Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: we're back at you with the second part of our
Speaker 1: series about the Holy Undead. So, in the last episode
Speaker 1: we talked about various tales of of what you what
Speaker 1: you might call the pious or the holy undead. These
Speaker 1: would be ghosts, revenants, and zombies that don't seem to
Speaker 1: be purely demonic entities of the night, but instead they
Speaker 1: take part in activities that are considered by the people
Speaker 1: telling the tales to be wholesome and and and good.
Speaker 1: In particular, these these are undead that love going to church,
Speaker 1: and yet at the same time they're not usually entirely benign.
Speaker 1: They retain this aura of menace. Sometimes they offer ill
Speaker 1: oh ends to people, or sometimes they even uh, they
Speaker 1: go hands on and get a little violent. So, Rob,
Speaker 1: in the last episode, you told a wonderful story that
Speaker 1: was based on an old Swedish folk tale called the
Speaker 1: Hooded Congregation. And this is a tale in which a
Speaker 1: woman is awoken in the dark of night on Christmas
Speaker 1: I think, or is it Christmas eve. I believe it's
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve slash early Christmas morning. Yeah, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: so their church bells and she hears them out in
Speaker 1: the dark. And then so of course the church bells
Speaker 1: are ringing. That means you need to go to church.
Speaker 1: So she goes to church, but she finds it full
Speaker 1: of hooded figures who were eventually revealed to be the undead,
Speaker 1: including her own dearly departed sister. And when when she
Speaker 1: discovers this, the attack and she narrowly escapes. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a fun story, and it uh it really
Speaker 1: it relates to this um, this trend that we see
Speaker 1: in um in in Nordic traditions of these revenants, these
Speaker 1: these physical undead um these these corporeal and undead that
Speaker 1: you can they can touch you, they can grab you,
Speaker 1: that you can wrestle and do battle with the if
Speaker 1: need be. And uh yeah, in many cases they are
Speaker 1: they're they're quite malevolent, but in other cases they are
Speaker 1: they are almost benign, just attending church, going about their
Speaker 1: their business doing church stuff. Um as the not quite
Speaker 1: rested dead or want to do right. And so we
Speaker 1: also ended up talking about a bunch of medieval ghost
Speaker 1: stories of of the pious undead that are translated and
Speaker 1: analyzed in a wonderful historical paper that we're going to
Speaker 1: continue talking about in this episode and again, so the
Speaker 1: reference on this paper is that it's called Revenants, Resurrection
Speaker 1: and Burnt Sacrifice by a historian named Nancy Mandeville Cacciola,
Speaker 1: who is a medieval historian at University of California, San Diego.
Speaker 1: And this was published inteen in a journal called Predator
Speaker 1: Nature Critical and Historical Studies on the pretor Natural. And
Speaker 1: this paper focuses on stories told by a tenth to
Speaker 1: eleventh century German bishop named tete Mar von Merseburg. And
Speaker 1: so around the year ten thirteen to ten eighteen or so,
Speaker 1: uh teit Mar was writing an eight volume historical text
Speaker 1: called the Chronic con which was supposed to be about
Speaker 1: the glories of the Ottonian dynasty. And this was a
Speaker 1: series of Saxon Christian kings that he served under who
Speaker 1: were involved in conquering and Christianizing lands that previously belonged
Speaker 1: to various Slavic pagan people's. Uh So, so this was
Speaker 1: a sort of colonial frontier zone. And within recent memory,
Speaker 1: the former inhabitants of one town within this zone had
Speaker 1: been massacre during a revolt of the locals. And so
Speaker 1: in the middle of this history, Tetemer goes into a
Speaker 1: digression about a story of the undead from this fortified
Speaker 1: town where there had been a massacre. This town was
Speaker 1: called vols Laban, and the story goes that there is
Speaker 1: a priest who arrives at church to sing Matten's. Mattins
Speaker 1: has spelled m A T I n s. That means
Speaker 1: like an early morning prayer. The medieval Catholics had a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting names for like the different prayers you
Speaker 1: would say at the different times of day. I don't
Speaker 1: remember them all, but there's like Mattins, there's Laud's. I remember.
Speaker 1: These are used as sort of like a time delineation
Speaker 1: chapter headings in in the Name of the Rose, if
Speaker 1: I recall correctly. Um. But so he's there for Mattens,
Speaker 1: so the morning prayer and uh. And when he shows
Speaker 1: up at the church, he goes to the cemetery and
Speaker 1: he sees a multitude of dead people there. These are
Speaker 1: revenants and they are worshiping. They're making offerings to a
Speaker 1: revenant priest. And so the living priest who has just arrived,
Speaker 1: he makes the sign of the Cross, and then he
Speaker 1: walks through the crowd of the undead until he sees
Speaker 1: a woman he knows one who had died just recently,
Speaker 1: and she asks him, Hey, what are you doing here.
Speaker 1: He says, I'm here to sing Matins and she's like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't need to do that, because we already did it,
Speaker 1: and then she's like, by the way, you're going to
Speaker 1: die soon, and then he did. That's what tete Mar
Speaker 1: tells us. But then he also explains that the point
Speaker 1: of him relaying the story is to prove the truth
Speaker 1: of the Catholic doctrine of the resurrection of the dead
Speaker 1: in Christ, which he says that the formerly pagan Slavs
Speaker 1: do not understand very well. He thinks they need correcting
Speaker 1: on this subject. Though I also wonder sort of if
Speaker 1: this persuasive framing, like I'm trying to prove the truth
Speaker 1: of the resurrection, if this persuasive, apologetic framing is really
Speaker 1: the reason he tells these stories, because apparently after telling
Speaker 1: this first one, he digresses from his from his history
Speaker 1: to just tell a bunch of other ghost stories, including
Speaker 1: an awesomely grizzly tale that we're going to get to
Speaker 1: in just a bit. Yeah, you're right. It does make
Speaker 1: you wonder is this about about using the ghost stories
Speaker 1: to uh to support Christianity or is it about finding
Speaker 1: an excuse to keep these ghost stories around just because
Speaker 1: they're really cool. Yeah, maybe he just wanted to tell
Speaker 1: them because he thought they were really fun, and then
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, I need a good reason to say
Speaker 1: I'm doing this. Well, actually they prove that that Christianity
Speaker 1: is true. Yeah, And I said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say just fun, because I mean, certainly ghost stories can
Speaker 1: be fun, but also ghost stories can be culturally important,
Speaker 1: and they are you know that they are part of
Speaker 1: one's cultural background. So there's there's an added incentive to
Speaker 1: to keep them around if it all possible, because they
Speaker 1: are they are a part of your history. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I think this is very much part of something that
Speaker 1: that Cachiola is going to argue in this paper. But
Speaker 1: picking back up with that paper of hers, I want
Speaker 1: to go into some of the historical, cultural, and religious
Speaker 1: context that she explains to help us better understand what
Speaker 1: these stories might have meant in their in their time
Speaker 1: and place. So one thing she says is that during
Speaker 1: this period, religion and politics were deeply linked. German rule
Speaker 1: was self consciously formulated as Christian rule, and the Ottonian
Speaker 1: dynasty mythologize themselves consciously as the so called Last World Emperors.
Speaker 1: So they were thinking of themselves as as great kings
Speaker 1: who would by conquest, expand Christianity to the ends of
Speaker 1: the earth and thus bring about the Second Coming of Christ. Oh, wow,
Speaker 1: the last World Emperors. I love that that sounds sounds
Speaker 1: positively evil. Yeah, And it's the funny thing. So this
Speaker 1: is something that people might not realize like they think. Oh,
Speaker 1: people in the twentieth century are always saying that the
Speaker 1: world the end is coming soon. You know that this
Speaker 1: religious apocalypticism. It says, I've I've received a revelation from God,
Speaker 1: and I know finally the end is happening now. People
Speaker 1: in the tenth and eleventh century thought this way to
Speaker 1: people all the time throughout every century of of Christian history,
Speaker 1: of thought that they were living in the end times.
Speaker 1: This is just a perennial phenomenon. But because of the
Speaker 1: linking of religion and politics here, the military expansion of
Speaker 1: the Ottonians was also an expansion of the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: So when they would go and establish fortified military outposts
Speaker 1: along the frontier. They were also establishing new bishoprics. They
Speaker 1: were establishing new footholds for the church, and so. In
Speaker 1: the paper, Caciola makes the argument that though the Slavic
Speaker 1: rebellions against the German conquest and German power were were
Speaker 1: obviously they would have had many complex reasons for doing this.
Speaker 1: She does make the case that it really looks like
Speaker 1: one of those reasons was religious resistance, resistance to the
Speaker 1: Christianizing impulse of the Germans and protecting their traditional ancestral beliefs.
Speaker 1: Uh So, she writes, as one example of this quote,
Speaker 1: centers of German power, which were of course also Christian
Speaker 1: religious centers, were targets for attack among these Slavic revolts,
Speaker 1: uh Continuing this included the cathedral of have Alburg and
Speaker 1: the and the Bishopric of Brandenburg, where the remains of
Speaker 1: the last bishop, parentheses Te martells Us, he had been
Speaker 1: assassinated by his own flock, were dragged from his tomb
Speaker 1: and despoiled. The nunneries of Kalba and hillers Leban were
Speaker 1: also not spared, showing that institutions with predominantly religious rather
Speaker 1: than political associations were targeted as well. So this is
Speaker 1: some evidence that the Slavic rebellions against the Altonians they
Speaker 1: were not just trying to protect their political autonomy, but
Speaker 1: they were also resisting the the conversion impulse. They were saying, no,
Speaker 1: we like our religious beliefs, we'd like to keep them please. Now,
Speaker 1: another thing that's worth clarifying is that talking about pagan
Speaker 1: Slavs of the region is a shorthand, because of course
Speaker 1: this is not one monolithic culture with one monolithic religion,
Speaker 1: but rather a collection of different tribes with their own
Speaker 1: distinct cultures and beliefs. Uh. Though, it does seem that
Speaker 1: a general motivating factor for the tribal rebellions against the
Speaker 1: saxon Autonians was defense of these pagan religious beliefs against
Speaker 1: the Christianization mission. And of course paganism itself is not
Speaker 1: a religion, not one's unified religion at this time. In
Speaker 1: this context, it simply means any of the non Abrahamic religions,
Speaker 1: so this would not usually be any kind of polytheism.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately there's a lot we don't know about these
Speaker 1: pagan religious beliefs that there was clearly plenty of diversity
Speaker 1: between them, though like many religions, they broadly seem to
Speaker 1: have included some elements of ancestor worship, as well as
Speaker 1: some common shared views about what constituted a good versus
Speaker 1: a bad death, and some similar beliefs about the afterlife. Now,
Speaker 1: another interesting thing about the political and religious history that
Speaker 1: here is that it's worth understanding that in this place
Speaker 1: and time, conversion religious conversion would almost necessarily be a
Speaker 1: somewhat flimsy concept. People in lands conquered by by Christians
Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages would often get baptized as Christians
Speaker 1: and then simply continue to practice their original pagan beliefs,
Speaker 1: either exclusively or alongside Christian worship. And one way I
Speaker 1: think to help understand this is that not all religions
Speaker 1: have exactly the same contours, sort of that they don't
Speaker 1: all make stake the same ground, right like the role
Speaker 1: of Christianity versus the local paganisms was not a one
Speaker 1: to one comparison in a number of ways. For example,
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church had organized dogmas and a concept of
Speaker 1: religious universality and exclusivity. So this is a religion that
Speaker 1: conceptualizes itself as the one religion that is true, and
Speaker 1: it should be the religion of the entire world. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people who grow up in Christian societies assumed that
Speaker 1: all religions are like this, with this belief in universality
Speaker 1: and exclusivity. But that's not at all true. Like most
Speaker 1: religions in history appear to have been much looser, more
Speaker 1: defined by ritual rather than belief, and without necessary ideas
Speaker 1: of universality or exclusivity. You know, we were talking about
Speaker 1: this just yesterday in the context of the Indiana Jones movies,
Speaker 1: the Indiana Jones franchise, except all religions and even and
Speaker 1: even like like fringe beliefs and ancient aliens and what
Speaker 1: have you. Oh yeah, that's funny. That's one thing I
Speaker 1: kind of appreciate about it. It's got a sort of
Speaker 1: totalizing mythology and maybe one that seems sort of geographically
Speaker 1: linked to so that it's like where maybe when you
Speaker 1: go into a geographical area that has predominantly one religion,
Speaker 1: that that religion mainly applies within that geography. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So in this region, Hebrew God is real, in this region,
Speaker 1: Shiva is real. Um or was it Shiva or Kali.
Speaker 1: It's been so long since I've seen Um the second
Speaker 1: in I think both the second one that that movie
Speaker 1: has got a lot of problems. But yeah, Klie is
Speaker 1: sort of the bad guy and it and Shiva's the
Speaker 1: good god and okay, it's more complicated than that though, folks,
Speaker 1: if so, don't don't use the second Indiana Jones movie
Speaker 1: is your your guide into the world of Hinduism. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, but still, I think it's an interesting point
Speaker 1: about the idea. Yeah, that in the Indiana Owns world, like,
Speaker 1: all these faiths are real and they don't seem to
Speaker 1: exclude one another unless you say, well that the Egyptian gods,
Speaker 1: the Egyptian pantheon is kind of excluded from the h
Speaker 1: all the happenings that go on in Um Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: and the you know the raiders have lost art. Well,
Speaker 1: do we know that for sure? We never see a
Speaker 1: contest of the gods. They're like the Pharaoh's magicians. Never true,
Speaker 1: we don't get to see what they can do, that's right,
Speaker 1: And maybe they're just watching on you know that they're
Speaker 1: they're they're sleeping, who knows. I know, for one, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty certain that there's there's bound to be some sort
Speaker 1: of Indiana Jones related media from comics or TV series
Speaker 1: or something that actually involves Egyptian gods. So if it's
Speaker 1: out there, someone tell me about it. Well, I think
Speaker 1: one consequence of the different types of groundstaking games that
Speaker 1: are that are being played by the different religions at
Speaker 1: this time means that, for example, so the Christians might
Speaker 1: insist that you believe in no gods except the Christian Trinity,
Speaker 1: but many of the European a atheists at this time
Speaker 1: could simply incorporate new gods. So it's possible that they
Speaker 1: might well view a conversion to Christianity rather as a
Speaker 1: kind of incorporation exercise. So like, we have our gods,
Speaker 1: we have our rituals, and now here's this other thing
Speaker 1: sort of added on top of that, and here's also
Speaker 1: Jesus and the Catholic Church. M So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like this. It's almost like a chemical situation where the
Speaker 1: pre existing religion uh is more inclined to bond with
Speaker 1: with additives, even though those additives are you know, tend
Speaker 1: to be it tend to have exclusive ideas in them. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't it doesn't matter when push comes
Speaker 1: to shove the polytheistic religion is going going to absorb
Speaker 1: the monotheistic uh, even if to some outsiders it it
Speaker 1: appears uh in some cases that you've set aside the
Speaker 1: old ways, right yeah, so so. Catchiolo writes that given
Speaker 1: these religious starting points, what you would probably expect to
Speaker 1: see at this place in time him is not a
Speaker 1: just sort of exchange of the old gods for the new,
Speaker 1: but rather a sort of what she calls an untidy
Speaker 1: syncretic admixture. You know, syncretism again is the mixing of
Speaker 1: religious beliefs, a sort of mixing and blending and hybridization
Speaker 1: process that would arrive at these new combinatorial beliefs. Um.
Speaker 1: And she gives us one interesting example of this. Uh.
Speaker 1: She talks about a text known as the Merseburg Charms
Speaker 1: uh quote short rhythmic invocations of the valkyries full Wodan
Speaker 1: and Freya, composed an archaic German but carefully transcribed onto
Speaker 1: a leaf of an otherwise entirely Christian manuscript found in
Speaker 1: the library of the Cathedral of Merseburg. And then she
Speaker 1: has a great comment it is pleasing to think that
Speaker 1: Tetmar himself might have encountered it, and and then of
Speaker 1: course I'm going to drive home something we've mentioned before
Speaker 1: in the show is that, of course humans are capable
Speaker 1: of having multiple and con with think um beliefs and ideas,
Speaker 1: particularly as it pertains to the you know, the origins
Speaker 1: of the world and the inner workings of the supernatural realm.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, we see that even today, and
Speaker 1: many people who think that they are, you know, a
Speaker 1: pure subscriber to one particular brand of faith, if if
Speaker 1: they're to self analyze, they might find that they actually
Speaker 1: have some ideas from other other faiths and sort of
Speaker 1: non faith origin, sort of mixed up in their supernatural
Speaker 1: understanding of the world or the same One person actually
Speaker 1: quite easily switches gears between different belief systems depending on
Speaker 1: the context. Yeah, I mean to come back to this example.
Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps you are you know, a Christian when you
Speaker 1: were at the Christian church or in walking among the
Speaker 1: Christian gravestones, but then when you're in the woods or
Speaker 1: when you were you know, walking the shore. Uh, then
Speaker 1: perhaps it's the the older gods that call to you
Speaker 1: and this this other way of looking at the world,
Speaker 1: or you could look at it as a night and
Speaker 1: day thing that might Yeah, Uh, thank thank So I
Speaker 1: think we should get back to tit Mar's ghost stories. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so the first place I guess would be to
Speaker 1: comment a little more on that first story, the one
Speaker 1: about the priest who arrives to sing Matten's and and
Speaker 1: finds the congregation the multitude of dead there, and they're
Speaker 1: making offerings to a dead priest, and then they they
Speaker 1: and then one of them is someone he knows tells him,
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna die soon, and then he does. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to go through a few observations about
Speaker 1: the story that the Catchyola notes that are probably worth
Speaker 1: logging for when we look at the other ones. Uh. First,
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that instead of going to another plane
Speaker 1: of existence in this story, the returned dead or the revenants,
Speaker 1: they hang out here on earth. So they're not going
Speaker 1: off to heaven. This is where they live. They're here
Speaker 1: on earth and this is where they do their business. Second,
Speaker 1: they are bodily reanimations, not in substantial specters. This has
Speaker 1: come up several times already, but this is apparently common,
Speaker 1: especially throughout the pagan mythology of Northern Europe, that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just like a gas like ghost
Speaker 1: that forms an image that you could walk right through.
Speaker 1: These are undead with mass and heft. They can grab you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the literal dead. They are you know, decaying bodies
Speaker 1: and skeletons going about their business. Another thing, so these
Speaker 1: dead are said to be in the version of the story,
Speaker 1: we get faithful Christians who worshiped the Christian God even
Speaker 1: after death. Which is an interesting thing because I think
Speaker 1: another common modern assumption that would be that like a
Speaker 1: religion is something that people maybe need during life. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's in order specifically to prepare you for the afterlife,
Speaker 1: So there would be no need in the afterlife for
Speaker 1: people to continue doing religious practices. But here that that
Speaker 1: assumption is clearly not on display. The dead also need
Speaker 1: to go to church, and of course, in thinking about this,
Speaker 1: our mine can easily go to Christian doctrines of of
Speaker 1: the of the dead returning to life be at the
Speaker 1: resurrection of Christ um after death or um the idea
Speaker 1: that once we die, our bodies just kind of hang
Speaker 1: around for a while until the physical resurrection occurs at
Speaker 1: the end of time um, which you can imagine how
Speaker 1: how that idea would um would come to life if
Speaker 1: you had these pre existing concepts of revenant spirits, like
Speaker 1: it's my body just in the ground awaiting um at
Speaker 1: Christ's return, Well, what else is it doing? Is it
Speaker 1: going to church? Where is it just lazy bones? This
Speaker 1: is something we mentioned, uh, we mentioned last time. So
Speaker 1: the Catholic teaching at the time emphasized the inertness of
Speaker 1: the dead body until the general resurrection at the second
Speaker 1: coming of Christ. So they they would emphasize, no, until
Speaker 1: Jesus comes back, your body just stays there. It doesn't
Speaker 1: do anything. And so this is clearly in contradiction with that.
Speaker 1: And yet this is also of something we talked about
Speaker 1: in the previous episode. There appears to have been a
Speaker 1: pretty wide uh tolerance for various beliefs about the undead,
Speaker 1: even if they weren't If there were beliefs about the
Speaker 1: undead that we're not strictly in line with Catholic teaching.
Speaker 1: For some reason, this is an area of belief that
Speaker 1: the Church did not seem to police very strongly. And
Speaker 1: we're broadly tolerant of people sort of coloring outside the
Speaker 1: lines on beliefs about the dead. But to come back
Speaker 1: to Titmar's first ghost, story here. There there are some
Speaker 1: weird elements that are illuminating on top of the more
Speaker 1: straightforward elements we just mentioned. First of all, so again
Speaker 1: we we noticed that these dead are pious from a
Speaker 1: Christian point of view. They're going to church, they're worshiping God,
Speaker 1: and yet at the same time they project what Catchiola
Speaker 1: calls a strong aura of menace that seems to be
Speaker 1: about right. These are not like happy, nice ghosts who
Speaker 1: are like, hey, sweet, you know, they're scary and the
Speaker 1: priest is terrified of them. He has to do the
Speaker 1: Sign of the Cross before he can go in, go
Speaker 1: in among the crowd. And then here's another interesting thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't notice this, but she points this out in
Speaker 1: the analysis. Not only is the priest given a true
Speaker 1: omen of his own impending death. That part's creepy enough,
Speaker 1: but more so, his office has been usurped. They are
Speaker 1: performing the morning Mass that he came there to do.
Speaker 1: They are doing the priest's job for him. So there's
Speaker 1: an interesting implied interplay of ideas here when when you
Speaker 1: look at what could have been the inputs. Number one,
Speaker 1: you'd have okay, they're appearing in this Catholic church. And
Speaker 1: again the Catholic doctrine emphasized the inertness of the dead body.
Speaker 1: So this is not really totally within the you know,
Speaker 1: the central teachings of the Church. And yet obviously here's
Speaker 1: here's Temur, a Catholic bishop recording this event um. And
Speaker 1: yet it includes these elements that would seem to come
Speaker 1: from European paganism that had these sort of common sense
Speaker 1: ideas about what would lead somebody to get up out
Speaker 1: of their grave and walk around. And generally this would
Speaker 1: be associated with what would be considered a bad death,
Speaker 1: people who say died of like a painful or violent death,
Speaker 1: or died young, or died with unfinished business. That these
Speaker 1: are generally the kinds of people who were believed to
Speaker 1: have energy still left in them because they had something unresolved,
Speaker 1: or they died too young, and they would be the
Speaker 1: ones would be likely to get up out of their graves. Right.
Speaker 1: Another area being the revenants of individuals who had not
Speaker 1: been buried properly. Uh, and during the Christian period this
Speaker 1: becomes had a case of had not been given a
Speaker 1: proper Christian burial. Right, So you're you're combining these weird
Speaker 1: connotations of you know, beliefs that would traditionally say these
Speaker 1: are the kind of dead you should be worried about,
Speaker 1: the ones that get up and walk around that you
Speaker 1: know there's something wrong with them. These are the bad dead,
Speaker 1: the dangerous dead. And yet here in this story, well
Speaker 1: they're going to church and that's nice. Um, and so
Speaker 1: teep margin he gives this, uh, this persuasive framing where
Speaker 1: he says, this story proves the Christian doctrine of the
Speaker 1: ultimate resurrection of the dead at the end of time.
Speaker 1: Though I to come back to when I brought up earlier,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's got other things in mind. I
Speaker 1: was actually kind of wondering about stories like this, if
Speaker 1: this is kind of the same logic. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of say twentieth century exploitation movies where they say, here's
Speaker 1: a movie with like lurid content that is playing to
Speaker 1: you know, people's perverse interests in seeing you know, violence
Speaker 1: or sexuality or something, but couched as somehow educational or
Speaker 1: topical about important subject matter, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like like an like an early anti drug film that
Speaker 1: is ultimately kind of a celebration at access around supposed
Speaker 1: drug doings. Yeah, like refor madness or something. They're like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get your heart racing with some with some
Speaker 1: kind of kind of scandalous content. But really this is
Speaker 1: all aimed in showing you how how dangerous and bad
Speaker 1: marijuana is. But then again, I think about how I guess,
Speaker 1: to be fair to teach more this story could be
Speaker 1: presented with both purposes at once. In one one hand,
Speaker 1: is just kind of a very fascinating, entertaining ghost story,
Speaker 1: and then on the other hand, it does, at least
Speaker 1: from his point of view, have this persuasive power in
Speaker 1: showing evidence of the possibility of the general resurrection. I
Speaker 1: think people often underestimate the importance of entertainment within religious
Speaker 1: education and preaching. I mean, what kind of preachers are
Speaker 1: the most effective? I personally would argue it's very often
Speaker 1: those who are the most entertaining to listen to that
Speaker 1: that really keep your attention. How do you keep people's
Speaker 1: attention You entertain them, and having good ghost stories is
Speaker 1: one way to achieve that. Yeah, I mean, when I
Speaker 1: think of of preachers that I've connected with the most,
Speaker 1: they mean they're they're always stories to tell, right, I Mean,
Speaker 1: they are always these Bible stories and scriptures to read.
Speaker 1: And in some cases those scriptures are inherently interesting, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it doesn't take much for a preacher
Speaker 1: to make something interesting out of it, to make a
Speaker 1: meal out of this particular scripture. Other times the scripture
Speaker 1: can be especially if you're following a calendar, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're just this is the one you have to
Speaker 1: preach on today. Some of those can be real dogs
Speaker 1: or real are real mountains declined to try and make
Speaker 1: it relevant um or interesting to an audience. But but
Speaker 1: a really good preacher can do that. They can they
Speaker 1: can find a way, like maybe you're not just focusing
Speaker 1: on the story in the scripture, but you're you're telling
Speaker 1: a story, uh, from your life and applying it to
Speaker 1: you know, the truth to supposed truths in the scripture,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But yeah, there's storytelling. Is is
Speaker 1: inherent to the whole whole process. When it's not there.
Speaker 1: You notice regarding this this persuasive presentation or whatever I
Speaker 1: think I've called it, apologetic, persuasive, rhetorical whatever it is,
Speaker 1: that he's saying that he's telling the story to convince
Speaker 1: people of the resurrection. Catch you all argues that this
Speaker 1: actually is something that's plausibly important in the context because
Speaker 1: people like Titmar and uh and and Catholics at the time,
Speaker 1: one of the things they mainly wanted to promote to
Speaker 1: the laity was the truth of life after death. UH
Speaker 1: that there was apparently doubt that the afterlife existed, and
Speaker 1: that this doubt was incredibly threatening to the church. That
Speaker 1: was perceived as one of the main things to to
Speaker 1: fight off and be wary of. It were any doubts
Speaker 1: about the possibility of the afterlife or of resurrection. And
Speaker 1: so even if this story is kind of weird, like
Speaker 1: it doesn't really fit exactly with Catholic Catholic doctrines about
Speaker 1: the afterlife or about the resurrection, it's close enough. At
Speaker 1: least there is resurrection, there is some kind of afterlife.
Speaker 1: And because there's this strong impulse to just say, well,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, you just gotta make make sure people
Speaker 1: understand that it is possible to achieve immortality. There is
Speaker 1: life after sical death of the body, and that's good enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's kind of like this is the point where the
Speaker 1: salesman at the car dealership has convinced you that, yes,
Speaker 1: in theory, you would like a new car. You believe
Speaker 1: in the value of getting a new car. Now it's
Speaker 1: about convincing you that we need to get you in
Speaker 1: this car today, right, thank thank, Okay, so it's time,
Speaker 1: I think to get to a couple of Tee Mar's
Speaker 1: other stories, which which are a lot of fun. So
Speaker 1: for there's also a thing where, briefly, he apparently says
Speaker 1: just he recounts a few personal experiences. I think at
Speaker 1: one point he says he heard grunts coming out of
Speaker 1: a graveyard. Okay, I thought that was good. But then
Speaker 1: there's a second tale he tells. So the second tale
Speaker 1: is much shorter, and then there's a tremendous third one.
Speaker 1: The second one takes place in the yard of Magdeburgh's
Speaker 1: Merchants Church, and it's spooky, but not as wild as
Speaker 1: the first or third. So i'll just read directly Catchiola's
Speaker 1: translation of the story. During my time in Magdeburg, the
Speaker 1: guards of the Merchants Church, while keeping watch at night,
Speaker 1: experienced by sight and by hearing phenomena similar to what
Speaker 1: I have described. So they brought some of the foremost citizens.
Speaker 1: Having set themselves at a far distance from the cadaver cemetery,
Speaker 1: they watched as lights were placed in the candelabras, and
Speaker 1: then they faintly heard two parts singing the invitatory and
Speaker 1: completing all the morning lauds in proper order. However, afterward,
Speaker 1: when they approached, they discovered nothing. This one's interesting because
Speaker 1: this sounds more like the kind of ghost stories you
Speaker 1: hear people talk about today. It's like something seen very
Speaker 1: faintly at a distance and heard in an uncertain way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just as as an example of someone saying, hey, sometimes
Speaker 1: we see strange lights, or I've heard that that sometimes
Speaker 1: they see strange lights in the in the graveyard, and
Speaker 1: and that's that's enough. Like that, just the idea of
Speaker 1: that occurring and the idea that there are accounts of
Speaker 1: that are are enough to tickle the imagination. Okay, but
Speaker 1: time for the third tale. This is the real barn Burner. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do it. So this one is a story that
Speaker 1: Tetmar says he heard from his niece Bridget about something
Speaker 1: that happened in You Trecked. So I love that we're
Speaker 1: getting niece stories now. Again from the translation in in
Speaker 1: the Cacciola's paper quote the next day, I told my
Speaker 1: niece Bridget about the episode in Magdeburgh, and I received
Speaker 1: this reply from her. During the eighty years or more,
Speaker 1: when the great man Baldric held the Holy See of
Speaker 1: You trecked, he renovated a church that had fallen into
Speaker 1: ruin from old age in a place called Devonter. He
Speaker 1: consecrated it and commended it to the care of one
Speaker 1: of his priests. One day, when the priest was going
Speaker 1: to the church very early in the morning, he saw
Speaker 1: dead people in the church and cemetery making offerings, and
Speaker 1: he heard them singing. The priest informed the bishop. Immediately
Speaker 1: he was ordered by the latter to sleep in the church,
Speaker 1: But the next night he was thrown out by the dead,
Speaker 1: along with the bed he lay on. First of all, man,
Speaker 1: this bishop is a tyrant, is oh, there's dead people
Speaker 1: in the church, Well, you gotta sleep in there now.
Speaker 1: But then they just they just threw him out, which
Speaker 1: is kind of nice, you know, they just they just
Speaker 1: threw they evicted him from the church. This is the
Speaker 1: eviction of the living dead here, that's nice. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: get the heck out of here. They just threw him
Speaker 1: out and the bed he lay on. But then it
Speaker 1: goes on terrified on account of what had happened. The
Speaker 1: priest again complained to his superior about these things, but
Speaker 1: the latter ordered that he should cross himself with saints
Speaker 1: relics and be sprinkled with holy water, but on no
Speaker 1: account cease guarding the church. The priest followed the bishop's command,
Speaker 1: tried to sleep in the church again, but he was
Speaker 1: struck with terror, and so lay wide awake and watchful,
Speaker 1: and behold, at the accustomed hour the dead arrived. They
Speaker 1: picked him up, they placed him upon the altar, and
Speaker 1: they incinerated his body with fire down to a fine ash.
Speaker 1: When the bishop heard about this, he ordered a three
Speaker 1: day fast to be held for the sucker of the
Speaker 1: dead man's soul. I could say much more, my son,
Speaker 1: about all these things, if my illness did not prevent me.
Speaker 1: As day is to the living, so night is conceded
Speaker 1: to the dead. And there's that line we talked about
Speaker 1: last time. Actually, I guess this means I may have
Speaker 1: falsely attributed that to tit Mar when he was actually
Speaker 1: quoting bridget Well. This this is a great story, um.
Speaker 1: And and they're they're apparently variations of this as well.
Speaker 1: That uh Camillia Christiansen blog post from the Legends of
Speaker 1: the North dot com um. She shares one variation from Lapland,
Speaker 1: which involves a priest who dares to venture into the
Speaker 1: church during the midnight mass of the dead. And he
Speaker 1: even gets up in front and begins preaching a sermon
Speaker 1: to the dead. And I believe he's also protected you
Speaker 1: know by various uh you know, holy waters and and
Speaker 1: and and signs and so forth. But the dead don't care.
Speaker 1: And they care him apart, leaving only his intestines quote
Speaker 1: carefully swirled about the pillars. WHOA, Yeah, so that's that's
Speaker 1: pretty uh, I mean that that's that's above and beyond.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the idea of them also just
Speaker 1: burning him on the altar, but just tearing him apart
Speaker 1: and decorating the place with his intestines like their their garlands. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's also pretty nice. Well, one's more wicker man and
Speaker 1: one's more splatter punk. Yeah. Now, one thing worth noticing
Speaker 1: about this tale, which is fun, is, as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, this third tale has no living witnesses.
Speaker 1: So how does anybody know this happened? Well, I guess
Speaker 1: they just found the ashes, right, They're like, what happened?
Speaker 1: He burned up for the rest. Yeah, that's true. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess the only part they would really have to
Speaker 1: supply would be the order of events the night he
Speaker 1: gets burned. Yeah, I mean, it's possible that the living
Speaker 1: dead were framed, but otherwise we know the living dead
Speaker 1: hang out in here at night. They kicked him out
Speaker 1: last time, and this time we found him burnt to
Speaker 1: a crisp probably the living dead again. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: another thing that's interesting here we're worth noticing is that
Speaker 1: the reanimated dead bodies they take the priests, they don't
Speaker 1: just kill him. They burn him to a fine ash,
Speaker 1: meaning that he cannot be reanimated in bodily form like
Speaker 1: they can. Interesting, and perhaps something similar is achieved by
Speaker 1: just tearing him to pieces and stringing him up all
Speaker 1: over the place. But there's a there's a whole subsection
Speaker 1: of Cachiola's paper where she makes a very interesting connection
Speaker 1: with this story, and it is this many of the
Speaker 1: the European paganisms, and this probably would have been true
Speaker 1: of some of the Slavic paganism that predated the Christianizing
Speaker 1: mission of the Saxons here in this region. Uh, A
Speaker 1: lot of these religions involved burnt offerings and sometimes probably
Speaker 1: burnt offerings of human beings. And so it's conceivable, at
Speaker 1: least in in Cachiola's presentation, that this story about taking
Speaker 1: the priest. Now, notice they don't just kill him, They
Speaker 1: put him all in the altar and burn him, suggesting
Speaker 1: that this is a a deliberate form of worship, that
Speaker 1: the burning itself is worshiped to them. Uh, and so
Speaker 1: this is a sacrifice to the gods or to the ancestors.
Speaker 1: That there might have been some blurring of the lines
Speaker 1: there in in these pagan beliefs, And this I think
Speaker 1: further suggests that the story we're getting here is some
Speaker 1: kind of hybrid detailed. This is a tale that may
Speaker 1: originally involve some kind of more Slavic pagan beliefs that
Speaker 1: involve burnt offerings and human sacrifices, and that it has
Speaker 1: been given a sort of Christian reframing to tame it. Now,
Speaker 1: that's hard to know for sure, but um, it does
Speaker 1: raise interesting questions. You might assume, Okay, now, if there
Speaker 1: were sort of these underlying pagan elements in this story
Speaker 1: that then has gotten this Christian window dressing, why would
Speaker 1: that be, I mean, is it just possibly that ghost
Speaker 1: stories are difficult to drive out of the culture. Something
Speaker 1: about them is too captivating, and you can you just
Speaker 1: find that you can't really pry them out of people's minds.
Speaker 1: So instead of trying to do that, what you might
Speaker 1: do is try to reframe it to to make it
Speaker 1: somewhat Christian, give it a generally Christian texture, even if
Speaker 1: that leads to some sort of weird, contradictory or ambiguous elements,
Speaker 1: like the fact that the dead are pious and murderous
Speaker 1: at the same time. And then at least when you
Speaker 1: do it that way, it makes it easier to give
Speaker 1: it this uh, this persuasive framing that Titmar does, and say,
Speaker 1: see the story that you believe, you know, the scary
Speaker 1: tale that that you believe about the dead rising and
Speaker 1: burning somebody at night, Well, that just proves Christian doctrines anyway,
Speaker 1: at least sort of. And from here there's a whole
Speaker 1: section in this article where Catchiolo gets into talking about
Speaker 1: stories from the period, elements of these stories and other
Speaker 1: stories that are somewhat related that suggests that the dead,
Speaker 1: like the dead that we see, are not just sort
Speaker 1: of like only existing in the moments that they haunt us,
Speaker 1: and they're also not singly focused mindless zombies. But there
Speaker 1: is instead a sort of rich afterlife for the Revenants,
Speaker 1: that they appear to have a whole functioning society of
Speaker 1: their own. Uh. Like one weird detail, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff like this in these stories. One weird
Speaker 1: detail you might not notice at first. This is that
Speaker 1: back in the first story that Tite Martel's, the dead
Speaker 1: are said to be giving offerings to the priest. This
Speaker 1: suggests that the dead have possessions, that the dead have
Speaker 1: an economy, and this is consistent with other pagan influence
Speaker 1: to medieval tales of the societies of the dead who
Speaker 1: are said to lead full lives. Uh. There's one story
Speaker 1: that she cites that is in something called the Chronicle
Speaker 1: of Henry of Erfurt, where a dead man in the
Speaker 1: middle of the stories is speaking to a living man
Speaker 1: and or speaking to a living person, and he says,
Speaker 1: we eat, we drink, we take wives, we have children,
Speaker 1: we arrange the weddings of our daughters in the mayor
Speaker 1: urges of our sons, we sow when we reap, and
Speaker 1: various other things, just as you do. But then we
Speaker 1: get the detail except they don't do it down in
Speaker 1: town where everybody else does it, and they don't do
Speaker 1: it on the farms with all the living. They do
Speaker 1: it inside the mountain of Sirenburg instead of down among
Speaker 1: the living. Um. And and there's even more so there's
Speaker 1: weird stuff about how the dead are saying that they
Speaker 1: are that they procreate right, that they have children, and
Speaker 1: they have their children have weddings and stuff. And it's
Speaker 1: also said that they have wars with other neighboring communities
Speaker 1: of dead people. So there's like a separate world of
Speaker 1: geopolitics entirely among the dead. Yeah, Like up there in
Speaker 1: the mountains, there's a mountain in which the the good
Speaker 1: revenants reside, and there's one where the warlike revenants reside,
Speaker 1: and and inside you have these whole societies that, yeah,
Speaker 1: where where there's reproduction, even undead babies being born and
Speaker 1: growing up to live full lives. Uh underneath the mountain.
Speaker 1: Uh uh. This this was fascinating to me. I wish
Speaker 1: I could have found out more about it. I was,
Speaker 1: I was looking it up a little bit. And this
Speaker 1: is um uh that this uh, this is actually this
Speaker 1: is modern day Serenberg in the German district of Casal.
Speaker 1: Uh So it's uh, if you live in this area,
Speaker 1: you go up to the mountains and make inquiries for
Speaker 1: us and see if you can find these dead societies,
Speaker 1: because this is usually something I mean, we don't even
Speaker 1: really encounter this much in our our our fantas, our
Speaker 1: modern fantasy world building, where you know, there are plenty
Speaker 1: of people plowing away in the realms of the undead,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, a lot of times, yeah, we don't,
Speaker 1: we don't give much, we don't, we don't subscribe much
Speaker 1: in the way of culture to to our our fictionalized undead,
Speaker 1: certainly not to the zombies. But but then you see
Speaker 1: this sometimes with vampires, where they'll be we'll we'll, we'll
Speaker 1: get all in, you know, on like vampire societies and
Speaker 1: vampire kings and cultures and lords and so forth. But
Speaker 1: even then you don't see a lot of like vampire
Speaker 1: nurseries and then vampire babies going on. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I find it's almost all of the visions of of
Speaker 1: life after death that I can think of present life
Speaker 1: after death as in some way of a kind of
Speaker 1: reduced richness, Like you might think that the closest thing
Speaker 1: you can think of too the dead having rich lives
Speaker 1: like this would be I don't know in in Christian
Speaker 1: beliefs about like going to heaven or something. But even
Speaker 1: then life has a kind of it's life is said
Speaker 1: to be blissful and good and you enjoy God. But
Speaker 1: there's not there's not like, uh much drama there. There's
Speaker 1: not like a lot of like you know, politics and
Speaker 1: people falling in love and having children and all that.
Speaker 1: It has a reduced level of complexity when compared to
Speaker 1: to life here on earth. And that seems like it's
Speaker 1: always true. Like if you go back to old stories,
Speaker 1: you know, pre Christian ideas of the afterlife, like in
Speaker 1: uh uh in the Odyssey, when when Odysseus goes and
Speaker 1: he hears about what what is life like in in
Speaker 1: the afterlife? It sounds like it's it's happy, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's just like, well, there's nothing much to do, Like
Speaker 1: it is that reduced level of richness. It sounds gloomy
Speaker 1: and kind of like your brain isn't really there. It's
Speaker 1: kind of kind of a fog of eternity. I think,
Speaker 1: unless I'm mistaken, it's described that way in the Epic
Speaker 1: of Gilgamesh that once a man is dead, it says
Speaker 1: he he just sort of like lies down among the
Speaker 1: dust and he eats dirt or something. Yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: either doing that or it's like Hell is a place
Speaker 1: where you are just always screaming, or Heaven is a
Speaker 1: place where you're just always beaming and smiling. Yeah, not not,
Speaker 1: not often a lot of added complexity. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess there are versions where hey, you're in heaven. Would
Speaker 1: you like to come back as a as an angel
Speaker 1: and talk people off of bridges? Well you can do that,
Speaker 1: or I guess there are also some variations where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're in hell, um, but we have a we have
Speaker 1: a whole system here and you can level up if
Speaker 1: you work hard, level up. Yeah. Um the only or
Speaker 1: something um. I was actually thinking about um Alan Moore's
Speaker 1: run on Swamp thing. There's this whole plot where the
Speaker 1: evil Dr Anton Arcane has his soul has gone to Hell,
Speaker 1: but he's just so evil that he works his way
Speaker 1: up through the ranks and eventually gets a place of
Speaker 1: power again. He's a real go getter, Yeah, he is. Um.
Speaker 1: As far as like the Undead Reproduction, the only fictional
Speaker 1: examples that come to mind or or first of all,
Speaker 1: the Crypt Keeper, where in which there is one episode
Speaker 1: of Tales for the Crypt where we're given his backstory
Speaker 1: and we find out that his mom is a mummy,
Speaker 1: So his mom is reanimated corpse, but his dad is
Speaker 1: a like two faced um circus mutant kind of a situation.
Speaker 1: So there's that, and um, oh, speaking of mummies, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe Egyptian afterlife has a sort of has a level
Speaker 1: of richness and complexity, oh very much. So, yes, it
Speaker 1: certainly we can't forget that if you're looking at the
Speaker 1: Egyptian afterlife. The Egyptian afterlife is an idea where you
Speaker 1: are going into an entire world where you will need resources,
Speaker 1: you will need spells, you will have to navigate various
Speaker 1: obstacles and enemies. It's yeah, the Egyptian after after life
Speaker 1: is a strong example to bring up, for sure. The
Speaker 1: other undead example that comes to mind, though, is that
Speaker 1: I believe it now in two different zombie films, director
Speaker 1: Zack Snyder has betrayed um a strong interest in zombie reproduction.
Speaker 1: He seems to really into the idea of of zombie
Speaker 1: newborns and so forth. So, um, I don't know, take
Speaker 1: that take that for as you will. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If he makes another zombie film, maybe he'll expand on that.
Speaker 1: We can only hope. All right, but you know enough
Speaker 1: about about zombie movies. Let's get back to Christmas stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: That's that's what people want to hear about. And uh
Speaker 1: and indeed, I want to come back to the idea
Speaker 1: of youule tide revenants, Christmas zombies. I was reading The
Speaker 1: Ghosts of Christmas Past by Sarah Hoffman. This was published
Speaker 1: in eighteen by the Institute of European and Mediterranean Archaeology
Speaker 1: in the Chronica Journal. The paper centers on local customs
Speaker 1: and beliefs about the dead and the Catholic Church of St.
Speaker 1: Nicholas on and near the island of hof Gary in Iceland.
Speaker 1: So this is off the western coast of Iceland, north
Speaker 1: of Kivik, but not not far off the coast. It
Speaker 1: can be reached by boat or over the frozen ice.
Speaker 1: So the church and cemetery here served as a major
Speaker 1: funerary and burial destination for a large portion of western
Speaker 1: Iceland from about twelve hundred to fifteen sixty three. Then
Speaker 1: the church winds cemetery were both closed during the Lutheran
Speaker 1: Reformation and the island was abandoned. Now, the author here
Speaker 1: notes that you know, when we talk about the Lutheran
Speaker 1: Reformation like this was a this was a time of
Speaker 1: of of great change um and and often violent change.
Speaker 1: She notes that the last Fli bishop in Iceland, John Arson,
Speaker 1: was executed by beheading in fifteen fifty, during the height
Speaker 1: of the Lutheran Reformation. So after this took place, after
Speaker 1: this place was abandoned, uh stories about the island and
Speaker 1: about the church and the graveyard there. They kind of
Speaker 1: dealt with the abandonment in different ways, both to reinforce
Speaker 1: the abandonment and to excuse it by turning the island
Speaker 1: into a kind of forsaken and dangerous place. And this
Speaker 1: comes to involve revenance. Of course, Hoffman naturally discusses the
Speaker 1: corporeal nature of of these undead. Quote, these restless dead
Speaker 1: often emerge as a result of improper death or unfinished business,
Speaker 1: frequently overlapping with Christmas or Yule Tide. So remember we
Speaker 1: we've already gone through a few different examples. But even
Speaker 1: that example from the Gretist saka Um that where you
Speaker 1: have the you know, the battle, the wrestling match against
Speaker 1: the undead beast with the Moon in its eyes that
Speaker 1: takes place at Christmas and well as well, and she
Speaker 1: points out that most of these tales take place during
Speaker 1: a festival of transition, uh you know in in this
Speaker 1: example Christmas Cereal Tide, and are often set during a
Speaker 1: time period of transition, in this case transition to either
Speaker 1: transition to Christianity or transition from Catholicism to a Protestant
Speaker 1: faith and um in in the in cases of where
Speaker 1: it's like a Christian pagan situation we often see, the
Speaker 1: Christian heroes are the ones that are usually the individuals
Speaker 1: who are able to bring some sort of finality to
Speaker 1: this disruption involving the undead. However, she does share a
Speaker 1: tale in which the new religion does not seem to
Speaker 1: be enough. Quote in the story of the Deacon of
Speaker 1: of Mirca, a deacon of of Edge of florid Or
Speaker 1: fell in love with a woman named good Run who
Speaker 1: lived on the opposite shore of a fjord valley. One
Speaker 1: day near Christmas, the deacon attempted to cross the for
Speaker 1: was in river to meet his beloved, only to fall
Speaker 1: through the ice to his death. His ghost returned to
Speaker 1: torment guruin for two weeks, and while a priest was
Speaker 1: unable to help, a sorcerer quote skilled in witchcraft finally
Speaker 1: managed to exercise the ghost. This is interesting because I um,
Speaker 1: I remember from years ago when I visited Iceland a
Speaker 1: story about a story from somewhere I went about a
Speaker 1: guy who died trying to cross a river to see
Speaker 1: his beloved. But I wondered, But I don't think it
Speaker 1: was in a fjord valley. I think it was more inland.
Speaker 1: So maybe they're just multiple stories like that. I think so,
Speaker 1: based on what the author here shares. There are a
Speaker 1: few key things here. First of all, when we're talking,
Speaker 1: First of all, we're dealing with a part of the
Speaker 1: world in which, yes, the bodies of water will freeze
Speaker 1: and you can cross them on foot, but there's always
Speaker 1: the possibility that you will break through and then you're
Speaker 1: in the water, the chilling water, uh, and you may
Speaker 1: drown and then drowning, especially when you're dealing with death
Speaker 1: at sea, this is said to leave one in a
Speaker 1: state stuck between worlds. Uh. So there are a lot
Speaker 1: of tales involving drowned revenance. In fact, we already shared
Speaker 1: one in the first episode about the the guys going
Speaker 1: to the feast and showing up anyway even though their
Speaker 1: their boat um uh you know, wrecked and they drowned
Speaker 1: on the way. Um. So this you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that those who die in the water are especially prone
Speaker 1: to return. And we actually see this in one of
Speaker 1: the tales told to affirm the cursed nature of this
Speaker 1: particular church, this abandoned church. The account says that on
Speaker 1: Christmas even fifteen sixty three, the priests and parishioners of
Speaker 1: the church were walking back to their farms over the
Speaker 1: frozen tidal flats. So they were broken walking back to
Speaker 1: the mainland essentially from this island. And what happened while
Speaker 1: the ice broke halfway and everyone drowned. So in the
Speaker 1: entire church drowns in the water, and of course by
Speaker 1: virtue of that, they are going to be lost souls
Speaker 1: now m The author adds here that the waters off
Speaker 1: the coast were were dangerous, and it was apparently common
Speaker 1: enough to discover human bodies washed upon the shore from
Speaker 1: shipwrecks and um. And many of these were even as
Speaker 1: an as an added note, they were they were said
Speaker 1: to have occurred on Christmas, so you'd be out on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day and then here are bodies washed up on
Speaker 1: the shore. And if you were to find these bodies,
Speaker 1: it's your personal responsibility, uh, to help those bodies have
Speaker 1: a proper Christian burial, otherwise you're going to be cursed
Speaker 1: and the Revenant will follow you until the end of
Speaker 1: your days. Which reminds me of that that account of
Speaker 1: the moonlight in the eyes of the undead creature that
Speaker 1: gretted the strong battles and how he's essentially, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just shaken for the rest of his life because he
Speaker 1: saw it. But anyway, but the idea of this, the
Speaker 1: story of the lost congregation drowned in the ice um
Speaker 1: it was. It was apparently bounded because after the church's abandonment,
Speaker 1: the church decayed, but not only that, the burial grounds eroded.
Speaker 1: And when burial grounds erode, what happens, well, the dead
Speaker 1: appeared to rise, the dead are revealed, and this ended
Speaker 1: up requiring several waves of reburial, uh, you know, people
Speaker 1: having to to go out and make sure that these
Speaker 1: bodies were given a proper burial again so that they
Speaker 1: might rest. But the tail as the author the point
Speaker 1: they're making is that you have stories like this that
Speaker 1: we're about sort of giving a reason why the place
Speaker 1: was abandoned. While it's an evil place, it's curse, the
Speaker 1: dead are coming up through the ground, um. But also
Speaker 1: it's kind of compounding this idea that like the people
Speaker 1: of the church were abandoned that there, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a part of like making sense of of people
Speaker 1: lost during a time of transition, um. Not only a
Speaker 1: transition between you know, one land and another, you know,
Speaker 1: between one of the crossing of the bay here um
Speaker 1: or crossing a frozen body of water, but also like
Speaker 1: lost in this transition between Catholicism and uh and protestant
Speaker 1: is um. You know. This has makes me think of
Speaker 1: one last way to maybe interpret the the apparent contradiction
Speaker 1: and these stories of the church going un dead, these uh,
Speaker 1: you know, these lost beings that are at the same
Speaker 1: time doing something that is apparently good and holy, but
Speaker 1: then also they are menacing, which is that And again
Speaker 1: this would connect to the you know, the kinds of
Speaker 1: lives lead under the Mountain of Sirenburg as well. That
Speaker 1: that just conveys complexity like that, um. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a kind of confusion, ambiguity, and complexity to real life
Speaker 1: as well. People. There are tons of people who subscribe
Speaker 1: to whatever religion you think is the right one, and
Speaker 1: and you would think it is good when they go
Speaker 1: and worship in that religion. And then they also probably
Speaker 1: will turn around in some cases and be menacing and
Speaker 1: threatening and terrifying. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, um yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: idea of the the churchgoers turning around and attacking you,
Speaker 1: I mean that may that may well track with with
Speaker 1: with some of your experiences with the with living congregations,
Speaker 1: so um, you know, it's I think ultimately, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things to take away from this
Speaker 1: is that these stories are you know, do have a
Speaker 1: complexity to them. They're they're probably saying multiple things. They're
Speaker 1: kept around there, not only kept around, but you know,
Speaker 1: intentionally kept around because they fulfill various purposes in life,
Speaker 1: explaining things, um, making excuses for things um. And also
Speaker 1: like and also just like keeping keeping occurrences alive too,
Speaker 1: like you know, we we what is literally the idea
Speaker 1: of a haunting. You know, it's the idea that the
Speaker 1: dead won't completely rest and they keep saying something or
Speaker 1: they keep appearing and and and sometimes it seems that's
Speaker 1: a it's about you know, it's obviously more about the living,
Speaker 1: like we won't let those dead rest, and we have
Speaker 1: stories about them, uh, to help them stay alive. Yes,
Speaker 1: in the same way that we probably wouldn't embrace revenant realism.
Speaker 1: But you can certainly imagine how if you do find
Speaker 1: a body washed up on the shore, it's a dead person,
Speaker 1: and you see it and you do nothing about it,
Speaker 1: that may well follow you for the rest of your
Speaker 1: life in your brain. And uh yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: the same could probably be said to be true about
Speaker 1: these tales. You know, people are probably not getting up
Speaker 1: out of their graves to go to church at night,
Speaker 1: but it is reflecting some kind of lingering, unresolved anxieties
Speaker 1: within say these frontier lands in in in the process
Speaker 1: of Christianizing a continent where where where people have memories
Speaker 1: of the past and fears that they can't really face,
Speaker 1: and these come through in the form of narratives that
Speaker 1: have strange contradictions within them. Yeah, all right, Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and close out there, but we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone if you've you've heard other variations
Speaker 1: of these tales. Of church going revenants right in let
Speaker 1: us know, especially if you have if you live in
Speaker 1: or have connections to some of the parts of the
Speaker 1: world that we've specifically discussed in these episodes. Also, I
Speaker 1: have to say I looked around, I was I was
Speaker 1: hoping I could find some examples from other cultures where
Speaker 1: you have either a corporeal or non corporeal entity, that is,
Speaker 1: you know, going to a church, where a temple and
Speaker 1: engaging in some sort of pious activity. And um, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm surely I missed something, but I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: find anything. I found plenty of examples of various spirits
Speaker 1: that were there to sort of maliciously punish those who
Speaker 1: were who were engaging in impiety, you know, that that
Speaker 1: that we're you know, disgracing a temple or a church,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing or mischief makers you know, um,
Speaker 1: demons or angels that make um, you know, monks fart
Speaker 1: during the uh you know, during a mass or something.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I wasn't find able to find anything
Speaker 1: that really stacks up with this idea of the of
Speaker 1: the pious undead. But if I'm missing something, and surely
Speaker 1: I am, then I would love to hear about them,
Speaker 1: so right in, let us know. Yeah, I bet that
Speaker 1: exists in the media. Yeah, because I mean there's so
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there are a lot of wonderful undead
Speaker 1: uh examples from around the world. I was running across
Speaker 1: plenty that we're interesting in their own right. You know,
Speaker 1: various things raised by sorcerers and wizards and and which
Speaker 1: is things, um, you know, various ghosts, your kai and
Speaker 1: so forth. But nothing that really matched up with what
Speaker 1: we were talking about here. But like I said, if
Speaker 1: I missed it, right in and let us know. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find core
Speaker 1: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind podcast feed Artifact episodes on Wednesday, listener mail
Speaker 1: on Mondays, and on Friday, we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to set most serious concerns aside and
Speaker 1: just focus on a strange or unusual film, which thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic, for the future. Just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact that's TOFF to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind is production
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