Real Fantastic Beasts

By Alexa Sand & Ian MacInnes

Alexa Sand and Ian MacInnes explore the world of medieval and Renaissance animals, real, fantastic, and fantastically real.

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FAQs about Real Fantastic Beasts:

How many episodes does Real Fantastic Beasts have?

The podcast currently has 56 episodes available.

Real Fantastic Beasts episodes:

May 24, 2025 Carp e diem: Fish of the Day
For 400 years, the carp was the most popular fish in Europe. What made it so fantastic?
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49min
May 12, 2025 The real dog man
Are dog-headed creatures people or beasts? Find out in this live podcast done at the Kalamazoo Medieval Congress. Our guest, Karl Steel, regales us with tales of the Cynocephalus.
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48min
May 05, 2025 Wolf! Wolf!
From Beowulf to the guerrilla rewilding of Britain, guest Elizabeth (Lizzie) Marshall regales us with wolfish lore.
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44min
April 12, 2025 And your little dog too!
Small, cute dogs that serve no practical purpose other than to make us go “awwww” turn out to have a long and fantastic history.
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34min
March 29, 2025 There are no baby griffins
The griffin was both a ferocious beast and a maternal figure. Nobody took it seriously, but its image is everywhere in the pre-modern world from the Near East to Europe.
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40min
March 15, 2025 Advice from Jackals: Arab Beast Fables
Guest expert Mustafa Banister Introduces us to the world of Arabic Beast Fables in the Kalila Wa Dimna and elsewhere.
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1h
March 02, 2025 The Natural History of the Beasts of Revelation
Animals are everywhere in the end times. We explore early responses to the fantastic, terrifying, yet beautiful beasts of the Book of Revelation.
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46min
January 19, 2025 Beasts of the Bayeux
Guest Elizabeth Pastan explores the animals in the Bayeux Embroidery (aka the Bayeux Tapestry). If you want to see the images we're discussing, you can go to the Youtube version of the episode here: https://youtu.be/pOaibXA5XrI .
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49min
December 24, 2024 The Animals of the Twelve Days of Christmas
From partridges to "colly" birds, we explore the early history of the animals (and especially birds) of the beloved Christmas counting song. Special thanks to Evelyn Wohlbier for recording the song for us.
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44min
December 14, 2024 Putting the Why in the Wyvern
Guest Edana Kleinhans takes us through the subtle differences between wyverns and dragons.
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42min

FAQs about Real Fantastic Beasts:

How many episodes does Real Fantastic Beasts have?

The podcast currently has 56 episodes available.