418: French stories: Our Son, Ourson, the Bear

This week on Myths and Legends, it's the story of a bear boy from France.

You'll see why you don't want to punt toads, they might curse you and your family forever, and why you do want to be an equal opportunity employer, even when it comes to bears or just very hairy teens.

The creature this week is from South Africa, and it's a monster that keeps murderers off the road.

This is Myths and Legends, episode 418, Our Son, Orson the Bear.

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

Some are incredibly popular tales you might think you know, but with surprising origins, and others are stories that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen.

Today is a literary fairy tale by the French Countess du Segueur from the early 1800s.

And we'll we'll talk more about her life at the end of the episode, but we'll jump in with two women running for their lives.

We need to go.

Pastros could barely contain her anxiety.

The king's brother, Prince Indolence, and his wife, Princess Nonchalant, fled just ahead of the assassin's knives.

The king would be coming for her, Queen Ami next, since she was the one who warned them, we need to go.

Queen Ami nodded, and, though she retched, managed to keep it down.

No, no, no, no, not now, not with him.

Her husband was a monster.

He had consolidated his power by marrying her, the daughter of one of his most powerful nobles.

But it was only when she was in the palace that she saw behind his smiles and charms, having learned of his moves against his brother, his fellow monarchs, and anyone else who was a threat to him, she knew there was only one thing she could do.

She sent the warnings out and prepared to leave herself.

But they were too slow, or they would be if they didn't leave now.

Pasros had arranged everything, the disguises, the ship to take them across the world, but they had to go.

Slipping past shouts and boots thudding along castle corridors, the women made it out of the palace and down to the docks, where they paid for passage on a waiting ship and paid again, in multiples of the amount, for the captain to forget they ever existed.

Queen Amine threw up twice on the ship as it sailed from her husband's capital, as alarms went up in the distance.

I didn't know you got seasick.

Pastrose shook her head and rubbed her queen's back.

I don't, the queen shuddered.

I think I'm pregnant.

Ugly toad, Queen Ami, now going by the name Agnella, yelled months later, I'll teach you to eat my cherries.

Newly minted farmer turned from the well in her kitchen and pointed to the toad, the one eating her cherries.

She did more than point.

The cherries were in a basket on the ground after the servant, Pasros, had picked them up that morning, and the toad was positively gobbling them up.

Our cat, Tomato, has this thing where he knows he's not supposed to scratch the chair in my office, but he'll come in and start.

I'll yell at him, he'll keep going, and he'll try to get in as many scratches as he can before I'm able to get the spray bottle.

It was kind of like that.

But unlike some harmless unpleasantness from a water spray, Agnella full-on kicked the toad, which tumbled across the floor of the farmhouse like a big, slimy hacky sack.

Grabbing her broom to sweep the toad outside, Agnella stopped when the toad stood up.

It crossed its arms and opened its mouth, and Agnella might have thought it was going to start kicking around and singing ragtime tunes, but it said something else.

You have dared to touch me with your foot.

You have prevented me from satisfying my appetite with the cherries which you had placed within my reach.

You have tried to expel me from your house.

My vengeance shall reach you and will fall upon that which you hold most dear.

You shall know and feel that the fairy furious is not to be insulted with impunity.

You shall have a son, covered with coarse hair, like a bear's cub, and Then she was interrupted.

Sister, stop!

A small voice rang from the doorway.

Agnella looked up and saw a lark, perched on top of the front door.

You revenge yourself too much.

That's not you, but the form you took to eat those cherries seeping through.

The lark fluttered down to stand in between the toad and Agnella.

I'm sorry, dear girl.

Though my power is greater, I can only limit her spell, not undo it, the lark said.

Do not despair, though.

There is a possible remedy for the curse placed upon your child.

If he inspires love in another such that they will take his curse, he will resume the handsome form he would have had.

Okay,

what is happening?

Agnella looked at the toad that cursed her and the lark that was arguing with the toad but also helping Agnella.

So if the toad had her way, which assuming that since she's a talking toad, that's something that's going to happen, it's done, yeah.

The toad looked at the woman with malice for not sharing her her floor cherries with a random toad.

Then my child that I'm pregnant with will be born with hair like a bear cub, like a, quote, disgusting little wild beast?

Agnella began to feel the full weight of what she and her future son had been cursed with.

Yeah, I mean, those those sorts of value judgments won't really help with his self-esteem, but that is the basic curse, yes.

the lurk said.

She also said that she was the fairy drolette.

Oh, and also, but sorry, but she, Agnella, and the servant Passeros, were not able to be the ones to take his skin.

He should be named Orson.

I'm just going to call it that.

It's pronounced differently in French, and it means bear cub.

But you don't want me trying that the entire episode.

Anyway, he shall be called Orson until, well, if the day comes when he can give away the skin.

Then he will be named Prince Marvelous.

Agnella's tears stopped momentarily.

That was

little on the nose.

She wasn't wrong, and the instinct when it came to naming was confirmed when she learned that the toad fairy, Fairy Furious, was so, well, furious that she didn't get her way completely, as well as the whole bowl of free cherries, that as she walked off, she spat on the flowers on either side of the path and killed them all.

What was that about?

Passerose asked when she walked in.

There was a talking bird and a walking frog spitting on everything out there.

But Agnela was in tears.

There was nothing they could do, Pasroz assured the queen.

Tears would not lift the curse, nor would pity.

They would educate the young man and teach him manners and how to love, and hopefully, one day, he would find someone to take his bearskin.

Orson was born three months later, and think cousin it from the Adams family.

Except with Orson, you could see his eyes and mouth if they were open.

Still, it was difficult.

The family tried to tell themselves that they didn't care how he looked, even though his hair felt like it was part hedgehog and pricked anyone who tried to embrace him.

But they were worried because people in the Middle Ages and the early modern period weren't the most open to outsiders, and they feared he would meet an early demise at the end of a pitchfork or a barn fire after being chased there by an angry mob.

Their fears were mostly unfounded, because the reactions of the local townsfolk were mostly non violent.

As Orson grew, he was a sweet and kind kid, and people only ran screaming from him, not yelling to him with weapons in their hands, whenever Agnella would take the vegetables to market.

At night, though, she wept for her boy, and, with every flap of every lark, she held a vain hope that it could all be undone.

At eight years old, Orson was lonely.

He saw the fear he inspired in the other children and their parents, so he stayed on his mother's land in the forest.

Walking that forest one day, he spotted something?

Someone?

As he got closer, it was a little girl asleep in the woods.

He was eight and she was about three, so I assure you that as he stood there watching her sleep, it was not in a weird way.

Though waking up to an essentially bear boy's wide eyes studying every part of you asleep in the forest is enough to throw anyone off.

And Violette was thrown off.

Orson wasn't surprised by her own panicked surprise, but he reassured the girl that he was not a bear.

Look at him talking, his teeth were regular human teeth, which is a normal thing to point out in any conversation.

Still, though, it was a lot for the little girl, and she took off, and this broke Orson.

He dropped to his knees, face and hairy hands, and began weeping.

At this, Violet slowed.

Forest murderers don't break down crying.

Probably.

Her heart swelled with pity for the little bear boy.

Patting Orson's hairy cheeks, she told him not to cry, and inexplicably started talking in the third person, saying, Don't cry, little cub, don't cry.

Violet is no longer afraid, she will not run away.

Violette will love poor little cub.

Won't little cub give his hand to Violet?

And if you cry again, Violet will embrace you, poor little cub.

You see, little cub, that Violette is no longer afraid.

Violet kisses you.

The little cub won't eat Violet, she will follow you.

My original thought was that she's so young, it's like how kids,

like three and younger, refer to themselves in the third person, like how Elmo mirrors on Sesame Street.

But uh,

spoiler, and I won't keep doing it because it's bizarre.

Violet keeps referring to herself in the third person pretty much throughout the story at times.

Anyway, that's a pretty quick about face for a few tears.

But it's not supposed to read as creepy.

Orson, having never been loved, accepted, or even tolerated by anyone other than his mom or her servant, led Violette home.

On the way he learned that she was royalty.

She was the daughter of a king and queen, though she didn't know where she had come from.

She awoke riding on the back of her dog and had apparently fallen asleep, waking up in the forest.

Dear Violet, I will always love you, Orson smiled, which you could see because it was one of his two facial features.

I will never forget that you were the only child who was ever willing to speak to me, touch me, or embrace me.

Hi, Orson.

Hi, strange, well-dressed girl sitting next to my son talking to him.

Wait,

Agnella stopped and looked.

Um

Orson and Violet were sitting by the door, laughing and talking.

Agnella and Passeros were surprised and apparently didn't question Violet's third-person speech either, inviting her inside.

Over dinner, they tried to suss out who she was and how she came to be in the forest, but got about as much out of her as we got from our son when we asked him how preschool went when he was that age.

A resounding, I don't know.

After dark, Violet had fallen asleep at the table.

Where is she gonna sleep, at least until we find her parents?

She said that she was, what, riding a dog?

How does that make sense?

Agnella shook her head.

Orson insisted that she sleep in his bed, and he would sleep in the stables.

Which, I mean,

maybe someone can help me out with this.

But how is sleeping in the stables on hay any better than, say, sleeping on the floor, in the house on hay?

You know, warmth, vermin, safety, all are better in the house, and there's the upside that it doesn't smell like dung.

Hopefully.

But Orson went outside, and the queen and Pasroz laid Violet down in the bed.

Come here and take a look at these.

Passrose held bracelets.

The girl wore them, and there was a ring with a medallion on the front of it.

The queen inspected it too.

Well, aside from taking the jewelry off little girls staying with them, which they probably shouldn't do, she could tell that there was something behind this medallion.

It was too thick.

What do you think it is, Pasrose?

Passrose?

The queen turned to see Pasrose staring at the beautiful, glowing woman floating in the center of the room.

Her hair seemed to be made of threads of gold, and stars adorned her brow.

She wore a crown on her head.

She was the fairy Drolette, the protectress of Orson, who, frankly, had failed before she even started with the prebirth curse from the toad fairy, but I digress.

This princess is your niece, the woman's voice boomed, but didn't wake the girl.

Prince Indolence and Princess Nonchalant, her parents, are dead.

Your husband succeeded in tracking them down after you left.

She was the only one who got away.

Nonchalant was pregnant, Agnella's voice quavered.

The fairy Drolette shook her head.

Agnella swallowed to keep her tears from coming and nodded.

Drolette said, I encouraged her to mount my dog's back and led the dog sprinting to Orson in the forest.

For the time, Violet will not remember her parents, nor what she heard from the palace behind her.

That ring contains her memories and more, which will be restored to her in time.

Are we safe?

Agnela asked, mentally calculating everything they would need to grab before piling everyone onto the cart, and which path the dog had likely taken so that they could go in the opposite direction.

Yes, you are.

For now.

The fairy, in addition to terrifying the family, was there to help.

Because of this extra burden, Agnela got her ring.

More specifically, if she wore the ring, she would want for nothing.

Which, yeah, Drolette could help out a little more with the details.

She did help out Violette, more practically, because the girl was a princess and obviously needed nice clothes.

They looked, and a small wardrobe was now against the wall.

And it was, let's say, bigger on the inside, because not only did the wardrobe fit in the one-room house that didn't even have enough room for Orson to sleep on the floor, but had enough clothes for Violette forever.

The woman looked back from the wardrobe, and Drolette, the fairy, was gone.

All of this because I yelled at a toad, Agnelis sighed, moving around the wardrobe with a groan to get to her bed, as if she didn't have enough trouble.

We'll see how Violette changes things around the farm, but that will be right after this.

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The fairies helped out a little more than Agnella thought when, one morning a few days later, she wished aloud they had berries to go with their porridge, blinked, and berries appeared on the table.

Oh, that's how that works.

Agnella inspected the ring.

Agnella was a good one, though.

She realized that while she wouldn't want for anything while she wore the ring, she didn't want to abuse it and become queen of the world or something and invite a bunch more angry toad fairies to come at her and her kids.

And yes, Violet called Agnella Mama Orson because she still had some vague, sad feeling connected to the concept of mother.

And having Agnella as a mother made her feel a little different and better.

One time, when Violet was at the market with Pasros, Agnella explained Orson's curse to him and what it would take to lift the curse.

Orson immediately understood what his mother was implying and asked her to tell no one.

He was now 15 and Violet 10, and he knew that she would do it.

She loved him like a brother and maybe in some ways she couldn't yet understand, but he wouldn't put that on her.

Agnella, though wanting the best for her son and for him to not be a little bear boy, smiled at the man he was becoming.

And something was different in him.

Orson no longer cared about how the world saw him.

He had his mother, Pasroz, and Violette, who all loved him, and that was enough.

He could take the stares and the jeers and the screams.

Together, they were a happy little family.

Agnella and Passrose taught Violet how to work and look after herself, and Orson taught her to read and write and accounting, which is a weird detail, though I suppose financial literacy is an important skill.

Not sure how important when you have a limitless TARDIS closet and a ring that fulfills all your needs.

I digress, though, because now in the story, Violette is bleeding.

She just scraped her foot on a rock, but Orson helped her over to the river, where they would clean it and dress it in linen.

Or he would have.

He needed to go back to the house and get the linen.

He'd be right back.

As soon as he was gone, toad eyes emerged from the river.

Now Violet had a dream, when she first came to live with them, about a mean toad, but didn't know the family's history with mean toads, and now that she saw a toad, she worried that it might be mean.

And she was right.

Quote, Aha, you are at last in my domain, little fool, said the toad.

I am the fairy furious, the enemy of your family.

I have been lying in wait for you for a long time, and should have had you before if my sister, the fairy Drolette, had not protected you and sent you a dream to warn you against me.

Orson, whose hairy skin is a talisman of safety, is now absent.

My sister is on a journey, and you at last are mine.

I mean, to be real, a little too much explanation for a kidnapping.

I'm assuming, for obvious reasons.

It's like, hi, my name is Jason.

You're probably wondering why I've never kidnapped you before.

Well, it's actually quite a funny story.

No, it doesn't matter.

Violet only saw the terrifying toad hands wrap around her ankles.

Violet, though screaming and pulling the shrubs from the bank, submerged into the water.

When Orson came running, he only saw her hair.

The only thing worse than being kidnapped by a toad fairy is probably your brother playing tug of war with your hair and it not working.

Orson was pulled under, too, but managed to kick the fairy in the face, and she let go of Violet.

Yes, her one weakness, a boot to the face.

Orson managed to pull her out, before both collapsed on the river bank.

Orson snapped awake at home.

Both Agnella and Pasrose had come running and carried them back to the cottage, and Orson was relieved to see Violet sitting up by the fire, shivering with a blanket over her shoulders.

I'm alive, she was telling Agnilla.

Thanks to Orson, how shall I ever repay him for all I owe him?

How can I ever testify my profound gratitude, my tender affection?

Agnilla looked back to her waking son.

Uh?

Orson rose.

By loving me as you always have, that's all.

He turned to his mother.

who shrugged.

Now, if they didn't mind, he was going to his room, the barn, to change out of these dripping clothes, because I guess for some reason he still wears clothes.

The years continued on, with the fairy Drolette thwarting Furious' attempts on Orson's life while trying to find a way to get him to tell Violette how to transfer the bear skin.

Even though Orson was stricken with a fever after the river incident, incident, he wouldn't speak it, not even when Violette vowed to give everything up for him, or when he battled a boar with bones of iron sent to kill Violette, and Violet pleaded with him for some way to show her willingness to sacrifice for him, too.

In love, though, he refused.

Then, four years after the river, Orson died in a house fire.

It didn't...

make sense, Agnella thought as she sat by the ashes.

The fairy drolette had come to her in a dream the day before last, saying Orson would be freed from his bearskin, and he would finally take on the name of Prince Marvelous.

Now he was dead.

They all awoke in the house to the smell of smoke and the heat of the fire having already caught the walls and now spilling upward onto the ceiling.

The windows were shut tight and the door seemed sealed.

Agnella knew it must be the frog, the fairy furious, but could only focus on screaming, trying to wake Orson out in the barn.

He did wake, but also found the doors the same way they did.

Immovable.

He thought of another way.

They had a small granary they built onto the house in the past ten years, and there was a tiny door between it and the house.

Orson shook off the smell of singed hair as he exploded through the door of the granary and found the small trap door.

Pushing it open, he called for Agnella, Passrose, and Violet as they crawled to him, making their way first out of the house, then the addition.

They were safe.

Except Agnella had forgotten something.

The medallion, she gasped, looking at the bracelets in her hand.

She quickly explained that it was the medallion, the hollow locket on the ring that Violet wore the day she came to them.

It contained everything.

Her happiness, her memories.

Immediately, to Orson, it made sense.

Why Violette always seemed like half a person.

It's because the other half had been taken, stored for her protection until she could reconcile the two.

Unless it was lost.

Orson turned.

No, Agnela commanded.

But Orson, thoughtlessly, tried the door one more time, the door that had been so hard to move that he couldn't break it with his shoulder, and it opened.

With one look back, Orson sprinted into the burning house.

It collapsed moments later, and burned until dawn.

It was midday before the women could start sifting through the ashes.

But their worst fears were confirmed.

Orson wasn't there.

The fire brought from the fairies that sealed their doors and windows was hot enough to consume him.

Agnela cried that it wasn't fair.

Drolette said that it would be over, that the bearskin would be gone.

Violette stopped shoveling and turned.

How?

How could Orson have lost his bearskin?

Agnela had made the promise to her son never to tell the girl, but Orson was now gone.

He not only sacrificed all chance of happiness for the girl, but he ended up sacrificing his very life.

It didn't matter now.

She told the girl everything.

Violet was still for a long time.

She looked up.

I would have done it.

She said it not with the conviction of a person at a restaurant who only reaches for the check once another person's hand is on it, but one who actually would have done it.

Violet loved Orson to the point that she would have taken the bear skin.

They searched for two more days in the ashes and found nothing.

Then, one afternoon, while she was all alone, Violet found him.

Hey?

Hello?

Can you all hear me down here?

Orson called out from the well.

Now, they learned after Violet fainted and fell down the well but was saved by fairies, and Pasrose ran to grab a ladder, but that was only after she kept Agnella from fainting and falling down the well herself, that Orson, when he learned escape was impossible, found the ring, leapt into the well in the cottage's kitchen, and gripped the sides and skidded until he reached the bottom, where he found some wood floating and, essentially, a charcuterie board with wine and pies.

In fact, the fairy had provided for Orson at the bottom of the well better than the home above had taken care of the women in the past few days.

Quickside bar, if I was searching for days and not finding

remains in the fire, I would have have made a beeline to the well, the one place that literally could not catch fire.

They got there eventually, though, and Orson was just hanging out in the dark sipping his well wine.

When Orson sat with Pesrose, Violet, and his mother after climbing from the well, and they all devoured the pies, Pesrose took a beat to look around mournfully.

They lost everything.

Agnella smiled and raised her pinky.

The fairy provides.

The three looked at her, confused.

Provides an ash-smeared hand?

No, the ring.

Agnella looked at her hand.

The ring.

The ring was gone.

Lost off her hand in the fire, because I guess that's something that happens when it's not just a convenient plot contrivance to make Orson have to leave home.

I'm leaving home to find work, Orson declared, just a bit behind our own reveal.

And he did.

Recently back from the dead, he made his way off into the world the following morning.

Run, children!

A bear!

The farmer screamed three hours later.

The children were way ahead of him.

In terms of panic, they were actually pretty far behind him in actuality because the farmer, their father's legs, were a lot longer than theirs.

Um, hi, Orson called out.

I'm not a bear, I'm I'm a human boy.

The farmer slowed and squinted.

Did that bear

just talk?

I'm not a I'm not a bear, I'm an Orson, I'm Orson, Orson called out.

I come from the woodland farm and I'm the son of Agnella.

The farmer walked up to Orson, taking a few kids with him.

in case he needed some delicious morsels of chaff for a quick getaway.

You were the one your mother took to market and who frightened all the children to death.

You've lived in the woods without anyone's help?

Go away and live as you did heretofore.

Our farmhouse burned to the ground.

I'm here begging for work to help my mother and sister.

I will do anything, Orson pleaded.

Quote, do you suppose, boy, that I will take into my service a villainous animal like you who will frighten my wife and my servants to death?

and throw my children into convulsions?

The farmer screeched.

Orson looked at the kids, who were now more curious and a little bored, if anything.

I am literally not a bear.

You've been talking to me the entire time.

I'm just like, I'm just a very hairy teen.

I'll work by myself, please, Orson asked.

But the farmer raised his pitchfork.

Quote, Will you be done talking, wicked bear?

Go instantly.

If you don't, you shall feel the teeth of my pitchfork.

Tines, those are tines, Orson corrected as he dodged a jab of the tines and ran off.

That'll teach talking bears to come around here.

The farmer smiled smugly, and then looked at his kids.

Some convulsing that was.

Amateur hour over here.

About an hour later Orson found the castle, with a whole group of men working out front.

Not a woman or a child in sight, and he couldn't imagine any of these guys admitting that they were scared of a bear that was about their height.

Give employment to a bear?

The superintendent laughed.

I'm not come on, you're talking to me.

I'm humanoid in appearance.

I'm so obviously not a bear and just like a hairy team.

Please You shall have no right to complain of my work, and I will work hard.

The Superintendent seemed to be mulling it over, when a bang went up from over by the horses, and the grooms rushed over to grab their reins and get control.

It's the bear the grooms pointed.

It terrified the horses.

Drive it off Chase it away.

He realized that this was a lot for them to accept all at once, but that sound was probably the evil toad toad fairy that was always hassling his family, and

yeah.

He could see he lost the superintendent, who smiled and shook his head.

Wait a few moments, you hairy beast.

I will give you something to run for.

Men, bring out the dogs and set them upon this animal.

Hurry.

See him scampering off?

The superintendent laughed to himself.

You done good, superintendent.

That's why you're the superintendent, and not just the regular intendant.

Superintendent comes from the Latin word for oversee.

There's no regular intendant, Orson shouted back, and the superintendent grimaced.

Where were those dogs?

We'll see how Orson's third and final job interview goes.

Spoiler alert, not well, but that will, once again, be right after this.

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The third stop was a forge, where the man thought Orson was one of his workers in costume and taking the day off and going to the local carnival.

Orson was fired from the forge even before he got that job.

So, Orson headed home.

It was a four-hour long walk back, but it went faster because he was likely chased several times.

He found his family in a lean-to by the ashes, and before he could even open his mouth to tell them what happened, Agnella and Violet cut him off.

They knew.

The fairy furious, the toad one, had been by to gloat a lot.

Violette looked to Agnella, who nodded back at her.

I demand to make the exchange allowed by the fairy drolette, and I entreat her to complete the transfer immediately.

Orson shook his head and looked around in the dark.

No, No, no, no, no.

But it wasn't his choice to make.

Violette had made up her mind, and she looked to her family with a sad smile.

Embrace your fair and pretty Violet for the last time, the girl said, and hugged Agnella, Passrose, and Orson, who, though he didn't approve, knew that he was powerless to stop her.

Face buried in the hug, Violet cried, Fairy Drolette, Fairy Drolette, come and accept the price of the life and health of my dear Orson.

And arrive, Fairy Drolette did.

They had never seen her in her full otherworldly garb, and the night was awash with light as Drolette flew down on her chariot of gold pulled by 150 larks.

She was clothed in a shimmering cloak of butterfly wings.

I will say that I understand that fur cloaks and leather jackets are objectively the same thing, and from a consequentialist perspective, probably result in more net suffering.

It's maybe just that I'm culturally acclimated to fur, but the idea of a coat made from butterfly wings just feels really cruel.

I bet it looked nice, though.

Probably didn't wear well.

Drolette wore a mantle of diamonds that trailed 10 feet behind her, and her hair glittered like gold tissues and she wore a crown of carbuncle, which is a red gem and not an infected boil.

She smiled as her shoes, carved from a single ruby each, touched the still ash-laden ground.

You wish it, then, my daughter?

Orson made his move, dropping to her feet and pleading that she not do this.

He might lose his bearskin, but he would gain no joy, but she ignored him.

Violet nodded, and the fairy drolette touched the fifteen-year-old's head with her wand.

In an instant, it was done.

Orson was cold for once, and looked up to see himself.

Well, what had once been his face?

Hair, except for eyes and a smile.

A smile because Violet was looking on Orson's face for the first time.

Thanks, my daughter, my noble, generous child.

Agnela took the girl into her arms.

Do you love me still?

Orson said essentially, yes.

She should never fear being ugly in his eyes, that she was his sister, a friend incomparable, and she would always be the companion of his life and the ideal of his heart.

A laugh rocked through the skies as the group had another visitor.

Pulled in a chariot made of crocodile skins by fifty massive massive toads, the fairy Furious arrived in her true form.

And it does get a little body-shamey.

Basically, if you've seen Danny DeVito's penguin from Batman Returns back in the 90s, that's close to what we're talking about here.

Plus, she had a goiter on her neck.

So there you go.

Her dress was made of snail skins and her mantle was the skins of toads, which I looked it up and it's basically leather, but grosser.

Furious came mostly to gloat, to drive home what Orson already knew.

He would never be happy, because his happiness had come at the expense of Violette experiencing the same life he had.

With this, the fairy Drolette laughed.

Furious would not triumph over Violette, for her generous devotion merits recompense.

Furious zeroed in on Drolette, defying her to come to Violet's assistance under the penalty of her wrath.

I don't doubt your rage, sister, but don't worry.

I won't punish you for it.

You're not worth the effort.

Drolette laughed.

That being an extremely passive-aggressive dig, Furious was filled with unbridled, unquenchable rage.

She was seething with anger, shaking with wrath.

Wow, I mean, I just wish there was a single word to describe how Furious felt.

She would not be threatened by Drolette.

This had been a long time coming.

It was on.

The frogs began belching their poison to smother Drolette, but Drolette summoned her larks to be...

a birdie shield, to absorb the poison, and a dozen of them died painfully as Drolette detached them from the chariot and rose into the sky.

This feels like a family thing, like there's more here than we really have context for.

Orsing yelled over the screams of the toads as the larks clawed their eyes out, and over the squawking of the larks as the toads shot poison darts at them.

All while Fairy Drolette and Fairy Furious shot magic bolts at one another in the sky.

Cover your ears, Drolette yelled to the humans below, and they were already there.

Like an air show, this fight was very cool, but very loud.

Both women screamed as the other's magic bolts enveloped them, but after a flash and the explosion, the toads were falling from the sky, with a chariot behind them.

They vanished into dust as they hit the ground, and all that remained of Fairy Furious was a toad that bounced on the ash.

The queen of the fairies aided me, Drolette called out, and punished you.

Repent if you wish to obtain pardon.

The only thing that came out of Furious's mouth was poison that she spat at her sister, but since she was a simple toad now, it went like three feet.

Fine, disappear and never reappear to the prince, Drolet commanded, and Furious vanished.

Did she just kill her sister?

Pesrose whispered.

Prince, the fairy pointed to Orson, now named Prince Marvelous, but we're going to keep calling him Orson.

Orson pointed to himself.

Him?

Prince?

The son of King Ferocious and Queen Emmy.

A woman you've known by the name of the farmer, Agnella.

Your mother escaped with you when you were young, and, no longer there to warn King Indolent and Queen nonchalant, they didn't take the threat seriously, and they were murdered by Ferocious, but not before I helped their daughter escape.

Violet, you are a princess.

Wait, what?

Violet didn't understand, but didn't care about the princess part.

Her parents were dead?

Orson was horrified, too, but shook his head.

My father is a murderer?

Was a murderer, Drolet corrected.

He was killed recently in a violent revolution because he was so terrible.

I will bring you back to rule over his people.

I informed them of your existence and promised them that you would take a wife worthy of your station.

You can select from twelve princesses whom your father retained captive after having killed their parents.

All that is basically a direct quote, by the way.

I was curious, and the Countess de Segur was born in 1799 and was absolutely aware of the repercussions of revolutions and the instability that can follow.

In her life, she saw the Napoleonic era, multiple restored monarchies, the Second Republic, and the Second Empire, all before she began her writing career at the age of 58.

For me, if I was Orson, I would be walking on eggshells if I chose to take that throne.

I mean, the people violently killing their king, and his marriage choices were the twelve women in the dungeons whose parents were murdered by his father?

And apparently the revolutionaries only care that he makes an auspicious match?

You sure about that?

Orson was sure, at the very least, that none of those twelve women could be his wife, because as the tears snaked down the bare fur of Violet,

him twenty and her fifteen, they both recognized the the feelings they held for each other.

No, dear Violette, until this time I have seen in you only a sister, but from this moment you are the companion of my life, my sole friend, my wife.

Your wife, dear brother, she replied, very much not addressing the start to the sentence when she was concerned about her repulsiveness sitting by his side, and not the fact that she just referred to him as her brother, but Orson insisted.

Agnella, to her credit, kept quiet and didn't voice her opinion that he should just marry one of the beautiful captive princesses for, you know, power and alliance' sake, and they could keep Violet nearby for him to visit, like, in a very nice shed.

But even with Orson's insistence that they would marry, Violet still refused.

So Orson shrugged, fine.

He didn't need the throne, only her.

They would live here in the forest as they always did.

With this, Jolette smiled.

She asked Orson, did he still have that ring he saved?

The day of the fire?

Orson searched his coat and brought it out.

Yes.

Right here it had her memories?

Yes, Drolette extended her hand, but also her happiness.

She slid open the ring and took the bracelets from Magnola.

With the opening of the ring, Violette looked to the ground.

She remembered that day the terror, her mother's cries.

Orson went to her and embraced her.

The ring, apparently bigger on the inside as well, contained something else.

This, the fairy brought out the perfume, belongs to you.

She handed it to Violet.

Tomorrow I will return and carry you to your kingdom.

Drolette informed the four.

I've renounced the kingdom.

My mother can rule, Orson said.

We will speak of this tomorrow.

The next morning, they were ready to leave.

Of course, as soon as Violette put the perfume on, her bare hair fell out.

The fairy clothed the royal family in nice clothes, remedying the, quote, evil of their appearance in their homely farmer clothes, which some classes stuff to unpack there, but we won't.

The story spends a lot of time on just what the clothes look like, but we also won't be doing that.

Traveling 3,000 leagues by lark chariot in under an hour, they returned to Agnella's kingdom.

Some quick math, at 3 miles per league, that's over 900 miles per hour, which I know what you're thinking, there's no way that can be right.

That's Mach 11 and 7 Gs if they got up to that speed in under a minute.

So I guess maybe the trip was short because they all blacked out.

Regardless, they made it safely to find a thrilled populace.

Maybe the people truly loved their new king and were awed by the fairy.

Maybe they were struggling to establish a stable stable government in the face of revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries, and it was just nice to punt it to the good-looking people who rocketed in on the fairy chariot with the sonic boom.

Agnella took over Violet's kingdom on the condition that her kids would visit her once in a while, specifically every year for three months.

Fairies and djinn attended the wedding of Orson and Violet.

And Agnella hit it off with one who, yes, like Aladdin, Disney Aladdin, not the real one, had the power to transform her into a genie as well.

And it wasn't a phenomenal cosmic powers, itty-bitty living space situation, just the phenomenal cosmic powers and immortality.

The only downside being having to experience losing literally every human in your life in increasingly fleeting years.

Passrose, the loyal servant, without whom none of this would have happened, got to continue being a servant for King Marvelous and Queen Violet.

And she loved being the only one to not get amazing gifts and riches and immortality.

Yep, just

so fun, getting to watch all their babies.

Nothing to read into here.

Definitely not an oversight on the part of the author, who was born the daughter of a count and became a countess herself through marriage later in life, that the long-suffering servant's only hopes and dreams involved

being a servant forever.

And so everyone was happy.

Except the farmer, the superintendent, and the master of the forge, the three places where Orson had sought work.

The farmer was eaten by a bear, a real bear, after he'd made fun of it, thinking it was Orson returning.

The superintendent's dogs never returned, and he was bitten by a venomous snake and died painfully.

Not sure how those are related, but whatever.

Finally, the master of the forge, who treated his own workers so brutally, died when those same workers cast him into his own blazing furnace because he was apparently too stingy with the PTO.

The end.

One of the interesting things about the story is just how brutally manipulative the, quote, good fairy Drolette is.

Employing both her own machinations and very notably not helping at key moments in order to maneuver things so Violet accepted the bearskin even to the point of letting Fairy Furious burn down the house and letting everyone think Orson was dead so Agnela would share the secret.

I mean she did have her reasons, but it did bug me that she dismissed Orson's wishes time and time again.

And it, you know, it did seem like she could have stepped up and fought her sister at any time instead of using her sister to pave the path to the throne and immortality for Drolette's own clear favorites.

Anyway, next week we're back in Slavic folklore with a prince who doesn't like to fight and kill and can't tear anyone's heads off and why that's a massive problem for his dad.

The creature this time is the Gagorib from South Africa.

If a monster is standing by a pit on the side of the road, first, go the other way.

But if you're intrigued that he doesn't appear to be attacking you, only motioning you over and holding a large rock, please listen to more Creatures of the Week segments before heading over.

We've talked about this so many times, it's an obvious trap.

It doesn't look like a trap, though, I mean, wouldn't be a good trap if it did, and the creature with no clear physical description, as he's a shapeshifter, wants you to throw a rock at his head.

If you do it, and he falls in the pit, he'll die.

I don't understand the appeal, and even if the creature asks you, it definitely would not fall under the umbrella of euthanasia, and even if it did, that's still not legal in South Africa.

Say, though, you're baited into throwing rocks at a strange monster and you hit it, well, like I said, that's a trap.

It will bounce off the monster's forehead and kill you.

I will say it is dubious, ethically.

Yes, the monster is killing people, but it's killing people who attempt to murder people on the roadside, and it's their own rock that does it.

It's not a clear-cut issue.

Unless you're a hero and then it is wrong.

Hit Siyabib found the pit of bodies and decided he needed to right this wrong that had been done when the monster killed all those people trying to kill the monster by killing the monster.

But the human hero, feeling the heft of the rock, said, ah, you know what?

No thanks.

He didn't want to throw the rock, but pointed over the monster's shoulder, saying he bet that guy would like to.

Yes, for the infamous trickster, the, hey, look over there, trick worked, and he caught a rock to the head, but behind his ear, where it wouldn't bounce.

It killed him, he fell into his own hole, and the people lived peacefully, with all the people who could be talked into murdering travelers being able to walk the road unimpeded.

That's it for this time.

Myths and Legends is by Jason and Carissa Wiser.

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

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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