Halloween Fairy Tales with Elspeth Olson

Battle Royale: French Monarchs

This week we invited on our resident librarian Elspeth Olson to talk one of our biggest mutual interests: fairy tales! Ben and Elspeth each tell a tale from 17th Century author Charles Perrault about horrifically wronged women, while Eliza branches out with a Japanese fairy tale about a woman who got a revenge of demonic proportions! We swear, this was not a coordinated theme...
Go and follow Elspeth on Instagram, and check out her Etsy store, where she sells handmade ornaments, embroidered bookmarks and other gorgeous things!
Ben's tale is "Bluebeard" from the 1900 edition of Charles Perrault's Tales of Past Times, available for free on Project Gutenberg.
Elspeth's tale is "Donkey-Skin" by Charles Perrault, as found in The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, edited by Jack Zipes, 2001.
Eliza's tale is the story of Hashihime or "Princess Hashi", as told in Haunted Japan: Exploring the World of Japanese Yokai, Ghosts and the Paranormal by Catrien Ross, 2020.
Featured music:

• "The Carnival of Animals: Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saëns.
• "Concerto for Harpsichord" by Antonio Vivaldi.
• Japanese Taiko Drums from Limitless Copyright.

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Battle Royale's intro/outro music is "Dansez" by Fasion. Thank you to them for making this track free to use and listen! Go check out more of their stuff here.
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CATEGORIES
Ben and Eliza each give a score out of 10 for the first 4 categories. The 5th is determined by maths! The result is a total score out of 100.

1. Enchanté: The shallow, first-impressions round: How fabulous and iconic an image have they passed down to us?
2. En Garde: (A.K.A. “Selfish Wins”) How well did they gain and increase their personal power, either through scheming, statesmanship or good old fashion battles?
3. Voulez-Vous: (A.K.A. “Selfless Wins”) How much would we want to live under their regime? How well did they better the world around them through law reforms and cultural projects?
4. Ouh-Là-Là: How pearl-clutchingly scandalous were the events of their life, both in their time and down through the ages? How mad, bad and dangerous were they to know?
5. La Vie en Throne: How many years did they reign, and how many of their children survived them?

For more details on the scores, how they are calculated and how our kings are ranking, visit our website.