What the Fairytale: 

Finding Reason in Unreasonable Tales

At last, not knowing what else to do, she resolved to consult a certain witch who was called “The Fairy of the Desert.” Now this was very difficult to do, as she was guarded by some terrible lions; but happily the Queen had heard a long time before that whoever wanted to pass these lions safely must throw to them a cake made of millet flour, sugar-candy, and crocodile’s eggs. This cake she prepared with her own hands, and putting it in a little basket, she set out to seek the Fairy. But as she was not used to walking far, she soon felt very tired and sat down at the foot of a tree to rest, and presently fell fast asleep. When she awoke she was dismayed to find her basket empty. The cake was all gone! and,to make matters worse, at that moment she heard the roaring of the great lions, who had found out that she was near and were coming to look for her.

“What shall I do?” she cried; “I shall be eaten up,” and being too frightened to run a single step, she began to cry, and leaned against the tree under which she had been asleep.

Just then she heard some one say: “H’m, h’m!”

She looked all round her, and then up the tree, and there she saw a little tiny man, who was eating oranges.

“Oh! Queen,” said he, “I know you very well, and I know how much afraid you are of the lions; and you are quite right too, for they have eaten many other people: and what can you expect, as you have not any cake to give them?”

Excerpts of “The Yellow Dwarf” by Madame D’Aulnoy, as translated in “The Blue Fairy Book” by Andrew Lang

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What the Fairytale: Finding Reason in Unreasonable Tales is the unofficial officially-endorsed tabletop roleplaying fangame adaptation of the What the Folklore podcast, created for WTFJam 2025. 

It's a game about fairytales from the time when erasers hadn't been invented yet.

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By Catsintrenchcoat Games

Based on What the Folklore by Amanda Carman, Tyler Crowley and Gordie Murphy, licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Illustrations by https://x.com/Riofird/