Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Truth About Medusa

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

You could be forgiven for thinking the Greek myth of Medusa has zero relevance to us today. Snake for hair?!But as you'll hear in today's episode, she's a woman who was vilified for her femininity and sexuality. She was literally cast out of society for it - into a cave, of all places.Joining Kate to help us get to know this mythical woman and her story is author and historian Jasmine Elmer.This episode was edited by Tom Delargy. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listed too, betwixt the sheets. But it is of an adult spicy nature this podcast. So despite the fact that we've been going for three years, and I'm sure that people must know what we're doing here by now,

I have to tell you. This is an adult podcast book about other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. And now, fair do's, we have warned you. So on with the show. I know this isn't the most glamorous of meeting places, but we're here in a cave. In ancient Greece, so it's got that going for it, but it's still a cave.

But we are here for a very good reason. Somewhere in here is none other the Medusa. Have you seen her? Well, if the myth is to be believed, she would turn you to stone if you had, so I guess not. But has anyone actually spoken to Medusa? Heard her side of the story? Have they held? I'd love to sit down with her and find out about how she ended up in this predicament

before that knobbed Perseus shows up and starts trying to be a hero. What a twat he was. Let's go deeper into the cave and see if we can find her. What do you look for in man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

Goodness, what's beautiful time. Hello and welcome back to Betwigs the Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society. With me, Kate Lister. Greek myths were a fabulous oral tradition that tell us a lot about fantastical characters, but they do actually tell us quite a lot about the world that they were told in, their values, their fears, the fact that nobody should be shagging their relatives, all kinds of useful things. And Medusa is a prime example of this.

It is an insane and bonkers story. featuring snake hair and winged boots and a helmet of invisibility. But it's also a tale and a portrayal of women's sexuality and victim shaming. Joining me today to explore all of this and the lasting legacy of Medusa is friend of the show and all-round fabulous person, Jasmine Elmere. All right, everyone, have you got your mirrors ready? Then let's do it. And welcome back to Betwixt the Shades.

It's only Jasmine Elmer. How are you doing? I'm good, thank you. again, so I didn't mess up the first one, so that's a winner. You were fabulous. I had so much fun talking to you. How's the book going? When we last met you, your book, Goddess of a Thousand Faces, was just about, it was crowning, it was getting ready to be born. What a disgusting image. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, now I, all I can think about is the image. You were fully dilated. Yeah, let's not. Let's not. That book's gone now. Yeah, it's out in the world. It was born.

in this really weird description that you're going with. Yeah, so it's gone really well. I'm actually, you know what it's like with authors? That book's gone and flown out into the world. Now I'm on the second book. Oh, well done, mate. Which officially got announced today. So I can actually say words about it.

Can you tell us the words? I can. The words are, it's called Slay, and it's about female dragon slayers and the symbolism of dragons. Oh, fabulous. Yes. They do exist.

I know you're like, do they exist? They do exist. No, I believe you entirely. I believe everything you tell me, yeah. Oh, good. That's a good career. Just make stuff up then. Well, but we are here to talk about,

she's not really a dragon, but she's certainly a monster, Medusa. Yeah, well, actually, she's sort of like a sort of dragon, because when there are serpents involved in Greek mythology, we consider them a dragon of some sorts.

Really? Yeah, so she's sort of like, borderline. If you've got a snake, you've got a dragon. That's the sort of way that the Greeks approach it. Oh, right. So, yeah. Okay. Well, see, I'm learning things already. Right. What do I know about Medusa? And for anyone else that's listening, I can't imagine there's anyone listening going, I don't know what Medusa is, but just in case, Lady with the Snakes, can you elaborate more on that? Yes. Well, I mean, Medusa, you know, very famous. Image is probably what more people might pop into the head, but I don't know if people know her story.

So she was a very beautiful maiden and priestess of the goddess Athena. And there are different versions of the myth, as always with Greek myths, right? Different versions. But mainly Poseidon, the sea god, violates her in the temple of Athena. Right. Yeah, it's definitely a fucking hell moment. And if you want to double fucking hell, you should have saved it, really. Athena then punishes Medusa, not Poseidon.

double fucking hell. Wow. By transforming her into the monster that we see, the sort of snaky-haired, scary monster. And famously, obviously, she is this woman that has these snaky, you know, hair, but also if she looks at you, you turn to stone. Yeah.

Isn't that awful? This is terrible, isn't it? It's a terrible origin story, isn't it? Before we get into how that develops, I'm hoping that you're going to say yes, but I think I might know how this is going to go. Is there anything in the sources, that like you were encouraged to think

well that was a really unfair thing to have done what to mean that was completely unjustified in what you did or is it sort of just accepted as like yeah that sounds about right I bet you can answer your own question there really yeah and I know it's the ancient world it's a patriarchy what do you think happened

I mean this is going to be like the least informative thing like guess for yourself but because it's a patriarchy the perspective here is not usually in favour of Medusa. That's not to say that you can read some more, slightly more sympathetic, perhaps,

viewpoints, like Ovid, maybe a little bit more sympathetic. That's not sugar-cali. The blame here is mainly on Medusa in antiquity. That's the way it's perceived, which is a real, well, I still can't get my head round even though I'm an expert in this area. I still can't understand, even though I know the historical context, it just seems completely, just completely inhumane to. ever think like that, regardless of what's going on in society. It just seems mad to me.

But it also tracks with Greek myths in general, because Medeus is not the only character in their pantheon to have been assaulted by a god and then they're the ones to have been punished. I can't remember names, but like someone got turned into a tree and somebody else. Like, you know, like all of this stuff is it's never very justifiable. So she was a priestess and a beautiful priestess. Yeah, I mean, like in most of the sources, she's really beautiful and dedicated to Athena as a priestess.

I mean, in terms of in Greek view, like the perfect type of woman, you know, she looks beautiful. She is, you know, religious in the sense that she's, you know, dedicating herself to a goddess. She's doing all the tick, tick things that you should do as a Greek woman, really, until this thing happens.

The majority of it is beside enforcing himself upon her, not that she willingly does that. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you're right, absolutely. It is the narrative that the onus is on the woman to protect herself, her chastity. She's the one that's in the wrong, which is, yeah, I know.

I mean, I think you've done the noise. Let's just leave the noise there, that's it. The thing about these kind of stories and myths is they are passed along orally, which makes it very difficult to trace. But what are some of the earliest written accounts that we have of Medusa? Yeah, totally right. So it is important to note that it is an oral tradition. So I think people get quite interested in the earliest source material and just date it to that.

But it is older than that, definitely. How old can't tell you. But these are originally stories that people are telling each other across campfires, in houses, what have you. So remember that, because I think it's quite important. but the earliest source is Hesiod, which is sort of 8th century. So in terms of what we have for source material, it's along the earliest. So it's an old, old myth for the Greeks. It's one of the earlier documented myths.

And am I right thinking she had sisters? Because in my recounting of this myth, which admittedly is based on, I don't know what it's based on, it's probably not based on anything sensible. But did the sisters also have snakes for hair? They can't have been assaulted by Poseidon in her temple as well. No, no, that's the Gorgans that you're thinking of. Yes, that's, thank you, yes, the Gorgans. And they are three, she's one of them, right?

Three powerful kind of winged creature things, essentially. So they don't have the snaky bit, that's Medusa. Oh, right. But the other two are essentially kind of, you know, if we think of Medusa more as immortal, they are more immortal because they have this kind of powerful, ability almost as a trio. But Medusa has our own storyline

that's kind of more specific. The other two are mentioned and they're important, but they're less important than Medusa. It's the story of Medusa that the Greeks really kind of focus in on. So we don't hear as much about the Gorgans. No.

And I don't suppose to give us any details on, was Medusa a sister to the Gorgans before she got turned into a monster? Or why was she going? into work in a temple if she was a monster. This is probably just one of those Greek things where they've just mashed it all together and gone. Look, stop asking us questions about this.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. I think when you try and trace like a timeline like that and you try and think of how a storyline emerges, it's quite hard. Are they sisters first? I mean, I think most of the time she becomes lumped in with these guys as a trio, really. It's like merged.

It's their sisters. It's all kind of murky. I think this is the best way. And I know it's annoying for us modern people who like a full plot line sorted out and then we can kind of follow it and it's got a nice trajectory. But these things are like, I think of mythology, it's live, isn't it? It's almost like a living creature. It's always changing itself. So a bit like a reducer.

Now, the most immediate story that people think of with Medusa is the one with Perseus. So can you tell us that story? And where does that come from? So we'll flesh out her background story because it wasn't just. that she was horribly assaulted and then she was punished and she has sisters of questionable origin. There's a whole story that emerges

with Medusa. She doesn't stop there. No. And again, this is another I would say, kind of Greek myth trope that we always get where you can't have a baddie, a monster, especially a girly one, that isn't going to get taken out by a male hero. So it's part of the heroic cycle.

So that's why we need him, right? So as expected, there's a monster. and along comes Perseus, who is a son of Zeus, and his job is to behead Medusa. But he gets help from the gods, as is often the way. So Athena gives him a shield, and Hermes gives him these little winged sandals.

And Hades gives him this sort of hat of invincibility, invisibility, not invincibility. I was going to say that's handy, wow. Invisibility. And he goes off to find Medusa at the edge of the world. There is mind in her own fucking business, by the way. Not knocking about on the edge of the world. Just knocking about on the edge of the world, as usual.

And he beheads her. How does he do this? Everyone loves this one, don't know, because it's in everything. It's in all of the movies and the books, everything. He uses the reflection of his shield, so he doesn't have to look directly at her to sort of find out where she is and then lop it off. You know, head flinging in the dust.

Do you like that, rolling around in the dust too much? It's all right. I mean, it's a very dramatic story, isn't it? And like, you know, if you're making a film of it, that's your sort of, that's your money shot, isn't it? That Purchase turns up, he cuts the head off. We don't ask any questions about why this little upstart is just basically broken into her house and cut her head off, which is still the monster. Like, what did she do to him at all? Nothing.

Yeah, I can help you that as well. Oh, go on. Tell me. Well, I mean, like I said, yes, I can see from our perspective that that don't sound fair. but in terms of Greek myth, this needs to happen because remember that, well, I know we're going to get into this, but what does Medusa symbolise to the Greeks? And when you have a monster of any sorts, we'll get into a nuance in a bit. But when you have a monster of any sorts, that monster needs to be vanquished by a hero, usually a bloke. And so this needs to happen

because of that. But just a little side point, because the people don't always know this. But when Medeusus's head gets knocked off and she starts bleeding, what pops out of her decapitated, well, from a decapitated body, I guess, is the winged horse Pegasus and this giant called Creasaur, which we don't really see anything else of ever. But you get Pegasus out of it. Right. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, I know. And that is the reaction I wanted, Kate. Like, right, okay. Right. Why? Okay. What's that about?

Did she also have acid for blood or am I thinking of aliens? I'm thinking of aliens. I think you're thinking of aliens. Oh no. I've mixed up Sigarni Weaver and Medusa. Don't even... We're moving past this. Moving past this.

In myth though, as everything is always cyclical, there's always like these stories evolve. You've got as well, while I find interesting, Pegasus, later is involved in the killing of another dragon, the chimera, rode by Belerophon,

the hero Belerathon. So it's like, when you look at dragon stories, I know you're thinking this ain't a dragon, but like I said you before, to Greeks, if it's got snakes in it, it's dragons to some degree. They tend to have like this evolution. They pop up in the next one, like the sequel.

There's like, you kind of get that character that carries on. It's like, oh, a Pegasus is carrying on to now kill and help kill another dragon. It always keeps evolving and moving. So it's quite a little family often of dodgy dragons that are connected in this thing. I'll be back with Jasmine and Medusa after this short break. There's a lot of symbolism.

in this Medusa thing. There's, like, you can just pull it apart with so many different things. What is your take on it? Because you've got, she's a woman, she's quite clearly a woman,

she was once beautiful, there is a kind of like a weird sense that she's avenging herself on all mankind. And then there's the snakes as well. And the fact that her head is decapitated. Whenever a sword turns up, me being the pervert I am,

I'm thinking fallace, like the fact that, that Perseus decapitates her with his sword. What's your take on who this character is? I mean, that's, it's really nuanced, and there's loads of levels to this, which is fascinating about her. But, you know, you just said about the sword and the fallacy.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's all sorts of sexual imagery in all of this. So I'm going to start with my favourite, though, which is the furthest, most mad one, really. I'm not saying I agree with this, but I love it, which is Freud. Freud wrote an essay on this, I think he was in the 20s.

And it was obviously, because you know what he's like. So there's this idea that Medusa, the thing about Medusa, obviously, is that she turns men to stone. Often it's men in mythology. There's no examples of women. Men to stone.

And that could be some kind of euphemism for erection, as well as her hair, her snaky hair, representing female pubic region, shall we call it. So it's literally what happens when a vagina looks at a penis, technically. He did take a lot of cocaine. I don't know what he was doing.

It's weird that you'd bring that one up because I was reading about that one not so long ago and I was trying to make sense of it. Because another idea he has about Medusa is that her face or a severed head represents the site of castration. Yes, exactly. And you kind of, I'm sorry, could you just go over that one more time, Freud, just from the top? I don't really get what you're talking about. But you had this thing about castration anxiety, didn't he? I mean, who isn't anxious about castration?

But what did he mean about that? There's no one out there. Like, I'm fine with this. You know, when you're at school and your maths teacher says, show me you're working. I want to know what he's working is. I want to know the steps that he gets to

to get to that conclusion. And the problem is there aren't any. It's just like, oh, maybe this is this. Dude, I mean, Freud is really interesting? But I'm like, is that what the Greeks are thinking? No, but I think we can definitely take a great number of kind of like male fears about female sexual power from Medusa so that we can almost certainly take from the original myth

and the original Greek context. You know, we've got to remember that this is a very beautiful woman that is punished for her sexual power. And, you know, from her perspective, no men are even allowed to look at her. You're not allowed to look at her because you will turn to stone. So, I mean, I'm not saying she was vain like this, but for a beautiful woman,

that is a really awful thing in a Greek context. I mean, maybe even in the modern context. I don't know. It depends how you feeling, right? So she's damned to be this monster, like you say, chucked on the edge of the world, ripped out from her, you know, kind of life as it was, and then men aren't allowed to look at her,

and she is utterly isolated. And I think there's so much as well that we can look into about victim blaming and that culture, which I know we could look at from a modern point of view, but in an ancient point of view, it just shows you how horrific the attitudes are to these sorts of issues. It's on the woman,

and it's the woman's fault. And that was often seen as the case, even in Greek society. So, you know, people don't know that a lot about Greek society, how women were very much, you know, kind of closed off. Like they lived upstairs in their own quarters. They had to be escorted by men. Obviously, they don't have any of the powers

that we share today. be able to vote and all that, none of that, none of that. You go out, they're often kind of covered in headdresses and stuff. They're very chaste kind of appearance and, you know, you're guarding your virginity. And it's your job almost to look after all of that, which is ridiculous. And so the Medusa story is very much a really important part of that. And I think the fact that she becomes a monster shows you how the Greeks are really afraid of a woman who has any sexual power and really wants to show what can happen to a woman that has sexual power.

I think what Freud was getting at in his odd, Freudy kind of a way is it was a very fancy way of saying that Medusa is an emasculating figure, I think. With all of his like, oh, her face and the severed head represents the vagina and that's going to sever a penis and blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that kind of what's underneath that is that she is an emasculating figure. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that. The reason I'm hesitating is because I don't know. maybe this is my modern bias. I'm just trying to like see if I can just shoot that to the side a little bit.

But there's something about this that I think is so much more nuanced than that, even in the Greek thinking, I'm not as comfortable saying, yeah, that's right. It's not that I don't think it's right. I think that we're taking something away from her that makes me uncomfortable because it's not just about her emasculating men. This is also about some people talk about this as what power she does, continue to hold on to and how there is power in her ability

to turn men into stone. You know? Yeah. So I think this is where when we're looking at from a more modern point of view, we get many layers of meaning. And I think that's why she's been so taken

into sort of the modern mindset, you know, kind of imagination today and become many different things. Is she emasculating? I mean, yeah, maybe. But I don't know. I just see her it's more powerful than that. I just don't know if that just,

Typecasts are into something. One of Freud's many problems is that he can never see outside of the many problems. Listen to me, Mouten off, telling Freud where he's got things wrong. We're going to do it anyway. He can never quite relate to a woman's experience because it's not his own. He can only understand of a vagina as not being a penis. You can only understand a woman as not being a man. So his interpretation of Medusa as emasculating, again, it's centering the male experience.

within that of like, well, men are very scared of her. So that must be, never mind the fact that, well, men did that to her. Yeah, I get you. You know, I get it. But what I think is really interesting is that, like, Medusa has a lot of power. Like, these men want to look at her because she's... Yeah, they go to her, right?

Either she was beautiful or because she's a monster. Either way, whichever part of the story of you, people want to look at her. men, let's say men want to look at her. And so where's the power then? Because she's drawing their gaze and then she looks back at them. They have to look at her for shit to get real.

Which isn't an active thing to do. Yeah. But I just think that there's that kind of interaction. Yeah, yeah. It's a two-way thing. Like that man might have some aspect, but then she's looking back at him and there's this kind of two-way thing, right? And it's all about this kind of, I guess,

sexualized interplay between men and women. And you're right, it absolutely centres in the male perspective about this and the male fears about these women. But at the core of that is the fear of women that hold their sexual power at the core of that and what they become. They become monstrous. Remember, a monster is something that we're terrified of. We don't like and we want to chuck at the edge of the world.

Remember, in Greek myth, most monsters live, not all of them, but a lot of them live at the edges of the known world, edges of civilization, because what we're saying is you have been ostracized, get out. You need to be over there because you're not part of your things that we don't really want to make. It's similar to like, you know, Freud will love it, right? It's things that we suppress in our subconscious. It's like, let's get it over there. It's not something that's around us.

It's a way. And that's what I mean about being nuanced and complicated because it's personal as well to an individual experience. Because if I could turn people to stone just by looking at them and had snakes for hair, I wouldn't be fucking living on an island somewhere. I would be marching my way into civilisation. What are you going to do? That just says a lot about you, doesn't it really?

It just says a lot about you. Heading straight to the Bank of England. What are you going to do? I'm a bit scared that they ever give you the nuclear codes. What are you going to do with them? It's a bit gung-ho, isn't it? Let's talk about the snakes, though. Like, why, what are the snakes?

Because it could have been anything. But that is one of her defining features, isn't it? the snakes for hair. Few layers again. You love this because there's always a few layers. I think on one hand, there's this idea

that she had beautiful hair and that was one of her best qualities on a practical level. So let's turn it into something yuck. Then you've got the idea of the snake and how it can be connected to both female fertility sometimes but also the phallus again.

It being a bit like a slong, whatever word you want to use it. A snake, little snake. making the pants, whatever you want to think about it as. Then you've got this other layer that she belongs to a wider family of dragon-like creatures. So like the tracontes are this kind of like anything that's got a serpent is part of this. So then she belongs to this kind of group of like Uber monsters that we see in all over mythology. So you've got like, you know, you've got Skiller, you've got Typhon, you've got, oh my God,

and Hydra, you've got all these different, you know, dragon. in lots of ways remember that when these myths are being told, that symbolism would then echo in the minds of the Greeks and they go, oh, she's one of them, which is a bad monster. So we're getting into that as well. There's this idea, I guess, as well, like snakes have venom. They bite, they hiss. And that is a kind of like, I guess, a very visceral feeling of being around that kind of fear.

It's like the real feeling of the fear of being around this woman. So there's quite a lot of stuff in it, in terms. terms of symbolism, just the snakes on their own. Yeah. So, I mean, Medusa, she's, she went through a lot, but I have noticed in recent years, I say recent years, it's probably been maybe sort of late since the 1980s, 90s, maybe even before that, that she is being reclaimed more and more by feminists. How are they reading her story? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the most, I think, I really like, I think this is great. I mean, there's been obviously a few mythical retellings around Medusa, So Natalie Haynes wrote Stone Blind a few years back, I think.

And Rosie Hewlett wrote about Medusa, where they obviously centering on the story of Medusa. And I think after the Me Too movement, there's a lot of interest in her as a figure of subversion where a victim is able to reclaim her power. Did you see Rihanna dressed up as Medusa for a magazine, Vogue or GQ or something like that? I can't remember when it was. If you Google Rihanna and Medece, you'll find it. So there's a lot about what does it look like when women choose to take a figure? I mean, this is a movement anyway. I'm not involved in this.

It's why I do my writing, right? But what does it mean when a woman can reclaim this figure as an empowering image, not as a victim and as we have discussed her in a kind of more historic sense? So there's been loads of interest in her. That's great. I mean, it's really what we're trying to say is stuff the patriarchy. That's the bottom line. It's interesting that Medusa never really has a voice in the myth.

I'm not aware of her getting any lines in any other story. The women never do. And that's an important point, Kate. You're right. This is why there's so much interesting, especially in literature, giving these women a voice, giving them a chance to voice. I mean, imagined, of course, but giving themselves.

a voice. So yeah, you're right that it's not a thing. We don't hear in mythology very often the stories from the women themselves. Usually if you're going to get that, you get them in Greek tragedy in the plays. You might get women then, but I'm not necessarily producer, but for example, Euripides is Medea. So we hear from Medea, obviously, in that. But remember, it's written by bloody Euripides, isn't it? And it's for a largely male audience. So even then, And it's not, you know, it's not like a free-flowing voice. So yeah, you're right. It's about reclaiming that too, isn't it?

You can see why her story would hit such a note, especially post Me Too, the fact that she was so unfairly treated quite obviously. And then she becomes this, like, avenging, well, is she an avenging character? Because she sort of just lives on her island. And as you said, people keep coming to her. It's like, if you don't want to get killed, leave her alone. She's fucking hell. I love to.

I feel like you just want to be, I feel like you want to knock off to a little place on the edge of the world and be left alone. I do. And if teenagers kept turning up to try and cut my head off, I'd turn them into stone as well, quite frankly, and there's not a court in the land that would convict me. I was going to ask you,

do you think that Medusa is an empowering story after everything that you've read about her and you know about her? Because it's easy to sort of like reclaim her without really looking into the background of it and she's become more of a symbol than an actual story. But what do you think? Is she an empowering character?

I think that's really interesting. I don't know that I'd call her empowering, actually. But I think, like, I mean, I have a really exciting adjective now to, like, describe what I actually would say. But basically, I really like how we can take figures from the ancient world and re-examine them through a new lens. to learn something about ourselves. So I love that myth can have these like nuanced layers

that continue to keep on giving. And I think her one is an excellent, excellent example of that. And that's what I find about, if you want to call that empowering, then for some people that would be empowering. That experience of doing that would be empowering. I think for me, I don't know if it's just because I'm a geek or something, but I just think it's just really fascinating.

Yeah. I mean, she's that, isn't she? She's fascinating. Yeah, there we go. There's one. Fascinating. I don't know. I love that it keeps it alive. Like these are old stories that have long gone, you know, we're not, but we're still engaging with it. And that's what myth is about. Like, it doesn't need to die off and be in the past. It can keep evolving. And I love that about, and I think she just is one of the best examples of that. So that's why I think she's up the top there on my like Hall of Fame of, I don't know,

cool myths or whatever. Legend. I'm so with you, Jasmine. Thank you. much for coming back to talk to me again. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? They can get me on the old Insta. I've changed my new handle. It's now at History underscore with underscore Soul,

which doesn't sound very easy to say, does it? So just write my name Jasmine Elmer in and that'll come up. But that's because that's my brand of history, history that we can feel in our hearts, not just our heads. So it's history and soul. Oh, I like that. Oh, nice. Will you come back again and talk to us

about Mormoths? I shall. Thank you so much. You've been amazing. Thank you so much for listening and thanks to Jasmine for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like review and follow along wherever it is, you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. Coming up, we've got the first episode in a new mini-series on beauty standards throughout history.

Starting with the always appalling Romans as well as an episode on female executioners. This podcast was edited by Tom Delaggy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.