WEBVTT - Ghouls: Myth, Fiction and... Evolutionary Heritage? 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.080 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. From how stupor 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:15.640 com a man he had known in Boston, a painter 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.960 of strange pictures with a secret studio and an ancient 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.759 and unhallowed alley near a graveyard, had actually made friends 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.599 with the ghouls and had taught him to understand the 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:31.440 simpler part of their disgusting meeping and glibbering. For all 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.519 their laughter, ghouls or a doola hunger is the fire 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.400 in which they burn, and it burns hotter than the 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.839 hunger for powers over men or for knowledge of the 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:47.280 gods in a craze mortal. It vaporizes delicacy and leaves 0:00:47.360 --> 0:01:01.200 behind only a slag of anger and lust. Hey, welcome 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:02.800 to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.920 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And those were two quick readings, 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.160 the first from HP Lovecrafts The dream Quest of Unknown 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.280 Cataf and the second from Brian McNaughton's The Throne of 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.280 bones Um, available via Wildside Press. And that, by the way, 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.920 is not only one of my favorite publications that deal 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.679 with Google's, it's probably one of my favorite books of 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.120 all time. Now do you love it more than the 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:31.080 D and D Monster Manual. Well, the two different types 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.319 of reads there. I mean, I do love the Monster 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:39.759 Manual for my sort of catalog oriented monster consideration. And indeed, 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.440 girls have have long had a cherished role in the 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.639 Dungeons and Dragons setting. So what is Throwing of Bones about. 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.040 Throwing of Bones is a It's a collection of short 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.120 stories in one central novella set in a dark fantasy 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:58.920 setting that's vaguely Roman, vaguely tolkien Esque, I guess, but 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.200 but has more common with the works of say Clark, 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.440 Ashton Smith and some of the weird dark fantasy writers 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:07.800 of an earlier time. Oh, I should get into that, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.799 because I've recently discovered that I really dig Roman themes 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:16.400 in in dark literature, because on your and Christians recommendation, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.360 I read The Great God Pan, which has that that 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.600 fantastic reference to the statues from ancient Rome of the 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.120 you know, the horrific visage of the goat, the old 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.840 goat skin. Yeah. Well, one of the things I love 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.720 about mcnonton's work is that he brings this dark seriousness 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.160 of weird fiction and horror into his writing. But there's 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:42.919 also this gallows humor. There's this Uh, especially prominent with 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.600 the ghouls, because the ghoul is this creature that in 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.560 It's in the versions that I like the most. They're 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:53.680 they're gross, they're evil, they're sly, but they're also a 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.480 little mischievous. They also have this weird, black sense of 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.560 humor about them. Uh, and I feel mcnaton it really 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.320 brings that to life. Well, if you haven't figured it 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.040 out by now, we're going to be talking about Google's today, 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.280 and sadly, I think this is going to have to 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.639 be our final October podcast. It has been a great 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.160 run this month of monsters and demons and madness. We're 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:17.720 gonna have to sober up in the next episode a 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.120 little bit and get get back on track for the holidays. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.359 But yeah, it's been a fun right, Okay, So Google's. 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.880 I think these days, when the average person is presented 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.160 with the concept of a ghoule, what kind of descriptive 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.920 features are you're gonna get? I would say they'd be 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.800 very generic. I mean, what is a ghoul to us today? 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.040 It's just some kind of vaguely monstrous creature. In fact, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.360 you could even think of Google as a broader term 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.600 into which other monsters fit, like the vampire is a 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.120 type of Google. Well, the word is used that way 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.360 a lot. I have to admit that I have to 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.800 bite my tongue to keep from correcting people when someone 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.200 refers to a non Google as a Google, I want 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.400 to say, no, that's that's technically not a Google. That 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.520 is just a ghost, that is somebody in a vampire costume. 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.960 A Google is a specific thing, and you have to 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.760 use the term appropriately. Yeah, well I brought that up 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.120 specifically to provoke you. So Robert, come on, tell me 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.679 what is a gooul really? All right, So it's gonna 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.600 it's gonna vary, and we're gonna get it before we 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.560 end up at discussing actual science behind the Google. So yes, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.080 that is coming in the second half. We're going to 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.360 discuss the ancient roots and sort of the modern fictional roots. 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.919 But in most cases, you're looking at this creature that 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.640 might be unliving or maybe it's just living on the 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.520 margins of what we think of as as an actual 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.000 appropriate member of the natural world. It's very much the 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.520 monster as outsider, a motif very much so, yeah, making 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:51.440 its home graveyards and places of of of loss and death, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:56.600 and it feasts upon human remains, so it is essentially 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.960 a cannibalistic scavenger and scavin you're in the true sense, 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.680 and that it's sort of dwells at the edges of 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.920 the camp. You know, you have civilization as the encampment 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.200 where our activity dwells. You don't find the Ghoul in 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.760 the middle of the city. You find the Google trailing 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.800 behind you, feasting on what you leave behind. Right, Yeah, 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.040 I think in some cases you have Googles that are 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.080 following armies. I always love that motif and would love 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.800 to see that that that used more, especially in the 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.000 fantasy settings. You have some some sort of army going 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:29.800 out to fight a battle as they always do. Well, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.600 then surely they are camp followers and there are Googles 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.400 right behind them. Yeah, the other type of camp follower. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:38.440 But based on what we've said so far, it should 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:40.240 be clear that the concept of the Google has not 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.240 remained static over time. I mean, it's not even fully unified. Today. 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.960 You've got this generic goal and then you've got Robert's 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.400 very specific goal. How has the goule changed over time? 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.760 And where did the idea originally come from? All right, well, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.640 let's go back to the beginnings. Then if not the 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.760 beginning of the universe, because we have to look at 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:07.520 pre Islamic Arabic mythology. This mythology is so cool and 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.200 I was so delighted to read it. So our main 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.040 source on this is a paper by Ahmed al Rawi 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.320 called the Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture, and this was 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.720 a really fun read. Yes it was. This was one 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.440 of my key sources on the house stuff works article 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:26.280 how ghouls work. Um, yeah, and he gets into the 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.640 you know, just the original root of the word word 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.320 for starters, which is from the Arabic ghoule or g 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.000 h u l that may stem from Galu, which is 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.000 the name of an ancient demon correct and the galou 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.560 played a role in some of their their key literature 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.120 and mythology, one of them being the death and rebirth 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:50.200 mythology of the god Demuzi or the Demuzi is sort 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.520 of equal to Tamus, which is another god of the 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.560 ancient Middle East. But the death and rebirth mythology corresponds 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.440 to the growth and harvest cycle of food crops. So 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.200 there you can see another one of the ways that 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.440 that our mythology ties into our way of life, the 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.320 way we make a living in our and our basic 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.520 material concerns inform the stories we tell about, you know, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.200 the creation of the world and the behavior of the gods. 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.320 And and there you've got just like the crops die 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.560 every year and then are reborn later in the next 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.200 season or regrow out of you know, the dead fields 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.320 of the previous harvest. You've got the god Demuzi or 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.000 Tammuz is a vegetation god who is abducted and taken 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.960 down into the realm of death. And who is the 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:39.320 abductor of Demuzi or Tammus. It's the Galu, the demon right. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.119 And this is fascinating too, because we see the google 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.800 tied into some of our our earliest and most powerful 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.440 myths concerning the flow to seasons. Totally yeah, But following 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.640 its role in the official mythology of of ancient Babylon 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.320 and ancient Mesopotamia, you have this idea of the ghoule 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.840 emerging as more of a ground the level folklore creature. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.480 You know that that it's mentioned all in all of 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.760 the standard mythology and folk tales and superstitions of the 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.920 average person living in the Arabian Peninsula and Arabic scholars 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.640 have actually documented the way in which this monster emerged 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.640 in the thinking of the people. Yeah, Arabic scholars of 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.640 the eighth, ninth, and ten centuries, they compiled various Bedouin 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.600 folk tales involving the Gooules, and many of these found 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.200 their way into the collection The Thousand and One Nights. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.120 And this is key because translations of this book, of 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.360 course traveled to Europe in the eighteenth century, as did 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.600 the notion with the Ghoul. And this is where, as 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.920 we'll get into later, we see the google emerge in 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.560 Western culture and in the in eventually in fictional creations 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.680 of the late eighteenth century and a most importantly the 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.320 nineteenth twentieth century. Yeah, so I get the feeling it's 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.400 more the European grave ghoul that ends up becoming the 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.559 D and D monster. Yes, you do see at times, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.000 say the modern motifs kind of reaching back into into 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.640 Arabic folklore for for some additional depth. Yeah, I figured 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.440 we should mention a couple of these pre Islamic ghoul 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.480 accounts because they are fascinating. So one of the stories 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.920 that al Rawi tells in his paper is that it's 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.720 recounted according to the scholar Al Masudi, and he writes 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:30.720 the following. Arabs before Islam believed that when God created 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:35.160 genies from the gusts of fire, he made from this 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.440 type of fire their female part, but one of their 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.560 eggs was split into hince the kutrube, which looked like 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.840 a cat, was created. As for the devils, they came 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.400 from another egg and settled in the seas. Other evil 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.320 creatures such as the mariad inhabited the islands, The ghoul 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.240 resided in the wilderness, and the siloi dwelt in the 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.880 lavatories and waste areas, and the Hamma lived in the 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.360 air in the form of a flying snake. So these 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.320 are some awesome monsters that are being described here. I 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.600 love the idea of a lavatory and waste area monster. Yeah, 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.520 because that's again it's a it's a wonderful place for 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.400 a haunting. That's a wonderful borderland. Right. Well, it's a 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.560 place where you're vulnerable and usually where you're isolated, right 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.640 where do you have to go off by yourself? Yeah, 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.839 and that's where you might encounter the supernatural. Um But then, 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.800 of course there is another source that says that quote 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.920 the devils wanted to eavesdrop on heaven, so God threw 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.400 meteors at them, where upon some were burnt, fell into 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.160 the sea and later turned into crocodiles, while others dropped 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.840 onto the ground and changed into ghouls. So there you've 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.439 got a ghoule origin and a crocodile origin at the 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.800 same time. They're essentially siblings. Um and plenty of the 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.640 other stories also depict the ghoul as a shape shifter 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.720 that's able to disguise its appearance. Uh. This appears to 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.680 be a common feature. Other common features are that the 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:07.640 traditional Arabic goal is often female in appearance. And I 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.200 thought this was interesting. It can be killed with a 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.240 good chop from a sword, and if I'm reading this right, 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.640 it sort of makes it different from the vampire, the werewolf, 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.880 and these other monsters which can often only be killed 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.280 through magically appropriate means, like you have to have the 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.720 you know, the one magic bullet that is known to 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.360 kill the monster, as a silver holy water stake through 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.960 the heart or or whatever it is for that monster. Individually, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.920 the ghoul can be killed by violence, but it does 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.520 have to be a very mighty and strategic form of violence. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.560 Because an interesting development on the myth is that, according 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:48.640 to some versions, the ghoul would only die if you 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:52.720 hit it with one mighty blow with a sword, because 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.760 if you hit it more than once, then you would 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.559 have to hit it a thousand times more before it 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.600 would die. Yeah, that's so you had to time your 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:04.600 one strike, you know, you had to get the one 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.240 really good one in. Well, that could I could see 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.679 that making sense in terms of the creature. You sort 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.240 of have to get that surprise hit in. You've got 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.240 to get that. To put in D n D terms, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.240 you have to get that that that surprise attack bonus, right, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.360 and if you don't, then you're gonna have to apply 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.240 a lot of smaller attacks to win. I've also read 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.360 and this would of course be post uh Islamic interpretations, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.120 but in these interpretations you could also at least drive 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.280 a ghoul away with readings from the Koran. Yeah, that 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.680 definitely comes up later where you can use the holy 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.000 or spiritual power of of a of a good spiritual 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.040 force by like saying the name of Allah or by 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.040 quoting from the Koran, and that will tend to drive 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.679 it into remission. Essentially, it will say, no, why do 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.920 you do this to me? But you can also whack 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:52.720 it with the sword as long as you whack it 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:58.319 really good. Just once. Now, speaking of Islamic traditions, you're 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.079 probably wondering, what did Mohammed have to say about Google's. Well, 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.320 Mohammed's words on the existence of gules vary depending on 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.439 which text you read, So the Koran does not mention 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.520 them at all. That's important to stress here that the 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.680 Koran does mention gin but not not ghoules. Yes, but 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.839 contested references do pop up in the head Ether that's 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.160 a book of mohammed attributed acts and sayings. Yeah, so 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:26.880 they're they're definitely conflicting bits of scholarship about what Mohammed 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.680 had to say about ghouls if anything, But to quote, 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.360 I'll RAWI again on the people who do say that 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.640 the prophet had something to say about ghouls. What he 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.120 said was quote, Ghouls are the demons or enchantresses of 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.680 genies that hurt human beings by eating or spoiling their 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.600 food or by frightening travelers when they're in the wilderness, 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.040 and in order to avoid their harm, one can recite 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.960 a verse from the Holy Koran or call for prayer. 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.120 Since they hate any reference to God. And that first 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.960 part mentioned something about the wilderness. This is something that 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.760 pops up again in in in the literature about the 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.840 about the ghouls that you know, these ancient ghoul folk tales, 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.880 is you don't expect to encounter them in the middle 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.840 of civilization there. You encounter them on the road in 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:16.080 the wilderness between places there, in that intermediary world. I 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.640 like to how this mentions um eating and spoiling of food. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:25.120 It's tied uh inherently to our survival via consumption of 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.360 food and the potential violation of that food, and and 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.080 and just into general um ideas of purity and cleanliness 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.040 in our food. Yeah. Well, I mean, you certainly don't 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.400 want something that eats corpse flesh getting into your pantry, right, Yeah, 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:42.920 they're just going to tear it out in there, obviously. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.360 But you may have noticed that so far there hasn't 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.880 been a whole lot, if anything, about the eating of 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.440 corpse flesh. That's right, And that's something that we'll get 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.880 into in a bit now. In some accounts, Mohammed dismisses 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.720 ghoules as completely non existent, and others he gives advice 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.040 on banishing them. His companion, though abou Asad al Sadi 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.160 takes a more balanced approach, and he states that ghoules 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.280 lived in the pre Islamic past, but that Allah no 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.680 longer permits them to exist. Meanwhile, there's also a legend 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.920 that Umar been All caught him another of Mohammed's companions, 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.560 put a google to the sword on the road to Syria. Yeah, 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.960 this was great. So the story goes a female ghoul 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.400 stops him on the road and asks him where are 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.120 you going? And Umar says it is none of her business. 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.360 And then she does the move from the Exorcist where 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.360 she turns her head all the way around. That's really 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:37.560 part of the story. It said that. Uh, and then 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:39.680 he splits her down the middle with the sword. Alright, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.640 so single I'm guessing single blow there, right, he does it, right, 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:44.560 He hits her with the one blow. But then later 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.120 he comes back and the body is gone. H So 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.040 either she survived or the other ghoules came and took 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:56.400 her body away, or more some sort of magical disappearance. Yeah. So, 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.840 so if we consider the google that eats human flesh 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.080 kind of perversion of the idea of corpse cannibalism, what 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.200 is the ghoul that eats ghoul flesh. It's like meta cannibalism. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.600 I mean, and it certainly ties in with with how 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.800 we see scavengers, the hate towards their own sometimes. And 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.680 that's that's key here, because although ghouls were sometimes associated 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.920 with scavenging hyenas in a in Arabic test, they really 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.280 don't have this grave ghoul association where they're going to 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.440 come and take your dead loved ones from the graveyard 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.320 after the funeral and eat their corpses. Yeah. This particular detail, 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.479 according to al Rawi, seems to emerge from Anton Glan's 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.280 French translation of The Thousand and One Nights in the 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.920 early eighteenth century. So not only did Ghalan take liberties 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.360 in his translation, he even introduced and allegedly created a 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:51.160 female character named Amina who prefers the company of graveyard 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.040 ghouls to that of her new husband. Yeah. So this 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.000 and you can see this definitely appealing to some of 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.640 the Gothics sensibilities of the time in Europe. Right, But 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.359 this inaccurate translation was hugely influential in the Western world 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.480 and and in you know, informing their the Western worlds 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.000 understanding of the Middle East, so inspiring the work of 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:16.120 William Beckford, the eighteenth century author of the Arabian theme 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.400 novel Vfic, and the folkloric studies of of another individual 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.840 named Sabine Baring Gould. So we see. So that's interesting, 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.439 and you have this rich tradition of ghouls within in 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:33.119 the Arabic traditions, just some wonderful details. They're already a 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.400 fabulous creature. But then it gets tweaked a little bit, 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:41.639 either in you know, mistranslation or creative embellishment of the 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:47.480 myth as it translates into European um fiction and folklore 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.200 and European understandings of the Middle East. Yeah, it's fascinating, 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.119 this evolution of the ghoul meme because if you trace 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.280 the ancient pre Islamic Arabic ghoul up through the way 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.520 the grave ghoul comes to be under stood in European culture. 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.600 What's the common thread there? I mean, you've seen the 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.159 evolution basically of a word, the word ghoul, But is 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.760 there a common thematic element that remains the same throughout 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.120 it despite just general monstrousness or malevolence. Yeah, I think 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.520 it works like I feel like that the google as 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.040 we have seen it and discussed it in in pre 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.919 European traditions. I feel like it's able to take on 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:30.320 the mantle of of corpse eating rather rather honestly like 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.679 it adds another dimension to it and certainly tweaks it 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.439 in a new direction, but not in a direction that 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.239 feels out of character with its origins. Okay, I can 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.680 accept that. Now, if we look elsewhere in the world, 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.199 do we find myths of creatures that are similar to 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.679 the ghoul we do? Uh? Yeah, It's definitely worth noting 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.960 that even if the original Arabic ghouls didn't eat corpses, 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.879 they have peers in Asian folk tales that do so. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.440 In the Tamil mythology of India, they have the shaggy 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.440 haired creatures known as the pay, who sought out human 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.560 battle so as to lap blood from the open wounds 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.000 of the dying um. Still, other ghoules emerge in the 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.320 eighth century. In the eighth century Tibetan Book of the Dead, 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.760 which details the Buddhist journey through death and into the 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:27.679 realms beyond death via reincarnation. Um Here, in the dream 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:32.439 like state known as Bardo, the departed soul encounters that 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.360 the the Pisachi ghouls and These are fierce female beings 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.600 with be steel heads and an appetite for bones and viscera. Wow, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.000 that's interesting. Now, another thing that we see commonly here 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.880 is that in these early visions, the ghouls are very 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.679 often female, like explicitly described as female and appearance, whereas 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:53.880 the ghouls that I think we think of today tend 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:59.320 to be either sort of um androgynous, tending toward masculine, 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:03.000 or or fully male. Yeah. Yeah, I think there is 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:07.000 a definite tendency to to generate a masculine idea of 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.520 the ghoule in Western culture, though though some of my 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:15.280 favorite books on the matter have definitely have female ghoules. Now, 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.840 in the conclusion of his article uh al Rawi, he 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.280 says that the ghouls may have been inspired just by, 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.520 you know, things that people actually did encounter in reality, 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.159 like people with various birth defects. Yeah, particularly things like 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.960 cleft palate, cleft lip, distortions of the mouth and in 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:38.639 facial features you know, which sadly do um can and 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.439 do interfere in our interpretation of of a of an 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.359 individual substance. Yeah, I think this is a common feature 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.879 you see in the origins of monster legends. This is 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:52.439 often hypothesized that we would just see someone that uh 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.879 that had you know, some kind of atypical way of looking, 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.399 and that we would interpret that as well, you know, 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.480 this person is cursed or evil or there there's something 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:05.480 wrong with them. They didn't have the light of modern 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.000 medical science to just say no, they're a person like 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.400 anybody else. Yeah, very much in keeping with the changeling 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.480 traditions that you find in Europe. Right that surely that 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.080 this year your actual child was taken away by fair 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.600 is and this is the goblin that's left in in 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.359 its place. Yeah. Now, on top of that, Victorian adventure 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.119 and Middle Eastern scholar and just all around fascinating individual, 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.920 Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, uh He explained the Arabic 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.359 ghoul as a mythical creature that embodies human fears and 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:40.080 tapoos concerning graveyards check, desert wastes check and cannibalism and 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.840 specifically survival cannibalism. If we were to tie it into 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.480 other myth cycles that such as the wind to Go, 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.320 that did definitely have such a strong resident place in 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.080 uh in the Native peoples of North America, because it's 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.520 tied with that fear of survival, cannibalism as an a 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.480 as a possible necessity during winters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:06.600 can see a very strong sort of theme emerging, which 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.560 is that all of these disparate things are sort of 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.959 united by the sense that they're playing on fears of 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:17.800 the periphery, the edges, the outside, and the taboo as 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:24.000 as many monsters do. So. As previously mentioned, thousand and 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.440 one Night serves as this cultural bridge, and it's kind 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.840 of a slightly distorted cultural bridge by which Middle Eastern 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.679 ghoules migrate into Western fictional traditions. And in addition to 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.800 the above examples, in the original Arabic text, the ghouls 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.119 of thousand and one Nights are also vile tricksters and 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:46.160 depending on again those translations, they may be flesh eaters. 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:50.119 They kidnapped victims, They lure lust wulm into their doom 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.600 by taking on the guys of beautiful women. Again, that 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.640 shape shifting motif. Yeah, that's a common thing you see 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:57.960 in the Arabic stories, is that there's a like a 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:00.960 female ghoul hanging out by the road and calling men 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.760 to come over and see her. Yeah, and over, come 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.200 over and see me. Sometime in deserts, and of course 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:10.119 that's a wonderful uh, a classic monster trope that we 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.640 continue to play with today. Um. But then of course 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:15.760 also sometimes they break into your storerooms and they much 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.840 on your dates, right, I think that's what Mohammed was mentioning. Yeah. 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.360 But some of the key early adapters, if you will, 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:28.200 to Golden were po Lord Byron and hands Christian Anderson. Yeah, 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.960 they all made mention of ghouls um in the in 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:34.680 the nineteenth century and their writings. What what did Hans 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:38.280 Christian Anderson write about ghouls? Um? It's just in one 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:40.480