Transcript of Podcast 057: Myths and Legends

{Intro -

{NAT - I am a proper sucker for myths and legends. If there's a myth or legend about a place, I want to hear it.

I absolutely love stories of things like that.}

{intro music – jaunty, bouncy}

{Intro standard announcement:

Hello. Thank you for tuning in. You're listening to Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure, a fortnightly

series looking at unfamiliar places across the world, and aspects of travelling you may never have thought of.

lately. Partly because the daylight lasts a while up here between the equinoxes, and partly because this year I've

been feeling quite fart and unfit. I've realised the advantage of dungarees is that they fit far more casually

around the waist and I don't need to worry about tight trousers. The disadvantage is the extra hassle it is to have

a wee.

I'm recording this pod a week and a half in advance, despite it being at least two weeks late in the first place.

Part if me is hoping the two cancel each other out. Obviously, they won't.

I've had a very tiring few weeks, culminating in four days filled with that most awesome of combinations:

walking, beer, and friendship. Albeit sandwiched between two overnight buses. I know why I take the overnight

buses - it's because they're cheap. It's not just the cost of them themselves, although £19 for a bus as compared

to £75 for a train is itself a huge cost saving; it's also the saving of accommodation costs too - if I travel overnight

mental health. I barely sleep on buses at the best of times. Still, it cleared my podcast backlog. And it's more

comfortable and less hassle than an aeroplane.

London itself was grand. I spent the time with my friend Laura, who long-time listeners to this pod will know

well. On the Friday we walked around Kensington, the Saturday saw us in the City of London, and the Sunday

had us going to Hampstead Heath, Primrose Hill, and explicitly not Camden Town. Despite the Sunday being

Easter Sunday, and despite the weather being pretty good, there were far fewer people on Hampstead Heath

than we expected, Or maybe it's just so big that we didn't notice them. On the Monday we took a day trip to the

cute ex-seaside port of Rye - once one of the main ports on the Sussex and Kent coasts, the harbour silted up a

few centuries back and it now lies a couple of miles from the sea. This has preserved its mediaeval charm. It's

full of cobbled streets, old stone cottages, and tourists.

I'd only been up one of them before - Pen Y Ghent - on that British Hike as the Pennine Way goes right up it,

and my experience then had been in torrential rain and with views from the trig point at the top that just about

reached the bottom of the trig point. The other two - Whernside and Ingleborough (which both sound more

like they should be small towns rather than mountains) - are the other side of the railway and the main road,

and we only saw them in the background on that Hike. Each of the mountains is around 700m high, and while

you're not attacking them from sea level each time, all three are certainly quite a strenuous effort, albeit in

different ways.

The loop tends to start at the village of Horton-in-Ribblesdale and the generally accepted route is around 24-25

miles. The aim is to complete it in daylight, and I'm happy to report we technically did; we set off around

exercise, and I wonder if you'd get more pleasure out of it by going up each one separately and taking time to

enjoy the experience.

And no, I didn't do it barefoot. There's an awful lot of gravel and scree on them there hills.

I am sure though if I'm remembered in a couple of hundreds years time, tho heck knows why anyone would,

there'll be myths and legends around me, my adventures, and my barefootedness. There was a late-period

Viking King, Magnus Barefoot, I've mentioned him on my pods about Scotland as he was an important figure

in the history of the West Coast, one of the myths about him is he got his name from always riding into battle

barefoot. It's more likely though it's a synonym for 'bare-legged' (ie wearing whatever the 11th Century

equivalent of shorts or capris were. Much like the dungaree shorts I'm wearing as I write this pod actually).

Though I'm not about to rage into battle holding a sword aloft. I doubt I have the strength to even do that,

things half-remembered that were deemed either too unimportant to make a permanent note of, or possibly

the other way, things so common, at least amongst a subset of the population, as to be wildly understood at the

time with the expectation that they'd be always remembered. What does the childhood game 'Oranges and

Lemons' mean? Will anyone in 200 years time know how the Loss Meme originated? What were, in terms of

1990s teen culture, a "Friendship Book" and the related "Slam"? [In terms of the latter, I've probably still got a

couple somewhere.]

This podcast episode is not going to answer those questions. Because it's clearly not my remit. However we

will be talking about a few interesting myths and legends that are of particular interest to me and a couple of

friends, either because they're local to where they live or grew up, or because they're things that they've found

out about and are fascinated by.

on a large scale or a small scale. But according to folklore, Detroit's founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac,

[which side note: there's also a city called Cadillac in Michigan] was told by a fortune teller that he was going to

run into this creature and that he should appease it. Like, in no uncertain terms 'do not antagonise'.

Unfortunately for him at leats, he didn't listen, and upon encountering the Nain Rouge, Cadillac smacked it

with his cane, like any dumb white male, and shouted 'get out of my way you red imp'. Frankly, anyone that's

even vaguely familiar with fairy-folklore knows that's a giant big no no, we call them The Good Folk for a

reason. And he, according to the folklore of course, as a consequence had a string of really bad luck. He was

charged with abuse of power which, if it's true he's smacking people in his way, that doesn't surprise me, and he

was reassigned to Louisiana. Later he was returned to France where he was briefly imprisoned, and eventually

lost his entire fortune.

Detroit currently now has a festival for the Nain Rouge, but it's not really celebrating the creature, or imp. The

guy that started the festival, he puts it out as it's more of a giant cathartic process for Detroit to yell at either

someone dressed up as the imp, or they'll have effigies, and just yell and say 'get out, go away, you're causing all

the badness in Detroit, leave'. I know in earlier festivals of it they used to burn effigies, I believe they shut that

about 1887 in Wexford County, that's where it was first allegedly witnessed. According to the folklore it

appears in a 10 year cycle and falls on the years ending in 7. Basically it's kind of your basic typical werewolf, 7

feet tall, bipedal canine like creature, torso of a man so it's a little bit different, supposed to have blue or amber

eyes, and it's basically seen in several different locations, but primarily in the NW quadrant of the lower

We also have another folktale in lower peninsula before we pop up to the UP. It's a little bit sadder tho, it's

called the 'melonheads'. These are basically children that were supposedly residing in around Felt Mansion,

southern forest areas in Ottawa County. According to the story these children had hydrocephalus, basically

giant bulbous heads. And they lived at the Junction insane asylum by the Felt Mansion,. The way the story goes

is, after enduring a lot of physical and emotional abuse, which I think most of us know that these asylums did

tend to do, maybe it was done in a well-intentioned manner, but itr still happened, but after enduring this they

become the subject of a 2011 film called 'The Melonheads',. You will also see this folklore pop up in Ohio and

Connecticut, oddly enough.

Going outside the lower peninsula, going into the upper peninsula, Michigan has sightings of Bigfoot, believe it

or not. Bigfoot is not just in the Pacific NW, he apparently also likes to hang out in the Upper Peninsula of

Michigan,. And along with him, since we';re going to mention some of the more famous ones, apparently Loch

the Presque Isle River, and supposedly exists, it's like white-tailed, horse-headed creature that's found in Lake

Superior. And the Great Lakes are known to be pretty treacherous at times, deep, I mean Gordon Lightfoot

did write the Edmund Fitzgerald and say the lake does not give up their dead. And that is very true.

wardrobe' and 'The return of the giant hogweed' (which, at over 8 minutes, is now the soundtrack to my recent

experience in the Forest of Dean) that will alienate you immeasurably.

Anyway. Apart from prog-rock, he's also a fan of 1970s English and Celtic folk-rock. You know, Fairport

Convention, Albion Band, Alan Stivell, Dick Gaughan. If you've never heard of them, don't frettle. Folk music

is generally all about only one of five topics: sex, death, beer, harvesting, and piracy, Often several at once. It

tends to be either very upbeat and cheerful ('and what few nuts that poor girl had, she threw them all away'

#NoContext), or incredibly depressing ('and for murder of this pretty fair maid, a hanged I shall be').

Obviously, the whole genre of music lends itself well to folk tales, and therefore to myths & legends. One of

the first songs I remember hearing that combines this was the rendition by Fairport Convention of the tale of

'Tam Lin', a tale from the Scottish Borders of a man who is charmed by the Queen of the Fairies to take the

virginity of any woman who passes through the woodland (at Carterhaugh - a real place, consisting of maybe

two houses and a river junction), and who eventually will be donated as a tithe to Hell. Anyway, one day this

woman called Janet turns up nonchalantly, and Tam Lin falls in love, He does The Deed (curiously, never

away harvesting. Lady sleeps with commoner. Lord finds out and interrupts them in the act. Lord challenges

commoner to duel, with very favourable conditions to commoner. Lord wins. Lord tries to reconnect with

Lady. Lady tells Lord to fuck off (which, when you've just seen your hubby kill your lover, and is still holding

the sword, . Lord kills lady, with lots of remorse. There's also the feeling that, when you're lying naked in bed

and be a smartass. Matty Groves had balls, that's for sure, possibly too much so. All very odd, especially to this

aroace,

Sex. Death. Harvesting. That's quite a tagline.

Anyway.

One of the bands he has been particularly fond of are one called the Horslips, a name created apparently

but the Horslips were Irish and took their inspiration directly from Irish mythology, telling those stories

through the medium of guitar. They did two in particular - the second being 'The Book of Invasions'. This was

based on the tales in a collection called the Lebor Gabala Erenn (Pron Leh-bore Gab-arla Erenn), which

contains myths around the repeated conquest of Ireland by people from the sea (although given that one of

these invaders is described as being the granddaugher of Noah, one wonders how authentic they are), including

the Cessair (pron Kess-air), the Fir Bolg, and the Tuatha De Danann [pron. Tooah Day Danaan] (this latter

to flee, until the final group to invade, the Milesians, defeat the Tuatha De Danann and decide to, er, partition

Ireland (don't worry, this time it turned out well); the Milesians keep everything above ground while the Tuatha

de Danann can keep everything below ground. As such, the Milesians become the Irish (well, the Gaels, at

least, the early Irish), while the Tuatha become ... the Pagan gods, which is an interesting negotiation strategy,

usage of the forename 'Dayna'. I'm not saying my earlier contrib was from a goddess, but, well ...

into a pissing contest about who has the best cow - remember folks, cows are dangerous - but there's a whole

wealth of backstory and context as well.

Part of the backstory is around the goddess Macha, and this is a name we'll come back to later. The Ulster

Cycle tells about how she was commonlaw-married to an Ulsterman (apparently called Cruinniuc [pron.

Crunniac]), and she was noted for her speed. While in this relationship, Cruinniuc grew rich, and ended up in

the circle of the King of Ulster (probably Conchobar Mac Nessa [pron Conka-vuh Mcnessa). When he

organised a festival, they attended, despite Macha being heavily pregnant, but Macha's instructions went

unheeded when, after alcohol, obviously, Cruinniuc boasted his wife could beat any of the King's horses in a

race. The King called his bluff upon pain of death, and Macha was forced to race. Though she won, she gave

birth at the finish line (to twins), cursed the men of Ulster to suffer 'like a woman in childbirth' at the time of

their greatest need, and then promptly died, at least in that part of her mortal form. Her curse will become

important later.

King Conchobar has his own mythologies, outwith the Ulster Cycle, but one such within is around a woman

this, and flees in exile to the neighbouring Kingdom of Connacht. He will return to the story later. Meanwhile

Conchobar married a very pissed-off but resigned Deirdre (she has no-one else), who spends her life being

aggressively miserable before eventually telling Conchobar what she really thinks of him, and then killing

herself.

Meanwhile, in another story of the Ulster Cycle, King Conchobar has a nephew, Setanta. His whole childhood

is itself subject to many myths and legends, not least his birth which mostly involving the warrior-and-craftsman

god Lug (one of the Tuatha De Danann mentioned earlier) who later does a Darth Vader "I am your father"

revelation on him, but one small aspect was, due to circumstance, he was born literally just beyond the Ulster

border, in the Kingdom of Meath. That's just a minor admin issue though. Another thing to bear in mind is,

due to his slightly unusual birthing, he had a series of foster-fathers, including his uncle the King, but also

Fergus Mac Roich, mentioned earlier. This, too, becomes relevant.

released his wolfhound to guard them all; the King having forgotten to tell Culann his nephew would be along

later, even when asked. Obviously then Setanta turned up, found everything locked, and then saw a fierce devil

beast about to savage him. I don't know how much you know about hurling, but it's a Celtic sport, played on

grass with a ball, but similar to hockey in that you use a stick to hit the ball. Or each other. It's generally not the

safest game in the world. Modern rules specify the use of a helmet, but don't seem to obligate shinguards. I

would. So, here you have a savage wolfhound coming face-to-face with a tweenaged demigod wielding a hockey

going on, Setanta was very contrite and apologetic, and offered to serve as Culann's guard dog until such time

as Culann was able to obtain another mythical wolfhound. One assumes he didn't actually *become* a dog

(tho I'm sure there's an overlap between Furries and Irish mythology nerds), and merely served as an overly-

active security guard, but it's hard to tell. But as a result of this hands-on form of work experience, he was given

invented yet. Anyway, it turns out the only difference between them is Ailill owns the great fertile bull

Finnbhennach [Pron. Fin-VENNug. Kind of]. Medb decides the only way she can top that is to 'borrow', and

the actual meaning of that word is the cause of everything that happens next, the equally fertile Donn Cualinge

[pron Don Cooley] from its owner in the east of Ireland, in the kingdom of Ulster.

Her intention is to borrow it for a year, but the unspoken words are that she'll take it by force if she's not

allowed to borrow it. Unfortunately these words are spoken when the party she sends to collect get drunk and

accidentally spill the beans. The deal gets called off, and Medb carries through with her threat to invade Ulster

and get the bull.

Ulster raise an army to defend, unfortunately every single man of Ulster called up gets stricken with period

pains. Yes. I know. But this is exactly the effect and application of Macha's curse, and an example of, no matter

how weird the whole Cycle seems, it is at least internally consistent and very deep and thorough.

with rage and becomes the Hound That His Name Implies. Anyone who's ever played D&D where one of the

characters is a Beast or Berserker Barbarian will kind of get the power vibe; he is both.

Towards the end, two people are sent to challenge him. First up is Fergus Mac Roich, his foster-father who fled

passes. Finally, Cu-Chulainn's foster-brother Ferdia challenges him; the two grew up together and developed

their fighting skills against each other, so they're closely matched. At first Cu-Chulainn refuses to fight him and

tries to persuade Ferdia to not do this, but Ferdia's unwilling - he wants to fight. After three days, Cu-Chulainn

is victorious, kills Ferdia, but instantly retires through physical and emotional pain.

By this time the curse of Macha is fading and the warriors of Ulster start to become battle-ready. King

Conchobar rouses his troops and sets his stall out for retribution. It looks like there's going to be a huge final

both of the greatest bulls in the whole of Ireland. Medb and Ailill have drawn their stupid contest. Except ...

when you have two quite, one might say 'alpha' bulls in the same place, it's highly unlikely they're going to get

along. After a huge fight, Donn Cualinge kills Finnbhennach, but in doing so ends up mortally wounded itself

and, for reasons that seem to only make sense in legendarium, does a tour of the island dropping ripped-off

parts of Finnbhennach as it goes, before finally dying back home in Connacht.

completely pointless. Maybe that's a metaphor for life, who knows. Maybe the actual moral of the tale is to

[take good care of your cows]

.

Now. You might be wondering 'but this is a travel podcast; this is all very interesting but what does it have to do

be the ancient capital of Ulster (Emain Macha). The name obviously refers to the goddess Macha, and one

the discovery of site and what they found here, as well as a potted history of the place. Outside, there's a replica

hut built to ancient standards (apart from the obligatory bigger exit fire escape door) at the back, and it was

interesting to stand inside the sort of building they would have lived in, as a family unit. It's a circular structure,

built primarily or wood and thatch. In the middle of it is the hearth, where the fire was, while people slept in

small designated slightly raised what effectively amounted to wooden frames filled with what appeared to be

bark, around the edge of the hut. As an aside, it felt quite similar to other structures I've seen around the world,

which suggests that, just like the proliferation of pyramids, every civilisation independently discovered the basic

principles of mathematics and physics at a fairly early stage of development. Humans are a clever bunch, where

necessary. {pause} I wonder what happened.

Outside the hut the tour goes along a trail through the woodland with information boards and interesting

observations about life in the area and the general history of the contemporary culture. Then there's the hill

fort itself, publicly accessible (and popular with dog-walkers!); it's a mound atop a hill, and one of several

similar fortifications spanning a period of several thousand years in the area. This particular hill appears to

of artistic licence when dealing with mythological figures from two thousand years ago, but it somehow makes

the tales more ... human, more accessible, more real, almost.

Ulster was just one of the traditional ancient kingdoms of Ireland - the numbers in reality varied but overall

one whose name didn't really survive as much in culture, Meath. Which is slightly awkward as the current

County Meath in Ireland is the location of the Hill of Tara, which in Irish mythology was the seat of the High

King of Ireland and therefore in modern parlance would have been seen as the 'capital'. I'm due to finally road-

trip around Ireland in July with my friend Anne-Laure and it's one of the places that's on our, well my, hit-list.

While some of the other ancient kingdom capitals have almost no remains left, this is Ireland we're talking

about, a culture that feels like it lives and breathes that mix of myth, legend, and history like few other countries

and societies do, so I'm sure there are other places we'll come across that tell their own stories.

[

Nat

This is one of the reasons I think why I love Scotland so much, there's so many myths and legends and

everybody knows them. In my local area no-one actually knows any myths and legends, and it's crazy we lost

this in Cheshire. There are myths and legends about, we just don't know them, they're not passed on any more,

and for me it really makes a place, and it's part of the history, the myths & legends.

]

One such is around the Selkies, which Joanna Hastings now talks about.

has a particular grip on me. I've always been fascinated by stories about creatures who could magically change

Years later one of her children found the skin by chance and showed it to her. She took it and returned to the

sea forever, leaving her husband and children broken-hearted.

There are many variations on this theme. It's particularly compelling because of the analogies to a lot of

people's lived experience. Feeling they can't be who they really are. Feeling that they must control, or submit to

being controlled by others. Feeling that there's a huge dimension to their personhood which is being stolen

from them, that they're not allowed to explore. The loss and injustice of that makes for a pretty gut-wrenching

story, especially when fighting with love and loyalty. Add to that the dramatic landscape of the Scottish islands,

the sea and the wind. It's great material to break your heart. It's very easy to imagine this actually happening

when you're watching mist rolling over the sea of the Hebrides.

Interestingly it was more than just a story to the inhabitants of the islands until quite recently, maybe even

today, I don't know. One well-known rumour holds that a family who tended to have unusual hard growths on

their hands was descended from the marriage of a Selkie and a human, The children were born with webbed

Water-creatures are fairly common in Scottish myth, understandably so given the numerous islands, straits,

lochs, and rivers across the area. Another of course is that of the similarly named Kelpies, which have an entire

monument dedicated to them just northeast of Falkirk. Kelpies though are horse-shaped creatures of death;

they appear and encourage people (especially children) to ride them, at which point the Kelpie goes back into

have devil-like hooves regardless of the form they appear in, betraying their origins and intent.

Of course, water spirits are common across the globe, and Dayna gives another example, from Latin America,

and comes to a thought about why such stories are so commonly associated with children.

[

Dayna

drowns them, and then kills herself. Another variation I read is where it's more of a husband who is stepping

out and cheating on his wife, so in a fit of rage she drowns her children, kind of Medea Style, and then kills

herself in regret. Either way, no matter what the variation you read, the end result is she kills her children,

drowns herself and when she gets up to heaven they ask her 'where are your children?', and she is denied

entrance to Heaven until she can show up with them in tow. So she wanders the waterways looking for her

children. But there's also a bogeyman angle to the story, in that she's looking for her children, but if she can't

heard stories of her saving children that were in the waterways and drown ing. So there's different variations,

but that is the general jist of it, but I just find it kind of a fascinating story because there are the variations, but

it's also sad, and I also find it fascinating that it's not just known to one local area, it's known through Mexico,

Central America, and northern South America, and she is used as a bogeyman to children - 'if you do not

interesting cos small children know should not be out at night without their parents, should not be playing

As you can hear, a lot of these stories, although similar worldwide, have very local identities, say, to a particular

river or a specific section of forest. And while some are well-known, having been passed down from generation

to generation, some, like Nat said earlier, have been largely forgotten about or indeed lost forever. Nat herself

mentions one from her local area on her website - the tale of the Wizard of the Edge, link in the shownotes;

here she is giving a brief overview of that very tale:

[Nat

The Wizard of the Edge is a local legend from Alderley Edge in Cheshire. Very briefly, the story goes that

there was a farmer who had a white mare that he wanted to sell at Macclesfield Market. To get there he had to

go over Alderley Edge. And it was on the edge that he was stopped by an old man offering to buy the horse.

He refused, saying he would get a better price at the market. The old man then told him that he's not going to

be able to sell his horse at market that day, and he would wait for him on the Edge that evening. The farmer

obviously laughed, thinking there was no way this was going to happen, and carried on taking his horse to

He led the farmer and his horse inside, and inside there were over 100 knights asleep on the floor, and next to

every single knight except for one was a white horse, asleep. So the old man took the horse from the farmer,

laid it down next to the horseless knight, and sent it to sleep as well. He then told the farmer that, at the end of

the world, these knights would awaken and decide the fate in the last battle for The Earth.

Depending on the version that you hear, he either did then pay the farmer or he didn't. Or the farmer ran

away scared, basically. Now at Alderley Edge there is a carving of a wizard in one of the rock faces, which is

meant to be where the cave is.

]

That sort of tale is quite common, with different variations, across the country and no doubt the world - even

itself, its name being partly Norse and meaning more-or-less 'church in the borough where there are ash-trees'.

Despite living there for 15 years I have no idea if there are ash trees there because I don't know what an ash

tree looks like, Because I have other interests than the natural world, as you know, and even if you showed me

a picture of an ash tree with a huge sign saying 'this is an ash tree', I won't remember it and won't recall it if I

saw one. But anyway. Every day that I walked to and from work I crossed the River Erewash, an Old English

name meaning something like 'river that meanders through marshy or frequently flooded land'. However, as far

land known as Sherwood Forest,

Now, before I get into details, note that 'Forest' in this sense doesn't mean 'area of woodland and trees',

although many ancient forests were indeed that. Rather, 'forest' here means 'area set aside for royal prerogative'

There were many 'forests' in post-invasion England, some of which still survive today in name and, it must be

Sometimes it's quite surprising to people to hear that Sherwood Forest is a real place, and not somewhere that,

like Atlantis, is shrouded in myth and legend itself. Centred (kind of) on the town of Edwinstowe, the area

known as Sherwood Forest currently covers around 420 hectares, or about twice the size of Monaco. In early

mediaeval times it was a lot bigger, occupying a quarter of the county of Nottinghamshire, or an area the size of

Guernsey. Or a tenth of Bahrain, if that helps.

Anyway.