WEBVTT - The Headless Men, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:14.440 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.599 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.720 we're back with part two in our series on headless 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.759 gods and monsters. This is a topic that we had 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.200 talked about getting into for the Halloween season, but we 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.600 never got around to it, so here we are turning 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.800 things in late. So in part one, we talked about 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:39.440 the biological origins of the Biletian head and about what 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.720 factors probably drove our ancestors hundreds of millions of years 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.920 ago to start concentrating nerve cells and sense organs and 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.320 mouth parts all on one end of the body, and 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.000 of course this is the development that would eventually turn 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.680 into our faces and our brains. We also talked about 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.560 stories of gods with no heads and cultures around the world, 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.039 and today we're back to talk about some more headless ghosts, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.440 monsters and dubious historical claims of people who naturally have 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.920 no heads or have heads located inside their torsos. 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.959 Yeah, as we discussed in the last episode, no matter 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.880 what direction you approach the topic from, it ends up 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.160 being clear that like this idea of something without a head, 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:27.400 it captivates us. It forces us to think and rethink 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.200 various ideas about like what a person is, what an 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:35.520 entity is, where a volition comes from, and so forth. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.880 So yeah, getting here into the idea of roughly speaking, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.119 the diabolical headless, there are any number of headless monsters 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.160 and ghosts and global traditions we're probably not going to cover. 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.160 We're definitely not going to cover all of them. We 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:55.800 may leave out by error some key examples. And so 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.320 if we do skip such a headless entity from folklore 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.480 mythology right in, we'd love to hear from you, you know, 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.960 especially if it's a situation where head and or body 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.760 continue to live on afterwards. I guess you could roughly 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.000 throw Medusa into that category, though we did a whole 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.400 series on Medusa back in the day, so refer back 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.440 to those if you want to hear about Medusa's head. 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.240 I think it's also, you know, I think fair that 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.360 we might presume that a lot of these different ideas 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.360 have to do with, at least in concerning some of 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.120 like the ghosts we're going to be talking about and 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:33.080 so forth, taboos against the burial of incomplete remains also 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:38.120 thoughts about beheading as a form of execution, So keeping 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.840 all that in mind, that we'd bring up the first 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.320 one here. And this is a pretty big one, especially 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.200 when we start thinking about things like the headless horsemen 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.000 from the legend of Sleepy Hollow. We have a creature 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.600 from the Scottish Highlands. The name means the headless trunk, 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.880 and I'm probably gonna butcher the pronunciation here, but colun 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.360 gun Chen. It's said to haunt the Isle of Sky 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.200 and it leaves women and children alone. But if it 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.800 happens upon a male traveler at night, especially anyone who's 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.400 out there on their own, well then it's going to 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:19.040 brutally attack. In Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, James McKellop describes 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.119 it as a form of boken or hobgoblin. He writes 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.960 it it's often thought of as a tutelary or protector 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.519 spirit of the McDonald's of Morale in the Western Highlands. 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.080 Is there a commonly understood explanation of why this ghost 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.160 is headless or is it just kind of that's the 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:35.680 way it is. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.000 I'm not aware of a particular origin story here, but 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.360 I could be missing something, by the way. He also 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:43.800 writes of the Irish death coach and points out that 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.760 the driver and or the horses are sometimes described as headless, 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.560 and indeed sometimes it was called the headless coach, and 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.960 it is sometimes driven by the headless phantom Dolahan. 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:55.080 Doulahan. 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.560 Yeah, so the Delahan is the headless horseman of Irish folklore, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:01.880 and this one is I think often held up as 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.480 the clear inspiration for the headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.720 M Coloup describes it as indeed often riding a headless 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:12.200 horse or driving the coach that we already mentioned, and 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.200 sometimes that coach is made out of bones. There are 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.600 a number of grizzly details regarding the coach that sometimes 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:23.599 are left out of retellings. It actually does have a 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:28.000 ghoulish head that has been removed from its body, described 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.560 as a great chunk of moldy cheese with darting eyes. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.000 Wow, that is evocative. 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:36.920 Yeah, so, I mean it makes it sound like, Okay, 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.400 the head is definitely dead, I guess, but again supernatural 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.000 being so I guess anything is fair game. The dula 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.039 hand is said to take this moldy cheese head off 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.640 for shock, and may throw it around like a ball, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.839 so one can imagine, you know, sort of like bouncing 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.000 it off the shoulders or something, or dribbling it like 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:55.760 a basketball. 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.680 Oh, this reminds me of something I read that I 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.440 couldn't find a great worse for this. But allegedly, the 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.839 the ghost of the English archbishop William Laude, who is 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:12.200 believed to haunt Saint John's College in Oxfordshire, is said 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.440 to sometimes either kick his head around like a soccer 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.040 ball or bowl with his own head. But like I said, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.280 I couldn't find a great looking source for that. But 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.479 that is a claim I've read attested. 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.359 I mean, the human imagination just can't help. But go 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:27.880 there right. 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:28.920 Yeah. 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.240 Now you might hearing this tale of the Dola h 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.960 and you might think, well, if this character comes riding around, 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.600 I've got to see this. This sounds impressive. Well, you 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:42.359 were advised not to. If he comes riding around, don't 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.280 peek out through a crack in the door the window, 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.479 because he has a whip. Sometimes it's said to be 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.000 crafted from a human spinal column, and he will crack 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.040 it at you and if he catches your eyes it'll 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:54.640 blind you. 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.559 Why am I calling to mind, like an evil version 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.599 of Santa Claus who catches the children peaking on, you know, 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:01.400 on Christmas. 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.480 It's kind of like that, you know. I mean, there's 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:05.440 and I think we can all kind of relate to 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.039 that idea of the supernatural. Like it's one thing to 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.840 hear tales of the supernatural, but then do you dare 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.800 see it? Because once you've seen it, you've crossed over. Right, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:16.880 You're no longer on this side of the stories, You're 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:17.520 on the other side. 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:18.760 And what does that mean for you? 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.960 There are also tales that if he catches you looking 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.960 peeking out the door, he'll just ride up and throw 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:31.640 a basin of blood in your face. Oh yeah, and 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.560 but but still all that being said, like he still 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.360 just riding by, the worst thing that could happen is 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:42.599 that you'll hear those those hoof falls stop. You'll hear 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.600 that he has stopped outside your house, that he's lingering 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.880 outside your house, which of course spells death for those 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.359 inside or for someone inside, Like he is not just 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:54.839 passing through. He has arrived. 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:55.240 Now. 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.480 I wasn't able to find as many sources on this, 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.120 but it is said that there is a modern Japanese 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.719 urban legend variation of the dou Lahan. The Kubanashi Rider 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.480 or headless Rider doesn't ride a horse, rides a motorcycle. 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:12.920 The story is that his head was cut off by 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.920 a piano wire spanning a roadway, a detail that has 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.960 been connected to the nineteen seventy four Australian outlaw biker 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:23.000 film Stone, which was then released in Japan in nineteen 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.920 eighty one and would have inspired this urban legend. Apparently, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:28.720 I have not seen this one. I don't know if 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:29.840 you're familiar with Stone. 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:31.920 No, I'm not familiar with it, but it sounds like 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.520 a very Mad Max kind of detail. 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.000 Yeah, and in fact, it has Hugh keyes Burn in it, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.680 the guy who played in Morton Joe in the most 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.240 recent Mad Max film and also played what was like 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.720 toe Cutter I think is his character in the original 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:46.600 Mad Max. 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.080 The villain in the first one in the fourth one, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:50.800 but different characters. Yeah. 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.640 Now. McKillop also recounts a tale of a beheading game 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:59.480 involving the hero kucullin Now the Beheading Game. I think 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.360 we've talked about this before on the show. This is 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.400 a literary trope, perhaps best known for its place and 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:09.440 on Thurian legend concerning the Green Knight. Basically, the game 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.560 consists of this, you cut my head off, and then 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.680 I cut yours off. Sounds like an easy contest until 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.320 you realize that your opponent can get back up and 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.080 walk around without a head and will indeed be back 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:22.720 to cut yours off later on. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.600 This is central in the Arthurian story of Sir Cowen 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.720 and the Green Knight. Sir Gowain is the one who 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.959 answers the challenge. The Knights of the Roundtable are feasting, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.440 I believe on Christmas Day or it's around Christmas, and 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.800 the Green Knight, this man who is very much identified 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.040 with nature and seems to be some kind of symbol 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.600 of like paganism, This Green Knight figure comes in and 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.560 he insults all of the knights, and he challenges them 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.920 to this game, this beheading game, and they're allowed to 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.560 be head him first. So Sir Gawain, the young up 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:56.839 and comer, is like, yeah, okay, I'll do it. Yeah, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:58.480 and he cuts the Green Knight's head off, and the 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.600 Green Knight is fine, he picks his own head up. 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.920 He's like, okay, now I'll do that to you a 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.000 year from now today. So You've got to come find 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.559 me at the Green Chapel, And so there's like it's 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.680 a morality story about honor and all that that Sir 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.680 Gawain is like, well, am I going to go do it? 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:14.680 And he does. Yeah. Yeah. 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.600 So there's a lot more to dissect there, but at 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.560 heart you do have a story of headless or at 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.200 least temporarily headless. 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.440 Being I actually, Rachel and I just this past month 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.760 watched for the first time that that recent Sir Gawain 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.760 movie that they put out, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:31.160 and I thought it was great. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.280 Oh cool. I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.640 great things. I've only ever watched the one in which 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.280 Sean Connery plays the Green Knight. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:39.600 Oh no, I haven't seen that one. 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.600 Yeah, it's a pretty good Green Knight. Now, in looking 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:50.520 around for other examples of headless beings, there's one I 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.720 ran across that I wanted to bring up that it 0:09:53.760 --> 0:10:00.480 extends from navago or dnnight traditions. Specifically, it's called the 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:06.079 phil Gath. It's a form of annie monster, sometimes translated, 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.760 especially back in the early twentieth century, as alien gods. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.560 Though I feel like that maybe that terminology could be 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.120 confusing now I'm not sure, but some sort of like 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.640 gods from the outside, I guess. In her Monster books, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.199 Carol Rose describes them as primal monsters, the offspring of 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.679 wicked women who brought fear and misery into the world, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.000 the sons of Sun and Water, and I believe these 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:37.319 are the Navajo hero twins slayed these monsters, and according 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.480 to Rose, their offspring, however, lived on, the monster's offspring 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.200 lived on to keep cold, famine, old age, and poverty 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.800 alive in the world even if these, like more primal fears, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:51.240 had been defeated by the heroes. I was also reading 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:56.640 that the monsters were slain by na Ye NEZGANI. This 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:02.320 is a mythical hero from Navajo lore that is a 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.040 monster slayer, and I believe is one of the Navajo 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:10.160 twins referenced earlier. Gerald E. Levy in his book in 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.800 the beginning The Navajo Genesis lists the translated names of 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:18.960 the monsters killed by the slayer as big Ye, Horned Monster, 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.320 Rock Monster, Eagle kicks off Rocks, and the Eye Killers. 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.840 I believe Horned Monster is fel Gath or deal ged, 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:33.040 but there's no mention of headlessness here. However, deel ged 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.959 dell Gath or Phelgeth is listed as a quote unquote 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:42.199 Harry headless antelope on the website Native Languagest Native hyphen 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.199 Languages dot org, which is a nonprofit dedicated to the 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:50.560 preservation and promotion of endangered American Indian languages. So that 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:53.760 leads me to believe, well, maybe this is some sort 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.320 of headless entity, at least in some tellings. 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.040 Harry headless antelope. Interesting. 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.240 Yeah, So just another example that this idea of some 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:07.760 sort of like headless entity, be it animal or human inform, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.120 like gonna touch a nerve, like there is something unnatural 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.480 and dreadful about it that they were going to we 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.400 can't help but connect with monstrosity. 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.120 So I was looking for a good book that compiled 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.880 stories about headless ghosts, and I found a chapter in 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.160 a book by the well known skeptic and paranormal investigator 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.000 Joe Nickel called The book is called The Science of Ghosts, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.240 Searching for Spirits of the Dead, published by Prometheus Books 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.839 in twenty twelve, and there's a chapter in this book 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.960 called headless Ghosts. I have known so at the beginning 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.160 of this chapter, Nickel points out a few just kind 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.400 of interesting contradictions, some of which I don't know if 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.320 I've ever considered before. One is the idea that you know, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.679 there are certain kinds of ghost realists, people who think 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:02.839 that ghosts are real, independent, extraternal phenomena, and that certain 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.880 of these ghost realists assert that a ghost is a 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.760 form of physical energy peculiar to humans or perhaps to animals, 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.240 that survives death and remains in the environment. And yet 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.160 for some reason, ghosts are almost always perceived not only 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:24.120 as manifestations of the human or animal body, but dressed 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.160 as they might have been during life. So like, if 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.320 this energy exists and persists, it also seems to manifest 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.679 inanimate objects, such as like clothing and uniforms and jewelry 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.400 other non living objects that ghosts would sometimes carry with them. 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.000 That's a good point. Ghosts tend to wear clothes. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.040 Along the same lines, some ideas about ghosts as real 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.600 external phenomena explain them as some kind of lingering mental 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:54.160 projection of the original person that persists after death, though 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.559 this has interesting tension with the number of stories there 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.880 are about headless ghosts, since mental fling phenomena are pretty 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.120 well established to depend mostly on the brain, it would 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.199 have to be a now dead brain projecting not itself 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.280 into the future, but some kind of three dimensional representation 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.960 of the part of the body that does not contain it, 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.320 which is kind of interesting. But anyway, so those little 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.920 observations aside, he goes on to document several types of 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.440 stories of headless ghosts. In the United States. There are 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.720 apparently a number of popular stories about soldiers from the 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:34.080 American Civil War, like being decapitated by cannon fire and 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.360 then wandering the battlefield forevermore as headless ghosts. He also 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.640 mentions the various headless ghosts associated with the Tower of 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.960 London in England, including several historical figures who were beheaded 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.640 on the orders of Henry the Eighth, only a subset 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.320 of which were his wives, the most famous of the 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.320 Tower ghosts being Anne Boleyn. But there are also just 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.400 some other enemies of Henry that end up there. But 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.960 one of the stories that Nicol courts that really stuck 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:07.680 with me involves criminals in medieval Germany. So there is 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:11.720 a place in the Rhine Valley called the Reichenstein Castle 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:16.560 where a legend says that a headless ghost sometimes wanders 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.440 in the chapel adjoining the castle, and he describes a 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.080 visit that he had to this castle to look into 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.680 the legend. The origin story goes back to the thirteenth century, 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:30.480 when this castle was the base of operations for a 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.720 band of what he calls robber knights. I think, you know, 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:38.280 fierce bandit horsemen. And then to quote from Nicol, and 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.480 this is in part he is quoting from Dennis William 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.920 Hawke's International Dictionary of Haunted Places. So when the quote 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.520 comes in, that's what it is. But Nichol writes, quote, 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.400 in twelve eighty two, they were captured, whereupon their leader, 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:56.640 Dietrich von Hohenfels, entreated Emperor Rudolph von Habsburg to spare 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.240 his nine sons. The emperor stated that Dietrich was to 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.200 be beheaded, but with his sons lined in a row, 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.240 everyone he could afterward run past would be spared. When 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.760 the executioner's sword fell quote, Dietrich's head rolled to the ground, 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.760 but his bloodied torso stood erect and lunged forward, stumbling 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.960 and swaying, until it passed every one of his sons. Finally, 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.760 the headless body fell to its knees, a fountain of 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.760 blood shooting high in the air where its head had been. 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.840 The sons were spared, and afterward on the execution site, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.840 the repentant family erected the Saint Clement Chapel. According to 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.560 how Dietrich's headless ghost is sometimes seen inside the chapel. 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.240 Also quote Dietrich is buried on the property and his 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.280 red sandstone marker depicts a knight in armor with no head. 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.640 But Nicol points out that there are several issues with 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.760 this story. So first of all, this grave marker described 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.840 wherever it is, it is now lost, or was, at 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.640 least to the time he was writing this book. Though 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:00.560 there is an account of a visit to the site 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.119 by Victor Hugo, where Hugo claimed that the grave marker 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.320 was from the fourteenth century, not the thirteenth, and the 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.040 Dietrich's name was not on it. Also, the account does 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.480 not square with the history of the bandit Knights of 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.600 the Castle, where apparently the more reliable sequence of fact 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.800 seems to be that Dietrich actually escaped and his companions 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.359 the other robber knights, were in fact executed. They were 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.920 hanged from trees in the Rhine Valley, and the basic 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.679 outline of this folk tale about Dietrich seems to go 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.040 back in earlier form to a story about a fourteenth 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:40.919 century German pirate and privateer named Klaus Stortebecker, who was 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.680 captured and executed for his crimes in the year fourteen 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.679 oh one. Nicol writes, quote, kneeling before the executioner, he 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.919 proposed a deal. Quote all those companions should be reprieved 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.360 whom he could manage to walk by after being beheaded. 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.800 This way he saved the lives of eleven pirates before 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:06.080 the malicious executioner tripped him. That's a dirty trick. Yeah. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:10.040 Now, this talk of headless privateers and so forth. Of course, 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.200 this brings to mind a modern retelling of this sort 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.800 of story that I don't think we've mentioned so far, 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.520 and that of course is Warren Zvon's nineteen seventy eight 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.239 song roll in the Headless Thompson Gunner, which is an 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:30.440 excellent song, wonderfully weird lyrics, a great ballad of headless 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.120 being in revenge and so forth, but very much from 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.880 in this sort of vein, you know, instead of a pirate, 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.520 an international mercenary. 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.920 Right and so there are kind of like these story 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.240 forms that just keep reappearing in stories about different people 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.560 in different times and places in history. And Nicol ultimately 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.840 thinks that the story about d Trick that he came 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:57.920 across is probably grafted from this original story about Stordbecker. 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.280 But in either case, Nicol argued that the story is implausible, 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.119 like it probably did not actually happen based on what 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.880 we know about physiology, Like you know, a chicken might 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.760 be able to run around or walk around a bit 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.480 after decapitation, but he does not think that a human 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:14.240 would do the same. 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.119 Yeah, and it raises all sorts of questions about well, 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.600 how was he standing when the head was cut off? 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.320 Like how do you get ready for this attempted lurch 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.240 across the execution yard to save other pirates? 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.800 That's a good question. I don't know the answer there, 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.840 But one more tangent I went on from Nichol's book. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.080 Later in the book, there's a short section on ghost 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.840 dogs where Nicol brings up the English legend sometimes known 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:43.840 as black Shuck, a spectral hound with sort of localized 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:49.160 incarnations or tellings in different regions of England, such as Devon, Essex, 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.119 Suffolk and Norfolk. And this ghost dog is said to 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.040 have black hair and stand as large as a calf, 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:01.719 quote sporting glowing eyes even when he is described as headless. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.760 And I loved that the image of a canine body 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:10.760 that has glowing eyes despite having no head. Now, can 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.159 you have eyes if you have no head? Well? I 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.560 think if you're a dog, the answer is probably no, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.840 at least plausibly no, without some kind of sci fi 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.360 Frankenstein thing going on. But if you're another kind of animal, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.400 the answer is absolutely yes. You can have eyes without 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.880 a head. As weird as it sounds, there are animals 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.679 exactly like that. Just one example I would like to 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:34.920 briefly talk about. Are scallops, Oh, scallops, scollops? Which way 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.840 do you say it? Robin scallops? Scollops? 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:38.280 Oh? 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.000 Oh yeah, a little further back in the Yeah, let's 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.000 say scollops. Folks, if you are near a computer or 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.480 are safely able to look at your phone right now, 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.320 just do yourself a favor and look up scollop eyes. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.160 It's like something straight out of a monster movie. There 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.439 are real unedited photos of scollop eyes that look like 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.679 they can not be from nature, but they are, so 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:08.000 you will sometimes see the shell will be just slightly open, 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:10.920 you know, it's mostly closed, but there's a gap in between, 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.119 and the inside of the shell is lined with a 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:19.679 tissue that just has these these pale blue dots all 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.080 along it, which clearly do read as eyes for some reason, 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.240 they don't just look like dots. I mean, it looks 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.479 like they're looking at you. And then in between that 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.479 there are these tissues that kind of lock together with 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:36.000 these spiky hairs that looks like the world's widest monster 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:37.639 mouth with infinite teeth. 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.639 Yeah, they're they're they're terrifying. They also they're so bright 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.040 in some of these pictures too. They feel like it 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:45.960 should be a legend of Zelda in me. 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:51.240 You know, Yes, that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. You can 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.440 imagine the treasure chest popping up when you defeat the Scallop. Hey, 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:57.240 and if it's in one of the new Zelda games, 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:00.199 surely you would end up getting to cook with with 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:02.240 the Scallop from it, right, that's right. 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.840 I hear all about. I don't play the game myself. 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:06.520 My son does, and he tells me all about the 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.040 different meats you cook, and then of course there's not 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:10.520 just going to be one. There's going to be about 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.480 eight different versions of it, right, with different head features. 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:15.760 Yeah, and you can combine the body parts from the 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.600 different ones to make different kinds of meals. That cooking 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.400 mechanic is very pleasing. It's always a nice little surprise 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.720 when you mix something new and it does make a dish. 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:31.160 But anyway, scallops are interesting in that their visual anatomy 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:36.240 differs substantially from ours. Scallops can, of course, have hundreds 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.240 of eyes per organism. We only have two. And while 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:44.359