The Whistling, Part 3

happens in the mouth when you whistle. We talked about whistling based languages or variants of languages, and we talked about the fascinating practice of Chinese transcendental whistling, as well as some various psychonautical beliefs about the world changing power of whistling. But today it might be interesting to turn our eyes to ancient history and say, did people whistle in the ancient world? And if so, how would we

know about it. This is such a great question that I've never really thought about because I kind of took it for granted, like, this is a sound that the human body can make, Therefore people would have made this sound, and uh, you know, I think for the most part this is a a good way of looking at it. Things. But then the other side of the equation is all right, well, let's look at the evidence. What evidence do we have in the literature of the ancient world that people whistled?

And then and then if they did whistle, well, what are the attitudes concerning whistling? Because one thing that I think we've already been able to distress in this series is that that whistling is fascinating as it is, it is not a a neutral thing. We end up having these various cultural and uh and as we'll discuss, superstitious weights attached to the practice of whistling. You know, I'm just generally fascinated by the idea of ancient music. I guess in part because for the most part, we don't

know what it sounded like. And so when you find, for example, people who have tried to render into performances some of the oldest recorded like a written notation of music that we have, such as the the famous Hurrian songs or Hurryan hymns that are from the ancient city of Yugurit, which are these hymns to the goddess nicoll Uh. They're they're written on cune of form tablets, and people have tried to turn that music notation into performances that

you can hear today, and it's very haunting. Uh. The same is true. I think there's an ancient Greek tombstone that has some music notation on it that has been translated into modern music. I think it's known as the sec Loss or sec Loss epitaph. And when you hear those sounds, they really do feel very alien. They're like

they're from another world. Uh, And it just it opens the mind all these possibilities that the the ancient world was full of music that we will never know because it wasn't recorded, of course it couldn't be, and it also wasn't written down or notated in any way that we can understand today. Yeah. Yeah, all this is definitely worth thinking about and again and coming down to like why is whistling important enough to take note of? Uh?

You know, this is a question that that remains on one's mind as we look at these these different examples. But what the main paper that I was looking at that was really getting into this was a two thousand paper by A. V. Van Stickellenberg titled Whistling in Antiquity, and the author dives into like the basic question of what evidence do we have that particularly the ancient Greeks

and the ancient Romans whistled or didn't whistle. And again, on one hand, it's hard to believe that they didn't and uh and stick Ellenberg points out that we know the Romans, for instance, had many songs for different occasions, and yet whistling was would also probably have been considered vulgar and not something that a person of status would

do compared to other sounds that one might make. Proper romans were not even supposed to sing, for example, I did not know that, not me neither uh and yet uh Stikellenberg writes, quote whistling a tune with there for not have been compatible with the characters of many, if not most, of the persona in ancient literature. Apart from that, however, it is a remarkable fact that we also never meet a slave, a fisherman, pimp, or soldier whistling a tune,

not even in comedy. So whatt Callenberry is pointing out here is that, Okay, if if whistling is not the proper thing to do, it's not the thing that you're your heroes and your your your proper romans would would have done. Well, what about the the improper characters in your various writings. Surely somebody would come around, come along, and they would whistle, and by whistling, signify that they are an improper character and therefore deserving of ridicule or

the villain of the piece, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, I mean not uh. When you look at what kind of Roman literature survives to us, it's not all uh lofty uh royal drama. You know, there are some really body satirical Roman literature that still exists today. And so you would expect the characters in this to engage in all manner of vulgarity that the Romans knew about. Yeah, like I think of our own cinematic history here and

also this in the literature as well. Spitting, uh, spitting on the ground in front of you generally considered uncouth, but in most circles, and yet you definitely see it a lot in cinema because it's a great way to establish that, well, this character is a little rough around the edges. Um, and I think the Cowboy movies where they're spitting, or Corman McCarthy novels where there's a lot

of spitting. So what Stikellenberg is saying, is that even though we have Roman literature that has lower class characters and characters who are understood as doing body and vulgar things, we never in the existing corpus see them whistling, or almost never seems to be the case, though Stikellenberg does point out a few areas where we're not entirely sure, and this is where we get into, uh, the the

imprecise nature of language and translations um. They point to a part in Petronius satiricn from the first century CE that describes a person who quote put his hand to his mouth and whistled out some terrible stuff I couldn't identify. Afterwards he told us it was Greek air. Now, it's apparently an open question if the if the proper translation is whistling, and if it is whistling, what what what

are we really talking about? Is it whistling like or is it finger whistling where you create, you know, the loud sound by blowing through your fingers, or is this just bad singing? The idea that uh, you know, some sounds are coming out of this person's mouth. They call it Greek air. It's just bad singing. Oh, I see so like, Uh, in order to be insulting, you might describe someone singing as wheezing or something. Yeah, that sort

of thing. They point out that even today, a fictional character whistling often means that they're they're what like they think of a whistling character in a film you've seen. It often means they're care free, or they're happy, or there perhaps a bit of a doo fit. Uh. Sometimes the whistling is like, what's going to happen to this poor dope that's just whistling and a little uh um, unprepared for the circumstances ahead of them. Does Buster Scruggs whistle?

I feel like he does. I think he does, if memory serves when you know and and the Cohen Brothers Buster scrugs the first bit in that anthology film. Yeah, he's this so this white suited cowboy who at first we think, yeah, he's just too he's just too much of a goody two shoes. He's just gonna be eat up by the world that he's writing into. And of course we find out that he's more than a match for the violence of the world. Yeah, I guess that is the joke that he's like the whistling, singing cowboy.

But he's also a cold blooded killer. Yeah, that fabulous short. I love that. Um. But at any right, we we do see some variations on this. For instance, stickle Berg points out that in Western literature we see whistling associated with the Squire and the Canterbury Tales in the fourteenth century. Uh. And this is a quote here singing he was or fluting all the day. Uh. This is from the prologue. And I guess the fluting here is what might be whistling,

fluting without a flute. That that's what I've always called whistling Stackallenburg points out that, okay, this character, though the Squire, is also a lusty lout, and we don't really see a precursor to this character type in Roman and Greek writing. But but here we have an early example of the lusty lout who is also potentially whistling stick. Gallenburg also raises the question of uh, perhaps humming was more common

than whistling. But the problem there is we also don't know much about humming in antiquity either the right quote. Whatever the case, whistling apparently formed no part of the paral linguistic stock used by Greek and Roman authors. This stock was considerable, as recent studies show, and a few studies are cited from UH from the ninety nineties and include such emotional indicators as jumping for joy and nail biting.

So saying here that, okay, if you're gonna have characters do things to indicate, um, you know, what's going on in their heads are kind of emotions they're supposed to be emoting on the stage or on the on the page, whatever the case may be. Uh, you're gonna have things that are being used like jumping for joy, like nail biting, and yet there's no whistling. Now, they also get into this concept of whistling in the dark a bit, which of course is a well worn turn of phrase for us,

in which one whistles to stave off fear. One of my favorite examples of this, or at least one that I think I encountered the earliest and therefore I always think about this is the Ichabod Crane and Headless Horseman

cartoon from Disney. This was in the Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad, though this would have been This was also a segment that was often aired on Disney TV Halloween specials, So there's definitely some whistling in the dark in that one, and of course it doesn't really work um Ultimately, the things in the aren't come out to chase about crane around. Now, Rob, maybe we will get more into this in a subsequent part when we talk

about some psychology. I'm I'm not sure, but maybe. But anyway, I wonder what you think of the function of whistling in this type of scenario where you're afraid. Maybe you're wandering by yourself past a graveyard or wandering by yourself in the dark, and there's a breeze blowing through the trees and you're a little bit apprehensive, so you start to whistle. Now, I think the phrase like whistling past the graveyard or whistling in the dark is supposed to

denote like somebody showing bravado. You know, they're saying they're like trying to show off that they're not afraid, when in fact they are. But what I noticed, and that comes up in the example I just mentioned, is that people often do this when they're alone, when there's nobody there to see them, nobody to show off too. So if whistling is to show off that you're not afraid. It seems like the showing off must either or be to yourself somehow, or to like the scary creature that

you imagine is watching you. Yeah, it would have to be one or the other. But I guess in some of these cases, and especially when you think about graveyards, there's definitely an imagined other out there. And it might not be an imagined other that you give a lot of weight most of the time, but at least right

now it's on your mind. So we're gonna get into several different examples of whistling as a potential means of summoning or accidentally summoning or drawing the attention of things that that should not be drawn in uh to your vicinity. So on one level, yeah, it seems a bit a bit um uh dangerous if you're gonna actually fall in along with some of these supernatural beliefs, like I don't want to to summon the devil if I'm afraid of

the devil coming out of the graveyard at me. But maybe part of it is like proving like not only am I not afraid of the devil in the graveyard, I'll go ahead and summon him. If he's here, he come on out, and we'll go ahead and do this. But I'm done with just being afraid of the devil somewhere hiding in the graveyard. Okay, But I guess the question is whether it's actually whistling or whether it's just singing or humming some version of this idea singing when

you're afraid or singing through the graveyard. Does this come up in ancient history as well? Do we have any evidence of this from thousands of years ago? It seems like we might. Uh's to Calenberg brings up another example again from Petronius, and this is again from the satiricn and it also concerns a werewolf. Did you know that there were ancient Roman stories about werewolves? There absolutely are, Yeah, and it's a This one's a pretty good one. Um this is I'm gonna read part of it at least.

This is from a um Hesseltine translation. Quote. I seized my opportunity and persuaded a guest in our house to come with me as far as the fifth Milestone. He was a soldier and as brave as hell, so we trotted off about cockrow, the moon shone like high noon. We got among the tombstones. My man went aside to look at the epitaphs. I sat down with my heart

full of song, and began to count the graves. M So sta Kellenberg writes the following on this, how tempting to interpret this scene as a clever application of psychological paral language, which has a superstitious and frightened slave indulged in an ancient equivalent of our whistling in the dark. Since the kntar represents many forms of musical expressions, we

would even be justified in translating it here with whistling. Unfortunately, there is no straightforward indication that Petroni has had this in mind. Okay, so, despite the fact that our expression is often like whistling past the graveyard or whistling in the graveyard, Um, this is a word cantare, which, in whatever its Latin form is, could have meant whistling, but

could also just mean singing. Right. Yeah, So again we get into the the imprecise nature of language, which continues to be a theme with trying to figure out whistling or not whistling, or making other sounds and various old texts. You know, this is kind of a tangent, But I feel like, since we're on the werewolf story, it would be kind of a shame not to tell the werewolf story. What happens in this story by Paternius here, okay, I can. I can read the next little bit, which I think

brings it to a nice closure. Then when I looked round at my friend, he stripped himself and put all his clothes by the roadside. My heart was in my mouth, but I stood like a dead man. He made a ring of water around his clothes and suddenly turned into a wolf. Please do not think I am joking. I would not lie about this for any fortune in the world. But as I was saying, after he had turned into a wolf, he began to howl and ran off into the woods. At first I hardly knew where I was.

Then I went up to take his clothes, and they had all turned to stone. No one could be near dead with terror than I was. But I drew my sword and went slaying shadows all the way till I came to my love's house. I went in like a corpse, nearly gave up the ghost. The sweat ran down my legs, my eyes were dull. I could hardly be revived my beer. Melissa was surprised at my state, at my being out so late, and said, if you had come earlier, you

might at least have helped us. A wolf got into the house and worried all our sheep and let their blood like a butcher. But he did not make fools of us, even though he got off for our slave made a hole in his neck with a spear. When I heard this, I could not keep my eyes shut any longer. But at break of day I rushed back to my master giuss house like a defrauded publican. And when I came to the place where the clothes were turned into stone, I found nothing but a pool of blood.

But when I reached home, my soldier was lying in bed like an ox, with a doctor looking after his neck. I realized that he was a werewolf, and I never could sit down to a meal with him afterwards, not if you had killed me first. Other people may think what they like about this, but may all your guardian angels punish me if I am lying. Wow, that's pretty fun and pretty staple werewolf sort of story. There. It's a great werewolf story. But my biggest question is do

oxes normally lie in human beds? What does he mean I was lying in my bed like an ox? Oh no, no, not him. My soldier was lying in bed like an ox. I don't know. I'm not sure about that. I feel like we're we're missing some kind of historical context there. Yeah, I mean maybe it's like he's light, his body is like that of an ox. I don't know. I don't nothing comes to mind when I try and picture an

ox laying down. But yeah, it's really funny. Okay, So this is the satir con by Petronius is first century uh CE, so it's like two thousand years later, and werewolf movies are still using the exact same trope where somebody figures out it's a werewolf because they see the monster get wounded on a certain part of the body, and then later they see a human wounded on the same part of the body. That's in like half the werewolf movies they make Yeah, if it ain't broke, don't

fix it, right. And I think if I've seen this in other animal transform and myths and stories before, like perhaps some were tigers stories from China and so forth, I agree it still works than alright. So for the next bit, that's the Kellenberg gets into is is that they break down a couple of things we've kind of we've at least touched on, if not already to discuss

and when they break these out further later on. But we have a semaphoric whistling or whistling as a form of signaling, and this has been around for a very long time. This is something that goes back to our KaiC humans. Citing Peter f Otswald, they share quote, whistles are easier to hear than words because they concentrate sound energy into a narrow segment of the frequency spectrum instead

of spreading it. Generally, they occur in the frequency range of one thousand and four thousand cycles per second, to which the human era is most sensitive. Oh yeah, so this is the same fact that was cited in slightly different terms in that linguistics paper that we looked at

in the previous section. Myer, that was about how whistling tends to be a good medium for transmitting information because it's in that frequency range of one to four killerherts, which is a good place to concentrate energy if you wanted to travel the forest and be audible, uh and carry distinct information the longest distance, because that's like, that's that's sort of the bull's eye for what our ears

can detect and separate out from ambient noise. Now, the next part here is where things get very biblical, because Sticklenberg points out that the oldest reference to semaphoric use of whistling can be found in the Book of Isaiah five, where the Lord whistles to summon people. He uh quote, he will raise a signal for a nation afar off and whistle for it from the ends of the earth,

and low, swiftly, speedily it comes. So I started off looking into this just by checking it in my Oxford in RSV to see if the translation was different in any significant way. And it's not that translations almost exactly the same as what Stickellenberg has here. But in reading it this passage, I thought I should explain more about the context because it makes that quote especially interesting and even scary. This is one of the most I think one of the most powerful and chilling passages in the

Hebrew Bible. Uh. So what's going on here? Well, this is actually a prophecy of doom. In this part of the Book of Isaiah, the author is pronouncing a verdict of divine judgment and punishment against the people of Israel and Judah, because he says they have ignored God's instructions and chosen to live in wickedness. And so there's a section before this where he's just talking about the evil they do, and you might recognize some lines from this

because they're pretty famous. The prophet says, ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, You who are wise in your own eyes and shrewd in your own sight, Ah you, who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant at mixing drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprived the

innocent of their rights. Oh man, God coming out strong against nixed drinks here, Yeah, against mixed drinks and against bribing, so that the guilty win in court. But then it starts getting with the really like scary expressive metaphors. From here it goes into Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten, and their

blossom go up like the dust. For they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them. The mountains quaked, and their corpses were like refuse in the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. Then comes the

line about God whistling. From that it goes straight into He will raise a signal for a nation far away, and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth. Here they come swiftly, speedily, And in this line the people being referenced there, who are they? These are the armies of the Assyrian Empire, and described in the following passages in terrifying detail. The prophet says, they march without rest. Their arrows are sharp, their horses hoofs are like flint,

their wheels like a whirlwind. They roar like lions. They roar like the sea. And at in saying, the light grows dark with clouds, And so the prophet is saying here that the Lord will whistle to summon an invading army to slaughter his people because they have done evil and turned away from him. Wow. So first he does recks and de stabilizes everything uh in this sinful nation, and then he calls to an invading army to come

on over and finish him off. Yes, and the whistle here, I think that takes on a totally different context that makes it a whistle of absolute terror from on high. It is something that should chill you to the bone. But then it gets even stranger because the Callenberg points out that the Hebrew word for whistle here leaves some

room for interpretation. And apparently there's still some discussion about this, with some arguing that what we're talking about here is indeed a whistle, but others say that it is a hiss, the hiss of God. Wow. So you shared that fact with me earlier, and I don't know what to do that that is one of the scariest images I have

ever heard of the hiss of God. I mean, the whistle is already scarier with the additional context that you provided here, but but the idea of of God God hissing and especially in in such a wrathful mode of behavior. Uh yeah, it's it's kind of chilling, Okay. But so if there's some ambiguity in the translation here, I guess that would mean that whatever word is used has something

to do clearly with like a an expressive expelling of breath. Yeah, and that's the thing we're getting into breath language here, and and breath related sounds. And apparently in in various ancient texts, there's a fair amount of leeway and how we might think of a hiss or a whistle as it relates to not only human sounds but also non human sounds like leaves, arrows in the wind. Uh quote. Hissing and whistling, when produced by humans, results the same

interaction between respiratory and oral agents. The only difference is that in hissing, the oral obstruction placed in the way of the airstream is the teeth, while in the case of whistling, it is the lips. In antiquity, this difference was apparently felt as too slight for differentiation between the two sounds and for the establishment of separate terminology. The lack of differentiation continues in some of the daughter languages.

Wow That's interesting because so we're we're trying to understand the cultural significance of whistling, which in our context very often means something like, you know, it's just kind of like innocent, care free soundmaking, whereas a hiss, I think, is almost universally acknowledged to be one of the most hostile sounds a person could make. Yes, um, my son would would hiss for a while. I forget where he picked this up, Like there's something animal world, you know,

kids have the central affinity with animals. But I always always approved of it because I'm like, yes, if if, if threatened, like hissing sends a certain signal like that, we're we're past language now. Now we're in a hissing hissing zone. I am I am so mad at you. I've become an animal. I am a snake. I am a cat. It was probably a cat connection for sure. Um. Now, the Kelenberg points to various examples in Greek writings, including Homer,

in which we also encounter this hiss whisper confusion. Both are non verbal language substitutes. They point out that there is still a distinct difference. Uh, you know, at least you know, to our our modern understanding of all this. But yeah, it's it just becomes difficult to try and sort all of this, especially in these ancient texts. Was this a whistle? Was this a hiss? Is this other thing? Are we describing the wind as hissing? Or is the

wind whistling? How do we think of these? And that connection between whistling and the wind uh is important in other regards as well when we get into superstition and magic. But Stikellenberg also gets into some other areas that I hadn't even really thought about in connection to whistling. For instance, the subject of cat calls uh not to be confused

with the wolf whistle. So this is interesting because I think I would tend to think when I hear cat calls, I tend to think of of what sti Kellenberg is actually describing as the wolf whistle. Um. So Stakellenburg points out that we do have clear Roman references to to the cat call, to some kind of whistling used offensively against actors, speakers, or performers in order to drive them

off the stage. You don't like the performers on the stage, you don't like the speaker, Well, everybody just just sort of whistles at them. They just kind of use a bunch of these these cat calls in order to drive them away. So whistling as just straightforward harassment or abuse. Yes. Uh, Cicero even makes reference to the Cisero. Of course, they have the famous rator who lived one of six to

forty three BC. Basically, it's a it's a letter from Cicero to Atticus, and he's boasting about how popular he is and how the last time he gave a particular of speech he did not hear a single shepherd's whistle. Uh. So the idea is that he's referring to a complete absence of cat calls during his appearance because it was just so captivating. And apparently the language is key here, because if Cisero had been referring to hissing instead of whistling,

he would have used a different particular bit of terminology. Okay, So while earlier STI Kellenberg was arguing that we don't have references to fictional characters in Roman literature whistling, there are some references to whistling in the in the broader sort of descriptive literature about society. Yeah, and so, first of all, this cat call area, which, um, you know, my mind didn't go to here immediately. And also I

don't know that I've encountered this much. Maybe I just haven't been to performances uh in a while where uh that there were that were where there was like a negative audience experience that is, I don't think that's maybe where at least like modern Western audiences are going to go immediately if they want to express their negative feelings, like they're probably gonna boo or something. Right, Yeah, I'd say booing is is more common in American culture. Yeah,

I've never heard an audience whistle as a form of disapproval. Well, apparently it was such a thing that it was and still is at least at the writing this was again written in two thousand in the British theater, that whistling was just such a fear like this would be the force trying to drive you off the stage. That whistling

was was just not done in a British theater dressing room. Um, and it's possibly linked to this now Stickkellenberg stresses that there seems to be a divide between whistling uh on with the British stage and the American stage again as of two thousand. Anyway, when this was written, pointing out that okay, sometimes it seems okay and positive for American audiences to whistle at the performers on stage, and this

this does click for me. I know, I've been to performances where there's a certain amount of whistling, clapping, wooing, you know, all sorts of different sounds that are made as a positive sound at the end of her performance. Uh you relations as well, um, you know, various different um non verbal sounds. But but this could include whistling,

whereas in the British context you still wouldn't whistle. You might have you know, gotten a dirty look from uh from from England theater goers if you were there whistling at the end of a performance of Shakespeare and you were trying to say, oh, this is great, I'm gonna whistle. So you're saying that might have been interpreted by some as like praising a performance by yelling get off the stage.

Yeah yeah. Uh. Now, finally Stakellenberg gets to this, this topic of wolf whistling, which again is what I thought what a cat call was. But I guess I had my terminology mixed up. On that uh, the wolf whistle is a whistle to indicate sexual interest, not unlike a cartoon wolf in an old animated short. Now, I was reading a little bit about people trying to locate the origin of the wolf whistle, which is a specific intonation. It's like a rising whistle followed by a falling whistle.

You can probably hear it in your head right now, woo woo. And for a while there was an explanation going around that this was traceable back to uh specific whistles used on naval ships, that there were like a whistle with that intonation would be used to get sailor's attention. But I've also seen some undermining of that explanation, so I'm not sure if it's exactly known where the the

the sexual harassment form of the whistle comes from. Yeah, and when we go to look for evidence in antiquity, this is another case where Stickmenberg says, there's just we just don't know. There's like one account of possible wolf whistling and Platius's mercater This would have been from the very early fifth century, and it's unclear if it's a

hiss or a whistle. Once again, it might have been so it might have been a hiss, could have been a whistle, some other sound of the mouth even thank Okay, but Rob, I think we should switch over to talking about some of the superstitions about whistling, because whistling apparently is widely believed in many cultures to have some kind of power, often negative power, beyond just being perceived of as rude or or a form of harassment or something

like that, that it actually could have dangerous magical power. That's right, Yeah, they're they're numerous examples of this discuss and they have some similar trends. There's sort of the idea of of whistling as wind magic and therefore their potential elemental uh ramifications for whistling, especially kind of reckless whistling.

I guess that's what a lot of these teams to get to the idea that when we whistle, we're engaging in some sort of wind magic and we probably don't know what we're doing and the effects could just be completely out of control. Other ideas are that whistling is some sort of connection to the spirit world, and whistling can summon or attract the attention of things that we don't want the attention of and uh and so forth. Then there are also some other sort of environmental specific

examples that get into the dangers of whistling. You know, I don't have um proof that this is the the causal connection here, but I wonder if a lot of these beliefs about the supernatural power of whistling comes from

the linguistic tradition of associating spirits with breath. You know, like in Greek you would often use the same word to indicate both that like a person's breath leaving their body would be the numa, which is the same word you use to indicate a certain kind of animating divine spirit, or like the holy ghost the numa. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I imagine there might be something to that. Now. The first idea I want to touch on, though, it's just the idea of and this is a pretty big one, whistling at sea uh and and this is discussed in a paper by Christina Whole that is titled Superstitions and

Belief of the State. This came out in the nineteen sixty seven edition of the journal Folklore, and in it she writes that at least in Western traditions, the whistle was just a bad omen as it created a little wind quote and by imitative magic may produce a greater one. So you've got to be careful whistling because that whistle could turn into a fearsome gale that could blow the

ship over, etcetera. And that's if men did it, and if women did it, it could be even worse because it's kind of like the ideas it seems very sexist here. It's kind of like, well, if men are at sea and they are near a boat and they're whistling, they might accidentally bring about a catastrophic wind that destroys everything. But if a woman's doing well, she might be a wind summoning, which she might actually know what she's doing, and that's even more dangerous. Yes, So either way, though,

whistling at sea was bad luck for anybody. The rare exception whole rights is that you did have cases where you'd have sailors stuck at sea in a dead calm, so they're out there on the ship and there's no wind, the ship is not moving. It's the it's the opposite of the threat of the catastrophic wind. It's the threat of no wind and a slow death out on the waters.

So in some of these cases there are accounts of of of the sailors daring to make like small whistle slight whistles, and the hopes that they'll stir up just enough when to get them out of this predicament. Oh, this is this is the scene from the horror movie where a character is in such a jam that they have no choice but to do do the dangerous ritual

that they have been warned against by a wise old person. Yeah, so I thought this was an interesting paper in general, this one by Christina hole Uh and she argues that the sea is a place where old, otherwise long vanished tensions between gods and religions tend to rise up again. And part of the explanation here is that for many Pagans, the sea not only had a god, but in a in a sense kind of was a god. It was like a living entity with thoughts and desires and whims,

and the sea brought both blessings and curses. It's you know, it's the bringer of riches, but it can also destroy. And for this reason, proba wably god's embodying the sea are often depicted as temperamental, unpredictable, alternately generous and murderous. And one interesting fact I've never heard before, but Whole talks about how in uh in European seafaring traditions, for hundreds of years, priests, nuns, and clergy have been considered bad luck on the sea, like you don't want to

carry monks or nuns on board. And she even tells the story of a sea voyage taken by a friend of hers, which, when I think it was crossing the Atlantic, had some Trappist monks on board, and the sailors were blaming the monks for the fact that there was bad weather and the boat kept rolling and everybody was nauseated and throwing up. So in many cases, you're on a boat and you not only do you not want to be carrying monks or nuns or whatever, you don't even

want to say a word like priest. So why would that be You would think, okay, these are these are Christian sailors, so they would at least probably think that the clergy would be a good omen, not bad. But the author here speculates as follows quote, these beliefs have nothing to do with anti clerical feeling, and many who

hold them are devout Christians win on land. They probably run back to that transition period when Paganism was slowly giving way to Christianity, and many people, especially those who like sailors, lead a dangerous life, had a foot in both camps, acknowledging Christ on shore but taking care not

to offend the old gods when at sea. Moreover, whatever was holy and consecrated was once regarded as a center of mystical power, which was as likely to be dangerous as to be beneficent, and was therefore to be guarded against. And so of course that's just an interpretation. We don't know that's the reasoning here. It's always hard to get at the ultimate reasoning for folk beliefs, but that seems

plausible to me, and I really like that there. It's the idea that there's a power in it, and just the fact that there's a power in it is dangerous. Even if the priest is supposedly the good based on your current religious beliefs, just the fact that the priesthood is a center of power makes it potentially dangerous when

you're in a dangerous situation like the sea. And I think you could maybe say the same thing of whistling itself, that whistling is perceived as having a power, and therefore, even if the power isn't always evil, it's just the fact that there is the power in it that makes

it scary. Yeah. Yeah, all this on top of just sort of the other idea of falling back into older beliefs when things heat up, when you're in a dangerous place, and of course again this is the ocean, it is inherently dangerous, and therefore, yeah, you can imagine this this not only this idea of like I'm gonna slide back into over belief systems because I feel like there's heightened danger. But I wonder too, you have if you have more

specific gods and traditions that you can fall back on. Whereas, you know, the new Christianity it might not it might not have any like specific things you can do to avoid uh a watery death. But the old ways they might have had particular rights, particular things you could do, things you were not supposed to do, a path you might follow through the uncertain which I think, you know, I think some of us might be able to relate to that in a modern sense too, Like it's you

can have more of an atheistic mindset. Uh. When you're on the airplane and there's no turbulence, but when the turbulence kicks in, well, what can you do? You might you might let a prayer slip out here there, just because you know, if if there is nothing practically you can do in that scenario beyond you know, the obvious

safety parameters. Uh, then then there are these other scripts you can turn to, these other uh models of of reality that at least give you, like somewhere to devote your attention and and just from the to the standpoint of the ocean. I mean, we could easily come back

and discuss these greater length. You get their whole lists of various bad had luck omens that include things like, of course the albatross is tied up in some of these, but also things like bananas, and then various interesting um like touch based uh positive good luck, like everyone has to touch the same part of the ship. Um that sort of thing, collar touching. I think cats end up

playing a role in some of these. Uh. So yeah, there there it's a whole interesting world of like the heightened danger of the sea and some of the superstitious approaches to survival on the sea. Apparently seeing a drowned cat was one of the worst omens. She says that would sometimes make people just turn around and go back. Oh wow oh. But to come back to whistling. Another thing that Christina Holt says here is that it whistling is not just a locusts of superstition on the sea.

There seemed to be all kinds of fears about the power of whistling even on land, right, and that she gets into this idea again that whistling may attract the attention of things that you don't want to attract. Uh And and some of these relate to the sea, some or more related to the land. She points that in the East Anglian Thins sportsman out at night never whistled to their dog because they might call up the lantern man, which would have been a type of willow the wisp

creature that you did not want attracted to your whereabouts. Yeah, fire fiend. And you know what, I wonder if there is just a general similar line of thinking, or if it could actually be based in that biblical passage about you know again, one of the oldest references to whistling as a signal to like attract attention. Is God whistling to attract the attention of a ravaging army that will come and destroy you. Yeah uh now in terms of this is an interesting one. This one was when I

read and Carol Rose and her Compendium of Monsters. She points to the merman known as the Denny Mara that was considered a threat in some case by by the people of the Isle of Man, the Manx people. Generally the man of the sea that anymara was generally more benevolent than other forms of the myth because you have some, um, you have some truly awful mirror creatures out there in the world of folklore. But this one in particular, though, if you were to whistle, you could stir stir him

up and cause excess wind. So on one hand, it's kind of a supernatural creature whose attention you might get through whistling. But also we get back into the basic wind magic of the thing, like, be careful whistling. You're toying with the wind magic, and you're at sea, and that's where the wind is particularly dangerous, and the least little thing can stir it up. Hole mentions another omen related to whistling and that is the omen of the

seven whistlers. And this from from her description, it sounds basically like a particular chorus of bird song that would spell disaster for those who heard it, particularly say, before a battle. Now, coming back at least briefly to us to Kellenberg's to Kellenberg points to Roman writer Colomela, who shares that whistling could be used to encourage oxen to drink, which which to Kellenberg, links to the possible sound similarities

between whistling and flowing water. So again, instead of the wind, this time we're talking about water and we're talking about the similarities of the sound here. Um, this idea seems to have survived into English traditions concerning horses at least into the sixteenth century. But wait, so if you're an ancient Roman, you can whistle to make oxen drink. But will that make Oxen lie in your bed? I'm not

I'm not certain about that. Now. Uh, somebody who has Roman history knowledge it, can you explain the ox in the bed metaphor? To us? I want to know what that means. It is interesting that to think about this idea of like the whistle as a sound that is imitating not birds or other organisms, but but imitating elemental forces the wind or in this case, the water, and therefore allowing just the average person to tap in to those the streams of of terrific and at times, you know,

catastrophic energies. Well, I would also say the same thing for hissing. Hissing kind of takes away your humanity. You're you're you don't sound like a person speaking or expressing an opinion. You sound like a hostile animal or even a hostile landscape. M I guess sometimes there is hissing in theater, right, like a negative that's hiss at the villain. Yeah, yeah, you you know, you boo hiss when the Yago comes

on stage or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, all right, we're looking at the clock now and we realize that we're out of time for this episode. But oh we we have. We still have a lot more. So we're gonna go to a four parter on whistling, but we've got some great stuff to come back to. We're going to dive back in a bit to some Eastern traditions of of magic and whistling. We're going to discuss some more examples

of whistling superstition, and folklore. Um, and then oh, we're gonna get into the psychology of whistling a bit as well. Does the spirit dwell within you if it does, come back and expel that breath one more time? Yeah? Is it okay to whistle while you work? Should we be

listening to dwarves on this matter? To begin with? Will the bit'll all be discussed in the next episode in the meantime, If you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, our core episodes publish on two season Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Wednesday's. We do a short form artifact or monster fact on Monday's we do listener mail. On Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns and just focus on a weird film in a weird house cinema.

Huge 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 at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind It's production of I Radio. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen me to your favorite shows.