WEBVTT - Here There Be Sea Monsters 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:15.440 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.800 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Jusie. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.800 You remember those three episodes that we did on maps 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.480 a while back. Oh, yes, yeah, it's pretty interesting stuff. 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.800 We talked about the way maps form our view of reality, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.120 how maps exist not only on paper but in our minds. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.880 We talked about the some of the history of cartography, 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.640 some of the problems entailed within right, and just exploration 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.400 in general, how matt making was this way to, you know, 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.839 make a concrete idea of the abstract notions of the 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.559 world around us. But one area that we didn't really 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.080 get into they were going to explore today is the 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.000 world of monstrosity, particularly the world of sea monster. Because 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.320 if you look back on old enough maps, you inevitably 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.480 encounter fantastic things. You you would, of course encounter fantastic 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:04.800 land forms that deviate to varying degrees from what we 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.120 know or believe to be the shape of our continents. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.160 And then if you go out in the water, you 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.880 see these strange creatures that don't match up particularly well 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.720 with anything that actually exists, and yet like these creatures 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.160 that are represented on these maps, they are really powerful symbols. 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.000 And we just talked about the power of symbols in 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:27.040 the previous episode. So there's stand ins both for dangerous, 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.280 real and imagined. Yeah, and Uh, it turns out the whole, 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:36.400 the whole area of sea monsters is a largely understudied topic, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.640 particularly we're talking about sea monsters on maps. I recently 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.320 attended a lecture by author Chet van Douser, who has 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.800 put together fabulous book called Sea Monsters on Menieval and 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:52.080 Renaissance Maps, and he thoroughly explored this topic. True and Uh, 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.400 I wanted to read a little bit from Ben Shattuck's 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:59.960 article from Salon. He talks about why, uh, the ocean 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.040 provide such a rich grounds for imagination. He says, there's 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.520 something about the ocean that keeps on giving to cryptozoology, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.400 mostly because it's a great dark room whose door only 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.400 opens when animals rise to breathe or eat or some themselves, 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.919 or when they flash through a cone of light shot 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.840 from a deep water submersible. There's a bet of sunlight 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.840 caught in the first ten feet or so of water, 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.720 and then total and huge blackness. Still, though the unsettling 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.880 sea generates a productive fear to stoke our imaginations. That 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.280 Ben shattic, he's good. He's also, of course the guy 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.280 who wrote that the excellent article about being swallowed alive 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:40.400 by whale. That's right. So we're talking about monsters, which 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:44.119 we've we've touched on monsters before. I frequently blog about monsters, 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.639 and as I like to point out, the word monstrosity 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.399 originates from the Latin monster aary, which means to show 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.360 or illustrate a point. And in this as a Van 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.720 Deuser points out, it falls in line with the St. 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.160 Augustine's view of a monster as something that's part of 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.160 God's plan, an adornment of the universe that can also 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.800 teach us about the dangers of sin. But then there 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.200 are other medieval commentators that define a monster is a 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.040 thing against nature. So we have to sort of clarify 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:12.760 what are we talking about when we talk about a monster, 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.440 Because on one hand, a monster is, uh, you know, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.840 a fantastic creature that is against the natural order and 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.200 doesn't actually exist in reality. But then we have things 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.680 like river monsters the Animal Planet show, where these are 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.160 actually real world animals, but we refer to them as 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.519 monsters because they are on some level monstrous. Yeah, I 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.520 mean they defy our expectations, right, because we have knowledge 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.320 of our land animals, we have knowledge of ourselves. But 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.280 when we see these creatures that come from the depths 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.040 and they are so odd and like est but not 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.120 like us, well they become abominations. Yeah. The popular theory 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.040 in the medieval ages and on up into the sixteenth 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:52.200 century was this idea that anything that exists on land, 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.880 there's a version of it that exists in the water. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.040 And this goes back to planting the elder statements in 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.160 natural history. So the idea here is that the have 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.000 a stag that lives in the land. Well, then there's 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.720 a sea stag somewhere. There's a lion lives on the land. 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.160 Well there's a sea lion. There are men, there are merment, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.200 and literally it really gets ridiculous when you start looking 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.200 at the sheer number, because you make it go always 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.120 just making some of these up. But just to to 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.080 look in the index of Van Deuser's book, there's a 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.080 reference to a sea bear, sea bish of a sea bowl, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.400 a sea chicken, a sea cow, sea dogs, sea dragon, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:28.240 au see elephant, sea, frogs, goats, hairs, horses, lions, monks, panthers, pigs, pig, dogs, 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:32.520 pig lions, rabbits, rams, rooster, serpent, stags, tigers, unicorns, and wolves. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.240 Uh and uh you know. Just so, so you have 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.320 that idea, that existing sort of philosophic idea of how 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.120 the world works, and you bring that with you into 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.640 an actual observation and second and third hand accounts of 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.320 what is actually going on in the ocean, and you 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.640 can see where various uh bits of false data emerge. Well, 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.800 and just to confuse things about you have some animals 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.400 from mythology like you have. You've got you of corns. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.240 But then you've got normals which actually exists. So what 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.400 do you get. Of course, you get some sort of 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:10.240 creature that is a unicorn fish like creature flilling out 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.800 there in the ocean. Exactly. Now, when we talk about 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.640 these maps, talking about these old maps, particularly medieval maps, 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.120 we're basically talking about two kinds of maps. First of all, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.799 there is the mapa mundi, a map of the world. 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.520 And it's really cool when you look at the simplest 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.440 and oldest of these, you have what we call a 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.560 t O map, and I'll include a picture of one 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.200 of these in the gallery that accompanies this episode. But 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.960 a t O map. If you'll picture a big circle, 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.200 all right, that's the world, Okay. Imagine a central land 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.720 mass surrounded by a circular ocean. Now imagine a horizontal 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.919 line running across it. Cutting it into that line is 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.360 the Aegean and Black Sea on the left, and then 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.080 Nile on the Red Sea on the right. And then 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.279 a dividing line down the center of that line, forming 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.600 the stalk of the t that's the Mediterranean Sea. So 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.159 this is a vision of the world sort of on 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:00.599 its side, where the center of it, the very center 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.560 of the circle is Jerusalem, because that's the center of 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.039 the world, you know, Western Christian tradition, and so the 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.760 whole northern half of the circle is Asia. Then the 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.760 lower left hand quarter is Europe, in the lower right 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.920 hand quarter is Africa. Okay. So this is really a 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.560 map that is not used to navigate. It's rather a 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.119 map that's used to record our ideas about the world 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.280 and how it's configured. Yeah, you know, we talked about 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.200 when we did our map episodes. We talked about, say 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.279 something like the map of the tube system in London 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.320 about how important important it is uh, certainly to to 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.240 get around London, but also to form an idea in 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.800 the londoner's mind of what their city looks like, in 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.240 what their city is. This was a map to make 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.479 sense of the stories you were hearing about. All right, 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.479 Jerusalem so important? Where is it compared to me? Where? 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.880 Where's where is Africa compared to me? Where? How do 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:49.680 I fit into the world? And what is the shape 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:51.680 of the world. And what's interesting about that is it's 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.680 got that configuration, the t configuration, which is directly um 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.360 feeding into this idea that we we know we have 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.520 many more neurons that are dead a hitted to up 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.760 and down and right and left in terms of our 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.080 visual visual field and not diagonal, which is this need 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.600 to try to put everything into a neat little package. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.280 So that's your earliest world map, and they certainly evolve 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:16.920 from there up until you know, modern times, as we 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.960 learn more and more about the the what the world 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.400 looks like, and how we get from one place to another. 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:24.800 So on these maps, on the t O maps, most 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.480 of the real estate here is concerned with the land uh. 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.640 And you'll have some cities marked and some important bits 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:35.480 of geography. But as in the Girona be at this map, 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.520 sea monsters do appear in the outer ocean that you know, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.040 the outer the outer edge of the circle, the edge 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.960 of the world. Um. In this particular map from you'll 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:49.040 find a marine chicken and perhaps Jonah being swallowed by 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.440 whale or having been swallowed by a whale. You see 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.440 like this big fish and you see Jonah in the 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.920 belly um though most of the depictions of Jonah and 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.640 the whale, it's either Jonah being spit up, were swallowed 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.320 like they tend not to dwell on the whole, living 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.040 inside the belly bit. So that's one type of map. 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.400 And then you also have nautical charts because obviously people 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.120 are sailing from one point in the other and they 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.520 need a functional map to tell them how to do that. 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.240 A t O map is not going to help you 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.280 really navigate the world. Again, it's all about where you 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.640 are in your head, where you are actually on a 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.200 ship at sea. You need a nautical map. And so 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.520 these were generally these would generally have an outline of 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.760 the land uh and they were really only concerned with 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.440 coastal cities and ports. And they would connect to each 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.319 other by criss crossing rum lines. So you could look 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:39.400 at this and you'd be like, all right, this is 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:40.640 the line you need to follow if you need to 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.000 get from this port to this port, in this city 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.400 to this city. Okay. And the more common variety of 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.160 these maps was purely utilitarian. There were no frills, and 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.920 there were certainly no sea monsters, but clients could and 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.600 did opt for specially add on so you could pay 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.920 extra for painted cities, for flax and ultimately sea monster 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.600 and and the especially maps. These were generally not the 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:03.960 ones that you would have on the ship. These would 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:05.680 be the ones, uh, you know, you might give to 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.280 a king or or or you know, have you know, 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.280 hanging in your your office or whatnot. Yeah, I mean, 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.200 for the most part, medieval maps just didn't have steam 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.480 monsters to pick on them because what I mean essentially 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.080 why because that's going to cost you more money, right, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:21.240 And it was much more pragmatic at that time, be 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.559 as you say, from going from a point A to 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.280 point B. But then you see later in the fifteenth century, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.240 as you say, they became a thing. In fact, you 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.400 mentioned kings. There's a chart maker by the name of 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.520 Francis Picarti in four hundred, who commissioned four really extraordinarily 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:43.160 resplendent maps to give to four European kings in exchange 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.600 for the right to trade in their countries. So that's 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:51.080 how valuable these pieces of paper became, because again it 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.440 represented exploration and also as as well as people could 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.880 at that time. Compendium of beasts, you know of this 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.880 sort of like a learned man's way of trying to 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.120 learn about the world via the armchair. Yeah, it becomes 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.000 a kind of a zoological text as well. Now one, 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.400 I really like the idea of the sea monsters as 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.960 an add on, Like imagine way, like, we don't really 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.199 draw maps for one another anymore, but can you imagine 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:19.760 you know, you're asking a friend how to get to 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:21.200 some way that and you're like, can you draw me 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:23.040 a map? Oh, and make sure to put a seed 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:24.720 monster on there. I want to have some monsters on 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.360 that map. Or imagine if when you use Google Maps, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.240 you could in the same way that you have the 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.800 options to click click on the button and have traffic represented, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.680 click on the button and have satellite information represented. Why 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.120 is there no monster button? So I can see where 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.600 sea monsters and land monsters might potentially be represented. There 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.200 should be a monster overlay for sure. Um, but let's 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.319 talk about some of these some more of these reasons 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.120 for monsters being depicted. Um. One of the things that 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.040 I think is really interesting is we've already touched on, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.400 is that you know, the truth is stranger than fiction. 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.000 So you have people who have been out in the 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:02.480 ocean's fishing for cent ease, and they talk about what 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.040 they have seen. Perhaps they well, I don't know if 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.400 they'd see it at a certain depths that it exists, 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.560 But vampire squid are an amazing that's an amazing creature. 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:16.320 To behold sea snakes that seems insane, and yet they 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.040 are in the ocean. If you've ever seen a bunch 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.760 of sea snakes congregating on the ocean floor and floating 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.920 there like shafts of wheat, just passively feeding on whatever 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.640 passes by, it is an amazing, incredible image and you 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.800 could not believe it. So it stands to reason that 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.600 if you have this collective of ocean life, that of 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.040 course these these beasts would emerge from from all this 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.040 sort of mythology. Yeah, and as we've still happens today. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.199 When you encounter you know, you encounter a whale in 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.760 the ocean, it's pretty phenomenal. You encounter a half rotten whale, 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.720 or any kind of partially decayed but of sea lie, 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.680 you're liable to to interpret the original form in a 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.720 different light. We're you know, like, even to this day, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:03.920 you'll find pictures of some sort of weird thing washed 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:05.840 up on a beach and people are like, oh, my goodness, 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.120 this looks like nothing on earth. Clearly it's a sea monster. No, 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.880 it's just a whale. That is a grosser and in 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.000 a little decayed you're seeing more of it's a skeleton 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.400 and less of it's a flesh, and therefore it looks 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.480 like a sleeker, different creature. That's true. And even now 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.760 things are getting reclassified, right because every once in a 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:24.640 while we find the bones of something. It's like, oh, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.800 we think that this is a new something, and they're like, no, no, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:32.080 this is actually a brachiosaurs. Yeah. Now, um, Now again, 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.160 as we we mentioned sea monsters, of a lot of 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.280 them are going to originate in myth and religious tradition. 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.040 You have Jonah's whale, you have the primordial Leviathan. One 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.760 of the stories that that keeps coming up again and 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.680 again in Van Duser's book is the idea of the 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:50.400 whale or fish that's so enormous that a ship lands 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.360 at it, and then the sailors get off. They on 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.600 what they think is land. They can't. They set a fire, 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.000 and then when they set the fire, that disturbs the fish, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.560 and the fish descends back into the ocean and they 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:03.240 have to scramble to get back on the ship before 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:08.160 they drown. Now, clearly this never happened um or it's 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.680 it's at least it's at least very difficult to imagine 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.840 a scenario in which this could happen. But it becomes 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.559 such a tale like it captures the imagination, and so 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.199 it comes up again and again on these maps. It's true, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.960 And you know, their representation on the maps is not 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.520 just a symbolic standing for for man versus nature, but 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.080 is also a way to depict actual geographical points of 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.439 interest or even dangerous straits on a map. So there 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.800 is a there's actual pragmatic reason for them to be 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.560 on there. But a lot of these cartographers, though, what 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:42.480 they were trying to do is they were trying to 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.920 utilize the best information of the time to create a 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:47.839 map that it's either going to stand out its own 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.679 or it's accompanying some other texts. And so most of 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.120 the time they've never seen these creatures before, but they 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.360 were laboring to create accurate depictions. Uh. In many cases 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.719 they continued existing motifs such as the island fish, and 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.480 presume factual depictions of actual life in the oceans. They 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.520 are the hybrids that they ended up drawing. Well, those 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.960 were backed up in the theory of this land water 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.720 duality that we mentioned earlier, and they were able to 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.880 repeat the true aspects of their depictions. Whales are big spouts, 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.080 you know, they spout water and sometimes they damage boats. Um, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.920 as well as the inaccuracies. Whales have two blowholes, they 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.120 have wolfish faces, and they attack boats. Yeah, it's cool 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.040 because I think about these maps is sort of the 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.440 graphic novel at the time. There again, Yeah, trying to 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.560 record as much scientific information is thought scientific at that time, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.600 and trying to explain the creatures. Um. But the problem 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.240 is is that you don't get a lot of clear 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.040 perception of these creatures that you see without context. Yeah, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:48.960 there's a lot of times these are These are again 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.920 people who are several times removed from any actual observation 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.800 of the creature. Uh, you have in the same way 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.640 that you know. Burno Eccho said, books speak to other books, 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.920 and there's those endless kind versation, particularly among between older manuscripts, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:04.960 where this idea flows to this one and picked up 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.040 by this one. It's like that game we all play 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.440 as a kid where you whisper in a circle and telephone. Yeah, telephone. 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:13.560 It's like a game of telephone with with with texts 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.760 and then with visual representations of the world. You're right, 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.400 and at the end of the telephone conversation you get 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:24.080 the vakham Marina the sea cow right, because everything gets 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.920 so distorted. Um. I was thinking about the perception and 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.880 context problem in terms of ben Shadduck's article for Salon 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.080 and when she was trying to pin down a nineteenth 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:40.040 century account of a massive sea serpent, and the fisherman 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:42.040 had described it as a hundred feet long with an 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.160 interlocking barrel like body and a serpent like face. And 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.840 he kind of kept scratching at this, saying, what I mean, 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.360 these are like hardened fishermen, They're they're all like, you know, 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.080 they've been out there, their experience, and yet there's so 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.800 many of these fishermen who said, we saw something, and 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.680 he wonders what could it be. So he talks to 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.359 um someone who is an expert in leather back turtles. 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.760 Her name is Kara Dodge, and she says that, you know, 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.760 it's probably just that perception problem, because she says that 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.480 even when trying to track leatherback turtles, now they have 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.600 to train fishermen to look for the hump and not 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.480 the fin. And so now they're getting a ton more 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.440 accounts of leatherback turtles as they try to pin their whereabouts. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.200 But until you give people the context for it or 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.600 the imagery, then it's hard to pin down. By the way, 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.800 the whole leatherback turtle things, he serpent turns out, Ben 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.960 Shottic thinks from his research that it could have just 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.200 been essentially a bunch of leatherback turtles that were bumped 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.480 up against each other and it makes the appearance of 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.640 these humps of serpent. Yeah, because you're saying, if you 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.880 look at videos of leather backs, it's kind of the slimy, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.879 black uh image that emerges from just under the water. 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:06.879 And then if you look at their faces, their serpent 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.480 light and they have fangs. So if you solve that 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.320 from a you know, a good distance away, you might 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.679 think that it's this hundred foots he serpent coming at you. Now, 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.600 the other thing about that is that narrative might serve 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.359 you well if you decide to make a map to 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.040 dissuade other fishermen from coming to your country and fishing 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.920 your waters. And that's where I think it's fascinating that 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.080 a map from the sixteenth century could have an economic 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.080 function built into it. Yeah, the map in question is 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.359 Alas Magnus is amazing nine map, the Card of Marina, 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.639 which I'll make sure to include this one in the 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.000 gallery that goes with this episode as well, because it's 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.600 it's really the granddaddy of these. I mean, it's a 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.560 marvelous map from a number of different perspectives. He brings 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.159 whimsy to his creations of the monsters, he brings an 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.560 artistry and and just a sheer number of monsters on 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.320 this map is incredible. It's just it's just the world 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.560 is just completely monster haunted and it's beautiful. But there 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.679 is this theory that that he used a lot of 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:15.640 these monsters to scare away foreign fisherman from Scandinavian waters. Right, 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.920 because if you were to look at this map, you're like, ho, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.600 get it, there's this dragon sea serpent thing at every turn, 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:28.760 or this other lobster slash octopus thing that might take 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.280 me down. Yeah, And in the full map included like 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.720 a zoological m sidebar that explained like what some of 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:36.439 these creatures were supposed to be. And yeah, you look 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.119 at it, and they're they're just all sorts of fantastic 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.200 um whales and whale like creatures spouting up their attacking ships. 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.040 They're pulling ships down, they're flooding them with their with 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.000 their they're spouted water. It's marvelous. Well, one of my 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.879 favorite ones on there is that lobster looking like creature 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.199 that's said to be an octopus, and it's depicted with 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.800 eight legs and it's holding a man in one of 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.120 its claws. Um and and and scale. You can see 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.880 that it's monstrous in in comparison to this man. And 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.600 according to its scientific information, it lives in underwater caves 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.880 and can change its color to match surrounding. Now that's amazing, right, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.400 because what we're hearing there is that there's some seppal 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.840 pod information, right, Yeah, at the core of this we 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.240 have some some good information. Eight limbs can change its color, 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.640 lives in the rocks underwater. Yeah, we're talking about that 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.080 this perception of chromatoforce right, well at the time they 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.800 weren't called chromatoforce, but this idea that seppal pods can 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.680 change their skin color through pigment cells. So think about 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.399 being on a ship at night and gazing over the 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:44.159 prow and seeing by a luminescent light then emanating from 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.800 a squid and that's from the bacteria that's being housed 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.479 in the organ lights and just what a sight that 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.000 would be that there's this monstrous creature below that has 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.199 a beacon of light coming from it. Yeah, we we 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.680 throw in the narrative of monstrous creatures in the ocean, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.960 and that makes the thing ginormous. And then if then 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.520 you have somebody attempting to create it on a map, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.119 and you know, how would you come up with the 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.399 idea of the occupus if you've never seen one? You know, 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.639 like clearly this the artist had had some experience with 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.160 crustaceans and so that is the form that the artistic 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.600 representation of the creature took. Yeah, it's it's amazing because 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.560 you do you see the good bits of science and 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.160 they're mixed in with fantastical. It's in a way, it's 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.159 kind of like all of our depictions or a lot 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.440 of our depictions of alien life. There's something humanoid or 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.960 vaguely humanoid about them, you know. That is the form 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.880 that we understand is intelligent life. So that's the form 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.080 we tend to to project in trying to understand, uh, 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.720 mythical or imagine creatures. And it's similar here. The form 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:45.960 that they understood was the crustaceans, so that's the one 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.000 that was projected. Are you saying that we just need 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.200 to be retrained to look for humps instead of fins 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.920 out there? Uh No, I mean in the intergalactic space. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.400 I think it just comes down to the fact that 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.880 you have data in your mind that using to understand 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.560 the outer world, and we're never gonna haven't have enough 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.000 data to understand some of the mysteries out there. We're 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.640