Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to bow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time you go into the Old Vault. This time you
Speaker 1: better armor up your your butt because there is a
Speaker 1: spear coming for your anus. That's right, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about space here. We're talking about Irish mythology. We're getting
Speaker 1: into the tales of Mighty Colanko Holland. We ran into
Speaker 1: some difficulties pronouncing the title the name of the hero
Speaker 1: in this episode, but it is a pretty fun one
Speaker 1: that we originally published What To nineteen and it's we
Speaker 1: figured it's a perfect one to unleash once more, right
Speaker 1: before St. Patty's Day. Let's jump right in. By this time,
Speaker 1: the two combatants were at the edge feet of swords.
Speaker 1: Then ford It caught Koo Holland unguarded and dealt him
Speaker 1: a blow with his ivory hilted blade, which he plunged
Speaker 1: into co Holand's rest, and Kohland's blood had dripped into
Speaker 1: his belt, and the ford was red with the blood
Speaker 1: from the warrior's body. Kohlan brooke not this wounding, for
Speaker 1: for thea had attacked him with a succession of deadly
Speaker 1: stout blows, and he asked lug for guy bolga. Such
Speaker 1: was the nature of the guy bolga. It used to
Speaker 1: be set down stream and cast from between the toes.
Speaker 1: It made a one wound as it entered a man's body,
Speaker 1: but it had thirty barbs when one tried to remove it,
Speaker 1: and it was not taken from a man's body until
Speaker 1: the flesh was cut away about it. And when for
Speaker 1: Dea had heard mention of the guy bolga, he thrust
Speaker 1: down the shield to shelter the lower part of his body.
Speaker 1: Kou Holland cast the fine spear from off the palm
Speaker 1: of his hand, over the rim of the shield, and
Speaker 1: over the breast piece of the horn skin, so that
Speaker 1: its farther half was visible. After it had pierced for
Speaker 1: Dead's heart in his breath. For Dead thrust up the
Speaker 1: shield to protect the upper part of his body, but
Speaker 1: that was helped that came too late. The charioteer sent
Speaker 1: the guy bulga downstream. Kuholland caught it between his toes
Speaker 1: and made a cast of it at for Dead, and
Speaker 1: the guy bulga went through the strong, thick apron of
Speaker 1: smelted iron and broke in three the great stone, as
Speaker 1: big as a millstone, and entered for Dead's body through
Speaker 1: the anus, and filled every joint and limb of him
Speaker 1: with its barbs. That service is now said for dead.
Speaker 1: I have fallen by that cast. But indeed strongly do
Speaker 1: you cast from your right foot? And it was not
Speaker 1: fitting that I should fall by you. And as he spoke,
Speaker 1: he uttered these words, oh hound of the fair feats,
Speaker 1: it was not fitting that you should slay me. Yours
Speaker 1: is the guilt which clung to me. On you, My
Speaker 1: blood was shed Doomed men who reached the gap of
Speaker 1: betrayal do not flourish. That is my voice. Alas heroes
Speaker 1: have been destroyed. My ribs, like spoils, are broken. My
Speaker 1: heart is gore. Would that I had not fought, I
Speaker 1: have fallen, Oh hound. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: mind from How Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And that opening reading was from
Speaker 1: the cecil a Rahai translation of and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do my best the tying bow colonge. Um, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be obviously talking about Irish mythology today, and unfortunately that
Speaker 1: means we're gonna be trying to pronounce a lot of
Speaker 1: words and probably sometimes failing. Please bear with us, but
Speaker 1: it's done out of love and we do our best.
Speaker 1: That's right. And it feels good to come back around
Speaker 1: some Irish mythology here because Irish Irish smith is rich
Speaker 1: with fantastic stick ideas, uh, magic, magical beings, monsters, and
Speaker 1: in this case, a very interesting magical weapon that is
Speaker 1: the unreally unlike anything else I've read about. Robert, you
Speaker 1: have been on such a kick of magical weapons these days.
Speaker 1: You you're you're big into Cupid's leaden arrows. We did
Speaker 1: the triedent. No, I'm down with it. This is funny.
Speaker 1: We also have the older episode about the about various
Speaker 1: spinning weapons of death that I did with the Christian
Speaker 1: But even after all those, the episode today about Guy
Speaker 1: Bolga the spear of the hero Ku Holland I think
Speaker 1: this is this takes the cake. This is the weirdest
Speaker 1: best magical weapon with with biological connections that we have
Speaker 1: discussed yet I am pretty certain of it. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be maybe a fun exercise for listeners to
Speaker 1: try and predict where we're gonna land biologically. Okay, at
Speaker 1: the end of this episode, to to get into the
Speaker 1: science of the of the guy Bolga. Now, Robert, I
Speaker 1: admit befo four we did this episode. I had no
Speaker 1: idea who ko Holland was, and I probably would have
Speaker 1: pronounced it like ku kuk Lane or whatever this is.
Speaker 1: So this is a hero of Irish mythology who I
Speaker 1: had never even heard of before. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I'd run across the mention of him in passing,
Speaker 1: but I don't think i'd ever actually read any of
Speaker 1: the tales about him, or even the poems about him.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a there's a Yates poem co Holand Comforted.
Speaker 1: So he's not an obscure character in Irish myth by
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination. But co Holand is so cool.
Speaker 1: How could I have not heard about this? I feel
Speaker 1: like the people who study Irish mythology have got to
Speaker 1: get in touch with Hollywood or something, get some movies
Speaker 1: going so people know these myths better. Well, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: quite a figure. So co Holand is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: mythological hero that has been described as the Irish Achilles.
Speaker 1: Or even the Irish Incredible Hulk custom maybe a little closer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you can, but probably already get a sense
Speaker 1: here we're talking about yet another mythological killing machine, an
Speaker 1: ancient soldier, you know, streaked in gore and honor. So
Speaker 1: in many respects, he is what you expect from from
Speaker 1: a mythological hero. You know, he's mighty warrior, he has
Speaker 1: a sense of nobility, and he's sort of pushed into
Speaker 1: tragic circumstances. Yeah, he's tough, he's brave, he's brutal, he
Speaker 1: meets a tragic end right now, He's the He's a
Speaker 1: central character in the Ulster cycle, one of the four
Speaker 1: great cycles of medieval Irish myth and the This cycle
Speaker 1: takes place in the first century Sea and was written
Speaker 1: in Old and Middle Irish um. He also appears to
Speaker 1: factor into a certain Scottish traditions as well, so but
Speaker 1: largely Irish. So well, let's do the life story of
Speaker 1: ko Holand. So he wasn't born ko Holand he was
Speaker 1: born Satanta satantas his given name co Holand is more
Speaker 1: like like kylel becomes Superman. Right, So he's the nephew
Speaker 1: of the Irish king King Connor, and is the offspring
Speaker 1: of the union between Connor's sister and the god lug
Speaker 1: we we Lug was mentioned in that dramatic reading earlier.
Speaker 1: Lug is a member of the Chuatha di don and
Speaker 1: the sort of spiritual god elf beings of of Irish
Speaker 1: myth so like, So as with the likes to say
Speaker 1: Achilles and Hercules, we have a hybrid on our hands here,
Speaker 1: part human, part divine. And and he certainly looked like
Speaker 1: a like a half divine creature. He has uh, he
Speaker 1: has some some unnatural aspects to his appearance to definitely
Speaker 1: line up with what you might expect from a demigod,
Speaker 1: what like maybe a few too many of certain body parts. Yes,
Speaker 1: for starters, he's just just unnaturally beautiful. He's a paragon
Speaker 1: of masculine beauty and strength. And then he has seven
Speaker 1: fingers on each hand, seven toes on each foot, and
Speaker 1: then seven pupils in each eye, seven pupils in each other. Well,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a aragon of beauty now, even as
Speaker 1: a child, his exploits made him famous. And then King
Speaker 1: Connor himself ends up bestowing the new name on him
Speaker 1: Holland after he kills the great guard dog, the Hound
Speaker 1: of Holland, Holland being a smith here with his bare
Speaker 1: hands at a banquet, and so he has to take
Speaker 1: on this new name as a penance. Yeah, Like after
Speaker 1: he kills the smith's hound, he I think, offers to
Speaker 1: serve himself as the guard of the smith's forge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so now he is co Holand. And then you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of that dramatic reading, he's referred to
Speaker 1: as the Hound. So I'm thinking, because he's this paragon
Speaker 1: of masculine beauty and strength, there's got to be like
Speaker 1: a trend setting kind of thing that people just can't match. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's the same way that after you have a
Speaker 1: famous movie star he starts wearing a certain kind of
Speaker 1: hairstyle or something. Now that's what's cool, and everybody wants
Speaker 1: to do it. In this case, in first century Ireland,
Speaker 1: everybody would want to have seven pupils in each eye.
Speaker 1: And so that's what everybody's going to the local witches about.
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, make me live forever, give
Speaker 1: me huge strength, has give me seven pupils in each eye. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, as always when we're talking about mythology, it's
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that, Um, you know, they're varying sources,
Speaker 1: they're varying tellings, and some of the details are going
Speaker 1: to change with the telling at the time. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: definitely very radically different accounts of Kohlan now. But so
Speaker 1: we've arrived at this version of cohol and already he
Speaker 1: is a beautiful, powerful warrior with some unnatural characteristics. But then,
Speaker 1: but then he also has an additional superpower. But wait,
Speaker 1: there's more. Yes, so he can essentially hulk out. It
Speaker 1: is the thing he can. He can enter into a
Speaker 1: berserker state during battle. But it's not just like a
Speaker 1: mental state like it actually said, to twist and deform
Speaker 1: his body as he becomes this just unreasonable killing machine.
Speaker 1: The reastrade does this process. Yeah, and apparently apparently one
Speaker 1: Thomas Kinsella translated this state as the quote war spasm.
Speaker 1: That sounds like something straight out of the X Men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds it sounds rather chaotic. I definitely don't want
Speaker 1: to be around a warrior when they were entering the
Speaker 1: warp spasm. It sounds rather dangerous. All right, Well, we've
Speaker 1: got another quote from the Cecil Rahalli translation of the
Speaker 1: Timebo clung from the book of Leinster, and this is
Speaker 1: about what happens in the warp spasm quote then occurred
Speaker 1: to Holland's first distortion. He swelled and grew big as
Speaker 1: a bladder does when inflated, and became a fearsome, terrible,
Speaker 1: mini colored, strange arch and the valiant hero towered above
Speaker 1: for dead, as big as a famore or a pirate.
Speaker 1: And I think the famar you're you were saying, Robert
Speaker 1: that that's like a giant of Irish mythology. It's like
Speaker 1: a giant ogre type good type being from Irish myth
Speaker 1: So like the Irish version of Yettenheim might be full
Speaker 1: of these. Yeah, yeah, So so clearly Coo Holand is
Speaker 1: nobody to mess with, Like this is a this is
Speaker 1: a terrifying force on the battlefield. Why why does the
Speaker 1: author of this work they'll believe that pirates are gigantic? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm less sure on that one. So
Speaker 1: co Holand fights bravely throughout his his military career. Um
Speaker 1: he fights off the forces of Queen maybe at the
Speaker 1: age of seventeen, uh believe virtually, like single handedly, like
Speaker 1: he's that powerful warrior. But he's eventually tricked by warriors
Speaker 1: in the employee of Mayve and slain at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty seven. So not a long life. But then again,
Speaker 1: you know you're an Irish warrior um during the first century. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's not a long life expectancy there now. And they
Speaker 1: kind of have to employ some trickery in order to
Speaker 1: overcome his strength, which I think is a common feature
Speaker 1: in like mythic hero cycles. You see that with like
Speaker 1: Samson in uh in Jewish legend, and you sort of
Speaker 1: see a version of it with Achilles, with like them
Speaker 1: finding out his one weakness. And indeed there's basically like
Speaker 1: a three part plan that has to be employed here.
Speaker 1: I mean that the first one being key. They trick
Speaker 1: him into eating dog meat, which breaks a taboo and
Speaker 1: weakens his spirit. Yeah. I read somewhere that this came
Speaker 1: about by pitting two taboos against each other. Like there's
Speaker 1: a taboo against refusing hospitality on one hand, but there's
Speaker 1: also a taboo against eating dog meat. So what if
Speaker 1: somebody shows you hospitality by offering you dog meat. You're caught. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're caught. You're there. That's a you know, as Scilla
Speaker 1: and charyptus. Uh. So he had to pick, and he
Speaker 1: picked not refusing hospitality, but he ate the dog meat,
Speaker 1: and that that screwed him up. Now, the next thing
Speaker 1: that helps if you're trying to take out a half
Speaker 1: divine warrior is to have a divine weapon of your own,
Speaker 1: a magical weapon of your own that will will help
Speaker 1: you slay them. And so that's what the trio do here.
Speaker 1: They hit him with a magical disemboweing spear that is
Speaker 1: enchanted to kill kings. The apparently had three of these,
Speaker 1: and they used too on his on his accomplices, including
Speaker 1: the charioteer. It was like the King of Chariots, which
Speaker 1: seems kind of like a a loop hole in the
Speaker 1: whole king thing, Like you don't have to actually be
Speaker 1: a king, you're just kind of quote unquote a king
Speaker 1: of something. But ca Holan has like a really bad
Speaker 1: dude moment here, Like he gets hit with the spear,
Speaker 1: but he's like, I'm not going down that easy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna die, uh like that, He's going to
Speaker 1: die standing up fighting. So he like tucks his innerage
Speaker 1: back into his body um and then like stumbles over
Speaker 1: to a pillar lashes himself to the pillar so that
Speaker 1: he can fight and die standing up, like they're gonna
Speaker 1: have to come and take him on his feet. But okay,
Speaker 1: so he's tied there, dying, and they got to be afraid,
Speaker 1: right because co Holan is this this killing machine. Even
Speaker 1: dying cut open with a with a kill spear tied
Speaker 1: to a rock or a pillar, he's gonna be scary.
Speaker 1: So they don't want to get too close. And I
Speaker 1: think one source says that they had to wait until
Speaker 1: a bird landed on him in order to know that
Speaker 1: he had actually died. Yeah, and then they move in.
Speaker 1: What do you do? You cut off his head to
Speaker 1: be sure. But when they cut off his head, there's
Speaker 1: is brilliant light that like cuts off one of the
Speaker 1: attackers a sword hands, I believe. And then it's not
Speaker 1: until they cut off k holand sword arm that the
Speaker 1: light dies away and that he's definitely dead. So it's
Speaker 1: like you don't have there's one thing to cut away
Speaker 1: the seat of reason from this mighty war. You also
Speaker 1: have to cut away like the physical sword hand of
Speaker 1: the warrior. There's a wonderful, like full telling of this
Speaker 1: final battle of one in particular that I light came
Speaker 1: from Lady Augusta Gregory um Uk Helen of Murrath Fimney
Speaker 1: from nineteen o two. Uh, that's all online. I recommend
Speaker 1: checking that out if you want the full blow by
Speaker 1: blow death of ko Holand. So, how do we not
Speaker 1: have a full kooh Holan movie? Yeah, it seems like
Speaker 1: we should. I mean, how many Hercules movies do we have? Right?
Speaker 1: Way too many? We could easily peel off some of
Speaker 1: that money into the cah Holand enterprise here. Now, we
Speaker 1: were talking before the episode about who to cast as
Speaker 1: Coo holand we could not come up with good idea
Speaker 1: because all of the best Irish actors we were thinking
Speaker 1: of to cast as this Irish hero are now old.
Speaker 1: But like Pierce Brosnan, Yeah, Pierce is right there in
Speaker 1: his name. Yeah, but but sadly, like we said, he
Speaker 1: died at twenty seven. You need you need a young, like,
Speaker 1: powerful and imposing irishman who is also a really good actor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think some of my favorite Irish actors. Let's see,
Speaker 1: there's Uh, there's Brendan Gleeson. I guess he's older. Now
Speaker 1: there's uh, I love Liam Cunningham, the guy who plays
Speaker 1: Sir Davos on Game of Thrones. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know who the young guy is. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Everybody can think of as too old, like
Speaker 1: even you know, there's a thinking, well, maybe a professional wrestler.
Speaker 1: I get a big muscle bound dude to play ko
Speaker 1: Holand okay, there's there's a guy named Samus who's like
Speaker 1: a big, pale Irish wrestler, but he's too old for
Speaker 1: the part. Maybe he could play the hulked out version
Speaker 1: of ko holand you could do kind of u you know,
Speaker 1: like the Incredible Hulk TV show. We had to loof
Speaker 1: Rigno playing the the actual Hulk. Oh no, wait, this
Speaker 1: has given me a great idea. Actually, like the main
Speaker 1: normal ko holand before he hulks out, he should be
Speaker 1: like super wafy, like a very very wafy, boyish, like
Speaker 1: teen heartthrob kind of Irish actor. And then when he
Speaker 1: hulks out, he gets replaced by the bodybuilder. Okay, I
Speaker 1: like this so well. But maybe our Irish listeners especially,
Speaker 1: we'll have some ideas about who who could be cast
Speaker 1: in such a film. Are Irish listeners also, I'm sure
Speaker 1: we're going to get in touch with us to let
Speaker 1: us know how badly we're saying all these words. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna take a break, but when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're gonna get into the real meat
Speaker 1: of this episode. We're going to talk about the the
Speaker 1: unnatural death weapon of Ko holand we're gonna talk about, uh,
Speaker 1: the guy Bolga. Thank alright, we're back. So every hero
Speaker 1: needs a mighty weapon, and co Holand certainly had one
Speaker 1: in the guy Bolga like a weapon so mighty that
Speaker 1: it is the It is the death weapon of last resort.
Speaker 1: He only even turns to it if he's basically fighting
Speaker 1: an opponent that is on his own level. Now, it
Speaker 1: is not known exactly how to translate the term guy bulga. Right,
Speaker 1: It's translated many different ways. I think we know that
Speaker 1: guy basically means spear, right, But the bulga, there's questions
Speaker 1: about what that means. Yeah, that's correct. Guy certainly means
Speaker 1: spear or dart, But the bolga part is open to
Speaker 1: some discussion. There's a particular text that we turn to
Speaker 1: by by a writer by the name of Edward Pettit.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give you the full name of
Speaker 1: that article because it will give away what we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to in the later later portions of this episode.
Speaker 1: We will say the name of the article. We will
Speaker 1: say it and say it later. But he points out
Speaker 1: that that the guy bolga has been translated as just
Speaker 1: here's a sampling, the belly dart, the dart of belly,
Speaker 1: barbed spear, spear of bella body spear, bagged spear, spear
Speaker 1: of swelling uh, the spear of the sack, forked spear,
Speaker 1: gapped spear, solar spear, the spear of mortal pain, the
Speaker 1: evil spear, spear of the lightning god, spear of the thunderbolt.
Speaker 1: And he also adds that the bolga part has also
Speaker 1: been interpreted to perhaps refer to an inflated bladder that one.
Speaker 1: So essentially this would be a fishing spear, like one
Speaker 1: would have tethered to something that floats. Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: And then likewise it's also been potentially connected to the
Speaker 1: fair bolg Uh. These, according to to Carol Rose, the
Speaker 1: folklores that often refer to when we're talking about mythological
Speaker 1: creatures and monsters. She says that these were the mythic
Speaker 1: first inhabitants of Ireland, defeated by the Tuatha deadon and
Speaker 1: then driven into mountain caves and forests where they became
Speaker 1: loathsome monsters. So possible connection there as well. But okay,
Speaker 1: whatever bul a means, they're bellows bulge whatever. We know
Speaker 1: that there's some kind of special magic spear. So how
Speaker 1: does it work? What does it do? Well? One of
Speaker 1: one of the things is that co Holand alone knows
Speaker 1: how to really wield the weapon, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: he he is taught depends it depends on which version
Speaker 1: you're reading. He's either taught by a god or by
Speaker 1: you know, a skilled master, and he alone has mastery
Speaker 1: of the guy Bolga. But it is again, it is
Speaker 1: a spear, a weapon that you only turn to as
Speaker 1: like basically just a last resort. And also if you're
Speaker 1: just really willing to absolutely murder your opponent. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm just suddenly reminded of one of those newspaper articles
Speaker 1: from the nineteen twenties that we quoted in our death
Speaker 1: Ray episode of Invention, where the guy was like, the
Speaker 1: death ray is mine and only I can have it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was his death ray in a sense. Now, in
Speaker 1: that fantastic reading at the top of the episode, that
Speaker 1: story of from the cattle raid of Kolong. Uh. That
Speaker 1: really gives you some of the key attributes of the
Speaker 1: weapon here. So it is brought to coholand via a stream.
Speaker 1: His charity here puts it in a stream and it
Speaker 1: like floats down to him, and then it is cast
Speaker 1: by the foot, so he picks it up with his
Speaker 1: seven toed foot and casts it. Thus Lee aims it
Speaker 1: with his seven people die right and uh. And then
Speaker 1: also in that telling we see that it pierces his
Speaker 1: opponent through the anus, which is not a detail that
Speaker 1: is present in every telling of this story, but it
Speaker 1: is there. Uh. And part of it has to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that his like, you know, these are
Speaker 1: two you know, former friends, you know that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're still friends, but they're they're battling each other, and
Speaker 1: and they each have sort of magical abilities, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: So coholand alone has the mastery of this u fabulous
Speaker 1: barbed weapon. And then his opponent has his horn skin
Speaker 1: that protects most to his body but not the the anus.
Speaker 1: So you might say that Ford it has an achilles heel,
Speaker 1: and it is his anus. It's his achilles anus. So
Speaker 1: maybe instead of saying achilles heel, from now on, we
Speaker 1: should substitute for dead Zanies. It's going to be challenging
Speaker 1: to drop that into just casual conversation. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna dart Well dry Robert for the rest of my
Speaker 1: life for dead zanis. Alright. So that that that Edward
Speaker 1: pettit Um article that we mentioned earlier, and I believe
Speaker 1: this is Edward G. Pettit from the Sale University, who
Speaker 1: is apparently something of an Edgar Allan Poe expert and
Speaker 1: a monster expert I'm reading, uh teaches classes on vampire
Speaker 1: literature and so forth. But he drives home that there
Speaker 1: are several key attributes that are that are generally consistent
Speaker 1: in the various tellings here. So first of all, only
Speaker 1: Helen can wield the guy bowl Gay here he alone
Speaker 1: was taught it's it's martial art, and the teacher varies
Speaker 1: from immortal to a see god. Okay. Another thing he
Speaker 1: mentions is that it's sort of a single use weapon,
Speaker 1: right right, you get one shot. Now that being said,
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever misses with the thing, or
Speaker 1: at least I have not read the story where he
Speaker 1: busted out and misses like accidentally hits I don't know
Speaker 1: nearby bird in the an s instead right. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: it's sometimes sent to him by water, such as in
Speaker 1: our opening story there it's it is like it traveled
Speaker 1: down a stream to him, but it doesn't just appear
Speaker 1: in the context of water. He also it's like thrown
Speaker 1: from below the water. So it's also it is a
Speaker 1: fearsome weapon, so for deed or special armor in an
Speaker 1: attempt to protect himself from it. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: clearly you know when he sees that that this weapon
Speaker 1: is is coming out, uh, you know, he takes notice
Speaker 1: like it's gotten dire. It's not just a normal spirit
Speaker 1: is something that is known to be very dangerous just mechanically.
Speaker 1: And its characteristics as a weapon. Pettit says that it
Speaker 1: is quote accurate, sharp, strong, and highly penetrative. Yes, to
Speaker 1: say the least. It's also inescapable and deadly, and in
Speaker 1: later tellings it's also said to be venomous and cursed
Speaker 1: with an incurable poison that fills the body. Now, one
Speaker 1: really interesting feature about it is the idea that it
Speaker 1: is many barbed, but at first it's cast as like
Speaker 1: a single spear that is straight and thin, but that
Speaker 1: once it pierces the body. It is said to spread
Speaker 1: out its barbs so that it has to be cut
Speaker 1: out in order to be removed. You can't just pull
Speaker 1: it out, uh. And this would be kind of like
Speaker 1: the barbs on some existing spheres, like fishing spears sometimes
Speaker 1: would have barbs like this in order to make sure
Speaker 1: that the thing stays on there once you stab it.
Speaker 1: But it's not just that it's barbed, it's that there's
Speaker 1: this idea that it's sort of spreads out within the body.
Speaker 1: So like once you pierce somebody, the point and the
Speaker 1: barbs it is said spread to all of the veins
Speaker 1: or spread to all of the joints and limbs. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure exactly what it means there, except I'm
Speaker 1: sort of uh considering when you remember in our episode
Speaker 1: about missiletoe, the plant, you know, the plant parasite, it's
Speaker 1: a parasite on other plants where we talked about the
Speaker 1: idea of the house story. Um, it's this base sort
Speaker 1: of root structure for missiletoe that grows on the surface
Speaker 1: of a tree or another plant and then pierces its
Speaker 1: stem and sometimes grows down and spreads out little filaments
Speaker 1: and roots structures within the host plant. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: talked about how so this is a parasite. It's not
Speaker 1: just like a vampire sticking its fangs into you, but
Speaker 1: as if it sticks its fangs in, and sometimes the
Speaker 1: fangs like continue to grow out inside the body and
Speaker 1: fill all your blood vessels. Yeah, I think this is
Speaker 1: a great reference because I definitely get that kind of
Speaker 1: like growing barbed root like, like just rapid growth of
Speaker 1: barbs through the entire body, like a real true body
Speaker 1: horror weapon to employ here. But another way to think
Speaker 1: about that is that's just sort of like it could
Speaker 1: be a mechanical metaphor for a chemical property, the idea
Speaker 1: that you stab something and it's got venom or poison
Speaker 1: or something on it, and even though you only stab
Speaker 1: the body in one place, the poison spreads out to
Speaker 1: all the blood, right. And yeah, so there's you can
Speaker 1: make various interpretations of it, for sure. Um. It's often
Speaker 1: described as being white or bright color. Uh. And of
Speaker 1: course it's often drenched in blood in these tellings because
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to miss and when it hits, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be gory. Now, Pettit says. It's also often associated
Speaker 1: with demons, or fire or hell. It's sort of an
Speaker 1: infernal weapon, yeah, and even described as being used against
Speaker 1: actual demons in hell and later traditions apparently. And along
Speaker 1: those lines, it's also described as is sometimes is behaving
Speaker 1: in some ways like a bellows. So again, anytime we're
Speaker 1: talking about say it, say a magical weapon in mythology,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not so much talking about a single thing,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about a tradition of a thing, various
Speaker 1: tellings of a thing, and different influences who are going
Speaker 1: to become involved in sort of recolor. Uh, And you
Speaker 1: know exactly how it is described either way to shake it.
Speaker 1: It is a it is a treacherous weapon, okay, even
Speaker 1: for a mighty hero to employ. But then there's one
Speaker 1: final detail, a key detail here, and it has to
Speaker 1: do with where this weapon comes from. Because every great
Speaker 1: weapon that a mythical hero uses it has to have
Speaker 1: an origin story, right of course. And one of my
Speaker 1: favorite origin stories for for like a weapon or a
Speaker 1: piece of arm or something like that, is something that's
Speaker 1: taken from the body of a monster, like like Hercules.
Speaker 1: You know, he makes his cloak out of the Nemean lions,
Speaker 1: hard to pure skin, and in this case, we we
Speaker 1: have a weapon that is made from a sea monster,
Speaker 1: from the remains from the bones of a sea monster.
Speaker 1: Now it's described in some translations is being made from
Speaker 1: the skin of a monster from Hell, but hell, pet
Speaker 1: It says, could have been, you know, the depths of
Speaker 1: the ocean. And this is supported, he says, by later
Speaker 1: tales in which our hero Cooh Holand defeats barb tailed
Speaker 1: beasts from the ocean. Now, I think Pettit also talks
Speaker 1: about versions where it is said to come from the
Speaker 1: skull of something called like a dog head, yeah, which
Speaker 1: could be interpreted as some version of like shark or
Speaker 1: dog fish type creature, but also as in some way
Speaker 1: seen as a sea monster. Right, So at this point
Speaker 1: in the episode, I'm going to tell you what the
Speaker 1: full title of this paper is. Cool Holland's a guy
Speaker 1: Bolga from Harpoon to sting Ray Speer. That's the that's
Speaker 1: the title. So we're gonna take a quick breaking when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to get into Pettit's Stingray hypothesis. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back, all right, So here's the part of the
Speaker 1: podcast where we play a game we often like to play,
Speaker 1: which is taking a story or an object from myth
Speaker 1: and wondering like, could there be a natural world explanation
Speaker 1: for for what inspired this myth or this image or
Speaker 1: this creature from mythology? And of course this this type
Speaker 1: of game, we always like to point out, does have
Speaker 1: a weakness. It has a for Diazanus, you might say,
Speaker 1: which is that we we don't want to overlook the
Speaker 1: fact that there's lots of creative imagination involved in mythology,
Speaker 1: and you don't always have to explain the contents of
Speaker 1: a myth by pointing to something that really happened in
Speaker 1: history or really exists in nature and saying that inspired it.
Speaker 1: We don't always know that that's what happened. Maybe sometimes
Speaker 1: that happened, Maybe sometimes there's people just using their imagination.
Speaker 1: But in any case, this can be a really interesting
Speaker 1: game to play because there is no doubt that, at
Speaker 1: least in many cases, things in myths were inspired by
Speaker 1: stuff people saw in nature. And Edward Pettitt's hypothesis here
Speaker 1: is that this mighty weapon was the spine of a
Speaker 1: sting ray or at least at some point in its legacy.
Speaker 1: Uh it is interpreted as such. Stories of stingray. Barbed
Speaker 1: weapons are employed then to describe this weapon at the
Speaker 1: cohol and wheels. Yeah, and this this inspiration could go
Speaker 1: multiple ways if in fact there is such an element
Speaker 1: of this kind of inspiration in the stories. It could
Speaker 1: be that people saw a stingray spine in nature and
Speaker 1: this led to the original idea of the guy Bolga sphere.
Speaker 1: But it could also be that ideas about stingray spines
Speaker 1: colored later tellings of an existing mythical spear that was
Speaker 1: already in some stories. But let's see if there's anything
Speaker 1: to this idea and start by looking at what's the stingray. So,
Speaker 1: a stingray is a type of ray and raise or
Speaker 1: cartilaginous fish cousins of sharks. This this family of sharks
Speaker 1: and rays, they're called the Elasma bronx. Their fish with
Speaker 1: skeletons made of cartilage instead of bone. It's the same
Speaker 1: bendy stuff you've gotten your ears. And the super order
Speaker 1: of rays is batoy dea uh. Stingrays in particular are
Speaker 1: found in the suborder of rays known as my leo battaforms. Now,
Speaker 1: like other raised stingrays kind of have a flattened body
Speaker 1: and a large somewhat rounded pectoral set of fins that
Speaker 1: are fully fused with the head in the body, and
Speaker 1: this makes them sort of rounded off like a pancake fish. Often,
Speaker 1: sting rays tend to swim by sort of undulating their
Speaker 1: their their wide pectoral fins sort of just like waves
Speaker 1: rather than flapping like wings, and stingrays in particular tend
Speaker 1: to have flat bodies that blend in with the seafloor.
Speaker 1: Often they're camouflaged, uh, and that's because they spend most
Speaker 1: of their time on the seafloor hiding out, often partially
Speaker 1: buried in sediment. You'll sometimes see stingrays like down down
Speaker 1: in the sediment with like sand piled on top of
Speaker 1: their little wings. And some researchers believe that their eyes
Speaker 1: are poorly placed for hunting, given that their body is
Speaker 1: this sort of flat disc shape and their mouths are
Speaker 1: down on the bottom and their eyes are up on
Speaker 1: the top. But that's okay because they don't need to
Speaker 1: rely entirely on their eyes for hunting. Like sharks, stingrays
Speaker 1: have organs that are known as the ampullae of Lorenzini,
Speaker 1: and these are small pores in the skin that can
Speaker 1: detect electric fields in the water, And of course all
Speaker 1: animals generate electric fields in the water, especially when the
Speaker 1: contract their muscles. So if there is a prey animal
Speaker 1: out there swimming, moving around, or even just with a
Speaker 1: beating heart, you can probably sense some kind of electric
Speaker 1: voltage difference that it is causing in the water with
Speaker 1: your ambulae of Lorenzini. But they've also got a magnificent spine,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're going to be focusing on today.
Speaker 1: The stingray has a spine with venom, sometimes deadly venom
Speaker 1: that can in some cases kill humans. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: sting rays very rarely attack or kill humans. They are
Speaker 1: not considered aggressive at all. That generally, if there's an
Speaker 1: incident between humans and stingrays, it's defensive because the human
Speaker 1: like stepped on the stingray or loomed over it, right,
Speaker 1: And the latter seems to have probably been the case.
Speaker 1: With the most famous case in recent history of a
Speaker 1: sting ray related death out of the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was sad. Yeah, yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: tragic case two thousand six, uh, and he died after
Speaker 1: he sustain a numerous stabs from an eight foot wide stingray.
Speaker 1: He was in shallow water. Um, he was. He was
Speaker 1: in close proximity to the creature they were filming. And
Speaker 1: the theory I read is that the ray might have
Speaker 1: thought Irwin's shadow was a tiger shark and the shallow
Speaker 1: water there, and then it reportedly stabbed him hundreds of
Speaker 1: times and one of the stabs pierced his heart and
Speaker 1: then he bled to death. Yeah, that's it's a sad story.
Speaker 1: But it's not the only time that the people have
Speaker 1: actually been killed by stingray spines there that they can, um,
Speaker 1: they cause I mean severe just direct trauma, like can
Speaker 1: pierce the skin and cause a lot of bleeding. But
Speaker 1: they also in many cases do have very powerful venom.
Speaker 1: So but I think it is worth noting like, given
Speaker 1: especially that this case occurred in shallow water, that it's
Speaker 1: not unbelievable that medieval or even older people would as
Speaker 1: certainly people that that made their their livelihoods at the
Speaker 1: seaside would have encountered and even encounter entered fatally uh
Speaker 1: sting rays at some point or another. No, it's not
Speaker 1: unlikely at all, And in fact, we know for a
Speaker 1: fact that the ancient people that ancient people. You know,
Speaker 1: long before the medieval Irish myths. Ancient people's knew about stingrays,
Speaker 1: and they knew about the venom on their spines, and
Speaker 1: they knew some things about how these spined uh spears worked.
Speaker 1: In fact, stingray spine tipped spears already exist in ancient
Speaker 1: hero myths. Do you know this? I was not aware
Speaker 1: of this. So you know the story the Greek myth
Speaker 1: of Odysseus Uh. This is told in in the Odyssey.
Speaker 1: For example, Odysseus and the witch Searcy had a son
Speaker 1: named Teleganus Uh. And remember, of course, the story of
Speaker 1: how Odysseus and Cercy got together is that while Odysseus
Speaker 1: is on his way home, he ends up at the
Speaker 1: manner of Searcy, and Cearcy is this witch sorceress figure
Speaker 1: who turns all of Odysseus's men into swine, but Odysseus
Speaker 1: saves them with the help of the gods, and then
Speaker 1: he ends up essentially being Sarcey's living boyfriend for a while. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, while while his wife Penelope is home being
Speaker 1: very dutiful and waiting on him, he's like shacking up
Speaker 1: with Searcy. So as usual, Odysseus is kind of a jerk.
Speaker 1: But uh so he's doing that. And while he's there,
Speaker 1: he apparently he has a son with Searcy, and this
Speaker 1: son's name is Teleganus. But of course, eventually Odysseus has
Speaker 1: to get home to his home of Ithaca, his wife Penelope,
Speaker 1: and his son Telemachus. And so here is a passage
Speaker 1: from Fraser's translation English translation of a passage from Apollodorus quote.
Speaker 1: When Teleganus learned from Searcy that he was a son
Speaker 1: of Ulysses, who is also that's another name for Odysseus,
Speaker 1: he sailed in search of him, and having come to
Speaker 1: the island of Ithaca, he drove away some of the cattle,
Speaker 1: and when Ulysses defended them, Teleganus wounded him with the
Speaker 1: spear he had in his hands, which was barbed with
Speaker 1: the spine of a stingray, and Ulysses died of the wound.
Speaker 1: A Pettant in his article also quotes a second century
Speaker 1: Greek text on fishing by an author named Oppien, which
Speaker 1: tells another version of this story. And I'll read this
Speaker 1: quote as well. While the stingray lives a terrible and
Speaker 1: fiery weapon attends it such i ween as a man
Speaker 1: trembles to hear of. And it lives when the stingray
Speaker 1: itself has perished, and preserves its unwearied strength unchanged. And
Speaker 1: not only on the living creatures which it strikes does
Speaker 1: it belch mysterious bain, but it hurts even tree and rock,
Speaker 1: and wherever it comes nigh. That sting it was, which
Speaker 1: his mother Circe, skilled in many drugs, gave of old
Speaker 1: to let to telegan Us for his long hilted spear,
Speaker 1: that he might array his foes death from the sea.
Speaker 1: And he beached his ship on the island that pastured goats,
Speaker 1: And he knew not that he was harrying the flocks
Speaker 1: of his own father, and on his aged sire, who
Speaker 1: came to the rescue, even on him whom he was seeking,
Speaker 1: he brought an evil fate. There, the cunning Odysseus, who
Speaker 1: had passed through countless woes of the sea in his
Speaker 1: laborious adventures, the grievous stingray slew with one blow. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of combining, uh weirdly enough, like the like
Speaker 1: the Odysseus tradition and sort of the Oedipus tradition, right,
Speaker 1: like accidentally coming across and killing your own father. Well, um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting too to bring it back to Kohland. But
Speaker 1: believe they're in the part of the story there is
Speaker 1: the Kohland ends up accidentally killing his own son with
Speaker 1: the guy Bolga at one point, like he does not
Speaker 1: know that it's his son and ends up engaging in
Speaker 1: combat with him. Well, yeah, Pettit seems to notice some
Speaker 1: pretty strong similarities between these myths, and so he's I
Speaker 1: think this is one reason he has for wondering if
Speaker 1: the idea of the stingray is actually incorporated into the
Speaker 1: guy Bulga legend. Uh hell. Pettit also mentions that some
Speaker 1: sources claim Cercy had the stingray tipped spear made by
Speaker 1: the Greek forge god have faced us out of a
Speaker 1: spine stolen from a stingray by the sea god forced this,
Speaker 1: And of course we know that the guy Bolga was made,
Speaker 1: at least in some tellings, from the body of some
Speaker 1: kind of sea monster or sea creature, right, and in
Speaker 1: some tellings the art of the guy Boga is instructed
Speaker 1: to Kohland by a god of the sea. But just
Speaker 1: as further evidence of what the ancients knew or thought
Speaker 1: they knew about stingray spines. Look, why not have a
Speaker 1: look at our old friend Plenty of the elder as well.
Speaker 1: There's a pet Pettit points to this passage quote. But
Speaker 1: there is nothing in the world more execrable than the
Speaker 1: sting projecting above the tail of the stingray, which are
Speaker 1: people called the pastanaka. It is five inches long and
Speaker 1: kills trees when driven into the root. That's sort of
Speaker 1: like what Opien said right there. It kills not just animals,
Speaker 1: but like trees and stones. I don't know how you
Speaker 1: kill a stone, um, But a Plenty continues and penetrates
Speaker 1: armor like a missile, with the force of steel and
Speaker 1: with deadly poison. So Pettits sees really strong parallels between
Speaker 1: the myths of Kohland and telegan Us, and sees some
Speaker 1: of these parallels between what was understood by the ancients
Speaker 1: about the stingray spine and the myth of the guy Bolga.
Speaker 1: The guy bolga is said to come from the water.
Speaker 1: It gets thrown from under the water. It's associated with
Speaker 1: shallow water. Sometimes it's said to be made from the
Speaker 1: body or skull of some type of sea monster. And
Speaker 1: of course it is true that sting rays can be
Speaker 1: found in the coastal waters of Ireland and they can
Speaker 1: grow to quite a monstrous size and like the underside
Speaker 1: of them, Pettit points out, can resemble a grinning or
Speaker 1: grimacing face. That's true that certainly if you've ever been
Speaker 1: to an aquarium, you know they if they come up
Speaker 1: to the glass. Uh, you see what looks like a
Speaker 1: face there, but the eyes are on the other side, obviously,
Speaker 1: and crucially the one of the issues here is that
Speaker 1: a stingray spine is not like the fang of a
Speaker 1: snake or something, which, once removed, is just like a
Speaker 1: piece of tooth, you know, there's nothing to it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The ancients understood that a stingray spine could remain deadly
Speaker 1: for some time after the ray was dead, or after
Speaker 1: it's removed from the ray, so maybe maybe some like
Speaker 1: forty eight hours afterwards, So detaching it from the ray
Speaker 1: and attaching it to a weapon wouldn't immediately render it harmless.
Speaker 1: It could still have, of course the normal like piercing potential,
Speaker 1: but the venom as well. Uh. Now this is interesting
Speaker 1: because that that epic battle that Koholand has with third.
Speaker 1: It's supposedly rages for three days before they finally reached
Speaker 1: the point where ko Holand calls for the guy bolga Um.
Speaker 1: So he couldn't just based on this sort of forty
Speaker 1: eight hour rule is like a rough guideline for utilizing
Speaker 1: a magical sting ray weapon in battle, Like, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to bring that to the field with him.
Speaker 1: Thus he has to call on his charioteer to send
Speaker 1: it down the water to him, and then he can, uh,
Speaker 1: he can fetch it with his fabulous seven towed foot
Speaker 1: and fling it up the anus of his opponent. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I I don't know if Pettit's right about this connection.
Speaker 1: I mean he he also he adduces a lot of
Speaker 1: evidence that we didn't even have time to get into
Speaker 1: a so, stuff about like the minut chef, the translation
Speaker 1: of the word bolga and how that could point to
Speaker 1: stingrays and stuff like that. But I'll be sure to
Speaker 1: link to the entire article on the Landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: So anybody who wants to really dive into the evidence
Speaker 1: there and risk getting stung, you'll be able to do so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if he's correct about this, but
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting case and another wonderful example of
Speaker 1: bio mythology. Yeah. I love the way that myth and
Speaker 1: legend traditions present us with these little mysteries, like that
Speaker 1: they can be these little puzzle boxes because of the
Speaker 1: odd characteristics of elements within them, you know, like the
Speaker 1: idea of the spear being thrown through the seven toed
Speaker 1: foot from under the water into the anus and you
Speaker 1: just wonder like, Okay, is this just weird just because
Speaker 1: it's weird, or does all this weird disappoint to something?
Speaker 1: Is there something I'm missing? Yeah? Or to what extent
Speaker 1: are we dealing with errors and translation? Uh? You know
Speaker 1: things that should be a notable um you know, metaphor symbol,
Speaker 1: but out of context just sounds like something just really
Speaker 1: whack adoodle looking. Uh. These are always questions one has
Speaker 1: to ask. But that being said, I feel like you
Speaker 1: can always just embrace just the raw alien nature of
Speaker 1: the myth you're presented with two and just to enjoy
Speaker 1: it on that level as well. Yeah. Nothing nothing more
Speaker 1: fun than a really impractical weapon. Yes. Uh, speaking of
Speaker 1: which I have to say, as a fan, a longtime
Speaker 1: fan of the Mortal Kombat games, you know they put
Speaker 1: on somebody have a Guy Balla in there. No, but
Speaker 1: they should, like one of the things that you have
Speaker 1: in these games, especially today, increasingly overly complicated fatalities where
Speaker 1: you know, one fighter finishes off the other one by
Speaker 1: doing something just predict you know, like not only slicing
Speaker 1: off their head, but then slicing the head in half,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But really, when you look at
Speaker 1: the story of the Guy Bolga, they've got nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: like the Irish mythology has has has all the Mortal
Speaker 1: Kombat you need. I'd like to see Raid in versus Kohlan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they could put him in there, make him, make him
Speaker 1: a downloadable character. Wait, they have started crossing genres, haven't they.
Speaker 1: I think I said, I don't play the Mortal Kombat
Speaker 1: games anymore, but I feel like I saw that they're
Speaker 1: They've got like Aliens and Jason Vorhees and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've definitely brought in characters from other franchises, but but
Speaker 1: I don't think they've brought in any I don't know
Speaker 1: if they brought in any additional mythological figures they should.
Speaker 1: I mean they already played with a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: So um. Now, one additional question I had based on
Speaker 1: all of this, is all right with the with the
Speaker 1: guy Bolga, you have a kind of impractical weapon that
Speaker 1: is also sure fire like it is gonna end the
Speaker 1: fight if you ever actually pull it out, But yet
Speaker 1: he'll ko holand will wait three days to actually do it.
Speaker 1: Do we have other examples in our fiction and other
Speaker 1: myths where you have this this this sure shot weapon
Speaker 1: that for some reason your heroes never actually produced until
Speaker 1: the last minute. I feel like that happens a lot,
Speaker 1: But I'm struggling to think of an example right now.
Speaker 1: The only one that really came to mind recently was
Speaker 1: in the original Pacific Rim film. Like the Big Robots,
Speaker 1: the what do they call the the the the agers,
Speaker 1: they're they're beat down there on the point of being
Speaker 1: defeated by the giant Kaiju monsters, and then only then
Speaker 1: do they start using these big swords that pop out
Speaker 1: of their their limbs and just completely decimate the the
Speaker 1: creatures that they're battling. Oh, I know an example. You
Speaker 1: remember the Mighty morphin Power Rangers. How like they would
Speaker 1: have to keep when they faced a more powerful monster,
Speaker 1: they'd have to keep like upgrading to like the next
Speaker 1: level of robots. And you always wondered, like, why don't
Speaker 1: they just go to the top level of robots every
Speaker 1: time so they instantly defeat their opponent no matter Why? Yeah,
Speaker 1: why why isn't that your first move to go and
Speaker 1: do exactly instead of destroying half a city battling the
Speaker 1: the monster for sure? Yeah, or for instance, Voltron is
Speaker 1: another example, Like I feel like they would try and
Speaker 1: battle whatever the ro beast or the threat of the
Speaker 1: week happened to be with just the lions, and then
Speaker 1: they're like, I guess we need to form Voltron to
Speaker 1: actually deal with this scenario. Just go ahead and form Voltron.
Speaker 1: That's exactly the same thing as the Power Rangers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first they'd fight it hand to hand, and then it
Speaker 1: would get big magic wand make my monster grow it
Speaker 1: get big, and then they'd form a bigger robot. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they'd fight it and then they'd have it
Speaker 1: would get bigger again or something, and then they'd have
Speaker 1: to do another thing. They'd have to go to the
Speaker 1: like the final robot level. Well, and I guess maybe
Speaker 1: in all of this, there is a certain amount of
Speaker 1: like martial arts storytelling, like like I I am reminded
Speaker 1: in professional wrestling, for instance, especially in like the Japanese
Speaker 1: of varieties. Uh. They'll be like a super finisher that
Speaker 1: an individual has, like a move that they rarely bust
Speaker 1: out because it's like too dangerous. But if the matches
Speaker 1: is you know, goes on long enough and there are
Speaker 1: other finishers haven't worked, then they will turn into uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to something like that. You know, the like
Speaker 1: the gonzo bomb, you know something that is that the
Speaker 1: kind of the equivalent of the Guy Bolga. What is
Speaker 1: the Gonzo bomb? It's this guy named uh Kawata would
Speaker 1: use it and it's like a power bomb where he
Speaker 1: just drops you right on your neck. Um, you know.
Speaker 1: Brutal movie only busted it out like a few times,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of like his his super move,
Speaker 1: his super form that he would assume. And so I
Speaker 1: guess it makes sense from a storytelling point of view,
Speaker 1: if you're you're telling the story of epic mythic combatants
Speaker 1: going at each other, that there would be this one
Speaker 1: move beyond that they might turn to. And in the
Speaker 1: case of the Guy Bolga, it's not a pleasant weapon.
Speaker 1: It's a treacherous weapon. It's kind of like your hero
Speaker 1: cheating a little bit at the very end out of desperation. Well,
Speaker 1: they had to cheat to defeat him in the end too,
Speaker 1: that's true. So yeah, though I guess he did that.
Speaker 1: I guess it's the opposite order, but but still, yeah,
Speaker 1: some treachery ends up being employed. Uh, even on the
Speaker 1: mythic battlefield. This is the new version of the han shot.
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