Snake Magic
About our Spoken Story Series
Because of the needs of this time —when our normal outgoing lives have changed, ONE is offering a series of told stories for your enjoyment, healing, unwinding, and for you to lean into the ancestral wisdom passed through tales, myths, and legends.
Our storyteller, April Thanhauser, is a member of the ONE visioning council and a life-long lover of folk and fairy tales. She tells us:
“Stories, like hearth fires and campfires have always brought people together —for sharing wisdom, laughter, tears, and comfort. No matter where our people came from, stories are part of our heritage. The traditional tales I will be telling originate from many different parts of the world, but please accept them as a gift from the old ones of our shared human culture.”
About this Episode
A young woman receives her father’s dying blessing, but is violently chased from home by her greedy brother. Maimed and wandering one-handed in the forest, she is temporarily rescued by a Prince. But fate and her brother send her into exile in the wild again. And then, the Snake magic begins!
This Swahili tale, taken from the collection African Myths and Legends, ed by Kathleen Arnott, weaves many potent themes: physical loss, spiritual abundance, fertility, magical renewal, and kinship with nature beings.
Listen to other Stories:
“12 Wild Swans” is a story of a sister working to rescue her twelve brothers who were turned into swans.
Thomas the Rhymer, in honor of Beltane, the magical cross-quarter day and joyful spring festival of the Celtic Year, we offer the story of “Thomas the Rhymer.”
“East of the Sun, West of the Moon”, is a Northern story of a girl who must save an enchanted prince.
“The Magic Hummingbird”, tells the story of a drought, a famine, two children, and a magical hummingbird.
“The Wonderful Healing Leaves”, tells the story of an unlikely hero who must secure healing leaves for the king from the land of no return.
“Xueda and Yinlin”, tells the adventures of two courageous young people who seek a cure for the mysterious illness which has stricken their village.
"Picking Mountain Pears", a traditional Japanese folktale, tells the adventures of three brothers who undertake a quest for the mountain pears to help their beloved mother heal from a mysterious illness.
