0:00

By this time the two combatants were

0:02

at the edge feet of swords. Then

0:05

for Dee had caught kou Holland unguarded

0:08

and dealt him a blow with his ivory

0:10

hilted blade, which he plunged

0:12

into Koholand's breast, and

0:14

Kohland's blood had dripped into his

0:17

belt, and the ford was red

0:19

with the blood from the warrior's body.

0:22

Ko Holand brooke not this wounding, for

0:24

for Dead attacked him with a succession of

0:27

deadly stout blows, and he asked

0:29

lug for guy bolga.

0:32

Such was the nature of the guy bolga.

0:35

It used to be set down stream and

0:37

cast from between the toes. It

0:40

made a one wound as it entered a man's

0:42

body, but it had thirty barbs

0:44

when one tried to remove it, and it

0:46

was not taken from a man's body until

0:49

the flesh was cut away about it.

0:51

And when for Dea had heard mention of

0:53

the guy bolga, he thrust down

0:56

the shield to shelter the lower part

0:58

of his body. Kou Holland asked

1:00

the fine spear from off the palm

1:02

of his hand, over the rim of the

1:04

shield, and over the breast piece of

1:06

the horn skin so that it's farther

1:09

half was visible after it had

1:11

pierced for Diad's heart in his

1:13

breast. For Dead thrust up

1:15

the shield to protect the upper part of his body,

1:18

but that was helped that came too late.

1:20

The charioteer sent the guy bulga

1:22

downstream ku Holland caught

1:25

it between his toes and made a

1:27

cast of it at for Dead. And the

1:29

guy bulga went through the strong,

1:31

thick apron of smelted iron and

1:33

broke in three the great stone

1:36

as big as a millstone, and entered

1:38

for Dead's body through the anus,

1:40

and filled every joint and limb of

1:43

him with its barbs. That suffic

1:45

is now said, for Dead, I

1:47

have fallen by that cast. But indeed

1:50

strongly do you cast from your right foot.

1:52

And it was not fitting that I should fall

1:55

by you. And as he spoke,

1:57

he uttered these words, oh

1:59

hound of the fair feats, it was

2:01

not fitting that you should slay me. Yours

2:04

is the guilt which clung to me on

2:07

you. My blood was shed. Doomed

2:09

men who reached the gap of betrayal,

2:12

do not flourish. Sad is my

2:14

voice, alas heroes have been

2:16

destroyed. My ribs like spoils

2:19

are broken. My heart is gore.

2:22

Would that I had not fought, I

2:24

have fallen. Oh hound,

2:30

Welcome to stuff to blow your mind

2:32

from how Stuff Works dot Com.

2:40

Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My

2:42

name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

2:45

And that opening reading was from the

2:47

Cecil a Rahai translation

2:49

of and I'm gonna do my best the tying

2:52

bow colonge. Um,

2:54

we're gonna be obviously talking about

2:56

Irish mythology today, and unfortunately that

2:58

means we're gonna be trying to pronoun It's a lot of words

3:00

and probably sometimes failing. Please

3:03

bear with us, but it's done out of love and we

3:05

do our best. That's right. And it feels

3:07

good to come back around some Irish

3:09

mythology here because Irish Irish smith

3:12

is rich with fantastic ideas,

3:15

uh, magic, magical beings,

3:17

monsters, and in this case a

3:20

very interesting magical weapon

3:22

that is the unreally unlike

3:24

anything else I've read about. Robert,

3:27

you have been on such a kick of magical

3:29

weapons these days. You you're you're big

3:31

into cupids, leaden arrows. We

3:34

did the trident. No,

3:36

I'm down with it. This is funny. We also have the

3:38

older episode about the about

3:40

various spinning weapons of death that I did

3:42

with the Christian But even after all those,

3:45

the episode today about Guy Bolga,

3:47

the spear of the hero Ku Holland.

3:50

I think this is this takes the cake. This

3:52

is the weirdest, best magical weapon

3:54

with with biological connections that we

3:56

have discussed yet I am pretty

3:58

certain of it. Yeah. In fact, it's gonna be

4:01

maybe a fun exercise for listeners to try and

4:03

predict where we're gonna

4:05

land biologically, Okay, at

4:07

the end of this episode, to to get into

4:09

the science of the of the Guy

4:11

Bolga. Now, Robert, I admit, before

4:14

we did this episode, I had no idea who

4:16

k Holland was, and I probably would have pronounced

4:19

it like Ku Kuklane or whatever this

4:22

is. So this is a hero of Irish

4:24

mythology who I had never even heard

4:26

of before. Yeah, you know, I

4:28

think I'd run across the mention of him

4:31

in passing, but I don't think i'd ever actually

4:33

read any of the tales about him or even the poems

4:35

about him. I mean, there's a there's a Yates poem

4:38

co holand Comforted. So he's

4:40

not an obscure character in

4:42

Irish myth by any stretch of the imagination.

4:45

But Holland is so cool. How

4:47

could I have not heard about this? I feel like

4:49

the people who study Irish mythology, I've got to

4:51

get in touch with Hollywood or something. Get some movies

4:54

going so people know these myths better.

4:56

Well, yeah, he's quite a figure. So co Holand

4:59

is, you know, mythological hero that

5:01

has been described as the Irish Achilles

5:04

or even the Irish Incredible Hulk

5:07

maybe a little closer. Yeah, And if

5:09

you can probably already get a sense

5:11

here, we're talking about yet another mythological

5:13

killing machine, an ancient soldier,

5:16

you know, streaked in gore and honor.

5:18

So in many respects, he is

5:20

what you expect from from

5:22

a mythological hero. You know, he's mighty warrior,

5:25

he has a sense of nobility, and he's

5:27

sort of pushed into tragic circumstances. Yeah,

5:29

he's tough, he's brave, he's brutal.

5:31

He meets a tragic end right now.

5:34

He's the He's a central character in

5:36

the Ulster cycle, one of the four

5:38

great cycles of medieval Irish myth

5:41

and the This cycle takes place in

5:43

the first century Sea and

5:46

was written in Old and Middle Irish um.

5:48

He also appears to factor into a certain Scottish

5:51

traditions as well, so but largely

5:53

Irish. So well, let's do the life story

5:55

of Kohlan. So he wasn't born

5:58

uh koh holand he was born Satanta

6:01

satantas has given name co Holan

6:04

is more like like Kyle l becomes

6:06

Superman. Right. So he's the

6:08

nephew of the Irish king,

6:11

King Connor, and he's

6:13

the offspring of the union between Connor's

6:16

sister and the god lug

6:19

we we Lug was mentioned in that

6:21

dramatic reading earlier, and Lug

6:23

is a member of the Tuatha di don

6:25

and the sort of spiritual

6:28

god elf beings of

6:30

of Irish myth. So like

6:33

it would be so as with the likes of say

6:35

Achilles and Hercules, we

6:37

have a hybrid on our hands here, part human,

6:39

part divine. And and he

6:41

certainly looked like a like

6:44

a half divine creature. He has uh,

6:46

he has some some unnatural aspects

6:49

to his appearance to definitely line up with what you might expect

6:52

from a demi god, what like maybe a few

6:54

too many of certain body parts. Yes,

6:56

for starters, he's just just unnaturally

6:59

beautiful. He's a paragon of masculine

7:01

beauty and strength. And then he has

7:03

seven fingers on each hand, seven

7:06

toes on each foot, and

7:08

then seven pupils in each eye,

7:11

seven pupils in each oild. Well, that sounds

7:13

like a paragon of beauty. Now, even

7:15

as a child, his exploits made

7:17

him famous. And then King Connor himself

7:20

ends up bestowing the new name on him Holland

7:23

after he kills the great guard dog,

7:25

the Hound of Holland, Holland

7:27

being a smith here with his bare hands

7:30

at a banquet, and so he has to take on

7:32

this new name as a penance.

7:34

Yeah, Like, after he kills the smith's hound,

7:36

he I think, offers to serve himself

7:38

as the guard of the smith's forge, and

7:41

so now he is co Holand. And then you

7:43

know, at the end of that dramatic

7:45

reading, he's referred to as the Hound. So

7:47

I'm thinking, because he's this paragon of masculine

7:50

beauty and strength, there's got to be like a trend setting

7:52

kind of thing that people just can't match. Right.

7:55

So it's the same way that after you have a famous

7:57

movie star, he starts wearing a certain kind of hairstyle

7:59

or something. Now, that's what's cool,

8:01

and everybody wants to do it. In this case,

8:04

in first century Ireland, everybody would

8:06

want to have seven pupils in each eye. And

8:08

so that's what everybody's going to the local witches

8:10

about. It's not like, you know, make me live forever,

8:13

give me huge strength. That's give me seven pupils

8:15

in each eye. Now. Of course,

8:18

as always when we're talking about mythology, it's

8:20

it's worth noting that, um, you

8:22

know, they're varying sources, they're varying tellings,

8:24

and some of the details are going to change with the telling

8:26

at the time. Yeah, they're definitely very

8:29

radically different accounts of Kohlan now.

8:32

But but so we've arrived at this version of

8:34

Kohol and already he has a beautiful,

8:37

powerful warrior with some unnatural

8:40

characteristics. But then, but then he also has

8:42

an additional superpower. But wait, there's

8:44

more. So he

8:46

can essentially hulk out. It

8:49

is the thing he can. He can enter

8:51

into a berserker state during battle.

8:53

But it's not just like a mental state like

8:55

it actually said, to twist

8:58

and deform his body. As he

9:00

becomes this just unreasonable killing

9:02

machine. Yeah, the reastrade

9:04

as this process. Yeah, and

9:07

apparently apparently one

9:09

Thomas Kinsella translated this state

9:12

as the quote warp spasm. That

9:15

sounds like something straight out of the X Men. Yeah,

9:18

it sounds it sounds rather chaotic. I

9:21

definitely don't want to be around a warrior when

9:23

they were entering the warp spasm. It sounds

9:25

rather dangerous. All right, Well, we've got another quote

9:28

from the cecil A Rahalli translation

9:30

of the timebo culuing from

9:32

the book of Leinster, and this is about what

9:35

happens in the warp spasm. Quote

9:37

then occurred cou Hollen's first distortion.

9:40

He swelled and grew big as

9:42

a bladder does when inflated, and

9:45

became a fearsome, terrible, mini

9:47

colored strange arch and

9:49

the valiant hero towered above

9:52

for dead, as big as a famore

9:54

or a pirate. And I think the famar you're

9:57

you were saying, Robert, that that's like a giant of Irish

9:59

smith. He has like a giant ogre type

10:01

good type being from Irish myth, so like

10:04

the Irish version of Yottenheim might be full

10:06

of these. Yeah, yeah, so so

10:08

clearly co Holand is nobody

10:10

to mess with, Like this is a this is a

10:13

terrifying force on the battlefield. Why

10:15

why does the author of this work

10:17

they'll believe that pirates are gigantic.

10:20

Yeah, I don't know. I'm less sure on that one. So

10:22

co Holand fights bravely throughout

10:24

his his military career. Um, he

10:27

fights off the forces of Queen

10:29

maybe at the age of seventeen, Uh

10:32

believe virtually like single handedly, like he's

10:35

that powerful warrior. But

10:37

he's eventually tricked by warriors in the

10:39

employee of Mayve and slain at

10:41

the age of twenty seven. So not

10:44

a long life. But then again, you know you're an

10:46

Irish warrior um during

10:48

the first century. Uh, there's

10:51

not a long life expectancy there now.

10:53

And they kind of have to employ some trickery

10:55

in order to overcome his strength, which I think

10:57

is a common feature in like mythic hero cycle.

11:00

You see that with like Samson in

11:02

uh in Jewish legend, and you sort

11:04

of see a version of it with Achilles, with like them

11:06

finding out his one weakness. And

11:08

indeed there's basically like a three part

11:10

plan that has to be employed here. I mean that the first

11:13

one being key. They trick him into eating dog meat,

11:15

which breaks a taboo and weakens

11:18

his spirit. Yeah, I read somewhere that this came about

11:20

by pitting two taboos against each other.

11:22

Like there's a taboo against refusing

11:25

hospitality on one hand, but there's

11:27

also a taboo against eating dog meat. So

11:29

what if somebody shows you hospitality

11:31

by offering you dog meat. You're

11:34

caught. Yeah, you're caught. You're there. That's

11:36

you know, it's silla and charyptus. Uh.

11:38

So he had to pick, and he picked not refusing

11:41

hospitality, but he ate the dog meat, and that that

11:43

screwed him up. Now, the next thing that

11:45

helps if you're trying to take out a half

11:48

divine warrior is to have a

11:50

divine weapon of your own, a magical weapon of your

11:52

own that will will help you slay

11:55

them. And so that's what the trio do

11:57

here. They hit him with a magical disemb

12:00

oowling spear that is enchanted

12:02

to kill kings. They apparently had three

12:04

of these, and they used to on his

12:07

on his accomplices, including the charioteer

12:09

who's like the King of chariots, which seems

12:11

kind of like a a loophole and

12:14

the whole king thing, Like you don't have to actually

12:16

be a king, you're just kind of quote

12:18

unquote a king of something. But co Holan

12:20

has like a really bad dude moment

12:23

here, Like he gets hit with the spear, but he's like, I'm

12:25

not going down that easy. Yeah, yeah, he's

12:27

not gonna die uh like that,

12:29

He's gonna die standing up fighting. So

12:32

he like tucks his innerds back

12:34

into his body, um and then like

12:37

stumbles over to a pillar,

12:40

lashes himself to the pillar so that

12:42

he can fight and die standing up. Like

12:44

they're gonna have to come and take him on his feet.

12:47

But okay, so he's tied there, dying, and they

12:49

got to be afraid, right because co Holan is this

12:51

this killing machine. Even dying cut open

12:54

with a with a kill spear, tied to a

12:56

rock or a pillar, he's gonna be scary.

12:58

So they don't want to get too close. I

13:00

think. One source says that they had to wait until

13:02

a bird landed on him in

13:05

order to know that he had actually died.

13:07

Yeah, and then they move in. What

13:10

do you do? You cut off his head to be sure. But when

13:12

they cut off his head, there's this brilliant light

13:15

that like cuts off one

13:17

of the attackers sword hands, I believe,

13:20

and then it's not until they cut off

13:22

ko Holand's sword arm that the

13:25

light dies away and that he's definitely dead.

13:27

So it's like you don't have any It's one thing to

13:29

cut away the seat of reason from

13:32

this mighty war, you also have to cut away like the the

13:34

physical sword hand of the warrior.

13:37

There's a wonderful like full telling

13:39

of this final battle of one in

13:41

particular that I light came from Lady Augusta

13:44

Gregory um uk

13:46

Helen of Murrath

13:48

Fimney from nineteen o two. Uh,

13:50

that's all online. I recommend checking

13:52

that out if you want the full blow by blow death

13:55

of ko Holand. So how do we not have a

13:57

full kou Holand movie? Yeah, it's

14:00

seems like we should. I mean, how many Hercules movies

14:02

do we have? Right? Way too

14:04

many. We could easily peel off some of

14:06

that money into the ca Holand enterprise

14:08

here. Yeah. Now, we were talking before the episode

14:11

about who to cast as Kohland. We could not

14:13

come up with a good idea because all of the best Irish

14:15

actors we were thinking of to cast as this Irish

14:18

hero are now old. But

14:20

like Pierce Brosnan, Yeah, Pierce

14:22

is right there in his name. Yeah, but but

14:25

sadly, like we said, he died

14:27

at twenty seven. You need you need a young,

14:30

like powerful and imposing irishman

14:33

who is also a really good actor. Yeah.

14:35

I think some of my favorite Irish actors. Let's

14:37

see. Uh there's uh, there's Brendan

14:39

Gleeson. I guess he's older.

14:42

Now there's uh. I love Liam Cunningham,

14:44

the guy who plays Sir Davos on Game

14:46

of Thrones. But I don't know.

14:48

I don't know who the young guy is. Yeah, I don't know. Everybody

14:51

can think of as too old, like even you

14:53

know, there's a thinking, well, maybe

14:55

a professional wrestler. I get a big muscle

14:57

bound dude to play ko Holand okay,

15:00

there's there's a guy named Shamus who's

15:02

like a big, pale Irish wrestler,

15:04

but he's too old for the part. Maybe he could

15:06

play the hulked out version of koh holand you

15:09

could do kind of um, you know, like

15:11

the Incredible Hulk TV show. We had to lufer

15:13

Igno playing the the actual

15:15

Hulk. Oh no, wait, this has given me a great idea

15:18

actually, like the main normal Koo holand

15:20

before he hulks out, he should be like super

15:23

wafy, like a very very wafy,

15:25

boyish, like teen heartthrob kind

15:28

of Irish actor, and then when

15:30

he hulks out, he gets replaced by the bodybuilder.

15:32

Okay, I like this, so well,

15:34

maybe our Irish listeners especially, we'll

15:37

have some ideas about who who could be cast

15:39

in such a film. Are Irish listeners

15:42

also, I'm sure are going to get in touch with us to let us

15:44

know how badly we're saying all these words.

15:46

I'm sorry. All Right, Well, we're

15:49

gonna take a break, but when we come back, we're gonna get

15:51

into the real meat of this episode. We're going to talk

15:53

about uh, the the unnatural

15:56

death weapon of Koo holand we're gonna talk

15:58

about uh Guy Bolga.

16:03

Alright, we're back. So every

16:05

hero needs a mighty weapon, and

16:07

co holand certainly had one in

16:10

the Guy Bolga like a

16:12

weapon so mighty that it is the

16:14

it is the death weapon of last resort.

16:17

He only even turns to it if he's

16:20

basically fighting an opponent that is

16:22

on his own level. Now, it is not

16:24

known exactly how to translate

16:26

the term guy bulga. Right, It's

16:29

translated many different ways. I think we know that

16:31

guy basically means spear, right, But the

16:33

bulga, there's questions

16:35

about what that means. Yeah, that's correct.

16:38

Guy certainly means spear or dart,

16:41

But the bolga part is

16:44

open to some discussion. There's a particular

16:46

text that we turned to by

16:49

by a writer by the name of Edward Pettit.

16:51

I'm not going to give you the full name of

16:54

that article because it will give away what we're gonna

16:56

get to in the later later portions of this episode.

16:58

We will say the name of the article. We will say it and say

17:00

it later. But he points out that

17:03

that the guy bolga has been translated

17:06

as just here's a sampling

17:09

the belly dart, the dart of belly,

17:11

barbed spear, spear of bellows,

17:14

body spear, bagged spear,

17:16

spear of swelling uh, the

17:18

spear of the sack, forked

17:21

spear, gapped spear, solar

17:23

spear, the spear of mortal pain, the

17:26

evil spear, spear of the lightning

17:28

god, spear of the thunderbolt.

17:31

And he also adds that the bolga part has

17:33

also been interpreted to perhaps refer to an inflated

17:36

bladder that one. So

17:38

essentially this would be a fishing spear like

17:41

one would have tethered two something that floats.

17:43

Oh, that's interesting. And then likewise

17:45

it's also been potentially connected to

17:48

the fear bolg Uh. These,

17:50

according to to Carol Rose, the folklore's

17:53

that often refer to when we're talking about

17:56

mythological creatures and monsters. She

17:59

says that these were the mythic first inhabitants

18:01

of Ireland, defeated by the Tuatha

18:04

Dedan and then driven into mountain caves

18:06

and forests where they became loathsome

18:08

monsters. So possible

18:10

connection there as well. But okay, whatever

18:13

bolga means, they're bellows bulge

18:15

whatever. We know that there's some kind

18:17

of special magic spear. So how does it work?

18:19

What does it do? Well? One of one of the things is

18:21

that Kohland alone knows

18:24

how to really wield the weapon. You know,

18:26

I mean he he is taught depends

18:29

it depends on which version you're reading. He's either

18:31

taught by a god or by you

18:33

know, a skilled master, and he alone

18:36

has mastery of the guy Bolga. But

18:38

it is again, it is a spear,

18:41

a weapon that you only

18:44

turn to as like basically just

18:46

a last resort. And also if

18:48

you're just really willing to to absolutely

18:50

murder your opponent. I'm sorry, I'm

18:53

just suddenly reminded of one of those newspaper

18:55

articles from the nineteen twenties that

18:57

we quoted in our death Ray episode of Invention,

19:00

and where the guy was like, the death ray

19:02

is mine and only I can have it. Yeah,

19:05

this was his death ray in a sense. Now in

19:08

that fantastic reading at the top

19:10

of the episode, that story

19:13

from the cattle raid of Coolong,

19:16

Uh, that really gives you some of

19:18

the key attributes of the weapon.

19:20

Here. So it is brought to Koholand via

19:23

a stream. His charity here puts it in a

19:25

stream and it like floats down

19:27

to him, and then it is cast

19:30

by the foot, so he picks

19:32

it up with his seven toad foot and

19:34

casts it. Thus Lee aims

19:36

it with his seven people die right and

19:39

uh. And then also in that telling we see

19:41

that it it pierces his opponent through the anus,

19:44

which is not a detail

19:46

that is present in every telling of this story,

19:49

but it is there. Uh.

19:52

And part of it has to do with the fact that his like you

19:55

know, these are two you know, former

19:57

friends, you know that, I mean, they're still friends,

19:59

but they're battling each other, and and

20:02

they each have sort of magical abilities,

20:05

you know, uh so cool and alone

20:07

has the mastery of this uh fabulous

20:09

barbed weapon, and then his opponent

20:11

has his horn skin that protects most of his

20:14

body but not the the anus.

20:16

So you might say that ford It has an achilles

20:18

heel, and it is his anus. It's his

20:20

Achilles anus. So maybe instead

20:23

of saying achilles heel from now on, we should substitute

20:26

for dead Zanus. It's going to be challenging

20:28

to drop that into just casual conversation. I'm

20:30

good. I'm gonna darn well try

20:33

Robert for the rest of my life for dead

20:35

Zanus. Alright.

20:37

So that that that Edward pettit

20:40

Um article that we mentioned

20:42

earlier, and I believe this is Edward G. Pettit

20:44

from Lostale University, who is apparently

20:46

something of an Edgar Allan Poe expert

20:49

and a monster expert I'm reading, teaches

20:52

classes on vampire literature and so

20:55

forth. But he drives

20:57

home that there are several key attributes

21:00

that are that are generally consistent in the various

21:02

tellings here. So first of all, only

21:04

co Helen can wield the guy

21:07

Bolga. Here he alone

21:09

was taught it's it's martial art, and

21:11

the teacher varies from immortal to a sea god.

21:14

Okay. Another thing he mentions

21:16

is that it's sort of a single use

21:18

weapon, right, you get one

21:21

shot. Now that being

21:23

said, I don't think he ever misses with the thing, or

21:25

at least I have not read the story where he busted

21:27

out and misses like accidentally hits

21:29

I don't know, nearby bird in the an s instead,

21:32

right. Um. Also, it's sometimes

21:34

sent to him by water, such as in

21:36

our our opening story there it's

21:38

it is like it traveled down a stream

21:40

to him, but it doesn't just appear

21:43

in the context of water. He also it's

21:45

like thrown from below the water.

21:49

So it's also it is a fearsome weapon,

21:51

so for deed more special armor

21:53

in an attempt to protect himself from it. And

21:56

you know it's clearly you know, when he sees

21:58

that the that this weapon is is coming

22:00

out, uh, you know, he takes notice

22:02

like it's gotten dire. It's not just a normal

22:05

spirit is something that is known to be very

22:07

dangerous, just mechanically

22:10

and its characteristics as a weapon. Pettit

22:12

says that it is quote accurate, sharp, strong,

22:15

and highly penetrative, to

22:17

say the least. It's also inescapable

22:20

and deadly, and in later tellings it's also

22:22

said to be venomous and cursed with

22:24

an incurable poison that fills the body.

22:27

Now, one really interesting feature about it is the idea

22:29

that it is many barbed. But at

22:31

first it's cast as like a single spear

22:34

that is straight and thin, but that

22:36

once it pierces the body, it is

22:38

said to spread out its barbed

22:41

so that it has to be cut out in order to be

22:43

removed. He can't just pull it out. Uh.

22:45

And this would be kind of like the barbs on some

22:47

existing spheres, like fishing spears sometimes

22:50

would have barbs like this in order to make sure that

22:52

the thing stays on there once you stab

22:54

it. But it's not just that it's barbed.

22:56

It's that there's this idea that it's sort

22:59

of spreads out within the body.

23:01

So like once you pierce somebody, the

23:03

point and the barbs it is said spread

23:05

to all of the veins, or spread to

23:07

all of the joints and limbs. I'm

23:10

not quite sure exactly what it means

23:12

there, except I'm sort of uh

23:15

considering, when do you remember in our episode

23:17

about missiletoe, the plant,

23:19

you know, the plant parasite, it's a parasite on other

23:21

plants, where we talked about the idea of the

23:24

house story. Um, it's this base

23:26

sort of root structure for missiletoe

23:29

that grows on the surface of a tree

23:31

or another plant and then pierces its

23:33

stem and sometimes grows down and

23:35

spreads out little filaments and roots

23:37

structures within the host plant.

23:40

Uh. And we talked about how so this

23:42

is a parasite. It's not just like a vampire sticking

23:45

its fangs into you, but as if it sticks

23:47

its fangs in and sometimes the fangs

23:49

like continue to grow out inside the body

23:51

and fill all your blood vessels. Yeah,

23:54

I think this is a great reference because I definitely

23:56

get that kind of like growing barbed

23:58

root like like just rap apid growth

24:00

of barbs through the entire body, like

24:02

a real true body horror

24:05

weapon to employ here. But another way

24:07

to think about that is that's just sort of like it could

24:09

be a mechanical metaphor for a

24:11

chemical property. The idea

24:13

that you stab something and it's got venom

24:16

or poison or something on it. And even

24:18

though you only stab the body in one place, the

24:20

poison spreads out to all the blood,

24:22

right And yeah, so there's you

24:25

can make various interpretations of it, for sure.

24:27

Um. It's often described as being white or

24:29

bright color. Uh. And

24:32

of course it's often drenched in blood

24:34

in these tellings because it doesn't seem to miss

24:36

and when it hits, it's gonna be gory, now,

24:38

pettit says. It's also often associated

24:41

with demons or fire or hell.

24:44

It's sort of an infernal weapon. Yeah,

24:46

and even described as being used against actual

24:48

demons in hell and later traditions apparently.

24:51

And along those lines, it's also described as

24:53

sometimes is behaving in some ways

24:56

like a bellows. So again,

25:00

anytime we're talking about, say, say

25:02

a magical weapon in mythology, you

25:04

know, we're not so much talking about a single

25:07

thing, but we're talking about a tradition

25:09

of a thing, various tellings of a

25:11

thing, and different influences who are going to become

25:14

involved in sort of recolor. Uh.

25:17

And you know exactly how it is described.

25:20

Either way you shake it, it is a It is

25:22

a treacherous weapon, even

25:24

for a mighty hero to employ. But

25:27

then there's one final detail, a key detail

25:29

here, and it has to do with where this weapon

25:32

comes from. Because every great weapon

25:34

that a mythical hero uses

25:36

it has to have an origin story, right of

25:39

course. And one of my favorite origin stories

25:41

for for like a weapon or a

25:43

piece of armor or something like that, is something that's taken

25:45

from the body of a monster, like

25:48

like Hercules, you know, he makes his cloak

25:50

out of the Nemean lions, hard

25:52

to pure skin. And in this case, we we

25:55

have a weapon that is made from a sea

25:57

monster, from the remains from the bones

26:00

of a sea monster. Now

26:02

it's described in some translations is being made

26:04

from the skin of a monster from Hell, but

26:07

hell, Pettit says, could have been, you

26:09

know, the depths of the ocean. And this is supported, he

26:11

says, by later tales in which our hero

26:13

coh holand defeats barb tailed

26:16

beasts from the ocean. Now, I think Pettit

26:18

also talks about versions where it is said

26:20

to come from the skull of something called

26:23

like a doghead, yeah, which

26:25

could be interpreted as some version of like shark

26:27

or dog fish type creature. But

26:30

also as in some way seen as a sea

26:32

monster. Right, So at

26:34

this point in the episode, I'm going to tell you what

26:36

the full title of his paper is. Cool,

26:39

Holland's a guy Bolga from

26:41

Harpoon to sting Ray Speer.

26:44

That's the that's the title. So we're gonna take a quick

26:46

breaking. When we come back, we're going to get into Pettit's

26:49

Stingray hypothesis. Alright,

26:53

We're back, all right. So here's the part of the

26:55

podcast where we play a game we often like to

26:57

play, which is taking a story

27:00

or an object from myth and wondering like, could

27:02

there be a natural world explanation

27:05

for for what inspired this myth

27:07

or this image or this creature from mythology?

27:10

And of course this this type of game we

27:12

always like to point out, does have a weakness. It has

27:15

a for diazanus, you might say, which

27:17

is that we we don't want to overlook the fact

27:19

that there's lots of creative imagination involved

27:22

in mythology, and you don't always have to explain

27:24

the contents of a myth by pointing

27:27

to something that really happened in history

27:29

or really exists in nature and saying that inspired

27:31

it. We don't always know that that's what happened.

27:33

Maybe sometimes that happened, maybe sometimes as people

27:35

just using their imagination. But in any

27:38

case, this can be really interesting game to play because

27:40

there is no doubt that, at least in many cases,

27:43

things in myths were inspired by stuff

27:45

people saw in nature. And Edward

27:47

Pettitt's hypothesis here is that this

27:50

mighty weapon was the spine of a stingray,

27:53

or at least at some point in its

27:55

legacy. UH is interpreted

27:57

as such stories of sting ray but barbed

28:00

weapons are employed then

28:02

to describe this weapon the

28:04

cohol and wheels. Yeah, and this this inspiration

28:07

could go multiple ways if in fact there is

28:10

such an element of this kind of inspiration

28:12

in the stories. It could be that people

28:14

saw a stingray spine in nature and this

28:16

led to the original idea of

28:19

the guy Bolga sphere. But it could also

28:21

be that ideas about stingray

28:23

spines colored later tellings of an

28:26

existing mythical spear that was already

28:28

in some stories. But let's

28:30

see if there's anything to this idea and start

28:32

by looking at what's the stingray. So

28:35

a stingray is a type of ray and

28:37

raise or cartilaginous fish cousins

28:39

of sharks. This this family of sharks and

28:41

rays, they're called the Elasma bronx.

28:44

Their fish with skeletons made of cartilage

28:46

instead of bone. It's the same bendy

28:49

stuff you've gotten your ears. And

28:51

the super order of rays is batoy

28:53

dea uh. Stingrays in particular

28:55

are found in the suborder of rays known

28:57

as my leo battaforms. Now,

29:00

like other rays, stingrays kind of have a flattened

29:03

body and a large, somewhat rounded

29:05

pectoral set of fins that

29:07

are fully fused with the head

29:09

in the body, and this makes them sort of rounded

29:11

off like a pancake fish. Often,

29:14

stingrays tend to swim by sort

29:16

of undulating their their their

29:18

wide pectoral fins sort of just like

29:21

waves rather than flapping like wings.

29:23

And stingrays in particular tend to have flat

29:26

bodies that blend in with the seafloor.

29:28

Often they're camouflaged uh, and

29:30

that's because they spend most of their

29:32

time on the sea floor hiding out, often

29:35

partially buried in sediment. You'll sometimes

29:37

see sting rays like down down in the sediment

29:39

with like sand piled on top of their

29:41

little wings, and some researchers

29:44

believe that their eyes are poorly

29:46

placed for hunting, given that their body is

29:49

this sort of flat disc shape and

29:51

their mouths are down on the bottom and

29:53

their eyes are up on the top. But that's

29:55

okay because they don't need to rely entirely

29:58

on their eyes for hunting. Like

30:00

sharks, stingrays have organs that are

30:02

known as the ampullae of Lorenzini,

30:05

and these are small pores in the skin

30:07

that can detect electric fields in the

30:09

water. And of course all animals generate

30:11

electric fields in the water, especially when they contract

30:14

their muscles. So if there is a prey

30:16

animal out there swimming, moving

30:18

around, or even just with a beating heart, you

30:21

can probably sense some kind of electric

30:23

voltage difference that it is causing in

30:25

the water with your ampulae of Lorenzini.

30:28

But they've also got a magnificent

30:31

spine, and that's what we're going

30:33

to be focusing on today. The stingray

30:36

has a spine with venom,

30:38

sometimes deadly venom that can in some

30:40

cases kill humans. Now,

30:43

to be clear, stingrays very rarely

30:45

attack or kill humans. Yes, they

30:47

are not considered aggressive at all. That generally,

30:50

if there's an incident between humans and stingrays.

30:53

It's defensive because the human like stepped

30:55

on the stingray or loomed over it,

30:58

right, And the latter seems to have probably

31:00

been the case. With the most famous case in recent

31:02

history of a stingray related

31:04

death out of the crocodile hunter Steve

31:06

Irwin. Oh yeah, that was sad. Yeah, yeah,

31:08

it was a tragic case two thousand

31:11

six. Uh. And he died after he

31:13

sustained numerous stabs from an

31:15

eight foot wide stingray. He was in a

31:17

shallow water. Um, he was. He

31:20

was in close proximity to the creature they were filming,

31:23

and the theory I read is that the

31:25

ray might have thought Irwin's shadow

31:28

was a tiger shark and the shallow water

31:30

there, and then it reportedly

31:32

stabbed him hundreds of times and

31:35

one of the stabs pierced his heart and

31:37

then he bled to death. Yeah, that's it's

31:39

a sad story. But it's not the only time

31:41

that the people have actually been killed by stingray

31:43

spines. There they can, um, they

31:46

cause I mean severe just direct

31:48

trauma, like can pierce the skin and cause a lot

31:50

of bleeding. But they also in many

31:52

cases do have very powerful venom.

31:55

So, but I think it is worth noting like,

31:57

given especially that this case occurred

31:59

in shallow water, that it's not

32:02

unbelievable that medieval

32:05

or even older people would

32:07

a certainly people that made their their livelihoods

32:10

at the seaside would have encountered

32:13

and even encountered fatally uh sting

32:15

rays at some point or another. No, it's not unlikely

32:17

at all. And in fact, we know for a fact that the

32:20

ancient people that ancient people's, you know, long

32:22

before the medieval Irish myths, ancient

32:24

people's knew about stingrays, and they

32:26

knew about the venom on their spines,

32:28

and they knew some things about how these spined

32:31

UH spears worked. In fact, stingray

32:33

spine tipped spears already

32:36

exist in ancient hero myths. Do

32:38

you know this? I was not aware of this. So

32:41

you know the story the Greek myth of Odysseus uh.

32:44

This is told in in the Odyssey.

32:46

For example, Odysseus and the witch

32:48

Searcy had a son named

32:51

Teleganus uh. And remember

32:53

of course that the story of how Odysseus and

32:55

Searcy got together is that while Odysseus is on

32:57

his way home, he ends up at the man or

33:00

of Searcy, and Searcy is this witch sorceress

33:02

figure who turns all of Odysseus's

33:04

men into swine, but Odysseus

33:07

saves them with the help of the gods, and then he ends

33:09

up essentially being Searce's living boyfriend

33:11

for a while. Um Meanwhile, while

33:14

his wife Penelope is home being very dutiful

33:16

and waiting on him, he's like shacking up

33:18

with Sarcey. So as usual, Odysseus

33:21

is kind of a jerk. But uh so he's

33:23

doing that. And while he's there,

33:25

he apparently he has a son with Searcy, and

33:27

this son's name is Teleganus. But

33:30

of course, eventually Odysseus has to get home

33:32

to his home of Ithaca, his wife Penelope,

33:34

and his son Telemachus. And

33:37

so here is a passage

33:39

from Fraser's translation English

33:41

translation of a passage

33:43

from Apollodorus quote. When

33:46

Teleganus learned from Searcy that

33:48

he was a son of Ulysses, who is

33:50

also that's another name for Odysseus,

33:53

he sailed in search of him, and having

33:55

come to the island of Ithaca, he drove away

33:57

some of the cattle, and when Ulysses de

34:00

ended them, Teleganus wounded him with the

34:02

spear he had in his hands, which

34:04

was barbed with the spine of a stingray,

34:07

and Ulysses died of the wound. Pettitt,

34:09

in his article also quotes a second century

34:11

Greek text on fishing by an

34:14

author named Oppien, which tells another

34:16

version of this story. And I'll read this quote

34:18

as well. While the stingray

34:20

lives, a terrible and fiery weapon

34:22

attends it such I ween as

34:25

a man trembles to hear of. And it

34:27

lives when the stingray itself has perished,

34:30

and preserves its unwearied strength

34:32

unchanged. And not only on the living

34:34

creatures which it strikes. Does it belch mysterious

34:37

bain, but it hurts even tree

34:39

and rock, and wherever it comes

34:42

nigh. That sting it was,

34:44

which his mother Circe, skilled

34:46

in many drugs, gave of old to let

34:48

to telegan Us for his long hilted

34:51

spear, that he might array his foes

34:53

death from the sea. And he beached

34:55

his ship on the island that pastured goats,

34:58

and he knew not that he was harrying

35:00

the flocks of his own father, and on

35:03

his aged sire who came to the rescue,

35:05

even on him whom he was seeking, he

35:08

brought an evil fate. They're the

35:10

cunning Odysseus who had passed through countless

35:12

woes of the sea in his laborious

35:15

adventures. The grievous Stingray

35:17

slew with one blow. So

35:19

that's kind of combining, uh weirdly

35:22

enough, like the like the the Odysseus

35:24

tradition and sort of the Oedipus tradition, right,

35:26

like accidentally coming across and killing your

35:28

own father. Well, um, it's

35:31

interesting too to bring it back to co holand I

35:33

believe they're in the part of the story

35:36

there is the co holand ends up

35:38

accidentally killing his own son with

35:42

the Guy Bolga at one point, like

35:44

he does not know that hiss his son and ends up engaging

35:47

in combat with him. Well yeah, Pettit seems

35:49

to notice some pretty strong similarities

35:52

between these myths, and so he's I

35:54

think this is one reason he has for wondering

35:56

if the idea of the stingray is

35:58

actually incorporated into the Guy Bulga

36:01

legend. Uh hell. Pett It also mentions

36:03

that some sources claim Cercy had

36:05

the stingray tipped spear made by the

36:07

Greek forge god have faced us out

36:10

of a spine stolen from a stingray

36:12

by the sea god force Us. And of

36:14

course we know that the guy Bulga was made, at

36:16

least in some tellings, from the body of some kind

36:18

of sea monster or sea creature, right, And

36:21

in some tellings the art of the guy Boga

36:23

is instructed to Koholand by a

36:26

god of the sea. But just as further evidence

36:28

of what the ancients knew or thought

36:30

they knew about stingray spines. Look,

36:33

why not have a look at our old friend Plenty of the Elder

36:35

as well. There's a pet Pettit

36:37

points to this passage quote. But there

36:40

is nothing in the world more execrable

36:42

than the sting projecting above the tail

36:44

of the stingray, which are people called the

36:46

pastanaka. It is five inches

36:48

long and kills trees when driven

36:51

into the root. That's sort of like what Opian

36:53

said right there. He kills not just animals, but

36:55

like trees and stones. I don't know how you kill

36:57

a stone, um, but

37:01

a Plenty continues and penetrates

37:03

armor like a missile with the force

37:06

of steel and with deadly poison.

37:08

So Pettit sees really strong parallels

37:11

between the myths of Kuhland and telegan

37:13

Us, and sees some of these parallels between

37:16

what was understood by the ancients about

37:18

the stingray spine and the myth

37:21

of the guy bulga. The guy bolga

37:23

is said to come from the water. It gets thrown

37:25

from under the water. It's associated with shallow

37:28

water. Sometimes it's said to be made from

37:30

the body or skull of some type of sea

37:32

monster. And of course it is true that

37:34

sting rays can be found in the coastal

37:36

waters of Ireland, and they can grow to quite

37:39

a monstrous size, and like the underside

37:41

of them, Pettit points out, can resemble a grinning

37:44

or grimacing face. That's true that

37:46

certainly, if you've ever been to an aquarium, you

37:48

know they if they come up to the glass, Uh,

37:51

you see what looks like a face there, But

37:53

the eyes are on the other side. Obviously, and crucially,

37:56

the one of the issues here is that a

37:58

stingray spine is not like the

38:01

fang of a snake or something which,

38:03

once removed, is just like a piece

38:05

of tooth. You know, there's nothing to it. Uh.

38:07

The ancients understood that a stingray

38:10

spine could remain deadly for

38:12

some time after the ray was dead,

38:14

or after it's removed from the ray, So

38:17

maybe maybe some like forty eight hours afterwards.

38:19

So detaching it from the ray and attaching

38:22

it to a weapon wouldn't immediately

38:24

render it harmless. It could still have of

38:26

course the normal like piercing potential,

38:28

but the venom as well. Uh. Now

38:31

this is interesting because that that epic battle that Koholand

38:34

has with three did It's supposedly rages

38:36

for three days before

38:38

they finally reached the point where Koholand

38:41

calls for the guy bolga Um.

38:43

So he couldn't just based on this

38:45

sort of forty eight hour rule is like a rough

38:48

guideline for utilizing a

38:50

magical sting ray weapon in

38:52

battle. Like, he wouldn't be able to bring that to the field

38:55

with him. Thus he has to call on his charioteer

38:58

to send it down the water to him, and

39:00

then he can, uh, he can fetch it with his fabulous

39:03

seven toed foot and fling it up the anus

39:05

of his opponent. Yeah, so I I don't

39:07

know if Pettit's right about this connection. I mean,

39:09

he he Also he adduces a lot of evidence

39:12

that we didn't even have time to get into. It's a lot of stuff

39:14

about like the minut chief, the translation

39:16

of the word bolga and how that could point to stingrays

39:19

and stuff like that. But I'll be sure

39:21

to link to the entire article on the Landing

39:24

page through this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

39:26

So anybody who wants to really dive

39:28

into the evidence there and risk getting

39:31

stung, you'll be able

39:33

to do so. Yeah. So I I don't

39:35

know if he's correct about this, but it's

39:37

a really interesting case and another wonderful

39:40

example of bio mythology. Yeah.

39:42

I love the way that myth and legend

39:44

traditions present us with these

39:46

little mysteries, like that they can be these

39:48

little puzzle boxes because of the

39:51

odd characteristics of elements

39:53

within them, you know, like the idea of the spear

39:55

being thrown through the seven toed foot from

39:58

under the water into the this and

40:00

you just wonder like, Okay, is this just weird

40:03

just because it's weird? Or does all this weird

40:05

disappoint to something? Is there something I'm missing?

40:08

Yeah? Or to what extent are we dealing with errors?

40:11

And translation. Uh, you

40:13

know, things that should be a notable um

40:16

metaphor or symbol, but out

40:18

of context just sounds like something

40:20

just really whack adoodle looking. Uh.

40:23

These are always questions one has to ask. But

40:26

that being said, I feel like you can always

40:28

just embrace just the raw

40:31

alien nature of the

40:33

myth you're presented with two and just enjoy

40:35

it on that level as well. Yeah. Nothing

40:38

nothing more fun than a really impractical weapon.

40:41

Yes. Uh. Speaking

40:43

of which, um, I have to say, as

40:46

a fan, a longtime fan of the Mortal Kombat

40:49

games, you know they put one on

40:51

somebody have a Guy Balla in there. No, but they should,

40:53

like one of the things that you have in these games,

40:56

especially today, increasingly

40:59

overly implicated fatalities where

41:02

you know, one fighter finishes off the other

41:04

one by doing something just predict you know, like not

41:06

only slicing off their head, but then slicing

41:08

the head in half, that sort of thing. But really,

41:11

when you look at the story of the Guy Bolga, they've got nothing,

41:13

you know, like the Irish mythology

41:16

has has has all the Mortal Kombat

41:18

you need. I'd

41:20

like to see Raid in versus Kuhlan. Yeah,

41:23

they could put him in there, make him, make him a downloadable

41:26

character. What they have started crossing genres,

41:28

haven't they? I think, I said, I don't play the Mortal Kombat

41:31

games anymore, but I feel like I saw that they're They've

41:33

got like Aliens and Jason

41:35

Vorhees and stuff. Yeah, they've definitely brought

41:37

in characters from other franchises, but

41:40

but I don't think they've brought in any I

41:42

don't know if they brought in any additional mythological

41:44

figures. They should, I mean, they already play with

41:46

a little bit of that. So um. Now,

41:49

one additional question I had based on all of this, is all

41:51

right, with the with the guy Bolga, you have a

41:54

kind of impractical weapon that

41:56

is also sure fire like it

41:59

is gonna end the fight if you ever actually

42:01

pull it out, But yet Hill Kohlan

42:03

will wait three days to actually do it. Do

42:06

we have other examples in our fiction

42:09

and other myths where you have this

42:11

this sure shot weapon that for

42:13

some reason your heroes never actually

42:16

produced until the last minute. I feel like

42:18

that happens a lot, but I'm struggling to think of an

42:20

example right now. The only one that

42:22

really came to mind recently was in the

42:24

original Pacific Rim film,

42:27

like the big Robots, the what do they

42:29

call the the the the agers, they're

42:33

they're beat down there on the point

42:35

of being defeated by the giant Kaiju monsters,

42:38

and then only then do they start using

42:40

these big swords that pop out of their

42:43

their limbs and just completely decimate

42:45

the the creatures that they're battling. Oh, I

42:47

know an example. You remember the Mighty morphin

42:50

Power Rangers, How like they would

42:52

have to keep when they faced

42:54

a more powerful monster, they'd have to keep like

42:56

upgrading to like the next level of robots,

43:00

And you always wondered, like, why don't they just go to the

43:02

top level of robots every time so they

43:04

instantly defeat their opponent no matter Why?

43:06

Yeah, why why isn't that your first move

43:09

to go and do exactly instead of destroying

43:11

half a city battling the monster

43:14

for sure? Yeah, Or for instance, Voltron

43:16

is another example, Like I feel like they would

43:18

try and battle whatever the rob

43:20

east or the threat of the week happened

43:23

to be with just the lions, and then they're

43:25

like, I guess we need to form Voltron to actually

43:27

deal with this scenario. Just go ahead and form Voltron. That's

43:29

exactly the same thing as the Power Rangers.

43:31

Yeah, first they'd fight it hand to hand, and

43:33

then it would get big magic wand make the monster

43:36

grow it get big, and then they'd form a bigger

43:38

robot. Uh, and then they'd

43:40

fight it and then they'd have it would get bigger again

43:42

or something, and then they'd have to do another thing. They'd

43:44

have to go to the like the final robot level.

43:47

Well, and I guess maybe in all of this there is a certain

43:49

amount of like martial

43:52

arts storytelling, like like I am

43:55

reminded in professional wrestling, for instance, especially

43:57

in like the Japanese of varieties.

44:00

Uh. They'll be like a super finisher

44:02

that an individual has, like a move that they rarely

44:04

bust out because it's like too dangerous. But

44:07

if the matches is you know, goes

44:09

on long enough, uh, and there are other

44:11

finishers haven't worked, then they will turn to uh,

44:14

you know, to something like that. You know, the like the gonzo

44:17

bomb. You know something that is that the kind of the equivalent

44:20

of the guy bolga. What is the gonzo bomb?

44:22

It's this guy named uh Kawata

44:26

would use it and it's like a power bomb where he just drops

44:28

you right on your neck. Um, you

44:30

know, Brutal movie only busted it out like a

44:33

few times. But it was kind of like his his

44:35

super move, his super form that

44:37

he would assume. And so I guess it makes sense

44:40

from a storytelling point of view, if you're you're

44:42

telling the story of epic mythic combatants

44:46

going at each other, that there would be

44:48

this one move beyond that they might

44:50

turn to. And in the case of the guy Bolga, it's

44:52

not a pleasant weapon. It's a treacherous weapon.

44:55

It's kind of like your hero cheating

44:58

a little bit at the very end out

45:00

of desperation. Well they had to

45:02

cheat to defeat him in the end too, that's true.

45:04

So yeah, though

45:06

I guess he did that. I guess it's the opposite order.

45:09

But but still, yeah, some treachery

45:12

ends up being employed. Uh, even

45:14

on the mythic battlefield. This is

45:16

the new version of the han shot first

45:18

T shirt and well uncheated first.

45:21

Oh man, you have printed had where

45:23

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45:30

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