Show Notes:
Today is part one of two where we are talking to Marie Pridgen about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about being encouraged to write children’s books, taking advantage of the time you are given, even if it’s unconventional, talking about your books wherever you are, taking advantage of the opportunities that come to you and knowing your strengths, and getting people to help you with things you’re not the best with.
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Morag and the Land of Tir Na Nog
Marie’s Facebook page – @mariefletcherpridgen on Instagram – @midflash3 on Twitter – Marie on TikTok – Marie’s Website
Writing has always been a passion of mine, and being able to turn it into a fulfilling career has been one of my greatest achievements. My career started picking up in 2018 when I got my first big break. Since then, I’ve never looked back and have been improving my writing techniques and developing a unique literary style. Read on to learn more about my work and feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear from you.
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Transcript:
Speaker A: Welcome to Freya’s Fairy Tales, where we believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.
Speaker A: Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.
Speaker A: At the end end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story right as close to the original author’s version as possible.
Speaker A: I am your host.
Speaker A: Freya victoria I’m an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.
Speaker A: I’m also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.
Speaker A: We have included all of the links for today’s author and our show in the Show Notes today is part one of two, where we are talking to Marie Prince about her novels.
Speaker A: Over the next two weeks, you will hear about being encouraged to write children’s books, taking advantage of the time you were given, even if it’s unconventional, talking about your books wherever you are, taking advantage of the opportunities that come to you, and knowing your strengths and getting people to help you with things you’re not the best with.
Speaker A: Morag and the Land of Tirna Nag deep in the forest, there’s a very secret place that mortals have heard of, but only a rare few have ever ventured into.
Speaker A: It is called Tiernag, which means land of youth.
Speaker A: It is a beautiful place where magic lives and happiness and health are abundant, it is said.
Speaker A: But if you listen very carefully, you can hear singing, dancing, music and laughter.
Speaker B: The show is fairy tales.
Speaker B: Lovely that’s fairy tales in two ways, and you’re a little bit unique because of what you write.
Speaker B: But fairy tales are something that we watched movies of or we read ourselves or our mom or dad read to us as kids.
Speaker B: And then it’s also the process of spending weeks, months, years writing your own book to then get to hold that in your hands as a fairy tale.
Speaker A: For the author as well.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker B: I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid and did that favorite change as you got older?
Speaker C: I would say that Snow Whites and the Seven Dwarfs was probably one of my favorites, but I was a child growing up.
Speaker C: But a lot of fairy tales, especially in Ireland, came from your hand me down stories as such.
Speaker C: And The Wooing of Bacfola was another one that I loved dearly, and just stories from my grandmother that she would pass on to my mom.
Speaker C: And there were stories that were all about the fairies and how she met them and her journey with them.
Speaker C: So I suppose that the ones I love the most were the ones I heard from my mother.
Speaker C: Now, were they made up?
Speaker C: I’m sure they were, but they were fabulous as a child, because they just gave you this imagination that the fairies were alive and well, and they lived among us.
Speaker C: Only the very few very special ones got to hear about them and got to entangle in their life.
Speaker C: So for me, the American fairy tales were just, oh, fantastic.
Speaker C: But I think the Irish fairy tales were just something of my culture and my footsteps that really captured me.
Speaker B: All right.
Speaker B: And then at what age did you start thinking, hey, I might want to write a book, or did you start writing stories yourself?
Speaker C: I did.
Speaker C: I started writing stories.
Speaker C: I would say I was probably about ten or eleven.
Speaker C: And, you know, in school you had to write compositions and all that.
Speaker C: So I would write stories, and my teachers would say, you’re pretty good, Marie.
Speaker C: Your imagination is out there.
Speaker C: And that was a compliment to me.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: So I would write little stories and turn them in.
Speaker C: And then as I got to, as you call, high school, I had this English teacher, and of course, we were doing Catherine Heathcliff and all that genre, and one day he pulled me aside and he said, I have to ask you, where did you get that ability to write the way you do?
Speaker C: And honestly, Priya, I never realized I really had that ability.
Speaker C: I just thought it was just something everybody had, you know?
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: He said, when I was leaving high school, he said, you might want to consider one day writing some children’s books.
Speaker C: I think he would be very good at that.
Speaker C: And I kind of brushed that off.
Speaker B: That part of it, yeah.
Speaker C: You know, I was thinking no.
Speaker C: A couple of years ago, I had broken my leg, and I had to be off.
Speaker C: Oh, yes, I had to be off from work and everything.
Speaker C: And I was sitting there on Sunday, and all of a sudden it was like, boom.
Speaker C: It hit me.
Speaker C: It was like a magical story itself.
Speaker C: I felt the fairies were telling me, it’s now time for you to tell stories about us.
Speaker C: And Briar.
Speaker C: Within 2020 minutes, I had started a story, and by the end of the day, it was finished.
Speaker C: Now, I’m not an artist as such.
Speaker C: I can barely draw a stick, man.
Speaker C: But I found this woman who was a great illustrator, and she got me.
Speaker C: I would tell her, and I can see the characters in my head, and I would tell her, and she just got me.
Speaker C: I mean, I would see the rain drop dripping from the leaf, and I could see the character, the way we’d look at that.
Speaker C: And this lady just captured everything for me.
Speaker C: And it just was an amazing thing to start seeing what other people saw in me.
Speaker C: It gave me that encouragement.
Speaker C: It just made me feel, you know what?
Speaker C: Maybe my English tutor was correct.
Speaker C: Maybe I can really do this right.
Speaker C: And so writing it every day, and just thinking about the characters just brought it all together for me.
Speaker C: It’s like my writing came full circle, and then I realized I can write.
Speaker C: I can actually write, you know, so that has been a revelation for me.
Speaker C: It really has.
Speaker B: Now, during that time, did you just write the one book during the time you were down with your broken leg?
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: You have a few out now, right?
Speaker C: I do.
Speaker C: I have another one.
Speaker C: I have actually in the middle of writing the third sequel to Marag in the Land of Tunanoig.
Speaker C: I just wrote the one.
Speaker C: And then last year I wrote the sequel to that.
Speaker C: It’s called the capture of Marague.
Speaker C: And so now I’m in the third cycle of it.
Speaker C: I’m writing the end of that series right now.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: And so you wrote this book.
Speaker B: You said it didn’t take you very you wrote it in a day.
Speaker B: How long did it take the illustrator to do the illustrations?
Speaker C: That took a while.
Speaker C: The lady that was doing the illustrations was going through school and she was going to get her masters and all that.
Speaker C: That actually took a while.
Speaker C: The second book actually took longer.
Speaker C: The second book and illustrations took over two years.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: And then I first published by myself, and then I got picked up by a publisher, and of course, they want the book done at a certain time.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: So I ended up to find another illustrator that would finish the capture of marathon for me.
Speaker C: So I ended up with two illustrators for the second book.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker B: And did they stay, like, the same do they keep, like, the same style.
Speaker A: As each other now?
Speaker C: There’s two different styles.
Speaker C: But my creative mind in the second book, the lady who did the first book and the lady who did the second book, the lady who did the second book couldn’t really capture marathon the way that I needed it to.
Speaker C: So what I did was I put Morague through a metamorphosis where she changed because she was in the mortarboard and she was dying because you couldn’t get her home.
Speaker C: So I met her go through a metamorphosis.
Speaker C: And so that actually was great in the story as well, because here she was, beautiful, fairy, and now she was starting to fade and her wings were fading because she was dying.
Speaker C: So that kind of brought another element to the story, and it actually worked out really well.
Speaker B: Okay, and so now you’re currently working.
Speaker C: On the third I’m currently working on the third one, yes.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: And when is that one?
Speaker B: I’m guessing is with the same publisher, right?
Speaker C: Same publisher.
Speaker C: And I’m hoping by the end of this year that it will be finished.
Speaker C: Now, I just met with the illustrator last week, and we were just going doing some ideas about how I needed to look this time and how the other characters I introduced new characters into the second book.
Speaker C: So I really needed to kind of streamline, keep the same flow in the book.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: So I think this time it will be more of a slow because I’ll stay with the one illustrator, and she’s going to finish everything through.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: And so now you are originally from Ireland, right?
Speaker C: I am, yes.
Speaker B: And how did you end up in the US?
Speaker C: Well, I had moved to Germany when I was about 19, 1819, and I went over there as an au pair, a nanny, and then because I wasn’t making any money and I was just living from paycheck to paycheck, and then I got an opportunity to work for the US military as a local national.
Speaker C: So what that means is that the German government hires me as a European to work for the American military, and through that is where I met my husband.
Speaker B: Okay, and so you moved here because of him?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: And so all this writing that you’ve done, you did it all here, but the stories are Irish based stories.
Speaker C: Yes, they are.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: Another reason why I wrote those book, Freya, is because I wrote it, too, for sick children, because they deserve to have some freedom from their illness.
Speaker C: And I want it to transport them to a place where nobody dies, nobody gets sick, everybody’s happy, the sun is always shining, and you live forever.
Speaker C: And so I wanted to give that to them to kind of transport them away from their everyday life that they’re going through.
Speaker B: Like you needed while you were stuck on the couch.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: That has been a very rewarding thing for me to be able to do that.
Speaker C: And just when they read the book, you can just see that they want to go to a place where there’s no illness and they can be free, and it’s just a lovely thing.
Speaker B: So what have you been able to do with the book?
Speaker B: Have you been able to clearly, from what you just said, you’ve been able to see people reading the book?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: What kind of events or whatever have you been able to do now?
Speaker C: The publishers that I’m with, they go to cons, and they have cons all over the country.
Speaker C: They are also publishers themselves.
Speaker C: They write their own books as such, so they get to produce their own books and introduce their own books.
Speaker C: And plus, they have several authors besides myself, so they go to the cons.
Speaker C: I’ve been to one or two cons, and it’s fine, but I’m still not getting the word out there as such.
Speaker C: I’d love for more people to know about the books, but it’s hard to get out there.
Speaker B: I feel like it’s a little bit of a different world to most of the authors that I talk to write either young adult or adult books.
Speaker B: It’s totally different game when it’s a kids book because you don’t have the kids on social media.
Speaker B: It’s their parents.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker C: You don’t.
Speaker C: So it’s harder for a children’s author to kind of push that out there, you know, because most people, like yourself, love the older genre books and more fantasy for older kids, and people have romance stories and, you know, true life stories.
Speaker C: So it is a little bit more difficult, I would say, for children’s author to really get their books out there.
Speaker B: Now, are you in any bookstores?
Speaker B: Because I imagine that’s where the kids would more easily find you.
Speaker C: Right now.
Speaker C: The publishing company that I’m with has been trying to get us into bookstores.
Speaker C: I don’t think they’ve had great success.
Speaker C: So I myself, right now is researching that for myself to see how can I do that for myself and get my books out there.
Speaker B: I’ve heard that if you have a local like Barnes and Noble near you, they will list you.
Speaker B: But I don’t know.
Speaker B: I don’t have any published books myself yet, so I don’t know how that works, but I’ve got that, and I assume other local bookstores would do the same thing if you’re in the area.
Speaker C: That’s what I’m trying heading for that, because I know they have several authors that they have to also look out for their best to get their own books out there as well.
Speaker C: So I’ve just been thinking lately maybe I need to step up a little bit of my own and to step out there and do a little bit more of presenting and maybe going into the bookstores, bringing my books with me and introducing myself.
Speaker C: And perhaps that might be a way of saying, oh, well, she came in, she’s got these books.
Speaker C: It might be a way for me to get the books in the shop.
Speaker B: Even like, do libraries still do, like, children’s reading times?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: Now, I did do one this June, and it was fabulous.
Speaker C: It was absolutely fabulous.
Speaker C: All these children came, and I read the book to them, and of course, it was like herding cats as it is.
Speaker C: As it is.
Speaker C: And they’re asking you questions, and then they’ll say out of nowhere, they put their hands up.
Speaker C: And I’m like, oh, they have questions like, no, my teacher said I was supposed to put my hands up, like, oh, okay.
Speaker C: Or look at my thumb, I cut my thumb.
Speaker C: You know, what do you do?
Speaker C: It’s funny.
Speaker C: And then they’re fidgeting and all of that.
Speaker C: But I will say that when I showed them the illustrations, it was just like, oh, my goodness, the illustrations are phenomenal in the books.
Speaker C: The ladies that did these illustrations really brought my books to life.
Speaker C: I really have to give them credit.
Speaker C: They did a phenomenal job on them.
Speaker B: Along the children square.
Speaker B: We went to Half Price Books a couple of weeks ago, and I have a seven year old, and so me and my husband are browsing the adult books, and so we take her over to the children’s section.
Speaker B: We’re like here.
Speaker B: There weren’t a lot of people in the store.
Speaker B: So you go look in the kids section while we look in the grownup section.
Speaker B: She’s like, okay, cool.
Speaker B: So we go to find her and she’s sitting down with this mom and her kid who are freaking.
Speaker B: She made herself part of their family to listen to this story.
Speaker B: But I can definitely having taught kids and stuff, I can see the like my kids fairly.
Speaker B: Like, she’s a very busybodied child, but when she’s listening to a story, she will listen to it.
Speaker B: But you just reminded me of like, that a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker B: Just like, I’m part of this part of this family now.
Speaker B: So right now I imagine you’re on Amazon.
Speaker B: Are you available anywhere else on Amazon?
Speaker C: And then of course, the publishers is called Jump Master Press and that’s where my books are published and distributed and can be purchased there.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: Do you like, have your own website and do signed copies for people?
Speaker C: I don’t have my own website, which I need to actually think about that.
Speaker C: I’m glad you brought that up.
Speaker C: The sign copies, I go ahead and sign them and then the publishers, when someone purchased, then they get us on the copy.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: So the publisher is doing that distribution right now.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: I didn’t mean to put pressure on you for the website.
Speaker C: I had one last year, the year before, but then when the pandemic hit, you know, everything just kind of crashed and, you know, and so I didn’t put much thought into it, but I really feel that you probably need to do that.
Speaker C: I probably do need to do that.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: I’ve been like, slowly building mine out.
Speaker B: I have the podcasts, obviously your podcast.
Speaker C: By the way, you are brilliant.
Speaker B: I made sure as I pick podcast names and as I pick pseudonyms too.
Speaker B: I wanted to be able to own the domain, so I made sure, like, pick a name.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: I like the name.
Speaker B: Let’s make sure I can own the domain for that so I don’t have to add anything weird to the end to make it make sense or whatever.
Speaker B: So there is Freya Victoria.
Speaker B: There is another phrase of Victoria that does like, ASMR videos.
Speaker B: And she has a pretty big following of ASMR stuff, but she doesn’t narrate, hey, we’re good.
Speaker B: And I own the domain for it.
Speaker B: She does not.
Speaker B: I’m like, too bad, too bad.
Speaker B: I’ve been slowly over time, like, building like one weekend I built one podcast one, the next weekend I built another one.
Speaker B: I built up the fray of Victoria one.
Speaker B: Now I’m trying to add in like, newsletters so that’s like, the next couple weeks I’m adding like, newsletter features on there.
Speaker B: What I’ll put on it, I don’t know, but I’m told that you should have one.
Speaker B: Funny.
Speaker B: I don’t know, I feel so, like, out of my depth with everything.
Speaker B: Like, oh, no, I got banned on Tik tok live.
Speaker B: So now I’m like, oh, let’s find something else.
Speaker B: Yes, I was doing a romance narration and words were used that are not okay on their lives, apparently.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker B: So yeah, I got banned for like four days.
Speaker B: I’m back now.
Speaker B: But you rebel, you while I was banned, I’m like, let’s find an alternative.
Speaker B: So when I have these not as appropriate books, I can do it somewhere.
Speaker B: I’m not going to get banned.
Speaker B: So now I have a discord, but now I have to figure out how to use discord.
Speaker B: It’s a process.
Speaker B: But even like, same for you, like, I feel like taking it just like one step at a time.
Speaker B: You don’t have to do everything at once.
Speaker B: And I loved when I started podcasting my host, where I upload the episodes to and then they distribute it for me.
Speaker B: Yes, they had these like generic websites that you could use for your podcast.
Speaker B: And there’d be like a landing page with all of your, like, here’s the different links for the different, like, Apple podcasts and Google podcasts.
Speaker B: And like, here’s the different links.
Speaker B: So I could just send them to this landing page.
Speaker B: And then they had just a generic like, here’s all the episodes listed.
Speaker B: Like, I liked that, but because I have like, this one, I would rather it be where I could have each author has their own page, where like, here’s the featured author and whatever and they just didn’t have the functionality to be able to change anything.
Speaker B: It was like one list of episodes and that’s it.
Speaker B: Like that was your only option.
Speaker B: You could change like my about me is on the left or the right or the bottom, but you couldn’t change the rest of it.
Speaker C: Oh, I see.
Speaker B: So nowadays if you go look at the Friars fairy tales, I’ll have like the homepage will have the featured author, the one whose episodes are currently airing.
Speaker B: And then you can go to the menu and see like, here’s all the authors and then you can click to their page about them.
Speaker B: That stays there all the time with their episodes on it.
Speaker C: Very good.
Speaker B: So then that works out for authors that continue to publish.
Speaker B: If I ever had them on again, I could put their episodes on their page again.
Speaker C: Perfect.
Speaker C: Yeah, that makes great sense.
Speaker B: Perfect.
Speaker B: But then my fiction podcast, that one, I have it set up where on the all the episodes page you can filter same.
Speaker B: Each book has its own page.
Speaker B: Each author has their own page.
Speaker B: But you can also filter on the all the episodes page.
Speaker B: You can filter by what book it is.
Speaker B: So you only see those books.
Speaker B: Well, yeah, I like to make my life complicated.
Speaker C: I’m thinking I’m going, oh my God.
Speaker B: How do you keep up?
Speaker B: Let’s give them auto do.
Speaker B: But as far as the Freya Victoria website, that’s just like I’m working on my own books.
Speaker B: So there’s a page for my books, which I think literally just says work in progress right now because I’m still floundering on what exactly I’m going to write.
Speaker B: I know it has to do with mythology.
Speaker B: That’s the extent of it.
Speaker B: I have my books and then the books I’ve narrated and then the podcasts.
Speaker B: And that’s like the main.
Speaker B: And then narrators are supposed to have, like, samples on their web page.
Speaker B: So I have that on there.
Speaker B: That one’s way less complicated than any of the podcast ones.
Speaker B: I don’t have to pull in from other sources.
Speaker B: Like, I have a book release, I just copy the like, if an audiobook releases, I just copy the blurb from Amazon and put that with the book name and picture.
Speaker B: And that’s it.
Speaker C: Right?
Speaker B: We don’t have to make them all complicated, just some of them.
Speaker B: But the good thing about websites, too, is once you build it, you don’t have to mess with it, usually until something new happens and you have to add your new book up on there, right?
Speaker B: Or if you want to do a lot of authors, we’ll have a blog section where you talk about which I imagine the same thing that’s in the newsletter.
Speaker B: That’s what mine will be, at least what you’re working on.
Speaker B: And book is with the illustrator now, or book is being edited now, whatever.
Speaker B: Unless you’re like crazy because I’ve read who is it?
Speaker B: George r R Martin.
Speaker B: He is the weirdest blog posts.
Speaker B: I’m like, you have five books out.
Speaker B: You’re supposed to have, I think, eight in this series.
Speaker B: I don’t remember how many he wants the series to be.
Speaker B: And then he’s always like, oh, we released a calendar.
Speaker B: We’re working on a novella.
Speaker B: I’m like.
Speaker B: Sir, focus.
Speaker B: But that’s me too, in my writing.
Speaker B: I’m like, I got 30,000 words into one book, and then another book took over.
Speaker B: So I get it.
Speaker C: My first book, I would say, fairly short and everything.
Speaker C: And then the second book just exploded.
Speaker C: So I don’t know where in my third book I’m going to be.
Speaker C: Am I going to be between the first and the third, first and second book, so I understand it just takes over.
Speaker B: So when you say exploded, what does that mean?
Speaker C: Meaning that the first book was kind of like, well, I’m going to write it.
Speaker C: I’m not going to put a whole lot into it yet.
Speaker C: And I wanted to see if there was any interest out there.
Speaker C: Because there’s no interest in the book, there’s no point in me carrying on.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: But the interest so great in it that I got carried away.
Speaker C: In the second book.
Speaker C: I did a lot more.
Speaker C: The second book is really a lot longer, of course, more illustrations.
Speaker C: The third book, I think I might just go between the first and the second book and not make it too big, not too small, just kind of write.
Speaker B: Now, you wrote it in a day, so I imagine there wasn’t a whole lot of planning that went into place for book one.
Speaker B: But did you have, like, as you’re writing this, a plan in place for the series?
Speaker C: Yes, I did.
Speaker C: And I knew when I started the first one, I knew how it was going to be in the very last book.
Speaker C: It’s strange, you know, but you look ahead, especially the second book, I know exactly what’s going to happen.
Speaker C: The third book already I already know the characters I want there and everything, and how it’s going to end and how she’s going to get home.
Speaker C: And it’s amazing how you love something.
Speaker C: And I love this character so much that when you’re writing about her, you see her in the last phase of the whole series.
Speaker C: You just want her to be safe and get home.
Speaker C: So for me, from the very first time, the very first time I started writing about her, I already knew at the end how everything was going to end up.
Speaker C: And I know that might sound weird, but it was like something I knew already when I started writing.
Speaker C: I knew I knew where everything was going to go.
Speaker C: I knew about the second book, and now I definitely know about the third book, how it’s going to be.
Speaker B: You’re not actually the first author.
Speaker B: I think the first author I ever talked to said she’d already written the last chapter of her series, even though she was working on book two.
Speaker B: She’s like, I know exactly how it’s going to end because I’ve already written the last chapter.
Speaker C: Yeah, it’s a strange thing, but it’s a wonderful thing.
Speaker C: I write children’s books, but I have also decided that I might just the next series of books I’m going to write is about the backstory to Marague, and it’s going to be about her mother, you know, and it’s going to be called Queen Maid.
Speaker C: And then she’s a warrior, you know, she’s a warrior fairy.
Speaker C: So I was kind of sad thinking, oh, Morague’s going to end, you know, she ended Morague.
Speaker C: And I thought, no, I can still incorporate her into another series that I’ll start and eventually so I’m excited about it.
Speaker B: So I know I have heard many times that you’re supposed to read in the genre that you’re writing.
Speaker B: Do you read other children’s books?
Speaker B: What are some of your favorites now to read?
Speaker C: Actually, to be honest, I have not read that.
Speaker C: I have not read other children’s books.
Speaker C: I think it’s because I’m just so focused on mine that I just never really had an opportunity to actually go somewhere and buy some books and read children’s books.
Speaker B: Well, you need to go take pictures in the children’s sections.
Speaker B: This is where my book’s going to be.
Speaker C: Yeah, you’re right.
Speaker C: No, you’re right.
Speaker C: I should do that.
Speaker C: And it’s just I’m kind of shy in some respects, so it’ll take a lot for me to go into these bookstores and just say, please buy my book.
Speaker B: Please don’t you know, you can take baby steps.
Speaker B: Just walk into the store the first time.
Speaker B: You don’t have to talk to anybody.
Speaker C: Walk around, go, oh, dreams, and I’ll be here.
Speaker C: So that’s the goal for you in the shops.
Speaker C: Another goal of mine is but it’s difficult to get your books into stores in Ireland.
Speaker C: Very, very difficult to do that.
Speaker C: So I don’t know that will ever happen.
Speaker C: But it’s a dream of mine.
Speaker C: It’s a goal that I eventually want that to happen.
Speaker B: Why is it hard?
Speaker B: Do they have requirements?
Speaker C: Yes, requirements.
Speaker C: And you actually have to have a publisher over there.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So that’s where the niche is.
Speaker B: You got to find a publisher over there.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: And I already have a publisher here, so it’s kind of hard to say since Jump Master Press is my publisher, I can’t go and find another publisher in Ireland because it’ll be the same book.
Speaker C: And they produce and they print off all the copies.
Speaker C: So they do all of that work for us.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: You’re very fortunate.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So my goal right now is just to get the word out there about the books.
Speaker C: I really believe in them.
Speaker C: They are a very delightful book.
Speaker C: It’s just something that if you believe in magic, it’s there for you.
Speaker C: And I just think that children need that in their lives because a lot of them growing up, they have all this computer stuff, they have all of that.
Speaker C: They never really sit down right now and allow their imagination to come alive because they could teach your authors themselves.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: So that’s my main goal, getting the word out there and trying to get my third book done.
Speaker A: Marie liked the story of Snow White when she was a kid.
Speaker A: Snow White in the Seven Dwarfs is a 19th century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world.
Speaker A: The Brothers Grimm published it in twelve in the first edition of their collection, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and numbered as Tale 53.
Speaker A: The original German title was Snee wichen, a low German form, but the first version gave the high German translation Snee.
Speaker A: WyCAN, and the tale has become known in German by the mixed format.
Speaker A: Snee Witchen.
Speaker A: The Grims completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the 1957 version of Grim’s Fairy Tales.
Speaker A: The fairy tale features such elements as the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, the glass coffin, and the characters of the Evil Queen and the Seven Dwarves.
Speaker A: The Seven Dwarfs were first given individual names in the 1912 Broadway play Snow White in The Seven Dwarves, and then given different names in Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Speaker A: The Grim story, which is commonly referred to as Snow White, should not be confused with the story of Snow White and Rose Red.
Speaker A: In German snee Witchen und Rosenrot, another fairy tale collected by the brother Scrim in the ARN Thompson folklore classification.
Speaker A: Tales of this kind are grouped together as type 709 snow White.
Speaker A: Others of this kind include Belovenesia Mercena Narija Dig, gold Tree and Silver Tree, the young slave and La Patit Tutt Bell.
Speaker A: Today we’ll be reading gold Tree and silver Tree, the Scottish version of this story.
Speaker A: Don’t forget we’re reading Lamont de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble Knights of the Round Table on our patreon.
Speaker A: You can find the link in the show notes.
Speaker A: Gold tree and silver tree Once upon a time there was a king who had a wife whose name was silver Tree and a daughter whose name was gold Tree.
Speaker A: On a certain day of the days, gold Tree and silver Tree went to a glen where there was a well and in it there was a trout, said Silver Tree.
Speaker A: Trouty, bonny little fellow, am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?
Speaker A: Oh, indeed you are not.
Speaker A: Who then?
Speaker A: Why, goldree, your daughter, Silver Tree went home blind with rage.
Speaker A: She lay down on the bed and vowed she would never be well until she could get the heart and the liver of Gold tree, her daughter, to eat.
Speaker A: At nightfall, the king came home and it was told him that Silvertree, his wife, was very ill.
Speaker A: He went where she was and asked her what was wrong with her.
Speaker A: Oh, only a thing which you may heal if you like.
Speaker A: Oh, indeed.
Speaker A: There’s nothing at all which I could.
Speaker B: Do for you that I would not do.
Speaker A: If I get the heart and the liver of Gold Tree, my daughter to eat, I shall be well.
Speaker A: Now, it happened about this time that the son of a great king had come from abroad to ask gold tree for marrying.
Speaker A: The king now agreed to this, and they went abroad.
Speaker A: The king then went and sent his lads to the hunting hill for a hegoat, and he gave its heart and its liver to his wife to eat, and she rose well and healthy.
Speaker A: A year after this, Silver Tree went to the glen, where there was a well in which there was the trout.
Speaker A: Trouty, bonny little fellow, said she, and not I, the most beautiful queen in the world.
Speaker A: Oh, indeed you are not.
Speaker A: Who then?
Speaker A: Why Goldtree your daughter?
Speaker A: Oh, well, it is long since she was living.
Speaker A: It is a year since I ate her heart and liver.
Speaker A: Oh, indeed, she is not dead.
Speaker A: She is married to a great prince abroad.
Speaker A: Silver tree went home and begged the king to put the long ship in order and said, I’m going to see my dear Gold Tree, for it is so long since I saw her.
Speaker A: The long ship was put in order, and they went away.
Speaker A: It was silvertree herself that was at the helm, and she steered the ship so well that they were not long at all.
Speaker A: Before they arrived.
Speaker A: The prince was out hunting on the hills.
Speaker A: Gold Tree knew the longship of her father coming.
Speaker A: O, said she to the servants, my mother is coming, and she will kill me.
Speaker A: She shall not kill you at all.
Speaker A: We will lock you in a room where she cannot get near you.
Speaker A: This is how it was done.
Speaker A: And when Silvertree came ashore, she began to cry out, come to meet your own mother when she comes to see you.
Speaker A: Gold Tree said that she could not, that she was locked in the room and that she could not get out of it.
Speaker A: Will you not put out, said Silver Tree, your little finger through the keyhole so that your own mother may give a kiss to it?
Speaker A: She put out her little finger, and Silver Tree went and put a poison stab in it.
Speaker A: And gold tree fell dead.
Speaker A: When the prince came home and found Goldry dead, he was in great sorrow.
Speaker A: And when he saw how beautiful she was, he did not worry her at all.
Speaker A: But he locked her in a room where nobody would get near her.
Speaker A: In the course of time he married again, and the whole house was under the hand of this wife but one room, and he himself always kept the key of that room.
Speaker A: On a certain day of the days, he forgot to take the key with him.
Speaker A: And the second wife got into the room.
Speaker A: What did she see there but the most beautiful woman that she ever saw?
Speaker A: She began to turn and try to wake her, and she noticed the poison stab in her finger.
Speaker A: She took the stab out, and Gold Tree rose alive, as beautiful as she was ever.
Speaker A: At the fall of night, the prince came home from the hunting hill looking very downcast.
Speaker A: What gift, said his wife, would you give me that?
Speaker A: I could make you laugh.
Speaker A: Oh, indeed.
Speaker A: Nothing could make me laugh except Gold Tree were to come alive again.
Speaker A: Well, you’ll find her alive down there in the room.
Speaker A: When the prince saw Gold Tree alive, he made great rejoicings.
Speaker A: And he began to kiss her and kiss her, and kiss her, said the second wife.
Speaker A: Since she is the first one you had, it is better for you to stick to her, and I will go away.
Speaker A: Oh, indeed you shall not go away, but I shall have both of you at the end of the year.
Speaker A: Silver Tree went to the glen, where there was the well in which there was the trout.
Speaker A: Trouty.
Speaker A: Bonny little fellow, said she.
Speaker A: Am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?
Speaker A: Oh, indeed you are not.
Speaker A: Who then?
Speaker A: Why gold tree your daughter?
Speaker C: Oh.
Speaker A: Well, she is not alive.
Speaker A: It is a year since I put the poison stab in her finger.
Speaker A: Oh, indeed, she’s not dead at all.
Speaker B: At all.
Speaker A: Silver Tree went home and begged to the king to put the longship in order, for that she was going to see her dear Gold Tree, as it was so long since she saw her.
Speaker A: The longship was put in order, and they went away.
Speaker A: It was Silver Tree herself that was at the helm, and she steered the ships so well that they were not long at all.
Speaker A: Before they arrived, the prince was out hunting on the hills.
Speaker A: Goldtree knew her father’s ship coming.
Speaker A: Oh, said she, my mother is coming, and she will kill me.
Speaker A: Not at all, said the second wife.
Speaker A: We will go down to meet her.
Speaker A: Silver tree came ashore.
Speaker A: Come down.
Speaker B: Gold tree.
Speaker A: Love, said she, for your own mother has come to you with a precious drink.
Speaker A: It is custom in this country, said the second wife, that the person who offers a drink takes a draft out of it.
Speaker A: First.
Speaker A: Silver Tree put her mouth to it, and the second wife went and struck it so that some of it went down her throat and she fell dead.
Speaker A: They had only to carry her home a dead corpse and bury her.
Speaker A: The prince and his two wives were long alive after this, pleased and peaceful.
Speaker A: I left them there.
Speaker A: Thank you for joining Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of Marie’s journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands and hear another of her favorite fairy tales.
