WEBVTT - Saint Swithin's Revenge 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.319 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:16.440 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.120 And I am Joe McCormick. And today on the show, 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:21.360 we are going to be doing a holiday episode, but 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.479 not on the holiday itself. Today we are talking about 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.479 Saint Swithin's Day and its namesake, Saint Swithin. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:31.720 That's right. We were originally going to put this episode 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.440 out on July fifteenth to correspond with Saint Swithin's Day, 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.360 but some stuff came up. I had to take a 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.120 week off, so we were had. We realized, well, we 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.519 could sit on this episode and just finish it and 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.000 record it later on the next time Saint Swiftin' Day 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.720 happens to fall on the Tuesday or Thursday, or we 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.280 could just simply push on and do it. Assuming that 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.040 most of you are going to forgive us for being 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.920 several weeks late to the punch on this perhaps obscure 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:01.560 Saints Day. 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.560 Yeah, this is a holiday. I would bet most of 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.280 our American and international listeners will not be familiar with 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.720 UK listeners. I'm maybe more likely. I'm not exactly sure 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.000 how what consciousness of Saint Swithin is like today. But 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:17.880 I guess if anybody out there is going to be 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.080 wired in on Swithin it is It's probably like Catholics 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.039 in England. But I don't know. So why are we 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.200 talking about this? Why is this somewhat obscure medieval saint 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.600 and his holiday even on our radar. The main reason, 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:37.520 perhaps the only reason that I personally had any previous 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.920 consciousness of Saint Swithin and his feast day was from 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.160 a quite unlikely source, and that is the lyrics of 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.560 a song by the late great psychedelic rock pioneer Rocky Ericsson, 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.280 one of my personal favorite musical artists of all time. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.480 The song in which this lyric appears is called the 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.960 Night of the Vampire, and it actually appears on multiple albums, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.800 including The Evil One from nineteen eighty that's one of 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.520 my favorite rocky albums. Actually just got that on vinyl, 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.400 and my daughter has become obsessed with it, like she 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:10.560 asks for it by name one here, two Headed Dog. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.240 She begs us to put it on. Oh man, wonderful. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.920 I would play that in the car sometimes and my 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.040 kiddo would sometimes ask me to skip Bloody Hammer. They're 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:20.240 like I don't know about this song. 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.760 Well, it might be different once she recognizes what all 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:25.760 the lyrics are. I don't know, but right now she 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.040 just thinks he's a funny Halloween guy. He just a 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:29.760 Halloween guy. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:30.960 That is also true. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.120 Yeah, but so she asks for Rocky but anyway, so 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.240 it's on the evil one though. My favorite version of 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:41.240 this song is actually the first track on Rocky's nineteen 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.960 eighty six compilation album Grimlins Have Pictures. The title of 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.760 that album, by the way, is taken from the lyrics 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.240 of his song Anthem, and the full line there is 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.440 Grimlins Have Pictures of the Anniversary of Christ. 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.400 Yeah, that one's a real head scratcher. There are a 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.000 lot of there's a lot of the lyrics to Rocky 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.639 erics and songs will drift into head scratch your territory. 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.520 But they're wonderful. I mean, they will make you scratch 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.520 your head, but they'll also stay in your head, or 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.800 at least in my head. I you know, after I 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.160 listen to Rocky, even if I'm sort of in a 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.560 Rocky way, and I guess you know, there are periods 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.520 where I'm listening to him constantly and somewhere I listen less, 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.320 but and the ones when I listen less sometimes something 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:23.840 just comes like a bolt of lightning out of nowhere, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.280 and my brain is thinking, you know, if it's raining 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.920 and you're running, don't slip in mud because if you do, 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.160 you'll slip in blood. That is also from Night of 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:33.760 the Vampire. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.960 Yeah, his lyrics have a real stream of consciousness vibe 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.320 to them and amid them. Horror movie references will also 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.000 invoke words, ideas and connections that were, you know, unique 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.720 to his own mind and worldview. Might be difficult for 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:49.880 the rest of us to understand, but that's the tantalizing 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.960 part of that. It's like a puzzle and you're trying 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.360 to interpret it the interpreter. Where is he now? 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.520 Oh? Another one? Another good one. But anyway, So in 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.160 the middle of the song to the Vampire, which is, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.440 as my kid would say, a Halloween guy song, it's 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.200 a song about vampires. It's a song about raining and running, 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.640 slipping in mud, slipping in blood. There is a bridge 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.640 to the song where Rocky sings me Castle Brand, Transylvania 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:21.040 on Saint Swithin's day. He was born, eyes stare through 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:26.560 the darkness with no form, maidens his bite harms. That's 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.160 a good slant rhyme, by the way, with you know 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.559 born form harm but on Saint Swithin's day he was born. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.280 That's a strange connection to make. I want to come 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:38.640 back in a minute to figure out what's going on 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.240 with that now, if you're wondering, was it normal for 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.920 this guy to sing rock songs about vampires? Yes, as 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.840 we've established, he's a Halloween guy. Rocky's career had two 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.680 main stages. In the nineteen sixties, he sang and performed 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.719 with a Texas based garage psych band called the Thirteenth 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.480 Floor Elevators. I think one of the best psychedelic rock 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.000 bands of the sixties, really awesome. So he had a 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.159 period with them where they released a couple of great albums. 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.080 So one is The Psychedelic Sounds of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.400 Their second album is my favorite. It's called Easter Everywhere. 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.159 After that, he had a more difficult period where he 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.440 had some legal issues and where he was he had 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.279 a period of involuntary commitment at some statemental hospitals in Texas. 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.479 After his eventual release, instead of going back to psychedelic 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.200 sounds like he did with the thirteenth floor elevators. He 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.240 instead focused on other genres. He did folk, blues, and 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:41.680 particularly a kind of hard rock idea that he called 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:46.120 horror rock, which was fueled by his longtime obsession with 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.960 monster movies, especially old monster movies, like many of the 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.360 things we cover on Weird House Cinema. In fact, we've 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.680 done some very rocky centric movies on Weird House, like 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.400 Creature with the Adam Brain has its own rocky ericson song, 0:05:58.440 --> 0:05:59.360 which is fabulous. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.920 Yeah, he wasn't necessarily picking really well known films or 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:04.280 the films that connected with him. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:05.080 Yeah. 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.640 Yeah, So it's one of the charms because sometimes you 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.840 might not even realize he's referring to a movie until 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:10.719 you dig a little deeper. 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.320 Yeah. Rocky described this genre at one point by saying, 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.560 I'm trying to horrify them, demonize them, and possessionize them, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.360 and he's doing it. So Night of the Vampire is 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.800 a core horror rock song. So I've been listening to 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:27.760 this song for years. I first got into this, I 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.400 think one summer when I was in college. So Saint 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.440 Swithin's has been also banging around in my head as 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.440 a phrase for that long. But I had never much 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.279 looked into it until Rob this summer you flagged it 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.400 on our show calendar saying, Hey, Saint Swithin's Day is 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.479 a real day. Let's figure out what's going on here? 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.680 And oh boy, that that was really music to my ears. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.799 So we very much got into the spirit of Saint 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.520 Swithin and especially the question what does Saint Swithin have 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.599 to do with vampires? Well, I did some fairly extensive 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.040 digging on this question, and I've come to the conclusion 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.120 that there is no connection at all outside this song. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.240 I can't find any records of a famous vampire from 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.120 movies or literature who was born on Saint Swithin's day, 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:22.240 nor any pre existing connection between the historical character of 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.600 Saint Swithin and any vampire lore. Though maybe we can 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.600 get halfway there by connecting Saint Swithin to some ambiguous 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.840 witches or hags or valkyrie. Is some other kind of 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:34.160 scary female creature. 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:35.880 Yeah yeah. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.840 However, the one real connection I could find is that 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.960 one person who was born on Saint Swithin's day was 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:48.239 Rocky Erickson himself born July fifteenth, nineteen forty seven. Rocky's 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:52.080 lyrics about movie monsters sometimes do shift back and forth 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.640 between third person and first person. I think there is 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.320 a good degree of when I'm talking about the monster, 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.560 I am talking about myself. You know, I'm a demon 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:03.400 and I love rock and roll. That's another one of 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.480 his songs, So I think that probably is the main connection. 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.440 That Saint Swithin's day is Rocky's birthday, and so the 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.240 Night of the Vampire is his night. It's you know, 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:19.720 the vampire is me to paraphrase Flaubert. However, to bring 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.120 things back to Saint Swithin. While again I can't find 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.080 any evidence of a vampire character born on Saint Swithin's 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.880 celebration day, I do think there's an interesting connection in 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.120 the lyrics of the song, and I already quoted this part. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.440 In the first verse of Night of the Vampire, Rocky 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.839 offers the advice if it's raining and you're running, don't 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.840 slip in mud, because if you do, you'll slip in blood. 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.720 Tonight is the Night of the Vampire. So Rocky's head 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.760 was stuck on the idea of trying to escape a 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:55.280 vampire in a heavy rainstorm. And it turns out one 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.160 of the most famous things about Swithin is that his 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:04.640 Dayly fifteenth, is associated with a seasonal proverb for predicting 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:10.199 the weather, specifically for predicting rain patterns in Great Britain. 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.520 There are many versions of this saying, but here's one 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.199 I came across. Goes like this, Saint Swithin's day, If 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.520 thou dost rain for forty days, it will remain Saint 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.360 Swithin's day. If thou be fair for forty days, twill rain, 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.320 nay mayre. So that's sink in you. Basically, whatever you 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.520 get on Saint Swithin's day, you're going to get that 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.000 again for forty days. 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.320 When I've been reading this over in the notes, though, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.760 I've gone ahead and read this in my head in 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:39.400 Rocky Erickson's voice as well. 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.839 Yeah, twill rain, namaire, Yeah, I can hear it. He 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.880 had a wonderful like a Texan accent to yowl. 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:48.560 Yeah. 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.440 But again, according to this proverb, if it rains on 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:53.319 July fifteenth, it is going to keep raining for the 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.920 next forty days. If it's dry, it will be dry 0:09:55.960 --> 0:10:00.240 the next forty days. So if that proverb actually holds true, true, 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.280 Saint Swithin's day is a good tool for planning your 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.400 upcoming vampire survival strategies. If it's raining on the fifteenth, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.000 you should invest in some boots with grippy souls to 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.080 avoid slipping in mud and therefore slipping in blood. But 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.160 is there anything to this kind of weather predicting dogg 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.920 roll other than superstition and the fact that it rhymes? 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.559 It does rhyme. You gotta admit that, Rob, Yeah, And 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:28.880 what was the deal with this Saint Swithin guy? What 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.439 does he have to do with whether whether it rains 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.880 or not? These questions are what we'll be exploring for 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:36.120 the rest of today's episode. 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.520 Yeah, We'll leave it to you to ultimately decide how 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.880 closely aligned the lyrics of Rocky ericson are with this 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.800 historic individual and legendary English saint. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:48.480 I guess we got to say this near the top 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.200 because we keep calling him Saint Swithin. Rob, did you 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.920 come across the fact that even though he is widely 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.920 known as Saint Swithin, he was never officially canonized by 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.320 the Catholic Church, So he's not actually a saint on paper, 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.600 only a street saint, a saint by reputation. 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.880 That's right, He's he was never canonized as a saint 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.280 by the Catholic Church, So yeah, he's a He's not 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.880 a saint saint, just a street saint. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.720 As you say, Now, I think what we could start 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:21.920 off by doing is dividing the historical Saint Swithin from 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.320 the legendary Saint Swin. And I think that will be 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:30.280 a reasonably easy, uh division to make because from what 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.240 I can tell, Rob, I think you did more of 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:36.040 the historical research. But is it correct that very little 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.600 is known about the real historical Saint Swin and that 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.520 much of his biography, maybe almost all of his biography 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:47.480 is understood by historians to be legend, probably fabricated long 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:48.400 after his death. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.960 Correct, Yeah, most of we know very little about the 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.520 historic individual that then ends up being built out into 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.480 this saint of legend. Well, historians do agree that there 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.520 was definitely an historic Swithen. You know, sometimes you peel 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.400 away the layers of legend and you discover there's perhaps 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.240 nobody at the bottom, or there's just sort of a 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.319 hypothetical real person at the bottom of things. But there 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.360 was an individual by the name of Swithin. He would 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.880 have been born around eight hundred CE. He was consecrated 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:26.840 by Selnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, on October thirtieth, eight fifty two, 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.360 and he died on July Tewod eight sixty two. He 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.560 served as the Bishop of Winchester, England, and also served 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.880 as counselor to Kings Egbert and Athel Wolf of Wessex. 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.200 This is the Kingdom of the West Saxons in the 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.520 south of Great Britain. All that definitely true. No layers 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.800 of legend, you know, these are just some of the basics. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.400 This is some of the basic information that we have 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.319 about him, and when it comes down to it, it's 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.600 like just the basics that we really have after his death, 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.640 or perhaps more accurately, after the popularity of an account 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.200 following his death. He was popularly venerated as a saint, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.840 but again was never officially canonized as a saint by 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.880 the Catholic Church. And this will make you know, and 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.520 it all makes sense as we get into how he 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.360 becomes a saint and so forth. But as far as 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:19.000 other details about the real life of the historic Swiin, yeah, 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:20.760 we actually have very little to go on. There are 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.360 a few mentions of him from contemporary sources, and the 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.720 problem with saints in general, is that their lives are 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.680 often constructed long after their deaths by much later writers. 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.360 So I was turned to a couple of main sources here. 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.880 There's a two thousand and three book, The Cult of 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.400 Saint Swithin by Michael Lappage, and that's certainly a great 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:43.760 book to look to if you want to deeper dive 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.559 into the questions and mysteries and legends surrounding this individual. 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.720 I also referred to Winchester Cathedral historian Tom Watson's shorter 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.040 work an article by the same name, The Cult of 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.559 Saint Swiftin from two thousand and eight, and that one 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:02.080 also cites Lappage's work, going it out as as a 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.400 major work of modern scholarship about swiven All. 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.600 Right, so we know that the real Swithen died around 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:10.839 the middle of the ninth century. You said the year 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.120 eight sixty two CE. So when do the writings about 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.120 him first start to appear? When does his reputation begin 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:18.640 to boom? 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.760 The cult of Swiften doesn't really begin in earnest until 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.440 around nine thirty seven, So yeah, many decades after his death. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.720 The first known writings of his miracles came out three 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.000 years after that, another history emerges twenty years after that 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.200 with new attributed miracles, and another comes out two hundred 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:37.560 and thirty years after his death. 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.520 So one of these cases where more detail is added 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.720 the longer time goes on. That's always the suspicious pattern. 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.080 Yeah. Yeah, but of course it makes sense when again 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.360 we're talking about legends and stories. We're not talking about 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:55.360 things that objectively actually happened. Yeah, we're talking about myth making. 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.200 And I mean that's part of of what's that's the 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.680 huge part of what's going on here. And as Watson explains, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:03.600 and in this he was citing the work of Susan 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:09.600 Richard English Saint Coults, they didn't simply develop, they were developed. 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.320 It was a matter of branding and then eventually rebranding 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.640 and of advertising. Quote the most successful, that is, most 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:22.080 popular cults had shrines visited by many pilgrims. The popularity 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.240 of shrines also rose and fell. They were actively promoted 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.600 and across the entire medieval period, relaunched in response to competition. 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.120 Oh okay, So the accretion of stories around a popular 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:40.480 saint wouldn't necessarily be driven just by organic folklore and 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.320 word of mouth and people adding on, you know, things 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.920 happening out amongst the people, that there could be a 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:50.680 kind of top down effort by people whose livelihoods or 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:55.640 whose missions were associated with this saint to beef up 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.240 the what was known about them and to make them 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.120 appear and come off a certain way. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.880 Yeah. I like this comparison to you know, any kind 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.160 of like branding and rebranding effort you have today. You 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:12.240 think of like any long lasting fast food chain, A 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:13.840 lot of things are going to be the same, maybe 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:17.080 like the central mascot and the logo, but things may shift, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.480 and they're gonna shift in response to what the public 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.480 wants or things they want, or in response to what 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.120 more powerful entities decide that the people should want and 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:27.680 so forth. 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.240 Man, you ever get nostalgic for the architecture of taco 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.000 bells and pizza huts from the nineties and now they 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:35.240 just all look like banks. 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.480 Yeah, it's the little things like that, or ancient McDonald's 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.120 playgrounds times when they had the full pantheon before it 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:49.160 went monotheistic. Seeah, I think there are a lot of 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.920 comparisons to be made here between these cults and enterprises 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:58.280 like that. So as these various authors point out the 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.920 formation of the Cult of Saint Swith itself came about 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.439 in nine thirty seven, evidently due to the pressure of 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.680 reform movements active in the church at the time, and 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.080 perhaps even more to the point, due to the efforts 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.520 of a youthful new king, King Edgar, who is attempting 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.480 to assert his power over the nation and making use 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.199 of the church as part of his strategy. So the 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.760 reform movement here was aimed at making English churches more 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:31.200 religiously rigorous and also more monastic, and entailed on Edgar's 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.280 part the forced removal of secular clerics. Secular clerics would 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.280 be clerics that they were not monks, they could even marry, 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.240 and so he's having them forcibly removed and replacing them 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.560 with monks. And Swiften just happened to be the right 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.520 local name to take up in this campaign for power, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.879 even though it's ironic that the actual Swiften was a 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.320 secular cleric and was not a monk. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.080 Wait does that mean Swiffen was married or do we 0:17:59.119 --> 0:17:59.399 not know? 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.840 I don't As far as I could tell, he wasn't married, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:03.720 or if he was married, we don't know anything of it. 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.399 But Yeah, he was not himself a monk, and you know, 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:09.280 there were these stories that said he was. You know, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.880 there's just because we have all these legends, it's very 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.400 possible that he was a very pious and humble man. 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.280 We just don't know. We just have all these layers 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.080 of legends built upon it, and very little is known 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.840 about the historic Swian. But we can put together that 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.640 he was close to the ruling Anglo Saxon royal family. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.760 He tutored the future King ethel Wolf, and this very 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.360 king promoted him to the Bishop of Winchester in eight 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.359 fifty two. We also know from you know, scant mentions 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.240 that he seemed to have been involved in the repair 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.000 of several churches, and if we were to believe a 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.280 tenth century poem, he also had a bridge built. These 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.280 are pretty far from miracles, but these are the actual 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.960 things that he probably had a hand in. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.600 You know, a lot of medieval sources we've been looking 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:59.200 at recently really emphasized the church building or church repair 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.080 career of people. What this just came up in our 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.760 Cats episode. Yeah, we were talking about the mystical Cats 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.879 of Great Britain, where what like the guy who was 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.520 doing unspeakable cat crimes in order to get a message 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.119 from the other world about you know what, what have 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:15.920 I got to do to make things right? And the 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:17.879 King of cats comes and tells him you got to 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:18.840 build seven churches. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.119 Yeah, well, what a kind of public works are you 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.680 gonna build? I mean, basically, comes, you're gonna build a church, 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.000 You're gonna build a bridge, what else? You're not gonna 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.000 build a water treatment plant? So y might as well 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:30.680 build that church. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.879 Okay, But so a known as a supporter of church 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.200 and and possibly also some secular infrastructure. 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.160 Yeah, but basically, you know, he this is a man 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.119 who had a career and we only know just a 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.399 few bullet points about his career, and as far as 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.200 we can tell, he was he was not considered saintly 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.280 during his own lifespan. You know, people I guess liked him, 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.360 and you know, being reasonable, there are probably some people 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.080 who didn't like him because he was a human being 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.400 in a position of some power. But and he also 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.200 wasn't considered saintly in the hundred years that fought or 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.320 so were roughly one hundred years that followed his death. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:14.880 All of it was built up on after that. 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:27.240 Point Okay, so where's the first jumping off point. When 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:28.760 do we start getting stories? 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.240 Well, you know, they basically with the creation of the cult, 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.280 but certainly by the time we see the tenth century 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.520 work life of Saint Swithin. According to Lappage, this is 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.720 just like pure fiction, just he says, the creation of 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.000 a scholar who had few historical resources at his disposal. 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.920 He stresses that there's there's a lot of conjecture. There's 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:51.399 you know, there are things you can point to in 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.640 these legends and say, well, okay, something in that could 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.879 have been true maybe, But one of the things that 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.440 factors into like a key story that we're going to 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:07.240 be talking about concerning Swift and concerns his humble burial requests, 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.880 and according according to Lapage, like this is just complete 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:17.320 legend making here. So basically the idea and we'll tell 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.119 the story a little more detail here shortly, but the 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.200 idea is that when he died, he's like, don't bury 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.679 me in a fancy tomb, bury me like out here 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:27.879 in the dirt, out in front of the church. I 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:29.720 want to be where people can walk over my grave. 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:32.760 Some of them phrase it in a more aggressive way, 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.639 and he's like, bury me in a nasty place, bury 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:37.720 me in a violent, gross, gross place. 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:41.680 Yeah, But the Lappage says that now he would have 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.000 been buried in a sarcophagus within a prominent tomb outside 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.240 of the old Minster Church, and then later he's moved 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:50.800 inside the church. And this has everything to do with 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.480 the creation of the of the saint, the cults of 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.760 the Saint around him, and then the church was eventually 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.919 expanded to encompass the grounds he was ariginally buried on. 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:03.800 And I think there's something kind of poetic to that. 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:08.200 You know, here's an historic individual sort of consumed by 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.240 the church or the workings of the church in the 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:16.639 hands of kingly authority, and the original historic individual becomes 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:18.959 kind of redundant via the waves of all of this 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.160 legend making interesting. 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.400 All right. So that is what we know about swithin, 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:30.639 the historic ninth century cleric of the Catholic Church. But 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.359 what do we know about the character, the character that 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.120 blooms from the grave of this figure. 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:40.480 Well, a lot of it I think is summed up 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:44.080 in that in this legend, this story that he says, 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.720 you know, bury me, bury me in the dirt, don't 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.720 bury me in the tomb. Give me a common nasty grave, 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:52.640 if you will, so that the rain's going to fall 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.600 in my grave. Common people can visit my grave, walk 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.679 over it, and so forth. And the idea that the 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:01.959 idea here is that they initially honor it, but then 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.440 they reverse the decision a century later, and his remains 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:07.879 are moved into the new church building, and then forty 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:09.920 days of rain follow Ah. 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:12.480 Okay, so here's where we start getting the tie into 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:15.720 the rain. Now. I was trying to find more information 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:19.840 about the legends of Saint Swithin's life and his connection 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.639 to the weather proverb that I mentioned earlier, and I 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:27.040 came across an article from the journal Weather from the 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:31.480 year nineteen forty seven by an author Anthony Klein. It's 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:35.600 called Saint Swithin's forty Days. Again, that's in the journal Weather. 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:41.040 So Klein the author here talks about how weatherlower tends 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:44.680 to come and go over time, but he says that 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:49.800 the predictive proverb associated with Swithin's day has really stuck around. 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.080 It has a tenacity, and he said, at the time 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.320 of his writing many still believe it. This would have 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:59.480 been in the nineteen forties. He says of course, meteorologists 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.480 have suppered tools to work with now in predicting the weather, 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:08.320 and yet quote still many harbor some minute and shadowy faith. However, 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.600 despite the popularity and tenacity of the proverb, one thing 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.280 that seems quite clear is that orst this is one 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.240 of these things like you can't rule out conclusively, but 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:23.080 it really does not seem to go back to Saint 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:27.280 Swithin himself. In fact, at the time of Klein's writing, 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:32.000 the earliest evidence he knew of knew of for the 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:35.359 prediction that forty days of rain would follow if it 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:38.960 rained on Saint Swithin's day was dated to Ben Johnson 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:42.600 around the year sixteen hundred, more than seven hundred years 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:47.640 after Saint Swithin's death. He quotes a version, so I'll 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.080 read from Kline here quote. At the end of the century, 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:53.960 Poor Robin's Almanac included in its dog roll for July 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:57.960 these lines in this month is Saint Swithin's day, on 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:01.800 which if that it rained, they a full forty days 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:05.520 after it will or more or less some rain distill. 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:10.200 Which is interesting because that's it's a similar rhyme pattern, 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.600 and it's like four lines and it has the same 0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:14.840 meaning as the rhyme I read earlier, but is totally 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:15.600 different words. 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:19.800 Yeah, yeah, a little more awkward. Yeah, it's construction, at 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:20.840 least by our standards. 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:24.919 I agree the earlier one scanned a little better. After this, 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:28.159 Klein talks about some other legends of Saint Swithin. So 0:25:28.200 --> 0:25:30.320 I did want to go go abroad a little bit 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:32.359 and look at a few other legends about his life. 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.480 There's one good one where there's an old lady carrying 0:25:35.480 --> 0:25:39.240 a basket of eggs and then a klutzy guy passes 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:41.040 by her. I think maybe this is happening on a 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.879 bridge or something. But a klutzy guy walks by the 0:25:43.920 --> 0:25:46.000 lady with her eggs and he breaks all the eggs, 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:49.159 and the old lady is distraught. She cries out for 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:52.320 her eggs, and then Saint Swyin comes along. He sees 0:25:52.359 --> 0:25:55.680 the situation, he gives a quick blessing and her eggs 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:59.760 are repaired. Wow. Okay, so that's a miracle. But then 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:02.960 I'm thinking, how are you actually supposed to picture that? 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:06.880 Picture it happening? The eggs break and the goop comes out? 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:09.680 Does the group go back inside the eggs? Are you 0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:12.920 supposed to picture the goop slithering inside like one half 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:15.440 of the shell, and then the eggs like close back 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:15.919 over it. 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:18.720 Hmmm. Oh ye, yeah, you're I think you're picturing it 0:26:18.840 --> 0:26:22.600 like he's reversing the footage. Yeah, and I guess I'm 0:26:22.600 --> 0:26:26.000 trying to imagine it more like a sleight of hand trick, 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:29.800 like he passes his palm over the cracked eggs, and 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:34.119 then in his palm's wake he leaves behind uncracked. 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:37.720 Eggs, missing footage. Yeah, okay, reversing the footage versus just 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:38.639 a hard cut. 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:44.720 Yeah. By the way, according to Lappage, this one story, apparently, 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:49.600 this one swift and miracle may have been reported off 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:52.560 him during his lifetime, but it still wasn't written down 0:26:52.600 --> 0:26:54.520 until one hundred and twenty years after his death. So 0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:58.240 he contends that it's it's very dubious, but he at 0:26:58.320 --> 0:27:02.280 least he does acknowledge that it's possible this story was 0:27:02.280 --> 0:27:03.720 told about him during his lifetime. 0:27:04.359 --> 0:27:07.120 It's one of the stories I see mentioned in multiple 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:09.640 sources about Swinton, so it seems to be a popular 0:27:09.640 --> 0:27:11.479 one that he repaired broken eggs. 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:15.439 Yeah, and it's it also seems humble enough, you know, 0:27:15.520 --> 0:27:18.720 for an individual who wasn't necessarily on the track for 0:27:18.800 --> 0:27:23.240 local sainthood just because he may have helped an old 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:25.560 lady with some broken eggs, you know, and we can 0:27:25.600 --> 0:27:29.040 easily imagine what the real world version of that could 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:30.680 have been like, maybe he saw somebody with a broken 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:32.560 egg and he's like, hey, I've got some extra eggs, 0:27:32.720 --> 0:27:35.199 have some, you know, and this act kindness gets, you know, 0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:37.200 magically translated into miracle. 0:27:37.440 --> 0:27:39.159 I was wondering if it could have anything to do 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:43.359 with him as the repairer of broken churches, Yeah, because he, 0:27:43.560 --> 0:27:47.399 you know, did the restorations and repairs there anyway. So 0:27:48.400 --> 0:27:52.040 a one source that a lot of writers on this 0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:55.400 topic end up going back to is a nineteenth century 0:27:55.480 --> 0:27:59.800 Oxford professor of Anglo Saxon named John Earl, who wrote 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:03.320 an essay in the eighteen sixties called on the Life 0:28:03.359 --> 0:28:06.679 and Times of Swithin which you can find collected in 0:28:06.720 --> 0:28:11.000 a book called Gloucester Fragments. That's where I was reading it. 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:16.080 So Earl talks about how in the tenth and eleventh 0:28:16.119 --> 0:28:21.159 century biographies of swithin quote, the historical part was very 0:28:21.359 --> 0:28:24.520 very meager, being little more than a frame to support 0:28:24.640 --> 0:28:29.320 the medallions of popular tradition and Earl claims that during 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:31.879 this period of history, a lot of the stories that 0:28:31.880 --> 0:28:36.760 were told about Christian saints actually have analogues in stories 0:28:36.800 --> 0:28:41.600 about pre Christian gods and heroes, So he argues that 0:28:41.680 --> 0:28:45.760 it's possible in some cases the deeds attributed to saints 0:28:45.840 --> 0:28:50.080 and Christian figures like Swithin are actually pieces of older 0:28:50.200 --> 0:28:55.920 pagan folklore being transferred onto an acceptable Catholic host. 0:28:56.680 --> 0:29:01.800 Hmmm, that's interesting. This reminds me. It's it's kind of 0:29:01.840 --> 0:29:05.160 like the the darker version of perhaps the same thing, 0:29:05.200 --> 0:29:10.560 but with with urban legends. Sometimes you encounter this where 0:29:10.720 --> 0:29:14.120 you'll have like urban legends, like generally scandalous things that 0:29:14.160 --> 0:29:17.760 are said about celebrities of old, and then they'll eventually 0:29:17.800 --> 0:29:20.360 get passed on to new celebrities, often with the new 0:29:21.320 --> 0:29:25.000 tale tellers maybe not even being not even realizing that 0:29:25.080 --> 0:29:27.880 these same stories were told about previous rock stars or 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:30.080 actors or what have you. But you need a place 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:32.400 to hang them, thank you, to use this analogy of 0:29:32.400 --> 0:29:34.120 the medallions hanging on the framework. 0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:36.560 Have we been hearing about how Bruno Mars bit the 0:29:36.560 --> 0:29:37.400 head off a bat? 0:29:38.120 --> 0:29:40.320 Not yet, but that's exactly the sort of thing you 0:29:40.320 --> 0:29:42.040 can you can imagine. 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:43.680 I guess, but that one really happened though. 0:29:43.920 --> 0:29:47.200 Yeah, yeah, or some version of it, right yeah. 0:29:47.080 --> 0:29:50.800 So yeah, not about Bruno Mars, I mean I actually did. 0:29:50.880 --> 0:29:55.320 Sorry anyway, But from here, Earl goes on to tell 0:29:55.400 --> 0:29:59.360 a pretty weird story from one of these Swithin legends 0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:02.960 that I just want to to recount here, so he says, 0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:06.760 quote among the stories narrated of Swyden is the following. 0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:10.400 A certain nobleman was walking by the side of a 0:30:10.480 --> 0:30:14.000 river at noontide, and he became suddenly aware of three 0:30:14.040 --> 0:30:18.400 female figures of more than human stature, which rapidly and 0:30:18.560 --> 0:30:22.640 furiously bore down upon him. He could not escape. They 0:30:22.720 --> 0:30:25.600 seized him and maltreated him and left him as dead. 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:29.720 He was brought to Swyen and presently restored. In this 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:35.120 narrative we may confidently recognize the three fates of Scandinavian mythology, 0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:38.080 the past, the present and the future. They make their 0:30:38.120 --> 0:30:40.920 appearance again in the form of the three witches who 0:30:40.960 --> 0:30:45.160 meet Macbeth and Banquo on the heath, the weird sisters 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:49.600 hand in hand posters of the sea and land. And 0:30:49.640 --> 0:30:51.880 then he also goes on to say a well known 0:30:51.960 --> 0:30:56.480 chromlic on the verge of Dartmoor near Drustenden has three 0:30:56.520 --> 0:30:59.480 tall uprights. The name of the cromlic among the people 0:30:59.480 --> 0:31:03.280 of the country is the Spinster's Rock. Still the same 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:07.800 three weird or fatal sisters. And here I looked up 0:31:07.840 --> 0:31:11.680 this monument by the way, Spinster's Rock near Dartmoor, which 0:31:11.720 --> 0:31:16.239 is in southwest England. It's a neolithic chambered tomb or 0:31:16.360 --> 0:31:19.880 the modern remains of which what's left of it are 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:24.320 actually a reconstruction now of three upright stones balancing a 0:31:24.400 --> 0:31:27.520 large capstone between them. What we're looking at in this 0:31:27.600 --> 0:31:30.800 picture of is a modern reconstruction after this thing collapsed, 0:31:30.800 --> 0:31:34.840 I believe during a storm in the eighteen sixties a storm. Yeah, 0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:38.200 but I've got an illustration of the original monument from 0:31:38.240 --> 0:31:40.640 eighteen forty eight for you to look at here, and 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:42.760 it does look a little bit haunting. So yeah, three 0:31:42.840 --> 0:31:47.160 upright stones and a big multi ton capstone balance between them. 0:31:47.480 --> 0:31:50.520 Obviously has some wonderful associations with this kind of legend 0:31:50.560 --> 0:31:55.080 of like three you know, three dangerous witches or weird sisters, 0:31:55.160 --> 0:31:58.800 or figures of you know, female monstrous figures of some kind. 0:31:59.360 --> 0:32:02.320 I'm not sure what modern folklore scholars would make of 0:32:02.360 --> 0:32:05.360 these connections that Earle is drawing. I think now there 0:32:05.440 --> 0:32:08.480 is a tendency to look back on some of the 0:32:08.520 --> 0:32:11.520 folklore scholarship of the nineteenth and early twentieth century with 0:32:11.600 --> 0:32:14.000 a little more critical of a lens. Like a lot 0:32:14.040 --> 0:32:18.560 of the soldier scholarship was probably a little too enthusiastic 0:32:18.680 --> 0:32:22.760 in finding parallels between different stories and practices and then 0:32:22.880 --> 0:32:26.080 asserting with too little evidence that it was actually that, 0:32:26.160 --> 0:32:28.720 actually one of these is the direct ancestor of the other. 0:32:28.760 --> 0:32:30.520 I mean, in some cases, of course it is, but 0:32:31.320 --> 0:32:34.560 in other cases we don't know. Though in this case 0:32:34.920 --> 0:32:37.280 it seems interesting and Rob, I think you even did 0:32:37.320 --> 0:32:39.560 you come across another version of a story like this 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:41.680 about Swiften or the same story? 0:32:41.760 --> 0:32:44.800 I think it is the same story. So Lappage includes 0:32:46.120 --> 0:32:48.040 a section here where I think he's including the actual 0:32:48.080 --> 0:32:50.720 text from it. So this would have been from Lanford 0:32:50.800 --> 0:32:54.120 of Fleury, who wrote a tenth or eleventh century work, 0:32:54.160 --> 0:32:57.360 The Life of Saint Swiften, which again is this is 0:32:57.480 --> 0:33:00.160 very much in the tradition of legendary Saint Swiftin this 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:03.800 is not historic at all. But yeah, this this bit 0:33:04.080 --> 0:33:06.560 where he tells the tale of a local man of 0:33:06.600 --> 0:33:09.920 Winchester who happens to be traveling along, takes a nap, 0:33:10.320 --> 0:33:13.840 and when he wakes up he sees two grotesque female creatures. 0:33:13.880 --> 0:33:18.440 These are two of the witches, two of the weird sisters. Quote, 0:33:18.640 --> 0:33:21.160 not decked out in any finery, nor covered up with 0:33:21.200 --> 0:33:24.000 any clothing, but rather naked to their foul skin and 0:33:24.160 --> 0:33:28.560 terrifying with their swarthy hair, blackened with faces like tosephany, 0:33:28.840 --> 0:33:32.880 and armed with hellish wickedness and poison. And here in 0:33:33.000 --> 0:33:35.520 name referring to one of the names of the furies, 0:33:35.920 --> 0:33:38.720 and this is referred to once more in the text 0:33:38.720 --> 0:33:40.400 as well, saying like these are like two of the 0:33:40.400 --> 0:33:44.440 three furies. But Lappage notes that when we get into 0:33:44.480 --> 0:33:48.120 some of the terms used, yeah, these may be hags 0:33:48.240 --> 0:33:54.880 or witches. There's this word hag, hag sessen, and this 0:33:54.920 --> 0:33:59.080 is sometimes Lappage notes associated with the word valkyrie. So 0:33:59.480 --> 0:34:01.440 in a way you could think of these certainly as 0:34:01.480 --> 0:34:04.959 hags or witches, but also you could probably think of 0:34:05.000 --> 0:34:07.520 them as valkyries to a certain extent, or at least 0:34:07.560 --> 0:34:11.440 the stories that these are based on, like the original 0:34:12.440 --> 0:34:14.759 spirit of this medallion that's now hung on the frame 0:34:14.800 --> 0:34:17.440 of Saint Swithin you know, may go back to stories 0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:21.200 of the valkyries in Scandinavian traditions. 0:34:21.719 --> 0:34:24.040 Okay, so in this case, the kind of connection that 0:34:24.120 --> 0:34:28.840 Earl is making to earlier pre Christian stories Lappage seems 0:34:28.840 --> 0:34:31.520 to be at least partially endorsing. More modern scholar is 0:34:31.560 --> 0:34:33.720 also saying that there seems to be some real connective 0:34:33.719 --> 0:34:34.400 tissue here. 0:34:34.960 --> 0:34:38.720 Yeah. Yeah, And the full story boy goes on along ways. 0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:41.640 But basically, these two witches try to speak to this 0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:45.399 man of Winchester, and he is frightened and he runs 0:34:45.400 --> 0:34:47.239 away from them, and they chase after him, and they 0:34:47.280 --> 0:34:49.480 taunt him about how he's doomed and he's gonna die 0:34:49.880 --> 0:34:51.560 when they catch him, and so he prays to God 0:34:51.600 --> 0:34:55.359 for protection. Meanwhile, the third sister, who is dressed all 0:34:55.360 --> 0:34:57.120 in white, she calls out to the other two and 0:34:57.160 --> 0:34:59.880 she's like, stop chasing him. Loop around over here with me. 0:35:00.320 --> 0:35:01.880 I'm going to ambush him. I'm going to get him 0:35:01.880 --> 0:35:05.240 real good. And then thanks to God's interference, he attack 0:35:06.080 --> 0:35:09.279 is like partially blocked and it only wounds like the 0:35:09.360 --> 0:35:12.280 man on one side of his body, but he's pretty wounded, 0:35:12.280 --> 0:35:13.839 so he has to be taken to the nearest church 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:17.360 where he is healed by none other than Bishop Swithen. 0:35:17.239 --> 0:35:19.279 S with unto the rescue. He just treats him like 0:35:19.320 --> 0:35:21.320 a big egg. Yeah. 0:35:21.920 --> 0:35:24.720 By the way, on the subject of hags and witches 0:35:24.760 --> 0:35:28.719 in Saint Swithin, Sir Walter Scott in his eighteen fourteen 0:35:29.200 --> 0:35:33.080 novel Waverley, has this fragment of a ballad that is 0:35:33.120 --> 0:35:38.040 included that Scott put together for use in the fiction 0:35:38.160 --> 0:35:42.560 here called Saint Swithin's Chair. And you can look this up. 0:35:43.239 --> 0:35:46.120 It's on your main poetry websites. But I just want 0:35:46.160 --> 0:35:48.280 to read just a bit from it where he's taking 0:35:48.280 --> 0:35:51.680 this connection between Swithin and hags and like taking it 0:35:51.719 --> 0:35:54.440 in a darker direction. And he says he that dares 0:35:54.560 --> 0:35:58.240 sit on Saint Swithum's chair when the night hag wings 0:35:58.280 --> 0:36:02.360 the troubled air questions three. When he speaks the spell, 0:36:02.840 --> 0:36:06.719 he may ask and she must tell. So in this, 0:36:07.040 --> 0:36:10.120 you know, Scott would seem to be like taking these 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:13.200 ideas about about Swithen and like taking them to the 0:36:13.239 --> 0:36:15.719 next darker step, not just one that not one that 0:36:15.719 --> 0:36:18.879 controls or has influence over the weather, or even one 0:36:18.880 --> 0:36:23.600 that can can can heal the damage rot by hags, 0:36:23.640 --> 0:36:26.600 but perhaps one that can control the creatures of the 0:36:26.680 --> 0:36:27.279 night as well. 0:36:28.000 --> 0:36:41.200 Wow. You know, to continue with with Earl's theme of 0:36:41.800 --> 0:36:45.600 decorating the lives of Christian saints with material from other sources, 0:36:45.600 --> 0:36:48.640 hanging the medallions on the frame, so to speak. Uh, 0:36:48.719 --> 0:36:51.920 he mentions stories based on wonders of nature, and I 0:36:52.000 --> 0:36:54.359 just wanted to throw this out there quick, because this 0:36:54.440 --> 0:36:57.040 relates to something we just discussed in our Cats of 0:36:57.080 --> 0:37:03.120 Cyprus episode. So he says, quote, any phenomenon, whether constant 0:37:03.239 --> 0:37:07.800 or casual, that had arrested popular attention was fit matter 0:37:07.920 --> 0:37:12.000 for these amusing and edifying narratives. The ammonites of Whitby 0:37:12.120 --> 0:37:16.960 became coiled serpents of that Saint Hilda had charmed. Another 0:37:17.040 --> 0:37:21.520 geological curiosity became the beads of Saint Cuthbert, and to 0:37:21.640 --> 0:37:25.640 Saint Patrick was attributed the absence of venomous serpents in Ireland. 0:37:26.280 --> 0:37:29.160 But yeah, that first example, we were just talking about 0:37:29.200 --> 0:37:33.560 the ammonites, the shells of these now extinct cephalopods, these 0:37:33.600 --> 0:37:37.359 sea creatures that died out in the KPg extinction. You know, 0:37:37.400 --> 0:37:41.760 we find these fossils everywhere, certainly in England. But yeah, 0:37:42.280 --> 0:37:45.000 these are actually now the coiled serpents of Saint Hilda. 0:37:45.000 --> 0:37:47.200 I think we were talking about them as coiled serpents 0:37:47.239 --> 0:37:48.240 of something else. 0:37:48.520 --> 0:37:49.720 No, no, no, it was Hilda. 0:37:49.840 --> 0:37:52.640 Oh it was Hilda. Okay, okay, but you people were 0:37:52.680 --> 0:37:55.360 like trying to help out the connection by carving snake 0:37:55.400 --> 0:37:57.920 faces into them. They're a little too cute. 0:37:57.960 --> 0:38:00.400 Yeah, you can look up images of these. Yeah. 0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:04.720 Anyway, But coming back to Klein's discussion of the weather 0:38:04.920 --> 0:38:07.080 related stories, so those are some other stories. You know, 0:38:07.160 --> 0:38:10.759 he fixes broken eggs, he heals people who have been 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:14.120 attacked by witches or weird sisters or valkyries or whatever. 0:38:14.560 --> 0:38:17.759 But another story from the legend of Saint Swithin which 0:38:17.760 --> 0:38:22.040 actually connects thematically to the weather. So this is what 0:38:22.080 --> 0:38:23.240 you were alluding to earlier. 0:38:23.320 --> 0:38:23.560 Rob. 0:38:23.880 --> 0:38:26.319 The story goes that Saint Swiin was so humble and 0:38:26.400 --> 0:38:29.759 so pious that he asked that at the time of 0:38:29.800 --> 0:38:33.640 his death his body be buried outside the church. And 0:38:33.880 --> 0:38:37.359 I assume this is referring to Winchester Cathedral, or at 0:38:37.400 --> 0:38:40.480 least the version of that cathedral that existed at the time. 0:38:40.840 --> 0:38:43.920 The Winchester Cathedral that exists today was built centuries after 0:38:44.040 --> 0:38:47.560 Swidin's death, but so it was the earlier version of 0:38:47.600 --> 0:38:50.200 that church. He wanted to be outside so that as 0:38:50.200 --> 0:38:52.520 we were talking about, rain would fall upon his grave, 0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:55.040 and so that the feet of people passing by the 0:38:55.120 --> 0:38:58.360 church would trample on top of it. And the clergy 0:38:58.520 --> 0:39:01.760 initially honored his wishes. They put him where he asked. 0:39:01.800 --> 0:39:05.080 But about one hundred years after his death, some churchmen 0:39:05.239 --> 0:39:09.160 got squeamish and they were like, Saint Swiin was really holy, 0:39:09.800 --> 0:39:12.480 isn't it wrong that people should be walking around on 0:39:12.560 --> 0:39:16.560 top of his grave? So they made preparations to dig 0:39:16.680 --> 0:39:20.040 up his remains and move them on the date of 0:39:20.239 --> 0:39:24.680 July fifteenth, But when the day came, a mighty storm 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:28.560 broke out, forcing the church to delay their plans. Only 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:31.200 the storm did not stop. It kept reigning for forty 0:39:31.280 --> 0:39:34.799 days and forty nights straight, and this was interpreted as 0:39:35.080 --> 0:39:38.279 Saint Swithin's revenge from beyond the grave, or at least 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:41.759 him issuing a stern warning to them do not disobey 0:39:41.840 --> 0:39:46.360 his wishes. So instead they just built a chapel over 0:39:46.480 --> 0:39:50.040 his existing grave, and many miracles were performed there. It 0:39:50.080 --> 0:39:55.479 seems like still a violation of what he was asking for. Yeah, 0:39:55.560 --> 0:39:59.520 I don't know, but client says this story is not 0:39:59.760 --> 0:40:04.000 the origin of the weather prophecy. And this version of 0:40:04.040 --> 0:40:06.759 the story does not show up until the eighteenth century, 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:10.799 and it contradicts the claims of his earlier biographies, which 0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:13.920 are again are probably also legendary, but were at least earlier. 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:18.719 These earlier biographies, you know, they they're the ones that 0:40:18.760 --> 0:40:20.640 talk about the things I was bringing up earlier about 0:40:20.680 --> 0:40:22.600 him being a real work beast when it came to 0:40:22.920 --> 0:40:28.399 infrastructure projects, restoring old churches, building new ones. Apparently he 0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:32.239 you know, he really impressed the King ethel Wolf by 0:40:32.280 --> 0:40:35.000 doing all this work, and ethel Wolf eventually granted the 0:40:35.080 --> 0:40:37.760 church ten percent of its royal lands as a gift. 0:40:37.840 --> 0:40:42.080 According to these stories, and also at Winchesters, it is 0:40:42.120 --> 0:40:44.440 said that he had a stone bridge built over the 0:40:44.520 --> 0:40:47.800 river Itchin, and he was known for being deeply humble 0:40:47.880 --> 0:40:51.480 and even ascetic, Like he traveled through his diocese on foot, 0:40:51.960 --> 0:40:54.680 and he threw banquets where only the poor and the 0:40:54.719 --> 0:40:57.239 outcast were invited, the rich were not allowed in. 0:40:57.840 --> 0:40:59.640 And like that's one of the details where I think 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:02.320 you can the argument and that could be true, absolutely 0:41:02.320 --> 0:41:04.320 could be true, it doesn't break anything else that we 0:41:04.600 --> 0:41:06.360 understand about the man or the time. 0:41:06.880 --> 0:41:09.959 According to these earlier stories, when he died, he left 0:41:10.000 --> 0:41:13.360 instructions that he was to be buried outside the church 0:41:13.480 --> 0:41:15.440 in Oh, here's the source of what I was saying earlier, 0:41:15.719 --> 0:41:19.760 buried outside the church in quote, a vile and unworthy place. 0:41:20.640 --> 0:41:23.080 And then this earlier biography also tells that in the 0:41:23.160 --> 0:41:26.080 year nine seventy one, more than one hundred years after 0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:30.160 his death on July fifteenth, in fact, his remains were 0:41:30.640 --> 0:41:34.440 actually successfully moved from their original resting place, from the 0:41:34.520 --> 0:41:37.880 vile and unworthy place and taken to a new church. 0:41:38.280 --> 0:41:41.120 And so this contradicts the forty days of rain revenge 0:41:41.160 --> 0:41:45.040 story and really has nothing to do with weather. Now 0:41:45.080 --> 0:41:47.480 Here client actually brings it back to the figure of 0:41:47.560 --> 0:41:52.040 John Earle, the Anglo Saxon professor I was talking about earlier, who, 0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:55.320 he says, quote in the middle of last century, discovered 0:41:55.360 --> 0:42:01.239 and translated a fragmentary chronicle concerning the transference. According to this, 0:42:01.440 --> 0:42:05.000 Bishop Swien appeared in a dream to an aged smith 0:42:05.120 --> 0:42:08.800 at Winchester, bidding him communicate to the monks the saints 0:42:08.880 --> 0:42:11.920 wish that his bones should be brought within the church 0:42:12.520 --> 0:42:14.960 asking for a sign to convince the monks of the 0:42:15.000 --> 0:42:17.880 authenticity of the message. He was told to pull an 0:42:17.960 --> 0:42:21.799 iron ring embedded in Swithin's stone coffin and it would 0:42:21.840 --> 0:42:25.680 come away. So it did, but the smith still hesitated 0:42:25.760 --> 0:42:30.040 until Swyin had appeared to him three times. Then he obeyed. 0:42:30.880 --> 0:42:34.279 It's interesting that part of the confirmation here is dig 0:42:34.360 --> 0:42:38.240 up my grave and then pull on parts of my coffin. 0:42:38.800 --> 0:42:40.759 So at that point you've aready done, like what a 0:42:40.800 --> 0:42:43.160 third of the work anyway, maybe half the work. 0:42:43.600 --> 0:42:46.880 But he had to appear three times like this smith 0:42:46.920 --> 0:42:51.000 took some convincing. But it's also the exact opposite of 0:42:51.040 --> 0:42:54.360 the earlier story. So in this version of the story, 0:42:54.400 --> 0:42:57.360 the transfer of the remains was not contrary to Swithin's wishes. 0:42:57.480 --> 0:43:01.360 It was his direct request. And then you've got additional 0:43:01.440 --> 0:43:06.320 legendary explanations for the transfer. Let's see, there were stories 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:10.560 of like I think one of them goes basically like 0:43:10.960 --> 0:43:13.680 There were stories that went far and wide of miracles 0:43:13.680 --> 0:43:17.040 worked at the grave of Swithin. The blind came to 0:43:17.080 --> 0:43:19.239 it and recovered their sight. There's a story of a 0:43:19.320 --> 0:43:22.960 humped man losing his hump. So the king at the time, 0:43:23.120 --> 0:43:26.080 King Edgar, heard of these wonder works, and he thus 0:43:26.239 --> 0:43:29.439 ordered that Swiin's remains be moved from his grave into 0:43:29.520 --> 0:43:33.160 a gold shrine covered in jewels. Seems to befitting of 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:36.960 such a humble man as Swithin, And there was a 0:43:36.960 --> 0:43:39.719 great ceremony in the feast. And in this version of 0:43:39.760 --> 0:43:43.960 the story there's like nothing at all about weather. So 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:46.880 what's the origin of the connection to whether? As of 0:43:46.960 --> 0:43:50.320 Klein's article, he says the answer is not really known, 0:43:51.360 --> 0:43:55.440 But of course Earl speculates that it may have to 0:43:55.520 --> 0:43:59.799 do with a pre existing tradition, possibly going back to 0:44:00.000 --> 0:44:06.120 three Christian times. Throughout many different local European pagan mythologies 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:11.239 of weather predicting proverbs that were rooted in some kind 0:44:11.280 --> 0:44:15.880 of local god or hero. There are other local saints 0:44:16.040 --> 0:44:20.360 around the world associated with weather prediction heuristics. For example, 0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:24.719 the legend of Saint Medard's Day June eighth, known in 0:44:24.840 --> 0:44:30.040 France so Madard or Medardas was a Christian bishop who 0:44:30.080 --> 0:44:33.560 lived in the fifth through the sixth century in modern 0:44:33.600 --> 0:44:36.520 day France, and the legend about him goes that one 0:44:36.600 --> 0:44:39.840 day when Madarda's child he was out walking in the 0:44:39.840 --> 0:44:42.560 country with a bunch of other people. They were out 0:44:42.600 --> 0:44:45.359 and it was nice weather. But then a terrible thunderstorm 0:44:45.400 --> 0:44:48.240 broke out, and the people all around him were soaked 0:44:48.239 --> 0:44:52.200 in the rain. But Madard himself was bone dry because 0:44:52.719 --> 0:44:56.680 he was sheltered from above by a giant eagle that 0:44:56.840 --> 0:45:00.000 hovered over his head with wings unfolded for the entire 0:45:00.400 --> 0:45:03.400 of his journey home. So an eagle umbrella. 0:45:03.400 --> 0:45:06.560 All right, all right, one that hovers, yes. 0:45:07.160 --> 0:45:10.240 And so in France there was a weather prediction proverb 0:45:10.360 --> 0:45:14.000 or weather prophecy about Saint Medard's day that is almost 0:45:14.080 --> 0:45:18.440 identical to the Swien proverb. It's basically, if it rains 0:45:18.440 --> 0:45:20.719 on Saint Madard's day, there will be forty more days 0:45:20.760 --> 0:45:23.279 of rain. If it's dry, the next forty days will 0:45:23.320 --> 0:45:26.200 be dry. And then Earl has a footnote where he 0:45:26.239 --> 0:45:28.720 also mentions a couple of other figures like this. Apparently 0:45:28.760 --> 0:45:32.799 there's a weather predicting proverb for a Saint Prote in 0:45:32.880 --> 0:45:38.600 France prot Ais. And then he also says quote, the 0:45:38.640 --> 0:45:43.360 reigning saint in Flanders is a Saint a Godoliev And 0:45:43.520 --> 0:45:47.000 in Germany there are three reigning saints or Saints days. 0:45:47.400 --> 0:45:50.200 One of the days is that of the Seven Sleepers. 0:45:51.480 --> 0:45:53.439 I think we've talked about the Seven Sleepers on the show, 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:53.880 haven't we. 0:45:54.200 --> 0:45:56.440 I believe so I'm a little foggy off the top 0:45:56.480 --> 0:45:58.720 of my head who they were while they were sleeping, 0:45:58.800 --> 0:46:01.520 But I do believe we've talked about them. 0:46:01.560 --> 0:46:04.680 I think the story is they were early Christian saints 0:46:04.680 --> 0:46:06.960 in the Roman Empire who went into a cave to 0:46:07.080 --> 0:46:10.160 escape persecution by the Romans, and then they fell asleep, 0:46:10.360 --> 0:46:12.920 and then they woke up. I don't know. It's a 0:46:13.000 --> 0:46:15.040 kind of a rip van Winkle thing. They woke up 0:46:15.120 --> 0:46:16.160 many many years later. 0:46:16.360 --> 0:46:19.040 We talked about them in our episode on time travel 0:46:19.080 --> 0:46:23.400 fiction and what are some of the arguments for early 0:46:23.719 --> 0:46:29.800 precursors to science fiction time travel stories. It's, in my opinion, 0:46:29.920 --> 0:46:32.279 a pretty cool episode, So I would recommend folks go 0:46:32.280 --> 0:46:34.440 back and listen to it. Yeah, because it's like the 0:46:34.800 --> 0:46:37.359 idea of time travel, like where not only where does 0:46:37.400 --> 0:46:39.880 it come from, but how far back were we thinking 0:46:39.920 --> 0:46:42.799 about things like it? How far back did we think 0:46:42.800 --> 0:46:47.399 about time in the same way, Because nowadays, with via 0:46:47.480 --> 0:46:50.839 time travel fiction, we think about this sort of thing 0:46:50.880 --> 0:46:53.040 all the time. If I could go back and change this. 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:55.120 If I could go into the future and see what 0:46:55.160 --> 0:46:55.880 this will look like. 0:46:57.640 --> 0:46:59.440 I have fun memories of that episode. 0:46:59.640 --> 0:47:02.560 Yeah, and now you can actually go back in time 0:47:02.600 --> 0:47:04.880 and listen to it. That's the thing about vodcasts. 0:47:15.160 --> 0:47:19.480 So there's another quick literary connection I wanted to discuss 0:47:19.520 --> 0:47:22.280 that I thought was interesting. This one I came across 0:47:22.400 --> 0:47:28.680 in a post by the Royal Meteorological Society of Great Britain. 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:32.359 The post is called behind the Folklore Saint Swithin's Day? 0:47:32.640 --> 0:47:35.680 Does rain today really mean a ruined summer? This is 0:47:35.680 --> 0:47:39.920 from July fifteenth, twenty nineteen. This post includes a quote 0:47:40.200 --> 0:47:45.480 from a poem called Trivia or the Art of Walking 0:47:45.520 --> 0:47:48.560 the Streets of London, by the British writer John Gay, 0:47:48.719 --> 0:47:53.319 published in seventeen sixteen. I knew nothing of this work beforehand, 0:47:53.360 --> 0:47:55.560 but I looked it up and it had some very 0:47:55.560 --> 0:47:59.759 funny parts. It's a satirical poem giving advice about how 0:47:59.800 --> 0:48:03.879 to walks around the city, including everything from what to where, 0:48:04.200 --> 0:48:08.680 to strategies for avoiding common dangers and obstacles in the streets. 0:48:08.719 --> 0:48:10.759 You know, how not to get a chamber pot port 0:48:10.800 --> 0:48:14.440 on your head or whatever. And here's one couplet from 0:48:14.480 --> 0:48:18.960 it when suffocating mists obscure the morn let thy worst 0:48:19.040 --> 0:48:21.960 wig long used to storms be worn. 0:48:22.239 --> 0:48:23.200 And it rhymes too. 0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:28.279 Yeah, that's just good advice. Yeah, But there is a 0:48:28.320 --> 0:48:32.800 passage that directly addresses the weather predicting proverb of Saint Swithin, 0:48:33.080 --> 0:48:36.800 and also one that is about the Festival of Saint 0:48:36.840 --> 0:48:39.920 Paul as well. So there are multiple weather predicting proverbs. 0:48:40.800 --> 0:48:45.200 So John Gay's poem goes like this, all superstition from 0:48:45.239 --> 0:48:49.600 thy breast, repel let, credulous boys and prattling nurses tell 0:48:50.000 --> 0:48:53.759 how if the Festival of Paul be clear, plenty from 0:48:53.960 --> 0:48:57.840 liberal horn shall strow the ear. When the dark skies 0:48:57.880 --> 0:49:01.200 dissolve in snow or rain, the labor hind shall yoke 0:49:01.280 --> 0:49:04.759 the steer in vain. But if the threatening winds in 0:49:04.880 --> 0:49:09.240 tempest roar, then war shall bathe her wasteful sword and gore. 0:49:10.719 --> 0:49:13.080 And then here's the relevant part with Swithen, This is 0:49:13.120 --> 0:49:16.520 the other half here. How if on Swithin's feast, the 0:49:16.600 --> 0:49:19.480 welkin lowers, I was like, what, I had to look 0:49:19.520 --> 0:49:22.560 that up, so that meaning dark clouds gather. Basically, welkin 0:49:22.760 --> 0:49:26.160 is the sky lowers, I think means like lowers like 0:49:26.200 --> 0:49:29.880 it grows dark, if the sky grows dark, If on 0:49:30.120 --> 0:49:34.160 Swithin's feast, the welkin lowers, and every penthouse streams with 0:49:34.239 --> 0:49:38.800 hasty showers twice twenty days, shall clouds their fleeces drain 0:49:39.239 --> 0:49:43.000 and wash the pavements with incessant rain? Let not such 0:49:43.120 --> 0:49:47.720 vulgar tails debase thy mind nor Paul nor swithen rules 0:49:47.760 --> 0:49:51.480 the clouds and wind, oh sad to end on that 0:49:51.960 --> 0:49:54.960 kind of rhyme that doesn't really work anymore, Mind and 0:49:56.120 --> 0:49:59.840 mind and wind? I wonder did did mind sound like wind? 0:50:00.400 --> 0:50:02.160 Or did wind sound like mind? 0:50:02.760 --> 0:50:05.799 I mean, that's that's always the question, right, are you 0:50:05.800 --> 0:50:08.000 gonna Are you gonna actually try and make something like 0:50:08.040 --> 0:50:11.360 this rhyme when you pronounce it and potentially sound foolish. 0:50:11.600 --> 0:50:14.960 But so, even in seventeen sixteen, this guy's well aware 0:50:15.040 --> 0:50:18.439 of this proverb as like a common saying, but he's saying, 0:50:18.480 --> 0:50:22.040 pay no attention, it's hogwash. In fact, I couldn't find 0:50:22.120 --> 0:50:25.160 any older sources where people are saying this is a good. Yeah, 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:28.719 this is good, it really works. Every source I was 0:50:28.719 --> 0:50:31.000 finding on it was just people hundreds of years ago 0:50:31.080 --> 0:50:33.440 saying this is stupid. It doesn't make any sense. 0:50:33.320 --> 0:50:35.880 Yeah, because all you have to do is observe and 0:50:35.920 --> 0:50:37.479 you don't need It's not one of these things where 0:50:37.480 --> 0:50:39.440 you can just say, well, if you have the benefit 0:50:39.520 --> 0:50:42.399 of long term record keeping, like no, it's like if 0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:45.839 you've just tried it out more than once or even once, 0:50:45.880 --> 0:50:48.120 you'd realize, you know, that didn't work, that actually wasn't 0:50:48.120 --> 0:50:48.880 helpful advice. 0:50:49.080 --> 0:50:51.120 That's right. So here we come to the question does 0:50:51.160 --> 0:50:53.960 it actually predict the weather? The short answer is no. 0:50:54.239 --> 0:50:56.840 It is not a reliable guide and you can easily 0:50:56.840 --> 0:50:58.920 find lots of cases where it's wrong. In fact, if 0:50:58.920 --> 0:51:03.240 you're strict about it, it is always wrong. The Royal 0:51:03.280 --> 0:51:07.640 Meteorological Society post points out quote since records began, not 0:51:07.800 --> 0:51:11.440 a single forty day drought has occurred anywhere in the 0:51:11.560 --> 0:51:14.359 UK during the summer months, and there has not been 0:51:14.440 --> 0:51:18.440 one instance at any time of the year of forty 0:51:18.480 --> 0:51:22.800 consecutive days of rainfall sunshine on Saint Swithin's day in Miami, 0:51:22.960 --> 0:51:26.560 Maywell auger forty days of unbroken sunshine, But in Blackpool 0:51:26.680 --> 0:51:30.279 it most assuredly does not. So the if you're very 0:51:30.360 --> 0:51:33.600 strict about interpreting it, this never ever has happened, and 0:51:33.760 --> 0:51:36.680 never will happen. I mean maybe in a million years, 0:51:36.719 --> 0:51:37.960 but never happens. 0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:40.760 Yeah, once they build the dome or something. 0:51:40.800 --> 0:51:44.359 You know. Now, if you're not as strict in interpreting it, 0:51:44.440 --> 0:51:47.680 if you take it more as an indicator of general trends, 0:51:48.239 --> 0:51:50.800 it often does hold true, though you can still find 0:51:50.880 --> 0:51:52.520 lots of years where it does not. 0:51:53.040 --> 0:51:53.160 So. 0:51:53.280 --> 0:51:56.000 John Earl investigated this in the eighteen hundreds. In his 0:51:56.080 --> 0:51:59.360 piece on it, he's like looking at almanacs, and he says, 0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:03.239 quote in z Owns Everyday Book for July fifteenth, some 0:52:03.560 --> 0:52:07.200 observations are quoted, tending to prove that though it will 0:52:07.200 --> 0:52:10.839 not bear rigid examination, yet it is not totally unfounded. 0:52:11.200 --> 0:52:14.840 Among other instances, these occur. In eighteen oh seven, it 0:52:14.920 --> 0:52:17.800 proved wrong. A rainy July fifteenth was followed by a 0:52:17.880 --> 0:52:20.759 dry time. In eighteen oh eight, it was wet, and 0:52:20.800 --> 0:52:24.680 the rule came partially true. In eighteen eighteen and eighteen nineteen. 0:52:24.760 --> 0:52:28.120 July fifteenth was dry and followed by dry weather. Of 0:52:28.160 --> 0:52:30.960 the series eighteen oh seven to eighteen nineteen, it was 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:35.040 generally true enough, but in the wet summer of eighteen sixteen, 0:52:35.160 --> 0:52:38.760 though the adage was literally verified. Yet the heaviest wet 0:52:38.880 --> 0:52:42.080 fell before the fifteenth and Earl has a friend who 0:52:42.160 --> 0:52:45.719 studies meteorology who tells him that, you know, really, the 0:52:45.719 --> 0:52:50.280 only way people can believe this prognostication has predictive value 0:52:50.560 --> 0:52:54.800 is by quote attention being given to the instances wherein 0:52:54.920 --> 0:52:57.959 it fell true and neglect of the cases in which 0:52:58.000 --> 0:52:59.000 the reverse occurred. 0:52:59.320 --> 0:53:01.480 Ah, isn't that always the case? 0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:05.440 Yeah, this would be once again our old friend confirmation bias, 0:53:05.520 --> 0:53:08.480 where you count the hits and you ignore the misses. 0:53:09.200 --> 0:53:11.800 And you know, I think a lot of even outside 0:53:11.840 --> 0:53:16.160 of weather prediction, just a lot of common sayings and 0:53:16.320 --> 0:53:20.920 proverbs are regarded as wisdom in part on the basis 0:53:20.960 --> 0:53:25.600 of confirmation bias. They're not actually true in all cases, 0:53:25.760 --> 0:53:29.840 or sometimes even in most cases, but because we're already 0:53:29.880 --> 0:53:33.480 familiar with a proverb propounding a rule or a pattern, 0:53:34.160 --> 0:53:38.200 we notice events that conform to the rule and associate 0:53:38.280 --> 0:53:41.720 them with the rule, and we tend to ignore events 0:53:41.760 --> 0:53:44.240 that contradict the rule, or at least we don't mentally 0:53:44.280 --> 0:53:47.239 associate them with the saying. So I was just thinking 0:53:47.280 --> 0:53:49.560 of common sayings. One that came to mind for me 0:53:49.680 --> 0:53:53.719 is absence makes the heart grow fonder, seems very true, right, 0:53:54.160 --> 0:53:55.000 seems very true? 0:53:55.080 --> 0:53:56.080 Why people keep saying it? 0:53:56.200 --> 0:53:59.319 Right, Yeah, being away from something or someone makes you 0:53:59.440 --> 0:54:02.320 yearn for them thing or that person. But there's also 0:54:02.360 --> 0:54:06.319 a counter saying, out of sight out of mind. This 0:54:06.440 --> 0:54:09.920 also seems true, even though it basically means exactly the opposite. 0:54:10.600 --> 0:54:13.719 And I think the reality is that sometimes absence makes 0:54:13.719 --> 0:54:16.319 the heart grow fonder, and sometimes it doesn't. And in 0:54:16.400 --> 0:54:19.200 the cases where it does, it seems like it proves 0:54:19.280 --> 0:54:22.160 the saying true, and in cases where it doesn't, it 0:54:22.239 --> 0:54:24.920 just doesn't occur to us to count it against the proverb. 0:54:25.800 --> 0:54:28.799 So maybe instead it just counts as confirmation of an 0:54:28.800 --> 0:54:31.800 opposing proverb. Oh, out of sight, out of mind confirmed? 0:54:31.920 --> 0:54:34.359 So like both are true even though they contradict. 0:54:34.760 --> 0:54:38.800 Yeah, Like, it's you're summoning a saying to make sense 0:54:38.840 --> 0:54:40.719 of things that are happening in your life, or maybe 0:54:40.719 --> 0:54:43.000 even serve as kind of a predictive model of what 0:54:43.160 --> 0:54:48.440 might happen, you know, feeding the the the ever turning 0:54:48.480 --> 0:54:52.399 gears of the mind with these things. So yeah, it's 0:54:52.400 --> 0:54:54.920 only important to you to whatever extent it backs up 0:54:55.680 --> 0:54:57.399 your existing machinations. 0:54:57.560 --> 0:55:00.600 Yeah, so I think sayings like this are often they're 0:55:00.640 --> 0:55:06.399 not really useful for predictive power, what they're actually used 0:55:06.480 --> 0:55:12.320 for is a mental classification system for events in our lives. 0:55:12.880 --> 0:55:15.560 They're more kind of like a filing system for our 0:55:15.600 --> 0:55:19.680 own mental biography. You know, I can remember this event 0:55:19.760 --> 0:55:23.359 that happened here under the kind of salience tag of 0:55:23.440 --> 0:55:26.600 absence makes the heart grow fonder, and this other event 0:55:26.719 --> 0:55:29.640 I can remember under the salience tag of out of sight, 0:55:29.719 --> 0:55:33.680 out of mind. Yeah. But anyway, back to the weather. So, 0:55:33.719 --> 0:55:36.720 while it's certainly not true all of the time, maybe 0:55:36.760 --> 0:55:40.480 not even most of the time, when taken as a 0:55:40.560 --> 0:55:43.840 predictor of trends on average, I think you could argue 0:55:43.840 --> 0:55:46.799 the swin proverb has a little bit of truth to it. 0:55:47.440 --> 0:55:51.440 And there is interestingly actually a mechanism, a scientific mechanism 0:55:51.520 --> 0:55:55.279 we can point to that would explain why it sometimes 0:55:55.280 --> 0:55:57.799 has a little truth to it, and that is the 0:55:57.880 --> 0:55:58.560 jet stream. 0:55:58.880 --> 0:55:59.280 Ah. 0:56:00.080 --> 0:56:02.600 This is a point made by that post by the 0:56:02.680 --> 0:56:07.680 Royal Meteorological Society. So the post concludes, quote the middle 0:56:07.719 --> 0:56:10.040 of July tends to be around the time that the 0:56:10.120 --> 0:56:14.000 jet stream settles into a relatively consistent pattern. If the 0:56:14.080 --> 0:56:17.000 jet stream lies north of the UK throughout the summer, 0:56:17.400 --> 0:56:20.840 continental high pressure is able to move in bringing warmth 0:56:20.880 --> 0:56:24.560 and sunshine. If it sticks further south, Arctic air and 0:56:24.680 --> 0:56:29.960 Atlantic weather systems are likely to predominate, bringing colder, wetter weather. 0:56:31.320 --> 0:56:33.920 So to explain that a little bit more so, the 0:56:34.040 --> 0:56:37.239 jet stream is this fast moving current of air in 0:56:37.280 --> 0:56:41.320 the upper atmosphere above like nine thousand meters that typically 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:45.000 flows from west to east. There are four main jet 0:56:45.040 --> 0:56:48.000 streams on Earth. You've got two at the boundary of 0:56:48.040 --> 0:56:50.879 each polar region in the North Pole and the South Pole, 0:56:51.280 --> 0:56:55.080 and then you've got two subtropical jet streams. The specific 0:56:55.160 --> 0:56:58.560 current that has the most influence on European weather is 0:56:58.600 --> 0:57:03.520 the northern polar jet stream. Jet Streams are formed because 0:57:03.719 --> 0:57:08.120 of the temperature difference between two big masses of air, 0:57:08.160 --> 0:57:11.760 in this case, the cold polar air and the warmer 0:57:11.800 --> 0:57:14.520 air of the northern mid latitude. So you've got warmer 0:57:14.560 --> 0:57:18.360 air at lower latitudes colder air at higher latitudes, and 0:57:18.440 --> 0:57:22.200 there's a boundary point where they meet, and this boundary 0:57:22.240 --> 0:57:27.440 point creates strong horizontal pressure gradients in the upper atmosphere. 0:57:27.880 --> 0:57:31.160 In short, big differences in pressure between over here and 0:57:31.200 --> 0:57:34.400 over there. And these big differences in pressure mean there's 0:57:34.440 --> 0:57:38.360 a lot of moving air in the upper atmosphere. The 0:57:38.440 --> 0:57:41.840 moving air at this boundary gets deflected to the right 0:57:42.040 --> 0:57:44.360 in the northern hemisphere because of our old friend, the 0:57:44.400 --> 0:57:48.600 Coriolis effect. Because the Earth is spinning west to east, 0:57:48.920 --> 0:57:53.720 it deflects these movements to the right, which creates this powerful, 0:57:54.160 --> 0:57:58.200 fast moving river of air flowing west to east in 0:57:58.240 --> 0:58:01.280 the upper atmosphere and is going fast at speeds of 0:58:01.400 --> 0:58:05.640 several hundred miles per hour. And this is the northern 0:58:05.640 --> 0:58:08.880 Polar jet stream. It often tends to flow right over 0:58:09.080 --> 0:58:13.320 or right around the British Isles. So the position of 0:58:13.360 --> 0:58:19.000 this jet stream is largely determinative of Europe's weather. If 0:58:19.040 --> 0:58:22.080 the jet stream is flowing in a relatively straight line 0:58:22.120 --> 0:58:27.480 across roughly the same latitude, it can mean somewhat erratic weather, actually, 0:58:27.520 --> 0:58:30.440 because what that means is it will be pulling regular 0:58:30.600 --> 0:58:34.360 storms in from the Atlantic on a repeating basis, and 0:58:34.400 --> 0:58:39.120 then they'll be punctuated by periods of calm in between. However, 0:58:39.240 --> 0:58:41.480 if it's a more squiggly line, think of like a 0:58:41.520 --> 0:58:44.320 meandering river, kind of looping up and down. If it's 0:58:44.320 --> 0:58:47.560 shaped more like that, which it sometimes is, Britain's weather 0:58:48.120 --> 0:58:52.200 will depend more on which side of the squiggly line 0:58:52.240 --> 0:58:56.280 it ends up lassoed into. So if it is trapped 0:58:56.360 --> 0:58:59.520 in part of a bend reaching up from the south, 0:59:00.080 --> 0:59:02.840 this will tend to mean warm, dry weather, kind of 0:59:02.840 --> 0:59:06.280 a more Mediterranean weather system. And if it is part 0:59:06.280 --> 0:59:09.520 of a bend curling down from the north, this will 0:59:09.600 --> 0:59:13.720 usually mean Britain gets cool, rainy weather driven by the 0:59:13.760 --> 0:59:16.919 polar air mass coming in from the sea. And these 0:59:16.960 --> 0:59:21.800 wavy patterns can sometimes park over an area like Britain 0:59:22.200 --> 0:59:26.040 for several weeks at a time, leading to somewhat stable 0:59:26.160 --> 0:59:30.960 patterns which, while not exactly conforming to Swien's forty days prediction, 0:59:31.120 --> 0:59:34.480 they can approximate it. So there is a little bit 0:59:34.520 --> 0:59:37.320 of something going on here based in real weather patterns. 0:59:37.880 --> 0:59:40.360 Yeah, I mean, you can imagine somebody setting out in 0:59:40.400 --> 0:59:43.760 the weeks following July fifteenth. It's raining, they're wearing their 0:59:43.800 --> 0:59:48.520 old wig, and yeah, it's conforming to the legend enough 0:59:48.600 --> 0:59:50.640 that they might summon the legend in their mind as 0:59:50.680 --> 0:59:52.040 they look up at the rainy sky. 0:59:52.400 --> 0:59:55.040 Right, And that could well be because at that time 0:59:55.880 --> 0:59:58.560 Britain is trapped in one of these polar troughs where 0:59:58.560 --> 1:00:01.000 the jet stream loops down under it, so they're getting 1:00:01.000 --> 1:00:03.520 a lot of northern air coming in, bringing in the 1:00:03.600 --> 1:00:05.800 you know, cool wet stuff off the sea. 1:00:07.080 --> 1:00:08.920 And you know, it's one of those things where I 1:00:08.960 --> 1:00:11.160 mean not to analyze it too deeply, because I think 1:00:12.040 --> 1:00:14.760 in many cases we're probably dealing with a very casual 1:00:14.840 --> 1:00:19.040 association with a legend like that. But still little things 1:00:19.120 --> 1:00:23.480 like that can make it seem like there's something or 1:00:23.520 --> 1:00:26.680 somebody in control, like there is some level of control 1:00:27.080 --> 1:00:30.160 in a life and in a world that that seems 1:00:30.240 --> 1:00:33.240 chaotic at times and can be quite scary in its 1:00:33.280 --> 1:00:36.640 unpredictable nature. But if you can sort of even just 1:00:36.720 --> 1:00:39.720 casually think, oh, it's just like that legend, then then 1:00:39.760 --> 1:00:43.920 it feels like there's some there's some bumpers on the lane, 1:00:43.960 --> 1:00:44.160 you know. 1:00:44.480 --> 1:00:48.680 Yeah, yeah, totally. So this RMS post they end with 1:00:48.760 --> 1:00:52.040 a revised version of the Swithin poem that's even clunkier. 1:00:52.200 --> 1:00:55.320 Not even trying really to scan at this point, but 1:00:55.440 --> 1:00:58.080 this is what they come up with. They say, Saint 1:00:58.080 --> 1:01:02.560 Swithin's day, if thou dost rain for forty days relatively unsettled, 1:01:02.680 --> 1:01:05.720 there's a fair chance it will remain. That sounds almost 1:01:05.760 --> 1:01:09.280 kind of Yoda issue. And then Saint Swithin's Day, if 1:01:09.280 --> 1:01:12.919 that'll be fair for forty days, a northerly jetstream might 1:01:13.000 --> 1:01:16.880 result in some fairly decent spells, but then again it 1:01:16.960 --> 1:01:17.280 might not. 1:01:17.920 --> 1:01:20.520 You know who could have made this work Rocky ericson 1:01:20.760 --> 1:01:21.439 Oh my God. 1:01:21.600 --> 1:01:25.560 Yes, he could cram so many words into a line. 1:01:25.440 --> 1:01:27.920 Yeah, like yeah, yeah, you think of the lyrics to 1:01:28.400 --> 1:01:31.920 if you have ghosts that. Yeah, this could totally work 1:01:31.960 --> 1:01:32.880 within the context of. 1:01:32.840 --> 1:01:35.320 That objects move without wind blowing from the newspaper to 1:01:35.360 --> 1:01:35.680 the door. 1:01:36.000 --> 1:01:37.240 Yeah. 1:01:37.320 --> 1:01:39.920 Okay, well that's all I've got on Swithin, Saint Swithin's 1:01:39.960 --> 1:01:40.760 Day and the weather. 1:01:41.400 --> 1:01:43.480 Yeah. And you know, to bring it back to Rocky Erickson, 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:48.320 if definitely check out his music if you were at 1:01:48.360 --> 1:01:50.600 all interested in anything we've said about him. The thing 1:01:50.640 --> 1:01:52.640 is you've probably heard his music before and you just 1:01:52.680 --> 1:01:57.520 hadn't realized it. I was watching The Weindnsday Show about 1:01:57.520 --> 1:02:00.560 Wednsday Adams on Netflix with the family recently, and in 1:02:00.560 --> 1:02:03.760 season two there's an episode where they drop Rocky Erics 1:02:03.800 --> 1:02:07.200 Since I walked with the Zombie's that's it's a pretty 1:02:07.200 --> 1:02:09.440 well known track of his. Even if you're not aware 1:02:09.520 --> 1:02:12.440 of Rocky ericson like that, one's been used in a 1:02:12.480 --> 1:02:14.560 number of things, and like a number of his songs, 1:02:14.600 --> 1:02:16.640 he's kind of a I think he's one of those 1:02:16.720 --> 1:02:19.120 artists that is often kind of a musician's musician, you know. 1:02:19.240 --> 1:02:21.880 So his his songs have been covered a lot by 1:02:21.920 --> 1:02:24.840 folks that were inspired by his music. 1:02:25.160 --> 1:02:28.560 I say his best known song is probably the one 1:02:28.600 --> 1:02:31.120 he did with the thirteenth thirteenth Floor Elevators. So the 1:02:31.160 --> 1:02:33.320 first track off their first album called You're going to 1:02:33.360 --> 1:02:35.120 Miss Me. A lot of people have heard that one. 1:02:35.320 --> 1:02:37.880 Yeah, that's that's a that's a really good one, and 1:02:38.440 --> 1:02:40.520 I think it was that the Tit also the title 1:02:40.520 --> 1:02:41.640 of the documentary about him. 1:02:41.720 --> 1:02:42.600 Yes, yes it was. 1:02:43.160 --> 1:02:46.280 Yeah, solid track, but not as I mean, not as 1:02:46.360 --> 1:02:48.800 rockin and not and certainly not horror team like the 1:02:49.120 --> 1:02:50.919 later many of the later songs were. 1:02:51.960 --> 1:02:54.680 I'm tempted to talk about May ninth, nineteen seventy six, 1:02:54.760 --> 1:02:57.360 when I looked up and nothing significant happened that day. 1:03:00.160 --> 1:03:01.680 We're going to go and close it out here, but 1:03:01.720 --> 1:03:03.680 we just like to remind everyone that's stuff to blow 1:03:03.720 --> 1:03:06.360 your mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with 1:03:06.440 --> 1:03:09.240 core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays, we do 1:03:09.280 --> 1:03:11.479 a short form episode and on Fridays we set aside 1:03:11.520 --> 1:03:13.520 most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film 1:03:13.560 --> 1:03:18.160 on Weird House Cinema. Wherever you get the podcast, where 1:03:18.280 --> 1:03:21.560 we just asked that you subscribe, rate, and review. We 1:03:21.600 --> 1:03:24.760 don't always really hammer this home, but these are things 1:03:24.760 --> 1:03:27.320 that really help us out. Make sure you've subscribed, rate, 1:03:27.360 --> 1:03:30.200 and review the show. It helps ensure that we continue 1:03:30.560 --> 1:03:32.600 to put these episodes out for your listening pleasure. 1:03:33.000 --> 1:03:36.960 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 1:03:37.240 --> 1:03:38.760 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:03:38.760 --> 1:03:41.360 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:03:41.400 --> 1:03:43.439 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:03:43.920 --> 1:03:46.520 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 1:03:46.560 --> 1:03:55.160 your Mind dot com. 1:03:55.680 --> 1:03:58.600 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:03:58.680 --> 1:04:01.479 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:04:01.640 --> 1:04:17.120 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.