Loremen Podcast - Xmas Pig 2024 with Icy Sedgwick!

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Xmas Pig, everyone! Icy Sedgwick brings us a creepy pig themed tale, which the eagle-minded listener will recognise as being part of the Amityville Horror mythos. What a scary old pig! This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Choose one of five eligible charities up to $500,000 in total contributions. I see you familiar with Christmas Pig. Should we tell you what a Christmas Pig is? I mean, I've got the episode saved on my podcast episode and I still haven't listened to them yet. So I think to be honest, if you want the true origin of Christmas Pig, I think it's the Jesus in Glastonbury episode, which we did at Christmas time because that is, of course, Jesus's birthday. And somehow into that, I brought up a few other stories from the Southwest

area. I think what happened is we were trying to do a Christmas special and what you had found was quite a lot of stories about pigs that you tried to fold into the spirit of the season. Of course, Christmas pig. Every year we wish one another Christmas pig and tell a poor sign Christmas tale. So as the pig alarm is going off. It's a curly little tale.

If you've got anything pig or pig related, that's great. It does not need to involve Christmas time. The pig would more lean into the pig element. It does involve snow. Oh, snow can happen at Christmas. While we're on Christmas and before you reveal your pig, I say. Go on. Before the pig is revealed, that famous Christmas pig tradition.

Yes. The revealing of the pig. But you want to get a little bit of chat in first. You don't want to just go straight into, there it is. I was reading William Brockie's book, Legends and Superstitions of the County of Durham, from 1886, I think. And I can't make sense of this. I see maybe you can because you really know your stuff. James, maybe this will make some sense to you. He describes a tradition whereby on Christmas Eve, I'm reading here, each child hangs up one of its stockings in a place where it can easily be reached. Tell me if I'm going too

quickly if this is too weird and difficult to understand for you. I like the non-gendering of the children, but I fear it is a little bit harsh. They could have gone with that. Each child hangs one of its stockings. That's true. Yeah, that's an unusual pronoun there. That is what it says. It's one of its stockings. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. That's an unusual pronoun there. That is what it says. It's one of its stockings in a place where it can, it, the stocking can easily be reached. In order that Santa Cruz may come into the bedroom during the night. Santa Cruz.

That sounds like Father Christmas is cool American cousin. Well, yeah, like Penelope or Tom. I was thinking I wouldn't want Tom Cruise coming in my bedroom at night. Well, you can't look him in the eyes. So it's very awkward. He insists. Although he meant it's because I'm taller than him. He is the sort of person who would know when you're sleeping and know when you're awake.

He's got people for that. Yeah, he's got that Noel Edmonds quality about him. So William Brockie describes Santa Claus, but he describes him as Santa Cruz, which he translates as the Holy Cross, which is what Santa Cruz means in Latin. Oh, yeah. Santa Cruz may come into the bedroom during the night and deposit some little present in it. And when the child wakens in the morning, sure as fate in the stocking is a Christmas pie, a yule dough, which is a bit of rich paste, rolled out, cut and baked in

the shape of a nice little baby, with currants for eyes. What the? A packet of figs, raisins, bullets. What? An orange, a ball, a top. A little bee sweet. Yeah, you had black bullets when you were a kid, James, did you? For Christmas?

Only for Christmas. Or some other article brought by the mysterious nocturnal visitor who has come with light and gentle steps while the children were fast asleep, like a pig might. But I can't understand where Santa, obviously it's impossible to search online because Santa Cruz just brings up the city Santa Cruz. I've never heard Santa Claus being, Sinterklaas being referred to as Santa Cruz. It's just, has he made a mistake? Or is this a parallel etymology for Santa Claus? I've literally never come across that before.

It's so weird. And he's describing it as if this isn't the practice across the whole of Europe. I don't know. It just seems like a really involved thing to do to make like a little pastry baby. I mean, I mean, I mean, also, if it's meant to be Jesus, like, are you going to eat the head first or the feet? Like, what's the etiquette? You'd probably dip the feet, although they wouldn't go into anything. Well, can Jesus walk on dips? I don't know if it's too...

It's just fancy water at that point. Yeah, it's mostly water, isn't it? Yeah, how viscous. A nice little baby with currents for eyes. But he's, I mean, Jesus is fine with you eating bits of? Yeah. How viscous. A nice little baby with currents for eyes. Hmm. I mean, Jesus is fine with you eating bits of his body. That's true. That's one of his main things. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He's well up for that. But I mean, I don't want to say that this chap is wrong, but he sounds like he gets a lot of things wrong throughout the story, referring to children's as it's, and then just a random list of things of small things that could feasibly be put into a stocking. Oh, mom, Santa Cruz, Tom Cruise, as bright as me bullets.

Oh, it's me Christmas bullets. I don't know what that accent was. I think he was maybe trying to make his own Christmas merch in this idea. You know, like Mallet's Mallet, this is a very 80s reference, you know, you know, Mallet of Mallet's Mallet was an anthropomorphized hammer. Maybe it's anthropomorphizing the Holy Cross. So like those light footsteps, if you listen carefully, they're not like a tap, tap, they're just a tap, tap as this glowing wooden cross hops into the room and somehow deposits a rich paced version of Jesus in your, in your, in your stocking in its stocking.

It's hard to imagine a character less likeable really than the anthropomorphized mallet from Mallet's mallet. His little brother, the mini mallet. Oh yes. Very much the scrappy do of that situation. I just found an article on Arthuriana.co.uk where they've talked about the idea of hanging up stockings and stockings and what have you, but they're more bothered about trying to compare Santa and Thor. And that's a hammer.

Classic Arthurianna business. I suppose that is the original Mallet's Mallet, isn't it? Yolni or whatever. Yeah, they seem to think that whoever wrote the thing in Doran basically just got the name wrong, and it should have been Santa Claus, which isn't nearly as exciting as Thor. Well, I'm glad that somebody else agrees with me that I think he's just misheard the name. No, it's the cross. It's an anthropomorphized cross. No, it's that fun character I created for kids. A cross that gives bullets. Again, seems inappropriate on Jesus' birthday to be.

It's heavy foreshadowing. Yeah. Wow, that was very Christmassy, Alistair. A fun Christmassy tale. But Icy see can you match that with a with a piggy legend? Well I mean with a pokey whisper. When you mentioned about pigs I'm not going to lie my brain went to one story in particular and that was actually the the demon pig in the story of the Amityville horror and this obviously is supposed to be true. I'm saying true in the massivist, that's not even a word, biggest inverted commas that I can. And so is it folklore, is it urban legend?

Who knows? But the whole concept of, I think, a demon taking the form of a pig, I thought was both amazing and quite funny, and made me think of a pig in a slightly different light as well. So I'm probably going to get sued by M&S now. funny and made me think of Peppa Pig in a slightly different light as well. Probably going to get sued by M&S now. And the whole, the whole point of it was obviously the, the very quick version of the background for the Amityville horror. You've got these murders happen in this house on, ah, I'm sure it's

Ocean Drive, Ocean Avenue. That's it. Not Ocean Drive. Very different kind of film if it was Ocean Drive. And there's these murders committed by Ronald DeFeo of the DeFeo family. And he claims that, I think he hears whispering in the wall or something that makes him do it. And then they can't sell the house because no one wants to live in it because obviously

murders have happened there. And clearly these people have never come across the concept of like homes under the hammer yet, because absolutely somebody would buy that and do it up if it was over here. And then the Lutz family buy it at like a lot of massive knockdown price the following year. And the Lutzes are George Lutz, who's the father and played by James Brewell in the film, or Ryan Reynolds, depending on which version you're looking at. And then you've got his wife, Cathy, which is either Margot Kidder or Melissa George, and then her three children. So George is their stepfather. And the youngest daughter, Missy, starts talking about her friend, Jodie, which in and of itself is quite a normal name to give to an imaginary friend, I think. And Cathy just keeps assuming that Jodie is an imaginary friend.

And then Missy one day corrects her and says, no, no, no, Jodie's real. And the biggest pig you ever saw. Jason Vale Oh, I would have opened with pig. Kathy Fierro Nobody else can see Jodie. So nobody else can verify this. And there's one particular incident where they all go into Missy's bedroom and Jodie's not there. And quite fortunately, Missy's like, oh yeah, no, he's just gone outside. So, you know, that explains why nobody can see him. And then there's a couple of other instances where at one point, I think,

I think they're all in Missy's bedroom and then they happen to look outside the window and this is when Jodie wants to come back inside and there's just these two red fiery eyes at the window staring in at them and Kathy actually panics and I can only assume that Missy must have like small like toy furniture in her room because she basically picks up a chair and throws it at the window, which feels a bit too WWE for my liking, which is why I'm holding them at their toy chairs. So she flings one of that at the windows. The glass obviously smashes as glass has a tendency to do.

There's a squealing and then the eyes disappear. And then the squealing- There's a squealing. The squealing continues all the way across to the boathouse, which they've got on their property. I don't know why I'm pointing. Like you can see where I'm pointing at, but just- Just-

Oh, to the boathouse, yes. And so then there's another point in the account where George goes to check on some weird noises in the boathouse. And when he turns to look back at the house, Missy's in the, I think the bedroom on the top floor and she's at the window like staring down at him. And then there's, you can see this demonic pig behind her, which he then describes as a pig with red eyes. Pretty demonic.

Understandably, George is freaked out by this, but then runs back into the house and up to her room and finds her fast asleep. No sign of a pig in the room, except apparently she's got like a rocking chair, which is rocking by itself, which obviously in horror film sort of parlance is like, here be spooky things. Even more frightening if you imagine an invisible horse on that rocking chair. Or rocking horse. Either way, frightening. And the thing is, like, Jodie doesn't even stick around for the big climax of everything, because I think it's, I want to say it's actually at Christmas that this happens, but there's

like fresh fall of snow and they find these trotter prints out in the snow, which Missy declares is Jodie running away. And that seems to be the end of Jodie. And I just thought that was such a weird thing to decide that your imaginary friend is a pig of all the things you could have chosen in like Long Island. For one thing, it doesn't scream pig country. I could be wrong. And then in the, in the remake of the film, the update this, and it becomes a

little girl and said, which probably makes a little bit more sense, but now I want the biggest pig you ever saw. I did a rocking horse. the update this and it becomes a little girl instead, which probably makes a little bit more sense. But no, it's fun. Now I want the biggest pig you ever saw. I did a rocking horse. I don't want a normal sized girl. I suppose there's biblical precedent. Doesn't Jesus cast evil spirits out into a pig, James? I think that's where ultimate Christmas pig origin comes from.

At that time, Jesus killed them pigs. That's pigception. Because isn't it was a, yeah, wasn't it legion? We are legion for we are many. And then they were popped into some pigs and then the pigs jumped off a cliff. Straight off a cliff. No bother. I think we got it so wrong. And it's like, it wasn't Jesus that did that. It wasn't Jesus. Did we, oh, did we tell that story wrong? I know in this story, there's somebody, I think that George talks about the house,

says that he found this secret room in the basement and believed that at some point in the past people had been sacrificing. I want to say it's either cats or dogs and pigs to use their blood for nefarious reasons because I don't see what positive reasons you would have other than making black pudding I suppose out of blood. And I don't know if they're trying to link Jodie the demon pig with Jodie a sacrifice pig. And I think Jodie tells Missy at one point that they're actually an angel, which would be a bit of a plot twist. Yeah. But yeah, so it's one of the, one of the more dubious things in the entire account. I mean, you know, the whole thing you have to take with a bit of a pinch of salt, but it's a

bit that kind of stands out where it's almost so bizarre. You kind of feel like it has to have some kind of grain of truth to it because you would make up something better otherwise. It certainly sounds like kids say the creepiest things. I suppose. You know what I mean? It seems like the creepy kinds of things kids say. I believe that the child really said, my imaginary friend is a giant pig. Bigger than any pig you've seen. Jason Vale Yeah. And then come Christmas time, snow on the ground. Off she goes. Aidan Pigs gone.

Jason Vale He goes. Jodie's a he, sorry. Jodie I think so, yeah. Aidan I did check on the mJesus story, by the way. And it was Jesus. It was Jesus. Put the things in the pig. Jason Vale There we go. Jesus put things in the pig. This, this just in from the Bible. The pigs rushing to the sea and are drowned. And this is off the Wikipedia, in popular culture. Oh, it's rubbish.

Nope. There's nothing. There's nothing. Any controversies about the pigs there? No. Okay. Wicked. Thank you very much.

I see. Thank you. I see Christmas pig to you. And to you. A very Catholic response there. And also Christmas pig with you.