Hi and stories to keep you awake. I'm your host Ravi Achadri and in this week's episode we

revisit the master of horror himself Edgar Allan Poe in a story about blood

feuds that will chill your blood.

Met Zengerstein by Edgar Allan Poe. Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to

this story I have to tell. Let it suffice to say that at the period of which I speak

there existed in the interior of Hungary a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the metam psychosis.

Of the doctrines themselves, that is of their falsity or of their probability,

I say nothing.

I assert, however, that much of our incredulity as Lubre says of all of our

happiness is because we are unable to be by ourselves. But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition, which were fast verging to absurdity.

They, the Hungarians, differed very essentially from their eastern authorities. The families of Berlefitzing and Metzingerstein had been

at variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility, so deadly.

Indeed, at the era of this history, it was observed by an old crone of haggard and sinister appearance that fire and water might sooner mingle

than a burle of Fitzink clasped the hand of a Metzinger-Stine.

The origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy.

A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengertine shall triumph over the immortality

of Berlefit Zing.

To be sure, the words themselves had little or no meaning, but more trivial causes have given rise, and that not long while ago, to consequences equally eventful.

Besides, the estates, which were contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs

of a busy government.

Moreover, near neighbors are seldom friends, and the inhabitants of the castle Berlefitzing

might look from their lofty buttresses into the very windows of the palace Metzinger Stein.

...