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202: Sinister Samhain Stories
36 Plays2 days ago
Samhain/Sauin season is here and a Happy All Hallow's Eve to all of you! Call them creepy campfire stories, or what you want but we wanted the dark and eerie vibes this time!
So let's all snuggle in for the first tale of terror- Kelsey's recitation of the Man Who Watched Me Sleep story?! Or should we say the Red Man Story...
Either way, we on the edge of our seats and butts puckered! Always watching me....
then it's on to some older tales...
In some sort of old-school stories of Samhain, from Celtic folklore gods and goddesses of death and destruction, to anecdotes of the unexplained, Alanna runs through some morbid mythology then a Sumerian story of a trip to the Underworld. Bloodthirsty battles can leave deep scars, it seems, and we wonder, are some warriors-mostly called berserkers, infected with "battle madness"? What a superpower she must have!
Send us your favourite creepy pastas, odd tales, and other weird stories you might have! we will feature all in a future episode, so don't delay! thanks and as always, Keep it Cryptic!
Darkcast Network Promo of the Week: Tragedy with a View
Share the love, give the 5 stars, and please follow us on the socials for all the stuff!
Thanks Cryptic Cuties!!!
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Transcript
Welcome and Episode Confusion
00:00:06
Speaker
Darkcast Network. Indie pods with a dark side.
00:00:13
Speaker
And welcome back.
Halloween Plans and Setbacks
00:00:31
Speaker
and welcome back castles and cryptids where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck and I'm your host Alanna and I'm Galzy
00:00:44
Speaker
and it is episode 203 202? oh shit 202 looking at my episode list which we just updated because we picked out the topic for 203 so as always yeah do that stay tuned for that one
00:01:03
Speaker
Oh my god. Yes. Sometimes it's confusing because we're picking Patreon ones too at the same time. so Yeah.
00:01:15
Speaker
In fact, this whole weekend we had dedicated quite a bit of time to fulfilling one of our Patreon video goals, but it's not quite finished yet. so maybe and know this one comes out on Halloween.
00:01:30
Speaker
um yeah We're hoping But yeah, we'll hope to have a Halloween themed video out to you sometime around this season. So just stay tuned for that too.
Halloween Memories and Nostalgia
00:01:45
Speaker
oh but actually this won't like... Gordo, it's
00:01:54
Speaker
Halloween. Yes, shut up.
00:01:59
Speaker
He's not a black cat, but he would like to say happy Halloween. yeah Everybody who's listening to this the day it comes out, it's... We made it on a Friday. That's nice.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah. Happy Halloween.
00:02:17
Speaker
Spooky season. May it rain forever. pushed back against the Christmas creep.
00:02:24
Speaker
My favorite... One of my favorite times of year.
00:02:30
Speaker
all the decor. I like the trick-or-treating and fun kids costumes and the kids are all so excited about it and Yeah, some of them are just wearing the costumes in the stores. Yeah, when they're buying them.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's always so cute and fun. love Halloween.
00:02:52
Speaker
It's true. yeah and when I say Christmas creep, I don't mean the good kind of Christmas creep, which is the creepy side of Christmas. I mean, it's creeping up. Yeah. And getting like pushing, encroaching it on Halloween's territory. It's just not cool.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yep. They each have their own tree trunk as we saw in the nightmare before Christmas. Favorite movie ever.
00:03:23
Speaker
and put out such a great look. Yeah, I have a sign that says, welcome to Halloween town. and then i have a thing that hangs on your front door that says every day is Halloween.
00:03:41
Speaker
and it has a big like Jack Skellington on it with zero. and then I also a few years ago bought a blow up like the inflatable like yard things, but it's Oogie Boogie.
00:03:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah. yeah He's a fun one. Yeah, I'm going to see. I don't know. Depending what the weather's like, i don't want to put it out if it's... It keeps raining here.
00:04:06
Speaker
So don't want to put it out if it's raining and have it all wet. ah so but' see. I'll put it out if the weather's good. Not us Canadian Albertans complaining because it's too mild to put out the Halloween decorations.
00:04:23
Speaker
Right? I'm happy there's no snow.
00:04:29
Speaker
Well, not yet. um It'll come quick enough. ah Yeah. My phone will be like, maybe, maybe a mix of s snow, maybe a hint. I'm like, okay.
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. True. Also isn't Halloween Town, isn't that one a movie also? ah feel like there's one I always hear people talk about. Yeah, there's one, what, the first... Yeah, there's, like, Halloween Town, and...
00:05:10
Speaker
There's, like, three of them, I think. Oh, okay. Yeah, I hear people talk about, it like, a movie they liked growing up or whatever, but I'm always like, oh, I don't know that one.
00:05:22
Speaker
i know It was a Disney channel movie that they did. It was cool. I liked it Yeah. It's the way people, when I hear people talk about SpongeBob, I'm like, I don't get it, but y'all really love it. no Or like, I don't get all the references, you know.
00:05:43
Speaker
So...
00:05:47
Speaker
Damn. Hit us up. Let us know if you guys remember Halloween Town or what Halloween movies you grew up with.
The Red Man Story
00:05:54
Speaker
Was it Casper or was it something totally inappropriate for your age?
00:06:00
Speaker
i liked Casper. liked the Halloween Town movies. I liked the Twitches and Twitches 2. Twitches. Okay.
00:06:14
Speaker
Teen Witches, I take it? It's like Teen Wolf?
00:06:20
Speaker
I like the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch. That used to be part of like my Friday night YTV lineup or whatever. Yeah, I remember watching the show.
00:06:34
Speaker
They tried to do that teen thing also a lot because they did have something called Teen Angel. And then God or whatever was just a big floating head in the sky.
00:06:46
Speaker
It was like basically like they had, you know, James Earl Jones up there, like Mufasa style. I do not remember that. Probably before your time.
00:07:01
Speaker
um Anyway, there's an American version. I know you guys have the same sort of, it's like every Friday there's like two or three or four shows that they want you all to watch. So they put them together or they stagger them out and you're like, Oh,
00:07:16
Speaker
I want to watch that one and then maybe the middle one so I'll probably end up watching the one and between.
00:07:24
Speaker
a about The days before streaming. Right? You had to look at the TV guide, plan your week ahead. If you had take something you could record on like your PBR then you would like Oh yeah.
00:07:44
Speaker
or they Or the even older recording something on VCR tape so that you have it in your home movie collection. Which I didn't experience as much. But anyway. Yeah, we only had one VCR recording and that was like our original copy of Christmas Vacation but we ended up watching it so many times that it stopped working and we bought the actual like by VCR one for it and then that one also stopped working because we watched it too many times so now we have a DVD copy for like the last couple decades yeah very funny sorry
00:08:37
Speaker
sorry yeah it was like when we had our floor model VCR we bought and it came with Jurassic Park in it style that's why but it's it is still the best jurassic park that one really holds up even watching i love it with rain yeah you're like oh yeah but the og practical effects i mean you can't oh can't dispute how good practical effects are in a toilet i yeah port-a-potty gets ripped away that's pretty iconic yeah
00:09:11
Speaker
When you Newman and the all his good lines and his uh uh uh on the computer. And they're trying to break it. Oh man.
00:09:23
Speaker
Guardo, what are you meowing about? in another room meowing. and don't You don't need anything.
00:09:34
Speaker
yeah Cats.
00:09:40
Speaker
Ugh. Well, time to keep us in the spooky spirit for a little bit longer whenever you happen to be listening to this. hope you are having a spooky time. It's the middle of June. Yeah. Right. Or like in a dark basement, which I kept telling mom her basement was little creepy. It's like...
00:10:08
Speaker
so many you know when it's kind of unfinished and then there's so in like little rooms you have to go back oh yeah i was like unfinished basements are just the worst yeah we used to have one that had like hole in the floor steps going down um big like technically a trap door i guess opening that you could open or close to uh cut off access to it so I mean that's kind of creepy in general yeah oh
00:10:44
Speaker
anyway have you got a story for me today it i do I don't think you'll know this one because when I tried to find a copy of it I discovered there is no copy of it online other than i guess how I heard of it which was ah through the like watcher guys the buzzfeed unsolved their separate youtube channel that they made a number of years ago now like five or more so that's where i first heard this story it's part of their like are you scared series where they would read scary stories and then have to guess at the end if they were real or not uh oh okay yeah we like doing stuff like that too
00:11:30
Speaker
That's fun. So that's how I heard of this. So I ended up finding the episode because I remembered what episode it was. It's one of their earliest ones they did. And I found the the name of the person that submitted it and then tried to find a copy of the story online. And I couldn't.
00:11:47
Speaker
So I ended up having to. ah told you this already. I ended up going. yeah I think on the side of their YouTube video, it said, like, view the transcript. So I viewed it and I copied and pasted the whole transcript for the entire YouTube video and then just edited out all of their dialogue and then ended up having to listen to them read the story to make sure I wasn't missing any parts of the story.
00:12:12
Speaker
So, yeah. So it's strong source. Yeah, one strong source, so credit to this person. i couldn't find a single reference of it anywhere other than, yeah, the BuzzFeed Unsolved, or the their YouTube video came up for it, and then like the show's Wikipedia page had a little blurb of it, but it also didn't even have a copy of the story.
00:12:41
Speaker
so was like, damn it. so the person submitted directly to the yeah BuzzFeed show. um yeah all of their stories are like submitted directly so i was like oh but like nobody even did a transcript because the episode has its own wikipedia page but there's no transcript of the story so now there is courtesy of me and like auto transcripts and also like i don't know if i was telling this to you but the auto generated like chapter titles that it puts on for like
00:13:15
Speaker
spotify and stuff for your podcast they're also kind of like wild because you're like oh i didn't choose that and it's just like listener stories and looking ahead to halloween and like from the last one like the killer clown sometimes the kind of spoilery it was like killer clown receives a light sentence or something um oh from here i've never noticed that That sucks.
00:13:39
Speaker
That is spoilery. Yes, Spotify. I mean, only if you look at the Spotify chapters or whatever. Sometimes I look at the comments and I get a little spoilered and I get a little intrigued from different shows. I'm like, what the fuck are they talking about?
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I try and avoid um reading the comment section of something unless I've heard the story before. oh yeah it It can be spoilery. Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So this story is called The Red Man. um it was submitted to the Watcher people by, think it would be like ah jasonson or Jason Morales.
00:14:29
Speaker
Okay. Pronouncing that right. It's like J-A-I-S-E-N. Okay. I'm not too sure, but I loved it when i first heard it. It really stuck with me. i thought it was really creepy.
00:14:45
Speaker
and yeah, good i I should actually get the... um done let me... I can quickly tell you the name of the episode that it's in.
00:15:00
Speaker
If anybody's interested, they I'm sure they will read it much better than I am going to. and speaker Well, when it's not in your own words, I think it's always anybody's going sound a little bit different.
00:15:16
Speaker
Oh, it's the episode title was, Are You Scared of the Face in Your Window? That's the episode. um Because they always say, like, they pull something out of the story and then they say, like, are you scared of whatever?
00:15:32
Speaker
are you scared of home intrusions? Are you scared of clowns? Like stuff like that. Right, right, But the story is called The Red Man. Okay.
00:15:43
Speaker
Okay. So, there was a man who watched me sleep.
00:15:50
Speaker
What an opening. Great start. Right? He had big eyes that seemed to protrude out of his eye sockets. He had rotting red skin like it was soaked in blood and then caramelized.
00:16:06
Speaker
oh Oh, no. Right. Already hate it. i first i saw him when I was seven. I was having a hard time sleeping that night, but I kept my eyes shut.
00:16:19
Speaker
The wind was cold. I could feel it creeping on my skin. It was laundry day, and Mom didn't have a spare blanket.
00:16:30
Speaker
the The window made a faint thumping noise whenever the wind blew. Thump. I should have closed it properly. Thump. But it was fine. The broken streetlight outside made a constant buzzing noise I really liked.
00:16:45
Speaker
I need to sleep. I could faintly hear the television from the living room. Mom probably fell asleep on the couch again. Haven't we all? Yeah. no Again. Again.
00:17:01
Speaker
I really need to sleep. I was a light sleeper. Anything could wake me up. I guess even the absence of the thumping. Yeah. The absence of sound will do it.
00:17:15
Speaker
You turn the TV off. yeah I can't sleep if it's too quiet. So I get the the white noise.
00:17:25
Speaker
Out in the country. Yeah. The wind wasn't howling against the window any anymore. Maybe mom closed the window as I slept. I rubbed my eyes and shifted to my other side when I noticed a shadow on my wall.
00:17:40
Speaker
There he was, smiling. He was the oddest thing I ever set my eyes on. I remember my hands shaking. I waited for him to enter my room and hurt me, but he didn't.
00:17:53
Speaker
He didn't move at all.
00:17:57
Speaker
What? ah The story gets like more and more confusing. as it goes little bit so okay yeah he didn't move at all his eyes didn't blink not once i waited for him to speak but he never made a sound i remember feeling frightened i don't remember how i fell asleep again there was a man who watched me sleep he had a weird set of teeth it was as if each tooth belonged in somebody else's mouth
00:18:34
Speaker
Okay. oh
00:18:40
Speaker
His eyes were more bulged the second time I saw him. He almost looked like a different person. i was nine that time. Mom made me stop going to school. She never told me why, but I could sense that I made people feel uneasy.
00:19:00
Speaker
My classmates rarely talked to me, but when they did, They would keep their distance. They didn't want me there. i got used to it. I didn't care. jeez.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:16
Speaker
My mom hired a teacher who came to our house every weekday. His name was Dr. Fleece. I liked him. He would always look me in the eye when he listened to my stories.
00:19:32
Speaker
He liked to hear about the red man most.
00:19:37
Speaker
One afternoon after my class with Dr. Fleece, mom called and told me i told me I was going to stay over at my cousin's place. My cousin's name was yidah She was two years older than me and she was the only person I considered my friend.
00:19:57
Speaker
I quickly packed my things and mom drove me to her house. Yida's fate Ita's bed faced the window, just like mine.
00:20:08
Speaker
It was around 11 when Ita fell asleep. She spent hours talking about her school life, her friends, and the boys she liked. I pretended to understand and made up stories of my own.
00:20:22
Speaker
And mom didn't like it when I... Right? and heard Mom didn't like it when I told her relatives that I was homeschooled. Oh, okay. Yeah.
00:20:36
Speaker
Like, a sore subject, I guess. What, Gordo? Shut up.
00:20:44
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it can be a bit stigmatized. People are like, do you want to homeschool your kids? And then, like, what did they hear someone say recently? They're like, no I don't want them to be weird.
00:20:58
Speaker
Which, like, yeah if you're homeschooled, you might take offense to.
00:21:03
Speaker
But, yeah. yeah It just, like, I think, know, depends if they get socialized in other ways, I think. I think was the consensus.
00:21:15
Speaker
Like, I've heard of people doing, like, homeschooling. So if there's, like, a number of kids kind of, like, in their community that are being homeschooled, they'll kind of do it together. then...
00:21:27
Speaker
I think that's good because at least kids are still like socializing with other kids and everything. But I think it's when it's like fully like separate and kids don't have as much opportunity to be around kids their own age and stuff is when you can run into problems with like social socialization and things like that.
00:21:53
Speaker
Anything where somebody's like, isolated from the community not always good. Yeah. yeah Especially if that person like doesn't have siblings or anything. It's just like a single. Yeah. And yeah, that would make it even worse.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. could have a real hard time relating to other people. So it was quiet in Yida's neighborhood. It wasn't windy that night. There was no broken street light and her mom turned off the television around 930.
00:22:23
Speaker
I could only hear the constant ringing when everything is quiet and the faint tick of Yida's wristwatch. My body stiffened. I was falling asleep.
00:22:36
Speaker
I can hear Gorda scratching on something. Oh, there he is.
00:22:42
Speaker
Not the scratching post behind you. No, where is he? Yida's arm on my face woke me up. I immediately saw the silhouette by the window.
00:22:53
Speaker
He was here again. His smile was even wider now. i could easily see I could easily see how dark and dirty his gums were.
00:23:05
Speaker
My chest throbbed. I was unsure if it was fear or excitement. I can't remember how I fell asleep again, but when I opened my eyes, it was morning, and the red man was gone. Okay.
00:23:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:23
Speaker
I enthusiastically told Dr. Fleece the same morning. He listened intently. I told him how the red man got thinner and how impossible it is that his eyes were still intact.
00:23:35
Speaker
Because like at this point it's been years. She's seen it a few times over years. Okay, right. Yeah. He asked me if I was afraid. I remember nodding and then doubting my answer.
00:23:51
Speaker
There was a man who watched me sleep. I know because I watch him back. The red man never blinks or moves. He was just there, sitting with, or staring with his mouth wide open in a cheek-splitting grin.
00:24:08
Speaker
Nope. Cheek splitting. Right. I think, like, Smile 2. or the first one. Or your toys that, you know, their rubber mouths got opened too far. Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
Always felt bad for those T-Rexes. Yeah. oh Dr. Fleece made a bad decision that day. After our class, he told Mom about the Red Man.
00:24:35
Speaker
Since then, he hasn't come back to teach me. I waited for him. He was my favorite teacher, but he never came back. Maybe I scared him away. i do that to people.
00:24:49
Speaker
His teacher. Yeah, the teacher's also little. It's weird. What? He was a teacher of like a private tutor?
00:24:59
Speaker
Wasn't this the homeschool? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. like
00:25:06
Speaker
yeah One evening, mom decided to sleep in my room. i was reading one of the books Dr. Fleece gave me when she entered. it was the first time I'd seen her that way. She was scared of me too.
00:25:21
Speaker
After dinner, I did my chores and went to bed. mamma was already there. She brought her own blanket and pillow and was skimming through the book Dr. Fleece left for me. I sat beside her.
00:25:34
Speaker
Since then, Mom has slept in my room.
00:25:44
Speaker
I only knew that I had fallen asleep when I woke up in the middle of the night. The red man was there again, watching me. His eyes were glued to my face, but he wasn't smiling tonight.
00:25:55
Speaker
I wonder why. he seemed different again. i was 11 this time, and I didn't feel scared anymore. I was used to him. The red man's company was nice.
00:26:08
Speaker
Since the fear of him faded, I always get to sleep well at night. He made me feel safe.
00:26:17
Speaker
What? Right? Like, this story is kind of confusing. or like, ah weird until... Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. I'm getting an ominous mood. um feeling like a sense of dread. i don't know. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. But yeah, I'm a little i'm a little befuddled. but
00:26:46
Speaker
There was a man who watched me sleep. He never moves or blinks. He just stares at me. Two years passed without seeing him, but I always i feel someone was watching over me.
00:26:59
Speaker
Mom still slept beside me, but I didn't mind. The red man watched over her too. It was nice to have company in the darkness.
00:27:09
Speaker
i mean One night. Getting a little old to be sleeping with your mom though. Yeah, for like years at this point. Yeah. One night I woke up feeling thirsty.
00:27:20
Speaker
i looked at the window first and I felt a sense of disappointment when I found no friend there. i quietly left my room and walked down the dark hallway. My eyes adjusted quickly and I found my way to the kitchen.
00:27:34
Speaker
I opened the refrigerator and took out the pitcher of water. I poured cold water into the glass and saw the clock as the light from the fridge faded. It was midnight.
00:27:46
Speaker
a smirk appeared on my face as I walked back to the bedroom. Before I got there, a piercing scream startled me. The glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor.
00:27:57
Speaker
I ran back to the room panting. I opened the door and saw mom standing behind the bed. She was trembling, her eyes fixed on my window. The red man was there, bloodier than ever.
00:28:11
Speaker
He was smiling this time.
00:28:15
Speaker
The red man, he, he resembled Dr. Fleece. He had the same rotting skin, but he had Dr. Fleece's eyes. I know because of the way he looked at me.
00:28:30
Speaker
Mom kept screaming, asking our neighbors to call the police. I tried to keep her calm, assuring her that the red man won't harm us, but she was frantic. She called the police and left me in the room with him. Which I always found weird.
00:28:48
Speaker
Like, runs from the room and leaves the Malone with the red man. Yeah, but... And why can't she see him all of a sudden if she couldn't before, I guess?
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, got a few questions. Okay, that's good. I'm sorry, I murmured, feeling embarrassed by how my mom was reacting.
00:29:14
Speaker
The red man didn't respond, just smiled. After calling the police, my mom dragged me out of the room. i peakque I peeked into my room and he was still there.
00:29:28
Speaker
mom hugged me and brushed my hair with her hand. She told me everything was going to be okay. I didn't understand why she was trying to comfort me. There was no need to
00:29:41
Speaker
The police arrived minutes later. i watched them examine the red man from behind my bed. my mom was busy talking to them, so I snuck in a cop with gloves placed his palms by the red man's head.
00:29:55
Speaker
My eyes were wide. I was about to stop him when my ran when my mom ran back into the room. She pulled me away and tried to cover my eyes, but it was too late. The police pulled out the red man's head.
00:30:10
Speaker
head. A head from a makeshift pole outside my window. Turns out my friend was a severed head. Four severed heads.
00:30:21
Speaker
They were the ones who watched me while I slept. Four? Four different ones, because remember they kept talking about how this one looked a little different. This one was a little thinner.
00:30:34
Speaker
was different. Severed heads outside their window. Well, now that's a thinker. Right?
00:30:45
Speaker
Just when you think you know where the story's going, it's actually a severed head. It's been Joffrey, Baratheon, all along. Everyone's heads on the plate. Ugh.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah. well So that's why they're red. They're all bloody. Just bloody. um The policeman said they had so had had similar reports in the area since 2006. It wasn't only me. What? Yeah, like weird.
00:31:18
Speaker
One kid who was three years younger than me had been saying the same thing. he had had a red man of his own. or He had had his own red man, but his mom thought he was only imagining them.
00:31:31
Speaker
He disappeared just two weeks before, and she was also a single mother.
00:31:38
Speaker
mom broke down after that moved a week later.
00:31:45
Speaker
There wasn't a man who watched me sleep. It turned out I'd been staring back at decapitated heads since I was a child. My friend didn't exist.
00:31:56
Speaker
What? How since you were a child? Since you were a child. Yeah, the first one started when they were seven.
00:32:07
Speaker
And then it was like every couple years. So they're like seeing it, but they're not really seeing it then, are they? You can't have a decapitated head on a spike outside your kid's bedroom window nobody else notices it.
00:32:22
Speaker
It's only like one night every two years or so that they see it
00:32:30
Speaker
Well that's weird. Yeah. ah Yeah. So my friend didn't exist. I'm 14 now.
00:32:42
Speaker
I barely think of the red man. I'm doing fine. Sure you are. New school. i also made and ah I also made a few friends.
00:32:52
Speaker
They started talking to me because they recognized me from the news. They always want to hear about the red man. It was midnight in our new house when I heard my mom turn turn off the television.
00:33:05
Speaker
I'd been having a hard time falling asleep lately. My therapist said that I should try recalling my earliest memory. I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and it would always be bring me back to when I was five or six.
00:33:21
Speaker
I was in our old house staring outside the window with my hand pressed on the glass. There were red and blue lights coming from outside.
Podcast Promotion and Celtic Origins
00:33:29
Speaker
I remember feeling sad. A rattling outside stopped my train of thought.
00:33:35
Speaker
The hairs on my limbs started to rise from anticipation. i stared at the window waiting for... It's like a psycho within the story.
00:33:47
Speaker
I don't really understand. Just like interrupted by a cat other than Gordo.
00:34:00
Speaker
It just said it disconnected and then reconnected. Yeah, yeah, I saw that too. you that I flapped my pillow and closed my eyes, disappointed.
00:34:11
Speaker
i dreamed of my earliest memory. It was still the same thing. It was my younger self staring at something outside my window with my palm pressed against the glass. But something new happened.
00:34:24
Speaker
When the red and blue lights completely faded away, a large masculine hand pressed against mine from the other side of the glass. Oh. It lingered.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah. It lingered there as I smiled. And when the hand retracted, i was waving goodbye. a knock. I woke up abruptly when I felt something wet touch my toes.
00:34:47
Speaker
I flinched and sat on the bed. Why does my room smell like rust? When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, I saw a child's head on the foot of my bed.
00:35:00
Speaker
my sheets were already soaked dark red. The child was smiling. There were pins and threads poking out of his cheeks to keep it that way. It looked messy.
00:35:12
Speaker
So I started fixing him. There was a man who watched me sleep. He chopped up people's heads and placed them by my window. And now he entered my bedroom and placed a little boy's head on the foot of my bed.
00:35:27
Speaker
i should be scared right now, but I'm not. I've always liked the gifts. A hand knocks on the window. that's the end.
00:35:41
Speaker
Ew. Right? he's really seeing this yeah because somebody's really cutting heads off and just... And then like putting them... And it's not just them. It's a split that's happening to other people in the neighborhood over like years.
00:36:00
Speaker
gee there should be a lot of missing people that they're looking into then right li yeah oh there's something about the um the repetition that makes them scary and i wonder i that's what i felt too when i first heard it every time they said there was a man who watched me sleep i'd be like no stop It reminds me of The Raven.
00:36:28
Speaker
and yes, we were just watching an old treehouse of horrors where the Simpsons do The Raven. But just because it's Homer and Bart doing it, it doesn't make it any less scary. It's like, it comes back to the same and The Raven, you know, said nothing else but never more, never more. And it's that like repetition that kind of like starts to like, I think it gets under your skin a little.
00:36:50
Speaker
And like, yeah, I've heard some good um creepy stories from like Reddit and stuff where they're like, they keep repeating things and you're like, okay, yeah, but like, it does set the mood.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah. That's I'm like, this one is creepy, but you'll never really like, get it until the very end. ah Yeah, I like ones that they're unsettling, they're short stories, they're like,
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah. Kind of mundane, but kind of like, well, not this one. That's, you you could think he's just having a bad dream until you find out, I guess, that he's not. But there was one somebody was recounting from like Reddit or something.
00:37:36
Speaker
And it, they were like, oh, I was on autopilot or was like that was kind of the theme they kept repeating was that like it was like every other day like i dropped my kid off at daycare i like drove home i like did this and then like but then as it turned out they had like they thought they dropped their kid off at daycare but they had never mean trigger warning for not a real story but they had left the kid in the car and the kid had oh died in the car from like
00:38:09
Speaker
And like, they are unsettling. Like it was, but it was mostly, that one was mostly repetition at first. I was like, why do they keep repeating? Like you were on autopilot. Like you were just every other day until they were like, oh, I left the kid in the car at daycare. And you're like, oh, oh no. Like they kind like slap you out of nowhere. Yeah.
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah. It's when the mundane turns into a nightmare. Right. Right. Yeah, this one was creepy. The whole way through, you're like, oh, it's some weird like supernatural entity that's like i would outside their window watching them sleep. But then you're like, no, it's a decapitated head. Sleep paralysis or something. Yeah.
00:38:54
Speaker
ah Yeah. What's scarier? It wasn't just them. a man or a ghost. Yeah, or like the real or the paranormal. Sometimes it's not... Yeah.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes one is way scarier than the other. And then, yeah, it ending with the individual responsible entering their room and putting the little boy's head at the foot of their bed instead of like outside of the window.
00:39:24
Speaker
yeah And then them saying that it looked messy, so they started fixing it because they always liked the gifts. Yeah.
00:39:35
Speaker
It was like, geez. Someone's created a little mini Dexter. Yeah, yeah. An apprentice. Dark passenger. Oh, there's blood everywhere. We found you in a pool of blood.
00:39:47
Speaker
yeah Remember, it was killed. Great, you should be fine. Don't worry. You don't need any therapy. Yeah. There's also things that like people, ah guess, in the comments always argued that Dr. Fleece in the story was probably some sort of, like, psychiatrist.
00:40:09
Speaker
Um... Oh, yeah. As well. and don't love that I don't love But... Like, those are creepy tropes, too, where it's, like, the doctor. yeah And stuff.
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah. but Yeah, really good, though. I recommend the, like, Are You Scared series, especially the first ones. yeah. Because after the first couple...
00:40:33
Speaker
rounds of it that they did they just stopped getting true stories i guess so they went just solely to all of them being like fiction um and like made up yeah they're still all submitted and everything which was pretty cool but there's some really fucked up true stories that they end up sharing
00:40:59
Speaker
so yeah it's a cool series i recommend it yeah okay so this is part of the buzzfeed series yeah on their like watcher one that they do because that's where i heard it from the first time and then painstakingly court stenographer'd Well, it was already typed out.
00:41:22
Speaker
just had to get rid of their banter and then all the time stamps on everything. And then I did listen to them read the story to make sure I didn't miss any chunks of it. Yeah. I feel like I had to do that one time for a video too. And it was like, what am I doing with my life?
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah. It was kind of time consuming. Not as bad as it could have been, but. Right. was like, having to, yeah, and recreate a whole speech or something.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, basically. Yeah. All we will be right back for some more scary stories. Yeah. Spooky.
00:42:11
Speaker
Picture this. You're standing at the peak of a mountain, watching the sunrise paint the world in shades of gold. That feeling? Pure magic. The kind that makes every grueling step worth it.
00:42:24
Speaker
But what happens when that adventure takes a turn for the worse? When the trail isn't what you expected, and the great outdoors shows just how wild it can be? That's where tragedy with a view comes in.
00:42:36
Speaker
I'm your host, Kayla, and in this podcast, I tell the stories of adventures gone wrong in some of the most beautiful and unpredictable places on Earth. From natural disasters that catch even the most seasoned explorers off guard to true crime trails that unfold where tranquility meets terror.
00:42:54
Speaker
We dive into these close calls with disaster that remind us just how small we really are. But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. Every story comes with a perspective, a chance to reflect on the fragility and wonder of life.
00:43:08
Speaker
After all, what is life without close calls with disaster? So if you're the kind of person who loves a good adventure and doesn't shy away from a little chaos along the way, tune in to Tragedy with a View.
00:43:20
Speaker
You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Grab your hiking boots, your sense of wonder, and maybe a little caution. And join me as we explore the untamed beauty of the world one story at a time.
00:44:18
Speaker
Oh. And now I only have half of your face. There we go.
00:44:26
Speaker
There we go. I swear, it's like Microsoft Word. Oh. made me jump through some hoops earlier to sign back in. oh yeah. It's always like, put your fingerprint in Put your face in. And I'm like, no.
00:44:41
Speaker
It wanted me to set that up or something. And I was like... Skip. Okay. if I... and Like a pin in this number is fine. But then it was like, failed to create a pass key. And it was just like this whole, I was like, man, this is becoming a real record.
00:44:56
Speaker
Just to start my notes. stupid. Yeah. Yeah. That's very annoying. All right. Trying to my job here.
00:45:09
Speaker
right. We are back. You spooky little witches.
00:45:21
Speaker
was the only way they would let us sing that song when I was in Girl Guides because it was the one that went I'm a bitch I'm a lover I'm a child a it was a real one hit wonder for a while but they would only let us change it to I'm a witch
00:45:40
Speaker
nice oh yeah um so we have talked about like ah some Halloween origins and stuff before yeah and this time we were kind of doing more scary stories so I do have some like scary folklore stories from the Celtic and the the Samhain sort of um festival and stuff I don't know it's just like yes cool cool the heart of it all right um
00:46:18
Speaker
But yeah, so that's kind of what I looked up and that's why I've got some notes here. I've got some touching on the Celtic and the Lord the Dead sort of myths that they have to do with Samhain.
00:46:35
Speaker
um Which is kind of just like believing he rides over the hills with his hounds every every year and stuff like that. Yeah.
00:46:47
Speaker
and the lighting of the bonfires and, and all that. But, um, yeah, it's, it's like very, very old, which is, it's always cool when it's ancient, right? Yeah.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah. So i like how the origins, yeah. Very Celtic, very wheel of the year. It's much like we talked about on the Mabon episode. It's part of the, the,
00:47:13
Speaker
whatchamacallit, the wheel of the year, like the pagan sort of calendar. It's one of the fire fests. Go figure, with all the bonfires and such.
00:47:24
Speaker
wow They gotta do stuff to keep warm, I mean. Right? And don't quote me on this because I haven't looked it up again in a while, but I thought bonfire came from them calling them bonfires, and since they had to do with...
00:47:40
Speaker
honoring the dead and stuff. Yeah. I don't know though. could be somebody fact check me right now. It's just an Atlanta fact.
00:47:53
Speaker
Um, we'll never know.
00:47:58
Speaker
So they considered it very important because of it falling at the midpoint between the fall equinox, which that was the Mabon one, if I recall correctly. Okay, yeah.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, because that one was kind of like the balance between where it's like equally dark and light time of the year. um And now this one is right at the midpoint between that time of year and the winter s soch solstice, which is obviously the darkest time of year. Oh, we're already halfway there.
00:48:30
Speaker
Gee, this time flying. That's crazy. I know.
00:48:36
Speaker
going to blink and it's going to be December, especially if the commercials can be believed. Right? It's practically Christmas of next year already. Let's just keep marketing and nobody will pay attention to what's going on in the world.
00:48:52
Speaker
Right? At my work, we had... We had harvest, Halloween, Christmas, and we were receiving Valentine's Day stuff on the same days.
00:49:05
Speaker
It's like, are you kidding me? This was weeks ago. We started receiving Valentine's Day stuff. Like, are you Corporate people be like, whoever invented these holidays is they're just like counting their money.
00:49:16
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, can we, can we do a holiday, start selling the decor for it? Like five holidays in advance? Sure. i know. They'll buy it. That's because they don't have very many at the beginning, like in the winter months, I should say.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah. January, February. mean. Yeah. There, there's a lot of holidays towards the end of the year. Just like boom, boom, boom, boom. boom Christmas is their big, I don't know, I'll say cash cow.
00:49:45
Speaker
Oh yeah, Christmas of course is like the biggest. ah Yeah, cash, yeah. It's getting bigger and bigger every year, but Halloween's starting to become more of a thing between the decorations and people are doing like Halloween gifts for each other.
00:50:04
Speaker
and yeah do like Halloween trees now they put up their Christmas tree earlier and decorate it for Halloween well no exactly I had heard someone talking about that and then as I showed you the the ones we got from Hot Topic were kind of called advent calendars but it's really a little black like Halloween decoration Christmas tree I'm like what? is there's an advent calendar for every holiday now ooh
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah. God, I love an advent calendar as much as I love like a subscription box. Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
Oh my gosh. To show someone you love them, put together your own little like personalized basket for them. Right. Like, you know, sometimes do you ever do that? Like at different offices when people are going away or yeah they're having a baby and you're like, here's all this stuff just for you. yeah so like personalized.
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, so... But that all that to say, it's like the start of the dark part of the year. So naturally, it does have that kind of dark vibe to it.
00:51:16
Speaker
ah Spooky. So spooky. And, yeah, it'd be getting a little chillier here, too. I know people in the southern states are complaining that they don't get much of a fall, but they won't be complaining once we get our winter.
00:51:32
Speaker
Yeah. You want four seasons? We got one of them that's brutal. This one. and Yeah, it's just brutal.
00:51:43
Speaker
I guess that's why this one's kind of like the last hurrah before you... are then drinking and celebrating so that, you know, looking forward to the end of the dark season.
00:51:56
Speaker
No. We're almost there. know. I am sipping on some of the cider we got yesterday. So a tumble.
00:52:08
Speaker
ah Did you add more apple cider to it or is it still very bourbon forward? Uh, this one I just put some rum in with some cider. ah Those bourbons were strong and I have some in the mug still that did not finish since yesterday. I was like, my throat.
00:52:28
Speaker
Even the smell it, ah like, burned my nostrils. i had to when I breathe. It actually is really strong. It's like 45%, I think, Pat noticed. And i was like, oh, I didn't even know it was, like, stronger than I usually
00:52:43
Speaker
Liquor. Woof. It's like one time I drank that vodka that's like what is it like 60 proof or something. It's it's a woof. Yeah you could be puking. was paint thinner.
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah yeah yeah yeah. I'm too old for that shit now. Take the varnish right off this. Yeah. I'm gonna get drunk. At least we're gonna be doing it on a classy shit now. Okay.
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my god. I'm getting shit-faced after one drink.
00:53:19
Speaker
Seriously, though. After all our... Oh, sorry. I'm still bitter. It's so hard to find cinnamon sticks. And then by the time we get to making those drinks, I'm like, I don't even... can't even see the cinnamon stick. We're all too we're all too buzzed to drink them.
00:53:33
Speaker
like Yeah. oh Well, that's the best kind of problem to have, though, I guess. Yeah. yeah um, let's go scroll up.
00:53:47
Speaker
So, oh yeah, I said, it's kind of fitting that the, the Druids, uh, you know, from this part of the world believe that the souls live on forever. And, and that Samhain is a time of the thinning of the veil between worlds.
00:54:00
Speaker
So always a cool time for things to cross. Uh, and boy, did they take it seriously. Speaking of, uh, getting your buzz on it was like three days and three nights of um you know partying participation you better nice you better at least show up yeah or you're in trouble because if you didn't show your face to the chieftains like at one point during this festival be sure to provoke ill will from the gods oh damn better you better attend this party better air rsvp
00:54:35
Speaker
I know it felt like like a mandatory like Coachella or Woodstock or yeah annual one that's cool though especially if somebody's laying down some mad beats it's like druids all chanting they're like oh da
00:54:56
Speaker
um so I did find some good quotes from some I've had some solid sources um which I can shout out when I get to the
Celtic Myths and Rituals
00:55:07
Speaker
end here. But the one was like, after the harvest work was complete, celebrants joined with Druid priests to light a community fire using a wheel that would cause friction and spark flames.
00:55:17
Speaker
The wheel was considered a representation of the sun and used along with prayers. Cattle were sacrificed and participants took a flame from the communal bonfire back to their home to relight the hearth.
00:55:30
Speaker
That reminds me of the Olympic flame with everybody taking a bit from the same fire. So symbolic, you know? Yeah. We're all one people.
00:55:42
Speaker
Yeah. You can light my fire, baby.
00:55:48
Speaker
um And in Ireland, they would make holiday thrones for military commanders. And ah on the flip side, anyone who ah used a weapon or committed a crime at this time of year or during the festival was sentenced to death. So they were pretty t particular that you just. yeah Straight to death.
00:56:08
Speaker
Right? You're a party pooper? Straight to jail. You kill someone and ruin the bus? Straight to jail. Yeah, that's harsh. Yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker
But it's like, I mean, sometimes you weren't even allowed to remember like medieval times maybe and it's like, oh, you can't wear your sword in presence of I don't know if they were having like a ceremony with a priest and a king and stuff. It'd just be like respectful.
00:56:37
Speaker
I would hope that they would all just have to leave their swords at the door or something.
00:56:46
Speaker
um But yeah, that did make me laugh that some said it was like basically six straight days of straight up chugging mead or other alcohols.
00:56:56
Speaker
Oh no. Given that they did drink a lot more ale back then because like water wasn't all that clean, but still. Sounds like they were definitely tying one on.
00:57:07
Speaker
um Yeah, how can you ever get a hangover if you're always drunk? ah right it's It's a real bender here. um It's like that time between new year's and know Christmas and New Year's.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah. be A little drunk or hungover. Yeah.
00:57:27
Speaker
um so it's a crossroads between the old and the new year um in this in this culture anyway right which i think makes so much more sense than the new year being like january 1st when literally nothing has changed it's just the same as the day before almost like yeah weather wise and sun wise and stuff too but um I don't know. So I kind of agree with them being like, yeah, this is the old and the new year.
00:57:55
Speaker
um But it's also an in-between time where spirits such as tricktures tricksters tend to flourish. Tricksters.
00:58:04
Speaker
um They are ones that are able to pass through the veil and often do like into the underworld and back. So that's kind of cool. oh Like, especially because they're like in so many different cultures, it seems like.
00:58:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. okay In Canada, we know them from indigenous stories like the Glooscap, which I've heard of. He's from the Algonquin, so they're out east.
00:58:33
Speaker
And ah this other guy, the Wissakajak in the Cree and the Nanabush or Nanabozo from the Anishinaabe. And the last two were considered more hero types because they were like more playful than malevolent sort of spirits.
00:58:51
Speaker
Yeah, because I like... like Tricksters always have that kind of duality where they can be nice or so mean. yeah If you aren't respectful to me, then get trickster kind of thing that's bad. But if you're respectful are you like honor them in some way, they're a lot more friendly.
00:59:18
Speaker
yeah Oftentimes I do feel like they're the ones that are getting some sort of punishment out on but different like travelers and things but like sometimes you do have to literally know their trick or like where you're like well walk through the woods with your clothes on backwards and then they'll be happy with you you're like okay yeah cool um And just a little more on the tricksters. Some like to take forms while crossing the realms. like the It said like Raven and Coyote.
00:59:55
Speaker
Like capital letters. So I don't know if the spirits are like the coyote and the raven one. Or if they're just more saying the ones that take the shape of those guys.
01:00:06
Speaker
but Unclear.
01:00:09
Speaker
sir I think those are pretty popular. Like indigenous ones.
01:00:15
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe that's why. There's a whole Simpsons episode where Homer eats the horrible chili and coyote talks to him from like ah an astral plane. It's always been a favorite of mine. yeah I think it's like Sam Elliott. Like the coyote has a deep ass voice. He's like, a very cool coyote.
01:00:37
Speaker
Yeah. um I think we've talked about this, guys. Some myths of Samhain include... talking about the shape-shifting guy called the puka is the little creature yeah little shape-shifter guy um they also mentioned this headless lady gwyn and her black pig who chase around night wanders who i don't know if we've heard of but she seems fun i don't think so um if there's definitely a lot we could dip our toes into with i think
01:01:11
Speaker
the Celtic stuff and some of that maybe be why it sounds familiar but not like we haven't done it and this ah the Dullahan or the Dullahan on their deadly black horses with the red eyes i feel like we have to have heard of them they sound so familiar to me yeah I've covered them it's like one of them creepy horse creatures yeah yeah So many of the Celtic ones, I feel like have to do with headless horsemen and creepy horses and water horses.
01:01:47
Speaker
And that's why Scotland has like those big horse head um sculptures by one of their like airports or in one of their capitals. And it's literally like water horses or Kelpies or whatever. And you guys are like, you guys lean into your cryptid shit. And I love it.
01:02:04
Speaker
I fucking love it.
01:02:09
Speaker
surprised it's not a big Loch Ness monster statue or something. To be honest. Yeah. But that one's been proven to be, you know, at least the photo since they debunked it. They probably can't lean into that one as much.
01:02:25
Speaker
Right. Damn them. Um, so other Celtic myths told during Samhain or having to do with it also were simply bloody ones like the second battle battle of Mag-Torad or however you say it, which portrays the final conflict between the Celtic pantheon known as the Tuatha de Danon and the evil oppressors known as the Fomor, which almost sounds like the FOMO.
01:02:59
Speaker
fomo gonna combat that fomo um the myths state the battle the myths state that the battle unfolded over the period of sawin um so that's kind of cool it's like supernatural like fairies and beings and gods fighting
01:03:23
Speaker
um And there are other ones that are told. ah One of the other Samhain-related stories is The Adventures of Nira, in which the hero Nira encounters a corpse and fairies and enters into the other world.
01:03:40
Speaker
so like, there's such a collection, which I find interesting, of stories like that. Samhain, it said, figured into the adventures of mythological Celtic hero...
01:03:53
Speaker
Oh, the guy that Fionn McCool's is named after. However you say his name. Fionn McCamale. Fionn McCool. Like the Irish pub.
01:04:05
Speaker
ah Yeah. I'm sorry, our five Irish listeners or whatever. It's going to looking up. Gaelic is hard. um Yeah.
01:04:15
Speaker
But he faced the fire-breathing Underworld dweller Aelin, who would burn down the Hall of Terra every Samhain. So, like, that's a whole story that takes place on Samhain.
01:04:27
Speaker
um and it also fit figures into another fionn mccool legend legend or whatever where the hero is sent to the land beneath the wave as well as taking place on saw when it features descriptions of the hero's holiday gatherings um but what was also interesting to me is other cultures have a lot of people going to the underworld stories that kind of you know, could be lumped into a similar category.
01:04:59
Speaker
Like, um, the, the Greek has, uh, well, not the most famous one of theirs, but Orpheus going back to Hades to get his wife. And, um, much like Abraham isn't supposed to look back or no, it's a lot in the Bible. Isn't supposed to look back at his wife or she'll turn into salt.
01:05:17
Speaker
He's supposed to not look back at his wife coming out of Hades or he'll lose her. And he looks back at her and you're like, You had one job. like Come on, buddy.
01:05:30
Speaker
um There was a Japanese one. I don't know how to pronounce or if I even spelled it correctly, writing it down. The tale of Sisa-nami. Silsa-nami.
01:05:42
Speaker
She comes back, but is it like a corpse? Kind of your classic... you know, bring a loved one back, but they're a zombie sort of yeah this situation. Yeah. We all know the case.
01:05:57
Speaker
We've all seen supernatural or pet cemetery or pet cemetery. Right. We still didn't watch the long walk. Oh my gosh. Someday. I don't think it's anyway, we don't know. That's going to be that good.
01:06:13
Speaker
Um, there was a Babylonian story of ish Ishtar and Tammuz, which had also symbols of death and rebirth. And, um, in Sumerian culture, the tale of Inanna and Demuzi, uh, which I ah we wrote a little recap of cause I thought it was kind of a interesting one.
01:06:36
Speaker
Um, um, So this is from the poem, The Descent of Inanna, and she was the great goddess and queen of heaven. so in Sumerian folklore, this tells of her trip to the underworld, where she desired to visit her recently widowed sister, Erish Kigal, who was there.
01:06:54
Speaker
And I say there because I don't know if you're living there when you're in the underworld, and then your husband dies. but That means exactly. Yeah. maybe like Maybe she was a goddess of hell or a semi-goddess.
01:07:11
Speaker
I don't know. um you But Inanna, accompanied by her faithful servant Nishebar, she went down to meet the devil. And she gets down to the earth. And then it said, ah from the opening lines of the poem, from the great above, she opened her ear to the great below.
01:07:29
Speaker
From the great above, the goddess opened her ear to the great below. From the great above, Inanna opened her ear to the great below. so was like... Those lines are very similar if they're all the three first lines.
01:07:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:48
Speaker
But what do I know? It's an epic poem. um She gets down there and she's like dressed to the nines, so to speak. clad in crown, beads, brass plates, golden ring and scepter. She was ah full of bling.
01:08:04
Speaker
And then she goes knock, knock, knocking on hell's door and is met by Nettie, the gatekeeper. And she says, I am Inanna, queen of heaven. ah And they were like, why do you wish to enter the land from which no traveler returns?
01:08:19
Speaker
Queen of heaven. And she says, I wish to attend my brother-in-law's funeral because or from the poem itself, it said, because of my older sister, Erish Kigal, her husband, I don't know how to pronounce it, but it's spelled Google Anna, Google Anna.
01:08:37
Speaker
hu no. Literally G-U-G and then my name, A-L-A-N-N-A.
01:08:44
Speaker
Giggly, giggly, googly, googly. Okay, I'm sorry. um Her husband, Google Anna, the bull of heaven has died. I've come to witness the funeral rites.
01:08:56
Speaker
When her sister hears of her arrival, Ereshkigal, quote, slapped her thigh and bit her lip. She took the matter into her heart and dwelt on it. Which... She couldn't have stomped her foot and sounded more southern. I don't know. It's so weird.
01:09:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:18
Speaker
okay But then she orders her servants to bar the gates to the underworld. And all seven of them, by the way.
01:09:29
Speaker
I guess maybe it's like the nine realms of hell no I don't know um um I think the major point was she wanted to make Inanna strip off an item of clothing or like jewelry for every door so that she would have to get rid of all of those accessories and stuff so by the time she enters the final gate she is naked and bowed low
01:09:53
Speaker
She walks to toward the throne, but the Anuna, or judges, surround her. So from the quote, the Anuna, the judges of the underworld surround her. They pass judgment against her.
01:10:05
Speaker
Then Arishka Gal fashioned on Inanna the eye of death. She spoke against her the word of wrath. She uttered against her the cry of guilt.
01:10:16
Speaker
She struck her. she struck her Inanna was turned into a corpse, a piece of rotting meat, and was hung from a hook on the wall. Damn.
01:10:29
Speaker
That's harsh. That's a bad fight with your sister. yeah getting hung from a meat hook in the wall.
01:10:40
Speaker
I know what you did last summer. Yeah. yeah
01:10:45
Speaker
Three days and nights pass, and then Nishabar becomes concerned for her mistress. With no sign of her in the appointed time, she goes to Inanna's father god, Enki, and he generously gives her two um galas, or gala...
01:11:04
Speaker
I wasn't sure if Gala was the plural form because it's a set of people and they're a sort of non-binary being. They said they were created neither male nor female.
01:11:17
Speaker
So to Gala. um And with their help, they're able to enter the underworld like flies. So apparently very sneaky like too.
01:11:29
Speaker
Yeah. Unnoticed. Yeah. Right? Or they have ability to turn into a fly like the fly.
01:11:39
Speaker
They can then attach themselves to Arish Kigal. They see she's in distress. ah She's in extreme distress. She's actually in labor in childbirth and is like very much in pain and her hair's all over the place. Literally it was like her hair's unbound like an eel and she's not wearing I don't know a bra.
01:12:01
Speaker
She's like, yeah, she's giving birth. is She's also on a hook on the wall. No, this is their her sister that um oh okay lives there already. Yeah, sorry. I know. It's it's confusing.
01:12:18
Speaker
So they comfort her and she offers a boon in return. And they said, we wish only the corpse that hangs from the hook on the wall. um Which happens to be her sister that she ordered to hook on the wall.
01:12:30
Speaker
But she agrees. Isn't that nice? Damn. ah Yeah. The gala revive Inanna with food and water of life, but to leave, they must offer a soul to replace Inanna.
01:12:45
Speaker
So first they try to take ah her servant Nishibur and then Inanna's sons, Shara and Lulal, before even targeting her stylist, or it said her beautician, Kara.
01:12:57
Speaker
Wow. Just totally innocent people. What about her doctor? like like I'd be like, what? Who? I don't know this girl. I've never seen her before in my life.
01:13:15
Speaker
But Inanna refused to give them up. And they were able to see and peek in on how they were doing back on Earth. And they saw that all of those people that knew her, her sons and her...
01:13:27
Speaker
stylus and everybody else they were all actually visibly in mourning for her because they were wearing the plain sackcloth to show that so i guess you know kind of like people wear black they were wearing this kind of plain cloth but when they spied on her lover dimuzi though he was showy and sparkling he was so Yeah.
01:13:53
Speaker
He was, quote, dressed in shining garments on his magnificent throne. and And she's like, take him. Take him. He's not worthy.
01:14:04
Speaker
yeah Boy, what? So she said bye-bye to his bitch ass and good riddance. um And the the quote describing the poem said, she becomes enraged that he, unlike the others, is not mourning her and orders the demons to seize him.
01:14:20
Speaker
Dumuzi appeals to the sun god Utu for help and is transformed into a snake in order to escape, but eventually is caught and carried away to the underworld. Dumuzi's sister, Geshtinana, volunteers herself to go in his place, and so it is decreed that Dumuzi will spend half the year in the underworld and Geshtinana the other half.
01:14:42
Speaker
In this way, as again with the myth of Demeter and Persephone, the seasons were explained. so it was like... oh when she's a nice sister yeah right sacrifice herself because you messed with the wrong person yeah should we just put it out there that like we love our brothers but like if they need us to sacrifice ourselves they could maybe they're barking the wrong year if they need us to go to hell for half the year for them for their fuck up no no no
01:15:15
Speaker
excuse me, could you go to hell and back for me, please? Yeah, just six months out of the year. It's no biggie. ah I mean, I love my siblings, though. And my brother was Something you didn't even benefit from in the first place.
01:15:30
Speaker
No, no, no. I was gonna say, speaking of my brother, though, Daniel did love our 200th episode and, like, ah he was like, I did enjoy the cryptid quiz and, like, I was like, oh, and me getting all giggly being like, hee hee hee, this cryptid is based on Kelsey. And Irving like, what?
01:15:49
Speaker
ah You're crazy. Yeah. You weirdo. It was so fun. oh I loved guessing along with podcasts. Oh, on our way back from the airport, I had just been listening to an episode of the neat cast and they had a, it was like basically two truths, one lie, but it was um D and D monsters.
01:16:10
Speaker
So like two of them were real D and D monsters. And one of them was just one he had made up. But they all sounded really believable that, like, it was really hard. And the guys even that played D&D on the podcast were having a hard time with it.
01:16:25
Speaker
Anyway, so i I was, like, playing some of it in the car on the way home when Pat came to pick us up from the airport because it was kind of fun to play it all together. Yeah. So, the...
01:16:38
Speaker
so the The moral of that story, or what did they say? They said, modern readers tend to view the poem as an archetypal myth of the journey that each individual must take to reach wholeness.
01:16:51
Speaker
Because sure, she went down there and and she was trying to do something nice for her sister go... you know, see her for the funeral and the sister was a little ungrateful.
01:17:05
Speaker
Well, she's pregnant. because Your pregnant sister who just lost her husband in hell. And then you get put on a hook on the wall. I mean the sister, to be fair. Yeah. They're both going through a bit of a rough time. Like, you yeah, I got to give, I got to give the sister a little, uh, a grace as well.
01:17:24
Speaker
But a little crazy. um Okay. So. ah yeah. Just have a little bit more.
01:17:35
Speaker
um the author and librarian. This is more back to the Celtic.
01:17:46
Speaker
um Just a little about the actual Lord of Death. You know, because that's not angsty at all.
01:17:55
Speaker
Um, but don't worry, don't worry. We can save most of this. There's so much like Celtic lore and stuff that like, yeah, we don't, we can dip back into it for, um, St. Patrick's day or whatever we need to.
01:18:08
Speaker
and they were a joking on another podcast and she was like, well, I think it was like Morgan on creeps and crimes. She covered like Lep castle, which I know you covered real early. It was that haunted Irish castle.
01:18:19
Speaker
It's real haunted. They do cover it on a lot of stuff. um Yeah. But then she was like, oh yeah. They're like, yeah, she brought St. Patrick's day months early or whatever.
01:18:34
Speaker
But also she kept pronouncing a Leap Castle and I was like literally one little googs and then you'll know that it's pronounced Lep. Yeah. It can help like Leap.
01:18:46
Speaker
but It is true. so that's very confusing. But like yeah. If it's the name of the castle I think at least you can maybe give it a little goog and see if you can get the pronunciation of that one main thing that you're saying.
01:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. Um. but I digress. Yeah. I liked how they said the Lord of death hosts saw when, um, in a sense, one source said he's collecting souls and passing judgment.
01:19:17
Speaker
Um, based on this other old source, they believe that on the last night of the old year, October 31st, the Lord of death gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals, um,
01:19:33
Speaker
to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next 12 months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentences by gifts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers.
01:19:45
Speaker
Living as an animal. i was like, whoa, you guys just went um total animorphs on us. You're stuck in the body of an animal. I want to be something that flies. An owl, maybe.
01:19:58
Speaker
Owls are pretty cool. well But I don't want to eat mice. That. Or regurgitate them their bones. No. There's like this boy character that I had a crush on. I think his name was Toby and he gets stuck.
01:20:12
Speaker
They can't stay in their shift form as Animorphs more like an hour or they get stuck forever and he gets stuck as like a hawk. Tony Hawk. No, I don't know. I can't remember what his name was, but I was like, it was really sad because he started to lose his humanity.
01:20:26
Speaker
like This is too grown up for me. I never, I remember looking at the Animorphs like book covers and thinking they looked really weird. I never run any them. I'm sure you saw them. Yeah. They looked like such bad CGI.
01:20:42
Speaker
Yeah. It was pretty laughable. Pretty early, early in early days Yeah. um yeah so the lord death is cool and all like yeah totally metal whatever but there's a feminine counterpart in celtic ah folklore and she's called the morrigan don't know that we've ever really talked about her doesn't sound familiar no okay i feel like i've heard the name once or twice but like i don't think we had covered her um
01:21:14
Speaker
And not to cover in depth or anything, but like just that she's known as a major goddess of war, death, and slaughter, she's pretty. Damn. Fitting. Have ever heard of somebody being the god goddess like a god of slaughter before?
01:21:31
Speaker
I know. Did somebody like really emo just add that one on there? It does sound a little bit non-researched?
01:21:41
Speaker
No.
01:21:44
Speaker
I forget what word. But there was a story in Peter Beresford Eli who said she embodied all that was perverse and horrible among the supernatural powers.
01:21:57
Speaker
Damn. she's a bad bitch um her name the morrigan or um it's it's spelled differently but probably is pronounced in a way that i can't because it's gaelic uh but basically morrigan and it means great queen and she also earned the nickname the crow of battle and supreme war goddess so like move over moira rose the crow winning as a new star Yeah.
01:22:29
Speaker
It's so funny. oh ah She's something that's known as a, and I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, triune goddess. Because she like splits into three manifestations, basically.
01:22:43
Speaker
or that's my understanding.
01:22:47
Speaker
And sometimes more than that, but like most commonly the three that she does like you know have, the three personalities, are characters. or BAB. B-A-D-B. How do you pronounce that one? I don't know.
01:23:01
Speaker
Good luck. oh The next one's just spelled like matcha.
01:23:09
Speaker
Sorry. I'm like, I know. That's like a T now. And um the third one is called Nemain or Nemen. And it's sometimes up to five identities that she can form. So like, I don't know if that's when she is super DID trauma. ah and She splits into five personalities, but some say that Macha is goddess of war itself.
01:23:32
Speaker
The bob or bod is a goddess of carrion and namaine is goddess of panic and chaos um which is pretty cool um they are also said to have inspired the three witches of macbeth and also morgan lefay from arthurian legends yeah three witches right three personalities i like that
01:23:59
Speaker
Um, she's just so dark and macabre. Nearly every account has her taking part in battle or watching the fight of battle or in the aftermath. But she does usually fight alongside the Tuatha de Danann, like known as the good gods of the land in Ireland.
01:24:18
Speaker
So, um, she has helped them during both battles of Gaelic. Mag, Turad? don't know. And after the second battle on Samhain, she and Angus Og drove the last remaining Fomorians out of Ireland.
01:24:35
Speaker
and And Angus Og was the god of love. So I guess he's like the Venus or whatever.
01:24:44
Speaker
and Yeah, so she does like to take the form of a raven on the battlefield. Probably how she got her little nicknames, the crow and all that. um And she would hover above the battlefield hurling battle madness at the soldiers.
01:25:00
Speaker
ah What's that? Battle madness! I'm like, it said it's similar to the Celtic warrior men and I wonder if it's kind of like the Vikings when they talked about them being like berserkers where they like kind of a little nuts in battle i don't know i don't know but oh it's like yeah maybe she's just like yeah had the the red rage fall upon them they became red men no
01:25:32
Speaker
call back
01:25:35
Speaker
um they said she gave a kind of shady sort of speech after one battle so i was like okay what did she say she said something like the peace up to the skies the sky is down to earth the earth under the sky is strength to every everyone And as to the number of men that fell in the battle, it will not be known till we number the stars of the sky or flakes of snow or the dew on the grass or grass under the feet of cattle or the horses of the son of Lear in a stormy sea.
01:26:05
Speaker
It's just like, okay. Uncountable. And then she's... What? uncountable exactly and i was like okay yeah they implied that what she said was kind of weird but then she apparently right after said um or it said yeah killed 10 000 of you oh pardon me then it was like a little weird prophecy almost that came after ah Quote, she foretold the approaching end of the divine age and the beginning of a new one in which summers would be flowerless and cows milkless and women shameless and men strengthless in which there would be trees without fruit and seas without fish when old men would give false judgments and legislators make unjust laws when warriors would betray one another and men would be thieves and there would be no more virtue left in the world.
01:27:04
Speaker
Wow. The winter sounds pretty, uh, like, crazy. That's bleak as fuck, man.
01:27:15
Speaker
I don't think all of that is what happens just because it's winter. What if it's nuclear winter, though, or something? o I don't like that.
01:27:27
Speaker
don't like to think about that part.
01:27:32
Speaker
Just like when they say stuff like, unjust laws people betraying any other and there would be no more virtue left in the world and don't know it's you know when you're in bleak times it's easy to hear those awful predictions and be like yep that could be today hi gordo gordo or like sometimes people send a listener stories to things where they're like does anyone else dream in total different timelines
01:28:01
Speaker
And like, it's similar to me today, but I wake up in the dream and i'm in that timeline. Like we've all heard kind of that sort of story by now where someone like almost lives a different life. But yeah, this one like person was like, it's every time I go to sleep and I've lived through things that are going to happen in the future. And I could like, I predicted COVID cause I had lived through that before it happened. And they're like, and now not to be,
01:28:29
Speaker
ah scary or anything but they were like now it looks like we're living the start of world war three from what i remember it from different timelines i lived and i was like that's rough buddy i really ah really feel for it if every time you go to sleep you're you don't dream you have another fucking life you live would that not be exhausting like yeah accidental second family every time i go to sleep i'm Or like, and he'd be different ages too. He was like, most of the time I'm 23, but like sometimes when I go to sleep, I'm like seven year old living that timeline.
01:29:05
Speaker
Damn.
01:29:08
Speaker
Right.
01:29:10
Speaker
Anyway. um I went off on a tangent when I had a paragraph left. um So to cap that off,
01:29:22
Speaker
When it came to, oh yeah, still talking about Morrigan, Morrigan. When it came to talking about heroes of Irish legends, I'm sure I'm saying it wrong, but his name spelt like Coochelaine.
01:29:36
Speaker
Coochelaine. She wanted to both fight and fuck him, it seemed like. um From this quote. Having first tried to incite Coochelaine. coo chelaine to make love to her she the morrigan fought with him and he managed to wound her for this his fate was sealed when he was eventually killed she settled on his shoulder in triumph in the form of a crow and watched while a beaver drank his blood what where'd the beaver come from i don't know man she called him as a crow
01:30:11
Speaker
I got this guy. Why do the beavers drink the blood? that I don't know that they do that. I mean, I thought they just they obviously chew wood to keep their fucking teeth from getting too big. but Is that the only thing they eat?
01:30:24
Speaker
Or do they actually
01:30:27
Speaker
i don't know. I hope not. Aren't they like one of our animals here in Canada? like Oh, this will be the next low like budget horror movie we'll see. Yeah, it'll be killer beavers.
01:30:44
Speaker
ah Zombie beavers. Isn't there a ready one that's about beavers?
01:30:54
Speaker
The poster is like beaver... Yeah, hold on. I'm positive there's a movie called Zombie Beavers already. I think we've talked about or that I've seen one that was about like um the like, if not zombie sheep, they're like, it's like black sheep and it's like cannibal sheep or something.
01:31:16
Speaker
i feel like we talked about it. There's a Zombievers movie. Oh my god. Zombievers? Is that what it's called? Zombievers?
01:31:29
Speaker
Oh, from the producers of American Pie, Cabin Fever, and The Ring. You'll all be damned. No! Oh my god.
01:31:40
Speaker
Look at this movie poster. It's like this. Aw, he looks like a haunted little beaver corpse. Yeah, he looks like a naked mole rat.
01:31:52
Speaker
Naked mole rats.
01:31:56
Speaker
Oh, college friends find the weirdo of sex and debauchery ruined when zombie beavers swarm and invade their riverside cabin. Well, no doubt their bite would fucking hurt. Like, I've been bit by, like, yeah my gerbil, and I was like, damn, fucking rodents have sharp teeth.
01:32:17
Speaker
But, like... Wow. That's hilarious. Can they eat icons? Beavers. Yep. Cool.
Animal Comparisons and Halloween Reflections
01:32:28
Speaker
They're pretty um badass. Now we gotta think about who's gonna win a beaver fight versus a... No. Because they got the tail and then they got the teeth.
01:32:39
Speaker
They could probably take on another small mammal. Just saying. I wonder how fast they can run. Like, how fast they can go on They're probably great in the water with their tail. Yeah.
01:32:51
Speaker
Right. It's like that meme of the ducks, how they're moving so fast under into the water with their little feet, but up top, everything's just gliding smoothly. yeah It's like, yeah.
01:33:03
Speaker
Well, and like seals, one of my favorite animals, but my God, they're so much more mobile in the water. They get up on the land and they're basically just little floppy loaves. like think Yeah.
01:33:15
Speaker
They can't go anywhere.
01:33:19
Speaker
Oh, Well, anyway, hope you enjoyed this. It was... I was like, oh, yeah, it's Halloween-y. Ooh, right. I keep forgetting, that even though I tried to be Halloween-themed. Happy Halloween!
01:33:37
Speaker
Yes, hope you all are enjoying your spooky season. It's the best time of year. and Yep. Hopefully we can keep on keeping it cryptic and spooky. All the way through ah until 2026. Yikes.
Time Perception and Weird Al Fans
01:33:54
Speaker
that's a real That's the real scare.
01:33:57
Speaker
How fast is time moving? I don't want to know. I feel like every year it gets ah few weeks shorter. Right? pray People would joke during COVID, but...
01:34:11
Speaker
um When people say it about having kids too, they'll they'll say it like, what, the years are fast, but the days are long. And so like it's like, yeah, okay. You're trying to say like it can seem like every day can drag on, but then before you know it, in those days all add up and like they're just gone. You don't realize how precious everyone is.
01:34:34
Speaker
ah god gross anyway
01:34:40
Speaker
tell us what you all dressed up as um oh yeah we did not do anything like that if you had cute pad costumes send them send them our way nine love seeing costumes i love how weird al will post it every year different people that dress up as him I feel like he never loses the joy of being a celebrity.
01:35:04
Speaker
He does it in the best way. Well, I feel like because he's not like an A-list celebrity that's getting hounded by people 24-7, where like the novelty of it has not worn off.
01:35:18
Speaker
Maybe, yeah. But he's so recognizable, too. i just they yeah From everything I hear, he's just the most gracious, polite man. And you're just like, that's what you want to hear. You you don't want to, like quote unquote, meet your heroes and have it go bad. You want them to hold up to the image you have.
01:35:36
Speaker
I feel like if somebody's obsessed with Weird Al, they're a specific type of person. What are you trying to say? They enjoy humor and that kind of stuff.
01:35:50
Speaker
Yeah. yeah They're probably good people. You're right. Yeah.
Closing Remarks and Future Teasers
01:35:56
Speaker
Well, goodnight to all you good people and we love you much, Liam. We'll catch you next time for something a little more crimey. yeah possibly a little more high and she's so high
01:36:16
Speaker
all right i give up it just and measure your own you know i was i have no voice all right anyway Love you all. Catch you next time.
01:36:35
Speaker
Keep it cryptic. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.