WEBVTT - From the Vault: Jenny Greenteeth 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.119 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.800 But it's a Saturday in October. So not only are 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.200 we going into the dark of the Vault today, it 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.120 seems that we're going to be waiting into a pool 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.239 full of green scum. This is gonna be our episode 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.479 about Jenny Green Teeth. This was one of my favorites, Robert, Yeah, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.840 this one is a lot of fun, Old Jenny Green Teeth, 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:32.440 Old Nelly long Arms, Peg Powler the grind below all 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:37.000 that this originally published on October two. We got a 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.599 lot of good listener mail about this one. So if 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.080 you enjoyed this Vault episode and you want to hear 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.840 more here people doing doing feedback about Jenny green Teeth, 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.600 go check out whatever was our listener mail episode following 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.760 this when this episode originally aired. With respect to Jenny 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.880 Green Teeth, well, do I remember in childhood stays and 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.480 isolated Gordon Farmstead with a yeoman's house dating back to 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.600 the early part of the seventeenth century, almost overshading. It 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.840 was a somber old yew tree, doubtless coeval, but then 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.480 beginning to decay. The end was being hastened by the 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.240 annual Yule tide custom of lopping off the branches in 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.800 order to decorate the tiny leaden casemented windows than existing 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.960 in the house, and also in a chapel hard by 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.759 the green of a neighboring village. Lying at some depth 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.120 beneath the grassy hillock on which the fine old tree 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.080 had so long stood sentinel was a deep dismal pool 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.720 which had sometimes been excavated as a marl pit. Of course, 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.000 little lads and lasses, with no other playmates than themselves, 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.320 would now and then, when other pastimes had been run through, 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:53.559 amused themselves by sailing mimic flats and boats in order 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.000 to deter them from approaching so dangerous a spot. When 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.960 caught upon the steps leading down to the lading hole, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.360 an anxious mother would affirm solemnly, as we then thought 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.520 that jinny green teeth was artfully lurking in the waters below. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.160 Proof of the story was afforded to our unsophisticated minds 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.480 by the exhibition of a set of human teeth enameled 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.840 with green tartar. These were said to bear only a 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.400 faint resemblance to those of the demonus below, who, with 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.280 her long, sinewy arms, first drew children in and then 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:34.839 devoured them. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:43.880 how Stuffworks dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.119 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.520 McCormick and Robert. I'm so excited. It's October. Yes, we 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.359 are into our our October offerings. Here a full month 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:58.400 of of Halloween flavored content, monster science, a whole month. 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.800 It's it's the most wonderful time of the year. And 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.079 I think I say that every year it is. Now. Granted, 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.520 we do let a few other monsters, uh, you know, 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.240 leak out and crawl out during the rest of the year, 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.680 but but we do set aside a number of different 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.400 topics just for this month's celebration. So that passage that 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.480 I read at the beginning of the episode was from 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.119 a letter by a folklorist named John Higson, English folklorist 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.560 from Lee's who chronicles stories of fairies and Boggart's uh. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.960 And it was published in Notes and Queries, a medium 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.320 of intercommunication for literary men, general readers, et cetera, from 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.920 Oxford University Press in eighteen seventy, and I'm going to 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.840 be quoting a little bit more from Higson's work, but 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.280 as you may have detected from that passage, today we're 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.360 going to be focusing on a particular malicious water spirit, 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:53.480 a sodden hag, a faery of the depths named Jenny 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.440 green Teeth, who will pull you in. Yes, to invoke 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.560 one of my favorite ClickHole videos. If you don't follow 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.080 the rules, Jenny Green Teeth will kill you with their 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.800 sharp things. And I love knowing that. Now there are 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.120 a couple of ways that you could classify Jinny Green Teeth, 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.560 like what categories she goes in. I guess one would 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.240 be to say that she's part of this this class 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:21.440 of bogies, and Boggert's and Higgson's term fair and frightful things, 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:27.520 the sort of English or or UK tradition of frightful spirits, Yes, 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:32.800 and nursery bogies. Uh, that's certainly the term that folkloris 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:38.280 Carol Rose uses in her her encyclopedias of various magical creatures, 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.799 including giants, monsters, and dragons. I think the nursery bogie 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.000 categorization was applied by the folkloris Catherine Briggs, who does 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.279 a lot on English fairies and the nursery bogie. Bogie 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.920 specifically were bogies that were invoked to frighten children, often 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.160 with an instructive angle, and it seems like they wouldn't 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.200 usually have much in the way of real mythic roots 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:06.039 beyond their role, as you know, an educational and instructional entity. 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:08.080 But on the other hand that they very much could 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:12.719 have roots, they could have inspirations because uh, water hags 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.880 like Jenny green Teeth, they're not unique to the British isles. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.039 They're not unique to Jenny green Teeth especially, we will 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.839 discuss seems to be situated in like northern England, especially 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.200 Northwest England around Liverpool in Lancashire. Yeah, and we'll will 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.920 reference a few of her ken that live in the area, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.240 as well as some of her more distant relatives that 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.120 live elsewhere. But it does make I kept wondering as 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.240 I was looking at these different examples, some of which 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.839 that were very much just a folklore nursery bogie and 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.320 others that had more of a mythic air about them. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.359 You wonder, like, to what extent is a particular nursery 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:54.599 bogie a stripped down version of some older, deeper mythological creature. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.920 Or is it something entirely new or mostly new? I 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:00.760 feel like it's probably a a little bit of both. 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.440 There's probably an ebb and flow uh that can be 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.960 found there. If the nursery bogie is a horrific schoolhouse 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:11.119 rock video, is it inspired by something horrific from the past, 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.839 that is having that is being somewhat tamed or bent 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.880 to the will of the warning instructive parent. Indeed, indeed, 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:20.120 so let's let's go back to Carol Rose. What what 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.240 does Rose have to say about old Jenny? Alright? So 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.280 Rose wrote that Jenny grin teeth is an evil quote 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.880 predator of humans and in particular awaits the unwary child 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.520 who may go too close to the water. So you 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:35.560 get too close and she'll come at you with her 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.560 long green things. Then she'll pull you into the depths, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.719 and she can haunt virtually any pond that's covered in 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.800 green slime. And again, she's, of course a nursery bogi um, 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.760 a monster used to instruct children and enforce a wide 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:54.040 variety of rules. For example, another bogey that that exists 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.960 out there is the red legged scissor man. Uh. And 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.200 there's a delightful grotesque rhyme about the red legged says man. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.640 And essentially, if you suck your thumb um, the red 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.279 legged scissor man will come and cut off your thumbs, 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.400 which is terrifying. But you see, it's very much just 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.520 a monster that's made up to scare children out of 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.320 doing something they're not supposed to do. But then with 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.960 Jenny Green teeth, the steaks are much higher. This isn't 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.360 about prevention preventing uh, you know, thumb sucking. This is 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.200 about preventing a child from wandering too close to the water, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.640 falling in and drowning. Now, as we go through the episode, 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:29.880 I think we will steadily learn more and more about 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:34.720 exactly what that water threat is. Or sometimes Jenny is 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.280 deployed in ways that have nothing to do with water, 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.080 though clearly her home is in the water. She she 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.440 is a water faery, a water hag. Yeah. I can't 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.600 help but think of what is it Meg muckle Bones 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.560 from the Riddley Scott a filmed legend Exactly. I think 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.760 Meg muchacle Bones is directly inspired by Jenny. She she's 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.480 got to be Yeah, just the grotesque hag like monstrosity, 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.560 this troll like creature of this loathsome entity that rises 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.880 up out of the swampy muck. Now I want to 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.520 continue with what Higson wrote which was published in in 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.080 that Notes and Queries in eighteen seventy, where he's talking 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.480 about the role of Jenny Green Teeth in in English folklore. 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.560 Picking up where my first quote left off, he says 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:19.640 that some of the pits in the locality, and this 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.760 is generally gonna be talking about Northwest England, in the 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.920 locality were likely patronized by a Jenny Green Teeth. And 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.720 in my Gorton Historical Recorder, published in eighteen fifty two, 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.760 there are briefly noticed a dozen places in the township 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.839 once supposed to be haunted with Boggarts and fair and 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:41.800 in addition there were nut NaN's clap cans, Wills with 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.480 the whisp, oh yeah and Will of the whisps, Buddy 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.080 Jack with the lantern lantern or Lanthorne it seems to 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:53.360 be spelled and peg with the iron teeth. And lastly, 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.960 which is more to the point, he says quote, to 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.400 restrain their children from venturing too near the numerous pits 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.079 and pools which were to be found in every fold 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.440 and field. A demonus or guardian was stated to crouch 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.560 at the bottom. She was known as Jenny Green Teeth, 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.360 and was reported to prey upon children who ventured too 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.960 near her domain. Sometimes the water demonus was termed grind Low. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.920 This incarnation, of course, might be more familiar to fans 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.559 of Harry Potter. Oh do they invoke Grendil or the 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.960 grindy Low as I've seen it written? Yeah, Rowling mentions 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.640 grindy Lows. I don't really remember exactly how I think 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.200 they are water dwelling monsters, but that's all I recall. 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.520 I like to maybe think that the grind Low is 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.640 the species and Jenny as the individual. Oh I like that. Yeah, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.480 Jenny is one particular grindy Low. Though, as many authors 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.959 point out, if there's just one Jenny, she really gets around, right, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.880 because she's in every stagnant pool and marl pit filled 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.280 in with water, and every dangerous pit of any kind 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.360 in Northwest England. Well, I mean, on one hand, it 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.480 makes sense that if you've just about any loathsome pool 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.319 in in England, if you've go back far enough in time, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.439 you'll probably encounter some sort of horrific tragedy. One thing 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.560 I like about Jenny green Teeth is that, for some 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.240 reason her name actually sounds scary to me, whereas many 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.040 of these Boggers and fair End and stuff, they their 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.160 names are funny. Unfortunately something has been lost over time. Uh, 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.679 and so you get like Boum Rapid and the Grizzlehurst 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.200 Boggert and cleg Hoboggert and stuff. Well, it's it's it's interesting. 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.760 You have to wonder were they given fun names intentionally 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.000 or was the or was the the fun name terrifying 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:37.600 within contexts? For instance, take Pennywise the clown. It's a 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:42.079 pretty sinister sounding name if you have decades of familiarity 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.800 with Stephen King's it. But was the name initially sinister 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.680 or was it initially just a ridiculous sounding clown name. 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.240 That's a very good point. You know. This will actually 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:54.920 go with something that we're going to talk about in 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.840 a minute. There's a paper I read by a folklorist 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.679 and sort of like folk song researcher named Annie Gilchrist. 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:07.880 Two chronicles these horrific children's songs of like early twentieth 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.880 century England, and they're all about like murder and cannibalism 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:16.160 and infanticide and family members eating each other and all 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.800 that stuff. But they're set to these like happy little 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.679 nursery rhyme tunes. I guess that makes them more creepy, 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.680 more creepy, but also more memorable. I guess maybe it 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.120 helps in in relaying the content to young minds. To 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.920 explore Jenny a little bit more. Through Higson's letter, I 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.280 want to read another passage he writes quote. A clerical 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.319 friend whose juvenile years were spent in the vicinity of Stockport, Cheshire, 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.600 states that he remembers being threatened more than once with 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.640 Jenny Green Teeth, but in that case, probably as there 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.040 was no pond near the house, she was said to 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.360 perch in the tops of the trees at least after nightfall, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.920 his young imagination having been wrought up to the proper pitch, 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.640 he was led into the garden and bade to listen 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.360 to the site of the night wind through the branches, 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.480 and then told it was the moaning of Jenny Green Teeth. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.280 It may be just then disturbed with the nightmare. Another 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.560 clergyman born in Walton Ladale informs me that he remembers 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.520 an old pit, since filled up but then existing in 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.920 his native village and in which it was affirmed, lived 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.559 Jenny green Teeth, ever on the watch, and therefore woe 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.600 betided the urchin who ventured too near her domain. Jenny 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.560 was also known in Manchester. Some fifty years ago, says 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.880 an antiquarian friend, shooters Brook passes in a culvert under 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.240 the aqueduct which carries the Manchester and Ashton under Lynn 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:41.280 Canal over Shore Street near the London road Station. At 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.240 that period, there existed an opening or break left in 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.840 the culvert, forming a dangerous spot for children to play beside, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.360 and yet they often selected it. Their mothers tried to 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.080 destroy the fascination by stating that Jenny Green Teeth laid 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.080 in wait at the bottom in order to nab children 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.600 playing there, and highlights something that I think will come 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.840 back to throughout the episode, which is that it's interesting 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:09.200 that children are drawn specifically, it is said, to these 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.000 dangerous locations, the break in the culvert, the dangerous pond 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.920 or pit. It's like the children specifically want to go 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.160 right to where the danger to their lives is the highest, 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.840 and they have to be warned with another kind of 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.560 danger to keep them away. Oh yeah, I I. I 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.400 see this this all the time with with my son 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.080 and his various friends, when we take them out for 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.800 walks and in the nature trails and whatnot. If there's 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.240 some sort of dangerous little area where it's like a 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.160 sheer drop off or something like, that's what they're drawn to, 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.079 and then you have to you have to urge them 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.240 away and say, like, look, there's a zero entry like, uh, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.520 you know, creek area up ahead, Let's go playing that, 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.000 not this, uh, this scary little bog that you've picked 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.320 out here for yourself. Uh. And indeed, some of the 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.240 places that that I've seen them drawn to just in 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:00.160 the past few weeks are are very very much to 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.319 the sort of place that a Jenny Green Teeth might 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.840 be said to reside in. So, Robert, I have a question. 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.760 Have you ever invoked a fictional monster or supernatural threat 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.560 in order to scare your child away from a real threat? No? 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.440 I haven't um that. That being said, you know some 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.640 people are against utilizing, say Santa Claus of the Tooth Fairy. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.520 We have Santa Claus, we have the Tooth Fairy, we 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:31.080 have the Switch which for Halloween. But beyond these beneficial entities, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.320 we have not invoked any other supernatural entities, uh in 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.520 our daily practice. I guess we just try and be 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.560 honest about what dangers are. But you know, I can 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.880 understand the temptation here because with Jenny Green teeth, you 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:52.720 that the parent is invoking or creating an imagine a monster, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:58.040 a fantastic lethal monster, instead of having like a frank 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:03.120 discussion about the more mundane but equally like traumatic dangers 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:07.400 that are involved. And sometimes you want to protect them 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.880 from the truth of of real danger, like setting down 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.720 and explaining the dangers of drowning to a child like 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.520 that can be intimidating. You want to shield them from drowning, 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.400 but you there's also this instinct to shield them from 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.440 knowledge of that world. And so I can understand the 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:31.040 temptation to utilize the fantastic to create something horrific but 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.720 fictional as a like almost a gentler way of teaching 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.160 them the same lesson, uh, which is weird because that 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.680 can be they can I guess be even more harmful 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.760 in some respects uh, because you're creating this nightmare creature 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.240 to live in their heads. But I can see where 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:53.120 you could reach that point, um with only the best intentions. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.400 That's a really interesting point, and we will talk a 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.720 little bit more about the real dangers of water and 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.600 drowning later in the psychology of of how this works out. 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:05.280 But um, yeah, is it possible that the monster is 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:10.240 actually a defanged version of the threat in a way, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.240 not a more threatening version of the threat, but putting 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.800 the threat into a form that feels more comfortable and 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.600 less depressing. Yes, I think so. I think there's a 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.040 strong case to be made for that. Now, Robert, if 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:25.360 you are right with it, I'd like to look at 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.960 a couple of older a couple more older books and 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:32.720 papers that mentioned Jenny Green Teeth. One is a book 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.760 by Percy B. Green called A History of Nursey Rhymes. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.040 Oh really, Percy B. Green? Okay, Yeah, that guy didn't 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:43.680 need a pseudonym, or maybe that is the pseudonym anyway, 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.160 So I want to quote him later, also because he 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.640 mentions another fascinating story about a water monster. But Green 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:51.920 writes in a middle in the middle of a section 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.760 about water spirits, he writes, in England, to the North Country, 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.720 people speak of a river sprite as Jenny Green Teeth, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.400 and the children dread to the Green slimy covered rocks 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.720 on the streams bank or on the brink of a 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.439 black pool. Wait, I should I want to throw in 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.959 this is key too, right, because we're talking about the 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.399 slime covered rocks themselves, like that's a key danger that 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.760 kid's gonna slip and fall. Um. Yeah, sorry, I had 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.639 I had to jump in on that. No, that's a 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.399 very good point. I mean, there's actually specific information about 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.560 real dangers being conveyed in the superstition though. So it's 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:29.880 like you see the green covered rocks, that that might 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:31.600 be a sign that the rock is going to be 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:33.600 something you could slip off of, and the child might 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.320 not know that naturally, but the child sees it and says, oh, 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.879 there's green on the rocks Jenny green Teeth is about huh. So, 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:42.920 you know that's that feels a lot more calibrated, where 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.240 the example we heard earlier about Jenny Green Teeth living 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:51.520 in the trees that felt like the tail had become unhinged, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:53.359 you know. Yeah, Well, that's part of the problem with 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.760 creating superstitions and myths about monsters like this is that 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.000 if you're trying to do it for a specific purpose, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.720 like to warn children, myths go wild, and it's always 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.760 become untamed. They roam loose, and they become their own thing. Yeah, 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.440 I mean, as does a logical fear itself. I mean, 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.800 even as adults, we can probably think of things in 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.880 our lives where they're not really you know, they're not monsters, 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.320 but they're at least a little illogical. And if you 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.960 don't watch them, if you don't curb them, then yeah, 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.800 they can start living in the trees. They go ferrell. 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.720 But Green writes that a warning of a Lancashire mother 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.480 to her child is quote Jenny Green, teeth will have 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:35.080 the goist onto river banks. Now, I think I already 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.440 mentioned the the author An E. G. Gilchrist, who has 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.600 done some work chronicling folk songs discovered in the wild, 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.080 and she wrote a paper for the Journal of the 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.280 Folk Song Society in nineteen nineteen that is called Note 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.159 on the Lady Dressed in Green and Other Fragments of 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.840 tragic ballads and folk Tales Preserved among Children. So this 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.719 is about folk songs sung by children in early twentie 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.840 cent England. And these songs are just messed up. They 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.320 are I think I mentioned earlier. They're they're all about murder, cannibalism, 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.879 hiding dead bodies in your house. It is fascinating that 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.560 we often think that children need to be protected from horror, 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.119 Like I can understand that impulse, but I don't know. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.560 This just seems to me like an indication that children 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.840 naturally gravitate to themes of murder and death and gore. Yeah, 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.520 and they can be rather severe in their invocation of 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.479 these ideas. Now, the main song talks about in this 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.400 paper is uh is one called the Lady Dressed in Green, 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.360 which gil Christ heard sung by a girl named Margaret 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.560 in a Southport orphanage, and Margaret apparently brought it from 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.359 a Lancashire workhouse. And gil Chris goes on to discuss 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.280 how versus of the in verses of this song, the 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.200 Lady Dressed in Green is holding a baby and then 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:53.640 she murders her baby with a pen knife, and then 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.879 three bobbies come and haul her off to prison. And 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.040 so gil Christ is talking about the significance of the 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.360 song and it's parallel us to other similar children's rhymes, songs, 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.360 murder ballads and so forth. And one of the interesting 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.360 things is the significance of the color green, and this 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.200 leads her to talk about the color green in its 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:15.080 relation to curses and bogies and evil fairies and spirits. 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.160 We will talk more about the significance of the color 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.600 green later, but as for Jenny Green Teeth, Gilchrist writes 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.760 quote of still more sinister import is the color In 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.760 the case of Jenny Green Teeth, the evil water spirit 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:31.080 appearing is the green scum on stagnant water what claws 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.080 you in, as country children say, if you go too 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.359 near or in the obscure and horrible English folk tale 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.000 of the green Lady, who appears to be a sort 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.440 of lamia or vampire, living on or delighting in blood, 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.640 and perhaps deriving her name and Hugh from a classic 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:51.040 serpent ancestry. But Jenny Green Teeth and perhaps green Lady 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:55.680 also is allied with the German water nicks and green hats, 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.840 the hat appearing to be a tuft of beautiful vegetation 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.119 growing in the water, who dragged down the unwary to 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.680 the depths. They're horrible fate being visible in a fountain 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.600 of blood which spouts up through the surface of the water. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.359 This is interesting the the the mention of of serpents, 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.040 because as I was looking through Carol Rose and looking 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:20.840 at various uh aquatic uh you know, fresh water, especially monsters. 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:25.159 There are a lot of serpents in various beliefs, weird 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:30.560 serpents in uh Native American beliefs as well. And this 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:32.159 makes a certain amount of sense, right, because you will 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.960 encounter snakes around the water sometimes. Yeah, and this would 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.800 be a very old fear and human culture, but also 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.919 even predating some of that, you know, just sort of 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.200 an ingrained thing to be afraid of. Yeah, we're all 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.760 the cat with the cucumber behind us. Yes, Now, I 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:50.479 can't move on without mentioning what Gilchrist writes about this 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.080 other story, the green Lady story, that may have its 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.720 origins in some kind of serpent ancestry. She writes that 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.320 she's never found a version of the green Lady folktale 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.280 in print, but there's there's a version she heard from 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.320 a person named Ethel Kidson, and this is how it goes. 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.399 A little girl took service with the Green Lady. The 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.760 next morning, after preparing breakfast for her, she called up 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.000 the stair, green Lady, Green Lady, come down to your breakfast. 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.360 But the Green Lady did not come down. The formula 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.040 was repeated for dinner and supper, but still she did 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.960 not appear. At last, the little girl went upstairs to 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:30.159 the chamber door, and, urged by curiosity, looked through the 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.880 keyhole and saw the green lady dancing in a basin 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.560 of blood. Now, this paper is actually worth a look 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:39.800 if you want to just go look it up to 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:46.080 see the absolutely depraved folk songs that children sing. Oh, yes, 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.919 one of these that you highlighted here, My mama did 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:51.679 kill me? Uh, And it has the sheet music with it. 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:53.800 I'm gonna attempt to sing just a little of it, 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.520 with fair warning I'm not very good at reading sheet music. 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:02.800 But it goes something like this, my mama did kill 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:07.320 me and put me in a pie. My dad da 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.760 did eat me and say it was I. And then 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.360 it goes on my brother and sister did pick my 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.960 bones and bury them under cold marble stones, and bury 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.840