Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today
Speaker 1: we've got a vault episode for you. This one originally
Speaker 1: published March fifteenth, twenty twenty two. It's part one of
Speaker 1: our series on Finn McCool. But hey, we should be
Speaker 1: back with all new content for you starting tomorrow, but
Speaker 1: for today, let's get right into the Finn McCool. Soaca,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it is the
Speaker 1: week of Saint Patrick's Day. So I thought it would
Speaker 1: be fun to turn our attention to Irish mythology once more.
Speaker 1: And in this case we're going to be considering the
Speaker 1: mythic hero Finn McCool, noted warrior, wonder worker. We're going
Speaker 1: to get into all of that. But I guess what
Speaker 1: I was especially interested in, what kind of pulled me
Speaker 1: in initially, was his thumb, the thumb of knowledge, upon
Speaker 1: which he was said to suck, or to at least
Speaker 1: to place the thumb inside of his mouth in order
Speaker 1: to receive great insight or perhaps even see into the future. Yeah, Rob,
Speaker 1: I was going to ask, so this topic was your idea,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering, did you come to it thumb
Speaker 1: first or hero first? Was it like, you're reading about
Speaker 1: Finn McCool and all the legends and then you come
Speaker 1: across this thumb story and you're like, let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: or were you reading about legends of thumbs I was
Speaker 1: reading about. I was actually reading about some other mythological
Speaker 1: figures and then I was like, oh, what am I doing.
Speaker 1: It's Saint Patrick's day. Irish mythology is so rich. There's
Speaker 1: got to be something we haven't talked about on the
Speaker 1: show before. And then I started reading about Finn McCool,
Speaker 1: and when I read about the thumb, which I somehow
Speaker 1: either they had never read about before or forgotten about,
Speaker 1: was instantly in now. Finn itself is a common Irish
Speaker 1: hero name for characters of all genders related to finn
Speaker 1: or meaning white or fair. I've read, but refers to
Speaker 1: wisdom rather than skin tone, according to the Encyclopedia of
Speaker 1: Celtic Mythology and Folklore by Patricia Monaghan. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: reading that Finn is a variant of the Irish name Fun,
Speaker 1: spelled like f io n or f io n, which
Speaker 1: means white or fair, but usually I think referring to
Speaker 1: hair color. And there are some legends of Finn McCool
Speaker 1: that say he had white hair from an early age,
Speaker 1: possibly due to some kind of magical rapid aging and
Speaker 1: d aging procedure. Huh, all right, well, I mean it
Speaker 1: would make sense like the association between like white hair
Speaker 1: and age, and age and wisdom, and therefore as someone
Speaker 1: had prematurely white hair, there could perhaps be some air
Speaker 1: of oh, they have the wisdom of an older man
Speaker 1: or an older woman, despite the fact that they are
Speaker 1: otherwise quite young. And speaking of the variant of the
Speaker 1: name Finn versus Fion, I think it's worth saying at
Speaker 1: the beginning that there are two different ways of spelling
Speaker 1: the name that are essentially the same character, or slight
Speaker 1: variations on the same character. One is commonly spelled in
Speaker 1: the anglicized version, just like we're saying at Finn McCool,
Speaker 1: but the other one is spelled more like fion. And
Speaker 1: then the last name is mac cu m h a
Speaker 1: i l or h a i l l, which from
Speaker 1: what I understand. I know pronunciation a lot of these
Speaker 1: of a lot of these Irish words is notoriously tricky
Speaker 1: for English speakers like us. But I think that is
Speaker 1: also pronounced pretty much just McCool. So Finn McCool. Great name,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's one of these names that, especially today,
Speaker 1: with connotations of cool and coolness. It's instantly interesting as
Speaker 1: the hero's name, but if you're not familiar with them.
Speaker 1: He stands alongside Cucullen as one of the two great
Speaker 1: heroes of Irish mythology. He's a much later hero than
Speaker 1: Colin Uh, and like any hero of myth there are
Speaker 1: varying tales about him. It is interesting that both characters
Speaker 1: are known for entering altered states of consciousness. Finn for
Speaker 1: his prescient thumb state where he can you know his
Speaker 1: well discuss can can place his thumb inside of his
Speaker 1: mouth and uh and with with the you know some
Speaker 1: other like chanting effects uh stare into the future, or
Speaker 1: at least gain some sort of supernatural wisdom. And Cocolin,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in our past episode on co Colin
Speaker 1: was able to enter the warp spasm in battle where
Speaker 1: he's in this altered state of of of a barbarian rage.
Speaker 1: He sort of transforms into a semi monster. Yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of like a hulk mode. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, Finn McCool,
Speaker 1: you know what's the origin story? Right, Every good hero
Speaker 1: has an origin story. Well, we're told that his father
Speaker 1: died when he was very young, either due to a
Speaker 1: crime of his own doing or some conflict with a
Speaker 1: val clan. There are different variations on that. Either way,
Speaker 1: he ends up being raised by his mother and Monican
Speaker 1: in the book that I referenced earlier, stresses the importance
Speaker 1: of female energy in his raising, especially as his mother
Speaker 1: mRNA claimed divine descent from Nuada of the Silver Hand,
Speaker 1: the first king of the Tuatha Dudan and the Tuapha
Speaker 1: Dudan and were the sort of fairy folk godlike beings
Speaker 1: of Irish mythology, and I would say often having a
Speaker 1: rather ambiguous character and relationship to humanity. They're not like
Speaker 1: consistently either enemies or helpers. They can kind of be
Speaker 1: either one. Yeah. You see a lot of their spirit
Speaker 1: reflected in some of the modern ideas of elves in
Speaker 1: fantasy settings. You know, they're they're superior to humans, but
Speaker 1: they are of the previous age, there may be not
Speaker 1: as invested in this world as they once were. That
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Yeah, and according to some legends, like
Speaker 1: they're they're strength in this world is waning. Like I know,
Speaker 1: there's one story that involves Finn McCool and his band
Speaker 1: of warriors, the Defenders of Ireland, who we'll talk about
Speaker 1: more as we get on, but they in one story,
Speaker 1: they end up going on a journey across the sea
Speaker 1: to an island where they have been I think, sort
Speaker 1: of lured by members of the Two author to dunn
Speaker 1: And to come join them and sort of re energize
Speaker 1: them or provide a supplemental strength to the waning strength
Speaker 1: of these beings from a past age. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you've seen the movie Hellboy Too, I believe the
Speaker 1: antagonist in that film are supposed to be the Two
Speaker 1: author to Dana, and I believe in fact that we're
Speaker 1: supposed to see Nuada as the as the primary antagonist there.
Speaker 1: That's the one that Hellboy has a big fight with. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So Finn McCool, he's raised by his aunt and his
Speaker 1: foster mother, the druid Bode Mall, and he's trained in
Speaker 1: combat by the warrior woman Luthus Lurgan, and he accidentally
Speaker 1: kills her in combat, and then the incident with the
Speaker 1: salmon of Knowledge occurs around this time. We're going to
Speaker 1: come back to that because it's it's it's it's quite
Speaker 1: a tale. And also shortly after this he ends up
Speaker 1: actually taking the name Finn after he defeats his first
Speaker 1: enemy in combat, but then he goes on to study
Speaker 1: his craft further under the warrior woman Buanan as well
Speaker 1: as the male warrior Sethn mac fountain. Basically, he com
Speaker 1: completes his Jedi training, he becomes this near perfect warrior
Speaker 1: who also has this ability to tap into hidden wisdom
Speaker 1: or see into the future, and then he assembles this
Speaker 1: band of warriors to defend his province of Leinster, still
Speaker 1: called that today in the southeast and east of Ireland,
Speaker 1: and from the here on out. The story, you know,
Speaker 1: includes various exploits and adventures, and we'll touch on some
Speaker 1: of these, but he also engages in a number of
Speaker 1: romantic conquests. They don't always go so well. His death
Speaker 1: is told in various stories, and depending on where you're
Speaker 1: hearing them or reading them, his death is said to
Speaker 1: have taken place at different points at different places spread
Speaker 1: across Ireland in Scotland. And there's also this idea that
Speaker 1: he may have been reborn as the hero Mongan. Still,
Speaker 1: other tales say that he did not die at all,
Speaker 1: but that he and his fianna wait in a cave
Speaker 1: to one day rise up and defend Ireland once more,
Speaker 1: you know, very much in keeping with the tales of
Speaker 1: King Arthur, how one day King Arthur will return and
Speaker 1: rise up and protect England. Yeah, when I was reading
Speaker 1: these stories of Finn McCool, I kept noticing other parallels
Speaker 1: to King Arthur, because so not only is there this
Speaker 1: idea that he's you know, resting somewhere maybe one day
Speaker 1: to be called up to defend his nation again, but
Speaker 1: there is also a similarity to the Lancelot and Guinevere
Speaker 1: story in that there's a story where Finn McCool his
Speaker 1: wife falls in love with one of his greatest warriors,
Speaker 1: a man named Diarmid, who obviously it reminds me a
Speaker 1: lot of Lancelot and Guinevere, and they ultimately come to
Speaker 1: I think, not battle each other, but I believe the
Speaker 1: legend goes that Darmid has to go fight a bore
Speaker 1: and then the boar gravely wounds him, and that Finn
Speaker 1: McCool could save him by offering up water from his
Speaker 1: hands that would be healing because of his magic powers,
Speaker 1: but he essentially denies that healing power to his rival
Speaker 1: and he dies. Yeah, they's ry. One of the side
Speaker 1: effects I guess of acquiring the Thumb of Knowledge is
Speaker 1: that is that we're told that Finn McCool can can
Speaker 1: form his hands into a cup collect water and that
Speaker 1: water will have healing properties. Pretty great. Is even just
Speaker 1: a second tier superpower if you asked me, well, it
Speaker 1: feels like one of those pylon powers you know, where
Speaker 1: you know, I really like a folk hero who has
Speaker 1: one power and it's a pretty specific power. But but
Speaker 1: I don't know. The legendary heroes just tend to accumulate
Speaker 1: more and more powers over the you know, in the telling,
Speaker 1: over the years. At least it seems that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the same way that sometimes you'll have a mad
Speaker 1: scientist in a fictional tale where they seem to have
Speaker 1: too many interests, too many technologies at their disposal, Like
Speaker 1: you know, are you a time traveler or are you
Speaker 1: a power armor guy? Are you are you building robots
Speaker 1: or do you have an invisibility belt, like you need
Speaker 1: to like really focus in on one and exploit that
Speaker 1: because otherwise we really don't know what we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: Seem to see, I just make giant scorpions. That's it.
Speaker 1: There you go. It behooves you to specialize in the
Speaker 1: realm of mad science or or or being a mythological hero.
Speaker 1: That's right, you know those giant scorpions or quality. It
Speaker 1: takes focus to make them. All right, Well, let's get
Speaker 1: into the exploits of Finn McCool here, and we're going
Speaker 1: to start with a with a big one one. That is,
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with Finn McCool and you're otherwise not
Speaker 1: that familiar with Irish mythology, you probably know this one. Yes,
Speaker 1: though it's weird because I think this might be one
Speaker 1: of the best known Finn McCool stories. But I think
Speaker 1: it's also sort of an outlier in that it portrays
Speaker 1: Finn McCool with different properties than he usually has. And
Speaker 1: I think these legends probably also come later than a
Speaker 1: lot of the other legends. But anyway, this one we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about is a piece of geo mythology
Speaker 1: a story created to explain geological features of the Earth. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of the geomiths we've looked at in previous
Speaker 1: episodes explain big masses of rock or bodies of water
Speaker 1: as some part of the body of a god, whether
Speaker 1: living or dead. But this story is one of the
Speaker 1: other common types, which is explaining natural formations as architecture
Speaker 1: that was built by the demigods of old. And the
Speaker 1: feature explained in this story is known as the Giants Causeway.
Speaker 1: So to start with the plain observation of nature, there
Speaker 1: is a stretch of coast along the north of Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland in County Antrim that is covered with tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of hexagonal columns of basalt. Now this is not
Speaker 1: the only place in the world that has columns of
Speaker 1: this type. You might have seen them at Devil's Tower
Speaker 1: in Wyoming or other places around the world. I know
Speaker 1: there's some in the Northwest in the United States, like
Speaker 1: in Washington State, but you can find these in various places.
Speaker 1: They're usually made of basalt, but sometimes other volcanic rocks
Speaker 1: will take this form. And if you haven't ever seen
Speaker 1: these things known as columnar basalt, you should look them
Speaker 1: up because They're absolutely beautiful, and they're one of those
Speaker 1: natural formations that just doesn't look natural at all. I
Speaker 1: think many people who look at columnar basalt, they consult
Speaker 1: their intuitions and they immediately come to think this is artificial.
Speaker 1: Somebody built this, somebody carved these rocks. And it might
Speaker 1: be an interesting question to ask why our intuitions work
Speaker 1: this way while you look at these columns of rock
Speaker 1: that mostly take the form of a hexagon and think
Speaker 1: that this has got to be made by a person
Speaker 1: or by a god instead of by nature. I guess
Speaker 1: it looks so strange because we tend to assume that clean,
Speaker 1: regular lines and angles like the kind we see in
Speaker 1: polygons like like a hexagon, are just not to be
Speaker 1: found in nature. Nature should have, i don't know more
Speaker 1: more irregular, fractal kind of edges. Yeah. I think that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of it, along with the rough uniformity
Speaker 1: of everything. Like, it's not just oh, here's an interesting
Speaker 1: rock that has these these properties. No, look at all
Speaker 1: of them. It looks like there was some sort of
Speaker 1: industrial scale, you know, alien brickmaking project here, right. They
Speaker 1: look like they were extruded out of a machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, there's been this stretch of the coast along
Speaker 1: northern Ireland that has had these columns there for millions
Speaker 1: of years, and over the centuries there arose some folk
Speaker 1: tales in order to explain the origins of these columns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the Giant's causeway again, this is the the Irish
Speaker 1: side in question. It's composed of roughly forty thousand interlocking columns,
Speaker 1: and again this is due to a volcanic fissure eruption.
Speaker 1: No no alien brickmaking involved here. This all went down
Speaker 1: roughly fifty to sixty million years ago. That's what we
Speaker 1: know now. But according to Irish mythology, however, it was
Speaker 1: built by Finn McCool and not just any Finn mcool,
Speaker 1: not the regular sort of a superhero Finn McCool. This
Speaker 1: is a giant Finn McCool. Yes, when you read accounts
Speaker 1: of this, generally he's described as a giant, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that he's not really described as a giant in
Speaker 1: any other telling. Finn mccool's generally you as a you know,
Speaker 1: a human hero or a hero with human proportions. It's
Speaker 1: only in this case where he's he's gigantic. Now, one
Speaker 1: thing I did read was that there's there's some thinking
Speaker 1: that this formation may have originally been associated with other
Speaker 1: mythological creators. There may have been different geomethology and play.
Speaker 1: It might have been attributed to the monstrous Fomorians, which
Speaker 1: were this these you know, giant race that were said
Speaker 1: to be you know, previous occupiers of the territory who
Speaker 1: were cast out at one point or another. So you know,
Speaker 1: it could have been later on where someone's like, well,
Speaker 1: the Fomorians are all right, but but Finn McCool is awesome. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's let's adjust the story somewhat and Finn McCool becomes
Speaker 1: the creator of the Giant's causeway. The basic idea with
Speaker 1: Finn McCool and these formations as is that, okay, we
Speaker 1: have these formations in Ireland, and then we also have
Speaker 1: a very similar formations found at Fingal's Cave on the
Speaker 1: Isle of Staffa in Scotland. And the idea here is
Speaker 1: that well, on both sides here we must have the
Speaker 1: remnants of a mythological bridge between these two lands. And
Speaker 1: so the idea is that Finn is said to have
Speaker 1: built the bridge as a means of reaching the other
Speaker 1: side and battling a rival giant. Yes, and this is
Speaker 1: the tale of the Giant's causeway. So there appeared to
Speaker 1: be a lot of versions of this story. From what
Speaker 1: I can tell, this is a folk tale that emerges
Speaker 1: from oral tellings without a canonical original text, so I
Speaker 1: think it's pointless to try to quest after the original here.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to tell it as a kind of
Speaker 1: synthesis of the multiple versions I have read. I have
Speaker 1: no idea which form of this story is oldest or
Speaker 1: could claim to be closest to the original, but here
Speaker 1: it goes in my synthesized form. Once upon a time
Speaker 1: there was a giant named Finn McCool who lived in
Speaker 1: Ireland with his wife Una. And Finn McCool was brave
Speaker 1: and strong, but he was also hot tempered and rash,
Speaker 1: and far across the water in Scotland there was another giant.
Speaker 1: This was a nasty brute named Ben and Donner, or
Speaker 1: the Red Man, and Ben and Donner used to harass
Speaker 1: Finn McCool and his neighbors, shouting vicious slander and hair
Speaker 1: raising taunts across the water at them. You can imagine
Speaker 1: the kind of the French taunter from monty Python and
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail. Just brutal, brutal put downs. Your mother
Speaker 1: was a hamster, all that kind of stuff. And Finn
Speaker 1: became so furious at the other giant that he uprooted
Speaker 1: an enormous boulder and hurled it at the Scottish ogre.
Speaker 1: But he missed, and the boulder landed in the sea,
Speaker 1: and this boulder became the Isle of Man. And so
Speaker 1: Finn sat around stewing, thinking, I must destroy this fool,
Speaker 1: But I don't want to get my feet wet by
Speaker 1: swimming over there, So how can I reach him? And
Speaker 1: then he came up with an idea. He would build
Speaker 1: a bridge out of stone. So between the Irish shore
Speaker 1: and the rocky coast of Scotland he put together a
Speaker 1: stone causeway that would allow him to walk all the
Speaker 1: way across. And this causeway was the origin of the
Speaker 1: basalt pillars that we can still see today. But of
Speaker 1: course the pillars don't go all the way across anymore.
Speaker 1: So what happened there? Well, having completed his causeway, Finn,
Speaker 1: you know, he gets his blood up and he decides
Speaker 1: to run across the sea to the other side and
Speaker 1: give Ben and Donner a good walloping to shut him up.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, as brave and strong as Finn McCool was,
Speaker 1: once he got a look at the Scottish giant up close,
Speaker 1: his blood ran cold because Ben and Donner was a monster,
Speaker 1: a beast even bigger and stronger than Finn himself. And
Speaker 1: Finn knew that he would not win a fair fight
Speaker 1: with Ben and Donner, so bravely ran away away. When
Speaker 1: danger reared its ugly head, he turned his yellowtail and fled,
Speaker 1: and so he ran back home to hide. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: now that he had built a causeway, it could be
Speaker 1: crossed in both directions, so Ben and Donner soon came
Speaker 1: over the bridge to Ireland looking for Finn. Finn did
Speaker 1: not know what to do, but fortunately his wife Una
Speaker 1: was diabolically clever, much cleverer than her husband, and she
Speaker 1: came up with a plan. And it goes like this.
Speaker 1: Una dressed Finn up as a baby and made him
Speaker 1: lay down inside a giant cradle. You with me? So far? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So soon Ben and Donner came knocking at their door
Speaker 1: and he said, open the door, Finn McCool, come out
Speaker 1: and fight me and I'll give you a beating. You'll
Speaker 1: never forget. Instead, Una opened the door and she welcomed
Speaker 1: Ben and Donna inside and showed him hospitality. She said,
Speaker 1: my husband is not home right now, but he'll be
Speaker 1: glad to fight you when he gets back. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: please sit down and help yourself to some bread. I
Speaker 1: baked it just the way my husband likes it. So
Speaker 1: Ben and Donner broke off a piece of the loaf
Speaker 1: and bit into it, but immediately he spat it out,
Speaker 1: and he shouted, this bread cracks my teeth. Because secretly
Speaker 1: Una had baked bars of iron into the dough. And
Speaker 1: so she feigned, you know, she feigned ignorance and said,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I didn't think it would trouble such a
Speaker 1: strong man as yourself. My husband loves that recipe. Even
Speaker 1: our baby eats it that way. And this directed Ben
Speaker 1: and Donner's attention to the baby, which was again Finn
Speaker 1: himself in disguise as a baby in a crib. And
Speaker 1: so when Ben and Donner went over and got a
Speaker 1: look at the child, he said to himself, if the
Speaker 1: baby is already an iron eating giant as he lies
Speaker 1: in his crib, his father must be the size of
Speaker 1: a mountain. I cannot beat this guy. So here at
Speaker 1: this moment, Ben and Donner is seized with fears. He
Speaker 1: is fully bought into Unna's trickery, and Ben and Donna
Speaker 1: runs away, and as he flees, he destroyed is the
Speaker 1: bridge of stone that Finn had built so that his
Speaker 1: enemy can never come and find him. And all that's
Speaker 1: left is the part of the bridge on the Irish
Speaker 1: shore and the part on the Scottish side. Again that's
Speaker 1: near the place called Fingal's Cave. And this is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite showdown stories of all time. Now, defeating
Speaker 1: your enemy by dressing as a baby, it is so good.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, you think you're going to get
Speaker 1: just this giant battle throw down and instead you get
Speaker 1: this comedic game of deception. I love it. Now. There
Speaker 1: is another version that actually has a fight, though it
Speaker 1: involves a lot of the same elements. So this other
Speaker 1: version I was reading about. I was reading about it
Speaker 1: in a book that I know you're going to reference later,
Speaker 1: the one by James McKillop called Fian McCool Celtic Myth
Speaker 1: in English Literature, published by Syracuse University Press in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, and McKillop draws attention to a version of
Speaker 1: the story told in William Carlton's The Legend of Knockmany,
Speaker 1: And this is from the Midnight eighteenth century, and the
Speaker 1: variations in Carlton's version are that the other giant is
Speaker 1: not named Ben and Donner, but is named ku Cullen. Interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the name of another Irish folk hero
Speaker 1: that originally had nothing to do with this story. So
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on there. Maybe it's just
Speaker 1: sort of blending together of strong man in folk stories,
Speaker 1: or just realizing we've got to have these two characters
Speaker 1: fight each other. This is like the Batman Superman of
Speaker 1: the day. Well, so many elements of the story are
Speaker 1: the same as the version I just told, but some
Speaker 1: things are different. This version includes a detail that when
Speaker 1: Finn returns home to Una, he says he's afraid that
Speaker 1: he will be skivered like a rabbit if he has
Speaker 1: to fight Kucullen. But Una knows that Kucullen's power is
Speaker 1: contained in the middle finger of his right hand. He
Speaker 1: has a magic middle finger, and she knows if you
Speaker 1: can compromise the finger, you sap his beastly magic, and
Speaker 1: he who loses strength, he won't be able to fight.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like I don't know Samson's hair
Speaker 1: or something, except this is the middle finger of his
Speaker 1: right hand. So like in the version I told, Cucullen
Speaker 1: comes over and Una feeds him bread with metal or
Speaker 1: I think in this case it's stones of granite inside,
Speaker 1: and he breaks his teeth on the bread. Then when
Speaker 1: he hears that even their baby eats this bread, Kucullen
Speaker 1: is incredulous and he has to go feel the baby's
Speaker 1: teeth again. The baby is actually Finn McCool in disguise,
Speaker 1: and when cucullen reaches inside the baby's mouth to feel
Speaker 1: its teeth, Finn bites off the magic middle finger, and
Speaker 1: now the giant is as weak as immortal man, so
Speaker 1: Finn beats him up very easily. All right, So it
Speaker 1: started out like it was going to be like this
Speaker 1: big throwdown, but again we have a comic game of
Speaker 1: deception in play once more. Yes, and McKillop points out
Speaker 1: that in this story it's interesting that Finn is victorious,
Speaker 1: but only after both showing cowardice in running away from
Speaker 1: the initial fight and resorting to trickery. Trickery that wasn't
Speaker 1: even his idea. It's not even like he's a you know,
Speaker 1: a cunning fox like Odysseus. Una is the real hero
Speaker 1: of the story. She comes up with the whole idea
Speaker 1: of how to Like she has the knowledge about the
Speaker 1: magic middle finger, and she comes up with the whole plan.
Speaker 1: So and he has to dress as a baby in
Speaker 1: order to defeat his enemy. So it's a weird kind
Speaker 1: of simultaneous victory and humiliation. He wins essentially by no
Speaker 1: virtue of his own. But there are a couple of
Speaker 1: things I kept thinking about with the story that are
Speaker 1: going to tie into what you'll bring up in more
Speaker 1: detail when you talk about the Thumb of Knowledge. Because
Speaker 1: so first of all, it's a story in which Finn
Speaker 1: McCool dresses up as a giant baby. And one thing
Speaker 1: that we know Finn McCool did in other legends is
Speaker 1: suck on his thumb in order to gain insight or knowledge,
Speaker 1: which of course is associated with you know, that's what
Speaker 1: babies do. But the other thing is that Finn McCool
Speaker 1: has to bite off the magic middle finger of his
Speaker 1: enemy in order to defeat him and steal his power.
Speaker 1: So his enemy has a magic finger in this story,
Speaker 1: just like Finn McCool does, though the magic thumb is
Speaker 1: not really mentioned in this telling. Yeah, I mean, this
Speaker 1: all has to be connected. I don't remember tales of
Speaker 1: Cucullin's magic middle finger coming up when we researched the
Speaker 1: hero previously, and clearly the idea of a Finn McCool
Speaker 1: who has this thumb of knowledge, the idea of him
Speaker 1: dressing up as a baby feels like, I mean, it
Speaker 1: feels like a perfect creation, Like you can imagine that
Speaker 1: just being you know, whatever the exact origins are, and
Speaker 1: we'll get into that of the thumb of knowledge, it
Speaker 1: just makes sense that somebody later would think of But
Speaker 1: what if he also acted like a baby. You can't
Speaker 1: help it go there, because, of course, babies putting fingers
Speaker 1: into or their thumb in their mouth, sucking on their thumb.
Speaker 1: It's it's a universal reality, and it's been you know,
Speaker 1: you see it reflected in various myths and traditions around
Speaker 1: the world, So you couldn't help it go in that direction. Now,
Speaker 1: before we move on, I did want to come back
Speaker 1: to the geological question of what actually causes hexagonal columns
Speaker 1: to form in volcanic rock, like what is the actual
Speaker 1: scientific origin of the rocks that were believed to be
Speaker 1: part of the Giants Causeway? So that giants giants right.
Speaker 1: So these columns are usually, but not always, found in
Speaker 1: a type of rock called basalt, which is a type
Speaker 1: of igneous rock that's created when lava flows out of
Speaker 1: a volcano or out of a fissure in the earth
Speaker 1: and then cools, and under certain conditions, the cooling process
Speaker 1: of that liquid lava can give rise to columns like
Speaker 1: the kind we see at the Giants Causeway. So when
Speaker 1: molten lava settles and begins to cool, what happens is
Speaker 1: its surface begins to set, turning from a glowing orange
Speaker 1: liquid into this solid, dark shape. And this cooling happens
Speaker 1: from the outside in so the part exposed to the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: or especially I think when this occurs in water, that
Speaker 1: the part that's exposed to either air or water that
Speaker 1: cools the fastest, and then the parts underneath retain their
Speaker 1: heat the longest. And as the surface cools, it also contracts,
Speaker 1: it literally shrinks in volume. So this is something that's
Speaker 1: common to all kinds of materials, are as their temperature
Speaker 1: goes down, they shrink in volume. You can observe this
Speaker 1: if you like you've ever seen videos rob of people
Speaker 1: freezing balloons in liquid nitrogen. I feel like I have.
Speaker 1: What happens when you freeze the balloon in liquid nitrogen.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. It shrinks. So you can take a
Speaker 1: balloon that's inflated and kind of plunge it into liquid
Speaker 1: nitrogen and then it shrinks down. It looks like it's
Speaker 1: completely deflated. But then if you take it out of
Speaker 1: the liquid nitrogen, sit it on a table or something,
Speaker 1: it will gradually as it warms up, reinflate again. So
Speaker 1: like what's going on. It's almost as if it's magic.
Speaker 1: But what's happening is the cooling of the gas inside
Speaker 1: the balloon causes that gas to contract, and it shrinks
Speaker 1: down and down and down until the balloon is essentially deflated.
Speaker 1: Then when it warms back up, it expands again. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I haven't seen videos of this before. It's worth
Speaker 1: looking up. It looks really cool. I bet you can
Speaker 1: shrink a balloon by putting it in your freezer as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's what I've seen before, but probably not as
Speaker 1: fully shriveled. As the lipid nitrogeneral gets you. But anyway, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: things tend to contract, they shrink as they cool, and
Speaker 1: the same thing is true if this lava. So the
Speaker 1: surface cools faster than the part down below, and as
Speaker 1: the surface cools, it shrinks. But as this contraction is happening,
Speaker 1: it's also setting up solid at the same time, So
Speaker 1: the surface of the lava actually cracks as it shrinks,
Speaker 1: and so especially if the cooling is happening in a
Speaker 1: fairly evenly distributed way, what tends to happen is that
Speaker 1: these cracks occur around evenly spaced centers of surface contraction
Speaker 1: that occur at pretty fixed intervals. Sort of. You can
Speaker 1: map them as a bunch of dots around the surface
Speaker 1: of the lava formation, and they'll be pretty evenly spaced out.
Speaker 1: And then the cracks form around those centers of cooling,
Speaker 1: and they one of the easiest ways for those cracks
Speaker 1: to form is roughly into hexagons around those centers. And
Speaker 1: as the cracks form on the surface, the lava mass
Speaker 1: continues cooling and the cracks propagate vertically down into the
Speaker 1: center of the mass, forming these columns, and so eventually
Speaker 1: the mass cools and solidifies entirely, and we're left with
Speaker 1: columnar basalt like we find at the Giants Causeway. It
Speaker 1: all started with cracks on the surface from the cooling,
Speaker 1: and those cracks penetrated deeper and deeper as the mass
Speaker 1: of lava cooled, and again the result is just quite impressive.
Speaker 1: I've not been to one of these sites and seen
Speaker 1: it in person, but researching this a little bit and
Speaker 1: looking at some of these photog graphsh it makes me
Speaker 1: want to go. I know I've seen some in person
Speaker 1: at at a volcanic site in Oregon, and I can't
Speaker 1: recall if I've seen any anywhere else. I know there
Speaker 1: is it's either an elaborate set or a location that's
Speaker 1: used in the TV series Raised by Wolves that looks
Speaker 1: a lot like this, But it's my understanding that that
Speaker 1: show is filmed in South Africa, so I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a South African location that has a similar
Speaker 1: geography going on, or if that's all just you know,
Speaker 1: a set or something. At any rate, it looks impressive
Speaker 1: in that show as well. If we were only in
Speaker 1: the office, I could just yell at Holly and ask her,
Speaker 1: since she does the podcast for raised by wolves. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: she's got the hook up for all your basult information.
Speaker 1: All right, So that's the giants causeway, that's a little geomethology,
Speaker 1: but we all know that it takes a little more
Speaker 1: than geo mythology to make a mythic hero. We also
Speaker 1: need some sort of a monster battle. There has to
Speaker 1: be a slaying of some sort. If not a monster battle,
Speaker 1: then it led at least some sort of epic battled
Speaker 1: against another you know, humanoid adversary. And in this case,
Speaker 1: well we've we've got a we've got a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: We have the sling of Aileen mcmidnah, aka the Burner.
Speaker 1: So I apologize, but that makes me think of him
Speaker 1: as a phone. Well my mind and instantly went to
Speaker 1: the possibility that he's really into going to burning man
Speaker 1: in various regional burns and in a way, I mean
Speaker 1: he is a musician. So we're told that mcmidnah was
Speaker 1: the fairy musician of the two Apha to Din and
Speaker 1: again the powerful rulers of the other world. Now, Aileen
Speaker 1: is often described in this case as a dark figure
Speaker 1: with fiery breath, armed with both a supernatural harp that
Speaker 1: could lull mortals to sleep, as well as a poisoned spear.
Speaker 1: Now the spear in this in this case, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem again all of these things that kind of depends
Speaker 1: on the tell and who's writing it down, But the
Speaker 1: spear doesn't seem to be poisoned in the traditional sense,
Speaker 1: though I it also does sound like it will still
Speaker 1: poison you if you're stabbed with it, but more to
Speaker 1: the point, it emits poisonous fume. So it's like, it's
Speaker 1: pretty fabulous vision to have in your mind, this idea.
Speaker 1: Here's this is a dark, fiery monster being and has
Speaker 1: a harp in one hand and the other this this
Speaker 1: spear that is just smoking with poison. I'll also point
Speaker 1: out that if you start looking at illustrations of Aleen,
Speaker 1: you'll find it's kind of all over the place, Like
Speaker 1: there's there's a pretty famous one where Aileen looks like
Speaker 1: this kind of monolithic dark giant that kind of looks
Speaker 1: almost like a robot firing a blast of energy at
Speaker 1: Finn McCool and I really love that image, and it
Speaker 1: kind of keeps with this idea of sort of the
Speaker 1: the elder superpowers of the two appad don and but
Speaker 1: then I also found one where Alan mcminnot just looks
Speaker 1: like a big grotesque, demonoid goblin creature shooting fire out
Speaker 1: of his his pig like nostrils out of the nose,
Speaker 1: like he's blowing his nose and fires coming out, and
Speaker 1: he's got one big horn in the middle of his head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was reading a little bit more about In
Speaker 1: Carol Rose's Fairy Spirits, leprecons and Goblins, she of course
Speaker 1: has a section where she discusses this particular Aileen and
Speaker 1: discusses how Ailin comes to play for the Palace of
Speaker 1: Tara on the Festival of Solon, and he becomes irate
Speaker 1: because he's playing this music on this magical harp, and
Speaker 1: what does it do? It puts everyone to sleep. That
Speaker 1: is kind of his or this harp's magical power. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, really shame on him. He should be expecting this,
Speaker 1: but he gets mad instead, So he's like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing falling to sleep during my beautiful music. He
Speaker 1: takes up his spear and he blasts three blasts of
Speaker 1: fire from his nostrils and he destroys the entire palace.
Speaker 1: The entire cast just completely destroyed. So what do you do? Well,
Speaker 1: they rebuilt the castle, and then the same thing happened
Speaker 1: again the following year. I don't know why they booked
Speaker 1: Aileen again, the same gig that destroyed the castle. I
Speaker 1: actually I don't think they booked him. I think the
Speaker 1: ideas he keeps coming back, such as his rage at
Speaker 1: this place, such as is lust for vengeance, and then
Speaker 1: every time he destroys the place, they have to build
Speaker 1: it back up, and this cycle repeats itself for more
Speaker 1: than two decades. After twenty three years of this, Finn
Speaker 1: McCool steps up and defeats the beast. He comes in
Speaker 1: very much like it's very much like a Baowoff and
Speaker 1: Grenville situation. You know, he is, here's the monster that
Speaker 1: keeps attacking the center of culture and civilization. And then
Speaker 1: eventually you need an outsider, a hero to step in
Speaker 1: and really put the boots to the monster. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking a big challenge with fighting this monster is going
Speaker 1: to be if he's got it like a like a
Speaker 1: loot or a or a dulcimer or whatever, that when
Speaker 1: he plays it everybody to sleep. Can't he lull any
Speaker 1: conquering hero to sleep? Yeah? But luckily Finn McCool he's
Speaker 1: a sneaky one. Uh uh. I read that one of
Speaker 1: the tactics he employs here to make himself immune to
Speaker 1: the magic. Uh He he huffs the fumes from the spear,
Speaker 1: which are so One of the like the poisonous effects
Speaker 1: of it is that it keeps you from falling asleep.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure how that would work, but in
Speaker 1: the story that's that is what is said to have occurred.
Speaker 1: So he's immune to the music, and then he's able
Speaker 1: to get in close battle the Alan and then stab
Speaker 1: the Alan with his own poisonous spear, thus killing him.
Speaker 1: In some versions, he doesn't stab him with it, He
Speaker 1: just like holds it close enough to where he has
Speaker 1: to breathe in all of those poisonous fumes and then
Speaker 1: dies of the poison. Now, he referenced that book by
Speaker 1: James McKillop earlier, and mccullop points out that, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is basically the same model found in Baowolf as well.
Speaker 1: The oldest Allen tales date back in writing to the
Speaker 1: twelfth century, but there are also other accounts, and mccaullut
Speaker 1: goes into these a finding battle with other fire based creatures. Now,
Speaker 1: according to a Monaghan. This Alan mcmigna is the most
Speaker 1: famous Ailan, but there was another Ailen of note as well,
Speaker 1: Ailen Tretchen, the triple headed Aileen, and it would attack
Speaker 1: the Irish cities Tara and Domain Macha. And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: described as male, sometimes it's described as female, and it's
Speaker 1: said to live in a cave and may be associated
Speaker 1: with the Morrigan. The difference between the two Aileen's is
Speaker 1: quote difficult to discern. You know, this is not unique
Speaker 1: to Irish legend and myth, but it does seem like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sort of mithime contagion, little elements
Speaker 1: of one mythic figure or story just bleeding over into
Speaker 1: the other. Yeah, yeah, Okay, Now, I know we've building
Speaker 1: up the thumb. The whole time you at home are
Speaker 1: thinking like, when are they going to get to the thumb.
Speaker 1: We got to know about the thumb, so we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about that, but I think we need
Speaker 1: to save it for the next part in the series,
Speaker 1: which is going to be all thumb. Yeah, all thumb
Speaker 1: right in the mouths or in this case, in the ears,
Speaker 1: because you'll be listening. Yeah, So next next episode we
Speaker 1: will get into the story of Finn McCool and the
Speaker 1: Thumb of Knowledge, the different versions of it, how into
Speaker 1: what extent it bleeds over into other hero stories, and
Speaker 1: you know, well, maybe get into it a little a
Speaker 1: little bit of the potential science of the Thumb of
Speaker 1: Knowledge as well. And hey, that episode is going to
Speaker 1: come out on Saint Patrick's Day itself, so I think
Speaker 1: that's perfect, brilliant all right. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, it publishes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed on Mondays.
Speaker 1: We do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do an artifact
Speaker 1: or monster Fact, and then on Fridays we do Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious
Speaker 1: concerns and just talk about a strange film. Huge thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.