Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Every class has a clown, the person who
Speaker 1: sits in the back and cracks jokes about the teacher,
Speaker 1: or lightens the mood with a well timed jab at
Speaker 1: the new kid. They're popular because they make people laugh. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe not the teachers. It's their humor and lack of
Speaker 1: respect that lands them in trouble. But a class clown
Speaker 1: only has detention to worry about. Back in the fifteenth
Speaker 1: and sixteen centuries, though insulting an authority, for gear could
Speaker 1: land you in jail or worse. Luckily, for Nicholas Ferrial,
Speaker 1: he could talk his way out of anything. Barry All
Speaker 1: was also known as La Fevrial or Tribula, and he
Speaker 1: was a jester, a performer who entertained kings and nobility
Speaker 1: with songs, dancing, magic, tricks and jokes. And though men
Speaker 1: were often employed as fools, for the court. The occasional
Speaker 1: female jester was known to perform for the royals as
Speaker 1: well as their children. Jesters were more than entertainers, though
Speaker 1: in some cases, when news was too grim to bear,
Speaker 1: it was the fool who would deliver it in such
Speaker 1: a way as to make it more palatable. It's unknown
Speaker 1: as to whether Triboulet ever gave the king bad news,
Speaker 1: but he was certainly no stranger to it himself. One time,
Speaker 1: trouble was performing for a crowd when he decided to
Speaker 1: pick on a particular nobleman during his routine. He told
Speaker 1: joke after joke at the man's expense, which got the
Speaker 1: nobleman heated, and he turned to triple A and threatened
Speaker 1: to kill him. The jester, frightened by the man's anger,
Speaker 1: ran to the king and explained the situation. The king
Speaker 1: told him not to worry, and that if the nobleman
Speaker 1: actually did kill him, he'd have him beheaded. Fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 1: Troub A then asked, would it be possible to behead
Speaker 1: him fifteen minutes before. That wasn't the only time his
Speaker 1: wits got him into and out of a jam. During
Speaker 1: another performance, tribal A lost control of himself and slapped
Speaker 1: the king on the rear. Incensed, the King spun around
Speaker 1: and told him that he would have him executed for
Speaker 1: such disrespect. Sometime later, after he had regained his composure,
Speaker 1: the King gave Tribula the opportunity to redeem himself by
Speaker 1: coming up with an apology that was even more insulting
Speaker 1: than the smack on the bum. The jester thought for
Speaker 1: a moment and then responded, I'm so sorry, your majesty
Speaker 1: that I didn't recognize you. I mistook you for the queen.
Speaker 1: And it worked, and Tribula was spared an early death.
Speaker 1: The man's greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. He
Speaker 1: could not help himself from poking fun at the people
Speaker 1: who employed him. After all, it was kind of what
Speaker 1: he was hired to do. Unfortunately, like politics at Thanksgiving dinner,
Speaker 1: there were just some subjects not to be touched, no
Speaker 1: matter how tempting. In troubles case, that subject was the queen.
Speaker 1: He had entertained French King Francis the first for many years,
Speaker 1: and so he thought he could get away with cracking
Speaker 1: some jokes at the expense of the man's wife. Even
Speaker 1: though Francis had expressly forbidden it. Not one to listen
Speaker 1: to authority. Tribal A did it anyway, and he was
Speaker 1: met with an order of execution. Far more than just
Speaker 1: an idle threat. This time he was actually going to
Speaker 1: be killed. However, because of his years of service to
Speaker 1: the king, Francis allowed him to choose his preferred manner
Speaker 1: of death. Tribal didn't waste any time. He invoked the
Speaker 1: names of two patron saints of insanity and asked that
Speaker 1: the king let him die of old age. Francis, floored
Speaker 1: by his response, agreed and had the gesture banished from
Speaker 1: the realm instead. Tribula died in thirty six at the
Speaker 1: age of fifty seven. It wasn't exactly the old age
Speaker 1: that he hoped for, but still not bad for a
Speaker 1: guy who slapped a king on the rear and lived
Speaker 1: to tell about it. Everyone has a side of themselves.
Speaker 1: They won't let others see a darkness or a strangeness
Speaker 1: that they'd rather keep to themselves. Sometimes they hide it
Speaker 1: to protect themselves from the harsh judgments of their friends
Speaker 1: or family, or they do it to shield their loved
Speaker 1: ones from something they might not understand. For young Helen
Speaker 1: All that mattered was her reputation. Helen was born in
Speaker 1: the summer of eighteen sixty six in London. Her parents
Speaker 1: were wealthy, educated and artistic, and they encouraged her to
Speaker 1: explore her outdoors. Helen spent a lot of time studying
Speaker 1: the animals on their property. She kept quite a few
Speaker 1: as pets too, including mice, rabbits, bats, and even insects
Speaker 1: like butterflies, all of which lived in the house. It
Speaker 1: was a menagerie, but nobody minded, as it provided an
Speaker 1: ideal learning environment for the budding biologist. In fact, her
Speaker 1: experience caring for and learning about animals allowed her to
Speaker 1: foster her own passion for art. She began sketching and
Speaker 1: painting the various critters that she was in charge of.
Speaker 1: Her love of animals and her penchant for journaling and
Speaker 1: drawing eventually led her to the sciences, namely botany and mycology,
Speaker 1: the latter being the study of fungi. Unlike many women
Speaker 1: of the Victorian age, she went to college and even
Speaker 1: wrote a treatise on germination of the spores of a
Speaker 1: particular fungus. Her male peers dismissed it as bunk, even
Speaker 1: though it was entirely correct, Helen only worked harder. Her
Speaker 1: sketches and paintings were manifestations for a desire for knowledge
Speaker 1: not only of the exteriors of plants had fungi, but
Speaker 1: their interiors as well. In fact, with all living things,
Speaker 1: she had an innate desire to understand how they worked,
Speaker 1: what made them tick. With plants, it was a matter
Speaker 1: of plucking them from their stems and studying them in
Speaker 1: a lab. Animals proved more difficult, though especially the living ones.
Speaker 1: At the time, euthanizing an animal to examine its anatomy
Speaker 1: was commonplace as part of scientific endeavors. Helen was never
Speaker 1: cruel and always gentle when performing such grim tasks. After all,
Speaker 1: she did care for these creatures. However, she also had
Speaker 1: a natural curiosity and was constantly fighting to be heard
Speaker 1: as a woman in a male dominated field. As a result,
Speaker 1: she may have gotten a little carried away with her studies.
Speaker 1: For example, while babysitting her younger brother's pet bats, Helen
Speaker 1: found that she was unable to care for them properly,
Speaker 1: so she set one of them free. The other one
Speaker 1: she boiled and taxidermied to understand its bone structure. She
Speaker 1: had dozens of animals in her collection too, such as
Speaker 1: dor mice and rabbits, all of which seemed to be
Speaker 1: more than just exhibits to be studied. They were companions.
Speaker 1: Perhaps such fascinations went back to her childhood. Her parents,
Speaker 1: although loving and generous, that also sheltered her from other
Speaker 1: children for much of her upbringing, too many germs and
Speaker 1: bad influences. They thought, rather than send her to school,
Speaker 1: they brought private tutors or governesses into the house. The
Speaker 1: animals acted as surrogates for her friends, so in her
Speaker 1: mind they were almost like people. As she got older,
Speaker 1: Helen stopped drawing mushrooms and plants and started illustrating characters
Speaker 1: modeled on the animals she knew as a child. She
Speaker 1: started painting mice and bunnies for the family Christmas cards,
Speaker 1: which led her to getting hired as an illustrator of
Speaker 1: nursery rhyme books. Helen also traveled, spending her holidays in
Speaker 1: England's Lake District and as far as Scotland. However, no
Speaker 1: matter how old she got or how far she went,
Speaker 1: she always remained in contact with her former governesses. One
Speaker 1: of the women, Annie carter More, eventually had a child
Speaker 1: of her own, but in eighteen ninety three he came
Speaker 1: down with scarlet fever, so Helen started sending him letters
Speaker 1: to help him pass the time while he was in
Speaker 1: bed and quarantine. Among the nice notes, she included the
Speaker 1: drawings of her little mice and rabbit characters. One such
Speaker 1: letter proved so popular the boy's mother suggested Helen turned
Speaker 1: it into a story, so she did. She self published
Speaker 1: in at first just for her loved ones, but a
Speaker 1: vicar who had gotten his hands on it believed the
Speaker 1: book to be something special, something the rest of the
Speaker 1: world should get to enjoy. He helped Helen find a
Speaker 1: publisher for what they called the Bunny Book, and not
Speaker 1: long after her main character has made their debut, Lopsy
Speaker 1: Mopsy Cotton Tale and Peter The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Speaker 1: went on to become one of the best selling children's
Speaker 1: books of all time, and Helen Beatrix Potter became a
Speaker 1: literary hero to millions of children around the world. Just
Speaker 1: don't tell them about the stuffed rabbits. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,