WEBVTT - Fingernails, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of by 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.160 heart Radiobu. Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.280 your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.119 and we're back with part two of our talk about 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:23.160 nails Fingernails Toenails. In the last episode, we talked about 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.720 how fast nails grow, what influences how fast they grow, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:32.479 some strange decades long self experimentation projects on the measurement 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.639 of nails. And this time we're going to get out 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.800 of some of that scientific minutia and jump into the 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.800 weirder world of nails and the role that nails and 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.239 hair play in a lot of very very surprising and 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.720 interesting magical and religious beliefs. Yeah, and it it makes 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.440 sense that we would since the nails that we look 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.200 down at every day, that we you know, find ourselves 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:01.160 absent mindedly feeling, uh that that in fact enhance our 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:07.000 ability to engage physically with the world. They are strange 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:09.560 to behold. Like we said before, they're both alive and 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.800 dead at the same time, at least as you know, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.080 in the way that we we think of them. You know, 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:16.720 they they're obviously a part of our body, uh, and 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.640 yet they feel slightly external. You know that they are 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.120 these things that are like clause but not clause. So 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:24.920 it makes sense that we would have some kind of 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:29.040 complicated magical ideas at times about what they are and 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.720 what they do. Yeah, and I think some of the 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.080 magical and religious ideas are going to connect with something 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.760 that we talked about in the last episode, which was 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.600 this the strange thing I was observing about how our 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.920 hard body parts, the hard external parts like teeth and nails, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.200 though you would expect them to be sort of like 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.160 the most uh, I don't know what you would call 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.040 like the most brutally disposable parts of our bodies, because 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.160 they're hard. You know, they're like what you put out 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.600 front in defense or attack. But in fact we've got 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.440 these kind of vulnerability trauma obsessions with these parts of 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.800 our bodies. Like if you just start worrying about what 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.560 could go wrong with your body, how you could be injured, 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.120 how it could be damaged, a lot of the natural 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.079 places that people go to go to worry about these 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.680 things our teeth and nails, absolutely, and that's that's why 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.480 towards the end of the at the last episode, we 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.359 started talking a little bit about Glenn Danzig's fingernails and 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.040 about how, at least in some music videos or posters 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.040 that I kind of have remember um from my my 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.400 teenage years, I recall that he had sharpened fingernails, and 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.960 I would wonder to myself, well, what purpose did those have? 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.680 And indeed, you know, would sharpen fingernails age you in 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.120 in fights or something? Because I also remember, like Stephen 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.480 King novels and short stories that I also was reading 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.720 at the time, you'd occasionally have a character show up 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.960 that is sharpened their teeth down to to file points 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.400 um or or perhaps even has some sort of like 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.640 sharpened ginger nails, I guess, and uh, and it brings 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:05.280 them to wonder like would there be any kind of 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.720 actual combat or defensive advantage to that sort of thing, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.000 And we we mostly decided that there would not really be. Yes, 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:14.799 you can scratch your way out of a out of 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.040 a scrape here and there, but there's also a big 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.640 possibility to damage your your fingernails if you're trying to 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.200 use like sharpened fingernails to attack somebody. More than likely, 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.040 if you encounter somebody with really gnarly looking fingernails, that 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.519 have been sharpened to a point or or indeed, um uh, 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.520 you know, just look seemingly intentionally creepy. They probably are 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.760 trying to look at least a little bit like nos Ferato, right, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.840 And so this vampire association with long nails. In fact, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.000 we were just talking about this with Seth the other day, 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.880 Uh and and uh Seth. Seth was sharing with us 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.560 the idea that, you know, it's possible that the association 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.400 between long fingernails and vampires could come from the idea 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.280 that often in the old days, you might and up 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.240 if you've you've exhumed a body from the graveyard and 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.640 you notice that their nails look a little bit long, 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:07.840 and so you think, wait a minute, are they still 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.000 alive in some way or they're getting up and roaming 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.120 around and still growing body tissues. Yeah, I feel like 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.000 this has come up on the show in the past before, 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.160 and it's certainly it goes beyond the world of mere vampires. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.120 We talked about it a bit in the episode where 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.520 we talked about the Kappa, the Japanese water demon um 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:31.160 where you have varying monstrous conceptions in the human imagination 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.359 that are based upon an analysis of a physical death 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:37.800 to see what happens to the body after it dies 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.200 and the seeming changes that take place in the body. 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.000 And in the case of the vampire, yeah, it's like 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.760 the bloated form. Uh. The impression at least that the 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.360 hair is still growing, the impression that the nails are 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.119 still growing. So if you ask the question is that true, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.160 the answer is no, It is not true that hair 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.400 and fingernails continue to grow after death. Uh, at least 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.320 not to any significant degree. Now, if the nails in 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.840 the hair don't keep growing after death, that that does 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.520 leave the question of why so many people thought that 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:10.160 that was the case. Why Why would you look at 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.000 a corpse and think that its nails appear long? And 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.760 the most common explanation for this tends to be based 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.080 on the dehydration of the corps. That as the body 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.880 begins to decompose, it loses a lot of moisture, which 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.119 causes the retraction of the skin tissues around the finger 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.880 nails and around the nail plate, which makes the nail 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.520 plates look longer because there's there's just less skin around them. Now, 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.720 this helps inform more than just our idea of vampires 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.000 for starters, it also has factored into the buried alive 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.720 panics that have existed at different times. I believe we 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.000 we discussed this a bit in an episode of Invention 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:48.160 on various casket innovations. So the idea is, oh, you know, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.120 end up digging up this corpse later, and maybe you 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:54.040 don't assume that they were some sort of undead fiend, 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.040 but you might think, oh, my goodness, they were still 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.720 alive for some time after we buried them. They must 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.560 have been buried alive. And this led to a fashionable 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.400 demand in the nineteenth century for caskets with escape hatches 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.640 and ways of getting out if you happen to have 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.880 been buried alive. Yes, So if you want to catch 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.560 up on that, do check out that episode of Invention. 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:15.480 It may still be in the Stuff to Blow your 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:17.400 Mind feed from when we put a bunch of those 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:18.920 out earlier in the year. But if not, you can 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.440 find the dedicated fee to Invention. Even though we're not 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.400 putting out new episodes of that show in that feed, 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.960 you'll still find all of those episodes there for your listening. 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.080 I think it was a three part last October. Yeah, 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.160 that's what it was. Now. In addition to this you'll 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:38.000 also find various myths and legends just concerned just general 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.799 monstrosity in the world. And oftentimes you'll have a monster 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:46.360 that has long fingernails. And this is roughly, you know, 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.560 associated with the idea that, okay, long fingernails imply a 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.920 wildness to kind of beastial nature of the the entity 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.200 or the being in question. Right, what has claws wild animals? Yeah, 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.719 And though the long or fingernails become, the more like 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.800 the claws of an animal they become. Now, there are 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.880 exceptions to this. Long finger nails are sometimes considered fashionable 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.280 for females we see we see a lot of that 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.320 in um in modern culture, but then also you sometimes 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.320 see it as a fashion for males as well. Long nails, 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.880 for example, were important symbols of social status at various 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.480 points in Chinese history, and they were sometimes painted for 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:31.000 visual effect, but also sometimes the painting or sometimes the 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.480 lacquering of the nail was as much about strengthening the 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.640 nail as it was about making it look fancy, which 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.920 is an interesting point. And apparently this we see echoes 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:42.600 of this and other cultures as well. I think the 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.400 ancient Egyptians um are are are thought to have engaged 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.480 in this sort of thing as well, strengthening the nail 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:54.800 in order to maintain its elongated uh uh structure. Now, 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.560 later on in Chinese history, ornate finger nail guards were 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.120 used to protect outer nails. So this might be like 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.560 on the pinky finger, for example, and the ring finger 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.600 uh and uh. And we're we're talking some pretty ornate 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.920 finger coverings here. For instance, the six inch long golden 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:17.960 mail protectors that were worn by the Imperious Dowager Sushi, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.600 who ruled China for forty three years from eighteen sixty 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.440 one until her death in nineteen o eight. If you 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.880 look her up, you can find actual photographs of her 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.120 decked out with these things. Now, Robert, can you describe 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.160 Is this more of like a thimble type covering that 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.280 would go over the end of the finger and extend 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.520 out from there, or is it more like that finger 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.719 armor stuff that has joints and goes over the whole finger. Um, 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.280 not really joints per se, it is one gets the 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:52.360 impression of like long tapering golden fingertip covers um. I 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.280 think this this sort of thing has also been utilized 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.199 in dance in various Asian cultures. Um, yeah, so the 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.520 really neat look now in terms of just longer finger 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.520 nails in general, the style has also been popular with 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.959 males at different times in Chinese history, with longer manicured 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:14.720 nails still having a residual cultural association with higher classes 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.840 in society. Uh. One also sees the retention of a long, 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.840 pinky finger nail as a signifier of social status. But 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.520 then there are also varying levels of when you get 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.679 into the actual reasons uh that individuals um, you know, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.320 self identify uh and uh and certainly uh uh explain 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.520 that their their pinky nail. They might be what it's 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.880 for good luck or you know, it might be there 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:45.000 might be some idea of divinational aspects uh of finger morphology. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.000 They're various sort of cultural ideas that seemed to be 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.560 floating around, um explaining, you know, why one would have 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.520 a longer nail if there's a class association that nails are, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.240 you know, for higher social status. I wonder if it 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.160 has anything to do with demonstrate the lack of need 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.560 to engage in physical or manual labor. Yes, sort of 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.640 along the same lines as you know, there are some 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.840 cultures I think it was once common in uh in 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.559 European culture, for and it was fashionable from men to 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.120 where like long pointy shoes. And one explanation given for 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:19.920 this is well, a long pointy shoe makes you look 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.240 rich because it's a kind of shoe that you can't 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:27.240 do any physical work in. Yeah. Yeah, The best explanations 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.480 seemed to tie it to this like a long standing 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.160 idea that it informs social status. However, I should note 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.040 that I've I've looked into this a couple of times 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.679 over the years, and I've never found like a I 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:39.559 have not found not to say it doesn't exist, but 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:41.920 I have never found like a really good paper on 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.560 this that really dives in with a lot of the 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.440 information out there about this is more informal in nature. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.800 But um, traditional Chinese cultural hierarchies do seem to retain 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.040 their power though according to one paper I was looking 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.040 at Saving Face in China, Modernization, parental usher and plastic 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:06.520 Surgery by Andrew Lyndridge and Choufeng Wang, published in the 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.520 Journal of Consumer Affairs in two thousand and eight. Um, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.880 So you know, basically underlying the idea that you can 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.559 you can have these ideas that are still floating around 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.200 in society, and perhaps you know, perhaps the rationale for 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:23.240 them isn't you know, uh in an individual's forethought, But 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.880 it's just something that survives and is still done and 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.000 perhaps on some level still does inform UH that notion 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.480 that I have this longer nail, which means I am 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.240 of a higher social status and maybe don't have to 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:38.400 engage in as much physical labor. For an historical example 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.560 of this getting outside of modern culture, UM, there's a 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:44.720 book that I've I've been fond of for for for 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.040 many years titled Tales from a Chinese Studio, and it's 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.560 a collection from seventeen forty of these various weird tales 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.480 that were compiled by the author uh Pooh song Ling 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.960 and uh and it's these are wonderful stories, I reckon 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.160 and anyone who's even halfway interested in in strange Chinese 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.440 ghost stories, you should pick up a copy of this 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.800 because some of them are funny, some of them are 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:15.559 just really weird. Um. There's also a certain poetry to them, 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.280 and I understand that if if one is actually reading 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:22.720 these stories uh in Mandarin, uh, they're also there are 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.080 also a lot of various illusions that are going to 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.679 be lost on the English language translation reader. But they're 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.719 still they're still tremendous as translated pieces. I think you've 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:37.520 quoted from it before. I have positive associations with this title. Yeah, 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:39.640 it's a it's a great book, and I think Penguin 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.560 has an edition of it. Um. So I was looking 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.440 back through that because I'm thinking, Okay, if there's a 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.360 good example of a monster with long fingernails, perhaps i'll 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.480 find it entails from a Chinese studio. I did not 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.360 find it, but I did find this little note um 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.280 about a particular line and one of his writings that 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:02.119 I had skipped over before I didn't remember from before. Basically, 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:06.960 uh uh poohsong Ling mentions the Bard of the Long Nails, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.720 which the translators and editors of this Penguin edition identify 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.720 as Lee He who lives seven sixty through eight sixteen. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.640 And so he was a late tongue scholar often characterized 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.720 as a sort of quote doomed poet with a vision 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.280 so intense the world will destroy him if he does 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:32.200 not destroy himself. Whoa. And so the the editors here 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.160 they could they compared him to John Keats. That's interesting 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.360 because Keats definitely died young, But I don't really think 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.480 of him as doom driven in that way. Uh. When 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.040 I think of doom driven English poets, I guess I 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.720 would think more like Byron or Percy Shelley. Yeah, Lord 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.599 Byron definitely comes to mind, right, especially with when it 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.199 comes to like a dark bad boy status walking around 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.800 a skull goblet and a pet bear on a chain exactly. Uh. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.719 And and interestingly enough, if you look up some of 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.440 uh Lee He's translated work, he's sometimes described as this 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:08.840 is from the Amazon description to a nice collection of 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.520 his work. Uh, the bad boy poet of the late 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.679 Tang dynasty. Well that I got to hear more from 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:17.560 this bad so it was it was he a bet. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:19.560 Was the fact that he was a bad boy at 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:25.520 all related to the perception of him having long nails? Um? Well, yes, 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.640 and no, I think, uh when I think this will 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:29.640 maybe become a little more clear, Like, for instance, I 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.800 don't think the fact that that he had long nails 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.880 was like the signifying bad boy aspect about him. I 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.840 take that to be probably more in common with with 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.400 professional scholars of the day, like you know, you're you're 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.440 you're a you're a scholar, you're a man of of words. Uh, 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.160 you certainly don't need short nails in order to engage 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.360 in a bunch of physical labor, like you're a man 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.440 of letters. I see that. Being said, he has a 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.840 very gothic quality to him. The New Tang History of 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:02.360 ten sixty described him as quote frail and thin, with 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.920 eyebrows that met together and long fingernails. He was also 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.760 known as the Demon Talent due to his love of 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.560 weird and exotic subjects in his writings, and the New 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:17.440 Tang History also said that he quote felt himself already 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.320 halfway across the boundary between the living and the dead. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.240 Now that being said, apparently he also wrote about mundane 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.640 topics as well, like you know, earth like food and 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.160 so forth. So it wasn't just all ghoulish content. Um, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:34.080 maybe a spooky food yeah, Oh no, I think he generally, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.280 you know, wrote about food and acceptable you know, non 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.720 what we would think of in Western terms is of 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:45.800 you know, a non Gothic sense. But anyway, if you 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.880 if you look at his work, it is really quite beautiful. Um. 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.680 He is probably apparently most famous for this poem Song 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.200 of Magic Strings that the editors and translators of the 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.720 pous song ling text include uh. The poem itself was 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.480 in selated by John Fordsham in ninety three's Goddesses, Ghosts 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.400 and Demons that Collected Poems of lee he He He, which 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.520 you can you can buy in like an e book 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.960 or physical form. I'm thinking of picking up a copy. 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.240 But but here's here's just a little bit from that poem. 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:20.920 Quote blue raccoons are weeping blood as shivering foxes die 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:25.120 on the ancient wall. A painted dragon tail inlaid with gold. 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.840 The rain God is writing it away to an autumn tarn. 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.560 Owls that have lived a hundred years turned forest demons 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:39.239 laugh wildly as an emerald fire leaps from their nests. Wow. 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.280 That that is electrifying. Man, I've got goose bumps. Yeah. Ye, 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:45.440 Like I say, I think I'm gonna pick up a 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.600 copy for this Halloween season. Um, but there was there 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.800 was another line. When I was looking at the preview 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.200 of that actual text of Fordsham wrote quote, lee he 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:00.720 was temperamentally unable to write a conventional social poem. In consequently, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.439 he is very rarely dull. Uh So apparently to to 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.960 be like a professional man of words, to be like, 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:08.919 you know, a writer of the day, you had to 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.320 engage in a lot of sort of boring, sort of 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.919 courtly writing. Uh. The example that he gave was it 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.920 was apparently common to sort of to to write to 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.040 patrons and compliment them on, say, the birth of a child. 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.560 And there's an example of this short poetic poetic piece 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.760 that he wrote to such a patron, and he makes 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.080 it sound like fortune compares it to the child from 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:35.639 the omen Um about just how he describes this child 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:37.879 as like being able to like see through people, to 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.520 their to their soul or something to that effect. It's 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.160 pretty interesting. So I like the idea of this, uh, 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.439 this Bard of the Long Nails, who when he tries 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.480 to fit in and be like just a boring poet, 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:52.800 he can't quite do it. He's just a little too weird. 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.760 But I should drive home that I don't think the 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:00.080 Long Nails were the um were the weird thing about him, know, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:01.920 it was that he would write you a note saying, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.359 congratulations on the birth of your child, who will one 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.400 day flay my soul in the underworld. Yeah, that sort 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.240 of thing. Um. So, anyway, I encourage everyone to check 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.399 out both of those authors. But but anyway, back back 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.080 to nails. In general, long nails have have apparently sometimes 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.800 been seen as a luxury for those of upper classes 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.639 in various cultures who don't have to truly labor with 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.959 their hands. And I've had a couple of studies at 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.359 least that backed this up, such as excessively long fingernails 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.800 as a risk factor for upper extremity soft tissue injury 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:34.560 published in two thousand and eight in the Journal of 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.880 Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and another paper, Effects of fingernail 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.560 linked on finger and hand performance, published in the Journal 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.119 hand Therapy back in two thousand and This the second 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.159 paper here, recommends keeping fingernails shortened to at least point 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:55.720 five centimeters to quote achieve optimal functional outcomes. Well, I guess, 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.520 to be fair, I laughed because I was imagining optimal 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.800 functional outcomes of ends just in regular life. But I 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.520 guess this is talking about therapy, so that phrasing makes sense. Yes, Yes, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.119 this this paper does seem to be narrowing its focus somewhat. Uh. 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.439 And I think it's also worth noting that, you know, 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.399 I have, for my own part, I've encountered people with 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.600 with very long you know, well, maintained nails. Uh, you know, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.919 sometimes very fancy looking nails. This seemed quite capable of 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.840 manipulating their environment and say an office setting. Uh, though 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.200 perhaps that's not that different from the sort of physical 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:31.600 demands of of of of a scholar in um, you know, 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.560 in in in in China of old. Uh. You know, 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:37.520 you're you're still not having to like actually physically dig 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.239 in the earth or something to that effect. So so 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.000 I'm not sure i'd be interesting to hear from anyone 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.439 out there who does, who has had long nails in 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.480 the past or keeps them, maintains long nails today, Like 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.040 are there things that you find that they get in 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.000 the way of or are they just generally not in 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.560 the way? Do you sort of adapt I mean obviously, 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.840 you know, we we we can adapt our body schema 0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:04.000 to accommodate for any number of of extra things. It 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.440 seems like just longer nails. I mean, that's even more 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.600 a part of our body than any tool or costume 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.040 that we might acquire. All right, it's time to take 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:13.639 a quick break. But when we come back, we can 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:18.240 talk about a demon warship made out of nails. Thank you, 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.560 thank you. All right, We're back, and I'm excited for 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.920 this job because you were you were about to embark 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.680 on a journey and you're you're going to uh tell 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.920 us about what maybe the the magical fingernail story par excellence. 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:35.880 I mean, there are a lot of great magical figure 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.320 nail stories that I'm about to get into, but this 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.000 might be the most most thoroughly mythological one, the one 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.159 that's like the most the most like a device in 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.600 a story where the nails are sort of the mcguffin. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.600 Though there's also a very good Persian one that we'll 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:51.679 get into. But anyway, so I want to go to 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.399 the pros at A. This is a work that tells 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.480 us a lot of what we know about ancient Norse 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.480 mythology that was written or edited the medieval Icelandic author 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.240 Snorri Sturlason. In the prose Edda, there are these collected 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:09.240 literary works that tell many of the stories of Norse mythology, 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:14.480 including the story of Ragnarok, the final Confrontation, the destruction 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.200 of the gods at the end of that era and there. 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.920 But early on, there's a passage in the prose edit 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.760 that's just talking about ships, just mentioning what kinds of 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:28.280 mythological ships there are, and it mentions one ship in passing, 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.200 calling it the Nagle Far. And it only says a 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.480 couple of things about the Nagle Far. It says that 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.560 it is in mu spell. Mu Spell is a realm 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.560 of fire, the home of the fire giants who you 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.919 don't want to mess with. And the passage also mentions 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.280 that Naglfar is the largest, meaning the largest of all ships. 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.359 So what is this nagle Far the largest of all ships? Well? 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.400 Later the author here tells us that the Nagle Far 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:00.160 will appear over the horizon during the calamity of ragnar Hawk, 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.280 when the gods will be destroyed. And the author also 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.919 tells us something about its construction. And here I'm going 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.240 to quote directly from the work quote the stars shall 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.280 be hurled from heaven. Then it shall come to pass 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.560 that the earth and the mountains will shake so violently 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.479 that trees will be torn up by the roots, and 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:23.240 the mountains will topple down, and all bonds and fetters 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:27.359