Classic Tales for the Modern Ear

Classic Tales for the Modern Ear works in two movements: a spoken introduction, then the story. The introductions are where the show's character comes through. They explain who wrote a piece, where it came from and, often, why it suits the time of year. Ahead of The Spectre Bride, the introduction assumes few people will know William Harrison Ainsworth, then sketches him as a prolific 1800s novelist whose Rookwood reshaped how history remembered the highwayman Dick Turpin. It is a small history lesson, and a useful one. Ahead of The Boy and the Dragon, the research runs out and the introduction says so plainly. No author or translator could be traced, so the tale is credited to the Canadian Native American tribes. That folklore is one of two anchors. Its introductions tie the readings to Thanksgiving and argue that this lore, which weaves the natural and the supernatural together, deserves a wider hearing. The Boy of the Red Twilight Sky and The Boy and the Dragon both end by explaining the world as it is. One accounts for the red evening sky that promises calm weather; the other accounts for a lasting hatred of snakes. Those endings set the folklore apart from the other material beside it. Edgar Allan Poe is the second anchor. The introduction to The Pit and the Pendulum calls Poe one of the only names in horror before the 1900s and mentions earlier Poe readings in the series. The text opens on 'I was sick. Sick unto death with that long agony,' and ends on a rescue at the very brink of the pit. The Raven (new recording) has its own backstory. The poem was among the first things read for the channel, but that version was made on equipment that fell short and before the introductions existed, so it was recorded again. The new preface points out that The Raven is a poem rather than a story, and it lists versions of it from Hollywood to The Simpsons alongside Vincent Price's reading. Halloween adds a third strand. The original Grimm Hansel and Gretel arrives by way of its witch, who, the introduction reckons, is the most famous witch for children raised on fairy tales. The Spectre Bride belongs to the same run of Halloween readings. Justin Haskell is credited as reader on most of these episodes. The stories are dark in earnest: an old woman is killed at her own request to break a spell, and a girl falls into a burning pit. What a listener gets is the pairing: enough context to know why a piece was chosen, then the old words themselves.