And the I'm going to be. Welcome to this newscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.

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Mountain Ranges. Tonight we'll read a story called The White Seal from 1894's The Jungle Book, written by Richard Kipling.

Kipling was born in India and raised both there and in England, working in India before settling

to write these tales from a home he built in Vermont, USA.

It's believed that Kipling wrote the collection of stories

for his daughter, Josephine, who died from pneumonia

in 1899, age six. Many names in the White Seal story are Russian

as the Pribelov Islands had been bought with Alaska by the United States in 1867 and Kipling

had access to books about the islands.

Let's get cozy.

close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. The White Seal. All these things happened several years ago at a place called Nova Stoshna or Northeast Point on the island of St Paul away and away in the bearing sea.

Limershin, the winter wren,

told me the tale when he was blown onto the rigging of a steamer going to Japan,

and I took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed him for a couple of days till he was fit to fly back to St Paul's again.

Limmershin is a very odd little bird. fly back to St Paul's again.

Limmershin is a very odd little bird,

but he knows how to tell the truth.

Nobody comes to Nova Stoshna except on business, and the only people who have regular business there are the

seals. They come in the summer months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold

...