Season 98 · Episode 1 — the opening of the Romania shelf, from Moses Gaster's Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories (1915): the bird and beast tales of the Rumanian villages, rendered into English by Gaster himself and read aloud from the public-domain first edition — the bee who outwitted the mole, the nightingale who outsang the golden thrush, the pelican and his pouch, the fox and the hedgehog, and the man who grasped his way into a cuckoo.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
THE BOOK BEHIND THIS EPISODE
Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories, rendered into English by M. Gaster, Ph.D., published in London for the Folk-Lore Society by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1915 (public domain; Project Gutenberg eBook #43059). In keeping with this channel's standing rule, every piece in the collection was read and screened before this episode was built: tales turning on killing or cruelty were set aside, by name, and this premiere gathers five of its gentlest — beast fables and "why" tales of the farmyard and the forest. More of the collection's gentle tales will follow in later parts.
IN THIS EPISODE
00:00 Introduction
01:16 How the Bee Outwitted the Mole
05:28 The Nightingale, Songster of the King
09:47 Why the Pelican Has a Big Pouch
14:05 The Fox, His Bagful of Wits, and the One-Witted Hedgehog
18:09 The Cuckoo's Restless Life
Narration: Madame de Pamplemousse. Music: the instrumental theme "Napoli in Fiamme 2" is heard at the opening and at the close, and in a short excerpt between the stories; there is no music under the narration.
