Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep24: Loremen S3 Ep24 - The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

James Shakeshaft plays against type by offering up a story that's very nearly historically accurate. The legend of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary or 'Barometz' seemed so plausible. It was a grazing lamb that grew on a bush; it seemed like it HAD to be real. The stories were so convincing a series of extraordinarily named men launched expeditions to find it. They didn't find it. It's not a real thing. Come one, a vegetable lamb? What next, strawberry crackling? Beef tomatoes? BLOOD ORANGES?! Chuck us a few pennies here Ko-fi.com/Loremen @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. You know plants, right? Heard of them. Familiar with their work. You know animals? Yes. Yes, I am conversant with the concept. It's a combo of plants and animals.

What? A planimal. You've shifted my paradigm, James. It's flora and fauna. I've got to hear this story. It's the vegetable lamb of Tartary. Of course it is. Play that music.

Play that copyright-free music, white boy hello alistair hi james I have such a wonderful treat for us today. I'm very excited. It's not your usual Shake Shaft-esque spooky ghost story that then turns into dust. It's not. And then when they went into the cave it was just a cave. It's not one of those classic Shake Shaft twists. Classic rug pulls. There is an element of that in there in here to be honest which is one of those classic Shake Shack twists. Classic rug pulls. There is an element of that in here, to be honest, which is one of my favourite bits. But the majority of it is... It's almost a history documentary. Whoa.

But, well, it's about the vegetable lamb of Tartary. That name brings me such delight. The vegetable of tartary of tartary it sounds fun and delicious at the same time also known as the barrow mets oh or the borough mets oh this creature i came across it because i was looking for a nice picture of a dragon yep and it sort of led into one of those wikipedia holes of looking at like mythical creatures. This happens to me because I do the graphics for the podcast. And so I often have to try and find etchings. I feel like we should set up a Twitter for just no context etching,

because I think my favourite one is a cat dressed as the Pope being booed by a crowd. I don't know what the cat did. I don't know what the Pope did. And I'll never know. No, there's another good etching you'll probably come across booed by a crowd. I don't know what the cat did. I don't know what the Pope did. And I'll never know. No. There's another good action you'll probably come across in one of the books that talks about the vegetable lamb of Tartary by Sir John Mandeville,

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. Just as a quick side note, this was a pretty much definitely made up book about a pretty much definitely made up person who claimed to have travelled the world and seen all these things, one of which being the vegetable lamb of Tartary. We'll get on to that.

But another one was a deflowering ritual. Oh? And I couldn't really find any more context, apart from a very funny etching, which is two people in bed, and Sir John sort of stood next to him, pointing. But no, what happened was, I was looking for this lovely picture of a dragon,

and I saw a few of the other mythical creatures. You know, your griffin, your hippo griff, your griffreese jones, cyclops, all that lot. And then I noticed nestled in there, the vegetable lamb of Tartar. It's not a vegan version of the cheese hedgehog. It's a type of zoophyte, which is an animal that looks like a plant. An animal looks like a plant like a sea anemone or a sea cucumber right yeah zoo fight

is a word that is not really used by scientists anymore because it was this is circa sort of 11th century it's around that time that there were these sort of science books, but they were mad. Yeah. Like how in the olden days they used to think that rats were generated by piles of rubbish. The rats just sprang into existence. Yes. I can't remember the name for that thing, but that's a thing. I like those old natural philosophy books

and mysterious texts like the Voynich manuscript and that sort of thing. Yes. A bit mainstream for us on this podcast though, the Voynich manuscript. Oh, very much of thing. Yes. A bit mainstream for us on this podcast, though, the Voynich Manuscript. Oh, very much so. The main place it sort of caught people in England's attention was in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which was around the 14th century.

And that's got all your classic skyopodes, hippophodes. Hippophodes being like people with horse feet. Oh. Yeah, hippo means horse. Yes. In Greek, hippophodes. Hippophodes being like people with horse feet. Oh. Yeah, hippo means horse. Yes. In Greek, not hippo. Yes, as in hypocrite. What's that got to do with horses?

No, doesn't mean anything. Apart from naysayers, a lot of them. Very good. I'm sure I've done that joke on this podcast before. It's my favourite horse joke. I've probably lied about hypocrisy being like horsepower. Should be what it means. Should be.

But it isn't. Cyclopses are obviously your one-eyed people and your skyopodes, I think, they thought they were these little short people who had one leg with a big foot that they used as an umbrella. They thought that was a real thing. There's a wonderful book called Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould. I've mentioned him on this podcast before, but I can't remember if I've told this story.

Old SBG? Yeah. Have I mentioned the tailed humans before? No, maybe. Oh, okay. I don't want to hear it again. In Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Sabine Baring-Gould gathers together stories like this,

and he includes tailed humans in that, which are humans born with a tail It's very interesting Because he's writing in the 19th century He ends it by saying that he thinks they're probably a myth He won't believe that they exist until one is shown to him And what's fascinating In a book of complete nonsense Humans with tails do exist

It is a phenomenon that people are born With a small tail growing out of their Coccyx And it's very nice that while giant foot umbrellas It is a phenomenon that people are born with a small tail growing out of their coccyx. And it's very nice that while sort of giant foot umbrellas and all the other nonsensical things are ridiculous and not true, some of those stories are real. Or misinterpretations of real things. Yes, that there is a kernel of truth to some of them. A thing that cropped up in Shakespeare a couple of times was the, I think it's pronounced blemmies, which are headless people. The blemmies?

People whose heads are in their chests. Oh, I've heard of these people, yes. And they're mentioned in The Tempest and Othello. It's a bit embarrassing for Shakespeare because he was just using what people thought was a real thing, and I think that's used as an example in The Tempest

of like, hey, weird stuff goes on on there's those headless people that happens and it doesn't what some of the theories are for what they actually were is just certain types of warriors would kind of draw their heads down and there's like a particular race of people that are very good at shrugging it's the french it's just a frenchman being asked for directions by an English person. Do you know where I can find the headless people? Here's one. Oh, no, he's not. Who is the man without a head?

Please. I don't understand. I like that. That's a bit like in Moby Dick, where he devotes, it feels like, about nine long chapters to facts about whales that are not accurate facts anymore about whales oh really yes you have to read through like oh and the the sperm whale is the largest whale like it is famously not the largest whale the premise of the book is wrong it's still a very good book john you've done a great job but all your whale facts are wrong the tech travels of sir john manderville

kind of propagated all these nonsense type stories some of them though true like it talks about cormorant fishing in china and japan have you ever heard of that it's quite fun no i have i've never heard that not fun for a vegan it's basically a way of fishing where you tie a bit of string around a cormorant's neck and it dives down and catches a fish, but it can't swallow it because you've got the string around its neck. And then you get it to cough up the fish and then you eat the fish. It's like double anti-vegan. Capitalism is what you've described there.

Exploitation. The cormorant does all the work and sees none of the reward. Yeah, that is it. There's a little section on egypt in those days people in egypt thought that the pyramids were grain stores didn't ben carson the 2015 candidate for the republican presidency believed that the pyramids were grain stores really but like even a knight in the at the times when this book was written knew better than Ben Carson. He, in essence, said, well, they can't be grain stores.

There's nowhere to get the grain into them. And even if there were a hole at the top, how are you getting them out? Like massive salt cellars. It's ridiculous. Salt cellars of the gods. Maybe that's what mana from heaven was. They just shook out a pyramid.

I don't know. I'm not a biblical scholar. No, but we can make it up. That's what they did. That's basically what they did. They sort of half heard something and then repeated it with their own embellishments. Oh God, it's our podcast.

So these sort of things, these zoo fights, people know they don't exist nowadays, but there was a time when even things like the caterpillar fungus, have you heard of that? No. They thought that was like something that was half caterpillar, half fungus. It's in Tibet and it's a fungus that infects a caterpillar and kills it and then it grows out of its head. Oh, well, fair play to them for being confused.

Yeah, hearing about that led me down another little rabbit hole those things are incredibly valuable they're used in like some sort of probably medicine and in 2012 a pound of top quality of that stuff retailed at fifty thousand dollars wow that was the street value for caterpillar fungus in tibet in 2004 the sale of caterpillar fungus. In Tibet in 2004, the sale of caterpillar fungus made up 8.5% of the country's GDP. Who is doing the PR for caterpillar fungus? Because it sounds awful. I can't believe anyone's been persuaded to pay for it. That's like if you managed to sell... You know when you go through an underpass?

You know the way cobwebs become kind of thick? If I start selling that and become a millionaire, I'm going to keep quiet now. That's a good idea. Yeah. That's your dragon's den. Cures what ails you. Sooty web.

Sooty thick web. And so all of this led me to a download of an old book. A download because to buy it, it cost 300 quid. Ooh. What, is it made of caterpillar fungus it's the vegetable lamb of tartary a curious fable by henry lee sometime naturalist of the brighton aquarium i really like his tone he's very funny and some of his other books author of the octopus or the devil fish of fiction and of fact and other books sea fables explained

and my favorite sea monsters unmasked they've been getting away with too much it's about time some investigative journalist really dug into it this thing goes all the way to the bottom it's like the cook report but let's see so it talks about this the the vegetable lamb or the baromets. There's two different versions of this story. One is that it's a certain plant grew a fruit that looked a bit like a gourd and when it ripened it would burst open and inside was a tiny lamb. How big are we talking? Small. Palm your hand tiny? Yeah, I think so. That sounds adorable, like a Sylvanian family scale. The main version is a lot less adorable. It's a plant that grew, and out the top grew a lamb attached by its navel.

It could bend enough to eat grass, but when it had eaten all the grass, it would die. What? And there's only one animal that would eat it, and that was the wolf. A normal wolf, or like a plant wolf? Like half dandelion, half wolf? Standard wolf, standard wolf. Standard free-roaming mammal wolf. plant wolf like half dandelion half wolf standard wolf standard wolf standard free roaming oh standard wolf mammal wolf well it shouldn't be a particular challenge for considering he's tethered

to the spot well that henry had heard he'd heard that there was a version of this in the talmud he tracks down the story he contacts a bunch of rabbis a rabble of rabbis yeah and this one particular rabbi looks into it for him and. And one version that this rabbi found was that it was a human that was attached to the ground by a naval stem, and it was in mountainous regions. Oh. And no creature could get near because it would seize and kill it. And the only way that you could kill it is you had to fire your arrow

at its stem, and if you managed to snap the stem, then it withered and died. So the human would kill people? The human vegetable lamb? And then another version says it's a lamb, actually. And it tastes like fish. And its blood was as sweet as honey, which sounds horrible.

Disgusting. A mixture of honey and fish. It's like a pudding, black pudding. I always think it's odd, the things that go together taste-wise, like pineapple and gammon go together, but you never see pigs and pineapples together in nature. They never hang out. That's true. So there's no hint. I've never seen a duck eating an orange. No, exactly. But they do work together. So I don't blame people for trying to put, you know, mint on a chicken or honey on a fish. But I've just started imagining it. It's disgusting. And the rabbi says that it's more likely that it was a lamb than a person.

Fair enough. It was a vegetable lamb rather than a vegetable person, actually. I think the vegetable person thing is a bit fanciful. A little far-fetched. And there's some more details on this little vegetable lamb. It did appear to have horns or hooves, but they were made out of very fine hair. And so this Boromets was from areas of Russia near the Caspian Sea is where the Tatar area

is where most of the myth came from. Apparently, its wool was very soft and highly prized, and the people of that area used to make hats out of it. We're talking sort of fungus caterpillar price? What are we talking here? Oh, I don't know. Highly, highly prized. The pelt of it was so thin and delicate

that when it dried out, it stopped looking like a lamb. That's my, and then it turned to dust moment. So you finally got the pelt of this mythical lamb yeah oh and you won't believe what happened it dried out and stopped looking like a lamb so that's proof yeah so the story was reported by lots of different people through the years lots of people with amazing names sigismund von herbenstein well i imagine was sort of flying over the landscape in a self-constructed sort of device just gathering plants in a big net that's my that's how i visualize von herbenstein was it

herberstein i think herberstein and it sounds like he's got a horse in that race doesn't it if he's from the herb family he was 14 plum And they started this nerd feud argument. You know when you see people arguing about, like, plot holes in Star Wars and stuff like that? Yes, I am aware that there are nerds out there, James. Stay safe. Woot, woot. It's the sound of the geeks. And so, yeah, he reported about it.

And then Giralama Cardano said, that's stupid. I'm paraphrasing again. He said, that's stupid. If it has blood, it must have a heart. And soil can't supply a heart with movement or heat. I tell you what, he's got him banged to right there. Yeah. I mean, that is true, isn't it?

Yeah. He wanted to put one final nail in the coffin. And another thing, it's too cold to grow something like that in the air. You can get them in the sea because the sea's thicker. I'm not sure that is unassailable logic, that you could have a vegetable lamb in the sea because it's thicker. That was also seized upon by, according to Henry Lee, this Girolamo Cardano's relentless enemy.

Sorry, can you say his name again? Because you've made him sound like he's a sort of East London mechanic. Girolamo Cardano. It's beautiful in your accent. The lack of effort put into giving it an Italian or Spanish twang. I don't know where he's, where's he from? I think he's Italian. He is Italian.

Girolamo Cardano. Oh, lovely. Now, Girolamo Cardano. Well, it was seized upon by his relentless enemy and his name, Julius Caesar Scaliger. Henry Lee reports that this Julius Caesar Scaliger wrote a scathing takedown. And I read through it and it seems to just repeat the myth.

And then at the end, it sort of mildly sarcastically goes, but how can they grow four different legs on the same plant? That's a bit of a weird objection. Yeah, I don't really get it. Of all the things to have a problem with. I mean, I'm fully on board with the soil heart take. Yeah. That interpretation.

But how can it have four legs? Well, like, how can a tree have four branches? No, I don't accept it. It's too subtle if it is sarcasm, I think. Yeah, keep walking, Scaliger. And the problem is, because it was too subtle, his writing is often credited as being like an example of a good thinker agreeing with this idea.

Oh, dear. So it's very much backfired on him. So that's kind of a warning to people who write sarcastic tweets, I think. And to people who name their children Julius Caesar. This is the kind of thing that will happen. Yeah, they're going to grow up to be a bit of a... Yeah, what he should have had in his bio was something like, retweets are not endorsement.

Just to clarify that sometimes he's being sarcastic. So yeah, his writing is often quoted as evidence. And people such as Claude Durrett said, it's probably possible because the air in Tata is quite dense. Again, with the air thickness. Always with the air thickness. I don't understand why the air needs to be thick for this to happen. Because it's too cold otherwise for you to grow an embryo in the open air.

What does air thick, what does it mean? Because the air gets thinner as you go up a mountain. And that makes it, you can't have lambs? I don't get it. I don't understand. No, me neither. But people still carried on looking for it even into the 1600s uh jans jansun strauss he was taken in and he bragged about buying some skins of it oh yeah yeah did they not look like lamb skins because that's the key quality they need to have to definitely be lamb skins yeah he paid quite a lot for them it seems then in 1683 dr engelbrecht kampfer he searched all over tartar it and just found ordinary sheep

every one of these is like you're just making it up i know know. It was just a big list of people who went looking for it with a ridiculous name and found either sheep or plants, but ne'er the twain. And then it was Humbert Candlewax. Then it was Simon Pibblepinks. Erasmus Darwin. Is that really one of them? He didn't go looking for it.

He just wrote a poem about it. Oh, all right. Fair enough. But the thing, the problem was, around this time, there started to show up lots of little ferns that had been shaped to represent a dog. And people thought this was examples of the vegetable lamb. And it includes an illustration of this. And we'll try and put it on Twitter or on the website or something.

It looks very much like a poo. Do you remember the old crisps French fries? Yes, I remember French fries. A maize crisp in the vein of a square watsit. If the watsit was penne, this is the tagliatelle. Yeah, it looks like some of them stuck in a poo. And in 1715

John Bell travelled Persia and while he was there he searched for it and, again, just found bushes. But what's that behind the bush? A different bush. Put it on the list. He's got an unusually normal name for somebody searching for it. John Bell. Yeah.

His middle name not like John Genghis Khan Bell or something. John Adolph Bell. And Sir Hans Sloane and Dr Brain. Dr Brain, I've only just read it because it's spelt B-R-E-Y-N and said it out loud. And I've just realised it's called Dr Brain. Come into my room, Dr Brain. I have much to discuss.

What is it, Hans Sloane? We have the same voice, yes. Brain, I have much to discuss. What is it, Hans Sloan? We have the same voice, yes. Both same voice. They exhibited a lot of these models that turned out to be made out of ferns from New Zealand that have been fashioned by people in China, apparently. Wow, think of the carbon footprint. And of what seemed like such ethical foodstuff.

I think I'm still visualising poos with watsits stuck in. Is that what this is? That's basically what these... Some of these look more... Had been better fashioned into looking like dogs. But basically, it was people in China were trying to make these ferns look like dogs, and people in Europe thought they looked like sheep,

and that they were a real thing. I don't know who's more to blame in that. No, it's people in Europe for being idiots. That's who it is. Yeah. And basically, it all turns out that it was people just misunderstanding the cotton plant. Oh, the cotton plant. Yeah.

It's basically from the 1100s in Europe, in Northern Europe, we didn't have cotton. And then they started interacting with people who did have cotton and seeing this. And I guess we, in Northern Europe at that time, just wore animal pelts. Yeah, if that. So when we saw someone wearing this thing, we were like, what's that? And they're like, it comes from a plant. And it goes, must be an animal on a plant. It's very rare that our stories ever have an actual explanation for what happened.

And that's why they call it cotton wool. Is it? I think so, yeah. Mic drop. I was about to drop my mic. Because it's wool of a lamb, but it's cotton. They think it's called cotton wool. Is that your mic drop?

Yeah, I've dropped the mic now. Honourable mention for barnacle geese. From the Western Islands of Scotland. The vegetable lamb with support from barnacle geese it was just a barnacle that had a little feathery growth and then loads of people started saying that they'd opened them up and there were definitely geese in there and they were just lying right then are you ready to score me i am ready to score you yes i'm ready to be scored i've been very impressed with this.

I don't know if it's a story. It's a mythical creature, isn't it? Yeah. I like him. The vegetable lamb. The vegetable lamb. Yeah, he's not ostentatious. No.

Like, as you say, you know, your unicorns, the big boys. He doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't do anything. He just eats all the food around him and then dies. Very much like me at Christmas. I eat all the food I can reach, and then I wither and die. So what's your first category? Should we just get Supernatural out the way?

I've got a feeling I'm not going to score very well on Supernatural. Yeah, OK, I'll level with you. We've got a problem, because if he's a magical creature, then obviously it's a high score, except that he's described as being a genuine plant that exists yes in the real world yeah and of course if it's biological in nature then it and it's not supernatural is it how does that heart go however i i'm gonna go for a four okay because i think he's super nature it is super nature isn't it it is and nature can be super.

So I think it's not in the strict meaning of the word supernatural, but I think it is a super example of nature. Right, great then. Well then, with that wind pushing my sails or something, I'm going to barrel straight into naming. All right, well, you've pulled an ABK here by just choosing a story that has a list of amazing names. Yes.

The Vegetable Lamb. Blemmies. Baromettes. Sir John Mandeville. Percival Nimble Shanks. Sigismund von Herberstein. Elbow Wheeze. Girolamo Cardano.

And his mortal enemy, Julius Seeger Scaliger. Jans Jansun Strauss. On bass. I mean, they just sound like a Belgian jazz band. It's so good. Dr. Engelbrecht Kempfer. On maracas. Dr. Erasmus Darwin.

John Bell. Nope. I don't know if I can withdraw a full point for John Pol Pot Bell, because there's too many other good names. It's five out of five. It's five out of five. The Barnacle Geese. And the Barnacle Geese.

And, of course, the Barnacle Geese. Yeah. I like that, but in a very sort of sombre tone. Of course, we cannot forget the Barnacle Geese. Who died today. All very grateful to the Barnacle Geese for their sacrifice. It's five out of five, if I haven't said that already. Someone's hammering.

Stop hammering. Again, no hip hop in the podcast, please. Please, hammer. Stop hammering. Is that how it started? Was he just doing a bit of DIY and misunderstood a complaint? Yeah, maybe he just painted something and was like, well, you can't touch this.

So, next category, the vegan dilemma. This is the fish flavoured honey plant. A lamb, a vegetable lamb. Yeah. And he has blood that tastes like honey. And a lot of people don't realise that honey isn't vegan. But it's not because because as we all know bees can actually build small chapels in their own hives yeah they're very intelligent creatures

they deserve a decent wage i once read a vegan pamphlet trying to get people to stop eating honey and a lot of vegan literature is um a bit it's a little bit preaching to the choir very unlikely to persuade a skeptical onlookerlooker. And I think it said something like, over 300 bees are killed or injured every year. And it's all injured that really came to me. I mean, I shouldn't find it that amusing. An injured bee is a horrible thing to see. But I can't help but imagine a sort of Vietnam vet bee

just cursing the honey industry. You would imagine as well if a bee lost a leg they've got five other legs yeah five more mate they've got five more legs and also the number is way too small considering the number of bees that must be involved in honey production like if we've got it down to only 300 bees those it's only 300 bees that are able to claim for their workplace-related injuries. According to the figures put out by Big Honey. If you believe those, honey in itself is a dilemma.

Never mind the honey-flavoured blood of a lamb that's also a marrow. It's like the ultimate, like, you know, how people try and catch out vegans. Do I? People are always trying to leap in at me on the street, jumping out from corners and saying, what about your belt in your shoes? What about the bacteria that makes bread rise? What if you were on a desert island and all they had was a pig and some pineapple?

What would you do? What if the pig was very generous? Yes, so points for Vegan Dilemma for the vegetable lamb of Tartary. It is five out of five. I'm sorry. Would you have a tartar sauce on it? Ooh, is that vegan?

It tasted of fish. What is tartar sauce? I've never had it. Probably got eggs in it, hasn't it? Yeah. I think it's basically mayonnaise with gherkins in it. It's super not vegan. The whole region of Tartar is not vegan.

So five out of five. Final category. Why lie? I five. Final category. Why lie? I really like the category. Why lie? It's just, I just don't. What were people thinking? Why did they make this up?

Why would you make it up? And all the other stuff, like the people with the one-legged people that use their massive foot as an umbrella. If you were going to evolve an umbrella, you'd evolve it from your head or shoulders. The feet area is the last place you want an umbrella. Why would you evolve an umbrella? Why not evolve a wheel? Or a second leg.

A caterpillar track. Yeah, I would have been putting all my effort into becoming a biped, not getting accessories. Let me get the rain off, and then I'll be able to concentrate. Oh, well, maybe we could evolve a second leg if it wasn't for this bloody rain. And now they're like, well, I don't need a second leg, because it's not raining that much.

Yeah, I can't go anywhere anyway while I'm using the umbrella. It's either hop around, get wet, or sit in a puddle, getting just your foot wet. And there's the shruggy, chesty-faced guys. That's not true. Yeah, the blemmies. The blemmies. I don't think that's really the proper pronunciation, but it's how I'm going with it. It sounds a little bit like moo-ies.

It makes me think of moo-ies. Yes. Careful. Sorry. Moo-ie warning. Moo-ie warning. It sounds a little bit like movies. It makes me think of movies. Yes. Careful. Sorry. Movie warning. Movie warning. We're all locked in our houses. We don't want to incite movie madness.

Do you know the story of where Nike trainers come from originally? No, I know that it's a Greek god or goddess. But Nike trainers, a trainer guy, went to Japan and saw these particular brand of trainers, the Onitsuka Tigers. And he just bought them, bought shiploads of them. I said shiploads, you don't need to bleep that. And got them shipped over to America and just changed the logo. And those were the first Nikes, like Cortez, and started selling them as Nikes.

And just presumed that, you know, the world wouldn't get to a place where that would get found out no one else was going to see trainers in japan so we could just import them and rebadge them and sell them on really how we were talking about before about how like celebrities do did adverts abroad like in in areas like japan because they were like well the media there stays there it's not gonna affect my brand yes in other countries like you say cluny only does stuff outside of america but now with the internet everyone can see those adverts everyone can see that tommy lee jones is the face of coffee in japan and yeah like these people were like oh how was your holiday oh it was mad i saw some people with no heads on holiday where'd you go tata have you been there no right. Right. There's these plants.

They grow lambs. Why lie? I had a friend who lived in the same cul-de-sac as me when I was a kid. And he said his dad was a cowboy. Yeah. But his dad was an insurance salesman. And also they had ghosts in their shed. But I wasn't allowed to go in the shed to see them. But there were three.

And I think the ghosts were also cowboys possibly members of his posse who had uh followed him or he double crossed yeah now i think about it perhaps but i you know i didn't see any of them yeah a friend of mine told me about a lad at his school who used to say that his dad his dad had a jaguar that had ataris in the back seats the jaguar car sorry i need to explain the jaguar is a type of car a friend of mine uh was late and claimed that he had fallen in a hole and had his leg bitten by a crocodile over the scrambles not the scrambles you and i know the scrambles can be a rough place but it's not known for many crocodiles but we do know you want to stay out of the stream

yeah if you're anywhere near sherbourne i think it's five out of five for for why lie i don't know if it's just the uh the glow of lockdown i don't know if it's uh just the warmth of your presence james but i'm feeling very generous it's another five out of five brilliant oh that's i'm i'm happy with that i'll take those scores plant them in a little ground put a little water on it yeah you can grow yourself some more scores, some new numbers. Score plant. Ooh, a delicious citrus three. Yeah.

I suppose most vegetables are noughts and ones, though. You can get some gourds that are shaped like an eight. Ah, yes. Or infinity. Or infinity, which is the biggest number. Infinite gourds. If you've listened to our podcast, infinite gourds, where we ask, what if there were loads more gourds?

No, no, no. More than that. If there were an infinite number of gourds, maybe one of them would have a lamb in it. Definitely. If it were infinite, it would have to. It would have everything. There'd be a gourd that you could use as an MP3 player.

My gourd's got an Atari in the back. I think we'd better stop before gourd madness takes over. Before we give away many more of our money-making ideas. Yep. Gourd almighty. Definitely stop now. Stop a few seconds ago. That was it.

That was the point. Yep. Under no circumstances leave that in the podcast. So it turned out it was cotton all along, James. Yeah, not dust this time. What a twist. Fluff. Fluff. You've been listening to Lawmen.

If you enjoy this podcast, you can subscribe, you can leave us a review, give us a tweet, or if you're feeling super, super generous, you could sling us a few quid on coffee.com. What's coming up next week, James? Next week, we rachel fairburn from the all killer no filler podcast and we have got a bunch of cornish legends that was a cornish i will let the When I was doing the research, I forgot my amazing book, The Book of Imaginary Beings, by the famous Argentinian writer, whose name I've only ever seen written down, I've never heard anyone say out loud.

In fact, I can't ask for it in bookshops, because I'm that unconfident in his name. Georges Louis Borges. I'm not playing you wrong, but I think it's Jorge Luis Borges, but I do not know either. I also am a British white man. Basically, his first name, J-O-R-G-E,

and his last name, B-O-R-G-E-S. Yeah. Is he like Sean bean in s he's very much the the sean bean of um what is he a magical realist yeah i think so of course there's a entry on the baromets in this and most of it i think we covered but there is one little bit that reminded me of another area of the podcast he says in describing the baromets being a mixture of animal and vegetables oh yeah whereas most other monsters are a mixture of two different animals so it's kind of unique in that sense and he said it brings to mind the mandrake because it cries out like a man when it's ripped

from the earth which reminded me of the mistake i made a couple of episodes ago about yep and also in the time since we recorded this episode i thought of the ultimate vegan quandary yeah the vegan dilemma pig hitler if you could go back in time and kill pig hit piglet hitler because you know that piglet hitler is going to become a grown-up pig hitler no it's a problem i think i would kill him but not eat him i don't think i would eat hitler under any circumstances what a waste