Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
Speaker 2: which is a show that I didn't just introduce badly
Speaker 2: and then make Ian our audio engineer cut out the
Speaker 2: entire last two minutes of I have a guest. It's
Speaker 2: Jamie Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 3: Hi Jamie, Hi, Margaret, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker 3: I liked your first intro, but but I kind of
Speaker 3: liked that. Now it's just sort of just between us.
Speaker 2: It's the secret one. It's just us and Sophie, who's
Speaker 2: the producer. Hi, Sophie, I and that's how you were doing.
Speaker 4: But I felt as noted.
Speaker 1: I fell on my face right before we started to record,
Speaker 1: because I was trying not to be like because I'm a.
Speaker 3: Hero, yeah, but my own but my own villain. I
Speaker 3: decided long ago that I would never become injured for
Speaker 3: a podcast. It only has to happen once.
Speaker 1: It really realize for the podcast, it cannot happen. It
Speaker 1: was for you, two lovely ladies who all thanks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I bleed for you.
Speaker 4: You're welcome.
Speaker 3: Did you bleed totally?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: You look so you don't look like someone who just
Speaker 3: was bleeding. And I mean that is the highest.
Speaker 1: Bar there are, Like on Zoom, they do have features
Speaker 1: that make you look better looking than you actually are.
Speaker 3: That's while what if you were absolutely gushing blood from
Speaker 3: your head and we just couldn't tell.
Speaker 4: You'll never know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a threshold where it brings up a
Speaker 2: little bar like warning, please call emergency services. And until then.
Speaker 3: I went bird watching the other day, brag you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I was kind of taking in nature, appreciating
Speaker 3: the world for once. But I was with my friend
Speaker 3: who's a big bird watcher, and he had this bird
Speaker 3: watching app that basically runs audio. Wow, it's really cool
Speaker 3: and then you could like hear the birds around you.
Speaker 3: The exchange there, though, is that you that it sends
Speaker 3: the audio to the autobund society, including whatever conversation you're
Speaker 3: having with your friend while you're on a walk. And
Speaker 3: so my friend do is like, I know, like I
Speaker 3: want to catch up, but like, don't talk shit because
Speaker 3: this is going to the autobun society. I was like,
Speaker 3: this is the most bizarre surveillance technology. And then I
Speaker 3: went horror movie brain and I was like, what if
Speaker 3: you killed me right now? And the only evidence the
Speaker 3: autobund society had and they didn't even know because they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: look yet another Canadian goose. You know, not a lot
Speaker 3: of this one.
Speaker 2: Explain why you listeners can't see this, But Jamie is
Speaker 2: actually translucent. I can see the wall behind her right now.
Speaker 2: That actually makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I was trying to be festive, but.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, oh wait, I'm not supposed to tell. First
Speaker 2: I have to finish the rest of the introduction, which
Speaker 2: is our audio engineer is Ian Hien Hi Ianan. Our
Speaker 2: theme music was written for us by un woman, and
Speaker 2: you all will be shocked to know that this week,
Speaker 2: of all weeks, we're going to talk about a really
Speaker 2: obscure hipster holiday that no one's talking about called Halloween.
Speaker 2: You ever heard Halloween?
Speaker 3: Oh? Boy? Have I? I was really hoping this would
Speaker 3: be this would be what we're talking about. Yes, I've
Speaker 3: heard of it. But I'm sure there's things I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think there'll be things that you don't know, and
Speaker 2: then ironically, there'll be things that we think we know
Speaker 2: that actually we don't know. But I can't say are
Speaker 2: actually wrong, but I can say are less certain than
Speaker 2: everyone says. Because if there's one thing I have learned.
Speaker 2: It's that everyone who confidently says they know the history
Speaker 2: of Halloween is lying.
Speaker 3: I love that, and I'm sure that I've done that
Speaker 3: at some point.
Speaker 4: It's so fun to find.
Speaker 3: Seemingly innocuous topics that everyone needs to feel like they
Speaker 3: have a grip on, but they can't tell you why
Speaker 3: they need to feel as if they have a grip
Speaker 3: on it. Well, what, kid, when did you learn the truth?
Speaker 3: Contrasted with what did you think that? Were you far
Speaker 3: off from what the truth is now that you know?
Speaker 2: Okay? So I came into it being like, all right,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a Halloween episode, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about Halloween. I'm gonna talk about Sowin, right,
Speaker 2: the Celtic holiday that, by most popular imagination and with
Speaker 2: some truth, is the precursor of Halloween. Right, But it's
Speaker 2: like not as much, and it's complicated because everything that
Speaker 2: has to do with like, like most of the shit
Speaker 2: that I research, the problem is that there's like not enough,
Speaker 2: like there's not enough information about it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: The problem with fucking Halloween is that there's too much
Speaker 2: information about it, and it's all stated confidently by experts,
Speaker 2: and it all disagrees with itself and God, we're just
Speaker 2: going to get into it. We're gonna okay, yeah, I'm curious,
Speaker 2: where are you coming at with it?
Speaker 3: The closest I got, I mean, I think I have
Speaker 3: the general like under I understood it more to be.
Speaker 3: I knew that it had had Celtic roots, like I've
Speaker 3: obviously heard it, but that was not something I got into.
Speaker 3: I had an uncle, have an uncle he's still with us,
Speaker 3: who is a witch. That's how he chooses to identify
Speaker 3: because he found the term warlock to be humiliating and gendered,
Speaker 3: and so he identifies as which he lives in the Carolinas.
Speaker 3: And my understanding being oh yeah, oh yeah, because he's
Speaker 3: been on a podcast of mine, Uncle Dennis. Uncle, Oh shit, Uncle,
Speaker 3: he's there if you're gonna talk, So he's like a
Speaker 3: medium and if you're gonna, you know, commune with your dead,
Speaker 3: you better do it with my uncle Dennis, who has
Speaker 3: the thickest New England accent on the face of the planet,
Speaker 3: where he's like, you're in national in life, you're a
Speaker 3: national in death.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 3: But his his whole thing was like this is uh,
Speaker 3: you know, this is a holiday that is important in
Speaker 3: the pagan like to me as a pagan, and it
Speaker 3: was taken from us and turned into corporate bullshit. And
Speaker 3: that was sort of the narrative that I was raised
Speaker 3: in that I'm sure is uh it was.
Speaker 4: It seemed to be an emotionally driven thing for him.
Speaker 3: But I appreciated his punk rock spirit uh in being
Speaker 3: angry at I forget, like there's a specific you know,
Speaker 3: corporate entity that he felt it really take, you know,
Speaker 3: spirit has really taken things from us. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I love I Unfortunately, I'll take Halloween in any of
Speaker 3: its forms, including the corny corporate sense struggle. I struggle
Speaker 3: with my anti capitalist views this time of year.
Speaker 2: I actually think that pretty much all of them have
Speaker 2: a legitimate claim the Halloween. Like I think, Well, we'll
Speaker 2: get into it, and I will also say the one
Speaker 2: thing that will definitely come out of this is that
Speaker 2: your uncle Dennis is absolutely historically accurate to call himself
Speaker 2: a witch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I'm sure he knows that, and I just
Speaker 3: like I just didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't until like when I wrote this script.
Speaker 4: Shout out to my witch uncle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you ever heard of a holiday? Well, okay, so
Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about swin Okay, and we're gonna talk
Speaker 2: about Halloween, and we're gonna talk about Lemuria, and we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about all Hallows tied. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about witch hunts. We're going to talk about folklore.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about why evangelicals hate Halloween and
Speaker 2: are actually wrong in the way that they hate Halloween. Like,
Speaker 2: fuck them, they shouldn't get to have nice things.
Speaker 3: But like sure, I mean, but I feel bad for
Speaker 3: evangelical kids that, like you're like this child deeply wants
Speaker 3: to be bluey and yet and yet I'm excited. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because it is. It is an amalgam of like five
Speaker 3: different holidays and concepts. Okay, cool, Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: Of course we're going to tie it into the enclosure
Speaker 2: of the Commons. Don't worry. I know you were worried
Speaker 2: about whether or not I would tie the lead enclosure
Speaker 2: of the Commons.
Speaker 4: I was losing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But anything that happens in medieval England I can
Speaker 2: tie into that easy. So normally I go back like
Speaker 2: two thousand years to start off, and I go like
Speaker 2: as far back to context, But this time I'm actually
Speaker 2: going to start with a really quick overview of like
Speaker 2: where we are now because I only grew up with Halloween, right,
Speaker 2: I didn't grow up celebrating All Saints Day, All Souls Day.
Speaker 2: But it's a three day holiday in Christianity, especially Catholicism,
Speaker 2: called All hallow Tide. Have you ever heard of All
Speaker 2: hollow Tide?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: No, I had neither.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like and we both grew up I
Speaker 3: know Christian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yeah, I've heard of its component pieces, which
Speaker 2: is that October thirty first, we have All Hallows Eve, Halloween,
Speaker 2: November one, that's All Saints Day, November two is All
Speaker 2: Souls Day, and it's the Christian holiday for remembering and
Speaker 2: honoring the dead, especially family and ancestors. But the right
Speaker 2: wing evangelicals absolutely fucking hate it for being pagan and strange.
Speaker 2: And only forty nine percent of US Evangelical Christians celebrate
Speaker 2: Halloween like quote unquote fully. The rest either don't celebrate
Speaker 2: it at all or they refuse to celebrate the pagan elements.
Speaker 3: What is when they say fully, do they mean like
Speaker 3: they're not you know, like microdosing like that to me
Speaker 3: is a full Halloween, Like you can do the diet
Speaker 3: version of it, but you know, where's the fun in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not watching song and like them.
Speaker 3: Wait, they're not watching every Saw movie back to back,
Speaker 3: no pe breaks allowed. Is that I'm not doing it
Speaker 3: all the way.
Speaker 2: I watch horror movies at the time of year, but
Speaker 2: I don't watch like gore porn ones, and so it's
Speaker 2: like very hard. I keep trying to find the ones
Speaker 2: that are like like and people then if they want
Speaker 2: to show me horror movies, they're like, oh, well, someone
Speaker 2: gets they're face peeled off in this one, And I'm like, look,
Speaker 2: one face peeled off is okay for me. It's a movie.
Speaker 2: If it's called like face Peeler seven, It's like.
Speaker 3: Not for me, right, I used to. It's only been
Speaker 3: in the past five years that I've really gotten into
Speaker 3: it particularly. I mean I really love the Saw movies.
Speaker 3: I think once I once I really locked into the
Speaker 3: Jigsaw lore I tried to make. I was writing for
Speaker 3: a cartoon this year and I wrote a character called well,
Speaker 3: I didn't name the character, but it's called jug Saw,
Speaker 3: which is like big titty Jigsaw.
Speaker 2: And I was thinking jug Head is now Saw.
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, that you were thinking too hard?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what if Jigsaw had big old Jugs was sort
Speaker 3: of as far as I thought. I do, I do
Speaker 3: like those movies, but I but I also think that,
Speaker 3: you know, the holiday. I'm wondering the holiday is like
Speaker 3: inherent conflation with extreme violence, if that actually comes from
Speaker 3: anywhere outside of its association with the concept of death.
Speaker 2: I couldn't quite tell you the answer to that, but
Speaker 2: I can. But there will be a lot of really
Speaker 2: horrible shit happening, oh good from the state, Okay, the
Speaker 2: true horror of all history. Okay, at some point, but
Speaker 2: not right now. I really want to get into like
Speaker 2: talking more about the the feminist implications of like gore
Speaker 2: porn movies and why so many women are obsessed with
Speaker 2: them and like obsessed with movies that focus around misog
Speaker 2: just violence and stuff like that, and how it can
Speaker 2: actually be a vehicle for like really interesting things and
Speaker 2: like like but that's another time, I guess.
Speaker 3: But I mean we could just talk about that on
Speaker 3: the phone, yeah, because okay, great, Yeah, because it's a
Speaker 3: whole like I yeah, I feel like I've not I
Speaker 3: know so many people who have had a bizarre journey
Speaker 3: with that in the last like decade, myself included where
Speaker 3: I used to like this time ten years ago, there's
Speaker 3: no way I would. But then I don't know what
Speaker 3: it is about like aging, where you're like, no, I
Speaker 3: do want to see what Jigsaw is going to do
Speaker 3: to this woman's leg?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: And why is that my politics have not changed, they've
Speaker 3: grown more intensive anything, But I am open to seeing
Speaker 3: what Jigsaw is gonna do with the leg.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, there's so much to it, but but yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so okay. So one of the reasons is really funny
Speaker 2: that the page sorry, the evangelicals refuse to celebrate the
Speaker 2: pagan elements. There's a chance that none is pagan. There's
Speaker 2: a chance that it's like all chriss.
Speaker 4: Okay, oh god, the what a bummer?
Speaker 3: Oops?
Speaker 4: All christian? Uh.
Speaker 2: I would argue that if you're part of a theological
Speaker 2: tradition that worships a dead guy or pagan and strange anyway,
Speaker 2: it's fine, true, but like the weird delineation between like, well,
Speaker 2: I only believe in like one strange supernatural creature who's
Speaker 2: kind of three.
Speaker 3: Yes categories to this ununderstandable being.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So okay, that's the current holiday that evangelicals refuse
Speaker 2: to and some of it probably does come from paganism.
Speaker 2: But it's like it's it's just all messy. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: Now we go thousands of years in the past, instead
Speaker 2: of immediately tracing into Sowen, the Celtic holiday that looks
Speaker 2: like it should be pronounced sam hayne if people are
Speaker 2: wondering what word I'm saying, we're instead going to it
Speaker 2: gets the modern date from Swyen and some other stuff,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about that, okay, But I'm gonna draw
Speaker 2: on a different lineage first, because Sowyen isn't the first
Speaker 2: place that the Christian holiday drew from. It came from
Speaker 2: a holiday called Lemuria. You ever heard of Lemuria? The holiday?
Speaker 3: No, it sounds if you if you asked me what
Speaker 3: is Lamuria, I would say, I don't know.
Speaker 4: It sounds like a skin disease.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, no, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: The most famous Limuria isn't what I'm going to talk
Speaker 2: about today. The most famous Lamuria. And I'm ranking this
Speaker 2: by the one that gets a Wikipedia page, okay without
Speaker 2: one of them is Lamuria, and then one of them
Speaker 2: is Lemuria holiday or whatever you know. Okay, the most
Speaker 2: famous one is a fictional continent it's kind of an
Speaker 2: Atlantis of the Indian Ocean. Ooh, that was all the
Speaker 2: rage in nineteenth century occultism.
Speaker 3: Nineteenth century occultism just a bottomless pit of weirdo shit. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: not surprised to hear, Lo Maria. This is also the
Speaker 3: same time where people are like the Acashic Records, the
Speaker 3: Infinite Library, that's vaguely fascistic, and you're just like, sure, guys.
Speaker 2: It exactly, and this thing still the continent still has
Speaker 2: weird cultural influences today. Incorrect people claim this continent is
Speaker 2: where humans come from, that the first humans were called Limurians,
Speaker 2: the continent, it's going to all tie together. The continent
Speaker 2: gets its name from lemurs, which are the cute little
Speaker 2: animals that look like squirrel monkeys.
Speaker 3: Timon, No, that's no way, that's a mere cat. No,
Speaker 3: Timon's a mere cat.
Speaker 2: Oh it's okay.
Speaker 4: So I only understand things out of Gascar.
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 3: Oh, they're the little They're like the FBI of Madagascar. Okay,
Speaker 3: I understand the FBI. Okay.
Speaker 2: I think I was gonna pretend like I just got it,
Speaker 2: but they don't.
Speaker 3: As I said, I'm like that's maybe a dishonest. They're like,
Speaker 3: they're well, if you view the FBI as criminals, the
Speaker 3: lemurs they're always you know, pulling little operations. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: and they're generally considered to be you know, negative operations.
Speaker 3: So that's why I think of them as the FBI.
Speaker 2: Okay, see this actually does tie into where they get
Speaker 2: their names. But okay, so lemurs. People were like, why
Speaker 2: are there lemur fossils in Madagascar and also the Indian
Speaker 2: subcontinent And they're not technically lemur fossils, but they're like
Speaker 2: close right and not in the land in between the two.
Speaker 2: And so the answer the actual answers continental drift. Probably
Speaker 2: I lost a good chunk of my life skimming scholarly
Speaker 2: articles about this before realizing this is like a tangent
Speaker 2: of a tangent of a tangent of my point, uh huh.
Speaker 2: But the important thing is it's not there because of
Speaker 2: a mysterious continent that has disappeared.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: The Lemurs they get their name from the Latin lemorez,
Speaker 2: which is ghosts. It is the Latin for ghosts. Whoa Okay, Lemurs,
Speaker 2: like the FBI move at night and our spooky and
Speaker 2: are scary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're scary to us personally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, much like lemurs have fucked with my
Speaker 2: friends and so lemores, the Latin one, right, the Roman one.
Speaker 2: If you have them in your house, If you have
Speaker 2: ghosts in your house, what are you gonna do about it?
Speaker 4: Call a lemur?
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, you have to wait till early May for
Speaker 2: the feast days of Lamur. Yeah, which was May ninth, eleventh,
Speaker 2: and thirteenth. I don't know if it had to like
Speaker 2: only be odd days or if they were like we
Speaker 2: need a break between our feasts or what.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, you sort of need a day to let
Speaker 3: it course through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3: I liked maybe it was just pooh days, like all right,
Speaker 3: we're on one day and then we got to really
Speaker 3: just pooh the next day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then, yeah, that's pretty much almost certainly what happened.
Speaker 2: There's only one guy whoever wrote about Le Maria. His
Speaker 2: name was Ovid, and he wrote about it a long
Speaker 2: ass time ago, so he actually knew a bit about
Speaker 2: what he was talking about. So we have one account
Speaker 2: of Lo Maurria.
Speaker 4: Okay, are we talking like the ancient poet?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh okay, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So possibly even more apocor foolish. There was a holiday
Speaker 2: called Ramia, which was the celebration of Remus, the brother
Speaker 2: of Romulus, who yeah, like.
Speaker 3: The way that Rome started titty sucker guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, since Rome's founding myth as two brothers got
Speaker 2: into a pointless fucking argument and one killed the other
Speaker 2: and now here we are, which makes sense for Rome
Speaker 2: and basically all of European civilization that's descended from it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so there might have been a celebration called Ramuria, which
Speaker 2: was like after they're like, hey, like remember me, bro,
Speaker 2: you know, don't let people forget me. Like the ghost
Speaker 2: came back and was like, there must be a holiday
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: I mean that kind of endears me to him, honestly,
Speaker 3: because you're like, I guess if you could, you would
Speaker 3: want to, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I spent about three hours trying to figure out
Speaker 2: if there's symbolism between Romulus versus u Rimus in terms
Speaker 2: of like something that I could like tie it into
Speaker 2: some other shit. They both were probably just dicks who
Speaker 2: fucking killed each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just brother things. You're like, this happens in litters
Speaker 3: of kittens all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. I was like, well, is it like
Speaker 2: a Cane and Abel thing? And then I found out
Speaker 2: that there's just a fuck ton of stories from the
Speaker 2: ye oldie times that.
Speaker 3: Like so wild, Like sorry, can finish your that.
Speaker 2: Oh, just there's so many fratricide stories in like every
Speaker 2: part of everything that we have written down from a
Speaker 2: long ast time ago.
Speaker 3: There's just like so much of history that you're like
Speaker 3: that you it just boils down to like two then
Speaker 3: there were these two guys, and you're like, what, I
Speaker 3: hate that that has impact on my life right now
Speaker 3: that there once there was two guys. Honestly, I learned it.
Speaker 3: I saw this gigantic painting last weekend of the Crucifixion.
Speaker 3: Uh huh lungs. It was while I was bird watching.
Speaker 3: I came across this large paint just in the middle
Speaker 3: of the field. Yeah. You know, it may have been
Speaker 3: a vision, You've had a christ like vision, but it
Speaker 3: was I was at this at Forest Lawn Cemetery birdwatching
Speaker 3: and they have this huge crucifixion painting for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: and I learned about the two guys that Jesus got
Speaker 3: crucified with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're thieves right to God.
Speaker 3: Just two guys.
Speaker 4: I didn't know about these two guys.
Speaker 3: I didn't pay attention in Sunday school.
Speaker 4: But there are two guys. Yeah, the good thief and
Speaker 4: the unrepentant thief. And their name's Rhyme, which is hilarious,
Speaker 4: dismis and guestus. And you're like, and there's just a
Speaker 4: whole exhibit on these two other guys. Anyways, I oppose once.
Speaker 2: There was two culture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of history that people care about.
Speaker 2: Anyways, Well, you know what else people care about. They
Speaker 2: care about buying objects instead of finding them in a field.
Speaker 2: Although if you work hard enough at it, I'm sure
Speaker 2: you could find any of the things that are about
Speaker 2: to be advertised to you in the loosest version of
Speaker 2: the word find, go steal a car. Here's ads. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 2: So there's Remula, or the holiday that may or may
Speaker 2: not have existed, but a Ramuria. I'm sorry, Muria, but
Speaker 2: we do know that there's Lamuria, which, okay, if they're
Speaker 2: like two holidays and so two guys, and they are
Speaker 2: three days since May set aside for driving out angry spirits.
Speaker 2: And of course, logically, the way that you get rid
Speaker 2: of angry spirits is chanting obviously and black beans clearly.
Speaker 3: Oh this is this is a I'm not familiar with
Speaker 3: this second approach.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Okay, well let me tell you how to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So the restless spirits lamura's. They also have an evil cousin,
Speaker 2: basically the larvae, which are like, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: uncertainty about exactly what this is, but they're like the
Speaker 2: like actually just kind of like fucked up evil spirits
Speaker 2: that aren't necessarily like dead people. Okay, but the lamuras
Speaker 2: anyone who died in a way that left them having
Speaker 2: like a hard time getting into the afterlife, like sudden
Speaker 2: death or young death or no funeral rights. They were
Speaker 2: a lemur.
Speaker 3: Or are so wait if you like have some sort
Speaker 3: of unfinished business or something, as you you.
Speaker 4: Are you are a lemur? Yeah, or reincarnate as that.
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 2: Yes, as the animal definitely the definitely what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I definitely took three years of lat and don't know
Speaker 2: how to pronounce any of it, so as did I.
Speaker 3: Yes, waite so waite omnes.
Speaker 2: A glass discipula pe sum as sums as aramarast arama
Speaker 2: serrata serrunt there.
Speaker 3: I always like, I think we just sort of like
Speaker 3: got off on being like haha, fatuus puer, which for
Speaker 3: anyone that learned a useful language just means stupid boy,
Speaker 3: And I would find myself saying that often.
Speaker 2: Excellent. Yeah, yeah, our our Latin teacher just let us cheat,
Speaker 2: so I didn't learn any Latin and then he got
Speaker 2: fired for sexually harassing students.
Speaker 3: Oh what that was my art teacher, my Latin teacher
Speaker 3: was was a buff board. Did you read those books
Speaker 3: that were like about the family that got Stuck in
Speaker 3: the ditch for like an entire textbook.
Speaker 2: I didn't really go to class by the end of the.
Speaker 3: I forgot You're cool, Okay. I was obsessed with my homework,
Speaker 3: and so I was really invested in the Cornelia I
Speaker 3: and there are various excellent males. Excellent, okay, Okay. You
Speaker 3: continue its reincarnated as a leamur.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and that's definitely what I mean. It's not that
Speaker 2: you're a ghost with the same similar word. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: uh huh, I'm with you, Okay. So you can help
Speaker 2: out the lemurs as well as help navigate the larvae,
Speaker 2: the non ghost evil spirits. In a really creepily parallel
Speaker 2: way to some sowin shit later, which makes the lineage
Speaker 2: of everything like super murky. The way that you help
Speaker 2: out your dead pals is you wash your hands in
Speaker 2: spring water. Then you make a fist where your thumb
Speaker 2: is under your fingers, like the way you shouldn't make
Speaker 2: a fist, you know.
Speaker 3: Yep, the scary way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you were doing that. Yeah. You fill
Speaker 2: your mouth with black beans and then you spit them
Speaker 2: out behind you as you walk through your house barefoot
Speaker 2: at midnight. And the reason your barefoot, obviously is that
Speaker 2: knots can't be anywhere near the ceremony because they prevent
Speaker 2: the natural flow of energy, and so sandals have knots,
Speaker 2: So no sandals barefoot makes sense. As for the fist thing,
Speaker 2: it's called mono fico or fig hand, and the connotation
Speaker 2: of the word fig means that actual translation of this
Speaker 2: would be pussy hand, because your finger is fucking the
Speaker 2: rest of your fingers, that is the connotation.
Speaker 3: Is that necessary?
Speaker 2: I've no idea want us to do it, ghosts, it.
Speaker 3: Just feels like not relevant.
Speaker 2: Nope, the black.
Speaker 3: You have to have pussy hand to confront the ghosts.
Speaker 4: Or to inter what is when you're doing this?
Speaker 3: What are you?
Speaker 4: What are you accomplishing?
Speaker 3: Is my question.
Speaker 2: Well, when you spit out the black beans, this attracts
Speaker 2: the lemurs and they're behind you, right you can't see them. Well,
Speaker 2: that's happening. And you chant, I send thee with these beans,
Speaker 2: I redeem me and mine And you chant that nine
Speaker 2: times uh huh, while everyone else in the house clangs
Speaker 2: bronze pots and says, ghosts of my fathers and ancestors
Speaker 2: be gone. Then you wash your hand and spring water
Speaker 2: three times m h and and then you can look
Speaker 2: to see if it worked. And you know how they
Speaker 2: know it worked when you look at the end of
Speaker 2: the ritual. You can turn around and look and there's
Speaker 2: no leamurres behind you.
Speaker 3: Oh so it does. I would guess that the success
Speaker 3: rate is extremely high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm William Betten. No one saw lamarill around behind
Speaker 2: them after doing all this work.
Speaker 3: Well, that's great, that's great. I like that that. This
Speaker 3: is also like, it's necessary to have the support of
Speaker 3: everyone who lives with you in order to accomplish this.
Speaker 3: Everyone has to be a believer. That's Is there any generally,
Speaker 3: is there any point in this ceremony where someone would
Speaker 3: see the theoretical lamoureau where they stand, or is it
Speaker 3: conveniently like.
Speaker 2: I don't know, interesting, you know, I mean obviously it's
Speaker 2: like ghosts and things are things that a lot of
Speaker 2: people have seen in this world, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean I I don't even disbelieve it, but I just.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Interesting. I as a lover you know, black beans, that's
Speaker 3: an integral part of my Chipotle order, and I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that there was a kind of a cosmic use
Speaker 3: of that food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I wonder what happened if you use white
Speaker 2: beans like right opposite?
Speaker 3: Does it do something else? Or you know, we should
Speaker 3: try it? It means they stay yeah.
Speaker 2: Totally yeah, or if you put ones that are like
Speaker 2: slightly hallucinogenic in your mouth and you do see that.
Speaker 2: Limeris immediately after the Limeray holiday where the our Guy,
Speaker 2: which are more Roman pagan holidays, and these involved mock
Speaker 2: human sacrifices were like straw dummies were tossed into the river,
Speaker 2: which is possibly like the main suggestion people have around
Speaker 2: this is that basically, like every culture eventually was like
Speaker 2: what if we stop sacrificing people and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: how would we do that? And you're like, well, what
Speaker 2: if we fake sacrifice people? And you have this like
Speaker 2: transitional period where they fake sacrifice people, okay, and which
Speaker 2: is kind of you know, they want to symbolically kill
Speaker 2: some dudes, which is a lot like majority voting. It's
Speaker 2: a symbolic war where you see which side with win
Speaker 2: would win without actually stabbing each other to death.
Speaker 3: It's very true.
Speaker 2: This whole sequence of events meant in May was at
Speaker 2: the unluckiest month to get married. So keep that in
Speaker 2: mind anyone who wants to adhere to Rouman pagan social norms, right,
Speaker 2: which you should absolutely Fortunately, very few people get married
Speaker 2: in May. It would be very.
Speaker 3: Yeahluck No, I've certainly never been to a wedding in May,
Speaker 3: much less officiated one.
Speaker 2: I've never been married in May. I've never rented that
Speaker 2: sentence a little bit earlier, but.
Speaker 3: I only became amenable to getting married recently when I
Speaker 3: found a novelty halloween band played weddings, and now I'm like,
Speaker 3: maybe I should think about it.
Speaker 2: I once hitchiked across the country with some crosspunk I
Speaker 2: met at a Rainbow g when we were twenty and
Speaker 2: we were decided we were going to get married in
Speaker 2: Vegas on the way, but then we couldn't hitchhike very
Speaker 2: well together because we were both scary looking and she
Speaker 2: had a very large dog. Mm hmm, so we didn't
Speaker 2: get married.
Speaker 3: Well that's the breaks. I feel like we both just
Speaker 3: said sentences that are very true to who we are
Speaker 3: at our.
Speaker 1: Core, and I silently laughed in the background.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's Lameriam okay. And then there's Sowen. Yes,
Speaker 2: Sowen is the Celtic holiday that shares all Saints' Day
Speaker 2: November one, and it starts the night before October thirty. First,
Speaker 2: what exactly Sowen is is argued about constantly. There is
Speaker 2: some stuff we do know. For example, we know that
Speaker 2: almost everything written about it was written by medieval.
Speaker 3: Christians, famously trustworthy.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. I was like when I was like learning
Speaker 2: about dramatic paganism like the Norse gods and stuff, and
Speaker 2: when I realized it was like all written by a
Speaker 2: Christian monk, I was like, is any of this any good?
Speaker 2: Does this work can get? And then it turns out
Speaker 2: everything's just complicated and whatever. Yeah. The main argument that
Speaker 2: people have is about how much it was a time
Speaker 2: of magic and death versus just a big social gathering.
Speaker 2: I lean towards it actually was both, based on everything
Speaker 2: that I've been reading, but it absolutely was a big
Speaker 2: social gathering that was probably also time of magic and death. Okay, Celts,
Speaker 2: you could say that they are the hidden people, kell
Speaker 2: being the Indo European prefix for hidden. They are a
Speaker 2: very diverse collection of peoples, a ton of different tribes
Speaker 2: that's spread out across Europe and the British Isles. They
Speaker 2: use an oral history by and large, so we don't
Speaker 2: have much about them beside what was written by their
Speaker 2: enemies who talk about human sacrifice and how their primitive
Speaker 2: people live in bogs or whatever the fuck you know.
Speaker 2: But certain histories and traditions only linger in the margins.
Speaker 2: So most of what's left of the traditions and lang,
Speaker 2: which is of the Celts, are found in Ireland, Scotland,
Speaker 2: Wales and a few other places. Right, Sowyn is one
Speaker 2: of the big four Celtic pagan holidays that we know about,
Speaker 2: and it was on November first. I mean, I doubt
Speaker 2: they had the specific calendar, but let's just go with it, right. Sure,
Speaker 2: sometimes it gets called a harvest festival. But apparently that's
Speaker 2: not really true because November first isn't really a big
Speaker 2: deal for agriculturists. Neither is May first. It's not the
Speaker 2: time for planting or reaping because beltane and sown in
Speaker 2: the Celtic tradition, they're important to pastoralists. Okay, it's when
Speaker 2: you take your herds to different pastures. So instead of
Speaker 2: having a harvest festival, they have a like we're taking
Speaker 2: the cows out of the high hills, out of the highlands, a.
Speaker 3: Little cow party, and we're are the four main holidays?
Speaker 3: Are these separated generally by season?
Speaker 4: Are there?
Speaker 2: Or I can't remember the other two off the top
Speaker 2: of my head. I think they are the sole ses,
Speaker 2: but I could be wrong.
Speaker 4: Makes sense to me.
Speaker 2: I think one of them is low. Oh man, no,
Speaker 2: I'm anyone listening. Your nose is now mad at me,
Speaker 2: But so it goes. Don't message me about it on
Speaker 2: Insta know every single up myself. Yeah that is people
Speaker 2: get I know you know that was a podcaster before,
Speaker 2: very frustrated that just because you know one thing doesn't
Speaker 2: mean you know another thing.
Speaker 3: I do feel sometimes that the feedback I mean, and
Speaker 3: often I get a lot of great, very helpful feedback,
Speaker 3: and every once in a while I get how dare
Speaker 3: you not have lived my exact life? And you're like, I,
Speaker 3: you know, can't, can't speak to it, don't know, don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, until you kill them and then step into their.
Speaker 3: Body precisely, precisely.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot to be said about how the
Speaker 2: Gaels were seen as barbaric, specifically for preferring pastoralism to agriculture. Basically,
Speaker 2: people mean like, don't you want to like stay in
Speaker 2: one place and grow things? And they're like, I'm good,
Speaker 2: I have a cow. I need just hang out with
Speaker 2: the cow. Why would I? It gives me what I need?
Speaker 2: What the fuck? If you ever want to get mad,
Speaker 2: you should read what Angles from Marks and Engles, famous
Speaker 2: comedy duo had to say about the Irish Really oh god,
Speaker 2: it wasn't nice stuff, no kidding, although he sure fetishized
Speaker 2: the Irish women of course anyway.
Speaker 3: Really also a misogynist to the people that he had
Speaker 3: no respect for.
Speaker 4: Wow wow wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So November first is Swen. It's the celebration of
Speaker 2: the coming of winter. It's the time to take the
Speaker 2: cows of the high pasture. And slaughter them. It's the
Speaker 2: perfect time for sacrifice. You're like, I mean, you're killing
Speaker 2: the moo guys anyway, right, m h and thanks, thanks
Speaker 2: for laughing at that. I'm pretty proud of that show,
Speaker 2: and so I was really thrilled. It's also when alcohol
Speaker 2: is most readily available, at least according to one source
Speaker 2: I read, which probably ties into all the like magic
Speaker 2: and mischief and shit that comes from Sowen.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: The thing that we know happened is that on and
Speaker 2: various tribes from different places and Ireland would gather and
Speaker 2: they would have huge bonfires, and various kings would make
Speaker 2: various pronouncements. Ireland has had no shortage of kings, but
Speaker 2: fortunately it wasn't very good at centralizing them, so usually
Speaker 2: it had multiple At any given time, there were contests
Speaker 2: and feasts and sacrifices. There was possibly human sacrifice and
Speaker 2: then later some like representative of sacrifice stuff. There was divination,
Speaker 2: which we'll talk about in a bit, and there was
Speaker 2: a bunch of other ritual stuff, gotcha, that's what's certain.
Speaker 2: Then there's the argued stuff. I tend to believe that
Speaker 2: all the magic and death stuff because that argument is
Speaker 2: really politicized because Christians want to be like, no, there's
Speaker 2: no paganism in Halloween, right, But then on the other hand,
Speaker 2: there's people who are like, no, everything is super cool
Speaker 2: and magic y and buy my books right, Like it's
Speaker 2: just fucking there's not trustworthy people in the like modern
Speaker 2: pagan versus Christian arguments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there, I mean, everyone's got a vested interest, and
Speaker 3: I feel like on the on the non Christian end
Speaker 3: there it is becoming increasingly muddled because it seems like
Speaker 3: there is such an opportunity to I don't want to
Speaker 3: say this without being like being disrespectful to people's beliefs,
Speaker 3: because I'm not saying that this is something I completely
Speaker 3: disbelieve in at all, But I do think that there's
Speaker 3: time points in history, very likely one we're living through
Speaker 3: right now, where people would very much like to believe
Speaker 3: in magic, and that brings out a bunch of predatory types.
Speaker 2: Totally and like, and one of the other things is like, like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do some of the ritual stuff that
Speaker 2: I'm going to be talking about. I'm planning to do it.
Speaker 2: Oh that's amazing the day after you walk here to this,
Speaker 2: And because I don't know why the fuck not. And
Speaker 2: to me, the fact that a lot of it comes
Speaker 2: from syncretic traditions is fine. I have no problem with that,
Speaker 2: you know. And so another thing that might have happened
Speaker 2: on SOO, and this is actually what I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: on Sowen this year, is that unsuccessful kings are ritually sacrificed.
Speaker 2: Oh you're gonna kill a guy, yeah, yeah, but only
Speaker 2: a king. I gotta find a monarch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, that is a slaughter, slaughter of flop.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's possible, like, no one's quite sure. But basically
Speaker 2: some of the bog bodies people are starting to be like,
Speaker 2: we think that's a sacrificed king. Oh wow, they might
Speaker 2: have had their nipples cut off and then stabbed and
Speaker 2: beheaded and thrown into bogs.
Speaker 3: I've been to a bog buddy, bog body, bug body,
Speaker 3: a bog body exhibit or too in my day, and
Speaker 3: that would be said, that would be huge for the
Speaker 3: bog body community if that is if true, I know,
Speaker 3: And it's like it's a little bit of a stretch
Speaker 3: as a story, and who's making this claim and it's
Speaker 3: based on a lot of the stuff where like a
Speaker 3: lot of the bog body people were like fed better
Speaker 3: and like like it seems to be that they seem
Speaker 3: to be like upper class in some way or whatever,
Speaker 3: right right, and.
Speaker 2: Like more than one of them had like weird stuff
Speaker 2: around their nipples going on.
Speaker 3: Interesting, Like all we know is that they ate well
Speaker 3: and they had weird nipples.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, lots of kings might have gotten dead
Speaker 2: on Sowen, which is cool. And I wonder how much
Speaker 2: of old human sacrifice was just well, like this guy
Speaker 2: said he'd be a good leader, but he wasn't. So
Speaker 2: I guess we should just give him to the gods now,
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of like that stuff gets into
Speaker 2: later whatever, But what doesn't come later, what comes now
Speaker 2: is advertisement.
Speaker 3: Wow that was so good. Wow, you really did get
Speaker 3: me with that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my one actual top that I'm good at cynically
Speaker 2: transitioning to ads like these what great prices.
Speaker 3: Like these great products you're about to find out about.
Speaker 2: And we're back.
Speaker 4: So we have potentially some dead kings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have potentially some dead kings. It's also probably
Speaker 2: the Festival of the Dead. That is the like the
Speaker 2: big argued thing that makes sense to me. Too to
Speaker 2: go under the assumption that it was, which I that
Speaker 2: is actually what I think. But the Celts, like a
Speaker 2: lot of people, believed in a lot of different realms, right,
Speaker 2: there's most notably there's Earth or the realm war stuck in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: then there's the other world with a big capital O.
Speaker 2: It's got a bunch of different names. Most famous is
Speaker 2: probably Tyrannog, which is either a name for the whole
Speaker 2: place or just a part of it. And this is
Speaker 2: like the land of the Fairies, the Promised Land, the
Speaker 2: land of everlasting youth.
Speaker 3: I learned about that from watching Titanic when I was nine.
Speaker 2: Well, they talk about nearing an Noog in it.
Speaker 3: They do. There's a mother with children on the Titanic.
Speaker 3: They're about to, you know, drown on the Titanic, and
Speaker 3: she's saying that that's where they're headed. They're headed to
Speaker 3: the land of Tyrannanog, the land of eternal youth and beauty.
Speaker 3: The kids are crying because they of course are about
Speaker 3: to drown on the Titanic. But that's where I learned
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, And honestly, faith is a really good
Speaker 2: counterpoint to anxiety. So yeah, I like totally get that, Like,
Speaker 2: I want to believe in Tyrannanog while the fucking ship
Speaker 2: is going down, Like what are my other options being?
Speaker 2: Like no, only this is real and I'm about to
Speaker 2: not ever have anything ever again, like deep but you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: So Tyrannanog is one of the mystical is where the
Speaker 2: mystical precursors of the Irish people live, the fairies or
Speaker 2: the gods, the too hot Todnin and twice a year
Speaker 2: on Beltane and Sowen. The veil is thin between our
Speaker 2: world and other world. So Sowyn is a liminal festival
Speaker 2: at the end of summer. It's the start of winter,
Speaker 2: and it's a time when everything is possible and nothing
Speaker 2: is the same. And that's I love that shit. And
Speaker 2: that's still part of fucking Halloween. I think it's also
Speaker 2: when the Four Mourians, which was another ancient Irish race,
Speaker 2: the race of evil Giants, they demanded a yearly tax
Speaker 2: of two thirds of the corn, milk and children from.
Speaker 3: Folks top three products.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were driven out, and they were driven out
Speaker 2: specifically by the goddess Morgan and the hero agnes Og,
Speaker 2: and they drove the monsters out from Ireland on sown, Okay,
Speaker 2: which makes sense because that's when they show up, but
Speaker 2: you know, still wild shit. Yeah. Irish mythology, at least
Speaker 2: as it was written by a Christian eleventh century Christian guy,
Speaker 2: is a series of different people replacing one another in
Speaker 2: the area. There were six groups. The first four had
Speaker 2: been killed or driven out entirely. The fifth were the
Speaker 2: pagan gods who disappeared into the other world but are
Speaker 2: still around. Some folks argue that this is people talking
Speaker 2: about the picts, and then there's the sixth, the modern humans,
Speaker 2: the Gaels. This book, the history of Ireland from the
Speaker 2: eleventh century, is called the Book of Invasions, which is
Speaker 2: what a fucking name for a country's history.
Speaker 4: Truly, I'm like harsh but fair.
Speaker 2: I know, they kind of set themselves up with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seems kind of antagonistic, but I see where the
Speaker 3: reality is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this book was I think intentionally written to
Speaker 2: Christianized people. So so many of the European pagan books
Speaker 2: are from Christian monks, as I've complained about already. Sometimes
Speaker 2: people say the dead went to the other world, like
Speaker 2: in that movie The Titanic, which I definitely didn't just
Speaker 2: add to the script. I totally had it in.
Speaker 3: There, absolutely, and it is called The Titanic, and I
Speaker 3: think that that's something that people need to remember about
Speaker 3: the movie The Titanic, which we love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually really did like them. I never watched
Speaker 2: it again, I think because I was, like, I cried
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: It's unfortunately one of the bet.
Speaker 2: It's a really good movie. I'm not so good anti.
Speaker 3: It's like it's everything a movie can be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw it multiple times in theaters.
Speaker 3: Really. Oh that gives me, especially because that happened during
Speaker 3: a period of culture that you.
Speaker 2: Find otherwise distasteful. That's true. I might have to take
Speaker 2: all that back. I just really don't like all rock
Speaker 2: from the late nineties. I'm sorry, totally fair, totally.
Speaker 3: I mean, you will not find a dissenting opinion here.
Speaker 3: But yeah, every tongue that rises up against Titanic nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven shell fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like The Titanic did.
Speaker 4: Much, including and not limited to the Titanic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're on Hue risk brought them down both groups.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: So some people say that the dead go to the
Speaker 2: other world. Other people say that they went to a
Speaker 2: place that was more of a hell or a purgatory.
Speaker 2: Other people were like, no, first you go to the purgatory,
Speaker 2: then you go to the other world. That last one,
Speaker 2: curiously and possibly coincidentally, maps to the Catholic experience of theater.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: It was like, that is a that's also a Christian concept.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: You know, some shit is just universal. Some shit is
Speaker 2: given to cultures by Christians. I don't know. Two things
Speaker 2: happen on Sowen because of the thinning of the veil. First,
Speaker 2: the spirits of the dead, especially the recently dead. They
Speaker 2: come out and hang out for the night, which is cool. Second,
Speaker 2: so do the fairies, especially mischievous if not downright malevolent
Speaker 2: ones who like rejoice in human suffering and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: It's also the time when babies can be replaced with
Speaker 2: change links. So you got to like watch your kids.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, that's that's eventful.
Speaker 3: That is a that is a full side show's worth
Speaker 3: of activities.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's a good thing that it's also commonly associated
Speaker 3: with getting drunk on the night where your baby.
Speaker 4: Could be switched out with a change Like it's.
Speaker 3: Good to have your senses really truly dulled when those
Speaker 3: are the stakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sharpened up, you know, a little bit more in
Speaker 2: touch with your emotions instead of what's happening around you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's possible that people would open the burial mounts themselves
Speaker 2: on Sowen, but because of their portals the other world,
Speaker 2: I don't think that that's I've read that, but I don't.
Speaker 2: It doesn't track with the rest of mythology because most
Speaker 2: of the rituals are around how to deal with how
Speaker 2: scary it is that the veil is thin. It's less
Speaker 2: like the way that I would say modern like how
Speaker 2: I see it where I'm like, fuck, yeah, the veil's thin,
Speaker 2: time to talk to dead people, And instead it's more
Speaker 2: of a like oh God, oh God, like veil too thin?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So it was intended to be because I
Speaker 3: feel like that is an interesting thing to hear from
Speaker 3: culture to culture of like how the concept of the
Speaker 3: thinning of the veil is received, because they feel like
Speaker 3: sometimes it's joyously other times it seems like intentionally to
Speaker 3: stoke fear, which it seems like in this case is that, I.
Speaker 2: Think so, But it's also kind of both because they
Speaker 2: do a lot of like really easy joyous stuff. Yeah, No, totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, and I guess it's just like the same
Speaker 2: as like people be Like in twenty first century United States,
Speaker 2: people hated Halloween because like, some people hate Halloween and
Speaker 2: then we're over here being like this fucking rules. I'm
Speaker 2: sure that Free Christian Ireland or Syncretic Christian Ireland was
Speaker 2: the same way. They were like some people are really
Speaker 2: fuck yeah, bring on the fairies, and other people are like,
Speaker 2: they stole my baby, and you're like, eh, h, maybe
Speaker 2: she's happier now.
Speaker 3: You know, there's always gonna be someone that thinks their
Speaker 3: baby's been switched out with a changeling, and sometimes it
Speaker 3: just turns out they don't like their baby. Yeah, totally
Speaker 3: and are searching for a justification as to why.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Portals also open at the base of the of Hawthorn trees,
Speaker 2: So if you live on Hawthorn Street in Portland, you
Speaker 2: should be careful this week. It's all I'm saying. And
Speaker 2: the dead coming back is totally chill with people. As
Speaker 2: long as you were good to people, they'll be good
Speaker 2: to you back right now. If you're shitty to people,
Speaker 2: if you're a dick to someone and then they died,
Speaker 2: good fucking luck on that one.
Speaker 3: Ooh they is it like purge rules?
Speaker 4: Can they get your ass?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's funny. We're going to talk about some weird
Speaker 2: purge rules shit and cool later.
Speaker 1: But okay, Jamie's the perfect guess for this episode.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. Although yeah, but but yeah, so
Speaker 2: you know, if you're good to the dead, that part's fine.
Speaker 2: There's a ton of different rituals around it. The the
Speaker 2: ones most of these are like the ones that I'm
Speaker 2: aware of, I think are a little bit more modern.
Speaker 2: They're not necessarily from the day of like the tribe
Speaker 2: gathering for a week to feast and discuss laws, and
Speaker 2: are more from the medieval era onward. But they like
Speaker 2: also might be continuations or developments of different traditions. Okay,
Speaker 2: the one I'm gonna do on sow and if my friends,
Speaker 2: if I can talk them into it, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of different variations. And it's called a dumb supper, as
Speaker 2: in a supper without talking. Oh, and there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of different ways to do it. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: I was just about to make a bad joke about
Speaker 3: how there's there's a lot of Christian families that have
Speaker 3: dumb suppers every night.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of how we eat food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you open all the doors in the windows in
Speaker 2: your house, and you set the table for everyone plus
Speaker 2: a setting for the dead, like at an empty chair,
Speaker 2: and then you either eat in silence or in the version.
Speaker 2: I kind of think it's more fun you talk as
Speaker 2: if the dead are in the room and not like, Sayancy,
Speaker 2: you're not like what happened? I've never been to a
Speaker 2: seans and you have, but that's how I'm imagining it.
Speaker 3: It's honestly, I wish you were further off. Yeah, a
Speaker 3: lot a lot of loud talking, a lot of questions, no,
Speaker 3: no gentle introductions really that I've found.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a one way conversation where you catch
Speaker 2: the dead up on everything that they've missed over the year,
Speaker 2: where you just include them back in your life as
Speaker 2: if they just have been away for a while.
Speaker 4: That's wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I genuinely think that like magic or afterlives
Speaker 2: or religion aside, I think that this seems like a
Speaker 2: like useful way for people to connect with loss and
Speaker 2: grief and stuff, you know.
Speaker 3: But I do think that there's like an uh, it's
Speaker 3: interesting hearing people talk to their dead because in the
Speaker 3: times that I've been at rituals are like I mean,
Speaker 3: I've mostly been to them as they relate to spiritualism
Speaker 3: and like table turning and stuff like that. And it
Speaker 3: is interesting because I feel like the closest thing that
Speaker 3: I could identify it with outside it's like a combination
Speaker 3: of the way you speak in like like prayer by
Speaker 3: your if that's something you've done, and then also like
Speaker 3: and this not with all due respect to the dead,
Speaker 3: how like children talk to their dolls, Like there is
Speaker 3: an element of like, I am having lunch with my
Speaker 3: American girl doll, and I want her to be involved
Speaker 3: in the conversation, and like it feels like everyone has
Speaker 3: some sort of base level of Oh, that's so lovely.
Speaker 3: I really like that.
Speaker 4: Is that what you're gonna Is that your plan?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's great.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons I think it immediately hit
Speaker 2: me is that, like I didn't grow up in a
Speaker 2: particularly religious family. My Irish grandmother talked to the dead
Speaker 2: like they were in the room. Like she lost one
Speaker 2: of her sons before she died, and she would just
Speaker 2: like talk to him as if he was there. And
Speaker 2: and I just like thought that was cool. You know,
Speaker 2: that's so lovely. Oh, there's that's great. There's other versions
Speaker 2: where you leave food out at night for the dead,
Speaker 2: like you put bread and water and set them out
Speaker 2: at midnight, which reminds me of the milk and cookies
Speaker 2: from for Santa. And there's a lot of like Halloween
Speaker 2: sow and Christmas weird and eMule and shit, they all
Speaker 2: like blur into each other sometimes, you know.
Speaker 4: It's all very a lot of Q four shit going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get everything crammed in end of
Speaker 2: the year. Nice, but evil spirits come into the world too,
Speaker 2: Fairies and werewolves and shit just fucking pouring into the world.
Speaker 2: For that, you need protection. For that, you need a
Speaker 2: bonfire in some traditions called a need fire. And my
Speaker 2: favorite version of this that I've read is that the
Speaker 2: whole town puts out their hearth fires and then goes
Speaker 2: to the bonfire and then re lights their own fire
Speaker 2: from the bonfire, which is meant to not only is
Speaker 2: it ward off spirits, but also just like brings everyone
Speaker 2: together and like reminds everyone that their hearth comes from
Speaker 2: the same place, you know, like karth is a very
Speaker 2: that's totally pricessful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's yeah, that's the and then I feel like
Speaker 3: it ties in completely with the feeling of continuity, like
Speaker 3: that's that's really nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah totally. And then to protect your new mothers could
Speaker 2: also be stolen away as well as babies. I wonder
Speaker 2: how much is people just like running away when.
Speaker 3: Anyway that's there's a there's a runaway movie waiting to
Speaker 3: happen to be like, oh, it's the perfect crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: These fools believe in magic.
Speaker 4: I'm kidding the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: And then if I write it, like they get halfway
Speaker 2: down the road and the ferries are like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: said you're coming with us, Like, oh fuck, that is.
Speaker 4: The mar Greek Kilty original waiting to.
Speaker 2: And so the fairy world represents I mean, sometimes it's
Speaker 2: just like stolen away for evil, but sometimes it represents
Speaker 2: like sort of like wildness and like non sieve and
Speaker 2: stuff and like witches high end all of this once
Speaker 2: you get into the syncretic in the Christian side of things,
Speaker 2: So new mothers could be given a spoonful of oatmeal
Speaker 2: as soon as the baby was born protect them from
Speaker 2: being stolen away a lump of unsalted butter could be
Speaker 2: put into the newborn's mouth, or you can rub salt
Speaker 2: and oatmeal into the crown of a child's head.
Speaker 3: I'm really amenable to any like ritual that involves a
Speaker 3: little treat. That sounds very nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's time for the little treat ritual,
Speaker 2: like a ritual nap that I take in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: There you go, right, I'm like, yeah, I guess I
Speaker 3: did just give raw birth. Give me a little give
Speaker 3: me a little treat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Otherwise I'm gonna fucking run away, I mean,
Speaker 2: get stolen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I may go with the fairies if I don't get
Speaker 4: my little treat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's possible that all of the stories they like.
Speaker 2: The argument for the argument against Sowyn being traditionally a
Speaker 2: time of death and ritual was that a lot of
Speaker 2: the like fairy stories for on Sowen was just that
Speaker 2: Sowen was the big gathering of all the kings and shit.
Speaker 2: So if you wanted to set a story and have
Speaker 2: like important people there and important stuff happen, you just
Speaker 2: did it on Sowen. And so that's how it became
Speaker 2: associated with the dead and the supernatural. I don't, okay,
Speaker 2: buy that argument, but that is an argument that people
Speaker 2: make interesting, okay. And then there's the divination and most okay.
Speaker 2: So there's like one piece of the divination that's like
Speaker 2: actually spooky, which is around the bonfire, people would put
Speaker 2: like a everyone like put like a rock and be like,
Speaker 2: that's my rock, and then if it's gone by the
Speaker 2: next day, then you're not going to survive.
Speaker 4: Also colonialism totally.
Speaker 2: They learn it from the English.
Speaker 4: My rock actually this my rock now?
Speaker 3: Sorry?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if your rock disappears, then you're gonna die.
Speaker 2: And this this, this is the like maybe replaced human
Speaker 2: sacrifice ritual that I read about m but the rest
Speaker 2: of the divination rituals for sowen you heard of any
Speaker 2: of these?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: No, did you ever play mash as a kid that
Speaker 2: like figure out who you're gonna marry.
Speaker 3: And where you're going to live? And shit, well I'm
Speaker 3: married Josh Hotcherson and if so, will we for some
Speaker 3: reason live in an apartment?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's what it stood for, right the mansion
Speaker 4: it is it is a very like I've thought about
Speaker 4: this a lot.
Speaker 3: The more I get interested in housing where it's like
Speaker 3: a children's game that is named after housing options mansion, apartment.
Speaker 2: Shack house, shack.
Speaker 3: I was like ship, Like, oh see, that's no, you
Speaker 3: have to have what is viewed as a negative outcome.
Speaker 3: And then the funny thing is like Josh Hodgerson's career
Speaker 3: must have really fallen out from under him due to
Speaker 3: the fact that I married him and we live in
Speaker 3: a shack but we drive an Audi, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this is this is the style of
Speaker 2: divination of South Okay, it's like who you are going
Speaker 2: to marry, and where you're going to live, and what
Speaker 2: job you're going to have and shit like this. They
Speaker 2: were playing Mash based Sowen on the other hand. Every
Speaker 2: now and then it would be like am I going
Speaker 2: to get married this year? Am I going to become bake?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Am I gonna get this job? Am I gonna die
Speaker 2: this year? That's like thrown in as one of the options.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's not a part of Mash to.
Speaker 2: Be fair, This is like medieval Europe where oh right,
Speaker 2: really present chance if you're going to die any given year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're like, I'm getting up there.
Speaker 3: I just turned nineteen, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And so most of this stuff, most of this divination
Speaker 2: seems that we have the records of or that I've
Speaker 2: seen it seems to come from the sort of syncretic
Speaker 2: part of it. But it's still cool. So one traditional
Speaker 2: dish for Soowin is coal cannon, which is Irish mashed
Speaker 2: potatoes a lot of greens in it, and you take
Speaker 2: the first two portions of it and you set them
Speaker 2: out either by the gate for hungry passerby, or you
Speaker 2: set it at the foot of the nearest fairy thorn,
Speaker 2: hawthorn or white thorn on Halloween or and or Allsoul's.
Speaker 4: Night kind of.
Speaker 3: So this is like the Santa Santa potatoes kind of, yeah,
Speaker 3: but also a little bit of mutual aid if so,
Speaker 3: if anyone just needs potatoes.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and that actually, I mean in trick or
Speaker 2: treating kind of comes from a lot of this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff too. Oh and we'll talk about more about
Speaker 2: that stuff later too.
Speaker 4: And wow, you're blowing my fucking mind.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is great.
Speaker 2: Okay, another weird Christmas parallel m The first and last
Speaker 2: spoonfuls of the Halloween coal cannon can be put into
Speaker 2: an eligible girl's stocking and then well, now while she's
Speaker 2: wearing it, and then you hang it from a nail
Speaker 2: in the door, and her future husband will be the
Speaker 2: first man to enter the house.
Speaker 3: So if you put potatoes in a sog yeah some
Speaker 3: real Okay, Okay, well they didn't have a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is not a rich culture. It's a rich culture.
Speaker 2: It's not a culture with money, and it's a rich.
Speaker 3: Culture not with money necessarily. But look at that lower
Speaker 3: potato in a sock. Got it?
Speaker 4: I look, I'm this is this is my culture. I
Speaker 4: should know this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, this is this is my favorite one. Like actually,
Speaker 2: barm brack is a fruit loaf. That's basically you make
Speaker 2: this fruit loaf and then you hide small tokens in it,
Speaker 2: like like a ring or a button or a thimble,
Speaker 2: and if you get the ring, you're gonna get married.
Speaker 2: If you get the button, you're either going to be
Speaker 2: an old or the button or thimble you're gonna be
Speaker 2: an old bachelor or an old maid.
Speaker 3: Wait what is this call to I want to do this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, it's actually I can. I can send you
Speaker 2: a recipe. My friend sent me a barm brack b
Speaker 2: r M. There's a bunch of different ways of spell it,
Speaker 2: like anything from Irish that gets anglicized, but b r
Speaker 2: M space br A c k okay, my friend makes it.
Speaker 2: So these days when people make it, they usually either
Speaker 2: like really well wrap the thing so that it's not
Speaker 2: a choking hazard, or they like minimize the number of
Speaker 2: choking hazards they put into the food. And then my
Speaker 2: friend who makes it just puts an uncooked P in it.
Speaker 2: I think maybe it's a lential. I think it was
Speaker 2: a P really, so it isn't like choking hazard game,
Speaker 2: you know, I do.
Speaker 3: I mean I I really do kind of appreciate when
Speaker 3: someone goes hogwild with the choking hazards in the food.
Speaker 3: I do feel it's it's part of why I find
Speaker 3: heterosexual proposals to be so fascinating, where it's like what
Speaker 3: if I what if I potentially killed someone I theoretically
Speaker 3: want to spend the rest of my life with by
Speaker 3: shoving an ugly little ring I've purchased into like an
Speaker 3: expensive meat love and and you have to be thrilled
Speaker 3: if you almost swallow a ring and you're like oh, and.
Speaker 2: You get to find out if you're a future spouse
Speaker 2: nos time like maneuver one hundred times yes, Yeah, Well
Speaker 2: you can also if you want to find out who
Speaker 2: your future husband or wife will be. And there's different
Speaker 2: ways of doing this, and one of them the like
Speaker 2: witchiest ways that like three unmarried women get together or
Speaker 2: girls get together and do this and then do this
Speaker 2: like separately from the rest of everyone, and you make
Speaker 2: something called a dumb cake, which is just a a
Speaker 2: very plain piece of bread, and everyone makes them and
Speaker 2: then you like sleep with them under your pillow, or
Speaker 2: you sleep with a sprig of yarrow under your pillow,
Speaker 2: and then you'll dream of your lover.
Speaker 3: So wait, this one is sleep with bread under your pillow.
Speaker 3: And you can also potatoes in the sock, bread under
Speaker 3: the pillow. Yeah, eternal love is yours.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason I kind of like this, I
Speaker 2: think that this is a recipe for sleep paralysis because
Speaker 2: if you're sleeping, if you go to bed thinking about
Speaker 2: what am I going to Like, if you go to
Speaker 2: bed and you think about I'm going to dream of
Speaker 2: the following, you're more likely to dream of that, right,
Speaker 2: and so you're able to kind of influence your dreams
Speaker 2: in that way. But also if you sleep with something
Speaker 2: under your pillow, you might sleep on your back, which
Speaker 2: gives you more more likely sleep paralysis and more intense
Speaker 2: dreaming in general, and like you might sleep kind of
Speaker 2: lightly as a result of it. So I think people
Speaker 2: have like mostly horrifying nightmares, but sometimes they might.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So, okay, other way you can find out who
Speaker 2: you're gonna marry is you can peel an apple in
Speaker 2: a single strip and then throw the peel over your
Speaker 2: shoulder and see what letter it forms, and that's the
Speaker 2: first letter of the person who marry or whatever.
Speaker 3: I've heard of that, Okay, Okay, yeah, I've heard of that.
Speaker 3: I've never done it because that's actually really hard to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that seems really hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would imagine if you did it, you'd
Speaker 3: be like, oh the letter, oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like everything looks like okay or whatever the
Speaker 2: most convoluted letters are, you know, right, Okay. There's another
Speaker 2: way you can do this, and this is actually my
Speaker 2: favorite because it Okay, you can cut nine stalks of
Speaker 2: yarrow with a black handled knife and then stay in
Speaker 2: silence for the rest of the evening. Once everyone is asleep,
Speaker 2: you peel the yarrow. I have no idea what yarro
Speaker 2: looks like. Where you peel it. I'm not a supper witch.
Speaker 2: You peel the yarrow, and you say good night, good yarrow,
Speaker 2: thrice good night to thee. Pray. Tell me who my
Speaker 2: true love will be. If his clothes I'm to wear,
Speaker 2: if his children I'm to rear blithe and mary, may
Speaker 2: he be with his face turned to me. If his
Speaker 2: clothes I'm not to wear, if his children not to
Speaker 2: rear sour and groma, may he be with his back
Speaker 2: turned to me, and groma being an Irish word for
Speaker 2: like morose. Oh okay, So you recite this and then
Speaker 2: the first suitable man you see is scrutinized. And I
Speaker 2: like this one because it's like, oh, if I meet
Speaker 2: a man and he's like nice and smiles, and he
Speaker 2: like doesn't as soon as I turn away, like look
Speaker 2: evil and shitty and mean, you know, because they're like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: at least there's a filtering process here.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 3: So I guess I would. I would conversely argue that
Speaker 3: this is a great historical example of the bar never
Speaker 3: being particularly high. Well, if he doesn't turn into the
Speaker 3: literal devil when I avert my eyes, he's probably he'll be.
Speaker 4: He can he's serviceable. We can make it work.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if we put the bar there
Speaker 2: about I probably shouldn't say missing just stuff on the show.
Speaker 2: So okay. The other way you can do it is
Speaker 2: you can eat an apple standing in front of a
Speaker 2: mirror at midnight while combing your hair. I don't know
Speaker 2: how I eat an apple and whatever.
Speaker 3: That's two like hygienically healthy things to be doing at midnight,
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it would have to be intentional.
Speaker 2: As the clock hits midnight, you can see the face
Speaker 2: of your future husband over your right shoulder.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this sounds like something that's been paid by
Speaker 3: the apple lobby.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of apple stuff. Apples are pretty, yeah,
Speaker 2: symbolically useful for different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that was the da Vinci code.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the da Vinci code.
Speaker 3: I regret to inform you spoiler alert. Do you know
Speaker 3: what the da Vinci code is? The word apple. I
Speaker 3: remember it being twelve years old, reading that book when
Speaker 3: it was like super popular, like reading it in the bath,
Speaker 3: wanting to be wanting to be a part of something
Speaker 3: bigger than myself. Getting to the point like nine thousand
Speaker 3: pages in where the Davini code is Apple, And I
Speaker 3: was like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm twelve and
Speaker 3: I'm underwhelmed by this. The da Vinci cope was Apple. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I no, that makes sense, you know, not that anyone's
Speaker 3: reading it now, but like if you ever were, like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to get around to that, don't bother. The
Speaker 3: DaVinci code was literally Apple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.
Speaker 3: So anyways, Christian parallels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that's sourin the big gathering of the
Speaker 2: tribes that was probably but not necessarily super spooky. It
Speaker 2: got all jumbled up in kind of fun ways. As
Speaker 2: for All Saints Day, all hollows tied, Devil's Night, witch hunts,
Speaker 2: We'll talk about those on Wednesday, which is Saints Day.
Speaker 2: Oh this is All Souls Day. Crap, I don't remember
Speaker 2: which one.
Speaker 4: God damn it.
Speaker 2: I don't have a calendar in front of me. There's no
Speaker 2: way of knowing. It's just on one of them.
Speaker 3: Impossible to say a good yes.
Speaker 2: But what else is This isn't an ad transition, it's
Speaker 2: a plug transition. What else is spooky is your plugs? What?
Speaker 3: It's All Saintsday?
Speaker 2: Okay, I even got it. Write in the script. I'm
Speaker 2: so smart.
Speaker 3: I guess I guess. Well, you can find me on
Speaker 3: mainly Instagram. Jamie christ Superstar is still technically on Twitter.
Speaker 3: I guess Jamie laughed his help. But and you can
Speaker 3: get my book which is called Raw Dog and that's
Speaker 3: about hot dogs. However, for the purposes of what we're
Speaker 3: talking about today, I think you should listen to my
Speaker 3: podcast Ghost Church, which is about the history of spiritualism
Speaker 3: and what modern spiritualism looks like in Central Florida. So
Speaker 3: if you produce it, Ian edited it. My uncle Dennis
Speaker 3: is in it. Uncle Dennis rules. Yeah, long live Uncle Dennis.
Speaker 3: He fucking rocks. And yeah, so that that you should
Speaker 3: listen to that.
Speaker 2: Okay, I will wait, I already have, but you did
Speaker 2: the listeners listen to it. Yeah, Sophie, what do you got?
Speaker 3: I think I plu.
Speaker 1: I think I've plugged this last a couple times, but
Speaker 1: listen to it. Could happen here. It's more important than ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, all right, see everyone on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Ah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.