Music Welcome to the newscast, the podcast is on to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by the Crystal Cavern. Tonight we'll read the palace under the waves, found in the book Swiss Fairy Tales, published in 1920. We will also read a story called The Fairy in the Cuckoo Clock. The first story features Undine's, a category of elemental beings associated with water, stemming from the alchemical writings of Paracelsus. Later writers developed the Undine into a water nymph in its own right, and it continues to live in modern literature and art through such adaptations

as Danish Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. Paraselsis believed that each of the four classical elements, earth, water, air, and fire, inhabited by different categories of elemental spirits,

liminal creatures that share our world, gnomes, undines, sulfs, and salamanders respectively. He describes these elements as the invisible spiritual counterparts of visible nature.

Many resembling human beings in shape and inhabiting worlds of their own,

unknown to man, because his undeveloped senses were incapable of functioning

beyond the limitations of the grosser elements. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. The panelists under the waves. Fashions change in the fairy world, as well as among mortals who live on the earth. The Swiss water fairies, called Undines, at times grew tired of living down below the surface of the lakes and rivers. When restless, they longed to mingle in the village gatherings. They wanted to hear the lively music of the young men and maidens as they sang and danced. Their favorite time for waltzes and cattillians was on moonlit nights. So it became quite common at these times for the fairy maids and swans to swim up to the shore. Then these undines changed themselves into girls and young men. They put on clothes that were deep green, the color of the waves. Slipping in among the dancers, they joined in the fun and merry-making. In this manner, many a lad rowned with a water fairy and even kissed her, thinking she was, or might be his sweetheart. For, in the dim light of the moon, it was not always easy to see clearly the face of one's partner. Many Alassie received an embrace or a salute on the lips from a lively dancer whom she supposed was a newcomer. He might not be well-known in the village, she thought, though he appeared graceful and dressed very nicely in sea-green, gauzy clothes. Yet, no matter how hard these undines might try to get their clothes entirely dry, they could never ring the water out wholly of their garments, so that they were always more last damn if they had changed their form too quickly their clothes would

drip and me they were always more or less damp. If they had changed their form too quickly, their

clothes would drip and make spots on the floor or ground. Often the village folk felt dampness on their limbs below the knees. Yet few ever gave the matter a second thought. For their minds were wholly set on having a good time, and they had it. Sometimes the lady-fairy started rather late in the evening to take their swim to the lake shore, fearing to lose some of the fun, and thinking they might even find the dancing all over, and the people gone home to bed, they were in a great hurry, while on the strand to change in the little form of mortals and put on their human clothes. So what happened that, when they joined in the dance, one sharp-eyed fellow who was playing the violin for the measures noticed that something was wrong. In fact, he was so surprised that he suddenly stopped fiddling. Then instantly everybody dropped arms and stood looking around at the musician's stand to see what was the matter. In a moment, it was as quiet as a church-ile when the person was praying. What he saw made his eyes big and round, then most impolitely as some of the girls thought. He pointed to a maiden's green petticoat that was beneath her outer dress and that had come a little below her frock. It was dripping with water. Again, after looking with searching eyes at another and a third, he screamed out. Folks and fellow villagers, don't you know you've got the undeads among you? Look there, and there, and there!" Then he pointed with his fiddle bow to some of the prettiest of the female dancers. Just feel the hem of their skirts, and you'll know what sort of guests have been dancing with you tonight, whereupon every young man turned his female partner round, and some of them, most unguallantly, flapped their hands on their lower skirts, feeling and finding that these were very damp. Four or five of them at once lifted up their hands, which were ringing wet, and shook off the drops. One bold fellow even went behind and seized the tail of his partner's pit coat. She seemed to be the sloppiest looking in the whole party, and he actually wrung out a half-pink of water. There upon a tall handsome fellow, leader of the undying party of a half-dozen or so, his two fingers in his mouth and gave a sort of whistle. At once, all the undying shouted and ran down to the water's edge. There, they stopped a minute or two on the lake beach, and then leaped below the waves and disappeared. It sounded as if six big seals had made a dive. One villager, who pretended to be an undine, ran quickly after these water sprites and saw them for a moment on the shore when they changed their form before, resuming their old shapes. He came back to tell a wonderful tale of what he had seen. When he examined the clothes they left behind, he found that though they looked shiny in the moonlight, the stuff was only that of some water plants like seaweed. When arrived in their crystal palace under the waves, the king of the undines gave the girl fairies a good scolding, for not in the first place, being more punctual in both starting and coming home, and next for being in too much of a hurry in changing themselves into mortals, as for the others, he punished these by forbidding them ever to dance again on that side of the lake. Ever after that, when on moonlit nights, the village lads and lasses came out to waltz. They scrutinized each partner in the dance, before allowing him or her to join in when the music began. Some among the younger set of girls felt offended at such a severe examination, but it wasn't necessary, and the other girls agreed to it.

Yet even then, the water sprites would sometimes join in for when everybody was lively and the fun was fast and furious. Each one of the lads and lasses was too much excited to notice the dress, or to be certain as to who was who, or which was which, or what was what, or even to see the face of a partner. One night, the daughter of the Lord of the Grand Chateau, the Princess Babby, slipped out the castle gate, along with several of her maids, and joined the village youth in their fun. At the very height of the dance, a young man became her partner in the waltz, chiefly because of his elegant clothes and polished manners. Though he did not talk, but expressed his offers and wished by signs and motions she enjoyed my deities dancing, which was both deft and graceful. There was present however a sharp-eyed mother, a nurse who had three nieces in the dance. She kept looking like a lynx at every lad in the party. At last, she noticed this unusually handsome and stylish fellow, who seemed to wear finer clothes than most of the village boys. The old woman's suspicions were fully aroused when she saw the young couple linked arm in arm and especially as he turned his body round in the dance. For when the moonbeams fell upon the skirt of his coat, it shone as only wet clothes could in the silvery light, the color reflected was that of wave green. Upon this she made up her mind that this fine fellow was no other than the king of the crystal cavern which was far down in the world under the waters. Smilingly, the lovely maiden put out her arms in return for his embrace. All she thought of was the fun and merriment. Yet within a few minutes after they had linked arms together, he started in a whirling dance. It was so rapid that the mother and the older spectators, who sat watching the young people, were too fascinated to speak or cry out. They noticed him whirling his partner around, but getting ever nearer the lakeside. Wider and wider were the circles they made. But all the time he was bringing her near the beach while she seemed delirious with delight, apparently oblivious to everything but the rapturous motion. Reaching the shore, pausing hardly a moment, he leaped with her into the water, which was then silvered with the moonbeams and rippling with the breeze. Down down below the sparkling waves, the king of the world under the waters, Ferd was he, made her his wife and queen, but never would he let her go back home. There, among the great coral trees and groves of gold and silver, and amid heaps of shining gems, with the score of maidens to wait on her. Valais and footmen, and servants of a strange sort, and with food rich and abundant, pleasing and tempting to both eye and palate, and with the most entrancing music ever at her command, she wasn't raptured. So delighted was she that the years passed away as days, yet even when touched with homesickness, and longing for those she had left behind on earth in her castle home, she found herself watched and guarded the gates, though made of emerald and sapphire, shut of themselves, because moved by some secret spring against her return. Having once eaten a very food and accepted her husband's gifts, she could never again leave either the palace or the world under the waves. The crystal cavern was her prison. When she looked in the mirror, she found her teeth were wave green. She was now in undine. Yet in the village, where the story of the castle princess was told, it was declared that on calm still nights, when the moon shone brightest, the most delightful music could be heard coming up from the lake. Some of the fishermen were sure that far below on quiet summer days, also when no wind blew, and the sunbeams struck deep into the waters. They could peer down into the depths and see the walls and towers of this crystal palace, the ferry in the Cucuclock. As a rule, and certainly with most ferries, mortals are considered to be very dull-witted. Before doing a new thing, men and women have to think it out. They talk a good deal about cause and effect, whereas with fairies, there are no causes, but things and events just happen if they do not, the fairies make them. Some situations like the sun and moon, the earth and sky, the summer and winter cannot be changed. Yet fairies can bring to pass lots of wonders that surprise men. They can play tricks that puzzle them beyond measure. A hundred years ago, before the days of Doris, Alpin stocks, hotels, electric railroads, and other foolish novelties, the guides, and all village folk, believed in the fairies, They felt assured giants and dwarfs, elves and dragons as folk of today that never saw Do-do or a taradactal believe these were once plentiful of the earth. In fact, there was once a time when men had no clocks or wristwatches and girls did not carry at at their waist, the pretty gold or nickel-time keepers of today. Nor did the big bells and the towers boom out the hours, nor were the huge clock faces or dials seen by day or by night. In the castles of Switzerland, where rich men or nobles lived,

they knew nothing about marking the hours and minutes by anything with a round face having figures on it. One way to announce the hour was to have a candle with two little brass balls on opposite sides of the wax and tied together with a string.

When the flame burned, say an inch, or other measured space, the bowls dropped down into a brass basin. This made a loud ringing noise, which sounded out the hours. a little hammer hammer struck a bell, and that is the reason why a clock, as its name was at first, was called the clock, or bell. On ships, the bells sounded every hour. And this is still the method to which sailors are accustomed to eight bells, marking the end of one of the three periods of four hours each, into which the day is divided. The fairies could always tell the time, as well as men by the sun, but they were more interested in the moon and the stars. For night was their joy time. The common people had no word for a minute, or a second, or anything less than an hour. They knew when the sun rose and set, and they guessed the time of day from the place of the sun in the sky at the east, as it rose in the morning and during the afternoon as its sink in the west. After the alpine glow, a rosy light that flushed the mountains like a maiden's blush, the fairies came out to dance in the meadows. They always went away and disappeared at sunrise. For the dancing fairies would be turned into stone if the suns raise, struck them. Then for mortals who even amid the ice and snow when climbing high mountains might be sun struck. One family of the flowers they named four o'clock's. But by and by, men learned that they could set two sticks in a line north and south, and the shadow line from one stick would touch the other. They called this time twelve o'clock or noon. The old men also took notice that in the long days of summer, the sun lengthened, and in cold winter shortened its shadows. They were thus able to count the days before the flowers would bloom in the springtime, then the yodel music would sound, and the cows be driven to pasture up in the high mountains. this this noon shadow of the sun, men got the idea of the sun-dial, placing a round disc or plate made of brass or copper on a stone or post, and setting on one side of it a metal pin. They noticed the sun shadow going round it in a circle. On the spaces they marked the hours. Soon it became the general fashion to have sun dials in the gardens. Yet all the time the fairies laughed at mortals and declared that if they could live on the earth during the sun-shiny hours, they would be able to tell the time of day from the flowers and the sun's place in the sky. So just for the fun of it, whenever they noticed a new sundial or brass or stone set up in a garden, they invariably held a bowl and danced around it all night. Once in a while, they went into a church when no one was there and walked and sported around the hourglass in the pulpit. Of the errands to pittede of some mortals, the fairies became finally and perfectly sure, when one night they gathered together for a merry dance around a new sundial.

This had been placed only that day in a garden owned by an old fellow, who was reputed by his neighbors to be a very wise man. The fairies were interrupted in their plan of playing ring around a rosy when their sentinel set to watch, had seen a strange sight and called out a loud alarm. Now this funny old fellow had a name which, if translated into English, would be soft-putting. He was a kind-hearted chap that loved the birds and dispets and children, But he was a most absent-minded conjurer. Mr. Soft putting gladly paid the bill for his new toy, the sundial. He was so overjoyed at the idea of telling time by a shadow that he talked about it for hours. Indeed, he was so absorbed in it that he forgot all about the sun and the necessity of its shining, where that daylight was at all requisite for his enjoyment in looking at the sundial. So, on one cool autumn night, old soft-putting put on his cloak, lighted his lantern, and walked out into the garden to see what time it might be. Fool that he was, he found that as he changed the position of the lantern, it's rays every time cast a new shadow. Instead of it showing one time, it looked as if there were several times marked by the pen, and as if everything had gone wrong, then for the first time the idea entered his head that sundials were for use during the daytime only. Who would have thought it? He cried as he tramped back into his house, hoping his wife would not know the object of his errand and laugh at him. But he did not tell her, and she thought he had gone out to look after the cows. The fairies were frustrated at the mortal foolishness, but decided the best course of action was to bestow the mortals with a better clock and choose a creature to represent the time on it. So the next night the queen of the fairies took counsel of the owl, the wisest of all the birds, and also as fair-minded as a judge who is just too all in the favorit of none. The owl decided

that the Kuku would serve best and could be most dependent upon always to come out, flap its wings, and chirp out the proper number of the hours. The fairy queen was surprised. How can you, Sir Judge, nominate a bird of bad character?

The Kuku is a pirate. Doesn't not lay its eggs in the nests of other birds. How often, besides stealing their homes, and throws out the eggs of the rightful owners. True, I have considered this, said the owl. But the cuckoo is a summer bird that eats up the hairy caterpillars, which other birds will not touch. In this manner, it helps the trees to grow and the fruit to ripen, so that men have a clean country for the fairies to play in. Besides, in the courting season, you know it is the male bird's love note that sounds so sweetly in April, May and June. And this song, cuckoo, cuckoo, well, we all love to hear it. The queen of the fairies pondered this answer. She was impressed with the owl's wisdom, and besides, she wanted all the fairies to love each other. So she concluded to invite the male Kuku bird to be her model for the new clock That was to make Switzerland wealthy and famous. Surely such clocks would be wanted all over the world. The land being rich in walnut trees, there was no trouble in getting plenty of wood, dark and handsome to be carved. So, appearing to old soft pudding in a in a dream the fairy queen said dim. Although we fairies all had a good laugh at you, when we saw you coming out of your house at night with a lantern to tell the time at the sundial thus breaking up our party. Yet, because you have always been so kind to the birds and loved our fairy folks. And the children, I will show you how to make a new kind of clock. It will not only mark the hours on its face without the aid of the sun, but it will send out a cuckoo every hour to flap its wings into light. Then this wooden bird will call out, cuckoo, cuckoo, as if a real one in feathers were making love to its mate. Do you not yourself think that the affection of the lover bird thus shown will increase mutual affection in your own house and brighten every Swiss home and many more homes beyond the sea. I'm sure it will. Thank you heartily, sets off putting. Then the fairy queen held out before his gaze a lovely cuckoo clock made of black walnut with hands and face figures cut out of the wood of the white birch tree. When he woke up in the morning, out of his sleep, old soft pudding stretched out his hands to receive the gift, but it was daylight, and of course the ferry was gone. It was the common light of the sun, but he was very happy, even though he had only dreamed. He proceeded at once to turn his dream into reality by constructing the clock. Within a week he had made the works, then he set them inside a black walnut case with ivory figures on the dial. After several attempts, he succeeded with the wooden cuckoo that would come out, flap its wings, and chirp the number of the hours, and go inside the shut doors while the clock face also marked the proper point. Then he brought his whole family one morning near the moment when the minute

hand was approaching the proper dot on the disc. What was there surprised? When without anyone touching the little black house which was set on the wall, the doors flew open and outstried at a the coco, flapping its wings. It chirped out ten times,

and then bowed, when did do its box again, and the little door shut. The children all clapped their hands, and the mother embraced her husband in joy. by and by for ivory, which was very costly.

Mr. Soft putting used white birch for the clock hands. Then he set up a factory, and this gave work to many villagers, men and women, boys and girls. He soon made a fortune. And now, no one called themputting, but everyone saluted him with a title of respect. When he passed, he left his wealth through his family. To this day his kukus flapped their wings and saluted the in every land. Because the wooden clock and bird were black, the time-telling kukku, which was sometimes hitched to a barometer, or set in a toy to foretell the weather, was called the rain crow. with this beginning made by the Koo Clock, Switzerland became a land of clocks, watches, and musical boxes. you you