WEBVTT - From the Vault: Fingernails, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.239 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.440 is Robert Land and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:13.920 Time for a vault episode today. It's part two of 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:19.080 our series on fingernails. This episode originally aired on September three. 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.079 I think it'll be a scream. Let's dig right in. 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:27.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of my 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:36.720 Heart Radio album. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.839 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.199 and we're back with part two of our talk about nails, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.920 Fingernails Toenails. In the last episode, we talked about how 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:49.839 fast nails grow, what influences how fast they grow, some 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:55.640 strange decades long self experimentation projects on the measurement of nails, 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.440 And this time we're going to get out of some 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.960 of that scientific minutia and jump in to the weirder 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.720 world of nails and the role that nails and hair 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.440 play in a lot of very very surprising and interesting, 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.560 magical and religious beliefs. Yeah, and it it makes sense 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.319 that we would since the nails that we look down 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.160 at every day, that we you know, find ourselves absent 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:24.200 mindedly feeling uh that that in fact enhance our ability 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:30.200 to engage physically with the world. They are strange to behold. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.720 Like we said before, they're both alive and dead at 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:34.680 the same time, at least as you know, in the 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.800 way that we we think of them. You know, they 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.640 they're obviously a part of our body, uh, and yet 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.440 they feel slightly external. You know that there are these 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:45.800 things that are like clause but not clause. So it 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.200 makes sense that we would have some kind of complicated 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.800 magical ideas at times about what they are and what 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.760 they do. Yeah, and I think some of the magical 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.800 and religious ideas are going to connect with something that 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.240 we talked about in the last episode, which was this 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.639 the strange thing I was observing about how our hard 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.480 body parts, the hard external parts like teeth and nails, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.760 though you would expect them to be sort of like 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.720 the most uh I don't know what you would call 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.600 like the most brutally disposable parts of our bodies because 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:20.720 they're hard. You know, they're like what you put out 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.160 front in defense or attack. But in fact we've got 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.000 these kind of vulnerability trauma obsessions with these parts of 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.360 our bodies. Like if you just start worrying about what 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.120 could go wrong with your body, how you could be injured, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.680 how it could be damaged. A lot of the natural 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.639 places that people go to go to worry about these 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.280 things our teeth and nails, absolutely, and that's that's why 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.040 towards the end of the at the last episode, we 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.919 started talking a little bit about Glenn Danzi's fingernails and 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.600 about how, at least in some music videos or posters 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.640 that I kind of half remember um from my my 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.840 teenage years, I recall that he had sharpened fingernails, and 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.520 I would wonder to myself, well, what purpose did those have? 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.240 And indeed, you know, would sharpened fingernails age you in 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.680 in fights or something? Because I also remember, like Stephen 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.040 King novels and short stories that I also was reading 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.280 at the time, you'd occasionally have a character show up 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.520 that's sharpened their teeth down to the to file points 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.960 um or or perhaps even has some sort of like 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:26.400 sharpened fingernails, I guess, and uh, and it brings them 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.320 to wonder like would there be any kind of actual 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.400 combat or defensive advantage to that sort of thing, And 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.560 we we mostly decided that there would not really be yes, 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.400 you can scratch your way out of a out of 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.600 a scrape here and there, But there's also a big 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.200 possibility to damage your your fingernails if you're trying to 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.760 use like sharpened fingernails to attack somebody. More than likely, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.600 if you encounter somebody with really gnarly looking fingernails that 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.080 have been sharpened to a point, or or indeed, um uh, 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.080 you know, just look seemingly intentionally creepy, they probably are 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:00.760 trying to look at the still a little bit like 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:05.880 nos Feratu, right, And so this vampire association with long nails. 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:07.960 In fact, we were just talking about this with Seth 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.640 the other day, uh and and uh Seth. Seth was 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.560 sharing with us the idea that, you know, it's possible 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:19.240 that the association between long fingernails and vampires could come 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.080 from the idea that often in the old days, you 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.720 might open up if you've you've exhumed a body from 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.440 the graveyard and you notice that their nails look a 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:29.760 little bit long, and so you think, wait a minute, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.960 are they still alive in some way or they're getting 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.000 up and roaming around and still growing body tissues. Yeah, 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:37.680 I feel like this has coming up on the show 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.559 in the past before and it's certainly it goes beyond 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.440 the world of mere vampires. We talked about it a 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.800 bit in the episode where we talked about the Kappa, 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:51.440 the Japanese water demon um where you have varying monstrous 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.599 conceptions in the human imagination that are based upon an 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.960 analysis of a physical death to see what happens to 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.560 the body after it dies and the seeming changes that 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:04.520 take place in the body. And in the case of 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.680 the vampire, yeah, it's like the bloated form. Uh, the 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.880 impression at least that the hair is still growing, the 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.200 impression that the nails are still growing. So if you 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.520 ask the question is that true, the answer is no, 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.760 It is not true that hair and fingernails continue to 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.160 grow after death, at least not to any significant degree. Now, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.800 if the nails and the hair don't keep growing after death, 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.000 that that does leave the question of why so many 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.320 people thought that that was the case. Why Why would 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.279 you look at a corpse and think that its nails 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.599 appear long? And the most common explanation for this tends 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.760 to be based on the dehydration of the corps, that 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.600 as the body begins to decompose, it loses a lot 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.760 of moisture, which causes the retraction of the skin tissues 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.719 around the finger nails and around the nail plate, which 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.400 makes the nail plates look longer because there's there's just 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.440 less skin around them. Now, this helps inform more than 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.600 just our idea of vampires for starters. It also has 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.359 factored into the bare aid a live panics that have 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.960 existed at different times. I believe we we discussed this 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.400 a bit in an episode of Invention on various casket innovations. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:11.120 So the idea is, oh, you know, you end up 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.560 digging up this corpse later. Maybe you don't assume that 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.480 they were some sort of undead fiend, but you might think, oh, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.960 my goodness, they were still alive for some time after 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.599 we buried them. They must have been buried alive. And 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.880 this led to a fashionable demand in the nineteenth century 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.240 for caskets with escape hatches and ways of getting out. 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.320 If you happen to have been buried alive. Yes, so 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:34.760 if you want to catch up on that, do check 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.240 out that episode of Invention. It may still be in 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.000 the stuff to boil your mind feed from when we 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:40.760 put a bunch of those out earlier. In the year. 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.200 But if not, you can find the dedicated fee to invention. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:45.880 Even though we're not putting out new episodes of that 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.160 show in that feed, you'll still find all of those 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.320 episodes there for your listening. I think it was a 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.440 three part last October. Yeah, that's what it was. Now. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.160 In addition to this, you'll also find various myths and 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.839 legends just concerned just general monstrosity in the world. And 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.600 oftentimes you'll have a monster that has long finger nails. 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:11.200 And this is roughly, you know, associated with the idea that, okay, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.960 long finger nails imply a wildness, to kind of beastial 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.480 nature of the the entity or the being in question, right, 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.640 what has claws wild animals? Yeah, and though the longer 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.480 finger nails become, the more like the claws of an 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:30.200 animal they become. Now, there are exceptions to this. Long 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.960 finger nails are sometimes considered fashionable for females. We see 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.360 we see a lot of that in um in modern culture, 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.360 and then also you sometimes see it as a fashion 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.240 for males as well. Long nails, for example, were important 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.320 symbols of social status at various points in Chinese history, 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.000 and they were sometimes painted for visual effect. But also 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.600 sometimes the painting or sometimes the lacquering of the nail 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.080 was as much about strengthening the nail as it was 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.200 about making it fancy, which is an interesting point. And 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.480 apparently this we see echoes of this and other cultures 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.800 as well. I think the ancient Egyptians um are Are 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:09.600 are thought to have engaged in this sort of thing 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.880 as well, strengthening the nail in order to maintain it's 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:19.360 elongated uh uh structure. Now, later on in Chinese history, 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.840 ornate finger nail guards were used to protect outer nails. 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.040 So this might be like on the pinky finger, for example, 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.960 and the ring finger uh and uh. And we're we're 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.880 talking some pretty ornate finger coverings here. For instance, the 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:38.080 six inch long golden nail protectors that were worn by 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.000 the emperorus Dowager Sushi, who ruled China for forty three 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:44.880 years from eighteen sixty one until her death in nineteen 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.960 o eight. If you look her up, you can find 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.959 actual photographs of her decked out with these things. Now, Robert, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.880 can you describe Is this more of like a thimble 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:55.920 type covering that would go over the end of the 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.120 finger and extend out from there, or is it more 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.640 like that finger armor stuff that has joints and goes 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:06.040 over the whole finger. Um, not really joints per se. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:10.359 It is one gets the impression of like long tapering 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:16.200 golden fingertip covers Um. I think this this sort of 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:21.320 thing has also been utilized in dance in various Asian cultures. Um. Yeah, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.040 so they're really neat looking now in terms of just 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.000 longer finger nails in general, the style has also been 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.040 popular with males at different times in Chinese history, with 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:36.400 longer manicured nails still having a residual cultural association with 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.920 higher classes in society. Uh. One also sees the retention 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.760 of a long, pinky finger nail as a signifier of 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.160 social status. Uh. But then there are also varying levels 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.600 of when you get into the actual reasons uh that 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.880 the individuals um, you know, self identify uh and uh 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.280 and certainly uh uh explain that their their pinky nail. 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.200 They might be it's for good luck or you know, 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.880 it might be there might be some idea of divinational 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:09.560 aspects uh a finger morphology. They're various sort of cultural 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.920 ideas that seemed to be floating around. Um explaining you 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.120 know why one would have a longer nail. If there's 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.200 a class association that nails are, you know, for higher 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.679 social status. I wonder if it has anything to do 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.960 with demonstrating the lack of need to engage in physical 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:29.080 or manual labor. Yes, sort of along the same lines 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.240 as you know. There are some cultures. I think it 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.000 was once common in uh in European culture, for and 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.959 it was fashionable from me to where like long pointy shoes. 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.080 And one explanation given for this is, well, a long 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.800 pointy shoe makes you look rich because it's a kind 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:48.640 of shoe that you can't do any physical work in. Yeah. Yeah, 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.200 The best explanations seemed to tie it to this like 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.160 a long standing idea that it informs social status. However, 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.040 I should note that I've I've looked into this a 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.560 couple of times over the years, and I've never found 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.520 like a I have not found not to say it 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.600 doesn't exist, but I have never found like a really 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.400 good paper on this that really dives in with a 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.840 lot of the information out there about this is more 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:15.280 informal in nature. But um traditional Chinese cultural hierarchies do 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.040 seem to retain their power though according to one paper 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.440 I was looking at Saving Face in China, Modernization, parental 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:27.800 pressure and plastic Surgery by Andrew Lyndridge and Choufeng Wang, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.080 published in the Journal of Consumer Affairs in two thousand 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.000 and eight. UM, so you know, basically underlying the idea 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.959 that you can you can have these ideas that are 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.680 still floating around in society, and perhaps you know, perhaps 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:44.200 the rationale for them isn't you know one uh in 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.400 an individual's forethought. But it's just something that survives and 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:49.839 is still done and perhaps on some level still does 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.440 inform UH that notion that I have this longer nail, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.160 which means I am of a higher social status and 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.680 maybe don't have to engage in as much physical labor. 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.520 For in his storical example of this getting outside of 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.960 modern culture. UM, there's a book that I've I've been 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.880 fond of for for for many years titled Tales from 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:13.479 a Chinese Studio, and it's a collection from seventeen forty 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.120 of these various weird tales that were compiled by the 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:21.319 author Uh Pooh song Ling and Uh and it's these 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.719 are wonderful stories. I recommend anyone who's even halfway interested 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.959 in in strange Chinese ghost stories. You should pick up 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.800 a copy of this because some of them are funny, 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.319 some of them are just really weird. Um. There's also 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.439 a certain poetry to them, and I understand that if 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.679 if one is actually reading these stories uh in Mandarin uh, 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.160 they're also there are also a lot of various illusions 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.400 that are going to be lost on the English language 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.680 translation reader. But they're still they're still tremendous as translated pieces. 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.439 I think you've quoted from it before. I have positive 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.360 associations with this title. Yeah, it's a it's a great book, 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.440 and I think Penguin has an edition of it. Um. 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.600 So I was looking back through that because I'm thinking, Okay, 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.400 if there's a good example of a monster with long fingernails, 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.680 perhaps i'll find it entails from a Chinese studio. I 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.160 did not find it, but I did find this little 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.680 note um about a particular line in one of his 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:23.080 writings that I had skipped over before I didn't remember 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:28.319 from before. Basically, uh uh poohsong Ling mentions the bard 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.200 of the long nails, which the translators and editors of 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.720 this Penguin edition identify as Lee He who lived seven 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.960 sixty through eight sixteen. So he was a late Tongue scholar, 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.720 often characterized as a sort of quote doomed poet with 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.439 a vision so intense the world will destroy him if 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:53.920 he does not destroy himself. Whoa, and and so the 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.200 the editors here they could they compared him to John Keats. 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.120 That's interesting because Keiths definitely he died young. But I 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.800 don't really think of him as doom driven in that way. Uh. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.560 When I think of doom driven English poets, I guess 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.000 I would think more like Byron or Percy Shelley. Yeah, 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.079 Lord Byron definitely comes to mind, right, especially with when 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.480 it comes to like a dark bad boy status walking 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.720 around a skull goblet and a pet bear on a 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.440 chain exactly. Uh. And and interestingly enough, uh, if you 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.240 look up some of uh Lee He's translated work, he's 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.400 sometimes described as this is from the Amazon description to 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.120 a nice collection of his work. Uh, the bad boy 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.600 poet of the late Tang dynasty. Well that I got 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.480 to hear more from this bad so it was it 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:41.240 was he a bet. Was the fact that he was 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.840 a bad boy at all related to the perception of 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.600 him having long nails? Um? Well, yes, and no, I 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.160 think when I think this will maybe become a little 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.040 more clear, Like, for instance, I don't think the fact 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.480 that that he had long nails was like the signifying 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.080 bad boy aspect about him. I take that to be 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.960 probably we're in common with with professional scholars of the day, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.080 Like you know, you're you're you're a you're a scholar, 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.160 you're a man of of words. Uh, you certainly don't 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.040 need short nails in order to engage in a bunch 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.800 of physical labor, like you're a man of letters. I 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.920 see that being said, he has a very gothic quality 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.720 to him. The New Tang History of ten sixty described 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:26.040 him as quote frail and thin, with eyebrows that met 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.160 together and long fingernails. He was also known as the 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.400 Demon Talent due to his love of weird and exotic 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.440 subjects in his writings, and the New Tang History also 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.040 said that he quote felt himself already halfway across the 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.720 boundary between the living and the dead. Now that being said, 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.880 apparently he also wrote about mundane topics as well, like 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.120 you know, earth like food and so forth. So it 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.040 wasn't just all ghoulish content. Um, maybe a spooky food. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.040 Oh No, I think he generally, you know, wrote about 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.320 food and acceptable non what we would think of in 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.400 Western terms is of you know, a non Gothic sense. 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.360 But anyway, if you if you look at his work, 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.560 it is really quite beautiful. Um. He is probably apparently 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.080 most famous for this poem song of Magic Strings that 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.200 the editors and translators of the pous song Ling text include. Uh. 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.360 The poem itself was translated by john Fordsham in ninety 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.040 three's Goddesses, Ghosts and Demons that Collected Poems of lee 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.440 he He He, which you can you can buy in like 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.160 e book or physical form. I'm thinking of picking up 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.360 a copy. But but here's here's just a little bit 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:41.600 from that poem. Quote. Blue raccoons are weeping blood as 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.720 shivering foxes die on the ancient wall. A painted dragon 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.440 tail inlaid with gold. The rain god is writing it 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.360 away to an autumn tarn. Owls that have lived a 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:58.280 hundred years turned forest demons laugh wildly as an emerald 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:03.920 fire leaps from their net. Wow. That that is electrifying. Man, 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.280 I've got goose bumps. Yeah. Like I say, I think 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.720 I'm gonna pick up a copy for this Halloween season. Um, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.359 but there was there was another line when I was 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.480 looking at the preview of that actual text, Fordsham wrote, quotely, 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:22.080 he was temperamentally unable to write a conventional social poem, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.760 and consequently he is very rarely dull. Uh So, apparently 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.199 to to be like a professional man of words, to 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.159 be like, you know, a writer of the day, you 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.160 had to engage in a lot of sort of boring, 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.960 sort of courtly writing. Uh. The example that he gave 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.119 was it was apparently common to sort of to to 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.720 write to patrons and compliment them on, say, the birth 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.960 of a child. And there's an example of this short 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.080 poetic poetic piece that he wrote to such a patron, 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.119 and he makes it sound like Fortshune compares it to 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:57.080 uh the child from the omen um about just how 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.240 he describes this child as like being able to like 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.600 see through people to their to their soul, or something 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.760 to that effect. It's pretty interesting. So I like the 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.400 idea of this, uh, this Bard of the Long Nails, 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.119 who when he tries to fit in and be like 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.120 just a boring poet, he can't quite do it. He's 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.040 just a little too weird. But I should drive home 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:21.080 that I don't think the Long nails were the were 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.240 the weird thing about him. No, it was that he 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.840 would write you a note saying, congratulations on the birth 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:27.960 of your child who will one day flay my soul 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.479 in the underworld. Yeah, that sort of thing. Um. So, anyway, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.000 I encourage everyone to check out both of those authors. 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.800 But but anyway, back back to nails in general. Long 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.160 nails have have apparently sometimes been seen as a luxury 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.600 for those of upper classes in various cultures who don't 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.840 have to truly labor with their hands. And I've had 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.680 a couple of studies at least that backed this up, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.919 such as excessively long fingernails as a risk factor for 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.520 upper extremity soft tissue injury published in two thousand eight 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.679 in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and another 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.159 pay or Effects of fingernail linked on finger and hand performance, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.360 published in the Journal hand Therapy back in two thousand 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.400 and This the second paper here recommends keeping fingernails shortened 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.320 to at least point five centimeters to quote achieve optimal 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:19.520 functional outcomes. Well, I guess, to be fair, I laughed 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.119 because I was imagining optimal functional outcomes of hands just 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:25.880 in regular life. But I guess this is talking about therapy, 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.800 so that phrasing makes sense. Yes, yes, this this paper 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.920 does seem to be narrowing its focus somewhat. Uh. And 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.080 I think it's also worth noting that, you know, I 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.080 have for my own part, I've encountered people with with 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.159 very long, you know, well maintained nails, uh, you know, 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.480 sometimes very fancy looking nails. This seemed quite capable of 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.400 manipulating their environment and say, an office setting. Uh. Though 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.760 perhaps that's not that different from the sort of physical 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:54.159 demands of of of of a scholar in um, you know, 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.119 in in in in China, of old Uh. You know, 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.159 you're you're still not having to like actually physically in 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.959 the earth or something to that effect. So so I'm 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:04.720 not sure i'd be interesting to hear from anyone out 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.080 there who does, who has had long nails in the 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.400 past or keeps them maintains long nails today, Like are 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.720 there things that you find that they get in the 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.920 way of or are they just generally not in the way? 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.240 Do you sort of adapt I mean, obviously, you know, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.960 we we we can adapt our body schema to a 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.879 accommodate for any number of of extra things. It seems 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.119 like just longer nails. I mean, that's even more a 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.320 part of our body than any tool or costume that 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:34.680 we might acquire. All Right, it's time to take a 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:36.360 quick break. But when we come back, we can talk 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:42.919 about a demon warship made out of nails than all right, 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:44.919 we're back, and I'm excited for this, Joe, because you 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.840 were you were about to embark on a journey and 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.440 you're you're going to uh tell us about what maybe 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:57.080 the the magical fingernail story par excellence. I mean, there 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.560 are a lot of great magical figure nail stories that 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.439 that I'm to get into, but this might be the 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:05.159 most most thoroughly mythological one, the one that's like the 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.560 most the most like a device in a story where 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:10.800 the nails are sort of the mcguffin. Though there's also 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.400 a very good Persian one that we'll get into. But anyway, 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:15.880 so I want to go to the prose Edda. This 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:17.719 is a work that tells us a lot of what 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.000 we know about ancient Norse mythology that was written or 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:25.919 edited by the medieval Icelandic author Snorri Sturlason. In the 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.240 prose Edda, there are these collected literary works that tell 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:32.919 many of the stories of Norse mythology, including the story 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:37.760 of Ragnarok, the final confrontation, the destruction of the gods 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.639 at the end of that era and there but early on, 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.200 there's a passage in the prose edit that's just talking 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.840 about ships, just mentioning what kinds of mythological ships there are, 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.919 And it mentions one ship in passing, calling it the 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.320 Nagle Far. And it only says a couple of things 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:56.600 about the Nagle Far. It says that it is in 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.320 mu spell. Mu Spell is a realm of fire, home 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.000 of the fire giants who you don't want to mess with. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:08.760 And the passage also mentions that Nagle Far is the largest, 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.199 meaning the largest of all ships. So what is this 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.439 Nagle Far the largest of all ships? Well, later the 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.400 author here tells us that the Nagle Far will appear 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.040 over the horizon during the calamity of Ragnarok, when the 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.399 gods will be destroyed. And the author also tells us 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.000