WEBVTT - The Holy Undead, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:15.240 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.680 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.000 of course it's October here on the podcast, so we've 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.159 got to be talking about the undead. But this is 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.239 a real special episode because today is the day that 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:31.320 the undead go to church. That's right. Uh. And this 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.559 topic ended up being a whole lot of fun to 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.600 research and uh and and right on, because I I 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:38.600 knew some of this, but I did not know all 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.720 of it. Uh. And I think the key thing is 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.760 when when you think of the undead, when you think 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.720 of zombies in particular, like, what do you think about? 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.680 For me, one line that instantly comes into my mind 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.800 that I remember hearing at a at a young age, 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:58.040 and is is from the trailer for George romero zombie 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.840 classic Dawn of the Dead. When there is no more 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.480 room in Hell, that dead will walk the earth very 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.600 much suggests that reanimated corpses shambling around are a distinctly 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:14.160 satanic phenomena. Uh though as in George Romero's universe, I 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.720 think it is. I think that's actually more a naturalistic interpretation. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.360 Don't they say, what's the deal, like a satellite comes 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.280 to Earth or something like that. What do they say 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.119 in the first one, Yeah, I think it's some sort 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:27.520 of satellite crashes, and but there's kind of it's kind 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.560 of like hearsay, right, or it's what the media is saying. 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.080 It's it's it's ultimately, um, it's it's out of our hands. 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.480 And I guess that that leads me to the next 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.000 very broad distinction that I tend to make with zombie 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.880 films is that you have you have environmental zombie films, 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.400 and you have sort of necromantic or magical zombie films, 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.000 and the environmental something has happened that causes an extreme 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:54.080 reversal in how death works. The dead instead of staying dead, 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.040 they rise, and so it might be some sort of 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.520 supernatural event, which that that quote, uh kind of implies. 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.800 It's like, well, humans, you don't send up hell, and 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.040 now there's no more room, so the dead are going 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.000 to walk the earth. It's it's kind of our fault, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:14.680 but it's ultimately a larger systematic error that's going on. Okay, 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.919 So in your view, environmental causes could still be supernatural 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.880 but they would be supernatural mechanistic rather than like supernatural 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.720 directed will yeah you know there or or if it's 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.880 if it is directed, it's it's like on a divine level, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.120 it's like, well, God's had it, He's just letting the 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.320 zombies room now, you know, and it's God reasons for 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.959 that taking place, um or you know, it could even 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.239 be scientific, but it's like a scientific accident by human science. 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.840 So you're trying to make zombie bio weapons. Well you 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.119 shouldn't have done that. Now, look what's happening. The dead 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.840 are walking. Yeah, here's the rage virus. Though I guess 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.440 a complication with that is you know, resident evil twenty 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.079 eight days later, all that kind of stuff. A lot 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.000 of that is often, uh, there's a blurring of the 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.560 lines between what is undead and what is just some 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.000 infected form of human being right right now. That the 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.640 other area that the necromantic or magical interpretation this is 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.520 this is more where you have someone or something intentionally 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.240 raising the dead through the use of magic um generally 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.519 to do something to do the bidding of their master, 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.880 you know, who might be a warlock or a demon 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.600 or another powerful undead being, maybe a mad scientists, even 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.079 an alien mastermind or a dark like minor deity, that 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.280 sort of thing. But it's like, I need something done, 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.000 I need some I I need I need an army 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:34.519 of the dead. So I'm gonna raise up an army 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.760 of the dead to do specific dead things, as opposed 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:39.920 to like, well, now all the dead rise from the 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.920 grave and they do dead things, right, I am the 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.520 witch queens and Obia. I say, a bunch of skeletons, 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:48.520 you pop up out of the ground, get you some 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.640 swords and shields and go kills in bad Yeah. So 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.320 either way, I guess, very broadly speaking, there's plenty of 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.160 examples I know that kind of break this. Zombies are 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.120 either a thing that just kind of happens and as 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.080 part of the new natural order of things or the 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.600 unnatural order of things, or it's something that is done 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.640 by an agent at the evil um. Today we're gonna 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.520 be We're gonna be getting into I guess both of 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.840 these categories a little bit. But in a way we're 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.800 also discussing a third category, you know, the holy undead 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:23.159 pious zombies and church going perhaps god worshiping wraiths and 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.640 revenants who might just packed the local Cathedral. You know, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.760 I would say that this is mostly new to me, 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.400 but it has been so wonderful getting into these stories 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.960 because they are so full of weird ambiguities and contradictions. 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.200 I think that often suggest very interesting and enlightening things 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:43.159 about the cultural climate in which these tales arise, right, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.359 and also the sort of the cultural soil, sort of 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.520 oftentimes the pre Christian soil from which these myths and 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.239 folk tales have germinated and then change forms a little 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.599 bit in the Christian era. You know. Just to go 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:58.840 back to Donna the Dead briefly, though, the idea of 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.800 the dead going to church, Uh, it is a little 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.640 bit like the dad going to the mall in Dawn 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:07.240 of the Dead. You know, they just show up and 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.600 they're gonna do They're gonna do what humans do at 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.279 the mall, and they're just gonna wander around, um and 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.839 uh and and it. You know, I feel like it 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:16.520 matches up a little bit with some of the stories 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:18.880 we're talking about here, Yeah, and Dawn of the Dead. 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.000 It's interesting because, uh, there is an assumption in the 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.159 Ramiro zombie universe that the zombies are operating at a 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.680 very low, very reduced level of cognition. You know, they 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.800 have very limited ability to reason. I mean, they can 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.120 clearly like use their brains enough to sort of like 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.440 move towards the thing they want to eat. But but 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.400 it doesn't get much more complicated than that with them. 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.000 But I think one of the characters in Dawn of 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.200 the Dead says, why are they all coming here to 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.839 the mall? This must be someplace that was important to 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.520 them in life, and without anything else to do, without 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.159 any brains to eat in the nearby area, they just 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.960 sort of drift back to a place that was significant 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.680 in their lives and almost as if by worse of habit. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.440 And that's kind of interesting too, because it suggests that 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.800 whatever it is you would really say you want to 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.240 be doing when in your afterlife, maybe you would say, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.160 I'd i'd go, I don't know, visit my still living 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.799 relatives and give them news from beyond the grave or something. 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.160 In fact, what you do is walk the steps you've 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:19.720 walked a hundred times before. And where does that take you? 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.480 You go to the mall. Baby. Now, some would say 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.320 there's no ethical consumption of brains under capitalism, but I 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.600 guess that I'd have to discuss that another episode. Let 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.080 let's get back to religion though. Oh yeah, yeah, so 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.000 we should talk about maybe a specific example to get 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.919 us going of of one of these stories about about 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.440 the church going undead. So the story I wanted to 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.000 start with here. I wanted to start with because it's 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:47.320 ultimately the story I've had the longest, um exposure to, 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.839 I guess in my life. I started looking into this 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.080 and then I realized, oh, I have I've read some 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.400 version of this story before. Uh and Uh, I want 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.279 to take I want to take at least some of 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.719 you back to the enchant did World book series from 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.120 Time Life Books. Um. Uh. Some of us had these, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.480 some of us didn't. I was lucky enough. I think 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.880 my aunt had purchased these and I kind of temporarily 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.680 inherited them. But I also still have them decades later. 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.680 Um and and ultimately it's gonna it will be hard 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.640 to make me give them up because they, ultimately, uh 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.800 put played I think an important role in my my childhood. 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:27.360 But if you were watching TV in the early nineteen eighties, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.120 you might remember a TV spot for these books, starring 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:36.080 the legendary Vincent Price. I will buy anything Vincent Price 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.080 tells me to Yeah, I wonder what else was he? Uh? 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.040 Was was he a pitching back? Then unsleeved? The delicious 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:47.280 flaky crust of a hot pocket? Oh? Man, oh he 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.680 would have been great for Tombstone Pizza, right, Vincent Price 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.480 Tomstone because they were going for more of a Western thing. Though, Man, 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.920 Vincent Price impression was bad. I gotta work on that. Well, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.320 why don't Why don't we? I encourage everyone to look 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.440 this up, this particular commercial up on YouTube. But let's 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.440 go and have just a little audio sample of it, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.320 because it's yea, it's Vincent Price. It's fabulous. On evenings 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.640 like this, I like to curl up with a good book, 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.800 short of book that lets the imagination run away with you. 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.440 If you're like me and enjoy the mysterious and the unexpected, 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:28.200 you'll love the Enchanted World. Each volume brings to life 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:33.080 so vividly those inhabitants of the other world, Witches and Wizards, 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:38.240 ghost Scotland's and Avenging Nights. Call now and enter the 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.679 Enchanted World. With the first book, Wizards and Witches, my 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:48.079 favorite subject. It's an intriguing account of sorcery, spells, and deception. 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:54.000 Other books include Ghosts fairies and elves and dragons. Painstakingly 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.640 researched by the editors of Time Life books. Each volume 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.360 is exquisitely illustrated and portrayed if master works of art. 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:06.200 Each volume is you probably written and bound in luxurious fabric. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.640 So Rob, I was never lucky enough to have these 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:13.840 books as a kid. But but I guess if you 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.560 had access to them, I would assume that these books 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:21.080 made you the terrible adult you are today. Oh yeah, probably. 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:25.920 So they were pretty great because each one well, first 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.280 of all, as as Vincent Price reminds us, each one 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:33.439 is bound in luxurious fabric. Curious, yes, and each one 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.680 is a different color, which I distinctly remember, because each 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:39.319 book deals with a different topic. And you know, so 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.640 you have fairies, you have camelot giants, uh, you know, 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.040 mermaids and so forth. I didn't have them all, but 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.280 I had a number of them, and I distinctly remember 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.880 there were of course two black books, black bound books. 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:54.760 One of them was on ghosts and the other one 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.360 was on night creatures. And these were in a you know, 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.840 sort of a childhood way. These were with my favorites 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.040 of the series, but also the most feared I remember 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.439 that they'd be on the shelf, and I could barely 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.359 bring myself to look at their spines on the bookshelf 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.880 if the sun had gone down, because I knew how 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.840 terrifying the illustrations were in there, and how terrifying the 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.120 contents of the stories were. UM, and I certainly wasn't 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.200 going to pull one of these books off the shelf 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.360 at night because the cover art was absolutely horrible on 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.160 each of them. Oh, that's so wonderful. And when I 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.080 say the mentioned the art, it was all the books 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.920 featured a combination of say, woodcuts and UH and old paintings, 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:40.320 you know, as well as new custom illustrations matching up 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.400 with the with the stories from different artists. And we'll 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.400 mention one in particular in a bit UH specific artists 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:49.960 all with different styles. So it was it's just a 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.320 visual to light. I highly recommend if you have a 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.200 chance to pick up any of these books and you're 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.400 interested in these topics, do so. I think they must 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.480 have printed billions of these things, because I just looked 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:01.800 around the other day, and you can pick him up 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.160 for like dollar a dollar or two dollars each. I 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.320 think in some cases if you buy them used I 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.600 wonder how that looks urious fabric holds up. I think 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.880 it holds up all right. I don't know how luxurious 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.080 it it really looks these days, but uh, you know, 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.240 the books are holding together and that's that's enough. So 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.120 the Ghost Book, like I said, was particularly scary, and 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.880 it featured a tale of the pious undead. So it's 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.760 it's a short section in the book titled the Hooded Congregation, 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.199 and it is fantastically illustrated and perhaps written. I think 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.960 the writers are all just it's listed as like by 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.800 folks at the Timeline Books or something, so he might 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.480 have written it as well, but he at least illustrated it. 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:48.559 Talking about Caldicott Medal winning author Chris van Allsburg. If 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.440 the name didn't ring a bell, let me just say 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.960 this is this is the artist who illustrated and wrote 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.599 the books Jumanji one and The Polar Express in n 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:05.199 H both known for very elegant illustrations. Yeah and ultimately 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.319 very you know, ghostly and you know kind of a yeah, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.120 ultimately ghostly. And so it's like this. I never really 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.679 liked the Polar Express book because it did feel kind 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.280 of cold and uh, and like it's something of the 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.600 spirit world, and I was like this, I don't know this, 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:25.840 this isn't my Christmas. But the Hooded Congregation in the 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.760 Time Life books here, the illustration style apps absolutely works 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.360 and it's it's fabulous. It's um So, what we have 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.959 here is a series of haunting black and white images. 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.839 And I sent these two images of these two Joe, 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:39.640 so you could look at these as well. And then 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.160 you have text pages that feature tiny images of a 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.840 woman in a casket and as you proceed through the story, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.920 her face shrivels towards the skull. It's absolutely wonderful. These 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.360 are indeed beautiful. Though I'm almost kind of glad I 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.760 didn't look at these illustrations as a kid, because if 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.880 I had, I am positive I would have cemented an 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:04.040 unbreakable sociation between the ghostly hooded figures in the congregation, 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.480 and in especially the second illustration here, and the bad 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.960 guys in Charlton Heston and the Omega man. Yeah, there's 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.599 this kind of a similar situation going on with the 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.839 hooded figures. All right, So I'm gonna briefly roll through 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.080 the story here. Uh, and I'm sorry for the Christmas 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.720 creep everyone, but This is a holiday story. So it 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.320 takes place Christmas morning. We're somewhere in the Swedish mountain 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:34.000 centuries ago, and a young woman has awoken extremely early 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.360 and she hears the sound of church bells. So what 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.760 does she do? Church bells are ringing. You need to 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.199 get your your butt to church. So she ventures out 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.040 into the darkness. Uh. And and you know, it's it's 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.000 a dark time of year. It's a cold time of year. 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.760 The cold, the cold is biting. She makes her way 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.480 to the village church and uh, the doors open. Inside 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.320 the pews are filled with black, hooded figures and a 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.679 hooded priest and gray stands at the stands on at 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.760 the front of the church is sighting in psalms, you know, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.800 leading folks in song, that sort of thing, normal church business, 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.520 except everything's a little weird. Um. The woman is led in, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.760 she takes a seat, and then a figure sits beside her. 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.160 And then that figure that is seated beside her pulls 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.960 back her hood and reveals the death shriveled face of 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.840 her dead sister. WHOA you don't see that coming. Yeah, 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.240 And she she cries out, you are the dead, And 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.720 then all the hoods fall back from the other worshippers, 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.040 and it's revealed that they are all indeed the dead 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.120 in various states of decay. Uh. It's written in this 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.880 telling of the story that the oldest are little more 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.480 than shadows. But you see, you know, some still have 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.240 flesh on them and there uh they seem to be 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.760 physical apparitions, though for the most part. Her sister, her 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.600 undead sister here, warns her to flee while she can, 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.520 and she gets up to do so, but of course 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.680 the congregation gets to their feet as well. They chase after, 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.960 they claw after with these skeletal fingers, and she feel 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.080 them jabbing at her back as she reaches the door 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.040 to to leave the church, and they pull the scarf 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.080 from her neck in the process. So she gets away. 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.440 She runs to the village priest's house and he's getting 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.040 ready to go to church to open it up. He 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.320 didn't know that the church has already open, at least 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.280 for some folks. Uh. So they go back together and 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.760 they find that the church is completely empty. But then 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.800 there is her scarf on the floor, shredded to pieces 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:31.160 by those skeletal fingers. This is such an unusual type 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:36.240 of story because of this strange blending of themes. So 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.360 there is clear menace implied by the beings of the church. 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.360 These are not just you know, righteous Christians who have 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.920 passed on the kind of people that Dante might encounter 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.080 in in the Paradiso, or they'd be you know, humbly 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.880 praising God from the point of the afterlife. Uh. No, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.840 that they are in church and they are praising God. 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:01.320 But they're also dangerous, like they immediately they attack, and 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.400 they poke with the bony fingers, they shred the scarf. 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.360 These things, on the surface level at least, seem incongruous. Yeah, 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.360 like how can like, Okay, they hate the living, well, 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.320 we expect that of the dead and right, but they 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.720 love God. That seems kind of strange, right You think 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.000 that the uh, this would match up more with our 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.480 our idea of the satanic undead, the devil ish undead, 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.560 the unholy undead, as opposed to holy zombies at church. 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.320 So yeah, it's a simple, weird little ghost story. And 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.360 the illustrations especially always haunted me when I looked at 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.600 the pictures. But but I don't think I ever really 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.800 thought about about why. And uh, I think you know, 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.200 it had to do with the darkness of the undead 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.320 having such a presence in both a church and a 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.600 Christmas story. I know that that that, you know, I 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.040 did think about that when I was a kid. But 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.040 you know, but but you know, here was the kicker. 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.640 It was as if the ghosts were supposed to be there, 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.320 you know, not vile invaders intent on desecrating the church 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.520 and destroying those who love God or something, you know. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.480 But but they were. They were doing their things like 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.480 it was their time to be in the church, and 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:09.200 the village girl had simply wandered into the night church, 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.560 where she did not belong and where the dead worship 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.280 while we sleep. It almost makes you wonder. The fact 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.800 that they're in church praying before they attack her makes 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.240 you kind of like reframe the story. It makes you 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.879 wonder did she do something wrong, Like did she step 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.359 on their turf or offend them in some way? Maybe 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.880 by pointing out the fact that her sister was dead. Um, 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.159 you know, was that unwelcome news to them in some 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.439 way or something like that. Yeah, So what does it 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.720 all mean? Well, we're gonna get into that. But uh, 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.000 initially though, I was like, all right, I've I've read 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.639 the timeline version. I've reread the timeline version. Now, well 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.080 what's what are some of the original versions of it? Well? Um, 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.000 I found a wonderful blog post, well written, nicely cited 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:56.240 by Camilla Christiansen on and on the blog Legends of 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.520 the North Legends of the North thought blog spot dot com. Um. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.360 They are a native Norwegian blogger and uh. They write 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:05.840 about it a bit here and point out that the 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.720 tale is usually known as the Midnight Mass of the Dead. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.800 And Christiansen writes that the tale seems to originate from 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.200 Germanic Romance and Slavic regions, and that while there were 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.520 there are many variations of this tale to be found 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.680 throughout Europe. The oldest date back to the sixth century 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.280 by historian Gregory of Tours, while it pops up in 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.800 Nordic writings during the seventeen hundreds and and we'll get 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.359 more into some other traditions that seemed to weave their 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:37.359 way into this particular tale as we proceed, but the 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.879 story generally follows a basic format. A man or a 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.160 woman they wait too early, perhaps confused by church bells 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.320 and or the darkness of winter months in northern climates, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.320 thinking themselves late to church. They rushed to uh to 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.760 the church and soon realized that they have wandered into 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.080 the midnight mass of the dead. A deceased loved one 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.640 urges them to flee, and in some tellings um such 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.040 as the one in the Enchanted World Book, they make 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.280 it out alive and they merely lose a garment that 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:08.080 becomes proof of what occurred, you know. But in other tellings, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.040 the dead just simply tear them to pieces or otherwise 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.680 drag them into the realm of death. And while it's 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.480 not always Christmas Eve, uh, we do see this idea that, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.119 you know, what is Christmas but the darkest evening of 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.560 the year. It's this time when the veil between the 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.040 worlds of the living and the dead are the thinnest. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.600 So it kind of while at first you might think, oh, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:31.680 Christmas is not a time for the dead to come 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.320 back to life. Well, you know, maybe if if you're 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.280 talking about you know, modern Santa Claus traditions, but if 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:42.560 you're getting into the older ideas of of winter religion 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.800 and winter legends and winter traditions, then yes, this is 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.040 a time when death is very close. This reminds me 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.400 of a line that comes from another story that I'm 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.400 going to talk about in a bit from a from 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.399 a medieval Christian bishop who wrote about similar types of 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.840 tales of the is undead. This guy is like a 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:08.639 tenth to eleventh century German bishop named Teete Mar von Merseburg, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.160 And after telling a story kind of similar to this, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.679 uh teeth Mark concludes with the statement, as day is 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.640 to the living, so night is conceded to the dead. Uh. 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.720 And I love that phrase. Night is conceded to the dead, 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.479 as if it like it is ground that has been lost, 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.679 the dead have taken it and it belongs to them. 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:30.840 And of course I guess that would seem especially true 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.879 in the winter when the night is the longest. Yeah. 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.000 So it's easy to to see like this, this idea 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.520 of a dual world. There's the world of the nine, 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:40.680 in the world of of the day, that's the world 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.720 of the living. There's a little world of the dead. Uh. 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.040 It also makes me wonder too if tales like this 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.600 might have something to do with the idea that that 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.320 we have human spaces uh, in this case artificial human 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.240 spaces like church interiors, places of stone and wood that 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.480 exists for particular purposes. So if this space is for 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.720 you know X, then does X occur even when we 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.760 are not there? Uh? You know, an empty church is 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.520 not a church in some respects, so perhaps it remains 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.560 occupied even when we are not in the church. Um, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.960 I'm not sure that that makes sense that I was 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.199 kind of mulling over it, and uh, yeah, like a 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.199 place that we have created, like absolutely, such as an 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.800 enclosed place. It you know, it can't it can't just 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.000 be a wild place again, you know, unless it decays 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.320 it becomes one with nature, like it's it's still a church, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.400 but it's it's not a church if the people are 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.720 not gathered in it. That's a very good point about 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.359