#51: False Bride

Keeping with their folk tale theme, The Cru dive into tales of the false bride. Stories feature the joys of child...birth?; the adventures of the "Blue Bullet" and her actress; a medieval wedding; and a story that melds the themes of the prompt with "Young Bride" by Midlake. (Definitely give this song a listen!) From The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, 1949 ed.  false or substituted bride: A very widespread folktale motif in which a beautiful young bride-to-be is ousted by an ugly or treacherous impostor Who foists herself off on the unsuspecting husband. In some versions the servant girl who accompanies the bride gets rid of her en route to the wedding, throws her in a river or pushes her into a well (where she thrives in the care of an underworld queen until the right moment for vindication and retribution arrives). Sometimes a stepsister, often with the connivance of the stepmother, ousts the bride of a prince or king, gets rid of her in some fashion (such as transforming her into an animal, throwing her into a river, or reducing her to a menial station), and marries the king herself. Stories begin around the 13:30 mark.Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!  Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do. Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.