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Episode 46: Scottish Folklore
26 Plays3 years ago
Welcome back! This week we take a shallow dive into all things Scotland to bring you this very special episode. First, Alanna covers some Scottish folklore and legends, ranging from giants to whirlpools. Then, Kelsey shares some cryptids that you need to keep an eye out for on your next vacation to the Highlands. Prepare yourself for Scottish accents, buff horses, Outlander chat and so much more in this episode all about Scottish Folklore.
Tags: Scottish Folklore, Scottish creatures, Scottish cryptids
linktr.ee/castlesandcryptids Website: castlesandcryptidspod.squarespace.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Bailey's Cameo
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh.
00:00:22
Speaker
And to the Bailey, sip beside me and purr into the microphone. Yes, she can make a cameo. You are listening to Castles Encrypted and Cats maybe, if you're some purring, it's Bailey.
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm Alana. And I'm Kelsey. And we are keeping it together, folks.
Excitement for Post-Pandemic Adventures
00:00:49
Speaker
So by the time this comes out, it'll be March 4th and I will be much less stressed because we'll be over our little trip ski and all the hoops will be jumped through and everything will be done yet. I'm not excited, but
00:01:08
Speaker
I am so excited for this trip. I definitely need it. I can't wait. It's going to be so much fun.
00:01:22
Speaker
I could go there and just sit and like eat in restaurants for a week and then just come home and I'd be happy at this point. Right? After a pandemic, it's like things that give you cabin fever, right? Lack of stimuli, lack of new places. It's like, yeah, it's just like going out to dinner somewhere. What?
00:01:47
Speaker
It's gonna be like the first time I've been out of Alberta in like a long time.
Haunted Museum and Paranormal Artifacts
00:01:53
Speaker
But in the haunted museum that's what I'm excited about too for our most
00:02:02
Speaker
podcast, you know, adjacent it's Oh, yes. In fact, I should probably watch some, you know, everybody what talks about ghost adventures on podcasts that I listened to, like, and that's why we drink, they often talk about them. And a lot of people do that are paranormal podcasts and stuff. And I'm like,
00:02:22
Speaker
I just it sounds like funny but I haven't watched a lot of the episodes. Yeah so my dad watches it a little bit and I just caught stuff when I'm at their house and from what I've seen they'll be like replaying like footage of like something and I like a thousand percent can't see it like nice. They're like yeah look you can see like the
00:02:48
Speaker
You can see it's a biped and it's got two arms and it's clearly got a head. And then they just show you a completely pitch black room with like a superimposed stick figure on it. And you're that supposedly walking and I'm like, I don't see it. Yeah, I have thought about that when we're watching like the ghost hunters. I have watched a lot of that one where, okay, yes, I have read since that some of it, the production
00:03:16
Speaker
staged or put a little out of context, which was disappointing to me. But what I liked is that they mostly tried to disprove and prove, right? Yeah. And like, they're, they're plumbers, right? The taps guys, so they like can tell what certain sounds are instead of, and from what I heard, Zach Baggins is more like, come in here, like, come at me, ghost, come at me, demon. And then like, people think he really wants to like, have sex with a ghost.
00:03:43
Speaker
But he's got all these cool shoes in his haunted museum. Yeah, I am. I'm excited for the haunted museum. Oh, yeah. Very cool. I've heard a lot from people that have been there or like, you know, there's the rooms where you have to like sign a waiver or whatever and be careful what you fucking look at or take a picture of. I can't remember.
00:04:05
Speaker
which artifacts he has compared to which ones are in, like Ed and Lorraine's. He has the Dubuque, or whatever, box. The Dibbic box, right. Because that's what cursed Post Malone, he said.
00:04:22
Speaker
He, like, got into a bunch of bad luck after he was there and, like, touched it or whatever. And when I went on to the Haunted Museum's website, it even said that they apparently have some of Charles Manson's knuckle bones. Oh, so yeah, I think, yeah, I remember seeing, I was looking on his website, too, I think, and that he has, like, kind of a lot of, I guess, death and murder paraphernalia, you could say.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, there's, but there's like a museum of death in like California. I've heard that one's really, yeah, pretty morbid too. So I think this one should be fun. It sounds very kind of like death adjacent, but then like cursed objects and stuff too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bailey's just staring up at me, like human.
00:05:15
Speaker
She's loyal. My dog was scraping the floor outside like he does. Just because he's like a cat too. I don't know. He wants to use our carpets as a scratchy post. I
Exploring Scottish Lore
00:05:29
Speaker
don't know. So we're doing Scottish lore today. So far away from Nevada. Yeah. Completely different.
00:05:38
Speaker
type of desert. Yeah, and we've only done UK crimes, which was barely brushing the surface of how the UK is several different countries. And there's so much Scottish lore and obviously I probably could have gone on it forever because I'm Outlander obsessed as my my sister told me someone asked her if she watched Outlander and she went
00:06:03
Speaker
No, but my sister's obsessed or something like that. I thought you were gonna say, she said, no, I don't need to. I hear about it. I was like, I have been outed. Yeah. It's a good show. It was recommended to me, my good friend, George RR Martin. I'm enjoying it. So not bad. Although like,
00:06:28
Speaker
like with most shows we were talking about how some of the first few seasons sometimes you have to kind of slog through but it's like that
Critique of 'The Office'
00:06:37
Speaker
with the office I get it. Yeah when they started just they're endless uh
00:06:46
Speaker
What is it? Oh my God. What am I? Oh, revolving door. That's the word I'm trying to think of. Revolving door with the managers at the end. That's frustrating too. Yeah. I hated that. At the beginning, it was like Michael Scott as a character. He was just so cringe that it was, you were like, is this like, do people actually just deal with this? You know what I mean? It was kind of like, what is happening here? Yeah.
00:07:13
Speaker
Now Bailey's just staring up at me going, what are you doing? And like pawing at my arm. So cute. As long as she doesn't get out, pull out your earphones. I was wearing mine the other day and then I was wearing these dangly earrings or sorry, I was wearing a mask.
00:07:30
Speaker
and it has those adjustable things. It was a mask and it has those adjustable ear things and I was pulling on it and I accidentally pulled my earring instead of the face mask. Just rip out my own earring. Yeah. Oh, thank God I've never actually knocked on something, ripped out a piercing. Yeah, that would hurt. Right.
Scottish Folklore: Fingal's Cave
00:07:56
Speaker
Um,
00:07:57
Speaker
No, this is kind of, this is a little on brand that we're starting this in March because Celtic, we're doing Scottish now, but like St. Patrick's Day is coming up, Celtic Irish. Yeah. We didn't really think about that, but we were like, we, you know, want to do some lore and legends and stuff. Kind of get back to our roots a little bit. I love doing this stuff.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah. And I also think we should do some classic cryptid soon maybe too. Bigfoot. Just saying. Yeah. The one we talk about in our trailer. Yeah.
00:08:40
Speaker
Um, so I went into the folklore and there was so much, I just had to like pick some, and it's funny that we referenced the office because Michael Scott's going to come back by the end of it. You'll see. Really? A Michael Scott. I was going to say it can't be Steve Carell, just like appearing. He's a vampire. He's immortal. He's an angel, clearly. Okay.
00:09:10
Speaker
Um, so, uh, and yeah, you know what, this one should just go up to our, our Scottish bud. He gave me one of our first shout outs on Instagram when we first started our podcast. Yeah. Um, Jay, who, uh, had a podcast called the salty pet speculation podcast for a little bit there. And he encouraged us and it was really something I needed to hear at the time. So if he listens.
00:09:41
Speaker
I really appreciated it. Um, so there was one story. The first one that came up was Fingal's cave. There's just so many I like did kind of the main ones listed on one of the
00:09:59
Speaker
maybe it was scotland.org, right? Like it's kind of like a travel website but it also gives you an overview of the main legend. So I liked it. And this also sounds really cool and awesome. I wish we could go visit it also. It's an enormous sea cave on an uninhabited island in the inner Hebrides called Stapha. And the Hebrides are craggy islands forming an arch, what is it? Archipelago.
00:10:30
Speaker
One of those words, you're like, okay, how do I say it? Um, off the North West, Northwest coast of Scotland. Um, it's the super rugged, like landscape jagged, rocky coastline. Um, and if you want to see it, you should watch the Hebrides islands on the edge, which is a great documentary series narrated by Ewan McGregor.
00:10:54
Speaker
I love him. So I think that's why I watched it on Netflix or whatever it was. It was very informative. Ewan McGregor is pretty great. And just so very cute, I must say. Yeah.
00:11:12
Speaker
My, my old roommate used to, I came home every day from work. And this is when she, I think she was either hadn't started school yet and didn't have a job because she was going to be going to school like full time. And every day I came home and she was either watching, uh, whatever diehard movie is that introduces his younger son.
00:11:36
Speaker
It's like a hard movie. It's like the fourth one or something and like could be sure, something like that. Yeah, I see them all like, but once yeah, she was either watching that, or she was watching Moulin Rouge, like on repeat.
00:11:52
Speaker
and it wasn't a fan of Trainspotting. I have no idea, but that one's pretty rough. I tracked it and one time I came home from a Monday to Friday and every single day that week I came home at the exact same scene of Moulin Rouge, meaning she started within the same five minutes every day for five days straight.
00:12:15
Speaker
Oh my God. Is he in that movie like a lot? I haven't. Yeah. He's like the main one other than, Oh my God. Why am I spacing on her name? Oh, Nicole Kidman. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say there's a bunch of, I know there's a bunch of chicks in it. Yeah. That's funny though. Every day. Yeah. Some people can just watch the same movie. When I was like five, I could watch Beauty and the Beast over and over again. Yeah. Oh, too funny.
00:12:45
Speaker
But sometimes those nature ones get kind of sad. So this cave is formed entirely, or I should say quote, this cave is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns, a similar structure to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. So that's pretty cool, I thought. Giant's Causeway is made of like big giant rocks too.
00:13:15
Speaker
And this cave is known for its natural acoustics. So the name Fingal has a few different purported origins. One is that the cave may have been named after a hero from an epic poem by an 18th century Scots poet historian, quote unquote, James McPherson, who said he translated the poem from ancient Gaelic. So that's
00:13:43
Speaker
could be where it comes from, the name of this cave, Fingal's Cave, or the name may have been taken from an Irish general named Finn, who had a band of warriors. Finn was the father of Osian, I believe it is, a traditional bard of the Gaels, Gaelic speakers.
00:14:03
Speaker
So this is a quote to Gales migrated into Scotland from Ireland until the Norsemen began their raids on the Scottish coast and the stories of Fingal would doubtless have come across too. So he was also revered in Scotland after a time after coming over with the Irish folklore.
00:14:25
Speaker
But my personal favorite legend has it that Finn McCool, a mythical Irish giant, built the giant's causeway between Antrim and Scotland so that he could cross the ocean without getting his feet wet. I mean, that's a pretty good reason. He was like, I would like to go between these two places and I'm a giant, so fuck it. Yeah.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's cool. And then that must be who the, we have restaurants here. Oh, yeah. I was gonna say it's spelled like Fion, but I was never sure if it was Fion or Finn McCool. I guess it's Finn. We, there was one by my house and it was, we went there after you guys, you and Pat told me about, was it meat pie day or something?
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, maybe. Cause I, I think we had ordered from them like through. Yeah. Like delivery and never actually made it out there. Cause we're lazy as fuck. But yeah, so yummy. Like a, I love a good meat pie. Yeah. We ate there a couple of times, but it's the one by my house has closed now. Sadly, I think there's, there's still one or two in Edmonton. I don't know where they are. There's one in my neighborhood. I know that. Yeah.
00:15:49
Speaker
oh that's crazy that's even like chain restaurants shutting down big ones big big ones like milestones and moxies and stuff are going under in my neighborhood especially more recently i'm sure
00:16:08
Speaker
We don't even want to go there about the economy in Canada because it's a whole can of beans right fucking now. Yeah. Politics. All right. That's why we're talking about other things.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, Scotland. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Whirlpool Legends and Myths
00:16:27
Speaker
Giant's Classic. Okay. The cave inspired several songs like Felix Mendelssohn's Overture of the 1820s, The Hebrides, inspired by the weird cave sounds, and Pink Floyd's Fingal's Cave. So yeah, that one's just more a cool cave that may or may not have gianty origins. Very cool. Yeah. And
00:16:53
Speaker
There's also this cool whirlpool. And no, those are, it's not just like a jacuzzi or something. Yeah. I immediately thought of like a hot tub. I know. I was like reading or hearing about it. It's like, is that actually like a thing? And it is. Um, the, uh, core of Corey Brecken whirlpool.
00:17:18
Speaker
is in the Gulf of Cori Brecon. Sorry, that is harder to say than I thought it would be. Cori Brecon. It's in the narrow street between the islands Jura and Scarba off the west coast. And the name is derived from the Gaelic. Oh no, should have looked up Gaelic, although it probably wouldn't help much. I know, I ran into problems looking up pronunciations.
00:17:47
Speaker
Um, I'm not like, uh, I know from listening to wine and crime that Kenyan started, uh, she's an Outlander fan and she started doing Gaelic on Duolingo. She would annoy the other ones with her Gaelic pronunciations, but it seriously is not the kind of language you can just like look at the letters and hope that you could pronounce it. So now it's not phonetic at all. Oh God. Should I try and Google it? Cause it looks like
00:18:19
Speaker
But that doesn't sound like it's pretty enough to be Gaelic. Oh, fuck it. Whatever. We apologize in advance. Sorry, Gaelic speakers. Okay, the name.
00:18:43
Speaker
The Kori Brecon Whirlpool, and I'm sure I'm not saying that one right either. No, that one, I think I am. It's derived from the Gaelic Kori Brecon, I don't know, something along those lines, which means cauldron of the speckled seas or cauldron of the plaid.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, speckled seas or plaid. Because those are the same or similar, right? It's going this way, it's going that way. Yeah. So it's actually the third largest whirlpool in the world.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that was kind of cool. I didn't know we had giant ones, but apparently we do. And what makes up a whirlpool because I had to do a sidebar on whirlpools. I didn't know. I'm still thinking of a
00:19:43
Speaker
what you do in your bathtub, you know, we're all around, or you can do it in a Jacuzzi too, or like a small, you know, when every, like when you're a kid and you go to like swimming with your class or something, and then everybody starts going and like the big old laptop, trying to get the water going. See, we did that man-made in the pool I had growing up in my backyard, it was like 16 feet.
00:20:06
Speaker
Oh, okay. Circle. So my friends and I like would all, we'd take out the ladder cause the ladder would tip. So we'd, you could, even when you were inside you, it had, cause it was an above ground. So you'd have to like lift up the ladder and you could like put it outside.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah. And then everybody, especially when my brother got going, we could all run in a circle on the outside and get it really, really spinning. And then to the point where you could like hang on and if you let go, it would like twist you, like it would keep spinning around. It would just float. Yeah. But it was fun. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. Um, it makes, yeah, it makes me think of the Sims when you, everybody puts their Sims in a pool and they take out the flatter. Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:52
Speaker
Um, and I just thought this was cool. A large and dangerous whirlpool is called a maelstrom. I mean, I've heard that word. I have too.
00:21:06
Speaker
didn't know had a real, you know, proper definition. Yeah. And they typically form near, narrow straits as a result of tides. And the only reason I was interested was because that was the third largest whirlpool in the world. So I wanted to know what the first two were because my brain ADHD rabbit hole. The number one whirlpool in the world is salt strowman off the coast of Norway near the Arctic circle.
00:21:35
Speaker
It forms four times a day as the tides go through a small channel only 490 feet wide and currents reach up to 25 miles per hour or 41 kilometers per hour. Oh my God, that would be scary. That's faster than going through a, what is it? A playground zone. Um,
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, so ships don't pass through there at peak times. And actually the number two whirlpool is also located near Norway, off the coast of Norway, but it occurs there because the unusual shape of the ocean floor, which like forms like this giant rock pinnacle of some sort, like maybe like a stalag.
00:22:18
Speaker
might or whatever. And the powerful tides kind of move around it to form the whirlpool and that one can get up to 20 miles per hour or 32 kilometers per hour. And it's actually been used as a plot device by authors Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe. People are talking about whirlpools, it's just not us.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. And maybe that's because it's boring. I don't know. Let me know in the comments. And then the number three one, like I said, is Corey Brekin. And for comparison, it can reach up to 11 miles per hour or 18 kilometers per hour. And it can have waves of up to 30 feet or nine meters high, which
00:23:07
Speaker
I mean, even though it's number three, it's still scary. It's so kill people. Yeah. I liked how that one gave the height. And this one's actually apparently one of the loudest or one of the loudest whirlpools because it can be heard up to 10 meters or 10 meters. I was going to say that's not very far.
00:23:31
Speaker
I'm Canadian and I was trying to abbreviate miles. You told me not to abbreviate things. Yeah, I can't listen. Because I'll look at something and be like, what? If it's not a month, it doesn't get abbreviated. It's like as a rule. No, 10 miles or 16 kilometers away. Wow. And it has also been known to pull objects down 860
00:24:01
Speaker
feet or 262 meters. I wrote it at that time. I want to know what a whirlpool sounds like. It's funny you should say that. Well, because although, okay,
00:24:20
Speaker
One more point on that one was the British Navy classifies it as very dangerous. That's the Cory Brecken, the Scottish one. But finally, I learned one more fun fact was that there's one near New Brunswick, my home province, called Old Sow, because it apparently sounds a bit like a pig. I've never even heard of it. I know we have the highest tides in the world in the Bay of Fundy area, you know,
00:24:48
Speaker
our coastline, but it's like, I didn't know we had a giant whirlpool that, or at least a medium-sized whirlpool that apparently sounds enough like a pig that they call it old sow. That's so strange. I don't know, when my mom gets to this episode or when I text her, have you heard of it, mom? She's catching up, and now that we're off for a couple of weeks, she might get up to it. I think she's on Florida Man Crimes.
00:25:15
Speaker
Wow, she's pretty good then. Yeah, she was a little bit behind, but then she said she went on a little road trip. Yeah, I know our number one episode I checked on anchor is the Japan episode by like a landslide. I have been watching the race between that and our episode number one for the last week and a half. It's been one of the only things giving me joy. I don't know, what do people like? Do you guys like
00:25:45
Speaker
the dark cases because you did a dark child murder case and then I do. Yakuza. Yeah, something. I don't know. I don't know. That's why you got to review us so we know what you guys liked.
00:26:05
Speaker
That's true. We'd love a good feedback. We'll have a good comment. Otherwise, we're just chucking stuff at the wall, being like, I wonder if this felt like this. I know. Yeah, there might be websites that give us better information, but we'll get there. Yeah. Oh, God. We love you guys. OK.
00:26:27
Speaker
Okay. So there is a legend to go with this Whirlpool though. It's got a story, you know, kind of like the cave did. Is that the Kraken? No. Release the Kraken. Oh God. You're going to make me want to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Always. I love Pirates of the Caribbean. Somebody was talking about movie.
00:26:54
Speaker
soundtracks and something I was listening to today. And then like, oh, when you know how you can go see that you can go like listen to classical like an orchestra play like Harry Potter or Star Wars, like an orchestra doing it. And I was like, that sounds amazing. And then she was like, I was humming along with Pirates of the Caribbean. And then I was like, yeah, exactly. Oh, God. All right.
00:27:22
Speaker
Guys, we need this vacation if you don't even know. I'm sorry. This one has a legend, though, that has a Norse prince and like a Norse king. So it's a Norse royalty. Yeah, I think it was the king. So he roared his boat near the whirlpool. Like he docked it.
00:27:53
Speaker
He anchored it, whatever. To impress the father of a local princess who wanted him to anchor it by the whirlpool for three nights. Because remember, it's a dangerous whirlpool. They probably don't want to have your boat in for too long or ship. And the prince, this
00:28:13
Speaker
I think this Norse king wanted his prince to marry the princess. So they had three ropes made out of hemp and wool and one from maidens hair, the purity of the hair, rendering it apparently unbreakable. Oh yeah. Well hair is pretty strong. That's true. Especially like the more you, sorry, layer it.
00:28:37
Speaker
I hit my mark. Yeah, because I remember watching something, it was similar to like how it's made or something. Oh, that's a fun show.
00:28:48
Speaker
I loved that show. It's like, yes, I want to know how they make pencils. Show me it all. Documentary, like rabbit holes. Yeah. But they had, and they actually like took machinery and they tried to squish different objects that were supposed to be like the strongest in the world. And they were like measuring the like PSI or whatever, whatever.
00:29:15
Speaker
I think it's PSI, something like that. Right. However they gauge it. Yeah. To like crush it. And it's actually like physically impossible to crush a hair. Like a human hair will always like create indents in the object that's trying to crush it. It cannot be crushed.
00:29:32
Speaker
If I remember correctly, but like you can't squish it. Yeah. Yeah. But you like can't squish it. Like they showed it. It was like this thing that was literally doing like all the force it could. And then they like took the hair out and you could see the little like indents on each side that had been trying to squish the hair. So cool. That's crazy. Yeah. It's probably a, you're probably right. It's probably like pressure per square inch or something. Yeah. That's crazy. It was pretty cool. I heard Bailey.
00:30:03
Speaker
Oh, did you? I don't know if my mic picked it up, but I just heard your cat purring. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Let me do this without me hitting the mic too much. This is the content. That was Bailey sniffing the mic.
00:30:26
Speaker
like right up against it. Little note, she's laying against my leg right now, like holding onto my leg and I'm petting her. No, this is probably good for her because you probably haven't talked about it on the pod yet, but you have been with another cat recently. Yeah, I took in a family member's cat. So I'm trying to introduce these two to each other and Bailey's gotten very, very territorial.
00:30:56
Speaker
Oh, I hear her. She's so sweet. Yeah. She, we're, it'll be slow. It'll be a slow process, but I'm, I'm hopeful. Right. If people eventually dogs and cats, like I know have friends that had like two big dogs and then a cat and they mostly just kind of ignored each other. And I was like, wow, that's still pretty cool. Yeah. That's, I feel like going to be the goal. Um, is that they at least ignore each other.
00:31:27
Speaker
I don't want the expectations, you know, low to mid range. I don't want them to be afraid or trying to fight. Cause that's always bad when they're actually afraid of each other, but I, I don't care if they just fully ignore each other. Yeah. And they're like male and female. All right. Yeah. I think that's causing some problems too. And Gordo, the new cat is like bigger. So Bailey weighs, Bailey weighs like 10 pounds. She's a bit overweight still, but she's older. So.
00:31:56
Speaker
The vet and I like aren't concerned about it. No, she looks good. She's happy. Yeah. Cause she already lost like almost three pounds from what she was weighing at the time. Like Gordo. Definitely live in a better life. Gordo is a, is a rag doll. So they can grow up to 22 pounds. The males can. And I don't know how much he weighs right now, but he's only a year and a half and it can take up to three years for them to reach like fully grown.
00:32:26
Speaker
Wow.
00:32:29
Speaker
That's crazy. It's like when you get a little puppy and people are like with family or especially people are looking at the feet like he's going to be big. Yeah. Yeah. Gordo is already big. He is so adorable. I love them both. So I'm hoping it works out. If not, then somebody gets rehomed, but we'll figure that out in another time. If it comes down to it, I'm hoping it doesn't.
00:32:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, hopefully not. I don't think so. Sorry, that was our kitty sidebar. We just say it was cast of some cryptids and cats, didn't we?
00:33:11
Speaker
It's a cat, cat, pet podcast. No, there are mascots. We have to talk about them. There's literally, yeah, podcasts that have cats featured in the name and theme and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, we've mentioned in the first part, you never want to bring something up in the first act unless you're going to use it by the second. Um, okay. I'm so sorry. So back to our story with our three ropes. Um, they were made from hemp and wool and very strong hair, apparently. Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
I mean, supposedly, we'll see. But they snapped one by one. The first night, the hemp rope went, which now that I think about it, slightly unbelievable, because hemp is very strong. But whatever, fairy tales. The second night, the wool rope went, and the third, the hair rope snapped.
00:34:09
Speaker
Then the boat was dragged under and all but one man died and he pulled the prince's body out. And then a maiden that had been aboard confessed that she had not been entirely pure in her actions. So it was her fault that the hair rope had snapped. Should have invested in a chain. You know, we're just like,
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah, you're having to do these feats of daring for this one lady, and then you're relying on all this work and stuff from all these other people. It's like, why don't you just try and quarter like a normal person, go on a date. Ask her out instead of asking her father out. Out, I guess.
00:34:57
Speaker
I don't need you to kill a dragon for me. It's like that. I love the Robert Munch one, the paper bag princess where. Yeah, she kills the dragon for fucking Ronald or whatever the fuck his name is because he's just inept and she's like, I don't need you anyway. I remember that one. It was one of my favorites, but I cannot remember anything about it. But I remember it being one of my favorites when I was younger.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, he's just, yeah, she rescues herself, basically. So yeah, that's, that was how that one ended. He, everybody died, basically. And then another tale exists of the Whirlpool. There was a nasty Irish pirate from Ulster who was sailing past a sea witch when she saw into his black heart.
00:35:51
Speaker
So she conjured this whirlpool to protect Scotland and drown him. I know, it's an orangid story for the whirlpool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. But then it just never went away. I guess it's still protecting Scotland. It's pretty crazy. So there's another story called The Nine Maidens of Dundee.
00:36:18
Speaker
And it goes like this.
Tales of Serpents and Heroes
00:36:20
Speaker
A farmer who had nine daughters lived with them on his farm known as Patempton. And one busy day, the farmer sent his eldest daughter to the well for water. When she failed to return, he sent his second eldest and so on and so on. Why? Why did they do it?
00:36:42
Speaker
Why doesn't he go? You just had two daughters disappear. Uh-huh, at this point. Yeah, so what if it's a busy day? It could be all sleeping out there. You better go beat their ass. No. Finally, when all have gone to the well, but never returned, the farmer decides to go investigate. And yeah, even ahead of my notes, like, oh yeah, never after the first one. Or the second, it takes nine.
00:37:11
Speaker
Also, where is your wife? She would talk you out of this. He found them all dead around the well, of course, and quelled around their lifeless limbs. Yeah. Was a great serpentine dragon. So he fled to the neighbors who returned with weapons in an angry mob.
00:37:31
Speaker
Then the dragon attempted to escape but a man named Martin caught up with it and armed only with a wooden club, he slew the beast as the crowd looked on shouting, strike Martin strike Martin.
00:37:48
Speaker
So it was called Strike Martin for a time thereafter. And then they called the place Strathmartine, which is still a street name in Dundee, the city. And there's actually a stone that stands alone in the field one mile north of the village called Bridgefoot on the fringes of Dundee. And in Dundee's High Street, they have a carved stone dragon to commemorate the legend.
00:38:16
Speaker
They love it. I like it. It always reminds me of something that Pat always says, or I used to say to people a lot, be like, if they're doing something kind of silly, like, you know, Martin a Martin up.
00:38:33
Speaker
It's kind of silly. All I could think of was like Crocodile Dundee. Yes, Dundee spelled the exact same. Yeah. Perfect. Is that where that comes from then? I mean, no, it's Crocodile Dundee. He's like Australian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if Australia was a British penal colony, then things from Scotland and England could have come from there. Could have come to the whatever. Maybe I have no idea. Oh.
00:39:03
Speaker
Um, so that was that one's short and sweet. And then there's a short one called the ghost piper of clan yard bay.
Ghost Piper and Historical Legends
00:39:11
Speaker
Oh, you know, Pat can play the bagpipes. Really? Yeah. He told me his dad was into it. So he learned. That's pretty cool. My mom loves the bagpipes, like loves them. It would take, it takes some lungs. I would not be able to.
00:39:31
Speaker
Not at all. So apparently, long ago, a network of tunnels was said to have stretched from the Cove of Granon to the Clips of Clan Yard Bay. Fairies lived in the tunnels and caves. Apparently, I like to think so. There's always fairies. Oh, yeah, especially here.
00:39:53
Speaker
Um, so no one dared ever enter them until one day a Piper went where no man had gone before the caves, the final frontier. These are the voyages. And my dad doesn't even listen and he's my biggest Star Trek fan. I know in our family. Um, so he played his bagpipes as he went in with his oil dog companion.
00:40:21
Speaker
No, not the dog. No word whether the dog was a Scotty or not. Better be. They're cute dogs. So some time passed after they had entered the cave until without warning the dog shut out of the cave at full speed and he was frightened howling and completely hairless also. What?
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah. Scared shitless, scared hairless. No. The Piper had vanished and though the caves are now gone, people still hear the distant sound of bagpipes from deep underground. No big creepy. Yeah. I don't, I don't like that. Even underground caves, creepy. Whatever. Yeah. Um, this one's cool. Uh, Robert the Bruce.
Inspiration from Robert the Bruce
00:41:20
Speaker
Many may be familiar. He's pretty famous Scottish historical figure, warrior. And this is Robert the Bruce and the spider. So he was born in 1274 at Loch Mobben Castle, where he became knight and overlord of Annandale. And by 1306, he was crowned King of Scotland. So pretty fucking young. And he attempted to free Scotland from the English.
00:41:49
Speaker
He was defeated that same year in battle by the Earl of Pembroke. After that, he went into hiding and some speculate that it was in the Western Isles. But he lived in a cave for three months, planning his revenge and like basically licking his wounds, you could say. Which, yeah, it definitely mirrors things that happen in Outlander.
00:42:15
Speaker
spoiler for you. No spoilers. But yeah, he lived in a cave, he was struggling to survive. He went through many bouts of despair and thoughts of leaving forever. He was going to leave Scotland. But while he was biding his time in the cave, he observed a spider spinning a web in the mouth of the cave.
00:42:37
Speaker
Quote, the typically stormy Scottish weather, not one to disappoint, made the spider's task difficult as droplet after droplet destroyed the creature's intricate work. Finally, against all odds, the spider succeeded with his web. Robert the Bruce was inspired by the spider's efforts, so decided to get up and face another fight. He is said to have told his men, if at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again, which is a phrase still used to this day. Oh jeez.
00:43:07
Speaker
That's pretty cool. I had no idea. Um, yeah, very, very famous phrase. Right. Um, so apparently someone who was a great preserver of the Scottish folktales was someone called Alexander Carmichael.
Preserving Scottish Folktales
00:43:25
Speaker
And his most notable work is probably the Carmina Gadelica.
00:43:31
Speaker
again, probably mispronouncing. And all of his papers are now kept safely in the University of Edinburgh library. Car Michael started collecting oral, quote, histories, legends, music and folk beliefs in 1860 and continued for half a century. And he's been compared to the Grimm Brothers.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was that chapters on time they had like the original grim like complete collection of fairy tales and I was like, I want to buy this, but it was like really expensive or something. Yeah, it was really big. Yeah, big and expensive. I was like,
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's nice when you're like growing up and your mom has a big book like that and you could just flip through it, but then you're like, I don't want to buy one. Yeah. But yeah, that was pretty cool.
Gorbals Vampire and Child Mysteries
00:44:31
Speaker
And, um, did you come across anything in your research about the Gorbals vampire?
00:44:39
Speaker
No, but it sounds familiar for some reason. Yeah, it's kind of a folk tale, maybe more of like an urban legend. It was apparently involving a cemetery called the Necropolis, and a bunch of missing children in the 1950s in Scotland. And
00:45:04
Speaker
I don't know if it was the media or whatever, but the children apparently in Goebbels blamed it on a seven foot vampire with iron teeth. I don't know. Are they making up stories? Does it have iron teeth? That's pretty crazy. But other than that incident, it's like, oh yeah, then there was like panic and stuff. And then the kids swarmed the necropolis, which is just a creepy name for a cemetery to begin with.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's terrible. And this was in 1954. They wanted to fight back against the supposed vampire. But then I guess a local teacher talked them down, calmed them down. I don't know. Honestly, I didn't find a lot of information about this, if you couldn't tell. But the blame could possibly be placed on another
00:46:00
Speaker
or maybe originated from, originated from another legend of a ghost that haunts Glasgow Green, Jenny with the iron teeth, Glasgow. Hmm. Yeah. Jenny with the iron teeth. I know. Thank you with the hair. Jenny with the iron teeth. That's what I thought of Jenny with the good hair. Also, I read a good fantasy series where they had witches that had iron teeth and also like hyphae and stuff. Really good. I like it.
00:46:29
Speaker
the Throne of Glass series, yeah. I only have two left, two folk tales. One is called Whoopity Story, and it might sound a little familiar to one we know already.
Rumpelstiltskin-like Fairy Tales
00:46:50
Speaker
So in the Borderlands Village, these ones I just copy-pasted, by the way, to the,
00:46:59
Speaker
Credit to the, where did I get them? The fucking poke, floor, scotland.com. I don't know. I couldn't remember that name. So complicated. Um, perfect. Yeah. So in the borderlands village of kiddo rumpet, there was a good one. I'm sorry.
00:47:25
Speaker
What a great name. I one day want to live in a place called Kittlerumpet and have legal documents that say I am from Kittlerumpet. Have the best names. It's a great name. Some of the Scots, which is like
00:47:48
Speaker
I don't want to say slang, but it's more of a dialect. So it kind of sounds like slang, you know, like they call like kids, bairns and stuff like that. And it's just like, some of it is so cute to hear. So yeah, one day her husband went to the fair, never returned, went out for a pack of cigarettes.
00:48:12
Speaker
But yeah, he was a faithless sort of man and not to be depended on. And all the village pitied the good wife's plight, but none helped her. She had not left but her house, her prized sow, and her baby boy. Her one hope was that the sow would soon give birth to piglets, and if all went well, her stock would be much increased. But it was not to be, it seemed, for one morning when she went to the pig's diet, she found the sow lying on her back, groaning and grunting like she was at death's door.
00:48:41
Speaker
This was a sore blow to the good wife's heart. And she sat down in the knocking stone and cried harder than she ever had over the loss of her husband. Well, because of a pig. Sure. Well, maybe the pig brought in her a lot more joy than the husband. The pig's the final straw.
00:49:07
Speaker
Okay. My favorite animals go seals, pigs. I don't know something else, but they're a third thing. What does he say in free guy? They haven't programmed the rest of his character. Oh, TBD. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.
00:49:35
Speaker
So good. Yeah. Then as she sat wiping her eyes, she chance to look down the braid. And what did she see but in little old woman make sorry, I didn't write it old woman making her way up the hill towards the house. She was dressed all in green save for the short white apron tied about her waist a black velvet hood and a steeple crowned beaver hat on her head.
00:50:02
Speaker
Okay, what that means. She walked with a long walking stick as tall as she was to help her on her way. Seeing the gentle woman draw near the good wife rose and made a curtsy weeping. She said, Madam, I'm the most unfortunate woman alive. I did not wish to hear Piper's news and Fiddler's tales said the green woman. I can you've lost your kid men and I can that you're so sick. Now what will you give me to cure her?
00:50:30
Speaker
Anything your ladyship madams likes, said the good wife, unaware of with whom she dealt. Let's wet thumbs on the bargain, said the green woman. Wet thumbs. And so thumbs were wet and the green woman marched into the pigsty. Maybe it's like a pinky swear. Yeah, they just took a blood oath. They like cut their thumbs. Oh, I assume they like.
00:50:56
Speaker
spit on them or whatever. Like, yeah, something gross either way. I know, but there's a funny part where I liked why I picked it. Listen, she glowered at the cell for some time then began to chant so as the good wife could barely hear pitter patter hally water. Sorry. Water can you can you better better let's get out of
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. Then from her pocket, she drew a small bottle with something oily inside it and daubed the liquid around the sow snout behind her ears and on the tip of her tail. Get up beast said the green woman and no sooner than she'd set it the sow leapt to her feet. And quite the thing was a way to her breakfast trow- trough. Sorry. Word trough. I don't know. I hope those words that end in O U G H.
00:51:56
Speaker
Yeah, English is stupid. So the good wife of Kittlerumpet just overcome with joy and would have kissed the hem of the green woman's dress had she let her.
00:52:09
Speaker
I'm not fond of demonstrations, said the green woman. Know that I have righted your sick beast. Let's finish our bargain. You'll not find me unreasonable greedy body. I'd like I to do a good turn for a small reward. All I ask and will have is that lead barren in your bosom. The good wife let out aghast. For now she saw what she hadn't before. The green woman was a fairy. Falling to her knees, she wept and prayed and begged and flighted but the fairy would not relent.
00:52:38
Speaker
You may spare your din, she said, skirling as if I was deaf as a doornail. But this I'll tell you, by the law we live on, I cannot take your bern till the third day after this. And not then if you can tell me my right name. And off she went away around the pigsty and back down the braid, leaving the good wife to her misery. For a night and a day, the good wife could do not but cry and hold her baby to her chest.
00:53:07
Speaker
On the second day at a loss for what to do, she went walking into the woods, baby in her arms. She walked deep into the forest to where an old quarry lay, grown over with gorse and home to a spring well. As she approached, she caught the sound of a lint wheel turning and a soft voice singing. The good wife crept closer and peered through the bushes into the quarry below.
00:53:30
Speaker
There was the green fairy working at her wheel and singing, little Ken's are good dame at at home. That whoopity story is my name. And then the good wife's heart. Whoopity story. I would have probably pronounced it. Yeah, story, but it's spelled S T O O R I E. So I'm sure with the Scottish accent, it's much closer to story. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:02
Speaker
But yeah, doesn't it kind of remind you of, like, another folktale? You try to steal skin? Yeah, me too. Yeah.
00:54:13
Speaker
Because yeah, so she figures that out. She had the magic word. She walked home with a spring in her step gleeful at the thought of tricking the old berry. Feeling much like her old self again, the good wife thought to have some sport with the fairy. On the third day, at the appointed time, she put her baby behind the knocking stone that then sat down at it herself.
00:54:33
Speaker
Nightcap askew, a look of great woe on her face. Before long the green fairy appeared over the hill and called out, Good wife of kiddel-crump, kiddel-rumpet, crumpet, crumpet. Oh, crumpet, I can't even say it. You can wheel what I come for, stand and deliver.
00:54:54
Speaker
The good wife pretended to weep even harder than before and fell to her knees crying. Oh, sweet madam, Mr. Spare, my only burn and take the weary so. It's written in very Scots. Yeah. I don't have a good Scottish accent. Sorry.
00:55:15
Speaker
I come not here for swine's flesh, said the fairy. Didn't I be stubborn, but give me the bairn instantly. A-con, dear laddie mine, wept the good wife, forbear my poor bairn, and take myself the fairy's expression soured. She's clean, demented. Oh, I don't remember reading that word before. Dement it. Dement it. Oh, because sometimes like I like it when they say like, oh, you're crank it.
00:55:44
Speaker
it's to the cranky oh yeah um what in all the earthly world with half an inch in their heads would ever want with the legs of thee
00:55:55
Speaker
This raised the good wife's hackles, for though her eyes were wet and her nose red from crying, she considered herself quite comely. Up she leapt and set her night cap straight and making a low curtsy. In truth, fair madam, she said, I might have had the wit to kin that the likes of me is nay fair to tie the worst shoestrings of the high and mighty princess, whoopity-story.
00:56:19
Speaker
At that whoopity story nearly jumped out of her skin, then turning on her heels, she ran down the hill screeching her rage for all of Kittlerumpet to hear. The good wife of Kittlerumpet laughed until her sides ached, then picked up her baby and went into her house singing all the way. A goo and a giddy, my bonnie wee tyke. He's no hay, you're furries. I'm sorry. Sin, we've given Nick a bane to pike with his wheels and his whoopity stories.
00:56:50
Speaker
The end. Jeez. All right. And then I promised you Michael Scott. And that's the last. Michael Scott. And ironically, it's called Michael Scott and the White Snake, which White Snake was a band. Yeah. I know.
00:57:15
Speaker
So before Michael Scott became the legendary Borders wizard who cleaved the Ialdon Hill into three, he was just an ordinary young man who enjoyed walking the old tracks through forests and over hills. One day he was making the long journey to Edinburgh with two of his friends and just as they crested a hill they heard a loud hiss coming from behind them. As they turned they could see a great white serpent snaking up towards them clearly ready to attack.
00:57:43
Speaker
Michael's friends were terrified and ran at the site, but he was made of sterner stuff and raised his wooden staff ready. That's what she said. Just as the serpent sprang forward, Michael struck down twice with the staff. Michael's friends were more than relieved to find out their attacker was left in pieces on the hill and they marched on towards their destination.
00:58:07
Speaker
Before long, it was starting to get dark and the friends spotted the cottage where they hoped they could rest for the night. An old lady answered the door, agreeing to let them stay for a small fee. And so it was that before long, the travelers were retelling their encounter from earlier. You have some strange wildlife around these parts. I've never seen a pure white snake like that before, said Michael. The old lady looked shocked. And what has happened to this white snake you speak of?
00:58:35
Speaker
Well, I left it lying on the hill where I split it into three with my staff, boasted Michael. This is no ordinary beast, my son. The local people thought it had been defeated once before, after it was sliced in two. But if the head crawls to the nearest stream, then it will make itself whole again and hunt you down relentlessly until it's had its revenge. You must retrieve the middle section and bring it back to me here. It is the only way to stop it.
00:59:01
Speaker
Michael's friends wanted nothing to do with it and turned in for the night, so he put on his cloak and headed out into the cold darkness alone. He trekked back a few miles and eventually made it to the hill where they had faced the snake, and true enough, the head had disappeared. He picked up the middle of the snake and ran as fast as he could back to the warmth of the old lady's cottage. She was standing at the door waiting and exclaimed, you have it, you have it, as Michael arrived inside panting with exhaustion.
00:59:28
Speaker
He was a little confused when she took the serpent's body and dropped it into a pot she had prepared over the fireplace. Why would you cook such a thing? asked Michael. It's the only way to destroy it, she replied. And besides, I'm a poor widow and can't turn down the chance of a meal, any meal. Ew. I'm not one of those people I don't think I would ever want to eat snake. I've tried alligator.
00:59:56
Speaker
It was all right. But yeah, I think it's different. Michael was shivering with cold after his midnight mission and settled in a chair by the fire. The old lady inquired, would you not prefer a comfortable bed instead of that old chair? I'll take a while to warm up yet and I don't feel sleep coming on while I'm shivering away. Don't worry, I'll watch the pot and make sure it doesn't boil over.
01:00:20
Speaker
As the woman went off to her bed, she turned and warned Michael, just let me know when you think the meal is cooked, but leave the pot well alone. As he sat stretching his limbs and feeling the warmth creep back into them. The smell of the meat cooking made Michael's stomach growl. He could hear a light snoring coming from behind their coast, their hosts door. And he decided that he would just dip his finger into the juices to see if it tasted as delicious as it smelled.
01:00:46
Speaker
As soon as the liquid touched his lips, Michael gasped loudly and dropped the lid of the pot on the floor. Suddenly he could feel power he had never thought existed running through him. Knowledge of everything that ever had been and ever would be was at his fingertips. Simply by wishing it, his hunger had gone and his tired legs were recovered. The old woman ran through and as soon as she saw the wonder in Michael's eyes, she knew what had happened.
01:01:16
Speaker
You have tasted the serpent and gained its power, she sighed. Do I not deserve it? Was it not I who killed the beast? asked Michael. She conceded it was his prize after all, but asked him not to forget that he would not have his powers were it not for her help. Michael became famous around Europe as a renowned wizard, but he would always remember his host from that night. She would never want for anything again, all thanks to the powers of Michael Scott.
01:01:44
Speaker
Perfect ending. Yeah. Whereas a lot of, well, maybe not folklore, but I've been listening to things about like different fairy tales and they often have like those horrible endings. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. All right. We'll take a quick break before your segment. Yeah. I'm excited.
01:02:08
Speaker
Before I start, I have a couple pictures for you in the drive. Cause I feel like the cryptids are always fun when you have a picture. That's very true. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. There we go. I'm gonna go into the folder. I learned how many times I did some, I guess like cryptids creatures. I don't know.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yeah, they have a lot of I know it's weird that sometimes they seem like almost older than we've been using the term cryptids, especially some of these folklore creatures, especially in like Celtic lore. It's old as fuck. Yeah. I love it.
01:02:56
Speaker
apologize in advance for any of these pronunciations. This is what Google said. Uh, so I didn't even look up anything. So my bad. Yeah. Uh, this one's called, um, I believe it's pronounced the catch she. Yeah. Like banshee.
01:03:18
Speaker
yes basically yeah because it's not it's definitely not spelled like it sounds with no it looks exactly like sif that's why i said it's one of those cats yeah no it says it's catchy
01:03:36
Speaker
She'd be cat. It's like you stumbled on some Star Wars stuff like what? So the catchy is a creature that resembles a large black cat that's supposed to be as big as a dog.
01:03:53
Speaker
Ooh. Yeah. Dogs be big. I mean, when it gets to the weight and describes that, I don't think it's that impressive because Gordo, my new cat already plays more than this cat is supposed to. So.
01:04:09
Speaker
Oh, really? So like a small dog. Yeah. So it's known it's all black. It has a white spot on its chest that a lot of times like people put as like a diamond kind of shape. Oh, yeah. Like, like a tux. Like, yeah, we've all known someone who has had a black cat named tux, at least I do. Yeah.
01:04:37
Speaker
Yeah. So legends says that it's a spectral cat, wild cat that haunts the Scottish Highlands. And the name is possibly derived from the Gaelic words. This says Kate, C-A-I-T that means cat, and then she or S-I-T-H, which is their term for fairies.
01:05:05
Speaker
So it's like a cat, cat fairy. Just stick she on the end of anything it makes it. It's a fairy. Yeah. So in picture two you can go to it's just a picture like the actual
01:05:25
Speaker
I guess what they're imagining this cryptid or creature is. And people believe that the legends may have originated from a distinctive breed of cats that were called kellas, and they're very large and black, and they're a high breed between Scottish wild cats and domestic cats, and they can grow to about 15 pounds. Okay. Yeah, so that's a picture of Garfield. Like, yeah.
01:05:54
Speaker
Not like, like, what about like, cause in North America we have things like bobcats and even those kinds of small wild cats. I'm sure they're heavier. Like Gordo right now weighs at least 17 pounds, but fully grown, he can get up to 22 pounds and he wouldn't be overweight at 22 pounds. Right. So big cat breed. Yeah. But like big domesticated. Yeah. Interesting.
01:06:23
Speaker
There's not that many big predators in Scotland, I guess. Yeah, true. So people from the Scottish Highlands don't trust this creature, partly because they think it's a fairy. And they believe that it could steal a person's soul before it was able to be claimed by the gods. Oh, no. Yeah. And they've got good.
01:06:51
Speaker
They believed that the cat, she did this by passing over a corpse before it could be buried. So they'd like walk over it. Oh, hell yeah. I mean, I've heard of things like they basically just opened the doors when someone dies. Cause they want to make sure that soul can get out with nothing in its way. Yeah. Like not a door, not anything. So like that sounds particularly bad. If it's like a black cat, that's all of a sudden stopping it from doing that. No offense. Yeah.
01:07:21
Speaker
friend Caitlin listens of her cat Sabrina. She's adorable. Perfect. Yes. I don't want to be called out for slandering black cats. Nope. Black cats matter. They're all they're all cute. Yes.
01:07:39
Speaker
So to stop the catchy from like stealing somebody's soul or from this from happening, there's a ritual called, and I tried to look this up and I could not get it, feel fidelic. And that means late wake. And this ritual is performed continually all night and day until the burial.
01:08:08
Speaker
And so even if it's like days later, they'll perform it all day, they're somebody. So they also used methods of distraction, which this just sounds like you're trying to play with the cat. Methods of distraction like leaping, wrestling, catnip, and then riddles and music were used to keep the cat away. And- Okay, I've heard of like,
01:08:37
Speaker
singing, you know, like when someone's died. I don't know if it was like, keep something away. That's interesting. Um, so they also choose not to light any fires in the house as the warmth is said to draw the catchy near cause it was like the warm fire. So they basically, yeah, they basically just lock the like body in a room in the house for like days.
01:09:07
Speaker
until it's buried, which is kind of sad. I see. Okay. But after, like I said, I heard they had to open the door at the very first part. They believe they have to let the soul get out. So probably after that, they're like, ah, it's gone. Okay, we're good. We're good. But yeah, but the superstitions apparently don't stop there. Yeah.
01:09:27
Speaker
crazy. I also ran across that on Sawin, the cat she would bless houses that left out a saucer of milk. And, and then houses that did not, it said that they would curse them and that they would be cursed that all of their cows udders would go dry. Oh, burn done. Not cool. Be messing with my cheese.
01:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, all my milk products. Yeah, I couldn't survive. I know, hearts go out to you, black toes intolerant of us. You're strong. Yeah. So there's a demonic catchy that's actually called big ears.
01:10:21
Speaker
Big ears? No, ears. Oh, sorry. Big ears. You tell what I've got on the brain. Big beers? Okay. That makes sense. Big ears could be summoned by or summoned and they would grant any wish to those who performed a specific like summoning ceremony, I guess. And
01:10:46
Speaker
This is like a gross part. The ceremony required people to burn the bodies of cats over the course of four days and nights. Yeah. That's rough. I didn't like that. I took a hard left turn. Yeah. Like why big ears? Why? I guess because it's a demonic catchy.
01:11:10
Speaker
Before all that, it was all innocent ways to keep it out. It was like, okay, you have to, what, keep fires lit and open or close a few doors or whatever. Yeah. So some people believe that the cat, she is a witch who could transform into a cat and then back to a human. And they would be able to do this transformation from a cat back to a human just nine times.
01:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. And if a witch chose to stay as a cat and not do their ninth transformation back to a human, they would remain as a cat forever. And some people believe that this is the origin of the idea of cats having nine lives. Weird and so cool. Yeah, I thought it was really cool. Yeah. Kind of reminds me of
01:12:09
Speaker
Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the one I watched growing up, because they did have a cat named Salem that was a black cat who was a magician that got trapped in cat form somehow or another, I don't know. Yeah, that's really interesting. I like that angle. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, hadn't heard it.
01:12:32
Speaker
The next one, I only have one pitch or four. You can just go to the third one. It's a buff looking horse. I was gonna say, sexy horseman. What is the one that Will Arnett's in now? It's Bojack Horseman. I actually really liked that show.
01:12:58
Speaker
I love Will Arnett. So I'm like, I know if I start that, I will like it. I just haven't. It's, I think I binge watched like all five or six seasons, whatever it has in like the span of like two weeks. I listened to his podcast, any chance I can get with Jason Bateman. That's a good celebrity guest.
01:13:24
Speaker
There you go, guys. There's your free ad, not that you need it. Smartless. I also watched that Murderville, that improv one with Willardette.
01:13:39
Speaker
Yeah. So there's like, so it's a new Netflix original and basically it's a Will Arnett. He's being like some hot shot detective. Oh, funny. It is. They have the guests. Oops. I just like my laptop.
01:13:58
Speaker
they have guests but they don't know they're like on it yeah they're like the guests are improving basically yeah they well what happens is everybody else was given a script they know what's going on they know what their lines are supposed to be except for the guests the guest literally just walks on set i'm pretty sure they probably get to like a brief overview of like oh for sure
01:14:21
Speaker
and stuff because they aren't questioning when like people go on rants about like getting divorced and stuff they're just kind of like ooh but it's the second episode i can't remember the guy's name he was just all in he was 100 committed he had so much fun and i was almost crying i was laughing so hard in his like
01:14:45
Speaker
I think Annie Murphy from Schitt's Creek goes on it. I don't know. It looked funny. I saw some commercials. Hers was pretty good because she literally broke every few minutes. And then Ken Jeong from Community and The Masked Singer. No.
01:15:09
Speaker
Hangover. He's the last guest and he literally cannot stop breaking. He starts laughing like every few seconds and is like, what? Like he just can't handle it, which makes it so funny. I love those kinds of shows. And there's another one about comedians making each other laugh.
01:15:34
Speaker
Canadian comedians that's coming out on Prime, not to talk too much about, it'd be like free ads, but let's get some good comedians from like whose line is it anyway and stuff. Oh my God. I would love that. Yeah. And they have to try and make each other laugh. And I'm like, God damn it. I want to watch that. I think this weekend.
01:15:55
Speaker
Anyway, uh, so according to what I could come up with on the internet, um, this buff looking horsefish thing is called the Yakusha or sorry, Yakushke. Okay. Yeah. Sounds right to me. Yakushke.
01:16:24
Speaker
Um, which just means water horse. And it's a water spirit in Scottish folklore and usually appears in the form of a horse and is found in the Highlands. And they live in seas, sea logs, and freshwater logs.
01:16:43
Speaker
And they're shapeshifters who can appear as a horse, a pony, a handsome man, or even an enormous bird that's called a boobery. Or a boobery. Yeah. I just don't know what's with all the shape-shifting and the horsey-ness with their cryptids and creatures, but I love it. It's great.
01:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get to the boobry later. It's got its own thing going. Oh, yeah. Hold on, I have to like... Yakushka. Yakushka, I'm never gonna remember this. Hold on. It sounds like a Russian, I thought you just said babushka, which says Russian grandmother. Considering it looks not at all like it's pronounced.
01:17:42
Speaker
Oh yeah, no, there it's, we're sorry, Gaelic or whatever. Yeah. It's, it's rough. It's tough. Yeah. Cause it's literally spelled each and then usage basically. Oh my gosh. And it's yeah. It's right. I don't even try. I make up when I read Outlander and there's Gaelic, I just like make up my own pronunciation.
01:18:13
Speaker
I'm like I had heard Gaelic before reading that and watching the show and I'll be like wow that's a there's a lot of going on there you know it's like German or something where you almost have to change the whole way you speak and like yeah I don't know you feel like you went to doing it right you're just spitting a lot but it's beautiful it is beautiful I don't give you wrong
01:18:36
Speaker
I really do think it is. So for the Yakushka. Yakuza. I kept thinking of that every time you said that. I'm so sorry. I had to get it out there once. OK. So it's said that if a man gets on the Yakushka's back, I guess, well, it's in a horse form.
01:19:04
Speaker
the rider will stay safe as long as them and the horse do not see or even smell water. Oh my God. Yeah. And you would know if they're going to be in smelling range of water. Right. I can smell water. If it smells water. Yeah. If it smells water, it's really bad. The Agusha, if it smells water, their skin becomes adhesive.
01:19:33
Speaker
And the creature immediately like full on runs towards the water and carries the now stuck like rider on their back into the water and takes them into the deepest part.
01:19:48
Speaker
where they drown it, like drown the rider. And once the rider is drowned, the Yakushka like tears them apart and then eats everything in the body except for the liver, which is unsaid too. Yeah. And then the- Will you save it for Hannibal Lecter or? I don't know. Someone from X-Files, I think there was Eugene Toomes, nevermind.
01:20:19
Speaker
Um, so the liver floats back to the surface of the water. Sorry.
01:20:27
Speaker
And while it's appearing as a man, it can only be, like you can only tell that it's a Yakutia by like water weeds in its hair or even sand and mud. Otherwise it looks just like, just like a real boy. Oh, okay. Yeah. Difficult to spot. Yeah. That's why I assume this buff horsey picture came through.
01:20:56
Speaker
The rest of the pictures aren't great. It basically just looks like a horse with like an alligator head. And I was like, at least this.
01:21:03
Speaker
I was like, yeah. Yeah, and I don't know, just anytime I seem to come across any Scottish lore other than, well, Loch Ness, which we have covered for classic cryptids. I'm glad I did that when I did sort of Lake Monsters. But other than that, yeah, they seem to have a lot of horsey cryptids. I don't know if I said that already. I just think it's crazy and cool.
01:21:29
Speaker
um so because you can't tell it apart unless like you look at its hair when it's showing up as a man um people are often weary of people or animals that are alone standing near like water or it's said that a yakushka lives and it's believed or
01:21:52
Speaker
Yeah, where it's believed to live. And they're also known to quite commonly kill like cattle and sheep. Oh, not good. Yeah. Now you're messing with the food and the cattle and the livelihood and the livestock. That's not good. So Scottish folklorist.
01:22:20
Speaker
A jaw Gregorson Campbell has recorded many tales of the Yahushka and in one of the tales
01:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, in one, a man who was about to be carried into water by the Yakushka managed to get free by placing his feet, this is like terrible, on either side of a narrow gateway that him and like the horse, quote unquote,
01:22:52
Speaker
like were passing through and he like pulled himself free like using its momentum so he basically just like put his arms and legs out as it was passing through like imagine like a doorway and just like ripped himself off of it oh he would probably like pull a groin muscle or something yeah
01:23:16
Speaker
Sounds a little risky. It's like when you're jumping out of a moving car or something. Yeah. You're like, OK, I'm going to take a little bit of a beating here.
01:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, so the boy or sorry. There's also a like tail of a boy who got only his finger stuck. I guess he poked it. And then it became adhesive so his finger got stuck and he actually cut his finger off in order to be free.
01:23:51
Speaker
that the whole finger or was it just like adhesive like it's so cold that you be like you lift your finger and it'd be like if you stuck your wet tongue to something and you just had to rip off a layer. I think that's this whole finger. Yeah, I don't know. Good lord. Those things those tails are always so dark. Yeah.
01:24:17
Speaker
There's also a Highlander who was a free booter. Do you know what that is? It's trusted. Free booter. Yeah, free booter. I think so. So it's a thief. Oh. I was like, it took me a while of Googling it to find that. Cause I was like, yeah, you hear people maybe say like freeloader or something nowadays. Yeah. Interesting that it's like,
01:24:48
Speaker
with the booter. No, I feel like I don't think I've heard it surprisingly enough. So it's reported that this thief ran into the Yahushka while it was in human form and they ended up shooting it twice, but nothing happened. And then he loaded his gun with, it said with a coin made of silver.
01:25:13
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, it must be a pretty small coin to fit inside a barrel of a gun. Okay. Yeah. Silver sixpence. That's the thing.
01:25:29
Speaker
He then shot, um, at it again. And this caused the quote unquote man to run away and in like fear and then got back into the water. So apparently they're afraid of silver. Right. Like it could possibly actually harm them. Yeah. A silver bullet type of dealio. Although I wonder how effective just a coin was if it melted down. Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, be terrible. And it's also said that the Yakushka are really unpredictable and that they do actually go on land looking specifically for prey.
01:26:16
Speaker
So that's how they get to the livestock and lure these people to get onto their back. And it's said that they'll sometimes even go as far as to go onto a farm as a horse, like in their horse.
01:26:34
Speaker
Yeah. And they actually start doing tasks for the farmers until like the farmer gets on the horses, quote unquote back. And then it's again, it's skin turns adhesive and it runs them into the water and kills them.
01:26:55
Speaker
Oh, he's that one's a long con. Because you're like, right. I don't know. I can like, first come from it loves me. Yeah. It's doing manual labor. Right. Yeah. That's what they do. Some of
Dangerous Mythical Creatures
01:27:13
Speaker
those
01:27:13
Speaker
frickin creatures lure you into a false sense of security. Damn. Uh, it's also said that they may even turn on their own kind. If a previous human rider is sent is like strong enough on them that they will then like attack and kill their own kind. Yeah.
01:27:37
Speaker
Um, I believe no one's safe. No one's safe. They're not even safe from themselves. Uh, I think this is more when they're in the like male form, which is where we got this like AB dub horse drawing.
01:27:55
Speaker
this Jim Crow of a horse. What is it? A stallion. Yeah. Italian stallion. No, I don't know. So they are known for their attempts to court women in order to procreate or even simply just again, to trick them into the water where they can kill them. But it's said that they'll like fully like court these women over a period of time, which is like crazy.
01:28:25
Speaker
I am. Especially if they got horse-like bodies in total. Where they're like, oh, come on, lady. It's all good. What happened to all my last girlfriends? It doesn't matter.
The Boobry: Shapeshifting Predators
01:28:43
Speaker
You're drowned in the lake. Red flag. So the next one is the boobry.
01:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, that was like the best picture I could really find of it. Well, I've heard of a booby, which is a type of bird. Yeah, this is the boobry. Yeah.
01:29:11
Speaker
So the blueberry is a mythological shape shifting entity. Um, so this like goes back to people believing that this could be the catchy, like appearing in another form.
01:29:26
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. Symbolic. I mean, they wouldn't work with you in their natural form, especially if it's quite disturbing. Sorry, not the catchy, the one we were just talking about, the Ayushka. This is like another form that they think it can take because it's a shapeshifter. A few of them seem to have some of the same abilities, so.
01:29:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So this one lives in the locks of the West coast of Scotland and commonly takes the appearance of a huge water bird. Um, that's similar to like a cormorant cormorant or great Northern diver. Oh, wow. Yeah. I think they are pretty frigging big. Yeah. It can also take the form of other mythological creatures, like a water bowl.
01:30:19
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. So just become like, it could be a huge bird or it can be a bull. Oh, right. Then a water, a water bowl. Okay. Yeah. Not familiar with that. So they're generally malevolent and so not good. They prey on livestock transported by ship often. So they like swoop in.
01:30:48
Speaker
And this is sad because they're fond of eating specifically like otters, apparently. And apparently when they choose to eat otters, they eat a lot of them. Which leaves otters alone. They're so cool. They're so cute. Well.
01:31:10
Speaker
They're cute, but aren't they kind of like dolphins? They're cute, but a little rapey, so. I don't know. Maybe that's why they were targeted. Anyway, we're not here to get into the politics of otters today. I just like watching the videos of them floating around on the backs. I know, and they hold their little hands, but I also heard that they will
01:31:38
Speaker
to have sex with each other and sometimes the other one will go under the water a little too long and they are just so caught up in their excitedness that they don't really notice the other one's not responding anymore.
01:31:53
Speaker
Oh, disturbing, isn't it? That's not good. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I had to do that. I had to otter otter out the otters. Yeah, she just canceled otters. It's like the dolphins, man. You learn things. It's like you grow up looking at these heroes and then you learn they're not what you thought they were. Yeah. Seals are still good. They were always my favorite. I told you that.
01:32:23
Speaker
They have not hurt anybody. I'm sorry. So other than otters, they also eat calves, sheep and lamb. Okay. Wow.
01:32:37
Speaker
the babies. Yeah. And similarly, similarly, it drags them into the water to drown them before eating them. Oh, and because it's a the boobery is a shape shifter. It said that when it's appearing as a water horse, or the Yakushka, it can gallop across water as if it was like running across land.
01:33:07
Speaker
Damn. Yeah. That's pretty handy. The Jesus Christ of horse. The boobry. The webs, the webbed feet would probably help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:33:24
Speaker
So during the summer, like August and September, it often chooses to appear as a large insect. I didn't like this with lots of tentacles or feelers and it sucks the blood of horses.
01:33:39
Speaker
It's like the worst mental image I can imagine. Yeah, especially giant. You see them dealing with horse flies and stuff all the time. All the insects they already have to deal with seem giant compared to a flying insect with tentacles and feelers and it's just leech and blood out of horses.
01:34:01
Speaker
Oh, no amount of their little shivers they can do with their skin is going to take. Yeah. Poor guys. Yeah. Swat you with my tail like. So the origin of the boobry may come from the sightings of the Great Auk. Oh, I feel like I've heard of them. Yeah, I think that's the next picture.
01:34:26
Speaker
Is the picture of the Great Auk? Yeah, it's like a sketch of one. And yeah, the Great Auk. Oh wow, kind of like a penguin there. Sorry. Yeah, it really does when you look them up.
01:34:42
Speaker
And, but they're quite big. And apparently the boobry kind of makes like bellowing sounds that can be really loud. So they're believed that that might originate from the like sounds made by the common, is it the bittern? I think so, yes. I had never heard of it before. I tried- Bittern, that sounds correct. I think I've heard of it.
01:35:09
Speaker
I never said it out loud. Yeah. It said like it's bellowing sound was similar to the Common Bittern. So I tried looking up the sounds of the Common Bittern. And honestly, no matter how loud I turned up the volume, I could barely hear a sound out of them. And the videos were labeled like, listen to it.
01:35:34
Speaker
Whereas you get something like the Canadian loon, and they literally use it on like so many movies or, you know, shows and stuff just when they're supposed to be out in the middle of wilderness and they want to show like you picture like a lake and then you hear it like the
01:35:50
Speaker
Oh, or like, I can't do it. That doesn't sound right. But, you know, a loon sound, they have a very distinct bird sound. And they're, I'm pretty sure, mostly native to Canada. But yeah, that seems to be one thing that movies borrows from us, even though every other thing they do is like filmed in Vancouver, but set somewhere else. Yeah, everywhere. Yeah, I read this article the other day that was like, Vancouver never plays itself.
01:36:20
Speaker
And sorry, I didn't have any. I didn't have any. So savage. What? So savage. That Cooper never plays himself. I know. They were kind of mad. I took it.
01:36:35
Speaker
It's like, just tweak it. Now it's Eastern Europe and now we're in Boston. You know what I mean? It's like, I think they said like, in like 10 minutes or 15 minutes in one movie, Vancouver played like three different countries in like Mission Impossible or something. I was like, I can see it. Like, we'll just have to show a road. Like a lot of places we'll try and pass for like New York or Chicago or whatever, you know, a big city. It's like- Filming budgets. Mm-hmm.
01:37:04
Speaker
So the next part I have about the Boobery is basically all of this was actually just taken off Wikipedia. I was very lazy. Everything is from Wikipedia. Wikipedia was my only source for my entire segment. It's fine. It has sources should you choose to follow them. Sometimes I do because I'll go to there for like a timeline or
01:37:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's almost like you have a sounding board and this is like the clarification, it's the consensus that the public comes to. Yeah. So this is all literally just quoted. It's supposed to be a detailed account of the size of the boobry.
01:37:52
Speaker
And this was made by that same folklorist Campbell. And he says that he got this from an authoritative source. I have no idea what that means. And he's like, it sounds good, doesn't it? Yeah, they're authoritative. And they claim that the boobry is, quote, larger than 17 of the biggest eagles put together.
01:38:24
Speaker
And it has a strong black beak about 11 inches wide and 17 inches in length. So really long. The final five inches of which tapered to like that of an eagle. So I seem like a point. And the creature's neck is almost three feet long with a girth of a little under two feet. Just like thick neck.
01:38:52
Speaker
She thick. Yeah. It has short black powerful legs that lead to webbed feet with gigantic claws and imprint of a boobries left or an imprint of a boobries foot left in some lakeside mud equaled the span of a large wide spreading pair of red deer's horns.
01:39:23
Speaker
Wow, that sounds big. The width of a horn? A pair of horns. A wide spreading pair of horns. Right, like two feet? Hunters would have a term for it like rack size. I'm like, everything else is in measurements. Why can't you just say it's like two feet long?
01:39:48
Speaker
right yeah you have to say a red deer's horn spread um if bellows we literally have a city named red deer here doesn't it yeah we do but yeah that's it i think they're whatever there's different sizes of deer i don't know if they're bigger i have no idea right and can you tell
01:40:14
Speaker
Oh, there's a picture of me with a deer hanging up when I was a small child. But that's because someone else hunted it. I was just looking. Yeah. Yeah. It said that it bellows noisily with displeasure sounding more like a bull than a bird. Oh, okay. Yeah. And the design of its wings is more conductive to swimming rather than for flight, which I find strange.
01:40:43
Speaker
And it's evil. Yeah, like since it flies around so much.
01:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, and there's waterfowl and whatever, but they usually just skim on the top. And it sounds like they're saying they should be swimming underwater all the time. Yeah, with my wings. Yeah, not just diving. Yeah. Weird. And it's evil powers when, in the form of a bird, were said by Campbell to have terrified a minister out of his property.
01:41:18
Speaker
No, not property. Propriety. But still, what the fuck? This is still just quoted exactly verbatim from Wikipedia.
01:41:32
Speaker
The boobries insatiable appetite for livestock posed a threat to local farmers as they relied on their animals as a means of providing income and food, like you said. And boobries were also known to shelter on land in overgrown heather.
01:41:52
Speaker
which is like a bushy kind of plant. And because of this, they have not been seen for many years due to widespread burning of Heather in areas of Scotland. So boobies aren't really around anymore, I guess.
01:42:09
Speaker
Oh, that's why does everywhere have to cut down all the good places. For sure there's still a lot of untouched areas in Scotland, I am sure. I mean they got that program now where you buy someone.
01:42:24
Speaker
Hint hint, people, birthdays coming up. A plot of land in Scotland and they call themselves a lord or a lady. Have you seen ads for that? I think it's on like YouTube. Oh no, I literally get ads for it on Instagram and stuff probably because like I
01:42:43
Speaker
uh like my sister got me a wee box a Scotland subscription box for a while yeah which was really cool by the way um so yeah it'll be like hey you might be interested in but yeah so the next one i only have one picture of it's like a creepy old woman
01:43:09
Speaker
Um, there's quite a few different names for her. This seems to be the most common though.
The Benia: Death Omens
01:43:18
Speaker
It's literally, when you look up pronunciations, a lot of stuff, cause their name is spelled bean niggy. Yeah. Um, but it's pronounced Ben Nia. Cause why not? Well, it kind of reminds me of, um,
01:43:40
Speaker
There's like my brown hair last or something. And it's spelled the, the brown part is spelled similar to this. I don't know. It's like dark. This thing looks dark and creepy as fuck. Yeah. That was like by far the best picture of it. A lot of it was just really out of focus, like sketches. Why are people terrible at taking pictures of their own drawings?
01:44:09
Speaker
So this one was just the best and the creepiest. Yeah. So it's a Scottish gay like her washer woman or laundress.
01:44:20
Speaker
Okay. And the Benia is a female spirit in Scottish folklore that's regarded as an omen of death. So yet another thing that didn't come up during our death omen research. Oh, God, we've come so far since then we. Yeah.
01:44:40
Speaker
Well, we could revisit that for sure. Yeah, there's been like 80 other death omens that I never found, no matter how many lists I looked at. Just so many different things, the more you dive into each culture. Yeah. I find it hard to like, we have a hard time choosing episodes. Sometimes I'll just be like, so many things. Yeah. So it's regarded as an omen of death and a messenger from the other world.
01:45:10
Speaker
And she is a type of banshee. Now that I, I wondered if they would come up. Yeah. Now that I know that the pronunciation, cause it's spelled ban and then S I T H like the cat she was. So I'm like, no wonder it's pronounced ban. She, I have spelled similar fashion. I think with the D and H E maybe.
01:45:39
Speaker
in the lander books and stuff yeah I feel like there's quite a few spellings that I took right I was like yeah there's like 15 spellings before teen English translation names and like eight different ways to say banshee exactly and that can make it hard which is too bad because like some different languages kind of fall out of favor and then you're like
01:46:04
Speaker
Definitely you want to preserve them but there's definitely 17 million different dialects. Yeah, yeah. So this ban she haunts the desolate streams or pools, and is said to wash the blood from the clothing of those who are about to die.
01:46:22
Speaker
Oh, so that's what she's called, like the laundress. Yeah. It's actually really creepy. She like creeps me out, especially with that picture. The picture is creepy. Yeah. I was like, I've heard of washer women following around armies, like, because of course someone, they're going to need some help with their fricking laundry. They're on the move. There's many, many soldiers with all these dirty clothes. Right. But like that one is this pictures.
01:46:52
Speaker
Like a cross between the ring and yeah, something where they have like disgusting dark elf looking ears or something from the frigging shining. I don't know. She looks very decrepit and creepy.
01:47:07
Speaker
Um, so along with there being like a bunch of different words for her, there's a bunch of different like variations to the legend. So just to kind of briefly mention a couple of them, some describe her as having the power to impart knowledge or even grant wishes to those who are able to approach her with caution. Oh, yeah. That'd be handy.
01:47:36
Speaker
Yeah, if you're gonna be okay to approach her. It basically said you approach from behind, never from the front, I guess.
01:47:47
Speaker
We'll get to it. Sounds like the opposite of a horse. Yeah. So the origin of the spirit is possibly believed to be a woman who died giving birth. And it said that she's- Specific. Yeah. It said that she's doomed to perform her tasks until the day that her life would have otherwise ended had she not died. Well, like giving birth to a child.
01:48:15
Speaker
Damn. Yeah, which is literally fucking dark and morbidly like workaholic. No, no, no. Yeah. It's like when you hear someone had to pay off the debts of someone that their family member like died or something. You're like, how is this fucking fair on top of the fat stuff? Yeah. Life's not fucking fair, nor is dead. No.
01:48:41
Speaker
The fate of the Benia is believed to be able to be avoided if all the clothing that's left behind by the deceased woman is washed by others so that she doesn't have to. And I guess like kind of like an afterlife kind of thing. We'll call her the Benihana. No. Yeah. Yeah. So if somebody else washes her clothes for her, then she
01:49:11
Speaker
isn't like doomed or cursed to wash them herself. Aw. It's like, I don't know, Dobby the house elf, he's got to give his, he's got to get, no, he's got to get clothing from someone or whatever. So sad. Master has given Dobby a sock.
01:49:30
Speaker
Yeah. A dirty old sock. Yeah. By accident. So on the Isle of Mull and Tyree, the Benia is said to have unusual
01:49:48
Speaker
This is partly why I wanted to do this picture. It said that in this specific island, like aisle, that she said to have unusually long breasts. She does have some saggy titties in that photo. Yeah. So this apparently interferes with her being able to wash the clothes because they're just swinging and getting in the way. So she actually just throws them. Do your boobs hang low, do they wobble too and fro?
01:50:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well, apparently she just throws them over her shoulders and lets them hang down her back. She does throw them over her shoulder like a continental soldier. I thought that was only to be, you know, a jaunty song about balls.
01:50:41
Speaker
Oh my god. So those that see her are told not to turn away and that they should quietly approach from behind so that she's not aware of them approaching. And this is so stupid. They're supposed to grab one of her breasts and put it in their mouth and then claim to be a foster child. What the fuck? I love it. It's so weird.
01:51:09
Speaker
So I just like. Wait. Yeah. Um, who's doing that? You better be drawing straws. Yeah.
01:51:25
Speaker
So it's said that if they're able to do this, then she will then impart knowledge to them, whatever knowledge that they desire. And it's also said that if she's approached and the person looks at the clothing she's washing, if it belongs to them or even someone they know, they can stop her from washing it.
01:51:50
Speaker
somehow, I guess. And this actually is said to stop the person that's fated to dies like death. Yeah, because she's a death omen. So like, if they see her washing their own clothes, then they know they're gonna die. So they can stop that, but they can also stop her from washing the clothes of somebody else.
01:52:14
Speaker
That's interesting. It's just like, as long as you catch her in the act or something. Yeah. Oh, weird. I'll make sure to interrogate anyone who's ever washing my clothes. Yeah. A stream while naked with her breasts like behind her back. It's so weird. That's why I'm like, this was the most fitting picture as well as the creepiest.
01:52:40
Speaker
Also, just the visual. I wish this was on Patreon when you just lifted your hands and mimed throwing grass behind your back. It just gave me such a joke. But also, I was gonna say, I've had family members wash. My mom would be like, oh, I should throw your sweater in the wash. But then I realized, I think you had, like back when I smoked, like some like, um,
01:53:02
Speaker
I have to do that with my laundry because Pat keeps some
01:53:17
Speaker
almost like a hanky sort of, you know, Kleenex situation in his pocket, kind of like a lady. So I have to always just check his pockets when I do the laundry. My brother and my dad, because they worked in like carpentry and construction and everything, it was always like carpenters, crayons, pens, everything always in their pocket.
01:53:41
Speaker
oh okay like pencils running through the washer and dryer um i'm picturing like a golf pencil and like yeah little types of things okay like sometimes like chalk line like stuff yeah all the time whoops yeah you gotta make sure dump those pockets
01:54:04
Speaker
So a separate telling is from the Isle of Skye and it says that then Benia is said to have a squat figure and resemble that of a small pitiful child. Okay then. Yeah, drastically different and it says that those that catcher will have their ultimate fate revealed
01:54:34
Speaker
So they can have their ultimate fate revealed and if she sees or catches you before you're able to like approach her that you will lose the use of your limbs.
01:54:47
Speaker
which is intense. Okay. She could give you like a warning as to what she's doing. I have no idea. And God, the stakes are high. Yeah. In Paris Shire, she is described as small and always dressed in green, which is kind of interesting. Oh yeah. I have a green moment in my story. It's like a green witch kind of situation.
01:55:13
Speaker
maybe in which they're more like kind of in the plant and herbal realms of the magista. And it's said that she can be caught, this like variation of her can be caught by getting between her and the stream where I guess she washes the clothes. Okay.
01:55:35
Speaker
Yeah. So like vampires, they can't go past running water. The Benia is said to sing a mournful sound, mournful song. She washes the clothes of someone who will meet a sudden death by violence. Like specifically, it's the only time she sings.
01:55:58
Speaker
Oh, god. And it's all she's often so absorbed by singing and washing the clothes that she could actually be captured. And there were stories, I think, about one and it was only a couple sentences. It was just not super interesting. Okay, well, okay, I know I get it. They're vulnerable when they're
01:56:23
Speaker
Yeah, because she's like washing the clothes and then because she's doing that and singing, she's like, double distracted. Yeah, I suppose you would be. And this variation, she's also described as having physical deformities, like only having one nostril.
01:56:43
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Also having protruding front teeth or red webbed feet. Sorry, the teeth. Is this before dentistry? The modern dentistry. Maybe. It's Scotland.
01:57:01
Speaker
I do have two nostrils, but I've also been the dentist. No, one of them told me I had, um, nose polyps and that that's probably why I'm more of a mouth breather. Cause it's a little bit harder for me to breathe through my nose. Oh, I probably do too. I wouldn't be surprised. I've always been in mouth breather. My family used to make fun of me a little bit. They'd be like, you sound like Darth Vader. You know,
01:57:32
Speaker
Like, sorry. No, I have to like consciously thing to like breathe out of my nose.
01:57:39
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes it's easier. Mouth is open. Yeah. So I do have one story.
The Fachan and Unique Mythical Beings
01:57:52
Speaker
This was just from Wikipedia again. This is how they had it written. It said, one popular Highland story connected with the washing of death shrouds regards the so-called mermaid of Lachslin
01:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, she was a maiden from Cromartie.
01:58:17
Speaker
and she was walking along a path by the side of this lock one Sabbath morning. And after turning a corner, she saw a tall woman standing in the water, knocking clothes on a stone with a bludgeon. So doing like the tumble original like,
01:58:42
Speaker
Yeah, cycle laundry yeah dry it on a bush whatever you're gonna do it on a, on a nearly bleaching green. She observed more than 30 smocks and shirts, all smeared with blood.
01:59:00
Speaker
And shortly following the appearance of this figure, the roof of fair and Abbey collapsed during worship service. And this buried the congregation in debris and killed 36 people. And historically, the Abbey roof did collapse in 1742 with the death toll believed to be nearly 50 people.
01:59:27
Speaker
oh okay yeah and she was like washing like blood covered clothes of like like 30 so like smocks were just like spread out everywhere okay like but not that was in she had like a premonition no she was walking and she saw
01:59:56
Speaker
the Benia like doing this and washing all these clothes that were spread around her. And then because it's a death omen, like, I don't know how long later the one like roof collapsed and a bunch of people did die. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I have like a flash.
02:00:20
Speaker
And the last one, I saved the best for last, because it's also just the weirdest picture I can think of. I'm gonna save the best for last. No. Okay, I'm gonna look. Oh, shit. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you asked. I'm so sorry.
02:00:46
Speaker
No, there's two. Yeah, it's so weird. I love it. Am I currently playing Dungeons and Dragons? I don't recognize this creature. That's actually when I was looking it up, the name is very similar to a Dungeons and Dragons like creature. Oh wow. Yeah.
02:01:07
Speaker
funny and I think it's probably yeah it's probably based off of this because the name is slightly different but it looks very similar it just looks more like ogreish that's so funny yeah where this is supposed to be like a furry kind of bird looking thing right and yeah yeah I mean it is but it has a hand
02:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get to it. It's weird. Okay. I also couldn't find, um, I couldn't find like a pronunciation. Pronunciation? Okay. I'm just gonna say the Foken. I don't know. F-A-C-H-A-N. Foken. Fauchan.
02:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, Falcon, I don't know. I heard someone say earlier today, like, my pronunciation has a lot of heart, if not a lot of accuracy or something like that. Yeah. It was like, beautiful. So the Fachan is a Scottish folklore, monster or giant.
02:02:15
Speaker
that was described by John Francis Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, and it's described as having a single eyeball in the middle of its face.
02:02:28
Speaker
I mean, this whole head looks like an eyeball. Yeah. Yeah. It has a single hand. Um, that's like on an arm that protrudes from the middle of its chest instead of having arms at the side. It's just got one long one coming out the front. Okay. Yeah. And it's got a single leg emerging from its central axis. So.
02:02:57
Speaker
It's just got a one leg. It looks, honestly, looking at this picture, minimized in the bottom of my screen, it kind of looks like a drumstick, a chicken drumstick. Yeah, I was gonna say, it just, there's the penguin resemblance, like, cause it's just like a little bit like waddle, like, short legs, like squat body and like not super big wings or anything.
02:03:22
Speaker
Well, this has just got a front arm. It's like, doesn't have wings or anything. It's so weird. No, that's true. It's, it's, it looks bird-like because of the feather, like, you know, whatever. That's kind of why I chose these two pictures, because in the smothering of all the Dungeons and Dragons, like full ogary looking spinoffs that didn't have any feathers, this is supposed to have feathers. So.
02:03:49
Speaker
That's why I chose these pictures. Yeah, it looks like problems. Yeah, a single leg emerging from its central axis. It has a single tuft, I love that word, of hair on the top of its head. And regarding or Campbell says, quote, it was easier to take a mountain from the root than to bend that tuft.
02:04:16
Speaker
So apparently he's got real strong hair. Yeah, recurring theme here. Strong hair. And Campbell says the possible influence of creatures for this one possibly is the Arabic tradition such as the Nasnas or Sikh, which describes half of a human being.
02:04:43
Speaker
and hopping on one leg with a great agility. So, I mean, it is kind of half of a human being. It's only got one leg and one arm. It's just in the middle of everything. But how can it hop with great agility? I don't know. I'm very confused.
02:05:07
Speaker
So there's a what that says Douglas. Oh, this is just from Wikipedia again. Douglas Hyde quotes Campbell's description is in his collection of Irish folklore beside the fire and refers to an Irish manuscript in which a similar monster is described. So this could be the same one or like a similar one.
02:05:32
Speaker
Quote, he had a very thick iron filled club in his skinny hand and 20 chains out of it. And each chain had 50 apples on it.
02:05:49
Speaker
and a yeah it's so weird a venomous spell on each great apple of them and a girdle of skins of deer and rosebuck around the thing that was his body so he's got some clothes I guess
02:06:06
Speaker
and one eye in the forehead of his black-faced countenance and one bare, hard, very hairy hand coming out of his chest and one veiny, thick, sold leg supporting him. Sorry, I'm laughing too much. It's an accurate description, but also it was getting very deep. Sick and veiny.
02:06:36
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, supporting him and a close firm dark blue mantle of twisted hard feathers protecting his body. And surely he was more like unto devil than to man. End quote. Well, he doesn't really look like a man. No, he looks like a one on one horn flying. No, no, he's got one arm.
02:07:06
Speaker
hand thing he's got one taloned like foot claw his head is a giant eyeball he looks like a greek myth yeah did you uh go to the you can go to the last picture if you haven't already it's like the same thing but somebody's just like really neon drawing of it i love it i think that was the one i was looking at oh shit now the other one
02:07:31
Speaker
Oh, it's the foot. Oh, my God. Looks so weird. Just standing on one leg. Yeah, that weird leg lamp from that Christmas movie. Yes. 100%. Um, oh, my God. So Hyde suggests that both descriptions represent branches of a common gay like tradition, and that the word folk and folk Chan may be diminutive of the Irish
02:08:01
Speaker
Oh my God. Sure. Which means giant and then related to the Scottish fam hair, which means giant. So combination of those two.
02:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, and believe in a lot of cool things. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a brief thing on a few of the ones I found probably the most information on that I thought were kind of funny and fun to look at.
02:08:35
Speaker
I enjoyed that very much Lee. Yeah. And at the same time, I don't think it's too much to say that I wouldn't mind doing another deep dive on it because there's so many cool things. Yeah. I know I didn't get to, but I don't know. It's like, damn it. We're like a little bit like America where they're like, I can't believe.
02:08:58
Speaker
Things have 400 year old legends. It's like, we're from North America. We don't have as old stuff. And then when we go to like look up Celtic lore or Norse mythology. Yeah. It's like the 1200s. Right. Or like even like we've done, we've dabbled a little bit in a few places in Asia, but not nearly anything around the world. Oh, it's just so much fun. I don't know. Yeah. I love it.
02:09:25
Speaker
Those are some crazy pictures. I'm gonna have to post some of them. I thought they were so funny. I was like obsessed with them. So yeah, check out our Instagram and check out our website for the pictures because it's worth it. It's great. Oh, hell yeah. And hopefully by this time we have some great pictures from Vegas too. Yes.
02:09:50
Speaker
Next week, join us for travel crimes. Yeah, because we survived our vacation. What's that? Since we know we survived our vacation, we'll talk about travel crimes. I mean, yes, exactly. That's the perfect time to research something like that. It's once you come back from being in an airport. Yeah. In a foreign land and don't know anybody. Yeah, so foreign.
02:10:20
Speaker
Although at this point in time, we're starting to act a lot like Americans, but anyway, we thank you for listening. Yes. Subscribe, follow. Yeah, we appreciate all the ratings. I really do. We've been getting a few on good pods and Spotify and stuff like that. We have like, yeah, every time I look on our Spotify, it's
02:10:43
Speaker
Five stars. I appreciate it. Those who like us like us a lot. We love you guys. Yes. But yeah, we'll see you next week. Yes. Bye. Bye bye.
02:11:19
Speaker
This has been Castles Encrypteds. You can listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Pocket Cast, and our YouTube channel.
02:11:31
Speaker
Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit. On our website, you can listen to all of our episodes as well as view pictures for each of our segments. Check out our Patreon page to view all of our tiers and become a Patreon supporter today to unlock monthly bonus episodes and behind-the-scenes content. We are working on an Ask Us Anything. You can submit questions by social media or by email at castlesandcryptids at gmail.com.
02:12:00
Speaker
Do you have a spooky ghost story, a creepy cryptid sighting, or a thrilling true crime tale you would like to share and have us include in a future episode? Send us your listener story by social media or by email. Please include the name that you would like mentioned. Our music is by Cobia Fair. Our logo and artwork is by Antonio Garcia. Thanks for listening!