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