And That's Why We Drink - E323 Em’s Galactic Bartending and Christine’s Grog Shoppe

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

It’s episode 323 and we’re knocking shit over with our robot hands! This week Em deep dives into the history of the curse of Macbeth, no performance has ever been safe. Then Christine covers the story of Burke and Hare, a few of the original body snatchers aka Resurrection Men. And did we just discover that Em is a bartender and Christine has a bar?…and that’s why we drink!

I took my Tylenol out and I never took it so I'm gonna have a vitamin it with my Tylenol I just did something really gross too well cool I you just took your channel I just took Tums out of my mouth why oh to start the podcast yeah because I was afraid people would hear them that's extremely professional of you thank you but now I'm holding wet chalk and also my heart still hurts but I guess you know the show must go on so I guess I'll hold them for later extremely professional um you're extremely professional. Thank you. I was like, lick the Tums backwash off my own fingers.

Okay, well now it's getting actually gross. No, you're fine. Hello. How is your Tylenol? Are you taking it? Are you having fun? No, I need to take it. I have such a roaring headache.

I rarely ever get headaches. I feel very fortunate about that. So when I do, I'm like, why? Why are you doing this to my brain that's me with tummy aches and i always feel bad complaining about tummy aches next to you because i know you just live in one constant tummy ache but um i know when i talk to people with migraines i'm like you would not believe and they're like okay shut up no i in the times and it's always because i slept wrong it's always because i slept wrong and um wait your head or your tummy oh no no sorry i totally jumped into a different my head a headache a migraine i knew that but i felt like the audience needed a little filler to catch up

so i pretend i feigned ignorance oh thank god yeah i'm reading your mind today if you haven't noticed no anytime i have a migraine i would say 99 of the time it's because I slept the wrong way because I have a very, I'm a very particular pillow person when it comes to triple P. Yeah. We all know one. We all know how many, just to test our friendship here. Do you know how many pillows I need to sleep comfortably? Is it six or is it four? Four. It's four. Yeah.

I was like, it's either four or six. It's four. For me, I need one under my head and no more than one. I know. I'm a psychopath. I'm aware because when I go to a hotel, I'm like, oh, the pillows. Although I do hug one, I guess. So that's two.

So I have one under my head, one hugging. But if I sleep with two pillows, headache central headache central i'm like my neck's bent now well i well i only have one that i actually use it for my head support but i have a second one to hug i got a third one i gotta do the leg hug like because i i as i'm getting older i think my hips are like collapsing mine are too it's bad it hurts so fucking much if i don't sleep with a pillow between my legs, we got a problem. Why are we so old? I don't know. But now I've got a secret fourth one for my lower back because sometimes I'll wake up and that's in pain. So it's all pain preventative. So it's not because it's like fun to have four pillows and be such a diva about it.

But anyway, fun, fun fact about me today and fun fact about you. Well, why do you drink today, Em? Well, I drink water and Tums Chalk because... Oh, okay, here's why. Because I got back into my VR, which I never got out of it. I have this weird thing. I don't know what the deal is, but to reward myself every night, I say, you know what? If I get all my work done,

I'm going to play VR tonight. And I never get to play VR. I just, I feel like a psychotherapist would be sitting here going, you don't feel like you deserve it. There's got to be something there, but I always end up not playing my VR and I always end up regretting it.

And last night I was like, no, I'm going to actually play this thing and I'm going to have a good time. I time i'm gonna for you and i was looking through the new games and there's this new one and wow what is it the best time of my life um so it's called star tender and i'm a bartender in space no No. And that's your dream job. As somebody who is so like doesn't drink, that is your dream job, believe it or not, everybody. Like I would be so good as a bartender. Well, like it really catered to my ADHD because at every second I was being distracted by a new customer coming up.

And I got this is like I hope this isn't like like poo pooing on like not poo pooing. That's not the right word. I hope this doesn't like, like poo-pooing on like, not poo-pooing. That's not the right word. I hope this doesn't like agitate any actual bartenders. But I got to say, that was the hardest job. No, no. I was going to say, that was the hardest job of my life last night. And it was fucking fake. I can't imagine what actual bartenders have to go through.

Like I was, there was, there was at least, there was always at least three aliens coming up to the bar being like. And I've heard that's the biggest problem with bartending you know they say it all the time well there's this one fuck there's this one drink that was so goddamn complicated i don't remember what it was called it was like the called like the glack spritz or something oh my god it was the it's the hardest fucking drink and i always knock it over with my robot hands because i don't know what i'm doing you knock it over but they always like request like you can like get like the cup heated or iced and you gotta pull the stuff now you gotta

get the so high maintenance it's incredibly high maintenance some of these recipes literally have like seven or eight steps and then it's like egg white no but some have like a glow stick that comes in like a plutonium chamber you love that though but my little stupid vr hands can't always pull it out of the chamber the right way and then it shatters and then everything you know it's so wild to think about if those people are were actually watching you do it and not realizing you were in vr and they're like what is this person they're just like they can't pick up a glow stick they're just like shoving drinks off the bar there is there's one alien she's so nasty.

And she's always the one who gets like the glass spritz or whatever it's called. She's like such a diva. And every time I, when I was first starting now, I'm like a hundred drinks and like, I'm getting really good at making good. But the,

the first few times I kept fucking up her order. And when I would hand it to her, she'd go, are you new here? And I'd be like, yes, bitch. I am new here

like excuse me what's her name like glorg karen that wasn't clever at all i couldn't think of anything else but she was like i just karen 3000 i hate her i hate her and she kept she kept coming up to the bar i was like girl you're getting fucked up tonight because did she tip you at all she gave me a coin one token god and the whole time she was like are you new here and then she would leave but then she'd come right back and order the exact same fucking drink again so i guess i was like she was liking it a little bit but she must have been anyway let's just say that it really absolutely hit all the dopamine receptors in my brain and i ended up playing it and not even realizing that i had i stopped playing because the headset died and it was 6 30 in the morning oh i totally lost all jesus i was just having so much fun. And I knew it was trouble because Allison walked in and I

knew that meant she had woken up and was starting work. And she was like, what are you doing? And so frantically, like I, it felt like a little out of my realm, but I was just like, I'm bartending. I'm really busy right now. I'm on the clock. Karen 3000 is being a real witch, but I'm finally, finally getting on a good side I was like you have no idea how stressful this job is you have no idea and she was like I'm going to work but I mean real work yeah I got paid zero dollars to literally make drinks for hours for people sell yourself short you got one coin I got I got more after her but she she really i wanted to impress her and i just kept disappointing her but um other than the black spritz i'm like getting real quick at it spritz

is like your white whale you know anyway why do you drink oh wow that just got me good um i like that a lot i can't wait to play it uh even though I'll never play it, but can't wait. Maybe when I'm at your house, I'll play it. It's a good time. Sounds fun. So I drink because I have another ghost update. I feel like I never end with these and I'm not just making these up. Like this is just, I feel like little pieces are coming together. And you know, when they say you start looking into this stuff and it kind of starts to like, like you notice it more or it happens more like kind of spooky stuff um so i the other day was putting leona in the car seat and we were going to uh the little gym where we do her little gymnastics situation and um so we were going there and i was putting her in the car

seat and the garage door was open and this and it was by the way today it's 72 degrees out that it was like a week ago or five days ago and it was I think 22 it was insanely cold and of course I'm just like not wearing a bra not wearing a jacket like I'm freezing anyway that's irrelevant but this man walks by and he's like hello and I'm like well instantly I don't want to be part of this right so I'm like right hello and i like put my child safely in the car seat and begin to walk into my car to be like goodbye uh and he says hello uh my girlfriend used to live here oh god and i said what and i'm like in my garage you know did she die 400 years ago right my brain doesn brain doesn't compute. Then it occurred to me, OK, this abandoned dentist's office was then turned into a house, which was then turned into my garage.

So I'm like, oh, wow. And he goes, her name was Sasha. And I'm like, cool. I don't know. And of course, we're late for Little Jim because it's me. And so I'm like, OK, bye. And he goes and actually I lived in he goes, do you live on that corner? And of course, me being me, I said, yes said yes I do so now he knows me and my address but well I'm at my garage it's hard it's like obviously you know anyway so he goes that's where I grew up and I went what and he goes yeah I lived there back in like the 80s and I said oh my gosh that's pretty cool and he goes this is not a joke this is literally what this man says to me he looks me in the eye and he says have you seen the spirits

so I handed Leona her tablet put on Miss Rachel and said okay now you have my attention like what spirits I'm like if this man's gonna kidnap me he's already won like he yeah he said the right thing he did and he said oh well there are uh he's like hang on hang on sidetrack for a second so he um so he lived in the house and his girlfriend lived in the garage in your now garage yes so like they were literally like sweethearts next door I think so the girl next door and you know looking back like i know that my current house used to be used as tenement housing like low-income housing and they split it into multiple apartments like not big ones but like two or three like it was like a multi-family home before it was turned into just like one uh one home and so he either lived in like the upstairs or the downstairs i'm not sure um but so back then in the 80s like it was used uh as like a smaller so i guess the house next

door was it it was smaller because obviously now it's my garage but um i think it was a single family home back then so yeah i guess the girl lived next door i didn't even think about that um that's wild very cute uh okay so anyway he the spirits yeah so he told me a story about how he shot a gun out the window and it hit a tree and i was like okay i want to hear more about the other thing um right but thank you and he's like the bullet hole's probably still in the tree and i was like cool i will be looking for that sir we're derailing we're derailing get back to the point it's 22 degrees uh and he said oh we saw them all the time. And I'm like, can you tell me what spirits you saw? Like, what are the stories? And he said, oh, well, we saw all sorts of things. He said, when I was three, I was standing at the top of the stairs and I was looking down and my, okay, this is another thing. He said, my dad was a brick mason and he had a bar in the basement and I'm like of my house and he's like yeah like obviously an unsanctioned bar and my basement's a dirt floor like cellar and I'm like

whoa that's that was a speakeasy my friend yes like literally underground speakeasy and I'm like honestly the way that this basement looks it would be a pretty baller like speakeasy which means it's possible so i don't know why we haven't set it up yet well maybe we have it's just not on the record no we have not but we will and i need your help with all the glow sticks you're the bartender um we're gonna make we're gonna make i'm gonna make galax wouldn't believe we're gonna make underground bathtub glorg 3000 it going to be delicious. And we're going to charge out the nose. So yeah, he's like, I'm standing at the top of the stairs, like trying to like peek in, see what my dad's doing down there. And he says, all of a sudden,

someone and he's like three or four, he's like, someone just pushed my back. And I fell all the way down the stairs. And he said, I landed at the bottom, thankfully, like, OK, no broken bones. And he's like, but I looked up and there was just a man glaring at me from the top of the stairs. Harry. Oh, well, I was worried. And I was like, well, Harry doesn't seem very mean, but maybe. Girl, you're about to have a three or four year old. I know.

And I was like, that's not good. And he's like, yeah, it was absolutely terrifying. And then he said one night my mom or no, he was in he's like, I was sharing a bed with my mom. I was like a little kid. And he's like, my sister had just been born and was in a crib next to the bed. And he said one night he woke up and saw a woman just staring down at the baby like as she slept and was just standing, like staring down at the baby. And he's like, I was so scared. I just pulled the covers over my head. And the next time I looked, she was gone. And I'm like, I don't know about this. It's all about kids and babies. But what room was it? Like, was it actually Leona's room or could it be your room? No, it was my room. It was my room.

Okay. So someone's staring at you while you're sleeping is what I just heard. okay so someone's staring at you while you're sleeping is what i just i did get i did get poked in bed once and i i was like maybe it's my imagination but then it wasn't even poked somebody ran their finger down my arm and i was like i must be imagining this uh so i never said it out loud because i thought well it was just my imagination but i feel like now's the time to tell you okay good time um anyway definitely weird that there's so there's a female ghost and a male ghost yeah the male ghost seems violent against children yeah female ghost stares at people while you put a fucking camera in your own room while you're sleeping i dare you oh god we did that once but we just caught geo humping our pillows

amazing um i do think it'd be cool look i already with the time difference and everything God, we did that once, but we just caught Gio humping our pillows. Amazing. I do think it'd be cool. Look, I already, with the time difference and everything, and I already stay up late. What if I did 24-7 surveillance and just like checked in every now and then? If there was like a motion detected, I would open up the camera to let you know in real time if I see something. And it's just always moonshine. But it might not be one day, you know? And it's just you drooling and like catching your own spit

while you sleep or something. Stop telling people that story. Change the topic. Change the subject immediately. I know that's all you want. You just want footage of it, of my creepy sleep habits. I do think it'd be really cool

if on site in the moment, like someone from far away gets like a motion alert on their phone and I check on you and there's a fucking woman staring at you. Oh my God. I'd be like, I'd be texting. I'd be like, please wake up. Please wake up. Oh, and he said, oh yeah. I'd be like, and then you'd catch me going fucking M and like throwing my phone down. Our friendship would be fractured. Also, he said the other thing you can think of is that his mom would always complain that when she got up in the morning,

all the cabinets and drawers were open. And I was like, thank God that has not happened to me yet. Except you just said it out loud in the house. I know. What's wrong with me? And I was like, that sounds poltergeist behavior. Did you get this person's number? So his name is John. And I think, or he said, oh oh he said he put his initials on the back of the house and he's like you can probably still find them he's like i painted them when i was little which i thought was very cute um but he is currently unhoused so i don't think he had a cell phone number so i was like okay well you know where i live so i'm sure we'll run into each other

again and i can i can come prepared this time with more questions. But yeah, it was quite a conversation. And then he's like, anyway, have a good day. And I went to Little Jim like, what the fuck? Oh, my God. Okay, so at least you've been warned about these. It sounds like that was an attachment with a family, though, right? You know what? That's a great point.

And I'm going to tell myself that just to feel better. But it's probably true. It sounds like the mom and the son had a bunch of experiences well hey that also like confirms remember you said you felt like there was a woman downstairs and that's true and like who like hugged you on halloween or something about that so maybe you have gotten some confirmation that they like you maybe they just don't like that family maybe not maybe we did i don't know what i did right i'm sure it's nothing good um maybe harry saw that four-year-old and went time to go and like just kicked her down the stairs yeah you know i don't know and i think the biggest fun fact about that whole thing was

uh my dad had a bar in the basement for people to come and drink and i was like well we have to go investigate next time i'm there right i was like i would never have your can something down there something because it's a dirt basement so i bet oh my god i'm getting my metal detector out i'm literally texting my mother right now and that one i feel like isn't bad like you can yeah because it's metal detector on home my property right so the person who wrote in and said you know like just be cautious about telling everyone to go metal detect which is a very fair point um you know respect spaces and places that are not yours but they said like oh to your heart's content can you uh metal detect your own property so i'm i'm like great finally i have something

why did you dig a giant hole in the basement i'm like well we'll do it when i'm there. And then you can just blame me. Oh, he won't ask them. He'll know it was you. Oh man. Em showed up and now there's a giant hole in the basement. What a mystery. I'll fill it up. I just, it's going to be there for a second. Put it back. I won't, but you will though. So maybe I'll wait for you. Um, anyway, that's real fun. That's my ghost update. Um, that's the best one you've had. So I I almost called you and then I was like, I have to tell you on the podcast, you know. Six years of that relationship, you and me. I mean, it's a weird dynamic. Never being allowed to just say something.

Or Eva will ask us something. We'll be like, shut up, Eva. I'm not saying that yet. Yeah, Eva said something recent. I don't know. Maybe not recently. I feel like she said something and I heard you go, stop, stop, stop. That's between

you and me for two more minutes and then we can talk about it later well okay so i'm a bartender and you have a bar is what those were the updates it's fate i think so i mean i we gotta make it a galactic bar now you said it not me and you're right also it's real it's the truth oh man well well done on that intro christine i think my headache's just getting worse okay getting so much worse when does tylenol kick in um we also uh i just want to throw this out there for a fun fact another reason why we should drink today is because this is episode 323 okay and we this is the first time ever we are recording it on 323 ain't that fun ain't that fun that ain't that something you know what else this is our sixth year and we did a 666 theme we're about to do episode 333 which i'm pretty sure is like you know

uh monumental in some way right like because it's half of 666 so we'll just double it maybe for episode 666 we record in your dirty basement and make it a bar in my dirty bed i like the thought that in like seven more years my basement will still be just as dirty and not a bar yet. Christine, it will be. It will be. It will be. Okay. I'm sorry.

Because please never let me put the hole back. It all started. I tried to get my metal detector out and I was prevented. We could have had something beautiful. Okay. For 323, I've got a spooky episode um it's about a curse that maybe you've heard of i don't know if you've heard of it i think you have okay um it's the curse of macbeth have you heard of it oh yes yes this is a theater thing i was never invited into the theater circles even though i tried to force my way in but i though your literal job now is to go to the theaters.

Correct. Like, yes, you read that correctly. And I still hold a little resentment about it. But it's fine. I want to be a theater kid. I think I was in the wrong circles. They weren't very inviting. Let's put it that way.

I think I was kind of meant to be a theater kid and I didn't end up there. Yeah. I knew of theater kids and I know the stereotype of theater kids and I feel like I did have the theater kid energy. We do fit a lot of the tropes, right? Yeah. And I think, I don't know, I think I didn't let myself go there. Yeah, I can see that happening. And I love that I'm the opposite where I tried so hard and they were like, you're really not welcome here.

But we wish Em would show up. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds right. But I think it was just the circles I happened to find were maybe not. Because I'm sure a lot of people listening are like, oh, you know, I've never met like really not very nice theater kids. I don't know. I feel like the trope is that they're very inviting to outcasts and that kind of thing and i did not have that experience unfortunately but um yeah fair enough i've heard about the mcbeth curse yeah i well i'd heard about it um

also as we say the word mcbeth a bunch of times if this show goes awry for some reason it'll be because of the curse and not because we're terrible with our own tech issues. We should just say it every episode just in case something goes wrong. Be like, it's not our fault. It's either PTD or Macbeth, I tell you. But yeah, I'd always heard about the Macbeth curse, but didn't really know what it was about. I just kind of knew like, oh, you don't say Macbeth in a theater. Right.

And it was bad luck allegedly but I didn't know the history to it so let's get into it so and just because you were also in 10th grade once uh have you read Macbeth I have thoughts I'm sure it was great I don't know I probably didn't really read it is what I'm trying to say. I probably just skimmed it and pretended like I read it. I can nearly confirm for you. I didn't read it. Yeah. Yeah. I think both of us probably did the same thing. Not a single book in high school English did I ever read. I truly was the SparkNotes kid and I got in trouble every time. And guess what? I still graduated. So sorry about that. So that's our advice to all the teens out there look at us look at us

read some spark notes and you could be a star tender on the intergalactic bartender academy just like me sorry wow that really did come full circle for you i'm so impressed um so uh here's a little um summary for macbeth in case you are unaware um and also if you didn't read it like me I'm thoroughly aware and I know every plot point but I would for everybody else who's listening who has never read it I'd love a refresher for them that's so just so generous of you I'll make sure to do it so I know um this summary this is just a real quick one and um it this is a quote three witches tell the Scottish general named Macbeth that he will be king. And encouraged by his wife, Macbeth kills the king to become the new king and then kills more people out of paranoia and civil war erupts.

So, the end. That's really all I needed to know from 10th grade. Fun fact, Macbeth was produced in or at least around 1606. And it was probably inspired by then King James VI of Scotland, who also went by James I of England. Which love that he came up with two different identities. You gotta sometimes, you know, see which one sticks. You know, it's like, well, this isn't complicated enough. Let's change the numbers.

Let's change the location. Someday in high school, a bunch of teenagers will really not want to learn about this. We got to complicate things as much as possible. So in case you do not remember the name James I of England, he was also mentioned in our episode 230, which was literally 100 episodes ago. Oh, boy. When we were talking about Agnes Sampson. Aha, yes. So, and Agnes Sampson was convicted for witchcraft and plotting against King James.

So, a brief recap on James himself. When his mom, who was Mary Queen of Sc Scots when she had to abdicate the throne he was crowned king as a literal baby um like younger than Leona like um imagine Leona is queen and you just have to sit there I just got rid of my headache and now you're bringing it back thank you I'm sorry she is an actual queen. Let's start there. She already thinks that, I think. Anyway. So I can't imagine like just holding a baby

and like having to do everything for the baby and being like, apparently you rule the country. Apparently you're my boss. And you get to say like when we go to war and stuff. Like I'm going to be so uncomfortable when the teen years hit and you hate me because I'm in so much danger. Yeah. Or when you're feeling like kind of like hormonal and then all of a sudden like you decide that we're going to war.

It's like, come on. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's a lot. So I guess the second he became king because he was a little baby and very, very vulnerable, people immediately started trying to assassinate King James, the baby. I think because they were like, now's our time. That's insane.

To overthrow because he can't do anything about it. So this included Guy Fawkes blowing up parliament eventually. I mean, this, it goes on forever. It starts as a baby and then King James just lives his whole life pretty much in constant fear as people try to assassinate him to become king. Oh my God. Um, so one day his wife sails to England or sailing to England and a storm stops her ship. And King James is like,

I'm going to come get you girl girl and he decides that he's going to sail on over to her boat with his boat but then another storm comes through and also destroys his boat so uh basically he takes this uh one struggle and really you know extrapolates it into a whole way of living so his wife who was sailing to england she was sailing from denmark where she's from and this was at a time when denmark was going through its real like witch panic phase um and the danes at this point were blaming a lot of storms on witchcraft which if you've listened to our rituals episode on weather witches i think we touched on this exact story there um so he hears when he's trying to

like rescue his bride and the storm keeps getting in their way and she's straight from denmark he overheard in some capacity oh the witches are causing this and you can't get to your wife so Oh, the witches are causing this and you can't get to your wife. So he just found witches to be yet another threat against him. And he becomes obsessed with witchcraft, who didn't at this time. And in 1597, he publishes the book Demonology, and he passes the 1604 Act against witchcraft and this act this was his way of sorry to interrupt you but i feel like this was his way of taking all of that like targets against him that he couldn't control and being like well this is one i can actually target yeah he's projecting yeah exactly like he's lumping it all into one target yes he's like this is something i can actually control um and that's what we're gonna do so he passes an act the 1604 act against witchcraft and this act makes it mandatory to hang people convicted for witchcraft and it doesn't matter what they've done they could have done nothing wrong so far just been accused

boom dead that's bad um which is why i talked about agnes samson with him because i think it was like the worst outside of salem it was like the worst witch trial or roll the tape go 100 episodes back whatever i said then is what i meant um and so uh at these witch trials another weird thing about it is that he is the one that is trying the witches and interrogating them. And he's very involved, a little too involved. Yeah. Where usually they would just have the townspeople handle this. But again, I think he just wants to control something.

And this is something he feels he can control. So this whole time period in this area of the world is all about witches. Kings being assassinated or trying to be assassinated, treason. They're very major themes and whatever their version of pop culture is at the time. And this leads to Shakespeare having some inspiration. He's like, I'm going to write me a real humdinger. And he writes Macbeth. I see and he even performs it in front of the king

himself which is like such a bold move can you imagine like and also like spoiler alert the king didn't like Macbeth so like can you imagine being Shakespeare and like you're like I wrote this for you and you were my inspiration for the whole story. And you're at his like royal court performing it just for him. And then he's just like, I hate it. You're either like so ignorant to the situation or you're just like so ballsy that you pulled it off either way. You know what I mean?

Like you went through with it anyway. I can't decide. Macbeth wasn't the only tragedy that day. It was. Oh, that's what we saw in the paper. When the, what's that guy who reviews all critiques all the movies i don't know the famous one i'm gonna age myself m schultz oh i don't know i don't know the guy i was i was gonna age myself and say like

that felt like a perez hilton headline oh well i'm aging myself because i'm talking about roger ebert who i think is like way older i think perez hilton might be like the millennial reference so okay sure i follow that so um anyway he writes macbeth for the king or is inspired by the king um and another fun fact this macbeth macbeth is where we get lines like double double toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble this we also get the line something wicked this way comes and this is where we get um there's a little um not controversy but one of the theories is that mcbeth is where we get ingredients like eye of newt and toe of frog so i know that you've said that um you've described like oh it wasn't really

an eye of newt it was like a mustard seed because it looked like an eye of newt but i guess one of the original legends to these witchcraft ingredients was that they were code to disguise recipes in front of other people but if you said it like that then people i guess you were kind of leading that you were into witchcraft or something um but all of that information comes from a book in 1985 by an author named scott cunningham who i guess was spreading a lot of misinformation about witchcraft at the time. And so we don't know if that code was real or not. I could see it being real. Like, that's definitely a believable fact.

But as far as we know, the first time phrases like Eye of Newt ever popped up in any writing was Macbeth, which is definitely older than 1985. Okay. I see. And 1985, we're talking satanic panic like who knows what kind of stuff was spreading exactly um so shakespeare uh also in the like i said in the summary of mcbeth there are three witches and shakespeare wrote these witches named them basically the weird sisters um and he wrote them so compelling that a rumor starts after people start seeing this play oh the rumor is that shakespeare actually stole real spells

from a real grimoire to write the opening act uh or the opening of act four. And when witches found out that he stole their spells for his play, they cursed anyone performing the play for using their spells for entertainment. Oh my. And that's where we start with the curse of Macbeth. I didn't know that. And now you do. That's spooky. i didn't know that and now you do that's spooky um so it all really starts from like the very first performance of macbeth no performance has ever been safe apparently oh god where when

shakespeare is performing it in front of king james uh the actor playing lady macbeth died i'm so sorry because you have a headache right now, of a fever. What? So do you have a fever? Are you feeling warm right now, Christine? I am now, but I think that's hypochondria. Wait, so she died during the performance? Mm-hmm.

Oh my, what? Well, and by she, I gotta say, this was a time when men were doing all the parts. So it was an actor named Hal Barrage playing Lady Macbeth. Oh my God. And he died so suddenly that Shakespeare himself had to step in and like understudy for him for the first performance ever in front of the king. No wonder he was like, I didn't like the play. Someone died in front of me. I feel like he would love that. I feel like he'd be like, wow, that really added some dimension to this thing, you know.

It's so messed up, but you're totally right um and so so from the get-go these holy shit mcbeth has been cursed um in the later 1600s there was an actor named henry harris who played the character mcduff and in in the play there's this big duel scene where mcduff and i think mcbeth are fighting or starfighting um so in the 1600s one actor playing mcduff he was in the dual scene both actors had real swords because it was the 1600s jeez and henry accidentally ran through mcbeth's actor and stabbed the guy in the eye. Ah! And killed him on stage

in front of everybody. Oh my God. In 1882, it was a closing night performance and one of the actors, also part of the duel scene, accidentally stabbed his co-star in the chest. And that actor barely survived.

Jesus. What? They're still using these real swords? They sure are. All the way into 47, when another actor accidentally stabbed his co-star in the chest during the duel scene. And this time ultimately killed the actor. Oh, my gosh. this time ultimately killed the actor oh my gosh i think that actor had to go through two major surgeries for his wounds and then died from either the actual injury or the side effects of the

surgery horrific um fun fact the actor who died he allegedly still haunts the oldham theater in manchester and he is seen on thursdays which is the day he Theater in Manchester. And he is seen on Thursdays, which is the day he was stabbed. I love that he keeps a calendar still. I have other plans on the other days. Yeah. He's like, you can catch me on the weekly anniversary,

but other than that, I'm not available. I would haunt that place too. Yeah. Yeah. I would haunt maybe the guy who stabbed me. Oh, that's true.

A little bit. So also in all the way in the 1970s this is still happening in the 1970s there was a crew that was unloading equipment with a crane getting ready for the show that night and a random guy stopped by saw the the crew working and was like hey what play is performing here later and as the stagehand said mcbeth a prop spear fell from the crane and stabbed the guy that just was walking by. Oh, my God. The guy who asked what play it is?

Uh-huh. Famous last words. Another time in Amsterdam. And by the way, in the show, Macbeth kills King Duncan. So the actor playing Macbeth in this particular production, the actor playing Macbeth was sleeping with the guy who was playing Duncan's wife in real life. Oh, I thought you were going to say with the guy who's playing Duncan. I was like, ooh, spicy. This is less fun.

It's still spicy, but like in a messy way. Yeah, like way dramatic. Sure. Yeah. So the two of them hated each other because I think the guy who was playing Duncan knew that the guy who was playing Macbeth was sleeping with his wife. And so they already had tension. And the guy playing Macbeth during their fight scene in the play brought a real fucking knife on stage and in front of everybody stabbed the guy playing Duncan. Oh, no.

In 1937, which I guess we're going back in time. It was just was just a curse and they're like we saw you stab him with your knife he's like it was a curse i couldn't do i couldn't help it i wonder if he was like really hoping that that would be the storyline like cover like like i didn't know it wasn't a prop which like one time i will say i had one of those like retractable fake knives and i really accidentally swapped them out i accidentally swapped them out and like went to like show somebody and like ends up stabbing my own at least on yourself i hope on myself okay good but that could have been worse i think but i remember thinking like oh my god what if i pretended to stab my well i mean not to like pull up this whole thing but like the alec baldwin with the

yes prop gun it's like this shit really still happens it very much still happens so i wonder if that was a storyline he was hoping people would think of of like oh i didn't know it was a it wasn't a prop knife um which is not the alec baldwin story by the way no no um but uh yeah so that guy got stabbed in 1937 a rope was holding a weight backstage that somehow snapped. The weight snapped and came crashing down onto the stage, broke one of the actor's swords, and that piece of the sword flew into the audience and killed a man who was sitting in the audience. So even the audience is not safe. Yeah, it's scarily

interactive for everybody this curse yeah i don't like that i think he only i think something happened with that guy where he didn't like get stabbed he like got hit by the sword and like it scared him enough it scared him into a heart attack and he died like something even more crazy god that same theater group by the way who experienced that they also saw the director and their actress get into car accidents the week before and other accidents and other actors ended up slowing down production with their own issues including one who um had a really really terrible case of losing their voice. Another person was grieving their dog who had just died during production. And then that same actress who was grieving her own dog had a heart attack during the final dress rehearsal. What the fuck?

And years later, the show Macbeth was going to perform at this venue again, and it hadn't since that production. And so they're like, we're going to have a portrait of that actress who died during the dress rehearsal. We're going to have a portrait of her in her honor at the theater now that Macbeth is playing here again. And on opening night, that portrait flew off the wall and shattered onto the ground. Oh, my God. In 1970, another actor playing Macbeth died of a heart attack on stage. Oh no. And another time, a critic who came to the show and gave it a bad review died of a heart attack.

So wait, hold on. This curse is indiscriminate. It's like, well, we don't like the play, but you also can't like it. Well, I feel kind of scared now as someone with multiple heart conditions. And I just said I never read it. And I keep saying the word Macbeth. can't like it well i feel kind of scared now as someone with multiple heart conditions and i just said i never read i never read it and i keep saying the word big bath i'm a little terrified on my own show right now so um whatever i need to do good vibes good vibes that's it that's all you got to do i think and this is where we switch over where i just tell you about the fires god oh jesus okay so another time um this was in 1721 there was a real douchebag in the

audience let's just start there he was apparently a nobleman which who cares um he sat on his he sat on the stage during the play he didn't sit in his seat he sat on the stage while everyone was acting what a weirdo and then saw a friend of his in the audience so he got up in the middle of everyone acting and walked across the stage to say hi mid-scene what a lunatic what a weird thing to do truly just like i can't think of a more narcissist move ever it's so bizarre yeah like okay buddy so anyway the actors were like pissed that this guy was ruining their scene and i guess they weren't very much uh the show must go on people where they were like well let's ignore it and keep acting they really were like fucking get out of here we don't want you here so they chased him out of the theater with their real swords honestly

okay i mean i hear how the story ends first before i make any commentary no you're allowed to because then that douchebag guy came back with his friends all like hurt that he got embarrassed publicly and he set the building on fire and burnt the theater to the ground what a lunatic and then we don't know if he ever got caught or anything we don't know what a lunatic well like i we don't know if he ever got caught or anything. We don't know. What a lunatic. Well, like, I'm sure his wife was accused of witchcraft, you know. Get a grip, dude.

Jesus. He sounds like someone who would absolutely accuse his wife of witchcraft because she didn't smile or something. Just out of, like, convenience, you know. Oh, my God. god um in 1928 at the royal court theater in london this was their very this was macbeth's very first modern dress production where people were just in their normal clothes okay and set pieces kept falling apart production had intense tech issues and even one of the set pieces um it fell and injured a bunch of actors and i guess later also caused a fire um and then in 1953 the actor playing mcbeth's tights i don't in a court yeah in a courtroom i don't know where how this would

fucking stand but apparently the actor playing mcbeth's tights somehow got soaked in kerosene and he later got burns on stage um do you know how stupid i am why i was like what i thought you said the actor playing macbeth's tights and i was like that's a role in this play oh i thought you meant like the actor who was performing as the person played christine's t-shirt i was like this is a modern performance i was was like, wow, that is over my head. I don't get it, but I'm sure it was great. So stupid. Yeah, in recent years, they've had people playing Macbeth's joggers. I don't know if you knew that.

It's Crocs in sports mode and not sports mode. It takes two different people for that. That's a swing ensemble or something. I heard one of them was sleeping with the other one's wife. I don't want to be dramatic, but. Can you imagine the storyline of like, and then the left tight stabbed the right tight. Who's playing the crocs? Wait, what?

That's not part of the story. Just let me get to the point. Oh, man. Truly a modern retelling. Yeah. Beautiful. So in the same performance where this guy's tights got soaked in kerosene um again zero context to that um in the same performance the actors that played soldiers storming the castle

they had real torches on stage oh no and a strong wind blew through the theater and the flames flew into the audience oh no that's even worse i feel like with enough bad luck why would someone say let's bring fire to the party like at a certain point you got to just do all prop stuff like all rubber yeah fake fire everything fake everything just do it on zoom at this point just a virtual show yeah do it like like ratatouille on TikTok where everyone was in their own individual Zoom camera. So safe. So comfortable. By the way, I feel like we don't ever talk about that Ratatouille experience.

It's incredible how it just like came and went so fast. And it's like it was such a monumental moment. And then it just like passed to the next thing. There's like that meme going around of like some i don't know idiot person was like oh well you know the covid didn't really cause any mental illness for people or oh yeah people are just replying with like the ways that they had clearly fucking lost their minds i haven't seen it anywhere but my little note to that would be i stayed up all night to watch the ratatousical from TikTok.

That's what it was. It was like a news. It was like from The Guardian. It was like new study shows that mental illness did not increase during lockdown or something. And everyone's retweeting it with like, well, I befriended like a mouse that lived in my apartment or like, yeah, my friend built a whole paper mache friend or I don't know my my uh my favorite was this one person was like my roommate and I had a corner called the glass corner where we would just shatter our beer bottles it's like a whole corner just glass anyway my note to that would be uh the ratatical. Not just me staying up to watch it, but the amount of people it took to create the Ratatousical.

Yes. Just like working together from afar. That was clearly global mental illness. Oh, 100%. Anyone who was buying into that, which was like everyone. Everyone. Me too. Shared delusion, you know, like folia de shared delusion.

All just mentally ill i literally bought like even and brava to everyone who chipped in and was like you know what this is a time an unprecedented time and uh and everyone is really just looking for any excitement anywhere so we're gonna lean into us and literally playbill created a playbill for the ratatoussical taxi cabs were like showing it on their like their neon lights above their cars like there were billboards in the time square from the ratatousical and i literally bought two of the playbills and it was just so one day our kids could bring them to history class for show and tell they'd be like this is how far we slipped yeah this is talk about

mental illness yeah but in the best way it was like such a collaborative community-based experience of like where we got nothing to do we're just all inside wayne brady is ratatouille and we're gonna and wayne brady is also here and we're gonna make something thoroughly unhinged wayne brady is playing uh ratatouille's tights and he's gonna do a kick-ass job I still think it was one of the best things to come out of COVID which you know that says not too much but I I think in the world of COVID I knew everything was going to be okay after the Ratatouille yeah we sort of like thought oh we've we're coping you know yeah we're coping we're coping it doesn't look like that maybe but you know we're doing what we can it's hard to believe but just trust me anyway what a tangent um fire there's fire everywhere in every theater

cool so in 1926 let's just keep going with the fires um in 1926 there was one production that had several costumes catch on fire. I don't know if they were also soaked in kerosene. Um, there were more set pieces that kept falling apart. There were multiple robberies and the lead actor got so exhausted from probably literally putting out fires that he quit. Um, and then he got replaced by someone and this replacement i guess hadn't practiced as much stage combat as he had and oh no nearly killed lady mcbeth's actress uh um in 1971

there was a production that had two fires during its time and seven robberies what is these robberies like they're just pickpocketing people in the audience i don't know like are they stealing mcbeth i don't know robbing like a fake sword a real sword i don't know fire i don't know um and then on top of all the fires there were also riots so there was a riot in 1849 there were two actors who were really duking it out with each other one guy named william charles mccready and another named edwin forest um the very very quick like down low i could get on this was um down low low down the 411 give me the um the d the download oh no i think you say on the dl on the down low but then you say what's the low down the low down yeah okay thank you thank you thank you you are so welcome so uh honestly going back to tiktok if this was a relevant

few a feud today i would know everything about it if i just searched their names and tiktok oh right we figured out quickly um but what i could find in a moment's notice between william charles mccready and edwin forest is that um the u.s felt that william represented like hoity-toity england and the wealthy british elite whereas edwin was representing u.s laborers and uh in 1949 this this turned into an all-out class war. And William was starring in a Macbeth production. And then blocks away, just to spite him, Edwin, who was following his tour. It sounds like stalking. He was also starring as Macbeth right down the road in a different production.

Like, just to fuck with him. So it sounds like Ed Edward was the messy one and he was messy enough that he had 10,000 messy followers and all of them uh showed up to William's production to protest and it turned into a riot where around 30 people died oh my god and over 100 hundred people were injured i mean 10 000 supporters yeah and this was before social media this was literally like 1849 how were they all finding out about this are you doing how did 10 000 people organize okay um another time there was another uh actress who played lady macbeth her name was sarah sons. And I think it's Siddons. And people apparently hated that she got the role. So when she showed up, angry mobs would try to like

attack her. And she ended up getting into like the green room or backstage on her own. But people still sneered her performance when she was up on stage. They damaged the theater. And this caused ticket prices to go up so that the theater could cover repairs. But then it became a whole other riot because then people had to spend more money to see her. And she ended up, by the way, Sarah, ended up briefly retiring because of this because the stress was too much. But then she started acting again and became the first woman to ever play hamlet fuck yeah so good suck it haters um another famous uh lady macbeth uh her name was diana weinert i really hope i'm saying that right theater kids are gonna scream diana clearly i wasn't welcome so i can't tell you. So there's a sleepwalking scene in the show.

And she says- During her spot. Something about a spot. Oh, yeah, she does. Yeah, spot. Get out or something. Let me see. Spot.

Out, damn spot. That's what I meant. Yeah. Out, damn spot. Because she sees in her dream state the blood. The guilt is eating her alive interesting i remember doing a whole project on that exact scene not knowing what was going on no cool you were like she had a stain like time to go wasn't around i guess i don't know it was i remember my friend

rachel sticking her hands in like spaghetti sauce and filming her just like walking around like close she closed her eyes with spaghetti sauce all over her you were like i think this is exactly what happened in the book in the play i'm like our teacher's gonna fucking love this um eat it up um so during the sleepwalking uh scene this uh actress fell off a 15 foot stage platform oh fucking hell she ended up being fine um but the night before she had actually been telling reporters she didn't believe in the macbeth curse well well well what do you know dangerous so in 1940 there was a director named margaret webster who got appendicitis and uh and then when she recovered the actress playing lady macbeth got laryngitis and uh and then when she recovered the actress playing lady macbeth got laryngitis and

so the director stepped in for the actress that night but then she ended up getting like another whole illness um and on top of all that other curse incidents were that actors were getting into vehicle accidents um costumes and props kept vanishing, the power kept going out, there were other additional tech issues, and people were getting sick left and right. And there was even one production where 26 cast and crew members came down with different sicknesses, all one after another, after other setbacks had already delayed the show several months. At that point, like you just gotta read the writing writing on the wall right you know like i know let's just give it up let's go do let's go perform i don't know kinky boots that's

the only thing i can think of i've never seen it i have no idea but it's either mcbeth or kinky boots i've been telling them left and right don't know the difference to be honest another director uh once came down with the shingles days before opening, and then actors all had several broken bones on stage. Like they broke them on stage or they like came out with casts on? No, no, no. Like they became broken during the play. Oh, God. Yeah.

Yikes. In 1942, perhaps the most notorious production is when three actors died during production, including two of the witches. That can't be real. Are you serious? Then on opening night, the set manager went into the theater's costume room and died by suicide. Which, I don't know what their deal was, but if they also just saw multiple people die on stage, I don't know if that triggered something. Clearly a very traumatizing event either way. Yeah, I don't know whether it's a curse or not.

I mean, yikes. Well, some even say that the Macbeth curse played a role in the Lincoln assassination because Lincoln loved Macbeth and even said, it has been quoted saying, I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful. And a week before his death, he was reciting Macbeth scenes with his friends, especially the scene where Macbeth assassinates King Duncan.

And then a week later, he went to a play and got assassinated. Ooh, I just got chills. Like I said, a fun fact from earlier is that king james the first did not like the play which is so awkward for shakespeare but also maybe he had a fucking feeling you know like he was like yeah something crazy's in the air he's hitting this hitting me wrong about this you know you've you've conjured something very odd in this play about witches i don't know what it is not to be, but I wonder if it's also like Shakespeare stepping in to actually perform in it. I feel like that just adds to the whole like creepiness factor. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like also, I guess it's Shakespeare and I guess it's your moment in front of the king. Like I'm sure you could come

up with excuses, but if you just were performing for the first time ever a play in front of the king and someone died maybe stop the play real quick just like for a second like i would you know i probably would too uh anyway that's just how i would handle it but i guess they handled it differently i think you and i would not ever actually make it there because we'd be so nervous backstage we'd be like throwing up and we'd be the dead ones probably. I don't think we'd survive. I don't think we would survive at all. So because King James I did not like this play so much, it ended up actually not being played

in England for several years. Oh, God. And when it came back to England in 1703, the show returned to London and opening night was interrupted by a freak windstorm equal to a category two hurricane. What? And this storm ended up not only destroying thousands of buildings, but killed somewhere between 15 to 30,000 people. Oh, my God. thousand people oh my god the first time natural disaster occurred that had never that was not known to be in england of all things like a typhoon yeah and forget it and it still happens

all the way into the 2000s so in 2012 at the sydney opera house the show was postponed because actors and the assistant director got severe food poisoning leaving uh some of the people hospitalized a year later one actor was hit with a sword in an opening battle scene and had to be hospitalized after the show and in 2018 there was an article that came out that an access manager at shakespeare's globe theater said he will never say mcbeth in a theater which is kind of the where this has all come from like a lot of people now don't talk about mcbeth in theaters um i hope nobody's like working on set deck right now and it's like well shit right right right yeah sorry by the way if you do work at a theater and you've been listening this whole time i like to think you just turned us off and

you're like this is maybe a car ride home yeah let's wait till we're off the property so uh apparently this guy who was doing the interview he said that while touring in his last show a fiddle player a fiddle player in the show said oh i used to study macbeth in school and said that at the theater so like obviously not very well you studied it you would have known better that's what i was thinking yeah that night during their show two violinist strings snapped during the show one dancer fell off the stage and another danced into a wall which would be me yeah that's us we'd be like that was a curse again i don't know whenever every time before

every time i ever fall i'm just gonna be like, someone said Macbeth. I can't believe it. I can't help it. Somebody's playing my podcast in a theater. It's this episode. So it's become common knowledge in theaters to never say the word Macbeth or bad luck will fall on the show. And do you know what people say instead of Macbeth if they have to talk about it in a theater? You know, I think I've heard this as a fun fact, but I don't remember. I think you, because this is how i found out i heard about it when i was in a theater and i heard someone say this phrase i was like what the fuck are you talking about and they were like we

can't we can't tell you and i was like well that's eerie but i sure need to know the information now and it was before smartphones so i couldn't like look it up myself i was just like sitting oh okay i thought it was like at one of our shows i was like no no no it was like it was in high school highbrow conversation at one of our shows about high school or college it was a theater thing um i wouldn't understand okay right right right um but apparently what you say instead is uh you call it the scottish play oh maybe i didn't know that that's not familiar to me and if you're talking about macbeth the person you call it the call him the scottish king okay and apparently productions that use sign language even sign macbeth they use the same

sign for scotland to censor the name no way because they're so scared of saying it that's a really fun fact probably the most fun fact of the of the episode yeah um there are also blogs and videos of actors talking about their own productions of macbeth and how it cursed them um one anecdote was that multiple this is from one guy who was performing who said multiple actors got arrested throughout production for totally unrelated reasons what so now it's just like criminal activity it's like law and order it's natural disasters it's everything despite all of this some people are still skeptical and blame the coincidence on the play being 400 years old and in that time there's statistically a lot of room for many performers

performances to have had moments of bad luck i can see that argument but but that doesn't excuse all the other plays that have been around that long that don't have this same stereotype of being unlucky including the greek tragedy oedipus that is 2400 years old and nobody has ever called it cursed well it is cursed because do you know what that's about um the edifice complex edible complex yes edifice complex i think it's edifice i'm pretty sure but i don't know um yeah so i guess it's already cursed it didn't need an extra curse you know fair enough uh but at least nobody's dying in fires and riots so yeah they really took it and ran with it this i'm like scared to say it now and we're i'm

in the scottish play yeah the scottish play yeah i like that i like that little code word and uh if you do happen to say the word macbeth in a theater you're apparently supposed to like do a ritual in order to yeah what is that do you know what you don't know what it is there it sounds like it's kind of like every school and every production and every director has like their own silly. Oh, it's kind of like kind of take it back. You're like, I'm sorry. What's it like when like you wanted to snow the next day? So you have a snow day and you wear your little snow dance. You flush the toilet seven times. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's got like a like it's a little different every time. to toilet seven times yeah yeah everyone's got like a like it's a little different every time same thing here where it sounds like essentially you go outside you spin around a certain amount

of times one of the theories is that you spit over your shoulder and then sometimes it depends on which shoulder um and then you have to do all this stuff and you have to go knock on the theater door and let somebody welcome you back inside they have to be like you've spent around enough and spit enough in the parking lot we'll finally let you back in um and apparently sometimes you have to say certain phrases or you have to quote certain things while you're doing all this stuff to like you know manifest good luck and a lot of times the things you have to say are words from other shakespeare plays. Oh, OK. That's kind of fun. So one of them apparently is an excerpt from Hamlet.

Hamlet. And this is the quote that, again, this isn't every time, but apparently this is what some people do. Imagine someone just spitting and spinning around while they say this. say this angels and ministers of grace defend us be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned being with thee heirs from heaven or blasts from hell be thy intense wicked or charitable thou comest in such a questionable shape that i will speak to thee which i can't imagine memorizing that i don't even remember two words from that entire thing you just said to me that's called just having bad luck forever now because there's no way i'm gonna be able to do i get note cards like i don't know it's just very complicated i feel like if you have to memorize that no one's ever coming back

from the bad luck sorry uh anyway you could say it with hamlet excerpts you could say it with probably other shakespearean excerpts you can dance around maybe in your pajamas flush the toilet a couple times but anything that it takes to keep yourself from the macbeth curse and that's the that's the story and that was really good i didn't know quite what to expect but that was really good i i think curses are such an interesting concept that we don't really talk about too much like i know you've done the curse of uh what was that guy's car well who's that guy who had a car and it's cursed oh jim jim not jim dean james dean james jim jim jimmy jimmy that's also cursed i'm just gonna put it out there okay i don't think it's being said but i'm'm going to say it. James Dean. Yeah. James Dean. Yeah.

I feel like, wow, that's, I just, I think the concept of a curse is so fascinating. I just hope to never come face to face with one. Exactly. It's almost like I am interested in it, but I'm just going to let it sit there and not get too close. Cause I don't want to be involved. I'm interested in a way where I would like to be like olivia benson and the curses in the room with the like one-sided mirror oh yeah yeah yeah one-way mirror yeah that way like i can

see it fully and it just doesn't even know i'm there and you're also olivia benson so it's a win-win oh mariska ah take lover got a lover oh okay um that was great m i i really really like that um good job thank you thank you your turn to do a good job. Don't mess up. I feel like you'll like this one, okay? I think you'll like it. This is the story of Burke and Hare. Do you know these folks? It's one of those where they were some of the original body snatchers from back in the day. No, I don't. Grave robbers, body snatchers, all that good in the day no i don't grave robbers body snatchers all that good stuff burke and hair yes they're hair h-a-r-e oh like a bunny yeah burke and bunny okay got it now you'll

remember um so we're going guess where we're going i didn't even put this together. What, England? Edinburgh. Scotland. Oh, gosh. I thought you were going to say, like, King James I's castle on the Macbeth performance stage. I'm not that creative. Okay, Edinburgh. Yeah, Edinburgh. So over, just a little quick side note for you, Edinburgh first began to grow as a settlement in the 12th century, and it became a big prosperous city over the centuries. And so during the late Georgian period, which is like the when the Victorian era started, Edinburgh was the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment. And this was a time when philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, inventors, all like kind of flocked to the city and tried to challenge like the old school way of doing things um tried to come up with a new approach just you know what you think of when you think of

enlightenment like there's a new era of thinking sure yeah so voltaire the french philosopher once said we look to scotland for all our ideas of civilization which i did not know it was such a center for i don't know. It's the town of enlightenment, apparently. Yeah, new wave thinking. But of course, there were major issues in the city, just like any big city. Poverty and overcrowding being the main ones. As more and more people moved to town, middle and upper class people started sharing streets and even buildings with the working class

god forbid uh this was unheard of at the time so basically here's just like an example to give you an idea there was a countess whose english friends were shocked to find out that her apartment was just one floor above a fishmonger literally god don't let her parents find out the notes literally say gasp like you literally nailed it you you are right on cue you know thank you so much yeah um so in the narrow streets which were called closes or closes uh lined with high built lodging people would dump their chamber pots out of the window this was just how you would dispose there was no sewage you know this is just there's no draining you just dump it out so you can just imagine i know we've talked about this but like the smell and how filth you must just get used to it like how else would you function

um i wonder yeah i just can't imagine i feel like that'd be so distracting if you time traveled and you were like am i standing in poop you know thank you for mentioning time travel think about it until just now but like that would be a really big hiccup you'd have to train like nasa does with the gravity thing oh yeah train the scent no that makes total sense i can't i mean if you got out of your delorean and took one breath of oxygen you'd go like go right back in the car like what's your deal you know like take me back i don't care it's not worth it it's not worth it like and also like the biohazard like oh good point the illness and yes i mean that's literally one of the next bullets is like of course then illness becomes a huge issue disease spreading i mean oh it just makes you i mean like and also this is like such

like a very niche thing but like imagine having little kids and they're just running out to the balcony and putting their hands on the balcony covered in someone else's suit. They're going to play and you're like, well, they're coming back in poop. And then they do the thing and then they lick their hands. Oh. Everyone just eating everyone's matter. Oh.

I'm going to be ill. I'm sorry. No, I mean. I'm so sorry. Don't be sorry. It's what happened uh it's disturbing oh boy okay so of course literally next bullet the usual problems of overcrowding noise pollution and disease uh so in the late 1700s construction started on what was called new town edinburgh where the wealthy could thankfully escape all of the lowbrow folks that they were with all the woes they have all their

many woes imagine like they had to dump their chamber pot right where someone else who was poor was dumping their chamber pot how embarrassing that should like be the most humbling experience like for anyone who thinks they're a diva it's like you're still pouring your poop out like everyone else the literal phrase like your shit stink your shit still stinks like this is literally that special glorg karen karen 3000 give it a rest okay dump your chamber pot where everybody else does uh yeah so by the 1800s now we have essentially two cities like distinct from one another there's old town edinburgh and new town and in 1818 the first steam ferry began operating between belfast and glasgow and there was this major boom in irish emigration into scotland um so by 1822 which is only four years later the union canal linked ed Edinburgh and Glasgow. And now there's this like big influx of workers from Ireland.

So Old Town keeps growing and New Town keeps like trying to run away from Old Town, like expanding in the other direction because they're like, no, they're coming closer with their poop. closer with their poop you know i like to imagine it's like one of the um like those like like a disney like animated maps where like you could see like the line drawing behind somebody oh yeah as they're like zooming around yeah that's what it was um basically they're like trying to escape um but both of them both of their shit still sank. Okay. And they both had another similar problem, which was that both of their cemeteries were way overcrowded. So Edinburgh had buried its dead in a place called, I think you've talked about Greyfriars Kirk. Yeah. Like about how haunted it is. And like there's that guy that scratches people and stuff.

I feel like we've talked about this, I think, recently. And I don't know if it was on here or on Rituals. It was here, my friend. It was episode 214, actually. No, wait, that's not right. It was 306. So, like, really recently. Yeah.

I was like, we've just talked about this. So this was the place to go once you've died um it was opened in 1562 and by the end of the 18th century nearly 1200 people a year were laid to rest there and did a wonderful job covering this um go back to episode 302 you said 306 306 don't i mean you can do 302 too but i don't know what we talked about there. It's probably something stupid. So in times of plague and other disease, as you can imagine,

there were just like these mass graves that were having to be dug in the Kirk because it wasn't just the usual average amount of bodies. It was like, we need room for, you know, a whole mass of them. And for families who couldn't afford to inter their loved ones in fancy mausoleums, the only option was burying them in a spot that might already be taken by someone else. Yikes. So in 1779, Scottish Enlightenment advocate Hugo Arnault wrote the following.

The graves are so crowded on one another that the sextons frequently cannot avoid in opening a ripe grave. Encroaching on one not fit to be touched! The whole presents a scene equally nauseous and unwholesome. Yeah, you said it, buddy. When did news reporters stop using exclamation points? You know, that's what I'm thinking because I'm reading this quote and it's like with an exclamation i'm like that i feel that's powerful back then to be using exclamation points i know this it like the timelines don't totally add up but whenever i see a news article with an exclamation point i consider that so i consider that a welcoming or an invitation to read the headline in the transatlantic accent.

I was going to say in the accent, the read all about it. Yes, precisely. That's I feel like they kind of merge those two. But I've never seen anything in our time where they're like, I mean, think everything that Donald Trump has put us through recently, like not a single headline had an exclamation point. Multiple exclamation points, you'd think. Like not a single headline had an exclamation point. Like multiple exclamation points, you'd think. Just like a question mark, like ampersand, asterisk, like all the symbols just to be like, what is going on? We're all thinking it, right?

What the fuck? Yeah, it is shocking because like if any time deserved it, you'd think. Yeah, you'd really think. But apparently not. Apparently we left it behind, unfortunately. Let's bring it back. I think it's fun. Sure.

So even as more Kirks or like graveyards were opening, the crowding was still an issue. And of course, there were always where there's a problem. There are always some entrepreneurial folks trying to make a quick profit. So this is what happened. Advancements in medical science were a major part of the Scottish Enlightenment and Edinburgh University was noted for its cutting edge wink wink anatomy department. Fun fact, Charles Darwin once studied there. So that should talk about like an alum alumni brag, you know. and i brag you know um yeah for sure can you imagine just be like oh like my college my college had judge judy and i brag about that all the time but like charles darwin i don't know it's another one of those things that like people in the states will just never understand it's like

oh i go to the same school as like yeah fucking copernicus i don't know like no literally like my brain can't compute i'm like wait, wait, they invented math here? How is that even possible? Yeah. It just doesn't compute, literally. So, you know, I think probably we see where this is going. The anatomy students needed cadavers, aka recently deceased bodies, because they needed to dissect and study them. And this was not a time where you could really donate your body to science. And even if this were possible, people were very, very, I almost said into, that's probably not the right wording, but it was really important to people to have religious burials, you know, which understandably, you know, if you have a belief system and you're like, well, you know, this is really important that I'm laid to rest in a certain way. And so just donating your body to science was not really a thing back then. Sure. And this is where our folks come into play. They were called resurrection men, more commonly called body snatchers or grave robbers. I like to think resurrection men was like their rebrand. They were like, yeah, let's just our PR folks say this is like just, I don't know, taken better by the public.

It's just a little more palatable. Resurrection men. Resurrection men! Exclamation point. Exclamation point. Read all about it. Jazz hands. So doctors and anatomy students would pay also really well for fresh bodies, which sounds so gross, but for fresh bodies to be used as cadavers. But selling the dead, as you can probably guess, was illegal at this time. So even if someone wanted to make a quick buck when their loved one died, like even if my partner or my grandmother died and I was like, I know what I'll do. I'll sell this body. You couldn't do it legally.

Even if you were next of kin, so to speak. So what resurrection men would do is they would spend their days spying on funerals. What a dark hobby. And scoping out the newest burials. And then at night, they would just return to the scene and take the body out of the grave. Now, I know we've talked about this, and I think in your episode recently, that the problem got so bad that wealthy people would sometimes put these enormous iron cages around the casket and they were called mort safes. And they would even hire, if they had the money, they would hire guards to stand watch for several days until the body gross was no longer presumably usable by... Wanted. Wanted, yeah, by anatomy students or doctors.

So, of course, privilege is, and I tragically assume always will be, an issue because graves of the poor were the easiest and most common targets because they didn't have hired guards and, you know, 24-7 watch and iron cages around their caskets. So especially if you're thinking like working class, if it was up to the family to guard the grave themselves, you know, they're laborers, they have to go to work. Like you can't just stand there and guard your loved one's body all day. So author Elena Knight says that because the resurrection men were funded by educated young men from well-off families, you know, who are studying medicine,

grave robbing was effectively endorsed by the establishment, which I think is so interesting because it's like such an underground, like seedy occupation, or if you can call it an occupation, but like seedy crime. then to think like but it was being funded yeah and endorsed by like the people up top who were like had their hands clean i mean not literally because they were cutting open bodies but you know you know what i mean um anyway so this just became a regular part of life in edinburgh it was another thing people just had to deal with and this is when our pals burke and bunny burke and hair come into play their names of course now that i'm thinking about

it of course this makes sense their names were william burke and william hair aka i assume billy burke billy bunny oh that's really i think that's how they again i'm only thinking in the trans atlantic accent which is like they're literally not at all. They're from Edinburgh. Yeah. Not even. Talk about an accent that's pretty distinct. Yeah.

Billy Burke and Billy Hare are still. Those are some. They sound like they could be. I mean, the two Billys. Like, come on. It really works. They sound like they could be some sort of like ragtag team of criminals. And they were, you know.

They like actually were. So it really worked. And oh, I'm sorry. They actually were Irish. But that's also a distinct accent. So they arrived in Scotland during the 1818 rush. And they ended up in Edinburgh living in the challenging conditions of Old Town. I think it's kind of fun.

I'll get to it. But like they're very different but they like kind of become best friends which is kind of fun um before all the horrible stuff like the fox and the hound yeah i mean yes yes please don't bring i thought i've told you not to bring that up in front of me i don't i'm so sorry my emotional bandwidth can i today um so william hair was a navvy which so n-a-v-v-y which is a laborer who worked on civil engineering projects and he had recently finished up work on the union canal and moved into a lodging house on tanners close which was named for the nearby leather tanneries this is like a just a little glimpse into how living conditions were. There were eight

beds and they slept three people each. Oh my God. Like you didn't even get your own bed. And that's like Willy Wonka's grandparents. Yes. But like plus one, you know, if they were having a threesome, you know, I mean, it's just a lot. And especially if if you don't they're not like your friends or family necessarily they're just like randos so you're like sharing your bed with two randos um it's just a lot so hair was staying here and he had his eyes on the lodger's wife maggie laird who had worked as a navi alongside men and was described as a hard-faced and debauched virago. And he said, that's the one. And he said, that's my gal in that transatlantic accent. With an exclamation point. With an exclamation point. And I don't, I didn't know what a virago

was. Okay. Do you know that? I don't either. Okay. So I looked it up and like the definition currently from the Oxford dictionary is a domineering, violent or bad tempered woman. He really had a very specific type. He clearly did. And he knew it. Yeah. He likes a challenge. Oh, absolutely.

Especially since she's already married, you know? Yeah. Great point. What the fuck are you thinking? But another more, it says archaic. I don't know how old school archaic physical labor, which, you know, is I feel like pretty unheard of back then. So the lodger, her husband died. And so Hare took over the tenement and the marriage. He was like, here's my shot.

He just snuck right in. He didn't even need to ask. He's just like, I'm here. And she was like, here's my shot. He just snuck right in. He didn't even need to ask. He's just like, I'm here. And she was like, OK. And so now he was officially the landlord and the common law spouse of Maggie. OK. So William Burke, the other Burke, the other Billy. I'm sorry, not the other Billy, the other Burke. Wait, no.

Oh, my God. The other Billy. What's wrong with me? I'm sorry that I got all in my head the other Billy William Burke was a navvy as well like a laborer who worked on the same canal as Hare and he was born in Northern Ireland and uh he was relatively well educated for the time he had served in the army he also had a wife named maggie like they're very similar these two in in some ways and very different than others he had a wife named maggie and two children uh whom he abandoned to emigrate to scotland and this is where he met a new woman her name was helen or nelly mcdougall and she abandoned her two children to go live with Burke. So he found his type as well,

like willing to leave your family behind. If they can find them, we can find them, folks. That's right. Just believe. This is like, it should be uplifting in that way. Yes. Your person is out there. Yeah. So eventually through mutual acquaintances, Burke moved into a spare room in the tenement that Hare was now running. And he began working there as a cobbler. Hare was remembered as a quarrelsome man with a temper. And Burke was described as a merry fellow who liked to dance. And so despite having these very opposing personality traits, they became BFFs, best friends. In 1827, one of Hare's lodgers, who was an elderly man named Donald, died unexpectedly of something called dropsy.

Okay. Have you heard of this? It sounds like what's happening to me these days with my painting spells. It might be. I'm not going to lie. I don't know too much about it, but it's basically an old timey name for swelling, which is usually linked to heart, liver or kidney failure. So Donald had died suddenly, but he owed Hare money for rent for lodging. So Hare thought, oh, I know, we'll just sell his body and that'll cover what he owed us. So he convinced Burke, who's now living there, to help him out and he would get a cut of the profit. So they staged a burial with a casket full of bark. Like they went all the way with this and they pretended to bury him.

And then they actually walked to the college and asked a random student if they could speak to a doctor. and asked a random student if they could speak to a doctor. And from there, they got sent to Dr. Robert Knox at Number 10 Surgeon Square. And that is where they met with three students who were like, oh, cool. Yep. Bring the body tonight. Come on over tonight with the body.

So Burke and Hare literally just like took the body that night, delivered it to the lecture hall in a sack that night oh god so dark so dark it's sometimes i'm like oh i don't really care what happens to my body after i die but then i hear this and i'm like well like maybe don't throw me in a sack and just like i don't know what like the what the line is where i start caring but sack is definitely under the line. Sack is past the line. Don't go there. Yeah. Sack is too, you've gone too far, you know? So they put him in a sack, bring him to the hospital or the school and the students and Dr. Knox pay them seven pounds, 10 shillings. Now today in today's money, that would be 430 pounds or 517 US dollars. Not worth it, my friend. Not worth it to me.

500 bucks. I'm sorry. Maybe if I were like really in dire straits, but this is a stretch. Yeah. For just for an idea, though, because I think in this scenario, though because i think in this scenario like relatively it was worth it for them because just for an idea of like what the buying power of this was tenants were paying around 87 cents a night oh oh so if you think about it like wow seven pounds was like a lot like if you know compared to 87 cents so it was like essentially like six six pounds a week and they were making 480 yeah so i can't do the math right now but that feels like eight eight months of rent or eight well so they were making seven pounds ten shillings at the time and the rent was 87 cents at the time so today it would be 430 pounds i don't

know what let me see what 87 cents was basically oh god my brain can't compute i also think it's because we're going from cents to pounds and my brain's also very confusing um also i did only have like a half an hour of sleep because i was a star tender all night. You were working all night. I was doing my night shift. You were moonlighting literally probably on the moon. Um, I don't know if anyone's ever done that before, but it's pretty impressive. Usually my math, like I can trust, but not today. I'm going to do 1827, 87 cents to today and see what it says.

Okay. $0.87 to today and see what it says. Okay. So people were paying about, okay, $15 a night to stay here. Okay. And they had just made like $430. So I get it. Yeah. So it's quite a bit of buying power.

Like if you don't have expendable income and you live off of people paying rent and all of a sudden you get this like influx of as if you had a several more tenants and several more weeks of rent. So basically it was a good amount of money. And the students, as Burke and Hare were leaving, said, we look forward to working with you again. And they were hooked. So Burke and Hare were like, we want to keep doing this. However, we don't think we're cut out to be resurrection men. it was hard work locating these graves, digging them up, running from the guards, like carrying a body across the city, bribing people they might run into. It's a multitask job.

It is. And it's a very messy and a little risky. So instead, they came up with their own solution. They decided they would just wait for one of the tenants to get sick again. Oh, good. Yeah, sure. Another dropsy situation, you know? So in February of 1828, an elderly man named Joseph was sick with a fever. It could have been cholera or really any of the other diseases that was common at the time. And they knew he wouldn't survive. So they basically gave him whiskey until he drank himself to sleep. And then they smothered him with a pillow. Oh, my God.

So they really didn't wait too long. Yeah. They were like, we know he's going to die, which makes me think like, then can't you just wait? Yeah. So now they're committing murder, which is definitely not worth the $400. No, no. They like jumped straight to murder. They were like, okay, we'll take this body and fake a funeral.

That's one thing. But then now they're like killing people. They wouldn't, they thought that was real easy. So I guess it wasn't that far of a leap for them of like, let's just end the body we plan on burying. Yeah, it's almost, exactly. It's almost like a classic, like, you just like give an inch, take a mile. They were like, like well he's

already gonna die and then it like i mean spoiler alert it escalates to where they're like well we can make him sick you know what i mean like it just becomes really problematic um but yeah you can see the step of like well he is gonna die so like ethically it's not that big of a deal if we smother him with a pillow, right? Beg to differ. But again, they were BFFs. They saw life the same way. They went for it. Now, this time they got an increased pay because it was winter.

And Dr. Knox's students paid them 10 pounds this time. You would think it would be less when it's winter. That's what I thought. That's what i thought because the body's frozen and is saying it it's quote usable for longer without you having done anything but i think so i could i took a minute to wrap my head around that as well because you're right that is why they were more valuable because the cold preserved them better but that being said that means that the bodies being delivered were automatically at a better starting point.

So it was like, oh, you've brought whatever the circumstances. Like you brought a top dollar item. Exactly. So no matter what the environmental reasons or the surrounding context was, if you were able to bring a quote-unquote fresher body, you were just going to be paid more so the winter rate is higher because typically the bodies were uh more i guess that makes sense because in the summer they're probably getting like less less preserved faster and so no matter what the

quality is not very good yeah it's hard to like get that kind of oh it's so gross to think about and say in these terms but i mean that is exactly exactly the logic there so they were like hell yeah we're getting even more money in the winter and that wasn't so bad so soon one of hare's new tenants came down with jaundice uh and they were like well we don't know if he's gonna die but like he might so let's kill him. So they gave him whiskey, smothered him and collected a quick 10 pounds from Dr. Knox. And you can see how this is now becoming like out of control. Like they're like, this is so easy.

Let's just keep doing it and doing it and doing it. So their next victim was an elderly woman named Abigail Simpson. She lived off of retirement pension of what would now be $5 a week. And she sold, yeah, really bad. And she sold salt on the side to get by. So she was really, you know, hurting, hurting financially. So on February 11th, 1828, Burke saw her selling salt in the street and invited her back to Tanner's Close where he got her drunk on whiskey. She told him she had a daughter and Hare said he would marry her daughter and care for them both, like take them under his wing, which is now getting really sick and manipulative. Like this is becoming just like pure serial killer behavior.

Yeah. But in the morning, the men gave her more whiskey and smothered her uh they made another 10 pounds which was this is sick more than 10 times the weekly pension abigail was living on so on so it's like that's her worth after she was killed it's just disturbing wow on april 12th it had been two months since burke and hare's last paycheck god forbid uh i don't know what they're spending it on if they're suddenly like have this influx of cash and now they're already out like what are you buying pillows some other people flat screens yeah i don't know so they oh maybe the newest top-notch chamber pot you know that

a little like some herbs to make it smell a little less bad i hope so whatever their version was it poo purry like literal oh no oh no they could have used that back then um so they were getting desperate for more money burke was drinking in a local now i feel like we're getting back to your star tending. A local grog shop. No. A grog shop, literally. That's amazing. Yeah, and it sounds like also my basement.

I feel like it's a really good combo. Let's call it the grog shop, my basement. Like really fits, right? The troll hole in the grog shop. Oh my god. The troll hole in the grog shop? I'm going to put a P-E at the end of shop. You have yeah i gotta do it gotta do it um also i don't want this grog shop from the 1800s to sue me you know i doubt they're still in business but i just think you're gonna get away with it um i just have a hunch okay well i i trust your

hunch so the grog shop um and he's there drinking when two 18-year-olds entered, both girls, Janet Brown and Mary Patterson. The girls were sex workers. They were, I guess I should say, excuse me, young women. They were 18. They were sex workers, and they were well-known by everyone in the area. This is kind of a, like, backhanded thing because it says mary was regarded as a great beauty and janet was also janet was also there it's like oh i feel like there's probably some article that's come out about the two of us and it said something like that oh i'm christine's

hysterical no i know i know what it is adhd m is also there yeah no but i know what it is it's the fuck it's your favorite photo that funny or die posted where i'm mike wazowski and they put the logo right over my face and you're and you're you're in it and i had the same reaction from monsters inc that mike wazowski had where i was like where everyone looked at me nervously and i went i'm on funny or die like i was just so excited that I was on it. It didn't faze me. And then you were like, Christine, they literally put an entire logo over your face. And I was like, oh, I don't even care.

It's also just like Mike Skosyowski because only one eyeball is kind of showing. That is like every, you share that like every six months and every time i'm like oh lord i can't wait to post it later today today you gotta you gotta just a reminder you know what we should do also is have megan post it at like when this episode comes out just so people can really get an idea because i feel like i am jan i feel like i'm Janet. You know, like M was regarded as a great comedian. Full stop. Anyway, the two of them came in. It's like, oh, ow. It's a little bit. You really were just so excited to be on Funny or Die. I literally was Mike was asking. I was like, oh, everyone looked at me nervously.

And I was like, I'm on Funny or Die. And everyone was like, does she not see it? Like, does she not notice? Oh, man. Oh, it's beautiful times. So that's what made me think. That's what made me think. It's like you look so good in that photo. And it's like i did before they covered it up but i'm like under there somewhere i just love that whoever made that just didn't give a shit enough

i don't blame them but like didn't give a shit enough to like take a second glance and be like hmm one of the people they had to have and then just like kind of like side eye like click publish they were like we don't care right like it's fine and to be honest like i don't care so you're good but i just imagine i just imagine with someone more diva or high maintenance who was like what the fuck i feel like if you're gonna be like i mean and i i know it doesn't sound like it because the rules are not reversed but if it were i think i'd have the same attitude because if you're gonna be like welcomed into funny or die like you have to expect someone there is like funny and like to be honest we have propagated that photo so off so much that it's like they

did the trick like we promote that article all the time because we're like this is the funniest picture it was so funny so whether or not they knew what they were doing they nailed it uh if funny or die ever takes us back i'm gonna beg to switch spots with you and have like the logo on my face i i i'm gonna just ask maggie our manager like can you just put a word in like maybe flip it like we'll reverse the picture just keep the logo in the same spot yeah but you're so tall you'll probably just be at the top of it like you'll just probably find your way you know you'll still be there oh lord what were we talking about so i was talking about how mary was known as a great beauty and janet was also there um so the two of them walked

into the grog shop as you do and uh like i said they were well-known sex workers in the area so burke said hello to them, ended up buying them drinks, and then he invited them back to his place. So nothing unusual, you know, in the context here. Burke was making them promises, like these just big, bold promises. He said, oh, I'm going to provide you with a lifelong pension so you'd never have to worry about money again. Andet maybe she janet was the brains of the operation because pretty quickly she was like this sounds like a bad idea um but mary convinced her to go along with it so she and mary went back to burke's house and

uh the three of them shared two bottles of whiskey which I know I know they're Irish and Scottish relative like you know relatively speaking but damn it's still a lot to me a lot of whiskey and I'm a drinker you know I'm not and I know that's a lot it's a lot yeah so Burke's sister-in-law Elizabeth left and told Burke's wife that Burke was out and about with two young women. And especially if she knew locally that they were two sex workers and one of them was beautiful. That was a dig. That was a mean dig. I'm just kidding. And the other one had a brain. The other one was smart, which not really relevant back then.

But, you know. Not really relevant back then, but you know. So, of course, his wife shows up in a frenzy and it turns into this big fight. Burke threw a glass at her, kicked her out of the room and locked the door. What a winner. Mary Patterson was so drunk on whiskey that she slept through everything with her head on the table. Like she had passed out by now, which I mean, don't get me wrong. I would have as well. She passed out and had her head on the table where they'd been drinking.

And so through this whole fight and throwing glass and, you know, screaming fit, she just slept right through it, snored her way through it. She just slept right through it, snored her way through it. But Janet made her getaway and terrified of Burke's wife because Burke's wife was like after her now for being involved with her husband. So hair showed up now, summoned by Elizabeth after she'd sent. I'm sorry. It sounded like the Macbeth's tights. You said, finally, hair showed up. Just imagine a wig dancing on the combo. So finally, the actor portraying Mary's beautiful, luscious locks, which were a big part of her beautiful persona, showed up. It just felt like, what's that like fantasia

like bed broomsticks and whatever it just sounded like you've literally brought up two of the most traumatic movies of my life fox and the hound and fantasia thank you for doing that just like just free thinking hair just kind of it just showed up all of a sudden all of a sudden uh everybody had uh a beautiful a beautiful do yeah yeah yeah so hair showed up he had been summoned by elizabeth after she'd sent uh for burke's wife and elizabeth was also back now along with hair's wife maggie so now they're all just like what is going on here we've all gathered we know you're up to no good so William Hare told all three women Elizabeth Helen and Maggie to wait outside and he went inside and helped yikes helped Burke smother the unconscious Mary Patterson

so now he's like just wait out here a minute I've just got some loose ends to tie up. And he goes inside and murders her. And this would now be their fourth victim. And I mean, you know what? Good for Janet. I know she wasn't the beauty, but apparently she really was able to make her way out of there. She had a gut feeling, followed it, left. So good for her. Good for her.

It's obviously extremely tragic for Mary. She was their fourth victim. And once they had killed her, they hid her on the bed under the bed linens. Doesn't seem like a very great place to hide someone, especially if your wife is like thinking you're sleeping with someone. That's probably the first place she's going to check. But do i know so while burke walked to surgeon square to arrange the sale janet showed up again and this time she had a servant girl who worked for mrs laurie who was a local landlady and brothel keeper and janet had basically gone back to the brothel and said hey i left mary behind but there was some like, and because she was passed out, but there was some crazy shit happening. We got to go check on this. So Mrs. Laurie and a servant

girl showed up and they had been sent to get Mary out of the situation. Obviously not knowing she was killed. She had been killed. So Harry told her that Mary had left on a walk with Burke. Don't check the bedroom. She's not there. She's out on a walk. Don't worry about it. Whatever you do, do not open the store. For no reason whatsoever.

So he sent the servant girl away and invited Janet in for drinks while they waited for Mary to return. I assume, you know, I don't have these details, but I imagine he was like, I'm so sorry about that debacle. You know, things got heated, but I want to assure you everything's fine. Mary's, you know, all better out for a walk, getting some fresh air. She'll be back and you can take her home so that's just kind of what i assume happened because she felt comfortable enough to stay she sat at a table with burke hair elizabeth maggie and helen um elizabeth was a sister-in-law and they sat around drinking whiskey this whole time she had no idea that only a few feet away under some blankets was the body of her friend and she had no idea that presumably she

would be the next victim right and i'm assuming this is where they're going with this plan birkenhair but thank god the servant girl returned again which i love that she'd been sent away as a servant girl and then she came back like no i didn't like the vibe of this i'm checking on you yeah good for her which i love so she kind of overstepped in a good way and uh she returned and she insisted that janet leave with her to mrs laurie's and i'm sure burke and hair were like no we're having a good time stay have another drink know, they're plying her with whiskey. But Janet, again, is like, there's something wrong here. And so she leaves with the servant.

I love Janet. Love it. Like, she's really nailing it. And, you know, I'm not saying anything against Mary, because obviously this was not her fault by any means. But it's just like, wow, what a scary situation to be in as Janet and having to figure out, like, okay, my friend's not here. Yeah. Should I wait for her or am I now in danger? So, yeah, I love that she made the right move.

So Burke and Hare, yikes, carried Mary's body across town in broad daylight this time oh my god and just shameless just shameless they had her body stored in a chest uh so this is pretty wild some school boys circled around and began to taunt them shouting they're carrying a corpse it's like did they know that or were they just joking and also like how wild was the time it was like that era for kids to just like think that was like a normal to be like i know what you've got and it's like yeah wow how twisted and dark like like they were just so used to body snatchers around them that they that it was just a normal thing to poke fun at yeah they're like we see through your little ruse we know there's a body in there but we won't tell i can also see like a dad with like bad jokes today seeing people

move out of an apartment being like you got a body in there and then it's like actually there is in the freezer yeah and you're fuck, they're on to me. So, yeah, they were like taunting them, saying, oh, there's occurring a corpse. And then they ran off. So far, Burke and Hare had murdered two old men with no family and one old woman whose daughter would have no idea where to even begin looking. And this time they had some trouble because guess who is still looking for mary janet fucking janet she's on the case sure jan sure jan she is on it okay she is a girl boss it hurts my soul to even say that and I don't want to ascribe that to her because like,

no, no. But she really was. She was a badass. She's searching for her friend Mary. And she has not given up yet. She doesn't give up easy. So in the medical school, one of Dr. Knox's students recognized Mary, which makes me think like, hmm, you recognize the local sex worker. Hmm. I wonder where you cross paths. I'm sure it was just at a cocktail party, right? Like no other. What were your big bucks being spent?

Yeah. Weird. I don't know. I don't know how he just happened to recognize her. But he asked, like, how did you obtain her body? Like what happened? But he asked, like, how did you obtain her body? Like, what happened?

And Burke and Hare first said they bought her body off a woman who said Mary died of alcohol poisoning. But they did not plan very well for this because when asked again, they said they bought her off of Mary's family. Then they said if anyone asked any more questions, they would stop delivering bodies. Well, you know, to be fair, they fair they're also i think hammered right now so like they probably uh are not making a lot of sense interesting how they're trying to blame alcohol poisoning on her when they're also smashed and like yeah i could probably smell it on their breaths and he's like oh yeah sure she had alcohol yeah okay yeah take someone to no one what a bad crime because couldn't he just eventually put it together that like oh when i open her up i will

realize that she died from alcohol poisoning or there was a lot of alcohol in her system and you reek of alcohol yeah sounds like the two of you were together when she died although i feel like that's not solid evidence. You could be like, we were both just drunk that night. I guess. I feel like it would still open up a hunch. It's a it's an alarm bell. But hey, they I don't think they care enough. That's a good point. And like't necessarily the priority to figure out from higher up folks was not necessarily the priority to get justice for her. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's a good point.

So just as like a perfect example of how this went down, they told, Birkenhead told this Dr. Knox, if you ask any more questions, we won't deliver any more bodies. And so they told, Birkenhead told this Dr. Knox, if you ask any more questions, we won't deliver any more bodies. And so they said, understood. We won't ask any more questions. Hmm. They cared that little about like 0% 0% about like what actually happened. They were like, our priority is getting these bodies.

So if questioning you is going to make you uncomfortable and stop, we'll if questioning you is gonna make you uncomfortable and stop we'll stop questioning you uh and honestly they probably phrased it to themselves it's like well if we don't know what happened to the body we can't be responsible like you know if they found out oh this woman has been murdered the doctor yeah has to say something has to say something or feels obligated to but if he's like i'll just plug my ears you bring the bodies i won't ask questions i feel like it's just easier for them to kind of swallow that of i think so too of how this relationship will go so tragically this is so fucking gross this is so fucking gross on so many levels. Tragically, because Mary was, as we said, so beautiful.

Instead of, I know, it's bad. Instead of dissecting her, because God forbid we cut into a beautiful woman, Dr. Knox kept her preserved in alcohol for three months to use in lectures about muscular anatomy see only views and lectures yeah are we sure oh i mean i think once she's i mean i'm not sure of anything at this point but like to show like a perfect specimen you Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, I get it. I have also been on Morgue TikTok recently, and apparently it is very common and understood in the community that a lot of morticians are women for a reason. Yeah, I've. Yes.

I think there was an episode of like. There was a podcast episode about that. Yeah. Fuck, I got to find a podcast episode about that. Yeah. Fuck, I gotta find the podcast. It's alarming. Because men can't be fucking trusted with even dead bodies. And it is apparently decades, if not centuries long understood thing in that world. It's kind of been like a low key, like, you know, understanding in some circles.

It's just so disturbing. Even when you're dead, you're not fucking safe, everyone fucking safe everyone it's awful again and we talked about this too like again last week in my story about Khalil Khalil Weaver Wheeler Weaver which is even beyond death I think you said it even beyond death like your privilege is still like a factor so if you are uh you know a group a group that's discriminated against like you're still not totally safe after death like if you're impoverished your family's impoverished well then your body will probably be snatched and cut up despite how yeah important it is to have a religious funeral for your family or burial for your family it's like this the privileged part just doesn't and i mean hello like you said it earlier like rich

people could pay for guards yeah exactly so if you're poor you really don't stand a chance and like this is your fate even after death which is like and even like i'm sure she would have loved to be known that like even in death she was so beautiful she was on display no she wouldn't want to fucking know that she'd be like can i please be put in the ground and like puts her rest and can somebody like figure out that i was smothered to death like somebody yeah and everyone's ignoring that like thanks so much for caring because i'm beautiful but not caring enough to like report that i'm a person right it's oh it's so twisted um so of course Mary Patterson would become the most notorious of Burke and Hare's victims uh I

think it's because at this point she was youthful she was beautiful she was well known in town it wasn't like they had found another drifter or another person who didn't have anybody who knew who they were. Like, you know, they were targeting isolated folks who were oftentimes elderly and were sick themselves. And now they had kind of stepped into a new territory. And so she kind of became their most notorious victim. Yeah. And so she kind of became their most notorious victim. So fast forward to May and Burke and Hare kill an elderly woman lodging at Hare's for the night. And this time they are no longer using a pillow. So what they're doing now is that once their victim was nearly unconscious with whiskey, one of the men. Oh, God. I just hate. This just disturbs me. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. One of the men laid across their body to hold them still while the other covered their mouth and nose with their hands.

Oh, my God. Which is like to me so deeply unsettling because it's like, you know, even though you're unconscious, your body is like body is like fighting that you know to stay alive which is just so sick uh really fucked um next was a middle-aged woman named mary haldane she was a sex worker with two children uh who was lodging at hares temporarily the children were staying. So when one of her daughters, Peggy Haldane, came looking for her, the men offered her a drink to comfort her about her missing mom. Then they murdered her, too, because she was there. They were like, well, you've arrived, so we might as well take advantage of you as well, especially since your mom's dead, and if you find that out, then we're in trouble. So we might as well take the next witness off the off the earth.

Oh, my God. So after that, they murdered an old woman named Effie, who sometimes sold Burke scraps of leather she found in the trash that he could use use these pieces in his cobbling business. So Burke saw a policewoman bringing a drunk woman in for disturbing the peace. And Burke, oh my God, pretended to be outraged at the way the policeman was handling her. And he said, you know, step aside. I'll take her home myself and give her the respect she deserves. the police police officer bad move just handed

this woman over to a random man in the street who promised to take care of her uh and he brought her home and murdered her like the others oh my god it just keeps going it's like one of those stories that i tell where i'm like do i I pause? Do I just barrel through? Just rattle them off. Yeah. In June, an old Irish woman approached Burke in the street and she had come from Glasgow with her 12 year old grandson to stay with friends and she was lost and just looking for directions. So innocent of a start, but she had no idea who she was approaching. So Burke invited her back. He said, why don't you come back to my lodging? You know, you'll be safe there. We'll figure out where you need to go. You can have a drink. Well, she followed him back to the lodging house and was

immediately murdered. Then they considered what to do with the 12 year old grandson that she had come with uh he had a disability where he could not speak so one of the god yeah sorry it just means that he he can't either cry for help or tell what he saw. Uh-huh. Okay. So they, one of the men's wives suggested they put him out to wander. Oh, my God. Just like let him go. But the men were worried he would, despite not speaking, would lead people back to the lodging uh-huh so they murdered him as well of course so they have their murdering children at some point hair and his wife

maggie tried to convince burke to let them murder his wife helen simply because they didn't like her oh and burke was like well fuck no that's my wife no finally he has a standard seriously yeah just one oh my god so yeah he had abandoned his first wife didn't care about that but this one this one's special can you imagine how bold you have to be as the friend to be like how about your wife next yeah you're talking to your wife you're like but how do we approach it like what if he gets mad at us like what do we say imagine you come home from work later and you're like you're not gonna believe what fucking billy said today at work also you should look out and you know his wife's in on it because she hates you so meanwhile hair uh supplied a body to dr. Knox in secret without Burke's help. So now he is kind of going behind

his partner's back and finding bodies and making the full profit so he doesn't have to split it. So they get into this big fight over it. And Burke and Helen decide to move out, but not very far. Next, Anne McDougall came to visit, she was helen's ex-husband's cousin i know it's a lot just don't even worry about it uh but burke consists considered her a distant friend and felt guilty about hurting her so he had hair murder her instead oh great so the guilt only guilty went so far yeah he's like great he's like i don't feel good about doing this can you do it and he was like sure yeah so this actually repaired their relationship how beautiful oh thank god i was wondering how they'd be stitched together again yeah who needs a counselor you know like they figured it out on their own. Yeah.

They've got it covered. They don't need additional help. Seriously. So a charwoman who is somebody who cleans the house, like a housekeeper named Mrs. Hosler became now get this. I know we've been rattling off, but here's a number for you. Their 14th victim. Oh, my God. Yeah. We've gotten to 14 already. In October, Burke and Hare made their first major mistake since Mary Patterson, and that is when they targeted a local boy named James Wilson. And James had an unkind, very unkind local nickname. He was called Daft Jamie. he had a cognitive disability that made other people regard him as quote slow okay big yikes especially nowadays i mean yes different times but like let's all take a moment to think about how dark this is he also had a physical disability that gave him a limp um so he even

had a physical manifestation that people could you know mock and point to they're very much hard like it wasn't just a one-off like they're feels like they're targeting weaker children quote weaker yeah great point great point more vulnerable children or i mean this is obviously not how either of us feel but i I feel like at that time it's like, well, they're not as useful or something or like they won't be as missed or something horrible. People already are cruel to him and don't like him. Yeah, so we're putting him out of his misery or something. Yeah, or like who's going to care if they're just being cruel to him? Yeah, it's obviously gut churning.

It is gut churning. Despite the nickname. Oh, oh well here you go this is where the mistake comes in he had a cruel nickname but he was well loved oh i all god yes because he was very kind so he hung out with the other boys never caused trouble so despite this kind of like nickname which I feel like was more of just like uh in in jest but like a sick kind of just that today would not fly but you know they gave him like this nickname but they still loved him and they kept him around he was a very kind boy never caused trouble and Maggie lured him to their lodging where burke and hair murdered him so again they made this mistake that they made with mary because they bring the body

to dr knox and he's like um this is jamie like yeah i don't know if he said this is daft jamie but like this is jamie uh i I know him and he's a child. Like what happened here? And we're understanding at this point that like this guy knows what they're up to, right? I think like they maybe had an inkling or some of them since it was a group. So there was like the doctor, there were the students. So I think my guess is that some of them had an inkling that like something not so above board was happening.

But we're like, well, if we don't question it, we won't be responsible. There's no ethical obligation or moral obligation on our part if we just if we don't know the details. I would just be curious. Don't ask, don't tell. I mean, I don't know how big this town is but it would be curious to me why like it seems that every day someone is dead like and it's like a lot a lot of times so far at least more than a usual amount you're recognizing these people

like how are so many people in your circles just dying day after day yeah i think that's a good point and like i know obviously edinburgh was really big and overcrowded but if you think like obviously people ran in the similar circles and would go to the same pubs and would go to the same lodging houses and so it it does make some sense why they'd be like but the dumb part too is like at the beginning you were targeting elderly people who were down and out didn't like maybe had a sickness already people they were estranged from their family they didn't have friends you know so that or if they pass they're they're older and it can be like no one's going to raise any eyebrows to that as

much as young children and women exactly especially if they had like an illness or something you know so it i feel like that was such a more i I hate to say logical, but in the context, like a much more logical way to go about this. But now they're like targeting children. And it's like, well, of course, that's going to raise an alarm immediately, you know, especially if they're like well loved in the community. in the community. And so, you know, all three of Dr. Knox's students recognized James immediately. And also what a jarring moment when you're like, I'm just going to do my anatomy lab. And then you like pull the sheet back and you're like, oh my God, that's that child, Jamie, that we all love so much. Like, God, that must be really jarring. So Jamie was a friendly and familiar face to everybody nearby, But the rule was, and they're students, so they have to follow, you know, the rule, the protocol. The rule was that they were not allowed to pester resurrection men with uncomfortable questions. So they let it

go. Because again, I can't believe that's actually a rule. Blissful ignorance, right? Like, if we don't know, there's nothing we can do about it. So one man claims that when Dr. Knox heard people were looking for James, he even sped up the dissection to cover their tracks. Oh, wow. So he's like low-key on it. Now he's in on it, I think, is when he realizes, like, okay, people are out looking for this kid. And when he realizes, like, okay, people are out looking for this kid. So it's not like, oh, he had a funeral and they took the body like they allegedly claimed to do. Now there's something much more nefarious going on. So October 31st, of course, Halloween, Burke met their 16th and final victim, Mary Dougherty.

She was a middle-aged Irish woman with no money who had traveled from glasgow looking for her son and she hadn't eaten at all that day so burke lied to her and said she had the same maiden name as his own mother and that they were from the same town back in ireland and he said wow this is. Maybe we're distant relatives. And so he invited her back to his lodgings. And you got to imagine she's hungry. She's new to the area. This must be like, oh, a comforting feeling.

Somebody might know your family. You have this connection. So Mary Dougherty visited with Burke, Hare, and all their friends during a Halloween party. Once everyone left, Burke and Hare killedary and hit her under some straw so all through the next day november 1st people came and went while mary's body just lay there under the straw twice one of the other lodgers named mrs gray got too close to the straw and burke like freaked out he was like get away from that yeah weird red flag okay um later while the men were out trying to arrange selling mary's body mrs gray crept back in i fucking love mrs gray she's us mrs she's like i smell mischief something is up and i'm

gonna pretend like i just followed the rules and walked away when he told me to but the second he's out of sight i gotta go see what's in that straw so she crept back in see what was the matter with the straw and she found of course mary's body and she and her husband are like let's fucking pack our shit and go. Yeah. Let's roll out. Time to go. God bless. This is like out of a horror movie because then Helen Burke walks in and says, oh, what's the hurry? Where are you going?

You know, that moment. Yeah. They're like, what did you just sing? it yeah they're like wait what did you just sing it's like the the background music to get out or is it get out or uh uh the other one that came out it's like it's like notoriously like yeah no it's not it's the scissors one yeah uh it's like the us it's the like notoriously scary music now for like a general horror it is honestly so upsetting i watched it on an airplane and i was like this will not be scary on an airplane well still was kidding me christine still was still was um so yeah they they basically she shows up like you know it's like you're about to escape

and then she's like what's the matter you know and it's like oh god oh god oh god she's like dragging the tip of a knife on a table or something. She's like, what could ever be the problem? Oh, it's just so chilling. And so they confronted her about the body, which I would have been like, oh, nothing. I just have a bad tummy ache and I'm going to go to the pharmacy. Yeah, yeah. I'm not feeling good.

Yeah. Just let me go with my suitcase please and they confronted her about the body and she begged them not to turn her husband in she said she was so ashamed of the murders but quote my god i cannot help it which is like okay also like these are like they're considered now loose ends like even if they said we promise is she gonna believe them that's exactly the fear is like what do you say to i don't think they should have brought it up at all but you know too late yeah so mrs gray said you surely can help it or you wouldn't stay in this house which like wow yeah fair fucking point yeah miss gray is no longer us anymore yes so thank god though mr and mrs gray were allowed to leave

on the promise that they don't tell and they said we won't we promise and they walked right into the police station of course of course so the police ended up figuring out where to look for Mary Doherty's body at the college. But they had a problem because Burke and Hare were so careful to smother their victims in a time, obviously, before advanced forensic science that medical examiners couldn't confirm that a murder had actually occurred. So they like didn't have like the like the hard, hard hitting evidence they needed. So for all they could prove, Mary might have died of natural causes. So they needed more evidence. They also suspected, of course, that Burke and Hare might have killed other people, but there were no bodies to prove this. So on December 1st, prosecutors offered Hare immunity if he gave them the facts about Mary Dougherty's murder.

So Hare took the deal. He also secured his wife Maggie's freedom because it was illegal to make spouses testify against one another, as is still the case in most places. And then Burke and Hare's biggest mistakes came back for them. Because who do you remember from earlier big brain janet big brain janet big brain janet heard the news about the men's arrest and she's like i fucking knew it i fucking knew it and she contacted police about her friend mary patterson likewise a shop shopkeeper told police he had seen Burke's nephew wearing pants that had surely belonged to James Wilson. And he said, if Burke's family members are wearing this missing man's clothes, like, it doesn't seem good. Yeah. So when the public found out about James and Mary, there was a major outcry.

People were outraged that anyone would harm James, a kind boy with a disability who was loved by the town. There were even ballads and pamphlets circulated about him. That's how well loved he was. And as for Mary, she was a beautiful girl, as we know, a local beauty. She was well known and, you know, people really, really knew and liked her. And people were especially moved by the story, I think, as we were of Janet's narrow escape, and then her, her like hunt for her missing friend. And so if this story just like blew up, because obviously, it's such a human interest story. So Burke and Hare had thought they targeted people who would disappear quietly. But in the end, a sex worker named Mary and a young boy with a disability named James,

they were just beloved by the town. And so, you know, that backfired, their attempt backfired. And the trial then began December 24th, 1828. And here's a fun fact for you you just like off the wall fun fact queen victoria did not take the throne for another nine years in 1837 and her uh her husband prince albert would eventually introduce the christmas tree from germany and make december 24th christmas eve like a whole thing. But until then, December 24th wasn't really a day, like a holiday where they would avoid a murder trial. It was just like another day, another work day. So just a fun fact for you, it would be another, you know,

couple decades before Christmas Eve was created as a real holiday yeah so burke was being charged with james mary patterson's and mary docherty's murders uh and his wife helen was being charged just with mary docherty which was the one they hid under the straw got it in the end based on hair's testimony numerous witnesses and burke's own confessions on the stand, the jury found Burke guilty only of Mary Docherty's murder, and they found Helen's involvement not proven. So Burke held Helen's hand and said, Nellie, you're out of the scrape. And Helen cried. So the judge sentenced Burke to hang, even though he was only convicted of the one murder

and get this he was not only sentenced to hang he was sentenced to be dissected after death that's as someone i that's a very weird thing for me to be intrigued by isn't that something so he actually um i think it's poetic it is poetic it's a weird poetic justice i i obviously not pro death penalty but it's a very no you're 100% that they yeah i'm torn it's like a weird gray space but i'm like oh that's that's a flowery way to do it it's like what a fitting punishment you know like to to have to become what you would create yeah like be killed in the same way or be treated in in the same way as all your victims again i agree i do not endorse the death penalty um but it is you're right like there is some sort

of poetic justice here in a way yeah um and the judge actually said, if it is ever customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved in order that posterity may keep in remembrance of your atrocious crimes. Wow. So it's sort of like you will be put on display so that. Yeah. As a monster. As a monster. As a reminder of what people like you did. reminder of what people like you did so before his execution uh burke hit a religious streak which seems to happen sometimes on death row and he felt the need to come clean he published an

official confession he listed all 16 victims so that's how we really know all the details and this is the first time you're ever getting the information from the source of the murderer. And it's like real information because sometimes the source is like, oh, I murdered 80,000 people. And you're like, OK, yeah, stop. But I'm thinking Henry Lee Luke is here. But he did. He listed all 16 victims. And this is kind of a dick move. He implicated William Hare in all of them.

Jeez. So he still insisted that neither of their wives knew anything, which was not true. But he also was like, but my buddy did it, too. Right. He was there, too. But this fucking guy, yeah. This fucking guy. So the public rioted against Hare.

Angry, he had gotten off free. And Helen had to disguise as a man and be escorted out of town by police to avoid angry mobs. So she was chased out of several towns before she eventually vanished from historical record. So we don't actually know what happened to her. But I like to think she probably just made a new name and laid low. You know, I don't know what else could have happened. So people vandalized the anatomy school just in anger. They gathered outside of Dr. Knox's personal house, demanding he make a statement, but he stayed silent.

William Burke, for what it's worth, was executed on January 28th, 1829, roughly a year after his murderous spree began. So in this one year, he started off as never presumably never having killed anyone. And a year later, he is executed for killing 16 people wow like what a fucking roller coaster of a year he had yeah a doozy a doozy at his execution 25,000 people gathered in the crowd and when hair left town because he had gotten off scot-free a mob of 800 people gathered to kill him and it took 100 police to clear the crowd he was able to cross the border to England and disappeared from history except for some rumors and one claim that he returned to Ireland with his wife wow so we don't really know Dr. Knox for it's worth, became a scapegoat for his peers who were happy to let him take all the blame and shame for this whole body snatching situation.

You know, we're not saying he was a good guy, but also this was a rampant thing happening in every school, pretty much, that was going through this issue of needing bodies. This wasn't like he wasn't like the solo, you know, madman who was participating in this, if that makes sense. Like, obviously, it wasn't good, but it was like a widespread thing he was participating in. but it was like a widespread thing he was participating in. In fact, bodies were so available in France that body snatchers couldn't even make good money selling them to doctors because it was an oversupply. But since Knox had been like so central to this case, he became sort of like the symbol of the entire body snatching movement. Got does yeah like symbolically he he was like at the heart of it so angry mobs gathered at his home outside his classes every day to the point that he eventually had to quit um and he like what else could you do you know and he lived basically

in total disgrace for decades until he finally opened a small practice in an area where no one knew his name and in an area and in a time when you couldn't google someone and immediately pull up all the articles about it i was gonna say what a what a weirdly lovely blessing if he really just wanted to um i mean assuming you're a good person to start out of town yeah start over yeah to just i mean i like to think of movies like catch me if you can it's like you imagine if it were set back then like how would you ever be caught you'd never be caught you would just be yeah exactly that's kind of what it is like the environment allowed him to

move somewhere and start over which i think is a lot harder nowadays so in 1832 the anatomy act was passed and this allowed bodies to be legally donated to licensed surgeons for science unless the deceased said otherwise prior to death so this cut the demand for cadavers making it a less prosperous and therefore less tempting business for resurrection men like Burke and Hare and anyone else who might follow in their footsteps. Get this. William Burke's skeleton is still on display at the Anatomical Museum in Edinburgh University. Just like that judge said, you will be put. And I love how when the judge said it, he's like, if this is ever a thing where we display skeletons, yours is first to be up put up and like it is this is what happened trippy it's also really wild to know that that skeleton when it

was alive heard that it would be on display that's trippy too yeah that's because every time you see a skeleton you're like oh they had no idea no clue we'd find them and underground and put them up well like that skeleton heard you're gonna be on display you knew it so it's almost like there's a They had no idea. They had no clue. One day we'd find them underground and put them up. Well, like that skeleton heard you're going to be on display. He knew it. He knew it. So it's almost like there's a little life in the skeleton. Like if I were looking at that skeleton, I'd be like, you know you're here. I'd be creeped out.

I'd be like, yeah, part of you knew. Oh, it's really unsettling. So William Burke's skeleton still on display today at the anatomical museum at edinburgh university uh a notebook was made from his skin uh of course by like ed kemper or whatever what was that guy's name no yeah ed gein ed gein um and by the way you mentioned an edmund earlier who was super unhinged so i feel like we're on a weird ed kick today yeah but yes this apparently was not an uncommon practice at the time which i remember learning in boston on one of those history tours where they said like yeah at this place you can find books made of human skin it was normal back

then and i was like, I don't know. Thank you. Thanks for that. I don't want to look at it. But so a notebook was made from his skin, which was, I guess, not uncommon at the time. And that is also on display at Surgeon's Hall Museum. So that is the story.

I'm sorry it's so freaking long. I just, I was just really into this one. I think I was just, you know no well well done going at it was a it's a good I think this was a pretty uh solid episode I did too and I feel like we kind of had a little bit of like crossover just with the Scotland thing being kind of historical stories our minds melding mind melds very platonically romantic it is in a way yeah yeah also the stories were just both very good i always love when i can get to tell a story that um uh doesn't talk about death and yours talked a lot about death but there was at least um that distance that history

yeah it's like a human reaction to feel just less impacted by older stories it's like time just makes them feel less personal and close um i hope people i hope you know wherever janet soul is i hope she knows that we're still giving her snaps for following absolutely and mary obviously all the victims it's like god what a Absolutely. And Mary, obviously all the victims, it's like, God, what a fucking traumatic's all try to be janet and really like trust our gut but then also be like use your big fat brain is my friend yeah yeah you know use your big fat brain and follow your big fat gut you know just whatever you need to do you do it you do it you survive you thrive you thrive you got it um what was i gonna say to you christine lord knows i haven't said enough in two and a half hours yeah i feel like should we keep talking i guess so we have the

after chat we have our after chat so i guess i'll see you over there but uh thank you everyone for listening it was it was a really good episode i did yours your story was particularly intriguing this time around so and it really was eerie the whole the fact that the skeleton knows really knew at some point i hadn't thought of that but that is trippy for sure another stop for us to check out if we ever head over to edinburgh so oh we should wouldn't it be fun it'd be fun we've we've talked about a lot of and that's why we drink retreats and uh one day we'll have one yeah and i want to do europe shows so bad someday we were supposed to and then coven knocked everything out so i know i know

one day we'll we'll get we'll get back to it so we will and until then uh and that's why we drink