new. We're going to talk about a new topic starting today and continuing on into next week. I will not leave you hanging again. We will talk next week about this same topic. So another tiny little mini series on a new topic starting today, which I will talk about after the questions and comments and my comments about those questions and comments. Okay, that was a lot of questions and comments, but that's great. I love your questions and comments. Keep them coming. Faith K. Moore.com Click on Contact or scroll into the show notes and check out the link. Okay, now I'm going to read them these questions and comments and discuss them and then we'll move on to today's episode. Okay, so I've got three of them. The first one comes from Laura. Laura writes, Wow. I think what offends me most about the Talia story is the king's infidelity to his first wife. How is the king a good guy here? The second story is much improved by making him a single young prince and not sleeping with her asleep. But even when you find your happy ending and you get married and have beautiful children, it's not the end because your mother in law might be an ogre. We needed two different villains. Are mother in laws worse than stepmothers? I suppose they are cut from the same nasty cloth. The second comes from Meghan. Megan writes, it's interesting to me that the parents urge to protect their daughters from ordinary woman's work due to the prophecy is the thing that always brings about her injury. The woman who is spinning is always innocent and good natured. This speaks to me of parents being afraid of the maturity of their daughters and leaving them unprepared for womanhood, which of course puts her in more danger. I think there is something about the inevitability of maturing as well as the sense this is a vulnerable time for women, no matter what you do. And the last one comes from Jenny Achuthan. I hope I'm saying that right. I'm sure I'm not. I'm so sorry, jenny writes. The discussion of the diminishing beauty of the older queen and Snow White's burgeoning beauty as she comes out of childhood raises a question I've had for a long time. I've always wondered why it is that we as a society often relegate older women to this kind of obscurity simply because they are considered no longer sexual and childbearing is behind them. In a modern context, we certainly don't do the same to men once they get older. We think older men become distinguished while older women become, well, just old. I wonder if there are wise older women in fairy tales, like the wise crone archetype, or do we only have the trope of the manipulative, jealous, older or uglier woman? Okay, so I think a lot of these questions and comments can be addressed by going back to the symbolism of these maidenhood stories. And I chose these three comments specifically because I think that they beautifully hit on all the major points that I think it makes sense to take a look at before we move on to our next fairy tale idea, which we're going to get to today, as I said, and also next week. So remember, these maidenhood stories are usually about a young girl's transition from girl to woman, and more specifically, they have to do with puberty, because the thing that marks a girl's transition to womanhood is her ability to bear children. And even more than a man's transition from boy to man, a girl needs to be aware of the transition from girl to woman because she must now guard herself against pregnancy out of wedlock, essentially, which, in the time that these stories were being told and written down, would have been essentially the end of her reputation and probably the end of her ability to be taken care of financially because she wouldn't have been able to find a husband. So it's a really important and potentially dangerous transition. And girls and young women needed to understand what was going to happen to them and what was at stake. Right? So like we talked about before, these stories deal with all of this via the symbolism of fairy tales and what we get in these stories is a young girl just on the cusp of womanhood, faced with some sort of situation that kind of thing thrusts her out of the home, right where she has been living as a child, and out into the world where she must live as an adult. Right. In Snow White, it's the fact that the stepmother wants to eat her, and in Sleeping Beauty, it's the sleeping curse. And then later in the Basilet and Perrault versions, it's the conflict with the mother figures, which I'll get to in a second. Then we have the sleep, which represents the transition point, right? She goes to sleep a girl, and she wakes up a woman. And we've got the. The man who represents her new ability to make babies, because you can't make babies without men. So we've got this guy who comes in at the end, or in some cases in the middle, and wakes her up. And of course, the Basile version of this is very disturbing and very weird, and we are going to get to that, too. But just to finish up this sort of symbolic journey that these stories take us on, the girl wakes up a woman. In some versions, her womanhood is additionally represented by the actual children that she has, as opposed to just the fact of her being able to have children. But she wakes up a woman and she marries the man who woke her up, thus depicting the values of the day that a woman must be married when she fulfills this ability that she now has. And of course, in most of the stories that we read, we also have the concept of the older woman who is jealous of the princess's ability to be young and to bear children and find love and all of that. So. So, okay, that's the kind of symbolic story arc that we're dealing with in most of this type of fairy tale. But as the letters I read and the many other similar letters that I received, as these letters show, there is a lot of weird and wacky and sometimes disturbing stuff going on. And basically, how does that all fit in? Okay, so the first thing I want to address about these Sleeping Beauty stories in particular is the parents. Okay, In Snow White, there were no parents, right? All she had was the evil stepmother who fills the role of the jealous older woman or the witch. So she's not really a parent in the true sense of that word. But in Sleeping Beauty, there are actual parents, good, loving, kind parents who care about Sleeping Beauty. And this is interesting because often in a fairy tale, it's the fact that the protagonist doesn't have loving parents. That kind of propels them out into the world and causes them to have to grow up. You know, we saw this in Hansel and Gretel as well in Snow White, and there are lots of other stories with the same idea. But in the Perrault and Grimm versions, we have two loving parents who desperately wanted a child and who try very hard to save her from the curse by getting rid of all the spindles and the distaffs and things like that. And even in the Basile version, we've got the father who loved his daughter so much and is so sad when she falls asleep and kind of lovingly, like, sets her up in the castle before leaving her there forever, but whatever. So there are actual parents here, but notice what happens to them. Okay. In the Basile version, the father leaves once Sleeping Beauty falls asleep, and he's never heard from again. Right. In the Perrault version, the parents are the only ones who actually don't succumb to the sleeping curse. Right. I find this really fascinating. They go on to live out their lives without their daughter, and they presumably die so that when she wakes up again, she has no parents. It's actually a poignant and sort of devastating image, and it kind of gets me every time I read that bit. It just. All it says is, then the king and queen kissed their dear child without waking her and left the castle. But think about what that means. Okay? They leave her there asleep, knowing that she will one day wake up, but that they'll be dead of old age by then. It really is a sort of symbolic representation of what it means to grow up, right? You leave your parents home, and they have to carry on without you, and eventually they die, and you have to carry on without them. So when she wakes up a woman, she'll also wake up without parents, which symbolically at least, signals that she's an adult and not a child anymore. Okay? In the Grimm version, everything is kind of softened, right? So the parents also sleep for 100 years and are still there to be her parents when she wakes up. But even so, she immediately marries the prince. So she transfers from her parents to her husband and presumably goes off to live with him in his kingdom. So we get this symbolism in various ways throughout the three versions of of the princess having to separate from her parents. And as Megan points out in her letter, there's also this element of the parents trying to shield the princess from her fate. She's fated to grow up. Okay? That's what the curse essentially is. And just like Snow White, the Thing that will cause her to fall into the sleep that will ultimately transform her is a symbolically feminine thing. Right. In Snow White, we got the dress, laces, the hair comb and the apple here, as Megan is pointing out, we get all this stuff to do with spinning, which is a very feminine task, and the parents are trying to protect her by getting rid of all the spindles and the distaffs and the spinning wheels and everything. But of course, parents can't and shouldn't stop their kids from growing up. And in the end, it's the parents who have to fade into the background and the princesses who have to encounter the spindle and become women. By the way, there are some interpreters of fairy tales who feel that the spindle. Spindle or the distaff, which are both sort of tools for spinning, which are essentially sticks with sort of bits at the end, some people feel that these items are actually phallic symbols, and the pricking of the finger on them is another indication of the girl transitioning from girl to woman, and a woman who can bear children. So do with that imagery what you will. But anyway, that's the first bit. Okay. These princesses have to separate from their parents in order to grow up, and the parents have to fade away or be kind of usurped by the husband. Which brings me to the husbands, particularly to the husband we encounter in the Basile version, that first one that we read together, because obviously we can't move on from this without at least touching on the really disturbing thing that happens in that version, which is that the king actually sleeps with Talia, the Sleeping Beauty character, while she is asleep, which is horrifying for. For so many reasons, all of which I assume that you can furnish for yourselves and don't need me to spell out in any detail, but I think this is a really good example of the way in which fairy tales have to be read symbolically and not literally, because, of course, literally this is horrifying. And even the bit where Talia wakes up and the king tells her who he is and what he's done, and she's like, oh, great, I love you. It's kind of like, what? And you could say, well, it's what this stupid man from the 1500s think thinks that a woman would do in this situation. And okay, sure, there may be some truth to that, but also it's the symbolism we've been discussing all this time. If you think of the man in this kind of story as sort of a non. Entity, right, Just a symbol for Something. Then the fact that he impregnates her and she wakes up with these kids is kind of the symbolism on steroids, right? She goes to sleep, a girl, and she wakes up with some kids. Awful if taken literally, but relevant symbolically. So I'm not at all arguing that you should think that this is false. Fine. It makes my gorge rise every time I read it. But I'm just trying to point out what it's doing there. Okay, but the other awful thing about the Basile version, and this brings me to Laura's comment, is that this guy, this king, is actually already married, right? He's got a wife back at home, and it's the wife who takes on the role of the jealous older woman. And that is what I want to get to, this idea of the jealous older woman. That's what I want to get to. Before we move on to the topic of today's episode, because I. I find this really interesting, and Laura brought it up initially, and then Jenny's comments, I think, kind of hammer it home. But these stories often feature a woman who is jealous of the princess and wants to harm her or harm her children by eating them. Okay. This isn't part of the Grimm's version, I think, for obvious reasons. Right. The Grimm version, as I was saying a minute ago, kind of smooths everything over. But the other stories and the Snow White story that we read before, they all feature a jealous older woman. So I want to talk about that for a moment before we move on. So we've got several different kinds of jealous older women, right? We've got the stepmother, the mother in law, and the king's wife. And even though to us, and kind of to anyone anywhere, in a lot of ways, even though it's hard to imagine siding with the mistress rather than the wife, as we're kind of being asked to do in the busy life version, I think the king's wife actually plays the same role. She's an older woman who's being replaced or usurped by a younger woman. It's the same idea. The young woman is coming into her sexual maturity, and the older woman is leaving that phase of life and entering into a phase of infertility, essentially, which is the phase of menopause. And whether she's a mother figure or a wife, the symbolism is the same. So, of course, literally, the king in the Basile version is a horrible person, and at best he's a cad, and at worst, he's like a horrific criminal. But symbolically, it's kind of all One and the same. Which brings me to Jenny's point about older women and why all these older women are being depicted as evil or cast as the bad guy, even when, like the King's wife, we would actually see them as a wronged party in a novel, let's say, or in real life. And I think that what Jenny is saying about the way in which modern culture doesn't seem to have room for old people and older women especially, I think there's truth to that. But I don't necessarily think that the fairy tales are trying to endorse that truth. I think these fairy tales are not so much saying that all older women are evil, but rather that women who refuse, refuse to acknowledge that they are no longer young are the dangerous ones because they are trying to subvert the natural order of things. It's like today when you see an actress who's had, like, so much plastic surgery that she looks sort of like an alien or something. We feel a kind of horror when we see that, because we know that what she was trying to do was to look young forever. But that can't be done. It's impossible. And trying to do it makes you look really strange. And aging is a part of living. And I think these stories are trying to tell us that, okay, it's horrifying to see these women who want to murder and eat little children or feed little children to other people. That's horrifying in a literal sense, obviously, but it's also horrifying in a metaphorical sense, because these women are trying to ingest the youth that they already had. That phase of their life is done, but they can't accept it. And they're willing to commit atrocities to try to get it back, back. And I also think that eating the children is sort of the ultimate act of non growing up, right? Not allowing the children to grow up. So feeding someone their own child is the perfect punishment for a parent, because a parent's job is all about letting the child grow apart from him, not consuming the child back into himself. Which relates back to what we were talking about a minute ago, about the parents in Sleeping Beauty having to kind of fade into the background and not being able to save Sleeping Beauty from pricking her finger. Parents who eat their children are not allowing them to separate, not allowing them to grow up. So I'm going to stop there and end our discussion of maidenhood for now, though much of this is going to come up again in the stories that we read and the stories that you might read on your own. And I'll bet you start noticing these tropes and ideas in other places and in modern books and movies and things. And I hope that you'll write to me when you do notice them. But I would like to shift gears just sort of slightly now and get to the topic of today's episode, which is Animal Bridegrooms. Okay, so I kind of like to think of animal bridegroom stories as the next chapter, or at least a possible next chapter after the maidenhood stories. Like, first we get the maidenhood stories where the girl becomes the woman, and then we get animal bridegroom stories where the woman has to deal with the reality of marriage and her relationship with men. So the idea behind the animal bridegroom story is that these are tales where a man, usually a prince, has been transformed into an animal or a beast of some kind through magical means and needs a woman to transform him back. And of course, the most famous of these is Beauty and the Beast. Okay, last summer, when the summer session was all about Jane Eyre, I did two episodes of all about Beauty and the Beast. One of them was where I read the original story out loud, and the other was where I explained the symbolism of the story and its connection to Jane Eyre. And I also traced the ways in which the story's original themes and ideas have been kind of transformed over time. So I'm not gonna do that again. I'm not gonna go through all of that here, because I know many of you were there for Summer Session last year, and I don't want to bore anyone by repeating myself. But what I have done is I have LinkedIn to both of those episodes in the show notes, so you can scroll down and click on them to listen to me read the story of Beauty and the Beast and talk a little about its origins. And then you can listen to me discussing its themes and ideas and everything the way we've been doing here with all of the stories we've read so far. So those are there for you to access easily if you'd like a little more context on animal bridegrooms. And if you'd like to listen to the most famous animal bridegroom story. But today we're going to read a lesser known animal bridegroom story. And then next week we'll read another, potentially even lesser known one. But before we read, I'll just give a very quick summary of what we're looking out for here in this type of story. And then for more detail that you can listen to those two episodes that I Just said are linked. So one interesting thing about animal bridegroom stories is that they're in some ways the reverse of the maidenhood stories that we've been reading. Because in the maidenhood stories, the princess has to be drawn into her womanhood via the actions of a man. But in animal bridegroom stories, the prince must be drawn back to his princehood via the actions of a woman. And in all of these stories, the man has been transformed into something that is frightening or off putting to the woman. And she has to overcome her fear or her revulsion or whatever it is in order to befriend him and ultimately change him back. And she is then rewarded for doing that by getting to marry the handsome prince that he becomes. So interpreters of fairy tales believe that these stories were told to young girls to help them come to terms with arranged marriages, right? These young girls were often shipped off to marry often older, but definitely unknown men who might at first seem frightening or strange or whatever. And some people think that these stories are meant to help young women to try to see past the strange exterior and try to get to know and love their new husbands. Another interpretation of these stories, and you'll hear me talk much more about this one in those episodes from last summer. But the other interpretation of these stories is that they're about men learning to channel, like their baser urges and instincts, right? A man who allows his rage and his passion and his sexual urges free reign. If he allows them free reign, then he becomes a beast. And only by channeling those urges, usually in service of loving a good woman, right? Only then can the beast be turned back into a man. I also talk in those episodes from last summer about the trope of, like, the bad boy and whether a woman can change a man and whether that's dangerous. And if those questions are coming up for you right now as I'm talking, I urge you to have a listen to those episodes. But what I'd like to do now is read you one of these stories. And then next week we can talk much more about this once you've got one of these stories under your belt. And if you decided to listen to the other episodes, maybe you've got two of these stories under your belt and a bit more information. So the story that I would like to read to you today is from the Brothers Grimm, and it's called Snow White and Rose Red, okay? So this is not the same Snow White as the one from the story called Snow White. This is someone else. She just happens to have the Same name. For some reason, someone asked me a while ago what my favorite fairy tale was, and I said that I would reveal it when we got there. So my favorite fairy tale I will now reveal is Beauty and the Beast. I love these animal bridegroom stories. And if you think about it, you'll see this idea everywhere, and everywhere it shows up. I love it. Beauty and the Beast, the Phantom of the Opera, Jane Eyre. You name it, I love it. Okay, so Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairy tale, but I think Snow White and Rose Red might be my second favorite because it kind of feels like almost the precursor to the Beauty and the Beast narrative in a lot of ways. Okay, so we're going to read Snow White and Rose Red, and please write in with your thoughts on this story or Animal Bridegrooms more specifically, or even on what you heard in last summer's episodes, if you chose to listen to those. And then next week we'll return to Animal Bridegrooms. We'll talk about what we heard today, and we'll read one more animal bridegroom story, and then we will move on to something else. So faithkmoore.com click on contact or just scroll into the show notes and click the link to contact me. I would love to hear from you, and we will use your questions and comments to talk more about Snow White and Rose Red and Animal Bridegrooms next week. All right, let's get started with Snow White and Rose Red by the Brothers Grimm. It's story time. Snow White and Rose Red, from Children's and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm. A poor widow once lived in a cottage. In front of the cottage was a garden in which were growing two rose trees, one of those four white roses and the other red. She had two children who resembled the rose trees. One was called Snow White and the other Rose Red. And they were as religious and loving, busy and untiring as any two children ever were. Snow White was more gentle and quieter than her sister, who liked better skipping about the field, seeking flowers and catching summer birds, while Snow White stayed at home with her mother, either helping her in her work or, when that was done, reading aloud. The two children had the greatest affection, the one for the other. They were always seen hand in hand. And should Snow White say to her sister, we will never separate? The other would reply, not while we live, the mother adding, that which one has, let her always share with the other. They constantly ran together in the woods collecting ripe berries, but not a single animal would have injured them quite the reverse. They all felt the greatest esteem for the young creatures. The hare came to eat parsley from their hands. The deer grazed by their side. The stag bounded past them, unheeding. The birds likewise did not stir from the bough, but sang in entire security. No mischance befell them if benighted in the woods, meaning if they found themselves in the woods at night, they lay down on the moss to repose and sleep till the morning, and their mother was satisfied as to their safety and felt no fear about them. Once, when they had spent the night in the wood and the bright sunrise awoke them, they saw a beautiful child in a snow white robe shining like diamonds, sitting close to the spot where they had reposed. She arose when they opened their eyes and looked kindly at them, but said no word, and passed from their sight into the wood. When the children looked around, they saw they had been sleeping on the edge of a precipice and would surely have fallen over if they had gone forward two steps further. In the darkness, their mother said, the beautiful child must have been the angel who keeps watch over good children. Snow White and Rose Red kept their mother's cottage so clean that it gave pleasure only to look in. In summertime, Rose Red attended to the house, and every morning before her mother awoke, placed by her bed a bouquet which had in it a rose from each of the rose trees. In wintertime, Snow White set light to the fire and put on the kettle after polishing it until it was like gold for brightness. In the evening, when snow was falling, her mother would bid her bolt the door, and then, sitting by the hearth, the good widow would read aloud to them from a big book while the little girls were spinning. Close by them lay a lamb, and a white pigeon with its head tucked under its wing was on a perch behind. One evening, as they were all sitting cosily together like this, there was a knock at the door, as if someone wished to come in. Make haste, Rose Red, said her mother. Open the door. It is surely some traveler seeking shelter. Rose Red accordingly pulled back the bolt, expecting to see some poor man. But it was nothing of the kind. It was a bear that thrust his big black head in at the open door. Rose Red cried out and sprang back. The lamb bleated. The dove fluttered her wings, and Snow White hid herself behind her mother's bed. The bear began speaking and said, do not be afraid. I will not do you any harm. I am half frozen and would like to warm myself a little at your fire. Poor bear, the mother replied, Come in and Lie by the fire, only be careful that your hair is not burnt. Then she called Snow White and Rose red, telling them that the bear was kind and would not harm them. They came as she bade them, and presently the lamb and the dove drew near also. Without fear, children begged the bear, knock some of the snow off my coat. So they brought the broom and brushed the bear's coat quite clean. After that he stretched himself out in front of the fire and pleased himself by growling a little, only to show that he was happy and comfortable. Before long they were all quite good friends, and the children began to play with their unlooked for visitor, pulling his thick fur or placing their feet on his back, or rolling him over and over. Then they took a slender hazel twig, using it upon his thick coat, and they laughed when he growled. The bear permitted them to amuse themselves in this way, only occasionally calling out when it went a little too far, children, spare me an inch of life. When it was night and all were making ready to go to bed, the widow told the bear, you may stay here and lie by the hearth if you like, so that you will be sheltered from the cold and from the bad weather. The offer was accepted. But when morning came, as the day broke in the east, the two children let him out, and over the snow he went back into the wood. After this, every evening at the same time, the bear came, lay by the fire, and allowed the children to play with him. So they became quite fond of their curious playmate. And the door was not ever bolted in the evening until he had appeared. When springtime came and all around began to look green and bright. One morning the bear said to Snow White, now I must leave you, and all the summer long I shall not be able to come back. Where then are you going, dear bear? Asked Snow White, I have to go to the woods to protect my treasure from the bad dwarfs. In winter time, when the earth is frozen hard, they must remain underground and cannot make their way through. But now that the sunshine has thawed the earth, they can come to the surface, and whatever gets into their hands or is brought to their caves seldom, if ever again sees daylight. Snow White was very sad when she said goodbye to the good natured beast and unfastened the door that he might go. But in going out, he was caught by a hook in the lintel and a scrap of his fur being torn. Snow White thought there was something shining like gold through the rent, meaning through the hole. But he went out so quickly that she could not feel certain what it was, and soon he was hidden among the trees. One day the mother sent her children into the wood to pick up sticks. They found a big tree lying on the ground. It had been felled, and towards the roots they noticed something skipping and springing which they could not make out, as it was sometimes hidden in the grasses. As they came nearer they could see it was a dwarf with a shriveled up face and a snow white beard. An L long. An L is a measurement. It's like 45 inches or so. The beard was fixed in a gash in the tree trunk, and the tiny fellow was hopping to and fro like a dog at the end of a string. But he could not manage to free himself. He stared at the children with red fiery eyes and called out, why are you standing there? Can't you come and try to help me? What are you doing, little fellow? Inquired Rose Red. Stupid inquisitive goose, replied the dwarf. I meant to split the trunk so that I could chop it up for kitchen sticks. Big logs would burn up the small quantity of food we cook for. People like us do not consume great heaps of food as you heavy greedy folk do. The bill hook I had driven in, and soon I should have done what I required. But the tool suddenly sprang from the cleft, which so quickly shut up again that it caught my handsome white beard. And here I must stop, for I cannot set myself free. You stupid pale faced creatures. You laugh, do you? In spite of the dwarf's bad temper, the girls took all possible pains to release the little man, but without avail. The beard could not be moved. It was wedged in too tightly. I will run and get someone else, said Rose Red idiot. Cried the dwarf. Who would go and get more people? Already there are two too many. Can't you think of something better? Don't be so impatient, said Snow White. I will try to think. She clapped her hands as if she had discovered a remedy, took out her scissors, and in a moment set the dwarf free by cutting off the end of his beard. Immediately the dwarf felt that he was free. He seized a sack full of gold that was hidden amongst the tree's roots and lifting it up, grumbled out clumsy creatures to cut off a bit of my beautiful beard, of which I am so proud. I leave the cuckoos to pay you for what you did. Saying this, he swung the sack across his shoulder and went off without even casting a glance at the children. Not long afterwards the two sisters went to angle in the brook, meaning to catch fish for dinner. As they were drawing near the water, they perceived Something looking like a large grasshopper springing towards the stream as if it were going in. They hurried up to see what it might be and found that it was the dwarf. Where are you going? Said Rose Red. Surely you will not jump into the water. I am not such a simpleton as that. Yelled the man. Don't you see that a wretch of a fish is pulling me in? The dwarf had been sitting angling from the side of the stream when, by ill luck, the wind had entangled his beard in his line. And just afterwards, a big fish taking the bait, and the unamiable little fellow had not sufficient strength to pull it out. So the fish had the advantage and was dragging the dwarf after it. Certainly he caught at every stalk and spray near him, but that did not assist him greatly. He was forced to follow all the twistings of the fish and was perpetually in danger of being drawn into the brook. The girls arrived just in time. They caught hold of him firmly and endeavored to untwist his beard from the line, but in vain. They were too tightly entangled. There was nothing left but again to make use of the scissors. So they were taken out, and the tangled portion was cut off. When the dwarf noticed what they were about, he exclaimed in a great rage, is this how you damaged my beard? Not content with making it shorter before you are now making it still smaller and completely spoiling it. I shall not ever dare show my face to my friends. I wish you had missed your way before you took this road. Then he fetched a sack of pearls that lay among the rushes and, not saying another word, hobbled off and disappeared behind a large stone. Soon after this, it chanced that the poor widow sent her children to the town to purchase cotton, needles, ribbon and tape. The way to the town ran over a common on which in every direction large masses of rocks were scattered about. The children's attention was soon attracted to a big bird that hovered in the air. They remarked that after circling slowly for a time and gradually getting nearer to the ground, it all of a sudden pounced down amongst a mass of rock. Instantly a heartrending cry reached their ears and running quickly to the place, they saw with horror that the eagle had seized their former acquaintance, the dwarf, and was just about to carry him off. The kind children did not hesitate for an instant. They took a firm hold of the little man and strove so stoutly with the eagle for possession of his contemplated prey that after rough treatment on both sides, the dwarf was left in the hands of his brave little friends. And the eagle took to flight. As soon as the little man had in some measure recovered from his alarm, his small squeaky, cracked voice was heard saying, Couldn't you have held me more gently? See my little coat you have rent and damaged it in a fine manner, you clumsy, officious things. Then he picked up a sack of jewels and slipped out of sight behind a piece of rock. The maidens by this time were quite used to his ungrateful, ungracious ways, so they took no notice of it, but went on their way, made their purchases, and then were ready to return to their happy home. On their way back, suddenly, once more they ran across their dwarf friend upon a clear space. He had turned out his sack of jewels so that he could count and admire them, for he had not imagined that anybody would at so late an hour be coming across the Common. The setting sun was shining upon the brilliant stones, and their changing hues and sparkling rays caused the children to pause to admire them also. What are you gazing at? Cried the dwarf, at the same time becoming red with rage. And what are you standing there for making ugly faces? It is probable that he might have proceeded in the same complimentary manner. But suddenly a great growl was heard nearby them and a big black bear joined the party. Up jumped the dwarf in extremest terror, but could not get to his hiding place. The bear was too close to him, so he cried out in very evident anguish. Dear Mr. Bear, forgive me. I pray I will render to you all my treasure. Just see those precious stones lying there. Grant me my life. What would you do with such an insignificant little fellow? You would not notice me between your teeth. See, though these two children, they would be delicate morsels and are as plump as partridges. I beg of you to take them, good Mr. Bear, and let me go. But the bear would not be moved by his speeches. He gave the ill disposed creature a blow with his paw and he lay lifeless on the ground. Meanwhile, the maidens were running away, making off for home as well as they could. But all of a sudden they were stopped by a well known voice that called out, Snow White, Rose Red. Stay, do not fear, I will accompany you. The bear quickly came towards them, but as he reached their side, suddenly the bear skin slipped to the ground and there before them was standing a handsome man, completely garmented in gold, who said, I am a king's son, who was enchanted by the wicked dwarf lying over there. He stole my treasure and compelled me to roam the woods transformed into a big bear until his death should set me free. Therefore he has only received a well deserved punishment. Some time afterwards, Snow White married the prince and Rose Red his brother. They shared between them the enormous treasure which the dwarf had collected in his cave. The old mother spent many happy years with her children. Thank you so much for listening. Story Time will return in September with a new book read aloud in twice weekly episodes with a few notes along the way. Like an audiobook with built in notes, the new book will be revealed sometime in August. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature some of your thoughts as we go along. Speaking of links, please check out the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, pick up storytime merch, or become a member of our online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the Show Notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, class is dismissed. I'll see you next. Sam.