Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, your
Speaker 2: weekly podcast that is usually one thing and this week
Speaker 2: is a different thing. I'm your host, Margaret KILCHREI and
Speaker 2: with me today as my guest, It's Francesca. Hi. How
Speaker 2: are you Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm really well. I mean kind of, I'm not well,
Speaker 1: but like doing this show and doing something different than
Speaker 1: news cycle made me say that I'm really well. And
Speaker 1: also I haven't seen you in a while, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited because I loved being on this show last time,
Speaker 1: and I loved having you on my podcast, Thebituation Room
Speaker 1: that everyone should check out.
Speaker 2: But hell, yeah, well done.
Speaker 1: Why is it? Thank you a little plug there? Why
Speaker 1: is it different today? What are we doing?
Speaker 2: Well? I decided that every now and then I need
Speaker 2: to have weeks where I don't write half a novella's
Speaker 2: worth of research every single week, and so sometimes I
Speaker 2: need to just read folklore, eh eh oh, because yeah
Speaker 2: it's funny. Actually you were talking about, like one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that I like doing this show is it
Speaker 2: even though it's about political stuff and how people do things,
Speaker 2: it's usually like one hundred years ago, right, and so
Speaker 2: like I don't have to necessarily have that same doom
Speaker 2: cycle that you do with your show that everyone should
Speaker 2: check out. You can find me on any cycle news. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and folklore. I feel like ties into that because
Speaker 2: a lot of the times when I do research episodes,
Speaker 2: I get once you get like six hundred years in
Speaker 2: the past, You're like, look, this is what we think.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not true. We don't know what's true.
Speaker 2: It was six hundred years ago. Like all of the
Speaker 2: things that are written about are propaganda, you know, So
Speaker 2: like the line between folklore and history, I would argue, yeah,
Speaker 2: is porous. That is my elaborate defense about how today
Speaker 2: this week we're going to extend the spooky season and
Speaker 2: talk about witches and vampires.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god, I just started rewatching Interview with
Speaker 1: the Vampire, which is like the hernious movie of the
Speaker 1: nineties and also so canceled for a million different reasons.
Speaker 2: Oh, I haven't rewatched it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also just like really gay and horny, which
Speaker 1: is great and like it's Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, it's it's canceled for other reasons, but
Speaker 1: it's great. So and I've seen all the Twilights, which
Speaker 1: I assume is the bar for being able to speak
Speaker 1: with authority.
Speaker 2: On Yeah, I think vampires. Yeah, that's the main thing
Speaker 2: that we're going to talk about today is actually yeah,
Speaker 2: well okay, it's funny because we'd be like, vampires don't twinkle, like, well,
Speaker 2: vampires don't do anything because they're not real. But beyond that,
Speaker 2: like one of the things. And actually, because the style
Speaker 2: of vampire stories we're going to read mostly on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: not today, you're going to have to hear about witches first, yes,
Speaker 2: but the line between witches and vampires is actually really blurry,
Speaker 2: and like all of the specific stuff like vampires can't
Speaker 2: do this and they can do that and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: It's always been messy, it's always changed. It's not like
Speaker 2: Dracula is a traditional vampire and Twilight is non traditional vampires,
Speaker 2: I mean to some degree. But the idea of the
Speaker 2: vampire is the like suave, sexy aristocrat is a little
Speaker 2: bit newer and also really politically charged. And why is
Speaker 2: the witch like the cat lady? It's like, who like
Speaker 2: has cobwebs in her vagina? Like come on now, like
Speaker 2: why can't she be hot and horny? And you know,
Speaker 2: the second time I said, horny and inside of how
Speaker 2: many minutes are we running? Well, we're talking about witches
Speaker 2: and vampires, so there's no other.
Speaker 1: Option now, I yeah, well this is m I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited I won't interrupt.
Speaker 2: No, it's okay, I mean, well, okay, So first we're
Speaker 2: gonna talk about witches. And this came up because I
Speaker 2: just did this whole episode on the history of Halloween
Speaker 2: and Sooen and all hollows tied and spooky season holidays,
Speaker 2: and I was like, thought, I was going to read
Speaker 2: a bunch of folklore on it. And so I started
Speaker 2: reading all these stories and I liked some of them
Speaker 2: a lot, but they didn't quite tie in. But I
Speaker 2: was like, well, I want to read them anyway because
Speaker 2: they're really interesting to me. Did you know about witches
Speaker 2: and sieves? Sieves? Sieves? You know the thing you strain
Speaker 2: water through colander? Yeah? Basically no. No, So there's all
Speaker 2: of this connection between witches and sieves I did not expect. Okay,
Speaker 2: And so I'm going to read a story that it's
Speaker 2: from Ireland. It's called The Horned Women. Most of the
Speaker 2: versions that I'm using. Oh, speaking of horny anyway, Most
Speaker 2: of the versions I'm going to be using are from
Speaker 2: a lot of the folklore that I end up reading
Speaker 2: was like collected and usually the late nineteenth early twentieth century,
Speaker 2: or sometimes the mid nineteenth century by various folkloress where
Speaker 2: they go around and are like, tell me you're weird,
Speaker 2: wacky beliefs. I'm a good modern person who also read
Speaker 2: wacky beliefs.
Speaker 1: All right, how do you live when they're just like,
Speaker 1: we're just rural and poor?
Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, yeah totally. And so this first story,
Speaker 2: it was actually collected in a book that Yates frequent,
Speaker 2: not hero of the pod, but just sort of shows
Speaker 2: up in the weird background. He was obsessed with collecting
Speaker 2: Irish folklore, and so he and a couple other people
Speaker 2: collected a book and so this is from that. It's
Speaker 2: called The Horned Women.
Speaker 1: Are you going to read it in an Irish accent?
Speaker 2: No? I wish I could do an accent to save
Speaker 2: my life. But if someone held a gun to my
Speaker 2: head and was like speak British or die, I'd be like,
Speaker 2: I gouvna don't shoot me in Mamela no funny like
Speaker 2: hostage did you suation?
Speaker 1: Like of like you must do an impeccable posh accent, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, in order to live. And you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: fish and Chip, and they're like nope, Like come.
Speaker 2: On, yeah, what would be the accent that you would
Speaker 2: do to save your life? If someone was like, do
Speaker 2: an accent and die, well.
Speaker 1: The problem is is that if it's a non white accent,
Speaker 1: then you're immediately canceled. So don't you sort of die.
Speaker 2: And don't oh yeah, little death.
Speaker 1: No, I here's here's the one that would be very
Speaker 1: I think Irish would be difficult. You know why because
Speaker 1: I always descend for between Jamaican and Irish, like I'll
Speaker 1: i'll be doing an Irish accent. I can't even do
Speaker 1: it anymore, and then it suddenly sounds Jamaica and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, Irish Jake it are really similar
Speaker 1: and those are both terrible accents. But like, either way,
Speaker 1: what I'm listening, I've i'm i'm the s'mores are over
Speaker 1: the fireplace.
Speaker 2: Okay. I have read about why the Jamaican accent has
Speaker 2: to do with Irish accent and is a while ago,
Speaker 2: and so I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but it
Speaker 2: is something to do with the working class of Jamaica
Speaker 2: and like influence or the other the white poor people
Speaker 2: we are there were irish, I think, And if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: then I'm wrong, and so don't take this as fackt okay.
Speaker 2: But the weirdest thing anyone I know has ever been
Speaker 2: mugged for. I swear at some point I'm gonna read
Speaker 2: this story. Some of my friends were once mugged for
Speaker 2: push ups. What they were walking home middle of the night.
Speaker 2: Some guys came up with a gun and were like,
Speaker 2: I think. They were like, give us some money, and
Speaker 2: my friends are like, we don't have any money. Were punks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And then the people were like, bullshit, give me twenty
Speaker 2: push ups and made my friends do twenty push ups.
Speaker 2: And then we're like, all right, you're cool. You did
Speaker 2: twenty push ups.
Speaker 1: We have a gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh huh oh damn yeah.
Speaker 1: See that would be rough. I would probably get to
Speaker 1: twelve and then I'd need like a water break.
Speaker 2: I feel like the gun would count as the water
Speaker 2: break for me.
Speaker 1: No, for sure, he would the adrenaline, would you Yeah? No?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I always used to think was like what if my
Speaker 1: mom was in dangered like do.
Speaker 2: Doo doo doo doo.
Speaker 1: And then and I'd always I remember when I was little,
Speaker 1: like run to the bus like that, or run really far,
Speaker 1: and then I eventually lose steam, and I'd.
Speaker 2: Be like, oh, you killed her any pretty much killed
Speaker 2: your mom.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: This is a story about impossible tasks that have been
Speaker 2: set upon people. That was my clever transition that I
Speaker 2: totally planned, all right. Horned women. A rich woman sat
Speaker 2: up late one night carding and preparing wool, while all
Speaker 2: the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly a knock was
Speaker 2: given at the door, and a voice called, open, open,
Speaker 2: Who is there, said the woman of the house. I
Speaker 2: am the witch of one horn, was answered The mistress,
Speaker 2: supposing that one of her neighbors had called and required assistance,
Speaker 2: opened the door, and a woman entered, having in her
Speaker 2: hand a pair of wool carters and burying a horn
Speaker 2: on her forehead as if growing there. She sat down
Speaker 2: by the fire in silence and began to card the
Speaker 2: wool with violent haste. Suddenly she paused and said aloud,
Speaker 2: where are the women? They delay too long? Then a
Speaker 2: second knock came to the door, and a voice called
Speaker 2: out as before open Open. The mistress felt herself obliged
Speaker 2: to rise and open the call, And immediately a second
Speaker 2: witch entered, having two horns on her forehead and in
Speaker 2: her hand a wheel for spinning wool. Give me place,
Speaker 2: she said, I am the witch of two horns, and
Speaker 2: she began to spin as quick as lightning. And so
Speaker 2: the knocks went on, and the call was heard, and
Speaker 2: the witches entered, until at last twelve women sat round
Speaker 2: the fire, the first with one horn, the last with
Speaker 2: twelve horns.
Speaker 1: Whoa, yeah, like, where do they all?
Speaker 2: Where are they coming from?
Speaker 1: I'm with your head, the back of your head. Maybe
Speaker 1: they sleep like as are they smaller?
Speaker 2: Yeah? They sleep like baths? Okay, yeah, keep going. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they carted the thread and turned their spinning wheels,
Speaker 2: and wound and wove, all singing together an ancient rhyme.
Speaker 2: But no word did they speak to the mistress of
Speaker 2: the house. Strange to hear and frightful to look upon
Speaker 2: where these twelve women with their horns and their wheels.
Speaker 2: And the mistress felt near to death, and she tried
Speaker 2: to rise, that she might call for help, But she
Speaker 2: could not move, nor could she utter a word or
Speaker 2: a cry. For the spell of the witches was upon her.
Speaker 2: Then one of them called to her an irish, and said,
Speaker 2: rise woman, and make us a cake. What a fucking mastard,
Speaker 2: Just misogynist witch right there, making that woman that's not
Speaker 2: in the story. That's my all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how are you gonna like after just giving you place,
Speaker 1: like to spin your little wool? Yeah and be all
Speaker 1: horned up?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the mistress searched for a vessel to bring
Speaker 2: water from the well that she might mix the meal
Speaker 2: and make the cake. But she could find none, and
Speaker 2: they said to her, take a sieve and bring water
Speaker 2: in it. Woo eh. And she took the sieve and
Speaker 2: went to the well, but the water poured from it
Speaker 2: and she could fetch none for the cake. And she
Speaker 2: sat down by the well and wept. Then a voice
Speaker 2: came by her and said, take yellow clay and moss
Speaker 2: and bind them together, and plaster the sieve so that
Speaker 2: it will hold. This. She did, and the sieve held
Speaker 2: the water for the cake. And the voice said again, return,
Speaker 2: and when thou comest to the north angle of the house,
Speaker 2: cry aloud three times, and say the mountain of the
Speaker 2: Fenian women and the sky over it is all on fire.
Speaker 2: And she did so When the witches inside heard the call,
Speaker 2: a great and terrible cry broke from their lips, and
Speaker 2: they rushed forth with wild lamentations and shrieks, and fled
Speaker 2: away to Slievenamon, where was their chief abode. But the
Speaker 2: spirit of the well bade the mistress of the house
Speaker 2: to enter and prepare her home against the enchantments of
Speaker 2: the witches if they returned again. And first, to break
Speaker 2: their spells, she sprinkled the water in which she had
Speaker 2: washed her child's feet, the feet water outside of the door.
Speaker 2: You kept that right, No, the feet water.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Obviously, every time I give my baby a bath,
Speaker 1: I'm like, ooh, this is the feet water.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I store in jars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to give to your kid when they become.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna yeah, I mean it's part of the dowry
Speaker 1: when I, you know, pay pay the family to take
Speaker 1: her in and marry her off.
Speaker 2: Here is the baby's feet water, yeah, exactly, because.
Speaker 1: I won't have money. It'd be that in like a
Speaker 1: little cut of my patreon anyway.
Speaker 2: So and first to break their spells, she sprinkled the
Speaker 2: water in which she had washed her her child's feet,
Speaker 2: the feet water outside the door on the threshold. Secondly,
Speaker 2: she took the cake, which in her absence, the witches
Speaker 2: had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn from
Speaker 2: the sleeping family.
Speaker 1: Ooh, yeah, they killed the family. Thought okay, good, okay,
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Well, this is part of why the witches and the
Speaker 2: vampires went together. I thought it was gonna be all witches.
Speaker 2: There is a seamless transition between these two.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: But and she broke the cake into bits and placed
Speaker 2: a bit in the mouth of each sleeper. Yeah they're
Speaker 2: not dead, They're just had some blood drawn.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: And they were restored. And she took the cloth they
Speaker 2: had woven and placed it half in and half out
Speaker 2: of the chest with the padlock. And lastly she secured
Speaker 2: the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the jams,
Speaker 2: so that the witches could not enter. And having done
Speaker 2: these things, she waited. Not long were the witches and
Speaker 2: coming back, and they raged and called for vengeance. Open open,
Speaker 2: they screamed, open feet water. Damn they called you feet water.
Speaker 2: Well they were talking to the feet water, because yeah,
Speaker 2: shut up, the feet is our sench feet water sentient.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, I cannot said the feet water.
Speaker 2: I am scattered on the ground, and my path is
Speaker 2: down to the low open open wood and trees and beam,
Speaker 2: they cried to the door. I cannot said the door,
Speaker 2: for the beam is fixed in the gems and I
Speaker 2: have no power to move. Open open cake that we
Speaker 2: made and mingled with blood, they cried again. I cannot
Speaker 2: said the cake, for I am broken and bruised, and
Speaker 2: my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children.
Speaker 1: Oh cake, week though, yeah, cake kind of weak.
Speaker 2: Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries
Speaker 2: and fled back to Sleeveniman, uttering strange curses and on
Speaker 2: the spirit of the well who had wished their ruin.
Speaker 2: But the woman and the house were left in peace,
Speaker 2: and a mantle dropped by one of the witches in
Speaker 2: her flight was kept hung up by the mistress and
Speaker 2: memory of that night, And this mantle was kept by
Speaker 2: the same family from generation to generation for five hundred
Speaker 2: years after.
Speaker 1: Wait, what was on the mantle? The feet water? Wait?
Speaker 2: I forgot no, no, okay, so the feet water is
Speaker 2: on the doorstep right right. And because they were like, yo,
Speaker 2: you're inside feet water, you're our friend. Why don't you
Speaker 2: like come open? The door and they're like, ah, fuck,
Speaker 2: we're outside with you, right, and they can't do it.
Speaker 2: The mantle had the the mantle the shawl, I think
Speaker 2: basically one of the witches shawl. Ah, and so this
Speaker 2: shawl has been passed on for five hundred years, which
Speaker 2: is how we know it's true.
Speaker 1: Well obviously, I mean if there's a shawl, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: evidence that is evident. Yeah right there. This is when
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just want to be in the book club.
Speaker 1: I think this is the part where you tell me
Speaker 1: what it all means.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, I spent so long looking for what
Speaker 2: this means.
Speaker 1: What the fuck?
Speaker 2: No one knows what it means. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 2: someone out there has some ideas. I've read a lot
Speaker 2: of people's ideas. Mostly what it means is watch out
Speaker 2: for which is they'll fuck you up.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, They'll they'll make you like get water and
Speaker 1: like put some weird clay in it.
Speaker 2: Well okay, wait, see the witches were like get water,
Speaker 2: but she couldn't do it. So the spirit of the
Speaker 2: well helped her figure out how to do it. And
Speaker 2: so you actually there's multiple spiritual things.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, which is unclear, but okay, so the
Speaker 1: well kind of swooped in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so one of the traditional Irish folklore things is
Speaker 2: spirits and wells, and they're usually like positive spirits is
Speaker 2: like where like good fairies are hanging out basically, and
Speaker 2: you actually get all this interesting stuff where that tend
Speaker 2: of type of belief lasted way longer through syncreticism and
Speaker 2: like the Catholic takeover of Ireland as compared to a
Speaker 2: lot of other stuff. And so you have this thing
Speaker 2: in like the late nineteenth century where like the Catholic
Speaker 2: Church was like, could you all stop having fairy wells
Speaker 2: and people were like, no, we like our fairy wells. No,
Speaker 2: and so like they would like make them into saint
Speaker 2: wells instead, be like, ah, this is like Saint as
Speaker 2: Is well and that's whotah steam.
Speaker 1: Right right right? Oh, I love that. That's so perfect.
Speaker 1: That's so perfectly Catholic. I mean, that's what they did
Speaker 1: around all over Latin America, which which kind of to
Speaker 1: the credit of Catholics, there's been a lot of like
Speaker 1: blood and gore, but there's been also a little bit
Speaker 1: of a like okay, fine, there's fairies and there's spirits
Speaker 1: and Wells, we can incorporate your indigenous and you're like
Speaker 1: sort of you know, pre inking in Latin America's case,
Speaker 1: like you know, religion, and then we'll just incorporate it.
Speaker 1: And then like colonized people are like, okay, we'll just
Speaker 1: incorporate all the other people that want to come, you know,
Speaker 1: impose their religion on us onto our original thing, which
Speaker 1: is fairies in Wells.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So I love that. Yeah, I'm such a
Speaker 2: sucker for syncretism. Everyone who's been listening, especially the last
Speaker 2: couple episodes, like hearing me talk about that all the time. Like,
Speaker 2: I'm such a sucker for the way that these things
Speaker 2: like blend and shift and like how we like almost
Speaker 2: don't even know what's original and what's like comes from
Speaker 2: like you know, there's like no purity and then even
Speaker 2: like any like folk tradition is also always shifting, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm a big sucker for it.
Speaker 1: Where did lucky charms come from? Ireland? Irish people? Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly who put marshmallows in cereal?
Speaker 2: First?
Speaker 1: No? Yeah, I don't know. Here's the thing about fairy
Speaker 1: tales that always sort of like weird me out, but
Speaker 1: maybe makes sense. It's a little bit like it. This
Speaker 1: story goes like a horror film, right, which is like
Speaker 1: this person is trapped by these sort of other worldly
Speaker 1: creatures and they kind of keep doing the thing and
Speaker 1: you're watching it unfold and you're like, just go away, totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, star, don't you know, I
Speaker 1: don't need water. Don't get them water because they're gonna
Speaker 1: make the cake into the evil cake.
Speaker 2: And then no, no, yeah.
Speaker 1: But but this of course has the twist, which is
Speaker 1: like every horror film, you know, you did something utilizing
Speaker 1: this extra worldly figure's own weapon against it, right, you
Speaker 1: killed it for now, But then there's still that little mantle,
Speaker 1: the reminder, the shawl that's like, ooh, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a great franchise, you know, like this yeah, totally
Speaker 1: evil shawl, you know, and will have many sequels. But
Speaker 1: there's always like the little button of every folklore. It
Speaker 1: seems like in every horror movie, really is the button
Speaker 1: of this phantom or demon or whatever it was it was,
Speaker 1: the villain in the story is always kind of gonna
Speaker 1: stay there, like it's always like a hand doll that's
Speaker 1: still cackling.
Speaker 2: Totally, and when you asked me earlier about one of
Speaker 2: what the story means. One of the other things I
Speaker 2: ran across a little bit and is also some of
Speaker 2: my own inference, is that a lot of witch stuff
Speaker 2: is a fear of the wild women, right, It's a
Speaker 2: fear of the women who live outside of especially like
Speaker 2: modern civilization and the church. And so you have whereas
Speaker 2: the well is like more fully incorporated the ones who's
Speaker 2: had orgasms. I mean, that's yeah, exactly what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so it's like, here's the women who live alone
Speaker 2: on the mountain, right, yeah. And then so they come
Speaker 2: down and they're doing this terrible thing where they're weaving,
Speaker 2: you know, and like and it's a rich woman. It's like,
Speaker 2: how much of this is like, you know, cause a
Speaker 2: lot of fear of the pagan Irish is part of
Speaker 2: fear of the Catholic Irish, and like it gets into
Speaker 2: it and I don't quite I wanted more about this
Speaker 2: particular story, and I couldn't. I have yet to find it.
Speaker 2: I've only read so many books about this kind of shit,
Speaker 2: you know, But.
Speaker 1: Well, what are we talking about with pagan like in
Speaker 1: terms of paganism, Like where does that fit in as
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't know shit about history, like like where
Speaker 1: are we in that? Like when did this story come out?
Speaker 2: Well, before I answer that question, I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: you about sweet sweet deals on stuff that like haunted
Speaker 2: mantles and sieves that you can keep water in. So
Speaker 2: here's those and we're back. Okay. So this particular story
Speaker 2: is mid nineteenth century, maybe end of nineteenth century. I
Speaker 2: forgot right down the specific year, but it's and it
Speaker 2: was collected by Yates went around and he collected all
Speaker 2: these Irish folk stories and then he like in the
Speaker 2: first couple of books of it, he's like kind of
Speaker 2: a dick about it. He's like, look at these backwards people, right, sure,
Speaker 2: But then by the end he's like, I believe in
Speaker 2: this shit. I'm in a cultist now, I like have
Speaker 2: joined the I can't remember which occultist order he joined,
Speaker 2: but he joined one of the occultist orders. He's like, sketchy,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to like, but but oh, I think
Speaker 2: it's in one of the footnotes of the stories that
Speaker 2: didn't end up including he wrote a footnote that's like
Speaker 2: about a character named Seamus, and it's like, I really
Speaker 2: wish I had the quote directly in front of me,
Speaker 2: but it's the footnote is like, the Celtic vocal chords
Speaker 2: are incapable of producing the sound of the letter J.
Speaker 2: So therefore Irish people instead of John are named Sean
Speaker 2: and instead of James are named Seamus. And so he's
Speaker 2: like explaining why this character's named Seamus by saying that
Speaker 2: Celtic people are incapable, like their vocal chords are developed wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, I love it weird.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that's one which story and you already have
Speaker 2: a little bit of the vampire shit, right, they're drawing
Speaker 2: blood out of the kids. Now I'm gonna go over
Speaker 2: to Russia. And then this is the same time period
Speaker 2: and instead these were collected in a kind of similar
Speaker 2: style of book, although we spookier overall, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like the Irish stuff is like otherworldly and haunting, and
Speaker 2: then the Russian shit is like everyone's gonna fucking die
Speaker 2: and they might not even fucking stay dead. This is
Speaker 2: fucking Russia, you know.
Speaker 1: So there's a but it's better than what's going on
Speaker 1: in the living world. Yeah, that's true, sweet sweet death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this story the witch Girl was written down
Speaker 2: by someone named W. R. S. Ralston in a book
Speaker 2: called Russian Fairy Tales and oh god, there's a and
Speaker 2: again this is a late nineteen This is.
Speaker 1: Like some shit I would have discovered when I was
Speaker 1: like fourteen, and like really in a spooky story. So
Speaker 1: have you read the Russian shit?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, exactly. No, I'm like I spent yeah, a while,
Speaker 2: like look, picking which stories I was going to pick
Speaker 2: to read today.
Speaker 1: And like.
Speaker 2: When I went to I was going through all the
Speaker 2: books on my shelf and stuff, and then I like
Speaker 2: got to the Russian one and there's like a section
Speaker 2: where it's just like the old gods the undead, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, why did I wait so long to
Speaker 2: get to the Russian parts? But this is a very
Speaker 2: different way of dealing with a witch, and we'll talk
Speaker 2: about how connects to vampires the witch girl. Late one evening,
Speaker 2: a Cossack rode into a village, pulled up at its
Speaker 2: last cottage, and cried, hey, master, will you let me
Speaker 2: spend the night here? Come in if you don't fear death?
Speaker 1: What sort of a never mind? I'm cool, Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: just go ask the next house down.
Speaker 2: I would probably be my response, Yeah, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean my horse could ride all night like fuck it, Like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I've got a lantern. We'll just sleep outside. I love
Speaker 1: the stars.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What sort of a reply is that? Thought the
Speaker 2: cossack as he put his horse up in the stable
Speaker 2: after he had given it its food, and went into
Speaker 2: the cottage. There he saw its inmates, which is such
Speaker 2: a way to call the people who live somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there he saw its inmates, men and women and little children,
Speaker 2: all sobbing and crying and praying to God. And when
Speaker 2: they had done praying, they began putting on clean shirts.
Speaker 2: What are you crying about, asked the cossack. Why you see,
Speaker 2: replied the master of the house in our death goes
Speaker 2: about at night in whatsoever cottage she looks there. Next
Speaker 2: morning one has to put all the people who lived
Speaker 2: in it into coffins and carry them off to the graveyard.
Speaker 2: Tonight it's our turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I was saying, I'm sure there's another town,
Speaker 1: just like a few miles down the road. So good
Speaker 1: luck with all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Lovely town. I'll come back, Yeah, come back when you're
Speaker 1: not dealing with the whole death thing.
Speaker 2: I'll write your tail. But yeah, I'll tell your story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what was your name?
Speaker 1: Anyway?
Speaker 2: Gotta go Yeah, never fear master. Without God's will, no
Speaker 2: pig gets its fill, is what the cossack says. Mmm.
Speaker 2: The people of the house lay down to sleep, but
Speaker 2: the cossack was on the lookout and never closed an eye.
Speaker 2: That's nice, yeah, exactly. At midnight the window opened. At
Speaker 2: the window appeared a witch all in white. She took
Speaker 2: a sprinkler. I think this means like one of those
Speaker 2: like shaky holy stick, holy you know, the things that
Speaker 2: you like walk around and like spray. No one can
Speaker 2: see me gesticulating except you, but.
Speaker 1: Like a like a room diffuser.
Speaker 2: I was sinking, like the like you know, you put
Speaker 2: holy water and the like stick on a yeah, ball
Speaker 2: and a stick. That's what I think a sprinkler is
Speaker 2: in this context. Okay, that's my best guess. She took
Speaker 2: a sprinkler, passed her arm into the cottage and was
Speaker 2: just on the point of sprinkling when the cossack suddenly
Speaker 2: gave his saber a sweep and cut her arm off
Speaker 2: close to the shoulder.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: The witch howled, squealed, yelped like a dog, and fled away.
Speaker 2: But the cossack picked up the severed arm, hid it
Speaker 2: under his cloak, washed away the stains of blood, and
Speaker 2: lay down to sleep.
Speaker 1: Uh oh.
Speaker 2: Next morning, the master and his mistress awoke and saw
Speaker 2: that everyone, without a single exception, was alive and well,
Speaker 2: and they were delighted beyond expression. If you like, says
Speaker 2: the cossack, I'll show you death. Called together all the
Speaker 2: Sotnicks and dat Nicks, which I don't know what, are
Speaker 2: as quickly as possible, and let's go through the village
Speaker 2: and look for her. Straight away, all the sat Knicks
Speaker 2: and Deastniks came together and went from house to house.
Speaker 2: In this one, there's nothing, in that one, there's nothing.
Speaker 2: Until last they came to the Ponemer's cottage. Is all
Speaker 2: your family present, asked the cossack. No, my own. One
Speaker 2: of my daughters is ill. She's lying on the stove there.
Speaker 2: The cossack looked towards the stove. One of the girl's
Speaker 2: arms had evidently been cut off. Thereupon, he told the
Speaker 2: whole story of what had taken place, and brought out
Speaker 2: and showed the arm which had been cut off. The
Speaker 2: commune rewarded the cossack with a sum of money and
Speaker 2: ordered that witch to be drowned.
Speaker 1: That's why wit was this Wait, so I'm sorry, huh
Speaker 1: Was she a daughter someone's daughter? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the witch was just someone's daughter who's going
Speaker 2: around sprinkling into people's houses.
Speaker 1: She was was she sprinkling? It was probably something good,
Speaker 1: probably some like you know, happy little fairy dust. But
Speaker 1: they're saying that. I don't know, I call bullshit on
Speaker 1: this one because we all know again, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: I think it was just she was trying out some
Speaker 1: sort of like you know, new potpourri, or like trying
Speaker 1: her own to make some perfume, or they hated her.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I feel like the Cossack's
Speaker 1: not the hero in this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, I have yet to read a history of
Speaker 2: that includes the Cossacks in which they are not the villains.
Speaker 2: Usually they are running around depressing people. So right, well, okay,
Speaker 2: but that is one of the things that's so interesting
Speaker 2: about fairy tales, right, Like the rich woman is the
Speaker 2: hero of the first one, the cossack is the hero
Speaker 2: of the second one. Like folk tales exist to like
Speaker 2: replicate social values. You know. Yes, Now, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: if there's a witch going around door to door sprinkling
Speaker 2: death into people's houses. It might make sense to cut
Speaker 2: off her arm. It might even make sense to drown her.
Speaker 2: Might be I don't know, you know, we could try
Speaker 2: some kind of accountability process, you know, but.
Speaker 1: She should at least I mean, do process, you know,
Speaker 1: totally have a trial.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 1: But like I said, like death was just the name
Speaker 1: of the perfume. Like it was like deaf by Witch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, and everyone like everyone ran out of the
Speaker 2: house and like went and sold it, you know, and
Speaker 2: that was like why yeah, it.
Speaker 1: Was it was like the Avon of that time, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like like the witches were just like avon sellers.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: For Yeah, here's the thing about this, it's just like,
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to understand? Is it just like
Speaker 1: celebrating a soldier or celebrating because that's what a cousic is,
Speaker 1: right basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like a it's complicated and I don't have
Speaker 2: all the answers in but yeah, it's like mounted soldiers
Speaker 2: that are kind of from a culture of that, you know.
Speaker 1: Right right right. But also anyway, it's like what is
Speaker 1: the witch come? Like, what are they supposed to teach you.
Speaker 1: What are we supposed to learn? Or is it just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: wily women, yeah are always going to try and like
Speaker 1: you know, that's what we're the death of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should beware of women, That is the lesson
Speaker 2: of this, because they're all witches, or at least some
Speaker 2: of them are, and you never know which ones, So
Speaker 2: you should probably lop off some people's arms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I actually I am going to quote a little
Speaker 2: bit more from that book, a paragraph that sort of
Speaker 2: explains puts context around this. It's from the same book
Speaker 2: the Russian fairy tales. Stories of this kind are common
Speaker 2: in all lands, but the witches about whom they're told
Speaker 2: generally assume the forms of beasts of prey, especially of
Speaker 2: wolves or of cats. A long string of similar tales
Speaker 2: we found in doctor Wilhelm Hurst's excellent and exhaustive monograph
Speaker 2: on were Wolves. Very important also is the Polish story
Speaker 2: told by Wosik of the village which is attacked by
Speaker 2: the plague, embodied in the form of a woman who
Speaker 2: roams from house to house in search of victims. One night,
Speaker 2: as she goes her rounds, all doors and windows have
Speaker 2: been barred against her except one casement. This has been
Speaker 2: left open by a nobleman who is ready to sacrifice
Speaker 2: himself for the sake of others. The pest maiden arrives
Speaker 2: and thrusts her arm her arm in at his window.
Speaker 2: The nobleman cuts it off and so rids the village
Speaker 2: of its fatal visitor. In an Indian story, a hero
Speaker 2: undertakes to watch beside the couch of a haunted princess.
Speaker 1: I don't know why the hero is like waiting behind
Speaker 1: a princess's couch. That doesn't seem very heroic. That seems
Speaker 1: kind of like stalker behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you know, totally. When all is still, a
Speaker 2: Rakshasa appears on the threshold, opens the door and thrusts
Speaker 2: into the room and arm, which the hero cuts off.
Speaker 2: The fiend disappears, howling leaves his arm behind. So apparently
Speaker 2: it's a whole thing cutting off motherfucker's arms.
Speaker 1: Yeah that is uh, I guess that's how you get
Speaker 1: rid of them. But also, you know, remembering like like
Speaker 1: the pest witch. The pest girl.
Speaker 2: Just sounds The pest.
Speaker 1: Maiden sounds like a sex worker who or like an adult,
Speaker 1: like someone who a woman who tempts you? Who you know?
Speaker 1: I'm just imagining, like who's actually writing these things down?
Speaker 1: But maybe it is. Maybe it's like word of mouth,
Speaker 1: and obviously women and men, but I can only imagine
Speaker 1: it's like men writing this down, or like at least
Speaker 1: you know who are like, Oh, that pest maiden is
Speaker 1: going to tempt me, better cut off her arm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she can't touch my wi wei.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is more or less what a lot of
Speaker 2: this stuff comes down to. I got one more witch story,
Speaker 2: Let's do it. This one's another Russian story. It's called
Speaker 2: the Witch and this version comes from Andrew Lang from
Speaker 2: the Yellow Fairy Book. It's another nineteenth century book. Once
Speaker 2: upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died,
Speaker 2: leaving him with two children, a boy and a girl.
Speaker 2: For some years, the poor man lived alone with his children,
Speaker 2: caring for them as best he could, but everything in
Speaker 2: the house seemed to go wrong without a woman to
Speaker 2: look after it. And at last he made up his
Speaker 2: mind to Mary. I know, right, I mean that's sort
Speaker 2: of true. Anyways, at last he made up his mind
Speaker 2: to marry again, feeling that a wife would bring peace
Speaker 2: and order to his household, and take care of his
Speaker 2: motherless children, so he married. In the following years, several
Speaker 2: children were born to him, but peace and order did
Speaker 2: not come to the household, for the stepmother was very
Speaker 2: cruel to the twins and beat them and af starved them,
Speaker 2: and constantly drove them out of the house. For her
Speaker 2: one idea was to get them out of the way.
Speaker 2: All day she thought of nothing but how she could
Speaker 2: get rid of them, And at last an evil idea
Speaker 2: came into her head, and she determined to send them
Speaker 2: out into the great gloomy wood where a wicked witch lived.
Speaker 2: And so one morning she spoke to them, saying, you
Speaker 2: have been such good children that I'm going to send
Speaker 2: you to visit my granny, who lives in a dear
Speaker 2: little hut in the wood. Oh yeah, you will have
Speaker 2: to wait upon her and serve her, but you will
Speaker 2: be well rewarded, and for she will give you the
Speaker 2: best of everything. So the children left the house together,
Speaker 2: and the little sister, who is very wise for her years,
Speaker 2: said to her brother, we will first go to see
Speaker 2: our own dear grandmother and tell her where our stepmother
Speaker 2: is sending us.
Speaker 1: Hm, smart, smart, leave it to the sister.
Speaker 2: Yep, And when the grandmother heard where they were going,
Speaker 2: she cried and said, you poor motherless children. How I
Speaker 2: pity you, and yet I can do nothing to help you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not what, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh only, but you know that your stepmother, you know
Speaker 1: she she lets me borrow all her jewels and wear
Speaker 1: her handbags.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Yeah, Sorry, your stepmother is not sending you
Speaker 2: to her granny, but to a wicked witch who lives
Speaker 2: in that great gloomy Wood. Now listen to me, children,
Speaker 2: You must be civil, unkind to everyone, and never say
Speaker 2: a crossword to anyone, and never touch a crumb belonging
Speaker 2: to anyone else. Who knows if, after all, help may
Speaker 2: not be sent to you. And she gave her grandchildren
Speaker 2: a bottle of milk and a piece of ham and
Speaker 2: a loaf of bread. And they set out for the
Speaker 2: great gloomy Wood. When they reached it, they saw in
Speaker 2: front of them, in the thickest of the trees, a
Speaker 2: queer little hut. And when they looked up into it,
Speaker 2: there lay the witch, with her head on the threshold
Speaker 2: of the door, with one foot in one corner and
Speaker 2: the other in the other corner, and her knees cocked
Speaker 2: up almost touching the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, first of all, honey, you need a bigger place.
Speaker 2: I know. And so this is actually one of the
Speaker 2: reasons I wanted to do this. One last year for Halloween,
Speaker 2: I did an episode with Jamie Loftus where we talked
Speaker 2: about Bobby Yaga, the famous Russian witch uh huh. And
Speaker 2: this is really interesting to me because this is totally
Speaker 2: a Bobba yagas story. They just don't call her that,
Speaker 2: but a lot of the same shit, Like Bobby Aga
Speaker 2: is like weird and fits strange in her house and
Speaker 2: when she lays down, her huge nose touches the ceiling
Speaker 2: and like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great pronunciation. I was just gonna say
Speaker 1: Bobby Yaga, But Bobby Yaga is even that's like a
Speaker 1: that's like a brand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I looked it up before I did
Speaker 2: the episode last time. And so I've become that pedant
Speaker 2: where like all my friends are talking about Bobby Yaga
Speaker 2: and I'm like, Babba yeah ga, and and it's really fun.
Speaker 2: Everyone really likes me. And that's why I live alone
Speaker 2: in the woods, in the Gloomy Wood. I do live
Speaker 2: in the gloomy wood by myself. It's very nice. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I have a dog. It's not so bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do witches ever have dogs?
Speaker 2: Usually?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: Usually cats? But this is a mistake. I think all
Speaker 2: all of these creatures are welcome. Dogs are great, a
Speaker 2: little bit more, you know, less lonely with it. I mean,
Speaker 2: cats are good. I'm not talking shit, but anyway, who's there?
Speaker 2: She snarled in an awful voice when she saw the children,
Speaker 2: and they answered civilly, though they were so terrified that
Speaker 2: they hit behind one another and said, good morning, granny.
Speaker 2: Our stepmother has sent us this way, sent us to
Speaker 2: wait upon you and serve you. See that you do
Speaker 2: it well? Then growled the witch. Oh, if I am
Speaker 2: pleased with you, I'll reward you. But if I am not,
Speaker 2: I'll put you in a pan and fry you in
Speaker 2: the oven. That's what I'll do with you. You, my
Speaker 2: pretty deers, you have been gently reared, but you'll find
Speaker 2: my work hard enough, see if you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they've been living with their stepmom, so I
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, like this is going to be maybe
Speaker 1: an upgrade for them, right, Yeah, we don't eat back
Speaker 1: at home, so yeah.
Speaker 2: Totally at least we'll get to eat one of us,
Speaker 2: you get to eat the other if it goes.
Speaker 1: Wrong, exactly, exactly finally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so saying, she set the girl down a
Speaker 2: spin yard, and she gave the boy a sieve with
Speaker 2: which to carry water from the well. Again, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's the other reason I included this because I like
Speaker 2: one of my whole things I love about history and
Speaker 2: folklore and stuff is like finding the weird connections, you know,
Speaker 2: And so that this is both a Bobby a Gus story,
Speaker 2: and it has the sieve thing totally into it. Gave
Speaker 2: the boy a sieved with which to carry water from
Speaker 2: the well, and she herself went out into the wood. Now,
Speaker 2: as the girl was sitting at her distaff distaff which
Speaker 2: is some fucking spinning thing, weeping bitterly because she could
Speaker 2: not spin, she heard the sound of hundreds of little feet,
Speaker 2: and from every hole in the corner in the hut,
Speaker 2: mice came pattering along the floor, squeaking and saying, little girl,
Speaker 2: why are your eyes so red? If you want help,
Speaker 2: then give us some bread. And the girl gave them
Speaker 2: the bread that her grandmother had given her. Then the
Speaker 2: mice told her that the witch had a cat, and
Speaker 2: the cat was very fond of ham. If she would
Speaker 2: give the cat her ham, it would show her the
Speaker 2: way out of the wood, and in the meantime they
Speaker 2: would spin the yarn for her. So the girl set
Speaker 2: out to look for the cat, and as she was
Speaker 2: hunting about, she met her brother in great trouble because
Speaker 2: he could not carry water from the well in a sieve,
Speaker 2: as it came pouring out as fast as he put
Speaker 2: it in. And as she was trying to comfort him,
Speaker 2: they heard a rustling of wings, and a flight of
Speaker 2: wrens alighted on the ground beside them, and the wrens said,
Speaker 2: give us some crumbs, then you need not grieve, for
Speaker 2: you'll find that water will stay in the sea. I
Speaker 2: think it's pronounced sieve, but honestly is a translation anyway,
Speaker 2: so maybe nineteenth century British guy, I don't know. Then
Speaker 2: the twins crumbled their bread on the ground, and the
Speaker 2: wrens pecked it and chirruped and chirped, And when they
Speaker 2: had eaten the last crumb, they told the boy to
Speaker 2: fill up the holes in the sieve with clay, and
Speaker 2: then to draw water from the well. So he did
Speaker 2: what they said, and carried the sieve full of water
Speaker 2: into the hut without spilling a drop. When they entered
Speaker 2: the hut, the cat was curled up on the floor,
Speaker 2: so they stroked her and fed her with ham and
Speaker 2: said to her, pussy, gray pussy, tell us how we
Speaker 2: are to get away from the witch. Then the cat
Speaker 2: thanked them for the ham and gave them a pocket
Speaker 2: handkerchief and a comb, and told them that when the
Speaker 2: witch pursued them, as she certainly would, all they had
Speaker 2: to do was throw the handkerchief on the ground and
Speaker 2: run as fast as they could. As soon as the
Speaker 2: handkerchief touched the ground, a deep, broad river would spring up,
Speaker 2: which would hinder the witch's progress. If she managed to
Speaker 2: get across it, they must throw the comb behind them
Speaker 2: and run for their lives, for where the comb fell,
Speaker 2: a dense forest would start up, which would delay the
Speaker 2: witch so long that they would be able to get
Speaker 2: safely away. And so this is another part that's part
Speaker 2: of another fucking Bobby a Gos story that I read
Speaker 2: last year, only in that one they're like underground and
Speaker 2: it's a lesbian story that won't admit it's a lesbian story.
Speaker 2: The cat had scarcely finished speaking when the witch returned
Speaker 2: to see if the children had fulfilled their tasks. Ooh,
Speaker 2: just in the nikka time. Shut up, cat, I know
Speaker 2: right well, you have done well enough for today, she grumbled.
Speaker 2: But tomorrow you'll have something more difficult to do, and
Speaker 2: if you don't do it well, you pampered brats straight
Speaker 2: into the oven.
Speaker 1: You go, Oh, I feel like you got to kill
Speaker 1: the mice and the cats, and which can be fucked
Speaker 1: up because they just helped you. So what do you
Speaker 1: do anyway?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, if that's the task, Oh my god, that
Speaker 2: was brutal.
Speaker 1: Skin the cat.
Speaker 2: You should write folklore. It would be terrifying. Half dead
Speaker 2: with fright and trembling in every limb, the poor children
Speaker 2: laid down to sleep in a heap of straw in
Speaker 2: the corner of the hut, but they dared not close
Speaker 2: their eyes and scarcely ventured to breathe. In the morning,
Speaker 2: the witch gave the girl two pieces of linen to
Speaker 2: weave before night, and the boy a pile of wood
Speaker 2: to cut into chips. Then the witch left them to
Speaker 2: their tasks and went and went out into the wood.
Speaker 2: As soon as she had gone out of sight, the
Speaker 2: children took the comb and the handkerchief, and taking one
Speaker 2: another by the hand, they started and ran and ran
Speaker 2: and ran. It's important that they ran three times. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I actually really like that style of writing. And first
Speaker 2: they met the watch dog. Oh I was wrong, which
Speaker 2: is totally have dogs. See, I'm sure it was going
Speaker 2: to be a good guy. And at first they met
Speaker 2: the watchdog who was going to leap on them and
Speaker 2: tear them to pieces, but they threw the remains of
Speaker 2: their him, and he ate them and wagged his tail.
Speaker 2: Then they were hindered by the birch trees, whose ban
Speaker 2: branches almost put their eyes out, but the little sister
Speaker 2: tied the twigs together with a piece of ribbon and
Speaker 2: they got passed safely, and after running through the wood,
Speaker 2: got out into the open fields. In the meantime, in
Speaker 2: the hut, the cat was busy weaving the linen and
Speaker 2: tangling the threads as it wove, and the witch returned
Speaker 2: to see how the children were getting on, and she
Speaker 2: crept up to the window and whispered, are you weaving,
Speaker 2: my dear, Yes, granny, I am weaving, answered the.
Speaker 1: Cat, Oh, yeah, based cat, I know.
Speaker 2: Cat's fucking looking out When the witch saw that the
Speaker 2: children had escaped her, she was furious, hitting the cat
Speaker 2: with a porringer. Margaret does not know what a porringer,
Speaker 2: and nor did she look it up, and she said,
Speaker 2: woo okay, so so the cat was just.
Speaker 1: Like meam yamyamam yam out and like thinking that she
Speaker 1: was actually saying like, oh, yes, great, pretty weaving, and
Speaker 1: they were like, motherfucking cat. Yeah, like you know, you
Speaker 1: cannot sound like a human.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're a fucking cat. A porringer is a small bowl,
Speaker 2: typically with a handle, used for soup, stew, or other dishes.
Speaker 2: Traditionally a historically used word, can't believe that you didn't
Speaker 2: know that past. Margaret, let's see, hit the cat with
Speaker 2: a porringer and said, why did you let the children
Speaker 2: leave the hut? Why did you not scratch their eyes out?
Speaker 1: Because you're a bitch?
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically yeah. The cat curled up on its tail
Speaker 2: and put its back up and answered, I have served
Speaker 2: you all these years and you never even threw me
Speaker 2: a bone, but the dear children gave me their own
Speaker 2: piece of ham. Then the witch, yeah, right. Then the
Speaker 2: witch was furious that with the watchdog and the birch
Speaker 2: trees because they had let the children pass. But the
Speaker 2: dog answered, I've served you all these years, and you
Speaker 2: never gave me so much as a hard crust. But
Speaker 2: the dear children gave me their own loaf of bread.
Speaker 2: This loaf of bread has lasted a lot, they have.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like this pretty big love of bread,
Speaker 1: like I feel like a lot of people. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they were smart, they were like, there's definitely
Speaker 1: another creature around the corner that needs some of this
Speaker 1: little of breath.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're gonna say, also like a piece of ham.
Speaker 1: I feel like Grandma could have given them like a
Speaker 1: like the whole ham.
Speaker 2: I know, you know, I know, but Grandma was but
Speaker 2: hey maybe that's all she had. Yeah, oh yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I see. Oh they're good grandma. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah good Grandma. Yeah not.
Speaker 2: The witch and the birch rustled its leaves and said,
Speaker 2: I have served you longer than I can say, and
Speaker 2: you never tied a bit of twine even round my branches,
Speaker 2: and the dear children bound them up with their brightest ribbons.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just want that, but apparently they do,
Speaker 2: so that's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should tie them twine everybody on the trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah that you love, Yeah, but not tightly around the
Speaker 2: trunk or you'll kill it.
Speaker 1: No, I don't know, but you know how like some
Speaker 1: people decorate trees with like little crochet colorful things like
Speaker 1: that's cute. Yeah, I feel like trees are like we're like,
Speaker 1: oh okay, you know, like thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's actually why today's sponsor is stuff you
Speaker 2: can put on trees dot mm hm. I don't even
Speaker 2: remember the RL. You have to look at yourself. Just
Speaker 2: google stuff you can put on trees and you will
Speaker 2: find Today's It's a new app. Yeah, that's right here.
Speaker 2: I was thinking so old fashioned, you know, website. It's
Speaker 2: an app, it's virtual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's mostly AI.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then whatever else comes after that, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So the witch saw that there was no help to
Speaker 2: be got from her old servants, and the best thing
Speaker 2: she could do was mount on her broom and set
Speaker 2: off in pursuit of the children. Here's actually a split
Speaker 2: from Babia Babbia Gay is going around a mortar and pestle.
Speaker 2: And as the children ran, they heard the sound of
Speaker 2: the broom sweeping the ground close behind them. So oh,
Speaker 2: that is actually no, that's a classic bobbia ga babbia
Speaker 2: ga would.
Speaker 1: That's scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, babiya gau would would travel around and then sweep
Speaker 2: away her own tracks.
Speaker 1: Oh smart, like a smooth smooth grimin yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And as the children ran, they heard the sound of
Speaker 2: the broom sweeping on the ground close behind them, so
Speaker 2: instantly they threw the handkerchief down over their shoulder, and
Speaker 2: in a moment, a deep, broad river flowed behind them.
Speaker 2: When the witch came up to it, it took her
Speaker 2: a long time before she found a place in which
Speaker 2: she could ford over on her broomstick. But at last
Speaker 2: she got across. Oh, she's not fucking flying. She's like
Speaker 2: riding the broomstick like a horse. I think, Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: as weird.
Speaker 1: Maybe she's doing like a flintstone thing where her feet
Speaker 1: are like touching the ground. You can't even fly down.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're not gonna win at the end
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I have a feeling the kids are coming
Speaker 2: out ahead, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: She sounds like a literal hobby horse exactly it horse.
Speaker 1: It's very very monty bybee uh huh.
Speaker 2: But at last she got across and continued to chase
Speaker 2: faster than before. And as the children ran, they heard
Speaker 2: a sound, and the little sister put her ear to
Speaker 2: the ground and heard the broom sweeping the earth close
Speaker 2: behind them. So quick as thought, she threw the comb
Speaker 2: down on the ground, and in an instant, as the
Speaker 2: cat had said, a dense forest sprung up, in which
Speaker 2: the roots and branches were so closely intertwined that it
Speaker 2: was impossible to force a way through. So when the
Speaker 2: witch came up to it on her broom, she found
Speaker 2: that there was nothing for it but to turn round
Speaker 2: and go back to her hut. But the twins ran
Speaker 2: straight on till they reached their own home. Then they
Speaker 2: told their father, I am then this is not a
Speaker 2: better place.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Well, they told their father all that they had suffered,
Speaker 2: and he was so angry with their stepmother that he
Speaker 2: drove her out of the house and never let her return.
Speaker 2: But he and the children lived happily together, and he
Speaker 2: took care of them himself and never let a stranger
Speaker 2: come near them.
Speaker 1: Look at this dad stepping up, you know, I know,
Speaker 1: Look at the dad at the end of the day
Speaker 1: being like, you know what I've been neglectful. Now what
Speaker 1: about his other children whose mom.
Speaker 2: Dad is who is now driven away?
Speaker 1: Yeah, huh, who's now driven away? Which I kind of
Speaker 1: like the idea that she goes to join the Witch
Speaker 1: and then they're just kind of this like you know,
Speaker 1: Patty and Selma of the Woods kind of like or
Speaker 1: she like teaches her her ways or like maybe the
Speaker 1: Witch was originally driven out as an evil stepmother.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Step moms get a bad rap. I've got a nice
Speaker 1: step mom, shall you know, she's she's a yeah, you
Speaker 1: know she's up there. But uh yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's a there's a there's anyway. I didn't
Speaker 1: hate this witch. No, I just want I want to
Speaker 1: know her backstory. Like if I were to make this
Speaker 1: a film, I do want to know the Witch's backstory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Like and that would be the good Like
Speaker 2: that would be like the fourth one in the movie,
Speaker 2: Like ten years later they make the one that's the
Speaker 2: backstory for the Witch where you're kind of on her
Speaker 2: side and they wreck on all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, she doesn't But there's no excuse for not feeding exactly.
Speaker 1: There's no excuse for animal abuse, there's no excuse for
Speaker 1: not feeding your dog or your cat eating children. Also,
Speaker 1: maybe she was feeding the dog and cat like their food,
Speaker 1: their special dietary, proper food, and the cat was like,
Speaker 1: I want a ham, Like who knows my cat would
Speaker 1: definitely sell me out for a piece of ham?
Speaker 2: Oh totally, And you've never fed me.
Speaker 1: You're like, bitch, I feed you every day.
Speaker 2: There's food in your bowl right now, witch food.
Speaker 1: There's literally food in your bowl right now. It's not
Speaker 1: my fall, you're not eating it. I don't have ham,
Speaker 1: but yes, we'd who among us would not be sold
Speaker 1: out by our cats for a piece of ham.
Speaker 2: And maybe the witch was just bluffing. Maybe like the
Speaker 2: witch was tired of like kids who had come for
Speaker 2: an apprenticeship as apprentice witches like would just leave right away,
Speaker 2: and so she was trying a little like tough love.
Speaker 2: She was like, I'm gonna put you in the oven
Speaker 2: if you don't learn how to do things that are
Speaker 2: like vaguely complicated like weave and stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, here's the other thing. Is like it
Speaker 1: would clearly if she puts them the other oven and
Speaker 1: eat them, she's not sharing them with the dog and
Speaker 1: cat because I'm sure they'd be like, you know, that
Speaker 1: might be tit. Who knows, it might be tasted in
Speaker 1: a piece of ham. But if they're not getting properly fit,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have to dig into it too much.
Speaker 1: The point is is, uh, it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a like don't neglect your kids, yeah story, But I
Speaker 1: like this one. I liked it. I liked that they
Speaker 1: got helped out by the furry friends who like you know,
Speaker 1: turned on their master.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and one of the things a lot of
Speaker 2: the Bobby a. Gas style stories, and in particular, is
Speaker 2: there's this idea that like, well behaved kids survive, and
Speaker 2: so the way that they win is that they listen
Speaker 2: to their grandmother who's like, treat everyone nice even when
Speaker 2: they're being a bitch to you, right, and like not
Speaker 2: don't run away, like don't you know they still have
Speaker 2: good boundaries, right, but they are like they show up
Speaker 2: and are like super polite everyone in sharing and shit
Speaker 2: like that. And so it's like a it's a sharing
Speaker 2: as caring and if you don't, you're going to get
Speaker 2: eaten by an evil witch.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes yeah. Because they could have always
Speaker 1: not given their way their food.
Speaker 2: To the to the animals, right, and then they wouldn't
Speaker 2: have had friends exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to know what happened to the
Speaker 1: cat and the dog and the tree. Oh, you know
Speaker 1: above all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you want to know more, No, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to talk about them anymo. I'm gonna talk
Speaker 2: about vampires, but I'm going to talk about them on Wednesday.
Speaker 2: But before that, we're going to talk about you. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna talk about the Situation Room.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, what do you want to know other than
Speaker 1: it's It is a podcast where activists and experts and
Speaker 1: comedians come on. We talked about the week's news. Lately,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about Israel and Gaza. Naomi
Speaker 1: Klein was my most recent guest. She has a new
Speaker 1: book out called Doppelganger that actually spends a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about Israel Palestine. It's beautifully written and it's
Speaker 1: devastating and really fascinating. So yeah, Bituation Room wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or you can watch live at Franni
Speaker 1: Feo on YouTube and Twitch Tuesdays and Friday's one pm
Speaker 1: Pacific four pm Easter.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, and if you want to follow, oh, if
Speaker 2: you want to hear me read more stories every Sunday
Speaker 2: the Cool Zone Media Book Club. I read fiction because
Speaker 2: that is now another thing that I do, and it
Speaker 2: is on this podcast feed, this very one you're already
Speaker 2: listening to, as well as that it could happen here feed,
Speaker 2: which you could also listen to when you do, you
Speaker 2: could use your week We're at round up from Situation Room,
Speaker 2: and then you're the equivalent of doom scrolling every weekday
Speaker 2: on it could happen here.
Speaker 1: I need to listen to your stories because and read
Speaker 1: your stories because I'm in desperate need of good fiction
Speaker 1: and getting Although I know it is not always sunshine
Speaker 1: and rainbows, at least it won't be necessarily like witches
Speaker 1: or war criminals.
Speaker 2: We actually and you know, we only have We've only
Speaker 2: put up so many episodes so far. I don't remember
Speaker 2: exactly when this one is coming out. We started about
Speaker 2: two months ago, right, and the first month is my
Speaker 2: novella that I'm reading called The Lami Slaughter of the Line,
Speaker 2: and it is witchcraft, but they're like, it's not this style.
Speaker 2: And then a lot of the stories that we're reading
Speaker 2: are like kind of trying to find hope in apocalypse
Speaker 2: and in like climate change and things like that, like
Speaker 2: human stories that relate to all those things, And so
Speaker 2: I think that it is a It is a good
Speaker 2: It's not an antidote to the news because it doesn't
Speaker 2: like make you like forget the things are happening. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I hope that people like it.
Speaker 1: But there's a story arc. There's no story arc. Time
Speaker 1: is a flat circle in the cycle.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, totally no. In the same way that
Speaker 2: like folklory, you're like, oh, man, another Siev. Whenever I
Speaker 2: do history, it's like, oh, another person died of tuberculosis,
Speaker 2: or oh another time people with authoritarian politics turned their
Speaker 2: backs on everyone and killed everyone.
Speaker 1: You know, you're like another doculosis, yeah, or both. In
Speaker 1: the case of Mitch McConnell, although his was polio, we
Speaker 1: have to talk about the Babba yaga who's stalking Mitch McConnell, because, like,
Speaker 1: my god, that dude is seeing some kind of spirit.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a witch. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a vampire, but it is something otherworldly that
Speaker 1: dude's been experiencing Halloween, like twenty four to seven, specifically
Speaker 1: when he gives press conferences. Sorry to make it political, but.
Speaker 2: I think he's the vampire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or he's the vampire yeah.
Speaker 2: But we'll talk about that, well, not Mitch McConnell probably,
Speaker 2: but maybe on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.