A seal sheds its skin and becomes human. A man steals the skin. She's trapped on land, unable to return to the sea. She marries him. She has children. But one day, she finds her skin. And she leaves everything behind. The Selkie is a tragedy about the impossibility of belonging.

FIRESIDE STORIES — SEASON 1

Water Spirits Around the World

Ancient folklore retold for the modern world. Creatures, spirits, and legends from cultures across the globe — and the truths hidden in their

stories. Every culture has folklore. Every folklore has a reason. These are the stories that survived for centuries because they continued to warn about something real. A river that drowns children. A forest that takes people. A darkness that lives in the spaces between safety and danger.

This season: ten water spirits from ten cultures. Ten creatures that live in rivers, oceans, and lakes. Ten stories that reveal what humans fear

about water — and what we respect about the beings we imagine within it.

Part of Arcane Storyteller.

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New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe for mythology, folklore, and the stories that shaped how humans see the world.

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Before there were warning signs beside rivers, people told stories about things that lived beneath the surface.In Japan, that creature is the Kappa — a river spirit with a beak like a turtle, webbed hands, and a single vulnerability: the water-filled dish on its head.The Kappa has lived in Japanese folklore for over 1,000 years. It drowns people. It challenges humans to sumo wrestling. And it is too polite to fight back.But the Kappa's real purpose is far stranger than the creature itself.This episode explores what the Kappa actually is, why a thousand-year-old folkloric tradition still appears on water-safety signs in rural Japan today, and why some stories survive — and what that tells us about what we really fear.

ABOUT FIRESIDE STORIES:Ancient folklore retold for the modern world. Creatures, spirits, and legends from cultures across the globe — and the truths hidden in their stories.Season 1: Water Spirits & Sea Monsters

Part of Arcane Storyteller.New episodes every Wednesday.