Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And Rob and I
Speaker 2: are out this week, so we are bringing you an
Speaker 2: episode from the vault. This is part two in our
Speaker 2: series on the Goat and the devilish implications of the Goat.
Speaker 2: It was originally published on October twentieth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part
Speaker 2: two of our series on the Goat.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's Halloween season and for some reason, all
Speaker 1: of our Halloween episodes so far have been livestock based.
Speaker 1: And this is part two of our look at the goat,
Speaker 1: a creature that in reality is, you know, pretty gentle.
Speaker 1: Nothing too weird about the goat for the most part.
Speaker 1: Nothing the faari is, certainly, but within the larger traditions
Speaker 1: of mythology and folklore, various other connotations take over and
Speaker 1: kind of spin out of control until you have ultimately
Speaker 1: demonic goats, half goat, half human hybrids that may not
Speaker 1: have the best intentions at heart, and then also even
Speaker 1: a few cinematic incarnations, horror movie incarnations of the goat.
Speaker 1: We mentioned the Witch in the first episode, of course,
Speaker 1: and Joe and I were trying to off Mike. We're
Speaker 1: trying to think of other spooky goats in films, or
Speaker 1: its even just spooky goat people in films, and there
Speaker 1: aren't maybe a ton of them, Like there are more
Speaker 1: way more killer cat movies and certainly killer dog movies
Speaker 1: than there are killer goat movies.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on if you include goat headed demons,
Speaker 2: then that massively expands the range. And as we were discussing,
Speaker 2: there is one Italian horror movie that has a really
Speaker 2: glorious goat costume that you only see for a couple
Speaker 2: of seconds. But it's in the Church.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a nineteen eighty nine film. It's been a
Speaker 1: while since I've seen it, but it was produced by
Speaker 1: Dario Argento and a few others, and it's quite an
Speaker 1: interesting film, kind of a lower budget accult film that
Speaker 1: was perhaps partially inspired by the Name of the Rose,
Speaker 1: Like what if the Name of the Rose had one
Speaker 1: of the actors from the Name of the Rose but
Speaker 1: then also a demonic goat man roman.
Speaker 2: About Oh okay, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Of course The Devil Rides Out, which we discussed on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema earlier in the year that has a
Speaker 1: great goat man in it as well, but they're.
Speaker 2: Not a wonderful, big old goat boy at a party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably one of the better ones committed to the screen,
Speaker 1: but you don't see them a lot. I think I've
Speaker 1: mentioned before I think the first cinematic vision of like
Speaker 1: goat obsessed Cultists was the movie adaptation of Dragnet. This,
Speaker 1: I think a nineteen eighty seven film. Dan Ackroyd heavily
Speaker 1: involved in that. I think Christopher Plumber is in it
Speaker 1: as well and plays one of the cultests, and so
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's scenes of some sort of a
Speaker 1: Hollywood black mass thing going on, and people wearing goat
Speaker 1: leggings and goat heads and so forth.
Speaker 2: You're saying, that's the first one you remember seeing.
Speaker 1: That's the first one I remember seeing as a kid,
Speaker 1: because you know, that was I think essentially supposed to
Speaker 1: be a family movie. You know, I remember there being
Speaker 1: plenty of elements in it there were maybe not so
Speaker 1: family friendly, but you know it was the eighties. Oh
Speaker 1: and Seth just poked in to mention. Of course, Pan's Labyrinth,
Speaker 1: Gimel Do Toro's film, which does have a fabulous Pan
Speaker 1: incarnation as well as well as some other just fabulous creatures.
Speaker 1: Definitely not a family movie that one either. It's got
Speaker 1: some brutal violence and some very you know, real world themes,
Speaker 1: but also so fantastic mythological world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody remembers the monster with the eyes in its
Speaker 2: hands in that movie, even though Pans in the title. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not called Eyes in Palms Labyrinth.
Speaker 1: For many of you. Though, when you think cinematic goat men,
Speaker 1: imagine for an entire generation of people. There's one particular
Speaker 1: portrayal you're going to think of, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be James McAvoy's two thousand and five portrayal of mister
Speaker 1: Tumnus in The Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe.
Speaker 2: I never saw that adaptation.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I have a feeling and go get around
Speaker 1: to it. It's a good one. It rewatched, it recently
Speaker 1: holds up pretty well. It's got some great creatures in it,
Speaker 1: and of course, in addition to James macavoy, we have
Speaker 1: a tremendous Tilda Swinton performance as the White Witch. So
Speaker 1: those two elements are alone are enough reason to check
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: Does the movie have Turkish delight in it?
Speaker 1: Oh, of course you can't not have Turkish delight in it.
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about mister Tumnus because we were
Speaker 1: talking about satyrs and fawns in the last episode, and
Speaker 1: I realized that this is an odd, pretty obvious modern
Speaker 1: fictional presentation of particularly a fawn in this situation. He's
Speaker 1: described as a fawn, of course, appears in C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis's Narnia book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Speaker 1: and various adaptations of that work. And despite all of
Speaker 1: the various connotations of the satyr and the fawn that
Speaker 1: Lewis was obviously quite aware of, mister Tumnus is a
Speaker 1: rather compassionate figure and not at all a nasty old
Speaker 1: he goat about. The worst thing you can say about
Speaker 1: him is that he's technically working for the White Witch.
Speaker 1: He's technically prepared to poison one of the children and
Speaker 1: then deliver her to the White Witch, but then he
Speaker 1: quickly betrays the White Witch to help the children of Earth.
Speaker 1: So while he's not really portrayed for the most part
Speaker 1: as a sexual being. Still, James McAvoy's two thousand and
Speaker 1: five portrayal has perhaps a little bit of unintended allure
Speaker 1: to it. I think it's one of those situations where,
Speaker 1: even if you try and strip those elements away from
Speaker 1: the visual satyr or fawn, if you then recreate the fawn,
Speaker 1: especially using an actual person, an actual actor, you cannot
Speaker 1: help but evoke some of its symbolic essence. Lewis, by
Speaker 1: the way, also wrote a poem titled The Satyr, which
Speaker 1: also seems to dwell on the creature's more sublime qualities.
Speaker 1: This is one that he wrote much earlier as an
Speaker 1: adolescent atheist, is pointed out by Joe R. Christopher in
Speaker 1: a twenty sixteen paper title C. S. Lewis's Two Satyrs,
Speaker 1: referring to this poem and then to mister Tumnus, I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought I might read just a little of this poem.
Speaker 1: You can find the whole thing at allpoetry dot com.
Speaker 1: But it begins like this, when the flowery hands of
Speaker 1: spring forth their woodland riches, fling through the meadows, through
Speaker 1: the valleys, goes the satyr, caroling from the mountain and
Speaker 1: the moor forest green and ocean shore, all the fairy
Speaker 1: kin he rallies making music ever more, See the shaggy
Speaker 1: pelf doth grow on his twisted shanks below, and his
Speaker 1: dreadful feet are cloven, though his brow be white as snow.
Speaker 1: And it goes on from there's a fun little little poem. Now.
Speaker 1: Christopher's Ride Up is I think a pretty interesting analysis,
Speaker 1: as long as you're in for sort of at times
Speaker 1: a psycho sexual interpretation of a Narnia book, which I
Speaker 1: realized it is not everyone's cup of tea, but still
Speaker 1: I think it's quite interesting. And he points out that
Speaker 1: while mister Tumnus is largely desatorized defaanntinized, if you will,
Speaker 1: there are still hints of the basic nature he is
Speaker 1: overcoming and being civilized, and so forth. Mentions of times
Speaker 1: when quote and this is from the line the Witch
Speaker 1: and the wardrobe quote, the woods were green and old
Speaker 1: salinas on his fat donkey would to visit them, and
Speaker 1: sometimes Bacchus himself, and then the streams would run with
Speaker 1: wine instead of water, and the whole forest would give
Speaker 1: itself up to jollification for weeks on end jollification. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: Christopher ultimately writes in this paper quote. If one compares
Speaker 1: Lewis's two satyrs, one finds that both are about the
Speaker 1: split in the male human. Partly he is led by reason,
Speaker 1: by wisdom and high thoughts, by family, moors and philia,
Speaker 1: and partially he is driven by sexual or bestial or
Speaker 1: devilish and or traitorous impulses. The satyr attracts fairy maidens
Speaker 1: by his unhappiness. Perhaps he is unhappy because women flee
Speaker 1: from him, but more likely, has suggested before, he is
Speaker 1: unhappy because he has self divided himself about his relationship
Speaker 1: to women. The fawn mister Tumnus shows that a man
Speaker 1: can control his impulses, his animal or devilish side, and
Speaker 1: treat a woman well.
Speaker 2: Huh, Well, I don't know quite what to make that,
Speaker 2: because I haven't read this since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I listened to the audiobook version of it in
Speaker 1: recent years, so it's a little fresher on my mind
Speaker 1: as well. But I'd love to hear it from everyone
Speaker 1: out there, because I know we have a lot of
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people out there who either
Speaker 1: grew up on these books or these movies and maybe
Speaker 1: thought one way about them at one point in their
Speaker 1: life and thought another way much later. But mister Tumnus
Speaker 1: is still there, standing essentially naked in the snow. I
Speaker 1: think he's wearing a scarf in the movie version, but
Speaker 1: otherwise looks very naked except for the goat for.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, in the previous episode, we were talking about
Speaker 2: the question of why the cultural association, especially stemming from
Speaker 2: Christian continental Europe, between goats and devils or between goats
Speaker 2: and wickedness. Where does this association come from, especially given
Speaker 2: that it's not universal. Of course, it's not like every
Speaker 2: culture thinks goats are evil? So what are the origin points?
Speaker 2: And I think we can POSSI find some points of
Speaker 2: inspiration for this mental link link between goats and demons.
Speaker 2: In the Biblical tradition itself, going all the way back
Speaker 2: to the Torah. One of the most prominent appearances of
Speaker 2: goats in the Hebrew Bible is the prescription for the
Speaker 2: Day of Atonement or Yam Kapor. Yam Kapur is the
Speaker 2: holiest day of the year in Judaism. It is a
Speaker 2: day dedicated to the ritual cleansing of sin and the
Speaker 2: ritual is described in the Book of Leviticus, chapter sixteen
Speaker 2: as a prelude. The Lord is talking to Moses, and
Speaker 2: the Lord tells Moses that erin the High Priest, he
Speaker 2: can't just come into the presence of the Ark of
Speaker 2: the Covenant at any time, or God may appear in
Speaker 2: a cloud upon the cover of the Ark and kill him.
Speaker 2: And this is coming after God has already struck out
Speaker 2: from the Ark and killed people who did the wrong
Speaker 2: thing with it, who maybe brought strange fire before it. Instead,
Speaker 2: at an appointed to the high priest, will bathe his
Speaker 2: body in water and will put on special holy vestments,
Speaker 2: and then he can enter into the presence of the Lord,
Speaker 2: of the presence of the Ark to give offerings. And
Speaker 2: then regarding the day of atonement, we're told the following.
Speaker 2: This is from the NRSV, beginning chapter sixteen, verse five.
Speaker 2: He shall take from the congregation of the Israelites two
Speaker 2: male goats for a purification offering, and one ram for
Speaker 2: a burnt offering. Eron shall offer the bull as a
Speaker 2: purification offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself
Speaker 2: and for his house. He shall take the two goats
Speaker 2: and set them before the Lord at the entrance of
Speaker 2: the tent of meeting, and Erin shall cast lots on
Speaker 2: the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the
Speaker 2: other lot for Azazel. Eron shall present the goat on
Speaker 2: which the lot fell for the Lord and offer it
Speaker 2: as a purification offering. But the goat on which the
Speaker 2: lot fell for as Azel shall be presented alive before
Speaker 2: the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may
Speaker 2: be sent away into the wilderness to as Azel. And
Speaker 2: in the tradition of the Second Temple, as described in
Speaker 2: the Mishnah, this ritual is understood to mean that one
Speaker 2: goat is sacrificed to the Lord for purification, and the
Speaker 2: other goat becomes a scapegoat. That word scapegoat in the
Speaker 2: English language, I believe comes from the William Tyndale translation
Speaker 2: of the Bible. William Tyndale, by the way, executed for heresy,
Speaker 2: even though he gave us most of the English translation
Speaker 2: that would end up in the King James Bible.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: But so that English word scapegoat. There is an attempt
Speaker 2: to translate the concept of the goat for Asizel from
Speaker 2: the day of atonement. So this is a goat that
Speaker 2: is ritually designated as a vessel for the sins of
Speaker 2: the Jewish people, and then, after being the sins of
Speaker 2: the people are placed upon it, it is driven out
Speaker 2: into the wilderness, perhaps to fall off a cliff and die.
Speaker 2: So what does it mean to say that the scapegoat
Speaker 2: was for as Azel. Well, Rabbis and scholars have interpreted
Speaker 2: this phrase in a number of different ways over the ages.
Speaker 2: So one interpretation is that as Azel is the name
Speaker 2: of the place to which the goat was sent, specifically
Speaker 2: maybe a rocky, desolate mountaintop or a land of impassable cliffs.
Speaker 2: So there are different linguistic interpretations. But other commentaries have
Speaker 2: held that as Azel was a proper name, the name
Speaker 2: of a supernatural entity or power, And obviously this interpretation
Speaker 2: is more relevant to what we're talking about today. In
Speaker 2: this reading, as Azel is some kind of demon or
Speaker 2: fallen angel, a spirit of defilement and wickedness haunting the desert,
Speaker 2: and the goat on which the high priest places the
Speaker 2: sins of the people is sent out for him. And
Speaker 2: so despite the fact that in this ritual actually both
Speaker 2: the Lord and this demonic figure each get one goat,
Speaker 2: the scapegoat, the goat that carries the sins of the
Speaker 2: people away to meet a filthy devil in the wasteland.
Speaker 2: I think might be the more salient image. Kind of
Speaker 2: in the same way that even in most early Christian
Speaker 2: literature that gets into the idea of the afterlife, descriptions
Speaker 2: of hell tend to be more vivid than descriptions of heaven,
Speaker 2: just because of I don't know certain features of human psychology.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess a lot of these traditions in which
Speaker 1: hell is described too, those description very descriptions of hell
Speaker 1: are kind of the oftentimes one of the only available
Speaker 1: avenues into which into which you can pour your dark imagination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want, If you want to create paint devils
Speaker 1: and demons and grotesque hybrids, there are certain improved areas
Speaker 1: of interest, generally religious sorts in later on and Western traditions.
Speaker 1: You know, the mythological realm in paint whatever you want,
Speaker 1: as long as you're depicting one of these stories. It's
Speaker 1: important to a given culture.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you could use the dark imagination for allegedly
Speaker 2: at least the purpose of discouraging sin, saying look what
Speaker 2: will happen to you? Though it's interesting, you could argue
Speaker 2: that that's the same principle on which exploitation movies are made.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, we have important subject matter to talk
Speaker 2: about here. This is a film educating people about the
Speaker 2: dangers of using marijuana. Never mind that it's also just
Speaker 2: an excuse to show a bunch of debauchery and party
Speaker 2: scenes and stuff.
Speaker 1: You know. The other thing about this scapegoat scenario, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking it kind of matches up with some
Speaker 1: stuff I was thinking about recently because I started using
Speaker 1: a new meditation practice that I was taught called it's
Speaker 1: a bitch, rather simple. It's just called leaves them a stream,
Speaker 1: where you take a particular thought and you sort of
Speaker 1: externalize yourself from that thought. You realize that you're thinking
Speaker 1: that thought, and you imagine yourself at a stream. You
Speaker 1: imagine yourself taking that thought, placing it on the leaf,
Speaker 1: and letting it float down the stream away from you.
Speaker 1: And that's all there is to it, you know. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a very simple exercise of removing yourself from
Speaker 1: a thought and then sending that thought away, you know,
Speaker 1: not trying to avoid thinking that thought or avoid feeling
Speaker 1: that feeling, but acknowledging it and then letting it go,
Speaker 1: and I was as I was after using it and
Speaker 1: finding it rather helpful. The last couple of weeks, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, well, I wonder how much of this is
Speaker 1: present in various religious practices throughout history. The idea, the
Speaker 1: simple concept of like acknowledging something and then sending it away.
Speaker 1: It seems like it may line up in some ways
Speaker 1: with this sort of practice as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can totally see that, though. Again, I think
Speaker 2: it's interesting the specifics of the imagery here, which is
Speaker 2: that the goat is being sent away for as a
Speaker 2: zel for this demon in the desert. And you could
Speaker 2: obviously see how this standard tradition of yam Kapur could
Speaker 2: later give rise to a mental association between goats and
Speaker 2: the creatures of hell, because the goat is being sent
Speaker 2: out to meet this devil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what does he do with these goats? Does he?
Speaker 1: Do they just hang out with him? Do they morph
Speaker 1: into strange goat creatures? Does he eat them? Either way,
Speaker 1: it would make you maybe think twice about seeing a
Speaker 1: feral goat in the wild, which is something to think about.
Speaker 1: I mean, even though these are domesticated species, you'll end
Speaker 1: up with feral goats out there, and I can imagine
Speaker 1: there might be something kind of haunting about a feral
Speaker 1: domestic species that you encounter. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: ghost town or a haunted house.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I also want to be clear
Speaker 2: that the overall format of the scapegoat ritual is not
Speaker 2: unique to Jewish tree addition, the scapegoat rituals of various
Speaker 2: kinds are used in a number of ancient cultures, in
Speaker 2: many instances not involving goats. For example, ancient Greece, I think,
Speaker 2: especially like Athens and Ionia, would sometimes banish human scapegoats
Speaker 2: to appease the gods and avoid some kind of bad fate,
Speaker 2: such as in the festival of Thargelia, which was a
Speaker 2: festival of Apollo, where it's said that often a sort
Speaker 2: of a couple like a man and a woman who
Speaker 2: were despised in some way, or who were considered physically ugly,
Speaker 2: or for some reason were not wanted by the people
Speaker 2: would be selected and then they would be paraded around
Speaker 2: the town and they would be whipped with branches, like
Speaker 2: branches of trees or pieces of vegetation that I think
Speaker 2: was supposed to symbolize a kind of transference of guilt
Speaker 2: or impurity of some kind from the people onto the couple,
Speaker 2: and then they would be banished outside of the city, exiled,
Speaker 2: presumably to die outside in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Well, we're not we're not advising anyone try that out.
Speaker 1: What that doesn't just doesn't sound helpful to anybody.
Speaker 2: No, I think, thar Gaelia we can safely put to rest. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I've got another biblical association between goats and sin or
Speaker 2: evil or impurity. This one comes from the New Testament.
Speaker 2: This comes from Christian traditions. Some people will probably be
Speaker 2: familiar with the story of the sheep and the goats
Speaker 2: in the New Testament. One passage to zero in on
Speaker 2: here is in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter twenty five,
Speaker 2: And for context, this is part of the so called
Speaker 2: Olivet Discourse, which is a discourse in which Jesus is
Speaker 2: giving a bunch of teachings that are full of apocalyptic
Speaker 2: statements about what is going to happen when the Son
Speaker 2: of Man comes. And these appear in all three of
Speaker 2: the Synoptic Gospels, Mark, Luke, and Matthew. And they've got
Speaker 2: different kinds of predictions. You know, there might be like
Speaker 2: earthquakes and disasters, and the destruction of the temple and
Speaker 2: so forth. But one of the things described happening when
Speaker 2: the Son of Man comes in glory, begins in Matthew
Speaker 2: chapter five, verse thirty one, and to quote from the NRSV,
Speaker 2: it reads, when the Son of Man comes in glory
Speaker 2: and all the angels with him, then he will sit
Speaker 2: on the throne of his glory. All the nations will
Speaker 2: be gathered before him, and he will separate people one
Speaker 2: from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
Speaker 2: and he will put the sheep at his right hand
Speaker 2: and the goats at the left.
Speaker 1: I definitely remember growing up hearing this in church, and
Speaker 1: I mean on one level, it's like, okay, he's separating
Speaker 1: people and good from bad. But I never really understood
Speaker 1: like the sheep goat to do aspect of this. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, a sheep and a goat. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been around both of them at petting zoos, and
Speaker 1: it's not like one is grosser than the other anything,
Speaker 1: or that one sweeter than the other. They're both domesticated
Speaker 1: farm animals, and just one. The goat has a lot
Speaker 1: more personality than the sheep.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, I remember being confused too. It's actually
Speaker 2: one of a number of comparisons or parables or stories
Speaker 2: in the New Testament that kind of don't make sense
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with like an ancient agricultural context.
Speaker 2: Like tons of these stories are about agriculture, and like,
Speaker 2: I don't know what reaping and sewing are and stuff
Speaker 2: when I'm a little kid. I'm not a farmer, so
Speaker 2: I like, I don't know what to think about this stuff.
Speaker 1: But a lot of it ends up just being picked
Speaker 1: up anyway, and people are like, yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: be a sheep or a goat? Of course you want
Speaker 1: to be a sheep. And you might go, yeah, of
Speaker 1: course I want to be a sheep. But then again
Speaker 1: you might ask, well, is there a third option? Is
Speaker 1: farm animal? I could be in this scenario?
Speaker 2: Well, as best I can tell, I think it is
Speaker 2: just a point of the point is really about the separation.
Speaker 2: But to explain the rest of the story, So the
Speaker 2: sheep go on the right hand, and the Son of
Speaker 2: Man will bless them, and they're going to ask why
Speaker 2: are we being blessed?
Speaker 1: What did we do?
Speaker 2: And Jesus goes on for the to give these famous statements.
Speaker 2: He says, quote for I was hungry and you gave
Speaker 2: me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something
Speaker 2: to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Speaker 2: I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was
Speaker 2: sick and you took care of me. I was in
Speaker 2: prison and you visited me. And then they're going to
Speaker 2: ask when did we do any of that? And then
Speaker 2: the Son of Man will say to them, truly, I
Speaker 2: tell you, just as you did it to one of
Speaker 2: the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you
Speaker 2: did it to me. And then we get the same
Speaker 2: answer inverted for the goats at the left hand. Why
Speaker 2: are they at his left because they didn't do any
Speaker 2: of that stuff for him? And they protest, well, they
Speaker 2: never denied him food or drink or comfort, and quote
Speaker 2: then he will answer them, truly, I tell you, just
Speaker 2: as you did not do it to one of the
Speaker 2: least of these, did not do it to me. And
Speaker 2: then it says, and these will go away into eternal punishment,
Speaker 2: but the righteous into eternal life. So in this story,
Speaker 2: the sheep are representing the righteous, who will inherit the
Speaker 2: Kingdom of God, and the goats are representing the unrighteous
Speaker 2: who must depart into destruction to be annihilated when the
Speaker 2: Son of Man comes in power. So I was thinking,
Speaker 2: why goats here? I didn't find an answer to this
Speaker 2: that I found super authoritatively convincing. I read one evangelical
Speaker 2: theological blog post that had an interesting idea. I don't
Speaker 2: know how valid this was, but at least it suggested
Speaker 2: that when you're maintaining mixed herds of goats and sheep,
Speaker 2: which I do think was actually common in the Levant
Speaker 2: at this time, goats reproduce faster than sheep, so herdsmen
Speaker 2: would have to regularly cull young male goats to maintain
Speaker 2: the correct balance of their flocks. And if they didn't
Speaker 2: regularly cull the young male goats, the goats would reproduce
Speaker 2: faster and they would take over there would be too
Speaker 2: many of them in the flock.
Speaker 1: M Okay, well, that seems to match up with some
Speaker 1: of what we were talking about in the last episode
Speaker 1: about the sex life of the goat.
Speaker 2: But I would say the question of what is the
Speaker 2: underlying agricultural reasoning about the goats and the sheep here?
Speaker 2: That may be true but I don't know. I'm still
Speaker 2: interested in this. I feel like there's got to be
Speaker 2: a good answer out there I just haven't found yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is certainly if we have any people
Speaker 1: with herding experience or vaster herding ag knowledge right in
Speaker 1: and let us know, was a good reason to separate
Speaker 1: the goats from the sheep. Now, at this point, I
Speaker 1: thought we might get into some other examples of folklore
Speaker 1: of the goat and the he goat, and perhaps some
Speaker 1: more religious traditions and mythological traditions of the goat. Some
Speaker 1: of these are going to match up and be more
Speaker 1: in line with some of the demonic goat ideas that
Speaker 1: we've discussed thus far. Some are going to go in
Speaker 1: an entirely different direction. We're going to get a little
Speaker 1: bit into divine goats at times. One example that came
Speaker 1: up in my research this is from an eighteenth century
Speaker 1: folk lores by the name of John Brand. Brand wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: there is a popular superstition relative to goats. They are
Speaker 1: supposed never to be seen for twenty four hours together,
Speaker 1: and that once in that space they pay a visit
Speaker 1: to the devil in order to have their beards combed.
Speaker 1: This is common both in England and Scotland.
Speaker 2: What I don't think I even understand what that's claiming?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 2: How did you understand the never scene? For twenty four
Speaker 2: hours together?
Speaker 1: This I took to be about this sort of the
Speaker 1: nature of the goat, Like the goat is gonna get around,
Speaker 1: it's gonna explore, it's gonna climb a little bit, it's
Speaker 1: going to poke around and see what's available to eat.
Speaker 1: And therefore I'm imagining a herdsman might maybe have a
Speaker 1: little more of a time keeping track of the goats
Speaker 1: and it be like, well, I think one's missing, and
Speaker 1: then you find them and they're like, okay, now we
Speaker 1: have all the goats. I wonder where that goat went. Well,
Speaker 1: it's probably just the other side of the hill or
Speaker 1: was poking around under something. But what if it was
Speaker 1: visiting the devil? And what would a goat? I feel
Speaker 1: like there's kind of a This is one of those
Speaker 1: folk beliefs that maybe has a little tongue in cheek,
Speaker 1: you know, like why would a goat actually go to
Speaker 1: the devil? What do they have that the devil can
Speaker 1: offer them? Well, their beards need combed every now and then.
Speaker 1: I get that nice sheen. So I don't know I
Speaker 1: found it. I found it more amusing than illuminating.
Speaker 2: It's like when the dog just gets back from the groomers.
Speaker 2: It's the goat just comes back, but he's been with
Speaker 2: the devil. He looks luxurious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's something about a domesticated species that
Speaker 1: it has a little bit of a it still has
Speaker 1: some of that adventurous spirit to it. You know, we
Speaker 1: often have supernatural ideas about what it does and where
Speaker 1: it goes, and what its intentions are, such as with
Speaker 1: the cat. The cat is going to want to go
Speaker 1: off and do its own things. Where does the cat go?
Speaker 1: What is it up to? That sort of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: an interesting paper I was looking at is a paper
Speaker 1: titled A Note on Goats Defoe on Crusoe's Devil from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, and this is by Aaron Santisso this
Speaker 1: of course is referring to Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe.
Speaker 1: Robinson Crusoe not a work that I think I've ever read,
Speaker 1: but i've certainly, I think seen various film or even
Speaker 1: cartoon adaptations of it over the years. Maybe I read
Speaker 1: it in school, but it's been a very long time.
Speaker 2: I think when I was a kid, I had a
Speaker 2: children's abridged and ad adapted version of it, which is
Speaker 2: weird to think about.
Speaker 1: I think that may have been how I encountered it
Speaker 1: as well, But this is still an interesting paper to read.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there were I did not remember there
Speaker 1: being any goats in it, but that seems to be
Speaker 1: the case. The author here writes that by the eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: old goat and goat foot were popular euphemisms for Satan,
Speaker 1: and the devil was said to take the form of
Speaker 1: a goat, and the image of Satan was often depicted
Speaker 1: as that of a robed, goat headed man. That kind
Speaker 1: of became the staple image. But apparently Yeah, to explain
Speaker 1: the title of the work, there is a bit in
Speaker 1: Robinson Crusoe where he encounters goats, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: Daniel Dfoe wrote an entire book on the perceived presence
Speaker 1: of Satan in global affairs, The Political History of the
Speaker 1: Devil from seventeen twenty six.
Speaker 2: Funny with that title, that could be either a really
Speaker 2: interesting book of historical scholarship, or that could be a
Speaker 2: wild conspiracy tract.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's another work I've not read and I only
Speaker 1: have just a brief summaries understanding of it, but at
Speaker 1: any rate, I thought it was worth mentioning real quick
Speaker 1: a couple of goat man type creatures that seem related
Speaker 1: in some cases to the satyrs and the Fawnds that
Speaker 1: pop up in the encyclopedias of Carol Rose. There's the Bachman.
Speaker 1: This is a goat man of German folklore, used as
Speaker 1: a nursery bogey to keep kids away from the forest.
Speaker 1: So near the forest and the Bachman might get you.
Speaker 1: And of course, in imagining a Germanic goat man, we
Speaker 1: of course can't help but think of the Crampis creatures
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was gonna I was gonna bring up Crampus,
Speaker 2: but also as a brief refresher on the idea of
Speaker 2: a nursery bogee. This was an idea we explored in
Speaker 2: our series on Jinny Green Teeth from a few octobers back,
Speaker 2: which is a famous nursery bogey. I think the concept
Speaker 2: of a nursery bogie is a monster that is specifically
Speaker 2: designed to warn children away from some type of dangerous behavior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we actually mentioned nursery bogies in the last
Speaker 1: episode talking about Goya. Goya, Yeah, talking about Goya, and
Speaker 1: one bit about the you know, watch out for the Boogeyman.
Speaker 1: It was both a kind of a takedown of parents
Speaker 1: engaging and supernatural ideas to scare obedience into their children
Speaker 1: and at the same time like preparing them for adulthood
Speaker 1: full of supernatural beliefs. Another creature that Rose mentions is
Speaker 1: the buckanock, which is described She describes as quote a vast,
Speaker 1: menacing goat, and it's said to terrify travelers on lonely
Speaker 1: Irish roads at night, which I think is interesting and
Speaker 1: makes me think of the experience even today of encountering
Speaker 1: either a feral goat or a wandering goat on the
Speaker 1: roadside and seeing it illuminated in your headlights. Obviously wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the same situation on lonely Irish roads in olden times,
Speaker 1: but still, perhaps if you had some sort of a
Speaker 1: lantern and your lantern light caught the eyes of the
Speaker 1: goat just right, might be a bit creepy.
Speaker 2: Now, sticking to the British Isles for a minute, I
Speaker 2: came across an interesting goat related creature known as the
Speaker 2: Gleistig or the Green Maiden, a malevolent fairy from Scottish
Speaker 2: Gaelic mythology. According to the Oxford Reference Encyclopedia, this monster
Speaker 2: sometimes appears as a beautiful woman, but other times as
Speaker 2: a half woman, half goat, and she seduces a male victim,
Speaker 2: brings him, lures him to her hideaway near a secluded pool,
Speaker 2: and then when they are alone, she slashes his throat
Speaker 2: and drinks all his blood. And I thought this was
Speaker 2: interesting because it echoes the idea of goat says sort
Speaker 2: of a sexual danger in some way, except usually it's
Speaker 2: like the idea of a lusty he goat that is
Speaker 2: that kind of mythological threat. Here, instead it is an
Speaker 2: evil fairy woman who seduces male victims. Interesting though it's
Speaker 2: also noted that in other variations, the Glistig is not
Speaker 2: dangerous and is a helpful creature who protects children and
Speaker 2: the elderly.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting one. Yeah, I hadn't heard of that one. Now.
Speaker 1: In Norse tradition, we have a pair of giant goats
Speaker 1: that are rather famous. They are Tang Grishner and Tang Groschner.
Speaker 1: They are two giant goats that pull the chariot of
Speaker 1: Thor across the skies. In Norse mythology. I may have
Speaker 1: butchered their names a little bit, but those are translated
Speaker 1: as tooth gnasher and tooth grinder, and these are depicted
Speaker 1: in the latest Thor movie as well as screaming goats.
Speaker 2: Screaming like the goats from the internet video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just screaming the whole time. It's pretty amusing. There's
Speaker 1: some amusing stuff in that film. Now, another creature I
Speaker 1: came across is the yale or centacore. This is a
Speaker 1: mythical beast found in European mythology and and ultimately European heraldry,
Speaker 1: described by plenty of the Elder. Depictions vary from goat
Speaker 1: like to more of an more like an antelope, and
Speaker 1: the descriptions have been linked to varying creatures from distant lands.
Speaker 1: So this is where we kind of get into We
Speaker 1: mentioned this in the last episode. When you're dealing with
Speaker 1: either mythological creatures, folkloric creatures, or accounts of action creatures
Speaker 1: in distant lands, the translation of them may take on
Speaker 1: different forms. It might end up being a little more
Speaker 1: goat like, it might be more horse like, and there
Speaker 1: are examples where it might take on the forms of
Speaker 1: other animals. It reminds me too of Europeans going out
Speaker 1: into the world and discovering new fruits and thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: what kind of apple is this? Oh, we will call
Speaker 1: it the pine apple, Like what kind of strange goat
Speaker 1: is this? We will interpret this idea of a new
Speaker 1: creature by using the goat as a base point. Now,
Speaker 1: another creature that I read about is the latter rog.
Speaker 1: This is a white, golden horned goat in the traditions
Speaker 1: of Slovenia. And the basic idea here is that this
Speaker 1: is a fabulous I mean it's not only is it
Speaker 1: a big goat, almost like a ram like creature, it
Speaker 1: also has horns that are gold, presumably real gold. So
Speaker 1: of course hunters want it. Hunters go out, they chase
Speaker 1: it around. But this is a smart creature. This is
Speaker 1: a savvy creature, and it may well lead you over
Speaker 1: a ravine where you fall to your death. The creature
Speaker 1: is also known as or as translated to just being
Speaker 1: called gold horn, and it also seems to be the
Speaker 1: mascot of a Slovenian beer. So if anyone out there
Speaker 1: is a fan of international beers or if you have
Speaker 1: any drinkers of this particular beer, I would love to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on it. I looked it up on
Speaker 1: Beer Advocate. It has a score of seventy three there,
Speaker 1: which I guess that's okay. It says okay right here,
Speaker 1: seventy three okay, must be an okay beer.
Speaker 2: Rob, I have had this beer?
Speaker 1: What oh do tell I? Well?
Speaker 2: I drank this when I was in Slovenia. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: in Slovenia. I don't know if it's still this way,
Speaker 2: but when I was there, it seemed to me there
Speaker 2: were basically two types of beer. There was Union, which
Speaker 2: is spelled like the English word union, and there was Lashko.
Speaker 2: And I recall thinking that it seemed like the bars
Speaker 2: were divided by which beer they sold. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's really true, but it seemed that way to me.
Speaker 2: So you'd have like an Union bar and a Loshko bar,
Speaker 2: and it's like, do you want to go to the
Speaker 2: place that has lashco or do you want to go
Speaker 2: to the other place. And for whatever reason, I ended
Speaker 2: up on the Lashko side, So I was drinking those
Speaker 2: I think I only had a couple of onions.
Speaker 1: You didn't have enough to fall into a ravine. That's
Speaker 1: the no. No.
Speaker 2: To be fair, I know I drank Lashko. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I if it was the Zlatterog variety. I
Speaker 2: think it probably was because it looks like that's one
Speaker 2: of their flagship beers, but I can't be positive it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, because it looks like there's also like just
Speaker 2: you know, Lashco light and stuff like that, but I
Speaker 2: think I had this one. I definitely had plenty of Loashko.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well that's that's fabulous question answered. But then then,
Speaker 1: of course, if anyone out there has more experience with
Speaker 1: this beer right in, let us know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would appreciate it. Slovenian listeners. To clarify my memories,
Speaker 2: are there actually Lashco bars and Union bars or is
Speaker 2: that just an all mixed step in my head. Another
Speaker 2: thing about drinking in Slovenia was I remember everywhere I
Speaker 2: went people would show up with wine in unlabeled jugs.
Speaker 2: They just have these glass jugs of you had red
Speaker 2: wine and you had white wine. And it wasn't like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah it's this vineyard, this vintage is just a
Speaker 2: jug of wine. I don't know where it's from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in Trout. One of the many things that's great
Speaker 1: about traveling is of course finding out what if there
Speaker 1: is a local drinking tradition, what is it? And if
Speaker 1: there is a local beer or a national beer, what
Speaker 1: is that. Not being a beer enthusiast, they all tend
Speaker 1: to kind of taste the same to me, but there's
Speaker 1: something that's kind of kind of fun about traveling to
Speaker 1: a place and then having the national beer of that
Speaker 1: particular country.
Speaker 2: I also remember in Slovenia very fruity type of liqueur
Speaker 2: called sleeveovitz that I think the innkeeper where I stayed
Speaker 2: would like give us in the morning.
Speaker 1: That's how you start your dead.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got another goat god type figure. So in
Speaker 2: pre Christian Basque mythology of the Basque people, there was
Speaker 2: a deity known as Mari Mari that was sort of
Speaker 2: a queen of the gods, a supreme female deity in
Speaker 2: the Basque pantheon, and she would be depicted as like
Speaker 2: a you know, flying around and through the air in
Speaker 2: a chariot, but also sometimes as riding on a ram well.
Speaker 2: According to the Rutledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, devils
Speaker 2: and Demons by Manfred Lurker two thousand and five. One
Speaker 2: of the representatives for the physical forms representing the power
Speaker 2: of the God or the goddess Mari is this figure
Speaker 2: called acker Belts, which means black billy goat. He looks
Speaker 2: exactly how he sounds. He is a billy goat with
Speaker 2: a black coat, and this goat spirit is thought to
Speaker 2: be a protector of people's flocks, of their livestock. Lurker
Speaker 2: writes quote people who want their animals to do well
Speaker 2: turned to him for help. In earlier times, a black
Speaker 2: billy goat was kept in the farmsteading to protect the
Speaker 2: herd from plague and sickness. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
Speaker 2: he was venerated as a god by witches and wizards.
Speaker 2: Sacrifices were made to him, and dance formed part of
Speaker 2: the ritual in his honor. So locker Belts is cool.
Speaker 2: Acker Belts, we like it seems. This is another example
Speaker 2: of a goat, a spiritual goat creature that is not
Speaker 2: a demonic at all from what I can tell, except
Speaker 2: maybe viewed you know, through like a hostile Christian lens
Speaker 2: on the Basque mythology. But within the basque mythology, it
Speaker 2: seems like, yeah, this is just a this is a
Speaker 2: good thing that protects your flocks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean flock. The flocks are life. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is something that it really has has also
Speaker 1: been a part of all these episodes we've looked at
Speaker 1: this Halloween season regarding domesticated animals. It's like these are
Speaker 1: the lifeblood of the people who raise them, and so
Speaker 1: threats to those those animals, be they real threats or
Speaker 1: perceived threats, or supernatural interpretations of threats. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's serious business. Life and death depends upon it.
Speaker 2: And this would be by no means the only mythological
Speaker 2: or spiritual goat form that is beneficent in nature, that
Speaker 2: is sacred or good or holy, or considered so by
Speaker 2: the people who believe in it. Not all of the
Speaker 2: goat based mythical creatures are are malevolent wild things that
Speaker 2: want to want to destroy you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this brings us to the sacred goats of China,
Speaker 1: and China we have it in Chinese traditions. We have
Speaker 1: at least one really special goat in the form of
Speaker 1: the zishi, which you might think of as a kind
Speaker 1: of unicorn. I think this is word is often translated
Speaker 1: as unicorn. Of course, if we've discussed on the show
Speaker 1: previously in our episodes about unicorns, even in Western traditions,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of drift regarding the unicorns. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: unicorn is more goat like, sometimes it's more horse like,
Speaker 1: and it's often used and later in Christian traditions as
Speaker 1: kind of an incarnation of Jesus. So many of these
Speaker 1: traditions the unicorn is both goat like and christ like,
Speaker 1: which is in start contrast to these demonic ideas concerning
Speaker 1: the goat. So that's something that's worth keeping in mind
Speaker 1: as we go forward, is that you don't even have
Speaker 1: to remove yourself from Christian traditions in the West to
Speaker 1: find some examples of holy goats. Now with the Xishi here,
Speaker 1: it's essentially like a dark, shaggy goat or perhaps an ox. Again,
Speaker 1: we see this kind of drift occur with any of
Speaker 1: these creatures, like does it have the body of a goat?
Speaker 1: Does it have the body of an ox? I looked
Speaker 1: at various images of statues and depictions, and some of
Speaker 1: them I included a picture here of one for you,
Speaker 1: Joe that I think looks very goat like, clearly has
Speaker 1: goat like legs, even if its head is more fantastic.
Speaker 1: But then there's another one that looks very much kind
Speaker 1: of like a bulldog or like a cat, So it
Speaker 1: has a totally different morphology going on, at least to
Speaker 1: my non expert eye. But these are noble, divine creatures,
Speaker 1: so again, in that sense, they are more like the
Speaker 1: Western idea of the unicorn.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, at least for these two pictures
Speaker 2: you attached for me, these are good boys. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: these are good boys. Who deserves a good scratch now.
Speaker 1: In the Chinese city of Guangzhou there is also the
Speaker 1: legend of the Five Goats. So this is a founding
Speaker 1: myth regarding the five immortals riding to the spot of
Speaker 1: the city's founding and bringing the knowledge of rice cultivation there.
Speaker 1: And when the immortals leave, according to the myth, they
Speaker 1: left their goats behind, and these goats became the stones
Speaker 1: of the Dallas Temple of the five immortals there and
Speaker 1: there is also in the city in Guangzhou there's a
Speaker 1: splendid statue of the five goats atop a hill. In
Speaker 1: this expansive garden in the city which I have visited,
Speaker 1: and I actually marched to the top of this hill
Speaker 1: and got to see the statue of the goats. There
Speaker 1: included a picture here for you, Joe. This is not
Speaker 1: my picture that you were looking at. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of images of the goat's statues online, but it's
Speaker 1: quite quite splendid. And again at the top of this
Speaker 1: hill in this enormous park. Beautiful now as a widely
Speaker 1: domesticated species, we of course find goats in Indian traditions
Speaker 1: as well. In Hinduism, a goat is the vehicle of
Speaker 1: both the fire god Agne and sometimes the vehicle of
Speaker 1: the solar deity Pushan. The Daksha has the head of
Speaker 1: a goat following his insult of Shiva and subsequent execution
Speaker 1: by the order of Shiva. But then Shiva shows mercy
Speaker 1: and allows Daksha to return to life with the head
Speaker 1: of the first living being he meets. Upon his return
Speaker 1: to life, that animal turns out to be a goat.
Speaker 2: So he didn't originally have a goat head, he gets one, Okay,
Speaker 2: I see, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a more I guess, a human head,
Speaker 1: a humanoid ad but then he lost that head because
Speaker 1: he earned himself a beheading. But then the God shows
Speaker 1: mercy and says, all right, you can have your life back.
Speaker 1: You can have your head back, but it has to
Speaker 1: be the first head of the head of the first
Speaker 1: animal you see in the world.
Speaker 2: Is this is so he gets to go about with
Speaker 2: a goat head? Is this interpreted as a kind of
Speaker 2: curse or humiliation in the story or not so much.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure about that, because you're getting into,
Speaker 1: I guess a deeper quest question of how the goat
Speaker 1: perceived in India and in Hindu culture. I was reading
Speaker 1: about this particular tale in Nonditha Krishna's Sacred Animals of India,
Speaker 1: and according to this author, the tale is often used
Speaker 1: to justify goat sacrifices, as Daksha was essentially the sacrifice
Speaker 1: of Shiva, you know, albeit with a pre goat head,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, execution and sacrifice. Trying to draw
Speaker 1: parallels there, goats are also a sacrifice to the mother goddess,
Speaker 1: according to Krishna here and sometimes to Kali as well.
Speaker 2: Man there is so much goat lore you could have
Speaker 2: an entire Wikipedia style goat database just for goat backstory,
Speaker 2: goat lore, goat mythology.
Speaker 1: Internet, goat database. Yeah, yeah, I can see that working.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just a lot of it, and I
Speaker 1: think it comes down to know what we've been discussing here.
Speaker 1: It's just it has been such a part of human
Speaker 1: traditions for so long. We've spent plenty of time watching goats,
Speaker 1: comparing ourselves to goats, comparing our ways to the ways
Speaker 1: of goats, and then out of that all these various
Speaker 1: fanciful ideas emerge. Those ideas then breed with each other
Speaker 1: and we are left with all these interesting traditions of
Speaker 1: the divine, the demonic, and everything in between.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think we have to call it for this episode,
Speaker 2: just for time, but we've got more goat stuff to
Speaker 2: talk about.
Speaker 1: That's right. We'll be coming back in the next episode
Speaker 1: with discussions of Egyptian traditions. We'll get into occultism a
Speaker 1: little bit, goat intelligence, wars on goats. There's a lot
Speaker 1: more to talk about, but certainly in the meantime, feel
Speaker 1: free to write into us, particularly if you have experience
Speaker 1: with any of the background in any of the traditions
Speaker 1: that we've discussed here and would like to share more
Speaker 1: about them. If you have personal experience with goats, if
Speaker 1: you have lived any part of your life among the goats,
Speaker 1: you probably have insight to share and we would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. You can catch up on all
Speaker 1: our episodes and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast
Speaker 1: feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have our core episodes.
Speaker 1: On Wednesdays we do a short form artifact or monster fact.
Speaker 1: On Mondays we do listener mail, and on Fridays we
Speaker 1: do Weird House Cinema. That's our time to set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film
Speaker 1: like The Devil Rides Out. So if you want some
Speaker 1: more discussion of goat people, I think that may be
Speaker 1: the only goat film we've watched. Perhaps your memories better
Speaker 1: than mine, and you can remember another goat that's popped up.
Speaker 2: That's the only one come to mind, But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Our back catalog is starting to get kind of long,
Speaker 2: So we're finally reaching the point where I am forgetting
Speaker 2: which movies we've covered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this week's film will be the ninetieth
Speaker 1: film that we have looked at on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: It's been a wild ride so far. Yeah, but we
Speaker 2: have miles to go before we sleep.
Speaker 1: A wild goat ride to nowhere.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, to shed some
Speaker 2: to shed some light on goats, to share personal experience
Speaker 2: about goats, if you are a goat herder yourself, or
Speaker 2: if you just want to get in touch and say hi,
Speaker 2: any of that's fair game. You can always write us
Speaker 2: at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.
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