From the Vault: Whispers of the Speaking Sword

some pop culture tie ends as well. Calivoian, wicked Wizard, grasps the handle of his broadsword, asks the blade this simple question, tell me, oh, my blade of honor, dost thou wish to drink my life blood? Drink the blood of Calivoi. In Thus, his trusty sword makes answer well, divining his intentions, Why should I not drink thy life blood blood of guilty? Colivoian, since I feast upon the worthy,

drink the life blood of the righteous. Thereupon, the youth Colervo, wicked Wizard of the north Land, lifts the mighty sword of Uco did Zadou to earth in heaven, firmly thrust the hilt in heather to his heart. He points the weapon, throws his weight upon the broadsword, pouring out his wicked life blood. Air be journeys to Manala. Thus the wizard finds destruction. This the end of Calivoi, Born in sin and nursed in folly. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your

mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And what you just heard was an excerpt from Room thirty five of the Finnish epic The Kola Valla, as translated by John Martin Crawford in eight Uh. It's a famous scene from the text um that has been depicted in art. You'll find depictions of it in public statues. Uh, there was one that I was able to pull up here for us, Joe, for our notes.

When you see this very stoic, very grim looking figure standing there gripping the blade of his sword, not the not the hilt, but the actual blade of it, as he contemplates deep dark thoughts. Now, as for the things that are draped over his midsection, is this just sort of straps or from the pelt that have tassels like a scarf might have or are those the paws of what was a bear skin with the claws still on them? They to me they look like the clause of an

animal skin. Yeah, but the way they wrapped around him, it looks like he's being from behind by a very flattened bear. That's kind of like reaching down onto his thighs in a funny looking way. Now, the Calivaya, for anyone who's not familiar with this, is the national epic of Finland and nineteenth century work based on on on on Caroline and Finnish folklore and mythology concerning the creation of the world, the exploits of heroes and villains, as

well as the magical sampo. So this has been this has been uh given the cinematic treatment a few different times over the years, and I know we've we've heard from listeners about some of those depictions and about just the the epic itself. I myself, if have have yet to read it in full, but I have to say, after this um, this little cold open reading here, I really like the cadence of it. I like the cadence of this translation. So perhaps I'll dive back in at

some point. Yeah, it's on my mental list as well. But so, what's going on in the scene that you read? Okay, So this scening question concerns the character Klarvo, who of course is also referred to to as colorv Oid in in this uh this this particular translation. And he's a tragic and doomed character. Uh. He has this he needs having this conversation with the unnamed but clearly sentient blade

that he wields. Uh. There's an element of edifice to the character though, and he's also something of a of a wizard obviously, is described as an evil wizard. Uh. So there's a lot going on here. But the interesting thing for our purposes is that the sword speaks. The sword seems to keep a history of itself. It knows what it has done, It knows who it has killed,

and the character of those that it is killed. Um. And there's a sense of the blade has some sort of will of its own, even if in this case it's more of a bloodthirsty indifference to whoever's blood it happens to spill. Is it like a kind of propaganda that justifies its own use? Yeah, I mean it, it kind of makes sense, right, I mean, the sword. What does the sword want? Well, in this case, the sword just wants to spill blood. It doesn't care if it's

righteous blood. It doesn't care if it's evil blood. It just wants blood. Now, if this particular scene sounds familiar, you know, it is clearly echoed in the famous is this a Dagger? Which I see before me monologue from William Shakespeare's Macbeth. And I've also read that Hamlet too was at least in part inspired by this, this uh, this finished tale, that these finished legends. Um. Of course, in Macbeth, the dagger does not answer the doomed king. Um,

he's just speaking to it. He's just, you know, he's kind of making it the focus of his monologue. But there is an interesting history of speaking swords and myth and legend, and of course this also spills over into the existence of various speaking weapons in fiction. Um. One of the most notable, at least for me, would would be the sentient weapons of dungeons and dragons, particularly the sword Black Razor, which has been around and the Dungeons

and Dragons lore for a while. But we should we should also mention some other, perhaps um less obvious examples of of intelligent weapons, especially from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I think these are actually parodies of old like Loony Tunes conventions. But there is a sword that sings in it right, right, It's kind of a Frank Sinatra cartoon Frank Sinatra sword. And uh, it's been a

long time since I've seen Roger Rabbit. I remember the sword being fairly useless, like it seemed more interested in singing and crooning as opposed to being a proper stabbing implement. And again it had a will out its own. What if there was a sword who just wanted to dance? But but the other thing is I remember in this movie there are like sentient bullets like uh, what's his name? Bob Hoskins gets out of a bunch of bullets to put in his gun, and their cartoon like old West

cowboy bullets, and that one talks like a prospector. Yeah. I had completely forgotten about this till you shared an image with me. I think at least one of the bullets as Pipper from Final Sacrifice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can. Uh, it's been like again, it's been a long time, so I've seen it, But looking at this still I can, I can hear that stereotypical like prospect or voice. Yeah. So in this episode we're going to discuss some examples of speaking swords from myth and legend and literature and

maybe get into what it all means to a certain extent. Now, the idea of a weapon that has a mind of its own and can even talk and talk to its bearer, Uh, it goes goes very far back, even farther back than a la Vala. In fact, it goes to the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and their myths. Yeah, because this and this is one that's not just an old example, it's just it's an example that checks off all the boxes of what you want to find in a sentient weapon.

It is a sharer the talking mace, which was a weapon that was wielded by the hero god Ninurta. So this would have been of Sumerian and then I think later Babylonian mythology. Yeah, and um, and like a lot of those gods, I think his history jectory kind of changes course over time. He's uh, he was at least initially a god of spring, thunder showers and a protector

of agriculture. I've also seen him uh, written about as being more connected with the sun, and then in later traditions more of like a warrior god um, and then he's there are there are. There are also some some pretty famous depictions of him. There's a like if you just go to like a Wikipedia page about ancient Sumerian legend, you're likely to see this image of Nonnurta with it with thunderbolts, pursuing this winged demon an zoo Um who

has stolen the tablets of destiny. Uh. It's pretty famous image. Yeah, And like so much of that great old Mesopotamian art, you get this kind of side view of the characters right there there in profile as they're striding forward. And Unnurta has absolutely fabulous calf muscles. Yes, and in this image he has the he has thunderbolts. But um, this other weapon is associated with him in some of the old old writings. And this is this is again sharrow

or the Smasher of thousands, and it is a mace. Uh. And I'm gonna have a short artifact episode coming up I think next week that gets into this a little bit. But uh, just getting into the idea of like why a mace what is it Is it about a mace? Uh? That it would have been important in ancient warfare, and and basically it comes down to the fact that, yeah, if you were fighting people that did not have metal helmets, a mace was just an absolutely devastating weapon to have.

It became a symbol of authority and many different cultures, and therefore it's exactly the sort of thing that a powerful deity would wield against monstrous enemies. I think of the mace as being very prominently displayed in some some quite memorable ancient Egyptian art, for example on the Narmer Palette, which shows, of course, you know, the pharaoh clutching the head of the conquered enemy and raising the mace in the other hand. Uh, it's sort of an image of

total dominance. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently the mace was the symbol of of Egyptian power for a very long time because there for for the longest their armies only fought enemies with no armor or helmets, and so the mace was just a dominant weapon to wield. Now, as as far as Shahura goes, this was no typical mace. This was a weapon that could speak, it could fly, across vast distances and even take on the form of a winged lion.

As Abraham Amen points out in The Monster Hunter's Handbook, the weapon was capable of smashing enemies either on its own or in the hands of Nnorta. And it also rain fire and venom down on its enemies and allowed the hero god to slay this terrifying demon Azag, the one that we just described from that that illustration. Wow. So but of course us just talking about it, you know, doesn't doesn't really give it justice. You gotta you gotta go to the poetry, or at least translations of the poetry,

and in the Sumerian poem Nenorta's Exploits. Uh. Yeah, there's a lot of just beautiful, violent language about our hero's use of the mace. He said, to pound a SOG's body as if it were barley, like in a mill or Yeah, like a mortar and pestle. Yeah. Yeah, Like he's not going to just knock down the monster and and and act like it's a Friday that thirteenth movie. Oh, is the enemy dead? I don't know. No, He's gonna go over and pound that enemy into the ground with

this mace. In fact, such is the power of or that the condition of the slain demon's body is compared to that of a ship wrecked by a tidal wave. That's the demon you make bread out of, yeah, or pasta? Yeah. Now, Nonorta's Exploits translation of it is available online, and there are little bits of it that are you know that, that are just lost. But it's well worth looking up and reading through because it has all this awesome battle

language in it. But I want to read just a few quotes from it that drive home mostly this idea of the weapon as being the sentient speaking thing. Okay, quote, At that moment, the lord's battle mace looked towards the mountains, and Shahur cried out aloud to its master. And then there's another passage here, O beware, it said, concerned lee, the weapon embraced him, whom it loved. The Shahur addressed Lord Nenirta quote the weapon its heart was reassured. It

slapped its thighs. The Shahur began to run. It entered the rebel lands joyfully. It reported the message to Lord Nenorta. And then there is this one's great. The Shahur made the storm wind rise to heaven, scattered the people like and then as there's a fragment that's lost, it tore its venom alone destroyed the townspeople. The destructive may set fire to the mountains. The murderous weapons smashed skulls with its painful teeth. The club, which tears out in trails,

gnashed its teeth. The lance was stuck into the ground, and the crevices filled with blood. In the rebel lands, dog licked it up like milk. The enemy rose up, crying to wife and child. You did not lift your arms in prayer to Lord Ninurta. The weapon covered the mountains with dust, but did not shake the heart of a zog. The shower threw its arms around the neck of the lord. All right, So this is a mace, a weapon that not only talks, not only cries allowed

to its beloved master, but it also hugs its beloved master. Yeah, this is a weapon that's not going to turn on you. This is not a weapon where you're gonna be like when you ask it, hey, or things pretty bad and the weapons like, yeah, it's pretty bad. You should fish you should follow me. Uh No, this is a mace that stands by you now, doesn't this weapon also essentially function as a long range surveillance device, reporting information back to its bearer from a distance. Yeah, it is. Um

It is an extremely overpowered weapon. It's befitting of a of a god hero. But yeah, we're we're based on these passages and others. There's this idea that it will fly ahead, it will report back, it will fly into battle on its own. But it can also, you know, very much be wielded as a traditional weapon by um By Nenorta. So it does all of these things. It also has these these powers of venom and fire. It's

just absolutely powerful. I think we're in Batman territory here because it's kind of like overpowered in the way Batman's gadgets are that he just has gadgets that like there's no reason he should have. Yeah, and and this one just yeah, this does everything you can imagine. It's almost as if, like later traditions were like, this is great, but let's tone it down a little bit because I don't know if people are going to believe it. But like I said, it's it's it's amazing. It's an amazing weapon.

Sharer has shark repellent properties. That's right, Batman did have shark repellent, just carried it around just in case. Thank than Now, when it comes to speaking weapons in other traditions, we have to pay special attention to to Irish myth and legend because it seems it seems a really good place to to spend some time, not only for the tales themselves, but because it's an area where we have some some pretty solid papers written on the history of

it all. In particular, I was looking at Gary Are Varner's The Sword and Dagger and Myth and Legend from twelve and Omens Ordeals and Oracles on Demons and Weapons in early Irish texts from by Jacqueline bush Now. Varner points out that Irish swords were said to retain a memory of the acts committed with the weapon, and a warrior would swear by these weapons, but also could be rebuked by the sword if they did not speak true uh. And apparently this could take a couple of different forms.

The weapon might simply fail for the hero at an important moment in battle, but it might also speak and curse them for their false trophies. This is interesting. The idea of being um accepted or rebuked by a weapon. It makes me think of Scaliber, which in which I do not think. I was looking around for evidence of stories where Excalibur speaks, and I didn't find any. But Excalibur does certainly look for its rightful owner and uh and and rebukes people who try to wield it without

the right to do so. Yeah. And of course JRR Tolkien was was obviously a uh an admire of many of these myth cycles that that we're discussing here. So you see a lot of this reflected, and say, the behavior of the one ring, the idea that it it chooses who wears it and who wields it, and it might leave you if it has decided that it it no longer believes in you. Right, I'm done with the

sealed or no more. Yeah. And so you see that in some of these of these accounts, you know it's not uh, you know it will ultimately be like okay, that the hero has failed and the weapon has abandoned them at a crucial moment. Q that Taylor Swift breakup song. Now, an example cited by Bush can be found in The

Sick Bed of Colin. Now, this is a character that we've discussed on the show before this is the Irish hero who I believe we did a whole episode where we talked about one of his special weapons that may or may not be related to, um, the biological properties of the sting ray. Oh, yeah, that's right. I do recall that episode maybe being one of our most difficult pronunciation adventures of all time. Yeah, globe trotting as we do with our clumsy tongues, but but that one was

also a lot of fun. Uh that those myths are awesome. I remember the warp spasm, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Kukulan is as a fascinating character. And and I hope I'm saying it appropriately here because I've heard it said both way, like Kukulan and Kohlan, And we had a whole lot of of Irish listeners right in and um and weigh in on this topic. So here we are once again, folks. Yeah.

But in an early scene, uh, speaking of clumsy tongues, they're the warriors bring forth the tongues of their enemies, though some have embellish their trophies with the tongues of cows, and so the warriors swear with their swords on their thighs, and here's a quote from it. For their swords used to turn against them when they would declare a false victory. That is right, for demons used to speak to them from their weapons, so that their weapons were thus guarantees

for them. I'm not sure I understand the causality of the sentence. Let's see, so the demons used to speak to them for their weapons, so that their weapons were thus guarantees for them, meaning that the demons speaking from the weapons would would let you know whether what the

warrior said was true or not. Yes, yeah, And of course then now the whole idea, in the whole use of the word demon, we'll get into that in a bit, because of course that obviously smacks of of of later you know, Christian era writers making sense of of older beliefs and traditions by attributing them to demons as opposed to you know, uh, spirits or deities that would have made sense within the actual traditions and religion of those

people's right. Sure, So there are a lot of things from the ancient world where, uh, where there's a story or a text that has a word that means something like spirits or gods or something, but Christian writers might translate it as demons. Now, a specific example of talking weapons that the springs up is made in the Battle

of mag Truetta. This is an Irish epic about the battles thought by the to Atha Dudon and against the first the fear bold, and then against the monsters for Marian's so these are like the the to Dudon, and these are like the fairy folk of old. They're kind of like the Yeah, I guess you could compare them to like the high elves, like they were, you know, a warrior, magical warrior people. And then these enemies were

mostly monsters. Quote. Now, in that battle, Ogma the champion found Oma, the sword of tetherra king of the Fomorians. Ogma unsheathed the sword and cleaned it. Then the sword told what had been done by it, because it was the habit of swords at that time to recount the deeds that had been done by them whenever they were unsheathed, and for that reason, swords were entitled to the tribute of cleaning after they have been unsheathed. Moreover, spells have

been kept in swords from that time on. Now, the reason why demons used to speak from weapons, then, is that weapons used to be worshiped by men and were among the sureties of that time. Whoa several interesting things going on there. So I like the idea that the swords being empowered to speak about the deeds that have been done with them is in a way presented as an incentive for the care and maintenance of your sword. Yeah, and for that reason, swords are entitled to the tribute

of cleaning after they've been unsheathed. But I mean, it also seems just like cleaning a sword is important for maintaining the sword, like keeping it useful. So this seems perhaps like one of those myths that that may have a sort of practical origin. Yeah. And then of course at the end this bit about well well used to men used to worship their swords, that also kind of smacks of what we were talking about earlier, as does the use of the word demons. And again we'll come

back to that shortly. But here's another bit. This one is from the Cattle Rate of Coolie, and this concerns

our our hero Cucolin once again. Quote then he put on his head his crested war helmet of battle and strife and conflict from it was uttered the shout of a hundred warriors, with a long drawn outcry from every corner and angle of it, For they're used to cry from it like and then there are a few different um like old Irish cries, which I will not try to repeat here, uh, you know, just just in case I don't know, I don't know what their translation is.

Might anger at the warriors of old um quote and demons of the air before him and above him and around him wherever he went, prophesiesing the shedding of the blood of warriors and champions. Now, obviously this is a helm as opposed to a weapon, but still it contains a record and it sort of speaks now if it's saying here though, it's not just recall calling a record

of the past. But it uses the word prophesying, which makes me think that it's speaking of the future or is this just a version of prophesying that speaks of the past. Um. I think we are getting into divination here a bit, because as m as we'll touch on on later, you also see the idea of the sword as this kind of focus of divination in many different cultures. Now here's another account of of weapons doing battle on their own, kind of like our our ancient Sumerian example

of from earlier. And this is from the death of a Maladron macdemo Krone sometimes the violent death, and it contains a passage about a spear that would leap into battle on its own and require tribute. Um Actually I don't have the exact quote from that, but but that's the that's just the sum of summarizing of what occurs.

But then in the mescal Ulad there's a description, uh, not only of Cuculin leaping into battle, but his weapons are described as leaping into battle as well, um like as if like by his side, as if by their own will. Like they're not just things that he brings with him into weapons. They're not just tools of war

they were. They're kind of like companions. And then in the destruction of Daderga's hostel, there's a living lance called loon, which I think bores says it just means the lance, but Borche rights when this lance is ready to shed blood, it has to be quenched regularly in a cauldron with poison, otherwise the lance will catch fire. Used in battle, this weapon is extremely dangerous. Whoa. So basically Bore summarizes that

weapons are guarantees for truth about battle deeds of the past. Um, we see this, this idea, this hint of them being able to prophesies the future, even weapons know what has been done with them. And there's also this idea of of other beings speaking through them. Now and then, of course we've used the word demon already. Now. Um, obviously you don't have to know much about about Christian history ease of pre Christian times to know that the ways and beliefs of the old days are often recast as

blasphemy or worse. And in this case, the idea of men worshiping their weapons, or or of demons speaking to them through the sword, clearly smack of this. Now where Boorch ultimately lands on this issue, as it is that the term demons may simply be a summarization of the infernal deities or furies Alecto too, sephony uh Megara, as well as the war goddess Bellona. Now these are Greek and Roman goddesses. Um. And this, you know, again gets

with the history of translating and reinterpreting these stories. But the Irish war goddess is of course the Morrigan who we I believe we talked about in our what we talked about the Morrigan in the Phantom morgana episode. So sometimes she is an individual and other times though she is a triad of the war goddesses um batub Uh, Macha and nim Jane. Now in early Irish texts, Bore says that the Morrigan is sometimes equated with the monstrous Lamia or also or also equated with lilith uh and

relegated to the underworld. So there's you know this this continuing tradition of this um. But but I want to read this, uh this this quote here from the text, She writes, quote, this survey from the Tane shows the war goddesses appear in battle contexts in which they utter ominous, terrifying and inciting shouts, just like the battle creatures from Part two Part in Part two earlier in this documentary is referring to demonic creatures inhabiting weapons and shouting therefrom

at the height of the fight. Uh. She continues, the battle creatures are sometimes referred to in the same context, and they are somewhat closer to the sword demons of of Sir legi con coolin and that they too are directly connected with weapons. The connection is more indirect in the case of the war goddesses. The most striking example is the is the arm grid. This is the clamor alarms caused by an attack by a war goddess, but

this is less similar than the shouts from weapons and armor. However, what brings the war goddess is closer to the oracular utterances of the sword. Demons are their prophetic words in battle context. This prophetical function of the war goddesses is not only found in the Taine, but also in other early Irish texts. Interesting. Okay, so this does come back to the the divinatory or oracular properties he alluded to. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost like the sword is a thing that um

that kind of stands outside of time. It's connected to all the deaths before it, and it's connected to all the deaths ahead of it, or the sword stands outside of time, or something that speaks through the sword stands outside of time. Yeah. The sword is almost like a like a it's a radio for talking to God. It's a you know, it's like a conduit in a way. Yeah. Yeah, Now outside of actually speaking swords. The use of swords

and other blades and divination practices is pretty widespread. Um. I was looking around for some some interesting specific examples. I ran across a few from Asia that we're that we're pretty pretty neat. We see this in Korean divination

and some Korean divination practices. And this was discussed by Yun Young Lee and Korean shamanistic rituals from one the primary focuses on Korean shamanism or moodang, and there's a they discussed there's a variety of double edged Korean sword known as a gillam that is sometimes used in divination, as well as a as a Korean variation of the

three edge spear or trident. I'm also to understand that swords were sometimes a part of a traditional divination kit for some Thai communities in Vietnam, according to a Thai divination kit in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology by vivan On from the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. And there of course numerous exam bolls of ritual daggers and blades used in various practices that either are you know, um objectively divination practices or could be interpreted as having divinational aspects

to them. Uh, and we even see it carried on as a symbol in the likes of Taro. The thing about Tarot actually kind of reminds me of um, of of the Egyptian art that we were talking about earlier, because they're both examples of this thing you see very commonly, which is that weapons are very often um, inanimate objects that are infused with lots of meaning. They're they're charged with, you know, their symbols in a way, or their signs that that that point to all these different concepts, and

they seem to have great stakes and import Yeah. Absolutely, I was, and I was thinking a bit about about this, like what, you know, what does all of this mean? And um, I guess I was reminded in part by that that that quote from The Simpsons where Homer talks about how it feels when he holds a gun that is like how God must feel when he holds a gun, which is a ridiculous quote, but but I think, you know,

does get to it to a truth. There's something about in this case holding a say a sword or a dagger, especially one with a violent history, that it does have the ability to induce a certain kind of thinking or feeling. You know, we hold it, and in holding it, we update our body schema to include this weapon. It becomes a part of us, a part of our body, and so too, to a certain extent, does its history and

its purpose. You know, Um, it's just something that's just something about holding holding a tool, and in this case that tool would be say a sword or or a mace. Oh yeah, I mean i'd imagine that the same way we we've talked about how driving a car changes your relationship to other people. While you're you know, so you're operating a car, you don't really see other people the same way you would if you were just standing next

to them on the sidewalk. You know that they might start to become slightly less people like and more kind of like irritating, obstacle like, or you know, there's something about seeing them through the windshield maybe makes them less significant. And you know, you've got to wonder about like holding a deadly weapon or something that maybe not only could be used as a weapon, but is definitely forged to be a highly effective killing tool. Uh, does that also

sort of change your relationship to people around you? While you're holding it. Yeah, So so it makes me wonder, you know, to a certain extent, some of what we're discussing here. It's like the fantastic and the legend area, the mythic and the magical reverberations of of something that all of us or even or maybe just a lot of us can sense if we we hold that weapon or even just like see that way, Like it's for me.

I always find it interesting to see some of these like these really old weapons were well preserved, and in some cases they were purely ceremonial uh in museums. Uh, you know, just just looking at them and thinking about, you know, what they are and how long they've been around than now. Another way of looking at this subject is not to emphasize the weaponness, but just to think about these stories as stories of an inanimate object or tool of some kind that has a mind and speaks

and has a will of its own. In other words, that it is an inanimate object that has the properties of an agent. And this is a subject we've talked about a number of times on the show before. But I was trying to think about like what this might represent in the psychological context. So I found a paper

that I wanted to talk about briefly. Uh. This is by Amanda Hanks Johnson and Justin Barrett, published in the Journal of Cognition and Culture in the year two thousand three, called the Role of Control in Attributing intentional agency to Inanimate Objects. And so one of the authors here, it's worth noting, is Justin Barrett, who is a psychologist who has written a lot of interesting things about the psychology

of religion. He was actually the author of that paper we covered a couple of years ago about whether or not Santa Claus should be thought of as a god. Oh wow, that was an awesome paper. Yeah. Recall Barrett's conclusion on Santa Claus was basically not quite a god, but very very close. He had like five criteria that god seemed to have in common, and he said that Santa Claus, in some contexts I think had all five of them, but these criteria were sort of inconsistently applied

to him, so very very close. But anyway, in this study, the authors wanted to look at the phenomenon of attributing agency to inanimate objects. So when you regard an object like say a mace or a sword, for example, as if it had the qualities of a person, such as a mind with goals and intentional behavior, and this would this would include flying into battle on its own or or speaking or something like that. What causes us to

start thinking about inanimate objects as if they were intentional agents? Uh, And so they start off talking about some factors that were revealed by pre existing research. One of the things they talk about is the concept of an agency detection device. This is a sort of hypothetical module of the human brain that is often invoked as one possible factor contributing

to the origins of supernatural and religious beliefs. Of course, all you know, speculation like that into the deep evolutionary psychology of humankind is highly speculative, but it seems at

least like a plausible idea worth exploring. That um that essentially, there is a selection bias on the human brain in favor of h when given an ambiguous stimuli like you see something vaguely moving to lean toward, assuming that it is an agent with the ability to act on its own intentions rather than just a physical object being stirred by the wind. Because it's you know, it's more cautious

to assume it's an age. Agents are more dangerous and you need to be more ready to guard against their behavior, And of course agents would include not just humans but also animals. But this study itself has less to do with with possible psychological explanations for the origins of religion, is more just about what people do in the moment, how they spontaneously speak as if they were attributing agency

to clearly inanimate objects like ball bearings. Now, previous research had showed that people regularly participate in agent attribution even with objects as simple as two dimensional geometric shapes on a display. So so these other studies had shown that people will talk about objects like a triangle on a screen and talk about them as if they have characteristics such as beliefs, desires or goals, emotional states, and genders.

And one of the major factors established by this previous research is the importance of movement in in creating these types of attributions. And it's also not just any movement uh. These studies found that we are especially likely to attribute agency to objects that move in what the authors here would call non inertial paths without being contacted UH. And this is sometimes equated to movement that appears to be

in a goal directed manner. So non inertial paths means that, you know, if you see a stone rolling down a hill just following what would be the obvious apparent course of gravity, you're much less likely to attribute agency to that stone than you would to a stone that just suddenly rolls in one direction on a flat surface without

any apparent cause. So that seems pretty intuitive, right, Like that, we're less likely to start wondering if something is an agent if we just see it apparently obeying the laws of physics. If something moves in a way where we can't clearly see a physical cause for it to move that way outside of itself, then we start thinking like, woe is that thing alive? But then the authors here looked at another feature beyond just non inertial pathways of movement,

and that feature is the control of the observer. So what they did here to test this was they used an experimental setup where participants were recorded describing their actions out loud while they tried to move a number of metal ball bearings around on a surface like a tabletop, and underneath that surface there were electro magnets that could be turned on and off that could influence the path of the balls and how the balls moved around on

this table. So the two conditions of the experiment where you had one condition where participants had direct control over the magnets. They had a switch or switches that they could switch on and off that were tied to a light that would go on and off when the magnets were activated and deactivated. So they were controlling the method

by which the paths of the balls were diverted. And then you had another condition, or the participants were moving the balls around, but they had no perception of control over the magnets. Instead, an experiment er was turning the magnets on and off. And the results were in line

with the author's hypothesis. A greater number of participants in the no control condition, the one where they could not control what the magnets were doing, a greater number of them spontaneously made statements attributing mind like agency to the balls compared to the condition where people could control the magnets. And so what were the spontaneous statements people made that attributed agency. It would be things like um like relational expressions. So,

for example, apologizing to the balls. One quote is oops, sorry ball uh, sometimes naming the balls to quote from the study here describing a relationship with the marbles in terms that are literally appropriate only for animals and people, but not physical objects, such as marble's e g. Quote and a couple of ones did not like me um and then a couple of the other ones where statements about the ball bearings like having desires like oh look, those two are kissing, or that one didn't want to

stay there, or saying that the balls are fighting each other. So the results would seem to back up the idea that we are more likely to spontaneously attribute agency to inanimate objects not just when they move in non inertial paths, but also when they do so in ways that we understand to be outside of our direct control or outside the direct control of a human agents such as ourselves.

One interesting side note is that while a greater number of members of the no control group made at least one agency attribution statement, if you were to just count up the numbers of statements, one participant in the in control group actually went hog wild, making tons of statements, including naming some of the marble's That this one participant is where you get the person who started calling one

of the ball bearings Bob. The most common types of agency attributions across all conditions were people ascribing desires and dispositions to the to the marbles, such as wanting or liking uh. And so the study did support the author's hypothesis that that objects moving beyond our controls are more likely to be seen as agents. But one thing that I thought was interesting was they actually recorded less spontaneous

agency attribution overall than a number of previous studies. For example, the ones using geometric shapes displayed on a screen, and they tried to talk about why that was. They say, quote, Perhaps the representational character of the animated displays introduces bias that contributes to the willingness of participants to attribute beliefs, desires, and personality traits to geometric shapes. At least adult observers

understand that images in motion pictures often represent intentional agents. Further, while the shapes in the displays certainly do not have beliefs or desires, intend national agents who do have beliefs and desires orchestrate their movements. Perhaps these conceptual factors of the displays contribute to the attribution of agency in animated displays.

But there was one more section I wanted to read that that I thought was interesting, where they were trying to explain what could be going on, uh and and relating this to to ecologically valid everyday experiences of people attributing agency to inanimate objects. And and this relates to the condition once again of control over these objects. They write, quote, the suggestion is that we treat cars and computers as intentional agents, not only because of their perceptual features or

self propelledness. Indeed, we be rate our cars when they quote refuse to move, and not when they do move. Rather, it is when objects action violates our own sense of causal efficacy that we attribute agency to them. When the computer either does something I did not ask it to do or does not do something I asked it to do, it's then that I remark that it is angry with me.

Feelings of frustration are the consequence of lacking control, feeling that it is no longer my agency that accounts for what I perceive, but some other agency that I cannot control.

And this was interesting because it made me think about possible origins of people especially looking to weapons used in battle as something that that has a mind of its own or could speak of its own accord, because I could imagine that violent struggle is is a time when you are especially prone probably to frustrations with the physical workings of your tools. Like you know, when when you're you're swinging a sword or a mace in battle and it doesn't do exactly what you wanted it to do.

That seems like one of the most irritating possible situations where that could happen. Right, So you might be especially prone then to think this thing has a mind of its own and it is actually an agent in some way. Yeah, the sword has decided that I'm not worthy to wield it, and that is why it it seems to fail me suddenly. Yeah. And and this also I think comes into the old

idea of like trial by combat. You know, so people are very familiar with trial by combat from Game of Thrones these days, but like it is an actual ancient practice. And one of the things that is often assumed about trial by combat is that trial by combat reveals the will of the gods that there is you know, that there is divine intervention that reaches in and controls whose weapons and armor and all that get the better of

the other one. And thus the truth is shown not by who has the strongest warrior, but by which side the God's intervened on. Behalf of Now, one thing that comes to mind and all of this, taking taking it into kind of all of this and comparing it to the weapons too, is well. First of all, I'm imagining like the warrior or psyche during the height of battle.

I mean, obviously that's going to be a situation where you're dealing with a lot of I mean, there's there's there's probably a flow state going on to some degree. In some cases, it's also highly energized and traumatic time, um, which is going to have its own psychological effect. But also I'm thinking if you if you're dealing especially with a professional warrior, uh, a warrior who is who is skilled with their weapon, who has say, run drills with their weapon, is uh to them, the use of this

sword or this mace is just second nature. UM. It makes me think of the the sometimes receptible disconnect between will in the mind and movement in the body, and I wonder if that could at times help nurture this idea that sometimes it is not me who is who is who is striking out with the sword. Sometimes it is the sword striking out and I am just following it. You know. Yeah, that's really interesting. That lines up with

what I'm saying. Um though, there's a contradiction here worth exploring, which is that, um So, if there is any truth whatsoever to us, you know, speculating that that maybe uh, maybe it's because of extreme frustration with you know, a sword or a mace not doing exactly what you wanted to do when you you swing it in a fight. That causes people to to infuse it with the idea of agency and think this has this has a mind

of its own. This would kind of go against a lot of the stories which are about weapons not failing in battle but having these really special, awesome powers, like doing more than you want doing, doing what you want beyond what you can make it do with your hands. Well,

I wonder in that. I mean, it's easy to look back on these accounts and think of, you know, think of any type of actual human that could have you been a part of, say that the colclon myth Um and just imagine well that this was a bloodthirsty professional warrior who you know, never looked back and reflected on

the deeds they performed on the battlefield. But on the other hand, I wonder if you know, what if it's not the case, what if you have characters like this, I mean really in Clocolan, we also see this idea of the warp spasm, the idea that he becomes something

out of control on the battlefield, you know. So so maybe there is this Maybe there in some cases there is this sense that like, Okay, after the battle, when you're reflecting on what you did, perhaps there are moments within that battle that that are in conflict with what you think about as your nature and and maybe that allows you to lean into this idea of the weapon having this empowering or even wilful uh uh property to it, or maybe like what you think is the is the gods,

or what you think is like you know, the divine taz or something is actually adrenaline. Yeah, and maybe like a disconnect to with just sort of the state of mind and like the reflective mind and the you know, the reactive mind of of of a pure combat situation right at the time, Yeah, it just makes sense to just keep pounding the enemy into the dirt with your mace. Then afterwards you're like, oh, that was a bit much. Why did I just not stop pounding their skull into

the dust? Um, that doesn't seem like me. I don't know, but this is this is mere speculation on my part. Sure, But even outside of combat, I mean there are times, even in the you know, the noncombatants life, where reflexes will at times seem to come from beyond us. You know.

I can think of like a time where, uh, my my son, who was a toddler at the time, he like, he falls off of a ladder on some stairs, and my arm just shoots out and grabs his leg in midfall, you know which, And at the time I'm like, oh wow, I'm already holding him. I already caught him, Like I did not seem like a wilful act, like, oh he's following, I better catch him. It's just you just react, you know.

And if one is given to interpret that in in a supernatural way, you know, you might think, well, you know, this is this was God working through me. This was some angel or demon taking control of my arm and doing this deed seemed to occur outside of my my my actual willful cognition. It is amazing. And another amazing way to interpret it is the physical way, which is like your brain did that and then your consciousness had to catch up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean obviously that is

the you know, the truth of the matter. And I think that the one thing I do want to drive home about all of this is that like all of these explanations within the human psyche and within the human body, I think are the most amazing. And that's even if you get into, you know, some of the more controversial hypotheses, like you know, the bicameral mind, which I think there are a lot of fun applications for that when we're looking at this topic. But I also see interpretations of

some of these mythic weapons. Is like, oh, well, obviously this was ancient aliens. Obviously the mace that flew across the battlefield and reported back, this was some sort of alien technology that the ancient Sumerians acquired. Um, you know. I I mean, yes, if you're being very if if you're willing to go that way, you can, I guess you can explain things away that in that regard, But I feel like you're you're missing that where the true

wonder lies. You know, you're missing the where the true magic is, and that is in the complex way that we interact with objects and enter and and contemplate our own actions. Well yeah, and also I would just say like that there is no particular reason to conclude ancient aliens, Like there is no evidence for it, and there's like no, there's no circumstances that demands it as a conclusion. So it's just so you could equally just say, like, well, maybe it was time travelers. I mean, I can't rule

it out, but there's no particular reason to think that's true. Um. But you know, the other thing that I often harp on on this show is that we enjoy looking for possible physical circumstances and scientific explanations that could give rise to you know, experiences people had or things people witness that could serve as the inspiration for mythological concepts like talking weapons or weapons within with the mind of their own. But also I've said this a million times, there's also

just human creativity. I Mean, sometimes people just come up with stories like it doesn't necessarily have to be that somebody saw something happen or had an experience themselves that felt like they were holding a weapon that was alive and had a mind of its own, that that could have happened, and that would be really interesting along the lines we've been talking about. But you also don't have to assume that. I mean, we know from the modern era, a lot of times people just come up with cool

and strange creative ideas. Yeah, and the thing about like a lot of these these sci fi ideas that again, and some people are are more inclined to take a modern sci fi concept and apply it backwards in time as an explanation as an actual like real world explanation for what's say, uh you know that that fantastic mace of Nenurta was uh where in reality? Like the modern sci fi fantasy is perhaps better understood as a as

a reverberation from the original trope. You know, like this is just continuation in the fantastic imaginative way of thinking that has been around for a long time. It is not you know, this is the thing that came before the flying club that turns into a lion and and and catches mountains on fire. That is the thing that helps explain our modern science fiction dreams, not the other

way around. You know. An interesting thing about that is that somebody might come back at you and say, well, but science fiction, while having these same tropes, is based on technology, which makes it more plausible. Um, and I guess you could say that, but uh, but it also strikes me is that a wonderful way of framing that, is that the course of human history and scientific and

technological development is reality catching up with myths. Yeah, yea, though I would I do have to point out to that, like a mace is technology, you know, like like any idea of of a of a magical mace or a magical sword, those those are technological stories as well. That's a deadly simple machine. I believe a mace counts as a level her Yeah. All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close the book on this, but we'd love

to hear from everybody. We'd love to hear from your thoughts on on what we discussed here, but also examples of sentient or possibly sentient weapons from other uh myths and legends as well as science fiction and fantasy treatments as well. Uh. Now, and now, one thing I do want to mention here. We opened with a rather dark reading from the Kola Vada, So I wanted to stress this. If you're troubled by suicidal thoughts, you are not alone. In a sympathetic ear is only a phone call away.

In the United States, considered calling the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at one two, seven, three, eight to five five. You can also visit the website, which is Suicide Prevention Lifeline dot org and for additional resources tailored towards general and specific needs such as those of youth, disaster survivors, Native Americans, veterans, lost survivors, lgbt q I, a UH,

and attempt survivors. You'll find a list of international UH suicide hotlines at suicide dot org um and then you can go to the International suicide Hotline section of that website. Big thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us as always at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.