Loremen Podcast - Loremen S7Ep38 - The Legends of Silbury Hill

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

Remember that big hill from the West Kennet Long Barrow episode just a couple of weeks ago? Well it's back. This time Silbury Hill brings some golden treats, a posset of seethed milk* and a 4500 year old flying ant. Plus, the loreboys finally get a GOOD idea for a podcast. * We'll explain later. Get tickets to Alasdair on tour - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Immediately!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the LoreFolk at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ko-fi.com/loremen⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check the sweet, sweet merch here... ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @loremenpod ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/loremenpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from Days of York. I'm James Shakeshaft. I'm Alistair. And Alistair, I realised I did a disservice to somewhere a couple of weeks ago. We talked about West Kennet Longbarrow, and I just brushed over Silbury Hill. You sashayed past. I did. we'd just complained that it was a blot on the landscape.

It's so much more than that. Or proof that planning permission was a lot easier to get in the prehistoric period. But it is the legends of Silbury Hill. Hey Alistair. Hello, James. This episode is sort of an apology to a hill? I'm sorry if you felt offended, Hill. Hill.

We would like to sort of apologise. Why would you like to sort of apologise, James? Because we glossed over Silbury Hill recently. I'm a West Kennett Longbarrow episode. Yes. And I've since looked further... I, like some researchers, have since looked further into the hill. But unlike some researchers, I have found some gold.

Yeah, that was a riddle that will make sense when you've listened to the episode. Good. Okay. So you haven't so much looked further a field as looked further a hill. A heel. A heel. Yes, exactly right.

Wow. Because we sort of brushed over Silbury Hill, just mentioning that it had the same volume as the Great Pyramid of Geiser as if that was all that you needed to know about Silbury Hill but... That was the headline piece of information I remember. I did a little bit of a looking in

friend of the show, Laura the Land, by Westwood and Simpson, and there's a lot more to discuss. So I wish to do that. Well, let's put this historic wrong right. We put a pin in this hill and now we're circling back. Come on, James.

We can wrap this up by the end of play. It's not play, guys. If this is play, this is rubbish. That's a really good point, James. And I want it on my desk by five. I'll double-click into that. That's the new one that... Is it? Double-click?

I mean, most interfaces are single-click these days. Why would we start saying double-click now? What they should be saying is I'm going to tap on this randomly and then call my child to sort it out. All right. Well, let's just run that up the flagpole and see if we can find a use case for AI. As long as we're all on the same web page interface.

Just stop it, business people. Stop doing business. Stop talking. Stop talking. Or do business, but talk about it like it's business. Quietly. Stop trying to sound cool. Yeah.

Just think of it like quiet reading from school. Just quietly do business things and keep the economy going and shut on. We can tell that you do business from the GLA. You don't need to remind us out loud. I also, I'm speaking of, of adults, older adults who don't understand the internet and things. I terrified a mother-in-law the other day by, I, um, she was, she has, she has a telly that doesn't work.

Well, you can just, just to be clear, our mother-in-law or the mother-in-law? Uh, uh, my mother-in-law. Your mother-in-law, so the mother-in-law, so you are doing a sort of Les Dawson routine. I'm doing a modern Les Dawson. I'm doing a modern, Les Dawson. I'm terrified the mother-in-law. So I terrified the mother-in-law because she refers to the Wi-Fi internet as Vy. That's very cool, actually, the vibes. Yeah, the vibes are got, I think the vibes are down.

The vibes have been off, actually, for quite a while. It rarely cheers me up to go on the internet. Maybe there's something to that. That's a good point, yeah. Someone's messing with the vibes. So she had a problem with their telly, and she was asking me if her unplugging some speakers might have affected it. Obviously, my first question was,

are they connected to the telly? The answer was no. So I said, probably that's fine. And then I said, well, how does the tele get a signal? Is it plugged in aside from the electrical bit to anything? She said, well, there's a SCART lead. A SCART lead? Yes.

Wow. But as you and I, children of the 90s know that you don't get external signal from a SCART lead. And I said, that's probably coming from the DVD player. And a look of terror passed on her face that I have never seen the like of before. And certainly not at the words a DVD player. Why is she so terrified of the other? I don't know. We haven't had a DVD player for 10 years.

Probably. Yeah, maybe. That format's been obsolete now. Yeah. We're going to get emails. Actually, DVD is still the best way to enjoy your movie collection. It isn't because the, the information falls off of DVDs somehow.

Yeah, it does. It just seems to fall out of it. I don't know how. That's why your flat's dusty now. That's all former DVD data. Don't look for it. The ones and zeros from your DVD. Yeah, they turn to dust.

Don't look for a boxed set of the Godfather. Its internal bits have turned to dust. It's fallen into not being a DVD anymore. That is what happens. So, James, why was she so frightened of DVD player? Or is that the end of the story? We never got to it.

I think it's because she thought she didn't have one. And as the end of the story is she was frightened. So what's the scart lead plugged into? Well, I said, I think you do have a DVD player there. I think there's a black sort of oval underneath the telly. And she said, ah, yes, because when I was using one of the hand controls that I thought was for the telly, there was a black shaped item that started whirring when I pressed the book.

I mean, that's a DVD player, isn't it? I think two birds, one stone. We found the DVD player, and we found why the telly won't turn on. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Wow.

Easy win. Mother-in-law haunted by appliance. Yes. By unknown DVD appliance. Son-in-laws don't want their mother-in-laws to know this one simple trick. Wow. Very spooky tale.

Yeah, terrifying, isn't it? But speaking of technology from the past, this hill has been carbon dated to 2660 BCE. So this is a, what's the correct term for man-made? Artificial, it's an artificial hill. Yes, it's the largest artificial mound in Britain. Sorry, sorry. It's 40 metres tall.

I forgot that it has the volume of the Pyramids of Giza. Yes. All combined together. It's 40 metres tall, Alastair. It would have taken 700 men, 10 years. is to build it. How long would it have taken 1,400 men? I don't know, because they say that two men can carry a piano, don't they?

But they also say that one man can't carry half a piano. Did they say that? I've never heard that, but that's a great saying. I don't know if it's a saying. You almost never need half a piano carried anywhere. Unless you've got the other half somewhere. But I would guess, much like King Solomon, would also guess. having half a piano is not the same as...

Exactly. It's not the same. And then the real piano owner would say, No, you have it. This is Strauss or whatever. Is that piano Strauss or is that violins? I don't know. That is Mr Cassio Keyboard. So it would have taken 700 men 10 years to build it.

The population of the UK at that time was only 250,000. Right. That's one, Gillingham. that's smaller than a stoke. Wow. Wow. It's a population a bit north of Northampton and a bit south of Southampton.

It's roughly a double Gloucester, which is also a type of cheese. That's twice as much as the population of Gloucester. Yeah, double Gloucester. And this is just before the invasion of the Beaker people. Did the Beaker people invade? Or did they just arrive? It doesn't sound like there were that many people here.

They swaned it. These Europeans. and swaned in with their fancy lattes in their keep cups is how I like to imagine it. Because they had their, because basically what seems to define them is that they had refillable cups, that they were so precious they were buried with them. So were the people who were here before, were they just using disposable cups every single time they had to make a cup drink from it and then throw it away? I guess so.

Which I suppose is what we do now. They didn't have a cup for life or cup for afterlife, like the beaker people. Very good. I've also realized that... Quite you boys. That was good. Stonehenge was as far away from Nero as Nero was to Café Nero.

In time. In time. Yeah, not physically. I thought he meant in distance. Maybe. I can't imagine there's many Caffe Neros in Italy. No, they've got real coffee there. They would poo it.

They would. Also, it just means black coffee, doesn't it? To them. It's not enough of a name. Oh, yeah. It's like having a fish and chip shop just called, oh wait. Nowadays, they all have to be called like a place in my heart.

They all have to be called the codfather. The codfather, yes. But to take it back to the big old hill, going back to Laura the Land, yeah, John Aubrey in 1670 wrote about it, and the hill is attributed to being the burial mound of a king Zill, Z-E-L but pronounced in local dialect as Zill or Zill, who was buried on horseback. Oh, wow.

That has some logistics connected to it. Standing up or lying down. What sort of led on the horse? Was the horse dead before burial? I hope so, otherwise it would have kicked up quite a fuss. Yes, I don't know much about horses, Alistair. But I do guess it's quite difficult to bury them alive. I don't know it's difficult.

They can be flighty, can't they? Especially if you've got a body strapped to it as well. Yeah. I don't think a horse would like to have a corpse strapped to it. Even if it weren't being buried alive. Even as a threat? Is that some sort of back reverse godfather threat? Mm, yes, maybe.

You couldn't have cut. It wouldn't calm a horse down, I don't think. No, yeah, that's the thing about reversals. If you just put an Italian's head in a horse's bed, the horse wouldn't be pleased. Nor would it be able to actually infer the nature of the threat? Hmm. Yeah. when it's sort of look at its hooves,

it's blood-stained hooves. Has it squished up its hay for a pillow? I don't even know how horses sleep, Alistair. Famously standing up, though, I think that's not true. Not even leaning. I think they like to have a little lie down. Like all of us, James. I like to have a flipping lie down.

Like a Japanese commuter. Do they sleep standing up? Yeah. I've said Japanese people asleep. They're usually holding onto the handrail, but they're having a little doze. You can't do that, though. I've been commuting and holding on with one hand

and I've fallen asleep and my knees have gone. How do they lock their knees? I don't know. Wow. Do I know. They probably spent, what will they think of next? They whisper to the horses.

So we're presuming the horse had been killed in order to be buried or it had died recently. Yeah. And they kept told the body just in case. I suspect killed, unfortunately. That is probably why the death of a royal is seen as a bad omen amongst the horse community. A later historian slash folklorist, R.C. whore. First of all, the legend is that buried on horseback and the mound was raised over him

while a posse of milk was seeting. Posset of milk? Yeah, that needs. I mean, that doesn't need any more explanation, surely. Yeah, move on. So how much milk is a posse? A posse of milk is. It's actually a type of drink.

It's a hot spice drink. Right. Made of milk curdled with wine, ale, such as sack. Again, no further explanation needed there. Or cider. No, sack is a sweet ale similar to sherry. There is a dessert called a posse it nowadays, but that's more like a sort of lemon curdie moose thing.

Right. But a posset back then was a hot, spicy drink with curts in it. In the time it took to make. Yes, which... this ancient oval teen. It is approximately two hours. And to sieve means to boil and bubble, you know that. Two hours.

And so are you telling me the hill was raised in two hours? That's what they said. Well, that is, that's nonsense. That's nonsense. That didn't happen. Yes. Come on. It would have taken 700 men, 4,000 years.

A million. No, but Arcee Hoare, they had a slightly more realistic tale. They had a, sorry, they had a tale that starts off slightly more realistic that King Zell was buried in a coffin. Less realistically, that coffin was made of gold. Even less realistically, as his ghost is seen riding around the mound on moonlit nights dressed in golden armour. Nice.

I don't know if we have that much gold on the British Isles. No. I don't think we have armour quantities of gold in southern England. Funnily enough, back then, there was a lot of trade with Ireland because they had a lot of gold. And so a lot of gold would have come from there. The reason there's no gold is they dug it all up for this guy's armour. But I see. Trade, of course, trade.

Well, this King Zell, Zill, Zell, Silbury, Zill, is sadly entirely mythical. Oh. Unless they are the same King Zell who recently released the rap tracks, Oh, Girl, and Save Me from Me, or a rap track called Goldie Chops. Goldie Chops. Which does fit with the Silbury Hills. King Zill, but I don't think that they are the same person.

It's so unlikely. I'm going to put that out there. So other folklorists such as the Reverend A.C. Smith, who was more popular than the Reverend D.C. Smith. Thank you very much. Little Lectrously joke there. One for the Watt heads. He said, I'm assuming there are he

because they're a vicar in the past. It was not a horse and a rider, sorry, it was not Zell, but a horse and a rider, the size of life and of solid gold is buried in the hill. So basically a golden statue. Even more gold. Because previously you just had a man with gold on the outside.

But now he's gold all the way down to his middle. Like the dream Easter egg. Yes, solid chocolate. Yeah, all the way through. That was in 1861, sorry, that story from the Reverend A.C. Smith. In 1900, the writer L.A. Law. What? Yeah, the writer CSI Miami?

Yes. Yes. The writer, London's Burning. Holby City. What did an old heartbeat have to say? Yeah, but L.A. Law was told of an anonymous man in golden armour on horseback in the hill. So, you know, it was corroborating evidence. Who told L.A. Law that? It just says anonymous.

And you got an anonymous tip-off that was a man in golden armour in a 4,000-year-old hill. Yes. Right. Fine. No further questions. People have dug into this hill to find it. Unsurprisingly, if you keep telling people there's a solid gold man in there, someone is going to dig. But excavations have failed to find any trace of a burial. This is shocking to me. But then it says if there is one, it must be somewhere off centre.

So they were looking. But you know, you're trying to find a needle in a haystack or a body in a hill, the volume of Great Perman-Deguze. Surely with our technology that we have now, you could scan it somehow. Yes. Surely! The boffins have come up with a way to find out if there's gold in a hill. You'd think, but there is also meant to be the ghost of a headless man knocking about. So, you know, that might be putting people off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, watch out. Although that does sound like something someone would do in Scooby-Doo to protect their hill with a gold man in it. Yeah, that's true. William Stuckley, Stucley's belief was that Silbury was the tomb of the builder of the stone circles at Avebury. Oh, I see. And, you know, the other sort of classic...

A builder's tomb. A big old builder's tomb that looks over the Avebury. And people would just come and just do a really strong cup of milky, sugary tea. Just place it there. Just put Heart FM on. That's what I said last time we talked about what builders listened to on the radio and you said it was LBC.

I think it would be more LBC. Yeah, perhaps. But no, a lot of, a lot of other myths of it are you classic devil, scraping mud off his spade while digging a trench at Wandsdyke, or he was carrying a sack of earth and he was going to bury Moulbara, but he was foiled by the magic. Magic priests. He's a virgin, recorded by Robert Henley in 1930s.

Bobby Hens. In 1913. When Stonehenge was builted, a good, bit after Avebury, the devil were in a rare taken. There is getting a vast deal too much religion in these here parts, he says. Summit must be done. So he picks up his shovel and cuts a slice out of Salisbury Plain. But the priests saw him coming and set to work with their charms and incustations.

And they fixed him while he were yet a nice way off, till at last he flings down his shovelful just where he stood. And that's Silbury. It turns into an advert for Silbury at the end. And that was recorded in 19... 13. In 1913, people still talk like that. As in it was written down.

That was not a recording. That was actually me saying it. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow, you really brought it to life. Yeah, people still talk about that, talk like that nowadays. Do they? When it was built.

When it were built, yeah. Okay. Goodish bit after. I had my oven broken. was broken, my oven was broken recently. We haven't broke recently and we had a man round to fix it. Turned out there was a DVD player in there. He didn't even know.

And he, he kept saying, if I may say so. If I might say. If I may say so, sir. It was like it was the butler from the shining. I was kind of worried where the conversation was going to go. If I may say so. If I may be so bold. I'm begging your part in Mr. Shakespeare.

He was very nice. It was a lovely man. And he sorted our oven. But that's the tale. of Silbury Hill. Well, are you ready to score it then? Shall we? Shall we?

Shall we have a few scores? Do we just get a few scores in for the table? Yeah, just get some scores to share. Let's just get some picky bits. Yeah. And have some scores. In which case, score me this for naming. You see, listener, how he tries to use NLP to make me give him a four.

Oh, yeah, I did, didn't I? By saying four really long and slow. Yes. I'm not going to fall for it. It won't happen. James, what names did you have? Okay, King's Sill, spelled Zell. Sill, Zell.

Sill. We had the Reverend AC. Yeah, versus Reverend D.C. The Reverend D.C. And I don't wish to imply that the Reverend AC was used to electrocute an elephant by Edison. Because it turns out, actually, Alistair, that is a spurious story. That's not a true story. Is that not true? Wow, I suppose a lot of Edison's achievements were exaggerated.

So did he kill an elephant in another way and then cover it up as a stunt? It's an unsolved elephant electrocution. I genuinely hurt my back laughing at that, but it was worth it. Someone has electrocoded this elephant. Get me, Edison. I think they did it on film as well. I thought they filmed it. So that's not Edison, are you saying?

It wasn't too, it wasn't part of the Battle of the Voltages or whatever that thing was called. Right. Right. Right. Oh, it was the elephant had murdered someone? Was it? Is the elephant a murderer? I thought the elephant killed someone and then it being America.

They had to electrocute it. They had to electrocute the elephant. I think it is an unsolved elephant electrocution despite the fact that it was caught on film. Wow. Mm. Sorry. Also, I don't want to get bogged down in this because that is my other podcast of true elephant crime. Yeah, exactly.

You don't want to dilute the brand there. Yeah, exactly. Definitely trying to think of a really good name for that podcast. Col Dumbo. Sorry, I heard Col, not like Columbo. Col Dumbo. Col Dumbo. Columbo? Columbo? Col jumbo. It's not really any better.

It's just one last thing. Can I have that bun? Anyway, also we had R.C. Hore, which is so close. to R.C. horse, and you imagine that if a horse is being buried alive, it would be grumpy. Oh, it would be truculent, obstreperous. Yeah. Again, I don't wish to get bogged down in my true horse crime documentary podcast, which is called, these criminals are taking the sea biscuit. All the good names are gone.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of them. I'm not sure you would call a podcast. These criminals are taking the biscuit if it weren't horse-related. So I don't know that adding C-Biscuit to that really makes it more like a true crime podcast. Fair enough. Okay, then. Well, we'll let the people decide. Drunk elephants solving crime?

I don't know. Oh, that's nice. My favourite unsolved elephant murder. But this one's the horse one. Oh, yeah. I forgot who doing horses. Yeah, so that's, well, those are a couple of, very well, very well, we're very, weird names, to be honest.

What else did we have? Does it? It's really, your classic John Aubrey and stuff like that. I think it is a four. And I've not been influenced. I haven't been influenced by neurolinguistic programming. But I do think it's worth full. Yes, wonderful stuff.

And I would like to invest in your podcast about true elephant crime. Great. Okay, then. Next up. An elephant never forgets about true crime. Yes. That's still the horse one, though. An elephant never forget. It's about true horse crime. And it's just two elephants slumped on couches holding shore mics talking about horse murder.

And having a good old laugh. Right then. Okay. Second category is supernatural. Okay. So a large hill is not supernatural. A man-made hill. That's not very PC, is it? it could have been made by... An artificial mound. An artificial mound. Yes, yes.

An artificial mound did not mound naturally. It could have been made by the devil, though. Could easily have been made by the devil. Who you tend to use non-binary pronouns for for reasons unknown to the podcast. Yeah. I don't know, and I wouldn't like to assume. We don't know. The devil themselves.

Yeah. It's the devil themselves. So it would be wrong to say man-made since it could have been made by a non-binary Satan. Yes. There's the golden ghost. There's the hill being raised in two hours in the time it took to see the posse. Yep, yep. To see the posset, yeah.

Seat a posse. Not see the posset. Seat. Seat a posse for the flourish. I think it's quite low on supernatural because the long and the shorter James is that it's a hill. Okay. But they don't know what, isn't it? Oh, I did find out they managed to work out that they would have built it in August

because they found the remains of flying ants. So it was made on flying ant day. Oh, they built it on Flying Ant Day. Well, that's worth a point three. Come on. Made on Flying Ant. Yes, very creepy day. It gets earlier every year and also more commercialized.

Yeah, the Flying Ant Day decorations are in the shops. As soon as Easter's over. Yeah. They're caught in the window of the shops. Okay, third category. It's chalk finger. Blu-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-r- Right. I joined in.

I didn't know what I was joining in with there. Beware of the dusty touch. A moth's touch. It's... Good inclusion of dust there. Friend of the show, Dust. Friend of the show. So the mound is made of chalk.

Yes. And I think it was just this chalk hoarder who he loved chalk. He loves only chalk. And he wanted to get all the chalk together. And he made a big hill of chalk. I see what you mean. Perhaps due to EU bureaucracy. I don't know.

Probably Brussels bureaucrats. Yep, no doubt. And he made a big chalk mountain. He made a huge chalk mountain. Yeah. Sorry, that's some people recorded for the Elephants' Cry podcast in the next room. Could you keep it down in there, fellas? Yeah, so, I mean, I suppose, did, Goldfinger did gather together gold, didn't he?

But he also irradiated the gold in Fort Knox. That was his plan, wasn't it? I don't know why you wanted to do that. To poison people? It was to increase the value of his gold. Ah. by making it the, I guess, America's stockpile of gold inaccessible due to being irradiated.

As evil plans go, that's fine, really. That's quite funny. You shouldn't set off nuclear devices, but you're just manipulating gold markets. It doesn't seem that evil. But people don't touch it anyway. You could just say it's a bit stinky. Oh, America's gold's all stinky. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And also, gold's, I was going to say gold's useless. I suppose it's not in electronics. But back in, back when that film was made in 1908 or whatever, there's nothing, it's just a shiny paperweight gold. And similarly with chalk. And the same with chalk. It's of no practical use. Unless you're a teacher, I suppose.

Yes. And even now there's powderless chalk. I don't like it. It's waxy. Have you seen the powderless chalk they have in schools now, James? They have all iPads, then it? You draw on an iPad, but the powerless chalk. That's right.

You draw it directly into the internet. Whoa. I'm in the space now. And it's not dusty anymore. I'm yet to get over the chalk pen from pubs, from pub signage. Yes, that's not real chalk either. Bring back proper chalk. Well, that's where, this is where it all is.

It's protected by... Yeah, it's in Silbury Hill. I now sympathise with this early Brexiteer and his chalk hoarding. This, this all blackboard-based prepper. Yes. He's got the right idea. Chalk finger it is. five out of five.

Yes. Excellent. One for each finger. Yes. That was unintentional. Shock finger. Guys. Quiet in there.

Quiet you, elephant boys. The boys from earlier were elephants. Yes. Okay. Final category. The legend of Zell. Brilliant, James. Fantastic.

So good. I think I thought of that one. Yes. I am playing Breath of the Wild at the moment. I wonder if the listeners can tell when it's actually a category that you've thought. Is it, because I just immediately come in with, that's a five. What a brilliant number category.

Fantastic work, James. Whereas when you come up with it, I'm, I explain that, James. What's that? I don't understand. Chalk finger. What does that mean? But the legend of Zell, even though it was actually pronounced Sill, D.

D. But he was written Zell, duh. I can't remember why I thought the DIR would work. Because he wasn't real, I think. Oh, right, yeah. Because it's just a made-up person for the purposes of the legend of that person. Yeah. For the purposes of being dead.

I think there's no legend of them being alive. They pop into existence at the point of death. That's very sad. But it feels like something that would happen in a Zelda game. The legend of Zelda, duh. Duh. Yeah, of course. Because he didn't exist.

Number three, of course, is very important to the mythos of Zelda, the trifles. The tri-force. The tri-force. And how many triangles are there in a triforce? Four. Of course there are four. Five. They're a five?

They're a big triangle. Yeah. There's three little triangles. Oh, you're counting the outer triangle. There's an upside-down triangle in the middle, and then the whole thing is a big triangle. It's five, Alistair. How many triangles can you find?

The answer is five. There are five triangles in a triforce. It's a duck looking to the right in a jacket. Well, this is unacceptable. Yes. I will be writing a strongly worded letter. to my MP, but it's five out of five. You've been hoist by your own bomb flower.

I think that's a mechanic that's not introduced until the next game. Yep, I've no idea what you're talking about. You could get flowers that are bombs. There you have it. Well, that was a pretty large artificial mound. It's equivalent to the volume of contemporaneous pyramids. Mm.

Which does include the pyramid of Giza, but also includes things like the bent pyramid, which is a much smaller pyramid that's obviously perhaps not as aligned as it should have been. So there's definitely some bonus bits cut out of that because we did talk about Zelda for ages. Yeah, we did. But please join us at patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod to access bonus episodes

and the lawfolk discord. Find out how to use boats in Zelda. Yes. If you don't know. Thank you very much to everyone who already does do that. And see you next. Oh, go see you. Alastar on tour.

Yeah, still got some dates left but I'm about just over halfway through my autumn dates. Bath and Nottingham are selling very well.

True horse crimes. Oh, it's obviously going to be red rum she wrote. Oh, very good, yeah. Yeah, red rum because red rum is murder

backwards, brilliant. It is. That works so well written down. Yeah, and that is how you want to name a podcast. Thank you.