WEBVTT - From the Vault: Aquatic Humanoids, Part 1 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.360 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.879 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:14.400 It's time to go into the vault. Today. We're going 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.440 to be going back to our first episode on aquatic 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:23.840 humanoids from January. This was almost exactly a year ago 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.040 that this first stired. Now why are why are we 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.880 doing so much ocean stuff lately, Robert, Oh, it's because 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.720 Transgenesis is coming out. That is a fiction sci fi podcast. 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:36.920 All ten episodes are gonna launch at once so that 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.160 you can you can binge them, you can, you can, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.479 you can spread them out over your commute, you know, 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.400 however you want to do it. Wait, did you even 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.599 tell them who created Transgenesis? Oh? Well, I created Transgenesis. 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.440 Um I wrote and created, worked with Alexander Williams, one 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.599 of our producers here and Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh. 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.440 Lauren Vogelbaum was also instrumental in the project, worked with 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.000 a number of different outside actors, but also a lot 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:06.360 of talent from within the Stuff network, including you, Joe, 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.880 you were there. It's right, I make a strange cameo. 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.120 So if you want, if you want to check that 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.840 show out, go and subscribe. You should be able to 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.399 look up Transgenesis all one word. You can also go 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.640 to Transgenesis dot show for more information. But again, this 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.000 is a science fiction show that then it deals with 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.800 the deep ocean. It deals with strange humanoid like creatures 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:30.560 in the deep ocean. But this is why we're going 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.080 back to these episodes on aquatic humanoids, because they deal 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.800 with with with creatures from the deep, creatures of myth 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.119 and legend, things such as the Triton's, things such as 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.240 mermaids and and other uh dwellers of the deep. I 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.320 think we talked about creature from the Black Lagoon, and 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.800 good we do. We do spend a good bit talking 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.080 about the creature and various gil men. We talked about 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.880 Lovecraft and in Smith and and we may even get 0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.320 into the the aquatic a hypothesis. I'm having trouble room bread. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.480 I think that comes and maybe in part two. All right, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.760 all right, well, we hope you enjoy this classic episode 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:12.000 of stuff to blow your mind. First you will come 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.600 to the sirens, who enchant all who come near them 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.240 if anyone unwarily draws in too close. And here's the 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.079 singing of the sirens. His wife and children will never 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.239 welcome him home again, for they sit in a green 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.920 field and wabble him to death with the sweetness of 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.440 their song. There is a great heap of dead men's 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:44.720 bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:46.639 They meant the things on the little island with the 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.200 queer ruins, and it seems them awful pictures of frog 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:52.920 fish monsters. Was supposed to be pictures of these things? 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.680 Maybe they was the kind of critters has got all 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.880 the mermaids stories and such started. They had all kinds 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.800 of cities on the sea bottom, and his iron was 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:11.040 heaved up from there. Welcome to stuff to blow your 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:19.880 mind from How Stuffworks dot com. Hey, you welcome to 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:21.960 stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.240 and I'm Joe McCormick. And if you recognize what those 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:27.679 sources were, you probably can tell we're gonna be talking 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.240 about some mirror creatures, some sea folks, something like that today. 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:35.040 That's right. The first was from Homer's the Odyssey, the 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.400 Samuel Butler translation. The second was from HP Lovecraft The 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.880 Shadow Over in Smith. Now, there is always an alluring 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.120 quality to the idea that there's stuff happening down at 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:46.920 the bottom of the ocean that has more than just 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.200 an animal quality, but some kind of intelligence or organizing 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.960 principle to it. I think of in the George R. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.160 Martin books, there's this character. Do you remember this guy, Robert, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.920 who is like a court jester and the in stand 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.600 Barathians Court, who's always singing about what happens under the 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.600 bottom of the sea. No, I've forgotten about this. Well, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.600 he like falls in the water at some point and 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.640 gets rescued, and after that he's always saying, like under 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.320 the sea that I don't remember what he says, but 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.360 it's like they have feet, you know, people people walk 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.239 upside down on their hands. And then he always says, 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.320 I know, I know, ho ho ho, And it's kind 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.640 of mysterious. Oh yeah, this does ring about now. Well, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.480 you know, before even before we had proper mirrors, the uh, 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.960 the ocean was kind of the looking glass, right, it 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.919 was kind of the mirror world. Yeah, so any of 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.240 those stories where you wonder if there's actually some kind 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.599 of creature living on the other side of the mirror, 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.240 if that's another universe we're peering through. Into. All of 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.840 that applies to the water as well. Yeah, I mean, 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.360 it's interesting when you think of all the various specimens, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.560 the Mermaids, the Gilman, the sirens. It's fascinating. The humans 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:56.040 have seemingly always dreamt up humanoids from the deep, not 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.960 just monsters, but humanoids. Yeah, I mean, because you can 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.000 certainly expand it and getting the whole realm of sea 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:06.560 monsters and various animal fish hybrids. But there's something particular 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:11.000 about those humanoid or partially humanoid creatures, a mirror world 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:15.360 beneath the waves, and people of some sort that occupied 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.560 the depths. Yeah, I mean, even before you had somebody 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:22.080 like Giordano Bruno imagining that there could be other planets 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.760 with surfaces like our planet that could have creatures dwelling 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:27.920 on them. You know, when people didn't really have that 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.119 conception of the sky, you could still definitely wonder about 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.159 something like that under the ocean. That was like sort 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:38.760 of the first outer space. It was the original alien world. Yeah, indeed, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.760 and without a real means of exploring it or understanding it, 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.440 you were just left with whatever happened to swim up 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.480 with within view, whatever happened to wash up dead and 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.760 partially rotted away on the shoreline whatever you were able 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.400 to pull up with with line or net. Dude, the 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.800 stuff that washes up dead on the beaches of the 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.240 Earth is terrifying and crazy. Now, even though we have 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.200 like photos and modern science. Can you imagine that happening 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.560 in a world where you know, the New Jersey beach 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.840 monster washes up, but it's in the Middle Ages, in 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.760 China or something. Yeah, it's actually really fascinating to look back, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.320 particularly at a lot of the sea monster illustrations and 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.920 old maps. There's a book by a Chet Van Duzer 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.640 Sea Monsters of Medieval and Renaissance Maps, and and he he. 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.360 It's filled with wonderful illustrations. But you get to look 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.080 at at all these various creatures. You know that some 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.400 fairly realistic you can look at and say, well, that's 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.680 clearly supposed to be a walrus. That's supposed to be 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:36.640 a whale. It just has too many blowholes. And some 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:38.719 of them you look at and you realize, well, this 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.479 is essentially what you might see if you saw the 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.320 put partially decomposed body of a whale. Something enormous but 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.440 a little more beaked looking. Now. In that book, Van 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.760 Duzer points out that few maps survive from antiquity, but 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.320 there are map like mentions and map like artifacts, such 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.520 as there's an Assyrian freeze from the Palace of Kings 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.080 saga on the second early eighth century BC that clearly 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.640 depicts two Assyrian merment. And it's great because if you've 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.160 ever seen Assyrian reliefs or carvings before, they've they've all 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.520 got the same head, you know, it's all that same 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.160 guy with the same curly beard and the hat. And 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.120 these mermaids are like that too. Yeah, And then you 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.680 you look at other ancient writings, I mean, they're mentioned 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:26.240 in ovid Ovid's writing The Metamorphosis. Ovid lived forty three 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.720 b c E To seventeen or eighteen CE, and he 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.360 described the gates of the Palace of the Sun as 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:36.200 containing all of these images of mer people. The dark 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:41.160 blue sea contains the gods melodious Triton shifting Proteus uh 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:46.040 Aegian crushing two huge whales together his arms across their backs, 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.800 and Doris with her daughters, some seen swimming, some sitting 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.560 on rocks drying their sea green hair, some writing the 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.880 backs of fish. And you can you can keep going 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.800 back in time too. I mean, as Nancy Easterland pointed 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.040 out in your two thousand one paper Hans Christian Andersen's 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:07.160 Fish out of Water, the Babylonians recognized gods with fish 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:11.240 features or fish hybridity. Yeah, you can sort of see 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.400 this as an extension of the way that early creation 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:19.880 myths and ancient gods often had water aspects, like like 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.240 Tiamatta Nabsu, you know, the freshwater and the salt water, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.480 or the idea of the creation stories which almost always 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.120 involve waters, right, you know, the chaos hover or the 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.280 being hovering out over the waters. Yeah, calling back to 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.040 our Order out of Chaos episode. And we've talked about 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.680 Inky as well before. The Sumerian water god, which is 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.040 sometimes described it's sometimes described as having a cloak of 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.080 a fish or scaled skin. Wait, a cloak of a 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.600 fish or a cloak made out of multiple fish or 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.040 one of the images I saw it looked like a 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.280 cloak of little fish icons like it, like the cloak 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.280 was made out of fish emoticons. That's good, pretty great, 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.760 that's amazing. And get this. The zig Rot, where people 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:07.400 would worship Inky, was known as House of the Subterranean Waters. Well, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.280 that seems to sort of complete the Ziggurat trinity because 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.680 we we've talked about zigarattes before, the Ziggaratta Etemenanki, which 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.120 was sometimes believed to be associated with the historical idea 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.880 of the Tower of Babel. I think that name means 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.000 something like the house of the foundation of heaven and Earth, 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.400 very regal sounding zigaratte. As if there's another kind of 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.120 zigatte right now, additionally we have this is just kind 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.679 of a humble ziggaratte. Yeah, there's no such thing. If 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.520 it's gonna be a zigaratte, it's gonna be a zigaratte. Now. 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.079 Additionally we have we have fish tailed gods and water 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.920 dragons found throughout the cultures of India, China, and Japan. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.520 And uh Nancy Nancy Easterland sums up a lot of 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.360 this nicely. She says, quote, some of the mythological sea 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.480 beings and deities, such as Poseidon and the Sirens were 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.479 not originally associated with water and piicine anatomy. The sirens 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.440 were originally birds, indicating that divine our and womanly allure 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.480 became combined with the power and promise of the sea 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:09.080 when ancient cultures undertook maritime war and trade. So she 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:14.080 argues that the that mur folk and mermaids, all these creatures, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.600 they're ultimately the descendants or in her words, the scale 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.199 down descendants, which I like because of scales. Uh, these 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.360 are just the scale down descendants of ancient sea gods. Yeah, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.800 that seems like one example of the principle that displaced 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:31.000 gods or or fading gods of older theologies often appear 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.199 in sort of lower status or demoted roles in newer 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.240 versions of religions. Yeah, the old trope of the former 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:42.679 pagan god becomes a demon in medieval Christian traditions. So 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.880 obviously we're talking about mr Folk water dwelling humanoids of 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.640 various kinds today, and this is going to be the 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.440 first part of a two part episode. The first one 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.120 here we want to discuss the sort of global mr 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.800 Folk mythology and all of the different ideas of humanoids 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.040 living in the deep and what that says about us 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.840 culturally and where these ideas come from. And then in 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.280 the next episode we're going to focus more on the 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.679 science of aquatic humanoids. Yeah, so this is gonna be 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.480 the mythology and fiction episode, and the next one will 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.520 be the Science and Speculative Science episode. Now, Robert, one 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.080 of the first ones you mentioned was the sirens. That's right, Yeah, 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:23.720 I mean when we we had the reading from the 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.719 Odyssey at the start of the episode that refers to them. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.600 But one thing you'll notice is that there was no 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.600 description of the sirens. Yeah, what do they look like? Well, 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.280 we don't know, because Homer never actually describes them. Uh. 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.760 They were later described though, as being half bird, much 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.760 like the Harpie, and later periods of development merged them 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.319 with the Northern mermaid in Christian Europe, but medieval Beast 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.600 Area's stuck to the bird hybridity though up through at 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.640 least twelve twenty, and then you had this gentleman Isidore 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.000 of Seville who lived of five sixty through sixty six, 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.760 and he attributed them with scales and webbed feet and 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.079 sometimes tales and wings as well. But from the Middle 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.440 Ages onward, that's where the sirens really took on the 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.640 mermaid look. And it's stuck. I'm trying to think of 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.880 depictions of them I've seen in movies, but I don't 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.200 think I have. The only thing that comes to mind is, oh, brother, 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.200 where art thou, but in that they're not hybrids. They're 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.760 just humans that are. But they are in a creek bed, 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.360 that's right. I feel like a lot of the depictions 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.160 that that I'm accustomed to, mainly through the Time Life 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.760 book series of myths and monsters and myths and legends, 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.760 and there was there were some siren images in there, 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.240 and a lot of them were just basically beautiful women 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:42.079 out on rocks, luring the the the wide eyed Greek 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.320 sailors to their doom. Now, of course, if you're not 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.400 familiar with the story, it's that the sirens would sing, right, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.120 and that they're singing was so lovely that it would 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.480 drive men mad. And it would and they would want 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:55.959 to come ashore to meet the sirens, I guess, or 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.480 be drawn to the singing, but instead their vessels would 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.360 be dashed upon the rocks, right, Yeah. And various accounts 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.120 of the sirens that they vary, like maybe you'd starve 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.520 to death, or you perhaps you'd drown. I guess. The 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.800 basic underlying reality of the myth is the ocean is 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.840 a dangerous place, right, and if you go out upon 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.640 the ocean, you might meet your do I always thought 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.560 that what Odysseus does in the story of his encounter 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.000 with the sirens was an interesting sort of metaphor for 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.959 the ways some people experiment with mind altering substances, which 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.120 is that he has his men lash him to the 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.040 ship's mast so that he can't control you know, he 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.000 can't drive the ship into the rocks. But all the 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.280 other men plug their ears, and he wants to hear it. 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.480 They're all the designated drivers. Yes, though in a sense 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.640 he's the designated driver because he is the only one 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.800 who can tell them when they're out of the sirens range. 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.720 But but yeah, they're they're all plugged up. He's the 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:57.160 one that's a that's their rope to the mast, begging 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.320 to be let free, and their industrict orders that the 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.040 more I begged, the more you need to wrote me 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:06.800 to the mast. Now another interesting uh individual or race, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.400 depending on how you look at it, from Greek Mytholity, 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.920 the Triton. So Triton was originally a specific mirror person. 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.280 But Ariel's father, right is was that his name in 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.480 the cartoon in the Disney movie, wasn't it? I thought 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.640 you just saw a little mermaid themed show, and I did, 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.120 But it was at wiki Watchie, which is the long 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.760 running mermaid show there. And the underwater dancing is a 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.880 very limited storytelling medium. And I don't think her father 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.520 ever showed up. Okay, yeah, I think that's his name. 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.440 I remember this from childhood, the guy with the big 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.080 beard and the trident. Okay, the mayor man king. He's 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.320 King Triton. Okay, I definitely remember him, but I didn't 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.920 remember his name. Well. Uh. The Triton's eventually became seen 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.520 as just a class of murr people in Greek myth. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.000 They were the sons of Poseidon and Amphitrite. They had 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.960 humanoid bodies covered in scales, and then they had dolphin 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.880 tails matted green or yellow hair. They had gills as 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.240 well as pointed kind of elf ears, wide mouths things, 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.840 and then they typically would serve as escorts for the 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:15.280 Nereid sea nymphs as well as general attendants for Seed 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.720 of Entity. And our old friend Hessiod said that they 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.480 inhabited golden palaces under the sea. Now it sounds like 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.400 King Triton, Yeah, exactly. It's it's that this is key 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.120 to so many of our our myths and legends of 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.080 my people. Now I'm wondering This is kind of interesting 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:35.720 that it's combining features of the house of Ichthos. Right, 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.960 it's got the scales and the fish like characteristics, but 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.520 then they've also got dolphin tales, So there's this melding 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.760 of aquatic mammals and fish. Well, of course you have 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.520 to remember that for the longest time, this was not 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.680 a clear distinction, the idea that the dolphins were not fish, 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.200 So it makes sense it just mesh it all up 0:15:55.240 --> 0:16:00.000 under miscellaneous sea beasts. And also in medieval times, tritons 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.920 were made the male counterparts of sirens, the male counterparts, 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.520 as in like they were the same species, or like 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:10.120 they were just friends or what. My understanding is that 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.840 it's like they were of the same species. If one 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.400 dares to get too technical with your your mythological people's 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.200 under the waves. And I think this will be very 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.080 interesting later on when we discussed modern treatments of mermaids 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:29.640 and fish people. Okay, so Fang's scales, dolphin tales, humanoid characteristics. 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.760 That's not enough hybrid City for me. I want you 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.240 to mash in some more stuff. Well you're in luck, Joe, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.120 because there there's another creature to consider here. The a 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:42.040 theo centaur. Yes, so you had something called a centauro triton, 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.560 which is basically what occurs when you have a triton 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:50.440 that's depicted with like like a definite dolphin esque hind quarters. 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.160 But then the atho centaur takes the hybrid city to 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.480 a whole another level. So we see this and around 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.640 the third century common Air. Uh. And this is found 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:06.560 in the natural history text Physiologists. Uh. And this creature, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:08.639 the echio centaur, was said to have the torso and 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.399 head of a man, the four legs of a horse 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.840 or lion are the hind quarters of a dolphin, and 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:19.360 unlike the centaur o tritan, they had scale. Now I'm 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.239 so imagining what kind of habitat this creature dwells in. 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.000 When would it be useful to have the four legs 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.840 of a horse and the tail of a dolphin? Well, 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:33.440 I mean, you could really tease that apart and get 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.919 into I guess the symbolic meaning of the things, or 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.399 you you end up coming back to your idea of like, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.440 here's something washed up on the beach. Makes sense of it, 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:43.880 and well, this is kind of the story that ends 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.240 up spreading about it. There are no classical accounts of 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.920 the Ichthyo centaur. According to the resources I was looking 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.920 at button that they remained a decorative motif, which is 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:54.840 kind of the ultimate fate of a lot of these, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.800 like the mermaid and the Uh and the triton and 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:02.520 the Ethio centaur, they become just part of medieval iconography 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:04.920 going forward, and they come to symbolize other things, the 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:09.000 Mermaid particular becoming to symbolize to sort of the the 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:13.280 the evil and monstrous nature of the female Uh sometimes 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.879 depicted Uh, I believe with a with a fish to 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.679 show that she is entrapping the Christian soul. Yeah. I 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.080 often think of the tradition of the mermaid as being 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:27.040 one of temptation. Like that, it it establishes kind of 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:31.640 like a foolish and weak willed sailor that will give 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.440 in to the temptation of the mermaid because he has 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.199 not properly disciplined his spirit to resist sin. It reminds 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.680 me a lot of the incubi and succubi legends we've 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.800 discussed in the podcast before, where the feet would be 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.280 a giveaway. The feet would be the feet of a beast, 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.000 and therefore any any rational believer would notice the feet 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.960 of the creature and and just and cease to pursue 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:02.159 this foolish pairing. But that's an interesting parallel, like that 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.639 they both go back to this idea of the center 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.879 as someone who's oblivious to difference. Yeah, like they can't 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.200 see all the warning signs here, the main warning sign 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.280 of course, being that the individual is part fish. All right, well, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:15.879 maybe we should take a quick break and then we 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.399 come back. We will discuss more aquatic humanoid legends from 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:25.760 around the world. Alright, we're back. So not every mirror 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:30.439 person in mythology and legend is a villain. Sometimes you 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.119 see some that that have beneficial aspects as well. There's, 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.280 for instance, the the the Nno of Japanese legend. This 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.960 is essentially less of a mermaid and more of just 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.720 a fish with a beautiful woman's face, and it's protective 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.119 and warns of misfortune on land and sea. And then 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:52.800 there's also an interesting one from the Micmac people of 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.159 eastern Canada. They were known as the halfway people. Uh, 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.600 these particular mr folk they had the upper bodies of 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.639 a body of a human and a lower body of 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.440 a fish, and they'd warn fishermen of coming storms or 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.800 invoke storms if they were disrespected. Now I have to 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.680 add another North American or Canadian entry, a less fulkloric 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:14.560 and more of a one off. But I'm adding it 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:19.280 because I've seen this in person, Robert the Bant Merman. 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:22.480 You've looked up images, right, I did. I was not 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:24.040 familiar with this, and I had, of course heard of 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.080 the Fiji Mermaid, and I've never been to bath, but 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.119 I'm familiar with it. You know, you've talked about your 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.159 adventures there, and it does not seem like a likely 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.760 mermaid destination. No, not really. I mean, so this is Inland, Canada. 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.399 This is in Alberta and Bant National Park. So this 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.679 is a mountainous region, not a not a coastal region, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.919 but it has lakes, and so in these lakes, I 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.800 guess one might expect to find some kind of hybrid 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.240 humanoid aquatic creature. And so inside this business in ban 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.280 f in Alberta, there is a little store called the 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.800 Indian Trading Company, and in the back of the store 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:05.440 there is a taxidermy creature that's half fish, half humanoid 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.760 gremlin and it looks like, I don't know, how would 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:10.680 you describe it, Like the back of it just looks 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:12.600 straight up like a fish. It's a fish with the 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.119 head cut off, and then that fish just goes straight 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:20.600 into some ribs with with like human baby arms but 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.560 with claws on them, and a scary looking head that 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:29.359 has hair. I mean it looks like a taxidermied creation. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.320 I mean that is what it is. Yes, it is 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.040 a fish and probably some sort of a small monkey 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.280 that the remains of which we were sewn together. Yeah, 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.720 or the I think it's also possible that the top 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.320 half of it could just be artificial. Think it could 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.439 be a crafted artifact. According to a write up on 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.400 Atlas Obscurity, it was probably bought by a man named 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.560 Norman Luxton, who is the proprietor of the shop around 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.320 nineteen fifteen when it was when it first showed up there. 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.240 It's very much in the traditional of like the P. T. 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:00.359 Barnum kind of thing that the Fiji mermaid. Yes, so 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.080 some kind of a side shoe oddity sort of thing. Yeah, 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:07.200 except it stays right here in this uh, in this store. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.720 I don't know how long it's been totally stationary there. 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:11.240 But yeah, if you go to bamp and you go 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.360 to the store and you go into the back room. 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.719 You will see lots of oddities. There is like a 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:19.240 giant taxidermy bear I think, and some moose heads and 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:21.840 other local stuff. But yeah, this thing is in a 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:24.119 glass case. It's got a mirror behind it, and they 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:28.159 sell postcards. It's like I saw them from Herman. Interesting. 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.680 Well that's that. I've got to check that out when 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.200