1 00:00:03,330 --> 00:00:06,410 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:09,210 --> 00:00:11,530 Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The 3 00:00:11,570 --> 00:00:15,110 Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short-form series from Stuff to Blow Your 4 00:00:15,150 --> 00:00:20,380 Speaker 2: Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. 5 00:00:24,300 --> 00:00:28,180 Speaker 2: In March of 1977, Penthouse magazine published a short story 6 00:00:28,220 --> 00:00:32,700 Speaker 2: by Stephen King called Children of the Corn. alongside a 7 00:00:32,810 --> 00:00:37,340 Speaker 2: pro-Nixon Watergate piece and photos of Polish model Jolanta von Zamuda. 8 00:00:38,140 --> 00:00:41,440 Speaker 2: It was a nasty and highly effective little short story 9 00:00:41,500 --> 00:00:45,320 Speaker 2: about a troubled couple on a road trip across America's heartland, 10 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:49,740 Speaker 2: right into the corn-choked expanses of Nebraska and the clutches 11 00:00:49,780 --> 00:00:52,949 Speaker 2: of a strange youth cult that venerated a being known 12 00:00:53,050 --> 00:00:57,030 Speaker 2: only as He Who Walks Behind the Rose, represented in 13 00:00:57,150 --> 00:01:01,590 Speaker 2: crude local folk art as a kind of pagan green-haired Christ. 14 00:01:02,610 --> 00:01:06,270 Speaker 2: King writes of it as, quote, a strange green god, 15 00:01:06,630 --> 00:01:10,230 Speaker 2: a god of corn grown old and strange and hungry. 16 00:01:11,050 --> 00:01:14,300 Speaker 2: And later on, he describes it as a large shadow 17 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:18,580 Speaker 2: with great red eyes moving behind row upon row of 18 00:01:18,700 --> 00:01:23,220 Speaker 2: perfect corn. The being in question here may have connections 19 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:26,460 Speaker 2: to the titular entity from it as well as other 20 00:01:26,500 --> 00:01:30,530 Speaker 2: beings in the Stephen King universe. And in the 2006 21 00:01:30,530 --> 00:01:35,000 Speaker 2: Malleus Mostrorum monster book from the RPG Call of Cthulhu, 22 00:01:35,390 --> 00:01:38,800 Speaker 2: he who walks behind the rose is identified as an 23 00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:43,800 Speaker 2: avatar of the god Shub-Niggurath and described as a kind 24 00:01:43,819 --> 00:01:48,380 Speaker 2: of twisted fertility and vegetation deity. Children of the Corn 25 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:52,590 Speaker 2: is a tale full of monocrop anxiety and religious horror. 26 00:01:52,950 --> 00:01:55,470 Speaker 2: And while the deity worshipped by the murderous children in 27 00:01:55,490 --> 00:01:58,980 Speaker 2: the story is purely fictitious, it does tie into several 28 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:04,690 Speaker 2: different legacies of corn, crops, and associated deities. For starters, 29 00:02:04,750 --> 00:02:08,670 Speaker 2: we should remind ourselves that corn, maize, was long a 30 00:02:08,750 --> 00:02:13,490 Speaker 2: sacred crop of indigenous Americans and multiple Mesoamerican maize gods 31 00:02:13,650 --> 00:02:19,240 Speaker 2: loom large, including the Aztec god Zenteatu and the goddess 32 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,830 Speaker 2: Chico Micuac. The rites concerning these deities, like the rites 33 00:02:23,889 --> 00:02:28,010 Speaker 2: concerning harvest deities around the world, could certainly involve bloodshed 34 00:02:28,370 --> 00:02:31,869 Speaker 2: and sacrifice. But I think a better match for what 35 00:02:31,889 --> 00:02:35,209 Speaker 2: we're dealing with in Stephen King's short story here can 36 00:02:35,230 --> 00:02:40,109 Speaker 2: be found in European folklore. I turned to Brad Steiger's 37 00:02:40,190 --> 00:02:44,209 Speaker 2: Werewolf book from 1999 and was instantly captivated by an 38 00:02:44,330 --> 00:02:47,750 Speaker 2: entry for The Cornwolf. Yes, that's spelled with a K 39 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:50,720 Speaker 2: like the new metal band. And the corn in question 40 00:02:50,780 --> 00:02:54,180 Speaker 2: is not maize, but wheat. As we've discussed on Stuff 41 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:56,900 Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind before, maize only entered into European 42 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:00,870 Speaker 2: usage after first contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, 43 00:03:01,570 --> 00:03:05,750 Speaker 2: and the new-to-Europeans crop came to be known as corn 44 00:03:05,930 --> 00:03:10,090 Speaker 2: in some English-speaking countries. But the word corn predated this 45 00:03:10,169 --> 00:03:14,880 Speaker 2: contact and referred to different grains and cereal grasses. German 46 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:19,799 Speaker 2: folklore in particular features various accounts of corn, Feldgeister, or 47 00:03:19,940 --> 00:03:25,680 Speaker 2: field spirits, also known as Korndemon. There's also the Hofferman, 48 00:03:25,740 --> 00:03:30,450 Speaker 2: or Oatman, as well as the Roggenwolf, and indeed, the Kornkinder. 49 00:03:31,410 --> 00:03:34,890 Speaker 2: There are many such corn spirits, typically malicious in nature 50 00:03:34,970 --> 00:03:39,510 Speaker 2: and prone to disappearing people, especially children. According to Steiger, 51 00:03:39,970 --> 00:03:44,440 Speaker 2: one such spirit is the Kornwolf, a supernatural lupine predator 52 00:03:44,810 --> 00:03:47,480 Speaker 2: said to haunt the fields and prey on the weak 53 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:50,830 Speaker 2: or unaware. The tale, it would seem, served as a 54 00:03:50,870 --> 00:03:54,010 Speaker 2: kind of boogeyman to alert children to the risks of 55 00:03:54,310 --> 00:03:57,880 Speaker 2: actual wolves amid the crops, drawn in by hares and 56 00:03:57,940 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 2: small game in the unbalanced ecosystem of a farm, as 57 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:06,020 Speaker 2: well as referring to human outlaws and miscreants potentially hiding 58 00:04:06,100 --> 00:04:10,790 Speaker 2: from capture amid the cover of pre-harvest fields, a place 59 00:04:10,810 --> 00:04:14,550 Speaker 2: where you could hide and potentially sustain yourself on the 60 00:04:14,610 --> 00:04:18,849 Speaker 2: ripening crops. Steiger goes on to mention various rural European 61 00:04:18,930 --> 00:04:22,010 Speaker 2: rites in which the corpse of the corn wolf or 62 00:04:22,029 --> 00:04:26,830 Speaker 2: related entities is symbolically burned each year. Now, I should 63 00:04:26,870 --> 00:04:30,010 Speaker 2: mention that Steiger cites a particular book for this entry, 64 00:04:30,470 --> 00:04:36,720 Speaker 2: Robert Eisler's Man into Wolf, an anthropological interpretation of sadism, masochism, 65 00:04:36,900 --> 00:04:41,770 Speaker 2: and lycanthropy from 1948. It's a rather interesting volume. It's 66 00:04:41,860 --> 00:04:46,900 Speaker 2: not purely history or folklore, but rather a Jungian anthropological 67 00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:51,339 Speaker 2: work arguing that the Jungian archetype of the werewolf connects 68 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:55,180 Speaker 2: with a primal evolutionary split that saw humans develop into 69 00:04:55,240 --> 00:05:00,279 Speaker 2: opposing groups of peaceful and violent individuals, ultimately proposing his 70 00:05:00,380 --> 00:05:03,240 Speaker 2: own version of, to borrow a term used by Terence McKenna, 71 00:05:03,790 --> 00:05:07,750 Speaker 2: archaic revival, a return to primordial ways of human behavior 72 00:05:08,050 --> 00:05:12,390 Speaker 2: in an attempt to prevent our own continual self-destruction. Indeed, 73 00:05:12,470 --> 00:05:15,670 Speaker 2: Eisler does discuss the corn wolf, rye wolf, bean wolf, 74 00:05:15,790 --> 00:05:21,510 Speaker 2: and pea wolf, and related entities as imaginative creatures, archetypes of, quote, 75 00:05:21,890 --> 00:05:25,620 Speaker 2: the disguised outlaw and werewolf hiding and feeding in the 76 00:05:25,700 --> 00:05:30,140 Speaker 2: ripe cornfield. Dream analysis and Jungian theory aside, the traditions 77 00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:33,000 Speaker 2: presented here are fascinating and do match up with what 78 00:05:33,020 --> 00:05:36,680 Speaker 2: I've read elsewhere, such as in James Fraser's section of 79 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,190 Speaker 2: The Golden Bough on the corn spirit as a wolf 80 00:05:40,250 --> 00:05:43,500 Speaker 2: or dog. as well as more contemporary writings in folklore 81 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,360 Speaker 2: and belief. You might also remember our past Stuff to 82 00:05:46,380 --> 00:05:49,500 Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind episodes on beans, in which we discussed 83 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:53,670 Speaker 2: the very old traditions of supernatural danger associated both with 84 00:05:54,089 --> 00:05:58,370 Speaker 2: legumes as something you might eat, and also as haunted 85 00:05:58,470 --> 00:06:03,570 Speaker 2: fields of legumes where you might dare to venture. And 86 00:06:03,610 --> 00:06:06,250 Speaker 2: all of this brings us back once more to Stephen King. 87 00:06:07,150 --> 00:06:09,789 Speaker 2: In Children of the Corn, He does a fantastic job 88 00:06:09,830 --> 00:06:14,210 Speaker 2: of conveying the uncanny nature of the monocrop field. It 89 00:06:14,290 --> 00:06:17,039 Speaker 2: sits both with the main character Bert and the reader 90 00:06:17,500 --> 00:06:20,900 Speaker 2: as a sinister perversion of the natural order. Within the 91 00:06:20,940 --> 00:06:24,140 Speaker 2: depths of the corn, dangerously close to the presence of 92 00:06:24,220 --> 00:06:28,290 Speaker 2: he who walks behind the rose, Bert encounters corn so perfect, 93 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:32,770 Speaker 2: so flawless, that neither weed nor insect encroaches upon it. 94 00:06:33,410 --> 00:06:36,289 Speaker 2: As such, the green harvest god of the story stands 95 00:06:36,390 --> 00:06:42,700 Speaker 2: as a fitting deity for modern, industrialized agriculture, brutal, unflinching, 96 00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:47,700 Speaker 2: and alien to natural balance. Tune in for additional episodes 97 00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:50,310 Speaker 2: of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can 98 00:06:50,430 --> 00:06:54,470 Speaker 2: email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. 99 00:07:03,980 --> 00:07:06,360 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. 100 00:07:06,790 --> 00:07:10,120 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple 101 00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:12,510 Speaker 1: Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.