WEBVTT - When You See It 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.400 Welcome to the Hidden Gin, a production of I Heart 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:30.520 Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. When I 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:32.959 was a kid, there was this family that we were 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.320 pretty close with and kind of grew up with. In fact, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.559 they had four boys, all my age or older, and 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.440 they reveled in telling us jin stories every time they 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.760 could get me and my younger siblings alone. They told 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.040 us about a time when they were traveling in rural 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.720 South Asia on the way to their ancestral village, bouncing 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.880 along in a rickety train. It was a hot night, 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.960 and the train windows were pushed down, so the dust 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.480 that rose from the tracks created to haze both inside 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.720 and outside the string of cabins. Things had quieted down, 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.080 suppers had been unwrapped and eaten. The last of the 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.280 young boys who were hawking boiled eggs, fried lentils, and 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.199 thick sweet hot tea had passed through the train one 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:20.400 final time. Most of the other passengers were asleep, either 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:22.720 slumped over a loved one next to them, or with 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.920 their heads thrown back over a seat, their bodies steadily 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.400 rocking back and forth with the movement of the train. 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.559 The younger two brothers were likewise asleep, curled up against 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.440 their mother, who had pulled a cotton shawl partially over 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.360 her face to filter out the dust, or maybe it 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:40.480 was so no one could see her mouth slack and 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.039 open as she snored. It wasn't unusual to see other 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.240 passengers with their faces covered by different means, with shawls, blankets, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.800 even the occasional broka. In the cramped quarters. It was 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.000 one way to have some limited privacy and make sleeping 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.880 in public a little bit more comfortable. Now, there is 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.520 one woman in the cabin who was covered entirely in 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.520 black from head to toe, sitting on the berth across 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.840 the aisle from the two older brothers who were still 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.560 wide awake. They were still pretty young, barely in the 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.280 double digits and only a year apart, which meant they 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.280 spent most of their waking moments trying to find ways 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.520 to mess with each other. On that particular night, as 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.440 the boredom got to them, they traded kicks and pinches 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.880 and elbows, testing each other. Their goal was to keep 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.320 from yelping and waking up their mom, who would likely 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.160 take a slipper to them if they did. They giggled 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.040 under their breath, still jabbing one another, and then they 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:37.280 noticed the woman in black turned her head towards them. 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.600 The bottom half of her face was covered in the 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.240 black veil of a borka, but the top half was exposed. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.160 Her large black eyes were wide open, lined with coal, 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:52.880 staring at them intently. The boys froze under her unblinking gaze. 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.919 Whether a few moments passed or entire minutes, it's hard 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.840 to say, but to the brothers it felt like in 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:04.400 an eternity. And then still silent, the woman turned her 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.640 head the other way to look out the window, and 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.160 as she did so, she stretched her legs in front 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.800 of her. Her black gown rose to reveal her feet, which, 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.160 to the shock and horror of these brothers, were bent 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:22.960 completely backwards. I'm Rabbia Chadar, and I'll be your guide 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:34.880 into the ancient world of the hidden gin. Welcome. I 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.600 heard that story, or some variation of it, countless times 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.200 from those brothers who swore that they witnessed a woman 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.560 whose feet were on backwards in the dead of the 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.320 night on a train to their village. When they told others, 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.520 elder relatives what they had seen, they were casually informed 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.920 that that woman was definitely a gin. It was a 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.520 sure sign of a gin trying to pass as human. 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.240 They could transform to a certain extent, but their eat, 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:04.240 for some reason, still ended up backwards, or maybe they 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.120 wanted to keep it that way so they could frighten 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:11.040 the unsuspecting with a flash of their feet. Essentially, and oftentimes, 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.920 the gin manifest themselves to us as they please, shifting 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.400 into human or animal shapes to enter our dimension, but 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.840 never revealing what they really look like to us, which 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.960 is understandable because apparently their original forms are so fierce 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.440 and terrifying we wouldn't be able to handle it. One 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.120 legend tells of a gin that revealed itself to none 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.280 other than Alexander the Great. It was huge, as large 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.600 as a building, with seven heads, and every head had 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:44.159 two faces, four blazing eyes, a monstrous mouth full of 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:49.360 flaming teeth, and the massive nose of a bull. Strangely, though, 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.080 it had the feet of a duck, a massive duck, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.800 but duck feet. Nonetheless, it's not likely you'll see a 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.080 gin in its original form, though that would just give 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.960 it away, and they usually don't want that. But there 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.840 are some manifestations that seem to be most common when 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.919 it comes to gin encounters, which will help us recognize 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.599 a gin when we see one. But remember, we only 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.120 see a gin when it wants us to. And it's 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.040 also said that they only appear to those who believe 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:21.880 in them. Otherwise our senses are closed to their realm. 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.120 They can hide from us, and they do, but it's 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.360 said that they cannot hide from certain animals. Now, there 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.480 are many cultures that believe animals can see or sense 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.279 the unseen storms on the horizon, for example, or even 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:41.039 natural disasters. It's well known and well documented that days 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.680 before the horrific two thousand and four tsunami that brutalized 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.880 South Asian coastlines, local animals were acting out of sorts 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.279 from India to Sri Lanka to Indonesia. There were dozens 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.400 of reports well before the massive waves hit of dogs 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.960 that refuse to go outside, elephants that led to higher ground, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.479 and zoo animals coward in their shelters. There is nothing 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.200 necessarily supernatural about any of it. After all, many animals 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.440 have vastly different ranges of sound and sight that human 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.840 beings do, and according to indigenous cultures, they're just simply 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.520 more connected to the natural phenomena around them, which explains 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.640 why animals may be also more likely to feel or 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.240 sense gin or other creatures we can't see and probably 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.839 don't want to see. They say to beware when a 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.680 donkey brace, because it's surely seeing a devil. But you 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:36.960 don't have to own a donkey to witness the sixth 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.480 sense animals have for the unseen. Every dog and cat 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.880 owner has seen at some point their furry companion stare 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.080 with alarm at a point in a room where apparently 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.760 there's nothing to see, or they'll growl, flatten their ears, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.320 crouch at some invisible threat. And then there are the 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.200 three am crazy's, when cats suddenly began tearing around the halls, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.320 slamming into walls, bursting with a manic energy that doesn't 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.920 exist at any other part of the day. No one 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.240 is exactly sure what causes this middle of the night 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.680 feline mania, and there are some theories about it, but 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:14.840 none of them account for why this happens at a 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.920 time otherwise known as the witching hour, that time of 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.200 night when black magic is strongest, when the cover of 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.080 darkness is deepest, and when those of us with a 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.400 touch of insomnia often spring awake in bed only to 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.040 see a negon glow from a bedside clock telling us 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.400 it's three am. Whether or not animals see gin, we 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.040 do know this. Sometimes the animals around us are in 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.200 fact jin themselves. While shape shifting gin have the ability 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:47.960 to transform into pretty much any kind of animal, dogs, cats, scorpions, camels, lions, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.400 and even insects like beetles. It seems the most common 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.679 creature you may come across that could be a hidden 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.440 gin is a snake. And it's no coincidence that Adam 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:59.400 and Eve were tricked by a serpent in the garden. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.640 The serpent was the devil himself disguised, and the devil 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:09.440 in some traditions, is in fact a gin. There's a 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.680 story from seventeenth century Egypt in which a famous holy 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.960 man named Alhredi had died, but people believed that he 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.400 had returned, reincarnated as a large snake. The snake had 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.000 made the holy man's shrine on the Nile River its home, 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.960 staying curled up at all times in the crevice of 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.800 some rocks near the grave. In his lifetime, Alhredi was 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.959 known to be a healer, a pious man with miraculous 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.679 powers to cure the sick, but after his death, those 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.680 powers seemed to have become vested in the great serpent 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.679 that guarded his shrine, and as long as that snake 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.760 was there, the miracles continued. The locals had different theories 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.679 about Alhredi and a snake. It could have been that 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.200 he was never a human being to begin with, but 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.800 instead that he was a benevolent gin who transformed himself 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.400 into a human so he could help heal people. Then, 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.000 after living the human life and dying a human death, 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.280 he turned into the giant snake to continue to bless 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.720 those that came to the shrine for help. Interestingly, Coptic 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.600 Christians in the region had a different take on Alhredi. 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.679 They were well aware of his miracles, but they didn't 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.679 think he was a kindly jin. Instead, they believed that 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.800 he was the incarnation of the demon king Ashmadi, the 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.280 same Ashmani that King Solomon enslaved to build his temple 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:32.160 along with legions of other gin. Regardless, it seems everyone 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.640 on all sides did agree to one thing. That snake 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:44.479 was definitely Alhredi. The animal manifestations aren't always perfect. Sometimes 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:48.280 the shape shifting will result in beastly hybrids, serpents with 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.600 dozens of arms and legs, or creatures with canine teeth, 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.760 heads like birds, and horse like hose. Then there are 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.600 those jin who don't quite come together at all, the nestnas. 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:04.360 The nestnas appear as half formed human beings, with half 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.840 a head, one arm, one leg, half a torso, and 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.120 half a face which may be positioned anywhere on its body. 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.000 Some say these malformed creatures only inhabit the wilderness of Yemen, 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.120 and others say they can be found on desolate islands 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.200 in the South China Sea. They can't speak, having only 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.800 half the vocal cords necessary, but they can make strange, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.400 sad guttural sounds, rather fitting for their disposition. That's because 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.280 the nestnas are weak gin. They're terrified of human beings 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.640 instead of the other way around. They flee when people 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.960 get too close, hopping away with a quickness on one leg, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.400 escaping as fast as possible lest they get captured. And 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.959 they better get away because in some parts they're hunted 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.400 by locals, not just to kill them, but to devour them, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.760 because apparently the flesh of the nestnas is reportedly delicious 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:01.000 and sweet. If nestnas are the weaklings in the gin realm. 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.440 Towards the other end of the spectrum, there is a 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.800 dangerous shape shifting gin that you want to avoid at 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.720 all costs. This gin has the ability to constantly and 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:15.640 terrifyingly keep transforming in order to confuse and days its victims. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.520 And that gin is called the ghoul. That's right, Google, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.640 The word we've all used at some point to describe 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.440 someone unpleasant is actually the Arabic word for a very 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.240 specific kind of gin, sometimes taking the shape of several 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.240 animals at once, reported at times to have the head 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.600 of a cat and the tongue of a dog, other 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:41.160 times appearing in their monstrous forms hunched and hairless, razor 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:46.439 sharp teeth and snakelike tongues, model skin, and cavernous dead eyes. 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.719 Ghouls in habit the most desolate places, keeping as far 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.640 as possible from human civilization. They lurk in deserts and cemeteries, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.000 where they hide among ruins, biding their time for people 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:03.120 passing by, people who are likely to disappear forever if 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:07.440 they make that unfortunate encounter. What a hapless soul does 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.200 stumble across their path. Goals will entrance them all the 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.680 weight of their debts by repeatedly transforming from one thing 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:19.160 to another shape, shifting with speed from one hideous creature 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.680 to another, confounding their victims. This way, the goal drives 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.160 their victim mad before making their kill to satisfy their 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.200 hunger for human flesh. Gules are said to be among 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.040 some of the oldest jin, ancient and evil. They are 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.200 so powerful that other jins serve them, and sometimes human 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:51.200 beings also become their slaves, both willingly and unwillingly. A 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.640 medieval Egyptian folk tale relates that the ghouls came into 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.280 existence in the land of Yemen through the unholy union 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.480 of the smoke from a fire, the seed of a wolf, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.440 and human seed inside a woman's body. How all of 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.920 these things found their way to the womb, I'm not sure, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.839 and I'm also not sure I want to know. Nonetheless, 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.120 the ghouls that were birth haunted the legendary Valley of 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.680 the Ghouls in Yemen. In actual place, these beastly siblings 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.520 were eventually slaid by a king, but there are of 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.640 course legions more. Some of those legions reside in the 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:30.360 Cave of Ghouls located in Egypt in Mount Burka. A 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.640 story from the late eighteen hundreds tells the tale of 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.760 a man traveling with a group of people past this cave. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.040 He fell behind his party, and as he wandered along 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.240 looking for them, a woman mysteriously appeared out of nowhere 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.480 on the mountain side. She was beautiful, as women often 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.320 are in such stories, and she stood in the man's path, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.439 giving him two choices. He could either sleep with her 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.240 or she would kill him. She was, as you may 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.679 have realized, a ghoul. Now you can easily guess which 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.720 choice the man took, and after their liaison, he was 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.560 allowed to go his way. But a year later, the 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.319 same woman appeared before the man, this time with a 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.839 baby girl, his daughter. She left the child with him 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.679 and disappeared. The man raised a little girl, and eventually 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.960 she married a man from his tribe and went on 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.200 to have children. Now, before we go on with the story, 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.760 let's pause here to talk about the particular kind of 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:26.000 gin that gave birth to this little girl. That beautiful 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.680 woman outside the cave of ghouls was a particularly dangerous 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:33.880 type of ghoul, called a sila, and unlike the beastly 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.160 forms that other gals take. The Sila often takes the 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.440 form of a seductive woman. The Sila stalksman and often 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.840 not only eats her victims, but she toys with them, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.280 first making them dance and scamper around full of terror, 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:51.280 before finally putting them out of their misery. In order 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.120 to trap her prey, the Sila often pretends to be 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.040 a woman traveling alone and seduces lone male travelers until 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.800 they're so far off the beaten path us they have 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.320 no hope of escaping, just like what happened in our 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.040 Cave of Ghoul story, and killing aecila is no easy 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.200 task for a number of reasons, but if there's any 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.360 creature capable of it, it's the one that ghouls are 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:21.600 unable to transform into. The wolf. Wolves hold a special 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.280 place in old Arab customs as symbols of protection. It 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.200 said that the wolf is so powerful against malevolent gin 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.880 that wolf teeth or even a wolf's eye are used 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.120 as charms to ward off evil and mothers have long 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.920 sung lullabies invoking the name of the wolf to scare 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.280 off evil spirits from children. You see, the wolf is 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.560 the only animal that ghouls are actually scared of, and 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.280 they have reason to be scared, because wolves actively hunt 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.160 the most dangerous goal, the sila, that temptress that lures 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:57.080 unassuming men to their deaths. A thirteenth century polymath by 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.120 the name of Zecharia al Kaswini described at hunt like this. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.040 The wolf sometimes hunts her at night and then eats her. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.160 As he tears into her, she raises her voice, saying, 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:12.200 save me. The wolf is eating me. But once a 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.640 wolf has a hold of his prey, no one will 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.160 rescue her, and ultimately Ceila is devoured by the beast. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.800 Now no wolf appears in the Cave of Ghoul story. However, 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.800 and unfortunately, the daughter of the Ceila had to be 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.200 disposed of in another way, because, according to the tale, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.560 after the daughter of the Ceila was raised, married off, 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.440 and had her own children, her father made a discovery 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.080 that worried him deeply. One night, he came across a 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:42.440 grave that had been violated, dug up, it's deceased inhabitant 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.480 unearthed and parts of the body eaten. The father worried 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.360 that maybe his daughter had something to do with it, 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.560 given her origins, and because he knew that gals primarily 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.960 feasted on human flesh. Dead or alive. He hurried to 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.600 his son in law and told him his fears. So 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:00.840 the young man began keeping an eye on his wife 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.000 and discovered that she was indeed making nightly outings. He 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:06.960 followed her one night as she crept out of the 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.119 house to the local cemetery, dug up a grave and 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.480 began to feast on the body. He was horrified, and 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.159 that night, when she returned to their bed, he killed her, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.879 crushing her to death. But their children lived on, married 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.480 and multiplied, and to this day, in the area close 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.439 to the Cave of Ghouls, the descendants of that couple 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.120 still survive, and they are known as the al Guila. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.440 Tales of Ghouls are spread far and wide, not just geographically, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.160 but also throughout time. Long before the Cave of Ghoul story. 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.280 Nearly six centuries prior. In fact, an epic travel log 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.600 was written by a contemporary romance author by the name 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.720 of Rustiquelo da Pizza. He had had the fortune of 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.120 being detained for two years in a prison with an 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.840 explorer who regaled him with fantastic stories of his travels 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.480 and a ventures. Da Pisa compiled the stories together in 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.560 a volume called Quote The Book of the marvels of 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:11.040 the world, each yarn more amazing than the last. You see. 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.440 This explorer that Da Pisa had been detained with described 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:19.240 crossing entire continents from Constantinople to bot that through the 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.920 magnificent Karo Kora Mountain range onto Beijing, and circling through 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.000 the South China Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and up 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.840 the coast of the Arabian Sea off the eastern shore 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.000 of Africa. And this explorer spent nearly two decades in 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.280 the court of Kubla Khan, the grandson of the great 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.399 genghis Han, serving the Mongol Emperor, and he had seen 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.280 and heard it all. This explorer, well, it was none 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.160 other than Marco Polo. And that book, well, it's better 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.760 known in our part of the world as the travels 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:56.240 of Marco Polo. Polos travels along the Silk Road took 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.119 him at one point to a vast desert at the 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:04.119 center of trade routes between China, Tibet and Turkestan. The 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.280 desert was so vast that some said it took a 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.280 month to cross it at its narrowest point, and it 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.760 took a year to cross it at its most wide 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.720 And while their watering holes dotted throughout the desert was 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.080 otherwise devoid of life, no animals, no people, nothing that 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:25.359 could be hunted and eaten. And yet it wasn't completely empty. 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.359 There is a marvelous thing related of this desert, which 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.400 is that when travelers are on the move by night, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.840 and one of the chances to lag behind, or to 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.440 fall asleep, or the light, when he tries to gain 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.120 his company again, he will hear spirits talking and will 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.680 suppose them to be his comrades. Sometimes the spirits will 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.760 call him by name, and thus shall a traveler. Oft 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.560 times we led astray, so that he never finds his party, 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.639 and in this way many have perished. Sometimes the stray 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.200 travelers will hear, as it were, the tramp and hume 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.359 of a great cavalcade of people away from the real 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.159 line of road, and taking this to be their own company, 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.080 they will follow the sound, and when day breaks they 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.520 will find that a cheat has been put on them, 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.119 and that they are in an ill plight. Even the 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.920 daytime when hears those spirits talking, and sometimes you shall 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.240 hear the sound of a variety of musical instruments, and 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:25.119 still more commonly the sound of drums, Paulo had also 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.760 heard of a terrifying monster found in the wilderness of 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:33.000 Iranistan and Iran, the famed and feared role Bibon, meaning 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.359 the ghoul of the waste. The ghoul was huge, dreadful 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.280 to behold, and lurked in the waste lands of Central Asia, 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.880 gobbling up travelers right off of their horses. Now, Marco 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.840 Polo had not confessed to seeing this ghoul himself, but 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.520 he had heard it referred to many times by locals 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.320 he met in his travels, and while he seemed to 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:57.120 believe in the desert spirits that lured travelers astray, Paulo 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.439 didn't put much stock in the role Baban stories. It 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:02.600 could be that he thought, as others did, that the 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.560 ghouls of the desert waste lands were simply a projection 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.240 of the fear even the bravest soul feels when facing 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:14.520 the desolation of a vast, deserted place. The isolation, the silence, 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.240 the nothingness for miles in every direction could be enough 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.959 to disorient the most level headed among us, and in 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.479 that condition, howling dust storms could both look and sound 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.440 like a beast rising into the sky. For the travelers 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.800 that survived those journeys fantastic tales to tell would certainly 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:36.240 be a badge of honor, and for those that didn't well, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:38.680 it might be kinder to think they were just snatched 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.800 up by a ghoul than the alternative that they just 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.720 couldn't cut it, or the tales could be precautionary, a 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.639 warning to those seeking to set off into the wilderness, 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.760 a threat of imminent danger to those who didn't stick 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.359 close to the tribe, which is just with the lesson 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.159 from another ghoul story, this one from the fifteenth century 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:02.520 in Valdad, also just might be. In this story, the 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:04.720 son of a wealthy merchant falls in love with the 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.440 daughter of a poor old wise man against his father's wishes, 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.679 and that, dear listeners, is the disobedience and rebelliousness that 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:16.399 this story may have been crafted to prevent. Nonetheless, the 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:19.520 story goes on that the father eventually relented and allowed 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.160 his son to marry the beautiful young girl, and their 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.919 marriage was celebrated with all the ceremony in bling that 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.560 was expected of the wealthy family. The sun was elated 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.880 with his new bride, but was disturbed that she would 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.359 never eat. She would just leave her food untouched. At 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.480 every meal, he shrugged it off. Maybe she was just 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.840 shy in her new home with his new family and 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.200 didn't feel comfortable eating in front of them. But one night, 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.120 the new groom awakened to find himself alone in bed. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.920 His beautiful wife was nowhere to be found. He stayed 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:51.840 awake waiting for her, and she didn't return till an 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.440 hour before the sun rose, Creeping quietly back into their bed. 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:58.800 The next night, he decided he would only pretend to 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.679 sleep to see if she again left their bed, and 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.639 she did. He followed her at a distance out of 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:06.960 the house and all the way to a cemetery, where 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:09.520 he saw her step into a large tomb with an 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.840 open door. He cautiously entered after her, only to behold 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:18.680 a ghastly sight. A circle of ghoules feasted on bloody, 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:23.000 decomposing corpses, and among them was his lovely young bride, 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.040 munching away with them. The man hurried home, terrified, but 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:29.200 said nothing to his wife when she returned to their 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:32.960 bed hours later. The next day, when she again refused 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:36.440 to eat, he finally couldn't take it anymore. He screamed 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:39.720 that he knew her secret, that she fasted all days 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:43.119 so she could feast every night with the ghouls. The 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.879 wife silently rose from the table and retreated to their bedroom, 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.239 where she waited for her groom. He eventually joined her, 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:53.600 uneasily getting into bed, neither of them saying a word. 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:58.040 Both silent and tense, that night, she didn't leave her 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:01.000 husband's bed at all. Instead of sneaking out for her 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.520 midnight meal, she waited patiently for the first signs of 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:08.720 slumber to overtake him. Then she pounced on her hapless groom, 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:12.480