The Trimmatos

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]There's a Greek nightmare fuel fairy tale about a girl who marries a man, he turns out to be a flesh-eating monster, but she survives by not trusting anyone and making Home Alone level traps. It's called the Trematose or the ogre with three eyes. There's a girl whose dad is a woodcutter and he's really poor, but he scrapes enough together to make her a scarf. She wears it as a headdress and is sitting in her window when a rich man comes by and he's so enamored with her, he goes to the dad and says, "Hey, I will marry your daughter even if you've got no dowry." The dad says yes, the guy marries her and takes her to his palace and because this is a Bluebeard story, he gives her these keys and he's like, "This place has a 101 rooms. You can go in all the rooms except this one." He goes out, she goes in all of the rooms, they're filled with amazing treasure, but then of course she goes in the one she's not supposed to. In lots of Bluebeard stories, she finds like the bodies of dead women in there, but she doesn't. It's a normal room, but it has a window that overlooks a graveyard. So, she goes in, looks out the window and sees her husband transform into a three-eyed ogre and then start eating a corpse. So, he just didn't want her in this room because it was the only way she could see what he's doing out there.

[00:01:02]She's horrified and gets a fever and takes to bed. And when he comes home, he immediately knows, "Ah, she's sick cuz she saw what I did." He goes to her room and he's like, "What's wrong?" She's like, "I'm dying." And he's like, "You want me to send for your mother?" She's like, "Oh, yes, please." And he's like, "Okay." He leaves the room, transforms himself to look like her mother and then goes back in. He's like, "Oh, my daughter, it must be the man you're with who made you so sick. He's a monster, isn't he?" She's like, "No, my husband is not a monster. He's a great man. I'm just sick." Because she doesn't trust that it's her. And she's right. She passes the test and he does it two more times pretending to be two other relatives. But then he shows up as her nurse, who was probably the woman who really raised her and spent the most time with her. And she finally unburdens herself and tells the truth to her nurse. He rips off the disguise and he's like, "It was me, your husband, who is also the Trematose, and I fooled you and now I know I can't trust you. I'm going to go downstairs and start a fire and get the spit over it so I can roast you on a spit and eat you. She's like, "Okay, well can I have a couple hours to like say my prayers first?" And he's like, "Sure, I got to go get the spit ready." So he leaves and she jumps out the window, runs away. The Tree Meto runs after her, but she comes to a camel driver who's got bales of cotton on his camels and she's like, "Please have pity on me." So he hides her in one of the cotton bales. The Tree Meto comes up and he's like, "Hey, have you seen a girl?"

[00:02:18]And he's like, "I don't know what you're talking about." And he's like, "Let me search your cotton bales." He's brought the spit along with him so he stabs it into each of the bales, but he doesn't find the girl so he goes home. Once he's gone, the camel guy lets her out of the bale she was in and he's like, "How did you not get stabbed?" And she's like, "I did, he got my foot, but like I wiped it off on the cotton when he pulled it out so he didn't see the blood." The camel driver's like, "Okay, I'm going to take you to the king, he's a real good king and he has a doctor who can heal you."

[00:02:43]They get to the king and he's like, "Girl, don't worry, I will heal you and protect you." But she's still like, "You can't let the Tree Meto know I'm here, he's going to come find me." And like a lot of women who are running from a dangerous man, people don't take her seriously. He's like, "I'm the king, what are you worried about?" They heal her foot and she stays with them and like does some work to earn her keep, embroidering things and they really like her embroidery, they really like her and they're like, "Hey, you want to marry our son?" And she's like, "Yeah, sure."

[00:03:08]But then she bursts into tears. She's like, "If the Tree Meto finds out I've married someone else, he will come in and he will kill all of us. But I have an idea. Build a high chamber at the top of seven staircases. At the foot of the staircase, dig two deep pits, cover them with mats. Then we're going to spread chickpeas all over the stairs and we're going to keep the wedding secret and at night." They're like, "That sounds like a lot, but okay." So they do all the things, she has the marriage. But the Tree Meto hears about it and remember he can shapeshift so he transforms himself into a merchant and he shows up offering gifts. He's got all of these sacks and he says that they're full of pistachios, dried apricots, and chestnuts, but they're actually full of his slaves who are going to burst out and kill everyone. The court jester actually sneaks down and looks in one of them cuz he wants to get some pistachios probably and then he sees the person and he goes and tells them, he's like, "Hey, there's people hiding in there." Our girl knows exactly what's up. So, that night when the merchant Trematos isn't there, the girl gets the executioner and brings him and her whole family down to where the sacks are. She taps on the sack and the person inside goes, "Is it time?" And she goes, "Yes." And then he pops out and then the executioner cuts off his head. And they do that to every slave in every sack. They don't know where the Trematos is though, so they go upstairs and go back to bed. The Trematos takes his real form, sneaks in, puts magic powder on the girl's husband so he stays asleep and then picks her up out of bed and says, "All right, taking you home.

[00:04:25]I'm going to eat you." He actually says, "I'd eat you right now, but I really want to roast you on that spit." So, here's where the home alone stuff comes in. He drags her down the stairs, but she holds on to the railing and pushes him and he trips on all the chickpeas and falls. He lands on one of the mats over one of the pits, falls in, and there's a lion and tiger in there. And they eat him. They kill him. But again, very realistically, the girl still doesn't believe she's really safe. She's like, "If they haven't finished eating him, I'm going to die." And she just faints right there. And then when everyone wakes up, they find the evidence of everything that had happened. They wake her up and they're like, "Hey, he's really dead in there.

[00:04:59]You're safe now." The animals had completed their meal. They then had a second wedding celebration that lasted 40 days and 40 nights because she did manage to escape her evil husband and now will be safe for the rest of her life. A great ending to a fairy tale.