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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of

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

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: of course it's October here on the podcast, so we've

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Speaker 1: got to be talking about the undead. But this is

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Speaker 1: a real special episode because today is the day that

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Speaker 1: the undead go to church. That's right. Uh. And this

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Speaker 1: topic ended up being a whole lot of fun to

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Speaker 1: research and uh and and right on, because I I

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Speaker 1: knew some of this, but I did not know all

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Speaker 1: of it. Uh. And I think the key thing is

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Speaker 1: when when you think of the undead, when you think

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Speaker 1: of zombies in particular, like, what do you think about?

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Speaker 1: For me, one line that instantly comes into my mind

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Speaker 1: that I remember hearing at a at a young age,

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Speaker 1: and is is from the trailer for George romero zombie

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Speaker 1: classic Dawn of the Dead. When there is no more

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Speaker 1: room in Hell, that dead will walk the earth very

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Speaker 1: much suggests that reanimated corpses shambling around are a distinctly

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Speaker 1: satanic phenomena. Uh though as in George Romero's universe, I

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Speaker 1: think it is. I think that's actually more a naturalistic interpretation.

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Speaker 1: Don't they say, what's the deal, like a satellite comes

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Speaker 1: to Earth or something like that. What do they say

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Speaker 1: in the first one, Yeah, I think it's some sort

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Speaker 1: of satellite crashes, and but there's kind of it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like hearsay, right, or it's what the media is saying.

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's ultimately, um, it's it's out of our hands.

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Speaker 1: And I guess that that leads me to the next

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Speaker 1: very broad distinction that I tend to make with zombie

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Speaker 1: films is that you have you have environmental zombie films,

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Speaker 1: and you have sort of necromantic or magical zombie films,

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Speaker 1: and the environmental something has happened that causes an extreme

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Speaker 1: reversal in how death works. The dead instead of staying dead,

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Speaker 1: they rise, and so it might be some sort of

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Speaker 1: supernatural event, which that that quote, uh kind of implies.

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Speaker 1: It's like, well, humans, you don't send up hell, and

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Speaker 1: now there's no more room, so the dead are going

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Speaker 1: to walk the earth. It's it's kind of our fault,

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Speaker 1: but it's ultimately a larger systematic error that's going on. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So in your view, environmental causes could still be supernatural

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Speaker 1: but they would be supernatural mechanistic rather than like supernatural

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Speaker 1: directed will yeah you know there or or if it's

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Speaker 1: if it is directed, it's it's like on a divine level,

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, God's had it, He's just letting the

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Speaker 1: zombies room now, you know, and it's God reasons for

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Speaker 1: that taking place, um or you know, it could even

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Speaker 1: be scientific, but it's like a scientific accident by human science.

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Speaker 1: So you're trying to make zombie bio weapons. Well you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't have done that. Now, look what's happening. The dead

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Speaker 1: are walking. Yeah, here's the rage virus. Though I guess

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Speaker 1: a complication with that is you know, resident evil twenty

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Speaker 1: eight days later, all that kind of stuff. A lot

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Speaker 1: of that is often, uh, there's a blurring of the

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Speaker 1: lines between what is undead and what is just some

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Speaker 1: infected form of human being right right now. That the

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Speaker 1: other area that the necromantic or magical interpretation this is

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Speaker 1: this is more where you have someone or something intentionally

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Speaker 1: raising the dead through the use of magic um generally

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Speaker 1: to do something to do the bidding of their master,

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Speaker 1: you know, who might be a warlock or a demon

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Speaker 1: or another powerful undead being, maybe a mad scientists, even

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Speaker 1: an alien mastermind or a dark like minor deity, that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. But it's like, I need something done,

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Speaker 1: I need some I I need I need an army

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Speaker 1: of the dead. So I'm gonna raise up an army

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Speaker 1: of the dead to do specific dead things, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to like, well, now all the dead rise from the

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Speaker 1: grave and they do dead things, right, I am the

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Speaker 1: witch queens and Obia. I say, a bunch of skeletons,

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Speaker 1: you pop up out of the ground, get you some

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Speaker 1: swords and shields and go kills in bad Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: either way, I guess, very broadly speaking, there's plenty of

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Speaker 1: examples I know that kind of break this. Zombies are

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Speaker 1: either a thing that just kind of happens and as

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Speaker 1: part of the new natural order of things or the

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Speaker 1: unnatural order of things, or it's something that is done

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Speaker 1: by an agent at the evil um. Today we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be We're gonna be getting into I guess both of

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Speaker 1: these categories a little bit. But in a way we're

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Speaker 1: also discussing a third category, you know, the holy undead

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Speaker 1: pious zombies and church going perhaps god worshiping wraiths and

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Speaker 1: revenants who might just packed the local Cathedral. You know,

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Speaker 1: I would say that this is mostly new to me,

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Speaker 1: but it has been so wonderful getting into these stories

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Speaker 1: because they are so full of weird ambiguities and contradictions.

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Speaker 1: I think that often suggest very interesting and enlightening things

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Speaker 1: about the cultural climate in which these tales arise, right,

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Speaker 1: and also the sort of the cultural soil, sort of

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Speaker 1: oftentimes the pre Christian soil from which these myths and

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Speaker 1: folk tales have germinated and then change forms a little

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Speaker 1: bit in the Christian era. You know. Just to go

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Speaker 1: back to Donna the Dead briefly, though, the idea of

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Speaker 1: the dead going to church, Uh, it is a little

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Speaker 1: bit like the dad going to the mall in Dawn

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Speaker 1: of the Dead. You know, they just show up and

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Speaker 1: they're gonna do They're gonna do what humans do at

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Speaker 1: the mall, and they're just gonna wander around, um and

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Speaker 1: uh and and it. You know, I feel like it

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Speaker 1: matches up a little bit with some of the stories

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here, Yeah, and Dawn of the Dead.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because, uh, there is an assumption in the

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Speaker 1: Ramiro zombie universe that the zombies are operating at a

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Speaker 1: very low, very reduced level of cognition. You know, they

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Speaker 1: have very limited ability to reason. I mean, they can

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Speaker 1: clearly like use their brains enough to sort of like

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Speaker 1: move towards the thing they want to eat. But but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't get much more complicated than that with them.

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Speaker 1: But I think one of the characters in Dawn of

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Speaker 1: the Dead says, why are they all coming here to

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Speaker 1: the mall? This must be someplace that was important to

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Speaker 1: them in life, and without anything else to do, without

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Speaker 1: any brains to eat in the nearby area, they just

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Speaker 1: sort of drift back to a place that was significant

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Speaker 1: in their lives and almost as if by worse of habit.

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Speaker 1: And that's kind of interesting too, because it suggests that

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Speaker 1: whatever it is you would really say you want to

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Speaker 1: be doing when in your afterlife, maybe you would say,

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Speaker 1: I'd i'd go, I don't know, visit my still living

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Speaker 1: relatives and give them news from beyond the grave or something.

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Speaker 1: In fact, what you do is walk the steps you've

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Speaker 1: walked a hundred times before. And where does that take you?

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Speaker 1: You go to the mall. Baby. Now, some would say

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Speaker 1: there's no ethical consumption of brains under capitalism, but I

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Speaker 1: guess that I'd have to discuss that another episode. Let

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Speaker 1: let's get back to religion though. Oh yeah, yeah, so

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Speaker 1: we should talk about maybe a specific example to get

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Speaker 1: us going of of one of these stories about about

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Speaker 1: the church going undead. So the story I wanted to

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Speaker 1: start with here. I wanted to start with because it's

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Speaker 1: ultimately the story I've had the longest, um exposure to,

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Speaker 1: I guess in my life. I started looking into this

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Speaker 1: and then I realized, oh, I have I've read some

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Speaker 1: version of this story before. Uh and Uh, I want

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Speaker 1: to take I want to take at least some of

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Speaker 1: you back to the enchant did World book series from

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Speaker 1: Time Life Books. Um. Uh. Some of us had these,

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Speaker 1: some of us didn't. I was lucky enough. I think

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Speaker 1: my aunt had purchased these and I kind of temporarily

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Speaker 1: inherited them. But I also still have them decades later.

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Speaker 1: Um and and ultimately it's gonna it will be hard

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Speaker 1: to make me give them up because they, ultimately, uh

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Speaker 1: put played I think an important role in my my childhood.

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Speaker 1: But if you were watching TV in the early nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: you might remember a TV spot for these books, starring

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Speaker 1: the legendary Vincent Price. I will buy anything Vincent Price

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Speaker 1: tells me to Yeah, I wonder what else was he? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Was was he a pitching back? Then unsleeved? The delicious

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Speaker 1: flaky crust of a hot pocket? Oh? Man, oh he

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Speaker 1: would have been great for Tombstone Pizza, right, Vincent Price

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Speaker 1: Tomstone because they were going for more of a Western thing. Though, Man,

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Speaker 1: Vincent Price impression was bad. I gotta work on that. Well,

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Speaker 1: why don't Why don't we? I encourage everyone to look

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Speaker 1: this up, this particular commercial up on YouTube. But let's

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Speaker 1: go and have just a little audio sample of it,

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Speaker 1: because it's yea, it's Vincent Price. It's fabulous. On evenings

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Speaker 1: like this, I like to curl up with a good book,

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Speaker 1: short of book that lets the imagination run away with you.

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Speaker 1: If you're like me and enjoy the mysterious and the unexpected,

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Speaker 1: you'll love the Enchanted World. Each volume brings to life

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Speaker 1: so vividly those inhabitants of the other world, Witches and Wizards,

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Speaker 1: ghost Scotland's and Avenging Nights. Call now and enter the

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Speaker 1: Enchanted World. With the first book, Wizards and Witches, my

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Speaker 1: favorite subject. It's an intriguing account of sorcery, spells, and deception.

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Speaker 1: Other books include Ghosts fairies and elves and dragons. Painstakingly

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Speaker 1: researched by the editors of Time Life books. Each volume

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Speaker 1: is exquisitely illustrated and portrayed if master works of art.

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Speaker 1: Each volume is you probably written and bound in luxurious fabric.

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Speaker 1: So Rob, I was never lucky enough to have these

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Speaker 1: books as a kid. But but I guess if you

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Speaker 1: had access to them, I would assume that these books

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Speaker 1: made you the terrible adult you are today. Oh yeah, probably.

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Speaker 1: So they were pretty great because each one well, first

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Speaker 1: of all, as as Vincent Price reminds us, each one

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Speaker 1: is bound in luxurious fabric. Curious, yes, and each one

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Speaker 1: is a different color, which I distinctly remember, because each

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Speaker 1: book deals with a different topic. And you know, so

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Speaker 1: you have fairies, you have camelot giants, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: mermaids and so forth. I didn't have them all, but

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Speaker 1: I had a number of them, and I distinctly remember

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Speaker 1: there were of course two black books, black bound books.

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Speaker 1: One of them was on ghosts and the other one

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Speaker 1: was on night creatures. And these were in a you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of a childhood way. These were with my favorites

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Speaker 1: of the series, but also the most feared I remember

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Speaker 1: that they'd be on the shelf, and I could barely

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Speaker 1: bring myself to look at their spines on the bookshelf

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Speaker 1: if the sun had gone down, because I knew how

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Speaker 1: terrifying the illustrations were in there, and how terrifying the

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Speaker 1: contents of the stories were. UM, and I certainly wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to pull one of these books off the shelf

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Speaker 1: at night because the cover art was absolutely horrible on

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Speaker 1: each of them. Oh, that's so wonderful. And when I

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Speaker 1: say the mentioned the art, it was all the books

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Speaker 1: featured a combination of say, woodcuts and UH and old paintings,

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Speaker 1: you know, as well as new custom illustrations matching up

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Speaker 1: with the with the stories from different artists. And we'll

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Speaker 1: mention one in particular in a bit UH specific artists

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Speaker 1: all with different styles. So it was it's just a

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Speaker 1: visual to light. I highly recommend if you have a

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Speaker 1: chance to pick up any of these books and you're

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Speaker 1: interested in these topics, do so. I think they must

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Speaker 1: have printed billions of these things, because I just looked

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Speaker 1: around the other day, and you can pick him up

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Speaker 1: for like dollar a dollar or two dollars each. I

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Speaker 1: think in some cases if you buy them used I

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Speaker 1: wonder how that looks urious fabric holds up. I think

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Speaker 1: it holds up all right. I don't know how luxurious

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Speaker 1: it it really looks these days, but uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the books are holding together and that's that's enough. So

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Speaker 1: the Ghost Book, like I said, was particularly scary, and

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Speaker 1: it featured a tale of the pious undead. So it's

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Speaker 1: it's a short section in the book titled the Hooded Congregation,

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Speaker 1: and it is fantastically illustrated and perhaps written. I think

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Speaker 1: the writers are all just it's listed as like by

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Speaker 1: folks at the Timeline Books or something, so he might

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Speaker 1: have written it as well, but he at least illustrated it.

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Speaker 1: Talking about Caldicott Medal winning author Chris van Allsburg. If

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Speaker 1: the name didn't ring a bell, let me just say

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Speaker 1: this is this is the artist who illustrated and wrote

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Speaker 1: the books Jumanji one and The Polar Express in n

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Speaker 1: H both known for very elegant illustrations. Yeah and ultimately

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Speaker 1: very you know, ghostly and you know kind of a yeah,

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Speaker 1: ultimately ghostly. And so it's like this. I never really

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Speaker 1: liked the Polar Express book because it did feel kind

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Speaker 1: of cold and uh, and like it's something of the

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Speaker 1: spirit world, and I was like this, I don't know this,

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Speaker 1: this isn't my Christmas. But the Hooded Congregation in the

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Speaker 1: Time Life books here, the illustration style apps absolutely works

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Speaker 1: and it's it's fabulous. It's um So, what we have

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Speaker 1: here is a series of haunting black and white images.

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Speaker 1: And I sent these two images of these two Joe,

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Speaker 1: so you could look at these as well. And then

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Speaker 1: you have text pages that feature tiny images of a

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Speaker 1: woman in a casket and as you proceed through the story,

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Speaker 1: her face shrivels towards the skull. It's absolutely wonderful. These

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Speaker 1: are indeed beautiful. Though I'm almost kind of glad I

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Speaker 1: didn't look at these illustrations as a kid, because if

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Speaker 1: I had, I am positive I would have cemented an

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Speaker 1: unbreakable sociation between the ghostly hooded figures in the congregation,

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Speaker 1: and in especially the second illustration here, and the bad

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Speaker 1: guys in Charlton Heston and the Omega man. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: this kind of a similar situation going on with the

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Speaker 1: hooded figures. All right, So I'm gonna briefly roll through

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Speaker 1: the story here. Uh, and I'm sorry for the Christmas

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Speaker 1: creep everyone, but This is a holiday story. So it

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Speaker 1: takes place Christmas morning. We're somewhere in the Swedish mountain

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Speaker 1: centuries ago, and a young woman has awoken extremely early

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Speaker 1: and she hears the sound of church bells. So what

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Speaker 1: does she do? Church bells are ringing. You need to

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Speaker 1: get your your butt to church. So she ventures out

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Speaker 1: into the darkness. Uh. And and you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a dark time of year. It's a cold time of year.

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Speaker 1: The cold, the cold is biting. She makes her way

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Speaker 1: to the village church and uh, the doors open. Inside

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Speaker 1: the pews are filled with black, hooded figures and a

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Speaker 1: hooded priest and gray stands at the stands on at

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Speaker 1: the front of the church is sighting in psalms, you know,

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Speaker 1: leading folks in song, that sort of thing, normal church business,

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Speaker 1: except everything's a little weird. Um. The woman is led in,

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Speaker 1: she takes a seat, and then a figure sits beside her.

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Speaker 1: And then that figure that is seated beside her pulls

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Speaker 1: back her hood and reveals the death shriveled face of

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Speaker 1: her dead sister. WHOA you don't see that coming. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And she she cries out, you are the dead, And

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Speaker 1: then all the hoods fall back from the other worshippers,

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Speaker 1: and it's revealed that they are all indeed the dead

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Speaker 1: in various states of decay. Uh. It's written in this

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Speaker 1: telling of the story that the oldest are little more

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Speaker 1: than shadows. But you see, you know, some still have

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Speaker 1: flesh on them and there uh they seem to be

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Speaker 1: physical apparitions, though for the most part. Her sister, her

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Speaker 1: undead sister here, warns her to flee while she can,

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Speaker 1: and she gets up to do so, but of course

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Speaker 1: the congregation gets to their feet as well. They chase after,

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Speaker 1: they claw after with these skeletal fingers, and she feel

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Speaker 1: them jabbing at her back as she reaches the door

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Speaker 1: to to leave the church, and they pull the scarf

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Speaker 1: from her neck in the process. So she gets away.

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Speaker 1: She runs to the village priest's house and he's getting

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Speaker 1: ready to go to church to open it up. He

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Speaker 1: didn't know that the church has already open, at least

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Speaker 1: for some folks. Uh. So they go back together and

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Speaker 1: they find that the church is completely empty. But then

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Speaker 1: there is her scarf on the floor, shredded to pieces

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Speaker 1: by those skeletal fingers. This is such an unusual type

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Speaker 1: of story because of this strange blending of themes. So

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Speaker 1: there is clear menace implied by the beings of the church.

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Speaker 1: These are not just you know, righteous Christians who have

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Speaker 1: passed on the kind of people that Dante might encounter

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Speaker 1: in in the Paradiso, or they'd be you know, humbly

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Speaker 1: praising God from the point of the afterlife. Uh. No,

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Speaker 1: that they are in church and they are praising God.

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Speaker 1: But they're also dangerous, like they immediately they attack, and

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Speaker 1: they poke with the bony fingers, they shred the scarf.

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Speaker 1: These things, on the surface level at least, seem incongruous. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like how can like, Okay, they hate the living, well,

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Speaker 1: we expect that of the dead and right, but they

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Speaker 1: love God. That seems kind of strange, right You think

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Speaker 1: that the uh, this would match up more with our

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Speaker 1: our idea of the satanic undead, the devil ish undead,

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Speaker 1: the unholy undead, as opposed to holy zombies at church.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a simple, weird little ghost story. And

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Speaker 1: the illustrations especially always haunted me when I looked at

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Speaker 1: the pictures. But but I don't think I ever really

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Speaker 1: thought about about why. And uh, I think you know,

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Speaker 1: it had to do with the darkness of the undead

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Speaker 1: having such a presence in both a church and a

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Speaker 1: Christmas story. I know that that that, you know, I

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Speaker 1: did think about that when I was a kid. But

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Speaker 1: you know, but but you know, here was the kicker.

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Speaker 1: It was as if the ghosts were supposed to be there,

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Speaker 1: you know, not vile invaders intent on desecrating the church

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Speaker 1: and destroying those who love God or something, you know.

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Speaker 1: But but they were. They were doing their things like

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Speaker 1: it was their time to be in the church, and

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Speaker 1: the village girl had simply wandered into the night church,

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Speaker 1: where she did not belong and where the dead worship

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Speaker 1: while we sleep. It almost makes you wonder. The fact

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Speaker 1: that they're in church praying before they attack her makes

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Speaker 1: you kind of like reframe the story. It makes you

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Speaker 1: wonder did she do something wrong, Like did she step

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Speaker 1: on their turf or offend them in some way? Maybe

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Speaker 1: by pointing out the fact that her sister was dead. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, was that unwelcome news to them in some

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Speaker 1: way or something like that. Yeah, So what does it

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Speaker 1: all mean? Well, we're gonna get into that. But uh,

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Speaker 1: initially though, I was like, all right, I've I've read

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Speaker 1: the timeline version. I've reread the timeline version. Now, well

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Speaker 1: what's what are some of the original versions of it? Well? Um,

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Speaker 1: I found a wonderful blog post, well written, nicely cited

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Speaker 1: by Camilla Christiansen on and on the blog Legends of

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Speaker 1: the North Legends of the North thought blog spot dot com. Um.

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Speaker 1: They are a native Norwegian blogger and uh. They write

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Speaker 1: about it a bit here and point out that the

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Speaker 1: tale is usually known as the Midnight Mass of the Dead.

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Speaker 1: And Christiansen writes that the tale seems to originate from

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Speaker 1: Germanic Romance and Slavic regions, and that while there were

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Speaker 1: there are many variations of this tale to be found

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Speaker 1: throughout Europe. The oldest date back to the sixth century

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Speaker 1: by historian Gregory of Tours, while it pops up in

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Speaker 1: Nordic writings during the seventeen hundreds and and we'll get

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Speaker 1: more into some other traditions that seemed to weave their

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Speaker 1: way into this particular tale as we proceed, but the

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Speaker 1: story generally follows a basic format. A man or a

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Speaker 1: woman they wait too early, perhaps confused by church bells

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Speaker 1: and or the darkness of winter months in northern climates,

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Speaker 1: thinking themselves late to church. They rushed to uh to

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Speaker 1: the church and soon realized that they have wandered into

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Speaker 1: the midnight mass of the dead. A deceased loved one

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Speaker 1: urges them to flee, and in some tellings um such

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Speaker 1: as the one in the Enchanted World Book, they make

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Speaker 1: it out alive and they merely lose a garment that

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Speaker 1: becomes proof of what occurred, you know. But in other tellings,

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Speaker 1: the dead just simply tear them to pieces or otherwise

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Speaker 1: drag them into the realm of death. And while it's

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Speaker 1: not always Christmas Eve, uh, we do see this idea that,

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Speaker 1: you know, what is Christmas but the darkest evening of

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Speaker 1: the year. It's this time when the veil between the

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Speaker 1: worlds of the living and the dead are the thinnest.

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Speaker 1: So it kind of while at first you might think, oh,

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Speaker 1: Christmas is not a time for the dead to come

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Speaker 1: back to life. Well, you know, maybe if if you're

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Speaker 1: talking about you know, modern Santa Claus traditions, but if

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Speaker 1: you're getting into the older ideas of of winter religion

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Speaker 1: and winter legends and winter traditions, then yes, this is

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Speaker 1: a time when death is very close. This reminds me

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Speaker 1: of a line that comes from another story that I'm

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Speaker 1: going to talk about in a bit from a from

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Speaker 1: a medieval Christian bishop who wrote about similar types of

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Speaker 1: tales of the is undead. This guy is like a

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Speaker 1: tenth to eleventh century German bishop named Teete Mar von Merseburg,

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Speaker 1: And after telling a story kind of similar to this,

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Speaker 1: uh teeth Mark concludes with the statement, as day is

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Speaker 1: to the living, so night is conceded to the dead. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And I love that phrase. Night is conceded to the dead,

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Speaker 1: as if it like it is ground that has been lost,

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Speaker 1: the dead have taken it and it belongs to them.

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Speaker 1: And of course I guess that would seem especially true

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Speaker 1: in the winter when the night is the longest. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So it's easy to to see like this, this idea

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Speaker 1: of a dual world. There's the world of the nine,

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Speaker 1: in the world of of the day, that's the world

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Speaker 1: of the living. There's a little world of the dead. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It also makes me wonder too if tales like this

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Speaker 1: might have something to do with the idea that that

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Speaker 1: we have human spaces uh, in this case artificial human

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Speaker 1: spaces like church interiors, places of stone and wood that

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Speaker 1: exists for particular purposes. So if this space is for

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Speaker 1: you know X, then does X occur even when we

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Speaker 1: are not there? Uh? You know, an empty church is

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Speaker 1: not a church in some respects, so perhaps it remains

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Speaker 1: occupied even when we are not in the church. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that makes sense that I was

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Speaker 1: kind of mulling over it, and uh, yeah, like a

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Speaker 1: place that we have created, like absolutely, such as an

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Speaker 1: enclosed place. It you know, it can't it can't just

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Speaker 1: be a wild place again, you know, unless it decays

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Speaker 1: it becomes one with nature, like it's it's still a church,

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Speaker 1: but it's it's not a church if the people are

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Speaker 1: not gathered in it. That's a very good point about

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Speaker 1: the conceptualization of sacred spaces. So like is a to

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Speaker 1: a medieval Christian? Would they consider a building to be

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Speaker 1: a genuine Christian church if it is at its at

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Speaker 1: the time of its construction, say, consecrated to the Christian religion?

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Speaker 1: Or does it depend on its day to day use? Yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: just something worth worth worth keeping in mind as we proceed.

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Speaker 1: Than now, you know, if the undead here though, again

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Speaker 1: they sound pious, but they also sound a bit violent

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Speaker 1: and hostile. Um. You know, there seems to be strong

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Speaker 1: vibes of the dead hate the living here and Christiansen

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Speaker 1: points out in their blog that pre Christian traditions in

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Speaker 1: Norse folklore, you know, are often about undead beings who

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Speaker 1: have it in for the living, particularly when it comes

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Speaker 1: to uh at least a couple of different types of

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Speaker 1: undead creatures. Uh. And this led me to the work

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Speaker 1: of Inn K. Chadwick from six they wrote Norse Ghosts,

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Speaker 1: an article that was published in the journal Folklore. And

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Speaker 1: Chadwick points out that the ghosts of Scandinavian and Iceland, UH,

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Speaker 1: that they stand out for being physical, animated corpses, not

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Speaker 1: ethereal spirits, but but the actual reanimated bodies of the dead.

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Speaker 1: So when we talk about the dead coming back and

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Speaker 1: say walking through a wall in your house, uh, well,

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Speaker 1: in the in the North and s Line tradition, they're

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Speaker 1: coming through the wall. They're busting through like the kool

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Speaker 1: aid man. You know, They're not going to just pass

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Speaker 1: through it like a spirit. Yeah. And it's interesting because

427
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: sometimes stories of encounters with the living dead don't specify

428
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 1: one way or another whether you're talking about an insubstantial

429
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:22,120
Speaker 1: spectral kind of reanimation or a reanimation of the physical body.

430
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 1: So I think there's a bias in modern ghost stories

431
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: towards the spectral apparition without mass. But in a lot

432
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 1: of these older stories, yeah, you're talking about a creature

433
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: with a body that might be more aptly called something

434
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: like a revenant rather than a rather than a ghost.

435
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: Though people describing stories that are clearly referring to beings

436
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:45,480
Speaker 1: with physical bodies still use the term ghost stories a lot. Yeah,

437
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: you definitely see that in the in the literature. But

438
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: but yeah, these these are stories where the dead are

439
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: are so physical that you can wrestle them. Uh. There's

440
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: there's one that Chadwick mentions. Uh, this is the Swedish

441
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,200
Speaker 1: tale of the shepherd Glamour, who, in the Greta Saka,

442
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: goes to work on a farm in Iceland and is

443
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: killed by a supernatural force. And so he then returns

444
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: to haunt the farm, killing both livestock and human servants.

445
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: And then the hero of the saga, Gretta the Strong,

446
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 1: shows up and waits for him, then wrestles him. And

447
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 1: many scholars have made the connection here between this tale

448
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: and that of Beowulf and Grendel. You know, it's like,

449
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: is the monster problem there's some sort of thing that

450
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:28,119
Speaker 1: comes at night, so the hero waits for it and

451
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 1: then enters into a physical contest with it when it arrives. Now,

452
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 1: Gretis eventually slays the undead horror in this tale um used.

453
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: I think he uses a sword on it. But the site,

454
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: the mere sight of moonlight in the creature's eyes. It

455
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: it causes a sort of curse, and Gretis is never

456
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: comfortable alone in the dark again. It like scars him

457
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: for life and has this kind of deteriorating effect on

458
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: his psyche. And the modern context would would be tempted

459
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: to say he's gotten PTSD from this conflict. Yeah, exactly.

460
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: So there there are at least a couple of different

461
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: beings that are that are generally talked about in these traditions.

462
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: There's the Hugboy and the Dragger, and these are both

463
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: undead barrow dwellers. So in some cases, the dragger is

464
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,239
Speaker 1: said to build his own barrow in life. So he's like,

465
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,159
Speaker 1: you know, he's like a local lord or something, and

466
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 1: so he builds this barrow, this vault of stone and

467
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: earth fills it with riches, and in some cases the

468
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: individual uh is said to have themselves buried alive in

469
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:36,120
Speaker 1: the barrow um. This is interesting, like the the idea

470
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: that Chadwick mentions that there are these accounts of of

471
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:43,399
Speaker 1: this important individual, and there reaches the time when I

472
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: guess that this individual is thinking about death and the

473
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: end of their life. And rather than quote die on straw,

474
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: which you know, brings the vision, the idea of of

475
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: of dying of old age or dying of sickness in

476
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: a bed, the idea is you get you get twelve

477
00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: of your men with you, and you just get apparently

478
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: just super drunk um on spirits, and then you all

479
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: go into the tomb, which again has filled with riches

480
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: and I think even some food and stuff, and then

481
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: they seal you in and that's that's it. That's your

482
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: that's your journey into the into the afterlife. This actually

483
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: reminds me of something that I was going to get

484
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 1: into later that is featured in in a paper that

485
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. This may actually end up

486
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: being in in the next part of this series, but

487
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: this is in a paper by a historian of the

488
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:33,959
Speaker 1: Middle Ages at you see San Diego named Nancy Mandeville Cacciola,

489
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: and the paper is called revenance, resurrection, and burnt sacrifice.

490
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,880
Speaker 1: It's the paper that gets strongly into these uh these

491
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: stories of the pious dead told by by Tetmar, the

492
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: medieval chronicler. I already mentioned, but there's a part that

493
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 1: I found very interesting where she explains sort of the

494
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: the frequently encountered common sense logic about what leads to

495
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: the state of restless death versus peace full death in

496
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, and that this is a an idea

497
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: that probably exists mostly outside of Christian teachings. It was

498
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: something that was common among pagan thinking of of medieval Europe,

499
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: but that had a sort of continued folk belief life

500
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,479
Speaker 1: even after a region had often been supposedly Christianized, and

501
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: so she writes as follows, this was the notion that

502
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: those who were subject to a quote bad death that

503
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: was violent or sudden were unlikely to lie quietly in

504
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: their graves. In such cases, the life force exits the

505
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: body too quickly before the individual can make peace with

506
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: the prospect of dying, while the trauma of a painful

507
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: or violent death added to the fear among survivors that

508
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: such a dead person might feel resentful of the living.

509
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: In the felicitous phrase of Lester K. Little So quoting

510
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: another scholar. Here, these bodies expired with quote energy still unexpended,

511
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: and thus were considered to be at high risk of

512
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,919
Speaker 1: returning from their graves. The flesh itself retained an element

513
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: of untrammeled vitality. Now I see some differences here because

514
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: that's emphasizing one of the main things about the so

515
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: called bad death that leads to a body getting back

516
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,159
Speaker 1: up out of the grave being that they were not

517
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: ready for death when it happened. And the drawer here

518
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: that you're talking about, it seems like they are specifically

519
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: and intentionally ready, and yet there's still some kind of

520
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,120
Speaker 1: element of badness about this. Uh, this death scenario, isn't there?

521
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: Like it seems like that there's something greedy about their

522
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: approach to death. Yeah, and this I think it gets

523
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: kind of complicated again. There is a very the idea

524
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,479
Speaker 1: that it is very premeditated and and in fact, one

525
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: of the things that Chadwick brings up is that um

526
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: is that some cases, in some cases future draga individuals

527
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: are said to have undertaken a preliminary journey to supernatural

528
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: regions prior to their final disappearance into the barrow, which

529
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: makes which for me at least made me think about

530
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: the Necromongers and chronicles of Riddick. I remember this that

531
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: the the Lord Marshall there is said to have visited

532
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: the under verse and returned. You know this idea that

533
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: that you've you've kind of made. Yeah, this this initial

534
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: jaunt into death, and you've come back and you've checked

535
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: it out, and you can say, all right, it's good,

536
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: the lodgings are great, let's do this. I can guarantee

537
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: this is a connection that has never before been made

538
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: in the folklore literature. But I do wonder if the

539
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: writers of that were inspired. But um, anyway, there this

540
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: idea that that there's still something off. This seems to

541
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: be the kids. So first of all, they're multiple tales

542
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: of this going on. And in some of the tales,

543
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: the men don't stay content in their barrows. They hunger

544
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: for blood, they venture back out, you know, and in

545
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: the messing with with livestock or they're they're coming after

546
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: living humans. But there are also these cases where a

547
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: descendant of the individual and the barrow returns to it

548
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: and engages in a kind of ritual combat with them. So, um,

549
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: you can kind of, you know, imagine it as being

550
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: perhaps you know, about generational issues and family wealth and treasure.

551
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting, or at least it it makes me

552
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: think of this kind of scenario where a descendant might

553
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: come back and be like, hey, grandfather, Uh, you've got

554
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of gold in there. Um,

555
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: you know, the the living need that gold. Uh. So

556
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: I can imagine the kind of conflict that would ensue now.

557
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: Chadwick also shares two different accounts of note because they're

558
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: both examples of a story in which the undead don't

559
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: appear to hate the living, but they have issues with

560
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: the living that are that are pretty important. So one

561
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: is from the thirteenth or fourteenth century Brigya saga. It's

562
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: the story of Thorguna, who is this Christian woman who

563
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: wishes that her body be buried when she dies in

564
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: a Christian cemetery. But as as as it occurs, uh,

565
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: she dies two days journey away from the place that

566
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: she wants to be buried. So what is her family

567
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: has to do well that, to you meet her wishes,

568
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: they have to take her body on this two day

569
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: journey to a place where she can be buried. But

570
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: during the journey they have to find somewhere to sleep

571
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: rather than just sleep out of you know, exposed to

572
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: the elements. They stopped by a local farmhouse and they say, hey,

573
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,959
Speaker 1: can we spend the night here, and the farmer says absolutely, not,

574
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: not having people come in here with a dead body.

575
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: So the farmer goes back into his house, you know,

576
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: they go about it, goes about his business with the family.

577
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: They go to bed, but then in the night they

578
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: hear a sound in the larder and they go and

579
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: they discover their the reanimated corpse of the woman, and

580
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 1: she is in their cooking supper for everybody. And so

581
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: at this point that what can you do? They humbly

582
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: accept the meal, enjoy the meal, and they let the

583
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: family stay to night. This is very interesting and how

584
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: it compares to the uh the undead going to church,

585
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: because again this is a kind of unusual, like it's

586
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 1: the undead engaging in the sort of uh, the wholesome

587
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: and nutritious activities of the living. Yeah. Chackwick also specifically

588
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: mentions that the womb the dead woman is naked whilst

589
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: um uh, you know, messing around in the larder and

590
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: cooking supper, which which is interesting too because it brings

591
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: to mind this idea of like um of of like

592
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: perfect honesty, you know, like like she is the one

593
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: who is also the honesty, but also there's something improper

594
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: about it as well, you know, like um, it seems

595
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: to match up well with this idea of the of

596
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: the the apparition that is sort of shaming the farmers

597
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: for not doing the right thing. But then on the

598
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: same level, I mean, it is like a zombie in

599
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: your kitchen cooking dinner. It's a little bit weird, uh,

600
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: but you brought it on yourself by not letting these

601
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: people stay in your barn, right. This also kind of

602
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: reminds me of one of the stories that we uh

603
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: in inverted form, but has some similarities to one of

604
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: the stories we looked at from Tales from a Chinese

605
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: studio that involves the travelers on the road. We were

606
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 1: forced to stay in the room with the dead woman's body.

607
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, and and that yeah, that deals to

608
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: with the proper burial of the dead and what happens

609
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: when you stand between um, the dead and the burial

610
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: that they desire. Now, there's a there's another um uh

611
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: story from that same saga, the Chadwick mentions, and this

612
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: one's This one's more humorous. I really like this one. Basically,

613
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: you have a boatload of drowned men, all from the

614
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: same boat, but they show up at a feast they

615
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: were going to anyway, and they first of all, the

616
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: insist on warming themselves by the fire, and I think

617
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: this kind of causes a stir. But then on top

618
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: of that, they insist on taking their seat at the

619
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: feast table. So the living guests are are perturbed by this,

620
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: and they say, no, you can't be here, You've got

621
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: to leave, and then quote legal proceedings were instituted against them.

622
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: So uh. From here, the story apparently takes on this

623
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: on the idea that takes on the guys of like

624
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: Icelandic legal pleadings, with the dead men making their case,

625
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: the living men making their case, and the dead men

626
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: lose and and then agree they're like, okay, we'll leave,

627
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 1: and they go I like that it. Oh, it's a

628
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: tale of the dead walking among the living, but ultimately

629
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: engaging in a llegal dispute. The dead countersue the living. Yeah,

630
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:27,240
Speaker 1: that would make for a hell of a courtroom drama,

631
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 1: the dead sue the living like an undead lawyer hero

632
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,399
Speaker 1: as sort of a zombie Tom Cruise, and a few

633
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,879
Speaker 1: good men. Oh yeah, kind of a kind of kind

634
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 1: of a lawyer Lich. This is a gold Nobody steal

635
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: our idea. Um. I also love this too because I

636
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: think you know, if you, if you, if you don't

637
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: have any familiarity with the various sagas, it's easy to

638
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,439
Speaker 1: think of it seems to imagine that these are gonna

639
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 1: be tales that are just about violence. And certainly there's

640
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: violence in them, but there's also a lot of like, yeah,

641
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: you know, family feud ing and intrigue and also legal proceedings,

642
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: so fitting that we have that match up with a

643
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:14,399
Speaker 1: ghost story as well. Thank all right, well, I guess

644
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 1: the next thing I wanted to talk about was some

645
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: scholarship that I've been getting into on this historical figure

646
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 1: known as Bishop tet Mar of Mercyborg and uh and

647
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: his stories about the pious undead. And I think we're

648
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 1: not going to have time to fully discuss this one

649
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: in this episode, but we can start getting into it

650
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: and then we'll have to continue in the next part

651
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: of the series. But just a hat tip on sources here.

652
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: I know we first found out about this subject by

653
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: that there was a good short summary in uh in

654
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,800
Speaker 1: j Store Daily by Olivia Gershon called the Pious Undead

655
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,959
Speaker 1: of Medieval Europe. But this actually pointed to a long

656
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 1: scholarly paper that I, uh that I went and read

657
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: and it's just wonderful. So this paper is called Revenance,

658
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: Resurrection and Burnt Sacrifice by Nancy man Ville Cacciola, who

659
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: a can I mentioned her before, but she's a medieval

660
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 1: historian University of California, San Diego, focusing on religious history.

661
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: And this article was published in a in a journal

662
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: called Predator Nature Critical and Historical Studies on the Predator

663
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 1: Natural and uh, this appears to be some kind of

664
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: collection or journal that's put out by Penn State University Press.

665
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: And so it gets into this figure of the of

666
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 1: Bishop Teetmr and the stories that he tells. Now the

667
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: historical context of Bishop Teetmr. And I have to say,

668
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: by the way, I had to look up how his

669
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: name is pronounced. It is spelled h t h I

670
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: E t m e er, but I think it would

671
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: be tete Mar sort of deep Mar, kind of one

672
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: of those, you know, it's like that the difficult to

673
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: pronounce like D T H thing in the Germanic languages.

674
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 1: But I'm just gonna say tete mark because I think

675
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:55,399
Speaker 1: that's about as close as we can consistently get. Um.

676
00:36:55,560 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: So his context is Autonian. He he is an Autonian figure.

677
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: And Uh. This is a historical designation that comes from

678
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: the name Otto. It describes the reign of a series

679
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 1: of kings. These were Saxon kings in medieval Germany, including

680
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,439
Speaker 1: three named Otto and two named Henry. So you got

681
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: Henry the First, also known as Henry the Fowler, and

682
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: I think this is because he was allegedly tending to

683
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 1: a bunch of bird nets when he received news that

684
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: he had been made king. And then after Henry the First,

685
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: you got Otto one, then you got your Auto too,

686
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: then you got your Auto three, and then finally you're

687
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: Henry too. So these would have all been UH German

688
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: Saxon kings beginning in the ninth or tenth century and

689
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: then going into the eleventh seen in some ways as

690
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: an artistic and cultural revival period of the the older

691
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,800
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Empire. So this would have artistic traditions with

692
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: a basis in Byzantine and carol Ingian art and architecture.

693
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: But these were also Christianizing kings who had a who

694
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: saw themselves as having an important role in the history

695
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: of the world as Christianizers, as as spreading the faith

696
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: of Jesus by conquest. And so to go to Cacciola's article,

697
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: the story begins with with a tale based in a

698
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: place called val Sleban, which is a town along the

699
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: Elba River. So this town could be seen as a

700
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: kind of colonial outpost in a way. Uh the Ottonian

701
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: king Henry the First again, that's Henry the Fowler, He's

702
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 1: the first one. He had been fighting a war of

703
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: conquest against the tribes of the surrounding lands to cement

704
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: the rule of his German Christian dynasty over the religiously

705
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: pagan and ethnically Slavic peoples in the area. And val

706
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: Sleban was a fortified town, one of a number like

707
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: it along the Elba, which served to protect this northeastern

708
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: region of Henry's Astonian kingdom. And in the year nine nine,

709
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 1: the town of walse Leban was attacked in a revolt

710
00:38:57,520 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: by the by the nearby people's and we're told that

711
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: all of its inhabitants were slaughtered. Caciola writes, quote our

712
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: chief source for this event, vidukind of Corve, reports in

713
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: his Deeds of the Saxons that other quote, barbarous nations

714
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: of Slavs likewise began to rebel when they saw the

715
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,439
Speaker 1: successful devastation of this revolt led by a group known

716
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 1: as the Red Darii. The spread of the rebellion was checked, however,

717
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: when Henry the First seized the Slavic fortress of Lenzen,

718
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: and so after this massacre allegedly took place, vals Laban

719
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 1: was then rebuilt and the Ottonian dynasty again gained control

720
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: over the area. And Caciola tells us that the great

721
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: massacre at this town not only played a role in

722
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: the military and political history of the Astonian era, but

723
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:51,919
Speaker 1: it also gave rise to supernatural urban legends, including one

724
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: reported by another chronicle er of the Ottonians. This is

725
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: the guy you know by now, This is tit Mar

726
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: of Merzburg. So t Temar was a bishop. I've seen

727
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: it claimed elsewhere somewhere that Temar was the first bishop

728
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: of Merziburg. But but no, Catchiola says he was the

729
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: second bishop of this town. He was born around nine

730
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 1: to what Cachiola calls an exalted warrior bloodline. I think

731
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: this means his family, including Teitmar himself, had served in

732
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: a military capacity under the Ottonian kings. Titmar himself had

733
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: been a military adviser to Henry the Second, the the

734
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 1: later Attonian king, and then from the years ten thirteen

735
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: to ten eighteen, Tetmar set out to record this massive

736
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: eight volume history of the Ottonian dynasty known as the

737
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: Chronic con And note this is probably not a super

738
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: objective history. It sounds like he was firmly in the

739
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:52,280
Speaker 1: business of making the Ottonian kings look awesome, though nevertheless,

740
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: it's probably still also a pretty good source of of

741
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: of life and tales and beliefs of the period that

742
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: he though he definitely he's pro Autonian, he's going to

743
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: tell you good things about them. So apparently tit Mark

744
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 1: gets to this massacre at vals Laban towards the beginning

745
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: of his history, and Cacciola writes that here he starts

746
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:16,800
Speaker 1: sort of drifting away from the public political history and

747
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: getting into personal memory first, talking a bunch of saying

748
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: a bunch of things about his own famili's association with

749
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: the history of the place, and then suddenly he just

750
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: starts getting into ghost stories. He tells a haunted church

751
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: story he once heard about this town. So here I'm

752
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: going to read directly from Cacciola's translation of the story

753
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: in tite Mar's chronicon quote, so that no one who

754
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: is faithful to Christ may doubt the future resurrection of

755
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: the dead, but may proceed to the joy of blessed

756
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: immortality zealously and through holy desire. I shall confide certain

757
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: things that I have verified as true, and which occurred

758
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: in the town of valse Laban when it was rebuilt

759
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: after its destruction. The priest of that church used to

760
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: sing Martin's there at the first blush of dawn. But

761
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: when he arrived at the cemetery for the dead, he

762
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 1: saw in it a great multitude of them making offerings

763
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: to a priest who was standing at the doors to

764
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: the sanctuary. At first he stopped in his tracks, but then,

765
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 1: strengthening himself with the sign of the Holy Cross, he

766
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: tremblingly went through the whole crowd to reach the oratory

767
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,760
Speaker 1: without acknowledging any of them, one of them a woman

768
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: whom he knew well and who had died recently, asked

769
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: him what he was doing there after he told her

770
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: why he had come. She returned that everything had already

771
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: been taken care of by them, and also that he

772
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: did not have long to live. He reported this to

773
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 1: his neighbors, and it turned out to be true. I

774
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: love a ghost story or a weird story that that

775
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 1: Indians like that would just sort of a basic sourcing

776
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 1: of the material. Somebody told me this and or there

777
00:42:57,360 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: was evidence of it and it was true. Yes, antite

778
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: I love. Earlier On also says I have verified this

779
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: story is true. I'm not sure how, but that that's

780
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: what he says, and uh, and well, but the part

781
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: that turned out to be true in the implication in

782
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: the last sentences, they told him he did not have

783
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 1: long to live. He reported this to his neighbors, and

784
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: it turned out to be true. So that's that's also

785
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, yeah, he did die shortly after that.

786
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: So Catchiola notes that, however weird this story is, its

787
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: point of view does not seem to be totally unique

788
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:31,760
Speaker 1: for its time and place and for its place in history.

789
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: In medieval Europe, there were lots of stories about what

790
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: she calls the continuing vitality and power of the dead.

791
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: But the really funny thing about this history is that

792
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: it seems like as soon as Tete Martell's one story

793
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: about zombies, he gets so excited that he essentially derails

794
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,800
Speaker 1: his history of the Ottonian kings for several pages, just

795
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: telling a bunch of other random stories about reanimated corpses

796
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: that he has heard. And I love this. I like

797
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: I wish more recent political hagiographies were like this. Today.

798
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: You know, some somebody's writing about the great George Washington

799
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: and how he never told a lie and all that,

800
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 1: but then they get sidetracked for like a ten page

801
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: digression about people they know who have seen were wolves.

802
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: Oh that would be good. So to finish off part

803
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: one here, I think maybe we can list and reflect

804
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: on some general observations that Catchiola makes about this story

805
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: in particular, and then in the next part we can

806
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: come back to more of of Tete Mar's tales of

807
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 1: ghosts and and and undead beings and and uh and

808
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 1: branch out from there. But regarding this one particular story,

809
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: a few things worth noting. First of all, Catchiola calls

810
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 1: these undead beings revenants, and this is worth pointing out

811
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: because although these are sometimes referred to as ghost stories,

812
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: like we were saying earlier, the word ghost in modern

813
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: parlance usually refers to a spectral in substantial being rather

814
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: than a bodily reanimation. Uh. The ladder of which again

815
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: may have been called revenants in the past, would probably

816
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,800
Speaker 1: often be called zombies today. So even though the phrase

817
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: ghost story is often used to describe what tete Mar

818
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: is doing here, you should not automatically assume spectral in

819
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: substantial beings. In fact, these very clearly seemed to be

820
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 1: reanimated corpses that have physical mass, and so Catchiola goes

821
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: on to argue that tite Mar's ghost stories haven't received

822
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: a lot of scholarly attention uh, and in general, she

823
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: thinks that medieval historians have kind of underappreciated the importance

824
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 1: of ideas about the dead in medieval culture, and so

825
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: contra that that lack of attention to the subject, She argues,

826
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: for example, that quote the majority of medieval people who

827
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,760
Speaker 1: believed that they had had direct experience of the supernatural

828
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 1: realm did so in intimate confrontation with dead human beings,

829
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: rather than through encounter with a transcendent deity. So if

830
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: she's correct in that argument, this mean according to Tacachiola,

831
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,439
Speaker 1: people at the time were more likely to believe they'd

832
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: had an counter with a ghost or revenant rather than

833
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: with say God himself, or with Christ or the Virgin Mary,

834
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:09,760
Speaker 1: and these might have, given the right context, be equally

835
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 1: taken as evidence of the supernatural realm, but that these

836
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: more mundane encounters with just dead people and dead souls

837
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: were were actually the more common thing for regular people

838
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: to experience, And she argues there there are a lot

839
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 1: of things that historians can potentially learn from these ghost stories.

840
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: So first of all, they can suggest details about local

841
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: pagan beliefs that existed before Christianity and then probably in

842
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:38,800
Speaker 1: some form continued to exist after the Christianization of a region.

843
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:41,959
Speaker 1: In the case of tet Mars ghost stories, these would

844
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: be local Slavic pagan beliefs uh. And these beliefs, even

845
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: though the Christian chroniclers might want to kind of suggest

846
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: that these beliefs are wiped out by the Christianization of

847
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: a population, in fact they may well be partially preserved

848
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: in stories like this, and so one example here is

849
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: that Catholic doctrine placed a pretty clear and strong emphasis

850
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: on what what is called in this paper the inertness

851
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,520
Speaker 1: of the human body after death. And this would be

852
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: of course, apart from the general resurrection in Catholic beliefs.

853
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: So the the Catholic belief about the afterlife is, you know,

854
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: you die, and then your body goes to the grave

855
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: and it doesn't do anything after that until the second

856
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 1: coming of Christ when the dead are raised and then uh,

857
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: and then God will judge the living and the dead.

858
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: But these kind of stories reflect alternative beliefs about you know,

859
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: they don't reflect that emphasis on the inertness of the

860
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 1: human body before the general resurrection, they say. So the

861
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 1: fact that these stories involved dead bodies popping up from

862
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: the grave to go to church and worship together at

863
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: night suggests other sources of beliefs about the afterlife, not

864
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: just Catholic doctrines. But secondly, it's really interesting that you

865
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: remember that Titmar before he actually tells the story, he

866
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: sort of gives a dis claimer paragraph, like he he's like,

867
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: now I've got a rhetorical purpose in telling you this,

868
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: and is that and it is that this story will

869
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: affirm Catholic doctrine itself. He says that his story proves

870
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:15,879
Speaker 1: the Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection and can be used

871
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 1: as evidence against anyone who is skeptical that the dead

872
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: will be raised in Christ at the end of time.

873
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 1: Uh So, he says that like the local Slavic people's

874
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: do not have a correct understanding of the resurrection, and

875
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: he hopes this story will help correct them and now

876
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: and then. A third point that Caciola makes is that

877
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: these stories provide some evidence not just of lingering pagan

878
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: beliefs alongside Christian beliefs, but of direct syncretism, actually the

879
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: blending of different religious inputs into new hybrid forms of religion. This,

880
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:53,759
Speaker 1: of course happens constantly throughout the history of religions all

881
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: over the world. In fact, I think you could argue

882
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: that basically all existing religions today are a result of

883
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:03,800
Speaker 1: path syncretisms, that that previous religious traditions have in a

884
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,400
Speaker 1: in a way been combined or mixed and matched to

885
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: form new ones. And so the argument would be that

886
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 1: it appears to also be happening here in a frontier context,

887
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:18,839
Speaker 1: where German Christianity and Slavic Paganism are mixing with one another,

888
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: not just existing alongside one another, but actually combining into

889
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: hybrid forms, producing what Cachiola calls quote paganized Christianities and

890
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:33,800
Speaker 1: baptized pagan traditions. Uh. Quote they express a pagan logic

891
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 1: about life after death, but somewhere along the line of

892
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: transmission they were adapted to a Christian semantic field. And

893
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: I thought this is really interesting in the following way.

894
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: So I'll read another quote from Cachiola and then UH

895
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 1: say what I was thinking about it? She says that

896
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is common throughout different parts of

897
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: partially Christianized medieval Europe. Quote. The Catholic Church, for all

898
00:49:56,280 --> 00:50:00,080
Speaker 1: its careful policing of dogma, was unusually tolerant of a

899
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 1: wide spectrum of ideas about death in the afterlife. It

900
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: is striking that stories of ghosts and revenants, for example,

901
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: while not quite orthodox, were never declared heretical either. They

902
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: occupied a capacious middle ground of toleration without endorsement, an

903
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: unusually ambiguous emplacement for such a significant area of thought. Uh.

904
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: And that really inspired me. I was wondering, like, what

905
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: is the logic, what is the even maybe the subconscious

906
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: logic lying behind this distinction of like which types of

907
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: doctrines are rigorously policed by the church, and deviation from

908
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:40,400
Speaker 1: them is deemed heretical, versus which kinds of doctrines are

909
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: treated more loosely and with just kind of like a

910
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: look the other way tolerance. It seems that beliefs in

911
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: various forms of the undead, while they're not within the

912
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 1: church's belief structure, they're also not forbidden. They're just sort

913
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 1: of like allowed to go on, you know, like the

914
00:50:56,760 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: like the clergy would just kind of say like okay,

915
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: and they just look the other way and not bother

916
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, And I guess a lot of that

917
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 1: probably gets back into the reality of some of these

918
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: events that we're talking about, you know, uh, the same

919
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: sort of paranormal events that happened today, where someone has

920
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,400
Speaker 1: an experience, they see something they can't quite explain, and

921
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 1: there are these pre existing ideas about what that might be,

922
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: and yeah, how far are you going to get are

923
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: rolling out and and maintaining this new religion in this

924
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 1: area if you just tell people, oh, well that that

925
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: thing you thought you saw it's not real. Um. But

926
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:35,280
Speaker 1: then and then you can also imagine the inner experience

927
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 1: of that, like you you can't deny the mystery of

928
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: an experience that you you had better to to allow

929
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: that to exist under the umbrella of the faith than

930
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 1: to make it be a contest between the two, because

931
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 1: one of them the the the you know, the the

932
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 1: ghostly encounter. Like it's going to be possible that that

933
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 1: is going to be the experience that feels more real

934
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 1: and more authentic. Yeah, I think you're dead on with that.

935
00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:03,399
Speaker 1: And this is a sort of consideration that catch Gilla

936
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: raises in her paper. I think this seems highly plausible

937
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: to me that you could imagine that, you know, maybe

938
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 1: Catholic clergy of this time would be seeing a a

939
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 1: sort of trade off where they'd say, Okay, well, we

940
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: could be really strict about making sure people have no

941
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 1: pagan beliefs or practices, but if we do that, they're

942
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 1: not going to accept the Catholic Church at all. So

943
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 1: you kind of get them in the door by letting

944
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 1: them go halfway. That This isn't any any specific case

945
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:33,839
Speaker 1: I'm looking at, but you can imagine them saying, well, maybe, okay,

946
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 1: so if they get baptized and they come to church

947
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,960
Speaker 1: on certain occasions and stuff, you don't you don't have

948
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 1: to like fight them tooth and nail on believing in

949
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,800
Speaker 1: drag or something, because if you did, maybe they'd stop

950
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:49,359
Speaker 1: coming to church or wouldn't get baptized in the first place. Yeah, yeah,

951
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately with with you're gonna have to to

952
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 1: establish this, uh, this new religion on the on the bedrock,

953
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,400
Speaker 1: on the soil of the pre existing culture. Now, I

954
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: think we're hitting the time limit on part one of

955
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,280
Speaker 1: this series here, but there's so much more interesting stuff

956
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 1: to talk about. Tet Mark gets into some much more

957
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: grizzly stories later on, and so I can't wait to

958
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 1: further plumb his digression from the Ottonian Kings and and

959
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:16,919
Speaker 1: just telling you about every weird ghost story he ever heard.

960
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,279
Speaker 1: So I'm so excited to come back to that next time.

961
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 1: That's right when there's no more room and how the

962
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: dead shall go to church. So join us in the

963
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: next episode when we continue on in this fascinating journey.

964
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to check out

965
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find

966
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed.

967
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: We have core episodes on Thursdays and Tuesdays. We have

968
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 1: an artifact episode on Wednesday, listener mail on Monday, and

969
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:43,440
Speaker 1: on Fridays we do a little weird house cinema. That's

970
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: our time to set most of the most of the

971
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: serious consideration aside and just focus in on a weird film.

972
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

973
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

974
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

975
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 1: to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello,

976
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:01,919
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow

977
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: Your Mind. Got com Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

978
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my

979
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:17,560
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

980
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.