Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Shahid Abari.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the Arts and Ideas podcast, which is recorded with an audience

before one of the concerts in this year's BBC proms. This is the BBC.

Hello, there once was a king who divided up his land and offered it to his three daughters

according to how much they said they loved him. His youngest daughter refused to indulge his vanity

and she was banished from the kingdom forever. Many of you will recognize the story of King Lear,

but I suspect that fewer will know that it wasn't originally written by Shakespeare.

In fact, it's a tale that predates authorship altogether.

Like Robin Hood, King Arthur and the Loch Ness Monster,

it's part of Britain's rich folklore, stories that have

been told and retold for so long that their origins have been lost. But what do these ancient

myths have to tell us in the 21st century? And are they in danger of disappearing?

Let's gather around the fire as we're joined by the former National Poet of Wales,

Jillian Clark, and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker and poet Peter Mackay.

Now, our most celebrated folk tales are generally pretty well known,

but there are hundreds, probably thousands of stories from across Britain and Ireland

that are often very

regionally specific. I thought we could start, Gillian, by finding out what is your personal

favourite of these stories? When I was a child, I used to visit very, very often my grandmother's

...