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b'Tonight, we\\u2019ll read \\u201cThe Palace Under the Waves\\u201d found in the book \\u201cSwiss Tales\\u201d published in 1920. We will also read a story called \\u201cThe Fairy in the Cuckoo Clock.\\u201d\\nThe first story features undines, a category of elemental beings associated with water, stemming from the alchemical writings of Paracelsus. Later writers developed the undine into a water nymph in its own right, and it continues to live in modern literature and art through such adaptations as Danish Hans Christian Andersen\'s "The Little Mermaid".\\nParacelsus believed that each of the four classical elements \\u2013 earth, water, air and fire \\u2013 is inhabited by different categories of elemental spirits, liminal creatures that share our world: gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders respectively. He describes these elementals as the "invisible, spiritual counterparts of visible Nature ... many resembling human beings in shape, and inhabiting worlds of their own, unknown to man because his undeveloped senses were incapable of functioning beyond the limitations of the grosser elements.\\n\\u2014 read by N \\u2014\\nSign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to\\xa0snoozecast.com/plus!\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'