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I saw a sign at a nearby village advertising a "veillée", a storytelling evening, which sounded intriguing, so I went out of curiosity—it turned out to be an old lady who had arranged a circle of chairs in her garden and prepared drinks, and who wanted to tell folk tales and stories from her youth. Apparently she was telling someone at the market the other day that she missed the ritual of the "veillée" from pre-television days, when people would gather in the evening and tell stories, and the people she was talking to were like, well let's do a veillée! And then she put up the sign.

About 15 people came, and she sat down and started telling us stories—I loved the way she made everything sound like it had happened just yesterday and she was there, even tales she'd got from her grandmother, and the way she continually assumed we knew all the people she mentioned, and everyone spontaneously played along; she'd be like "And Martin, the bonesetter—you know Martin," (everyone nods—of course, Martin) "We never liked him much" and everyone nodded harder, our collective distaste for Martin now a shared cultural heritage of our tiny microcosm. She started with telling us the story of the communal bread oven in the village. The original oven was destroyed during the Revolution; people used to pay to use the local aristocrat's oven, but of course around 1789 both the aristocrat and his oven were disposed of in a glorious blaze of liberty, equality, and complete lack of foresight.

Then the villagers felt really daft for having destroyed a perfectly serviceable oven that they could have now started using for free. "But you know what things were like during the revolution." (Everyone nodded sagely—who among us hasn't demolished our one and only source of bread-baking equipment in a fit of revolutionary zeal?)

The village didn't have a bread oven for decades, people travelled to another village to make bread; and then in the 19th century the village council finally voted to build a new oven. It was a communal endeavour, everyone pitched in with some stones or tools or labour, and the oven was built—but it collapsed immediately after the construction was finished. Consternation. Not to be deterred, people re-built the oven, with even more effort and care—and the second one also collapsed.

People realised that something was amiss, and the village council convened. After a lot of serious discussion, during which no one so much as mentioned the possibility of a structural flaw, people reached the only logical conclusion: the drac had sabotaged their oven. Twice. (The drac, in these parts, is the son of the devil.) The logic here, I suppose, was that no one but the devil's own child would dare to stand between French people and their bread.

The next step was even more obvious: they passed around a hat to raise money, assuming the devil’s son was after a cash donation. But (and I'm skipping a few twists and turns of the story here) the son of the devil did not want money, he wanted half of every batch of bread, for as long as the village oven stood. Consternation.

People simply could not afford to give away half of their bread, and were about to abandon the idea of having their own oven altogether—but then Saint Peter came to the rescue. (In case you didn't know, Saint Peter happens to regularly visit this one tiny village in the French countryside to check that its inhabitants are doing okay and are not encountering oven issues.) Saint Peter reminded them of one precious piece of information they had overlooked: holy water burns the devil.

People re-built the oven, for the third time. The son of the devil returned, to destroy it and/or claim his half of the first batch—but on that day, the villagers had organised a grand communal spring cleaning, dousing every street and alley in the village with copious amounts of holy water. The poor drac simply could not access the oven; every possible path scorched his feet for reasons he couldn't quite explain. So he was standing there, smouldering gently and wondering what was going on, when some passing tramp seemed to take pity on him, pointed at his satchel and told him to turn himself into a rat and jump in there, and the tramp would carry him where he wished to go. The devil's son, probably a bit frazzled at this point, agreed without much thought, became a rat and jumped in the satchel, and of course that's the point when everyone in the village sprang from the shadows, wielding sticks, shovels, pans, and started beating the devil's son senseless. (Old lady, calmly: "You could hear his bones crack.") So the son of Satan slithered back to Hell and never returned to destroy the village oven again—and the spring cleaning tradition endured; the streets were washed with holy water once a year after that, both to commemorate this glorious day of civic resistance when the village absolutely bodied the devil's offspring and to maintain basic oven safety standards. (Old lady: "But we don't bother anymore… That's too bad.")

She told us five stories, most of them artfully blending actual local events or anecdotes from her youth with folk tale elements, it was so delightful. She thanked us for coming and said she'd love to do this again sometime. I went home reflecting that listening to an old lady happily tell stories of dubious historical veracity involving the Revolution, property damage, demonic mischief and baffling municipal decision-making is literally my ideal Saturday night activity.

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Listening to a podcast

"Let's take a word from our sponsor."

*Skip ahead a minute* "You can-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "Use code-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "300,000-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "300,000-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "T-shirts-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "Motherfuck-"

*Go back 15 seconds*

[echoreverierizz]

thanks for the comments and asks saying i'm being mean for very mildly saying i don't like when people make social decisions based on horoscopes.

your behavior has made me realize i should be "meaner": horoscopes are fake.

the position of planets and balls of gas did not in any way impact your personality or destiny. it has nothing to do with what kind of people you are compatible with, despite what an app or magazine told you.

i think sincere belief in horoscopes shows a concerning propensity to trust pseudoscience and a susceptibility to confirmation bias.

i'm pretty tired of having to tiptoe around this kind of thing and include disclaimers. if you genuinely think you shouldn't be friends with someone because of the date they came out of a uterus, you're being a clown.

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john green didn’t “deserve” the way that early ‘10s tumblr treated him technically, but I feel like the discussion around whether he “deserved” it or not is completely missing the point. he was an adult in a space that was largely recreationally used by teenagers. why would he not get the substitute teacher treatment. what else did you think would occur here.

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God can you imagine if Donald Trump became president? There’d be like a new bubonic plague and he’d be like “idk drink bleach about it”

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i mean this in the nicest way possible but some of you need to learn how to be annoyed

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Sebastian Stan in Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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Lesbians dressed as clowns disrupted a "gender-critical" panel last month at University College London. Participants were surprised when trans and cis dykes from The Dyke Project obstructed the proceedings while in cheerful clown attire. Julie Bindel, one of the panelists, has been a major voice against trans, bisexual, and SWer rights. The protesters chanted, “you’re not feminists, you’re all clowns!” while interrupting her. More of these protests, please! Read the full story on Dazed.

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astonishing how good it can feel to get some chores done sometimes. you’ll be sitting there like damn i am some type of horrid little smeagol like creature who should be crushed to death. but then you do some laundry and you’re like wrow. im actually gods most fuckable soldier.

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english people know what stonehenge was for. they just wont tell us so that we have to come to their wet little country

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always thinking of that “i couldn’t stop wasting time” quote

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If someone beats you up for being "cishet white male" and nothing else, is this okay? Did you deserve it?

what if the world was made of pudding

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i don’t know who needs to hear this but you do not need to wear makeup

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oops I accidentally separated myself emotionally from everyone to avoid feeling any bad feelings & it worked but at the expense of my sense of connectedness and belonging

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"Director Phoebe Kemp said in a statement: “Twelfth Night already toys with gender and performance – it feels like Shakespeare wrote it for us. This reading is about joy, solidarity and showing what’s possible when trans and nonbinary artists are at the centre of the story.”"