September 1, 2020 • 42 mins
In the days before London found itself riddled with Rolodexes and Lamborghinis, the Crown controlled a now-obscure status symbol: the swan. Every single unmarked swan was the property of the Crown -- and woe betide those who touched a swan without express permission.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for
tuning in. We have a very special announcement today. We
are joined with a close friend of ours and friend
of the show. Welcome ours guest super producer Andrew A
how a k A cool guy Deluxe Howard. Andrew just
(00:49):
we'll keep this part in but usually uh, usually that
there's a sound cue after that that sounds cool. I
don't know, no, what do you think would be a
good sound cue? Something with snaps, sort of like something
from the Grease soundtrack, or like the beginning of West
Side Story? You know, do don't see us? Do? Do
you know? So? Yeah? See here Andrew snaps are the
(01:10):
sweet dulcet snaps of Andrew Howard. U a K A
swan swan hummingbird, Howard Hurrah a k A big tiens
uh a k A tiger foot. Let's just do an
episode where we just do a ks for Andrew. I
love it a k as for Andrew dot com. Uh,
(01:32):
do you know that's my favorite R I M song?
You guys? I think is swan Swan Hummingbird off of
Life's Switch pageant. I don't really know what it's about,
but it's it's it's a very nonsensical classic Michael Stipe lyric,
but yeah, it's the lyric is swan swan hummingbird? Hurrah,
We're all free now what noisy cats are we? Um?
You know? But it's not really about cats or swans
(01:53):
or hummingbirds. Um. There's a character named Johnny Red at
some point. But today's episode is about one of those things. Uh,
mainly the Swans. Yeah, yeah, you know. I I put
r E M some of their work in this beautiful,
rarefied musical era where lyrics could sound deep and profound
(02:15):
and they didn't have to make sense. Shout out to you,
Smashing Pumpkins right the fact. Gosh, Okay, before we quote
Smashing Pumpkins, I forgot to say, I'm Ben. Longtime listeners,
you know most of us from this show, and you
probably have heard of Swans because you are right, Noal,
today's episode is all about swans, but it's not about
(02:38):
all swans, and it's also not about the seminal noise
rock band Swans. And it concerns a queen, not Freddie
Mercury's queen, but the Queen of England and a river,
not all rivers, but the River Tims. Now I have
a brief anecdote here. Uh. Once in London, I had
(03:01):
the fortune to go to this restaurant that I always
dreamed of visiting, a place called St. John. It's famous
for serving things that would usually be thrown away, and
it's called traditional British cooking, but we're talking about stuff like,
you know, sweetbread's, tongue, brains, stuff like that. And that
is where for the first time I ate a grouse
(03:22):
and I realized that you can indeed eat many many birds.
Here in the US we mainly eat chicken right or duck.
Once a year bound by tradition, we eat turkey. But
back in the day, swan was not just a foul dish,
get it that everybody was familiar with, but eating it
(03:45):
was a mark of status for a very weird reason. Yes,
this is correct. It was a particularly weird reason, sort
of a weird historical flex that only the most fortunate
amongst the citizens of London town um were able to
eat swans. And that's because they actually had to pay
a vig to the monarchy in order to consume these
(04:09):
illustrious birds, which also, by the way, really cantankerous birds.
We have a friend and former colleagues got Benjamin who
has a very terrifying story about being dragged by a
swan into like a moat situation because it wanted his
ice cream cone as a kid, And that to me
(04:30):
is just like the stuff of nightmares. Swans are terrible
with you on that. Worse than geese, worse than which
is saying a lot. I was attacked by a swan
once in Dollywood, Uh, and it got my finger. And
it was terrified because I had not seen one up
close before, and I did not understand that when they're uh,
when they're honkers, their bills there terrifying mouthparts are open. Uh.
(04:54):
The inside of it looks like the inside of a nightmare.
It looks very love crafty. And it got my finger.
Swans suffer from a stereotype because in the West, we've
always heard the story of the ugly duckling that growed
us become a swan. So we all, for some reason
assume that they are as nice personality wise as they look,
(05:17):
and that could not be further from the truth. They're
real pills. M Yeah. The idea of like swans representing
elegance and daintiness and and um, what's the word grace,
you know, like swan lake and the whole balletic the
those a whole move. I think it must be originated
from swan, like the dying swan, which is sort of
it's cliche ballet move where you sort of, you know,
(05:40):
like crouched down slowly as as though you are a
dying swan. Fascinating stuff. The way we associate these absolute
demonic creatures with all these positive traits. You're right, then
the inside of their mouth it's like they're ringed with
weird rows of like Cathulu teeth or something like. It's
it's really unsettling. But now we're arry in the lead. Here.
(06:00):
We said it and then got distracted by the nightmare
that is a swan. But yeah. The Queen of the
United Kingdom, also known as the Head of the Commonwealth,
also known as the Defender of the Faith, also the
Commander in Chief of the British Armed Forces, Sovereign of
the Most Noble Order of the Garter, My God, Sovereign
of the most Ancient and most Noble Order of the Thistle. Um.
(06:24):
These are all titles bestowed upon Elizabeth the Second, the
Queen of England. Also another one, perhaps lesser known, is
the senior of the Swans. It's true this is something
that may be unfamiliar to a lot of our non
British listeners. We like how Arthur McGregor explains it in
(06:49):
an issue of anthropose Logica. It turned out that swans
in this part of the world, swans were the subject
of a big controversy debate who owns them, who breeds them,
who gets to eat them. British courts and town councils
had been arguing about this since the Middle Ages. By
(07:13):
thirteen sixty one the crown had appointed a royal swan herd,
and by fourteen sixty three there was a full time
swan moat, and commissioners were appointed there to hear entirely
swan related disputes. In my head that dick Wolf, if
you're still listening to the show, this is law and
(07:34):
order Swan Court, do right, like you can feel me
there on the brainstorming. But the there's a legend behind it.
There is a legend that a mute swan was introduced
to Britain by Richard the First In the twelfth century,
and that he brought swan's back with him from his
(07:55):
campaigns in the Crusades. Wait, like a swan that couldn't honk,
A honkless swan. That sounds okay, I'm not, I'm not,
I'm I don't. I'm here for that. Honestly, the honk
is part of the thing that squigs me out about him. Yeah,
just google swan tongues and be prepared. Uh, if you're
running low on some cosmic horror content. It's interesting. So
(08:19):
that was the legend people told each other about how
swans came to be, especially in the Thams. But today
ornithologists believe the swan was probably native to the country,
and archaeological evidence of these creatures dates as far back
as ten thousand years ago. So Richard the First may
have brought one honkless swan with him after the Crusades,
(08:43):
but they were already well established in the country beforehand.
Oh real quick, this could be off micro Maybe it's
not a mute swan. Is not a mute swan, it's
just the name of the species. It's called a mute swan.
Not let a ride, not a uncless to water at all.
Still quite noisy. Uh yeah, but that's that's the species
(09:04):
of swell. That's that's that's the type of swan you
would normally picture, you know, big fluffy winged bodies, swan
like neck and a big orange beak and uh you know,
I'm looking at images of swans, and you know, when
you you see them frozen like that, some of them
are like have their little necks intertwining. There is some
romantic qualities to this imagery, I get, but it definitely
(09:26):
doesn't match up to the reality of being chased by
a bloodthirsty swan. We're gonna let this stuff go and
tell the dang story, but I'm a little bit triggered
by this episode. I'm not gonna let it go. Even
if it wasn't hockey, that's not enough. I mean that
under let us not forget that, under that cute orange bill,
there is something that looks like an ancient creature from
(09:47):
the darkness between the stars. That tongue is unclean. Anyhow,
you're right, well, you're right, we should soldier on, we
should sail away. Sail away. Swans were luxury goods. We
know that from least the twelfth century onward. You really
wanted to flex on someone. In the days before a rolex,
you walked around with the squad and people were like,
(10:08):
WHOA V I P the It's actually been referred to
as the medieval equivalent of having a Rolex, or even
driving a Lamborghini or Lambeau for the cool, obnoxious people
in the crowd. If you owned a swan, people would
often just assume that you were of the noble class.
It was up there with running hounds or flying a hawk,
(10:32):
you know, maybe being a falconer. And the reason that
they were so such you know features at these big
banquets is because they literally were like a show piece
because they would include the skin and the feathers and
they would have like incense shoved in its horrible hellish
(10:55):
ma you know um, and it would be like a centerpiece.
Like we've talked about this. There's a really cool British
chef named Heston Blumenthal and he has a show called
Heston Blumenthal's Feast where he recreates crazy, elaborate, uh you know,
kind of showy dinners from different eras in history, and
I'm pretty sure he does some spin on this kind
(11:17):
of Christmas Swan dinner. But they would be served, uh,
two huge numbers of people. Um, and there would be
an equally equally huge number of swans, like forty swans.
I think we're ordered for Henry the Third's Christmas dinner. Uh.
And that was in twelve forty seven at Winchester Cathedral. Um.
So back to Elizabeth and Elizabeth. Elizabeth the first swan
(11:41):
was quite popular as a feast dish, especially when you
really went extra with it and stuffed it with like
nine other birds, which was the origination of what is
known today as the tur ducan. Uh. But this is
like that on a much more a laborate and grandiose
(12:01):
kind of scale. Right. Uh. It's like, oh, I guess,
so strange and macabre really, you know, like I did
nothing the thing apppetizing about that. Nothing advertising to me
about like a Russian nesting doll of dead roasted birds.
I'm into it. Yeah, yeah, I'll get down on a rushka.
You know. It's got a let's see, it's got a goose,
(12:22):
a duck, a mallard, a chicken, a peasant, a partridge,
a pigeon, and a woodcock. Uh. That's in descending order.
And I think that can feed thirty people. It's still
not in the class of the fabled stuffed camel, which
we might talk about in a weird aside in the
(12:43):
future episode. Hey, and if you if you get to
the woodcock and you get if you might find the prize.
There's a prize inside the wood cock. That's how you
know you that's that. Yeah, and then you're and then
you're crowned King of the party, bell of the ball.
But still the Queen. No, definitely not the queen, um yeah, none,
(13:04):
not yeah, she is the the original bay you know.
Um so yeah. And and it would be stuffed in
that ascending order, uh you know, seasons and and such,
and then cooked, um, and then it would be redressed
and again may it would it would be made to
look It's like taxidermy. It's a weird combination of like
taxidermy and uh and cheffery, which you can I keep
(13:27):
coming out of his word, but really maccabre like very
like just kind of it just doesn't nothing appetizing about this.
But again this is coming from somebody who I only
want to see a bird. If it doesn't look like
a bird anymore, it just looks like, you know, delicately
sliced chicken on my plate. But when you start introducing
the eyes and the beak and the neck, it really
turns me off from eating bird. There's an interesting thing here.
(13:55):
I was fascinated by medieval cuisine for a long time.
In the rarefied air of royal feast or feast held
by very well to do people, we would see this
tendency to prize presentation, sometimes over taste. There was this
whole fad of making one animal look or taste like
(14:17):
another animal. Kind of in a way, it's an alchemy
that is a that is a predecessor of the later
practice we call molecular gastronomy today with you know where
we have our pals like Richard Blaze pioneering all these
strange new techniques. But let's talk turkey. A matter of fact,
let's talk swan. How did they actually taste. The good
(14:40):
news here is that if you are someone like me
who feels that turkey is not to burn any bridges here,
turkey is a little overrated and it can be tough
to cook a hole when well, you will be perhaps
surprised to note that people who have eaten swans in
the past say they're pretty tasty. It's more more like
(15:02):
a duck than like a goose, Right, how do that?
I've had goose either, But I really love duck because
it's I don't know, I don't really care for the
word gaming. It's not appealing to me, but that people
do use that to describe it, and it tastes a
little more I don't know whild I guess even that's weird.
I'm trying to I'm trying to put a a metric
on what that means. Like dark meat, I think your
(15:24):
tastes a little more I don't know, like it's still
got blood in it or something like a little iron ere.
I don't know. I'm not doing a very good job here,
but yeah, like I think duck almost tastes more like
steak than it does like chicken or something like that.
That's that, That's what I'm gonna get. Yeah, So it
almost is like splitting the difference between like what the
U mommy, and the quality of like red meat might
(15:45):
be than what like purely white meat or chicken. You know,
every run of the mill meat might taste like somewhere
in between those two. Um, because it was there's some
interesting variants in some of the descriptions of eating swan
that comes from a Mental Floss article and a range
from tough to chewy to even a little fishy, which
is weird. I guess that makes sense because they are
(16:07):
water dwelling creatures that eat fish. Uh, then this is
a good one. The idea of it being tasting like
goose flavored venison, which is all about the texture, I
think venison really is. Uh again, it's not quite like
a steak. Venison is almost somewhere between like a chicken
and a steak. It's it's all about texture. But the
(16:28):
idea of it being goose flavored is interesting. It's the
gaming nature. Venison is commonly held in the West as
the number one example of something tasting quote unquote gaming.
It's just it might smell stronger, it may may have
a boulder flavor. So maybe they're saying that swan has this. Uh. Swan,
(16:50):
unlike duck, really pops in your mouth. I love things
that pop in my mouth. Uh. You ever had bibubba
tea with the popping Bubba's that they actually like? You
buy them and they like shoot out weird juice in
your mouth. I'm a fan that really weird some people out.
But no It's true. Um, I have had a venison burger,
but I don't know that I've actually eaten like a
(17:11):
like a big old cut of venison. But yeah, I
need to expand my meat horizons. But the thing about
the swan though, is it was more than just kind
of weird culinary flex It was like it was it
was very much entrenched in the British identity. You know.
It was something that was a point of pride and
(17:31):
something that even today, I mean people refer people from
Britain referred to going to see the swans all the time,
and it's like very much something that's wrapped up in
the identity of living in London, um, and you know,
as a country in the UK. In a fourteen nineties
six the Secretary of the Venetian Ambassador wrote of the
(17:53):
swans in London, they were truly a beautiful thing to behold,
one of two thousand tame swans upon the River Thames.
Then during Elizabeth the first reign uh a German lawyer
by the name of Paul hen Ser described all of
these swans as living quote in great security, nobody daring
(18:13):
to molest, much less kill any of them under penalty
of a large fine um. And this is from Smithsonian
mag article about the fast d any history of the
British thrones swans um. So what was the process, like, ben,
if you did want to eat one, because the whole
point of this episode, I think, is that they were
under the guard and care of the British crown. So
(18:36):
it's like, did you buy one and raise them yourself?
For like, I mean, surely the swans in the Thames
weren't up for grabs in that way. Right. Well, one
thing that human history has taught me, as well as
many of us listening today, is that human beings will
resort to the most ridiculous lengths to perpetrate a class system. Right,
(18:57):
we can't forget this is the same species that has
outlawed certain haircuts and certain colors based on socio economic status.
So swans were considered sort of the default property of
the monarchy. They were called royal foul. But the rules
started to uh evolve in the fourteen hundreds. At the
(19:19):
beginning of the fifteenth century, if you were wealthy enough,
you could buy the right to own, sell, and eat swans.
But to do this, first off, you had to be
a landowner. Secondly, you had to be pretty well off.
And third you had to buy something called a swan mark,
(19:41):
and you would carve this swan mark into the beaks
of your birds. Later, in fourteen a d two the
Crown made this like solid law. Only landowners of a
certain income can keep these birds. And this is funny
to me because one thing I've always found fascinating about
(20:03):
London is, uh, the sheer amount of taxation for various
things like there's a wind, there was a window tax.
I think there was a television tax. Uh, and this
was the swan tax. So really all you got for
paying this fee was the right to make this carving
or brand on your swan beaks. Uh. And if you
(20:25):
didn't do this, there would be consequences. It's funny because, uh,
it wasn't always the same mark, right, it was a
specific kind per like swan mark agreement. That's right. There
were actually hundreds of different types of swan marks, and
you can even find entire books dedicated to keeping track
(20:46):
of all of the various ones. And they would be
different symbols, almost like a family crest, right, you know
that you would think of or like a tartan or
whatever like in Scotland. Um, things like swords, their crossbows
or kind of you know, elaborate calligraphic kind of marketings
like heraldic symbols, and and then eventually it got a
little more simple and they just made them letters. But yeah,
(21:07):
every year something called a swan master, of which there
were many, um, but they were designated as like the
keepers of the swans would row on a boat out
through the open waters to determine the ownership of every
single mark on on these these swans beaks and make
sure that they knew who owned them and any of
(21:28):
the unmarked birds belonged to the crown. So this is
they totally answered my question, ben Uh. It definitely was
a super elaborate dare I say overly so process, um,
But only those who owned that right. That again was
a very convoluted set of criteria that went into your
(21:48):
ability to own that right. Um could own swans, and
they were very, very expensive. It's almost like think of
it as like buying like a like a taxi medallion
or something you know you were investing in a long term,
like because you know, if you had a swan, I
guess you could breathe this one or I don't know, like,
was it limited to just that one swan in the
life of that swan. Surely you could do with that
(22:10):
swan what what you wanted and use it to create
more swans. Yeah, you had to bring him, but you
had to be sure to markham back when they were
young swans or sicknets, because otherwise they automatically belong to
the monarchy. It's weird. So much legal work went into this,
like local councils would have swan collectors that would round
(22:32):
up wild swans. Adam two flocks already talked about law
and order swancourt Doom Doommom Doom, doom, doom hawk. Uh. There.
There's a really fascinating thing in fifteen seventy called the
Audor of Swans. It's a legal document that sort of
articulates the rules relating to these birds specifically, and it
(22:56):
shows us just how high the finds were for people
who were who were flouting the law. They said, if
any person do raise out counterfeit or or to the
mop of any swan, they shot a sappha one years
and prison months. And this is where I don't know
about you guys. This is where I learned about a
crime I had never heard of. If you commit swantage,
(23:20):
that is killing swantage, if you kill an adult swan,
or if you even steal the eggs, then you will
also be punished with a very harsh sentence, likely imprisonment,
because we have to remember, you know, many people over
history at this point might be killing adult birds because
they had to feed their family, or stealing eggs for
the same reason. That's exactly right. That's the kind of
(23:42):
thing that you hear about in like fairy tales, you know,
where the father of the poverty stricken family steals a
single egg from the queen's you know, uh flock or
whatever and then gets cursed by an evil witch or
something like that. But this this was a little bit
more grounded. Where you were prison and there was a
thing called, I love this term, a swan's moot that
(24:05):
was an event that would be convened in order to
deal with various issues that would arise in terms of
swan ownership. So it really was like a whole subsystem
of of legal mumbo jumbo that went into this whole
idea of swan ownership. Um. It's fascinating. And there were
(24:26):
a couple of exceptions though, to which lower class people
might have access to swans. Because of the whole system
being designed, you know, for the the super wealthy, oftentimes
the barrier to hustry for swan ownership just wasn't reachable
for the lower class. If you weren't an officially recognized
(24:48):
swan mark bearer, then it was forbidden to eat, to
sell swans, or to breathe swans. Like. It wasn't just
like the swans in the Thames. It was the idea
of swans right, like as an animal, which is that's crazy, Like,
that's not something that we have any equivalent for. I
don't believe. Well, I mean maybe it was certain exotic
animals that are like not technically right, that's right, that's yeah,
(25:12):
maybe so, but that but that more has to do
with the fact that those are endangered and there's conservation,
which we will get to on this issue as well
in a little bit. But um, yeah, it's true. If
you weren't an officially recognized swan keeper, you weren't allowed
to sell them, you couldn't hunt them, uh, and you
certainly couldn't eat them, and and god forbid, you'd try
(25:32):
to steal one or kill one that was actually in
the Thames. Uh, you would be quick, work would be
made of you, my friend, my historical friend. But there
was an exception made for certain more Let's say, you
know blue collar workers, um uh, winemakers and dyers literally
folks who died clothing and things. Uh, there were these
(25:54):
kind of guilds that were given a pass two participate
aiden swan ownership. And can you unpack this a little
bit for us? It's really interesting and in a little
bit complicated. Yeah, so this is a This is another
one of my favorite historical aspects of London. Inside London,
(26:14):
there's something called the City of London. They're different. The
City of London has these powerful historical organizations called livery companies.
They're usually styled the Worshipable Company of insert here, so
like the worshipble Company of dyers or the Worshipable Company
Inventors or so on. They've had this really strange relationship
(26:39):
with the monarchy that over the centuries has become defined
by tradition and numerous exceptions to the rules of the day.
So the act of the monarchy to exempt the inventors
and dyers to essentially allow them to have swans without
going to jail is one more example of the carrot
(27:00):
and the carrot and stick approach that the monarchy used
to work with the trade guilds. Because we have to
remember this is while the mercantile classes on the rise,
you know what I mean. You can be wealthy and
you don't automatically have to be a duchess or a
king or a queen. So we don't know exactly why
(27:22):
they were granted this exemption, but we we can safely
assume it was meant to strengthen that working relationship, and
then over time other people got involved. The Ilchester family
is the third exception. They're one of the only three
entities who have a right to the Swans, the Dyers,
(27:45):
the Venors, and the Ilchesters. I would imagine, if we're
just wildly speculating and making things up, that maybe the
Dyers were giving them a royal discount on fancy clothes.
And I think getting in good with the Ventors speaks
for itself, because who doesn't like to knock a few
(28:06):
back when you're running merry Old England. As for the
Ilchester family, that maybe a story for another day. Eventually,
swan kind of transition to this traditional food right. It
wasn't swan. It's not just for feast anymore. But it
(28:27):
became part of Christmas celebrations, you know, goose or swan,
it did. And I really like this notion of a
status meat. I just have to say, I guess maybe
what today would be a status meat like filet mignon.
You know, is there like an expensive cut of like
rack of lamb or something like that, it would be
a status meat. Or the law tiger tongues well endangered species.
(28:50):
I don't think I don't think we should eat them,
but shark fin soup the cruelest status meat of them all.
A how on the k how I'll take it, Okay,
we'll do it. Um Our kobe beef, you know, something
that's like a very raised in a very specific way,
(29:11):
very rarefied conditions, fed with a certain type of grain
or what have you. Um, that would be maybe today's
equivalent of status meat. Veal caviare totally and they're all
quite pricey. Uh. And you know, swan was sort of
like it has seen its day in the sun as
as as a status meat of the time. Um, it
(29:31):
was still a delicacy and used as part of Christmas
celebrations up until the eighteenth century. Um, but it was
still only legal to kill and eat one if you
had that swan mark, and so did kind of remain
a luxury good into the Victorian period, when it sort
of became a little less cool. Um. You know how
(29:51):
fashions are, they're they're very fleeting at times. And now
this one, this one stuck around for a pretty pretty
pretty good amount of time considering how most trends are. Um.
But by the twentieth century, it really wasn't eaten. And
the whole idea of swan marks still stuck around, but
more as like a almost like a tradition. And then
(30:12):
it stopped. So I sort of started being red flagged
by a lot of like organizations that look at animal
cruelty and said that it wasn't cool to scratch letters
into the the beak of the swans, because you know,
I think those are sort of bony. But I bet
it wasn't a pleasant experience, right, No, No, I don't
think the swans themselves would have voted for it, had
(30:34):
they had the swan vote, But you're right. The decline
of this practice was also pretty slow. In this might
surprise some people to know that animal rights activists in
the late eighteen hundreds were the driving force behind the
end of the swan markings. They said it constituted unnecessary suffering,
(30:55):
and so eventually Queen Alexandra was married to King Edward
the Seven and stopped the royal birds at least from
being marked. But it was not until nineteen that the
law was changed such that it was no longer an
active treason to eat a swan in the UK, unless
(31:16):
you know you had your paperwork and your swan mark
and so on. As a native species, mute swans are
still under legal protection, though it's not just the Queens
give me all them impulse anymore. Though now swans are
protected as wild birds under the Wildlife and Countryside Act
of one, which means and even now in it is
(31:39):
illegal to kill or keep swans, you can still technically
be guilty of swantage. Oh how far we've come. Oh,
and this is the weirdest part. No, maybe you can
help me with this. Who still owns all the swans?
I think the Queens still owns every unmarked mute swan.
(32:04):
And that's exactly right. And here's the thing, though, there
is and this is a tradition, and this is something
that like, you know, the Brits are all about tradition.
I think it was off Mike. We were talking about
like things like funny hats that happened for very specific
purposes or to to indicate different levels of education or
progression through you know, a military unit or whatever. That
(32:25):
then just kind of stick around, you know, and they
stop being a functional thing and they more become like
about pageantry or more. Is like revering the legacy of
a thing that maybe meant something specific a long time ago,
but now has no real place in modern society. But
you stick around and you keep wearing those funny hats
or whatever. Uh. There's a thing that still is going
on today called swan upping, uh that that involves funny hats,
(32:50):
which I enjoy. There's sort of like, uh almost look
like like a like a paper sailboat you might drop
in the Thames, but but in hat form um. So
this is something that's been happening for a nine years. Um.
We we may be alluded to it a little bit
earlier about the idea of the swan masters who would
check the marks and uh, you know kind of do
account and make sure that you know, they claimed all
(33:11):
of the unmarked swans. Um. That is called swan upping.
And so they roll out now as part of this
like carrying on this tradition. Um. They've been doing this
for nine years. These men row up and down the
Thames looking to mark, check and count the swans. And
actually you can see a great video of it on
YouTube you type in swan uping. Uh. They weigh them.
(33:34):
They actually lift them out by hand of the water
and weigh them on a scale. Um and and and
you know, keep a ledger of like all of the
swans in the Thames. Um. And in some you know,
sad yet unsurprising news, this year's swan upping ceremony will
not be taking place. Uh. It dates back to the
twelfth century. And I believe this maybe the first swan
(33:57):
upping ceremony that's been cant old because of the pandemic. Yeah,
because of the pandemic. Right, I'm not aware whether or
not it was canceled at some point during World War
two or other times of great turmoil. Nowadays, it still
exists because that tradition is very useful. It's a conservation tool.
It's a predecessor of the operations that conservationists take around
(34:22):
the world, you know, tagging and monitoring populations of wild animals.
Technically now all on marked swans on open water belong
to the Queen, but the Queen only exercises this ownership
right on this one stretch of the Thims. And when
(34:44):
killing swans was outlawed in the nineteen eighties, the population
of England was shrinking, and a lot of people nowadays
believe that the Queen is the only person allowed to
eat mute swans. Here's a bit of weird British plot
twist or ree for you. That's not exactly correct, but
it is maybe correct in practice, because remember, the Queen
(35:07):
of England is considered immune from prosecution. So she woke
up one day and said, I just want to eat
swans forever legally no one could really stop her. It's uh,
it's it's good to be at the top, I guess,
And hey, you might be asking yourself, I don't live
in the UK, I really want to eat a swan?
(35:27):
How do I? How do I? How do I go
about this? Um? It is a thing. It's sort of
like an exotic meats, like pigeon or emu, or like
Ostrich And you see these here and there certain types
of restaurants that would specialize in kind of more game
type meets, but you still aren't gonna see swan on
(35:49):
the menu. And there's a reason for that. It is
technically in the United States legal to hunt and kill
swans if you have the appropriate permit. I don't know
how that would go. Where there Where are their wild
swans in the US? I'm not sure, but nobody really
does it, and nobody well, if they do, they might
do it for uh trophy purposes right for But even
(36:12):
that already? Can you sense where I'm going with this
kind of weirds people out? It was sort of be
the equivalent of like hunting puppies, you know. And I
don't know why, considering what we've said about the nightmare
fuel that is swan, I feel like they should all
be hunted down and eliminated personally. Um, that's a hot take.
That's a hot take. I'm only half serious, um, three
(36:34):
quarters serious. But um, it's because of something called the
meat paradox um. And there's actually a really cool article
on the outline that talks about why don't we eat swans?
Knowing that we eat things like turkey and goose and
even rabbit. We talked about this actually with Casey on
a previous episode about where do we draw the line? Um,
(36:57):
And this is a thing, it's called the meat paradox,
And this is the mind's way of kind of coping
with this disfluency over like, you know, what animals are
okay to eat? What animals do we associate more es
sentience and intelligence with. And it's also kind of it
doesn't always work out because, as we talked about with Casey,
pigs are very intelligent, but yet we have no problem
(37:20):
with eating them. They're also kind of cute, even though
they roll around in their own filth. People would uh,
people would eat anything though. I mean, that's why starvation
cannibalism exists exactly. But for some reason, swans fit squarely
within that no no zone of the meat paradox. Go figure, Yeah,
this is interesting. So you can catch uh, you can
(37:42):
catch us swans? Can you can buy swans in the
US Many people do, but it's more of an ornamental thing.
You can go to any number of institutions and they'll
just have swans hanging out. They fell out of favor
as food, uh, partially there's sort of a positive feedback loop.
Part of the reason they fell out of favor as
(38:02):
food is because if you are manufacturing swans for consumption,
you have to compete with the huge economic scale of
other mainstream meat manufacturers and other well we would call
them exotic meat manufacturers, you know, squab, quail, pigeon, etcetera.
And I'm having a little bit of a hard time
(38:23):
finding if this is entirely true, because there's some folks
saying that it's sort of a myth. But there is
this notion that swans mate for life. Um, and that's
another reason that I think folks are differentiating them from
other creatures, because there's this notion. There's even a quote
in that article that we were talking about. Uh, the
image of a lonely swan searching fruitlessly for its butchered
(38:46):
partner would surely make even the most obnoxious bacon is
my personality meat bro think twice. So we can say that,
uh presentation aside, it's probably not going to change your
life to eat a swan. You don't. You don't have
to uh to enjoy them. You can just see these
lovely creatures lovely from far away. The same way that
(39:09):
maybe a bonfire looks lovely far away, you can enjoy
it from a distance, but we don't recommend hanging out
with them in person. If you are the caretaker of
some swans, we'd love to hear from you. Have you
ever eaten swan? Have you have you tried it? How
would you cook it? I found a great recipe, a
couple of great recipes, but I myself have not made swan.
(39:33):
You can find us on the internet in places. Um,
we've got Instagram and and you know, Facebook and all that.
For ridiculous history. Our recommendation, as you know, is typically
to join the Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, where you can
share memes about swans and they're horrible hell scape of
a mouth and tongue situation. There's definitely some of those
(39:56):
out there. Uh. If you want to trigger me with
other bird pictures and stories or p bend with pictures
of metal, you can do that there too, And we do.
We do kind of creep through the group from agree
to this. Well, Uh, okay, you know do what that will,
is what I say. Um, and let the chips fall
where they may. Yeah, you can find that on Facebook.
(40:16):
You can also find us as individual human people. I'm
pretty much only on Instagram and I am at how
Now Noel Brown. There. You can see me encountering very
strange foods actually on my Instagram at Ben Bolland. You
can also find me on Twitter where I'm at Ben Bolland.
H s W. Thanks again to our fantastic guest super
(40:38):
producer Andrew A how a k A Cool GUYE Deluxe
Howard a k a uh Swan Master a k A.
Mr magic Our. Thanks so much for joining us today. Andrew,
thanks for having me. Great to be here. I hope
you mean it because I think you're recording another episode
with us, So thanks as well as always to Alex Willams,
(41:00):
who composed this slapping Bob you here at the beginning
and end of every episode thanks to the quister. Hey,
and speaking of the slapping Bob, or as I like
to refer to it as the Bop and slap Um,
you have any Ben Trepid remixers out there, sample that business,
send it back to us. Alex would be tickled, you know,
do do a remix of the ridiculous history theme. That
(41:21):
would be a lot of fun. Homework assignment to any
musicians or home bedroom recording artists out there. Um, you know,
you know not not not not not mandatory, but it'd
be fun to hear. Um. Yeah, Jonathan Strickland, that devious,
notorious quister who I believe will be zoom bombing us
again very soon. Um. Thanks to the Gabe Louisier um
who is our intrepid research associate. Um. And thanks to
(41:47):
christophrostiotis here in spirit. Shout out to Swan Songs and
of course, as I always like to say in these episodes,
who are number one fan the Queen of England. Thanks
for tuning in. We'll see you next time, folks. M
(42:08):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for
tuning in. We have a very special announcement today. We
are joined with a close friend of ours and friend
of the show. Welcome ours guest super producer Andrew A
how a k A cool guy Deluxe Howard. Andrew just
(00:49):
we'll keep this part in but usually uh, usually that
there's a sound cue after that that sounds cool. I
don't know, no, what do you think would be a
good sound cue? Something with snaps, sort of like something
from the Grease soundtrack, or like the beginning of West
Side Story? You know, do don't see us? Do? Do
you know? So? Yeah? See here Andrew snaps are the
(01:10):
sweet dulcet snaps of Andrew Howard. U a K A
swan swan hummingbird, Howard Hurrah a k A big tiens
uh a k A tiger foot. Let's just do an
episode where we just do a ks for Andrew. I
love it a k as for Andrew dot com. Uh,
(01:32):
do you know that's my favorite R I M song?
You guys? I think is swan Swan Hummingbird off of
Life's Switch pageant. I don't really know what it's about,
but it's it's it's a very nonsensical classic Michael Stipe lyric,
but yeah, it's the lyric is swan swan hummingbird? Hurrah,
We're all free now what noisy cats are we? Um?
You know? But it's not really about cats or swans
(01:53):
or hummingbirds. Um. There's a character named Johnny Red at
some point. But today's episode is about one of those things. Uh,
mainly the Swans. Yeah, yeah, you know. I I put
r E M some of their work in this beautiful,
rarefied musical era where lyrics could sound deep and profound
(02:15):
and they didn't have to make sense. Shout out to you,
Smashing Pumpkins right the fact. Gosh, Okay, before we quote
Smashing Pumpkins, I forgot to say, I'm Ben. Longtime listeners,
you know most of us from this show, and you
probably have heard of Swans because you are right, Noal,
today's episode is all about swans, but it's not about
(02:38):
all swans, and it's also not about the seminal noise
rock band Swans. And it concerns a queen, not Freddie
Mercury's queen, but the Queen of England and a river,
not all rivers, but the River Tims. Now I have
a brief anecdote here. Uh. Once in London, I had
(03:01):
the fortune to go to this restaurant that I always
dreamed of visiting, a place called St. John. It's famous
for serving things that would usually be thrown away, and
it's called traditional British cooking, but we're talking about stuff like,
you know, sweetbread's, tongue, brains, stuff like that. And that
is where for the first time I ate a grouse
(03:22):
and I realized that you can indeed eat many many birds.
Here in the US we mainly eat chicken right or duck.
Once a year bound by tradition, we eat turkey. But
back in the day, swan was not just a foul dish,
get it that everybody was familiar with, but eating it
(03:45):
was a mark of status for a very weird reason. Yes,
this is correct. It was a particularly weird reason, sort
of a weird historical flex that only the most fortunate
amongst the citizens of London town um were able to
eat swans. And that's because they actually had to pay
a vig to the monarchy in order to consume these
(04:09):
illustrious birds, which also, by the way, really cantankerous birds.
We have a friend and former colleagues got Benjamin who
has a very terrifying story about being dragged by a
swan into like a moat situation because it wanted his
ice cream cone as a kid, And that to me
(04:30):
is just like the stuff of nightmares. Swans are terrible
with you on that. Worse than geese, worse than which
is saying a lot. I was attacked by a swan
once in Dollywood, Uh, and it got my finger. And
it was terrified because I had not seen one up
close before, and I did not understand that when they're uh,
when they're honkers, their bills there terrifying mouthparts are open. Uh.
(04:54):
The inside of it looks like the inside of a nightmare.
It looks very love crafty. And it got my finger.
Swans suffer from a stereotype because in the West, we've
always heard the story of the ugly duckling that growed
us become a swan. So we all, for some reason
assume that they are as nice personality wise as they look,
(05:17):
and that could not be further from the truth. They're
real pills. M Yeah. The idea of like swans representing
elegance and daintiness and and um, what's the word grace,
you know, like swan lake and the whole balletic the
those a whole move. I think it must be originated
from swan, like the dying swan, which is sort of
it's cliche ballet move where you sort of, you know,
(05:40):
like crouched down slowly as as though you are a
dying swan. Fascinating stuff. The way we associate these absolute
demonic creatures with all these positive traits. You're right, then
the inside of their mouth it's like they're ringed with
weird rows of like Cathulu teeth or something like. It's
it's really unsettling. But now we're arry in the lead. Here.
(06:00):
We said it and then got distracted by the nightmare
that is a swan. But yeah. The Queen of the
United Kingdom, also known as the Head of the Commonwealth,
also known as the Defender of the Faith, also the
Commander in Chief of the British Armed Forces, Sovereign of
the Most Noble Order of the Garter, My God, Sovereign
of the most Ancient and most Noble Order of the Thistle. Um.
(06:24):
These are all titles bestowed upon Elizabeth the Second, the
Queen of England. Also another one, perhaps lesser known, is
the senior of the Swans. It's true this is something
that may be unfamiliar to a lot of our non
British listeners. We like how Arthur McGregor explains it in
(06:49):
an issue of anthropose Logica. It turned out that swans
in this part of the world, swans were the subject
of a big controversy debate who owns them, who breeds them,
who gets to eat them. British courts and town councils
had been arguing about this since the Middle Ages. By
(07:13):
thirteen sixty one the crown had appointed a royal swan herd,
and by fourteen sixty three there was a full time
swan moat, and commissioners were appointed there to hear entirely
swan related disputes. In my head that dick Wolf, if
you're still listening to the show, this is law and
(07:34):
order Swan Court, do right, like you can feel me
there on the brainstorming. But the there's a legend behind it.
There is a legend that a mute swan was introduced
to Britain by Richard the First In the twelfth century,
and that he brought swan's back with him from his
(07:55):
campaigns in the Crusades. Wait, like a swan that couldn't honk,
A honkless swan. That sounds okay, I'm not, I'm not,
I'm I don't. I'm here for that. Honestly, the honk
is part of the thing that squigs me out about him. Yeah,
just google swan tongues and be prepared. Uh, if you're
running low on some cosmic horror content. It's interesting. So
(08:19):
that was the legend people told each other about how
swans came to be, especially in the Thams. But today
ornithologists believe the swan was probably native to the country,
and archaeological evidence of these creatures dates as far back
as ten thousand years ago. So Richard the First may
have brought one honkless swan with him after the Crusades,
(08:43):
but they were already well established in the country beforehand.
Oh real quick, this could be off micro Maybe it's
not a mute swan. Is not a mute swan, it's
just the name of the species. It's called a mute swan.
Not let a ride, not a uncless to water at all.
Still quite noisy. Uh yeah, but that's that's the species
(09:04):
of swell. That's that's that's the type of swan you
would normally picture, you know, big fluffy winged bodies, swan
like neck and a big orange beak and uh you know,
I'm looking at images of swans, and you know, when
you you see them frozen like that, some of them
are like have their little necks intertwining. There is some
romantic qualities to this imagery, I get, but it definitely
(09:26):
doesn't match up to the reality of being chased by
a bloodthirsty swan. We're gonna let this stuff go and
tell the dang story, but I'm a little bit triggered
by this episode. I'm not gonna let it go. Even
if it wasn't hockey, that's not enough. I mean that
under let us not forget that, under that cute orange bill,
there is something that looks like an ancient creature from
(09:47):
the darkness between the stars. That tongue is unclean. Anyhow,
you're right, well, you're right, we should soldier on, we
should sail away. Sail away. Swans were luxury goods. We
know that from least the twelfth century onward. You really
wanted to flex on someone. In the days before a rolex,
you walked around with the squad and people were like,
(10:08):
WHOA V I P the It's actually been referred to
as the medieval equivalent of having a Rolex, or even
driving a Lamborghini or Lambeau for the cool, obnoxious people
in the crowd. If you owned a swan, people would
often just assume that you were of the noble class.
It was up there with running hounds or flying a hawk,
(10:32):
you know, maybe being a falconer. And the reason that
they were so such you know features at these big
banquets is because they literally were like a show piece
because they would include the skin and the feathers and
they would have like incense shoved in its horrible hellish
(10:55):
ma you know um, and it would be like a centerpiece.
Like we've talked about this. There's a really cool British
chef named Heston Blumenthal and he has a show called
Heston Blumenthal's Feast where he recreates crazy, elaborate, uh you know,
kind of showy dinners from different eras in history, and
I'm pretty sure he does some spin on this kind
(11:17):
of Christmas Swan dinner. But they would be served, uh,
two huge numbers of people. Um, and there would be
an equally equally huge number of swans, like forty swans.
I think we're ordered for Henry the Third's Christmas dinner. Uh.
And that was in twelve forty seven at Winchester Cathedral. Um.
So back to Elizabeth and Elizabeth. Elizabeth the first swan
(11:41):
was quite popular as a feast dish, especially when you
really went extra with it and stuffed it with like
nine other birds, which was the origination of what is
known today as the tur ducan. Uh. But this is
like that on a much more a laborate and grandiose
(12:01):
kind of scale. Right. Uh. It's like, oh, I guess,
so strange and macabre really, you know, like I did
nothing the thing apppetizing about that. Nothing advertising to me
about like a Russian nesting doll of dead roasted birds.
I'm into it. Yeah, yeah, I'll get down on a rushka.
You know. It's got a let's see, it's got a goose,
(12:22):
a duck, a mallard, a chicken, a peasant, a partridge,
a pigeon, and a woodcock. Uh. That's in descending order.
And I think that can feed thirty people. It's still
not in the class of the fabled stuffed camel, which
we might talk about in a weird aside in the
(12:43):
future episode. Hey, and if you if you get to
the woodcock and you get if you might find the prize.
There's a prize inside the wood cock. That's how you
know you that's that. Yeah, and then you're and then
you're crowned King of the party, bell of the ball.
But still the Queen. No, definitely not the queen, um yeah, none,
(13:04):
not yeah, she is the the original bay you know.
Um so yeah. And and it would be stuffed in
that ascending order, uh you know, seasons and and such,
and then cooked, um, and then it would be redressed
and again may it would it would be made to
look It's like taxidermy. It's a weird combination of like
taxidermy and uh and cheffery, which you can I keep
(13:27):
coming out of his word, but really maccabre like very
like just kind of it just doesn't nothing appetizing about this.
But again this is coming from somebody who I only
want to see a bird. If it doesn't look like
a bird anymore, it just looks like, you know, delicately
sliced chicken on my plate. But when you start introducing
the eyes and the beak and the neck, it really
turns me off from eating bird. There's an interesting thing here.
(13:55):
I was fascinated by medieval cuisine for a long time.
In the rarefied air of royal feast or feast held
by very well to do people, we would see this
tendency to prize presentation, sometimes over taste. There was this
whole fad of making one animal look or taste like
(14:17):
another animal. Kind of in a way, it's an alchemy
that is a that is a predecessor of the later
practice we call molecular gastronomy today with you know where
we have our pals like Richard Blaze pioneering all these
strange new techniques. But let's talk turkey. A matter of fact,
let's talk swan. How did they actually taste. The good
(14:40):
news here is that if you are someone like me
who feels that turkey is not to burn any bridges here,
turkey is a little overrated and it can be tough
to cook a hole when well, you will be perhaps
surprised to note that people who have eaten swans in
the past say they're pretty tasty. It's more more like
(15:02):
a duck than like a goose, Right, how do that?
I've had goose either, But I really love duck because
it's I don't know, I don't really care for the
word gaming. It's not appealing to me, but that people
do use that to describe it, and it tastes a
little more I don't know whild I guess even that's weird.
I'm trying to I'm trying to put a a metric
on what that means. Like dark meat, I think your
(15:24):
tastes a little more I don't know, like it's still
got blood in it or something like a little iron ere.
I don't know. I'm not doing a very good job here,
but yeah, like I think duck almost tastes more like
steak than it does like chicken or something like that.
That's that, That's what I'm gonna get. Yeah, So it
almost is like splitting the difference between like what the
U mommy, and the quality of like red meat might
(15:45):
be than what like purely white meat or chicken. You know,
every run of the mill meat might taste like somewhere
in between those two. Um, because it was there's some
interesting variants in some of the descriptions of eating swan
that comes from a Mental Floss article and a range
from tough to chewy to even a little fishy, which
is weird. I guess that makes sense because they are
(16:07):
water dwelling creatures that eat fish. Uh, then this is
a good one. The idea of it being tasting like
goose flavored venison, which is all about the texture, I
think venison really is. Uh again, it's not quite like
a steak. Venison is almost somewhere between like a chicken
and a steak. It's it's all about texture. But the
(16:28):
idea of it being goose flavored is interesting. It's the
gaming nature. Venison is commonly held in the West as
the number one example of something tasting quote unquote gaming.
It's just it might smell stronger, it may may have
a boulder flavor. So maybe they're saying that swan has this. Uh. Swan,
(16:50):
unlike duck, really pops in your mouth. I love things
that pop in my mouth. Uh. You ever had bibubba
tea with the popping Bubba's that they actually like? You
buy them and they like shoot out weird juice in
your mouth. I'm a fan that really weird some people out.
But no It's true. Um, I have had a venison burger,
but I don't know that I've actually eaten like a
(17:11):
like a big old cut of venison. But yeah, I
need to expand my meat horizons. But the thing about
the swan though, is it was more than just kind
of weird culinary flex It was like it was it
was very much entrenched in the British identity. You know.
It was something that was a point of pride and
(17:31):
something that even today, I mean people refer people from
Britain referred to going to see the swans all the time,
and it's like very much something that's wrapped up in
the identity of living in London, um, and you know,
as a country in the UK. In a fourteen nineties
six the Secretary of the Venetian Ambassador wrote of the
(17:53):
swans in London, they were truly a beautiful thing to behold,
one of two thousand tame swans upon the River Thames.
Then during Elizabeth the first reign uh a German lawyer
by the name of Paul hen Ser described all of
these swans as living quote in great security, nobody daring
(18:13):
to molest, much less kill any of them under penalty
of a large fine um. And this is from Smithsonian
mag article about the fast d any history of the
British thrones swans um. So what was the process, like, ben,
if you did want to eat one, because the whole
point of this episode, I think, is that they were
under the guard and care of the British crown. So
(18:36):
it's like, did you buy one and raise them yourself?
For like, I mean, surely the swans in the Thames
weren't up for grabs in that way. Right. Well, one
thing that human history has taught me, as well as
many of us listening today, is that human beings will
resort to the most ridiculous lengths to perpetrate a class system. Right,
(18:57):
we can't forget this is the same species that has
outlawed certain haircuts and certain colors based on socio economic status.
So swans were considered sort of the default property of
the monarchy. They were called royal foul. But the rules
started to uh evolve in the fourteen hundreds. At the
(19:19):
beginning of the fifteenth century, if you were wealthy enough,
you could buy the right to own, sell, and eat swans.
But to do this, first off, you had to be
a landowner. Secondly, you had to be pretty well off.
And third you had to buy something called a swan mark,
(19:41):
and you would carve this swan mark into the beaks
of your birds. Later, in fourteen a d two the
Crown made this like solid law. Only landowners of a
certain income can keep these birds. And this is funny
to me because one thing I've always found fascinating about
(20:03):
London is, uh, the sheer amount of taxation for various
things like there's a wind, there was a window tax.
I think there was a television tax. Uh, and this
was the swan tax. So really all you got for
paying this fee was the right to make this carving
or brand on your swan beaks. Uh. And if you
(20:25):
didn't do this, there would be consequences. It's funny because, uh,
it wasn't always the same mark, right, it was a
specific kind per like swan mark agreement. That's right. There
were actually hundreds of different types of swan marks, and
you can even find entire books dedicated to keeping track
(20:46):
of all of the various ones. And they would be
different symbols, almost like a family crest, right, you know
that you would think of or like a tartan or
whatever like in Scotland. Um, things like swords, their crossbows
or kind of you know, elaborate calligraphic kind of marketings
like heraldic symbols, and and then eventually it got a
little more simple and they just made them letters. But yeah,
(21:07):
every year something called a swan master, of which there
were many, um, but they were designated as like the
keepers of the swans would row on a boat out
through the open waters to determine the ownership of every
single mark on on these these swans beaks and make
sure that they knew who owned them and any of
(21:28):
the unmarked birds belonged to the crown. So this is
they totally answered my question, ben Uh. It definitely was
a super elaborate dare I say overly so process, um,
But only those who owned that right. That again was
a very convoluted set of criteria that went into your
(21:48):
ability to own that right. Um could own swans, and
they were very, very expensive. It's almost like think of
it as like buying like a like a taxi medallion
or something you know you were investing in a long term,
like because you know, if you had a swan, I
guess you could breathe this one or I don't know, like,
was it limited to just that one swan in the
life of that swan. Surely you could do with that
(22:10):
swan what what you wanted and use it to create
more swans. Yeah, you had to bring him, but you
had to be sure to markham back when they were
young swans or sicknets, because otherwise they automatically belong to
the monarchy. It's weird. So much legal work went into this,
like local councils would have swan collectors that would round
(22:32):
up wild swans. Adam two flocks already talked about law
and order swancourt Doom Doommom Doom, doom, doom hawk. Uh. There.
There's a really fascinating thing in fifteen seventy called the
Audor of Swans. It's a legal document that sort of
articulates the rules relating to these birds specifically, and it
(22:56):
shows us just how high the finds were for people
who were who were flouting the law. They said, if
any person do raise out counterfeit or or to the
mop of any swan, they shot a sappha one years
and prison months. And this is where I don't know
about you guys. This is where I learned about a
crime I had never heard of. If you commit swantage,
(23:20):
that is killing swantage, if you kill an adult swan,
or if you even steal the eggs, then you will
also be punished with a very harsh sentence, likely imprisonment,
because we have to remember, you know, many people over
history at this point might be killing adult birds because
they had to feed their family, or stealing eggs for
the same reason. That's exactly right. That's the kind of
(23:42):
thing that you hear about in like fairy tales, you know,
where the father of the poverty stricken family steals a
single egg from the queen's you know, uh flock or
whatever and then gets cursed by an evil witch or
something like that. But this this was a little bit
more grounded. Where you were prison and there was a
thing called, I love this term, a swan's moot that
(24:05):
was an event that would be convened in order to
deal with various issues that would arise in terms of
swan ownership. So it really was like a whole subsystem
of of legal mumbo jumbo that went into this whole
idea of swan ownership. Um. It's fascinating. And there were
(24:26):
a couple of exceptions though, to which lower class people
might have access to swans. Because of the whole system
being designed, you know, for the the super wealthy, oftentimes
the barrier to hustry for swan ownership just wasn't reachable
for the lower class. If you weren't an officially recognized
(24:48):
swan mark bearer, then it was forbidden to eat, to
sell swans, or to breathe swans. Like. It wasn't just
like the swans in the Thames. It was the idea
of swans right, like as an animal, which is that's crazy, Like,
that's not something that we have any equivalent for. I
don't believe. Well, I mean maybe it was certain exotic
animals that are like not technically right, that's right, that's yeah,
(25:12):
maybe so, but that but that more has to do
with the fact that those are endangered and there's conservation,
which we will get to on this issue as well
in a little bit. But um, yeah, it's true. If
you weren't an officially recognized swan keeper, you weren't allowed
to sell them, you couldn't hunt them, uh, and you
certainly couldn't eat them, and and god forbid, you'd try
(25:32):
to steal one or kill one that was actually in
the Thames. Uh, you would be quick, work would be
made of you, my friend, my historical friend. But there
was an exception made for certain more Let's say, you
know blue collar workers, um uh, winemakers and dyers literally
folks who died clothing and things. Uh, there were these
(25:54):
kind of guilds that were given a pass two participate
aiden swan ownership. And can you unpack this a little
bit for us? It's really interesting and in a little
bit complicated. Yeah, so this is a This is another
one of my favorite historical aspects of London. Inside London,
(26:14):
there's something called the City of London. They're different. The
City of London has these powerful historical organizations called livery companies.
They're usually styled the Worshipable Company of insert here, so
like the worshipble Company of dyers or the Worshipable Company
Inventors or so on. They've had this really strange relationship
(26:39):
with the monarchy that over the centuries has become defined
by tradition and numerous exceptions to the rules of the day.
So the act of the monarchy to exempt the inventors
and dyers to essentially allow them to have swans without
going to jail is one more example of the carrot
(27:00):
and the carrot and stick approach that the monarchy used
to work with the trade guilds. Because we have to
remember this is while the mercantile classes on the rise,
you know what I mean. You can be wealthy and
you don't automatically have to be a duchess or a
king or a queen. So we don't know exactly why
(27:22):
they were granted this exemption, but we we can safely
assume it was meant to strengthen that working relationship, and
then over time other people got involved. The Ilchester family
is the third exception. They're one of the only three
entities who have a right to the Swans, the Dyers,
(27:45):
the Venors, and the Ilchesters. I would imagine, if we're
just wildly speculating and making things up, that maybe the
Dyers were giving them a royal discount on fancy clothes.
And I think getting in good with the Ventors speaks
for itself, because who doesn't like to knock a few
(28:06):
back when you're running merry Old England. As for the
Ilchester family, that maybe a story for another day. Eventually,
swan kind of transition to this traditional food right. It
wasn't swan. It's not just for feast anymore. But it
(28:27):
became part of Christmas celebrations, you know, goose or swan,
it did. And I really like this notion of a
status meat. I just have to say, I guess maybe
what today would be a status meat like filet mignon.
You know, is there like an expensive cut of like
rack of lamb or something like that, it would be
a status meat. Or the law tiger tongues well endangered species.
(28:50):
I don't think I don't think we should eat them,
but shark fin soup the cruelest status meat of them all.
A how on the k how I'll take it, Okay,
we'll do it. Um Our kobe beef, you know, something
that's like a very raised in a very specific way,
(29:11):
very rarefied conditions, fed with a certain type of grain
or what have you. Um, that would be maybe today's
equivalent of status meat. Veal caviare totally and they're all
quite pricey. Uh. And you know, swan was sort of
like it has seen its day in the sun as
as as a status meat of the time. Um, it
(29:31):
was still a delicacy and used as part of Christmas
celebrations up until the eighteenth century. Um, but it was
still only legal to kill and eat one if you
had that swan mark, and so did kind of remain
a luxury good into the Victorian period, when it sort
of became a little less cool. Um. You know how
(29:51):
fashions are, they're they're very fleeting at times. And now
this one, this one stuck around for a pretty pretty
pretty good amount of time considering how most trends are. Um.
But by the twentieth century, it really wasn't eaten. And
the whole idea of swan marks still stuck around, but
more as like a almost like a tradition. And then
(30:12):
it stopped. So I sort of started being red flagged
by a lot of like organizations that look at animal
cruelty and said that it wasn't cool to scratch letters
into the the beak of the swans, because you know,
I think those are sort of bony. But I bet
it wasn't a pleasant experience, right, No, No, I don't
think the swans themselves would have voted for it, had
(30:34):
they had the swan vote, But you're right. The decline
of this practice was also pretty slow. In this might
surprise some people to know that animal rights activists in
the late eighteen hundreds were the driving force behind the
end of the swan markings. They said it constituted unnecessary suffering,
(30:55):
and so eventually Queen Alexandra was married to King Edward
the Seven and stopped the royal birds at least from
being marked. But it was not until nineteen that the
law was changed such that it was no longer an
active treason to eat a swan in the UK, unless
(31:16):
you know you had your paperwork and your swan mark
and so on. As a native species, mute swans are
still under legal protection, though it's not just the Queens
give me all them impulse anymore. Though now swans are
protected as wild birds under the Wildlife and Countryside Act
of one, which means and even now in it is
(31:39):
illegal to kill or keep swans, you can still technically
be guilty of swantage. Oh how far we've come. Oh,
and this is the weirdest part. No, maybe you can
help me with this. Who still owns all the swans?
I think the Queens still owns every unmarked mute swan.
(32:04):
And that's exactly right. And here's the thing, though, there
is and this is a tradition, and this is something
that like, you know, the Brits are all about tradition.
I think it was off Mike. We were talking about
like things like funny hats that happened for very specific
purposes or to to indicate different levels of education or
progression through you know, a military unit or whatever. That
(32:25):
then just kind of stick around, you know, and they
stop being a functional thing and they more become like
about pageantry or more. Is like revering the legacy of
a thing that maybe meant something specific a long time ago,
but now has no real place in modern society. But
you stick around and you keep wearing those funny hats
or whatever. Uh. There's a thing that still is going
on today called swan upping, uh that that involves funny hats,
(32:50):
which I enjoy. There's sort of like, uh almost look
like like a like a paper sailboat you might drop
in the Thames, but but in hat form um. So
this is something that's been happening for a nine years. Um.
We we may be alluded to it a little bit
earlier about the idea of the swan masters who would
check the marks and uh, you know kind of do
account and make sure that you know, they claimed all
(33:11):
of the unmarked swans. Um. That is called swan upping.
And so they roll out now as part of this
like carrying on this tradition. Um. They've been doing this
for nine years. These men row up and down the
Thames looking to mark, check and count the swans. And
actually you can see a great video of it on
YouTube you type in swan uping. Uh. They weigh them.
(33:34):
They actually lift them out by hand of the water
and weigh them on a scale. Um and and and
you know, keep a ledger of like all of the
swans in the Thames. Um. And in some you know,
sad yet unsurprising news, this year's swan upping ceremony will
not be taking place. Uh. It dates back to the
twelfth century. And I believe this maybe the first swan
(33:57):
upping ceremony that's been cant old because of the pandemic. Yeah,
because of the pandemic. Right, I'm not aware whether or
not it was canceled at some point during World War
two or other times of great turmoil. Nowadays, it still
exists because that tradition is very useful. It's a conservation tool.
It's a predecessor of the operations that conservationists take around
(34:22):
the world, you know, tagging and monitoring populations of wild animals.
Technically now all on marked swans on open water belong
to the Queen, but the Queen only exercises this ownership
right on this one stretch of the Thims. And when
(34:44):
killing swans was outlawed in the nineteen eighties, the population
of England was shrinking, and a lot of people nowadays
believe that the Queen is the only person allowed to
eat mute swans. Here's a bit of weird British plot
twist or ree for you. That's not exactly correct, but
it is maybe correct in practice, because remember, the Queen
(35:07):
of England is considered immune from prosecution. So she woke
up one day and said, I just want to eat
swans forever legally no one could really stop her. It's uh,
it's it's good to be at the top, I guess,
And hey, you might be asking yourself, I don't live
in the UK, I really want to eat a swan?
(35:27):
How do I? How do I? How do I go
about this? Um? It is a thing. It's sort of
like an exotic meats, like pigeon or emu, or like
Ostrich And you see these here and there certain types
of restaurants that would specialize in kind of more game
type meets, but you still aren't gonna see swan on
(35:49):
the menu. And there's a reason for that. It is
technically in the United States legal to hunt and kill
swans if you have the appropriate permit. I don't know
how that would go. Where there Where are their wild
swans in the US? I'm not sure, but nobody really
does it, and nobody well, if they do, they might
do it for uh trophy purposes right for But even
(36:12):
that already? Can you sense where I'm going with this
kind of weirds people out? It was sort of be
the equivalent of like hunting puppies, you know. And I
don't know why, considering what we've said about the nightmare
fuel that is swan, I feel like they should all
be hunted down and eliminated personally. Um, that's a hot take.
That's a hot take. I'm only half serious, um, three
(36:34):
quarters serious. But um, it's because of something called the
meat paradox um. And there's actually a really cool article
on the outline that talks about why don't we eat swans?
Knowing that we eat things like turkey and goose and
even rabbit. We talked about this actually with Casey on
a previous episode about where do we draw the line? Um,
(36:57):
And this is a thing, it's called the meat paradox,
And this is the mind's way of kind of coping
with this disfluency over like, you know, what animals are
okay to eat? What animals do we associate more es
sentience and intelligence with. And it's also kind of it
doesn't always work out because, as we talked about with Casey,
pigs are very intelligent, but yet we have no problem
(37:20):
with eating them. They're also kind of cute, even though
they roll around in their own filth. People would uh,
people would eat anything though. I mean, that's why starvation
cannibalism exists exactly. But for some reason, swans fit squarely
within that no no zone of the meat paradox. Go figure, Yeah,
this is interesting. So you can catch uh, you can
(37:42):
catch us swans? Can you can buy swans in the
US Many people do, but it's more of an ornamental thing.
You can go to any number of institutions and they'll
just have swans hanging out. They fell out of favor
as food, uh, partially there's sort of a positive feedback loop.
Part of the reason they fell out of favor as
(38:02):
food is because if you are manufacturing swans for consumption,
you have to compete with the huge economic scale of
other mainstream meat manufacturers and other well we would call
them exotic meat manufacturers, you know, squab, quail, pigeon, etcetera.
And I'm having a little bit of a hard time
(38:23):
finding if this is entirely true, because there's some folks
saying that it's sort of a myth. But there is
this notion that swans mate for life. Um, and that's
another reason that I think folks are differentiating them from
other creatures, because there's this notion. There's even a quote
in that article that we were talking about. Uh, the
image of a lonely swan searching fruitlessly for its butchered
(38:46):
partner would surely make even the most obnoxious bacon is
my personality meat bro think twice. So we can say that,
uh presentation aside, it's probably not going to change your
life to eat a swan. You don't. You don't have
to uh to enjoy them. You can just see these
lovely creatures lovely from far away. The same way that
(39:09):
maybe a bonfire looks lovely far away, you can enjoy
it from a distance, but we don't recommend hanging out
with them in person. If you are the caretaker of
some swans, we'd love to hear from you. Have you
ever eaten swan? Have you have you tried it? How
would you cook it? I found a great recipe, a
couple of great recipes, but I myself have not made swan.
(39:33):
You can find us on the internet in places. Um,
we've got Instagram and and you know, Facebook and all that.
For ridiculous history. Our recommendation, as you know, is typically
to join the Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, where you can
share memes about swans and they're horrible hell scape of
a mouth and tongue situation. There's definitely some of those
(39:56):
out there. Uh. If you want to trigger me with
other bird pictures and stories or p bend with pictures
of metal, you can do that there too, And we do.
We do kind of creep through the group from agree
to this. Well, Uh, okay, you know do what that will,
is what I say. Um, and let the chips fall
where they may. Yeah, you can find that on Facebook.
(40:16):
You can also find us as individual human people. I'm
pretty much only on Instagram and I am at how
Now Noel Brown. There. You can see me encountering very
strange foods actually on my Instagram at Ben Bolland. You
can also find me on Twitter where I'm at Ben Bolland.
H s W. Thanks again to our fantastic guest super
(40:38):
producer Andrew A how a k A Cool GUYE Deluxe
Howard a k a uh Swan Master a k A.
Mr magic Our. Thanks so much for joining us today. Andrew,
thanks for having me. Great to be here. I hope
you mean it because I think you're recording another episode
with us, So thanks as well as always to Alex Willams,
(41:00):
who composed this slapping Bob you here at the beginning
and end of every episode thanks to the quister. Hey,
and speaking of the slapping Bob, or as I like
to refer to it as the Bop and slap Um,
you have any Ben Trepid remixers out there, sample that business,
send it back to us. Alex would be tickled, you know,
do do a remix of the ridiculous history theme. That
(41:21):
would be a lot of fun. Homework assignment to any
musicians or home bedroom recording artists out there. Um, you know,
you know not not not not not mandatory, but it'd
be fun to hear. Um. Yeah, Jonathan Strickland, that devious,
notorious quister who I believe will be zoom bombing us
again very soon. Um. Thanks to the Gabe Louisier um
who is our intrepid research associate. Um. And thanks to
(41:47):
christophrostiotis here in spirit. Shout out to Swan Songs and
of course, as I always like to say in these episodes,
who are number one fan the Queen of England. Thanks
for tuning in. We'll see you next time, folks. M
(42:08):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
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