August 7, 2024 • 18 mins
George Noory and author Darragh Mason explore his research into djinn and other trickster spirits, stories of people possessed by evil spirits, and the terrifying Dark Man, who may actually be the Devil himself.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
iHeartRadio and welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
To Coast to Coast George Nori with you. Derek Mason
with US writer, researcher and award winning travel and documentary photographer.
He hosts the award nominated podcast called spirit Box, best
known for his work on the gin Ye Gaudi. Lives
in East Sussex, United Kingdom, and that's where we're going
live right now. Darrere, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Good morning Georgia. Say, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
How do people hear your podcast? By the way, spirit Box.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, it's the podcast has been around for but just
over four years now, and I look at all all
the different types of spirit encounters, folklore and the interview
modical practitioners about their experiences.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
So guess it's a fun chow fantastic.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
How did you get involved in the unusual like this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, it started, It started ready from the of my
photographic work. I used to be a travel and documentary
photographer and I spent a lot of time in India
in particular, and I just started bumping up against this
this stuff when I investigated certain subjects like like the Gin,
(01:20):
which are these beings that are said to be made
of smokeless fire, most known within kind of the Arabic
world and Islamic worlds. I also did. I did a
documentary piece on a Hindu sect known as the Agori,
and they practiced some extreme magical rituals and strange things
(01:48):
started to happen when I investigated and got into this area,
and that repiqued my interest and I wanted to understand
my experiences more and I just started researching and it
and one thing led to another reading.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Did the strange things there happen to you or just whenever?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yet, some strange things did happened to me, particularly when
I went to Delhi in twenty sixteen to shoot a
story related to the locations within the city of Delhi
that are associated with the Gin. The famous book by
an author called William dal Rymple called A City of Gins,
(02:25):
and it's about his time as a young correspondent in Delhi.
So I went to the Deli to shoot these locations
and kind of build a story about the Gin looking
at it from such a more paranormal perspective. And I
just had a list of disasters from from day one
(02:47):
I had a quite intense nightmare which I found out
was located in one of the locations that I was
going to shoot it. So basically I was sitting down
in during a Susi celebration and there are lots of
fantastic music in a place called Nismodine Dark, which is
(03:10):
the tomb of a very famous Supi Saunds. People go
there to be healed by the Gin a hill from
the Gin Rother. And during that nightmare, there was a man.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Sitting to my left.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And he turned and looked at me and his face
was decomposed. Yeah, it was quite intense. He was wearing
a white hat and said, don't come here. And my
camera broke. There was two weeks before I was supposed
to go. I couldn't get it repaired. No one could
figure out what was wrong with it. My my father
(03:47):
came with me. His tooth broke in Heathrow Airport before
we even left on the flight. We had to change
hotels like three times in two days, like just everything
was difficult. But when I got finally got to this
location Nismoden, I was directed to an area where there
(04:07):
was a small.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Enclosure where people people were waiting.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
To be treated by the by the stuffies to help
help them with Gin problems, so to speak, Gin possession.
And there was a man sitting there, and he had
a white hat on, and he was staring directly at me,
and I believe he was being possessed. He was possessed
(04:33):
and sessed by Gin, and the Gin was staring at me.
It's the only time I've ever been afraid to take
a photograph of my life.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Have you ever been heard Gara in your work.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I haven't been hurt, but I have had some like
frightening experiences, experiences that challenge my worldview. If you ask
me five year years ago if I believed in spirits
and believe the magic, I would have said now now,
I absolutely believe those things are real.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Hence the book Song of the Dark Man, which we're
going to get into in a big way.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Here in the United States, we talk a lot about
shadow people in the hat Man. Now yours is the
dark Man that's different than these entities, is it not?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It's I would say the hat Man and some of
the shadow.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
People are lower emanations of the.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Same force, which is an evil force.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I think it's more ambiguous than that I think the
expedience because the experience is so intense and frightening for
people that they can often believe it to be evil,
but it's not necessarily the case. That's not to say
that people don't have the evil experience, but it is
(06:02):
often an experience that leads to people's worldview being changed
and bringing in creative forces into people's lives. So that's
the reason it's called Song of the dark Man because
people sometimes when people have these experiences, these initiatory experiences
(06:25):
with the dark Man, they get a form of creative
energy coming through them. They also get a form of
magical energy coming through them, so it's almost like an
initiation into creativity or initiation into into magical practice.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
There are who coined the phrase dark man?
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Oh goodness, Yeah, that's a that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
There's so many names for the spirits and this force
that I could tell you where that that name originally
came from. But I heard names like that and and
others from a lot of the medicitions. And which is
that I interviewed.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Has the name the devil been associated with the dark man.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
What they would call the folk devil, not not the
Christian devil.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What's the difference, Well, the.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Folk devil is more of a trickster type character, so
it would be like the devil and folklore that essentially
tends to be an in morality plays the stories that
people's character gets questioned, whereas the the Christian devil is
(07:50):
more of that kind of opposing, opposing figure that is
set up to be diametrically opposed to God.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
There his website is his name he spells a E
A R R A G. H. Mason dot com linked
up at Coast to coast am dot com. There are
what if you had to explain, and you will, who
the dark man is, What the dark man is? What
would you say?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
I'd say it's the disruptive force, a destructive force that
reminds us that we are part of nature, that we're not.
We don't own nature, we don't rule over nature, but
we are part of it. And that's what I mean
about the folks that will be in this kind of
trickster character. It makes people understand that whatever you think
(08:40):
about the world, how it's how it works, who's in
control that all those things can be undermined in an instant.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Is the phrase the dark man pretty well known in
the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I wouldn't say so, No, it's more well known in.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Like occult circles.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Why is the dark man experience to some so terrifying?
What happens?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Well, what I noticed going through the focalore and going
through the trials of various twelve reports from seventeenth century
when the Scottish witch trials is there is a the
figure that often appears that it's part animal and part human.
It also tends to be get black, and it has
(09:40):
it tends to interrupt journeys. So we have things like
you know, like you get the fairy stories about someone's
walking along the road at night and then a dark
horseman comes up and challenges them to a race, and
like the race, the prize of the race is actually
their soul, you know, and at that part that dark
and will be called like the King of the fairies.
(10:02):
So these things tend to interlap quite a bit. People
still have these experiences. People still have these interrupted journeys
where very strange things happen. But they might be called
different things might be called like like crypto animals or
(10:24):
things like that. But it's at the undercurrent the actual
circumstances are the same. Somebody has a journey there in
between one place and another. It's a liminal thing. They
are maybe out somewhere that it isn't civilization, it's out
somewhere wild, and their journey is interrupted. Something mysterious happens
(10:49):
to them, and their world changes. And what I mean
by their world changing is their understanding of how the
world works. The structure of the universe is utterly changed
because they've had this experience that has turned their world
on their head.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Let's break down the title of the book. First of all,
Song of the Dark Man. What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Well, particularly the reason I chose the words song is
was active to the sagas and ancient mythologies and folklowers
of Irelands which where performed these stories were performed. Parts
of this were sung. This spirit is associated with inspiration
(11:41):
it particularly things like music and poetry. So that's why
I wanted to put that in there, to understand, to
help people understand that this is part of this experience
and part of the things that this spirit bequeaths people.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
The cover of the book, that picture that illustration is
done right.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Scary, yes it is, it is.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I had very little to do with that but yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
The subtitle of the book is one of Them Father
of Witches. What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So in the Scottish witch trials we have a repeated.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Pattern where a.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Dark figure came into someone's life and brought them into magic. So,
for example, Margaret Alexander, she was tried in sixteen forty
seven and she referred to a man in black clothes
who made her go forward. She also spoke to this
(12:49):
man being the king of the fairies. When pressed, she
said his physical nature was cold. Another lady, Margaret Allen,
was tried in sixteen sixty one and first servant testified
so she saw black man go into Margaret's room and
appear to move around like he had hoops. Thomas Black
Pride in sixteen sixty one that the devil appeared to
(13:11):
him at night in the shape of a man. Agnes
Clarkson Pride in sixteen forty nine spoke how her home
was filled with a black myst and then then she
saw this dark man with whom she has carnal dealings.
So the pattern comes up again and again.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
The second title is called Lord of the Crossroads.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Explain that, well, this is a reference to where people
and like American countryman, and people have gone to negotiate
with the spirit of the crossroads, and within certain magical schools,
(13:59):
the crossroads believed to be a place of power, that
these crossroads have emerged from migration paths of animals, and
where they cross over, they're they're again liminal places. So
people will go to the to the crossroads two initiate
contact with the spirit there. The most famously Robert Johnson,
(14:24):
the blues musician. Legend has it that the dark Man
took Robert Johnson's guitar, tuned it at the crossroads and
handed back to him along with great talent, success and
and money. And we find that pathion goes on and
on throughout our music. Lots of luminaries talk about Johnson's music,
(14:47):
Keith Richards, Robber Plants, Bob Dylan. I'm quite strikingly Bob
Dylan in a in an interview in the early two thousands,
he was asked, I think it was sixteen minutes. He
was asked why he was still working at through many
years of success, and he replied, it all goes back
to a destiny thing. I made a bargain with it
a long time ago, and I'm holding up my end
(15:09):
and went pressed to reveal whom he had made this deal.
He gave a right smile and laugh and said, with
the chief commander on this earth and the world we
can't see, which is a very striking thing to say,
and really kind of jumped jumped out of me when
I'm want to find that.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
What what did Robert Johnson have to give up in
order to get those benefits?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
The legend said that he he he gave up.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
His soul for this.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Not worth it?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Is it? I wouldn't say so now, I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I wouldn't trade my soul for whatever Johnson thinks he
got out.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Of the deal.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yep, I would agree with you, which which makes you
question of what was Dylan talking about?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Good point?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Point?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Does the dark Man inject himself in many events?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
What we what we found here is going through the
going through the folklore mythology is I started to see
this figure which in Irish is called on far dark
or on far dove, so those terms in Gaelic translation
as the dark man or the black man. Now those
(16:32):
when I did some research within some of the Irish
folklore collections which are available online, I started to see
this figure come up again and again, and he was
set up as this adversarial figure, this trickster figure that
would drive all these stories along. And one of the
(16:54):
most famous stories that I found him in was in
a collection known as the Senian Cycle. So the Fenian
Cycle is a body of Irish distriture originally dating from
the seventh century, and essentially the Fenian cycle is one
where these noble warriors, the Fienna, spend their time hunting, fishing,
(17:16):
and engaging with adventures in the spirit world and to
help orientate people think and Irish knights to the round table.
That's kind of what we're looking at here. The p
earliest compilation of the Fenian stories is found in Column Shana,
or the Locally of Ancients. This text is made up
(17:39):
of three manuscripts, two from the fifteenth century and third
dating to the seventeenth century. But these manuscripts reflect a
far older tradition, goes way back, and like Irish is
the oldest vernacular language apart from Latin in Western Europe.
So these stories, the dark Man turns up only a
(18:01):
very very small passage, and he sets the whole string
of events of that create this great story, which is
the story of the birth of Osheen, who is Sean
mccool's son and essentially Sean McCool, who is the Irish
(18:22):
Arthur is out hunting. He finds a strange deer. His
dogs won't attack the deer, so he brings the deer
back into his force. That night, a beautiful fairy woman
called five that comes into his quarters and begs his
protection from this man, who she calls the dark the
(18:43):
dark man of the she or the black medicition of
the men of God. Now this is the dark man.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
She's referring to listen to more Coast to Coast AM
every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to
Coast to coastam dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
iHeartRadio and welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
To Coast to Coast George Nori with you. Derek Mason
with US writer, researcher and award winning travel and documentary photographer.
He hosts the award nominated podcast called spirit Box, best
known for his work on the gin Ye Gaudi. Lives
in East Sussex, United Kingdom, and that's where we're going
live right now. Darrere, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Good morning Georgia. Say, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
How do people hear your podcast? By the way, spirit Box.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, it's the podcast has been around for but just
over four years now, and I look at all all
the different types of spirit encounters, folklore and the interview
modical practitioners about their experiences.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
So guess it's a fun chow fantastic.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
How did you get involved in the unusual like this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, it started, It started ready from the of my
photographic work. I used to be a travel and documentary
photographer and I spent a lot of time in India
in particular, and I just started bumping up against this
this stuff when I investigated certain subjects like like the Gin,
(01:20):
which are these beings that are said to be made
of smokeless fire, most known within kind of the Arabic
world and Islamic worlds. I also did. I did a
documentary piece on a Hindu sect known as the Agori,
and they practiced some extreme magical rituals and strange things
(01:48):
started to happen when I investigated and got into this area,
and that repiqued my interest and I wanted to understand
my experiences more and I just started researching and it
and one thing led to another reading.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Did the strange things there happen to you or just whenever?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yet, some strange things did happened to me, particularly when
I went to Delhi in twenty sixteen to shoot a
story related to the locations within the city of Delhi
that are associated with the Gin. The famous book by
an author called William dal Rymple called A City of Gins,
(02:25):
and it's about his time as a young correspondent in Delhi.
So I went to the Deli to shoot these locations
and kind of build a story about the Gin looking
at it from such a more paranormal perspective. And I
just had a list of disasters from from day one
(02:47):
I had a quite intense nightmare which I found out
was located in one of the locations that I was
going to shoot it. So basically I was sitting down
in during a Susi celebration and there are lots of
fantastic music in a place called Nismodine Dark, which is
(03:10):
the tomb of a very famous Supi Saunds. People go
there to be healed by the Gin a hill from
the Gin Rother. And during that nightmare, there was a man.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Sitting to my left.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And he turned and looked at me and his face
was decomposed. Yeah, it was quite intense. He was wearing
a white hat and said, don't come here. And my
camera broke. There was two weeks before I was supposed
to go. I couldn't get it repaired. No one could
figure out what was wrong with it. My my father
(03:47):
came with me. His tooth broke in Heathrow Airport before
we even left on the flight. We had to change
hotels like three times in two days, like just everything
was difficult. But when I got finally got to this
location Nismoden, I was directed to an area where there
(04:07):
was a small.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Enclosure where people people were waiting.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
To be treated by the by the stuffies to help
help them with Gin problems, so to speak, Gin possession.
And there was a man sitting there, and he had
a white hat on, and he was staring directly at me,
and I believe he was being possessed. He was possessed
(04:33):
and sessed by Gin, and the Gin was staring at me.
It's the only time I've ever been afraid to take
a photograph of my life.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Have you ever been heard Gara in your work.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I haven't been hurt, but I have had some like
frightening experiences, experiences that challenge my worldview. If you ask
me five year years ago if I believed in spirits
and believe the magic, I would have said now now,
I absolutely believe those things are real.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Hence the book Song of the Dark Man, which we're
going to get into in a big way.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Here in the United States, we talk a lot about
shadow people in the hat Man. Now yours is the
dark Man that's different than these entities, is it not?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It's I would say the hat Man and some of
the shadow.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
People are lower emanations of the.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Same force, which is an evil force.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I think it's more ambiguous than that I think the
expedience because the experience is so intense and frightening for
people that they can often believe it to be evil,
but it's not necessarily the case. That's not to say
that people don't have the evil experience, but it is
(06:02):
often an experience that leads to people's worldview being changed
and bringing in creative forces into people's lives. So that's
the reason it's called Song of the dark Man because
people sometimes when people have these experiences, these initiatory experiences
(06:25):
with the dark Man, they get a form of creative
energy coming through them. They also get a form of
magical energy coming through them, so it's almost like an
initiation into creativity or initiation into into magical practice.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
There are who coined the phrase dark man?
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Oh goodness, Yeah, that's a that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
There's so many names for the spirits and this force
that I could tell you where that that name originally
came from. But I heard names like that and and
others from a lot of the medicitions. And which is
that I interviewed.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Has the name the devil been associated with the dark man.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
What they would call the folk devil, not not the
Christian devil.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What's the difference, Well, the.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Folk devil is more of a trickster type character, so
it would be like the devil and folklore that essentially
tends to be an in morality plays the stories that
people's character gets questioned, whereas the the Christian devil is
(07:50):
more of that kind of opposing, opposing figure that is
set up to be diametrically opposed to God.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
There his website is his name he spells a E
A R R A G. H. Mason dot com linked
up at Coast to coast am dot com. There are
what if you had to explain, and you will, who
the dark man is, What the dark man is? What
would you say?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
I'd say it's the disruptive force, a destructive force that
reminds us that we are part of nature, that we're not.
We don't own nature, we don't rule over nature, but
we are part of it. And that's what I mean
about the folks that will be in this kind of
trickster character. It makes people understand that whatever you think
(08:40):
about the world, how it's how it works, who's in
control that all those things can be undermined in an instant.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Is the phrase the dark man pretty well known in
the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I wouldn't say so, No, it's more well known in.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Like occult circles.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Why is the dark man experience to some so terrifying?
What happens?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Well, what I noticed going through the focalore and going
through the trials of various twelve reports from seventeenth century
when the Scottish witch trials is there is a the
figure that often appears that it's part animal and part human.
It also tends to be get black, and it has
(09:40):
it tends to interrupt journeys. So we have things like
you know, like you get the fairy stories about someone's
walking along the road at night and then a dark
horseman comes up and challenges them to a race, and
like the race, the prize of the race is actually
their soul, you know, and at that part that dark
and will be called like the King of the fairies.
(10:02):
So these things tend to interlap quite a bit. People
still have these experiences. People still have these interrupted journeys
where very strange things happen. But they might be called
different things might be called like like crypto animals or
(10:24):
things like that. But it's at the undercurrent the actual
circumstances are the same. Somebody has a journey there in
between one place and another. It's a liminal thing. They
are maybe out somewhere that it isn't civilization, it's out
somewhere wild, and their journey is interrupted. Something mysterious happens
(10:49):
to them, and their world changes. And what I mean
by their world changing is their understanding of how the
world works. The structure of the universe is utterly changed
because they've had this experience that has turned their world
on their head.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Let's break down the title of the book. First of all,
Song of the Dark Man. What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Well, particularly the reason I chose the words song is
was active to the sagas and ancient mythologies and folklowers
of Irelands which where performed these stories were performed. Parts
of this were sung. This spirit is associated with inspiration
(11:41):
it particularly things like music and poetry. So that's why
I wanted to put that in there, to understand, to
help people understand that this is part of this experience
and part of the things that this spirit bequeaths people.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
The cover of the book, that picture that illustration is
done right.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Scary, yes it is, it is.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I had very little to do with that but yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
The subtitle of the book is one of Them Father
of Witches. What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So in the Scottish witch trials we have a repeated.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Pattern where a.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Dark figure came into someone's life and brought them into magic. So,
for example, Margaret Alexander, she was tried in sixteen forty
seven and she referred to a man in black clothes
who made her go forward. She also spoke to this
(12:49):
man being the king of the fairies. When pressed, she
said his physical nature was cold. Another lady, Margaret Allen,
was tried in sixteen sixty one and first servant testified
so she saw black man go into Margaret's room and
appear to move around like he had hoops. Thomas Black
Pride in sixteen sixty one that the devil appeared to
(13:11):
him at night in the shape of a man. Agnes
Clarkson Pride in sixteen forty nine spoke how her home
was filled with a black myst and then then she
saw this dark man with whom she has carnal dealings.
So the pattern comes up again and again.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
The second title is called Lord of the Crossroads.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Explain that, well, this is a reference to where people
and like American countryman, and people have gone to negotiate
with the spirit of the crossroads, and within certain magical schools,
(13:59):
the crossroads believed to be a place of power, that
these crossroads have emerged from migration paths of animals, and
where they cross over, they're they're again liminal places. So
people will go to the to the crossroads two initiate
contact with the spirit there. The most famously Robert Johnson,
(14:24):
the blues musician. Legend has it that the dark Man
took Robert Johnson's guitar, tuned it at the crossroads and
handed back to him along with great talent, success and
and money. And we find that pathion goes on and
on throughout our music. Lots of luminaries talk about Johnson's music,
(14:47):
Keith Richards, Robber Plants, Bob Dylan. I'm quite strikingly Bob
Dylan in a in an interview in the early two thousands,
he was asked, I think it was sixteen minutes. He
was asked why he was still working at through many
years of success, and he replied, it all goes back
to a destiny thing. I made a bargain with it
a long time ago, and I'm holding up my end
(15:09):
and went pressed to reveal whom he had made this deal.
He gave a right smile and laugh and said, with
the chief commander on this earth and the world we
can't see, which is a very striking thing to say,
and really kind of jumped jumped out of me when
I'm want to find that.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
What what did Robert Johnson have to give up in
order to get those benefits?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
The legend said that he he he gave up.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
His soul for this.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Not worth it?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Is it? I wouldn't say so now, I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I wouldn't trade my soul for whatever Johnson thinks he
got out.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Of the deal.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yep, I would agree with you, which which makes you
question of what was Dylan talking about?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Good point?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Point?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Does the dark Man inject himself in many events?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
What we what we found here is going through the
going through the folklore mythology is I started to see
this figure which in Irish is called on far dark
or on far dove, so those terms in Gaelic translation
as the dark man or the black man. Now those
(16:32):
when I did some research within some of the Irish
folklore collections which are available online, I started to see
this figure come up again and again, and he was
set up as this adversarial figure, this trickster figure that
would drive all these stories along. And one of the
(16:54):
most famous stories that I found him in was in
a collection known as the Senian Cycle. So the Fenian
Cycle is a body of Irish distriture originally dating from
the seventh century, and essentially the Fenian cycle is one
where these noble warriors, the Fienna, spend their time hunting, fishing,
(17:16):
and engaging with adventures in the spirit world and to
help orientate people think and Irish knights to the round table.
That's kind of what we're looking at here. The p
earliest compilation of the Fenian stories is found in Column Shana,
or the Locally of Ancients. This text is made up
(17:39):
of three manuscripts, two from the fifteenth century and third
dating to the seventeenth century. But these manuscripts reflect a
far older tradition, goes way back, and like Irish is
the oldest vernacular language apart from Latin in Western Europe.
So these stories, the dark Man turns up only a
(18:01):
very very small passage, and he sets the whole string
of events of that create this great story, which is
the story of the birth of Osheen, who is Sean
mccool's son and essentially Sean McCool, who is the Irish
(18:22):
Arthur is out hunting. He finds a strange deer. His
dogs won't attack the deer, so he brings the deer
back into his force. That night, a beautiful fairy woman
called five that comes into his quarters and begs his
protection from this man, who she calls the dark the
(18:43):
dark man of the she or the black medicition of
the men of God. Now this is the dark man.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
She's referring to listen to more Coast to Coast AM
every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to
Coast to coastam dot com for more
The Best of Coast to Coast AM News
Host
George Noory
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