transcripted-podcasts - Tumblr blog

transcripted-podcasts · 4 years

Text

Zombie Fishbowl - Episode 1

Haunted Battlefields

In our first episode, we talk about the phenomenon of ‘haunted battlefields’ after we introduce ourselves and explain WTF ‘Zombie Fishbowl’ actually means!

Listen to the episode here!

---

[Intro music]

Melanie: Hello!

Danielle: Hello!

Melanie: Welcome to Zombie Fishbowl, a podcast about random shit!

Danielle: Zombie Fishbowl? What does that even mean?

Melanie: Not a damn thing.

Danielle: And everything at the same time! Wow!

Melanie: All right, so let's start by introducing ourselves.

Danielle: Hello! I'm Danielle, I live in Northwest England, in a very damp, seaside town. But I did live in California for about 13 years, hence the weird accent. I'm studying for a master's degree in archaeology after deciding that I wanted to change my career after being a support worker for 10 years. So, I fucking love history and logic, and am, as you will get to know, very skeptical of the paranormal world (which we will probably do a lot of talking about because it's the most fun). And, even though I roll my eyes at ghost hunters and psychics and spooky YouTube videos, I still fucking love it! I love a ghost story. I love a weird happening. My mum and I share this enthusiasm. She kinda passed it on to me.

But although I am absolutely intrigued by the unknown, I also like to have a look and see what reason there might be behind something. So, I'll be bringing the scientific papers and whatever reliable publications I can find to try to explore humanity's obsession and consistent claim that there is something, some other world that we cannot see or test or measure.

Melanie: And I'm Melanie and I live in California, USA. Daughter of a horror novelist and a porn star, I'm an enthusiast for the bizarre, taboo, and fun. I am pagan, a recovering medium, a horror and fantasy fanatic, and mythology nerd so, needless to say, whatever she doesn't believe in? I just might. Or, at least, will enjoy the telling.

So, backstory. Danielle and I were best friends growing up in southern California. We were nerds with a punk/goth twist that were never quite cool enough for the punks or the goths or even the nerds. But we partied together, grew together, and basically been through hell and high water. We grew up and I stayed in California...

Danielle: And I moved back to England to be with my loverboy.

Melanie: So here we are, in our 30s, continents apart. But whenever we get a chance to chat, it's always insane, fun, and full of information. So we thought we'd share our love of the random, macabre, fun facts and turn it into a podcast.

Danielle: Also, in regards to the name of our podcast, I suppose you do need some kind of explanation. Well, we tried being clever, intellectual, and punny, but nothing was quite working until Melanie, randomly, in an exasperated moment threw out Zombie Fishbowl which was the name of the band we almost-tried-to-but-didn't-quite-ever-have in high school, although I did attempt to learn how to play the bass, and I can still play the intro to Crazy Train like a total badass.

Melanie: And I can sing, so that was something. [laughs] It doesn't mean anything but it could mean so much.

Danielle: So throw it all in a zombie fishbowl and eat it up!

Melanie: So here's the plan. We have a list of wide-ranging topics from magic to UFOs, and every week we throw them into a randomizer and then research the shit out of it. Hopefully, as this podcast grows, we'd love to hear from you. All of our social media information will be holla-ed at you at the end of the podcast.

Danielle: But we're going to steer clear of current affairs, politicky stuff, because it is so so so so divisive and polarizing and just plain frustrating. We will no doubt get political, it is in our very nature, but not as a topic, and we'll try not to be overtly preachy.

Melanie: Also, sports because we do not sport.

Danielle: Nope, I can't sport and neither can Melanie, so no sport. Anyway, one more thing before we get into the topic this week: we have The Purge.

Melanie: Dun dun dun! So this is where we, mostly Danielle, will have a moan for a couple minutes to clear the air before starting. So what do you want to vent about this week, Danielle?

Danielle: Wet rain.

Melanie: [laugh]

Danielle: Not normal rain that just comes down and you can, you know, put your umbrella up and you're quite happy walking across the street looking all emo and [unintelligible], but the kind of rain that just makes everything on your body damp and no matter what you do, everything is just wet and miserable and it just...it makes everything difficult. Uh! I just fucking hate wet rain. It's that stuff that comes from the ground as well as the skies, comes from the left and it comes from the right, and there's nothing you can do about it, and you're just damp all the time and--

Melanie: It's like a soggy miserable rain.

Danielle: Yeah, which is pretty much 90% of the weather in this bloody town. It's really, really grim out there right now. It's been grim for a couple days, but then there's like an hour of beautiful sunshine and everyone runs out in their shorts just--just 'please give me the vitamin D! Please give me the vitamin D!' and then everybody runs back inside as soon as it starts to rain again. It's June! It's supposed to be lovely outside but it's like looking at a November...ugh, so miserable. That's--that's what I wanted to get off my chest. I got wet earlier today and I haven't got over it yet.

Melanie: [laughs] I'm sorry for your soggy life over there.

Danielle: Well, you know, it's what I signed up for, I guess. You gotta have the bad damp horrible weather in order to appreciate and really take advantage of lovely sunshine which I can see you're having right now, ya bitch.

Melanie: Oh yes, the sunniest of sunshines. And it's not quite yet at like 90 degrees. I think we're at a nice medium 65 heading toward 70.

Danielle: That sounds perfect!

Melanie: Yeah, yeah that's that's the sweet spot, but give us about two hours and it's gonna probably be like 85.

Danielle: Yeah, it kind of goes OTT after a while. I don't know why I said OTT! I don't say that in my daily life. I'm gonna say it fully: over the top.

Melanie: [laughs] Okay, good because I'm old, and when you said OTT, I have no idea what that meant.

Danielle: I read a lot of Reddit. [laughs] I learned the lingo of the youths.

Melanie: Yeah I'm not, I'm not hip with the kids today with their their letters instead of words.

Danielle: I have to admit, every so often I have to Google an acronym, but...

Melanie: I have to Google an acronym almost every day. It's awful.

Danielle: [laughs] fantastic. Right, okay. Do you have anything you want to purge?

Melanie: Oh I suppose we'll go with cats. No, I love cats. I have two cats. I--I love my cats, but they can be such fucking cats. Like Phineas, my big fat old one. He's fine. He's too lazy and slow to really do anything much as far as the bothersome cat behavior. He just has that Siamese cat meow which makes you want to kill something, but other than that? But my kitten is such a kitten and I can't stand it! She, I have a cup of water above my bed every night, and every night I get clunked in the head with a glass full of water. And you'd think I'd learn.

Danielle: Yeah. [laughs]

Melanie: But I don't because I keep forgetting that she's such a cat. Like not just...the little things, you know, knocking things off the things, the technical term. Why?! Why! It's so cute until it actually is in your life and then you're like 'why the fuck are you catting so hard!'

Danielle: [laughs]

Melanie: So that's--that's my purge because I keep getting knocked in the head with water at like 2:00 in the morning.

Danielle: Patrick started...it's his summers sick ritual which is, you know, when the summer comes around, cuz he's a long-haired cat, and every other day he'll be hacking up a hairball. But he just doesn't do it over the--the wood floor, it's all over the carpet and it's all over multiple carpets because he moves three feet between each regurge.

[Laughter]

Danielle: So, you know, swings 'em roundabouts, really. They're awesome, they're awesome. I love my cats, they're my little dudes, but yeah. They don't knock water into my face but they certainly make for a Russian Roulette when you're walking around the house barefoot. Yeah, all right, I feel better, do you?

Melanie: I think I do. A little bit.

Danielle: All right. Let's take a deep breath and we'll start this week's factotastic Zombie Fishbowl podcast.

Melanie: Ready?

Danielle: Ready.

[Sounds of exaggerated deep breaths and laughter]

Danielle: That's never gonna get old.

[Laughter]

Melanie: All right. So, this week's topic randomly picked from our random topic picker is:

[In unison]: Haunted battlefields!

Danielle: Wow, that was shit, fantastic. You go.

Melanie: I felt good about it, I don't know about you.

Danielle: [laughs]

Melanie: I really did.

Danielle: Fantastic.

Melanie: Okay, so I suppose I'll start. Being in America, we have had a bloody civil war, which we all know, but really getting a grasp on the numbers of it was was phenomenal. So, out of all of the soldiers that have ever fallen in a war, every single American soldier, if you add them all up from the beginning of American soldiers being a thing to present day, if you add all those casualties up, half of them took place in the Civil War. But brother against brother so, no matter who fell, it was an American falling and it was just so, so much and that's not even including all of the battles against the Native Americans and--and the Mexicans and--and just--just the slaughter that took place here all over the place. There are many ways I could have gone, and I kind of got stuck in the Civil War, mainly because I have never in my life had any interest in it. So I thought, this thing that I--I know enough about to pass like, what, third grade, but it never really hit me as anything super interesting, so I researched into it.

Danielle: I feel you on that. I'm not a big warfare history buff. I like my history and stuff like that but, you know, battlefields and war and battles, it's never really been...because it's--it's a little bit repulsive.

Melanie: Yeah! Yeah! And it's funny because, instinctively, I think we're just kind of like 'oh yeah, no, this happened' but if you actually just take a second to really try and grasp what happened, it's heartbreaking and hideous and then just horrifying.

Danielle: Yep.

Melanie: So, um, I started by researching the top ten bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

Danielle: Oh, god.

Melanie: Which is so fucking significant like, oh my god. And poor Virginia, man. Well not so much poor Virginia but, Jesus, the amount of people who died there for this--this war is staggering. It's like at least 15,000 just in a couple of these battles? It's just absurd. Anyway, so we'll start with the--the biggest, which is the Battle of Gettysburg.

Danielle: The most famous, I think, in American history.

Melanie: It is the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. It lasted for three days in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Grand total casualties including wounded was almost 50,000 people in three days. 5,425 people just went missing. Which I think is interesting, and looking at all of these battles, you don't see a number so much for people just missing. But with the Battle of Gettysburg, almost 5,500 people just, poof!, disappeared. So, Battle of Gettysburg. With so many dead, dying, injured, and just missing, it's--it's one of the most haunted sites in America.

Danielle: Mm-hmm.

Melanie: All right, the battle took place across this one field, but it also took place over mountains; it even went into the city itself. It was so bad that in some of the houses that were healing the--the injured, people were like ankle deep in blood.

Danielle: That sounds like an exaggeration.

Melanie: It's an exaggeration, but--but the--the walls? Covered. The floor? Covered. Like completely covered. Ankle deep, yeah, is a bit of an exaggeration, but to say that they were at least heel deep in blood I don't think is an exaggeration.

Danielle: They were slipping in the stuff.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah.

Melanie: But one of the things, with all the battlefields that I researched, I found that most recurring...thing was when...hold on, I got the word...residual hauntings.

Danielle: Mm-hmm

Melanie: The residual hauntings are really just a replay of the events.

[Overlapping talk]

Danielle: I have heard that. Yeah, sorry, you, go ahead, you say it.

Melanie: [laughs, then with a lisp] So from a psychic pagan perspective…

Danielle: [laughs] Yes.

Melanie: All right, with residual hauntings, I believe that...when you have that much death and that much rage and fear and--and just--just really amped up energy, it sort of leaves an imprint. I mean, you go into a room where somebody's been, you know, beaten their whole lives, even if you don't have any context of what happened there before, that room feels dark and oppressing and not great. So when you go to a battlefield or go to a place where, you know, the soldiers were taken to be treated and eventually probably die or have their legs amputated with no anesthesia, there's a lot of emotion there and so with residual hauntings, a lot of it is just, you see these people replaying these moments, whether it's somebody's specifically getting up and walking across the room or [clears throat] a lot of the times they'll see people standing on (or sitting on) horses just sort of standing there in the field, just--just chillin'.

Danielle: So my--my knowledge of this means that they're not intelligent, they can't interact with them, and they don't interact with you. In fact, they probably don't even see you. It is an imprint of emotion left, so this kind of definition within the metaphysical world implies that it's not actually the human soul; it's not actually a person who is dead, it is actually more like a film being replayed.

Melanie: Yes exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, when it comes to those kinds of hauntings I don't find them particularly---

[Children's screams]

Danielle: Ahh!

Melanie: Holy Jesus! I'm gonna close that window!

[both laugh]

Melanie: Lord have mercy!

Danielle: Hopefully people with earphones didn't suddenly think some child was screaming in their ears.

Melanie: It's my own ghost child...so when it comes to residual hauntings, I don't find them particularly spooky because, again they're, yeah, they're unintelligent, they don't have a motive or instinct or reason; they just are replaying.

Danielle: Mm-hmm. I think and also, by its own definition, it's not proof of an afterlife.

Melanie: Absolutely! Absolutely! Yeah, they're--they're not so much ghosts to me as like, yeah, holograms, imprints.

Danielle: Yeah.

Melanie: But one thing I thought was really interesting at Gettysburg is people getting wafts of phantom scents of mint or vanilla. And they'll come out of nowhere.

Danielle: Vanilla?

Melanie: Vanilla because, back then, back in the day, after the war, you know, the streets are piled up with bodies, just--just piled up in the middle of Pennsylvania's summer which, I gotta tell ya, it's hot. Not only is it hot, it's humid. So bodies were swelling to twice their size and they were just sitting in the streets. But it still had to function as a city, so people would have to walk through these streets, and they would douse their handkerchiefs with peppermint oil or vanilla oil to try and mask the smell.

Danielle: Oh, I'd definitely be a peppermint, because, if I was smelling the rotting corpses of the dead and vanilla, it'd be like that sickly sweet...oh no, mint for me, definitely mint.

Melanie: It would put you off [unintelligible] forever

Danielle: Yeah, seriously.

Melanie: But yeah, I think--I think that's interesting, especially because, you know, it's not that mint isn't native to it, but when you get just a waft from out of nowhere, and it's gone within a second, I mean, that's--that's a little bit more telling than sort of been like 'well, no, there's probably people just growing mint all over the place' no, it's a strong, concentrated smell.

Danielle: And people in Gettysburg still get whiffs of that?

Melanie: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it--it's just, to them, it's just sort of what it's like there now. But people who go to visit, they'll be walking and they'll smell, like, you know, just regular street, they'll smell flowers, they'll smell the baker, and all of a sudden just a bomb of menthol in your nostrils.

Danielle: It's interesting that it's that and not the smell of rotting corpses.

Melanie: That's what I thought, too! Why not the smell of corpses? I mean, you'd think that would be more predominant, but I think because the intention, there's that very strong intention of, you know, masking this smell or--or even, because mint was also believed to help prevent disease and decay, it was sort of like also as a medicinal buffer from the dead? I think the fear from--from...while inhaling such a scent is what left its imprint rather than the whiff of the dead bodies.

Danielle: Okay, okay. Plus, if you smelled what you thought was dead bodies, you possibly just misinterpret it as the drains? [laughs] Who knows?

Melanie: There's that, too.

Danielle: I don't know. Anyway, carry on.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: I find smells very hard to believe because, like you said leading up to it, it can just easily be coming from someone who's growing some mint in their back garden or, you know, the smell of some concentrated vanilla isn't that unusual in the 21st Century with cupcake shops and doughnuts and stuff. So, you know, if it was something like, you know, really unique, like the smell of a very particular cigar or something like that, maybe I'd be a little bit more intrigued, but mint and vanilla, to me, I could write straight off. Poof! Those are common smells.

Melanie: And--and, I was willing to write it off too until I was reading the accounts of people. It's like, no, it's not just a subtle mint smell, it's like, it's like being chloroformed with mint, just...

Danielle: All right.

Melanie: You know, really strong, strong whiff. [with a lisp] So that's what I got for Gettysburg. [back to normal speech] There's--there's so many. God, the amount of people that died is just insane. Next one I wrote out was Little Bighorn. Do you know much about that?

Danielle: Native American battle...was that...I'm going to sound really ignorant...west coast?

Melanie: So Little Bighorn...shit, I don't think I even wrote down where it fucking was.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: The Matterhorn is in California? And that, maybe that's what I'm mixing it up with.

Melanie: So the battle of Little Bighorn took place somewhere very important...

[both laugh]

Danielle: Over there.

Melanie: Over there. And there was a whole bunch of tribes involved, and that was basically one of Custer's last battles. It was his last battle. There we have the Sioux nations, Hunkpapa Lakota, Sans Arc, Blackfoot tribes, whole bunch fought against Custer's 7th Cavalry. On January 25th, 1876, most of the native warriors survived, but almost every single one of the troops that went into battle died. There was a rumor or a legend or a myth that the only soldier to come out of there alive was the horse named Comanche.

Danielle: On the American side?

Melanie: On the American side. Well, I guess they're all Americans. So Custer went over there with 600 troops. Only 300 entered the battle. Sitting Bull gathered his warriors and ensured the safety of women and children, while Crazy Horse left with a large force to attack. Custer was quickly defeated. Including Custer, over 260 troops of the 300 died. The hauntings again seem to be residual, but they do seem to be a little bit more intense. And I think a lot of that comes from either the Native Americans' connection to the land itself, I think it just has a deeper significance to them. But most of them, again, it's residual. Warriors on horses just surveying the field. Occasionally believed to see some of the federal soldiers looking for their limbs.

Danielle: Nice.

Melanie: Which I found this interesting.

Danielle: How do we know they're looking for their limbs?

Melanie: Probably just that lost look and that one arm reaching...'it's gotta be here somewhere.'

Danielle: Someone hopping along and saying 'has anyone seen my foot?'

[Both laugh]

Danielle: 'My country for a foot!'

Melanie: [laughs] And then from there I have cryptids. So I want to hear what you've got before I go into cryptids.

Danielle: Cryptids on battlefields.

Melanie: Mhmm.

Danielle: Melanie told me that she was going to cover the continent of the USA, Northern America. Or, did you go into South America? Because you did just say continent.

Melanie: I did not. I'm a big fibber. I was pretty strictly on my end...

Danielle: Right, that's fine, that's fine because, I did--I did a couple. You can tell me whether you want to hear both of them at the same time or one at a time. But the first one I did was one called the Battle at Culloden Moor. Or [repeats name slightly differently] I don't want to sound like I'm doing the Scottish accent, but it's in Scotland. And it's up in the Highlands. It was during the Jacobite rebellions. So, for those over the pond that don't know, the Scottish really don't like the English, and at every opportunity have fought tooth and nail to not be part of English sovereignty, if you will. You'll still hear about that today. They really don't like it. The Jacobites were basically these, sort of, people of the Highlands of Scotland who did not want to be a part of the English Kingdom, but the king was pretty adamant that they should better bend the knee kind of thing. So it's up in the Highlands, near Inverness, so if you wanted to take a look for it, it's in a lovely little place which is on the crook[?] of the Moray Firth which is a part of the North Sea that goes into Scotland. Lovely part of the country. Never been. On me list. It took place in 1746. It's the last battle of the Jacobite rebellion. They've been fighting for 31 years, so this was a long time coming.

Melanie: Good grief.

Danielle: It was horrific, it was bloody; you can imagine, we're still using swords and, you know, stabby things at this point.

Melanie: Pointy sticks.

Danielle: Pointy sticks, throwing shit, stones, all that horrible stuff. And, unfortunately, it's the infamous death of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and loads of his followers. I'm not going to get into why he was called Bonnie Prince Charlie, I will let you imagine why the Scots call him Bonnie Prince. I'm sure it won't take you very long to work it out. It also lasted less than an hour. I mean, they were annihilated, and it was the end of the Jacobite rebellion, and the king was victorious in the end. So not only were they horrendously defeated, apparently their suffering didn't end at the end of the battle because they still haunt the battlefield to this day, so people say, anyway. Every year on April 16, which is the anniversary of the battle, people see, I guess, a residual haunting of a reenactment of this battle. So...I'll get more into that bit in a bit but, um, people have apparently seen this reenactment, but it gets funny. But I'll tell you about this afterwards because I want to tell you this--this story about these two old ladies because this is the cutest ghost story I've ever heard.

Melanie: Nice.

Danielle: So, right, I like it because it works backwards, and to me, that is more logical than when somebody's told something's haunted and then sees a ghost.

Melanie: Mm-hmm.

Danielle: Other way around. So, I will show you this. These two old dears show up at a National Trust for Scotland site. National Trust for Scotland, basically, we put up an office in a nice little Museum next to historical buildings and places of historical interest and charge people to get into it to keep and maintain it because we love that shit. On a bank holiday weekend, we'll go to a castle, go through the cafe, go sit down in the castle, have a look around, come out, go through the gift shop and have another brew. That is a bank holiday weekend to the tee.

Melanie: Nice

Danielle: Literally tea. Anyway, so these two old dears go to this National Trust of Scotland site, and they asked if they could see a map which would show the route for this infamous Jacobite retreat. Now, the bit that I didn't talk about before was that, prior to the actual battle, there had been a failed surprise attack by the Jacobites. So, they had split into two and decided to ambush the Duke of Cumberland, which was the son of the king at the time (and nicknamed The Butcher) who they were going to be battling at some point or another, but they split into two to decide to go and surprise attack them. One of the armies, one side of the army, decided that it was just not workable, we're going home...well back to the camp, and went back. And that was about 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Well, the other half didn't get the message until nearly daybreak, when they were literally on top of Cumberland's camp, was, like, literally about to attack as far as I understand it, and then someone was like 'no! call it off!' so they all had to run. So this lady knew about this retreat, but she wanted to see the route of it, so she and her friend were looking at this map, and the--the helpful people in the gift shop at the National Trust were showing them the route that the--the retreats took (because we did take very good notes, I guess; someone took the time to write it down). So they're looking at this, and then the woman goes 'ah! there's my house!' So she sees on the route of the retreat that it runs right through her back garden. And she turns to her--her best friend, or old lady friend over there, and goes 'see! see! I told you! I told you!' Apparently, about five times over the last ten years, she'd been woken up in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of, very distinctly, soldiers running through her garden. Now, I don't know what soldiers running through a garden sounds like, but I imagine it probably gives off a little bit at a different aura, difference aural sound...

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Transmission or whatever than your average running man? But she says that it sounds like soldiers. So she--she'd run up to the window to see, what the heck, who's running through her garden. And then she wouldn't see anything, but she'd still be able to hear them. And she was like 'I've always heard soldiers running through my garden.' and--and so this kind of gave her a little bit of validity in that the route of the retreat most likely went through her garden. So she is pretty convinced that she's heard the residual sounds of the Jacobites in retreat, which is quite interesting. Because it works backwards, I'm more likely to believe an old lady trying to prove herself right (because I know how that is) than somebody that goes somewhere that is known to be haunted and saying 'oh I saw a specter.' Well, you were expecting to see it so you're gonna see something. That's the other way around, it's a little bit more believable.

Melanie: Exactly.

Danielle: And the actual battlefield itself...I forgot what it's called already...Culloden, Culloden Moor, the actual battlefield itself has your typical array of ghosty apparitions. Mostly sounds: war cries, clashing swords, screaming in agony, those sorts of things. Especially around the anniversary of the event itself. So this is what I'm gonna get a little bit cynical because, interestingly enough, the author of the Outlander novels, name's Diana Gabaldon, have you heard of Outlander?

Melanie: Yes.

Danielle: Yeah. So the writer of these novels, right when she was releasing a book which happens to be talking about star-crossed lovers who were separated by this very specific battle, came out to say that she's been to the battlefield, and she was brought to tears by the feeling of dread and sadness of the--of the souls that were on the battlefield. So it was pretty highly, not highly but, you know, it was put in all the press and all the tabloids and everything about how she feels it was so much...she's just...knows it's haunted. She just knew, Melanie, when she went; she knew it may be haunted by all these souls. ‘Buy my book! It's so haunted, it's so, you know, it's such a horrible thing. Buy my book.’ So that happened.

Melanie: [laughs]

Danielle: Some other stuff that's happened: locals and tourists say that they are visions of unearthly specters over the graves of the Jacobites. Basically, the Jacobites were buried in mass graves right in the battlefield.

Melanie: Mass graves are the worst.

Danielle: Yeah there's loads of the burial mounds, there's loads of things like that around the battleground, they're just chucked in. One person claimed to have seen a tartan-clad man lay maimed and bloodied on the ground on the moor. So I wanted to look at see if the Jacobites would have actually worn tartan, but then I forgot and didn't. There's this whole thing about how tartan is associated with the Scots...Scottish. Ooh, they don't like, sorry with the Scots, Scottish...Scots.

Melanie: Stop offending people.

Danielle: I know, I just, you don't say Scotch, you say Scots. There's a whole thing about how the certain tartans weren't actually around until hundreds of years later and things like that, so I meant to go and have a look if it was even likely that someone in this battle would have been wearing tartan, but I didn't. I'm sorry...

Melanie: We'll never know!

Danielle: But that's the one thing I'm like, right, okay so if you're going to say that something so specific that they're wearing tartan, I'm gonna go find out if it was even likely that a Jacobite was wearing tartan, but I'll get into that another time. But the thing that the actual site themselves claim is that birds do not go near it. That is something that can be verified. So apparently birds don't go near the battlefield, and they certainly don't sing. So if they are passing by, or hopping along, they won't sing while they're at the battlefield. Now that is something the site itself, like, the sort of touristy bit of the site claims - there's no birdsong so that's definitely something that I'd like to explore further. that is, literally, you just have to go there and stand there, and if you don't hear any birds, you go 'huh, no birds. That is weird.' But if I hear a bird, then I'm gonna be like 'well that's obviously BS.' So...

Melanie: Bullshit!

Danielle: Yeah. So with this sort of battlefield ghosts, I mean, it was--it was horrendous and it was devastating for Highlanders. It's really gotta sting; this was their defeat. So I feel like these legends just ensure that the story of the battle continues. And that people don't forget how shit and nasty the English can be. So I don't blame them; ghost stories are a perfect way to do this. But I can't take away from peoples’...I can't take away peoples’, like, personal experiences. So I'm not pooh-poohing anyone that feels like they have actually seen something or heard something on any scale because I wouldn't be so bold as to say that I'm right and they're wrong. But it just seems too perfect for me that a place where the Scottish would want people to remember a battle that they want people to be pissed off about, you know, the best way to do that is to build a legend around it. So the legend around it is that it's incredibly haunted

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: So it's a really good way to transmit a cautionary tale, you know, about how shit the English are. You'd think we'd learn but, you know...and that was Culloden Moor, anyway. Do you want me to do my other one?

Melanie: Yeah, do it!

Danielle: The second one that I thought I'd do...I knew you'd have to do Civil War, if you were doing the US; that's the only war you fought on your own soil. Unless you did Pearl Harbor, which I don't really know if counts as a battlefield, really.

Melanie: Right?

Danielle: It's a location of war, but it's, you know, like warfare but not necessarily battlefield. It was a bit one-sided.

Melanie: Yeah, a battlefield is where two forces are clashing.

Danielle: So I thought that I would sort of educate, in a way, your side of the pond in that we also had a civil war. So we have, you know, we have had a civil war was between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, because there was a time in our history where the kings and queens of the Royals were not looked upon favorably by a certain sector of the population. They were taking the piss and so Parliamentarians, people that wanted to have a more democratic - I'm gonna say that with a pinch of salt because it was…it was a religious revolution more than it was a political one. And one of the greatest battles of the Civil War took place in 1642 in Warwickshire. It was called the Battle of Edgehill. It was, as you can imagine, pretty horrendous; thousands died and it ended up being strategically moot because both sides lost about the same amount of people. It added no strategic advantage to one side or the other, and the war continued, and it didn't seem to really have much of an effect other than the fact that they all had less people. But they ALL had less people so, you know, it didn't leave anyone with any advantage, so it was kind of a bit, you know, shittily planned battle.

Melanie: Yeah, pointless.

Danielle: Yeah. The funny thing about this particular haunting is that it happens almost immediately. So, you know, you've usually got a little bit of time between when a tragedy occurs and you start seeing ghosts.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Well, this literally happens less than two months later. So it happens in about November, that was (I’m trying to remember now) October, at the end of October, in 1642, and just before Christmas, a shepherd reported seeing a reenactment of the battle. But not just, you know, on the ground, like your typical reenactment. Up in the sky! Above the battlefield. Right, so you could hear the clashes of armor, cries of the dying, screams, voices, even horses up in the sky. So he runs and he tells his priest like ‘I just saw this great battle in the sky over the battlefield at Edgehill.’ And what does the priest say, do you think?

Melanie: That he's drunk.

Danielle: No. ‘I saw it, too!’

Melanie: Oh, shit.

Danielle: The priest tells him ‘I saw it too! I thought I was going mad!’ Now, I don't think if he said that bit but he said ‘I saw it, too’. And over the next few days, apparently, more and more locals reported to seeing the phantom battle in the sky. So much so that they produced a pamphlet in 1643 (so this is the next year) called A Great Wonder in Heaven. And it detailed all the different peoples’ accounts of this battle.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Right. So this little, you know, town who's made this pamphlet about this haunted battlefield, and the king finds out, and he's very intrigued. So he sends his, he sends his bros down to see what the fuck is going on, right? So it's in Warwickshire, so it's not that far. He sends him up from London. And, lo and behold, his cronies see the phantoms at the battlefield, too! Not only did they see this phantom battle going on in the sky, but they could recognize people who were in it. This only happened two months previous. Their comrades up there, and I can actually see, apparently, their friends and their, you know, their confidants up in the sky.

Melanie: Oh no, it’s Jeff, he's getting stabbed! Run, Jeff!

Danielle: Exactly. There's one particularly interesting one which was the king’s standard bearer. And for those of you don't know what a standard bearer is, it's the person that is tasked with holding the flag that has the standard of the king on it. So they don't actually fight, they're not soldiers, but they're usually highly…they were soldiers, and usually are very highly decorated, but their role on the battlefield is not to take part in the battle but to hold the standard. And if the standard falls into the hands of the other side, it's kind of like they win the battle. It's kind of like capture the flag.

Melanie: Wow…

Danielle: [laughs] So I don't think that people would just, like, surrender if the other side had the flag, I think people would keep fighting, but it's kind of like symbolic? If the other side has your standard, then it's like ‘oh shit, we're losing!’ So, you know, it could either serve as motivation to fight a little harder or it could make you feel despair that you're losing. It depends on your predisposition

Melanie: I would imagine they kept those guys at the back, right? They had to work their way through?

Danielle: I mean, it would usually be quite close to the king, so the king will be pretty heavily protected. Or, you know, like the commander of the particular rank…you know, the most highly ranked person there because you'd have to have a standard bearer there to sort of decree so everybody knew whose side was who, I guess. I'm not an expert on these things, but there's always somebody holding a standard. I think that it shows up in Game of Thrones at some point, so if you guys wanted…that really did happen, people did really hold flags. But this guy, Sir Edmund Verney, was the standard bearer for this battle and had gallantly refused to let go of the standard when it was being, like, yanked from him by the other side. So they chopped off his hand and his arm to get at the standard and then got it. So, apparently, these guys who had come down or up from London to have a look, saw their friend Sir Edmund Verney getting his hand lobbed off and the standard taken. PSI…is it PSI? Side note: the Royalists do get the standard back, and, apparently, they get it back and his hand was still clasping onto the pole. What a guy! Still, you know, and the Parliamentarians hadn't, you know, tried to rip it off. It was time-consuming, I guess. So apparently when they got the standard back, his hand was still attached. So this guy was pretty well thought of. There's this sort of…he's almost martyred, if you will. The standard bearer of the King, ‘til his dying breath, held the standard and had to have his arm cut off before he would be able to have it pried from his hands, right? So, can you say propaganda with me?

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: So these people that have come up from the king just happen to see the hero of the battle, if you will, Sir Edmund Verney, getting his hand lobbed off and the--the standard being yoinked. So I'm not saying the story’s bullshit or anything, but [laughs].

Melanie: I don't know, watching the whole battle in the sky sounds pretty realistic to me.

Danielle: I just mean that their--their particular account of their friend Sir Eddie there. So yeah, but it certainly makes for interesting telling to the king when they get back, which they do, more on that later. So the villagers and, I imagine the priest, who in no way makes any money from this, wink wink, decide to give all the corpses a proper Christian burial. So they get the proper rite, it's the Christian rites, as they're being…because obviously they've just been kind of dumped in this field. It was only two months ago; some of them were probably still sticking out of the ground. And apparently, for the time being, the great ghost battle in the sky stopped. So apparently burying them in Christian graves by the priest and getting all of their last rites, apparently settled their souls for a time.

Melanie: That's usually the way to do it.

Danielle: Yeah, well, it seems to be pretty consistent in these kind of stories that they need some kind of resolution, unfinished business, if you will.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: Contradictory to this, people still report to hear shit to this day. So, at the time, they were quite happy with settling, you know, settling it and saying, ‘Listen we gave them all Christian burials and everything went away.’ Well that's very good Christian propaganda, end of story, right? Well, as time has gone on, people have latched on to the ghost story a little bit more. And the whole thing about God Almighty letting them all settle at the end, you know, as long as they've got their rites? That's finished, we don't believe that anymore, do we? So people still report to hear shit like screams, cannon fire, hooves galloping, and battle cries on the site, especially around the anniversary. Like a week or so before a fair or a carnival or something that doesn’t need press or publicity or anything. Suddenly people will start hearing shit and it gets into the local paper and at the bottom of it might seem like ‘oh we're having a carnival!’ I'm not cynical or anything…

[Both laugh]

Danielle: But it's infamously haunted, this place, Edgehill. Interestingly, and this is my last little fact on this, because this is--this is the most fun fact for me because of all the…both these stories I can easily dismiss as…the first one was Scottish making up legends to try to, you know, demonstrate how shit the English are, and then this one clearly a religious one because the Civil War was a religious war. But this, this is funny because this is the historical impact that this ghost story's had on our country. Because the king sent this official committee, if you will, to go and investigate this? Their account is held in the public records office.

Melanie: Nice.

Danielle: So it is the only officially recognized phantom battlefield in Britain. In fact, any ghosts whatsoever. It is an officially recognized haunted location according to the public records office because the king sent an official group of people to go and get an account. They wrote it all down, it went into the public records, eventually into the archives. So, legally, it’s haunted.

Melanie: Yeah, totally real. That’s awesome.

[both laugh]

Danielle: I don’t know if there’s any other legally, you know, officially recognized haunted places. I think things that are of historical interest, the haunting will be included in that. But in this particular case, the haunting is the record.

Melanie: Wow, that’s awesome.

Danielle: I thought that was pretty cool. I actually tried to find the official document within the public records, but it's not that easy to track down because it's not really called like the public records office anymore, it's like the National Archives. And they haven't digitized everything yet. So it's there, but I’d have to actually go to London and go through the National Archives and find it.

Melanie: If you ever do that, you could put that in the notes on our sites.

Danielle: I wanted to quote it. I wanted to quote it, I wanted to read it and be able to tell you what these dudes actually said. Like, ‘Lo, before me ‘twas the face of Sir Edmund, my friend.’ [laughs] I wanted to hear what he actually had to say. Anyway, so those are my battlefields.

Melanie: All right. Well then, in our last few minutes, let me just get in a cryptid and a yokai.

Danielle: All right.

Melanie: So the one cryptid that I did want to bring up is [says ominously] Old Green Eyes.

Danielle: Okay.

Melanie: So Old Green Eyes, he appeared...it's believed that he appeared before the battle but he really became popular around the time of the Battle of Chickamauga. And I have some details on that. It's the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War, second only to the Battle of Gettysburg. A shit ton of people died…where is me notes? Ope, there it is. Sorry.

Danielle: Organized as ever!

Melanie: Yeah, right? So the Battle of Chickamauga took care took place in Catoosa City in Georgia. It was a two day long battle. 3,969 people died. And right after that, even during the battle, it was said that the--the smell of blood, the screaming, the devastation…so much blood was spilled that a creature of great malice was drawn to the devastation. Most people believe it's a ghoul. It's not so much a ghost as a creature that stands about six to seven feet tall, humanlike. Some people say it's got long black hair and bright green, glowing eyes. They kind of, they have that--that green that almost turns orange; that shift of, like, night vision, like in a wolf.

Danielle: Like 1990s, you know, Fresh Prince hats.

Melanie: [laughs] Yes. But he has a huge deformed jaw and terrifying fangs (some people say fangs and some people say tusks) protruding. And he came to eat the dead. I wanted to, I didn't have enough time, but I wanted to see if there was any sort of, you know, native lore on a creature like that that might have been around that area. I'm still going to research that and, if I can come up with some facts, then I'm gonna throw that on one of our pages because I thought it was really interesting.

Danielle: Was it in Virginia again?

Melanie: Georgia, I believe. [Sound of notes shuffling] Yes, Georgia. And he's been seen over and over and over again. There was this one telling that there was this guy who was like a park ranger, and he'd seen it a good couple times. I meant to write down his name. I think it was Tidds or Timmons or Tiddly. [Laughs]

Danielle: TT, my friend!

Melanie: The park where this battle took place, it's kind of like Lovers Lane. It's a good makeout spot for a lot of people, and there have been numerous people that felt, like, while they were making out, all of a sudden this hot breath on the back of their neck.

Danielle: That’s very romantic.

Melanie: Then they turn around and they'll just see these big, bright green eyes. Then, of course, [clap sound] they fucking book. Sorry about my loud clapping. And then they fucking book. And this one park ranger had seen him a good few times. And it's interesting that, as the years progressed, the ghoul progressed. So whereas before he was a mostly naked kind of ghoul, but some people will see him now and they see him with a top hat or like a long black coat. And back in the 60s or…60s? I want to say 60s or 70s. No. Yes. One of them have this really racist viewing of it. They saw this tall…with gold green eyes and had the six feet tall and a big white head as if it was hair was wrapped up in something. And the person who walked upon it seeing it, seeing this giant, like, not hairy but human-like thing but so dark in the shadows but this big white thing on their head, they hear a baby crying, and they go to go approach them and, you know, say ‘what--what was going on? Can--can we help?’ and they described it as looking like an African American with their head wrapped up in a towel and then said in a big burly deep voice [speaks in growly voice] ‘just leave me alone’.

Danielle: Sounds like a Voodoo demon. I'm trying to remember. There's lots of fun folklore about particular, um, I think he's the sort of Voodoo version of death or, you know, like the Grim Reaper type of thing. Sounds a bit like him. I'm trying to remember what he's called.

Melanie: Oh, I know it.

Danielle: He’s sort of like half zombie half, you know, beast humanoid with the green theme is running through that one as well, but he's got white face paint on. He's definitely a black man with the top hat.

Melanie: I know his name. I have it in my flipping head.

Danielle: I know, it’s so bugging me.

Melanie: It’s like Big Daddy Saminy...Samily? Sam…something. Shit.

Danielle: We’ll remember like ten seconds after we finish this.

Melanie: Yeah.

Danielle: But Big Green sounds a lot like that legend.

Melanie: Old Green Eyes evolved and I think probably, I think initially it was just something that somebody was seeing when they were really, really terrified though. All of this monstrosity is going on, a monster in the mix really doesn't seem that out of place right now. But…

Danielle: So people on the battlefield themselves reported to seeing this thing before they went into battle?

Melanie: Yeah or during, in the middle of battle.

Danielle: Ooooh.

Melanie: Yeah. That was interesting. So some people had seen it or had been talking about it before the battle. But none of the soldiers who were there knew anything about it at all. They all of a sudden just see this--this tall huge creature with this massively deformed jaw just, like, slinking out from the woods to grab a corpse and pull it back in to eat it.

Danielle: Could it not possibly be an animal, but it's all fucked up and mangy looking because there's a war going on?

Melanie: Absolutely, especially because of the--the green eyes. And some people say that the green eyes turned from green to orange so it had that nighttime reflective much like a wolf, I think like that. But I did think that was neat with the whole, like, the tusks and the deformed jaw, I think it's really terrifying. Some of the images I found were downright spooky. And I love a good monster so I--I'm all about Old Green Eyes. But, over time, I think that it was interesting that he sort of evolved to just sort of be this like racist creature.

Danielle: Yeah, it’s a bit odd, that’s very telling.

Melanie: Yes, and that's how humans are, you know? We latch onto a story, and we sort of evolve it with--with us. And then my last thing I want to mention is my yokai because, with any topic, there's a yokai for that. My yokai is…I went with the Kosenjōbi which is a demon fire. It's made from the blood of warriors and animals that died in battle. The blood soaks into the earth and then the Kosenjōbi rises from the--the blood-soaked earth into the air at night, creating fiery shapes or orbs. They occasionally take the form of fallen warriors or animals, but mostly it just sees just balls of flame. And that's really predominant a lot of Japanese, like, mythology. Same thing with Chinese mythology, too. They do the big flaming balls of hate, fear, children, all kinds of things. But these ones are specific to battlefields. It’s said they, once again, they wander around the fields looking for their missing body parts. They're harmless but spooky.

Danielle: See, to me, oh you know the whole thing, everything that we've both researched, that all of it is not happy, right? And it’s never going to be happy when you're researching the ghosts of fallen soldiers. But these particular stories have a very clear message. All of them have a clear message: that war and battles and death like this is just bullshit. It's just...shit, it's shit; it creates horrible monsters, it creates balls of flame that could possibly represent like anger and hatred. You know the great sort of battles that are being reenacted with our friends dying over and over and over again, all of it has a very...although you can sort of twist it and mold it to your own narrative as much as you want. Overwhelmingly the, you know, without any doubt, going into it and coming out of it, this topic was going to come out. The moral of the story is: war is bad, m’kay?

Melanie: War sucks.

Danielle: War sucks. So yeah, any story that comes out of a battlefield, anything like that, I'm going to be a little, I suppose, I'm very skeptical and cynical of it, obviously. But I am NOT cynical of the message that is being…so if in Japanese culture they believe in this fiery, you know, beast if…sorry in this fiery yokai. If in Georgia they believe in this, you know, cannibalistic man-pig thing that comes and devours these bodies of the dead and--and--and mine as well, it just, you know, it's sad. It's sad that we don't listen to these things and…or at least that we manipulated the actual stories of the event to fit this kind of weird spooky side story and not actually tell the true stories or what actually…I'm sorry, I'm getting a little preachy, but I don't really like war.

[Both laugh]

Melanie: War, not so much fun.

Danielle: No, it's a little bit depressing. Because, after all of this, like, we've had a laugh and we've added this or we’ve added that, but these people really did actually exist at one point and they were killed horrendously. So just thought I'd end our little topic there, just like, sorry guys, you know...shit, no, sorry guys, sorry.

Melanie: I wanted to go into the stories of what generals took what where and--and all those details but there's so much and war, it's such a huge, huge topic that I unfortunately went the lame route of just, like, there was a battle and people died there. It was, you know, they had names they--they had families and the amount of places that General E Lee apparently haunts is hysterical.

Danielle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine. I think I've seen a few documentaries because allegedly the spirit of, you know, you’re going ‘yeah well isn't he meant to be haunting that other place?’ Like, he gets around.

Melanie: You know he seriously haunts, like, 60 different places.

Danielle: If you could, would you multi-haunt? Like, if you were a ghost and you could go on holiday and haunt loads of different places, wouldn't you?

Melanie: Probably.

Danielle: Yeah! You wouldn’t want to be in the same spot all the time.

Melanie: You’re, like, stuck here, you might as well…I'm gonna haunt Disneyland. Was never there, but I’m gonna do it.

Danielle: I'm gonna latch on to this guy because this accent does not sound familiar, and I want to know where it goes.

Melanie: Hey, where does he come from?

Danielle: [in slight southern accent] Oh Spain! I’ve never been here before!

Melanie: [in southern accent] This is neat!

Danielle: That was my really bad southern accent, but I tried not to do it over the top. [laughs] Okay, so, well, that was a lot of shit there for the Zombie Fishbowl.

Melanie: Indeed it was. I think we did some stuff.

Danielle: Stuff definitely happened.

Melanie: Definitely.

[Both laugh]

Danielle: And if, after all that stuff, you enjoyed it and want to listen to us again for some reason, please, please, please subscribe. And, if you could, rate and review us, that would be awesome.

Melanie: And tell your friends.

Danielle: Yes please! You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook page all under Zombie Fishbowl Podcast. It's dead easy.

Melanie: And if you want to contact us to tell us where we're wrong about something, which I'm sure there's plenty of that, and want to request a topic to be added to the random topic picker, you can email us at Zombie…hold on, my brain, [email protected].

Danielle: No hate mail, though.

Melanie: Speak for yourself. [evil laugh]

Danielle: All right. Thank you so much for listening to our little podcast. If we, sorry, we really want to do well, so any feedback would be received with much, much love and humility. Also, if you want my list of sources or Melanie’s list of sources at any point, give us a shout and we'll give you the details. I'll keep track of any scientific journals and stuff whenever I mention them, which I didn't this episode. It was a bit tricky to shoehorn in, but I'll try harder next time

Melanie: Well that just leaves us to say goodbye and thank you.

Danielle: And I will leave you with a quote by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century: ‘In critical moments, men see exactly what they wish to see.’

Melanie: Danielle, is that a Spock quote?

Danielle: Yes.

Melanie: For fuck's sake.

[Laughter]

Danielle: Bye!

Melanie: Wait! We need to pick a topic!

Danielle: Oh shit! I forgot!

[Laughter]

Danielle: Right, okay. I'll pick a topic right now. I'm going to the random topic picker. [Singing] Random topic picker, random topic picker, pick a random topic, I’m a topic random picker.

[Laughter]

Melanie: That was solid!

Danielle: You want to know our next topic?

Melanie: Yes.

Danielle: Mummies!

Melanie: Oh, that's exciting!

Danielle: Yes.

Melanie: And on that note, bye!

Danielle: Bye!

[Laughter]

[Outro music]

#podcast #podcast transcript #transcripted podcasts #paranormal #paranormal podcast #transcript

0 notes

transcripted-podcasts · 5 years

Text

Monarchs & Malarkey - Episode 1

Medieval Monks Recommend You Do This One Thing to Keep Skin Young and Fresh

Come with us as we dive into what led to Edward the Confessor becoming a saint…

* * *

[Kazoo fanfare] Danielle: This podcast contains swearing, drinking, lame dad jokes, descriptions of gross body problems, and lots of history. Consider yourself warned. Mike: Medieval monks recommend you do this one thing to keep skin young and fresh. [Intro music]

Danielle: Welcome to Monarchs and Malarkey! The show where we take an alcohol-laden dive into the weird and quirky health histories – and deaths – of leaders throughout time. I’m your host, Danielle!

Mike: And I’m your co-host, Mike.

Danielle: And, it’s our first episode!

Mike: Whoo!

Danielle: Whoo! We’re here, we did it!

Mike: We did it.

Danielle: Well, maybe we did it. If we have listeners, we did it.

Mike: We listen.

Danielle: We listen. My mom will listen.

Mike: Your sister will listen.

Danielle: No, she won’t.

Mike: She’ll listen to one episode.

Danielle: Maybe. But, my friend Britta will listen. And my friend Alyssa will listen. And…my boss will listen. So, thank you, Leann, Alyssa, Britta, Mom! [laughs]

Mike: And everyone else.

Danielle: And everyone else. Since this is the first episode, shall we describe a bit about what we’re doing?

Mike: Yes.

Danielle: Do you want me to do that?

Mike: Yes.

Danielle: Okay. We love podcasts. We didn’t know we loved podcasts ’til we finally got roped into starting to listen to some last year. And, we got hooked! We don’t have a whole lot of time to listen to a whole bunch of millions of podcasts, but there were a few that really grabbed our attention and they mostly revolved around true crime, haunted happenings, and paranormal experiences. There are also some really good history podcasts out there. My dad loves those. But we couldn’t find one that delved into history and really weird deaths and really weird health problems, specifically about leaders around the world. I, being a history nut and a…is there such a thing as a Britiophile? Because I’m not an Anglophile, but I love Great Britain.

Mike: I don’t know.

Danielle: Whatever term that would be, I’m totally into that stuff. And I’ve got free time on my hands now that I’ve finally graduated, so we thought, hey, we could create our own podcast looking at the cool, weird stuff people don’t usually talk about on podcasts! Like, what happens after somebody dies?

Mike: Because there’s a lot that happens, apparently.

Danielle: Yeah, so like, with true crime podcasts, you’re looking at convictions and detective work and stuff like that. But people don’t really tell you about what happens when a monarch dies. Not just with government and future reign and stuff like that, but with the monarch.

Mike: And what happens to their bodies?

Danielle: What happens to their bodies? Why are the English so into digging bones up and losing them?

Mike: They lose a lot. Spoiler alert.

Danielle: That’s what we’re going to do! And, this is it! Let’s get started. In honor of the first podcast we ever listened to together, Wine and Crime, hi gals! We are going to do our own really shitty, cheap version of pairing alcoholic beverages with our episodes. Not necessarily because we think there’s anything unique about it, but because it gives us an excuse to drink while we’re recording!

Mike: It makes recording so much more interesting.

Danielle: It does! And, I mean, there’s certainly not just the Wine and Crime gals. We also super love And That’s Why We Drink! and Em and Christine have their milkshakes and their alcoholic beverages and stuff. So it��s definitely not something only a couple of people do. But, here’s the thing: we’re cheap.

Mike: Very cheap.

Danielle: Very cheap. And we have kinda crappy taste in alcohol. So tonight we are talking about somebody who was eventually made a saint and, in honor of that, we are drinking a wine called Saintsbury. This one was not too cheap, I mean it was like $8, which I guess is cheap to most people.

Mike: Kind of depends on your version of cheap.

Danielle: Yeah, for sure. But, we’re going to be drinking our Saintsbury, and we’re going to tell you about…

Mike: Edward the Confessor.

Danielle: Edward the Confessor, yes. Edward the Confessor was one of the first kings of England as England. Do you want me to dive a little into that background before you start telling us about Edward?

Mike: Yes.

Danielle: Okay. In 927, England, as a kingdom, became a thing. up until that point, you had 7 different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to remember all of them, but you have Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia, Strathclyde, Northumbria, and then the Welsh Kingdoms. I feel like I’m forgetting one and I’m really embarrassed if I am. But, the person we’re talking about tonight, although he technically ruled the seven kingdoms, there were still a lot of people who were very autonomous in the kingdoms they were living in. The majority of his reign happened in the Wessex and into the Essex area. Most of the kings, also, they spent most of their time in Wessex and Essex. But, I mean, obviously, they would do stuff in other places because there was still a lot of fighting and a lot of arguing, and people didn’t always agree with who should be king.

Mike: And this was really kind of the first time they were all brought together. They weren’t used to the idea of being all considered one nation.

Danielle: Right. The Anglo-Saxons had come in and mostly lived along the shores on the east and up towards the north, but they started spreading out. But you still had Celts and you had Picts in that area. You still had some Roman remnants because, even though Rome had left in 200 AD, there were still people who had stayed behind. So you had this really big conglomeration of different languages, different people. English as we know it today was not being spoken, but English was being rooted in that time period, but it was not yet an official language. Latin and French were the most common languages among the not-little people.

Mike: Among the higher-ups.

Danielle: Yeah, among nobles and barons and earls and things like that.

Mike: Because they needed a common language to communicate to each other.

Danielle: Well, and the educated went to school as, well, not really school, but were educated in, especially Latin. A lot of them didn’t read or write, though. So, kind of an interesting little twist there. So most of the records of the time were made by monks and archbishops and people like that. There’s a little bit of background there. Just as an FYI, I am an anthropologist and Michael is…what is your title? Literary studier?

Mike: Well, I’m a ginger.

Danielle: You’re a ginger.

Mike: And an English major.

Danielle: Yeah, he graduated with his degree in literary studies. And I graduated with mine in anthropology with a minor in religious studies and now I’m in grad school for creative writing, which is going to be a surprise to my family because they thought I was going to do anthropology. Ha, ha, changed my mind, guys. I’m going to go for creative writing and literature.

Mike: So let’s dive into Edward the Confessor. Edward was the 7th son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy.

Danielle: And I love that name. Æthelred the Unready. Like, what was he not ready for?

Mike: He wasn’t ready for a lot of things, apparently. But you don’t get to pick your own nicknames, they’re just kind of bestowed upon you.

Danielle: I know, I know! But, I’m just saying, why Æthelred the Unready?

Mike: I don’t know. I didn’t research into him. But Edward himself was born between 1003 and 1005 in Islip near Oxford. We don’t have the exact date because records back then were pretty spotty at best, and this was over a thousand years ago. not all records are going to survive that area. England has a climate that isn’t very good for keeping records in.

Danielle: And, like we said, a lot of people weren’t even making records, so we are researching to the best of our abilities with the material we can get our hands on. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of the records are old and gone and, even the ones we get, a lot of them were written sometimes centuries after the fact and I think a lot of people are aware in this day and age, history is written by the victors, so take it with a grain of salt. But I just discovered why he was the unready, if you want to hear.

Mike: Why was he the unready?

Danielle: Okay, so it’s a play on his name. Back then, it wasn’t “unready” the way we think of it, it’s just kind of turned into that. But, it comes from the Old English world of unræd which means “poorly advised”. And it’s-

Mike: Oooh!

Danielle: Yeah, and it’s a pun on his name because his name Æthelred actually means “well-advised”. So there you go.

Mike: So he was Well-Advised the Unadvised.

Danielle: [Laughs] Yep.

Mike: So he was the mediocre-advised.

Danielle: Yeah, yeah. So, there, we learned something. High five. [Sound of high-fiving]. All right, carry on.

Mike: His family spent several years in exile because there was a Danish invasion in 1013, so they fled over to Normandy. Æthelred himself was briefly reinstated as king, but died in 1016, leaving Cnut, who was the Danish invader, as king. Cnut then married Æthelred’s widow, Emma, and this was to secure an alliance between the two families where Æthelred already had a strong sense of leadership and tradition in ruling that area. Coming in as an invader, you need to marry people to get those alliances.

Danielle: Right, because, even though it’s been a “kingdom”, I put it in air quotes, since 927, it’s still really unstable. And, also, I have a really important question.

Mike: Shoot.

Danielle: Do you think Cnut ever looked at his mother and said ‘she turned me into a Cnewt?’

Mike: Then they got better.

Danielle: I got better. I’m just wondering.

Mike: Yes, it happened.

Danielle: I hope so, I hope so.

Mike: When Cnut died, he was succeeded by his son Harthacnut in 1040. Following Harthacnut’s death on June 8th, 1042, there wasn’t a clear line of succession. Harthacnut didn’t really have a whole lot of time to set that up. He was only king for two years.

Danielle: Well, what a loser. Jeez!I you’re going to be king, at least do the job right and do it for a while.

Mike: Well, he was still in his partying, honeymoon phase.

Danielle: Yeah, yeah, but still! He wasn’t Henry VIII whose one sole mission in life was to have sons?

Mike: Exactly.

Danielle: By any means necessary?

Mike: By all means necessary. So Emma and Godwin, who was the Earl of Wessex, wanted Emma’s son Cnut, from Cnut, to take the throne, but Æthelred’s children made a claim for it as well. And so, as we’re going to talk a lot about in this, they fought about it. The king died, you had two rival factions vying for the throne because there was no clear line of succession, and another war broke out. This becomes a running theme in English history. Æthelred’s children won against Cnut’s children, but all of them died except for Edward. Edward was the lone survivor. So, naturally, he was crowned king and Godwin then flip-flopped sides and decided to throw his support in for Edward to be king. And Godwin was supported by the people as well, so now we have Edward as having all these powers behind him so that he can actually rule.

Danielle: Although, Edmund Godwin, or Godwine, don’t exactly always get along.

Mike: No.

Danielle: There’s a lot of struggle back and forth between them. They’re frenemies more than anything, I’d say.

Mike: Definitely. Edward was crowned at the cathedral of Winchester on April–

Danielle: It was Winchester! I was right. Okay. You can keep that because I was right.

Mike: Yeah, you were right.

Danielle: I’m a little drunk already, sorry.

Mike: And that was in the year 1043. Two years later, Edward married Godwin’s daughter, Edith. I think that’s probably part of the agreement that Godwin made with Edward is ‘I’m going to throw my support behind you’–

Danielle: ‘But I want to have grandchildren who take the throne eventually’, yeah.

Mike: Exactly. Soon after, more of Godwin’s family were awarded Earldoms in southern England. Now, Edward himself did not have any children. This was believed because Edward wanted to live a conventional saint’s life of celibacy.

Danielle: Which, I really wonder about this, because my research indicates that he wasn’t especially pious. He wasn’t especially a good religious person. And part of me wonders did he just hate Edith so much for some reason that he was like ‘well, this is a good way to get out of having to have sex’. Because they didn’t talk about consent and things back then.

Mike: And my research showed that he was very devout in his religion, hence why he was a saint. And, while he was in exile, he even made a vow that, if he were able to make it to England safely, that he would make a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s in Rome.

Danielle: Oh, I forgot a kingdom. I forgot the kingdom of Kent. Sorry. Yeah, well, I mean, the research is kind of spotty, obviously, but it’s not that he wasn’t devout, it was that he didn’t really live a life of saintliness himself until he took this vow that happened after he got married.

Mike: The vow he made, it was when he was in exile back in 1013.

Danielle: See? And this is why I’m saying the research is all over the place because the records I saw indicated he just really wasn’t as saintly as people made him out to be after his death. But, whatever the case may be, he didn’t want to have sex with his wife, so.

Mike: The pope gave him clearance.

Danielle: Eventually. But we’ll get to why.

Mike: After Edward became the king, he realized that he was too busy to make a pilgrimage to Rome, a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s as he had taken a vow to do. There are probably a couple different reasons for this. One is his kingdom was still fairly unstable and, if he left, then who knows what would have happened. Someone else probably would have come in and tried to take power or splinter groups would have formed and started rebellions. It just wouldn’t have been a very good idea for him at the time.

Danielle: Yeah, because some of Cnut’s family still in Denmark were like ‘we actually have a claim to the throne’ so that was a concern.

Mike: Exactly.

Danielle: The other little kingdoms, especially Mercia, Mercia was just volatile, they were like ‘we want power back!’ so, gotta be careful.

Mike: He wrote the pope and said ‘totes sorry, I’m not going to be able to make that pilgrimage that I totally promised to do’ and the pope said ‘don’t worry about it, bro, I will release you from your vow on one condition. And what you have to do is, you have to build a new Norman-style cathedral to replace the Saxon church, St. Peter’s Abbey’. So between 1042 and 1052, Edward began rebuilding St. Peter’s Abbey to a royal burial church known today as Westminster Abbey.

Danielle: Westminster Abbey! We’ve been there.

Mike: Yes.

Danielle: I’ve been there a lot.

Mike: We’ve seen it with our very own eyeballs.

Danielle: So let me explain Westminster Abbey just for a moment because it’s actually a really important building in British history. The Saxon church that he was building on top of, it wasn’t even really a church. It was an abbey, even then, but it was very small, and it was a very quiet, simple place like you expect a place to be where monks and abbots live. And, if you ever go there, and you see the cathedral today, it is enormous, it is beautiful, it’s really, really extravagant though, and it’s a place that makes you feel good but also angry at the same time because it’s really impressive, there’s some really amazing people buried there, the history is so rich, there’s a coronation chair there that’s been there since the 14th century…I mean, it’s a really important, beautiful place. But the problem is, it’s lost something of that early Christian thought process of simple, pious, poverty, you know? We know monks and priests and people take vows of chastity, but also that say I’m not going to be wealthy, I’m going to live simply, like Jesus did. And, the inner courtyard is filled with the bodies of monks who died there over the centuries. They don’t have any markers of any kind. They don’t have any beautiful tombs, they’re just under the grass. And the abbots are buried alongside the parts that you can walk between the different places inside the abbey, kind of the arches that you go through. I can’t think off the top of my head what they’re called, but if you walk through there, there are some almost bench-looking things on the side, and all that’s left of their tombs aren’t even really tombs. They’re just rocks that had been formed in the shape of their bodies that have been worn down over time. So it’s a really neat place, but also it’s a really sharp contrast between nobility and quiet, worshipful people. And that’s what he built. On top of the quiet, he built the extravagant.

Mike: And he’s buried there, and you can even see his tomb.

Danielle: Yep, his tomb is, we’ll get into that.

Mike: So Edward, he didn’t have any children, so he didn’t have a direct heir and this would lead to issues for his line of succession. But Edward did become a saint. Do you want to tell us about how Edward died?

Danielle: Yes, I do! We don’t know. [pause] I mean, [laugh], everything that I found just, if it said anything, it all said natural causes. But, I mean, he was pretty old by this point, so that’s completely normal. His buddy there, Edmund Godwine, the two of them had been fighting just a couple years before he died, and then they kissed and made up. And while they were having dinner together, Edmund actually died of a stroke. So, there’s that. [laughs] That’s not so great. He died of natural causes, and he unfortunately did not get the funeral most kings would have gotten. He was buried very quickly. He did not lay in state. But what’s really interesting is what happened after he died.

Mike: So what happened after he died?

Danielle: Okay, it’s kind of a long story. Let me talk first about some of the stuff he was buried with and then we’ll get into some of the stuff that led to him being canonized as a saint. He was buried, first of all, with a ring. And this ring, allegedly, had belonged to St. John a.k.a. the John of the Bible. The story, the legend of it is that this ring was given by St. John to a really super poor person because John did not have any alms, any money to give. So he gives the poor man this ring and somewhere along the way, several centuries later, two men were on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and St. John’s ghost appeared to them and said ‘take my ring.’

Mike: So where did John’s ghost get the ring back from?

Danielle: Well, I don’t know. And, more importantly, what I want to know is how the hell does a ghost carry a ring? Don’t get me wrong, spooky shit happens and I don’t know how a ghost carries a ring, I just, I’ve seen some spooky shit in my life, so I know they sometimes move objects, but carrying a ring to two people and then appearing before them, I have no idea. But he did, according to this legend. And he tells the two men ‘take this ring and in six months time, return it to paradise’ which I couldn’t find anything that indicated what exactly that meant. That’s just what they reported, that they were told to return it to paradise. So maybe their mission was actually to die and take it to Heaven? I don’t know. But whatever the case may be, Edward the Confessor ends up with this ring and it gets buried with him. And he was also buried with a gold crucifix around his neck, and that’s important, that comes in later. The ring of St. John ended up eventually being placed with a bunch of other relics by Henry II, but we’ll get to what relics are in a second. Let’s talk first about how one becomes a saint and we’ll talk a little bit involved with that why it is that he was put up for sainthood. There was, in 1089, a question of whether or not he was worthy of sainthood because, all of a sudden, people were super into Edward the Confessor. This is where my research kind of veers off from yours. He was being made out to be much holier and much more devout than he had probably been in life and, again, records written after this time period are going to show him that way. In 1089, people were like ‘let’s check him out! let’s go look!’ So they opened up his tomb and, I’m going to read for you what they found. This is from a chronicler named Aelred of Rievaulx and says…oh, by the way, the person opening it is Gundulf, bishop of Rochester; ‘There issued out such aromatic odors as filled the church with their fragrance. In the first place the burial cloths were clean and substantial. Next, unfolding his vestments, they found his underhabit (aka underwear) and ornaments in the same state. They stretched out his arms, bent his fingers, and found the whole body sound and flexible. They next examined the flesh, which was firm and pure as crystal, whiter than snow. But when, after a long a suspense, none durst ventured to touch his face, the bishop, Gundulfulus’ I really hope that was actually Gandalf.

Mike: It was.

Danielle: It was totally Gandalf, I knew it.

Mike: There’s even a ring involved.

Danielle: I know! Hobbits are real. “Bishop Gundulfus [I’m just going to call him Gandalf], Bishop Gandalf laid his hand upon his forehead cloth and, stroking it over the face, drew it over the beard, which was white as frost. surprised at this, he attempted to draw a hair from the beard.” See, it is Gandalf, he wants to do magic with that hair. “Draw a hair from the beard, but that adhered strictly” which is kind of weird that he couldn’t pull a hair. “For which, being gently reproved by the abbot, he owned his fault which excessive love occasioned. After this, they preserved the grave dressings and clothed him a new, and re-interred him.” So in other words, they opened up the tomb, and he’s in excellent shape. This is what is known as being incorruptible, which is one of the aspects a body must have in order to be turned into a saint. The body must be so well-preserved that it has not gone through the decaying process. So, the fact that he looked healthy, he looked fresh, this is why they were like ‘okay, we can start this process’.

Mike: So, they basically buried him in the medieval version of Tupperware.

Danielle: Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about that process.

Mike: Do you think they have to burp him every couple of years?

Danielle: Well, they did in 1089, clearly. And they’re going to do it a few more times, too, actually. So, he’s in his Tupperware, which, it’s stone and it’s kind of hard to get oxygen and bacteria and insects and things like that through stone inside of a building. He’s in a really temperate climate where it’s really cool, and the humidity isn’t really going to get into the tomb with it being so well-sealed. We’ve seen these tombs. They are really well-built. Also, it mentions the aromatic odor. He smelled good.

Mike: So they Frebrezed him.

Danielle: They Frebrezed him. When he died, he would have had his body most likely cut open and had his entrails and things removed because, usually, like I said before, usually you’re going to have a king laying in state for a while before the burial, so they don’t want him to get all stinky and gross, to the best of their abilities.

Mike: But Edward didn’t lay in state.

Danielle: He didn’t, but they would have still most likely prepped the body while Harold was off doing his thing to try to take the throne, but we’ll get there later. They would have opened him up, most likely, taken out his organs, his entrails, and then stuffed him with straw and with herbs and then also stuffed his clothing with herbs to help cover the yucky smell of a dead body.

Mike: Because dead bodies smell bad.

Danielle: They small bad, especially when you don’t have any way to embalm them the way we do now. Although I don’t like embalming. I don’t want to be embalmed. But, they didn’t have any way to really preserve it, so that was the best they could do. This was the first step to becoming a saint.

Mike: It’s fine that they were uncorruptible.

Danielle: Incorruptible.

Mike: Incorruptible.

Danielle: Incorruptible. Yes. Next, the bishop of the diocese is going to start an investigation. He has to gather evidence and testimony to see if this person has lived a saintly life, including any writings, and since, after his marriage, at least, he was very much into being that pious, devout man, always closeted in prayer and reading his scriptures and things like that, that part, the archbishop was able to do. Because he saw he lived with sufficient holiness, he then asks something called the congregation for the causes of saints to make a recommendation to the pope. If the pope accepts the case, then the person is called a servant of God, because it means the pope’s at least given the approval that they were a good Christian.

Mike: Right.

Daniella: The next step is verified miracles. There has to be evidence of a miracle and it has to be gathered and investigated. This has to be something that’s verified as unexplainable scientifically, but in this point in time, in the 1060s, that’s like…science? They don’t know very much. They can’t actually explain things, so back then it was a lot easier to be like ‘we don’t know, so it must be a miracle’. But, it can take a long time to get this all done, especially the miracle portion. So here’s what had to happen: because he had not performed any miracles before death, he has to perform miracles after death.

Mike: I mean, it’s hard enough to perform a miracle before you die. But after you die?

Danielle: Right, and this is where relics come into the picture. A relic is something belonging to a saint that is said to have specific properties of usually healing or other miraculous things: I touched it and all of a sudden I was able to afford to eat, things like that. relics often tend to be a body part from a saint, and almost every Catholic church in the world has at least one relic. It’s not always body parts, but it often is a bone. It can be something that belonged to the saint, so the ring of St. John is a relic already.

Mike: Or things like a piece of the true cross.

Danielle: Right. Pieces of the crucifix, the Shroud of Turin, things like that are considered relics.

Mike: Ark of the Covenant.

Danielle: Gotta find that Ark, God. Anyway, the miracles he performed, well there are only a couple, but they’re pretty impressive. After William the Conqueror takes the throne, the bishop of Worcester, Wulfstan, was told by Primate Lanfranc to give up his ring and staff to the tomb. Now, a primate, by the way, is another word for an archbishop. At first Worcester’s like ‘no’…Wulfstan, sorry it’s Wulfstan is bishop of Worcester, it’s kind of confusing. Wulfstan’s like ‘no, man, I don’t want to give my stuff up’ and they were, Primate Lanfranc was like ‘do it! just do it!’ so he’s like, ‘fine’. According the miraculous legend, his ring and staff became embedded in the tomb. So really, what they’re doing is inventing the legend of King Arthur because all these dudes come and try to pull the staff and pull the ring out of the tomb, and they can’t. But, lo and behold, newly coronated King William comes along and pulls them out.

Mike: Instead of the sword in the stone, it’s the stick.

Danielle: It’s the staff in–

Mike: The staff in the coffin.

Danielle: The staff in the coffin. This is considered a really extremely impressive miracle, and that’s enough. The next step is that he’s now called ‘blessed’. Canonization is the final step to declaring a deceased person a saint, and that is completely on the heads of the Vatican. They’re the ones who have to decide for sure. He was the first and only Anglo-Saxon king to be canonized. In fact, he was the only king to have ever been canonized, so that’s kind of cool. And after he gets canonized, he gets a new tomb. Henry III actually built a whole new shrine, but then the tomb gets pillaged to hell and back. Part of it is from people sneaking in, grave robbers were a real thing. Part of it was Henry VIII went through his hissy fit of ‘churches should not have nice things’ and so it got badly damaged when his good buddy Thomas was out there, busting up all churches and taking relics and destroying property inside the churches. But, King Henry VIII’s daughter Mary actually ended up restoring the tomb, and when that happened, there were some holes in the tomb at that point, so they looked in there [laughs] and they said–

Mike: I mean, I would, too.

Danielle: Right? And they said the body was still firm and whole. So my guess is, being inside the stone tomb–

Mike: Inside the Tupperware.

Danielle: Right, inside the Holy Tupperware, it leeched out any fluids that were left and this almost mummified him rather than skeletonizing him. That’s actually not my area of expertise, but from what I have learned in bio-archaeology, I’m guessing that it’s something like that. In the 17th century, you remember that gold crucifix I told you about?

Mike: I do!

Danielle: Okay, you want to hear the horrible thing that happened to it?

Mike: Yes.

Danielle: [laughs] This is bad. A Mr. Henry Kean found the crucifix, he stuck his hand in there because, again, the tomb was falling apart, and he finds the crucifix, he’s got his hand in there, reaching around, and he’s like ‘oh, there’s something here’ and he takes it.

Mike: That’s how curses start.

Danielle: That is absolutely how curses start and here’s the curse, this is what happens: James II ends up with the crucifix. Mr. Henry Kean’s never heard from again. And then, James II, after getting this crucifix, ends up having to flee England in 1688 and, on his way to France, the fishermen rowing him to France steal the crucifix from him. And it’s lost to this day. Nobody knows where it is.

Mike: Probably because the fishermen then drowned because it was cursed.

Danielle: Because it was cursed! Right! But if you have a gold crucifix in your family that’s been there for the last 300 plus years, and you notice a lot of really horrible, tragic things happen to the portion of the family holding onto it, please return it to Westminster Abbey at London, UK [laughs] and don’t touch it, you might want to get it blessed first, even though it’s a gold crucifix [laughs].

Mike: Yeah, put some gloves on.

Danielle: Yeah. my question is: did St. John ever go to the tomb and take his ring back?

Mike: I don’t know.

Danielle: Do you think those two men are going to have to be cursed to hell because they did not follow the promptings to return it to the paradise?

Mike: Well, you had one job. When a ghost comes down and give you instructions to take his holy ring somewhere? You gotta do it, otherwise, you’re going to be cursed, too.

Danielle: Guys! You had one job. I know, it’s tragic. So that is the really cool and rather lengthy history of Edward the Confessor and stay tuned next time to hear about King Harold.

Mike: Thank you for listening. And where can they find us on social medias?

Danielle: On social medias? [laughs]

Mike: There are many of them.

Danielle: There are. We’re on Twitter @monarchmalarkey. We’re on Facebook Monarchs&Malarkey. And if you have trouble listening on your current podcast, you can also find us on all the others. We’re on iTunes, we’re on Stitcher, we’re on Spotify, we’re on iHeartRadio, we’re on…what else are we on?

Mike: We’re on Google and Tunein.

Danielle: And Tunein. So look for us there.

Mike: And if you have any ideas about monarchs or leaders that you would like us to cover, you can shoot us an email at [email protected].

Danielle: That’s Monarchs and Malarkey, AND, all one word. And don’t worry, we will not only be covering British history, we will be expanding out.

[Outro music]

#podcast #podcast transcript #history podcast #history #transcript

0 notes