The Whispering Gallery

Welcome to the Whispering Gallery Podcast’s: Curated Silence - with me, Suzanne Nikolaisen. This is a new WGP sampler of side stories dug up while I'm working on our full episodes. These aren’t -all-of the stories surrounding the goblin -episodes, we’d be here all night, if so. The stories are a bit of a rambling wander as is the nature of the WGP research for the main episodes which makes the main stories richer, but also takes me a moment to sort out for the WGP archive.

This episode of the WGP's Curated Silence brings you the following interesting stories:

Patreon References: WGP: Quips and WGP Posts

Attribution: Background Music

Image Source: Crop of Ophelia by John Everett Millais Date: 1851 - 1852 Style: Romanticism Genre: literary painting Media: oil, canvas Location: Tate Britain, London, UK Dimensions: 76 x 112 cm
https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-everett-millais/ophelia, public domain

Copyright 2026 Suzanne Nikolaisen, Whispering Gallery Podcast
www.whisperinggallerypodcast.com

This might be rated PG-13+ please see my note below*

In 1862 Christina Rosetti wrote the narrative poem Goblin Market. It was initially illustrated by her brother--one of the three leaders/founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and later it was illustrated by one of our illustrators from the Midnight Mother Goose story, illustrator, Arthur Rackham. (Note Christina had been working with a program helping women in what sounded like a  rehabilitation program, when she wrote this poem.)

I read this poem while outside, with aspen trees quaking in the breeze, occasional far off cars and neighborhood dogs... pastoral, but stretching it with more of a city-mouse kind of sense? Music for this episode is Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony used under fair use from the Internet Archive.

*NOTE--For Listener Awareness: Christina was kind of walking along a fence if the Goblin Market is appropriate for all ages. From Wikipedia: "It tells the story of sisters Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted with fruit by goblin merchants.[1] In a letter to her publisher, Rossetti claimed that the poem, which is interpreted frequently as having features of remarkably sexual imagery, was not meant for children. However, in public Rossetti often stated that it was intended for children, and went on to write many children's poems." So, which is it?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Market 

The drawing for this episode is by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for the Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti.

Welcome back to the Whispering Gallery podcast. Tonight we’re heading into goblin territory.

In a Whispering Gallery first, I’m joined by Matt King, author of A History of Goblins and associate professor at University of South Florida.

Hidden in caves, lurking in poems and folklore, tangled through fairy tales, demons, and fantasy worlds — goblins have followed humanity through centuries of storytelling. But where did goblins come from? Were they once connected to demons, house spirits, or something even older?

Tonight we explore the strange evolution of goblins across folklore, literature, religion, fantasy art, and modern culture. Along the way we discuss Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, supernatural traditions, and the shifting ways humans have imagined creatures living just beyond sight.

We also talk about how goblins have historically been used as symbols for social fears and “outsiders.”

We briefly wander into the weirdness of the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter and the high strangeness explored in Hellier, where goblins, fae, aliens, and folklore begin to blur together.

Parental discretion is advised for some mature humor and discussions involving fantasy creature art and character design.

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(c) 2026 Suzanne Nikolaisen, Whispering Gallery Podcast

Lean in dear listener as together, we disentangle some of the fairy tale contributors who were not of the farming or peasant vein after all. Some lived as far away as across the street, another, a widow, sold garden vegetables at the market between storytelling to make ends meet for her multi-generational home, and one of the Grimm’s sources came from a huguenot, French background--so our friend Charles Perrault and his Mother Goose tales has made another appearance, summoned like Rumplestiltskin.

Over 50% of the stories in the Grimm's collection were shared by  women who were educated and middle class, some were aristocrats.

The illustrators of fairy tales and nursery rhymes were more than an incognito first initial last name and together we can lean into a "restoration" of these artists and storytellers, while incomplete, we will follow the breadcrumb path of understanding as we wrap up our 3 part series on Midnight Mother Goose.

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Thank you to the music, sound and audio engineers at Pixabay and FreeSound for making the background to this episode more interesting.

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smithsnowred.jpg

The story of the Whispering Gallery Podcast's Midnight Mother Goose continues from part 1 where we roamed the woods of France with Charles Perrault's fairy tales to read at salon's prior to the age of enlightenment.

Across the Rhine river from France and Charles Perrault's fairy tales--in Germany (and many years later) the Grimm Brothers were gathering fairy tales from family, friends, aristocrats, multilingual sources--including women of French and Huguenot backgrounds (ahem... Perrault. Gesundheit!--There's that neighboring country thing from episode 1). We begin our sampler of the illustrators from the golden age of children's book illustration with Gustave Dore and Arthur Rackham. Stay tuned for the rest of the story in Part 3--the heroines are just around the corner!

Go to the Whispering Gallery on Patreon for more content on this episode! https://www.patreon.com/cw/whisperinggallery

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Support the Whispering Gallery podcast by sharing your favorite episode with a friend, writing a kind review or at:
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Sound FX and Music Attribution: Thank you to the musician and sound engineers at Pixabay and FreeSound Including: 

- Soulprodmusic - Mysterious Forest Creepy Lofi Halloween Music 168238
- Opening Music, v2Spellcraft, 142264 Pixabay
- 435811 rileywarren creepy score music Mozart Lacrimosa
- Music for Videos Fairy Tale Fantasy 123608
698651 michl71 Autobahn Noise
- A Track Called Birthday: Perfect for Intros by kjartan_abel -- https://freesound.org/s/608397/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
- Juliush Urban Sinesphere 4009
- Vjgalaxy French Music 02-481005
- Gregorquendel Cinematic Music Sketches 04 Cinematic Fairy Tale Intro Sketch 115538
- 350362 Newagesoup chimes 01

Image Source: Crop of Snowdrop as found by the dwarves - art by Arthur Rackham, https://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/arthur-rackham/the-dwarfs-when-they-came-in-the-evening-found-snowdrop-lying-on-the-ground.jpg!PinterestSmall.jpg

Mother Goose is not a particular person, although some have tried to claim there was one, but a Mother Goose was a -collection- of beloved stories. 

Tonight our story takes us into a place of disquiet through dark coniferous forests with copses of fir and spruce trees. Strangely, at times these dark forests seem to bio-locate between Germany and France in Mother Goose stories and fairy tales of the Brother Grimm. Geographically the countries are next door neighbors. 

Thankfully the world that these stories reside in is an imaginary place where some shockingly mean-spirited humans make life harder for others, curses, vile cannibals and horrific serial killers, even talking wolves are key players as the villains.

But also, a magic midnight time-spell, a cursed prince,  impractical glass heels, treasure, griddle cakes for grandmother, alchemy: spinning straw into gold, grouchy dwarves, good fairies, angels… 

The world of fairy tales is a safe space for us to observe the dire consequences of bad judgment and the magic that could happen to everyday people...

Go to the Whispering Gallery on Patreon for more content on this episode! https://www.patreon.com/cw/whisperinggallery

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Support the Whispering Gallery podcast by sharing your favorite episode with a friend, writing a kind review or at:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/whisperinggallery
https://buymeacoffee.com/suznikart
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/suzannenikolaisen

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RRH_Walter_Crane_1875.jpg Description: Crop of Illustration from the toy book Little Red Riding Hood (link to page). London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875 by Walter Crane. Source https://archive.org/details/LittleRedRiding00Cran/page/1 Author | Walter Crane (1845–1915)

Sound FX and Music Attribution: Thank you to the musician and sound engineers at Pixabay and FreeSound Including: 

- Adrian Gomar
- Mozart - Lacrimosa / Requiem in D minor - K. 626 - Arranged for Music Box by GregorQuendel | License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0