WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Cauldron, Part 4 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:08.119 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:09.200 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.240 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Part four of our 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.720 series on the Cauldron. In today's vault episode, this one 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:20.439 originally published June sixteenth, twenty twenty two. Is there any 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.520 reason to delay? I don't think there is. Let's go 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:23.200 straight to it. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:28.280 Let's jump right in and see what happens. 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:36.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:41.920 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.519 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Cauldron's Part four. This 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.320 is really the last Cauldron's episode, right. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.400 Yes, for now, but no, no, this is the last one. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.400 Even my son when he asked what I was doing today, 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:56.440 I said, Oh, we're going to record a fourth Cauldron's episode. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.600 He's like, really, y'all are still doing those Cauldron episodes? 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.640 So yeah, yeah, some more exciting stuff. And you know, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.240 there's so much we're not even going to be able 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.920 to cover in these episodes, but this is an exciting 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.400 one because we're going to roll through a few more myths. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.280 We have some more content about just how cauldrons factor 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.800 into our history and our beliefs, and you know we'll 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.160 get into the inferno a bit as well. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.080 Rob, I am ready to be boiled. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.600 All right, Well, let's basically we've alluded to this. We've 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.240 all along, we've mentioned that you have some strong Celtic 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.119 traditions that involve the cauldron, and they end up having 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.120 an influence over European traditions of the cauldron in general. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.679 So let's roll through just a few of these different myths. 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.600 I'm not going to go into super detail on these, 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.840 though a number of these are the subject of epics 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.520 and longer tails and of course treatments and retreatments over 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:57.640 the years. So let's start with the Dogda's Cauldron. So 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.120 Dogdo or the Dogda was the most powful of all 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.280 the too apha to done. And you know these are 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:09.760 the magical folk, the ancestors of Ireland and so forth. 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.480 Docta was the master of the battle club, the magic harp, 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.680 and the cauldron. He was sometimes called the good God 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.000 because he was simply good at everything. 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.240 Today you'd call him a Mary Sue. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:30.360 As Patricia Monaghan explains in the Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.919 and folklore, he was kind of a god of not 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.960 only fertility, but also kind of exaggerated male desire. So 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.440 he's round, you know, kind of a rotund individual. His 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:44.000 tunic is a bit too short to cover his genitals 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.920 in some depictions. Anyway, he wields a mallet that's so 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.760 huge that he has to drag it behind him in 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.200 a cart. So he's kind of this exaggerated cartoon character 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:55.240 in many respects. 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:56.440 I like him already. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.440 He also has a pair of self replenishing pigs that 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:05.200 you can just keep eating. I'm not sure how the 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.280 details of that work. I'm assuming it's like you cook 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.600 them up, or I don't know if you're slicing pieces 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.359 off of them. I'm not sure, But any rate, I 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.160 don't know that the pigs really mind. They're magical, after all, 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.120 but even more magical than the pigs. He also has 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:22.160 a magic cauldron that can never be emptied. It overfloweth 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.160 with goodness, so he has many romantic adventures. He has 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:31.040 many children. He's eventually slain in battle by the ceph Leon, 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:35.040 a wife of the great Femorian king Baaler, and then 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.640 he goes on to party forever in the other world. 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:42.360 Sustained by his bottomless cauldron that he gets to bring 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.480 with him into the afterlife. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:45.920 Oh that's lucky. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.960 Yeah now, Bonagan, who also wrote the Encyclopedia of Goddesses 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:55.440 and Heroines, wrote that the Irish cauldron is of course 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.800 not only a mundane item for cooking and stewing, but 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.120 also quote a place where new life was brewed and stewed. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.880 It was a symbol of great power for the Celts. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.440 The Roman writer Strebo describes a great cauldron sent to 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:15.720 Caesar by Simbri and claims that the Celts ritually sliced 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.680 open the throats of prisoners over such a cauldron. And 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.800 these traditions, to whatever extent they are accurately reported here, 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.600 may connect to the Gunstrip cauldron that we talked about 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.680 in the last episode that was unearthed in Denmark, but 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:35.080 burying Celtic symbols, etc. Other cauldrons monagan rites have been 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.560 found in bogs and lakes and are suspected to have 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.320 been offerings to the other world. 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.960 Yeah, that'll actually connect to an archaeology paper I want 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:43.520 to talk about in a minute. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.719 In general, though, she contends that the Irish cauldron means 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:51.360 fullness and abundance, and Dogda's cauldron is just a great 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.680 example of this, a never ending supply of good eats. 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.480 The Welsh goddess Sertowin also uses a cauldron to make 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.560 a bra that imbues one with great wisdom. So it's 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.440 interesting how we're getting into talking about just sustaining the self, 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.359 sustaining the body via the contents of the cauldron. But 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.520 then we kind of take that into another dimension as well, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:20.160 sustaining the mind. And this will have ramifications on other 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.479 storytelling and mythic traditions. All right, we'll come back to 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.640 some of these ideas, but let's let's move on to 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.680 the next myth here. This is another one from Celtic traditions, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.679 but it takes the idea of the cauldron as life 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.960 bringer and kind of puts a different spin on it. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.760 This is the story of the pair Da Denni, the 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:42.479 cauldron of rebirth. Now, there are already some accounts that 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.640 indicate that the Dog's cauldron, in addition to overflowing with 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.520 great and miraculously healing foods, in some cases, could also 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.440 raise the dead if they were lowered into the cauldron. 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.640 And yeah, that leads us into what is perhaps the 0:05:55.680 --> 0:06:00.840 most noteworthy necromantic cauldron. This is the cauldron of Rebirth 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.560 from Welsh mythology and literature, along with the Cauldron of Dogda. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.880 It's a key mythic cauldron to understand the artifact's place 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.400 in European traditions. It's also the primary inspiration for the 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.680 black cauldron that shows up in the novels of Lloyd Alexander. 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:21.560 It factors into a few different tales, including Branwyn daughter 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:26.200 of Leir, a legendary tale from medieval Welsh literature, and 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.479 the second of four branches of the mobin Ogion collection 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.920 of tales. So this is a pretty interesting one, and 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.120 again I'm just giving you the broad strokes here. Again, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.159 this one has received a much more expansive treatment in 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.799 works of literature, but it concerns the mythic conflict between 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:48.320 the Welsh and the Irish and involves the exploits of Ethnisian, 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.720 the half brother of Bron the Blessed, who has been 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:56.200 described as an easily offended troublemaker or even as a 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.120 psychotic anti hero. Oh okay, so this is a guy 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:06.240 who does things like mutilate horses inside wars, burn people alive. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.760 So he's not presented as a good guy. It doesn't 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:11.680 even seem like it's one of these cases where you 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.200 can say, well, today we wouldn't like him, but we 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.240 have to put him look at him within the context 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.160 of the time. No, it seems like everyone seems to 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.640 think that he's supposed to be a crazy, dangerous fellow. 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.280 He's not Snake Pliskin. He's Darth Vader. 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.480 Yeah yeah, but like Darth Vader, he has a redemption 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.080 arc of sorts. He ends up engaging in a little 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.120 bit of self sacrifice to bring balance to things. So 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.880 it comes to light that the Irisher using the magical 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.920 cauldron of Rebirth to resurrect their dead warriors so that 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.160 they can keep on fighting. And so you know, the 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.360 Welsh forces are concerned about this. This is an unfair advantage, 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.400 right if you're bringing your own debt back to life 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.920 onto the battlefield. So what does Ethnician do Well, he 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.880 hides himself among the enemy Irish dead, and then the 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.160 Irish hall all those dead bodies back. They take them 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.400 to the cauldron of Rebirth and one by one they 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.720 throw them in the cauldron, and then one by one, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.920 each warrior emerges once more to fight. Eventually they come 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.040 to Ethnician, who again is pretending to be a dead irishman. 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.440 They throw him into the cauldron alive, and this seems 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.280 to sort of short circuit everything. You know, the cauldron 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.280 is not designed or made, It does not exist to 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.319 resurrect the living. It totally just screws up everything. And 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.360 somehow Ethnician is then able to destroy the cauldron from within, 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.400 but in doing so, not only does he shatter the cauldron, 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.960 but he dies in the process. Oh and there's some 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:47.360 wonderful illustrations of this. 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.680 I want more detail here. Did like, did he know 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.400 that was going to happen to him or what did 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.320 he expect was going to? Like it just did it 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.160 not cross his mind that like, oh, yeah, I can't 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.240 be resurrected because I'm not dead yet. 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.840 I think he knew. I mean, otherwise it's not that 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.960 I mean, the self sacrifice is diminished if he doesn't 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:11.280 know that this is probably going to destroy him. So 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.520 I think the general vibe is the y he knows 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.120 that this will be the end, but it's the only 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:17.880 way to stop the Cauldron of rebirth. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.640 Okay, he's not just being like dude, I'd love to 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:21.959 be resurrected from the dead. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.920 No, no, no, all right, I'm going to run through 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.400 a few other cauldrons. Of note, there's the cauldron of Drenwich, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.000 the Giant. In medieval Welsh tradition, there are thirteen treasures 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.480 of the Island of Britain, entailing various horns and chariots, knives, rings, 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.040 and more. But there's also a cauldron owned by the 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.959 giant Drenwich, which can tell brave men from cowards because 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.160 it will not boil meat for a coward, but will 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.160 quickly boil meat for a brave man. Now I'm not 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.040 sure if there was a vegetarian option, but basically it's 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.520 said to just be massive enough to cook an entire 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.079 wedding feast within It eventually falls into the possession of 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.640 King Arthur and some tellings. But yeah, I guess it's like, 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.720 if you're not sure if somebody is brave or cowardly, 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.080 you just have them bring forth their chicken Cutlets throw 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.880 them into the cauldron here and see what happens. 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.320 Here's another one where I wonder about the mechanics of 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.320 exactly what that means. So you put the meat in, 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.040 does it mean if you're a coward. The water won't 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.800 come to a boil. Or does it mean even if 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:25.920 it boils, the meat won't get tender. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.000 I don't know. I'm just imagining it like, Okay, you 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.280 put the meat in and maybe the water looks like 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.320 it's boiling, but the meat's not cooking. You just got 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.280 some raw chicken cutlets in there, just bobbing around. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.559 Well, it reminds me of those stories of people up 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.200 on mountaintops trying to cook food, like boiling potatoes in 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.559 a pot on Mount Everest, where your potatoes don't get 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.239 cooked because when you go higher and higher into the atmosphere, 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.719 the boiling point of water goes down. So you can 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.520 be there boiling a pot on the stove and it 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.320 is actually boiling, like it's bubbling and turning into steam, 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.360 but the boiling point is so low that the water 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.800 is actually not hot enough to cook your food. So 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.520 you can boil potatoes at the top of a mountain 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.080 for a long time, take them out, and they're basically 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:13.720 still raw. 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.000 Yeah. I don't have an answer for that, but it 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:21.400 does make me wonder to what extent experiences with different 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:26.920 altitudes and attempts to boil stuff in the cauldron. How 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.000 that might affect this because they would clearly notice, you 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.880 would know that, well, here it seems to take longer 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.160 to cook our food. Why might that be? 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.240 I haven't done the math. I don't know if there 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.960 are peaks in Britain high enough for that to happen. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:42.680 I'm not sure. 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.400 Maybe though, perhaps word of this had traveled, who knows. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.199 Let's see, here's another cauldron. This one comes from Norse mythology. 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.760 Heimer is a giant and the father of two Acera gods. 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.840 According to Carol Rose, he was said to live on 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.400 the eastern edge of the universe and had a brewing 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.080 pot or cauldron so large that the heavens could fit 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.640 inside it. So we mentally alluded to something like this 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.320 earlier in one of the other episodes about the cauldron 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.760 becomes kind of like a model, a technological model for 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.960 the cosmos itself, And here we have a cauldron so 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.840 vast that the universe itself fits inside it. Where's the cauldron? 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.280 While you're thinking too hard about this myth, or maybe 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.400 you're not, I mean, maybe that's ultimately kind of the 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.040 goal of one of these stories is to sort of 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.280 give you a real head spinner about the nature of 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.200 the universe. So that's the cauldron itself, but there are 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.560 some stories attached to it. So at one point, the 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.120 gods decide they're going to have a great feast, but 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.400 they need some sort of vessel to put all the 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.000 mead that they're going to drink. And they're the gods, 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:46.839 they can drink a lot of meat. So they send 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:52.800 Thor to borrow a Heimer's brewing cauldron. So Thor shows 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.680 up and Heimer says, no, you can't borrow this, but 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.440 they start discussing it and they agree, well, well, let's 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.559 settle this have a fishing contest, and there are apparently 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.480 many different versions of what follows next. In one version, 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.960 Heimer uses two bowls to as bait and then catches 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:14.120 two whales, but then Thor, not to be outdone, catches 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:20.040 the midguard storm itself, the world serpent. In some versions, 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.319 the results are inconclusive or they're disputed, so they move 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.640 on to a drinking contest after the fishing contest, and 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.960 in some tales, Thor wins and takes the vessel with him, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.600 or finally just steals it and Heimer chases after him 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.840 with an army of giants. And Thor has to smite 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.160 all of them with his hammer, but at any rate, 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.640 Thor usually ends up with the cauldron. And the cauldron's 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.200 power again is that it's just super big. 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.880 So maybe this is a good place in the discussion 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.320 to talk about an interesting paper. I was reading an 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:03.720 archaeology paper. This was published by the Proceedings of the 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.640 Prehistoric Society, Cambridge University Press in twenty fourteen, and it's 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.559 called fire Burn and Cauldron, Bubble, Iron Age and Early 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.760 Roman Cauldrons of Britain and Ireland by Jody Joy. The 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.720 author of this paper, Jody Joy, is a senior curator 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.960 at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.760 of Cambridge. And the paper begins with a quote I 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.400 really like it says. It's an old Cosakh saying that 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.040 a man can live to fifty, but a cauldron will 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.760 live to one hundred. Oh wow, I think you go 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.840 compare yourself to a cauldron now. But anyway, so Joy 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.080 begins with some sections examining the archaeological record of cauldrons 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.600 in Britain and Ireland from the Iron Age and the 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.600 Early Roman period, and the early parts of this paper 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.640 go into a sort of catalog of all these different 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:56.920 cauldron artifacts and a discussion of their manufacture and physical characteristics. 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.520 One of the main things about the section is that 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.600 cauldron of the time took a lot of skill to produce. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.840 But the part of this paper that really got my 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.680 attention was his section on the use and significance of 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.320 cauldrons from this period. Now, it's obvious from the prominent 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.240 role of cauldrons in myths and legends like the ones 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.880 we've just been talking about, and as magical items in 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:25.040 early medieval literature from Ireland and Wales, that these objects 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:32.120 were charged with mythical significance, particularly associated with resurrection and sacrifice. 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.960 But if you think about it, why would just a 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:41.520 big metal pot have any particular symbolic or mythic significance. Now, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.080 Rob we've already talked about some ideas we've had on 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.880 that that maybe it has something to do with the 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.160 way that cauldrons transform foods when you cook them, though 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.280 of course that's strit of smaller pots as well. You know, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.640 cooking transforms, and thus it may be is symbolic of 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.280 transformation in some way. But there are other ways that 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.560 they could acquire magical significance as well, and Joy argues 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.800 that some of the significance might be related to how 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.440 these objects were actually used and their role in the 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.160 culture of iron Age Britain in Ireland. So how were 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.560 they used? This is a good question because there are 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.120 several lines of evidence pointing to the conclusion that these 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:26.480 huge pots were primarily used to cook food, particularly soups 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.280 and stews containing meat. Now we've already sort of been 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:33.520 assuming the soup and stew connection, but technically, you know, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:35.440 just a big metal pot could have been used for 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.600 all kinds of things, So it is good to examine 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.080 what the actual evidence is. And we know of examples 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:44.080 where large metal vessels were used for other things that 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.160 might have been just decorative, or they might have been 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.520 used to make burnt offerings to the gods or something 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.040 like that. But no. In the case of these cauldrons 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:56.520 from iron Age and early Roman Britain in Ireland, first 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.960 of all, it seems they were clearly designed to hold liquid, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.360 and we can tell because almost all of the cauldrons 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.159 from this period in this place shows signs of having 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.280 been through repairs, which in itself is interesting because it 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.560 indicates a long social life for each individual cauldron, you know, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.760 they're being used long enough that people have to like 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.720 go in and fix them up after they get damaged. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.280 Yeah, it kind of takes us back to that quote. Right, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.160 you may live to be fifty, but your cauldron will 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:26.919 live to be one hundred. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:27.640 Right. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.399 Nowadays humans may live to be a hundred, but like 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.360 these cauldrons, you'll probably have to have some holes patched. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.639 Here and there. That's true. And so why do we 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.400 think that these cauldrons were designed to hold liquid. It's 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.880 because when you look at the repairs that were done 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.040 to them, we see that they're essentially repairs that would 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.560 function to keep the cauldron's water tight. And if these 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:51.920 were just decorative or if they were used for say 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.560 like making a burnt offering to the gods or something, 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.919 they wouldn't need to patch tiny holes and keep the 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.920 vessel water tight. It's obvious that they wanted to prevent leaks. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.959 Second line of evidence, they were clearly designed to be 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:10.440 suspended over fires. So this can be seen from the presence. 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:17.160 Of supplemental materials like chains, handles, and frames that would 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.240 all serve to hang or suspend the cauldron over a hearth, 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.359 and also many cauldrons have layers of soot caked onto 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.320 the outside surface, showing that a fire was applied to 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:28.520 them from the outside. 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.720 Third, you've got organic residues. Few artifacts from this period, 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.320 for example, a group known as the Chiselden cauldrons have 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.119 been sampled for organic residues on the inner surfaces, and 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:46.119 chemical analyzes indicate the presence of animal fats, which points 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:51.120 to soups or stews containing meat. However, some cauldrons from 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.600 Northwest Europe also show traces of honey, probably indicating their 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.919 use in serving honey based meads, which would be an 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:00.000 alcoholic beverage. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.080 Yeah, which brings us back to the myth of the 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.399 giant's brewing cauldron. Yeah. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.720 Yeah, So these cauldrons were almost definitely used mostly for 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.000 cooking food, usually meat based soups and stews, but sometimes 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:18.240 alcoholic beverages as well. But can we infer anything else 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.320 about how they were used? Well, Joy argues yes we can, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.680 and points specifically to the fact that these were big boys. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:30.600 These cauldrons are huge. Quote, the cauldron from Hochdorf could 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.320 hold five hundred liters. The cauldrons examined here had more 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.600 modest capacities. Ranging from thirty to eighty leaders. Even taking 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.560 into account the fact that they are unlikely to have 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.680 been filled to the brim and probably only ever two 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:49.320 thirds full, even the smallest cauldrons still probably contained twenty liters. 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.760 This is a substantial quantity of food and drink. And 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.359 I agree, I don't think I could eat twenty liters 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.000 of soup in a single sitting. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.240 But that alone that you can easily imagine this becoming 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.440 extrapolated into myths of cauldrons that are just so full 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.400 of goodness that you cannot empty it. You cannot possibly 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:09.760 eat all of this food. 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.320 Now combine the bigness of these boys with another factor, 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.520 which is that cauldrons are relatively scarce in the archaeological 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.960 record compared to other types of household items, even those 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:26.200 made of similar materials. And from these facts, Joy infers 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.680 that cauldrons were not used for everyday cooking, but instead 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:35.200 they were used for the community based practice of feasting. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.680 And I believe the argument is that this is sort 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.960 of what gives cauldrons their special power, what makes them 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.600 fit for use as a recurring magical item in myths 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:51.320 and legends and literature. Joy writes as follows At their heart, 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.399 feasts involve the creation and maintenance of social relationships and 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.840 can be used to redistribute wealth, mobilized labor, create alliances 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:04.800 between or exclude different groups, celebrate marriages, commemorate deaths, and 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:10.320 compensate for transgressions. As objects used during feasts, cauldrons help 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.640 facilitate these activities, and that is where much of their 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:19.080 significance and value derives. So Joy is arguing that feasting 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.800 was this incredibly important tradition in the cultures of Iron 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.960 Age Europe, and it had this complex suite of social utilities. 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:29.520 And the paper invokes the work of a different scholar 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:34.520 named Michael Dietler, who has created three different categories of 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.120 sort of the social roles of feasting, which are empowering, 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:44.520 the patron role, and the diacritical. So empowering feasts quote 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:49.639 allow people or groups to acquire prestige without necessarily requiring 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:54.200 the existence of fixed social hierarchies. By hosting a feast, 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:58.680 debts or obligations are passed on to guests, thus making 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:03.520 feasts arenas for negotiations of social influence. But empowering feasts 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.960 can also be viewed as celebrations of community identity. So 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:09.320 there's a lot that's going on here in this first category, 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.320 Like you could host a feast and serve people out 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.920 of a cauldron, and this is this is a powerful 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.800 community activity and in one sense it maybe makes everybody 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.679 who's at the feast feel more united. It's, you know, 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.440 it cements this idea of community identity, but it also 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.439 sort of puts guests in your debt. It is, you know, 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.680 empowering to the host in terms of enhancing their perceived 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:37.920 social prestige, maybe even making them feel temporarily like some 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.920 kind of king or something. And then there are a 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.280 couple of other types of feasts, one of the patron 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.600 role feasts, where there is sort of an it's sort 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.840 of like without the strings attached. It's an expectation that 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:55.360 the social elite must host, but not necessarily the obligation 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.639 for reciprocation by the guests. And then finally, there's what 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:03.080 is called called a diacritical feast, and this is where 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.320 subgroups of a culture consume different types of food or 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:09.119 drink to emphasize their difference from other people. 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.240 Interesting. I mean, I don't know if this is a 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:15.640 useful exercise, but I can't help but try and take 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:20.399