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