ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley - Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Fact of the Day (of the Week!) - Mythical Creatures Week!

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

On This FOTD(OTW); Vaughan pulls out his Monster Manual and selects a few of his favourite Mythical Creatures! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ZM Podcast Network. Play ZM's Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley. On today's Fact of the Day of the Week, Vaughn blows dust off his mythological tomes and does his research into mythological creatures. It's time for... Fact of the Day, Day, Day, Day, Day. This week's Fact of the Day theme, and we are late, but

Jack Black. Joy, a privilege. We are late, but Jack Black. It's mythical creatures, little known mythical creatures, because I was reading about someone was spending all this money to go and like finally get answers on Loch Ness.

I was like, save your money. Oh, give it up. There's no dinosaur-y creature in Lake Ness. What celebrity was just chiming in as well? Ed Sheeran or someone?

Like your grainy photo was just a log or someone's jacket. It's always a log. Or a bloody alpaca that's fallen in. Yeah, they've literally run sonar on every inch of that lake.

There's nothing in there. He ain't real, Hans. Yeah, he ain't real. So I think we should spend some time learning about other mythical creatures from around the world, and that's today's fact, this week's fact of the day. Okay. Well, fact about... Ucklut is number one.

Ucklut is number one. The Inuits of Alaska along the shore of the Bering Sea have a mythical creature called Ucklut, which has a really long name, Kakwan Ungat Gigluingnik. Okay. Great pronunciation. Thank you. He said it with confidence.

How would he know? Well, he speaks a little Inuit. Yeah. Ucklut, for short, is a orca. Right. That can take on the form of a wolf when it's on land. Wow. Orca wolf.

Yeah, orca wolf. How rad would an orca wolf be? Imagine if orcas had legs. That'd be unstoppable. So, apparently the origin... When I imagine an orca with legs, I imagine the legs being tiny. Yeah, like a T-Rex. Like a T-Rex, but more than that.

But there's a huge orca. For scuttling. For scuttling along. tiny. Yeah, like a T-Rex arm. But more than that. But it's a huge orca. For Scotland. For Scotland alone. Apparently the origins of this is that a very well-respected chief of the area once saw a wolf walk up to the edge of an ice shelf, jump into the water, and then when he looked across, an orca was swimming away.

Oh, that's just a coincidence. Yeah. And apparently you will find lots of wolf prints that just walk up to the edge of ice. Wow. Because orcas get them? Or they go swimming? So apparently it's just like they just keep walking,

but then the ice will melt and crack and like crack off. So you just don't see where the wolf kept going. Okay. Because the ice cracked away. See, there is a reasonable explanation for everything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but apparently in this region, a lot of Inuit folklore is about composite animals,

animals that can be too. The white whale transforms into a reindeer. Oh, yeah, I like that. That'd be a cool one. Imagine if it was big whales pulling Santa's sleigh all along. Oh, my gosh. They were just in their reindeer form. You know what, when you said reindeer,

I thought of a unicorn for some reason. I was like, yeah, big horn. That's not a reindeer. Yeah, that's an owl. That's kind of the unicorn of the sea. So today's fact of the day is that when we're talking about mythical creatures, let's forget about Loch Ness and go to the Bering Sea, where local Inuit folklore talks about Uklut, the orca who can turn into a wolf. Poof. Play ZM's Fletch Vodden Ailey.

Play ZM. It's Mythical Creature Week here at Fact of the Day. We're having a look at some of the facts about myths. What's happened there? He just had a look on his face. Three-day water. It's got a bit of a tang to it. I probably should have just got fresh water.

He doesn't rinse it out. He just puts it in the locker after work. Oh. Earthy. It's been sitting in there a little bit. Yeah. You don't drink that much water at work. I'm going through a litre a day. He's used to gross water. A litre during the show, baby. That's why I'm

wheezing every quarter hour. You are wheezing. On the quarter hour. Actually, this is a nice tie-in. Today's fact of the day about mythical creatures and urban legends comes to us from Japan. Arigato. Gazaymas.

Gazaymas. Teacher? I don't know. Anyway, move away from that. The interior of not knowing. Karage chicken. Is Akanami. Is what?

Akanami. Okay. Akanami is an urban legend mythical creature in Japan that does nothing except sneak into your house at night and lick the dirty parts of your bathroom. Ew.

Grime. So if you don't want the mythical monster coming in and licking your bathroom, you've got to keep it clean. So that's the basic. It was apparently drawn from sort of a want for cleanliness because it was linked

early in Japan that if it wasn't clean, chances are there was going to be disease and disease would spread very quickly during these sorts of things. So it was the idea is to keep it as tidy as possible. So it lives in old bathhouses don't we all, and dilapidated buildings.

It would sneak into places at night when people are asleep and using its long tongue, it would lick the filth and grime sticking to bath places and bathtubs. It does nothing other than lick filth. But right, given that it was considered very unsettling to encounter, people would work harder to make their baths and their bathtubs and their bath places clean so that the Akaname wouldn't come at night. Right. Yeah. And

linked into popular culture, if you're familiar with Pokemon, Lickitung, which is a Pokemon with a very long tongue. Lickitung. Lickitung. And it can only say its own name, so it goes like, Lickitung! And it's got a big, long, licky tongue. And that's the... That is partially based on the

Akaname of Japanese legend. Feels like there'd be a Hayley's Horny Book Club about that. I was thinking that as well. That's a book in waiting. Yeah. So to describe its look, it's goblin-esque in appearance, but it has a long, licky tongue

and only one toe. Ew. Did it lose the other toes in a freak accident? Its foot goes to a point. With one toe? And it's got one toe and toen. Which makes me a little bit... Did it lose the other toes in a freak accident? Its foot goes to a point and it's got one toe and toenail on the end of it. Ew, yeah. Yeah.

Like the witches from Raald Dahl. Yeah. They had those pointy toes, didn't they? Long pointy toes. One toe. So today's fact of the day in Urban Legend

slash slash Mythological Creature Week. And thanks to Anthony for sending this in, by the way. Yeah, thank you. Also, wait, you didn't do this work.

Anthony sent this in to me. Anthony did it. Yeah, so I took the nod off. Is it Fletch, Anthony and Hayley now? Yeah. In this moment. Fletch. Okay.

It's Anthony's Fact of the Day with Fletch, Fawn and Hayley. Okay. Lovely. Featuring Anthony. Yeah, great. And his facts. Today's Fact of the Day is that if you don't want Akanami to come visiting at night, you must clean your bath.

This week's fact of the day themes were weird mythical creatures from around the world. This was triggered because some dude was going to spend a whole lot of money to finally get the answers on Loch Ness. Which I was like, give me the money. Here's the answer. It's just not there. Stop being silly. You're all being silly. So we're having a look around the world at different mythical creatures

that might be better to try to get a final answer on. I like yesterday's one, the Japanese one. Oh, I liked that. But they have creepy pictures. The look at that. Yeah, the guy that looks up the dirty baths. So you've got to keep a clean bathroom. Well, we're going to go to Sardinia today.

Have you ever been to Sardinia? No, but I certainly plan to. It looks lovely. Is that where Sardines got their name? Yes, Sardines and Submarines. But it's not Origins Week. And Submarines. It's not Origins Week.

You've done that. You can't go back. You can't fact us about other facts during another fact. I'm about to. You missed fact. I'm about to. You missed it. I'm about to. Origin week. Sardines are named after the island of Sardinia

where they were once found in abundance. Oh, there you go. Oh, we ate them all. So good work, dude. Good work, everybody. Classic humans. Sardinia has... Sardinia.

Why are you saying Sardinia? Because he's thinking of sardines now. Sardinia. Sardinia. Sardinia has Why are you saying Sardinia? Because he's thinking of sardines now. Sardinia. Sardinia. Sardinia has folklore of urchitu. Ever heard of a werewolf? Urchitu is a werecow. Hey.

A man has committed great fraud, so don't commit fraud. Okay. What was that noise? Was that you making that noise? I had it in my head. I was like, I think I'm going crazy. A man that's coming to Great For All will wake up in the middle of the night

and turn into a great ox with two candles on top of its iron horns. So the iron horn's very heavy to carry. Yeah. And it'll come down and curl around and then there's two candles sitting on it. Like your coir candles, like really nice. Oh, like sweet pea chasmin.

Sweet pea chasmin vanilla. Nah. French vanilla? It's not going to be French vanilla. Not French pear. You just mean like those old school, like emergency candles in a power cut. Church candles.

Okay. So with two candles on the horns. And in some of the stories, in some of the tellings, it'll be also have a few devils with it to keep the candles lit. Ooh, okay. It will walk around looking for a house.

And then when it finds a house, it will bellow outside the house Three times By the time that third one's finished It's too late The owner of the house will be dead within a year Oh my gosh The only way to stop a Cheeto Is by chopping off its horns

Or blowing out the candles in one blow like a birthday cake. Oh. Yeah. Could you go... Yeah. Well, no, you have to. One breath. Run around the devils, by the way.

I mean, it's not real. It's obviously not real. It's stupid, isn't it? Excuse me. The devils are trying to relight them. Have you been to Sardinia, have you? No, I haven't. Been to Sardinia?

Eaten a sardine? I love sardines. I've never had a sardine, I don't think. Is it a whole fish and it's got bones in it? Yes, a whole fish. That's like anchovies and sardines. Sardines come in a can. Anchovies I like, but they're small and very fleshy.

Sardines are a bit meatier. Yeah. Yuck. I'd eat one. So you blow it out and then they'll stop and the horns can be used to heal the spleen. The spleen specifically. Right. I'm not sure why.

Ridiculous. I'm not sure why. But it's a werecow. It's a cheetah and it is from Sardinian folklore. Okay. Lovely. Play ZM's Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley. Mythical creatures we've been looking at this week.

Yes. Got into a little bit of urban legends. Japan, I read, we had a lot of Japan submissions. People have been like, this is from Japan, that's from Japan. A lot of them sort of like contextualised in Pokemon and such. And people, somebody sent me an article yesterday about why it is. And it's apparently like, it was your family thing to invent a monster. Oh,

now my mum would have just said stop being so bloody silly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just could have told the family's monster from prior generations. Yeah. And so some of them

became like really popular because they made it into like cartoons and stuff. Oh, nice. Which I thought was a fascinating article. The Celtics, also big on mythical creatures.

Okay. For storytelling, big on storytelling creatures. Okay. For storytelling. Big on storytelling. Today I thought we might slightly dip our toes somewhere a little bit different with mythical creatures. Mythical creatures that turned out to be real. Oh, okay. Oh, like the Loch Ness. Now I know you're a big fan of the Loch Ness monster flesh.

Oh, I wish people would just stop. It's a log, eh? It's definitely a log. It's just a log. Yeah, it's a log. Or an alpaca just's definitely a log. It's just a log. Yeah, it's a log. Or an alpaca just like having a dip. Having a little bathe. Yeah.

Number one, the narwhal. Through the Middle Ages, it was all talk about unicorn. Now, apparently, once upon a time, the Vikings had the tusks. They're called tusks. They're not horns of the narwhal. And somebody said, is that a unicorn horn? And they were like, yes. And someone paid way more money for it.

So it became this unicorn horn trade that turned out it was the narwhal, although they weren't discovered until 1577. So they were like a mythical creature. Somebody said it's a unicorn whale and it's actually real. Another one, the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros people did not believe

that rhinoceros were real. Dating back to the Greeks. Really? Yeah, an adventurer apparently described a mythical creature with a head like a stag, the feet of an elephant and the tail of the boar. Oh yeah, that's a rhino. Yeah, it's a rhino.

And then they ended up actually seeing one. Wow. But up until then thought it was mythical. Yeah, because someone could come back and describe it, but they might have been delirious. They'd been travelling a long time. They didn't have, obviously, photographic proof was massive. They didn't have an iPhone 15.

No iPhone 15s in ancient Greek times. Because it takes a lovely photo. It takes a crisp photo. You're telling me they had all those lovely aqueducts and engineering and roads that still exist and buildings that still exist, but no... But they couldn't get down into Africa. Well, there was people in Africa, but the Greeks were told about this animal

and they said that sounds too good to be true. Okay. The mixture of all the animals. Big journey from Greece to Africa. In 1798, Captain John Hunter was in Australia and he sent back a pelt of a platypus. Oh, yeah, weird animal. And people thought he had made it as a joke to play a prank on people.

What? That's weird, eh? Yeah, platypus. Plast pie? Kind of like an ornery... Is it platypuses or platypi? It's platypuses. It's like octopuses, not technically octopi. The correct would be octopuses.

It's got a duck beak. It's got weird feet. It's got a beaver's tail. It's all go. Did you know the gorilla was considered a mythical creature? Goodness. It wasn't confirmed until 1847. But we are gorillas.

I know. The tale of a monster. For those that celebrate. A human-like monster that visited their camp and stole food with the strength of ten men. That's a monkey. Well, it wore a Sasquatch. And it turns out it's a gorilla. So there you go.

A lot of animals actually started out as myths because no one had rock-hard evidence that they existed, but it turns out they existed all along. Mythical creatures we've been looking at this week. Yes. Got into a little bit of urban legends. Japan, I read, we had a lot of Japan submissions. People were like, this

is from Japan, that's from Japan. A lot of them sort of like contextualised in Pokemon and such. Yeah. And people, somebody sent me an article yesterday about why it is. And it's apparently like, it was your family thing to invent a monster. Oh, now my mum would have just said, stop being so bloody silly.

Yeah, yeah. She just could have told the family's monster from prior generations. Yeah. And so some of them became like really popular because of, they made it into like

cartoons and stuff. Oh, nice. So that was a fascinating article. The Celtics, also big on mythical creatures. Okay. For storytelling, big on storytelling.

Today I thought we might slightly dip our toes somewhere a little bit different with mythical creatures Mythical creatures that turned out to be real Oh, okay Oh, like the Loch Ness Now I know that you're a big fan of the Loch Ness monster flesh I wish people would just stop

It's a log, eh? It's definitely a log It's just a log Yeah, it's a log Or an alpaca just like having a dip Having a little bathe Yeah Number one The narwhal Through the Middle Ages Or an alpaca just like having a dip. Having a little bathe. Yeah.

Number one, the narwhal. Through the Middle Ages, it was all talk about unicorn. Now, apparently, once upon a time, the Vikings had the tusks. They're called tusks. They're not horns of the narwhal. And somebody said, is that a unicorn horn? And they were like, yes. And someone paid way more money for it. So it became this unicorn horn trade

that turned out it was the narwhal although they weren't discovered until 1577. So they were like a mythical creature. Somebody said it's a unicorn whale and it's actually real. Another one, the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros people did not believe that rhinoceros were real.

Dating back to the Greeks. Really? Yeah, an adventurer apparently described a mythical creature with a head like a stag, the feet of an elephant and the tail of the boar. Oh yeah, that's a rhino. Yeah, it's a rhino. And then they ended up actually seeing one. Wow. But up until then thought it was mythical.

Yeah, because someone could come back and describe it, but they might have been delirious, they'd been travelling a long time, they didn't have obviously photographic proof was massive. They did not have an iPhone 15. No iPhone 15s in ancient Greek times. Because it takes a lovely photo. It takes a crisp photo. You're telling me they had all those lovely aqueducts

and engineering and roads that still exist and buildings that still exist, but they couldn't get down into Africa. Well, there was people in Africa, but the Greeks were told about this animal and they said that sounds too good to be true. Okay. The mixture of all the animals.

Big journey from Greece to Africa. In 1798, Captain John Hunter was in Australia and he sent back a pelt of a platypus. Oh, yeah, weird animal. And people thought he had made it as a joke to play a prank on people. What? That's weird, eh? Yeah, platypus.

Plast pie? Kind of like an ottery. Is it platypuses or platypi? It's platypuses. It's like octopuses, not technically octopi. The correct would be octopuses. Okay. It's got a duck beak.

It's got weird feet. It's got a beaver's tail. It's all go. Did you know the gorilla was considered a mythical creature? Goodness. It wasn't confirmed until 1847. But we are gorillas. I know.

The tale of a monster. For those that celebrate. A human-like monster that visited their camp and stole food with the strength of ten men. It's a monkey. Well, it wore a Sasquatch. And it turns out it's a gorilla. So there you go.

A lot of animals actually started out as myths because no one had rock-hard evidence that they existed, but it turns out they existed all along. Fact of the day, day, day, day, day. Okay, if you had to rate, review or marry Fletch, Vaughn or Hayley, what one would it be?

Okay, I would marry Hayley. I would have sex. Wait, which one is it? No, no, no, no. It's only rate, review, marry. Oh, okay. No comment. I'd have sex with the podcast.

I don't know how that would work. Give us a sexy little review though. ZM's Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley. I mean, if they have sex with the podcast, I don't know how that would work. Give us a sexy little review, though.