Odysseus and His Father Laertes · The Odyssey · Greek Mythology Sleep Story

The voice you hear is the creator's own. He cloned it from recordings of his own voice, so every story is told in his voice. If you enjoy falling asleep to it, follow the show so each new story arrives on its own, and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts so other people can find it. Subscribing on YouTube helps the show grow, even if you only listen here: youtube.com/@TheSleepingAlmanac The Sleeping Almanac is also a shelf of books, bedtime stories to read and mythology coloring books: gildenmyth.com/books Welcome to The Sleeping Almanac. Tonight is the last night of the Odyssey, and it is the quietest one. A king who has just won back his own hall walks out of it at first light and goes up into the hills, because there is one person left who does not know he is alive. His father lives on a high farm now, in a labourer's patched tunic and gardener's gloves, working an orchard alone and refusing the comfort of the house, because grief made him small and the work is the only thing that answers. You will hear a son stand at the edge of a vineyard row and watch an old man dig, and try a stranger's story on him first, and watch it land like a stone. And then you will hear him give up the disguise and prove himself with the gentlest evidence in all of Homer. Not a scar. Not a bow. A list of trees. Thirteen pear, ten apple, forty fig, and the rows of vines a father once walked with a small boy at his heel and counted out loud as a gift, and the boy remembered every one of them for forty years. You will hear a house wake up around that. A bath, clean clothes, an old woman's cooking, three generations of one family sitting at a table at the same time for the first time in a lifetime. And out on the road the fathers of the dead come looking for the king with spears, and the anger of a whole island stands up at once, and it is ended not with a battle but with a voice out of the sky and a bolt in the dust and oaths of peace sworn on the spot. Then the days after. A story promised and finally told, an oar carried inland until someone calls it a winnowing fan, and a sail at the edge of morning. A calm, hopeful telling for sleep, calm enough to drift to and rich enough to stay awake for if you choose. Close your eyes. Let the orchard go quiet. There is nothing to do now but listen and rest. CHAPTERS 0:00 Welcome and the Singer at the Fire 4:00 Chapter One: The Morning After Twenty Years 12:47 Chapter Two: The Walk Up Through the Autumn Island 19:34 Chapter Three: The Gardener King 27:47 Chapter Four: The Test He Could Not Finish 34:13 Chapter Five: The Proof of the Orchard 44:23 Chapter Six: The Bath and the Table 52:25 Chapter Seven: The Anger in the Town 1:01:36 Chapter Eight: The Voice That Ended It 1:11:38 Chapter Nine: The Oaths of Peace 1:15:58 Chapter Ten: The Days After 1:23:17 Chapter Eleven: The Story That Was Promised 1:29:22 Chapter Twelve: Goodnight. And the Sail at the Edge of Morning Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HViw5KkaW-Y New episodes every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 🎙️ Sleep stories from history, Kingdoms at Dusk: https://kingdomsatdusk.com 📖 All our worlds: https://gildenmyth.com 🕊️ Goddess sleep meditations, The Tender Hour: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTenderHourChannel 🌙 Join the almanac, first looks and the occasional quiet letter: https://gildenmyth.com This show uses AI tools (research, narration, visuals) under human editorial direction. Every episode is reviewed before release.