This week on myths and legends, it's the story of mighty meeko from Finnish folklore.

You'll see that the first step to making a new friend is not killing them,

and that talking foxes make great wingmen.

Well, wing foxes, because they're foxes. The creature

this time is a monster from Armenia who has a special gift just for you if you

come to its mountain layer alone. Uh-oh, better get me go!

This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore.

Some are incredibly popular tales you might think you know, but with surprising origins,

and others are stories that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen.

This week we're in Finnish folklore, telling the story of mighty me Miko. Not too much backstory here, it's a fairy tale, so a story largely not anchored in history with fantastical elements.

Also, trophy elements because Miko, the teen son of a woodcutter,

is about to go through an all-too-common fairy tale occurrence. Son, I know the future seems scary, the father said, before his body shook with coughs. Oh, a lot more blood this time.

Yikes.

He sighed, son, I know the future seems scary, but you will not be alone.

Miko didn't believe his dad.

He was the son of a wood cutting couple.

Their job meant that they lived far off into the forest so they could have access to the one thing they needed to get every day.

Wood. He was an only child of only children. He had no one else and after losing his mother the year before

to the same illness that was about to take his father he would be truly and utterly alone.

Not only would he have to bury his father, but he would have to live in this house, the dark,

empty house far off in the forest, knowing how alone he was. Now his dad was trying to tell

him that the one thing he knew would be true was false. He would let the old man

...