It seems to be straight out of the storybooks of the brothers Grimm. A girl who fell asleep and who did not wake up for 9 whole years. That is, if we are to believe the story. But perhaps this real-life fairytale has a darker side to it that you might expect...

Review us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, visit our website www.certainlystrange.com , or come say hi over at our Instagram, @certainlystrangethepodcast.

Some secrets are made to be found out with time, yet some secrets are meant to stay secret forever. The latter speaks for the secret of Glamis Castle, so very dark no one dared speak of it – until it was lost to time. But with enough clues, we might deduce the nature of this mystery. And if what I have found is true, these secrets of the castle are quite dark indeed.

We have nothing to fear from fairy tales. The evil witches and wicked stepmothers are nothing more than words on the pages of a book, the tales of our own imagination and nothing more. But this is not true for all fairy tales. Some fairy tales, you see, are true. And one of these tales is the story of a ratcatcher who stole 130 children away from the German city of Hamelin, never to be seen again.

Follow us over on Instagram at @certainlystrangethepodcast or visit our website, ⁠⁠www.certainlystrange.com⁠⁠

There lay two bodies in the shallow water, dead, and one of them was a king. King Ludwig II of Bavaria had many names. The mad king, the fairy tale king, the swan king. He loved nothing more than fairy tales, and the buildings he commissioned seemed truly as if they had come straight out of a story book. How terrible, then, that his life should change into a tragedy, a murder mystery no one quite seems to be able to solve. There, the two bodies lay in the shallow water, dead, and neither of them had drowned.

Follow us over on Instagram at @certainlystrangethepodcast or visit our site, www.certainlystrange.com

We all tell a white lie once in a while, simply because it is convenient. But imagine one of those simple, small lies spinning out of control so thoroughly that you suddenly are in the spotlights of an entire nation, with one of the most famous writers in history swearing that your little lie is the truth. This is exactly what happened with Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths when they tried to trick their mothers into thinking that fairies were real – simply so that they would not be mad at them for making their clothes wet.

Follow us over on Instagram at @certainlystrangethepodcast and visit our website www.certainlystrange.com

The footsteps stopped right in front of her room, like they did every night. Ethel lay in bed, frozen in fear with her bedsheets pulled up to her chin. She hardly even dared to breathe, afraid that whomever – or whatever, was outside of her door would hear her. Then came the knocks, and then the whispers, hardly audible even in the silence of the night. But there was something, she could sense it. And what else would you expect, when you are a kid living in the most haunted house in England. The most haunted house – an impressive title in a country filled with ghosts, but was it truly haunted, or were those who haunted the halls of the Borley rectory perhaps more human than one might think?

Follow us on Instagram at @certainlystrangethepodcast or visit the website www.certainlystrange.com