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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, so we are

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Speaker 2: heading into the vault for an older episode of the show.

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Speaker 2: This one was originally published on September twenty ninth, twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two, but it was part of our Halloween offerings

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Speaker 2: for last year. This was part one of our series

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Speaker 2: on elf shot.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, if you're not sure what this

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Speaker 1: is about, well, I mean, does it get any spookier

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Speaker 1: than strange, unseen, unknowable beings in the woods just firing

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Speaker 1: off strange missiles that may well be invisible, And when

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Speaker 1: they lodge themselves in the bodies of your livestock, or

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Speaker 1: even worse, your body, they bring about untold destruction.

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Speaker 2: Beware of the fairy weapons.

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Speaker 1: It was my fault for letting the cattle graze so

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Speaker 1: near the old wood, in the circular stones, where the

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Speaker 1: roots grow elf twisted and rain water fill the elf

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Speaker 1: cups in the rock where strange lights dance some nights

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Speaker 1: and the moonlight shines brighter than elsewhere. I'd lost cows before,

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Speaker 1: but never like this. I found her bloated and dead

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Speaker 1: by the tree line. As I strolled up to the

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Speaker 1: poor heifer, I saw neither bite nor puncture on her hide.

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Speaker 1: I scanned the surrounding grass for signs of tracks or blood.

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Speaker 1: I saw neither. But that's when something caught my eye,

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Speaker 1: A small stone point like an arrow head, with neither

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Speaker 1: shaft nor fletchings, and carved by some art, not practice

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Speaker 1: by mortal men. I stooped to pick it up, and

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Speaker 1: that's when I felt a white hot pain in my

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Speaker 1: upper left side. I felt for blood underneath my shirt,

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Speaker 1: such was the pain, but found only unpierced flesh, even

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Speaker 1: as the agony of it brought me to my knees.

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Speaker 1: In the tall grass, I scanned the tree line. They

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Speaker 1: were invisible to my eyes, but I felt them somehow,

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Speaker 1: the elves watching on from the chateaus of the wood,

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Speaker 1: perhaps snickering in their sublime odd tongue. As the elf

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Speaker 1: bolt racked my body, but I clutched the stone in

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Speaker 1: my hand, I knew what I had to do. I

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Speaker 1: dragged myself back across the field, sweat pouring down my

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Speaker 1: face and my spleen swelling fit to burst with elfcake.

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Speaker 1: Even then, when I arrived back at the house, I

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Speaker 1: dropped the little of stone in a pan of water.

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Speaker 1: I clutched my Bible for good measure. I strained remember

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Speaker 1: words and incantations by either priest or wise woman. But

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Speaker 1: the best I could manage was a vague prayer to

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Speaker 1: be interpreted by whatever heard me. In my moment of need,

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Speaker 1: I drank the stone, touched water down all of it,

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Speaker 1: though it chilled my teeth and stung my tongue. And

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Speaker 1: then I realized too late that the charm was no good,

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Speaker 1: for it had touch the ground, sunlight had fallen upon it.

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Speaker 1: The power of the elves had all but drained from

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Speaker 1: the thing, and I was afforded only passing relief. And

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Speaker 1: so I write this letter by candlelight, will weigh it

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Speaker 1: down on the table with the Queer stone as proof,

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Speaker 1: for I am now elf marked and elf taken. I swell,

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Speaker 1: I ache the moon rises once more, and the sound

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Speaker 1: of their music fills the night.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And that little cold open definitely takes some liberties with

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Speaker 1: the folklore we're going to be discussing here today, and

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Speaker 1: you're trying to get a little seasonal Halloween flavor here

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Speaker 1: going in this episode, which I guess is kind of

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Speaker 1: kickstarting our Halloween season here on stuff to blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: But today we're going to be talking about, as you

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Speaker 1: might guess from the opening, elf shot or elf stone,

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Speaker 1: pixie arrows, elf arrows, and many other names.

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Speaker 2: The missiles of the others.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So the basic idea here, I think is

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Speaker 1: basically embedded in the fiction we just shared here. The

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Speaker 1: idea that and this is just roughly so with many

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Speaker 1: folk traditions, as we'll discuss, there are a number of

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Speaker 1: variations over time and space. But the idea here is

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Speaker 1: that the elves, out of trickery or pure malice, they

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Speaker 1: might shoot cattle or humans in some cases with their

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Speaker 1: invisible arrows, and these invisible arrows leave little or no

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Speaker 1: physical trace in many tellings, but cause otherwise unexplainable pain

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Speaker 1: or disease or perhaps even death. The notion was supported

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Speaker 1: via the evidence of discovered neolithic arrowheads and other curios,

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Speaker 1: and the ideas especially tied to the British Isles, but

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Speaker 1: one sees examples of it from elsewhere in Europe as

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Speaker 1: well as from the America after colonial arrival.

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Speaker 2: Right, So the belief in elfshot, I think is best

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Speaker 2: understood not as a single belief but as a sort

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Speaker 2: of complex of related explanations for totally different types of

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Speaker 2: natural phenomena that are all sort of unified under a

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Speaker 2: common theory of fairy weapons and fairy malice.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and without diving any deeper, we can see

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Speaker 1: the appeal of these ideas, right. It's a superstitious, supernatural

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Speaker 1: script that can help explain several different things, help explain

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Speaker 1: and otherwise unexplained illness, otherwise unexplained pain or another malady,

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Speaker 1: otherwise unexplained illness or death in cattle, and otherwise unexplained

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Speaker 1: artifacts found on or in the earth. Now it makes sense,

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Speaker 1: I think at this point to discuss the elves a bit,

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Speaker 1: because I know for many of us out there, you

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Speaker 1: say the word elf and there are probably a few

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Speaker 1: different key images and ideas that are going to immediately

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Speaker 1: come to life in your mind. I mean, especially now

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Speaker 1: with the Rings of Power on TV and so forth,

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Speaker 1: many of and also you know the resurgence of dungeons

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Speaker 1: and dragons. People are going to think about the fantasy

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Speaker 1: elves of Tolkien and Tolkien derived works like Dungeons and Dragons.

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Speaker 1: For others of you out there, you might instantly think

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Speaker 1: about Santa's elves or keebler elves. Little you know, curious

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Speaker 1: people making novelties and imaginary idealistic workshops.

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Speaker 2: Right, I would say that the influence of Tolkien is

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Speaker 2: so strong that, at least in America. I don't know

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Speaker 2: if this would be as true in the rest of

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Speaker 2: the English speaking world even, but at least in America.

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Speaker 2: When you say elf, I think what people mostly think

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Speaker 2: is a Tolkien style high elf, an l Rond or

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Speaker 2: Galadrial type figure, a kind of noble and elegant fantasy

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Speaker 2: aristocrat who has, you know, wisdom and magic arts to offer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and generally just super blonde hair like a real,

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Speaker 1: real pristine blonde wig going on in many cases. So

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Speaker 1: I guess l Ron Elron didn't have blonde hair.

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Speaker 2: Elrond have red hair.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, dark hair, I don't know he's I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's an the young el Ron, the younger version of Elrond,

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Speaker 1: is in the Rings of Power, and I'm I'm suddenly

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Speaker 1: at a loss to remember what colors hair is mainly

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Speaker 1: remember the ears.

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Speaker 2: I remember thinking around the ear in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: two or so. It's like liv Tyler, that's an elf.

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Speaker 1: I guess. The interesting thing is that, of course both

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Speaker 1: of these ideas, Obviously Tolkien's ideas of elves have have

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Speaker 1: their roots in actual folklore and mythology, as one would expect.

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Speaker 1: But even like Santa's elves and Keepler elves I guess

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Speaker 1: are they're not completely removed from the mythological roots here,

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Speaker 1: but perhaps less connected.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as you're saying, once you get outside of the

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Speaker 2: very sort of narrowly Tolkien influenced idea, the elf is

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Speaker 2: actually an extremely broad tradition.

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Speaker 1: Right right, And you get into many of these traditions

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Speaker 1: and beliefs of old and elves get more mysterious and

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Speaker 1: also more dangerous. They become less human and harder to fathom.

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Speaker 1: So two of the sources I often turn to when

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Speaker 1: when thinking about these things are Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase

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Speaker 1: and Fable, which is which is a pretty pretty good

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Speaker 1: book even today for for highlighting some of this stuff.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course I always look at the books

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Speaker 1: of folklorous Carol Rose in particular for this one Spirits Theories,

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Speaker 1: Leprechauns and Goblins, which is still very much in print.

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Speaker 1: I always recommend that one to fans of mythological and

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Speaker 1: folkloric beings. But in Brewer's Dictionary, Phrase and fable, the

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Speaker 1: definition of elf is quote a dwarfish being of Teutonic

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Speaker 1: mythology possessed of magical powers which is used for the

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Speaker 1: good or ill of mankind. Carol Rose in in the

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Speaker 1: Spirits Faries, Lepriicuns and Goblins, mentions that in Teutonic mythology

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Speaker 1: the alphar are subdivided into dark elves and light elves,

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Speaker 1: and Rose refers to them as well as a type

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Speaker 1: of sprite found in British, Icelandic, Scandinavian and Teutonic legend.

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Speaker 1: They are the alf the alf. There are several different

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Speaker 1: spellings that are kind of like elf or alf or

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Speaker 1: yield or in some cases you have like the ellen

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Speaker 1: or el folk, and Danish you have the elvore in

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Speaker 1: Swedish traditions, and then they're the spey wives in Icelandic traditions,

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Speaker 1: and many more. Now there have been attempts to understand

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Speaker 1: elves as both sort of folkloric and mythological reverberations of

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Speaker 1: our understandings of indigenous peoples, which certainly ties in with

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Speaker 1: some of the themes we'll be exploring here, as well

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Speaker 1: as with people born with certain birth defects or people

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Speaker 1: that have certain illnesses, and these are perhaps broader explorations,

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Speaker 1: but I think we can see the validity of both

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Speaker 1: avenues combined. Of course, as always with the self sustaining

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Speaker 1: power of myth, folklore, and belief. You know, as we

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Speaker 1: often mentioned on the show, we can't we can't discount

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Speaker 1: the power of human imagination and creativity, be that you know,

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Speaker 1: imagination acting out of pure whimsy, or imagination seeking to

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Speaker 1: understand things, or does even make shape of various realities

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Speaker 1: of life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And another way I would put that is that yes,

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Speaker 2: people often did probably see something they didn't understand and

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Speaker 2: then try to put together a mythical theory of it,

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Speaker 2: a kind of supernatural explanation that would make sense of it.

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Speaker 2: But then other times, clearly people just make things up.

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Speaker 2: I mean, people have imagination and they dream things up.

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Speaker 2: So get you get both in our mythical traditions, I think.

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Speaker 2: And it's limiting to assume that you're always looking at

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Speaker 2: one thing or the other right right.

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Speaker 1: But once the Once the script is established, the script

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Speaker 1: is generally nourished and maintained. So like other similar beings

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Speaker 1: in folklore, such as say, the Irish tradition of the

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Speaker 1: Tuaphatadan and fairies and so forth, there's kind of a

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Speaker 1: ghost species are to the elves. They're the sublime other

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Speaker 1: that occupies places that we cannot occupy. They hold powers

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Speaker 1: that we scarcely comprehend, and they may wish as well.

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Speaker 1: They may wish us ill, or they may just sort

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Speaker 1: of be neutral in all matters, and their reasons are

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Speaker 1: hard to fathom. They might do the things they do

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Speaker 1: on a whim, or they might have seemingly good reason

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Speaker 1: to act against us or for us. They are also

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Speaker 1: associated with a host of unexplained phenomena, including visual phenomena,

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Speaker 1: making them a core supernatural script for the unexplained that

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Speaker 1: I think aligns. Many have pointed this outlined closely with

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Speaker 1: twentieth and twenty first century uses of the UFO script

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Speaker 1: of the alien visitor script for the unexplained as a

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Speaker 1: way of shaping and processing things that we don't understand.

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Speaker 1: For example, as pointed out by both in both Roses book,

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Speaker 1: and in brewers. We have a number of elf related

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Speaker 1: phenomenon in folk traditions, and they include the following. There's

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Speaker 1: elf bore, which is this is apparently a piece of

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Speaker 1: wood from which the knot has been dropped out. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how much I really need a supernatural script

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Speaker 1: to explain that, but fair enough. There's elf cake. This

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Speaker 1: is an enlargement of the spleen elf child. This is

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Speaker 1: a changeling getting into changeling traditions. This one was new

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Speaker 1: to me. An elf cup elf cup. This would be

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Speaker 1: where you have stone that has a hollow formed from

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Speaker 1: dripping water and water collects there. Well, that's the elf cup,

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Speaker 1: and I guess the elves drink from it. Elf fire.

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Speaker 1: Getting into traditions of the will of the wisp, which

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Speaker 1: we've covered on the show before. Now here's one that

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Speaker 1: people with longer hair or with children with longer hair

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Speaker 1: can definitely comment on. Elf locks. These are tangles and

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Speaker 1: knots in the hair caused by elves in the night.

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Speaker 1: If one is elf marked, that may refer to birth

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Speaker 1: defects or birth marks caused by the elves. If you

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Speaker 1: are elf taken, that means you're a bewitched or an

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Speaker 1: enchanted person. Elf twisted may refer to someone who has

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Speaker 1: suffered a stroke, but it also can refer to deformed

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Speaker 1: vegetation elf twisted vegetation. And then this was an interesting

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Speaker 1: when I ran across as well. I don't think this

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Speaker 1: was in either of these texts, but elf milling the

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Speaker 1: sound of woodworms chewing. And then of course we have

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Speaker 1: our elf arrows our elf shot, which again is a

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Speaker 1: perfect script to turn to in an attempt to explain

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Speaker 1: the unexplainable. And also, as alluded to in the Cold Open,

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Speaker 1: the artifacts associated with elf shot, the little found stones

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Speaker 1: and arrowheads, are also associated with various folk medicine and

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Speaker 1: magical practices, generally thought to heal or deviate illness in

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Speaker 1: animals or humans. Generally, illness is caused or perceived to

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Speaker 1: be caused by the elf shot, Like if you get

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Speaker 1: shot by a fantasy arrow, by a magical arrow from

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Speaker 1: the elves, well, if you can find that artifact, well

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Speaker 1: then maybe we have a chance of curing things. Or

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Speaker 1: if we happen to have any in the collection of

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Speaker 1: the local healer, maybe a little satchel of elf stones somewhere, well,

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Speaker 1: those can be used in the curative.

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Speaker 2: Arts, drawing on the traditional logic of like cures like

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Speaker 2: or sympathetic magic, the idea that if your ailment is

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Speaker 2: caused by a certain type of object or action, then

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Speaker 2: it can also be maybe cured by a similar or

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Speaker 2: related type of object or action.

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Speaker 1: Right, right, And sometimes these stones, these elf arrows and

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Speaker 1: so forth, they're thought to be essentially the ones that

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Speaker 1: were fired. Other times they may have been dropped by

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Speaker 1: the elves, and some other cases you have situations where

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Speaker 1: these things are interpreted as having fallen from the sky

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Speaker 1: and so forth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of the older sources that I read

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Speaker 2: quoted said that they were dropped from the air.

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Speaker 1: Now for a couple of related concepts. Here in Scotland,

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Speaker 1: there are also tales of faery riding, by which a

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Speaker 1: livestock's paralysis is explained as being due to exhaustion caused

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Speaker 1: by fairies riding the animals around as mounts all through

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Speaker 1: the night. There's also the use of thunderstones, of which

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Speaker 1: I guess elfshot is kind of a subset or at

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Speaker 1: least the very related concepts in which people have reinterpreted stone,

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Speaker 1: axe heads, tools, and also fossils as sacred objects that

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Speaker 1: may have fallen from the sky or experienced some other

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Speaker 1: supernatural entry into our world, and we see examples of

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Speaker 1: this in European, Native American and Asian traditions as well.

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Speaker 1: I found an interesting quote on this. This is from

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four and need Fire, published in The Illustrated

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Speaker 1: arche Geologists by archaeologist J. Romilly Allen. Quote, there is

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Speaker 1: hardly a single prehistoric remain in the country whose name

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Speaker 1: does not show that common people associated with fairies, which

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Speaker 1: is hags or the devil. So too with the implements

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Speaker 1: and objects found on ancient sites, the stone celts looked

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Speaker 1: upon as a thunderbolt, the flint arrow and elf arrow,

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Speaker 1: the spindle wheel, a fairies millstone, the colored glass bead,

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Speaker 1: an adder bead adder beads. By the way, these were

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Speaker 1: thought to have been created by snakes, and they were

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Speaker 1: used in folk medicine as well, and of course in general,

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Speaker 1: the idea of invisible missiles sent by a supernatural enemy

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Speaker 1: that causes illness. This is also comparable to other concepts

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Speaker 1: of magic, spells and curses that can be found in

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Speaker 1: cultures throughout the world from their examples, like the traditions

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Speaker 1: of the skin walkers, among the Navajo, the concept of

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Speaker 1: goo poison and the Han Chinese traditions. You know, many

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Speaker 1: such traditions around the world that involve the word work

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Speaker 1: of outsiders or secret outsiders that bring about sickness in

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Speaker 1: a given people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I thought it would be a good idea

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Speaker 2: for elfshot, specifically to look at a paper that collected

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Speaker 2: some direct accounts of folk beliefs about elfshot, especially in

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Speaker 2: Scotland where a lot of this folklore work was done.

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Speaker 2: And this paper is by Thomas Davidson. It's called Elfshot Cattle.

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Speaker 2: It was published in the journal Antiquity in nineteen fifty six. Now,

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Speaker 2: I do want to preface. In the next episode, I

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Speaker 2: think we're going to talk about a couple of papers

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Speaker 2: that offer some criticism of the subject of elfshot, maybe

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Speaker 2: questioning some things about this alleged folk belief. But I

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Speaker 2: thought it would be good to first look at some

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Speaker 2: of the more prevailing notions from previous scholarship. Now, this

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Speaker 2: paper by Davidson kicks off offering a number of accounts.

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Speaker 2: The first one is one that was recorded in Scottish

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Speaker 2: Notes and Queries in the first series, and this is

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Speaker 2: rendered with a wonderful bit of transliterated Scottish accent, which

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Speaker 2: I will not attempt to do in my own voice

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Speaker 2: as I read it. But it is quoting a buckin' farmer.

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Speaker 2: This is a region of Scotland, a buckin farmer in

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Speaker 2: the late autumn of eighteen eighty four, and his complaint

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Speaker 2: was as follows, quoted in Scottish Notes and queries. Oh

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Speaker 2: and there are a couple of terms in here I'll

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Speaker 2: have to come back and define in a minute, probably,

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Speaker 2: But the quote goes like this, I've gotten an ill

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Speaker 2: job this morning, in the death of a fine stirk

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Speaker 2: by elfshot. And the pity is he wasn't fastened to

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Speaker 2: a hair tether, which is a halter made of hair

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Speaker 2: fan the weapon would have fallen short of him. And

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Speaker 2: then Davidson writes, when asked whether it might not have

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Speaker 2: been due to quarter ill, he replied that couldn't be.

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Speaker 2: My neighbor and me open up the beast and there

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Speaker 2: was a hole through his heart. So a couple of

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Speaker 2: things there. He says that this happened to a sterk.

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Speaker 2: A sterk is a yearling bullock or heifer, so think

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Speaker 2: a calf young cattle. And then there's this reference to

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Speaker 2: quarter ill as the opposite explanation. Quarter Ill is a

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Speaker 2: common disease found in livestock, also known as black leg.

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Speaker 2: It's caused by an infection, often in one of the limbs,

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Speaker 2: by Clostridium bacteria. And I've read in other sources that

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Speaker 2: death can be very rapid after symptoms first present, sometimes

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Speaker 2: just a matter of hours, So you could have a

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Speaker 2: calf fall dead of quarter ill without really much warning

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Speaker 2: at all.

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Speaker 1: I love the detail about the whole through the heart.

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Speaker 1: This lines up with some other accounts I was looking

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Speaker 1: at where while in which elfshot is not thought to

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Speaker 1: present a traditional wound. In some cases there's no wound

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Speaker 1: at all, but other times there is a wound if

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Speaker 1: you know what to look for, if you look closely enough.

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Speaker 1: And of course this easily falls in with the realities

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Speaker 1: we see mirrored and other supernatural scripts, like if you

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Speaker 1: know the mark of the witch, well, if you look

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Speaker 1: closely enough and you want to find it enough, you

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Speaker 1: will find the mark of the witch. If you want

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Speaker 1: to find the you know the hidden censor that the

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Speaker 1: aliens put in a person's flesh, well, just keep looking.

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Speaker 1: You'll find something that seems a little odd and surely

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Speaker 1: that is the mark.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are all kinds of methods to detect the mark.

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Speaker 2: I'll talk about that a bit in a minute. One

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Speaker 2: of them I read about is like the oldest member

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Speaker 2: of the family should wear a blue bonnet, and then

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Speaker 2: the blue bonnet will be rubbed all over the cow.

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Speaker 2: And somehow the rubbing of the flower or the actually,

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that refers to a flower or

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Speaker 2: an actual bonnet. It says blue bonnet in the paper.

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Speaker 2: But whichever one it is, you rub that on the

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Speaker 2: cow and that will reveal the where the animal was struck.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, so to recap this story from eighteen eighty four,

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Speaker 2: this farmer is saying a healthy young calf drops dead

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Speaker 2: in its first year, suddenly, no apparent explanation. Again, of course,

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Speaker 2: there are diseases that cause sudden death in bovines, and

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Speaker 2: the farmer and his neighbor confirm the cause of death

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Speaker 2: was elf shot because they did an autopsy and found

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Speaker 2: that even though the animal had no external wounds, there

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Speaker 2: was a hole in the animal's heart. Okay, second account

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Speaker 2: cited by Davidson. This was originally published in Proceedings of

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Speaker 2: the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, and it goes like this,

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Speaker 2: Davidson writes. Quote some years before, in eighteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 2: a mister Hugh Morrison saw a cow which was said

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Speaker 2: to have been killed by the fairies. When he pointed

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Speaker 2: out to the farmer that her death had been caused

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Speaker 2: by rolling over and her long horns penetrating the ground

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Speaker 2: had kept her in a position from which she could

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Speaker 2: not rise, he was told that that was a common

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Speaker 2: way in which cows fall when struck by the And

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Speaker 2: then this is something that is spelled like it looks

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Speaker 2: like saghead scyth, but I believe this is safe she

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Speaker 2: or side she, which is Scott's Gaelic for fairy arrow.

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Speaker 2: So Davidson connects these beliefs too, as we already mentioned

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Speaker 2: the discovery of neolithic flints in the fields and the countryside,

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Speaker 2: where he claims that these were not generally associated with

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Speaker 2: prehistoric human technology. Now there are some associations of that

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Speaker 2: kind going all the way back to the seventeenth century,

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Speaker 2: but they're not generally accepted by the people, Davidson says,

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Speaker 2: and he quotes the story of a reverend John Fraser,

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Speaker 2: who was writing a letter dated to the year seventeen

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Speaker 2: o two was recorded in a work called The Darker

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Speaker 2: Superstitions of Scotland by J. G. Dalyell. And the letter

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Speaker 2: is talking about how Fraser thought it was strange quote

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Speaker 2: that these elfstones, whether little or mickel, mikel meaning large,

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Speaker 2: little or mickel, has still the same figure, though certainly

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Speaker 2: known to fall from the air. The commonality superstitiously imagines

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Speaker 2: that the fairies hath made and gives them that shape,

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Speaker 2: and that they do hurt by them, which we call

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Speaker 2: elf shot. And then he goes on to quote a

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Speaker 2: wonderful work the seventeenth century minister and proto folklorist Robert

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Speaker 2: Kirk's treatise The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fawns and Fairies,

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Speaker 2: which is a fantastic historical read if you ever get

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Speaker 2: time to check that out. So Kirk is describing the

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Speaker 2: beliefs of the people of Scotland and talking about the

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Speaker 2: weapons made by elves and fairies, and so to quote

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Speaker 2: here from Davidson. Similarly, Kirk describes the weapons as being

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Speaker 2: quote most what solid earthly bodies, nothing of iron, but

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Speaker 2: much of stone, like to a soft flint spa shaped

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Speaker 2: like a barbed arrowhead, but flung like a dart with

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Speaker 2: great force. These arms cut by airt and tools. It

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Speaker 2: seems beyond humane. And I think aert as a noun

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Speaker 2: often means like a compass point, but it could mean

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Speaker 2: like art or guidance. But again Kirk is saying that

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Speaker 2: they're beyond human. I think I said humane, but I'd

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Speaker 2: probably just be human. Here have something of the nature

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Speaker 2: of thunderbolt subtlety and mortally wounding the vital parts without

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Speaker 2: breaking the skin. So I love this idea. They have

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Speaker 2: something of the nature of thunderbolt subtlety. This description from

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Speaker 2: the seventeenth century reminds me of what the farmer in

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Speaker 2: the much later account in the nineteenth century said about

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Speaker 2: opening up the calf and finding that even though the

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Speaker 2: skin had not been broken, the heart had been pierced

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Speaker 2: with a fairy arrow, and they could tell by the whole.

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Speaker 2: And here Kirk says that these weapons have this thunderbolt subtlety.

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Speaker 2: If I understand that right, I think he's suggesting almost

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Speaker 2: kind of a semi spectral quality, that like lightning, they

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Speaker 2: can kill you without eving a hole in the skin.

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Speaker 2: Even though they are actual physical missiles. They've got kind

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Speaker 2: of a transparent or subtle quality that allows them to

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Speaker 2: kind of warp through solid matter. And later in the text,

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Speaker 2: Davidson writes that there was a belief in Ireland where

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Speaker 2: you could have an animal that had been hit by

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Speaker 2: by an elf arrow and you would not find a

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Speaker 2: hole in the skin, but if you feel with your fingers,

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Speaker 2: you could find a hole in the flesh beneath, even

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Speaker 2: though again the skin is intact. And I love thinking

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Speaker 2: about that because even if you just you know, feel

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00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 2: around on your own body, you can find all kinds

432
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 2: of little, like, I don't know, textual differences in the

433
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 2: flesh underneath the skin you're pressing on, which you could

434
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 2: interpret to be like a hole.

435
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's you. You can go wild, you know,

436
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: reinterpreting your own physiology if you think there might be

437
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: some sort of a like a hole there made by

438
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: elves or what have you. Yeah, yeah, So it's fascinating.

439
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 2: Well, and it makes me think about like hypochondria, you know,

440
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 2: in this era. So now you might have a more

441
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 2: realistic catalog of diseases to draw upon when you are

442
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:17,679
Speaker 2: are sort of like getting in your head about that

443
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 2: and assuming that you might have all kinds of things

444
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 2: affecting you. You can like look up real medical conditions

445
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 2: on the O app, but like, you know, at a

446
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 2: time before that, instead of hypochondriac googling the Mayo Clinic

447
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 2: website and stuff people are thinking about like elf arrows

448
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 2: and all kinds of curses and things like that.

449
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, did I pull a muscle or do I have

450
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: elf cake? You know, it's both would seem equally possible

451
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: in these cases.

452
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 2: I also think there's an interesting tension here that if

453
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:51,199
Speaker 2: there was some belief that these weapons were somehow ghostly

454
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 2: or subtle in a more archaic sense, like able to

455
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 2: pass through solid objects like a ghost, that's an interesting

456
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 2: tension with the evidence of them often being literally an

457
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 2: artifact made of stone. The stone the most perfectly solid

458
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 2: and earthly substance people can think of.

459
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is interesting, the idea that this is

460
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: some sort of at once it is somehow a magical,

461
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: invisible weapon that cuts right through flesh and pierces organs

462
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: and brings about mysterious elf illnesses, and yet at the

463
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: same time, yeah, here's the stone. You can hold it,

464
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: you can pick it up. It outlives us all.

465
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 2: One final account, I wanted to mention from Davidson. He

466
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 2: quotes a testimony allegedly given during trials for witchcraft in Scotland,

467
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: and this is in a book by Pitcairn, And this

468
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 2: is citing the alleged testimony of a woman convicted for

469
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 2: witchcraft in sixteen sixty two named Isabel Goudie, who reports

470
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 2: having seen the elf arrows being made. Quote, the devil

471
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 2: them with his own hand and delivers them to elf boys.

472
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 2: What whittles and dights them? I think dytes means to

473
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: like adorn, equip or ready something and dights them with

474
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 2: a sharp thing like a packing needle. And a packing

475
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 2: needle was a large, heavy needle used for sewing rough

476
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 2: materials like canvas. Now that's an interesting account for a

477
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 2: number of ways. One is that, of course, while we

478
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 2: should always be skeptical readers of any historical account, remember

479
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 2: that there are like several extra layers of skepticism you

480
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 2: should apply to alleged confessions of witches, not just because

481
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: they involve supernatural elements, but because you have to often

482
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 2: suspect coercion in the circumstances of the confession, and also

483
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: suspect alterations made by the persons allegedly recording the testimony.

484
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 2: But interesting nonetheless that somebody at least put together this

485
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 2: account of so Satan is making these weapons and then

486
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 2: handing them off to elf boys to be refined to

487
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 2: the elf boys will whittle them and then adorn them

488
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 2: with like a sharp prick on the end, like a

489
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 2: packing needle.

490
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading in one of my sources that

491
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: I was looking at that you see a lot of

492
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: picking and choosing from both Christian and pre Christian traditions

493
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: and working out exactly how elf shot works in this case,

494
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: but also how one alleviates elf shot, like are you

495
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: are you calling out to the Holy ghost or are

496
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: you sort of calling out maybe with a little a

497
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: little more vaguely to other powers in the world.

498
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 2: I would say this is also evidence of a tradition

499
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 2: that you see. I think we talked about this a

500
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 2: bit in some episodes we did last year called the

501
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 2: Holy Undead that involves some stories of stories from the

502
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: frontiers of Christianity in the medieval period. But the idea

503
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: would be that sometimes beings that were not necessarily devils

504
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 2: or could have multiple moral valances in the original context

505
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 2: of a religion, once the area is taken over by

506
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 2: a new religion, these beings undergo a kind of formal

507
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 2: demonization where now they're just turned into well, those were demons,

508
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 2: actually those are devils now.

509
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of an example that this was something from

510
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: one of our episodes last year that came out during Halloween,

511
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: Ghosts of wind and Rain, I believe with the title,

512
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: we mentioned Herne the Hunter as being a kind of

513
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: kind of wild Hunt related ghost that was said to

514
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: ride through the woods surrounding Windsor Castle. And there are

515
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: various stories about him, but I remember one of the

516
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: details from that, and I won't go through all of it,

517
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: but there was one account, and this one was actually

518
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: shared by Carol Rose in one of her books. There

519
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: is a story told or retold by folklorist Ruth Tongue

520
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: about three British youths decked out in the teddyboy style

521
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties and they're out there in the

522
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: woods near Windsor Castle. They find a horn in the woods,

523
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: they blow it, and then an unseen spirit pursues them

524
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: through the woods and shoots one of them with a

525
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: ghost arrow, slaying them dead without any physical wound. So

526
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 1: that of course is easily playing with the same palwet

527
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: of colors that we have in elf shot. I mean

528
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: it is essentially elf shot.

529
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 2: So there could be like a hole in the brain

530
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 2: without mustling of the pompadour. Right, the story is much funnier,

531
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 2: by the way, if you know what the Teddy Boys

532
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 2: style looks like, so you should look that up if

533
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 2: you're not familiar.

534
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: I had to look it up again to see what

535
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: the style consisted of, and it's hard to nail down,

536
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: Like it's hard to really like, how do I explain

537
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: this weird suits, strange hair, kind of a a youth

538
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: style that did not quite become iconic, at least not

539
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:51,719
Speaker 1: to modern minds. Maybe it has more staying power in Britain.

540
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 2: I see some elaborate upswept hair styles. I guess you

541
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 2: would call these pompadors or I don't know, maybe something else.

542
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 2: But then I see it very long coats, some skinny ties.

543
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to group this with. It's

544
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 2: not exactly mod it's not exactly greaser, it's something else.

545
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, British subculture of the mid fifties to the mid sixties.

546
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: I guess the big thing would be, like, what are

547
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,239
Speaker 1: the teddy boy movies. I think there was just a

548
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: movie called Teddy Boys from what it is, nineteen fifty

549
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: nine starring Cliff Richard. But again I have to hear

550
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: from perhaps our listeners in the UK who have thoughts

551
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: on the teddyboy style, teddy boy or not. You don't

552
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: want to go messing around in the woods and picking

553
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: up strange horns and blowing on him, because it's one

554
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: way to catch a Gostero, right.

555
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 2: And one last thing I do want to say about

556
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 2: this paper before we move on for now, is that,

557
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 2: even by Davidson's account, not everybody who found an arrowhead

558
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 2: in Great Britain in centuries past thought that they were

559
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 2: made by elves, fairies, witches or the devil. Davidson quotes

560
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 2: a Welsh naturalist named Louied. I think is how you

561
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 2: say his name? I spelled Lhwyd. But who this guy is?

562
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 2: Early as the seventeenth century was arguing that these l

563
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 2: pharaohs were in fact relics of a previous regime of

564
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 2: human manufacture. In fact, he was arguing against multiple theories,

565
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 2: one that they'd been made by supernatural beings, the other

566
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 2: that they had just been made as charms. And he

567
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 2: was like, I don't think they were made as charms.

568
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 2: In fact, they look a lot like the arrows that

569
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 2: are still used by some people today to hunt food.

570
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 2: So yeah, they were probably used for shooting by people

571
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 2: who used to live here.

572
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like we said, they do end up getting

573
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: used as amulets and charms and also have their place

574
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: in folk remedies of the day. One of the sources

575
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: I was looking at with a focus on Irish traditions

576
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: is Flint and Lithic Lore by Marion Dowd from twenty

577
00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: nineteen published in Archaeology Ireland and down Pints out that

578
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: the artifacts in question in Ireland in this case, and

579
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: collected by the Irish Folklore Committee in the late nineteen

580
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: thirties were primary collected and originally interpreted in post medieval

581
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: and modern Irish rural communities, and the various elfstones or

582
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: elf shots they consisted of various things including post medieval

583
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:26,919
Speaker 1: gun flints, fossils, unusual pebbles, but they also included Neolithic

584
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 1: and Bronze age arrow heads, so I think that's important

585
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. Like, basically, anything could be an

586
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 1: elf stone or an elf arrow if it were if

587
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: it were found if it were, and if it were

588
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: found to be novel in some way, and then gets

589
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: reinterpreted with this supernatural script. Reminds me a bit of

590
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 1: the I've brought the sub numerous times with the idea

591
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: of star Jelly, the idea that if you see see

592
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: some sort of it looks like something fell from the

593
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: sky in the nearby woods. So you go out into

594
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: the nearby woods and you keep poking around, and do

595
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 1: you find something slimy that you're like, I've never seen

596
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: that before. This must be the thing that fell from

597
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: the sky. There there are plenty of slimy things in

598
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: the woods, you just usually aren't looking for them. But

599
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: if you look for them with the script in mind.

600
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 2: The mucus of the universe.

601
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so doubt also points out some It basically goes

602
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: over some of the general ideas caught up in the

603
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: traditions of elf shop. Sometimes the effects were human targeted

604
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: in order to take the person away to the fairy realm,

605
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: but it seems like most cases you're dealing with the

606
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: targeting of cattle, and in some cases this might be intentional.

607
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: Other times it's described as being due to an accident,

608
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 1: like basically there are battles between groups of elves and

609
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: the night, and well, your cattle just happened to stray

610
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: between these two groups, and one of them caught an

611
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 1: elfharaoh by accident. And then there are other things, of course,

612
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: one can do to anger the elves and some of

613
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: these traditions. One of the ex samples that she specifically

614
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 1: mentions is the cutting down of a white thorn tree

615
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 1: that especially that could earn you an elf shot right there.

616
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: And then she gets into a lot of She also

617
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: spends a lot of time talking about the cures for

618
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 1: elf shot, and a lot of these do end up

619
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: involving the little elfstones and elf arrows that one might

620
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: find these various stone artifacts that are very often Neolithic

621
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: or Bronze age arrowheads. But she mentions other cures that

622
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: don't involve this. For instance, one was to travel silently

623
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: and wordlessly to a bog and fetch water for the

624
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: animal to drink, but you had to keep your silence

625
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 1: the whole time, where it wouldn't work. She discusses a

626
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: collection of elfstones known as the tawny white duff Sades,

627
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: and the collection, she says, consisted of fifteen flint and

628
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: chirt lithics, including a neolithic hollow scraper, two convex scrapers,

629
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: several complete and broken blades and flakes, waste flakes, and

630
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: a post medieval gunflint. And these had apparently also been

631
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: used in various folk medicine treatments over the years. As

632
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: she points out later, you would often have in a community,

633
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:15,439
Speaker 1: you would have a collection of these like these would

634
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: be the elf stones that were kept. And if there's

635
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: some sort of suspected case of an animal having been

636
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: elf shot or experiencing elf bolt, then you would turn

637
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: to these artifacts and somebody you know who knew how

638
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 1: to use them. I included a picture here of these

639
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,919
Speaker 1: particular stones from this paper, Joe, and you can see

640
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: them here there. These have not been or at least

641
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 1: to my eye, they don't seem to have been changed

642
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: in any way shape or form. I know. I saw

643
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,479
Speaker 1: some other images where it looks like in the sort

644
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: of reinterpretation of the item, there might be something added

645
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: to them. But these seem very much as they would

646
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: have been found. Yeah.

647
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 2: I'd seen some mounted in I don't know what the

648
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 2: term is a little sort of like frame for a

649
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 2: stone charm.

650
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, So how would these be used well, As you mentioned,

651
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: we mentioned the water already, and indeed the use of

652
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: water seems to be a common theme in treatments, where

653
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,720
Speaker 1: you'll have the lfshot will be placed in the water.

654
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: Other times they'll be wrapped in a rag, and then

655
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: that bundle of rag and stones will be placed in

656
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 1: the water, and then you give the water to the

657
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: animal to drink. Sometimes the water is heated up, other

658
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: times it's not. Sometimes iron is added to the mixture,

659
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: sometimes coins. In one case that she cites, the mixer

660
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 1: added quote a florin, a penny and a halfpenny, so

661
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: very very specific amount of money added to the mix.

662
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 2: Who keeps the money afterwards?

663
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I don't guess the money is

664
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: considered as special as the stone, So I guess the

665
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 1: money might go back in your pocket, but it could

666
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: be wrong on that. She also mentions a treatment method

667
00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 1: by which quote a plow culter was heated in the

668
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: fire and passed around the cow several times, repeating incantations

669
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: until the elf dart quote melted into the animal's body.

670
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: And I really love that one, in part because it

671
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to involve water or the use of one

672
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 1: of these stones. It uses like another sort of magical

673
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 1: modern artifact, like magical power is attributed to the plow culture.

674
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: And then you're you're using incantations and making this like

675
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: the supernatural dart that is inside the animal melt away

676
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: and become part of the animal. And I don't know,

677
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: this particularly reminded me of a bit of both like

678
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 1: psychic surgery and ufol the ufology concept of alien implants

679
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: like you know, there's this, there's something inside, it's not

680
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: supposed to be there. Let's use a you know, psychic

681
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: surgery to remove it. And of course you know that'll

682
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: be a situation where you know, it is a it's

683
00:39:56,239 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: a con act where one is is is pretending, putting

684
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: on a show of removing something from the body without

685
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: actually making an indention in the body. Right now. What's

686
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: interesting to think about there, though, is that, on one hand,

687
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: dealing with modern concepts of psychic surgery and ufology uphoology

688
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: versus these older ideas, when you're dealing with the human context,

689
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: some sort of ritual like this could have a placebo

690
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: effect on the human individual, and so you could never

691
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: discount the placebo effect completely. But with the cow. I mean,

692
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: the cow doesn't know what's going on. They don't know

693
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: what The cow doesn't know why you're heating up a

694
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: plow culture and going in circles around it, et cetera.

695
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,279
Speaker 2: The wait, though, that's actually a fantastic question that I

696
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 2: have never thought to look into before. Could there be

697
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,320
Speaker 2: a placebo effect on animals? It would probably need to

698
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 2: work by a different mechanism, because, like in humans, it

699
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 2: does seem to make a difference if the human thinks

700
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: there's a mechanism of repair or something, even if there's not.

701
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 2: In the case of an animal, though, I could still

702
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 2: imagine there could be placebo like effects, maybe like that

703
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:13,919
Speaker 2: an animal feels better by receiving attention from its human,

704
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 2: like the same human that feeds it is paying attention

705
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 2: to it now, or by I don't know, other sort

706
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 2: of calming effects of certain types of attention or intervention.

707
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: I don't know, like that the licking of a like

708
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 1: a dog licking its wound, that sort of thing. I

709
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: guess that's a more complicated topic, like to what extent

710
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: is the licking actually helping, and then to what extent

711
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: is it just a calming action on the part of

712
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: the dog.

713
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 2: Oh, I imagine that dog's licking wounds is to some

714
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 2: extent adaptive. I again, I haven't checked this. I would

715
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,280
Speaker 2: assume that it would be to remove contaminants from wounds.

716
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: Now, Dowd shares other healing measures here. This one I

717
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,800
Speaker 1: think was from the modern period. Quote the fairy shot

718
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: cow was cured by feeding her gunpowder mixed with an egg.

719
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 2: M my favorite breakfast. Wait a minute, hold on, No,

720
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 2: gunpowder has has ingredients that that are used in cooking sometimes, right,

721
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 2: like like nitrates. Am I wrong about that? Hold on? Okay,

722
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,800
Speaker 2: I was right about that. So gunpowder is like the

723
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 2: main constituent of it is potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter,

724
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 2: and that is also a major ingredient in like cured meats.

725
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:27,240
Speaker 2: So I don't know, maybe you're having like a cured

726
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 2: egg gilt. I guess I'm reaching here.

727
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put on a strong warning against trying this

728
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: at home, though, please do not try cooking. Do not

729
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: cook with gunpowder down shoes. Some other fascinating tidbits from

730
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 1: these various accounts of elf shot. One is that disrupting

731
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: a ring fort could earn you potential elf shot. These

732
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: were these are This also gets into the reinterpretation of

733
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: remains of of old civilizations and cultures, because ring Fort's

734
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: certainly in Ireland, and outside of Ireland as well, we're

735
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: talking about the remains of brown age circular fortified settlements.

736
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: In particular. She mentions one account that was shared of

737
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 1: a woman driving cattle past a ring fort and then

738
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 1: suddenly the herd is attacked by a fairy shooting one

739
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: of these arrows through the air, and a cow is

740
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 1: struck and collapses. But then she's able to search around

741
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: find various bits of flint fragments, boil these quote in

742
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: the cow's drink and thereby cured her. And there's some

743
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: other fun accounts. There's some sort of like near misses

744
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: that I also thought were very, very fun. There's one

745
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: account in which you have a woman returning home and

746
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,359
Speaker 1: she has a wooden pail of milk with her, and

747
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: when she gets home, she realizes that there are two

748
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: elfstones embedded in the pail, and these were thrown by

749
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 1: the fairies, by the elves. There's another story of a

750
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: woman carrying a baby and when she gets home, she

751
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 1: finds that the baby has one of the elfstones in

752
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: its hand and is chewing on it, which I like

753
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: that one as well, like did the baby catch it

754
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: out of the air or did the elves like give

755
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: it to the baby? Like I kind of like that

756
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: later interpretation because it's like, you know, the elves see like, oh,

757
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: this is a baby. This is really you know this,

758
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: this isn't like the other humans. Let's give let's give

759
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,839
Speaker 1: the baby an el pharaoh. And also let's kind of

760
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: just mess with the mom by doing.

761
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 2: This catching it in the air. Word, that's a nimble baby.

762
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 2: That baby's got a future in professional sports.

763
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: But anyway, conventional wisdom is that if there is elf

764
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,399
Speaker 1: shot thrown at you and you having to find some

765
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 1: an elfstone on the ground, you better take it as

766
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: a productive amulet and or to use as it for

767
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 1: its curative effects if you were hit or if the

768
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: you know more particularly of a cow in your keeping

769
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: was hit. And there are sort of common interchangeable features

770
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: of the cure that Dowd shares, So we touched on

771
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: several stories that mentioned this already. It's placing the stones

772
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: in water and perhaps adding something like a piece of

773
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: metal or particular coins to the water as well. Then

774
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: the water may be consumed by the sick or in

775
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: some cases rubbed on like the cow's body. There may

776
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 1: be prayers, they may be incantations, and I saw some

777
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: examples of these that some of them like blean more

778
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: into Christian traditions and mention the Holy ghost. Others seem

779
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: a little more pre Christian. The water itself that's used

780
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: may come from a particular place, such as a stream

781
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: at a crossroads, or a particular bog. And then at

782
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: least in one case, I saw a situation where once

783
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 1: you have the water prepared, instead of giving it to

784
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 1: the cow, you pour it on the ground near where

785
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: the elf shot occurred. So so treat the place where

786
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: the wounding occurred to treat the wound. Also, silence during

787
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 1: journeys factors into some of these where you mentioned one

788
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: account of that, again a mixing of pagan and Christian traditions.

789
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 1: And yeah, so these are just some of the basic

790
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,959
Speaker 1: properties you see in the treatment, though there are again

791
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: a lot of variations here. There's a lot of drift

792
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: into exactly how one might cure elf shot and exactly

793
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: how or to what extent or if you might incorporate

794
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: elfstones in the cure. Now, I didn't look, but I

795
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 1: can only imagine that various conspiracy thinkers have a lot

796
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: of fun with us in terms of like ancient aliens

797
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:36,760
Speaker 1: and perhaps ancient time travelers. Like clearly they might argue

798
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 1: this is referring to a time when a time traveler

799
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 1: went back in time and fired a revolver at somebody

800
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 1: fired a handgun and there was a shell casing left

801
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 1: on the ground, or or you know, an alien used

802
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 1: a phaser or something to that effect.

803
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking phasers, because there you could have

804
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 2: some kind of you know, sort of science fantasy explanation

805
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 2: of how it zaps the inside the inside without burning

806
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:00,880
Speaker 2: the skin.

807
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course I love the argument of well,

808
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: the elves were actually aliens, because yes, that is absolutely correct,

809
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: but not in the way that you're trying, not in

810
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: the way that you're you're saying it, like the idea

811
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: of the elf, the idea of the alien visitor, Like

812
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 1: these are the highly related concepts. These are linked concepts

813
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: that do the same thing, that fulfill the same purpose

814
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: in our attempt to understand the unknown. So yeah, that's

815
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: that's always amusing.

816
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's quite clear that at the very

817
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 2: least in most cases, what you're looking at is extremely

818
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 2: similar mental and social phenomena getting a new code of

819
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 2: paint or getting a reskin.

820
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: Basically, and I certainly don't want to speak ill of

821
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: the elves. I will read everybody a quote from the

822
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:54,839
Speaker 1: Wikipedia entry on elves. This is one I shared with

823
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 1: you just the other day, Joe quote. This is from

824
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 1: the Wikipedia entry. From a scientific viewpoint, elves are not

825
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: considered objectively real.

826
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 2: Citation needed. Have you where has anyone ever proven that

827
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 2: elves are not objectively real?

828
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: Well, there's a citation on this line, and it is

829
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: from an article titled Elves and Anglo Saxon, England Matters

830
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: of belief, health, gender and Identity by Alaric Hall from

831
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:25,280
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven.

832
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 2: Oh, I've got a couple of papers by Alericall that

833
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to talk about in the next episode.

834
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, it sounds like he'll be a good source

835
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: because he does seem to the Wikipedia citation here's correct,

836
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: does seem to side with the argument that elves are

837
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: not objectively real.

838
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 2: Okay, we got to redo our whole approach to this

839
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,240
Speaker 2: and consult only journals that are dedicated to the premise

840
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 2: that elves are objectively real.

841
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: All right, well, yeah, we'll be back in the next episode.

842
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:58,439
Speaker 1: We have more to say about elf shot and elve

843
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 1: disease and so forth. In the meantime, Yeah, welcome to

844
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 1: Halloween season. We hope to have multiple episodes here for

845
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 1: you that align with the Halloween season. As usual, here

846
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: on stuff to blow your mind. We like to really

847
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: like to lean into this holiday particularly, so yeah, stick

848
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: with us. We have core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

849
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,240
Speaker 1: We have listener mail on Mondays. On Wednesday you'll find

850
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: a monster fact or artifact episode and again during this

851
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:29,240
Speaker 1: season they'll definitely be be monstrous and horror themed. And

852
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: then on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's our

853
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk

854
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:36,319
Speaker 1: about a weird film. And of course during the month

855
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: of October, those weird films are are are definitely going

856
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:43,720
Speaker 1: to be more of the horror variety.

857
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 2: I imagine huge thanks as always to our excellent audio

858
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,399
Speaker 2: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get

859
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 2: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

860
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 2: any other to suggest a topic for the future, or

861
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 2: just to say hello. You can email us at contact

862
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 2: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.