We take on Donkey Cabbages - one of the most bizarre and barmy tales we've heard in a while.

Not only do we get witches, giants and magic clouds, we also discover a new concept - the minimal counterintuitive hypothesis. What makes a story stick? Some scientists think they've found the answer...

We then briefly look at man-donkeys in storytelling, say hi to Shakespeare, and meet the long-forgotten German folkhero Fortunatus.

Here's a link to the paper we discuss in the episode: Memory and Mystery: The Cultural Selection of Minimally Counterintuitive Narratives

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Theme music: Bicycle Waltz by Goodbye Kumiko

Other Music: Grieg's Holberg Suite, from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston // Massenet's Toccata Jules Massenet, performed Jean Dube

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Theme music: Bicycle Waltz by Goodbye Kumiko

Other Music: Rachmaninoff's Canon in E Minor, performed by Luis Kolodin // Rachmaninoff's String Quartett No. 2 performed by Steve Jones // Rachmaninoff's Etudes-Tableaux Op. 39 performed by Peter Bradley-Fulgoni // Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor

We’re back with a brand new series and a brand new volume of tales...

And we begin with The Four Skillful Brothers, a story of masterly thievery, improbable astronomy, dastardly dragons, and a man who sews up eggs.

After the story, we explore its origins before doing a deep dive on dragons: including the history of rescuing princesses from dragons in storytelling, and a patriotic stretch where we look into the Welsh red dragon and the story of St. George.

We can’t wait to get stuck into Volume 2; thanks for sticking around!

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Theme music: Bicycle Waltz by Goodbye Kumiko

Other Music: Dvorak's Romance for violin and piano, performed by Goldstein and M Pavel // Schubert's Fantasy in C Major Op.15 D.760 'Wanderer' - I. Allegro con fuoco