1
00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:08,360
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

2
00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,000
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have another

3
00:00:11,039 --> 00:00:14,680
Speaker 1: episode from the vault for you here. This originally published

4
00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:19,079
Speaker 1: eleven seven, twenty twenty four. It is our episode on

5
00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:24,080
Speaker 1: the Siren from Mythology. So let's dive right in.

6
00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:31,400
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

7
00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:40,080
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

8
00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:40,720
Speaker 1: is Robert.

9
00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:44,240
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And once again October

10
00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:46,560
Speaker 3: content has spilled over the edge of the month.

11
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:50,480
Speaker 1: That's right. In today's episode, we're continuing our Halloween twenty

12
00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:54,000
Speaker 1: twenty four express with an episode that was originally scheduled

13
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,960
Speaker 1: for late October, but our episode on the Hogs of

14
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,840
Speaker 1: Hell went a little long, ended up going into two episodes,

15
00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:03,480
Speaker 1: so we bumped this one back a bit. It's a

16
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:07,119
Speaker 1: topic we've touched on briefly before, but it's a great one,

17
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:09,680
Speaker 1: taking us back to the world of oceanic monsters of

18
00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:13,280
Speaker 1: myth and legend. We're going to be talking about the Siren.

19
00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:17,560
Speaker 3: The Siren, So I realized Rob, correct me if I'm wrong,

20
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:21,320
Speaker 3: but I realized I think we both had we had

21
00:01:21,480 --> 00:01:26,960
Speaker 3: different theeomorphic hybrids in mind when we were separately thinking

22
00:01:26,959 --> 00:01:29,800
Speaker 3: about the siren, Because when I thought of the siren,

23
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:33,480
Speaker 3: I first thought of sort of half woman, half bird

24
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:36,399
Speaker 3: creatures that sing to the sailors. But I get the

25
00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:41,920
Speaker 3: impression that your mind first went to half human, half fish.

26
00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:44,440
Speaker 3: So I guess those are both within the siren tradition,

27
00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:45,000
Speaker 3: aren't they?

28
00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:48,640
Speaker 1: They are. This is one of the things about the siren,

29
00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:51,400
Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, is that there are takes on them

30
00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:56,240
Speaker 1: in which they are essentially mermaids. It's essentially some version

31
00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:01,360
Speaker 1: of the European North European mermaid tradition. There are versions

32
00:02:01,360 --> 00:02:04,480
Speaker 1: of it in which they are just sort of beautiful

33
00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:08,840
Speaker 1: ladies who sing sailors to their death, that sort of thing.

34
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,040
Speaker 1: And then other times they are essentially what we might

35
00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:14,280
Speaker 1: think of as a harpie, you know. They are a

36
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 1: winged creature, perhaps like an all out vulture type being,

37
00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:21,560
Speaker 1: with even just the head of a maiden or the

38
00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:22,480
Speaker 1: face of a maiden.

39
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,640
Speaker 3: But in either case, I think we're to assume that

40
00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:29,240
Speaker 3: their voices may be lovely, but they sing sailors to

41
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:29,760
Speaker 3: their doom.

42
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:32,440
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's one thing we can be sure on

43
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:36,280
Speaker 1: when we look to really the most famous literary account

44
00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:40,480
Speaker 1: of the sirens, but also the one that continues to

45
00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:44,440
Speaker 1: raise a lot of questions because it does skim over

46
00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:47,519
Speaker 1: some of the details, as we'll discuss. We are, of

47
00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:50,519
Speaker 1: course talking about Homer's the Odyssey. I'm just going to

48
00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:53,920
Speaker 1: read a quote here. This is from the Samuel Butler translation.

49
00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:59,639
Speaker 1: I believe this is Circe warning Odysseus and his men

50
00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:04,400
Speaker 1: about the challenges ahead. First, you will come to the sirens,

51
00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:08,239
Speaker 1: who enchant all who come near them. If anyone unwarily

52
00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:11,799
Speaker 1: draws in too close and hears the singing of the sirens,

53
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,400
Speaker 1: his wife and children will never welcome him home again,

54
00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:19,399
Speaker 1: For they sit in a green field and warble him

55
00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:23,000
Speaker 1: to death with the sweetness of their song. There is

56
00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,200
Speaker 1: a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around,

57
00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:29,200
Speaker 1: and the flesh still rotting off them.

58
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:34,320
Speaker 3: Number one, that's intense. Number two does not describe them physically.

59
00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:36,840
Speaker 3: And number three warbled to death.

60
00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:40,480
Speaker 1: Warbled to death. You know which, if you got to go,

61
00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:45,760
Speaker 1: why not choose warbling? Why not? So this is you know, considered.

62
00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:49,680
Speaker 1: You know, this is probably the most famous literary description

63
00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:53,600
Speaker 1: and non description of the sirens. But we have a

64
00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 1: lot of other materials that have depicted the sirens, describe them,

65
00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:02,320
Speaker 1: or depicted them visually that also sort of compete with

66
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,840
Speaker 1: our imaginations here and end up and this is often

67
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:09,720
Speaker 1: the case with these things, ends up coloring our absorption

68
00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:14,080
Speaker 1: of Homer's original writings. We've had some great cinematic sirens

69
00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:17,480
Speaker 1: over time. We have, for example, to get into the

70
00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:21,320
Speaker 1: adaptations of the Odyssey itself, there, of course the Three

71
00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:26,520
Speaker 1: Sirens and No Brother, Where art thou? The three strange

72
00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:30,000
Speaker 1: women that appear as beautiful washer women singing go to sleep,

73
00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 1: little Baby. They of course lure end del Mar and

74
00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:35,000
Speaker 1: turn him into a horny toad sort of.

75
00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:37,599
Speaker 3: Wait does he get turned back? I haven't seen this

76
00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:38,359
Speaker 3: movie in a while.

77
00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:43,080
Speaker 1: Well, he doesn't. Actually, we end up finding out later

78
00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:45,080
Speaker 1: that he was never turned into a horny toad. He

79
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:48,760
Speaker 1: was captured by authorities because he was wanted.

80
00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:51,640
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they find him again in the movie Theater

81
00:04:51,800 --> 00:04:53,040
Speaker 3: Do Not Seek the Treasure.

82
00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:56,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, it's a great sequence in the film,

83
00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:59,120
Speaker 1: a lot of laughs, and it works nicely in comparison

84
00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:01,839
Speaker 1: to the theme of bat that's also employed in the work.

85
00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:06,560
Speaker 1: Elsewhere in cinema, we tend to see the idea of

86
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:10,200
Speaker 1: sirens employed more in terms of the evil mermaid. You

87
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:11,799
Speaker 1: want to have a mermaid, but you want an evil

88
00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:14,520
Speaker 1: one where you lean into this idea of the siren.

89
00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:18,280
Speaker 1: Just a few quick mentions, and I'm missing a lot

90
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:20,480
Speaker 1: of them. I'm sure there's two thousand and one's Dagon.

91
00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:23,520
Speaker 1: This is the Stuart Gordon film you have neat Split

92
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:26,560
Speaker 1: Tale at Kidneess style Mermaids in that. There's a two

93
00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:29,839
Speaker 1: and another two thousand and one film titled She Creature

94
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:32,280
Speaker 1: that I have not seen since two thousand and one,

95
00:05:32,279 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 1: but I remember having a nice little cast to it,

96
00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 1: and also having a monstrous mermaid more recently. I don't

97
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:41,719
Speaker 1: know much about the plot details here, so I don't

98
00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:45,560
Speaker 1: know where this falls in terms of sirens. But there's

99
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:49,400
Speaker 1: a Polish musical horror film titled The Lure that seems

100
00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:51,360
Speaker 1: to have resonated with a number of viewers. I've seen

101
00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:53,880
Speaker 1: some nice reviews of that. And then I think we've

102
00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:56,720
Speaker 1: had at least a couple of different Mermaid slash Siren

103
00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,640
Speaker 1: TV shows in recent decades, but I have not seen them.

104
00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:02,839
Speaker 1: So we'll have to lean on our listeners to write

105
00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,080
Speaker 1: in and tell us what those are like now. Again

106
00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:08,320
Speaker 1: to get back to what we were just talking about earlier.

107
00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:16,520
Speaker 1: Though sirens are not definitively sea creatures or definitively mermaids. However,

108
00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:23,520
Speaker 1: it's impossible to separate the two completely, so you know,

109
00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:27,919
Speaker 1: we do have to acknowledge that to whatever extent sirens

110
00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:32,520
Speaker 1: are based in this idea of undersea creatures, well, you know,

111
00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,640
Speaker 1: the idea of people and creatures from beneath the waves. Naturally,

112
00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:38,560
Speaker 1: it goes back very long ways. As long as humans

113
00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:40,920
Speaker 1: have gazed out across the waves or peered down through

114
00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,040
Speaker 1: clear waters from the side of their boats, they've dreamed

115
00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:46,520
Speaker 1: of a mirror world to our own, a place where

116
00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:50,400
Speaker 1: every animal has its watery reflection, where intelligent human like

117
00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:55,000
Speaker 1: beings no doubt dwell as well, along with various monsters

118
00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:58,920
Speaker 1: and gods and so forth. There is a paper by

119
00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:02,039
Speaker 1: Nancy Easter. This is a two thousand and one paper

120
00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:05,280
Speaker 1: again back to two thousand and one that we've we

121
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:08,840
Speaker 1: cited in a much older episode of the podcast titled

122
00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,400
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Andersen's Fish out of Water, and she points

123
00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:15,760
Speaker 1: out that the Babylonians recognize gods with fish features or

124
00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:21,320
Speaker 1: hybridity you have, like what Adappa fish the fishermen of Onias,

125
00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:25,840
Speaker 1: the teacher of wisdom. Even mighty Inky, the ancient Sumerian

126
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:28,200
Speaker 1: water god, is sometimes depicted as having a cloak of

127
00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:32,720
Speaker 1: fish or scaled skin, and the chief place of worship

128
00:07:32,840 --> 00:07:36,480
Speaker 1: was a ziggurat known as the House of the Subterranean Waters.

129
00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:41,480
Speaker 1: And additionally fishtailed gods, water dragons and so forth found

130
00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:44,800
Speaker 1: throughout the cultures of India, China and Japan and so forth.

131
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:51,920
Speaker 1: There's a quote from that Easter paper. She writes some

132
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:55,360
Speaker 1: other mythological sea beings and deities, such as Poseidon and

133
00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:59,960
Speaker 1: the Sirens were not originally associated with water and pissine anatom.

134
00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:03,000
Speaker 1: The sirens were originally birds. We'll get back to that

135
00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:06,440
Speaker 1: in a minute, indicating that divine power and woman leolure

136
00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:09,360
Speaker 1: became combined with the power and promise of the sea

137
00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:13,880
Speaker 1: when ancient cultures overtook maritime war and trade. So in

138
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:17,400
Speaker 1: that paper gets into a familiar theme on this show

139
00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:20,480
Speaker 1: when we're talking about deities and supernatural beings, is that

140
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:23,240
Speaker 1: of course they are passed down and they do not

141
00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:27,960
Speaker 1: stay in one form or another. They are reused, recreated,

142
00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:33,840
Speaker 1: you know, different, different, various relaunches and reboots of the

143
00:08:33,840 --> 00:08:35,079
Speaker 1: brand over time.

144
00:08:35,679 --> 00:08:39,559
Speaker 3: And in past episodes we've even talked about reasons for

145
00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:43,440
Speaker 3: questioning the very idea of such a thing as a

146
00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:47,160
Speaker 3: canonical form of a deity or a monster or something that.

147
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:49,920
Speaker 3: You know, that makes sense when you have something like

148
00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:52,920
Speaker 3: intellectual property, like if a monster is the creation of

149
00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:55,680
Speaker 3: a specific author and they describe it a certain way,

150
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:58,040
Speaker 3: and then other people could take the idea and vary it,

151
00:08:58,120 --> 00:08:59,560
Speaker 3: but you would want to refer back to what is

152
00:08:59,559 --> 00:09:02,439
Speaker 3: the original one, you know, with like gods and monsters

153
00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:04,880
Speaker 3: and things that come out of folklore. You know, maybe

154
00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:08,040
Speaker 3: sometimes it makes sense to say there's basically an authoritative

155
00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:10,520
Speaker 3: version of a story, but most of the time there's not.

156
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:14,760
Speaker 3: Sometimes the characteristics aren't even given in the earliest works

157
00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:17,960
Speaker 3: that are still extant today. So like searching after the

158
00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:22,079
Speaker 3: canonical form of the monster or deity or whatever is fruitless.

159
00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:25,199
Speaker 3: There just is no original that we can access.

160
00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:27,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've talked about this before. You get

161
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:29,600
Speaker 1: kind of close to this idea when you look at

162
00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:32,840
Speaker 1: a multi author of franchise like say Marvel Comics, where

163
00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:34,440
Speaker 1: you can say, you know, you try to explain like, well,

164
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,599
Speaker 1: who's Venom, Oh, he's a villain of Spider man. Oh well, no,

165
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:39,520
Speaker 1: he's also kind of a hero. He's kind of an

166
00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:42,920
Speaker 1: anti hero. Oh yeah. And sometimes he's just straight up

167
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:45,680
Speaker 1: what we would think I was the protagonist of a story,

168
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:48,000
Speaker 1: So it just it changes. And there are probably better

169
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:49,320
Speaker 1: examples than Venom to turn to.

170
00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:51,920
Speaker 3: There. Yeah, well, I think that's a good one. Except

171
00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:55,560
Speaker 3: it's like that. But imagine if most Marvel comics were

172
00:09:55,600 --> 00:09:57,600
Speaker 3: lost and we don't know what they said or what

173
00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:00,680
Speaker 3: was in them, and we don't know where the first

174
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:01,920
Speaker 3: appearance of Venom was.

175
00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:06,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, But coming back to the Siren and

176
00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:11,640
Speaker 1: getting into the Greek traditions, here, we as the quote

177
00:10:11,679 --> 00:10:15,000
Speaker 1: you read earlier attests to, we certainly experience the sirens

178
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,360
Speaker 1: and Homer's eighth century BCEE work The Odyssey, and they

179
00:10:18,400 --> 00:10:23,640
Speaker 1: are described as malicious doomy women when we put in

180
00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:28,440
Speaker 1: asterisk by that woman description, malicious doomy entities anyway, who

181
00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:31,720
Speaker 1: hang out on rocks and sing to passing sailors. But

182
00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:37,080
Speaker 1: Homer neglects to physically describe them at all. So again,

183
00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:40,920
Speaker 1: even by just briefly mentioning them as women, I'm airing

184
00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:44,640
Speaker 1: because he does not ascribe gender to these creatures. But

185
00:10:44,679 --> 00:10:47,199
Speaker 1: the thing is it's really hard not to be infected

186
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:50,800
Speaker 1: by the various visual treatments of this encounter of these

187
00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:54,400
Speaker 1: creatures from throughout Western art, you know, which has often

188
00:10:54,400 --> 00:10:57,240
Speaker 1: served as a great opportunity to create dramatic and evocative

189
00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:00,760
Speaker 1: scenes that make use of, you know, the the unclothed

190
00:11:00,760 --> 00:11:05,440
Speaker 1: are partially unclothed male and female bodies. I was talking

191
00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 1: about this with my son yesterday when I was researching this,

192
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:11,599
Speaker 1: and I mentioned to him, and he already knows his

193
00:11:11,640 --> 00:11:13,559
Speaker 1: way around myths and monsters pretty well, I mentioned, you

194
00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:17,760
Speaker 1: know that Homer never actually describes them. So they could

195
00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:19,640
Speaker 1: look like a woman, they could look like a fish monster,

196
00:11:19,679 --> 00:11:21,720
Speaker 1: they could look like a bird person, we don't know.

197
00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:23,200
Speaker 1: And he asked, well, could they just be like a

198
00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:26,000
Speaker 1: banana peel? And I dare say they could. And he

199
00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:28,480
Speaker 1: does not say that they do not look like banana peels,

200
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:32,920
Speaker 1: and provides no other physical description at all.

201
00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:35,120
Speaker 3: They could literally be Ronald McDonald.

202
00:11:35,679 --> 00:11:38,520
Speaker 1: They could be. There's nothing in the Odyssey that says

203
00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:41,320
Speaker 1: they're not. So I was reading a bit more about

204
00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:45,200
Speaker 1: this in this is an older book. This is an

205
00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:48,920
Speaker 1: older publication. This is from nineteen seventy. The Homeric Sirens

206
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:52,800
Speaker 1: by Gerald K. Gressith. This was publishing the Transactions and

207
00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:59,760
Speaker 1: Proceedings of the American Philological Association, and in it the

208
00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:02,760
Speaker 1: but there spends a lot of time talking about what

209
00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:06,760
Speaker 1: at the time were like two dueling interpretations of the

210
00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:10,120
Speaker 1: sirens in Homer's the Odyssey, and I think that it's

211
00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:12,880
Speaker 1: interesting to look at them here. So the first one

212
00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:16,560
Speaker 1: that he references is the idea that the sirens are

213
00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:20,840
Speaker 1: soul birds, again playing on the idea that in other

214
00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:25,240
Speaker 1: texts we have the sirens described in Avian terms. And

215
00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:28,080
Speaker 1: the connection here is that they would be representations of

216
00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:31,360
Speaker 1: the souls of the dead in bird form, an idea

217
00:12:31,480 --> 00:12:34,800
Speaker 1: that extends back through ancient Egyptian religion. This was an

218
00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:40,120
Speaker 1: idea champion by the German classical archaeologist Georg Viker. In short,

219
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,240
Speaker 1: this view sees the sirens as things that emerge from

220
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:47,400
Speaker 1: hades and or the grave, and as grethis explains, Homer

221
00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:51,120
Speaker 1: likely wouldn't have thought that the soul became a bird

222
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:54,160
Speaker 1: upon death in this scenario, but he might have been

223
00:12:54,240 --> 00:12:57,480
Speaker 1: influenced by older ideas still present in art and culture

224
00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:01,960
Speaker 1: of his time. Okay, then there's this other idea, and

225
00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:05,920
Speaker 1: that is that the sirens are other world enchantresses, so

226
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,000
Speaker 1: an idea in this case champion by German archaeologist and

227
00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,960
Speaker 1: translator Ernst Bouscher in response to Vicker arguing that Homer

228
00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:18,240
Speaker 1: sirens are anthropomorphic. This view sees the sirens not as

229
00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:22,280
Speaker 1: creatures of the afterlife, but as something else that doesn't

230
00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:27,040
Speaker 1: reside in Hades, though perhaps does reside in a different

231
00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 1: other world and might not even be directly malicious. That's

232
00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:34,400
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about this kind of view. They might

233
00:13:34,480 --> 00:13:38,199
Speaker 1: be more in line with muses offering song and information

234
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:41,640
Speaker 1: that we're just not equipped to resist. We just can't

235
00:13:41,679 --> 00:13:45,640
Speaker 1: handle a song this beautiful and or information this tantalizing,

236
00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:49,760
Speaker 1: and therefore we are just drawn into it. And this

237
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,160
Speaker 1: actually gets into the vagueness of how they actually bring

238
00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:56,800
Speaker 1: about these men's dooms, because, as Aggressive points out, we

239
00:13:56,840 --> 00:13:59,280
Speaker 1: don't have an answer for this in Homer either and

240
00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:03,200
Speaker 1: elsewhere interpretations range from an overt and then the sirens

241
00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,800
Speaker 1: ate him sort of situation to this idea that enraptured

242
00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:10,920
Speaker 1: individuals just slowly die of exposure on the shores of

243
00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:13,080
Speaker 1: the sirens, like they're drawn by the song, and then

244
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:16,200
Speaker 1: they just you know, forget to eat, forget to stay

245
00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:17,920
Speaker 1: out of the sun and just waste away.

246
00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:19,400
Speaker 3: And so in that.

247
00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:21,920
Speaker 1: Scenario, it's like, well, the muses, like they may not

248
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:25,000
Speaker 1: even be entities that are aware of what they are doing.

249
00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:28,360
Speaker 1: They're just sharing song and information, but we just can't

250
00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:29,440
Speaker 1: handle it as mortals.

251
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:33,360
Speaker 3: That's fascinating, And it's funny because the interpretation I always

252
00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:35,200
Speaker 3: just had in the back of my mind isn't even

253
00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:38,280
Speaker 3: listed there, which is the idea that they sit on

254
00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:41,040
Speaker 3: the rocks and they sing to the sailors and they

255
00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 3: draw the sailors in close, and the ships wreck on

256
00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:46,400
Speaker 3: the rocks and the sailors drone that I don't know

257
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:48,400
Speaker 3: where that idea came from, but that is what I

258
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:50,880
Speaker 3: thought was being described in the Odyssey.

259
00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:53,040
Speaker 1: You know, Like I said, there are a lot of

260
00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:59,240
Speaker 1: paintings of the Sirens and or Odysseus, and I think

261
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:05,520
Speaker 1: they also so almost at times subliminally charge one's understanding

262
00:15:05,520 --> 00:15:07,880
Speaker 1: of this scenario. And there are several of these that

263
00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:10,360
Speaker 1: I think I've just seen most of my life. There

264
00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:12,200
Speaker 1: are a couple in particular that pop up in the

265
00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:14,920
Speaker 1: time Life Enchanted World book series that of course makes

266
00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:17,560
Speaker 1: use of a lot of excellent original art, but also

267
00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:20,800
Speaker 1: a lot of classic art as well too, In particular

268
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:24,080
Speaker 1: John william Waterhouse is the Siren from nineteen hundred. This

269
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:27,240
Speaker 1: is a like a vertical piece in which there is

270
00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:31,800
Speaker 1: a nude woman with a harp of some kind of

271
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:32,680
Speaker 1: or is this a lute?

272
00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:36,760
Speaker 3: I believe it's a liar. Yeah, there you go, U

273
00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:38,120
Speaker 3: shaped stringed instrument.

274
00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:40,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. So she's playing it on the rocks, and there

275
00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:44,760
Speaker 1: down in the water below her is an enraptured male,

276
00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:48,120
Speaker 1: like a youthful male, who looks like he is probably

277
00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:50,920
Speaker 1: going to drown. And so like, I think this really

278
00:15:50,920 --> 00:15:53,120
Speaker 1: matches up with your read on it, and you know,

279
00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:55,800
Speaker 1: I often I think thought about it in similar terms

280
00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:58,640
Speaker 1: looking at these images, like the sirens just draw you

281
00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,680
Speaker 1: in and then you know, stuff happens. But it's not

282
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:03,400
Speaker 1: like they're biting into you or anything.

283
00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:08,960
Speaker 3: That's right. But in the Waterhouse painting, the siren does

284
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,200
Speaker 3: not look malicious. She does not look like she's even

285
00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:16,600
Speaker 3: really attempting to lure him. She's just kind of there existing,

286
00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:19,960
Speaker 3: and he is up to his neck in the water,

287
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:23,080
Speaker 3: clearly about to die, looking like he has this combination

288
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:24,960
Speaker 3: of just joy and terror.

289
00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:28,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then the other piece that was definitely in

290
00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:32,200
Speaker 1: the Enchanted World series is Herbert James Draper's nineteen oh

291
00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:35,000
Speaker 1: nine painting Ulysses and the Sirens. This is a very

292
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:38,960
Speaker 1: captivating piece in which you see the familiar scenario that

293
00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:41,440
Speaker 1: I may again describe her in a second, where, of course,

294
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:45,800
Speaker 1: how does Odysseus how does he get past the sirens? Well,

295
00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:49,280
Speaker 1: of course he clogs the earholes of all of his

296
00:16:49,360 --> 00:16:53,840
Speaker 1: men with wax, and then he himself is strapped to

297
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:56,800
Speaker 1: the mast of the ship, and then they just keep

298
00:16:57,120 --> 00:17:01,280
Speaker 1: moving that way. The siren song doesn't infect the oarsman.

299
00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:04,440
Speaker 1: It infects him, but he can't do anything about it

300
00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:05,680
Speaker 1: because he's strapped to the mast.

301
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:09,760
Speaker 3: And this is usually presented as a result of curiosity,

302
00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:13,000
Speaker 3: like Odysseus wants to hear what the siren song is like,

303
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,720
Speaker 3: but doesn't want to allow himself under its spell to

304
00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:19,520
Speaker 3: command his men to do otherwise, so he has himself

305
00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:20,560
Speaker 3: tied up on purpose.

306
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:24,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so in this particular piece by Draper, which

307
00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:26,840
Speaker 1: you know is widely available you can find it on

308
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:29,560
Speaker 1: wiki commons, and so forth, we see, you know, this

309
00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:33,479
Speaker 1: crazed look on Odysseus's eye. He's completely enraptured, straining against

310
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:37,159
Speaker 1: the ropes that bind him. Meanwhile, the naked sirens in

311
00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:40,960
Speaker 1: this case seemingly seeming to transform out of mermaid form

312
00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:45,120
Speaker 1: into humanoid form, just like the movie Splash as they

313
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:48,560
Speaker 1: crawl on the ship. And of course this is this

314
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:52,400
Speaker 1: image of course, like a lot of the like later

315
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:55,960
Speaker 1: treatments of sirens, is of course very there's a certain

316
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,399
Speaker 1: sexual politics to all this and gender politics to it,

317
00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:02,359
Speaker 1: because it's clearly showed like the feminine form is the

318
00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:07,639
Speaker 1: aggressively alluring temptation that is coming at the men on

319
00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:08,159
Speaker 1: the ship.

320
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:11,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it looked there are very different implied situations

321
00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:14,440
Speaker 3: in these two paintings, Like in the Waterhouse painting. I

322
00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 3: don't know, you could interpret it multiple ways, but it

323
00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:18,760
Speaker 3: doesn't look obvious to me. Like I said that the

324
00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:21,480
Speaker 3: siren is even trying to attract the man. She's just

325
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:23,920
Speaker 3: sitting there. She might just be minding her own business. Yeah,

326
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:27,159
Speaker 3: and he's enraptured. In the second painting, the Draper painting

327
00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:31,760
Speaker 3: from nine, these are beings that are obviously trying to

328
00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:36,640
Speaker 3: seduce the men, and they are posed with seductive ill intent.

329
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:40,480
Speaker 1: Yes, so these are the two that I was most

330
00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:42,280
Speaker 1: familiar with, But there's a third I want to mention,

331
00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:45,680
Speaker 1: and this is the Sirens Annulylysses from eighteen thirty seven

332
00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:49,600
Speaker 1: by William Edie or Eddie I'm not sure which, but

333
00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:52,119
Speaker 1: this one is also tremendous. I was not familiar with this,

334
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:55,160
Speaker 1: but in this one, we see the sirens on their

335
00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,439
Speaker 1: rocky island in the foreground, and in the background we

336
00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:02,399
Speaker 1: see Ulysses send a ship and there's a lot of

337
00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:06,200
Speaker 1: struggling going on there. But in the foreground the sirens

338
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:10,560
Speaker 1: are just kind of like, hey, Sirens, party, come on over, guys.

339
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:14,240
Speaker 1: And then next to them we see rotting bodies and bones.

340
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:16,800
Speaker 1: It's quite quite a quite a scene.

341
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:20,320
Speaker 3: It is wonderful. But to your point, yeah, I interpret

342
00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:22,719
Speaker 3: this one more along the lines of the waterhouse painting.

343
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:26,879
Speaker 3: There's no indication that their attention even has anything to

344
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:28,040
Speaker 3: do with the men on the ship.

345
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:42,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So I already rolled through the basic

346
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,920
Speaker 1: scenario with Odysseus and the Odyssey and how they get

347
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:51,840
Speaker 1: past the sirens. But we have another encounter, and this

348
00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:55,639
Speaker 1: one is detailed in the Argonautica from the third century BCE,

349
00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,280
Speaker 1: and this one involves Jason and the Argonauts. How did

350
00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: they defeat the sirens? Well, they brought Orpheus along with them,

351
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:08,679
Speaker 1: the most famous bard of Greek mythology, at least as

352
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:12,400
Speaker 1: far as mortals go. And his song is even sweeter

353
00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:15,480
Speaker 1: than the sirens, so you know, they explode or something.

354
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:17,080
Speaker 3: It's the Devil went down to Georgia.

355
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:22,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, as Apollodorus described it, I believe the sweet

356
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:25,240
Speaker 1: song of Orpheus causes them to throw themselves into the

357
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:28,439
Speaker 1: sea and become rocks. And it would turn out that

358
00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:30,920
Speaker 1: these were like the terms of their power, that if

359
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: their song ever failed to enthrall someone, then they have

360
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:38,000
Speaker 1: to die. They were done for. And there are similar

361
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,399
Speaker 1: accounts with the Sphinx as well, you know, like if

362
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:42,560
Speaker 1: it's riddle as guest, it has to throw itself off

363
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:43,640
Speaker 1: a mountain, that sort of thing.

364
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:46,119
Speaker 3: Wait, now that I said it, I'm trying to remember

365
00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:48,000
Speaker 3: what happens to the devil at the end of Devil

366
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 3: Went Down to Georgia. BET's a fiddle of gold against

367
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:53,560
Speaker 3: your soul. But what happens if Johnny wins, he.

368
00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:54,880
Speaker 1: Gets to keep the golden.

369
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:59,840
Speaker 3: Golden Devil's just out of gold fiddle, that's it. Yeah.

370
00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:02,280
Speaker 1: There was some I forget who was some stand up

371
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:04,360
Speaker 1: comedian I think was talking about how you know, it's

372
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,440
Speaker 1: clear that the Devil's music is more impressive in that

373
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:11,920
Speaker 1: particular song, we still give the wind to the mortals.

374
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:14,159
Speaker 1: But yes, I agree, it is like very much like

375
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 1: the Devil goes down to Jordan.

376
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:18,280
Speaker 3: Which text came first. I'm not sure.

377
00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 1: Now the exact number of sirens fairies. They're like between

378
00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:26,280
Speaker 1: two and five depending on what telling you're looking at.

379
00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:31,240
Speaker 1: They have various names different there are different takes on

380
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: their parentage as well. Again it's just how many there

381
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:38,359
Speaker 1: are to begin with, but their exact nature in large

382
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:41,479
Speaker 1: part due to Homer being vague about it, This has

383
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,040
Speaker 1: always been an area of discussion, and apparently it's not

384
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:47,880
Speaker 1: the only area that Homer's vague, And for instance, according

385
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:51,800
Speaker 1: to Gressith, he never explains that the Cyclops as one eye.

386
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:57,359
Speaker 1: So I think there are moments like that where we

387
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 1: just kind of like assume, like we knows as the

388
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 1: reader what it's supposed to be or what it becomes

389
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: canonized as later. But you can apparently get into discussions

390
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:09,479
Speaker 1: with any of this of like, well, what did the

391
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,040
Speaker 1: original author intend? What was the shape of it? Then?

392
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, then again that because most of these

393
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:19,360
Speaker 3: stories would be drawing on pre existing concepts and stuff

394
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 3: you never know, like what did people just naturally assume

395
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 3: when you name a character or type of being, Like

396
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 3: what did the reader bring to the reader or listener

397
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:28,639
Speaker 3: bring to the table.

398
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's one thing that Gressith gets into as well,

399
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:32,919
Speaker 1: is that you have to end up looking for these

400
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,919
Speaker 1: answers in the contemporary religion, but also in contemporary folklore.

401
00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: To whatever extent you can, you pick at it through

402
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: other sources. Now, I picked up a couple of my

403
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:48,120
Speaker 1: my favorite monster books for a little more on these

404
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: these sirens, and I was looking at Jorge Luis Borges's

405
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 1: Book of Imaginary Beings, and he points out three different traditions.

406
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 1: He points out that Avid describes them as golden birds

407
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 1: with the faces of virgins. He points out that Paulinius

408
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:07,880
Speaker 1: of Rhodes described them as women with the lower half

409
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: of seabirds, and then much later medieval heraldry and bestiaries

410
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: tend to present them just as straight up mermaids, again

411
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: fusing these older classical tellings with Northern European traditions of mermaids.

412
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: And I think this is a reality you just can't

413
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 1: get away from. Then, when you keep tugging at siren

414
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 1: myths because the terms are often used interchangeably, Like some

415
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,480
Speaker 1: some tales of the siren, you could sort of maybe

416
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: make a better case that these are actually mermaid stories.

417
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: But some of them are very are very juicy, and

418
00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: I just couldn't resist getting into a particular one. This

419
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: is one that Borges also talks about. This would have

420
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:56,120
Speaker 1: been the sixth century in northern Wales. It has said

421
00:23:56,119 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 1: that a siren was caught and baptized, eventually becoming at

422
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: in some traditions by the name of Murgan or Murrgain,

423
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: which I believe means Seaborn. She was reportedly carried to

424
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: her baptism in a vat, and I believe and this

425
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: is also tied to an Irish legend of lie Bon

426
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: and in fact, I often I've elsewhere seen this character

427
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: referenced as li Ban Murrgan, for example. I've also seen

428
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: Mergan described as an early discredited saint, so I don't

429
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: know if I don't believe that she is officially a

430
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:36,639
Speaker 1: saint in the Catholic Church. This would have been around

431
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: what five eighty eight CE, I think, But she had

432
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:42,080
Speaker 1: a feast day at one point and it was January

433
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, which I think is also devoted to various

434
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: other saints and so forth.

435
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 3: This is an interesting story, but I'm thinking about the

436
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 3: symbolic implications of the baptism of an animal that lives

437
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 3: under the water.

438
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it, you know, comes back to what

439
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,680
Speaker 1: we were talking earlier about baptism and sirens. No, brother,

440
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:05,919
Speaker 1: we're art thou. There's apparently a more complete telling of

441
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 1: this story, and I found that in Carol Rose's Spirits Fairies,

442
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 1: Lecracrouns and Goblins, where this luban murrgan. She starts out

443
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: as a human, a human daughter of the High King

444
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: of Ireland and a goddess Iatawan I believe is her name,

445
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: and she's just a normal human child. But then she

446
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: is caught in the flood of a sacred spring with

447
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,400
Speaker 1: her dog and carried to an underwater cavern, and she's

448
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: trapped there for a year. But then she prays that

449
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: she might be free like the fishes, and so her

450
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 1: lower half becomes like a fish, and her dog transforms

451
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 1: into an otter.

452
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 3: Well that is appropriate because otters are good boys.

453
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: Three hundred years later, enter a cleric by the name

454
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 1: of Bioch and he hears her singing, and then he's

455
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: drawn to her singing. So they meet, and she asked

456
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: him to bring her to Saint Comgall, an actual historic saint,

457
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: and this is where the vat comes into the picture.

458
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: They throw her in a vat and she is willingly,

459
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: you know, brought to the saint so that she may

460
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: be baptized. But at her baptism she is or upon

461
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: her baptism, she is faced with the choice another three

462
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: hundred years of life or immediate entry into heaven, so

463
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, do not pass go directly to heaven. She

464
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: chooses heaven. So anyway, it's a lovely little little bit

465
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 1: of folklore there. I like it quite a bit. And

466
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: they're apparently depictions of the saint here, Saint leban or

467
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: Saint Morgan, and yeah, sometimes she's depicted with a crown,

468
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: yeah quite well. And then and some depictions you also

469
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: see her order there beside her.

470
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 3: Oh that's adorable.

471
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: So essentially, you know, we have these Northern European mermaid traditions,

472
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 1: not to be confused with similar tales from around the world,

473
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: merging to some extent with classical tales of sirens, but

474
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: plenty of winged descriptions remain that ultimately line up more

475
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: with what you might think of today as a heartbeat.

476
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 1: You know, ancient wind spirits eventually transformed into fiends through

477
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 1: tellings of Greek myth. Depending on how you slice it,

478
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: Harpies and sirens may have been both female bird human hybrids,

479
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: but of different demeanors. So harpies you can think of

480
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: more as vengeful cannibal to spoilers, while sirens are alluring,

481
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: musical beings of temptation, and if faced with both, you'd

482
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: need to fight the harpies off with physical weapons, while

483
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: the siren demands a more cerebral approach. So you know,

484
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 1: in some ways, they're kind of if you're looking at

485
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: them both as avian beings, they're kind of reflections of

486
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: each other, one targeting the body and the other targeting

487
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:52,400
Speaker 1: the mind.

488
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 3: Interesting.

489
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we mentioned earlier the idea of the siren

490
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: as a feminine monster, and Carol Rose in Giants, Monsters

491
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: and Dragons discusses this. Briefly points out that in medieval

492
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: European traditions, the siren takes on various symbolic powers. Quote

493
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: for her attributed where the comb and the mirror of vanity,

494
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: the fish or eel symbols of the entrapped Christian soul,

495
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: ensnared by luxury and vice, the small dragon the symbol

496
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: of her liaison with the devil, and her nakedness taken

497
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,439
Speaker 1: as a sign of wanton sexuality. So then and to

498
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 1: this day, in some depictions we see the siren presented

499
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: as this monstrous female temptress, a corruptor of menfolk, but

500
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: also like this, indeed, like something that has been summoned

501
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: up to test ones resolve. Still, as Rose points out,

502
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: there were still descriptions of the siren as a bird

503
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: woman you know, well, you know, out of of the

504
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: ancient world. Pops up in the seventh and eighth century

505
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: Liber Monstorum, also a twelfth century Latin bestiari which describes

506
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: them in much more harpy terms as winged, rock dwelling

507
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: beasts well that will not only lure sailors to their death,

508
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: but pounce on them with flesh rending talons. And then

509
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: during the nineteenth century we even see again kind of

510
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: like bumping up against all of these depictions of sirens

511
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: as mermaids and naked women in the water, we see

512
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: John William waterhouses eighteen ninety one painting Ulysses and the Sirens.

513
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: And what do we see here? We see big birds

514
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: with the heads of women, and they are the ones

515
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: of sailing Ulysses strapped to the mast and his various oarsmen.

516
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no ambiguity about their intentions here they are

517
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 3: swarming the boat.

518
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: Yes there. Yeah, these are definitely aggressive human headed birds here. Waterhouse,

519
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: it would seem drew more on those classical Greek descriptions

520
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: and depictions on vases and urns rather than what his

521
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: contemporaries were doing.

522
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I think it's the same painter John

523
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 3: William Waterhouse did the siren from nineteen hundred we talked

524
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 3: about earlier, the much more haunting and ambiguous image.

525
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't help, but one, I don't know much

526
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: about about the man in his work, and you know

527
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: who's painting for. But I wonder if with the nineteen

528
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: hundred someone was like, I'd like you to draw me

529
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: a siren and no birds this time, John, I wanted

530
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: to be a lady.

531
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 3: The one from nine years later does seem a little

532
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 3: more mysterious and maybe mature.

533
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: And to be clear, these are just a few like

534
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: very famous examples of sirens and paintings from this period.

535
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: There are others, So if you have favorites, feel free

536
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:39,719
Speaker 1: to send them into us, and you know I'd love

537
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: to take a look at them.

538
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, Contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind

539
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 3: dot com. Get in touch as always. Now, the idea

540
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 3: of the siren song luring sailors to their destruction by

541
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 3: one means or another got me thinking about nature. I

542
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 3: was wondering, are there any predators in nature that have

543
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 3: the genuine biological equivalent of a siren song? A sound

544
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 3: or a song or a vocalization that lures prey to

545
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 3: their doom? And after I did a little digging, I

546
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 3: discovered the answer is yes. Apparently it is not very

547
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 3: common in nature, at least as far as we know.

548
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 3: But there is one excellent example I want to talk about,

549
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 3: and this predatory song involves an animal that we just

550
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,479
Speaker 3: did a series on earlier this year, the cicada. In

551
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 3: this case, the cicada not as the predator, but as

552
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 3: the prey. So I'm going to be referring to one

553
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 3: major source here, a zoology paper from two thousand and

554
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 3: nine published in Plus one by David C. Marshall and

555
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 3: Kathy B. R. Hill called versatile aggressive mimicry of cicadas

556
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 3: by an Australian predatory Katie did So. This paper begins

557
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 3: by talking about the concept of mimicry in nature. Mimicry

558
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 3: in the animal kingdom is when an animal has an

559
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 3: adaptation that makes it seem like something other than what

560
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 3: it is, and this can take a lot of different

561
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 3: forms and serve a lot of different purposes. A lot

562
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 3: of animal mimicry is defensive in purpose and visual in format.

563
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 3: So a vulnerable prey animal might try to fool predators

564
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 3: into leaving it alone, perhaps by looking like something totally

565
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 3: uninteresting to the predator, like a leaf, or like another

566
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 3: animal that tastes bad and is non nutritious. In some cases,

567
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 3: visual defensive mimicry makes the prey animal look threatening. It

568
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 3: makes it look like a different animal that is dangerous

569
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 3: and could put up a fight, or one that is poisonous.

570
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 3: But there are non visual forms of defensive mimicry as well.

571
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 3: For example, a prey and can smell like something uninteresting

572
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 3: or something dangerous, so that's defensive mimicry. But there's also

573
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 3: what's called aggressive mimicry. This is when an animal disguises

574
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 3: itself for aggressive purposes, usually to attract or gain advantage

575
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 3: over prey if the mimic is a predator, or over

576
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 3: a host if the mimic is a parasite. And apparently

577
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 3: one of the most common strategies for aggressive mimics in

578
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 3: nature is to exploit mating drive. So it's like, hello,

579
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 3: fellow conspecifics, I am a member of your species and

580
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 3: I'm very sexy. So the authors give some examples of this.

581
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 3: One is the bolus spiders collectively known as a Mastophora,

582
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 3: which have been documented to attract male moths of at

583
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 3: least two different species by copying the sex pheromones of

584
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 3: female moths of those same species, so this would be

585
00:33:56,480 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 3: aggressive mimicry by smell. There's another into example, which is

586
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 3: predatory fireflies known as Fouturis versicolor, which these animals use

587
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 3: flashes of light to initiate mating within their own kind,

588
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 3: but they can also copy the courtship flashes of females

589
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 3: of other firefly species to trick the males of those

590
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 3: species into getting close for a mating opportunity, and then

591
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 3: the predatory fireflies just eat them, so this is aggressive

592
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 3: mimicry by visual signal. And the authors note that this

593
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:37,839
Speaker 3: case is particularly interesting because the predatory Photurus fireflies can

594
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 3: copy the flashing patterns of eleven different prey species of fireflies.

595
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 3: So that's incredible versatility in the predatory mimic behavior, and

596
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,959
Speaker 3: it's an interesting evolutionary question in cases like this how

597
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 3: that much versatility in the predatory behavior comes about. The

598
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 3: authors speculate that it might be possible in part because

599
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 3: in this case the predator and the prey are closely related.

600
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 3: But whatever the explanation there, both of these previous examples

601
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 3: work by the predator falsely appearing to be a female

602
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 3: conspecific that is ready to mate, either by smelling like

603
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 3: one or looking like one. This paper presents an example

604
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 3: of aggressive mimicry that is interesting for several reasons. Like

605
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 3: the fireflies, the predator in this case shows versatility in

606
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 3: altering the mimic behavior to match multiple different prey species.

607
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 3: But unlike the fireflies, the predator is not closely related

608
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 3: to the prey in a phylogenetic sense. And then also,

609
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 3: though I didn't notice this priority claim in the paper itself,

610
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 3: a couple of news and blog sources I was reading

611
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 3: about the paper say that this was the first scientifically

612
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 3: documented case of an aggressive or predatory mimic relying on

613
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:57,919
Speaker 3: sound rather than on visual or smell based cues, though

614
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 3: this mimic the mimic in question also does use visual

615
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 3: mimicry as a secondary appeal. I can't confirm there were

616
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 3: no earlier documented examples in nature, and I'm a little

617
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,280
Speaker 3: curious why I found that claim in the popular sources

618
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 3: and not in the research itself. But I did not

619
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 3: find any earlier examples. So if that is true, this

620
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 3: is the first documented case or sound is the medium

621
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 3: being used for the aggressive mimic to mimic something that

622
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 3: gets it access to its prey. Wow, So what is

623
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:33,720
Speaker 3: this dangerous mimic? Well, it is the spotted predatory katie

624
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:39,800
Speaker 3: did or Chlorobalius leucoviritus. So this is a large green,

625
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 3: green and white patterned katie did or bush cricket. It's

626
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 3: a species native to Australia, mostly found in the dry

627
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 3: interior regions of the continent, and it preys on multiple

628
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 3: different species of cicadas, belonging to the tribe Cicadatini. Among

629
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,800
Speaker 3: other things. It's got multiple prey, but it likes to

630
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 3: eat these cicadas of Cicadatini. Now, it's important to know

631
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 3: that these prey cicadas rely on a two part acoustic

632
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 3: signaling behavior to initiate sexual pair formation. And when we

633
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 3: did our series on cicadas, we talked a lot about

634
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 3: the songs of cicadas, how they use sound in their

635
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 3: mating behaviors. But in this case, these specific cicadas rely

636
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 3: on what the authors call signal response duets. So when

637
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 3: it's time to mate, the male cicada initiates with a

638
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 3: song particular to its species, and then if a female

639
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:38,240
Speaker 3: is nearby and she's receptive to mating, she will reply

640
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 3: with a series of wing flicks, which can be recognized

641
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 3: visually if you're very close. But more importantly, the wingflicks

642
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:50,280
Speaker 3: produce an audible sound that matches with that species specific

643
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 3: mating call put out by the male. So the wingflicks

644
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 3: can usually be heard for a range of several meters

645
00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 3: and they will help the male locate the female. Authors

646
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:05,399
Speaker 3: write quote. Because a wingflick reply is structurally nondescript, it

647
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 3: must closely follow the cue in the male cicada's song

648
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 3: in order to be recognized. But this leads to a

649
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,720
Speaker 3: kind of interesting situation where a clicking sound that has

650
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 3: roughly the right sound quality and the right latency meaning

651
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 3: I interpret this, I hope I'm right about this. I

652
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 3: think they're talking about the time delay between the end

653
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 3: of the male cicada's song and when the clicks start

654
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 3: and stop in response to that. If it has these

655
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 3: these sonic qualities correct, it can be interpreted as a

656
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 3: female sexual signal by the male cicada. And as an example,

657
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,759
Speaker 3: the authors mentioned that with some of these cicadas in

658
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 3: the tribe Cicadatini, you can attract males by like snapping

659
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 3: your fingers if you time it right with respect to

660
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 3: their songs. But different species listen for different things, and

661
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 3: some are more wary than others. I guess some just

662
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 3: kind of rush right in there. Now, coming back to

663
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 3: the katie DIDs, Chlorobelius adults are most active in the summertime,

664
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 3: and you will tend to find them perched in the

665
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 3: upper branches of small trees and large shrubs, where they

666
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 3: can take advantage of their green and white camouflage coloration

667
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 3: pattern to hide in the foliage and rob I've attached

668
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 3: a couple of pictures for you to look at, where

669
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 3: one is against a white background, where this animal is

670
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 3: very easy to see. Another one is of its standing

671
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 3: in the tree branches, where it's much easier to see

672
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 3: how it would just kind of blend in, especially if

673
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 3: you weren't looking very close.

674
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is often the case. Right when you

675
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: look at the specimen more in its natural habitat, it

676
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: does blend in.

677
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 3: So what do these katie diids do to mimic and

678
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:46,760
Speaker 3: hunt the cicadas they eat?

679
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: Well?

680
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 3: The authors write that they can quote attract male cicadas

681
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 3: Hemiptera cicatady by imitating the species specific wing flick replies

682
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 3: of sexually receptive female cicadas. This aggressive mimicry is accomplished

683
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 3: both acoustically with tegmental clicks and visually with synchronized body jerks,

684
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 3: so it's a two part mimic They imitate both the

685
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 3: sounds and the visually recognizable body movements produced by female

686
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 3: cicadas that are ready to mate, attracting male cicadas from

687
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 3: the surrounding area, and when the when the male cicada

688
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 3: gets close enough, the katie did will promptly snatch it,

689
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 3: bite into it, and eat it. And observations of these

690
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 3: predatory encounters find that the kadi did typically just eats

691
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 3: the whole thing. They the entire cicada except for the wings,

692
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 3: and they leave the wings behind. And I thought that

693
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 3: was interesting because I recall from our series on cicadas

694
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 3: this was also true of some bird predators, which would

695
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 3: eat the whole cicada except the wings and then just

696
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 3: leave pairs of wings everywhere.

697
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 1: Ah. Interesting.

698
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 3: Now, one really interesting thing that the authors point out

699
00:40:56,239 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 3: is that these predators are able to not only reproduce

700
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 3: the different specific sounds of a bunch of different cicada species,

701
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 3: experiments showed they can reproduce the songs of cicadas they

702
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 3: have never come across before. So this acoustic mimicry is

703
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 3: not just a singular, evolved, pre programmed behavior, but it's versatile.

704
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:22,240
Speaker 3: It is a versatile adaptable capacity to mimic and respond

705
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 3: to cicada calls. Interestingly, and perhaps relatedly, Chlorobelius also uses

706
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 3: acoustic signals for its own reproductive purposes. So when it's

707
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 3: time for this Katie did to mate, the male Katie

708
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 3: DIDs will produce a trilling sound with a file and

709
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 3: scraper system on the edges of their fore wings, which

710
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 3: is thought to attract females which are interested in mating. Now,

711
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 3: coming to the discussion section of this paper, it's worth

712
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 3: noting that this is not the only way that the

713
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 3: mating call of cicada could be used to help a

714
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 3: predator eat a cicada. The predator could, for example, just

715
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 3: follow the song to its source and to eat the mail,

716
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 3: and many predators do exactly this. They do follow the

717
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,319
Speaker 3: mating calls of prey animals to hunt. But this is

718
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 3: a different strategy like the siren, or at least one

719
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 3: version of the siren. The kdy did lures victims to itself,

720
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 3: and I think that's kind of interesting to consider. It's

721
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 3: like a different evolutionary investment. I don't believe the authors

722
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 3: say this, so this could be on the wrong track,

723
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 3: but I was just personally wondering if it could have

724
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 3: something to do with the fact that the katy did

725
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 3: already has a cryptic coloration pattern, It has camouflage, and

726
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 3: so the fact that it may be using camouflage for

727
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 3: one thing, it may be using camouflage defensively to hide

728
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 3: from its own predators, from birds, and so forth. You know,

729
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 3: whatever praise on it, it may be able to get

730
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 3: double use out of that by specializing in a type

731
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 3: of predation that allows it to hold still and hide

732
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 3: among the leaves and have its prey come to it.

733
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 1: Right, right, And also, I guess maybe it's helpful if

734
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: if it's this way, it doesn't have to worry about

735
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,720
Speaker 1: the predators. They could potentially be seeking out the mating

736
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: call of their very prey.

737
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 3: Oh that's a very good point because as we talked

738
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 3: about it in our cicada series. I don't know with

739
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 3: this specific Australian family with the Cicadatinian Australia, but in

740
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 3: most places everything eats cicadas when the cicadas come out

741
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 3: their dinner, for everything out there, and most of the

742
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 3: things that are eating them, or at least a lot

743
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 3: of the things would be big enough to Eaticata did

744
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 3: as well. Right now. The authors in this paper argue

745
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 3: that the katie did's versatility and mimicry probably follows from

746
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 3: the application of a few simple rules for one thing.

747
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 3: Since their game to eat pretty much any cicada, and

748
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 3: not just one particular species, they can probably ignore everything

749
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 3: about the male cicada's song except whatever part of it

750
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 3: cues the female cicada to respond, so there's less information

751
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 3: to process. Just tune most of that out, focus on

752
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 3: whatever part you need to pay attention to to time

753
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 3: your response, your clicks and response, which is typically probably

754
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 3: something about the onset of a pause at the end

755
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 3: of a song segment. And this was funny because it

756
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 3: made me think about like text message scammers who are

757
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 3: going to possibly ignore basically everything you type to them

758
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 3: and just be looking for a couple of keywords to

759
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 3: advance the scam script to the next waypoint.

760
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 1: Hmmm, yeah, I mean often predatory. There you go.

761
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 3: Efficiency, Yeah, predatory efficiency. But in general, the authors point

762
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 3: out that a complex adaptation like the Katie did has here.

763
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 3: It requires multiple parts. Right, You've got to have sound

764
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 3: producing organs, which they do in the four Wings. You've

765
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,840
Speaker 3: got to have sound perceiving organs. You've got to be

766
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 3: able to listen so you know what to respond to,

767
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 3: and you've got to have the neural processing required to

768
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 3: make that match right, to produce the appropriate sound to

769
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 3: match the call you just heard. And fortunately for the

770
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 3: KDI DIDs, they already have all three capabilities for use

771
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 3: in their own mating. I remember that from earlier they

772
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 3: also sound in their own mating. However, there's an interesting

773
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 3: complication here, which is that if this predatory mimicry of

774
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 3: cicada mating duets were based on the mating behavior of

775
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 3: the predator species, you would expect the katie DIDs to

776
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 3: also engage in duets, and as far as the authors

777
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 3: could tell, this was not the case. The kd DIDs

778
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 3: do not seem to do male female duets. Instead, it

779
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 3: seems as of the time of this paper that males

780
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 3: generally produce a song which attracts a silent female to

781
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 3: its source. So the male makes a song, the female

782
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 3: comes and finds the male. But the authors acknowledge that

783
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 3: not a lot is known about this Katie did species,

784
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 3: so maybe some information is missing here. And also just

785
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 3: a reminder that I said there was both an acoustic

786
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 3: and a visual signal. The kt did also does this

787
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 3: body jerking behavior which accompanies the mimicry clicks, and it

788
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 3: does not seem to be physically necessary to make the

789
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 3: click sound, so it's probably also a mimic behavior in

790
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 3: this case to kind of look like a female cicada

791
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 3: flicking its wings between the leaves. So the male's like,

792
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I see it right up there, and the

793
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 3: male's crawling up and then it gets eaten.

794
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: Fascinating it. I mean this lines up with the basic

795
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: Sirens script.

796
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 3: Right absolutely, But in fact, to come back to the Odyssey,

797
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 3: one thing we see in the Odyssey is that the

798
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 3: prey of the sirens, at least one member of the

799
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 3: sirens prey, has a clever workaround a way of avoiding

800
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 3: the sirens song by plugging the ears of the men

801
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 3: rowing the ship and by lashing himself to the mast

802
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 3: so that the sirens wouldn't get him. This is what

803
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 3: Odysseus does, and you could see that as the beginning

804
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: of a possible arms race in adaptations between sailors and sirens,

805
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 3: And in fact there may be a fairly complex predator

806
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 3: prey arms race in evolution between these cicadas and the

807
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 3: katie DIDs. So here to read from the paper, the

808
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 3: author's right. Even though Cobonga ox lay, the species we

809
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 3: observed being attracted by Chlorobelius lucoviritis, has a structurally obvious

810
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 3: song cue and an easily timed repetitive rhythm. We have

811
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 3: found this species to be extremely resistant to our artificial signals.

812
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 3: Poorly timed finger snaps cause males of many species to

813
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 3: become wary, with kox Lay an especially strong example. Perhaps

814
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 3: persistent aggressive mimicry by Chlorobelius lucoviritis has selected kox Lay

815
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 3: males for greater sensitivity to the occasional poorly timed click.

816
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 3: This possibility also suggests an additional evolutionary route for the

817
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 3: cicada prey, the addition of false cues that ilicit premature

818
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 3: katie did replies without queuing female cicadas, whose response depends

819
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 3: on a particular combination of song elements. Long continued selection

820
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 3: of this sort might account for the extraordinarily complex songs

821
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 3: of many Australian cicatatine species found in the arid Acacia

822
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 3: dominated habitats where see lucoviritis is most common. So that's

823
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 3: very interesting. We may have some Cicada odysseus'es on hand

824
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 3: who have evolved a defensive reaction to this type of

825
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 3: predatory mimicry by, for one thing, throwing out some decoy

826
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 3: sound signals that are not going to get females of

827
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 3: its own species responding. But if you do hear clicks

828
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 3: in response to them, that's something to be afraid of.

829
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:41,280
Speaker 3: Lets you know, there's a monster nearby. And then also

830
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 3: perhaps by being more sensitive to incorrect timing on the

831
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:48,600
Speaker 3: response clicks in the duet.

832
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting. So yeah, so their use of the song

833
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 1: becomes more nuanced in a way, in a way to

834
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 1: outwit these pretenders. Yeah, I mean one is tempted to

835
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: make various comparisons, to say, conversations between humans, perhaps in

836
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: a dating scenario, you know, like a first date where

837
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: one might throw out, hey, you know, did you see

838
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: such and such movie? And I thought it was pretty

839
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: good and they're like, yeah, it's great. Well, then you

840
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: know that's a red flag fill in your own example. Sorry,

841
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: I'm a little slow today. I can't come up with

842
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: a good example that we can all stand behind as

843
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 1: being the red flag for a first date.

844
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 3: But I absolutely understand what you're talking about, sort of

845
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 3: tossing out a sonic conversational bait to draw out the

846
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 3: attention of anything that you should be avoiding.

847
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well this is fascinating and again more evidence to

848
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: a point that we're always making on the show, and

849
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: that is that anything you find in myth and in

850
00:49:54,640 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: legend and fictional monsters, there is almost always something equally

851
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 1: weird in the natural world.

852
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's you know, through doing a lot of these

853
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,839
Speaker 3: October Monster episodes, I find it varies how close of

854
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 3: a match we can find in the natural world. Sometimes

855
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 3: there's just not something in nature that is a real

856
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 3: tight fit on whatever fictional example we're talking about, but

857
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 3: there's always something more amazing. Yeah, but this was a

858
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 3: case where I was shocked how close the fit is,

859
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 3: especially with the Odysseus cicadas. To be clear, that's not

860
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 3: their biological name, that's just what I'm calling him.

861
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: Now, all right, I have one more little curiosity to

862
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 1: consider here. Take it from the cabinet of curiosity, if

863
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:57,360
Speaker 1: you will, because it concerns a very learned individual who

864
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: seems to have thought very long and hard on the

865
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 1: reality of sirens, as well as the reality of some

866
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 1: other things that I don't think one typically thinks of

867
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: as having an objective reality. So I ran across this

868
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 1: in Literature and a Lore of the Sea edited by

869
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: Patricia Ann Karlson, specifically in an article titled the Extraordinary

870
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:26,760
Speaker 1: Being Death In The Mermaid and Baroque Literature by Eileen S. Goodman,

871
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:30,040
Speaker 1: she points out the seventeenth century German polymath and Jessuits

872
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:33,760
Speaker 1: scholar Athanasius Kircher, who is sixteen o two through sixteen eighty,

873
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: in one of his natural history volumes, seems to give

874
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 1: serious consideration to not only the objective reality of Noah's Ark,

875
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: which isn't completely out of the ordinary. He still see

876
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,360
Speaker 1: that kind of thing going on today, but also spends

877
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: a lot of time trying to figure out where Noah

878
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 1: put all of the sirens.

879
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 3: Right next to the unicorns.

880
00:51:55,960 --> 00:52:00,760
Speaker 1: Obviously, well, we'll get to unicorns. He also believed in them.

881
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:03,919
Speaker 1: I guess brief refresher for those of you who don't

882
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 1: remember the story of Noah's Ark is this Old Testament

883
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: Book of Genesis tale concerning the Great Flood and one

884
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: anti Theiluvian patriarch's mission to save all of the world's

885
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: animals from the flood in a great big boat. It's

886
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: one of various great flood myths found throughout the ancient world. Obviously,

887
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: this is not a story that easily endures very close

888
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: literal scrutiny. When you dig down into the two by

889
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: two details of the endeavor. I think you know a

890
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:34,840
Speaker 1: lot of us who grew up, you know, going to

891
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: Sunday school class. You reach that point where you're like, wait,

892
00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: how does this work? Now? Wait to two of each animal,

893
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: you know, and then various questions arise. But Kircher was

894
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,720
Speaker 1: very into figuring out exactly how all of this would work,

895
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: and he, to be clear, seems to have believed in

896
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:57,839
Speaker 1: the reality of mermaids or sirens as well as unicorns,

897
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:02,200
Speaker 1: based on some like the tail and the bones of

898
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 1: a mermaid that were in his museum.

899
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so he had empirical evidence.

900
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,479
Speaker 1: It's like, we have evidence, this is what these were.

901
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 1: And he describes them as amphibians and stresses that there

902
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:19,439
Speaker 1: is some controversy as to whether these particular amphibians were

903
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: or were not received into the arc. And I imagine

904
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:25,480
Speaker 1: some of you might have wondered about this. How did

905
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: what happened to the mermaids? So he explains in his writing,

906
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: well that others have said, well, perhaps they lived on

907
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 1: the outside of the arc, outside of this great boat,

908
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: perhaps in some sort of a nest, something like a

909
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:40,879
Speaker 1: fixed to the hole.

910
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:44,879
Speaker 3: I'm finding it a little confusing here because I would

911
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,840
Speaker 3: not normally think that aquatic animals needed to be taken

912
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,439
Speaker 3: onto the arc at all, which I guess is part

913
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 3: of why he's classifying them as amphibians. That like, they

914
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 3: can't live their entire lives in the water. They must

915
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 3: come to dry surface at some point.

916
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there is some disagreement with people asking the

917
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: same questions here where did the mermaids or sirens go?

918
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: Some said they stayed in nests on the outside of

919
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: the ark, but Kircher dismisses the idea, stating that this

920
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: is a This is a quote translated quote from his work,

921
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: as referenced in that article by Goodman. Holy writ is

922
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 1: in agreement on the matter of the little stalls into

923
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:26,520
Speaker 1: which the animals were distributed, and it does not teach

924
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,280
Speaker 1: that any existed outside. And I believe he argues against

925
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:33,000
Speaker 1: the idea that any creature lived outside the ship during

926
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: the cataclysm, like even fish. I mean it, it's I

927
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 1: have no answer there. It's like, even if you're even

928
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: if I'm going to assume that fish surely get away

929
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 1: with living outside of the arc. I think he's making

930
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 1: a case that amphibian creatures could not. They would have

931
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:54,359
Speaker 1: to be aboard the arc.

932
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 2: HM.

933
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:59,840
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm assuming here based on what I'm reading,

934
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:02,880
Speaker 1: Kircher is arguing that the sirens would have ridden inside

935
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 1: the arc, and I have to acknowledge the Yes, that

936
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 1: sounds ludicrous to even be wondering about that. But I

937
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 1: also I don't want to give everyone the wrong idea

938
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:18,440
Speaker 1: about this man, because by all accounts, he was a

939
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: brilliant mind, you know, a brilliant man of his time,

940
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:25,440
Speaker 1: sometimes described as being the last man to know everything.

941
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 1: So this is a guy who studied religion, linguistics, geology, medicine.

942
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: He tried to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and claimed that

943
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: he had translated them, but apparently not. He wrote an

944
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:46,439
Speaker 1: encyclopedia on China. He kept a vundo kama, or a

945
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:49,640
Speaker 1: cabinet of curiosities, and he spent the majority of his

946
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: career at Roman College. He was fascinated by fossils. He

947
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,400
Speaker 1: made proposals about the cause of plague that apparently line

948
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: up with some of the the actual you know, the

949
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,840
Speaker 1: actual reality of it. He was intrigued by various devices,

950
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,359
Speaker 1: made little inventions. He was a science superstar of his day,

951
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:11,919
Speaker 1: even if He's often eclipsed in our recollection by such

952
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: contemporaries as Galileo. And there is the fact that he

953
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:18,680
Speaker 1: seemed to believe in the existence of both mermaids and

954
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:21,720
Speaker 1: unicorns based on the evidence in his museum.

955
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:24,840
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, I mean this would be, by no

956
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 3: means the only example of a truly brilliant mind in

957
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 3: history who spent a lot of time obsessing over minutia

958
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:35,279
Speaker 3: based on false premises. Yeah, you know, the all the

959
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:39,320
Speaker 3: all the devotion to to alchemy and trying to trying

960
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:41,880
Speaker 3: to work things out based on the literal interpretation of

961
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 3: the Bible and things like that.

962
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: So a lot of books have been written about him,

963
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:50,040
Speaker 1: and I ran across there's actually a review of a

964
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:54,439
Speaker 1: particular book about him. This was in this case, the

965
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 1: review was written by the Vatican Observatory's brother, Guy Consumajno,

966
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: who I the pleasure to hear speak here in Atlanta

967
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 1: many years ago. It was not speaking about this, he

968
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:09,919
Speaker 1: was speaking, I believe about religion and extraterrestrials. That's sort

969
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 1: of like speculative material. But yeah. He wrote this article

970
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:17,920
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one titled A mishmash of brilliance and absurdity,

971
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 1: and he stressed that, Yeah, here's this guy Kirchner, who

972
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: was brilliant, you know, was obsessed with optics, acoustics, you

973
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: name it, just like everything that could be learned or

974
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 1: known about the world. He was all in on it.

975
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he wrote three volumes on

976
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 1: how Noah managed to fit all of the animals and

977
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 1: their food into the arc, and then also speculates about

978
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 1: the sirens as well.

979
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 3: Isaac Newton, one of the most brilliant minds of all time,

980
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 3: was spent a huge amount of intellectual energy obsessed with

981
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 3: interpreting his with like his interpretations of biblical prophecies.

982
00:57:56,480 --> 00:58:02,080
Speaker 1: Kanzemajno writes, quote, Kirchner makes a fascinating contrast in style

983
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:06,160
Speaker 1: with Galileo. While both were shameless self promoters, Galileo was

984
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:10,320
Speaker 1: far more rigorous, focused, and polemical in his science. Kirchner's

985
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: theme was simply wonder and delight, reporting marvelous machines and novelties,

986
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:17,960
Speaker 1: like a seventeenth century version of Ripley's Believe It or.

987
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 3: Not, Well, far be it from me to find fault

988
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 3: there in wonder and delight.

989
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,840
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it kind of you know, drives

990
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 1: home that you know, wonder and delight are great, but

991
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:32,400
Speaker 1: they too can be kind of a siren song, steering

992
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 1: you off into I mean, in the worst cases, you know,

993
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: misinformation and delusion, but even into maybe just ideas that

994
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 1: are not ultimately that productive but maybe entertaining. I don't know.

995
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 1: Did Kirchner's three volumes on Noah's art like hurt anything,

996
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 1: Did his belief in the physical reality of unicorns and

997
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 1: mermaids hurt anything? Well? Maybe not, Maybe it's fine.

998
00:58:56,120 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 3: I guess it's hard to say about that kind of thing,

999
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 3: though I would say in general, it's absolutely the case.

1000
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 3: I think that the estheticization of ideas can in some

1001
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 3: cases have very negative consequences. Appreciating ideas primarily for whether

1002
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:12,400
Speaker 3: they are fun or exciting or how they make you feel,

1003
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:16,000
Speaker 3: with not enough appreciation for testing whether they are true,

1004
00:59:16,120 --> 00:59:18,320
Speaker 3: can be in fact quite quite dangerous.

1005
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, we've We've discussed multiple times in the show

1006
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: various hypotheses that you know, sometimes are quite enthralling and

1007
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 1: and even inspiring, but are they the best hypotheses with

1008
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:35,840
Speaker 1: which to understand the universe? And that's not always the case.

1009
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: And if you just follow what's exciting. Then you're you know,

1010
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 1: you're in search of with Leonard Nimoy or something. You know,

1011
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:45,439
Speaker 1: you're you're in the realm of Let's just talk about

1012
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,160
Speaker 1: these ideas because they are entertaining and not because they

1013
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:51,520
Speaker 1: actually explain the world around us.

1014
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, though, if we can make a persuasive case, I

1015
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 3: hope we could convince you that you can put truth

1016
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 3: testing as the first priority and ideas can still be fun.

1017
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,560
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So you know, don't put wax in your ears,

1018
01:00:05,640 --> 01:00:07,680
Speaker 1: puts put a little Stuff to Blow your Mind in

1019
01:00:07,720 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: your ears. Hopefully that'll help you out. All Right, We're

1020
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and close up this episode, but we'll remind

1021
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 1: everyone out there. The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1022
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on

1023
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:21,640
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a short form episode on Wednesdays,

1024
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:23,960
Speaker 1: and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to

1025
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:26,919
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1026
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:30,280
Speaker 1: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts or what

1027
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 1: have you, make sure you're subscribed to the show. If

1028
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 1: you haven't reviewed us, give us a nice review. Maybe

1029
01:00:35,520 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 1: touch up that old review. I don't know, but you know.

1030
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:41,280
Speaker 1: The stars help, the nice words help, and likewise it's

1031
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 1: the If you're on Instagram you can follow us. We

1032
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 1: are STBYM podcast.

1033
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1034
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:52,200
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1035
01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:54,760
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1036
01:00:54,800 --> 01:00:56,919
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1037
01:00:57,040 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact the Stuff to Blow

1038
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:08,360
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1039
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:11,400
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1040
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:14,280
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1041
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.

1042
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:35,840
Speaker 3: H