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

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have a

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Speaker 1: vault episode for you. This is going to be The

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Speaker 1: hearth Part one. This is part one of two, originally

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Speaker 1: published twelve seventeen, twenty twenty four. This is our look

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Speaker 1: at the powerful resonance of the Fireplace and Hearthstone in

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Speaker 1: human culture, psychology, and myth. Let's jump right in. As

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Speaker 1: I drew in my head and was turning around on

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Speaker 1: the chimney, Saint Nicholas came with a bound. He was

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Speaker 1: dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,

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Speaker 1: and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.

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Speaker 1: He was dressed all in fur from his head to

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Speaker 1: his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes

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Speaker 1: and soot. He was dressed all in fur from his

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Speaker 1: head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished

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Speaker 1: with ashes and soot.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're going to

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Speaker 2: be kicking off a series of episodes on the Fireplace

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Speaker 2: and the hearth, the infrastructure through which humans brought their

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Speaker 2: campfires indoors, inside their homes and other dwelling structures. We're

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Speaker 2: going to look at how fireplaces work, where they come from,

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Speaker 2: and what they mean. And just got to apologize again

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Speaker 2: this week like I did last week. I've still got

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Speaker 2: a cold. It's either round two of this cold or

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Speaker 2: a whole new cold has come into my life. So

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Speaker 2: so apologies for the sinus noises today, but I'm doing

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Speaker 2: what I can.

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Speaker 1: Twelve days of Christmas over there, Yeah they're gathering around

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Speaker 1: the fire, but anyway, Yeah, So I wanted to do

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Speaker 1: a series of episodes looking into fireplaces, and sometimes when

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Speaker 1: you're trying to understand what an experience means to people,

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Speaker 1: you can really get some good insights by looking at

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Speaker 1: attempts to simulate that experience in its literal absence, like

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Speaker 1: which elements do people consider worth copying, which elements can

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Speaker 1: be ignored, which elements are accentuated or exaggerated in simulation.

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Speaker 2: And this got me thinking about the Netflix Megahit Fireplace

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Speaker 2: for your Home, which, for those of you somehow not familiar,

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Speaker 2: is an hour long, unbroken shot of logs burning in

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Speaker 2: a Fireplace, and it is the hottest movie of the

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Speaker 2: year for I don't know, seven or eight years running

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Speaker 2: whenever this thing started playing on Netflix. I just checked

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Speaker 2: on Netflix and there are three episodes. This is not

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Speaker 2: a sponsored episode, by the way. Netflix had nothing to

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Speaker 2: do with this. I just think this is an interesting

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Speaker 2: subject on its own, and we'll explain more as we

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Speaker 2: go on. But I checked on Netflix and there were

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Speaker 2: three episodes of season one of Fireplace for your Home.

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Speaker 2: There's Crackling yule Log Fireplace. That one's the one that

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Speaker 2: plays music like Joy to the World and we Wish

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Speaker 2: you a Merry Christmas kind of Muzaki versions of thing

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Speaker 2: hard pass on that one, yeah, And then there's the

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Speaker 2: second one that's just crackling Fireplace, so no music. You

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Speaker 2: just get the pop, the hiss and all that good stuff.

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Speaker 1: There you go.

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Speaker 2: And then there's a third one with music, again I

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Speaker 2: guess in different music than the first one. I don't.

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Speaker 2: I think we mainly just listen. The one we put

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Speaker 2: on is the one without music.

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Speaker 1: That's the way to go. You can add your own

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Speaker 1: music that way.

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Speaker 2: So I don't remember what year it was we first

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Speaker 2: discovered this thing, but it has played a number of

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Speaker 2: times in our household, and so I was wondering, Rob,

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Speaker 2: do you do you have experience with this thing?

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Speaker 1: Yes, I do. You know, I've never owned or rented

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Speaker 1: a home that had a hearth or a fireplace in it,

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Speaker 1: not even like some of the scaleback versions where it's

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Speaker 1: like gas generated and you know, or has some sort

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Speaker 1: of other effect. So I have to depend on what

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Speaker 1: a lot of people have to depend on for the

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Speaker 1: spiritual center of their home, and that's the television. And

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Speaker 1: so of course I fire up a fake fireplace. And

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Speaker 1: the one that's been our favorite for several years running

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Speaker 1: now is on Netflix. So again, credit where's credit where

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Speaker 1: credits due? They'll cancel your favorite shows after two seasons,

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Speaker 1: but they will give you an amazing virtual fireplace, and

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Speaker 1: our favorite is Netflix the Witcher Fireplace. It is a

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Speaker 1: Witcher tie in, and it's not much to it. It's simple,

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Speaker 1: it's awesome. It's just kind of a medieval fantasy world

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Speaker 1: fire pit, like you know, wrought iron or something. It's blazing,

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Speaker 1: it's crackling. There's no Henry cavill or Unifer back there

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Speaker 1: and a hot tub or anything like that. It's just

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Speaker 1: the fire pit and it's great. My only criticism is

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Speaker 1: that it's only an hour long, and I either can't

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Speaker 1: or I don't know how to put it on repeat,

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Speaker 1: because I would just prefer to have it on all

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Speaker 1: the time during the holidays.

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Speaker 2: What's this emblazoned on the side of it? Is it

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Speaker 2: like a crack in or something?

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Speaker 1: Since I've seen this show, that's probably like some sort

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Speaker 1: of a monster you know, Henry Cavill's a monster hunter

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Speaker 1: in that the Witch is a monster hunter and that's

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Speaker 1: I don't know, a Kaimer or something.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I know the Witcher from the game, the third

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Speaker 2: game specifically. But yeah, so this thing does look really cool.

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Speaker 2: I'll have to look this one up this year. But

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Speaker 2: it's like sexy wrought iron brazier for your home.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's cool. Yeah, I legitimately love it.

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Speaker 2: So I think Fireplace for your Home and its many

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Speaker 2: derivatives are interesting cultural artifacts because on one hand, they're

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Speaker 2: just like a genuine holiday fixture in millions of homes.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't find any reliable sources on viewcount because Netflix

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Speaker 2: doesn't release that kind of stuff as far as I know.

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Speaker 2: But in an interview with The Independent in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: the director of Fireplace for Your Home, George Ford, I'll

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Speaker 2: come back to the in a minute, estimated that it

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Speaker 2: had been it had been watched more than seventy million

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Speaker 2: times in twenty eighteen. Idea if he's right about that,

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Speaker 2: But how am I gonna argue with him? But at

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Speaker 2: the same time, I think it's funny that it's only

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Speaker 2: people are putting this on to be cozy and feel

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Speaker 2: good at Christmas time, and yet this movie is also

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Speaker 2: a source of ironic amusement, Like when you bring it up,

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Speaker 2: people kind of there's something funny, like they find something

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Speaker 2: kind of goofy about the idea of a cozy fire

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Speaker 2: happening inside their television. And if you look at reviews,

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Speaker 2: most of the reviews for this thing are jokes. They're

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Speaker 2: things like, you know, zero stars, nearly burned down my house.

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Speaker 2: It's like the joke is with the incongruity of the

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Speaker 2: fact that this is not a real fire.

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Speaker 1: It's not it won't it won't put out heat. And

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Speaker 1: if it is putting out heat, there's probably something wrong

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Speaker 1: with your television set. I mean, it'll put out a

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Speaker 1: little heat, right, Like you shouldn't be put putting out

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Speaker 1: a lot of heat. You shouldn't actually be able to

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Speaker 1: warm your buns by it.

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Speaker 2: You hope it's not putting out a lot. This is

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Speaker 2: actually this is kind of a tangent, but I got

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Speaker 2: interested thinking about what makes the difference between lovable holiday

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Speaker 2: kitch like fireplace for your home and a divisive experimental

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Speaker 2: art film like Andy Warhol's Empire, which if you're not

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Speaker 2: familiar with Empire, this is worth looking up. It's an

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Speaker 2: eight hour static shot of the illuminated upper floors of

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Speaker 2: the Empire State Building. I think it was actually filmed

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Speaker 2: over the course of roughly like six hours, and then

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Speaker 2: it's supposed to be played back at slow motion, so

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Speaker 2: the film takes like eight hours to watch. It was

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Speaker 2: filmed over the course of one night in July nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty four, and you're just watching the buildings, like the

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Speaker 2: sun sets and the floodlights come on, and you just

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Speaker 2: watch the building through the night, and occasionally there'll be

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Speaker 2: you know, a plane going by or flashes of light

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Speaker 2: or something like that, but otherwise it's just a static shot. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: the movie Empire is more likely to be regarded as

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Speaker 2: either an important work of art with something interesting to

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Speaker 2: illustrate about passage of time or the aesthetics of film, or,

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Speaker 2: on the other hand, to be seen as a pretentious,

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Speaker 2: self infatuated, artistic boondoggle. Fireplace for your home does not

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Speaker 2: really invite either of these types of appraisal. It's just

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Speaker 2: you know, cozy holiday kitsch. However, I would say that

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Speaker 2: an hour long shot of a burning fireplace and an

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Speaker 2: eight hour shot of the floodlights on top of a

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Speaker 2: skyscraper have a lot of similarities. Both are what you

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Speaker 2: might call slow or atmospheric films without plot, characters, or dialogue,

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Speaker 2: primarily interested in just a purely esthetic experience, maybe causing

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Speaker 2: maybe something about causing the viewer to have time to

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Speaker 2: relax and reflect without something directly taking up their attention

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Speaker 2: to too aggressively. And both of them, in terms of

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Speaker 2: visual display, are based on the interplay of light and shadow.

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Speaker 2: I read somebody described the glowing crown of the building

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Speaker 2: featured in Empire as a chandelier in the sky, and

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Speaker 2: based on an interview I was looking at, it's clear

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Speaker 2: that fireplace for your home it took a lot of

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Speaker 2: care to try to get the right interplay of like

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Speaker 2: lights and colors in the fire and how they would

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Speaker 2: be picked up by the camera and the contrast of

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Speaker 2: that with the shadows in the room around. And so

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Speaker 2: I was thinking about if I had to like single

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Speaker 2: out a major difference, like what would make the difference

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Speaker 2: between the kinds of feelings people have about them? Apart

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Speaker 2: from like the length difference, I think a big thing

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Speaker 2: is that there is an understanding of a different expectation

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Speaker 2: put on the viewer. Like if you are asked to

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Speaker 2: watch Andy Warhol's Empire, people probably think that they're supposed

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Speaker 2: to like sit silently in an art house theater and

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Speaker 2: look at the screen the whole run time and think

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Speaker 2: deep thoughts, whereas fireplace for your home makes no such demands.

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Speaker 2: You probably just put it on in the background while

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Speaker 2: you're having coffee or while you're wrapping presents or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to think about the different ways we're

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Speaker 1: supposed to or do, interact with various media. Like I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about this recently. I went to performance that

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Speaker 1: was maybe a little dry for my taste, and in

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Speaker 1: the same way you know, you sometimes say, well, this

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Speaker 1: meeting could have been an email, I kind of felt

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Speaker 1: like this performance could have been an art installation. You know,

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Speaker 1: something where I walk through it, I spend as much

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Speaker 1: time with it as I want and sort of like

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Speaker 1: gain what I want from looking at it walking through

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Speaker 1: it and so forth. You know, I think we've all

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Speaker 1: been to. This also sometimes breaks down into actual video

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Speaker 1: pieces right where you'll see like short short films or

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Speaker 1: even longer pieces, and yeah, you could watch them all

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Speaker 1: in their entirety, or you could sort of pass through

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Speaker 1: and get a general sense of it. And then on

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Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum, like you look at

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Speaker 1: the way people often treat their favorite television shows, be

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Speaker 1: it to you know, something's often something they have a

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Speaker 1: lot of nostalgia for. You hear people talking about, say

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Speaker 1: The Office or a Seinfeld or something like that, and

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Speaker 1: they talk about, well, you know, I just like to

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Speaker 1: put it on in the background while I'm working. It

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Speaker 1: just put it on while I'm working or you know,

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Speaker 1: doing things around the house, and you know, it's you're

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Speaker 1: kind of treating the office like one of these virtual fireplaces,

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Speaker 1: something that is just generating a feeling in the background,

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Speaker 1: some stimuli in the background that you're not one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent focused on. In fact, I would say if you

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Speaker 1: are one hundred percent focused on one of these fireplace

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Speaker 1: videos that may be a warning sign, you know, it's like,

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Speaker 1: that's why not. I mean, however, you engage with your art,

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Speaker 1: that's fine.

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Speaker 2: Or it could be you're just trying to find the

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Speaker 2: warholiness of it. I mean, on the I have read

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Speaker 2: strange kinds of interpretations of Fireplace for your Home. Was

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Speaker 2: reading something that referred to an almost Lynchian meditation on

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Speaker 2: the synthetic and alienated faces of holiday cheer that you

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Speaker 2: could see in Fireplace for your Home if you're looking

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Speaker 2: for it. But I was thinking about it in the

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Speaker 2: opposite direction. With the contrast with the Andy Warhol movie.

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Speaker 2: You could be like wrapping Christmas presents and you could

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Speaker 2: put Empire on in the background. It might not feel

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Speaker 2: any less appropriate. The other day, I just watched part

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Speaker 2: of Empire like you can find it online, and however

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Speaker 2: orthogonal this is to Warhol's intensions, it actually does feel

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Speaker 2: quite seasonally festive. There's something about like the Art Deco

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Speaker 2: design of the Empire state building and the floodlights against

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Speaker 2: the dark knight skies, extremely cozy and felt like Christmas time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there have been a number of interesting related I

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Speaker 1: guess ambient audio visual experiences. Netflix hosted multiple moving art

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Speaker 1: works by Lewis Schwarzburg. This is the guy who also

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Speaker 1: directed the twenty nineteen film Fantastic Fun Guy, which is

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Speaker 1: more traditional in its structure, But the moving art show,

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Speaker 1: I guess, you know, there were like one hour long each,

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Speaker 1: maybe less. You know, it's just pleasing music, a lot

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Speaker 1: of cool ambient nature footage, and it's like great stuff.

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Speaker 1: It was great stuff to take a nap to, you know,

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Speaker 1: but still have something visual going on in the room

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Speaker 1: as well. Disney has also got in on this with

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Speaker 1: some great long ambient Star Wars themed av presentations, like

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Speaker 1: it'll be a landscape of Hath or something like that.

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Speaker 1: So it seems like, you know, enough people were doing

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Speaker 1: this kind of thing they realized, well, let's let's put

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Speaker 1: that out there. I mean, we also have sort of

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Speaker 1: screen savory type things that pop up on Apple televisions,

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Speaker 1: right and various apps and so forth, where instead of

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Speaker 1: just looking at an ad, they're going to show you

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Speaker 1: a city scape or something like that.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know about the Star Wars thing. I don't

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Speaker 2: look that up.

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Speaker 1: Ya. They're pretty good.

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Speaker 2: Wampa attacks to study relax to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, nothing really happens, maybe a spaceship flies over,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, they keep it chill, they keep it ambient.

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Speaker 1: And it's an interesting I mean, because the idea of

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Speaker 1: the TV being on NonStop, as being this flood of

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Speaker 1: ideas into your home and into your life like this

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Speaker 1: is nothing new. We've been doing this, We've been using

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Speaker 1: our televisions like this since we've had televisions, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's really almost kind of a refined idea to think, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, let's let them have an hour two hour

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Speaker 1: blocks of just you know, very ambient, chill audio visual

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Speaker 1: stimuli instead of just NonStop ads and so forth.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, well, yeah, yeah, and I mean, and

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Speaker 2: part of the reason I brought this up is to

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Speaker 2: think about the similarities and differences in the way people

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Speaker 2: are now seeming to use a TV like people would

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Speaker 2: once or in many cases still do use a fireplace

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Speaker 2: as a primarily you know, not primarily to heat the

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Speaker 2: house but because they probably have another heating system as well,

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Speaker 2: but as an esthetic experience. It's something that supplies a

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Speaker 2: kind of mood or ambience to the room that makes

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Speaker 2: you feel a way you want to feel, or helps

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Speaker 2: you focus your attention in a way that you want to. Yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 2: I just wanted to mention a couple of funny things

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Speaker 2: that I found out about because I read a couple

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Speaker 2: of interviews with the creator of Fireplace for Your Home

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Speaker 2: and American director named George Ford, who lives in Washington State,

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Speaker 2: whose primary job is, or at least was at the

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Speaker 2: time of these interviews, running a pet supply company. But

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Speaker 2: he also directed a number of these like static shot

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Speaker 2: genre films, ones like a mountain stream flowing. There's another

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Speaker 2: thing of like fish bopping around in a saltwater aquarium.

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Speaker 2: But apparently this started with him making these cat entertainment DVDs,

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Speaker 2: the goal of which is to like drive your cat

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Speaker 2: insane with images of mice running all over the place.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah. There are various YouTube accounts that specialize

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Speaker 1: in this sort of thing as well, and some of

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Speaker 1: those can be quite cheerful, you know, until the YouTube

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Speaker 1: ads cut in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess YouTube must have really cut into the

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Speaker 2: DVD market for these things. He used to like twenty

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Speaker 2: years ago, you'd pick up in Pet Smart or something.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, these interviews, one of them was with The

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Speaker 2: Independent in twenty eighteen and others with CBC in twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two. A few takeaways that seemed interesting to me.

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Speaker 2: This guy was inspired in part by pre existing hearth

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Speaker 2: and fireplace films, So fireplace for your home not the

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Speaker 2: first thing of its type. One example is a film

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Speaker 2: that used to run on Christmas even Christmas on the

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Speaker 2: New York TV market. It was on a station called WPIX,

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Speaker 2: Channel eleven. This started in the nineteen sixties, and it

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Speaker 2: was this thing that was like two to four hours long,

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Speaker 2: depending on the instance, that would play a video loop

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Speaker 2: showing a log burning in a fireplace with Christmas music

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Speaker 2: playing over the top. And I read in turn that

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Speaker 2: this thing was the idea of somebody who worked at

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Speaker 2: this TV station who was inspired by like a Coca

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Speaker 2: Cola commercial that he saw. But another thing from these

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Speaker 2: interviews is that Ford talked about how his kids would

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Speaker 2: keep begging him to build a fire around the holidays

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Speaker 2: because you know, yeah, I remember when I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: I wanted a fire in the fireplace. That was fun.

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Speaker 2: And it occurred to him that it would be easier too,

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Speaker 2: in his words, quote, just place a television inside our

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Speaker 2: fireplace hearth easier than to keep making a real fire,

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Speaker 2: So he like pitched this to Netflix multiple times. They

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Speaker 2: initially ignored him or laughed him off, but eventually he

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Speaker 2: got some traction and he claims again can't verify this,

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Speaker 2: but according to the director, the First Fireplace for Your

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Speaker 2: Home film took him two years to make and cost

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Speaker 2: almost thirty five thousand dollars to produce. This would not

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Speaker 2: be Netflix money, by the way. It was actually that

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Speaker 2: he made these films independently and then I think sold

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Speaker 2: the distro rights to Netflix later on, Like, how on

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Speaker 2: earth could it actually be that difficult. Well, again, can't

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Speaker 2: verify the figures are true, but the explanation kind of

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Speaker 2: makes sense to me. Speaking to The Independent, he said, quote,

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Speaker 2: we battled timing issues, color audio and general high resolution

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Speaker 2: problems along the way. Special cameras have to be used

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Speaker 2: around flames and only certain color temperatures work. That's why

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Speaker 2: you just don't see an open flame much in movies.

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Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, that is interesting. You know,

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Speaker 2: I think for a cozy fire on a TV screen,

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Speaker 2: we kind of have some criteria that we might not

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Speaker 2: even be aware of. But we'd like to see the

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Speaker 2: warmer colors of the fire, don't We want some red, orange,

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Speaker 2: and yellow. But a roaring fire on camera, especially not

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Speaker 2: the right kind of camera and not the right kind

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Speaker 2: of shot just doesn't always look like that. I can

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Speaker 2: think of a lot of old movies and video where

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Speaker 2: camera where a camera catching a fireplace looks either just

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Speaker 2: like a white glare or it's like invisible somehow.

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Speaker 1: Mm. That's a good point. Now, I'm gonna have to

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Speaker 1: be extra judging when I watch films with fireplaces in them.

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Speaker 2: Apart from the technical concerns, this gets back to the

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Speaker 2: things about like what elements of the simulation are important

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Speaker 2: to capture. They also went through a lot of tries

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Speaker 2: actually getting the logs to burn right in like an

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Speaker 2: esthetically pleasing way. They wanted the right sounds of like

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Speaker 2: a crackle and snap and a visually symmetrical flame, and

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Speaker 2: also to make the fire in such a way that

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Speaker 2: it requires no intervention so you don't have to keep

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Speaker 2: like poking it reaching in front of the camera. And

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Speaker 2: another hilarious thing that I did not know, so you

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Speaker 2: you filled me in about the Witcher themed fireplace, but

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Speaker 2: according to this guy, Netflix did a fireplace tie in

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Speaker 2: with some dystopian movie they made called Bright and they

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Speaker 2: summarized this. I haven't seen this movie, but it's like

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Speaker 2: it's got like elves and orcs in what is otherwise

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Speaker 2: just a buddy cop movie. And they they called this

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Speaker 2: burn barrel for your Home.

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Speaker 1: I have not seen this one, but I mean, in general,

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Speaker 1: I'm all for this. Let's have let's have more of these.

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Speaker 1: I'm just looking around. It's possible that they just unleashed

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Speaker 1: one for Squid Game. If so, excellent, keep it, keep

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Speaker 1: it going. I need all Netflix series. I'm really kind

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Speaker 1: of pissed we didn't get one for Gama Do Toro's

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Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosities. We really needed like a Linel Lasseter

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Speaker 1: themed a fireplace that would have been ideal.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like a fireplace that that talks extensively about

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Speaker 2: kind of drink it's making you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, I mean, but seriously, can you

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Speaker 1: imagine if Panels Coos Motos did a fireplace hour long

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Speaker 1: video for Netflix that would be amazing. Imagine how glorious

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Speaker 1: that fireplace would.

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Speaker 2: Look some kind of creature slowly melting. Oh but one

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Speaker 2: last thing about the fireplace director speaking to the CBC,

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Speaker 2: they ask him, why do we love to stare at

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Speaker 2: a fireplace, even if it's not putting out heat like

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Speaker 2: a real woman would. He mentioned a number of things,

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Speaker 2: but one that he mentions this might seem kind of obvious,

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Speaker 2: but he says, you know, a fireplace looks like safety,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's true. Something feels very like safe,

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Speaker 2: enclosed and contained about it, which is funny because actually,

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Speaker 2: like putting a fire inside your house is one of

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Speaker 2: the more dangerous things you might do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but like this is the place to do it,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's the thing that we have, and it's

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Speaker 1: the thing we have a very long history with, you know,

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Speaker 1: our you know, going back through times, will be discussing

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Speaker 1: like this is what the house was built around. It

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Speaker 1: is the heart of the house. It is the center

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Speaker 1: of the house, and it is therefore the center of

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Speaker 1: your lives.

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Speaker 2: That's right. So I don't know if I meant to

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Speaker 2: end up talking that long about fireplace for your home.

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Speaker 2: Apologies it was a bit much, But I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I think it does raise some issues that I might

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Speaker 2: want to keep returning to as we think more about

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Speaker 2: the fireplace and what it means to us over the

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Speaker 2: course of the next couple episodes. But one thing I

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Speaker 2: did want to cover briefly, is the prehistory of human

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Speaker 2: control of fire. Now, we've gone into this in depth

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Speaker 2: and other episodes, so we're not going to rehash all

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Speaker 2: that material in the same level of depth here. I

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Speaker 2: just wanted to do a sort of quick overview of

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Speaker 2: some things we've talked about. A paper we've referenced on

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Speaker 2: the show before that is highly cited on this subject

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Speaker 2: is from twenty sixteen published in Philosophical Transactions of the

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Speaker 2: Royal Society B by JAJ Gawlett called the Discovery of

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Speaker 2: Fire by Humans Long and Convoluted Process. Now, this paper

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Speaker 2: posits that human control of fire in prehistory probably constituted

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Speaker 2: three general phases, and the first stage would be humans

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Speaker 2: engaging in something we actually see in other animals, which

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Speaker 2: is fire. Following this would be opportunistically taking advantage of

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Speaker 2: natural fires caused most often by lightning strikes, lightning striking brush,

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Speaker 2: but less often by like weird ignition sources like volcanic eruptions,

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Speaker 2: but whatever the cause of the fire. This phase would

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Speaker 2: be humans notice a natural fire is occurring and then

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Speaker 2: swoop in to take advantage of it in various ways,

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Speaker 2: like to capture prey that is flushed out of hiding,

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Speaker 2: or to scavenge and eat a prey that has been

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Speaker 2: killed and maybe even cooked by the fire in some

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Speaker 2: way like oh, it's nicely roasted now, or to in

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Speaker 2: various other ways take advantage of natural resources revealed or

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Speaker 2: transformed by a burn. And then after the wildfire foraging stage,

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Speaker 2: you've got the second and third phases, which postulate control

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Speaker 2: of the fire within the living space. So the second

433
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 2: phase is domestic fire, primarily used for cooking and safety,

434
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 2: and then the third phase is what you might call

435
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:21,439
Speaker 2: industrial fire, the transformation of used for the transformation of

436
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 2: resources and technology, like the production of baked pottery, and

437
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 2: so going into the second and third phases, you see

438
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 2: this sporadic and opportunistic relationship to rare natural fires transform

439
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:38,480
Speaker 2: into the capture and maintenance of fire first like feeding

440
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 2: a fire continuous fuel to keep it burning after you've

441
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 2: caught it from a natural source. And then eventually humans

442
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:47,679
Speaker 2: would learn to strike fire from nothing with implements like

443
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 2: flintstone's and tender Now, what's the general timeline for these

444
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 2: early stages of fire control. Well, it's messy and it's

445
00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 2: still debated. The oldest evidence that anybody seriously proposes for

446
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 2: human control of fire goes back to our hominin relatives

447
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 2: roughly one to two million years ago, so at the

448
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 2: farthest it might go back like two million years but

449
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 2: this evidence is ambiguous. So you can have things like

450
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 2: charred or baked remains buried at a site that was

451
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 2: occupied by hominins around the same time between one and

452
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 2: two million years ago. But with these cases it's not

453
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 2: always clear if this is the result of deliberate fire

454
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 2: control or of natural burning and like scavenging of burned materials.

455
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 2: Gallon in the paper mentions a couple of sites of

456
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 2: this kind in Kenya containing like burned sediments, stone tools

457
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 2: that appear to have been altered by heat, and a

458
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 2: couple of large hunks of baked clay, but again it's

459
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 2: not clear if these are from natural fires or controlled burning.

460
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 2: A lot of the archaeological investigation for the emergence of

461
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 2: fire control has focused on looking for what are called

462
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 2: hearths in the literature. That's going to be a little

463
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 2: bit different than the way we're using hearth, primarily in

464
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 2: these episodes, because this would not necessarily refer to indoor fireplaces,

465
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,919
Speaker 2: but could refer to any dedicated place for burning. So,

466
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 2: in like the archaeological papers, a hearth just means the

467
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 2: remains of a place that was used for a purposeful fire.

468
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 2: And there is pretty unambiguous evidence for hearths starting several

469
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 2: hundred thousand years ago. There are more traces of human

470
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 2: associated burning beginning around one million years ago, and then

471
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 2: the hearths really start popping up in Africa, Asia, Europe,

472
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 2: in the Middle East around four hundred thousand years ago

473
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 2: when you start seeing a lot of them.

474
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, just based on materials I've been looking at. The

475
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: exact usage of the term hearth is going to depend

476
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: on a large part on exactly what the researchers and

477
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: or the paper or the book is dealing with, Like

478
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: are we dealing with an age in which people are

479
00:25:55,960 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: living in homes or some other situation, and then the

480
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: exact nature of the homes varies as well.

481
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, hearth in the main way we're using it

482
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 2: in this series is going to refer to a piece

483
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 2: of infrastructure in a home, like a constructed enclosure made

484
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 2: of fireproof materials that contains the fireplace.

485
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: Right, But there may be a time or two where

486
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: we use the term hearth and you might think, are

487
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: they talking about a home. Well, in a few cases

488
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: we might be referring to some material that's dealing with

489
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: some other situation. But yeah, for the most part, we're

490
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: dealing with hearthstones and have gotten something along the lines

491
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: of a fireplace.

492
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 2: Now, there are tons of ways that gaining control over

493
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 2: fire transformed humankind. Of course, one thing is it would

494
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 2: have expanded our geographic range, making it easier to migrate

495
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 2: into colder climates and higher altitudes. It allowed us to

496
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 2: expand our technological regime through the transformation of natural resources. Again,

497
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: a very good example is pottery fired pottery, but also

498
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,120
Speaker 2: things you might not think of as readily, like adhesives

499
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 2: for hafting, the famous birch bark tar that we talked

500
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 2: about in some episodes in the past, and other things

501
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 2: you can make like various glues out of natural substances

502
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 2: that involves some element of heating. Also the heating of

503
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 2: stones for improved napping. Some silicon based stones they nap better.

504
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 2: You know, they flake off into the kinds of sharp

505
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: edges that you're looking for with a napping exercise if

506
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 2: you heat them the right way. But a big thing,

507
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 2: of course, is the importance of cooking. The importance of

508
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: fire for cooking really hard to overstate. Now, there is

509
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 2: a real scholarly debate about the extent to which cooking

510
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 2: actually could have transformed the human body. This is known

511
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 2: as the cooking hypothesis. The basic idea is that the

512
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: ability to cook otherwise hard to digest foods actually steered

513
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 2: hominine evolution, changing not just our culture but our bodies,

514
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 2: allowing us to grow more powerful brains by devoting less

515
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 2: energy to a hardy gut. Though I should that the

516
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 2: cooking hypothesis is not proven. There are arguments against it,

517
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 2: mainly having to do with like the timing that would

518
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 2: be required and a lack of evidence for control of

519
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 2: fire at the required times. So we don't know about

520
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 2: the cooking hypothesis hypothesis in terms of human evolution. But

521
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,959
Speaker 2: what cannot be doubted is that the invention of cooking

522
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 2: massively expanded the base nutrition yield of food we acquired.

523
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 2: So it just made it possible to get a lot

524
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 2: more nutrition out of your food. And it also made

525
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 2: food safer by killing food born pathogens and neutralizing some

526
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 2: plant toxins. So it just unlocked a gigantic level up

527
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 2: in nutrition.

528
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like a real sort. It's often described as

529
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: kind of an externalization of digestion, like a lot of

530
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: the chemistry of digestion and potential chemistry of digestion handled

531
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: outside the body, taking the strain off of the body,

532
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: making things that we could need otherwise edible or more

533
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: nutritious and so forth. Oh yeah, and then there's you know,

534
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: additional areas you can get into, like food preservation and

535
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: so forth.

536
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, with control of fire, you have protection against

537
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 2: wild predators which tend to be afraid of fire and

538
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,719
Speaker 2: are easier to drive away with it. And then finally

539
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 2: you've got provision of light in the darkness. And the

540
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: way in which fire provides light in the darkness I

541
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 2: think is interesting because of how it is different from

542
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 2: the light provided by the sun, and to say nothing

543
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 2: of the way that it's different from the kind of

544
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 2: light provided by electrical light sources that we have today.

545
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 2: That's something I want to come back to in part two,

546
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 2: to think about the particular light regime of fire based societies.

547
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is something I was thinking a lot

548
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: about recently. When I visited Wales with my family. We

549
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,959
Speaker 1: went to Saint Fagan's National Museum of History, which has

550
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: a lot of these historic Welsh buildings that have been

551
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: moved to this area where you can check them out,

552
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: you can walk inside them. And in many of these

553
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: buildings they had a fireplace going and that was often

554
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: like the main form of illumination and there may or

555
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: may not even be any windows. And it's such an

556
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: insight into it into times when you would be inhabiting

557
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: an indoor environment like that. You know, we were totally

558
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: spoiled for indoor illumination. These days, you can have your

559
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: house generally as bright as you want it, like astoundingly bright.

560
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting experience to sort of step back

561
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: in time and appreciate like the challenges and not to

562
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: say that they were restricted only to the hearth fire.

563
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: There are other, you know, tricks you could you could

564
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: utilize to up your illumination, but you were limited. Uh,

565
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it was a different world.

566
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 2: And specifically, one of the things I want to come

567
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 2: back to in part two is ways that that limitation

568
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 2: could actually be create a kind of freedom or open

569
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 2: opportunities for other things that are not as apparent. If

570
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: you're just in a daylight type of light or in

571
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 2: a very bright electrical lighting scenario.

572
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, in addition to the obvious, like it's dark,

573
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,719
Speaker 1: maybe we should go to sleep. Yeah, it's sometimes a

574
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: kind of a revelation to modern humans. It's like it

575
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 1: is nighttime. I could sleep, I could turn all of

576
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: this off, and we often don't do that.

577
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was about to be like, stop staring at

578
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 2: your phone right before bed, which I do.

579
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really hard to shake. It's our little heart

580
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: we bring to bed with us, our little fireplace. Yeah.

581
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 2: All right, Well, so from here, for the rest of

582
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 2: today's episode, I wanted to talk briefly about how fireplaces

583
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 2: are normally constructed, how they normally work in the modern sense,

584
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 2: and then Rob, I know you had some stuff you

585
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 2: wanted to get into about fireplaces as kind of magical portals.

586
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 2: But okay, So one of the things is, obviously, once

587
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 2: humans started to build houses, to build enclosures to live inside,

588
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 2: it can be easy to see why you would want

589
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 2: to have the heat and light benefits of a fire

590
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: inside the protection of the dwelling and not just outside.

591
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 2: But this actually is not as easy as it sounds.

592
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 2: You're presented with several concerns. One is how do you

593
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 2: keep the fire from burning down the house. To do so,

594
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,719
Speaker 2: you would need to build the fireplace kind of away

595
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 2: from any flammable walls or furniture, or if it is

596
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 2: touching walls, you would need a fireplace system built into

597
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 2: non flammable infrastructure, made out of something like stone, brick, clay,

598
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 2: or metal. Other big thing this is huge how do

599
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 2: you keep the fire from filling your house up with smoke?

600
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: You need to have some kind of channel through which

601
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 2: smoke and hot gases can escape the building. Modern fireplaces

602
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 2: are equipped with dedicated flues and chimneys, as we'll talk

603
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,959
Speaker 2: about in a second, but as we see, many early

604
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: indoor fireplaces had more had cruder ventilation systems, often consisting

605
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 2: of simply a hole in the roof directly above the fire.

606
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 2: And this would work to a degree, but it also

607
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 2: meant that, yeah, for like thousands of years, a lot

608
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 2: of buildings that housed indoor fires were just going to

609
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 2: be pretty smoky inside.

610
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: I definitely got a taste of some of that at St. Fagan's.

611
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, basic modern fireplace and chimney design goes roughly

612
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 2: like this. Usually you've got the firebox. This is where

613
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 2: the fire goes built on top of what's called a hearth.

614
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: This is the more specialized use of the word hearth.

615
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 2: This is the base of the fireplace that is made

616
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 2: out of some kind of fireproof material, often bricks or stones,

617
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 2: and this material, of course, is meant to absorb heat

618
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: from the fire and then heat the room that it's

619
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 2: in by radiating that heat back out into the air. Now,

620
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 2: above the firebox you often have like a decorative shelf

621
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 2: called a mantle, but that's not really part of the

622
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 2: mechanics of the fireplace. That's just a common decorative feature.

623
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: The channel above the firebox leading to the outside is

624
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 2: what's called the flu, and then the flu is surrounded

625
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 2: by the structure that we call the chimney. A lot

626
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 2: of times the flu is slightly offset from the firebox,

627
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 2: so it's not just a pipe straight up. Instead, it'll

628
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 2: be kind of set off to the side or behind,

629
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 2: and it will be the FLU will be positioned directly

630
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 2: above something that is called the smoke shelf, where soot

631
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 2: or anything that happens to penetrate the flu. Opening on

632
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 2: top of the roof, anything comes in from outdoors can

633
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 2: fall without landing directly on the fire. Instead, it falls

634
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 2: onto this shelf. Often. Also, there is a damper which

635
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 2: allows you to close off the flu when there's no

636
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 2: fire burning, to stop cold air from coming down in

637
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 2: the chimney. Very important to remember to open the damper

638
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 2: before lighting a new fire.

639
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: This is especially true. Yeah, if you're staying in a

640
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 1: cabin or something it's not your home, maybe back at

641
00:34:57,840 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: your own house, you're not used to using a fireplace.

642
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: It is an absolutely necessary step.

643
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 2: Now, we all know that a fire needs fuel and

644
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 2: heat to burn, but it's also important to remember that

645
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 2: it needs oxygen, so airflow is important in determining how

646
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 2: a fire burns and also in determining what effect a

647
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 2: fire has on the house and its occupants. The majority

648
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:23,720
Speaker 2: of the interior heat provided by a fireplace is radiant heat.

649
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,800
Speaker 2: It's the infrared radiation coming off of the fire itself

650
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:31,919
Speaker 2: and then also coming off of the heated parts of

651
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 2: the hearth or whatever is enclosing the fire, so coming

652
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,240
Speaker 2: off of the heated bricks or stones, or the metal.

653
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:40,399
Speaker 2: If it's more of a stove design, I'll talk about

654
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 2: that in a second. But there is an irony to this,

655
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: beloved fixture of the fireplace. Way back in the eighteenth century,

656
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 2: Benjamin Franklin wrote about how inefficient fireplaces were actually were

657
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 2: at heating indoor spaces, just huge amounts of wasted energy.

658
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 2: He noted that the majority of the convective heat that

659
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 2: they produce just rushes straight up the flu and is

660
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,360
Speaker 2: lost to the outside air. And this is often true,

661
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 2: though it can vary depending on particulars of the fireplace design.

662
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,479
Speaker 2: In fact, here's a weird thing a lot of people

663
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,280
Speaker 2: might not know. A fire in the fireplace can actually

664
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 2: make your house colder overall. So this again depends on particulars.

665
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 2: It depends on the design of the fireplace and the chimney,

666
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 2: particularly how the ventilation system is configured. But in a

667
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 2: lot of cases, you build a fire in the fireplace

668
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 2: and it will increase the temperature in the area directly

669
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 2: around the fire, you know, mostly again by way of

670
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 2: radiant heat coming off of the fire and the heated

671
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 2: stone or brick or metal of the hearth. But meanwhile

672
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 2: that fire is sucking in air from the inside of

673
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 2: your house, relatively warm air, probably if it's winter time

674
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 2: and you have the heat going, or just you know,

675
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 2: there's warm stuff happening inside the house, and so it's

676
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 2: warmer than the air outside. So this air from the

677
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 2: rest of the house is being sucked into the fireplace

678
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 2: to feed the fire, and then the convection of the

679
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,800
Speaker 2: hot gas plume rising up through the flu is driving

680
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 2: it outside as it gets superheated. As hot gas and

681
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 2: smoke rushes up the chimney, a vacuum is created and

682
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,400
Speaker 2: more air continues to flow in from the inside of

683
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 2: your house to the fireplay system, and thus a vacuum

684
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 2: is created in the rest of the house, and then

685
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 2: cold air is pulled in from outside through whatever cracks

686
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: your house has, cracks in the doors and windows and

687
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 2: so forth. So plenty of tests have shown that an

688
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 2: inefficient fireplace may feel warm to the room right there

689
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 2: in front of the blaze, but actually freezes out the

690
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 2: rest of the house. They even did an episode of

691
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 2: MythBusters where they featured this one time. I haven't seen this,

692
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 2: but I read about it, and I read that in

693
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 2: their particular test rooms farther away in the house got

694
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 2: a couple of degrees celsius colder.

695
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: This is fascinating and it makes me think back on

696
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: times I've been in houses where there is a fireplace,

697
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:05,880
Speaker 1: and I'll I mean, I will often find myself in

698
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: this situation where it's like I'm somewhere else in the house,

699
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: start feeling kind of chilly. Then I have to go

700
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: like right next to the fireplace to warm up. And

701
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: this pattern kind of continues. Yeah, and now I'm realizing

702
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: it could be in part due to the presence of

703
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: the fireplace to begin with inequality of temperature.

704
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 2: Now, there are ways to improve the heating efficiency of

705
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 2: a wood fire. One is to replace it with a

706
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 2: wood is to replace your open fireplace with a wood stove.

707
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 2: So this would be a fireplace completely enclosed in a

708
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 2: metal box, which uses air more efficiently. It sucks less

709
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 2: cold air into your house, and also it radiates heat

710
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 2: into the house more efficiently, like the metal can radiate

711
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 2: in all directions. You might notice a traditional stone or

712
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 2: brick fireplace is usually built into a wall, whereas a

713
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 2: wood stove is more often closer to the middle of

714
00:38:57,600 --> 00:38:59,719
Speaker 2: the room and can radiate in all directions.

715
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, my late father in law was really into like

716
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: passive solar and design and houses and you know, not

717
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: quite like living off the grid kind of stuff. But

718
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 1: like all the things you could do with a house

719
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: to sort of like limit the need for electricity and

720
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,759
Speaker 1: so forth, and like that was a Keith aspect of

721
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: his home design was having that wood stove and yeah,

722
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 1: it's not stuck in the wall. It's like out there

723
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: basically in the center of the house.

724
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 2: And we might talk more about this in part too.

725
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 2: But there are also designs that improve the heating efficiency

726
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 2: because they don't draw air from the interior of the house. Instead,

727
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,800
Speaker 2: they've got like an external intake vent of some kind

728
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 2: feeding a fire that heats a structure made of again

729
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 2: a fireproof material like brickstone or metal or tile, and

730
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 2: then that radiates heat into the building, but the airflow

731
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 2: system just doesn't really connect to the inside of the house.

732
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 2: That also is a way of improving the heating efficiency.

733
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 2: Though there's an interesting sort of a converse implication here

734
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 2: which I discovered. Shout out one of my sources on

735
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 2: fireplaces and how they generally work here was how stuff

736
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 2: Works article our old employer. This one was by John Kelly,

737
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 2: So a nice job, John, But basically the idea here

738
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 2: is that if you notice you're building a fire and

739
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 2: it's like having a hard time burning and the damper

740
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 2: is open, and yet there's still a lot of smoke

741
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 2: coming into the house. A problem could be that the

742
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 2: house is too well sealed, like the doors and the

743
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 2: windows are too well sealed, and the fire is not

744
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 2: able to create this efficient river of air from the

745
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 2: outside into the house into the fireplace, up the flu

746
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 2: and then back outside, so instead it's pulling some air

747
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 2: down the flu, which is causing a counter draft and

748
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 2: sending smoke into the room. So if you are having

749
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 2: this problem, one thing to try is like opening a window,

750
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 2: though of course that's going to let a bunch of

751
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:53,720
Speaker 2: cold air in, so that may just be the price.

752
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 1: Wow, I had never thought about that, huh.

753
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,799
Speaker 2: But anyway, I'm just thinking about the implications of a

754
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 2: fireplace often making the rest of the house colder, even

755
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 2: while it makes one or two rooms much warmer. And

756
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 2: this made me think about an unintended secondary effect of

757
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 2: wood fire heating being the tendency to cause people to gather.

758
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great point. Yeah, drawing people to

759
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: the hearth, to the fire, drawing them together and thus

760
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: and thus becoming like a center of the family of

761
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: social interaction, storytelling and so forth.

762
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a sort of unstated little punishment for

763
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 2: being off by yourself. It's just gonna make your room colder.

764
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, you know it is Christmas time, and so

765
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 1: a lot of folks are engaging in different fireplace related traditions,

766
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: the hanging of stockings and so forth. And what do

767
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: you use traditionally hang your stockings? Why you hang them

768
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: by the hearth? You hang them above the fireplace. And

769
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: of course we have tales of Santa Claus, or perhaps

770
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 1: they masquerading Grinch, entering your home by crawling down your

771
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: chimney and climbing in through the fireplace. This is one

772
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: of those, I think, examples of the fireplace as a portal,

773
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: a fireplace as a gate through which something may travel.

774
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: That it's almost too close to us, you know, we

775
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 1: grow up with this tradition, we're told it from an

776
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: early age. We're familiar with this story before. We're familiar

777
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: with many of the like foundation stories of our own religions,

778
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: you know, and important cultural other important cultural tales, arguably

779
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: more important cultural tales. We have this story of a

780
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: strange old man who climbs through the fireplace, again, almost

781
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: too close for us to even think about it. We'll

782
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: come back to that in a second. But another way,

783
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: of course that and this is one that may resonate

784
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: more with fireplace owners people who actually have hearts in

785
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: their home, is the reality that, okay, as a literal

786
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: aperture to the outside of your home, it is possible

787
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: for animals to climb down that chimney and potentially enter

788
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: your home. They may be prevented full access to the home,

789
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 1: but bats, raccoons, mice, various squirrels are just some of

790
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: the examples of potential chimney splunkers. I know I've encountered

791
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: bats in this manner before at a friend's house, where

792
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: like a bat or two would come into the chimney,

793
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 1: get trapped in the house, and then you would find them,

794
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: often in the sink trying to get water. WHOA, Yeah,

795
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: I came to this house like some it was, you know,

796
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: it's like a vacation home or something, so nobody had

797
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: been in it for a little bit, and I saw

798
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 1: something in the sink and I'm like, oh, someone left

799
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: a tea bag and I almost grabbed it throw it away,

800
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: and then iized, oh, that's a bat. And then I

801
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: had to call my friend and be like what's your

802
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: bat protocol? The bat was fine.

803
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 2: Thiss never even occurred to me. I cannot relate, but

804
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 2: that's incredible now.

805
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: This idea, though, of a chimney is a portal through

806
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,720
Speaker 1: which other worldly powers may traverse, such as Santa Claus.

807
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 1: This is a pretty deeply seated concept, certainly in European traditions,

808
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: but you can also see examples of similar ideas from

809
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: pretty far flung traditions, seemingly to connect with the various

810
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: supernatural concepts you might encounter about the home, about fire technology,

811
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: about cooking, and just the nature of the flame itself.

812
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:47,280
Speaker 1: For instance, Carol Rose, in her Encyclopedia of Giants, Monsters,

813
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: and Dragons that I frequently cite, mentions a tradition of

814
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: the clean Get peoples of Northwestern United States the tell

815
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:03,320
Speaker 1: of Heya Kanako, the old woman underneath us, an enormous

816
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: protective deity of the earth who concentrates on supporting the

817
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: world almost in you know a similar sense to Atlas,

818
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: you know, holding up the earth. But when her hunger

819
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 1: gets the better off her, her concentration falters and earthquakes ensue,

820
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: and so humans occasionally throw bits of fat into their

821
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: hearths and, as Carol Rose describes it, in order to

822
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:33,760
Speaker 1: help her overcome her hunger and to concentrate on keeping

823
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: the earth imbalance. So you know, it's not something crawling

824
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: through the fire through the hearth, but it's this idea

825
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: of the hearth is kind of this connection, in almost

826
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: a physical connection to some sort of supernatural force.

827
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the general use of fire for burnt

828
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 2: offering or sacrifice indicates a way of thinking of the

829
00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 2: fire as a kind of interface point between our world

830
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 2: in the other world, that you can burn something to

831
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,800
Speaker 2: kind of send it through a portal to the gods.

832
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. And what I like about this one though, is

833
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 1: the idea that it's not a special fire created for

834
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: a special ritual purpose. It's more like the everyday fire.

835
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 1: But even the everyday fire has the potential to be

836
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: this gateway. And you know, again, it makes sense when

837
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: you think about all the convergence of activities and energies

838
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 1: at the hearth, the warmth, the illumination, food preparation, social gathering.

839
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: You know, perhaps due to the fact that it's in

840
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 1: a home situation that the rest of the home is cold,

841
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:42,959
Speaker 1: and drawing people together to tell stories, tell jokes, share

842
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: their experiences, and on top of that, it is an

843
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: obvious aperture to the outside world, which certainly brings about

844
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: the possibility of various natural world creatures gaining access to

845
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: your abode. But let us also remember that we're also

846
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: talking about a gateway through which air can pass and

847
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: does pass, And as most of human history is pre

848
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,720
Speaker 1: germ theory, I think you can see where this is going.

849
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,959
Speaker 1: The idea that this is also an aperture through which

850
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: bad air could travel, or something in the air, something

851
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: that is not as constricted as physical as physical beings

852
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: are constricted, that they could pass through that small hole.

853
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,839
Speaker 1: They could essentially pass through the keyhole, and that's all

854
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 1: the space they need.

855
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 2: Interesting it reminds me.

856
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: Actually of a tradition we talked about, an idea of

857
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: the Dine or Navajo people. This came up in a

858
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 1: couple of episodes, I think in our Dust episodes actually,

859
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 1: the idea that you might have an adante, a practitioner

860
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: of secret evil magic, who might introduce a magical poison

861
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: or illness into a home through its smoke hole. So

862
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 1: that definitely came to mind here, the smoke hole in

863
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,759
Speaker 1: a traditional home. This could be an aperture that could

864
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: be exploited by an evil doer, and in European traditions,

865
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 1: spilling over into early American colonial traditions, this concept carried

866
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: a great deal of weight, something that previous guests on

867
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind Brian Hoggard discusses in his

868
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: excellent twenty nineteen book Magical House Protection, The Archaeology of

869
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: counter Witchcraft. I know some of you probably listened to

870
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 1: that episode. It's a great one if you want to

871
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,280
Speaker 1: go back and listen to an interview with the author.

872
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 1: But I'm going to discuss some of the ideas that

873
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:34,800
Speaker 1: he brought up in that book here as it relates

874
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: to this topic. So, in the book, Hoggard discusses the

875
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: various counter witchcraft rights and rituals that Europeans use, dating

876
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: back at least to the Middle Ages, functioning alongside and generally,

877
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:52,240
Speaker 1: I guess in spite of protections offered by the Christian

878
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: faith and Christian tradition. This is coming up on the

879
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 1: show before you know. You have the various church approved

880
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 1: methods that you might take against supernatural evil, but are

881
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: you gonna limit yourself to just those or are you

882
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:11,799
Speaker 1: gonna also set other traps and wards in place. But

883
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:18,399
Speaker 1: in this case we're talking about supernatural, superstitious folk protections

884
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: that were clearly deemed absolutely necessary by many to combat

885
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 1: evil in a demon haunted world. Hoggard stresses that the

886
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: archaeological evidence suggests that unseen supernatural threats were just a

887
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: standard part of everyday existence. Supernatural evil was everywhere, and

888
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 1: you had to bust out all the tricks in order

889
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: to if not completely protect yourself, then at least been

890
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: the odds even slightly in your favor, and is explored

891
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:47,800
Speaker 1: in the book. These efforts often took the form of

892
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: a ritual object or objects hidden in the home. He writes,

893
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: quote the most popular locations to conceal objects within buildings

894
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: are usually at portals such as the hearth, the threshold,

895
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: and also voids or dead spaces. This suggests that people

896
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:08,359
Speaker 1: believed it was possible for dark forces to travel through

897
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 1: the landscape and attack them in their homes. Whether these

898
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 1: forces were emanations from a witch in the form of

899
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 1: a spell, a witch is familiar pestering their property, an

900
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 1: actual witch flying in spirit, or a combination of all

901
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: of those is difficult to tell. Additional sources of danger

902
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:27,399
Speaker 1: could be ghosts, fairies, and demons. People went to great

903
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: lengths to ensure their homes and property were protected, highlighting

904
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: the fact that these beliefs and fears were visceral and,

905
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: as far as they were concerned, literally terrifying.

906
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:42,760
Speaker 2: Interesting yet again, the way that some physical intuitions apply

907
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 2: to these apparently magical substances, like the spell of a

908
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 2: witch or which is familiar, which you might well assume

909
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 2: could just you know, pass magically through any wall or whatever.

910
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 2: It seems people were especially concerned about voids and portals,

911
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 2: like the physical gaps that a physical being would need

912
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 2: to travel through.

913
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine a lot of you have had

914
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 1: this experience. I mean, to be clear, some of you

915
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 1: may have the experience of finding some of these secreted

916
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: and hidden items, and if so, do write in. We

917
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. But I find it

918
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 1: like a little strange when I encounter a void in

919
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: my house. When you realize, like, here is a space

920
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:23,799
Speaker 1: within my home where there is nothing you know, and

921
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: that's that I don't know. It shouldn't feel creepy, but

922
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 1: it does.

923
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:29,880
Speaker 2: What's under the stairs nothing?

924
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: There's nothing there. Now, if you're not familiar with the

925
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: details that HAWKERD gets into and the details that came

926
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:49,840
Speaker 1: up in that interview I conducted a while back. You

927
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,399
Speaker 1: might be wondering, well, what sort of ritual objects are

928
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: we talking about hidden away in homes and voids and

929
00:51:55,640 --> 00:52:00,320
Speaker 1: so forth, potentially near the hearth to afford protection against

930
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: these many evils. Well, there are various examples, but some

931
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 1: of the main ones are as follows. First of all,

932
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: there's just protective marks. And I feel like this is

933
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: this is fairly self explanatory. You know, some sort of

934
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 1: a symbol or a sigil that has protective properties and

935
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: that may be hidden away somewhere in a home.

936
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:19,280
Speaker 2: Okay.

937
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: This next one, though, this one was the one that

938
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: I found surprising at the time I was not familiar

939
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,640
Speaker 1: with prior to reading this book, and that is shoes.

940
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:31,839
Speaker 1: And I think this one's especially interesting because from our

941
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: modern perspective, we often forget just what a shoe is.

942
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 1: We can take it for granted, we can have, you know,

943
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: hundreds of them, and we may love shoes to death

944
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: without like, without really thinking about this vital aspect of

945
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:46,080
Speaker 1: what they are. Yeah, yes, we put them on our

946
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 1: feet to walk about in, and you know, not step

947
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 1: on nails and rocks and so forth, keep our feet warm,

948
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 1: make our feet look you know, snazzy and cool. But

949
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 1: they are also flesh like sheaths, sometimes made from animal products,

950
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: that are so perhaps individually sized for the shape of

951
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: our feet, or if nothing else. Over time they take

952
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:08,839
Speaker 1: on the shape of our feet. They take on the

953
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:12,840
Speaker 1: odor of our feet. These are two details, especially the

954
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 1: odor that is often lost on us, perhaps not lost

955
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 1: on our dogs and cats. They know these shoes smell

956
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: like us, and are like potent familiar items of us.

957
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: You know, our cat will lay on shoes a lot,

958
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 1: and I've read some commentary on this kind of behavior

959
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:34,320
Speaker 1: in cats and dogs, where they will be drawn to

960
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: the shoes because they remind them of the owners of

961
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 1: said shoes. And all this would seem to be part

962
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:44,240
Speaker 1: of the superstitious calculus for these traditions. So a shoe

963
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: may wear out beyond repair in the case of a

964
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 1: child's shoes and shoes that they may outgrow them, but

965
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:53,959
Speaker 1: they are still then objects that have to a large

966
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:56,520
Speaker 1: extent become a part of us. You know, they are

967
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 1: shaped after us, they smell of us, and they're therefore

968
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: dangerous items to discard in much the same way that

969
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 1: nail clippings and hair were often seen as such like

970
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: they were a part of you. They still are a

971
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: part of you, and that is dangerous material to just

972
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:17,320
Speaker 1: leave out in the world where an evil doer or

973
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:19,720
Speaker 1: an evil spirit may come across it and by doing

974
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 1: so gain power over you.

975
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 2: This type of folk belief is sometimes referred to as

976
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 2: the law of contagion. That like things that were once

977
00:54:28,440 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 2: united or in contact with one another, if they become separated,

978
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 2: you may need to do some kind of cleansing or exorcism,

979
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 2: or some kind of ritual acknowledgment of the severing there

980
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:43,360
Speaker 2: or destruction of the thing as it is separated from you,

981
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 2: or else it can be used to have power over

982
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 2: you by way of the associative magical connection.

983
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or in this case, you find another use

984
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: for them, and so. According to Hoggard, shoes and other

985
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 1: objects were often deposited on ledges within the chimney, breast

986
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: or behind the fireback any stresses that quote. Shoes are

987
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: perhaps the most commonly encountered apotropaic objects and often had

988
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 1: an association with the hearth.

989
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, so the same object that could become your

990
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 2: vulnerability if discarded and found by a witch, could be

991
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:17,759
Speaker 2: your protective amulet if you keep it, if you keep

992
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 2: it in the home right.

993
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: And I'll come back to why this may be in

994
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 1: just a second, but before we do, I want to

995
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 1: talk briefly about witch bottles, which are I think the

996
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 1: more exciting and exotic sounding version of apotropaic objects hidden

997
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 1: in a home, often in the area of the hearth.

998
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: Now there's some variety to what these will consist of,

999
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 1: but you know, they have been found, they've been analyzed,

1000
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 1: they're still being found. That's one of the great things

1001
00:55:44,719 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 1: that as Hagard discusses, is that you have so many

1002
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: different waves of renovation that take place with some of

1003
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:54,480
Speaker 1: these old homes in Europe, in Britain, in the UK,

1004
00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:58,400
Speaker 1: and also in parts of the United States and Canada

1005
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 1: as well, where people will suddenly discover a pair of

1006
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 1: ancient shoes or a strange bottle. And he also discusses

1007
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: how there are cases where people have suddenly sort of

1008
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 1: given into some of the superstition of it and they've

1009
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: had to put sad item back. You know, it's like

1010
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:19,280
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the reverse of finding a void.

1011
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,759
Speaker 1: You find a purposeful item but you don't fully understand.

1012
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: You're not on the same like mental wavelength with it,

1013
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 1: but you come to believe, well, I should put it back.

1014
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 1: I don't know my way around all of this enough

1015
00:56:31,760 --> 00:56:33,200
Speaker 1: to say it doesn't belong there.

1016
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: I can sympathize with that. And this may just say

1017
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 2: something about my you know, personality or kind of tendencies,

1018
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 2: the character tendencies. But while I would never take active

1019
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:48,720
Speaker 2: steps to do it to like, you know, put shoes

1020
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:50,960
Speaker 2: in a wall thinking it would protect my house or something,

1021
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 2: I would feel weird about taking something out. Yeah, yeah,

1022
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 2: it seems like, well, feels like I shouldn't do that.

1023
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:01,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, that maybe a load bearing shoe.

1024
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 2: Just leave it alone.

1025
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,319
Speaker 1: So with witch bottles, again there's some variation as to

1026
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:11,240
Speaker 1: what they may hold, but there are various written instructions

1027
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: from historical records that talk about what goes into a

1028
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: witch bottle, and one that Hoggard shares. This is from

1029
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 1: seventeen oh one and he includes it in his book,

1030
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: and basically the directions are to take a pint of

1031
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 1: your own urine, heat it to near scalding temperatures, pour

1032
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:31,680
Speaker 1: it into a jug, and then add white salt and

1033
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: three new nails with the points down. Then you bind

1034
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: the jug with clay and leather and you heat it

1035
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,040
Speaker 1: over embers for nine to ten days.

1036
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 2: It's gotta work because look at all the steps.

1037
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think sometimes there are more steps that

1038
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,440
Speaker 1: may be a simplified version, but it's the basics are

1039
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: in play here, the urine, the pointy objects. Sometimes they're

1040
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:54,200
Speaker 1: pins or needles. Sometimes it's like a lot of like

1041
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 1: rusty nails, pins or needles, and so forth. So in

1042
00:57:57,040 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: the case of the shoes and the witch bottle, here

1043
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 1: basic idea would seem to be this. You have an

1044
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 1: unseen evil force, be it a demon, a fairy, a ghost,

1045
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:11,720
Speaker 1: or some curse of a witch, and it is seeking you.

1046
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:15,920
Speaker 1: It has entered your home, perhaps through a door, perhaps

1047
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: through a window, perhaps down the chimney and through the fireplace.

1048
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 1: It's seeking you out. But what does an encounter. Instead,

1049
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 1: it encounters your smell, and encounters the shoe that was

1050
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 1: so much a part of your body and now can

1051
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:35,200
Speaker 1: be mistaken for your body, and it goes after that. Instead,

1052
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:37,920
Speaker 1: it serves as a decoy. And in the case of

1053
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: the witch bottle, it's even more exciting. So it smells

1054
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 1: that deep uriny stench that is associated with you. But

1055
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: it's found the bottle first. And so what does this

1056
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 1: evil thing do, this spirit, this dark seeker in the night,

1057
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 1: It climbs inside that bottle. But uh oh, now it

1058
00:58:56,960 --> 00:59:00,440
Speaker 1: is either trapped in the bottle or it is hailed

1059
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: upon all of those sharp pointy bits inside the bottle

1060
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:08,680
Speaker 1: and therefore injured or perhaps killed by this witch bottle,

1061
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: this trap that has been set for it.

1062
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 2: That's ingenious. I didn't know it was going there with

1063
00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:16,000
Speaker 2: the nails, but that makes sense. I was wondering if

1064
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 2: the nails had some kind of you know, they might

1065
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 2: be iron nails unless the iron significance as like a

1066
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 2: protective magic against the fairy folk and so forth.

1067
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there may be part of that to it

1068
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:30,400
Speaker 1: as well, you know. And certainly protective magics like this,

1069
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: you know, they may sort of like drag various ideas

1070
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:38,360
Speaker 1: with them across time. So I would not discount the

1071
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 1: importance of the iron at all. But this is all

1072
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 1: very interesting to think about in comparison to various Christmas traditions,

1073
00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: like I instantly think about wooden clogs left out for

1074
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:52,919
Speaker 1: Saint Nicholas or Santa though I've also read that prior

1075
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 1: to the sixteenth century, at least in some European countries,

1076
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: the clogs were left in the church rather than in

1077
00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:01,640
Speaker 1: the home. I'm not as well versed in the history

1078
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:05,240
Speaker 1: of those traditions, but at any rate, you do have

1079
01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 1: examples where shoes are left out so that some entity

1080
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: may deposit gifts inside them. And those shoes may be placed,

1081
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,600
Speaker 1: I think, often near doors or windows. So there still

1082
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:19,560
Speaker 1: is that sense of put them near the aperture, put

1083
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:22,440
Speaker 1: them near the portals. And where do we hang our

1084
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 1: stockings with care? We of course hang them again by

1085
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 1: the fireplace, oh, by the hearth. Yeah, almost as if

1086
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:33,800
Speaker 1: we're trying to throw Santa Claus off the scent. You know,

1087
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: there is no need, strange one, to bring the gifts

1088
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 1: directly to the children. Here is their sense, smell their feet,

1089
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,680
Speaker 1: Here is the essence you seek. Leave the gifts here,

1090
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:47,960
Speaker 1: leave the children alone in their room, or the coal

1091
01:00:48,080 --> 01:00:51,200
Speaker 1: I guess if applicable, Yes, there is no need to

1092
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:54,280
Speaker 1: put the coal inside the children, leave it in the socks,

1093
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:57,640
Speaker 1: and thus he is outsmarted, and he leaves the children

1094
01:00:57,640 --> 01:00:58,720
Speaker 1: alone for another year.

1095
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:03,880
Speaker 2: What res this idea is now bounding about inside me?

1096
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:09,360
Speaker 1: One more note from Brian Haggard. I was looking through

1097
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 1: the book to see I couldn't remember if he had

1098
01:01:11,440 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: mentioned anything Christmasy in particular, And he does mention a

1099
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:20,800
Speaker 1: rhyme that was associated with ritual burn marks from tapers

1100
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: in homes. So, like I said, there were various there

1101
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: were various marks and signs inside some of these old

1102
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 1: homes that are interpreted as being associated with various protective,

1103
01:01:32,040 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: magical activities and rituals. And one of them, you know,

1104
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: I think could be easy to miss. It's just like

1105
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,320
Speaker 1: burn marks in a house. I included a picture from

1106
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: his book here for you to look at, Joe, Like,

1107
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: if you didn't know what you're looking at, you might

1108
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:47,200
Speaker 1: just think these were caused by some other you know,

1109
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, something that occurred during construction or something

1110
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, But an interpretation here is that these

1111
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:58,880
Speaker 1: were ritual burn marks. And he includes this is a translation,

1112
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:02,640
Speaker 1: but it is a translation of a German rhyme that

1113
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: apparently went along with some holiday traditions of protecting the home.

1114
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:09,160
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read it here again. This is

1115
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:13,520
Speaker 1: from Brian Huggard's book, and it goes as follows and

1116
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 1: round about the house they go with torch or taper,

1117
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:20,959
Speaker 1: clear that neither bread nor meat do want no which

1118
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:24,960
Speaker 1: with dreadful charm have power to hurt their children or

1119
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:28,160
Speaker 1: do the cattle harm. So I'm not saying burn beams

1120
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 1: in your house with fire as part of your holiday traditions.

1121
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's interesting to think about all of this.

1122
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:38,440
Speaker 1: And again, this is another one that involves the power

1123
01:02:38,480 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: of fire. The power of the flame to protect us

1124
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 1: against unseen things in the night. By the way, I

1125
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:49,720
Speaker 1: know Brian would want me to pass this along to you.

1126
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:53,440
Speaker 1: If you do encounter something like this in your house,

1127
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: strange shoes, a strange item, a witch bottle, and so forth,

1128
01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: it is very helpful to reach out to people who

1129
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:05,320
Speaker 1: will document it all. And a lot of people do

1130
01:03:05,440 --> 01:03:10,120
Speaker 1: reach out to Brian Hoggar themselves. He's on Instagram as

1131
01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:13,520
Speaker 1: folk Magic Man. He also has a website, so just

1132
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:18,160
Speaker 1: look him up. It's Brian Hoggart Hoggard and he can

1133
01:03:18,160 --> 01:03:21,640
Speaker 1: point you in the right direction if you encounter something

1134
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 1: like this in your home, or email us and I'll

1135
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:26,520
Speaker 1: forward it to him. Happy to do that.

1136
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:29,280
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I think we're out of time for today.

1137
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 2: We've got more to say and to explore about the

1138
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 2: fireplace and the hearth. So join us again on Thursday.

1139
01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: That's right. In the meantime, we'll remind you that Stuff

1140
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is primarily assigned some culture podcasts

1141
01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:42,560
Speaker 1: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we

1142
01:03:42,600 --> 01:03:44,680
Speaker 1: do a short form episode, and on Fridays we set

1143
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

1144
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:50,920
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema. If you're on Instagram, follow

1145
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:55,280
Speaker 1: us at stbym podcast, and if you were on Letterboxed,

1146
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:57,720
Speaker 1: follow us at Weird House. That's where you can keep

1147
01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:01,360
Speaker 1: up with movies that we're covering on Weird House centem Huge.

1148
01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:04,520
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1149
01:04:04,880 --> 01:04:06,520
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

1150
01:04:06,520 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1151
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:11,080
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1152
01:04:11,480 --> 01:04:14,160
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

1153
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1154
01:04:23,640 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio.

1155
01:04:25,320 --> 01:04:28,280
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1156
01:04:28,440 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.