I'm still waiting for you. Hi everyone, thanks for listening to Shoes, Booze and Tattoos. As always, I'm Jess, I'm your host again. I do want to thank all of you who have donated over at Patreon, all of you who have left reviews, all of you that participate in the Facebook group, and all of you listening. You guys are what keeps this show going and I thank you all so much. Now, this is a
part two to the last episode, which is fairy Tales. Before we get on with the episode again, I am going to give a warning just in case anybody is picking this up separately from the first. This episode may contain subjects that aren't appropriate for some listeners. There may be mentions of sexual assault, violence, murder, cannibalism, torture, suicide, impossible insinuations, or
mentions of pedophilia, among other things. This is the episode where we will talk briefly about some insinuations or mentions of pedophilia that will be in the second part of this So, like I said in the first episode, this week we're going to be talking about fairy tales. We've all grown up with fairy tales, We've all heard these stories at least once and have some kind of familiarity with them. Most of you listening, it's going to be through Disney.
This is where you're going to be most familiar with a lot of these tales. In the first part of this episode, we talked about the story of Cinderella and how it differed from the original version, as well as snow White. Today, we're going to go over another two stories. The first one we're going to talk about is quite long. I'm going to put that right out there. It is going to be a little long. The original tale is a little long. It's not a novel or anything, but it's
a little bit longer than like the Cinderella story was. And this was actually my first original story that I read. This is one that I grew up with. My little sister Jamie absolutely loved, loved the Little Mermaid. Just like with the first episode, we're going to go over the Disney version again from Princess dot Disney dot Com, and then we're going to go over the
original story. So first let's get into the Disney one Deep Beneath the Sea loved a little mermaid named Ariel. She loved exploring her underwater home with her friend Flounder, but dreamed of living on land as a human. Ariel was always searching for human treasures. When she and Flounder found a strange forked object, they swam to the surface to find Scuttle the seagull. It's a dinglehopper, he proclaimed. Ariel's father was King Triton, ruler of the sea.
He thought humans were dangerous. When he learned that Ariel had been to the surface, he forbade her to ever go again. Then he asked Sebastian the Crab to keep an eye on her, But Ariel continued to go to the surface, and one night, a terrible storm swept across the sea. Ariel and Flander watched as a prince fell off of a huge ship. I have to save him, she cried. Ariel pulled Prince Eric to shore and sang to him, then she swam away. Prince Eric only caught a glimpse of
Ariel's face, but he knew he would remember her beautiful voice forever. Desperate to see Prince Eric again, Ariel agreed to give her voice to the evil sea witch Ursula. With bigger plans in mind. Ursula cast a spell and turned Ariel into a human. However, if Prince Eric didn't kiss Ariel by sunset on the third day, she would become a mermaid again. Even worse, she would belong to the Sea Witch forever. Charmed by her silent beauty,
Prince Eric showed Ariel his kingdom. Ariel loved being with the Prince in this human world, but the two had not yet kissed. Worried that Prince Eric was falling in love with Ariel, Ursula transformed herself into the beautiful Vanessa. She was going to make the Prince fall in love with her instead. Disguised as Vanessa and using Ariel's voice, the sea Witch cast a spell on Prince Eric, and he thought he was in love. He was going to
marry Vanessa. Ariel had lost her true love, But just before sunset on the third day, Scuttle discovered that Vanessa was Ursula in disguise, and he hurried to warn Ariel. As Sebastian went to find King Triton, Ariel and Flounder raced to catch Prince Eric's ship. With the help of her friends, Ariel was able to stop the wedding and get her voice back, released from Ursula's spell, Prince Eric realized that Ariel was the only one he truly loved,
but it was too late. The sun went down before Ariel and the Prince could kiss. She was a mermaid once more, and she belonged to Ursula. To save his daughter, King Triton gave Ursula his great powers and became her prisoner. Now I am the true ruler of all the ocean, shouted Ursula. As Ursula grew in size and towered above the sea, Prince Eric jumped aboard an old ship. He steered its jagged boat through Ursula's heart, and with a howl, the sea witch disappeared in the waves. With
Ursula gone, King Triton regained his powers. Seeing Ariel's love for Prince Eric, the King granted her wish. She became human. Ariel and Prince Eric married and lived happily in a castle by the sea. The end. Now, that's a very sweet kind of telling of this story. The original the overall is similar or the same, However, a lot of the details are very different. And like I said before, this is the first original story I read when it came to these fairy tales. It was dark and it
was sad, but it's a wonderful story. I absolutely loved this one. I actually prefer the original to the Disney movie for this. This was written by Hans Christian Anderson. Far out in the ocean, the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass. But it's very deep too. It goes down deeper than any anchor rope will go, and many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of the other to reach the bottom of the surface of the sea.
It's down there that the sea folk live. Now. Don't suppose that there are only bare white sands at the bottom of the sea. No. Indeed, the most marvelous trees and flowers grow down there, with such pliant stalks and leaves that the least stir in the water makes them move about as though they were alive. All sorts of fish, large and small, dart among the branches, just as birds flit through the trees. Up Here, from the deepest spot in the ocean rises the palace of the Sea King.
Its walls are made of coral, and its high pointed windows of the clearest amber, but the roof is made of muscle. Shells that open and shut with the tide. This is a wonderful sight to see, for every shell holds glistening pearls, any one of which would be the pride of a queen's crown. The sea king down there had been a widower for years, and his old mother kept the house for him. She was a clever woman,
but very proud of her noble birth. Therefore she flaunted twelve oysters on her tail, while the other ladies of the court were only allowed to wear six. Except for this, she was an altogether praiseworthy person, particularly so because she was extremely fond of her granddaughters, the little Sea Princesses. They were six lovely girls, but the youngest was the most beautiful of them all. Her skin was as soft as a tender rose petal, and her eyes were
as blue as the deep sea. But like all the others, she had no feet. Her body ended in a fish tail the whole day long. They used to play in the palace down in the great halls, where live flowers grew on the walls. Whenever the high amber windows were thrown open, the fish would swim in, just as swallows dart into our rooms. When we open the windows. But these fish now would swim right up to the little princesses and eat out of their hands, and let themselves be petted.
Outside the palace was a big garden with flaming red and deep blue trees. Their fruit glittered like gold, and their blossoms flamed like fire on their constantly waving stalks. The soil was very fine sand, indeed, but as blue as burning brimstone. A strange blue veil lay over everything. Down there, you would have thought yourself aloft in the air, with only the blue sky above and beneath you, rather than down at the bottom of the sea.
When there was a dead calm, you could just see the sun like a scarlet flower with light streaming from its kells. Each little princess had her own small garden plot, where she could dig and plant whatever she liked. One of them made her a little flower bed in the shape of a whale. Another thought at need to shape hers like a little mermaid. But the youngest of them made hers as round as the sun, and there she grew only
flowers which were as red as the sun itself. She was an unusual child, quiet and wistful, and when her sisters decorated their gardens with all kinds of odd things they found in sunken ships. She would allow nothing in hers except flowers as red as the sun and a pretty marble statue. This figure of a handsome boy, carved in pure white marble, had sunk down to
the bottom of the sea from some ship that had wrecked. Beside the statue, she planted a rose colored weeping willow tree, which thrives so well that its graceful branches sheeted the statue and hung down into the blue sand, where their shadows took on a violet tint and swayed. As the branches swayede, it looked as if the roots and the tips of the branches were kissing each other in play. Nothing gave the youngest princess much pleasure as to hear about
the world of human beings up above her. Her old grandmother had to tell her all she knew about the ships and the cities, and of people and animals. What seemed nicest of all to her was that up on the land the flowers were fragrant, for those at the bottom of the sea had no scent, And she thought it was nice that the woods were green, and that the fish you saw among their branches could sing so loud and so sweet
that it was delightful to hear them. Her grandmother had to call the birds little fish, or the princess wouldn't have known what she was talking about, for she had never seen a bird. When you get to be fifteen, her grandmother said, you will be allowed to rise up out of the ocean and sit on the rocks in the moonlight to watch the great ships sailing by. You will see woods and towns too. Next year, one of her sisters would be fifteen, but the others well, since each was a whole
year older than the next. The youngest still had five long years to wait until she could rise up from the water and see what our world was like. But each sister promised to tell the others about all that she saw and what she found most marvelous on her first day. Their grandmother had not told them half enough, and there were so many things that they longed to know about. The most eager of them all was the youngest, the very one
who was so quiet and wistful. Many a night she stood by her open window and looked up through the dark blue water where the fish waved their fins and tails. She could just see the moon and the stars to be sure. Their light was quite dim, but looked at through the water, they seemed much bigger than they appeared to us. Whenever a cloud like shadow swept across them, she knew that it was either a whale swimming overhead, or
a ship with many human beings aboard it. Little did they dream that a pretty young mermaid was down below, stretching her white arms up towards the keel of their ship. The eldest princess had her fifteenth birthday, so now she received permission to rise up out of the water. When she got back, she had a hundred things to tell her sisters about. But the most marvelous thing of all, she said, was to lie on a sand bar in the moonlight when the sea was calm, and to gaze at the large city
on the shore, where the lights twinkled like hundreds of stars. To listen to music, to hear the chatter and clamor of carriages and people, to see so many church towers and spires, and to hear the ringing bells because she could not enter the city. That was just what she most dearly longed
to do. Oh how intently the youngest sister listened after this, whenever she stood at her open window at night and looked up through the dark blue waters, she thought of that great city with all of its clatter and clamor, and even fancied that in the depths she could hear the church bells ring. The next year, her second sister had permission to rise up to the surface and swim wherever she pleased. She came up just at sunset, and she
said that this spectacle was the most marvelous sight she had ever seen. The heavens had a gold and glow, and as for the clouds, she could not find words to describe their beauty. Splashed with red and tinted with violet, they sailed over her head. But much faster than the sailing clouds were wild swans in a flock, like a long white veil, trailing above the sea. They flew towards the setting sun. She too, swam toward it, but down it went, and all the rose colored glow faded from the
sea and the sky. The following year, her third sister ascended, and as she was the boldest of them all, she swam up a broad river that flowed into the ocean. She saw gloriously green, vine colored hills. Palaces and manor houses could be glimpsed through the splendid woods. She heard all the birds sing, and the sun shone so brightly that often she had to dive under the water to cool her burning face. In a small cove, she found a whole school of mortal children paddling about in the water, quite
naked. She wanted to play with them, but they took fright and ran away. Then along came a little black animal. It was a dog, but she had never seen a dog before. It barked at her so ferociously that she took fright herself and fled to the open sea. But never could she forget the splendid woods, the green hills, and the nice children who could swim in the water, although they didn't wear fish tails. The fourth sister was not so venturesome. She stayed far out among the rough waves,
which she said was a marvelous place. You could see all around you for miles and miles, and the heavens up above you were like a vast dome of glass. She had seen ships, but they were so far away that they looked like seagulls. Playful dolphins had turned somersaults, and monstrous whales had spouted water through their nostrils, so that it looked as if hundreds of fountains
were playing all around them. Now the fifth sister had her turn. Her birthday came in the wintertime, so she saw things that none of the others had seen. The sea was a deep green color, and enormous icebergs drifted about. Each one glistened like a pearl, but they were more lofty than any church steeple built by man. They assumed the most fantastic shapes and sparkled
like diamonds. She had seated herself on the largest one, and all the ships that came sailing by sped away as soon as the frightened sailors saw her there, with her long hair blowing in the way. In the late evening, clouds filled the sky, thunder cracked, and lightning darted across the heavens. Black waves lifted those great bergs of ice on high, where they flashed. When the lightning struck on all the ships, the sails were reefed,
and there was fear and trembling. But quietly she sat there upon her drifting iceberg and watched the blue forked lightning strike the sea. Each of the sisters took the light in the lovely new sights when she first rose up to the surface of the sea. But when they became grown up girls who were allowed to go wherever they liked, they became indifferent to it. They would become homesick, and in a month they said that there was no place like the
bottom of the sea where they felt so completely at home. On many an evening, the older sisters would rise to the surface arm in arm, all five in a row. They had beautiful voices, more charming than those of any mortal beings. When a storm was brewing and they anticipated a shipwreck, they would swim before the ship and sing most seductively of how beautiful it was at the bottom of the ocean, trying to overcome the prejudice that the sailors
had against coming down to them. But people could not understand their song en miss took it for the voice of a storm, nor was it for them to see the glories of the deep. When their ship went down, they were drowned, and it was as dead men that they reached the sea. King's palace on the evenings, when the mermaids rose through the water like this arm in arm, their younger sister stayed behind, all alone, looking after them and wanting to weep. But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore
she suffered so much more. Oh, how I do wish I were fifteen, she said, I know I shall love that world up there and all of the people who live in it. And at last she too came to be fifteen. Now I'll have you off my hands, said her grandmother, the old Queen Dowager. Come let me adorn you like your sisters. In
the little maid's hair. She put a wreath of white lilies, each petal of which was formed from half of a pearl, and the old Queen let eight big oysters fasten themselves to the princess's tail, as a sign of her high rank. But that hurts, said the little mermaid. You must put up with a good deal to keep up appearances. Her grandmother told her, Oh, how gladly she would have shaken off all these decorations and laid aside
the cumbersome wreath. The red flowers in her garden were much more becoming to her. But she didn't dare to make any changes. Goodbye, she said, and she went up through the water as light and as sparkling as a bubble. The sun had just gone down when her head rose above the surface, but the clouds still shone like gold and roses, and in the delicately tinted sky sparkled the clear gleam of the evening star. The air was mild
and fresh, and the sea unruffled. A great three master lay in view, with only one of its sails set, for there was not even the whisper of a breeze, and the sailors idled about in the rigging and on the yards. There was music and singing on the ship, and as night came on they lighted hundreds of such brightly colored lanterns that one might have thought
the flags of all nations were swinging in the air. The little mermaid swim right up to the window of the main cabin, and each time she rose with the swell, she could peep in through the clear glass panes at the crowd of brilliantly dressed people. Within the handsomest of a mall was a young prince with big dark eyes. He couldn't be more than sixteen years old. It was his birthday, and that was the reason for all of the celebration.
Upon deck, the sailors were dancing, and when the prince appeared among them, a hundred or more rockets flew through the air, making it as bright as day. These startled the little mermaids so badly that she ducked under the water, but she soon peeped up again, and then it seemed as if all the stars in the sky were falling around her. Never had she seen such fireworks. Great sun spun around, splendid firefish floating through the blue
air, and all these were mirrored in the crystal clear sea. It was so brilliantly bright that you could see every little rope of the ship, and the people could be seen distinctly. How handsome the young prince was. He laughed, and he smiled and shook people by the hand while the music rang out in the perfect evening. It got very late, but the little mermaid could not take her eyes off of the ship and the handsome prince. The
brightly colored lanterns were put out. No more rockets flew through the air, and no more cannon boomed, But there was a mutter and a rumble deep down in the sea, and the swell kept bouncing her up so high that she could look into the cabin. Now the ship began to sail canvas. After canvas was spread in the wind, the waves rose high, great clouds gathered, and lightning flashed in the distance. They were in for a terrible storm, and the earners made haste to reef the sails. The tall ship
pitched and rolled as it sped through the angry sea. The waves rose up like towering black mountains, as if they would break over the masthead. But the swan lightship plunged into the valleys between each wave and emerged to ride their lofty heights. To the little mermaid this seemed good sport, but to the sailors it was nothing of the sword. The ship creaked and labored. Thick timbers gave way under the heavy blows. Waves broke over the ship, The
main mast snapped into like a reed. The ship listed over on its side, and water burst into the hold. Now the little mermaids saw that the people were in peril, and that she herself must take care to avoid the beams and wreckage tossed about by the sea. One moment it would be black as pitch, and she couldn't see a thing. The next moment, the lightning would flash so brightly that she could distinguish every soul on board. Everyone
was looking out for himself as best he could. She watched closely for the young Prince, and when the ship split in two, she saw him sink down in the sea. At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man. No, he should not die, so she swam in among all the floating planks
and beams, completely forgetting that they might crush her. She dived through the waves and rode their crests until at length she reached the young Prince, who was no longer able to swim in the raging sea. His arms and legs were exhausted, his beautiful eyes were closing, and he would have died if the little mermaid had not come to help him. She held his head above water and let the waves take them where the waves went. At daybreak, when the storm was over, not a trace of the ship was in view.
The sun rose out of the waters red and bright, and its beams seemed to bring the glow of life back to the cheeks of the prince, but his eyes remained closed. The mermaid kissed his high and shapely forehead. As she stroked his wet hair in place. It seemed to her that he looked like that marble statue in her little garden. She kissed him again and hoped that he would live. She saw dry land rise before her in high blue mountains, top with snow and glistening white, as if a flock of
swans were resting there. Down by the shore were splendid green woods, and in the foreground stood at church, or perhaps a convent. She didn't know which, but anyway it was a building. Orange and lemon trees grew in its garden, and tall palm trees grew beside the gateway. Here the sea formed a little harbor, quite calm and very deep. Fine white sand had
been washed up below the cliffs. She swam there with the handsome prince and stretched him out on the sand, taking special care to pillow his head up high in the warm sunlight. The bells began to ring in the great white building, and a number of young girls came out to the garden. The little mermaid swam away behind some tall rocks that stuck out of the water.
She covered her hair in her shoulders with the foam so that no one would see her tiny face, and then she watched to see who would find the poor prince. In a little while, one of the young girls came upon him. She seemed frightened, but only for a minute. Then she called more people. The mermaid watched the prince regain consciousness and smile at everyone around him, but he did not smile at her, for he didn't even know
that she had saved him. She felt very unhappy, and when they led him away to the building, she dived sadly down into the water and returned to her father's palace. She had always been quiet and wistful, and now she became much more so. Her sisters asked her what she had seen on her first visit up to the surface, but she will not tell them a thing. Many evenings and many mornings she visited the spot where she had left the prince. She saw the fruit in the garden ripened and harvested, and
she saw the snow on the high mountain melted away. But not see the prince. So each time she came home sadder than she had left. It was her one consolation to sit in her little garden and throw her arms about the beautiful marble statue that looked so much like the prince. But she took no care of her flowers. Now they overgrew the paths until the palace was a wilderness, and their long stalks and leaves became so entangled in the branches
of the tree that it cast a gloomy shade. Finally, she couldn't bear it any longer. She told her secret to one of her sisters. Immediately, all the other sisters heard about it. No one else knew, except a few more mermaids, who told no one except their most intimate friends. One of these friends knew who the prince was. She too, had seen the birthday celebration on the ship. She knew where they came from and where
his kingdom was. Come, little sister, said the other princess. Arm in arm, they rose from the water in a long row, right in front of where they knew the Prince's palace stood. It was built of pale, glistening golden stone, with great marble staircases, one of which led down to the sea. Magnificent built domes rose over the roof, and between the
pillars. All around the building were marble statues that looked almost lifelike. Through the clear glass of the lofty windows, one could see into the splendid halls with their costly silk hangings and tapestries, and walls covered with paintings that were delightful to behold. In the center of the main hall, a large fountain played its columns of spray up to the glass domed roof, through which the sun shone down on the water and upon the lovely plants that grew in the
big basin. Now that she knew where he lived, many an evening and many a night she spent there. In the sea, she swam much closer to shore than any of her sisters would dare venture, and she even went far up a narrow stream under the splendid marble balcony that cast its long shadow in the water. Here she used to sit and watch the young prince when
he thought himself quite alone in the bright moonlight. On many evenings she saw him sail out of his fine boat with music playing and flags of flutter, she would peep out through green rushes, and if the wind blew her long silver veil, anyone who saw it mistook it for a swan spreading its wings. On many nights she saw the fishermen come out to see with their torches,
and heard them tell about how kind the young prince was. This made her proud to think that it was she who had saved his life when he was tossled about half dead among the waves, And she thought of how softly his head had rested on her breast, and how tenderly she had kissed him. Though he knew nothing of all this, nor could he even dream of it. Increasingly she grew to like human beings, and more and more she
longed to live among them. Their world seemed so much wider than her own, for they could skim over the sea and ships, and mount up into the lofty peaks high over the clouds, and their lands stretched out in woods and fields further than the eye could see. There was so much she wanted to know. Her sisters could not answer all her questions, so she asked her old grandmother, who knew more about the upper world, Which was what she said was the right name for their countries above the sea. If men
aren't drowned, the little mermaid asked, do they live one forever? Don't they die as we do down here in the sea. Yes, the old lady said, they too must die, and their lifetimes are even shorter than ours. We can live to be three hundred years old, but when we perish, we turn into mere foam on the sea, and haven't even a grave down here among our dear ones. We have no immortal soul, no life hereafter. We are like the green seaweed. Once cut down, it
never grows again. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, long after their bodies have turned to clay. It rises through thin air up to the shining stars, just as we rise through the water to see the lands on earth. So men rise up to beautiful places which we shall never see. Why weren't we given an immortal soul, the little mermaids asked, sadly, I would gladly give up my three hundred years if it could mean I could be human for only a day and later share that
heavenly realm. You must not think about that, said the old lady. We fare much more happily and are much better off than the folk up there. Then I must also die and float his foam upon the sea, not hearing the music of the waves, and seeing neither the beautiful flowers nor the red sun. Can't I do anything at all to win an immortal soul? No, her grandmother answered, not unless a human being loved you so much
that you meant more to him than his father and his mother. If his every thought and his whole heart cleave to you, so that he would let a priest join his right hand to yours, and would promise to be faithful here and throughout all eternity, then his soul would dwell in your body, and you would share in the happiness of mankind. He would give you a soul and yet keep his own. But that can never come to pass the very thing that is your greatest beauty. Here in the sea, your fishtail
would be considered ugly. On land. They have such poor taste that to be thought beautiful there you have to have two awkward props, which they call legs. The little mermaid sighed and looked unhappily at her fishtail. The old lady said to her, let us leap and bound throughout the three hundred years that we have to live. Surely that is time to spare, and afterwards we shall be glad enough to rest in our graves. We are holding a
court ball this evening. This was a much more glorious affair than is ever to be seen on earth. The walls and the ceiling of the Great Ballroom were made of massive but transparent glass. Many hundreds of huge, rose, red and green shells stood on each side and rose, with the blue flames that burned in each shell, illuminating the whole room and shining through the walls
so clearly that it was quite bright out in the sea outside. You could see the countless fish, great and small, swimming toward the glass walls, and some of them the scales gleamed purplish red, while others were silver and gold. Across the floor of the hall ran a wide stream of water, and upon this the mermaids and mermen danced to their own entrancing songs. Such beautiful voices are not to be heard among the people who live on land.
The little mermaids sang more sweetly than anyone else, and everyone applauded her. For a moment her heart was happy because she knew that she had the loveliest voice of all in the sea or on land. But her thoughts soon strayed to the world up above. She couldn't forget the charming prince, nor her sorrow that she did not have an immortal soul like his. Therefore she stole out of her father's palace, and while everything there was song and gladness,
she sat sadly in her own little garden. Then she heard a bugle call through the water, and she thought, that must mean he is sailing up there. He whom I love more than my own father or mother, He of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness. I dare do anything to win him and gain an immortal soul. While my sisters are dancing here in my father's palace, I shall visit the sea witch, of whom I have always been so afraid.
Perhaps she will be able to advise me and help me. The little mermaids set out from her garden toward the whirlpools that raged in front of the witch's dwelling. She had never gone that way before. No flowers grew there, nor any seaweed, bare and gray. The sands extended to the whirlpools, where like roaring mill wheels, the waters whirred and snatched everything within their reach
down to the bottom of the sea. Between these tumultuous whirlpools, she had to thread her way to reach the Witch's waters, and then, for a long stretch, the only trail lay through a hot, seething mire. The witch called this her peat marsh. Beyond it, her house lay in the middle of a weird forest, where all the trees and shrubs were polyps, half animal and half plant. They looked like hundred headed snakes growing out of
the soil. All their branches were long, slimy arms with fingers like wriggling worms. They squirmed joint by joint from their roots to their outermost tentacles, and whatever they could lay a hold of they twined around and never let go. The little mermaid was terrified and stopped at the edge of the forest. Her heart thumped with fear, and she nearly turned back. But then she remembered the prince and the souls that men have, and she summoned her courage.
She bound her long flowing locks closely about her head, so that the polyps could not catch hold of them, folded her arm across her breast, and darted through the water like a fish. The slimy polyps stretched out their writhing arms and fingers to try to seize her. She saw that every one of them held something that it had caught with its hundreds of little tentacles,
into which it clung with its strong hoops of steel. The white bones of men who had perished at sea and sunk to these depths could be seen in the polyp's arms, ships rudders and seamen's chests, and the skeletons of land animals who had also fallen to their clutches. But the most ghastly sight of all was a little mermaid whom they had caught and strangled. She reached a large muddy clearing in the forest, where big, fat water snakes slithered about,
showing their foul, yellowish bellies. In the middle of this clearing was a house built of the bones of shipwrecked men, and there sat the sea witch, letting a toad eat out of her mouth, just as we might feed sugar to a little canary bird. She called the fat, ugly water snakes her little chickabities and let them crawl and sprawl about her. I know exactly what you want, said the sea witch. It's very foolish of you, but just the same, you shall have your way, for it will
bring you to grief, My proud princess. You want to get rid of your fish tail and to have two props instead, so that you can walk about like a human creature, and have the young prince fall in love with you and win him and an immortal soul. Besides. At this, the witch gave such a loud, cackling laugh that the toad and the snakes were shaken to the ground where they lay writhing. You are just in time, said the witch. After the sun comes up tomorrow, a whole year would
have to go by before I could be of any help to you. Jay shall compound you a drought, and before sunrise you must swim to the shore with it, seat yourself on rye land, and drink the drought down. Then your tail will divide and shrink until it becomes what people on earth call a pair of shapely legs. But it will hurt. It will feel as if a sharp sword slashed through you. Everyone who sees you will say that
you are the most graceful human being they have ever laid eyes on. For you will keep your gilded movement, and no dancer will be able to tread as lightly as you. But every step you take will feel as if you are treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow. I am willing to help you, But are you willing to suffer all of this? Yes, said the little mermaid in a trembling voice, as she thought of the
prince and of gaining a human soul. Remember, said the witch, once you have taken on a human form, you can never be a mermaid again. You can never come back through the waters to your sisters or to your father's palace. And if you do not win the love of the prince so completely that for your sake he forgets his father and mother, cleaves to you with his every thought and his whole heart, and lets the priest join your
hands in marriage, then you will not win an immortal soul. If he marries someone else, your heart will break on the very next morning, and you will become foam of the sea. I'll take that risk, said the little mermaid, but she turned as pale as death. Also, you will have to pay me, said the witch, And it's no trifling price that I'm asking. You have the sweetest voice of anyone down here at the bottom of the sea, and while I don't doubt that you would like to captivate
the prince with it, you must give this voice to me. I will take the very best thing that you have in return for my sovereign drought. I must pour my own blood in it to make the drink as sharp as a two edged sword. But if you take my voice, said the little Mermaid, what will be left to me? Your lovely form, the witch told her, Your gliding movements and your eloquent eyes. With these you can easily enchant a human heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Stick
out your little tongue and I shall cut it off. I'll have my price, and you shall have the potent drought. Go ahead, said the little mermaid. The witch hung her cauldron over the flames to brew the drought. Cleanliness is a good thing, she said, as she tied her snakes in a knot and scoured out the pot with them. Then she pricked herself in the chest and let her black blood splash into the cold steam swirled up from
it in such ghastly shapes that anyone would have been terrified by them. The witch constantly threw new ingredients into the cauldron, and it started to boil with a sound like that of a crocodile shedding tears. When the dart was ready, at last, it looked as clear as the purest water. Here it is, said the witch, and then she cut off the tongue of the little mermaid, who now was dumb. It could neither sing nor talk.
If the polyps should pounce on you when you walk back through my wood, the witch said, just spill a drop of this brew upon them, and their tentacles would break in a thousand pieces. But there was no need for that. The polyps curled up in terror as soon as they saw the bright drink. It glittered in the little Mermaid's hand as if it were a shining star. So she soon traversed the forest the marsh. In the place of
raging whirlpools, she could see her father's palace. The lights had been snuffed out in the great ballroom, and doubtless everyone in the palace was asleep, But she dared not go near them. Now that she was stricken dumb and was leaving her home forever. Her heart felt as if it would break with grief. She snuck into the garden, took one flower from each of her sister's little pots, blew a thousand kisses towards the palace, and then mounted
up through the dark blue sea. The sun had not yet risen when she saw the prince's palace. As she climbed his splendid marble staircase, the moon was shining clear. The little mermaid swallowed the bitter, fiery drought, and it was as if a two edged sword struck through her frail body. She swooned away and lay there as if she were dead. When the sun rose over the sea, she awoke and felt a flash of pain, But directly in front of her stood the handsome young prince, gazing at her with his
cold black eyes. Lowering her gaze, she saw that her fishtail was gone, and that she had the loveliest pair of white legs any young maid could hope to have. But she was naked, so she clothed herself and her own long hair. The prince asked who she was and how she came to be there. Her deep blue eyes looked at him tenderly, but very sadly, for she couldn't speak. Then he took her hand and led her into
his palace. Every footstep felt as if she were walking on the blades and points of sharp knives, just as the witch had foretold, but she gladly endured it. She moved as lightly as a bubble as she walked beside the Prince. He and all who now saw her marveled at the grace of her gliding walk. Once clad in the rich silk in muslin garments that were provided for her, she was the loveliest person in all the palace, though she
was dumb and could neither sing nor speak. Beautiful slaves attired in silk and cloth of gold came to sing before the Prince and his royal parents. One of them sang more sweetly than all of the others, And when the Prince smiled at her and clapped his hands, the little mermaid felt very unhappy, for she knew that she herself used to sing much more sweetly. Oh, she thought, if only he knew that I parted with my voice forever so that I could be near him. Graceful slaves now began to dance in the
most wonderful music. Then the little mermaid lifted her shapely white arms, rose up on the tips of her toes, and skimmed over the floor. No one had ever danced so well. Each movement set off her beauty to better and better advantage, and her eyes spoke more directly to the heart than any of the singing slaves could do. She charmed everyone, and especially the Prince,
who called her his dear little foundling. She danced sometime and again, though every time she touched the floor she felt as if she were treading on sharp edged steel. The Prince said that he would keep her with him always, and that she was to have a velvet pillow to sleep on outside his door. He had a page's suit made for her so that she could go
with him on horseback. They would ride through the sweet scented woods, where the green boughs brushed her shoulders, and with the little birds sang amongst the fluttering leaves. She climbed up high mountains with the Prince, and though her tender feet bled so that all could see it, she only laughed and followed him on until they could see the clouds driving far below like a flock of birds. In flight to distant lands. At home in the Prince's palace,
while the others slept. At night, she would go down to the broad marble steps to cool her burning feet in the cold sea water, and then she would recall those who lived beneath the sea. One night, her sisters came by arm in arm, singing sadly as they breasted the waves. When she held out her hands toward them, they knew who she was and told
her how unhappy she had made them all. They came to see her every night after that, and once far far out to sea, she saw her old grandmother, who had not been up to the surface in many years. With her was the sea king, with his crown upon his head. They stretched out their hands to her, but they did not venture so near the land as her sisters had. Day after day she became more dear to the prince, who loved her as one would love a little child. But he
never thought of making her his queen. Yet she had to be his wife or she would never have an immortal soul, And on the morning after his wedding, she would turn to foam on the waves. Don't you love me? Best of all? The little mermaid's eyes seemed to question him when he took her in his arms and kissed her lovely forehead. Yes, you are most dear to me, said the prince, for you have the kindest heart. You love me more than anyone else does, and you look so much
like a young girl I once saw but shall never find again. I was on a ship that was wrecked, and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple where many young girls performed the rituals. The youngest of them found me beside the sea and saved my life. Though I saw her no more than twice. She is the only person in all the world whom I could love. But you are so much like her that you almost replace the memory of her in my heart. She belongs to that holy temple. Therefore it
is my good fortune that I may have you. We shall never part. He doesn't know that it was me who saved his life, the little mermaid thought. I carried him over the sea to the garden where the temple stands. I hid behind the foam and watched to see if anyone would come. I saw the pretty maid he loves better than me. A sigh was the only sign of her deep distress, for a mermaid cannot cry. He says that the other maid belongs to the Holy Temple. She will never come out
into the world, so they will never see each other again. It is I who will care for him, love him, and give all of my life to him. Now rumors arose that the prince was to wed the beautiful daughter of anighboring king, and that it was for this reason that he was having such a superb ship made ready to sail. The rumor ran that the prince's real interest in visiting the neighboring kingdom was to see the king's daughter,
and that he was to travel with a lordy routine. The little mermaid shook her head and smiled, for she knew the Prince's thoughts far better than anyone else did. I am forced to make this journey, who told her? I must visit the beautiful princess, for this is my parents wish. But they would not have me bring her home as my bride against my own will,
and I can never love her. She does not resemble the lovely maiden in the Temple as you do, and if I were to choose a bride, I would sooner choose you, My dear mute foundling with those telling eyes of ears, and he kissed her on the mouth, ran his fingers through her long hair, and laid his head against her heart, that she came to dream of mortal happiness and an a mortal soul. I trust you aren't afraid of the sea, he said, as they went on board the magnificent
vessel that was to carry them to the land of the neighboring king. And he told her stories of storms, of ships becalmed, of strange deep sea fish, and of the wonders that divers have seen. She smiled at such stories, for no one knew about the bottom of the sea as well as she did. In the clear moonlight, when everyone except the man at the helm was asleep, she sat on the side of the ship, gazing down through the transparent water, and fancied she could catch a glimpse of her father's
palace. On the topmost tower stood her old grandmother, wearing her silver crown and looking up at the keel of the ship through rushing waves. Then her sisters rose to the surface, looked at her sadly, and wrung their white hands. She smiled and waved, trying to let them know that all went well, and that she was happy. But along came the cabin boy, and her sisters dived at a sight so quickly that the boys supposed the flash of white he had seen was merely foam on the sea. The next morning,
the ship came into the harbor of the neighboring King's glorious city. All the church bells chimed, and trumpets were sounded from the high towers, while the soldiers lined up with flying banners and glittering bayonets. Every day had a new festivity, as one ball or levey followed another. But the princess was still to appear. They said she was being brought up in some far away sacred temple, where she was learning every royal virtue. But she came at
last. The little mermaid was curious to see how beautiful this princess was. She had a grant that a more exquisite figure she had never seen. The princess's skin was clear and fair, and behind the long dark lashes, her deep blue eyes were smiling and devoted. It was you, cried the prince. You are the one who saved me when I lay like a dead man beside the sea. He clasped the blushing bride of his choice in his arms.
Oh I am happier than a man should be. He told the little mermaid, my fondest dream, that which I never dared to hope, has come true. You will share in my great joy, for you love me more than anyone does. The little Mermaid kissed his hand and felt that her heart was beginning to break the morning after his wedding day, she would be dead and turn to watery foam. All the church bells rang out, and haralds rose through the streets to announce the wedding. Upon every altar, sweet
scented oils were burned, and costly silver lamps. The priests swung their censors. The bride and the groom joined their hands, and the bishop blessed their marriage. The little mermaid, clothed in silk and cloth of gold, held the bride's train, but she was deaf to the wedding march and blind to the holy ritual. Her thought turned on her last night, upon earth, and on all she had lost in this world. That same evening, the
bride and the groom went aboard the ship. Cannon thundered and banners waved, and on the deck. The royal pavilion of purple and gold was set up here the wedded couple were to sleep on that calm, clear night, The sails swelled in the breeze, and the ship glided so lightly that it scarcely seemed to move over the quiet sea. At nightfall, brightly colored lanterns were
lighted, and the mariners merely danced on the deck. The little mermaid could not forget that the first time she rose from the depths of the sea and looked as such happiness was when she had first seen the Prince light as a swallow, pursued by his enemies. She'd joined the whirling dance. Everyone cheered her, for never had she danced so wonderfully. Her tender feet felt as they were pierced by daggers, but she didn't feel it. Her heart suffered
far greater pain. She knew that this was the last evening that she would ever see him, for whom she had forsaken her home and family, for whom she had sacrificed her lovely voice, and suffered such constant torment. While he knew nothing of all these things. It was the last night that she would breathe The same air with him, or look upon deep waters or the star fields of the blue sky. A never ending night, without thought and without dreams awaited her, who had no soul and could not get one.
The merrymaking lasted long after midnight, yet she laughed and danced on, despite the thought of death she carried in her heart. The prince kissed his beautiful bride, and she toyed with his cold black hair. Hand in hand. They went to rest in the magnificent pavilion. A hush came over the ship. Only the helmsman remained on deck as the little mermaid leaned her white arms over the bulkworks and looked to the east to see if the first red hint
of daybreak. But she knew that the first flash of the sun would strike her dead. When she saw her sisters rise up among the waves, they were as pale as she, and there was no sign of their lovely long hair that the breezes used to blow. It had all been cut off. We have given our hair to the witch, they said, so that she would send you help and save you from death. To night, she gave
us a knife. Here it is see the sharp blade. Before the sun rises, you may strike it into the prince's heart, and when his warm blood bathes your feet, they will grow together and become a fishtail again. Then you will be a mermaid, able to come back with us to the sea and to live out your three hundred years before you die and turn into dead sea foam. Make haste, he or you must die before sunrise. Our old grandmother is so grief stricken that her white hair is falling fast,
just as ours did under the witch's scissors. Kill the prince and come back to us. Hurry see that red glow in the heavens. In a few minutes, the sun will rise, and you must die. They then dove beneath the waves again. The little mermaid parted the purple curtains of the tent and saw the beautiful bride asleep with her head on the prince's chest. The mermaid bent down and kissed his shapely forehead. She looked at the sky fast
reddening for the daybreak. She looked at the sharp knife, and again turned her eyes towards the prince, who, in his sleep murmured the name of his bride. His thoughts were all for her, and the knife blade trembled in the Mermaid's hand, But then she flung it from her far out over the waves, where it fell. The waves were red, as if bubbles of blood seized in the water. With eyes already glazing, she looked once more at the prince, hurled herself over the bulkwards into the sea, and
felt her body dissolve into foam. The sun rose up from the waters. Its beam fell warm and kindly upon the chill sea foam, and the little Mermaid did not feel the hand of death. In the bright sunlight overhead, she saw hundreds of fair ethereal beings. They were so transparent that through them she could see the ship's white sails and the red clouds in the sky.
Their voices were sheer music, but so spirit like that no human ear could detect the sound, just as no eye on earth could see their forms. Without wings, they floated as light as the air itself. The little mermaid discovered that she was shaped like them, and that she was gradually rising up out of the paae. Who are you, she asked, and her voice sounded like those above her, so spiritual that no music on earth could match
it. We are the daughters of the Air, answered, A mermaid has no immortal soul and can never get one unless she wins the love of a human being. Her eternal life must depend upon a power outside herself. The daughters of the Air do not have an immortal soul either, but they can earn one by doing good deeds. We fly to the south, where the hot, poisonous air kills human beings unless we bring cool breezes. We carry the scent of flowers through the air, bringing freshness and healing balm wherever we
go. When for three hundred years we have tried to do all the good that we can, we are given and an immortal soul and a share in mankind's eternal bliss. You poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do this too. Your suffering and your loyalty have raised you up to the realm of airy spirit, And now, in the course of three hundred years, you may earn by your good deeds, a soul that will never die. The little Mermaid lifted her clear, bright eyes toward God's Son,
and for the first time her eyes were wet with tears. On board the ship, all was astir and lively. Again she saw the Prince and his fair bride in search for her. They gazed sadly into the seething foam, as if they knew she had hurled herself into the waves unseen by them. She kissed the bride's forehead, smiled upon the prince, and rose up with the other daughters of the air to the rose red clouds that sailed on high. This is the way that we shall rise to the Kingdom of God.
After three hundred years have passed, maybe get there even sooner. One spirit whispered unseen. We fly into the homes of men where there are children, And for every day on which we find a good child who phases his parents and deserves their love, God shortens our days of trial. The child does not know when we float through his room, but when we smile at him in approval, one year is taken from our three hundred. But if we see a naughty, mischievous child, we must shed tears of sorrow, and
each tear adds a day to the time of our trial. While really sad and quite long, this story will always hold a very special place in my heart. It was the first original story I had ever read. When it came to like fairy tales in the Disney princesses and stuff like that. But this was one of those ones that I read, Oh, I want to say, maybe ten years ago or so. And I did read this to my daughter, not ten years ago, but she was a little bit older
and she really enjoyed it too, and she was poor thing. She would cry when I would read it to her. But as you can tell, it's like an hour long story. So I am so sorry if that did drag on a little bit. I know some parts were very detailed in describing certain things, but that was part of the magic for me when I read it. Now, this next one, we're going to go on to Peter Pan this one. This one is very different from the other ones we've talked
about in that there's layers to it. It's not just an adaptation from an original story. It's much more recent than the last few, and its first mentions we're in the early nineteen hundreds for this. I'm going from Refinery twenty
nine. This is an article written by Mike Albo back in twenty fourteen, and honestly, it breaks everything down in such a phenomenal way there's just no reason for me to go in and try to put it in my own words, because they were going to do a better So before we get into that, Peter Pan. The story of Peter Pan, in different versions of it, have been played over and over and over over the last hundred years. It was last performed on live TV in nineteen fifty five and again in fifty
six. There was a two thousand and five film one, the movie Hook. That's the one I loved when I was growing up, was that movie hook. Peter Pan has had many incarnations over the years, but the origins of the tale, as well as the fates of its author J. M. Barry and the children who inspired it, turned out to be much much
more interesting. So let's talk about Barry and the boys. J. M. Barry was born in eighteen sixty He was the son of Margaret and Alexander Berry, and he was in the Scottish town of Carrie Muir shit Carrie Muir something like that. He had an older brother, David, who was known to be one of those beautiful golden children who everyone loved and adored. But in the winter of eighteen sixty seven, David was hit by a fellow ice
skater. He fell, cracked his skull and died Barry's mother never recovered mentally and was said to find a small comfort in the fact that David would remain a boy forever. It was here that Barry's lifelong obsession with boys and that preservation of their innocence became anchored in his psyche. Barry moved to London and in eighteen ninety four he married an actress named Mary Ansell. As a kind
of wedding present, he gave her a Saint Bernhard dog. The couple never had children, and evidence suggests they may have never actually consummated their marriage either. He just as much declared it in his story Tommy and Grizzel. He wrote this in about nineteen hundred, and he wrote about a toxic marriage, which he wrote six years into his marriage with Ansel Grizzle. I seem to be different from all other men. There seems to be some curse upon me.
You are the only woman I ever wanted to love, but apparently I can't. The marriage between JM and Mary didn't last, and they ended up divorcing in nineteen o nine. Could you imagine reading something like that? Something published that just seems terrible. In eighteen ninety eight, Barry met a pair of boys in Kensington Gardens, which is an expanse adjacent to London's Hyde Park. George and Jack Llewellyn Davies, aged five and four, were walking with
their nurse. Barry began to see them there repeatedly, and he befriended them. Soon after he met their parents, Sylvia and Arthur. Later, three more sons were born, Peter, Michael, and Nico. The Davies clan began to let Barry into their lives, and gradually Barry became uncle Jim. Peter Pan made its first appearance in The Little White Bird, Barry's thinly veiled novel about George Llewellen Davies that today, with our sensitivity to sexual predators,
has a creepy tone. In the book, a boy named David is befriended by the narrator, who pretends to have a son of his own who died. He uses this lie to create empathy with David's parents. The narrator is particularly excited that David's mother, Mary has been duped, which allows him to take David utterly from her and make him mine. Within the novel, the narrator invests a story about a magical boy named Peter Pan, who never grows
old and who lives in Kensington Gardens. In his biography J. M. Barry in The Lost Boys, Andrew Berskin stressed that despite it all, he doesn't believe Barry was a sexual predator of children. Barry, he says, was a lover of childhood, but was not in any sexual sense the pedophile that some claim him to have been. It's a similar defense many provide for Michael Jackson that his obsession with boys, deep seated and obsessive as it was,
had no physical aspect to it, but Peer's dudgeon. In his more damning biography, Neverland, J. M. Barry, The dou Marriers and the Dark Side of Peter Pan thinks very differently. He even dug up incriminating evidence that was more to Barry's attachment to the Davy's children than simple protective friendship. First, there are letters that he wrote to Michael Llewellen Davies, who
has often thought of as Barry's favorite Davy's child. On the eve of Michael's eighth birthday in June of nineteen o eight, Barry wrote quote, I wish I could be with you and your candles. You can look on me as one of your candles, the one that burns badly, the greasy one that is bent in the middle, but still hooray. I am Michael's candle. I wish I could see you putting on the redskin's clothes for the first time. Dear Michael, I am very fond of you, but don't tell anybody.
End quote. And then there's the matter of Barry becoming the boy's guardian. Arthur Llewellen Davies died from cancer of the jaw in nineteen oh seven, and then Sylvia, the mother, died of lung cancer in nineteen ten. Sylvia had left a handwritten document that said what I would like would be if Jenny would come to Mary and that the two together would I'm sorry this is written very terribly. Would is w d would be looking after the boys in
the house. So Mary was the boy's nanny, Jenny was Mary's sister. Barry transcribed the will himself and sent it to the boy's maternal grandmother. However, he altered Jenny to Jimmy, so it appeared that Sylvia wished for him to become the boys guardian, intentional or just a really convenient accident. Regardless, the children became his to care for. But amid all these machinations, there is as of yet no hard evidence that Barry ever physically abused these children.
This is the author of Peter Pan we are talking about had a Michael Jackson esque fascination with boys and childhood. That's kind of a rough one. So what happened to the Davies kids. In nineteen fifteen, George, the oldest of the Davis boys, was killed in World War One fighting with his regiment in Landers. The death of his brother caused Michael and Barry to grow a bit closer. Michael left home to attend Eton College and had a hard
time adjusting. He was troubled and antisocial, but became very close with Rupert Buxton, a son of a decorated baronet. The two reportedly became inseparabool, spending both time at the university and on holiday together. In May of nineteen twenty one, Davies and Buxton drowned together in Sandford Pool, a body of water a few miles from Oxford. Some reports say that the bodies were found
clinging to each other. Theories of how and why they died abound, but some believed that Buxton and Davies were lovers and this was a suicide pact. In later interviews, Michael's younger brother, Peter and Nico acknowledged suicide was a likely explanation. Years later, Peter Llewellen Davies became a successful publisher. Many of the letters between Michael and Barry were destroyed by him as he grew to dislike having his name associated with Peter Pan. He is quoted as calling Peter
Pan that terrible masterpiece. Many, including his son Ruthven They do imply that the unwanted fame drove Peter to become an alcoholic. In April of nineteen sixty he threw himself under a subway train in London. Barry he died of pneumonia in nineteen thirty seven. He bequeathed the copyright of all of his Peter Pan works to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a hospital for children, which still greatly benefits from owning the rights. Now that's the end of the article.
It does go on a little bit with the boyology thing and looking a little psychologically into it. We're not going to really talk about that much. One thing I did notice the difference from the original stories from the movies that we've seen, especially recently, Hook wasn't in them. It was Peter Pan was this kind of like malevolent boy spirit that actually depicted a normal boy quite well. And I think in the original stories it was actually an infant boy too.
But it's the classic things with kids. They're selfish, loving, but sometimes loving way too much, and they don't think about ramifications of their actions. This In the original stories, he wants people to be there and play with him, love him, show him affection, and they take Wendy. In the Darlings, the boys are there to add to their growing numbers, but Wendy is meant to be like a mother figure for them. The original stories are quite lovely, but they are long, so since we're already over
an hour with us, I'm not going to read those. However, if you would like to hear some more stories, I am going to do a Patreon episode on this. We will talk about Frozen, the real story behind that, the Pied Piper, and Sleeping Beauty, So if you are interested in those, feel free to check out Patreon Shoes Boosing Tattoos. If not, you guys have four stories that We've just gone over about two hours worth of content. Hopefully I can get this all edited and out to you the
same day. I'm hoping, but right now it's already noon, and usually I am like halfway into editing by now, so we shall see. I'm not going to read reviews for this one, since I did it in part one. I'm going to skip over reviews for this part two. If you want to get a hold of me, you can find me on social media of course, Shoes Boozing Tattoos, Facebook and instagram, sbt pod on Twitter, or you can send me an email Shoes Boozing Tattoos at gmail dot com.
Thank you all so much for listening. I'll see you all later. Bye. I'll round if you followed down around. It's not out of space, no die, I said so, and the dough is no, I don't say it's so, and the daughter is not