In the dark shadows of the Rue Morgue, to the rhythm of the stolen telltale heart, as the black cat swings on the pendulum, and the cat scoffers its sherry deep and dry.

As you knock at our chamber door, we open and assure you in.

Our sleepless tales for you in store, and the terror shall be lifted. Never more.

Raise yourself for the no-sleep podcast.

Welcome to the no-sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings.

As we explore the works of Edgar Allan Poe this season, we've seen how he touched many of the major themes of horror.

This week we're delving into a theme which affects all of us in beg or in serious ways.

I'm speaking about the loss of control. It's not difficult to find horror in the notion of finding yourself in situations over which you have no control.

Whether it's your life entirely spinning out of control, or if you find yourself under the thumb of a person who controls much of what you do, you quickly realize how much we fight against scenarios where we have little to no control.

And there might be situations that are considered horror in ways, well, less serious.

A mean boss or CEO who makes your life miserable. You can't escape because you need that job, right? Maybe it's a family member.

These things happen in our modern day lives quite regularly. Now let's imagine how things were back in the olden days.

Think medieval times when lords, religious leaders, and other people in authority could control almost every aspect of your life, and usually doing so in malevolent ways.

You can quickly see how horror can grow from losing any and all freedom in your life.

Paul wrote a rather gruesome little tale called Hopfrog about a court jester who endures repeated humiliations from an abuse of king and his ministers before finally extracting his revenge.

The jester, known as Hopfrog, and his friend Trapetta, were people with dwarfism stolen from their respective home countries and brought as presence for the king from one of his generals.

Could there be any greater loss of control than that?

It should surprise no one that the tale and the macabre revenge extracted by Hopfrog and Trapetta contain a sense of justice intermingled with the horror.

In this episode, we share tales where people live with that sense of having no control over their lives.

We hope you find the horror therein to be devilishly and delightfully out of control.

And now, our tales come to you upon a midnight dreary, best not to ponder them while weak and weary.

In our first tale, we meet soldiers on the battlefield.

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