WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Whistling, Part 3 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:09.240 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.960 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to hit 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:17.120 that vault. This episode originally aired August ninth, twenty twenty two, 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.239 and it's part three of our series on whistling. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:21.880 All right, let's go right in. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:31.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.400 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:38.040 is Robert. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.720 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.720 three of our series on whistling. Now, if you haven't 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:45.360 heard the first two parts, you might want to go 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.520 check those out first. In the previous sections, we talked 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.319 about the physics of what happens in the mouth when 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.520 you whistle. We talked about whistling based languages or variants 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:01.000 of languages, and we talked about the fascinating practice of 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.640 Chinese transcendental whistling, as well as some various psychonogical beliefs 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:10.720 about the world changing power of whistling. But today, it 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.480 might be interesting to turn our eyes to ancient history 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.720 and say, did people whistle in the ancient world? And 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:18.560 if so, how would we know about it. 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:21.720 This is such a great question that I'd never really 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:23.640 thought about because I kind of took it for granted, 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.360 like this is a sound that the human body can make, 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:31.319 Therefore people would have made this sound. And I think 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.319 for the most part, this is a good way of 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.200 looking at it things. But then the other side of 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.200 the equation is, all right, well, let's look at the evidence. 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.960 What evidence do we have in the literature of the 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.000 ancient world that people whistled? And then if they did whistle, well, 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.200 what are the attitudes concerning whistling? Because one thing that 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.640 I think we've already been able to distress in this 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.720 series is that that whistling is fascinating as it is, 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.680 it is not a neutral thing. We end up having 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:03.880 these various culture and, as we'll discuss, superstitious weights attached 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.120 to the practice of whistling. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.160 You know, I'm just generally fascinated by the idea of 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.920 ancient music. I guess in part because for the most 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.120 part we don't know what it sounded like. And so 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.200 when you find, for example, people who have tried to 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.639 render into performances some of the oldest recorded like a 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.079 written notation of music that we have, such as the 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.000 famous Hurriyan songs or Hurriyan hymns that are from the 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.280 ancient city of Yugurt, which are these hymns to the 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:36.480 goddess Nicoll. They're written on quneiform tablets, and people have 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.440 tried to turn that music notation into performances that you 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.520 can hear today, and it's very haunting. The same is true. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.320 I think there's an ancient Greek tombstone that has some 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.799 music notation on it that has been translated into modern music. 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.720 I think it's known as the Sekloss or Seculoss epitaph. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.000 And when you hear those sounds, they really do feel 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.600 very alien. They're like they're from another world, and it 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.320 just opens the mind all these possibilities that the ancient 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.400 world was full of music that we will never know 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.880 because it wasn't recorded, of course it couldn't be, and 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.799 it also wasn't written down or notated in any way 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:18.120 that we can understand today. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.760 Yeah, yeah, all this is definitely worth thinking about it 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.680 and again coming down to like why it is whistling 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.880 important enough to take note of? This is a question 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.520 that remains on one's mind as we look at these 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.200 different examples. But the main paper that I was looking 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.960 at that was really getting into this was a two 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:44.040 thousand paper by AV Van Stakelenberg titled Whistling in Antiquity, 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:46.920 and the author dives into the basic question of, well, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.280 what evidence do we have that, particularly the ancient Greeks 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.760 and the ancient Romans whistled or didn't whistle? And again, 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:55.720 on one hand, it's hard to believe that they didn't, 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:00.000 and Stackkellenberg points out that we know the Romans, for instance, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.360 had many songs for different occasions, and yet whistling would 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.240 also probably have been considered vulgar and not something that 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.400 a person of status would do compared to other sounds 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.080 that one might make. Proper Romans were not even supposed 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.960 to sing, for example, I did not know that, not 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.280 me neither. And yet sta Kelenberg writes, quote, whistling a 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.320 tune would therefore not have been compatible with the characters 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.120 of many, if not most, of the persona in ancient literature. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.120 Apart from that, however, it is a remarkable fact that 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.159 we also never meet a slave, a fisherman, pimp, or 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.400 soldier whistling a tune, not even in comedy. So what 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.039 sta Kellenberg is pointing out here is that, okay, if 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.080 whistling is not the proper thing to do, it's not 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:48.279 the thing that your heroes and your proper Romans would 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.920 would have done. What about the improper characters in your 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.400 various writings. Surely somebody would come along and they would whistle, 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.120 and by whistling signify that they are an improper for 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.960 a character and therefore deserving a ridicule or the villain 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:05.120 of the piece, that sort of thing. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.440 Yeah, yeah, I mean not when you look at what 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.280 kind of Roman literature survives to us, it's not all 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.480 lofty royal drama. You know. There are some really body 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.640 satirical Roman literature that still exists today. And so you 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.120 would expect the characters in this to engage in all 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.480 manner of vulgarity that the Romans knew about. 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.320 Yeah, Like I think of our own cinematic history here. 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.880 And also this gets in a literature as well. Spitting 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.919 spitting on the ground in front of you generally considered uncouth, 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.839 but in most circles, and yet you definitely see it 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.200 a lot in cinema because it's a great way to 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.600 establish that well, this character is a little rough around 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.320 the edges, and I think the cowboy movies where their spitting, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.799 or Cormy McCarthy novels where there's a lot of spitting. 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.479 So what stick Kellenberg is saying is that even though 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.120 we have Roman literature that has lower class characters and 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:03.040 characters who are on nderstood as doing body and vulgar things, 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.960 we never in the existing corpus see them whistling, or almost. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.200 Never seems to be the case, though Sti Keelenberg does 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.640 point out a few areas where we're not entirely sure, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:18.159 and this is where we get into the imprecise nature 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.640 of language and translations. They point to a part in 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.520 Petronius's Satiricon from the first century CE that describes a 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.440 person who quote put his hand to his mouth and 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.320 whistled out some terrible stuff I couldn't identify. Afterwards, he 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.760 told us it was Greek air. Now it's apparently an 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:42.440 open question if the proper translation is whistling, and if 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.279 it is whistling, what are we really talking about? Is 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.239 it whistling like or is it finger whistling where you create, 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:51.719 you know, the loud sound by blowing through your fingers, 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.640 or is this just bad singing the idea that you 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:57.760 know some sounds are coming out of this person's mouth. 0:06:57.800 --> 0:06:59.920 They call it Greek air. It's just bad sin. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.719 Oh I see. So like, in order to be insulting, 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.080 you might describe someone singing as wheezing or something. 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.400 Yeah, that sort of thing. They point out that even today, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.280 a fictional character whistling often means that they're they're what 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:16.559 like they think of a whistling character in a film 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.200 you've seen. It often means they're care free, or they're happy, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.320 or they're perhaps a bit of a dufiss. Sometimes the 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.360 whistling is like, what's going to happen to this poor 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:31.240 dope that's just a whistling and a little unprepared for 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:32.800 the circumstances ahead of them. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.080 Does Buster scrugs whistle? I feel like I think he does. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.440 I think he does, if memory serves you know. And 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.000 the Coen Brothers Buster scugs the first bit in that 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:48.080 anthology film. Yeah, he's this white suited cowboy who at 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.640 first we think, yeah, he's just too he's just too 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:52.640 much of a goodie two shoes. He's just going to 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.760 be eat up by the world that he's riding into. 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:57.480 And of course we find out that he's more than 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.840 a match for the violence of the world. 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.440 Yeah, I guess that is the joke that he's like 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.960 the whistling, singing cowboy, but he's also a cold blooded killer. 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.000 Yeah, that fab was short. I love that. But in 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.720 any rate, we do see some variations on this. For instance, 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.760 stakellerg points out that in Western literature we see whistling 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.800 associated with the Squire and the Canterbury Tales in the 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.440 fourteenth century. And this is a quote here singing he 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.360 was or fluting all the day. This is from the prologue. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.199 And I guess the fluting here is what might be whistling. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.440 Fluting without a flute. That's what I've always called whistling. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.400 Stackellenberg points out that, okay, this character, though the Squire, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.120 is also a lusty lut, and we don't really see 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.880 a precursor to this character type in Roman and Greek writing, 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.840 but here we have an early example of the lusty 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.839 lut who is also potentially whistling. Stackellenberg also raises the 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.800 question of perhaps humming was more calm and then whistling, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.079 But the problem there is we also don't know much 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.559 about humming and antiquity either. They write quote, whatever the case, 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:12.240 whistling apparently formed no part of the parallinguistic stock used 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.320 by Greek and Roman authors. This stock was considerable, as 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.319 recent studies show, and a few studies are cited from 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.320 the nineteen nineties and include such emotional indicators as jumping 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.880 for joy and nail biting. So saying here that, okay, 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.280 if you're going to have characters do things to indicate 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:32.880 what's going on in their heads or what kind of 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.760 emotions are supposed to be emoting on the stage or 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.080 on the page, whatever the case may be, you're going 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.320 to have things that are being used like jumping for joy, 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.319 like nail biting, and yet there's no whistling. Now, they 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.160 also get into this concept of whistling in the dark bit, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.079 which of course is a well worn turn of phrase 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.240 for us, in which one whistles to stave off fear. 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:55.520 One of my favorite examples of this, or at least 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.560 one that I think I encountered the earliest and therefore 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.640 always think about this is the Ichabod Crane and Headless 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.959 Horseman cartoon from Disney. This was in nineteen forty nine, 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.280 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad, though this would 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.240 have been This was also a segment that was often 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:16.040 aired on Disney TV Halloween specials, So there's definitely some 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.840 whistling in the dark in that one, and of course 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.240 it doesn't really work. Ultimately, the things in the dark 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.520 come out to chase Ichabod Crane around. 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.120 Now, Rob, maybe we will get more into this in 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.760 a subsequent part when we talk about some psychology. I'm 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.600 not sure, but maybe. But anyway, I wonder what you 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:38.160 think of the function of whistling in this type of 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.920 scenario where you're afraid. Maybe you're wandering by yourself past 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.880 a graveyard or wandering by yourself in the dark, and 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.839 there's a breeze blowing through the trees and you're a 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.480 little bit apprehensive, so you start to whistle. Now, I 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.240 think the phrase like whistling past the graveyard or whistling 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.959 in the dark is supposed to denote like somebody showing bravada. 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.800 You know, they're saying they're like trying to show off 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.160 that they're not afraid, when in fact they are. But 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.400 what I noticed, and that comes up in the example 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.640 I just mentioned, is that people often do this when 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.480 they're alone, when there's nobody there to see them. Nobody 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:18.040 to show off too. So if whistling is to show 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.120 off that you're not afraid, it seems like the showing 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.800 off must either be to yourself somehow or to like 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.440 the scary creature that you imagine is watching you. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.360 Yeah, it would have to be one or the other. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:33.960 But I guess in some of these cases, especially when 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.640 you're thinking about graveyards, there's definitely an imagined other out there, 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:39.959 and it might not be an imagined other that you 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.080 give a lot of weight most of the time, but 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.439 at least right now it's on your mind. So we're 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.720 going to get into several different examples of whistling as 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:54.400 a potential means of summoning or accidentally summoning or drawing 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:58.959 the attention of things that should not be drawn in 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.199 to your vicinity. So on one level, yeah, it seems 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:08.000 a bit dangerous if you're going to actually fall in 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.440 line with some of these supernatural beliefs, like I don't 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.080 want to summon the devil if I'm afraid of the 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.920 devil coming out of the graveyard at me. But maybe 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.000 part of it is like proving not only am I 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.560 not afraid of the devil in the graveyard, I'll go 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:22.240 ahead and summon him. If he's here, he can come 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.200 on out, and we'll go ahead and do this. But 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.400 I'm done with just being afraid of the devil somewhere 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:28.559 hiding in the graveyard. 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.920 Okay, But I guess the question is whether it's actually 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.360 whistling or whether it's just singing or humming some version 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.240 of this idea singing when you are afraid, or singing 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.200 through the graveyard. Does this come up in ancient history 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.240 as well? Do we have any evidence of this from 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:44.280 thousands of years ago? 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.640 It seems like we might, s to Kellenberg brings up 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.960 another example again from Petronius, and this is again from 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.760 the satirra con and it also concerns a were wolf. 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.440 Did you know that there were ancient Roman stories about 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:58.079 were wolves? 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:02.240 There absolutely are, Yeah, And this one's a pretty good one. 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.760 This is I'm going to read part of it, at least. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:12.200 This is from a nineteen eighteen Heseltine translation. Quote. I 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.080 seized my opportunity and persuaded a guest in our house 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.800 to come with me as far as the fifth Milestone. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.560 He was a soldier and as brave as hell, so 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:25.280 we trotted off about cockrow, the moon shone like high noon. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.720 We got among the tombstones. My man went aside to 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.880 look at the epitaphs. I sat down with my heart 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.720 full of song, and began to count the grades. Hmmm, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:40.160 so Stekelenberg writes the following on this, how tempting to 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.320 interpret this scene as a clever application of psychological para 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.720 language which has a superstitious and frightened slave indulged in 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.120 an ancient equivalent of our whistling in the dark. Since 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.560 the kenar represents many forms of musical expressions, we would 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:01.160 even be justified in translating it here with whistling. Unfortunately, 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.959 there is no straightforward indication that Petronius had this in mind. 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.480 Okay, so, despite the fact that our expression is often 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.400 like whistling past the graveyard or whistling in the graveyard, 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.160 this is a word cantare, which, in whatever its Latin 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.720 form is, could have meant whistling, but could also just 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:19.400 mean singing. 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.400 Right. Yeah, So again we get into the imprecise nature 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.920 of language, which continues to be a theme with trying 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.760 to figure out whistling or not whistling or making other 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:30.760 sounds and various old texts. 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:32.280 You know this is kind of a tangent, but I 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.320 feel like, since we're on the werewolf story, it would 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.640 be kind of a shame not to tell the werewolf story. 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.480 What happens in this story by Petronius here. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.840 Okay, I can read the next little bit, which I 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.320 think brings it to a nice closure. Then when I 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.920 looked round at my friend, he stripped himself and put 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.680 all his clothes by the roadside. My heart was in 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.080 my mouth, but I stood like a dead man. He 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.400 made a ring of water around his clothes and suddenly 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.320 turned into a wolf. Please do not think I am joking. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.200 I would not lie about this for any fortune in 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.400 the world. But as I was saying, after he had 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.840 turned into a wolf, he began to howl and ran 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.640 off into the woods. At first I hardly knew where 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:10.600 I was. Then I went up to take his clothes, 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.080 and they had all turned to stone. No one could 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.040 be nearer dead with terror than I was. But I 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.960 drew my sword and went slaying shadows all the way 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.240 till I came to my love's house. I went in 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.160 like a corpse, nearly gave up the ghost. The sweat 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.360 ran down my legs. My eyes were dull, I could 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:30.200 hardly be revived. My dear Melissa was surprised at my stake, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.920 at my being out so late, and said, if you 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.240 had come earlier, you might at least have helped us. 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.200 A wolf got into the house and worried all our 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.360 sheep and let their blood like a butcher. But he 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.800 did not make fools of us, even though he got off, 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.000 for our slave made a hole in his neck with 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.480 a spear. When I heard this, I could not keep 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.720 my eyes shut any longer. But at break of day, 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.760 I rushed back to my master Gaius's house like a 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.960 defrauded publican. And when I came to the place where 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.480 the clothes were turned into stone, I found nothing but 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.960 a pool of blood. When I reached home, my soldier 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.720 was lying in bed like an ox, with a doctor 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.880 looking after his neck. I realized that he was a werewolf, 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.320 and I never could sit down to a meal with 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.960 him afterwards, not if you had killed me first. Other 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.800 people may think what they like about this, but may 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.840 all your guardian angels punish me if I am lying. Wow, 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.560 that's pretty fun, pretty staple werewolf sort of story there. 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.880 It's a great werewolf story. But my biggest question is 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.040 do oxes normally lie in human beds? What does he 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.440 mean I was lying in my bed like an ox? 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.280 Oh no, no, not him. My soldier was lying in 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:37.160 bed like an ox. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.960 Hmmm. I don't know. I'm not sure about that. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.280 I feel like we're missing some kind of historical context there. 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.080 Yeah, I mean maybe it's like he's light, his body 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.120 is like that of an ox. I don't know. I 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.880 don't nothing comes to mind when I try and picture 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:52.560 an ox laying down. 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:54.920 But yeah, it's really funny. How Okay, So this is 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.800 the satiricon by Petronius is first century CE, so it's 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.120 like two thousand years later, and werewolf movies are still 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.000 using the exact same trope where somebody figures out it's 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.159 a werewolf because they see the monster get wounded on 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.280 a certain part of the body, and then later they 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.000 see a human wounded on the same part of the body. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.600 That's in like half the werewolf movies they make. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:18.600 Yeah, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right. And 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.120 I think if I've seen this in other animal transformation 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.119 myths and stories before, like perhaps some wear tigers stories 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:27.720 from China and so forth. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:36.360 I agree it still works all right. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.359 So for the next bit that sta Kellenberg gets into 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.040 is that they break down a couple of things we've 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.920 kind of we've at least touched on, if not already discussed, 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:46.600 and when they break these out further later on. But 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.520 we have a semaphoric whistling or whistling as a form 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.120 of signaling, and this has been around for a very 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.680 long time. This is something that goes back to archaic humans. 0:17:55.359 --> 0:18:00.239 Citing Peter f Otswald, they share quote, whistles are here 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.360 to hear than words because they concentrate sound energy into 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.800 a narrow segment of the frequency spectrum instead of spreading it. Generally, 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.200 they occur in the frequency range of one thousand to 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.280 four thousand cycles per second, to which the human ear 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:14.160 is most sensitive. 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.560 Oh yeah, so this is the same fact that was 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.480 cited in slightly different terms in that linguistics paper that 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.720 we looked at in the previous section by Meyer that 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.679 was about how whistling tends to be a good medium 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:31.000 for transmitting information because it's in that frequency range of 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.520 one to four killihertz, which is a good place to 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.199 concentrate energy if you wanted to travel the forest and 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.680 be audible and carry distinct information the longest distance, because 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.000 that's like, that's that's sort of the bull's eye for 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.520 what our ears can detect and separate out from ambient noise. 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.119 Now, the next part here is where things get very biblical, 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.760 because Stekellenberg points out that the oldest reference to semaphoric 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.760 use of whistling can be found in the Book of 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:02.320 Isaiah five twenty six, where the lower whistles to summon people. 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:07.320 He will raise a signal for a nation afar off 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.359 and whistle for it from the ends of the earth, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.080 and lo, swiftly, speedily it comes. 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.040 So I started off looking into this just by checking 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.280 it in my Oxford NRSV to see if the translation 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:20.760 was different in any significant way, and it's not. That 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.440 translation is almost exactly the same as what stck Kellenberg 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.800 has here, But in reading it this passage, I thought 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.359 I should explain more about the context because it makes 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.959 that quote especially interesting and even scary. This is one 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.600 of the most i think one of the most powerful 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.680 and chilling passages in the Hebrew Bible. So what's going 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.920 on here? Well, this is actually a prophecy of doom 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.600 in this part of the Book of Isaiah. The author 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:52.600 is pronouncing a verdict of divine judgment and punishment against 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.439 the people of Israel and Judah, because he says they 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.760 have ignored God's instructions and chosen to live in wickedness. 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.480 So there's a section before this where he's just talking 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.680 about the evil they do, and you might recognize some 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.840 lines from this because they're pretty famous. The prophet says, 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.639 ah you who call evil good and good evil, who 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.640 put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.720 bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, You who are 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.680 wise in your own eyes and shrewd in your own sight, 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.480 Ah you, who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.920 at mixing drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.320 and deprive the innocent of their rights. 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.440 Oh man, God coming up strong against mixed drinks. 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.399 Here, Yeah, against mixed drinks and against bribing, so that 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:41.080 the guilty win in court. But then it starts getting 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.360 with the really scary expressive metaphors. From here it goes 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:48.600 into Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.760 and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.160 their root will become rotten. And their blossom go up 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.119 like the dust. For they have rejected the instruction of 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.119 the Lord of Hosts, and have buys the word of 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.199 the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.040 Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.480 his hand against them and struck them. The mountains quaked, 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.679 and their corpses were like refuse in the streets. For 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.280 all this his anger has not turned away, and his 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:20.959 hand is stretched out still. Then comes the line about 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.400 God whistling. From that it goes straight into he will 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.560 raise a signal for a nation far away, and whistle 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:29.640 for a people at the ends of the earth. Here 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:34.760 they come swiftly, speedily, and in this line the people 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.160 being referenced there, who are they? These are the armies 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.560 of the Assyrian Empire, described in the following passages and 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:46.120 terrifying detail. The prophet says, they march without rest. Their 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.560