Oh What A Time... - #31 Myths (Part 2)

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! Can you hear that sound? It's the sound of illusions getting shattered!.. Because this week we're discussing Myths! Such as: that the Welsh discovered America! That there are witches riding brooms! Plus, the truth behind Robin Hood! And the Oh What A Time: Full Timers will this week get a the bonus bit on: the Loch Ness Monster! Are you fuming that we're categorically denying that the Welsh discovered America? Have you, in fact, seen the loch ness monster? Are you a witch with a broom? Please do get in touch with the show on this or anything else: [e-mail] If you want both parts in one piece with the bonus bit of history, why not become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). We'll see you next week! Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Of the many national myths that exist in Britain, none is more compelling and timeless than the story of the Lincoln green-clad outlaw and popular folk hero, Tom Crane. No, I mean Robin Hood. So Robin Hood, right? What do we know about him? Let's just spill our guts on what we know about Robin Hood. Okay, so in the cartoon sense, and maybe metaphorically,

he's a fox, he's canny. He was a fox. He's good with a bow and arrow. He's got mates, like the Merry Men, Little John. He loves Maid Marian. Enjoyed a pair of leggings. He always gets around in. First to the bar, Robin Hood, in my experience.

Don't worry, I'll get him in. Robin! Robin! Magnus! Bottle of! He would drink Magnus. I think he would. I think he's a cider man. Yeah.

Or a real ale campaigner. Yeah, yeah. When you imagine Robin Hood, do you see Kevin Costner? Are you seeing Kevin Costner in Prince of Wales? Yes, that is what I'm seeing, yeah, yeah. For the American accent. No, because he didn't even attempt to change his Canadian accent. Right.

That passed me by completely. So I sadly, well, not sadly, I either think of the Fox or I think of the kids' TV show written by Tony Robinson. Yeah. So that's what I think. Well, we may be about to find out, Ellis, that Robin Hood was actually Canadian. This might be part of Chris's research.

Well, he did have some things in common with Kevin Costner. He was attractive. Robin Hood is the leading man. In the stories we tell about him, he's the one guaranteed to make a swoon. He's often portrayed as an aristocrat rather than a commoner these days. But in the medieval period, he was always a yeoman, part of the middling part of society. that's how i imagine him that's what that's what those that's the stories that i yeah like the everyman yeah exactly that's what i thought yeah so he had more

in common with ordinary folk of the land than kings or king's men or malicious officials of the state or dare i say members of parliament he was a man's man. And the story goes, Robin of Loxley, his full name, he's got his band of merry men. We touched on a few there. I'll add Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, like I say, so on. He battles against Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. We know of his romantic quest for Maid Marian. We know of his fealty to the rightful. And the just king, of course. Remember the just king that he's trying to get back on the throne? and the just king of course remember the just king that he's trying to get back on the throne yeah richard the lionheart there you go so actually these are all elements of the kind of medieval romance that was told the story that was told with a bit of victorian reinvention

layered on top of that with some classic hollywood kind of imagination and why do we love robin hood because his great mission mission from the very beginning, was to steal from the rich and give to the poor. But why does this take hold in England so much? Because this is how we as English people feel about ourselves. This is the invention of the tradition. We wanted to tell a story that told us something about ourselves. English people consider they have, I'd say I agree with this, a firm belief in justice, fair play, the rule of the law,

rather than arbitrary action or the vanity of those who pretend to rule. Alan Rickman. Would you agree? Yeah. So do you not think Robin Hood, the story, it tells us a lot about ourselves. I think that is the kind of English psyche, isn't it?

I also think Robin Hood, the story, is a great story to tell kids because I'd forgotten this actually, but until I had children, I'd forgotten how, especially young kids, sharing is such a huge part of a young child's upbringing. Yes. Like teachers and nursery school workers are always on at kids to,

nursery assistants and stuff, are always on at kids to share. And so Robin Hood, it kind of does that for you, doesn't it? You stole from the rich and he gave to the poor. I think that's a lovely message to instil in your children. Slightly more hardcore than sharing. Like, steal from the teacher. The teacher's going to have a big old box of biscuits under her desk in nursery.

Steal it and share it out. Steal from Miss Davis the teacher with a bow and arrow. And then everyone in cuckoo class gets a biscuit. Steal from the headmaster and share to the teaching assistant. That's all you want to do. That is the... The story of Robin Hood is don't trust anyone in authority. Trickle down economics.

Exactly. Don't trust anyone. Okay, now enjoy your day at nursery. See you in the sandpit. And in the three-year-old. Do not trust authority. Apart from us. I don't care what Miss April tells you, do not trust authority. Apart from us. I don't care what Miss April

tells you, do not trust her. She is an establishment stooge. And I know that she's 22 and she's just in her PGC, but she is an establishment stooge. Yeah, so Robin Hood is kind of unique among the myths of this island.

Like, when we turn, like, old mythology and stories we tell each other in England, tends to pertain to kind of royal figures, royal heroes, kings, queens. But Robin Hood is the everyman. He is everyone. He is one of us, a commoner. The mythology of Robin Hood actually begins in the 14th century. That's when you can trace the story of Robin Hood back to. Interestingly, in the wake of the Peasants' Revolt and the Black Death,

events which were to permanently remake English society and bring an end to feudalism. And actually, the film Robin Hood, the cartoon, was my introduction as a youth into feudalism, and I would also say taxation. You know, the little mice in the churches. I didn't really know what tax was until I watched Robin Hood, the cartoon, the little mice having a go.

Oh, please, sir. A friend of mine, her dad was doing a history degree at Oxford in the 60s and he enjoyed his time at university and he got to his finals and there was a question on feudalism and he hadn't revised feudalism. And he was like, oh, fuck. And then he remembered the cartoon and was like, I think I can blank this. What, Robin Hood?

Yeah. He was like, I think I can blank this. That's so great. Yeah. I had a little bit of time working in the civil service and my boss once took me out for lunch and he refused to tip the waiter and said this quote that sticks in my head.

He said, I don't tip. It's the last bastion of a feudal society. That stuck with me. Come on, mate. Come on, mate. She's a 21-year-old student from Madrid. She's trying to pay her rent.

Pay her 12.5% on top, will you? You fucking prick. It's the last remnants of feudalism, if you tip. That's what that is. So is that where you picked up that behaviour from, Chris? I've noticed that. You repeat that quote that's where you were saying that when we remember a drink a couple of months ago i was surprised to see

when daryl our historian plucks and myths because i know a little bit of the story of robin hood and i thought that there was a consensus that maybe he wasn't a myth and there was actually a guy. And I knew this name, Robert Hod. Have we heard this? It lived in the 13th century. And he was an outlaw. He was declared an outlaw when his belongings were confiscated by a court in lieu of money he owed to the church. So it's really unlikely he was the real Robin, or indeed that anyone was Robin Hood. I mean, Robert Hod was Robert Hod of York and he was never a bandit. So it's read, I mean, it's almost certain that there is no Robin Hood. To find someone...

I felt a genuine drop of disappointment there. I felt genuinely quite sad about that. Crane, this episode is about myths. Yes, I know, but I was hoping that... I'm deep into the myth section on Robin Hood. So, bloody, that nice fox in tights who gave money to poor people is based on a load of old bollocks. Come on! I was clicking onto the hope.

You were going to say, this is where the myth comes from. But actually, none of that's... Obviously, none of that's true. There's nothing. But there is this one person that inspired the myth. I was hoping there'd be someone, at least, back in the day, who did something similar where the story came from. Robert Hodd, for me, was the main contender,

but it's almost certain it was reverse engineered. We were going out trying to find a real person to be Robin Hood, but there are no records that suggest that he was him. And there's no records that... There's no hard evidence Robin Hood existed. It's almost certainly a myth. But in a weird way... Hang on, I think I can turn this into a positive.

In a weird way, Robin Hood is much more powerful that he didn't exist because he's a figment of our imagination. You're going to bloody tell me the Welsh didn't discover America in a second. Wait till you get to the bonus bit on the Loch Ness Monster. Yeah, Robin Hood is a more powerful thing, isn't he? He's a myth that tells us about, you know, he's a story handed down through the generations that tells us more about ourselves.

The way we remember Robin Hood now, as we've touched on, the cartoon Fox. The cinematic Robin Hood, not only is there Kevin Costner in the 1930s, there were the likes of Errol Flynn, who for a long time was the popular kind of how people imagined Robin Hood. And when the 1930s, I think the film was released in 1938, and that message in that film was about kind of tyranny.

And you have to see that film within the context of the Nazi oppression, obviously being released in 1938, tyranny rampaging through the continent, evil Prince John played by Claude Rains, a sinister goatee. It's not hard to read what was actually going on there and who the kind of evil Prince John represented. You talk about Robin Hood there as taking me back to my childhood when I didn't have a television. And I would say I made three long bows a month.

I did not say this. It's not a lie. I was constantly making long bows. And I would use bamboo cane as the arrow and yeah, constantly making long bows. They obviously didn't survive enough because I was constantly having to make longbows. If I was making longbows of any quality, one longbow would see you through the year, but that wasn't the case.

That's not a lie. I'd say I was making three longbows a month. You know, longbowmen in medieval armies, when they find their skeletons, they can tell that they were longbowmen because their spines and shoulders are deformed. That's what Crane looks like. People think he's got

scoliosis. But he's actually, it's a history of making longbows because he didn't have a telly. His mum and dad had bought a telly in 1980. He'd have an absolutely perfect spine. I've got a terrible, terrible posture but I can kill a field mouse from 300 metres.

Get it in the eye. That's too much detail. I'm sorry. But yeah. Did you not make longbows? That can't just have been me. I've never made a longbow in my life. You were watching telly.

Yeah. I was indoors watching Robin Hood. Yeah, that is the difference, isn't it? It's not a skill I've used either as I've got older. So now Robin Hood is a global social phenomenon. Most people in the Western world would know who Robin Hood is. And not only that, he's got an airport named after him. Oh, yes, of course.

And also, I can't help but think that he's inspired a whole... He's kind of like the first superhero in a weird way. He's got some things in common with Batman. He's an outlaw, but only by injustice, not by crime. He tries to right wrongs. He's a socialist. He wore tights. Steals the rich, give the poor.

Wore tights. He doesn't kill unless in self-defence. What's that? He doesn't kill except in self-defence or to's that? He doesn't kill except in self-defence or to exact revenge for the original injustice. He's part of the community. Robin Hood and Meyer supported, celebrated by the community. He dies by treason or betrayal.

Again, these are tropes from comic books, aren't they, really? Yeah. He's theoretically kind of invulnerable within their community. He's like Sherwood Forrest and the locals kind of defending him. And he's a true enemy of oppression. These are like, he could be in the Marvel universe. It's quite interesting that he has named characters around him as well, which is quite a rare thing

for these characters who are part of myth and legend. Normally they're soul figures, aren't they really? But he has Friar Tuck, he has all these different people around him. Which I suppose also speaks to the value in him, his main drive, which is to look after others, the community and all this sort of stuff. So it kind of makes sense. Well, you had Batman, Robin, Alfred.

That's true. Joker. Back in the day, it was mainly, it would be soul, you know, lone soldiers fighting their way or whatever. But yeah, it's fascinating. I am i know although this is an episode on myth i am sort of slightly heartbroken that it doesn't yeah i'm a bit sad actually well look i think i might have found a modern version of the of the myth of robin hood you know robin hood is a man out there in the communities an individual campaigner standing up for what is right in the kind of middle of England, standing apart from this tyranny of politicians.

Yes, Swampy. There's your modern Robin Hood. There you go, he's back again. Swampy would hate me saying this. Comfortable up a tree as well. All roads lead to Swampy. Comfortable up a tree. Let's not forget that. That's quite a key one.

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Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash businessplatinum. visit amex.ca slash business platinum okay i am going to talk to you about witches and their brooms and the truth of where the stories related to witches flying around on brooms came from okay um first, were there any myths or legends when you were younger that sort of used to scare you? Were there any things that used to sort of worry you? Yeah, the idea of a load of black and white cows

really struggling in the heat of America. You could hear poor sobs. I would be looking out my window at a load of black and white Friesian cows and thinking to myself, they're in the right place here. So would you have nightmares where you're out there having to run around

with a hand fan cooling them down what was it yeah this is a climate they can cope with yeah what about you Chris

stuff that used to scare you my mother's parents were quite religious they had one of those holy waters by the door you know as you go in

you get flicked for holy water when you went round and my nan once told me that, have you ever heard this? If you stick a chair in the corner of the room,

in the night, the devil will sit on it. Oh, yeah, no thanks. How is that helpful? Is she saying that to a child? Well, I, even to this day, if I'm in a hotel

or something like that and there's a chair in the corner of the room, I'll turn off the lights, I'll get into bed and I'll think, oh, oh no. That's like, I can tell you, deeply, deeply scarring that memory. If you put a chair in the corner of my bedroom, it will be covered in clothes within about a day. So good luck to the devil if he turns up.

He's going to have to sort of fold things up. We've got a chair in our bedroom and if the devil's sitting on it, he's very tidy. He's very good at replacing clothes in exactly the place they were left before I turn the light off at night.

I genuinely keep saying to Claire that we need to get rid of this chair because it's just, it attracts, like a moth to a light, it attracts clothes at the end of it. Not in a sort of, we're tossing our clothes off in a sexy way, I can't wait to get undressed.

I mean, it just simply, everything gets dumped there and you end up with this massive pile in the corner around what was once a chair. There's a chair under it somewhere. I'll text you a photo of our clothes chair. Okay you wouldn't mind but yeah we've all got one so i'm going to talk to you as i say about witches and their broomsticks and where the truth lies so it's not actually this is quite this is of all the facts i've found on this show strap in for the most underwhelming sentence you've ever heard.

It's not exactly known when the broom was first invented. Okay? I don't know if that's a problem for you, but that's the truth. People don't really know when the broom was invented. But interestingly, historians do know that housework was a ball lake before that point. Historians can be sure about that. They can, however, they can, however, trace the act of sweeping, it gets more interesting, trust me, back to ancient times. So when people used to, as you talk about thin brooms back there, they

used to use bunches of thin sticks, reeds and natural fibres to sort of sweep dust away from the hearth. And this is mentioned in the New Testament. So they know that brooms in some form were around there. Any broom fans out there, you can be confident that in the first century AD, brooms were knocking around in some kind of form. As a broom fan, I can guarantee they would have been crap brooms. Yeah. The sticks would have been, the little bits,

the reeds would have too far apart wouldn't they yeah exactly if you got like dirt like dusty floor forget it yeah that's the earliest sort of reference to brooms the earliest depiction however of a witch flying on a broom there's a leap dates to 1451 so in 1451 there were two illustrations that appeared in a book by the french poet martin la franque, who wrote a manuscript called Le Champion de Dame, The Defender of Ladies. And in this picture, both of the witches are wearing headscarves that identify them as Waldensians, who were a member of a Christian sect that was founded in the 12th century, who were then branded as heretics by the Catholic

Church, partly because they allowed women to become priests. However... Hang on. What year was that? 1451? So that's in 1451. So that's 41 years before Columbus lied about discovering America then. Yeah. We'd already discovered it, mate. It was a brogue from Gweneve. Exactly. However, the link between witches and brooms is not believed to be a Christian one, but in fact a pagan link in origin.

And it had its roots in particular rituals. Now, would you like to guess what these rituals were? What were the pagan rituals that were linking the brooms to the witch? What do you think these might have been? I don't know. Is this something to do with cleanliness and cleanliness being next to the church? No, that's a good guess, but it's not that. It's not about driving things out the house or spirits, all that sort of stuff. Any guesses, Chris? Is it something like stirring a big pot at a reach? Not a bad guess either. Well, it actually dates back to a point where witches were considered valuable parts of pagan communities. So their knowledge of the natural world was relied upon to, as you say, mix medicines, cast out evil spirits, deliver babies, help cops go,

and all this sort of thing. But the key reason is they would encourage a healthy harvest by straddling a broom and then bounding through the fields. And they believed that the year's crops would grow. Theresa May's study. Yeah, exactly. She's a witch what a twist how was this

I thought that was Thatcher how did the Labour Party not grab hold of this as more of their angle come on Miliband so what would happen is they get on the broom they go out to the field

and they believe that the height the highest height that they jumped to would be the height that the field and they believe that the height, the highest height that they jump to would be the height that the crops would grow to that year. Now, I know people believe, I like to imagine if I was

watching that happen, I'd be thinking on some certain level, there has to be a better way than this. I reckon even 1400 Ellis or 1500 Ellis would be too cynical. Yeah. I'd be like, fuck ellies or 1,500 ellies would be too cynical. Yeah. I'd be like, fuck off, bollocks.

How high do you think the crops are growing if you're leaping on a brook? I don't think I could get that high off the ground. I think you're looking at maybe a two-foot crop. Yeah. I think that's generous. Maybe double the height of a carrot. I'm just surprised that witches were kind of a celebrated part of society because not far after that, you're persecuted.

And there's a thing, you know, like, do you ever have these fears that are completely unrealistic? Like, I was worried about first conscription when I was younger. Yeah, me too. I was worried about conscription. And I was really worried about being accused of being a witch because it seemed so unfair how they would figure it out. Wasn't it like you'd get dunked and if you floated,

you were a witch and you're getting killed, and if you sunk to the bottom, you drowned anyway? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't a great deal. Yeah. You weren't... It wasn't a good place to be. Very much lose-lose.

So you've been fined by the FA and your club. lose so you've been fined by the fa and your club however this isn't the only link between witches and broomsticks so you talk about the tide turning in the way people viewed witches now during the time of the witch hunts and of course there was this turn uh when they were starting to rise in popularity across europe something else happened, this is absolutely mad, that cemented this link between witches and brooms, okay? And the myth around it. But this is genuinely true. This is what happened.

During that time, people were eating loads of bread, okay? People loved bread. They just constantly ate bread. And at that time, bread was made primarily from rye, which was commonly affected with a disease back then called ergot, which was caused by a fungus. And as a result, many people unknowingly consumed this fungus, thinking it was part of the rye plant.

Now, what's important about this is that ergot has hallucinogenic properties. It had like an LSD type high. So imagine how much of that would be affecting your day now if your toast has the same qualities as after now. It's like acid toast, yeah. Oh my God. How do you think that's affecting your ability to parent? Imagine sending the kids to school

after they've had that acid toast and jam. I'd be heavily pushing the Rice Krispies. Wow, that's absolutely changed... That's blown my mind, that. Yeah. I've often thought that, like, because when you go back to, like, Aztec cultures and they're drinking kind of these poisoned psychedelic drinks.

Yeah, and ayahuasca and stuff like that. I never realised that was happening here. Why have we got so many crazy myths and stories at this time? Absolutely. For a long period it's happening. And unsurprisingly, because drugs are famously moorish, we've seen it, people liked this effect and began experimenting with it,

using other plants with similar qualities, including henbane, mandrake, deadly nightshade, all these sort of things. Oh, my God. He's addicted to toast. Toast. All of which, Jonathan Weyer, a Dutch physician and occultist, named his ingredients in a concoction called Witch's Flying Ointment.

However, there were some nasty side effects to these hallucinogens. When eaten, they cause rashes, nausea, vomiting, even death. Okay, so would you care to guess what people did that was broom-related and drug-related to help with this situation that when they ate these things, it made them sick? How did the broom come into this? This is going to disgust me, I think.

It's pretty, yeah. You know, lick it or something. Stick it down to disgust me I think. It's pretty yeah. You know like lick it or something stick it down your throat. Oh God. So they realised that there are other ways

to enjoy the witch's brew besides eating it. Namely absorbing the drugs through the skin. And the best way to do this

was through the delicate mucous membranes under the armpits or for women the genitals. And without wanting to be too crude about it, women who wish to use these drugs, there was an obvious way and a convenient way to take those drugs.

They would dip the broom in the potion, then straddle the broom, and then sort of ride it around the room. And according to accounts, as the drugs quickly began to take effect, riding the broom became even more fun, is the way that it's described and according to jonathan vea the aforementioned dutch physician when this flying ointment was applied to the genital areas it produced a sensation of rising into the air and flying and then after that stories came that witches are using this as a way to get off the ground to meet the devil and all these sort of things and the stories grew and span and become darker and darker but the truth is

it was a way that women were taking these hallucinogens and the feeling of flying came from the fact they were really high and sitting on a pole. Wow do you know what though in my lifetime there have been quite a few moral panics about various different drugs, actually. And I think ecstasy was a big one. I do remember ecstasy, the moral panic around ecstasy in the sort of late 80s. And I think it's very common for columnists in newspapers to claim that, like, drug abuse or the misuse of drugs is a very, very modern phenomenon. People have liked to get out of their heads for thousands of years. It's actually very, very common.

Absolutely. To want to alter your state and alter your consciousness. I'd never heard of that. That's incredible. Of course. People have done that for time immemorial. Be it alcohol or be it sap from a tree or plants or whatever it happens to be,

it's always been this drive, I suppose. There's often a spiritual link to it as well, if you look at... Yes, of course, yeah. ...societies around the world. But yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? It's a bit obvious what you're doing if you're going upstairs with the broom, I suppose. You sweeping up there?

Yeah. Yes. And some deadly nightshade come on all right thank you for listening this week this has been myths but there is a

fourth part it's the myth that I was particularly obsessed with as a kid the Loch Ness monster you can support the show becoming an oh what a full-timer get the Loch Ness Monster. You can support the show, become an Oh What A

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We'll see you shortly. Bye. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. Goodbye. Thank you.