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Speaker 1: Hey, you, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, and we have

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Speaker 1: for you today of alt episode The hearth Part two

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Speaker 1: of two, originally published twelve nineteen, twenty twenty four. This

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Speaker 1: is the continuation of our look at the importance of

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Speaker 1: the fireplace in the hearthstone in human culture, psychology, and myth.

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Speaker 1: So let us gather around its gentle warm glow.

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Speaker 2: Here here is certitude you swore below this lightning blasted tree,

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Speaker 2: where once it strikes, it strikes no more fool. And

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Speaker 2: you sang, Here is a three, And in this three

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Speaker 2: love lies unshaken as now, so must it always be.

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Speaker 2: You sang, with harsh notes, to awaken that ancient toad

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Speaker 2: who sits and mirrored within your hearthstone light forsaken. He

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Speaker 2: knows that limits long endured must open out in vanity,

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Speaker 2: that gates by bolts of gold secured must open out

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Speaker 2: in vanity.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we are back

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Speaker 2: with part two in our series on the Fireplace and

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Speaker 2: the hearth that reading at the opening was an excerpt

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Speaker 2: from not the whole poem, but an excerpt from a

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Speaker 2: poem called Essay on Knowledge by the poet Robert Graves,

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Speaker 2: the author of I Claudius, or as some might call it, Iclavdivs.

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Speaker 2: And so this poem, we were a little confused because Rob,

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Speaker 2: you dug this up, and I'd never read it before,

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Speaker 2: but I really liked it. But we were confused because

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Speaker 2: we were finding multiple versions of the same poem. And

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Speaker 2: it turns out that's not an error. There actually are

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Speaker 2: multiple versions of this poem. So it's kind of like

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Speaker 2: with some of these Walt Whitman poems, where like, you know,

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Speaker 2: he published multiple drafts of the same work. That's going

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Speaker 2: on here. Graves published an early version of the poem

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Speaker 2: called Essay on Knowledge, and then a later one called Vanity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's I mean, it's really getting into some

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind territory, because not only do

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Speaker 1: we have a hearthstone with an ancient toad beneath it,

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Speaker 1: we also have a lightning blasted tree.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an unintended resonance there. But as I said,

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Speaker 2: I'd never read this before. I really love it now.

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Speaker 2: It seems to describe the poet's internal struggle between reason

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Speaker 2: and passion. So he's characterizing half of his soul as

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Speaker 2: a kind of unflappable scholar aspiring to aloof rationality, that

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Speaker 2: part of himself attached to the day side kingdom of

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Speaker 2: Christendom and the Enlightenment. And then the other part of

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Speaker 2: him hidden underneath this thonyan pagan dragon of weird emotion, emotion, lust,

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Speaker 2: and magic, I think are the themes of the suppressed part.

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Speaker 2: In fact, we didn't quote this part of the poem,

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Speaker 2: but in an earlier stanza he refers to it as

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Speaker 2: a dragon, and the balance of the poem seems to

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Speaker 2: suggest that as much as the rationality of civilization tries

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Speaker 2: to rule over the self, the dragon of lust and

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Speaker 2: emotion and passion will inevitably at some point be unleashed

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Speaker 2: from his tomb and reign again.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, he's saying, I really want to be a

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Speaker 1: good Christian scholar, dude, but somebody buried this pagan psychomania

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Speaker 1: frog underneath my hearth and there's nothing I can do

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Speaker 1: about it.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, the focal lines for us are interesting because

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Speaker 2: when I first read the poem. You know, I thought

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Speaker 2: that it was supposed to be the speaker's suppressed emotion

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Speaker 2: and carnal desire that were embodied as that ancient toad

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Speaker 2: who sits and mirrored within your hearthstone light forsaken. In

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Speaker 2: other words, I took the toad as another form of

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Speaker 2: the pagan dragon. However, I was reading an essay about

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Speaker 2: Graves called Philosophical Speculations, mock Beggar Hall, Welchman's Hose and

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Speaker 2: Poetic Unreason by a critic named Patrick Quinn. Not otherwise

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Speaker 2: familiar with this critic, but Quinn writes about this part

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Speaker 2: of the poem that quote the cries awaken only an

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Speaker 2: ancient toad symbol of the philosophic awareness of the Apollonian

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Speaker 2: and Dionysian duality in man's nature, referring to that division

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Speaker 2: between the sort of Apollonian reason and Dionysian passion that

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Speaker 2: is discussed in Plato's dialogue The Feedrus. But anyway, so

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Speaker 2: you get that line after that in the poem, where

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Speaker 2: Graves says he knows the limits long endured must open

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Speaker 2: out in vanity, and the he in that line seems

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Speaker 2: to be the toad. So if Quinn is correct, the

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Speaker 2: toad is not the dragon of passion and emotion, not

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Speaker 2: that Dionysian half of the struggle, but in dead the

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Speaker 2: sage who observes and describes the struggle to us, the

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Speaker 2: toad immurred beneath the hearth is Socrates. But anyway, this

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Speaker 2: line kind of reminds me of that thing. So like,

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Speaker 2: the toad is buried beneath the hearthstone, and it reminds

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Speaker 2: me of the thing we talked about in the previous

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Speaker 2: episode of the void buried amulets, where you know, by

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Speaker 2: symbolic law of contagion that now means Socrates is a

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Speaker 2: witch bottle full of urine.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and later on in the episode we'll get back

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Speaker 1: to some things buried under the hearthstone and there will

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Speaker 1: be toads.

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Speaker 2: Now. To recap a bit about the previous episode, if

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Speaker 2: you haven't heard it, I would recommend going back and

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Speaker 2: checking that out first. But in part one of the series,

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Speaker 2: we talked about what interior fireplaces mean to us culturally

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Speaker 2: by looking at the characteristics of hearthfire simulations such as

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Speaker 2: the Assorted Fireplace for your Home style media offerings that

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Speaker 2: have become very popular as ambient streaming video in recent years,

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Speaker 2: including with we talked about some kind of burn barrel

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Speaker 2: for your home linked to some dystopian movie, and also

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Speaker 2: your witcher fireplace beloved in your house, Rob.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't know if I mentioned this one,

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Speaker 1: but there's a squid Game one. Now. Did I mention

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Speaker 1: that in the last episode.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned just finding out about it?

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, I haven't watched it yet, but

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Speaker 1: I'm excited. This is the most exciting thing I know

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Speaker 1: about on Netflix. Is this squid Game fireplace? Yeah? I

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Speaker 1: may fire it up tonight.

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Speaker 2: Nice. But also in the last episode, we talked briefly

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Speaker 2: about research into the prehistory of humans and our close

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Speaker 2: hominin relatives, how our relationship too and then control of

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Speaker 2: fire probably developed over the last couple of million years,

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Speaker 2: and how fire fundamentally changed so much about human life,

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Speaker 2: from nutrition to technology to our relationship with the climate

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Speaker 2: and with wildlife. After this, we talked about how a

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Speaker 2: modern domestic fireplace is usually constructed and how it works, or,

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Speaker 2: depending on your emphasis, how it doesn't work given it's

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Speaker 2: massive inefficiency as a heat source for the home. Estimates vary,

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Speaker 2: but something like eighty or ninety percent of the heat

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Speaker 2: put out by a standard wood fire is lost just

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Speaker 2: straight up the chimney and goes right out the flu

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Speaker 2: And depending on the design, a wood fireplace can sometimes

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Speaker 2: even make a house colder overall, even though it heats

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Speaker 2: up one room, you know, makes one room nice and toasty,

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Speaker 2: but freezes out the rest of the house. We discussed

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Speaker 2: the mechanics of that in Part one, and of course

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Speaker 2: all of this material energy analysis is useful to know,

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Speaker 2: but it's not going to make hearthfire any less beautiful

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Speaker 2: or attractive or magical to us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, as well as deeply nostalgic and comforting. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: connecting with something very primal when we view a fireplace. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And on that note, finally, in the last episode, we

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Speaker 2: talked about the idea of the fireplace and its a

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Speaker 2: connected ventilation system as a portal for magical entrances and

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Speaker 2: exits in many full beliefs, as a sort of for

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Speaker 2: one thing, I sort of transporter platform to the gods,

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Speaker 2: but beyond that, as a weak spot in the homes

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Speaker 2: defense against spells and witchcraft. And this led to interesting

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Speaker 2: examples of apotropaic magic associated with the hearth So thinking

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Speaker 2: of the fireplace as a gap in the armor that

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Speaker 2: had to be protected, perhaps by witch traps or other

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Speaker 2: magically potent items, maybe shoes. Yeah. Now, in the last episode,

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Speaker 2: one idea that I mentioned briefly and said I would

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Speaker 2: come back to today was about the idea of domestic

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Speaker 2: hearth fire and the nature of the light it provides.

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Speaker 2: When you think about it, firelight is different both in

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Speaker 2: quantity of light produced and in quality from daylight, and

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Speaker 2: that fact should not be overlooked when understanding the role

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Speaker 2: of fire in culture, especially if it is the primary

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Speaker 2: or the only source of artificial light, but even in

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Speaker 2: cases where you're just sort of optionally choosing to have

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Speaker 2: a room lit by a fire. And this brings me

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Speaker 2: to an interesting paper I came across about a less material,

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Speaker 2: less economic, but probably no less important way that control

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Speaker 2: of fire may have altered human culture all over the

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Speaker 2: world in prehistory. So this paper was by a scholar

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Speaker 2: named Polly Weissner, who is an anthropology professor at the

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Speaker 2: University of Utah, and it is called Imbers of Society

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Speaker 2: Firelight Talk among the Jutuan ce Bushmen, published in Proceedings

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Speaker 2: of the National Academy of Sciences twenty fourteen, and so

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Speaker 2: the author here, Weisner, acknowledges that there has been a

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Speaker 2: lot of research on how the human control of fire

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Speaker 2: may have affected lots of things about us, may have

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Speaker 2: affected our physical evolution and anatomy. This again is a

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Speaker 2: reference to the interesting but not completely proven cooking hypothesis,

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Speaker 2: which we talked about a bit in the last episode.

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Speaker 2: And there's no doubt that it has affected our technology

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Speaker 2: and the design of our social and living spaces. But

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Speaker 2: then Licener writes, quote, However, little is known about what

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Speaker 2: transpired when firelight extended the day, creating effective time for

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Speaker 2: social activities that did not conflict with productive time for

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Speaker 2: subsistence activities. And I thought this was so interesting. So

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Speaker 2: this sort of acknowledges that while fire can extend the

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Speaker 2: amount of time in the day in which you can

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Speaker 2: stay awake and stay awake and conduct some activities, the

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Speaker 2: light of a campfire is not sufficient to illuminate the

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Speaker 2: majority of subsistence activities, like the main economic duties of survival,

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Speaker 2: such as gathering and processing food. So when there's firelight,

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Speaker 2: there is enough light that it gives you time to

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Speaker 2: be awake and to see each other and to interact,

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Speaker 2: But not really good enough light to do much useful work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and again this is something that we so easily

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Speaker 1: take for granted in our so easily illuminated world. I know,

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Speaker 1: just for my own part, my immediate neighbors usually don't

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Speaker 1: have their backyard floodlights on during the night. But if

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Speaker 1: they do come on in the night, or they're left

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Speaker 1: on during the night by accident, I'll sometimes notice that.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think I could read a book here

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Speaker 1: in my bedroom at three in the morning, Like it's

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Speaker 1: entirely possible based on the ampient illumination provided by their floodlights.

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Speaker 1: And you know, that's just acc at that level of

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Speaker 1: accidental illumination was just not something you had for the

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Speaker 1: majority of human history.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that highlights how, of course, firelight is different

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Speaker 2: from daylight, but electrical light is different once again from firelight.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, how does the availability of this different kind of

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Speaker 2: time in the day change a culture or in the

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Speaker 2: author's words, did firelight quote simply give more time or

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Speaker 2: did it create a qualitatively different time and space? So

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Speaker 2: Weisner offers several potential observations and ideas in the introductory section.

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Speaker 2: One is that the sort of different climate or weather

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Speaker 2: conditions during the night time, which is during which activities

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Speaker 2: can be extended by firelight kind of leads to some

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Speaker 2: different social dynamics. For example, during hot seasons, air cools

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Speaker 2: after sunset, but if you can have firelight, you can

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Speaker 2: still see each other after it gets dark, and people

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Speaker 2: can release pent up energy, you know, maybe dancing or

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Speaker 2: interacting socially in various ways. Meanwhile, during cold seasons, of

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Speaker 2: course the fire is useful for warmth, and people will

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Speaker 2: tend to huddle near the fire warmth. It kind of

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Speaker 2: has this gathering effect like we talked about with fires

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Speaker 2: even inside the home. She also says that fireside gatherings

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Speaker 2: are sometimes, though not always, characterized by social mixing, so

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Speaker 2: mixing of the sexes, mixing of people of different age

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Speaker 2: groups who might spend much of the economically productive part

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Speaker 2: of the day segregated. And then another thing she said,

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Speaker 2: I thought this was very interesting quote. The moon and

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Speaker 2: Starlit skies awaken imagination of the supernatural as well as

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Speaker 2: a sense of vulnerability too. Malevolent spirits, predators and antagonists

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Speaker 2: countered by security in numbers. So the argument here is

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Speaker 2: that nighttime is a time of the imagination for possibilities,

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Speaker 2: both good and bad. It kind of expands that the

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Speaker 2: possibilities that you envision. You might think about the gods

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Speaker 2: or of powers beyond the normal, but you can also

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Speaker 2: think about dangers lying beyond the firelight in the dark.

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Speaker 2: So the light that keeps you up at night keeps

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Speaker 2: you aware and active during this imagination rich time of

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Speaker 2: the day. Another thing she says, I thought was very

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Speaker 2: interesting quote body language is dimmed by firelight, and awareness

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Speaker 2: of self and others is reduced. Facial expressions flickering with

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Speaker 2: the flames are either softened or, in the cases of

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Speaker 2: fear and anguish, accentuated. And I'm not sure I've ever

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Speaker 2: considered this before, but I think that's absolutely right. Different

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Speaker 2: light environments change how we look and thus change what

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Speaker 2: kinds of emotional expression we are sensitive to or that

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Speaker 2: we're aware of other people being sensitive to in us,

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Speaker 2: and I think this could be a reason that we

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Speaker 2: associate like a romantic evening with candle light as opposed

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Speaker 2: to with like really bright lights. I don't you know,

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Speaker 2: there could be multiple reasons for that, but I don't

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Speaker 2: have proof of this, but I think it's quite plausible

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Speaker 2: that fire based light decreases our ability to register body

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Speaker 2: language and facial expressions that would normally cause us social anxiety,

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Speaker 2: both because of our constant tracking of these signals in

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Speaker 2: others and because of our awareness and regulation of it

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Speaker 2: in ourselves, our awareness of being observed. In other words,

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Speaker 2: firelight could be a naturally socially disinhibiting environment. Does that

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Speaker 2: make sense?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it does, because there is a huge difference between

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Speaker 1: you know, of course, stark daylight anywhere anything from stark

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Speaker 1: daylight all the way towards dusk and absolute darkness. We're

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Speaker 1: talking about a world in between where the illumination is

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Speaker 1: not harsh, but is atmospheric and can certainly have this

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Speaker 1: sort of emotional vibe to it. Yeah, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like did sexy times exist? Didn't romance exist

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Speaker 1: before firelight? I mean it did that, you know in

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Speaker 1: the way that we're thinking about it. You know, candle

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Speaker 1: at dinner and so forth, or any romantic scene you've

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Speaker 1: ever seen in a motion picture, you know it probably

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Speaker 1: takes place in some sort of a lighting environment like this. Well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously the romantic example is just one type

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Speaker 2: of scenario where we want to be socially disinhibited where

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Speaker 2: we want like our social anxieties and our fear of

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Speaker 2: being perceived to be reduced. I think that's also the

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Speaker 2: case more in just general social interactions, where we want

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Speaker 2: to be like, you know, bonding with people and trying

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Speaker 2: to build up good relationships and so forth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, on the other hand, here the author says

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Speaker 2: that overt expressions of fear and anguish could in some

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Speaker 2: cases be accentuated by firelight, and you can imagine that

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Speaker 2: being powerful as well for sort of capturing the capturing

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Speaker 2: of attention with storytelling or ritual.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I can't help but think about the fact that a

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Speaker 1: central fire, be it in a fireplace or a campfire,

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Speaker 1: or even just a lantern that people are gathered around,

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Speaker 1: it becomes the focal point. It becomes the thing you

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Speaker 1: look at. And on one hand, yeah, you're not looking

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Speaker 1: necessarily looking directly in people's faces while you're talking to them.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of getting into that whole zone where like

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Speaker 1: sometimes you know, a parent and their child can have

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Speaker 1: a more intense conversation whilst the parent is driving a car,

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Speaker 1: you know, because it's like eyes forward. We can kind

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Speaker 1: of have this slightly disconnected but deep personal conversation. And

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Speaker 1: then likewise, if everybody staring at the fire, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like, yeah, attention is on the flames, but we

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Speaker 1: can still have this close conversation but without looking each

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Speaker 1: other dead in the eyes, and then the flames can

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Speaker 1: also kind of become the almost kind of like the

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Speaker 1: primordial television set where the telling of tales and the

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Speaker 1: invocation of wild concepts and imagined realities.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a really good observation. I didn't think

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Speaker 2: about the comparison to the car or to the TV,

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Speaker 2: but yes, totally. Now there's another interesting general observation Weisner

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Speaker 2: makes in the introductory section, which is quote, whereas time

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Speaker 2: structures interactions by day because of economic exigencies, by night,

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Speaker 2: social interactions structure time and often continue until relationships are right.

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Speaker 2: And she summarizes this by saying that people in hunter

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Speaker 2: gatherer societies, they tend to focus interactions on efficiency during

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Speaker 2: the daytime and effectiveness during the night time. So during

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Speaker 2: the day we need to get this problem resolved quickly

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Speaker 2: so we can move on with what we're doing, whereas

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Speaker 2: at night we can address this until it's fixed. And

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Speaker 2: so the author here says that her goal is to

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Speaker 2: investigate how firelit time is used to achieve three things,

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Speaker 2: and this is, in the author's words, the first thing

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Speaker 2: is a more accurate understanding of the thoughts and emotions

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Speaker 2: of others, particularly those not immediately present. Second, bonding within

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Speaker 2: and between groups, and third the generation, regulation and transmission

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Speaker 2: of cultural institutions. So, in order to investigate the role

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Speaker 2: of firelight and creating productive space for these goals, the

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Speaker 2: author analyzed and quantified the differences in daytime and then

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Speaker 2: firelit nighttime conversation topics among the jutwan people of Southern Africa.

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Speaker 2: And so she is working mainly from a sample of

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Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy four memorialized conversations that took place

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Speaker 2: in among a group of people in northern Botswana in

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, and then this was supplemented with subsequent

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Speaker 2: visits and re recordings of some stories. And then also

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Speaker 2: the analysis of this direct sampling of Jutwanzi conversations and

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Speaker 2: activities was supplemented by a survey of written translated texts

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Speaker 2: on day night differences in conversation topics in other cultures.

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Speaker 2: Now the author is clear about the limitations of this

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Speaker 2: kind of research, because it's very important to remember when

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Speaker 2: you're looking at anthropology studies of this kind. Studying the

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Speaker 2: habits of one culture does not necessarily tell you how

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Speaker 2: another culture in some overlapping circumstances will function. So if

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Speaker 2: you see a behavior among one group of hunter gatherers today,

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Speaker 2: that does not give you certainty that all prehistoric hunter

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Speaker 2: gatherers did the same thing. In fact, you don't even

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Speaker 2: know that other hunter gatherer groups in the modern world

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Speaker 2: do the same thing. In fact, it doesn't even show

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Speaker 2: you that the exact same group of people would keep

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Speaker 2: doing the same thing at a different time. And in

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Speaker 2: the case of the Jutwan people, the paper notes that

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Speaker 2: for many of them, the structure of life has changed

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Speaker 2: significantly since the mid nineteen seventies, around the time when

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Speaker 2: these conversations were initially recorded, with many people settling more

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Speaker 2: into more permanent villages with a more mixed economy, some

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Speaker 2: traditional subsistence foraging, but also wage labor and selling crafts

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Speaker 2: and things like that. But still, this kind of cultural

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Speaker 2: observation does tell you something. It doesn't show you how

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Speaker 2: it always is, but it does show you with certainty

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Speaker 2: one way it can be. So it's important to understand

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Speaker 2: the strengths and the weaknesses of this kind of anthropological research.

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Speaker 2: Studying one culture doesn't prove universal patterns, but it does

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Speaker 2: establish a precedent something you can see. Okay, here's one

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Speaker 2: way it could work. So coming back to the question

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Speaker 2: the author was trying to figure out here, does firelight

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Speaker 2: simply give us more time or does it create a

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Speaker 2: different type of time and space? And in the specific

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Speaker 2: case of the people observed here, the author found some

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Speaker 2: strong differences in what people talked about during the day

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Speaker 2: versus after sunset when the illumination was based on fire.

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Speaker 2: So the author said that daytime conversations strongly centered around

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Speaker 2: economic matters, meaning things having to do with work, so

359
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,439
Speaker 2: the acquisition of food through hunting and foraging, plans for

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Speaker 2: the acquisition of food, resource availability, conversations about technology. All

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Speaker 2: of this economic talk about work represented about thirty one

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Speaker 2: percent of the daytime talk that was sampled. Another thirty

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Speaker 2: four percent of the daytime conversation sampled was what the

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Speaker 2: author calls quote, verbal criticism, complaint, and conflict, and this

365
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Speaker 2: basically covers all talk that is designed to regulate social

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Speaker 2: relationships and hash out personal disputes, and a lot of

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Speaker 2: this seems to be based on maintaining egalitarian social relationships

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Speaker 2: and preventing other people from acquiring social dominance or sort

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Speaker 2: of unfair social advantage.

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Speaker 1: So bickering is that I think of this thirty four percent.

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Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't want to put like afrmative negative spin

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Speaker 2: on it, but in a way, yes, this is social

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Speaker 2: regulatory talk where people are addressing social problems that they

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Speaker 2: perceive or some kind of conflict between people and addressing

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Speaker 2: those addressing those issues and trying to resolve them, which

376
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Speaker 2: in this broad understanding, this is also a huge part

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Speaker 2: of conversation I would say among basically any people anywhere, Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

378
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Speaker 2: Now during the daytime, another sixteen percent was devoted to jokes,

379
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Speaker 2: joking around. Another nine percent was devoted to land rights

380
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:40,160
Speaker 2: discussion of the use of land, four percent was about

381
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,680
Speaker 2: interactions with other ethnic groups, and six percent was made

382
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Speaker 2: up of storytelling. But the author describes how as the

383
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Speaker 2: day went on and families would gather for the evening

384
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Speaker 2: meal around the fire, the mood would tend to mellow out,

385
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Speaker 2: losing a lot of the harshness of daytime talk. After

386
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Speaker 2: the sun went down and in the darkness around the

387
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Speaker 2: fire major activities shifted and they were music, dance, and conversation.

388
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Speaker 2: So what was that conversation about. Well, during the firelit time,

389
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Speaker 2: she found at least among these people in this sample

390
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Speaker 2: it was radically different. Quote, night activities steer away from

391
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Speaker 2: tensions of the day to singing, dancing, religious ceremonies, and

392
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 2: enthralling stories, often about known people. And the difference is huge.

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Speaker 2: I've got a pie chart for you to look at, Rob,

394
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Speaker 2: and I remember during the daytime, like thirty one percent

395
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 2: of the talk was about economic issues, things related to work,

396
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Speaker 2: thirty four percent was the resolving of these social disputes,

397
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Speaker 2: only six percent was stories. During the night eighty one

398
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Speaker 2: percent of conversation with stories, the radical shift was shifting

399
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Speaker 2: almost overwhelmingly to story mode.

400
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is considerable, especially seeing it on the pigraph here.

401
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Speaker 1: Eighty one percent it just consumes everything. I mean, you

402
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: got some small percentage still allotted to you know, shop

403
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: talk and bickering ben in some of these other areas,

404
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: and then four percent for myth.

405
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And so I think the myth there connects to

406
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 2: the idea of storytelling as well, because one of the

407
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 2: broad observations that the author makes here is that is

408
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 2: of the idea of the night as a time of bigger,

409
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 2: broader thinking, and she gives an example where like, Okay,

410
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,360
Speaker 2: during the daytime, you might have people devoting a significant

411
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 2: amount of conversation to a personal dispute about marriage. They're

412
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Speaker 2: discussing a marital dispute, whereas during the night instead, you

413
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 2: would have interesting and amusing stories about marriages of people

414
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Speaker 2: in the past, the marriage disputes of sort of characters

415
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 2: that are known or people who lived in generations ago.

416
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Speaker 2: Or during the day you might have a sort of

417
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 2: work related conversation about a certain kind of you know,

418
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 2: hunting pursuit, or about a kind of gift exchange scenario

419
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 2: that's a part of the culture. And then during the

420
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Speaker 2: night instead you would have conversations about stories about people

421
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 2: who engaged in those activities in the past, or in

422
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,439
Speaker 2: the distant past, or in the recent past. So in

423
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 2: the daytime you talk about the issues and problems that

424
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 2: you're currently facing. At nighttime, you hear stories of others

425
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: who faced similar issues, and those issues are put in

426
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 2: the context of some kind of big picture. The author

427
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 2: emphasizes the use of nighttime talk and conversation as a

428
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 2: way of creating, generating, and regulating ideas about the bigger

429
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 2: picture beyond the little things you do here and there

430
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,360
Speaker 2: to get through the day. The big picture of sort

431
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 2: of what are people are and what life is and

432
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 2: so forth that arises from these nighttime conversations that are

433
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Speaker 2: largely storytelling and about storytelling. So the author writes, quote,

434
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 2: night talk plays an important role in evoking higher orders

435
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 2: of theory of mind via the imagination, conveying attributes of

436
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 2: people in broad networks or virtual communities, and transmitting the

437
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 2: big picture of cultural institutions that generate regularity of behavior, cooperation,

438
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 2: and trust at the regional level. And so I thought

439
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 2: this was so interesting because again I want to stress

440
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 2: the caveats I mentioned earlier. You can't know what all

441
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 2: people long ago did based on what one group of

442
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 2: people have more recently done. But this kind of observation

443
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 2: does show one way people respond to a certain type

444
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,719
Speaker 2: of environment, the regime of technology and environmental surroundings of

445
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 2: meeting by firelight after the sun sets. And I think

446
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 2: it's interesting. It's interesting as a sort of precedent that

447
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 2: possibly the introduction of fire may have opened up new

448
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: dimensions of creativity and abstract thinking about about ourselves and

449
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 2: about what our societies are, this idea of sort of

450
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 2: big picture ideas about what life is, specifically by creating

451
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 2: this kind of imaginative storytelling space of economically unproductive time.

452
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 2: You know, it's like time where you can't you can't

453
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: really effectively get work done, but you're you're here, and

454
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 2: so you can think in terms of stories, to think

455
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: about the past and explore models of the world out loud.

456
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I know you probably you've probably

457
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: thought along similar lines. But I'm instantly reminded of the

458
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: lyrics to Rocky Erickson's if you have Ghosts in the Night,

459
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: I am real?

460
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I did not think about that, but yeah, because.

461
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: I mean, depending on how you slice it here, I mean,

462
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: you're talking about a time when one can become more real,

463
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: like your existence becomes you know, this is the kind

464
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: of thing that Marsati Iliati I think would have gotten into. Perhaps,

465
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that when you start you in

466
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: yourself within the context of like the mythic realms and

467
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: stories that have been told, like the self can become

468
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:12,959
Speaker 1: more actualized, can become more real. You know.

469
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, in many ways. In one way, by gaining

470
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 2: perspectives on our individual problems by placing them within this

471
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 2: like larger context of stories about the past, or stories

472
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 2: about mythical figures and characters and and so forth who

473
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 2: may have faced similar issues and overcome them in some

474
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 2: way or another. It allows you to just kind of

475
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 2: like to see another side of many things, and to

476
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 2: the extent that this might be a more general pattern

477
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 2: of how humans respond to you know, light, where nighttime

478
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 2: is illuminated primarily with fire, it makes me wonder, like,

479
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 2: do we still kind of activate some of these ways

480
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 2: of thinking when we when we seek out fire in

481
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 2: any context, when we seek out fire as a light source,

482
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 2: even optionally or and also makes me think about and

483
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 2: the author actually does into this into the paper the

484
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 2: contrast with electrical lighting. So like, say you move out

485
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: of this kind of environment and into an environment where

486
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 2: in the nighttime you can have super bright lights on,

487
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, might as well get some more

488
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 2: work done.

489
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's one of the gifts of the electronic

490
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: age is oh, well there's enough illumination to work all

491
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: the time. It's true enough you know, work on you know,

492
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: passion projects, certainly, but also work on chores, work on

493
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: your day work, and so forth, your homework.

494
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I wonder if having all this productive time

495
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 2: and electric lights is maybe robbing people of some time

496
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 2: that they might otherwise really benefit from getting kind of

497
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: a storytelling and imaginative, big picture perspective on life.

498
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and likewise, I can't help but think

499
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: about that other fire, the holy fire of television, you know,

500
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: because you know, we think about oh, you know, you

501
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: sort of what netflix and chill. I guess this is

502
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: the saying, right or is that that means watching television, right?

503
00:30:58,040 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: Or is that something else?

504
00:30:59,040 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 2: It means something else?

505
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: Okay, well, okay, one could interpret it as me just

506
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: watching television. Though. So let's just like the idea of Okay,

507
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: I need to chill in the evening. I just want

508
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: to watch some shows. I want to watch a movie,

509
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: or I want to settle down with a good book,

510
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: or I want to play a nice narrative video game

511
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know. It's like, based on what we've

512
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: been discussing here, like this is the time to do it.

513
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: This is the time to at once lose yourself in

514
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: the narrative but also kind of expand yourself within that

515
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: narrative and allow yourself to sort of like leach on

516
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: to these mythic ideas of self and struggle and so forth.

517
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: But in a weird way, that too is kind of

518
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: like put it odds with the electrically illuminated world, where

519
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: we're like, well, I could be working instead of watching Netflix,

520
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: instead of reading you know, a book that is you know,

521
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: maybe has nothing to do with with your day job,

522
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: or isn't like you know, it's just kind of a

523
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 1: guilty pleasure read or what have you, or certainly in

524
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: whatever video game you're into. You know, you could be working, Yes,

525
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: but maybe all of this is still vitally important to

526
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: who you are and your ability to continue on through

527
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: the day. Yeah.

528
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, that's what I have on the qualitative difference

529
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 2: of firelight. And I don't know, I'm still having lots

530
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: of ideas about this, but I think I got to

531
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 2: stop there for now. But I know you had some

532
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: more on the toad Buried beneath the Hearthstone.

533
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you know, now that we've discussed the illumination

534
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: by firelight and then all the ways that it changes

535
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: the human experience, it's time to really get down and

536
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: discuss human and animal sacrifice. That's the way we like

537
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: to land things with our holiday episodes. So yeah, I

538
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: want you to think back first, first of what we

539
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: talked about in the initial episode regarding artifacts and symbols

540
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: that have been secreted away in homes and voids in

541
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: the walls and under the hearthstone and behind the fireplace,

542
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: you know, as a form of apotropaic magic, protective magic

543
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: wards against witchcraft, demons, fairies and ghosts. Secondly, I'll bring

544
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: you back to that cold open that exert from the

545
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: poem by Robert Graves and it's invocation of not only

546
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: a lightning touch tree, but an animal buried beneath the hearthstone.

547
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: In the case of the poem, it was a frog.

548
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: So we've discussed animal and human sacrifice before on the show,

549
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: and today is going to be more of the same.

550
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: Why Christmas, you might ask, Well, I would say, well,

551
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: what better time than Christmas? To quote the late great

552
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: Terry Pratchett in his holiday book The Hogfather. There was

553
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: a great TV adaptation of this as well, quote the

554
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: very oldest stories are sooner or later about blood. So

555
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: you find, of course examples of blood sacrifice in every

556
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: human culture. We've discussed this plenty of times before, and

557
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: one pervasive form of alleged right of sacrifice concerns the

558
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: sanctification of ground upon which something is built, or is

559
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: being built or is about to be finished in its construction.

560
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: And in some cases it has been alleged that these

561
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: were carried out while the victims yet breathed, though obviously

562
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: there's plenty of room for such builders' rights and construction

563
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 1: sacrifices to be distorted through the telling of history. So

564
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:28,720
Speaker 1: you know, you can very well imagine a scenario where

565
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,399
Speaker 1: an animal is sacrificed but not entombed alive, but then

566
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: it becomes entombed alive in the telling of the tale.

567
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: We can't really get into all the nuances right now,

568
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: but suffice to say, burying something in or under the

569
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: foundation of a building has long been a symbolic, superstitious,

570
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: or outright religious right, and it's one that still echoes

571
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: through modern practices, you know, such as laying relics, you know,

572
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: in such a place, or or even a time capsule.

573
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: The bearing of a time capsule is ultimately kind of

574
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: connected to these ideas as well, and we've actually touched

575
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:06,959
Speaker 1: on in recent episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

576
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: on some examples of animals or humans allegedly entombed within

577
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: or alongside constructions. This came up in our Haunted Railways episodes,

578
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: and it also came up in our discussion of the

579
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: Horned Lizard. Mmm. Oh yeah, I forget what building in

580
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 1: Texas the horned lizard in question was was walled up

581
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: in but then was unearthed and said to be still alive.

582
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 2: I remember there was something funny about it, so I

583
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 2: had to look it up. It was the name they

584
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 2: called him, Old Rip.

585
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:38,240
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Old Rip.

586
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,840
Speaker 2: I guess named after Rip van Winkle. But yes, I

587
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 2: think the story was that, you know, you know that

588
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: this thing was really alive after decades of being buried

589
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:51,320
Speaker 2: without food or water, because there's like a judge in Eastland,

590
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 2: Texas who said.

591
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah. As I go back and listen to

592
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 1: that episode if you want to hear more on it.

593
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 1: But for our purposes here today, we're trying to stay

594
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: more hearth and hearth adjacent. So I want to refer

595
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,839
Speaker 1: back to Brian Hoggard's excellent twenty nineteen book Magical House

596
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 1: Protection The Archaeology of counter witchcraft. We talked about witch

597
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: bottles and shoes, but two other items are also frequently

598
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: found in the voids of homes, according to Hoggard, and

599
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: those are dried cats and horse skulls. So let's talk

600
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,439
Speaker 1: about dried cats first, and I will I will add

601
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: that my own cat has decided to set in my

602
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 1: lap just for this part as a few since that

603
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: it was going to be feline related. So along those lines,

604
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 1: no shame if you want to skip this part. I'm

605
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: a cat person, and I don't love the idea of

606
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: anyone hurting a cat. Obviously is okay, if they hurt us,

607
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: that's the deal we made with them. But yeah, I

608
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 1: am going to discuss dead cats in walls and floors

609
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: and alleged cases of animal sacrifice with cats. I'm not

610
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: going to get into gory details, but you know, fair enough, okay,

611
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:58,879
Speaker 1: I'm strapped in Okay. So yeah, this was, at least

612
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: to some extent a thing. As Hagard discusses, there's a

613
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 1: case to be made that practices involving shoes, which are

614
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: discussed in the last example, are simply replacements for older

615
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: rights involving the sacrifice of animals. And you know, there

616
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:14,840
Speaker 1: are examples of this and other cultures as well, where

617
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 1: one you know, may move away from one form of sacrifice,

618
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: but then you end up with proxies and replacements and

619
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: so forth. But yeah, the reality is dried up cat

620
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: carcasses are frequently found in old homes in Europe, parts

621
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: of North America, and even in Australia, so you know,

622
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: basically coming out of European, you know, very much deeped

623
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: in European traditions, but then flowing over into some colonial

624
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: areas as well. They're found in roof spaces, under floors,

625
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:49,320
Speaker 1: between walls, and sometimes in voids that seem quite inaccessible.

626
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: Sometimes the cat has actually been posed we're talking with

627
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,399
Speaker 1: like wire work, so that it looks like they are

628
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: actively hunting. And sometimes there is a rodent or two

629
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: or three added as well, perhaps in the cat's clutches

630
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: or about to be killed by the cat, a haunting tableau,

631
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 1: again hidden away in the wall or under the floor.

632
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: Now, I would imagine in some of these cases it

633
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 2: might be disputable whether a dried up cat hidden under

634
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 2: a floor was I mean, in some cases it might

635
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 2: be clear, like if there's no way it could have

636
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 2: gotten in, it's a closed off space, but I guess

637
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 2: in some cases there would be dispute about whether a

638
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,280
Speaker 2: cat actually just got stuck and died there, or whether

639
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 2: it is a dried cat that was intentionally deposited.

640
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: That's correct. Yeah, the idea of accidental enclosure, because if

641
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: you know cats, you know that they are little explorers.

642
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,359
Speaker 1: They'll go places they're not supposed to go, and it's

643
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:48,319
Speaker 1: not impossible that they could get stuck. And that's something

644
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: Haggard discusses here. So a lot of people all that

645
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: many of these bodies, these cat carcasses, these dried cats,

646
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: are due to cats becoming trapped, perhaps during construction or

647
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,839
Speaker 1: otherwise crawling into such spaces and dying from some pre

648
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 1: existing injury or illness. You know, cats loves often will

649
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: crave that kind of seclusion for their final moments. Haggard does.

650
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: He entertains this idea, but he suggests that there are

651
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: probably fewer cases of accidental trappings. He argues that, Okay,

652
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: a cat crawling into a wall or a floor of

653
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: your house and then dying and decaying, that's obviously going

654
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: to create an odor. It's going to be hard to ignore.

655
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he argues that it's you know,

656
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:35,799
Speaker 1: it's often difficult or impossible to tell if many of

657
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 1: these animals wound up due to happenstance or intentional human activity.

658
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 1: It's certainly on the table. Some of these dried cats

659
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: inevitably got there on their own. It basically comes into

660
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: comes down to a discussion of what are the most

661
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,919
Speaker 1: likely situations for some of these cats, like what why

662
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: are they there? And Hoggard sites they nineteen fifty one

663
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: paper by Margaret M. Howard published in the journal Man.

664
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: I had to look at it look it up to

665
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: get more of the details about it, but it's titled

666
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: Dried Cats. And in this Howard lays out three different

667
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: theories as to why cats pop up in these situations.

668
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: And so these are the three. I'm going to go

669
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,240
Speaker 1: and give you number three. Number three that she entertains

670
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: is accidental enclosure, which we just talked about. She acknowledges

671
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: that accidental enclosure is always a possible explanation for cases

672
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: that don't strongly suggest either of the aforementioned theories. The

673
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: aforementioned theories that I'm about to explain, So sorry getting

674
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: into a little backwards, but I mean, obviously the case

675
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: is if the cat has been wired up to look

676
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,280
Speaker 1: like it's hunting rats, you know, all but taxidermied within

677
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 1: a void in the wall. That cat had some help.

678
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: That is not accidental enclosure. Right. So a cat that

679
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,879
Speaker 1: is put there in the wall, under the floor, where

680
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: have you? How does it get there? Well, the first

681
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: theory is indeed a foundation sacrifice, and Howard highlights the

682
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: use of foundations sacrifices in global cultural practices and points

683
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: to human sacrifice as the obvious forerunner, with examples from

684
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: European history and lore such as Irish abbot Saint Colomba

685
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: was calling for a human to venture into the foundations

686
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: of the Church at Iona to offer themselves as a sacrifice,

687
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 1: as just one example of a right that originated in

688
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 1: practices to appease earth spirits or deities and the construction

689
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: of a building, and then gets passed down ultimately in

690
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: non human sacrificial echoes of the original practices. She also

691
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: points to roof tree sacrifices to forest gods that were

692
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 1: also made in olden days, with the blood flowing down

693
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: the sides of the roof, and she also highlights just

694
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: the general bad time that cats had through the Middle

695
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 1: Ages and into the Renaissance, they were often seen as

696
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:57,280
Speaker 1: ill omens, as agents of the devil, which is familiars,

697
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: and all of this despite their positive reputation as Mouser's

698
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 1: and she suspects, but she suspects that broadly speaking, cases

699
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: of foundation sacrifice, these are actually occurring later in the

700
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:16,320
Speaker 1: record than the next example, the next theory and that

701
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: I'm going to discuss, and it ultimately foundation sacrifices are

702
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: perhaps less probable an explanation compared to this one. And

703
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: this is the idea that they were vermin scares. So again,

704
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: think to that idea of a lifelike positioning of a

705
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: mummified cat scaring away rodents, perhaps with two or three

706
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: rodents in its clutches. The idea here is that it

707
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: kind of functions like a scarecrow. It's intended to scare

708
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: rodents away from the insides of your walls and the

709
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: you know, the insides of your house, from the crawl

710
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: space and what have you. Like, Let's actually stuff a cat,

711
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: put it in there, have some rodents there, because it's

712
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: going to be more effective if the dead cat is

713
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: in this grizzly tableau of dispatching rodents.

714
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is the if I only had a

715
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 2: brain version of the cat.

716
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, essentially, And of course, this idea of vermin scares,

717
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: I think it probably goes without saying, but this is

718
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:20,919
Speaker 1: not a non supernatural, non superstitious idea, Like obviously there's

719
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,439
Speaker 1: a certain amount of superstition to this as well. There's

720
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: like a there's a power to this tableau that clearly

721
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: goes beyond the idea of well, when a rat looks

722
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 1: at this, they're going to leave the house. They're not

723
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: going to hang around here, because look at this horror show,

724
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: you know it's it clearly goes beyond that as well.

725
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: So that is that is the theory that Howard seemed

726
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: to favor. But I think you tend to encounter a

727
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: certain amount of drift on which of these three primary

728
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: explanations are going to be employed. And obviously there are

729
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: going to be cases where it's very clear that the

730
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 1: cat was put in there for some sort of a

731
00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 1: ritual or and or vermin scare purpose.

732
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

733
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: By the way, I mentioned Terry Pratchett earlier, and I

734
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: had actually already put the Terry Pratchett quote in the

735
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: notes before I've found Haggard referencing Terry Pratchett. In this

736
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: section of the book. He brings up this idea suggested

737
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:19,439
Speaker 1: by Terry Pratchett that sacrifices, those foundation sacrifices would have

738
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: been made not only to deities but to the buildings themselves.

739
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: The idea that you know later on, you know, various

740
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: tragedies can befall a person in a building, and in

741
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: a sense it's like, that's the house's doing, that's the

742
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: building's doing, and so you want to appease not necessarily God's,

743
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: but the house itself, which is an interesting concept.

744
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,720
Speaker 2: I'm going to go ahead and pre pay my tax here.

745
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, coming back to hearthstones specifically, Haggard does cite

746
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 1: an example from England's Blackton Hall. You can look up

747
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: Blackden Hall. There's a Wikipedia page on it and you

748
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: can see a picture of it. This was a building

749
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: built in the sixteenth entree. But he points out that

750
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: beneath the hearthstone, during some construction they found a quote

751
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 1: constructed chamber into which the live cat was placed and

752
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: it contained a dried cat.

753
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 3: Ye.

754
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not entirely certain if indeed this would have

755
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: been a live cat. That was placed there, but in

756
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,879
Speaker 1: anyway we end up with a dead, dried cat. So

757
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,400
Speaker 1: fill in the blanks for yourself. Now, since we mentioned

758
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: thunder and toads in the Cold Open, I also want

759
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,839
Speaker 1: to point out that Hoggard lists thunderstones as being an

760
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: item that is sometimes hidden away in homes. These are stones,

761
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: often actually arrowheads of thought to have been created by

762
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 1: lightning strikes and thus they would protect it was thought

763
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: they would protect a building as lightning never strikes. Twice.

764
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, we mentioned thunderstones a little bit in the series we.

765
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: Did a couple weeks ago.

766
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 2: Well it was when we were talking about lightning strikes

767
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 2: of trees that would be enclosed, but as sacred trees.

768
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 2: But yeah, the idea of thunderstones. Often these were, as

769
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 2: you said, arrowheads or like hand axes. They were tools

770
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 2: made by stone Age peoples that were later found and

771
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 2: then like, yeah, this must be the gods doing or

772
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 2: lightning did that.

773
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: And also reminds me of our episodes on elf shot

774
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: as well memory serves. Sometimes arrowheads were interpreted as being

775
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: like clear evidence of elf shot.

776
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 2: Yep, stone age arrowheads found and then people were like

777
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 2: that must be the elves.

778
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now as for toads. Yes, toads and frogs also

779
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:35,880
Speaker 1: pop up in Hoggard's book. Sometimes they are inside of

780
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 1: witch bottles, or at least pieces of them are in

781
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: witch bottles, but also just in general so that they

782
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: were associated with magic and sometimes secreted away in parts

783
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 1: of a house as a ward against illness. There's an

784
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:53,320
Speaker 1: example of like pinned frogs, I think, behind a wall.

785
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: And there's also a story he shares about how it

786
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: was said that they're like a witch might keep live

787
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,440
Speaker 1: toads under the floorboard, and they'd be like a hole

788
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: for easy access.

789
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 2: So I wonder if Graves actually had this practice in

790
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,720
Speaker 2: mind when talking about the toad underneath im mirrored underneath

791
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 2: the hearthstone, or is that just a coincidence.

792
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seems I mean, Graves seems like

793
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: the kind of chap who would have been well read

794
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: on these matters.

795
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 2: He was very interested in like Celtic paganism, Yeah, and

796
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 2: wrote stuff about it that, from what I understand, is

797
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 2: completely wrong and not useful at all in terms of

798
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 2: informational value, but is a pretty great read nonetheless.

799
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, So yeah, I imagine he was very much all

800
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: this was on his right high. All right, one final

801
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: idea concerning bits of animals buried under the hearthstone, and

802
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: that is the idea of horse skulls buried under the hearthstone.

803
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: This is something in augur It also talks about, and

804
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: this is another thing that I chatted with him about

805
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: in a past interview episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

806
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: He goes into more detail, but basically, horse skulls have

807
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 1: been found in the floors of homes throughout Europe, the

808
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 1: British Isles, and the United States, and he specifically cites

809
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: cases where they are found under the hearthstone itself. According

810
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: to Haggard, there are three primary theories regarding such horse

811
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: skulls and their placement. One is that they are the

812
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:30,399
Speaker 1: remains of a foundation sacrifice, as we've been discussing, you know,

813
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: appease the deities, make the ground holy, or appease the

814
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: house itself. Another is that it's simply they're simply there

815
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: as a token of luck or you know, perhaps getting

816
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: into some of these areas of apertubeic magic. You know,

817
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: it's a spell, it's protecting us, and in this case especially,

818
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: you get into sort of things we've talked about concerning

819
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:54,239
Speaker 1: the horse before on the show that the horse is

820
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: like this very close animal to human existence, but it

821
00:48:58,200 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: is often the case you take all the meat off

822
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: of it. But the horse skull looks really weird and

823
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: seems to be grinning, a demonic grin. So you can

824
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:08,840
Speaker 1: imagine that serving as like a sort of Gorgonian head

825
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: to ward away evil. But another theory, a very popular theory,

826
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: is that these skulls served partially or primarily as an

827
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:23,439
Speaker 1: acoustic enhancer. What so the idea here is that horse

828
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 1: skulls were placed in the floor in order to enhance

829
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: the acoustics of dancing, like on the dance hall or

830
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:35,960
Speaker 1: threshing floors, both activities with positive and protective supernatural associations,

831
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: and in this the practice is reminiscent of the ceiling

832
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 1: of acoustic vases in the walls of medieval churches. He writes,

833
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 1: which were These were apparently based on some of the

834
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:50,799
Speaker 1: writings of Vitruvius on architecture, and it was thought to

835
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: enhance choral music. So have these like sealed vases inside

836
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: the walls of a church?

837
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,399
Speaker 2: Bizarre? I've never heard of this.

838
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hoggard ultimately argues that he thinks that the horse

839
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:08,359
Speaker 1: gulls were primarily used to ward off evil, and that

840
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 1: a particular Norfolk account suggests a form of foundation sacrifice.

841
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:15,479
Speaker 1: And he also argues that that really, when you start

842
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 1: looking around at the records about the use of horse

843
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: skulls and the foundations and under the hearthstone and so forth,

844
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: if it were merely for acoustics, you would probably see

845
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: more written about it, because people would be upfront. They'd

846
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I'm dumping a bunch of horse heads

847
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 1: under my floorboards. It's about acoustics, man, Do you want

848
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 1: the sound to sound like trash in here? No?

849
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 2: Like church is fine with that.

850
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like people would be upfront about it. But if

851
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: it was for a magical purpose, you know, then you're

852
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: going to be maybe more secretive about it because the

853
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 1: church isn't telling you to bury horse skulls under your

854
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: floor You're doing it because you have a plan B

855
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: to keep the evil away, and they might not approve

856
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: of it, but you know that it's absolutely necessary.

857
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,280
Speaker 2: Well, I would never harm an animal for this purpose,

858
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:09,959
Speaker 2: but assuming I can source some already available carcasses, I've

859
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 2: really got decisions to make if I ever build my

860
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 2: own hearthstone. So do I go horse, Do I go cat?

861
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 2: Do I go toad?

862
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 1: Well, you can get some horseheads, yeah, I mean there

863
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 1: are there are sources for that, right you can. You

864
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: can get them used. You don't have to make the

865
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 1: head yourself.

866
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 2: Oh I can get you a horse head. By three

867
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 2: o'clock this afternoon, well, I think we're out of time

868
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,439
Speaker 2: for today's episode. But you know, it's funny, we still

869
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 2: had some other stuff we wanted to talk about. I

870
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,800
Speaker 2: don't know how exactly this will mesh with our schedule

871
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 2: because next week we got some some days off for

872
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 2: the holiday, But we definitely had more fireplace stuff we

873
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:46,400
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about. So I don't know. Maybe we'll

874
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 2: come back to it yet.

875
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't even get to even get into my

876
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: whole thing about how thinking about evil spirits crawling out

877
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: of the fireplace or out of the hearth, and then

878
00:51:57,200 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: comparing the hearth to the television, of course, just brings

879
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:02,919
Speaker 1: us right to the ring and the idea of this

880
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: evil wraith like entity crawling out of your televisions that like,

881
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense if you think of the television

882
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: as a hearth.

883
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:12,280
Speaker 2: You know, well, actually that would be a good static

884
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:15,719
Speaker 2: ambient TV. So you've got you know, logs burning. You

885
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 2: could have Andy Warhol's Empire where you're just watching the

886
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 2: skyscraper through the night, or you could just watch that

887
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:22,280
Speaker 2: well see if anything happens.

888
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a seven hour video, but sometimes something happens,

889
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: but you don't know when it's going to happen, or

890
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: if you have the cut where it happens. Oh boy,

891
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:34,839
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to go and close it out there.

892
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 1: Then happy Holidays if you celebrate. We'll be back with

893
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:41,359
Speaker 1: new episodes after next week, and we have some fun

894
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:46,880
Speaker 1: vault episodes and Weird House rewinds to keep you happy

895
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: while we're out.

896
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 2: Oh but we still have a new Weird House coming

897
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 2: out tomorrow.

898
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,919
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course, and it's a holiday episode. Gosh,

899
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:54,319
Speaker 1: darn't it.

900
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's one end ever.

901
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 1: All right. So yeah, just a reminder of stuff to

902
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Primarily Science and Culture podcast with core

903
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:06,359
Speaker 1: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set

904
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about weird films

905
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:10,239
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema.

906
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

907
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

908
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

909
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

910
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

911
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:31,800
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.

912
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,920
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

913
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,800
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

914
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.