Donna: So we're going to go there.
Vanessa Rogers: Okay. All right, well, I'm going to go ahead and close that down. Can you see comments? So this is our first time, so bear with us, you all. This is a new experience for everyone, so please have patience with us as we start this new journey with you. I'm looking to see if I can see comments. Can you see any comments?
Donna: No, not yet. Yet. Okay.
Vanessa Rogers: All right. Well, if you are here, make sure that you let us know where you're coming in from, where you're watching from. I'm in Texas. And Donna, where are you?
Donna: I'm in Valencia, Spain, believe it or not, Vanessa. And you have a lot warmer weather than we have here, I think.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah, we do. So right now it's 59, but it's supposed to get up to 70, which is perfect. Our Texas weather is. I find that the winter is usually, like, the most perfect time because the weather is usually in the. It's beautiful, and then the rest of the year, it's miserably hot. So I really enjoy the winter here in Texas. What about you?
Donna: I like the winter, but Valencia has some very cold days, which is a relief to me. I'm from New York originally. I like cold weather, which means that I'm not very popular here in Valencia. They love hot. Hot.
Vanessa Rogers: Well, you know, I like a good cold spell for, like, a little bit, but I've lived in cold weather climates, and I don't like how cold it stays. It just continuously stays for months on end. And I am a bear and I just hibernate. Or maybe a bear is not the right metaphor. Maybe a squirrel or chipmunk. I don't know. I just hibernate and I go inside, and it's always miserable for me.
Donna: Oh, poor thing. All right, well, we will survive this. We will survive this. And what are your children doing while we're on this chat?
Vanessa Rogers: Well, two of them are in school, and one of them is playing with their yaya. My two year old, he was building little robots with these little mega blocks. He's so cute.
Donna: Okay, now, this is very interesting because you said yaya, and here yaya means grandma in Valenciano. Is that the same there?
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah. So it is a common. It's not that common, but it is a relatively known grandmother name.
Donna: I did not know that. Interesting. Okay.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah. But she chose it because she really liked the Yaya sisterhood books.
Donna: Okay, you learned something new. I don't have children, so I never got there.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah, I already have my grandmother name picked out, even though it's a way.
Donna: Long away, I think. A long way away.
Vanessa Rogers: But I like names.
Donna: What's your grandmother name? Vanessa. So that we.
Vanessa Rogers: I really like the lollipop, where the grandmother is Lolly and the granddad is pop. I think that's just so cute.
Donna: Very cute. That's really cute. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I have somehow, I pressed a button, and now I'm pressing a mantra from India, which is a beautiful mantra, and everyone ought to be doing it, but we'll wait for that for later. So, Vanessa, we have a very exciting story here, and we kind of promised each other we'd do a fairy tale from another culture, and we actually came through on that promise, didn't we?
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. I personally am really excited about exploring fairy tales outside of Europe, because that's partially why I started my podcast, fabric of folklore, because I really love learning about different cultures, and I think that learning about their storytelling is such a fantastic way to do that. And fairy tales is part of that storytelling, and this one has so many beautiful nuggets of wisdom.
Donna: It really does. And we're going to get into that. So, is there something you want to add before we begin? I thought I'd do a really quick summary of the story, just in case our loyal followers have not got a chance to read the whole fairy tale.
Vanessa Rogers: Well, let's introduce ourselves. I'm Vanessa y. Rogers, and I host a podcast called Fabric of Folklore, where we basically do a very similar thing to what we're doing here on fairy tale flip. We look at the hidden messages, we look at the background and the context of the stories. Or in my case, on my show, we look at the different practices or holiday traditions. So in fairy tale flip, every month we will be doing a deep dive into one fairy tale in which the audience has an option to participate in choosing. So, this month, we had three options. We had donkey skin, we had the water of life, and we had the flowering tree. And the first two were european tales. I believe they were both grim tales, grim brother tales. And then the flowering tree, which was ultimately chosen, is from India.
Vanessa Rogers: And my co host is Donna Lee. Fields of scaffolding magic and also doorways to learning. She has her own podcast and her own website, where maybe you can tell a little about what you do a little bit.
Donna: Well, just really quickly, I started with fairy tales, which is why my website is called scaffolding magic, because I love magic. But after I finished my doctorate on fairy tales, I got into education and just really went into a deep dive in education and the funny part is, I thought that's what I'd be doing on my podcast. No, it's about education. Yet Vanessa and I met on her podcast and we have just decided to go big and find all the hidden messages and fairy tales. I just love what we're doing, Vanessa.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah, I do too. I'm super excited about this, and I'm excited about this live format because one of the things I wanted to start doing with my fabric of folklore was somehow have some sort of book club. But I really like this format with fairy tales because fairy tales are so much shorter, they're so much easier to consume. And so you can watch all of the fairy tales, donkey skin, the water of life and the flowering tree have all been recorded. You can find them on both of our websites, doorway to learning and also fabric of folklore YouTube channels, and you can watch them all, and they're all about 15 minutes, and you can put it on times two and get it done in about ten minutes.
Vanessa Rogers: So why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about the story, the summary of the flowering tree.
Donna: Okay, that's wonderful. I'm going to give a very brief summary of it. And while I'm talking, two things. First of all, if you're in live on the YouTube channel, on the right hand side, it says chat. Please add your questions there. And in the meantime, while I'm giving you this very brief summary, think about what vulnerability might have to do with the story, what flowers might have to do, whether the girl is going through the story voluntarily or whether she's been obligated. Just think about these things. Okay? But again, it's a summary. All right. So quickly, the story is about a king who has two daughters and a son. And the eldest daughter is already married. She lives in her own kingdom. In this kingdom, there's also a woman in the same town who has two daughters, and the woman is very poor.
Donna: Neither of the girls are married. So one day, the youngest daughter tells her sister that she can turn herself into a tree and they can sell the flowers from her tree. So she explains how to do it. Her eldest daughter, her eldest sister pours water over her. She turns into a tree. Her elder sister plucks the flowers from the tree very carefully. It's a very important part of this story. And then pours water over the tree. The tree turns back into the younger sister. So the eldest daughter sells flowers to the queen. The prince finds out about these flowers. He wants to know how this girl, this poor girl, has such beautiful flowers. So he follows her home, finds out their secret, and he demands to have her in marriage.
Donna: Then he also demands to have her turn into a tree every night so that they have the flowers to lie on every night as they sleep. His younger sister also discovers the secret. She wants some fresh flowers. She forces her sister in law to turn into a tree so she and her friends can have them to wear. But they treat the tree very badly, breaking branches and damaging the roots. They do turn the girl back into a human, but by that time, she has no arms and legs. She ends up after a long journey in the palace of the prince's elder sister. The prince finds her there, turns her back into a tree, mends the branches and the roots, and they both go home.
Donna: And the last part of the story is that the king, the prince's father, throws his younger daughter into a burning lime pit to punish her for her deed. So what do you think, Vanessa? You think that's the main points of the.
Vanessa Rogers: Yes. Yeah. That last part, that is just so harsh. I'm curious what people's reactions are to that element of the story, that's the youngest daughter's punishment. And I realize that it's an entirely different culture, but I'm curious what Indians reactions are to that as well.
Donna: Yeah. And I actually put out some messages to some people I know india and haven't gotten the response yet, but I will look at it. And I read this incredible analysis of the flowering tree by a famous indian scholar, and he didn't say anything. Interestingly enough, he didn't say anything about the ending. Although you and I both note in the Grim's tales, 200 years back, horrible things happened in those versions. We have really cleaned them up in more modern versions.
Vanessa Rogers: Has anyone ever been thrown into a boiling vat of anything?
Donna: I think so. You know what, Vanessa? This is a great question because I think, for instance, in Rumpel, Stillskin, or in one of the fairy tales, they are thrown into a vat because there are punishments that are really cruel. And again, we are just used to the modern versions where we don't want to tell children that. So this is a really interesting point, and I didn't know were going to go here. What do you think about, you have three children, and one of your missions was for me to pick a fairy tale that you could read to your children. And I don't know if I've done that yet. So what do you think about that?
Vanessa Rogers: I struggle with it because there's part of me that really wants to keep them hidden from the atrocities of our world. There's so many horrible things that occur in our world, and I want to keep them from experiencing those things too early and being jaded at an early age. But I also think that it is important for them to understand that in different times, things were done incredibly different and that life used to be so much harder than it is, and it is still harder for a lot of people in different places and in different situations. So I'm torn between telling my children stories like this one. I think I probably would be okay with telling them this one, and I would have to do a lot of explaining for the end. I feel myself very torn with those types of storytelling, those elements.
Donna: It really is difficult. And yet I grew up in a household where I had a father who never told us the bad parts of life. He wanted us to have this lovely, kind of cloud flowery life, and it's not realistic. As lovely as it was, it's not realistic. So we need to find a balance.
Vanessa Rogers: Perhaps balance is key. Absolutely. So that part struck me. So several parts struck me that were not in the analysis that you and I were reading. The daughters, in the very beginning, the youngest daughter turns into a flowering tree to help their mother, who is struggling with finances. Right. They feel sorry for their mother because she is. I don't remember her father being mentioned, but their mother is really struggling, and they want to help their mother, and so they do this for her, and then they decide not to tell her because they're afraid of her reaction. And in fact, when they actually tell her what they have done, she beats them, and she is very angry. And I was really astounded at that reaction because they were being pretty selfless. They weren't collecting the money for themselves.
Vanessa Rogers: They were collecting it for their mother to help her. So I was kind of struck at that. What was your reaction to that?
Donna: Yeah, I had a hard time with that also. And it's interesting, though, because you pointed out that this is one of the first single mother stories. It's about a single mother. The father, he's not around. Again, this scholar who analyzed the story didn't even mention that. So he's used to that. It could be, in rural societies, the parents, it's more common to be physical. I'm not sure about that. I would love to find out. What was I going to ask you, Vanessa? Go ahead. Keep going.
Vanessa Rogers: The second part that really struck me, and I was really worried because I actually listened to your telling before I physically read it. But I found myself getting really anxious when she and her husband were in the bedchamber together, and he demanded that she turn into a tree. And I was very worried about how he was going to treat her. And he ended up being. I mean, although I think he made her turn into a flowering tree, and it was not necessarily what she wanted to do. He was not cruel, which is very commonly found in a lot of these stories.
Donna: Well, it's very interesting because the first time she turned into a tree with her sister, she did it voluntarily. The only other time she did it voluntarily was at the very end when she wanted her husband to fix her. And by that time, what I didn't given the summary was his journey. He had his own journey. And so first he demanded marriage of a girl who didn't have any choice. She had to do it because her mother needed the money. And the king and queen obviously gave a lot of money to have this girl. But at the end, he missed her. He realized that he loved her and he went on his own journey to find her. And so by the time they got back together, he had matured, and he didn't obligate her to turn into a tree.
Donna: She asked him to, and he did it. And he very carefully put the tree back together. And what's really important that we need to understand about it's in southern India, all this takes place, and flowers are synonymous with women. And you're not even allowed touch a beautiful woman without washing your hands, which is part of the story, and treating them with a lot of respect. I'm not sure if I'm crazy about the fact that it has to be a beautiful woman, but that's what part of it is.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. And when she is discarded on the side of the road, they refer to her as a thing. She's no longer human, she's no longer trees. She's kind of betwixt both worlds. And no one recognizes her for who she is until her husband. Right. Her husband recognizes who she is, or she only speaks for her husband.
Donna: That's right. And speech is very important because indian tales, when they say you speak all night, it means it's a metaphor for sex. And so you're having sex, it's intimate. And if you notice that when she's the thing, she doesn't speak and she only speaks with her husband at the end. So in some versions of the story, it's not very clear that she loses not only her limbs, but her voice, but in the very full version that we will put up in our show, notes the link to it. Yeah, it's a sense of power. And if we're going back, if you don't mind, I'm just going to go to Disney very quickly with that, because one reason I'm not crazy about Walt Disney was because he was very chauvinistic in this respect.
Donna: The men in the movies had all the dialogue and women had very little dialogue, and it was all about power. Who has the power?
Vanessa Rogers: Men. Right. Let me ask this one question. So one of the things that I noticed in his analysis, what was the folklore's name that did the analysis of this story?
Donna: Let me find it really quickly. And I'm going to pronounce his name. If anyone is indian, please forgive me for this pronunciation. It's a k. Ramanujan.
Vanessa Rogers: And I actually looked him up because after I read this, I was kind of astounded, and I was like, oh, maybe I can bring him on the show, but he passed away in 93. But one of the things that he pointed out was that there's different types of fairy tales. There are genres of fairy tales india, whereas I don't feel like, do we have the genres that he was referring to in european tales? So there were female tales, animal tales, and male fairy tales. And they all have different significances based on what category they're in. Right?
Donna: Yes. And this book I have, because I did my doctorate on this. So I have a lot of books like this, types of international fairy tales, and they're all classified. There are two volumes of this. I just happen to have them behind me, and they're classified by animal tales or magic Tales or religious tales. So there's a lot of different genres. It's just that if you're brought up reading fairy tales, you don't need to know that. And so maybe we just didn't. I didn't until I started, until I was in my. Researching it.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah, go ahead.
Donna: Well, what I was going to say is, I think it's interesting because I put in some of the notes about this session that we are two women talking about a tale that's usually told by women in southern India. Why do you think. I have some ideas of my own, but why do you think that this particular tale is told by women and it's supposed to be told to women and young girls?
Vanessa Rogers: I'm not really sure.
Donna: I'm going to give you some more information to go. Why? Vanessa, this is not very fair, because I'm going to give you a little more information. So what I see what some of the symbolism is that flowering and menstruation, and Sanskrit is the same word. And so the panel is about the vulnerability of women. We could also say vulnerability about boys, but in this case, it's about women. And every time she's a tree, she's extremely vulnerable. She asks people to be very gentle with her. And except for her sister in law, they are. So it's about women warning little girls, warning other women, or just reminding them that being a woman in the world, unfortunately, is, you usually walk around the planet a little more vulnerable than men in general.
Donna: And I was just reading this one article about a woman who was saying which countries are the most dangerous for women. I thought, first of all, it's a little bit fear based. And secondly, women, if we are taught well, we just need to be a little more aware of our surroundings. And I think most boys and men don't realize that's one sense that is always going on in our minds. Would you agree with that?
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah. And I'm curious if this. You said that this is a tale that is generally told between women. I'm curious if this is ever told to little boys, because I would feel like this would be an important message to give to little boys as well, that women have to deal with being careful in the world. And it's a lot more vulnerable for women than it is for men, from what I understand.
Donna: It's also to remind boys that they need to be a little more sensitive, that girls are more vulnerable. Especially when you begin menstruation, it means that you can become pregnant. I am not of that religious faith where I think that virginity is the overall goal of women before they get married. So I'm not worried about having the girls having sex, but they do need to really think about whether they want to become pregnant. And once you begin menstruation, then it obviously is something you need to think about, and boys need to take part of that also. So they need to think about the fact that all of a sudden, there's a little more involved than just the physical part. There's a responsibility. So I think that's nice that you asked that. And, yeah, boys are in the audience.
Vanessa Rogers: And I also found it interesting that in general, at least with our princess fairy tales, the goal of the story is to marry the prince. Right. And that happens at the end. That's the happily ever after. But in female fairy tales india, they either start out married or they marry early on, and then troubles happen afterwards. I found that incredibly interesting. What did you think about?
Donna: Know, I forgot that part. I love that you remember that. And I had forgotten that because that is a big difference here. They get married early and then the troubles start and it's about becoming mature and you're two people together now solving a problem instead of just a girl on her own. And there's a godmother, maybe.
Vanessa Rogers: I believe when I was reading the descriptions, the male fairy tales, there is a goal of marrying someone at the end. So that pattern remains for the male fairy tales, which I thought was interesting.
Donna: No, that is really interesting. So one of the things that they say about this is also about agency, that these are all girls. We have two sisters and a mother and then we have two sisters. And the Queen is not active at all in that family. Oh, yeah, the queen buys the. That's interesting, Vanessa. The queen buys the flowers in the beginning and she's the one that kind of brings the girl into the family. Now what can we say about that? We're going to think about that, maybe.
Vanessa Rogers: Because flowering shows that someone is menstruating and possibly capable of childbearing.
Donna: Interesting. And perhaps she's already grown up, she has children already. And maybe what she's doing is becoming the mentor for this girl. In theory, it doesn't come through, but maybe that's an insinuation. I'm going to go with that and think about it.
Vanessa Rogers: We have a comment. I noticed that the girl's family disappears from the story. Does that have any significance.
Donna: That the girl's family disappears from the story? Wonderful. So the elder sister and the mother, I think it's, again, it has to do with the agency where we're trying to find out from the girl. I love that question because that's pretty deep. The girl has to find her own way. She needs to figure out, without a way to physically move either back to her new home as a bride or to help. There's no one who can help her, neither her sister and mother nor her new family. Nobody can help her. She has to do it herself. And what she does is she ends up in the elder sister's home who is very kind to her. And I think that's really important because a lot of time in fairy tales we see the women being very caddy cruel. Caddy Cruel, yeah.
Donna: And this is a really nice model of a female who is wealthy and in a position of power helping another woman. So I think that's, again, we have women talking to women and girls about women helping other women. So it's pretty strong. It's a pretty powerful message from.
Vanessa Rogers: What year is this storytell from?
Donna: We never get how far back it goes. He never talks about that, so we don't know. But at least the 18 hundreds.
Vanessa Rogers: So my thought process is that especially even in european society, when a female marries, she is no longer a part of her maternal family. Right. She is officially in because everything is male lined in most cultures, not all cultures, but most cultures. And so maybe because she is now married, she is no longer a part of her past family.
Donna: It could be that and also that her family is poor and maybe they just don't want anything to do with her. But if we're looking for the hidden messages, we're looking for symbolism. And I think that's absolutely practical. And also that the girl needs to find her way. And she doesn't have her own money. She only has her being, her very being, which is what eventually saves her.
Vanessa Rogers: I want to remind everyone that if you're watching right now, make sure that you hit that subscribe button and you like our video so that you get notifications when new fairytale flips show. We are doing this every month. So you will be getting notifications on a monthly basis. So I just wanted to put that out there just in case, if you're enjoying this.
Donna: Yeah. Thank you. And we're both going to put out polls because we really want you to have a part in choosing the fairy tale. We're big on co creation here.
Vanessa Rogers: Yes, I did have a question about ecology. That was a big symbolism, from what I understand.
Donna: Again, I'm not indian. I never studied india. And so there's probably a lot of hidden meanings that I'm not aware of. But I love digging in deep. And what I found out of the ecological element is that it says very clearly when she talks to her sister, don't pluck the flowers with your nails and don't touch the branches with your nails. And children india apparently are taught to use their knuckles when they touch plants because plants are really sacred india. And again, there's a correlation between plants and women. We need to be very careful of women. We need to be very careful of. However, there's statistics on abuse to women india that is kind of horrifying. So as much as the fairy tales want to teach that we need to be compassionate, we need to be careful with women, it doesn't happen.
Donna: There's a lot of rape, there's a lot of abuse. Unfortunately, there is around the world, but especially india, because it's not part of the culture to talk about these things.
Vanessa Rogers: I think that there are recently laws that have been put in place to help protect women, but I don't know that they're enforced.
Donna: Yeah, the culture goes very deep in all countries. It goes very deep. But if we want to go back to the ecological part, there's also these. I don't know if everyone honors it, but once a tree has fruit, and we want to remember that fruit correlates with a woman's ability to have babies. Once a tree has fruit, you're not allowed to cut it down, which I find also really fascinating.
Vanessa Rogers: What about when it stops producing?
Donna: Great question. That's something we have to find out about, because you'd think, all right, just like an old woman, we can cut her down.
Vanessa Rogers: Sounds horrible, but I don't know, because I'm not familiar with indian culture, but I feel like there might be more respect for elders in that culture, but I'm not immersed in it. Do you have any idea about that?
Donna: I think that it's like a lot of countries where there is a superficial respect or maybe it goes a little deeper, and yet it's still a male dominated culture legally in the household. I'm sure there are a lot of households where the man is sublimated by the woman, but outside of the house, he needs to at least make it appear that he's the. So I would hope that if anyone's listening who is from India and has grown up in the culture, that they will correct us or send messages confirming what we're saying.
Vanessa Rogers: Absolutely. We want to hear from you. Yeah.
Donna: And then there is a note I have about the queen. We're going to go back to just what the idea of the queen buying the flowers. And I do have a note where there's something about the wealthy family subjugating the poorer families that they're obligating the mother to sell her daughter, essentially. But we find that in a lot of places, and I don't know, Vanessa, I'm going to get myself into a little bit of trouble. Do you think it's better to choose your partner these days, or do you think it's better it's still going on all over the world where the family chooses the partner for the girl and the boy. What do you think? Which lasts longer?
Vanessa Rogers: Oh, statistically, it lasts longer the indian way, because they're not love matches. They don't have that intention. They don't have that expectation that the love will remain hot and passionate. So statistically, marriage lasts longer. It might because divorce is so frowned upon. I think our expectations in Europe and America, where the divorce rate is sometimes over 50%, I think a lot of that is due to our expectations being that time period of honeymoon period should remain throughout the entire marriage, and that marriage won't be difficult in the least. So I think a lot of people go in with rose colored glasses and are kind of thrown for a loop when they realize that no relationships are really hard. Marriage is extremely hard. And so I think that there's an argument for both sides.
Vanessa Rogers: I personally like that I have a love match rather than an arranged marriage, but I am also in this culture, right? I am immersed in my culture, so it is not something that I would have ever expected my parents to do for me. Whereas some people, that's what they expect, and that's what they go into a marriage expecting. Not necessarily a passionate partnership, but just a partnership where they can raise a family and be good to one another. So there's pros and cons to both, I think. What about you?
Donna: No, I'm not going to even touch that one. I'm not married and never meant to be married. My family never gave me that pressure. I guess that is the answer. I didn't have that pressure and didn't want it.
Vanessa Rogers: Right. Not lucky, but it was good that you were in the culture that you didn't have to marry. Whereas I feel like that's not necessarily an option for some people in different cultures, it's not an option for them not to marry. So I'm glad that you were in a family that was okay with your choice.
Donna: Yeah, no, that's a really good point, because it really was specifically in my family, because in my extended family, there was a lot of pressure, and my cousins married and didn't want to marry. And some of them are very unhappy and have been unhappy for a long time. I think in fairy tales, one of the things that we realize is that you have a story where you're happily ever after, and it's necessary because in real life, it may not be happily ever after. Marriages, there's nothing natural about marriage. You're not born tied to another person or with something to plug into another person to keep going. It's something that is very manufactured in societies. So if you can do it takes a lot of work. And God bless all of you together if that's what you want.
Donna: So what's your biggest takeaway from the flowering tree, Vanessa?
Vanessa Rogers: Well, I was astounded at how different the patterns were. Like I was saying before our princess, fairy tales, generally it ends with marriage. And that is the goal. You want to get out of your terrible situation and marry a prince, and then your life is bubbles and pancakes and all the things that make you happy. Whereas the female genre of fairy tales india, the goal isn't marriage. The goal is to get out of the problem situation that arises once you are married, which I think maybe is telling that they are more aware that marriage can be very difficult and that it might not be a situation that is one that you want to be in, but you have to because that is the culture. So I don't know. I think it's speaking to something else in their culture.
Vanessa Rogers: Whereas our culture, you grow up kind of like dreaming about when you're going to get married looking at wedding dresses and talking about who you're going to marry. I remember doing the mass. I don't know if you did not. Mass was on the paper, but there was all these different games that you could play that would talk about who you would marry growing up. And so that's kind of immersed in our culture. That is kind of the end goal, whereas it doesn't seem that's the case in this culture or this story. Yeah.
Donna: And let's end on that note, because I think that's really important. I think the flowering tree, you pointed out really well that it's not necessarily the goal to get married. You're going to get married, and so you need to learn how to do it well. You need to find out how to become, wait till your husband to mature, find out how to get your voice agency. And I think that we both sort of found a way to take a step back from the story and see that it's about empowerment, even though it looks like it's the opposite of that, because the girl is a thing for a lot of the story, but she finds her voice. Her husband is an advocate for her in the end, and they find a way to have a successful marriage, and it seems to be a partnership at.
Vanessa Rogers: The end, as empowered as she can be in that culture.
Donna: Well said. Well said. So I think that we did pretty well, Vanessa. I think we did pretty well.
Vanessa Rogers: Yeah.
Donna: What should we do? What are we offering for the next time? I think you wanted to do? There's one called the Juniper tree you're really liking.
Vanessa Rogers: Yes. So I had a listener on Reddit who requested that we look, do a deep dive on the Juniper tree. So that's going to be one of the options for the month of. Are we calling this? So I had said this was February's but this is actually the very end of January.
Donna: January?
Vanessa Rogers: Is this February's or what would you call this?
Donna: No. Let's see this. The end of January. And the next one we'll do the end of February. How's that?
Vanessa Rogers: Okay, so the juniper tree, my husband requested Rumpel Stillskin, but if y'all have suggestions, we want to hear from you. So comment down below if you're watching on YouTube. If you're listening. I'm going to also put this on my podcasting fabric of folklore podcast. If you're listening, make sure you let us know what story fairy tales. You want us to do a deep dive in, and we'll do what we did before. We will do a recording of three, and then we will put polls up in different places and let you choose which one you want us to do a deep dive into on fairy tale flip.
Donna: That sounds wonderful. All right, so we have two, and we're going to wait for a third suggestion. And then we'll do polls, and then we're going to find out all the hidden messages about them. I've enjoyed this so much. Vanessa, what about you?
Vanessa Rogers: I have as well, and we want to hear from you as well. What was your takeaway from this? What struck you from this story? What stood out to you? And like Donna said before, if you are from India, tell us how you interpreted this story, because that would be very fascinating for this conversation. And if someone from India comments and lets us know what their interpretations are, we'll make sure we mention it in next month's fairy tale flip.
Donna: Absolutely.
Vanessa Rogers: We also want to remind everybody to subscribe, like and comment and share. Those are so helpful for indie podcasts like ourselves. Those reviews and those comments really help the algorithm to help other people who are interested in fairy tales find our show.
Donna: And we love this show. We love fairy tales. We love fairy tales. And hopefully you do, too. Everybody, thank you so much for watching. Vanessa, thank you so much for this. It's been so much fun.
Vanessa Rogers: Yes, I agree. All right, see you. See you next month.
Donna: See you next month.