"The Rat Catcher's Son" from the By Thistle By Thimble collection
Sparkle Stories Podcast
Lisabeth Sewell
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week's featured story comes from the By Thistle By Thimble collection. It's called "The Rat Catcher's Son."
The role of rat-catcher may not be respected in the old stone city where Bern is employed, but he is very good at what he does. The son learns from his father that the skills of patience, confidence and perseverance are important not only for rat-catching, but for accomplishing any goal in life.
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Each week on the Sparkle Stories Podcast, we share a free story from one of our original story series!
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Enjoy!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Sparkle Stories podcast, everyone. This is Elizabeth of Sparkle Stories. So today I'm going to talk about something that I love to talk about here at Sparkle Stories and in my own life with my friends and with myself. And that is the stories |
| 0:23.7 | you tell yourself are powerful. That means the thoughts you think and the things you say about yourself |
| 0:31.0 | are important and powerful and they can affect your whole life. So you can say, I have what it takes to figure this out. |
| 0:41.8 | I am always learning and growing. I might not have done it the way I wanted this time, but I'm |
| 0:48.2 | going to try again and I'm curious to see what happens. I am smart and wise. I am strong and resilient. I have grit. And those stories |
| 1:01.6 | affect how you feel and how you show up in the world. So I've picked a story today that's called |
| 1:08.4 | the rat catcher son from the Bithistle-by-thimble collection. |
| 1:12.2 | And it's about a boy named Byrne who is a rat catcher in a town, but he's a great example of |
| 1:18.4 | someone who has patience, confidence, and what I'm going to call grit, which means you hang in there |
| 1:24.7 | even when things are tough, despite the job that a lot of people don't respect. |
| 1:30.5 | I'm hoping this story will inspire you in some way |
| 1:33.4 | to be reminded of how amazing you are. |
| 1:37.1 | And the more that you get to tell stories to yourself |
| 1:39.3 | about what you're really capable of, |
| 1:42.0 | the better your life will feel. |
| 1:44.7 | I bet you know what I mean, particularly you parents. |
| 1:48.5 | So, listen in and learn all about Byrne and how he navigates his old stone city at rat catching. |
| 1:58.3 | Okay, before I share the story, I want to encourage everyone who's not subscribed to join us as a |
| 2:03.3 | subscriber. We make it super easy. You just go to the website, SparklStories.com, and click the button in the top right |
| 2:10.2 | that says start free trial. You get access to our entire library of over 1,500 stories, and you can listen to as much as you like |
| 2:19.2 | anytime you like. Okay, now on to the story, The Ratcatcher's Son from the Bithistle by Thumbull |
| 2:26.8 | collection. Enjoy. The Rat Catchers Son |
... |
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