WEBVTT - Oh Goat, You Devil - Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.840 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.920 it's still October here on the Stuff to Blow Your 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.280 Mind podcast. And you may have noticed that we've been 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.360 talking a good bit about farm animals this month. That 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.240 was not by design. It just sort of happened that way. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.720 But you know, it started with discussing elf shot, which 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.800 was this folk belief about wounds inflicted off and on 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:42.440 cattle and horses by supernatural fairy weapons. Uh. And then 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.800 we talked about the cattle mutilation panic of the nineteen seventies, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.880 and all this talk about livestock actually brought me back 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.720 to a question I've wondered about in recent years, and 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.680 I'm glad we're finally getting around to devoting some episodes 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:59.520 to it. What is the deal with goats and evil incarnate? 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:05.600 Modern audiences will probably think of a particularly awesome bit 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:11.080 of goatish devilry from the historical horror film The Witch, 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.360 directed by Robert Eggers. I don't want to spoil too 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.400 much for those of you who still haven't seen it. 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.759 If you haven't it's great, but uh, let's just say 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:25.080 the movie overflow with with mega creepy goat stuff a 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:29.800 link between goats and demons and Satan himself. And of 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.759 course this link between goats and demons and occult magic 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.800 is not original to that film. There appears to be 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:40.760 a long running association between goats and beliefs about witchcraft 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.640 and devil worship, not so much in New England, where 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.680 that movie is set, but especially in continental Europe, where 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.160 the goat form was an important part of for one thing, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.960 the imagery of Baffa Met, a figure that will definitely 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.120 come back to in more detail later in this series. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.400 But I figured that I think Christians associate aided with 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.600 evil because it was allegedly worshiped by the Knights Templar 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:09.680 and later by other occultists. I think emphasis on allegedly 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.280 with that square with your understanding, Rob, Oh, yes, yes, definitely, 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.640 and well we'll touch on that later later then. And 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.680 then also you can when you start talking about occultists 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:23.359 and some of the occult usages of Baffa Met and 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.760 uh and Baffa met iconology like that breaks down a 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.160 bit as well, because you get into like, well, what 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.160 what is worshiped, and what is what is the occult? 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.639 And you can certainly go down some rabbit holes there 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.080 as well. But apart from bath met even the goat 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.400 pops up in all other kinds of continental witchcraft imagery. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.440 Some of the greatest examples that come to mind for 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:49.400 me are two similar paintings by the Spanish Romantic artist 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:54.840 Francisco Goya. The first one is a painting from called 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.760 Witches Sabbath, which depicts a coven of women gathered in 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.200 a circle around an upright he goat in the moonlight, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.760 and the goats horns are magnificently curled, as if curled 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.440 by the physical substance of evil, and they're decorated with 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.679 branches of oak leaf, and his four hoofs are outstretched 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:17.919 like the arms of a man kind of like you 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.160 you might see uh depictions of sleepwalkers with their arms 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.160 stretched out in front of them, but also almost like 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.520 a king holding out his hand so that you can 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.000 kiss his ring. And the women worshiping the goat are 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.640 offering up children for human sacrifice, and you can see 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:38.000 bats circling the moon above. It is an absolutely splendid 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.320 depiction of malignant magic and terror and I love this painting. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:44.800 This is an interesting painting because, on one hand, yes, 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:50.520 it is invoking the the the very fictional idea of 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:55.560 of witchcraft and and sacrifice that was, as we've discussed 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.360 in the show before, is very much a part of 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.720 the like the campaign against Imagine Choose and played a 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.360 huge part in witchcraft persecution of very real human beings. 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.520 On the other hand, this particular image is a lot 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.840 more chill compared to some of the various woodcuts you 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.600 see that we're used during the periods of witchcraft persecution 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.960 and drumming up, you know, fantastic ideas of Satanic worship 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.359 like this one. Aside from the offering of the children, um, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.080 and and even then the offering of the children, it 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:30.880 could be you're just holding the child up to better 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.000 see the great he goes um. Otherwise, you know, folks 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.359 are just kind of hanging about and here's the goat, 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.760 and the goat looks not particularly evil but but kind 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.320 of regal. Well, yeah, I think some of that ambiguity 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.279 might come down to what this painting was intended for, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:48.799 because I'll get back to that in just a second. 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.920 After I mentioned there's another painting, um Strangely, this one 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.719 is often known by the same title The Witches Sabbath, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.160 but with the subtitle The Great he Goat or El 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.080 Grand Cabrone. Uh. This one was finished sometime in the 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.840 early eighteen twenties, but I think it was not actually 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.840 intended for public display. I think Goya just did this 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.479 one like on a wall in his house. But in 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.200 this one, once again you've got a congregation of which 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.760 is gazing up at their goat lord in terror and awe. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.120 But now the goat is just a dark silhouette in 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.279 the foreground with horns and a little billy beard, and 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.600 his body draped in robes like a priest. As brimming 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.720 with menace, as these paintings are, I think scholars of 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.880 Goya do not typically understand these artworks as depictions of 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.680 a literal belief in witchcraft, but more kind of the 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:49.000 exact opposite, as satirical works about superstition, human brutality, and 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.520 about religious persecution. Because Goya was apparently a devotee of 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.120 the Enlightenment, and I've seen his occult paintings described as 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.400 a sort of mockery of the witchcraft trial mentality and 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.720 of the Spanish Inquisition. And the darker side of human 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.960 nature in general, because Rob, as you just reminded us, 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.960 of course, a belief in witchcraft and occult magic did 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:15.880 lead to terror, oppression, brutality, and human sacrifice, but not 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.840 so much at the hands of witches. Almost exclusively at 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.960 the hands of people who thought they were opposing witchcraft 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.560 in heresy rather than practicing it. Yeah. Yeah, and perhaps 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.280 reaching for some faint evidence of the divine themselves. Uh. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.280 This reminds me of another piece by Goya that I 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:34.600 actually actually talked about in a Monster Fact episode at 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.000 some point in the last year or so. Uh. A 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:42.400 seventeen piece titled the translation is here comes the Boogeyman 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.400 or a coco uh. And it has a robed figure 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.359 and children. There are these two children held by a 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.120 mother and the children are screaming in terror, and you know, 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.520 trying to look away from it, and the mother's gazing 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.400 up at the boogeyman almost with admiration. Uh. And it's 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.240 it's a love image that touches on some of these 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.039 elements you're talking about, because the backstory for this image 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.840 is not the Boogeyman is real, or it is more like, 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.800 look at at what parents have done by engaging in 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.880 this kind of supernatural nonsense, uh, this kind of supernatural 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:20.040 terror to control their children. Look at the world they're 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.600 helping to make through this sort of thing. And yet 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.120 I think it's funny that despite the clearly ironic intention 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.240 of these paintings, Goya was a master at creating deliciously 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:35.400 frightening monsters, uh and including these these great he goats, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.920 including the l Grand Cabrone. So the question for this 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.800 series of episodes is why, what is the deal with 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:48.160 this cultural association primarily stemming from Christian continental Europe between 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:53.360 goats and devils or goats and wickedness? And does the 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.560 thematic harmony of goat and an evil at all relate 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.760 to the biological features of the goat as an organism. Yeah, 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.880 it's a great question, because really, if your main relationship 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:11.920 with goats is via like goat satanic imagery and bapphamets 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.120 and uh, you know, you know, heavy metal like an 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.000 agraphy and so forth, you might say, oh, yeah, goats 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.679 are scary. But if you've been around goats, either goat 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:25.880 farms or various petting zoos, you know it did zoos 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.520 where children are encouraged to meet the goats and the 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.560 sheep and to pet them and groom them. You'll quickly 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.679 realize that in real life, goats aren't really scary at all. Like, 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.640 generally speaking, the scariest thing about a goat is, well, 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.319 I might step in poop, or if they're a little 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.800 revbed up, one might butt me a little bit, or 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.160 or might nibble like if I have a map hanging 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.680 out of my pocket or something. Uh, they might try 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:52.240 and eat something they're not supposed to. But for the 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:56.000 most part, yeah, the goat is is more comical and 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.439 weird and at least to my eyes, as opposed to 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.679 anything it is nefarious when you're actually experiencing them firsthand. 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:05.920 I actually had a face to face with some goats 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.120 just a few weeks ago at a at a farm 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.880 that was attached to a restaurant I went to and 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:12.640 the goats were just hanging out by the side of 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.040 the fence. So I went and uh and communed with 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.640 them a little bit, and I walked away from that thinking, yeah, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.920 goats are kind of cool. They just seemed like chill like, 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.760 kind of friendly, maybe more more of a sense of 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.720 awareness from the goats than I've gotten when I've been 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.920 around like cows, so there's a kind of curiosity or 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.280 implied intelligence, but also that they were just cool. It's 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.280 like they wanted to hang out. Yeah, they have a 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.839 lot of personality I found. I mean, you also find 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.480 something are totally zoned out in petting zos, like I've been. 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.760 I've been touched and and and combed and brushed by 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.520 children so much that I don't even register it anymore, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:53.640 that sort of thing. But but a lot a lot 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:55.400 of times, Yeah, they have a lot of love of character, 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.080 and the babies are quite cute. So uh so, Yeah, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:03.319 in in of life, I find goats to be rather harmless. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:05.800 So I think it's probably good to put some very 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.319 basic goat biology up front, and then maybe we can 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.240 come back to more specific goat science questions after we 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.200 explore more of the goat lore. So the goat for 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.199 starters there. The goat is one of humanity's oldest domesticated animals, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.719 tracing back at least to the fifth millennium b C, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:29.000 perhaps to the region of Turkestan. Goats have spread around 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:34.120 the globe with their humans since then, thriving everywhere except Antarctica. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.240 We we domesticated the goat we take the goat with us, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:42.320 and the goat tends to do really well in various environments. Yeah, 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.800 the goat is kind of rough and ready. The goat 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.400 is hardy. Uh So. The scientific name of the domestic 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.320 goat species is Capra hircus h I, R c U S, 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:57.520 with the genus Capra belonging to the bovid subfamily Capra 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.680 and I, also known as the goat antelopes. So the 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.360 taxonomy from top down goes like this. You've got the bovids, 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.400 and the bovids are all cloven, hoofed ruminant mammals. This 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:13.280 includes antelopes, cows, bison, buffalo, things like that. And then 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:18.800 the bovid subfamily Kaeperni includes an assortment of genera such 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.920 as musk, ox and sheep, various kinds of four legged 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.720 mountain critters that you would probably look at and say 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.280 that's some type of goat. And then of course the 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.760 genus Capra, which contains the true goats, with Capra haircus 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.280 the domestic goat. There are hundreds of breeds selected for 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.400 different traits, but broadly, most domestic goats are raised for 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:44.840 one of three things, either milk or meat or skins 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.440 and fiber for the coat. Uh So, when it comes 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.880 to fiber, you can think about cashmere Cashmere wool that 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.640 comes from goat breeds such as the cashmere goat, and 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.880 mohair as in electric boots and mohair suits, is made 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.360 from the wool of the angora goat. Confusingly, the wool 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.560 known as angora does not come from the angora goat, 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.200 but from rabbits. Goat milk, when especially when made into 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.560 goat cheese, can be quite amazing. Yeah, it tends to 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.000 have a friskier flavor than cow milk. Get more of 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:22.040 that grass tang in there, I think. But so okay. 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.080 Humans have been hurting domestic goats for thousands of years, 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.760 probably going back ten thousand years or so, longer than 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.760 most other domestic animal species. So how did that happen? Well, 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:37.199 domestic goats are mostly from an original wild species known 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.280 as the bees or goat or capra icagras, though there 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.240 are a few breeds that are descended from another wild 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.000 species known as the mark orps or capra falcon eerie. 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.720 The markhorps is awesome, by the way, and worth returning 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.760 to later. But I was reading one highly cited paper 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.960 investigating the evolutionary history of the goat how we got 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.560 from these wild ancestors to the domestic goat. And this 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.080 was a paper by Sayed Nadery at All published in 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.240 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in two thousand eight, 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.920 called the Goat domestication process Inferred from large scale mitochondrial 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:18.360 DNA analysis of wild and domestic individuals. So, as we know, 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.160 one of the most important turning points in the history 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.400 of the human species, probably the single most important, was 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.559 the emergence of farming, which includes both plant agriculture and 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.319 domestication of livestock, and goats were one of these early 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.440 domesticated farm animals, likely through a process where the wild 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.400 ancestor of the goat was a prey species tracked and 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.280 hunted by humans, and then at some point that hunting 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:48.280 relationship transitioned into a herding relationship, which, by the way, 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.160 fascinating to try to imagine the step by step process 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.880 of how exactly that happens. But these wild goats, the 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.960 ancestors of domestic goats, were typically a mountain dwelling specie 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.920 is that lived in relatively harsh and rocky environments and 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.160 in the woods rather than in just flat, fertile planes 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.319 full of delicious grass. And this raises an important distinction 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:16.280 for for goat biology, which is the grazing versus browsing distinction. 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.840 So you can think of ruminant mammals like sheep and 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.560 cattle as grazers. They usually prefer to eat low lying 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:30.040 vegetations such as grass, whereas goats typically prefer to browse. 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.920 So goats don't just put their heads down and eat 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:37.120 nice grass. They browse on trees and shrubs, so they 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.680 prefer to keep their heads raised up instead of down 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.960 to the earth, and they'll pick it leaves and fruits 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:47.440 and buds and twigs from higher up food sources. So 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.040 at the same time you have a particular environment invites 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.200 them to graze more or to to to to eat 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.840 more from lower down. They will do that to their 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.120 very versatile and that's one of the reasons they and 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.080 so successful. Oh yeah, they will definitely eat whatever they 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.120 can get. It's ah, but I think the distinction is 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.600 that you're not gonna typically find like cows and sheep 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:15.480 trying to browse up on variegated, higher, higher up food sources, 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.080 and goats absolutely will. That's part of their natural repertoire, right, 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.800 And it's also always amusing, you know, given their their 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:27.800 their mountainous ancestry, that anywhere you find goats will often 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.320 find them a top whatever they can get a top off, 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:36.720 be at a rock or a shed, or occasionally the 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.120 roof of a building, whatever they have access to. Goats 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.000 goats like to to get a little height so they 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.680 can see what's going on around them exactly. Yeah, you 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.680 often see the goats up on top of the chicken coop. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.000 But anyway, in the study I mentioned, by comparing DNA 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:59.400 from modern domestic goats with the modern relatives of their 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:04.000 wild and Hester's, this study zeroed in on the the 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.720 idea that the earliest version of this hurting and domestication 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.800 relationship and the emergence of the domestic goat probably took 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:17.520 place in eastern Anatolia and possibly the northern and central 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:22.920 Zagros Mountains, which a mountain range extending from eastern Turkey 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.520 down through uh Iraq and Iran. And I think it's 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.200 interesting that some of the traits still visible in domestic 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.840 goats today can be traced to this evolutionary history we're 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.040 talking about, especially if you think about uh, you know, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.520 goat bodies, goat brains, and goat behavior as adapted to 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.280 more difficult environments like woods and mountains as opposed to 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.800 plains full of green grass. Uh. And you can see 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.760 this represented in some misconceptions about goats that contain a 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.600 grain of truth. For example, if you watch old cartoons 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:56.840 and stuff, and you see a goat in the old cartoon, 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.680 what's it gonna do. It's gonna eat a tin can, right, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.960 no problem, goats just eat tin cans. Well, that's not true. Obviously, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.280 this is not real, and you should not feed metal 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.919 or any other kind of potentially dangerous garbage to a goat. 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.960 But there is a grain of truth there. It is 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:18.240 reflective of the fact that humans have long noticed goat 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:24.240 feeding behavior is more curious and adventurous and promiscuous than 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.879 the typical feeding behavior of some other familiar domestic ungulates 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.359 like sheep and cows. Yeah, and that's why many of 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.600 the places you'll find goats in the world, you'll you'll 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.880 find them often living in otherwise very urban environments, um, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.000 you know, and not concrete jungles perhaps, but but places 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.840 where yeah, there's vegetation around there in between this building 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:48.600 and that, and the goats can get to it in 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.840 ways where you probably wouldn't have a cow grazing there. Yeah, So, 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.320 being natural browsers who eat leaves of plants that would 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.040 be poisonous to other animals, wheat fruit and buds and 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.800 twigs and shoots and sometimes even tree bark, goats will 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.240 search high up in their environment for potential food sources 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.680 and will try out all kinds of things. Like other 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.320 ruminant mammals, goats break down their high fiber diet with 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.439 the help of a multi chamber digestive system where the 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.960 four got actually uses bacterial fermentation to break down the 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:27.720 rough vegetation and extract the maximum usable energy. So the 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.920 goats in their foregut they got a chamber in there 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.639 where they're making sauerkraut out of the leaves and the 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:41.520 grass and the twigs. Now we can come back to 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.600 more discussion of goat biology later, but I was thinking, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.119 if we're looking for cultural links between goats and the devil, 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.399 it might be good to look at the sort of 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.600 mythic processing of other biological features of the goat and 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.400 see what other products those features get baked into. So 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.960 one thing that that screams for attention to me, if 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:08.240 you're certainly to anyone who's familiar with Greek and Roman mythology, 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.320 is going to be the creature known as the satyr 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.159 or the fawn. Absolutely, and this is this is tremendously 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.320 important to the discussion of of goat iconography in Western 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.440 traditions and the classical use of course, uh, the idea 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:28.040 of these these goat men uh that are generally human 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.880 from the from the waist up with some goatish features 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.840 of the head and then goat like from the waist down. 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.600 And yeah, there's there's a lot of number of wonderful 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.680 works of art that have depicted these beings, and they 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.439 kind of run the gamut, like sometimes the satyr seems 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.560 kind of serene, you know, playing music in the woods 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.080 or frolicking in the woods. Other times they have a 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.640 very um uh, sinister edge to them. Other times they're 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.120 just you know, being flayed alive that sort of thing, 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.480 depending on the the artwork in question. There are numerous 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.120 specific myths and tales about satyrs where the in the end, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:11.679 the satyr suffers a humiliation or punishment or defeat of 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.640 some kind. They often just like that it doesn't turn 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.320 out great for them. Yeah, and that the flaying in particular, 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.520 that's a reference to the flaying of Marcias in which 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:26.560 the god Apollo flays this particular satyer. And yeah, it's 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.360 a it's a grotesque sequence that you'll often see depicted 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.480 in statues and paintings. So at any rate, yes, when 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.880 we're talking about the classical Greek goat man, we're talking 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.280 about the satyr. And this carries over as well into 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.679 Roman traditions of the fawn. Uh. Carol Rose, the folklore's 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.040 that often refer to, points out that the original satyrs 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.760 were depicted as human males with goat legs and horns 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.679 that represented quote, the fruitfulness of the land. Uh. So, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:54.920 I guess it's one of those things where if you 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:58.719 have satyrs frolicking about, if your environment can support satyrs, uh, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.800 then everything's every thing is going all right. Like clearly 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.280 this is an indicator of a of a very robust environment. 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.840 But the form shifts over time, as mythic bodies tend 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:10.920 to do. And at one point she writes, there's a 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.960 type of satyr that is described as having no nose 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.280 on its face and breathing instead through a big hole 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.800 in its chest. Later uh, satyr's take on the form 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:26.440 we're more familiar with human faces, pointed ears, horns, and 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.560 the lower body of a shaggy goat the upper body 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.800 of a human male. They attend their drunken leaders Silenus, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.600 and serve the god of wine, Dionysus or Bacchus. They 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.320 live in the woods. They chase nymphs around, and they 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:45.320 are known for their quote aggressive drunken sexuality, lechery, rudeness, 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.600 and love of playing pranks. So you know, to humans, 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.240 there's an unpredictability about the satyr. Uh, there's possibly a 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:59.159 danger to the satyr um and they and in this 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.520 they're also the origin of the words satire. Uh. But 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:05.200 but also in all of this, I think they nicely 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.439 sum up a lot of attitudes towards the wild. Like, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.600 the wilderness can be fun, the wilderness can be amusing 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.080 and serene, but the wilderness can be dangerous and uh. 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.640 And it may it may care nothing for you at all, 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.600 It may take interest in you, the interests that you 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.480 do not want. Now. By the medieval period, Rose writes 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.960 that they become more of a grotesque hybrid and are 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:33.600 often used to represent just pure debauchery and lust, often 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.160 depicted with erect fallacies to to drive home this point. 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.240 But at the same time it was also said that, uh, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:42.600 and of course we've've discussed this sort of thing before, 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:47.199 where there are accounts of the monsters and strange creatures 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.840 that live in distant lands. So it was also written that, oh, 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.280 if you go to Ethiopia, you will actually find satyrs. 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.159 They're difficult to catch, but they live there. The travel 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.479 guides of the ancient world were so bad, zero stars. 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:05.199 But anyway, so yeah, I was reading about satyrs and 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.080 one thing I noticed is that they were being described 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:11.600 in conflicting ways, like it seemed. Sometimes they're described as 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.840 having these goat like features and other times I read 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.880 them as having horse like features. So I was trying 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.280 to make sense of that. Uh, and I found a 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:24.760 good reference an Oxford University Press book called Classical Mythology, 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:27.120 A Guide to the mythical world the Greeks and Romans, 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:31.040 by a scholar named William Hanson. This was published in 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:36.040 two thousand five, and according to Hanson, the overriding feature 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:40.240 of of satyrs is that they're associated with the countryside. 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:43.119 Of course, so you know, the wilderness as opposed to settlements, 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:47.760 and that they are hybrid beasts. They are exclusively male, 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:50.800 they tend to be hairy, they walk upright on two legs. 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:55.560 They've got, as you said, often exaggeratedly large genitalia, and 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:59.240 they incorporate some type of be steel features, though early 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:01.960 on these teachers are the legs and tail of a 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:05.960 horse rather than a goat. That's kind of interesting. Uh 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:09.320 So some depictions lean more on the b steal elements 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.280 and others make them more just kind of like ugly 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:16.440 wild humans. But what's the deal with the horse features 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:21.800 versus goat so Hansen says that satyrs were originally horsemen 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:24.920 who again had the legs and tails of horses, but 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:29.280 over time they blend together with depictions of the god 0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:34.280 Pan who was explicitly and always a goat man. So 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:37.800