Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time for an episode from the Vault. This originally aired July.
Speaker 1: It's called Whispers of the Speaking Sword. This was about
Speaker 1: swords that talk. Robbed this episode is your idea? I
Speaker 1: remember it came to you like a bolt of lightning. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fun stuff in here that various
Speaker 1: myths and legends about swords that speak, as well as
Speaker 1: some pop culture tie ends as well. Calivoian, wicked Wizard,
Speaker 1: grasps the handle of his broadsword, asks the blade this
Speaker 1: simple question, tell me, oh, my blade of honor, dost
Speaker 1: thou wish to drink my life blood? Drink the blood
Speaker 1: of Calivoi. In Thus, his trusty sword makes answer well,
Speaker 1: divining his intentions, Why should I not drink thy life
Speaker 1: blood blood of guilty? Colivoian, since I feast upon the worthy,
Speaker 1: drink the life blood of the righteous. Thereupon, the youth Colervo,
Speaker 1: wicked Wizard of the north Land, lifts the mighty sword
Speaker 1: of Uco did Zadou to earth in heaven, firmly thrust
Speaker 1: the hilt in heather to his heart. He points the weapon,
Speaker 1: throws his weight upon the broadsword, pouring out his wicked
Speaker 1: life blood. Air be journeys to Manala. Thus the wizard
Speaker 1: finds destruction. This the end of Calivoi, Born in sin
Speaker 1: and nursed in folly. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And what you just heard was an
Speaker 1: excerpt from Room thirty five of the Finnish epic The
Speaker 1: Kola Valla, as translated by John Martin Crawford in eight Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a famous scene from the text um that has
Speaker 1: been depicted in art. You'll find depictions of it in
Speaker 1: public statues. Uh, there was one that I was able
Speaker 1: to pull up here for us, Joe, for our notes.
Speaker 1: When you see this very stoic, very grim looking figure
Speaker 1: standing there gripping the blade of his sword, not the
Speaker 1: not the hilt, but the actual blade of it, as
Speaker 1: he contemplates deep dark thoughts. Now, as for the things
Speaker 1: that are draped over his midsection, is this just sort
Speaker 1: of straps or from the pelt that have tassels like
Speaker 1: a scarf might have or are those the paws of
Speaker 1: what was a bear skin with the claws still on them?
Speaker 1: They to me they look like the clause of an
Speaker 1: animal skin. Yeah, but the way they wrapped around him,
Speaker 1: it looks like he's being from behind by a very
Speaker 1: flattened bear. That's kind of like reaching down onto his
Speaker 1: thighs in a funny looking way. Now, the Calivaya, for
Speaker 1: anyone who's not familiar with this, is the national epic
Speaker 1: of Finland and nineteenth century work based on on on
Speaker 1: on Caroline and Finnish folklore and mythology concerning the creation
Speaker 1: of the world, the exploits of heroes and villains, as
Speaker 1: well as the magical sampo. So this has been this
Speaker 1: has been uh given the cinematic treatment a few different
Speaker 1: times over the years, and I know we've we've heard
Speaker 1: from listeners about some of those depictions and about just
Speaker 1: the the epic itself. I myself, if have have yet
Speaker 1: to read it in full, but I have to say,
Speaker 1: after this um, this little cold open reading here, I
Speaker 1: really like the cadence of it. I like the cadence
Speaker 1: of this translation. So perhaps I'll dive back in at
Speaker 1: some point. Yeah, it's on my mental list as well.
Speaker 1: But so, what's going on in the scene that you read? Okay,
Speaker 1: So this scening question concerns the character Klarvo, who of
Speaker 1: course is also referred to to as colorv Oid in
Speaker 1: in this uh this this particular translation. And he's a
Speaker 1: tragic and doomed character. Uh. He has this he needs
Speaker 1: having this conversation with the unnamed but clearly sentient blade
Speaker 1: that he wields. Uh. There's an element of edifice to
Speaker 1: the character though, and he's also something of a of
Speaker 1: a wizard obviously, is described as an evil wizard. Uh.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot going on here. But the interesting
Speaker 1: thing for our purposes is that the sword speaks. The
Speaker 1: sword seems to keep a history of itself. It knows
Speaker 1: what it has done, It knows who it has killed,
Speaker 1: and the character of those that it is killed. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's a sense of the blade has some sort
Speaker 1: of will of its own, even if in this case
Speaker 1: it's more of a bloodthirsty indifference to whoever's blood it
Speaker 1: happens to spill. Is it like a kind of propaganda
Speaker 1: that justifies its own use? Yeah, I mean it, it
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense, right, I mean, the sword. What
Speaker 1: does the sword want? Well, in this case, the sword
Speaker 1: just wants to spill blood. It doesn't care if it's
Speaker 1: righteous blood. It doesn't care if it's evil blood. It
Speaker 1: just wants blood. Now, if this particular scene sounds familiar,
Speaker 1: you know, it is clearly echoed in the famous is
Speaker 1: this a Dagger? Which I see before me monologue from
Speaker 1: William Shakespeare's Macbeth. And I've also read that Hamlet too
Speaker 1: was at least in part inspired by this, this uh,
Speaker 1: this finished tale, that these finished legends. Um. Of course,
Speaker 1: in Macbeth, the dagger does not answer the doomed king. Um,
Speaker 1: he's just speaking to it. He's just, you know, he's
Speaker 1: kind of making it the focus of his monologue. But
Speaker 1: there is an interesting history of speaking swords and myth
Speaker 1: and legend, and of course this also spills over into
Speaker 1: the existence of various speaking weapons in fiction. Um. One
Speaker 1: of the most notable, at least for me, would would
Speaker 1: be the sentient weapons of dungeons and dragons, particularly the
Speaker 1: sword Black Razor, which has been around and the Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons lore for a while. But we should we
Speaker 1: should also mention some other, perhaps um less obvious examples
Speaker 1: of of intelligent weapons, especially from the film Who Framed
Speaker 1: Roger Rabbit? I think these are actually parodies of old
Speaker 1: like Loony Tunes conventions. But there is a sword that
Speaker 1: sings in it right, right, It's kind of a Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra cartoon Frank Sinatra sword. And uh, it's been a
Speaker 1: long time since I've seen Roger Rabbit. I remember the
Speaker 1: sword being fairly useless, like it seemed more interested in
Speaker 1: singing and crooning as opposed to being a proper stabbing implement.
Speaker 1: And again it had a will out its own. What
Speaker 1: if there was a sword who just wanted to dance?
Speaker 1: But but the other thing is I remember in this
Speaker 1: movie there are like sentient bullets like uh, what's his name?
Speaker 1: Bob Hoskins gets out of a bunch of bullets to
Speaker 1: put in his gun, and their cartoon like old West
Speaker 1: cowboy bullets, and that one talks like a prospector. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had completely forgotten about this till you shared an
Speaker 1: image with me. I think at least one of the
Speaker 1: bullets as Pipper from Final Sacrifice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's been like again, it's been a long time, so
Speaker 1: I've seen it, But looking at this still I can,
Speaker 1: I can hear that stereotypical like prospect or voice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in this episode we're going to discuss some examples
Speaker 1: of speaking swords from myth and legend and literature and
Speaker 1: maybe get into what it all means to a certain extent. Now,
Speaker 1: the idea of a weapon that has a mind of
Speaker 1: its own and can even talk and talk to its bearer, Uh,
Speaker 1: it goes goes very far back, even farther back than
Speaker 1: a la Vala. In fact, it goes to the civilizations
Speaker 1: of ancient Mesopotamia and their myths. Yeah, because this and
Speaker 1: this is one that's not just an old example, it's
Speaker 1: just it's an example that checks off all the boxes
Speaker 1: of what you want to find in a sentient weapon.
Speaker 1: It is a sharer the talking mace, which was a
Speaker 1: weapon that was wielded by the hero god Ninurta. So
Speaker 1: this would have been of Sumerian and then I think
Speaker 1: later Babylonian mythology. Yeah, and um, and like a lot
Speaker 1: of those gods, I think his history jectory kind of
Speaker 1: changes course over time. He's uh, he was at least
Speaker 1: initially a god of spring, thunder showers and a protector
Speaker 1: of agriculture. I've also seen him uh, written about as
Speaker 1: being more connected with the sun, and then in later
Speaker 1: traditions more of like a warrior god um, and then
Speaker 1: he's there are there are. There are also some some
Speaker 1: pretty famous depictions of him. There's a like if you
Speaker 1: just go to like a Wikipedia page about ancient Sumerian legend,
Speaker 1: you're likely to see this image of Nonnurta with it
Speaker 1: with thunderbolts, pursuing this winged demon an zoo Um who
Speaker 1: has stolen the tablets of destiny. Uh. It's pretty famous image. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like so much of that great old Mesopotamian art,
Speaker 1: you get this kind of side view of the characters
Speaker 1: right there there in profile as they're striding forward. And
Speaker 1: Unnurta has absolutely fabulous calf muscles. Yes, and in this
Speaker 1: image he has the he has thunderbolts. But um, this
Speaker 1: other weapon is associated with him in some of the
Speaker 1: old old writings. And this is this is again sharrow
Speaker 1: or the Smasher of thousands, and it is a mace. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna have a short artifact episode coming up
Speaker 1: I think next week that gets into this a little bit.
Speaker 1: But uh, just getting into the idea of like why
Speaker 1: a mace what is it Is it about a mace? Uh?
Speaker 1: That it would have been important in ancient warfare, and
Speaker 1: and basically it comes down to the fact that, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you were fighting people that did not have metal helmets,
Speaker 1: a mace was just an absolutely devastating weapon to have.
Speaker 1: It became a symbol of authority and many different cultures,
Speaker 1: and therefore it's exactly the sort of thing that a
Speaker 1: powerful deity would wield against monstrous enemies. I think of
Speaker 1: the mace as being very prominently displayed in some some
Speaker 1: quite memorable ancient Egyptian art, for example on the Narmer Palette,
Speaker 1: which shows, of course, you know, the pharaoh clutching the
Speaker 1: head of the conquered enemy and raising the mace in
Speaker 1: the other hand. Uh, it's sort of an image of
Speaker 1: total dominance. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently the mace was the symbol
Speaker 1: of of Egyptian power for a very long time because
Speaker 1: there for for the longest their armies only fought enemies
Speaker 1: with no armor or helmets, and so the mace was
Speaker 1: just a dominant weapon to wield. Now, as as far
Speaker 1: as Shahura goes, this was no typical mace. This was
Speaker 1: a weapon that could speak, it could fly, across vast
Speaker 1: distances and even take on the form of a winged lion.
Speaker 1: As Abraham Amen points out in The Monster Hunter's Handbook,
Speaker 1: the weapon was capable of smashing enemies either on its
Speaker 1: own or in the hands of Nnorta. And it also
Speaker 1: rain fire and venom down on its enemies and allowed
Speaker 1: the hero god to slay this terrifying demon Azag, the
Speaker 1: one that we just described from that that illustration. Wow.
Speaker 1: So but of course us just talking about it, you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't really give it justice. You gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: go to the poetry, or at least translations of the poetry,
Speaker 1: and in the Sumerian poem Nenorta's Exploits. Uh. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of just beautiful, violent language about our hero's
Speaker 1: use of the mace. He said, to pound a SOG's
Speaker 1: body as if it were barley, like in a mill
Speaker 1: or Yeah, like a mortar and pestle. Yeah. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: he's not going to just knock down the monster and
Speaker 1: and and act like it's a Friday that thirteenth movie. Oh,
Speaker 1: is the enemy dead? I don't know. No, He's gonna
Speaker 1: go over and pound that enemy into the ground with
Speaker 1: this mace. In fact, such is the power of or
Speaker 1: that the condition of the slain demon's body is compared
Speaker 1: to that of a ship wrecked by a tidal wave.
Speaker 1: That's the demon you make bread out of, yeah, or pasta? Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: Nonorta's Exploits translation of it is available online, and there
Speaker 1: are little bits of it that are you know that,
Speaker 1: that are just lost. But it's well worth looking up
Speaker 1: and reading through because it has all this awesome battle
Speaker 1: language in it. But I want to read just a
Speaker 1: few quotes from it that drive home mostly this idea
Speaker 1: of the weapon as being the sentient speaking thing. Okay, quote,
Speaker 1: At that moment, the lord's battle mace looked towards the mountains,
Speaker 1: and Shahur cried out aloud to its master. And then
Speaker 1: there's another passage here, O beware, it said, concerned lee,
Speaker 1: the weapon embraced him, whom it loved. The Shahur addressed
Speaker 1: Lord Nenirta quote the weapon its heart was reassured. It
Speaker 1: slapped its thighs. The Shahur began to run. It entered
Speaker 1: the rebel lands joyfully. It reported the message to Lord Nenorta.
Speaker 1: And then there is this one's great. The Shahur made
Speaker 1: the storm wind rise to heaven, scattered the people like
Speaker 1: and then as there's a fragment that's lost, it tore
Speaker 1: its venom alone destroyed the townspeople. The destructive may set
Speaker 1: fire to the mountains. The murderous weapons smashed skulls with
Speaker 1: its painful teeth. The club, which tears out in trails,
Speaker 1: gnashed its teeth. The lance was stuck into the ground,
Speaker 1: and the crevices filled with blood. In the rebel lands,
Speaker 1: dog licked it up like milk. The enemy rose up,
Speaker 1: crying to wife and child. You did not lift your
Speaker 1: arms in prayer to Lord Ninurta. The weapon covered the
Speaker 1: mountains with dust, but did not shake the heart of
Speaker 1: a zog. The shower threw its arms around the neck
Speaker 1: of the lord. All right, So this is a mace,
Speaker 1: a weapon that not only talks, not only cries allowed
Speaker 1: to its beloved master, but it also hugs its beloved master. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a weapon that's not going to turn on you.
Speaker 1: This is not a weapon where you're gonna be like
Speaker 1: when you ask it, hey, or things pretty bad and
Speaker 1: the weapons like, yeah, it's pretty bad. You should fish
Speaker 1: you should follow me. Uh No, this is a mace
Speaker 1: that stands by you now, doesn't this weapon also essentially
Speaker 1: function as a long range surveillance device, reporting information back
Speaker 1: to its bearer from a distance. Yeah, it is. Um
Speaker 1: It is an extremely overpowered weapon. It's befitting of a
Speaker 1: of a god hero. But yeah, we're we're based on
Speaker 1: these passages and others. There's this idea that it will
Speaker 1: fly ahead, it will report back, it will fly into
Speaker 1: battle on its own. But it can also, you know,
Speaker 1: very much be wielded as a traditional weapon by um
Speaker 1: By Nenorta. So it does all of these things. It
Speaker 1: also has these these powers of venom and fire. It's
Speaker 1: just absolutely powerful. I think we're in Batman territory here
Speaker 1: because it's kind of like overpowered in the way Batman's
Speaker 1: gadgets are that he just has gadgets that like there's
Speaker 1: no reason he should have. Yeah, and and this one
Speaker 1: just yeah, this does everything you can imagine. It's almost
Speaker 1: as if, like later traditions were like, this is great,
Speaker 1: but let's tone it down a little bit because I
Speaker 1: don't know if people are going to believe it. But
Speaker 1: like I said, it's it's it's amazing. It's an amazing weapon.
Speaker 1: Sharer has shark repellent properties. That's right, Batman did have
Speaker 1: shark repellent, just carried it around just in case. Thank
Speaker 1: than Now, when it comes to speaking weapons in other traditions,
Speaker 1: we have to pay special attention to to Irish myth
Speaker 1: and legend because it seems it seems a really good
Speaker 1: place to to spend some time, not only for the
Speaker 1: tales themselves, but because it's an area where we have
Speaker 1: some some pretty solid papers written on the history of
Speaker 1: it all. In particular, I was looking at Gary Are
Speaker 1: Varner's The Sword and Dagger and Myth and Legend from
Speaker 1: twelve and Omens Ordeals and Oracles on Demons and Weapons
Speaker 1: in early Irish texts from by Jacqueline bush Now. Varner
Speaker 1: points out that Irish swords were said to retain a
Speaker 1: memory of the acts committed with the weapon, and a
Speaker 1: warrior would swear by these weapons, but also could be
Speaker 1: rebuked by the sword if they did not speak true uh.
Speaker 1: And apparently this could take a couple of different forms.
Speaker 1: The weapon might simply fail for the hero at an
Speaker 1: important moment in battle, but it might also speak and
Speaker 1: curse them for their false trophies. This is interesting. The
Speaker 1: idea of being um accepted or rebuked by a weapon.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of Scaliber, which in which I
Speaker 1: do not think. I was looking around for evidence of
Speaker 1: stories where Excalibur speaks, and I didn't find any. But
Speaker 1: Excalibur does certainly look for its rightful owner and uh
Speaker 1: and and rebukes people who try to wield it without
Speaker 1: the right to do so. Yeah. And of course JRR
Speaker 1: Tolkien was was obviously a uh an admire of many
Speaker 1: of these myth cycles that that we're discussing here. So
Speaker 1: you see a lot of this reflected, and say, the
Speaker 1: behavior of the one ring, the idea that it it
Speaker 1: chooses who wears it and who wields it, and it
Speaker 1: might leave you if it has decided that it it
Speaker 1: no longer believes in you. Right, I'm done with the
Speaker 1: sealed or no more. Yeah. And so you see that
Speaker 1: in some of these of these accounts, you know it's
Speaker 1: not uh, you know it will ultimately be like okay,
Speaker 1: that the hero has failed and the weapon has abandoned
Speaker 1: them at a crucial moment. Q that Taylor Swift breakup song. Now,
Speaker 1: an example cited by Bush can be found in The
Speaker 1: Sick Bed of Colin. Now, this is a character that
Speaker 1: we've discussed on the show before this is the Irish
Speaker 1: hero who I believe we did a whole episode where
Speaker 1: we talked about one of his special weapons that may
Speaker 1: or may not be related to, um, the biological properties
Speaker 1: of the sting ray. Oh, yeah, that's right. I do
Speaker 1: recall that episode maybe being one of our most difficult
Speaker 1: pronunciation adventures of all time. Yeah, globe trotting as we
Speaker 1: do with our clumsy tongues, but but that one was
Speaker 1: also a lot of fun. Uh that those myths are awesome.
Speaker 1: I remember the warp spasm, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Kukulan
Speaker 1: is as a fascinating character. And and I hope I'm
Speaker 1: saying it appropriately here because I've heard it said both way,
Speaker 1: like Kukulan and Kohlan, And we had a whole lot
Speaker 1: of of Irish listeners right in and um and weigh
Speaker 1: in on this topic. So here we are once again, folks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But in an early scene, uh, speaking of clumsy tongues,
Speaker 1: they're the warriors bring forth the tongues of their enemies,
Speaker 1: though some have embellish their trophies with the tongues of cows,
Speaker 1: and so the warriors swear with their swords on their thighs,
Speaker 1: and here's a quote from it. For their swords used
Speaker 1: to turn against them when they would declare a false victory.
Speaker 1: That is right, for demons used to speak to them
Speaker 1: from their weapons, so that their weapons were thus guarantees
Speaker 1: for them. I'm not sure I understand the causality of
Speaker 1: the sentence. Let's see, so the demons used to speak
Speaker 1: to them for their weapons, so that their weapons were
Speaker 1: thus guarantees for them, meaning that the demons speaking from
Speaker 1: the weapons would would let you know whether what the
Speaker 1: warrior said was true or not. Yes, yeah, And of
Speaker 1: course then now the whole idea, in the whole use
Speaker 1: of the word demon, we'll get into that in a bit,
Speaker 1: because of course that obviously smacks of of of later
Speaker 1: you know, Christian era writers making sense of of older
Speaker 1: beliefs and traditions by attributing them to demons as opposed
Speaker 1: to you know, uh, spirits or deities that would have
Speaker 1: made sense within the actual traditions and religion of those
Speaker 1: people's right. Sure, So there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: from the ancient world where, uh, where there's a story
Speaker 1: or a text that has a word that means something
Speaker 1: like spirits or gods or something, but Christian writers might
Speaker 1: translate it as demons. Now, a specific example of talking
Speaker 1: weapons that the springs up is made in the Battle
Speaker 1: of mag Truetta. This is an Irish epic about the
Speaker 1: battles thought by the to Atha Dudon and against the
Speaker 1: first the fear bold, and then against the monsters for
Speaker 1: Marian's so these are like the the to Dudon, and
Speaker 1: these are like the fairy folk of old. They're kind
Speaker 1: of like the Yeah, I guess you could compare them
Speaker 1: to like the high elves, like they were, you know,
Speaker 1: a warrior, magical warrior people. And then these enemies were
Speaker 1: mostly monsters. Quote. Now, in that battle, Ogma the champion
Speaker 1: found Oma, the sword of tetherra king of the Fomorians.
Speaker 1: Ogma unsheathed the sword and cleaned it. Then the sword
Speaker 1: told what had been done by it, because it was
Speaker 1: the habit of swords at that time to recount the
Speaker 1: deeds that had been done by them whenever they were unsheathed,
Speaker 1: and for that reason, swords were entitled to the tribute
Speaker 1: of cleaning after they have been unsheathed. Moreover, spells have
Speaker 1: been kept in swords from that time on. Now, the
Speaker 1: reason why demons used to speak from weapons, then, is
Speaker 1: that weapons used to be worshiped by men and were
Speaker 1: among the sureties of that time. Whoa several interesting things
Speaker 1: going on there. So I like the idea that the
Speaker 1: swords being empowered to speak about the deeds that have
Speaker 1: been done with them is in a way presented as
Speaker 1: an incentive for the care and maintenance of your sword. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for that reason, swords are entitled to the tribute
Speaker 1: of cleaning after they've been unsheathed. But I mean, it
Speaker 1: also seems just like cleaning a sword is important for
Speaker 1: maintaining the sword, like keeping it useful. So this seems
Speaker 1: perhaps like one of those myths that that may have
Speaker 1: a sort of practical origin. Yeah. And then of course
Speaker 1: at the end this bit about well well used to
Speaker 1: men used to worship their swords, that also kind of
Speaker 1: smacks of what we were talking about earlier, as does
Speaker 1: the use of the word demons. And again we'll come
Speaker 1: back to that shortly. But here's another bit. This one
Speaker 1: is from the Cattle Rate of Coolie, and this concerns
Speaker 1: our our hero Cucolin once again. Quote then he put
Speaker 1: on his head his crested war helmet of battle and
Speaker 1: strife and conflict from it was uttered the shout of
Speaker 1: a hundred warriors, with a long drawn outcry from every
Speaker 1: corner and angle of it, For they're used to cry
Speaker 1: from it like and then there are a few different
Speaker 1: um like old Irish cries, which I will not try
Speaker 1: to repeat here, uh, you know, just just in case
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what their translation is.
Speaker 1: Might anger at the warriors of old um quote and
Speaker 1: demons of the air before him and above him and
Speaker 1: around him wherever he went, prophesiesing the shedding of the
Speaker 1: blood of warriors and champions. Now, obviously this is a
Speaker 1: helm as opposed to a weapon, but still it contains
Speaker 1: a record and it sort of speaks now if it's
Speaker 1: saying here though, it's not just recall calling a record
Speaker 1: of the past. But it uses the word prophesying, which
Speaker 1: makes me think that it's speaking of the future or
Speaker 1: is this just a version of prophesying that speaks of
Speaker 1: the past. Um. I think we are getting into divination
Speaker 1: here a bit, because as m as we'll touch on
Speaker 1: on later, you also see the idea of the sword
Speaker 1: as this kind of focus of divination in many different cultures.
Speaker 1: Now here's another account of of weapons doing battle on
Speaker 1: their own, kind of like our our ancient Sumerian example
Speaker 1: of from earlier. And this is from the death of
Speaker 1: a Maladron macdemo Krone sometimes the violent death, and it
Speaker 1: contains a passage about a spear that would leap into
Speaker 1: battle on its own and require tribute. Um Actually I
Speaker 1: don't have the exact quote from that, but but that's
Speaker 1: the that's just the sum of summarizing of what occurs.
Speaker 1: But then in the mescal Ulad there's a description, uh,
Speaker 1: not only of Cuculin leaping into battle, but his weapons
Speaker 1: are described as leaping into battle as well, um like
Speaker 1: as if like by his side, as if by their
Speaker 1: own will. Like they're not just things that he brings
Speaker 1: with him into weapons. They're not just tools of war
Speaker 1: they were. They're kind of like companions. And then in
Speaker 1: the destruction of Daderga's hostel, there's a living lance called loon,
Speaker 1: which I think bores says it just means the lance,
Speaker 1: but Borche rights when this lance is ready to shed blood,
Speaker 1: it has to be quenched regularly in a cauldron with poison,
Speaker 1: otherwise the lance will catch fire. Used in battle, this
Speaker 1: weapon is extremely dangerous. Whoa. So basically Bore summarizes that
Speaker 1: weapons are guarantees for truth about battle deeds of the past. Um,
Speaker 1: we see this, this idea, this hint of them being
Speaker 1: able to prophesies the future, even weapons know what has
Speaker 1: been done with them. And there's also this idea of
Speaker 1: of other beings speaking through them. Now and then, of
Speaker 1: course we've used the word demon already. Now. Um, obviously
Speaker 1: you don't have to know much about about Christian history
Speaker 1: ease of pre Christian times to know that the ways
Speaker 1: and beliefs of the old days are often recast as
Speaker 1: blasphemy or worse. And in this case, the idea of
Speaker 1: men worshiping their weapons, or or of demons speaking to
Speaker 1: them through the sword, clearly smack of this. Now where
Speaker 1: Boorch ultimately lands on this issue, as it is that
Speaker 1: the term demons may simply be a summarization of the
Speaker 1: infernal deities or furies Alecto too, sephony uh Megara, as
Speaker 1: well as the war goddess Bellona. Now these are Greek
Speaker 1: and Roman goddesses. Um. And this, you know, again gets
Speaker 1: with the history of translating and reinterpreting these stories. But
Speaker 1: the Irish war goddess is of course the Morrigan who
Speaker 1: we I believe we talked about in our what we
Speaker 1: talked about the Morrigan in the Phantom morgana episode. So
Speaker 1: sometimes she is an individual and other times though she
Speaker 1: is a triad of the war goddesses um batub Uh,
Speaker 1: Macha and nim Jane. Now in early Irish texts, Bore
Speaker 1: says that the Morrigan is sometimes equated with the monstrous
Speaker 1: Lamia or also or also equated with lilith uh and
Speaker 1: relegated to the underworld. So there's you know this this
Speaker 1: continuing tradition of this um. But but I want to
Speaker 1: read this, uh this this quote here from the text,
Speaker 1: She writes, quote, this survey from the Tane shows the
Speaker 1: war goddesses appear in battle contexts in which they utter ominous,
Speaker 1: terrifying and inciting shouts, just like the battle creatures from
Speaker 1: Part two Part in Part two earlier in this documentary
Speaker 1: is referring to demonic creatures inhabiting weapons and shouting therefrom
Speaker 1: at the height of the fight. Uh. She continues, the
Speaker 1: battle creatures are sometimes referred to in the same context,
Speaker 1: and they are somewhat closer to the sword demons of
Speaker 1: of Sir legi con coolin and that they too are
Speaker 1: directly connected with weapons. The connection is more indirect in
Speaker 1: the case of the war goddesses. The most striking example
Speaker 1: is the is the arm grid. This is the clamor
Speaker 1: alarms caused by an attack by a war goddess, but
Speaker 1: this is less similar than the shouts from weapons and armor. However,
Speaker 1: what brings the war goddess is closer to the oracular
Speaker 1: utterances of the sword. Demons are their prophetic words in
Speaker 1: battle context. This prophetical function of the war goddesses is
Speaker 1: not only found in the Taine, but also in other
Speaker 1: early Irish texts. Interesting. Okay, so this does come back
Speaker 1: to the the divinatory or oracular properties he alluded to. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost like the sword is a thing that um
Speaker 1: that kind of stands outside of time. It's connected to
Speaker 1: all the deaths before it, and it's connected to all
Speaker 1: the deaths ahead of it, or the sword stands outside
Speaker 1: of time, or something that speaks through the sword stands
Speaker 1: outside of time. Yeah. The sword is almost like a
Speaker 1: like a it's a radio for talking to God. It's
Speaker 1: a you know, it's like a conduit in a way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now outside of actually speaking swords. The use of swords
Speaker 1: and other blades and divination practices is pretty widespread. Um.
Speaker 1: I was looking around for some some interesting specific examples.
Speaker 1: I ran across a few from Asia that we're that
Speaker 1: we're pretty pretty neat. We see this in Korean divination
Speaker 1: and some Korean divination practices. And this was discussed by
Speaker 1: Yun Young Lee and Korean shamanistic rituals from one the
Speaker 1: primary focuses on Korean shamanism or moodang, and there's a
Speaker 1: they discussed there's a variety of double edged Korean sword
Speaker 1: known as a gillam that is sometimes used in divination,
Speaker 1: as well as a as a Korean variation of the
Speaker 1: three edge spear or trident. I'm also to understand that
Speaker 1: swords were sometimes a part of a traditional divination kit
Speaker 1: for some Thai communities in Vietnam, according to a Thai
Speaker 1: divination kit in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology by vivan
Speaker 1: On from the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. And there of
Speaker 1: course numerous exam bolls of ritual daggers and blades used
Speaker 1: in various practices that either are you know, um objectively
Speaker 1: divination practices or could be interpreted as having divinational aspects
Speaker 1: to them. Uh, and we even see it carried on
Speaker 1: as a symbol in the likes of Taro. The thing
Speaker 1: about Tarot actually kind of reminds me of um, of
Speaker 1: of the Egyptian art that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: because they're both examples of this thing you see very commonly,
Speaker 1: which is that weapons are very often um, inanimate objects
Speaker 1: that are infused with lots of meaning. They're they're charged with,
Speaker 1: you know, their symbols in a way, or their signs
Speaker 1: that that that point to all these different concepts, and
Speaker 1: they seem to have great stakes and import Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I was, and I was thinking a bit about about this,
Speaker 1: like what, you know, what does all of this mean?
Speaker 1: And um, I guess I was reminded in part by
Speaker 1: that that that quote from The Simpsons where Homer talks
Speaker 1: about how it feels when he holds a gun that
Speaker 1: is like how God must feel when he holds a gun,
Speaker 1: which is a ridiculous quote, but but I think, you know,
Speaker 1: does get to it to a truth. There's something about
Speaker 1: in this case holding a say a sword or a dagger,
Speaker 1: especially one with a violent history, that it does have
Speaker 1: the ability to induce a certain kind of thinking or feeling.
Speaker 1: You know, we hold it, and in holding it, we
Speaker 1: update our body schema to include this weapon. It becomes
Speaker 1: a part of us, a part of our body, and
Speaker 1: so too, to a certain extent, does its history and
Speaker 1: its purpose. You know, Um, it's just something that's just
Speaker 1: something about holding holding a tool, and in this case
Speaker 1: that tool would be say a sword or or a mace.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean i'd imagine that the same way
Speaker 1: we we've talked about how driving a car changes your
Speaker 1: relationship to other people. While you're you know, so you're
Speaker 1: operating a car, you don't really see other people the
Speaker 1: same way you would if you were just standing next
Speaker 1: to them on the sidewalk. You know that they might
Speaker 1: start to become slightly less people like and more kind
Speaker 1: of like irritating, obstacle like, or you know, there's something
Speaker 1: about seeing them through the windshield maybe makes them less significant.
Speaker 1: And you know, you've got to wonder about like holding
Speaker 1: a deadly weapon or something that maybe not only could
Speaker 1: be used as a weapon, but is definitely forged to
Speaker 1: be a highly effective killing tool. Uh, does that also
Speaker 1: sort of change your relationship to people around you? While
Speaker 1: you're holding it. Yeah, So so it makes me wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, to a certain extent, some of what we're
Speaker 1: discussing here. It's like the fantastic and the legend area,
Speaker 1: the mythic and the magical reverberations of of something that
Speaker 1: all of us or even or maybe just a lot
Speaker 1: of us can sense if we we hold that weapon
Speaker 1: or even just like see that way, Like it's for me.
Speaker 1: I always find it interesting to see some of these
Speaker 1: like these really old weapons were well preserved, and in
Speaker 1: some cases they were purely ceremonial uh in museums. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just just looking at them and thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, what they are and how long they've been
Speaker 1: around than now. Another way of looking at this subject
Speaker 1: is not to emphasize the weaponness, but just to think
Speaker 1: about these stories as stories of an inanimate object or
Speaker 1: tool of some kind that has a mind and speaks
Speaker 1: and has a will of its own. In other words,
Speaker 1: that it is an inanimate object that has the properties
Speaker 1: of an agent. And this is a subject we've talked
Speaker 1: about a number of times on the show before. But
Speaker 1: I was trying to think about like what this might
Speaker 1: represent in the psychological context. So I found a paper
Speaker 1: that I wanted to talk about briefly. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: by Amanda Hanks Johnson and Justin Barrett, published in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Cognition and Culture in the year two thousand three,
Speaker 1: called the Role of Control in Attributing intentional agency to
Speaker 1: Inanimate Objects. And so one of the authors here, it's
Speaker 1: worth noting, is Justin Barrett, who is a psychologist who
Speaker 1: has written a lot of interesting things about the psychology
Speaker 1: of religion. He was actually the author of that paper
Speaker 1: we covered a couple of years ago about whether or
Speaker 1: not Santa Claus should be thought of as a god.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that was an awesome paper. Yeah. Recall Barrett's
Speaker 1: conclusion on Santa Claus was basically not quite a god,
Speaker 1: but very very close. He had like five criteria that
Speaker 1: god seemed to have in common, and he said that
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, in some contexts I think had all five
Speaker 1: of them, but these criteria were sort of inconsistently applied
Speaker 1: to him, so very very close. But anyway, in this study,
Speaker 1: the authors wanted to look at the phenomenon of attributing
Speaker 1: agency to inanimate objects. So when you regard an object
Speaker 1: like say a mace or a sword, for example, as
Speaker 1: if it had the qualities of a person, such as
Speaker 1: a mind with goals and intentional behavior, and this would
Speaker 1: this would include flying into battle on its own or
Speaker 1: or speaking or something like that. What causes us to
Speaker 1: start thinking about inanimate objects as if they were intentional agents? Uh,
Speaker 1: And so they start off talking about some factors that
Speaker 1: were revealed by pre existing research. One of the things
Speaker 1: they talk about is the concept of an agency detection device.
Speaker 1: This is a sort of hypothetical module of the human
Speaker 1: brain that is often invoked as one possible factor contributing
Speaker 1: to the origins of supernatural and religious beliefs. Of course,
Speaker 1: all you know, speculation like that into the deep evolutionary
Speaker 1: psychology of humankind is highly speculative, but it seems at
Speaker 1: least like a plausible idea worth exploring. That um that essentially,
Speaker 1: there is a selection bias on the human brain in
Speaker 1: favor of h when given an ambiguous stimuli like you
Speaker 1: see something vaguely moving to lean toward, assuming that it
Speaker 1: is an agent with the ability to act on its
Speaker 1: own intentions rather than just a physical object being stirred
Speaker 1: by the wind. Because it's you know, it's more cautious
Speaker 1: to assume it's an age. Agents are more dangerous and
Speaker 1: you need to be more ready to guard against their behavior,
Speaker 1: And of course agents would include not just humans but
Speaker 1: also animals. But this study itself has less to do
Speaker 1: with with possible psychological explanations for the origins of religion,
Speaker 1: is more just about what people do in the moment,
Speaker 1: how they spontaneously speak as if they were attributing agency
Speaker 1: to clearly inanimate objects like ball bearings. Now, previous research
Speaker 1: had showed that people regularly participate in agent attribution even
Speaker 1: with objects as simple as two dimensional geometric shapes on
Speaker 1: a display. So so these other studies had shown that
Speaker 1: people will talk about objects like a triangle on a
Speaker 1: screen and talk about them as if they have characteristics
Speaker 1: such as beliefs, desires or goals, emotional states, and genders.
Speaker 1: And one of the major factors established by this previous
Speaker 1: research is the importance of movement in in creating these
Speaker 1: types of attributions. And it's also not just any movement uh.
Speaker 1: These studies found that we are especially likely to attribute
Speaker 1: agency to objects that move in what the authors here
Speaker 1: would call non inertial paths without being contacted UH. And
Speaker 1: this is sometimes equated to movement that appears to be
Speaker 1: in a goal directed manner. So non inertial paths means that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you see a stone rolling down a
Speaker 1: hill just following what would be the obvious apparent course
Speaker 1: of gravity, you're much less likely to attribute agency to
Speaker 1: that stone than you would to a stone that just
Speaker 1: suddenly rolls in one direction on a flat surface without
Speaker 1: any apparent cause. So that seems pretty intuitive, right, Like that,
Speaker 1: we're less likely to start wondering if something is an
Speaker 1: agent if we just see it apparently obeying the laws
Speaker 1: of physics. If something moves in a way where we
Speaker 1: can't clearly see a physical cause for it to move
Speaker 1: that way outside of itself, then we start thinking like,
Speaker 1: woe is that thing alive? But then the authors here
Speaker 1: looked at another feature beyond just non inertial pathways of movement,
Speaker 1: and that feature is the control of the observer. So
Speaker 1: what they did here to test this was they used
Speaker 1: an experimental setup where participants were recorded describing their actions
Speaker 1: out loud while they tried to move a number of
Speaker 1: metal ball bearings around on a surface like a tabletop,
Speaker 1: and underneath that surface there were electro magnets that could
Speaker 1: be turned on and off that could influence the path
Speaker 1: of the balls and how the balls moved around on
Speaker 1: this table. So the two conditions of the experiment where
Speaker 1: you had one condition where participants had direct control over
Speaker 1: the magnets. They had a switch or switches that they
Speaker 1: could switch on and off that were tied to a
Speaker 1: light that would go on and off when the magnets
Speaker 1: were activated and deactivated. So they were controlling the method
Speaker 1: by which the paths of the balls were diverted. And
Speaker 1: then you had another condition, or the participants were moving
Speaker 1: the balls around, but they had no perception of control
Speaker 1: over the magnets. Instead, an experiment er was turning the
Speaker 1: magnets on and off. And the results were in line
Speaker 1: with the author's hypothesis. A greater number of participants in
Speaker 1: the no control condition, the one where they could not
Speaker 1: control what the magnets were doing, a greater number of
Speaker 1: them spontaneously made statements attributing mind like agency to the
Speaker 1: balls compared to the condition where people could control the magnets.
Speaker 1: And so what were the spontaneous statements people made that
Speaker 1: attributed agency. It would be things like um like relational expressions. So,
Speaker 1: for example, apologizing to the balls. One quote is oops,
Speaker 1: sorry ball uh, sometimes naming the balls to quote from
Speaker 1: the study here describing a relationship with the marbles in
Speaker 1: terms that are literally appropriate only for animals and people,
Speaker 1: but not physical objects, such as marble's e g. Quote
Speaker 1: and a couple of ones did not like me um
Speaker 1: and then a couple of the other ones where statements
Speaker 1: about the ball bearings like having desires like oh look,
Speaker 1: those two are kissing, or that one didn't want to
Speaker 1: stay there, or saying that the balls are fighting each other.
Speaker 1: So the results would seem to back up the idea
Speaker 1: that we are more likely to spontaneously attribute agency to
Speaker 1: inanimate objects not just when they move in non inertial paths,
Speaker 1: but also when they do so in ways that we
Speaker 1: understand to be outside of our direct control or outside
Speaker 1: the direct control of a human agents such as ourselves.
Speaker 1: One interesting side note is that while a greater number
Speaker 1: of members of the no control group made at least
Speaker 1: one agency attribution statement, if you were to just count
Speaker 1: up the numbers of statements, one participant in the in
Speaker 1: control group actually went hog wild, making tons of statements,
Speaker 1: including naming some of the marble's That this one participant
Speaker 1: is where you get the person who started calling one
Speaker 1: of the ball bearings Bob. The most common types of
Speaker 1: agency attributions across all conditions were people ascribing desires and
Speaker 1: dispositions to the to the marbles, such as wanting or
Speaker 1: liking uh. And so the study did support the author's
Speaker 1: hypothesis that that objects moving beyond our controls are more
Speaker 1: likely to be seen as agents. But one thing that
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting was they actually recorded less spontaneous
Speaker 1: agency attribution overall than a number of previous studies. For example,
Speaker 1: the ones using geometric shapes displayed on a screen, and
Speaker 1: they tried to talk about why that was. They say, quote,
Speaker 1: Perhaps the representational character of the animated displays introduces bias
Speaker 1: that contributes to the willingness of participants to attribute beliefs, desires,
Speaker 1: and personality traits to geometric shapes. At least adult observers
Speaker 1: understand that images in motion pictures often represent intentional agents. Further,
Speaker 1: while the shapes in the displays certainly do not have
Speaker 1: beliefs or desires, intend national agents who do have beliefs
Speaker 1: and desires orchestrate their movements. Perhaps these conceptual factors of
Speaker 1: the displays contribute to the attribution of agency in animated displays.
Speaker 1: But there was one more section I wanted to read
Speaker 1: that that I thought was interesting, where they were trying
Speaker 1: to explain what could be going on, uh and and
Speaker 1: relating this to to ecologically valid everyday experiences of people
Speaker 1: attributing agency to inanimate objects. And and this relates to
Speaker 1: the condition once again of control over these objects. They write, quote,
Speaker 1: the suggestion is that we treat cars and computers as
Speaker 1: intentional agents, not only because of their perceptual features or
Speaker 1: self propelledness. Indeed, we be rate our cars when they
Speaker 1: quote refuse to move, and not when they do move. Rather,
Speaker 1: it is when objects action violates our own sense of
Speaker 1: causal efficacy that we attribute agency to them. When the
Speaker 1: computer either does something I did not ask it to
Speaker 1: do or does not do something I asked it to do,
Speaker 1: it's then that I remark that it is angry with me.
Speaker 1: Feelings of frustration are the consequence of lacking control, feeling
Speaker 1: that it is no longer my agency that accounts for
Speaker 1: what I perceive, but some other agency that I cannot control.
Speaker 1: And this was interesting because it made me think about
Speaker 1: possible origins of people especially looking to weapons used in
Speaker 1: battle as something that that has a mind of its
Speaker 1: own or could speak of its own accord, because I
Speaker 1: could imagine that violent struggle is is a time when
Speaker 1: you are especially prone probably to frustrations with the physical
Speaker 1: workings of your tools. Like you know, when when you're
Speaker 1: you're swinging a sword or a mace in battle and
Speaker 1: it doesn't do exactly what you wanted it to do.
Speaker 1: That seems like one of the most irritating possible situations
Speaker 1: where that could happen. Right, So you might be especially
Speaker 1: prone then to think this thing has a mind of
Speaker 1: its own and it is actually an agent in some way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sword has decided that I'm not worthy to wield it,
Speaker 1: and that is why it it seems to fail me suddenly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and this also I think comes into the old
Speaker 1: idea of like trial by combat. You know, so people
Speaker 1: are very familiar with trial by combat from Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones these days, but like it is an actual ancient practice.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that is often assumed about
Speaker 1: trial by combat is that trial by combat reveals the
Speaker 1: will of the gods that there is you know, that
Speaker 1: there is divine intervention that reaches in and controls whose
Speaker 1: weapons and armor and all that get the better of
Speaker 1: the other one. And thus the truth is shown not
Speaker 1: by who has the strongest warrior, but by which side
Speaker 1: the God's intervened on. Behalf of Now, one thing that
Speaker 1: comes to mind and all of this, taking taking it
Speaker 1: into kind of all of this and comparing it to
Speaker 1: the weapons too, is well. First of all, I'm imagining
Speaker 1: like the warrior or psyche during the height of battle.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that's going to be a situation where
Speaker 1: you're dealing with a lot of I mean, there's there's
Speaker 1: there's probably a flow state going on to some degree.
Speaker 1: In some cases, it's also highly energized and traumatic time, um,
Speaker 1: which is going to have its own psychological effect. But
Speaker 1: also I'm thinking if you if you're dealing especially with
Speaker 1: a professional warrior, uh, a warrior who is who is
Speaker 1: skilled with their weapon, who has say, run drills with
Speaker 1: their weapon, is uh to them, the use of this
Speaker 1: sword or this mace is just second nature. UM. It
Speaker 1: makes me think of the the sometimes receptible disconnect between
Speaker 1: will in the mind and movement in the body, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if that could at times help nurture this
Speaker 1: idea that sometimes it is not me who is who
Speaker 1: is who is striking out with the sword. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: is the sword striking out and I am just following it.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, that's really interesting. That lines up with
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Um though, there's a contradiction here worth exploring,
Speaker 1: which is that, um So, if there is any truth
Speaker 1: whatsoever to us, you know, speculating that that maybe uh,
Speaker 1: maybe it's because of extreme frustration with you know, a
Speaker 1: sword or a mace not doing exactly what you wanted
Speaker 1: to do when you you swing it in a fight.
Speaker 1: That causes people to to infuse it with the idea
Speaker 1: of agency and think this has this has a mind
Speaker 1: of its own. This would kind of go against a
Speaker 1: lot of the stories which are about weapons not failing
Speaker 1: in battle but having these really special, awesome powers, like
Speaker 1: doing more than you want doing, doing what you want
Speaker 1: beyond what you can make it do with your hands. Well,
Speaker 1: I wonder in that. I mean, it's easy to look
Speaker 1: back on these accounts and think of, you know, think
Speaker 1: of any type of actual human that could have you
Speaker 1: been a part of, say that the colclon myth Um
Speaker 1: and just imagine well that this was a bloodthirsty professional
Speaker 1: warrior who you know, never looked back and reflected on
Speaker 1: the deeds they performed on the battlefield. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I wonder if you know, what if it's
Speaker 1: not the case, what if you have characters like this,
Speaker 1: I mean really in Clocolan, we also see this idea
Speaker 1: of the warp spasm, the idea that he becomes something
Speaker 1: out of control on the battlefield, you know. So so
Speaker 1: maybe there is this Maybe there in some cases there
Speaker 1: is this sense that like, Okay, after the battle, when
Speaker 1: you're reflecting on what you did, perhaps there are moments
Speaker 1: within that battle that that are in conflict with what
Speaker 1: you think about as your nature and and maybe that
Speaker 1: allows you to lean into this idea of the weapon
Speaker 1: having this empowering or even wilful uh uh property to it,
Speaker 1: or maybe like what you think is the is the gods,
Speaker 1: or what you think is like you know, the divine
Speaker 1: taz or something is actually adrenaline. Yeah, and maybe like
Speaker 1: a disconnect to with just sort of the state of
Speaker 1: mind and like the reflective mind and the you know,
Speaker 1: the reactive mind of of of a pure combat situation
Speaker 1: right at the time, Yeah, it just makes sense to
Speaker 1: just keep pounding the enemy into the dirt with your mace.
Speaker 1: Then afterwards you're like, oh, that was a bit much.
Speaker 1: Why did I just not stop pounding their skull into
Speaker 1: the dust? Um, that doesn't seem like me. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but this is this is mere speculation on my part. Sure,
Speaker 1: But even outside of combat, I mean there are times,
Speaker 1: even in the you know, the noncombatants life, where reflexes
Speaker 1: will at times seem to come from beyond us. You know.
Speaker 1: I can think of like a time where, uh, my
Speaker 1: my son, who was a toddler at the time, he like,
Speaker 1: he falls off of a ladder on some stairs, and
Speaker 1: my arm just shoots out and grabs his leg in midfall,
Speaker 1: you know which, And at the time I'm like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: I'm already holding him. I already caught him, Like I
Speaker 1: did not seem like a wilful act, like, oh he's following,
Speaker 1: I better catch him. It's just you just react, you know.
Speaker 1: And if one is given to interpret that in in
Speaker 1: a supernatural way, you know, you might think, well, you know,
Speaker 1: this is this was God working through me. This was
Speaker 1: some angel or demon taking control of my arm and
Speaker 1: doing this deed seemed to occur outside of my my
Speaker 1: my actual willful cognition. It is amazing. And another amazing
Speaker 1: way to interpret it is the physical way, which is
Speaker 1: like your brain did that and then your consciousness had
Speaker 1: to catch up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean obviously that is
Speaker 1: the you know, the truth of the matter. And I
Speaker 1: think that the one thing I do want to drive
Speaker 1: home about all of this is that like all of
Speaker 1: these explanations within the human psyche and within the human body,
Speaker 1: I think are the most amazing. And that's even if
Speaker 1: you get into, you know, some of the more controversial hypotheses,
Speaker 1: like you know, the bicameral mind, which I think there
Speaker 1: are a lot of fun applications for that when we're
Speaker 1: looking at this topic. But I also see interpretations of
Speaker 1: some of these mythic weapons. Is like, oh, well, obviously
Speaker 1: this was ancient aliens. Obviously the mace that flew across
Speaker 1: the battlefield and reported back, this was some sort of
Speaker 1: alien technology that the ancient Sumerians acquired. Um, you know.
Speaker 1: I I mean, yes, if you're being very if if
Speaker 1: you're willing to go that way, you can, I guess
Speaker 1: you can explain things away that in that regard, But
Speaker 1: I feel like you're you're missing that where the true
Speaker 1: wonder lies. You know, you're missing the where the true
Speaker 1: magic is, and that is in the complex way that
Speaker 1: we interact with objects and enter and and contemplate our
Speaker 1: own actions. Well yeah, and also I would just say
Speaker 1: like that there is no particular reason to conclude ancient aliens,
Speaker 1: Like there is no evidence for it, and there's like no,
Speaker 1: there's no circumstances that demands it as a conclusion. So
Speaker 1: it's just so you could equally just say, like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it was time travelers. I mean, I can't rule
Speaker 1: it out, but there's no particular reason to think that's true. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, the other thing that I often harp
Speaker 1: on on this show is that we enjoy looking for
Speaker 1: possible physical circumstances and scientific explanations that could give rise
Speaker 1: to you know, experiences people had or things people witness
Speaker 1: that could serve as the inspiration for mythological concepts like
Speaker 1: talking weapons or weapons within with the mind of their own.
Speaker 1: But also I've said this a million times, there's also
Speaker 1: just human creativity. I Mean, sometimes people just come up
Speaker 1: with stories like it doesn't necessarily have to be that
Speaker 1: somebody saw something happen or had an experience themselves that
Speaker 1: felt like they were holding a weapon that was alive
Speaker 1: and had a mind of its own, that that could
Speaker 1: have happened, and that would be really interesting along the
Speaker 1: lines we've been talking about. But you also don't have
Speaker 1: to assume that. I mean, we know from the modern era,
Speaker 1: a lot of times people just come up with cool
Speaker 1: and strange creative ideas. Yeah, and the thing about like
Speaker 1: a lot of these these sci fi ideas that again,
Speaker 1: and some people are are more inclined to take a
Speaker 1: modern sci fi concept and apply it backwards in time
Speaker 1: as an explanation as an actual like real world explanation
Speaker 1: for what's say, uh you know that that fantastic mace
Speaker 1: of Nenurta was uh where in reality? Like the modern
Speaker 1: sci fi fantasy is perhaps better understood as a as
Speaker 1: a reverberation from the original trope. You know, like this
Speaker 1: is just continuation in the fantastic imaginative way of thinking
Speaker 1: that has been around for a long time. It is
Speaker 1: not you know, this is the thing that came before
Speaker 1: the flying club that turns into a lion and and
Speaker 1: and catches mountains on fire. That is the thing that
Speaker 1: helps explain our modern science fiction dreams, not the other
Speaker 1: way around. You know. An interesting thing about that is
Speaker 1: that somebody might come back at you and say, well,
Speaker 1: but science fiction, while having these same tropes, is based
Speaker 1: on technology, which makes it more plausible. Um, and I
Speaker 1: guess you could say that, but uh, but it also
Speaker 1: strikes me is that a wonderful way of framing that,
Speaker 1: is that the course of human history and scientific and
Speaker 1: technological development is reality catching up with myths. Yeah, yea,
Speaker 1: though I would I do have to point out to that,
Speaker 1: like a mace is technology, you know, like like any
Speaker 1: idea of of a of a magical mace or a
Speaker 1: magical sword, those those are technological stories as well. That's
Speaker 1: a deadly simple machine. I believe a mace counts as
Speaker 1: a level her Yeah. All right, Well, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and close the book on this, but we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from everybody. We'd love to hear from your
Speaker 1: thoughts on on what we discussed here, but also examples
Speaker 1: of sentient or possibly sentient weapons from other uh myths
Speaker 1: and legends as well as science fiction and fantasy treatments
Speaker 1: as well. Uh. Now, and now, one thing I do
Speaker 1: want to mention here. We opened with a rather dark
Speaker 1: reading from the Kola Vada, So I wanted to stress this.
Speaker 1: If you're troubled by suicidal thoughts, you are not alone.
Speaker 1: In a sympathetic ear is only a phone call away.
Speaker 1: In the United States, considered calling the National Suicide Prevention
Speaker 1: Hotline at one two, seven, three, eight to five five.
Speaker 1: You can also visit the website, which is Suicide Prevention
Speaker 1: Lifeline dot org and for additional resources tailored towards general
Speaker 1: and specific needs such as those of youth, disaster survivors,
Speaker 1: Native Americans, veterans, lost survivors, lgbt q I, a UH,
Speaker 1: and attempt survivors. You'll find a list of international UH
Speaker 1: suicide hotlines at suicide dot org um and then you
Speaker 1: can go to the International suicide Hotline section of that website.
Speaker 1: Big thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us as always at contact
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
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