Hypnotic Bedtime Story: Tales of a Wayside Inn
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Hi, I'm Jessica Porter, and welcome back to Sleep Magic, a podcast where I help you find the magic of your own mind, helping you to sleep better and live better. Thank you everybody for being here. Thanks for listening and for giving us your feedback. I want to give a shout out to a teenager who wrote to us who calls himself Parsley the Herb.

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I lived in Portland, Maine for eight years and regularly walked through a square called Longfellow Square. It was right next to one of my favorite restaurants and at the crossroads of two major streets. And yet, did I ever really think about it being named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? Even when I looked up at the bronze sculpture of him in the middle of the square? Never.

And that's what's great about doing a podcast later in life, because it's basically forcing me to do all the English homework I managed to avoid in college. So, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Born in 1807 in Portland, Maine, which at the time was technically a part of Massachusetts, he was the second of eight children and was a member of a family that included direct descendants of the Mayflower and members of Congress.

He was a very studious child and became fluent in Latin. He published his first poem at age 13 in the Portland Gazette. He went on to attend Bowdoin College in Maine at the tender age of 15 and eventually became a professor there and at Harvard. Longfellow was well-traveled and ended up speaking several languages fluently.

He went on to become one of the most famous and successful American poets of his time, and one of the most read. Although he was criticized posthumously for being too much, like the European romantic poets, I like his work because it's clear and grounded, with simple, natural imagery and a soothing rhythm. So tonight we enjoy some poetry from Longfellow, my neighbor in Portland, Maine.

Having never read poetry on this podcast, I will do my best with the meter and rhyme. And your job, as always, is to just relax and follow my voice and Longfellow's imagery and patterns as you drift deeper and deeper into relaxation. And we'll start with some hypnosis before the poem. So get yourself into a safe and comfortable position and let's begin.

Allow your eyes to close easily and gently. And here we are again. Back to relaxation. Back to letting go. I love that nature has it built into the recipe of life. That we let go every night. So let's enjoy it. As your awareness settles on your breath, just bring all the focus, the laser beam that you used all day,

in your mind, pointing at things, discovering things, doing things. Just bring it back to your breath for a moment as everything slows down. Good. Now I'd like you to bring your awareness up into your eyelids and imagine that the little muscles of your eyelids are feeling relaxed, heavy, sleepy. And as you imagine that, your eyelids are in fact becoming heavier, tired,

It feels so good to let your eyelids just be tired. Now I'd like you to accept the suggestion that your eyelids are so relaxed that they will not open. Now of course they would open if you wanted to open them, but we're going to pretend that you cannot open them. If you want to prove to yourself that you can open them, go ahead, do that right now. But then close them and we'll start pretending.

Now, in a moment, I'm going to ask you to test your eyes to make sure they will not open. And that means wiggling your eyebrows as your eyelids remain shut. So let's do that now. Test your eyelids. Wiggle your eyebrows while your eyes remain closed. So this relaxation that you have around your eyes, this warm, heavy relaxation, let's imagine it moving down into your face now. Let's imagine it sort of sliding down.

into your cheeks and jaw, all the muscles of your jaw letting go. Your mouth may even open a bit. Imagine that warm relaxation moving even over toward your ears. And now it's taking over your whole head. Your head is feeling heavy, heavy, heavy on the pillow. Your head feels as heavy as a bowling ball.

You could move it if you wanted to, but it's just so nice to let it sink into the pillow. As you imagine that warm relaxation taking over the inside of your head. Soothing and relaxing your mind, your brain, everything letting go, slowing down as all mental tension disappears. As your mind is relaxing, your body is relaxing.

And as your body is relaxing, it's relaxing. And as your mind is relaxing, your body is relaxing. And that warm relaxation is moved down into your neck and shoulders and arms. Moving all the way down your arms into your hands. Your hands are feeling so heavy. As you allow your hands to open, the energy runs out your palms and you're letting go

going with nature's patterns and cycles, releasing, relaxing. And you may still be aware of sounds going on around you and your environment, and that's okay, because from this moment on, no sound that you hear will bother or disturb you in any way. In fact, from this moment on, any sound that you hear will actually take you deeper and deeper into relaxation.

And this is you using your own mind in a new and magical way. As you relax, you allow these sounds, which are simply vibrations, to move through your body and mind and take you deep. Just as the sound of my voice is taking you in deeper. As that warm relaxation moves down now inside your body, into your chest, warming and soothing, expanding your rib cage.

as your whole inner world begins to relax and slow down. Any tension you may have picked up during the day is dissolving as you imagine that relaxation making its way down deep into your torso, deep into your belly. And now your pelvis is feeling very heavy. And muscles in your belly that you may have held during the day are relaxing and softening. No one's watching.

you get to just be you. And as the warm relaxation moves all the way down into your legs, sort of rolling down your legs, moving down deep into your feet and your toes, your legs too are feeling very heavy. Heavy. The day is done, and it's time for your legs to relax. The Wayside Inn. One autumn night in Sudbury Town,

Cross the meadows bare and brown. The windows of the wayside inn gleamed red with firelight through the leaves of woodbine hanging from the eaves, their crimson curtains rent and thin. As ancient is this hostelry as any in the land may be, built in the old colonial day when men lived in a grander way, with ampler hospitality.

A kind of old hobgoblin hall, now somewhat fallen to decay with weather stains upon the wall and stairways worn and crazy doors and creaking and uneven floors and chimneys huge and tiled and tall. A region of repose, it seems, a place of slumber and of dreams remote among the wooded hills

For there no noisy railway speeds, Its torch race scattering smoke and gleeds, But noon and night the panting teams Stop under the great oaks That throw tangles of light and shade below On roofs and doors and window-sills. Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay,

Through the wide doors the breezes blow, The waddled cocks strut to and fro, And half effaced by rain and shine, The red horse prances on the sign. Round this old-fashioned quaint abode Deep silence reigned,

Save when a gust went rushing down the country road, And skeletons of leaves and dust, A moment quickened by its breath, Shuddered and danced their dance of death; And through the ancient oak's oar-head Mysterious voices moaned and fled. But from the parlor of the inn A pleasant murmur smote the ear,

like water rushing through a weir, oft interrupted by the din of laughter and a loud applause and, in each intervening pause, the music of a violin.

The firelight, shedding over all the splendor of its ruddy glow, filled the whole parlor, large and low. It gleamed on wainscot and on wall. It touched with more than wanted grace fair Princess Mary's pictured face. It bronzed the rafters overhead. On the old spinets, ivory keys it played inaudible melodies.

It crowned the somber clock with flame, The hands, the hours, the maker's name, And painted with a livelier red The landlord's coat of arms again, And, flashing on the window-pane, Emblazoned with its light and shade The jovial rhymes that still remain, Written near a century ago by the great Major Molyneux, Whom Hawthorne has immortal made.

Before the blazing fire of wood erect the rapt musician stood, and ever anon he bent his head upon his instrument, and seemed to listen till he caught confessions of its secret thought, the joy, the triumph, the lament, the exultation and the pain.

Then, by the magic of his art, he soothed the throbbings of its heart and lulled it into peace again. Around the fireside, at their ease, there sat a group of friends entranced with the delicious melodies who, from the far-off noisy town, had to the wayside inn come down to rest beneath its old oak trees.

The firelight on their faces glanced, Their shadows on the wainscot danced, And though of different lands and speech Each had his tale to tell, and each Was anxious to be pleased and please. And while the sweet musician plays, Let me in outline sketch them all, Perchance uncouthly, as the blaze With its uncertain touch portrays Their shadowy semblance on the wall.

but first the landlord will i trace grave in his aspect and attire a man of ancient pedigree a justice of the peace was he known in all sudbury as the squire

Proud was he of his name and race, Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh, And in the parlour full in view His coat of arms, well framed and glazed, Upon the wall in colours blazed. He beareth ghouls upon his shield, A chevron argent in the field, With three wolf's heads, and for the crest A wyvern part per pale, Addressed upon a helmet barred.

Below the scroll reads, By the name of Howe, and over this no longer bright, Though glimmering with a latent light, Was hung the sword his grandsire bore, In the rebellious days of yore Down there at Concord, in the fight. A youth was there, of quiet ways, A student of old books and days, To whom all tongues and lands were known, And yet a lover of his own,

with many a social virtue graced, and yet a friend of solitude, a man of such a genial mood, the heart of all things he embraced, and yet of such fastidious taste, he never found the best too good. Books were his passion and delight, and in his upper room at home stood many a rare and sumptuous tome, in vellum bound,

with gold bedight, great volumes garmented in white, recalling Florence, Pisa, Rome. He loved the twilight that surrounds the borderland of old romance, where glitter, hauberk, helm and lance, and banner waves and trumpet sounds, and ladies ride with hawk on wrist, and mighty warriors sleep along magnified by the purple mist, the dusk of centuries and of song.

The chronicles of Charlemagne, of Merlin, and the Mour d'Arthur mingled together in his brain with tales of Flores and Blanchefleur, Sir Ferambras, Sir Eglimore, Sir Lancelot, Sir Morgadour, Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain. A young Sicilian, too, was there.

In sight of Etna born and bred, Some breath of its volcanic air Was glowing in his heart and brain, And being rebellious to his liege, After Palermo's fatal siege, Across the western seas he fled In good King Bamba's happy reign. His face was like a summer night, All flooded with a dusky light. His hands were small, His teeth shone white as seashells When he smiled or spoke.

His sinews supple and strong as oak. Clean-shaven was he as a priest, Who at the Mass on Sunday sings, Save that upon his upper lip his beard, A good palm's length least, Level and pointed at the tip, Shot sideways like a swallow's wings. The poets read he o'er and o'er, And most of all the immortal four of Italy.

and next to those the storytelling bard of prose who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales of the Decameron that make Fiesole's green hills and vales remembered for Boccaccio's sake. Much too much of music was his thought, the melodies and measures fraught with sunshine and the open air of vineyards and the singing sea of his beloved Sicily.

And much it pleased him to peruse the songs of the Sicilian muse, bucolic songs by Melli sung in the familiar peasant tongue that made men say, behold, once more the pitying gods to earth restore Theocritus of Syracuse.

A Spanish Jew from Alicant, With aspect grand and grave was there, Vendors of silks and fabrics rare, And utter of rose from the Levant. Like an old patriarch he appeared, Abraham or Isaac, or at least some later prophet or high priest, With lustrous eyes and olive skin, And wildly tossed from cheeks and chin The tumbling cataract of his beard.

His garments breathed a spicy scent of cinnamon, and sandal blent, like the soft aromatic gales that meet the mariner who sails through the Moluccas and the seas that wash the shores of Celebes. All the stories that recorded are by Pierre Alphonse he knew by heart, and it was rumored he could say the parables of Sandovar and all the fables of Pilpay or, if not all, the greater part.

Well versed was he in Hebrew books, Talmud and Targum, and the lore of Kabbalah. And evermore there was a mystery in his looks. His eyes seemed gazing far away as if in vision or in trance. He heard the solemn sakbet play and saw the Jewish maidens dance. A theologian from the school of Cambridge on the Charles was there.

Skillful alike with tongue and pen, He preached to all men everywhere The gospel of the golden rule, The new commandment given to men, Thinking the deed and not the creed Would help us in our utmost need. With reverent feet the earth he trod,

nor banish Nature from his plan, but studied still with deep research to build the universal Church lofty as in the love of God and ample as the wants of man. A poet, too, was there, whose verse was tender, musical, and terse,

The inspiration, the delight, the gleam, the glory, the swift flight of thoughts so sudden that they seemed the revelations of a dream. All these were his, but with them came no envy of another's fame. He did not find his sleep less sweet for music in some neighboring street, nor rustling here in every breeze the laurels of Miltiades.

honor and blessings on his head while living good report when dead who not too eager for renown accepts but does not clutch the crown last the musician as he stood illumined by that fire of wood fair-haired blue-eyed his aspect blithe

His figure tall and straight and lithe, and every feature of his face revealing his Norwegian race. A radiance streaming from within, around his eyes and forehead beamed, the angel with the violin, painted by Raphael, he seemed. He lived in that ideal world whose language is not speech but song.

Around him evermore the throng of elves and sprites, their dances whirled. The Stromcarl sang, the cataract hurled, its headlong waters from the height and mingled in the wild delight, the scream of seabirds in their flight, the rumor of the forest trees, the plunge of the implacable seas, the tumult of the wind at night, voices of elds,

like trumpets blowing old ballads and wild melodies through mist and darkness pouring forth like Elivagar's river flowing out of the glaciers of the north. The instrument on which he played was in Cremona's workshop's maid,

By a great master of the past Ere yet was lost the art divine, Fashion'd of maple and of pine, That in Tyrolean forests vast Had rock'd and rested with the blast. Exquisite was it in design, Perfect in each minutest part, A marvel of the ludist's art; And in its hollow chamber thus The maker from whose hands it came Had written his unrivall'd name.

Antonius Stradivarius. And when he played, the atmosphere was filled with magic, and the ear caught echoes of that harp of gold, whose music had so weird a sound. The hunted stag forgot to bound, the leaping rivulet backward rolled. The birds came down from bush,

The dead came from beneath, see? The maiden to the harper's knee. The music ceased.

The applause was loud. The pleased musician smiled and bowed. The wood fire clapped its hands of flame. The shadows on the wainscot stirred, and from the harpsichord there came a ghostly murmur of acclaim. A sound like that sent down at night by birds of passage in their flight from the remotest distance heard. Then silence followed.

Then began a clamor for the landlord's tale. The story promised them of old, they said, but all was left untold. And he, although a bashful man, and all his courage seemed to fail, finding excuse of no avail, yielded. And thus the story ran.