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January 28, 2025 39 mins

Honorifics are perhaps best described as the fancier version of nicknames, with some of the same familiar rules: just like nicknames, you don't get to give yourself an honorific. And, again, just like nicknames, not all honorifics are particularly flattering. What do we mean? Join Ben, Noel and Max to learn more about ridiculous honorifics in today's episode.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man, the Myth,
the legend, our super producer, mister Max Williams.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Max the Maximum Max Williams.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, we always aside honorifics to mister Max Williams, as
well as to mister Noel Brown.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Go ahead, laid on me.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
You want one?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
I called you the back man earlier.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
That was okay, Yeah, we've for a minute.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
It is. It is my wish to be a bag
man in a highst type scenario speaking of a hight
type scenario.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Sorry, guys, this is an old here. Have I either
of y'all seen the.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Nineteen seventies film The Taking of Pelham one, two three, Yes,
it's about It's so cool. It's a it's a heist
movie about these criminals who hijack a New York City
subway train in an effort to extort the government of
New York City for a million dollars. And it's got

(01:28):
Walter Mathow in it, and it's like, it's funny, it's exciting.
It's the classic seventies vibes heist type picture, highly recommend unrelated.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
I don't know that there you know what there are.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's the first time I ever heard like a mister
color thing like in reservoir Dogs.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
That's kind of no honorific, but not quite.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
But the whole point is, though, Ben, you can't really
give yourself an honorific.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
It's kind of dirty pool.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
That's right, and that is me. So to finish up
the introductions here, I am all and called Ben Bullen.
Some honorifics I have received are the benevolent, the beneficent.
None of those were my choice. I actually learned the
word beneficent when it was bestowed upon me back in
the day. The nickname rule is applicable to honorifics as well.

(02:20):
Honorifics as a phrase is simply the concept of nicknames.
With a tie on. Nickname rules will state, as previously mentioned,
that you should not give yourself your own nickname. It
has to be an aggregate observation, hopefully from people who

(02:41):
love you, but it doesn't always work out that way.
This episode is about some of the funniest honorifics in
history and our super producer Max, who is pulling double
duty as a research associate on this episode, has an
anecdote that you want to share Max about your friend Greg.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Greg Williams such a wonderful man.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I love this kind of death.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
He's one of my closest relation, no relationship.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, your last name is Williams, right, yeah, yeah, from
another mother type situation.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
We don't look similar. Well I'll just I'll just leave
it that way. But yeah, Greg, back when we were
in our twenties, he had this period of time where
he was really convinced he wanted to cool nickname. And
the problem was he wanted to give to himself. And
his other problem was his two best friends for me
and some other guy named Phil, and we're trolls.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Who you describe as idiots.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah, we're absolute idiots. That that is fills to this day.
Another very close friend of mine still. And so we'd
be just like, you know, hanging around at our local
watering holes, and Greg would just be like doing this
in the Norse over. He's just like turbo firing out
Nick Nanns for himself. He's like, I want to be
the cougar, now, the jaguar, No, the mountain lion. I'm
like dude, sounds like you want to be a cat,
So why don't you call you like mister fuzzy Pie's.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
That's very funny. I've seen a It's Always Sunny episode
where it I think it's the Gang gets whacked Port
one or two. It's a two parter rare for that
crew where in our pal mac It tries to do
the same thing. He says he's he's sly like a cat,
and so on. We've we've all been in these situations.

(04:16):
A good nickname, a good honorific is amazing. Sometimes they're
a compliment, Peter the Great. Sometimes they're an insult, of
course are I mean one of my personal favorites just
been here talking ethel read the Unready. It's just such

(04:40):
a walk for that one.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
It's such a low key disc too. It's like, you're
not You're not terrible, You're just a little unprepared. You
didn't really do your homework. I've in the terrible one
could argue is a nickname that inspires fear uh to me.
You know, terrible in this context is more are like
a terrible ogre, a horrifying dragon. Not necessarily that you're

(05:05):
like a terrible person. You know what I mean, it does.
It does seem to have a little bit more gravitas
to it. So Ivan might have been cool with that nickname. Honestly, yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Might have been a marketing decision. We also have to
point out here's what I would argue is one of
the great differentiators. Nicknames are what we call little sobriquets
assigned by your contemporaries. Honorifics can occur across history, and
that's why there are a lot of you know, emperors

(05:34):
or rulers of old who get their honorific posthumously. They
are assigned that by an historian who may not have
met them. It's usually, uh, it's usually a mixed bag.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Some honorifics are super complimentary, some are super insulting and
are honestly insider jokes for historians and bookkeepers of the
time when books were much more of a niche pursuit.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and that's of course where history was recorded, often
by the victors, and they're usually the ones that give
out the honorifics.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Postures written by the victors.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Indeed, a huge shout out to Aaron Kelly over at
all that's interesting for her list history. He's twenty five
most embarrassing royal nicknames with a big resource used for
this dossier. So why don't we jump right in with
William the Third, another Landian king, or, as Max puts it,
another Landy king. Maybe that's right, Yeah, another Landian, the

(06:46):
king of the Netherlands.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I'd like to give a preemptive shout out to
our buddy Ben Thompson, who deals a lot with a
lot with sober quets, a lot with street names of
history in his excellent blog and podcast Badass of the Week.
So William the third, not the first William. He's sort

(07:09):
of what is it, He's sort of return of the
King as Williams go. If we go to our friends
in Britannica, we will see that our pale William was
born relatively recently in the Great Scheme of Things February nineteenth,
eighteen seventeen, and he made it all the way to
eighteen ninety November twenty third, which is honestly not that

(07:34):
bad for a king.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, had a bad life also, you know, given the
nature of a much shorter life expectancies back then. I
love the name of the town in which he passed away,
though apple Dorn, also in the Netherlands. He was pretty
conservative in the way that he governed the Netherlands. He
was also a Grand Duke of Luxembourg, being the eldest
son of King William the second. Also possessed a pretty

(07:58):
interesting hairstyle. Let's see what we got here, Yeah, okay, wow,
bit of a combover, bit of a curious George kind
of vibe.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
He's sort of like his whole face is ringed in a.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Very thinning line of hair with a combovery bald spot
on the top, and he's perfectly cleanly shaven. It's a
weird amish hybrid kind of thing going on there for.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
A lot of compensation, it feels like, and it's just
making it worse.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
And it's also it shows us the bubble of success.
He's not welcoming people for advice or anything other than yes.
And at this point we should also point out to
get in front of this that when I said he
was born on February nineteenth, eighteen seventeen, he was born
in Brussels, which is in Belgium, and then he died

(08:49):
in apple Doorn in the Netherlands. So he also by
the way he comes from a little bit of a
close family tree, there's not a wide branch. He marries
his cousin Sophia, who is the daughter of his grandfather.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's all right, King William the Og number one, and
he is of Wurtemburg. In eighteen thirty nine, by the way,
is when this marriage took place between William and his cousin,
daughter of King William the First, and in eighteen forty
nine he succeeded to the throne. A little bit of

(09:32):
a muddled chronology here with all these similar names. But
we got this man with this par for the course,
for ridiculous history. Don't you worry. Once you open up
the family tree, it just starts to get even more confusing.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
So we're doing our best here.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, and let's go to William three. Before we introduce
his hoterrific Let's give the guys flowers. As I mentioned earlier,
he had a pretty good reign as far as kings go,
around about forty one years. A lot of it was
associated with what we could kind of call conservatism. For

(10:10):
the time. He was opposed to things like making a
constitution or human rights.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Who needs that?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, it was pissed at Catholics for sure, we have
some quotes from different places. You can read this everywhere. Britannica,
for instance, points out that he opposed the Constitution of
eighteen forty eight because that would create a nascent form
of parliamentary government. He also he was not an absolute monarch,

(10:44):
so he did have political forces that compelled him to
allow certain people to head a new government of the
one of the big thorns in Issai being Johann Thorbek,
who was, by the way, a big fan of constitutions.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Throwbeca did resign, however, from that government in eighteen fifty three,
when William adopted, against the wishes of this government a
staunchly anti Catholic stance in a dispute over the re
establishment of a Roman Catholic episcopal hierarchy headed up by

(11:23):
the Archbishop of Utrecht.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Which is a great art store these days, is it?

Speaker 3 (11:31):
No?

Speaker 1 (11:32):
No, it's a real it's a real town.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
It sounds like it ought to be like a bicycle,
a brand, or an outdoors e type shop.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
I might just be thinking of Trek.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
I want to say Utrecht is an art store.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Here in the US it's a brand of art supply
stores so maybe he was way more in front of
stuff anyway, on the way to on the way to death,
our buddy Willy Willie Trace. He attempted to sell the
entirety of Luxembourg to France. Luxembourg is currently an independent nation.

(12:09):
It is, by the way, super fancy. He ran into
trouble with that. Prussia was still very much in play,
and they said it's a bridge too far. They were,
they were not quite to the point of, you know,

(12:29):
just pushing people out third story windows that at that
juncture in history.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
But there are tough customers.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, their threats would be followed. Through all of this,
All of this is just context. William the Third's nickname
does not deal with his political machinations. Instead, it deals
with his more skinemax ridiculous history after dark behavior.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, he and his wife had what you might call
a loveless marriage. Didn't seem like they vibed super well
with one another interpersonally or you know, between the old sheets.
So he needed to seek gratification of that kind elsewhere.
As Kelly writes in the article that we mentioned at

(13:19):
the top, William was known for an enthusiasm for extramarital relationships.
It almost would seem as though they had a bit
of a you know, understanding, which, according to some sources,
resulted in potentially dozens of illegitimate airs during his first marriage.
He's so anti Catholic. How come I guess they didn't

(13:40):
really have contraception back then, did they? Sorry?

Speaker 3 (13:44):
You know, I pull out and pray, that's the one.
It seemed like he was doing more praying than pulling out.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's also important to note that he did have three
sons with his first wife, Sophie, and so sadly, as
was not uncommon in the time, child mortality was very high,
all three of William and Sophie's legitimate children passed away

(14:11):
while their father was still alive. Sophie also died.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Oho Max is raising his paw.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, And just to jump in here, I think one
of the children died very young. But this is actually
one of these cases where the dad just lived for
a really, really long time. It's actually struck comparison. It's
Tyercepton was the longest living human in Elder Scrolls universe,
and his son, who became kingwinn sept Typerceptim died was

(14:39):
very old and did not have a very long Empire.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
And if you want to learn more about the basis
of Elder Scrolls and Skyrim lore, please do remember to
pick up every book you run across when you're playing
the game, or hop over to their wiki.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
It's good stuff, it's good writing. After his first wife, Sophie,
died in eighteen cent seventy seven, he married another woman
by the name of Emma of Waldeck, Piermont's very fancy
sounding name, who served as regent in eighteen ninety while
the king was unwell. Wilhelmina was the name of their daughter, uh,
and was his only living legitimate heir by the way,

(15:19):
because you know, he has scoodles of illegitimate airs, but.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Narshals have to, you know, goat with a thousand young kindries.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
We'll recall that his three previous legitimate sons had passed
away sadly, and she did succeed to the throne of
the Netherlands upon his death in eighteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
And contemporary sources and later historians report that this second
marriage was way less loveless, way warmer.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Some people argue that had the idea that he became
a better king, and that's a human thing. Sometimes you
don't get it right the first time. This is where
he gets his hot terrific. The New York Times. That's right,
because remember we're in the late eighteen hundreds.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
The New York Times, who previously supported nuking the Darien Gap.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
By the way, checkout stuff they don't want you to know.
Episode on that subject to Harter in your seed.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
And the New York Times says to the world at large,
or at least English readers, that this guy, William the
third is the greatest debauche.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Can I just say that what I saw this, I
read it as the greatest douchebag.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
I mean similar.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Oh it's funny debauche, very Bacchanalian lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Eh yeah, there's also you know, look not to split hairs.
H huh do you do you get the Jays?

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (17:05):
A h h e.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
I well I'm here for it, Ben, thank you, sir. Uh.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
We're not only gonna keep it, then we're gonna put
it on the mantle and and dust it lovingly.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
It's gonna get a bad drama, of course.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Okay, well, yeah, all right, I appreciate you guys. This
This is not great p R. Right. It happens pretty
often where where in you know, uh, high profile target
be the political, religious or you know, royal. Uh they

(17:41):
they will, they will get smacked around in the tabloids.
And we have to remember that the New York Times
is super fancy pants today, but they weren't above digging
into dumb ideas in the past. And so as we
as we return to our pal Aaron Kelly, Uh, she
raws a little bit of a disagreement with this because

(18:06):
she said, look, you know other people fathered sixty three
illegitimate children before they got married.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
On her list of the weirdest nicknames, oral nicknames, you know.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
And as that guy's name is John the baby Maker,
that's right.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
I don't know what do you think is more offensive
being a baby maker or a debaci And it's a
little puritanical, isn't it. The idea like they're sort of
making a judgment call about how many children he fathered
out of wedlock, and they're making it sound like he's
some sort of you know, sex pest.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
You very British. I think baby maker is funnier than
debche and.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Less judges, less assaulting, right, Yeah, I mean, in those days,
producing airs was what you wanted to do, you know.
And there's also no caveat in John the Baby Maker
as to the legitimacy of those children, So I don't know, man.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
I so he actual Babymaker actually had three legitimate heirs.
I reason wand to write about John the baby Maker.
But a lot of times the further you go back
with in royalty, the harder and harder it is to
find like real sources. And I'm saying that about the
guy I picked whose name is William the Third. Do
you know who William the Third is on the Google search?
It's William, King of the Orange King whatever. He's a

(19:26):
British king. It's really hard.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
It's a name thing. There's so many Henry's, Williams and James's.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
And don't forget about Charles.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
There's never there's never one Jame. Like I have a
friend whose name is Jame. It's this singular of James.
It's spelled a little bit differently, but I really appreciate
his parents.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
That was one of the potential names for the Buffalo
Bill character in j Jame Gum or Jamie Jame or Jamie.
I was the first time I ever heard a singular
Jame that is very interesting. Well, we got a little
bit of dispute here as to the fairness of this
nick name. But unfortunately that's not how honorifics work. Fairness

(20:06):
doesn't enter into it. It's all about stickiness.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Right yeah, yeah, and speaking up.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
I don't mean that in a gross way.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
I just mean like, if it's strong enough, catchy enough honorific,
it's gonna stick her out throughout history. And you got
you or your heirs or your estate really don't have
anything to say about it at that point. Otherwise you'll
be employing like the Streisand effect, where you try to
get something pulled down or changed after the fact, people
are just gonna double down on the thing that you
want to change.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
And I'd love to I'd love to write an episode
later about honorifics or street memes given to US presidents.
You have to wonder what people will get as time
goes on. Will it be like or even political figures.
I think people have gotten their ship sunk when they

(20:52):
get the wrong sort of like you're saying, thing caught
up in the zeitgeist, right, Jeb low energy Bush.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
I guess I just.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Don't think of donterrifics being as much of a thing
in modern politics.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
We're too close to it.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
That must be right.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
We're not very lying, man. We got to get there.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Speaking of time, why don't we pass forward a little
bit in time to King Henry the fourth of Castile.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, yeah, this guy was born where actually we're reverse
forwarding time. We're rewinding.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Excuse me, excuse me?

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh no, no, this guy, as you pointed out, he
is born in fourteen twenty five January twenty fifth, So
the anniversary of his birthday as we record today, January
twenty fourth, is coming up tomorrow. Happy birthday, buddy. He lives,

(21:53):
he does his bit, He does pretty well. He passes
away in fourteen seventy four in Madrid. He's born and
dies in Spain. And he is king from let's see
fourteen fifty four to fourteen seventy four. And he didn't
he didn't live during the most staple times.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
No, at first he seemed like he had a handle
on things, but then you know, his reign began to
spiral pretty wildly out of control. We're gonna lean on
Max here a little bit for a shortened version of
how events kind of transpire. Everyone hated this guy, who's
not popular. They wanted him out. There was a faction

(22:37):
of individuals that claim that his little brother Alfonso was
in fact the king. Is a very Game of Thrones
esque scenario, and in an act of political theater, they
deposed Henry in effigy.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
What is that like? They literally burned like a doll
of him.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, like, we're getting rid of this puppet who represents
this guy down with the Yeah. And three years after that,
old Alphonso passes away, or I should say younger Alfonso
passes away, and Henry attempts to because this is royalty again,

(23:15):
it's not a meritocracy, right.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Waitit wait, So this deposing an effigy like took I
don't understand. Is this like a real revolution or was
this just an act?

Speaker 3 (23:25):
The whole thing was the start of a civil war. Basically,
it started a civil war. That's it was.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
It was a symbolic act that then spread into actual action.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
And he was in fact deposed.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
He wasn't, but there was a faction of people who
said he was posed.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
He was not deposed, but people could not. People did
not unanimously agree upon who is king.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
They did not acknowledge his authority and Therefore Alfonso more
or less became in charge because the people rallied behind him.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, there were a bunch of people essentially saying the
equivalent of my president.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
So a similar comp in modern day would be when
the Ukraine Russian War started, there was parts of eastern
Ukraine that came out and said, oh, we are not
part of Ukraine, We're part of Russia.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Similar or similar to the troubles in Crimea as well.
So the before we get to stuff that'll want you
to know about this one, we know that our buddy
Henry tried to shore up the rain, shore up his line,
and he said, look, here's my daughter Juana, she's the queen.

(24:36):
She's gonna be the queen. She is an infant at
the time, she did not have informed consent, and so
his rivals is, you know, not my president type dudes
then said, no way, nice, try your majesty. The real
ruler is your half sister Isabella future Isabelle.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
The first two, without Henry's knowledge or permission, married the
heir to the throne of Aragon, Fella named Ferdinand, who
was to become Ferdinand the second. The two would ultimately
unite Spain, which is pretty cool, pretty.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Tough job to somewhere or less the happy end.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah for Spain perhaps right, Yeah, but maybe not for
our buddy Henry the fourth. He is his honorific which
we're about to explore. Just for a slight spoiler, folks,
It is a one hundred and eighty degrees difference from
what happened with our boy Willie three stacks, which I

(25:38):
just made up.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
And I guess it's approachable.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
I think so.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
So this guy, No, this guy, This guy apparently was
not super lovey dovey in his first marriage, and he
was married for a number of years. According to horses,
which may have an agenda, he never got frisked up,

(26:05):
he never got horned up, he never consummated at all.
His thirteen year marriage to his cousin wife.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Well, you know, I guess that's sort of a small
consolation to marrying your cousin.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
I think it makes it a little less gross.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, maybe it's a political thing. I really want
to marry her.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Also true, but you know, the cousin marrying was pretty
wide rife at the time, so I don't think that
was maybe the main concern. But some sources saw it
a little differently with those perspectives coming from members of
the local sex trade.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah. Yeah, they said there was nothing wrong under the hood.
We're a family show, so let's pretend that's not a circumcision.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
It's oh geez, Louise Ben. He was perhaps just not
fond of his cousin wife.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, but then he marries another cousin who did birth
a daughter. That's the infant he tries to install as queen,
but rumor has it, rumor has it that he is
not the biological father.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's any cousin scruples going
on here. He went from one cousin to the next.
So in Max's research he found a lot about Henry's
bedroom difficulties, but nothing quite as hilarious as what was
detailed in the National Library of Medicine's article King Henry
the Fourth of Castilla an exceptional eurologic patient an indochrinopathy

(27:37):
causing the euro andrological problems of the monarch, Impotence and
penile malformation, Part three, Part three, Yeah, three of three,
and our source Aaron Kelly points out that Henry's reign
was more or less the history of it was more

(27:57):
or less co opted by his half sister, who was
the one who kicked him out in the first.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Place, and that sort of saddled.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Him with about one of the most infantiizing honorifics a
male king could possibly be saddled with.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Ooh, let us know what is it?

Speaker 3 (28:18):
What is it? Henry the Impotent?

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Ah, not Henry the Potent, No, sir, two letters can
make such a difference.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
I know, I know, No, Henry the Impotent. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
It does seem though, perhaps that through his philandering, he
may well have brought this one on himself.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, kind of an old goal, as they would say
in Europe, hoisted on his own bitar.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
And I will say there is actually proof that when
people like, why don't you have a child with your
first cousin wife, he would scream, A curse is upon
me and it's made me impotent. When when you're using
that as your excuse and you get it as your nickname.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Kind of brought on yourself, it doesn't it doesn't work
in the modern day. You can't say, uh, you can't
blame a curse on misfortune now in a court of law.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Now, let's not get too uh yeah, no, you're a
hundred percent right then, And let's not get too under
the hood here again. But impotence and infertility are two
different things, right for sure? Yeah, so the implication being
that if he was impotent, he couldn't become too mess in.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
But the sex workers, though, do we do we put
any credence in their perspective or do we think they
were just talking tracks?

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Guttle but mm yeah, because it's it's difficult now to
it becomes a he said, she said, or more likely
it becomes uh she said, she said.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Well, we do have a Scientific Journal article about his
pen so an the body. It sure would seem like
that's probably the source that we should lean on the most.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
What do you say, guys, Let's do one more. This
is going to be a continuing series again with a
shout out to our pal Ben Thompson. Check out our
earlier interview with him. Go Ben's He created Badass of
the Week, which is so neat and so comprehensive in fact,
that we routinely check the site when we're writing stuff.

(30:32):
We with the help of Ben and Max, learned about
our last honorific for today, a guy named Harold H.
A R A L D. Not Harold Harold unclear. I
think I'm with you, Ben.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
If that's not how it's pronounced, that's how it's pronounced
now in the Ridiculous History extended universe. According to our
pal friend of the podcast, Ben Thompson from his site
Badass of the Week as well as his podcast Ongoing
Badass of the Week, Harold fair Hair was the first

(31:10):
true King of Norway, the national hero of his country,
and a man known not only for a mighty propensity.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
For cleaving his enemies in Twain.

Speaker 5 (31:20):
As as Ben describes it, like a psychotic escaped mental
patient carving a Thanksgiving turkey, but also for rocking ahead
of epically glorious glam metal hair so righteous it's the
primary way violence loving.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Vikings Scalds chose to remember his name. That is good
quality writing there, Ben Thompson.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, man, and Ben continues and says, look, this guy
was too busy to write stuff down. He's not in
the monastery. He's not laboriously scrolling out or scrolling out
letters punched over a tome's right, just so, yeah, you're right, Noel. Instead,

(32:03):
he is launching multiple campaigns to unify his country under
one single ruler, which is historically a very violent pursuit
and as a result of his wartime exploits at a
lot of the nuts and bolts details about his administration

(32:25):
are riddled with mythology and folklore and crazy anecdotes that
praise the guy the same like that give him this
vibe of a heavy metal guitar solo with an eagle
screaming in the background.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I mean, honestly, as mullet probably resembled that of a
golden eagle wings spread. Now, he definitely had a bit
of a feathery mallet, and I would profer that he
maybe all his powers were contained within his mullet, like Samson.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Oh yes, Samson, I love it. We do know he
was real. He was definitely a real dude, a biological human.
He did succeed in his timeline. He got all the Yarls,
the sort of warlords of Norway under his rule.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Shout out Skyram, by the way, they use that as
the name of the leaders of the different townships.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
There are yarls.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, and I'm not with the nerds in that game.
I feel like they're a little racist.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
To be that is very true, Ben, I can't remember
who I aligned with. I think I'm still deciding. Yeah,
but you're still on the broken quest line.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
I'm nowhere, Ben.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
It's been long enough now that I think I might
just just start over, start again.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
It is a great game. But I also I got.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Balder's Gate too, man, I still have to dig in
and I want to be a Balder's gatey.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
I just want to do it.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Boulders.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
I feel like it's over my head a little bit,
but I'm gonna try.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Just text me with any questions, Okay, I sure will
about who I should bang that is Boulders Gates.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
So, I mean there's a lot of mythology wrapped up
in the way this guy is written about in history.
But we do know for sure is that he was
the first King of Norway and a bona fide badass,
as Ben Thompson puts it. However, you know, given all
of the kind of badassy that surrounds this guy and
his incredible locks, his epic main it might surprise you

(34:25):
to know that he had a less than complimentary honorific.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
I love this, all right, folks. Get ready, this guy,
despite all the things he did, the great violence he wrought,
his unification of what we call Norway. Today his street
name is Harold the Lousy l o us Y. Yeah, yeah,
careful with it.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Well, we might say lousy today as just I think
I want to think of that.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I think of like I love Lucy. They always said
everything was lousy, but.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
In this case you might I pronounced it more as
a hard s lousy because this does go back to
his copious locks.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
And think about all a little.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
In those days of questionable hygiene, little hangers on that
can get wrapped up in in a glorious mane like them.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, so go at your absolutely right now, going back
to your earlier excellent shout out to Samson, by the way,
well done. We see that legend has it our buddy Harold.
Harold had vowed not to cut his hair until he
became the ruler of a unifide Norway, and by the

(35:41):
time he actually received the crown ten years on, his
hair was pretty groady. He kind of looked like a
trained kid, we will call him here in the US.
And along the way he picked up he created a
the follicular ecosystem for a lot of parasites louses as

(36:08):
they're known. So apparently they were just like jumping off
him pigpin style. Also shout out to our very first
Ridiculous History episode. Oh my gosh, you guys heard emoji.
This all started when we asked each other why British
courts require people to wear wigs.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Oh yeah, because of the syphilis and the lice and
the parasites. Yeah, we are talking about lice, by the way,
if you hadn't put that one together. So this guy was,
in fact crown the first king of Norway, but what
he is mostly remembered for is the fact that his
hair was riddled.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
With lice, lousy with lice. In fact.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, and look, let's be fair. This guy is a
Viking in the eight hundreds eight hundred C. So a
lot of people had lice, a lot of people had
you know, all kinds of stuff, crabs, you know what
I mean there.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Yeah, but not only was this guy the king of
the Vikings, he was the king of of lice. It
would seem, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Because everybody in his crew would meet him and again
the story later get lice. So so he said, he's saying,
you know, oh, great battle, we cleaved the snot out
of these guys. Give me a hug. I'm gonna promote
you to my new yarl and they say like a

(37:36):
fist bump, baby.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Bump, elbow bump.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah yeah, maybe try rubbing this peanut butter on your head, buddy.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
So we have more wonders ahead. Honorifically, uh, this turns
out to be a continuing series. Some honorifics are great.
Love that we point this out in the beginning. Some
people have these amazing, you know, high fluting praises baked

(38:03):
into their nicknames. Other people have names that you might
remember from our explorations with our pals Jack and Miles,
who are overdue to come on for another collaboration with
historical flexes. Maybe we end it here, man ethel read,
I just I hope one day he's ready. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
I think by now he should be. He's had enough
time to prepare.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah. Sure, yeah, bring your notes, ethel Red, when you
recross the Mortal Veil in the meantime. Thank you so
much to our super producer and research associate for this episode,
mister Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Tawana Williams, who is
kicking it playing some amazing guitar. And well, maybe one day,

(38:50):
what do you think, Noel, maybe pop by an episode.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Are you kidding? How has that not happened yet?

Speaker 2 (38:54):
It must Hughes Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quister, A J. Bahamas,
Jacob's the Puzzler, Chris frosciotis Neive, Jeff cos Here It's parent.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Rachel Big Spinach Lance are rude dudes at ridiculous crime
and maybe we'll have a collab with them on the way. Thanks,
of course, to all the historians who took the time
from with one ulterior motivation or another to bestow these
monikers on honorifics and nicknames on figures of notes and Noel,

(39:28):
Thanks to you.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Hey, Thanks to you too, Buddy. We'll see you next time. Folks.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Ben Bowlin

Noel Brown

Noel Brown

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