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Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production

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Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And Rob correct me if I'm wrong, But I think

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Speaker 1: this is finally the year that you've gotten full blown

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Speaker 1: into Rocky Ericson. Is that right? Uh? Yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: guess so, yeah, I got. I listened to him a

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Speaker 1: little in the past, and in this year I got

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Speaker 1: even more into him. Yeah. Okay, So Rocky has long

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Speaker 1: been one of my favorite rock and roll vampires, and

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Speaker 1: one of the things I love about Rocky Ericson Monster

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Speaker 1: songs is how much they're about the weather. Um. So

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Speaker 1: you may remember the line from his great, his great

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Speaker 1: anthem The Night of the Vampire, if it's raining and

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Speaker 1: you're running, don't slip in mud, because if you do,

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Speaker 1: you'll slip in blood. I mean, that's is logic, and

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Speaker 1: there's a really infectious glee to that kind of logic.

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Speaker 1: But also I enjoyed the weather, weather represented in songs

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Speaker 1: like the Wind and More, which I know compares sort

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Speaker 1: of the the voice of Lucifer to to the storm

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Speaker 1: winds that are battering through the house. Yeah. Absolutely, And

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Speaker 1: and if anyone out there is not sure who we're

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Speaker 1: talking about, um, you should look up Rocky Ericson, uh,

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Speaker 1: who also was the other group garage Psychan from the

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Speaker 1: late sixties early seventies based in I think Austin, definitely

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Speaker 1: out of Texas. Uh, fantastic psychedelic rock. But then Rocky

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Speaker 1: Ericson had had a long solo career after that of

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Speaker 1: all different kinds of music, you know. He he um

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Speaker 1: so some of the stuff he released, uh he he

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Speaker 1: had a lot of troubles with mental health and at

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Speaker 1: some points he was in psychiatric institutions. But even in

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Speaker 1: those periods would sort of make these little demos of

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Speaker 1: UH songs recorded it sounds like just on a tape

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Speaker 1: recorder that are very simi bowl but but strangely beautiful.

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Speaker 1: And then at other times you would make full blown

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Speaker 1: UH monster rock and roll albums. There's one called Evil

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Speaker 1: One that's just fantastic, that's got a kind of credence

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Speaker 1: clearwater revival style rock production, but all the songs are

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Speaker 1: about demons and ghosts and and fifties atomic age monster movies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty hard stuff too, Like it's like it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's got a hard rock vibe that I think

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Speaker 1: might surprise some people. So it's I think it was

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Speaker 1: produced by somebody from Credence of Memories, So I think

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Speaker 1: so yeah, but but but but harder than Credence, uh

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Speaker 1: in my opinion. Well, all that is preamble to the

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Speaker 1: fact that today we wanted to talk about the intersection

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Speaker 1: of ghosts and weather. Yeah, and I have to stress

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Speaker 1: that we absolutely won't be able to cover everything here

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Speaker 1: because there are just too many storm monsters and storm

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Speaker 1: deities out there, storm related ghosts and other creatures. But

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be covering various examples that seem related to

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Speaker 1: some of the core ideas that we were kicking around

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Speaker 1: for this episode. And uh and and really the the

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Speaker 1: central idea has to do with a recent trip you

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Speaker 1: went on. Oh yeah, so I was recently in coastal

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Speaker 1: South Carolina. Rob, Have you been to coastal South Carolina?

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Speaker 1: I assume probably, oh yeah, yeah. And and of course

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Speaker 1: South Carolina placed with a lot of ghosts, tons of

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Speaker 1: ghosts everywhere you go there, Like you can find a

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Speaker 1: little local visitor center that's got a local uh self

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Speaker 1: published ghost author who's collected all the lore and they've

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Speaker 1: got it in a in a book that the font

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Speaker 1: of the book is usually Times New Roman. Uh, but

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Speaker 1: it's but it will have lots of great, you know,

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Speaker 1: local ghost stories in it. And so there's one that

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Speaker 1: I was reading about from a particular place on the

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Speaker 1: South Carolina coast, a little island called Paul's Island. And

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Speaker 1: so to explain this, on refer to an article that

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Speaker 1: was published by Myrtle Beach Online. So it's a local

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Speaker 1: news article from the Myrtle Beach area that's also coastal

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Speaker 1: South Carolina by a writer named Tyler Fleming. The article

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Speaker 1: says it was last updated in September nineteen. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure if that's when it was originally published, but it's

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Speaker 1: this local news article trying to track down the origins

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Speaker 1: of a bit of ghost lore from this area of

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Speaker 1: the South Carolina coastline. And specifically, this is the story

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Speaker 1: of a being called the Gray Man. You know, I'd

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Speaker 1: say it's used a lot, but I'm still a sucker

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Speaker 1: for for that formulation of a creature name just the

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Speaker 1: blank man, especially if whatever the word in the middle

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Speaker 1: is is a single syllable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the

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Speaker 1: Green Man. The tall Man. Yeah. So, according to the legend,

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Speaker 1: this is a spirit that wanders around on the shore

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Speaker 1: on and around this small island called Paul's Island, South Carolina. Uh,

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Speaker 1: usually appearing just before the landfall of terrible storms as

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Speaker 1: a translucent gray figure stalking the beaches and boardwalks in

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Speaker 1: a long cloak. Sometimes he's literally described as dressed like

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Speaker 1: a pirate. Uh. And one one funny I think, a

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Speaker 1: little little justified accusation of his identity is that he

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Speaker 1: is black Beard. He is Uh. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to say his last name Edward Teach or

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Speaker 1: Teach or Thatch, however it is yeah, yeah, with the

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Speaker 1: with the burning brands and his beard. This gets into

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Speaker 1: an interesting area that I like about about ghosts of

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Speaker 1: this nature because uh, and this is all thoroughly non scientific,

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Speaker 1: of course, but we have this idea that you know,

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Speaker 1: that something bad happens, and the ghost is like a

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Speaker 1: lingering after effect of that thing. Um. And then certainly

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Speaker 1: there's also this idea that a ghost, say black Beard's

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Speaker 1: ghost or just this mysterious gray man, would have potentially

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Speaker 1: insider information about what's going to happen. Maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: they died at sea, and therefore they know the sea

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Speaker 1: a little better and they can they can warn us

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Speaker 1: about things. But then there's also an idea of the

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Speaker 1: of of hauntings as being uh, you know, things that

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Speaker 1: work in both directions and time, that they can be

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Speaker 1: harbingers of of the terrible events. Um, you know, perhaps

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Speaker 1: they're even attached to events that have yet to come. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that is exactly the case with the Gray Man.

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Speaker 1: So contrary to what you might assume about this spectral figure,

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Speaker 1: you know, crunching along through the sand, in the in

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Speaker 1: the in the storms and the wind, local legend usually

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Speaker 1: describes the Gray Man as a benign or even a

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Speaker 1: helpful spirit, and the purpose of his hauntings is to

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Speaker 1: serve as a warning to people who live nearby that

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Speaker 1: the coming storm is going to be especially destructive. So

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Speaker 1: as a few examples of this, uh, this belief among locals,

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Speaker 1: I was looking at article in Southern Living by Megan

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Speaker 1: over Deep about this ghost legend, and it describes how

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Speaker 1: there were locals in in South Carolina who claimed sightings

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Speaker 1: of the Gray Man just before Hurricane Hazel and nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty four and Hurricane Hugo in nineteen eighty nine. But

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Speaker 1: as a more recent example, also this This article embedded

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Speaker 1: tweets like people tweeting grainy photos of alleged gray Man

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Speaker 1: sightings ahead of Hurricane Florence in eighteen. So Rob, I've

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Speaker 1: embedded one for you to look at here. Listeners, you

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Speaker 1: can go look up this article in Southern Living if

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Speaker 1: you want to find these tweets. But this one embeds

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Speaker 1: a photo that is allegedly taken at a boardwalk that

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Speaker 1: goes over the beach on Pouli's Island, and there is

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Speaker 1: I don't know, so it's it's a very grainy photograph.

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Speaker 1: It's got a lot of what looks like digital artifacts

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Speaker 1: and pixelation in it, and then there's this big sort

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Speaker 1: of pale gray smudge in the middle of it that looks,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, maybe like it could be some kind of

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Speaker 1: vertical object on the boardwalk. But some people apparently looked

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Speaker 1: at that and said, hey, it's the gray Man. Well,

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Speaker 1: I have to point out that the tweet that is

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Speaker 1: shared in this article, uh the twee eater does have

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Speaker 1: a blue check mark, So this is verified. This is

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Speaker 1: this is verified. It proof of the afterlife confirmed as usual?

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Speaker 1: Why does sidings of the paranormal so strongly favor low

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Speaker 1: fidelity documentation. I think, I'm not positive, but this looks

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Speaker 1: like it's from some kind of like uh uh, stationary

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Speaker 1: live camera that sort of documents, you know, foot traffic

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Speaker 1: on the beach. I think that you can tune into

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Speaker 1: and see what's going on there. I'm not positive that's

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Speaker 1: what it is, but I know there is stuff like

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Speaker 1: that around there, and so that that's what it looks

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Speaker 1: like to me, But it could be something else anyway. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's very grainy, it's got all you know, it's got

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Speaker 1: the pixelated artifacts in it, and I just want some

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Speaker 1: high definition gray Man, but I can't get it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, I think that gets down to just

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Speaker 1: the fact that sightings occur when things are obscured and

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Speaker 1: uncertain They emerge out of uncertainty and uh and and

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Speaker 1: and and depleted visual efficiency. I think that'll come back,

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Speaker 1: say or with something I want to get into in

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Speaker 1: a minute. So to quote from this article by Tyler

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Speaker 1: Fleming here quote. Not only does he warn people, but

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Speaker 1: he's also known to protect their property from a storm.

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Speaker 1: A woman in nineteen fifty four claimed to see the

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Speaker 1: gray Man ahead of the infamous Hurricane Hazel hitting the area.

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Speaker 1: She said, not only was her house spared from the devastation,

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Speaker 1: the beach towels she left on her balcony were still

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Speaker 1: hanging up. So the ghost is like, oh, Madam, I

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Speaker 1: I I those those beach towels are just too beautiful.

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Speaker 1: I can't stand to see them swept into the store.

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Speaker 1: I'll protect your house, But what about all the people

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Speaker 1: who died? I mean, shouldn't the ghost and prioritize the

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Speaker 1: people instead of the beach towels. I've seen people to

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Speaker 1: these beach towels. My god, they're beautiful. So this article

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Speaker 1: in Myrtle Beach Online goes on to list some of

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Speaker 1: the local speculation about the alleged origin of this ghost.

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Speaker 1: It does not mention black Beard that one might be

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Speaker 1: a kind of spurious allegation. Uh well, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think all of these are probably just made up later legends.

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Speaker 1: But but trying to track down at least what are

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Speaker 1: the earliest of the legends. Um. So, the source that

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Speaker 1: the article sites on these is the Georgetown Museum. Georgetown

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Speaker 1: is a city near Apoli's Island. Um, and so they've

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Speaker 1: got I guess a museum that has some stuff about

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Speaker 1: this local legend, and one story, this this appears to

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Speaker 1: be the dominant one, is about a man who perished

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Speaker 1: in the South Carolina low country in eighteen twenty two.

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Speaker 1: And the tale goes that this young man had been

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Speaker 1: traveling abroad for two years, and in September of eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenty two, he decided he wanted to come home so

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Speaker 1: he could see his fiancee uh back in South Carolina

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Speaker 1: and they could set a date for their wedding. And

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Speaker 1: he was apparently in such a hurry to get back

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Speaker 1: and see her face again that he took a short

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Speaker 1: cut through the marsh and he ended up stuck in quicksand,

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Speaker 1: which spelled his doom and then his fiance she's grieving

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Speaker 1: over the fact that, I guess, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: she found out that he died or if he just

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Speaker 1: never showed up, but she's grieving for some reason. And

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Speaker 1: she goes out walking along the shore and she's treading

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Speaker 1: through the sand, and while strolling alone on the beach,

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Speaker 1: she sees a dark silhouette. It's a it's the figure

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Speaker 1: of a man, and she realizes that it's the soul

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Speaker 1: of her would be husband, who died in in the marsh,

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Speaker 1: and she's so troubled by this vision and others like it,

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Speaker 1: that she has later that that her family decides to

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Speaker 1: relocate inland. They move away from that house, and the

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Speaker 1: very next day after they leave, a hurricane sweeps through,

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Speaker 1: leaving a path of destruction that would have killed them

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Speaker 1: had they not left. And it's apparently this legend that

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Speaker 1: that could give rise to this this common belief that

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Speaker 1: the ghost appears to people to warn them of storms.

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Speaker 1: And as a quick side note, I wanted to mention

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Speaker 1: I love that the story involves quicksand, which of course

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Speaker 1: is one of my favorite plot devices, but that does

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Speaker 1: have an environmental reality to it. You might not want

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Speaker 1: to call it quicksand, but the South Carolina low country,

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Speaker 1: especially the marshes, it's sort of like the mouth of

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Speaker 1: the what they could usually call the creeks, you know,

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Speaker 1: the little uh the tributary of water that eventually drained

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Speaker 1: out into the ocean. Um. These areas will form this

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Speaker 1: build up of fine sediment that is known as pluff

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Speaker 1: mud and uh So I was reading at least one

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Speaker 1: article from the I think it was the Hilton Head

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Speaker 1: area that was all about the story of a lady

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Speaker 1: who goes out walking in the marsh for some reason

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Speaker 1: and she ends up stuck in the pluff mud and

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Speaker 1: she's there until like into the evening and they have

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Speaker 1: to send rescuers and to dig her out. Because you

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Speaker 1: can very easily get stuck in this stuff. You can

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Speaker 1: sink into it. It's a there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: myths about quicksand and uh and and things like it

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Speaker 1: that you would like sink down under your head and drown.

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Speaker 1: That's usually not a very common thing to happen, if

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Speaker 1: it happens at all. Really, I think the risk of

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Speaker 1: of quicksand and even pluff mud is just that you

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Speaker 1: would get stuck in it and have trouble getting yourself out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've certainly been in. I don't know if it constitutes

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Speaker 1: plus mud or or if it's just you know, very

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Speaker 1: wet sand, but I've been in. I've noticed some coastal

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Speaker 1: situations where you have a real, real bootsucker or sandal

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Speaker 1: sucker of of a situation, you know, where the sand

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Speaker 1: is just the right consistency that if you you step

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Speaker 1: into it you might be pulling a bare foot back out. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And it's it's almost it's wonderful that it creates this um,

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Speaker 1: this almost untouchable terrain, because there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: areas around in the low country where you can, like

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Speaker 1: if there there will be a nature preserve and you

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Speaker 1: can take a board walk out over the marsh, and

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Speaker 1: if you look down on it, you see all kinds

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Speaker 1: of life. You know, things are happening down in the

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Speaker 1: pluff mud. There may be these big colonies of oysters,

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Speaker 1: and you can see fiddler crabs popping up out of

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Speaker 1: holes and running around, and all the birds hunting them.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it's the kind of place where you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: really want to go down and venture yourself, at least

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Speaker 1: not without some special equipment maybe like weight displacement boots

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Speaker 1: or something. Now, apparently there's some alternatives for the origin

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Speaker 1: of the gray man legend um uh. To quote again

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Speaker 1: from that the Myrtle Beach Online article quote uh. Other

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Speaker 1: theories tell a different story. One still has a man

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Speaker 1: returning from c but this time his fiance decided to

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Speaker 1: marry his best friend instead, he throws himself into the

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Speaker 1: wacam All. This is the Wakemall River, which is a

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Speaker 1: nearby river, and then later his fiance and friend do

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Speaker 1: the same. Other stories say he was an unknown sailor

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Speaker 1: who washed up on shore and died shortly after. Some

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Speaker 1: believe he is the original owner of Paully's Island, George Pauley,

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Speaker 1: who lived there in the early seventeen hundreds than now.

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Speaker 1: Of course, this would be far from the only legendary

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Speaker 1: supernatural being associate aided with weather phenomena. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: there are tons of ghosts and monsters and creatures and

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Speaker 1: gods that may not serve exactly this purpose, saying like, hey,

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Speaker 1: a storm's coming, but they're in one way or another

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Speaker 1: associated specifically with storms or other transient weather phenomena. And so,

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Speaker 1: while poking around on the subject, I came across what

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Speaker 1: I thought was an interesting and kind of funny article.

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Speaker 1: So this was on. This was a weather news article

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Speaker 1: by Michael Cune on accu weather dot com with the

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Speaker 1: headline quote ghost hunter colon thunderstorms cause an increase in

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Speaker 1: paranormal activity. Well, I mean, certainly, if you've watched enough

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Speaker 1: horror films and ghost movies, you know that this is

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Speaker 1: the case. You've gotta have a thunderstorm going in the background, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a classic of horror fiction. Right,

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Speaker 1: so you could argue about the the order of causality there,

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Speaker 1: but uh, yeah, you know, you got the classic what's

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Speaker 1: the bulward Lytton line? It was a dark and stormy

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Speaker 1: night and then the idea that it seems that stormy

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Speaker 1: conditions have long inspired Gothic modes of thought. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's the classic story of Uh, how did

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Speaker 1: Mary Wilston craft Shelley come up with the idea for Frankenstein.

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Speaker 1: It was during that summer when when she and Byron

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Speaker 1: and the whole crew were sort of like stuck inside

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Speaker 1: due to this this dark and stormy summer sort of

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Speaker 1: it was the year without a summer, which uh, in

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Speaker 1: a weird twist of fate, I think was likely due

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Speaker 1: to volcanic activity on the other side of the world. Um,

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Speaker 1: that that was the summer where she worked out the

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Speaker 1: ideas for the story that would become Frankenstein, sort of

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Speaker 1: a foundational text of modern horror. And so it's kind

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Speaker 1: of hard for me to believe that the dark and

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Speaker 1: stormy summer didn't in a way play a role in

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Speaker 1: the formation of that story in her mind. But um,

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Speaker 1: but anyway, so so this article about the paranormal activity

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Speaker 1: in the thunderstorm. So the article consults a paranormal enthusiast

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Speaker 1: named Mark Keys, who at the time of this article

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Speaker 1: at least was director of the Pennsylvania Paranormal Associated san.

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Speaker 1: I looked him up and it seems like he's featured

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Speaker 1: on somein some ghost hunter type TV shows. The one

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Speaker 1: that was I forget the name is called like Paranormal

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Speaker 1: nine one one or something, And based on his quotes,

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Speaker 1: I think I think this guy seems to uh take

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Speaker 1: a sort of ghost realist position, at least like he

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Speaker 1: he uh he cites, for example, the advice of a

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Speaker 1: of a spirit medium as if he believes this is

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Speaker 1: likely to contain information. And so do you think there

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Speaker 1: are skeptical ghost hunters who you call them they show

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Speaker 1: up at their door and you're like, hey, I think

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Speaker 1: I've got a hunting and their first thing as well,

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Speaker 1: look first of all, ghost well there and there could

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Speaker 1: be there could be open minded but skeptical ghost hunters.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, Like I I feel like

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Speaker 1: that's the attitude I would try to take. I would say,

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Speaker 1: you know, I I probably I think most ghost sightings

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Speaker 1: are probably all of them are not really a spectral

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Speaker 1: beings from another play, and they're probably something about the

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Speaker 1: perception of the person experiencing, but you don't know for sure.

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Speaker 1: I mean, at least look and see you try to

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Speaker 1: find something out. I mean, it would be beneficial to

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Speaker 1: have more people in that in that mode where like

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Speaker 1: they're an expert you consult and they're like, Okay, there

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Speaker 1: are no said there's there're no ghosts, but here a

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Speaker 1: list of things that that could contribute to this this

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Speaker 1: very real and potentially frightening experience that you have. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure there are some people like that, but I guess

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Speaker 1: I would assume this may not be fair. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but I would assume if you've got like TV shows,

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Speaker 1: you're you're probably at least at least for the cameras,

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Speaker 1: leaning into embracing the sort of ghost realist position. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: nobody's watching. I guess you could watch it. I could.

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Speaker 1: I guess I could imagine a ghost Hunter show with

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Speaker 1: this kind of a thing like we're here to bust

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Speaker 1: the ghosts, but not only the ghosts themselves, with the

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Speaker 1: idea of ghosts that that could be fine. Kind of

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Speaker 1: a pen and teller um, you know, kind of approach

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Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, yeah, sure, right, I don't know, it

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Speaker 1: could be done well, Like I feel like like most things,

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Speaker 1: you know, it could be done well if it was

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Speaker 1: done well. But coming back to this article, the thing

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Speaker 1: it really got a hook in my brain about it,

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Speaker 1: and that I thought was really interesting was that the

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Speaker 1: article made an attempt to posit a physical mechanism by

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Speaker 1: which thunderstorms allow ghosts to appear. And I think basically

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Speaker 1: the implication is that ghosts need to get charged up

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Speaker 1: by lightning. It's not said explicitly, but this does appear

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Speaker 1: to be the implication given by the guy sided in

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Speaker 1: this article. So to quote from the article, some believe

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Speaker 1: that apparitions or spirits need some source of energy to

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Speaker 1: manifest their presence into the physical plane in order to

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Speaker 1: communicate with the living. This could include drawing energy from

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Speaker 1: electrical circuits and even batteries. And then this is quoting

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Speaker 1: from keys. If a spirit is trying to manifest, that is,

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Speaker 1: become physically visible, it will pull energy out of the

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Speaker 1: environment to do that. This could include heat, as cold

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Speaker 1: spots are commonly reported, as well as in areas where

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Speaker 1: haunting has been report worded. It seems to be shortly

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Speaker 1: after a lightning storm that they do notice an increase,

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Speaker 1: he said. And then then this is the part where

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Speaker 1: Keys claims that his psychic medium will back up the

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Speaker 1: fact that after a thunderstorm there is quote a lot

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Speaker 1: more activity. Um. Now, you know, as as I think, uh,

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Speaker 1: we'll be clear if you've listened to us for a

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Speaker 1: while or even from our earlier discussion, I would say

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Speaker 1: we generally take a you know, broadly open minded, but

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Speaker 1: specifically skeptical position on the physical reality of paranormal reports

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Speaker 1: like this. So so while we're not going to embrace

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Speaker 1: the ghost realist position, I would be potentially open to

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Speaker 1: the claim from the the experience of a paranormal investigator

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Speaker 1: who says that thunderstorms are correlated with increased reports of

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Speaker 1: ghost sightings, poulter geist hauntings, and so forth. So I

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Speaker 1: think that could well be true, and that could well

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Speaker 1: be informed by experience, because there would be nothing supernatural

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Speaker 1: in that. You just have to say, well, yeah, people

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Speaker 1: do say they get haunted more often after there's been

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Speaker 1: a storm or around the time of a storm. Um,

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Speaker 1: But I would tend to think that if this is true,

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Speaker 1: the mechanism would more likely be the thunderstorm somehow causes

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Speaker 1: the perception of ghosts and wandering spirits rather than literally

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Speaker 1: conjuring them. Yeah, I mean we have to remember that

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Speaker 1: what is what does lightning do? But but very briefly

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Speaker 1: illuminates the darkened world, um and just a flash and

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Speaker 1: gives us a chance to sort of fill in in

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Speaker 1: the gaps there with whatever you might you know, expect

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Speaker 1: to be there in the storm. That's a really good point,

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Speaker 1: and it's further informed by some of the stuff that's

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Speaker 1: quoted in this article is like, what are the most

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Speaker 1: common things people report as evidence of hauntings in their homes?

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Speaker 1: According to this paranormal investigator. He says that, Okay, so

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Speaker 1: first of all, you've got I think, you know, visual

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Speaker 1: evidence such as people witnessing shadows and spectral human forms,

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Speaker 1: which I mean seems like the darkened sky, and then

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Speaker 1: like briefly illuminated flash is of lightning. That seems like, okay,

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00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 1: that's sort of perfect conditions to create illusory perceptions of

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00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 1: strangely shaped shadows and things like that. But then another

403
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 1: thing that it identifies, and this is something that I

404
00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 1: think from my reading, is is a very common source

405
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Speaker 1: of paranormal reports what what I would call appliance phenomena.

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00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 1: Um So, the the article says, quote reports of lights

407
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Speaker 1: flickering and electronic equipment turning on and off on its

408
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:33,240
Speaker 1: own even when unplugged is common. Other people report more

409
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,639
Speaker 1: physical activities such as doors opening or closing, lights or

410
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: TVs turning off by themselves. Believe it or not, we've

411
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Speaker 1: had a lot of reports of stereos radios turning themselves

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Speaker 1: on when they're not even plugged in, and so, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to judge just from generalizations like this, but

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Speaker 1: it's funny to me, how much like everything that was

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Speaker 1: just listed, except for the unplugged part uh is stuff

416
00:22:56,680 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 1: that would be pretty much perfectly explained by the the

417
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:03,399
Speaker 1: physical effects of a storm. So like doors opening and

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Speaker 1: closing by themselves. Of course, during a storm, you have

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00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: wind and pressure differentials that can blow a door one

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00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: way or the other. And then the appliance phenomena that's

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00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: the the anomalous activation or deactivation of electrical appliances, which

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00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 1: I know from personal experience and probably most of you

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00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: do as well, that this can happen due to storms

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Speaker 1: affecting the power grid and the power lines. Leading to

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Speaker 1: your house and Rob, I don't know if you've ever

426
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 1: had this happen in your house, but sometimes, like power

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00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: supply issues during a storm don't affect the entire house

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Speaker 1: at once, you know, so like you can have um uh,

429
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:38,719
Speaker 1: you can have like a power outage where just everything

430
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 1: goes out. We usually recognize what that is, but we

431
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: we occasionally have stuff happen where, you know, like some

432
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 1: parts of the household kind of flash on and off

433
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 1: and other things won't. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Now I think

434
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: that would not explain issues where people are claiming that

435
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: appliances that are not plugged in start turning on and stuff,

436
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: like a lot of the reports emphasize these x or

437
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: levels of implausibility. You know, the stereo wasn't even plugged

438
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: in and it started playing Whalen and uh. I have

439
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 1: no way of knowing this, but part of me just

440
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:15,120
Speaker 1: kind of suspects that the appliance was unplugged claim In particular,

441
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:18,400
Speaker 1: it seems like a like a just a very likely

442
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: exaggeration place to go, like maybe you witness some apparently

443
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 1: anomalous activation or deactivation of an appliance, an electrical appliance,

444
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 1: and it feels really notable when you first notice it,

445
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: but then thinking back on it, uh, oh yeah, sometimes

446
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: things do just turn on and off. This kind of

447
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: needs some extra beef. And it's like, well, we're we

448
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 1: even sure it was plugged in. It might not have

449
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 1: even been plugged in. Yeah, I mean, we have so

450
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:46,360
Speaker 1: many things plugged in these days. It's sometimes it's hard

451
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:48,800
Speaker 1: to keep count of what's what's plugged in, what's unplugged.

452
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 1: And you got to unplug one thing and you actually

453
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: unplugged the other. So plenty of room for misunderstanding and

454
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: altered memory there. Yeah. But so the other main fork

455
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: of the storm causation here on on the hauntings, I

456
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: would think would tend to be um the effects of

457
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: storms on human psychology as storms or even atmospheric conditions

458
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: before or after storms. Yeah, I mean this makes perfect sense.

459
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 1: You know, ghosts are often associated with darkness. Lightning again

460
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: momentarily illuminates the dark and even if it's not nighttime. Uh,

461
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: you know, you have a storm roll in, what does

462
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,919
Speaker 1: it do? It brings a certain level of darkness and

463
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: shadow with it, throwing the rain, uh, some booming thunder,

464
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: and you have just a creepy environment, not just creepy.

465
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: But I'm thinking about the informational and sensory effects of storms.

466
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: Coming back to that grainy photo we were talking about earlier,

467
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 1: I would argue that stormy weather reduces the sensory resolution

468
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: of your environment. Um, So there's darkening due to cloud cover.

469
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: They're less light, means less visual information or certainly less

470
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: certainty in your visual information. And then once you get

471
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: mist and rain, visibility is further reduce boost and wind

472
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 1: and thunder and rain also reduce the auditory clarity of

473
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: your environment. So imagine, you know, turning up the volume

474
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: on a staticky radio channel. It's harder to discern the

475
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: true signals sound signals around you, and it's easier to

476
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: mistakenly perceive a signal within the noise. And I think

477
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: this would fit with what I said earlier about ghosts

478
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: so often appearing these days on low resolution film, video

479
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: and audio recordings. Yeah, if I'm not sure what I see,

480
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: if I'm not sure what is recorded in one form

481
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: or another, then that creates an opportunity to lean into

482
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: some sort of supernatural understanding of what it might be. Now,

483
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: I was trying to think about other things here where

484
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 1: um could could there be other sensations people get maybe

485
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: when a storm is approaching that puts them in an

486
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: alternative an alternative state of mind, or has some detectable

487
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: effect on humans that could lead to paranormal experience. Is um.

488
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced on this one, but there there are

489
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: at least some questions I would like to pose um.

490
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: And so, for example, one of the things I was

491
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: thinking about was barometric pressure. So we all live under

492
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressure. At sea level. Under normal conditions, you walk

493
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: around with about fourteen points seven pounds per square inch

494
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: of atmosphere pressing down on and around you. But we

495
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: don't normally perceive the weight of the atmosphere because we're

496
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: equalized to it. Uh And in fact, if a significant

497
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 1: amount of that weight were to be removed, we could

498
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: probably notice it, Like if you go high up enough,

499
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: if you go to a high altitude, you can feel

500
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: a difference in the reduced air pressure, obviously, because you

501
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: know the higher up you go, the less atmosphere there

502
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 1: is two is above you to press down. But air

503
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: pressure at any surface altitude is variable. So at sea level,

504
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: changes in the weather, changes of the heating of the

505
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 1: Earth's surface can cause imbalances in barometric pressure. So as

506
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: you have a region of the Earth's surface that gets hot,

507
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: that hot air rises, you can almost imagine it being

508
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: sucked up into the upper atmosphere by a giant vacuum.

509
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 1: This forms a vacuum below it. It forms a low

510
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: pressure system. And when you have a low pressure region,

511
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: pressure is falling. That means air from the surrounding regions

512
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: of the Earth's surface will flow into that area of

513
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: falling pressure to compensate, and we perceive this flow of

514
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: air as wind. This is what wind is uh. And

515
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: then the rising warm air in a low pressure system

516
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: also carries with it water vapor content, which condenses into

517
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: clouds and eventually has to fall back down as rain.

518
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: So falling barometric pressure is generally taken as a sign

519
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: that storms are coming. If your barometric pressure is going

520
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: down and your wind speed is increasing, you can be

521
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: pretty sure there is a storm headed your way. So

522
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: that's generally factual. But I guess what I was wondering

523
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: about was, well, okay, so do signs like that? Does

524
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: low or falling barometric pressure have any effect on humans?

525
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 1: That could lead to sort of different states of mind

526
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: or behavior. This one seems uncertain to me. I'm not

527
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: sure psychological studies have tracked all kinds of effects of

528
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: WHETHER on mood, cognition, and behavior. And it seems to

529
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: me that while there have been a few studies finding

530
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: some effects of barometric pressure, if those effects are sound,

531
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: they appear to be a lot more subtle than the

532
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: stronger effects of factors like temperature. But to cite just

533
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: a couple at least of the reported effects. For for

534
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 1: one example, I was looking at a study called a

535
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 1: Warm Heart and a Clear Head, The Contingent Effects of

536
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: WHETHER on mood and cognition. This was published in Psychological

537
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: Science in two thousand five. This was a study of

538
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: whether as a as a function generally of seasonal changes,

539
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: and and looking somewhat into questions about seasonal effective disorder.

540
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: But the authors here right in their abstract quote in

541
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: two correlational studies and an experiment manipulating participants time outdoors

542
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: pleasant weather, this would mean higher temperature or higher barometric

543
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: pressure was related to higher mood, better memory, and broadened

544
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: cognitive style during the spring, as time spent outside increased,

545
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: the same relationships between mood and weather we're not observed

546
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: during other times of year though, and indeed hotter weather

547
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: was associated with lower mood in the summer. Uh though

548
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: of course, obviously you know you can have hot weather

549
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: in the summer that is associated with low pressure regions

550
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: that lead up to to a storm. And to further

551
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: elucidate their findings that there right in their results section

552
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: that quote as in some of the previous research, and

553
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: they site Clark and Watson in nine and Watson in

554
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: two thousand, neither temperature nor barometric pressure was directly related

555
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: to mood valants. However, the interactions of time spin outside

556
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: with temperature and with barometric pressure were both significantly related

557
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: to mood valence in the expected direction. As time spin

558
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: outside increase, the temperature, mood and pressure mood relationships became

559
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: more positive. So basically, if you have participants, if you

560
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: tell them they need to spend more than thirty minutes outside,

561
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: higher temperatures and higher pressure are associated with better moods

562
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: and outcomes, um and uh and, but if you have

563
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: people spend less than thirty minutes outside, then the relationship

564
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: is actually reversed. So like good weather outside and having

565
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: to stay indoors apparently has has a negative effect on

566
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: mood and cognition in this finding, right, Yeah, I think

567
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: most of us can relate to that. You know, if

568
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: you if it's a nice day outside, but it's a

569
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: day where you only get to experience that whilst moving

570
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: from one indoor environment to another, Yeah, that's kind of

571
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: a bummer. But if you get to be outside the

572
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: whole day or a large portion of the data, that's great.

573
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, so while this did look at barometric pressure

574
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: as one of the things informing the the weather states,

575
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: it was looking at this combination of temperature and barometric pressure,

576
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: what they were really looking at was like, what are

577
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: the effects of good good at you know, so like

578
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: high pressure, high temperature. Is there anything that directly tests

579
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: for no? No, no, what is it? What is it

580
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: about low pressure specifically you know that state when you

581
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: would expect a storm to be heading your way. Uh.

582
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: There are some other findings that seem potentially more directly

583
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 1: informative on this question, but I also feel somewhat cautious

584
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: about them that they don't feel uh, super conclusive. So,

585
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: for example, one study I came across was published in

586
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in two thousand three by

587
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: Thomas shorey at all. And it looked at documented emergency

588
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: psychiatric visits to a city psychiatric emergency room in the

589
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: r nineteen in a midsized city, and they also looked

590
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: at city police department data and suicide data, and what

591
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: they found was, quote, the data suggests that total numbers

592
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,719
Speaker 1: of acts of violence and emerging and see psychiatry visits

593
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: are significantly associated with low barometric pressure. But then they

594
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: found that psychiatric inpatient admissions and suicides were not associated

595
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: with any of the weather variables they investigated. So that's

596
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: one of those things that's okay that that's a a

597
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: bird's eye level observation of something that happened in one

598
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: city that might mirror it further investigation. But I don't

599
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: think we could say anything conclusive just based on that.

600
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: Um So I would be skeptical about drawing too many

601
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: conclusions from from ideas about the relationship between barometric pressure

602
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: specifically and psychology. But the conditions that precede a storm,

603
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: both the obvious and cognitively recognized conditions like clouds, darkening skies,

604
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: and thunder, and then perhaps some subconsciously perceived conditions like

605
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: dropping barometric pressure or increasing winds I think it could

606
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: possibly give rise to a different state of mind when

607
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: a storm is approaching, certainly the cognitively recognized ones. So

608
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: I think these are all excellent ideas to keep in

609
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: mind as we proceed through the rest of the episode,

610
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: where I thought we might just look at some various

611
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: ghosts and monsters and sometimes divine or partially divine figures

612
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 1: from around the world that have something to do with

613
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: with weather or in or at least in one in

614
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: one case, has nothing to do with weather, but gets

615
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:34,479
Speaker 1: into the idea of a ghost harpinger. So, um, first

616
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: of all, we'll go ahead and get the one out

617
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: of the way that doesn't really seem to have anything

618
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: to do with weather. Um. Well, actually, I guess I

619
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: have a couple of them here, and the first one

620
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: here is is Hernie the Hunter. Have you heard of

621
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: this particular ghost and not until you introduced him to me?

622
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: So this is apparently a ghostly phosphorescent mounted hunter said

623
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: to ride through the woods surrounding Windsor Castle in the UK.

624
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: He's covered in furs and his head as a secured

625
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: by the skull and antlers of a great stack. And

626
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: when I when I heard about this, I had to,

627
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 1: of course look it up in in Carol Rose's encyclopedic

628
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: volumes on monsters and fairies and whatnot, and she makes

629
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: a possible connection here between this legend and older Celtic

630
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: beliefs in a particular horned fertility god whose name was

631
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: Sir nunus Um. That's c e r in you in

632
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: an Os. That's at least one modern spelling of it.

633
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: But this UH, this particular apparition was referenced by Shakespeare,

634
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,919
Speaker 1: and UH in the twentieth century at least has come

635
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 1: to be seen as a harbinger of disaster, not of storms,

636
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: but of economic and political disaster, which I found interesting.

637
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: So sightings of the Hunter here have been attributed to

638
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: the nine economic Depression, the nineteen thirty six abdication crisis,

639
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty nine Declaration of War, and the nineteen

640
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 1: fifty two death of George the sixth. Another version I've

641
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: read is that her name a Hunter always appears when

642
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: a monarch is close to death. Well, this raises a

643
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: question for me about a distinction we could make about

644
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 1: harbinger deities, or maybe not deities. I don't know if

645
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: if her name here is a is a God or

646
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: just a creature being of some kind, whatever you would

647
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 1: call it, the these harbinger beings, you could say that, okay,

648
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: if they appear right before a disaster of some kind,

649
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 1: whether that's a hurricane or or an economic depression or

650
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 1: the death of a monarch, are they appearing in a

651
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 1: benign spirit saying like, Hey, I have divine fore knowledge

652
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: because I'm of the other plane. I'm not of this world,

653
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:39,399
Speaker 1: so I'm not bound by time, and I'm just giving

654
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: you a warning, like I'm here to let you know

655
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: so you can prepare. Or are they on the sort

656
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: of uh, disastrous causation side is like, you know, are

657
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 1: they an ill omen is seeing them in some way

658
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: part of the causative structure of the disaster that comes?

659
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: Or do they even directly bring it about by appearing? Yeah? Yeah,

660
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: you can see various interpretations I guess of what exactly

661
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 1: is going on? Um, And and we'll we'll keep discussing this.

662
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: But uh, another little tale that I read this was

663
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 1: in Rose's book, referring to work by folklore's Ruth Tongue. Um.

664
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: It's a story. The Tongue rights of this tale that

665
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: was circulating about three British youths who were decked out

666
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: in the teddy boy style of the nineteen sixties. You

667
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 1: can look that up if if you need a visual

668
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,439
Speaker 1: of what that would look like. Uh, they were, they were,

669
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: you know, up to I don't know if they were

670
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: up to no good, but they were. They were out.

671
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 1: They were hanging out in the woods and what do

672
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: they find? A horn? And um, I believe the story

673
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: goes that they were thinking, oh, well, there must have

674
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: been some sort of a film shoot going on here,

675
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 1: and they left a prop. Uh, we've got this horn,

676
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and blow it. So they blow the horn,

677
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 1: and then sure enough, the unseen spirit begins to pursue

678
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 1: them through the woods and you know, getting closer and closer,

679
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: and finally an arrow seems to fly and slays one

680
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: of them dead. But there's not a single physical wound.

681
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: It seems to have been some sort of a ghost era.

682
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,800
Speaker 1: Uh So that's that's a that's a fun little tale

683
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: as well. And of course this all relates back to

684
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,919
Speaker 1: other traditions of the wild hunt myth of some sort

685
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: of of a ghostly being or beings sometimes in the

686
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: company of of of hell hounds that goes out on

687
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: strange hunts in the night and you don't want to

688
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: run a foul of them. Something is incongruous between that

689
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 1: and the teddy boy thing. I'm hung up on the

690
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: teddy boy detail. Is this a commentary on the teddy

691
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 1: boy fashion trend or I think it's just, you know,

692
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:43,760
Speaker 1: on the youth of the day. So it's like whatever

693
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 1: the youth. You can imagine various youth fashion trends in

694
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: Britain and uh and then being reflected in versions of

695
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 1: this story. It makes it seem very cinematic. I can

696
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: imagine the cinematic version is so if her name has

697
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: a stag skull on top of his head and you

698
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,959
Speaker 1: look up teddy boy hairstyles, I mean you could see

699
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:04,879
Speaker 1: some certain basic shape and contour similarities where their pompadours

700
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: look kind of like stag skulls. Yeah, yeah, I guess

701
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: without horns. But now as far as is ghostly harbingers go,

702
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,760
Speaker 1: I know some of you are probably thinking of this, Um,

703
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: this is more in the realm of cryptids and and

704
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: ufo ology. But um, there's the the alleged supernatural harbinger

705
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: of the Silver Bridge collapse of nineteen sixty seven, there's

706
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: the bridge that spanned the Ohio River. Uh. The Mothman. Uh.

707
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: They've been books and movies about this, but the connection,

708
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,720
Speaker 1: the original connection between the collapse and sightings of the Mothman,

709
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,239
Speaker 1: I'm to understand, are largely due to the writings of

710
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: UFO ologist John Keel. I think this story is the

711
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: inspiration behind the plot of that Richard Gear movie, The

712
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: Mothman Prophecies, isn't it It is? Yeah, I've never seen it,

713
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 1: but I am familiar with you know what, So we

714
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: watched it a few years back. We'd like to revisit, uh,

715
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: not just classic horror films, but you know, Rachel and

716
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 1: I sometimes watch like Fallen by the Wayside, horror films

717
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: that nobody really talks about anymore. And so this one

718
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: was what did this come out in the early two

719
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 1: thousands or something? Um, I think that sometime around then

720
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: has Richard Gear and it's about this whole situation, and

721
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: you know what, I gotta say it It's not perfect,

722
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: but there it's got some good ghostly atmosphere and it

723
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: was actually pretty spooky, A pretty solid thumbs up. Now,

724
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: there are some other Harbinger spirits of note, there's the Chira,

725
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 1: which is a harbinger spirit, and the folklore of whales,

726
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: it's a bandshe like being that whales and groans as

727
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 1: she passes through the city streets at night, warning of

728
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 1: impending disaster, including epidemics, which of course is interesting. And then,

729
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 1: of course, speaking of there's the Bansheet of Irish legend

730
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: that whales under the window of a family member to

731
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: portend that family member's death. I guess this comes back

732
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: to the question I brought up a minute ago, because

733
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: I think I've read about this in the context of

734
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: the band sheet before, where it's not really clear to

735
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 1: me whether the belief is that the band she knows

736
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: the death is going to happen and is sort of

737
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,359
Speaker 1: informing the family of such by their behavior, or whether

738
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: or not it's intentional on the bench's part the banshees

739
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: letting them know, or the banshee's presence is somehow causing

740
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 1: the death. Yeah, yeah, so unanswerable questions about the strange

741
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: doings of of weird creatures, and I guess that's one

742
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: of the reasons that makes them weird in other world

743
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 1: is you don't know what their role in the whole

744
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: scenario is, uh, you know, what are you doing here?

745
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: Are you're feeding off of the the of the misery

746
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: of the bereavement, or are you here as an agent

747
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,879
Speaker 1: of death? What exactly is going on? Are you trying

748
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: to warn us or is it something to be on

749
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: any of these interpretations, They're here on ghost business. That's

750
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,319
Speaker 1: all you know. Right now, Let's get back into just

751
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: ideas of storms and rain and water and cataclysmic weather.

752
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: So plenty of cultures have major flood storm and cataclysm myths,

753
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: and and China is no exception. Uh. There's a course,

754
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: the story of You the Great who overcomes the day

755
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: lose with drainage channels and earthwork. Uh. There's also the

756
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:10,879
Speaker 1: Chinese flood myth concerning the water god U Gong gong Uh,

757
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: sometimes relegated as one of the four perils. So this

758
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,399
Speaker 1: is a vast serpent with a human head red hair,

759
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,280
Speaker 1: and gong Gong is said to have caused a great

760
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: flood by bumping into Mount Buzio, which caused the sky

761
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: pillar to collapse, resulting in his cosmic disorder. You end

762
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: up having to have the goddess nuah uh step in

763
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 1: repair the sky pillar in order to bring order back

764
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,439
Speaker 1: out of chaos. And sometimes this myth and the myth

765
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: of You the Great are are linked together. And then

766
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: there's the myth of Hogi, the the Archer. You may

767
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: remember him from his key row in the myth of

768
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: the Surplus Sons or his part in the lunar myth

769
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 1: of Changa and the Potion of Immortality. But to refresh

770
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,319
Speaker 1: during the time of the Ten Sons, Emperor Gal calls

771
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,360
Speaker 1: upon Ye to shoot the nine Surplus Sons out of

772
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,879
Speaker 1: the sky, and he does so, saving the earth from

773
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 1: fiery desolation. But the time of the Ten Sons is

774
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: also a period of great disruption, and many unnatural beings

775
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 1: roam free to commit great offenses against the gods, and

776
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: so Emperor Yo charges Ye with the destruction of these

777
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: monsters as well. He has to hunt them down and

778
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: slay them in order to protect the people. So is

779
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,720
Speaker 1: this after the sun shoots down the nine Surplus Sons

780
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: and then goes after he has to clean up afterwards

781
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: with the monsters, right, yeah, yeah, Because the cosmic disorder,

782
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: it kind of is You've left with the idea that

783
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 1: it kind of unleashed these beings, or it created an

784
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: atmosphere in which they could thrive, and now they need

785
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 1: to be put back and check rounded up the loose ponies. Yeah. Now,

786
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: According to the translator's John Major at All in two

787
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: thousand tens the Huai non Z, a Guide to the

788
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: Theory and Practice of Government in early Han China, these monsters,

789
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: these monsters that that Ye has to has to hunt down. Um.

790
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: They pop up in various warring states and Han works

791
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: and seem to represent destructive forces of nature. One of

792
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: these monsters you'll learn about next week on the Monster

793
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: Factor or Wednesday Shorty episode UH. And that one I

794
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: think you can also make. There's also a strong evidence

795
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 1: to support the idea that it represents some sort of

796
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: natural disaster as well. But there's one uh in particular

797
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: that's very connected to the idea of storms, and that

798
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: is the wind bird daufing. So this literally means a

799
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: strong wind. Sometimes I see it translated as typhoon. It's

800
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: a giant, ferocious bird of prey that brings with its

801
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: strong winds whipped up by its mighty wings, so everywhere

802
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: it goes it brings destructive winds with it. So of

803
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: course Ye has to has to hunt it down, and

804
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 1: he uses the interestingly enough, he basically just uses the

805
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: techniques that one would use in hunting birds, especially during

806
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 1: this time period. He attaches a chord to his arrow

807
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: and shoots the mighty bird out of the sky. He

808
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: holds the cord firmly so that he can, you know,

809
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: keep track of it and kind of bring it down,

810
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: and then he follows that chord to the site where

811
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 1: he has grounded the mighty Uh daffing, and then he

812
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: cuts its head off with his sword Wow. In other tales,

813
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: Ye also exacts revenge on the damaging river god he Bow,

814
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: who he blinded in one eye, and then he also

815
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: hunts down or seeks a vengeance on the wind god

816
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 1: thing Bow, who he shot in the knee. So you

817
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: might be a win god on a chariot pulled by dragons,

818
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: or a or a god who actually takes on the

819
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 1: form of a dragon. But that doesn't mean Ye doesn't

820
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: have a receipt for you if you caused a bunch

821
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: of storm damage. So this raises a thought for me.

822
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, um, what are the different influences that

823
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: determine sort of what level the embodiment of the storms

824
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: Uh represents within the pantheon or maybe not even the pantheon,

825
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: the sort of the supernatural theater of a mythological belief system,

826
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking about these cases where you can have

827
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: a specific monster or creature. In this case, it is

828
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: a ferocious monster being that represents a kind of disorder.

829
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 1: It is that it is a pony that has gotten

830
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: loose from a from a unharmonious phase of the universe,

831
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: and it has to be slain and set right. So

832
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:31,839
Speaker 1: this is the embodiment of storms in this one type

833
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 1: of mythology. But you have plenty of other mythologies where

834
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: storms are not only part of the natural divine order,

835
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,760
Speaker 1: but they are particularly the power of the like most

836
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: powerful god or the king of the gods. Think of,

837
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: you know, the storm associations with with Zeus or Jupiter,

838
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: or the storm associations with the some of the chief

839
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:57,399
Speaker 1: gods of the ancient Near Eastern pantheons. Yeah, it's it's

840
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about this, yeah, because you can

841
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: the huge difference between the storm that is caused by

842
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 1: the high god or a particularly powerful deity, one that

843
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 1: is worshiped, and a storm caused by various monsters that

844
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: are rampaging. Uh, you know, things that represent cosmic disalignment,

845
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: um and uh, and you know you can have ramifications

846
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,399
Speaker 1: based on how you view that. But uh, it's it's

847
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: interesting to think about, even in our modern times, what

848
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 1: do we do with hurricanes and tropical storms. You know,

849
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 1: we name them, and of course they're they're very good

850
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,399
Speaker 1: reasons to name a storm, to give it a human name.

851
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,760
Speaker 1: It it helps, uh in communicating things about that storm

852
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: and tracking them and making sure that people were prepared

853
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: for this particular storm and not approaching it like you know,

854
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: the last storm. You know, each each hurricane that makes

855
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 1: landfall is coming in a difference in different intensities, and

856
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: it's an infect a different area, uh, in a different way.

857
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: It does seem interesting that I could be wrong about this,

858
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,320
Speaker 1: but my gut feeling is that people have an easier

859
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 1: time knowing which hurricane you're talking about when they have

860
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,839
Speaker 1: names attached to them then they would if you were

861
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: just referencing it by like a year or something. You know, yeah, yeah,

862
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 1: the storm of ninety seven or something. But if you

863
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: if you give it a human name, yeah, you're you're

864
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,319
Speaker 1: anthropomorphizing it a little bit. Just you know, there's no

865
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 1: way around it. Uh, but people are going to remember it,

866
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: people are going to know it's coming. It seems to

867
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,359
Speaker 1: me that like when you say Andrew, that conjures up

868
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 1: like specific imagery that you recall from being associated with

869
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,479
Speaker 1: that name, versus like if you were just to say

870
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: the year number. I don't know, maybe it would be

871
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: different if we were referred to it by years, but

872
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: that's my feeling on it now to move elsewhere in

873
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: the world. Another one that I ran across the Blue

874
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: Men of Niche. Uh So. There are a lot of

875
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: mur folk myths and legends out there that involve the

876
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 1: creatures having some degree of control over or knowledge of

877
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: weather in storms, and they're ultimately just too numerous to

878
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 1: go through. There's a lot of similarities between them, but

879
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: this one stood out to me. Them people were said

880
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:07,800
Speaker 1: this particular variety of murder people anyway, were said to

881
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 1: haunt the Minch passage of the Alter Hebrides off of Scotland.

882
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 1: Uh This body of water is known in Gaelic as

883
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: uh thruth Na fear Gorma, the channel of the blue Men.

884
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:24,879
Speaker 1: Uh So, this is also interesting considered they were talking

885
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: about gray men and here we are with blue men.

886
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: So they were said to look like normal humans, except

887
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 1: with entirely blue skin and gray beards. And it's a

888
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: treacherous passage of water, apparently, And so the legend was

889
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: that the blue men would rise up from their deep

890
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:42,399
Speaker 1: caves and they would summon fierce storms against trespassing human

891
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 1: ships and wreck them. But wise captains knew that the

892
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 1: blue men loved rhyming contests, so they could earn the

893
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 1: ship's safety across the passage if they just had some

894
00:49:54,480 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: great rhymes up their sleeves. Now, Carol Roseen in her

895
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 1: book She she shares that the myth is thought to

896
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: be based on Moorish slaves marooned by Vikings in the

897
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:11,360
Speaker 1: area during the ninth century. And the idea here is that, uh,

898
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:16,280
Speaker 1: that these these individuals would have worn long blue robes

899
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: and gray blue veils. Huh. And incidentally, the Tuareg people

900
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 1: of Saharan Africa, uh, apparently do wear these fashions like

901
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 1: these are the traditional fashions of the Tuareg people. Now

902
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: do you know if that's more of a kind of

903
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:37,280
Speaker 1: legendary explanation or is that thought by any modern scholars

904
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: to have any likely explanatory power in the origin of

905
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: the myth. Well, I was looking into it a bit,

906
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: and apparently Scottish Folklore's Donald A. McKenzie, who lived eighteen

907
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: seventy three through nineteen thirty six, it was kind of

908
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: the the individual who really popularized this hypothesis. And today

909
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,720
Speaker 1: I think there's some individuals who think that the true

910
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: origin might just be accounts of the tire people, although

911
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,839
Speaker 1: the Saharan Africa that traveled um you know, some sort

912
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: of you know, communication of this idea, maybe that you

913
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: have some sort of amr fault tradition and you combine

914
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: that with with uh, you know, some sort of knowledge

915
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 1: of of tireg people and what they wore, or if

916
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: not the tire people, then perhaps um predecessors to them

917
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: that had similar fashions and similar uh you know, dies

918
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: and use. But another suggested explanation is that this belief

919
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,280
Speaker 1: in the blue people the blue men, that it refers

920
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 1: in some fashion to tattooed pits. Uh. These would have

921
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 1: been uh uh you know, people who were known for

922
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 1: their tattoos uh. And the Latin origin of picks is

923
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:51,640
Speaker 1: painted people. I seem to recall this from the Roman period,

924
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: at least some author talking about the idea that there

925
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 1: would be people in um. I don't know what they

926
00:51:57,239 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: called it at the time. It was at Caledonia, you know,

927
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: the area that is now Scotland, you know, north of England,

928
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,000
Speaker 1: so you would have had Roman Britain, and then at

929
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: a certain point that you have Hadrian's Wall, and then

930
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:09,879
Speaker 1: there are tribes that live north of that that they

931
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 1: regarded as very barbaric, and I think they there's some

932
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:16,320
Speaker 1: reference there to these people being painted in blue, or

933
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: their warriors being painted in blue. Yeah, so ultimately, you know,

934
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: we don't we don't know exactly what the blue men

935
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: of Minch is referring to, or what indeed which what

936
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: influences or what combination of influences led to this tradition,

937
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: but it was said they can control the weather, so

938
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 1: it's certainly worth mentioning here. Now another one, I have

939
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 1: to get into the realm of Yokai here for a

940
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:41,919
Speaker 1: bit um And. And I'm especially excited to talk about

941
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 1: this because I recently picked up a fun little book

942
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 1: to read with my son titled Yokai Attacked the Japanese

943
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: Monster Survival Guide UM. This is by Yoda and Alt

944
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:58,399
Speaker 1: and illustrated by by Tatsuya Marino, and it's a fun

945
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 1: little book with that that has some wonderful illustrations but

946
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,359
Speaker 1: also some great information in it. It's well sighted and

947
00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: very informative and very fun for young readers. Uh So

948
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 1: uh I was looking through that, and I was like, okay,

949
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 1: I know there's some yokai that relate to the weather

950
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 1: or to the water, so there's got to be something

951
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 1: good in here. Lay it on me. Well, there's one

952
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 1: by the name of Umi Bozoo. Uh. They're known as

953
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 1: the sea monks Japanese yokai, said to resemble great black

954
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: bull b like beings with glowing eyes emerging from the water. Uh.

955
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: In the black may or may not be fur if

956
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:40,200
Speaker 1: you could touch it, depending on the the account. Also

957
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: depending on the account, they might be vengeful ghosts of

958
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: the sea uh. And in this they have much in

959
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:49,759
Speaker 1: common with some Chinese ghost traditions uh the boat spirits

960
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 1: or fun jura, which you'll find illustrations off as well.

961
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 1: But in anyway, the the Umi Bozo are said to

962
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,399
Speaker 1: rise from the surface of the ocean even during the day.

963
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: Even so, even if they're there's there's nothing going on,

964
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: you know, with darkness and storm but they bring with

965
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: them atmospheric disturbances and storms. Um. And of course this

966
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 1: means that ultimately what they're trying to do, of course,

967
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: is they want to bring down vessels. They want to

968
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 1: cause your ship to sink, drag it to the bottom

969
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 1: of the ocean. And the smaller ones you might be

970
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:25,799
Speaker 1: able to drive away, but the larger ones are just

971
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 1: too powerful. Okay. So this would be more in line

972
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: with the type of creature like the wind bird from

973
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: from Chinese legend that literally brings the storm and weather

974
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 1: disturbances by its own like it directly causes them. Yeah. Yeah,

975
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 1: it would seem to be the case. Um. And these

976
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,359
Speaker 1: are these are fun ideas to get into as well, because,

977
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,280
Speaker 1: first of all, the idea of any kind of enormous

978
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: being certainly um, you know this, this black creature emerging

979
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,280
Speaker 1: from the water. Uh, it instantly makes us think of whales.

980
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: And indeed there may be some connection there between between

981
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 1: these legendary creatures and whale sightings. And also there's a

982
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: possibility that there's some sort of atmosphereic ghost lighting involved

983
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: as well, which is, you know, something worth remembering anytime

984
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: you're dealing with ghosts of the ocean. But one of

985
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: the interesting takes I was reading about the phono uri

986
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 1: that the Chinese version of this the boat spirits UH,

987
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: is that they were sometimes attributed with ladling water into

988
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:27,279
Speaker 1: ships and causing them to sink, or or just by

989
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: their very presence causing compasses not to work. But they

990
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:34,359
Speaker 1: were also said to simply hold ships in place, and

991
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:38,280
Speaker 1: some have theorized that this might occur due to dead water.

992
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 1: So this is a nautical phenomenon which UH you see

993
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:45,800
Speaker 1: take at least a couple of different forms. UH. For instance,

994
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: you see it in in far northern Um environments. You

995
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:53,600
Speaker 1: see this situation where slow moving vessels can become stuck

996
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:57,320
Speaker 1: due to a thin layer of fresh water spreading over

997
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: the sea from melting ice UM. But then also you

998
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:07,360
Speaker 1: see the situation with internal waves due to shallow brackish

999
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: water and the upper layer of the water column, making

1000
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:14,280
Speaker 1: it where a ship will feel stuck in the water

1001
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: as if something is holding it there. So it's been

1002
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: hypothesized that this could be a possible one of the

1003
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 1: possible reasons for this kind of myth, like something is

1004
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 1: holding the ship in place, what is it? It must

1005
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 1: be some sort of ghostly presence. Oh yeah, I think

1006
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,320
Speaker 1: this makespain recalled. It might have been in our episodes

1007
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:36,719
Speaker 1: about the sarcassum seaweed that we uh discussed other other

1008
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:40,080
Speaker 1: supernatural ideas about the dull drums and ways that your

1009
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 1: ship can become stuck in water without a propelling wind. Yeah.

1010
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:46,960
Speaker 1: And the course that's interesting too, right, because because the

1011
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:50,000
Speaker 1: the idea of a terrible storm can be devastating to

1012
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: the ship at sea, but also uh in a complete

1013
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 1: absence of weather can be equally disturbing. Yeah. Now here's

1014
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,879
Speaker 1: another creature that came up when I was looking around,

1015
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,840
Speaker 1: and that's uh Um the Alps an interesting lake monster

1016
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: at this time from the folklore of Switzerland centered on

1017
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:11,800
Speaker 1: the lake um uh Sellsburg see near Lucerne. Uh sightings

1018
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:15,439
Speaker 1: are recorded from fifteen eighty four through ninety six. Kind

1019
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 1: of a bulky, multi limbed dragon creature that may suddenly

1020
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 1: surface alongside boats and scare people. Also may rage sheep

1021
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: herds at night and leave disturbingly mutilated bodies in its wake. Um.

1022
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 1: But their appearance in the water was said to foretell

1023
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 1: a powerful storm. Um. And so I had to look

1024
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: this lake up. I wasn't familiar with it. Uh It's

1025
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: also known as Seeley and it covers forty four acres

1026
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: and reaches depths of thirty seven ms or feet. Now,

1027
00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: in Irish mythology you also have the Fomorians. Um these

1028
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:52,640
Speaker 1: were said to be the original occupants of Ireland who

1029
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: were defeated by the invading fur Bags and then transformed

1030
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: into grotesque monsters or giants. And then of course the

1031
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 1: to off the to then and come along and they

1032
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: invade and they defeat the defeat the fur Bags, and

1033
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 1: so the Fomorians are sometimes attributed with power over weather,

1034
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:10,960
Speaker 1: over storms, as well as given the power to blight crops.

1035
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we we We talked about for more ins

1036
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 1: in the context of Kuhlan or Kukullen. Yeah. Now, another

1037
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: interesting monster that is that is definitely tied to the wind,

1038
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: at least in its origins are the harpies. And I

1039
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: think harpies are interesting because I think a lot of

1040
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 1: modern monster fans probably think of of maybe two or

1041
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 1: three different things when you imagine the harpy. First of all,

1042
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 1: they're Ray Harry Howson's Harpies from Jason and the Argonauts.

1043
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 1: Do you remember these, oh yeah, these terrible blue women

1044
00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: with the with the large blue bat wings. Yeah, they

1045
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 1: have bat like wings in uh in Jason and the Argonauts,

1046
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:53,440
Speaker 1: but they're they're pretty creepy, very gargoyle esque. Um. Outside

1047
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:56,440
Speaker 1: of this tradition, they're they're pretty weak enemies and dungeons

1048
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:59,919
Speaker 1: and dragons, uh, not very impressive, but there's some cool

1049
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 1: frustrations of them. And then of course there's the harpy

1050
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 1: in the Last Unicorn, which is a terrifying and powerful

1051
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: creature that is is pretty much the direct opposite of

1052
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: everything they are in Dungeons and Dragons and so in.

1053
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: I think, you know, generally, in our interpretation of the harpies,

1054
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:21,640
Speaker 1: we think of grotesque hybrids of vultures and women, sometimes

1055
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:24,920
Speaker 1: with other influences thrown in. I've seen accounts where they

1056
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:27,600
Speaker 1: say that they have bare ears wait and in wait,

1057
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 1: bare ears, bare ears like the ears of a bear.

1058
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:33,920
Speaker 1: I can't even picture bare ears. What a bare ears

1059
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:36,080
Speaker 1: look like? I don't. I mean, That's why I'm I

1060
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: think we we often just just whittle it down to

1061
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 1: just uh, you know, old woman plus uh vulture, you know,

1062
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 1: because you throw in these other influences. Yet what does

1063
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: it even mean? Okay? I just look worn times barriers

1064
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 1: they're little nubs, I mean like barriers. Do not seem

1065
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:56,400
Speaker 1: like especially notable kinds of animal ears. Yeah, well maybe

1066
00:59:56,400 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 1: an admant more during the time when when this was

1067
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 1: a tribute, it to their, to their their, these these monsters.

1068
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:05,680
Speaker 1: That's such a funny choice. I love it. Now. In

1069
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman myth the number of the harpies it

1070
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 1: it varies. There may be as few as one or

1071
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: as many as five. And in origin they are linked

1072
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: to traditions of wind spirits, and we see that in

1073
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 1: the various names that have been attributed to them. So

1074
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 1: in the Theogeny Hesiod rights quote and Thomas wedded Electra,

1075
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: the daughter of deep flowing ocean, and she bare him

1076
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: swift iris and the long haired harpies a l o

1077
01:00:33,440 --> 01:00:38,160
Speaker 1: storm swift and nosepates swift flyer, who on their swift

1078
01:00:38,200 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: wings keep pace with the blasts of the winds and

1079
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 1: the birds for quick as time they dart along by

1080
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: the way dungeons and dragons. Gives harpies a laughable forty

1081
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 1: foot flying speed. Come on, that does not sound as

1082
01:00:53,200 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 1: fast as time? What is it? Okay? So I don't

1083
01:00:56,240 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 1: know flying speeds usually what is oh? I think I've

1084
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 1: got a think my character, who's kind of a whimp,

1085
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:04,880
Speaker 1: has a thirty foot walking speed. Is that right? Yeah? Yeah,

1086
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: thirty foot walking walking is like a general humanoid walking speed.

1087
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: So the harpy can fly just a little further than

1088
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: a human being can walk. Uh in Dungeons and Dragons,

1089
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:20,560
Speaker 1: which is clearly this is a creature that needs a

1090
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:24,080
Speaker 1: needs a reboot. In the Monster Manual, now a Homer

1091
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: also wrote of harpies, particularly the harpy podar j which

1092
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 1: means a swift foot, and this is said to be

1093
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: the mother of Balius and xanthus the speeds of Achilles,

1094
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 1: And in a more general sense, the harpy is a

1095
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 1: human bird hybrid of course, and we see a lot

1096
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: of these and global myth cycles, and it's often pointed

1097
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: out that this sort of particular hybrid between humans and

1098
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:48,640
Speaker 1: creatures of the air, it often has some sort of

1099
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 1: connection between earth and sky, between the world of mortals

1100
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:55,240
Speaker 1: and the abode of the gods. Uh. The harpy also

1101
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 1: specifically is often brought up as an example of the

1102
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:03,160
Speaker 1: monstrous feminine in in myth making, so an imagined creature

1103
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: used to convey negative attitudes about females. And female bodies. Yeah,

1104
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:09,600
Speaker 1: I think of it as a kind of standard genre

1105
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:13,240
Speaker 1: of misogynist comment to to compare a woman that you

1106
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 1: don't like to a harpy. Yeah, but it seems that

1107
01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: in their original form, in their origins, they were more

1108
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 1: like minor wind gods or or wind demons, perhaps more

1109
01:02:24,160 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 1: in keeping with the furies who might descend on a

1110
01:02:27,320 --> 01:02:30,240
Speaker 1: mortal at the behest of a god. By the way,

1111
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:32,040
Speaker 1: an interesting wrinkle on all of this I think we've

1112
01:02:32,040 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: discussed before is that the sirens who we often think

1113
01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:38,480
Speaker 1: of now, and this is represented in our you think

1114
01:02:38,480 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 1: of mermaids, or you think of you know, beautiful veiled

1115
01:02:41,640 --> 01:02:44,800
Speaker 1: women emerging from the surf, but they were originally bird

1116
01:02:44,840 --> 01:02:48,640
Speaker 1: female hybrids as well, and so ancient depictions of what

1117
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:51,200
Speaker 1: we might think of his harpies in the modern sense,

1118
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: uh might have been sirens, or in some cases, UH

1119
01:02:55,640 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 1: just were something else, some other kind of bird human hybrid.

1120
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:03,280
Speaker 1: For instance, there's tomb, the tomb of Xanthus uh, and

1121
01:03:03,920 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 1: there's a carving from it, various carvings from it, I

1122
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 1: think that you can find in the British Museum, and

1123
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:10,720
Speaker 1: it's it's been referred to for a long time as

1124
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:14,000
Speaker 1: the harpy too. I mean, you see this winged female figure.

1125
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:18,200
Speaker 1: Though it's it's it's far from certain that these were sirens,

1126
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:22,320
Speaker 1: but they were probably not harpies either. Uh So I

1127
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:25,280
Speaker 1: think it's still an open question exactly what this particular

1128
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 1: being is supposed to be, you know, bringing this back

1129
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:32,480
Speaker 1: to the special potency of weather mythology and weather monsters

1130
01:03:32,480 --> 01:03:36,200
Speaker 1: when it comes to sailing and ocean going. Uh. This

1131
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 1: reminds me of a few years ago. I had a

1132
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:42,280
Speaker 1: conversation with the author chet VanDuzer about his his books

1133
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 1: about the history of depictions of monsters on maps and

1134
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: um and one of the surprising things about that is

1135
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 1: if you had to guess, okay, what are the most

1136
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 1: common types of sea monsters you would imagine depicted on

1137
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:58,720
Speaker 1: a map. Uh, you would probably guess what's some kind

1138
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:02,000
Speaker 1: of like ocean drag and type thing, or maybe the

1139
01:04:02,000 --> 01:04:05,240
Speaker 1: the kraken or like a snake like sea monster. No,

1140
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 1: by far, the most common type of monster, at least

1141
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: depicted throughout the Western history of maps, is the siren.

1142
01:04:12,040 --> 01:04:14,160
Speaker 1: If you're gonna have one type of monster on there,

1143
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:16,360
Speaker 1: it's going to be a siren. And and do you

1144
01:04:16,400 --> 01:04:19,920
Speaker 1: remember if it was the the more mur folk style

1145
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: siren or the winged siren. I'm cautious to answer that

1146
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:26,640
Speaker 1: because I'm not positive, but I seem to recall representations

1147
01:04:26,680 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 1: both ways. Um, though, I guess the winged version would

1148
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 1: probably be closer to this association with weather events, Yeah,

1149
01:04:34,720 --> 01:04:37,400
Speaker 1: I would, I would think so. Yeah, they and certainly

1150
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:42,240
Speaker 1: the the the curious nature of winds and winds at sea.

1151
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:44,280
Speaker 1: And I guess that's where a lot of this comes

1152
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 1: back to, like how how do we today and how

1153
01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 1: have people throughout history thought about weather patterns, particularly destructive

1154
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 1: weather that seemed out of the normal. Uh, you know,

1155
01:04:56,080 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 1: that are unique and dangerous? How do we think about those?

1156
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 1: Are those the work of strange creatures that we can't

1157
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 1: quite understand? Are they cosmic anomalies? Might there be some

1158
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:09,120
Speaker 1: sort of magical being that would warn us if these

1159
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 1: are occurring? Is there some hero that could protect us

1160
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:15,600
Speaker 1: from them, because they could slay these monsters and return

1161
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: the world to to some sort of normality. Um, yeah,

1162
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:22,400
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating to think about. I wonder about something else,

1163
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 1: coming back to gray Man type sightings of you know,

1164
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:29,320
Speaker 1: the being that would warn you about about a coming storm.

1165
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 1: I wonder to what extent legends like that could also

1166
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:35,440
Speaker 1: sort of be going the other way in terms of

1167
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 1: our internal mental causation, meaning like how much of it

1168
01:05:39,840 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: is based in People have some kind of experience, you know,

1169
01:05:43,800 --> 01:05:46,080
Speaker 1: they see what they think is a is a spectral

1170
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:49,440
Speaker 1: figure or spirit of something or something, and they want

1171
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 1: it to mean something. They don't want to just be

1172
01:05:52,360 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 1: I saw something weird and there's no reason for it,

1173
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:59,360
Speaker 1: so they try to connect it to something significant. It's

1174
01:05:59,400 --> 01:06:03,000
Speaker 1: trying to tell me X. This means why when we

1175
01:06:03,040 --> 01:06:05,840
Speaker 1: have unusual experiences, I think it's very natural for us

1176
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:07,680
Speaker 1: to try to say no, no, no, that was not

1177
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 1: just an unusual experience. It was an indication of something.

1178
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:14,680
Speaker 1: It was somehow informative, It meant something, And it seems

1179
01:06:14,720 --> 01:06:17,800
Speaker 1: like possibly the single easiest place you could go to

1180
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: there is connecting it to external environmental events like the weather. Yeah.

1181
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:24,880
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is one reason there's so

1182
01:06:24,960 --> 01:06:27,800
Speaker 1: much weather lore where people can say, oh, you can

1183
01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 1: tell the storm's coming when I don't know when a

1184
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:32,280
Speaker 1: cow sits down at night or something like. You know,

1185
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:36,600
Speaker 1: there's a million sayings like that, and it's because weather

1186
01:06:36,760 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: is constantly changing, so there's just like constant opportunities for

1187
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:43,600
Speaker 1: you to observe one thing and then something happens with

1188
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:46,240
Speaker 1: the weather and you make a connection there, yea. And

1189
01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:48,680
Speaker 1: our mind is constantly looking for those connections. We want

1190
01:06:48,720 --> 01:06:51,360
Speaker 1: to make those connections, and often with weather, the stakes

1191
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:55,000
Speaker 1: are are enormous, particularly when we're talking about highly destructive

1192
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:58,760
Speaker 1: weather patterns. So of course we're looking for some sort

1193
01:06:58,800 --> 01:07:02,280
Speaker 1: of connection between the things we see in the world

1194
01:07:02,720 --> 01:07:06,560
Speaker 1: and what's going on in the weather. And that includes, uh,

1195
01:07:06,560 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 1: things we don't completely see, you know, or we we

1196
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:14,280
Speaker 1: we miss see, or we misinterpret or hallucinations and so forth,

1197
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:17,160
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I think that uh. One I guess

1198
01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:19,160
Speaker 1: one place I was going with that is that perhaps

1199
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:22,480
Speaker 1: that selective sort of meaning seeking whenever you have a

1200
01:07:22,520 --> 01:07:26,960
Speaker 1: strange experience could lead to a form of selective reporting

1201
01:07:27,120 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: that informs So, you know, somebody thinks they see something

1202
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:33,680
Speaker 1: weird in a photo, or thinks they see something weird

1203
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 1: on the beach, and then nothing happens the next day.

1204
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:38,880
Speaker 1: Well maybe I don't know who they really tell about that.

1205
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:41,200
Speaker 1: But if the next day the hurricane hits and you

1206
01:07:41,240 --> 01:07:45,200
Speaker 1: think you've discovered some kind of uh, informative correlation there,

1207
01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 1: you might be much more likely to tell everybody this story. Yeah,

1208
01:07:49,800 --> 01:07:51,520
Speaker 1: and and if it's not, if not the weather, then

1209
01:07:51,520 --> 01:07:54,000
Speaker 1: perhaps there's something else that occurs. You know, you see

1210
01:07:54,040 --> 01:07:57,000
Speaker 1: something strange and then the next day a monarch dies

1211
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:01,479
Speaker 1: or yeah, storm occurs or a family member grows sick.

1212
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:04,000
Speaker 1: Then you can make that connection. You'd be like, ah,

1213
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:06,400
Speaker 1: this is what that was about. It didn't happen for

1214
01:08:06,440 --> 01:08:09,560
Speaker 1: no reason. It was a warning. It was a communication.

1215
01:08:09,920 --> 01:08:11,960
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's funny because if you broughten it that

1216
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:14,720
Speaker 1: much to just like basically any significant event. I mean,

1217
01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:17,400
Speaker 1: there's always something in the news, you know, it's like

1218
01:08:17,520 --> 01:08:20,320
Speaker 1: something happens every day. Yeah, I mean, stuff happens. It

1219
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:22,240
Speaker 1: seems to happen for no reason. And if that, if

1220
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:24,240
Speaker 1: that's the case, you know you have nothing. But if

1221
01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:28,320
Speaker 1: you have ghosts, well then you have everything. Right. Very nice,

1222
01:08:28,479 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: very nice to bring it back to Rocky Well, you know,

1223
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:32,120
Speaker 1: they say the moon to the left is a part

1224
01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:33,760
Speaker 1: of my thoughts, and a part of my thoughts is

1225
01:08:33,800 --> 01:08:37,120
Speaker 1: a part of me is me? Uh so, so maybe

1226
01:08:37,120 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 1: before our fans get too long, we should cut this

1227
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:42,400
Speaker 1: episode off, all right, But of course we're going to

1228
01:08:42,479 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 1: be discussing losss of ghostly and monstrous things for the

1229
01:08:46,840 --> 01:08:49,400
Speaker 1: rest of this month, and it probably a little bit beyond.

1230
01:08:50,160 --> 01:08:53,519
Speaker 1: We're We're We're We're well into the season now, so

1231
01:08:53,600 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 1: stay tuned. It should be fun. In the meantime if

1232
01:08:56,400 --> 01:08:58,160
Speaker 1: you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff to

1233
01:08:58,200 --> 01:09:01,280
Speaker 1: blow your mind her core episodes. On Tuesday and Thursday,

1234
01:09:01,840 --> 01:09:05,320
Speaker 1: we have an artifact or a monster fact on Wednesday.

1235
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 1: Monday is a listener mail. Friday is Weird How Cinema.

1236
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:10,840
Speaker 1: That's our time to just unwind and discuss a weird film,

1237
01:09:10,880 --> 01:09:12,960
Speaker 1: and of course we have some very spooky films to

1238
01:09:13,040 --> 01:09:15,880
Speaker 1: discuss this month as well. And then on the weekend

1239
01:09:16,040 --> 01:09:18,040
Speaker 1: we do a vault episode, which is of course a

1240
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:20,840
Speaker 1: rerun from the previous year. I just want to give

1241
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:23,839
Speaker 1: a teaser that this week's episode of Weird House Cinema,

1242
01:09:23,880 --> 01:09:26,280
Speaker 1: I think is without a doubt, can be our longest

1243
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: most epic episode of all time, and uh may may

1244
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:33,360
Speaker 1: remain that way, because I don't know if it can

1245
01:09:33,360 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 1: be outdone. I wonder if it's longer than the movie itself.

1246
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:40,960
Speaker 1: I think after that happen at least once. Yeah, all right,

1247
01:09:40,960 --> 01:09:43,760
Speaker 1: we'll tune in to find out what that is huge,

1248
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:47,479
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1249
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:49,080
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1250
01:09:49,080 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1251
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:53,560
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1252
01:09:53,600 --> 01:09:56,320
Speaker 1: can email us at contact that Stuff to Blow Your

1253
01:09:56,320 --> 01:10:06,479
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

1254
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My heart Radio,

1255
01:10:09,520 --> 01:10:12,200
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1256
01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:25,400
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.