{"podcast":{"title":"The Three Ravens Podcast","slug":"the-three-ravens-podcast-6092563","podcast_index_feed_id":6092563,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6404e1f4c5ea8c0011811194","website_url":"https://shows.acast.com/threeravenspodcast","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/6404e1f4c5ea8c0011811194/1762731467101-0eb1042b-7eea-4cd5-b8b9-9f44f87aadbd.jpeg","author":"Three Ravens","episode_count":511,"summary":"Three Ravens is an English myth and folklore podcast hosted by Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux. In each weekly episode, released on Mondays, we explore a historic county, digging into the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Across our first six series we ventured around England's 39 historic counties twice, taking turns to tell a new version of a legend from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it may have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past. Our Bonus Episodes are then released on Thursdays ( Magic and Medicines about folk remedies and arcane spells, Three Ravens Bestiary about cryptids and mythical creatures, Forgotten Melodies about folk song types with original performances from us, and Magus , which is about the lives of the most famous witches and wizards in history). On Saturdays, we then release episodes of our interview series Local Legends, with each episode featuring a chat between us and an acclaimed folklorist, author, podcaster or historian, deepening discussions about that week's county. In b…","last_synced_at":"2026-08-02T04:21:37.212610+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-three-ravens-podcast-6092563"},"episode":{"title":"The Master Thief","slug":"the-master-thief","published_at":"2026-04-16T05:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-three-ravens-podcast-6092563/the-master-thief","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-three-ravens-podcast-6092563","url":"https://www.threeravenspodcast.com/","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6404e1f4c5ea8c0011811194/e/69de8e43f02f2470e940f832/media.mp3","summary":"For today's Lang Fairy Tales episode we have a tale with its very own ATU number - The Master Thief! First recorded, to our knowledge, by Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. the story became popular in Europe due to a single writer in the Italian Renaissance who popularised the \"Rise Tale\" - the story of someone from a more modest background outwitting the rich to become rich themselves. In this case, with the Langs taking their version from Asbjørnsen and Moe, we have a youngest son who is a trickster, cross-dresser, huntsman, passable fake corpse, and torturer of priests. Is he a hero? Perhaps not - but is that perhaps the point, with European society being so unfairly organised that only the deceitful can succeed within it? Naturally we have a chat about all that, and about the story's clear roots in commedia dell'arte, at the end. If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne. Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded \"Fairy Books,\" the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English. They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts. Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+). Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global…","meta_description":"For today's Lang Fairy Tales episode we have a tale with its very own ATU number - The Master Thief! First recorded, to our knowledge, by Herodotus in the…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2652,"processing_state":"processed","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-three-ravens-podcast-6092563/episodes/the-master-thief/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-three-ravens-podcast-6092563/the-master-thief.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}