What happens
In 1644 in Denmark, the writer Theodore Ranging is brought before King Christian IV of Denmark for writing a book praising democracy, which the king calls treason. The king gives him an alternative to execution: eat the book. The episode then moves to Hare Schienberg, a Danish man who comes to ask for money for orphans and insists he has eighty-seven children. Later, a stranger in a small village near New York finds a woman who has kept a lamp burning in her window for seventy years, waiting for a man named Enos. The episode is part of the Strange As It Seems series.
Denmark in 1644, the great council hall of King Christian IV; a village on the outskirts of New York
Characters: Theodore Ranging, King Christian IV, Hare Schienberg, Enos
Listen for: The king's offer to Theodore Ranging of an alternative to execution, and Hare Schienberg's claim to have eighty-seven children
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.