From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe. Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe. Now we have had this asked several times now, yes you do still have to listen, even if we're doing a bad job. It's like a five year old picture that they've drawn. You have to put it up there. They have to be proud of it and I'm sure at some point in the future we'll regret looking back upon it. But you still have to listen and cheer us on.
We are your emotionally support needing hosts, Taylor and Chelsea. Here today, I'm not actually sure what we're talking about. I put all my effort into that. So I'm just gonna let Chelsea go. He never knows. I never want to tell him. We don't actually know each other in real life. I was given the good old, it's getting creepy out there playlist. I'm just gonna listen for Halloween. I think the buffer for our podcast is pretty apparent with that comment.
Highly recommend it, even if it's not Halloween, even if you're just a spooky enthusiast. It is a great playlist for listening purposes. And I'm already off track. That's not what this episode's about. This episode is on the playlist. I'm just talking about Journey to the Fringe previews episode. Where we go through and review our old episodes. Maybe someday. So the one is not that great. It shouldn't be a surprise. Apparently some of you like it though.
So we have some pretty great ideas on our podcast that are long forgotten about. And it was in revisiting an old episode that I was struck by our lack of follow up and created this new episode. Paranormal thingies in different cultures, which will take us for a ride for more than a few episodes, I assume, because I can't just cover that in one episode, I think, even though I have the episode here. This particular one is without rhyme or reason.
Maybe in the future we'll do another with a theme of some sort. Of which I'm blanking on. I have no themes at the moment. But I just put them together as I see fit. And perhaps we may even be intrigued enough to put the spotlight on one in particular on a future episode. Only time will tell. It'll probably be forgotten about like this episode. Who knows? We're here at this episode now. So start us off. I have the egg ghost. You know what country this is from? Egg is an EGG egg. Yeah. OK.
Yeah. An English country because it's egg. It is Korea. Oh. It's translated. OK. I was wondering when you picked up Korean. Yeah. I was surprised you understood that. My Korean is so good. Egg ghost refers to brace yourself. Dalgiel Gweeshon, which is translated from Korean, I think, to English Korean. Which is a Korean ghost. It's a very terrifying ghost and its name comes from its resemblance to an egg. And you're saying this is terrifying. Yes, it is.
OK. I mean, I can imagine seeing an egg up there. Who laid it there? Why isn't it a nest? Why am I at the top of this tree? It does not have arms, legs, nor a head, not even eyes, nose, or mouth. However, it does vary as most legends do. The ghost largely still looking like the human. So it, I assume this is coming from translation. So I laid this out weird as I do with my research because I'm experiencing this all with you as we go through.
This is a spirit that possesses a human and in taking them over, it takes away all their features. Even though I say it does not have a head nor eyes nor nose or mouth. That is in spirit, and then when it takes over the human, it's inhabiting. It loses its features. So you're just looking at like a blanks. I don't know. It looks like it blanks your face. Yeah, you're looking at a Mr. Potato Head without like its features. Oh, it's the best way I have to describe it. A two's egg.
I choose Mr. Potato Head Ghost. Possession, rather. In some legends, they do not have a nose and mouth or other facial features like depicting depicted, but also don't have limbs. Other times it resembles a hunchback, as if it's carrying a heavy load. However, most images of them do depict a female with no face. Legend says that when a person sees an egg ghost, they will die. Its origin and personality are not significant in Korea and outside of Korea.
They are said to stalk hikers and their ability to hide well is because of their shape, making them unsuspecting to those who leave the path. Because the ghosts aren't usually associated with anyone in particular there, it's speculation that they are from a childless ghost. I saw that a lot in the Asian cultures with... Oh yeah, there's a familial nature of spirits. They have no ancestors to perform death rites and memorial services for them and wander around restless.
Most Korean ghosts are female and most deal with some sort of dying before giving birth extension of their existence. The egg shape might also hint towards that because of the symbolic nature of eggs and fertility. There is just an off kind of to the side mention. There's also a ghost in Japanese lore that resembles the egg ghost as well. It's the Doppurbo. It's a faceless ghost that looks like a human except for the facial characteristics.
However, this ghost tends to trick people rather than hurt them, as we see with the egg ghost dying people. They'd impersonate someone the person knows to lure them. Sir, is dying the word you want to go with? Yeah. It dies. It dies. Okay. Just because we're talking about eggs and there's another way that you can die with an egg. Yes, the Easter tradition. Okay, it kills them. You're right. I didn't think of the way I was using my words. Blue now. That English, damn it.
A lot of the stories of the egg ghosts are specifically tied to hiking and the forest. However, they can be found elsewhere, mostly in dark areas like basements, I assume, the night. That's all I got for right now for dark places. There are other stories that talk about how the egg ghost is unsuspecting that it can be anyone and once it gains the trust, it is easier for them to take over that person. Egg ghosts are also able to attack and target specific prey since they are able to hide well.
The author has it that some egg ghost personalities are not incorruptible as time goes by, or that egg ghost change to an egg, hide themselves and come out when they want. There is a riddle connected with the egg ghost that goes, the more you take away, the bigger I get. End quote. A hole might start small, but the more you take from it, it gets bigger. I do feel like a lot was lost in translation on the egg ghost after reading that back.
Yeah. I don't see my answer to any of those riddles being egg ghost. That's definitely what that is. No, maybe he just says that. Do you think this creature was created to solve that riddle? No, I feel like the vibes I get is that he walks around saying that riddle. Okay. And that's how you identify an egg ghost. Probably not. But it doesn't walk around. It doesn't have legs. Well, it makes the person that it's inhabiting walk around for it.
Okay. I feel like I, I hope I made your life better by you finding out about the egg ghost, but I feel like I probably didn't. You still have to listen. Yeah. We need your support more now than ever. Are you ready for the next one? No, I have questions or at least ponderings on the egg ghost I want to go over. I feel like we're going to ponder together, but let's try. Did it have a particular size where it comes in?
Because I know it varies depending on like what point in the riddle you're at, I guess. No, it seems pretty mysterious. You know what I'm picturing for the egg ghost is a Garfield that has that egg. Yeah, the chicken farm, Sheldon. Yeah, Sheldon. That's what I'm picturing. I feel like that's not what it is though. No, I'm picturing it's super creepy, but if you, oh, what's it called? Berserk. It's a manga out of Japan. They have this stone that has an eye on it and other facial features.
And it's kind of reminding me of that. Let me find, see if I can find a picture really quick. Well, that seems like the exact opposite of what they're going for because it has facial features. This one would have none. I thought it would gain them as it was going. Would it not? Once that I'm going to share my screen here. This is what I'm picturing. That's weird. What the fuck is that?
I haven't watched Berserk in a long time, so I can't quite remember what the stone is, but that is what I'm picturing. I can see why you would picture that. Because yeah, I'm kind of picturing because the eggs that we're most used to are chicken eggs, but like ostrich eggs are pretty big. I'm sure dinosaur eggs would be pretty big. And then like technically, like all Bish lay eggs, including like screw shaped ones that are coming from a shark. Well, it's not like an egg per se.
They say egg because of the feature, the oval shape resemblance to, yeah, like of a head with no features. Yeah, at the end of the day, heads are just egg shaped or generally egg shaped. I mean, generally, yes. I mean, you might get someone said really, and then my next question, and yes, it is just because it's called an egg ghost is can't you just like break it really easy if you find it? Let's clear some stuff up for you right now.
Let me I'm just going to share with you a link that has a picture like a rendering. It's not a real egg. It's not really that scary. Like what an egg ghost would look like. Okay. Yeah, that's that's terrifying and different than what I was expecting entirely. Yeah, I know it was because of how you're describing it. Yeah, okay. So yeah, it's a human that's been possessed by this ghost and it looks like an ambiguous layer over their face. Maybe.
No, but yeah, that's the person who's been possessed. Yeah. It's able to hide. Like it specifically says that because it's looked like an egg. So yeah, I'm not sure what it looks like before this. It might even be invisible and that's why it hides so good. Okay. Like I said, I feel like some was lost in translation and looking in this, but I'm not sure what it looks like before it takes over the person, but it definitely it's called a ghost because of the shape of like the face.
Okay. Without features. So anything about like warding them off or defeating said egg ghost in your research? Okay. Maybe if I knew Korean, it would be a little bit more apparent to me, but this is clearly just translation. That's why this is our first episode doing this. Well then I am satiated in my urine for more. Okay, good. This one is called nasnas and they hail from Yemen, but you can find them in the area around Yemen as well. And I think this one's a little bit better.
They are thought to originate from Yemen as I have just said. The nasnas is a monstrous creature in Arabic folklore. Nasnas is considered a lower form of gin. The supernatural creatures better known in the Western world as genies. They gin who lack corporal form and appear as shadowy ghosts, myths or sandstorms. The nasnas look like a human being cut down the middle with half a head, one arm and one leg on which it hops at great speed.
In some versions it has the tail of a lamb, still half a person though, but with a tail. A Stantonian upright possess demonic features and are sometimes described as having the tail of a lamb. God damn it. It's only one arm right? It's half a human. It was believed to be the offspring of a gin called Sheik and a human being.
In some Arabic folk tales nasnas were a tribe of people who were punished by God for turning their backs to the prophet, transformed into monsters that hop like birds and greys like animals. Other tales claim that the nasnas is the offspring of a human and a demon called Sheik. What the fuck man? I can't get my shit together. Oh well, it makes it more interesting for you the listeners. Despite their or infusing however you want to take it.
Despite their fearsome appearance there are many conflicting accounts about the nature of the nasnas. In the story the sage and the scholar from 1001 knights, a character who is transformed into a nasnas is regarded as a harmless curiosity by the humans he encounters. In other tales nasnas terrorize humans and carry them off. Either way I don't want to meet one. Cause they know the gin, I'm good with that. And that's a brief introduction to the nasnas. So they said it's cursed to greys?
How does it eat if it only has half a mouth? Like wouldn't it all just fall out? Magic. I'm actually not really sure of what this like if you saw it from the side would you see like the insides of a person or be like closed off? You would I don't know. See if we can find a picture of it. Or is it just we can only see only one part of it inhabits this dimension so we can only see that. I would highly recommend googling it at this point. You seem to only see it from not that side. Oh there's one.
You see on this rendering you see it's insides. Okay. Like every one of these pictures is either of them looking right at you or them explaining that's only a half a thing. And then sometimes the tentacles coming out of that. I saw one with wings. Oh yeah there's the tentacles. I saw one with wings. One's a dragon with a human head. One is like a human on one side and a skeleton on the other. Oh yeah I mean there's no actual. Sometimes they're rendered.
Yeah and some of the pictures have like the leg on the opposite side of the body than the rest of the half. Which I don't maybe. Yeah maybe. And it also weirds me out a little bit that NASA's name is so close to this weird being. Probably just a coincidence. Probably. Any other questions. I don't think you're going to have answers for any of my questions.
So I'm going to say no. And this sorry there's one picture from the side of a nasna but it's from the normal side so you can't really even tell if it is a nasna or not. You can't even tell it's a nasna. Nasna. Sorry it has a nas on the end. So nas nas. I waited a long time. Right. Yeah I waited a long time to correct that. And I was also seeing it. Okay the next one is the suku. Su-ku-mogami. Su-ku-mogami in Japan.
The suku-mogami is a concept popular in Japanese folklore as far back as the tent center. It goes back a long way. The most accepted definition of the term says the suku-mogami are inanimate objects that once they have served their owners for a hundred years they receive a soul and therefore become alive and self aware. Oh I know this one. I love this one. Yeah it's the brave little toaster. Yeah basically. And it just sticks around long enough it gets its own soul.
Yeah. So long as an object has been treated gently and kept in good condition it won't do anything bad to its owners. Generally speaking su-ku-mogami are described as harmless creatures with a childlike character who only seek attention through their activity. As su-ku-mogami that perceives its owner as wasteful or no-glepful might decide to leave the house or even turn violent.
These su-ku-mogami, this is wasting a lot of time saying this, spread fear and terrorize people and play nasty jokes on their former owners but are ultimately rather harmless. It's just a one-off if you're treating your stuff bad. That being said they can become shape-shifters through a special shintaoist ritual and gain magical powers comparable to oni which are demons. They can become bloodthirsty monsters in exact cruel revenge on humans for the dishonor done to them.
So I would highly recommend any knives you intend on holding onto for a long time treat them pretty nicely. You don't want that one to turn into a demon probably. No, but there's a very easy way to prevent this. Just buy new. Yeah, that's true. I don't intend to live another 100 years from this point. Right, that's true. I mean, I- It's whoever inherits your new stuff that's going to have the problem or even who inherits it from them.
So go ahead, treat your stuff like crap and then give it to somebody. You're good. And then they're gonna go all brave little toaster on someone else. Through their behavior which is very reminiscent of poltergeist activity in western cultures, that's ours. This spirit of these things, I'm not wasting any more time saying it, according to folklore, want to remind their former owners that they must take care of their household and all the objects and artifacts in it.
Consequently, the actual main motives are boredom and sorrow. Many of them are said to at best simply leave the house and run away if they continue to be ignored. Envy is also said to play a role, but this is directed against newly acquired household items that were supposed to replace the old ones. For this reason, it is not uncommon for them to wreak havoc in the affected home. Most initially play silly pranks on the residents in whose household they were born. In quotations.
So remember, every new object you bring into your house, they are being born. And also judged by the old ones. Yes. But I'm pretty sure Brave Little Toaster actually taught us that and if not Brave Little Toaster Toy Story. I mean, there's a lot of movies for children based on this and I probably not recommend watching a Brave Little Toaster because it's had a huge emotional impact. Chelsea, I'm just wondering here, speculating out loud, is the world that cars inhabit?
Is that just a post-apocalyptic human civilization where the things were sat there for a hundred years and then the cars universe just spontaneously started? Yeah. Okay. That's, yeah, that has implications. Or they were neglected cars, came to a hundred years and they killed everyone. Oh, it's that Stephen King book then where all the cars came to life. Christine, right? I can't remember. I think it is. It might not be, so.
It was one of the ones from his Coke days where he just was pumping out weird stories. So objects could include household items, for example lanterns, tea kettles and futons. These are very Japanese items to have. I'm not sure what I'm talking about. No. So we might be off the hook. Everyday objects, for example, watches and umbrellas. Okay. Clothing, for example, coats and sandals in case none of us knew what clothing was and musical instruments in case you don't know what those are.
Examples include Baywas, Bwas, Imacin and cars. I don't think we need examples, Josh. No, you do. You do. I have a hard time seeing any clothes. No, I'm just having a hard time with clothes making it a hundred years. None of the clothes I personally own would, but I suspect if you're quite rich and have really nice clothes, they maybe might. Or they're vintage clothes.
I think some of those ones can last, but definitely not the fast fashion that we have these days I don't think is going to last a hundred years. Fair enough. No, is there more? We need to speculate some more. Yeah, one more we can speculate on. They continue to play a significant role in pop culture, in particular the Casa Obaki or Umbrella Ghost frequently appears in video games and anime.
The creators of the Pokemon series also seem to have drawn inspiration from the Tsukuyo Gami and that's where it ends. So I can't tell you exactly where Pokemon drew inspiration. I'm going to assume Pikachu. Is he not a real Pikachu? It's an electric mouse. Yeah. Oh, he is? No, I have no idea. Oh, okay. He's coral. I just have, I need to figure this out in my mind. So a building couldn't get a soul, right?
It was not in the example, no. Because that's what I was thinking when you said clothes before you gave me example. It's like clothes, like a building. You were thinking building? Yeah, but so... That's why the examples are there. So that's, I don't know if it's because it's too big or because it's like fixed in place. Can only things of a certain size get it? It didn't seem like there was and now that you mention it because you do like own or tenant a residence.
So it would be something you can, like the walls you take care of. What if you're like smashing the shit out of your walls? Dropping things on your floor. Because that's the most likely thing that could be over a hundred years as a building, I think. Maybe coins. I don't have an answer for that. That is a very good question. I mean, if anyone hasn't answered the email is at the end of this episode, I believe. So just continue listening to get that email. As you have to anyways. You do.
And please, please, please. And please, please, please. That email, tell us we did a good job. Despite what I say prior to that. I'm gonna say yeah. The one that I think is the craziest implications is what about robots? Like fucking Rosie from the Jetsons. Yeah. After a hundred years, do robots get souls then? Oh no. And come to life. I would say yes. And puppets. Pinocchio. Fuck. Wow. This just opens up too many King's Awards. I think we need to leave this topic. This is my play.
Okay, does that mean you're ready for the next one? Yes. Okay, so far we've looked at the egg ghost, which we're still confused about. The nasnas and then the suuuuumogami. Now we're on to the peachal peri in south and central Asia. The peachal peri usually appear female with long hair covering the face and feet pointing backwards. The peachal peri translates roughly to back footed. So there's that. What language? Not sure. Okay. That's just what it translates to.
The language is south and central Asia. That's a unique language, isn't it? Beautiful words. I know. Peachal peris are said to roam the mountains of India and Pakistan, so it might be one of those languages. They are said to be found in the Himalayas, though it occasionally enters some Indian villages. In Pakistan, sightings are usually reported in the rural mountainous regions of the Khyber Pakutankwa province. However, sightings in the Punjab province are also occasionally reported.
The characteristics of the peachal peri vary depending on the region as we see with pretty much everything in existence. In one version, peachal peris appear in the woods at night and target lone men, appearing as beautiful brides asking men for help. And men generally tend to help her and she disappears when they notice her backward feet, not causing any harm, which is really a best case scenario happening right there that she just disappears.
In the second variation, peachal peri turns into a demonic witch who is 20 feet tall with a long face, dirty nails, a hunchback and is wearing bloodied clothes, large circular eyes and black hair that covers her face. Most stories about him or her, so not always a girl, will have the victim escaping as these are usually told by people who claim to be first-hand witnesses. You can't tell a story if you're dead. That's an important lesson to learn from the peachal peri.
Usually it's elders in the villages warning of entering the woods at the wrong time warning that locals and tourists often go missing and never found. So she walks forwards, it's just her feet are backwards, right? And so her knees? I don't know what way her knees are facing. But the gin are said to also have backwards-facing feet. You see that coming from around the same sort of region. I don't think the gin is, you find that in India.
Generally it's more of a Middle Eastern thing, but it does spill over as well. Yeah, and it's not a gin, but you still see the backwards-facing feet, which I was kind of intrigued by. That's why the peachal peri made it into this episode. So with that, I figured I'd throw another one in for good luck. Feet pointing backwards is in pairs, good luck. Heading over to the Dominican Republic, we have C. de Guapa. And that is a mythical creature of Dominican folklore.
They are commonly described as having human female form with brown or dark blue skin, and facing feet and very long mains of smooth, glossy hair that covers their bodies. They supposedly inhabit the high mountains of the Dominican Republic. I did not know the Dominican Republic had high mountains. I didn't know that either. But I also don't know much about the Dominican Republic. Haiti does? Yeah. Well then yes, they can probably go in.
These creatures are nocturnal creatures, so come out at night, for example, of nocturnal just in case. Also, due to the position of their feet, one can never quite tell which direction the beings are moving by looking at their footprints. So they probably wouldn't know that their feet are facing backwards. So you just go the way that you are.
No, and you wouldn't just, yeah, you wouldn't know if you looked at a set of tracks, whether it was this being or if it was just somebody walking the other direction. Okay, you explain, you got it for me. You gave me a great example. Some people believe that they bring death and it is said that one should not look them in the eye, otherwise the person is at risk of being bewitched permanently. It's that nice problem. Oh, he's permanently bewitched.
It's an easy way actually to explain mental illness. That's true. I'm feeling bewitched today. So I'm just trying to picture somebody walking with backwards feet. Is it like when you're wearing like, snowshoes and you got to pick your foot up like straight up and then move forward? I feel like the balance would be off firstly, way off. You can't just like slide your foot.
Yeah, because like, I don't know, usually you use like the arch of your foot a bit to kind of like propel yourself and I'm not wearing shoes right now. So I'm actually just kind of like testing out how my feet move. I've definitely gotten used to walking with my feet pointing forward. So I feel like if they suddenly turn backwards, I'd be fine. One could call us experts on this in fact. Yeah, I have to imagine. Doing it for years.
That if they were born this way and they learn to walk with their feet pointing backwards, they may be good at it. They might not. It might just not be conducive to being a properly functioning human and not a seguapa. That's my input on that and I stand by this. Okay. Okay. We're not talking about that anymore. The only vocalization made by seguapas is said to be kind of a way to be able to have a wine or chirping. Seguapas are considered to be magical beings, beautiful and impure to some.
If you like brown or blue skin, yet horrendous to others. That was a big thing when the X-Men movie came out. What was her name? Blue. She can change into people. Isn't she a fish? She has scales, I think. No, she's not a fish. She's a mutant. Oh. Hence the man part of X-Men. But do mutants have scales like fish? I don't think so. She might. Let's see. Sorry for going. They are compared in many cases to mermaids, beautiful yet cruel and far from innocent.
Eseatful and ready to capture the wayward traveler. It is said that they are so beautiful they can lure men into the forest to make love with them only to kill them afterward. Legends have suggested that some are benevolent and wish not to kill trespassers, though not much evidence supports this claim. There's more evidence that it's murderous than tonight. Unlike the Peachle Perry. Unlike that, because you can't have sightings if you're dead.
Even today, wenkins still find inhabitants who confirm having sighted a seagwappa. Some also state that she is hard to find and locate due to her backwards feet, so she is almost impossible to track unless you know how to follow the feet backwards. We're basing the fact that she kills off the fact that there's no sightings of her. I can't argue with that logic. Okay. I can't. It's too good. So the most murderous of these cryptid creatures or demons or spirits, we don't even know about.
No one's ever seen. Yeah, exactly. And even less likely to be believable are things that people have seen, like a fucking zebra. As people are still living. Are those hasp-mix zebras? Yeah. Zobras. I miss those guys. Lore states that the only way to capture a seagwappa is by tracking them at night during a full moon with a black and white poly-dalkylic dog called the Cinqueño Dog. And I did Google that for once. This is the first time I'm turning to the French history.
I have Googled the word that I did not know. And it is like you have an extra finger. Oh, so a six-toed dog? Yeah, or hand. You need to ask six fingers. Because the front paws are three. Totally a hand. The back paws are two. And that's just logic. So yeah, that's the seagwappa, which is the second backwards-footed creature that we're discussing here. And that's on the other side of the world. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much exactly. Next one I threw in for Taylor.
It is the one I have the least information on. Okay. This was fucking hard. It is the Ba Jiaoyi, ailing from China. I tried so hard to get a Chinese ghost. And let me tell you. Is it alcohol-based? No, not this one. Okay. I was reading Chinese ghost I looked at. When I like, you know, you Google it, you're like Bigfoot. It tells you like what Bigfoot's about sightings of Bigfoot maybe. You know this I have provided a single sighting.
And for everything I looked at in Chinese, it told me about how it got that name and the roots of the word in Chinese. And I was like, this is not what I'm after. Why must I know about the language of it and how it came to be this word and the word? The roots of the word and like, I don't know. It was bizarre. Which is why this is the first ever Chinese ghost we've covered. Yeah. I think no. Probably the first one to cover it too. Probably. Yeah, probably.
That's what we're known here for Journey to the Free. What they already knew us is that and here we are saying it for the first time. Okay, enough of this. Listen to what I have to say about the Ba Jiaoyi guy. We'll never know. A female ghost that dwells in a banana tree and appears wailing under the tree at night, sometimes carrying a baby. And some folk tales from Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore because it hails from China, but it's a world traveler, mostly within Asia.
Greedy people ask it for lottery numbers from the ghost in hope of winning money. So they type. So I assume it has some reason it would know the lottery numbers, right? It's not something about these people. I'm actually not sure. They're hoping to win money. They tie a red string around the tree trunk, stick sharp needles into the tree and tie the other end of the string to their beds. At night, the ghost appears and begs the person to set her free.
In return, she will give them a set of winning numbers. If the person does not fulfill in her his promise to set the ghost free after winning, they will be met with a horrible death. Nope, we don't know. Maybe they just targeted that ghost in particular. Maybe the ghost appeared trying to be set free, saying that it would give lottery numbers. So sorry, you said you're going to get to the etymology of the word or at least the translation of the. Oh, oh, OK.
No. Can we assume then that this is Mandarin for ghosts of lottery's future? Yeah, we sure can. Really ends up this one. It also goes by banana ghost. No, this is this is why I did it. It was the one that didn't only tell me about the etymology of the word. OK, we're getting close to being at the end. We got the where hyena who hails from the Middle East. The where hyena is a mythological creature from East Africa and the Middle East. Unlike the werewolf is portrayed as being originally human.
The where hyena. Sorry. I do like the where hyena better. The where hyena in many lore's is described as a hyena that is in disguise as a human, which is way freakier than a werewolf. I got to say. Yeah, way better than a werewolf. Can you imagine if it was a wolf turned into a man on like Thursday afternoons and like just had a yearning to go work an office job like that? It's way scarier than a werewolf.
Like he walks in with the like suit jacket in his briefcase and he's like, John, good day to you. And John's like, did I get my hyena to say hello? But then he's like so wrapped up in his work that he like can use whatever. Like I got to get this email sent. And we have so many good movies that should be made out of this episode. Okay, so the were hyena is larger than the regular hyena and stands on two legs. Just like we imagine coming in with this briefcase coffee.
He's just standing by the water cooler. He just wants some human interaction. In the former Borno empire of Africa, the were hyena was called the Baltugan, Baltungan. It was once traditional belief that one of the two of the villages in the region was populated entirely of were hyenas. They just made a society. Oh God, that would be terrifying to just come across it and like they're all in a rush. Assuming that they like have made a society like ours.
Yeah, I hope that hyenas could do a better job than what we've come up with. But maybe, yeah, I would hope so as well. I have faith in them, though. I don't think the villages are any longer, so maybe they evolved and had space travel and they fucking left this place. Yeah, maybe that's where all the pollution in our upper atmosphere came from. I can wear hyenas. We're solving so many problems. I wonder if live science ever thought of that. You have to assume they thought of all options.
In Ethiopia, traditionally every blacksmith was actually a witch that could change to a hyena. These blacksmith wear hyenas are believed to rob graves at midnight and are referred to as Bodha. Belief in Bodha is also present in other African mythology. In the folklore of western Sudanic people, there's a hybrid version, a human who is nightly transformed into a cannibalistic monster that terrorizes people, especially lovers. This is just a wolf. I know, right?
The creatures often portrayed as a magically powerful healer, blacksmith, or woodcutter, in its human form, but recognizable through signs like a hairy body, red and gleaming eyes and a nasal voice. No, this version isn't as good. I don't like the Sudanese version. Yeah, no, we need to go back to the... yeah. We do. But we go on. It means be perverse werewolf or nothing. I know, it does. It's just a beautiful thing. I had to put it in when I saw this. I was like, fuck yeah.
Arab folklore tells of how hyenas can mesmerize victims with their eyes or sometimes with their pheromones. The hyenas also believed to be a vampire. A Persian medical treatise written in 1376 tells how to cure people known as Kaftar, who are said to be half man half hyena, who have the habit of slaughtering children. What did that happen to have?
The Greeks until the end of the 19th century believed that the bodies of werewolves, if not destroyed, would haunt battlefields as vampiric hyenas would strength the blood of dying soldiers. I think that came up in a werewolf episode, didn't it? I can't remember. I don't remember. That's funny. I was going to say no, but that's just me guessing and I tried to stay away from that on the podcast.
My favorite is the Borneo Empire of Africa, where they had the village that was just straight were hyenas. Yeah. They didn't even try to blend in. They made their own society. So that was the best for last. But do you have any else to say about were hyenas? No. I think we've already speculated enough just on what type of society where hyenas would build, why they're truly more terrifying than us turning into wolves. So no, I think we're good.
But I do like to picture them with super mundane names like Tim, John, Derek. Yeah. Derek. Yeah. That's all I know of those kind of names right now. They're all no. They're all boys. Yeah. Yeah, and I do fully just expect them all to be boy hyenas. Yeah, I know. I'm not picturing a female wear hyena at all. I just can't picture them in like a business lady suit. No, no, they're definitely just the blazer. See them with a tie. Only the, okay, only a tire and a blazer.
Like there's no undershirt or pants. Yeah. They definitely got a briefcase and coffee. Maybe glasses if their eyes are bad. I'm staring at the screen too long. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Hyenas did not evolve to look at screens. The wear hyenas are tired of the fucking daily grind. Nine to five. Do you think that they just, maybe they just decided like this life is shit. Let's just go back to being hyenas. And that's what happened to the tribe. Maybe that's where hyenas come from. Yeah. Okay, okay.
Let's end this. Okay. So, end off. I wanted to give this fun little tidbit that I also found. You see, I found my stride. I started off a little shaky with the egg ghost, but I found my stride. Okay. You just got to stick with it a little bit. So to end off, I wanted to give this fun little tidbit from the Middle East. And that is that they gave us the word ghouls. I didn't know if we know that. I definitely didn't know that. I don't think we talked about it before.
We could have, but I don't think we did. The name Al Ghul derives from the Arabic Ras Al Ghul, head of the ogre. The English name demon star is a direct translation. Ghouls are thought to be zombie like jinn who haunt graveyards and prey on human flesh. They are strictly demonic and incapable of goodness. And they are often portrayed as nocturnal. Again, example. End example. And that's where I leave this off. Okay. Well, thank you for that.
I hope you know this episode as the where hyena episode of our heart. And with that stuck in your heart. I have been Taylor here with Chelsea. We are Journey to the Fringe. Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe. If you have liked what you have listened to, please like, share, subscribe, or follow, depending on what venue you are listening to us through.
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