Holy Watermelon

The Kemetic people of ancient Egypt had a fascinating theology that developed from a variety of sources, much like their Greek and Roman neighbors across the sea. Join us as we explore the Egyptian gods, from the animist origins of Anubis, to the cosmic origins of Ra. Egypt's ancient mystery schools were a magical realm of literary development and ritual emulation, more familiar to modern Freemasonry than to Protestant or Imperial Christianity.

Need to know more about the theological background behind Marvel's Moon Knight, look no further.

We discuss the Ennead, Ra, Osiris, Isis, Pharaoh-worship and the imperial cultus, including Tutankhamun and Imhotep. Next time, we'll have to talk about The Mummy, and more about the Pyramid constructions. Egyptology is all about the ancient nations of Masr, Ptah, and Kemet; and the cities of Memphis, Cairo. Other gods we explore are Horus, Thoth, and Set. May the Chaos Monsters of the Desert leave you in peace, as you prepare for Duat. Join us for more about ancient Egyptian mythology.

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:13] Katie Dooley: How are you today?

[00:00:14] Preston Meyer: I'm doing pretty well. We're finishing up the beer religions. Remember, I definitely brought this up a month ago when we transitioned from the wine religions to the beer religions.

[00:00:26] Katie Dooley: You did.

[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: And we didn't really follow it up a whole lot within the episodes at all. But beer is one of those important drinks for the Egyptians, just like it was for the Celts and for the Norse.

[00:00:39] Katie Dooley: And can we blame them? I can't, you might be able to. 

[00:00:42] Preston Meyer: I hate the taste of beer so much.

[00:00:44] Katie Dooley: So good. You're drinking the wrong beer. He's not drinking beer at all, folks, if your Bishop's listening, he's not drinking beer at all.

[00:00:51] Preston Meyer: Uh, lately this is true. I have had sips occasionally over the years. Actually, it's been a really long time, but I just never like the taste.

[00:01:03] Katie Dooley: I mean, like I said, then you're drinking the wrong ones. But we should stop talking about beer and introduce what we're talking about on today's episode of...

[00:01:11] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast!

[00:01:14] Katie Dooley: Because we'll just talk beer for hours.

[00:01:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, I couldn't keep a beer conversation going for more than ten minutes, I think.

[00:01:23] Katie Dooley: Fair enough.

[00:01:24] Preston Meyer: I just don't have the knowledge or the palate for it. All right, so we're talking about Egypt this week, which is a nice little shift of direction. We've been mostly talking about white folks for the last couple of months and that's not the case today. Egypt is in Africa and for most of their history, they were predominantly a black population. There were times where they were ruled by white folks, but, that's really not the subject that we're on today.

[00:02:00] Katie Dooley: So words guy, you have a great little paragraph on the names of Egypt. Let's start there.

[00:02:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Egypt has been known by a good handful of names. Nobody who lives there calls it Egypt on a regular basis, and that's never actually been the case. Egypt is a foreign name dumped on the country. It's derived from the Latin Aegyptus, which comes from an Egyptian word, Hikuptah, which actually means home of the soul of Ptah, which was the name of the city that is today known as Memphis.

[00:02:37] Katie Dooley: Memphis, Egypt?

[00:02:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:02:39] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:02:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So it was not terribly uncommon, like, say, the Babylonian Empire. Babylon was the capital city, not actually the nation. And so the same sort of deal was happening in Egypt.

[00:02:52] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:02:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, the country is known today to locals as Masr, which is more or less what the Jews and Babylonians called it anciently as well. Anciently, it was known among its own people as Kemet or sometimes, some scholars will say Kumat problem there is that their language doesn't record vowels in the way that we find useful, but usually you'll see it written as Kemet, which is also the name of a popular board game that I think is quite enjoyable.

[00:03:24] Katie Dooley: Also, isn't it a character in Mario Party? There's a board that's like Kemet's... That's the Egyptian board.

[00:03:33] Preston Meyer: I believe you. That makes sense. I don't actually know.

[00:03:36] Katie Dooley: It's literally all I can think about, but I never actually looked it up while I was doing the research. I was like, isn't that a board in Mario Party?

[00:03:43] Preston Meyer: That makes sense. So the name Kemet means black, which a lot of people first hear it and I see your eyebrows go up - has nothing to do with the color of the people, but the color of the very rich soil along the banks of the River Nile. That was just "we will populate this Kemet land" instead of the desert, which is trash. You can't grow anything in the desert.

[00:04:08] Katie Dooley: Sadness.

[00:04:10] Preston Meyer: Sure, sadness can grow very plentifully in the desert. Yeah, so that's that's the name Kemet, anciently. Masr today and honestly, for the last few thousand years by people who speak Semitic languages and Aegyptus is the white folk name.

[00:04:29] Katie Dooley: The White folk name, just like you say, just like Germany.

[00:04:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. We have a really strong tradition of just renaming other people's stuff.

[00:04:41] Katie Dooley: Well, we don't like that you call it Deutschland, so we're gonna call it Germany.

[00:04:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. For no good reason at all.

[00:04:48] Katie Dooley: Because we can't say Deutschland.

[00:04:49] Preston Meyer: So if you pop into, um, the preface to the King James Version of the Bible, it does refer to the German people as the Deusch people, which is still a terrible mispronunciation of their proper name. But there's evidence that they tried and then apparently they gave up on it. Like, we can't call you douches anymore, you're Germany.

[00:05:12] Katie Dooley: The just had a stroke and couldn't say it properly.

[00:05:14] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:05:16] Katie Dooley: So by the time they were a unified kingdom, the Kemetic peoples of the Nile had several different cults from all over the region. Each of these cults focused on surviving the chaos of the desert, violent storms and unreliable rains, and lots and lots of sand in places you don't want sand.

[00:05:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Scorpions.

[00:05:39] Katie Dooley: I've stepped on a scorpion.

[00:05:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:05:41] Katie Dooley: Have I..?

[00:05:42] Preston Meyer: How'd that go?

[00:05:43] Katie Dooley: I was okay, but I could have not been okay.

[00:05:45] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah, that seems like a high-risk activity.

[00:05:50] Katie Dooley: Well, it was completely accidental. Sidebar! I don't know if I'm gonna keep this in, but. Yeah, it was when I was in Guatemala, and I was at a water cooler and I step back and I like I heard this crunch and I was like, oh, I stepped on something and I lifted up my foot and it was a scorpion and I, like, stepped on it like perfectly head to tail with the length of my foot. But had I stepped on it any other way could have been bad news bears.

[00:06:14] Preston Meyer: Well, yeah. If it has the time to freak out and lash out with its tail.

[00:06:18] Katie Dooley: Yeah. If I stepped on like perpendicular our viewers can't see me. Then it could have gone. Our viewers can't see me. No, our listeners can't see me.

[00:06:30] Preston Meyer: We have no viewers.

[00:06:30] Katie Dooley: We have no viewers. That would be weird, because I'm literally always wrapped in a blanket with a dog. And I am an old lady talking about religion. Anyways, so they believe that the best bet to preserve order on earth was to preserve order in heaven by keeping the gods happy with offerings and performing rituals.

[00:06:51] Preston Meyer: That's pretty standard for the people we've been talking about. Maybe not a perfect overlap, but pretty close.

[00:06:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Like the Greeks, their cults supported mystery schools that trained mages who operated not only with the secret knowledge of the gods, but with powers of illusion.

[00:07:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the magic tricks that are so... Popular is not the right word. Most people don't look at magicians and go, yeah, that's awesome. Most of us like a trick here and there, but if somebody says, hey, I'm a magician, you don't go, oh, you're cool. Even though what they do is kind of cool.

[00:07:34] Katie Dooley: Yes, I think Neil Patrick Harris is a cool magician. He's like part of the Magicians Guild in Hollywood. Which you actually, like, need to be good to get into.

[00:07:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, sure. I like Penn and Teller. They're a lot of fun. And so this, this tradition of illusory magic tricks does come from Egypt. As far as I've been able to find.

[00:07:59] Katie Dooley: That's amazing.

[00:07:59] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:08:00] Katie Dooley: Hey, Preston, here's a coin.

[00:08:03] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:08:04] Katie Dooley: There's no coin.

[00:08:05] Preston Meyer: No, that's that's one of the the cheaper illusions, but it's one that most people are familiar with because every grandpa learns to do it for their kids. Their grandkids. Like the old traditions that we've been talking about for the last couple of months. The Egyptians didn't have any unified, authoritative scripture, but like the Greeks, they did have a lot of writings that help us understand what they believed and how things had changed over time and also space. Things weren't always the same from one region to the next. So it's kind of cool and diverse and like we've mentioned before, complicates the study of the tradition. Like we see in modern magical groups, the Egyptians preserved their magical spells on paper, and they actually kept pretty great libraries in their temples where people could study all of these collected spells that people had been doing for generations, which is pretty cool. They had a I don't want to say a monastic tradition, but their magicians did spend a lot of time in these libraries just studying, and they had a decent scholarly tradition.

[00:09:18] Katie Dooley: Well, I mean, if we compare it to the other religions since we've been talking about. This one's very old.

[00:09:25] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:09:26] Katie Dooley: And we do actually have quite good records between their hieroglyphics and their papyri and everything that's been dug up. So it is actually I mean, it's not perfect. It's still 5000 years old. But in comparison, we have a pretty good record compared to some of the Norse stuff that we were trying to piece together and the Celtic. 

[00:09:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah, this one's a lot easier to get robust information on. They also had a really rich poetic tradition. They kept volumes of hymns for worship services and initiatic rituals as well, which is really interesting that we only have a time to get into a little bit. And some cults were really interested in oracles, kind of like what we saw in Greece and Rome and as the kingdom formed, eventually a state organization was put in place to keep the various religious groups friendly and cohesive, much like we saw in Rome, where there was just a lot of effort to keep the peace. And not that there was a lot of conflict between cults, but, a unified national identity always helps. And of course, the most important state cult was built around the pharaoh, kind of like we saw in the Roman Empire.

[00:10:43] Katie Dooley: But they take pharaohs to, like, a whole new level.

[00:10:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Really intense. 

[00:10:50] Katie Dooley: So I... Most people have heard of the divine right of kings. Right? Right up until I don't even. I couldn't actually find record on it, although I found a little bit of record on it. But do we still still think Elizabeth is divinely appointed, or are we beyond that now?

[00:11:06] Preston Meyer: I think mostly we're beyond that, but there's definitely somebody out there who's fully on board still.

[00:11:11] Katie Dooley: So my record said that people that sort of fall off the tracks in about the 1600s was the divine right of kings. And the divine right of kings basically states that your're king because God wants you to be king.

[00:11:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense that monarchs would say, of course, I have the divine right to my title.

[00:11:33] Katie Dooley: Right and that was common across all monarchies is this idea of divine right of kings. But ancient Egyptians, for the most part, believed that their Pharaoh was a god on earth. Not just divinely blessed with being a pharaoh. Nope. They are a god on earth. A god on earth. So they weren't so you know, blind that they didn't realize that he could get sick and die. But other than that, they thought he was as close to the gods as you can get and acted as an intermediary for humans and their large pantheon.

[00:12:15] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's not a far leap to say that a lot of people, even today, still worship their civil leaders. This is just another step beyond.

[00:12:28] Katie Dooley: Right. And I mean, we've had these conversations over the last year and a half now about, you know, some people worship George Washington as a god, but this is next level, sort of, I guess, day to day. And you're right. Again, it comes into how do you define worship? Are we going down that rabbit hole today, Preston?

[00:12:45] Preston Meyer: No, we don't have time for that. We've done it before and we don't have time today.

[00:12:51] Katie Dooley: Specifically, the king was seen as a direct representation of Horus and Horus in the pantheon is the son of Ra. So the king was also seen as the son of Ra. After the king dies or the Pharaoh dies, he becomes associated with Osiris and Ra and was fully deified.

[00:13:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The King's role was to set order in place. Order in this tradition is called Maat. And I don't know if that's terribly useful information, but I like it.

[00:13:23] Katie Dooley: Well, say I put maat a lot in the notes.

[00:13:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So as we refer to it, we're talking about the order of the universe as well as civil order locally as order in every aspect of order.

[00:13:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I put in our notes if you'll remember, kind of like Dharma in Hinduism. It's like this is what you're supposed to do.  This is the way things are. And when we do all of that, things are good.

[00:13:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah and that's really the main focus of religious life is keeping everything organized, because there's so much possibility where things can go wrong. When you're surrounded by desert that can wake up, that can whip up terrible sandstorms, that destroy stuff.

[00:14:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah and I mean, just any sort of organization of a society of who does what and how do things happen.

[00:14:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah. All right, let's take a look at these gods.

[00:14:25] Katie Dooley: Are you ready to talk about ejaculation, Preston?

[00:14:29] Preston Meyer: I'm ready. Go for it.

[00:14:31] Katie Dooley: So the first, uh, the first big deity is Amun. He is considered the king of the gods and has a hidden name. He has a ton of characteristics that we will eventually see in monotheistic religions, one of those being the hidden name. But he is also omnipresent and all-powerful. So this is something we haven't really seen in the other old religions, is someone who has it all together, if you will. And he's unknowable to the rest of the pantheon. He has many other names, but my personal favorite is Bull who ejaculates Nun. And that's N-U-N. It's a name, not a lady in a habit.

[00:15:20] Preston Meyer: I figured just going on the sound of it, you could also interpret that as the bull who doesn't ejaculate, but that's not the deal.

[00:15:29] Katie Dooley: No, it's Bull who ejaculates nun. Formal name. So I have a quick story, and then I know we have a bigger story later, but yeah, just to explain this ejaculation, the universe was born from the waters of Nun. And from these waters emerged eight gods that would create the rest of the world. So because Amun was around before these gods and before the waters of Nun, Amun is technically his own father.

[00:16:03] Preston Meyer: What a mess.

[00:16:03] Katie Dooley: Bringing the world into being. One of the records I read is that he's self-generating.

[00:16:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that makes sense within this own tradition, not within the world of chemistry and science.

[00:16:19] Katie Dooley: Yes, so he ejaculated the waters of Nun from where the rest of everything came from.

[00:16:30] Preston Meyer: What a mess.

[00:16:31] Katie Dooley: Wow, right? That makes me feel really dirty about this world.

[00:16:36] Preston Meyer: Don't think too much about where you actually came from then.

[00:16:43] Katie Dooley: Amun was often combined with other gods, most commonly Ra, Amun-Ra is, you know, I've heard. I heard of it before.

[00:16:51] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:16:53] Katie Dooley: As they share many similarities to the point where I was like, Ra is hard to write about because it's basically Amun.

[00:17:00] Preston Meyer: Basically.

[00:17:03] Katie Dooley: His popularity grew from a small local deity to king of the gods as he absorbed other gods and got more popular. So these other small regional traditions started to co-mingle everyone was like, oh, that's Amun and he just got stronger and more powerful by absorbing other myths.

[00:17:25] Preston Meyer: Good deal.

[00:17:26] Katie Dooley: Which means he's identified as the sun god, the wind God, the creator of the universe, the protector of kings, etc. so he has a lot of attributes to him.

[00:17:35] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:17:36] Katie Dooley: He was also the God of the city of Thebes and only took on his role of High God after Thebes rebelled against the Hyksos when he was combined with Ra.

[00:17:48] Preston Meyer: Which is another name for Atum, which I'll get into a little bit later.

[00:17:54] Katie Dooley: When his fancy new hat made him famous outside of Egypt, he was equated with Zeus.

[00:18:00] Both Speakers: Yeah.

[00:18:02] Katie Dooley: And he has the head of a ram in some depictions, especially when he's combined with Zeus. So you'll see as we go through these, all of these are anthropomorphic, not all of them 95% of them.

[00:18:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, an awful lot of them. Yeah.

[00:18:21] Katie Dooley: It's like two that don't.

[00:18:23] Preston Meyer: It's usually if they if they don't have an animal figure attached to them, they're women. There are some men in that case, but mostly they're women that don't have animal associations. I thought that was kind of interesting. All right, let's take a second to look at Ra, the god of the sun and the moon. One of the oldest gods. He's sometimes considered the creator. Or he was created right after the universe.

[00:18:54] Katie Dooley: In the waters of Nun.

[00:18:55] Preston Meyer: Exactly. Usually, though, he's equated with Atum which is another name for the the original creator based on another tradition. Kind of fancy, complicated stuff because old things get complicated. He also had a lot of other gods assimilated into his character as the Egyptian religion spread, just like we saw with Amun. Ra had a solar boat, not a solar-powered boat, but one that would sail on the sun and drag the sun across the sky, so he's usually depicted with the head of a falcon because his power to fly across the sky and falcons are just great, powerful birds. He's also believed to have a secret name, and makes it kind of obvious why he would have been easy to combine with Amun. And I think there's a good reason to suspect that the secret name of both Ra and Amun is Atum, which is the head of the Osirian Aeneid, which I'll get into a little bit later.

[00:20:09] Katie Dooley:  [00:20:09]Nice story, eh? [00:20:11] so then we have Osiris. He is the god of the underworld, and we'll talk more about the afterlife a little later on and he would pass judgment on who was worthy of reincarnation. He is often shown as a partially wrapped, mummified king, and any of his exposed skin is either green or black, which represents the cycle of nature, life, and death. So green for plants, life.

[00:20:36] Preston Meyer: Or just gangrenous flesh.

[00:20:40] Katie Dooley: But what I read is that it's about nature and rebirth and all that fun stuff.

[00:20:44] Preston Meyer: It's definitely meant to be more positive than gross.

[00:20:47] Katie Dooley: Preston's taking this to another level. Of course, then they would mash up your brains and pull them through your nose, so who knows?

[00:20:54] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:20:56] Katie Dooley: He carries a crook and a flail. These are those very Egyptian looking tools. If you Google it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

[00:21:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:21:04] Katie Dooley: He marries his sister and then took his sister as a lover which... 

[00:21:08] Preston Meyer: It makes a lot more sense when you realize how small the population is.

[00:21:12] Katie Dooley: Small population and then gotta keep that godly bloodline godly. So. But I think taking your other sister as a lover is excessive.

[00:21:23] Preston Meyer: Not when there's no other options.

[00:21:25] Katie Dooley: You're married, though. You don't need to have an affair.

[00:21:28] Preston Meyer: What?

[00:21:29] Katie Dooley: He marries one sister and then has an affair with his other sister.

[00:21:31] Preston Meyer: That depends on which sources you look at but okay.

[00:21:35] Katie Dooley: So one is enough one is definitely enough. So Egyptians believed that the body and soul were two separate entities, which is still a common belief today. And if you led a good life, you would be reunited with your body in the underworld, which is partially where mummification comes from, is to preserve your body so you can get it back. If you were not so good, though, you would be removed from existence by a beast with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion and a hippo butt. And I thought this was really interesting when we talk about the beast in the revelation, which is just this weird hodgepodge, and I was wondering if there's any.

[00:22:20] Preston Meyer: This to me sounds more like just the traditional Mediterranean creature known as the Chimera. It just happens to have a slightly more Egyptian flavor than the Greek one that we've seen.

[00:22:33] Katie Dooley: It's got a hippo butt.

[00:22:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah because hippos are a very scary creature that live in the Nile.

[00:22:39] Katie Dooley: It said the haunches of a hippo. And I was like, I'm writing hippo butt. We know that he was worshiped in the first dynasty, but probably even earlier. It seems that much of his importance is derived from connecting him to Horus. The Greeks put a lot of work into replacing Osiris with Serapis. A weird construct that mirrored Pluto.

[00:23:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah, what a mess and Osiris' cult to actually manage to last into the fifth century of the common era.

[00:23:11] Katie Dooley: Very old.

[00:23:13] Preston Meyer: I mean, yeah, from potentially prehistory until only about 1500 years ago.

[00:23:20] Katie Dooley: That's pretty good.

[00:23:21] Preston Meyer: That's a good chunk of world history.

[00:23:24] Katie Dooley: Especially surviving Christianity in the Middle East. Huge. Yeah. And then eventually Islam too.

[00:23:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah. All right, next on our list, we have Isis, the wife of Osiris. She is the goddess of healing and compassion. And she's known as a loyal wife and mother. She is almost always depicted in human form, which, like we mentioned before, not very common. She's one of the longest-lasting Egyptian gods. Isis cult still exists today, although they're not very big numbers, but that's pretty impressive after all of the efforts Christians have put into putting those down.

[00:24:03] Katie Dooley: And the records I read is that it's almost continuous. Not none of this. I mean, it is. You would look at these and we'll talk about the cult of Isis now, um, neopaganism. But to have an almost unbroken worship of Isis in 5000 years is pretty impressive.

[00:24:20] Preston Meyer: Right? Images of the Virgin Mary definitely have a little bit of debt to this figure of Isis, the way that she is worshiped as a goddess among some parts of Christianity, like the Catholic Church, for example, is really borrowing some aspects of Isis's power and there's a lot of statues and images of Isis breastfeeding Horus and some people want to say this idea is directly stolen from Isis for the Mary and Jesus image. It makes sense to me that, you know, a motherly figure would do that in art, but there's definitely some strong connections between these two. Later on, as she grew more popular, Isis took over some of Hathor's traits. Just Hathor lost popularity. Her aspect had to go somewhere. Isis is the natural destination for that. Her cult was officially supported by the Roman state when they took over, which I thought was kind of interesting. And it's also really important to note right now that ISIS, the jihadist group, has no connection or interest in the Egyptian goddess.

[00:25:35] Katie Dooley: I also was reading how the name Isis has dropped massively in popularity. I mean... Nothing to do with the Egyptian goddess. Everything to do with ISIL or Daesh. Um. My friend's daughter is named Isis.

[00:25:53] Preston Meyer: It's a rough time. 

[00:25:53] Katie Dooley: Now it is, yeah.

[00:25:54] Preston Meyer: I mean, we don't talk about ISIS in the news anymore. So five years from now, I'm sure it'll be fine.

[00:26:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but her daughter is a teenager, so there was a rough time.

[00:26:05] Preston Meyer: Five years ago or whatever. That was rough.

[00:26:07] Katie Dooley: It was a rough time to be named... Yeah. Sorry, that was a digression. Has nothing to do with Egyptian. Then we have Horus. He is the son of Osiris and Isis. Ancient Egyptians believed he had several forms, um, as well as being both young and old at the same time. And he can also take the form of a falcon. He is usually depicted with his falcon head. Horus is known to have been worshiped in Kemet before recorded history, so he is very old and under Greek influence, Horus was eventually equated with Apollo, and again he is the king god.

[00:26:51] Both Speakers: Yeah, he's one of the most important. And his story is something we'll get into a little bit later, too.

[00:26:57] Both Speakers: Okay. I'm excited.

[00:27:00] Preston Meyer: Anubis.

[00:27:01] Katie Dooley: Nay! That's not the sound a jackal makes.

[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: Anubis is one of the oldest, most popular Egyptian gods. He was originally the god of the dead until Osiris and Isis became more popular. But he is also the god of mummification. Anubis has a human body, but a jackal's head and tail, in most depictions. He is capable of shapeshifting, however, and there are records of him turning into a lizard. Fancy stuff. His father is Osiris and his brother is Horus. In a lot of versions, because of course, things change from one place to another. When his role changed to the God of mummification, he became the escort to take people to the afterlife. The jackal head is symbolic of him being the keeper of the dead, as wild jackals would dig up shallow graves dug in the desert. So kind of an interesting connection.

[00:28:03] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:28:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, before the first dynasty, Anubis was represented as fully animal. He used to be fully independent of the Osirian Aeneid but eventually became the son of Isis. In the Nubian tradition, Anubis was the son and second husband of Nepthys. Yeah... Marrying your son is never a good thing. Even when you have a limited breeding pool.

[00:28:32] Katie Dooley: Oedipus.

[00:28:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:28:34] Katie Dooley: This pre-Oedipus, isn't it?

[00:28:36] Preston Meyer: It is pre-Oedipus. Yeah, what a mess. Yeah, well, speaking of Oedipus, under the Greek influence, Anubis was merged with Hermes.

[00:28:47] Katie Dooley: Oedipus.

[00:28:48] Preston Meyer: Definitely Hermes. Mostly because of the whole psychopomp deal carrying the dead around.

[00:28:58] Katie Dooley: Don't marry your mother's, listeners.

[00:29:02] Preston Meyer: I really think that the people that are on the level to listen to us aren't worried about that possibility.

[00:29:07] Katie Dooley: I just want all our bases covered. Then we have Thoth. I really like Thoth. He felt like a bit of a standalone.

[00:29:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he was. 

[00:29:18] Katie Dooley: He's meant to be a standalone. He's the god of medicine, science, wisdom and magic. He invented writing.

[00:29:25] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's a lot of people that claim that. But here we are.

[00:29:28] Katie Dooley: Here we are. He did it, guys. He invented writing. He often played the role of advisor and messenger for the gods. He plays a big role in enforcing maat, or order, and has been depicted both as an executioner and as a diplomat. Toth was the leader of the Eight Gods of Hermopolis, and he's usually depicted with the head of an ibis, but sometimes a baboon. I prefer the ibis.

[00:29:56] Preston Meyer: Baboons... most apes don't qualify as pretty creatures. Birds very often do, so I definitely understand the preference.

[00:30:05] Katie Dooley: I love the personality of a moderately domesticated ibis.

[00:30:09] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:30:13] Katie Dooley: Thoth was also equated with Hermes because of his writing power.

[00:30:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and also Hermes Trismegistus that we talked about a while back Thoth that is an important element of all of that.

[00:30:26] Katie Dooley: Of the threefold.

[00:30:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. All right, so story time, I got a couple stories that I really enjoyed.

[00:30:36] Katie Dooley: All right, I'm ready.

[00:30:37] Preston Meyer: The world was first in the form of expansive waters called Nun, as we had mentioned earlier, which came to be personified in four pairs of primordial gods, each bearing an aspect of the dark waters. According to a Hermopolis text, they were named Kek and Kauket, the god and goddess of darkness. Amun and Amunet, the god and goddess of invisibility. Heh and Hauhet God and goddess of infinity and Nun and Naunet, God and goddess of water. From these waters, Atum emerged by saying his own name. Quite the power.

[00:31:16] Katie Dooley: Wow. Katie!

[00:31:20] Preston Meyer: Pyramid texts say that Atum emerged in the form of a Bennu bird, which is like a heron, then flew to the place that would become Heliopolis, where he built a nest on top of an obelisk and subsequently caught fire and died.

[00:31:36] Katie Dooley: Oh, dear. That was quick.

[00:31:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Luckily, he's able to command himself into existence. So he came back from the dead like a phoenix.

[00:31:44] Katie Dooley: Katie!

[00:31:47] Preston Meyer: Presumably in the form of a bird, Atum started making children all by his lonesome. I suspect they were like in eggs because the bird thing. But this is mostly me making things up in this little detail. But it makes sense, right? A bird pushes out eggs. Bam! Now you got children.

[00:32:08] Katie Dooley: Could come out of his penis live birth. There's a horrifying webcomic of that. I might send that to you. I feel like I have to.

[00:32:16] Preston Meyer: No, but you're going to have to.

[00:32:17] Katie Dooley: I'm going to have to. Yes. It's horrifying.

[00:32:20] Preston Meyer: Well, anyway, his two children were Shu and Tefnut. Shu was the god of dry air and later on, the god of peace. And Tefnut was the goddess of moisture and rain. These two had two more kids, Geb and Nut. Geb is the god of the earth. Nut is the goddess of heaven, the firmament of heaven. Not air or in the clouds or anything like the dome of the sky. So after Geb was born, there was dry land where Ra could finally land on firm ground. Ra is the name they put on Atum's cup at Starbucks every morning. They're the same person in most forms of the tradition that his name changes throughout the day, depending on...

[00:33:10] Katie Dooley: What starbucks he goes to.

[00:33:12] Preston Meyer: Sure. Exactly.

[00:33:14] Katie Dooley: We've all been there.

[00:33:16] Preston Meyer: So Geb and Nut had four children. Osiris, god of order and fertility. Isis, the goddess of healing, Set the god of chaos and later on, storms in the desert in general. And Nephthys, the goddess of darkness. One day Atum's eye popped out for a wander and didn't come back. Shu and Tefnut went looking for it and like any good game of Quidditch, when they found the eye, it put up a fight. The eye ended up shedding a few tears, and from that moisture, humanity was born. When the humans rebelled, Atum turned into the forceful lion goddess, Sekhmet, and after the humans decided to behave, Sekhmet turned into the benevolent cow goddess Hathor. Atum is always referred to as masculine, but everything he does is fully feminine, as far as I can tell. But he can't command himself into existence, so gender persistence and conformity really aren't important to him. Later on, Hathor mates with Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. So that's kind of weird.

[00:34:27] Katie Dooley: You know what? It's not as weird as Loki turning into a female horse and bearing a child, so I can't even be upset.

[00:34:34] Preston Meyer: Sure. One thing that I thought was really interesting, going through the aspects of these gods and goddesses, is that a lot of them are the opposite gender of their Greek equivalents.

[00:34:46] Katie Dooley: Counterpart, yeah.

[00:34:46] Preston Meyer: In Greek, Gaia is Mother Earth and Uranus is the the father heaven. And the exact opposite is what we have here in Egypt, with Geb being the God earth and Nut being the goddess heaven. That's kind of nifty stuff.

[00:35:04] Katie Dooley: They were trying not to plagiarize you, just like, reverse the order of things.

[00:35:09] Preston Meyer: So I'm pretty sure we've talked about this before, that there's a lot of thought that goes into that. Maybe all of these came from a common source, and something that is so consistently different has to have come from a unique source. I think.

[00:35:30] Katie Dooley: Interesting, I like that.

[00:35:33] Preston Meyer: That this isn't plagiarism that's been adjusted. It's a fully unique set of gods and perception of the universe. I've got another story. If you got the patience.

[00:35:45] Katie Dooley: Do I have the time for you, Preston?

[00:35:47] Preston Meyer: The patience?

[00:35:48] Katie Dooley: I'm locked in this room until we're done. So. Yes, please. I'm kidding. I have freewill.

[00:35:54] Preston Meyer: So the even more important to Egyptians than this origin story, which definitely varies from place to place.

[00:36:01] Katie Dooley: Than the Ejaculation of Nun? More important than the Ejaculation of Nun?

[00:36:03] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. For sure. The most important story that everyone agrees is the most important story is the story of Osiris. That most stories seem to at least refer to this pretty regularly. It actually, oddly bears a little bit of similarities to the story of Persephone in some tellings of the story. Where there's passage to the underworld, that's not usually an important part of the story, but interesting anyway and it's it looks to me like this story is actually a sacred rite in the old mystery schools. Which is pretty interesting, but varies a lot from one group to the next. Osiris was probably a real guy, as his story begins with him as the King of Kemet. His brother Set kills him, embodying the struggle between order and chaos. And then the details are pretty fuzzy because the Kemetic people were way into verbal magic, and speaking about the murder was liable to send the world into chaos. Since, you know, we're talking about killing the God of order, kind of a big deal. Cults all over the kingdom claimed that a portion of Osiris body had fallen in their neighborhood. Which is kind of interesting. Many of them would say just his body fell here, but because everybody was saying it, it had to be a part of his body. But all of that kind of weird because when they found his body, they found his body.

[00:37:45] Katie Dooley: Ew, David.

[00:37:49] Preston Meyer: So Set takes over in the power vacuum while the sisters Isis and Nephthys go looking for Osiris' body. When they find him, with the help of various gods, depending on the cult telling the story, sometimes it's Thoth, sometimes it's other gods that are local to the area. They embalm Osiris to keep his body from decaying. Some even say that this practice reverses the decay, which is kind of interesting. Though chemically doesn't make a lot of sense. Then Isis goes ahead and breathes life into Osiris and immediately jumps his bone to conceive Osiris baby, a boy named Horus.

[00:38:28] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:38:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:38:30] Katie Dooley: Wasting no time.

[00:38:31] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. Of course, Osiris dies right after the surprise necrophilia.

[00:38:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah!

[00:38:40] Preston Meyer: Because she could heal things, but she couldn't permanently breathe life back into somebody.

[00:38:47] Katie Dooley: So she literally did it just to make a baby. Wow.

[00:38:53] Preston Meyer: So Isis has to hide her pregnancy from Set because the whole persecuted baby messiah trope that we've talked about before and the boy grows up in secrecy until he's old enough to challenge Set. He pleads his case to the more senior of the gods, then ends up having a wild variety of sexually abusive conflicts with his uncle.

[00:39:15] Katie Dooley: Oh. Trigger warning.

[00:39:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and the details vary by sources, of course, but sexual abuse is definitely almost always part of this story. And at some point Horus loses his eye, and its restoration, which also varies by source, marks the restoration of the moon's light cycle. In some versions, they're reconciled by agreeing to split the kingdom, usually leaving Set to rule the desert, while Horus rules the habitable lands of the Nile. Other versions have Set fully exiled, or sometimes even actually destroyed/vanquished. Either way, Osiris is avenged, and from that point forward is never really mentioned as anything other than the king of the Duat. The Kemetic heaven.

[00:40:04] Katie Dooley: Interesting. So we're gonna talk about afterlife. We know that the Egyptians have a huge funerary process of mummification, which we're not gonna talk too too much about the physical aspect, more the religious/spiritual aspect of the afterlife. So the ancient Egyptians first and foremost believed in immortality. People would sacrifice to the gods with the intent of having the shortest possible interruption between death and rebirth. Again, as I mentioned, bodies were mummified so that they would stay intact for the soul to return, and part of this involved the opening of the mouth ceremony, which was how they would prepare dead bodies for the journey to the underworld, involved anointing the body and touching it with the ritual objects to return the five senses to it.

[00:41:00] Preston Meyer: Fancy.

[00:41:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Then, there was the weighing of the heart ceremony. So now you're in the underworld. And this is performed by Osiris and recorded by Thoth. The recently deceased would plead their case for innocence in front of 42 divine judges. Next, your heart was weighed, which recorded all the good and bad things you did throughout your life. Your heart was weighed against the feather representing maat or order, and if the scales balanced, you moved on to the afterlife. You kept order, and if they did not, you were met by the crocolionputt-putt puttpus... I made that up.

[00:41:52] Preston Meyer: I can tell. I like it, though.

[00:41:56] Katie Dooley: Thank you. The crocoliontomus.

[00:41:59] Preston Meyer: The Egyptian chimera.

[00:42:00] Katie Dooley: The crocodile, lion, hippo butt. The afterlife is a reflection of the real world. Um, if you're a fan of Stranger Things that, but more pleasant.

[00:42:13] Preston Meyer: I like to think of it more. Like very similar to what we see in the fields of Elysium. Yeah. In fact, like the Greeks, there was talk of a heavenly land for the dead out to the West. Usually people talked about it being underneath as the underworld, but there was a little bit of talk of it being out west, which I thought was conspicuous, that some royal crypts had cocaine residue in them, which is native to the Americas.

[00:42:41] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:42:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:42:42] Katie Dooley: Fascinating.

[00:42:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's weird. And there is a lot of people who are like, did they travel all the way to the Americas? Was there a trade there or did they actually have cocaine in Africa? And then just like the Romans and the whole birth control plant, just eat it into extinction. That's the question.

[00:43:09] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:43:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah and the pyramids. Well, everyone's always,"What's the pyramids for?" And it's kind of nifty, that part of the symbolism of the pyramid. And they got really big in Giza for some reason. It's meant to mirror that final or that first landing point when Atum landed on the top of an obelisk, when there was first or before there was land to land on. And that was the point from which magic could send them off into the afterlife. In a little bit of a Stargate kind of way.

[00:43:54] Both Speakers: Nice.

[00:43:55] Katie Dooley: Did you know? Fun fact. Random fact that I'm just gonna throw over here that the pyramids weren't built by slaves?

[00:44:01] Preston Meyer: I did know that. People love that part of the story so much. Especially if you grew up watching the Prince of Egypt. That's not the way it goes.

[00:44:08] Katie Dooley: Now, again don't get me wrong, I don't think they were treated very well. They definitely didn't work eight hours a day and get long weekends, but they were paid. So fun fact for all of you at your next family dinner. What does this look like in the 21st century? It's actually called Kemetism.

[00:44:29] Preston Meyer: I wonder where they got that.

[00:44:30] Katie Dooley: I wonder where they got that name from, which is the modern name for Egyptian neopaganism. Which is also acceptable. People would know what you were talking about. Just like the Celtic religion, these range from eclectic spiritualism to reconstructionist and everything in between. But there's three main categories. We have Kemetic orthodoxy, syncretism and reconstructed Kemeticism. And they're all very... They're all really weird. This is the first one. I was like, these websites are really weird. Clear your browser history. Anyway.

[00:45:10] Preston Meyer: I like that you went to their own website.

[00:45:12] Preston Meyer: I did, and I just at some point, I had to call it quits.

[00:45:17] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:45:20] Katie Dooley: We're very tolerant here. Please don't get me wrong. Kemetic orthodoxy is not the Reconstructionist branch of Egyptian neopaganism, though it claims to be. I had to do some digging on this one. So it was founded in 1988, in the United States. So, very new. Just as old as Preston.

[00:45:40] Preston Meyer: Almost. Oh.

[00:45:42] Katie Dooley: You're. No. You're. Wait.

[00:45:44] Preston Meyer: I was born in 89. This is older than me.

[00:45:48] Katie Dooley: The main temple is in Illinois, of all places. And the current pharaoh and founder, Tamara Sweda incorporates rites invented by her and from traditional African religions. So this is where it's not reconstructionist because she's making her own stuff up, which is fine.

[00:46:04] Preston Meyer: I'm a little disappointed they weren't started in, say, Memphis, Tennessee.

[00:46:10] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:46:12] Preston Meyer: Or, wait. No, there's a Cairo in Illinois.

[00:46:16] Katie Dooley: They don't say. They don't pronounce it Cairo.

[00:46:18] Preston Meyer: No, it's Cairo.

[00:46:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah, Americans. I'm kidding. We love our American listeners. So they have five tenants. They have the number one belief in upholding Maat. Cool. Belief in Netjer or a supreme being. Aku, or ancestor worship or veneration. Participation in and respect for the community, nice, and acknowledgment of the founder as the Nysut. Uh Nysut is like a generic Egyptian name for a lady in power.

[00:46:57] Preston Meyer: Well, that's fine then. It's pretty. I thought you were going to say like this founder who just started the religion out of nowhere is like this specific goddess.

[00:47:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So the new stuff is actually like a Christ figure. No it's not. It's just like a it's like Dame Maggie Smith.

[00:47:12] Preston Meyer: Okay. I accept. Yeah.

[00:47:15] Katie Dooley: Members of the faith are known as Shemsu.

[00:47:19] Preston Meyer: Mm.

[00:47:20] Katie Dooley: So that's Kemetic orthodoxy, which, though it claims to be Reconstructionist, is not reconstructionist. Then we have an example of a syncretic Kemetism, which is the fellowship of Isis. Uh huh. Mhm. This one was founded in Ireland in the 70s. It's just really weird to me that none of these were founded anywhere near Egypt. Like at least Greek neopaganism has an actual Greek movement. Anyway. This one is like really hippie dippy, um, and it's syncretic and it says it's syncretic. I don't even know if I would give it that much credit. It just believes in the divine feminine. And they worship all goddesses across all religions and cultures. Like that's their jam. So it's not even...

[00:48:11] Preston Meyer: That sounds syncretic.

[00:48:12] Katie Dooley: I guess so.

[00:48:13] Preston Meyer: It's loosey goosey for sure.

[00:48:14] Katie Dooley: It's very loosey goosey. It's like, oh, you like Athena? Come join us. Um, and then they have no regard for any of the other pantheon, from what I can tell. So very hippie dippy. And then for the Reconstructionist movement. They have three temples again in the United States. There's the Kemetic Temple of San Francisco, the Temple of Ra Sacramento, and the Per Akhet Temple in Denver. While they try to be as true as possible to original rights and practices, they also do not feel compelled to follow them to the letter. They actually wrote a great article on their website that they are fully aware that they are citizens in the 21st century, and not everything from 3000 BCE applies to them.

[00:48:59] Preston Meyer: You know what? I'm on board with that.

[00:49:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but they do believe in the pantheon as what rules the heavens.

[00:49:08] Preston Meyer: Cool.

[00:49:08] Katie Dooley: So those are three examples of Kemeticism. There's a lot of groups, though. Like a lot, a lot of groups, which was surprising compared to like the Greek reconstructionists. There's like 2 or 3, but there's a lot of these. And they like I said, they fall on that spectrum of everything from Orthodoxy to reconstructionist to syncretic hippie dippy.

[00:49:35] Preston Meyer: Cool, cool. There's a lot more to the Egyptian religion, just like there's a lot more to all of the religions we've been talking about for the last couple months. Lots of gods that we never listed and didn't have the time to explain, and what we usually try to stick to an hour for you guys.

[00:49:52] Katie Dooley: I was just going to throw in there if there is a detail or a god, if any of these last five episodes that you'd like us to do something more in-depth on, please shoot us an email or post on our Discord, or send us a DM on our social media because we're happy to do it.

[00:50:09] Preston Meyer: And if we've only inspired you to go and do your own research, I count that as a win, too.

[00:50:14] Katie Dooley: I count that as a win too. Post your findings on our discord. Do you see where I'm getting at, Preston?

[00:50:19] Preston Meyer: Absolutely. Discord is a place where you have great discussions and share some wonderful memes.

[00:50:26] Katie Dooley: So many good religious memes.

[00:50:28] Preston Meyer: We've got Facebook, we've got Instagram, we've got...

[00:50:32] Katie Dooley: Patreon!

[00:50:33] Preston Meyer: Patreon. We've got a shop run by Spreadshirt right now, and we've got a YouTube channel. We got all kinds of things going on.

[00:50:42] Katie Dooley: Find us literally anywhere you want to find us, except hopefully in our own homes but please get involved in the community and send us some love and some supports that we can keep doing this great podcast and share. Share this episode with a friend right now.

[00:51:01] Preston Meyer: That would be great. Before you forget.

[00:51:03] Katie Dooley: Right now, copy the link. Say Hey, Barbara Sue, I listen to this and thought of you.

[00:51:12] Preston Meyer: I like that. It sounds real poetic.

[00:51:14] Katie Dooley: Thank you. We're going to shift gears next episode talking about why these are all mostly dead religions.

[00:51:20] Preston Meyer: And it's not just because of Christianity, though they definitely played a role.

[00:51:25] Both Speakers: Peace be with you!

Join us as we explore Katie's Irish roots, and the ancient religious traditions of the Western European Celts. We talk a little about the religious sites that Katie has visited, and the ancestral gods and druidic arts that too few remember today.

We look at Julius Caesar's report about the Wicker Man, and discuss the musical magic of the Bards, Fili, and Druids. Some strong D&D vibes here.

Wicca finds some natural appeal in the Celtic tradition, but this tradition is more directed toward the goddesses like Brigid, Epona, and Morrigan.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

[00:00:12] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:15] Katie Dooley: I sounded very exasperated. I mean, hi, Preston.

[00:00:20] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:23] Katie Dooley: I'm really excited about this episode.

[00:00:25] Preston Meyer: So I thought of a name for this episode before we even started throwing content together.

[00:00:29] Katie Dooley: Okay, well, lay it on me.

[00:00:32] Preston Meyer: Well, she doesn't look Druish. Good old Spaceballs. I'm still waiting for the search for more money.

[00:00:43] Katie Dooley: Well, we're gonna find out why she doesn't look Druish on today's episode of. 

[00:00:48] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:55] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy.

[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: That's a great way to start.

[00:00:59] Katie Dooley: Right? Uh, we're doing another ancient religion. Today we are talking about ancient Celtic religion, which I was excited by having grown up as an Irish dancer. But it's also way more complicated than I'd say almost any of the ones we have looked at because it...

[00:01:24] Preston Meyer: They're all complicated.

[00:01:25] Katie Dooley: They are but this one like really morphs into Irish folklore. Eventually. And looks completely different from its original pantheon of gods, which is where I was like, this has a lot of branches to it.

[00:01:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the Romans put a lot of work into making the Celtic religious tradition family really hard to study and really pushed it into obscurity, which is weird because like we're talking before the Christian conquest of the Celtic people. It's frustrating.

[00:02:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And like you said, then it becomes this, you know, at some point it almost becomes children's stories,

[00:02:11] Preston Meyer: Pretty much.

[00:02:12] Katie Dooley: And so where, where do you draw that line and Celtic is a lot broader than Irish too.

[00:02:18] Preston Meyer: Right, a lot.

[00:02:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I was doing all this research and wondering if I was researching the right thing. But I hope you all enjoy this episode nonetheless.

[00:02:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, the Celtic people basically originated in Western Europe. Basically anything west of Italy that wasn't south of Italy, centralized and southern Germany and France. But the Celts also lived in Austria, Czechia, and most famously, the British Isles.

[00:02:28] Katie Dooley: Like the North Germanic peoples, we have very few written records about old Celtic religious traditions. And unfortunately, most of the old writings we have about Celtic worship come from Romans, including Julius Caesar himself.

[00:03:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Before he decided I am the god-emperor of this ridiculous nation, back when he was just General Gaius, then he was, you know, out fighting people and getting to know his enemies. And so the writings that we have from him about his enemies definitely are fully... What's the word I'm looking for? They're very heavily biased in a very negative way. Yeah, yeah. The Romans spoke about all the foreign gods as though they were only foreign names for their own gods. We had talked about this a couple episodes ago, and when they were talking about the Gaulish and the Celtic gods, this makes it really hard to know who they're talking about, because they don't actually map onto each other terribly well, which is really frustrating.

[00:04:02] Katie Dooley: Well then, of course, um, the Romans hated the Gauls. And then, of course, we have the Christians who hate polytheism, which this is another polytheistic religion. We don't have any positive spins on this religion at all. And some are just outright propaganda to diminish this Celtic pantheon.

[00:04:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's uh, it's frustrating. Very little remains of the Celtic, the Celtic cultural tradition outside of the British Isles today and really the only exception to that is that tiny little corner of France that's trying really hard to reconnect to Ireland.

[00:04:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and then again, I just wanted to point out that again. I said it's a polytheistic religion, but when we do our wrap up episode, it is the concept of a monotheistic religion is so weird at this point in time. And that's something now it's gone the other way, especially if you live in the West, where a polytheistic tradition feels so weird. But no, everyone thought. The Jews and the Christians were out of their minds. 

[00:04:42] Preston Meyer: it's an interesting world that we live in. Yeah. So diving into some of the the nifty elements that are the Celtic religious tradition, which of course, like everything we've talked about for the last few episodes and any religious group, nothing is ever monolithic. There's always diversity of thought, especially in a tradition that covers such a large part of Europe.

[00:05:40] Katie Dooley: Well, and again, no formalized writings. Like all the other ones we've touched on in these past couple of months, no formalized writing so there's nothing to go off of.

[00:05:50] Preston Meyer: There's no Celtic Bible. That's just not the way it goes.We don't even have something that really mirrors the Eddas very well either.

[00:05:59] Katie Dooley: There's like literally nothing on these people.

[00:06:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Which is rough. It's a lot of oral traditions that what we learn about them says that they would have been preserved in a way that should have been verbatim from generation to generation. But because there is such great diversity from east to west, from north to south, of the people that were called the Celts and the Gauls, it's not looking like it's really verbatim.

[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: Well, and then this is where, like I said, I had trouble researching because we do start to have good written record of Irish mythology. Which is where which comes from the Celtic pantheon. But there's not a lot on the Celtic pantheon. Anyway...

[00:06:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So generally speaking, the Celts were pretty interested in what we call animism, that most pagan folk were interested in the spirits of trees and animals. This was something that we saw a little bit with the Norse, where they were worried about sacred lands. But this is much more a part of the Celtic life than it was for the Northern Germanic people, which of course shouldn't be too terribly foreign to North American white folk who happened to be living on stolen land.

[00:07:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah, right? So unlike the harsh line between sacred and profane that we see in the Abrahamic traditions, Celts believed that spirits were in everything.

[00:07:27] Preston Meyer: Everywhere.

[00:07:28] Katie Dooley: Everything and everywhere.

[00:07:29] Preston Meyer: Like the land wights. 

[00:07:29] Katie Dooley: Lands and animals share dreams with the gods. Which is one of the few ways that we know anything about some of these gods.

[00:07:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it gets to be tricky business. The Celts were also particularly concerned with how animals behaved, considering almost any potential act to be an omen, either for good or evil. And if you've paid a lot of attention to anybody who believes in gods today, this is still the way a lot of people behave. Taking all kinds of things as signs from the gods.

[00:08:06] Katie Dooley: Totally, yeah. Animals and the gods are always tied up, even if you think of, like, temple sacrifice.

[00:08:12] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Absolutely. It's kind of interesting.

[00:08:15] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Good thing we're apex predators.

[00:08:20] Preston Meyer: I just watched the movie. I can't remember the name of it now. It's basically the story that Moby Dick was based off of the true story. And whales are awful. They are brutal and mean, sometimes.

[00:08:36] Katie Dooley: Killer whales are very mean.

[00:08:39] Preston Meyer: Sure, I think this one was mostly focused on sperm whales.

[00:08:42] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting. 

[00:08:43] Preston Meyer: I think. I could be misremembering that. But yeah, they weren't. Even after the killer whales. They were after the big dark whales. Oh, yeah. With their goofy little flappy under jaws.

[00:08:56] Katie Dooley: Isn't that just Thor Ragnarok? The dark elves?

[00:09:00] Preston Meyer: Sure. Why not?  So there is only minor evidence anciently, of what might have been called witchcraft among the old Celts. But the rise of Wicca in the last century does offer a little extra perspective into how people have preserved the old ways and brought them back to life, whether or not they're faithful reproductions of what used to be going on anciently is an entirely different discussion.

[00:09:27] Katie Dooley: We're gonna get into that, though. Unlike the Norse tradition, who had no defined priesthood whatsoever, the Celts had classes of priesthood, all of which were open to men and women alike, which we do see in modern Wicca. 

[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Anciently, bards were more than just performers sharing songs and stories. And if you're at all familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, which I know at least some of our audience is.

[00:09:55] Katie Dooley: Is it me? It's me.

[00:09:59] Preston Meyer: Bards have a sort of magic. And I thought it was really interesting. Magic and poetry or sorry, music and poetry share magical properties. And that's a really important part of the Celtic tradition. And it's it does show itself a little bit in the Harry Potter universe, where you see that nobody's using English words for their spells. It's always a slightly poetic sounding Latin-ish. If it's not real Latin, it's something that's meant to sound like Latin.

[00:10:31] Katie Dooley: Like Lorem ipsum. For my... Only a select few of you might understand that reference. I'm so sorry. It's graphic design, filler text. It's Latin-ish. It looks like Latin, but it's not.

[00:10:45] Preston Meyer: That makes perfect sense. Yeah, I like cheese ipsum.

[00:10:49] Katie Dooley: Ooh, pirate ipsum is a good one too.

[00:10:51] Preston Meyer: Sure, if you're looking for filler text, there's actually a lot of great services online. Yeah, but I thought that was really interesting that, like, I just thought it was dad doing this weird thing to bards that made poets magical. But no, this is a legit ancient tradition, so that's kind of cool. However, most people see bards as the lowest level of Celtic poets being more reciters than inspired writers.

[00:11:19] Katie Dooley: Interesting, so, an undergrad student?

[00:11:23] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:11:25] Katie Dooley: Then there were the fili. Which were the seers. Actually, I thought we should put the pronunciation in for basically all the gods. And I didn't, so we might need to do some googling. The Fili were seers, able to see the future and share their visions in poetic songs or riddles.

[00:11:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I feel like that would get really annoying for the layman.

[00:11:55] Katie Dooley: I feel like there's a pop culture character that does that, and I can't think of who it is right now.

[00:12:00] Preston Meyer: For people who are familiar with the Hebrew Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, there's famously good old Isaiah who talks in a very poetic voice a lot of the time and is pretty obscure for readers. So that's something that's reasonably common to religious folk today. 

[00:11:55] Katie Dooley: Because of the power of song, the Fili, their words and traditions survived the Christian conquest and recorded by Catholic priests.

[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I thought it was interesting reading up on these Catholic priests that were writing these things, why they felt the need to preserve something that they really hated. Feels really, really odd to me, but I can appreciate that the need for decent scholarship was enough that they did a thing that needed to be done, even though they weren't doing it for properly noble reasons.

[00:13:07] Katie Dooley: No. No enjoyment. There was no enjoyment there.  And in Ireland specifically, the Fili were counted as equals to Catholic priests, which meant that they received land from the chiefs equally. This became a hardship when pretty much anybody could become a Fili, so the title was restricted to only a few per family who were thought to have a special right to it.

[00:13:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that could be a problem. And it's I think it's really interesting that they were counted as equal under the law. I mean, anyone could become a priest too, but that doesn't mean you were going to get a parish right away, you know?

[00:13:44] Katie Dooley: No, I mean, that's and again, this is probably part of the reason why it morphs into, like I said, the folklore is that Ireland like still to this day, as Catholic as it is, they still have fairy trees that you don't cut down in your farmer's field, kind of like in Iceland, where you have to get permission from the elves to build civic buildings like it's the weirdest thing.

[00:14:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I'm curious how that actually operates from day to day, because I haven't looked that up. Do they just put a petition in front of a spot reserved for the elves and see what happens?

[00:14:27] Katie Dooley: I haven't looked into it either. I just know it's the thing.

[00:14:30] Preston Meyer: All right.

[00:14:30] Katie Dooley: But I did see fairy trees in Ireland where like in the middle of a field that, you know, here in Western Canada would be completely bare for grazing. It's like, nope, fairies live in that tree. Can't cut it down.

[00:14:43] Preston Meyer: Okay, cool. There's some question as to whether these are the same folks that the Greeks and Romans called the vates, but in English we call them ovates now, because learning Greek is hard. I know that because I've done it, but that's an embarrassing adjustment of a word. But ovates is easy enough to say in English, so I guess there's that. Druids. That's a word that I think should be a little bit more familiar. Were basically what we now know as priests in Celtic paganism, while there's little that we actually know about them, uh, there is a magical element to them. Many of their practices would be what we consider occult, including divination and spell casting. Just like other religious leaders at the time, they were also heavily involved in politics, medicine, law, and as information keepers. Basically, these were the guys that could read, but they didn't write things down.

[00:15:50] Katie Dooley: Bitches.

[00:15:51] Preston Meyer: Right. It's it's frustrating.

[00:15:53] Katie Dooley: It is frustrating. 2000 years later. You are correct. Did you know, Preston, that they performed human sacrifices?

[00:16:03] Preston Meyer: I mean, I've heard it about so many different peoples now that at some point we have to run across somebody that it's fully true.

[00:16:11] Katie Dooley: It's not this one, though. So I really just think this is Roman propaganda for all of them, or like Christian propaganda, I guess because Rome, there were rumors that in the Roman, ancient Roman they had human sacrifice.

[00:16:26] Preston Meyer: Well, even the Greeks would say it about the Spartans, that they would just destroy all their, their weak-looking children. Turns out there's no truth about that either.

[00:16:38] Katie Dooley: Weak-looking. Oh, that's sad. I can just, like, picture little Timmy being like, well, I'm sorry, you're a little scrawny. That's really upsetting.

[00:16:47] Preston Meyer: But this was things. That was something that the Greeks would say about the Spartans talking about, you know, their history looking backwards. And yet we've found no evidence that it's true. And some pretty strong arguments that the people that were saying this were just being dicks to people they didn't like.

[00:17:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So in in reading up on this round of human sacrifice, basically some scholars even deny that it happened at all. Um, it definitely didn't happen very often. If it did, in any instances of sacrifice were likely reserved for criminals.

[00:17:22] Preston Meyer: Makes sense. I mean.

[00:17:24] Katie Dooley: We still do that. So.

[00:17:26] Preston Meyer: Right. Julius Caesar, back when he was just General Gaius, would he actually said that one of the greatest things that he witnessed among the Gaulish people was that they would stuff people into these wicker men.

[00:17:43] Katie Dooley: Oh, yes, the Wicker man.

[00:17:44] Preston Meyer: Right. And the Wicker Man is kind of cool. But does a giant effigy actually need flesh and blood people inside it? Isn't that the purpose of an effigy is to not have the real thing inside the fake?

[00:18:00] Katie Dooley: I mean, yeah but even if they did, we burn people at the stake. Well, into the 1700s so...

[00:18:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so Julius said that they would stuff criminals into the wickerman, but when they ran out of criminals, when they just had a light year and people were being good, Santa Claus didn't have any to bring coal to. They would throw slaves and thralls into the wickerman, which seems really odd.

[00:18:27] Katie Dooley: Seems like a waste of labor.

[00:18:29] Preston Meyer: Right? You need your slaves?

[00:18:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I don't want anyone. I don't want anyone to have slaves. Period. But I don't want anyone taking my manpower. Paid. My paid manpower.

[00:18:40] Preston Meyer: Right? But this is a thing that people are saying about the old Gaulish people. Just like they were saying about everybody else in the neighborhood.

[00:18:51] Katie Dooley: Literally everyone has performed a human sacrifice.

[00:18:55] Preston Meyer: I mean.

[00:18:56] Katie Dooley: If we if we take what's been written, everyone has performed.

[00:18:59] Preston Meyer: I mean, human sacrifice is still an everyday occurrence in Texas today. Thank you government. But of course, these are criminals.

[00:19:10] Katie Dooley: Preston goes political.

[00:19:13] Preston Meyer: In Canada, human sacrifice is fully illegal and in many countries it is still totally acceptable. Just  a reality. I'm not getting political about it. I'm just. That's the reality. So back to the Druids. They're generally thought to have had something that looks like a mystery school, but those mysteries are now lost to time. If such an oral tradition had survived to the present day, some people claim that it has. That would make them the only people in the world to preserve that as a secret, rather than have it leak out. So we're basically looking at the Bigfoot of religious studies

[00:19:58] Katie Dooley: Cool!

[00:20:01] Preston Meyer: That's so tricky business. And of course, in most literature since the medieval era, druids have been portrayed as malevolent sorcerers who oppose the advance of Christianity. The second half of that makes perfect sense, since the Christians destroyed and conquered their way of life, but making them malevolent sorcerers just seems like an unnecessary negative set of baggage there. But in the last couple of hundred years, Neo-druid groups have popped up. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that later.

[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: I mean. We've all watched Outlander, so.

[00:20:38] Preston Meyer: I haven't watched Outlander.

[00:20:39] Katie Dooley: Well, you're missing out.

[00:20:41] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:20:42] Katie Dooley: It's really meant for the ladies, but there's a lot of gore, though.

[00:20:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah, okay.

[00:20:50] Katie Dooley: I fast forward for the gore and get to the sexy part.

[00:20:54] Preston Meyer: That makes sense.

[00:20:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah. The descriptions we get about the Druids make it look like they ran theocratic tribes, but it makes more sense that in smaller tribal groups, there wasn't much reason for the more senior members not to have a familial respect for the whole community, allowing them to lead in both civic and religious affairs, which is a tricky distinction to preserve.

[00:21:19] Preston Meyer: Indeed it is. There's. The natural state of having the old people that know how to read, leading things that make sense but, being both civic and religious leaders looks problematic.

[00:21:34] Katie Dooley: I mean, I it's almost a historical it's a historical fiction novel. Like, I recognize this, but the way they wrote the Druid part of the book is that you had your chieftain and then you had your high priest Druid. High Druid and they would lead together a like I mean, the chieftain would defer like the, the, the druid was his counselor.

[00:22:03] Preston Meyer: That's what we see in a lot of cultures.

[00:22:06] Katie Dooley: And if the druid said, we need to sacrifice a baby, the cheif would go, okay, we need to sacrifice a baby, and they'd sacrifice the baby.

[00:22:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. When your role includes. A connection to the future sustainability of your people. And everybody sees your religious leaders in that position. You end up having a lot of civic authority.

[00:22:29] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So the Tuatha De Dannan translates to folk of the goddess Danu. She is the mother goddess in Irish folklore. So again, this is where this weird blending of Celtic into Irish, because there's no records. So. She's the mother goddess in Irish folklore, though some associate her with the land itself. So calling the land Danu. There are no legends about her specifically, but she lends her name to this ancient Irish pantheon of gods.

[00:23:06] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:23:08] Katie Dooley: The De Dannan dwell in the other world, but visit us through passage tombs like the one at Bru na Boinne, which is older than Stonehenge and really fucking cool. I went to Bru na Boinne. Cool. And yeah, it's from like 5000 BCE, I think. And they figured it out. The light and the passage tomb. It's illuminated on the equinoxes.

[00:23:32] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:23:33] Katie Dooley: And you can't you can't actually get into Bru na Boinne on the equinoxes. You have to win your way in. You have to enter a draw. 

[00:23:33] Preston Meyer: Because so many people want in.

[00:23:42] Katie Dooley: Because so many people want it in. I entered the draw. I did not win.

[00:23:45] Preston Meyer: Makes sense.

[00:23:46] Katie Dooley: I would have flown back to Ireland though, because how fucking cool would that be! Sorry, I got real nerdy there. Yeah, so it's way older than Stonehenge. Doesn't get nearly as much credit as Stonehenge. Google Bru na Boinne.

[00:24:02] Preston Meyer: We're going to include the spelling of that.

[00:24:04] Katie Dooley: Or you can also look up Newgrange, which is spelled just like it sounds.

[00:24:08] Preston Meyer: That's that's helpful.

[00:24:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So like in Norse and Greek mythology, the De Dannan are not the first set of gods, but rather descended from Nemed.

[00:24:21] Preston Meyer: Oh yeah.

[00:24:22] Katie Dooley: Scholars believe that the story of Nemed is Euhemerism and that he was a real person.

[00:24:27] Preston Meyer: Nice. It's cool when you can spot that in religions,

[00:24:31] Katie Dooley: Right? There are other supernatural races in Irish mythology that have some relation, one way or another, to the Dannan. The Aos Si are the descendants of the Dannan. The Fomorians are an evil race that fought the De Dannan, and the firbolg were ousted from Ireland by the Danaan and the Milesians. Milesians. Milesians. Milesians.

[00:24:59] Preston Meyer: Part of me wants to say Malaysians. But that's not right.

[00:25:01] Katie Dooley: No, it's not Malaysians. The Milesians are the final race of the present-day Irish people who arrived after they struck a deal with these gods and split Ireland above and below ground. They, the present day Irish people obviously got the above ground. I hope I don't need to clarify that.

[00:25:21] Preston Meyer: The dwarves and the elves are underground. And the fairies?

[00:25:24] Katie Dooley: Yeah, everything's underground except for humans.

[00:25:27] Preston Meyer: I think we got a pretty good deal there. Yeah, we need sunlight for happiness and health.

[00:25:33] Katie Dooley: But everyone below ground is magical, so...

[00:25:36] Preston Meyer: So they're probably fine.

[00:25:37] Katie Dooley: They're probably fine. But then do we get the short stick? We got light and they got magic. That sounds like an unfair deal.

[00:25:43] Preston Meyer: Oh, rough. Okay, unfortunately, very little is known about the deities of the Celtic and Gaulish tradition because there are very few written records, as we mentioned before. But we do have some decent oral traditions that the Druids were able to keep alive. And a bunch of place names are able to preserve these names as well. But not always helpful in telling us what they were gods of.

[00:26:11] Katie Dooley: Nope. Nope.

[00:26:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there there are some that remain from the broader Celtic tradition. And then we have lots that are specifically Irish from the Tuatha De Dannan tradition.

[00:26:29] Katie Dooley: You start so I can tell the story.

[00:26:31] Preston Meyer: Oh, okay.

[00:26:32] Katie Dooley: You start with the Dagda.

[00:26:34] Preston Meyer: All right. The Dagda is basically the all father associated with agriculture, fertility, manliness, and of course, in the Celtic tradition, magic and wisdom. He's another bearded man and the husband of Morrigan, lover of Boan. And he has seven children: so we got Aengus, Brigit, Bobd, Derg, Cermait, Aed and Midir.

[00:27:01] Katie Dooley: We really should have put pronunciations on there. I...

[00:27:06] Preston Meyer: Those look legit to me.

[00:27:08] Katie Dooley: Okay. Carry on.

[00:27:13] Preston Meyer: So the Dagda, carries around a club of life and death. You know what? That makes sense. A club can save a life or bring death. I like it. Uh, so the one end of his club gives life. The other end can brutally destroy you. Yeah. He resides at the beautiful Bru Na Boinne. As you had mentioned earlier.

[00:27:40] Katie Dooley: I definitely added the word beautiful because I was so excited about it. Thanks for reading it, Preston.

[00:27:46] Preston Meyer: I'm happy to read the words you give me here. In a challenge from their opponents, the Fomorians, the Dagda successfully finished a meal from his cauldron of plenty that was known to produce a bountiful feast. Okay. Good deal.

[00:28:04] Katie Dooley: World's first competitive eating.

[00:28:06] Preston Meyer: It reminds me of a story of Thor, where he was given this trick mug that he was supposed to finish the mug. Turns out it was a big ass straw piped straight into the ocean.

[00:28:16] Katie Dooley: And he did it.

[00:28:17] Preston Meyer: And he did it.

[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: He did it. This is that. This is that.

[00:28:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:28:26] Katie Dooley: So the Morrigan, her name translates to great queen or Phantom Queen like Athena. She is the goddess of war, which I love all these strong women being the goddess of war.

[00:28:38] Preston Meyer: Right? Well, every time we see a male god of war, they're always. What's the word I'm looking for? Clumsy and brutal and totally devoid of strategy or any sort of useful wisdom. But that's not what we see in the women. Every time a woman is a goddess of war, she's great.

[00:28:58] Katie Dooley: Good at it. I had to pee in a shop bathroom yesterday, and I could tell that no woman had entered there ever before me. And I thought of your Masonic Hall, and I was like, I don't know how men run the world. I really don't. It's the grossest place I've ever been.

[00:29:21] Preston Meyer: I'm sorry you had to experience that.

[00:29:23] Katie Dooley: I'm sorry I had to be there, too, but I did. But. Yes. Anyway. She is also, the Morrigan, is also the goddess of fate. And she could foretell victory or defeat in battle. She is a shape-shifter, commonly found in either the form of a raven or an old crone, if she's not her war goddess self. She has also been described as a tripartite goddess or three goddesses in one, and this actually happens a lot in the Celtic pantheon, which I found very interesting. The names of three goddesses vary. We always have Bodh, Macha and either Nemain, Anad or, Danu. But I couldn't find anyone that agreed on that third one. So, as always, we have a fun little story about one of these gods and goddesses. In this case, we have one about the Morrigan, and she features heavily in what is known as the Ulster Cycle of Irish folklore. So again, this is where religion starts to blend into fairy tales, essentially. Kind of like Santa Claus in the West, right? He was based on a saint and now he's a fairy tale. Um, or he's real. I don't know who's... I don't know who's listening.

[00:30:46] Preston Meyer: He's also dead.

[00:30:46] Katie Dooley: I don't know who's listening, but he's real. Um, so these stories take place around the time of Christ in the first century. But manuscripts date much later, from anywhere from the 12th to 15th century, though these stories are likely to have been passed down by oral tradition for a much longer. So the first time Morrigan saw Cu Chulainn was when he was defending the province of Ulster from Queen Maeve. Cu Chulain is basically Irish Hercules for brevity's sake. He's  a demigod. Very strong, very hunky. For Morrigan, it was love at first sight and she tried to seduce Cu Chulain. But despite her godly and womanly ways, he rejected her, Preston!

[00:31:34] Preston Meyer: Ouch!

[00:31:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah. However, she was not deterred. She used her shapeshifting powers to turn into an eel, and swam to where Cu Chulain was in a fjord and tripped him up with her eel body. Mostly embarrassed, at least, I imagine he starts to punch the eel. Morrigan. So she shapeshifts into a wolf. While in her wolf form, she ran at a herd of cattle to drive them into the direction of Cu Chulain, to trample him to death. Fortunately for him, he grabbed his slingshot and temporarily blinded the Morrigan when he shot a stone in her eye. Again with the cows, she transforms to join them to get the stampede, heading to Cu Chulain again. He gets away, though, because he's Irish Hercules. He breaks her leg with a stone and she accepts defeat for now. Cu Chulain goes through his battle and wins, and on his way back, he comes across an elderly crone milking a cow. The crone was, of course, blind in one eye and had a leg injury. The crone offered the warrior some fresh milk while he drank, and he blessed her in thanks, unknowingly restoring the goddess to her full strength. Now Morrigan didn't attack, for she was happy to be restored. But it is said that when Cu Chulain eventually died in battle, a raven was said to have landed on his shoulder. Dun dun dun!

[00:33:10] Preston Meyer: Like right before the killing blow or afterwards in mourning his death. 

[00:33:14] Katie Dooley: As in a mocking. This was meant to happen to you.

[00:33:18] Preston Meyer: Gotcha. Yeah. Rough.

[00:33:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah. There you go.

[00:33:23] Preston Meyer: Huh? Fun story.

[00:33:25] Katie Dooley: Was it? Lots of animals.

[00:33:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's a lot of shapeshifter gods.

[00:33:33] Katie Dooley: I mean, I think it's the way that you can actually, like, visualize your deity.

[00:33:40] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:33:42] Katie Dooley: Is that a crow, or is that Morrigan?

[00:33:43] Preston Meyer: Right? There's a pretty strong tradition in some parts of the Christian world that are kind of odd in this way, that say that Jesus is also a shapeshifter and that he can be anything at any time, and you never know when he's right around the corner. It's kind of weird.

[00:34:02] Katie Dooley: And then I'll just add in really quickly before we go on to Brigid, Morrigan's also in the Arthurian legends, and she's very similar to the Celtic goddess. So you can see again how it went from gods and religion to folklore and change. Right? That's a very British versus a very Irish telling of the Morrigan.

[00:34:25] Preston Meyer: Well, the the Bretons and the Celts and the Gauls and all that, they're related peoples with similar mythology between them. And it just makes sense that the Arthurian legend would include something like that. All right, next on our list. Brigid or Bridget, the exalted one. Brigid is the goddess of healing, fertility, and motherhood. Her role in fertility and motherhood extended to animals as well. So she also was associated with domesticated animals. That just makes sense. The celebration of Imbolc is in her honor. At the beginning of February, the start of the Old Irish calendar, as she is considered a solar and fire deity represented by her red hair. Now I'm just thinking of a girl from Brave.

[00:35:16] Katie Dooley: I mean you're not far off.

[00:35:20] Preston Meyer: Right? And also, this is reflected in the meaning of her name. The Catholic Saint Brigid is believed to be just a Christianization of this goddess. And this happens a few times. There are a good handful of Christian saints that are definitely just syncretizations of gods to keep people happy as they're forced to adopt a new religion.

[00:35:44] Katie Dooley: Well, and Brigid is kind of like the like Thor, where while she's not one of the top two, we have a ton of writings about the goddess Brigid. Um, so yeah, I can totally see how they're like, oh, we'll just put a saint in front and make her a good Catholic woman and ta da!

[00:36:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And now your tradition is validated into this new system that we're going to force down your throat.

[00:36:11] Katie Dooley: Then we have Lugh who is also a very popular.

[00:36:15] Preston Meyer: Is it Lug or Loof? A GH is a weird thing that.

[00:36:19] Katie Dooley: Well, because you say Lughnasadh because you say Lughnasadh, not Loofnasadh.

[00:36:26] Preston Meyer: All I can do is take your word for it.

[00:36:27] Katie Dooley: I think it's Lugh.

[00:36:28] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:36:29] Katie Dooley: Anyway, someone's gonna come on and.

[00:36:32] Preston Meyer: Go ahead and correct us. We're okay with it.

[00:36:35] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's true. He's the god of justice. Oath keeping and the nobility. He is a prominent god with his whole day being Lughnasadh, which is August 1st. He is also known as a trickster, even though he is the god of justice and was known to deceive his opponents to get his way. Odd right?

[00:36:56] Preston Meyer: It's incongruous.

[00:36:59] Katie Dooley: Yes. I feel like he and Loki would have got. Loki would have been like, I like your style.

[00:37:05] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:37:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah, he would be like, I see what you did there. He's also said to have invented many Irish games, including horse racing and fidchell, the Irish precursor to chess. Lugh's son is Cu Chulain. So the the hero I just told you about. And again, this is where religion starts to bleed into folklore and tales.

[00:37:32] Preston Meyer: Is horse racing a game that the Irish claim is theirs?

[00:37:37] Katie Dooley: I mean I don't I that's what the thing said. I can see the Irish doing that.

[00:37:42] Preston Meyer: Oh well yeah sure. But I mean, I also have an issue with saying that chess originated in the West, but, if fidchell is an old Irish game, then that's the way it goes.

[00:37:56] Katie Dooley: It's probably wrong. I can say that as an Irish person, they were probably drunk again. I can say that as an Irish person who was drunk last night. Um. Oh, dear.

[00:38:11] Preston Meyer: Next on our list, we have Angus, the god of love, poetry and youth. It's nice to see a man as the god of love and poetry. I mean, we did have Eros as, like, a half-ass god of love in the old Greek tradition. But it was mostly his mom's job, Aphrodite.

[00:38:33] Katie Dooley: He was just Aphrodite's little bitch.

[00:38:35] Preston Meyer: Kind of. And poetry has been ascribed to a decent variety of gods over history. But Angus is a pretty good symbol for bringing these things together. He's the son of the Dagda, and he resided at the Bru na Boinne as well. He had the power to resurrect the dead, which is pretty awesome.

[00:38:59] Katie Dooley: That's pretty potent. 

[00:39:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I'm curious how many instances we have in history of this happening in Ireland, or even the entire Gaulish region. And again he is a shape shifter known to transform into a swan. So birds are his favorite and he would transform kisses into birds. You blow a kiss to a friend and then it actually hits them in the face in the form of a dove. That'd be great.

[00:39:28] Katie Dooley: To you, dear listener. Caw caw!

[00:39:34] Preston Meyer: So because he's a god and the God of love, he is pretty much always pictured as a very hunky man, but also surrounded with birds because that's his thing.

[00:39:46] Katie Dooley: It's also worded like that because Katie wrote that and poor Preston had to read it. Now we have two. I mean, there's not a lot of details on these guys. I'll just lump them together and you can move on to the other deities. I felt them noteworthy because of their parallels or their importance, but there's literally no records on these guys. So, Manannan mac Lir was the Irish Sea god, guardian of the underworld and rides a sea chariot. Does that sound familiar? Anyone? Anyone?

[00:40:15] Preston Meyer: That's our soggy boy.

[00:40:17] Katie Dooley: That's our soggy boy, Poseidon. So I thought that was interesting. And then we have Nuada. He's the first king of the Tuatha de Dannan. He got a silver hand after losing it in a battle to the Fomorians. He is the husband of Boan. So he's cuckolded by the Dagda and he's associated with hunting, fishing and leadership. So I felt like that was noteworthy. So you know where wine came from. And he's the first king and he's cuckolded.

[00:40:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What a great history to have a whole nation look back on with pride. Yeah, so there are other gods that are not part of the Tuatha De Dannan. They're thought of as the older gods. But because of this, we also have a lot less information about them.

[00:41:09] Katie Dooley: I actually like I had a whole list, and then when there was one sentence on each of them, I was like, well, I guess we're not talking about this guy. So there's only three, but...

[00:41:18] Preston Meyer: Well, we've got Cernunnos, the antlered god, the precursor to the Horned God that we see pretty solidly represented in the Wiccan tradition. Interpretations vary on what he represents everything from animals to travel. It's kind of messy.

[00:41:35] Katie Dooley: Yeah, when you're that old and there's literally just carvings of you, people can make whatever they want. Then we have Taranis, the god of thunder. His name literally means thunder comes from the Proto-Celtic word Toranos. Taranis, toranos. He could control storms. He was in a triad gods with Toutatis and Esus, also known as Turian in the Irish tradition. There is not much known about Toutatis and Esus. Some think it's an the triad gods situation, though couldn't find anything else on them.

[00:42:12] Preston Meyer: Okay. And another one. My favorite.

[00:42:16] Katie Dooley: Everyone's favorite.

[00:42:16] Preston Meyer: Is Epona.

[00:42:17] Katie Dooley: Neigh!

[00:42:18] Preston Meyer: Epona was a horse girl. And if you know horse girls, you know what that means. She's a goddess of horses, a protector of horses, donkeys, and mules. She's also the famous horse steed of Link in The Legend of Zelda.

[00:42:37] Katie Dooley: That's why she's named that, yeah.

[00:42:39] Preston Meyer: That name is definitely taken from this tradition. Worship of Epona was pretty widespread, which is kind of interesting for the time as a lot of people worshiped really centralized, local-specific gods and goddesses. Her tradition is a little wider than one would expect.

[00:42:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Like and quite well-documented as far as especially for something this old as well. So there's a lot in the old Celtic tradition and then there's even more that's been lost, which is kind of sad.

[00:43:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's a very depressing blank in a lot of the knowledge that we should have about these people.

[00:43:22] Katie Dooley: Now, in the last three episodes, we were talking about neopaganism and what it looks like now, and this one got quite interesting. Part of me was, you know. They do it now. The one sentence that we've repeated the last three episodes. But this one's really interesting because Wicca kind of folds into this. Even though Wicca is a 70-year-old religion and the lines that are drawn, I guess, um, it's...

[00:43:53] Preston Meyer: Separate but connected.

[00:43:54] Katie Dooley: Yes. And there's actually I found four sort of distinct classes of Celtic neopaganism that we'll talk about. So these are not all the same, but there are definitely similarities. And we're kind of going to go from the from the most traditional to Wicca is how I've laid this out. So we have Celtic Reconstructionist paganism. And this is focused on the historically accurate uh oh...

[00:44:24] Preston Meyer: Tricky.

[00:44:25] Katie Dooley: Right? Reconstruction of the polytheistic tradition. This is a genuine belief in the pantheon, much like the Greek restoration that we talked about a few episodes ago. But there's less wooery that we're gonna get into. They're big on the revival of Celtic culture as a whole, including music, dance and language in addition to the folklore, because so little has survived, for us to even put together an episode! They stress individual research and study, but also see the value in spiritual practices. They give offerings to the spirits and celebrate all major pagan holidays like Samhain and Imbolc.

[00:45:11] Preston Meyer: Sounds pretty all right. Tricky. Super hard to be good at. I mean, let's be fair. A lot of people are terrible at Christianity, and that's been well-established for a couple thousand years.

[00:45:24] Katie Dooley: I mean there's been a few councils about doctrine, too, right?

[00:45:29] Preston Meyer: But Celtic Reconstructionist is just hard.

[00:45:33] Katie Dooley: It is hard. And I think it's hard regardless. But we there are people smarter than us out there. In this particular subject. Maybe not in everything. Right? So if you're like, really into it, like we put this together in a week. You know, as we do. If you really wanted to deep dive, I'm sure there's more, but it's still tough.

[00:45:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:45:58] Katie Dooley: Then next step up is Druidry or Neo-Druidism. Not to be confused with Dudeism.

[00:46:09] Preston Meyer: Important distinction.

[00:46:11] Katie Dooley: Yes, this is similar to Wicca in that it celebrates the connection to the natural world. There is no historical link between the OG druids and neo-druids. Neo-Druids believe in the Awen or the "flowing spirit" in all things.

[00:46:30] Preston Meyer: Easy enough to get on board with.

[00:46:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah and again, they celebrate all major pagan holidays.

[00:46:36] Preston Meyer: Makes perfect sense.

[00:46:37] Katie Dooley: Which is. But this is also where I can see people getting confused. Right? There's four different groups, probably more that celebrate Samhain.

[00:46:45] Preston Meyer: There's loads of different groups that celebrate Christmas and Easter.

[00:46:47] Katie Dooley: That's true.

[00:46:48] Preston Meyer: I take no issue with that.

[00:46:50] Katie Dooley: Fair. But we do not lump them all together.

[00:46:53] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:46:53] Katie Dooley: Then we have Celtic Wicca, which is very similar to modern-day Wicca, but they believe in the full ancient Celtic pantheon, not just, duotheistic Wicca.

[00:47:10] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:47:11] Katie Dooley: So it's very similar to Gardner's Wicca. Gardner's Wicca is duotheistic and Celtic Wicca is pantheistic. Again, they celebrate all the major pagan holidays.

[00:47:27] Preston Meyer: I just don't see any reason why they wouldn't.

[00:47:31] Katie Dooley: Everyone should.

[00:47:32] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:47:34] Katie Dooley: And can we have an Imbolc party?

[00:47:35] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:47:37] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:47:39] Preston Meyer: It wouldn't. I don't think it would be a faithful Imbolc party, but it could be an Imbolc party.

[00:47:43] Katie Dooley: We could sacrifice a baby. I'm kidding.

[00:47:49] Preston Meyer: That sounds like a problem.

[00:47:52] Katie Dooley: I'm kidding. And then just to tie a nice bow on all of this and to move along swiftly from that comment, there's Wicca, which we did a full episode on, if you want to jump back and listen to it. But it was developed in the 1950s with inspirations from Celtic paganism. Like the holidays, but it's a typically duotheistic religion with the Horned God and, i don't remember the goddess.

[00:48:24] Preston Meyer: The triple goddess.

[00:48:25] Katie Dooley: The triple goddess. Thank you.

[00:48:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's unfortunately not a lot more that we could include here. There's just so much that's lost to time. There's stuff like some small groups talk about this thing, but there's really not a lot. They're not one giant homogenous group because there is no one giant homogenous group, as we've seen as we've made these explorations. But it's interesting to see how they have a lot of similarities to the Norse being both Germanic peoples, the Celts and Gaulish were the West Germanic and the Norse were North Germanic. And there are similarities that we see between the two groups, and yet they're both really quite different from what we saw in Greece and Rome.

[00:49:17] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, this is a great example of just geography affecting religion. Right, because Greek and Roman are so similar and Celtic and Norse are so similar.

[00:49:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Some pretty cool stuff.

[00:49:33] Katie Dooley: But they're all going to get usurped by Jesus right away.

[00:49:36] Preston Meyer: So yes, unfortunately, we've watched, uh, pretty brutal conquest, looking back in history of how all of these traditions and their really great stories are just kind of buried. And many of them never to be seen again by the Christian conquest.

[00:49:55] Katie Dooley: You want to wrap up this episode?

[00:49:57] Preston Meyer: All right, so we've got our Patreon that we've got a handful of exclusive episodes just for people who support the podcast.

[00:50:05] Katie Dooley: With more coming this year.

[00:50:06] Preston Meyer: With more coming this year. I'm looking forward to doing more of those. We've got our shop where you can buy all kinds of stuff with a good and decent set of... No, with a good variety of great graphics, representing our podcast and some of the ideas that we share. You can get them on shirts, tote bags, water bottles, mugs,

[00:50:31] Katie Dooley: You name it.

[00:50:32] Preston Meyer: Basically, if it's a thing that people normally get branded, it's available and that's great. You can find us on Discord, join the chat, tell us that we said something incorrect or mispronounce something.

[00:50:45] Katie Dooley: Probably.

[00:50:47] Preston Meyer: We also post some great memes and some really cool infographics. I've found a pretty good collection of infographics for the last few episodes illustrating the family trees of the gods.

[00:51:00] Katie Dooley: Bushes.

[00:51:00] Preston Meyer: I mean, some of them are pretty bushy. Uh, some good fun. And also, you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, all kinds of great stuff.

[00:51:13] Katie Dooley: Anywhere your podcasts are cast.

[00:51:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, I trust that if you're listening to our episode, you found a way that you're comfortable listening to us.

[00:51:22] Katie Dooley: Oh hey, share with a friend too. Share with a friend.

[00:51:25] Preston Meyer: Definitely do that.

[00:51:27] Katie Dooley: That would be helpful.

[00:51:28] Preston Meyer: We would really appreciate that. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:51:32] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

#Brú na Bóinne #Tuatha Dé Danann #Cu Chulainn #Cuhullin #Ulster Cycle

#Spaceballs # Old Gods #ancienthistory #ancientcivilizations

Thor and Odin are well known today, but are these images faithful to the source material?

There's more to the Norse religious tradition than the bit of mythology that makes it into the movies. It's a complex system with a rich poetic tradition. Unfortunately, much is lost to time.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the comics that inspire it, have told wonderful stories about the figures of Thor, Odin, and Loki, and their many companions, but the family tree and the cosmology is far more complex than what we see in most popular fiction. 

The North Germanic pagan tradition is alive today, but things have gotten complicated. White Nationalism including groups like the Sons of Odin have taken up the names of these figures of faith and power, in the hopes of intimidating their "lesser" opponents.

Join us as we explore the Eddas, and the things that Marvel and the Nazis got wrong.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

[00:00:11] Preston Meyer: We've enjoyed a little bit of the wine religions in the last month.

[00:00:16] Katie Dooley: Sure have.

[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: Now we have to abandon the wine religions in favor of the beer religion.

[00:00:21] Katie Dooley: Ooh, I like beer.

[00:00:26] Preston Meyer: Not a fan of either.

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: You wouldn't be. You wouldn't be.

[00:00:33] Preston Meyer: That's just the way it is. Yeah. I don't drink, no. As I take a sip of water.

[00:00:41] Katie Dooley: It's just water everyone. He has not turned it into wine successfully yet, so. 

[00:00:45] Preston Meyer: I don't have that kind of power.

[00:00:46] Katie Dooley: No. Yep. So we are on this episode. We are talking about Norse religion.

[00:00:54] Preston Meyer: On this week's episode of. 

[00:00:56] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast!

[00:01:01] Katie Dooley: So I, I mean, I know a little bit about Norse religion, but I did not know enough to know how accurate Marvel is.

[00:01:16] Preston Meyer: Uh, there's there's a couple of details they got right and.... 

[00:01:20] Katie Dooley: A lot of the names and things like, I literally thought Ragnarok was made up for the movies.

[00:01:26] Preston Meyer: Oh, okay, yeah. See, I had read the Prose Edda a few years ago before I started my degree, so I knew a little bit. But it's actually really frustrating how much Marvel screws up.

[00:01:42] Katie Dooley: Well, we'll have to dig into. You'll have to point it out as we go along.

[00:01:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, I think it's really interesting that the Norse didn't have a word for religion. Honestly, most cultures didn't have a word for religion before they got exposed to Christianity.

[00:01:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Before there was this big shift in religion from polytheism to monotheism.

[00:02:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's it's a weird thing. So what we call the Norse religion, they just called the old custom, in contrast to the new custom, which was Christianity. And so there was the old gods and the new gods. The New Gods being the Christian gods, because things are always complicated.

[00:02:34] Katie Dooley: So unlike the Romans and the Greeks. Norse, the Norse never achieved the same level of imperial power.

[00:02:43] Preston Meyer: No, they mostly just went around raiding camps when they were looking to expand.

[00:02:47] Katie Dooley: Raiding camps and stealing women.

[00:02:50] Preston Meyer: And not just women,

[00:02:51] Katie Dooley: Stealing everyone. 

[00:02:51] Preston Meyer: Men and children for slaves too.

[00:02:55] Katie Dooley: So they didn't collect gods the same way that the Greeks and Romans did.

[00:03:02] Preston Meyer: No, it's actually really, really frustrating trying to figure out how the religion, the old customs evolved because we don't have a lot of documentation for that time period. And frustratingly, we have even less from their neighbours. So we've just kind of mostly got what was written after they were exposed to Christians.

[00:03:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You know and then what Marvel did with it.

[00:03:36] Preston Meyer: Which muddied the waters. So instead of having a bunch of separate henolatric cults like we saw in Greece and Rome, the North Germanic people seem to have been truer polytheists than the others. But of course, they weren't monolithic either. Things were different from one area to the next. The people in North Norway were a little different from the people in south Sweden. That kind of deal.

[00:04:07] Katie Dooley: Nice use of alliteration. You didn't have to do that, I love that. And just like any of these old religions, the Norse religion didn't rely on a holy book or any sort of sacred texts. It was an entirely, I mean, entirely oral tradition. But just like Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, for the Greek mythology that Eddas are written records of the Norse mythology.

[00:04:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The elder Poetic Edda is estimated to date back about a thousand years. It was compiled more recently than that, but individual poems that build up the whole are older, and because it's poetic, way too much of it is way too ambiguous for outsiders. Which is, of course, everybody. Now that it's been a thousand years.

[00:05:01] Katie Dooley: It's interesting to me that's such an old religion was and I mean, when we talk about the Prose Edda is even newer, that was compiled so recently.

[00:05:12] Preston Meyer: Right. And there's a younger Edda called the Prose Edda because it's a lot less poetic, written by a fellow named Snorri. He wrote it in the early 1200s, and it's way easier to understand. But yeah, it's weird that it was only that recent that things started being written down when writing was actually a very powerful thing for them.

[00:05:36] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and I mean, the 1200s like that part of the world would have been fully Christian by then. So to even take it on at that time seems. Kind of odd, right?

[00:05:48] Preston Meyer: It is odd.

[00:05:49] Katie Dooley: It'd probably be seen as heretical. And again, it's probably another 2000 plus years older than than the time it was written.

[00:05:56] Preston Meyer: It could.

[00:05:56] Katie Dooley: Or compiled.

[00:05:57] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's it's really hard to say, really, how old these traditions are. Uh, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of old mystery schools or cults like we saw in in Greece. There doesn't seem to be any secret knowledge among the Norse peoples, or at least there isn't any evidence today. If there was any, it hasn't survived at all.

[00:06:20] Katie Dooley: The elves have it.

[00:06:22] Preston Meyer: Maybe.

[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: My dad was. I forget what book my dad was reading, but he was talking about how in Iceland, like, they still, like, genuinely believe in elves and that they have to get, like, elf permits for any sort of property development. And so he showed them that clip from, uh.

[00:06:39] Preston Meyer: From Eurovision.

[00:06:40] Katie Dooley: Eurovision where the the elf knifes the guy in the back.

[00:06:43] Preston Meyer: Ah, I love it. What a ridiculous way for that bit of the story to get tied up right.

[00:06:48] Katie Dooley: I oh, that made me so happy.

[00:06:50] Preston Meyer: It was great and yeah, there's kind of a lot going on culturally around this old custom. There are dwarves and elves and trolls and all kinds of figures that are just part of the story that never really interact religiously. It's just part of the custom.

[00:07:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah. No. Exactly. It's interesting that, yeah, there's no stories about trolls per se, but it was I guess it's. Yeah, kind of implied that they I mean, there are stories about giants and we'll get into that, but that they exist right alongside these gods in Asgard.

[00:07:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There were three basic classes among the Old Norse. You had the Jarls, uh, which are basically noble folk. You had the Karls. That's how we get the French named Charles, fairly common among our people today. And that name means free people. And then you had the thralls, the slaves, who were occasionally offered up as sacrifices. But that wasn't their most useful application. It was far better to keep them around for labour.

[00:08:07] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:08:09] Preston Meyer: There were no priests, really. A handful of regions have different words that are usually treated like priests, but any person could offer sacrifices and group ceremonies were typically led by the head of the family or the village leader. So these words that we usually treat like priest seem more appropriate to apply to teachers or shamanic fortune tellers, things like that, rather than how you would see a priest today in the Christian tradition. 

[00:08:43] Katie Dooley: Now tell me about blood.

[00:08:47] Preston Meyer: Uh, so blöt, uh, is a word that means blessing, but the every way that it's used, it basically is a sacrifice. And the sacrifices, like we've seen in a lot of religions when you really boil down what's going on, these are big community barbecues or sometimes just small family meals. The sacrifices could be offered for literally any occasion. It could be to celebrate a wedding, to prepare for a voyage, to hope for the best at the time of a birth. Literally anything. If you wanted to make sure things were going to go well, a sacrifice just kind of made sense.

[00:09:30] Katie Dooley: A barbecue just helps everything.

[00:09:33] Preston Meyer: So the animal was killed and the party would eat the animal. Bigger events deserved bigger sacrifices, fed more people. Sacrifices were offered freely rather than required by the gods. Certain gods would prefer certain kinds of animals and these were offered with the hope of divine generosity that, hey, out of nowhere, I'm just going to offer this thing to Odin in the hopes that God's going to be generous to me and give me what I need. Kind of a deal. It was an offering for a trade instead of a "I owe you this thing and as a covenant deal, you're going to bless me with this thing"

[00:10:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I kind of like that better.

[00:10:14] Katie Dooley: Right? It also leaves a little bit of space for the gods to still be like, "nah, I don't want to help you with this thing."

[00:10:24] Katie Dooley: Right? You haven't done enough for me yet.

[00:10:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Human sacrifices are really actually still a matter of contention among scholars, but many agree that it was mostly done in connection with war during the Viking Age specifically, and not actually common in most communities. And there was no schedules for sacrifices, so the North Germanic peoples actually never had any use for the idea of a week like we're familiar with today. They didn't name the days because there was no necessary cycle.

[00:10:58] Katie Dooley: Time is a construct!

[00:11:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, for most of them, the day was actually counted in the way we see it in the old Hebrew tradition of a new day starts when the current day dies, so at sunset. But other than that, they didn't worry about time so much apart from yearly cycles. Which makes sense. Take care of the seasons. Don't worry about weeks.

[00:11:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. Makes sense a sense. How do you know when it's a birthday though?

[00:11:29] Preston Meyer: I don't think they really worried about birthdays.

[00:11:31] Katie Dooley: It's a very modern thing.

[00:11:33] Preston Meyer: From the impression that I've been getting, they didn't worry about it. You would count the days of the cycle, like for the season.

[00:11:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they would know the equinoxes and solstices. Most people did back then.

[00:11:46] Preston Meyer: But there was no Monday until the Romans made their social connections. And then Monday became a thing. So the names that we have for weekdays now are born from kind of a Norse butchering of the Roman system. They didn't even bother to come up with anything to replace Saturn for Saturday.

[00:12:09] Katie Dooley: Well, I like the sound of the Saturn.

[00:12:11] Preston Meyer: I think they just couldn't think of anything.

[00:12:15] Katie Dooley: I like the sound of the Saturn. Yeah.

[00:12:18] Preston Meyer: But Sunday, Monday, the sun and the moon. Super simple.

[00:12:22] Katie Dooley: And then we get with Thor. I don't know why they're Italian.

[00:12:30] Preston Meyer: And then we got Tyrs day. Uh, and some people pronounce it two. And so that's how we got Tuesday.

[00:12:37] Katie Dooley: And then we get the one with the....

[00:12:43] Preston Meyer: You're killing me. And then wooden and then Thur, and then Freya. And then that Saturday that they had no idea what to rename it.

[00:12:53] Katie Dooley: None of it sounded like...

[00:12:55] Preston Meyer: There were a handful of scholars that nobody really seems to be taking seriously on the matter. That think that Seder was a figure among the Norse, and there's a couple of people who are like, no, no, it was Seder, but no, no, it's it is Saturn. They just didn't rename the day. It's kind of weird.

[00:13:22] Katie Dooley: That like the sound of the Saturn.

[00:13:24] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:13:26] Katie Dooley: Like the Italian names.

[00:13:28] Preston Meyer: You know, we should do is start a movement to rename Saturday Borsday. Because Saturn is the father of Jupiter in the Roman mythology, um, and Bor is the father of Odin, so we can follow that scheme and just go ahead and replace Saturn with Bor.

[00:13:50] Katie Dooley: Right. Okay. We'll start a petition.

[00:13:52] Preston Meyer: We don't we don't have a day of the week that starts with B yet, and. 

[00:13:56] Katie Dooley: We have two that start with T and two that start with S, what?

[00:13:58] Preston Meyer: We can chop this confusion in half by having a weekday that starts with B. Borsday. It's the best day of the weekend.

[00:14:07] Katie Dooley: Our episodes are released two days after Borsday.

[00:14:10] Preston Meyer: Exactly. Another really important part of the old custom was Sade. Which means tether or bind or rope. It's a word that we're still figuring out what really is the precise translation of the word, but basically it it's the thing that ties everything together. It's magic.

[00:14:37] Katie Dooley: It's the force.

[00:14:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so it's basically used to find secrets, discern the future, but also predict the future. And so this divination was really important, like it was everywhere else. And when you look at all of these other old religions, but it seems like it was mostly women that were really involved in this practice of discerning the future. Odin is supposed to have learned it from Freya, rather than being the fount of this gift on his own, which is kind of a cool touch, I think. Sorry. I thought you were gonna say something. 

[00:15:16] Katie Dooley: I was like i thought you were gonna say something, so I stopped myself. I was just gonna say that the women in Norse mythology are pretty badass, but they are pretty badass in Greek and Roman, too.

[00:15:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:15:28] Katie Dooley: I think monotheism wrecked that all for us women.

[00:15:32] Preston Meyer: I don't think it's the monotheism so much as the people who are pushing it on others. Runes were also really important. They were thought to be very, very powerful. It is said in an old poem that the right rune could make a dead man walk again. So there's all kinds of study on, on these old forms of writing that had ritual value. And even though this writing was super important, we actually have really minimal ancient records about this tradition. We find rocks here and there with things inscribed on them. But it's not like big theological writings or anything. It's just Thor protect us kind of deal that we'll find written on a rock somewhere, which it's interesting to look back and see how long ago they've been talking about Thor, but it doesn't give us a whole lot more information than that.

[00:16:30] Katie Dooley: No, and I will get next segment we'll talk about specific gods, and there are some that I found that they're basically like, we don't know anything about this guy, but it was important to them.

[00:16:43] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:16:44] Katie Dooley: He's mentioned twice in the Edda and that's it. But based off of who he was in the pantheon. We think he was important. I read that a few times.

[00:16:55] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, we had the same problem with the Romans that even their scholars before the fall of the Republic, they're like, these are the gods that we have official, nationally paid priests offering to these gods, and we can't remember who two of them are. Yeah.

[00:17:16] Katie Dooley: Whoopsie daisy.

[00:17:18] Preston Meyer: Right. It's kind of weird. Like they lost track of who they were before the Empire took over the Republic's place. Yeah. Weird.

[00:17:28] Katie Dooley: Whoopsie poopsie.

[00:17:32] Preston Meyer: Another part of the old tradition. The old custom is their philosophy, which has actually not really died out. The philosophy still remains an important part of the culture in Scandinavia today. Um, basically it's. Well, completely free from theological dogma. The goal of life is to find happiness. This is best done through the virtues of independence, hospitality, loyalty, modesty, generosity, courage, and wisdom. Independence comes from wisdom. Wisdom comes from travel. Kind of nifty. I like it really encourages you to get out and see the world which more people should be doing and something else that was really important to them was the idea that there is no escaping fate. Fate was decided by the Norns and even the gods couldn't escape Ragnarok. They knew it was coming. They have all these details foretold. Ragnarok is still in the future, as far as we can tell, according to their writings.

[00:18:37] Katie Dooley: What about the hit movie from 2017?

[00:18:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's a couple of years ago, loosely based on the ideas of the prophecy, not a faithful representation of the story at all.

[00:18:54] Katie Dooley: No, because nobody's supposed to survive it.

[00:18:57] Preston Meyer: Oh, there are survivors.

[00:18:58] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's true. There are survivors. The Hulk's not involved in the Edda. He never shows up.

[00:19:04] Preston Meyer: Nope. There should have been a Beta Ray Bill, though. You'll know who that is soon enough.

[00:19:11] Katie Dooley: Oh, dear.

[00:19:13] Preston Meyer: But yeah, fate's super important. You just accept it. But it's interesting that this idea that there's no escaping the fates has actually really encouraged people to be bold and go out and do great things. So that's cool.

[00:19:29] Katie Dooley: I mean, that I mean, that just reminds me of. Have you seen Big Fish?

[00:19:34] Preston Meyer: No, I don't think I have.

[00:19:35] Katie Dooley: That's a great movie. Yeah. Anyway, it's not a huge plot point, but, uh, Ewan McGregor's character is asked if he wants to know how he's going to die. And on the surface, most people would be like, no, I don't want to. I want to hang and die. He's like, yeah, because if I know how I'm going to die, then I know I can survive anything else.

[00:19:53] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:19:54] Katie Dooley: Right? So it takes place in the past. So he does like the most dangerous World War II mission, so he can finish his service faster and get home to his wife because he knows how he dies. And it's not in World War II, so part of me is like, yeah, I can kind of see, like if you know how it's going to end, then. You probably enjoy it more.

[00:20:13] Preston Meyer: Would you rather know how or when?

[00:20:19] Katie Dooley: Oh, I think I'd rather. I think I'd rather know when. Because how, then I would try everything to avoid the how and be able to avoid the how. Right. You know what I mean?

[00:20:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:20:31] Katie Dooley: Whereas if you know when, then you can just, like, live your best life until then. Right? Because if it's like, oh, you're gonna die in a plane crash, well, then you'll never go on a plane again. 'Cause maybe it's the next one, or maybe it's one 30 years from now. Whereas if it's like you're gonna die 30 years from now, then it's like, cool. I can do whatever I want until for 30 years. Instead of trying to avoid chocolate or cars or, um, cigarettes, whatever it is anyway.

[00:20:58] Preston Meyer: But what if when was changeable, but also like...

[00:21:08] Katie Dooley: Um, well, I mean, it would be really upsetting, but again, I think it like. Then you know, right? Then you stop paying your mortgage, right?

[00:21:15] Preston Meyer: I guess so.

[00:21:17] Katie Dooley: The changeable changes, that's too many variables. 'Cause that's probably exactly...

[00:21:21] Preston Meyer: Fate is crazy. It's such a big mind issue.

[00:21:29] Katie Dooley: Drop in our Discord whether you want to know how or when you're going to die.

[00:21:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Terrible things, terrible thoughts.

[00:21:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Let's keep it positive, though. Put a GIF in there. How do you think you're going to die?

[00:21:45] Preston Meyer: I'm just reminded of this thing I've seen on Reddit a few times now over the last couple of years of this lady walks up to this box, it says, put your finger in here and it'll tell you how you're going to die. And she just hesitates a little bit, but she puts her finger in there and gets a little piece of paper out, and it just says, old age gets this big old smile on her face, starts skipping down the across the street, hit by a guy in a car. You see the guy - Old guy. Old age got her. Yeah, it was rough. Prophecy can often be very vague and entirely useless or self-fulfilling in the most irritating way.

[00:22:26] Katie Dooley: Yes. All right. So who the heck were these old gods?

[00:22:33] Preston Meyer: Well, there were two groups of gods. Well, I mean, it's more complicated than just saying there's two of them. There's an awful lot of groups of powerful beings, but the ones that are usually called gods. Are the AEsir, the Asgardians, or the Vanir. Which don't have a common name in Marvel yet, as far as I've heard.

[00:23:00] Katie Dooley: And the Vanir split off from the Aesir, is my understanding and then they fought each other.

[00:23:07] Preston Meyer: There are some thoughts that they were actually the gods of a rival nation. But because we have so little information from the earliest points of this developing history, we actually don't know when and it's mostly all guesswork.

[00:23:27] Katie Dooley: So again, none of these gods were repurposed for any sort of Christian use.

[00:23:32] Preston Meyer: No, none of them turned into saints like the old Roman gods did. A lot of Christian saints are actually just repurposed Roman gods. We'll take a look at that later this year.

[00:23:46] Katie Dooley: And again, as Preston mentioned, these two groups, they would fight and intermarry, but they were equally matched in all things. So eventually a truce had to happen because they realized no one was going to win.

[00:24:02] Preston Meyer: Nice. Perfect match. Yeah. Break down your walls and accomplish nothing else.

[00:24:09] Katie Dooley: Okay, so one of the theories I read is that this war that appears in the Edda is actually a retelling of something that actually happened in Scandinavia thousands of years ago.

[00:24:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah, a lot of scholars are actually pretty convinced that Odin was a real person, just some ancestor of royal line. And it makes good sense to me, actually. Euhemerism can be really tricky trying to figure out how the gods are connected to real things. Like some of them are just the personification of the sun. Some of them are real people made divine by tradition. Odin. It seems really easy to say that he was a real person.

[00:24:57] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. So most of the popular, popular, well known Norse gods are part of the AEsir. That's Odin, Frigg, Hodr, Thor, Baldur, all fall in there, and very few of the Vanir are named. But the three that constantly come up are Njord, Frey, and Freyja. And they're a little family, which we'll talk about in a second.

[00:25:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:25:23] Katie Dooley: And just like Greek and Roman, the the gods have human emotions. They're anthropomorphic, and they are deeply flawed. There's no, um, like, you see in monotheism. All good benevolent, righteous knows, all omniscient. Role model here. In fact, there's some that I would say do not use as a role model, even a little bit.

[00:25:49] Preston Meyer: Uh, Zeus was the great example and a couple episodes ago, Loki is a great example in this one. And Loki, again, a great example of gods that there's no evidence of anybody ever worshiping them. A lot of these gods actually fit into that category where they're part of the story. They're counted as divine, but nobody actually offered them sacrifices or prayed to them or worship them in any way that looks like worship to us. I think that's kind of fascinating.

[00:26:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean and we don't really have a parallel in the monotheistic religion because like yeah, you could pick a random character from the Bible and be like, yeah, well we don't worship Zadok.

[00:26:36] Preston Meyer: But we also don't call him a god.

[00:26:38] Katie Dooley: Exactly. Yeah. I was just trying to pick my most favorite random name from the Bible.

[00:26:42] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:26:43] Katie Dooley: Uh, right. But yeah, exactly. He's not divine. So it is interesting to have a powerful being that is not being worshiped. That obviously could influence a mortal's life, so anyway.

[00:27:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, well, earthquakes are thought to be connected to Loki, so he certainly is a figure of power in the world that influences us. Still didn't get worshiped.

[00:27:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then Preston mentioned earlier, but varying from region to region, town to town, smaller deities and ancestor worship were also common. So actually, that's where absolutely, Odin could be just someone's ancestor, Clans leader.

[00:27:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. In addition to the gods, there was also this phenomenon of land wights. Wights W-I-G-H-T-S the ghosts and spirits of the land, the forest, or sometimes even a whole region, or sometimes just the corner of a farm. They could have all kinds of different sizes of area of influence, which I thought was kind of interesting to to come across. But people would make offerings to these spirits just like they would to the gods.

[00:28:05] Katie Dooley: Nice. Now I think I have about a dozen of the gods summarized. You're gonna have to help me with some of the names. Sure. Mostly Thor's hammer.

[00:28:16] Preston Meyer: Mjolnir.

[00:28:16] Katie Dooley: Mjolnir.

[00:28:17] Preston Meyer: Not Mew Mew.

[00:28:19] Katie Dooley: Mew, Mew. Uh, I might still call that, uh, I'm gonna start with Thor, everybody's favourite brawny, hammer-wielding Hulk. Hunk. Hunk. That's what my notes are. Everybody's favorite brawny, hammer-wielding hunk. He is the god of thunder, storms, trees, protection and fertility. Yeah, he is. Literally. I'm picturing Chris Hemsworth.

[00:28:48] Preston Meyer: Of course, you're picturing Chris Hemsworth. He's played Thor. For more hours of screen time than anybody else has, as far as I'm aware. So it makes sense that he's the face that comes to mind. But traditionally, Thor was a chubby redhead, not an intensely fit blond hunk.

[00:29:12] Katie Dooley: So Thor is the son of Odin and Jörd, not Frigg like in the Marvel movies.

[00:29:18] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:29:19] Katie Dooley: He is the most prominently mentioned God in the history of the Germanic peoples. So we actually have tons and tons of information on Thor, which is nice. It's a breath of fresh air than some of the one-paragraph things I found on some of these people. He swings around Mew Mew.

[00:29:38] Preston Meyer: Mjölnir. 

[00:29:39] Katie Dooley: Mjölnir. And he is the defender of Asgard from the Jötnar.

[00:29:44] Preston Meyer: Jötnar. 

[00:29:45] Katie Dooley: Jötnar. There are like there's tons and tons of stories about Thor, and we could probably do a whole episode on him or write a bunch of Marvel movies.

[00:29:56] Preston Meyer: Maybe they're clearly not done with him, right?

[00:29:59] Katie Dooley: One story I want to see is Thor: Cross-dresser.

[00:30:08] Preston Meyer: Tell me more.

[00:30:08] Katie Dooley: This was just so good I had to include it. So. Settle in for this, kiddies. Thor woke up one morning to find Mjolnir missing, which isn't good, because how the heck is he going to defend Asgard from the Giants? So the goddess Freya gives Thor and Loki some falcon feathers to help them find the hammer. Loki, being a shapeshifter, takes his feather and turns into a falcon and heads to Jotunheim. After he arrives, he quickly realizes that the Giants have stolen it. The chief of the Giants, Therm told Loki that he did indeed have the hammer, but he wasn't going to return it until he could marry Freyja.

[00:30:56] Preston Meyer: Rude.

[00:30:58] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:30:58] Preston Meyer: Whatever happened to consent?

[00:31:00] Katie Dooley: Consent and like. Like there's I mean, even then there's like, got to be a transaction and you got to get Njor involved because it's her dad. You can't just steal a hammer that has no connection to Freya and then ask for her hand in marriage. So now, when Loki flies back to Asgard to tell everyone this, no one is happy about it. So Heimdall suggests that Thor, good ol' Heimdall, that Thor disguises himself as Freya and head to Jotunheim to take back his hammer. Thor wasn't really feeling too much into the crossdressing thing, but Loki being Loki and his pal so said he'll cross-dress with him and pretend to be his maidservant. So now we have Thor and Loki dressed as women heading to Jotunheim, so Therm is super excited that he gets to marry Freya, so he holds a big feast. Thor, being Thor, eats an entire ox and drinks many barrels of mead, which makes Therm rightfully suspicious about how much his future wife eats. Now Sneaky Loki, he smooths talks their way out of it, and hastens the ceremony on. So Mjölnir is called upon to hallow the union. Thor grabs it and kills Therm, all while dressed as a beautiful blushing bride. The end.

[00:32:34] Preston Meyer: That's great.

[00:32:36] Katie Dooley: Right? How come that has not made it into a movie or a one-shot?

[00:32:41] Preston Meyer: There would be a great time.

[00:32:47] Katie Dooley: So yes, there's lots of great stories about Thor. Highly enjoyable. God of Thunder, protector of Asgard. Mew mew.

[00:32:57] Preston Meyer: The name Thor is basically the word that means thunder as well. So not terribly inventive name, but nice and easy for people to remember.

[00:33:11] Katie Dooley: I mean we called people Mason and they were Masons, right? So. Thunder, my son. And we name our kids a lot dumber things now than...

[00:33:23] Preston Meyer: True story. It's a wonderful world we live in.

[00:33:30] Katie Dooley: That actually, that's probably something in your scope of words. But like, as you know, I don't know who it includes, but as you know, I'm reading Zealot and like, they didn't even have last names. So they just like described people based off their relationships to others or what they did. Jesus of Nazareth or James, brother of the one who says he is Messiah. Um, and so like everyone had the name, like everyone was fucking named Mary. How do we go from Mary to, like, Abcde? You know what I mean? We're like, everyone was named Mary, and then all of a sudden we just got way too creative. What happened?

[00:34:06] Preston Meyer: I don't know. I think people just got tired of having seven Chrises in one class.

[00:34:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but, like, people just, like, threw sounds together to make new names.

[00:34:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:34:22] Katie Dooley: Anyway if anyone's a name specialist. Let me know.

[00:34:26] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Uh, Odin is next on our list. He's associated wisdom, death, healing, royalty and war. He's the husband of Frigg. He's portrayed as a fellow with one eye and a great beard. And he has lots of animal friends. He's got ravens, thought and memory, or Huginn and Muninn. He's also got two wolves, Geri and Freki. I can't remember what their names mean off the top of my head right now. They also accompany him most places, except for when he's really serious about being incognito. And these animals bring him information from Midgard. He's also often pictured riding Sleipnir an eight-legged horse, which sounds terrifying and spider-like. But let's fix that image by saying wherever you'd expect one leg, there's just two.

[00:35:23] Katie Dooley: Again, doesn't make it any less creepy.

[00:35:25] Preston Meyer: No. But easier than imagining a spider with a horse's head. Um, and we'll talk a little bit more about this ridiculous horse later and who its mother is. Odin watches over Valhalla, a hall in Asgard where half of those who die in battle are summoned. And it seems kind of weird. We'll talk more about those details. Um, Odin is a shapeshifter. He likes wandering around and he is the one telling the story through much of the Edda. That he is just in disguise, just pretending to be this old wise fella, not letting you know until after you're done talking to him that it's the All-father. And as we mentioned before, an awful lot of scholars are pretty sure he was a real person.

[00:36:25] Katie Dooley: Next, we move on to Frigg, who is the Queen of Asgard and wife of Odin. She is associated with marriage, motherhood, and prophecy. She resides in the marshlands called Fensalir. So she has three children Baldur, Hodor, and Hermod. And Frigg was known for being very smart. And this is, you know, something that they do do in the movies. Uh, Odin often asks her advice, and she can see into the future, but rarely did she ever tell anyone what she actually saw.

[00:36:56] Preston Meyer: That sounds like she's got a little bit of a Cassandra complex where she can see the future and nobody believe her anyway.

[00:37:03] Katie Dooley: Right, mom?

[00:37:07] Preston Meyer: Uh, next on our list, we have good guy Baldur. Everyone likes Baldur. He's incredibly handsome, according to the Edda. So handsome that it's like his face shines. Kind of like, um, what we hear about Moses sometimes. Except nobody got confused and said they were horns on his forehead.

[00:37:26] Katie Dooley: It's just a mistranslation.

[00:37:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a weird tradition that people have gotten really committed to. Baldur is Odin's son with Frigg. Not the same relationship with Thor. It's weird that we haven't seen Baldur yet in the Marvel movies.

[00:37:46] Katie Dooley: Well, and and there isn't a lot written about Baldur in the Eddas, which is really interesting when you think that, you know, his dad was Odin and his mom was Frigg, and everyone liked him, but that's basically all the Eddas say about him. And then the next point, you'll. This is the next big point about his cameo.

[00:38:04] Preston Meyer: Right. So it was supposed to be his death that sets off the chain of events that lead to Ragnarok. Unfortunately, Marvel treated it differently and his father's death. Kind of triggered all of that bit of a bummer, leaving out what is historically an important character in the story.

[00:38:23] Katie Dooley: Well, and then they add Hela, which I couldn't find any record of her...

[00:38:26] Preston Meyer: In the story of Ragnarok.

[00:38:28] Katie Dooley: Well, in.. at all.. In the list of gods and goddesses I couldn't find Hela.

[00:38:33] Preston Meyer: Her relationship to the gods is kind of funky. I mean, Loki is barely a god, and well, let's look at Loki.

[00:38:43] Katie Dooley: Let's look at Loki. So Loki is a lot like Zeus in that he'll have sex with literally anything in the shape of literally anything.

[00:38:52] Preston Meyer: Uh huh. What a guy. Great for parties, I guess. I mean, the stories. Yeah. He's great for parties.

[00:39:01] Katie Dooley: He was friendly with the other gods until he masterminds the death of Baldur, which, as Preston mentioned, is the first event that leads to Ragnarok. And the MCU portrays his character qualities well in that he is self-serving, playful, and mischievous. He is a shapeshifter. Um, but it completely changes how he fits into his family. Loki is a Yoden cousin and adopted brother to Odin, and Loki is the father of Hel or Hela and her wolf Fenrir.

[00:39:34] Preston Meyer: Yep, Loki is the father of that wolf Fenrir.

[00:39:38] Katie Dooley: I was like, did I read that right?

[00:39:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a mess.

[00:39:42] Katie Dooley: He fathered a wolf. Really good. It gets even weirder though. Loki is the father of the chaos monster known as Jormungandor.

[00:39:52] Preston Meyer: Well done.

[00:39:53] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:39:54] Katie Dooley: Who is a serpent. Oh, and this is the serpent. That was a big deal for Thor. This was Thor's arch nemesis.

[00:39:59] Preston Meyer: Yes, the world serpent.

[00:40:01] Katie Dooley: The world serpent.

[00:40:01] Preston Meyer: The snake big enough to wrap around the world, just chills out in the ocean and is kind of the source of a lot of chaos in the world.

[00:40:09] Katie Dooley: Yes and then it gets even weirder. He is also the. Mother of Sleipnir. That's right. Everyone. He mothered a horse.

[00:40:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Good old Loki decided, hey, I need to have sex with this stallion, so I need to be appealing to this stallion. And then he remained a mare long enough to carry an eight-legged horse to term. Which sounds like hell.

[00:40:41] Katie Dooley: Can you imagine being that horny?

[00:40:44] Preston Meyer: To desperately need stallion wiener.

[00:40:47] Katie Dooley: To need stallion wiener so bad that you're willing to turn into a girl stallion and stay a girl stallion and give birth to an eight-legged horse?

[00:40:55] Preston Meyer: Catherine the Great is jealous.

[00:40:56] Katie Dooley: Catherine the Great is jealous. As is Mr. Hands. Um, because I'm pretty sure I don't know anything about farm animals. Preston, this is your world. But I'm pretty sure legs are like the dangerous part about giving birth. They get caught on things.

[00:41:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there is a risk.

[00:41:15] Katie Dooley: So having twice as many legs coming out of your horse vagina.

[00:41:20] Preston Meyer: Well, and interestingly enough, birth has always been thought of just without counting legs, as a very dangerous experience that sacrifices would be given before somebody gives birth. Loki choosing to go through this seems really weird.

[00:41:39] Katie Dooley: He really wanted that horse dick. Really wanted that horse dick. Oh, dear.

[00:41:47] Preston Meyer: Well, now that's in all of our heads.

[00:41:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So I'm going to try and move on, but I don't know if it's possible. So. Laufey is Loki's mother and she was never described as a Joden, but instead as a goddess. But his father, Farbauti was a Joden.

[00:42:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I don't know why Marvel has done this weird thing of making Laufey Loki's father. That's really weird.

[00:42:15] Katie Dooley: Is it when you turn into a mare and have sex with a horse dick? Is it? Is that the weirdest thing they could have done, Preston? I think you need to readjust your perspective.

[00:42:26] Preston Meyer: It's just weird. They've completely changed Loki's story and saved us from the more graphic parts of his story, I guess. But they've just destroyed everything about how he relates to the Asgardians. It's just kind of weird. Uh, next on our list, we have Njord. He was a Vanir god of the wind and the sea. He was also the god of wealth, bestowal, and prosperity. He married his sister and fathered, two kids, Freyja and Freyr. He then had a failed marriage with a giant goddess, Skadi. And we don't really know a lot more about him.

[00:43:07] Katie Dooley: That's kind of it. Then we have Freya, which we do know a little bit more about. She's one of the Vanir. She's associated with love, beauty, sex, war and gold. So kind of our Aphrodite, if you will.

[00:43:21] Preston Meyer: A little bit.

[00:43:22] Katie Dooley: But she's better than Aphrodite. You know why?

[00:43:25] Preston Meyer: Tell me?

[00:43:26] Katie Dooley: Because she rides a chariot pulled by cats.

[00:43:30] Preston Meyer: Now, are we talking house cats or are we talking..

[00:43:33] Katie Dooley: Meow meow meow. I don't actually know. I don't look it up. I always.

[00:43:36] Preston Meyer: I always imagine them being mountain lions.

[00:43:37] Katie Dooley: I literally always assume them to be house cats. Okay, do I need I'm googling it. I'm googling a picture, but I really if it's not house cats, I'm gonna be upset. It's house cats! It's house cats everyone! Meow meow meow!

[00:43:59] Preston Meyer: What we have here is a couple of. I mean, large tabbies. They're not mountain lions, that's for sure.

[00:44:13] Katie Dooley: These are old. Like, not these, I mean, not these aren't even just weird cat girl. Sorry. Weird cat girls. You know who you are. Uh, these aren't even just weird cat girls hoping it's cats. Even the older pictures show cats. And I am so happy right now.

[00:44:29] Preston Meyer: You know what? I guess I'm on board now.

[00:44:34] Katie Dooley: Slightly less exciting.

[00:44:36] Preston Meyer: But more adorable.

[00:44:38] Katie Dooley: No, I mean, I was gonna go into what, her other mode. Okay, go for it. Slightly less exciting than the cat chariot. She also rode a boar with golden bristles. So she's pimp my ride. She was cool. She was cool. Her twin brother is Freyr, as Preston mentioned. She has a husband, Odar, and two kids, Hnoss and Gersemi. She resides in the heavenly fields of Folkvangr, where she picks half the warriors that die in battle and then the others, leftovers go to Odin's Valhalla.

[00:45:18] Preston Meyer: See, I didn't when I was reading, it sounded like Odin's Valkyries picked the half they wanted and the rest went to.

[00:45:26] Katie Dooley: Oh, see, I read that this was an honor bestowed on her that she gets to pick.

[00:45:31] Preston Meyer: Well, I feel like this is a similar problem that we've had with other things where ancient sources also varied, right?

[00:45:42] Katie Dooley: And then, even just in a similarity of names, there are some theorists and scholars that suggest that Freya and Frigg stem from the same person or source.

[00:45:52] Preston Meyer: Makes sense. Their names are pretty similar. It's pretty easy to jump on that assumption, and it requires more work. But it could be true. Might not be.

[00:46:04] Katie Dooley: I mean we're in. We'll never know.

[00:46:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. At this point. 

[00:46:08] Katie Dooley: But Frigg never got a cat chariot. Just saying.

[00:46:11] Preston Meyer: Right. Uh, Freyr, as we mentioned before, uh, brother of Freya, he is associated with fertility, rain and sunshine and also associated with the boar as well. So those were sacrifices that he was happy to receive. Just like his sister.

[00:46:31] Katie Dooley: Then we have Tyr an Aesir seen by the Romans as the ethnic equivalent to Mars or the God of war. Hee defendd the Asgard from the great wolf Fenrir who bit off his hand.

[00:46:44] Preston Meyer: It seems like the most powerful gods get to lose bits of their body in Norse mythology.

[00:46:50] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. He's often overlooked by modern enthusiasts. He was often overlooked by modern enthusiasts, but was important enough to have a day named after him. Tyrsday.

[00:47:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's a weird way to pronounce that. But yeah, that's what we got.

[00:47:11] Katie Dooley: It's Tuesday. Yeah, and there's an R in it, so I'm just.

[00:47:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:47:14] Katie Dooley: Tyrsday.

[00:47:17] Preston Meyer: The Anglo-Saxons really dropped that R and it was more of a Tue. 

[00:47:21] Katie Dooley: Tuesday.

[00:47:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And next on our list actually kind of a nice way to wrap up our list of the important gods.

[00:47:30] Katie Dooley: Because there's loads more if you want.

[00:47:31] Preston Meyer: There are lots of minor gods. There's personifications of things we see in the sky. There was Sol and Mun who were the sun and the moon. But back on track. Last of our list that we really actually have some stories about is Heimdall, who in the Eddas is described as the whitest of the Asgardians. I love Idris Elba, I do, and he killed it as Heimdall.

[00:48:03] Katie Dooley: But he would not be described as white.

[00:48:06] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, he's the blackest Asgardian, which. I mean, he killed it. He was a great Heimdall, but it would have made more sense to have somebody really pale, like maybe Conan O'Brien as Heimdall.

[00:48:25] Katie Dooley: Poor Conan O'Brien.

[00:48:27] Preston Meyer: I don't know, it's just.

[00:48:31] Katie Dooley: But he's such a badass, so it doesn't even matter. I don't care.

[00:48:34] Preston Meyer: I enjoyed Heimdall so much.

[00:48:36] Katie Dooley: I enjoy Idris Elba so much.

[00:48:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he was great, but it's just that he was the exact opposite of the one defining detail of Heimdall as being the whitest of the Asgardians. But his job, like we saw in the very popular films, was to watch over Asgard, protecting it from invaders and to really just chill out where the Bifrost met the sky. And so of course, he was there for Ragnarok, and he has kind of a bad fate. Uh, he was born to nine mothers.

[00:49:16] Katie Dooley: Loki?!

[00:49:18] Preston Meyer: I mean, logistically, this sounds like a huge problem. It also makes perfect sense that he was just raised by nine sisters, that's easy enough to get on board with. Being born of nine mothers, I don't get it. But whatever. His mothers were the personification of waves of the sea, which is actually a really cool image. And old Norse poetry also indicates that Heimdall is the father of all mankind, which may be that's part of the inspiration for making him the darkest Asgardian. Was that pretty much all scholars agree that humanity came from Africa, and not all humans should be white, which is something we'll talk about later. All right, I do have a story. And it's a little bit more epic than the one we had about Thor.

[00:50:25] Katie Dooley: Wait, there's nothing more epic than Katie picturing Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston cross-dressing for a hammer?

[00:50:34] Preston Meyer: Uh, it is a great story, though. All right, so there's a pretty cool origin myth given to us in Norse mythology and it's it's kind of tricky. A lot of people are actually starting to think that this was composed from a bunch of loose and separate ideas by Christians so that they could then later explain to the Norse people that you believe this thing. And here's the Christian story that isn't wildly different. It's wildly different. Let's look at it. So Ymir was born from the hot primordial mists that formed in the void between the rivers of Niflheim and the fires of Muspel.

[00:51:22] Katie Dooley: Niflheim is a great name.

[00:51:25] Preston Meyer: So Niflheim is the home of the mists. Muspel is hot, fiery, nonsense. So Ymir is born from these mists, and he is the ancestor of the Jötnar, often translated as giants or trolls, but not necessarily large or ugly. Kind of a tricky thing. It's just these were, this people, that are actually also called gods, but they're not Vanir or AEsir.

[00:51:56] Katie Dooley: One thing I read is kind of like the Titans compared to the Olympians.

[00:52:02] Preston Meyer: Right? That's really kind of the deal here. The Jötnar just sprouted from Ymir's limbs while he was sleeping. Yeah, like part of one of the poems says that one of his legs made babies with the other. It was really weird that basically they just popped out of his body while he was sweating. It's weird that they mentioned that he was sweating. I don't know what's going on. I don't need more detail and I didn't need that.

[00:52:39] Katie Dooley: I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:52:42] Preston Meyer: Uh, anyway, Ymir survived off of the milk of a cow. That is also never, never properly explained. There just is a cow. And he gets milk from the cow. And the cow is just licking a stone until a dude pops out of it.

[00:53:03] Katie Dooley: Okay, this is a wild ride.

[00:53:05] Preston Meyer: It is a wild ride. And so this cow's just licking this stone, and then there's a bunch of hair coming out of the stone, and the cow just keeps licking because when has hair stopped a cow from licking Exactly. So after a day, it was hair. Another day and the cow has licked the rock enough that a full head is exposed. And presumably Ymir is like, well, don't stop now.

[00:53:39] Katie Dooley: Oh yeah.

[00:53:40] Preston Meyer: And in one more day, it was one day to get hair. It was one day to get the head. One more day they got the rest of this dude's body.

[00:53:50] Katie Dooley: The cow got really excited after that.

[00:53:52] Preston Meyer: I mean, it was either a determination or a small body and a big head deal.

[00:53:57] Katie Dooley: Oh, no.

[00:54:00] Preston Meyer: I'm more inclined to think it was the motivation.

[00:54:02] Katie Dooley: Let's go with that, because everything else is creepy.

[00:54:05] Preston Meyer: This well, and this dude is described as incredibly handsome.

[00:54:09] Katie Dooley: Mhm.

[00:54:10] Preston Meyer: So not likely to be the case if he had an itty bitty body and a giant head. But his name was Buri. Buri has a son. Nobody remembers how for some reason. And his son is Bor. Bor marries a Jötan, named Bestla. They have three sons Odin, Vili and Vé. Things get a little bit Greek when Odin and his brothers kill Ymir, and the blood floods the land to kill all but two of the Jötnar, and they use several parts of his body to build the world.

[00:54:49] Katie Dooley: Ew

[00:54:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah! It's gross. His skull forms the firmament of the heavens. Uh, yeah. Nasty stuff. They weave his or not weave, but spin his brains into fluff that makes the clouds in the sky. It's super gross. uh, yeah, but also an oddly familiar thought, When you look back to the Marvel Universe, Nowhere is built in the head of a dead celestial.

[00:55:22] Katie Dooley: That's true.

[00:55:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But anyway, we're looking at a real mess here. The three brothers form Ask and Embla, the first humans from driftwood. Just stuff they find on the beach. So it's almost like humans are kind of an afterthought.

[00:55:43] Katie Dooley: I'm kind of offended, but that's fine.

[00:55:45] Preston Meyer: And that's just this one version of the story, because of course, I mentioned that a different story says that Heimdall is the father of humans. So we've got some diversity of thoughts here.

[00:55:55] Katie Dooley: I'll be the child of Idris Elba. Thanks very much if I have a choice

[00:55:59] Preston Meyer: Sure.Uh, and then in all of this cosmology, there is Ygdrasil, the world tree. Yggdrasil is an interesting name. It means Odin's horse. But it's a really weird turn of phrase meant to allude to how one rides the gallows at their death because that is the tree upon which Odin hanged himself so that he could learn all the secrets of the cosmos.

[00:56:31] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:56:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The mythology behind all of this stuff is intense.

[00:56:37] Katie Dooley: Yes and the cosmology too. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's kind of two pieces to this, which.

[00:56:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So this tree is a sacred ash tree at the center of the cosmos. It connects the nine realms. And the number is always nine in all the different sources, but not all of the sources. Well, no source actually lists out these are what the Nine Realms are, but it just will talk about them in various different stories. And so scholars have kind of settled on a list, but there are scholars that disagree on what that list.

[00:57:16] Katie Dooley: I didn't include it because I was like, I can't find all nine.

[00:57:18] Preston Meyer: So I found a list that was put together in the 1920s that people have just kind of accepted. Yeah, this is the list that we can work with. It's acceptable and it works. Uh, first we have Asgard, the home of the AEsir. It is above Midgard. Midgard is our home where humans live. Also sometimes called middle earth. Professor Tolkien was hugely influenced by Norse mythology.

[00:57:50] Katie Dooley: Absolutely, yeah.

[00:57:52] Preston Meyer: In fact, every single one of Bilbo's dwarf friends full on plagiarized from Norse mythology. Every single one of them is a dwarf with a mythological story around him. We also have Vanaheim, a separate world for gods who are the Vanir. Also, it seems like land wights are thought to have come from Vanir. It's a thing. Uh, we also have Alfheim, the traditional home of the elves. When they're not chilling out, messing around with our stuff and cutting people's throats instead of letting them interfere with Eurovision.

[00:58:37] Katie Dooley: I was going to say that was so they could play at Eurovision, Preston.

[00:58:40] Preston Meyer: Exactly. We also have Svartalfheim, home of the Dark elves, and there's a lot of racist thought that goes into how people look at Svartalfheim today. These are actually wildly different from what we saw in the Thor movie. The Dark elves weren't weird and pale and evil. They were darker than pitch like absolute black, which probably a little bit racist and a little tricky. But so were regular elves, so it's weird that there's even a distinction.

[00:59:23] Katie Dooley: I was going to say that's the more racist thing is that you're separating them. They're living segregated.

[00:59:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah. They were fully segregated. That is a problem. Uh, then there's also Nidavellir a home of the dwarves. And this is where some things get a little bit tricky. A lot of scholars think that the dwarves and dark elves are actually the same people. And it's hard to say with any real certainty that they are fully separate. Its. It's tricky. The Poetic Edda is part of this confusion. You have Jotunheim, the home of the Jötnar, the giants, the trolls. Uh, this is where Odin traded his eye to drink the water of wisdom. And of course, more stories like that. And then the last two worlds realms are Muspelheim and Niflheim, the realm of primordial fire and the realm of primordial cold mists that I mentioned at the beginning of the origin story.

[01:00:29] Katie Dooley: Cool. Nine realms. So we would be remiss to not talk about the afterlife when we're talking about a religion. So we will, Yeah, we're gonna dive into that. And then we have a couple more things to get into.

[01:00:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:00:50] Katie Dooley: Ominous. Um, so. While the many virtues are worth persuing in life. They have no effect on your eternal reward. So this is how those who die in battle are taken to Valhalla.

[01:01:04] Preston Meyer: The Hall of the fallen is the literal translation of the name. 

[01:01:09] Katie Dooley: Valhalla. Yeah, yeah. They are led by the Valkyrie and are. And prepare to support Odin in Ragnarok. That's what they're doing in Valhalla is prepping for Ragnarok. Yeah.

[01:01:19] Preston Meyer: Getting ready to fight, but also lots of great feasts. Of course.

[01:01:24] Katie Dooley: They've earned it. And I. Preston's notes say that they were chosen by Odin. But I read that, uh, Freya got to choose first, so I just skip that part entirely.

[01:01:33] Preston Meyer: Fair enough. 

[01:01:36] Katie Dooley: The fields of Folkvangr so it translates to the folk fields is for those, the other half who fell in battle and were chosen by Freya or not chosen. We'll see. We don't know and they also get to arrest and enjoy food and mead.

[01:01:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's more restful than Valhalla, which I thought was kind of cool. And I tried finding any statement on where Folkvangr was, and I couldn't actually find any solid statement. But my suspicion as a very underqualified scholar in this particular corner of the field is that it was in Vanaheim rather than Asgard, mostly based on the fact that Freya is a Vanir instead of an AEsir. But prove me wrong, I dare you.

[01:02:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah, prove him wrong, I love that.

[01:02:35] Preston Meyer: And for those who didn't fall in battle, there's more options. Hel is the queen and goddess of Niflheim, and like Hades, has a place named after its keeper. Hel is the realm of the shameful dead. Those who died of sickness or old age. Remember, there's no.

[01:02:57] Katie Dooley: There's no good or bad.

[01:02:58] Preston Meyer: There's no reward for virtue. It's either you died in battle or you didn't.

[01:03:02] Katie Dooley: I kinda want to die in battle now.

[01:03:04] Preston Meyer: Right?

[01:03:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[01:03:07] Preston Meyer: Of course, ancestor worship was important to keep ghosts from haunting the family. This was probably more of a problem if you had family who didn't die in battle, 'cause the ones who died in battle would be off doing something fun. Whereas Hel and Niflheim are underneath the world and relatively close. So the hauntings are possible.

[01:03:29] Katie Dooley: Shameful dead.

[01:03:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah and so if you aren't doing something to help out your ancestors, the shameful dead will bring you shame and discomfort. It's a problem, I guess.

[01:03:46] Katie Dooley: I mean, they know where their priorities are. They wanted you to fight in battles.

[01:03:50] Preston Meyer: Yes. When all is said and done and Ragnarok is a distant memory, it survivors will live in bliss. In Gimli, a sacred hall in the heart of rebuilt Asgard. I thought it was interesting. I decided to look up more on Gimli, and I found this cute little entry that popped up on my Google search on on Wikipedia. There's a town or was a town called Gimli in Manitoba, but it was unincorporated about 20 years ago because shrinking population. But they still have a strong Icelandic tradition there.

[01:04:28] Katie Dooley: I like that.

[01:04:29] Katie Dooley: I, I don't think just knowing Manitoba. I don't think people lived in bliss there.

[01:04:40] Preston Meyer: Uh, yes. The long distant future world of Gimli has got to be a lot more fun than Gimli, Manitoba.

[01:04:51] Katie Dooley: So I wanted to touch on this next section, mostly to lead up to the section after. But there is a, just like Greek and Roman, there is Germanic Neopaganism or Norse revivalism, whatever you want to call it. Basically people who practice this religion today. I don't have a ton of notes on it because that's what it is. They practice the religion today. They believe in the gods. They do feasts and sacrifices. Again, much like Roman, they're not slaughtering cows, they're pouring beers and, uh, yeah, they it was rerecognized as a religion in Iceland in 1972.

[01:05:36] Preston Meyer: So fairly recently.

[01:05:38] Katie Dooley: Yes. There were some theories they read that said it never fully disappeared, even with the conversion to Christianity. And there's a name for it that I found called Asatru or Heathenry. So this is basically, again, that neopaganism practice, um, again, Asatru is specifically focused on the Norse gods. Obviously, neopaganism is a little more broad than that, which is really important to say that there's this group of people.

[01:06:11] Preston Meyer: And then there's a much worse group of people.

[01:06:14] Katie Dooley: And. And, I mean. Unfortunately, it can be hard to tell them apart. Just by looking.

[01:06:24] Preston Meyer: Just by looking. If you talk to them, it'll become a lot more obvious real quick.

[01:06:28] Katie Dooley: So unfortunately, and this goes back to the night, as you know, it goes back to the early 1900s. Norse mythology, symbolism, has been co-opted by white supremacists. And I think we would be remiss not to mention it in this episode as much as it's gross. So these people don't practice the revival faith, but are using the symbols for their own racist purposes. It stems from the false belief that Vikings somehow had racial purity, which makes no sense because they were Vikings and pillagers and they absolutely transported humans. Um, bought and sold slaves, had concubines, were merchants, got married. Did they travel as much as we did now? No, but they definitely traveled.

[01:07:19] Preston Meyer: Racial purity was never important to them as a as a seafaring people. That's that was not the reality at all.

[01:07:27] Katie Dooley: Yes. Um, so again, I want to be super clear that if you're not, not every neopagan is a racist. Um, and that if you're actually practicing the faith.

[01:07:39] Preston Meyer: That it's different.

[01:07:40] Katie Dooley: That it's different. You wouldn't... Thank you, Preston, like, I don't understand my notes. Yes, it's different than being a dick.

[01:07:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's been going on for a long time. The swastika pretty famously became the symbol of the Third Reich. And there's there are a lot of different peoples throughout the world who have used very similar symbols. A lot of people like to point to how the swastika was used among the Indian people. But the Nazis found their power in the swastika specifically, as it's related to Thor.

[01:08:14] Katie Dooley: Yes and then, I mean, there's two other symbols that can obviously or sorry that get used a lot. So Thor's hammer Mjölnir is a really popular hate symbol.

[01:08:28] Preston Meyer: But it's also a popular symbol for people who just believe in individual personal power.

[01:08:34] Katie Dooley: Yes. And if you're a follower of Asatru, then absolutely. And so I also want to be clear that this is like the stylized Mjölnir, not like literally Thor's hammer from the MCU. So that that one's fine. If you see someone with an MCU Thor hammer, it's fine. Um, so on its own, again, it's not necessarily racist. Often if you are white supremacist, you'll incorporate things like swastikas and other hate symbols into the hammer. The valknut is another symbol. It's kind of I don't want to say it's pretty, because now it's a hate symbol, but it's this like Celtic knot symbol and it means the knot of the slain. So we have Valhalla, we have the valknut. And it's the meaning behind it is that the that the person who bears it or wears it is willing to give up their life for Odin. So again, it's not like inherently racist. So context is key, but it is, you know. Uh, like a red flag for sure. And then on that point, we have the Soldiers of Odin here in Canada, which are, um, uh.

[01:09:43] Preston Meyer: Hate groups are a problem.

[01:09:46] Katie Dooley: They're a problem. And they use a lot of this imagery.

[01:09:48] Preston Meyer: If you're making. Hate groups feel comfortable in your space. Maybe you need to change something that you're doing.

[01:09:59] Katie Dooley: Yes. And I think it's also important that we. You know, even in our podcast, right, that we educate that these symbols are out there and that that they do unfortunately have multiple meanings because some of these gross people fly under the radar because it just looks like a Celtic knot and nobody knows. And except for other white supremacists. So take back the valknut, take back Mjolnir. Mew-mew.

[01:10:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah, this world is a wonderful, diverse place, but some of this diversity is kind of gross.

[01:10:33] Katie Dooley: Let's punch nazis.

[01:10:36] Preston Meyer: Uh. Yeah, fewer Nazis would be great.

[01:10:43] Katie Dooley: I, uh, I read a post today. Yeah. And, uh, it basically said if you have 11 people at the table and one of them's a Nazi, then you have a table of 11 Nazis.

[01:10:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I've seen that going around.

[01:10:58] Katie Dooley: I like that one. So, yeah. Punch Nazis.

[01:11:01] Preston Meyer: Right? All right, well.

[01:11:05] Katie Dooley: Can you put a nice bow on this, Preston? And I made it sad. I didn't mean to.

[01:11:10] Preston Meyer: It seems like as I look at what's going on in this religion, it's the old custom, as it was called, that really. It's not really hyper-focused on worship of gods for any long-term goals though. There is thoughts of the future and there is acts of worship. It's mostly about making your place in the world comfortable for you. Which some people's standards is a little unpleasant, but for others it's about being happy, which is ultimately the goal of life. And if your joy is to enjoy great times with friends and die in battle, then there's a place prepared for you according to this tradition. And that's pretty cool, I guess.

[01:12:07] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[01:12:09] Preston Meyer: The philosophy is something I can get behind, that independence is important, and wisdom comes from getting to know what's around you.

[01:12:21] Katie Dooley: I like that too.

[01:12:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah and that's part of our mission. Get to know what's around you.

[01:12:28] Katie Dooley: Get to know what's around you.

[01:12:29] Preston Meyer: Your life actually can improve because of that.

[01:12:36] Katie Dooley: You know what else can improve your life, Preston?

[01:12:38] Preston Meyer: Some merch from the Holy Watermelon Store. 

[01:12:41] On Spreadshirt? Why, yes. That's exactly what I was thinking.

[01:12:45] Preston Meyer: I'm glad I'm reading your mind.

[01:12:47] Katie Dooley: What if merch isn't for you though? How else could you pursue happiness?

[01:12:52] Preston Meyer: By supporting our mission on Patreon, or connecting with our community on Discord, or Instagram or Facebook or YouTube. So many options!

[01:13:05] Katie Dooley: And all of these are at different price points for every budget.

[01:13:08] Preston Meyer: Exactly. If you don't like something, we say Discord is a great place to let us know we can talk about it.

[01:13:18] Katie Dooley: Yes. I agree. All right. Yeah. So do some of those things. Share our podcast and.

[01:13:28] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

The Roman way of looking at their neighbours has had a powerful effect on religious studies today. The cults who are responsible for these traditions are never part of the popular mythology we see in popular media today, but we're about to break that silence.

Emulation is adoration. While the Romans borrowed and adapted many of the gods in their pantheon from the Greeks, the Ancient Romans developed mythology over and above what the Greeks had. We'll peek at some of the stolen gods, but also explore what was native to the Italian Peninsula.

The old gods of Roman mythology have some great stories, but many of them were Etruscan gods, Italic gods, or even "Indo-European" gods. And half their stories were stolen in full from the Greeks. Is it cultural appropriation, plagiarism, or a genuine belief that the gods are universal, simply known by different names?

In this episode, we'll compare and contrast the two! All this and more...

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website


Katie Dooley  00:14

You can say that again because I'm an atheist. But like, just like two people who are so different can come together and make something beautiful.

Preston Meyer  00:26

Right? Like Rome and Greece. 

Katie Dooley  00:29

Oh, what a segue. Yeah, so this episode might sound a little bit similar to last week.

Preston Meyer  00:40

Because it is very similar in a lot of ways, but also materially different. 

Katie Dooley  00:45

Yes, on...

Both Hosts  00:46

The holy watermelon podcast!

Katie Dooley  00:53

We already have the music. I don't know why I'm singing. 

Preston Meyer  00:56

Because you got to feel it. 

Katie Dooley  00:58

Yeah, President and I are in a mood tonight. I don't know why. But uh...

Preston Meyer  01:03

We just had a great meal and way too much sugar.

Katie Dooley  01:05

So here we are. Mormon drunk.

Preston Meyer  01:10

I mean, sure, maybe.

Katie Dooley  01:13

This episode we are talking about ancient Roman religion, which is just the grand baby of Greek religion. So some of this is gonna be a review.

Preston Meyer  01:24

Right? In much the same way that English is a weird pile of languages in a trench coat that went and beat up other languages in dark alleys... That's exactly what Roman religious tradition is to the rest of South Eastern Europe.

Katie Dooley  01:44

And eventually to its detriment. Which we'll get to in a few weeks. So the pantheon of gods in the Roman religion is very similar to the Greek tradition. But as we go on with this little series, we'll see that there are similarities with the Celtic and Norse  pantheon as well to the Greek and the Roman. It's interesting to me that all these pantheons are so similar.

Preston Meyer  02:14

Yeah, we're gonna highlight some of the differences too. It's some pretty interesting stuff. I thought. 

Katie Dooley  02:19

Well, yeah, this would be a boring episode if we just talked about how it's the same. 

Preston Meyer  02:22

Just rerecord the exact same episode with different names.

Katie Dooley  02:26

Zeus is Jupiter. Hera is Minerva, is she? No, I have that backwards. Athena is Minerva. Good night, everyone. 

Preston Meyer  02:39

But that's not why you listen to the Holy Watermelon.

Katie Dooley  02:44

So again, many aspects of the Roman tradition are based on the Greek tradition, but there is about 1000 years difference between when we really started to see the Roman tradition take hold.

Preston Meyer  02:57

Yeah, it's interesting that Romans did change everything to fit themselves. They adopted a lot of things that they found elsewhere that they liked. And it's kind of funky. On the surface, it looks like it's the same gods with different names. And it's easy, really easy to just assume they all are just the exact same thing. But there's, there's some important differences.

Katie Dooley  03:24

I think it's a interesting, sociological anthropological concept that they changed it to fit their culture, because you could probably argue that every I mean, I'm thinking the big ones Christianity and Islam have done that. 

Preston Meyer  03:38

American Jesus is a lot different than, say, the Jesus that people still believe in in the Middle East. 

Katie Dooley  03:44

Or if you look at, you know, people say Islam such a violent religion really after looking at places like Saudi Arabia or Qatar, then yeah, but if you look at countries like Indonesia, it's not the same Islam. So anyway, interesting parallel.

Preston Meyer  04:03

Romans were really into their religion. Like the Greeks were pretty religious as a general statement. The Romans were really into it.

Katie Dooley  04:14

I think the difference between Greek and Roman is that like Greek, as we talked about, was kind of like Shinto. It's just the way you lived your life. Whereas Roman from our research to me, it really feels like there was this belief to it. Like, they recognize there was worship, whereas Greeks was like, this is how you do your day.

Preston Meyer  04:35

Pretty much it became more of a actual religion enrollment looks like. Which is a weird thing to say, when we have a hard time defining religion. Yeah, it was commonly believed in the life of Rome, that everything was really tightly tied to their piety. Any failure to satisfy the gods would ruin the nation. And I mean, the decline of Rome and the rise of Christianity does illustrate that in a weird kind of way.

Katie Dooley  05:09

It does. And part of that too, is that they were happy to add to their pantheon. Kinda like Hinduism, which is funny that to Rome, it was their ultimate downfall and Hinduism it's like, meh.

Preston Meyer  05:21

They're still doing great. So the, the source of a lot of confusion in all of the study of what is Roman, the Roman gods, but also what's going on with their neighbors, is the Roman preference to see all foreign gods as manifestations of their own gods. Which is really frustrating to somebody who wants to try and figure out okay, but who was Minerva? And because they saw Athena, and other neighboring similar gods as the same thing as Minerva. All of the stories get jumbled together. And you have to really dig to find out who was Minerva before this was happening.

Katie Dooley  06:13

It's funny that you talked about this. I'm reading a historical fiction novel, but the author's clearly like, big into history, like, it's only a few steps away from being a historical novel, as opposed to historical fiction. And it's about Salisbury, and Stonehenge and what used to be called Sarum in England, and I'm at the part where Rome has now made its way to the British Isles, and exactly that there's like passages that where they're like, oh, well, they call this thing, but it's clearly. So that's where we get into Celtic and Norse gods, we'll see similarities because of exactly that. They're like, oh, this is their son, God, well, it's clearly Apollo.

Preston Meyer  07:01

We only have one son above us. And Apollo was a specific issue that does confuse that a bit we talked about in our last episode. Apollo is the second sun god, who kind of took over the role from Helios.

Katie Dooley  07:18

But the one thing about absorbing gods is that it's a great way to make friends. 

Preston Meyer  07:23

Yeah, I belong to an organization that's all about focusing on our similarities. And that helps us be peaceable to each other. It's great. We make good brothers that way. But it's really hard to properly understand what's going on in a person's theology when you have even this kind of prejudice.

Katie Dooley  07:46

Yeah, and I mean, who knows how they felt 2000/4000 years ago. But like, if you did that today that just be really insensitive to someone. That's a very fascinating story. That sounds like one of my stories that I actually think is better.

Preston Meyer  08:07

Yeah, so we've, more than a year ago, now, we talked about various theological models. And I, I think we even said that the Roman Pantheon is, and the Roman tradition is a pretty polytheistic situation. But for a lot of people, it was more henotheistic, where you would have people just worship one God rather than offer at several altars over the course of their life. But of course, you did have to recognize that there were other gods, but you just didn't worship them. It's complicated. It's always complicated. 

Katie Dooley  08:48

It's amazing. And we might actually have to add an episode for this. But it's amazing between this research and then again, this that I just happen to be reading this historical fiction book that the concept of monotheism was like mind boggling to these people. To the point where it's like a joke that you would believe in, when all powerful God so it's an interesting, again, now we're like, at least in the West, the concept of polytheism and multiple gods is, I don't want to say laughable, but I'm pretty sure for some people it is. It's defninitely unfamiliar. 

Preston Meyer  09:22

When Christianity was just forming, and or even before that, when the Romans were talking about the people of Israel, they saw the God of Israel as just another manifestation of Jupiter, or sometimes one of the other gods, depending on who was talking and what similarities they saw in their features, in their aspects. And when Israel came around and said, No, there's only one God and the Christians were like, really aggressively saying, No, there's only one God. Yeah, that didn't make any sense to them at all. That's fascinating stuff.

Katie Dooley  09:58

So let's chat about all of these gods. So we had the 12 Olympians. But there's even more than that here. And I know there's more than 12 Olympians but...

Preston Meyer  10:09

So the Roman system is really complicated. There is no Mount Olympus, which of course, was an amalgamation of a lot of traditions to begin with as well. In Rome, there's so many different systems of the favored gods. It's kind of complicated. 

Katie Dooley  10:31

It's actually far more complicated than Greek. And part of that, I wonder if it isn't because the Roman Empire spreads so far. And there was so many different cultures. I mean, you asked me, we'll get to research the afterlife, and I was like, I don't get it. There's too much, but sorry, carry on.

Preston Meyer  10:49

So let's start with the gods that had cults that were officially state supported cults, like the Church of England kind of state supported cults. There were a handful of high priests, or their fancy name is actually the flamines maiores, the major priests, these three great priests would serve the three most important gods to the Roman state, like going back before the Empire, even before the Republic, to the kingdom of Rome. And then, of course, this did continue into the Republic, and actually not so much into the empire. So these three gods were Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus. Before, a year ago, I'd never even heard of Quirinus.

Katie Dooley  11:47

I heard of him this week.

Preston Meyer  11:51

There are a handful of people, rulers who have taken a name similar to this that are based on this name. There's one even in the Bible, but it's actually not a popular God. People don't talk about him a whole lot. But he's one of the big three with Jupiter and Mars. Quirinus was an early Sabine God, who became the patron of the Roman state, one of the seven hills of Rome is named in his honor. So it's kind of a big deal, and yet so easily forgotten. Then, of course, we have Jove. Which is the Latin god of the sky. This name evolved into Jupiter with the title father added, becoming a little bit more familiar. And so that's why you often actually hear this interchangeable name Jove, Jupiter. The moons of Jupiter are usually called the Jovian moons, that kind of thing. It's just where the name comes from. It works out well that way. And so of course, he was revered by military commanders, they would pay homage to Jupiter, as he was the God that protected the Roman state. Kind of similar to what Ares did in the Greek tradition, but not quite the same. And so when the Romans received the stories of Zeus, they're like, well, obviously, this is Jupiter. So they just slapped the Jupiter sticker over the name of Zeus in all the books.

Katie Dooley  13:14

Did they not..? They must not have read all the stories.

Preston Meyer  13:18

Right? As far as I know, before  the adoption of all the Zeus stories, Jupiter wasn't super rape-y

Katie Dooley  13:29

And then he became super rape-y. 

Preston Meyer  13:32

Yeah, I guess the Romans just didn't have a problem with Zeus. I don't know. That's weird. And then of course, we have Mars or Mardi, depending on the situation, linguistically speaking. He was an agricultural guardian. And so in this role, he was revered by the defenders of Rome, which of course, easily moved him into the position of God of War. So we have a month in the spring named after him because of his agricultural role. His transformation into a war god gave him something to do in winter, which, of course is important, you gotta have something to do year round. 

Katie Dooley  14:08

I have a winter hobby and a summer hobby. 

Preston Meyer  14:10

Exactly. Interestingly enough, Mars is actually said to be the father of the founder of Rome, which we'll get into a little bit later.

Katie Dooley  14:19

Yes, yeah, I did that.

Preston Meyer  14:24

And so we've got those three major gods served by the the major flamens, which is of course a weird weird word for priest that we've just kind of preserved sometimes flamens/flamens I think flamens is more correct. 

Katie Dooley  14:39

Like the sports equipment and agricultural equipment store?

Preston Meyer  14:44

Close to similar spelling, but not identical.

Katie Dooley  14:49

That's pretty godly that store.

Preston Meyer  14:51

Right? And then there were 12 Which still super important gods but they were served by the minor flamens.

Katie Dooley  15:02

Well ueah, 'cause after the 12 then we literally have hundreds. We're not gonna get in today, kids. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

Preston Meyer  15:11

Right? We can only focus on the really important ones.

Katie Dooley  15:16

We start with Ceres She's the Latin Goddess of a agriculture. I said that weird. Latin goddess of agriculture. And the Romans decided that this was Demeter. Demeter stories were actually all about her. But they murdered her daughter's name to Proserpina.

Preston Meyer  15:38

Persephone was done dirty.

Katie Dooley  15:41

Persephone is a much better name. If you are looking for baby names, please and like going back and forth go with Persephone, not Proserpina. It's the Pina that gets me. I'm gonna recommend that to a friend. I have a friend that's pregnant. I'm going to see if she wants to name her baby Proserpina. 

Preston Meyer  15:58

I like it. Next on our list, we have Val Tunis. He was the Etruscan god of the Tiber River, who was later replaced by the Roman Tiberinus makes perfect sense. New culture taken over, gets to name the river the way they want became the Tiber River. God with an appropriate name. I went looking for it and I couldn't actually find the Etruscan name for the river, just the Etruscan equivalent of the name to Tiberinus. It was kind of annoying. I looked for a while. I was like fine, I can't get it.

Katie Dooley  16:36

Then we have Falacer? Falacer?? Falacer. Don't be a dick. He's an old Italian God. Go figure.

Preston Meyer  16:50

The italic people are a subset of what is now modern day Italy, like the Latins and the Romans subsets.

Katie Dooley  16:58

And that's actually where the name italic font comes from. Anyway. There's very little known about Falacer today, but he lost all his popularity during the rise of the Roman Empire, which with the name like that, it's ironic to me

Preston Meyer  17:15

Rght? Because even back then they were drawing phallus. on everything. I don't know if it's even a coincidence. Or if he's deliberately named the God of Phalluses. I don't know what the deal is. I could find almost nothing on this guy. Which is better than some of these 12 unfortunately. Next on our list, we have Flora. But you can guess what she's the goddess of flora. Flora was the old Sabine Italian Goddess of flowers and the spring. Nice and simple. 

Katie Dooley  17:52

Farina was an old Roman goddess of water.

Preston Meyer  17:58

Nice, broad category there.

Katie Dooley  18:00

What a great name too.

Preston Meyer  18:02

It's like the fury of bubbling water of rain, raging rapids and whatnot. That's kind of cool. Palatua was the patron god of Palatine Hill, who's cult did not survive the end of the Republic. 

Katie Dooley  18:17

Never heard of him. 

Preston Meyer  18:18

Right? And these were major gods in the Republic time, or at least at the beginning of the Republic. And nobody talks about them

Katie Dooley  18:25

As we get on, we'll hear more names that people are more familiar with. But yeah, these are not... these feel obscure.

Preston Meyer  18:31

But they were super important at one time.

Katie Dooley  18:34

Pomona was the goddess of fruit and may have originally been Umbrian.

Preston Meyer  18:42

Yeah, it's kind of kind of fuzzy there. But one of the regional neighbors brought over into the Roman idea. And I like the name Pomona. It's where we get the word pomme, which is the French word for apple. It used to be just the generic word for fruit but languages evolve now it's apple. Weird stuff.

Katie Dooley  19:04

Pomme de Terre. Apple of the earth 

Preston Meyer  19:06

Exactly or fruit of the earth, depending on your preference for how you use the word..

Katie Dooley  19:11

Interesting I actually like fruit of the earth better for a potato. .

Preston Meyer  19:18

We got Portunus was the old Latin god of doors and keys 

Katie Dooley  19:23

What an obscure thing to be a god of but...

Preston Meyer  19:25

It does sound kind of funky based on the way we feel needs for things that doesn't fit. But back then it was his role was important and people talked about it and used him. Of course, by the Imperial era, he had been almost completely replaced with the Roman Janus. And they both had two heads one facing either way. Gotta have doors and ports and all that fun 

Katie Dooley  19:49

Comings and goings. Vulcan is the Sabine Roman god of fire.

Preston Meyer  19:55

Finally we get somebody that people were might likely be more familiar with. 

Katie Dooley  20:00

If only because of Star Trek. Because its aspects are mirrored in the Greek Hephaestus? Hephaestus? Are mirrored in the Greek Hephaestus, they share a ton of stories with each other. But there are still a few stories that are unique to Vulcan, including a role in the foundation of Rome.

Preston Meyer  20:21

And next on this, we have Carmentis, the goddess of childbirth, prophecy and charms, which is how that name is built, was actually the adoption of the Greek Nicostrati. And she is also credited with inventing the Latin alphabet. So we managed to get through all this list without hitting any outright theft from Greece. Until Carmentis. And then, so that's only 10 of these 12. Church supported cults below the top, big, big three. And the other two, we actually just don't know who they are. They're fully lost to history.

Katie Dooley  21:09

That's kind of cool, sad, but kind of cool. There's not much that's a mystery anymore.

Preston Meyer  21:16

The tradition of having these church sanctioned deals, these priests who are basically on government payroll, did last into the Empire. And the Emperor did fill one of those slots. But that only fills one of the two slots that we don't know who they were.

Katie Dooley  21:37

Interesting. Cool.Now we have another round of gods.

Preston Meyer  21:43

There's so many. But there's, I still think they're interesting. 

Katie Dooley  21:46

Oh, well, then let's talk about them. So let's talk about the era first.

Preston Meyer  21:53

All right, so these other guides that we're talking about are other important, pre-Imperial gods. And a lot of them did last into the Empire. Some of them not necessarily in the same form. Because of course, things kept evolving as they kept stealing stories from people. 

Katie Dooley  22:13

I was gonna say, now we start getting into the Greek stealing. Yeah. Stealing from the Greeks or not stealing Greeks, plagiarizing.

Preston Meyer  22:22

That kind of language is why people confuse, who owned the Trojan horse before it was a gift. So let's start with the really primitive primal gods that they had, we had Sol the primitive male personification of the sun, and sacrifices, of course ensured his return. He was acquainted pretty fairly with the Greek Helios, just, that's the sun personified. A lot of the gods being counted as equal, really easy to argue. But I mean, the sun is the sun. That's the deal. Just like Luna, the female personification of the moon. Of course, her identity got really complicated as Roman traditions incorporated more gods and gave Moon duties to other people as well. Kind of like when Apollo took over some duties.

Katie Dooley  23:21

She is the one Sailor Moon!

Preston Meyer  23:30

So if you remember your Greek gods, Celine was the equivalent to Luna the sun goddess.

Katie Dooley  23:37

Then Artemis gets in there to eventually 

Preston Meyer  23:41

Because of Apollo.

Katie Dooley  23:44

So Tellus or also known as Tara was the female and personification of the earth. And her Greek... counterpart was Caelus, the personification of the heavens. So in Greece, this would be Gaia and Ouranos.

Preston Meyer  24:03

Or if you like, butts, Uranus.

Katie Dooley  24:07

I love butts!

Preston Meyer  24:11

I went so long in my life before somebody told me no, no, it's pronounced Uranus. I'm like, that makes sense.

Katie Dooley  24:19

I feel like that's more appropriate.

Preston Meyer  24:25

And next we have Saturn, who was the god of the land that was later called Rome. He was the giver of all good gifts and actually the closest thing the Romans had to a monotheistic God, which is kind of interesting. Not that they were monotheistic but that he really did... 

Katie Dooley  24:43

Close to all powerful. 

Preston Meyer  24:45

More or less like he looked a lot like the way that the Israelites saw Jehovah.

Katie Dooley  24:52

I heard Jahweh recently and I was like, no...

Preston Meyer  24:55

No, no, that's not okay.

Katie Dooley  24:58

Don't like that. Jahweh? Excuse me, excuse yourself.

Preston Meyer  25:05

There there are a couple of pronunciations that I find perfectly acceptable. Jahweh is not one of them. I think it's really interesting that Saturn's day matches on the weekly calendar, where the Jewish Sabbath falls, Saturday. And that's just nifty to me. Course, his character changed completely when he was mapped onto the Greek Kronus. And he became just terrible, terrible, just kind of gross. Oddly enough, there was a near approximation to the Christian holy spirit in Genius. Oh, of course, Genius has actually evolved a lot over the course of Roman history, and barely survived into the Imperial era, during which time the word was simply applied to the soul of every man, or sometimes family or household. But not women. They were sent out of the spirit of Juno, which is kind of cool, because Juno is figure that actually survived.

Katie Dooley  26:18

I mean, yeah, that was good. Now Juno is the mother goddess. So Greek Hera would be the equivalent. She also I mean, filled a lot of roles as Rome evolved.

Preston Meyer  26:34

Yeah, we can't really say a whole lot more about Juno without contradicting some scholars. She was a complex figure that yeah, kind of a mess.... She wore a lot of hats.

Katie Dooley  26:51

Don't all women?

Preston Meyer  26:54

I mean, definitely an awful lot. I can't speak for all of any group.

Katie Dooley  27:00

Okay. Most women... 

Preston Meyer  27:04

Sure. I'll accept. 

Katie Dooley  27:06

Thank you.

Preston Meyer  27:09

lucre AI is kind of interesting. The god of money and trickery in ancient Rome, 

Katie Dooley  27:16

Loki-i? 

Preston Meyer  27:18

It does kind of sound like that. And it helps that they actually do match up on the trickery business. lucre i is kind of well it is where we get the word lucre which is just dirty money. And so, lucre I was fully replaced by Mercury, who was the Roman response to Hermes.

Katie Dooley  27:42

Who's the messenger. If you'll remember the messenger god.

Preston Meyer  27:47

Yeah. And his cult was actually mostly adopted from the Etruscan cult of Turms, who also shared several aspects.

Katie Dooley  27:55

There's like a lot of Gods happening in this one.

Preston Meyer  27:58

Remember when he talked about Hermeticism and HermesTrismegistus? Every character attached to Hermes/Mercury is basically a composite of what everybody in the neighborhood could think to say about this guy. It's really messy.

Katie Dooley  28:24

Just like they put up a whiteboard one day, and were like, let's brainstorm and not eliminate anything.

Preston Meyer  28:29

Yeah, it really feels like.

Katie Dooley  28:33

That's not how you brainstorm kids.

Preston Meyer  28:35

No, you do need to eliminate the bad ideas.

Katie Dooley  28:38

At the end of course. 

Preston Meyer  28:40

Sure. I mean, yeah, if bad ideas too soon,

Katie Dooley  28:44

You might miss out on some good ideas but at the end... you definitely need to... Do you know what this podcast would be called iff we did not eliminate bad ideas?

Preston Meyer  28:52

Not something as good as the Holy Watermelon.

Katie Dooley  28:56

I think it's gonna be Katie and Preston Talk Religion. 

Preston Meyer  29:00

I'm glad we settled on Holy Watermelon.

Katie Dooley  29:07

Orcus was worshipped by both the Romans and the Etruscans as the god of the underworld, until Greek influence turned him into Pluto.

Preston Meyer  29:18

Well fully replaced him with Pluto. 

Katie Dooley  29:21

But the Greeks had Hades in the underworld. 

Preston Meyer  29:25

If you remember last episode, we talked about how Pluto was the nickname given so you didn't accidentally gather his attention. What they usually said Pluton, depending on how it was used in a sentence, of course, funny business Pluto was a fully Greek name that the Romans just adopted. Weird business. Liber or Liber? Liber? Definitely Liber, no Liber. Liber was the god of wine and plebian freedom, which of course made him really easy to replace with a drunken Greek God. And we'll get into the details of that replacement later too

Katie Dooley  30:11

Neptune is one that you would probably be familiar with is the Roman adoption of Greek Poseidon

Preston Meyer  30:18

Fully adopted.

Katie Dooley  30:21

Who's Raymond Bloch?

Preston Meyer  30:23

Raymond Bloch is just one of a whole bunch of scholars who are really into this stuff. When I was trying to figure out where Neptune came from, I was actually really disappointed to see was just a straight across adoption. And so Raymond Bloch found an etymology for this name. Because there needs to be a reason why you rename something that you fully ripped off of somebody else. And Poseidon was perfectly reasonable name. Neptune means he who is moist. They could have called him the Wet Boy. They could have called him...

Katie Dooley  31:09

Aquaman! 

Preston Meyer  31:10

They could have called them a lot of different things. They call them, He Who is Moist. According to Raymond Bloch.

Katie Dooley  31:19

I mean, who is He Who is Moist worse than He Who is Drippy?

Preston Meyer  31:25

Oh, I mean, we could have had a lot of fun. I know that out there in internet land. There are people who make constructed religions for all kinds of fictional universes. And I want to hear of one where the gods don't have good names. They're just the DrippyBoy. The the Gassy Boy, that kind of thing. It would be fantastic.

Katie Dooley  31:51

Tell everyone what you call Jesus. 

Preston Meyer  31:54

Oily Josh. Josh perfectly reasonable interpretation of his given name. And Christ or Messiah means oily.

Katie Dooley  32:06

Oily Josh

Preston Meyer  32:09

Or one who has been anointed with oil 

Katie Dooley  32:11

One who has been oilied. He who is Oily. Josh who is Oily Wow, we digress so quickly. Minerva, Minerva McGonigal? Kidding. Minerva was the personification of intelligence and the plan of the cosmos. And she was treated as a strategist and domestic protector. So very similar to Athena. 

Preston Meyer  32:42

There's there's a reason Athena got mapped on to Minerva.

Katie Dooley  32:49

That's my mapping sound 

Preston Meyer  32:50

Well, done. The hesitated clap. All right. Next on our list, we have Diana, again, reasonably well known, very complex Italian goddess. Her cult saw her as the perfect role model being a guardian of the wild while also a hunter. She was also associated with the moon a little later on, as well as a keeper of the dead and of crossroads. Also indistinct persons of Luna or Celine and Hecate. Diana was also part of a minor triad with Virbius and Egeria personifications of the woods and waters respectively.

Katie Dooley  33:33

Cool. Yeah. And that's with Artemis.

Preston Meyer  33:37

Exactly.

Katie Dooley  33:40

Vesta is the goddess of the hearth. And I even think their name sounds similar in Greek Hestia.

Preston Meyer  33:47

Well, especially if Vesta was ever pronounced "Westa". That's awfully close to Hestia.

Katie Dooley  33:54

She doesn't have a ton of stories about her, but it was called a virgin, which is also weird because there are ancient tales of her fire producing a penis to impregnate women. Fire penis!

Preston Meyer  34:09

Right? What a dramatic story to contradict the label of virgin.

Katie Dooley  34:17

She could teach Mary a thing or two.

Preston Meyer  34:24

Yeah, some interesting gods. Like I mentioned before, there's a little bit of an issue with Greek/Roman equivalents. Many Roman gods were effectively replaced by Greek gods, though they did keep the Roman names. Some Greek gods were just straight up adopted into the Roman tradition and were Romanized and blended with pre-existing gods, known among the Romans and their closer neighbors. And most Roman gods were distinct characters who happen to share a patronage. Some are lost forever, others are buried under Greek stories, which helps build a false analogy. Even in the fifth century, before the Common Era, scholars like Herodotus preferred to study the gods as though they all existed across cultures, known by different names. And unfortunately, this philosophy influenced the way Roman cult leaders and storytellers adapted Greek stories to their local gods, became common for writers to use the names of gods with similar aspects fully interchangeably. So that in the Christian Bible, for example, Mars Hill in Rome, is identified as Ares hill in the Greek text.

Katie Dooley  35:40

Even working on the Roman afterlife. Like, as I dug deeper, I'm like, but this is the Greek afterlife, I was like, am I wrong? Or is it just so similar? I can't see the forest for the trees.

Preston Meyer  35:54

It's messy and complicated to find the difference a little bit.There are a good handful of scholars. And it's kind of hard to contradict some of these ideas, who believe that these gods are evolved from proto-indo European prototypes. The problem with the hypothesis is that this denies the ability of cultures to create gods independently, like Sol and Helios could have just come from the same story from further east. But it also makes perfect sense they both looked up and said, "Hey, that sun's super important to us. Let's offer sacrifices."

Katie Dooley  36:36

Well, I mean, especially when you get into island nations, like, you know, like I've alluded to, we have the British Isles and Ireland, and they came up with their own sun God, and they were literally cut off from the rest of the world. 

Preston Meyer  36:55

Yeah, so it's, it's a tricky position that in a lot of cases, it does look like this hypothesis does hold true. In a lot of other cases, this hypothesis doesn't look valid. And so it is, it's very much a case by case basis that we have to judge these on. 

Katie Dooley  37:13

Rome doesn't have a Mount Olympus that's in Greece. 

Preston Meyer  37:19

Right. But it does have seven hills. 

Katie Dooley  37:22

That sounds boring. I got seven hills down the street, do you? I mean, there's definitely at least three in the park. 

Preston Meyer  37:34

That's fair. 

Katie Dooley  37:35

So I wouldn't have to go much further to find four more.

Preston Meyer  37:39

I think you're probably right. Of course, Rome has grown. This statement was even valid, but that's okay. But the seven hills of Rome figure very prominently into the Revelation of John at the end of the Christian Bible. And the seven horns, the crowns on the seven horns. Those are the hills of Rome. So instead of 12 Olympians, there is a triad enshrined as the hill gods, and this triad is Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. There's a tribute to Mount Olympus found in the Roman Forum, where the 12 Olympians are represented by their Roman counterparts, or straight up just themselves. 

Katie Dooley  38:29

Juno and Minerva are under a hill.

Preston Meyer  38:31

No, no, no, no. They're on the hill. 

Katie Dooley  38:35

On the Hill! Under Hill. This Mr. Underhill.

Preston Meyer  38:43

So looking at a few more of these gods that are definitely influenced and sometimes butchered because of Greek influence. There's some interesting stuff. Let's get Apollo out of the way first. He's an interesting case because his cult had actually spread from further east, to the Italian peninsula long before the Romans even started spreading their aggressive influence. He's one of the few Gods who's actually truly the same in the Roman and Greek traditions without even a different name.

Katie Dooley  39:17

What a guy!

Preston Meyer  39:18

Right? One thing I found was really interesting, though, I went, I went looking into this Pluton nonsense. So, Dis Pater, the father of riches was the god of mineral wealth. And due to the similar meaning in the Greek name, Pluton, they were really easy to combine. And the association with the underworld because of who Pluton was in the Greek tradition, just kind of forced its way into that synchronisation, which just straight up pushed Orcus out of the picture.

Katie Dooley  39:52

Poor Orcus.

Preston Meyer  39:55

So, sometimes, you know, let's see that There's no a different version of this god. Pluto is Hades. He's not the Roman version of Hades. He just is the Greek Hades living under Rome.

Katie Dooley  40:14

I mean, the underworld is probably pretty big so...

Preston Meyer  40:16

It would have to be there's been a lot of dead people in the course of history.

Katie Dooley  40:21

Then, of course, we have Mars, who is similar to Ares in the Greek tradition. So he was a force of agriculture, stability, military support and peace but he was later hopped on to Ares the God of brutal warfare. Therefore, Mars adopted Ares' stories and traditions.

Preston Meyer  40:45

Thanks to the Greek influence yeah.

Katie Dooley  40:47

Good ol' Greeks. Bacchus! 

Preston Meyer  40:50

Bacchus is cool. 

Katie Dooley  40:52

I swear to you that the Portuguese name for Bert is Bacchus in Sesame Street.

Preston Meyer  41:00

We got lots of benign figers named Dennis too.

Katie Dooley  41:03

I know but it's great watching it redubbed and I'm going Bacchus. 

Preston Meyer  41:09

Sure. Bacchus was the Greek god who replaced the earlier Roman god Liber. He is also known as Dionysus. The name Bacchus was apparently more popular in Rome than Dionysus. And it's connected to the Greek word baccheia, which means a drunken frenzy, there's a little bit of argument back and forth on what which came first, that whether the mania was named after the figure, or vice versa. I'm leaning towards this new name for Dionysus coming from the drunken frenzy, but I'm sure there's loads of people happy to disagree with me. That's, that's what scholarship is. It's just like we found with Hades and Pluto, Bacchus is Dionysus. He just kind of stabbed Liber enough that Liber stopped being around. More or less.

Katie Dooley  42:12

And you know, who else suffered the same fate? Minerva. So Athena replaced an awful lot of local domestic goddesses. So the name Minerva still kicks around, but it's basically Athena.

Preston Meyer  42:31

Venus is kind of cool. Lots of reasons people would like her. The Roman Goddess of desire, love, sex and fertility, almost never illustrated with clothing.

Katie Dooley  42:43

Only hair.

Preston Meyer  42:46

So she was the one you would call on when you needed help seducing somebody. This is early on her major function. And because of that, she's fairly equal to the Greek Aphrodite apart from her older stories that would obviously distinguish them. And one of those is that she is said to be an ancestor of the Roman people after fleeing the Battle of Troy, from from Greek legend. Yeah. It's kind of an interesting connection there.

Katie Dooley  43:19

I mean, we talked about Hestia and Diana and Artemis.

Preston Meyer  43:23

Yeah, pretty much. They're just kind of replacing names for those fellows as well. And so the Roman Pantheon, of course, expanded to include way more Gods than I could even actually bother to count. Let's be real, it was a long way.

Katie Dooley  43:40

It goes on forever. If you want to hear more obscure gods, send us an email.  [email protected].

Preston Meyer  43:48

The list of Gods actually gets even longer when you just add all of the different names that individual gods can be known by. It's such a mess, because you know, a culture so rich and poetry and storytelling, very often you would see 10 different names used for a God in one body of work. 

Katie Dooley  44:12

Like pet names, but... 

Preston Meyer  44:14

Kind of, but sometimes they would be kind of mean. Sometimes they would just describe

Katie Dooley  44:21

Tubsy is still a pet name. It's not a nice pet name, but...

Preston Meyer  44:25

A lot of these names would describe their aspect and their relation to other things in the world or other gods in the cosmos. All kinds of things. 

Katie Dooley  44:35

Tubsy. 

Preston Meyer  44:35

Yeah. And so we did end up with a lot of gods that don't have a Greek equivalent as well, like, Janus, or the guy with two faces spirit of doorways and gates doesn't really have a Greek equivalent that that I'm aware of. 

Katie Dooley  44:48

No. I mean, none with two faces. That's a very almost Hindu thing. 

Preston Meyer  44:55

Yeah, it kind of is, isn't it?

Katie Dooley  45:00

So I don't even think the Greek tradition really has I meana little bit of an origin story with the Titans and Olympus but...

Preston Meyer  45:08

Yeah, you'd have some local stories about local things but I don't remember coming across a world origin story apart from Gaia, which is the world is the child of... what was it? Oh, no, I forgot. 

Katie Dooley  45:28

It's fine. It's complicated. It's on the family bush. But Rome has a godly origin story, which I'm sure some of you are familiar with. So, Mars, the god of war, conceived a two twin boys Romulus and Remus with a Vestal virgin. Rhea Silvia. Obviously, she was not a virgin. I mean, it caused some problems. This conception.

Preston Meyer  45:58

So the trick here, so a virgin would be somebody who was never married. And it is usually culturally appropriate that they would also be a virgin the way we know the word. So probably up until this point, she was a virgin the way we know it.

Katie Dooley  46:16

Good ol' Mars what a scamp. 

Preston Meyer  46:18

Vestal, of course, meaning that she was a servant of Vesta, who attend the fires.

Katie Dooley  46:25

Oh, she got a pen-- fire penis! 

Preston Meyer  46:27

Not this time it was Mars. 

Katie Dooley  46:29

Mars's real penis. So Rhea's dad was King Amulius, and didn't like that there were now total boys that might want the throne. So he chucked these kids into the river Tiber to die.

Preston Meyer  46:45

Better than eating them like Kronus 

Katie Dooley  46:47

I guess so. They were saved by Tiberinus the God of the Tiber River in an area of what is that Rome. And Romulus and Remus were raised by a wolf so that's often why you know Remus Lupin is his name it's associated with wolves.

Preston Meyer  47:07

Wolfie McWolferson. If you weren't paying attention to the third book of Harry Potter that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers name is Wolfie McWolferson.

Katie Dooley  47:19

And he's a werewolf?! Who would've saw that coming?!  So one of the brothers ends up in jail the other one rescues him then they fight over where to put the I think it's a temple on which one of the seven hills and then they have a fight and Romulus kills Remus, some Cain and Abel vibes going on here. I don't know which one came first actually quite curious. And Romulus went on to found Rome-ulus. So, Rome was founded by a demigod.

Preston Meyer  48:01

That's kind of cool story.

Katie Dooley  48:03

I like all right, but seriously, which one came first Cain and Abel. Like the story. I mean, obviously, chronologically, Cain and Abel would come first. But when was the story?

Preston Meyer  48:18

When was the story told as we know it in Genesis today is really hard to pin. Alright, so similar to the Greek tradition, the Romans built shrines and temples to their gods. As you would expect, if you paid any attention to the cool architecture in the worlds, this probably would have come up in your Googling, or your real genuine studies. They're different. Usually. Prayer appears to have been more common in the Roman tradition and Greek tradition. I believe that sacrifices wouldn't work without an accompanying prayer. Makes perfect sense. That's the tradition I grew up with too

Katie Dooley  49:02

Just 'cause anything without a purchase to barbecue. Of course, part of sacrifice was like we said, animal sacrifice, a barbecue. The holy barbecue. Human sacrifice was rare, but it definitely happened. Romans believed that human sacrifice was barbaric and inappropriate, except on the rare occasions when it was meaningful to have a ritualized execution of your enemies.

Preston Meyer  49:33

Yeah, I found one account of a couple of Celts being ritually buried under a statue, which is not the best way to go. 

Katie Dooley  49:45

No, that's terrible. And I think I mean, I'd say like across the board all of these religions are groups that people think sacrifice humans do not sacrifice humans. I think it happens, but not nearly to the volume  that people think it happens or happened.

Preston Meyer  50:02

Yeah. Even the people who would throw people into volcanoes the story and you know, throw a virgin and or volcano. Probably not. It was more likely throw your political enemies and criminals into a volcano, because why build a prison when you an throw them in a volcano?

Katie Dooley  50:22

Yeah, none of these overcrowded prisons, right?

Preston Meyer  50:27

Generally wild animals were considered to already belong to the gods so they could not be offered to the gods. Most of your offerings would have been your own livestock, or you also had the opportunity to buy livestock. Because sacrifice of money is pretty much equivalent to the things that if you would have if you didn't have money.

Katie Dooley  50:49

I was just reading about all this. It feels all so relevant. 

Preston Meyer  50:54

Sure. What were you reading?

Katie Dooley  50:57

In Zealot they were talking you about buying... You have to buy a domesticated animal when you go to the temple? 

Preston Meyer  51:03

Yeah because it was way cheaper to buy one at the temple, then take one with you from far away and feed it the whole trip. Yeah, it makes, it just makes good sense.

Katie Dooley  51:16

What a business! Right? Anyway.

Preston Meyer  51:20

Most offerings were eaten in a great feast. Sometimes it would be just the priests, but usually it would be a whole bunch of people would share in this animal, because an animal feeds a lot of people, and you want to eat it before it goes bad. Because refrigerators, not common. So of course, after the entrails were given to the gods, that's when you could eat. Just as we have seen in the cult of the Israelite tradition.

Katie Dooley  51:49

Like I just said!

Preston Meyer  51:51

Exactly. I thought was really cool that the flamens had great civil authority, like kind of a problem. They could pardon anybody convicted of a crime. Unless, of course, they were thrown into a volcano. If that was happening, then it was too late. But they were never permitted to hold political office. And they were also effectively banned from military leadership, sending a not an irritating son of a ruler to go off and become a flamen kept him from fighting for what he would have thought was his due as a son of a leader. So it's kind of nifty. And apparently this happened a lot. And if you pay any attention to say The Borgias, or just broadly speaking, Christian history, in the first 1000 years in Rome, you can see that this tradition has a strong influence on Christian Imperial power. And, like in any reasonable religious tradition, the priests had to be married. I think it would solve a lot of problem.

Katie Dooley  53:10

Didn't... haven't we talked about this? Where like, the Catholic Church had like a third party inquiry on how to stop sexual abuse. And  the solution was like, let them have wives. And the Catholic like, "ya no, what's the next option?" They were like, "Let them have wives!" And they're like, "yeah, no"

Preston Meyer  53:33

Right. What a mess.

Katie Dooley  53:37

While some cults were devoutly pious priesthoods. Many were more similar to modern Freemasonry, Preston. Yeah. And I know, you don't know much about modern Freemason. But people generally believed in a divine power, but built rituals around stories that they didn't necessarily accept as historical fact, but instead has moral guidelines. So it's all very much a metaphor. 

Preston Meyer  54:00

A lot of it really is. 

Katie Dooley  54:01

I mean, I know you wouldn't understand. So I'm just trying to explain it to you in really simple terms. 

Preston Meyer  54:07

Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad that we're on the same page now. Pretty much every cult, and nearly every god and goddess had a festival, which meant that Roman life was full of celebrations. Rome was a poppin place to be. 

Katie Dooley  54:27

And Herculaneum and Pompeii were two party cities.

Preston Meyer  54:31

I mean, let's be real if you had any real commitment to the Roman life. City life was awesome. Apparently, if you go the runes of Herculaneum like they're literally dicks on walls. That doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah, I mean, we still do.

Katie Dooley  54:49

Humans haven't changed much in 2000 years. 

Preston Meyer  54:52

Why do guys draw dicks? I don't know. 

Katie Dooley  54:56

I draw dicks do not just say guys. Okay, I draw a lot of decks.

Preston Meyer  54:59

More men draw dicks than women do. I've, from a perfectly reasonable bout of research that I've done on this subject. 

Katie Dooley  55:12

I feel like social media poll's gonna... happen.

Preston Meyer  55:17

We can poll our audience we do have actually really close to an even split between people who identify as male and people who identify as female. 

Katie Dooley  55:27

Ladies, let me know if you draw dicks because I draw a lot of dicks. I think a lot of women draw a lot of dicks.

Preston Meyer  55:35

Please let us know.

Katie Dooley  55:36

Oh my goodness, there was a site. I don't even know if I could find it again. And it was like a drawing website and you'd like draw something. And it would morph into a penis, like no matter what you drew, it would turn into a penis. And then if you're on your phone, if you shook your phone, the penises would wiggle. It was the best thing ever. 

Preston Meyer  55:56

That's fantastic. 

Katie Dooley  55:58

And like, when I'd have to Google to find it again is not okay. But I might try... my friend sent to me and I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I like drew a smiley face and then all of a sudden I had  three wiggling penises on my screen. It was great.

Preston Meyer  56:13

The God that you've already forgotten Falacer, would be proud.

Katie Dooley  56:22

So now the Roman afterlife is often a religious experience. And this was really hard to research. Preston, you gave me a hard section. Because it's so vast, like, every article I read, said something different.

Preston Meyer  56:40

That's frustrating. I did come across a similar kind of issue when looking it up for the last episode about the Greek perspective. But a lot of different writers would say a lot of different things.

Katie Dooley  56:51

So if you hear something that feels wrong, feel free to jump on in. So one of the reports I read said that Romans believe in something similar heaven if you're good, you go to a better place with the gods. And then I read another source that says yes, I believe in heaven, but it's only for God's. So a god would be in heaven, come down, do his business, and then go back up to heaven. So not meant for people at all.

Preston Meyer  57:21

That's pretty familiar. If we look back at the way the Shintos looked at heaven. 

Katie Dooley  57:29

Again, we spoke a little bit about the underworld, and Ares. Yep, but what's the Roman equivalent? Pluto. Yeah. So he's heard a little bit about the underworld and Pluto. And I literally did all this research. And then when I like cross checked it, it all came up as Greek. Like, okay, I don't know if I'm correct in any of this. But Virgil added in, he was one of the writers where some of this is documented. He's like, the equivalent of Homer. So he added sections of the underworld or talked about sections of the underworld that were specific to infants, those who were falsely accused for crimes and people who had committed suicide. So different sections of the underworld, where, you know, you might be treated a little bit better based off of the circumstances of your death. And, and to that point, the Greek or, excuse me, the Romans also believed in a, essentially an equivalent to purgatory, which we'll get to in a second. So, immediately after you die, you're met by Mercury, who takes you across the River Styx, where you're delivered to Cheron. And this is all again I cross checked is all Greek so I was like, I don't know if I'm right or not. And then there are three gods that judge you entering the underworld. They are Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus. And these are all kings of Crete.

Preston Meyer  59:12

What a weird place to pull all of the gods who judge the dead.

Katie Dooley  59:20

I think they were judgy kings. So when they died, they were like okay. Yeah, if you're a good noble, good and noble you go the field of Elysium. And if you're just a regular person, but good you go to the plane of Asphidel. Now if you're bad, you go to Tartarus for punishment, where you are tortured by furies, and a hydra guards Tartarus. Which is pretty badass.

Preston Meyer  59:50

That sounds like slightly better defense than a three headed dog named spot.

Katie Dooley  59:57

It was Fluffy.

Preston Meyer  1:00:00

I'm actually not talking about Harry Potter this time. Kerberos means spotted. Oh, so Hades named his dog spot.

Katie Dooley  1:00:11

That's adorable.

Preston Meyer  1:00:17

But a hydra a traditionally when you cut off on head and two take its place, which means the guard of Tartarus is a lot harder to beat and a lot more terrifying. 

Katie Dooley  1:00:29

But Tartarus is like the Catholic purgatory, so you don't actually stay in Tartarus forever. You stay until your punishment is up. And then you move on to where you're supposed to go.

Preston Meyer  1:00:40

Interesting twist. I like it.

Katie Dooley  1:00:41

You know what? There's obviously like a lot of things I don't agree with in Catholicism, but I, you know, if we were trying to like correct people's behavior through religion, I like the ideas of purgatory or Tartarus. Where, like, we scare people, and  traumatize them. But yeah, absolutely. Do I want to see Hitler get some comeupance? Yeah, that doesn't seem fair that we both get the same free pass. But, you know, I also don't think scaring kids into religious trauma syndrome is okay either. And then another aspect of the afterlife, I found are the demands, or demonds.

Preston Meyer  1:01:32

Demanes does map over onto the word demons pretty effectively.

Katie Dooley  1:01:38

And they're spirits of the underworld. And so again, I found two parts to this. So it is your spirit is a demanes when you pass and you join them when you die. And these spirits were worshipped at the Parentalia Festival, which was a nine day festival meant to honor your ancestors. So another Roman version.

Preston Meyer  1:02:02

Makes all of us who do the Day of the Dead thing for a day or two look like..

Katie Dooley  1:02:07

Pussies. But then I found sources that said that these demanes don't reside in the underworld, they reside on Earth.

Preston Meyer  1:02:21

All of the haunting stories that we've had throughout literally all of history. I mean, that makes sense.

Katie Dooley  1:02:30

Right, so I'd like find something and be like, Oh, cool. So they're underworld spirits. And then I google it and it'd be like, no, there earth spirits. I was like, Okay, I give up. They're around... somewhere. And then when Caesar was high priest, he said that there was no life after death. 

Preston Meyer  1:02:48

Which Caesar?

Katie Dooley  1:02:49

I don't know. It just said Caesar.

Preston Meyer  1:02:52

Okay.

Katie Dooley  1:02:53

I assumed Julio. 

Preston Meyer  1:02:54

Okay. I guess that's the way it goes. If they didn't tell you, I feel like that's a safe assumption. I could be very wrong. 

Katie Dooley  1:03:03

But basically that life was suffering and death was release, so that there was nothing after it. 

Preston Meyer  1:03:09

Was he secretly a Buddhist? Who knows? I mean, he clearly didn't believe that there was a Hades to go and visit if you said that there is no life after death.

Katie Dooley  1:03:23

So I mean, very broad scope of this everything from heaven to the underworld, to purgatory to nothing. So I hope none of you are confused.

Preston Meyer  1:03:34

Like we really tried to nail down in the previous episode about the Greek tradition. There isn't any monolithic thing in Roman religious tradition, though it is a better fit for the word religion than the Greek tradition was. It's still a lot of different cults and a lot of different beliefs existing and coexisting in the same place. It's not homogenous, it's a mess. It's like it's almost like Christianity, when you look at, say, the Baptists versus the Catholics versus the Latter Day Saints versus literally every other group. There's a fair bit of difference, but it's not actually a fair analogue either, because they all really highlight a specific god as this is the one that really earns our devoted worship. It's all funky stuff.

Katie Dooley  1:04:42

And I'll comes back to Katie's religious analogy of ice cream. It's all vanilla ice cream. 

Preston Meyer  1:04:58

I'm gonna need you to...

Katie Dooley  1:04:59

Am I explained my... finally on air... my ice cream analogy of religion. 

Preston Meyer  1:05:05

I think that would help now that you've brought it up.

Katie Dooley  1:05:06

Okay, Katie's ice cream analogy of religion. It's all ice cream. All of it.  And some people don't like ice cream.  Some people don't like okay, some people don't like ice cream. It's all okay. But then you get Christianity. Let's say Christianity isvanilla ice cream. And Latter Day Saints is vanilla with chocolate chips. And Jehovah's Witness is vanilla with Caramel Swirl and pick another an Anabaptist. They're vanilla with m&ms and right, it's all vanilla ice cream. Sure, at the end of the day. And then you got Islam, which is like chocolate ice cream, and you have your Sunnis and Shiites. And you got some rocky road in there and whatever. And then got Buddhism, which is strawberry, and maybe you throw somesomething in there. Anyway, it's all ice cream, and have all your flavors and you have your base layer, and then you have your mixings. And then this is where it's a great analogy is my problem. And why I do this is that some people only try vanilla ice cream and they say vanilla ice cream is the best. It's the best flavor period and I go but have you tried chocolate? And then why would I ever try chocolate? That's stupid. And that's why I have sampled every flavor and then decided I don't like ice cream.

Preston Meyer  1:06:41

But have you really sampled the flavors?

Katie Dooley  1:06:43

I mean, I think I've sampled more than the average bear.

Preston Meyer  1:06:46

I think you have read the ingredients list. And haven't tasted them.

Katie Dooley  1:06:55

Oh elaborate.

Preston Meyer  1:06:58

To really experience the ice cream is to taste it. And I can't say with confidence you've gone and experienced any one religion.

Katie Dooley  1:07:11

Wow. What would I have to do to experience an ice cream cone?

Preston Meyer  1:07:18

It's a little bit more than visiting a church. That's a trick.

Katie Dooley  1:07:21

But I still think I've had more dabblings and ice cream than the average person.

Preston Meyer  1:07:28

I think that you are far more familiar with the ingredients list than the average ice cream eater

Katie Dooley  1:07:37

Even though I don't eat ice cream. Wow.

Preston Meyer  1:07:43

I like this analogy. I just don't think that is

Katie Dooley  1:07:47

Some people get upset about chocolate and they haven't even read the ingredients list. And that bothers me.

Preston Meyer  1:07:52

Yeah. That is absolutely the reality and that does suck. Hopefully as we share this understanding of what is in the ice cream with the world. People stop being dicks about it.

Katie Dooley  1:08:06

See, I feel like you know when they give you that like little spoon to see if you like, like, I feel like that is like going to a church service of something that's not yours. I'm not saying I've had a whole bowl or a call. I'm just saying I've had like a little

Preston Meyer  1:08:21

You've had a little taste without the full experience. Not even enough to fill your mouth. No, just that little wooden scoop that you still remember the way the scoop tastes.

Katie Dooley  1:08:33

Literally my mouth tastes like wood now. Right because I mean, you're right. Like I definitely do not have a full experience of a lot of religions. But I think to anyone to step out of their comfort zone and to go to a place of worship that is not their own is a pretty bold move. And I'd like to do more of it. But if anyone's out there wanting to try ice cream. I think they need to know that that's a bold move and to be proud of yourself for taking that little sample stick and going. So give me at least a sample stay. Okay, okay. And lots of ingredients list, a handful of sample sticks, no bowls of ice cream for me.

Preston Meyer  1:09:20

I'm on board. Okay.

Katie Dooley  1:09:22

I feel like that's a mini episode. I'm Katie's ice cream analogy of religion. So I guess we should like quickly summarize the Roman religion

Preston Meyer  1:09:36

Roman religious traditions, hella-complicated a whole lot of cults, a whole lot of Gods basically, more or less peacefully coexisting, that you've gotten neighborhoods of people who are happy to celebrate the feasts of multiple gods and maybe they don't necessarily actually believe that there is a personified sun that's not a problem. You still go on living the life and offering your sacrifices to really need the sun to keep coming back every spring and every morning.

Katie Dooley  1:10:12

Don't we al. Alright, well, you can follow us on our social media: Facebook, Instagram, Discord.

Preston Meyer  1:10:26

We've got Patreon, where we've got a good handful of exclusive content. We've got a stop a stop, we've got a shop where you can buy merch and, and

Katie Dooley  1:10:41

I'm just gonna put on there if you can give us a review on iTunes, leave us five stars. Follow us on Spotify. Subscribe to us on iTunes that helps the algorithm so much to get us found. So that would be huge. If you're listening get us some growth this year. One of our resolutions for 2022 is to grow this puppy so any little bit you can do is huge for us. 

Preston Meyer  1:11:06

Share us with your friends. 

Katie Dooley  1:11:07

Yes that's give it to your bigoted ol' grandma.

Preston Meyer  1:11:16

I mean, maybe she needs it. 

Katie Dooley  1:11:18

She probably does

Both Hosts  1:11:21

Peace be with you

The first in a mini-series on ancient religions, let's start with Ancient Hellenism, also known as Greek Paganism. There's a lot to Greek mythology, but the lives of the people who brought us these legends often get swept under the rug. We're here to dig up the dirt on the cults that changed the world be sharing their stories of the gods, and why they were important to the Greeks of millennia past.

The gods behind the drama of Percy Jackson are a lot of fun to explore, but not half as fun as the parties hosted by the cult of Dionysus. Some of the old gods came from the island of Crete, others are amalgamated figures. Some gods carried their own torch into Rome, while others were replaced.

If you liked Disney's Hercules as a kid.... Well, we're here to blow it out of the water for you. Find out what the ancient Greeks believed in, the problem with Zeus, and about Hellenic Revivalism on this episode of the Holy Watermelon Podcast.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

**

Katie Dooley  00:12

Katie feels like it's been a minute since we've been here for our listeners. It's just been two weeks. But

Preston Meyer  00:17

right time, what a trip time.

Katie Dooley  00:21

That weird week between Christmas and New Years where all you do is eat cheese.

Preston Meyer  00:25

Right? Oh. All right. So are you saying that a good suggestion is that maybe we shouldn't be exercising? What we listen to our podcast?

Katie Dooley  00:36

No, I definitely think that would make you sound a lot like breath. you're happier.

Preston Meyer  00:42

No, no, not while I'm while I'm recording. Oh, it would be terrible when I'm listening to

Katie Dooley  00:46

the podcast. And work out love it will help you achieve your New Year's resolutions on the

Preston Meyer  00:55

holy watermelon podcast. Speaking of time, we're

Katie Dooley  00:59

looking way back on the Wayback Machine.

Preston Meyer  01:04

We're gonna look at what is generally called the ancient Greek religion. But I mean, there's some serious problems with that label.

Katie Dooley  01:12

And it has some other names as well, which we'll get into but we are starting, I guess, like a little little series of dead religions.

Preston Meyer  01:23

Yeah, most of them have been revived in interesting ways. Because they, but they did solidly, fully die disappear.

Katie Dooley  01:34

Yes, because people there's definitely Neo revival of these. But But yes, they were definitely put to rest almost completely at one point or another.

Preston Meyer  01:49

I think broadly, we can call this this whole series for the these ancient religions as the victims of Christianity. Oh, actually,

Katie Dooley  01:59

I like that

Preston Meyer  02:00

there's a couple of exceptions, or at least at least one looking forward in my memory. But broadly speaking, they're the victims of Christianity.

Katie Dooley  02:10

And we will we're going to do a full wrap up episode on what constitutes a dead religion. Why religion science? So we'll get more into that in a few, I guess, a few months time, because I think we're covering about six of these, something

Preston Meyer  02:22

like that. Yeah. So we do plan ahead. Plan ahead,

Katie Dooley  02:28

even though sometimes it doesn't.

Preston Meyer  02:34

Yeah, so we talked about how Shinto was kind of a weird case where it wasn't really looked at as a religion, but just kind of a folk tradition.

Katie Dooley  02:46

It's kind of what it means to be Japanese for a very specific period of time, right, less so recently, as we've kind of globalized, but it was centuries where that's just what it was to be a

Preston Meyer  02:59

nice kind of the same thing with being Greek. polytheism lends itself well to this sort of issue where it's just how you exist in the community. It's kind of weird.

Katie Dooley  03:14

I also think it's, we see this in Shintoism, when you have deities for very specific reasons. It makes it I guess, easier to explain or justify, which is sort of this thing we see with the Abrahamic God where, you know, people, we see the argument all the time, where we say, He's a loving God, but then how did the Holocaust happen? Or, you know, this is God's will, but how, you know, why are there dead babies like, and that gets hard to explain. But when you have a polytheistic model, you can say, well, this is this one's fault, because they are one of the God of War, chaos or death. And in this transaction, they whatever they want, right,

Preston Meyer  03:59

yeah, that the most common solution for that problem in polytheism, is that Gods are almost never seen as almighty, it's just kind of, they can influence certain things. And sometimes they get to do their thing unchecked. It's kind of nifty and interesting stuff.

Katie Dooley  04:20

Again, similar to Shintoism. There's no there was no overarching body governing this religion, which is kind of part of the reason it doesn't. I mean, still falls under religion, by our definition, but not like a religion we see today. And no real texts

Preston Meyer  04:38

at all. Yeah, there was no the pope of all of the Greeks that wasn't a thing. And there was no holy book. Not really no, you had a lot of traditions, and some of which obviously got repeated more than others for being stories that were either better told or more relatable or more useful for a particular scenario. But there was no Oh, scriptural canon at all, really. If

Katie Dooley  05:04

you've taken the classics in university, you would have Devon dove divided into Devon Read, read, you want to read? Yeah, Odyssey and the Iliad by Homer, which is kind of as close as we get to analyze texts as. But I think most people know that we're writing down stories, pretty much are writing down this oral tradition,

Preston Meyer  05:28

a lot of what we have in, let's say, the Hebrew Bible, for example, is canonized, simply because they were really popular texts. And they became part of the cultural literary canon, kind of like Charles Dickens for English people. Homer is exactly that. And very useful when looking at the traditions around the gods, because that's what he was talking about an awful lot of the time. It's kind of nifty. Yeah. All

Katie Dooley  05:56

right, words, die. Words, fella.

Preston Meyer  06:01

Which word are you looking at? helenus mo so in this most Yeah, it's basically just a fancy word for Hellenistic paganism. Hellenism. And Helene, basically meaning Greek, Greece. Why we call them Greek and English, is just really weird. It's like India. It's like why do we call Germany German when that's not what they call themselves? Yeah. It's a weird thing. That's where it goes. So very often, when people talk about the Olympians, and everything that surrounds that worldview, Hellenism Hellenist. Most is the word that gets used.

Katie Dooley  06:48

And just a note on the Hellenistic paganism. This is not sort of the witchy paganism that we associated this just means not Christian. The paganism, yes, paganism, the term Hellenistic paganism, it just means not Christian,

Preston Meyer  07:05

or Hellenistic paganism does specifically mean Greek flavor, right?

Katie Dooley  07:09

I just don't mean the witchy version of veganism that we've sort of adopted. Yeah. Clarifying. I'm doing Perfect. All right, I think I'm with you're with me, okay. Are you with me listener?

Preston Meyer  07:26

All right, the interesting thing that we really have to emphasize, and we'll probably say it a few times, there is nothing monolithic about the Hellenic traditions. There's, it's not one organized religion. That's not the reality at all. It's a whole bunch of traditions of a whole bunch of subgroups that happen to fit together in a semi cohesive fashion. That was reinforced by the state for peace reasons.

Katie Dooley  08:00

And it's all centered around family bush. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  08:03

what a bush.

Katie Dooley  08:06

Which we'll get into. That's what you mean, semi cohesive, right, where you're like, they're all inbred.

Preston Meyer  08:14

I mean, inbreeding helps with cohesion a little bit.

Katie Dooley  08:18

Really makes the solid family unit with Uncle Grandpa.

Preston Meyer  08:25

My old grandma got old Zeus. Nothing's good about Zeus. So

Katie Dooley  08:33

we could do actually, we should do an entire episode on Zeus. We could, there's a lot to talk about, which we will not cover all today. But I

Preston Meyer  08:43

mean, if you want a very brief overview, Wikipedia will scratch that edge. So you don't have to let him Zeus is all about his own satisfaction, and not so worried about consent. Yeah. Also, not strictly limited to humans. This dude was all over the place. He had an itch to scratch and he led everything scratch we're getting.

Katie Dooley  09:14

Let's get back to this cult tradition.

Preston Meyer  09:20

And then we'll get so each of the gods that we're going to focus on all of the Olympian 12, and even 12 is a problematic detail. Each of these Olympian 12, had a position as the focus of at least one smaller occult tradition. Before they were lumped into the Olympian pantheon. Some of them had multiple cults, some of them it's kind of weird to look at them as having a distinct cult, but there was a cultic reverence for them and

Katie Dooley  09:59

I just want to clarify danger called just a small grassroots religious.

Preston Meyer  10:04

Yeah, yeah, we've, we've talked about cults before. And this is a good time to emphasize because the word is going to be used a lot when you if you were to go reading into scholarly articles on this cult is the word that is used to describe the group of people who are organized, worshipping a figure. And, yeah, so this is the way we look at these gods, the primordial deities of Hellenism, we don't actually see a lot of cults built up around them. But we see a lot around the Olympian 12,

Katie Dooley  10:42

which we'll dive right into. Yeah. And of course, the Greek religion, spread beyond the borders to Greece, and then stay put to some of the neighboring islands. And of course, it spread to Italy. Yeah, which we will talk about in next episode, I believe is our roman one. And there are tons of parallels, which we'll talk more about next week. There are numerous gods and goddesses. Oh, my hands are

Preston Meyer  11:13

so many

Katie Dooley  11:14

so many. And like we said before, these gods are mortal, but they're not necessarily all powerful or benevolent. Again, I mean, obviously, there's contradictions to this in the Abrahamic faith, but generally it is assume that God is all loving, forgiving. A benevolent God, not the case, right? With rapey Zeus, or there's some others too, but

Preston Meyer  11:40

there was a wonderful fun film put out by Disney feels like forever ago. Like, I think it was the mid 90s. Yeah, Hercules. Yeah. And there's one figure in the whole movie that lines up with the way they ought to have been, according to the mythology that's existed for these people for millennia. Is it the Saturn is Phil. Phil is the only one who's reasonable. And actually, he's not even that close because you never see Phil's Wang.

Katie Dooley  12:21

They have to censor some stuff, narcissists.

Preston Meyer  12:23

narcissist was pretty much what you would expect him to be. Everything else is either missing important defining characteristics, or is fully the opposite of who they really are.

Katie Dooley  12:41

And I guess sort of to that point, Gods can interact and meet with humans. A perfect example is Herrick Lee's or Hercules?

Preston Meyer  12:50

Yeah, Harry pleases the Greek one. Hercules is the Latin name. So having Hercules is the son of Zeus and Hera is fully wrong. But Zeus had a son named Herrick Lise, who was not Harrahs son. This is an important part of that figures story. I actually love it. The name Herrick Lee's was given to him it's the name means calls on Hara. So it's supposed to appease a very angry Hara, who is constantly suffering because her husband is constantly cheating on her in very aggressive fashion. I

Katie Dooley  13:34

mean, we're gonna get this, but I think that's what you get when you marry your brother.

Preston Meyer  13:40

It's, it shouldn't be a risk, but I get it.

Katie Dooley  13:44

It should be a risk when you marry your brother because what Brother wants to marry his sister, of course, it's gonna sleep around.

Preston Meyer  13:52

I mean, is a situation where he was forced to marry your sister because his sister wanted to marry your brother. Oh, that part of the story is a little fuzzy.

Katie Dooley  14:07

This is like a soap opera, and we just keep getting sucked into their love life.

Preston Meyer  14:11

I mean, there's so much literature on these people because people feel exactly that way.

Katie Dooley  14:17

So let us back up the boat and talk about who these Olympians are, where the name comes from, why we care about them and who the 12 are and then we'll get into some of their dirt. There are 12 asterisk, kind of 13 Olympian gods and they're named thus because they reside on Mount Olympus. And this is sort of the I won't say the one but this is kind of core across this religion is that's kind of all agreed upon. Everything else kind of I won't say I will change depending on your culture or tradition or location or story you heard, but the fact that these 12 Asterix first Do you live on Mount Olympus? And are a little family bushes? Generally? Tan? Yeah,

Preston Meyer  15:08

it looks like the Olympic union of this set of Gods is mostly a product of people deliberately trying to keep a nation unified, which I think is really interesting. The king of the gods, the all father, as he is often called, is just an absolute pervert. He is the God of the sky and of thunder. He's the God of law and order. I thought it was really interesting

Katie Dooley  15:43

to do so you haven't said Zeus yet? You just started talking? Oh, yeah, I

Preston Meyer  15:49

thought I said. Okay, so Zeus is actually mentioned in the Hindu Rig Veda, Oh, yeah. Zeus is called Deus pita. Which, if you're really into Latin and Roman mythology, more than Greek, it should sound like Jupiter. And that's not an accident. The name is derived from the generic word Dios meaning God, and the specific Latin. Jupiter makes this combination, and it becomes sky Daddy. Yes. pedo. Being father, as you see in most of proto indo European languages, it's kind of nifty. So Zeus is the sky daddy.

Katie Dooley  16:36

Yeah, he is. And he likes to be called Daddy to Yes.

Preston Meyer  16:41

Like, he's the father. Even if you're not a natural descendant of Zeus, it is expected that you refer to him as father. This, you see this through all the old classical literature that they all the gods referred to him as father, even when that's not

Katie Dooley  16:58

the case. Call me daddy. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  17:02

He is one of the original Mycenaean gods, originally from the island of Crete, which I thought was kind of nifty. There. Is talking some old sources of him having a tomb on the island of Crete.

Katie Dooley  17:16

Oh, interesting. Yeah, I would be really curious about that. Because we talked about this a long time ago that a lot of gods and deities are based off of real people. Yeah. So I wonder if there was Zeus. That yeah, that's into this. I'd be concerned with there was. All these stories are horrible. But yeah,

Preston Meyer  17:37

I'm curious how many of them are outright fiction and how many are based on real people?

Katie Dooley  17:42

No more fiction. I hope. Number two of the 12 is here. She's the goddess of marriage, women and childbirth. She is this his wife, and sister. And like Preston said, contrary to see what to what you see in Disney, she's not the mother of Hercules. Heracles Hercules Hercules, Hercules is so so named to make Hara love the child

Preston Meyer  18:15

didn't work out didn't work out.

Katie Dooley  18:16

Hara may have been the first of the Greek gods to receive a covered temple and seems to be the first of the Olympian gods to receive such a structure on Mount Olympus. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  18:27

I thought that was kind of cool. That's a thing I don't have a lot more information on. And as I was kind of rushed to put hair together in my notes, but I thought that was kind of nifty.

Katie Dooley  18:39

I think it's great.

Preston Meyer  18:42

Poseidon is really interesting. of the big three that people like to talk about. In Greek mythology. Poseidon is the big wet brother have to do. He is the God of the seas and earthquakes and storms and horses. He's Zeus, his brother, he's the middle brother. Hades was the the oldest brother, but after being ripped out of Cronus his guts are being puked out. Hades became the youngest but besides straight up all across the board the middle brother awesome.

Katie Dooley  19:19

The least loved brother. Maybe Yeah, likes the middle.

Preston Meyer  19:25

I don't know what the relationships were with their mother but their father hated all the children so well.

Katie Dooley  19:30

We'll get to that

Preston Meyer  19:32

you could have lost out worse. I I still feel weird about Poseidon being called an Olympian. Being more of a ocean fellow he

Katie Dooley  19:42

does definitely doesn't resign. Because I lived in the water. I've

Preston Meyer  19:46

never thought of him being a resident of Olympus. But Dionysus is also not really a resident of Olympus, but he's an Olympian kind of. It's weird. But Poseidon rules the sea just like Zeus rules the air and Hades rules the underground to the Earth is the common ground between all of them. So they're all welcome on Olympus unless there's unless they're specifically exiled from it. Hades not usually welcome even though he's not a bad guy, anyway, discussion for another time. Or at least later on in the episode. So I thought it was really interesting that Poseidon was one of the major Peloponnesian gods before he joined the Olympians interesting. And some versions of the story have him as a horse. That makes

Katie Dooley  20:41

sense. I the images in my brain is him riding a horse in the waves? Yeah. Yeah, image. Yeah. But I liked that he is an actual horse. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  20:54

may in fact, in Arcadia, there's a tradition that he and Demeter are a married pair of horses. And that's, that's kind of nifty. Oh, yeah. That's cute, right.

Katie Dooley  21:07

Which brings us to Demeter, who is the goddess of harvest fertility, nature and the seasons. She has a secret cult festival called decimal foria. And only women are allowed to participate. No Boys Allowed to sign up on the door. So

Preston Meyer  21:25

much of a secret anymore, but when it was happening on the regular, it was pretty top secret.

Katie Dooley  21:30

She was one of the Mycenaean goddess initiated tradition and Eleusis focused on the story of Hades and Persephone. Which Persephone doesn't even fall under these 12 She's

Preston Meyer  21:41

one of them. No, she's one of the minor.

Katie Dooley  21:43

I know. But I'm just there's so many names. I'm not going to get to Yeah. And in the Arcadia story that Preston was referring to Demeter has a mean of snakes kind of like Medusa.

Preston Meyer  21:54

Yeah, scary horse, you would not want to try and jump on the back of this horse. Yeah, what a really interesting set of gods. Next on our list, we have Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare. And naturally, the patron Goddess of Athens. Most traditions have ever been born from Zeus is forehead without sex, which is extremely weird for the extremely rapey Zeus. hessayon says that her mother is metus and that meet us actually gave birth to Athena inside Zeus. And that's how she popped out of Zeus forehead. It's a mess. It sounds super growth.

Katie Dooley  22:43

I wish you could see the face. I'm giving precedent.

Preston Meyer  22:49

Yeah, the Greeks had some really interesting stories. In fact, if there's anything that you could say is universally Greek, it's the telling of epic stories. Yes, that's true. Everything else is a lot less universal.

Katie Dooley  23:04

Great food.

Preston Meyer  23:06

fair. That's fair. Okay, there's there's probably a few things that are broadly. So Athena is the perpetual version. This is actually really helpful as a symbol of a protected city, because she is originally an Aegean Palace Goddess, and existed in identical forms in different cities under different names. Until the name Athena one out with the rise of Athenian power and the spread of the Attic dialect. That's interesting. A badass absolutely, I

Katie Dooley  23:40

actually will say, like, in more modern and I mean, particularly the Abrahamic tradition that can be quite misogynistic. There's definitely an equal, if not more female. Gods and they're all badass. Yeah. What really, really interested 12 rather, yeah, obviously, I'm sure if you get down to the nitty gritty, I don't know what the statistics are male to female, but of the 12 Olympians, I think it's pretty much

Preston Meyer  24:11

pretty close to balanced. And Athena being a goddess of warfare. She actually specializes in military strategy, which differentiates her from the next guy on our list. Well, I feel like that falls into the wisdom piece. Yeah, it does.

Katie Dooley  24:30

Aries is our next guy, the god of war, bloodshed, and manly virtue,

Preston Meyer  24:36

strength and courage, but muscles, but issues.

Katie Dooley  24:42

So he is the son of Zeus and Hera. And instead of the military strategy, which is a Theano, as Preston mentioned, areas is rough and brutal. He is a common personification of the strength of war, but At this specific version originates in the Mycenean despite the raw power that he is meant to represent most stories leave him embarrassed.

Preston Meyer  25:10

Yeah, think back to him being on the Troy side, the Trojan side of the Trojan War. Yeah, things actually very seldom go well for areas when he's part of the story. Even though he's, you know, say the more recent stories like in DC Comics, for example, where he is a truly epic and powerful dude. I mean, yeah, he's powerful, but he always gets his butt kicked by a non God you

Katie Dooley  25:46

most sacrifices to areas were offered after victorious battles through a practice of young men sacrificing dogs.

Preston Meyer  25:52

Yeah, it's a little gross and sad. Before a

Katie Dooley  25:57

man hood fight was adopted from the cult of an alias. Did I say it right? And cults, two areas were not that common unless you were a military group. But they did exist. Making the neighbors uncomfortable Preston would think so. Now just want people sacrificing dogs and having manly man Fight Club fights in your neighborhood. Well, even just I assume it's like Fight Club. Just imagine

Preston Meyer  26:28

knowing that just just knowing that your neighbor worshipped Ares, the god of war. Wouldn't that make you feel a little bit weird about that neighbor?

Katie Dooley  26:39

In present day? Yes. I don't know about past day. But yeah, probably we saw weird like nationalist truck on our irons. Sounds like this makes me uncomfortable. So yeah, exactly. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  26:52

it's that guy. Like it's, it's perfectly fine to recognize that Oh, in a nation that is very often at war. Having reverence for Aries is perfectly valid. But belonging to a cult specifically dedicated to them is a little bit different.

Katie Dooley  27:13

It's different. It goes beyond just the sacrifice before a battle. It's like a different level. It is creepy. Yeah. Fair enough.

Preston Meyer  27:20

Next journalists, we have Apollo, the god of light truth art's the son, manly beauty medicine, and honestly, a terribly long list of other things. Anything that's good. Apollo is connected to it in some way. Really.

Katie Dooley  27:38

He's a good guy, good guy, Apollo.

Preston Meyer  27:41

Yeah, basically, he is the son of Zeus and Leto. And he actually wasn't fully completed with this, like didn't become a son. God wasn't completed with Helios until very late in history, which I thought was interesting. Apollo's cult is most interested in prophecy, you'll hear a little bit about Delphic Oracle is when you dive into Greek mythology. And this is tightly attached to Apollo. He's also one of the oldest gods in the pantheon, and may have even been part of the cultic traditions of the pre Hellenic people before they were divided into groups more familiar to us. As you know, humans spread out further west into Europe, which I thought was really interesting. He has also called the most Greek for a few reasons. He is the ideal of manliness. And so this is definitely informing this choice a little bit. He is also recognized throughout the Hellenic territory by more or less the same name, give or take, you know, accent and a linguistic evolution. But yeah, it's like some vowel shifts here and there, but broadly speaking, more or less the same name for a really long time backwards in history, which I thought was really nifty. And so he is the patron of two rival cults, both fully established before any religious history was recorded in the area, which I thought was also

Katie Dooley  29:12

Artemis. Did you know Artemis is my favorite? No.

Preston Meyer  29:17

Why is Artemis your favorite?

Katie Dooley  29:19

I don't know. I just like liked her as a kid when we did Greek and I think it was grade six, like cuz she was the moon, and the hunt and archery.

Preston Meyer  29:27

So I think her being associated with the moon is a deliberate parallel to Apollo and the sun. Celine is generally the moon if I'm recalling correctly, and not mixing up my mythologies. And when Apollo became conflated with Helios, Artemis was at more or less the same time connected to the moon. Yes, and

Katie Dooley  29:53

that is because she is the twin sister of Apollo. Same parents, Zeus and Leto Artemis was the protector of forests throughout Greece and like little hippie Katie really like that. And she had several local cults and was very important Sparta specifically. Her first club was likely established on the island of Delos. And her temple in Ephesus is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Preston Meyer  30:22

So kudos for Artemis.

Katie Dooley  30:25

Oddly enough, she is the per Artemis is a perpetual virgin but also associated with childbirth.

Preston Meyer  30:32

Yes, I thought that was kind of a she's like a situation.

Katie Dooley  30:35

Yes.

Preston Meyer  30:36

That's there's a story that she helped with the delivery of her twin brother. I feel like I've heard that. And mechanically that sounds like literally, totally fantastic. But there's also I'm looking to a parallel in the Hebrew Scriptures where there was twin brothers and the younger brother came out with his hand wrapped around the ankle of his older brother. And so it just kind of pulled out. And that actually makes it kind of easy to believe that this story could have been based on a baby girl who pulled who would just happened to be holding brother's ankle on the way out conceal and ended up baby brother came out right after with that tug around the ankle. Who knows?

Katie Dooley  31:24

I'm not an obstetrician. No, me neither.

Preston Meyer  31:30

But it it as much as it sounds weird in the basic story of Baby help deliver a baby there are other stories. Yeah, there's, there's weirder stories,

Katie Dooley  31:41

weird stories like a whole virgin birth,

Preston Meyer  31:45

which we have talked about pretty recently. After Aphrodite is next on our list, so she's the goddess of love, pleasure, protection, last sex. And also motherhood is on that list in a lot of places too.

Katie Dooley  32:02

And she's the one coming up the clamshell Renaissance painting. Yes, girl.

Preston Meyer  32:08

Wasn't that Venus? Oh, it

Katie Dooley  32:10

was but they're the same. I mean

Preston Meyer  32:12

to a lot of people they are exactly. According to Homer, she Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and the Titan Diani

Katie Dooley  32:22

said sex with exam.

Preston Meyer  32:26

Yeah, I mean, Zeus had sex with almost everybody that he could. There's not a lot of stories of him having sex with men. That you know what, now that I'm saying that, I probably need to go back and look. Probably then there's there's probably I'm thinking of the list of all the people he's had sex with who there was a child that made the story noteworthy. There's there's probably a separate list that I just didn't look

Katie Dooley  32:57

at just as conquest. Right. And not just in his bed frame.

Preston Meyer  33:01

Exactly. Because homosexuality was not an issue in Greece. That was the problem. It was day to day life for the average person. Just casual sex all the time.

Katie Dooley  33:13

Plato's the sexes actually places homosexual men is like, the apex because they've chosen to give up family. So if you were to like rank people, it was like homosexual men, heterosexual and then lesbians. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  33:34

interesting.

Katie Dooley  33:36

Lesbians are the worst. I'm kidding. I know personally, that's what the sexist says. We have no problem with lesbians here at enthusiasts, we cannot

Preston Meyer  33:54

go for it. But I saw the pause and knew you wanted me to say it and I wasn't ready, but here we are, anyway.

Katie Dooley  34:01

Oh, see if that makes sense. So tell me about your anus.

Preston Meyer  34:07

Oh, yeah. So according to Homer, Zeus and Gianni are the parents of Aphrodite. But according to hesed, Aphrodite was formed from the foam that leaked into the sea from Uranus is severed genitals after he was castrated by Cronus. Wow. So we have very different origin stories. And we can't say that one of them is more authoritative than the other. Because we still have the vast majority of humanity saying this is fiction anyway. But what a weird story castrates your NS throws this junk out into the Mediterranean Sea as far as we can expect.

Katie Dooley  34:55

You can see what I'm doing

Preston Meyer  34:59

and The White foamy juice that comes out of those nuts. seafoam This is how we get Aphrodite.

Katie Dooley  35:12

This is how we get an explicit rating.

Preston Meyer  35:18

That's the way it goes. So Aphrodite is cult was primarily a synchronisation of very similar cults to other mother Goddesses from further east. And it actually looks like Aphrodite basically is the same figure as Ishtar as evolution brought it further east or further west rather face this

Katie Dooley  35:39

is and this is what I actually haven't heard of like we have these two we'll get to that are kind of like they get swapped in and out. But I've never heard of a faceless so anyway. Here's the god of fire the forge, blacksmiths and volcanoes have faced is the sun up here. And the cuckold husband of Aphrodite. Homer says they have faced this was thrown down from Olympus for defending his mother from Zeus is sexual advantage the advances kind of like our boy Ganesha from the Hindu tradition. basis, a basis is crippled after a poorly executed superhero land. So that was superhero pose that we see everyone do. Yeah, maybe

Preston Meyer  36:26

poor guy could not handle that kind of toss.

Katie Dooley  36:31

You in another version of Asus is born crippled. And that's why he's thrown down from Olympus. His identity as a crippled Smith is commonly attributed to the ancient memory of millworkers, who suffered from arsenic poisoning due to working with cheap bronze.

Preston Meyer  36:46

Gross.

Katie Dooley  36:49

History really has like crippled a whole bunch of people. Yeah. It's weird, not knowing what you're working with. Right?

Preston Meyer  36:58

It's kind of interesting, looking back through history that there is this kind of, it looks like just a narrative trope that the blacksmith is a cripple in some way or another. But it actually makes sense that if you look at the work they do, and the things they're dealing with arsenic will straight up give you cancer. And there's loads of opportunity to hurt yourself when you're messing around with hot metal light.

Katie Dooley  37:23

Yeah. So there isn't much for calls for her face notice more of general reference from metal workers, blacksmith and trying to him we're typically attached to other trends or to Hermes

Preston Meyer  37:39

is next on our list, and the last of the Olympians that everyone agrees Yes, he's an Olympian

Katie Dooley  37:46

1112 is debated. Yes,

Preston Meyer  37:50

there's issues. We'll deal with that in a minute. So Hermes is the messenger of the gods. He's the God of communication, travel, diplomacy, games, all kinds of stuff. He is the son of Zeus and the plaid, Maya, cuz Zeus begetting around. He's a trickster, which I thought was interesting. But we don't usually actually emphasize that detail of his character. But he's a prankster and messes around with things. And his visits are not very often good visits. So occasionally, he'll come in to bring you news, like Gabriel or whatever. But he also leads the souls of the dead to the underworld, which sounds like a problem when you know, he's a trickster.

Katie Dooley  38:40

Oops, JK.

Preston Meyer  38:41

Right. Here's a practical joke. It went wrong guess you're going down to Haiti? Problem. Yeah, things could go pretty rough. For anybody who meets Hermes, you never really know. Hermes is also incredibly old predating the Hellenic tradition. Some scholars see him as coming from further east with Aphrodite, and that he was specifically her messenger. But of course, things evolve and change as we tell more and more stories about things. His cults were mostly in small rural communities. You didn't see a lot of cults to Hermes in the city until later on in history. And he is now thought to be a variant of pan. The good old Seder God. Of course, when I say good, I mean, fun and interesting, not righteous and just

Katie Dooley  39:38

say they're so not known for that. No. So we come to our first there's a word that I don't have, but it's undisputed. Yeah, that's a good way to come to our first disputed Yeah, god of the Olympians,

Preston Meyer  39:53

there's, everyone seems to agree that there's there's 12 Olympians, but depending on who you Talk to you get different lists.

Katie Dooley  40:01

And literally just like these two that we're about to talk about gets swapped out. Yeah. That's it. So easy enough to know. Yeah. So nobody like doubts that Aphrodite is part of this. It's literally these two. Yeah. So the first one's Hestia, the goddess of health and domesticity. She is a virgin goddess, which is surprising because she's Zeus, his sister, we know how much he likes his sisters, right? That is impressive. She doesn't have much of an individual cult, but she was respected anywhere a fire would burn. There are two known temples attributed to Hestia. And they don't bear any depiction of her.

Preston Meyer  40:39

Yes, I thought was really interesting that you will almost always find great paintings or some sort of iconography, saying this is who you're looking at and dealing with, whether it's a carvings are full on sculptures, or just something. And that's not the case with Hestia. You see writing and whatnot. But there's no faces in the two temples that we know over her

Katie Dooley  41:09

sacrifices, and we'll get more into sacrifices as a practice a little bit later on. were offered primarily in the home by mothers or in public buildings offered by civil authorities. And one of the ones I read his pet, you just like, give some of your dinner, test it to make sure that which makes sense, right, domesticity and health that give her a scoop of your potato salad? I assume the potato salad in ancient Greece? Probably not. I don't think Mayo was the thing.

Preston Meyer  41:38

Does that mean you can have a different kind of potato? Potatoes? I mean, my experience with potatoes with Greek food is fully limited to the restaurant experience.

Katie Dooley  41:50

That's true. Is it dinnertime at our house probably you give her whatever your skill your and that's your offering to her so I can see that being kind of a daily or weekly practice

Preston Meyer  42:07

absolutely daily several times a day any sacrifice was being offered, whether it was to Zeus or Poseidon or Hermes, or what if you're offering to any god, it is proper form to offer first to Hestia testing that and she's the only one who gets to eat before Zeus.

Katie Dooley  42:28

She was the older sister then. I don't know. But But um, the only thing I

Preston Meyer  42:31

can deduce was the baby. He was the last of all of Cronus has children. And Hades I think was the oldest and but they all came out in reverse order when Cronus spewed them back out again after eating them. Okay,

Katie Dooley  42:47

really good. We'll get to that. Who's our number 13

Preston Meyer  42:54

Dennis, good old Dionysus or Stanley Tucci, as we've pointed out before, cuz some of our audience I'm sure is fully aware of Percy Jackson and his family situation with the Olympians and get old Dionysus was played by Stanley Tucci, and Stanley Tucci.

Katie Dooley  43:16

Stanley Tucci. If you're listening when you please be a guest.

Preston Meyer  43:20

Yeah, it would be wonderful.

Katie Dooley  43:23

They haven't come back yet. But they will one day one

Preston Meyer  43:24

day. Yeah. So Dionysus is the god of wine, fertility and frivolity. Because he is the god of Epiphany, especially, especially opioid epiphanies. He is often called an outsider and a foreigner. Though history shows him being one of the oldest gods in the area he is he's not really an outsider, but he brings us outside knowledge in a format very different from her.

Katie Dooley  43:54

Yes, and I can see why people might be wary of that,

Preston Meyer  43:59

right. I mean, a lot of these gods actually do have strong connections with the poppy. And definitely that means opium in at least some of the situations. And that is the case with Dionysus. He actually isn't the God of drunkenness with wine. They're the cult of Dionysus always encourage moderation when it comes to drunkenness. But definitely also love to hand out opium.

Katie Dooley  44:28

So you take a sip of your wine, chase it with your opium Exactly. As you take your opium and chase it with your wine isn't sure I don't drink enough.

Preston Meyer  44:39

I'm not part of the drinking culture.

Katie Dooley  44:43

That's an episode one.

Preston Meyer  44:44

Sure. Dennis, I like I love calling him Dennis. Just because that's that is the English form of the name Dionysus. Dionysus has

Katie Dooley  44:56

Dennis. The Menace. Yes. Oh, Oh,

Preston Meyer  45:02

he has several calls, all of whom hosted fantastic festivals. And according to a bunch of scholars that I've been reading lately, the modern theatre is credited as developing from their practices. Cool. Yeah. Love that.

Katie Dooley  45:19

So this dispute. So Hestia is admitted in favor of Dionysus by people who don't think has the counts as a goddess.

Preston Meyer  45:28

Yeah, it's kind of sketchy. But that's the deal, I guess, when she's the only one who gets to eat or drink before Zeus. That's a bold claim, bold

Katie Dooley  45:38

claim. And then Dionysus is emitted and appear Hestia by people who count on ISIS as a foreign wandering God, which

Preston Meyer  45:48

is a position that's easier to defend, but is tricky. I think I put it in my notes later on, actually, that there is some talk that Dionysus is actually not, not his main persona, that Dionysus is actually Hades. Oh. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Well,

Katie Dooley  46:17

let's jump to Hades and come back to that point, because Hadees is actually a big omission. I think you did a Family Feud of name, mainly. Olympians.

Preston Meyer  46:31

A lot of people would say Haiti, even though he's technically not on the list,

Katie Dooley  46:35

he's not awful.

Preston Meyer  46:36

I think he should be. And if you say that he is diagnosis, and the diagnosis belongs on the list, then bam, Hades

Katie Dooley  46:46

very roundabout way of getting someone into a club, right? Let's talk about he's because he is, again, he's not one of the 12 Olympians, even in our disputed categories, not one of them. But he's a big player, brother of Zeus.

Preston Meyer  47:03

Yeah. And it's weird that he is usually treated as an outcast. He's the King of the Underworld, and God of the dead, not to be confused with the god of death. That is Thanatos. But Europe it is. One of the old classic writers actually disagrees and says that Fana toasts and Hades are the same figure. But he's wrong. And he's dead and he can suck it. Wow,

Katie Dooley  47:34

hot takes on Preston.

Preston Meyer  47:38

So myth tells us that He is the oldest son of Cronus. And which made him the last to be thrown up. As we mentioned, twice or three times now at this point, is kind of a big deal for the mythology is where these people came from. Hades is not the bad guy. Everything, everything you learned from Disney's Hercules is wrong. Everything Hadees is a good guy. For the most part at the worst, he's cold and just kind of distant. Compared with all of the other gods of Olympus. The Hadees, illustrated in myth is the best fit for a Christian or secular idea of morality and justice. So kind of turns the way we look at things all on its head, Zeus, who in the Disney version is more or less, kind of forced to transform into the Judeo Christian God ends up being painted like Trump and gross spray tan Orange is the worst version of a role model. Hate to use is actually much better. A lot of people try to avoid saying the name of Hades, because you don't want to attract the attention of the dude associated with death. So you get all kinds of nicknames given to him, which was really a very popular tradition. anciently across a lot of tradition, a lot across a lot of cultures. So because precious minerals come from under the ground, Hades was called pluton, which basically just means rich, which became a very popular name, and used instead of his proper name. And actually, is the source of the name Pluto that we have for the same figure more or less in the Roman tradition. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So offerings that were made to Hades weren't typically burned on an altar the way you see a lot of other gods offerings being received. Instead, they were dropped to and dropped into a hole in the ground, which is oddly more familiar in Mesoamerica. Right. Yeah. But offerings to the underworld obviously need to go under the ground. But now you always got to be looking away because you don't want to look at them. Right? That would be bad. Sure, I mean death comes to those who see Hades or has already come to those who see Hades. So you got to be looking away, which means this whole isn't just a little hole in the ground, because you don't want to miss when you're looking

Katie Dooley  50:22

to keep doing it over and over again,

Preston Meyer  50:24

you've been wasting a lot of food, a lot of food and wine. But I thought that was really interesting. And that some scholars will say that he is Dionysus. And that's how he kind of sneaks into an Olympian status sometimes. Good. That is where I had the note. And the orphic cult, which is also tightly tied to done it, Dionysus actually flips that and says no, Hades is actually another persona of the Zeus, that they're kind of coexisting in two different aspects. The Orphan cult is a pretty good example of how you can see that the Greek tradition is not homogenous, it's not monolithic. It's a whole bunch of different traditions that kind of just loosely fit together.

Katie Dooley  51:22

Like Christianity.

Preston Meyer  51:26

Christianity has become pretty well organized.

Katie Dooley  51:28

Yes, but if you look from denomination to denomination beliefs vary widely, wildly. Yes,

Preston Meyer  51:33

they do. In fact, that's mostly why they are different groups is arguments about details.

Katie Dooley  51:41

So before we move on to what I guess the day to day ritual, religious practice looks like I just want to talk about the Olympians because Zeus is not the first God. He's not a creator god like we have in the other. In other religions. The Olympians are actually third and fourth generation immortals. So how the hell did third and fourth generation mortals become top dogs?

Preston Meyer  52:10

By killing everyone who came before them? Yeah, that

Katie Dooley  52:18

word is not shouted as tight, no tied to no Mackie. Tight I just I feel like our listener Huhtamaki. By just shouting it may not have been as clear which the myth is that it was a 10 year God war in Thessaly. And the Olympians fought with the Titans and the Olympians won. So the Titans would be the previous generations, which I just want to say make sealed Olympic Games that look fucking cooler than sorry, if you're an Olympic athlete. Let's be real shot. But

Preston Meyer  52:57

I mean, if you're imagining the shot, put ball, the shot that you are putting, as, say, the head of a Titan. It's pretty now it was a little imagination. It

Katie Dooley  53:09

does get pretty epic. I'm gonna watch the Olympics through a whole new lens when they want to bring on new sports. If I can't see how it would fit into a titan omake eyes I'm mixing it. I mean, because they wanted to get rid of judo, which is like the OG Olympic sport and very useful in a 10 year God war, right?

Preston Meyer  53:29

Whereas men's ribbon gymnastics. Men's Women's Gymnastics is a real thing. Thank you. And if you're using it as a celebration after the battle, that makes more sense. When you're just messing around with the entrails of a disemboweled Titan. It's looking kind of gross, but here we are.

Katie Dooley  53:58

I like it. Synchronized swimming. How does that one work? And I've got four. We've derailed. We have so funny to explain synchronized swimming and awkward to me.

Preston Meyer  54:09

Oh, well, there, there was a titan of the sea that Poseidon was definitely very useful.

Katie Dooley  54:14

So it's like a war drill.

Preston Meyer  54:16

I just gotta be perfect.

Katie Dooley  54:18

It can stay. Yeah, I will call the Olympic commission and there is a sort of to our point about Zeus being really rapey and like three and four generations of immortals. There is a very good but very confusing family bush on Wikipedia.

Preston Meyer  54:35

Yeah. And I found that on Wikipedia after I saw it, you posted it in our notes, and I've found a less exhaustive but easier to follow family trees all over the country. Yeah, it's a bush. There's so much intertwining, honestly because Zeus has sex with about a quarter of all of the People in the tree. There's a lot of crossing of lines. It's a mess. But it is actually pretty nifty to see how all of this is connected. And we'll talk a little bit more on what that might actually mean towards the end of the episode. Does this mean Zeus did it with Poseidon? No, no, that's listing them as brothers. Oh, no, you're

Katie Dooley  55:24

right. I don't see here. Okay, so let's see Zeus and Demeter Zeus and Leto, Zeus and Hera, Zeus and Manuel Mizzou. Many medicine do and

Preston Meyer  55:43

so, so many, so want

Katie Dooley  55:48

to be a practitioner air quotes, because this was just day to day life of the ancient Greek religion, which we also know is a misnomer.

Preston Meyer  55:56

Yeah, there wasn't one really well, using the word religion just feels weird. Honestly, it probably looks like your average person today, apart from the nature of their employment, farmers would go out work in the farms, and they'd make the occasional sacrifice, just like the UK, the average farmer will go to church on Sunday. Yeah, it's not wildly different, really. Which is kind of nice. Humanity is really pretty much the same all the time. We,

Katie Dooley  56:29

I mean, we definitely haven't changed a lot in the last 1000 years, like our how our brains are made, right? Like we haven't changed at all, which is kind of scary. But the Greek religion was focused much more on practices and rituals than beliefs. So if you could walk the walk, nobody really cared much. If you believed in it, there was none of this come to Christ moment. Right? Born Again, Christian stuff. These are just, this is just what you do. It's your how you brush your teeth, you give a sacrifice to your God, it's what you do to get through your day.

Preston Meyer  57:06

Yeah, there were altars and temples erected both in the home, and larger temples like the Parthenon. And you were meant to leave offerings to the god or goddess of your choice. If you are traveling abroad, it was the correct thing to do to make an offering to the God of the place you were visiting. And in a polytheistic system, where you recognize that there are more gods and the one you worship, that's not even weird. No, you just do it. Which is why people were so pissed off at the Christians who refuse to do it.

Katie Dooley  57:41

It's also an we'll get more into this in our episode, wrap up in a couple months, but it's also outside, but that's one of the reasons that it died out because they were happy to accept on their end another guy. Okay. But that obviously wasn't reciprocated. So it's really easy for them to start believing in an Abrahamic God. And but then also very easy to, for them for Christians to start stripping them of their other

Preston Meyer  58:08

gods. Yeah, it's a little messy.

Katie Dooley  58:13

So this is just kind of classic worship stuff. You leave a sacrifice for your God, they'll do something for you in return. Sacrifices libation was very popular. So you pour wine, or going out for the homies or one out for the homies, one for you, one for me raise the class. We're recording this on the day of Betty White's death

Preston Meyer  58:32

ban. I will raise I was very disappointed to read that this morning.

Katie Dooley  58:35

Yep. So she'll get a libation tonight. Exactly that honey and milk. Also commonly Batian. It can be a separate sacrifice could be something small, like you said, a portion of your dinnertime meal to Hestia. Or it can be something large, like a cow or a person.

Preston Meyer  58:51

Yeah, human sacrifice was never common in Greece. There are a few old writers who talk about it as a thing that was more common anciently like before the time of the old old writers that we're reading now. And even then it's starting to look like that's probably not the case read a

Katie Dooley  59:16

little bit about scapegoats was mean, which is a term we still have today. Yeah, that they'd have some sort of outsider and they'd like put all this bad juju on them, and then they would sacrifice them or stone them to death. But again, I even in my readings, it didn't sound like it was as common as some people would think. Yeah. heathens don't sacrifice humans nearly as much do you think we do, right? We definitely do, but not nearly as much.

Preston Meyer  59:48

I feel pretty confident that a lot of the throwing folks into volcanoes was probably more capital punishment than sacrifice. Do you Oh,

Katie Dooley  1:00:00

well I just can't. Like I can't I can't see it because we have examples like North Korea, were scaring someone into compliance.

Preston Meyer  1:00:08

I mean works.

Katie Dooley  1:00:11

But the origin of religion was to organize a society that can function so if you have people living in fear that they're going to be the next scapegoat, my work but I'm actually saying it might not like long term it's not it's not constructing exactly so sure the occasional Why not but it's not nearly as we should look as taxing because that because that's a big belief without texting because that they in my hands they would be head and play soccer with your skull. I don't know if that's on our list. But that's when that also gets a big throwing virgins into volcanoes wrap

Preston Meyer  1:00:50

a few like using a skull for their sports would actually have made life so much easier. Because they're playing with those really heavy medicine balls, right? Like a scholar so much lighter. That would have been actually okay.

Katie Dooley  1:01:06

I think I we're we're digressing a bit but the especially the Central American religions, I bet a lot of that is just pure racism.

Preston Meyer  1:01:17

Oh, there was definitely a lot of

Katie Dooley  1:01:21

talk about voodoo being this big. It's not a scary religion. It's just people villainize it because they're anti black. So I bet if we dug into the Central American religions,

Preston Meyer  1:01:33

they're not Christian. So they're terrible. Baby. Yeah, yay, for all of the things. There's so much wrong with the way people talk about other people historically, right.

Katie Dooley  1:01:49

Back to the Greek stuff. Sin is not a thing, particularly really, it's not. And if you read about Pompeii, or Herculaneum, there were two cities. And I know Pompeii wasn't I think it's Herculaneum. They were just like the Las Vegas so their time Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. So morals in ancient Greece. I wouldn't say they're bad. They were just really loved. hedonistic, let's call it hedonism

Preston Meyer  1:02:17

was definitely more or less the way things were operated. There was kind of a universal law of moderation. But that's kind of it there were there were some places where failure to be moderate was actually punished, but not really a lot in most places. If you

Katie Dooley  1:02:43

I'm pretty sure Turkey millennium. I'm pretty sure if you go Herculaneum, there's like, runes with dicks.

Preston Meyer  1:02:48

I mean, that's pretty much humans everywhere.

Katie Dooley  1:02:52

Everywhere through all time, they do ancient decks on the wall.

Preston Meyer  1:02:56

Once we got civilized enough to not be worried about our survival from week to week, we predict something. Yeah, it's, I don't know why.

Katie Dooley  1:03:09

I definitely have a dick. But on my fridge now, thanks to Preston. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  1:03:18

Because we talked about it. One thing that I think is really nifty though, okay. One thing I think is really nifty, is that there is one I want to call it the deadly sin from this should be a familiar idea in the English speaking world, is hubris. This is more than just the sin of pride. This is the extreme height of pride. This is what brought Icarus to fly too close to the Sun kind of level of pride. And that's the only reason that Gods would smack down people other than for their own entertainment, which was also a real life problem. But yeah, hubris, big, bad thing.

Katie Dooley  1:04:01

Basically, they don't want you thinking you're on par with them. Right?

Preston Meyer  1:04:04

Gods will occasionally elevate people, especially heroes, but for you to say, I'm like the gods bad time is coming your way.

Katie Dooley  1:04:17

Zeus is gonna turn into a goose and

Preston Meyer  1:04:20

have his way make his way up inside you.

Katie Dooley  1:04:25

Which is written facts. There are stories.

Preston Meyer  1:04:28

Yeah, there's it's a historical start literary detail. Yeah, what a mess, right. A few of the gods especially Hara and Demeter are associated with the poppy. And we already talked about how Dionysus is really into the poppy. There's no shortage of scholars who are very confident that of opium was very popular. Each of the gods had things that they would bless people for doing some of these acts might offend another god, though, there is no unity among the gods of Olympus, or of all of the gods of the Greeks. And that's just kind of the deal. As I mentioned before, the the greatest tradition of Greece is storytelling. And I mean, this kind of a big deal around the world. And the Greeks have a story for everything. Spiders are awful. There's a story for that. They exist because of a curse put on a girl who would weave better than the goddess of weaving. So bam, now you're a spider. Now we have spiders. Wow. Yeah, I like the Pleiades look real pretty in the night sky. There's a story for that. They're the children of the Titan Atlas and the nymph planning story suite. It's kind of nifty. And there's stories for literally everything in the world. And what's

Katie Dooley  1:06:00

their story for Canadians?

Preston Meyer  1:06:04

Oh, that's easy. History took care of that. I'm pretty sure that it's not in their elementary school curriculum. Okay. But history takes care of that.

Katie Dooley  1:06:17

I just want to hear the ancient Greek story you said for everything. I'm just being sassy. Get your like.

Preston Meyer  1:06:28

Clearly wasn't that good? Canada isn't ancient. So there's no ancient Greek story for Canada?

Katie Dooley  1:06:37

Do you want to do the Hellenic afterlife? Do I want to do the Hellenic afterlife? Of course. So generally, there's a single place for dead spirits. In the Greek tradition, unlike in the Abrahamic faiths, where you go up or down, and this is underground, which makes perfect sense because we, for the most part barrier did. Eventually a few cults start exploring the reality that when men die, they are not equal in virtue. So the truly awful you segregate to the darkest corners of the realm of Hades called Tartarus. Men of greater virtue were said to live the noble life in the fields of Elysium, especially those who were a family of gods and heroes.

Preston Meyer  1:07:19

Makes sense, I guess, pretty easy to get on board with

Katie Dooley  1:07:24

the aisles of the blessed were conceptually identical to Elysium. And so they had quickly become conflated. Those islands are to the far west of Europe, so potentially the America Yeah, we're

Preston Meyer  1:07:36

living in heaven. Canada is now recovered.

Katie Dooley  1:07:43

Descriptions of legally seen fields vary with every classic author, but it's traditionally admitted that each resident might see differently as they might lead to different lives they're doing as they please. I feel like the leasing fields were mentioning Gladiator. Absolutely, they were. So I watched gladiator when I was foreign to you and watch Gladiator. And it disturbed me because it was so gory, and I've never watched it.

Preston Meyer  1:08:05

Yeah, you're gonna want to go back

Katie Dooley  1:08:09

and go back. It's really I remember being very gory. There was Tico, in particular, to like this day, and I saw it, probably 20 years ago. So it's

Preston Meyer  1:08:21

a classic, but it's not required for being a cultured human being. Back, sorry,

Katie Dooley  1:08:27

back to the Hellenic afterlife. Usually, the talk of the dead was about embodied spirits. But there are a few stories that all heroes have been taken to their immortal home in their flesh suits.

Preston Meyer  1:08:41

It sounds alright,

Katie Dooley  1:08:43

I know I can keep up my flesh suit.

Preston Meyer  1:08:45

Yeah, there's not a lot of discussion of physical resurrection in Greek literature classically. But there are a few that actually talked about reincarnation as well, though, that's not actually a popular theory back then. But it was a thing that some classic Greek writers were talking about,

Katie Dooley  1:09:05

well, they better hold on to their hats because they're about to get a resurrection story that's gonna blow their minds right.

Preston Meyer  1:09:14

And ruin their religion and

Katie Dooley  1:09:15

ruin basically everything Oh.

Preston Meyer  1:09:21

But because we're talking about a polytheistic world, all these cults that we talked about earlier, live together in the same cities. They accepted each other's practices. When they traveled. Like I said, they offer sacrifices to local gods and each other's Gods without complaining about their own God not being respected in any particular temple. The idea of one true God as is very commonly understood in the world today because monotheistic religions are the vast majority of people's faiths in the world. The all of this was completely full Until these people, it just wouldn't even wouldn't have even made sense.

Katie Dooley  1:10:04

How could one person do all of this? I don't get it, right. So we mentioned earlier that this is a series on air quotes, dead religions. But all of these religions have been revived because people of course, we could debate on how much people believe just like we talked about Jedi ism versus this is just something cool to be a part of. But there are active Hellenic revivalist groups, mostly in Greece. So the reign of Constantine the second in the fourth century is where most historians point to the sharp decline of Hellenistic paganism. Though I'm sure for centuries afterwards, you could find the odd person,

Preston Meyer  1:10:54

definitely more likely in rural areas in cities, there would have been a lot more force to hey, you're gonna be a

Katie Dooley  1:11:01

Christian and we need force. Yeah, Christian. Yeah. So basically, it died out, the Supreme Council of ethnic boy helenus was established in 1997. And they have revived these practices, they do perform sacrifice, as we, you know, food and in wine and milk, for the most part, I have not heard any cases of human sacrifice.

Preston Meyer  1:11:31

Because that's a cry. That's correct.

Katie Dooley  1:11:35

And they sing hymns to their preferred gods, an advice video that I watched, they actually had a lot of problems, because the Greek government didn't actually recognize it as a religion until just 2017. So just four years ago, five years ago, so they couldn't actually like worship properly, because all of these temples are like, tourist sites. And it's still actually a bit of a point of contention. No kidding. Because you can't just like be pouring milk on a tourist attraction. Hi, Stonehenge, the male.

Preston Meyer  1:12:14

Yeah, that might be probably

Katie Dooley  1:12:16

are like petitioning to, like, hold stuff at the Parthenon. And they're like, No, you really can't do that. But they spoke in this little vise, you can find this face, many, you know, there many documentaries, they talked to the Minister of religion, he's like, as long as you're not everyone, you can do whatever you want. But we also have to protect our historic landmark. So there is obviously freedom of religion in Greece. There are other groups around the world. But again, it's predominantly Greek. In Greece, and there's just like before, there's no central body. And many of these practices and traditions come from the study of what happened historically. There are other groups, in addition to the Supreme Council of ethnic boy helenus. That's just one of many. And one point I found really interesting in the documentary was that in smart of them is, well, on the surface, it seems nationalistic, they are very much separating themselves from right wing nationals that every country seems to have a problem with. So it's not it is not that and I just want to be clear about that. So while it is very, like Greek centric, obviously a Greek religion, it is not that it's

Preston Meyer  1:13:37

not the problem,

Katie Dooley  1:13:38

not the problem. It's people literally dressing in togas and singing songs about their favorite God, or goddess, which sounds pretty all right, right. I love a good toga, right. It's like a moo, moo, like,

Preston Meyer  1:13:53

but more flattering. Depending on your personal body type. I want to talk a little bit about you hammer ism before we close out, wrap up this demo. So you have Maurice was this fella who was basically at this way, way back, talked about how some of the gods were actually real people. And so you hammer ism is the study of mythology from a historical approach,

Katie Dooley  1:14:30

which was anthropological where you're trying to

Preston Meyer  1:14:34

almost solve it. Yeah, it's, it's kind of tricky, like, a lot of the gods we know are just personification of natural phenomena. Apollo, yeah. But some of the gods throughout history across various cultures. Some of them were people. And so the trick is figuring out which ones actually were and the tomb of Zeus on Crete. is one of those things that is kind of the backup for the argument that maybe Zeus actually was a real person that he was a Minoan and that maybe his name, or at least he is called commonly in this area volcanoes, which is kind of interesting. And honestly, I think the the whole idea of you hammer ism is fascinating. Unfortunately, there is a severe shortage of historical records to really support any of the fun hypotheses was Oosa king who deposed another king and conquered the hearts and minds of Greece, or maybe not, who knows, or maybe the story of Zeus killing Cronus is an allegory for the cult of Zeus supplanting the cult of Cronus. We don't have a cult of Cronus we don't actually have any evidence that there was a cult of Cronus. But because of the story that we have, that might be an allegorical representation of a cultural movement.

Katie Dooley  1:16:03

Well, and then we also get into I forget his name, but from hermeticism, where you're an amalgamation of like Hermes Trismegistus, Hermes Trismegistus, where you are an amalgamation of I mean, Hermes, tres, Manish this was an amalgamation of deities, but you could potentially use this as an argument for Jesus as well, or you're an amalgamation of people who were real, smushed together. So now you're fictitious, but you're based, in fact. So there's also that which I'm sure falls into this as well.

Preston Meyer  1:16:37

It's definitely connected studies. Yeah, it's all really complicated. And really interesting.

Katie Dooley  1:16:44

I mean, as an atheist, I think it's a really good explanation to how a lot of this developed or didn't think at all, this has gone way, way back to our episode on why people believe what they believe, but even just wanting to be part of something bigger, and if you can rally around someone and make them bigger and better. based in truth, maybe not that they did. That's been something that's kind of easy to rally behind. Sure. This is interesting. I feel like maybe we do a whole episode on this too.

Preston Meyer  1:17:19

I think we definitely could, we should.

Katie Dooley  1:17:23

Yeah, before we forget.

Preston Meyer  1:17:26

Well, that's more or less what we can fit in the time.

Katie Dooley  1:17:33

But as always, feel free to pop onto our social media or a discord with recommendations or suggestions for episodes. Do you want to hear more about Apollo? We'll do a whole episode on polar for you, you let us know. So that is Instagram, Facebook and discord.

Preston Meyer  1:17:50

And, and Patreon. Don't forget Patreon. We would love to get a little extra support. If we got enough support, we could put out a new episode every week. That'd be fantastic. And if subscriptions aren't really your thing, maybe we could sell you a shirt or a tote. We got so many options on Spreadshirt and so many options to just be our friend and give us money. Join a community

Katie Dooley  1:18:21

ask questions learn more. Everything's on our website. Now.

Preston Meyer  1:18:24

Man, we're getting organized and we

Katie Dooley  1:18:28

are moving on up in this world. So yeah, but your support means everything to us. By the late Middle Ages

The 12 Days of Christmas is such a popular song, but Katie has a bone to pick with the retail industry. The 12 Days of Christmas are not a countdown to Christmas. They are the days from Christmas to Epiphany. 

Join us as we explore the various celebrations and memorials that make up this extended holy week, as well as the secular traditions attached to them.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

Be sure to check out Blackbird Farm and Apothecary on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Happy new year, Preston.

[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: What now?

[00:00:15] Katie Dooley: Happy new year, Preston?

[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: What a new year already. Wow! Where has the time gone?

[00:00:24] Katie Dooley: I mean.

[00:00:24] Preston Meyer: This is the third year of the Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Yes. Not three years worth of episodes, but we have touched three years with our great content.

[00:00:36] Preston Meyer: Right? I'm pretty proud of us.

[00:00:38] Katie Dooley: Happy New Year, everyone, and thank you for listening to.

[00:00:43] Preston Meyer: Without our audience, this wouldn't even be possible.

[00:00:47] Katie Dooley: Oh. I was going to say thank you for listening to. 

[00:00:52] Preston Meyer: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:56] Katie Dooley: That's the soft open I wanted. Thank you.

[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: I'm with you now.

[00:01:00] Katie Dooley: I know you are. This is something that I get so [assionate about.

[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: This is your pet peeve.

[00:01:10] Katie Dooley: It is. And I'm not even a Christian. Today we're talking about the 12 Days of Christmas, and I've also included Epiphany in this as well, because why not? Why wouldn't you?

[00:01:26] Preston Meyer: Part of the 12 Days of Christmas, kind of.

[00:01:29] Katie Dooley: Yes. I mean, when else? We may as well lump them all together. But one of my biggest pet peeves is we see this in retail. Always is, you either see the 12 Days of Christmas as the first 12 days of December, or the 12 days leading up to Christmas, both are incorrect. None of those are the 12 days of Christmas. The 12 days of Christmas are the 12 days after Christmas.

[00:02:00] Preston Meyer: Um, yeah. It's kind of weird to see how much this mistake is made.

[00:02:06] Katie Dooley: I hope next year, all of you. Next December, when all of you see this, you just shake your fist at it. Because now you know, now you're a little bit better because, you know the 12 Days of Christmas.

[00:02:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, this episode isn't late. This episode is right on time.

[00:02:22] Katie Dooley: Perfectly on time. Y'all wondering why we're still covering Christmas in the New Year.

[00:02:30] Preston Meyer: There's a lot of people who haven't celebrated Christmas yet the entire Eastern Orthodox tradition celebrates Christmas after the 12 days of Christmas have ended.

[00:02:44] Katie Dooley: Yes, you might hear, depending on where you are in the world. We're in Alberta, but if you're anywhere sort of western Canada, you might hear the term Ukrainian Christmas, because generally we...

[00:02:55] Preston Meyer: Have a huge Ukrainian population.

[00:02:56] Katie Dooley: We have a huge Ukrainian population here. But generally. If you're Ukrainian, you are part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and they celebrate Christmas on January 6th,

[00:03:06] Preston Meyer: Seventh,

[00:03:07] Katie Dooley: Seventh. I've seen I saw both dates in my research.

[00:03:10] Preston Meyer: So really I've never seen anybody put Ukrainian Christmas on the sixth. That's epiphany.

[00:03:17] Katie Dooley: Oh. All right.

[00:03:19] Preston Meyer: And Orthodox Christmas is the day after the Western epiphany.

[00:03:24] Katie Dooley: Yes. We're going to get into all these calendars.

[00:03:28] Preston Meyer: Things get confusing, but we're going to help straighten that out.

[00:03:30] Katie Dooley: And I actually, for the longest time, just thought Epiphany and Ukrainian Christmas were the same thing, but it's actually a calendar difference. But we'll get there.

[00:03:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah so what are the 12 days of Christmas? Is it just the countdown or is it?

[00:03:44] Katie Dooley: It's that horrible song, which I have some notes on that too.

[00:03:49] Preston Meyer: We'll get to that.

[00:03:50] Katie Dooley: So they're so again, they're the 12 days following Christmas, ending on the sixth with the day after being epiphany. And every day of the 12 days is actually a saint's day. So you could really party hard if you wanted to.

[00:04:02] Preston Meyer: I mean, every day is a saint's day.

[00:04:04] Katie Dooley: Every day is a saint's day, but you could just have feast days after feast days. I need to be Catholic. I'd get a lot of time off work if I wanted.

[00:04:15] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's different tiers of sainted feast days, and there's there's memorials for minor saints that they're never going to be counted as holidays. And then they kind of spectrum range up to the actual, this is a real holiday that you should be taking time off work for.

[00:04:35] Katie Dooley: So of course, day number one, December 25th. What who do we celebrate on that day? Preston?

[00:04:41] Preston Meyer: Oh, good old saint Jesus.

[00:04:43] Katie Dooley: Oh, Saint Jesus. Do we call him Saint Jesus?

[00:04:45] Preston Meyer: Oh, he's the Holy Messiah. Okay. Holy and saint are actually synonymous.

[00:04:49] Katie Dooley: I just like that. Saint Jesus sounds like a rapper.

[00:04:54] Preston Meyer: A little bit. Yeah, Christmas is all about Jesus. We talked about this before. That's not the day he was born, but it's the day that we celebrate it.

[00:05:07] Katie Dooley: Day number two is the 26th or Boxing Day if you are Canadian or British.

[00:05:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Boxing Day is not a worldwide thing. I just learned by looking at my calendar. Nunavut celebrates Boxing Day a couple of days after the rest.

[00:05:27] Katie Dooley: I think I've seen that.

[00:05:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's so weird. I don't know how that decision was made.

[00:05:33] Katie Dooley: And I, wrongly assumed that Boxing Day was a big deal in the States because I looked to them as this isn't particularly, but as more consumerist than we are with, you know, Black Friday. It was a big thing down there before it became a big thing up here. And I was talking to a friend and I was like, yeah, Boxing Day and Boxing Day sales. And she's like, what are you talking about? I couldn't believe it. Um, so yeah, if you're one of our American listeners, we have a huge shopping day, post-Christmas called Boxing Day. And, uh, now it's not as big as Black Friday, but it used to be just as big as Black Friday, where we'd have crazy sales and people would line up and nobody would get stabbed because we we're Canadian, eh, but yeah.

[00:06:18] Preston Meyer: Right. We're too polite. I remember when I was growing up, there was always this joke that Ukrainian Christmas comes after Boxing Day because they're smarter than the rest of us and do all their Christmas shopping when there's the sales. I like it.

[00:06:32] Katie Dooley: I have a point to make towards that, but when we get to Ukrainian Christmas, we'll chat. Boxing day, in addition to a great shopping day, is also Saint Stephen's Day.

[00:06:43] Preston Meyer: Do you remember who Saint Stephen is?

[00:06:44] Katie Dooley: No, you tell me.

[00:06:45] Preston Meyer: So he's the first Christian martyr that we get described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. He was stoned to death. And so the people who made him a canonized saint thought it would be apropriate, maybe with a little bit sense of irony, to make him the patron saint of stonemasons.

[00:07:08] Katie Dooley: No, I don't like.

[00:07:11] Preston Meyer: It's kind of rude, right? 

[00:07:13] Katie Dooley: And I don't mean to go on a tangent, but it's kind of like the Christian thing to do. And this is one thing where I really like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is like, you don't put this torture device on a pedestal, whereas most Christians are like, yeah, a cross. I'm like, that's literally.

[00:07:31] Preston Meyer: What art of Jesus' story makes you think he likes cross?

[00:07:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah. That's like being like, I like this gun.

[00:07:37] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:07:38] Katie Dooley: So yeah, I get it in their weird, twisted sense of humor um, but I'm also like.

[00:07:44] Preston Meyer: No, I think it's a little bit of the whole, bless them that curse you business. That's part of Christian...

[00:07:51] Katie Dooley: Taking back your power. 

[00:07:52] Preston Meyer: A little bit. Okay. So being a patron saint of people who work with rocks, blessing those people who are conveniently close to rocks who may occasionally throw them.

[00:08:02] Katie Dooley: Okay. I'm also curious about your point that you wrote here about the Good King Wenceslas story, one of my favorite carols.

[00:08:11] Preston Meyer: I didn't write that. I don't even know that song. What? Yeah, you wrote that?

[00:08:16] Katie Dooley: I was just trying to pass the conversation back to you.

[00:08:19] Preston Meyer: Unfortunately, I have no, I don't know the song. I don't know the story. This is all on you.

[00:08:24] Katie Dooley: What? I'm not gonna sing because.

[00:08:28] Preston Meyer: I'd never heard the song sung until I moved down to the States for a couple of years.

[00:08:33] Katie Dooley: Wow. It's one of my favorite carols, and I've loved it since I was a kid. Also, I feel like I've mentioned this in a podcast before. Random fact about me not: a Christian. We celebrate Christmas, as you know, as in a secular way. Love religious Christmas carols. Love them. I hate secular carols. I Saw Three Ships, slaps. Good King Wenceslas, banging. Hark, the herald angel, chefs kiss.

[00:09:01] Preston Meyer: I Saw Shree Ships, I heard it on the Barenaked Ladies Barenaked for the Holidays Christmas album. Holiday album. It's not just Christmas. Half the tracks are Hanukkah, but that's that was my only context for years. And then I heard somebody sing it once in church when I was living down in the States. Apparently they just have a lot more Christmas carols down there than we don't ever pay attention to up here. 

[00:09:28] Katie Dooley: I feel like our our radio probably tries to lean more secular anyway. Probably so. Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

[00:09:42] Preston Meyer: I get you.

[00:09:43] Katie Dooley: Brightly shone the moon that night. Though the frost was cruel. When a poor man came in sight. Gathering winter fuel. So he's like a land baron. And he teaches his page to give back to the poor.

[00:09:59] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:10:00] Katie Dooley: So they, like, get this this poor man food and and wood.

[00:10:04] Preston Meyer: I feel on good. Half of the Christmas tradition is scaring rich people into being a little bit more generous to the poor.

[00:10:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah, so now that makes more. That first line makes more sense to me on the feast of Stephen. I never actually know what that meant.

[00:10:18] Preston Meyer: Now is the song older than Charles Dickens.

[00:10:21] Katie Dooley: Um, if I had to guess, and I'm pulling out my phone right now, I'd guess there's probably about the same vintage.

[00:10:28] Preston Meyer: Okay. It just from what I caught of all of that and will probably not retain it feels kind of that sort of era.

[00:10:39] Katie Dooley: Oh, they're actually older. Uh oh. Wait, the first song. Hold on. The tune comes from the 13th century.

[00:10:48] Preston Meyer: Okay. Reusing tunes is a pretty.

[00:10:51] Katie Dooley: 1853 English hymn writer wrote the Wenceslas lyrics.

[00:10:56] Preston Meyer: Okay, so it kind of recently.

[00:10:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's one of my faves.

[00:11:00] Preston Meyer: Okay, cool. Well, now we know.

[00:11:02] Katie Dooley: I feel like it's taking us a long time to get through these 12 days.

[00:11:06] Preston Meyer: Uh, we're we're, uh, on day two.

[00:11:08] Katie Dooley: Day two. Uh, day three.

[00:11:10] Preston Meyer: There's there's another saint that I want to look.

[00:11:13] Katie Dooley: Oh, sure. Yes, please.

[00:11:14] Preston Meyer: Because we're talking about all these saints being celebrated. So there's also the feast of Saint Dionysius or Dennis. He was the pope from 259 to 268 CE. And they decided we're going to make him a saint, because he really fought to defend the principles of the Trinity. I don't think it's really that interesting beyond that though, to be honest.

[00:11:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah so we'll just give it to Saint Stephen. Day three! We're up to December 27th is Saint John the Evangelist Day. Um, it is also shared with Saint Fabiola.

[00:11:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Fabiola's just one of those special saints. She got married a couple of times, was widowed a couple of times, and then she's like, you know what? I'm gonna become a Christian now. And studied under Saint Jerome of Bible fame.

[00:12:08] Katie Dooley: December 28th. Day four is the feast of the Holy Innocents.

[00:12:12] Preston Meyer: Now, we talked about these innocents a little while ago.

[00:12:15] Katie Dooley: In our last episode. Yep,

[00:12:16] Preston Meyer: Who were supposed to have been killed by King Herod, and that may or may not have happened, but this whole day is actually blocked off. No other Saints get this day. It's just for these kids that may or may not have been killed by King Herod.

[00:12:33] Katie Dooley: Oh, it's like Gretzky's 99 jersey is blocked. Can't be 99 again.

[00:12:37] Preston Meyer: It has been retired. Yep.

[00:12:41] Katie Dooley: December 29th, day five is Saint Thomas Becket. Wasn't he one of the bad saints?

[00:12:47] Preston Meyer: He wasn't one that we've done an episode on.

[00:12:50] Katie Dooley: But he's not a great guy, isn't he?

[00:12:52] Preston Meyer: I mean, not great, but better than some.

[00:12:57] Katie Dooley: Okay. It's also shared with Saint Egwin. Tell me a little more about these saints.

[00:13:02] Preston Meyer: So Saint Egwin was Bishop of Worcester way back in the good old days, and not really terribly notable Out of all of the saints that aren't either. A lot of calendars will list Saint Egwin as the saint of the day and completely leave off Saint Felix, who was pope from 269 to 274 CE. Saint Felix is kind of interesting to me. He also really defended the Trinity in the early days of the Catholic Church, but also really fought to get people to believe that Jesus was the incarnation of this phantasmic word Which is really theologically true.

[00:13:46] Katie Dooley: The good word.

[00:13:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, it's tricky stuff.

[00:13:51] Katie Dooley: December I was like trying to say day and December at the same time. December 31st day seven, New Years Eve. It is Pope Sylvester the First. And then you also get your regular New Year's traditions around the world celebrated this day, obviously.

[00:14:08] Preston Meyer: There's actually a lot of saints marked on December 31st, mostly minor fellas that barely get what we call that memorial on this day. Like I didn't even put the list together for this one for this.

[00:14:22] Katie Dooley: Too long?

[00:14:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It was too onerous of a task.

[00:14:26] Katie Dooley: Everyone wants this day.

[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The end of the year is kind of a weird time for that, I guess.

[00:14:32] Katie Dooley: Now we're into the new year, January 1st, day eight. This is Mary, mother of Jesus.

[00:14:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and they didn't block this day off for other saints. Even though Mary has a really special place in the Christian canon of saints. So we have Saint Vincent Maria Strambi, who was a Passionist priest only about 200 years ago.

[00:14:56] Katie Dooley: What does that mean?

[00:14:58] Preston Meyer: So the Passionist order is a special group that's just really into the suffering of Jesus.

[00:15:05] Katie Dooley: I was going to say this sounds extreme and mean.

[00:15:09] Preston Meyer: They're not super extreme,

[00:15:11] Katie Dooley: But they put a lot of... They put a lot of stock in the passion a lot.

[00:15:17] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's that's the that's the name.

[00:15:19] Katie Dooley: Day nine, January 2nd is Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory Nazianzus.

[00:15:27] Preston Meyer: Not Nazi-anus?

[00:15:31] Katie Dooley: Well, what do you say it like that! Now I can't unsee that.

[00:15:35] Preston Meyer: Ah, what a time in history where we can look at these names and make them seem so much more silly.

[00:15:44] Katie Dooley: Saint Gregory, who had no problem with his name in the fourth century. But now.

[00:15:49] Preston Meyer: Right. Basil and Greg, they were two great important fourth-century Christian thinkers who were also best friends. 

[00:15:59] Katie Dooley: Like us!

[00:16:01] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:16:01] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm not a great Christian thinker. You are, but we're best friends.

[00:16:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so they're honored together sharing this day.

[00:16:10] Katie Dooley: What would be our Saint day? Our launch our launch day?

[00:16:15] Preston Meyer: October 4th. 

[00:16:15] Katie Dooley: I got way too sentimental. Day 10th January third is the feast of the Holy name of Jesus. Tell me more about this one, Preston.

[00:16:29] Preston Meyer: Uh, so.

[00:16:29] Katie Dooley: This sounds very theological.

[00:16:31] Preston Meyer: It's meant to commemorate the day that Jesus was officially named in the temple in Jerusalem when he had been circumcised. The problem I have with this is we're looking at day ten. Christmas being day one. But according to the law, he would have been eight days old when he was circumcised.

[00:16:54] Katie Dooley: You're supposed to be circumcised eight days in, is what you're saying. Okay.

[00:16:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But we're on day ten. 

[00:17:02] Katie Dooley: What if there was a Sunday in there and you're not allowed to do any work? Would it get bumped?

[00:17:07] Preston Meyer: I don't know if moyles count this as work that gets bumped, but maybe. I doubt it though.

[00:17:14] Katie Dooley: We should call a moyle.

[00:17:16] Preston Meyer: I guess so. But I mean, even in the text of Luke chapter two, it says that he was named in circumcised eight days after he was born. It's actually pretty explicit about that. So, even though even if it would have been bumped traditionally. The text we have here says it wasn't. But we know that Luke was also probably not right about...

[00:17:42] Katie Dooley: A lot of things.

[00:17:43] Preston Meyer: The Census?

[00:17:45] Katie Dooley: Yeah, he had a lot of trouble with dates.

[00:17:48] Preston Meyer: A little bit. He had some issues with historical facts, and Luke wasn't actually a Jew himself, so.

[00:17:55] Katie Dooley: He might not have...

[00:17:57] Preston Meyer: There could be some errors here, but the fact that we have in the canon of Scripture. This tradition that it was eight days later. And yet the liturgical calendar says, uh, traditionally we're going to say it's on the eighth day of Christmas. It just feels weird. Oh, well, that's my thoughts on that.

[00:18:24] Katie Dooley: But there's also a couple others. So even Jesus shares his day with some people.

[00:18:28] Preston Meyer: Well, Jesus gets so many days he's gonna have to share a couple of them.

[00:18:31] Katie Dooley: That's fair. So there's, uh, Pope Anterous

[00:18:36] Preston Meyer: Telesphorus.

[00:18:37] Katie Dooley: Telesphorus. So there's a couple popes. Anteros, Telesphorus. There's a couple saints, Saint Giuseppe, Maria Tomasi and Saint Genevieve the Virgin as well, that are all done on this day.

[00:18:51] Preston Meyer: Out of all of these, and as you noticed, Jesus shares this feast day with a bunch of people. The one that I think is kind of interesting is Telesphorus, he was the Pope from 126 to 137 CE, and he's the dude responsible for the midnight Christmas mass. Just kind of a nifty thing. He's also the dude who decided and made it officially the tradition of the church moving forward and affects us all today. Easter must be celebrated on Sunday. Which makes some good sense, but he's the dude who made the decision. All right. Day 11. We're getting real close to the end.

[00:19:30] Katie Dooley: January 4th.

[00:19:31] Preston Meyer: The fourth day of January is the feast day of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint. I thought that was kind of cool. She lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. She shares this feast day with Saint Angela of Foligno, Italy, who was around in the 13th century. And I thought she was actually more interesting than Elizabeth Seton. She had all kinds of visions, and she wrote them in great detail for the church. And thanks to all of her mystical revelations, she was titled Mistress of Theologians.

[00:20:07] Katie Dooley: Not an appropriate name now.

[00:20:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the that word is... 

[00:20:10] Katie Dooley: That didn't age that didn't age well.

[00:20:14] Preston Meyer: But I thought it was interesting.

[00:20:15] Katie Dooley: Well, you know, and day 12 is January 5th, epiphany Eve. It is Saint John Neumann. Isn't that an actor?

[00:20:26] Preston Meyer: Maybe, I don't know.

[00:20:29] Katie Dooley: And he was the first bishop in America. So these last couple saint days are Americans. 

[00:20:34] Preston Meyer: A little bit, yeah.

[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: And then, of course, he serves it with an old person as well, Saint Edward the Confessor. And some people also celebrate Saint Simeon Stylites.

[00:20:45] Preston Meyer: He lived on a small platform on top of a pillar for 37 years.

[00:20:49] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:20:49] Preston Meyer: That's that's a miracle on its own. So I did some googling on this Edward the Confessor thing because I pulled up all of these. I looked them all up on the actual Vatican website, and then some of them they did. I had to look up other sources for some of these articles as well, after I found them on the Vatican website, because they changed the names on the Vatican website.

[00:21:12] Katie Dooley: Weird.

[00:21:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Like Saint Giuseppe Maria on the Vatican website. They called him Joseph Mary. I feel weird about that. He was an Italian fella.

[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: You don't need to anglicize it for us, right?

[00:21:26] Preston Meyer: We get it. We know Giuseppe means Joseph, but his name is Giuseppe. Saint Edward the Confessor was the king of the English, not the King of England, but the King of the English from 1043 to 1066. And he really fought hard to defend the Christian faith in what would become England. He's the last King Edward before King Edward the first of England.

[00:21:53] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:21:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's not confusing at all.

[00:21:55] Katie Dooley: No, I'm following.

[00:21:57] Preston Meyer: The Anglo-Saxons have three Edward's. They didn't get numbered. And then when it became England officially, then Edward started getting numbered. But if you want to mess with anybody when you talk about our most recent King Edward, add three to his number.

[00:22:15] Katie Dooley: So I love... This is like one of those other things that like ties into people not knowing what the 12 Days of Christmas are. And just like one of those nerdy facts that I get really excited about Shakespeare's 12th Night is about the 12th day of Christmas.

[00:22:33] Preston Meyer: No way!

[00:22:34] Katie Dooley: Yes. So Twelfth Night, that's what it's referring to is this last day in the series of events. It is. It's a very popular British tradition. We don't see it much over here in North America, and I really didn't see any records of it anywhere else.

[00:22:49] Preston Meyer: That's a great time to party before epiphany.

[00:22:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah and Twelfth Night is like, much like the play is a very rowdy celebration. Or if you're not a Twelfth Night fan, if you're not a Shakespeare fan, She's the Man with Amanda Bynes is based off of Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night with soccer. And, you know, in both instances there's cross-dressing. And so that was a popular tradition. Men would dress up as women. Women would dress up as men. Role reversal is like a big part of this. So even the rich would feed the poor and serve the poor, not just, you know, take a basket to the food bank. They would actually serve the poor. Yeah. So it's, uh. It's. I've always wanted to have a Twelfth Night party, but it's always, like, too close to Christmas, you know? You're just, like, done by then. I know, yeah, it's only 12 days. I know, but, like, you're so done, it's like I'm not ready for another party. But I've always wanted to have, like, a rowdy Twelfth Night party. Sure. Do you like nightmares, Preston?

[00:23:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, I like weird dreams. I don't know if anybody likes nightmares.

[00:24:02] Katie Dooley: So if anyone wants nightmare fuel. One of the traditions of Twelfth Night or is the Twelfth Night cake or the King cake. And there's also a version of this for Mardi Gras. So if you do Google King cake, you'll probably be in North America and get Mardi Gras cakes.

[00:24:22] Preston Meyer: I'm already thinking of a pie with crows in it, but that's not a cake.

[00:24:25] Katie Dooley: So like historically they'd put like a bean or a pea in the cake and you'd eat the cake and whoever got the bean or the pea would win money or a prize.

[00:24:35] Preston Meyer: That doesn't sound terrible.

[00:24:36] Katie Dooley: Yes, but now you people put people put like the little plastic babies in the King cake. So there's just like this little face, like peeking out of the cake at you. And it is actually, uh, I'm gonna show you some.

[00:24:50] Preston Meyer: Is this a celebration of King Herod?

[00:24:52] Katie Dooley: No. The king Jesus.

[00:24:55] Preston Meyer: Um, if you're eating babies. Because let's be real, if you're putting a baby in a cake, there is a risk of you eating this baby. It sounds more of a celebration of King Herod than Jesus. And we're going to have to share this photo that Katie's pulling.

[00:25:11] Katie Dooley: There's several terrifying photos, like this one with the back end of a baby just hanging out of your cake, or this one where the baby looks like he's suffocating.

[00:25:20] Preston Meyer: Let it be noted that in many countries, what we're talking about here is a crime.

[00:25:26] Katie Dooley: Here's this one that.

[00:25:28] Preston Meyer: You can't be putting toys in food. There's a reason that America missed out on Kinder Surprise for so long.

[00:25:34] Katie Dooley: I think it's still not allowed there.

[00:25:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Because you can't be putting food in or toys in food.

[00:25:42] Katie Dooley: Or food in toys for that matter. It's not a great idea.

[00:25:44] Preston Meyer: I mean, food and toys is a different rule.

[00:25:48] Katie Dooley: Look at this one. It's little butt hanging out.

[00:25:51] Preston Meyer: All right. Yeah. Discord, if you want to see these pictures. In fact, speaking of Discord.

[00:25:58] Katie Dooley: Ooh. Mid-episode. Advertisement I love it.

[00:26:03] Preston Meyer: We are doing a giveaway and Discord is the only place to find this one. And we're really happy to be working with Blackbird Farm and Apothecary for this additional contest. We're putting up a Peace be With You cutting board that Katie lovingly designed and I think is just fantastic. And our friends at Blackbird Farm and Apothecary actually put it on wood for us, and we're looking forward to sharing it with one lucky listener.

[00:26:35] Katie Dooley: One lucky Discord member.

[00:26:37] Preston Meyer: Yes, you must be on Discord to obtain this prize.

[00:26:41] Katie Dooley: Winner will be announced on January 7th.

[00:26:44] Preston Meyer: May the odds ever be in your favor.

[00:26:46] Katie Dooley: Oh, I love that. So yes, that's Twelfth Night. That's a great party. If you want another reason to celebrate. And it ties directly in with this string of days from the 25th all the way to the seventh.

[00:27:02] Preston Meyer: Absolutely. So epiphany is January 6th. Sometimes it's called Three Kings Day because, according to Matthew chapter two, a handful of kings or a king and his buddies. We don't know how many kings, but the traditional number is three because of the gifts. We've talked about this in our previous episode. This is supposed to be the day that traditionally they showed up to visit Mary and baby Jesus and baby Jesus' Stepdad.

[00:27:32] Katie Dooley: Oh poor Joseph.

[00:27:35] Preston Meyer: Joseph doesn't get nearly enough credit.

[00:27:37] Katie Dooley: For raising another man's baby!

[00:27:40] Preston Meyer: Right? The guy's a champ. Because of the gifts that these kings the Magi brought to Jesus. Sometimes epiphany is called Little Christmas because of this story, and sometimes people will commemorate it by giving additional gifts, and sometimes they're perfectly satisfied with the big Christmas they had only two weeks ago. What I thought was really nifty, and I hadn't heard this before until I actually did some looking into it. There are some people who add to this tradition the title of the Day of Lights because of the light that was the shining star that the Magi followed to find the baby Jesus in the first place, which kind of ties it all into that Festival of Lights theme that we had going at the end of last year.

[00:28:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah, just all of the religions have their Festival of Lights, right now, or at least in the last 4 to 6 weeks.

[00:28:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So it's kind of cool a little continuity for us. And as you know, I like words. Epiphany means manifestation or appearance. So the title for this feast day refers to Jesus first appearance to the Gentiles. Of course, in reality, these Gentile magi appeared to Jesus.

[00:29:03] Katie Dooley: Yes, Jesus wasn't going anywhere.

[00:29:05] Preston Meyer: No, he was not exactly walking about according to most traditions.

[00:29:11] Katie Dooley: Homunculus.

[00:29:12] Preston Meyer: Right? There's the homunculus tradition where Jesus was walking and talking immediately after he was born. I feel weird about that. But if that's what you believe, that's what you believe.

[00:29:23] Katie Dooley: Now is this one of those words like I can say, oh, I've had an epiphany. I've learned something about myself or life. Do we get the word epiphany from Christianity, or was it, you know, or they apply the word.

[00:29:39] Preston Meyer: The Greek word is used for anything appearing to you. A realization counts as a manifestation of thought. So it's completely independent from the Christian tradition, but not different from it.

[00:29:56] Katie Dooley: So if you... Okay you've had Christmas.  We've now had 12 bonus days of Christmas. What if I want to keep partying Preston?

[00:30:07] Preston Meyer: Wow. Then it's a great time to switch over to the Julian calendar and start all over. Because January 7th on the Gregorian calendar is December 25th on the Julian calendar. So you can have your Russian or Ukrainian, whatever your Orthodox Christmas, the day after Epiphany.

[00:30:27] Katie Dooley: And then do you say the 12 days of Christmas again?

[00:30:29] Preston Meyer: Absolutely! The Orthodox tradition has the 12 days of Christmas, just like the Catholic tradition. And epiphany falls on January 19th.

[00:30:38] Katie Dooley: Nice. So I was actually confused by this for a long time. I think I mentioned it earlier in the episode that I thought that they just celebrated Christmas on Epiphany, but it's different. It's an entirely different calendar, like we talked about both the Jewish and Muslim and Hindu solar, sorry, lunar calendars. There's the Julian calendar, which is what the Orthodox Church follows. So it's totally different. And then I just included this little anecdote because I think it's cute. But my mom was raised Ukrainian Orthodox. She was raised to Ukrainian immigrants. And so growing up they had Canadian Christmas on December 25th. And that would be like the presents and Santa and secular day. She grew up poor, so there weren't a lot of presents, but that was, you know, that day. And then they had Ukrainian Christmas, which is when the priests came and you went to church, and it was very solemn and theological. And so that's how they did it as Ukrainian immigrants. And I thought that was a cute story.

[00:31:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah it's nice. Yeah. It took quite a long time to get everybody to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. A lot of Europe, Western Europe made the change a couple hundred years ago. And then basically at the end of the First World War, the Soviet bloc said, oh yeah, we're going to make the switch.

[00:32:00] Katie Dooley: That not... Wow, yeah, that's recent.

[00:32:05] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's only 100 years ago.

[00:32:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:32:07] Preston Meyer: And so that's kind of interesting. If you look, I'm sure you noticed in junior high going through the Russian Revolution in history, there was two dates for pretty much everything. Yeah, that's because they were in the middle of that era where they needed to acknowledge both calendars.

[00:32:24] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:32:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:32:26] Katie Dooley: That's. Man. Yeah. So my Gito would have was born in the late 1800s. So in Ukraine. So he would have been born now I wonder if his birth dates even tight. Because he would have been born on born under the Julian calendar. Wow.

[00:32:43] Preston Meyer: And England would have been like, bro, you're two weeks off. And so what's weird to me...

[00:32:50] Katie Dooley: Bro, you're two weeks off!

[00:32:53] Preston Meyer: What's weird to me is that when everybody was finally on the same page using the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar, and by everybody I mean countries ruled by Christians, because that's the subject of discussion here. When that's change was really accepted by all of the Christian nations, a whole bunch out east, that the Orthodox groups never adjusted their liturgical calendar. It would have made a lot of sense to just skip two weeks of holidays. You know, pick a time in the year when you've got two weeks that you are fine dispensing with one time, and then their calendar could have lined up with the rest of us, and Christmas and Easter would have been at the same time, and everything would have been hunky dory. But they're like, no, we're not skipping any feast days for any saints at all. We're not changing our liturgical calendar. And so now they're off by two weeks from the rest of us.

[00:33:58] Katie Dooley: And then you get these confusing Ukrainian Christmases. Even though I'm only one generation removed, I had no idea.

[00:34:09] Preston Meyer: I feel like an awful lot of people don't know. An awful lot of people, even growing up, I went to a Ukrainian school, and a lot of people didn't realize why Christmas was two weeks off. It was just Ukrainian Christmas is a different Christmas two weeks later, that's the deal.

[00:34:26] Katie Dooley: Like, I literally thought they were like, no epiphanies, the important one, because that's when we realized Jesus was around. But it's not that at all and now you know that too.

[00:34:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so hopefully that helped anybody who wasn't familiar with the calendar change and the huge ramifications that that has had on the whole planet.

[00:34:47] Katie Dooley: I literally think we'll have to do an episode just on calendars, because we bring them up so often, maybe a bonus episode because it's not really religious, but it's important back information.

[00:34:59] Preston Meyer: Sure. Okay, let's do it.

[00:35:02] Katie Dooley: Now. I think we would be remiss to do an episode on the 12 Days of Christmas.

[00:35:08] Preston Meyer: And not address the song.

[00:35:09] Katie Dooley: And not address that song. I remember in elementary school we would be like in rows by grades. And I don't know if it's just like to burn off energy, but like every there were like grade ones would be an odd row and grade twos would be even grade threes would be odd. And you'd have to. Shut up. And so then you'd have to like, stand up and sit down on the odd numbers or on the evening numbers.

[00:35:36] Preston Meyer: Oh, that sounds like the worst parody of mass. Stand up. Kneel. Stand up. Sit.

[00:35:40] Katie Dooley: Well. I think it was just like to make us burn off steam, but, like, so by the time you hit 12, it was like chaos and just I can't imagine the teachers enjoyed it, but...

[00:35:54] Preston Meyer: I mean just to make everybody do it. Somebody must have thought it was a good enough idea. But you might be right that maybe they didn't enjoy it as much as felt a little bit of satisfaction.

[00:36:05] Katie Dooley: The song itself is basically a secular song.

[00:36:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:36:12] Katie Dooley: There was an internet theory bopping around that it was a hidden code to pass around the tenets of Christianity when they weren't allowed to. But the song's not actually old enough for this, and a historian, William Studwell, said "This was not originally a Catholic song. No matter what you hear on the internet. Neutral reference books say this is nonsense. If there was such a catechism device, a secret code, it was derived from the original secular song. It's a derivation," a derivation derivative I'm reading. "It's a derivative, not the source." So as fun as that little piece of information is, it wasn't originally intended that way, but you can actually find what people have written into the song symbolically. The partridge in a pear tree is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[00:37:13] Preston Meyer: Which sounds like a really. It feels a little gross to me.

[00:37:16] Katie Dooley: What about it?

[00:37:17] Preston Meyer: Well, of all of the great things that one can ascribe to Jesus at the Christmas season.

[00:37:25] Katie Dooley: The lion. The lamb, him.

[00:37:27] Preston Meyer: Hanging from a tree like a partridge in a pear tree is not the... 

[00:37:33] Katie Dooley: Wait is the partridge dead?

[00:37:36] Preston Meyer: I would hope not for the sake of the song.

[00:37:38] Katie Dooley: I thought it was just a bird sitting in a tree.

[00:37:40] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:37:41] Preston Meyer: But if you're saying that the bird in the tree is Jesus, the tree is the cross.

[00:37:45] Katie Dooley: Oh, okay. I see what you're saying.

[00:37:47] Preston Meyer: Definitely. For sure. I mean, I get how somebody would have fit that in there and felt like this is an okay thing to share with the world, I get that. But it's Christmas, not Easter, and that feels icky.

[00:38:01] Katie Dooley: Fair. The two turtle doves are the old and the New Testament. Again, this is all "supposedly".

[00:38:07] Preston Meyer: Right. Somebody did put some serious thought into making these parallels. And there's a functionality to it, a purpose for it.

[00:38:16] Katie Dooley: Just I'm going to just put "supposedly" in front of every sentence guys, because I'm not going to. Three French hens, and this one is interesting to me because you could have done a lot of things and they didn't pick what I thought they did. So it's the three virtues of faith, hope and charity. Not the three Magi, not the Trinity.

[00:38:37] Preston Meyer: Well, I could see more likely the Magi than the Trinity for the three French hens than France generally being counted as a Gentile nation. I actually would have been really cool. But the three theological virtues. They're all right.

[00:38:53] Katie Dooley: Okay. Four calling birds or the four Gospels of Math, Mark, Luke and John. Math. I just said! Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Whoa!

[00:39:06] Katie Dooley: Four calling birds. That makes sense. I'm on board with this one.

[00:39:10] Katie Dooley: Okay. The five golden rings are the first five books of the Old Testament.

[00:39:19] Preston Meyer: I can accept that I don't love it, but I get it.

[00:39:22] Katie Dooley: Okay. Six geese a-laying are the six days of creation before God rested on the seventh day.

[00:39:31] Preston Meyer: Now this one took me some thinking, but I get it. The eggs being associated with an act of creation, so I accept. Okay, I don't love it, but I'm on board.

[00:39:43] Katie Dooley: It felt like they really had to think about that one.

[00:39:45] Preston Meyer: Oh, I'm sure all this took a lot of deep thought. Somebody worked on this for a long time, I think,

[00:39:49] Katie Dooley: Oh, this one i'm gonna need you to elaborate on seven swans a-swimming is the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. What are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit? Sorry, off the top of your head.

[00:40:00] Preston Meyer: That depends a lot on your author. Um, we're probably talking about Paul here. Really, he's the one who lists gifts to the spirit in the New Testament as a thing that people refer to pretty often. And the swans, they're like really big doves. I don't know, because when you talk about the Holy Spirit, if you're going to think of a bird, it's usually the dove.

[00:40:25] Katie Dooley: Seven doves a-swimming.

[00:40:30] Preston Meyer: But I don't love that ones.

[00:40:31] Katie Dooley: Okay. Uh, eight maids a-milking are the eight Beatitudes. Beatitudes? I've heard of beatification, but beatitude sounds like.

[00:40:44] Preston Meyer: Blessed are the peacemakers, that kind of thing. I think this is relying entirely on the number and has nothing to do with the maids a-milking.

[00:40:53] Katie Dooley: Are the maids virtuous?

[00:40:55] Preston Meyer: Probably. I mean, at the time this was written, maid simply meant an unmarried woman.

[00:41:02] Katie Dooley: Nine ladies dancing are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.

[00:41:06] Preston Meyer: Relying entirely again on numbers. Not a whole lot of creativity here.

[00:41:10] Katie Dooley: Ten Lords a-leaping are the Ten Commandments.

[00:41:14] Preston Meyer: Same thing, numbers.

[00:41:17] Katie Dooley: 11 pipers piping. This one, I understand, is 11 faithful disciples.

[00:41:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that one's pretty easy to be on board with.

[00:41:23] Katie Dooley: Because we got rid of Judas.

[00:41:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:41:27] Katie Dooley: Judas, no. And 12 drummers drummer. The 12 points of belief in the Apostles Creed.

[00:41:35] Preston Meyer: It's not a stretch. Not a far stretch. It's a little bit of a stretch, but it's not a far stretch. It's all right.

[00:41:42] Katie Dooley: So some fun facts about this song is that remember it's cumulative. So at the end of the 12 days this the recipient has received 364 gifts. Because on the 12th day of Christmas she got 12 drummers, 11 lords, ten. It's cumulative. So by day two she has... Five. Four gifts because she's got two partridges in a pear tree and two turtle doves by the second day.

[00:42:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah. You're right.

[00:42:15] Katie Dooley: So she gets 364 gifts.

[00:42:19] Preston Meyer: Which is almost a whole year.

[00:42:21] Katie Dooley: I know. I feel like there's something very symbolic about all of this.

[00:42:25] Preston Meyer: I honestly, I think it's a coincidence. I would even venture to guess that the person who wrote this song just was looking for a song that builds up on itself and had no intention of the 12th day.

[00:42:38] Katie Dooley: That was one of the theories I read, is that it's really just a children's memory song.

[00:42:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I'm on.. That's the boat that I'm on.

[00:42:48] Katie Dooley: And then you can find reports. So people have like totaled what this would cost.

[00:42:54] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's several tiers here that are owning people.

[00:42:58] Katie Dooley: Yes. Several of these are illegal. Um, unless you're just like, paying the drummers for a show and you're paying 12 drummers for...

[00:43:08] Preston Meyer: And an hour's wages for the performance, a lot more affordable than owning a person.

[00:43:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah and you're actually, like, not allowed to own a person in most places.

[00:43:16] Preston Meyer: Well. Today in North America it is illegal.

[00:43:22] Katie Dooley: All right. So the cost and so because the pandemic, the cost of the 12 days of Christmas actually decreased significantly.

[00:43:31] Preston Meyer: Oh yeah. Is it because we're paying people less?

[00:43:36] Katie Dooley: Wow. I mean, there's a lot of variants, but the one that I'm just pulling up straight from Google. According to the 2020 Christmas Price Index by PNC Financial Services Group, the 12 days of Christmas will set you back $16,000. But according to PNC, the cost of Christmas decreased by nearly 60%. So in 2019, the same 364 gifts would have cost you $38,000.

[00:44:06] Preston Meyer: Wow. They didn't give details on which dropped that price the most.

[00:44:11] Katie Dooley: A oh, if you're so. Eight maids a milking, for example, is the federal minimum wage. So they're putting that at $58. So. Wow. Fascinating.

[00:44:24] Preston Meyer: That good, eh? 

[00:44:25] Katie Dooley: There's a whole there's a whole Wikipedia thing called the Christmas price index. And it goes back all the way to 1984 to tell you how much Christmas costs.

[00:44:35] Preston Meyer: And we're just talking about these 12.

[00:44:37] Katie Dooley: 12. 364 items.

[00:44:40] Preston Meyer: These 12 listed entries.

[00:44:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it dropped massively in 2020. And the only other time we saw a drop was in 2000. Oh no, that's not true. 1995. There was a big recession in the 90s, and then 2002, there was a big. Oh, so this is all from the Wikipedia article. The price of each item is set as follows. The pear tree comes from a nursery in Philadelphia. The partridge, turtledove, French hen. prices are determined by the Cincinnati Zoo. The price of a canary at Petco is used for the calling bird.

[00:45:16] Preston Meyer: Wait wait wait. So we went to a pet store for the canary. But we're asking a zoo how much they value the other birds because.

[00:45:24] Katie Dooley: They don't think you can get doves and partridges at a pet store.

[00:45:28] Preston Meyer: Well, then check a market in, I don't know, somewhere in the Middle East that probably does.

[00:45:33] Katie Dooley: All right. But you couldn't import that, right? And quarantining the animals because you're not killing them. Right. Yeah.

[00:45:42] Preston Meyer: Fair point, I guess zoo it is.

[00:45:47] Katie Dooley: Bah humbug. Right. Gordon Jewelers sets the price for the golden rings.

[00:45:53] Preston Meyer: Now, are we talking like finger rings or hoops?

[00:45:55] Katie Dooley: So these are finger rings, but they also see that the song might actually refer to ring-necked pheasants as opposed to actual jewelry.

[00:46:06] Preston Meyer: Well, so does this index.

[00:46:09] Katie Dooley: No. They do. They do gold jewelry.

[00:46:12] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:46:13] Katie Dooley: The maids are assumed to be unskilled laborers earning the federal minimum wage.

[00:46:19] Preston Meyer: I mean, rude, but fair.

[00:46:20] Katie Dooley: Oh. That's amazing. The Philadelphia Dance Company provides the estimate for the salary of ladies dancing.

[00:46:26] Preston Meyer: How about the lords, a-leaping?

[00:46:27] Katie Dooley: The Philadelphia Ballet estimates the salary for the leaping Lords. Okay. And so this is obviously done in Pennsylvania. The going rate for drummers and pipers is that of the, uh, excuse me, the Pennsylvania Musicians Union.

[00:46:41] Preston Meyer: I.. .As reliable as any other. Are the drummer is the same?

[00:46:47] Katie Dooley: Yes. So drum drummers and pipers are from the Pennsylvania music unions. So my guess is that it was the performers that tanked it in 2020 when they couldn't perform.

[00:46:58] Preston Meyer: I think you're probably right. 

[00:46:58] Katie Dooley: That would be my guess. 

[00:46:59] Preston Meyer: That makes sense.

[00:47:00] Katie Dooley: Let's see if there's anything.

[00:47:02] Preston Meyer: So they couldn't perform as a group so they could be, um, bought for private events pretty affordably.

[00:47:10] Katie Dooley: So there are some controversies. For example. So the Lords a leaping are ballet dancers. And there's a criticism that they're not real lords. Right. They're male ballet dancers, but there are no lords in the United States. And I imagine that the Lords in England are not fond of leaping.

[00:47:32] Preston Meyer: So I'm I'm comfortable with that.

[00:47:35] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Okay. No, here it is. The 2020 index did not include the nine ladies dancing, ten lords a leaping, 11 pipers piping, 12 drummers drumming. Due to Covid-19 restrictions on live performances. 

[00:47:45] Preston Meyer: It fits straight up. Just didn't include them instead of discounting them. That really accounts for a 60% drop.

[00:47:51] Katie Dooley: Wow. I mean, because they're a huge portion of the song, both, there's a lot of them and they're very significant gifts.

[00:48:00] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:48:02] Katie Dooley: Wow, I really enjoyed that rabbit hole. That warmed my little Christmas heart.

[00:48:09] Preston Meyer: And now, you know.

[00:48:11] Katie Dooley: So next year, check the price of Christmas and bring it to your family on 12th Night for some ridiculous fun.

[00:48:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Not on Christmas. You're early.

[00:48:24] Katie Dooley: Or not anything... Pre-December 25th. That's the only thing you take away from this episode. Now I'm getting on my little soapbox. If the only thing you take away from this episode. Is that the 12 days of Christmas are after Christmas. I'll be happy. I'm way too aggressive about.

[00:48:42] Preston Meyer: It. And this episode was specially requested.

[00:48:45] Katie Dooley: It was. I was like, was it? It was. I brought this up with my mom. We were talking about epiphany and how people get the 12 days of Christmas wrong. And she said you should do an episode on that. And so here we are, mom. And I don't even think I swore.

[00:49:02] Preston Meyer: Honestly, it's not that that's not the kind of thing that jumps out at me. So I think you're.

[00:49:06] Katie Dooley: I know, but that's why we have explicit episodes, because I swear so much.

[00:49:10] Preston Meyer: You don't swear so much. You swear sometimes.

[00:49:12] Katie Dooley: But I do say big ones.

[00:49:14] Preston Meyer: I guess you say the words that are more likely to offend people with sensitive thoughts on language.

[00:49:23] Katie Dooley: I like words, but not the same words as Preston. So please follow us on Discord. Get entered for this great contest by Blackbird Farm and Apothecary. Check out our Patreon and help support us this year. We have big plans and want to expand, and we can only do it with your help. And if the subscription model is not your jam, we have our Spreadshirt is our merch store filled with lots of great, beautifully designed merchandise.

[00:49:57] Preston Meyer: If you saw that cutting board picture and you loved the logo, but you didn't win the contest because we'll announce that soon, you can get it on a t-shirt, a bag, a mug, and we've got loads of other designs too that we're happy to share with you.

[00:50:11] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

[00:50:37] Katie Dooley: We have a fabulous, another fabulous contest sponsored by Blackbird Farm and Apothecary.

[00:50:44] Preston Meyer: They've been very generous with helping us out a little bit, and we want to return the favor. We're running another contest.

[00:50:54] Katie Dooley: This time we are giving away a Peace be with you Cutting Board. And it's going to be a little different. Last time, we got you to like and share on social media, but we're pushing our Discord this time.

[00:51:08] Preston Meyer: So we want you to get on board Discord and you'll see the rules for the giveaway there.

[00:51:14] Katie Dooley: All you have to do is take a picture, show us that you're following Blackbird Apothecary and Farm on either Facebook or Instagram and post it in our discord to enter.

[00:51:23] Preston Meyer: And what's the prize?

[00:51:25] Katie Dooley: I already said a peace be with you cutting board.

[00:51:27] Preston Meyer: Gotta emphasize that.

[00:51:28] Katie Dooley: A Peace be with you Cutting board! Cut your meat on our fingers. Was that a good ad?

[00:51:37] Preston Meyer: I love it

[00:51:38] Katie Dooley: Thank you so much. Winner will be announced on Discord on January 7th.

The birth of Jesus. The Nativity. Christmas.

In this episode, we cover the story of Jesus' birth and sift through what is plausible and what must be fiction.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

Be sure to check out Blackbird Farm and Apothecary on Facebook and Instagram.

**

Katie Dooley  00:09

atheist Bailey's nervy that I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.

Preston Meyer  00:17

Merry Christmas everyone.

Katie Dooley  00:21

Yeah, no more. And where are they? Now? We're happy holidays. We're wishing you Merry Christmas on this episode of The Holy watermelon podcast. But generally speaking, happy holidays is a superior term.

Preston Meyer  00:39

Yes. But today we're going to talk specifically about the Nativity. So Merry Christmas. How are we getting this out just in time so that if you've pre listened to it, you can share some of this episode with your family on Christmas Day as part of your Christmas observation, if that's the thing that your family does,

Katie Dooley  00:59

or just wow them with your knowledge, right.

Preston Meyer  01:04

Maybe play it in the background while you're eating.

Katie Dooley  01:08

We'll do that. Christmas carols this year. Calming sound of my voice. My entire family stand outside

Preston Meyer  01:16

of changers doors with a booth.

Katie Dooley  01:21

Everyone should everyone do that? More

Preston Meyer  01:23

fun than Christmas Carol.

Katie Dooley  01:29

So let's start with words I guess so. So the word nativity, as defined by Merriam Webster, which we know precedent doesn't like bear in mind. It's

Preston Meyer  01:41

the inferior English dictionary. Yeah, it's

Katie Dooley  01:45

the duty as the process or circumstances the circumstance of being born, a horoscope at or of the time of one's birth, or the place of your origin, specifically refers to the birth of Jesus. I have never heard it used in any other context. But

Preston Meyer  02:02

I've heard a couple of times, and I guess a more literary context, when people are trying to sound a little more French fancy, they'll say the land of my nativity. But most people don't. Really,

Katie Dooley  02:16

nobody says

Preston Meyer  02:20

Saskatchewan is the land of my nativity. Business. But so sorry. That's the way it goes. Like Mewtwo says, it doesn't matter the circumstances of your birth.

Katie Dooley  02:36

The earliest so we'll take that word, and we'll talk about the earliest celebration of Christmas is recorded as 336. See, yeah,

Preston Meyer  02:45

the the Catholic Well, the, the universal ish Christian church at the time, didn't really have it as a congregational celebration until then. But they did decide to drop it, basically where it is today, a week before the first of January. I don't know how they made that decision. But that's what they did. And we'll

Katie Dooley  03:06

get into a little later how Jesus was definitely not born on December 25. But they just kind of, it's not arbitrary. They didn't arbitrarily pick today, but they absolutely picked the day that Christmas would be celebrated. So

Preston Meyer  03:21

we'll get into that. Well, I mean, they could have picked any time in that week. And for that goal, how they picked the 25th the nose,

Katie Dooley  03:31

and they like the sound of the five,

Preston Meyer  03:33

maybe, maybe that's half the trick right there. So 336 C, is when we have the first recorded congregational celebration of Christmas, they didn't actually celebrate it in the Christian church in Rome, until about the end of the third century. So just shortly before that time, but it wasn't until about 40 years after that in 379, when they had the First Congregational Christmas feast in Constantinople. So this kind of spread kind of slowly, considering it was a fairly organized church at this time. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  04:16

And even we'll get into some other dates that are quite recent for a religion as old as Christianity for things that are celebrated. But let's quickly chat about there are some Christian groups that don't celebrate Christmas. What?

Preston Meyer  04:32

Yeah, we talked about this a little bit last year that groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians and a few other I guess call them fringe groups because they don't fit into the big categories of Catholic orthodox Protestant

Katie Dooley  04:48

on Sundays keep studying considered themselves Christian, which I disagree with, but and they're self identifying. So

Preston Meyer  04:55

a lot of them are told by other Christians. You're not Christian. Which, of course, is a frustrating bit of the way people deal with each other. But yeah, there's a good handful that don't celebrate Christmas. And I think it's worth noting that a good handful of the early Catholic Church Fathers like origin, condemned the practice of celebrating birthdays, and also did not celebrate Christmas, a birthday kind of deal,

Katie Dooley  05:25

or Jesus. Birthday celebrated?

Preston Meyer  05:29

Oh, yeah, it's, it's kind of weird. Remember, we talked about this last year that birthday celebrations was very much pagan thing, pagan being a pejorative for anybody who's not Christian or Jewish. And so it was just a thing that the faithful worshipers of the God of Abraham just didn't do birthdays, because it was celebration of other gods and that just wasn't cool. So that's where we're at.

Katie Dooley  06:04

Getting into the story a little bit more the the Nativity is described in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, which I'll let you handle most of that resident theologian, but I found it really interesting that all records of Jesus's birth place in Bethlehem, including Islam. So a big misconception, I think we've talked about this a little bit is that Muslims somehow don't believe in Jesus or whatever they do. They love Jesus as a prophet, and they do have like his origin story in, in their writings as well. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  06:39

Interestingly enough, the Koran is also interested in the figure of Mary as well. So it's not just Jesus. That's where

Katie Dooley  06:46

the excuse me, that's where the very common you see a lot. South Asians Muslims with daughters named Miriam. Yeah, exactly.

Preston Meyer  06:56

It's interesting, though, even though we don't have any records saying anything other than Jesus was born in Bethlehem. There's a good handful of scholars now who are starting to think that maybe Jesus was born in Nazareth. Interesting. I, I still can't get on board with it. But there's a couple of scholars who argue it. So if you're interested in reading up on that, go for it.

Katie Dooley  07:21

Now, they also never really tell us his birth date. Nope. Most people believe that the date of the 25th is them. Christianizing a pagan holiday? I think it would be what you will. Yeah. That would that falls around there, or there's obviously Solstice, as well, right around this time. There's also I have notes on this later. I don't know where they are. But it's also aligns with the Zoroastrian holiday as well.

Preston Meyer  07:51

Yeah. If you're one of those people who thinks that Christian Christmas is deliberately a strike against Hanukkah? No, that's not true at all. It's basically just a coincidence, it's definitely a lot more of a strike against the pagans. So December 25, is the solstice on the old Roman calendar. So celebrating the birth of the light of the world does fit pretty nicely into this time when the days start getting longer again.

Katie Dooley  08:21

And there's also a lot of other festivals with light,

Preston Meyer  08:25

so many, I'm sure you've noticed, if you've been listening,

Katie Dooley  08:30

it goes back to that metaphor of the darkest time of the year, and then the light arrives. Exactly. So which is a really nice metaphor, obviously, because every religion has borrowed. But now, the actual date, I remember this was years ago, I was listening to some documentary, and they were sort of saying that they, whatever the scholars that we're talking, we're quite positive that Jesus's birthday was in April, not in December. And you've brought up some really good points on passages in the Bible that kind of pointed to a more temperate time of year. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  09:09

the shepherds being out in the fields with their flocks, rather than keeping them sheltered in the cold rainy winter. I mean, it's it's not like a Canadian winter, but it's still cold and rainy and, and gross. I guess there's parts of Canada that are like that, not where we are, where we are, where we are, it's white and awful. But that does lead more into a a temperate time of year. And the idea that it was a census that all the world must be taxed, as Luke describes in chapter two, doesn't hold up against good historical scholarship scrutiny. There's so far we haven't found any records of huge census through the Empire at this time. And it doesn't mean there wasn't one. But because of the decent records that we have the time it means it's very likely there was not a census at this time,

Katie Dooley  10:10

as you say, censuses are literally meant for record keeping. And I recognize that it's 2000 years old, but we do have records older than that. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  10:19

it's probably not the case that there was a census, like Luke suggests, well, and

Katie Dooley  10:24

even people debate the year, we sort of put it at zero, not that 01. And then one ad, but or see scholars actually placed the year even earlier than one year, whichever one you want to pick,

Preston Meyer  10:39

a lot of scholars will put Jesus birthday, somewhere between six and four BCE, some of them will go even earlier. Oh, wow. They're not the majority, as far as I've been able to observe. And very often anywhere between April 1 And September 30. It's kind of a big window, good old six months. The problem with having this early birthday for Jesus is that every single scholar, who is said it has to be several years BCE, is making a kind of embarrassing error, assuming that Herod the Great is still alive for the event. And it makes sense that that's coming into their calculations, because Matthew says, of course, Herod was still alive until a little while after Jesus was born. But we're very certain that Herod was dead by to see. So tricky problems. Unfortunately, Matthew's account isn't terribly reliable. Matthew Chapter Two follows kind of trope, I guess, of Jewish literature, where a great religious figure is persecuted at his birth by a notoriously evil ruler, we have this kind of thing going on with Moses and the Pharaoh in Egypt. And this trope gets repeated again with Abraham, the king they've picked for this story is good old King Nimrod. And this is actually used a fair bit through good old, Judaic religious literature. It's kind of interesting, but it makes and the more we find it, the more it makes it look like Matthew, chapter two is just fiction.

12:23

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  12:27

There's a few parts of both of these Gospels where where we go, you just made this up. The census being a big one. So I wanted to dive into that a little

Preston Meyer  12:38

bit. So Luke is quite separated from the story he's trying to tell. But he did gather information from a lot of sources. And he starts his story by saying, Hey, have compiled all these stories from all these different people to give you his his one intended reader, who would then spread it out? One story about Jesus from beginning to end kind of deal. Problem is, it looks like he didn't vet his sources very well.

Katie Dooley  13:09

So the problem with the census is that it's asking Mary and Joseph to go back to their ancestral home, which is basically unheard of. Right. So to put it in perspective, my family is historically from Ireland. That would be me having to go back to Ireland where I have never lived to participate in a census. In a census that doesn't count women. So poor Mary was just thrown on a donkey because Joseph was a dick. What's rule number one of religion?

Preston Meyer  13:48

Don't be a dick. Yeah, we've got some issues here. So yeah, they're very likely was no census at the time. And if there was, this still doesn't explain why Joseph brought Mary to Bethlehem. It's a lot more likely that there was a religious festival, where they would be expected to attend the temple, which is honestly just a couple hours walk from where Jesus was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem. So that makes perfect sense.

Katie Dooley  14:21

Would this potentially be in linked with a festival or maybe just location of the temple, like a pre birth ritual? Because they have those in Judaism? Right, you're expected to there's a woman there's more

Preston Meyer  14:36

ritual specifically prescribed for after the birth. And usually, it's usually it is go to the temple and be circumcised receive your name. And that is part of the story that's after the birth. And so that could have been the reason why they traveled to Bethlehem. To be at the temple for that. I don't actually know of any sources saying that that had to happen at the temple though. So I could just be missing a thing there.

Katie Dooley  15:12

Yeah, I just I mean, I'm thinking of like Mormons traveled to go to the temple if you're not near a temple, yeah.

Preston Meyer  15:18

But that's more of an adult. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  15:22

You're nine months pregnant better get over here, right waddle your way here on a donkey.

Preston Meyer  15:26

Right? Actually, speaking of Mormonism, there is a passage in the Book of Mormon, that actually says that Jesus was born very, very, very shortly after the beginning of the year, which means that since the year and in this calendar is starting at the Spring Equinox, that places this specific time at the Passover, which gives us a festival and a reason to be at Jerusalem at this time, interesting. So that does help back up the idea that a lot of scholars have that springtime is the time

Katie Dooley  16:11

the basically the only people that argue that Luke must be right, regarding the central the census, excuse me, are fundamentalists who believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God.

Preston Meyer  16:22

Yeah. So which I mean, if you've read the book, you know that God didn't write it.

Katie Dooley  16:28

I hope you'd write. I was just gonna say something me. I would hope God would right away more exciting. But this is me just coming off all the temple measurements. But

Preston Meyer  16:39

I mean, yes, there are very dry but but it's got bore, it's got murder, it's got sags, it's got involuntary sex. Book,

16:53

it's a different name for that.

Preston Meyer  16:56

Hoping to keep it a little more PG back? Yes, the Bible has re been it's a problem over there already.

Katie Dooley  17:09

So speaking of sex, you know, who didn't have any sex marry?

Preston Meyer  17:14

That's a weird, weird bit of the story.

Katie Dooley  17:17

I thought you're gonna see that was a weird segue.

Preston Meyer  17:19

That's a perfectly reasonable, well done. There's this huge tradition built up that Mary could never ever, ever have sex no matter what, even after Jesus was born. And there's just no good theological reason for that. And Mary,

Katie Dooley  17:36

come on, right? She carried this on, oh, God, you can let her have some fun. afterwards.

Preston Meyer  17:43

Jesus has brothers and sisters. The Bible is very clear on that detail. Some versions, some translations of the text, kind of fudge that away and clean up so that it doesn't look like that's the case. That is a serious problem. And then there's a bunch of theologians, they're like, no, no, they're the kids from Joseph's other marriage, which we've never been given any reason to believe that he actually had any other wives.

Katie Dooley  18:13

I'm quoting this from Wikipedia on the virgin birth, honestly, because they think it's just great wording. Jesus was conceived by his mother Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit without sexual intercourse.

Preston Meyer  18:26

And that's basically what we get from both Luke and Matthew, that she was undefiled until after the birth of Jesus, because you know, she kept the law, you're not supposed to have sex before you're married. But that also is cited when we talk about Jesus being both divine and human, which is an important pair of aspects of his identity. Yes. And

Katie Dooley  18:55

back to the point about Islam earlier, the virgin birth is also mentioned in the Quran.

Preston Meyer  19:01

Christianity had a pretty solid influence on the genesis of Islam. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  19:10

Now, there's also and when I was, you know, first learning about religion in general, I thought these were the same things. So there's the virgin birth, and there's the Immaculate Conception. And they're two different things.

Preston Meyer  19:22

They sure are. The Immaculate Conception is, I mean, it looks like a virgin birth, except for the fact that we know Mary's mother wasn't a virgin because he might conception is about the birth of Mary, her conception and birth.

Katie Dooley  19:40

Yes, so Mary also doesn't have a father biologically speaking. I

Preston Meyer  19:45

mean, she by Eliza posts, too, but yeah, the story gets real weird. So in an effort to make Mary more holy and further separate Jesus from this new idea of original Sin, a story was devised that Mary was born to a woman named Anna, or Hannah, if you're keen on Old Testament characters, and her old sterile husband, joking. And he was supposed to be a way for just long enough to let us know for sure that Hannah hadn't been having sex before Mary was born. And it's all kind of weird. And it's it's testified of in a couple of the proto gospels. There's the gospel of Mary and the proto gospel of James. And that's it. It's a lot of work to come up with this idea that we have to separate Jesus. Further from this idea that doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense to begin with.

Katie Dooley  20:48

I just truly believe that these women are running the two greatest scams of all time.

Preston Meyer  20:57

See, that will be easy to jump on board with if the story of Hannah was at all reliable. I'm pretty sure every bit of information that we have about Mary's family is fiction, written centuries after she died. Even naming her Anna as we have it in the common tradition today. It is stealing the character of Hannah from the Old Testament, who was barren, couldn't have a baby went to the temple, prayed real hard. And then got her baby and gave her to the temple. That's exactly the story. plagiarized almost word for word. It feels like oh, wow, for Mary.

Katie Dooley  21:41

Now, before we jump on to our next section, the word immaculate. I just like One fun fact. I remember learning and no never and your words guy so immaculate. So we talked about oh, like your home is immaculate, meaning like it's really clean and put together. Immaculate actually means untouched by a man. Right? So if you're which just makes me giggle. Your home is immaculate. Where did your husband go? My house is immaculate when my husband's gone. in all senses of the word. Yeah, it's very clean when he's not around. So yeah, that's we've kind of bastardized the term immaculate to mean, you know, pristine or perfect, but no, it means untouched by a man. So that take you remember the Immaculate Conception and see

Preston Meyer  22:39

this little problem now? Where in my head, it's not just he didn't touch it with his hand. Oh, wow. And one can hope that this is the state of at least most of your home. Oh, well.

Katie Dooley  22:59

Cut the tape right. Now.

Preston Meyer  23:04

Another interesting bit that shows up in Matthew chapter two. And remember, I'm very convinced that this whole story of Matthew chapter two is fiction is the Magi. The three wise men or kings in the English tradition for no good reason at all. And there's a very good chance that they were Zoroastrian priests based on the words that we have. If these were real people that were really present for the story.

Katie Dooley  23:36

Well, and just to jump ahead a bit, they actually never give a number in the Bible. So we have decided it was three, partially because of the three gifts. Yeah, and we know three is important number in Christianity, but they never actually say that three, so you're right. Or assume it's three. smart guys,

Preston Meyer  23:57

right? The story is, the story goes that we got three ish fellows that were from the east. So it would make sense that there were Zoroastrians from Persia, that that does. If

Katie Dooley  24:14

we're sticking with the term. Yeah, we're sticking with the term Magi and I also this brings so much more meaning to the song We Three Kings orient higher, right?

Preston Meyer  24:25

But not even the far oriented just orient from where they are, which of course only means east. Zoroastrianism is pretty deep into astrology. And so it gets linked to the occult and magic, and here are magicians. It fits in the Greek text is pretty explicit. It does call them mages, and so not translating that as sorceress feels weird. Wiseman is definitely downplaying the magic bit. Yeah, mere

Katie Dooley  24:59

delivery At least shifting away from wizards. Yeah. Oh, and here's that point I made earlier, there is a major Zoroastrian holiday Yalda on December 21. So I was just really fascinated how these kind of all link together. Hmm.

Preston Meyer  25:17

Yeah, it's a curious thing. And so these Magi are regulars and most representations of the Nativity, if you don't have somebody bringing gifts you have said is woefully incomplete or historically accurate. I like it. Yeah, so these three wise men are said to have brought gold frankincense and myrrh, man. Do you know?

Katie Dooley  25:52

Did you know Preston that the first visual depiction of a Nativity scene was from 1223 by St. Francis of Assisi. That was the first time we visualized this donkey and the three guys and a little baby in a manger. So

Preston Meyer  26:09

that's less than 800 years ago. Yeah, that's pretty new relative to the Christian tradition. Yeah, it's kind of nifty. All right, going back to these three gifts, the gold, frankincense and myrrh. So these gifts are symbolic, as is the entirety of Matthew chapter two. And gold is treasure for the king. Frankincense is burned in priestly ritual prayers. And Myrrh is a decent painkiller representing the great healer that is Jesus. Of course, all of these gifts are useful in real life. Anybody who's dropping babies in a barn clearly needs more gold.

Katie Dooley  26:48

Dropping babies. I like that term.

Preston Meyer  26:52

Anything that covers that barn birth smell combo is definitely appreciated for the frankincense. Yeah, yeah. And painkillers. great gift for any woman who's just given birth. So this these birthday gifts do make some good sense.

Katie Dooley  27:12

Also very expensive, even though right? Yeah, all of these things are not cheap. We

Preston Meyer  27:17

have much cheaper painkillers now that actually do the job better. So yeah, no, it's good. Yeah. Exactly. So it's, it's interesting, the Gospel of Matthew is the only one that mentions them out of not just the four biblical gospels. But out of the larger collection of gospels. There's a couple other references to these that are obviously taking from Matthew's story. And that's all we get. And we don't even have the volumes of these three gifts. It's just, there's some tiny gold piece. Yeah. And it's for the narrative value of these symbols. Of course, from a story that isn't historically reliable, definitely meant to be more symbolic. All right.

Katie Dooley  28:13

Tell us a story, Preston.

Preston Meyer  28:15

All right. Let's get into the reworking of Luke chapter two, that I can explain some more of the bits if they inspire questions after the story. I was gonna say,

Katie Dooley  28:30

Yeah, I'll do it in full so people can play it at Christmas. Yes.

Preston Meyer  28:33

Alright. So this is drawn from Luke chapter two. Miriam is a young Jewish girl living in the northern province. You know, it is Galilee, which is just a generic designation as lame as the Northwest Territories. Miriam has been engaged to marry this fella Joseph, and he's a decent guy, not terribly old, no other wives. And he's honest to the point that it gets him in trouble. Sometimes. Things are tough when an engagement lasts a whole year, particularly when sex is forbidden until after the official marriage ceremony. Miriam and Joseph are separately visited by heavenly messengers who tell them that Miriam's going to have a baby boy, Joseph has warned that he is not allowed to call them Joseph Jr. And the worst news is the baby isn't even his. That kind of news could get marry him killed in some communities and could certainly invalidate their marriage if he took her to court over it. The messenger tells Joseph that it's okay because the child is the Son of God, and that Joseph needs to stay with Miriam. Miriam decides to stay with her cousin Elizabeth, and avoid her local congregation for a while to keep things on the down low. Several months pass and the Passover is a big deal. And since King Josiah eliminated all the satellite altars in the nation a few centuries ago, Joseph and Miriam need to travel south to Jerusalem for their occasional pilgrimage. You Even though Miriam is ready to pop, Joseph has a bunch of cousins in Bethlehem. So they figured they'd have a place to eat and sleep but the family estate, just a few hours walk from the temple. Unfortunately, the cousins are not impressed that Mary was pregnant before the wedding. And telling that it isn't Joseph's baby isn't the kind of thing that's going to make things better from area. But they get lucky. They're not left out in the rain, there's animal shelter nearby. And all the shepherds have taken their flocks out into the countryside for that sweet spring grazing. While Miriam and Joseph are dealing with the labor that may have been accelerated by an 80 mile donkey ride, those shepherds are visited by a Heavenly Messenger who tells them that they need to get to Bethlehem and worship the newborn king. When they get there a little bit, a little baby boy named Joshua is commonly resting in his mother's arms, and the little fella grows up to change the world. That's the Christmas story. Thanks. Yeah, it's the idea that it was a trip for tax purposes, like we've addressed before, is just crazy, Miriam would have stayed home. For sure, especially when the trip would have been terrible when you're pregnant. And there's no way that they didn't already consider the possibility that they wouldn't get to stay at the family estate anyway. And as the word in is almost universally applied to this story, that there's no room in the in most, most versions of the story say and, and it's weird that the word would better be translated as a state of family estate, the place that the family had been living in probably for generations. It's not referring to a public house, but a private family dwelling. The Bible does tell us that shepherds are out in the fields with their flocks, like I said before, less common in cold rainy weather. And whether there were any sources video visiting from the use is unfortunately, impossible to know, did he do? Since that part of the story used to illustrate the special nature of the Christ child isn't super historically reliable, but it is important for our next episode. Because we've got a fan request. Yes,

Katie Dooley  32:33

we're gonna be talking about the 12 days of Christmas, which has already enraged me a few times this December.

Preston Meyer  32:43

I mean, it's, it's too late now to stop the people from using it incorrectly as they have. But

Katie Dooley  32:49

next year, next year, there's gonna be a mass correction, because everyone listen to our podcast. You're gonna share it with your friends. We're gonna have to.

Preston Meyer  33:03

Yeah, so Matthew also goes on to say that after King Herod found out about the baby, he had this mass slaughter planned for the area. And so Jesus and his family had to take off to Egypt. So far, this whole story is seen as very unlikely. The detail of the persecuted child trope, Matthew leaned into that pretty heavily. The author suggested that this fleeing to Egypt, and then back again, would be a fulfillment of prophecy. And it's completely unnecessary. That's a weird interpretation of Scripture, because the prophecy that he's referring to isn't a prophecy at all, but a reference to Israel coming out of Egypt 1000s of years before with the Exodus, this kind of weird. Christianity has a couple of traditions that just don't actually make sense. Coming from a Christian,

Katie Dooley  34:10

that's why we keep you around so I don't get in trouble.

Preston Meyer  34:15

And this whole story about Herod having all the young boys killed, is also really not very likely. Such a massacre was never mentioned by the contemporary historian, Flavius Josephus. A lot of people call him Josephus and I will hate that until the day I die.

Katie Dooley  34:36

Wow. Yes, very passionate.

Preston Meyer  34:39

Josephus is not that pronunciation doesn't happen in Latin. Josephus, Josephus. Joseph, or Yosef is even more likely Okay. Josephus is just kind of an anglicized deal. His name was Yosef, Ben Matthew. Good historian guy, very popular at the time, even though some of his texts have been fiddled around with by the Christians who kept publishing them. That's just the way it goes. But good old Josephus pulled no punches when talking about what an evil douche nozzle, Herod was being a half Jewish king that ended the line of the Maccabean dynasty that we talked about a couple of weeks ago with a Hanukkah story. So if even he didn't mention, a perfectly good reason to hate this dude, when he was willing to tell so many other stories of why you should hate this dude means that story might not have been real. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  35:41

I mean, do you think someone would record something so horrible,

Preston Meyer  35:45

right? It's not clear whether the story had the Magi led by the star to Nazareth or to Bethlehem, Bethlehem being a small suburb of Jerusalem. Nazareth being a very small town that was probably going by a different name up in the north province. And so it's possible that they could have killed 30 kids, and that never hit the news. But it just doesn't seem likely. But if you're really committed to the idea that the biblical story has to be history perfect, then this is what you bought into. We don't have any records outside the biblical texts that testify of the town Nazareth, before the third century. See. So we do know that archaeologically, this, the place that we now call Nazareth has basically always had a city there or a town at least. But some lean tos. Yeah, we've got archaeological evidence of solid structures, people lived in a little bit better than lean to

Katie Dooley  36:59

going away for her by like, before the third century, would there have been anything there?

Preston Meyer  37:05

Oh, yeah. There was stuff there. Just there's no record of it going by that name. I sewers. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting. The Christians, when they started spreading out, they were distinguished from other Jews, not by the name, Christian, but by the name, Nazarene. And in fact, as far as I know, that's how Christians are referred to in Arabic is not Christian. But that's interesting. Yeah. So there's a strong tradition tied to this place that probably never even actually had that name designated to that town. During that time, the time when that name was used. Yeah. It's kind of interesting stuff.

Katie Dooley  37:56

So, I mean, you've kind of mentioned that you think Matthew is mostly fiction. So

Preston Meyer  38:02

Matthew, chapter two, Matthew, chapter two. The early theories of Jesus are a lot less reliable than his adulthood stories.

Katie Dooley  38:11

So like, my question is, and obviously, this little bit matters on your belief and how much is true? How much of this did they go back and write because he became important later in life? You know what I mean? I mean, like, nobody cares about your childhood didn't tell you've done something. All

Preston Meyer  38:30

of the gospels were written a while after that. So it's, that's just the way it goes. History didn't make him important until he was important. And then they're like, Oh, now we need to ask people about what happened. Tell me more about Jesus. And then we get some stories that are less reliable.

Katie Dooley  38:54

little sketchy.

Preston Meyer  38:58

Yeah, it's, it's frustrating. And, uh, definitely give us some pretty solid ground for atheists like yourself to stand on.

Katie Dooley  39:08

I mean, the one the one point I really like, can't suspend my disbelief on is the virgin birth. I just really think Mary is the best liar of all time. got away with it. Well done, girl.

Preston Meyer  39:21

It's interesting that there are scholars who have even decided that there's a name for the secret father of Jesus. Oh, I like that. And his name, according to the scholars is Penn Terra, which is a wicked sounding name. Yeah,

39:38

it's not a bad. Yeah, that's amazing. So

Preston Meyer  39:42

it's loads of scholars for ages, instead of saying there was no Jesus, or instead of saying, oh, yeah, they just made up this story about his birth or like, no, she definitely had sex with somebody else and lied about it. Which I mean, you've gotten offer a lot of options when you want to say the biblical text isn't true. Naming the guy Panthera is bold.

Katie Dooley  40:07

I mean, like, I get it, it's like, I get out because there's a lot of whatever mystical or fantastical things in the bylaws, the Bible, it's what makes it spiritual and divine. And I'm like, but it's never happened before nor haven't said. And again, I recognize that's like, the whole point. But like, you just biologically, you can't do that. There must be some dude, or even it was Joseph. And they're just like, all keeping the

Preston Meyer  40:36

virgin birth is an option today

Katie Dooley  40:41

by injecting a sperm,

Preston Meyer  40:43

right, yeah, it's medically possible. Yeah. And we still need sperm. Right? So adding a little Miracle Touch. I mean, that's starting to look even less special of him here.

Katie Dooley  41:01

I think she just she just got frisky. And she was like, we have to lie about it. And he was like, Okay, well. I don't want to get stoned to death.

Preston Meyer  41:14

Yeah, there were some parts of the Jewish community where that would be a risk. But it's hard to say, after the fact separated by 2000 years, whether or not their

Katie Dooley  41:23

community easily 60 years when people are going back, write the story. It's 60 years is a long time. I don't think it was a full 60 years. And it was the first gospel right?

Preston Meyer  41:33

The first gospel was written probably less than 10 years after Jesus died. But the Gospel of John is said to Britain been written about 60 years after he died. Yeah. So we've got time for people to figure out these stories. Screw up some stories, like

Katie Dooley  41:52

you said, 60 years is, especially then when people didn't live as long. Right? Like, I'm just 30. Right? So for me to write about someone that died 60 years or six years ago. Yeah, that's three years before I was born.

Preston Meyer  42:08

Yes, that is the case. However, I'm

Katie Dooley  42:10

just doing complicated math on this podcast, guys.

Preston Meyer  42:14

So John, the Revelator, or John the Apostle, or John the Evangelist, whoever wrote the Gospel, according to John would have been a very, very old man. He was pretty surely younger than Jesus by a few years. Hard to say how much he may have been older. That seems unlikely. But that would have put him still close to 90 when

Katie Dooley  42:37

he wrote it is almost unheard of 2000 years ago. Yeah, it was weird for people to live in weird now. Like our life expectancy now is 82. I think in Canada. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  42:49

contrary to popular belief, the average life expectancy of the human race has never actually been 30. We had a lot of infant mortality, historically speaking, until brings down the average that brings down your average average.

Katie Dooley  43:09

Actually, just thinking about that, when before you even said it. I was like, Yeah, but there's so many people who die. Yeah. That even if the most people in Canada live till 90, there's enough people who died, bring it down, whatever that young is, whether it's a kid or a 30 year old or 40 year old.

Preston Meyer  43:25

Yeah. So it's always been normal to at least make it into your 60s if you made it to puberty. Unless you of course, you were actively engaged in Mortal Kombat. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  43:39

Cool. Um, what are your final thoughts on this Christmas story?

Preston Meyer  43:48

Well, Luke did try really hard to compile good information from a wide variety of sources. And either he or some later editor clearly made some mistakes, especially about the taxes and the census. And definitely some other time sensitive historical details some benchmarks on when things happened, probably is very real possibility. But unfortunately, the entirety of Matthew chapter two, I have to dismiss his fiction. It's a great story. But it's the dangerous kind of fiction that leads scholars, priests and laymen alike into making misleading assumptions that undermine the integrity of the whole narrative. And that's frustrating. Yeah. But it's all about directing people's attention to Jesus and appreciating him even more than normal for one special day, even if it's several months removed from appropriate time.

Katie Dooley  44:55

Right. You can follow us

Preston Meyer  44:59

on Instagram Facebook on 201 YouTube.

Katie Dooley  45:03

Yeah, it's court check out our Patreon and our Spreadshirt we're putting up new Patreon content we put up a fun little radio show called Miami Christ the other day. So much fun recording some interviews planned for the new year that will not be public release and only for our patrons. So check us out on there. And then we have a fabulous another fabulous contest sponsored by Blackbird farm and apothecary, they've been

Preston Meyer  45:33

very generous with helping us out a little bit and we want to return the favor. We're running another contest.

Katie Dooley  45:43

This time we are giving away a PSP with you cutting board and it's going to be a little different last time we got you to like can share on social media, but we're pushing our Discord this

Preston Meyer  45:56

time. So we want you to get on board discord, and you'll see the rules for the giveaway there.

Katie Dooley  46:02

All you have to do is take pictures show us that you're following Blackbird apothecary and farm on either Facebook or Instagram and POSTED IN OUR DISCORD center.

Preston Meyer  46:11

And what's the prize?

Katie Dooley  46:13

I already said a peace be with you cutting board

Preston Meyer  46:15

gotta emphasize that a piece.

Katie Dooley  46:17

You got your meat on our fingers.

46:24

Was that a good ad?

Katie Dooley  46:25

I love it. Thank you so much. winner will be announced on Discord on January 7.

Preston Meyer  46:32

So be sure to check out our friends at Blackbird farm and apothecary on Facebook and Instagram. Peace be with you. By the late Middle Ages consumed

Did you know that the 8-day Jewish celebration of Hanukkah isn't in the Hebrew Bible? It's origins are much more recent than that! This episode, we learn about how the celebration of Hanukkah began with the Maccabees, and how your Jewish friends and family celebrate today.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

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Be sure to check out Blackbird Farm and Apothecary on Facebook and Instagram.

**

Katie Dooley  00:09

atheist not doing it needed at Clay and went strain ready the day that I shall play. Hey, today on the holy watermelon podcast are talking about Hanukkah, right wanted that as our soft opening so I thought I'd oblige. I like it last episode we talked about Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of light. And now we're talking about Hanukkah, which is the Jewish festival of light. Yay,

Preston Meyer  00:47

yay. That's pretty awesome. I've been celebrating Hanukkah for a long time. Now you have and

Katie Dooley  00:54

it's always fun. Can I ask why you started doing that?

Preston Meyer  00:58

As I'm trying to remember the first thing that that really made me want to do it. And I think it was mostly about celebrating the dedication of the temple. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has a few temples that were dedicated over Hanukkah, which, out of almost 200 temples, it's a very small handful that are dedicated over Hanukkah, which is the festival of celebration of the dedication of the temple, the temple. Yeah. So it's kind of cool. And the Edmonton temple fairly close to here is one of those very few that's dedicated over Hanukkah.

Katie Dooley  01:40

Interesting. Hanukkah means dedication. Exactly. Sounds very redundant.

Preston Meyer  01:48

If you didn't get there already, you're there. Now. You're

Katie Dooley  01:51

all here together now.

Preston Meyer  01:54

Yeah. And so this year, it ran from November 28 to December 6, which is the day that this episode will be reaching our listeners. Katie's double check. I

Katie Dooley  02:06

really don't know if I believe you. 22 Six, Okay, you're right. Yes, Hanukkah is over today. Yay. Happy.

Preston Meyer  02:22

So for those of you who have been celebrating Hanukkah, I hope you've been enjoying it.

Katie Dooley  02:28

So, so future, Katie, you'll have already gone to prescence Hanukkah party when she hasn't even confirmed if he's having it or not. That's cool. I definitely told you we were doing more traveling. Yeah, so that made me I'm not invited. Similar to Diwali, its Hanukkah is celebrated on the 25th day of Kislev of the Hebrew calendar. And the Hebrew calendar is also a lunar lunar calendar just like the Hindu and Muslim calendar. My from what I've read, it's basically only the Gregorian calendar, which is what we follow. That is a solar calendar. Everything else seems pretty lunar.

Preston Meyer  03:07

I mean, I've never looked into it, but I bet you there's a couple other solar calendars out there. So we

Katie Dooley  03:11

should do an episode on calendars, because some of them are tied to religions, right? Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  03:18

I mean, the Gregorian calendar is a religious calendar. It's basically the Catholic calendar. It's slightly different from the Julian calendar, which started out in Rome as well, but was basically yeah, it got abandoned by the Catholics and the Orthodox like, oh, we still like it for a while.

Katie Dooley  03:40

Anyway, that's a digression. But we'll maybe we'll do an episode on calendars. So just like Diwali, it's meant to be solid braided during the darkest days of the year, because it's the festival of light to help with both the metaphor and to make the light Salaat more spectacular.

Preston Meyer  03:56

Yeah, that's pretty great. So even though it happens in December, alongside huge holidays, like the ones you're familiar with Christmas and Diwali, and Kwanzaa, maybe if you if you know Kwanzaa it's relatively minor religious holiday in Judaism, especially compared to the High Holy Days of Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and even Passover, though, those are kind of the big ones. And so Hanukkah, like Christmas is a great time to enjoy the fact that there is a holiday where you get to spend time with family and friends. And that's really kind of the big deal there. And

Katie Dooley  04:37

this was super interesting to me. Something I didn't know about Hanukkah before. And why it's less religious is that Hanukkah isn't mentioned in the Hebrew Bible at all. No, because the events that we celebrate happened after the book was written.

Preston Meyer  04:52

Yeah, pretty much. The Hanukkah story is recorded in the book of the Maccabees, which is found in the doodoo Deuterocanonical. Books, aka the Apocrypha found in the Greek literary tradition of the Jewish people in Alexandria, Egypt, preserved in the Septuagint. You

Katie Dooley  05:10

just said a lot of words, explained. So I'm sure some of our listeners need that explained as well.

Preston Meyer  05:15

All right, I'll start at the beginning of that list. Now go through my big words. Thank you. Deuterocanonical is a word that's used, especially by Catholics, where they differentiate those books that did make it into the Hebrew canon from those that didn't. So there's the Maccabees, for example, there's an alternate version of the book of Ezra, there's just a handful of stories about characters like Tobit. Judith, there's extensions to the book of Daniel, things like that, that we can find ancient sources saying, yeah, these things exist in the Greek literary tradition. But for some reason, we don't see them written in Hebrew. It's kind of weird. Interesting. Yeah. And so there's that distinction placed. And a similar distinction is made by Protestants. But they're like, no, no, no, if it's not in the Hebrew Bible, it's apocryphal. It's not even important. I actually, it kind of really bugged me in 2011. And 10 years ago, I bought the 400 anniversary edition reproduction of a King James Bible. And there was this huge section missing in the middle of the book, which is where the Apocrypha goes, because Zondervan, the people who publish this reproduction decided we don't like the Apocrypha, so we're just not gonna print that portion of this epic anniversary edition book. Oh, yeah, it was actually really frustrating for me. Because all of the work that goes into this book is actually really awesome. It looks really cool. It's got all kinds of really beautifully drawn family trees and stuff. And they just cut out all of the apocrypha. Yeah, it was a little frustrating. Septuagint is the Greek ish word,

Katie Dooley  07:20

meaning seven something 70. So yeah,

Preston Meyer  07:24

there's a tradition that is really hard to prove that 70 elders took 70 days to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. And they each did it individually, and all came up with the exact same text results. Yeah, and so yeah, that would totally be a miracle. Problem is, there's no way that that's true. There's loads of evidence that it took them many decades to complete this task in a way that everybody was satisfied with it. And there's just there's no way that they all would have reproduced the exact same Greek text from the Hebrew. But that's the story anyway.

Katie Dooley  08:19

All right. So what happens in the Hanukkah story? All

Preston Meyer  08:24

right. So most of the Hanukkah story is found in the Maccabees first Maccabees. And the story starts out celebrating Alexander the Great. And then it goes on to describe how awful his successors were to the people of Judea. Especially Antioch is the fourth epiphanies who is said to have outlawed the cult of Yahweh and 168 BCE, and killed 1000s of Jews and rededicated Jerusalem's temple to Zeus. So naturally, this gets the religious zealots all riled

Katie Dooley  08:55

up. And they call them Yahweh being the Jews. Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  08:59

And, and like, naturally, everybody would be really uncomfortable with it. But the people who were like really zealous for the religion, oh, would be furious. Yeah, they're absolutely incensed. And four brothers, from the priestly case to come to be known as the Maccabees, which means hammer. And because of their intense violence against not only their saluted rulers, but also against any Hellenized Jews. So eventually, these hammers managed to defeat the Seleucids and went about forcing anybody left in Judea to convert to Judaism under the threat of

Katie Dooley  09:36

death. So back and forth with violence. Yeah, these people were incredibly

Preston Meyer  09:41

violent. But they got stuff done. Yeah, anyway, after clearing out all the Hellenic paraphernalia out of the temple, the Maccabees selected their brother Jonathan to be their high priest. Still, not exactly from a family that had the right to that office? No. But they felt they deserved it because they did all the work. And it's hard to argue with the people with their

Katie Dooley  10:14

with the station with the muscle with the hammer. Exactly.

Preston Meyer  10:19

Eggs Exactly. So the solutions tried to take the city back, but failed. And eventually they agreed to restore today in Liberty. During all this time, the Jews were kept from offering sacrifices and observing the High Holy Days. So as soon as they could, they dedicated the temple in a ceremony that had previously been associated with the Feast of Tabernacles. And from that time forward, the anniversary was commemorated as Hanukkah. And that's more or less the story we have in the Maccabees condensed, real tight,

Katie Dooley  10:52

real tight. Your five minutes summary on why we celebrate.

Preston Meyer  11:04

I guess yeah, there's more to it. And that's a good thing.

Katie Dooley  11:09

Well, yeah, I mean, obviously, there's a whole political climate that historians and scholars have looked into that. Yeah, that's the rabbit hole for us.

Preston Meyer  11:19

Yeah. So Hanukkah being the dedication, after all of this celebrates the rededication in 165 BC. So, little over 2000 years ago, the miracle of Hanukkah is the menorah. There was only enough oil to keep them menorahs lamps lit for one day. But all their festivities would require that they have to keep the lamp lit, they could have put it off. They really could have it because it took that time to produce the oil they needed with the very specific recipe that they're supposed to use. Oh,

Katie Dooley  12:02

interesting. Yeah, I didn't know that. That anything special? I thought they didn't have enough oil.

Preston Meyer  12:08

Yeah, there's herbs and whatnot mixed into it. It's interesting. It's your it's meant to culminate in a very specific scent experience in the temple. I think that's foreign to pretty much everybody on the planet today now isn't like we couldn't recreate it, as it's just not part of anybody's Temple experience in almost any popular religion today. People don't use sent very much in worship a lot. There's some people will use a sensor and burn a little bit of incense in the temple. Not quite the same.

Katie Dooley  12:44

I've told you my orthodox funeral story. Yes, yes. That's what I want to hear like scent isn't a big part of like, yes, it is. I can go back to a Ukrainian funeral.

Preston Meyer  12:51

Like, yeah, for sure. But this, this

Katie Dooley  12:56

particular oils, and it's not Yeah. Common anymore. Yeah. Well, I

Preston Meyer  13:01

don't think it's used anywhere. Interesting. Yeah. So anyway, it would take more than a week to get more of the oil they needed. But we can't delay this anymore. We need to rededicate the temple. So we're doing it now. And even though they had the one day's worth of oil, they had oil for the full eight days, there's two different versions of this, where they would use up the oil for the day, like just feed it into the lamps and just go and the vats would be empty, and then they just miraculously be full the next day. And the alternate story is that the VAT just never empty during that time.

Katie Dooley  13:47

Yeah, I read that it would miraculously be fooled again like the empty and then go back. That's the version I read in my research.

Preston Meyer  13:55

And today, instead of having oil lamps, most people use candles. And it still is lights, so we're still good. So this bit about the the oil and the lamps is not found in the Book of Maccabees. Instead, we find the oldest mentioned the oil miracle in the Talmud recorded about 600 years after the rebellion. So we're talking in the neighborhood of the fifth sixth century. See, so this

Katie Dooley  14:27

is kind of like the ascension of Mary where it's kind of become canon, but it's not actually in any of the books. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I'll just kind of go Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Right. Okay.

Preston Meyer  14:40

So, like you mentioned before, it's no reason for it to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It gets one singular mention in the New Testament. Barely in passing. It's more just to let you know that Jesus was doing a thing at a specific time. They didn't say that he actually celebrated Hanukkah. But in John chapter 10, verse 22, it says, And this thing happened during Hanukkah,

Katie Dooley  15:08

I pulled it out because I was really curious. It said, tell me if this is a, this is the New International Version. Okay. Then came the festival of dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus was in the temple for its walking in Solomon's column ad. Yeah, that's it. Aaron is

Preston Meyer  15:26

Yeah. It's, it's perfectly reasonable to translate the word as dedication, especially since we know this coming from a Greek text. But a really good translator would recognize, hey, maybe we shouldn't use the word Hanukkah in this particular verse.

Katie Dooley  15:44

Yes, and it's like, reemphasize if there was winter. Yeah, right. Like there's no doubt but Right. There's no other festival of dedication that they're mixing this up with. Right?

Preston Meyer  15:54

Yeah. There's a lot of people who really like to divorce Jesus from Judaism. And there's no good reason for it. He wasn't your rabbi. Yeah. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. traditional

Katie Dooley  16:11

Christianity is a cult of Judaism that just took off to its own thing.

Preston Meyer  16:15

Yeah. And so I found two Bibles, where the editor was really committed to making sure that you saw Jesus in His in the situation that he lived in. And so, use Hebrew words whenever it's appropriate, chose not to use Hellenized forms of names, but stuck with traditional Aramaic forms of names, and use Tonica instead of that dedication.

Katie Dooley  16:47

Let's talk about what a celebration looks like what your party's gonna be like.

Preston Meyer  16:55

So, when I celebrate Hanukkah, it's not exactly your traditional Jewish experiment to your party

Katie Dooley  17:02

after we record so there are no obligations to refrain from activities like you would on the Jewish Sabbath for Hanukkah. Most Jews will actually go to work but may come home early for celebrations because there are no religious reasons to be staying at home. Yeah, the menorah is a popular icon fixture in Hanukkah, Judaism. It is a candle holder and it has nine candles. So one for the for each night of Hanukkah, and this Shamash and I see that right, Chumash Amash. It's an extra candle that is used to light the other candles. The candle is lit on them not every night one on the first night, two on the second night, etc. and blessings are offered with the candles that are lit every single night. I thought you were gonna add more to this. Nope. I did. Did you? Yeah, I thought you were gonna give us a prayer. But there's actually a really good website I found that has dates, times and blessings for that. Well, it's past now that had all the dates, times and blessings for Hanukkah this year.

Preston Meyer  18:12

It has them for next year to have some furniture. So an interesting thing about the menorah is that there's a special menorah just for Hanukkah. A normal Jewish Menorah has seven lampstands. But the Hanu Kia, the Hanukkah menorah is the one with nine was

Katie Dooley  18:34

a regular menorah are used for I don't.

Preston Meyer  18:39

Usually you'll see them in synagogues and temples. They are modeled after the one that we see described in the Hebrew Bible. That's meant to bring light to the whole tabernacle.

Katie Dooley  18:53

boring chapter.

Preston Meyer  18:56

Yeah, you didn't enjoy that section very much at all. That's where it is. When added scribe describes everything in the template in excruciating detail. Yeah, yeah. It's very helpful for people who want to reproduce it. Not so helpful for people who just want to know the story, right?

Katie Dooley  19:15

I mean, it's helpful when you explain that there are different books for different reasons. And this just happens to me the floor plans chapter was a slog.

Preston Meyer  19:28

Yeah, so there are three special prayers that are offered for Hanukkah. There's a general prayer of gratitude for the Hanukkah miracle. There's a prayer of gratitude for our own living freedom today. And there's a blessing over the candles of the hanukkiah and gratitude for the persisting tradition that binds believers to their maker.

Katie Dooley  19:51

I got really excited about the food which you know, made all that shouldn't surprise you. I learned But we knew I knew what some of the traditional foods were latkes jelly doughnuts arugula are all customary Hanukkah foods, but I didn't realize that fried foods were popular because of the oil. Oh yeah, I like I didn't like connect the symbol as I just saw I was like we eat turkey like I don't know why we turkey. So I just thought it's like what people did traditionally but I like that it has the ties into the temple miracle. Yeah, one thing that also delicious,

Preston Meyer  20:29

right. One thing that I really appreciate about Judaism dietary tradition is that there's a reason for all of the things being the way they are food wise around the holidays, for passover, unleavened bread, and there's the story is we didn't have time for the bread Darius we had to get out of dodge. Dodge. So it's flatbread. Matzah, is basically just flour and water.

Katie Dooley  21:03

Yum.

Preston Meyer  21:06

If you want it to be delicious, you're gonna have to add something to it. And yeah, the oil for anything related to Hanukkah. Absolutely the deal. And the Holy barbecues every day at the temple back in the day. But what have been some good times to write.

Katie Dooley  21:24

This is why I get excited for your party. And I have heard of arugula before, but I didn't really get heard the word. You know, when I read it, I was like, oh, yeah, rubella, but I was like, I don't actually know what that is. Oh, sounds

Preston Meyer  21:39

like arugula. That's what Brian said, when I didn't

Katie Dooley  21:43

get that doll. But I also took German which is so similar to Yiddish. Sure. I was like really left, okay. But then I read what they were and I was like, press the numbering and lose to your party. So it is Yiddish for little twists. And they are pastries that can be filled with they have a cream cheese base, and then you can fill them with basically anything you want. nuts, fruit, cinnamon, sugar, etc. And I was like, That sounds amazing. So I'm gonna make a bench for us to consume right?

Preston Meyer  22:12

I want to first see them. My instinct is to compare them to croissants, but there's so much more.

Katie Dooley  22:18

I just like the thought of cream cheese and cinnamon sugar and a baked pastry. So they know how to do it right. foodwise right. Another I think this is probably pretty popular if you went to secular school is knowing what the dreidel that I sang about earlier. We definitely like talked about the dreidel when we were in elementary school and learning about other people and we play dreidel president's party for you. It is a spinning top game played by junior Jewish children excuse me during Hanukkah. And it has four sides. And each side has a letter that represents the Hebrew words.

Preston Meyer  23:05

NES Gadol hayah Sham, which

Katie Dooley  23:09

means and I actually really liked this a great miracle happen there.

Preston Meyer  23:12

Yeah, there's a variant in Israel. That changes there to hear for what should be pretty obvious reasons. Because

Katie Dooley  23:20

that's that. That's how it happened. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  23:29

Yeah, so dreidel is kind of a cool name, I guess. Instead of calling it a top, dreidel is the Yiddish name basically means Turner.

Katie Dooley  23:38

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, I made that a claim.

Preston Meyer  23:43

And it's also called sev. Yvonne. It's Hebrew has the same meaning Turner. dreidel is also known by a couple of alternate Yiddish names, like destiny and a little Thoreau. And those were semi popular names until the holocaust of the 1940s when those names lost popularity for some pretty sad reasons. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  24:09

I read one story that tells that the dreidel game was used as a cover for children who were at the time this is in the winter 16 or 168 BCE for children that were illegally studying the Torah when Seleucid soldiers came by those studying would pretend to be playing the game so it actually you know there's a story that ties directly to Hanukkah and that just you know, we play board games at Christmas because we like to play board games at Christmas, right?

Preston Meyer  24:37

Yeah, it's it's a an interesting story. Unfortunately, it's not well documented at all for the late 19th century fine, so cute. It is cute story. But when something shows up because story. Story doesn't show up until 2000 years after the time at supposed to happen. It makes it hard to believe. Female last points, right? It's like St. Barbara that we talked about a few months ago fair, just like the story came up a long time after she was supposed to exist probably wasn't even real. Specially if you remember the details of that story, I'll

Katie Dooley  25:17

say I don't know like how you hide your Torah fast enough to whip out a tiny dreidel. Well, usually

Preston Meyer  25:24

they were on scrolls rather than quota. Yeah, okay, so you just quick roll up stuff and up somebody's sleeve. whip out

Katie Dooley  25:29

your dreidel. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:36

Thanks for that mind work. But this is an audio medium. I

Katie Dooley  25:42

don't know why we're laughing like all year old boys. Exactly. So how can you actually play Dreidel, Dreidel game? Cuz you could probably pick up a dreidel at the dollar store and absolutely

Preston Meyer  25:55

fine. When I do hand out drills in large indiscriminate quantities, I usually buy a whole bunch of one party city. real cheap. Nice. So yeah, you can find them all over the place. Oh, interesting thing. So there's some evidence that the game might have originated in Britain.

Katie Dooley  26:18

Interesting. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  26:22

And then moved to Germany where yudishe kids picked it up. I thought that was kind of nifty.

Katie Dooley  26:27

All right. Do you like British Jews or just like Britain in general? And I got a British kid interesting. Yeah. Really popular in the Jewish community and then move to interesting. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  26:43

If things move all over the place, though, there is evidence we have found some old tops in the Middle East. But they don't have letters. They're just numbered basically a fancy D for on top. So for those people who are selling dagger dice, your idea isn't new.

Katie Dooley  27:03

Well, I mean, the rules are simple enough, which we'll run through in just a moment. That there's probably yeah, that's, that's good. It's not exclusively Jewish. It's kind of a fun game. Yeah, like, like tax you know? Something? You mean Jax? Jax. Is that what I meant? The

Preston Meyer  27:20

one where you throw the bouncy ball and try and grab. Yeah. Don't think I've ever played Jack.

Katie Dooley  27:27

I was on a huge I was like, I was like eight and I was on the huge Jacks kick.

Preston Meyer  27:32

I had a huge pug collection. Oh, man. This is like we're going back more than 20 years now back on pugs were a thing people cared about. Oh,

Katie Dooley  27:45

but yeah, so I can kind of see it being like a jacks or a PA. Who knows how old dreidel really is. But right.

Preston Meyer  27:56

Traditionally, it's a gambling game. You've got a whole bunch of coins. Very often people play with chocolate coins. In fact, I bet you at this point that's more normal than any other option or probably like nickels. I bet you chocolate coins are used more. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, everyone, so everyone puts some coins in the pot before they spin the dreidel. And depending on which of the four sides comes up, you have to take a specific action. If none comes up, which is each of these names are letters in the Hebrew alphabet, none comes up. You mean you do nothing. Gimel you get the whole pot. Hey, you get half the pot, and Shin you add to the pot. Sometimes it's Shin there's a chance Shin Shin put one in. But some traditions you put one in for each of the three points on the top of the shin. So you put three in Oh, there's loads of variety in the game. Yeah. And in Israel, when they say a miracle happened here, there's a PE instead of a shin. And I mean, the fact that it sounds like the English word PE sounds pretty great. You put some in. If you run out of coins or guilt, you are out of the game. But people have been trying really hard to make dreidel more fun for adults too. And there's all kinds of variants here. You could totally make it a drink. I'm very confident that's the thing that people are doing. I've actually found some interesting ones that I thought I would share with you today too. There's a game called No Limit Texas Hold'em dreidel and so you've got two dribbles in a cup. Shake it up and spin your drills in your cup. And you keep your cup secret of course because this is Texas Hold'em poker with dreidels and then there's publicly spun dreidels to see what comes up and you're looking to get your poker hands. It's kind of like you're not gonna get runs, but like full house for a time. Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah, people play this. And I will definitely be sharing some great videos related to all this dreidel nonsense on our Discord. Right, and some people just compete for the longest spin Droylsden real nice so they can if you're good at it. In fact, there's major league dreidel is a thing that's really kind of fun to Google. You can find some great resources and videos. There are semi serious dreidel tournaments for people of all ages, including a variety of regulated spinning surfaces, depending on the organization. The spin agog. Yeah, it's so awesome. Again, check the discord to see this thing or I want to google it yourself. So it's reminiscent of a Beyblade arena and you remember Beyblade

Katie Dooley  31:12

they do? Yeah.

Preston Meyer  31:16

So there's no artificial letter rip business, but you spin there shouldn't be. That would be cheating. Because part of the pain oh, blade.

Katie Dooley  31:26

Dre blade?

Preston Meyer  31:28

I mean, I part of me does really want to see that.

Katie Dooley  31:31

I mean, it's all luck anyway. Like, who cares if you spin shittier good, like the fates will decide. But

Preston Meyer  31:38

the real challenge that most people are playing with the synagogue is a time deal. The synagogue comes with a time time when not Yeah, not a gambler. So you spin and hope for the best. And you get credit for having the longest spin. But this thing also comes with little boards on it so you can have different mats within the synagogue. One of them looks like a skee ball. Shoot where you want it? You want the dreidel to land on a specific point value and you make money this way. Wow. There's a baseball one. Which is kind of nifty.

Katie Dooley  32:19

My mind is being blown right now.

Preston Meyer  32:21

People have put a lot of work into making dreidel more fun for everybody. And honestly, they're kicking ass. I've also seen a synth a dreidel board. It looks kind of like a combination of cornhole and shuffleboard where you spin the dreidel, and I couldn't find the rules for this. But the looks of it. It's it doesn't really matter which side of your dreidel comes up. But it is important that you're still spinning the dreidel across the board to your opponent's side, you're playing in teams of two by the way. And you want to spin your data across the board and have it land in a zone that is going to get you money instead of lose your money. You know, this

Katie Dooley  33:08

all came from kids who were like forced to play dreidel in the corner and got bored with the base game right? Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  33:18

Right, I really enjoy game design. I've been messing with game rules for ages and writing games on my own for a long time. And this is how I got my start to is finding a game that I figured this could be better. Could be better. I love that. Yeah. So dreidel has come a long way. And honestly it's made its biggest strides in the last 20 years

Katie Dooley  33:41

I'm I'm excited to see what we post on our Discord where you post on our Discord. Yeah. Moving on from the fast paced high stakes, we're also trying let's talk about gift giving a little bit for Hanukkah because I think this is something that I don't want to say it's like foreign but it's a little surprising because it happens at Christmas, or Diwali, which are two big gift giving celebrations. And Hanukkah really isn't a big gift giving holiday historically. With the exception of Hanukkah guilt during the Maccabean Revolt revolution. This is the only time in history that during the subjugation of the Jews that they were allowed to mint their own coins in their own state. So giving Hanukkah kilt is symbolic of that. That being said coins are either either real like here have a loony Preston, or chocolate cover coins. So even then, you know, don't say oh get anything but it's either chocolate or a little bit of cash.

Preston Meyer  34:53

I love how you say real money and then use our joke name for our coin

Katie Dooley  35:00

What do you call it?

Preston Meyer  35:01

Well, according to what I've seen on our stats, a whole third of our audience is down in the States $1.

Katie Dooley  35:12

Because we all have $1 bills. No, okay. Well, no, forget this. But when I was in Australia to break up like a $5 bill for loonies, yeah, to put in the washing machine, but they weren't doing right. And so I was like, I don't know what to ask for. Right? It's because they're called quarters, right? We don't call them 25 cent pieces. I mean, he said, people don't know. And they're called nickels. And they're called dimes. I was like, What is a $1? Coin called? Like, I literally kind

Preston Meyer  35:42

of Canada's the only place that has come up with a reasonable name. That's kind of ridiculous. $1 coin.

Katie Dooley  35:50

It's a loony name. But yeah, it was so yeah. Anyway, a $1 coin or whatever people call it. That's not.

Preston Meyer  35:57

I'm so glad we didn't call the $2 coin, the bury that on the table. That's what I was very convinced it was going to be when they first announced it. Like, and it's gonna have a polar bear on it. Well, obviously, it's the berry. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who thought that even though I was like, six at the

Katie Dooley  36:17

time, for a really long time called them the blue knees.

Preston Meyer  36:23

Because there were double. That's fantastic.

Katie Dooley  36:27

Anyway, well tell that to people like that sounds cool, because it sounds like a doubloon. Right. But we are digressing deeply because of Western influence and predominantly Christian Christmas influence. Gift giving has become more common in the Jewish Hanukkah tradition. However, it is still more often to get eight small gifts like think stocking stuffers. One every night, instead of having our massive consumer fest that is Christmas morning.

Preston Meyer  36:58

That's pretty easy to appreciate to earlier on in our marriage when we were, you know, feeling pretty tight for money, instead of having Christmas presents at all. Because there's so much pressure to get something big for Christmas. We did just go. Here's eight small things over the course of a week. And it was actually pretty nice. We've definitely

Katie Dooley  37:19

been stocking stuffers, ourselves as well. Yeah. If you are pressing don't feel like you should handle this. On a to party etiquette. Especially if you are going you know, to a Jewish families. To a Jewish Family's Home for Hanukkah, not just your buddy Preston, which is a little more chill. Talk us through some Hanukkah etiquette. Generally

Preston Meyer  37:42

speaking, if you're going to any religious flavored event, don't go in expecting that you know what to do, because it's next to Christmas. Because Hanukkah is not Christmas. Be willing to be told what to do. Which sounds just a little culty I guess. Use your best judgment when you're told what to do. I guess the caveat to that. But just be prepared to learn something new and have no experience. Yeah, definitely don't do anything that feels terribly Christmassy for Hanukkah. So red and green, your Christmas colors. I mean, you're probably not going to offend anybody. But it does make you look kind of ignorant.

Katie Dooley  38:39

I go more than kind of, but yes, yeah.

Preston Meyer  38:42

Instead, here's a hint. The Hanukkah colors are blue and white. If you ever forget that, feel free to Google the flag of Israel. That might give you a candy reminder. Google Hanukkah decor. Yeah. You've got some options there. Celebrating during Hanukkah is the best way to celebrate Hanukkah. If you wait till Christmas, you could be way off the mark. Sometimes Hanukkah is in November. And you'll occasionally see Thanksgiving aka events where people will combine Hanukkah with thanksgiving. And that's a more apt combination. I

Katie Dooley  39:22

mean, it started in November. It was quite early this year started in November. I seen it as sort of late as mid December. So yeah, it was an early one this year right after American Thanksgiving. Right.

Preston Meyer  39:37

And yes, not knowing how to Google things bad excuse for not knowing things. But we try and be helpful as much as we can keep this in mind for next year. Of course since Hanukkah is over today. There's

Katie Dooley  39:55

you could get some last I hope we got a nice Hanukkah and yeah,

Preston Meyer  39:58

and that's it. Have it. Yeah. So while Hanukkah is a festival of lights, and in a way that's kind of comparable to Diwali, celebrating a victory over cosmic darkness. There are some great layers that are universal universally observed among believers, including the celebration of religious freedom. Because of the victory of the Maccabees over this elucidates, there is the celebration of National resilience, despite millennia of persecution, there's so much of the history of Judaism and the Jewish people is just awful, so much so much torment from all of their neighbors, almost all of the time, constantly. It's a bit of a bummer. And yet, this people has done so well. And so surviving, and thriving. And thirdly, the celebration of God's persistent covenant is hugely important that even after all of the struggles, they can still rebuild that temple 2000 years ago. And for many Jews, there's the dream of rebuilding the temple again one day, and whether or not it'll be rededicated on Hanukkah, hard to say, the first time the temple was dedicated under King Solomon in Jerusalem, it was attached to the Feast of Tabernacles. So to say that there's a hard fast rule of when it has to be dedicated. It's, it's a little squishy there,

Katie Dooley  41:39

it'd be pretty symbolic to do it. In either of those two things. Yeah. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  41:45

Honestly, it'll be weird if it wasn't either of those two things.

Katie Dooley  41:48

Yes. Especially after this long. Right away a long time. Yeah. They're gonna keep waiting. Right?

Preston Meyer  41:57

I mean, it's, it's not on the horizon yet. But it's the thing people are talking about. But in the meantime, there's the temple in our hearts.

Katie Dooley  42:10

Good, right. There's

Preston Meyer  42:12

a lot of love in Hanukkah. And there's a lot of spelling variations of Hanukkah. Oh,

Katie Dooley  42:17

man, I spelt it wrong every single time. I do though, I did because I'm a two ends and 1k kind of person. And then it would tell me it was wrong and had to go back and change the tau one and two K's.

Preston Meyer  42:28

Right. The weird thing is that the spelling in Hebrew doesn't double up any of the consonants.

Katie Dooley  42:38

So I'm not not wrong.

Preston Meyer  42:40

There's so many very common spellings of Hanukkah. That if you've spelt it in a way that people can recognize that you're trying to say Hanukkah, you're just fine. Saying Jonica though, is how Chanukah is fine. Okay. It sounds weird to be English here, but it's fine.

Katie Dooley  43:09

Like you gave me makes me think. Okay, but

Preston Meyer  43:13

that C is attached to the h in the same way that we see lock in Scottish. It's a hard age rather than a weird aspirated edge. Noise.

Katie Dooley  43:31

Final thoughts about Hanukkah?

Preston Meyer  43:34

I love Hanukkah, we have a lot of fun every year. We didn't host a party last Hanukkah because of the whole pandemic situation. Yeah, that was a bummer for me because it's been such a staple in our house for years. But it's a pretty great time to spend time with friends, enjoy a great meal and get a little bit spiritual for a few minutes as we go through the story. And our tradition has always read a dedicatory prayer for a temple. We've made a point of reading the first dedicatory prayer when Solomon's Temple was first dedicated, and all the way up to Edmonton zone. Temple dedication. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  44:22

All right. If you want to watch some of these great Hanukkah dreidel fight videos, you should follow us on our Discord. Absolutely. If you want more amazing episodes like this, you can check out our Patreon for a subscription model to help support us or our Spreadshirt to buy some one off merch person merch purchases. Both help us keep this podcast going.

Preston Meyer  44:49

Happy Hanukkah.

Katie Dooley  44:51

Yes, happy Hanukkah. Pleased to be with you by the late Middle Ages

Preston Meyer  45:05

Hey, what do you still doing here? Well, your commitment will be rewarded. We're having a giveaway. Thanks to the lovely folks at Blackbird farm and apothecary. We have a pair of very sexy holy watermelon tumblers, and posters perfect for the holiday season. All you need to do is check out the posts on Instagram and Facebook. Follow us like the post and tag a friend and one entry per tag. It'd be great. The winner will be announced December 10 2021. Be sure to check out our friends at Blackbird farming apothecary on Facebook

Curious why there were fireworks popping in your neighborhood last week? It was all in celebration of Diwali, the pan-Asian holiday rooted in Hinduism. This week learn more about Diwali traditions and the story of the Ramayana.

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**

Katie Dooley  00:12

now, this is the start of it, right. That's how I'm gonna start this show. Yeah, Preston, we're heading into the holiday season for

Preston Meyer  00:20

the holidays. Don't you mean that Christmas season?

Katie Dooley  00:26

You forgot one of my favorite holidays that we're going to talk about on the holy watermelon podcast.

Preston Meyer  00:35

And what's your favorite holiday?

Katie Dooley  00:38

I mean, it's actually Christmas. But today we're gonna talk about Diwali. i The the, the holiday for the Vedic religion.

Preston Meyer  00:50

Yeah, it's pretty much the big deal for most Hindu people. And it's not just a Hindu holiday. I thought that was kind of cool to dive into that in my studies. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  01:03

it is celebrated by Jain Sikhs and even some Buddhists. And in my reading, I kind of likened it to you don't North America. You're not necessarily Christian, if you're celebrating Christmas. It's just such a big deal that everyone jumps on board.

Preston Meyer  01:26

Yeah, it's it's basically the pan Indian festival of lights. You could call it the shorter Indian Hanukkah, maybe.

Katie Dooley  01:37

I like that. I also find it really interesting. It is official, an official holiday. And I think it's 13 countries and I just found which countries very interesting. So Fiji, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanma Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Which that's almost every continent. Yeah. How's it as an official holiday?

Preston Meyer  02:05

I mean, white folks did a pretty good job of shipping Indian kids all over the place. So we've got that. Well, yeah.

Katie Dooley  02:12

So I mean, obviously, there's Indian people all over the world. But to make it an official holiday, it's not official holiday in Canada, you know, we have a huge population, right? Or in America. So I thought was interesting that Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago were the two that stood out to me, Africa and North America.

Preston Meyer  02:31

Sure. Yeah. Makes sense. I just kind of interesting. It's a holiday that is all over the place. And it seems like an awful lot of people don't really have any clue what it is.

Katie Dooley  02:45

No. And actually, by the time this episode airs, Diwali will actually be over. It was on November 4 This year, but it changes every year. There's a Hindu lunar calendar, kinda like there's an Islamic lunar calendar. And so the date changes based off of moon cycles.

Preston Meyer  03:06

So we have writing about Diwali, dating back about 1300 years. Kind of nifty. Know that we have some solid history behind this. But Diwali has been celebrated certainly longer than that. How

Katie Dooley  03:21

long would we have celebrated Christmas in comparison? I mean, it's not like to see they were like, yeah, it's Jesus's second birthday. I mean, married Joseph probably celebrated his birthday because it's their kid but as we know it now.

Preston Meyer  03:41

You know what? I don't know exactly. Once we started celebrating Christmas. I haven't done that study yet. But as we creep closer to Christmas, that is actually a thing that is on our horizons, too. We

Katie Dooley  03:54

are going to do an episode on the Nativity. So we'll get that answer for you. Then I was just curious. You know, in North America, when Christmases we think it's the be all end all that you know, something it was probably definitely celebrated longer than

Preston Meyer  04:09

Yeah, I digress. So Diwali, coincides with the Hindu New Year, changes every year as it follows the Hindu lunar calendar, as Katie mentioned, and it's done on a new moon sometime between October and November. So shifts a little bit. That's kind of the framework that we have from year to year.

Katie Dooley  04:31

So the month it happens in is called Karthika Kartika Kartika.

Preston Meyer  04:37

I mean, you can make it sound as wide as you want. Wrong.

Katie Dooley  04:41

Absolutely. Well, there's no way we're doing this right. And it's on happens on the darkest day of Crytek. So on the new moon, and I am assuming is that because it's the festival lights that would make the lights more brilliant. I think that's part of it, but I'll see you in further the metaphor. I have, and we'll get into this a little bit more. But it's the festival lights. It's about good defeating evil. So, emphasizing that light in the darkness, metaphor,

Preston Meyer  05:10

light overcoming darkness, intelligence and wisdom overcoming ignorance. There's kind of some heavy handed symbolism here. But I like it

Katie Dooley  05:23

isn't, isn't every major holiday, some heavy handed symbolism? Yes. Now, I love this that Diwali is generally especially in India, a five day festival with the third day being the

Preston Meyer  05:41

big day, the climax of the whole thing. Wow. And

Katie Dooley  05:44

I liked that because it's like, we basically do that with Christmas. But we just stress ourselves out way more, because chances are we're still at work. But there is that sort of build up and run down for NAFTA and they just accept it. And I like that.

Preston Meyer  06:01

Yeah, I like the first day is literally clean your house and get ready.

Katie Dooley  06:09

Yeah, prepare your house. There's a tradition of buying a new metal kitchen tool as a sign of good luck. You do that on the first day too.