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Speaker 1: Welcome to scust to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited because today we're diving into the snake pit.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Um, not slashes snake pit, which we were

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Speaker 1: discussing before we started recording the show, but this idea

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Speaker 1: of a pit of snakes, the sort of place you

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Speaker 1: might want to drop a doomed hero or a damsel

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Speaker 1: in distress, that sort of thing, right, And what I

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Speaker 1: think the great place to start here is by discussing

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Speaker 1: a sort of snake pit. I think it's very much

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Speaker 1: a snake pit that we encounter in Raiders of the

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Speaker 1: Lost Dark, a film that we've we've spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of time talking about on the show we did. We

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Speaker 1: did a couple of episodes on the Ark of the

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Speaker 1: Covenant that I encourage everyone everyone to go back and

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Speaker 1: listen to. Where we we spin off. We frequently refer

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Speaker 1: back to Raiders for examples of things that Raiders does

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Speaker 1: that refers to various uh qualities of the arc in

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Speaker 1: ancient traditions. I was just thinking back on those Ark

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Speaker 1: of the Covenant episodes, because I remember we talked about

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Speaker 1: this one professor from the the nineteen twenties or thirties

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Speaker 1: who had this crank theory that the Ark of the

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Speaker 1: Covenant was a real historical artifact and it was a

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Speaker 1: giant electrical capacitor. Yes, yeah, that was pretty good. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But what I was laughing at when you were talking,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I sort of interrupted, but I was

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Speaker 1: laughing the fact that you called the pit in Raiders

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Speaker 1: a sort of snake pit. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely

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Speaker 1: a snake pit. I don't I don't want to beat

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Speaker 1: around the bush here. It's very much a snake pit. Um.

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Speaker 1: It is an amazing and really game changing one of

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Speaker 1: the many amazing and game changing sequences in the film. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it is the Well of Soul sequence. Now to refresh everybody. Uh.

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Speaker 1: First of all, the Well of Souls is an actual place.

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Speaker 1: It's a partially man made cave located inside the foundation

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Speaker 1: stone under the Dome of the Rock Shrine in Jerusalem. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The name itself Pit of Souls. Well of Souls stems

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Speaker 1: from medieval Islamic legend and this is where the spirits

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Speaker 1: of the dead or supposedly awaiting judgment day, but that

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Speaker 1: that it has nothing or very little to do with

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Speaker 1: the Well of Souls that we encounter in Raiders of

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Speaker 1: the Lost Ark in Raiders the Well of Souls, and

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Speaker 1: this is straight from the Indiana Jones wiki is quote

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Speaker 1: part of a temple built within the ancient city of

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Speaker 1: Tennis where the Ark of the Covenant was placed after

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Speaker 1: Pharaoh Shishak stole it from Jerusalem. Again, that is entirely

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Speaker 1: within the context of the Indiana Jones world. Don't confuse

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Speaker 1: that with actual history right now, there is no indication

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Speaker 1: that there's an actual pit of snakes in any archaeological

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Speaker 1: site in ancient Egypt, right but it makes for a

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Speaker 1: great scene because, of course, as we remember, what happens

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Speaker 1: is that uh Indiana Jones and his cohorts discovered that, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is the actual resting place of the arc. The

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Speaker 1: Nazis are off, they're digging in the wrong spot. So

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Speaker 1: they open it up, and of course they immediately see

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Speaker 1: it's full of snakes. He hates snakes. They lower him

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Speaker 1: down anyway, they go his his friend, who is it,

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Speaker 1: Sala Sala, Yes, Sala goes down with him. They crank

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Speaker 1: the the arc up, and then that's when Belloc and

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Speaker 1: the Nazis show up. They steal the arc and just

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Speaker 1: for sheer meanness, they throw Marian down there into the

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Speaker 1: pit with him, and then they seal him inside with

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Speaker 1: a bazilion snakes. Uh, there there are some bad dudes.

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Speaker 1: And so now, yes, now are our hero and heroine

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Speaker 1: are stuck down in the dark with a bunch of snakes.

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Speaker 1: Actually they're not in the dark. I just remember that.

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Speaker 1: I guess there are torches throughout the room. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: dropped a lot of torches. So it's actually remarkably and

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Speaker 1: unrealistically well lit. Right, So this the scene, of course,

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Speaker 1: is ultimately above reproach. Like like, there's so much in

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Speaker 1: the film that if you think about it too hard,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you're

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Speaker 1: just writing the roller coaster that is the film, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty great. It famously required some I think seven thousand snakes,

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Speaker 1: including cobras, which were the only venomous snakes used. Reticulated pythons,

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Speaker 1: which are native to Asia, not Egypt, but they're there. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's a Kenyan sand boa that you can find in Egypt,

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Speaker 1: but not a reticulated python. Uh. In the In the sequence,

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Speaker 1: they also used legless lizards known as glass lizards, and

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Speaker 1: if you look around online you'll frequently see that the

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Speaker 1: herpetologist seems to have seemed to have a lot of

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Speaker 1: fun watching the sequence and picking out as many snakes

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Speaker 1: species as possible, because they apparently just were like, bring

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Speaker 1: us all the snakes. If you have snakes that can

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Speaker 1: be a part of our film, we need them. Dude.

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Speaker 1: I breat that brought out some weird guys. It's like, why, yes,

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Speaker 1: I have quite a few snakes. Yeah. So herpetologists have

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Speaker 1: spotted other python species in that sequence, garter snakes and

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Speaker 1: um and while actual cobras are used to wonderful effect

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Speaker 1: in there, Jonathan Crow on Snakes on Film, a website

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Speaker 1: which you can look up, points out that we see

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Speaker 1: a monocled cobra rather than an Egyptian cobra, probably due

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Speaker 1: to the Egyptian cobra's infamous temperament. So it's just ultimately

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Speaker 1: easier to shoot with a monocled cobra. Nobody's going to

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Speaker 1: notice the difference except herpetologists anyway. I think this is

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Speaker 1: the cobra that you can actually see slightly reflected in glass.

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Speaker 1: When there's glass between Harrison Ford and and the snake

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Speaker 1: that's not supposed to be there. It's a it's an effect,

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Speaker 1: I guess, to create safety. Uh. And I remember that

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Speaker 1: being one of the first movie goofs I ever spotted

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Speaker 1: that you could actually see the reflection in the glass

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Speaker 1: when you when there was not supposed to be glass there. Huh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I watched that film um constantly at one

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Speaker 1: point as a kid, and I don't think I ever

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Speaker 1: noticed that. But part of that might have been that

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Speaker 1: our copy was like a VHS copy that my aunt

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Speaker 1: had made when it aired on HBO or something like that,

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Speaker 1: So maybe the details of that were lost in the transfer.

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Speaker 1: That's what they were counting on. Also just on snake Magic,

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Speaker 1: because hey, you can get carried away in snake Magic.

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Speaker 1: It kind of makes you lose focus to the finer points. So,

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Speaker 1: as we said, herpetologists have a great time sort of

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Speaker 1: spotting the the different species ultimately kind of spotting the

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Speaker 1: flaws in the sequence. But of course one of the

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Speaker 1: big questions, one of the guess the big flaws that

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Speaker 1: comes up that and if you've watched this as an

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Speaker 1: adult or watched it too many times, you've probably wondered this, Hey,

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Speaker 1: what are all those snakes doing down there? To begin with? Right,

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Speaker 1: I always had this exact same thought. Why are they there?

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Speaker 1: Do they live there all the time or do they

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Speaker 1: come and go? If they come and go, why do

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Speaker 1: they come to the Well of Souls? What's for them there?

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Speaker 1: If they live there all the time, how do they survive?

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Speaker 1: Don't they need to eat something? Is somebody coming in

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Speaker 1: and feeding them? Like? Do they just eat each other?

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Speaker 1: That wouldn't make any and so we've talked on the

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Speaker 1: show before about how like a closed, exclusively cannibalistic population

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Speaker 1: can't survive for any significant period of time because you

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Speaker 1: need inputs of energy from the outside. It just it

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Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense. Well, there's your there's some room

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Speaker 1: for expanded universe fiction. There the secret cult of of

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Speaker 1: priests who take care of the Well of Souls and

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Speaker 1: feed seven thousand snakes weekend and week out throughout you

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Speaker 1: know the history of the place. That's a lot of gerbils.

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Speaker 1: Now I decided to think about I thought about this

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Speaker 1: long and hard the other day, probably harder than I've

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Speaker 1: I've ever thought about. The snake sequence in Ark of

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Speaker 1: the Covenant and I did. I decided to try and

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Speaker 1: give it a grain of salt here, you know, and

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Speaker 1: try and you know, think about a reason for all

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Speaker 1: this to happen. And you could, I guess you could argue, Okay,

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Speaker 1: the Arc of the Covenant is down there, and as

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Speaker 1: we know from the film, as you know from other

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Speaker 1: accounts in those past episodes of stuff to boil your mind,

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Speaker 1: that the Arc is supposed to do weird thing. It

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Speaker 1: has weird properties. It does magical and sort of doomy

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Speaker 1: things to its immediate surroundings. Right, it strikes the sons

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Speaker 1: of Aaron dead after they bring strange fire in front

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Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, so I started thinking, well, what if

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Speaker 1: it actually generated the snakes. I don't know that this

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Speaker 1: option has ever been explored, and maybe it has, because

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Speaker 1: one thing to think about is the Arc, after all,

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Speaker 1: was said to contain, among other relics, Aaron's rod, which

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Speaker 1: Moses was said to have cast down so that it

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Speaker 1: might transform into a snake and eat the snakes transfigured

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Speaker 1: out of the rods that were cast down by some

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Speaker 1: Egyptian magicians. That myth sounds a lot funnier when you

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Speaker 1: paraphrase it. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's presented better in you know,

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Speaker 1: the original text, but at any rate, it's rods turning

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Speaker 1: into snakes duking it out for magicians. But you're saying

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Speaker 1: it might be magic. I think that makes sense in

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Speaker 1: the context of the movie. Maybe those snakes are magic

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Speaker 1: snakes generated somehow by the arc and they don't need

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Speaker 1: to eat. Right. But if you're gonna be a you know,

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Speaker 1: a total major todd about the whole deal and shout

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Speaker 1: the ARC's power, then the question remains, why would a

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Speaker 1: bunch of snakes species details aside, you know, ignoring the

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Speaker 1: fact that it seems to have drawn in snakes from

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Speaker 1: around the world, why would they be holding up in

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Speaker 1: a desert tomb like this, because, like you said, surely

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Speaker 1: there's nothing down there for them to eat, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: why would there be rats down there? And what would

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Speaker 1: the rats be feasting on? Um. The The other big idea,

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Speaker 1: and one that will discuss a lot in this episode,

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Speaker 1: are would be with the question are the snakes, you know,

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Speaker 1: seeking shelter there? And if so, what are they seeking

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Speaker 1: shelter from? Are they seeking shelter from the desert heat? Uh?

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Speaker 1: That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Because, uh,

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Speaker 1: if you remember from the film, Indiana's descending into the

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Speaker 1: tomb at the coolest part of the night, like it's

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Speaker 1: the it's like the the very late portion of the evening,

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Speaker 1: very early morning that they're descending. They go in when

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Speaker 1: it's dark and they come out when it's daylight. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it seems like that'd be the time the snakes should

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Speaker 1: be out and about on the hunt. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to continue to chew on this question as we continue

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Speaker 1: on through this episode, because we're gonna be looking at

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Speaker 1: the very idea of a pit of serpents as it

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Speaker 1: appears throughout fiction, human mythology as well as the natural world,

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Speaker 1: and the the science of snake pits turned out to

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Speaker 1: be far more interesting than I would have imagined going in.

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Speaker 1: So uh so that's gonna be the last thing we

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Speaker 1: get to and I promise you it's a pretty darn

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Speaker 1: good payoff. Yes. Now, the next place obviously goes to

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Speaker 1: look at other cinema cinematic snake pits that have occurred before,

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Speaker 1: some of them before Raiders of the Lost Arts, some

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Speaker 1: of them afterwards. But I think they serve to sort

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Speaker 1: of further illustrate the trope and we we have to

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Speaker 1: point out that we used a website that was actually

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Speaker 1: recommended to us by our compatriot, Lauren vogelbaumb. It's um.

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Speaker 1: It's maintained by Gary Nafis, who runs a website titled

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Speaker 1: Guide A Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of California.

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Speaker 1: And he has this list snakes in movies. So if

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Speaker 1: you go to California herbs dot com slash films slash

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Speaker 1: Snakes in Movies list at html, that's the website. And

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Speaker 1: it's really just a great database of films that have

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Speaker 1: featured snakes in general pits in some cases, but many

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Speaker 1: times mostly without pits. Uh. And then uh, Gary adds

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Speaker 1: his thoughts about the snakes. We see how realistic it is.

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Speaker 1: And there are pictures as well. Yeah, and you might

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Speaker 1: be thinking, well, I don't need to be told there's

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Speaker 1: a snake in the movie Anaconda, for say, it's it's

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Speaker 1: got more obscure ones as well. Yeah, it's it's you

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Speaker 1: think you know snakes in films, but but you don't

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Speaker 1: know them as well as Gary does. I actually I

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Speaker 1: exchanged a couple of emails with him to make sure

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Speaker 1: he was crediting him correctly on this website, and he

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Speaker 1: did point out that he rarely sees an actual snake

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Speaker 1: pit in a film. And uh, but but we're gonna

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Speaker 1: list a few examples here that that do, according to Gary,

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Speaker 1: have snake pits. Okay, what's first? All right, Well, the

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Speaker 1: first one here, and these are not in any picular order.

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Speaker 1: There's one from nineteen seventy four titled The Snake Girl,

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Speaker 1: in which an evil woman throws her adopted sister into

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Speaker 1: a snake pit to die, but she mates with a

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Speaker 1: snake and a snake girl is born. Apparently it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia production. Uh And and

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Speaker 1: this is all we need to know from Gary's right

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Speaker 1: up quote. Big Madame's henchman throws her into a snake

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Speaker 1: pit to die. Instead, she lies down and caresses a

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Speaker 1: big snake, and the next thing we see is baby

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Speaker 1: snake girl surrounded by snakes. Okay, now, the next one,

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Speaker 1: this is actually one from his list that I accidentally included. Um,

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Speaker 1: there are several different plays on like evil snake Girl

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Speaker 1: or devil woman, Like there's this devilish femininity that is

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Speaker 1: assigned to snakes at times and this particular one is

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Speaker 1: Devil Woman, Evil Snake Girl from nineteen seventy and you

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Speaker 1: should definitely look up the trailer for this one, because

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Speaker 1: the English language trailer from you know, kind of has

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Speaker 1: this this weird grindhouse vibe to it, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: absolutely amazing. The picture itself is from the Philippines and

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Speaker 1: it has loads of snakes and Medusa hair and uh

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Speaker 1: a bunch of like extended martial arts action sequences. The

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Speaker 1: narration promises the movie will strip your nerves screamingly raw,

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Speaker 1: screamingly raw. Yeah. Now, another one that Gary includes on

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Speaker 1: the list is one that that we're both very familiar with,

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Speaker 1: The Blade Master, better known especially to fans of Mystery

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Speaker 1: Science Theater three thousand as Cave Dwellers from N four.

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Speaker 1: Absolute classic. Yeah, this is this is a Joe Dermato film.

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Speaker 1: Um and I've I've seen it multiple times, yet I

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Speaker 1: completely forgot about the snake pit, probably because it's a

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Speaker 1: pretty skimpy snake pit, not many snakes. Yeah, it looks

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Speaker 1: kind of like a very small concrete pool that has

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Speaker 1: been drained of water and filled with just a puddle

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Speaker 1: of snakes. Um, and that's about it. Yeah, so Cave

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Speaker 1: Dwellers is one of the great leather type or Barbarian movies.

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Speaker 1: I think it's not quite as exquisite as your Hunter

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Speaker 1: from the Future, but it's up there. Uh. And I

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Speaker 1: think the snake pit scene in this is a kind

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Speaker 1: of straightforward attempt to rip off the snake tower pit

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Speaker 1: in Cone in the Barbarian but in a very cheap

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Speaker 1: and shaggy way. I remember one of the supposedly hilarious

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Speaker 1: things about this scene in the movie is that the

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Speaker 1: snakes growl instead of hissing, which, of course you know,

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Speaker 1: that's the source of much amusement, kind of like if

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Speaker 1: you had a pack of dogs in a movie that

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Speaker 1: started to move. But here is where science intrudes, because

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Speaker 1: we who laughed at that are now we are officially

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Speaker 1: clowned by reality. I decided to look at the scientific

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Speaker 1: literature just real quick to check and make sure there

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Speaker 1: were no records of actual snakes that growl, and there

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Speaker 1: absolutely are, so just to look at one paper. This

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Speaker 1: was published in the Journal of Experimental Zoology in nineteen

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Speaker 1: by Bruce A. Young, called Morphological Basis of Rowling in

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Speaker 1: the King Cobra Opheophagus Hannah So Bruce Young notes anecdotal

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Speaker 1: reports that while many snakes, of course produce a hissing sound,

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Speaker 1: we all know that they'll they'll hiss in response to

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Speaker 1: a thread as a kind of defensive signal. A couple

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Speaker 1: of species of snake have been noted to emit a

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Speaker 1: hiss that is so low in frequency really people say

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Speaker 1: it sounds more like a growl, almost like the growl

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Speaker 1: of a dog. And most notably this includes the king

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Speaker 1: cobra Opheophagus Hannah, which seems to attain a deeper growl

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Speaker 1: as it gets larger with age. And the snake grows

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Speaker 1: longer as it gets older, and I think that this

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Speaker 1: deepens the frequency of its vocalization. Right. Actually, I think technically,

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Speaker 1: in scientific terms, it would not be called a vocalization

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Speaker 1: because it's more based in the hissing emission of air.

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Speaker 1: But so Young did a bioacoustic analysis of the defensive

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Speaker 1: sounds produced by twenty one different species of snakes, and

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Speaker 1: he writes quote, the typical a kiss is described as

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Speaker 1: having a broad frequency span from roughly three thousand to

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Speaker 1: thirteen thousand hurts and a dominant frequency near hurts. The

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Speaker 1: growl of the king cobra differs from the typical snake

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Speaker 1: kiss in consisting solely of frequencies below undred hurts with

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Speaker 1: a dominant frequency near six hundred herds. So that's pretty

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Speaker 1: low for a snake. And this growl appears to be

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Speaker 1: an adaptation created by changes in the shape of the

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Speaker 1: upper respiratory tract what Young calls quote tracheal diverticula, functioning

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Speaker 1: as a low frequency resonating chamber. And they tested this

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Speaker 1: idea a couple of ways. First of all, they constructed

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Speaker 1: a fake mechanical model of the cobra's trachea, and then finally,

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Speaker 1: their second test is just out of the park. You

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Speaker 1: know that trick where you suck a helium balloon and

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Speaker 1: then your voice gets really good. Well, they tried that

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Speaker 1: on another type of growling snake known as the mangrove

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Speaker 1: rat snake or ganio Soma oxy cephalum quote. Flushing the

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Speaker 1: respiratory tract of G. Oxy cephalum with helium produces a

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Speaker 1: shift of over a thousand hurts in the growl, a

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Speaker 1: shift that is indicative of a resonance effect. So, anyway,

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Speaker 1: king Cobra's growl, these mangrove rat snakes growl, and that

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Speaker 1: that's so good. So perhaps this is a Do you

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Speaker 1: think this is a situation where the film accidentally gets

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Speaker 1: something right about the natural world, or do you think

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Speaker 1: the filmmakers we're just familiar with the sort of sounds

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Speaker 1: that some snakes actually make. I mean, I like to

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Speaker 1: have a generous estimation of other people, but I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I think in this case, they might have just bumbled

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Speaker 1: into it. I don't know if we had herpetological geniuses

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Speaker 1: on set here. Yeah, yeah, I guess it. I've seen

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Speaker 1: some other Joe Diamatto films, and I would say that

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Speaker 1: that that level of detail doesn't really match up with

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Speaker 1: what I know of his work. I think this is

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Speaker 1: just a dog mooing and then maybe later people found

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Speaker 1: out that there are some breeds of dogs that move.

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Speaker 1: I think you're right. All right, let's let's roll through

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Speaker 1: a few other films here. Worth mentioning. Gunga Din from

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Speaker 1: nine is certainly a film I've heard of before, I've

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Speaker 1: never actually seen it. Uh, Indian cultists who I think

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Speaker 1: are supposed to be um buggies, uh torturing British soldier

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Speaker 1: by threatening to throw him into a snake pit. And

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Speaker 1: this is again a famous film, probably an influence on Raiders,

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Speaker 1: and almost certainly an influence on its follow up slash

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Speaker 1: prequel Temple of doom Um. Again, haven't seen it, but

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Speaker 1: I looked at a picture on on Gary's website, and

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Speaker 1: I have to say, snake pit looks pretty shabby. I

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Speaker 1: guess it's just yeah, there are a few. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess there are two ways looking at it. Either

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Speaker 1: you build that set and then you just you your

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Speaker 1: eyes are bigger than your stomach when it comes to

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Speaker 1: how many snakes you can actually fill it with, you know,

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Speaker 1: or it's just hard to fill a space with snakes.

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Speaker 1: Or it's a situation if you're if you're really afraid

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Speaker 1: of snakes, if you're building designing that pit with a

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Speaker 1: rich fear of snakes in mind, you don't have to

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Speaker 1: add that mini they're right because you think, oh, they're

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Speaker 1: gonna be after me. One snake is terrifying enough. I

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Speaker 1: guess that's true. But snakes are not like lions. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the snake would not want to be anywhere near you.

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Speaker 1: I think the idea of a snake pit sort of

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Speaker 1: works is something that's really scary. If it's just full

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Speaker 1: of snakes, where the snakes couldn't even get away from you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I agree. A few other ones that are worth mentioning

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Speaker 1: Off of Gary's list, there's Entered the Devil from nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two, which which sounds pretty fun, he says, it's

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Speaker 1: it involves quote a cult of monks with torches and

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Speaker 1: brown hooded robes chanting in high church Latin. Uh, perform

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Speaker 1: human sacrifices in an old mine in the desert. When

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Speaker 1: they're not stabbing people through the heart, they like to

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Speaker 1: throw their enemies into pits of rattlesnakes for a slower death. Okay,

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Speaker 1: sounds fun. Uh. Seven's Angel of Vengeance or war Cat

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Speaker 1: has a woman who is abducted and gets revenged by

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Speaker 1: throwing one of her captors into a pit full of rattlesnakes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this seems to be like a California grindhouse style

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Speaker 1: film with a with a with a sort of California

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Speaker 1: style rattler pit. It sounds like there's a whole subgenre

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Speaker 1: of rattlesnake pit movies. Yeah. Because, of course, the big

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Speaker 1: examples of this would be uh, the nineteen sixty nine

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Speaker 1: film adaptation of True Grit and the Cohen Brothers two

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Speaker 1: thousand ten adaptation of True Grit. In both of them,

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Speaker 1: a girl falls into an abandoned mine that is full

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Speaker 1: of rattlesnakes, and uh, yeah, I've I've actually only seen

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Speaker 1: the Cohen Brothers version of this, and I've never read

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Speaker 1: the book, but but I like that what I saw

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Speaker 1: quite a bit. The rattler den scene is quite memorable,

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Speaker 1: and Gary offers this critique of the original version on

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Speaker 1: his website. Quote, snakes do hibernating groups underground during the winter, uh,

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Speaker 1: to keep them from freezing, and during summer to keep

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Speaker 1: them from overheating. And if threatened by a girl with

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Speaker 1: a stick, a rattlesnake would surely strike to protect itself.

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Speaker 1: And it's only the one snake she gets too close

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Speaker 1: to that bites her. The others just dispersed to get

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Speaker 1: away from her. So uh. In other words, as far

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Speaker 1: as snake pits and films go, this seems to be

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Speaker 1: like one of the best examples, as in like the

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Speaker 1: most realistic, most scientifics Yeah, the most realistic example. So

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Speaker 1: there there are a few rattlers down there, presumably maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe taking shelter from the heat of the sun or

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Speaker 1: or sheltering for the winter. I guess that I think

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Speaker 1: that takes place in a cold part of the year

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Speaker 1: in true great The book by Charles Portis is a

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Speaker 1: great read, by the way. Oh cool. Yeah, it's one

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Speaker 1: of those that I've had recommended to me before. Maybe

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Speaker 1: the next time I'm in the mood for a good Western,

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Speaker 1: I'll finally pick it up. So, but that's one of

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Speaker 1: the more believable ones in the movies. Maybe maybe we

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Speaker 1: should look back to the sources that that go back

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Speaker 1: beyond these movies. Uh, I guess looking at the idea

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Speaker 1: of snake pits in mythology and snake pits in reality. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll do it, but first let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: Thank thank alright, we're back. So I spent a little

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Speaker 1: time the other day looking around at various snakes in

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Speaker 1: mythology and uh, and for a little bit I was

405
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Speaker 1: having a hard time finding good examples of snake pits,

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Speaker 1: because you see a lot of examples of solitary snakes

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Speaker 1: and even giant snakes cosmic snakes um, rather than dens

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00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: or pits of snakes. And I think there's probably a

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00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,359
Speaker 1: good reason for that. I mean, generally, when we encounter

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Speaker 1: snakes in the world, we're encountering them engaging in solitary behavior.

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Speaker 1: They're generally solitary predators. And on top of that, like

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Speaker 1: we're very impressed by snakes, like snakes, uh, you know,

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00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 1: make an impact on us. They are potentially dangerous to

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Speaker 1: us depending on the species, And we have a lot

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Speaker 1: of symbolic baggage that we uh, that we put on

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Speaker 1: the snakes. So whenever we encounter a snake or see

417
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 1: a snake, we have all of these other associations that

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00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:37,640
Speaker 1: are bound up in its identity. Yeah, and there's also

419
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Speaker 1: still the interesting unresolved question of whether we have certain

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Speaker 1: types of animal morphology is namely often snakes or spiders

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Speaker 1: somehow instinctually recognizable. That that's not a fully settled question

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00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:50,639
Speaker 1: in science. I think there's still arguments on both sides.

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Speaker 1: But we've talked about some of the research on that before,

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Speaker 1: such as the idea that uh, even in babies who

425
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,640
Speaker 1: haven't been acclimatized to a culture that that puts emphasis

426
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 1: on snakes, that say, their pupils might dilate in a

427
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:07,119
Speaker 1: special way when faced with images of snakes. Yeah, so

428
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 1: let's look at a few different myth and mythic and

429
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:15,119
Speaker 1: legendary examples of snake pits, and ultimately, like the weird

430
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 1: and wonderful thing about it is that these are all

431
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 1: three that we're going to discuss related European myths, and

432
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 1: not just like you know, um uh, necessarily continental Europe,

433
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 1: but we're talking like far north. We're talking about Scandinavian tales,

434
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: all of pits with venomous serpents in them. Northern Europe

435
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 1: the place for snakes. Ye, so, and will definitely begin

436
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,360
Speaker 1: to unravel that question here in just a second. But yeah,

437
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: the first example comes to us from Norse legend, the

438
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: legend of Ragnar Lodbrock or loath Brock, king of Danes

439
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 1: and Swedes. Uh. He was a staple of old Norse

440
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: poetry and Icelandic sagas. He may have actually existed. He

441
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,479
Speaker 1: said to have been the father of three sons who

442
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 1: led a vi king invasion of East Anglia in the

443
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: year eight sixty five and uh and and this is

444
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: according to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and other medieval sources. Now, um,

445
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: these three sons that go out campaigning are said to

446
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: have done so in order to perhaps avenge his death

447
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,479
Speaker 1: or and this is key to make a claim based

448
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:25,639
Speaker 1: on one of um of Ragnar's previous invasion attempts, or

449
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: it could simply all be just a matter of legend,

450
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: but or some combination of these elements. But the basically

451
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: most of what we know about him comes from European

452
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: literature that emerged after his death that maybe some mixture

453
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 1: of legend and history intertwined. Yeah, and ultimately may have

454
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: been used to either support an invasion, to support military action,

455
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:49,959
Speaker 1: or to um, you know, make sense of it afterwards,

456
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: like why did we do that? Oh? Well, you know

457
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: what they did to Ragnar. They threw him and fed

458
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: him to a bunch of snakes. Uh. But but it

459
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: also touches on something that seems pretty key in the

460
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: power and spread of this trope, especially in the West,

461
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: and that is snake pits. Throwing someone into snakes. It's

462
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 1: an evil perpetrated by the enemy, especially a foreign enemy. Now.

463
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 1: Danish historian Sexo Grammaticus wrote about this in the in

464
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: the twelfth century um and Uh, and his his view

465
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: was at Ragnar had been a ninth century king who

466
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:26,199
Speaker 1: battled against Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, and according to Saxo Uh,

467
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: the Anglo Saxon King a Ella of Northumbria finally captured

468
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: him and murdered him by casting him into a pit

469
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: of venomous snakes, and then later Icelandic saga's popularized this tail.

470
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 1: And you have to admit it's both gnarly and the

471
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: sort of thing that could be used to prop up

472
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: a revenge invasion. Well, yeah, I mean I think probably

473
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: the mythic idea of a pit of snakes was cool

474
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: and appealing for the same reasons back then that it's

475
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: cool and appealing in movies today. Yeah. Absolutely, It's just

476
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: it's it's weird and frightening, and then that we seemingly

477
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: can't quite get enough of it. By the way, one

478
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: of Ragnar's sons was I've are the boneless? Did he

479
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: do an invasion to um? Well, he was one of

480
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: the suns, Yeah, so he would have, um he I

481
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: was reading about this. First of all, I think he

482
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: does show up in some of these TV Viking shows,

483
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: uh so that anyone out there has has experience with those.

484
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,360
Speaker 1: But apparently interpretations range from him just being a man

485
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: without bones, or a man without legs, or just a

486
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 1: man suffering from impotence, or it could be that like

487
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: the boneless means that he was hated, and it is

488
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: not anything necessarily about his body, but just his reputation,

489
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:40,880
Speaker 1: like there's nothing to him. Yeah. Uh, and there's also

490
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 1: sometimes a curse involved in the telling. But I have

491
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: to say that the idea of a literal boneless Viking

492
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: is most intriguing. Uh, that he's just like a big

493
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 1: like jelly man that has to be rolled out to

494
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:57,640
Speaker 1: the battlefield. I've are the puddle. Yeah uh. But apparently

495
00:26:57,640 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 1: in some of these these uh, these tellings, though, there

496
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: is this idea that he is boneless, he is no

497
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: good in an actual fight, perhaps because he is um

498
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: to some degree disabled, but he was still considered to

499
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: be a great tactician. Okay, But the core of the

500
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: legend here is that Ragnar was executed by being thrown

501
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: into a snake pit. Yes, and um, I want to

502
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: read just an example of this from from its from

503
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: the Guesta Denorum, which of course is a translation here.

504
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: But he he dies in the ninth book of this

505
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: particular work. Uh. There are a lot of other snake

506
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: references elsewhere, because ultimately the snake is just a potent

507
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: um symbol for us to use in our language. But

508
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,360
Speaker 1: but here's the bit about his death. This is after

509
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,400
Speaker 1: he's been thrown into the pit, For when he had

510
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: been taken and cast into prison, his guilty limbs were

511
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: given to serpents to devour, and adders found ghastly substance

512
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: in the fibers of his entrails. His liver was eaten away,

513
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: and a snake, like a deadly executioner, beasts at his

514
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: very heart. Then, in a courageous voice, he recounted all

515
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: his deeds in order, and at the end of his

516
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: recital added the following sentence. If the porkers knew the

517
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: punishment of the board pig, surely they would break into

518
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 1: the sty and hasten to loose him from his affliction.

519
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: At this saying, ella conjecture that some of his and

520
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 1: by his we mean Ragnar's sons were yet alive, and

521
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: bade that the executioner should stop and the vipers be removed.

522
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 1: The servants ran up to accomplish his bidding, but Ragnar

523
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 1: was dead and forestalled the orders of the king. That

524
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: is good, So he turns into a vegetarian because snakes

525
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: are eating his liver in his heart. Yeah, the whole

526
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: part about the snakes going after individual organs is really

527
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: interesting here, and you see shades of that in other

528
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: tales as well, which makes me wonder about the idea,

529
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: like like, ultimately, a snake pit is a place where

530
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: there are many enemies that can kill you, right, and

531
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: here we see them going after individual organs. I wonder

532
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: if on some level it's this recognition that there are

533
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: so many ways for a human to die. There's so

534
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: many ways in which we are mortal, many of them

535
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: tied up with our individual organs and parts of our

536
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: bodies and uh, and and and so perhaps that's sort

537
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: of the the symbolic power of or one part of

538
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: the symbolic power of the snake pit. Yeah, that's interesting.

539
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: It also though, because of the special attention given to

540
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: the heart, seems pretty clear. But this is just making

541
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: me think about the number of mythical monsters that are

542
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: said to attack the liver, in particular that that seems

543
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: odd like that you would single out the liver in

544
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: that way. Uh. It makes me think about the eagle,

545
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: of course, that pecks out Prometheus's liver. It makes me

546
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: think about I believe it was the Japanese story of

547
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: the Kappa that dwells in the water and would pull

548
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: you into the water and then reach up through your

549
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: anus to pull your liver out. That's right, Yeah, Why

550
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: do all these monsters want livers? What? What? What? What's

551
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: what's the liver got for them? It's almost like it's

552
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: a loophole, right, It's like, oh, man, death came for

553
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: me and it got me in the liver. I guess

554
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:05,959
Speaker 1: that's probably the story of a lot of you know,

555
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: stereotypical Viking warriors, right, um, you know, due to the

556
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: mead um. I should note that in some tellings of

557
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: this death, Ragnar is actually laughing before he dies. So

558
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: I think I think that the whole porker's line is

559
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: maybe supposed to be funny, like he's kind of cracking

560
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: a joke about his about the method of his demise there,

561
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 1: But I could be wrong on that. Now I read

562
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: a bit more about this from Tim van Gervanum, who

563
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: I believe is currently a PhD candidate in Scandinavian History

564
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: and Nationalism studies at the University of Amsterdam. Uh He

565
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: he writes about a lot of stuff about Scandinavian history

566
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: and culture at scandinavism dot com and uh Tim writes

567
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: the following quote. There is no archaeological evidence to suggest

568
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: that snake pits were really constructed on the British Isles

569
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: in this period, and no other historical sources make mention

570
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: of such pits being used to execute capital punishment. We

571
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: have in all likelihood a literary motif on our hands

572
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: here which reoccurs in other sagas. And indeed that brings

573
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: us to our next example, and that is the example

574
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: of Gunnar or gun Darius or gundahar Um, who is

575
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: uh the historic king of Burgundy during the early fifth century,

576
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: but also a minor character in the legends of dragon

577
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: slayer Siegfried and then ultimately in you know, a part

578
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: of Wagner's Ring cycle as well, which is based on

579
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: these legends. So he fought against Roman forces and Roman allies,

580
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: but he was defeated in four thirty six by Roman

581
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: general Flavius Dius Um, whose famed for having stopped a

582
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: hunting invasion Um previously sometimes referred to as the last

583
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: victory of the Western Roman Empire. And then in four

584
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: thirty seven, the year after defeating Um, Gunar uh Idius

585
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: and Huntish mercenaries, they destroyed Burgundy. They hunt down King

586
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: Gunnar and they kill him. But how did they kill him? Right?

587
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: I think, I think you can guess. There are various

588
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: poems and sagas that elaborate on all of this, and

589
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: they often portray Gunnar's murder as a snake power atrocity

590
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: with the Huns, especially either throwing him into a snake

591
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: pit or putting him in a snake tower, a snake tower,

592
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: and in some versions, some versions, I think they just

593
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: straight up kill him. Okay, he's killed by the snakes.

594
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: In other versions he has a harp and he puts

595
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: the snakes to sleep, so he almost saves himself, but

596
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: then one of the snakes bites him in the liver

597
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: and he dies. The liver again, Yeah, once more, the liver.

598
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: They go right for liver, the snakes once again. Though

599
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: the question of whether there is any actual historical basis

600
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: for this seems to be mostly dismissed. I was reading

601
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: a work by Suzanne Cries titled Westward I Came across

602
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: the Sea Anglo Scandinavian History through Scandinavian Eyes, and she

603
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: writes the question as to whether the snake pit episode

604
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: has any historical basis, need not detain us here, nor

605
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: it's similarity to Gunnar's death in a snake pit in

606
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 1: Volsunga Saka. Oh so she's just like, it doesn't matter

607
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: whether the snake pit was real or not, right or

608
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: it's just like, we're not going through this again with

609
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: the whole idea was the actual snake pit. There's obviously

610
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: not a snake pit. Okay, that makes sense now. I

611
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: was looking a little bit around about the snake tower

612
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: itself or the the Schlangan term, and um, apparently there

613
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: was there was something referred to as the as an

614
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: historic snake tower in so As, Germany up until the

615
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. Um, and I gather this exactly if this,

616
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: if this actually existed, the idea would be it's a

617
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: dungeon tower reputed to have a snake pit in it.

618
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any actual argument that this was

619
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: a real place in Germany, but perhaps the stories get

620
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: wrapped up around it, and therefore you had an actual

621
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: location that was referred to as the snake tower. Okay. Now,

622
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: another interesting example of this we have, of um this

623
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: character of Dietrich van Byrne uh So. This is a

624
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,239
Speaker 1: German legend apparently based in part on the historic uh

625
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: Theodoric the Great, and in legend and Songs, Dietrich von

626
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: Byrne encounters various dwarves and dragons and giants and heroes,

627
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: including Siegfried, and in one adventure he frees a dwarf

628
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: from a wild man, and the dwarf rewards him with

629
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 1: a jewel. And his jewel turns out to be magical,

630
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: so when an evil giant throws burn into a snake pit,

631
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: the jewel protects him. Okay, so the jewel does better

632
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: than the harp. Yes, yeah, if if you're given the

633
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: choice between a jewel and a harp, go with the

634
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: magic dwarf jewel. Now. One of the more interesting papers

635
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: I came across about snake cowers and snake pits is

636
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: a work by Alexander H. Craepy from nineteen forty that

637
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: was published in Scandinavian Studies and Notes titled The Snake Tower. Now.

638
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: Creepy notes that the European origins of this tale are

639
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: almost certainly dramatic. The European origins anyway, um and this

640
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: is accounts of the snake towers persisted, and he points

641
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: out that that the problem about the Viking versions of

642
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: the tale is that uh, no snakes are found in

643
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: Iceland and Greenland, and that the common viper is the

644
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: only venomous snake in continental Scandinavia and its bite is

645
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: rarely fatal. Furthermore, as one sofas Buggy theorized previously, the

646
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,320
Speaker 1: origins of this imagined execution method are probably not Germanic

647
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 1: in origin at all, and they probably originated in Africa,

648
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: Asia or India, somewhere where you had just more venomous

649
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: snakes to inform the legend, to inform this idea of

650
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: throwing people to snakes and and for their death. You know,

651
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: so so creepy spends a lot of time. I'm not

652
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: gonna be able to go over all the things he

653
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 1: discusses here. Um, but he ultimately points out you have

654
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: two types of snake pit stories. Stories in which snakes

655
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:56,720
Speaker 1: are mere details to illustrate the danger, wildness, or uncleanliness

656
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: of a pit or a place, and then stories in

657
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: which they are stroll to the torment and or death

658
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: that the pit or tower offers. Now on the former,

659
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: he mentions, um uh, some French Authorian legends that that

660
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:14,280
Speaker 1: utilized this, as well as variations on the Jewish legend

661
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: of Joseph being lowered into the pit in which there

662
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: are said to be snakes there. Not that the snakes

663
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: are trying to eat Joseph, but just hey, what a

664
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: loathsome awful place. There were also snakes there. Oh, I

665
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: see when Joseph Joseph of Joseph and the amazing technicolor

666
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,360
Speaker 1: dreamcode fire from the Book of Genesis, when he falls

667
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 1: into a pit or I think maybe it's thrown into

668
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: a pit by his brothers. Yeah, if there's snakes down there,

669
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: it's just all the word like, let's like, let's let's

670
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: ham it up a little bit, you know, let's get

671
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,439
Speaker 1: some snakes in there. It's like this was a bad pit, folks. Yeah.

672
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:47,919
Speaker 1: As far as the other type of story go, where

673
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: there was a snake is central um creepy recounts tales

674
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: from Macedonia and Romania in which you have like a

675
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 1: single giant lizard or snake that dwells in a tower

676
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: and then. But there are plenty of examples of stories

677
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: in which it's multiple snakes that are and often venomous

678
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: snakes that are the foil. There are tales of Romans

679
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,360
Speaker 1: using a cage and vipers to execute a prisoner, and

680
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: there are some tellings of the of st Irene and

681
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 1: which she is thrown into a pit of vipers, but

682
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: then is protected not by a dwarf jewel, but by

683
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: an angel of the Lord. And then there are also

684
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: accounts in the Hindu traditions of such torments and trials

685
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,760
Speaker 1: as well. By the way, coming back to Conan the Barbarian,

686
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: which of course is filled with snakes, we have a

687
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: Tower of the Serpent in that film that Conan the

688
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: Barbarian and his fellow thieves break into. Oh yeah, and

689
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: Conan gets in trouble because it doesn't he cut the

690
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 1: snake's head off. He does, Yeah, falso dooms pet snake.

691
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things about that is like I

692
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: instantly thought of that, and I'm like, oh, man, that

693
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: that story that that that was really on the money, right,

694
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: But when you look closer, uh, that sequence was apparently

695
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: based on the Roberty Howard's story The Tower of the Lent,

696
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: in which Conan meets an imprisoned elephant human hybrid, a

697
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 1: quote trans cosmic being, which itself seems like a weird

698
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: fiction era twist on the Hindu god Ganesha. So Um.

699
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: I don't know it's it's ultimately different, but also not unrelated,

700
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: perhaps to this idea of um of of ideas and

701
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: symbols from outside of a culture than taking on a

702
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: new twist within a new culture. So Creepy ultimately argues

703
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: for African, Indian or Asian origins of the trope and

704
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: uh as, these would be first of all, places where

705
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: you would have just more venomous snakes and just well

706
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: known venomous snakes that could be found. And that also

707
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 1: he argues that all things being equal, this is not

708
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: an entirely unbelievable, thankful thing for a tire end or

709
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: a despot to do. After all, cruel kings have been

710
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: known or at least been reputed to do much worse. Yeah.

711
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: And and we know, for example, like the Roman Empire

712
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: did in fact throw people to animals of various kinds

713
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: to kill them. Yeah, So I have to say, um,

714
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 1: Creepy did at times there were there was kind of

715
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: this air of like, well, you know, rulers and other

716
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: parts of the world are awful. This is the kind

717
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: of thing they get up to. So we also have

718
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 1: to consider like the the age of this paper, I think,

719
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: And he also points out that you know, at the

720
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: same time, none of these tales exist in isolation. The

721
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: snake takes on other connotations and plays other roles in

722
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: myth cycles, such as particularly the venom dripping, dripping snake

723
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: that's used to torment the Norse god Loki at one point.

724
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, Yeah, yeah, there's some This is a

725
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 1: frequent subject of paintings. You'll find some really remarkable paintings

726
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: of this torment and h. He also adds that there's

727
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: a whole tradition in medieval Europe of Hell being populated

728
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: with snakes, So a real life snake pit uh is,

729
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: to a certain extents, just a variation on that or,

730
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: he argues, could have helped inform that idea. So at

731
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: any rate, his his his final argument is that this

732
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: is a central part of stories from outside of your

733
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: Europe that then are transplanted into Europe. They're just too uh,

734
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: you know, irresistible, and then they get wound up in

735
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: German legends, and then that travels to Scandinavia as well,

736
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,280
Speaker 1: and that's how we end up with Vikings being consumed

737
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: by venomous serpents. Interesting, but so, even even after his survey,

738
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:21,720
Speaker 1: that is still just an inference on his part. Ultimately,

739
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 1: we don't know where these ideas came from, why they

740
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: show up in these stories. Yeah, and I didn't. I

741
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: was looking around. I was hoping to find some more

742
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: recent scholarship on this, um, but I did not come

743
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: across it. Not to say it does not exist. But

744
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: if I did miss it, I hope to find it

745
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: because we can. We can always discuss it later. But um,

746
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is ultimately just his argument. We don't

747
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: know for sure. All right. On that note, we're going

748
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:47,799
Speaker 1: to take another break. But when we come back, we're

749
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: gonna leave mostly leave the fiction and the mythology behind us,

750
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get back into the science of actual

751
00:40:55,040 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 1: snake pits. Thank all right, we're back. So, um, you know,

752
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: I guess one might ultimately think of two different varieties

753
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: of snake pits. Here snake pits that are built in

754
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: stocked by human beings for probably you know, not so

755
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: kind purposes. And then there are snake dens, where snakes

756
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 1: gather for reasons that have nothing to do with eating

757
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,760
Speaker 1: Germans or vikings. And we're gonna start by diving into

758
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: one of, if not the most impressive natural world snake

759
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: dens that you'll encounter. But but I do want to

760
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 1: point out that this sort of behavior that we're discussing here,

761
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: the use of wintering or hibernation dens, this also does

762
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: occur in some European species as well, the European adder,

763
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: for example. So I think that's something to keep in

764
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: mind perhaps when thinking about some of those the legend

765
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: cycles that we mentioned earlier, is that the idea of

766
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 1: snakes gathering together underground would not have been the sort

767
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: of thing that would be entirely from from the world afar.

768
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: You know, it's the kind of thing that they could

769
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: conceivably have tails about, like oh, well, you know, uh,

770
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: you know, Igmar once stepped in a hole and there

771
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 1: was a there are a bunch of snakes in there

772
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: was scary and in fact, the the northerly climate might

773
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: give one particular reason that someone could find a bunch

774
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,879
Speaker 1: of snakes in a natural gathering in a pit, maybe

775
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: a reason that you would not expect to find driving

776
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: snakes into a den in more tropical regions, where you

777
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: might expect to find more species of snakes and more

778
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: venomous snakes, for example. So I want to start with

779
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 1: one of my sources here, which is an article from

780
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: The New York Times published June sixteenth, nineteen by Ian Austin,

781
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:36,760
Speaker 1: which is about the Narciss snake dens. So we're starting

782
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: here in the Canadian province of Manitoba, in what's known

783
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: as the Interlake Regions. So this is going to be

784
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: between the large inland lakes in Manitoba, between Lake Winnipeg

785
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: and Lake Manitoba. And there is a tiny settlement along

786
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: the highway I think it's Highway seventeen that runs north

787
00:42:55,239 --> 00:43:01,719
Speaker 1: south through Manitoba called Narciss. The some sources called a town.

788
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: I think town might be kind of a misleading word

789
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: because I looked it up on Google street View and

790
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: there's not much there. It seems like there are a

791
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: handful of houses, but that's about it. Austin notes that

792
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent features of the town that

793
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 1: you can see from the highway is a long abandoned

794
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: gas station. But just a few kilometers north of Narciss

795
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: along the highway, there is this unique place with an

796
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 1: astonishing distinction to its name, and that is that it's

797
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: probably the world's most concentrated and most mind rending natural

798
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: snake pits. Technically, I know what we've been saying pits

799
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: through this whole episode, but I think as best we

800
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: can we should maybe from here on out try to

801
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:46,440
Speaker 1: relegate pits to uh two pits created by humans, because

802
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,800
Speaker 1: apparently the the the naturalists and zoologists who deal with

803
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: this place prefer the term snake dens. A pit kind

804
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,439
Speaker 1: of has negative connotations. Yeah, pit, A pit is something

805
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: you throw something or someone into, and these are these

806
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 1: are homes. You don't call it like a bare pit.

807
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: I guess, well, I mean that's side the point. Well,

808
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: you would if you threw somebody into it, Yeah, true, true, Yeah,

809
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: the pit implies that someone or something is going in

810
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: there with the snakes. Yeah, so these are snake dens.

811
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 1: According to Professor Robert T. Mason, who is a professor

812
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: of integrative biology at Oregon State University, quote, it is

813
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 1: likely the biggest concentration of snakes in the world. And

814
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:32,439
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that, like, why here, why here

815
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: so far north in Canada, that does not seem like

816
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: the kind of place you would expect to find the

817
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 1: biggest concentration of snakes in the world. And there is

818
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:42,359
Speaker 1: an answer to that question. But we'll have to come

819
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: back to that in just a minute. First, I want

820
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,359
Speaker 1: to discuss exactly what you would see if you were

821
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: to decide to visit these snake dens north of narciss

822
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,439
Speaker 1: So there are four major dens in the area, which

823
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 1: I believe you can look at from viewing platforms, at

824
00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 1: least some of them, I think maybe all four and

825
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: all war dens are found in sinkholes down in the ground.

826
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:07,360
Speaker 1: Austin describes one of them like this quote. About the

827
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 1: size of a large dining room and ten to fifteen

828
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: feet deep. The den initially appears to be covered with

829
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 1: some kind of green vegetation, but as it moves, it

830
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: immediately becomes apparent it is filled with slithering snakes, most

831
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: about the diameter of a marker, and with the largest

832
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: perhaps up to eighteen inches long, which would be about

833
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:33,720
Speaker 1: forty six centimeters. So here's your that's no moon moment,

834
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 1: instead of that's no moon, it's those aren't plants. This

835
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: is the sort of scene that I think most cinematic

836
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: snake pit sequences have have tried and failed to achieve,

837
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: and that Raiders mostly achieves this idea that the floor

838
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: is snakes, Yes, but it gets even cooler. Okay, so

839
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 1: you're picturing that, you're picturing the pit. Maybe you're looking

840
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: down from the observation deck. There's this pit in the

841
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 1: ground size of a room. It's covered in snakes, just

842
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: filled with snakes. And now there's there's also a sound

843
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: you should imagine going along with it. The snakes and

844
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: the den's here do not produce sounds you would normally

845
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: think of as going with snakes. They don't hiss, they

846
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 1: don't rattle. Uh, they don't even growl like a king

847
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: cobra actually does. But there is a sound that is

848
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: apparently produced just from friction. Uh Ian writes, quote from

849
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 1: the sheer number of them rubbing against each other and

850
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:37,720
Speaker 1: the bottom of the den creates a sound, and Austin

851
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: quotes a visitor named Brian's Sistric who tries to describe

852
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: the sound by saying that it was like quote the

853
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 1: wind rustling through the trees, but louder. Oh that's nice.

854
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,320
Speaker 1: This again gets back to this idea that we discussed earlier,

855
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: that snake sounds, or a lot of with a lot

856
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: of animals, like the sounds that we associate with them,

857
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: particularly through um A pictures are not always all that accurate. Um. Like,

858
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: just on the subject that you mentioned, rattling is not

859
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: as sound that they're not making. But if you've ever

860
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: gotten to hear a rattlesnake in real life, there's kind

861
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 1: of a range of sound that occur and create. Um,

862
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: it's not just that cinematic rattlesnake sound. If you hear

863
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 1: one in real life, you may be very surprised that

864
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: it does not produce a guitar or ban joe string

865
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: twang right after the rattle finishes, you know, like, have

866
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: you ever heard a rattle in a movie without a

867
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: bam bram anyway? Okay, so these snakes that are filling

868
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: the din and forming a kind of floor of writhing spaghetti,

869
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: and they are making this sound like wind rustling through

870
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 1: the trees. Uh. These are garter snakes, specifically the subspecies

871
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 1: them no Fue sertalis parieh talis, which is a subspecies

872
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: also known as red sided garter snakes. Now, garter snakes

873
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: are very common in North America. If you live in

874
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: North America, I would not be surprised at all if

875
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: you have encountered the multiple times in your lives. There

876
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:11,879
Speaker 1: are different coloration patterns that you'll find among the different subspecies,

877
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: but most of them tend to have black or dark

878
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 1: green background color, and then three brighter stripes running down

879
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:22,720
Speaker 1: the length of the body, usually either yellow or bright green.

880
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: Beyond that, different subspecies also have different spots or splotches

881
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 1: of color. Some have red, some have blue, some more

882
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 1: kind of checked. So unless you're an expert, you're probably

883
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: not gonna always be able to tell whether you're looking

884
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: at a garter snake or not. They are usually considered

885
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,719
Speaker 1: non venomous, meaning that you know they don't have a

886
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 1: venom that is thought of as significant to humans, though

887
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:48,759
Speaker 1: apparently some subspecies do have mild neurotoxins in their saliva,

888
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: which can help immobilize a tiny prey animal while the

889
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:54,800
Speaker 1: snake tries to get the animal down its gullet. But

890
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: but the most I've read about in terms of garter

891
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: snake venum affecting humans is is mostly just like itching

892
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: or irritation at the side of a bite. Red sided

893
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 1: garter snakes in particular are found throughout much of central

894
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: and the western United States and Canada, and according to

895
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 1: the conservation group Ontario Nature, they travel farther north than

896
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: any other land dwelling reptile in Canada, and so they're

897
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,239
Speaker 1: they're sort of out on the climatic edge, right, which

898
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: has some pluses and minuses. Of course, it probably means

899
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: that in the far north, I would guess they face

900
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: less competition for resources from other animals like them, but

901
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: of course they're also going to be extremely vulnerable to

902
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,959
Speaker 1: the cold further south in in warmer climates, Apparently, garter

903
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: snakes have to seek one another for mating with the

904
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: help of sexual pheromones. So this would be like a

905
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: female produces a pheromone that is uh, and the males

906
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: are chemo sensitive to it. They smell that pheromone and

907
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,320
Speaker 1: then they seek out the female to mate with. But

908
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 1: seeking a maid in this way is energetically tagg xing

909
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 1: at a time when you could just be hunting for food, right,

910
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,359
Speaker 1: you could be stalking up, but instead you're running around

911
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:07,959
Speaker 1: through the marshes or the woods trying to find a mate.

912
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:12,240
Speaker 1: So up north, where garter snakes have together in dens

913
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 1: to survive the winter, there's actually kind of a double

914
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: advantage to this conclave at the den. With all the

915
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: snakes gathered in one place, it's much easier to find

916
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:23,760
Speaker 1: a mate now even exactly, it's like they've all gathered

917
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: at one big snake convention anyway, right, it's already they're

918
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: already at a burning snake right right now. There are

919
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:31,800
Speaker 1: two parts of the year when you can see the

920
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: snakes on mass at the den's north of narciss In

921
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: the fall, usually around early September. That's when they tend

922
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 1: to gather at the dens. So they've been coming in

923
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: from kilometers all around, from from the marshes and the woods. Uh,

924
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 1: and then they come into the dens. I believe the

925
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 1: technical term for the dens are actually hypernacular. That's a

926
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,359
Speaker 1: good one to have in your tool belt there. Oh yeah,

927
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:57,840
Speaker 1: really hitting so many great metal band names in this

928
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: from Snake Tower and it's a German translation to hybernacular,

929
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: like these are some great great names for your bands, right,

930
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 1: count hybernacular. Uh. And another word actually that that is

931
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: worth knowing is that the cold blooded animal equivalent of hibernation,

932
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,800
Speaker 1: because I believe technically reptiles don't hibernate. The term is

933
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: known as broomation. And this means, of course, you know,

934
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:22,920
Speaker 1: they descend at the onset of cold weather and then

935
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: in the spring, there's a period of like one to

936
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 1: three weeks or so when they emerge from the hybernacular

937
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 1: to form these massive writhing pits containing hundreds or sometimes

938
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 1: even thousands of snakes at a time. All in all,

939
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: about seventy thousand snakes can be found gathered at this

940
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: one collection of dens for the winter. Now what are

941
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: they doing when they're gone for the summer? Well, during

942
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 1: warm weather time, they're mostly foraging. The garter snakes are

943
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 1: going to be eating small amphibians like frogs, as well

944
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: as leeches, earthworms, fishes, and other small animals. But in

945
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: the times when they gather, I believe, especially in the springtime,

946
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 1: these huge slithering pits in the dens, I guess I

947
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:08,359
Speaker 1: said pits, But yeah, what do you call them? These

948
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: huge slithering masses of snakes in the dens are all

949
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: about mating because in the springtime, when the weather warms up,

950
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:19,320
Speaker 1: the males emerge first. They come out of the hybernacular first,

951
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: and they warm up in the sun and become more

952
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 1: active as they slowly come out of broomation, and they're

953
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,640
Speaker 1: waiting for the larger females to emerge so the mating

954
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: can begin. And when it does. One of the strange

955
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 1: things that that goes on here is that it is

956
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:39,800
Speaker 1: an extremely asymmetrical affair. Each female snake can be surrounded

957
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,839
Speaker 1: by dozens of males, all vying to be the one

958
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:47,280
Speaker 1: that mates with her, and these masses of snakes gathered

959
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 1: around a single adult female can form into what's known

960
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:53,400
Speaker 1: as a mating ball, where they all get tangled up

961
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: and can sometimes even sort of roll downhill. See already,

962
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: it's weirder than any North myth. Yeah. Now, regarding these

963
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,520
Speaker 1: giant masses of mating snakes in springtime, in the New

964
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:08,239
Speaker 1: York Times article, Austin notes that since this emergence is

965
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: usually in April or May many years, a trip to

966
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 1: the snake Den's is a popular local Mother's Day celebration.

967
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, sounds great. Um. Now, these garter snakes,

968
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: I think I've sort of mentioned this already, but they're

969
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,720
Speaker 1: considered pretty much entirely harmless to humans. I've seen videos

970
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: of kids holding them in their hands and playing with

971
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,959
Speaker 1: them that I'm not personally saying this is advised. I would,

972
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 1: you know, I would say follow whatever the local posted

973
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 1: rules say. Apparently they can sometimes bite and sometimes garter

974
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: snakes will also secrete a kind of nasty, stinky pheromone

975
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 1: juice out of a gland near their cloaca out of defense,

976
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: and apparently, according to Robert Mason, that biologist quoted earlier

977
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: in the article I mentioned earlier, this defensive emission of

978
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: malodorous repellent is actually part of the mating behavior as well,

979
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: because it looks like what's going on is that when

980
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: the males surround the female and the mating ball, this

981
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 1: kind of irritates her, and the female opens up this

982
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 1: repellent gland in order to to spray the stink pheromone

983
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 1: that would normally repel something that's harassing the snake. But

984
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: then the opening of the gland also gives the males

985
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: access for at least for at least one of them

986
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:23,399
Speaker 1: to mate with her. And another interesting thing about garter

987
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:28,240
Speaker 1: snakes is that, like some species we've discussed before, after mating,

988
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 1: females can engage in long term storage of sperm from

989
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 1: multiple males, allowing competition between sex cells within the female's

990
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: body and potentially leading to her producing broods with multiple paternity.

991
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: So multiple males can have can have offspring within the

992
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: same brood. Interesting In that Times article, Austin reports that

993
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:54,000
Speaker 1: the park does permit people to handle the smaller male snakes,

994
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 1: but discourages people from trying to handle the larger females.

995
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,320
Speaker 1: And I was wondering, what does it feel like to

996
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 1: hold one of these snakes. Well, that's actually covered. Austin

997
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: says that a couple of and their children here at

998
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 1: the at the Den's reported that snakes don't feel slimy,

999
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: they don't feel scaly, and that the sensation is quote

1000
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: more like holding a piece of soft mo hair that

1001
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: wiggles around. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean I always encourage

1002
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 1: the touching of snakes when the touching of snakes is

1003
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: permitted and encouraged by responsible parties, because yeah, I find that, Yeah,

1004
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 1: they certainly they don't feel slimy, but they really they

1005
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:33,719
Speaker 1: feel nice. They feel there's something reassuring about them. Yeah.

1006
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:36,280
Speaker 1: That visitor Brian so Strict is quoted in the article

1007
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: is saying that they just quote kind of melt into

1008
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 1: your hand. So it seems like if you threw somebody

1009
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 1: into this snake pit, it wouldn't be that bad. Well,

1010
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:48,360
Speaker 1: the thing is, snakes don't they don't want you in

1011
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:50,720
Speaker 1: there with them, it might be bad for the snakes.

1012
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, um but but but back to the question

1013
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:59,359
Speaker 1: I brought up here earlier, Why here, Why in Narciss. Well,

1014
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 1: so the answer is in Manitoba. Of course, it gets

1015
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 1: extremely cold in the winter, and snakes are cold blooded.

1016
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 1: They can't tolerate the extreme cold of the Canadian winter,

1017
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: and that's why they have to go into broomation in

1018
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:15,720
Speaker 1: these dens. And the reason the interlake region around Narciss

1019
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 1: is so attractive is the quality of its sink holes.

1020
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: This area is mostly a very thin layer of top

1021
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 1: soil above a limestone bedrock, which is easily eroded by

1022
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: water flowing over and underground, and this creates sink holes

1023
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: which grant access to small caves and underground recesses that

1024
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:41,280
Speaker 1: fall below the frost line, providing a relatively warm refuge

1025
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 1: in winter. So it's geology. The snakes swarm in from

1026
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:46,960
Speaker 1: the surrounding area because of the quality of the natural

1027
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 1: snake holes that form here. Come for the sinkholes, stay

1028
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:53,160
Speaker 1: for the snake sex. I couldn't have put it better

1029
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: myself that that's exactly how it is. Um and Austin

1030
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: points out that it's the same geologic qualities that make

1031
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 1: narciss and idea old spot for snake dens that also

1032
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:04,839
Speaker 1: make it a bad spot for agriculture, which is why

1033
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:10,280
Speaker 1: most attempted farmers eventually left the region. And according to Austin,

1034
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,840
Speaker 1: early European settlers in the area tried to exterminate the snakes,

1035
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 1: but fortunately, it seems local attitudes are are a bit

1036
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 1: more appreciative these days. And I was reading how there

1037
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: are now even special sort of accommodations in the area,

1038
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 1: like snake tunnels that pass underneath local roads to prevent

1039
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 1: you know, auto related flattenings during the migration season. And

1040
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 1: I've got to say, I guess it's because I grew

1041
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 1: up in Tennessee around a lot of Eastern garter snakes.

1042
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 1: You know, if you saw a snake in my hometown,

1043
00:57:39,880 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 1: it was very likely a garter snake, a different subspecies,

1044
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: but still a garter snake. I think I've always thought

1045
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,919
Speaker 1: of them as fairly mundane animals, but I am seeing

1046
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: garter snakes in a whole new way. And there are

1047
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 1: other things about them that make things even weirder. Like

1048
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: um we mentioned earlier how snakes in general are mostly

1049
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: solitary predators, and these large gatherings for hibernation, of course,

1050
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: or one exception to that. But there is another interesting anomaly.

1051
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 1: I was reading a news article in Science by Elizabeth

1052
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 1: Panissi called garter snakes are surprisingly social, forming quote friendships

1053
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:19,720
Speaker 1: with fellow serpents. Now friendships is in sort of scare

1054
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:22,440
Speaker 1: quotes there, and I think that that word choice might

1055
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:23,960
Speaker 1: be a little over the line if you take it

1056
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 1: too literally, But either way, these findings are actually kind

1057
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:31,680
Speaker 1: of interesting. So this article was from May, it's pretty recent,

1058
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: and it covers how there was research into eastern garter snakes.

1059
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 1: Again that's different from the red sided garter snakes that

1060
00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 1: you'd find in Manitoba. But the short version is that

1061
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:45,720
Speaker 1: a couple of researchers from Wilfrid Lauria University named Noah

1062
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:49,480
Speaker 1: Miller and Morgan Skinner. Uh. They found that if you

1063
00:58:49,560 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 1: put a bunch of snakes in an enclosure and then

1064
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: you chart their movements, and then you take them out,

1065
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 1: and then you clean the enclosure to get rid of

1066
00:58:57,480 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 1: any smells, and then you put them back in and

1067
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 1: different positions, the snakes will kind of tend to reform

1068
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: groups in little artificial shelters with the same snakes that

1069
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: they had grouped with previously, and they also found interesting

1070
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: little indications of semisocial behaviors among snakes. For example, quote,

1071
00:59:16,080 --> 00:59:18,080
Speaker 1: when the snakes were in a group, they tended to

1072
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 1: do what the group did, regardless of their own personality. Overall,

1073
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 1: snakes spent about nine percent of the time in a shelter.

1074
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: Animals with more snakes in their shelter were less likely

1075
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: to leave. Now. They noted, of course, that these results

1076
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:34,360
Speaker 1: might not hold true in the wild. This could be

1077
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 1: some kind of product that we're not understanding, some some

1078
00:59:37,680 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 1: element of the design and the experiment causing them to

1079
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: behave differently. So field research would need to be done

1080
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 1: to confirm this effect. But wouldn't that be interesting? You know,

1081
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, hey, I was in a mating ball

1082
00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: with you last spring. How are you doing? Yeah, that

1083
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 1: this is all fascinating because again, we think of snakes

1084
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,440
Speaker 1: as dainly solitary predators. We don't tend to think that

1085
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: they have much in the way of really aationships with

1086
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:04,160
Speaker 1: each other beyond you know, birth and then of course,

1087
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:08,360
Speaker 1: in some cases preying on other snakes. But but yeah,

1088
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 1: this is we see this with these garter snakes. But

1089
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:13,560
Speaker 1: we also see some similar stuff going on with rattlers.

1090
01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: Oh this brings us back to true grit. Yeah, yeah,

1091
01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 1: because of course, in true grit, like we said, UH,

1092
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: we have this scene in which there is this uh,

1093
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: this den. It's a man made den, you know, in

1094
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:26,280
Speaker 1: the sense there wasn't made for snakes, but it's you know,

1095
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: an abandoned mine, and snakes have turned it into their den.

1096
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 1: And we do certainly see this in for instance, the

1097
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:35,640
Speaker 1: northwestern United States. We see this with UH, with with

1098
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 1: the rattlers. They're taking into two communal dens to survive

1099
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: the winter and then emerging in the spring basking for

1100
01:00:42,200 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 1: a while and the heat in the sun to have

1101
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:46,520
Speaker 1: a recharge, and then they go they go their own

1102
01:00:46,560 --> 01:00:49,920
Speaker 1: ways to forage and the mate. UH. And interestingly enough,

1103
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: female timber rattlesnakes do seem to maintain some sort of

1104
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: bond with relatives beyond birth. So pregnant females have been

1105
01:00:58,120 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: found living with either UH sisters or mother daughter daughter pairs.

1106
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:05,480
Speaker 1: And part of this seems to come down to UH,

1107
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, you know, the chemical traits that

1108
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,680
Speaker 1: are left by other snakes, in this case by the rattlesnakes.

1109
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: They can follow these back to wintering dens, but they

1110
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 1: can also use them to identify close relatives. Now, continuing

1111
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,960
Speaker 1: discussing of rattlesnakes. Here, we talked about mythic artificial pits

1112
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:25,600
Speaker 1: of snakes, and we've talked about these these dens that

1113
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 1: snakes are taking to naturally. Uh. Well, there's definitely an

1114
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 1: artificial rattlesnake pit uh to consider, and that's uh well,

1115
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 1: those are the pits that take place in um rattlesnake

1116
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:42,120
Speaker 1: round ups, which are an annual affair in Texas. So

1117
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 1: this sort of thing uh one place in particular Sweetwater, Texas.

1118
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:51,000
Speaker 1: I've seen multiple they're multiple pay uh news articles about

1119
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: this practice, including April NBR report by Lizzie Chenu. And

1120
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,480
Speaker 1: basically this is something goes out about half a century

1121
01:01:59,160 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: uh local regularly round up Western diamondback rattlesnakes with the

1122
01:02:04,400 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 1: aim of keeping or the The claim is that it's

1123
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:11,680
Speaker 1: about keeping the populations in check and protecting livestock and

1124
01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 1: pets from venomous bites. So it's very tied to farming

1125
01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 1: and agriculture. Chen writes, quote, on average, four thousand pounds

1126
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: of snakes are rounded up every year where they are weighed, sexed,

1127
01:02:23,560 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 1: meaning they're identified as male or female, milked, killed, and skinned.

1128
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:32,000
Speaker 1: Uh So, obviously this has been heavily criticized by ecologist

1129
01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:35,400
Speaker 1: and animal rights activists, though interestingly enough, the proponents of

1130
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:39,120
Speaker 1: these rattlesnake roundups. They often use it as a defense, Well,

1131
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:40,640
Speaker 1: we're not really putting much of a dent in there

1132
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 1: in the rattlesnake population, which raises the issue then then

1133
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 1: why are we doing it? Right? It's like, what what

1134
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 1: is the purpose of of continuing to round them up

1135
01:02:49,400 --> 01:02:53,240
Speaker 1: and kill them if it's not actually doing the thing

1136
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:56,840
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to do right. Um. Part of the

1137
01:02:56,960 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 1: issue that I've read is that it has to do

1138
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 1: with the fact that this this generates a lot of

1139
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:04,240
Speaker 1: revenue for the area, like like a lot of things

1140
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 1: of this nature. It's you know, there's a whole festival um,

1141
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:10,200
Speaker 1: kind of built up around it. So it brings you know,

1142
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:14,160
Speaker 1: gets people out, it gets people spending money, um. And

1143
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:18,800
Speaker 1: it seems uncertain if it is actually serving as a

1144
01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:22,280
Speaker 1: protective service at all. So again, is it is garnered

1145
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:26,080
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism over time, Plus, rattlesnakes play an

1146
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:29,120
Speaker 1: important role in the ecosystem. We discussed this um on

1147
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: an episode that we did with with guest Mark Mandinka. Uh.

1148
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:36,440
Speaker 1: You know, rattlesnakes in particular, they're gonna prey on disease

1149
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 1: carrying rodents. Uh, They're gonna help keep their numbers down,

1150
01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: and they're going to serve as necessary prey for a

1151
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:47,800
Speaker 1: host of animals, including owls, foxes, coyotes, and other snake species.

1152
01:03:48,120 --> 01:03:52,000
Speaker 1: And then on top of this, there even these rattlesnakes,

1153
01:03:52,040 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 1: which you know often have that kind of you know,

1154
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: Western danger reputation, They're not as dangerous to humans as

1155
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: those films would make you think for starters. We've we've

1156
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: certainly discussed this before. Snake venom is a precious resource

1157
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 1: that most snakes are loath to waste on the average

1158
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:12,240
Speaker 1: cowboy or a captured germatic king. In fact, according to

1159
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:15,920
Speaker 1: Texas Parks and Wildlife, first of all, about seven thousand

1160
01:04:15,960 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: people are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States annually,

1161
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:23,040
Speaker 1: and only point two percent one out of five hundred

1162
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 1: hundred venomous snake bites result in death, and on average,

1163
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 1: only one to two people in Texas die each year

1164
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:33,919
Speaker 1: from venomous snake bites. Roughly half of all venomous snake

1165
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:36,600
Speaker 1: bites are dry. In other words, the snake does not

1166
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 1: inject venom into the victim. Yeah, I mean, I can

1167
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:43,000
Speaker 1: certainly understand local cultural traditions and all that, but I

1168
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:45,800
Speaker 1: do think obviously you're always kind of playing with fire

1169
01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:49,160
Speaker 1: when you're culling predators, right, I mean, we've seen this

1170
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:52,240
Speaker 1: go wrong in a number of locations, just in the

1171
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: continental United States. Absolutely. It just brings about, you know,

1172
01:04:56,600 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 1: an unbalanced ecosystem which can result and and catastrophic consequences,

1173
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: sometimes in ways that you can't even quite predict ahead

1174
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 1: of time. It also brings to mind, uh an episode

1175
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:11,960
Speaker 1: we did in the past about bounties being placed on cobras.

1176
01:05:12,280 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 1: Do you remember that? Right? Oh? Yeah, that makes me

1177
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 1: wonder Okay, Well, I mean I guess I could understand

1178
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:19,680
Speaker 1: this in a different way of somebody was like farming

1179
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:22,640
Speaker 1: rattlesnakes in order to bring in But that would be

1180
01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:26,680
Speaker 1: a somewhat different thing, wouldn't it. Yeah. So anyway, the

1181
01:05:27,800 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: story of of in the future of rattlesnake roundups continues

1182
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:33,600
Speaker 1: to be written. But but I think it first of all,

1183
01:05:33,640 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 1: it serves as just an example of a modern activity

1184
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:39,960
Speaker 1: that is essentially resulting in temporary snake pits, because the

1185
01:05:40,160 --> 01:05:43,840
Speaker 1: pictures are pretty pretty snake heavy. But on the other hand,

1186
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:47,320
Speaker 1: it's a it's a reason to drive home again the

1187
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: importance of snakes. Even though so much of this, uh

1188
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:52,959
Speaker 1: you know we've been talking about, especially in the myths

1189
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 1: and the cinematic examples. Uh, you know, they're they're they're

1190
01:05:56,600 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 1: preying on our fear of snakes and our ideas the

1191
01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:03,040
Speaker 1: snakes are just inherently dangerous or lethal to humans. And

1192
01:06:03,200 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 1: really we have to step back and appreciate what snakes

1193
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:08,480
Speaker 1: are and how they fit into our ecosystem. So I

1194
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:11,000
Speaker 1: guess what I'm trying to say is watch out for snakes,

1195
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:14,920
Speaker 1: but be respectful of snakes. Yeah, leave the snakes alone,

1196
01:06:15,480 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 1: all right. So there you have it. Obviously, we'd love

1197
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone out there regarding snake movies, uh,

1198
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:26,040
Speaker 1: snake myths and legends, and also, you know, perhaps most importantly,

1199
01:06:26,320 --> 01:06:31,040
Speaker 1: real life encounters with snakes and snake dens. Have you

1200
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:33,880
Speaker 1: seen these snake dens in question? I know we have

1201
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 1: Canadian listeners. If you have, if you have witnessed this

1202
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 1: spectacle in real life, we have to hear from you.

1203
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 1: I know some of you out there have been to

1204
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 1: the narciss Snake Dens. We want to hear from you.

1205
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:47,080
Speaker 1: Let us know what was it like. What did you

1206
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:50,760
Speaker 1: hear the sound? Tell us about the friction. Yes. In

1207
01:06:50,880 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to check out other

1208
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:54,920
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, well you know

1209
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:57,480
Speaker 1: where to find us. It's wherever you get your podcasts

1210
01:06:57,640 --> 01:06:59,680
Speaker 1: and wherever that happens to be. Just make sure that

1211
01:06:59,760 --> 01:07:03,440
Speaker 1: you rate, review and subscribe. Huge thanks as always to

1212
01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would

1213
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:08,680
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1214
01:07:08,760 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to tell us about your

1215
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:13,360
Speaker 1: snaked in experience, or just to say hello, you can

1216
01:07:13,440 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: email us at contact and Stuff to Blow your Mind

1217
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:26,280
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of

1218
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:28,960
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,

1219
01:07:29,200 --> 01:07:32,040
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're

1220
01:07:32,040 --> 01:07:33,240
Speaker 1: listening to your favorite shows.