The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Christmas Podcast ｜ The Wisdom of Fairy Tales

00:00:00.000 hello and merry christmas to you uh by popular acclaim i wanted to do another segment on

00:00:07.040 children's fairy tales the first one we did a few months ago was about fairy tales that were

00:00:13.920 oriented towards girls and i wanted to do one about the fairy tales that were oriented towards

00:00:18.800 boys and i thought i'd pick a classic or a couple of classics actually uh jack and the beanstalk

00:00:26.320 to to start with and talk a little bit about that one and and what it means and you know we have a

00:00:32.960 nice little ladybird copy of the book here and we have some uh hans christian anderson books uh stories

00:00:39.920 that we're going to get into so i won't read all of them to you i promise and i'm sure you won't be

00:00:45.360 falling asleep but we're going to be talking a little bit about the flying trunk and the little

00:00:50.400 tin soldiers a little tin soldier as good examples for boys to learn about so jack and the beanstalk 0.97

00:00:57.520 you all know it um jack is a bit of a lazy boy he lounges around the house all day he doesn't help

00:01:05.840 his mother but he's kind-hearted and decent and you know he does his best and then as his mother who's

00:01:14.400 a widow becomes more and more broke she decides that he has to sell the cow because they have

00:01:20.640 nothing left and that's the last thing that they've got so he's pretty desperate and he goes to the

00:01:26.480 market to sell the cow but instead of getting money for it he sells it for magic beans now the choice of

00:01:33.840 beans is interesting because it's a dead thing containing life within it um so essentially what jack has done

00:01:43.120 his son is exchanged life for death and choose adventure and choose risk and choose to put his 0.91

00:01:52.720 life on the line but his mother obviously as a good woman thinks that this is absolutely foolish 1.00

00:01:59.920 that he was completely reckless and that what he did was absolutely stupid so she shouts at him 0.98

00:02:06.480 and sends him up to the uh to his room without any dinner and the next morning he wakes up and there's 0.99

00:02:15.120 a giant beanstalk there and the first thing that he does is just climb the beanstalk he doesn't know

00:02:22.000 why it's there he doesn't know where it leads to and when he gets to the top he finds an incredibly

00:02:29.440 desolate place without a single tree without a single blade of grass and he's on his own and he's

00:02:38.480 walking this road that seemingly has no end but he's inspired along the way by a woman who knows his name

00:02:49.760 and tells him that there's a giant living at the end of this road and that that giant deserves to be

00:02:58.160 punished it was it says in the text we've got here that he was actually the ogre that killed his own

00:03:04.480 father and stole all of his possessions so this there's there's history here there's history there

00:03:10.480 and there's history in two ways you could argue that this was inserted into the story to give it a

00:03:17.200 christian justification rather than simply going and slaying ogres but i don't think that this is

00:03:25.040 necessary i think it is very much in human nature uh for brave men to go and slay monsters as part of

00:03:34.880 their rise to greatness it's the theme obviously of saint george's story but it's also a universal

00:03:41.280 theme that a good man has to combat great evil it's like in the hobbit as well uh where bilbo has to go

00:03:48.880 and uh he's not initially intending to slay the dragon but he has to go and face smaug and recover

00:03:54.800 some of the um some of the wealth that he's hoarded for himself exactly exactly and it shows you the

00:04:01.120 nature of evil that it's hoarding endless wealth and all it cares about is that wealth and you are meant

00:04:09.040 to go and and fight against it uh it's it's about the call to adventure and that's and that's what like

00:04:15.680 the the those those magic beans represent a potentiality exactly exactly exactly and to

00:04:22.880 achieve that potentiality you're risking your life and you're choosing the dead thing in the belief

00:04:30.480 that you can revive it so there is this element to it that sort of adds to the flavor of the story and

00:04:36.240 that sort of shows you what is our nature as men

00:04:44.560 and then he gets to the ogre's castle and there's a woman there and he begs and he says i'm tired and

00:04:52.560 hungry and desperate please feed me and let me sleep and she's like no no you're you're in the land of

00:04:59.200 the giant now you're in the land of the ogre he's going to kill you if he finds you you shouldn't be

00:05:04.960 here but he was desperate enough to try anyway and that kind of tells you something about when you

00:05:11.520 are at your best which is sometimes when you're at your lowest uh so there is this nice juxtaposition

00:05:20.320 there between jack's personal despair and the fact that it leads him to to to a greater good

00:05:27.280 and the ogre comes in and we all know the beautiful line fee foe fi fum i smell the blood of an english 0.99

00:05:36.960 man be he alive or be he dead i'll grind his bones to make my bread and the ogre's wife being a good and 1.00

00:05:47.200 gentle soul actually lies to him and says no no there are no englishmen here you're just imagining things

00:05:54.640 and jack is looking at this and he's absolutely terrified but he doesn't do anything and she just

00:06:01.600 puts a massive meal in front of him and he just starts shoving food into his mouth and eventually

00:06:09.600 because he is a glutton and all he cares about is material things he orders his wife to bring him

00:06:16.800 the magic chicken the magic hen which which lays golden eggs and he just keeps on barking at the

00:06:23.440 chicken and he doesn't even say thank you to his wife for bringing him the hen so it sort of shows

00:06:31.200 you something about the nature of evil that it is naturally ungrateful that it's naturally lacks

00:06:38.800 any appreciation for service for dedication for loyalty and it kind of shows you why his life

00:06:46.080 why his wife would lie to him i mean if you don't sort of if you're not in any way grateful to your

00:06:51.920 wife if you don't show her any appreciation you have a bit of a problem there you have a bit of a problem 0.84

00:06:57.520 there and and by all respect she seems to be quite a dutiful wife yes for the most part i mean she's

00:07:03.520 doing everything that he says you could say that it's out of fear but from his perspective i mean

00:07:07.440 she's doing everything that she should right exactly so you need to hold your end of uh uh hold your

00:07:13.520 virtues as well exactly exactly uh that's why in in the bible it says you become one flesh and if you hurt

00:07:20.400 your wife it's like hurting your own flesh you you are one you know um but anyway jack steals the 1.00

00:07:29.280 hen that lays the golden eggs and he goes to his mother and climbs down the beanstalk and now they're

00:07:36.560 no longer living in impunery they're no longer hungry and starving they have something and in a way

00:07:45.520 you could think about the hen that lays the golden eggs as a business or as a skill or as a craft that

00:07:53.360 he mastered so he goes on this long difficult path which is always the path to learning the path to

00:07:59.840 knowledge is always lonely and it's always difficult and you can't master anything unless you go through

00:08:06.800 a very difficult journey and you put yourself in danger through you put yourself in danger as well and

00:08:12.160 you may say well you know i'm if i'm learning a skill i'm not putting myself at the danger of being

00:08:16.720 eaten by a giant but you are putting yourself at some personal danger of things like failure if you're

00:08:22.320 trying to do something that's business-like exactly fail your family you could fail yourself by letting

00:08:28.080 yourself down on a more public level if you do something like i do like play guitar and play music

00:08:33.680 you could humiliate yourself yes in front of other people in front of your peers so there is always

00:08:39.200 danger involved in that is overcoming is always the ultimate uh victory is this is the uh sense of

00:08:47.280 overcoming and that's a reward in itself exactly exactly um but then jack having achieved the

00:08:55.280 success he began to long for more adventure which is again an innate characteristic in boys and in men

00:09:02.800 it's sort of what makes us builders we want to compete we want to attain greater things and very

00:09:10.720 often we have to compete with ourselves and comfort i mean it says here they were able to live very

00:09:15.920 comfortably and he had no need to worry they lived happily in this way for many a long day but after

00:09:19.840 some time he began to long for more adventure this is the thing you know around this uh around this time

00:09:26.240 obviously like fuentes has been in the news all all the time recently he does kind of drive a lot of

00:09:32.080 the discourse but one of the clips that was going around that people were taking out of context i think

00:09:36.480 was this discussion that he was having on wife guys and yes girl dads as they're described and he was

00:09:43.360 being very very uh insulting to them but i think what he's insulting is not necessarily that they are men who

00:09:50.320 have families and have duties that they uphold to their families it's that they in in pursuing those

00:09:56.400 duties they have completely lost all sense of masculine drive as i know their only goal that they

00:10:02.560 want to pursue is to be a husband and a father and that's great and if you're good at that that's great

00:10:10.160 that's a fantastic duty to uphold but as a man you should have more romantic drives purely beyond that

00:10:17.600 because comfort in many ways can be its own prison yes if you're an intelligent man with a very active

00:10:23.600 mind getting yourself set for life can be the worst thing for you and it's why so many men later in life

00:10:32.880 when they retire and they have no goal to pursue anymore their kids have moved out they're living

00:10:38.160 comfortably with their wife there's nothing driving them anymore it's why a lot of the time they end up

00:10:43.280 dying so soon after yes because even if you're retired you can still find other things to do for

00:10:48.160 yourself and if you lose if you lose that drive that piece of yourself dies that piece of your

00:10:53.680 masculinity dies exactly you shouldn't be comfortable with comfort you should strive and that's what the

00:10:59.920 story is saying that's the the example that it is setting in the minds of men don't be satisfied with

00:11:06.720 the first bit of comfort that you achieve keep on going seek further adventure seek further knowledge

00:11:13.520 and so jack does exactly that he climbs the beanstalk again and he goes to the ogre's wife but this time

00:11:20.640 he disguises himself so he's learned a new trick to disguise and in a way to deceive he's gained the gift of

00:11:29.520 the gab and he's able to convince the wife of the ogre that the first boy who stole the the hen that lays the

00:11:38.240 golden eggs was absolutely awful and who would do such a thing and it's genuinely terrible that something

00:11:46.000 like that would would be done uh he chatted so pleasantly to the ogre's wife that she felt she

00:11:52.560 could not refuse him a meal she let him come in so that's something about what you need to learn you first

00:11:59.600 master a skill but then you next master communication and people and this is the message that's hidden

00:12:07.840 in this fairy tale that you don't stop just mastering one skill you then go on to the next one

00:12:14.800 and in this case it's it's it's mastering people which is very important as a young man like jordan

00:12:20.560 peterson said with men there's always an underlying threat that violence can break out so learning how to

00:12:27.040 navigate that obviously in this case he's talking to a woman but he's entering the ogre's castle yes

00:12:32.640 he's putting himself in danger against another domineering alpha male exactly to master language

00:12:39.360 and how to communicate with people so that you can avoid getting into violent situations if you can

00:12:46.560 exactly exactly exactly and so he gets into the ogre's castle again

00:12:53.040 and again we have the fee-fo-fi-fum i won't do the impression again um but this time scared me the

00:13:01.680 first time but this time the ogre is counting stacks and stacks of gold coins counting massive

00:13:10.000 riches yes exactly and you see the look on his face of just he's so taken by the wealth that he's

00:13:19.520 accumulated that he doesn't see anything else and he can't show his wife any respect and that means

00:13:26.480 that he can't show anybody around him any respect so he's just fascinated by this wealth and again he

00:13:35.280 eats and drinks and does everything that that he enjoys and counts his money and falls asleep and when

00:13:43.200 he falls asleep jack strikes again but this time the burden is heavier he's carrying in a way more

00:13:51.280 responsibility because he's gained that wealth or you could read it that way and he as a dutiful son

00:13:59.360 takes this wealth and he takes very good care of his mother as you all should call your mom as carl keeps

00:14:05.920 saying especially around christmas be very good to your mom around christmas so his mother is clearly

00:14:12.800 worried about him that he's gone on these adventures and he's gone to the ogre's castle again and she

00:14:17.840 makes tries to make him promise never to go again but no he's still he's still not satisfied your mom

00:14:24.800 will also do that yes that's the sort of stuff that my mom does the sort of stuff that i've pursued over

00:14:29.680 the years including this job it was all very oh are you sure you're putting yourself up in like in

00:14:34.640 the public eye doing this sort of thing but ultimately you do have to take those risks for yourself 0.99

00:14:40.960 your parents and your mom can be a good guide for you if you really are doing something stupid 0.90

00:14:46.960 they'll let you know but ultimately you have to make those decisions exactly exactly exactly you 1.00

00:14:53.440 want to teach your boys to grow up to be the kind of men who will seek out adventure not stupid

00:14:59.520 adventure but meaningful adventure and so having mastered a craft with with with the hen now jack has

00:15:07.120 accumulated this enormous wealth um and he has these bags and bags of gold coins and he upgrades his

00:15:14.960 home and he takes better care of his mom and he gets her good food and good clothing and she asks him

00:15:23.120 you know don't go again to meet the ogre but no no no no no and again they were content for a while but

00:15:29.840 he was longing for more adventure and so he goes up to the ogre's castle one last time and he walks down

00:15:37.280 this desolate road which is truly scary and full of despair but he finds himself at the gates of the

00:15:45.200 ogre's castle and he deceives the ogre's wife one more time uh and it's sort of it's not a good christian

00:15:54.640 message that you should be able to be deceptive but it is a good message for a boy that you must be

00:16:01.200 articulate you must know how to communicate you have to find a way to bend people to your will to

00:16:06.480 make them do things that they don't necessarily want to do uh so you have to exercise that judgment

00:16:14.320 and this time there is a magic harp and the harp uh plays music on its own

00:16:21.840 and it obeys its master if it's told to play it'll play and if it's told to stop it'll stop

00:16:30.880 and you can think you know what does this represent uh maybe art in general maybe the

00:16:36.720 ability to appreciate art maybe a certain spiritual development that lets you appreciate

00:16:43.120 beautiful things and everything else has been material thus far it's been the business it's been

00:16:49.040 pure wealth now this could be perhaps representative of a uh higher class spirit yes yes exactly yes

00:16:58.480 exactly a noble spirit an aristocratic spirit exactly one that takes care of the people around

00:17:05.200 one that sort of guides and protects and guards uh the vulnerable things that we love so yes

00:17:11.280 yes but the harp starts screaming when jack starts tries to steal it and it calls for its master and

00:17:19.840 it's an ogre you know uh luckily for jack the ogre is overfed and lazy and he's extremely tired so he

00:17:30.560 doesn't manage to catch up with him quickly and jack manages to make a run for it um and it shows you you

00:17:37.840 you know meeting great danger meeting an ogre yeah you're you're going to run from some monsters

00:17:43.200 sometimes but accepting that the ogre is much bigger than he is and much stronger than he is and he

00:17:50.480 can't find him fight him head on he gets to the bottom of the beanstalk faster and calls his mother to

00:17:58.320 bring him the axe and it sort of shows you how you are how you need to have the ability to cooperate

00:18:07.120 with others against great evil i suppose i guess the mother's role has sort of changed a little bit and

00:18:13.120 maybe become a little more masculine um you wouldn't normally call on a woman to bring your weapons but 0.82

00:18:19.120 here he is but maybe that is what a good woman does she you know sews her husband some armor or she 1.00

00:18:27.440 helps him sharpen his his axe and knife or so that there is this ambiguity about her role and it is it

00:18:36.160 it is his mother so perhaps it's uh it's kind of the familial bonds and ties being reciprocated yes she's

00:18:44.960 seen the danger that he's in and whatever fears and worries that she's had before she knows that

00:18:50.240 she needs to step up now yes as well and maybe also just telling young boys as well um if you do

00:18:56.240 get yourself in a pinch you still can rely on your mom yes yes and maybe part of what a mother does

00:19:02.560 is let her son sharpen his claws let her son practice things that make him stronger and help him do that

00:19:11.120 this is more the role of the father but the mother has to be permissive enough to allow the father to

00:19:18.160 exercise to exercise this role and so jack gets the axe and he swings at the beanstalk

00:19:27.040 and he fells it and the ogre falls to his death and evil has been defeated and justice has been

00:19:37.600 restored because jack took the time to walk down the desolate road three times he mastered speech

00:19:47.120 he mastered a craft he gained wealth he gained power and now he could slay great evil and it's maybe not

00:19:56.240 by directly confronting it but he built all of the tools that are needed in his arsenal to be able to

00:20:06.480 defeat great evil and it came from a spirit of adventure and it came from the willingness

00:20:12.960 to trade the cow a symbol of fertility and fecundity for beans which are dead and to use them to bring

00:20:22.160 about life so it has these deeper meanings that your boys should know about and they won't appreciate them

00:20:30.480 when they're six but you keep teaching them this kind of stuff and eventually they learn

00:20:49.920 moving on to another story this one is a called the flying trunk

00:20:56.800 and it's about the son of a banker who is in the opposite situation of jack jack is poor and his

00:21:07.120 mother is a widow but this one his father dies and he inherits massive wealth and instead of being

00:21:16.240 responsible with it he will make kites from banknotes and play ducks and drakes with gold coins

00:21:25.280 and he completely wastes all of his money to the point where he's broke and all he has is a bathrobe

00:21:35.120 and a pair of slippers and all of his friends abandon him and he's got nothing now one friend brings

00:21:43.440 him an old trunk and tells him pack your stuff and leave but he's got nothing so he himself sits in the

00:21:51.840 trunk and lo and behold it's magic and the trunk carries him and flies away with him inside it

00:22:01.280 and it sort of tells you something about wasteful men men who will overspend money and have no concern

00:22:09.840 for tomorrow and instead of being responsible and developing a skill they just fly into fantasy land

00:22:18.400 and allow their imagination to carry them away towards things that they haven't earned and they

00:22:24.880 haven't achieved and indeed that's exactly where he ends up he ends up in turkey which you know from

00:22:31.840 the perspective of of anderson um this is a distant faraway fantasy land that's where he's ended up in

00:22:40.400 the land of imagination and the trunk lands next to a city and he goes into the city and finds a wonderful

00:22:48.160 castle and what's in this castle what's in this palace well it's the king's daughter and a fortune teller

00:22:56.640 her father had said that she is going to have her heart broken and so her father built a giant castle

00:23:03.840 with very high walls to make sure that nobody could approach her and deceive her

00:23:08.560 but obviously it fails because the banker's son flies in his magic trunk and goes to uh

00:23:20.080 her lodging while she's sleeping on a sofa and creeps in and charms her and convinces her that he's a

00:23:28.560 magic that he's a wizard who flew in from the sky in order to love her and marry her and she invites him to

00:23:37.520 meet her parents and she tells him they love to hear stories you need to tell them your best tale and if you do

00:23:48.640 they will let you marry me and he does exactly that he tells them a fantastical tale but first she gives

00:23:56.880 him a gift it's a sword covered in gold coins so in a sense it's about men who rely on their own women

00:24:07.040 to provide rather than men who are protectors and can provide he doesn't come in with his own sword

00:24:14.320 he's given a sword and along with a sword a bunch of gold coins

00:24:18.160 he's a classic trickster isn't he exactly he's got no ties i think one of the other things of him

00:24:24.080 floating floating away he literally has no ties to the world he can go exactly wherever and where

00:24:29.440 whenever he wants he coveted his wealth and it brought him no lasting friendship with anybody but

00:24:35.760 doesn't really care because he's a cosmopolitan he can uproot himself and take himself wherever he wants

00:24:41.440 exactly exactly exactly exactly so he takes the sword with the gold coins comes up with a fantastical

00:24:48.800 tale obviously completely the product of fiction and fancy and imagination and he goes to the court of

00:24:57.760 the king and he tells them a wonderful tale and it's so wonderful that the queen the princess's mother

00:25:03.840 says yes yes you shall certainly marry our daughter we will have the wedding on monday

00:25:10.960 and they just let her rush into this not knowing exactly who he is not knowing where he came from

00:25:18.080 just on the basis of a tale and there is rejoicing in the town and so what does he do he

00:25:24.560 has to maintain the fiction he has to maintain the fantasy so he takes the gold coins that are on the sword

00:25:30.720 and he buys new clothes and he buys fireworks and he flies in the magic trunk again and lets off the

00:25:40.240 fireworks to show what a great wizard he is

00:25:45.120 and everybody's impressed the turks were amazed to be sure they said this is a real turkish wizard who

00:25:52.640 will marry our beautiful princess everybody falls for it everybody believes him but you know he leaves

00:26:02.480 the trunk in the woods and he returns to listen to what's being said and they're all impressed he's a

00:26:08.400 wizard with a beard like flowing water wrapped in a cloak of fire and you can see that this is stroking

00:26:16.000 his ego that he's beginning to believe his own lies and be pleased with himself and he's not connected

00:26:23.360 to these people at all and he doesn't care that he's deceiving them because exactly as you said he's

00:26:29.440 a sort of wandering cosmopolitan with no fixed friendships the flash gate is what he is he's a flash

00:26:35.360 git yes he goes back to the woods and he wants to get his magic trunk but his fireworks have set it

00:26:43.040 a light and it sort of shows you that when you keep on lying and trying to deceive it's not an accident

00:26:51.600 that the fireworks that he was using to be deceptive destroy the last thing that he had which is his

00:26:58.480 ability to present himself as someone that he is not yeah the only thing of any real value exactly to

00:27:05.120 somebody like him other people it might be his integrity his honesty his ability to actually craft or

00:27:11.680 or maintain things no for this it was all about the show the aesthetic the surface level and and

00:27:18.640 and it's really telling that instead of being like jack and going on the long and difficult and lonely

00:27:25.440 road he just moves from one circle of flatterers who are only there for his money to another circle who are 0.50

00:27:33.040 only there because of his fantasies so it's sort of telling that he didn't when he became broke when

00:27:41.440 he lost everything it didn't teach him a lesson being at his lowest being hungry and desperate and alone

00:27:49.840 like jack didn't get him to learn a skill or to learn how to speak to a woman or to sort of gain anything

00:27:59.840 all he had was the gift of the gab and that's all he used and with his trunk burnt he couldn't marry

00:28:08.320 the princess anymore so she's waiting for him still and he roams the world telling tales

00:28:17.120 do you know what i think this might have inspired because it really reminds me and this is going to

00:28:21.120 be maybe a bit of an off kilter comparison have you ever watched the simpsons episode marge versus the

00:28:27.440 monorail no really it's one of the more famous ones it's where the the town of springfield is visited by

00:28:34.240 this complete huckster right who tells them that they're going to get great wealth and lots of

00:28:39.760 publicity and loads of tourists come in if they build a monorail like he says and he says oh my monorails

00:28:46.720 they've put this town this town and this town on the map and it's all nonsense he's he's selling them

00:28:52.480 a pack of lies yes and they build the monorail and of course it's all completely and it goes to show

00:28:59.040 like the kind of like fun moral messaging the shows like the simpsons used to be able to have back in

00:29:03.760 the 90s but he they they build the monorail it's a disaster the whole thing is built improperly

00:29:09.920 homer is made the conductor of it and that was a terrible idea in the first because it's homer

00:29:14.880 and uh the things breaks don't work so on this first maiden voyage you could say it sets off

00:29:22.080 and it goes way too fast there's no way to stop it so they have to come up with

00:29:26.640 uh an improv to an improvised way of trying to stop it and they managed to and they saved the day

00:29:32.880 but they go to the guy who sold it to them in the first place to find out what was going on

00:29:37.200 how to stop it and he's of course gone right he's he's taken off with the money as he can he's got the

00:29:43.520 next flight over so that he can just get out of town as quickly as possible and that's what

00:29:47.680 happened with the previous towns but the irony being and the way that he gets his comeuppance

00:29:52.400 of course there's a the flight that he takes has one quick stop off at the last town he visited

00:30:00.000 who were also screwed over so that town finds out that he's stopping by and the plane stops and as the

00:30:06.720 joke is they're all waiting for him on the runway the door opens to let a few passengers off and they

00:30:12.320 all just rush in right and uh and and uh get their revenge on him yeah yeah i feel i feel like it's

00:30:19.120 a cautionary tale right it's a great cautionary tale and he's embodying that same kind of exactly i

00:30:24.160 forget the name of the character maybe it's lyle or something but he's embodying that same trickster

00:30:30.080 archetype which is telling you if some guy is coming in and selling you the world for pennies

00:30:36.400 then that's not what you're going to be getting exactly and and it's also telling you that if you

00:30:41.920 are the kind of person who is going around selling fantasies and making promises you can't keep you

00:30:48.880 will have to end up permanently wandering from place to place with no friends and you won't be able to go

00:30:54.320 back to where you were before because you'll have just made enemies there exactly exactly exactly so

00:30:59.840 there's a nice warning message to it um he inherits this inherits this massive wealth and he just

00:31:06.160 can't do anything worthwhile with it

00:31:22.240 and then the last story that i wanted to cover uh was the little tin soldier

00:31:27.040 and this is another beautiful one i think because it goes nicely with jack and the beanstalk and and

00:31:35.760 and you'll see why in a minute so this little boy gets a gift for his birthday and it's a box of tin

00:31:43.040 soldiers but the last one has only one leg and that's the story that that story is all about him

00:31:54.160 because for some reason the one-legged soldier gets put in front of a or doesn't get put back in the

00:32:05.040 box where he's supposed to go at night instead he gets put in front of a castle with a lake in front

00:32:11.680 of it make it made of a mirror and a box and the prettiest thing of all was a little paper girl who stood on one

00:32:19.600 leg like a dancer she wore a silk dress and in her hair was a shiny tinsel rose

00:32:26.720 and he instantly falls in love with her and he wants to marry her

00:32:31.360 but the man immediately understands his own responsibilities he says to himself i live in a

00:32:38.320 box with all the other soldiers and that is no place for her just the same i would like to know her

00:32:44.640 better so he has a sense of honor and duty towards the woman from the outset and but and he accepts

00:32:54.400 that he's not in a great position because he's living in a box with a bunch of other soldiers

00:33:00.080 but he still decides that he's going to commit to this love that he feels and he stands there and

00:33:06.960 he gazes at her and he does nothing and then when it's time for bed all of the other toys

00:33:15.440 are put away but the ones that aren't just go around playing and having a wonderful time

00:33:20.800 uh nutcrackers dancing birds singing crayons coloring but the only two who did not move were

00:33:29.360 the tin soldier and the little dancer so in a way when everybody is playing and having a great time

00:33:36.320 they did the responsible and dignified thing and in their case the responsible and dignified thing

00:33:43.280 is just to stand there and in a way that that is part of what marriage is

00:33:50.000 because it is very difficult and the only thing that you can do to make a marriage work is to

00:33:57.840 be there and to commit so there is this message hidden here about their love that while everybody

00:34:05.680 else was having a party they just did their duty towards each other and they were there for each other

00:34:11.360 and it did involve them doing anything particularly exciting and a lot of days in marriage are not

00:34:16.320 particularly exciting but you're there and you're doing your bit trust me the most sometimes the

00:34:21.840 most exciting bit will be when the kids are in bed i know the feeling brother and you just get to sit

00:34:28.320 down for five minutes and you finally get a moment to catch up with one another yes and it is the it's

00:34:34.640 the least glamorous thing in the world yes and you know you'll be you'll have opportunities to do fun

00:34:40.720 things but on a normal mundane day that's going to be the thing that keeps you close to one another

00:34:48.000 yeah as well that's the thing that's going to is though it's that solid connection that you build

00:34:52.480 with one another in those quiet moments absolutely but then the devil uh in this tin box that's sort of

00:35:05.360 sitting there there's a goblin and he pops out and says to the soldier keep your eyes to yourself

00:35:13.440 so there's an element of jealousy obviously he wants the little paper girl for himself

00:35:19.040 but the tin soldier pretends not to hear him he sort of ignores the evil and he focuses on doing

00:35:27.280 the duty that he was doing but for the modern audiences watching this this is uh your your favorite

00:35:35.120 uh your no i won't make that comparison i won't make that comparison uh that that girl that you know 1.00

00:35:42.800 that you have you exchange looks with this is the beta orbiter circling around her trying to keep 0.70

00:35:50.560 other men away from her because god damn it if he just respects her enough and keeps other creepy men 0.83

00:35:58.160 away and one day she'll reward him right that's what's gonna happen one day she'll fall in love 0.96

00:36:03.920 with me because i just respect women so much that's a great point actually that's a really good point

00:36:09.440 uh but things don't go very well for our one-legged tin soldier he's put on the windowsill 0.98

00:36:17.440 and the window flies open and maybe it's the wind and maybe it's the goblin but he falls in the street

00:36:23.360 below and he's lost and the boy goes to look for him but it's raining and so a couple of other boys

00:36:30.240 find him and they make a paper boat and they put the one-legged tin soldier on the boat and they let him 1.00

00:36:37.840 drift in in a canal um and he ends up flowing into a dark drain pipe and there's a rat there demanding

00:36:51.760 his toll and you have to think about the river sticks you have to think about the passage you know

00:36:59.280 from life to death and again the willingness to go on great adventure and in this time the story tells

00:37:06.480 us again and again that the tin soldier is afraid and he wishes that he had the dancer by his side

00:37:13.120 but he was all alone and so he thinks i must be brave whatever he happens whatever happens to me

00:37:20.160 and he's only got one leg so what does he do he stands firm in his place meaning that he's doing his

00:37:30.480 duty that's all he can do is stand there as opposed to cower or fall and he does his duty and he stands

00:37:39.360 and he gets chased by the evil rat and the drain flows into a canal

00:37:47.360 and he's thought about the dancer and he stood more firmly than ever so at every step this man is facing

00:37:55.120 death and poor him he's the only soldier with one leg he's not the best soldier he's already in a got a

00:38:01.760 handicap exactly he's already handicapped he's already in in a very difficult position as things stand

00:38:07.920 and he's been like that all his life but what does he do he stands more firmly than ever because he's

00:38:16.560 approaching death and then a fish eats him after his boat sinks and it swallows him and he must assume

00:38:29.360 that this is the end because he thought that he would never see the pretty little dancer again

00:38:35.360 so as a soldier he's constantly thinking about that which he loves

00:38:40.560 and his duty towards the ones he loves is what keeps him standing firmly and you see this connection

00:38:50.720 between the love for what is behind you motivating you to stand firm in the face of what is in front of

00:38:58.560 you and that's the key thing that you need to be able to have men who are willing to fight they need 0.58

00:39:07.040 societies behind them that love them they need women behind them that love them and because he has that

00:39:15.040 even though he's only got one leg he's standing firm and the greater the danger is the more firmly he

00:39:23.040 stands even when he's literally in the belly of the beast even when he's literally in the belly of the beast

00:39:30.960 and he accepts his fate he accepts that he's never going to see her again but he's still standing as

00:39:36.560 firmly as firmly as he can but like jonah he is delivered from the fish because the fish somehow

00:39:45.600 gets caught and it's sold in the market and a cook prepares it for dinner and finds the boy's toy and

00:39:54.080 it turns out that he ended up at the same house where he had been at the start of the story so in a way

00:40:02.160 this is a story about deliverance this is a story about being saved by carrying your cross and doing

00:40:09.440 your duty and facing greater danger with greater firmness and that's the message that's in it

00:40:19.200 and he's lifted up and he's taken to the nursery in a way heaven

00:40:23.600 in a real way this is a story of the fall from heaven going through the belly of the beast having

00:40:32.640 stood firm in the face of danger and then deliverance and he's in the same room that he was there before

00:40:40.160 and he sees the little dancer standing on her toe it's also in a sense trusting in fate yes in the way

00:40:47.360 that fate will lead him to deliverance trusting in providence yes not in a blind fate but in a

00:40:54.160 benevolent providence he still he still had his duties to uphold but if he had faltered at any

00:41:02.000 point then he wouldn't have been delivered but because he upheld his duties because he stood firm

00:41:08.000 and was brave and showed bravery in the face of danger exactly that's what allowed fate to guide him through

00:41:15.360 exactly exactly he cooperated with providence by doing his own duty and he was rewarded for it

00:41:25.600 but then the saddest part of the story is there a very strange thing happened the little boy picked

00:41:32.560 up the tin soldier and threw him into the fire he did not say why maybe it was the goblin who made him do it 1.00

00:41:40.240 almost at the same time a door opened and the wind blew the little paper dancers straight to the tin

00:41:48.320 soldier in the fire together they burned into one flame and were gone i mean again this is a story

00:41:59.040 about marriage this is a story that you will become one flesh but as you become one flesh you also

00:42:06.960 age and expire together and you are consumed by the flame of life together and all that's left for of

00:42:14.960 him of the soldier a little lump of tin in the shape of a heart and of the dancer was her tinsel rose now as

00:42:25.360 black as coal

00:42:26.160 half- Pamela 0.82

00:42:29.020 and

00:42:30.980 全部

00:42:32.620 are

00:42:41.100 Her

00:42:43.160 work

00:42:44.360 is

00:42:45.360 her. She doesn't betray her man. He's literally a cripple with one leg, and he faces danger that 1.00

00:42:57.320 a little tin soldier cannot imagine. A rat chasing him for tolls, rapids and waters that 0.94

00:43:05.320 threaten to drown him, a fish that actually swallows him, and then he's delivered.

00:43:11.600 And at the end of that deliverance, he's still consumed. Life gets you even if you live a good

00:43:19.520 life. But there's a beautiful tin heart that's left, and there is a rose, but it's aged and it's

00:43:27.400 black now. And that's what survives. The symbols of love survive. And you can think of them as

00:43:34.480 heirlooms that they pass on to their children. You can think of them as the continuity of life.

00:43:40.260 You could think of the tin, you know, maybe it'll be made into another tin soldier.

00:43:45.180 But it gives you this beautiful image of the duty that you have, of the need to trust in providence

00:43:54.100 and do your duty in the face of insurmountable odds. And part of your duty is to be like Jack

00:44:01.080 and to go and seek out these crazy adventures and to challenge an ogre and find a way to kill him.

00:44:07.480 And what destroys you on this path is to be like the banker's son, to waste your time talking,

00:44:14.820 to waste your resources, to do nothing of value, to learn no skills, but instead to rely on deception

00:44:20.920 after deception after deception. But even if you do your duty, you will end up being a melted piece

00:44:29.000 of tin. But at least it'll be in the shape of a heart. I just find these stories beautiful.

00:44:37.560 And that's exactly what you need to be teaching your sons.

00:44:44.360 Yeah, there we go. So Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you have a wonderful time and you have a

00:44:50.120 great new year. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you again in the new year.

00:45:06.680 Wow.

00:45:24.400 I want to go.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - December 27, 2025

Christmas Podcast ｜ The Wisdom of Fairy Tales

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