Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, this is Robert Lamb. We are skipping listener
Speaker 2: mail this week, which normally publishes in this space, in
Speaker 2: order to build up our reserves, so keep those emails coming. Instead,
Speaker 2: we're presenting a special Monster Fact omnibus episode for you
Speaker 2: this week that collect six previously published entries in a
Speaker 2: single episode. I know some of you prefer to listen
Speaker 2: to these short form episodes in this format, so I'm
Speaker 2: going to continue to try and roll these out periodically
Speaker 2: over the course of the year, generally when I've built
Speaker 2: up enough to fit a particular theme. But this one
Speaker 2: is kind of a grab bag, so without further ado,
Speaker 2: let's jump right in. First of all, we will consider
Speaker 2: the Mummy in this episode. I like to discuss one
Speaker 2: of the classic monster icons of twentieth century heart cinema,
Speaker 2: the Undead Mummy. You've all encountered some variation on this
Speaker 2: monster before, if not in the original six part Universal
Speaker 2: Pictures Mummy franchised, then perhaps in nineteen eighty seven's The
Speaker 2: Monster Squad or nineteen nineties Tales from the Dark Side,
Speaker 2: the movie, which has a very memorable adaptation of Sir
Speaker 2: Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot two forty nine, which I'll touch
Speaker 2: on again in a bit. For my own part, I
Speaker 2: fondly remember reading a pair of kids books from the
Speaker 2: late eighties and nineties when I was a child, by
Speaker 2: Alita E. Young, Terror in the Tomb of Death and
Speaker 2: Return to the Tomb of Death, both of which featured
Speaker 2: undead mummies and ancient Egyptian curses. Now, to properly understand
Speaker 2: mummy horror fiction in general, we have to recognize its
Speaker 2: place within the larger world of Egyptomania. The term Egyptomania
Speaker 2: is more often used to refer specifically to nineteenth century
Speaker 2: European fascination with all things Egypt in the way of
Speaker 2: Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, but it can also generally be leveled
Speaker 2: at different points in time when various cultures have pursued
Speaker 2: an interest in ancient Egyptian civilization and culture. In the
Speaker 2: excellent book Egyptomania, author Ronald H. Fritz discusses various forms
Speaker 2: of Egyptomania over the ages, from the ancient Hebrews, Greeks,
Speaker 2: and Romans to Europeans and afrocentrist movements. He also devotes
Speaker 2: a chapter to Hollywood movies and literature. He writes that
Speaker 2: Egyptian themed fiction in its current forms emerged during the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, again after Napoleon's campaign in Egypt inspired a
Speaker 2: new surge in European Egyptomania, surplanting Egypt's smaller place in
Speaker 2: the European culture of the time period, where it was
Speaker 2: mostly relegated to its role in Shakespearean theatre, freemasonry, and
Speaker 2: sporadic fictional treatments. Fritz writes that Egyptian themed fiction basically
Speaker 2: falls into a number of subgenres theirs historical fiction, biblical fis,
Speaker 2: mysteries and thrillers, occult fiction, and yes, there is the
Speaker 2: Mummy fiction. But where does the idea of undead mummified
Speaker 2: ancient Egyptians come from in all of this? Well, the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty two universal horror movie The Mummy might seem
Speaker 2: like a good place to start, after all, it kicked
Speaker 2: off a rather influential franchise, but Fritz shares that early
Speaker 2: versions of the script didn't feature an undead mummy at all.
Speaker 2: This element was only added later in subsequent rewrites. Unlike
Speaker 2: Dracula and Frankenstein, the Mummy franchise was not rooted in
Speaker 2: a particular work of literature, though there are clear literary
Speaker 2: forbears nineteen thirty twos, The Mummy wasn't even the first
Speaker 2: mummy motion picture. Consider instead that the likes of nineteen
Speaker 2: eleven's The Mummy, in which a scientist revives an Egyptian
Speaker 2: mummy with electricity and then falls in love with her
Speaker 2: sadly lost, is just one of a flurry of silent
Speaker 2: mummy movies from the nineteen tens. As for literary sources,
Speaker 2: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories The Ring of Thoth
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety and Lot Number two forty nine in eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety two are important to note, as is Brahm Stoker's
Speaker 2: The Jewel of the Seven Stars from nineteen oh three.
Speaker 2: Fritz singles out The Mummy or a Tale of the
Speaker 2: twenty second Century by Jane C. Loudum from eighteen twenty
Speaker 2: seven as the earliest long work concerning a reanimated mummy.
Speaker 2: Other early examples of reanimated mummy stories include Theophile Gottner's
Speaker 2: The Mummy's Foot and Edgar Allen Poe's eighteen forty five
Speaker 2: story Some Words with a Mummy. These stories, according to
Speaker 2: Fritz arise in general, again out of nineteenth century Egyptomania,
Speaker 2: but also out of European and American fascination with mummies
Speaker 2: and mummy unwrapping parties. In particular, he also writes that
Speaker 2: we can't underestimate Victorian colonial guilt and misgivings about the
Speaker 2: desecration of Egyptian tombs and artifacts as a strong motivation
Speaker 2: for summoning so many tales in which over eager American
Speaker 2: and European archaeologists on Earth ancient tombs, ancient curses and
Speaker 2: invoked the wrath of the Untead. In fact, he points
Speaker 2: out that initially mummy stories cast archaeologists firmly in the
Speaker 2: role of villains, but then the needle moved in the
Speaker 2: opposite direction quote after the discovery of Tutenkammen's tomb nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty two. Thanks to the film industry, archaeologists were portrayed
Speaker 2: as heroic, scholarly adventurers, while angry mummies were not avengers
Speaker 2: but the revived, corporeal forms of a mindless ancient evil.
Speaker 2: This shift is in effect an affirmation or vindication of
Speaker 2: imperialism and colonialism. On top of all of this, there's,
Speaker 2: of course, the influence of pre existing tales of cursed
Speaker 2: objects and the unsettled dead, which would have found new
Speaker 2: life in Egyptomania fueled creations. These very elements all would
Speaker 2: seem to have contributed to the undead Mummy's place in
Speaker 2: our horror fiction. All right, Next, let's consider the curious
Speaker 2: relationship between knots and monsters. Yesterday's core episode of Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind concerned the fabled rat King, in
Speaker 2: which it is said the tales of rats become intertwined
Speaker 2: and knotted, a dire omen of impending doom. But what
Speaker 2: about elsewhere in the natural and unnatural worlds? To begin with,
Speaker 2: folklore is rife with magical knots, is Cyrus l. Day
Speaker 2: pointed out in Knots and Not Lore back in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: Just as the use of knots extends back through prehistoric
Speaker 2: human times, so too does the idea that we might
Speaker 2: work magic with the various intricate knots that we tie.
Speaker 2: They observe that ancient people's attempted to control the weather, biology, reproduction, death,
Speaker 2: and various supernatural entities via the working of knots not
Speaker 2: magic was sometimes maleficent and other times beneficial. It could
Speaker 2: be an intentional magical effect, or something invoked by accident.
Speaker 2: It might be said to work at close range, across
Speaker 2: vast distances and across various stretches of time. After all,
Speaker 2: what is the knot but the joining and the binding
Speaker 2: of things, the creation of something, the creation of a
Speaker 2: new complexity in the process. And of course the topic
Speaker 2: is closely aligned with all manner of fabric arts and
Speaker 2: even hair braids. As not so easily become the subject
Speaker 2: of magical thinking, they inevitably touch the world of monsters.
Speaker 2: Among the many anti vampire traditions we find the notion
Speaker 2: that one may leave a complex array of knots out
Speaker 2: for the creature, which will then occupy its time trying
Speaker 2: to unravel them and figure them out till the sun
Speaker 2: rises once again. There are also other related tactics that
Speaker 2: don't involve knots at all, such as leaving out poppy
Speaker 2: seeds that the vampire will feel compelled to count. Vitural
Speaker 2: complexity overpowers the undead senses, it would seem, but as
Speaker 2: with the fabled rat king, there are also some myths
Speaker 2: and legends of knotted creatures. The account of Heracles and
Speaker 2: Coccus is notable. While in some depictions Coccus is merely
Speaker 2: presented as a fire breathing giant, or even just a
Speaker 2: large muscular man that Heracles wrestles, other times he is
Speaker 2: described as a sort of giant spider, except with three
Speaker 2: fire breathing human heads atop a long neck. In order
Speaker 2: to slay the monster, Heracles ties its neck in a knot.
Speaker 2: Dragon iconography often involves knots, as does serpentine iconography, and
Speaker 2: the knotting of tail or neck may be presented as
Speaker 2: a means of defeating the creature or as a self
Speaker 2: coiling behavior. In the natural world, climbing snakes have been
Speaker 2: observed to use lasso locomotion to scale trees and poles
Speaker 2: in search of prey, a configuration that indeed appears to
Speaker 2: be a simple knot. Elsewhere, hagfish, when agitated, will twist
Speaker 2: themselves into a traveling overhand knot to squeeze off excess slime.
Speaker 2: All right, now, it is time to consider the salamander.
Speaker 2: As mentioned in yesterday's Core episode The Nature of Diamonds,
Speaker 2: Part One, I'd like to discuss the fantastic salamander in
Speaker 2: today's Monster Fact Now Dungeons and Dragons players have long
Speaker 2: noticed the startling difference between salamanders of the natural world
Speaker 2: and salamanders as they appear in the D and D
Speaker 2: Monster Manual, where they are described as flaming snakes and
Speaker 2: snake like beings that quote slither across the sea of
Speaker 2: ash on the elemental plane of fire. Meanwhile, real life
Speaker 2: salamanders are quite remarkable but are decidedly not on fire.
Speaker 2: Ancient and medieval bestieries are full of strange and often
Speaker 2: fiery tales of the salamander. I turned to the writings
Speaker 2: of Fulk historian Carol Rose in her book Monsters, Giants
Speaker 2: and Dragons, as well as poorge Luis Borges the Book
Speaker 2: of Imaginary Beings to piece together the different attributed features
Speaker 2: of the mythic salamander. The creature pops up in various
Speaker 2: works from the ancient Greco Roman world, most notably the
Speaker 2: writings of Roman historian Plenty the Elder in seventy seven CE.
Speaker 2: He describes the salamander as a monstrous lizard that poisons
Speaker 2: anything it touches, known to live on the slopes of
Speaker 2: volcanoes as well as within the heart of a fire
Speaker 2: as borhes points out, Plenty highlights the creature's natural coldness
Speaker 2: as a reason for this. It's so cold it simply
Speaker 2: resists the fire and even extinguishes it. But Plenty also
Speaker 2: writes of another creature, the pyrosta, that lives within the
Speaker 2: copper smelting furnaces of Cyprus, and the creature, he says,
Speaker 2: dies if they leave the flames. Borhes points out that
Speaker 2: the later traditions would take these attributes and apply them
Speaker 2: to the salamander. It's also worth noting, though, that as
Speaker 2: a creature of fire, the mythic salamander was, by some standards,
Speaker 2: a necessary part of classical elemental theory. If earth, water, air,
Speaker 2: and fire are the prime building blocks of nature, then
Speaker 2: there have to be animals of each element, and that
Speaker 2: includes creatures of fire. As we discussed in yesterday's episode,
Speaker 2: sixteenth century Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini claimed in his autobiography
Speaker 2: to have seen a salamander in the fire as a child.
Speaker 2: As Matt Simon discussed in a twenty fourteen article for
Speaker 2: Wired Magazine, Fantastically Wrong, the legend of the homicidal fire
Speaker 2: Bruce salamander. This common bit of lare likely came about
Speaker 2: as ancient people occasionally threw damp logs on their fires,
Speaker 2: damp logs that may have had tiny, unfortunate salamanders clinging
Speaker 2: to their underside. But as Borges stressed, the notion of
Speaker 2: a creature that lives in fire was a theologically useful
Speaker 2: bit of lore as well. Saint Augustine, in his fifth
Speaker 2: century CE work The City of God, used the salamander
Speaker 2: as proof that fiery living torment in the afterlife was
Speaker 2: not that far fetched, a notion. Bor Has notes that
Speaker 2: the mythical phoenix, another mythical creature of fire, was often
Speaker 2: cited by theologians to support the idea of a bodily resurrection.
Speaker 2: During the Middle Ages, salamanders continued to tear it up.
Speaker 2: In the bestiaries. Writers of the day described their abilities
Speaker 2: to poison the fruit of trees, they entwined, to stop
Speaker 2: up the mouths of lions, and of course, extinguish fires.
Speaker 2: The creature also became associated with fibrous minerals classified today
Speaker 2: as asbestos, which are highly fire resistant. Of course, natural
Speaker 2: salamanders do not live in or tolerate fire any more
Speaker 2: than the rest of the animal kingdom. In fact, they
Speaker 2: are decidedly moist creatures. The truth of experience and experimentation
Speaker 2: easily extinguished the fantastic idea of a literal salamander of
Speaker 2: the flames, but the creature lived on in heraldry, alchemical symbolism,
Speaker 2: and of course fantasy. For this next one, let us
Speaker 2: consider the horror of the one who drills. In this episode,
Speaker 2: I'd like to turn to the traditions of the Inuit,
Speaker 2: specifically the Inuit of the eastern Hudson Bay region of
Speaker 2: what is now Canada. In the Dictionary of Native American Mythology,
Speaker 2: Sam D. Gill and Irene F. Sullivan relate the story
Speaker 2: of a pair of killers. In other tellings, monsters who
Speaker 2: terrorized the people. Ikutuyuk, whose name means one who drills
Speaker 2: and his brother would capture people, pin them down on
Speaker 2: their backs, and then murder them by drilling holes in
Speaker 2: their bodies. Afterwards, they would cover a corpse with piles
Speaker 2: of rocks like kerns or to the Inuit in nuksuk
Speaker 2: in Nuxiok, were largely used to aid navigation, but were
Speaker 2: sometimes used as warnings of dangerous grounds. According to the myth,
Speaker 2: the brothers continued their horrible crimes until a two Nit
Speaker 2: set out to stop them. The Tunit were a legendary
Speaker 2: people said to live long ago, possibly connected to an
Speaker 2: actual Paleo Eskimo culture. They were tall giants even and
Speaker 2: possessed a fierce energy and competition. Gill and Sullivans share
Speaker 2: that tu Nit were said to die of exhaustion from
Speaker 2: fierce competitions and feats of hunting and archery, And so
Speaker 2: one brave Tunit took it on himself to rid the
Speaker 2: people of the Kutuyuk and his brother. He challenged Akutuyuk
Speaker 2: to a fight, and they battled while tied together with
Speaker 2: a rope. The Canadian Museum of History features a nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty carving by Inuit artist Issa Kupirowala a la Usa
Speaker 2: depicting the back, which you can view on their website.
Speaker 2: In the end, the Tunit heroes succeeded in killing a
Speaker 2: kudu Yuk, and the remaining brother fled into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: The story of a kudu Yuk was also related by
Speaker 2: Inuit author Jonasi Kuinurayak, who lived eighteen ninety five through
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. Now you might wonder what manner of
Speaker 2: drill this monstrous killer would have used. The Inuit traditionally
Speaker 2: made use of the pump drill, an ancient hand powered
Speaker 2: tool used in fire making as well as for drilling
Speaker 2: small holes and objects for jewelry and the like. It's
Speaker 2: a simple hand powered flywheel tool. The craftsperson revolves the
Speaker 2: drill shaft by vertically working a bow or bar carrying
Speaker 2: a cord attached at the center to the upper end
Speaker 2: of the shaft. I realize this is hard to picture,
Speaker 2: so I recommend looking up an image or video. Materially,
Speaker 2: the pump typically involves some combination of wood, ivory, rawhide,
Speaker 2: metal stone, sometimes jadite. According to the Pin Museum, there's
Speaker 2: also the Inuit mouth drill. This was essentially a small
Speaker 2: bow drill used for firing making, and the user would
Speaker 2: brace the tool and provide downward pressure with the head
Speaker 2: via a mouth or chin block. Now to be clear,
Speaker 2: neither of these tools was a weapon. But according to
Speaker 2: Robert Fortune in his nineteen eighty five article Lancets of
Speaker 2: Stone Traditional Methods of surgery among the Alaska Natives, there
Speaker 2: is reason to believe that dental drilling may have been
Speaker 2: practiced to alleviate tooth pain, and that cranial drilling may
Speaker 2: also have been practiced in some cases for either medical
Speaker 2: or magico religious purposes, known as trepanation. This practice is
Speaker 2: found in cultures around the world dating back to prehistoric times,
Speaker 2: with some rare modern proponents of the procedure as well.
Speaker 2: So one can imagine how the idea of murderous drillers
Speaker 2: might have emerged in Inuit mythology and storytelling based on
Speaker 2: everyday technology and or painful surgical procedures that had been
Speaker 2: experienced or witnessed, though the possibility of actual isolated drill
Speaker 2: based torture is I suppose not impossible across one reference
Speaker 2: to isolated drill marks on Inuit remains a nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: three article by Melby in Fairgrief titled a Massacre and
Speaker 2: Possible Cannibalism in the Canadian Arctic, but the consensus would
Speaker 2: seem to be that the evidence in question suggested a
Speaker 2: mortuary practice, with drill holes being just one of the
Speaker 2: classifications of cuts found to the bone. Ykudu Yuk and
Speaker 2: his brother are haunting figures to consider, and yet another
Speaker 2: fascinating aspect of Inuit culture. Ah, what is that in
Speaker 2: the night sky? Why it's the moon? Rabbit? Let's find
Speaker 2: out more. In celebration of the lunar New Year, I
Speaker 2: thought today would be a great time to consider the
Speaker 2: lunar rabbit. Now, exactly what you see in the dark
Speaker 2: splotches of the full moon will depend on your individual
Speaker 2: and or cultural priming. You may see a face, a
Speaker 2: man with a cane or a fork, a frog or toad,
Speaker 2: or some other animal reel or imagine. But the rabbit
Speaker 2: has been a popular choice since time out of mind,
Speaker 2: and why not. Indigenous rabbit or hair species exist on
Speaker 2: every continent except Australia and Antarctica. The rabbit also boaths
Speaker 2: a great deal of character, inspiring numerous and varied tales
Speaker 2: that detail just how that rabbit made it to the Moon,
Speaker 2: or from the Moon to the Earth in the first place.
Speaker 2: Author Randolph S. Albright recounts several of these in his
Speaker 2: twenty twenty book House of the Three Rabbits. According to Albright,
Speaker 2: the Yoruba people of Nigeria and the Woloff people of
Speaker 2: Senegal recount legends of a rabbit sent down from the
Speaker 2: Moon with the secret of immortality, but the rabbit got
Speaker 2: the message backwards or mangoled in one form or another,
Speaker 2: and instead bestowed mortality upon human beings. Oops the moon
Speaker 2: punished the rabbit by splitting its nose and forcing it
Speaker 2: to accompany each dying mortal into the afterlife. The Siberian
Speaker 2: moon goddess kaltez Uku sometimes takes the form of a rabbit.
Speaker 2: The Mayan moon goddess Ixceel often carries a rabbit. The
Speaker 2: Cree people of North America tell of a rabbit who
Speaker 2: traveled up to the moon with the help of a
Speaker 2: passing crane, and the Celtic goddess Ostra took on the
Speaker 2: form of a hare during the full moon. In Buddhist teachings,
Speaker 2: Albright shares the rabbit's image appears on the moon because
Speaker 2: the rabbit offered up its own body to feed a
Speaker 2: starving beggar who was actually Sacra, lord of Davas in disguise.
Speaker 2: The Aztecs told a similar tale concerning the god Quetzalkotl.
Speaker 2: As Victoria Dickinson explores in her book Rabbit from the
Speaker 2: Excellent Rakotan Animals series, the Aztecs associated the rabbit with
Speaker 2: drunkenness as well as the moon, and held that the
Speaker 2: rabbit must first pass through fire on its way to
Speaker 2: the lunar surface, and of course, the luner rabbit has
Speaker 2: an important place in many East Asian traditions, often as
Speaker 2: a lunar zodiac animal, and Chinese traditions invoke the creature
Speaker 2: in the myth of Chenga. We discussed various versions of
Speaker 2: this myth in great detail in our stuffed to Bow
Speaker 2: your Mind episode Chinese Mortality, which you can find in
Speaker 2: our archives. But the simple version is as follows. The
Speaker 2: hero Ye the archer, receives the elixir of immortality from
Speaker 2: the Queen Mother of the West, and then, while her
Speaker 2: reasoning varies depending on the telling. Sometimes it's to protect
Speaker 2: the potion from theft by an enemy, Yi's wife Changa
Speaker 2: drank it instead and was instantly transported to the moon.
Speaker 2: In some earlier tellings, she is then transformed into a
Speaker 2: toad who pounds the elixir of immortality there, and it's
Speaker 2: of course the very toad we might see when we
Speaker 2: gaze up at the full moon. Other times, and certainly
Speaker 2: in later tellings, she retains her human form and is
Speaker 2: accompanied by the jade rabbit, who pounds the elixir of
Speaker 2: immortality instead. Thus we see the rabbit on the moon.
Speaker 2: Dickinson writes quote to Chinese alchemists, the pale jade moon
Speaker 2: rabbit embodied the yin or female principle that was associated
Speaker 2: with the moon, not only in Asia, but in the West,
Speaker 2: where the moon is often referred to as feminine. She
Speaker 2: also pointed out that in Japanese traditions, the rabbit doesn't
Speaker 2: pound the elixir of immortality, but instead pounds the rice
Speaker 2: that will be used in lunar new year mochikekes. And finally,
Speaker 2: let's consider the multi armed, multi headed madness of the Hekatonkis.
Speaker 2: And the gods, givers of good things, applauded when they
Speaker 2: heard his word, and their spirit longed for war even
Speaker 2: more than before, and they all both male and female,
Speaker 2: stirred up hated battle. That the Titan gods and all
Speaker 2: that were born of Kronos, together with those dread mighty
Speaker 2: ones of overwhelming strength, whom Zeus brought up to the
Speaker 2: light from Erebus beneath the earth, one hundred arms sprang
Speaker 2: from the shoulders of all alike, and each had fifty
Speaker 2: heads growing upon his shoulders upon stout limbs. These then
Speaker 2: stood against the Titans in grim strife, holding huge rocks
Speaker 2: in their strong hands. These are the words of Hesiod
Speaker 2: from his eighth century BCE text Theogony here in translation
Speaker 2: by Evelyn White, describing the one hundred handed warriors, the
Speaker 2: Hecatonkyries of Greek mythology. Naturally, the poet Hesiod compiled various
Speaker 2: tellings and traditions in his poetry, and in doing so
Speaker 2: solidified a number of characters, relationships, and tales concerning the
Speaker 2: Greek pantheon of deities. So what we read here is
Speaker 2: effectively the most popular understanding of the Hecatonkyres. They were
Speaker 2: a very ancient race of multi headed and multi handed giants,
Speaker 2: and they stood among the various children of the primordial
Speaker 2: sky god Urunas. But Uruanas hated these monstrosities from the
Speaker 2: first and imprisoned them, locking them away out of sight. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Urunas's offspring, Cronos, rises against his father, overthrows him, but
Speaker 2: seemingly keeps these earlier unsightly offspring locked away. It is
Speaker 2: not until Zeus, the child of Cronos, rises up with
Speaker 2: his fellow Olympian gods, rebels against the Titans. They free
Speaker 2: and recruit the Hecatonkyries, as well as their kin, the Cyclopses,
Speaker 2: into their ensuing war for control of the cosmos. This
Speaker 2: was the Titanomachi, and Hesiod describes their role in its battles,
Speaker 2: naming the three most prominent of the one hundred handed
Speaker 2: warriors in surviving traditions, and amongst the foremost Cootus and Bryarias,
Speaker 2: and guys insatiate for war, raised fierce, fighting three hundred
Speaker 2: rocks one upon another. They launched from their strong hands
Speaker 2: and overshadowed the Titans with their missiles, and buried them
Speaker 2: beneath the wide pathed earth, and bound them in bitter chains.
Speaker 2: When they had conquered them by their strength, for all
Speaker 2: their great spirit, as far beneath the earth to Tartarus.
Speaker 2: The Hecatonkyres, according to Hesiod, are much more than allies
Speaker 2: of the gods. In their war against the Titans, the
Speaker 2: Hecatonkreis strike the final blow. They chain the Titans. They
Speaker 2: become the wardens of the Titans, and are quite ironically
Speaker 2: imprisoned once more in the process. Now it should be
Speaker 2: noted that in some traditions the Hecatonkyres may have fought
Speaker 2: instead on the side of the Titans, and in some compilations,
Speaker 2: such as Brewer's Dictionary, of phrase and fable. The authors
Speaker 2: go so far as to describe individuals, specifically Bryarius as
Speaker 2: a titan, so it gets a bit confusing at times.
Speaker 2: And I suppose that's how I have always felt about
Speaker 2: the hecatonqures since I was a child and read about
Speaker 2: them and various books. Somewhat confused because the morphologies of
Speaker 2: so many other Greek monsters are just so well defined.
Speaker 2: There's so many illustrations of them, and as a child,
Speaker 2: you can draw them, you can roughly sketch them yourself,
Speaker 2: and it's a lot of fun. But the hecatonqures always
Speaker 2: seem to defy logic. Their name feels more like a
Speaker 2: literary concept describing a force of nature as opposed to
Speaker 2: a codified creature, and indeed this is often how they
Speaker 2: are interpreted. They are difficult to envision or to reproduce visually,
Speaker 2: and certainly there are plenty of contemporary artists who have
Speaker 2: had a lot of fun producing various, surreal and just
Speaker 2: horrifying interpretations of the hecatonqures, but one is generally hard
Speaker 2: pressed to find representations of these creatures in art history.
Speaker 2: Now I invite correction on this front, because I would
Speaker 2: very much love to see such images, to see like
Speaker 2: classical illustrations, medieval illustrations and so forth of the hecatonqureis.
Speaker 2: But my searches have generally come up well empty handed.
Speaker 2: Perhaps we've simply lost ancient Greek depictions of these creatures.
Speaker 2: I can only assume that they were too far removed
Speaker 2: from actual human physiology to interest many sculptors. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're interested in capturing the reality of
Speaker 2: the human form, even in the telling of stories and
Speaker 2: the presentation of information about deities, then this might not
Speaker 2: be your first stop, right. Perhaps they were creatures best
Speaker 2: left for depiction in the ages of surrealism and cosmic
Speaker 2: horror to come. Indeed, outside of their role in the
Speaker 2: struggle against the Titans, little seems to have survived about
Speaker 2: the Hecatonqures in general, aside from some tangents concerning Bryarias. Again,
Speaker 2: the Hecatonqures are perhaps best interpreted as embodiments of natural forces.
Speaker 2: Given their hundred hands and heads, they are like armies
Speaker 2: of men compiled into a single great entity, like a
Speaker 2: storm or earthquake, with the power of an army. As such,
Speaker 2: turning to the natural world of biology. Our best example
Speaker 2: of one hundred headed entities are actually large groups working together,
Speaker 2: such as humans or use social insects. Now, some of
Speaker 2: you out there might be thinking to yourself, well, I
Speaker 2: know what as one hundred appendages. Well, even centipedes, despite
Speaker 2: their name which means one hundred footed, never have exactly
Speaker 2: one hundred limbs. They may have as few as something
Speaker 2: like twenty three leg bearing segments, or as many as
Speaker 2: I think one hundred and ninety one, but there is
Speaker 2: always an odd number of leg bearing segments, never the
Speaker 2: even fifty segments that would produce a total of one
Speaker 2: hundred legs. By the way, the first millipede with more
Speaker 2: than a thousand legs wasn't discovered till twenty twenty one. Now,
Speaker 2: despite this disappointment, scientists have fouled room to invoke the
Speaker 2: hecatonkreis in the naming of various organisms. Specifically, the name
Speaker 2: Bryarius is invoked in the scientific name for various organisms, including,
Speaker 2: but not limited to, the Caribbean reef octopus, the hairy
Speaker 2: sea cucumber, at least one species of seastar, the qirky
Speaker 2: seafinger coral, a sea slug, an extinct trilabite and a
Speaker 2: Central American moth as for their mythic namesake, the hecatoncaries. Well,
Speaker 2: maybe we should heed the words ohesiate once more. Perhaps
Speaker 2: we lack for older depictions of the creature because they
Speaker 2: are not to be approached, They are not to be
Speaker 2: looked upon. Even Uruanas chose not to do so, And
Speaker 2: he used to hide them all away in a secret
Speaker 2: place of Earth so soon as each was born, and
Speaker 2: would not suffer them to come up into the light.
Speaker 2: And Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing, but vast earth
Speaker 2: groaned within. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: The Artifact, or Anamalius to Pendium each week on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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