EPISODE · Jan 22, 2026 · 28 MIN
S8 Ep1: Midnight Mother Goose, Part 1
from The Whispering Gallery · host Whispering Gallery Podcast
Mother Goose is not a particular person, although some have tried to claim there was one, but a Mother Goose was a -collection- of beloved stories. Tonight our story takes us into a place of disquiet through dark coniferous forests with copses of fir and spruce trees. Strangely, at times these dark forests seem to bio-locate between Germany and France in Mother Goose stories and fairy tales of the Brother Grimm. Geographically the countries are next door neighbors. Thankfully the world that these stories reside in is an imaginary place where some shockingly mean-spirited humans make life harder for others, curses, vile cannibals and horrific serial killers, even talking wolves are key players as the villains.But also, a magic midnight time-spell, a cursed prince, impractical glass heels, treasure, griddle cakes for grandmother, alchemy: spinning straw into gold, grouchy dwarves, good fairies, angels… The world of fairy tales is a safe space for us to observe the dire consequences of bad judgment and the magic that could happen to everyday people...Go to the Whispering Gallery on Patreon for more content on this episode! https://www.patreon.com/cw/whisperinggalleryWhisperingGalleryPodcast.comSupport the Whispering Gallery podcast by sharing your favorite episode with a friend, writing a kind review or at:https://www.patreon.com/cw/whisperinggalleryhttps://buymeacoffee.com/suznikarthttps://www.paypal.com/paypalme/suzannenikolaisenImage Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RRH_Walter_Crane_1875.jpg Description: Crop of Illustration from the toy book Little Red Riding Hood (link to page). London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875 by Walter Crane. Source https://archive.org/details/LittleRedRiding00Cran/page/1 Author | Walter Crane (1845–1915)Sound FX and Music Attribution: Thank you to the musician and sound engineers at Pixabay and FreeSound Including: - Adrian Gomar- Mozart - Lacrimosa / Requiem in D minor - K. 626 - Arranged for Music Box by GregorQuendel | License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
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What this episode covers
I think most of us are familiar with the fairy tale worlds unfurled with the help of illustrators and simply turning the page, but unease seemed to take hold of the editors. These popular stories were not meant as children’s literature; the stories had to be gathered and written down first, edited, illustrators showing the stories that crossed country lines and generations, passing by word of mouth from the “migrating” (ie attacking, conquering, intermarrying, trading, settling, etc.) of tribes and the people in Western Europe; Saxons, Goths, Franks, Celts among others. This episode has been all over the place and is a bit of a patchwork quilt wrangling it back in as fairytales as we know them came to be. And people make black-and-white claims of how things happened, as history--and when I check that may not be. I can understand why there are scholars that study folk tales and anthropology. Respect. www.whisperinggallerypodcast.com
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S8 Ep1: Midnight Mother Goose, Part 1
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