WEBVTT - The Great Flood 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:15.600 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.960 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Seger. So, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.000 no matter what culture you come from, you've probably heard 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.560 of the Great flood myth. Right, Yeah, it seems to 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.400 be a common trope. Just no matter what culture you 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.519 come from, there's some tale about floods, and often they're 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:37.360 catastrophic in nature. Yeah, exactly, they cleansy earth and re 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.600 rebirth everything, right. And Uh, in my situation, I remember 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.120 like being a kid, and I think my parents maybe 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.800 or maybe some other relatives gave me like an illustrated version, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.280 like a kid's version of the Bible, and it had 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.720 like the Noah's Ark story in it. Uh. And now 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.960 nowadays we have like Darren Aronofsky's Noah movie, which I 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:57.240 haven't seen. You, I have not seen it either. I've 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.480 heard there's like some crazy stuff going on with like 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.040 my Suster design and stuff like that. Yeah. I think 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.959 they somehow worked the Nephelim into the story, so it 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:07.640 sounds interesting. I don't know why I haven't gone around 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.920 to seeing it, but it's everywhere. It's in our pop culture. 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.319 It's in our religion, it's in our kids books. And 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.280 that's not just here in America, right, it's uh, in 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.319 multiple cultures, as we're going to talk about today. Yeah, 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.720 I mean it is pretty inescapable in Western culture, if 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:26.000 for no other purpose reason than of all the Christian 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.240 stories and Old Testament stories and you know, pretty much 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.200 any stories in the Abrahamic tradition, Like that's the one 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:37.280 that that little Children connected because it's got animals in it. 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.440 It's less a story about people. It's a story about 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.120 all these cool animals. And if they're more into vehicles, 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.160 it's got a big bode in it. And I was 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.840 just the other day that there's a guy. Have you 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.280 heard this story? You know, we probably should have pulled 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.720 this for this episode. Are you talking about the museum? Yeah, 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.640 that's been Yeah. Yeah, this guy who's rebuilding his own 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:00.000 version of the Ark basically, but it's Kentucky. It's yeah, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.520 somewhere in the Midwest, I want to say. But anyway, Yeah, 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.600 there's a guy who's like actually putting plans together to 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.639 build an arcs an ARC museum with actual live animals 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.440 in it. Okay too, of two of every kind. I 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:14.800 don't think they're going to be able to do that. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.440 And seven of all the clean animals. That's a detail. 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.079 It's often overlooked. If I remember correctly, I think it's like, 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.440 you know, the animals that will be there, basically like 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.919 the kind of animals you'd find like a petting zoo. Okay, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:27.799 well he needs I think seven of each of them, 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.880 because yeah, if I remember correctly, you gotta have you 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.559 gotta have ones for the like the stock and of replenishing. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.400 You have them from sacrifice, sacrifice and of course to 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.480 the eating problems. And you certainly go to zoos a 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.919 lot more than I do, so and and and petting 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.880 zoos at that right, Bastion, Robert's son is very into animals. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.320 But but he's certainly has been into the Noah's Arc 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.679 stories like that. He's acquired a couple of books about it. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.480 And and I remember as a kid, you know, thinking 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.880 about this story as I read it, looking at these pictures. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.639 They are all these wonderful picture, sometimes horrific pictures of 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.240 the flooding, and you you can't help but wondering how 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.040 would that work? How? How does is it possible that 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.880 an enormous flood could sweep across the entire world, didn't 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.120 without even getting into the questions of repopulating the earth 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.360 with this arc. Yeah, yeah, I you know, it's weird, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.639 is and maybe this shows what a morbid kid I am. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.079 But like I felt, like, you know, a lot of 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.240 other kids or maybe in Sunday school or whatever, they 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.320 would talk about this, and the focus would be on like, look, 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.079 how cool this is. This guy built this boat and 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.200 there's all these funny animals on it, and then they 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:32.760 have a happy ending, and I'm like, what is this 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.880 denon of iniquity that they're talking about? All these like 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.120 they kept talking about all the centers that needed to 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.400 be watched away, and I didn't quite know what they meant. 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.480 I mean, now, like you look at it, it's pretty obvious, 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.360 like they're talking about prostitution and and uh, infidelity and 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.920 all kinds of things. Gambling I think is in there too, right, 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.400 But at the time they just are drawn as like 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.520 kind of like evil like scheming people, and and so 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.320 I was like, how does this how does this work out? 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.200 This flood that's so huge that it kills everybody on 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.120 Earth because Earth is a pretty big place. That's the 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.840 that's the weird, like, um, cognitive dissonance. You have your 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:12.920 child in present day. You know, the Earth is a 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.560 pretty big place, but you're trying to imagine, how does 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.360 this flood work that's able to kill everybody except for 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.080 Noah and his family and these animals on the boat. Yeah. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.000 So we have a pretty thought provoking myth here, and 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.880 a very pervasive myth, and we were not gonna so 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:28.800 this episode is gonna gonna look at some of these 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.480 these global flood myths and they we're gonna look at 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.320 the the actual possible science behind the flood itself. Were 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.160 there's a lot of research, lots of research into this. 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:39.800 Now we are not going to get into a lot 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.040 of the specifics of supposed arc construction. We're not going 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.200 to get into a lot of of you know, creation 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.360 as we're talking about how the Ark was built. Yeah. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.640 But but but instead we're gonna we're gonna focus on 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:53.840 the myth. We're gonna focus on what we really know 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.800 about massive floods and how some of these floods may 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:02.800 have informed, um, you know, this cultural legacy of catastrophic flooding. Yeah, absolutely, 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.720 there is. I mean, I think it's safe to say 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:09.840 almost an entire discipline of geology that's based around looking at, 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:15.400 not confirming whether flood myths actually happened. But you know 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.280 the history of water impact floods in particular on regions, 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.039 and how you can track those back in it. It's fascinating, 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.240 especially the core sample stuffinite we're gonna talk about with 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.960 the Baltic Sea. Yeah, alright, so let's sell Let's kick 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.840 things off with just an overview of the the the 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.920 big flood myth in uh in Western civilization, uh, that 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.280 of Noah. Okay. So basically this is a staple of 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.880 Abrahamic religion. So you find this in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.040 and any various uh sub brand that has a spun 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.800 off from those big three. So in this story, in 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:57.160 this yeah, Aaronovskyism. In this myth, uh, Noah is an 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:01.200 antediluvian human, Okay. So he's very much a resident of 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.920 a mythical time. According to the Book of Genesis, he's 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.279 over five hundred years old before any of this flood 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.040 business even gets going. I forgot about that six hundred 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:10.840 when the flood comes down, and he lives to a 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.040 rife old age of nine fifty years old. So given 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:15.880 the other myths that we're gonna talk about today. I'm 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.760 going to speculate that that has to do with the 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.000 idea of him being a wise man, right, and so 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.120 wisdom seem to have been measured in years lived back then. Well, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.400 and it's also just like supposedly humans live longer before 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.120 to flood. There's this this idea. It's kind of like 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.720 a superhuman mythical age. Yeah, you know, think of it 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.200 as it's kind of like the the elves before humans. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.440 Yeah yeah, oh yeah, that's a really good and elves 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.480 are supposed to be super wise too. There you go. 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:46.120 So no is doing all right in the eyes of 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.800 God in the scenario, okay, he but the rest of 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.520 the humanity is destroying the earth with her wickedness. So 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.520 God decides to destroy humans with the earth to quote 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.680 destroy all flesh. So it plans to flood everything, but 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.200 he wants to safeguard certain aspects of his crea ation, 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.560 so he gives Noah detailed instructions for a massive arc 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.880 made of gopher wood, which has nothing to do with 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.120 real with actual gophers. Um, probably a lost forgotten tree 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.760 species or lamentation. Uh process. There's been a lot of 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:15.720 back and forth on the arc would be very different 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.600 if it was just made of gophers. Uh, So he 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.320 makes a covenant. God makes a covenant with Noah his family, 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.000 two of every animal, seven of the clean ones food, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.080 and they're going to ride out the flood. And then 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.840 the arc winds up touching down on Mount Ararat at 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.360 the end of all this, and then Noah and his 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:36.560 animals and his family they disembarked to rebuild a ruined world. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.000 And then Noah also planted a vine vineyard and had 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.080 himself a stiff drink, which I think was well deserved. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.520 he worked for it. So I I don't know about you, 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.480 but I definitely had this idea in my like maybe 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.120 teens early twenties where I was like, a great sci 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:57.040 fi movie would be like the Bible is actually a 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.200 prophecy and Noah's ark hasn't happened yet, and so this 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.200 like a sci fi version of this would be like 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.440 the floods are coming and you have to build the arc, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.920 And I'm sure there's got to be a movie out there, right, Well, 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.920 I know there's been lots of like space arc that 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.960 have played out. Um. I remember there being an episode 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.520 of the Old Avengers TV show with a Noah's Ark plotline. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:22.120 But really, do you mean like with Stephen Peel. Yeah, wow, Okay, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.679 I didn't know that. That's interesting why I can't remember 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.200 the details on that one. But this is definitely something 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.760 that like we're fascinated with as a culture, whether you're 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.960 religious or not. This this idea of this flood myth, uh, 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.720 flood coming down and wiping the earth clean and then 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.240 creating something in its wake, and we see it also 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.600 in Sumerian myth And in fact, there's an idea here 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:45.959 that this story that I'm about to tell you is 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.959 actually the origin of the Noah story. That this is 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.480 five thousand years old, maybe older than the other flood myths, 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.640 and it might be where some of them came from. Yeah, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.160 this one ties into like our our earliest written accounts. Yeah, 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.680 and this guy, uh, this is primarily about his Unless 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.600 anybody out there speaks ancient Sumerian, I'm going to guess 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.520 that it's out and a pisht um uh. And but 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.599 it's the epic of Gilgamesh that this story comes out of. 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.440 And I'm only familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh because 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.000 Gilgamesh is a Marvel Comics character. Yeah, like many Marvel 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.200 Comics characters. Uh, they just seem to have plucked characters 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.120 out of religion and mythology around the world like thor 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.240 uh and made them into superheroes that exist in present day. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.480 So I remember Gilgamesh from being in The Avengers in 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.640 the like late eighties or something like that. Um, but 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.520 he's supposed to be the same Gilgamesh that we're gonna 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:44.199 talk about here. So the Sumerian poem myths that Gilgamesh 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.920 appeared in date back as early as twenty one hundred BC. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.400 They've been passed down through other cultures. So what we 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:53.120 you know, we might present you here you may be 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.880 familiar with from other cultures. It's just a little bit different. 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.959 There's so many different iterations of these. This is just 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.359 the eleventh heart of the whole like epic of Gilgamesh, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.280 Uh basically goes like this. Gilgamesh was the king of 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.199 a place called Iraq, and he was two thirds God, 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.280 one third man. Sounds like an awesome superhero origin story, 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.480 Like he's already even better than half God half Yeah, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:19.880 Like he had three parents, um, and uh, the elders 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.000 of the city though even though he was their king, 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.040 they didn't think he was wise enough yet to be 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.600 a good king. Uh, So they sent a quote wild 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.560 man of the step named in key Do to fight 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.679 him and teach him humility. Brief aside for a second, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:37.959 do you remember when Lost was on TV and there 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.480 was this whole like side thread about how people thought 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.280 that it was a mirror story of in Kid and Gilgamesh. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.600 There would read it. Yeah, some people out there might 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.679 be familiar with us, but there was this whole thing 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.160 that they thought that, like the writers have Lost were 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:58.200 somehow incorporating this myth into the show. Okay, So anyways, 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.840 in Keydo and Gilgamesh fight because superheroes, right at least 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.520 back then they're they're mythic superheroes. They fight to a standstill, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:11.200 but Gilgamesh wins and he in keito. Then they become 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.640 best friends because they respect each other so much are 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.760 the only ones who can basically like fight each other 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.760 as well. So this is like the the original two 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.959 heroes bad duking it out coming to mutual respect. Yeah, exactly. Uh, 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.840 And it's kind of like in They Live when Roddy 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:32.000 Roddy Piper and David fight. Anyway, uh. They So they 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.120 go on a bunch of adventures together, as you do. 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.160 And that's, you know, a huge part of the epic 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:41.160 of Gilgamesh, all those stories, in those stories in Keto 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.520 eventually dies. I think it's of a disease that he dies. 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.520 So Gilgamesh is upset that his friend is dead, and he's, 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.280 you know, as most people do when they're faced with death, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:54.400 wants to become immortal. So he goes in search of immortality, 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.040 and he goes looking for this guy named Pished him. 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.600 Now this him is gonna sound familiar to you. He's 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.400 the only man who survived the great flood that killed 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.199 everybody before him. He goes through a Now this is 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.040 Gilgamesh I'm talking about here. Gilgamesh goes through all these 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.040 trials wearing lion skins to meet this immortal person, and 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:15.920 I'm not gonna go through all of them here. When 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.720 he gets there, him basically explains to him, look, nothing 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.240 has permanence. You don't want to be immortal. But then 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.880 he still tells his story. He's like, Okay, here's how 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.640 he became immortal. The ruler of the gods, who was 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.439 named end Lil, sent a flood to destroy humanity. But 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.079 the god Ea instructed pished him to build an arc 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.600 and put quote the seed of everything in it. Then 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.120 when the flood came, it was so horrible that the 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.880 gods themselves were just like really upset. It was. They 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.160 were watching just like utter violence, and they they couldn't 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.000 take it. So and Leal said, okay, how about this 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.840 as a consolation prize, anybody who lived through the flood 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.400 gets to be immortal. I'll give them everlasting life. So 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.360 this is Utna pished him and his wife. They're now immortal, 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.400 Gilgamesh is. They're hanging out with them now. It's like 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.640 like as if there were a class action lawsuit. And 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.559 this was like, alright, we realize we're not going to 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.880 admit fault, but we realized that the flood had some 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.920 disastrous consequences. Survivors get immortality, and then we're done with it. 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.640 Counterst So, but this isn't the end of the story. 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.360 Used him says to Gilgamesh, look, you really want to 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.120 be immortal that bad? All right, Let's start off. You 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.760 need to not sleep for six days and seven nights. 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:37.559 And Gilgamesh immediately falls asleep and he wakes up seven 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.720 days later, like he sleeps for seven days straight, uh, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.160 and you know he There's some variations on what goes 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.160 on between him and Utna pished him and and his wife, 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.439 but basically Gilgamesh returns back to the city as a 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.360 wiser man, and he's now wearing an everlasting elder's robe. 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.600 He's learned his lesson. Now he's ready to be king. Right, 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.240 He's learned that not all things are permanent. He's had 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.160 all these adventures with his friend and he's learned from 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.520 the world. But this is thought to be connected to 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.679 the Noah's Ark myth because they're very similar, obviously, but 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.400 we we don't get the sequel to Noah's Ark like 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.520 we do here though they I don't remember any stories 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.360 of like here's what happened to Noah afterward? Yeah, well 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.280 it ends up, yeah, becoming part of the part of 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.080 a larger story, right, it becomes it becomes because it's 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.640 moving into the existing mythos. Yeah, as kids who sort 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.760 of carry the torch afterward. Right. But it's interesting to 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.400 think of this too as as that the proto flood story, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:38.680 because you have to remember this, this this is the 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.080 earliest account we have and it's from a portion of 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.200 the world where we see civilization really begin to spin 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.360 and take off, we see agriculture spinning and taking off. 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.520 So there's this I in this region. Oh yeah, so 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.800 there's this idea that this becomes just part of global 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.800 cultural DNA. Yeah yeah, And in fact, like here's the 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:00.920 thing that we're going to find doubt And our next 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:05.160 example will even prove this that these myths don't all 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.600 pop up out of that one Mesopotamian area. Right there's 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.320 myths from the Pacific Northwest. There's myths from Japan, there's 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.240 myths from Norse mythology, and right now we're gonna give 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.960 you one from India. Yes, so this one is uh 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:24.000 the story of Manhu and Uh and and they experts 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:26.280 are kind of torn on this. Somethings think that this 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.200 may have arisen independently, or that it might have ties 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.800 to to other tales essentially dating back to the the 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.240 epic of Gilgamesh. But like it might have traveled. Yeah, 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.320 either it traveled, but also it could have it could 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.320 have risen up independently because you know, as we'll discussed 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.920 like flooding as a universal event, like like it's not 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.320 like didn't just happen in that way. It's not like 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.360 it's not like a flood happened, and someone said, whoa 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.720 flooding is possible, here's a great story about it. No, 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.800 So this one involves a man by the name of 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.160 Man Who. He's the first human. He's out good good 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.760 name for a first human. He's he's out fishing, and 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.400 he ends up talking to a fish. This great fish 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.640 comes to him, speaks to him and says, hey, big 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.760 flood's coming. You need to build a ship, and he agrees. 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.560 The waters begin to rise, so he tethers the ship 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.880 to the great horn of this fish. So it's like 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.360 a kind of rides the fish out. Yeah. Yeah, the 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.560 fish carries him along. Fish carries him over the northern 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.640 mountains and then has him buying the ship to a tree, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.960 and then the waters all abait and man who offers 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.960 an offering of gee, sour milk away and curage to 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.320 the water. And a year later a woman is born 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.280 and she comes to to Man Who and tells him 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.280 to use her in a sacrifice, and this resulted in 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:48.400 their offspring. Wait, wait, so is this a human sacrifice 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:50.360 that results in an offspring or it's a different kind 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.400 of sacrifice. Um, it's unclear. It's a little unclear. Um, 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.280 we see, we see this in another myth. We're gonna 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.080 discuss two where like the the idea of the flood 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:07.520 not only as apocalypse but new beginning definitely a rebirth thing. Yeah, 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.840 that makes sense that they would introduce this sort of 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.440 mother figure. Yeah. Yeah, so it's it's a survival story, 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.320 but it's also a second creation story. And this story 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:22.719 gets more involved as traditions build up, like everything in Hinduism. Uh. 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.520 It leads to the establishment of Vishnu's fish Avatar matt 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.640 Sayah and the flood motif is also important in Tamil literature, 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.600 involving at least two different flood myths, one of creation 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.840 one of survival. Uh. And it you know, continues to 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.760 spiral out from there. This is another key point here, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.760 and this was discussed in The Flood Myth, which is 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.600 a book by Alan Dundee's that like a lot of 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.359 these stories, humanity survives the calamity and then almost almost 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.000 immediately faces a new threat to something we see in 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.560 in Noah and and Beyond. Uh So. Yeah, so now 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.240 we have the the Indian, the Hindu interpretation and of 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.560 a great flood. So we've got another version of this 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.160 all the way on the other side of the world 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:11.840 in Norris mythology. Uh. And again, like like with all 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.639 of these, there's various iterations. And again there are characters 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.639 here that Marvel comics is appropriated on their own. Uh. 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:23.160 Anybody who's read Thor comics or seen Thor movies because 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.560 those are a thing now, which is it's weird to me, 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.240 uh is familiar with Odin and Thor and the Norris 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.680 mythology stuff that that comes out of that. But this 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.399 is the Norris myth of the ice giant mm Er. 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:37.160 And I think I'm saying that right. That's how I've 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.000 always said since I was a kid, because Yemmer was 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:43.119 like he was like the biggest, baddest monster in the 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.159 Marvel universe. I don't know, Well, there's the ice one Yimmer, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.800 and then there's Surtur and he's the fire demon. So 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.000 there's these two and various versions. And that's actually important. 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.600 Although I don't know if Surtur actually comes from the 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.360 myth he might just be a creation of like Stanley 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.160 and jack Erba of the ice chience. We actually see 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.040 those in that first storm. Yeah. Yeah, and they are 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.880 supposedly the children of Yemmer. So um. There again, there's 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:09.600 tons of iterations on this, so if you're like a 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.840 Norse mythology expert, my apologies, but this is basically like 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.560 the boiled down summary version. Humor is this primordial being. 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.000 This is the most metal story ever too. I was 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.800 six to say this better, being very dark and and 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.800 and typically north. Oh yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.440 like a Mona Marthaur in Soperum or any of those 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.119 like sort of like northern European metal bands have songs 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:35.520 about hummer Um. But yeah, he's this primordial being that's 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:40.440 formed from poisonous venom that's dropped on ice. Now this 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.399 is before the world exists, but there are these realms. Uh. 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:48.199 There's Nifflhelm and that's like the ice realm, and then 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:53.320 there's Muspelheim and that's like a fire realm. Uh and 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.440 in between them they sort of meet like they're they're 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.919 ice and uh fire. The heat from that comes together 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.600 makes this venom. It drops down and forms Yemmer, and 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.360 it sort of begins a proto universe. Similar if you've 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.600 seen the Thor movies, then you know, like their version 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.159 of it is the Nine Realms, right with Asgard and 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.719 mid Guard and all the In fact, I think Nifflhelm 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.879 is in there as well. Um. Now, the gods in 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.359 this story, including Odin, father of Thor, and the you know, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.080 the big guy in Norse mythology, subsequently formed aspects of 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.600 the world from Yumor's body after they killed him, so 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.080 they had a big battle with him. His blood became 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.760 the oceans and caused a huge flood. Now before this, 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.520 in this myth there were no bodies of water, so 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.119 it's it's you know, the ideas that Yumer's blood basically 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.720 forms rivers and lakes and oceans and all of that. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.959 Um And the giants that you were talking about earlier 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.080 that are in like that first Thor movie, they're supposed 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.399 to be his children and they like spawned out of 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.080 his body. Now, there's there's a couple of other things 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.320 to this that are just fun that I'll throw in there. 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.920 One of which is that, uh sometimes people say, well, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.320 if Humor was just created, like what did he eat? Uh? Well, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.280 apparently also created around the same time was a cow 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.240 called odd Humla. And this is like this giant mystic 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.800 cow and four rivers of milk ran out of her 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:27.160 teeths and that's what fed humor. So he there's I'm 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.800 just trying to imagine like this huge ice giant floating 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:31.880 in space, and you've got the space calf floating above. 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.800 He's drinking from that. But basically, and the death story 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.280 is basically Odin and two of his brothers just you know, 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:44.920