The Children's Literature Podcast

The film Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is a delightful Halloween-themed romp by Aardman Studios, and it adds another jewel to the great tradition of British humor. But it’s also a really interesting snapshot of where Britain currently is at in terms of the rapid demographic and cultural change, using a premise imported from the United States and featuring many characters with family backgrounds outside the United Kingdom.

Art reflects reality. But it also projects ideals back into reality. I don’t think it’s possible or reasonable to expect a fun film like The Beast of Mossy Bottom to resolve the very real tension in Britain right now over the issues of demographic and cultural change. Currently most people just don’t talk about it and hope it will sort itself out, but unfortunately that means only people at the extreme fringes are the ones doing any talking.

While I don’t expect this film to have all the solutions, is it possible that it could help start a less feverish discussion by presenting something we can all have a good time watching together?

I saw Wildwood and I’m grumpy about it.

Based on the novel by Carson Meloy, this film has connected with a small and enthusiastic audience, but that audience doesn’t match the budget and it seems likely this film will turn a profit. This was the biggest stop motion project ever, and the skill that went into crafting the world of Wildwood is impressive. But lovely scenery and first-rate filmmaking can’t make up for the bland, generic fantasy plot, the pointless scenes showcasing Portland, Oregon, and the dull characters who won’t resonate with kids at all.

It’s HALLOWEEN and to conclude my 13 Nights of Halloween, I will tell the tale of how I learned about La Llorona, the weeping ghost who lost her children . . . so now she roams the world searching for children to take as replacements.

Is the Mexican legend of a wicked, cursed, and/or wronged woman true? WHO CARES! It gets little girls to shut up and go to bed when they stay up way too late and get way too loud at a slumber party.

It wouldn’t be Halloween without something Grimm, and so for my penultimate tale in my 13 Nights of Halloween I offer you “Märchen von einem, der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen” or “The The Story of a Young Man Who Went Forth to Learn Fear.” This tale was translated in 1889 by Andrew Lang to be included in his famous Blue Fairy Book. It’s about a young man who is too stupid to know fear, and his greatest wish is to learn to shudder.

Darkly funny, gory, and deeply weird, this is the kind of story that most grownups don’t think is appropriate for children these days. But I say tell the kids scary stories! They can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, and fictional peril helps build the kind of resilience that will make someone stronger when the troubles of real life come to pass.

Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you have to stop having a good time, as W.D. Westervelt discovered back in 1915 when he collected this story in Hawaii and translated it into English.

“A Visit to the King of the Ghosts” was the title of Chapter 13 of his book Legends of Gods and Ghosts. It depicts an afterlife where people still eat, sleep, are married, go surfing, dance, and party — at least, as well as you can when you aren’t alive any more. Ka-ilio-hae gets a tour of the afterlife, thanks to his bossy sister who keeps him from making mistakes that would prevent him from returning to the world of the living.

For hundreds of years, sailors have seen the Flying Dutchman – a ghost ship that is doomed to sail forever in troubled waters after its foolish and greedy captain took it through a storm. The Dutchman sank, taking its entire crew to the bottom with it.

Here I present the two earliest written accounts of the Dutchman, and we see that not everyone who hears the tale is a believer. John MacDonald first wrote about the Flying Dutchman in 1790 with a brief passage in his book Travels in Various Parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The first full tale of what sailors believed about the Dutchman was written by George Barrington in 1795 in Chapter 6 of his book A Voyage to Botany Bay. But what do you think? Is there really a ghost ship doomed to sail the seven seas for all eternity, or is this just what happens when a little too much rum goes down the hatch?

You can find the commentary-free version of this tale here:

This is the True(?) Story of the Black Dog that has been terrorizing the East of England since 1577. The Black Dog, also called Black Shuck, is a famous apparition that has terrorized East Anglia for centuries. He first appeared at the village church in Bongay (pronouned BUN-gee), where the marks of his claws can still be seen in the church door. To this day, folk tell tales of their own encounters with the Black Dog.

But was this vision real? The interesting part about this story is that it happened at a time when medieval superstition was alive and well but when folk were also keen not to be seen as superstitious, so they tried to carefully document the events to prove they weren’t simply madness or fancy. But what do YOU think?

In order to get right to the story, this version deletes a rather lengthy prologue which is a delightfully alliterative fire and brimstone sermon, but if you’d like the full account by Abraham Fleming with no commentary, you can find that over on my storytelling channel:

These are the 13 nights of Halloween, during which I will spook you silly with awful anecdotes. Tonight’s terrible tale is “The Honest Witch,” a story about a real Korean courtier who, four hundred years ago, discovered that not all witches need to be burned.

This story was first recorded by Im Bang in the 17th century, and the event allegedly happened within the author’s own lifetime to a real government bureaucrat named Song Sang-in. It was first translated into English by James Gale and included in his book “Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies, Translated from the Korean of Im Bang and Yi Ryuk,” which was published in 1913.

A note on the spelling of “mutang” and the use of the word “witch” to translate it: These days it is more common to spell the word “mudang.” However, the original Korean word has a sound in the middle that is midway between the English letters d and t, so you’ll see both spellings in writings about these women. The word “witch” might feel perjorative, but remember that this was over a century ago, when Korean and Western cultures knew very little of each other and they were just beginning to share their stories.

Today “mudang” is more commonly translated as “shaman,” but there isn’t really a perfect word. Mudangs act as a conduit between the living and the dead, and at various times in Korean history they have been accepted or persecuted based on the politics and spirituality of the day. But within indigenous Korean religion, they were seen merely as guides and helpers. Though, no doubt, plenty of frauds took advantage of the beliefs of the people, hence Song Sang-in’s very negative opinion of them.

If you’d like the commentary free version of this episode, it’s at my storytelling channel:

They say that in the depths of Windsor Forest, the ghost of a vengeful huntsman rides on a steed with hooves of flame, taking out his wrath on the wicked — or in some accounts, innocent livestock.

Shakespeare wrote about Herne in his play The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the legends are still told today about the mysterious rider with the stag’s horns on his head.

If you’d like the commentary-free version of this tale, you can find that at my storytelling channel:

Welcome to my 13 Nights of Halloween, during which I will heebie your jeebies with freaky folktales. Tonight’s terrifying tale is “The Finger,” is a Jewish folktale which was recorded nearly 400 years ago.

This story is as funny as it is creepy, and it was what inspired Tim Burton to make his film Corpse Bride. Reuven is ready to marry his beloved, but a drunken joke at his bachelor party leaves him with a dead bride laying claim to him. Can a thoughtful rabbi settle the dispute?

If you’d like the commentary-free version, you can find that over on my storytelling channel: