Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did Cool Stuff, your
Speaker 2: weekly reminder that vampires and witches are entertaining things to
Speaker 2: occasionally do episodes about in November, which Margaret claims is
Speaker 2: still part of Spooky Times.
Speaker 1: They drank blood, that's cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the cool people drink blood, including our guest
Speaker 2: just A Fiorentini. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm good. I don't think i've ever I've never had blood,
Speaker 1: but if I were to have blood gross. No. I've
Speaker 1: had a blood sausage and that's actually pretty gross but
Speaker 1: also good in a way. I'm good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I cannot handle the idea of blood food. I'm
Speaker 2: aware that it exists. I'm even when I was like sixteen,
Speaker 2: I went to go like visit family in Ireland and
Speaker 2: I was like, none of this is food. I wasn't
Speaker 2: vegan yet, but like all of the like blood pudding,
Speaker 2: I'm like, those are not words that belong in same.
Speaker 1: No, that's disgusting.
Speaker 2: Let alone. Yeah, and I mean I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I mean at least you're eating all of the animal, you.
Speaker 2: Know, that's true or the person. Oh sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1: There's something very Indiana Jones about like drinking blood. You know,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why. I feel like, if and
Speaker 1: when I become vegan, I won't watch like all the
Speaker 1: you know, slaughter house stuff. I'll just watch like, you know,
Speaker 1: the Temple of Doom and be like, see, yeah, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't drink or eat monkey brains anyway. Vampires did cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also have problems with exoticism, much like Indiana Jones.
Speaker 1: That's right, oh, big time, especially that movie, the second one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so okay. Normally this is a history podcast
Speaker 2: where I talk about history, and this week it is
Speaker 2: a folklore podcast where I talk about folklore. And if
Speaker 2: you listen to episode one of this week on Monday,
Speaker 2: you have learned me talk about how I think that
Speaker 2: these things are related history in folklore and how our
Speaker 2: understandings of things transition. On Monday, we talked about witches,
Speaker 2: but for some weird reason, some of the witches were
Speaker 2: like showing up at windows at night? Have you what
Speaker 2: do you know about vampires? Like history, vampires stuff?
Speaker 1: Very little, not enough. I think I get it. It
Speaker 1: has to do with some kind of like you know, xenophobic,
Speaker 1: build the wall higher type, you know, keep out the invaders.
Speaker 1: But I'm too dumb, to know around what particular migration
Speaker 1: or what particular you know, event in history.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting that when I think of the political
Speaker 2: ramifications of vampires, is actually a little different from that.
Speaker 2: And this is now completely unscripted, so I'm a little
Speaker 2: bit just.
Speaker 1: Vamp, you know, vampire vamp for the vampires.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no one's seen me in daylight. The sun's behind me,
Speaker 2: and this I record this or is it? So vampires
Speaker 2: myths go back everywhere, like all over the world. There's
Speaker 2: like the idea of like the unquiet dead. There's like
Speaker 2: people who like die and aren't dead and like and
Speaker 2: there's all of these things, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: like different ideas of where this comes from. Like the
Speaker 2: two main like science things that people think is either
Speaker 2: people accidentally premature burying people right like you're like I
Speaker 2: heard knocking in the graveyard and you go and you
Speaker 2: dig it up, and there's like scratch marks on the
Speaker 2: tomb because you buried someone who was alive because you
Speaker 2: all weren't good at figuring out someone was dead.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: That is like one of the elements, And then when
Speaker 2: the other ones is that sort of a lack of
Speaker 2: understanding about how bodies decompose and how like like nineteenth
Speaker 2: century you start getting vampires that are like pale and
Speaker 2: like gaunt. But before that vampires were actually like lush.
Speaker 2: And when I say dark skinned, I don't mean in
Speaker 2: annicity way, I mean like in this like color in
Speaker 2: your cheeks way.
Speaker 1: Like zombie dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally and plump. And what it was probably is
Speaker 2: that like sometimes as bodies decomposed, they like do weird
Speaker 2: shit and you can look kind of well preserved if
Speaker 2: you're like in a very hermetically sealed tomb. And people
Speaker 2: were like just learning new embalming shit, and there's like
Speaker 2: all these reasons why. Like basically people will be like,
Speaker 2: let's go dig up that grave because we think they're
Speaker 2: a vampire. And then you'd be like, aha, they're a vampire.
Speaker 2: Their cheeks are rosy, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You're just like ew. Decomposing bodies are gross. Must be
Speaker 1: a vampire, Like, no, they're just gross. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: bloating phase. I've seen for my for you know, some
Speaker 1: work I've done as a journalist, I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of dead bodies and how they decompose it. I went
Speaker 1: to a body farm, whoa they study it. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: Texas and it's wild. There was a flash flood while
Speaker 1: we were there, so we were stuck on the body farm
Speaker 1: because of the flash flood.
Speaker 2: Wild times, and so the dead rose from the grave
Speaker 2: and floated around.
Speaker 1: They straight up did They did not. However, this is fun.
Speaker 1: They used to plant place bodies. This is like forensic
Speaker 1: and now you know students and they used to place
Speaker 1: bodies as soon as they got them donated, which is
Speaker 1: such a you know, you can donate your body to science.
Speaker 1: It's really whatever. Whatever, it's great. But then one time
Speaker 1: they got a body donation on Halloween and they went
Speaker 1: out into the field and had to place this body,
Speaker 1: and I guess the students were so spooked they were
Speaker 1: like nope, And so they invested in a refrigerator and
Speaker 1: they invested in a little bit of like, you know,
Speaker 1: a way to preserve the body for like a day
Speaker 1: or two until it was light out and not scary
Speaker 1: as shit to like place a body next to a
Speaker 1: bunch of other dead bodies in a fucking field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kudos to that university.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a million years ago, I was someone invited me
Speaker 2: on a sort of a date. They were like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go do witchy shit in the graveyard on Halloween.
Speaker 1: You were like, ha ha, that's a euphemism, right, No, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I went to witchy shit in this graveyard
Speaker 1: was a real.
Speaker 2: Graveyard, and so I so I go and they're not there,
Speaker 2: and what it was this is like kind of before
Speaker 2: cell phones were like good and like god no they
Speaker 2: had like there have been a little bit of rain,
Speaker 2: so they had called it off. And so I just
Speaker 2: spent an hour at like midnight on Halloween walking around
Speaker 2: this graveyard. And it was a really good moment of
Speaker 2: like being like I'm not as afraid as I would
Speaker 2: have been. You know, mostly I was like bummed, right
Speaker 2: because I got stood up, right, But yeah, I just
Speaker 2: remember walking around that graveyard and being like, oh I
Speaker 2: can handle this, this is fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally scared of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I'm completely scared.
Speaker 1: I just got ghosted. I'm not ghost yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was like the next day before I heard
Speaker 2: from her that anyway.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Okay, if you're listening, if you're listening whatever, you
Speaker 2: never apologized, Are.
Speaker 1: You kidding me? Standing you up in a literal graveyard
Speaker 1: on Halloween? Yeah? Fuck that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Fuck that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm mad for you. However, many years ago this was.
Speaker 2: It was like twenty years ago. No man, Okay, So
Speaker 2: vampires okay, so vampires started off more okay, vampires are
Speaker 2: all over the world. The main style of vampire that's
Speaker 2: in Western media kind of comes from Eastern Europe and
Speaker 2: goes back thousands of years and then really starts hitting
Speaker 2: like Western Europe more like a one hundred two hundred
Speaker 2: years ago and in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Get all the vampire novels. The first actual one was
Speaker 2: a lesbian vampire novel called Carmela. Dracula is the quintessential
Speaker 2: one that came later, but it wasn't you start getting
Speaker 2: all of these stories of vampires as like the aristocracy
Speaker 2: who are drinking the blood of the working class, right
Speaker 2: m And then you start and then it kind of
Speaker 2: moved to the new aristocracy of like bankers and stuff.
Speaker 2: I expect it ties into anti Semitism somehow. I am
Speaker 2: not currently aware of how it does, but I'm certain
Speaker 2: I'm certain that I has been used at some point.
Speaker 1: And communism, right doesn't at some point or is that
Speaker 1: just James Bond?
Speaker 2: Maybe it's they have communist empires yeah, I bet yeah,
Speaker 2: And so the older vampires instead of being like these aristocrats,
Speaker 2: it's just kind of like some random dead guy, right,
Speaker 2: who's not dead, who's killing people. And so there's like
Speaker 2: a lot of the same stuff like fear of crosses,
Speaker 2: garlic can't cross, running water. Oh, one of the witches
Speaker 2: things I forgot to bring up. There's all of these
Speaker 2: things about witches traveling and like sailing and weird shit, right,
Speaker 2: like the SIV thing that we were talking about before
Speaker 2: in one of the episodes we did recently, So I
Speaker 2: won't go over at too much at length. All of
Speaker 2: these witches from Scotland supposedly sailed out in sieves to
Speaker 2: go fuck up King James as he was like off
Speaker 2: to sail to Denmark and like brought up storms and
Speaker 2: then they all got slaughtered. All these witches got murdered
Speaker 2: over this. And this is like real, not folklore. I mean,
Speaker 2: the witchcraft probably wasn't real, but the King James murdered
Speaker 2: them all absolutely was real. And they had just like
Speaker 2: rebellious women, yeah, and they had like one of them
Speaker 2: was like really good at healing and snuck out at night.
Speaker 2: So then they were like everyone he knows a witch
Speaker 2: and then actually about ten to fifteen percent of the
Speaker 2: people I said this also the recent one. Ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen percent of people were killed a witchcraft in medieval
Speaker 2: Europe were men. And because the word witch was not
Speaker 2: actually inherently a gendered word until later, even though like
Speaker 2: the witches versus wizards things comes later. It's just that
Speaker 2: women were more likely to be witches because there's more misogyny,
Speaker 2: I mean, because of the atominy, but because of misogyny. Right,
Speaker 2: But so vampires, okay, right, So witches would go around
Speaker 2: and they'd sail in weird shit like sieves. They'd also
Speaker 2: sail in eggshells, so a lot of cultures had like superstitions,
Speaker 2: we have to destroy your eggshells so that like put
Speaker 2: poke holes in them and stuff so that like witches
Speaker 2: don't sail around in them. And it was how witches
Speaker 2: could cross water. Right, It's kind of like when.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna say, you said, oh, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: when you cut up the rings of a six pack
Speaker 1: so that the sea turtles don't choke on them, as
Speaker 1: if that would ever stop you know, yeah, all other
Speaker 1: things killing sea turtles. Yeah, but yeah, you should poke
Speaker 1: holes in your eggshells because you know, the witches are
Speaker 1: going to use them as boats.
Speaker 2: I know, which is funny though, because they can sail
Speaker 2: in sieves, so I don't see how this is stopping them.
Speaker 2: But you know, maybe the witches eventually had that work around.
Speaker 2: That's why they got so good at sailing and sieves. Anyway,
Speaker 2: they couldn't cross running water sometimes and so that's but
Speaker 2: they couldn't like eggshells, which is another vampire thing, because
Speaker 2: they were all fucking blurry like witches and vampires.
Speaker 1: And blurry like you couldn't really see them clearly when
Speaker 1: you saw them.
Speaker 2: No, just like the distinction between the two.
Speaker 1: Oh, the line of y yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So for example, the witch Girl story about the woman
Speaker 2: showing up like a pestilence and knocking out the window
Speaker 2: to kill a lot of the old vampire stories, I
Speaker 2: don't think any of the ones that we're going to
Speaker 2: read today. A lot of the old vampire stories that
Speaker 2: are like it's funny. There's like folklore vampire stories and
Speaker 2: making air quotes, and then there's like early literature vampire stories,
Speaker 2: you know, and there's like kind of a line between them.
Speaker 2: But a lot of the early literature vampire stories will
Speaker 2: talk about vampires like showing up at your window and
Speaker 2: like scratching out and being like yo, let me, I
Speaker 2: want to eat you, you know. Yeah, And so this
Speaker 2: like person at the window to kill is a very
Speaker 2: vampire thing that the witch girl was doing. And now
Speaker 2: we're going to do an inverse. We're going to do
Speaker 2: a vampire who's doing a witch thing. Because this story
Speaker 2: kind of like broke my head a little bit. It's
Speaker 2: very short, but the story is called the Vampire Bear.
Speaker 2: And this is from Again.
Speaker 1: It's like a very that's very Sharknado like megaladon to wait.
Speaker 2: Have you seen Cocaine Bear?
Speaker 1: No? Yes, yes, Like I was just gonna say that
Speaker 1: I have not.
Speaker 2: Sadly, this is basically Cocaine Bear. And I kind of
Speaker 2: liked Cocaine Bear, which surprised me that I enjoyed it, But.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, I can imagine, I mean, I'd have
Speaker 1: to get high and I'd like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no downside to watching Cocaine Bear. There's like
Speaker 2: some dumb punk kids who like do the like you know,
Speaker 2: like eighties movies, Like punks are always like bad guys
Speaker 2: with switchblades, but they're kind of nerds. Right, it has
Speaker 2: like some of that in it. It's really good.
Speaker 1: So this is the cocaine bear for from the nineteenth
Speaker 1: century of Russia. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is from a different book called Russian
Speaker 2: folk Tales. Once there were three sisters. One summer, they
Speaker 2: went into the woods to pick berries. The older sister
Speaker 2: got lost. She wandered around the forest until she came
Speaker 2: upon a hut on chicken legs. And this is that's
Speaker 2: bobbie Ga. This is a Bobbyaga story again, and only
Speaker 2: it's a vampire story. And that's why I'm like reading it. Right, Okay.
Speaker 2: She entered the hut and started calling for her two sisters.
Speaker 2: Who is in this forest, who is in the woods?
Speaker 2: Come into this hut to spend the night. I am
Speaker 2: in the forest, and I am in the woods. I'll
Speaker 2: come to spend a night with you, replied a huge
Speaker 2: bear as he entered the hut, high on cocaine. I
Speaker 2: added that part. Don't be afraid of me, he said.
Speaker 2: Climb into my right ear and come out of the
Speaker 2: left ear, and we will have whatever we wish for.
Speaker 1: Oo.
Speaker 2: So the girl climbed into the bear's right ear and
Speaker 2: came out the left one, and after that she found
Speaker 2: several keys in her pocket. Now cook the dinner, commanded
Speaker 2: the bear. She cooked the meal and they sat down
Speaker 2: to eat. Suddenly a mouse appeared and asked the girl
Speaker 2: for some porridge. Hit that mouse on the forehead, said
Speaker 2: the Oh my god, this is what you predicted. Hit
Speaker 2: that mouse on the forehead, said the bear. The girl
Speaker 2: did best she was told. Now order the bear make
Speaker 2: me a bed. Put together a row of firewood, a
Speaker 2: row of stones, A mortar will be my pillow, and
Speaker 2: a millstone I'll use as a blanket.
Speaker 1: Okay, slow down, sod on, so down. These instructions are
Speaker 1: wild for her. I know, she's like, do you have
Speaker 1: a pen? Can I just write? Okay? So millstone?
Speaker 2: And what was that? Yeah? If we if we can't
Speaker 2: find a mortar, can we use something Else's your pillow?
Speaker 1: Like I would have never survived like a folklore tale,
Speaker 1: like I just because I'm terrible with instructions and they
Speaker 1: always give them, and they give them really quickly, and
Speaker 1: it's always once. You can't be like could you say that?
Speaker 1: I get just slowly?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Could you message, like text to me?
Speaker 1: Could you text me? Because I'm I'm not gonna remember that,
Speaker 1: because like, once I get the millstone, like I've already
Speaker 1: forgotten about Like what was it supposed to bop a
Speaker 1: mouse on the head? Are you like like little Buddy
Speaker 1: fufu or some shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When the bed was ready and the bear went
Speaker 2: to sleep, however, the girl was to stay awake all
Speaker 2: night and to run around the room making noise with
Speaker 2: the keys. She started running around the room and making
Speaker 2: the noise. The bear slept awhile and then took the
Speaker 2: millstone and threw it at the girl. She is still alive,
Speaker 2: squeaked the little mouse. The bear threw the mortar at
Speaker 2: the girl. Still alive, The mouse said again, Oh god, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just he'sus. This story is a little darker. Still alive,
Speaker 2: said the mouse again. A piece of firewood followed the mortar.
Speaker 2: The bear killed the girl and sucked out all of
Speaker 2: her blood.
Speaker 1: Ooh.
Speaker 2: The next time, the remaining two sisters went into the
Speaker 2: woods to pick berries. The middle sister got lost. She
Speaker 2: had the same ill fate as her older sister. The
Speaker 2: youngest sister, a little fool, decided to go into the
Speaker 2: forest by herself to look for her two lost sisters.
Speaker 2: Soon she came upon the same hut. The bear ordered
Speaker 2: her to cook dinner and to make him a bed.
Speaker 2: After they sat down to eat, the same mouse came out,
Speaker 2: who asked for porridge. The girl gave the mouse some porridge.
Speaker 2: Who is that talking to you, the bear asked her,
Speaker 2: no one, The girl replied quickly. When the bear went
Speaker 2: to bed, the mouse offered to run around so she
Speaker 2: would not have to. When the bear threw the millstone,
Speaker 2: the mouse cried, she's dead. The bear jumped out of
Speaker 2: his bed and started looking for the dead body. When
Speaker 2: he could not find the dead girl in the hut,
Speaker 2: he realized he had been tricked and ran out into
Speaker 2: the woods to look for her. At that time, the
Speaker 2: mouse told the girl to come out of her hiding place,
Speaker 2: gave her the keys, and said that they would make
Speaker 2: any wish come true. The mouse also told the girl
Speaker 2: what had happened to her older sisters and saw that
Speaker 2: the girl got home safely.
Speaker 1: Huh, Yeah, I like this mouse. Uh, I think I
Speaker 1: like this mouse. The mouse is like I've seen too much,
Speaker 1: too much bloodshed. But also yeah, I feel like this
Speaker 1: is we need to be continued because her wish should
Speaker 1: be let her sisters come back alive. But maybe you
Speaker 1: can't do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, And like it's such a like
Speaker 2: she didn't really do anything functionally different than her sister's.
Speaker 2: Like I think the moral of this story is like
Speaker 2: life sucks and vampire bears are in the woods and
Speaker 2: they're going to fucking kill you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is not It is not very clear. There's nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't really just don't go to the woods. Don't
Speaker 1: go picking berries, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, it's a bad idea because berries will mean
Speaker 2: a bear is going to fucking eat you.
Speaker 1: But I mean, also this is interesting like in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, at what point, like what was our relationship
Speaker 1: to like the woods, the forest, the animals. They're all
Speaker 1: kind of creepy and evil and mean in some ways.
Speaker 1: And also like I don't know, maybe this is just
Speaker 1: the anti capitalist of me being like this is all
Speaker 1: very like very private property. Then, like you know, like
Speaker 1: get off my lawn, Like the vampire is the one
Speaker 1: knocking at your door, you.
Speaker 2: Know, the uh oh that's true. Oh shit, you know,
Speaker 2: I see what you're saying earlier. Yeah, and like the
Speaker 2: witches and stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like the like the March of
Speaker 1: you know, industrial human even though this is a little
Speaker 1: bit before that or a lot before that, but it's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: settling the woods, creation of private property, and you have
Speaker 1: to be very afraid of anything that wants to come
Speaker 1: in or any creatures that want your food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, And like even the historic witch trials tie
Speaker 2: into the enclosure of the commons, and they tie into
Speaker 2: like just like finding the people revolting against the new
Speaker 2: modern order and then fucking killing them.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: You know also going to get fucking killed you, dear listener,
Speaker 2: if you don't run out right now and buy seven
Speaker 2: of these products and then send it to seven of
Speaker 2: your friends, and.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be visited by a vampire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, vampire bear even, which is weirder, Like, imagine kill
Speaker 2: a bear, it kills you, but just to drink your blood.
Speaker 2: Fucking weird, that's ridiculous. Yeah, you're like, I have all
Speaker 2: this flesh. Yeah, I guess that's the mouse. The mouse
Speaker 2: gets them too, just like you get some sweet, sweet
Speaker 2: deals from these ads. And we're back. Okay, so this
Speaker 2: next story even shorter this one. I definitely like I've
Speaker 2: been just like picking up all my like fairy tale
Speaker 2: books that I've been accumulating for a while and looking
Speaker 2: through the the the subject matter, you know, and getting
Speaker 2: really excited about them. This one's called Buckets of Blood
Speaker 2: and it's a nineteenth century good God, Russian Songs of
Speaker 2: the Russian People is the name of the book that
Speaker 2: this is from Buckets of Blood. Yeah, because they were
Speaker 2: a metal band. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was telling my friend about this and she was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I really like this horror movie called Buckets of Blood.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, of course you do, or like
Speaker 2: Bucket of Blood or something. But there's a history to
Speaker 2: Buckets of Blood, a long pedigree of Buckets of Blood.
Speaker 2: So this story, a peasant was driving past a graveyard
Speaker 2: after it had grown dark. After him came running a
Speaker 2: stranger dressed in a red shirt and a new jacket,
Speaker 2: who cried, stop, take me as your companion.
Speaker 1: No, I'm cool. I don't really want a friend, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm more of a loner. Peasant.
Speaker 2: I think you actually would have survived these stories better
Speaker 2: than you think. Pray, take a seat, the peasant offered.
Speaker 2: They enter a village, drive up to this and that house,
Speaker 2: though the gates are wide open, yet the stranger says,
Speaker 2: shut tight, for on those gates crosses have been branded.
Speaker 2: They drive to the very last house. The gates are barred,
Speaker 2: and from them hands a padlock weighing a score of pounds.
Speaker 2: But there is no cross there, and the gates open
Speaker 2: of their own accord. They go into the house. There
Speaker 2: on the bench lie two sleepers, an old man and
Speaker 2: a lad. The stranger takes the pale content warning for horror,
Speaker 2: I guess. The stranger takes a pail, places it near
Speaker 2: the youth, and strikes him on the back. Immediately, the
Speaker 2: back opens and forth flows rosy blood. The stranger fills
Speaker 2: the pail full and then drinks it dry. Then he
Speaker 2: fills another pail with blood from the old man, slakes
Speaker 2: his brutal thirst, and says to the peasant, it begins
Speaker 2: to grow light. Let us go back to my dwelling.
Speaker 2: In a twinkling, they found themselves at the graveyard.
Speaker 1: Oh you live here? Oh I get it now. That explains.
Speaker 1: It's like drinking that blah thing. Anyway, I'm just gonna go.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine like when you're like, hey, can you
Speaker 2: just take me with you? And you're like yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh I can't go in there as
Speaker 2: a cross. I can't go in there. Oh I'm gonna
Speaker 2: magically open this door and then just like like the
Speaker 2: peasant doesn't whatever, I'll just finish the story. The vampire
Speaker 2: would have clasped the peasant in his arms, but luckily
Speaker 2: for him, the cocks began to crow and the corpse disappeared.
Speaker 2: The next morning when folks came and looked, the old
Speaker 2: man and the lad were dead. That's the story.
Speaker 1: Oh where's the peasant? Peasant got off?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he gets off because the sun rises and
Speaker 2: the corpse. But in this one, I don't think the
Speaker 2: sun like destroys the vampire. I think it just like
Speaker 2: he just like disappears, right, you know, Yeah, but at
Speaker 2: no point does it. And I just love the like
Speaker 2: at the end being like and then the man and
Speaker 2: the lad were Yeah, like we get that they took
Speaker 2: a bucket of their blood. I was pretty sure.
Speaker 1: They were dead after beating them with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wait, they got beat with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how do they? How didn't they He
Speaker 1: struck him on the back and opened Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's just like like with a blade. This
Speaker 2: is the sparsest story that has ever been told there's
Speaker 2: like sentences. I know. Well that's what's so interesting too, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got your vampire who's just going around blood letting
Speaker 2: people with a knife.
Speaker 1: Probably yeah yeah. Also, like why since when did vampires
Speaker 1: get associated with bats? And do bads drink blood?
Speaker 2: Some bats do but not most. And I don't know exactly.
Speaker 2: I know that a lot of the vampire stuff around,
Speaker 2: like they can turn in the mist, they can turn
Speaker 2: into different insects, they can turn all this different shade
Speaker 2: bats and stuff. I think that starts coming around. I
Speaker 2: actually don't know. I want to make a guess, but
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be an information.
Speaker 1: How much you know about spiders, Margaret?
Speaker 2: I can count their legs on my fingers. Seven legs.
Speaker 2: I thought it was No, it's eight had I thought
Speaker 2: it was eighty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I can't ask you this question. If anyone
Speaker 1: knows about spiders, reach out to me at Franni Feo
Speaker 1: because I've got a question, which is when you see
Speaker 1: the big honking spiders, which there have been so many
Speaker 1: in LA because it's been really it had been really rainy.
Speaker 1: Like when those guys have babies, do they do the
Speaker 1: babies all grow to be the same honking size or
Speaker 1: is it just because that spider made a tight web
Speaker 1: with all and got all of the flies? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It's like a dog where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this breed grows to like twenty five pounds. Is every
Speaker 1: breed of spider? I asked my husband and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm having these really nerdy spider questions.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know who I would ask, and it
Speaker 2: is actually someone who listens to this podcast regularly. And
Speaker 2: if you are my friend, I'm not going to name you,
Speaker 2: but if you are my friend who tells me weird
Speaker 2: nerdy stuff about animals and we message about it, he
Speaker 2: reach out to both of us about your spiders. My
Speaker 2: money is that they all grow to that that size,
Speaker 2: and that's like a breed thing.
Speaker 1: That's fucking because like, like my money is on the ladder.
Speaker 1: My money is on the idea that no, the one
Speaker 1: who gets like has the good spot with all the
Speaker 1: flies and gets really swollen, That's that's just why they're
Speaker 1: that big.
Speaker 2: But think about like people, right, like your diet absolutely
Speaker 2: changes how big you get. But it's like a lot
Speaker 2: of it's genetic too.
Speaker 1: Now I'm scared, but okay, we can time it. And
Speaker 1: that's for the next episode is spiders.
Speaker 2: I used to live in this black a frame cabin
Speaker 2: that I built in the woods, beautiful, and for a
Speaker 2: while I had these two they're called garden spiders, and
Speaker 2: they're a US South and they're fucking huge and scary
Speaker 2: and they've got like sharp pokey legs and they're bright
Speaker 2: yellow and they're cool but they're scary as hell and
Speaker 2: they're like, they're seriously the most evil looking spider. I
Speaker 2: think they're cool. And they made webs on the two
Speaker 2: windows right next to my door. Oh, and I was
Speaker 2: terrified to oust them, you know, because they're on the outside.
Speaker 2: And my rule was anything's allowed on the outside of
Speaker 2: my house, but nothing's a lot on the inside of
Speaker 2: my house unless like right, and so like I was
Speaker 2: afraid to oust them.
Speaker 1: You're still a vegan if you oust them on the inside,
Speaker 1: but not on the outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was like it was like it
Speaker 2: seemed like bad, bad idea to go to war with
Speaker 2: the woods while I lived there. And yeah, but every
Speaker 2: night when I would walk home at night up to
Speaker 2: my cabin in the woods and pretend like I'm not
Speaker 2: scared of that sort of thing. I would make sure
Speaker 2: that I could see both spiders before I would open
Speaker 2: the door, and then I think they I think they
Speaker 2: got hit by birds eventually, but like first one then
Speaker 2: the other disappeared, and like, it took me several days
Speaker 2: to be okay with the fact that I couldn't see them.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, that's like when you see a spider
Speaker 1: in the shower and you're like, as long as I
Speaker 1: have eyes on it, I can keep on, you know,
Speaker 1: soaping up. But then you get the soap in your eyes.
Speaker 1: You got to close your eyes and then you open
Speaker 1: them up. He's gone. Anyway, Do a separate spider podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cool spiders who scared us? That'll be the name
Speaker 2: of the podcast. So got another vampire story for you,
Speaker 2: please please. This one's called the Soldier in the Vampire
Speaker 2: and it is from one of the earlier sources, the
Speaker 2: Ralston's Russian folktales. A certain soldier was allowed to go
Speaker 2: home on furlough. Well, he walked and walked, and after
Speaker 2: a time he began to draw near to his native village.
Speaker 2: Not far off from that village lived a miller in
Speaker 2: his mill. In old times, the soldier had been very
Speaker 2: intimate with him. Why shouldn't he go and see his friend?
Speaker 2: He went, I love the way. That translation sounds like yeah.
Speaker 2: The miller received him cordially and at once brought out liquor,
Speaker 2: and the two began drinking and chattering about their ways
Speaker 2: and doings. All this took place towards nightfall, and the
Speaker 2: soldiers stopped so long at the miller's that it grew
Speaker 2: quite dark. When he proposed to start for his village,
Speaker 2: his host exclaimed, spend the night here, trooper. It's very
Speaker 2: late now, and perhaps you might run into mischief. What
Speaker 2: a good way to say, like something terrible is going
Speaker 2: to like anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like get someone to spend the night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right. That worked on me once. I was like
Speaker 2: on a date and I was like, I go home,
Speaker 2: and my date looked at me and was like, do
Speaker 2: you believe in slender Man? I was like, God damn it,
Speaker 2: And this is when I lived in that fucking cabin
Speaker 2: in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: That's coersive, that's all good, and this is second bad
Speaker 1: date behavior for Margaret.
Speaker 2: She was very respectful. It was totally fine. If you're listening.
Speaker 2: That was a totally fine thing to do, slender Man,
Speaker 2: you were like, yeah, anyway, how so about the mischief
Speaker 2: God is punishing us? A terrible warlock has died among us,
Speaker 2: and by night he rises from his grave, wanders through
Speaker 2: the village, and does such things as brings bring fear
Speaker 2: upon the very boldest. How could even you help but
Speaker 2: be afraid of him? Basically, that sounds like a challenge,
Speaker 2: I know. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, like not a bit
Speaker 2: of it. A soldier, as a man who belongs to
Speaker 2: the crown and crown property cannot be drowned in water
Speaker 2: nor burnt in fire.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm tremendously anxious to see my people as soon
Speaker 2: as possible. Off. He set his road, lay in front
Speaker 2: of a graveyard. On one of the graves, he saw
Speaker 2: a great fire blazing. What's that, thinks he let's have
Speaker 2: a look. It was just very not you from everything
Speaker 2: I've heard of your.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, no, in this case, I've like learned
Speaker 1: my lesson. I'm gonna go into it. Let's go right
Speaker 1: right for the fire.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah. Most of the people are surviving these stories, well,
Speaker 2: most of the protagonists are surviving these stories. Not the
Speaker 2: random lad. Anyway, it's true. When he drew near, he
Speaker 2: saw that the warlock was sitting by the fire sewing boots. Hail, brother,
Speaker 2: calls out the soldier. The warlock looked up and said,
Speaker 2: what have you come here for?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: I wanted to see what you're doing. The warlock threw
Speaker 2: his work aside and invited the soldier to a wedding.
Speaker 2: Come along, brother, I know now it's all like a
Speaker 2: surreal I have a plus one.
Speaker 1: Did you want to call withather? That's why I'm making
Speaker 1: these boots. They're for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, your size wedding. Come along, brother, says he.
Speaker 2: Let's enjoy ourselves. There's a wedding going on in the village.
Speaker 2: Come along, says the soldier. They came to where the
Speaker 2: wedding was. There they were given drink and treated with
Speaker 2: the utmost hospitality. The warlock drank and drank, reveled and reveled.
Speaker 2: Then he grew angry. He chased all the guests and
Speaker 2: relatives out of the house, threw the wedded pair into
Speaker 2: a slumber, took out two files in an all, pierced
Speaker 2: the hands of the bride and bridegroom with the awl
Speaker 2: and began drawing off their blood.
Speaker 1: Oh, come on, warlock, that's just not a way to
Speaker 1: like treat your get I mean, you're.
Speaker 2: It's a wedding crasher move.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it is a super wedding crasher move.
Speaker 2: It's like that vampire movie, the Wedding Crashers.
Speaker 1: It is. I'm looking up warlocks as on Google images,
Speaker 1: and like they've got like staffs and they seem kind
Speaker 1: of like it's like masks, and.
Speaker 2: It's like a way of saying, which only it's a
Speaker 2: boy is the the more icye boy?
Speaker 1: Witch?
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventeenth or eighteenth century start saying the distinction in English,
Speaker 2: I think between a witch and a warlock. But before
Speaker 2: that it was all witches all the way down. Well,
Speaker 2: they went off on the way. The soldiers said, tell me,
Speaker 2: why did you draw off their blood into those vials?
Speaker 1: You're still hanging with them. You know, soldiers are not smart.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say they're not afraid, but not yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not necessarily, like strategic planners.
Speaker 2: Not firing on all four cylinders. No, Well, in order
Speaker 2: that the bride and bridegroom might die tomorrow morning, no
Speaker 2: one will be able to wake them. I alone know
Speaker 2: how to bring them back to life. How is that managed?
Speaker 2: The bride and bridegroom must have cuts made in their heels,
Speaker 2: and some of their own blood must be then poured
Speaker 2: back into the wounds. I've got the bridegroom's blood stowed
Speaker 2: away in my right hand pocket, the bride's in my left.
Speaker 2: The soldier listened to this without letting a single word
Speaker 2: escape him. Then the warlock began boasting again. Whatever I wish,
Speaker 2: he says, he that I can do. I suppose it's
Speaker 2: quite impossible to get the better of you, says the soldier.
Speaker 2: Why impossible? If anyone were to make a pire of
Speaker 2: aspen boughs, a hundred loads of them, and were to
Speaker 2: burn me in that pire, then he'd be able to
Speaker 2: get the better of me. Only he'd have to look
Speaker 2: out sharp and burning me. For snakes and worms and
Speaker 2: different kinds of reptiles would creep out of my inside,
Speaker 2: and crows and magpies and jack dolls would come flying up.
Speaker 2: All these must be caught and flung on the pire.
Speaker 2: If so much as a single maggot were to escape,
Speaker 2: then there be no help for it. In that maggot
Speaker 2: I should slip away.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I like this. I like when the villain reveals
Speaker 1: how to like kill themselves.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, totally, how difficult it is, no exactually
Speaker 2: an event, you're like, oh, actually this soldiers being kind
Speaker 2: of clever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The soldier listened to all of and did not forget it.
Speaker 2: He and the warlock talked and talked, and at last
Speaker 2: they arrived at the grave. Well, brother, said the warlock.
Speaker 2: Now I'll tear you into pieces. Otherwise you'd be telling all.
Speaker 1: This okay, good, all right, right right, so yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: who I'm oh, I like this story. That is only
Speaker 1: my favorite, this so one.
Speaker 2: I like this one. You know what else? I like
Speaker 2: saving money on stuff, buy a new car that'll save
Speaker 2: the environment. Here's ads and we're back so that you
Speaker 2: know obviously where we last left. The Warlock was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tear you pieces. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Don't deceive yourself. I serve God and the Emperor. The
Speaker 2: Warlock gnashed his teeth, howled aloud in that I know.
Speaker 2: He's like, I don't give a shit, but he does
Speaker 2: give a shit. He howled aloud and sprang at the soldier,
Speaker 2: who drew his soul and began laying about him. With
Speaker 2: sweeping blows. They struggled and struggled. The soldier was all
Speaker 2: but at the end of his strength. Ah thinks he
Speaker 2: I'm a lost man and all for nothing. Suddenly the
Speaker 2: cocks began to crow. The warlock fell lifeless to the ground.
Speaker 2: The soldier took files of blood out of the warlock's
Speaker 2: pockets and went on to the house of his own people.
Speaker 1: Uh oh.
Speaker 2: When he got there and had exchanged greetings with his relatives,
Speaker 2: they said, did you see any disturbance, soldier, No, I
Speaker 2: saw none there. Now, why, we've a terrible piece of
Speaker 2: work going on in the village. A warlock has taken
Speaker 2: to haunting it. After talking a while, they lay down
Speaker 2: to sleep. Next morning, the soldier awoke and began asking,
Speaker 2: I'm told you've got a wedding going on somewhere here.
Speaker 2: There was a wedding in the house of a rich moujique,
Speaker 2: which is a Russian peasant, replied his relatives. But the
Speaker 2: bride and bridegroom have died this very night from what
Speaker 2: nobody knows. Where does this mogique live. They showed him
Speaker 2: the house thither he went without speaking a word. When
Speaker 2: he got.
Speaker 1: Thither, we got to bring thither back, and also the
Speaker 1: soldiers doing an incredible job of lying, like, no, you
Speaker 1: know what?
Speaker 2: Where war who? How could I defeat you? I would
Speaker 2: never do such a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I like Okay, I
Speaker 1: take it back what I said about soldiers. I like
Speaker 1: him so far.
Speaker 2: We'll see, we'll see he's thinking things through thither He
Speaker 2: went without speaking a word. When he got there, he
Speaker 2: found the whole family in tears. What are you mourning about?
Speaker 2: Says he? Such and such as the state of things?
Speaker 2: Soldiers say they I can bring your young people back
Speaker 2: to life again. What will you give me if I do?
Speaker 2: Take what you like, even if it were half of
Speaker 2: what we've got. So the soldier did as the warlock
Speaker 2: had instructed him and brought the young people back to life.
Speaker 2: Instead of weeping, there began to be great happiness and rejoicing.
Speaker 2: The soldier was hospitably treated and well rewarded. Then left
Speaker 2: about face okay, I don't know. Off he marched to
Speaker 2: the star Usta, which is the head of a Russian village,
Speaker 2: which I totally knew and totally didn't interrupt the podcast
Speaker 2: for me to look up.
Speaker 1: And then I said, Star usta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which was good, very Russian. This is you got
Speaker 2: a gun to hit your head. I think you could
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: I think it, yes, quite did there hither and with
Speaker 1: going to I think you need to read this all
Speaker 1: in just a monotone Russian accent.
Speaker 2: And I guess much scarier. I know what, I really
Speaker 2: I can't. And told him to call his the peasants. No,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I'm completely accent blind to it's it's it's not great.
Speaker 1: I think that was you make it.
Speaker 2: Oh God, And told him to call the peasants together
Speaker 2: and get ready a hundred loads of aspen wood. Well,
Speaker 2: they took the wood into the graveyard, dragged the warlock
Speaker 2: out of his grave, placed him on the pire, and
Speaker 2: set it alight. The people all standing around in a
Speaker 2: circle with brooms, shovels, and fire irons. The pyre began
Speaker 2: became wrapped in flames. The warlock began to burn. His
Speaker 2: corpse burst, and out of it crept snakes, worms, and
Speaker 2: all sorts of reptiles, probably garden spiders for sure, And
Speaker 2: up came flying crows, magpies, and jack dolls. I totally
Speaker 2: didn't just include the story because his magpies in it.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what are magpies again?
Speaker 2: They're like crows, but black and white. And it's also
Speaker 2: a nickname for.
Speaker 1: I knew that it was your nickname. Yeah, but now
Speaker 1: I have to see what they look like, black and
Speaker 1: white crows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're really pretty. They are also known for collecting
Speaker 2: shiny objects and being like thieves and sort of annoying.
Speaker 2: And also they used like omens a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, look at that.
Speaker 2: Magpies are fucking cool. The peasants knocked them down, poor magpies,
Speaker 2: and flung them into the fire, not allowing so much
Speaker 2: as a single maggot to creep away. And so the
Speaker 2: warlock was thoroughly consumed, and the soldier collected his ashes
Speaker 2: and strode strewed them to the winds. From that time forth,
Speaker 2: there was peace in the village. The soldier received the
Speaker 2: thanks of the whole community. He stayed at home some time,
Speaker 2: enjoying himself thoroughly. Then he went back to the Tsar's
Speaker 2: service with money in his pocket. When he had served
Speaker 2: his time, he retired from the army and began to
Speaker 2: live at his ease.
Speaker 1: Okay, I like that.
Speaker 2: He can't have a happily ever after until he finishes
Speaker 2: his tsar's service, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. But first comes the czar. I
Speaker 1: want to know about because this sort of reminds me
Speaker 1: of the ways in which vampires like bring Like in
Speaker 1: an interview with the vampire, like I said, I watching again,
Speaker 1: Uh you you know, make a vampire by biting them
Speaker 1: and then killing them, like sucking their blood and killing them,
Speaker 1: but you can bring them back to life by having
Speaker 1: them like sucks some of your blood. So I feel
Speaker 1: like all this, like it is very sexual, Like all
Speaker 1: the sort of exchange of fluids, sort of like giving
Speaker 1: yourself giving the person who's dead a little bit of
Speaker 1: their own blood feels like also a way to make
Speaker 1: a vampire. So I'm just like wondering. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: not because it's not the vampires. Well, I don't fucking
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I think the thing that's interesting about it is it
Speaker 2: shows that it's like it all shifts in all these
Speaker 2: different ways. Like this guy's called a vampire, but he's
Speaker 2: also called a warlock, and he's just taking a vial
Speaker 2: of their blood for magic. He hasn't even drank it,
Speaker 2: but he has to be killed in a very vampire way.
Speaker 2: He falls back into his coffin when he's when the
Speaker 2: sun is up, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the cocks, the cocks have been saving the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they always always there saving the day. That's what
Speaker 2: cock is.
Speaker 1: For, always save the day.
Speaker 2: And we're adults, we get paid to talking to microphones.
Speaker 2: And yeah, no, I just like I find it. I
Speaker 2: love the way he like dies, the like all the
Speaker 2: animals bursting forth from him and all that stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's like it's all of these just different.
Speaker 2: It's basically a way that a witch haunts. So this
Speaker 2: is my episode where I accidentally figured out that witches
Speaker 2: and vampires are more or less fitting the same niche
Speaker 2: and a lot of different stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, and it kind of makes sense because it
Speaker 1: is just nebulous. I mean, this is what myths and
Speaker 1: folklore are. It's nothing is like real, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of symbolic. And so the yeah, the blurriness between them
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. But it's like what are they? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do they represent? More broadly? I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: I know, the vampires. It does seem like the vampires
Speaker 1: have more rules and they are sort of more like
Speaker 1: accepted in society, whereas witches are these like massive outcasts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like I like which is more right for sure?
Speaker 2: And then like you also get like some people I
Speaker 2: think we're getting killed as vampires, but mostly people are
Speaker 2: like desecrating bodies over vampism, right right, And like you know,
Speaker 2: people would die and they would like we've ever seen
Speaker 2: the like sometimes they'll like disenter a coffin and there'll
Speaker 2: be a sickle over the neck. So if the if
Speaker 2: the corpse moved, they would hit the sickle and like
Speaker 2: cut their eye.
Speaker 1: I just saw it. I just did a story on
Speaker 1: like my podcast is like a random story that I
Speaker 1: do about. Yeah, a child that was like I think
Speaker 1: in Poland who was like the skeleton was dug up
Speaker 1: and there I think there was a sickle or something
Speaker 1: around its neck and it was chained to the coffin
Speaker 1: because they thought clearly they thought it was possessed, which
Speaker 1: is so scary. They're like, you know, he probably just
Speaker 1: didn't want to eat his vegetables. You know, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? That's freaky. But also maybe it was a
Speaker 1: bad seed, Maybe it was an evil child.
Speaker 2: I would not have survived to adulthood if.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, but that's that's like it is weird. It
Speaker 1: it's all like like what do you actually believe is real?
Speaker 1: Is any of this real? Or ghosts reel or which
Speaker 1: like I do think there's a difference between like the
Speaker 1: the world of the dying and the dead and like
Speaker 1: witches in vampires, which seem a little too fantastical and
Speaker 1: a little bit like, no, I think this is just
Speaker 1: like that's just like a foreigner who like moved to
Speaker 1: the end of your block, who you like, don't know,
Speaker 1: you've never talked to, and you're like making excuses for
Speaker 1: why they're gonna come suck your blood or totally you know,
Speaker 1: they have too many cats, it's the cat lady just
Speaker 1: turned into the witch. Or they practice a different religion
Speaker 1: or you know what whatever.
Speaker 2: Or they're like the healer, and then they don't fall
Speaker 2: into a specific modern way that may like once like
Speaker 2: medicine was masculinized and like scienceized that's totally a word,
Speaker 2: you know. Then you're like, oh, we got to get
Speaker 2: rid of all these like wise women, right because they
Speaker 2: do shit and you like, you know, you're killing your
Speaker 2: your dulas, you're killing your abortion providers, you're killing, Like no,
Speaker 2: and like.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we're I've never thought about which is
Speaker 1: in the context of reproductive health, and now I realize
Speaker 1: they probably were all just like you live an abortion provider.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is absolutely a huge part of it. And
Speaker 2: there's like a god which episode. We did an episode
Speaker 2: a while ago about Italian women who like to poison
Speaker 2: their husbands in the Renaissance and like a late medieval
Speaker 2: era sick yeah, and it tied into this on It
Speaker 2: was called the Magical Underground, and it was the like
Speaker 2: your astrologer that you go to is also your therapist
Speaker 2: and is also your abortion provider, and is also when
Speaker 2: your husband is an unrepentant piece of shit who keeps
Speaker 2: fucking hurting you, she's gonna provide you poison and he's
Speaker 2: gonna die.
Speaker 1: And we're sorry. What were they called? Or they were
Speaker 1: just astrologists? This is why not into astrology?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like yeah, I can't, I honestly can't remember the
Speaker 2: name enough the time I head. You know, you have
Speaker 2: Italian women and then there's also parts of France had
Speaker 2: a Magical Underground also that had all this stuff going on.
Speaker 2: But it's also hard to piece apart because you had
Speaker 2: all of these like tied into that where all these
Speaker 2: like priests Catholic priests who were also doing all this
Speaker 2: witchcraft shit and we're like performing black masses and stuff
Speaker 2: kind of as a grift. They were like, oh, you
Speaker 2: can't get it up, Like let us do this weird
Speaker 2: ceremony and we'll get you what you need.
Speaker 1: And then also if you want to, congregation's gonna pray.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you have a if you need a
Speaker 2: love potion, like don't worry, I've got this like oil
Speaker 2: that I dripped over the corpse of saints, so and
Speaker 2: so you know, right, and then so like you had
Speaker 2: all these like witch fear things that were strike going
Speaker 2: around and a lot of those ones were actually tied
Speaker 2: into like yeah, there actually was a poisoner ring. It
Speaker 2: was like killing all these people, but they all deserved it.
Speaker 2: But over yeah, the witch trials totally politicize. I need to,
Speaker 2: like probably I'll just do a whole episode on like
Speaker 2: historical witches and the witch hunts and stuff. But it
Speaker 2: makes me really sad because so many of the cool
Speaker 2: people did cool stuff. Episodes are I talk about some
Speaker 2: people who are kind of cool, and then the massive
Speaker 2: system that existed to destroy all.
Speaker 1: Of them, right right, right right.
Speaker 2: And that's what.
Speaker 1: But I think early healers are really cool, you know,
Speaker 1: totally as you know, not so like sound anti vacts
Speaker 1: about it, but yeah, like were who were the people
Speaker 1: that actually help folks? And how do they get with
Speaker 1: the dawn of like you're saying, the masculinization of medicine? Yeah,
Speaker 1: or I don't know. They they maybe weren't operating as
Speaker 1: working as doctors. Yeah, they were working on preventative medicine.
Speaker 2: Okay, people, there's a whole thing where Elizabeth the Tori
Speaker 2: is like the also seen as like one of the
Speaker 2: early like sort of vampire inspiration people. She was the
Speaker 2: it's spelled Bathory but it's but Tori is another thing.
Speaker 2: I became a pedant about about it after doing an
Speaker 2: episode about and and she was basically accused of like
Speaker 2: running this like Castle of Horrors where she was like
Speaker 2: bathing in girl's blood to stay young and shit like
Speaker 2: that right in Eastern Europe. But more and more modern
Speaker 2: research implies that maybe she actually just like literally ran
Speaker 2: a hospital and like taught girls healing and so it
Speaker 2: was just all like people who wanted to cut her
Speaker 2: out of inheritance and like some favors she owed, the
Speaker 2: king like turned a witch hunt against her. And it's
Speaker 2: funny because like, I'm really interested in both versions of
Speaker 2: her story. I am interested in this like this healer
Speaker 2: who's also the ruler of the realm, but who brings
Speaker 2: in girls and teaches them, you know, how to how
Speaker 2: to heal right, but also like I would watch the
Speaker 2: shit out of like her as the like evil girl
Speaker 2: boss who like bathes in blood whatever you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it is it is like
Speaker 1: what you just said, I would watch the shit out
Speaker 1: of because it does feel more like fiction, Like that's
Speaker 1: not really what is more real throughout time, like the
Speaker 1: roles of women, the necessity for like a petty little
Speaker 1: bitch to stay young, or the necessity to like teach
Speaker 1: people how to perform abortions and survive when you are
Speaker 1: having a miscarriage or you know, you're in an abusive relationship,
Speaker 1: or you need help with a pregnancy. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: like all that stuff that makes way more sense totally
Speaker 1: then yeah, being like a Kardashian that's like I'm I'm murderous,
Speaker 1: but I look good, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it doesn't tie into the misogynst stories
Speaker 2: that everyone wants to tell. But that's what I got
Speaker 2: about witches and vampires, and I like these.
Speaker 1: Vampire There wasn't anything like, there was no blood sucking necessarily,
Speaker 1: but blood did factor into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was because I wanted to do the
Speaker 2: Like vampire as folklore, it's compared to vampire in literature,
Speaker 2: you know, and like I will want day. I love
Speaker 2: all of it. It's all weird shit.
Speaker 1: And but what's isn't there there the symbiotic I mean,
Speaker 1: don't like authors often kind of take from folklore or
Speaker 1: totally like who's right, Like how here's Here's my question
Speaker 1: is a dumb question, But you are a writer, so
Speaker 1: you know, maybe like is this something that the person
Speaker 1: who created like this book of Russian folk tales went around,
Speaker 1: listened to them, someone wrote them down at some point
Speaker 1: because they were just sort of tales that are told.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like that is the kind of thing that, as
Speaker 2: I understand a lot of folklore is like it is
Speaker 2: an oral tradition for a thousand years and then some
Speaker 2: guy writes it down in the middle of the nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: and then everyone puts his name on it and that's
Speaker 2: the end. Like the Bible, yeah far or less. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a couple people wrote it, but yeah, it
Speaker 2: was one of the first times that that happened, and
Speaker 2: like and yeah, like it is a set of myths
Speaker 2: that teach certain political and like social norms, often contradictory
Speaker 2: if for' talking about the Bible and like and so yeah,
Speaker 2: some guy went around and wrote down all these Russian
Speaker 2: stories and so you get this encapsulation of them. And
Speaker 2: that's why they have so many overlaps with like the
Speaker 2: sieve or the chicken leg hud or the you know
Speaker 2: this or that detail, right, is because like they're all
Speaker 2: just mutating as.
Speaker 1: They go right, right, right, And what do we think
Speaker 1: the sieve means?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it is a reference to
Speaker 2: an impossible task and like a proof of magic combined
Speaker 2: with a little bit of that riddle vibe, the like
Speaker 2: only someone who can bring me a torch that is
Speaker 2: never lit or I don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah for sure. Like but then again, why does that
Speaker 2: tie into like but that seems so so you've got
Speaker 2: the impossible task and then you've got the I fucking
Speaker 2: sail in it, and those are so different, right, and
Speaker 2: so in some ways it's like a flex if you're
Speaker 2: sailing in a sieve. That's the best I got. I
Speaker 2: I read a couple of miles on witches and sieves,
Speaker 2: but I haven't read the like the you know, the
Speaker 2: shit that's like it because they.
Speaker 1: Were all Italian and they were like, you know, making
Speaker 1: a busta yeah, yeah, exactly, that is they had the
Speaker 1: strain of a bust.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad you've proven that. I really it's no,
Speaker 2: it's pointless to mug you because you can do all
Speaker 2: the accents.
Speaker 1: I am Italian, but that was a terrible accent. That
Speaker 1: was actually a bad one.
Speaker 2: Well you're more Italian accent.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I am allowed, but I won't do the
Speaker 1: Chinese accent because I am also Chinese, and I'll spare
Speaker 1: your listeners then okay. But I love this. I love
Speaker 1: I feel like I was back reading my like scary
Speaker 1: score stories to tell in the Dark books when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen, Oh yeah, which is you know, or fourteen
Speaker 1: or whatever it was. But I like these ones. I
Speaker 1: would I would, yeah, I would probably, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you probably are like, yeah, we need to tweak it,
Speaker 1: we need to like, you know, jug up the drama
Speaker 1: a bit the ending. Yet then he died in all
Speaker 1: old Man was and he was happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was fine. Okay, but you're not going to
Speaker 2: get a sequel if you put in the happily ever after.
Speaker 1: That's true exactly.
Speaker 2: Like what if he has to go back and fight
Speaker 2: six warlocks next time?
Speaker 1: M or his kid has to do it, you know,
Speaker 1: and then the kids do battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like one of them killed his dog and
Speaker 2: now he has to go murder all of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah that John as a John.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I haven't even seen John Wick, but I know that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I haven't seen all the sequels yet, but you
Speaker 2: know it's better than the usual. You took this woman,
Speaker 2: now I must kill you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone killing your dog is a pretty good backstory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's probably actually why all of these characters are
Speaker 2: acting bad. But if people want to act good, they
Speaker 2: can get their news from you. This is awkward transition,
Speaker 2: But what do you got? I want to.
Speaker 1: Act good, act good, act real good. Listen to the
Speaker 1: Situation Room podcast is my weekly show. We talk about
Speaker 1: the news, we talk we have a deep dives into
Speaker 1: different topics. We're going to talk about Sam bankman freed
Speaker 1: and his trial. That's going to be well, that's very fun.
Speaker 2: Want to listen to that one? Yeah, just like I have,
Speaker 2: like it doesn't affect my life, but I'm like, that's
Speaker 2: that's interesting. You know.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, his little weirdo like you know Orgy Commune
Speaker 1: of bitcoin.
Speaker 2: Believers where they were going to get over.
Speaker 1: Like Micronesia or something, some whatever island they were going
Speaker 1: to buy anyway, and had a Naomi client on recently
Speaker 1: was great so Habituation podcast or you can watch live
Speaker 1: at Franny Few on YouTube and Twitch Tuesdays and Fridays
Speaker 1: one pm Pacific, four pm Eastern.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, And I'm gonna plug my substack where I
Speaker 2: also write an essay every week. You can read it
Speaker 2: on my substack. Half of them are free and you
Speaker 2: can find you you'll figure it out Google, Marder kill
Speaker 2: Joy subst I'm not going to give you where you are,
Speaker 2: l no one you know what's gonna saying it.
Speaker 1: I'm gilly, I'm googling all right that Look, it's the
Speaker 1: third thing that came up. It was Margaret Killjoy. And
Speaker 1: then the third thing was subject people have been doing
Speaker 1: exactly what you tell me?
Speaker 2: Excellent do you do everything I tell you too, except
Speaker 2: for the ad transition stuff. That's all lies. But I'll
Speaker 2: see you all next week.
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