The Great Tales

PARENTAL ADVISORY: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE UPSETTING FOR CHILDREN. Kullervo is one of the most memorable figures in the Kalevala, the great poetic compendium of Finland. His compelling haplessness and dark story drew the interest of Tolkien and still command our attention today.

One of the greatest tales of Lithuania is Eglė, Queen of Serpents. We welcome our friend Fr. Gintaras Sungaila live from Lithuania to talk about this story as well as to share Baltic tales from the late medieval period which mix saints with pagan gods.

How do you live in a collapsed civilization? Three Old English poems stand out for their reflection amidst loss - "The Ruin", "Deor," and "The Wanderer." Their elegiac power still sings across a thousand years and teaches in our own time of collapse, loss, and uncertainty.

Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim tell you three tales from medieval romance and legend -- tales concerning mermaids, monsters, and the Raven of St. Oswald.

Special guest co-host Dcn. Nicholas Kotar joins us to tell the story of Russia’s strange tradition of mashing up saints’ lives with fairy tales.

The week after Bright Week, Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim read some of the most intense and exciting poems from the Christian tradition, both East and West, about the harrowing of Hell.

Our hosts recap three legendary poetic showdowns: Väinämöinen vs. Joukahainen in the Kalevala, Homer vs. Hesiod in ancient Greece, and Taliesin vs. an entire court full of Celtic bards. Find out who's bussin' and who's suss, who was spitting fire and who got fired.

We continue #HoaryNorthernWinter with a turn toward the German tellings of the Volsung story, the Nibelungenlied, and Þiðreks saga. Rather than being translations of the Norse material, these versions transform the story and characters and also tell some tales of their own.

#HoaryNorthernWinter continues with the final showdown with the Huns and the fall of the House of the Gjukings. While we're on the subject, we'll look more deeply into the ancient conflict with the Huns that scarred the pysche of Germanic storytellers for a thousand years.

#HoaryNorthernWinter continues as we come to one of the most famous scenes in the Volsunga Saga: the Quarrel of the Queens, the moment when everything breaks for Sigurd and the Gjukings. Atilla the Hun makes an appearance.

We continue #HoaryNorthernWinter as we resume the Volsunga Saga and find out what happens to our great dragon-slaying hero when he comes to the Hall of the Gjukings and is offered certain magical draughts...

The story of Sigurd the dragon-slayer is one of the most celebrated tales in all of European literature—but it doesn't come to us in a single, authoritative form. Instead, it spreads like a root system across languages, centuries, and cultures: Old Norse sagas and Eddic poetry, Middle High German epic, Scandinavian ballads, and medieval German song. In this episode, we begin mapping that rhizomati...

Greatest among the Norse and Germanic tales is the Völsunga saga – the story of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer, the cursed ring of Andvari, and how a powerful family of storied warriors went up (literally) in flames. Let the #HoaryNorthernWinter begin!

Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim conclude their discussion of "Andreas," the Old English poem about St. Andrew rescuing St. Matthew from an island of cannibals. One of the wildest stories involving the apostles is told in multiple early sources, from the 4th-century Greek "The Acts of Andrew and Matthias among the Anthropophagi" to Homily XIX in the 10th-century Old English Blickling Homilies to the 1...

Delving into Old English sources, Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim read “Andreas,” the 10th-century poem that looks and sounds like Beowulf and tells the tale of how St. Andrew rescued St. Matthew from a city of cannibals.

Back from their pilgrimage to Scotland and Northumbria, Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim tell two tales from the road -- how St. Cædmon went from shepherd to hymnographer and how St. Oran insisted he be buried alive on Iona.

It was a graveyard smash. From the fjords to the graves, it caught on in a flash! Our hosts tell some Viking-age ghost stories, from Grettir’s late-night tussles with draugr to Angantyr’s rude awakening. Prepare for a monster mash of restless dead, barrow brawls, and heroes who know how to crash the crypt. In this very special episode recorded live at The Lord of Spirits Conference, Fr. Andrew Ste...

The hosts of The Great Tales podcast read and discuss two strange, dark, wondrous, and perplexing fairy tales: Little Briar Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty) and The Juniper Tree.

Join Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Dcn. Seraphim Richard Rohlin as they bring #HotThebanSummer to a close with Statius's Thebaid: an epic of impious hatred, monstrous serpents, and shocking horrors.

Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim continue their #HotThebanSummer with the story of the Seven Against Thebes -- the great war against the Bronze Age city of Thebes, which Hesiod said, along with the Trojan War, was one of the two great wars of the Fourth Age, the Age of Heroes.

Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim conclude their reading of “Antigone,” the tale of a sister who will stop at nothing to give her brother his burial.

Continuing the Oedipal story, Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim read the Sophocles play "Antigone," the tale of a sister who will stop at nothing to give her brother his burial.

Continuing their series on the sad tales of Oedipus, Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim discuss the Sophocles play “Oedipus at Colonus,” in which the burial place of the cursed Oedipus becomes the center of a family feud.

Fr. Andrew and Dcn. Seraphim examine the tale of Oedipus as told by Sophocles in "Oedipus the King," the horrifying story of the man who kills his father and marries his mother. Why is this awful story so enduring? Why should Christians even read it?

In this episode of The Great Tales, we journey from the tragedy of Oedipus to the Breton Lay of Sir Digory, exploring how fairy magic replaces fate—revealing grace beneath the surface. What if the old sorrows still echo, but now end in joy?