Oh What A Time... - BONUS EPISODE! 4th Parts from #30 Discoveries and #31 Myths

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Just when you thought it was safe to relax, we surprise you with a bonus episode featuring a couple of excerpts from our legendary 4th part megasode for OWAT: Full Timers - that famous episode which contains multiple never-heard-before on the main feed 4th parts to some of our earlier episodes.Today we’re delighted to present two 4th parts from:#30 Discoveries#31 MythsAnd if you fancy hearing the full 4th part megasode PLUS a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd 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).Hope you enjoy the bonus ep and see you next week!Chris, Tom and Elis xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Hello and welcome to what is a bonus episode of Oh What A Time. Now as our full timers know with an Oh What A Time subscription you get bonus episodes every month and we've been doing this for a long time. So there's a whole archive of bonus Oh What A Time content to be enjoyed and a big part of that content is what we described as a Megasode in the early I'd say probably the first 50 or so episodes of what time there was an extra fourth

part in there and that entire Megasode of all those fourth parts is available as is extra bonus episodes we do two every month there's extra correspondence in there and a lot of book reviews. More recently, we of course reviewed Spy Catcher by Peter Wright. There's another book review coming this month. And also Tom Crane has been reviewing lots of research about life in the Navy. So if you wanna get all those bonus episodes,

you can become a full-timer. But what we've got for you in this special bonus episode is two fourth parts from episode 30 discoveries we've got lots of brand new information to certainly me at least on the Vikings and then from 31 which was myths you're gonna get to hear all about the Loch Ness monster two special fourth parts but don't forget if you want all of those fourth parts, you can become a full timer,

where you also get bonus episodes every month. For all your options on how you can subscribe, you can do that via Wondery Plus or another slice. All you need to do is go to owatertime.com. But enough chat, let's get into it. From discoveries and myths, here are some extra bonus fourth parts. ["The In Crowd"]

Hi to our subscribers. Thank you so much for joining us. Our O'Walter Time full-timers, The In Crowd. So as a final section of today's show, I'm gonna talk to you about a bit more Viking fun, some more Viking discoveries, and more specifically, the discovery of the Vikings arrival in North America. So in the 19th century, there was a revival of interest

in all things to do with Vikings and Scandinavia. Ever since people have poured over the sagas in search of this semi-mythical place called Vinland or Vinland. Are you aware of Vinland either of you? Yes, I am a bit because when you look at Columbus it's quite interesting trying to work out who was there before him. Exactly. And yes, the Welsh have laid a claim. Have they? There's this theory that there was a prince from Gwineather, a thing called Madog, and that he discovered America in the 11 or 1200s. I can't remember. There, a thing called Madog, and that he discovered America in 11 or 12 hundreds,

I can't remember. There is a book, there's a book called the Madog Myth about it actually. Interesting. And my favourite bit of the Madog Myth is that he went over there with a lot of Friesian cows, and that there was a tribe of first American Indians who had ginger hair because they were Welsh and they had lots of stories, ancient myths about black and white cows who couldn't handle the heat and died. And their language is very similar to Welsh. But it's bollocks, but it's a great story. Of all the things to travel half the way around the world with, cows are the herd of cattle

on your boat. Cows that don't like the heat. Exactly. So you're exactly right. Vinland was considered this land of plenty, basically. This is how it's talked about in the Saga. It's a land of wine, it's how I describe it, on the west coast of the Atlantic, to which the Vikings were said to have travelled. But where was it? Because although it was talked about throughout the Viking Sarnagas, nobody could find Vinland. There was no proof of the Vikings landing in North America, and there was no proof of this place

called Vinland. They just couldn't find a place that matches description. And in the absence of any archaeological evidence, scholars were even skeptical as to whether the Vikings had even reached North America. So for years archaeologists searched in vain across the vast area of the eastern seaboard from New England to Nova Scotia onto Quebec, New Brunswick, just searched high and wide, but the soil offered no proof. There was no evidence that the Vikings had made it that far. In the summer of 1960, so this is quite late, 1960, a chap called Helga Ingstad, who was a Norwegian explorer,

traveled to Newfoundland, and I like this, on a hunch. It was just a hunch. You had to explain it to your partner that you're going to North America to see if the Vikings made it there on a hunch. I don North on how that would go down. He did have kids and a family at this point. I just want to make this clear. Just how interesting, how would that go down if you ran that party? Is he also...? Their lives are so different to mine.

How are they getting away with this? I can't relate to it. I just cannot relate to it. You're doing what? Yeah. I play football once a week on a Tuesday evening, which means I miss part of bedtime with the kids and I feel bad about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to North America on a hunch. But also you're not tuning up at Shoreditch Power Leagues on a hunch. No. It is all, you're definitely going to play, there's a game happening.

In full knowledge of my skills. So he was convinced, this is his hunch, he was convinced that rather than Vinland referring to a land of wine, the translation actually should be understood as referring to a place of pasture or meadow, which in mine meant that the search shouldn't just be restricted to a place where grapes should grow, because that was what happened previously. Basically, people have been desperately searching for this land where wine could be cultivated. That's how they'd read the descriptions from the sagas. He thought, no, it could be just a pasture or a meadow. So he

thought the search could continue much further north, in much harsher climates. He suspected if the Viking Greenlanders had indeed sailed west or southwest, then they'd likely have reached Newfoundland or a place called Labrador or maybe even Hudson's Bay. So that's where he started looking. So in 1960, he arrived in Atlantic Canada with his daughter to begin his search. He meets his chap called George Decker, who's a farmer in a largely unknown fishing village called Lance or Meadows which is situated on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. Decker guided Ingstad to some overgrown mounds. Here we go again

if you can remember earlier the mounds, there's a theme here guys, Vikings like mounds and they like sticking things under the mounds. They're mound people. This is my top tip for any archaeologist listening, head to the mounds. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to say if you ever see a mound, there's a Viking under it. Is that too much to say? Are you happy to put me up on that? Wherever you are, if you're in the park, in central London or Birmingham, whatever you're in the park, in central London or Birmingham, whatever, you see any mound, there's definitely a Viking under it.

Yeah. I'll be saying that to my kids now. Viking under there? Dead Viking? Yeah. That's a dead Viking. So he suspected that this earth might be covering Viking longhouses, but without digging he couldn't be certain. So a year later... Can I guess that he didn't have a spade? But he did have a pastry brush. Yeah, and he borrowed a trowel from a stranger.

Well a year later he returned to do this dig and this time, this seems like an oversight, he turns up with a professional archaeologist who is his wife, Anne Sting Ingstad, who took charge of the dig. Now I'm going to say, if she's a professional archaeologist, why wasn't she there on the initial trip? Yes. You're literally married to an archaeologist. Has he gone, oh, wait a second, I do know an archaeologist when he's looking at the mounds. It's my wife. I don't know how you can overlook that if you're an often archaeological hunt. Which of the two of us should go? Me or you, the archaeologist?

Yes, but it was my hunch. Exactly. So in the summer of 1961, they return, the two of them, they hit upon the remains. It's a small group of seven houses with fireplaces, cooking pits, all typical of Viking Greenlanders, and objects were found too, including a wet stone, a spinning stone, knitting needles, an oil lamp, two more houses. Evidence enough that last or meadows was not only settled by Vikings, but by men and women. And this was a genuine community,

which is a thing that just blows my mind. The idea of traveling completely into the unknown, the other side of the world, that harsh, cold Canadian climate, just like 20 of you, and just setting up a new community there and just expanding. I just find that mind blowing, that spirit of adventure. It's incredible. You know, occasionally you'll see on social media, someone will bench press something impressive and they'll say, built different.

They were built different because I cannot imagine a climate harsh enough for me to go, I'm just going to go to the other side of the world, actually. Absolutely. And also, Ellis, we know about what crops and what animals, whatever happens to be, wherever you go in the world now, you know about it. But literally they would have been landing somewhere. They have no idea what lives there, what is out to kill them, what they can eat, nothing. It's complete sort of age of true discovery. Did you just think to yourself, maybe it's better?

And they've got massive rabbits the size of a house that are easy to kill. Hang on, hang on. I would be more scared of a rabbit the size of a house. That's a very good point. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I'd want to go there. Last year, I read a lot of mountaineering books.

I became a bit obsessed with Everest. And the thing I could never really wrap my head around is like, you're taking such a gamble going to somewhere where it's really hard to get decent healthcare if something goes wrong. You fall over and break your leg. You are done for. We've done a lot of mountaineering docs

and social distance sports, and I just watch these documentaries and think what is wrong with you? Yeah, but I mean, you've got more of a chance on those trips than you have going to the other side of the world where you don't know. It's true. You could do it.

It's so mad that the horrible ways you could die. There are like a million different horrible ways to die in that scenario that you just described. Although I would suggest that, Chris, during this period, there wasn't great healthcare anywhere. It didn't really matter where you were. Wherever you break your leg, you're probably screwed. If someone called 999, what?

Exactly. It was at best a bandage put on by someone who's not actually being that sympathetic, with some weird berry rubbed into the wound. So later still, Radio Carbon Dating established a date for this settlement with the latest precise date published in 2021, suggesting around 1021 AD, it was exactly the lifetime of Leif Erikson, whom the sagas named the founder of Vinland. And even more amazingly, it became clear the main function of this settlement was as a boat repair station. Now, the reason that's interesting is it hints at even further onward travel, even wider connectivity between the Viking Greenlanders and North America. And by the end of the 1960s, this chance discovery from a hunch of this

Viking settlement and newfoundland have become widely accepted as a sort of necessary material proof of European arrival in North America hundreds of years prior to our good friend Christopher Columbus. And the village was declared a World Heritage Site in 1978 and remains to this day the only proven Viking community ever found in the Americas. That is amazing. So this one guy, his hunch, his archaeologist wife, and you know, look at this, proof that the Vikings did land in North America. Fair play to him. Hello and welcome to this week's fourth part, which this week is the Loch Ness Monster.

And I don't know if you had this. Do you ever, I think every kid, you know, when you get into like unsolved mysteries, I'm sure this is like ubiquitous. I think everyone, like surely this happens to everyone. But my nan had, used to collect, we used to get Tetley tea bags and the Tetleys at one point had these little cards in every packet of tea with a mystery on. You remember this? Yes, I remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she would collect me all these little mystery cards. And this is where the Loch Ness Monster came into my life in a pre-internet age. All these little mystery cards that I'd read.

I think kids love unexplained mysteries because the ego of a child means you think, well I'm going to solve it then. Yes. I'll get to the bottom of this. Absolutely. And also I think I was also obsessed with the Loch Ness monster because there was a renewed interest in it in the late 80s, early 90s. I think some millionaire dredged Loch Ness and said, this is the, finally, I'm going to, I'm going to put this to bed. I'm going to discover it. And it was a massive new story. And I think one of the reasons is so comparing

to children is that children like my, I've seen, I've seen my kids, both my kids go through this phase are obsessed with dinosaurs. Yes. Yeah. And the thing with Loch Ness is it's effectively the last dinosaur. If it's true, you're like, bloody hell, there's a dinosaur in Scotland. Gee, I visited Loch Ness because Izzy's got a lot of relatives. The father of Scotty's, a lot of relatives in that area. It's absolutely stunning. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been on Earth. It is extraordinary down there. And there's a hippie in a van, in a camper van. And he's been looking for Nessie since 1991. He just sits there with like binoculars.

But this is the thing I was thinking now, like in the thirties to catch the Loch Ness monster, you pretty much had to sit there with binoculars all day. But now in the age, you know, how hard is it to stick a 24-hour webcam over the loch? Yeah, yeah. You don't need to sit there. You don't need to dedicate your life to this anymore. Maybe, Chris, there's something quite pleasant and mindful about doing that. Maybe, you know, to me that seems like a lovely life. It's not about finding the Loch Ness Monster.

It's about finding yourself. Exactly. Well, let's go back to the very start of how the Loch Ness Monster drama started. Early April 1933, a one Mrs K was passing Loch Ness when she spotted something in the water. Yes, she said, that, my friends, is a monster. She did an interview with the Inverness Courier a few weeks later, who I bet couldn't believe their luck. Such a big scoop. The biggest scoop in the history of the Inverness Courier a few weeks later, who I bet couldn't believe their luck with such a big scoop. The biggest scoop in the history of the Inverness Courier. Has she recently been seen in a meadow with a broom out of interest?

That may explain the things she's seeing. The paper's editor, Evan Barron, was the one who came up with the concept, who coined the name the Loch Ness Monster. It's a great name. So that was in April of 1933. By the summer of 1933, there was talk of the Loch Ness Monster and further sightings by those other than Mrs. K.

One newspaper talked of a monster between 20 and 30 feet long. Another of how Nessie was spotted by a busload of passengers, described as a strange fish, which is popular termed the Loch Ness Monster, was observed a busload of passengers described as a strange fish, which is popular termed the Loch Ness Monster, was observed distorting itself in the water. That's the quote from somebody who saw it. What do you think? You know the myth of the Loch Ness Monster,

what is it for you? Like a dinosaur? It's a dinosaur. Is it thousands of years old or is it generational? The issue is how was it breeding? Yes. So what I used to imagine as a kid was that it was a leftover dinosaur that survived the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs, you know, 65 million years ago, whatever it was. And it's just there.

It's the last one. It's somehow breeding and it's still alive. Well, Ellis, if Jurassic Park taught me one thing, it's that the practice of asexual reproduction in dinosaurs. Oh, God. So it's impregnating itself, giving birth to its young. We're not seeing the same Loch Ness Monster. We're seeing the next generation going around and around.

So it's an incestuous dinosaur. Well, I don't think it's incest, it's asexual reproduction. I think that's probably a bit harsh on it, but yeah. So yeah, maybe that's it. Thank you, Jurassic Park. We've got it sorted. Case closed. Life finds a way. Yeah.

One newspaper talked of a monster between 20 and 30 foot long. The guesses at the time were a giant paw poise, a fish, a seal. The agreed kind of look of it is a huge flat head, a long wiggly neck, and it propels itself seemingly in the same way as a snake travels. Dan I'd love it to be true, but you would bloody shit yourself, wouldn't you? If a dinosaur has been breeding with itself in Scotland, suddenly just turned up on the shore of Loch Ness, the panic would be profound.

So one of the scriptures is the bottom half of a snake with a square head. It moves like a snake. The bottom half of it is not well explained, but people said, contemporary sources said it travelled like a snake. Yeah. How quickly... You do get sea snakes though, maybe. If they did find it and it was travelling like a snake with a really weird, ugly, wide

head, would it turn from all fascination to kill it, kill it, kill it? If it came out. When would the panic start? If I was in charge of finding it and I found it and it started doing that, I'd go from, this is interesting, to kill it in about ten seconds. Oh, I'd be taking a gun with me definitely. I'd get my long bow out. I'd blow his bloody brains out.

Like the end of Jaws. All over the bloody lock. That's why you should have kept your head down for another 65 million years, you little twat. Bang! Splattering that guy, that poor guy with his binoculars sat on the top of the van. Yeah. Carbone, in innards. The poor hippies, they could have been 33 years.

So much books has blown his brains. Blow number one thing I love. He had the Loch Ness monster and instantly blew its head off. But on the plus side, at least I got to see it. Anyway. El, if you blew the head off the Loch Ness monster, do you think it would overshadow everything you've ever done in your career? 100%. I was thinking he wouldn't be the fantasy football league guy anymore.

Yeah. Well, you could claim it was coming out of your head. He does what? Does he? I don't care about that. thing you've ever done in your career? 100%. I was thinking it wouldn't be the fantasy football league guy anymore. Yeah. Well, you could claim it was coming at you. Does what? Does he? I don't care about that. You'd have to say it was self-defense. You'd have to. I think that's legitimate.

You'd have to say it was coming at you. Yeah. It moved like a snake, your honor. So straight away in the thirties, I think everyone around Loch Ness could smell some tourist dollar. At Nen, the manager of the local swim baths was keen to capitalize on the growing interest and declared that visitors to his pool could see the Loch Ness monster there. All through the summer of 1933 and into the autumn, there were a series of reports of sightings, lots of discussion about what Nessie might be in

November we see the first photograph of the monster taken and Parliament was at the time Discussing whether to pass special legislation to protect the creature Wow mid-december 1933 the first cinema film was taken at the Loch, again showing the monster in full flow. And then a clearer photograph was taken on the 1st of April 1934. And as the date suggests, that one is widely understood to be a fake. Love that it started attracting grifters almost immediately.

And you know, Loch Ness really became a cultural cornerstone. The music industry had their fun. In 1934, you had the series of hits dealing with Nessie. There's Boo Boo Boo, Here Comes the Loch Ness Monster, released by the Connecticut Collegians. And I'm the Monster of Loch Ness by Leslie Holmes. More records followed. To build the myth of Loch Ness

monster some people went into the archives and tried to find evidence and references to the Loch Ness monster that predated 1933. And there is a reference to a monster in the 6th century AD and there's also a further reference in the life of St. Columba compiled in around 700 AD. This is the 17th century fisherman and traveler, Richard Frank, who said this, the famous and renowned Loch Ness where Tritons and sea nymphs sport themselves on the slipper waves sounded invasion to her movable inmate, supposed by some the floating island. supposed by some of the floating island. And people point to this kind of these words,

the movable inmate, as a nod to the fact in the 17th century that people knew of a monster in the loch. Interesting. But what is all this? It's a modern myth really, isn't it? It's interesting that it came out in the 1930s, just as Scotland's economy was in dire need of a boost from tourism. And it also occurred at a time in Scotland of kind of romantic nationalism that was taking hold.

The Loch Ness Monster was first spotted in 1933. A year later, the Scottish National Party was founded as a result of a merger between two earlier nationalist movements, the Scotland Party and the National Party of Scotland. And then you also had writers like the novelist Lewis Grasic Gibbon and the poet Hugh McDermid who were engaged in what is known as the Scottish Renaissance. So Loch Ness and the Loch Ness Monster very much part of all that. In 1947 Collier's magazine wrote this, to attract tourists in it as in pre-war days Scotland is reviving the tale of its Loch Ness Monster. Today, a circus still offers $100,000 for its capture and a newspaper will pay $500 for a genuine photograph of the alleged creature. And even to this day, you can collect yourself £25,000, a businessman offered this last summer, if you go to Loch Ness and get a snap of the monster. That £25,000 a businessman offered this last summer if you go to Loch Ness and get a snap of the

monster. That 25 grand can be yours. Wow. Well, well, well. Even if that hippie-ish guy on the banks of the loch snaps a picture and gets the 25 grand, will it have been worth all those years of his life? No, it's less than a thousand pound a year. I think if you've got a quality shot of the Loch Ness Monster,

if you're sensible, you can make lots more than 25 grand. Yeah. That will be a drop in the lake. But it would be. Like, you could, you would make so much money. The thing with Loch Ness is it's incredibly deep. So it's 200, at its deepest point is 230 metres deep, 755 feet. So people are like, there's a lot of bloody water down there.

Yeah. Where is he? Where is he? Is he, is he, is he breeding with himself? I love it. I refuse to believe that it's a myth. It's too deep, man. I know. When I was about 12, I had a watch that could go down to 300 metres. Little did I know that I was equipped to go on a mission. To go tell the Loch Ness Monster of the time. Tapping the watch saying, I think it's time you stop your head up again, mate. Come on.

It's been 65 million years, you want to come up? The coast is clear. If any of those things we've discussed could be true, what you could pick, what would you have? So to remind, it's Robin Hood, Loch Ness Monster, Witches and the Broomsticks, which actually was based in Truth, and Ellis about Welsh... Well, I think Ellis is going to go Welsh, the Welsh finding America. Well, it would absolutely revolutionise the Welsh economy. Imagine the renewed interest in the US if America had

been discovered by a bloody bloke from Gwynedd? It would change everything. So I'm going to go mad out, Loch Ness definitely second. I'd love there to be a Scottish dinosaur. I'm going to go Loch Ness but there's an addendum, that being that it has to be cute. It can't come out and be gross. That's my feeling towards it. So I'd rather remain with the hope and idea there's a cute cartoon dinosaur floating around out there than something crawl out of the lake with one leg and a nose coming out of his back or whatever. I don't know what it would be.

I haven't really thought this through. But you know what I mean. I don't want something awful coming out because that would make me think, well are there more of them? A friendly, not a friendly monster. If the Loch Ness Monster's friendly, you'd want that. Yeah, I can't argue with that. What about you Chris, what are you doing?

Yeah, I can't argue with that. A friendly Loch Ness Monster. There you go. Well, I hope you enjoyed that from discoveries and myths, but don't forget if you want all those fourth parts, you can listen to that full Megasode by signing up and becoming a full-timer where you also get bonus correspondence. Maybe you've sent in a letter and want to know if we've read it out. We might have read it out in our correspondent specials that we do for the full-timers. And we also got book reviews and loads of good stuff loads of archive episodes You can go check out all of that is available with a full timer subscription available via wondering plus and another slice

For all your options go to Oh water time comm. Hope you enjoyed this bonus episode. We'll see you on Monday. Bye Bye! early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.