Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep21: Loremen S5Ep21 - The Panther, The Partridge and The Whale with Amy Jeffs

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

This episode is a veritable bestiary! Meet an egg-thieving bird, an aquatic prankster and a big cat that's just a bit much. Amy Jeffs returns to the podcast, with a raft of early medieval legends and (frankly) way more research than the guests normally bring. These are the legends of the panther, the partridge and Iasconius ... the whale who pretended to be an island. Join us for another Loremen Live in Oxford on 25th May: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/loremen-podccast/ This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. The graphic for this episode is from a wood engraving by Amy Jeffs, from her book Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): 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

We're all built a little differently, and that includes our feet. Hi, I'm Sean from New Balance Toronto, and we know everyone has uniquely shaped feet, which is why New Balance shoes come in widths from narrow to extra wide. Our fit specialists are trained to measure and scan your feet to determine the proper size, width, and level of support for your perfect fit. Don't just guess, get the right shoes the first time. New Balance Toronto, your neighborhood fit specialist for over 24 years. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore.

I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And whoa there, weary traveller. Rest a while. Rest all, rest everything. I've got multiple tales for you and, James. Yeah? I've got a deputy guest lawperson. There are so, so much facts and research in this episode, James. Mm-hmm. It's gonna knock your little jerkin off, your little medieval jerkin.

Good, because it's starting to smell. Yeah, it's about, I mean, you do not wash it. I had to become self-washing like a dreadlock or child. Well, this, James, is the tale of the panther, the partridge and the whale with Amy Jeff, whose new book, Wild, is out now in the good old US of America. Ooh, America, eh? Psst. Yes. James.

James Shakeshaft. Yes. Alistair. Alistair Beckett. Come over here. Yeah. Come closer. He's found me. I don't know how, but he's found me. James. Hi. Yeah. Oh, hi there. I'm not going to beat around the bush. Okay. There isn't time. Right. We've got a guest law person here in this closet. Excellent. It's Amy Jeffs returning to the podcast. Hello, time. Right. We've got a guest law person here in this closet. Excellent. It's Amy Jeffs returning to the podcast.

Hello, Amy. Hi. Are you also whispering? I thought we were in a closet. Let's get out of the secret little hiding space. Yes. Into a normal room. How are you, Amy?

I'm really well, thank you so much for having me back deliberately. Welcome back. We did have you back deliberately. The tone that you've said that in implies that it was a mistake, but we definitely did do it deliberately. Amy's a common name. I just wanted to be sure. Well, no, it definitely is a mistake.

So you're back. Now, since we last spoke, you appear to have written another book. I'm sure there hasn't been enough time, but I've got it in my hands. So you definitely did it. Yes, it was that I'd written them both when we last spoke and they'd both been out for over a year. Oh, I see. I see. But this one has just come out in America,

which is why she's instigated a flurry of publicity, which is why we've been in touch. That makes sense. Because on the back of the copy I've got here, it says it's $27.99 in dollars. And it said, and you used the word humour, as in the humours of the copy I've got here, it says it's $27.99 in dollars. Dollar. And it said, and you used the word humour as in the humours of the body with no U in it.

And I was like, and then I looked on the back and it said, I don't understand. 36.99 Canadian dollars. You don't say 0.99. No. 36 Canadian dollars.

Just round it up. I tend to to so you use humor in the tense as in the four humors like greek style and that still loses the u i didn't i wouldn't have expected that because it's an old it's an old word referring to an old thing so i would have thought yeah it's not like four jokes like the four humors like they're called kinds of jokes that's a sketch troupe that harmonise really well. Like the three stooges. Yes, but they... Or they're big. They tell a punchline, I tell a punchline, and I do the feed.

Oh, that's beautiful. That's like Shere Khan. James has an excellent deep bass baritone. Yes. Regular listeners will know. Yes. So the book I'm talking about i should say its name it's conventional in these situations is wild tales from early medieval britain by

amy jeffs hello hello i i am halfway through your your book i can i can show you the the the bookmark halfway through that is proof yeah proof can't argue with that and you can't argue with the bookmark what is the bookmark is it a bespoke bookmark or is it an improvised bookmark from a receipt or note it's a receipt how did you know james it's a receipt um from the wimbledon sewing machine company which sounds like a receipt sherlock holmes would find i don't remember exactly who the murderer is now. Wait a minute. How many sewing machines have you bought that you've lost track of where you bought them? I'm not on trial here.

No further questions. This is one of my many sewing machine receipts. How do you launder money? I buy overpriced sewing machines. And sew notes into your clothes. Yeah, and then put them in the washing machine. That's really clever. It seems a bit elaborate, actually. I think you can then put them in the washing machine. That's really clever. Seems a bit elaborate, actually.

I think you can just put them in the washing machine. That's what they do on Ozark. I'm going to watch that. I don't watch that. Is it good? Oh, it's awful. I mean, it's really good, but it's so, so sick. Is it the Jason Bateman one?

Yeah, I remember names. He's Teen Wolf 2. Arrested Development Challenge. I was much more on the ground with the sewing He's Teen Wolf 2. Arrested Development, James. I was much more on the ground with the sewing machine receipt. Teen Wolf 2. Yeah, he's Teen Wolf 2. He's Michael J. Fox's cousin in Teen Wolf 2. I don't think anyone apart from you has seen Teen Wolf 2, James.

You'll be telling me you've not seen Grease 2 next. I don't think I've seen Grease. There's a lot of nipples. I'm not on trial here. Nipples. In Grease 2. Grease nipples. People who are on trial here. Nipples. In Grease 2? Grease nipples. People who are listening to the bonus material will know why.

Grease was a potential segue into the... Where does the parlour go? That got too deep, even for me. I would say, of half of the book that I've read, it's quite dark, some of it. There's people buried alive and there's a there's a sad shambling grendel um why why why are you trying to make the reader sad amy why why would you do that i think this is the problem is that you're only halfway

through so is it going to cheer up there's meant to be a kind of upward trajectory with a bit of a dip in the fight. It says, you know how, so yeah, the chapters are structured. Earth, ocean, forest, beast, fen, catastrophe, paradise. I mean, catastrophe is a bit of a... I'm a bit nervous about catastrophe, I have to be honest. But then the idea is that you use the nadir as a kind of trampoline to get into the final chapter, which I'm hoping is a real message. It has a kind of trampoline to get into the final chapter which i'm hoping is a real a real uh message it has a sort of hopeful message my grandmother thought it was miserable but i think

it's the love i have to give what is your grandmother now loads she's 89 oh dear oh dear well i'm sure it's good in broad terms i think it's, I find that sort of stuff very beautiful. I think there's, and there's actually something about what is, what is hopelessness in the context of making something beautiful, even if the beautiful thing hope why would you make something beautiful and so all of these the poems and the artifacts and the prose texts that i base the stories in wild on and the reflections in wild on are i think and actually kind of objectively very finely and beautifully crafted things made with if it's in the case of texts, very carefully woven meter and verse form. And in the case of objects, carefully inlaid garnets or carved whale's bone, the stories that come out of these things are quite dark and they reflect on themes of the transience of life, the collapse of civilization, mortality, doom, all these all these things and yet yet they are made to last forever or they're made to be beautiful and to be delighted in and so i think there's a

a kind of intrinsic hope to these things i can relate to that because i am a fan of the band smashing pumpkins and it's just as pretty much the same as that i think i can imagine the the teens the mopey emo teens of the early medieval period in their bedrooms and their parents say you you're not reading old english poetry in there are you like you understand that's it isn't it except it was it would be like Brother Benedict in his cell and the abbot being like, you're not reading the Exeter book in there, are you? Quickly folding it away.

I don't know if they had beds to hide things under, whatever they had, just to roll on the floor. They must have had a bed, come on. They're monks, they're not animals. What are they going to do, lead against the wall? There's a Life of Saint Mungo by Jocelyn of Furness, I think, so circa 1200, where it describes, so it's trying to explain to,

St. Mungo's also known as St. Kentagon, but it's trying to tell the reader just how holy he is. And it says that every night he gets out of his bed, which is like a grave scraped out of the earth. Oh, this guy's holy. These people were just got is holy these people were just goths they were just goths let's be honest none of them were holy they were all just yes the reason he gets out of his hollow stone grave is to go and stand in the river whatever the weather and say the songs what ah that is just come on that's a bit much that mungo yeah i know

it's really funny it's such a funny it's actually for my next book i'm talking i talk about saying mungo in it it's just the most hilarious quotation from jocelyn's um life of mungo where it talks about how he he would do this like nightly ritual so that he would never stain the lily white of his genitals. With what? Or is it just... Lust. Oh, okay. Black breeze. A familiar R from James.

Ah, yes, lust. Ah, yes. Did anyone ask him to do this? It'd be a weird request. Did he come up with it by himself? Was everyone like, why are you doing it, St. Mungo? Or not even St. Mungo, Mr. Mungo. I think it might have been something to do with a lack of deserts in Britain. And so needing to find remote alternatives, kind of gruelling alternatives to sand and heat.

So am I right in thinking, your book is called Wild, Amy so am i right in thinking your book is called wild amy am i right in thinking that you've got a story of a monster i do for us yes yes i want to tell readers about a creature known in the old english poem which is now known as the whale which is a bit not enough as faster to calon oh great name faster to calon yes or aspidocalone oh my word now i've got the book in front of me here and i i've got that word and i was really hoping you were going to say it before i had to say it aspidocalone i've never actually heard anyone else say it. So I could be saying something very, yeah, I could be getting it wrong. It could be Aspidochilone, but probably isn't. Aspidochilone.

I think it's probably pronounced like pasta. It's actually kind of pasta, yeah. It's got to be aloney at the end. Amy, tell me about this fastititocolo. How am I saying that? Fastiticalon. I mean, that's how I saying that? Fastitucalon. I mean, that's how I say it. Fastitucalon.

It's not fastitucolon because that's something else. This isn't really a story, Alistair. It's more like an anecdote about what the whale is. Is that okay? Yeah. In the Exeter book, which is this big compendium of old English poems that was made in the late 10th century and given to the Bishop of Exeter, Leofric, who then gave it to Exeter Cathedral on his death.

And it has been there ever since, since 1072. It has been in Exeter Cathedral and it's still there. It's still there now. Can you go and find it? You can go and see it once a year. I believe they tend to get it out in December and put it on display. And occasionally it makes it to fancy exhibitions yes and they put sparklers all over it and um

it's really dangerous but the kids like it the extra book is this compendium of poems there's ones about saints there are some 95 old english riddles some of them very obscene some of them very beautiful can you share one of the obscene riddles i'm sorry to cut in yeah is there an obscene riddle you can there is there is shall i google it so i get it right because i've done a sort of chinese whispers with myself or i've got a really obscene riddle but i'm not sure if that's anything like the original go ahead and google we'll simply edit the typing out is it the two nuns in the car one when the when the and the car one with the when the and the vampire jumps on the vampire that's my favorite it's my favorite joke okay okay right

you can hear this one i'll do a little bit of the old english just because it's fun oh yes please i am a wondrous creature a joy to women Sorry, this is actually very hard to understand. I'm a wondrous creature, a joy to women, a help to neighbours. I harm none of the city dwellers except for my killer. Okay, this is where it gets naughty. My base is steep and high. I stand in a bed, shaggy somewhere beneath. Sometime ventures the very beautiful daughter of a churl,

a maid proud in mind. That's modblonk meawula. So that she grabs hold of me, that hail on the meggripith, rubs me to redness, ravages my head, forces me into a fastness. Immediately she feels my meeting,

the one who confines me, the curly-locked woman, the weefwundenlock, Well, I mean, this is not so much a riddle as just a... It is actually. No, what do you reckon the answer is? Well, it's a whiffy. It can't... No, I don't think it is. I think we're being tricked. What could it be? Something that stands up high in a bed is Harriet. It's base brings tears to the eyes. Well, it depends who's,

I suppose. Regret. I mean, the fact is there's actually none of the solutions are given in the book. So you may be right. It might just be a, a single entendre. If that's a thing.

It does. What is it? Well, the consensus is that it's an onion. An onion. My base is steep and high. I stand in a bed, i.e. an onion bed. Oh, right. Shaggy somewhere beneath.

So that's the roots. And then the gull is a servant gull. Grabs hold of me. Rubs me to redness and ravages my head seems a little maybe a beetroot no because

could be a red onion perhaps that's true could be yeah takes the skin off do they have red onions then well maybe all the onions were red

I don't think we had red onions till the late 90s in my experience yeah then that's why her eyes are watering is because there's an onion oh because it's an onion because of the onions so that's one of the rude the rude riddles but there are there are other very beautiful ones um that aren't well don't seem but the answer to them is um so where am i going with this so riddles and then in and among the riddles there are these

beautiful elegies which is what i focus on in wild mostly which kind of describe very wild environments alongside a kind of very uh a very dramatic psychological situation or but the then there are also these animal poems and one of them is known as the whale in the book they don't have titles at the end of my book wild i a scholar called george young has offered some new translations of these poems including one for the whale and he really characterizes the way he they're they're great translations in the sense that they are faithful to the old english george teaches old english but they also um they also kind of capture the spirit of the poem and this this poem is is really um you've got this kind of this

creature that is is monstrous and massive and has this this uh trick that it plays so it's it says that it has uh the semblance of an island on its back you know there are the kind of mountains and rivers and it's very convincing and it pushes its back above the water and it sits in wait. And then when sailors come by on their boats, they see the island, they think it's a safe haven. And so they dock their boats and they make a fire and they set up their camp. And as soon as the heat of the fire touches the whale's skin, it dives to the abyss and it drags the sailors with it. dives to the abyss and it drags the sailors with it and then the poem explains that so too the devil will pose as a safe haven and lure unwitting souls to make camp on that haven and then drag them to hell. This creature, although here it's being used in the context of a Christian allegory,

has very ancient roots inreek animal law including a text called the physiologus from the second century a.d or c.e and in that it's called the the animal's called the asp turtle it's not a a whale it's a kind of mythic beast with its own strange name in the old english version in the exeter book it's called it says some call me faster to calon i don't know where that comes from maybe uh somebody out there does in the voyage of saint brendan which is which is a ninth century so a lot of the poems in the exeter book although it's an 11th and 10th century manuscript they may well be quite a bit older they are written in some different slightly different dialects and they seem to be collected from a variety of contexts there's also an an irish latin text called the voyage of saint brendan i thought he was australia assumed he was australian

yeah saint brendan it does seem to you about some some guys out on the land the voyage of saint brendan there is there is one that yeah i think they're out more than on a lash. They're on some kind of psychedelic trip because they go to such strange islands, ones where there are these really big sheep. Is St. Brendan the guy who sailed west from Ireland and encountered a lot of weird islands? Yes. Ah.

It's very late Beatles. You know, he says he sees at one point in the text they see a column of crystal in the sea another time they look out of their boats and all the fish are swimming in circles nose to tail they stop at one island where there's vines that bear grapes that each grape can feed one of the monks for three days that's um that's yeah that sounds like a grapefruit because the grapes are really filling up because they're massive or they're gross i i got always enough you've had one you don't want to wait for three

days it's so sweet this text because it was probably written by an irish monk and you get this um i i was studied when i was an undergraduate i was taught um we translated sections of the voyager saint brendan with um medieval latin a a medieval Latin lecturer in Cambridge, Professor Rosalind Love. And she had such an intimate knowledge of the text and she really loved the way that the author seems really fixated on food. And she had this, I believe, I don't think I'm misremembering this, this image of this half-starved Irish monk dreaming of all of these scenarios. And there's one where the brothers,

and the brothers that Brendan goes with are just really comic in their own right. They run into one monastery that they found on this island, Conalacratas, with great alacrity, with alacrity they kept running off. It's just this lovely image of them, all this little pod of monks. And it says they were welcomed by the brothers at the monastery

and they dined on roots of remarkable sweetness. I can just see the abbot banging on the monk's door. Are you thinking about remarkably sweet roots in there? It's just like, I just want a parsnip. A delicious parsnip. I'm thinking about onions. I know what that means. Yes.

I mean, maybe it's all an allegory. So, okay, so in the voyage of saint brendan they come across an island and uh the brothers connor lacritas jump on off the boat and start making camp on the island and brendan's very smugly stance stays in the boat and he's like you just wait which i think is doesn't cast him in a very good light that he he sees that something's up but but doesn't warn the others. He just goes, no, I'm good. I'll just stay in the boat.

No, you set a fire. You enjoy yourself. Relax. It's like really, it's quite bad parenting. I'll just tidy up the boat a bit. I suppose they've got to learn. Well, I suppose, and I do actually, you know, as much as, I think that's possibly what the text is trying to say is that as the abbot, he must allow his brothers to stray and to sit, you know, to exercise their free will.

But he's a shepherd to them. To be seduced by the sexy world of being a woman. Of an island. There's a really lovely illustration. of being on an island there's a really lovely illustration i can't remember what the manuscript is now but of of brendan standing and watching the uh the monks on the whale's back and there's just it just looks for every you know for all the world like a whale a whale's back you can't believe that they've got confused and it sounds like a far side there's just like one little tree like slightly romanesque trees not even a good one, you know.

Guys, that's not a tree and that's not the whale's back. It's the whale's onion. There's another, I've got the book open here. There's another phrase describing a whale as the king of terror, which I didn't realise when I read it, but that was that was the name on is that is that from the frank's casket frank it is which is yes like not a guy called frank augustus franks i just jumped in there because thank you james that's frank's nice casket it made me realize i guess if you if you're i don't know bobbing about in a little coracle in the 10th century,

I guess whales were quite frightening. I'm not the first of the great writers to notice that, but whales are quite frightening. Yeah, I think there's also this issue of when something has such rich allegorical potential, even if you came up against the real thing and it sort of washed up onto a beach at your feet, you still would go, yeah, but I bet there's a bigger one out there with an island on its back yeah this is probably one of the baby ones yeah no the frank's casket's an amazing object it's named after augustus franks who was a collector at the british museum who acquired it the museum in the

19th century it's just it's frank's casket. Frank's casket. Isn't it? It's just one of those, it's a pretentious apostrophe is what it is. It was being used by a family in Auzon in France as a sewing box. It turned out to be an eighth century, they think, whale's bone casket. It carved with scenes from Germanic, biblical and classical legends, myths. Is that scrimshaw? Is that the correct word for that? I'll take your word for it.

That's lovely. Lovely word. I think scrimshaw is the word for whalebone carvings. If nobody wants to contradict me going once, go into a scrimshaw. Is the name for that. That's so interesting. I'm always very conscious to say whale's bone

because I believe whale bone is the sort of mouth mesh they have for catching plankton. Oh, so it say whale's bone because i believe whale bone is the um the sort of mouth mesh they have for catching plankton oh so it's whale's bone another apostrophe situation there it's like frank's casket all over again i should say the full quote that i was reading there is not just the king of terror it says and this is from your book the king of terror became sad when he swam onto the shingle whale's bone. So it sounds like a beach whale was the source of the casket itself. Is that the idea? Yes, I think that's what it does. The term king of terror is, I believe, a kenning.

It's a bit of a funny one because kennings in Old Norse and Old English poetry are where the sea or the ocean is referred to as the whale's road oh that is lovely the sky is the swan's path that sort of thing yeah so it's it's it's obliquely um bring bring the the viewer around or the reader around to understanding that this is a box made out of a out of a whale and that's um or of whale's bone and possibly a whale that was beached on off the coast of northumbria that's um or of whale's bone and possibly a whale that was beached on off the coast of northumbria that's sort of the working theory and it's such that's such an interesting idea because the uh very the famous biblical story about a whale is is the story of

jonah and the whale where jonah gets trapped in its belly for three days and to make a casket out of whale's bone is a sort of maybe a kind of um object pun on on that idea there are also the scenes that are depicted on it include the story of the impregnation of beada hilled by the the germanic goldsmith wayland there's also the adoration of the magi with the virgin and child and the child kind of sitting in a in a sort of halo on the virgin's lap then there's romulus and remus being suckled by the she-wolf and there's also a strange unidentified probably germanic legend of somebody in inside a burial mound or on or kind of inside a funeral pyre it's hard hard to tell so there seems to be themes of of in wombament and entombment it sounded like you would describe in one of the love island people's tattoo sleeves

to be honest i need to look for the patterns yeah i well for me i feel as though there's something in quite a strong theme of um of motherhood and but then also strange inversions of it like the idea of jonah being in the belly of the whale what the way at the whale's its mum his mum is he because he's rebuilt is he reborn yes yes and it's but i mean it's a it's a type it's what in the middle ages they thought of as a type for the resurrection so there were moments in the old testament that prefigured moments in the new and they were called upon as uh demonstrations of how the new testament fulfilled the old oh as george lucas would say it's like a poem it rhymes i think that's what he said um which actually brings us quite nicely to um so another one of the other animal poems which i

think we were wanting to discuss what is the panther that's that's in the exeter book and there's this wonderful description of a panther, nothing like what we, nothing like Bagheera, let's say, where it's a creature that lives in a far off plateau, beautiful plateau where all of the trees are forever in bloom and no rain falls from the sky. It just bubbles up from the ground. And the panther itself is rainbow coloured.

It's iridescent. It's not black or spotty. And it goes into a cave and sleeps for three days. And on the third day, it wakes up and it comes outside and it does a huge kind of yawn and breathes this incredibly fragrant breath over everything. And all of the creatures flock to it. That's very much not like what i'm like i'm the opposite of that this is a morning person yes yeah it's a real um really nauseating to be around if you're if you're not oh it's like the other animals just like gee yeah you're just too far too cheerful um and so stop whistling how can you even whistle? You've got lips. And so the poem explains that the panther is like Christ

who, after sleeping for three days in the tomb, rises from death and is so glorious that it's impossible not to rush to him. The partridge is another one. So there's the three animal poems, the partridge, the panther and the whale whale which really sounds like the kind of the cabbage the rabbit and the fox getting across the river doesn't it yeah i have to say that the the partridge is not really pulling his weight in terms of epic animals panther is giant big cat yes whale absolutely it's better

be a pretty clever partridge well i i think there should be a kind of um a kind of evil off between the partridge and the whale oh is it an evil partridge i can't believe the partridge is a villain unexpected you clearly never met a partridge this is very much this the um it's the the first draft of lion the witch and the wardrobe at the moment for me the partridge the whale the panther and the partridge. Yeah. So it tells us that the partridge has this habit of stealing other birds' eggs and incubating them.

What? Reverse cuckoo? Yes. Not really expecting. That's frowned upon in bird culture. If they had eyebrows, they would frown they're all eyebrows really in a way the feathers oh i see not really the whole bird is an eyebrow yes one big eyebrow so it hatches other birds out under its belly and then those birds must spend their lives trying to

find their true parents and so so two we are hatched out under the devil and we must find our way back to god i'm not sure the partridge is that bad it looks after the eggs and then the ungrateful adopted eggs hatch and wander off what does it use the birds for does it just steal it for the for the shiggles or does it like get the birds to do its bidding the other birds or does it just do it to mess with the birds out of sheer devilry that's true i mean it doesn't actually they don't invest much in the vilification of the partridge it's sort of bad enough that it's nicked the eggs what is this egg thieving partridges i mean what would you rather would you rather be kidnapped this is different from having adoptive parents. This is about being kidnapped at birth.

Yes. So would you rather be kidnapped at birth by a kidnapper? Go on. And then sort of discover through your life that they're not your real parents, but that they're keeping you hostage and you have to get away, which is what the partridge is doing. Or would you rather think something's really nice and turn out it was actually the way to damnation and eternal

suffering which is what i guess the partridge is dragging you towards as well i guess the partridge just does it faster no the whale does it faster yeah i was gonna say being dragged to hell by a whale i can visualize that being dragged to hell by a whale i can visualize that being dragged to hell by a partridge i think i'd have a fighting chance there is another third terrible option which is having to spend eternity with a mourning person yeah christ is the ultimate mourning person isn't he i think in any context yeah no wonder you're chipper you've been asleep for three days. Yeah, I mean... Other people have to work, Jesus.

Yes. The seven sleepers of Ephesus were asleep for over 300 years. They were really, really perky. But basically, I think the partridge is more insidious than the whale. The whale's got this one thing it does quite quickly. You go, oh, look, a nice island. Oh, glug, glug glug glug down to the abyss you could argue that the whale is protecting itself because it feels a fire on its back and

it's like i'm going to get away from this yeah water is the best thing to quench a fire and to heal a burn exactly whereas the partridge it's it's a slow slow process it's more like a psychological bullying than the physical bullying which is because it doesn't have the strength that the whale has to be physically threatening. I'm really going to be taking a second look at any partridges I come across. I'm first going to need to look at what a partridge actually looks like because I don't think I know. It's really going to transform the 12 days of Christmas for you, isn't it? Yeah, at the end of the 12 days of Christmas, it'll now cut to a close-up of the partridge.

I like that. These aren't pears. I'm going to raise this pear to think it's my child. No, damn you, evil partridge! So, yeah, that's the animal stories well thank you amy for those three terror equally terrifying all of them equally extraordinary not one of them not a bit rubbish and bird monsters fantastical creatures thank you you're very very welcome the part the evil evil partridge the part partridge. Let us, let us score. I'm trying to say this in the most monastic way possible.

Let we three holy men lay scores upon. This is just sounding really dodgy. Your legend. I don't know how to talk like a monk from olden times. All right, James, are you ready to score this? Yes. Prithee, come to me like a monk from olden times. All right, James, are you ready to score this? Yes. Prithee, come to me for the vittles of scores that I have. Roots of remarkable sweetness.

Ooh, delicious. Ooh, nice. Ooh, ooh, give me one of those. Yes, great. Ooh, delicious. Like a balloon, like the size and texture of a balloon. Yeah, it'd be really hard to get into. Yeah, you'd have to do it in one go as well.

You couldn't have half of a giant grape. Like you do with those big watermelons. It'd go manky. Yeah, oh no. You'd at least have to cling film it a bit to try and keep it, but no. Okay, what's your first category? Well, Amy, I think we should go with the category of naming because there are some fantastic names in this story.

There are some pretty good names in there. Some bonus names in this story there were some pretty good names in there some bonus names as well so what have we got we've got fast fast i say fast it's a calon that's it okay let's call the whole thing off what other names were there were definitely a lot of good names for whales there was aspidocalone aspidocalone so yeah that was also in uh the voyage of saint brendan i didn't mention but i was trying i was intending to get there but i uh i strayed um it's the whale is called the asconius i think that's how it's pronounced i'm not really sure because um it sounds like a latin it's a latinized word but it probably comes from the irish for fish so that's that's the kind of irish uh answer to aspidocalone so is that i'm reading this here i ask or yask is the old irish for fish

so when we're saying i ask you you're actually actually saying fish you. But we'd have to invite an Irish-speaking listener to let us know what the SC sound is. Oh, yeah. It's probably... It feels like it's got the makings of an ice cream for ice cream. Right, I ask for fish. I ask onius. I ask onion.

Frank's casket. What are you doing with my casket over here? I've engraved... I've done some pretty cool engravings. We had Beardahild. Beardahild. There was Weyland, Romulus and Remus, obviously. Okay, so this is great.

And I think it would be a disservice not to give it five out of five because they are words that I've never heard. Well, I feel lulled into a false sense of security and very confident as we move forward um i mean i think for a second category we should probably go with supernatural supernatural cool so what have we had whales dragging to the abyss i mean does it so that that's not a supernatural thing i don't think whales are whales are big. But with islands on their backs, you know, mythical whales. Yeah, an island.

Explain that, James. How could a whale have a back? But what about the idea of the abyss, you know, as being a physical place, but also hell at the same time? What about this notion of the other world that the whale encapsulate? And it can travel between it at the flick of a tail. And Jonah was in a whale's belly for three days and that didn't happen.

That can't have happened. That just didn't happen. So that's supernatural. Pinocchio barely managed a day. What else have we covered? The panther with the really fragrant breath. Does that kind of look like the water bubbling up? Yeah, but how could a panther smell nice?

Morning breath being fragrant. Yeah, that is supernatural. That's supernatural, yeah. breath does that kind of water bubbling up yeah how could a panther smell nice morning breath being fragrant yeah that is impossible that's supernatural yeah i love the idea of rain just just coming out the ground a little bit that is as a curly haired man that is wonderful and um and the evil the most evil creature of all, the partridge. Yes, the most dangerous game. The most sinister, foul, the foulest of beasts, the partridge. Yeah, that is the biggest trick that the partridge ever pulled, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

It was convincing the world it was just hanging out in a pear tree. It wasn't after your eggs. Yeah, okay. I'm feeling a bit nervous now, james noticed that whales were just animals i feel like we lost a little bit of momentum when he remembered that they were real were they the king of terror king of terror the king of the king of terror is a great name but they are pretty scary whales the archbishop of nervousness um that's probably the partridge the burgermeister of what i'm gonna push you for a score there james as we inevitably tighten the whales are scary but they are real. As are partridges. He's saying it again, Amy.

He's saying it again. Why is it real? You've got a rainbow panther, which is like, you know, if you were playing as the panther and you held down X on the character select screen, you get rainbow version, which I like. So I'm going to go for a three. A three, okay, all right.

But I am going to give these partridges a second look now. Yeah, a wide, wide book. I think you're not allowing your imagination to have free reign. And with that scathing assessment of James, let's move on to the next category. And I propose that category three be called, from here on out, having a whale of a time. Oh, yes.

Do you remember Brendan and the lads? Yeah. Oh, the l oh yes do you remember brendan oh the lads yeah oh the lads do you remember them was he laughing down his monk's sleeve uh when they went off to the island yeah yeah light a fire lad yeah yeah why don't you light a fire he was breaking yeah breaking the fourth wall looking back at the reader go why don't you go and have a little look in that hole over there just what just watching cracking a can of fosters he's not australian i forgot he's irish cracking a can of fosters um because australians don't drink fosters famously yeah according to all australians i'm sorry australians the panther sounds like it's smuggling having a whale of a time and the evil evil partridge the beached whale the king of terror who died on the uh on the beach probably not having no time but he was a whale the

um servant girl in the riddle who picks the onion who gets to eat a whole onion yeah having a whale of a time with that onion which is almost as good as having a giant right but where if it's not an onion like in the version where it isn't an onion i think she is having a whale of a time with that onion. Which is almost as good as having a giant grape. But if it's not an onion, like in the version where it isn't an onion, I think she is having a whale of a time. Yeah. And I think the onion's having a whale of a time if it's not an onion, if you know what I mean. It's putting a spring in its spring onion step.

Spring onion, yeah. Now that I think about it, it's a very odd phrase. I've never looked at a whale and thought, he's enjoying himself. They're not a particularly expressive animal. They've got such tiny eyes. It's a very odd phrase for having a fun time. The dolphins look like they're having a laugh. Oh, dolphins are having a whale of a time.

We should be saying having a dolphin of a time, having a porpoise of a time. Yes. But then again, those people who enjoy themselves, they're about to have very much the opposite of a whale of a time. Although the only thing they would now know is a whale. So they would be having a whale all the time. It just gets whale-ier and whale-ier down the road.

Do you think the partridge has a whale of a time stealing the other bird's eggs? I just don't understand its motivation. It must be getting something out of it. What's its plan? Maybe is it compelled to do it? I don't know how partridges continue the species. It's like step one, steal another bird's eggs and hatch them.

Step two, question mark. Step three, profit. It's like that meme. But I suppose that they get diabolical breeding dispensation or something. They can't even steeple their fingers, but maybe they could steeple their feathers like fingers, in a cartoon they are just big hands they are just hands wings are just big hands wings are just big hands just another classic james shakeshaft sentence i think one for the ages wings are just big hands they are when you think about it

having a whale of a time they're everyone here involved apart from the victims, are having whales of time. So I'm going to go for a four because we have to bear in mind those poor sailors. Out of respect for the victims, fair enough. The unnamed victims of the big island whale. Did any of St Brendan's friends make it back to the boat? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they all did. Oh, they did? Okay.

Some of them don't make it back from the journey, though. What? How come? Because they find a lovely place to live, a farm,. Oh, they did? Okay. Some of them don't make it back from the journey, though. What? How come? Because they find a lovely place to live, a farm, where they're free to monk around? No, there's one island which is like a volcano and there's all sorts of terrifying things coming out of it. And I think, you know, sometimes with the Voyager St. Brendan, I think I've remembered a story

and then it might actually be a nightmare or a dream but I believe one of the monks gets whisked off into the belly of the volcano because he was harboring secret sin that he hadn't confessed oh no yeah and monks are not supposed to get whisked off that's definitely I don't know what they're allowed to do, but they're not allowed to do that. No. Speaking of final category names, Knowing Your Onions. Oh, very nice. That's the category because I think you'll agree that Amy knows her onions. Mm-hmm. Yeah?

Yes. And I'm not just saying that because sometimes we have guests on who don't know anything and have done no research at all. Chris Cantrell, yeah. We are naming no names. Yeah. But Amy knows her onions, but also in the riddle, the author of the riddle. Yeah, we now know about those onions. Mmm.

Got a double meaning there. The roots of remarkable sweetness in The Voyage of St. Brendan might have been accompanied by onions. Yes, I would think so. Because onions are quite sweet. And they're roots. I mean, they're bulbs, I suppose. Onions are very sugary.

There's a lot of sugar in onions. Oh, if you cook them like I do, they get lovely and sweet. Do you caramelise, James? Oh, caramelise. For the Australian listeners, I caramelise my onions. Like you wouldn't believe. How long does that take? Caramelisation to about 20 minutes.

20? Because I saw an argument on Twitter. you know the way sometimes you'll see an argument about something you have no opinion on and it'll be so heated someone was like it takes an hour to caramelize onions if if it's not taking you an hour you are burning those onions it depends how many onion years you've got and people in the quote tweets were like he's right and he should say it and other people were like but i saw when i saw the picture of the guy trying to caramelize onions that took like three hours it was like 15 onions in one pound it's like so many and it's like french onion soup type caramelization yeah exactly like an entire like a sack of onions yeah of course that's going to take an hour how many people

are you trying to feed with these onions also when you're crying about something else chop onions just to take advantage of the tears yeah i mean that's a good tip that is a good idea that's a 1970s drama that's a real good life kind of thing that would happen though yeah so it's like well i'm crying anyway so i might as well get all the onions chopped now. That's like a sad life hack. Most of the life hacks are a little bit more upbeat than that one. It's just efficient. That's actually my grandmother's wisdom, by the way, about crying.

If you're crying already, chop onions. We'll just come back to her. As somebody who thought my book was depressing, it's actually a bit bloody rich. Was she like, oh, the book was great, I've made four gallons of onion soup. Well, I think we've all proved that with your life hack, me as an expert on scoring, it's got to be a five.

It's a five. Yes. It's a five. Scratch that into the parchment. Into the partridge, I thought you were going to say. Scratch that into a partridge. It deserves it. Five out of five thank you james absolutely uh well deserved he earned yeah thank you um amy before we go thank you for being a

deputy guest law person would you like to give wild a plug especially for our american listeners i would love to we haven't alienated with our accents and general uh insults quite a lot of insults and politeness well no no the american's incredibly polite no but we're probably just we just beat around the bush more don't we it's a prevaricating which also has a really interesting etymology but i won't go into that um so wild is uh is out in the states as of the 6th of february it's an exploration of an old idea of the wilderness through the lens of early medieval literature and art, especially from Britain and Northwestern Europe.

It's illustrated with wood engravings and it's been absolutely gorgeously produced by Andrews MacMill with lashings of copper foil. You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but it has got a really good cover. I guess the people publishing haven't heard that saying. It's all shiny. It looks so good.

It's not like the whale. Trust it. Ah, yes. It's not going to drag you to the abyss. But don't light a fire on it. Don't light a fire on it. It's got one. It's got this lovely copper foil

and it will take you through oceans, forests, beasts, fens, catastrophe and into paradise where there are iridescent panthers and all kinds of wonders in store. Shiny panthers, evil pastures, just the usual. Thank you very much, Amy. Thank you so much. Thanks for helping us,

Amy. Thank you very much to Deputy Lawperson Amy Jeffs. Yeah, I learned loads. I learned loads. Oh, and a thank you to the law folk that joined us at the Leicester Comedy Festival. Thank you. No thank you to the cruel listeners who stayed away. Well, but thank you to the neither cruel nor kind that stayed away and watched it on youtube yeah they're okay in my there is another chance to see us live coming up soon in oxford on the 25th of may 2024 2024 we'll pop a link down below we probably will won't we another thank you to joe for editing this

cheers joe thanks joe oh and if you want to Law Folk, go to patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod, where you can join the Law Folk Discord and get access to bonus episodes and now ad-free episodes. Ooh. I have to say, that was a horrifying and bizarre story. But when you said Northern spain in my head i was picturing yorkshire but spanish yeah northern i was like oh yeah i know what northern

has sounded like oh spain just the same i'm just the same i've just brought some bullfighting in there it's just like it's a paella but it's it's in a yorkshire massive yorkshire pudding they don't have decent yorkshire paellas down south