This week Joe, Matthew, and Emma dive into Tom Tit Tot: Joseph Jacobs’ delightfully unhinged English version of Rumpelstiltskin. We talk pies (too many), imps (also too many), flax (never enough), and kings who really need to chill out about domestic textile production.

We compare it to Grimm’s Rumpelstiltskin, break down its 19th-century dialect, explain why kobolds ruined the mining industry, and debate the morality of eating five hand pies in one sitting.

If you enjoy a good “guess my name or I steal you” story, this one’s a classic.

This week, Joe and Matthew dig into one of the Grimms’ smallest, but strangest, tales: The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean. From the chaos of a kitchen fire to an exploding bean and a tailor with great aim, it’s a story that’s equal parts absurd and oddly insightful. We explore its fable roots, the lost 1548 source text, and even how the Grimms’ students kept its spark alive centuries later. Also: bean breath, Cartoon Network songs, and survivorship bias.

A humble worker, a mountain spirit, and a chain of wishes that goes way too far. In this episode, Joe and Matthew break down The Stonecutter, a Japanese folktale that might actually have Dutch roots.

It’s a story of ambition and discontent, where one man wishes his way from stonecutter to everything from a prince to a cloud, only to discover that happiness doesn’t come from power, it comes from perspective.

Along the way, we trace how Andrew Lang’s Crimson Fairy Book spread the tale worldwide, talk about its connection to The Fisherman and His Wife (ATU 555), and yes — detour briefly into a folktale called The Bullock’s Balls. You’ve been warned.