WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Holy Undead, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.680 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:12.119 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And because we're 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.680 out for full break this week, we're pulling an episode 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.160 from the vault. This is a good one. I think 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.360 you're in for a real treat. This was called The 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:25.200 Holy Undead Part one, originally published October nineteen. What what 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.240 Happens when the Dead get real pious? Yeah, these are 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.800 some fun episodes, and they're also it was interesting how 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.600 these were our Halloween episodes. Are some of our Halloween 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.240 episodes from last year, but they're also really kind of 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.680 Christmas episodes as well, so uh so, so take them 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.200 however way you wish to take them, either celebrate Halloween 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:50.040 or celebrate Christmas a little bit early, or both. Welcome 0:00:50.120 --> 0:01:00.000 to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.800 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.000 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And of course it's 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.000 October here on the podcast, so we've got to be 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.600 talking about the undead. But this is a real special 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.960 episode because today is the day that the undead go 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:18.960 to church. That's right. Uh And this topic ended up 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.959 being a whole lot of fun to research and uh 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:23.880 and and right on, because I I knew some of this, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.440 but I did not know all of it. Uh. And 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.200 I think the key thing is when when you think 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.760 of the undead, when you think of zombies in particular, like, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.800 what what do you think about? For me? One line 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.320 that instantly comes into my mind that I remember hearing 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.000 at a at a young age and is is from 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.960 the trailer for George romero zombie classic Dawn of the Dead, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.240 When there is no more room in Hell that dead 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.160 will walk the earth very much suggests that reanimated corpses 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:58.160 shambling around are a distinctly satanic phenomena. Uh, though as 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.880 in George Romero's universe, I think it is. I think 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.480 that's actually more a naturalistic interpretation. Don't they say, what's 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.000 the deal? Like a satellite comes to Earth or something 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.079 like that? What do they say in the first one? Yeah, 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.400 I think it's some sort of satellite crashes, And but 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.079 there's kind of it's kind of like hearsay, right, or 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.600 it's what the media is saying. It's it's it's ultimately um, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:20.680 it's it's out of our hands. And I guess that 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.920 that leads me to the next very broad distinction that 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.360 I tend to make with zombie films is that you 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.200 have you have environmental zombie films, and you have sort 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:34.800 of necromantic or magical zombie films, and the environmental something 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.480 has happened that causes an extreme reversal in how death works. 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.560 The dead instead of staying dead, they rise, and so 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.880 it might be some sort of supernatural event, which that 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.680 that quote uh kind of implies. It's like, well, humans, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.880 you done send up Hell and now there's no more room, 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:54.600 so the dead are going to walk the earth. It's 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.960 it's kind of our fault, but it's ultimately a larger 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.440 systematic error that's going on. Okay, So in your view, 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.360 environmental causes could still be supernatural, but they would be 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:11.800 supernatural mechanistic rather than like supernatural directed will yeah you 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.680 know there or or if it's if it is directed, 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.200 it's it's like on a divine level, it's like, well, 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.720 God's had it. He's just letting the zombies rome now, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.040 you know, and it's God reasons for that taking place, 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.600 um or you know, it could even be scientific, but 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.359 it's like a scientific accident by human science. So you're 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.959 trying to make zombie bio weapons. Well you shouldn't have 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.840 done that. Now, look what's happening. The dead are walking. Yeah, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.000 here's the rage virus. Though I guess a complication with 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.720 that is you know, resident Evil twenty eight days later, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.680 all that kind of stuff. A lot of that is often, uh, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.240 there's a blurring of the lines between what is undead 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.120 and what is just some infected form of human being 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.240 right right now. That The other area that the necromantic 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.200 or magical interpretation this is. This is more where you 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.240 have someone or something intentionally raising the dead through the 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.960 use of mad um generally to do something, to do 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.040 the bidding of their master, you know, who might be 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.880 a warlock or a demon or another powerful undead being, 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.760 maybe a mad scientist, even an alien mastermind or a 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.240 dark like minor deity. That's sort of thing. But it's like, 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:19.039 I need something done, I need some I need I 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.680 need an army of the dead. So I'm gonna raise 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.680 up an army of the dead to do specific dead things, 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.160 as opposed to like, well, now all the dead rise 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.200 from the grave and they do dead things. Right, I 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.320 am the witch queens and Obia I say a bunch 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.640 of skeletons, you pop up out of the ground and 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.160 get you some swords and shields and go kills in 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.640 bad so. Either way, I guess, very broadly speaking, there's 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.719 plenty of examples I know that kind of break this. 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.320 Zombies are either a thing that just kind of happens 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:49.520 and as part of the new natural order of things 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.800 or the unnatural order of things, or it's something that 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.480 is done by an agent of the evil. Um today 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.880 we're gonna be We're gonna be getting into I guess 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.320 both of these categories a little bit. But in a way, 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.920 we're also discussing a third category, you know, the holy, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:09.719 undead pious zombies and church going perhaps god worshiping wraiths 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.320 and revenants who might just pack the local cathedral. You know. 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.400 I would say that this is mostly new to me, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.080 but it has been so wonderful getting into these stories 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.600 because they are so full of weird ambiguities and contradictions. 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.880 I think that often suggest very interesting and enlightening things 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.839 about the cultural climate in which these tales arise, right, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.040 and also the sort of the cultural soil, sort of 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.160 oftentimes the pre Christian soil from which these myths and 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.880 folk tales have germinated and then changed forms a little 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.240 bit in the Christian era, you know, just to go 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.520 back to Donna the Dead briefly though, the idea of 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.440 the dead going to church, Uh, it is a little 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.279 bit like the dead going to the mall and Don 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:53.880 of the Dead. You know, they just show up and 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.240 they're gonna do They're gonna do what humans do at 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.479 the mall. They're just gonna wander around, um and uh 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.000 and in Yeah, I feel like it manages up a 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.760 little bit with some of the stories we're talking about here, yeah, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.200 and Dawn of the Dead. It's interesting because, uh, there 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.400 is an assumption in the Rameiro zombie universe that the 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.119 zombies are operating at a very low, very reduced level 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.880 of cognition. You know, they have very limited ability to reason. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.120 I mean, they can clearly like use their brains enough 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.360 to sort of like move towards the thing they want 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.920 to eat. But but it doesn't get much more complicated 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:29.760 than that with them. But I think one of the 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.120 characters in Dawn of the Dead says, why are they 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.640 all coming here to the mall? This must be someplace 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.320 that was important to them in life and without anything 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.359 else to do without any brains to eat in the 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.320 nearby area, they just sort of drift back to a 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.200 place that was significant in their lives and almost as 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.000 if by force of habit. And that's kind of interesting too, 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.000 because it suggests that whatever it is you would really 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.120 say you want to be doing when in your afterlife, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.479 maybe you would say, i'd I'd go, I don't know, 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.200 visit my still living relatives and give them new is 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.159 from beyond the grave or something. In fact, what you 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.119 do is walk the steps you've walked a hundred times before. 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:09.600 And where does that take you? You go to the mall. Baby. Now, 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.800 some would say there's no ethical consumption of brains under capitalism, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.120 but I guess that I'd have to discuss that another episode. 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.640 Let's let's get back to religion though. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.520 so we should talk about maybe a specific example to 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.720 get us going of of one of these stories about 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.000 about the church going undead. So the story I wanted 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.520 to start with here, I wanted to start with because 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:34.000 it's ultimately the story I've had the longest um exposure to, 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.520 I guess in my life. I started looking into this 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.760 and then I realized, oh, I have I've read some 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.080 version of this story before. Uh and uh, I want 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:44.960 to take I want to take at least some of 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.720 you back to the Enchanted World book series from Time 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.920 Life Books. Um. Uh. Some of us had these, some 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.240 of us didn't. I was lucky enough. I think my 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.400 aunt had purchased these, and I kind of temporarily inherited them. 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.480 But I also still have them decades later. Um and 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.560 and ultimately it's gonna it will be hard to make 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.239 me give them up because they, ultimately, uh put played 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.560 I think an important role in my my childhood. But 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.960 if you were watching TV in the early nineteen eighties, 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.800 you might remember a TV spot for these books, starring 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.720 the legendary Vincent Price. I will buy anything Vincent Price 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.760 tells me to. Yeah, I wonder what else was he? Uh? 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.720 Was was he a pitching back then unsleeved? The delicious 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.920 flaky crust of a hot pocket? Oh? Man? Oh? He 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.360 would have been great for Tomstone Pizza, right, Vincent Price 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.120 Tomstone because they were going for more of a Western thing. Though, Man, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.600 Vincent Price impression was bad. I gotta work on that. Well, 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.000 why don't why don't we? I encourage everyone to look 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.080 this up. This particular commercial up on YouTube. But let's 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.120 go and have just a little audio sample of it, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.840 because it's Yeah, it's vincent price, it's fabulous. On evenings, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.559 to like this, I'd like to parrol up with a 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.840 good books short of book that lets the imagination run 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.720 away with you. If you're like me and enjoy the 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:13.439 mysterious and the unexpected, you'll love the Enchanted World. Each 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.960 volume brings to life so vividly those inhabitants of the 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:22.800 other world, witches and wizards, goh Scoblands, and avenging Nights. 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.840 Call now and enter the Enchanted World with the first book, 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:32.200 Wizards and Witches my favorite subject. It's an intriguing account 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:37.520 of sorcery, spells, and deception. Other books include ghosts, fairies, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:42.240 and elves and dragons. Painstakingly researched by the editors of 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.600 Time Life Books, each volume is exquisitely illustrated and portrayed 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.760 with master works of art. Each volume is superbly written 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:57.000 and bound in luxurious fabric. So rob I I was 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.080 never lucky enough to have these books as a kid, 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.440 But but I guess if you had access to them, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.120 I would assume that these books made you the terrible 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:09.079 adult you are today. Oh yeah, probably so they were 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.120 pretty great because each one well, first of all, as 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.680 as Vincent Price reminds us, each one is bound in 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:21.040 luxurious fabric, curious, yes, And each one is a different color, 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.920 which I distinctly remember, because each book deals with a 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:26.880 different topic, and you know, c have fairies, you have 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.800 camelo giants, uh, you know, mermaids and so forth. I 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.120 didn't have them all, but I had a number of them, 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.840 and I distinctly remember there were, of course two black books, 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.920 black bound books. One of them was on ghosts and 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.800 the other one was on night creatures, and these were 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.400 in a you know, sort of a childhood way. These 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:48.800 were both my favorites of the series, but also the 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.120 most feared. I remember that they'd be on the shelf 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.679 and I could barely bring myself to look at their 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.120 spines on the bookshelf if the sun had gone down, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.480 because I knew how terrifying the illustrations were in there, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.600 and how terrifying the contents of the stories were. Um 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:06.760 and I certainly wasn't going to pull one of these 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.800 books off the shelf at night, because the cover art 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.960 was absolutely horrible on each of them. Oh that's so wonderful. 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.760 And when I say the mentioned the art, it was 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.920 all the books featured a combination of say, woodcuts and 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.560 uh and old paintings, you know, as well as new 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.640 custom illustrations matching up with the with the stories from 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.360 different artists. And we'll mention one in particular in a bit, uh, 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.360 specific artists, all with different styles. So it was it's 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.640 just a visual to light. I highly recommend if you 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.600 have a chance to pick up any of these books 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.680 and you're interested in these topics, do so. I think 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.280 they must have printed billions of these things, because I 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:48.080 just looked around the other day, and you can pick 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.720 them up for like dollar a dollar or two dollars each. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:52.600 I think in some cases if you buy them used. 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.040 I wonder how that looks urious fabric holds up. I 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:57.800 think it holds up all right. I don't know how 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.760 luxurious it it really looks these days, but uh, you know, 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.880 the books are holding together, and that's that's enough. So 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.760 the Ghost Book, like I said, was particularly scary, and 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.560 it featured a tale of the pious undead. So it's 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.439 it's a short section in the book titled the Hooded Congregation, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.880 and it is fantastically illustrated and perhaps written. I think 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.600 the writers are all just it's listed as like by 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.240 folks at the Time Life Books or something, so he 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.360 might have written it as well, but he at least 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:34.560 illustrated it. Talking about Caldicott Medal winning author Chris Van Allsburg, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:36.840 if the name didn't ring a bell, let me just 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.240 say this is this is the artist who illustrated and 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:45.000 wrote the books Jumanji in one and The Polar Express 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:51.240 in uh, both known for very elegant illustrations. Yeah, and 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.240 ultimately very you know, ghostly and you know, kind of 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.280 a yeah, ultimately ghostly. And so it's like this. I 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.120 never really liked the Polar Express because it did feel 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.800 kind of cold and uh and like it's something of 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:06.720 the spirit world. And I was like this, I don't 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:11.439 know this, this isn't my Christmas. But the Hooded Congregation 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.480 in the Time Life Books. Here the illustration style apps 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.680 absolutely works and it's it's fabulous. It's um. So what 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:20.880 we have here is a series of haunting black and 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.040 white images. And I sent these two images of these 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:25.680 two Joe, so you could look at these as well. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.600 And then you have text pages that feature tiny images 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.840 of a woman in a casket, and as you proceed 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.079 through the story, her face shrivels towards the skull. It's 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.560 absolutely wonderful. These are indeed beautiful. Though I'm almost kind 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:41.960 of glad I didn't look at these illustrations as a kid, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.800 because if I had, I am positive, I would have 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:49.800 cemented an unbreakable association between the ghostly hooded figures in 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.800 the congregation, and especially the second illustration here, and the 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:58.360 bad guys in Charlton Heston and the Omega man. Yeah, 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:00.559 there's this kind of a similar such way and going 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.320 on with the hooded figures. All right, So I'm gonna 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.040 briefly roll through the story here. Uh And I'm sorry 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.040 for the Christmas creep everyone, but this is a holiday story. 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.120 So it takes place Christmas morning. We're somewhere in the 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:19.760 Swedish mountain centuries ago, and a young woman has awoken 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.640 extremely early and she hears the sound of church bells. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.120 So what does she do? The church bells are ringing. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:26.800 You need to get your your butt to church. So 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.280 she ventures out into the darkness. Uh And and you know, 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.320 it's it's a dark time of year, it's a cold time, 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.120 of year, the cold, the cold is biting. She makes 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.200 her way to the village church and uh the door 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.960 is open. Inside the pews are filled with black, hooded 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.040 figures and a hooded priest and gray stands at the 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.000 stands on at the front of the church is reciting 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.120 in psalms, you know, leading folks and song, that sort 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.960 of thing, normal church business, except everything's a little weird. Um. 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.360 The woman is led in, she takes a seat, and 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.400 then a figure sits beside her. And then that figure 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.800 that is seated beside her pulls back her hood and 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:08.520 reveals the death shriveled face of her dead sister. Whoa, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.720 you don't see that coming. Yeah, And she she cries out, 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.120 you are the dead. And then all the hoods fall 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.600 back from the other worshippers, and it's revealed that they 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.080 are all indeed the dead in various states of decay. Uh. 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.240 It's written in this telling of the story that the 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.400 oldest are little more than shadows. But you see, you know, 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.400 some still have flesh on them, and they're uh, they 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.120 seem to be physical apparitions, though for the most part. 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.480 Her sister, her undead sister here warns her to flee 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.200 while she can, and she gets up to do so, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.520 but of course the congregation gets to their feet as well. 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.160 They chase after, they claw after with these skeletal fingers, 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.680 and she feels them jabbing at her back as she 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.760 reaches the door to to leave the church, and they 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:56.040 pull the scarf from her neck and the process. So 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.760 she gets away. She runs to the village priest's house 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.360 and he's being ready to go to church to open 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.520 it up. He didn't know that the church has already open, 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.360 at least for some folks. Uh So they go back 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.080 together and they find that the church is completely empty. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.239 But then there is her scarf on the floor, shredded 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.480 to pieces by those skeletal fingers. This is such an 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:22.200 unusual type of story because of this strange blending of themes. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:27.640 So there is clear menace implied by the beings of 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.760 the church. These are not just you know, righteous Christians 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.760 who have passed on the kind of people that Dante 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.280 might encounter in in the paradiso, where they'd be, you know, 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.520 humbly praising God from the point of the afterlife. Uh. No, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.520 that they are in church and they are praising God. 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.960 But they're also dangerous, Like they immediately they attack and 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.800 they poke with the bony fingers, they shred the scarf. 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.920 These things, on the surface level at least, seem incongruous. Yeah, 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.040 like how can like, Okay, they hate the living, well 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.960 we expect that of the death and right, but they 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.400 love God. That seems kind of strange, right you think 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.640 that the uh, this would match up more with our 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.240 our idea of the satanic undead, the devilish undead, the 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:15.720 unholy undead, as opposed to holy zombies at church. So yeah, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.240 it's a simple, weird little ghost story. And the illustrations 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.520 especially always haunted me when I looked at the pictures. 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:23.760 But but I don't think I ever really thought about 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.760 about why. And uh, I think, you know, it had 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.560 to do with the darkness of the undead having such 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:31.760 a presence in both a church and a Christmas story. 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:33.600 I know that that that you know, I did think 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.199 about that when I was a kid. But you know, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:37.960 but but you know, here was the kicker. It was 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.840 as if the ghosts were supposed to be there, you know, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.160 not vile invaders intent on desecrating the church and destroying 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.080 those who love God or something, you know. But but 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:50.119 they were, they were doing their thing. It was like 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.159 it was their time to be in the church, and 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.760 the village girl had simply wandered into the night church, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.200 where she did not belong and where the dead worship 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.000 while we sleep. It almost makes you wonder. The fact 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.480 that they're in church praying before they attack her makes 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:07.879 you kind of like reframe the story. It makes you 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.520 wonder did she do something wrong, like did she step 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.000 on their turf or offend them in some way maybe 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.520 by pointing out the fact that her sister was dead. Um, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.840 you know, is that unwelcome news to them in some 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.119 way or something like that? Yeah, so what does it 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.359 all mean? Well, we're gonna get into that. But uh, 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.440 initially though, I was like, all right, I've i've I've 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.200 read the timeline version, I've reread the timeline version. Now, 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.720 well what's what are some of the original versions of it? Well? Um, 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.159 I I found a wonderful blog post, well written nicely 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.800 cited by Camilla Christiansen on and on the blog Legends 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.879 of the North Legends of the North thought blog spot 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.680 dot com. Um they are a native Norwegian blogger, and 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.040 uh they write about it a bit here and point 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.320 out that the tale is usually known as the Midnight 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.200 Mass of the Dead, and Christiansen writes that the tale 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.359 seems to originate from Germanic Romance and Slavic regions, and 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.520 that while there were there are many variations of this 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.960 tale to be found throughout Europe. The oldest date back 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:13.240 to the sixth century by historian Gregory of Tours, while 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.359 it pops up in Nordic writings during the seventeen hundreds, 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.240 and and we'll get more into some other traditions that 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.400 seemed to weave their way into this particular tale as 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.800 we proceed, but the story generally follows a basic format. 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.360 A man or a woman they wait too early, perhaps 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.399 confused by church bells and or the darkness of winter 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.480 months in northern climates. Thinking themselves late to church, they 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.359 rushed to u to the church and soon realized that 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.000 they have wandered into the midnight Mass of the dead. 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.600 A deceased loved one urges them to flee, and in 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.400 some tellings um such as the one in the Enchanted 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.960 World Book, they make it out alive and they merely 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.159 lose a garment that becomes proof of what occurred, you know. 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.400 But in other tellings the dead just simply tear them 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.320 to pieces or otherwise drag them into the realm of death. 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.679 And while it's not always Christmas Eve, uh, we do 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.679 see this idea that, you know, what is Christmas but 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.240 the darkest evening of the year. It's this time when 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.320 the veil between the worlds of the living and the 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.239 dead are the thinnest. So it kind of while at 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.600 first you might think, oh, Christmas is not a time 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.919 for the dead to come back to life, Well, you know, 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.639 maybe if if you're talking about you know, modern and 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.240 Santa Claus traditions, but if you're getting into the older 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:31.800 ideas of of winter religion and winter legends and winter traditions, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.600 then then yes, this is a time when death is 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.680 very close. This reminds me of a line that comes 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:39.840 from another story that I'm going to talk about in 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.480 a bit from a from a medieval Christian bishop who 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.680 wrote about similar types of tales of of the pious undead. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.120 This guy is like a tenth to eleventh century German 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:57.280 bishop named teet marvon Merseburg, and after telling a story 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.760 kind of similar to this, uh, teeth Mark concludes with 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.680 the statement, as day is to the living, So night 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.119 is conceded to the dead. Uh. And I love that 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.159 phrase night is conceded to the dead, as if, like it, 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.159 it is ground that has been lost. The dead have 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.080 taken it and it belongs to them. And of course 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:17.960 I guess that would seem especially true in the winter, 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.120 when the night is the longest. Yeah. So it's easy 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.920 to see like this, this idea of a dual world. 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.200 There's the world of the night, in the world of 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.080 of the day, there's the world of the living. There's 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.160 a little world of the dead. Uh. It also makes 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.399 me wonder too if tales like this might have something 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.159 to do with the idea that if we have human 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:40.600 spaces uh, in this case, artificial human spaces like church interiors, 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.520 the places of stone and wood that exists for particular purposes. 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.560 So if this space is for you know, X, then 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.919