WEBVTT - Mermaids: Not a real thing 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.440 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know front House Stuff Works 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:14.480 dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Yeah, 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.079 that's right. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:23.280 in the ether, floating, possibly not existing, who knows. Uh. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.319 And this is stuff you should know, that's right. Just 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.400 a couple of couple of merman trying to make their 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:31.920 way in the world, trying to keep their tails wet. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.959 Yeah you know, yeah, because that thing dries out. You've 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:41.920 seen Splash. Yeah, it's a actually past now. She dried 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.559 out and she was just fine. Oh. I thought, oh, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.159 you thinking of et when he turned all white and 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.680 dried out. I was thinking of Splash because I couldn't remember. 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:52.840 It's one of It was one of my favorite movies 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.400 as a kid. It's a cute movie. Um. It was 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.720 one of those early HBO movies, early Tom Hanks, which 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:04.720 I'm big fan of early Tom Hanks, and um, I 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.640 just thought it was a really fun funny movie. John 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:11.080 Candy movie what's his name played the evil man trying 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:16.120 to expose her. Um, Eugene Levy, I think, oh, was 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:17.720 he the bad guy? Yeah? He was the one that 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.240 you know that's a high quality movie. When Eugene Levy 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.880 is the bad guy. Yeah, there was the SETV crew 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.680 and um, he actually tried to spray her and get 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.480 her wet so she would and the fat kid turned 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.679 into a mermaid on the sidewalk, That's what it was. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.959 And she got wet, she turned to a mermaid. She 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.240 got tried, no problem. Yes, And Daryl Hannah, of course, 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.480 who's running around with Neil Young? Now? Oh really? Yeah? 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:45.399 How about that couple? Sure? Why not? Both environmentalists. But 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.160 there's a lot of turquoise in that bedroom. I wonder 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.880 if you hook up with Neil Young, if or anyone 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.360 like that, if if you're sort of a new relationship 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.680 and not like the wife they had for forty years, 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:01.920 if you're like, ya, play a song, why don't you what? Like? 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.560 I wonder if you asked them to play music? Oh, 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:06.920 like you're actually into him? Yeah, Like if if you're 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.720 Billy Joel's new year old wife, do you ever say, like, hey, honey, 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.720 play me a tune. Play that one that you that 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.760 you wrote ten years before I was conceived. I think 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.200 what I'm saying is I would have a hard time 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.560 being with Neil Young and not every night after dinner, 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.200 just kind of nudging the guitar towards him, Oh, I 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.760 got you, and saying I'd love to hear Old Man. Yeah, 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.040 please baby one for me, And yeah, he says, I 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.880 played that song times. Yeah, I would guess that, well, 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.400 I can tell you I would. I would. Yeah, I 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.239 would guess that once you reach a certain point and 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.519 playing a song, you never want to hear that song 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.920 or even think about it existing again, but then you 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.200 still have to play it. I try not to think 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.040 about that when I'm at those shows. Yeah, it makes 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.239 me feel bad for him, like they might as well be, 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.320 you know, in the monkey house or something, and you 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.680 just throwing bananas at him. And God bless the people 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.799 who really bring it still where you feel like, man, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.040 they're playing that song for me tonight, Adam Man did 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.919 he still bring it? He's just who came to mind. 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.480 Whereas when I saw the Police on their reunion, they 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.480 were phoning it in really, even Stewart Copeland. Well, I mean, 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:23.840 they were playing the songs, but it just it didn't 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.800 look like they were enjoying themselves at all. It looked 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.440 like a total money grab. Sure, they entered from three 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.720 separate entrances and exited from three separate and I got 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.720 the feeling they didn't even like speak much. That's like 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.040 I was reading an article on the Ramons, the Rolling 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.400 Stone one recently. Uh yeah, I guess it was. Yeah, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.480 they had a great article on them, so yeah, I 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.880 guess it was. It was definitely Rolling Stones. So okay, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.360 did you read it? Yeah, then it was awesome. But yeah, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.839 they're like they they would they would just like get 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.720 on the bus and not speak to one another, go 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:57.680 to the next town and get on stage and play 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.440 and then come off stage and not like they would. 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.840 They would be gun stage because they had to. That 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.600 was it. And apparently, well at least Joey and who 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.360 was his big foil is those ones who really hated 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.840 each other. Yeah, supposedly they didn't speak at all for 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.760 like twenty five years straight, right because Joey stole d 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.200 D's like love of his life and then they were 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.440 in the band together still after that it was just 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.880 like ts Man, so weird. So like a lot of songs, 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.080 especially once like the kk K Took My Baby Away, 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:33.080 that's about Joey stealing dds girlfriend. Wow, it was a 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:38.640 great article, good read. Um, So back to splash, funny 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.360 movie about a mermaid, and we're gonna talk about mermaids here, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.479 and mostly what we're gonna cover is the lore in 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.279 history and the mythology of the mermaid because there's a 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:55.120 little giveaway there are no mermaids. What did you look 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.719 up like pictures of real mermaids sightings and stuff. Yeah, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.960 and it's the same thing as pictures of Bigfoot sighting, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.800 some pictures of UFO sighting some weird distant blur that like, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.200 you can't it could be kelped or it is such 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.000 an obviously doctored photo. What would be fun, though, is 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.760 if we had a time machine forget killing Hitler. If 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.520 you get like, oh yeah, that's right. I can't believe 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.200 we don't put this into good use. Forget like, um, 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.200 you know, saving the world. They're keeping the Dodo from 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.280 going extinct. I would take some of these doctored photos 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.960 that are just so easy to make today back to 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.520 like the nineteen twenties and be like look at this 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:34.560 and they go, yeah, I know, we still believe in 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.320 that stuff. With your aim being what just a freak 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.520 am out, I figured there'd be a money angle. Oh yeah, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:47.520 Josh is traveling Wonder Wonder emporium. It's not a bad 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.479 idea where in which you just show them photos. But 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.440 I charged them like two thousand sixteen rates and no 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.960 one can possibly afford that, So I go out of business, 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.320 like almost immediately. Right, there's like one guy in the town. 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.279 It's like, oh, pay fifty to see those right, step 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.840 right up, towns only billionaire. Um, that's a great idea. 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:08.240 I don't know why no one ever thought of that. 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.560 It was a terrible idea, like from beginning to end. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.719 Forget going back and betting on the stock market or 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.839 the outcome of the World Series. I'm gonna go back 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.440 and set up a business doom to fail. All right, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.160 So let's talk about mermaid uh lore. Well we can 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.680 start here in the more modern age, because there are 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.039 still places that try and take people for money, like 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.120 we were just talking about, even like me um in 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.440 fact uh in Israel on the coast there and they 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:43.640 actually have a town called kyr yat Yam. And if 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.400 you go to kiryat Yam, you could win how much money? 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.240 Does he even say? Million bucks? Million American dollars if 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:55.560 you um, if you provide incontrovertible evidence of the mermaid 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:58.920 that is reputed to want to live there, Yeah, and 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.680 appear at sunce as of two thousand nine was the 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.000 first sighting there. Yeah, And of course what that is 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:05.960 is a ploy to try and get tourists and come 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:07.960 and spend money in the town and look for the mermaid. 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.440 The welcome you to Yam. I'm sure lock Ness has 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.360 made plenty of tourist money over the years. Apparently they 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.000 have a standing offer as well, and that's where the 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:23.160 mayor of Curiot Yam got the idea great idea. And 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.080 actually I saw that photo too. It's kind of neat. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.400 I don't know what it is or who created it 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.160 or whatever, but there's allegedly a photo taken obviously from 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.560 like a cliff down on to a beach, you know, 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.800 a beach that will have like a big just slab 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:44.080 of rocks surrounded by sand, sand and mermaids. Right, there's 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.320 a mermaid on that rock, just kind of looking out 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.800 in the sea. And of course it could be anything. 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.520 It could be totally doctored, who knows um, But it's 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.520 from a distance and at least they didn't like go 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.160 full out like perfect picture of a mermaid of ever 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:01.080 it's it's it's just um suggest to enough that people 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.760 who believe in such things would be like, right, there, 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.560 there's a picture of a mermaid, you know, so that 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.840 was found in two thousand nine, or that surfaced in 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.840 two thousand nine, and since then the surfaced right, since 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:19.840 then the town's uh had that standing offer? Correct? So uh? 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.640 The really the interesting thing to me about mermaids is 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:27.040 the mythology. Did you take mythology in college at all? Yeah? 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.720 I did. It. Always wanted it to interest me more 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.840 than it did me too. It was just I don't 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.120 know if it wasn't explained to me quite well enough, 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:42.840 or just the ancients non bicameral mind wasn't um fused 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.120 together enough to interest people in the modern age. Well, 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.320 I think so. I think the stories themselves, as far 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.520 as good storytelling, we're just lacking because a lot of 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.520 them were just versions of one another, and there was 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:03.640 usually a very basic uh amis or moral um. And 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.600 in the case of mermaids, a lot of times they 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.760 were a lot of folksore even was rooted in misogyny. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.520 You know, you know, there'll be a woman to come 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.640 along and screw your life up, right, or if you 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.840 grew up a woman, Um, she will kill your children 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.000 or something like that, like women were not to be trusted, 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.160 and they were murderous and duplacidus and a lot of 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:29.600 mythologist the old Hag so uh it was in various, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.760 I mean hundreds and hundreds of books and texts, including 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.360 the Talmud, believe it or not. And we've talked about 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:43.480 plenty of the Elder, the Beer and the dude Rome's 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.320 plan of the Elder. He in his Natural History talked 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:51.440 about a mermaid like creature called the neriad. Yes, I 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.120 think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah, in e r e 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.160 I d that ei is a tough transition, is because 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.800 you want to say, like the Reid, Yeah ner Reed, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:09.040 these are sea nymphs, half human, half fish mermaids and um. 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.200 He also talked about sea men. And we should point 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.800 out that Merman we made the joke about us being Merman. 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.920 I believe Merman were even first on the literary scene. 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.679 Is that correct? Well, first, at least with mythology or 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.760 um theology. I guess there's a Babylonian god of the 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:32.559 sea named Ea e A sports um just e A, 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:38.880 and he pops up in uh Babylonian mythology from I 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.040 think four thousand years ago, and they think that he's 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.000 actually the progenitor of or the predecessor I should say, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.560 of Poseidon, who is the Greek god of the sea, 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.760 and Neptune, who's the Roman god of the see. Because 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.080 the Greeks gave us Western culture, but they just walked 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.240 around to all of the neighboring cultures and picked their 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.320 favorite parts and put them together. Yeah, and that was 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:06.800 definitely one of them. Yeah. Uh, well, we talked in 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.080 our I guess it was in the folklore and fairy 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:16.000 Tale episodes that were twin episodes almost um about the 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:21.400 original Little Mermaid and how you know she was disnified 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.320 to the fullest. But the original story was far darker, darker, 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.040 but also even more touching by far. Like I went 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.640 back and read the last um the last like section 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:35.800 of it. Well, give me a summary at the end. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.920 So at the end, this is where dramatically differs from 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:43.920 the Disney story. The Little Mermaid is scorned for another 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:48.000 woman her the guy she loves chooses someone else and 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.880 Mary's her and the Little Mermaid is like, dude, I 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.959 gave up my tail for you, I think, which has 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.800 my tongue kind of thing, UM, and I want to 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.600 get back my life. So her sisters came and bring 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.760 her this ritual knife and say, you can convert back 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.840 to a mermaid if before dawn you plunge this knife 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.120 into this dude's heart, this guy who loves heart, and 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.600 you get some of his blood on your feet, you 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:18.560 will regrow your tail and you can jump into the 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.600 sea and everything will be just fine again. So she 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.880 goes and she finds the guy sleeping with his new 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.040 bride beside him, and she just can't do it. She 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.600 throws the knife into the sea and Um becomes c foam. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.760 She disintegrates and becomes c foam. So she gives her 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:40.480 her own happiness up for this guy's right and dies 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.400 as a result. But even better than that, when she 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.760 turns into c foam, she becomes a different mythical creature 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.720 UH like basically an air nymph that goes around like 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:55.480 helping humans UM, and she can possibly get into heaven 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.000 if she helps people. UM for three years. It haunts 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.960 Christian Anderson wrote it way better than I just recounted 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:07.880 it a lot less ums and likes ye. But it's 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.600 it's pretty it's worth reading. Uh. Plenty also talked about 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.120 merman um back in the day, and there would be 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.040 merman or seamen who would at night climb up on 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.559 two ships. As a quote, that's why I'm reading it weird, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.079 upon which the side of the vessel where he seated 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.760 himself would instantly sink downward, and if you remain there 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.280 any considerable time, even go underwater. And that was something 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.120 that we will see as we talk more about mermaids. 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:39.360 They are u very They're often either an omen that 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:41.880 something bad is going to happen to sailors or coastal 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:47.880 dwelling people, or they actually directly cause harm two sailors 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.560 or coastal dwelling people. Yeah, and most times under the 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:57.439 guys of something beautiful and like a siren um, they're 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.240 often well, I don't we haven't even described one early. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.160 You know that a mermaid has the head and body 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:09.560 torso of a woman, human woman, usually with huge boobs. Yeah. 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:14.200 If you're talking about a sailor's account, Yeah, she was busty. 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.640 Did I mention the boobs? Yes, she did, sir seven times? 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:24.440 Um and uh from the you know torso down, she's 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.800 a fish. Maybe web feet, maybe not very graceful, very 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:35.480 fast and always beautiful. Uh it depends. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:40.000 there was some of legend that we're not ugly, really 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.480 not ugly, or they were that they were not in 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:51.200 parentheses beautiful ugly. Uh well, I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.080 it's it's in here. I thought. I'm just I must 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.160 have missed that part. It's a it's it's far more frequent. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.520 What you were saying that they were beautiful and alluring. Okay, um, 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:28.160 but we'll talk more about that after we take a break. Huh, 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.360 all right, Chuck. We were saying that, for the most part, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.480 mermaids are beautiful, and one of the reasons why they 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.920 are supposed to be beautiful is because they are frequently, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:44.640 um accused of luring men sailors out to sea to 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:46.960 their death. Yeah, and how you do that? You do 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.160 that one of two ways. You have a beautiful singing 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:53.400 voice or you just straight up look good yourself. That's right. 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.520 And if you have a beautiful singing voice, you're a siren, 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.840 in which case you would not be a mermaid because 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.520 the siren is half bird, half woman, and they don't 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.320 even necessarily live in the water or near the water. 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:10.120 They're sometimes described as hanging out in fields. I guess 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.840 sometimes you can be very pretty and be a good singer, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:21.280 right your mermaid but the yeah you could be Yeah, 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.720 sure you'd be. Who am I to disagree? You'd or 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.120 Alicia Keys or Adele? Oh you know who I like his? 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:34.880 Uh Rihanna? Oh yeah, she's great, very pretty. That part 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.000 in h what's it called this at the end and 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.720 she played herself. Yeah, yeah, she's pretty great, and she 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.320 was pretty funny. Michael Sarah likes bank her and she 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.440 just immediately turned around and smacked the heck out of him. Yeah. 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.920 I enjoyed parts of that movie, especially Michael Sarah. Yeah, 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:55.400 playing like a cooked out jerk. That was really funny. Um. 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.600 So back to the Beautiful Mermaids though, uh there there 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.680 was one then one thousand BC in Syria. And her 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.200 name how would you pronounce that? At her gaddis? Oh? 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.320 I think you nailed it? Yeah, yeah, all right, we'll 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.879 go with that. And she and you'll you'll see a 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:12.520 lot of duality a lot of these stories, and she 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.240 was one for sure that was a protector, a goddess. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.640 I think she protected the fertility of her people, and 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:24.800 um watched over them and uh fell in love with 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:26.800 a human man, as you will often see a lot 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.760 of these stories. Yeah, dude, and it and it was 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.879 fine for a little while, like in most stories, and 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.600 then it goes south and she kills him. She crushed 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.600 him with her greatness. Oh, I thought, like her big 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:44.959 tale or something I don't know was she wasn't a 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.320 mermaid yet, this is where she becomes. That's that's right. 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.720 I forgot about that. So um, she accidentally kills him, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.080 and then his very shame throws herself into the lake 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.680 because she wants to become a fish, and she's so 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.879 beautiful that it only works half as good. I really 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.879 can't figure out the math on that, but I guess 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.240 she's just so beautiful that the human beauty part of hers, like, no, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.720 I won't be a fish, just the lower half can 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.959 be a fish because she had to fungus, so that 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.560 was easily overcome, but her face was really nice, so 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.160 the fish part just couldn't overcome that. That's right, So 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.520 she ended up a mermaid. Weird story, Well that's just weird, 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:28.080 like like, oh, it's foreign or anything. I'm not being xenophobic, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.800 but it really like he says a lot about like 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.399 humanity and like how we think of things, like no, 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.320 she was so good looking that this magic couldn't even 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.040 overcome that. You know. Point we placed a lot of 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.400 value on that kind of thing. Uh, all right, should 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.800 we move on to Germany? Yeah? This one was kind 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.280 of interesting to me because Germany's landlocked. I never really 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:59.080 thought about that. What what does Germany have a mermaid mythology? Well, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:03.880 I mean they have lakes, I guess, But mermaids are 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.840 ocean dwellers, aren't they know? There are some river dwellers. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.080 Oh that's right, although I think the sirens were specifically river. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.200 Well then in the German myth that was a river dweller, correct, Okay, yeah, 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.800 the nixes uh yeah, and they lured men into the river. Yeah, 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.160 it was a river and so they could drown them, 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.640 like again, the call of the siren coming here. Look 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.920 how beautiful I am. And now I'm holding your head 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.479 underwater and you can't breathe anymore, and the guys like 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:38.840 I regret nothing. But this duality that we're talking about is, 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.480 uh what you see a lot of times in mermaid 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:46.879 myths from West Africa. The Mammy Wada, the Mother Water. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.880 She was a mermaid who was very nurturing and very 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:56.760 loving if you didn't cross her, Yeah, exactly, that's where 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.480 the duality comes in. I don't even know if that's duality. 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.800 I think that's just a complex person, good, good complex 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.000 character there. Yeah, yeah, so she's great, but when you 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.679 cross her, she's murderous. Sure, all right, and that's what 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.760 she did. Actually she had. If you were loyal to her, 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.359 she would you could be wealthy from her magic mirror 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.560 and comb. But if you betrayed her, then what this 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.880 article says is she reigns down fury and destruction. Right 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.200 then the age word from above. But the duality is 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.240 as an important part of it because the the physical 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.680 creature itself is two things, and they are also two 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.439 things emotionally. And but so the mermaid, the mermaid or 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:44.359 mermaid or murf folk as their calling this article. Yeah, 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:48.639 so murf folks are half fish, half people, right, but 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:55.280 they're not anywhere near unique in the pantheon of mythological 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:00.200 creatures throughout the ages. Right, there's again there's sirens, halford's, 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.960 half women. There's there's just tons of like the minotaur, 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.199 half man, half bull the centaur was what half go 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.560 or horse and half man? I don't remember that sounds right? 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:16.520 I think half horse? Um? And I was like, where 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.879 did all these come from? I suspected beast reality, and 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.920 it turns out I may be right. Yeah, you find 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.840 there are some scholars out there who believe that this 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.879 is the product of a much more relaxed attitude towards 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:37.200 beast reality than we modern humans have today. Yeah. Yeah, 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.640 I still never saw that documentary about the horse. Yeah 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.000 it's a good one, zoo. Yeah, I need that fell 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.360 off my radar. Man. It's one of those ones where 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.560 they largely to recreate, like the whole thing is almost recreation, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.440 and I usually am not hip on those. It doesn't 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:54.560 feel like a documentary to me, but that one changed 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:56.960 my mind about that whole technique that they did it 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:03.520 so well. It's rough. It's rough, especially like when you 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.040 think about you know, the animals as well. Yeah, of 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.399 course you know, but there's more than just that that 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.320 makes it rough. I need to see that. Um. So, 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:15.320 I guess we can talk a little bit about some 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:19.080 eyewitness accounts. They're all bunk, of course, but they have 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:24.840 happened in World War two, in Japan. On Indonesia's Kai Islands. Uh. 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.960 Supposedly they encountered a monster on the beach that had 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.720 you know, webbed hands and feet and was kind of 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.800 part human, part fish. It's like, look at these jazz hands. 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:38.159 You can't do this. And then back in the day, Uh, 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:45.360 some of our most revered explorers and adventure adventurers reported 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:52.520 seeing mermaids, like John Smith and Henry Hudson in Columbus. Yeah, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.240 what was There's a good quote in here from Columbus 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:59.560 because he wasn't too impressed. He said, and here's the 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.040 thing I had that in his diary. He's referring to 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.040 himself in the third person. Well that says a lot. 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:09.320 That's odd. He's like Ricky Henderson, right, or George Costanza. 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.520 So he says that he saw some Oh yeah, the 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:14.960 quote son, and you gotta read the quote. He's out 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.359 sailing around, not a that it he Oh what is 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:20.640 that in the ocean? I think I'll take a look 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.600 through my spine glass. The day before when the admiral 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:26.960 was going to the and the admirals himself, Yeah, that's 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:29.320 what I'm thinking. He was the admiral of his fleet 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:31.520 for sure. The day before, when the Admiral was going 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:35.879 on to the Rio del Oro, that's the River of Gold. 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:38.720 He said he saw three mermaids who came quite high 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:40.840 out of the water. But we're not as pretty as 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.080 they are depicted. For somehow, in the face they look 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:48.560 like men. But I still thought about it. Yeah, so, 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.080 and what they think now, and I don't know how 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:57.280 they substantiated this, is that Columpus was seeing manates. Yeah, 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.480 have you seen manates? Yeah, it looks nothing like a 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.119 human From enough of a distance, though, you're like, wait, 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:06.320 what is that, especially if you've never seen a manatee before. 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:08.920 I don't think it looks human like at all. But 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:13.760 from enough of a distance, yeah, I can see how 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:18.439 somebody would, especially if you believe that mermaids existed, you 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:20.640 see a manatee. Maybe it's hard for me to totally 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:23.280 get that. Go there in that put my mind in 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:26.320 that kind of frame, in the frame of Christopher Columbus. Well, 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:28.080