Coming soon to a castle near you! Or a tavern.

Or a dung heap.

Angels. Devils. Shapeshifters. Wizards. Heroes. Monsters. Princes.
Paupers. Death.

And a turnip.

Fourteenth century pop culture fans, look out! Storyteller Tim Ereneta is counting down the hottest tales that blazed up the European charts seven centuries ago*. Come hear the mischievous and macabre stories that lit up the Middle Ages.

With the Black Plague outside your door, let's party like its 1349!

* Okay, they didn't really have pop charts in the 14th century, but for the sake of artistic cohesion, I'm pretending that someone, a storyteller, or storytelling aficionado, is keeping tabs of the stories most popular in Europe. Stories from Italy, from France, from Macedonia, from the Holy Roman Empire. Oral stories, of course, since in 1349 there's no such thing as a moveable type printing press in Europe.

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Where you can find the stories:

"The Owl," "The Turnip," "The Ungrateful Son" (that's the one with the toad) can be found in The Brothers Grimm's collection of Household Tales.(Links are to the SurLaLaune Fairy Tales site, which features Margaret Hunt's 1884 translation.

"The Rooster Who Wanted to Be Pope" and "Salpedda (Isabella) and Her Brother" can be found in The Robber with a Witch's Head: More Stories from the Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonzenbach, edited by Jack Zipes.

"The Woman Who Married a Snake" can be found at D. L. Ashliman's site of Folktales as "The Water Snake," here.

"Long, Broad, and Sharpsight," can be found at Wikipedia. The 1890 version of A.H. Wratislaw from Sixty Folk Tales from Slavonic Sources can be found online at the Sacred-Texts.com site. It's also available in Andrew Lang's The Grey Fairy Book, and in Ruth Manning-Sanders A Book of Wizards, and translated as "Longshanks, Girth, and Keen" here.

I've put a version of "Aunt Misery" online at Everything2 -- the entry has references for more versions available.

So what do storytellers do when you "unplug" them from their repertoire?

I tell traditional stories: folk tales. fairy tales. ghost stories.

I tell them straight up. I prefer to tell them to adults, but I'm happy to tell stories to teens. I can tell stories to kids who know how to listen.

But those folk tales-- and those fairy tales-- they may have happy endings but along the way some really terrible things happen. I don't edit those out, the way that a children's picture book or an animated movie might. I tell these stories to adults, to remind them of the power these stories have had for centuries.

I really enjoy fairy tales of transformation: disguises, shape-shifters, quests with mysterious wise old strangers and talking animals and magic objects and monsters that can only be defeated with an improbable series of actions that require several even more improbable objects obtained with the help of unlikely allies. These stories go on for a long time, so if you want to hear them, bring an extra log for the fire.

"Chart Toppers of 1349." Some of the wonder tales and some of the dark folktales from Europe, dating back to at least the 14th century. Tales to forget about the Black Death, tales to remind you that life is short, heaven is your reward, and danger lurks outside your door... and we're counting down the hits!

"That's Disgusting." Traditional tales of bodily functions. Okay, I'll admit it: this one is aimed squarely at kids, Boy Scout gatherings, and science museums hosting the Grossology exhibit. A multicultural collection of stories about vomit, mucus, poop, and farts.

I don't tell personal stories. At least, not my own personal stories:I've got an hour of personal stories by Prince Charming. The dirt on Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella. It's comic. It's ironic. It's called "Happy Endings are Overrated: the Life and Times of Prince Charming" and it's appeared at house parties, festivals, and stages around California.