Realms of Myth Playlist, Part 6: The Slayer

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick, and
I want to tell you a story about a monster slayer. Robert,

(00:23):
are you game? Okay? So, once upon a time in
medieval Japan, there was a warrior named Minamoto no Ko
who was a daring swordsman, and he was famous everywhere
for his bravery and his resolve. And Raiko had in
his service a companion named Watanabe note Suna, who was

(00:43):
also courageous, and he was a formidable fighter in his
own right, and he wielded a bow and arrow and
wore a suit of armor. And one day Raiko and
Suna were traveling on the road to Kita Yama when
they saw a skull floating in the sky, flying in
and out of the clouds above. Now Rico and Sooner
were curious how such a thing could be, so they

(01:03):
decided let's follow the skull, and they followed the flying
skull all the way to Cagaroka, where it led them
to a crumbling old mansion from ancient times. The decaying
manner was surrounded by wild overgrown weeds and an old
gate choked by vines. So Rico ordered Souna to wait
for him outside, and Rico entered the mansion alone. As

(01:26):
he approached the threshold, he started to become aware of
a presence. There was an old woman lurking behind the door,
and he called out, who are you? She replied, I've
been living here for a good long time. I am
two hundred and ninety years old and have served in
their turn nine lords of this house. And then Rico

(01:46):
saw her. She was a horrible sight to behold before
the warrior's eyes. The old woman grasped her own eyelids
with a tool, and she flipped her eyelids back over
the top of her head like a hat. Then she
pushed her mouth open with a large hairpin, and her
lips became gigantic, and she took her lips and she
tied them around her own neck, and her breasts began

(02:09):
to sag down into her lap like rags. The old
woman began to speak again. She said, spring comes and
autumn goes, but my sad thoughts remained the same. Years
begin an end, but my misery is eternal. This place
is a demon's den. No human dares passed through our gates.
My sorrowful youth has gone, but my old self sadly remains.

(02:32):
I lament that bush warbler's depart, and swallows on the
beam fly off. In her sorrow, the wretched old woman
begged Rycho to kill her with his sword and put
her out of her misery. Rycho could see that the
old woman was out of her mind, so he left
her alone, and he instead decided to go into the
house to see what had happened and solve the mystery
of the flying skull and what was afflicting this woman

(02:54):
and making her think she lived in a demon's den.
So he went inside the house, and outside the sky
dark and fierce, and winds began to blow. But Sooner
waited loyally for his master, And inside the house, Rycho
began to hear the sounds of footsteps echoing like the
beat of a hand drum. Then he saw a coterie
of spirits and goblins coming into the room with him,

(03:17):
but the creatures didn't attack. Instead, they only danced around
and then laughed at his fear before passing out through
another door. In their place, there came into the room
a tiny woman, no more than three ft tall, but
with a gigantic face more than two thirds of her
whole height. And she had thick, heavy eyebrows, and when
she opened her mouth, Rycho could see that her front

(03:38):
teeth were black. She wore a purple hat and a
red hakama with nothing underneath. Her arms were so thin
they were like strings, and her skin was as pale
as snowfall. Then that woman disappeared, and Raiko realized dawn
was nearing. Almost as soon as the strange woman had left,
another woman came into the room. This time the woman

(03:59):
was graceful and calm, and so beautiful that Rycho could
barely believe his eyes. He thought that this woman must
be the true mistress of the old house, finally coming
out to welcome him, and her eyes shone as bright
as the reflection of a bonfire and black lacquer. But
when Rico was distracted by the woman's beauty, she got
the better of him. She lifted up the hymn of

(04:21):
her hakama, and from underneath it she heaved at the
swordsman some kind of material what looks like balls of
white cloud, And the balls of white cloud blinded him.
They got in his eyes, and in a rage, Raiko
drew his sword and he slashed at the woman, but
she evaporated into thin air. He slashed so mightily that
his sword passed through the floorboards and cut a foundation stone,

(04:45):
and the tip of the blade broke off where the
woman had been. There was now nothing but a pool
of white blood on the floor, with a trail of
more white blood leading off somewhere else. Raiko and soon
had joined together again, and they followed the trail of
white blood out of the house and up into the mountains,
and finally to the mouth of a dark cave, out

(05:05):
of which white blood was flowing like a river. As
soon as suggestion, the two of them made an effigy
of ratan and vines in the shape of a man,
and they carried it before them as they entered the cave.
Inside the cave, they found a gigantic monster in the
form of a mountain spider, but nearly two hundred feet tall,

(05:25):
and it wore a brocade on its head. Its eyes
were as bright as the sun and the moon. The
giant monster bellowed, what has happened to my body? It
is so painful. Then the monster hurled something at them
in the dark, and the projectile hit the effigy that
they carried in front of them and knocked it down.
Rico and Sona examined the object that the monster had

(05:46):
shot at them, and they discovered that it was the
broken tip of Rico's sword. Together, they took hold of
the creature and they began to drag it out of
the cave. And the monster put up a good fight,
and it was a terrible monster. Indeed, it's strong enough
to move boulders with its legs. So Rico said a
prayer to the sun goddess Amaterasu and asked her for

(06:07):
aid with the fight. Rico and Sooner pulled and pulled,
and eventually the monster collapsed and fell belly up on
the earth without hesitation. Rico drew his sword and chopped
off the monster's head. Sooner ran to slash open the
monster's belly, but found when he got there that it
had already been opened by a deep gash. This was
the wound Richo had given it inside the house when

(06:29):
it was in the form of the woman, and this
proved that the giant spider truly was the beautiful woman
that he had seen from the gash in the giant
spider's belly, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety heads tumbled
out onto the ground. The warriors cut open another part
of the spider's body, and many smaller spider monsters swarmed out,

(06:50):
each about the size of a seven or eight year
old child. When the warriors looked further in the stomach
of the spider beast, they found twenty human skulls. Knowing
it had to be done, Riicho and soon a dug
a grave in the ground and buried the twenty skulls,
and then burned the giant spider's din. When the Emperor
heard what Richo and Suna had done in eliminating this

(07:11):
heinous monster that had been plaguing the country, he gave
them promotions and appointed them governors of their own provinces.
And this is the story of Minamoto no Riiko and
the Giant Spider. That is a fabulous story. I love it,
just like the the the layers of the adventure and
then just the the revelations about the horrific monstrosity that

(07:33):
they're faced with. I like how it's weird and rambling,
like it takes a long time to get to the
final form of the monster. You don't really know where
it's gonna go. It takes you to a haunted house first.
Uh something about that feels both unusual and intuitive. Um
So that they start off seeing the skull, and I
have to assume that I guess the skull was some

(07:55):
form of the monster. I don't know. But but also
I like how in a lot of the monster slayer
stories you come across, there's a more specific reason that
the that the hero must undergo the quest to slay
the monster. They have to rescue a princess or something. Here,
this time, they're just detectives investigating something weird that they saw,

(08:16):
and it eventually leads them into the monster's cave to
kill it, which also ultimately kind of makes you feel
bad for the monster, Like it didn't even kidnap anybody
they knew, They just like made their way to it. Yeah,
it was. It seems to be entirely recreational on their part. Yeah. Well,
I mean, I guess it kind of makes them like
some kind of roving police force almost in a way.

(08:36):
Or maybe they just needed the experience points. I mean,
that's that's true. Uh So, this giant spider story comes
from an early fourteenth century Japanese picture scroll called the
Sushi Gumo Soshi, and the version of the story that
I read is as translated by the scholar Dr. Nariko
t writer who we've referenced on the show before. I

(08:57):
think in our episode about cuteness and strocity. That make sense?
Uh yeah, so that so my version of the story
I just told was based on her translation of this
fourteenth century scroll. And this is not the only legend
about giant spiders in early modern Japan. The sushi gumo
or earth spider, was a common monster found in no

(09:17):
plays and in supernatural narratives in the following centuries. But
there are also other spider monsters like the ushi one,
which was sometimes described as like a giant spider with
the head of a bull, and it attacks fishermen at
the water's edge. And then there's also the juro gumo,
which is the literally the prostitute spider, and it's another

(09:37):
sort of ghost like creature that appears in the literature
of the Ato period, shape shifting like the sushi gumo
between the forms of a beautiful woman and a voracious arachneid,
luring men to their deaths. So a classic trope of
of monsters appearing as is desirable humans or even non
human entities, of course, and you see that too in

(10:00):
in the Sushi Gumo in the story where the spider
monster appears as this beautiful woman in the house and
distracts the swordsman with her beauty just long enough to
throw clouds of white matter in his eyes. Who knows
what that's supposed to be. I don't know if I
guess it's the silk, right, Oh? Maybe? Yeah, I don't
know it's supposed to be said. I mean, it's it's
described as literally like clouds, so it's hard to know

(10:21):
exactly what it's referring to. It seems to be some
kind of magical substance. But yeah, So we're doing something
a little bit different today than we usually do in
our October episodes where we love to focus on monsters.
Today we wanted to take a look at the immortal
enemy of our beloved monsters, the monster Slayer. Yeah, it's
it's often an essential part of the story and sometimes

(10:45):
the thing sometimes they define like define each other, right,
Sometimes the monster is really the thing that defines the hero.
Other times there's not a lot to say about the
monster itself, except that a certain hero of note gave
it a good slaying at some point. Yeah, and it's
almost as deep and as old as the monster mythology itself. Right.
The oldest monster stories you can find when you go

(11:08):
back in time very often are monster slayers stories. There's
a monster, and there's a hero who must venture out,
often alone or with a faithful companion, uh, to face
the monster and destroy it. And the monster slayer archetype
is actually classed as a particular type of like you know,
myth archetype, the the princess and the dragon type story

(11:30):
which appears all over the world in different cultures. Uh.
And and you know, and that that's the very broad take.
You know, that there's like a princess who's being held
captive or being threatened by some kind of monster, and
a hero must venture out with courage and face the monster,
though of course clearly not all the monsters in these
types of stories are dragons. And then there's just the

(11:50):
bigger myth architecture of whether or not there's a princess,
there's very often a slayer who must face down the beast.
And and we're gonna, we're gonna explore some different versions
of this where the beast has you know, varying degrees
of symbolic uh power. I guess you would say uh
in other times less so uh. Again, it often comes

(12:14):
down to like why is why? Why is this hero
killing this monster? That's often the question, like what is
gained by this story? Uh? And in doing that you
have to look at what the monster represents, what the
hero represents. And then there are certain complexities that seemed
to come along just as storytelling evolves. Yeah. So, another
one I wanted to focus on, to go even much

(12:35):
deeper into history is the story of mar Duke the
Monster Slayer. Now mar Duke, of course, is an ancient
Near Eastern god uh, and I want to I want
to focus on the story of mar Duke the Monster
Slayer as told from the Enema a Leash the ancient
Babylonian Epic of Creation, which of course is a great
story we've explored on the podcast before and I'm excited

(12:56):
to explore it again. So the general story, Robert, you're
remember the outlines. You've got the primordial creators in the
Babylonian epic, right, You've got Tiamat and Opsu, which represents
saltwater and freshwater respectively. They're these gods and also kind
of monster creatures. They're sort of dragon gods that are
also saltwater and freshwater, and they and they embody a

(13:19):
lot of natural might, a lot of are also potentially
chaotic might, right, yeah, yeah. They represent the sort of
chaos before the creation of the order of the world today.
And what they do is uh the sweetwater in the saltwater.
Together they create a race of gods, but end up
finding those gods they've created unpleasant and loud, and eventually,

(13:43):
um the gods turn on their creators and they slay Opsu,
the sort of freshwater deity, and Tiamat, the saltwater deity.
She is enraged, and she tries to make revenge on
the gods for slaying Opsu, attacking them in the form
of a giant sea monster or a salt water dragon
and making a team of evil monsters to do wickedness

(14:05):
on her behalf and the gods. Of course, because of
her power, they're too afraid to go out and fight
Tiamat themselves, but eventually they convinced the storm god mar
Duke to go out himself and fight her on their behalf.
So in exchange for risking his life in this fight,
mar Duke's what's in it for Marduke? Right? Mar Duke

(14:25):
demands that the gods make him their king, so he
that that's the deal. Right, I'll go out and slay
the monster if you guys make me the boss, which
sounds like a good deal. You need a king, you
want one that's going to actually slay your monsters, right.
So mar Duke is armed with special weapons imbued with
some kind of storm power, a bow and arrow, a

(14:45):
mace and net, and then there are these powers of
the winds that he commands, including the winds of the
cardinal directions north, southeast and west, but also these other
kinds of wind magic, Like there's one wind weapon he
has just called the Evil Wind. And I guess we're
supposed to imagine just some sort of like cosmic fart
here um. The fart jokes do kind of present themselves

(15:08):
at this point. So from here, I think I will
just read some lines from the enemy Alish has the
as translated by E. A. Spicer, Robert, would you like
to read with me? Of course? Then the Lord raised
up the floodstorm, his mighty weapon he mounted the storm chariot,
irresistible and terrifying. He harnessed and yoked it to a
team of four, the Killer, the Relentless, the trampler, the

(15:32):
swift sharp, where their poison bearing teeth they were versed
in ravage, skilled, and destruction. On his right he posted
the smider, fearsome in battle. On the left, the combat
which repels all the zealous. His cloak was an armor
of terror. His head was turbaned with his fearsome halo.

(15:52):
The lord went forth and followed his course. He set
his face towards the raging Tiamat. He held a spell
between his lips. A plant to put out poison was
grasp in his hand. And then we'll skip a bit.
Marduk approaches Uh and Tiamat's consort, Kingu. This monster Kingu
and her allied gods and monsters become fearful, and then

(16:14):
Tiamat taunts Marduk, and then Marduke gives a speech rebuking
Tiamat and challenging her to single combat. And then we'll
pick up with the lines again. When Tiamat heard this,
she was like one possessed. She took leave of her
senses in fury, Tiamat cried aloud to the roots of
her legs, shook both together. She recites a charm, keeps

(16:36):
casting her spell while the gods of battle sharpen their weapons.
Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of God's, then joined battle. They
strove in single combat. Locked in conflict, the lord spread
out his net to unfold her. He let loose in
her face the evil wind, which followed behind. When Tiamat

(16:56):
opened her mouth to consume him, he drove in the
evil wind, and she could not close her lips. As
the fierce winds encumbered her belly. Her body was distended
and her mouth was wide open. He released an arrow.
It tore her belly, It cut through her inside, splitting
her heart. Having subdued her, he blotted out her life.

(17:18):
He threw down her carcass and stood upon it. Oh,
you gotta stand on it. That's that's just uh, that's
absolutely necessary. Well, we've hit on this before, like the
they see that trope in both the Western and Eastern
art with a demon or devil or monster trampled beneath
the feet or sat upon as if it were thrown.
You know, it's still a thing when you see. I mean,

(17:41):
I almost hate to bring this up because it makes
me mad whenever I see it. But like those like
Safari hunting pictures where people like shoot a lion or
something like that, and then they're like standing there with
their foot on it. Yes, I am not crazy about
that either, but they put their foot on it. This
is still a thing. It's like you and now Earth.
It's it's like it's instinctive. Almost. I put my foot

(18:02):
on this thing to show I have beaten it. And then,
of course, the next thing in this story, because it
becomes of course, the epic of creation is that mar
Duke makes the heavens and the earth out of Tiamat's
dead body. Ah. This is another thing we see time
and time again in different uh myths, the idea of
some primordial being being overcome and then their body being

(18:23):
repurposed in creation. Yeah, it is. It's an interesting repeating theme.
And I don't know, I wonder what that says, Like,
why do we have the the inherent suspicion that the
ground on which we walk was once a living being?
We should come back and doing a whole episode on
dead gods at some point. Oh, absolutely, now here's another
thing I was thinking about, which is that in most

(18:45):
of these pre modern stories, the monster slayers always a dude.
It's always male. Not always. I want to get to
a counter example that I was able to find. And
it's also not uncommon for the monster that is getting
slain to be female. Think about the Sushi Gumo, the
woman in the house and slayed by the swordsman Tiamat,
the female monster slayed by marduk Uh and the Medusa. Yeah,

(19:09):
we can. We can discuss more about what is meant
by that in a bit. But I was on the
hunt for some good pre modern, ancient female monster slayers,
and I think I found at least one good example
that that I turned up sort of a pre Buffy
Buffy if you will, right, Well, I mean, yeah, that's
one of the many great things about Buffy. Of course, Yeah,
she's she's one of the greatest vampire slayers monster slayers

(19:31):
of all time. But then she is she has a
female which you, as you pointed out, you don't see
a lot of in the ancient myth cycles. It's a
nice change up on the gender dynamics of that. Yeah,
but so another ancient Mesopotamian monster slayer would be in
an A the glorious and ann a crusher of heads.
In Anna was a Sumerian goddess also known as the

(19:52):
Accadian ishtar got us of many things. We we've mentioned
her on the podcast before, but you know, got us
of the storehouse and the products of ag culture, but
also it seems of fertility, sex, war and slaughter. And
in Anna is maybe my favorite ancient god or goddess
due to those awesome hymns in her praise written by
the priestess in Headuana, perhaps the earliest known piece of

(20:15):
writing with a named author. In Headuana was a twenty
third century b c. Mesopotamian high priestess and poet, the
daughter of the Acadian king Sargon the Great. And so
she wrote these hymns to Anna that are just spectacular
to read. Um, But okay, what kind of monster slang
does Anna do? Well? The story here is more obscure,

(20:36):
more complex, but it's also interesting. It comes down to
this Sumerian concept called kor And my source here is
a couple of pieces by the twentieth century ancient Neary
scholar Samuel in Kramer. So everything I'm saying here comes
from Kramer. Kramer writes that kore can be a really
confusing word in ancient Sumerian literature because of its many

(20:57):
different meanings. First of all, it seems to have a
primary literal meaning of mountain, right, so got coor the mountain.
It's also used to mean foreign land, presumably because the
peoples of the mountains bordering Summer were a constant threat.
But then core also appears to just mean land in general,
like territory. Uh. But also it has cosmic and religious connotations.

(21:22):
So the word core is also used to signify the
Great Below or the nether world, to quote, the empty
space between the Earth's crust and the primeval sea, and
Kramer writes quote Moreover, it is not improbable that the
monstrous creature that lived at the bottom of the Great
Below immediately over the primeval waters is also called cour if.

(21:44):
So this monster Core would correspond to a certain extent
to the Babylonian Tiamat. So this is another version of
the Tiamat sea monster legend. And Kramer writes about kind
of in the tradition of Marduk, that there are multiple
ancient stories and fragments of stories we have in which
monster slayers attack the monster Core. In one the hero

(22:05):
is the god Inky, in another one it's Ninerta. But
in a third it appears to be in Anna. And
so there's this passage where Anna threatens the Core who
does who does not recognize her might? And in Anna says,
the long spear, I shall hurl upon it the throwing stick,
the weapon I shall direct against it, at its neighboring forests.
I shall strike up fire at its And then there's

(22:28):
an illusion. I shall set up the bronze axe all
its waters, like Jibil, the fire god, the purifier, I
shall dry up, like the mountain Rata, which no hand
can reach. I shall And then there's another illusion, like
a city cursed by Anu. It will not be restored,
like a city on which in Lill frowns, it shall

(22:48):
not rise up. And then the god Anu warns her
how terrible the Core monster is quote against the standing
place of the gods. It has directed its terror in
the sitting place of the ann Hockey. It has led
forth fearfulness. It's fearful terror. It has hurled upon Sumer.
It's fearful glory. It has directed against all the lands.

(23:09):
But of course, mighty and Anna is not discouraged, and
she quote opens the house of battle against the Core
and slays the monster and stands upon it and speaks
to him. To her own magnificence. These ancient goddesses were
serious business. Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, and I love But
she stands on it too. She's still doing putting her
foot on it. It's got that's got to happen. Um.

(23:31):
And So I think the issue that Kramer highlights with
the different meanings of the word cour here is very illuminating.
According to Kramer, again, it literally means mountain, also means
enemy territory, also just means lander. Territory in general, also
means the nether world or the underworld. Also the name
of the monster that inhabits the nether world and brings
destruction against Summer. So when you hear the story of

(23:54):
in Hona slaying the cour if you're hearing it in
the original language, you would be directly receiving all of
these connotations. She conquers the mountain, she conquers the enemy lands,
she conquers the land itself, she conquers the realm of
the dead and maybe death. Um. It's interesting the way
that you know, we go later into monster slang legends,

(24:16):
looking for the allegories and saying like, you know, what,
does what does this monster represent? It usually does seem
to represent something more than just a beast, either intentionally
or accidentally. Yeah, but but here it's like you've got
all these connotations of the same word, meaning that it's
almost just completely baked into the story at the face
value level. That is fascinating. It's like the idea of

(24:37):
the monster has yet to like congeal, you know, it's
still more free flowing well the monster. I mean, you
usually think of ancient stories as being more concrete and
modern storytelling is being more abstract. But I wonder, I
don't know if that's always the case. Yeah, this really
flies in the face of those some of the ideas
we've discussed where like, oh, the monster is inspired by

(24:59):
a hustle, you know, or or something to that effect,
Like like this is more the it's ideas, uh that
are you know, congealing into a symbolic form. Yeah, I
would say this might be inspired less by a fossil
and more by a family of concepts, all of which
cause discomfort and fear, And the fear is key. Fear

(25:22):
will definitely come into play later in this episode. All Right, well,
I think we should take a quick break and when
we come back we will explore more monsters and monster
slayers than all right, we're back. So another famous monster
and slayer combo that this is a combo that we
could easily do the whole podcast on. You could do

(25:44):
multiple podcasts on, because a lot of people have written
about this duo. I'm talking about Beowulf and Grendel, the
great romance of Anglo Saxon literature. Yes, I don't probably
don't have to remind everyone about this too much. It's
a a violent tale in which a brutish automaton of
a human disrupts an ancient and terminally endangered creature in

(26:07):
the process of its predation. Predation I should remind everyone
that targets only the loudest, fittest, and warlike human males
for the most part. Uh. The brute ends up tearing
the arm off of the creature and then follows it
home as it retreats to its layer and then dies.
Uh and uh, our hero follows. The blood follows the

(26:28):
you know, the howls of pain, dives down to the
deep layer and there kills the creature's mother as well.
It's uh, I'm being a little cheeky in my description,
because it is you're just accurately describing the story. Beowulf
is a jerk, He's well, he is, he's kind of
the mind kind of you know, partial. I guess to
John Gardner's Grendel, who plays up these themes a lot

(26:51):
by humanizing the monster well at the same time retaining
its monstrous qualities, but portraying Beowulf is just is this
holy wrath of a character? Yeah, I I guess it's
a it's a modern thing for us to sympathize more
with the monster. And why why is it like that now?
Why do we sympathize with the monster more these days?

(27:13):
I'm not sure? I mean, well, part of it is that, yeah,
tales like this kind of speak to all of us
and continue to resonate today, but it's it's still a
tale that was speaking to a probably more specific audience
as opposed to you know, humanity in general. Maybe the
reason that we're more inclined to sympathize with Grendel and
sympathize with monsters these days is that we more people

(27:35):
now are sort of conditioned to the idea that history
as written might not always be fair. You know that
it maybe is written to benefit the people who are
writing it and make them look good. Unless you always
kind of wonder when you get a heroic tale of
a slaying, is it actually a tale of an unfair
and undeserved slaughter? Yeah? Or sometimes maybe a monster just

(27:58):
doesn't need slay anymore. Um. I was looking around, and again,
there's a tremendous amount of literature about Grindel and Beowolf.
Tons of people have written about J. R. Tolkien wrote
about Beowulf and Grendel. I was looking at one particular author,
though English professor and also a medieval dragon expert, Joyce

(28:19):
Tally uh lion urns I believe it is her last name,
and she points out that there's a lot to be
said in interpreting Grendel and his mother Uh And some
of the earlier interpretations were certainly more seeing them as
personifications of natural threats, very much in keeping with what
we discussed in the mar Duke's story. Already there what's

(28:39):
outside the firelight? They are the wilderness and bodies. Yeah,
they're the wilderness, they're the dark. They are perhaps more
specifically the North Sea of the Bog, the marsh long
winter nights, I mean, ultimately a cousin of Jenny Green
Teeth in many respects, right. Uh. And then the monster
dies and Spring emerges again, while Beowulf's eventual death battling

(28:59):
a Aagon is a tale of Autumn's descent. A lot
of people don't uh. I mean, I guess this is
referenced in the most recent film adaptation. But a lot
of people forget about the dragon. Yeah, this is the
second half of the story. But Beowolf grows old, and
in the second half of the story, a young a
young Wiggloff has to take up the mantle of the
monster Slayer because Beowolf can't hack it anymore. Literally, can't

(29:24):
hack into those monster hides like you used to, can't
tear those arms off like you used to. Um, you know. Uh.
I can't help but be reminded and thinking about like
these older monster stories, monster and slayer tales, and then
trying to think about their their analogs and uh in
modern popular culture. I can't help but think of a

(29:44):
little story in which a band of professional warmakers and
Central America are targeted by an alien hunter that that
only praise on the fittest and warlike of its target species.
But only through through trick career does the human A
man named Dutch prevail. Oh he's Dutch. Oh yeah, one

(30:05):
of his name is Dutch. I don't know. Is he's
supposed to be Dutch? I thought, maybe who? I don't
I don't know, but that sort of solidifies the Baowolf connection.
Oh well, interesting, But anyway, Dutch ends up probably dying
from radiation exposure, I think, since the monster self detonation.
But I of course talking about the film Predator, man,

(30:25):
you have taken me to a sacred and surprising place today.
I never expected to connect Predator and Beowulf, but but
I see it. I mean there, I think there are
certain connections you can make. But at the same time,
the contrast is very interesting because Grendel is fearsome but
is ultimately easily overcome by the hero. Right. Predator is

(30:49):
fearsome and basically wins. I mean, he slays everybody except Dutch,
and Dutch is really only able to barely achieve victor
in the end. He tricks him trickery. Trickery, yeah, which
is which is also something you see a lot of times,
and generally speaking, and we're talking about like the masculinity

(31:09):
of the hero, that it's very hard to find examples,
especially in the older stories where the hero is something
other than than first of all male, but also the warrior,
the soldier, you know, and perhaps the soldier ends up
using trickery or enchanted items, and both of those may
be actually given to him by the gods or in

(31:32):
some cases a gods, But in any effect, I feel
like they tend to have tended to have an easier
time of it, whereas nowadays, really I'm gonna I'm personally
going to be disappointed if the hero uh really takes
out the monster too soon. I mean, you want to
see the struggle, right, well, right, I mean maybe now
people are more likely to want to see different values

(31:52):
like uh, maybe now you put more emphasis on, say
the courage and cleverness of a hero than on just
like they're absolutely unbeatable strength, or certainly maybe just the
things that the monsters represent for us now are less severe,
like maybe it's like if Grendel is representing just the

(32:13):
the harsh realities behind the campfire, maybe you want to
hear you need a hero that just tears into it
like a nightmare. You know, you don't want to. You
don't want a weak hero that's gonna, you know, take
a beating for forty five minutes before building a proper
bow and arrow out of twigs. Well, I say, I
certainly appreciate vulnerable heroes. I mean, I find stories where

(32:34):
the hero is too powerful and too good and too strong,
very boring, and then you run the risk of the
monster being more relatable. Yeah, well you y'all out there
no our monster sympathies, so we can't pretend to hide that.
So of course I'm talking about slayers. We can't help
but talk about dragon slayers. And there's one particular dragon

(32:54):
slayer that it's probably, if not the definitely one of
the most famous dragon slayers in Western traditions, of course,
and this is St. George, Yes, the the subject of
many a painting and engraving, often failing to make the
dragon fearsome. Yeah, the dragon, the kill, the slaying of

(33:15):
the dragon, I I find, and some of these paintings
it often feels more like the execution of a pet
salamander or something, you know, like there's a dog like
quality to this small creature. That is crushed under the
heel of a of a giant horse and a top
and there's a mounted night atop just you know, skewering
it with a sword or a spear. Yeah, there's one

(33:37):
image I attached here or St George's attacking It is snarling,
but it does look like a dog with wings. If
you're not familiar, maybe I should go ahead and tell
the story of St. George. You ready for that? Okay,
so this comes. So now here's one thing actually about
the legend of St. George as a Christian saint long
predates any written version of this story of the dragon slaying.

(34:00):
We have, uh the as far as I know, the
earliest written version of the dragon slaying comes from the
Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, compiled by Jacobus Devourogene,
Archbishop of Genoa, in twelve seventy five, and the first
edition in English was published in fourteen seventy, translated by
William Caxton. But here's the story. Okay, So you got St. George,

(34:22):
and St George's a wandering knight. He's a he's a soldier,
and he's a knight. He's born in a Cappadocia, which
is a region of Turkey, which Robert, have you ever
seen the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, I believe so yes,
they're beautiful looking. I mean it looks you just look
up the landscape of this place and you can imagine
it's the kind of place a magical hero would come from.

(34:44):
So he comes from Cappadocia, and as a traveling night,
one day he wandered into the vicinity of a city
called Silene, which was in the province of Libya. Now
by the city of Silene was a great pond where
there was a dragon that and venomed all the country,
and it would attack the city mercilessly, breathing venom that

(35:05):
sickened and killed the people. And the citizens of Silene
had tried to slay the dragon, but so terrible was
the beast, and so poisonous was its breath that the
fighters all ran away before they could fight it. So
all that was left to do was to try to
bribe the dragon to leave them alone. At first, they
would feed it too sheep every day, but eventually this failed,

(35:27):
so they started to feed the dragon a man into
sheep each day, and Eventually they decided that they had
to offer their children one at a time to keep
the dragon at bay. So the king made an ordinance
that each day there would be a lottery of the
children in the town, and whichever child the lot fell to,
whether rich or poor, would be offered up to the dragon.

(35:48):
But then one day the lot fell to the princess,
to the king's own daughter, and he begged the people, saying, quote,
for the love of the gods, take gold and silver
and all that I have, but let me have my daughter.
And the people answered, how sir, ye have made and
ordained the law, and our children be now dead, and
ye would do the contrary. Your daughter shall be given,

(36:11):
or else we shall burn you and your house. There
was a reasonable response to this policy. Yeah yeah, I
mean he can, he can set the policy, but then
doesn't want it to apply to him. Uh so, Yeah,
So then the king was very sad. He wept and
begged for eight days respite. The people granted that to him,
but in those eight days the dragon envenomed the city terribly.

(36:32):
So when the time was up, the king dressed his
daughter up as a bride, and he kissed her, and
he gave her a benediction and then led her out
to the dragon's lair at the pond. So the princess
is alone at the pond, dressed in a bridal gown,
waiting to be eaten by the dragon. But then St.
George happens to pass by, and he asked her what
she's doing out there by herself in the wilderness, and

(36:54):
she says, go ye your way, fair young man, that
ye perish not also, and he applies by, asking why
she's crying, and eventually she tells him the truth that
she had been delivered as a tribute to the dragon. Uh.
And then, to quote from the this version of the
Golden Lives, Uh then said St. George, fair daughter, doubt
ye no thing hereof for I shall help thee in

(37:17):
the name of Ya Zu Christ. She said, for God's sake,
good night, go your way and abide not with me,
for ye may not deliver me. So she's doubting his power,
but he's got to display it because he's already sworn
in the name of ye Zu Crease to that he
can do it. So as they're speaking, the dragon suddenly
appears and it begins to charge at them. And then

(37:37):
so St. George draws his sword and he makes the
sign of the cross. And then he quote rode heartily
against the dragon, which came toward him and smote him
with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him
to the ground. So the dragon is mortally injured. And
then George asks the princess to remove her girdle and
tie it around the neck of the dragon. Quote. When

(38:01):
she had done so, the dragon followed her as it
had been a meek beast, and debonair. Then she led
him into the city, and the people fled by mountains
and valleys and said, alas alas, we shall all be dead.
Then St. George said to them, nay, ye doubt no
thing without more, believe ye in God, YESU Christ, and

(38:21):
do ye to be baptized, and I shall slay the dragon.
So the king then and all his people got baptized
as Christians. And quote St. George slew the dragon and
smote off his head and commanded that he should be
thrown in the fields. And they took four carts with
oxen that drew him out of the city. And as
a result of this, there's a whole bunch of people

(38:42):
get baptized become Christians, and then there's a bunch of
like healings of the sick and stuff, and then of
course the legend goes on and tells about the martyrdom
of St. George after that. But that's the story of St. George,
the Princess and the Dragon. It's pretty good. I enjoyed
the build up more than the payoff. I think, you know,
the lot ree system was pretty engaging. Well, there's no

(39:02):
I mean St. George doesn't have a trick up his
sleeve except prayer. That seems to be the thing. He's
just like, well, he prays and yay zu Chreast comes
through and it slays the dragon. He doesn't have a trick,
you know, or maybe prayer is like a trick here.
I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess prayer is the trick.
I mean again, a lot of these stories, you look
at some of the Greek myths, to defeat the monster,

(39:24):
one must use wisdom or weapons that are a gift
of the gods. So what is the difference I guess
ultimately between that in prayer right, Well, I guess it
would just make a better story, like if ye zu
Chreast came down and gave him a magical weapon or something. Yeah,
given a you know, the the Armor of Christ or something,
or you know, some sort of fancy sword, and then

(39:46):
we can get the idea. It's like, oh, yeah, if
you're on God's side, you can slay dragons. I get
the same message, but it's a little more entertaining at
least you know, from me, right. But of course, as
we mentioned earlier, this is sort of part of a
genre of stories that pro liferate around the world. There
are all these dragon slang stories especially there of course,
medieval dragon slaying stories. Yeah, and I mentioned Joyce tally

(40:10):
land Rand's earlier. I mentioned that she was an expert
on medieval dragon slangs and medieval dragons. I was reading
on uh something she wrote titled the Sign of a
Hero Theodoric Saga of Burn uh and uh. In this
she points out, and I'm a number of interesting things
about some of the tales we've discussed, though more specifically Theodoric, Theodoric,

(40:33):
the Great Beowulf and Siegfried. So she points out that
in German literature, especially, dragon slaying becomes something of a
defining characteristic of any hero. But so like you're like
I'm a hero. It's like, I don't know, did just
lay a dragon? Exactly? I mean, that's the that's the problem,
because then how do you draw the line between standard

(40:54):
heroes and truly mighty heroes if they're all monster slangs?
And in doing so, also that the act of swaying
a dragon ends up serving perhaps less of a symbolic
uh purpose, right, I mean, you're not defeating chaos or
the devil or the the you know, the powers of
the dark um or. It's not serving as a you know,
mark of passage into adulthood. It's just like a necessary

(41:17):
um upgrade in the arms race of storytelling. So uh.
In the particular old Norse saga that she's dealing with
here in this paper, she points out, uh that it
tackles the problems of including both Theodoric the Great and
Sigfried in the same story. So what the what the
story does is it makes Siegfried into Theodoric's vassal and

(41:39):
makes him kind of the sidekick, right, kind of wig
kind of kind yeah, but also gives Theodoric two dragons
and three baby dragons to kill. So in doing this,
you know, killing a dragon becomes less an impressive act
in and of itself. A real hero has to kill
like upwards of five dragons. This is how we get
Blade where you've got monster monster slayers that are like

(42:01):
the vampire slayers, they gotta kill tons of vampires. Well yeah,
I think also you're touched on something you get like
maybe you get specific types of monster slayers and specific
types of monsters. Like, oh, that's a good point. Yeah,
Like you know, I guess in the Marvel universe, I
imagine Captain America could kill a vampire, but if you're
dealing with multiple vampires, it's got to be blayed every time, right, Yeah. Yeah,

(42:23):
he's he's specialized labor. You know, he's got all the
tricks and the tools and the knowledge. So in this
paper she also points out there's a distinction in the
types of dragons dealt with, some natural and other supernatural,
some flightless worms and other winged some and others are
winged beasts. Uh. Demonica connotations, for example, are reserved in

(42:44):
this tale for the otter Ricks dragon foes. Well yeah,
I mean that's when in the original version of the
King George story that I was reading up there, did
we receive any indication that the dragon could even fly.
I mean it might have just been like a big
poison crocodile for right. I mean that makes would would
certainly match up with these depictions in which it is

(43:07):
very much on the ground beneath the horse. By the way,
in that particular story, um uh, these two heroes eventually dual,
and of course, uh, theoto Ic the Great wins, Theodoric
kills Siegfried. Well, no, no, just defeats him. I could say,
to the death. They're not okay, But it's interesting that
they're kind of dealing with some of the probably some
of the problems that that the comic books have dealt

(43:29):
with in modern times, Like what happens when you when
you have two heroes in the same story, How do
you how do you balance their powers or how do
you show clear? Um, how do you have positioned one
above the other in a way that doesn't diminish the
other one too much? Well, you've gotta have what Captain
America and Iron Man fight. Yeah, it's kind of the

(43:49):
same deal, right, yeah? Or is it Thor and Iron Man?
I don't keep up with those, Um, I think may
and I don't mean, I guess they've all fought each other.
You can't help but have heroes fight each other. But
I I believe leave Captain America and Iron Man they're
the ones who who end up fighting each other in
the movie. You know another thing I was thinking about
when you mentioned how Lion Arn's highlighted that eventually they

(44:10):
have to start killing more and more monsters to show
how great they are, because just killing one monster and yeah,
it's not that impressive anymore. I obviously have to go
to Hercules. Hercules had a bunch of what what percent
of his twelve labors were monster slayings, A lot of them, right, Well,
we're about to go through them, so let's find out. Okay,
everyone can keep track at home and uh and and

(44:32):
do do the math, please show your work. Hercules or
Heracles is of course one of the greatest monsters slayers
in Greek and Roman traditions. Now granted he didn't take
out Medusa. That was Perseus, who of course used a
goddess given tactics and weapons to overcome the Gorgon. But
he eat did a hell of a lot during the

(44:53):
labors of Hercules. And there's I should point out, there's
a wonderful video game themed shore about this from ted Ed.
If you go to you know, YouTube or the ted
ed website you will find it. It's absolutely delightful. Yeah,
it's like so you say, video game themed, it's like
pixel art. It looks like a classic Nintendo game. Yeah,
they are some sort of sixteen bit thing. I'm not sure.

(45:15):
I'm not sure exactly which bit it would be, but
it looks like a fabulous game. It makes me want
to play it. So basically, here's the rundown. You have Hercules,
this uh, this you know, semi divine hero. You know,
I like to picture the classic uh cinema Hercules with
the big beard and the big muscles. You know, he's
very much in the you know, the class of of

(45:36):
masculine warrior heroes. And so he ends up going on
these labors. And these labors are an act of atonement
after the goddess Hera drives him mad, resulting in the
murder of his own children, and these labors were assigned
to him by his name Nemesis Eurystheus. So these are
the labors. First labor, uh, he has to take out

(45:59):
the Nimi and lion, which is a monstrous lion. Yeah.
Second labor is the Learnaean hydra, and this is a
classic monster that is sometimes described as a mere multi
headed snake monster, but later it takes on regenerative features
as well. So yeah, you cut off one head to
grow back in its place. Big Hurk had to get
hell from his nephew on this one, I believe, so

(46:21):
yes uh. And the solution here is a fabulous work
of team a bit of teamwork. Hirk slices off the
head and then the nephew jumps in and burns the stump.
Third labor Serenian hind. Not a monster really, but a
very special deer. Fourth labor is the Aramathean boar, which
is a monstrous boar, just another giant sized animal for

(46:44):
him to deal with. Fifth labor he cleans out the
Agean stables, so just lots of animal poop. Uh. Not
a monster, but a monstrous task. Uh. Sixth labor were
the Stemfalian bird words. Uh, these were pretty monsters. These
were the sacred metal war birds of aries bronze of

(47:05):
beak and feather, and they could launch their their metal
feathers like flying daggers. Seventh labor was the Cretan bull,
which is there any connection with the minotaur there. I
I mean, I would assume we're talking about crete, right,
and it's a bull. Yeah, but it's just a monstrous bull,
it's not a minatar um. Then the eighth labor was

(47:27):
were the mayors of Diometes, and these were flesh eating horses.
So they're pretty monsters now granted they were they were
trained to eat flesh, they were encouraged to eat flesh.
And uh, and he's able to overcome this one and
essentially gets their their masters eating instead. Ninth labor the
belt of Hippolyta monster the Amazon queen, right. Tenth labor

(47:49):
the cattle of Garyon, and Garon was a giant with
three faces. Eleventh labor the golden apples of Hesperites. And
then twelve labor, uh Cerebus, the three headed hellhound. So
here we have a good monster for him to to
tackle and literally tackle and wrestle and overcome. So these

(48:10):
are all these are all fun little adventures and uh,
we would need a lot more time to really talk
about all of them in depth and what they mean, etcetera. Um,
you know, and heck, we have a full episode on
Hydras in the vault. But one of the things that
strikes me here is that that her Again, it's very
much a male warrior hero, and he uses strength and
cunning to overcome his enemies. But at the same time,
herc is a divine being. He's a demigod, a hybrid

(48:33):
born of the god Zeus and immortal Mother, so he's
touched by the other worldly and therefore the perfect slayer
of other worldly enemies. I mean this highlights a couple
of different ways that monster slayers can be. One is
the courageous type, and the other is the fearless type,
which is a very different thing. Right. Uh. I mean,
does is there ever any indication that Hercules feels fear

(48:57):
when he goes to fight these monsters or does his
godlike nature, the fact that he's half god sort of
make him able to face these with a sense of invulnerability? Yeah?
I feel like it's it's a fearless uh situation. Fear
fearless and largely invulnerable because he is half god. Um,

(49:18):
you know, I can't help me be reminded again of Blade. Uh,
the specifically the Wesley Snipes blade. Uh? Is there another blade?
And there was like a TV blade played by what
sticky fingers I think or Fingers, Uh, the the Rapper
played him. Uh, and I don't know, I never saw
the show, but uh, as far as I'm concerned, Wesley

(49:38):
Snipes is the only blade um but in that he
is half vampire, so he has I think it's said
that he has um all of their strengths but none
of their weaknesses. Right, so he's the day Walker? Yeah,
well who who else but the day Walker? The DayWalker
is the perfect slayer of all of these vampires. Now, Robert,
I'm sure you would love to talk about some of

(50:00):
the monster slayers of Chinese myth and legend. Oh yeah,
there there are some good ones. One of them is
actually a character we've talked about on the show before,
uh in our episode on the Great Flood, because we
talked about the Chinese mythic hero uh You the Great
or die you. Um. He's also you know emperor and

(50:20):
founded uh the Shiah dynasty, which was two b C.
We talked about him on the show before about in
regards to his his his role in overcoming the ravages
of the Great Flood, not by building a boat or
anything like we see in you know, Mesopotamian and Old

(50:40):
Testament traditions, but by sort of tackling it with irrigation
and engineering, uh, but also through like having his father
having pilfered the secrets from the gods. So there's this
Promethean vibe to it as well. But he was also
something of a monster slayer. Uh. He is said to
have killed then nine headed serpent hng Lu, who is

(51:03):
a minister of the defeated chaotic water deity Gong Gong
uh and who was defeated in a battle for divine
supremacy against the against jen Zou, the grandson of the
mythical Yellow Emperor. As described by the authors Young and
On in Handbook of Chinese Mythology, Jiang Lu, the great

(51:24):
back black serpent here had nine human heads, and the
nine heads eight food from the nine mountains, and everywhere
it went it left impassable marshes in hostile gullies in
its path. Now do you think that the the idea
of like the nine heads with they're they're sort of
snaking necks has anything to do with rivers there with

(51:45):
river imagery, I assume, yeah. I didn't. I didn't. They
didn't go into into any more extended detail on the
possible symbolism of the of the of the nine heads, etcetera.
But it does bring to mind this idea of like
branching rivers does. Now, obviously, I think everyone can see
where we're going here. Like you, the Great overcomes floods

(52:07):
and the dangers of flood and here we have the
monster personification of floods and flood hazards. So you end
up slaying the monster. But the creature's blood is so
poisonous that it poisons the spot where it dies, so
that life can find no purchase there. And you wants
to overcome this so so the crops can be grown
there and and dug and so he digs out the

(52:28):
poisoned earth not once, not twice, but three times, and
each time the blood sinks down even deeper. And eventually
he just has to build a terrace from the excavated soil.
Uh and uh and atop this uh you know it's
it is. It's like a temple that's uh devoted to
the great gods. Now. Yang and On mentioned that this
story is not really told that much in modern China,

(52:51):
but it's some versions of it still survive, such as
one from Sichuan Province in which Jen Zou survives battle
with the our god wrong and continues to bring flooding
and death to the earth, forcing the mother goddess Nuah
to slay it. So here we get to a godess
getting involved in the slaying again. Um Nah also more

(53:13):
famously defeated the Black Dragon, also a being of chaotic
water and flood energy. I'd also be remiss if I
didn't mention the archer who ye who killed a number
of different monsters, and of course shot down the nine
surplus sons that were roasting the earth, and in some

(53:33):
tellings he actually shot and killed nine great crows that
carried these sons. Now, it's also interesting is that during
this age of ten Sons, not only is it just
really hot and difficult to grow crops, it's also said
to be a time of cosmic imbalance, and during this
time a lot of unnatural monsters rise up, and so

(53:54):
the emperor ends up tasking uh ye the archer with
their destruction uh and us. Just just a few of
the monsters that he ends up killing include uh uh
There's a monster with the dragon's head and the leopard's body,
a monster with teeth a sharp as chisels that are unbreakable.
There is a nine headed monster, there's a giant bird,
a giant bore, a giant snake. Uh So again all

(54:17):
manner of unnatural creatures who rose up during a time
of cosmic imbalance. He also punishes a couple of damaging
elemental gods with a well placed to arrow or two.
For instance, he shot the damaging win god he bow
in the eye, and he took out both knees of
the damaging river god Fingbo, and in other versions he

(54:37):
kills Fingbo outright. So once again we have like river
water elemental monsters that have to be dealt with by
a hero. Yeah, and the idea of them coming out
of a time of cosmic imbalance um seems to somehow echoed,
you know, the very ancient monster concepts of like the

(54:58):
chaos monster, like like TMA NAPSU. Al Right, well, on
that note, let's take one more break and we come back.
Let's talk about what the slayer means to us. Thank you,
thank you, all right, we're back. Okay. So we've been
looking at a lot of great examples of monsters and
their slayers, the monster slayers stories from throughout human history,

(55:21):
and now we wanted to take a look at what
what what the monster slayer means? Why do we keep
telling stories like this? Why is this so common? And
what purpose psychologically and culturally does it serve when we
do so. One of the things I want to say
at the outside, just as a kind of disclaimer, is that, um,
I feel like when we try to explain what stories

(55:43):
and myths mean from a kind of evolutionary psychology perspective,
we always need to remember to understand the difference between
like proving a theory with direct evidence and sort of
simply telling a plausible story and arguing it to be
consistent with what we know now. I'm actually all for
having arguments over plausible stories and evo psych and all that,
but it's imperative for us to remember that that's what

(56:06):
they are. I think sometimes people get carried away with
this project and they jump from I've told a plausible
story about why we have this cultural thing or the
psychological thing too. I have discovered the biological origin of
this element of human psychology or culture, and we I
think we just always need to be careful not to
do that. Sometimes you see people taking like almost Joseph

(56:30):
Campbelly kind of observations to the point of saying like
this is just science and that you know, you know
what I mean that said, all these kind of like
Joseph Campbelly sort of observations can be a lot of fun, right,
and and he of course had lots to say and
think about the role of monster slayers. Yeah, I mean, likewise, um,
Julian Jays the by camera mind, which I'll actually touch

(56:53):
on in a bit like if you if you go
entirely down the Jane's well of interpreting everything, then yeah,
it can be a lot of fun. Then you have
cut off all other perspectives on what the thing is. Well,
I mean, so one thing that uh, somebody I think,
like Joseph Campbell would say is that the role of
the monster slayer in fiction is about like facing the ego.

(57:17):
It's like this ego struggle and that you've got to
face yourself and overcome your fears and and change something
about yourself. You know that that kind of thing. And
so I I do agree at least that it's totally
plausible that monster slayer stories are very prominent and very

(57:37):
common because stories about facing dangers and facing fears are
psychologically very salient. To us. You know, we're constantly in
our lives faced with situations where we don't want to
do something, but in order to to get what we want,
we have to do that thing we don't want to do.
You know, you've got to face your fears and overcome
your discomfort to I don't know, save the princess, or

(57:59):
to do whatever. And I think that's a totally plausible
basis for for starting a conversation about what monster slayer
miths mean. So another way to get deeper on this subject,
I guess would be to look a little bit more
at what the monsters in these stories mean. And I
want to posit a place for us to start there.
I would pose it that the monsters in these stories,
most often, I would say, UH, seem to come from

(58:23):
a combination of two main psychological UH components, biological threats
and category confusions. And if we've talked about category confusion
quite a bit on the show, the idea that it's
go back to hercules, right, Yeah, it's like a snake
but it has way too many heads, or it's like

(58:43):
a boar but it's gigantic. What's going on? Right? And
there are reasons I think that would be significant. I'll
get to that in just a minute now. Obviously, the
fear of biological threats is pretty straightforward. There's a natural
fear of predatory or venomous animals and of human rivals.
And this doesn't need much explaining. In the basic sense,
predators are dangerous and thus a deeply ingrained archetype from

(59:05):
the natural world. But there there are also some relevant
questions like why are certain forms such as snakes, which
you've seen all throughout these monsters and spiders. Also, why
are those things readily seen as monstrous or incorporated in
parts into chimerical monsters? Why so easily a spider monster
or a serpentine monster, why not more often like a

(59:27):
bear monster. You might have one of those every now
and then. That's true, because, of course, the argument with
the the snake or the or the spider is that
if it bites you, you could die. Depending on the
variety of snake or spider, If the bear bites you,
there's also a very good chance you'll die, right Yeah,
uh so, yeah, this is actually long been a question.
There's been this big question about whether these common fears,

(59:49):
especially if things like spiders and snakes are are learned
or in aid and Robert, I know you've looked at
research like this too. Obviously, some part of any widespread
fear will be based on cultural conditioning, so I think
it's pretty inarguable that some part of this fear is learned, right,
But could there also be a biological factor. Could there

(01:00:11):
also be some in built part of the brain that
is prone to recognize the shapes of spiders and snakes
and react fearfully without any prior knowledge or conditioning. And
I'd say that the question still isn't totally settled, but
there's been some interesting research suggesting, especially recently, that yes,
recognition could be an eight. One example is uh study

(01:00:33):
from in Frontiers and Psychology called Etsy Bitsy Spider infants
react with increased arousal spider and snakes spiders and snakes,
So of course what they did in the study here
was they threw babies into cribs full of spiders and
snakes they did not, And the study showed six month
old infants images with similar shapes and colors. So visually

(01:00:56):
these images were very close to each other, but with
different ontological content. Some of them were pictures of spiders
versus flowers. That looked very similar, and others were pictures
of snakes versus fish that looked very similar. And the
researchers measured the baby's differential pupillary response to these images,

(01:01:17):
the dilation of the pupils, and that's accepted as a
pretty good indicator of activation of the nero dreenergenic system,
which is a physiological fear response. You know, it commands
your attention and your body responds physiologically. Uh. And the
author's right quote, infants reacted with increased pupillary dilation, indicating
arousal to spiders and snakes compared with flowers and fish.

(01:01:39):
Results support the notion of an evolved preparedness for developing
fear of these ancestral threats. So if even six month
old babies show a stress response to images of spiders
and snakes, it would seem that those forms could in
some way be hardwired into us. There's at least part
of us that is naturally biologically afraid of those things,

(01:02:00):
and it's not just cultural conditioning. Uh. And another question
there is why spiders and snakes, Right, we brought this
up a minute ago. There are much more dangerous animals. Uh.
One possible answer offered in a CBC interview by study
author Stephanie hull Is quote, what's really interesting about spiders
and snakes is that they have been posing a threat

(01:02:21):
to our ancestors for an immensely long time. Spiders and
snakes developed a venomous bites forty to sixty million years ago.
This is a really long long time of coevolution, and
we think that this enables primates, not only humans, but
other primates as well, to develop mechanisms that enable us
to detect these animals very quickly, to respond to them,

(01:02:44):
to put our bodies into fight or flight mode. This
may really have posed an advantage. Nowadays, it doesn't make
so much sense. So the idea there is that, well,
maybe it's not that we naturally respond to spiders and
snakes because they're the most dangerous animals, but because they're
the dangerous forms we've been around the longest and have

(01:03:05):
stayed looking the same the longest. Does that make sense? Yeah,
The the basic formula, the basic the basic uh proposition
of a snake or spider has not changed in human
history or even in primate history. Yes, But I might
just note, on the other hand, there's also some evidence
pointing against the hard coded phylogenetic threat hypothesis. For example,

(01:03:25):
I found a study from two thousand nine in which
adults recognized images of guns just as efficiently as they
recognized images of snakes. Now, of course, guns aren't part
of our biological neurohistory, so they couldn't. There couldn't be
like a hardwired gun response in the brain that has
to be culturally learned. But then again, maybe maybe it's
just that are cognitively based or learned fears become every

(01:03:48):
bit as efficient in the brain as the hardwired, evolved ones.
That could be. How about fulsa dooms bow that shoots
snakes from common the barbarian that see that is the
ultimate physiological threat arousal trigger. I mean, I couldn't react
with anything but worship. There, you know, in that movie

(01:04:08):
we have another great example of monster slang because one
of Conan's early UH trials is the slaying of the
giant snake that also Doom keeps as a pet in
one of the temples. Yeah, what is he does? He
strangle it? He eventually chops its head off. There's some
wrestling there, for sure, There's some There's some wrestling, But

(01:04:29):
of course it's a snake. I mean, dragons are essentially snakes.
We always have these snake forms reappearing as monsters over
and over. It's got a snake for a head, or
the whole thing is a snake with wings or you know. Well, now,
in Western traditions, but as we've mentioned, in Eastern traditions,
there's I feel like there's enhanced, uh there's an enhanced
hybrid nature to the dragons. Yeah, the the Eastern dragon becomes,

(01:04:52):
I would argue, an even more fascinating creature with more
more valences, you know, more like it's more like the
core maybe and having multiple significances at different levels. But
I would also think that, you know, the Eastern dragon
tends to be less of a monster, it's more of
a I mean, it's it's very very often you know,
it is definitely an elemental force. It's tied to floods

(01:05:15):
and storms and waters in the ocean, but it does
have more of a divine presence than you find in
uh in Western traditions. Yeah, uh so, So anyway back
to the idea of the basis of these monster fears.
So one, you've got these elements that are so often
taken from what appear to be at least maybe hard
coded form threats, phylogenetic threats that are, you know, part

(01:05:39):
of our evolutionary history, and they at least at some
level maybe hard coded in the brain, if not hard
coded in the brain, very well coded into culture. Uh.
And the other thing, of course, we feel we mentioned
a minute ago, is the discomfort with category confusion. So
let's say we're defending ourselves from a natural threat, whether
that's a venomous snake or a lepard or a wolf.

(01:06:01):
One of our greatest defense mechanisms is not our muscles
but our brains, right awareness and recognition, the ability to
cognitively pick out signs of threats and avoid them. And then,
of course also if we must face a threat, like
cleverness and strategic thinking to overcome the threat. But most
of our defensive thinking is actually one form or another

(01:06:23):
of category sorting. Right, you see a shape and you
immediately start to sort what kind of thing is that?
Is that a harmless bunny or a venomous snake? And
so perhaps one reason we fear monsters so much is
that they not only represent aspects of real biological threats
and predators, but that they defy our normal categorical sorting

(01:06:43):
mechanisms by blurring the lines between categories of things. So
a spider a hundred times bigger than it should be,
a snake with wings, a lion that can talk uh,
And by the way, they defy intuitive sorting. These creatures
resist easy cognitive understanding, and thus they cause discomfort and fear.
Like a creature that has aspects of biological threats like

(01:07:06):
predatory or venomous forms, and also simultaneously messes with our
cognitive defenses by violating category coherence. That's sort of the
ultimate threat, right it. It beats your greatest defense, and
it is the most threatening kind of thing. Thus the
monster slayer has to overcome more than the normal warrior.
They have to face primordial fears and square off against

(01:07:30):
an enemy that normally makes us feel weak and helpless
and afraid at the deepest level. And in this respect,
you can you can sort of look at it. Any
myth is is simply a situation where you know, you
sit around the fire and one guy's like, yeah, I'm
kind of afraid of the darkness. It seems, you know,
kind of it seems kind of intense. I mean, who
knows what's out there, and it's what all that's out there?

(01:07:52):
It might try to eat me and one day I'm
gonna die anyway. And then the the other soldiers sit
around the fire says, well, let me tell you a story,
because this story has a hero in it, and all
that stuff that you're afraid of he just cuts its
head off. It's that, it's that simple. And so here's
a hero that you can you can you can ruminate on.
Do you think that inherently the monster slayer story is

(01:08:17):
more often empowering to the audience, to the person listening,
like you can be like that hero, or is it
more often uh, commanding kind of submission and obedience, like
look at what our heroes are like, you must bow
down before them. I don't know, do you know what
I mean? Well that it could be like chill out,
we have it, there's a hero out there doing this

(01:08:37):
for you, or chill out like the power behind the
behind the hero, the god or the gods or the
goddess that if you're behind that god, then hey, that
God's got to hero. You don't have to worry about it.
But then in later it's certainly more more modern understanding
is like yeah, I'm kind of like Blade, right, I
can you know, like at least on some level, like

(01:08:58):
we're we're supposed to uh, I mean we're rooting for
the hero. We're rooting for Blade or Dutch or whoever. Uh,
And and we are kind of living the story through them.
And yeah, you kind of leave those those pictures, those
stories feeling I can slay the monsters in my life,
the blood suckers in my life. I think they might
have a steak coming. Quick note, I'm not encouraging anyone

(01:09:20):
to stake anybody. Oh no, no, no, we're not trying
to create Martin's out there or wait no, not Martin's
what it's Martin's uncle or whatever. Right, are you talking
about the Romero film? Yeah? Oh yeah, It's been a
long time since I've seen that. We don't be like
anybody in that movie. Just don't don't imitate any part
of it, all right. So in order to overcome the monster, though,

(01:09:42):
the hero is probably gonna need a certain amount of courage.
I mean, arguably, if you're getting into like, are they
do they have any fear to begin with? If they
have any amount of fear, they're gonna have to summon
courage or they're gonna have to exhibit courage that is
beyond that which the normal person would seem to have, right,
because if you're Baowulf, otherwise, why would you go into
the dark, Why would you dive down into the deep

(01:10:04):
and find the layer? Well, so there there are a
couple of different ways you can go in to face
the monster, right. I guess one would be to to
have courage to overcome your fear, because I guess that's
sort of the definition of courage, right. Courage is a
cognitive overriding of anxiety that prevents the physiological fear response

(01:10:24):
or or overcomes the physiological fear response and prevents you
from running away. It makes you you know you've got
control and you make yourself face the fear inducing thing
like the I think a great example of this is
an Aliens where ripley Uh, well, she certainly she's returning
to the world of the Zeno more from the first half,
but in the later half of the film she is

(01:10:45):
going back in to save news. She is descending into
the monster's world in facing something that it has been
well established she is terrified of. That is that is
a great example, and in fact, I will say, while
I have mixed feelings about a lot of monster slayers,
you know, I'm like, I don't know if I like Beowulf,
maybe I think Grendel, grind Maybe Grindel At a point,
Ripley I think is a is a truly holy monster slayer.

(01:11:09):
I am one hundred percent behind Ripley in her slaying quest, right,
I mean that's a really a straight up Beowolf story
because she also ends up essentially fighting Grendel's mother. Yes,
in aliens, Yeah, but if it were terminator versus alien,
then that that would be the other half, right, that
would be the the hero that doesn't feel fear to
begin with. And sometimes you don't know, I mean sometimes

(01:11:31):
you kind of feel that way. Is that what Beowulf's like?
Is that what Herchilles are like? Are these heroes supposed
to be people who just are incapable of feeling afraid
in the face of this monster? Uh? You do think?
You know? You wonder if is mar Duke. Is mar
Duke courageous or is he just fearless? I wonder if
mar Duke is actually courageous because mar Duke makes a bargain, right,

(01:11:53):
He's like, look if I'm going to put this all
online and risk it. You at least got to make
me king of the gods. Or he's just following operating
for seizure, you know. Yeah maybe oh yeah, maybe he's
a robot. Yeah, but yeah. So to think about this,
you can think about it in a couple of ways
in the brain. So, like, I want to start off
by mentioning the amygdala, the you know, the little almond

(01:12:13):
shaped subcortical brain network of the amygdalas sometimes referred to,
I think not quite accurately as the brain's fear center
or something like that. As usual with these kinds of appellations,
that's a bit of an oversimplication. The brain's fear response
is complex and it involves multiple brain regions, but there
are multiple lines of evidence that indicate that the amygdala

(01:12:36):
does appear to play some important role in fear. It's
something it does something important in generating the physiological fear
response in the body. For example, brain imaging studies show
that fear inducing images like pictures of animals like spiders
and snakes, trigger activation in the amygdala, but that the

(01:12:57):
brain can also recruit other regions to inhibit a magdala response,
which seems to be correlated with resistance to the fear response.
Both animals and people with damage to amygdala's seemed to
show a diminished sense of the fear response. Like One
example is the classic case of patient s M I
think we've talked about on the show so um famous

(01:13:18):
case of a woman who experienced bilateral amygdala damage during childhood,
and she shows very little, if any fear response in
situations like haunted houses and stuff, and and in response
to scary movies. She she just lacks a fear response
that is very common among pretty much everybody else. Uh,

(01:13:38):
And this seems to have something to do with the
damage to her amygdala. Again, this does not necessarily mean
that fear is quote in the amygdala, but it does
indicate that the amygdala plays this important role in generating
the threat avoidance behavior we associate with fear. So I mean,
I wonder if you saw somebody who inspired you to
tell a story of somebody like Hercules, Ease or Beowulf

(01:14:01):
who was just fearless, not courageous, but fearless. Is this
I wonder, is this inspired by the idea of somebody
with the damage to Miguela You know, people who just
don't even flinch in the face of something scary. I mean, well,
we do have the you know, additional information about Hercules
being driven mad and slaying his children. Oh yeah, I

(01:14:23):
don't know. That doesn't that perhaps speaks to the possibility
of additional neurological damage. I want to be clear, I'm
not suggesting that Hercules is based on a historical figure
or something like that. But I mean with all these
kinds of stories, you wonder if somebody saw something that
inspired the story or is it just pure creative imagination.

(01:14:45):
It could be either one or you know, so you
see something you or you're looking at somebody being courageous,
and if all you see is the courageous act, you
could well interpreted his fearlessness, like look at that guy,
He's never afraid in his life. You're just not privy
to the part where after he defeats the enemy, he
goes back and like vomits and weeps in his tent
because he's just been through this horrific experience. I mean,

(01:15:08):
you know, we often talk about the monster slang is
like this this this rite of passage for the hero.
You know that it makes them um and this of course,
reminds me of the you know, the line that which
does not kill you almost kills you and is therefore
inherently traumatic. Huh uh well, yeah, I mean that's the
other model. Maybe it is that somebody saw somebody who

(01:15:30):
was just being courageous and facing their fears, and they
did it so well that people saw that and interpreted
it as them being fearless, Like they couldn't even see
through to what the person was feeling. Um, and so
you know, I wonder, like what's going on in the
brain with courage. There have actually been studies on this. Uh,
there was one I was looking at by Uri Neely,

(01:15:51):
Haggard Goldberg, Abraham Wiseman, and Yahdin do die in neuron
in two Thousen called fear thou not activity of frontal
and temporal circuits in moments of real life courage. So
this is a snake on a trolley experiment. You know,
you gotta love a good snake on a trolley experiment.
You the trolley operator is the subject of the experiment.

(01:16:11):
They're sitting down in an FMR I. So this is
an fmr I study. You know, with all the caveats
we know about some of these neuro imaging studies, assuming
that their results are are are valid and useful. Here,
the subject's goal is The subject's goal is to lay
in the f m R I get the brain imaged
while they are attempting to move a trolley with a

(01:16:32):
snake on it as close as possible to their head
so it's on a track and they can control it,
and they're trying to get the snake close to them.
And the researchers found that courage, overcoming fear and moving
the snake closer to the head was associated with activity
in the sub genual anterior singulate cortex or the s
G A c C, and also in the right temporal

(01:16:54):
poll and the author's right quote. Further, activity in the
s G A c C was positively correl a did
with the level of fear upon choosing to overcome fear,
but not upon succumbing to it. So like you've got
a lot of fear and you overcome it. You say
like I'm really afraid, I'm terrified of snakes, but I'm
gonna keep moving the snake closer to my head. That

(01:17:15):
was positively correlated with more activity in this region the
subgenual anterior singulate cortex. And so they finally say that
the courage behavior seems to attenuate activity in the amygdala
and other regions associated with fear response, and it inhibits
the autonomic physiological fear response in that we normally have

(01:17:35):
in response to fear inducing stimuli promoting the courage behavior.
It's like when you experience courage, that is a process
in the brain, and it's one part of the brain
apparently inhibiting what would normally be going on in another
part of the brain, saying shut that down. We're going
to do it anyway. Now, another illuminating study this, this

(01:17:56):
is one that that you found. Uh. This one comes
said from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
from it's by mobs at All titled Neural activity associated
with monitoring the oscillating threat value of a Tarantula. Okay,
so we get another perhaps of phylogenetic threat here, right,
And phylogenetic threats these are of course threats that are

(01:18:18):
hardwired into his vo evolution, like we've been discussioning, discussing
especially the fear of spiders and snakes. Assuming that's correct.
So if I'm reading the study correctly, what the two
thousand ten study is saying is that in their experiment,
moving the object of fear, a tarantula, closer to the
subject produced a cascade of fear responses in the brain,
including activity in the amygdala quote associated with under prediction

(01:18:42):
of the tarantula's threat value um UH. And by the way,
one of the authors in the study that the main
author here Dean Mobs, Assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at
cal Tech. He has a two thousand eighteen paper titled
how cognitive and reactive fear circuits optimize escape A decisions
in humans and it drives home how the brain responds

(01:19:04):
to fear via or seems to respond to fear via
two distinct fear circuits uh studied in the in this
study via fm R I and a virtual predator video game.
No connection to Dutch, This would be like a phylogenetic predator, right.
So this is what what he lays out. We have
the cognitive fear circuit. This is distant threats front brain regions,

(01:19:28):
asserting risk and making decisions. This is a conscious exercise.
And then there's the reactive fear circuit. This is a
related to central brain structures. This is fight, flight or freeze.
This is a subconscious respect response. So, in the words
of Mobs quote, you don't think your way out of
a tiger attack, all right, So yeah, if you stop

(01:19:49):
to think when a tiger is assaulting you, you're debt.
You react instead via the reactive fear circuit, which is
subconscious and unthinking. Yeah. I mean, that's why fear is
often characterized as like a sort of involuntary physiological body response,
not just like the thought I am afraid. Yeah, like this,

(01:20:10):
I couldn't help but think about this in terms of flying.
With one of our other episodes this month, we talked
a little bit about the fear flying, and there is
a distinct difference between the fear one will have on
the plane and the fear one has um the day
before the flight or a different day before, the day
before the flighty um. So, you know, I wonder to

(01:20:32):
what extent we might apply this model to where our
monster slaying heroes men or more mostly men of action
and reaction. So sometimes they plan, uh, certainly, But but
but the planning is again oftentimes the work of a
god or goddess. And I can't imagine, I can't help
but imagine what Julian Jane so I would have would
have said about all this, the kind of funny would

(01:20:52):
have would have had with this I was looking around.
I'm not sure that he ever really tackled monsters and
monsters slang specifically, but he was very interested in the
role between of course heroes and gods. Well, yeah, certainly,
I mean what we're saying here, if we're assuming that
Mobs is correct about this, that you've got the cognitive
fear circuit and the reactive fear circuit, I'm sure James
would have imagined that as like, you know, the automatic

(01:21:15):
unconscious brain circuit and then the like the god fear circuit. Yeah,
like did to give you an idea everyone, an idea
of like what he might have said about this kind
of thing. He did touch on fear and terror in
his nine essay Remembrance of Things Far Past. He said,
quote fear and terror, once easily dissipated, stretch out into
anxiety that can last a lifetime. And all because men

(01:21:38):
can now automatically, and even against their wishes, reconstruct and
hold as if present in this new spatialized time, the
unalterable experience of the past and its possibility in the future. Now,
of course that's James playing with the bicameral model. Obviously,
you don't need to accept the bicameral model to see
that there's something interesting going on humans. You know, you

(01:22:01):
don't get the sense that most animals experience anxiety in
quite the same way humans do they. I mean, you
can't know for sure, but you don't get the sense
that they are like cognitively working over their fear scenarios
the way we do, right, I mean, I don't know.
I guess there's something to be said for certainly cases
say zukosis, where an animal is uh is behaving abnormally

(01:22:26):
because it is in captivity, where it's kind of undergoing
a continuous challenge to its mental stability, I guess. But
but yeah, I think it's it's safe to say that
that animals process things these things differently. There's definitely a
human dimension to the way we deal with threats, in
the way we respond mentally to them. And it's interesting
the way so many of these stories we've talked about

(01:22:49):
show different people reacting to the threat in different ways,
like the story of St. George and the Dragon. First,
the villagers go out to fight the dragon, but then
they can't overcome their fear and they're forced to run away.
You know, they think they can fight it, but then
their fear gets the better of them and we see
who they really are and they're they're driven back. But St.
George has the courage, and he has the you know,

(01:23:10):
he has Christ on his side. A similar thing I
think with mar Duke, right, you know, the other gods
were too afraid to fight Timat, but Marduke overcame his fear, Yeah,
and did. To come back to to Mob's division of
the two responses, I can't help but wonder of our
monster slaying heroes are models of our ideal reactive fear
network self. So as we engage with our cognitive fear

(01:23:34):
network to anticipate threats in the natural world, we ruminate
on the model and symbol of these embodiments of just
like pure ideal subconscious reaction, you know, just pure monster
not only monster slayers, but monster destroyers. Yeah, Like you
have you ever played with that scenario? Um? You know,
what would I do if there was like somebody attacking

(01:23:57):
me or something like that. You know, you'd like to
imagine like, oh I do this and that you know,
I'd i'd be strong, and i'd be smart, and i'd
be brave. But then, like when that really happens to people,
you know, the cower and fear, and like you, it's
a thing that you can't even know what you would do.
You can hope you would be one way, but you
can't know until it happens because these involuntary processes take over.

(01:24:19):
So yeah, so you're saying like that, we're trying to
imagine the way we hope we would be when those
automatic processes take over and just guide your action without
you thinking about it, and maybe to a certain extent,
were even actively saying, let me be Beowulf when the
time comes. Hum well, and I can't help but wonder

(01:24:42):
if having fictional models makes it more likely. Yeah, that's possible.
I don't know. Let me be the Hulk when the
time comes, you know. Yeah, like if you've if you've
had a model that you can picture in your mind,
does it make it more likely that you will actually
act that way? I don't know, but it's uh, that's
interesting food for thought. Uh. Either way, there there there

(01:25:05):
is truth to the matter that that when when the
terror comes, when the monster comes, we don't know unless
we've rehearsed for it, like actively, not mentally, but like physically.
You know, we probably don't have a clear idea of
how we will respond. You know, we have our our
our intentions and our hopes regarding our response, but maybe

(01:25:26):
we haven't actually been tested yet. I'm reminded of a
quote from Hunter S. Thompson, uh specifically the lyrics he
wrote for a Warren Zevon song of the of the
same name, where he said, quote, you're a whole different
person when you're scared, and so you're saying you want
to know what that person is going to be, like,
maybe they can be like Hercules exactly. Yeah, that's why. Yeah,

(01:25:50):
I'm going to picture Hercules in my mind and hopefully
maybe that is what the gods will make of me
when the time comes. So I didn't find a study
like this, but I would be kind of surprised if
there isn't one somewhere out there, a study of like,
does thinking about monster slayers or heroes of any kind
make you more courageous? Do do the snake trolley test again,

(01:26:11):
but just like see if there's any difference when you
like prime people beforehand with the story of a monster
slayer or something. Be got to watch season two of Buffy. Yeah,
prior to uh handling the snake trolley. Yeah. Maybe, so
so you're season two guy? Huh? Well, I mean season
one is necessary. I love the Master um. But even

(01:26:33):
as I was watching it, people were like, you just
gotta press on three season one and get to season
two and then yeah from from there, From from there on,
it's it's gravy. I'd go season three. Yeah, yeah, that's
where it really like, that's the Mayor season. Oh, the
Mayor is good. I forgot about the Mayor. Yeah. I
need to rewatch some of them. I'm not going to
say all of them, but I do. I should go

(01:26:54):
back and rewatch some of There's some great episodes in there. Yeah. Alright.
So there you have it, the monster slayer, monsters and
the fabulous slayers who slay them. Uh. This was a
fun one to put together. Obviously, we couldn't look at
every amazing monster slay myth or legend or modern interpretation
out there. There's just so much good stuff. Hey, send us,

(01:27:15):
send us your favorite monster slayer stories, and I want
to hear more of those, especially the ones you hear
less often, especially ones with great female monster slayers. I
want to know more of those stories for sure. I
should also point out there there were some There are
some really good ones that I ran across in um
Native American traditions that time will include here. But maybe
that's something we can do again in the future if

(01:27:35):
everyone really digs a good monster slayer tale. Yeah, there
there's some good ones there all right. In the meantime,
head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That's where we'll find all the podcast episodes, uh, as
well as just a lot of extra monster content, a
whole bunch of monster blogs that I wrote over the years, UH,
some Monster Science videos. Links out to our social media

(01:27:56):
accounts like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, as well as
a link for our door go check that out. A
great way to support the show is to buy some
of that merchandise. We have one related to release a
recent episode on the basilisk. You can check that out.
And if you want to support the show in a
way that doesn't cost you any money, just rate and
review us wherever you have the power to do so.

(01:28:17):
Huge thanks as always to our wonderful audio producers. Alex Williams,
and Tarry Harrison. If you'd like to get in touch
with us directly, let us know feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
to let us know about your favorite monster slayer, or
just to say hi, let us know how you found
out about the show where you listen from. You can
email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works

(01:28:39):
dot com. Well more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com. The Four Foo

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Realms of Myth Playlist, Part 6: The Slayer