Wise Crone Cottage Podcast
Welcome to the Wise Crone Cottage podcast with storyteller, Kathy Shimpock. Here we'll meet the crone and uncover her wisdom as found, in fairy tales, folktales and myths. New episodes are released each month. All rights reserved.
Wise Crone Cottage Podcast
"The Vampire Skeleton Corpse" an Iroquois Folktale (S5, #7)
In this episode, the storyteller, Kathy Shimpock, shares the story of "The Vampire Skeleton Corpse." This is a frightening tale from the Iroquois tradition. Although there is never a single meaning for any story, this one has an important teaching for the days ahead.
Story: This story is a conflation of early Iroquois variants and my version of the story as told by Joseph Bruchac. Iroquois Stories: Heroes and Heroines, Monsters and Magic as told by Joseph Bruchac (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1985).
Illustration: Birch bark longhouse. Fungus Guy, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. "The Subject and his Skeleton" in Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, 1897 (public domain worldwide).
This podcast is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. Sound effects from my finch "Tweedles."
Copyright 2025 Kathy Shimpock.
For more crone tales, visit the "Wise Crone Cottage in the Woods" (http://www.wisecronecottage.com).