Welcome to decision decisions. The podcast for boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite host, me, WZWTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. Tune in and join in the conversation.
Listen to decisions decisions on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day, in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
People, my people, what's up? This is Questlove. Man, I cannot believe we're already wrapping up another season of Questlove Supreme. Man, we've got some amazing guests lined up to close out this season, but I don't want any of you guys to miss all the incredible conversations we've had so far. I mean, we talked to A. Marie, Johnny Moore,
Look, if you haven't heard these episodes yet, hey, now's your chance. Got to check them out. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Hey everyone, I'm Madison Packer, a pro hockey veteran going on my 10th season in New York. And I'm Anya Packer, a former pro hockey player and now a full Madison Packer stand. Anya and I met through hockey and now we're married and mom to two awesome toddlers, ages two and four.
And we're excited about our new podcast, Moms Who Puck, which talks about everything from pro hockey to professional women's athletes to raising children and all the messiness in between. So listen to Moms Who Puck on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets. How would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time, he didn't even say hello? And what if your past itself was the secret and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
A verse let's consider a possible Irish origin for Count Dracula. Count Dracula was Irish, or at least that's the case made by various historians and folklorists.
Now certainly, to be sure, the 1897 novel Dracula places the characters' origins firmly in Transylvania and famously draws in the legacy of historical 15th century Wallachian ruler Vlad the Impaler.
But on the other hand, Dracula's author, from Stoker, was himself an Irishman. As pointed out by Celtic historian Bob Curran in Was Dracula an Irishman published in the journal History Ireland in 2000, Stoker never visited Eastern Europe, but he certainly would have been exposed to various Irish legends of evil blood-drinking kings and chieftains, including tales of Irish vampire king, Our Tuck.
As is often the case with such tales, the details of our tux evil varies from telling to telling. It may be more accurate to think of him as a tribal chieftain rather than a king. He would have reigned in the 5th or 6th century CE in the District of Blinulan in Northern Ireland. He is often described as a dwarf or is possessing a physical deformity that sets him apart from other men.
He was also a powerful and evil wizard, so when life finally managed to kill him, undeath was the natural next step. Some accounts say that our tech fell to his death while jealously creeping about the ledges of his castle's towers, trying to spy on his own wife. In other accounts, his people were so terrified of the chieftain's evil that they convinced or hired a rival chieftain, Kathan, to assassinate him.
Either way, once dead, his people buried our tuck upright in his grave as was befitting a man of his reign.
But you know what happened next. Our tuck returned from the grave. And with a thirst for blood, he demanded his people bleed for him, filling a great drinking bowl. Horrified by his return, our tuck's people had him murdered or re-murdered depending on the telling by a hero, rival, or assassin.
they buried him and once more he returned for blood. This cycle repeated itself. And finally, the would-be slayer consulted with a local druid or priest and learned the secret of what must be done to keep our talk dead.
First, skewer the undead creature's heart with a you-wood sword. Then bury them upside down in the grave, head toward hell, and cap the grave with thorns, ash twigs, and a great stone. And so it was done. But if the stone were ever removed, we are told, this blood-drinking dwarf more than a millennium dead would once more rise to quench his evil thirst.
As Karan explains in his article, there are other tales of Irish vampires, and several standout tales involve blood-drinking nobles. Uniquely Irish spins on the global vampire myth often entail the mixture of blood in oats, a reference to famine-era recipes, as well as traditional Celtic venerations of the dead.
These various tales would have likely been known to Brahmsstoker, infusing his iconic vampire lord with Irish traditions of the undead. Even the name Dracula calls to mind the Irish word dracola, which means bad or tainted blood. Now let's turn to the world of video games and one of the more popular vampires to emerge from that realm in recent years.
In the 2021 Capcom survival horror video game Resident Evil Village, the character Ethan Winters finds himself beset by werewolves, vampires, and other creatures of darkness in an unnamed Eastern European rural location. The titular village is governed by four lords, but the most impressive of these strange rulers is Lady Dimitrescu, of Castle Dimitrescu.
Her lordship might otherwise be mistaken for any other Gothic femme fatale figure, resplendent with classic vampiric qualities and a stylish ensemble. But she also stands well over nine feet tall, and is forced to duck as she moves through doorways in her otherwise high-ceiling castle.
While she often employs brute, giant strength in dispatching her enemies, she can also manifest scimitar-like claws to cut them limb from limb. She is arrogant and vain, but also highly protective of her three vampiric daughters. The character has proven highly popular, quickly joining the likes of pyramid head and nemesis in the pantheon of great, memorable horror video game monsters.
And dissecting the influences that brought this character together, we of course have to give a proper nod to both Dracula and Countess Elizabeth Bathory. But many commentators have also pointed to the modern Japanese Yuri Oryokai known as Miss Eight Foot Tall, or Hazakusama, who is depicted in a wide-roomed hat much like the Lady Dimitrescu.
According to Haiki Isohani in a 2018 thesis paper titled, Mythology marches to modernity, Yokai in contemporary Japan, this spirit seems to have originated in a Japanese internet forum in 2008. However, the author stresses that Hasaku-sama's origins might actually extend back much further to an older Yokai named Takahona, literally tall one.
briefly mentioned in the Illustrated Night Parade of 100 Demons, published in 1776. However, the idea of a fearsome giantess is far older than any of these examples. Some variations of the Irish and Scottish winter hag and deity Keeligak are described as a giantess, and she is credited with kidnapping the spirit of summer.
Other legendary hags are also given giant proportions from time to time, including the Baba Yaga. There's also Zunu Kwa of the Kwak Yutul people of British Columbia who hunts the children of man. Multiple giantesses of varying temperaments can be found in Norse mythology, and these are often described as beautiful to behold.
And in Hindu traditions, the demon giantess, Bhutanah, attempts to kill the infant Krishna by taking on a human appearance and breastfeeding him poisoned milk.
Baby Krishna, however, turns the tables on the demon by draining her of all her milk and her life essence. Suffice to say, Lady Demetrescu is about the latest in a long line of intriguing fictional giantess, employed to express varying ideas about feminine power. Her ancestors run the gamut of hags, demons, heroes, and goddesses.
I'm a psychology professor at Yale, and I started to notice that a lot of my students weren't all that happy. So I created a new class. Welcome, everybody, to psychology and the good life. It became the biggest class in the history of your life. I'm a little bit surprised to see as many of you are here as are here, but that's great. But it's not just my students who need to understand the science of well-being. And that's why we launched the Happiness Lab, so you can learn about it too.
Are you ready to feel happier? Head to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or if you'd like to listen. Brought to you by the 2024 Subaru Share the Love Event, now through January 2nd. Now let us consider a vampire from Chinese folklore, the Jiangxi.
Imagine yourself out on the road, so frustratingly close to the walls of the city you've been traveling to, and yet night is falling. The mist is rolling in, and then up ahead you see several figures in the gloom. Fellow travelers, a patrol of guards from the city.
You entertain the possibility that they are bandits, and then they do something quite unnatural. They hop, like a creature whose legs are bound or stiff with rigomortis, or perhaps even forgetful of proper bipedal locomotion and forced to lunge itself forward through physical space like a great drive and worm.
the creatures hop and hop again, ever closer to you. And as they get closer, you see that they are undead horrors, dressed in robes from the Qing dynasty. Decay corpses burning with unnatural life. As they hop, they reach out towards you with elongated fingernails. They gasp with bloody, thing-tooth jaws, and if they catch you, they will drain every last ounce of precious chi from your body.
In some ways relatable to Western concepts of the zombie and the vampire, this is the Jiangxi. And while Chinese mythology and folklore is filled with various ghosts and monsters, this particular horror seems to emerge from a Qing dynasty crisis concerning the burial of the dead.
According to the afterlife of corpses, a social history of unburied dead bodies in Chengjina, 1644 through 1911 by historian Joe Hisu, numerous records from the 18th and 19th century discuss the problem of unburied bodies left upon the ground without proper burial.
These were not exclusively the victims of war, famine, or disaster either. They were seemingly, for the most part, individuals who simply had no permanent grave. This, Sue writes, was due to changing socioeconomic structure and the resulting imbalance between population and arable land. A family would need to secure claim to the land in order to bury deceased loved ones. If a grave could not be obtained, they were left out and often abandoned or lost.
While Jiangnan was the region most impacted by this, it became an empire-wide crisis because it wasn't just about the death, but a perceived cultural decline in funeral custom and even devotion to one's ancestors. While solutions finally emerged, such as public cemeteries and coffin homes, the specter of the Jiangxi remained in the Chinese imagination, a specter of the abandoned and vengeful death.
These beliefs, along with other records, sue rights, quote, demonstrate unburied dead bodies as highly abnormal and deeply problematic, representing a dysfunctional aspect of popular death custom.
Jiangxi famously play a role in an entire subgenre of Chinese supernatural horror and comedy films, including 1985's Mr. Vampire, which we watched on Weird House cinema last year. They're also now featured in Dungeons & Dragons, listed in 2021's Van Ripton's Guide to Ravenloft as a challenge level nine monster, capable of changing shape and, of course, draining the energy of its victims.
While sometimes played for comedy, there is a deep and unnatural horror to the Zhenxi, and it absolutely demands a place in your nightmares and at your gaming table. Finally, let's discuss a particular vampire from the world of doom and stoner rock.
The 2007 track, The Satanic Rights of Drugula by Electric Wizard paints exactly the sort of picture you might expect from this horror-obsessed Doom Metal in Stoner Rock, Mainstay.
While the vampires of old thirsted only for human blood, the lyrics to this song speak of quote, dope-laced blood that has only served to introduce the vampiric hordes and its dark prince to new highs. Now, we are not here to question the wisdom of these lyrics, but we might well wonder how this dark tale of dope smoke matches up to the realities of the natural world.
Now historically, the concept of blood-drinking monsters being in any way drawn to cannabis is interesting, in part because of cannabis's historical associations with the treatment and prevention of parasites.
in the medical use of cannabis among the Greeks and Romans by James L. Buttrika, the author points to Greek writings in which cannabis seeds were prescribed in the treatment of tapeworms. Interestingly enough, 5th century CE Greek physician Atius described the use of cannabis seeds as a means of drying up the semen and preventing nocturnal emissions as well.
Butrica also writes that in ancient Greek work on farming, a test of the use of cannabis is a deterrent to blood-drinking mosquitoes. By spreading cannabis below your bed or leaving a quote, blooming sprig of fresh cannabis by your bedside, your blood might be protected from the nefarious thirst of mosquitoes.
Now, why these notions don't sound encouraging for Count Dracula and his spawn, it's also worth noting that the Greek physician Galen wrote of the alleged blood purifying properties of Canada's seeds. And that sounds like something of interest to the vampiric children of the night.
The study of bat biology offers few answers, but it's worth considering that common vampire bats do not learn taste diversions, as explored by Ratcliffe et al. in a 2003 study in animal behavior. The bats did not seem to, quote, learn to associate a novel flavor with a versed gastrointestinal events. In other words, they're not capable of associating the symptoms caused by a toxic spoiled or poisonous substance with a particular taste.
On the other hand, they're certainly susceptible to some of the effects of various human drugs. But would these effects pass on through their blood to a parasitic consumer? Well, Randall Monroe explored a similar topic on the What You Have website and found that a human being would have to consume an absurd amount of human blood to become drunk on the blood's alcohol content.
we can apply a similar line of thinking to other substances in the blood, but that need not dissuade Count Dracula. After all, he is clearly an immortal undead being, and perhaps he does consume the copious amounts of rock-stoner blood required to attain this level of high.
But our story does not end here. Perhaps Count Drugula would be interested to know that a stroke medication, dubbed Dracula, has been derived from the anticoagulant properties of vampire bat saliva. Arise. Arise. Count Drugula. Arise.
tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. And periodically, we'll bust out an omnibus episode to collect some related episodes of The Monster Fact or even the artifact. As always, you can email us at contact, at stufftableyourmind.com.
Stuff to blow your mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Welcome to Decisions Decisions. The podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite host, me, WZWTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of nontraditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday and Wednesday,
We both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. Tune in and join the conversation.
The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day, in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
People, my people, what's up? This is Questlove. Man, I cannot believe we're already wrapping up another season of Questlove Supreme. Man, we've got some amazing guests lined up to close out the season, but, you know, I don't want any of you guys to miss all the incredible conversations we've had so far. I mean, we talked to A. Marie, Johnny Moore,
Look, if you haven't heard these episodes yet, hey, now's your chance. Got to check them out. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Hey everyone, I'm Madison Packer, a pro hockey veteran going on my 10th season in New York. And I'm Anya Packer, a former pro hockey player and now a full Madison Packer stand. Anya and I met through hockey and now we're married and mom to two awesome toddlers, ages two and four. And we're excited about our new podcast, Moms Who Puck, which talks about everything from pro hockey to professional women's athletes to raising children and all the messiness in between.
So listen to moms who pog on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets. How would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time he didn't even say hello? And what if your past itself was the secret and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
