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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And hey everybody, I got to apologize right here at

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Speaker 3: the start for my voice and my brain. Possibly today

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Speaker 3: I am wrastling a pretty nasty cold, but we're plowing

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Speaker 3: right through. And today we're going to be talking about

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Speaker 3: a topic. We're actually returning to a topic we talked

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Speaker 3: about a couple of weeks ago, the subject of sacred trees.

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Speaker 3: In that previous episode, Rob you talked about the giant's

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Speaker 3: Equoia of western North America, arguably the largest tree in

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Speaker 3: the world depending on how you measure, and we talked

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Speaker 3: about the history of how people regarded these massive plants

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Speaker 3: with reverence, and I ended up talking about the Ohia,

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Speaker 3: the Hua tree of Hawaii, and a lot of interesting,

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Speaker 3: beautiful ways that interlocks with Hawaiian religion and traditional practices.

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Speaker 3: In some cases it's the physical embodiment of a god.

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Speaker 3: In other cases it's like a tree beloved by the

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Speaker 3: gods in storytelling and so forth. But when we were

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Speaker 3: researching that episode, we thought, man, there are so many

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Speaker 3: interesting angles on sacred trees that we could come back to.

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Speaker 3: So that's what we're doing today. Here's a new installment.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure this is something we'll probably return to again

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Speaker 3: in the future.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a good month for it, since we're

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Speaker 2: into December here, and a lot of December holiday traditions

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Speaker 2: center around a sacred tree. I guess one of the

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Speaker 2: things I think we both encountered it in the last episode,

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Speaker 2: especially in this episode. It's the thing about sacred trees

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Speaker 2: is that it's never just a case of like, oh, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's this tree around and at one point

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Speaker 2: there's a group of people that thought it was sacred

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Speaker 2: and then they stopped. You know, No, the trees have

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Speaker 2: been around a long time, and human cultures enter into

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Speaker 2: these areas where these trees grow, develop these ideas about them,

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Speaker 2: and build upon those ideas, pass them down, and the

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Speaker 2: trees remain. And so you start pulling the threads on

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Speaker 2: some of these beliefs, and you know, those threads connect

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Speaker 2: across different peoples, you know, into neighboring territories and oftentimes

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Speaker 2: there as far flung as a particular you know, it's

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Speaker 2: the range of a tree species itself. So before long

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Speaker 2: you realize, oh, well, this isn't necessarily just a look

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Speaker 2: at one particular tree and or one particular folk belief

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Speaker 2: or mythology, but you can easily touch upon like a

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Speaker 2: dozen different folk beliefs and mythologies concerning the same tree.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

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Speaker 2: Which is to say, we're not going to pull all

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Speaker 2: We're not going to pull all those those threads today.

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Speaker 2: We're going to pull some of those threads and we're

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Speaker 2: going to find some, I think, some very tantalizing, very

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Speaker 2: interesting things to say about a couple of different topics

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Speaker 2: related to sacred trees.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So to kick things off today, I wanted

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Speaker 3: to explore something interesting I came across in a book.

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Speaker 3: The book is called European Pageaganism The Realities of cult

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Speaker 3: from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, originally published in the

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Speaker 3: year two thousand. I think the edition I was reading

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Speaker 3: was from maybe twenty thirteen, but from Rutledge Press, by

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Speaker 3: an author named Ken Dowden, who was a professor of

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Speaker 3: classics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This

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Speaker 3: is a book about the religious practices of European cultures

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Speaker 3: before the introduction of Christianity, and then also those pagan

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Speaker 3: religions interacting with Christianity once it was introduced, and these

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Speaker 3: religious beliefs and practices were, of course not all the same,

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Speaker 3: though there are some themes that kind of emerge repeatedly,

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Speaker 3: so you can kind of make some rough generalizations about

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Speaker 3: pre Christian European paganism, but they don't apply in every case.

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Speaker 3: And one is that a lot of pre Christian European

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Speaker 3: religions saw sacred dimensions in the features of the physical land,

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Speaker 3: like rocks, waters, and of course trees, but there are

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Speaker 3: many different ways to understand the sacredness of trees. Now

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Speaker 3: Down And actually begins this section of the book with

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Speaker 3: an ancient passage describing something that's a little bit of field,

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Speaker 3: but I thought it was so interesting I wanted to

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Speaker 3: throw it in here. It's describing one way of showing

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Speaker 3: appreciation for trees that's kind of hard to classify. It

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Speaker 3: doesn't seem exactly right to call it a religious practice,

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Speaker 3: but it definitely goes beyond like, oh, look at the poplars,

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Speaker 3: they're so nice. This is a translated passage from Plenty

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Speaker 3: the Elder that reads as follows on a hill called

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Speaker 3: corney in the suburban part of the land of Tusculum.

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Speaker 3: There is a grove in ancient Reverence dedicated by Latium

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Speaker 3: to Diana, And that would be by the way Diana,

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Speaker 3: goddess of the hunt of wild animals in the moon,

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Speaker 3: sort of a wilderness goddess. The ranger of the party

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Speaker 3: plenty goes on. The foliage of the beech forest is sheared,

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Speaker 3: as though by topiary. In it an exceptional tree was

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Speaker 3: loved in our times by Passienus crisp Us twice Console,

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Speaker 3: the orator, later more famous thanks to his marriage with Agrippina,

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Speaker 3: through which he became the stepfather of Nero. He was

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Speaker 3: in the habit of kissing and embracing it. Talking about

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Speaker 3: the tree kissing and embracing it, not only of lying

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Speaker 3: under it and pouring wine over it.

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Speaker 2: Literal tree hugging here.

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Speaker 3: Yes, So this tree is interesting in the example here

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Speaker 3: because it is in one sense a literal sacred tree.

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Speaker 3: In a religious sense, it's part of an ancient sacred grove.

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Speaker 3: And I guess one thing we could talk about is

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Speaker 3: a distinction between sacred trees, as in, like a type

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Speaker 3: of tree or a tree species has a religious significance

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Speaker 3: within a particular culture versus an individual tree like this

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Speaker 3: tree right here has religious significance of some kind, versus

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Speaker 3: a collection of trees have some kind of religious significance,

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Speaker 3: A sort of expanded version of this tree right here,

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Speaker 3: this forest right here has significance. And there are a

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Speaker 3: lot of those in pre Christian European religions, sacred groves,

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Speaker 3: sacred forests throughout the continent. But so in this case,

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Speaker 3: it is a particular sacred grove, a forest of beech

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Speaker 3: trees that are in honor of the goddess Diana. So

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Speaker 3: these are the trees of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.

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Speaker 3: But this Roman politician isn't necessarily worshiping Diana. I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Maybe he is, but it's not discussed in the passage here.

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Speaker 3: He's not just honoring the sacred forest as a whole

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Speaker 3: in its relation to the goddess Diana. It sounds like

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Speaker 3: he is in erotic love with one particular, very special tree.

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Speaker 3: Hard to think of a parallel to this. I just

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Speaker 3: thought I thought it worth mentioning. But anyway, from here,

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Speaker 3: Dowbtan goes on to a section where he sort of

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Speaker 3: thinks about the implicit logic of our relationship to trees,

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Speaker 3: especially in our desire to think of them as persons,

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Speaker 3: as like a symbol of a person, or as containing

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Speaker 3: the essence of a divine person. And he notes an

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Speaker 3: interesting parallel between trees and humans which has been observed

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Speaker 3: by a number of scholars of religion. It's not unique

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Speaker 3: to this book, and that parallel is in the form

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Speaker 3: of posture. Humans are mostly unique in the animal world

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Speaker 3: for our verticality. What appears to physically differentiate humans from

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Speaker 3: other animals is that we are a column, a standing

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Speaker 3: straight up, compared to most other animals, which tend to

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Speaker 3: position their bodies in a more horizontal fashion. You can

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Speaker 3: think of a few little counter examples here and there,

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Speaker 3: but for the most part this does really hold true.

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Speaker 3: Humans appear to be different from all other animals in

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Speaker 3: that we stand straight up. And what makes a tree

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Speaker 3: different from a bush or a shrub or lots of

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Speaker 3: other plants is that it is also a tall, vertical column.

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Speaker 3: It's true of both trees and humans that we take

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Speaker 3: the form of a vertical column. We grow taller as

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Speaker 3: we age, and when we die, we fall down.

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Speaker 2: That's a good point.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So with this kind of knowledge just sort of

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Speaker 3: operating in our minds all the time, it seems very

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Speaker 3: natural to think of the tree as the sort of

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Speaker 3: human analog within the alien kingdom of plant life, except,

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Speaker 3: of course, trees grow much larger than humans, and are

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Speaker 3: much tougher than humans, and often live for hundreds of years,

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Speaker 3: so in a sense, you can think of them as

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Speaker 3: something that has always been here. So it's I think

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Speaker 3: quite natural to start thinking of them as like super humans,

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Speaker 3: super persons, they are gods.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these are great points. Yeah, it stands tall

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Speaker 2: like a human, it has the verticality, and then you know,

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Speaker 2: lives before and after us and on this different time

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Speaker 2: scale than we are.

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Speaker 3: So that's just sort of one theory as to why

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Speaker 3: we're sort of primed to see godhood in the form

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Speaker 3: of trees. But Doubtan also emphasizes that many trees are

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Speaker 3: integrated into religion not simply by their nature, not by

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Speaker 3: being trees, but in a specific sense by being connected

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Speaker 3: directly to myth or to history, as in like this

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Speaker 3: plane tree at Delphi was planted by Agamemnon and that's

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Speaker 3: why it's special. Or when Io was transformed into a

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Speaker 3: cow by hera and tied to a tree. It was

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Speaker 3: this olive tree right here, or this tree was the

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Speaker 3: source of heracles first oak leaf crown, or this tree

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Speaker 3: is where Helen of Troy was hanged after she fled

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Speaker 3: to Rhodes. So in those cases you might say that

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Speaker 3: these physical existing trees are sacralized by way of intersections

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Speaker 3: with stories, and whether those are like sort of founding

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Speaker 3: ethnic stories, like founding histories of a people or a nation,

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Speaker 3: or myths about the gods. On one hand, you have

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Speaker 3: a physical object that is right here here, right now,

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Speaker 3: this tree we're all looking at. And on the other hand,

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Speaker 3: you have the story we all know. And so by

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Speaker 3: connecting the to the tree, the physical object makes the

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Speaker 3: story more real, and the story makes the physical object

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Speaker 3: more meaningful.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like eventually we'll come around to talking about

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Speaker 2: the body tree in this series. The body tree, of course,

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Speaker 2: in Buddhist traditions, is the tree under which the Buddhist

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Speaker 2: sat when he attained enlightenment. You know, it is the

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Speaker 2: place where it happened. Yeah. So yeah, we see versions

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Speaker 2: of that in various different myths and religions.

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Speaker 3: But one example I really wanted to focus on for

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Speaker 3: a minute because I thought it was so interesting. Was

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Speaker 3: something Dowdin brings up in this chapter, that is the

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Speaker 3: idea of a sacred tree struck by lightning. Dowtan writes

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Speaker 3: that the ancient Romans had a practice of enclosing a

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Speaker 3: tree after it was struck by lightning, so like after

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Speaker 3: a tree was hit by lightning that it would be

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Speaker 3: subject to a type of sacrificial or religious immurement. The

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Speaker 3: enclosure for a tree would sometimes be what this author

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Speaker 3: identifies as a putel put e a l pleural would

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Speaker 3: be puutealia, which usually refers to a well head. So

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Speaker 3: this would be the raised stone structure around the opening

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Speaker 3: of a water well. Now, in the case of a

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Speaker 3: water well, usually you have a wellhead raised in part

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Speaker 3: to prevent the well from simply being a hole in

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Speaker 3: the ground that people can fall into. You know, it's

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Speaker 3: like a wall for safety. In ancient Rome, these well

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Speaker 3: heads were often made of marble and decorated with carvings

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Speaker 3: or with bas relief. I've got a picture from a

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Speaker 3: well head in Venice for you to look at here, Rob,

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Speaker 3: so you can see, you know, it's a there's a

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Speaker 3: cap on it right now. I think it's a it's

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Speaker 3: an iron cap. I don't know what the original material

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Speaker 3: of the cap would have been, possibly iron, you know,

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Speaker 3: hundreds of years ago or thousands years ago as well.

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Speaker 3: But in this case, you know, you could open it

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Speaker 3: up and imagine looking down into the well, but then

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Speaker 3: down on the wall around it, we've got I don't know,

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Speaker 3: some kind of creepy dancing god babies who are thrown

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Speaker 3: around some What do you think that is? Is that

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Speaker 3: grape leaves or olives or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, some sort of like wreaths and leaves.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. But as Dowdan says in this chapter, sometimes a

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Speaker 3: poutel would be built not around a water well, but

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Speaker 3: around a tree or really any spot that had been

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Speaker 3: touched by a bolt of lightning. So a lightning kissed

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Speaker 3: location like this was called in Roman times a bidental.

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Speaker 3: And I was reading about this in an older source

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Speaker 3: from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William

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Speaker 3: Smith from the nineteenth century. This reference book goes into

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Speaker 3: sources from ancient history describing what the bidental was and

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Speaker 3: what its religious significance was. And so it says that

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Speaker 3: the bidental was named after the fact that a you

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Speaker 3: would sacrifice a sheep here after lightning struck it would

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Speaker 3: be a two year old sheep called a biden, which

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Speaker 3: means two tooth by DN like dental, and the sequence

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Speaker 3: would go like this. So lightning strikes somewhere and people

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Speaker 3: witness it, and whatever was struck, be that a tree

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Speaker 3: or a person or just the earth, whatever is there

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Speaker 3: is buried, in some cases burned, in other cases not burned,

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Speaker 3: but is buried by priests in the ground in that

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Speaker 3: very spot. So if you get struck by lightning and

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Speaker 3: killed in ancient rome where these bidental priests are operating,

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Speaker 3: you are not Your body is not transported to a

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Speaker 3: cemetery and is not cremated. You are buried in the

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Speaker 3: spot where you fell. And then the two year old

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Speaker 3: sheep is sacrificed and added to the lot. And then

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Speaker 3: that spot is in some sense sort of walled off

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Speaker 3: from human contact. It is capped with an altar and

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Speaker 3: then enclosed in some way by a fence or in

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Speaker 3: some cases by a poutel a marble wellhead, and thereafter

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Speaker 3: it is made taboo. No one may walk there, no

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Speaker 3: one may touch it, no one may even look at it.

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Speaker 3: And if a person were to violate this taboo, like

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Speaker 3: to remove the well head or the altar, or in

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Speaker 3: some other way violate the prohibition against treading there they

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Speaker 3: would be subject to swift, violent punishment by the gods,

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Speaker 3: and this connects to the original action there. Lightning was

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Speaker 3: often thought to be the weapon of the gods in

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Speaker 3: ancient Rome, particularly of Jupiter, so a place struck by

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Speaker 3: lightning was both terrifying and holy. It was a sacred

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Speaker 3: point of connection with divine power and a conduit of

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Speaker 3: divine wrath. So as one example of a pouteal which

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Speaker 3: may once have covered a tree made wholly by lightning,

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Speaker 3: Doubtan mentions a fi tree attested in ancient sources in

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Speaker 3: the area of the Committium of Rome. The Committeum is

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Speaker 3: an ancient public meeting space in the city center, and

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Speaker 3: this fig tree was known as the Picus romanaalis, which

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Speaker 3: literally means the ficus of suckling, though experts apparently debate

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Speaker 3: whether that's its original meaning or how it should be understood.

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Speaker 3: But there are actually a couple of sacred objects said

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Speaker 3: to be in the vicinity here. One thing is this tree,

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Speaker 3: the Ficus roominalis, but there is also a stone which

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Speaker 3: was said to have been cut in half with a

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Speaker 3: razor by the ancient Roman augur Attus Navius, and the

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Speaker 3: story goes that he cut the stone in half in

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Speaker 3: a display of his powers when he is in the

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Speaker 3: middle of rebuking a legendary king of Rome who was

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Speaker 3: sort of arrogantly trying to expand his own glorification. ADUs

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Speaker 3: Navius was rebuking him and saying, like, you go to

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Speaker 3: far king, and in their conflict, He's like, I better

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Speaker 3: show how strong my divinatory skills are and the kind

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Speaker 3: of power I can command. So I'm going to cut

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Speaker 3: a stone, cut a wetstone in half of the razor.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, I guess it worked.

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Speaker 3: It did, according to the story. So you've got this

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Speaker 3: split stone here, and then you've got the ficus tree.

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Speaker 3: And here Doubdan again quotes a passage from Plenty the

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Speaker 3: Elder describing the site of the tree and the sliced rock.

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Speaker 3: So Plenty in translation rites a fig tree growing in

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Speaker 3: the actual Forum and Committium of Rome is revered sacred

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Speaker 3: because of the lightning bolts buried there, and still more

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Speaker 3: to commemorate the fig tree under which the nurse of

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Speaker 3: Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of empire at

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Speaker 3: the Loopercol. It is called Ruminalys because it was beneath

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Speaker 3: it that they found the she wolf offering her rumas

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Speaker 3: that is what they used to call abreast to her babies,

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Speaker 3: miracle commemorated nearby in bronze, as though the wolf had

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Speaker 3: of her own accord, crossed the Committeum while adis Navius

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Speaker 3: was acting in his role as auger. Nor is it

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Speaker 3: without significance when it dries up and must, through the

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00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:17,600
Speaker 3: efforts of the priests, be replaced. So I thought this

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Speaker 3: was interesting in that the way Plenty tells the story,

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Speaker 3: the way he understands it, at least this fig tree

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Speaker 3: is in part sacred because of an intersection with legend.

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Speaker 3: Like we mentioned earlier, you know, so you know, much

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Speaker 3: like you might say this tree was planted by Agamemnon,

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Speaker 3: in this case you would say this tree is the

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Speaker 3: site where Romulus and Remus were nursed by wolf Mother.

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Speaker 3: And then also by proximity to the site where adas

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Speaker 3: Navius split the stone, that's another connect intersection with legend.

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Speaker 3: But then, according to Plenty, it's also sacred because lightning

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Speaker 3: bolts are buried beneath it. And then here Doubtan also

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Speaker 3: mentions a possible connection of the legend of the ficus

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Speaker 3: from Analys to the interesting sort of botanical fact that

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Speaker 3: the fig tree produces a sap like secretion, which I

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Speaker 3: believe is part of an anti predator strategy that is

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Speaker 3: said to look like milk. So, like you, if you

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Speaker 3: wound a fig tree, the ficus will will leak out

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Speaker 3: this white milky substance that is said to be quite

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Speaker 3: bitter and I think is supposed to deter things from

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Speaker 3: munching on it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we used to have a fig tree, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: I can attest to this.

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Speaker 3: And so Doubtan's saying, you know, so you have a

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Speaker 3: place where, according to these ancient texts, you have a

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Speaker 3: stone which is interesting because of its shape, it's like

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Speaker 3: a split stone. And then you also have a tree

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Speaker 3: which has interesting sort of biological features. This tree appears

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Speaker 3: to leak milk and then can be kind of attached

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Speaker 3: to myths, and so he writes, quote the tree is

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Speaker 3: tended and when necessary renewed by the priests. If it

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Speaker 3: is surrounded by a poutel. Then originally this may have

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Speaker 3: been understood as a place where lightning had struck and

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Speaker 3: the wetstone, that's the stone that was apparently split in

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Speaker 3: the story, the wetstone might have been considered a thunderstone.

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Speaker 2: Wow, this is this is all really fascinating and fascinating

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Speaker 2: to me, especially when you think about the idea that

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Speaker 2: like the world tree and myth is often situated as

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Speaker 2: this thing that connects Earth to the heavens and lightning

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Speaker 2: as well. Is this momentary connection between Earth and heaven

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Speaker 2: that leaves like a physical sign, you know, we see

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00:19:31,480 --> 00:19:34,360
Speaker 2: it and then we can if we can find where

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00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:40,800
Speaker 2: it hit. We have evidence of this contact between like

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Speaker 2: lightning and the earth, between the storm clouds and the earth,

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Speaker 2: but on another level, between the divine and the mundane

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Speaker 2: world totally.

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Speaker 3: And you know, one thing I like is the kind

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Speaker 3: of ambiguity of the is this good magic or bad magic?

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Speaker 3: The way you know that you can have a place

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Speaker 3: where a tree is struck by lightning and it becomes

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Speaker 3: in some sense sacred, But it seems to me rather

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Speaker 3: there's a kind of ambivalence like is this a place

347
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Speaker 3: that is cursed and dangerous and will hurt you, or

348
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Speaker 3: is this a place that is in some way blessed

349
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Speaker 3: and is showing off the power of the gods or

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Speaker 3: God's power in a way that can be celebrated and sacralized.

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Speaker 2: There's almost kind of a U curve, right, It's like this,

352
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:26,719
Speaker 2: the place is so sacred or it is so cursed

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Speaker 2: that it essentially amounts to the same thing, and then

354
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Speaker 2: that is no trespassing. Sorry, you can't visit, you can't

355
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Speaker 2: touch it. Well, that is all really fascinating. And another

356
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Speaker 2: cool thing is that it does lead directly into the

357
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Speaker 2: tree that I'm going to talk about here, the Rowan tree.

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Speaker 2: I've looking at several different sources on this, one of

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Speaker 2: which was I didn't spend a lot of time with

360
00:20:57,480 --> 00:20:59,679
Speaker 2: this source, but there was an older article titled The

361
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:03,119
Speaker 2: Full Floor of Trees by Lizzie M. Hadley. This was

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00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 2: published in the Internal of Education back in eighteen ninety four,

363
00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:11,639
Speaker 2: and this very short, little kind wordy right up, touching

364
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Speaker 2: on various sacred ideas of trees. But the Rowan tree

365
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:18,360
Speaker 2: is mentioned in passing and just a few ideas connected

366
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Speaker 2: to it or thrown out, including the idea in some

367
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 2: European traditions that the tree grew from a place where

368
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Speaker 2: lightning struck. That's like the origin of this tree.

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Speaker 3: That would be interesting in the So remember the phrasing

370
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 3: plenty uses is that lightning bolts are buried there where

371
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:39,679
Speaker 3: the tree is, so it's like when lightning hits the ground,

372
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Speaker 3: it's almost like a seeding of the ground, like it

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Speaker 3: plants something when it hits. And so you could imagine, well,

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Speaker 3: if what it's planting is some kind of seed, what

375
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 3: grows it could be a type of tree, that's right.

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Speaker 2: So why did I pick the Rowan tree? Well, I

377
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 2: recently had the opportunity, in the privilege, to go on

378
00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 2: a little tour of Whales with my family, and I

379
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 2: was enraptured by the haunting beauty of its rolling hills,

380
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 2: these dramatic valleys and in some cases hilltop ruins of

381
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 2: which there are ghost stories about. So I thought, well,

382
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,840
Speaker 2: I should I should cover a tree that is sacred

383
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 2: within Welsh traditions. There's obviously going to be a lot

384
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Speaker 2: of overlap with other sacred trees in the British Isles

385
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:25,760
Speaker 2: and and so forth, But yeah, I wanted to pick

386
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Speaker 2: something that had significance in Wales. And I realized I

387
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:32,960
Speaker 2: was already talking a little bit about Welsh tradition and

388
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Speaker 2: mythology and the monster fact. And I should go ahead

389
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Speaker 2: and drive home if anyone's not familiar Whales as a

390
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Speaker 2: country in western Great Britain. It is part of the

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Speaker 2: United Kingdom, but it boasts its own distinctive culture and language.

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Speaker 2: We've touched on Welsh Welsh mythology before, which of course

393
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,600
Speaker 2: shares various ideas with other cultures of the British Isles.

394
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Speaker 2: But I don't know if we'd really if we've ever

395
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Speaker 2: really stopped to just talk about the idea of Wales

396
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 2: in Welsh tradition and Welsh language in any degree of detail. Maybe,

397
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 2: And I forgot about it, but I just wanted to

398
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 2: bring it up again. So again. It's the rowan tree

399
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 2: or sorbus occuparia, also known as the mountain ash, though

400
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:15,920
Speaker 2: it is not closely related to either true ash trees

401
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 2: or a particular tree. This is Eucalyptus regnuns. This is

402
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,159
Speaker 2: the plant that you find in Australia, so obviously a

403
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 2: good ways away from Whales in Europe, but that one

404
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,959
Speaker 2: is sometimes called a mountain ash, but it is not

405
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 2: related to the tree we're talking about here. No, the

406
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 2: rowan tree is actually a tree or shrub of the

407
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 2: rose family.

408
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that. Yeah.

409
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:44,159
Speaker 2: So according to the UK's Woodland Trust, which is a

410
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 2: nice little overview about the species here, a rowan tree

411
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,880
Speaker 2: can reach heights of fifteen meters or nearly fifty feet

412
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 2: in height. The trees bark is smooth and silvery gray

413
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 2: and leaf the leaf buds are purple and hairy. I

414
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 2: included a close up image here for you, Joe. But

415
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 2: out there, if you do a search you can find

416
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,439
Speaker 2: like rowing tree buds. You'll see these. And yeah, it

417
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,959
Speaker 2: has this as is often sometimes the case with like

418
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 2: the little details, especially with budding of trees. You know,

419
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 2: there's almost like a velvety appearance to it. It almost doesn't

420
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 2: look like tree flesh, but more like, you know, it's

421
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 2: like part of a deer growing out of the tree

422
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 2: or something.

423
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, like like a little fallen's ear. Yeah.

424
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Speaker 2: Now, when the leaves leaves develop, it's gonna have the

425
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 2: serrated leaflets and groups of five to eight. It produces

426
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 2: white flowers which, following pollination, develop into vibrantly scarlet berries.

427
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 2: Sometimes I've seen various photographs and of course you know color,

428
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 2: you know, details of color kind of bury depending on

429
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 2: the exact photography in question. But yeah, sometimes they look

430
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 2: more scarlett, sometimes they look a little more orange, but

431
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 2: it's a vibrant color, and yeah, you can get into

432
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 2: a discussion about it. What is red, what is orange? Anyway,

433
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 2: At any rate, it's bright. It catches the eye, and

434
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 2: that's going to be important as we proceed. And how

435
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 2: long do they live? Well, a rowan tree apparently can

436
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 2: live for upwards of two centuries according to the Woodland Trust,

437
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 2: though a source I'm going to side in a minute

438
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 2: put it more at about one hundred and fifty years.

439
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 2: But at any rate, you know, not the longest lived

440
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 2: tree by any stretch, but still they tend to live

441
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 2: longer than humans. So they still have that kind of

442
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 2: like you know, mythic connotation. They stand outside of our

443
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 2: short time on.

444
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 3: This earth, always been here.

445
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they're native to the cooler parts of the

446
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 2: northern hemisphere, mostly western and northern UK. That's or at

447
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 2: least that's one of the key areas where they grow,

448
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 2: and that's where we're going to be talking about here.

449
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 2: So you'll find them not only in Wales, you'll find

450
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 2: them in the highlands of Scotland, and they're they're pretty

451
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 2: far flung. Another source I was looking at was a

452
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 2: journal of ecology right up on the species. This was

453
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: by all Olivier rasp at All titled just Sorbus Occuparia

454
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 2: l And this article pointed out that one of the

455
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 2: British isles, you know, are certainly a place where you

456
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 2: can find them. They're present through most of Europe, from

457
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,640
Speaker 2: Iceland to northern Russia, though not into Arctic Russia, down

458
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 2: into Spain, Portugal, Italy, Macedonia, and it seems limited by

459
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 2: poor drought tolerance and a necessity for a short growing

460
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:28,640
Speaker 2: season and a cold requirement for the bud burst. This source, also,

461
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 2: this is the one that puts the age at more

462
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 2: of like a one hundred and fifty year range, So

463
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's one fifty or two hundred.

464
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 2: You know, it depends. I guess you know where you

465
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 2: want to fall on that. But it's also been pointed

466
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 2: out that the sorbus species here seems to have perhaps

467
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 2: originated in Southeast Asia and gradually spread. Now, another interesting

468
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 2: thing to think about trees in terms of you know,

469
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 2: having a sacred nature is that, of course we make

470
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 2: use of trees. We do think with trees trees, you know,

471
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 2: produce wood that we may use for various purposes depending

472
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 2: on the quality of the wood. They produce leaves, they

473
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 2: produce berries, they produce flowers, and so forth. So they

474
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 2: are also this like font of materials that we might

475
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 2: make use of. And I guess you don't always know

476
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 2: exactly how that's going to fall. Like, you know, there

477
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,959
Speaker 2: are plenty of examples of cultures where the things that

478
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 2: make the mundane world possible are in and of themselves sacred,

479
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 2: you know, be it a food product or whatever. Like,

480
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 2: just because you interact with it every day, it doesn't

481
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 2: mean that it can't be sacred. It may be very

482
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 2: sacred within a tradition because it is part of your survival.

483
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: M m.

484
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

485
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 2: But then of course our lives are full of things

486
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 2: that we don't really give sacred connotations to because they

487
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 2: are just part of the mundane world. So what do

488
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 2: whom humans use it for? Well, the wood of the

489
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 2: rowan is usable. Apparently it's hard and tough, but not

490
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 2: super durable. And my understanding of this is that basically

491
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 2: it means you maybe wouldn't want to build a house

492
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 2: out of it or use it for like really like

493
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 2: high stress situations.

494
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 3: You wouldn't build a car out of it?

495
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. But on the other hand,

496
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: it's not like it's super fragile like, because because you

497
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 2: can make furniture out of it, craft works and even tools,

498
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 2: you know, So it's like, I guess it's you know,

499
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 2: it's not so fragile that you couldn't make a tool

500
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 2: out of it. But just again, I guess maybe not

501
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 2: a house, though perhaps there are examples of such usage

502
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 2: as well. But that's that's what the sources were saying.

503
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 2: And as far as the berries go, I think we

504
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 2: were talking off Mikey earlier you asked me, well, can

505
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 2: people eat the berries? Apparently, so now I want to

506
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 2: add the caveat here. Anytime we're talking about eating berries,

507
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: please do please do additional research before you eat berries.

508
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 2: But my understanding is that they are edible for humans,

509
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 2: but they are quite tart, and that means that jam

510
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 2: is one of the most common culinary uses of the berries,

511
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 2: you know, So, you know, typical jam making scenario usually

512
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 2: there's a lot of sugar added or some sort of

513
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 2: sweetener added. There's a you know, a reduction taking place,

514
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 2: so there are a lot of steps in place to

515
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 2: take something that is otherwise quite tart and make it

516
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 2: consumable and you know, and appealing to the human power.

517
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 3: So cooked rowan thumbs up, raw rowan question mark, right.

518
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, the sources I was looking at,

519
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 2: they did say that, you know what they've the rowan

520
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 2: berries have long been a part of the human diet.

521
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 2: There's evidence from like southern Sweden from around six thousand

522
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 2: years ago that that gives us evidence that, yeah, like

523
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 2: people have been eating the rowan berries. So as to

524
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 2: I didn't get into details about, you know, ancient preparations

525
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:48,479
Speaker 2: of rowan berries, if they were cooking them or if

526
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 2: they were just eating them raw, But it seems like

527
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 2: when you get into more modern uses, and not even

528
00:29:55,680 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 2: just modern, but like you know, last several centuries, people

529
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 2: we're generally talking about taking the rowan berries and doing

530
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 2: some sort of culinary preparation to get them to a

531
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 2: place where we enjoy them. Yeah, And sadly, I did

532
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 2: not know to look out for rowan jam while I

533
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 2: was in Wales, so I don't know if it's something

534
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 2: I could have purchased or tried if i'd been looking

535
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 2: for it. I did a quick look around the internet,

536
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 2: and I'm not even sure you can get it in

537
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 2: the States, So I'm not sure. If you have tried

538
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 2: Rowan jam and or you are familiar with all the

539
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 2: things you can do with Rowan Berry's, do reach out

540
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 2: to us. Email us. We'll have that email at the

541
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 2: end of this episode, and we will gladly share your

542
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 2: Rowan Berry experience in a future edition of Listener Mail. Hey.

543
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 3: In fact, this connects to a project that's been on

544
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 3: my mind lately. I have never made jam at home,

545
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 3: but for some reason, I've got a hankering to make

546
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 3: homemade raspberry jam. Not exactly sure why, but it's in

547
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 3: my mind and it's not going to leave until I

548
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 3: do it. Jam makers, right and let us know what

549
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 3: are your tips? How do you make the best jam?

550
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 2: All right now? According to rasp in that paper I

551
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 2: referenced earlier, if you if you look around in Poland,

552
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 2: the fruits there are used to flavor vodka. Now, another

553
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 2: source I was looking at does mention a Welsh spirit.

554
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 2: This is in a book titled Rowan by Oliver Suffel three.

555
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 2: This is a a erecton book. I think they have

556
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 2: a number of books related to different species reference to

557
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 2: at least one of these, a book on squid in

558
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 2: the past on the show. But there's apparently a traditional

559
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 2: Welsh spirit called di od grioval and this was made

560
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 2: by steeping crushed rowan berries in water. Though I have

561
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 2: to add here nobody offered me did grioval while I

562
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 2: was in Wales. They offered me beer, they offered me cider,

563
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 2: but they did not offer me this. So if you

564
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,719
Speaker 2: have experience with this spirit, do reach out to us

565
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 2: on this matter as well. All right, So there's a

566
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 2: ton of more botanical information we might get into with

567
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: the tree, that is, you know, ultimately this is far

568
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 2: flung and there are a lot of cultural interpretations of

569
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 2: the plant that we're not going to get into because

570
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 2: we're dealing with so many different cultures across a considerable

571
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 2: period of time here. But one of the really interesting

572
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 2: things about them is about that the tree itself is

573
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 2: that it is considered a sacred tree, and it's considered

574
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 2: a sacred tree not only in Wales but throughout the

575
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 2: British Isles and of course into Europe as well. Mainland Europe.

576
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 2: The berries seem to be a key part of the

577
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 2: tree's sacred appeal, that bright color, that red, that scarlet,

578
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 2: sometimes looking more like a deep orange in some of

579
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 2: the photos I'm looking at. At any rate, this is

580
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,959
Speaker 2: a color that stands out. It catches the eye, and

581
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 2: we know that it resonated with people in this part

582
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:54,239
Speaker 2: of the world going way back. In fact, this is

583
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 2: something that Suthil brings up in his book. You know,

584
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 2: if we look to the Red Lady archaeological coal find,

585
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 2: we see the importance of the color red. This is

586
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 2: something that actually came up during my tour. This is

587
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 2: an Upper Paleolithic partial male skeleton that was found buried

588
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 2: in Whales and the bones are dyed not with rowan

589
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 2: berries but with red ochre. But it does give it

590
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,719
Speaker 2: this red coloration. Is the remains I believe are dated

591
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: to about thirty one thousand BCE. And Sethil here inciting this,

592
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 2: says that it stands as quote indication of the early

593
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 2: sacramental importance of the color red in northern Europe. So

594
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: just a little taste of the importance of red in

595
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: the region. Though I think we can all sort of

596
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 2: speak to the experience of seeing red, you know, as

597
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 2: if we see red in nature, it stands out to us.

598
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 2: It calls to us. It is communicating something to us,

599
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 2: certainly about the natural world, but perhaps about the unseen

600
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 2: world as well.

601
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 3: It's a high salience color in nature, as opposed to

602
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 3: you know, your your browns and greens, which are more

603
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 3: kind of background.

604
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in Wales and throughout the British Isles,

605
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 2: one of the most widespread folk traditions concerning the rowan

606
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 2: is its ability to keep evil away, particularly certainly in

607
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 2: later interpretations getting into the Christian era, is the idea

608
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 2: that it will keep away witches and it will stand

609
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,879
Speaker 2: as a deterrent to witchcraft. So it has a long

610
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 2: standing role in protective magic amulets made out of rowan

611
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 2: or somehow incorporating rowan wood or other elements of the tree.

612
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 2: These have been employed as charms against witchcraft, though ironically

613
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 2: it Seltal points out this was itself considered witchcraft by

614
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 2: the Church, you know, the so you get this weird,

615
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 2: you see this of course, you know, all over where

616
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 2: the Christian Church was also dealing with, you know, folkloric

617
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 2: traditions and over pagan religion religious ideas is that they're

618
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 2: warning them about the dangers of the devil. And then

619
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 2: they're like, well, this devil thing seems pretty serious. Of course,

620
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 2: I'm going to use all the tools in my toolbox.

621
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,240
Speaker 2: And then the church is saying, no, not all the tools,

622
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:24,280
Speaker 2: only the tools.

623
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 3: You could hear this reminds me of In October, we

624
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 3: did a couple of episodes about the demons of ancient Mesopotamia,

625
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,240
Speaker 3: and we were talking about the demon Pizzuzu, which features

626
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 3: in the story The Exorcist, of course, written from a

627
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 3: Catholic Christian Catholic perspective in which this demon is sort

628
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 3: of the devil, one of the denizens of Hell, a

629
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 3: servant of Lucifer. But in fact, looking into it, we

630
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 3: found that Pazuzu was often used as a protective entity

631
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 3: against worst demons in ancient Mesopotamia. So yeah, yeah, one

632
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 3: person's guardian angel is another person's devil, I guess.

633
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's worth driving home there. Apotrobic magic

634
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 2: is ancient. It has been a part of human culture

635
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 2: since time. Out of mind and of the use of

636
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 2: rowan based apotropaic magic also naturally predates Christianity in the

637
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 2: British Isles, but it comes into sharp focus according to

638
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:25,839
Speaker 2: southhal during the Age of the Reformation, solidifying in this

639
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 2: perceived modern struggle between the Christian faithful and which is

640
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 2: in league with the devil. And of course we've talked

641
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 2: about like the witchcraft persecution before, and it is interesting how,

642
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 2: you know, it's easy to think about witchcraft persecution. You

643
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 2: think Monty Python, the Holy Grail, you think firm Middle Ages,

644
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 2: and a lot of what we talk about when we

645
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 2: talk about the persecution of quote unquote witches, and which

646
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 2: often boiled down to the persecution of non Christian ideas,

647
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 2: of people who didn't fit in, of women in general.

648
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 2: This was largely more of a of a Renaissance idea.

649
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 2: You can really, you know, tease that apart in various ways.

650
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 2: But you know, it is the it's not so much,

651
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 2: you know, to use a popular description, it's not so

652
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 2: much a part of the demon haunted world, but is

653
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,240
Speaker 2: the world is illuminating and there's a need to find

654
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 2: those demons again, like it like no, there's less darkness,

655
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 2: there's less place for me to imagine the demons, and

656
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 2: I need to see them. You know. Anyway, we could

657
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 2: go on and on about that.

658
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 3: Or you could see it as a kind of lashing

659
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 3: out an attempt to get control during times of disruption

660
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 3: and disorder, which you know is certainly going on in

661
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 3: Europe during the Reformation. You know, there's so there's undermining

662
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 3: of the traditional dominant institution. There are schisms and factions

663
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 3: and wars that follow, and and you know, there's all

664
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 3: the kind of chaos that comes with that, and people

665
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 3: are trying to get control and they demonize somebody to

666
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 3: make sense of everything.

667
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and then on another level, it's worth noting that, Okay,

668
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 2: so it comes into sharp focus here in and certainly

669
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 2: there's a lot of writing for this time period that

670
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 2: references it as people were using rowan then as an

671
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 2: ambulant against the devil and or which is in the

672
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 2: surface of the devil. But of course again it's an

673
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 2: old practice. People are pulling out old practices even as

674
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 2: this you know, modern threat is explained to them, and

675
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 2: in you know, in the pre in pre Christian times

676
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 2: and even into Christian times of course, because you know,

677
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 2: different belief systems can can and often do stand alongside

678
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 2: each other. It's not always devils and witches you're trying

679
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 2: to keep it bay. Sometimes, of course, it is the

680
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:42,280
Speaker 2: fairy folk. Uh, you know, the the original unseen threats.

681
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 2: And you know, we talked in our episodes from I

682
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: think what the year before last, we talked about elfshot.

683
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 2: We talked about the idea that the uh that these

684
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 2: invisible folk are out there potentially targeting your cattle, your

685
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 2: livestock with invisible missiles that will make the sick. And

686
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 2: so there's this long standing tradition then of using rowan

687
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 2: to ward off not only magical harm to your home

688
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 2: or you know, your family and so forth, but to

689
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 2: prevent magical harm to your live stock. And not only

690
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 2: live stock, but you're like your milk, animal products that

691
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 2: might be corrupted by the invisible fairy folk, that they

692
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 2: might harm like the crucial element in the milk and

693
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 2: either make the milk bad, you know, or not nutritious,

694
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 2: or make butter making impossible, all due to magical attack.

695
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 3: I recall passages about this in The Secret Commonwealth of Elves,

696
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,760
Speaker 3: Fawns and Fairies, which if you've never looked into that,

697
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,839
Speaker 3: that's a great cool historical book. It's from the late

698
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 3: seventeenth century, sort of an anthropological study done by a

699
00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 3: Scottish priest named Robert Kirk. Is from the sixteen and

700
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 3: he went out and like talked to people about what

701
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:06,240
Speaker 3: they believed about, like elves and fairies and stuff. And

702
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 3: I recall a concern of it being that elves were

703
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 3: gonna We're gonna come make your cow's milk sour.

704
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And and that means, you know, not only

705
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 2: might they make the milk taste bad, they might like

706
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 2: destroy something very beneficial about it, and they might prevent

707
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 2: you from using it in other products and so forth.

708
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 2: So it's like it's, you know, seen as a sensitive

709
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 2: time right after the milk has been collected, and yeah,

710
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 2: you have to you have to apply these protections, and

711
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: that might mean rowan wood, rowan berries, and so forth.

712
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,919
Speaker 2: By the way, reading about this was also pointed out.

713
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:43,800
Speaker 2: This is in the Sulful book, but I've seen this

714
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 2: else pointed out elsewhere as well. Is that if you

715
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 2: take a rowan berry, you pluck it from the tree,

716
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 2: and you look at where the stem was attached, you

717
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 2: will see what is sometimes described I think, I think

718
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: a very with a fair amount of flourish as a cross.

719
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 2: It's not really cross. It looks more like a star.

720
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 2: I've also seen it described as being pentagram like, again,

721
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 2: vaguely like a star. I think it's maybe a stretch

722
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 2: to say it looks like a pentagram, but still I

723
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 2: guess it does have a novel shape. I don't know.

724
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 2: I think we see this in a lot of berries

725
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 2: and fruits and so forth.

726
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 3: I've never looked at one myself, but you've got the

727
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,399
Speaker 3: pictures here, and I'm looking at a five pointed star. Yeah.

728
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well when I look at it next to an

729
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 2: image of a pentagram has presented here, I'm like, Okay,

730
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 2: I guess I can see it. But all of this,

731
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: you know, all of this energy around the row in

732
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 2: these traditions of the rowan tree having some sort of

733
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 2: sacred protective property to it, this continues again to hold

734
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 2: sway during Christian times and in Rowan trees were then planted,

735
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 2: for instance, in Welsh graveyards and church yards to ward

736
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 2: away evil. And this is another case where I wish

737
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 2: I had known to look out for one of these trees,

738
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 2: because I got to roam around in a way Elsh

739
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 2: graveyard at one point and it was, you know, it

740
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 2: was very it was, it was very neat. I was

741
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 2: looking at frozen spiderwebs. That was pretty fascinating. But I

742
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 2: didn't know to look for these treetes. So maybe there

743
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 2: was one there doing all this protective work and I

744
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 2: just didn't know about it. The Woodland Trust website also

745
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,280
Speaker 2: points out that they're often situated in front of homes

746
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,879
Speaker 2: in Ireland, and then in various traditions where you want

747
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 2: to protect that milk, you might have some sort of

748
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 2: an implement made from rowan wood that is used to

749
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 2: stir the milk, so like a direct interface between the

750
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 2: sacred wood and the substance you were trying to protect

751
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 2: from the fairy folks. Interesting, yeah, to prevent the milk

752
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 2: from curdling for example. Also the Woodland Trust website mentions

753
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 2: the idea of also having a pocket charm made from

754
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 2: rowan wood to protect against rheumatism. So you know, there

755
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 2: are various uses for it, also using it to make

756
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 2: divining rods, so you know, you can get into various

757
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 2: examples of where the wood is used. Maybe it's used

758
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 2: in a tool to make a tool, and maybe that

759
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 2: tool is you know, less a practical tool and more

760
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,240
Speaker 2: of a supernatural tool to you know, find things hidden

761
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 2: in the earth, or to magically stir your milk to

762
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,839
Speaker 2: protect it. I guess one of the other things worth

763
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 2: noting about the row and tree, though, we need to

764
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 2: start talking about, like where it's planted and it's protective properties.

765
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 2: Is that again, it is a it's a widespread tree,

766
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 2: and it is widely planted they point out as a

767
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 2: street or garden tree. So there are gonna be plenty

768
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 2: of examples where a rowan tree is just around and

769
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that someone's you know, protecting the local

770
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: coffee shop or gas station. There just happens to be

771
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 2: a row and tree there. So I don't know. I

772
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 2: guess one has to avoid getting two into the idea

773
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 2: of them being planted strategically to protect against evil. But

774
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 2: on the other hand, it does seem like it was,

775
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:59,439
Speaker 2: at least in some instance definitely planted as a form

776
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 2: of protective magic.

777
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 3: Oh, it couldn't hurt. I mean, you don't want to

778
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 3: be at the gas station and have an elf shooting

779
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 3: in and souring your gas exactly.

780
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 2: And I also want to throw this out just a

781
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 2: quote provided direct quote about the consumption of rowan berries.

782
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 2: The Woodland Trust does right quote. Rowan berries are edible

783
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 2: to humans when cooked. They are sour but rich in

784
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 2: vitamin C and can be used to make a tart jam.

785
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: So I'd say, let's let's leave it at that. Then

786
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 2: that sounds okay, that's that sounds it sounds good to me.

787
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 2: Look up how to cook rowan berries before you eat them?

788
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 2: And then I should also point out, I mean, there

789
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 2: are obviously we don't have time to go into all

790
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 2: of this, but I was reading a little bit about

791
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 2: how there also are medicinal properties to the berries often

792
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 2: used as is like a laxative usages like that. So

793
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 2: there are going to be various traditions in these different

794
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 2: European cultures that also involve uses for rowan berries and

795
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 2: so forth, they're going to help with some sort of ailment.

796
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 2: So again we get into the idea of that the

797
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 2: sacred tree is this thing that may have you know,

798
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 2: symbolic power, but then also it has these various you know,

799
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 2: mundane uses that may also take on qualities that are sacred.

800
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 2: It may have medicinal uses that could also take on

801
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 2: qualities that are sacred as well.

802
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 3: Can't think about the word rowan without thinking about the

803
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 3: name rowan. Can't think about the name Rowan without thinking

804
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 3: of who am I going to say? Am I going

805
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 3: to say? The mister bean guy. No, I'm thinking of

806
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 3: the wicker Man. That's the name of the kid that

807
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 3: the detective is looking for.

808
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 2: Oh well, that that I haven't looked into it, but

809
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 2: that that can't be an accident, right, I mean that

810
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 2: seems like that. That seems like a film that was

811
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 2: very concerned with folkloric traditions and so forth.

812
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 3: So be a mighty coincidence. Yeah, the kid wasn't named

813
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 3: like Bill.

814
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 2: We may have to come back to the Wickerman on

815
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema at some point. That's that's a that's

816
00:45:59,600 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 2: a big one.

817
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 3: That's a favorite at our house.

818
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the full car Royalty right there.

819
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 3: There's a lot of great Christopher Lee out there, but

820
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 3: that is peak Christopher Lee.

821
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're I'm gonna go ahead and close

822
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:17,839
Speaker 2: out this episode. Again, this is a series we'll likely

823
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 2: come back to in the future. We already have some

824
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 2: notes about some other Sacred Trees, so you'll be on

825
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 2: the lookout, and if you have any suggestions for future

826
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 2: Sacred Tree episodes right in let us know. Likewise, as

827
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 2: we said, if you have experience with anything we discussed

828
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 2: in this episode of or feedback on it, we'd love

829
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 2: to hear from you. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

830
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on

831
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most

832
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on

833
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. If you are on Instagram and want

834
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 2: to follow the show, find us at STBYM Podcast.

835
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

836
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

837
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,720
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

838
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

839
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

840
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

841
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

842
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

843
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:36,759
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