WEBVTT - Elfshot, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.720 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.639 This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:22.520 we're back with part two of our series on elf Shot. Now, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.480 this is an idea we introduced in part one. If 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.200 you haven't listened to that yet, you should go back 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.400 check that one out first. But basically elf shot is 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.680 a what would you say, rob like, it's a complex 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:38.240 of interlocking folk beliefs, not a single belief, but it's 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.559 found especially in the British Isles and essentially centering on 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:47.120 the idea of fairies or elves attacking mortal humans and 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.080 especially their live stock with supernatural weapons. Would you say 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.760 that's fair? Yeah? Yeah. There there's a lot going on 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.240 in it, as we discussed in the first episode. I mean, 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.160 on one hand, there there's the interpretation of artifacts, artifacts 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:07.360 that from various time periods, both ancient and relatively recent. Uh. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:13.200 There's also the attempt to understand mysterious ailments, mostly in 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.960 in livestock, but sometimes in human beings as well, and 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.640 then various folk traditions getting wrapped up into these scripts. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.759 And it's also it seems to be highly regional too. 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.680 Uh so it's uh, it's not. There's not just one 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.480 elf aero script. We have multiple scripts. It ends up 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.320 tying into folk medicine and so forth as well. Yeah, 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.399 and that folk medicine aspect is is very interesting. I 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:38.959 want to come back to that in just a minute. 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.759 So in the last episode we we did talk about 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.120 some direct accounts of folk beliefs about elf shot, especially 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:47.920 in Scotland, I think is where a lot of these 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.440 accounts came from, and they included things like, okay, you 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.080 have a story where a calf suddenly falls ill and 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:58.600 dies with no apparent explanation, and then the farmer confirms 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.880 that elf shot was the cause because he and his 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.600 neighbor open up the cow's body and they find a 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.560 hole in its heart, even though there was no hole 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.320 in the hide. So it must have been some kind 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.079 of supernatural fairy weapon that can pierce through the hide 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.840 without actually breaking it and strike only the internal organs. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.639 And then, of course, when it was believed that there 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.000 was an injury of this kind caused by an elf 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.760 for a fairy weapon, uh, there were plenty of magical 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.200 remedies and rob can you characterize what some of the 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.240 main themes in these remedies were. Yeah, some of the 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.359 main themes included, of course, being able to fetch either 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.960 the elf arrow or or have an elf arrow that 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.240 you found, or elf arrows that were in the possession 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.960 of the town or local community, and using those in 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.280 the treatment. Oftentimes this would take the form of of 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.880 immersing them in water and then using that that water 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.080 either as a drink for the afflicted or as something 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.480 that is rubbed on the liquid, flickted or poured on 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.239 the site of the wounding, that sort of thing. But again, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:06.840 there are a number of different versions of this, and 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.880 the various wrinkles get added depending on which tradition you're 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.000 looking at which account. Yeah, other things were just like, hey, 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.800 mix up some gunpowder with some eggs and stuff like 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.000 that and then feed that to the cow. Right delicious. 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.000 But anyway, I wanted to address a question that came 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.880 up while we were talking uh talking last time. I 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.720 didn't have the answer to it at the time, so 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.960 I decided to look it up before we recorded this episode. 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.560 And the question is is there such a thing as 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.880 the placebo effect for non human animals? Of course, the 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.400 placebo effect in humans is something that often comes up 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.960 when we're talking about, well, you're talking about medicine in 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.040 any context, but it's especially important when you're talking about 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.680 like the history of pre scientific medicine, Like why did 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.960 people think that soaking a stone arrowhead and water and 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.240 then pressing it to their skin had actually healed them 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.640 of a disease? Like if you have a you know, 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.560 any a tumor or a bacterial infection or something, we 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.480 can be relatively confident that this intervention does not actually 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.920 shrink the tumor or kill the bacteria. And yet people 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.960 often thought interventions like this had healed them. So what 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.440 made them think that? I think some of that can 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.520 be chalked up to a concept that we did an 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.880 episode about, I think last year. It was a statistical 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.200 phenomenon called regression towards the mean or regression to the mean. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.720 But you can also think of this concept as returning 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.279 to the baseline. So UH as a quick explainer for that, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.919 imagine you suddenly get a pain in your foot and 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.520 you've never had that pain before, and you're like, ah, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:48.479 it really hurts. I don't know what to do, but 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.240 your friend says, well, I know what to do. You 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.599 have to sing a Gregorian chant and then you have 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.520 to lick the morning do from a spider's web. So 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.280 you try that out. You want your foot to stop hurting, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.480 and then what do you know, sometime after that, your 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.480 foot does stop hurting. Now, in a situation like this, 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.679 we we really all have a tendency to think something 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:14.080 has been proved here, like, ah, the spider do did work, 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.479 But actually, how do you know that your foot wouldn't 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.680 have stopped hurting on its own, just as soon if 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.680 you didn't do any of that stuff. In fact, the 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.600 whole point is that your foot doesn't usually hurt. The 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.560 state of pain is an outlier, that's an anomalous condition, 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.320 So things going back to normal on a certain time 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:39.279 scale is a totally expected outcome, all things being equal, 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.680 and regression to the mean is especially important in medicine 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.240 because it tends to be specifically when we're in an 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.640 anomalous condition, a condition that is not normal for us, 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.080 that we seek medical interventions. So if you want to 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:55.840 know if a medical intervention actually works or not, you 0:05:55.880 --> 0:06:01.920 have to compare its efficacy against a say, placebo control group. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.120 Instead of just giving somebody a treatment and saying did 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:06.880 you get better? If you do that, you don't know 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.720 if they would have gotten better anyway. Having the comparison 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.960 between the two groups gives you confidence in the efficacy. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.360 But on top of just the regression to the mean 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.480 as a as a baseline effect, you've also got psychological 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.880 effects where if you actually compare people who receive an 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:27.160 intervention like a medicine or a ritual or a doctor's 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:31.479 visit versus people who don't receive any intervention, sometimes people 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.279 who receive an intervention have better outcomes on average, even 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.480 if there's no way that intervention is actually doing anything. 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.000 If it's like you know, pressing the arrowhead deer skin. Uh. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.080 This might be considered the pure placebo effect, improved outcomes 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.760 associated with an intervention even though it's not doing anything 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.760 mechanistically or chemically to solve the problem. And though the 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.159 placebo effect shows up for a range of conditions and treatments, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.000 it seems to be especially powerful for conditions that are 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.640 modulated by the brain, such as the perception of pain 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.760 and other types of discomfort. So, to bring it back 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.960 to the question of of elf shot cattle, could it 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:14.280 be possible that a non human animal benefits from the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.640 placebo effect of a magical cure in some way, even 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.280 though they can't understand the concept of medicine or develop 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.720 expectations that the magical cure would heal them. Uh. And 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:28.560 the you know the thing I was wondering about what 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.240 this is. There's evidence that some placebo effects and humans 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.040 are created not so much by the expectation that the 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:40.160 treatment is efficacious, but by the reassurance felt in the 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.640 presence of a doctor or nurse who has a good 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.240 bedside manner. And I thought, well, maybe it's possible that 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.440 animals could be calmed or soothed by certain kinds of 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.720 human attention, even if they're not able to understand that 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.280 it is for the intended purpose of healing. So anyway, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.640 I went looking this up and I found an interesting 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.000 article by Emily Antis, who is also the author of 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:03.880 a book we've talked about on the show before called 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.880 The Great Indoors that's all about the effects of living 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.960 and spending time indoors. But this was an article published 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.960 in the Atlantic in twenty nineteen called a Crucial blind 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.160 Spot in Veterinary Medicine. So the top line answer here 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.600 is a clear yes. There is such a thing as 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.400 the placebo effect in non human animals in veterinary medicine, 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.559 but it probably works by different means than the human 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.640 version of the placebo effect. So here's an example, and 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:37.439 this begins by talking about a particular study of treatments 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.640 for canine epilepsy epilepsy and dogs. This research was being 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:43.760 carried out in the early two thousands. I think this 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.280 was in the year two thousand three, and the citation 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.120 here is the Journal of Veterinary Medicine. The article was 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.040 called Placebo Effect in Canine Epilepsy Trials and the authors 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:59.839 were Munyana, Jong and Patterson, eventually published in two thousand ten. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.920 And the story is that the researchers were testing an 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:09.320 ant convulsant drug called uh leave tarrassetam, and it was 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.960 intended to curtail epileptic seizures in dogs. So in the 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.200 test group, the group that was actually getting the drug, 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:21.160 eight six percent of dogs of their owners reported a 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.480 reduction in seizure frequency, which bodes very well for the drug. 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.120 But then the study also happened to have a placebo 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.240 control group, which we're receiving a dummy treatment that was 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.240 supposed to do nothing, and in that group, seventy nine 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:41.000 percent also saw a reduction in reported seizures seventy nine 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.599 compared to eighty six. That's that's impressive, right, Well, it 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.760 would tend to make you doubt that that the test group, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.000 that that it's actually the drug that is making the difference. 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.280 So at the time of this study, Anthes notes that 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.320 the double blind placebo controlled trials were not all that 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.160 common in veterinary medicine, which makes sense on one hand 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.200 because again, like non human, animals are not thought to 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.480 be able to develop expectations about a about a drug 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.240 treatment or the efficacy of medicine, So how could you 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.959 expect a placebo effect to exist in dogs? But it's 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.960 a good thing to study did use such a controlled design, 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.400 because otherwise the medicine would have looked really good until 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.560 you realize that fake medicine leads to results that look 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.520 about the same or almost as good. I guess it's 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:33.120 just the healing power of pill pockets, right, my god, 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.600 you can never doubt the hand that those things stink 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.719 so much and dogs love them. What do they put 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.560 in those things? Do do you work in a pill 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.240 pocket factory? Tell? Maybe we don't want to know what 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.679 goes into pill pocket. That would be that's Halloween content. 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.240 I have not had a good run with with feline 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.000 pill pockets. Um oh, I'm sorry, and I'm not to 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.200 say they don't. You know, they work in some some cats, 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.840 and some cats are not crazy about them. My cat 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.560 will spit it out and then like dissected. And in 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:04.440 some brands of pill pockets you just didn't want to 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:06.640 want a piece off anyway, She's like, no, not eating that. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.880 So do you ever use the trick this? This works 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.079 for us in the past where if if the animal 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.920 is skeptical of the pill pocket with the pill in it, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.720 you first have to give them an empty pill pocket 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.000 that has no pill in it, so they get used 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:22.920 to like, oh yeah, I can just eat this straight up. 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.240 And then the second one or the third one you 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.480 give them. I mean, that's a lot of pill pockets 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.160 if you're stacking it up. But if you're desperate, you 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.280 can try the empty pill pocket first to lower their defenses. Well, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.920 you'd think that would work, but we ended up using 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.440 the water syringe to just blast it into the back 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.959 of her throat and that seems to work well again 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:44.440 and that's a method that's not going to work for 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.480 every cat either, So it's uh, it's tough getting the 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.199 meds in these animals sometimes. Oh and I should also 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.360 know that. So the main study uh Anthes is talking 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.080 about here in this article is in dogs, but she 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.120 also cites studies that have reported placebo effects in cats 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.600 and in horse is. Uh So, anyway, how on earth 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.360 could this be? Like again, we're assuming that dogs themselves 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.280 are not developing expectations that a drug will be effective. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.720 I think that's a very fair assumption. They don't understand 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.680 what's going on. How on earth could such a strong 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.600 placebo effect manifest? And a number of ideas are discussed 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.280 in this article. One is, when we already talked about 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.120 regression to the mean, right, people are more likely to 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.360 enroll in a clinical trial for their dogs epilepsy if 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.640 seizures have been especially bad lately, And conditions like epilepsy 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.480 tend to sort of wax and wane on their own anyway, 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.360 So you know, you could enroll the dog at a 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.040 time when their seizures are bad, and then that would 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.520 just tend to, by the law of averages, give way 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.840 to a period where they return to the baseline and 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.240 have fewer seizures, So again, a good reason to have 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.720 a placebo control group to compare your test group to. UH. 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.839 Second thing that I thought was interesting, Anthes sites something 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.920 called the hawthorne An effect, which is the idea that 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.120 people often behave differently when they know they're being studied 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.880 or observed. I think the name of this effect comes 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:15.320 from UH some anecdote about industrial productivity research which found 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.320 all kinds of spurious effects for things like, oh, what 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.000 would happen if we change the lighting in this room? 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.480 Are workers more productive? Oh? It turns out they are. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.280 But then one ex post facto explanation for all these 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.680 spurious results is just that when employees know that they're 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.719 part of an experiment, they are more productive because they 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.559 know they're being closely scrutinized. Now, this would not apply 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.439 so much to the dogs themselves, but probably to the owners. 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.600 So in the case of the epilepsy studying dogs, Antis 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.440 writes that UH that all of the dogs in the 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.640 study were already on at least one other anti seizure medication, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:58.280 and the leaveder acetam was being studied as a supplemental drug. 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.480 So one possibility is that once enrolled in a study, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.280 pet owners may have been more consistent about making sure 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.600 their dogs got all doses of their pre existing pretested 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:15.760 epilepsy medication on time. Other possible explanations what about more 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.640 attentive veterinary care. It's possible that while enrolled in the study, 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:25.120 the animals were we're getting special attention from from vets, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.680 and this would be partially in line with the explanation 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.680 I was guessing about beforehand, something roughly parallel to the 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.240 effect of a reassuring doctor or nurse. Uh. And I 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.400 think it is a pre existing finding that sometimes gentle 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.400 affectionate attention from humans can help animals like dogs and 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:47.120 horses show fewer symptoms of discomfort or anxiety and things 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:51.800 like that. In some cases, you could actually have classical conditioning. Uh. Probably, 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.080 it's hard to see how it would apply to this case, 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.840 but Anti writes quote for example, rats that have regularly 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.880 been getting insulin injections will still experience blood sugar changes 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:07.160 if they suddenly start receiving saline injections instead. Again, I 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.080 don't think this would apply directly to the epilepsy study, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.840 but you can imagine it applying to other studies. But 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.040 then the primary explanation favored by anthis in this article 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.960 is something called the caregiver placebo effect or the placebo 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:25.040 effect by proxy. And this one's pretty straightforward when you 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.440 think about it. Animals can't report or explain their own symptoms. 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.320 Understanding the symptoms experienced by an animal, whether that's something 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.880 like a seizure or whether it's something even more elusive 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:41.720 like discomfort or pain, that requires human observation of some kind, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:46.440 usually reports by the pet owners, and the pet owner 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:52.240 absolutely can form expectations about improvement based on believing that 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.640 their pet is getting a treatment of some kind, even 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.239 though their their pet might actually be in the placebo 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.880 arm of the study. They don't know that. If it's 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:02.400 a good if it's a well designed study, uh so 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.560 they think their pet might be receiving the actual drug. 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.800 They form expectations that the pet will be getting better, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.840 and thus they they interpret everything they see in light 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.480 of those expectations. Because again, seizure frequency in the study 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:22.880 in question was measured by owner reports, and you might imagine, well, okay, 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.080 you know, it's it's pretty clear whether a dog is 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.480 having a seizure or not. Well, you might assume that, 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.440 but in fact, pet owners are not always there to 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.640 see a seizure take place. Sometimes you have to interpret 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:39.400 ambiguous evidence. So the example given in the article is, 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.600 if there's a spot of saliva on the floor, is 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.560 that a sign that the dog had a seizure unobserved 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.160 and drooled on the floor or is that just nothing? 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.680 Did the dog just dripped? Rule? Because they just dripped? Rule. Uh. 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.600 If if the owners believe their dogs are receiving a 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.000 drug that will help reduce the seizures, does that actually 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.120 make the owner less likely to interpret that evidence as 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.600 evidence of a seizure. Yeah, Okay, I see what. I 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.040 see what you're talking about here. Okay, Like I well, 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.679 he's on the medicine, So I guess that's that's not 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.240 a seizure drule, that's just druel. Yeah. The article also 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.760 cites a veterinary surgeon at the University of Minnesota named 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.520 Michael Consimius who gives a really interesting example from a 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:25.280 different study. This was a study on anti inflammatory treatments 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.280 for arthritis in dogs, and they did a trial that 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:33.320 involved both subjective and objective measurements of how well this 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:38.399 anti inflammatory was doing to reduce reduce arthritic pain in 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.600 the limbs, and so the subjective measure was you would 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.200 ask both pet owners and veterinarians to observe the dog 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:48.719 and rate how much pain they seem to be in. 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.280 And then there were also objective measures, and this would 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.560 be having the dog walk on a on a complicated 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.560 setup of digital scales to determine how much weight the 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.080 dogs were putting on each limb while walking, because if 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:03.960 the dog, if one of the dog's limbs is in pain, 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.720 they will tend to put less weight on that limb. 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.560 And this study found conflicts between the subjective measures and 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.520 the objective measures. So in the placebo group, owners and 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.439 vets who thought the dog might be receiving the drug 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.240 but actually they were just getting a placebo, reported improvements, 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.719 but the objective measure, the scales did not show improvements. 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.200 So the in the placebo group they're getting a fake treatment. 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.120 The owners and the veterinarians are like, yeah, we think 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.520 the dog is doing better, but when you put them 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.600 on the scales, they're still not putting weight on that limb. 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:42.000 So the dog itself is not affected by receiving the placebo, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:46.840 but the human observers are interestingly even the veterinarians. This 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.760 is interesting because when we first raised the question about 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:54.000 BOTHO effected animals and then when you brought up dogs here, 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.600 my first thought was, well, dogs are are highly social animals, 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.440 so perhaps there is some sort of social by namic 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.719 between the way that they're human is treating them, like 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:06.800 maybe it has to do lee, and maybe it has 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:08.920 to do with with pill pockets, like oh, I'm getting 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.800 more snacks or I'm getting more attention or something like that. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:13.600 And then that of course would be something that would 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:18.280 not seem to readily translate into the livestock world. But 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.840 what we're looking at here these are examples that, if 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.800 I'm not mistaken, would translate rather readily into the world 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.960 of caring for livestock. Yeah, because it's about the human observers, 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.119 like the cow whatever is making it into these reports 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.680 that are in like anthropological texts or you know, folklore 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.280 journals or whatever. The cow doesn't actually get to write 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.159 that report that's made by humans, and it's usually going 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.520 to be like the farmers saying, yeah, my cow got 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.639 better or something like that. And they could well be 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:52.399 affected by caregiver placebo effect. They form expectations of efficacy, 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.800 and they interpret what they see through that lens. Another 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.800 thing is that this article reports how sometimes animal pain 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.679 is observable to one human onlooker but not to another. Again, 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.240 just based on expectations, like our emotional biases are very 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.920 strong in this area. And and one example given would 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.200 be a you know, a pet owner brings an animal 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.000 into the vet and it was in pain before, and 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.159 the vet observes that the animal does still appear to 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.879 be in pain, but the owner says, no, no, no, 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.679 he's not he's in he's much better now. I've been 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.800 giving him these homeopathic treatments I found. And you know, 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.520 that's a mix of things. Like the pet owner, they 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.639 love their pet, so they desire to believe that the 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.800 beloved animal is doing better. And then on top of that, 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.000 you could have like a choice supportive bias bias too, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.680 you know, where you interpret reality in a way that 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.520 that supports the idea that what you have decided to 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.199 do was the right decision. So the choice supportive bias 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.639 says your selected intervention is working. And that may be 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.560 a magical treatment or a or a non science based 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.800 intervention like homeopathy or something, and that can blind you too. 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.560 Signs of distress that other unbiased onlookers could see. Yeah. Yeah, 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.159 because because at least you feel like you're doing something 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.840 in those cases, and or you're consultant. You may be 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.280 consulting experts in the local community that are also assuring 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:17.880 you like, yeah, this is the way to go, this 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.199 is what will will get results. Yeah. And I think 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.360 the important thing to stress here is that this occurs. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.199 You don't have to be like an uncaring you know, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.320 companion to to your non human animal of whatever type. 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:32.360 It is like you can care very much about their 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:34.879 well being and have this kind of bias. It's not 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.240 like a result of being cold and unfeeling and cruel. 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:40.760 So just a couple of final notes on this article. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.320 One is just a big takeaway is you should be 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.439 careful when observing the symptoms of of a non human animal, 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.439 of a pet or whatever, uh, not to let these 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.920 kinds of biases prevent you from finding the most effective 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.160 treatment or solution. You know, whenever possible, try to look 0:21:56.200 --> 0:22:02.160 for objective pieces of behavioral evidence that remove your subjective 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.720 evaluation from things. And then the other thing is about 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:10.359 the standards of evidence within veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, the history 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:15.200 of veterinary studies has included fewer double blind, placebo controlled 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.400 trials than human medicine. Because again, for a long time, 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.600 nobody really thought placebo effect would come into play in 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.320 a major way in veterinary medicine. But it looks like, 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.120 at least in some cases, it really does, especially when 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:31.520 that reported outcomes are based on owner's perceptions. And so 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.240 this is changing and more more evidentiary standards like this 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:38.960 are being introduced into veterinary medicine. But it may mean 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.640 that the evaluation of the true efficacy of veterinary medicine 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.880 has in some cases, especially when the basis is older, 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.320 maybe on a lower standard of evidence than in human 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:53.320 drug trials. But fortunately that that is changing. But anyway, 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.120 so I'm bringing all this back to thoughts about how 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.639 this could relate to like a Scottish farmer in the 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.680 seventeenth century who believes that his his cow is sick 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.919 or his horse is sick because it has been elf shot, 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:08.080 it has been you know, hit by a ferry arrow 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.760 and summon someone to provide a magical cure that maybe 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:16.800 involves neolithic flints or egg mixed with gunpowder and healing 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.239 their cow I I wonder how it relates to that. 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.920 I mean, I would guess that the specifically that last 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:25.680 when the caregiver placebo effect would would be a major 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.480 factor here. Yeah, yeah, I think so that seems to 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:30.880 be the That would seem to be the key. Though. 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:33.879 It also makes me wonder about the idea of a 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.280 of an inverse thing. This is not addressed in the 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.320 article at all, but a a caregiver no sebo effect. 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:43.720 I mean, it makes me wonder how you could have 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:48.800 anxieties or beliefs about danger, other kinds of things taking 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.520 place purely within the mind of the animal caregiver that 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:57.800 give rise to spurious diagnoses of of illness or symptoms 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:00.520 in the animal. Like what if actually the cow was fine. 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:04.960 The farmer just gets freaked out about the idea that, oh, no, 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:07.880 something bad is happening to my cow for some reason, 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:12.480 and and that brings on the illusion of distress, which 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.119 could then be treated by some kind of magical intervention, 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:18.439 and then what do you know of the cow's fine afterwards? Yeah. 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:22.160 This is especially possible given some of the the linked 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:26.000 or perceived to be linked activities to elf shot, the 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:30.240 cases where humans did something they shouldn't have to attract 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:33.240 the attention of the elves, be it, you know, trumping 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:37.280 on sacred ground, cutting down of a sacred tree, um 0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:41.480 or or or so something of this nature, um or 0:24:41.520 --> 0:24:45.159 even just the finding of the elf ere like this 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:48.399 was curious. I was out with my cattle and I 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:51.760 found this artifact on the ground. It's clearly an artifact 0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:54.439 of the elves. I better check on my cattle and 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:57.280 see how they're doing. Oh, this one's not doing too well. 0:24:57.480 --> 0:24:59.919 Oh yeah, I didn't make that connection with the picking 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:06.680 up of the flint, but yeah, that makes sense. Thank you, 0:25:06.880 --> 0:25:10.360 Thank you. Now, there was a paper we talked about 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.800 a little bit in the previous episode that I wanted 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:15.159 to come back to and just mention a couple of 0:25:15.200 --> 0:25:19.240 more interesting little stories from uh. It was that paper 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:22.520 called elf Shot Cattle by Thomas Davidson that was published 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.159 in the journal Antiquity in nineteen fifty six. Remember, this 0:25:26.200 --> 0:25:27.959 is the one that was collecting a lot of those 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:31.600 reports about elf shot. One of the things that caught 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:36.480 my attention was the claim that a lot of times 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:40.720 these injuries from elf shot are not inflicted directly by 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:45.520 fairies or elves themselves. Davidson cites an author named Luid 0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:48.760 writing that there's a belief among some that fairies have 0:25:48.880 --> 0:25:53.400 to use humans as intermediaries in order to inflict these injuries, 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:58.280 since the fairies have little power to cause direct physical 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:03.200 injury to animal bodies them selves. So sometimes these stories 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:05.960 say humans are like sucked up into the air by 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:10.040 fairies and then given fairy weapons and then forced to 0:26:10.200 --> 0:26:14.600 shoot at men or cattle. M So okay, so sort 0:26:14.600 --> 0:26:17.800 of possession going on here. Yeah. One example of this 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:21.439 is a story called the Tale of Black Donald of 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:25.800 the Fairy Throng Uh. And this is a story where 0:26:25.840 --> 0:26:28.440 there's this guy named Donald and he's out plowing. He's 0:26:28.440 --> 0:26:31.719 plowing the land, he's working in the furrows, and this 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:34.080 is on the Aisle of Tyree, which is off the 0:26:34.440 --> 0:26:38.320 coast of Scotland. And Donald's he's plowing and he gets 0:26:38.640 --> 0:26:42.840 uh sucked up by a fairy convoy and uh, and 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:46.399 then they force him to drop an arrow from the 0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:50.080 sky that kills a speckled cow. And this actually connects 0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:54.080 with some of the critical stuff I was reading about 0:26:54.320 --> 0:26:56.679 the elf shot tradition, which says that actually in a 0:26:56.680 --> 0:26:59.800 lot of these stories, it is being alleger that it's 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:03.359 he whoman's who are doing the inflicting, like witches or 0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:07.800 something who are inflicting damage with these weapons rather than 0:27:07.840 --> 0:27:11.200 elves directly. Interesting and in the end this it gets 0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:14.000 into a common trope in many cultures of the of 0:27:14.080 --> 0:27:17.520 sort of like the outsider within somebody within the community, 0:27:17.600 --> 0:27:19.720 either somebody from outside the community or somebody within the 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:24.680 community that has been corrupted somehow. Yeah. Yeah, one thing 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:27.360 I had to mention just because it was funny. There 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:30.320 there's a long section of this paper that talks about 0:27:30.600 --> 0:27:33.440 alleged cures for elf shot, and one is a recorded 0:27:33.440 --> 0:27:36.719 anecdote of a wise woman curing a cow in the 0:27:36.720 --> 0:27:42.160 Shetlands by asking the crofter, the farmer, to bring her 0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:45.600 a Bible, and he brings the Bible, and she rips 0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:48.320 pages out of the Bible and balls them up into 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:51.680 a pellet and then crams the Bible page pellet into 0:27:51.720 --> 0:27:54.920 a dimple in the cow's skin. Then there's another one 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:58.360 I have to share because it involves crabs and and 0:27:59.000 --> 0:28:01.840 raises a mr for me that I cannot solve. So 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:04.880 maybe the listeners have some input on this. So this 0:28:04.960 --> 0:28:08.240 is from a source Davidson sites called Shetland folklore. This 0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:11.480 is a book by Spence, and I'm going to read 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.359 directly from Davidson summary here. Oh, I'm sorry, this is 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:19.399 still about traditions in the Shetlands. Quote. A variant prescription 0:28:19.480 --> 0:28:23.000 from the same area directs the wise woman to take tar, 0:28:23.560 --> 0:28:29.159 a needle, a bible, a fire brand, and some fairy crabs. 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:34.040 Waving the burning brand, she walked three times witter shans 0:28:34.160 --> 0:28:38.200 round the cow. That means counterclockwise three times witter shans 0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:42.000 round the cow, jabbing the animal with the needle, waving 0:28:42.040 --> 0:28:45.320 a leaf of the Bible over its back, and muttering 0:28:45.360 --> 0:28:49.680 an incantation. The firebrand was placed in a pot of 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:53.080 tar and set at the cow's head so the fumes 0:28:53.120 --> 0:28:56.400 would make her cough. She was then given the fairy 0:28:56.480 --> 0:29:00.440 crabs to eat alive. The ashes of the fire brand 0:29:00.480 --> 0:29:03.800 were later mixed with the tar into three pills, which 0:29:03.840 --> 0:29:08.760 were administered to the animal on three successive mornings. What 0:29:09.600 --> 0:29:13.560 so involves eating the fairy crabs alive, it says she, 0:29:13.760 --> 0:29:16.800 And I'm sorry, I'm not sure if that means the 0:29:17.000 --> 0:29:20.840 cow or the wise woman. I think that means the cow. Yeah, 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:24.560 I remember reading this in the source during the initial 0:29:24.640 --> 0:29:27.360 research phase. And I could not figure out what fairy 0:29:27.360 --> 0:29:31.440 crabs where. I was like, yeah, it was I was trying, 0:29:31.520 --> 0:29:33.800 my mind was struggling to form. I was just imagining 0:29:33.800 --> 0:29:36.600 like a glowing blue crab. I was confused too, and 0:29:36.760 --> 0:29:39.000 I tried to look this up. There is an animal 0:29:39.440 --> 0:29:42.160 called a fairy crab, you can see it if you 0:29:42.200 --> 0:29:45.440 google that phrase. But it's clearly not what this is 0:29:45.480 --> 0:29:49.959 referring to, because it's a species of squat lobster called 0:29:50.520 --> 0:29:55.880 the scientific name is Laurea gianni and it's native to 0:29:55.920 --> 0:29:58.440 the Pacific. It's found like off the coast of Australia 0:29:58.520 --> 0:30:01.800 and UH and Indonesia. I think, so this is clearly 0:30:01.840 --> 0:30:05.360 not what they're talking about in the Shetlands. And I 0:30:05.440 --> 0:30:07.880 was trying to find more information and I just could not. 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:10.880 So I wonder if this refers to I don't know, 0:30:10.920 --> 0:30:14.840 if this is a local Shetland name for a certain 0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:17.720 type of animal, like an actual crab or some type 0:30:17.720 --> 0:30:21.640 of insect or something. I really have no idea. Yeah, 0:30:21.680 --> 0:30:23.760 I can imagine it going in different directions, some sort 0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:27.400 of novel crab that's found on the shore or or 0:30:27.480 --> 0:30:30.320 turned up in nets, or or indeed something that is 0:30:30.360 --> 0:30:34.400 found uh. You know, in in streams, or is not 0:30:34.480 --> 0:30:36.840 a crab at all, but some sort of an insect 0:30:36.880 --> 0:30:40.080 with some sort of folk medicine properties to it. Or 0:30:40.200 --> 0:30:42.920 I mean certainly we have examples in in plenty of 0:30:42.960 --> 0:30:45.800 cultures where something is named after an animal, but it's 0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:47.720 not itself an animal. It could be you know, you 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:50.760 can imagine a situation where the fairy crab is actually 0:30:50.800 --> 0:30:53.600 some sort of a root, uh something into that effect. 0:30:53.680 --> 0:30:55.520 So there's so many different directions that could go in 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:58.840 not not knowing exactly what this is referring to. Well, 0:30:58.840 --> 0:31:01.080 hey listeners, if you've got inside on this, you know 0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:04.960 what the fairy crabs are, right in. One last subject 0:31:04.960 --> 0:31:09.240 that Davidson brings up with respect to elf shot is 0:31:09.360 --> 0:31:15.360 the idea of of curved plow furrows and ridges in 0:31:15.480 --> 0:31:20.680 order to quote Wander the fairy, which I found so interesting. 0:31:20.720 --> 0:31:23.160 It's the idea that if you you go throughout Scotland 0:31:23.200 --> 0:31:26.160 and you look at some old cultivated fields, you'll find, 0:31:26.280 --> 0:31:29.720 you know, these places that are uh, they're they're dug 0:31:29.760 --> 0:31:33.640 with a what's known as like a ridge and furrow system, 0:31:33.680 --> 0:31:36.640 So you'll see a series of basically you know, lines 0:31:36.720 --> 0:31:39.040 where like you'd have a plowed area and then like 0:31:39.080 --> 0:31:41.719 a sort of ridge of of moved earth piled up 0:31:41.720 --> 0:31:45.120 in between them. And an interesting thing about a lot 0:31:45.200 --> 0:31:48.680 of these is they are created with with so that 0:31:48.760 --> 0:31:51.960 the ridges and the furrows are not straight lines, but 0:31:52.080 --> 0:31:56.920 are curved or crooked or s shaped even. And it 0:31:57.000 --> 0:32:01.160 is believed by some that the purpose of this is 0:32:01.200 --> 0:32:06.000 to confuse or quote wander the ferry to uh, to 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:09.120 maybe lead the ferry off course or lead the elf 0:32:09.240 --> 0:32:11.520 off course. This is not the only system, by the way, 0:32:11.520 --> 0:32:14.640 that would use this, Like Davidson notes that a lot 0:32:14.680 --> 0:32:19.400 of amulets that are designed for protection against fairies have 0:32:20.360 --> 0:32:23.600 a rays of kind of spiral patterns or can you know, 0:32:23.800 --> 0:32:27.920 complex whirls within them, or labyrinths or something, and that 0:32:28.080 --> 0:32:32.560 this is designed to confuse the evil spirits, to kind 0:32:32.560 --> 0:32:35.720 of send them on a on a maze like journey 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:38.480 that will lead them astray and keep them from harming you. 0:32:38.800 --> 0:32:41.480 These If if you haven't seen these ridgin furrow features, 0:32:41.920 --> 0:32:44.080 definitely look them up to do an image search, because 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:47.680 you can see lots of wonderful aerial photographs of this 0:32:47.960 --> 0:32:50.080 sort of thing. And yeah, you can sort of imagine 0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:54.840 the trail of the of the elf going astray here. Oh, 0:32:54.920 --> 0:32:56.840 some of the ones you're looking at are the curved ones, 0:32:56.880 --> 0:32:59.360 because some are just straight, but others some are just straight. 0:32:59.440 --> 0:33:01.960 But I was looking at one in particular here where 0:33:02.000 --> 0:33:03.920 you do see you kind of see a mix in 0:33:03.960 --> 0:33:06.480 this particular one. You see the different areas of land 0:33:06.560 --> 0:33:10.040 and definite curves in some areas where and one kind 0:33:10.040 --> 0:33:12.120 of has like almost like a fern look because you 0:33:12.120 --> 0:33:14.560 have the line going down the middle and you have 0:33:14.680 --> 0:33:17.880 some like like different wavings on each side. So the 0:33:17.920 --> 0:33:21.520 magical understanding here again is that this, well, it could 0:33:21.520 --> 0:33:24.040 throw fairies off just generally because you know, you you 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:27.080 make twisting paths in order to confuse evil spirits. But 0:33:27.080 --> 0:33:29.560 the other thing would be it doesn't allow them to 0:33:29.640 --> 0:33:32.840 get a clear straight line shot at the cattle, like 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:35.720 at the oxen that you're using to plow the field. Yeah, 0:33:35.760 --> 0:33:38.080 this is strange, Like this idea of the elf is 0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:41.040 kind of like this. Uh, you know, I guess you 0:33:41.120 --> 0:33:44.080 look at different folklore systems, it's like you want to 0:33:44.120 --> 0:33:48.120 avoid doing things that draw attention to yourself. You know, 0:33:48.280 --> 0:33:51.120 we definitely see that with the elf and fairy folk traditions, 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:53.480 and in this part of the world with the wearing 0:33:53.520 --> 0:33:55.640 of green, which we've discussed before. Don't wear the green 0:33:55.720 --> 0:33:57.960 that's the color of the elves or the fairies. They'll 0:33:57.960 --> 0:34:00.640 come at you. You also see that with editions of 0:34:00.720 --> 0:34:03.520 the Evil Eye in the Middle East, where there are 0:34:03.600 --> 0:34:07.200 various things like you should not do because this invisible 0:34:07.280 --> 0:34:10.239 nefarious forces out there in the world, and you do 0:34:10.320 --> 0:34:13.200 not want it aware of your presence or your fortune. 0:34:13.480 --> 0:34:16.399 So you don't. Don't, don't get on its radar, don't 0:34:16.440 --> 0:34:19.840 have direct lines leading to you, be that line something 0:34:19.920 --> 0:34:22.520 like you know, you're shouting about how beautiful your child is. 0:34:23.160 --> 0:34:24.400 Um you know, in the case of some of the 0:34:24.640 --> 0:34:28.279 Evil Eye traditions in particularly in Judaism, I remember hearing 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:31.799 about reading about um or or in this case, like 0:34:31.840 --> 0:34:35.839 a physical line through the altered landscape. I think this 0:34:35.960 --> 0:34:38.760 type of belief is still present even in like modern 0:34:38.800 --> 0:34:41.880 day and Christianity. Like I remember when I was a 0:34:41.960 --> 0:34:45.080 kid hearing about the dangers of playing with a weigia board, 0:34:45.480 --> 0:34:49.200 and the idea was it attracts demonic attention. I mean, 0:34:49.280 --> 0:34:51.839 it's literally like the it's it's like when you play 0:34:51.840 --> 0:34:54.600 with a wegia board. It's not so much something about 0:34:54.600 --> 0:34:56.880 the board as evil, but it. It's sort of like 0:34:56.920 --> 0:35:01.279 puts up a beacon to demons that says, hey, I'm available. Uh, 0:35:01.320 --> 0:35:04.080 you know, pay attention to me, and they will hone 0:35:04.120 --> 0:35:07.040 in on you because you have done that. Yeah. Oh. 0:35:07.080 --> 0:35:10.319 In quick note, I mentioned Judaism and the evil eye 0:35:10.400 --> 0:35:12.840 and so forth. The evil eyes not necessarily like a 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:15.040 part of Judaism. I don't want to imply that, but 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:17.200 it is something that is sort of in the folklore 0:35:17.320 --> 0:35:20.160 traditions of various people in the Middle East, including you'll 0:35:20.160 --> 0:35:23.200 see that in Judaic culture. Yeah. And certainly we see 0:35:23.239 --> 0:35:25.160 similar site case with with this here because we have 0:35:25.200 --> 0:35:27.560 people who are discussing that have taken you know, that 0:35:27.640 --> 0:35:31.240 have converted to Christianity, and that they're still they're still 0:35:31.800 --> 0:35:35.480 practicing beliefs, they're still engaging in belief of the elves, 0:35:35.640 --> 0:35:38.520 but they're also incorporating in some of these Christian traditions 0:35:38.560 --> 0:35:41.360 like well, maybe maybe you know, wat up a Bible 0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:44.279 page and stick it into that furrow in the cow 0:35:44.360 --> 0:35:47.160 and that will help to this is this next thing 0:35:47.239 --> 0:35:49.680 is not really addressed in Davidson, but I was wondering 0:35:49.719 --> 0:35:52.759 about this, uh, because I was reading about the ridge 0:35:52.760 --> 0:35:57.640 and furrow system elsewhere after after reading this passage from Davidson, 0:35:57.680 --> 0:36:02.360 and it seems to me that sometime the strips that 0:36:02.400 --> 0:36:06.560 are plowed in this system are curved for totally mundane 0:36:06.640 --> 0:36:10.279 reasons that have nothing to do with magical beliefs. I 0:36:10.360 --> 0:36:13.399 think that they're they're often curved just because of Uh. 0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:17.040 It was a sort of necessary consequence of the types 0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:20.040 of plow rigging and and oxen pulling teams that they 0:36:20.120 --> 0:36:22.480 used at the time. They would lead to a farrow 0:36:22.600 --> 0:36:25.120 or ridge being kind of like curved off at each 0:36:25.280 --> 0:36:27.920 end every time the team turned around to make a 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:32.360 new line. Uh. And that makes me wonder if something 0:36:32.520 --> 0:36:37.799 like twisting twisting in these rows could have originally been 0:36:37.880 --> 0:36:41.960 a totally mundane thing that somebody saw and then in 0:36:42.040 --> 0:36:45.480 trying to explain why it was like that without understanding it, 0:36:45.760 --> 0:36:49.600 they came up with this explanation about confusing the ferries 0:36:49.960 --> 0:36:53.120 and then afterwards did did it like that on purpose? 0:36:53.560 --> 0:36:56.640 It's like like somebody like that. The landowner whoever comes 0:36:56.640 --> 0:36:59.000 out to check on the work is like, Dale, what's 0:36:59.000 --> 0:37:01.040 going on with these ridges and furrows? Look and look 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:02.880 at it. It's just like I can tell it's crooked. 0:37:03.400 --> 0:37:05.320 And Dale was like, well, do you want the fairies 0:37:05.360 --> 0:37:08.200 coming straight at you. I didn't think, so You're welcome. 0:37:08.760 --> 0:37:11.120 This of course also reminds me of on one hand 0:37:11.160 --> 0:37:14.280 this and this may have well be connected, uh, the 0:37:14.280 --> 0:37:19.200 the idea that vampires might be deterred by hanging some 0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:22.360 sort of a nodded item or or carefully woven item 0:37:22.400 --> 0:37:25.000 out for them, like a complex pattern that will draw 0:37:25.040 --> 0:37:27.040 their attention and they have to deal with and maybe 0:37:27.040 --> 0:37:29.520 get they'll either spend all their time doing that and 0:37:29.600 --> 0:37:31.600 leave you alone, or perhaps even get caught in the 0:37:31.600 --> 0:37:34.680 sunlight the loose track of time. And then of course 0:37:34.719 --> 0:37:37.120 I can't help but think of crop circles as well, 0:37:37.560 --> 0:37:39.800 which again, as we've discussed I think we've discussed this 0:37:39.840 --> 0:37:41.640 in the show before. I mean crop crop circles are 0:37:42.000 --> 0:37:45.759 pretty much put to bed as a you know, is 0:37:45.800 --> 0:37:50.799 the work of human actors. But thinking about like sort 0:37:50.840 --> 0:37:53.520 of the draw to do this to a field, like 0:37:53.560 --> 0:37:57.600 the human um intention to do this, and there's there 0:37:57.600 --> 0:37:59.520 are several factors that can play into that someone which 0:37:59.600 --> 0:38:01.520 may actually they come up in our next episode of 0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:05.640 such to blow your mind. But um, but the the 0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:08.040 idea of like just seeing that field, like I wonder 0:38:08.040 --> 0:38:10.200 if there's some sort of draw that like, no, the 0:38:10.280 --> 0:38:13.600 lines are too too perfect. Everything is just too pristine, 0:38:13.760 --> 0:38:18.000 like this this this, this land has been too finely transformed. 0:38:18.360 --> 0:38:20.279 We gotta get some swirls in there. We gotta get 0:38:20.320 --> 0:38:23.840 some circles, you know. Yeah, that is a good comparison. 0:38:23.880 --> 0:38:25.560 I didn't think you were going to crop circles though. 0:38:25.600 --> 0:38:27.600 I thought you were going to mention the jung she 0:38:28.000 --> 0:38:31.640 being uh being warded off by spilling glutinous rice on 0:38:31.680 --> 0:38:35.239 the floor because they'll I think they'll be counting the grains, right. Oh, yeah, 0:38:35.440 --> 0:38:37.480 that that also, that's a good point as well. I've 0:38:37.480 --> 0:38:40.800 forgot about that one, something about yeah, the the inhuman 0:38:40.840 --> 0:38:45.520 analytical mind of the of of non human beings and folklore, 0:38:45.960 --> 0:38:49.040 and that there they can be led astray by and 0:38:49.239 --> 0:38:53.200 by either random randomized patterns or things of of human 0:38:53.200 --> 0:38:55.879 creation that have some sort of eloquence to them, which 0:38:55.880 --> 0:38:58.279 is kind of ironic given that we're talking about situations 0:38:58.360 --> 0:39:00.360 where human beings may in some cases of just like 0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:04.439 completely flipped their wig over finding an old flint arrow 0:39:04.480 --> 0:39:14.600 in the dirt. So I I guess it cuts both winds. Now, 0:39:14.600 --> 0:39:16.840 there's one more paper. I wanted to briefly mention that 0:39:16.920 --> 0:39:20.280 gets way more into the weeds about a particular text 0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:23.880 that is believed or has been believed to reference elf shot. 0:39:24.560 --> 0:39:26.680 But I thought this was interesting too. So this was 0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:30.480 a paper by a professor of English at the University 0:39:30.520 --> 0:39:34.759 of Leeds named Alaric Hall called Calling the Shots the 0:39:34.800 --> 0:39:40.080 Old English Remedy Gift Horse of Scotland CE and Anglo 0:39:40.160 --> 0:39:44.319 Saxon elf Shot, published in two thousand five. So this 0:39:44.360 --> 0:39:47.600 paper is mainly an attempt to critically re examine an 0:39:47.640 --> 0:39:52.960 Anglo Saxon text called Gift Horse of Scotland c. Which 0:39:53.080 --> 0:39:56.680 is a passage from a medieval Anglo Saxon medical text 0:39:56.880 --> 0:39:59.560 that has been widely interpreted as being about elf shot. 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.319 The title gift Horse of Scott and c. Translates to 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:06.600 if a horse be and then the word is off scotten, 0:40:06.880 --> 0:40:10.439 And the question is what does of Scott mean? It's 0:40:10.480 --> 0:40:13.719 been traditionally translated as elf shot if a horse be 0:40:13.880 --> 0:40:17.440 elf shot. Hall argues that it should not be understood 0:40:17.480 --> 0:40:20.479 that way, and yet there are still references to elf 0:40:20.520 --> 0:40:25.080 attacks within the passage. So this is Hall's translation of 0:40:25.120 --> 0:40:28.400 this text, which is interesting in itself. If a horse 0:40:28.440 --> 0:40:32.480 be off Scott take, then a dagger who's halft is 0:40:32.520 --> 0:40:35.920 of fallow Ox's horn, and in which there are three 0:40:36.080 --> 0:40:39.680 brass nails. And then there's a term that every time 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:43.360 is rendered as right slash. Inscribe, I'm just gonna say, inscribe. 0:40:44.160 --> 0:40:48.279 Inscribe on the horse on the forehead, Christ's mark, so 0:40:48.360 --> 0:40:53.160 it bleeds. Inscribe then Christ's mark on the spine, and 0:40:53.320 --> 0:40:56.920 on each of the limbs which you can grasp. This, 0:40:57.040 --> 0:41:00.239 shall you do take a staff strike on the act, 0:41:00.640 --> 0:41:05.160 then the horse will be well. And inscribe on the 0:41:05.239 --> 0:41:10.360 daggers handle. These words been a de cite omnia opera 0:41:10.440 --> 0:41:14.200 domini dominum, which means bless all the works of the 0:41:14.280 --> 0:41:19.000 Lord of lords. Should it be Alf's which is on it, 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:23.160 this will do as a remedy for it. And so 0:41:23.239 --> 0:41:26.239 Hall makes the argument in this paper that the primary 0:41:26.280 --> 0:41:29.200 condition being described in this text under the word off 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:33.080 scotten should not be translated as elf shot, as it 0:41:33.120 --> 0:41:37.239 traditionally has been. But it's something like badly pained. It's 0:41:37.520 --> 0:41:42.880 more more mundane condition that is prompting this entire remedy. However, 0:41:43.040 --> 0:41:45.680 even if that's correct, the last line of the remedy 0:41:45.960 --> 0:41:50.279 does mention the idea of this word alf the a 0:41:50.440 --> 0:41:54.759 E combined vowel and then l f e uh. Though 0:41:54.760 --> 0:41:57.160 this sentence is also kind of difficult to translate, the 0:41:57.160 --> 0:41:58.719 one that's got the alfh in it. I think that 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:02.400 the understanding that makes the most senses, this whole remedy 0:42:02.480 --> 0:42:05.879 is for regular bad pain and horses, and then there's 0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:09.880 an additional remedy, the one that's riding on the daggers 0:42:09.920 --> 0:42:12.200 handle the words bless all the works of the Lord 0:42:12.239 --> 0:42:16.480 of lords. Uh. That additional remedy is like a special 0:42:16.640 --> 0:42:20.480 extra dose of holiness that should be applied if the 0:42:20.560 --> 0:42:24.440 cause of the horses pain is injury by an elf. 0:42:24.640 --> 0:42:27.480 Though it doesn't explain how you tell the difference between 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:31.080 normal bad pain and bad pain caused by an elf. 0:42:31.120 --> 0:42:33.879 You know, of course, the the elf injury being even 0:42:33.920 --> 0:42:38.000 more unholy and requiring more holiness or more piety in 0:42:38.080 --> 0:42:40.520 order to undo either way you shake it. From a 0:42:40.560 --> 0:42:44.800 modern perspective, it's a lot of uh cutting and striking 0:42:44.840 --> 0:42:48.040 of a pain horse. Yeah, jeez, you feel bad for 0:42:48.040 --> 0:42:51.880 the horse now, as we uh, As we go to 0:42:51.920 --> 0:42:54.399 close out this look at elf shot, I did want 0:42:54.400 --> 0:42:57.839 to come back to some basic questions, some of which 0:42:57.840 --> 0:43:01.240 we've already got into, concerning the art theology of elf shot, 0:43:01.640 --> 0:43:04.279 who were the people who made these artifacts and how 0:43:04.280 --> 0:43:07.080 did they get to the regions where the artifacts were found? 0:43:07.160 --> 0:43:10.160 And then of course you know, interpreted and reinterpreted within 0:43:10.200 --> 0:43:13.120 these folkloric traditions. Uh. This of course is a broad 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:16.319 question because as we've we've mentioned already, we're talking about 0:43:16.360 --> 0:43:19.680 multiple areas. We're talking about locations throughout the British Isles 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:22.640 and even outside of the British Isles. But just limiting 0:43:22.680 --> 0:43:24.719 the question to the British Isles, were still looking at 0:43:24.760 --> 0:43:28.440 close to a million years of occupation by various human species, 0:43:28.760 --> 0:43:32.520 including Neanderthals. And as for the how they got there, 0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:36.360 the predominant theories involved land bridges between Europe and Britain 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:39.920 that were president at the time. And regarding Ireland, I've 0:43:40.040 --> 0:43:44.840 seen hypotheses that involve boats, land bridges and also ice bridges. 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:48.120 But just to give a few examples that really sort 0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:51.680 of drive home at the time we're talking about here, Uh, 0:43:51.719 --> 0:43:55.399 there are stone tool and footprints in Norfolk. The date 0:43:55.440 --> 0:43:59.000 back and estibated nine hundred thousand years uh, and these 0:43:59.000 --> 0:44:01.760 would be the work and the and or the footprints 0:44:01.800 --> 0:44:07.360 of Homo antecessor. Notable here are the Happisburg footprints in Norfolk, 0:44:07.640 --> 0:44:10.440 and also a black flint hand axe was also found 0:44:10.440 --> 0:44:14.880 in this area. So Homo antecessor they were makers of 0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:18.600 simple stone tools, and it looks like many experts think 0:44:18.640 --> 0:44:22.080 that they might not have had mastery of fire. By 0:44:22.160 --> 0:44:26.360 four thousand BC, e Neolithic culture was firmly established on 0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:30.000 the British Isles and lasted till roughly Uh, it's just 0:44:30.080 --> 0:44:32.440 you know, the rough time period of our histories, uh, 0:44:32.719 --> 0:44:36.680 two thousand, five hundred BC. And of course between three 0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:40.440 thousand BC and two thousand BC we see the construction 0:44:40.480 --> 0:44:43.640 of Stonehenge, one, of course the most famous, if not 0:44:43.719 --> 0:44:46.960 the most famous testament to prehistoric Britain. And of course 0:44:47.000 --> 0:44:50.759 even Stonehenge gets wrapped up into various folklore, traditions and 0:44:50.800 --> 0:44:56.640 folkloric interpretations and reinterpretations that involved at times the wizard Merlin, 0:44:57.120 --> 0:45:01.960 but also the Christian devil, and even during the Roman period, 0:45:01.960 --> 0:45:04.560 which would have been a roughly forty three CE two 0:45:04.600 --> 0:45:10.080 four tense, the Roman sky god Kalis. More realistically or 0:45:10.239 --> 0:45:12.640 more on this sort of you know, realistic interpretation and 0:45:12.680 --> 0:45:16.319 reinterpretation standpoint, it was at one point thought to be 0:45:16.360 --> 0:45:20.560 credited to the work of Druidic culture. But this culture 0:45:20.560 --> 0:45:23.600 didn't exist till three d b C, which would have 0:45:23.600 --> 0:45:26.280 been too late, so the stones were already ancient history 0:45:26.320 --> 0:45:30.359 to the Druids. Now, another example that I found really 0:45:30.400 --> 0:45:35.040 interesting of talking about found arrowheads uh in the British Isles. 0:45:35.400 --> 0:45:40.280 In archaeologists from the University of Reading discovered a four thousand, 0:45:40.320 --> 0:45:44.320 five hundred year old flint arrowhead a few miles from Stonehenge, 0:45:44.440 --> 0:45:48.320 and according to David Dawson, director of the Wiltshire Museum, 0:45:48.360 --> 0:45:54.040 this particular arrowhead is not only finally preserved, but incredibly fragile, 0:45:54.480 --> 0:45:57.640 suggesting that it was never actually intended for use in 0:45:57.719 --> 0:46:02.319 war or hunting, but was rather ceremonial or decorative and 0:46:02.520 --> 0:46:06.240 or decorative um this was. You can look up images 0:46:06.280 --> 0:46:08.200 of this. There was some news articles at the time. 0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:11.840 The arrowhead was unearthed in two parts, two different digs, 0:46:11.960 --> 0:46:15.440 five years apart, and it is quite elegent looking. It 0:46:15.520 --> 0:46:19.320 has like one it has barbs, but one really long 0:46:19.440 --> 0:46:22.600 barb and elongated barb on one side. So I don't 0:46:22.640 --> 0:46:24.600 know about you, but I find that really interesting because 0:46:24.760 --> 0:46:28.480 I think it's easy to think of folkloric interpretation of 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:31.480 found objects to be a luxury of later civilizations on 0:46:31.520 --> 0:46:35.440 the British hiles to think supernaturally about about these about 0:46:35.480 --> 0:46:37.440 these items. But certainly, and certainly there's a lot we 0:46:37.480 --> 0:46:40.759 don't know about concerning pre Roman and prehistoric Britain. But 0:46:40.880 --> 0:46:45.360 even of forty years ago, uh, this find would suggest 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:50.439 that people here were already capable of sublime interpretations and 0:46:50.560 --> 0:46:53.839 uh and perhaps mystical meanings for their own created artifacts. 0:46:54.200 --> 0:46:57.360 That you could have this this sacred arrow, uh that 0:46:57.520 --> 0:47:00.640 wasn't found, that was made, but some of the same 0:47:00.800 --> 0:47:05.040 energy that goes into the the the interpretation of these artifacts, 0:47:05.520 --> 0:47:08.279 you know, thousands of years later, was already present in 0:47:08.320 --> 0:47:11.400 the cultures that made their home here, right. And so 0:47:11.440 --> 0:47:13.359 we don't know what it would have been used for, 0:47:13.440 --> 0:47:16.400 but it's clear that it would not have been useful 0:47:16.480 --> 0:47:20.040 for actual shooting of an arrow. So you know, it 0:47:20.120 --> 0:47:24.600 could be decorative, it could be medicinal, some kind of amulet. 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:27.279 It could be magical or ceremonial. We don't know, but 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:30.520 in any case, it would be a symbolic arrowhead rather 0:47:30.640 --> 0:47:35.160 than one used for the literal, direct mundane purpose. Yeah, 0:47:35.239 --> 0:47:38.360 and so you can imagine at some point in in 0:47:38.520 --> 0:47:43.200 history after this point, uh, if someone were to find 0:47:43.239 --> 0:47:45.960 an arrow had like this especially, I mean any arrow 0:47:46.000 --> 0:47:49.480 had obviously any kind of novel lump of stone um 0:47:50.280 --> 0:47:53.520 could find itself interpreted as an elf arrow and and 0:47:53.520 --> 0:47:57.800 and incorporated into elf shot folklore. But imagine if you 0:47:57.880 --> 0:48:00.799 found this, you know, clearly and an arrow that that 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:03.960 looks too fine to be shot. You know, that's almost 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:07.640 ephemeral in its construction, Like who would make this? Why 0:48:07.680 --> 0:48:10.080 would they make this? Clearly this is the work of 0:48:10.120 --> 0:48:13.239 the elves. But also I think it's just yeah, it's 0:48:13.239 --> 0:48:17.799 just worth remembering the the deep history of of of 0:48:17.880 --> 0:48:19.960 people on the British Isles. You know, it might not 0:48:20.000 --> 0:48:22.640 be as deep as uh as some other areas. I like, 0:48:22.680 --> 0:48:24.399 you know, you're looking at what on France, I think 0:48:24.400 --> 0:48:26.560 it's what one point fifty seven million years ago we 0:48:26.600 --> 0:48:28.960 have some of the earliest known evidence of human beings. 0:48:29.520 --> 0:48:35.240 But still you have human species on the British Isles. Uh. 0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:38.080 You know that as early as almost a million years ago, 0:48:38.280 --> 0:48:43.319 different species, different cultures, different waves of technology and arrivals 0:48:43.360 --> 0:48:47.360 in the subsequent centuries and millennium millennia, and of course 0:48:47.440 --> 0:48:51.800 different waves of interpretation and reinterpretation of what came before. 0:48:53.239 --> 0:48:54.960 All Right, we're gonna go and close it out there, 0:48:55.000 --> 0:48:56.839 but obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there. 0:48:56.960 --> 0:48:59.799 We'd especially love to hear from folks listening to the 0:48:59.800 --> 0:49:02.719 show oh on the British Aisles, or folks who have 0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.359 spent time on the British Isles. Perhaps you have some 0:49:05.680 --> 0:49:08.520 tidbits some local lore to share with us. If so, 0:49:08.560 --> 0:49:11.400 we'd love to hear from you. Reminder that Stuff to 0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:14.840 Blow Your Mind is a primarily a science podcast that 0:49:14.840 --> 0:49:17.319 publishes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow 0:49:17.320 --> 0:49:20.319 Your Mind podcast feed but on Monday's we do a 0:49:20.360 --> 0:49:25.280 listener mail episode where we read various missives from our listeners. 0:49:25.600 --> 0:49:28.520 On Wednesday's we do a short form artifact or monster fact. 0:49:29.000 --> 0:49:31.600 On Friday's we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time 0:49:31.960 --> 0:49:34.680 to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about 0:49:34.719 --> 0:49:37.640 a weird film. Huge thanks as always to our excellent 0:49:37.680 --> 0:49:40.920 audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to 0:49:40.960 --> 0:49:43.480 get in touch with us with feedback on this episode 0:49:43.520 --> 0:49:45.680 or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, 0:49:45.800 --> 0:49:47.880 or just to say hello, you can email us at 0:49:48.000 --> 0:49:58.560 contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff 0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:01.160 to blow your mind. It's production I Heart Radio. For 0:50:01.239 --> 0:50:03.239 more podcasts for my heart Radio. This is the I 0:50:03.280 --> 0:50:06.120 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to 0:50:06.120 --> 0:50:06.920 your favorite shows.