1 00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:05,640 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 2 00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:10,480 Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and 3 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:14,240 Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from 4 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:19,079 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas, 5 00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:25,239 Speaker 1: and monsters. In time, dragons and worms wind their way 6 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:29,440 Speaker 1: through human history, keeping largely to the shadows of myth 7 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:35,040 Speaker 1: and legend, terrifying in their strength, mystery and symbolic resonance. 8 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:39,880 Speaker 1: In the traditions of Sweden and Northern Scandinavia, we find 9 00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:45,560 Speaker 1: tales of just such a beast, the lendworm. In older accounts, 10 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,040 Speaker 1: the lindworm takes on a hybrid form. It has the 11 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:51,839 Speaker 1: body of a great serpent and a head like that 12 00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:55,720 Speaker 1: of a horse, complete with a mane running down part 13 00:00:55,760 --> 00:01:00,160 Speaker 1: of its neck. It occupies loathsome regions of the wilderness, 14 00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:04,200 Speaker 1: guards buried treasure, spits venom, and in some cases may 15 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: bite its own tail and roll like a hoop, or 16 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:11,960 Speaker 1: ascend into the sky, shedding sparks and fire. Folklore's Carol 17 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 1: Rose also adds that in the later stages of its life, 18 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:20,200 Speaker 1: the lindworm may mutate and take to the sea as 19 00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:23,119 Speaker 1: a sea serpent. Now the hoop snake account we can 20 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:26,160 Speaker 1: neatly tuck away as part of the larger tradition of 21 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:29,360 Speaker 1: the ora borus, the snake that bites or consumes its 22 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:32,160 Speaker 1: own tail. For the most part, this does not occur 23 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,560 Speaker 1: in the natural world, but it has proven to be 24 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:38,880 Speaker 1: an intriguing image in human cultures. For ages. Likewise, we 25 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:42,440 Speaker 1: can file away the lindworm's brilliant aerial maneuvers as part 26 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:46,959 Speaker 1: of a broader tradition of unidentified aerial phenomenon transformed into 27 00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:51,000 Speaker 1: legend and the treasure well. It's pointed out by Thomas 28 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:56,680 Speaker 1: mam in twenties a footnote to Scandinavian herpetology. The Bronze 29 00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:00,640 Speaker 1: Age salt tales from Asia and Africa traffic into Europe, 30 00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:05,640 Speaker 1: including accounts of large constrictor snakes and spitting cobras. There 31 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:09,079 Speaker 1: also arrived reliefs from the Near East that if a 32 00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:14,400 Speaker 1: human being buried valuables in secret, their greed would transform 33 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:17,160 Speaker 1: them after death, and they would come back from the 34 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:21,040 Speaker 1: grave as a large snake to guard the buried treasure. 35 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:29,160 Speaker 1: It stands to reason that the lendworm is simply the 36 00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:32,760 Speaker 1: convergence of all these elements. Along with Swedish knowledge of 37 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:36,320 Speaker 1: native snake species such as the grass snake, and yet 38 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:39,600 Speaker 1: the lendworm seemed resistant to keep to the shadows of 39 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:44,240 Speaker 1: myth and legend, because among rural swedes there remained sightings 40 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:48,480 Speaker 1: of the beast and even accounts of fighting and slaying 41 00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:53,240 Speaker 1: such monsters, and these continued throughout the Enlightenment and into 42 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:57,440 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. As Mom details in his article published 43 00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:02,360 Speaker 1: in the International Society for the History and Bibliography of Herpetology. 44 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:05,880 Speaker 1: One man was encouraged by these accounts to drag the 45 00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:09,400 Speaker 1: lindworm out of the shadows and into the world of 46 00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:17,040 Speaker 1: scientific verification, ethnologist Gunar Olaf Hilton Karalius, who lived eighteen 47 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:21,120 Speaker 1: eighteen through eighteen eighty nine. To be clear, it would 48 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:24,560 Speaker 1: be more than half a century before the term cryptozoology 49 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: was introduced. Hilton Cavalius's curiosity certainly matched the spirit of 50 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:33,400 Speaker 1: earlier inquiries, and he was quick to insist that he 51 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:37,520 Speaker 1: himself was no zoologist, but he was fascinated by Swedish 52 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:41,280 Speaker 1: accounts of the lindworm and was increasingly convinced that there 53 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:45,680 Speaker 1: must be some underlying reality to it, not mere folklore 54 00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:49,320 Speaker 1: or oversized descriptions of otters and grass snakes, but an 55 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:54,120 Speaker 1: actual large fierce serpent with something resembling a horse's mane. 56 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,200 Speaker 1: He dismissed all the flying, hooping and treasure guarding, but 57 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:03,520 Speaker 1: he believed and as yet undocumented organism awaited scientific discovery, 58 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:08,480 Speaker 1: and so Hilton Cavalius drafted a memorandum to the Royal 59 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:12,360 Speaker 1: Swedish Academy of Sciences and self printed his report, compiling 60 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:16,120 Speaker 1: numerous accounts and his insistence that the existence of the 61 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:20,040 Speaker 1: lindworm be explored. He offered a cash reward for proof 62 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,680 Speaker 1: of the creature's existence, assuring the common folk that a 63 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:28,080 Speaker 1: dead specimen could be pickled in schnaps within a waterproof vessel. 64 00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:32,520 Speaker 1: The Swedish scientific community largely found his efforts amusing, it best, 65 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:37,000 Speaker 1: at times lampooning the notion of rural swedes rampaging through 66 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:40,160 Speaker 1: the forest in search of monsters, ready to dunk them 67 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:44,479 Speaker 1: in liquor and collect their reward. Alas the lindworm could 68 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:47,200 Speaker 1: not be coaxed out of the safety of folklore, and 69 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:51,000 Speaker 1: no proof was ever recovered of this large, fearsome serpent 70 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:55,159 Speaker 1: with something like a horse's mane, Hilton Cavalias went to 71 00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:58,400 Speaker 1: his grave without ever seeing proof of the lindworm's existence, 72 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:02,480 Speaker 1: and as has and pointed out this alone has some 73 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:06,920 Speaker 1: scientific value, but his mom details He did get his 74 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,920 Speaker 1: serpent in the end as his grave stone, and Scatolov 75 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:14,760 Speaker 1: features the emblem of a serpent biting its own tail. 76 00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:19,320 Speaker 1: Special thanks to my son Sebastian. On this episode, I 77 00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:21,679 Speaker 1: was at a loss as to what to cover this week, 78 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:24,359 Speaker 1: and he instantly piped up at the breakfast table and 79 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:28,200 Speaker 1: suggested the Lindworm, which he learned about on the Netflix 80 00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:35,200 Speaker 1: animated series KILLEDA Tune into additional episodes of The Monster 81 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:39,000 Speaker 1: Fact each week. As always, you can email us at 82 00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:50,760 Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff 83 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:52,960 Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 84 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:56,240 Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 85 00:05:56,400 --> 00:05:59,160 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.