Untold Podcast

Human traffickers face an unexpected intervention.

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"Customer arriving!" announced the robot.

The shopkeeper looked up eagerly.

The door creaked open with a whistle.  Rain blew inside as a small man fought with the door handle.  "You have my merchandise?" he rasped.

The shopkeeper snorted.  He's a day early.  "Yeah, but it's not ready yet."

Otherworldly gadgets and gizmos in clear displays filled most of the room.  A small lamp dimly illuminated a checkout counter, while brighter lights hummed illuminating the displays.  The visitor gestured to the tall shiny cylinder that had announced his arrival.

A brother and sister wander into Giantland and find themselves in the home of a child-eating giant.

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There was once a giant who lived on the borders of Giantland where it touched on the country of common people.

Everything in Giantland was so big that the common people saw only a mass of awful mountains and clouds; and no living man had ever come from it, as far as anybody knew, to tell what he had seen in it.

Somewhere near these borders, on the other side, by the edge of a great forest, lived a labourer with his wife and a great many children. One day Tricksey-Wee, as they called her, teased her brother Buffy-Bob, till he could not bear it any longer, and gave her a box on the ear. Tricksey-Wee cried; and Buffy-Bob was so sorry and so ashamed of himself that he cried too, and ran off into the wood. He was so long gone that Tricksey-Wee began to be frightened, for she was very fond of her brother; He was so long gone that Tricksey-Wee began to be frightened, for she was very fond of her brother; and she was so distressed that she had first teased him and then cried, that at last she ran into the wood to look for him, though there was more chance of losing herself than of finding him.

A group of street animals traverse the dangers of Hanoi to find a place where they can be served.

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“I don’t care if you are bigger than me. These are my noodles.” Parker the chicken stood in protection over the spilled bowl someone had left behind in Hong Ba alley.

The cat – Casey – padded back and forth, bearing just the tips of her teeth. “Fine. Eat them. I’ll wait until you’re done… and then I’ll eat you.”
 
“You are a beast!”

The cat laughed, “Perhaps. But a beast with a delicious chicken and noodle breakfast.”

The Leprechaun returns to tell a tale about his greatest failure.

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Would ye like t’hear about my greatest failure? The one time in all me long years when I was outsmarted by a mortal? A mere human? Well, shut up, ye, ‘cause that’s what I’m talkin’ about today! I tease ye, of course. Telling me stories to humans is kind of what I’m all about, but perhaps I ought to explain that firstly.

I am what ye humans call a leprechaun. Now, as I’ve stated previous, we ain’t no little magic midgets full o’tricks and nonsense and the like. We’re livin’ bein’s…just like you. The diff’rence ‘tween a human and a leprechaun are…well, there’s actually a lot of differences, but the most important one is that we have access to magic. Magic based in our gold.

Oh, I hear ye thinkin’ already; how kin I get a hold of some of that there gold for me lonesome, and that thought, as unbidden as it might be, is exactly what me purpose in this life is. I’m a storyteller, and the stories are tragedies.

A noble knight sojourns home, but finds a benevolent spirit shadows his journeys.

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Home lay northward, beyond Palestine and the Great Sea. Colgan rode his faithful bay steadily towards the green fields of Ireland. This worthy knight had fought great battles in the Crusades, with many a friend at his side. Those who had journeyed with him to war against the infidels had died. Now he rode alone, tattered and torn. Yet, solitary as he was, the knight felt that he did not ride alone but that some shadow or spirit rode with him. This in itself was strange to think, for Colgan was not a superstitious man and worshiped our Lord greatly.            

The thoughts that refute or affirm a man’s fancy are his alone, and none can truly say why a man believes the things he believes; but, these were Colgan’s reasons for suspecting an invisible companion: no matter how dark the night, or how dense the forest, a strange light surrounded him. It shone even in the brightest daylight, and at night when he camped, it warmed him and gave him light. This too: it often seemed to him that as he rode homeward, the merry peasants and their richly-dressed princes, the poor bruised and bent serfs and their armor-clad lords, would begin to approach him.  Whether to ask tribute or to threaten harm, he did not know. For always it happened that as they neared him, they would halt suddenly, as if some force turned them aside or impelled them backward. Yes, even those little hamlets where returning crusaders were greeted with honor and laurel, even in these little towns the inhabitants would turn their eyes away from him as he passed by. All this the good knight wondered at. Therefore thought he, “Surely, a spirit rides with me.”

What happens when an everyday Leprechaun is mugged during a bank robbery?

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I’ll bet ye didn’a know that Leprechauns aren’t rich.  That’s right, our gold’s not our gold, if ye follow.  Our job’s to warn mankind, an’ a stash of wish-fulfilillin’ gold’s the finest tool I’ve seen in my…well, many years on this fine an’ flawed world.

So mayhaps ye’ll not scoff that this tale begins as I was at the bank.  I wasn’t stashing my magical coins in the vaults, nor was I observin’ some poor cashier to make her life a lesson for others.  No, I was there makin’ a deposit on me lunch break, and I was not havin’ a good day.

Ah, I see yer surprised that a Leprechaun has a job, and a borin’ one at that!  In case ye didn’a already know, Leprechauns aren’t the wily little fellows from the storybooks, dressin’ entirely in…a certain color, dancin’ like fools and hiding gold in pots at the ends of rainbows.  Might as well try to steal me cereal with marshmallows, and for the record, I prefer cranberry muffins for breakfast, if ye must be informed.  I’m Irish, not a cartoon.

A kindly, but absentminded king imperils his kingdom when he is deceived by the cruel Duke Ironside.

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There once was a king who was very kind but also very stupid.  His subjects all loved him and admired his kindness, but they sometimes wished he were a little smarter when it came to making important decisions that effected the kingdom.  Oftentimes the members of his court would laugh behind his back at his odd behavior.

One of his courtiers, Duke Ironside, was a shrewd man with a cruel sense of humor.  He decided he’d had enough of the king’s foolishness and set out to have some fun with him.

Disobeying her elders, a girl ventures out to meet a kindly witch in the woods.

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There was once a little girl who was very obstinate and willful,
and who never obeyed when her elders spoke to her;
so how could she be happy?

One day she said to her parents, “I have heard so much of the old Witch, that I will go and see her. People say she
is a wonderful old woman, and has many marvelous things in her house; and I am very curious to see them.”

A man meets a mysterious Irish fellow who promises to grant his wishes, but might end up seeking an escape from this bargain through the "Thunderclap Clause"

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It's odd how legends're both startlingly accurate and wholly slanderous.  If I told ye I were a leprechaun, ye'd probably think me a pocket-size-liar and a curse-bringer, an imp who teases people and provides nothin' but empty dreams.  Ye'd be wrong.  Leprechauns have our own ways and world, and live out our lives for the most part peaceably therein, but fer now I'll just tell ye about what ye think ye know.  I'll tell ye about me gold.

It's true that all leprechauns do have a pot o' gold.  It's true that we can and do grant wishes, but it's not true that we turn those wishes into curses.  The wishes of most humans is naught but a curse in a blessin's skin, after all.

There are also things few, if any, humans get right about us.  Leprechauns aren't hard to catch, nor are we tiny enough to fit into a small sack.  All of that, now...slander!