Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #31 - Why Do We Do That?

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Today we're we’re gonna tackle a bunch of questions you never knew you needed answering, questions like: Why does the middle finger mean “fuck you”? Why do we blow out candles at birthday parties? Why do we cover our mouths when we yawn? And where does the whole making "bunny ears" with your fingers behind someone's head when they're getting their photo taken come from? The answers to these questions are often so strange, and so ancient. For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com

Welcome to this edition of Time Sucks Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins and today I will be uncovering the bizarre forgotten histories behind the everyday things we say and do. Over the next 45 minutes to an hour we're gonna tackle all the questions you never knew you needed answering. Questions like why does the middle finger mean fuck you? Why do we blow out candles at birthday parties? Why do we cover our mouths when we yawn? Why do we say, cat's got your tongue? Whose cat is it? Why is he trying to eat someone's tongue?

Important stuff like that. So stick around. Today is going to be fun. Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us.

So much of what we say and do in our everyday lives is dictated by the not quite forgotten past. Pagan sacrifices made to gods and goddesses, decisions made by mad emperors, weapons wielded by pirates and thieves, diseases that have long been eradicated and clothes that we used to wear. These are the sort of things weapons wielded by pirates and thieves, diseases that have long been eradicated, and clothes that we used to wear.

These are the sort of things that so many modern day gestures, social norms, customs, and sayings were born from. The world is full of these little forgotten histories. But for the sake of time today, we're only gonna focus on Western civilization, starting with some common idioms and the English language. Just in case you forgot, I usually forget, an idiom is a saying that emerged out of a common cultural experience and lived on as a metaphor even after the common cultural experience that inspired it became obsolete.

Because of that, when read metaphorically an idiom makes sense no matter what your knowledge of the phrase's origin is. But when it's read literally an idiom won't make any fucking sense unless you have that cultural context that it's derived out of. Take the phrase, you just got to bite the bullet, for example. Metaphorically it means you just have to accept this inevitable impending reality and face it. No history required to understand that. When taken literally however the phrase means You got to put this bullet between your teeth and chow down on it And that makes little to no fucking sense

But back in the 1800s when it was first popularized the same bite the bullet could be taken literally or figuratively And it would make sense both ways and that's because back then without modern painkillers soldiers undergoing surgical procedures like amputations were literally given a bullet to bite down on in order to both endure that extreme unimaginable pain and more practically to stop themselves from biting off their own tongues. Why a bullet and not something else? Well, bullets were in plentiful supply back then, especially around soldiers, and they had just the right amount of thickness and kind of hardness, I guess, for lack of a better term, to be used for that purpose. Nowadays, thanks to the invention of anesthesia, the literal action of biting down on a bullet is thankfully no longer commonplace.

And the phrase bite the bullet has thus become pretty meaningless if it's taken literally. Despite this, it's still one of the most popular sayings in the English language. Okay now that we've covered that let's really get into it and explore some other common expressions that we've all heard a thousand times but if you're like me you've never really thought twice about where the phrase actually came from. Starting with a classic, saved by the bell. The phrase in addition to being the name of a wildly popular 90s sitcom,

I used to watch religiously after school, I had crushes on several of the actresses. This is used when someone's ass is rescued by the timely intervention of something or someone. Common misconceptions about saved by the bell, the phrase, not the TV show, are that the phrase was either inspired by the bells that ring in schools to end each class period, or the bells that ring during boxing

matches to indicate the end of a round. Although it was in the boxing rings of the 18th century where the phrase first became mainstream, that's actually not where it began, as I've long assumed. Its true origins far more gruesome. Up until relatively recently, getting buried alive was a real possibility. This was because we didn't know enough about the human body and mind to be able to consistently properly identify death itself. Sounds crazy but is true. As Edgar Allan Poe put it in his short essay titled premature burial, the boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?

It wasn't until the 20th century that science even began to scratch the surface of the physiological differences between being conscious, unconscious and being dead. And it wasn't until 1968 that a firm determination was made between heart death and brain death. And because of this, for hundreds of years, people were mistakenly declared dead when they were actually still very much alive, just quite ill, paralyzed, or in a coma. For example, in 1891, Octavia Smith Hatcher of Pikeville, Kentucky lost her infant son to a fever.

Soon after Octavia fell into a deep depression and then seemingly slipped into a coma. On May 2nd of that year she was pronounced dead from unknown causes and buried that same day. And Balming in the modern world you know wasn't very widespread yet at this point so she was just thrown into a coffin and that coffin was just quickly thrown into a bunch of dirt and a bunch more dirt was piled on top of it. As that summer went on, more and more people in town began contracting a mysterious illness that put them briefly in a coma, only to regain consciousness one or two days later and then recover. Octavia's husband James started to fear that his beloved wife had suffered the same illness and that perhaps she wasn't dead when she was put into the ground.

So horrifying. He promptly had his wife's body exhumed and to his horror, and God this would be terrible. James discovered the interior lining of her coffin had been shredded to tatters. The glass had been shattered and his wife's fingernails were bloodied and ripped. She had been buried alive. She'd woken up, undoubtedly screaming for help, for God knows how many hours, and tried unsuccessfully to claw her way back to the surface. In her case, while rare, was far from the only example of this in the 19th century

and prior to the 19th century. Back in the 18th century, because of the many living people that were mistakenly being subjected to what they called premature burials, which is a very pleasant way of saying getting fucking buried alive, safety caskets were invented. Safety caskets were essentially coffins a person could survive in, not for a real long time of course, but long enough hopefully for them to be able to indicate to the undertaker

above that they were in fact still alive, or to happened to be you know laying flowers on their grave etc They differed across Europe But in general safety caskets boasted two main features an airway leading from the coffin to the surface So the not dead corpse could breathe and a bell by the gravestone attached to a string inside the coffin Which was often tied around the buried person's wrist Someone woke up from a coma very much alive but six feet underground. Instead of suffocating to death and dying for real this time, they could simply yank on the string to ring the bell above and alert someone of their not-deadness. In such instances, they would literally be saved by the

bell. And that's where that saying comes from. Let's look at another common idiom with a slightly less morbid origin story. Cat got your tongue. Which means why are you being so unusually quiet? One theory about this phrase is that it originated in the Middle Ages when criminals or just someone who spoke negatively about the crown were punished by having their tongues cut out. And then that tongue, according to this macabre theory, would then be fed to the king's cats. Hence, cat got your tongue. However, there is no evidence that any medieval monarch did such a thing. Or if they did, they didn't do it regularly enough for it to become a common saying.

Far more likely is that the phrase originated on British Royal Navy ships in the 18th century. During that time, disobedient or criminal sailors were punished with a whip known as the catonine tails or the cat for short. The cat was constructed out of knotted leather cords and the base of the whip was slightly thicker than a man's wrist. Each of the leather cords were 18 inches long

about the width of a finger and their ends were dipped in tar. I've also seen some that would have a little little nail little tacks kind of put in it to really slice you up. According to one source under naval regulations the captain of a British warship up to 1806 could order a seaman or petty officer guilty of misconduct to be punished summarily with up to 12 lashes from a cat of nine tails administered at the gangway in the presence of the assembled crew. More serious punishment could only be inflicted by order of a court-martial. Those sentenced to a flogging by a court-martial receive different treatment

than those flogged at the captain's order. Court-martials order the guilty to be flogged around the fleet That is to be taken by boat around all the warships then in harbor receiving a portion of their lashes at each It was on these ships that cat got your tongue first came into existence in this environment the phrase could be used one of two ways First after getting flogged a punished sailor might be a bit more quiet than usual. Because, you know, he's fucking hurting and embarrassed. And a comrade might say, Cat got your tongue, roughly meaning, did that lashing make you quiet? On the other hand, if a shipmate was hesitant to say something out of order of, you know, for fear, of getting punished with a cat-o-nine tails, another shipmate might tease him by saying,

Cat got your tongue, meaning, you scared of getting punished with a cat of nine tails. Another shipmate might tease him by saying cat got your tongue meaning you scared of getting in trouble. There you go. The more you know. There's actually another English idiom involving cats and fear which is of course scaredy cat. However unlike in cat got your tongue the cat in scaredy cat is an actual feline. The term was invented in 1933 by author Dorothy Parker in her short story titled The Waltz. In the story, a woman is contemplating all the different ways she could answer a man's awkward request to Waltz, to dance with her. She wrote, What can you say when a man asks you to dance with him?

I most certainly will not dance with you. I'll see you in hell first. Why, thank you. I'd like to awfully, but I'm having labor pains. Oh, yes, do let's dance together. It's so nice to meet a man who isn't a scaredy cat about catching my Berry Berry. Well, we might as well get it over with. All right, cannonball.

Let's run out on the field. You won the toss. You can lead. Berry Berry by the way is a disease that causes paralysis of the limbs, severe emaciation and swelling of the body. Anyway with that using the term scaredy-cat describe an unduly fearful person became widespread in the U.S. And how fun for Dorothy to coin a popular phrase like that. I'm still waiting for fun phrases like put in your lunchbox surely or too little too little booty To really you know become embedded in the common lexicon

Okay, let's go over a few more weird things we say before moving on to some weird things that we do The term to turn a blind eye is a way of saying that you are consciously ignoring blatantly obvious or true things. Interestingly enough, the metaphorical phrase can actually be attributed to a single man who is literally blind in one of his eyes. Vice Admiral of the British Navy Horatio Nelson, first Viscount Nelson, first Duke of Bronte. Nelson lost his right eye during the British invasion of Corsica in 1794 when a piece of flying wooden debris just flew directly into it. Ouch! Upon his return to Britain, his mutilated eye was then removed. Extra ouch! And replaced with the glass one. Seven years later, during the Napoleonic Wars in 1801, Nelson was dispatched to the Baltic Sea to lead the British naval fleet in an attack on Denmark. And from his spot aboard the HMS Elephant, Nelson directed 49 battleships to gun down

the shores of Copenhagen. However, the Danish batteries on land were much more powerful than the Navy had anticipated. Halfway through the battle, using a flag system, the Admiral in charge of all British forces, Sir Hyde Parker, signaled to Nelson to withdraw the British fleet. When the HMS Elephant's flag captain, Thomas Foley, informed Nelson the Admiral's orders to retreat, Nelson responded, You know Foley, I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes. He then said to have raised his telescope to his glass eye and proclaimed,

I really do not see the signal. British naval hero and a pretty fucking funny guy. Against orders the British Navy now fought on and eventually they regained a strong offense and began absolutely obliterating the Danes. Hours later Nelson dispatched a letter to the Danish commander crowned Prince Frederick offering him a truce. The prince agreed, and the next day Nelson went ashore to finalize a formal armistice between Denmark and Britain.

It was a massive victory for the Brits, which I guess proves the point that sometimes it does pay off to turn a blind eye to something. I feel like that one also deserves the more you know button. Okay, this next one is apparently fairly well known, but still worth mentioning. And that's the phrase mad as a hatter. We may have covered this one before on Time Suck, but if we did, it was, it was years ago. Cause I cannot for the life of me remember which episode it would have appeared in. Uh, if you're like me for the longest time, you thought that mad as hatter was a reference to the mad hatter in Lewis Carroll's 1865 classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

However the phrase wasn't actually inspired by that character. The character was inspired by that phrase and also some urine and also syphilis. Let me explain. For hundreds of years the primary material used in hat making was fur felt, and the first step in felt formation was getting the fur off of the skin of whatever dead animal was being used, most likely a rabbit or a beaver. During the 16th century hat makers would separate the hair from the skin by saturating the pelt in camel urine. The piss softened the hair fibers and caused them to knot, which made the fur easier to remove. However, when the 17th century rolled around, French hat makers decided to ditch the camel

middleman and save some money by using their own piss instead. Waste knot, want knot. Reportedly, people started noticing that one particular workman's piss consistently produced felt of a significantly superior quality than anyone else's. Johnny's got that special sauce, got that sweet sweet piss. Eventually he discovered that the man with the magic pea actually just had syphilis and he was taking mercury chloride for it. Back then the chemical compound was prescribed by doctors because it effectively killed syphilis-causing bacteria.

Regrettably it also frequently killed a patient and made their pee mercurial. Anyway, after putting together that it was the mercury in the man's pee that made his urine so effective, the hat makers decided to cut out the new middleman, possibly because he died, and go straight to the source. They started using mercury nitrate to produce their felts and eventually the process spread outside of France and all across Europe. Unfortunately the price hatters had to pay for more durable and high quality felt was a real steep one. Their minds.

From the 17th century all the way until 1941 because of prolonged exposure to mercury the majority of hat makers in Europe and the US suffered from some level of mercury poisoning and eventually many developed erythesmus mercurialis. Don't always say that word or those two words. Erathemus mercurialis, also known as Mad Hatter disease, is a neurological disorder that affects the entirety of the central nervous system. In minor cases caused by minimal exposure to the mercury, the side effects include irritability, apathy, depression, excitability, memory loss, low self-confidence, decreased physical strength, insomnia, and tremors.

However, side effects of severe cases caused by chronic exposure can include psychosis, delirium, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, violent muscle spasms, loss of teeth, loss of hair, loss of nails, and just general mental confusion and feeling like fucking shit. Because they spent all day every day inhaling mercurial vapors and poorly ventilated workshops, many hatters developed severe cases of erythesmus mercurialisors and poorly ventilated workshops, many hatters developed severe cases of erythismus mercurialis, thus giving rise to the saying, mad as a hatter. Although the phrase didn't originate with Lewis Carroll's mad hatter, the enduring popularity of Alice's adventures in Wonderland undoubtedly helped perpetuate the expression

long after hatter stopped using mercury in 1941. And the reference was no longer than culturally relevant. Okay let's now move on from why we say certain things and figure out why we do certain things. Right after today's mid-show sponsor break if you don't hear these ads you can sign up on a Patreon become a space loser for $5 a month and get the entire catalog ad free and more. And I'm back, and it's time to learn about why we do certain things. To begin this section, let me paint a little picture for you. It's Monday morning.

You're late for work. You texted your boss that you were going to be five minutes away about 30 minutes ago. She told you last week that if you were late one more time, you were gonna be fired. You're desperately trying to maneuver the rush hour traffic, doing a pretty good job of it until you get caught behind a truck going 10 below the speed limit in the fast lane. You have to slam on your brakes to avoid rear-ending them and now all the cars in the right lane are speeding past you and you're not able to move back and go over and around this dickweed. So what do you do? Well you do what your heart tells you to do, which is you give that son of a bitch

the middle finger. When you do, you're not just telling him to fuck off. You're also performing one of the oldest gestures in the history of mankind. Humans have been flipping each other off since long before Christ was born. According to anthropologist Desmond Morris, it's one of the most ancient insult gestures known. The middle finger is the penis and the curled fingers on either side are the testicles. Right? Makes sense. By doing that you are offering someone a phallic gesture. It is a saying, or it is saying this is a phallus they are offering to people which is very a very primeval display.

Dating at least all the way back to 400 BCE in ancient Greece, the middle finger has been understood as representative of an erect penis. Because of that to the Greeks, according to the University of Wisconsin grad student Christina Buckley's thesis, holding up the middle finger meant, as it still does, that the recipient of the gesture was a pathic. does that the recipient of the gesture was a pathic. And a pathic by the way was the slang term for men who got anally penetrated during sex with other men. Variations of go get fucked. That's been an insult going back to the very beginnings of human civilization. The thought of being the fucky and not the fucker has apparently long terrified many heterosexual men.

Although what the middle finger symbolizes hasn't really changed in at least 2500 years the way it's wielded has. Unlike us, the ancient Greeks wouldn't just show someone their middle finger to deliver an insult. They would basically fuck them with it. Using their quote long fingers as the Greek playwright Aristophanes put it, men would poke each other men in their ears, mouth, nose, or even butthole in order to humiliate them. Nothing like a little butthole poke to rile up another dude.

Of course, it would sometimes do this jokingly, but under the right circumstances, it was considered a grave insult. One of the very first documented references to the middle finger as an obscene gesture actually comes from Aristophanes himself. In his comedy, The Clouds, which he wrote in 419 BCE, a parody character of Socrates is instructing a man named Strepsiades about how to measure poetic meter and rhythm using a finger. Strepsiades tells the philosopher that he already learned how to do that as a kid using a different finger. Socrates asked him which one and according to some scholars, Strepsides responded by lifting up his tug and pointing to his dick. I mean, I'm guessing that

would have gotten some great laughs from the audience, right? It's one hell of a dick joke. However, other scholars disagree and claim that Strepsides simply responded by presenting his middle finger to the philosopher. But according to researcher Max Nelson's article, insulting middle finger gestures amongst ancient Greeks and Romans, it doesn't matter if the character whipped out his dick or displayed the middle finger. And that is because, quote, in either case, a link between the finger and the penis is clearly envisaged. And in fact, elsewhere in Aristophanes and in other old comedy poets, the Greek word

for finger is used as a double entendre for the penis. Both explanations are plausible and have been defended by modern scholars. However, even if one were to accept that Strepsides displayed his middle finger to Socrates, this need not be in the same manner as giving the finger in the modern sense. He could instead be pointing at Socrates with it, raising it up slowly like a limp penis, or letting it dangle, perhaps wiggling it at the same time. The middle finger eventually made its way to Rome, where it was promptly dubbed Digitus Imputicus, which translates to the

shameless finger. That's a weird description for a finger. That finger is shameless! Although the gesture was considered obscene and lowbrow, the most famous example of its use in ancient Rome was set by an emperor, Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known by his nickname Caligula, which means little boot. He was emperor of Rome for just four years from 37 CE to 41 CE. During the first six months of his reign, Caligula appeared to be a mild-mannered ruler

with a great sense of his own nobility. But then as time went on, he revealed himself to be less than stable and a cruel man with an ego bigger than Rome itself. According to ancient historian Suetonius, in addition to demanding to be worshipped as a god, engaging in perverted sexual acts, and constantly trying to humiliate the Senate, Emperor Caligula was also basically in love with his horse in Satatus. In his biographical work, the 12 Caesars, which composed in 121 CE, Suetonius wrote that, the day before the Sirsensian games, Caligula used to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighborhood, so that the repose of his horse in Cetatus might not be disturbed.

For this favorite animal, besides a marble stable, an ivory manger, purple housings, and a jeweled frontlet. Caligula also appointed a house with a retinue of slaves and fine furniture for the reception of such as were invited into the horse's name or in the horse's name to sup with him. It is even said that he intended to make the horse a consul. Must have been some horse. This horse was talking to him, at least in his mind. While it's likely that many of the Emperor's wildest antics like that are nothing more than rumors, one thing Caligula for sure did was flip the wrong guy off, and he got killed

for it. Cassius Cheerio was a Roman soldier serving in Caligula's Praetorian Guard, an elite military unit charged with protecting the Emperor and other political officials. As a guard, Cassius had endured relentless mocking from the Emperor for God knows how long. The Emperor made fun of him for apparently having a high-pitched voice and would accuse him of being overly effeminate. But the most insulting thing Caligula did to Cassius was whenever the soldier had to kiss his hand, Caligula would offer his hand with only his middle finger extended,

and he would wiggle it slightly, quote, thus forcing Cassius to perform a sort of pseudo-fallatio. Eventually, Cassius got so sick of that shit that he single-handedly organized a plan to assassinate that motherfucker. Note to bullies, everyone has their breaking point. He recruited a small group of fellow Praetorian guards and senators who hated Caligula as much as he did and on January 24th 41 CE they got rid of the Emperor once and for all. Cassius was the first to stab the Emperor and after him each member of the informal Caligula hate club got to take a turn with their knives. In order to eradicate his entire line of succession the

assassins also murdered Caligula's wife, Melonia, and his one-year-old daughter, Julia Drusilla. However, they were unable to find Caligula's uncle Claudius, who was hiding behind a palace curtain when the attack took place. He was able to escape with some loyal guards to a nearby camp, and there he was named emperor. Soon after that, Cassius and his band of assassins were executed for their crimes. Interestingly enough, at basically the same time and same place that that gesture for fuck you was invented, the gesture for good job was created as well. Applause. Applause is one of the highest forms of nonverbal praise that us humans can give one another.

It's how we show appreciation from afar to performers and celebrate how to celebrate loved ones. It's how we communicate our affection, agreement and or admiration. And most importantly, applause is and almost has always been a remarkably stable facet of human nature. But why? Well, on one hand, no pun intended, clapping is easy. Children as young as one can do it.

I mean, granted they don't do very well, but those cute pudgy little idiots can still slam their little fat baby palms together and make some sort of dull noise. On the other hand, it's the most efficient way to make a certain type of loud noise. You can clap your hand against your thigh or ass cheek or even face cheek if you're a weirdo, but it won't make nearly as much noise as the clash of palm on palm. As an article in the Atlantic put it, of palm on palm. As an article in the Atlantic put it, clapping is a way for frail little humans to recreate through hands made thunderous the rumbles and smashes of nature. Seems a bit dramatic but alright maybe. Clapping is also one of the most socially acceptable ways just to be

loud. It can't produce nearly as much noise as you know screaming for most people but for some it can come close. And where screaming in public is considered, you know, freaky and odd, clapping in public is a perfectly normal thing to do. Unless you do it in a public restroom. Every time someone finishes taking a piss or shit and accompany it by shouting, hip hip hooray! That's frowned on for some reason. Though clapping is socially acceptable in most public spaces, its true place is in the theater, which is also likely where it was born.

Sociobiologist Desmond Morris says that when we applaud a performer, we are in effect patting them on the back from a distance. Okay, I like that. At the end of most plays in ancient Rome, the lead actor would cry out a command to his audience which translated to goodbye and applause. The Romans had a sophisticated system of applause. An audience communicated their feelings about a performance by making different types of noises at the end of it, not always with their hands.

According to the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, quote, the Romans had a set ritual of applause for public performances, expressing degrees of approval, snapping the finger and thumb, clapping with the flat or hollow palm, or waving the flap of the toga. The intricate Roman applause system was not only used in theater, it was also a vital part of politics. With the technology we have today, our political leaders are able to get real-time and extremely specific information about how their constituents feel about them. But back then, the only way a politician could get that sort of information was by evaluating the applause they got when they entered an arena.

The speed, rhythm, volume, and length of the applause was meticulously evaluated. It was essentially a type of ancient poll and those little differences were how they measured voter statistics. Additionally, applause was also occasionally used by the leaders of ancient Rome as a military tactic. To save the struggling empire from its impending fall, in 7 CE, East Roman Emperor Heraclius went to meet with the barbarian king. Heraclius' plan was to scare the shit out of the barbarian by showing up to the meeting

with an immense army at his back. Unfortunate for the Emperor, he didn't have an immense army. To remedy that, Heraclius hired a large group of men to clap as the army approached their enemies. He hoped the rumbles of their applause would intimidate the barbarians and tricked him into thinking the Roman military was more powerful than it actually was. Much to Heraclius' dismay, as you probably guessed, that didn't work and his beloved Empire fell deeper into ruin. Okay let's move on to the next thing, which just like applause in the middle finger and philosophy and democracy and stuff like that, also originated way back in ancient Greece. Have you ever been in a birthday party

when suddenly all the lights go out and someone emerges slowly from the kitchen bearing a cake stabbed through with on fire candles and everyone immediately starts singing in a ritualistic monotone song and kind of way staring at the birthday boy slash girl who's forced to sit there in silence and thought to yourself, this is kind of culty.

If you have thought that, well, you'd be kind of right. Dating all the way back to the Hellenistic period, which started in approximately 323 BCE, the Greeks were baking cakes to be used in various sacred rituals and ceremonies. The primary ingredients of these sacred cakes were wheat or barley, flour, herbs, fruits, seeds, nuts, cheese. I'd say I I bet they were delicious but I doubt it. I love Greek food except for their desserts. I've literally never heard anyone in my life say something to the effect of let's go get some Greek food they have the best desserts. Anyway back then sacred cakes would be served to guests at

religious dinner party celebrations or more often during festivals they were placed before the temple of a god or goddess as a consecrated offering. However, the modern tradition of birthday candles can be traced back to one specific festival called Minnikea. The spring festival was held on the 16th or 17th of the Athenian month of Munichia. Munichian. I think that first one was Munichia. There we go. The festival is called Munichia. Pretty sure. That month was roughly equivalent to what is now late April or early May. It was held in honor of Artemis, the goddess of the moon, and during the festival Athenians would

gather around Artemis's temple and dance, race, and give offerings. Because Artemis was also known as Lady of the Beast or the Mistress of Animals, amongst other things, because she was said to look after young girls from the time that they were infants to when they would give birth to their first child, during the festival prepubescent little girls would dress up as bears and dance around the temple. Sometimes a female goat was dressed up as a girl and sacrificed to the goddess. But more often the offering made was a round layered cake topped with a little circle of torches, little miniature torches. Based on how it's represented in vase paintings, frescoes, and sculptures,

Artemis's cake was baked in that shape and then lit with these little torches to make it resemble a full moon. That's a pretty cool little piece of trivia. You know what? That one needs that button. Many scholars consider this ancient votive to be the birthplace of our modern tradition, but it was actually not until the 18th century that blowing out birthday candles became a thing. For 300 years, Germany has been celebrating Kinderfest or children's party in English, which is exactly what it sounds like. Like many cultures throughout history, the Germans in the 1700s believed that evil spirits were more likely to be present on days of significance, like holidays and birthdays. Because of this, each year on the morning

of a child's birthday, they receive a cake adorned with a number of candles equal to their age plus an extra one called the light of life. Though they got the cake in the morning, kids were not allowed to historically actually eat it until after dinner. It would be left on display in a place of honor and throughout the day any candle that went out would immediately be replaced. The candles, in addition to looking pretty, served two purposes. For one thing, they represented hope that the child's life would not be extinguished anytime soon, hence the light of life. Additionally, the constant flickering of the candle's flames from morning to night was meant to ward off any evil spirits that might seek out the little one to harm.

At the end of the day, the child was finally allowed to eat their cake, but first they had to blow out the candles and make a wish, which would be carried up to heaven on the billows of the candle smoke. And so, an ancient Greek tradition with an old German twist evolves into today's spittle-covered birthday celebration cakes. Sorry, that's annoying. I really like the sound of that little piano, little tickling of the ivories there.

Another mundane celebratory tradition that actually began as an ancient ritual is toasting. Clinking our glasses together after somebody gives a toast. One of the oldest, most universal aspects of dining etiquette. For centuries in pubs and taverns and ballrooms and living rooms across the globe, people have been gingerly tapping champagne glasses or smashing together goblets of beer, meat, or some other fermented drink in celebration of some great occasion or just, you know, actually being in the same areas, some other person or trying to get late or whatever. But why? According to

the 1995 International Handbook of Alcohol and Culture, toasting is a secular vestige of ancient sacrificial libations in which a sacred liquid was offered to the gods, blood or wine in exchange for a wish, a prayer summarized in the words long life or to your health. For this modern day activity, we will not look back to the ancient Greeks but to the Vikings. While toasting as a custom has roots in various ancient cultures, it was the Vikings who embraced and formalized toasting as a significant part of their feasting and celebratory tradition and that tradition has carried over into modern times.

During the Viking era, which lasted from around 800 CE to 1050 CE, toasting was a fundamental part of any feast. Cups were filled the brim with beer or mead and the toast itself was given by a designated skald. Skalds were skilled orators who composed Old Norse poetry and alliterative verse. Much like how we cheers today, the themes of the toast vary depending on the occasion. Speech might be about the generosity of the feast's benevolent hosts, the great fortune to come out of a new political alliance, the brave warriors who just died in a recent raid, or the gods and their power. When the toast was over, everyone raised their mugs, horns, or bowls full of drink and proclaimed skull.

According to more than a few sources, the word skull derives from the English word skull and the reason they shouted it was because Viking warriors would literally drink their beer from the skulls of their fallen enemies. That's probably bullshit. For starters, there's no historical record of Vikings using human skulls for chalices. They occasionally would drink from animal horns, but never human craniums, as far as we know. And in Old Norse, skull straight up does not mean skull. It means bowl. And in all five languages that Old Norse is developed into, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese, the word skull still means bowl. The reason the Vikings shouted bowl was because in earlier years, instead of

individual mugs, mugs, people would toast with a single bowl from which everyone got a swig of. Despite that, some people still believe that the Norse warriors drank from human skulls and that is because of the mistake made by one dude, Thomas fucking Percy. That fool! Actually, I don't know if he's a fool or not. Thomas Percy was the Catholic Bishop of Dromore in County down Northern Ireland from 1782 until he died in 1811. Before he was ordained, Percy worked as a

translator of foreign literary works. His most famous was Relics of Ancient English Poetry, which was published in 1765. In it Percy translated 29 stanza monologue called a 29 stanza monologue called a Scaldic poem Crocomel from the perspective of legendary Viking hero Ragnar Lothbrok as he dies in a snake pit. Percy was the first person ever translate the poem in English titling it the dying ode of Ragnar Lothbrok as he dies in a snake pit. First he was the first person ever translate the poem in English, titling it the dying ode of Ragnar Lothbrok, except actually he called him Ragnar Lodbrok. It was arguably one of the most influential pieces of Scaldic poetry to ever be translated, however a vital part

of it was translated incorrectly. In the original Old Norse the 25th stanza of the poem translates to, we shall drink beer from the curved trees of skulls. Whatever the hell that means. However, in 1765, Percy translated it to, we shall drink beer out of the skulls of our enemies. All right, so was it. I mean, I feel like that's a mistake, you know, a lot of people could have made. I would have gotten probably fucking close to translating it correctly. Old Norse is an insane language. Moving close to the present day now as Europe entered the late Middle Ages

religious fervor was rife and toasting was seen as a way to ward off evil spirits. The clinking of glasses together was thought to resemble the sound of church bells, which would confuse demons, dumbass demons, and prevent them from ruining the celebration. Man, they can make it here all the way from hell and somebody clings to glass and like, ah, that's a must-be at church, I gotta get out of here. So the next time you toast to your friend's promotion or parents anniversary or whatever it is you're celebrating, remember that you're not only getting drunk and keeping an old Viking tradition alive, you are also keeping demons at bay.

Actually quite a few commonplace social behaviors today started out as ways to protect oneself from evil spirits. I'm not surprised. We're a superstitious species. For example, the QT tradition of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas time actually began as a sacrificial ritual in the early Middle Ages. The Celtic Druids are an ancient religious and social order that thrived from the third century BCE to the second century CE in what is now

Britain, Ireland, and France primarily. To the Celtic Druids, Mistletoe was sacred. They believed it possessed the power to banish evil, banish supernatural and mundane evils, and that it symbolized peace, rebirth, and vitality. They put a lot of stock in mistletoe. Each year during the festival of the winter solstice a few druid priests and white robes would climb an oak tree Cut down the mistletoe growing on it using a golden sickle That mistletoe was then boiled into an elixir that was believed to cure infertility and provide protection from aligned forces in the new year cure infertility and provide protection from malign forces in the New Year. The druids then drank the elixir, sacrificed two white bowls, and feasted under the oak tree for the remainder of the festival.

As time went on, the Celtic druid tradition mingled with other religious perceptions of the plant, resulting in the medieval folkloric custom of hanging mistletoe on the ceiling to ward off evil spirits, especially during during Christmas and then that morphed into locking lips. In addition to making out under mistletoe, another thing that started out as a defense tactic against wicked supernatural forces is crossing one's fingers. The action of crossing the middle finger over the index finger for good luck stems from an ancient pre-Christian pagan ritual and we've been crossing our digits for millennia. Even before Jesus died on one the cross was revered as a powerful symbol in the ancient world. In pre-Christian Europe the horizontal line of the cross

represented the mortal plane and the vertical line represented the divine celestial world and the intersection between the two realms was where good spirits dwelt. Back then when someone wanted to be seach the powers above for something, they would cross index fingers with a friend. By making the sign of the cross, they believed that whatever they were wishing for would get trapped in the intersection between the supernatural and the mortal realms locked safely away from evil spirits. Eventually the ritual became less strict.

A secondary person no longer required to perform it. Instead, one could do it on their own by crossing their index and middle fingers. Cut to 2000 years later, we're still performing the same ritual, even if we don't realize it. As one source pointed out, this sort of evolution happens often. Quote, customs once formal, religious and ritualistic have a way of evolving with time to become informal, secular and commonplace. A similar evolution took place with the custom of

covering the mouth while yawning. We've all been taught or should have been taught when we yawn the polite thing to do is cover our mouths, lest the people in our company think we're exhausted by their conversation. Humans have been doing this since antiquity but back then in the early days it wasn't because they didn't want to seem rude, it was because they were literally trying to save their souls. In Islam, for example, yawning is seen as the work of evil spirits. When you yawn, it means the devil is trying to enter your body, and when you sneeze, it means the devil is leaving your body. So if you think your pesky allergies are just making you sleepy, you're wrong.

You're a walking revolving door for demons, evil demon infested shitbag. According to Islamic scholars, this belief originated with the Prophet Muhammad. Quote, the Prophet said that Satan endeavors to distract the faithful in prayer. This is Allah's way of testing them. One way Satan distracts the faithful is by dominating their thoughts, infiltrating their minds during prayer. Another way is by making them yawn to divert attention away from their prayers. The Prophet told us that yawning is prompted by Satan and gave us the order to avoid it whenever possible.

When it becomes inevitable, we must close our mouth with our hand. Alright, a similar theory actually exists in India. When it becomes inevitable, we must close our mouth with our hand. All right. A similar theory actually exists in India. According to Hindu mythology, yawning is dangerous because it creates an opening for evil spirits to enter your body. Watch out! Protect yourself! Luckily, you can prevent the spirits from taking possession of your meat

sack by covering your mouth when you yawn. God, thank God again that evil spirits are so dumb. Thank God it's such an easy fix for something so dangerous. Also, if you're someone who doesn't cover their mouths when they yawn or, you know, haven't been doing that, well keep your legion of demons away from me. You're a walking fucking horde of demons. Okay, just about time to wrap things up. Before we do, I want to talk about one more gesture. We're likely all familiar with the concept of photobombing somebody, right? The whole bunny ears thing.

This really cracked me up. Nowadays making a V with the index middle finger and holding it behind someone's head is a silly, innocent little gesture. Some of us do to poke a little fun at our friends. I honestly, until now, have never understood this gesture. I've always found it just both confusing and obnoxious. I'm like, what does that mean?

Who cares? You put little fingers up behind somebody, what? Well, it means something a lot more fucked up than I expected. It's not just a harmless little bunny meaning. Bunny ears actually started out as cuckold's horns. And holding cuckold's horns behind someone's head was not a lighthearted joke. It was a grievous humiliation.

During the Renaissance, especially in France, Italy and Britain, men whose wives cheated on them were known as cuckolds. The term comes from the old French word for the cuckoo, a species of bird known to lay their own eggs in another bird's nest. During this period horns were symbolic of masculinity and manliness. Viral animals like bulls, stags, the traditionally lecherous goat, they all boasted some kind of horns on their heads. And in the Middle Ages, when a man's wife cheated on him, it was seen as a critical failure on his part. Back then, women were believed to be both intellectually inferior to and more sexual than men.

Therefore, it was a husband's job to protect and control his wife from her own stupidity and horniness. Additionally, wives were the legal property of their husbands. So when a man's wife cheated, it was not only seen as a failure on his part to fulfill his masculine role, but as a reflection of his inability to take care of his property. And finally, a cheating wife was also seen as an indication of her husband's sexual inadequacy. To humiliate such an unmanly man, other more manly men would make the cuckold's horns, gesture behind his head, essentially as a way of saying, here's some masculinity since you seem to have lost yours you pathetic limp dick piece of shit.

So that's the that's the origin of the harmless little bunny ears. One of the biggest fans of the concept of the cuckold's horns was none other than Mr. William Shakespeare. Both the imagery of a horned man and the gesture itself appears consistently throughout his comedic work, though he frequently presents cuckoldry as something that happens to a man when he gets married in general. In As You Like It, a group of lords sing a hunting song about getting cuckolded by their wives. What shall he have that killed the deer, his leather skin and horns to wear? Then sing him home. I have no idea what the melody is supposed to be. Take thou no scorn to wear the horn.

It was a crest ere thou was born. Thy father's father wore it and thy father bore it. The horn the horn, the lusty horn, is not a thing to laugh, to scorn. The more you know. No. And that's it for that silly little edition. Time sucks, short sucks. I hope you liked that. I especially like finding out the origin of bunny ears. So confusing. And I think most people are confused.

I don't think 90% of people understand what the hell that's about. It's just something we do. Who fucking knew that its origin was like, yeah, you can't control your wife, you fucking limp dick idiot. Never would have guessed that. Also, especially love the middle finger stuff. No idea that went back all the way to the ancient Greeks. If you enjoyed this little episode, check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog. Beefier episodes of Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time. New episodes of the now long running paranormal podcast, Scared to Death every Tuesday at midnight.

Thank you to Molly Jean Box for suggesting this topic and the initial research. And thank you to Logan Keith, recording and uploading today's episode. Please go to badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend.