Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Wool!

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians Caitlin Gill (stand-up album 'Major.', site GuaranteeShirts.com) and Shelby Wolstein ('Keeping Records' podcast) for a look at why wool is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode. (Alex's podcast hosting service requires a minimum of 5 characters per episode title, so that's why this episode's title has 1 exclamation point)

Wool. Known for being warm. Famous for being woolly. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why wool is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. I'm joined by two amazing guests, Caitlin Gill and Shelby Wolstein. Caitlin Gill is an amazing stand-up comedian. Her latest album is entitled Major. She's a phenomenal podcast guest.

You may remember her from the very first episode of SifPod about post offices. She's been on other ones too and is here once again. And I'm glad she made the time because on top of stand up and everything else, she also runs a wonderful t-shirt business. It's called Guarantee Shirts. We'll have a link to guaranteeshirts.com in the show links because you should dress yourself optimally and in the most fun way possible. And then Shelby Wolstein is a fantastic comedian. She also co-hosts a wonderful podcast. It's called Keeping Records. That's a show where Shelby and her co-host Caleb Heron and their guests put together a new ideal Voyager golden record. If you've heard the Final

Records episode of this podcast, we talk about how that worked. It was a golden record sent into space to tell the aliens about us. Shelby and her wonderful podcast, they make a new one every week. Please hear them do that. Please hear them put that together. It's over on HeadGum. That's Shelby Wallstein's show. And I'm so glad she and Caitlin Gill are here to get into this topic. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca Thank you. Mississauga, Kaskaskia, and Erie peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about wool, a topic you might be wearing. Many people are. Only other thing to say going in, I think we're pretty sheep-centric on this episode, and pretty

Britain-centric, and like British Empire, English history-centric on this episode and pretty Britain-centric and like British Empire English history-centric. As you'll hear, British sheep are far from the world's only wool producers. This is a humongous topic that could be pretty much a weekly show if we tried to. And no other setup needed. So please sit back or stand at your humongous loom because you are one of those pioneers in one of those living history museums and you snuck earbuds into your ears. Nice job. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Caitlin Gill and Shelby Wallstein. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Kayla, Shelby, it is so good to have you.

And I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start. But how do you feel about wool? Well, I'm a Scot who knows nothing about wool. So I have betrayed a heritage long standing in my culture. I have never shorn anything. I have never touched a loom. I feel like these Scottish hands don't know the heritage that they have neglected. So it is high time. It is Highlands time that I learn more about the grand tradition of my weathered people, the Scots. Yeah, I didn't want to say, but the clan did reach out to me. They said, listen, if you can do anything to solve this.

Rosses and Macallums united to find out why I don't know anything about wool. And I'm so glad that this is surreptitiously the route that they've taken, uh, to get me better informed. Thanks. Thanks everyone. I'm happy to, to now hold, hold this knowledge forward and carry on the traditions of my people. I'll add it to the list with headbutting. Exactly. And golf. exactly and golf yeah shelby how about you uh i wore a lot of it as a kid didn't wasn't fond of uh the feel but it's really sustainable that i know and that's why so like when they did uh what was it all birds is like those wool sneakers when that first came out before it became like silicon valley's sort of

uniform i really liked those and then it was like well i guess i gotta throw them out um but uh yeah it's like a really sustainable material if i know what i think i know yeah i think i think you're right if you just have animals grow more of it exactly you've got it yeah that's a never-ending resource the tech grow really eliminates like Yeah, I think you're right. You just have animals grow more of it. Exactly. And then you've got it. That's it. It's a never-ending resource. The tech bro really eliminates the eco-savings with the tech bro vest. The polyester fleece vest or the downy vest, the professional casual vest that overtook the Bay Area's professional class just rampantly. Like suddenly every man woke up with three vests in their wardrobe,

all of them some shade of navy or black to wear over every shirt they would ever wear for the rest of their lives. And I feel like that mass consumption of vests has negated any savings those bros have like used by investing in the wool shoe. I wish that I could be like, yeah, way to go, guys. Way to enter the world of sustainable fashion. But I've been to your streets street san francisco and i've seen the vests that all your boys wear and there are so many it's so many vests it really is has this happened in new york alex is the casual professional vest a nationwide virus or is this an isolated bay area phenomenon

i think i was gonna say i think i first heard of it as a wall street guy thing i know it's a tech thing too but but i'm not surprised the West coast got it second. So credit to the East coast, they're probably already done with it. Those vests are already decomposing slowly somewhere. Yeah. And as far as my connection to the topic, I think it's my mom's knitting and crocheting is the strongest connection in particular particular, this winter, she sent me a scarf and it's made out of sheep's wool from specific sheeps. And then also a wool blend of sheep and also bison wool. Cause it's, it's for me. She thought about it. So I I'm really excited to have some bison wool in my life. And then also the scarf is wool. So it's very, very, very,

very warm. And that helps in this kind of winter. Just really helpful. Yeah. It'll fight a powerful cold. i feel like it does well against wind is this crew of wool most things i'm about to say about wool i'm gonna end with a question like i don't i don't necessarily know but i will try to infer infer get it in infer fur that's terrible i'll see myself out. I'll just go. Sorry. So sorry. It's actually a perfect segue because usually the show starts with a set of stats and numbers, but there's going to be one takeaway right away up top to establish what it is. So very fast, takeaway number one. Wool is a specific type of mammal hair that can come from a whole bunch of different mammals. Wool is like one specific kind of fur that we get from all sorts of animals. It's a thing.

Oh, okay. I feel like I was wrong in thinking that hair and fur are different, but is wool a type? Not all hair is wool, but all wool is hair? Yeah, not all fur and hair are wool and then some hair is fur but not all okay and hair and fur are sort of interchangeable it depends on the animal it's also like all like it's all real but it's also made up categories too sort of it's a very nebulous thing. Yeah, like a bear has fur and I have hair. Yeah. And that's what separates us from the bears.

Take that, bears. That's how I know I'm not a bear. Unless there's, without that, I have no idea. I feel like at least some of my hair might qualify as fur, but I can't say for sure. I try to take care of those ones with tweezers. Try not to pull out the hair, aim for the fur. But I've heard that fur has a point at which it stops growing and hair keeps growing. But I don't know where wool falls in between.

I'm kind of excited to learn. Because the main source here, it's an interview with Kamal Kides, who is a curator at the Canadian Museum of Nature. But he breaks it down very simply, and I like how he does, because he says there are three general types of hairs on mammals. There are vibrissae, which is a fancy word for sensitive tactile receptor hair, like whiskers are the big example. It's a hair that senses where things are.

And the other kinds are guard hairs, which are protective and usually the most conspicuous and on top. And then under hairs whose primary purpose is insulation. And so he says what's commonly called fur is relatively short hair that stops growing at a certain point. And then what we call wool is a kind of under hair that is soft, thin, curly and flexible and never stops growing. Like an animal might shed it once the weather gets warm, but otherwise they just keep growing it endlessly. All right. Way to go sheep and other mammals. Exactly. Well done. And he also says that humans are weird with this because our hair is not very differentiated.

Like the hair, especially on our head, it's sort of both a guard hair for protection and an under hair for warmth. Like we haven't really subdivided the way sheeps and many other animals have. So we don't really have wool. Well, now I have to buy a hat. Come on, evolution. Give me more fur and hair. Let's get this going. Give me a tactical mustache, not just this one.

But yeah, and sheeps are probably the most famous wool animal, at least in the U.S., but there's all kinds of other ones that grow it, too, because tons of mammals have like an under hair going on. and then it's pretty easy to separate from like cotton comes from a plant linen comes from the plant flax silk is from a lot of insects like it's it's pretty clear what isn't wool in the fiber world it's kind of crazy that silk is from insects i don't feel like we really get a grasp on that it's like a luxury material made from worms it's like what it's like yeah incredibly fancy worms like worms probably with a little attitude about it it's great so fussy all in their trailer yelling at pas yeah yeah exactly silk the worst writers oh yeah oh my god and from here i think we can get into the stats and numbers for the show and every week that has a new name, this week that's a segment called...

And it's cause of the numbers that we will win the fight. Count them up and you'll find they're realistic. With our math and our logic, we'll go into the night. And we're learning and solving it all through statistics. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Yeah. Thanks for a cup of the butt. That name was submitted by Adam Miller.

I couldn't even stop myself. And we have a new name for it every week. Please make him as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. But a lot of stats and numbers here about wool. And the first number is 2 million. And 2 million is the peak population in the past of a South American animal called the vicuña. And we'll link pictures of vicuñas. They're very cute. They're closely related to alpacas, also to llamas, and they grow some luxury wool on their bodies. How nice is that?

I wonder if the animal experiences it as a blanket. Right. I mean, an alpaca blanket is a lovely thing to enjoy. I hope that the alpaca gets to enjoy it. But when it's on their little hides, they're just like, oh, yeah. Like they are somehow aware. Like, you know, when your hair is feeling particularly silky or whatever you like know it i hope that i i wish that for alpacas and every other woolly creature that their sweaters are so comfy yeah just self-appreciation

i'm i'm doing great like i'm making something amazing yeah I'm wearing a great sweater. I look sharp. I'm an artisan. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I hope they have sort of the energy of someone at a craft fair, but one of the good booths, you know? Yeah. It's like that and wearing the best fashion, like behold, like walking into the room. Yeah, well, like sometimes you'll walk through a booth at an art fair and be like oh my god that maker is gorgeous and i hope that they have that energy right like they have the booth of all the things they make and those are amazing but it's also like and that person makes them they should be doing and they should just be sitting to be seen

you know preening finding their light really knowing how to do it only selling during golden hour yeah what are they doing here where i am they should be somewhere where i'm not you know yeah you know alpacas give me that impression that they're a noble creature whose grace maybe i haven't even earned the presence of and yet silkworms i'm just like you you know like i do bet that they are pretentious bugs in need of their own trailer worth riders. But on the other hand, I'm like, ugh. Like I'm not looking to see a cute picture of a silkworm. You know what?

I spoke too soon. When I have the opportunity, I'm going to look up a silkworm and I'm going to hold out my reservations and maybe believe that it could be cute. I'll revise my opinion. I'm remembering this isn't all fiber animals, but we went to like an alpaca farm one time and they had an enclosure with the alpacas and then a whole nother enclosure around it containing donkeys. And the donkeys were just there as a defensive animal

because they're mean to anything that approaches, you know. And it was very different vibes of the two hoofed animals with long necks like the alpacas were sort of modeling and the donkeys were were donkeys like they were doing that thing that they're famous for being oh clean pod it's it's fine it's basically descriptive uh yeah um yeah you're doing taxonomy. It's great. Exactly. Exactly. And the vicuña, it's a very, very special South American, especially Andean animal.

Also, Atlas Obscura says that during the Incan Empire, Incan law forbid killing them. The wool was always gathered in a shearing ritual known as chaku. And then the fleece from that was only worn by nobles. So they were this elevated noble animal within Incan society. I mean, pretty good spot to be in. That's a good thrift store find. Like, I have to believe that one of those royal robes just, like, got left behind at a coat check in some mountain village i mean those are the best finds right an unexpected coat but it's somehow just yours

and i i mean i just picture that that there's one one of those robes made it out to one of the regular people one of the little people got to wear one of those at least once i hope can't have a whole shearing ritual it's not like the royals are getting their hands dirty and the shearing ritual yeah that's just regular folk getting their hands all in the wool i hope that at least one of them got to wear the spoils just trying to like hide it in a pocket by knitting it into the pocket or something i don't know what the move would be i've never like conceived of a knitter being sneaky and under any circumstance knitters aren't a sneaky bunch maybe i'm underestimating both the cuteness of silkworms and the sneakiest of sneakiness of knitters i have some some revisions to make in my in the opinions i hold

no i looked up silkworms and you're spot on. Yeah, right. They're weird, aren't they? They're gross. Yeah, I feel like they're gross. They're not doing themselves any favors. I mean, they're about product and I respect that. They're looking at, they have,

they know what they put out into the world. They didn't come into the, you know. Yeah, their function over fashion. Absolutely. fashion i love it yeah i need to do a silk episode so i know how they do it too because like as far as i know they poop it right yeah and that may or may not be accurate but it's one of those things that i've just believed when uh and with the vicuña they also they went through a sad phenomenon where the the spanish came and colonized in south america as they do and just hunted them with guns like they didn't even cheer them so they almost went extinct but then are bouncing back and in preserves you can go to a preserve in peru that has about 5 000 of them and also there

is still a little like stuff being made from vicuña because you can just cheer it without harming them and there's a brand called falca that sells a pair of vicuña wool socks for a little over one thousand dollars u.s per pair jesus so if you want to spend a little over a grand on one pair of socks you can get get some Vicuna socks. They probably feel good. Man, I am 40 years old. My first thought was like, yeah, okay. Uh-huh.

Talk to me. What? Sell me a pitch of these socks. Let me know. Because I can understand why you would pay $1,000 to comfort your feet. I get this now. I feel this. Yeah.

Wow. I did not ever expect to age into the audience for where an ultra comfortable pair of socks. It's like, I'm listening. I'm already buying Bombas. And I got to say, I thought that was expensive. I've opened a door here. I can cross right through. New world of luxury.

Oh, man. I got a birthday coming up. Thanks, Alex. Oh, you're welcome. Yeah. Folks, let's crowdfund. It's kind of crazy that the spanish would ever kill them because for what you can just hear that right i mean that can be said take that sentence

in isolation and drop it in front of any discussion of spanish travel for about three centuries like why kill them like why not just show up and say hi why all the killing afterwards yeah it really does seem like a but for what for what for why though for why though yeah but uh moving moving north a bit the next number here is seven pounds or a little more than three kilograms but seven pounds is how much wool you can get in one year from a male muskox and we've done a whole episode of the show about muskoxen, which live in the far northern reaches of North America and Asia. But the layer of underwool on their body is called kivyut. This is another luxury wool that you can get from an animal.

They shed it naturally as the weather warms up, and also we'll link some photos of muskox farmers combing them to help them be relieved of their wool as the weather gets warmer. It's very cute. And noteworthy, Kiviu dispelled not at all how you would have assumed. Yep. It's Q-I-V-I-U-T. Yeah.

I also, I've played enough Wordle lately that I'm really grateful it's six letters and can't be like the hardest wordle of all time. Great. Yeah. Is that well, is that technically an English word? I'm unfortunately I'm in my head being like, all right, good scrabble word. You don't need a U, but you can or no, you do need a U. It would just be later in the word. Yeah.

So it doesn't actually solve the old the age-old issue of having a q and not having a u that gives you some flexibility i can see i mean that's still a handy word yeah you you have an eye available but you have a u but you don't have anywhere to play the q you throw the q in right before the eye yeah you comes in later in the butt. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. Writing that one down. I haven't played Scrabble in a long time.

I don't know why. I'm like, yeah, but for my daily Scrabble, I don't work all either. I'm so alone. Anyway. No, this will be good for me. Yeah, Shelby, you seem good at Scrabble. It's well well thought out i don't want to play you boy boy uh i in in pandemic i was big on words with friends so right man that'll really grab you that's one of that's a that's a life phase that's a tough one you can't really

it really took me in in a really powerful and emotional way, I would say. Because of the friends piece. It's not just words. There's friends. It's the with friends. Yeah. Without the friends, not an emotional journey. Words with friends?

Well, now you got me talking. You didn't play words with people who mean nothing to me. Yeah, exactly. I wasn't playing words with strangers. I wasn't playing words with people who mean nothing to me. Yeah, exactly. I wasn't playing words with strangers. I wasn't playing, playing words with acquaintances. I was playing words with friends. I bet words with acquaintances would take off though.

Just going to put out that. I think you just spoken into the world, a bazillion dollar idea. You should run one. You should, you should take some notes on that one. That's words with acquaintances. I can see that hat merch. I can see that hat, merch.

I can. Yeah, all right. Is this podcast a pyramid scheme? And luckily, you're in early. Welcome. And people will tell you, it's hard to sell the $1,000 socks, but here's my trick. Here's how. Those people don't want to see you win.

I do want to see you win. I want to see you win, and I want to help you win. $1,000 socks, that's got to last a little while. How much money? Think about the socks that you're losing in the laundry.

Add all that money up. $1,000 easily through your life. Easy. Easy. Yeah. Easily. these are dry clean only baby you're never gonna lose it yeah a thousand dollar sock should wash itself and all my other socks it should you know just take care of the folding the wash yeah one thousand dollar socks made by kenmore. And they wash on the other socks. They're just like those Sorcerer's Apprentice's brooms that are just like doing stuff around your house, you know?

Blenda, and one of the last numbers here, this is over 114 pounds. Over 114 pounds, it's about 52 kilograms. It's the amount of wool that's needed to outfit one Viking ship. So if you're a Viking, if you're a medieval Norse person, it turns out the sail is made of wool, and then you need clothes, bedding, bags, a bunch of other stuff for all the people in it. So over 114 pounds of wool in one little ship,

and then more for a bigger ship. The sail is made of wool. It's made of wool. Yeah. You could have asked me that a hundred times. I would have never said that. Yeah, I would have guessed a lot of things before wool. Possibly even silk.

I would have guessed anything else even. Wool. They made their sails of wool how how how how with what with what with need with needle with needles yeah it turns out like i think medieval viking people like they're very famous for getting off the ship and attacking everyone with swords and axes and stuff but like all of the rest of the time a lot of their society was harvesting wool from sheep. And they did a process called rooing, which is harder to do than

shearing. And then like very painstakingly making sails and other stuff for the boats as a whole society, like all the time. They have such tender hobbies for such truly violent people. Yeah. It's great. So often the case. And the source for this is, it's an amazing book. It's called The Golden Thread by journalist and historian Kasia St. Clair. She also, she wrote a great book called The Secret Lives of Color that's on this podcast a lot for episodes about color. But she writes all about Norse shipbuilding. Apparently, they could make like

the wooden part of the longboat in about two weeks. But that 114 pounds of wool required the equivalent of 10 years of labor spread out across all the different people in the community. And they also had sheep that didn't grow very much wool. They only got about half a kilogram per sheep per year. And so it was like enormous sheep raising operations to then weave all the wool together to make one sale for one boat. Am I wrong in thinking that they were in a really cold place? You're not wrong. Yeah, it's very cold up there. I would think the sheep would grow faster, just nature-wise.

Oh, yeah. I think they were also very hardy sheep that were living on not a ton of grass and that kind of thing. So I think that's part of it. Okay. In my head, I'm like, it's cold. They're growing hair like you wouldn't believe. Yeah. And they have little hats and stuff.

They really have to. I mean, they're doing anything they can to get rid of this stuff. So it was a very wool dominated life. Like the upper limit on how much they could sale places was how many sheeps they could raise to make sales. What a funny correlation that I never would have made. That's so odd. Yeah. All politics is biology, baby.

Yeah. Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. I'm Jesse Thorne I just don't want to leave a mess This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters And his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes,

I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace

because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. When the, there's a couple other takeaways for the main episode. The last number brings us into one.

The number is 1297. That is a year, 1297. That is a year when all of the lords in England confronted King Edward I about his wool taxes and that they were too high. Which brings us into takeaway number two. taxes and that they were too high. Which brings us into takeaway number two. Wool used to be most of the English economy. It used to basically be an entire country of wool raising and weaving and trading as like a share of the economy of the country.

That's a lot of pressure on those sheep. Which made sheep the richest men of all. Yeah. Yeah. There was really, it was like a high pressure and extremely high money enterprise. It was really a lot of what they did. The main source here is Cassius Sinclair's book, but also Atlas Obscura and Lapham's Quarterly. Cassius St. Clair writes about this event in 1297. It's the lords confronting the king, which was also new then. They had only just done the Magna Carta a few decades before. It was kind of new that anybody could question the king. But they considered the wool taxes, quote, excessively burdensome.

And then within that, they said that it was a big problem because wool and wool production and wool raising made up half of the entire English economy in terms of value. That was what the lords claimed to the king. They were like, that's half of all the money and economic value in the entire country is just this. And Cassius St. Clair says like experts believe that was probably pretty accurate like ever since the Norman conquest in 1066 they'd been ramping up wool production in the country to the point where it was a lot of the economy that was all they did that's kind of not what a multi-purpose tool because you also get like lanolin you get a lot out of wool that isn't

just the wool so I can see how like a breakout economy would run from that but that is a lot of pressure on some sheep way to go sheep way to carry that burden yeah we won't really talk about much but yeah lanolin is a substance that comes out and in modern times it gets used for like creams and cosmetics and stuff. And yeah, they could milk the sheep. They could get dairy from them. There were a lot of different knock-on parts of the economy from basically just putting sheep every place they could for centuries. It sounds cute. It sounds really cute.

It's pretty sweet, yeah. I do think, and I'm not coming for sheep, but I do think it's cute from like 30 feet away. I think when you're standing in the middle of a dense herd of sheep in a, like, you know, centuries ago, like a civilization becoming urban environment where there are just a lot of sheep, it is actually a lot of intense smells and powerful animals.

They're bigger than you think. Isn't a sheep like hip high on a human? They are like a large. Can be, yeah. You just get knocked into. It's a big old, that's a lot. Yeah, but this was when, I mean, people were smelling pretty bad too.

Like I think we were just used to smells. This was when we were like, yeah, the family was sharing bath water kind of stuff. You know, the sheep didn't smell as bad as you think because the smell of earth life yeah life in general yeah the smell of being conscious was bad so that's it so we're what uh uh shoot i'm bad at century math but like 100 ish years away from a massive plague ruining everything in europe for a little while yes is this we're close to we're we're narrowing in on bubonic plague time aren't we i feel like it's not that much longer i thought you i thought

you were talking about now oh well yes but no that isn't the right and i was like i don't know if it's a hundred it might be less uh yeah who knows it just sort of makes sense that uh it's one more of those like oh right all the wool traveling from port to port like i understood that ships were going from port to port and the goods that they were carrying carried fleas and this this bacterial infection but it was it's now clicking that like of course they were carrying a lot of wool not just as a coincidence or like sometimes they trade wool but like an entire culture was driven by sheep racing like oh okay all right yeah it is they're truly trading a lot of it and like this thing of wool being the british economy it's it's almost the main or one of the main things into like the 1700s 1800s all the way from the 10 hundreds and

the peak of the trade as lapham's quarterly has an article about 1379 another seemingly random year but 1379 a group of London wool merchants assassinated a diplomat from Genoa because they were afraid that the diplomat was there to negotiate like changes to the wool monopoly that these merchants had. And they like assassinated him, bribed juries to acquit them. The government did a new trial outside of London because they thought that would be harder to bribe. And then the merchants admitted that they killed the guy, but in order to protect English wool, and they got off without punishment because it was that big of an industry in the country they could just like murder foreign diplomats to keep it the

way they wanted it it was fine that would never have no way would any economic interest be protected over human quality of life not now no No way. So glad we've advanced past that as a, as an, as a thing. I don't think we have. I think that happens all the time. Yeah. Folks write in with your birders for the economy.

Just let us know. At sip, at sip pot at gmail.com. You know, share your stories. What a closing argument. Are you cozy right now? Are you in that jury box currently sitting swathed in your warm wool what part of your body is not currently protected by english wool

there is no no crime too severe to protect our sweet sweet wool feel it chafing against your skin as you sweat into it feel it being a little too hot for the room like they're they're all wearing what is it chris evans's sweater and knives out like that big white sweater with all the cable like he's right he's right like just everybody in the same shirt okay i can see i can see that sweater making it necessary. All right, now I get it. Yep, okay. I accept the premise of murder being necessary to defend the Chris Evans sweater. Okay. And yeah, also the government was kind of in on it.

In 1667, they passed a law in England that required everybody to be buried in a wool shroud instead of a shroud made of something else. And they would like come to the funeral and fine you if they caught you using something else, because they just wanted to like prop up wool sales and production at that time. That is gangster. Can you imagine? They would fine the dead? Yeah, the estate. They would take take five pounds which was a lot of money then if you if you were buried improperly like wool head to toe just striding into a funeral just like huh i see your shroud be ashamed if it wasn't wool and just charge it that's

that's ice cold that's ice in the veins. The funeral drop to check the shroud. Ooh. It's chilly. Chilly there in Wally Old England. Yeah, damn. A guy in the fanciest wool suit you've ever seen comes down, kneels by the casket, gives it a little feel, rubs it against his face

it goes you're gonna try and tell me this is wool you're telling me in my face this is wool look me in the eyes you're gonna tell me this is wool i know wool this is no wool it's cold like they bring in wool sniffing dogs and it's like you should just use sheep they would know i don't know why you i don't think you need a dog to sniff out a wool shroud on a dead person in the 1300s i think you can spot that all on your own with our human noses and it was the 1330s is when the plague spread around europe 1346 looks like it when it started stretching out yeah and it was carried by fleas on rats and they were all in the wool but it didn't ever click that it was all that all that all all that wool that the english

economy was like interrupting funerals to protect like i guess letting two guys off for killing someone over wool it's like you know uh the universe being balanced wool came back with a vengeance and killed an awful lot of people yeah and it when it was an especially tricky situation when it was most of their economy because like there was one situation apparently where king richard i he's known as richard the lionheart he gets captured abroad in 1192 and gets ransomed and so they have to pay a ransom for him and in order to pay the ransom like the english authorities started going around the country seizing wool from people because they

were like this is worth we can fence this we sell this, then we can get the king back. And at one point they decided to steal wool from specific monks because there was one order called the Cistercians that had white robes. And so that was more valuable. And they were like, we'll steal that. The brown robe guys, you can keep it, forget it. But so just, you know know they would go around the country taking it because that was kind of the money like they had currency but wool was that valuable to be a sheep in 13 12 in 1232 yeah just ordering humans around probably yeah you could get anything you wanted you were a sheep just seeing soldiers marching into your village like hide the undergarments.

Like just, you know, gold, silver sitting out on the table. But all your long johns are stuffed in the fireplace. And take them out of the fireplace after the guys leave.

You gotta remember. Right. You gotta do that. You have to. It's running. It's canvas. it's canvas it's canvas but yeah and then it even this extends into imperial britain because like a lot of the first industrialization was textile mills so that's still making money off wool and then that's also why a lot of other places in the world have so many sheep and grow so much wool. A couple of the biggest wool countries today are Australia and New Zealand and the United States.

It's not like Peru and Bolivia? Are they up there? No, I think those numbers I found were specifically for sheep wool. Because British colonists came over and said, Oh yeah, we'll just keep doing our wool country thing here, obviously. We'll just raise sheep here. It makes sense. So there, you know, we, we could talk a bunch about alpaca llama. We haven't really talked about goats at all. Goats are a humongous wool species. Rabbits do like a special kind. It's all these different animals, but I think sheep are famous. The Angora bunny. Angora wool. Yeah. But, um, The Angora bunny.

Angora wool, yeah. But goats have wool. What's that? I've never heard of anything made of goat. The branding's very good. Cashmere is goat, and a lot of mohair is goat. Cashmere is goat? Yeah, turns out.

Cashmere, goats. I don't think everybody knows. Man, that is some sick branding. Yeah, it's. Cashmere, goats. I don't think everybody knows. Man, that is some sick branding. Yeah, it's branded very well. I mean, it's soft, but it's... They have done goats so dirty. The way they've hurt these goats. I mean, my gosh. Yeah. Somehow the silkworms are responsible. I don't I mean, my God. Yeah.

Somehow the silkworms are responsible. I don't know how, but I blame them. It's a conspiracy to the top. Yeah, they were like, if we can't get our due, neither can a goat. No, they had that tête-à-tête. It was like goat-silkworm combo, where the silkworm was like, you can have all of the fame but like you can still go to the grocery store you got to put the product first and then you you hang out in the background don't even call it goat wool go with something else go with something crazy call it cashmere and the goat

was like yeah the goat's just banking it yeah i don't know i i admire this strategy i like the uh goats are like the laughing stock of the animal world. People are posting goat videos. Laugh, laugh, laugh. It's true. Yeah. I can't believe what we've done to them. Yeah. Justice for goats.

I think I just became an activist. I think I just found a cause. Just like in the background of the audio, we hear a meeting assembling in your room, like your staff for this adventure. A meeting of goats. I pictured a meeting. I'm not even saving. It's not even about saving the goats.

It's about giving them their due. Our org is about being nicer about goats. Not to them. It's not animal rights. It's animal publicity's pr i'm a pr firm i've started a pr firm there we go yeah yeah well and uh and then like last last thing about english wool is that 1600s and early 1700s they did another protectionist law where the North American colonies of Britain could only trade wool within the empire and mainly to the British Isles. And so that was one point of contention leading to the American Revolution.

Yeah, I think Caitlin might have froze. I don't know if she's on your end, but. I'm back. It's Wendy. Welcome back. Thank you. Yeah, cool. if you shoot it on your end but i'm back it's windy welcome back thank you yeah and the brief time that um the internet disappeared from my access i did manage to learn um that a group of goats is called a trip a trip of goats so i just wanted to offer that to you to enjoy whatever i hope it brings joy to your life but a trip of goats is what that's called. Man, that's a trip. I say as I pass a bunch of goats.

Shelby's staff for the PR firm comes in and she's like, we are tripping. We're going to trip. Yeah, guys, get ready for your annual trip. Everyone's like, what? Just goats. Just goats come running in. Linda, and there's one more takeaway for the main episode takeaway number three modern wool producing sheep depend on human shearing to function i've read this before

cool yeah because they grow too much right is this due to breeding yeah there's there's a few sources here especially because there's two remarkable sheep who just uh showed us what happens if they're never sheared but basically we've done animal husbandry in a way where the sheep like merino sheep and other sheep that we bred to produce wool they can't handle the amount of wool they make anymore unless humans shear it to produce wool they can't handle the amount of wool they make anymore unless humans shear it for them so they can still walk around and see and stuff you know where i think i read this on the all birds website that they were like not only is it sustainable it's like good for the good for the sheep

good for you good really good for the sheep they need this yeah yeah i guess because of their company now i'm like yeah well shoes sure but at the start i'm sure they were like what's every reason we can get people let's listen please please it's like one guy who loves his sheep so much but he can't he can't keep up with the production he's like shoes shoes we make shoes now we make shoes out of wool um right so what happens if and i guess the answer to this is kind of sad but what what happens if you know you have a bunch of sheep you're a sheep guy you got a bunch of sheep, you're a sheep guy, you got a bunch of sheep. One of the sheep escapes, runs free, breaks free, thinks it's made its way to freedom, full freedom, and then just keeps growing wool, keeps growing wool.

That's the end for the sheep? Yeah, so we don't have documentation of like meeting their end because of it. But there's two stories we'll get into here of sheep that were found after several years in the wilds after escaping a farm. They were found in time to help them because as folks will see in pictures, they were just like horribly covered in wool. It's just too much. Like, it's funny, but it's too much. Is it a weight thing or is it like a suffocation thing oh uh a little uh kind of both but not not as much suffocation as like the wool's all in their eyes and so they're functionally blind like they can't really see where they're going oh it's so sad they're so cute but and the stories work out the the first one and it's just very

funny that the sheep's name is shrek but the sheep is named shrek it's just fun on its own it's not a wool joke it's just a fun name and uh according to the bbc shrek was living on a farm on new zealand's south island and in 1998 he left the farm and was just presumed dead. They stopped looking. Six years later, he was found. He'd apparently been living in caves and avoiding humans. And in that time, he grew so much wool that when they sheared him, they sheared about 60 pounds or 27 kilograms.

My God. And when people, when you see the pictures it's just he looks like a blimp of wool like it's it's bonkers he looks like one of those tasty buns he looks like a dutch crunch roll to me he like really looks celebrity with that like big collar that kind of goes over the eyes it looks like very sia you know very sia wow absolutely yeah it does very sia to me it looks very met ball met gala um it is because this other sheep we'll talk about i think was out for seven years and maybe that was a little of a tipping point like it was in a lot more discomfort shrek does look a little happy about it like just satisfied He looks like he's like y'all didn't think I'd make it you stopped looking

presumed presumed me dead No I'm living You won't believe what i've been working on he has kind of an arrogance like his head is up but his eyes are covered yeah and it is the celebrity thing is essentially accurate too because uh new zealand huge sheep country they're very into it when shrek sheared, it was on primetime national television in New Zealand. It was a TV event to see the wool removed from this blimpy sheep.

And they raised a little over $100,000 for children's medical charities as a fundraiser part of it. God, New Zealand is so much better than us. It is crazy what they're doing better than us so pure they're so they're like we found the sheep y'all want to watch and everyone's like yeah we'll donate to that yeah eddie and also on his 10th birthday he got to meet prime minister helen clark of new zealand like he just he became a very well-known figure just going around doing good in the country. I love him. He's great.

And the other story is in Australia nearby. This is a sheep named Chris. And Chris was like lost and then was found in 2015 after what they believe is seven years in the wild. And he was found in 2015 after what they believe is seven years in the wild. And he was found just wandering. It was the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It's like the ASPCA in the US. Spotted Chris wandering. He was brought in, he was given the name Chris, and then he was sheared by champion sheep shearer Ian Elkins. Ian Elkins was able to remove a little over 89 pounds of wool. Dang. Or a little over 40 kilograms. So that's even more than Shrek who came in around 60 pounds. Like this is another half a Shrek load.

In that picture of him after he's sheared, he's kind of smirking. He looks relieved. He looks very glad to not have 80 pounds of wool on him yeah he also looks like a real gentleman i don't think that if i saw chris walking around pre-shearing i would have known it to be an animal i would have assumed assumed terrestrial cloud, perhaps. Or some kind of violent cotton ball. I would have literally been like, oh, a cotton factory must be nearby. And they lost their waste or something. I wouldn't have gone to check.

And it would not have been for a lack of compassion. It would be because I would not take that to be an animal. Yeah. And it is like a barge yeah it's a point we don't see sheep get to on purpose ever like and apparently npr covered like the health ramifications apparently chris had so much wool on his head, it covered most of his vision. The sheer weight of it damaged his hooves. And also like he was so woolly, he had a hard time like urinating out of it. And so like that was like burning his skin. There was so much urine trapped in it. Like it's a really difficult predicament for a sheep to be in. And then he

was saved by somebody who saw him and like figured out what was going on. They were like, hey, get a sheep shearer. And was like, that's that is animal. Yeah. Oh, my God. What makes someone a champion at sheep shearing? Thank you. You took the question right out.

Who do you know how to call? That's pick up the horn and reach out to that's wild how does does one become a champion sheep shearer is it speed is it yeah accuracy a lot of it's speed and it's also like basically the whole bonus show we're gonna do maybe we wrap the mid show there that's it yeah that's gonna be what we talk about so oh my god incredibly good lead-in what a cliffhanger oh my gosh yeah play the music alex we'll play it great painting down folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to caitlin gill and shelby wolstein for the absolute cleanest segue into a bonus show that has ever happened here this week's bonus topic

is the greatest sheep shearer of all time. Because there's one specific person who holds that title, you're going to meet him. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than six dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. It is what makes the entire podcast possible. And thank you for exploring wool with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, wool is a specific type of mammal hair that can come from a whole bunch of different mammals. Takeaway number two, wool used to be most of the English economy. And takeaway number three,

modern wool-producing sheep depend on human shearing to function. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Caitlin Gill is the mastermind behind GuaranteeShirts.com. If you want to support something textile-oriented, I think that would be very appropriate. She has amazing, very comfy, very funny t-shirts. You're going to love them. Then Caitlin Gill's stand-up album is called Major. I saw it written Major with a period at the end. It is incredible stuff. The stuff about her dad finding parking places alone. Just my favorite. Anyway, phenomenal album. Please check that out as well. And then Shelby Wolstein is the co-host of the Keeping Records

podcast along with Caleb Heron. She makes one of my favorite comedy podcasts to listen to. It's over on the HeadGum Network. Very, very fun time every week constructing that new golden record. I don't think they physically make one. At least I haven't heard that happen on a show. But phenomenal comedy podcast. Very fun hang. Very fun run through a bunch of ideas about what matters to us. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones.

A tremendous book called The Golden Thread by journalist and historian Kasia St. Clair. An excellent article from Atlas Obscura about vicunias that's written by Madhusri Ghosh, plus wonderful BBC and Guardian and NPR coverage of Shrek the Sheep and Chris the Sheep. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is unbroken, unshaven by the Budos band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back

next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.