373: European Fairy Tales: The Elements (part 1 of 2)

This week, on Myths and Legends, it's the story of the scientifically proven elemental spirits that exist all around us and how they only want to marry you so they can get a soul.

The creature this time is a few different, extremely venomous snakes with wings and backward heads, and how nowhere is safe.

This is Myths and Legends, episode 373:

The Elements.

This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore.

Some are incredibly popular stories you might think you know, but with surprising origins.

Others are tales that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen.

Today's story requires a little bit of background because, like I said last week, it's something of a spiritual prequel to The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.

The Little Mermaid is a literary fairy tale, but that doesn't mean it was invented whole cloth by Anderson.

In fact, in his creation and treatment of the Little Mermaid, he was inspired by a much older tradition that involves Swiss alchemy.

I was told a long time ago that people don't like sprawling intros, and that had an effect on how I tell the stories.

Unfortunately, that's kind of unavoidable today, so sorry.

In the 1500s, a Swiss physician, lay theologian, philosopher, and alchemist, which I guess you can have added to your job description, even though no one has ever really done alchemy, Parcelsus, conceived of the idea of the Undine.

Quick note, the alchemist Parcelsus was named Theophrastus von Hohenheim, which, yes, is the inspiration for the character Van Hohenheim from Fullmetal Alchemist.

I promise that is the first and last anime reference in this episode.

Anyway, in addition to being the father of toxicology and a pioneer of the medical revolution of the Renaissance, he had some thoughts on the Bible.

So, according to him, in addition to the world we can see and experience, and in addition to the spiritual world described in the Bible, there are at least four elemental beings.

Salamanders, which correspond to fire, we talked about them a few weeks ago.

Gnomes, which correspond to earth, sylphs, which correspond to air, and undeems, the water elementals.

In his view, these are not specifically spirits, or if they are, they're not demons like a lot of Christian theology at the time would imagine any non-human, non-angel, supernatural creature to be.

They were part of the natural world, and should be studied as such.

As far as I can glean from some of his works, he seems to attempt to reconcile Greek and Roman myth with Christianity.

Given the rules that he himself makes up, it seems to work out, but then again I guess that is the main perk of making up the rules.

That's the background for today's story, a then 250 year old work that said gnomes and nymphs were real.

Today's story though was not written by Paracelsus.

It was inspired by Paracelsus, and I'm having a hard time finding an English translation for the material that inspired today's work, so I don't know how much of the rules Paracelsus made up and how much are made up by today's author, Frederick Heinrich Carl de Lama, a German baron with a French surname.

Unlucky in love, which you might guess he was by the story, he was incredibly popular in his time for like 10 years, and today's work is a direct inspiration for The Little Mermaid and honestly helps me make sense of the more bizarre aspects of a work that has been perhaps unfairly maligned by certain modern podcasts.

Let's not point fingers.

Long intro aside, if you're still listening, we are starting the story, and we'll talk about the relations to the little mermaid later.

We'll jump in with a young knight who's on a quest for a glove.

The things we do for gloves.

Love, well, both, actually.

He had done well at the tournament, the one that drew knights and nobles thither to the city.

But he didn't care about the nobles thither.

He cared about the one hither.

And yes, we have some fun new words this week.

But the one the Knight Holdbrand was interested in was the Duke's daughter, Bertalda.

She was looking down from the gallery, and he knew, because her eyes swept across him from time to time, that she was really watching him.

So he fought even harder than he would have and came in like eighth place.

Decent showing.

In the evening, he found her at the great festival and asked her to dance.

She must not have hurt him because she walked away, so he asked her again.

After a few more mishaps and miscommunications, she finally agreed to dance with him.

It was like dancing with a wonderful, beautiful statue.

It was amazing.

When the song was about to end and she would move on, he knew he had to make his move.

He asked for a token of Bertalda's love, her glove.

She sighed, obviously a sign that he made her heart flutter.

And then she groaned.

She was probably thinking of something from earlier unrelated to him.

And said that he should have her glove if he went into the haunted forest.

Holdebrand said the haunted forest, but that was...

that was haunted.

Did she want anything from the forest?

Nope.

Bertalda shook her head.

Just ride on through the forest and let her know what he saw.

Unless...

He was a coward.

He stood up straight.

He was no such thing.

He stomped off toward the inn to get packing.

Now, going through the forest, he could see that it was actually haunted.

In the full light of the day, he saw a hunched and spiky form shuffling through the shadows.

When Sir Holdbrand rode close, putting his hand on his sword, the creature, about the size of a small man, contorted and scurried up a tree.

Red eyes snapped to meet Holdbrand's gaze, and teeth took form.

The monster, the demon, said that it was breaking twigs off the tall tree, so that, at midnight, it might light a fire to roast the night.

When Holdbrand told his story later, he would tell how his horse was so stricken with terror, it bolted wildly.

In truth, the horse was paralyzed with fear, and so Holdbrand had to rouse it with his whips and spurs, and then continued to do so over the next five minutes.

Soon, they were heading toward an abyss, a deep black void at the heart of the forest, which was likely an analogy as well as an actual literal danger, but a man in white arose, seemingly from the ground itself, between the horse and the void.

Wanting to stop now, Holdbrand found that he was once again master of his steed.

Funny how that works, and they swerved.

When they looked back to the old man, though, they only saw a brook flowing through the forest.

Turning away from the brook, they found a strange little man, a goblin whose smile stretched as wide as his ears, and who scraped his feet on the ground and bowed a thousand times in mockery to the knight.

This was extremely scary, once again for the horse and the horse only, and so the pair galloped away.

But when Holdebrand slowed his horse, panting in exhaustion and relief, he turned and, stepping from the shadows of the haunted forest, the goblin grinned.

You must give me gold.

The claws gripped the hat and held it out.

I turned your horse from the abyss.

Holdebrand once again was not scared, definitely not.

He did flip a golden coin to the goblin's outstretched hat, but had to let the goblin know the creature wasn't correct.

A stream stopped his horse.

The goblin looked up to him and just

started screaming.

Not wanting to argue and not being scared, Holdebrand put the spurs to his horse.

But the goblin kept up.

shrieking at him, running alongside his horse, holding up the gold and yelling that it was a false coin, a false coin.

Holdbrand said he didn't know what the creature wanted.

He only wanted the being to leave him alone, and the grass under the horse's hooves began to transform.

It was no longer gnarled weeds and yellowed wisps, but thick, lush, and green.

You think I need your gold?

The goblin shook his head.

Holdebrand said the creature held out his hat in his hand.

That's he asked for gold.

But he could see the goblin was pointing, so Holdbrand followed the creature's finger to

just pure weirdness.

It was like a goblin daycare.

Little goblins were running back and forth, playing with balls and toys, standing on their heads.

It was kind of heartwarming.

Until it got pretty intense, they started throwing the balls at each other and then pelting each other with toys.

And then, taking gold dust from inside the cave, they started throwing it at each other and rubbing it in one another's eyes.

Pelt me, my goblins.

Cover me in gold dust, the main goblin cried out.

Holdbrand got away while the children were pelting him in the eyes with gold dust to his shouts of approval.

It was weird stuff.

Disappearing and reappearing paths, eyes glancing at him from beyond the trees, and streams always changing course, the knight wandered for hours until, his horse exhausted, he simply walked it down the only path before him, resigned to his fate.

Then, as the darkness of the trees abated, and the leaves grew more and more sparse, he found a lake in front of him.

A simple tune floated on the air, and the knight saw a fisherman there, hunched over his ketch.

Since he evidently was the only being in the forest that was not a monster, he seemed safe.

The knight trotted to him.

The fisherman was hunched over his ketch and turned to look at the knight with a smile.

It was obvious the man was not a goblin or a strangely sentient stream, so the knight felt like it might be okay for a few minutes.

The haunted forest can be difficult if you don't know the path through, the old man said.

He gathered his fish and wrapped them, hefting them over his shoulder and pointing to the cottage on the island in a lake.

The man gestured to the small fort and the river.

The knight was out of the dark forest now.

He could stay with the old man and his family if he wanted to recover.

The knight chuckled.

Well, not him.

He was extremely brave and fearless, but his horse,

you know what his horse could use a rest?

Sure.

Thanks.

We'll see what the night finds by entering the house in the dark forest, but that will be right after this.

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The lake was practically a small sea, because the island the family lived on was massive.

Whatever lurked in the forest seemed to stay in the forest, though, and the flowing water of the ford kept the goblins at bay.

The knight glanced back several times while getting his horse situated in the stables, and while he saw eyes blink and shadows shuffle, nothing moved past the edges of the trees.

He breathed, carrying a stool and setting it beside the fisherman's wife.

The knight talked about how horrifying the forest was.

They lived there, with the goblins and the old man, and the eyes glanced furtively at their fish and then to the windows.

Sir Holdibrand stopped as the fisherman said it was not wise to talk about the forest at nightfall, or any other time, really.

Then rain hit the window.

Well, just one window, though, and a lot of it.

That's that's weird.

That's not usually how that works, Sir Holdebrand said, before sipping the bitter wine from the clay cup.

Ugh, that's because it's Undine, the fisherman groaned.

Undine, stop it, come to dinner.

The door opened and Sir Holdbrand, well, Sir Holdbrand was in love.

Take My Breath Away by the band Berlin was playing in his ears, and he only saw the 18-year-old daughter of the elderly couple, Undine.

She smiled, took a stool of her own, and scooted right up next to their guest, which he did not mind at all.

She asked who this was.

They explained that it was a knight that got lost in the forest.

And she looked him up and down.

He was a lot more attractive than the ones they usually found.

He blushed.

And a lot more alive.

He said, oh, okay, that one was a little bit troubling.

The fisherman begged the knight to forgive her rude talk.

Even though their foster daughter was basically an adult, she liked to play tricks and mess with people.

It was harmless.

The mother muttered that he didn't have to spend all day with her, and then she barked for the young woman to get to work.

I will do my work here, close to the beautiful knight.

She gulped down her food and took her spinning.

That's almost a direct quote from the book, by the way.

She was not subtle.

While she worked, she asked the knight, would he tell her his tale?

Holdbrand didn't see any problem with that, but before the words could escape his lips, the fisherman rushed over, waving his hands.

This talk was better left for the morning.

Slamming her work down, Undine stood, meeting her dad eye to eye.

She said she wanted to hear the knight's story.

I really don't mind telling the story, Holdebrand said.

He was a knight, he was very brave, his horse not so much.

But as Holdebrand sat there, sipping on the ale that the Fisher couple had provided, he saw that whatever was happening here wasn't really about him.

There was some friction in this house.

Undine was pretty much an adult, and she felt that as an adult, she had agency, and her desires were important.

But her parents only saw her as the child they had raised, because she still acted like a child most of the time.

The what could only loosely and charitably be called a conversation ended with Undine rushing out into the night, alone.

Should

she do that?

Holdbrand rose.

Undine's parents were already in the process of putting on their coats.

Obviously, no.

All three of them immediately followed into the night.

But Undine was already gone.

Undine wasn't theirs, biologically at least.

That's what Holdebrand learned, unprompted and unsolicited, from the fisherman as the pair searched the night.

As the light spray of rain gathered together in thicker and thicker drops, he learned that Undine had been adopted by the couple.

She was a foundling.

It happened one evening.

Their daughter, their biological daughter, had been playing by the water.

The fisherman had been in town.

He didn't return until, well, what happened happened.

Their daughter had slipped into the water.

Silently, they never saw her again.

That night, as they sat by the fire, too forlorn to speak, their door flew open.

A girl, not older than three, stood there, water trickling from her golden hair.

She was Undine.

They took her in, and he asked around town whenever he went to sell his fish, but no one had lost a child.

They tried to ask where she came from, but she had only childish gibberish of crystal palaces and shining pearls.

So they raised her as their own.

The priest baptized her and gave her the name Undine.

She had been a challenging child her whole life, but they loved her.

Well, she didn't come this way, thank God, the fisherman said, pointing at the stream that separated their island from the haunted forest.

It was less a stream and more just rapids at this point.

Before, it had been the ford of Bruinen when Frodo crossed.

Now it was the ford of Brunen when the Nazgul tried to cross.

There was no passing over it back to the haunted forest.

Come on, the fisherman put his hand on the knight's shoulder, and the pair turned to search the island.

Holdbrand was the one who found her, far off on their island.

For a moment, and a moment only, he thought he saw her talking to a man, a man who looked like the one who stopped his horse earlier, the tall man, clothed in white.

Then he blinked, and the man was gone.

Holdbrand carried Undine across the ravine to come back, and then the rest of the quarter mile back to the fisherman's house.

Both of them were into that.

He called out to the fisherman, who he saw searching the darkness, and the three of them returned to the cottage.

There, after some scolding from her parents, Undine demanded the knight tell his story, the implication being that if he was forbidden from doing so, then she would have to be restrained because it was right back out into the night.

So Holbrand told his story, the one we opened with, though he played up his courage to the point that going into the haunted forest wasn't for Bertalda.

In fact, though mentioned, she didn't play such a big role this time.

At the end of it, with the sun rising over the haunted forest, the family saw that the small brook that separated their island from the the wood was still a torrent.

There would be no going back to the city for Holbrand today.

Oh darn.

The crossing remained, well, not a crossing for several more days.

with the rush of water separating him from the haunted forest, but drawing he and Undine closer and closer together.

The story tells us that the world beyond the impassable stream became like a dream, one from which the night didn't want to awaken.

They had a bit of a fake out when, a few days later, someone pounded on the door saying, give me shelter!

For the love of God, open your door.

And I know this sounds like sacrilege, but I assure you I mean it quite literally because I am a priest, Holtbrand spat when the fisherman flung open the door that night.

The small family, plus Holtbrand, welcomed the man inside.

He had been out boating, and wow, did they know how crazy the water around their island was?

He just got close, and it rammed him directly into the rocks.

The current took him under, but it was like a silver man pulled him from the depths and deposited him on the gravel of the beach.

It didn't matter to Haldebrand what happened to the old holy father.

Well, that sounded bad.

He he was happy the man was safe and all that, but a priest?

Here?

That meant...

I wish to marry Undine, Sir Holdebrand blurted and lightly screeched the room in a burst of words.

Mouth agape, the priest said, um

okay, but was it cool with Undine?

Did she consent to this marriage?

Everyone looked to her and then broke out laughing.

Hilarious, the priest, such a joker.

He turned to Undine's parents, who said the knight was a courageous and brave man in the original, which to me is just saying courageous twice.

Yes, he could marry their daughter.

Also, this was was like a jackpot for their family.

What with their daughter marrying into the nobility?

100% approve, easy answer, no tixies-backsies.

He could be a complete bluebeard, and they would probably only ask for an unenforceable pledge not to murder her.

I'm not gonna murder her.

That's horrible.

The knight shook his head.

The fisherman held up his hands.

This was the 18th century.

There are literally no safeguards.

All right, let's get these two wed.

The wedding was a simple one.

The pair knelt in prayer, and the priest said a simple service.

They were married.

It didn't take long at all for Undine's antics to wear a bit thin.

What Holbrand saw as a delightful and precocious spirit when they were dating, well, it was a bit much when they were husband and wife.

Hey, um,

she's like hiding my stuff and pranking me and making mean jokes, the knight said to the Fisher couple when they were sitting by the fire, reading at night.

Yep, they nodded.

And um

are you gonna talk to her about that or

nope, they said, both of them licking a finger in unison and turning a page.

And

why not?

The fishermen sighed and closed the book.

Um because it wasn't their responsibility to keep her in line anymore.

That duty was her husband's.

Really?

Holderbrand was skeptical.

Oh yeah, it's an extremely problematic view in this and most times that a woman needs to be looked after first by her family and then by her husband.

She has no agency, the Fisher couple said.

Now, if he didn't mind, they were going to get back to pretending to read.

Lady, you are fair to look on, Haldebrand declared to his wife later.

She smiled.

That was a nice, complete sentence, with no additional clauses.

But I pray you cease these foolish ways, lest your soul become less beautiful than your face.

Undine reeled on her heels and buried her face in her hands.

No, no, don't remind her.

Remind her of what?

Not to be a jerk?

Undine said no, she did actually need to be reminded of that because she didn't have a soul.

Oh,

yeah, you do.

Holdbrand laughed, dismissing her fear out of hand.

She said, she didn't, though.

Holderbrand said, Then how did she get married?

Undine cocked her head.

Yes, you can't love and be loved without a soul.

If you didn't have one, you earned one when you married me, Holdebrand said.

Of course, it might take some getting used to, but she did now, indeed, have a soul.

We'll learn all about what's going on with the soul business, but that will, once again, be right after this.

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Now, it might seem a little bit problematic that Undine, a young woman, did not have a soul, and the only thing that changed was her getting married for her to have a soul, and that she, quote, lost her willful ways on her wedding day, becoming the picture of domestic, matronly subservience.

And it is very problematic.

That's the whole statement.

But that was, according to the story, what happened.

And it tracks with the central idea for these particular creatures.

Like I mentioned at the top of the episode, this, the Undine, is the creature that inspired Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, and she's like the Little Mermaid if everything worked out.

And she married the prince who was not named Eric, please don't sue me, Disney, and earned her soul.

Suspiciously fortuitously, the crossing back to the haunted forest lowered in the days following their wedding, and Holdbrand did not want to go.

But he had a castle to return to, and the priest needed an escort, so all those weird little goblins didn't attack him.

Holdbrand had the blessing of Undine's parents to take her to the city, though he didn't actually need it because, once again, again, she was literally his property up to and including the point where union with him granted her an immortal soul.

Before they left, though, she should inform him who she was and where she came from.

She was an Undine, one that was named Undine.

It was confusing, but it was like a cat named Kitty or a human man named Guy.

There were four elemental beings who dwell in fire, earth, air, and water.

The first, the fire, was the salamander.

It was the creature of the week a few weeks back.

The next were the gnomes that live under the earth.

In the woods were the forest spirits.

And the undeans are the spirits who haunt the waters.

Their walls are built with crystal and coral.

Undine is not, in fact, a mermaid, as it should really be apparent by her not having any of the qualities of a mermaid at all.

But it's easy to see the inspiration of the undine on Anderson's The Little Mermaid, especially with the ending.

If you don't know the story, the mermaid must marry the prince to obtain a soul, which, yes, totally fits with an Undine, even if it does leave a bad taste in the mouths of modern audiences.

But, considered in the context of its inspiration by today's story of the Undine, it totally makes sense.

Mermaids do exist in the world, as Undine points out, getting back to the story.

It's just another form that an Undine, a water elemental, can take.

Holdbrand had the reaction that some of us might have upon learning that our spouse was not human.

He shuddered.

And then he thought better of his shudder, but it was too late.

Undine had seen it.

Still, she continued.

She remembered bits of her childhood, the one under the sea.

She was the daughter of the Lord of the Ocean, and grew up in her father's crystal palace.

The old man, the one Holdbrand saw in the woods, who always seemed to emerge from the water was her uncle, Kuliborn, and while he looked after her, he also liked to scare and threaten her for fun.

That was never a problem before, though, because without a soul, no fear or pain pain could enter their lives.

Still, her father wanted her to gain a soul, so he gave her up to the Fisher couple who had just lost their own daughter in hopes that she could marry a human.

Now that she had won one, he could leave her or abandon her, and while she would keep her soul, she would live her life in sorrow, seeing as, as previously mentioned, she has a soul now.

Thanks for that.

Holdbrand, having the second part of that story to acclimate himself to his water elemental wife, said no.

Of course he wouldn't leave her.

She could come with him and live at his family's estate, the Castle Ringstetten.

The priest, too, was ready to return to his monastery, and figured it was better to travel with the knight and the water elemental across the haunted forest, him, I guess, subscribing to the theology of von Hohenheim and thus not viewing Undine as a demon.

So, to the tears of Undine's adoptive parents, the trio left the cottage and made their way across the now small stream.

They entered the haunted woods, and it was not an hour before, in front of them, a robed figure blocked their path.

Kuliborn, Undine's uncle, he had words for his niece's new husband, who drew his sword in response to the man's presence.

And, back in the city, a young noblewoman looked out the window.

The daughter of one of the most powerful families in the region, she had the eyes of all the young knights, but recently, she had sent one away.

She did it, well, because he made her feel something that none of the others did.

But in his absence, the confusion blossomed into longing.

She realized that she loved him.

Now, she feared the haunted forest had claimed him, as it had so many others.

If Holdebrand the Knight ever returned, Bertalda was committed.

She would marry him, no matter what.

That's where we'll leave it this week.

Now that everything's set up, we'll finish it next time because the story is way too long for one episode.

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For less than the price of toe croc charms, croc charms that look like a big toe, you can get extra episodes and add-free versions of the show that don't look like you're trying to jam toes through your crocs.

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The creatures this time are snakes, from kind of everywhere, but mostly European folklore in the Middle Ages.

First up, it's the Serena.

The Serena is mentioned in European folklore as being from the Arabian Peninsula, and it's a winged snake.

Actually, not all that uncommon in folklore, snakes with wings that is.

This one can fly faster than a horse can gallop, which also doesn't feel terribly noteworthy.

That's actually slower than most hawks and eagles.

Unlike hawks and eagles, though, its venom will kill you instantly.

You won't even feel pain, which honestly doesn't seem like a bad way to go.

The anxiety of a sky filled with fast-flying snakes that can kill you with a bite, that kind of seems like it outweighs the benefits of a merciful death, though.

Remember that in medieval bestiaries, every animal was a Christian lesson, and the Serena was no exception.

This one, though, feels like a stretch.

According to the 13th century Belgian theologian Thomas of Cantimpre, the Serena represented, quote, those who are conscious of their sin and full of remorse when they commit sins, and yet are so miserable and weak that they allow themselves to be overcome by wicked temptation.

Feels like he kind of had that one ready to go and just tacked it onto any creature, no matter how well it related or didn't relate.

But I'm no theologian.

If you keep your eyes on the sky, you will miss the extremely venomous snake worm crawling on the ground because apparently, nowhere is safe.

Yes, there's a species of snake that, like the Serena, can kill with a single bite, causing the person to feel no pain, so they die with a peaceful look on their face.

These snakes crawl on the ground with their little snake mouth and teeth turned up, so if they're stepped on, they can exact terrible vengeance.

Finally, we have the boa, which is neither small nor venomous.

It's also not the actual snake that's native to South America.

This one is from Italy, where it just wants to drink milk.

Drink milk until the cow dies.

Yeah, it will crawl up to cows and latch on, and then wrap up, looping themselves around the cow and drinking its fill.

And then so much more.

It'll basically drink until the cow dies.

I'm as much a farmer as I am a theologian.

Kind of seems like bad farming, because if a giant snake is wrapped around your cow, sucking its milk so much that it dies, you should probably take care of that at some point.

Anyway, weirdly enough, despite this one being in the bestiaries and actually drawn by monks and containing a message directly relating to one of the seven deadly sins, there's no moral for this one.

Should have put Thomas on it.

That's it for this time.

Myths and Legends is by Jason and Carissa Weiser.

Our theme song is by Broke for Free, and the Creature of the Week music is by Steve Colmes.

There are links to even more of the music we used in the show notes.

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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