Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Robert Lammin. This is The Monster Fact,
Speaker 1: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: focusing in non mythical creatures, ideas and monsters and time.
Speaker 1: This episode of The Monster Fact previously published for UK
Speaker 1: listeners only, and now, as promised, we're going to share
Speaker 1: it out to everyone. I wanted to cover a nice,
Speaker 1: thoroughly British monster in this episode, which of course hardly
Speaker 1: limits the selection process. British lore, legend, literature and gaming
Speaker 1: have produced hordes of great monsters, from Grendel to Frankenstein's Monster,
Speaker 1: from the Questing Beast of Authoritian legend to that werewolf
Speaker 1: that Ozzy Osbourne turns into for the Bark at the
Speaker 1: Moon video. And so this brings us first to raw
Speaker 1: Head Wrex, the titular monster from English writer Clive Barker's
Speaker 1: novella of the same name, published in nineteen eighty four
Speaker 1: and included in the third volume of his Excellent Books
Speaker 1: of Blood anthology series. Barker describes the monstrous god Beast
Speaker 1: his having a huge head, the color of the moon
Speaker 1: and raw like meat. He has two rows of needle
Speaker 1: sharp teeth on each jaw, which emerge from bloody gums
Speaker 1: quote like claws unsheathed from a cat's paw unquote. And
Speaker 1: his eyes. Barker writes, they were for all the world
Speaker 1: like wounds, those eyes, as though somebody had gouged them
Speaker 1: in the flesh of Rawhead's face, then set two candles
Speaker 1: to flicker in the holes. Horrifying stuff. I highly recommend
Speaker 1: the Books of Blood. There's some real gems in there,
Speaker 1: but many of you may know Rawhead wrecks instead for
Speaker 1: his appearance in the nineteen eighty six film adaptation of
Speaker 1: the tale. Barker wrote the script for this movie, but,
Speaker 1: like most viewers, found the film version of the monster
Speaker 1: somewhat unconvincing. While he originally envisioned a very phallic and
Speaker 1: meat faced monster at the center of the movie, what
Speaker 1: we end up with is a heavy metal powerlifter ogre
Speaker 1: with kind of goofy eyes. There's nothing even raw about
Speaker 1: Rex's head in the film. However, I do quite like
Speaker 1: the slipcase illustration of the monster that Wes Benzcotter did
Speaker 1: for the Arrow Blu ray re release. Go check that
Speaker 1: out if you like your monstrous art by the Way.
Speaker 1: While the film version of raw Head Rex takes place
Speaker 1: in Ireland, the original short story takes place in rural
Speaker 1: Kent Now. One of the inspirations for Barker's creation here
Speaker 1: would seem to be an English boogeyman or water demon,
Speaker 1: known by several names raw Head, Tommy, raw Head, Old,
Speaker 1: Bloody Bones, and even raw Head and Bloody Bones. As
Speaker 1: Carol Rose points out in Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins,
Speaker 1: the entity was described as a gory humanoid with blood
Speaker 1: running down its face, often seated upon a pile of bones.
Speaker 1: Like such boogeyman figures as Ginny Green Teeth, who he
Speaker 1: discussed in a past Halloween episode of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind. Raw Head is said to haunt potentially dangerous
Speaker 1: places like stagnant pools and pits, the very dark and
Speaker 1: lonely waters you want your children to steer clear off.
Speaker 1: So that's raw Head and Bloody Bones. But there's also
Speaker 1: Bloody Cap or red Cap to consider. An evil spirit
Speaker 1: sometimes described as a hobgoblin, originating in the folk traditions
Speaker 1: of the English Scottish border, appears as a hideous little
Speaker 1: old man in iron boots with a red blood soaked
Speaker 1: cap on its head. It haunts old ruins and sights
Speaker 1: of historic bloodshed. Venture near such places, and it might
Speaker 1: just kill you, slice off your head and catch your
Speaker 1: flowing blood in its cap, unless you recite scripture and
Speaker 1: drive him off first. It's also said that if the
Speaker 1: blood of his cap ever dries, the creature will shrivel
Speaker 1: up and die. A perfect subject for even a modern
Speaker 1: slasher film if you ask me. Now, there are many
Speaker 1: different variations of the red cap tail, some of which
Speaker 1: connect the entity with the fourteenth century Scottish border noble
Speaker 1: William the Second. Desouls sometimes embellished as a villain tutored
Speaker 1: in the Black Arts, with the imp robin red cap
Speaker 1: serving as is familiar. In some accounts, the cruel lord
Speaker 1: is eventually boiled alive by the people who suffered under him,
Speaker 1: and I've also read variations where the red cap creature
Speaker 1: is encased in lead and boiled as a way to
Speaker 1: slay the monster. Now, in reality, Souls died in prison
Speaker 1: after allegedly playing part in a conspiracy against King Robert
Speaker 1: the Bruce. Now, as long as we're talking about red caps,
Speaker 1: let's have a quick word about blue caps. Another spirit
Speaker 1: of English folklore, also known as blue bonnet. This entity,
Speaker 1: according to Rose, resided deep in the earth, only encountered
Speaker 1: by the humans who labored in the mines. It was
Speaker 1: often invisible, but might manifest as a light blue flame,
Speaker 1: thus the name far from the farious. The blue cap
Speaker 1: would mimic human miners and put in a full day's
Speaker 1: work moving heavy tubs of coal and ore around. The
Speaker 1: miners would therefore leave out offerings for the blue caps
Speaker 1: in thanks for their labor. This reminded me of details
Speaker 1: I've read before concerning American mining soup prestitions, of which
Speaker 1: are connected to English and European traditions as well. I
Speaker 1: was reading about these in a nineteen forty two edition
Speaker 1: of California Folklore Quarterly. An article titled California Miners Folklore
Speaker 1: by Wayland d. Hand and It mentions tales of runaway
Speaker 1: carts said to have been pushed by the ghosts of
Speaker 1: dead miners, as well as a tradition brought over by
Speaker 1: Cornish miners, the Tommy knockers, spirits of the dead or
Speaker 1: unseen Elvin denizens of the deep. Either way, they could
Speaker 1: be appeased with offerings and hand writes. The following quote.
Speaker 1: Many California miners, though not having themselves seen these creatures
Speaker 1: in person, recall having seen small effigies of them made
Speaker 1: of clay and set upon portal sets to a tunnel
Speaker 1: on the lagging or elsewhere where their patronage is desired.
Speaker 1: Hand explains that descriptions of the creatures vary greatly, with
Speaker 1: the Cornwall version being something like a cross between an
Speaker 1: old man in an infant. Californians describe creatures in leather jackets,
Speaker 1: peaked hats, and water soaked shoes. Meanwhile, Native American miners
Speaker 1: reported a creature called an entity that is small and squat.
Speaker 1: According to Hand, in all cases, however, the spirit or
Speaker 1: creature could be called upon for protection in the deep, dark,
Speaker 1: dangerous environment of the mine. Tune in for additional episodes
Speaker 1: of the Monster fact or the Artifact each week. As always,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
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