AI Summary
5 min readCeltic folklore: Deerly Beloved
The son of a fisherman named Ian sells his family's horse to a stranger for a gun, a dog, and a hawk—none of which he knows how to use. His mother beats him for the foolish trade, and Ian leaves home that night, never to return. Three days later, starving, he talks his way into a farmhouse by claiming he can shoot a deer that has been eating the farmer's wheat. He cannot load the gun. But when he aims it at the deer in the moonlight, the deer transforms into a woman with glowing skin and black hair, then vanishes into the forest.
Three deaths and a promise
Ian follows the deer-woman to a cottage in the woods, where she invites him to eat and drink. He gorges himself and falls asleep—only to wake when twenty robbers return to find their dinner gone. They stab him to death at the edge of the forest. But the deer returns, shakes earwax into his mouth, and he revives. "Trust me and eat as you did before, and no harm shall happen to you," she says. Ian does not find this reassuring after being killed, but he goes back anyway. He is stabbed to death a second time. Then a third. Each time the deer revives him with her wax, and each time he returns to the cottage to eat. On the third night, the robbers turn on each other over the dwindling food, killing one another until only the leader remains. He shoots Ian through the chest. A wounded bandit s
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:12) **Story Setup: The Foolish Trade** - Ian, a fisherman's son, meets a mysterious stranger who offers to buy his horse for a gun, a dog, and a hawk.
- 2 (05:35) **First Stop: The Farmer's Hospitality** - A starving Ian is taken in by a farmer and his wife, who ask him to shoot a deer eating their wheat.
- 3 (08:18) **The Deer-Woman and the Bandits** - The deer-woman leads Ian to a cottage, where he eats a full meal, only to be discovered by a gang of twenty murderous robbers.
- 4 (18:24) **Resurrection and a Promise** - Ian wakes to find the deer-woman dripping her earwax into his mouth, which fully heals his fatal wounds.
- 5 (23:31) **The Bandits' Demise** - After Ian is killed a third time and revived, the bandits turn on each other over the dwindling food supply.
- 6 (26:58) **The Creepy Houseguest** - Ian stays with an old woman and her sickly, staring son, who watches him all night.
- 7 (31:54) **The Quest: Witches and Magic Crocs** - Ian sets out to find the deer-woman, and is taken in by a kind witch who gives him magical shoes that make him travel impossibly fast.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
🗡️If at first you don't succeed, die, die again.
Ian's had a hard life. That life gets even more difficult when he falls in love with a woman who is (not-so-secretly) a deer. And who makes him eat her earwax.
😈 The Creature: The Charles Mill Lake Monster
This week, the state of Ohio flexes its greatest (super)natural resource: quirky cryptids.
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🎵 Music Credits
Salmony by Blue Dot Sessions
Another Love Song from the Corner by Breakmaster Cylinder
8Bit Sadventure Time by Breakmaster Cylinder
Nightwatch Beetles by Breakmaster Cylinder
Sadly Here We Are Again by Breakmaster Cylinder
Lessita by Blue Dot Sessions
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