Futility Closet - 360-Haggard's Dream

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 12,000 quirky curiosities from a backward draftee to a missing midnight. This is episode 360. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1904, adventure novelist H. Ryder Haggard awoke from a dream with the conviction that his daughter's dog was dying. He dismissed the impression as a nightmare, but the events that followed seemed to give it a grim significance. In today's show, we'll describe Haggard's strange experience, which briefly

Starting point is 00:00:45 made headlines around the world. We'll also consider Alexa's expectations and puzzle over a college's name change. And we just wanted to give a warning that today's show involves the death of an animal. On the night of Saturday, July 9th, 1904, Mariana Louisa Haggard was awakened about 2 a.m. by what she called most distressing sounds proceeding from my husband, resembling the moans of an animal, no distinct words. He was lying in his own bed on the other side of the room. She debated for a few moments and then called to him. He awoke to tell her that he'd had a long and vivid nightmare. He wrote later, all I could remember of it was a sense of awful oppression and of desperate and terrified struggling for life, such as the act of drowning would probably

Starting point is 00:01:41 involve. But between the time that I heard my wife's voice and the time that my consciousness answered to it, or so it seemed to me, I had another dream. I dreamed that a black retriever dog, a most amiable and intelligent beast named Bob, which was the property of my eldest daughter, was lying on its side among brushwood or rough growth of some sort by water.

Starting point is 00:02:04 My own personality, in some mysterious way seemed to me to be arising from the body of the dog, which I knew quite surely to be Bob and no other, so much so that my head was against its head, which was lifted up at an unnatural angle. In my vision, the dog was trying to speak to me in words, and, failing, transmitted to my mind, in an undefined fashion, the knowledge that it was dying. Then everything vanished, and I woke to hear my wife asking me why on earth I was making those horrible and weird noises. This would be a noteworthy dream in anyone's experience, but in this case the dreamer was H. Ryder Haggard, who was famous around the world as a writer of adventure fiction. Born to English parents in 1856, he'd been sent to Africa in 1875 by a father who seemed to think that little could be expected of him. He traveled the continent and worked in the British colonial

Starting point is 00:02:56 government, then returned to England and married Louisa in 1880. Five years later, Haggard's brother asked him what he thought of a new adventure story that had just been published, Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Haggard told him it was a good story, but said he could write one just as good. His brother wagered five shillings that he couldn't, and in six weeks, Haggard turned out King Solomon's Mines, a tale of African adventure informed by his own travels on the continent. On its appearance in 1885, it was promoted as the most amazing book ever written and became an immediate bestseller. Encouraged, Haggard turned out three more works of fiction in the next six months. A third of these,

Starting point is 00:03:35 She, was written, as Haggard put it, at white heat, almost without rest. It came faster than my poor aching hand could set it down. He slammed it down on his agent's desk and said, There is what I shall be remembered by. It made him a household name. He retired with his wife to a house in Ditchingham, became a gentleman farmer, and raised three daughters while he wrote full-time. At the breakfast table the morning after his dream, Haggard's wife mentioned the incident to the family, and Haggard described it in a few words. His daughter Angela wrote,

Starting point is 00:04:07 Of course we all laughed at it at the time, for we did not know then that anything had happened to the dog, for I had seen him myself at eight o'clock on the preceding evening. It wasn't until that night that Haggard's daughter Lilius, who normally fed the dogs, told him that Bob hadn't come for his breakfast or his supper that day. She thought he must be lost. Haggard remembered his dream and began to make inquiries, and on Thursday morning the 14th, he and a servant found Bob's body floating against a weir in the River Waveney, about a mile and a quarter from the house. The veterinary surgeon who examined the body found that the dog had died as the result of a skull fracture and thought that he must have been in the water for more than three days. He thought that very probably he'd been killed on the night of July 9th, which was the night of Haggard's dream. Judging from the injuries,

Starting point is 00:04:54 his first thought was that Bob had been caught in an otter trap, killed by the trappers, and thrown in the river. The next day, Haggard was going into Bungie to offer a reward for the discovery of these trappers when he was hailed by two workmen who informed him that Bob had been killed by a train. They took him on a trolley to an open work bridge that crossed the water between Ditchingham and Bungie. On this bridge, at about 7 o'clock on Monday morning, shortly after the day's first train had passed, one of the workmen had found a dog's collar, as well as remains that showed that an animal had been struck and killed there. That afternoon, the other workman had seen the dog's body floating in the water beneath the bridge, from which it had later drifted down to the weir.

Starting point is 00:05:36 So it appeared that the dog must have been killed by a train late Saturday night. No trains ran on Sunday, and if Bob had been killed on Monday morning, workmen would have seen him, and the engine driver would have witnessed the accident and made a report. The driver of the Saturday night train, traveling in darkness, would probably not have been aware that he'd hit the dog. Also, if Bob had been alive on Sunday, he would almost certainly have come home, and his body would not have presented the appearance it did on Thursday morning. On hearing this new suggestion, the veterinary surgeon wrote to Haggard, I am of opinion that his injuries are compatible with that method of death.

Starting point is 00:06:13 Struck by the correspondence with his dream, Haggard sent a description of the whole incident to the London Times, which published it in large type on July 21, 1904. Haggard began, Perhaps you will think, think with me that the following circumstances are worthy of record, if only for their scientific interest. It is principally because of this interest that, as such stories should not be told anonymously, after some hesitation I have made up my mind to publish them over my name, although I am well aware that by so doing I may expose myself to a certain amount of ridicule and disbelief. He gave an account of the week of Bob's death and concluded that the dog must have

Starting point is 00:06:51 been killed by a train shortly after 11 o'clock on the night of the dream. He added, from traces left upon the piers of the bridge, it appears that the animal was knocked or carried along some yards by the train and fell into the brink of the water where reeds grow. Here, if it were still living, it must have suffocated and sunk, undergoing, I imagine, much the same sensations as I did in my dream, and in very similar surroundings to those that I saw therein, namely amongst a scrubby growth at the edge of water. He had considered that all of this might be only happenstance, but decided that this was too unlikely. Instead, he came to believe that some three hours after its death, the dog had

Starting point is 00:07:30 somehow influenced his dream to make him aware of what had happened. He wrote, either the whole thing is a mere coincidence and just means nothing more than indigestion and a nightmare, or it was the spirit of the dog on its passage to its own place or into another form that moved my spirit, thereby causing this revelation, for it seems to be nothing less. After its appearance in the Times, the story spread across the world, driven by Haggard's fame. I found discussions as far away as the Sydney Daily Telegraph. The Washington Post wrote, although when writer Haggard wrote to the Times the other day about his queer dream concerning a dog and the dream's Daily Telegraph. The Washington Post wrote, that it tends to prove that animals survive after death and may then communicate with human beings. Indeed, the account has been accepted generally as opening up an interesting field for scientific investigation,

Starting point is 00:08:31 which may lead to an entire reversal of the popular view which denies a future life to dumb animals. The Hawaiian Star wrote, This is an interesting contribution to the literature on whether animals have souls. Haggard's statements and his explanation have naturally caused considerable discussion. And Punch published a satire in which Arthur Conan Doyle awoke with the feeling that his favorite terrier, Joe, was trying to communicate with him. He searched the surrounding countryside all day and returned home, crestfallen and heart-heavy, to find Joe alive and healthy in his kennel. Doyle wrote,

Starting point is 00:09:09 Naturally, we had not thought to look there before. This shows how unwise it would be to elevate Mr. Ryder Haggard's fantastic and, if I may express the opinion, somewhat tedious experience to the dignity of a precedent. Haggard stuck to his opinion, which he wrote, If it could be absolutely and finally proved, as it cannot, would solve one of the mysteries of our being by showing that the spirit even of a dog can live on when its mortal frame is destroyed and physical death has happened.

Starting point is 00:09:37 If a dog, then how much more a man? So even Haggard admits that what he's contending can't be proven. I mean, I can't think of a way you could actually prove that in any systematic skeptical way. That it's more than just a coincidence, you mean? Right. And he's even acknowledging that. Also, it occurs to me that if this phenomenon were real, we would see it everywhere. There are millions of dogs in the world and people who love them, and presumably, if dogs were able to communicate with humans after death, this would be happening constantly, I should think.

Starting point is 00:10:05 Or at least more often than one time. Yeah. The one thing he says for it is that the way this one fell out, the circumstance of it making it, he felt it was a particularly clear-cut case of whatever this phenomenon might have been, which is, I guess, why he felt compelled to write to the Times. But that's the most he could say for it.

Starting point is 00:10:25 There's no other case to be made that I can see. All of this was unfolding in the early years of the 20th century, when England was undergoing a vogue for the paranormal, as we saw in the Moberly-Jordan incident in episode 337 and the Cottingley ferries of episode 347. So in this period, it wasn't uncommon to assign a dramatic interpretation to a simple coincidence. Here's another example. In 1898, the writer J.W. Dunn was staying at a hotel in Sussex when he dreamed he was arguing with one of the waiters. Dunn was claiming that

Starting point is 00:10:56 it was 4.30 in the afternoon, and the waiter said it was 4.30 in the morning. In the dream, Dunn decided this meant that his watch had stopped. He took it out of his pocket and saw that its hands had stopped at half past four. At that, he awoke. He lit a match and found his watch lying on a chest of drawers. Its hands had stopped at 4.30. He noted the coincidence, wound the watch, and went back to bed. On coming downstairs the next morning, he went to a clock to set the watch. He expected to find it off by several hours, but found that it had lost only two or three minutes, about the same interval that had passed between his waking from the dream and rewinding the watch. What that means is that the dream watch and the real watch had stopped at the same moment.

Starting point is 00:11:38 That would hardly be surprising if Dunn, in his sleep, had simply heard the watch stop ticking, and this had informed his dream. But, he wrote, how did I come to see in that dream that the hands stood as they actually did at half past four? But they're too like Haggard's dream. It just seems the best answer that this is a simple coincidence. It's a striking one. I guess it means that his watch stopped at the moment that he imagined it did in his dream, but that's not impossible. It's just unlikely. It's also somewhat possible that he misremembered the dream. Yeah, that's true, too.

Starting point is 00:12:11 He was influenced by seeing the watch. Like, he might have just had a dream about his watch stopping or being confused about the time. And then he saw the watch, and that planted the memory in his mind of what the dream had been. I mean, honestly, the whole thing—I'm not saying this is the case, but he could have made up the whole thing. There were no witnesses.

Starting point is 00:12:28 Like, Haggard, to his credit, did what he could. Like, when he sent in his letter to the Times, he included affidavits from the veterinary surgeon and from his family members from the breakfast table, just sort of corroborating as much of it as he could. Right. Again, it's not anywhere close to actual proof. But this, the Dunn's, I like Dunn's story, but he could have made up the whole thing for all we know. There's no proof of any of it, or as you say, it might be

Starting point is 00:12:47 quite a bit inaccurate, and we would have no way to know that. Haggard stuck to his contention that the dog had communicated with him several hours after its death. In a second letter to the Times, he wrote, I am satisfied that the dog was destroyed about 1027 on the night of July 9th. It had, I think, been rabbit hunting or following some other canine attraction, and being hot and tired, lay down upon a sleeper of the open bridge above the cool water, and there fallen asleep. But whether asleep or awake, the blow which it received from the wheel guard of the engine must, I presume, if it did not cause instant death, at any rate have utterly destroyed its mind powers,

Starting point is 00:13:25 unless dogs can think with some portion of their organism other than the brain, of which in this instance the case was utterly smashed. Overall, he wrote, this experience produced a great effect upon me, and at first frightened and upset me somewhat, for without doubt it has a very uncanny side. By degrees, however, I came to see that it also has its lessons, notably one lesson, that of the kinship, I might almost say the oneness, of all animal life. I have always been fond of every creature, and especially of dogs, some of which have been, and are, as very dear friends to me. But up to this date I had also been a sportsman. Shooting was my principal recreation, and one

Starting point is 00:14:05 of which I was, and indeed still am, extremely fond. Greatly did I love a high pheasant, at which sometimes I made good marksmanship. But now, alas, I only bring them down in imagination, with an umbrella or a walking stick. From that day forward, except noxious insects and so forth, I have killed nothing, and although I should not hesitate to shoot again for food or for protection, I am by no means certain that the act would not make me feel unwell. We received several more follow-ups on the topic of different ways of pronouncing words and names that we discussed most recently in episode 354, which also included Greg's story about a pilot's perilous journey through a thunderstorm. Benjamin Sturmer wrote, Hi Greg and Sharon, I have been

Starting point is 00:15:03 enjoying your discussion of the challenges one faces when trying to decide how to pronounce the name of a place or person. I myself am American, but have lived in Germany for much of my life and speak Japanese as well as English and German, and have faced many of the same questions you and other listeners have discussed. I've come to largely the same conclusion you seem to be arriving at. There's no right answer, and even a merely good answer is only on a case-by-case basis. I wanted to share a slightly different story, though, that I thought you might find amusing. My best friends, who are German, purchased their first Alexa smart speaker several years ago. I wanted Alexa to play music by one of my favorite bands, Walk Off the Earth, and so I said, Alexa, spiel bitte Musik von

Starting point is 00:15:46 Walk Off the Earth. Alexa, please play music by Walk Off the Earth. Pronouncing the band's name, which of course is in English, in my natural accent. Alexa responded that she didn't understand. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I put on my most over-the-top German accent and said, attempts, I put on my most over-the-top German accent and said, Alexa, spiel bitte Musik von, walk aufs us. And it worked. If you want to include English terms when speaking to a German Alexa, she will understand you much better if you pronounce the words with a strong German accent. That's crazy, but it also makes perfect sense. I guess it's programmed to expect to hear English in that kind of way if it's programmed for German. And I guess that kind of thing is only going to become

Starting point is 00:16:29 more common as voice command gets more. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about all the differences between different accents. So when you really stop to think about it, how do these smart speakers understand all the varieties of ways that people can say the same word even? understand all the varieties of ways that people can say the same word even.

Starting point is 00:16:51 And Max Uri, spelled U-R-A-I, sent an email with the subject line, another bloody email about pronunciation. Dear Futilitists, while listening to your podcast on the wonderful fun of parachuting through thunderstorms, I decided to pile on with some notes about pronouncing names. I am called Max Uri. That last name is Hungarian. I got it from on with some notes about pronouncing names. I am called Max Uri. That last name is Hungarian. I got it from my dad, who was also Hungarian. However, I live in the Netherlands, and my father never taught me or my sisters his mother tongue. As a consequence, I sometimes don't know what the correct pronunciation of my name even is. Most Dutch people, on seeing the name, would pronounce it with a U sound. Hungarians, though,

Starting point is 00:17:25 use more of what I would call an U sound. Another layer of complication is added by the fact that Dutch people would pronounce it with two syllables, Urai, while those kooky Hungarians would make it three, Urai. Hungarian is an unusual language, not Roman, Germanic, Norse, or Slavic like most other European languages. Add to that that the name Urayi is not even a common Hungarian name. It was adopted by some ancestor when he moved to Hungary from the south of Germany, where he had the very heavy metal sounding name Berghammer. I can't and don't expect anyone in the Netherlands to get all that right, but it does raise the question for myself what my name even is supposed to sound like,

Starting point is 00:18:05 in my own head, if nothing else. In a final twist, proper Hungarian names start with the family name, so I would be Urai Max there. It shares this with Japanese and several other languages. I mention this because when listening to your podcast, I was reminded of a course on Japanese cinema I took in college. The professor would call all directors by their family name first, so Kurosawa Akira instead of Akira Kurosawa, as he's more commonly known. I wondered back then if I should copy that custom and how much sense that would make if I only talked to people who, like me, did not speak Japanese. Would it be a sign of respect or would we just sound snobby and slightly ridiculous?

Starting point is 00:18:44 I am now imagining a hypothetical Japanese exchange student who has gotten used to flipping names in their head. Would it be more or less clear if I said Kurosawa Akira to them? It is their local way, but they have already made the adjustment, so I would probably just be making things even more confusing. It's hard to tell whether that's sensitive or affected. more confusing. It's hard to tell whether that's sensitive or affected. Yeah. I guess it would be interesting to hear from people who speak Japanese or any of the other languages where they do what we consider flipping the names about what would make more sense to them when talking to people from other cultures. You can say it either way. On the pronunciation of place names, Lindsay Hoy from Smithfield, Virginia, wrote about the different pronunciations

Starting point is 00:19:25 of Norfolk, spelled N-O-R-F-O-L-K. I was so delighted to hear Norfolk, Virginia mentioned in episode 354. It is my husband's hometown and is only about 40 minutes from our home. I was impressed with Greg's pronunciation of Norfolk as it is how we choose to pronounce it. Imagine my surprise when Sharon started to discuss how to pronounce place names. There are many ways to pronounce Norfolk. A popular pronunciation is Naw-fuck. I used that pronunciation until our oldest son got the giggles when he heard the cuss word in the name. I had never thought of it before. We started pronouncing it differently after that. We now pronounce it exactly the way Greg did. I have attached a fun article about how And Lindsay sent an article from 2020 from the Military Times written by Sarah Saccard titled, How the heck do you pronounce Norfolk? Saccard, who grew up in Norfolk, was watching a TV show

Starting point is 00:20:20 called The Last Ship and says, There's one cardinal sin the show repeatedly commits. All the characters, based out of Naval Station Norfolk, pronounce it Norfolk, emphasis on the hard L. Having grown up there, every poorly pronounced reference to my beloved port city, home to the world's largest naval base, elicits a cringe and a sudden urge to hurl my remote through the screen. And apparently the city's issues with proper pronunciation go back quite some ways. In 1853, William S. Forrest explained in Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk and Vicinity

Starting point is 00:20:55 that the city's name is a Saxon word compounded of north and folk and may with some propriety be rendered north people. By persons residing in the city and vicinity, the sound of the L is emitted in the pronunciation, but it is often improperly sounded by persons residing abroad. So even that long ago, there was no L. Yeah, I think there was never any L because I think it's named after a place in England that pronounces it without an L. That's very consistent though. Yeah, it's just spelled with an L, so it confuses everybody.

Starting point is 00:21:27 And continuing with mispronounced Virginia place names, Elaine Lansing let me know that I had mispronounced Henrico County, spelled H-E-N-R-I-C-O, in episode 357. Elaine grew up in the county, so she has it on much better authority than I do. I had tried to research the pronunciation online, and it seems that I had a different understanding of an attempted phonetic rendering of the name than the author of the article I read had apparently intended. So my apologies to the residents of Henrico. That one must be mispronounced a lot, I should say. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:22:01 I would imagine that the people who live there are kind of used to hearing it mispronounced. a lot, I should say. Yeah, I would imagine that the people who live there are kind of used to hearing it mispronounced. Also on the topic of places whose names aren't pronounced like they look, we heard from Jeff Binns Calvi about Dubois, Wyoming, a town with a population of about 900 and spelled D-U-B-O-I-S. Jeff wrote, Hello, I just discovered the Futility Closet podcast. I've been listening backwards through the list and just listened to episode 340. You talk about place names that have unexpected pronunciations. We recently visited Dubois, Wyoming, a lovely little western town where we learned the origin of the name. As the town grew and gained a post office, the residents wanted to name it Never Sweat, but the state postmaster thought it too informal. He assigned them the name

Starting point is 00:22:45 Dubois after a state politician, but the residents resisted. Finally stuck with it, they registered their displeasure by stubbornly pronouncing it Dubois rather than Dubois. I would have fought hard for Never Sweat myself. Anyway, it's a lovely place. We highly recommend the Cowboy Cafe, and staying at the Twin Pines Lodge feels like a friendly version of the hotel in Deadwood, the TV show, not the modern town. Don't miss the giant sit-able jackalopes at the gas station and Jackalope Museum. Great photo ops. And for those who aren't up on their mythical creatures, a jackalope is basically a jackrabbit with horns like an antelope. I didn't realize there were giant ones you could sit on or pull museums to them, but now we know. As for the town of Dubois, Wikipedia says that the Postal Service considered the proposed name of Never Sweat unacceptable and named the town Dubois after

Starting point is 00:23:35 Fred Dubois, who was an Idaho senator at the time, and that in protest the citizens of Dubois insisted on that pronunciation. I was a little confused about why the Postal Service went with the name of an Idaho senator for a town in Wyoming, but a website for the town that also confirms the story explains that he was on the Postal Service committee at the time. I wonder what he thought of the pronunciation. I guess the Postal Service couldn't mandate that. There must be a story behind Never Sweat. Yeah, I mean, the town itself didn't seem to know. They thought maybe it had something to do with the low humidity of the climate,

Starting point is 00:24:10 but they didn't actually know for sure. Or it's an admonition. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. If you have anything to add to our discussion, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. And if anyone has ever mispronounced your name, please send me some tips for how I can get it right. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle.

Starting point is 00:24:38 I'm going to give him an interesting sounding situation, and he has to work out what's going on by asking yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Tony Filanowski with A Little Rewarding by Me. Why did a 150-year-old college have to change its name in 2001 because of the growth of the internet? Of the internet? Of the internet. Okay. Did the old name take on a new meaning? In other words, in that light? I don't think so. No, that's not it. Changed his name.

Starting point is 00:25:12 Yes. Is the date 2001 particularly important? Only that it was, you know, around that time. Okay. It's not some event that I need to... Correct. Okay. So the internet, someone founds a college... Yes. 150 years ago.

Starting point is 00:25:27 Yes. And that much time goes by, and then in 2001... All right. Specifically because of the growth of the internet. Yes. Does this have to do with, what are they called,

Starting point is 00:25:39 top-level domains? The extension on the end of a... Why do I think that? No. Something like that, something to do with URLs or domain names. No, I don't think so. Growth of the internet.

Starting point is 00:25:51 And it's not that it took on some new meaning. Did, were people, how would that work? Were people purporting to have gone to the school who didn't actually go there? I don't even know how that would work. No, it's nothing like that. The name. Is this a school I've heard of? Probably not.

Starting point is 00:26:14 You said it was a college? Yes. Does it matter where it was geographically? It does in a funny kind of way, but that would be really difficult for you to figure out. I'll find out at the end. Yeah, I'll find out at the end, yes. Okay, because the internet...

Starting point is 00:26:32 Okay, does this mean that... Suppose they didn't do this. Suppose they hadn't changed the name of the school? They just kept the old name. Okay, they could have done that. Would the school itself have suffered in some way as a result of... Possibly.

Starting point is 00:26:45 All right. Is that what they were trying to avert? Yes. Well, how would that happen? Did it have to do with students generally? I don't even know quite what I'm... Were its own students somehow taking advantage of... I don't know how that works.

Starting point is 00:26:58 No. Were other people purporting to be students? No. Were people purporting to be students? No. Were people using the internet somehow to do something wrong? No. No.

Starting point is 00:27:14 Not even just to misrepresent themselves. Right. Yeah. This doesn't have to do with misrepresentation or anybody doing something wrong, but it does have to do with people starting to use the internet more and other developments. Okay. So the school wouldn't have been worse off if they hadn't made this change, if they were just trying to... No, that they probably were suffering some and might have continued to.

Starting point is 00:27:33 If they didn't do this. Yeah. Would it help me to know what the new name was? No. Is that particular? In other words, they knew they didn't like the old name. Right. Is it important specifically what or how this changed? No, they could have just changed it to almost anything.

Starting point is 00:27:48 Almost anything, so they just didn't like the old one. Yes. Is it that the old name had some, I guess I asked this already, some connotation or something? Possibly, yeah. I mean... That they're trying to get away from. Did it hurt the sort of...

Starting point is 00:28:06 Yeah, but it had specifically to do with the rise of the internet and sort of the early days. And I'll give you a hint. This is something we've talked about on the show a few times. The early days of the internet? Yeah, some problems that were arising based on names of things. We've talked about a lot of things. Yeah, we have. Okay.

Starting point is 00:28:29 That certain people and companies have run into trouble because of what their names are. Well, so what we talked is what's called the Scunthorpe problem. Yes. Where the word, the name Scunthorpe has an unfortunate string of four letters. Yes. Is this that? Is this that? So it was founded in 1853 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

Starting point is 00:28:52 Beaver College changed its name in 2001, partly because profanity filters on the internet were blocking access to the college's website. The school became Arcadia University. That's a totally innocent name. Well, yeah. And that's why it was based on what sort of mattered where it was because it was in Beaver County. So they named it Beaver College. So thanks so much to Tony for a Scunthorpe problem based lateral thinking puzzle and presumably nobody died in the making of it. Hooray. If you have a puzzle you'd like to send to us, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:29:28 Futility Closet is supported entirely by our awesome listeners. If you'd like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the supporters section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or you can join our Patreon campaign, where you can also get some bonus content like outtakes, more discussion on some of the stories, extra lateral thinking puzzles, and peeks behind the scenes of the show. You can find our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see our website for the link. At our website, you can graze through Greg Salama Gundy of over 12,000 uptaking trandles. Browse the Futility Closet

Starting point is 00:30:06 store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the episode, with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed

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Futility Closet - 360-Haggard's Dream

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