If you've benefited from Get Sleepy, then the single best way you can support our work is with a premium membership, and right now is the very best time to try out premium, because during the month of October you can enjoy a 90-day free trial on any premium membership in our network.
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Give it a go for a few months before you commit and see if the premium experience helps you sleep even better.
You can cancel any time.
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In case you didn't know, our company Slumber Studios also has a sleep app called Slumber.
With well over a thousand episodes, it has every type of sleep-inducing content you could possibly want, from stories meditations, audiobooks and history to soundscapes and music.
New episodes are added each week, and you can even search by narrator and listen exclusively to episodes narrated by me or by any of my wonderful fellow storytellers.
Samba has other unique features too, like the ability to add and adjust background sounds to create your own perfect mix.
So I highly recommend you give Slumber a try.
It's available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.
And as a Get Sleepy listener, you can unlock all of the content in the app, free for one month.
Just go to slumberfm slash getsleepy to get instant access to all of the content in Slumber, free for one month.
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Welcome to Get Sleepy, where we listen, we relax, and we get sleepy.
My name's Thomas and I'm your host.
Thanks so much for joining us for yet another bonus episode.
This is the first of four extra episodes we'll be releasing each Friday throughout October.
It was written by Jessica, and I have the pleasure of reading it for you.
We're going to be giving you a window into the world of fairy tales.
Tales like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hansel and Gretel.
These well-loved classics were first published in a book called Children's and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm.
But the brothers, Jakob and Wilhelm, didn't actually write the stories themselves.
Instead, they collected them from all over Germany, from cities and towns and from the forests and the mountains.
They visited folk who were famed storytellers, and wrote down the tales they heard.
Soon, I'll invite you to join the Brothers Grimm on one of their expeditions.
But before I begin, I welcome you to take a moment for yourself.
It's time to relax, unwind, and prepare your body and mind for sleep.
First, check that you're comfortable.
Take a minute to make any adjustments you might need.
Stretch out your arms and legs, loosen your neck, and unclench your jaw.
Feel any knots of stress or worry gently come undone.
Then breathe in and invite a feeling of ease and calm into your body.
Stay with that feeling for a moment or two. while your breathing becomes deep and steady.
And when you're ready, close your eyes.
Now, let's begin with the tale behind the fairy tales.
The year is 1809, and the location is Germany.
The woods of Hesse, to be precise.
It is October, and the kind of weather that Germans refer to as Goldene Herbst, Golden Autumn.
The afternoon is crisp but warm, and sun burnishes the leaves on the trees, turning them from yellow and orange to gold and bronze.
Two men dressed in walking suits and matching wide-brimmed felt hats are making their way through the forest.
They aren't in any particular hurry, for they are not expected at Dorothea Feeman's cottage for another hour.
Both brothers are determined to enjoy their afternoon walk through the forest.
The stroll makes for a pleasant contrast from their usual work at the University of Marburg, where both are librarians.
The rustling of the forest leaves is, to their ears, brighter and more vivid than the whispering rustle of manuscript pages being turned over in the library, and the earthy smell of moss and fungi is a welcome change from the scents of ink paper and wood polish.
Every now and again Jakob, the elder of the two, stops to gesture at a particularly fine toadstool with the tip of his wooden walking stick.
Occasionally Wilhelm, the younger by a year, leans on the handle of his stick and points up at a swift flitting from branch to branch.
The brothers speak little while they walk.
But they know each other very well and each is aware of the excitement and anticipation the other feels.
The brothers have always been passionate about art and literature.
While studying literature at university, both were exposed to the German Romantics, a group of philosophers, artists and writers who celebrated art forms that had previously been overlooked, like folk painting and oral storytelling.
Inspired by the romantics, the Grimms realized that the folktales they had grown up hearing around the fireside were part of a rich literary tradition.
So they set themselves the ambitious task of collecting and recording as many of these folktales as they could.
It was their intention to eventually publish them.
Until this point, there was no written record of German folk and fairy tales.
Instead, they were memorized, passed from one generation to the next.
They were often told to children by their nurses as they drifted off to sleep or shared around a fire as night drew in.
Sometimes the stories were told among women as they engaged in repetitive domestic tasks like spinning flax into wool or shelling peas.
The brothers had begun by searching out tales from among their circle of acquaintances.
Then they cast their net wider, meeting renowned storytellers across the region.
But the woman they are on their way to visit now, Dorothea Feeman, is a relatively new connection and a particularly exciting one.
Dorothea's father was a tavern keeper.
As a young child, she spent her days and nights working at the tavern, listening to the stories, legends and fairy tales that the guests spun late into the night.
In her early twenties, she married a tailor, Nikolaus Fiemann.
And together, they had seven children.
Each night, Dorothea would tell her children stories to send them to sleep.
And to support her family.
She sold produce from her garden at the local markets, where she swapped stories with fellow stallholders.
Now in her 60s.
Dorothea holds a treasure trove of tales in her brain and is very well practiced in the telling of them.
The brothers have paid her two visits before and transcribed tales like Hans My Hedgehog and Clever Elsie.
And today, she has promised to tell them one of her favorites, the story of the three feathers.
Through the trees, a church bell chimes four o'clock.
The brothers follow the path formed by a clear brook, with mossy, pebbles and pink-bellied trout visible under its surface.
The stream winds its way through the thinning forest and leads out to the village of Rengeshausen.
Here, the high church tower is surrounded with a cluster of small shops that face onto a market square.
Radiating outwards from the shops are houses, grander villas, at the center of the village, giving way to humbler cottages at its outskirts.
Dorothea's cottage is so far out of the center of the village.
It is almost swallowed back into the forest.
Its shambling garden, where turnips and rapunzel grow in profusion, backs onto the tall dark pines of the wood.
The brothers take a minute to straighten themselves after their walk.
Jakob dusts down his coat.
Both take off their hats and hold them in their hands.
Then Wilhelm strides forward and knocks once with his walking stick on the cottage's wooden door.
Dorothea opens the door and ushers them inside.
She is a small woman with a wrinkled face and bony hands, but her movements are still quick and her eyes still sharp.
Jacob and Wilhelm take their seats in her modest parlor where a fire burns low in the grate, and neat piles of linen waiting to be mended are stacked upon the table.
From the parlor the brothers can see into the kitchen where stock bubbles in a large copper pot over the stove.
A pan of freshly set red currant jam is cooling on the table beside a pastry wreath where sweet dough has been braided with marzipan and poppy seed paste.
The smell of all this cooking wafts out through the house.
Dorothea settles in her chair nearest the fireplace.
Outside, the wind stiffens, and a branch taps against the window.
Through the glass, the afternoon sky is deepening into evening.
Dorothea stokes the fire with a poker and coaxes it into a substantial flame.
There is polite conversation for a few minutes.
Dorothea asks for the news from Casa and inquires after the goings-on at the university library.
The brothers ask after Dorothea's health.
But it isn't long before she settles back in her chair and draws a piece of mending into her lap.
She likes to keep her hands busy while she tells her tales.
As her needle flashes up and down, she begins the story of the three feathers.
Once upon a time there was a king, and this king had three sons.
The first two sons were intelligent, but the third was not thought to be so clever as his brothers.
His name was Franz.
The king grew old, and in his old age, he became weak and frail.
At last, he felt he was nearing the end of his life.
There was only one problem.
Which of his three sons should inherit his kingdom?
He called each of his sons to his bedside and told them The one who brings me the finest carpet, he shall be king after my death.
And to prevent any arguments, he told them to go to the front of the castle and each blow a feather into the air.
As they fly, said the king, so shall you go.
Dorothea drops her needle for a moment, flattens her palm and blows an imaginary feather into an imagined breeze.
Outside the real wind is blowing hard and the house creaks around them in the way that old wooden houses do when the wind picks up.
A squeaking door here, a rattling shutter there.
But the parlor is warm and cozy, unlike the darkening night, suffused with the glow of the fire.
Dorothea picks up her needle and resumes her tale.
One feather flew to the east, the other to the west, and the third feather flew straight ahead but fell to the ground before it had gone very far.
This feather, of course, belonged to Franz.
His two brothers laughed at him standing where his feather had fallen, as they rode off in pursuit of their own feathers.
Crestfallen, Franz sat down.
But as he sat, he noticed a trapdoor next to his feather.
He lifted it up, found a stairway, and climbed down it until he came to another door.
He knocked.
He knocked.
Someone inside called out, maiden green and small, quickly see who is outside.
The door opened and Franz saw a big toad sitting behind it, surrounded by little toads.
The big toad asked Franz what he wanted.
Franz replied that he wanted the finest carpet in all the world to take to his father.
The big toad called to a small toad, Maiden green and small, bring me the large box.
The toadlet brought the box for the big toad to open.
Inside was a carpet so beautiful and finely woven it could never have been made by anyone in the world above.
Franz thanked the toad and climbed back up above ground.
The Clever Brothers meanwhile, were sure Franz would find nothing to bring home, so neither of them wasted any time looking for a particularly fine carpet.
Instead, they each bought a piece of coarse cloth from the first shepherd's wife they met on their travels and brought these back home to their father.
Here, Jacob interrupts.
He has his logbook and pen, and he is transcribing everything the woman says.
But perhaps she could go a little slower.
It is hard for his pen to keep pace, and he doesn't want to miss any details of the story.
Did she say shepherd's wife?
Dorothea nods and pauses her telling so that Jakob can catch up.
For a time, the only sounds in the room are the crackling of the fire and the scratch of Jakob's pen on paper.
Dorothea resumes her story, a little slower this time.
So, the two older brothers returned home with nothing more than coarse cloth.
At the same time as they arrived, so did France, carrying his incredible carpet.
The king was astonished and admitted that the kingdom should go to his youngest son.
The other two brothers were enraged.
Franz would make a terrible king, they said.
They pleaded with their father to declare another contest, and the king relented.
This time, said the king, the son who brought him the most beautiful ring would inherit the kingdom.
Once again, the brothers each blew a feather into the air.
And once more, each brother followed in the direction that their feather traveled.
The elder brother's feather blew west.
The middle brother's feather blew east.
Franz's feather fell onto the ground beside the trapdoor.
For a second time, Franz climbed down the stairs until he reached the big toad.
He told the toad he needed the most beautiful ring imaginable.
The big toad called to a small toad.
Maiden green and small, bring me the small box.
Inside the box was a ring glistening with precious stones.
It was so beautiful, no goldsmith on earth could have made it.
The two older brothers made no effort at all.
Instead, they each drove the nails out of an old wagon ring and brought this ring back to their father.
When Franz arrived with his ring, the king admitted for a second time that his kingdom belonged to his youngest son.
But once again, the elder brothers were unhappy.
They pleaded with the king, until, at last, he declared a third and final contest.
Whoever brought home the most beautiful woman, the kingdom would be theirs.
The three feathers blew into the air, and each went in the same direction as before.
Franz opened the trapdoor, went down the stairs, and came to the big toad.
I am supposed to take home the most beautiful woman, he told the toad.
This time, the toad gave him a hollowed-out yellow turnip, to which were harnessed six little mice.
Franz was disappointed.
He didn't know what he was meant to do with the turnip.
But the toad told him to put one of the little toads inside, and Franz did.
No sooner was the little toad inside the turnip, when she turned into a beautiful young lady.
The turnip into a coach, and the six mice into horses.
Franz raced the horses straight to the king.
His brothers arrived later, and for a third time, neither had put any effort into their search.
They had simply brought along the first peasant women they saw.
At once, the king declared that the kingdom should go to his youngest son.
Dorothea puts her needle down with a wry smile.
The brothers know this smile well.
The tale is coming to its end, but Dorothea's stories never finish quite where the brothers think they will.
She continues weaving her tale.
Once more, the two eldest sons protest it.
They looked at the hoop that was hanging in the middle of the hall, and they hit upon an idea.
They persuaded the king that the kingdom should go to the brother whose woman could jump through the hoop.
They were sure that Franz's dainty lady would not be able to manage it.
But while neither of the first two brothers' women could jump through the hoop, Franz's maiden leapt through as lightly as a deer.
At last, the brothers were defeated.
Thus it was that Franz received the crown.
And perhaps he was clever after all, because he ruled the kingdom wisely and well for a very long time.
Dorothea lays down her needle and bows her head.
She has reached the end of her story.
And now, there is a long silence.
The brothers know well enough not to break it.
Dorotea will start to talk again soon.
For now there is just the low hiss of the fire and outside the drizzle of what might be rain or even the first light snow of the season.
The brothers have talked between themselves about Dorothea's curious habit of falling silent after she has told a story.
Perhaps, Jakob once proposed, she was simply exhausted.
But maybe, suggested Wilhelm, there was more to it than that.
For it isn't just Dorothea who is telling the story.
All her tales have been passed down among families.
They've been shared and shaped around firesides and spinning circles.
And they've been threaded with details from storytellers as near as the next village, as far as the next mountain range, and sometimes even further still.
The reason Dorothea's stories feel as smooth and familiar is because they had been told so many times in so many ways by so many different tellers.
As she tells her stories, Vilhelm thinks her humble cottage parlor fills with the half-remembered outlines of all those other tellers.
Of all those dark autumn nights where people had gathered to hear tales of brothers and frogs, of witches and kings.
Dorothea's silence could be her way of waiting for all the spirits and memories that her stories conjure to leave the room in their own time.
And maybe this is true because when she does speak at last, it feels like a spell is breaking.
She thanks the brothers for their visit and apologizes if she has muddled her words.
The brothers assure her that she has not.
They begin to stretch their legs and gather their paper and writing tools.
They had best be on their way.
But Dorothea protests.
What's the rush?
There is dinner waiting in the kitchen.
And she stokes the fire back into blazing life.
It is warm here by the hearth.
The brothers are happy to accept her hospitality.
They sink back into their comfortable chairs and admire the glow of the fire against the deepening dark of the forest outside.
The End .
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Let's pray.
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Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Thank you.
