Conversations: What Makes a Serial Killer, Mythological or Otherwise? w/ Debbie Felton

Published Dec 20, 2024, 5:00 AM

Liv speaks with Dr Debbie Felton about serial killers of the ancient world, both mythological and otherwise. Plus, monsters and monstrosity... Find more from Debbie here, including links to the books mentioned, and the Ancient Monsters Blog here

CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.

Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.

Hello, this is Let's talk about Miss Baby and I am your host as always live, and today I'm here with a conversation episode. It's the first conversation that I have recorded since moving, and we started with a bang. I spoke with doctor Debbie Felton, who studies, you know, boring things like monsters and serial killers in both the ancient world and the mythology. So you know, this conversation was a real slog I hope this sarcasm is clear. I realized I probably shouldn't do that when I'm talking about guests who don't necessarily know me, but for realness, was so much fun. We talked about mythological serial killers, what it means to categorize someone ancient, mythological or otherwise as a serial killer, how that ties in with the modern studies around that. But we also talked about monsters more broadly, Medusa Surprise, surprise, a lot about polyphemus. You might recognize some thoughts from the conversation or the episode, the Battle of the Bastards episode that Mackaila and I recorded earlier this week, because that was coming shortly after I recorded this with Debbie, and so you could there's a lot of overall lap. It was absolutely utterly fascinating and I'm just very excited that you all get to hear conversations what makes a serial killer mythological or otherwise with doctor Debbie Felton. Well, I mean, as as MICHAELA shouted into the chat, why don't we are both utterly consumed by the idea of ancient and or mythological. I'll confess I don't know quite which you're that you look at, but I would like to hear about any form of serial killer in the ancient world. Okay, yeah, so I mean, well we'll talk lots more too, but but what yeah, what what about serial killers in that realm? Have you looked at?

Okay? Well, the easiest way to explain that might be how I ended up getting started with it, which is that I just I read a story in pausanias an ancient sort of geographer travel writer. Yeah, and it was a story. It was a very very weird story that a lot of people have been trying to figure like what what even is this talking about? But what struck me was that it was about a series of killings in a small town over a period of time, and the person who was committing them. Was originally described as, you know, sort of a dissatisfied you know, soldier attending towards alcohol and ultimately, after sort of experimenting with a bunch of killing, regularly seemed to go after women. Now that is a way reductionist view of this particular story, because it's a lot more complicated than that. The guy was one of a disuse's crew members who was a bit you know, they sailed off without him, which is something a disuse apparently did on a fairly regular basis, and the townspeople actually stoned the guy to death because he had attacked a local woman. And then it was his like ghost or revenant that kept coming back killing people until they got advice from the Delphic oracle, which said, oh, build the thing a temple and offer a woman to it every year, so, you know, and then it gets weirder because you know, the guy, this whatever apparition revenant you know, supposedly originated in the time of a disuse, that mythological time, but was actually disposed of by a historical figure named Ethemist, who was a box or who we have, like we have actual historical records for this guy because he participated in several Olympic contests in one. So the story is like hundreds of years after this whatever was started, you know, in mythological times, hundreds of years later, an actual person comes and fights the apparition, revedent whatever, it's physical, it's a physical things, and he drives into the ocean and that's that. And then the woman who was supposed to be offered to the thing marries him.

So that's that's yeah, amazing. But then when that had been like more classical, and then Paustanius is too also like writing about it another few hundred years later or well.

Yes, that's the thing. So the you know, Odysseus would be in mythological times, you know, thirteenth century legend, if even. And then Euthymis was a boxer, and I think it was the fifth century. Fifth I would have to check the exact date. And Pausanis is writing about the second century. See, so this, you know, and this is a local legend that he heard in a small town in southern Italy. So you know, it's not that this like screamed serial killer as opposed to ritual sacrifice or ritual offering of women into a sort of bridal priestesshood for a while, or whatever the heck was going on in this town, but certain aspects of it jumped out at me, which made me wonder whether there was such a thing as a serial killer in antiquity. And part of that is just because when you read about modern serial killers, and there have been quite a few, the tendency has been to describe serial killing as a modern phenomenon due to like the decadence of Western society, as if it only happens in Western society. As it turns out, it happens everywhere, you know, the decadence of modern society, or the release of mental patients when mental hospital were closed down in the O was it nineteen sixties or seventies, you know, in parts of the US, or poor medical care or whatever. So people have talked about it for a very long time. It was talked about as a modern thing, modern phenomenon. But then you go look at something like Jack the Ripper, who was really the first widely publicized serial killer because he sort of, you know, his killing has occurred at the same time as arise in the sort of cheap, you know, newspaper, And then you look back in history, and it's like, oh, well, wait a minute. There were people like Countess Bathori, you know, hundreds of years ago in Europe who killed young women so she could bathe in their blood. And then there were these guys in France and Germany who thought they were werewolves and went out and tore people to pieces. So the farther back you look, the more examples you find. It's just they're more well publicized, you know, since say the nineteen sixties, seventies, and eighties, And it was you know, in the eighties that the phrase serial killer first came into common usage, because before that it was like multiple murderer or various other terms. But it was sort of canonized, I guess, by the FBI in the nineteen eighties, and partially because of that, I think people were reluctant to say, oh, of course, this has been going on as long as there have been humans. And then there's the problem of well, you know, it's not like you can get crime scene evidence or psychological profiles of people from two thousand years ago, but we definitely have. Once I started looking after reading that Posenias story, there I found a lot of other stories that sound a lot more like serial killers than that one did.

Yeah, okay, I'll pause there.

Yeah, I mean that was the big background to all of this, but there are certainly a lot of other stories.

Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean I just generally love Pausanias for things like that, these little like you know, he feels so unique in this way where we can at this little taste of what the people in a certain area at that time were saying, and it's like, you know, whether or not we can get evidence out of it from you know, and beyond Pastanius is a whole other question. But he's like his work is just this really really unique insight into things like that. So I'm thrilled to hear. And also like, what a bizarre story of Yeah, there's like mythological crewmate of Odysseus meats, revenant meats, Like, yeah, ancient ghost stories broadly are such a fascination for me. But the idea of ancient serial killers, so I would love any in all examples that you have, Well, probably.

The first thing I should say is like, how are we going to identify them as serial killer sources at least as serial killer types in the absence of the crime scene evidence and its psychological profiles. So a big disclaimer here, I have no background in psychology or criminal profiling. So this is were of a pop culture approach to serial killing, although I did, you know, I did do some reading in terms of what the FBI and other you know, policing agencies think. So what I started looking for was the sort of typical things you might think of from TV shows you know about or movies about serial killers. How many victims are there? The FBI think says it has to be more than two or three. Uh, some other agencies are fine with two because they figure, oh, we caught him before he's going to do more, you know. And the thing is, sometimes serial killers kill two people at once and then another two people later, and one here and one they're like the Zodiac killer did back in California, so to it once here and there and that one on for a while anyways, so at least a couple of victims.

And it's usually just to be like a nerd who also has like taken in a lot of true crime over the years. I know, there's also like that differentiation between like a spree killer versus serial like it has to happen over a period of time too.

Yeah, and that wasn't Yeah, that was the next thing I was going to say, is that, unlike say a spree killer mass murderer, like somebody who shoots up a movie theater or any school, the serial killer is harshly identified by having there be periods of time in between the killings. Although I mean that can be like just a matter of hours, and I mean there's there's still you know, again, depending on what criminal you know agency you look at. That didn't come out right, criminal agency, right, yeah, you know, some of them think, well, if it's all in one day, it is more of a spree killing as opposed to a serial killing. Certainly, if it's a huge number of people at once at a concert or whatever, it's mass murder. And that applies to genocide. I mean, it applies to a whole bunch of other things. So it can be hours, but more usually it would be days or weeks or months or even years in between killings, and it could go on for a very long time. And then another aspect besides the number of victims, and you know, time frame, the time frame indicating among other things that this is someone who's fairly methodical and in control of themselves as opposed to getting out of control. So there are those two things. But there's also a lot of serial killers use like they'll kill by the same method. Now not always, you might have one who like strangles somebody, poisons somebody else, knife somebody else. But I think the larger proportion of serial killers seem to use the same method most of the time, not always, but usually or often. And then so then that is they'll have like a modus operandi that's similar, and they might have a signature that characterizes their murders. So say somebody is like a serial strangler, maybe they also leave a playing card, you know, at the st end of the crime or something so that they want the law enforcement to That's the word I was looking for a lawn was. It's just you don't have to edit out any of that. You can just go ahead anyway. This is how I speak to So I'm it'll come to me later, it'll come to be late, you know. So there may be some sort of like what the like what John Douglas of the FBI would call a signature that lets crime and law enforcement know that it was this killer who did that, or you know, possibly it's a copycat. But basically there's some little thing, some little token or indication that is unrelated to the method of killing. But that says, Hi, it's.

Me Zodiac is such a good just since you mentioned him earlier, that's such a good example of like that very explicit part of of the I mean, it's so hard, so interesting, and I'm like, it's terrible, but it's so interesting.

Well, yeah, writing writing the letters, wanting to bring him police attention to it, and then another thing is a lot of the times, but again not always there's a specific victim type, So like Ted Bundy going in after you know, undergraduate women, or the uh uh you know, uh serial killers going after women who remind them of their mothers. Uh the women. Female serial killers are more rare, but you know, they might all go after a type of man that reminds them of an abuse of father, you know, or abusive husband or so. So you know, there are serial killers who go after children, and uh, there are serial killers who go after prostitutes or I mean, the Atlantic child killing murders was a big one that did not get enough attention at the time because of the demographic that was targeted. Uh, So they're just again a lot of the time there's a similarity among the victims, but not not always. Sometimes it's opportunity more than uh, specifically seeking out a certain you know, type of person or a certain person. So there there are a bunch of these things that uh sort of can indicate that they're well, I guess they're characteristic of serial killing in modern terms. And so then the question is do we see that in antiquity at all, given the relative dearth of information. So to give an example from myth that finally in the last few years has become more popular or obvious maybe is pro Krusty's And well, in fact, you know all six of the criminals that the US encounters. So this is from this is from myth, but there is a historical aspect to it.

Great the first one I thought of, but from a different angle that I'll bring up later so that I'm okay, yes, I'm in well, no, I get it.

So I'll just I'll just talk about Procrusty's briefly and then or well I'll talk about Procustius and a little more detail, and then maybe mentioned one or two of the other ones briefly. But fascinating what we've got here with Thesius is, you know, he decides, you know, he's he's found out that his heritage just what he thought it was. He's got the sandal and the sword from under the stone that his mom told him about. He's going to go to Athens to find his real father or whatever, and or well was his father Poseidon or the king of Athens, whatever, Not the main point, not the big point. The part of the main point is that he wanted adventure, and he wanted to prove himself, and that the Athenians, when they were creating the stories, wanted to have their own hero who was sort of modeled after Heracles, who in the myth is Theseus' cousin, older cousin anyway, So Theseius, because he wants to prove himself instead of just taking a freaking boat across the gulf.

You know from the he.

He makes a huge deal out of it, and he's you know, and somehow he seems to know in advance. He's warned, according to I think Plutarch, he's warned by his grandfather or someone, don't take the road. There are all these criminals, and Theseus is like well, I'll take care of that, right, So so he sets off and he meets these six various sorts of highway robbers. Except in the myths, not hardly anything at all is said about the fact that they rob people. That that's like not even really mentioned, right. What's mentioned is the mutilation murders that they all do. So I'll just take Procrusty's as one of the examples, even though he was one of the last ones rather than one of the earlier ones. So THESS just working his way around the Gulf of Corn there ap the Asmuth, and one of the people he meets is Procrusty's And Procrusti's was apparently in the habit of, you know, inviting weary travelers back to his house and he'd say, yeah, sure, you know, you need a place to rest, come on, come to my house, and then he'd give them a bed, and the next thing they know, if they are too short for the bed, Procrusty's takes a mallet and pounds their bones until their jelly and he can just stretch out their limbs to fit the bed, or if they're too tall for his bed, he saws off their limbs. You know, to make them fit the freaking bed. So what we've got here with Procrust's is there is I suppose there's a victim type that we can point to, which is, you know, loane travelers usually men. Women aren't going to tend to travel in themselves anyway, so loan travelers who are weary, susceptible. He acts friendly, says, look, I've got a little hostel over here, brings them back, and then kills them by a consistent method, you know, depending on if they're two short or too dull for the bad. He has a murder kit, right, So it's like, I mean, you know again, Ted Bundy had a murder kit. He had like handcuffs and duct tape and stockings and a ski mask or whatever. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, I'm referring back to a lot of famous ones from the sixties and seventies. Basically, he had a kit that looked a lot like for Krusty's. It had like a hack saw and a bunch of hammers and knives. And you know, if you think about TV's Dexter, like the fictionalist serial killer. Because we're actually in for a new series about Dexter by the way.

Yeah, I heard about that recently.

That's what. Yeah, well it's going to start with his origins, like like his upbringing and how he got started in the police, you know, the police and everything and his dad. So anyways, so Dexter, you know, fictional Uh, he had his uh murder kit of you know, surgical instruments from you know, working you know, in sort of a medical examine of related type field. They're forensics anyway. So for Krusty's basically had a murder kit because he had these different implements and he would take the ones he needed and then use them. Uh and then uh, so we've got a consistent fictim pipe. We've got what we would call a homebody serial killer in the sense of bringing people back to his house to murder them, but also finding them along the road. The roads are a huge place for serial murder in antiquity and in modern times. Like there was this whole FBI very badly named but Highway serial Killer Initiative, which sounds like, let's get those serial killers out there on the highways. What it meant was they're going to like try to track them down, the ones that are killing at highway ros stops and stuff. But anyway, the roads are a good anonymous place to get people really anyways. So so Forecrusty shares a lot of characteristics with what we would think of as serial killers these days. So it's not like, yes, he was a serial killer, but the characterization of Procresty's and some of these other characters sounds like they knew about this type of pattern of killing, even if they didn't have the phrase serial killer to describe it. And so these use of course comes along and kills Procrusty's by his own methods, like kills Progostia's with his own acts or whatever.

And I always wonder whether he was too tall or too short for his bed. I don't we get the answer.

Yeah, no, I don't think he got to the point of even being on the bed because he knew what he was getting into. Somehow, there was no police force in antiquity. This sort of vigilanteism is you know, neighborhood watch kind of thing, was really the only way anything would like that would get done. But theseus runs into several other character like this, like Cinnis the Pine Bender, who love him.

I mean, it's so creative.

Oh my god, which version do you like better? The one where he ties people in between two trees and then let's go so they're porn in half or the version where he ties them like to one side and then just let's go so they're flung over the crew.

Yeah, the two, because it seems like the least practical way of doing anything. I don't I don't understand how he would get the trees down to the point where he could do it, And it's just so creative. It's truly, it's one of my favorite stories.

Well, and you know they're actually you know, there are ancient Greek you know, vase paintings that illustrate some of this, and they just sort of show Cinnis and Thesius reaching down for these brands just somehow. But these just comes along and kills him by the same way also, and then he does that with Faya and or her the Coromeonion saw, who, by the way, always reminded me of White in the movie like Plas.

Oh my god, you know what I'm talking, I fully do. I don't have the last time I've heard another person reference like Placid, a movie I've seen fifty times at least Oh my god, yeah, wow, that's yeah, No, that's so true. Well that's always thrown me because it's like either she's a woman or she's a cow. And you're like, well I think you're saying something there and I don't love it.

Oh you mean in the ancient man. Yeah, yeah, oh it's a Yeah, it's either she's an old woman or she's a giant pig.

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's right.

That's right. So and again we have these you know, ancient pictures of like this old woman directing the giant sow to go and kill these ews. So it's either like a female Sarah killer or it's a Betty White and the giant you know, crocodiles or alligator whatever.

See that it would have been an alligator. I think some on my island just to say where I used to live in Vancouver Island. And that's a real claim to fame for me personally.

I know, I totally get that. I think that movie, I think that we'd be like got a sort of bump after Betty White died. It showed up on like streaming again where people got to see it. But yeah, you're right, it must have been an alligator crododiles are much farther south. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, so so these just goes around kills all these people, and then the question is we'll hang on a sec Is he like Dexter? Is he like this Mitchel anti serial kill?

That was my argument in an episode years ago, which is why I'm thrilled here.

So I guess, I guess the difference there is that these us. You know, on the one hand, he does have intent. He's like, I'm gonna go get these guys, So that's premeditation right there. On the other hand, you know, as far as the ancient Greeks were concerned, he was making the roads safe for society the way that Heracles does. And the big difference for the Greeks is that at the end of this run of like killing the six people on his way to Athens, at the end of that he has himself purified by a formal ritual, So he has him self purified of the bloodshed and the guilt and the miasma and all those things that the Greeks would have objected to, so that before he actually sets foot in Athens, he's been cleansed of all of this. As far as the ancient Greeks are concerned and everyone's very grateful. And then the other aspect to that whole Thesius and those killing all those people is that they all represented like rulers of local you know, neighboring regions like Elaosis that Athens was sort of rivals with, and this and that. So there's this, you know, political propaganda aspect to to like, oh, the Athenians are better than the Lyssans.

You know, all most of theseus mythology.

Yeah, yeah, so so he's I think that's you know, one of the strongest mythological examples comes from the thesis myth and the pristhesis. An especially neat example, the I say I didn't mention with Procristius was just the bed being there. It kind of is like we've got in the background this you know, potentially sexual subtext that's also present in a lot of modern serial killer issues in terms of, you know, is it their mothers who told them, you know, stay away from women, you know whatever women are bad or you know whatever, like little issues they they might have had a lot of the times the sort of sexual repression or issues are in the background or subtext there which might be the case with Propostius and the bad Yeah, we don't know. There's no way to know. There's I mean, you know, could just be a freaking coincidence.

Yeah. Well, the argument I made, and this comes from the there's a very long running sort of theme in my show, which is just that I think Theseus is the loserist of all of the heroes. I mean for many reasons, primarily that he like is just Athenian propaganda, but also that like I find it so funny that that that whole story his the walk you know, from Trees in to Athens and everyone that he kills along the way, Like, I find that so interesting that that is so it's meant to mirror you know, Heracles's labors, and the difference to me is so it's so poignant. It's like Heracles is said to have defeated all of these like you know, these like supernatural kind of beasts and and and like forces like and then Theseus is just like he took out a bunch of guys along the road who like we're just meant to We're supposed to just like believe Theseus that that's what they were doing. And so my silly argument in my like sort of running joke of hating on Theseus is that, like, you know, well, I think that he went and just like told all these stories and really he was just killing guys all along the way and coming and like or even if they were doing it, he still went and like killed them all with their own same methods. And I have to ask before we go anywhere from this story, what is the name of the one other guy who's whose mo was to like kick people off the cliff and into like the gaping jaws of a tournai.

I think that was Skyron.

Oh yeah, that sounds right.

Yeah, yeah, so it was either a giant turtle or I think in some of the versions of giant crab, but the turtle is the main one. Yeah, yeah, I think it's personally, I think it's kind of a tie between these Use and Jason.

Yes, the thing is for me, my argument and I've had this discussion and argument with a lot of people many times because it's a very valid debate between the two of them. But my argument is that Theseus is death count and like women he assaulted and did various other terrible things to along the way, is considerably higher than Jason's and so Jason to me is just like a bummer, like he's he's not a good guy, but he's just kind of like he's like bad at being not a good guy, whereas theseus is like really talented at being not a good guy. I've thought about this handful of times, if you.

Can clearly yeah, and I mean, you know, I think you're right. If you look at both of these guys, they had way more help from women, right, I mean said I need Jason hand media, and it's you know, they really didn't do as much on their own, although I suppose you could argue that somebody like odsh you just said the help of Athena.

Yeah he also he's in there too.

Yeah, I mean like.

Yeah, like if we're talking death as wins for sure.

Yeah, we're talking definitely got that Slaughter of the Suitors there. Which, by the way, what's that new movie The Return? Yeah, very it's not playing here yet. I know.

I was just I was just looking at I actually got to read ads for it. It was like one of the first times in ages where I was excited to read an ad for the show, where I was like, oh, I get to talk about this movie, right, Yeah, No, I'm excited for that one, mostly because I'm curious how they'll handle the killing of the suitors, but more so the the killing of the women of the palace.

So yeah, that'll be very interesting.

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean I'm thrilled that that that's your first kind of go to example, because I absolutely have have made such similar arguments in the past about like the serial killer nature of those guys, not least because they're just their mos are hilariously like, I mean absurd in this way where you just like it's just so mythological, you know, where it's like nothing that could have happened. Where is this what turtal what mixing the word turtle and tortoise? What turtle? Like Greece is mostly tortoises, So it really throws me that suddenly there's a sea turtle involved. But yeah, you know your camera, you know, yeah, like what introduce me to the turtle that it's going to be down at the bottom of this cliff ready to like devour a guy or the you know, somebody who can bend trees like that that you spring back. But it is just so bizarre. But yeah, so, I mean, are there Are there more beyond theseasts are we getting? Is there any kind of evidence.

For for historical stereo killers. I think that there is. And before I segue to that, I just want to briefly mention Heracles before So he's got those twelve Labors, which are like these amazing monsters, you know, hide for the most.

Part, I had to clean the stables. Who wants to say, what's going on there?

Diverting a river to do it. But I just, uh, you know, I feel like we ought to at least give a nod to his part araga, his side adventures, because those seem to be what these jus is modeled more after. Because Antaeus, for example, so Heracles has to bressell Antaeus, who is sort of his own serial killer in terms of wrestling everybody who comes into his kingdom and winning, and so these has a similar one. I think it's a it's ker key on. Maybe I might have to double check, but but so those side you know, and this is interesting to you to your point, because it really does make these you seem a lot less of a hero when he's emulating these side adventures Heracles instead of the twelve Labors, and even with the mana Tara. You know, he has a lot of help. Yeah, he has to kill it himself.

And that's like the only big feet of like a real like a threatening, like actual supernatural kind of monster because even you know, like, yeah, he defeats the Marathonian bull, but it's at that point, it's just a bull who's like kind of already been handled, you know. And yeah, I.

Mean Jason's got those fire breathing, bronze footed bulls. But he couldn't have done any thing without Medea.

Yeah, yeah, useless without.

Her, right right? Kind of pathetic. Yeah, And I mean, you know, it depends on there are so many different ways to interpret these things. I don't want to, you know, digress too far. But before he got to colchis Jason, you know, he had all these companions and they all had their talents, so like when they where was I think the adventure was Phineas and the Harpies came before they got to Colcus, But it was a couple of the argonauts that handled that, the ones that could fly.

Oh yeah, he does like nothing.

Like no, he doesn't do.

His ship is full of other people to help him, including yes, including Heracles and Orpheus sometimes and Atalanta sometimes and like this long list of people who've done more than him. No, Jason being a hero like one of the you know, typical typically labeled as heroes has always been hilarious to me because you can't be really like sure if heroism is is like supposedly captaining a ship that seems to have been perfectly capable of running without you, then.

Like, right, exactly exactly what did he even do?

Right?

So, and I'm trying to think, like, which of the Greek heroes is really I mean, is perc Use a better example? He gets help from Astina and Hermes, but he has he rescues women, he has better relationships with women his mother.

But the Medusa of it all, well.

That's highly problematic, yes.

Like because the thing to me, I mean, I think Heracles just has to win for lots of reasons. I mean, he does a lot of really bad stuff too, but like I think, you know, he just at least has like a handful of things that are kind of objectively beneficial to humanity. Ye, And but yeah, Percus is my my entire pet obsession slash like life source is just the story of Medusa, and it being that like she literally was not a threat, Like he didn't defeat some monster that was going to hurt anybody, and so it's like, no, he just took a woman's head and then used it as a weapon, and so like, yeah, he saved Andromeda and his mother and that's lovely, but like at what cost?

And I mean it's like, you know, she was according to most versions, she's off on an island with her Gorgon sisters. It's sort of like intruding on Circe. You get, you set foot on that island, you get what you just they're literally.

Off in the middle of nowhere where they can't hurt anybody. And he's like, I'm gonna go get her because this guy told me to. Right.

Yeah, there's just like not enough critical thinking and questioning of authority going on.

I wouldn't. I do say cad Miss is one of the safer heroes, but he also got so little chance to do anything that I don't think he gets to like win any kind of contest. He just doesn't have a ton of problematic moments.

Yeah. Yeah, and these foundation myths are you know, a little uh, a little more positive and yeah, I mean, depending on the point of view of the people who are conquered for the foundation, the local guardian serpents may not be to thing about it. Yeah, but I'm sorry you asked about to talk about all this, So you asked about historical examples, and I mentioned the sort of serial killers who have issues with their mothers. So I'm just gonna go I'm going to talk about Nero for a little bit here. Great. So the thing is that it's not really fair to call somebody like Nero a serial killer because this is a much huger problem that we have with and you know, he's he's a public figure, he's in a position of power, he's abusing that power, nobody stops and whatever. But I think the the helpful thing maybe to keep in mind in relationship and relationship Nero and Sero killers is that, you know, people like Tacit Suetonius, who are our main sources for you know, pseudobiographies of Nero, they characterize Nero in terms that we would think of in relation to serial killers. So again, it's not to say again I'll give some details, but I feel like I have to, you know, I get offer a disclaimer that it's not like I want to say, oh, of course Nero was a serial killer. Neiel I was gonna be the same thing you did with it. Let's combine two words here. So I don't want to say that Neral was, of course a serial killer or anything like that. It's more like, again, the characteristics of serial killing seem to have been recognized in antiquity, even if they weren't called that, and some of them are applied to Nero again not intentionally to you know, characterize him as a serial killer, because that wouldn't have been recognized so much. But what things that sound familiar to us. So, for example, we hear a lot about Nero's upbringing in these in these historiographical or you know, writings, So you know, he was abandoned by his mother at a young age. She eventually came back when he was a young teenager, like thirteen or some twelve or thirteen, but she didn't show him any affection, and he hated his aunt who took had taken her place for a while or whatever it was. And even when he was little, he you know, he set fires, he beat people up. As a teenager, he started brawls, he cracked people's heads over the head with barstools or whatever. And the older he got, the worst it got. And there were no consequences for his actions because he was just you know, part of this important family, you know, when he was acting out. But he would supposedly, again according to Tastus and Spetonius, he would rape women, he would attack men, So no consistent victim type. But then what we've got is that sort of disturbed background that is often attributed to serialcullers or noticed in serialcular backgrounds, like the the abuse. I mean again, it's not like every abused child grows up to be a sul.

It is still their fault.

But yeah, look at the yeah you know so, but the the starting fires, the torturing of people, the mute lading of of people's uh, the when he got older, he took a mistress who looked like Agrippina, and then when he had more power, he sort of continued to torture and uh supposedly kill kill people in ways that uh, you know, it wasn't just straight out execution. It was you know, mutilation, torture, murder, that kind of thing. So some of the descriptions of what nero Is allegedly did sound like what we sometimes see in modern serial killers. And uh, there's also a bit later, Uh, like I guess fourth century, there's a there's a rhetorical exercise which is basically a practice law court speech called against a murderer by Libanius, who was a rhetorician. And so this was a practice speech that he gave his students to you know, practice prosecution against a murderer. But the descriptions of the murderer sound so much like a serial killer. So again, when when he was younger, he got away with all sorts of crimes that allowed him become become more bold and audacious. So when he was young, he committed robberies. He did, he start fires, he raped women, this and that, So that he has come down to us as the murderer that he is. And he's basically a highway robber. So he lays the way outside the city. But instead of just robbing people, and here's where it sounds a lot like Thesey stories. Instead of just robbing people, this sort of fictional murder practice murderer in this speech, practice speech, he attacks people, robs them, but then tortures and murders them and mutilates their bodies by chopping them up into pieces, so you know, their families can't even find them for proper burial, and everybody's terrified in the city. And there's part of the speech that says, you know, he has two different personalities. When he's among us, he seems calm and rational, and it's basically the but he was such a good neighbor, I never thought he could possibly be a serial killer, whereas outside the city walls, he's bold and he's murder and he outs the laws. You know, he makes up his own laws and doesn't consider himself bound by the rules of society. So this dichotomy that's drawn in this speech, which is basically a historical setting but fictionalized characters, but so that the students of the rhetoric who are going to go into law courts will know how to argue such a case, implies that there were people like that that they needed to you know that. So the characteristics again are there of a serial mulation murderer. So that's a bit more on the historical side. There are some people like if you look in encyclopedias of serial killers by like pop culture encyclopedias of serial killers by people like Perrel Schechter. Whoever, they will sometimes include a character named Lacusta of Gaul.

Oh, yeah, so she was.

She's put in there and characterized as a serial poisoner, except that she's basically an assassin for hire. So sure, she poisons a bunch of people or provides the poison for other people to do so, but what's her motivation. Her motivation is money, and again she doesn't always poison the people herself, but she might provide it. But it shows that, you know, even without deaf definitive evidence from antiquity, people are looking into ancient history to try to find the closest possible thing. Assassins are kind of another story. I mean, maybe they get jobs as assassins because if they didn't, they would be what we consider serial killers. So like the Sicai, for example, who carried out you know, political assassinations, that sort of thing. So that's that's kind of a whole separate bit as well. And there were certainly mass murders in historical antiquity. You know, I'm not talking about audishes in this plot, massadors right now, which is a whole other thing in terms of blood feud also, but you know, they're mass murders, mass poison examples of mass poisoning, especially in ancient role that you know, when important people were killed, it would come to the attention like that. That's when the Roman government would give a crap. It's when important people were killed.

So another familiar to all.

Yes, I was going to again the Atlanta child murders come to mind. But I think one of the things to think about is that if there was, say, the ancient equivalent of Jack the Ripper, like in the slums of Rome, we wouldn't know because no one's going to write about it the way they did with like the you know, the East what was it the East side of London? I should know specific. Yeah, and I'm for some reason not forgetting I'm in terms of jaff Rapper. But if somebody were like murdering prostitutes in ancient Rome, or you know, poor people or homeless people or whatever.

Michaela's Whitechapel, just thank you, yes, yes, example exactly, think you did it again.

Thank you. I can't believe I like blanked out on that because it's so famous. But you know, that sort of thing may well have been going on and we wouldn't know about it. So you know, again these sort of what what is this the saying, you know, absence of evidences and evidence of absence. So uh so it's it is something to think about when we do have these, you know, bits and pieces of evidence that seem to indicate awareness of the type this type of crime. Like that's there are serial killings described, we just don't necessarily have them attached to specific historical figures in the way that you might want them to be. M h. So that's another another aspect too.

Yeah, well I think about that all the time about you know, the people wouldn't have written it down for things like that, you know, if it was in like you were saying the slums of Rome or something equivalent. But at the same time too, like even if someone had probably wouldn't you know, remain for us today too, So it's like you can only I mean, I think with this a lot in terms of the treatment of women, and I mean I would think crimes against women would be a really similar thing where we can say with almost certainty like that type of stuff was happening, like humans are going to human and by that I mean often men are going to men. But we don't just because we don't have evidence of it doesn't mean that you know that it wasn't happening. But to see it sort of specifically with serial killers and things like that, to see it mirrored a little in things like mythology or you know what little we do have that kind of it suggests that people were still you know, paying attention to an extent or at least like you know, noticing and kind of you know, putting, putting an event like that into kind of their own the way that is easiest for them to understand, you know, say, with the myths of myth of Theseus and his little travels, you know, they're they're seeing something and that that's ending up in a myth, and so it's interesting to think about what what they could be seeing. And that just brought me back, my little mind back to Pausanius too, and like what was happening there? You know that that he wrote something like that, You know, there's just so many questions.

Well, and there are a lot of little stories like that one I'm and there's one in the appulaeusis Metamorphosis, which, unlike Paustanius, is not like a local legend necessarily, but uh in Apuleius's metamorphosis. There's a I think it's a later book, my book eight or.

Something, and this is Kayla's just translating that class. So I'm kind of like slowly waiting for her to jump in.

Well, I think it's I think it's in Backy, but it's a very small episode. And at this point Lucius has been turned into the the ass and he's I guess he's at this point, you're doing Cubans like I'm going to be teaching at next fall. But so he's I guess he's with a group of runaway slaves and they've been you know, I don't know, chased out of one town and they're you know, they they stop somewhere to rest, like just afternoon or around lunchtime, which is you know, I don't know. I don't think the word is used specifically midday or anything like that, but it is. It seems to be the time of day when creepy things tend to happen in myth a lot, and like in a of it and other author's midday is dangerous time. There's no shadows or whatever. But anyways, so they're stopping to rest and they see a nearby shepherd. He'll sort of hurrying by and they ask him, you know, a question, and he's like, you know, don't you know where you are this? Don't stay here, you know, and he just like keeps going in Like they're trying to get food and drink and he doesn't have He's just like, no, I'm getting out of here. And the next thing they know, an old man who's like walking with a crutch comes up to them and says, my grandson fell into a ditch by the side of the road and I can't get him out. Can any of you help me? So one of the you know, strapping him man goes with the old man to help, and you know, they're waiting and waiting. He doesn't come back, so a second guy goes after him and then rushes back like completely terrified. You're not going to believe what I just saw. The guy's dead and there's this giant snake eating him, and then the rest of the group is like everyone's terrified. They just like run to the next down okay, and they're like, oh, that's what the guy was talking about, the shepherd. So so this has the appearance of, you know, a type of local legend where people know to avoid a certain area. There's a man who lures victims like he separates somebody from the group, the him really being a giant serpent in disguise. It is all letter problem. But what was interesting about that particular episode, aside from the fact that this does seem to be a regular occurrence, which is why people avoid the area, so maybe mutilated bodies were found or whatever, the thing there to maybe call out is the trick that the creature uses. So an old man who is walking with a crutch, well, this is something that Ted Bundy did. Like he would he would have his arm in a sling or he'd have a crutch, and he'd gets some pretty young, you know, college student to help him carry his books or his briefcase to his car. And if you think of the Silence of the Lands, Buffalo, Bill does the same thing. It's in the book and the film. You know, he's got this cast in his arm and he's pretending to have trouble getting his cheer into his van and the you know, the girl comes out to help him and he whacks her over the head, knocks her unconscious, shows her in the van, takes her off throws her in a pit. She's one of the lucky lucky ones who has get away after being you know, the tormented and terrified. But this, uh, this tactic of a killer pretending to be disabled and then learning a victim that way is I think one of the interesting things about the story. So again it's not in a and I'm not saying this is oh, this must have been a local serial killer that was then told in a form that people could deal with, which I think you had said something like that that these stories come down to us in a form that people can deal with. But you know, the tactic there, but just I guess just to sort of run with that idea of stories being told in a form that is more palatable. This is where John Douglas, the FBI former FBI guy who wrote mind Hunter, which there has also been a TV streto Too Bad. It was it was so good after two seasons, right, I was like, yeah, come on, so much more great casts too, and they had a ton of material like I worked with. But anyway, so John Douglas actually in his book mind Hunter, wrote a bit about how you know, he was speculating, well, maybe some of those killings in early modern Europe that were attributed to were wolves and vampires. Maybe those were serial killers, you know, and it was just like people didn't want to believe that other human beings could do something so horrible like mutilation murder. So maybe, you know, those were stories that sort of became legends about types of monsters because otherwise people couldn't deal with it. I mean, obviously there are other possibilities there. I mean, the Force of Europe did tend to have wolves in them, you know, axle wolves, and then we there were those stories from from Germany and France of men who did have these so called werewolf delusions. And so whether there are rational explanations or not, the point is that this FBI guy actually said, well, maybe these stories about monsters, these creatures of folklore, creatures of war, maybe those are originally based in serial killing stories. And from there we can say that, you know, even something like the theban Sphinx, you know, I mean, look, she's got a particular victim type, she's got a particular method of killing. I don't this is not my own theory. There was actually, like I don't know if it was an article or a chapter in a book, but somebody wrote about, well, maybe the theban Sphinx was, you know, a story that grew up around serial killing. And even in antiquity there were rationalizing mythographersts like Palafatis who would say, well, of course a hybrid creature is ridiculous, it's just physiologically impossible. The theban Sphinx was really a female robber with a band of robbers who would come down from her cave in the mountains and kill people and rob them. So they were rationalizing, you know, versions and antiquity as well. Yeah, so they weren't that far from saying, oh, it's just it's just killers, you know, it's just human killers who were doing this sort of stuff. So even two thousand years ago or more, they were speculating about where are these stories about certain types of killers came from.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, because, I mean, all of this leads me to also want to ask about, you know, your your work with monsters in mythology more broadly, but because I mean, and it's funny you mentioned poly Fatus because I had I had not really heard of him a while, you know, before I recently wrote a big piece on Medusa for a book that's come out recently, and I that's where I first encountered him, because I went through and I dug into like any possible reference to Medusa and the Gorgons that I could find anywhere, and finding these, yeah, these rationalizing stories. I'm gonna by the way, oh it's called Medusa and then what is the subtitle? It's just like ancient and modern Greek tales. I think it's a book of short stories primarily, but the publisher asked me to write a big introductory piece on her, so I got to write like twenty seven thousand words on Medusa and whatever I wanted. It was the greatest thing I've ever gotten.

To and I'll look for it.

Yeah, I'm very proud of my piece. I haven't read the short stories yet, but I'm sure they're they're really great as well. But I got to go into some of those rationalizing stories and my favorite one night. This one's not Polyfatis, if I recall, but it's dietor a sicklus who talks about, you know, the Gorgons actually being like really similar to the Amazons, and how like there was this whole race of warrior women. But then you know, essentially, like it comes down to Heracles just like couldn't allow that to happen because he was the leader of men and like he could have women ruling, so he killed them all. And here we are, and you know, and there's like there's so many kind of like notions of this and and these this way of like understanding monsters, and I mean when it came to Medusa, for me, I sort of ended up getting down to a point of just like, Okay, to me, I think I think it's pretty clear that she really just like what is the word I want represented? She really just represented male fear of women who could fight back against like an assault. And it's so interesting to me the way that that can kind of like mold and change and grow, and you know, I mean, ultimately the Gorgans I think represent a lot else. But to me, the story of Medusa's defeat so specifically is just like that, and then the way that it turns on its head. And someone like poly Fatist, do you know offhand what his rationalization of Medusa was. There was a few that I wrote about, so I've forgotten, but.

Honestly I have the book right on myself. I can literally just go yes, great, yeah, okay, So I've just picked up my Pallethatus book.

Oh I love it. Well, I feel free to share any as well, because I'm fascinated by the idea of the rationalization of monsters. More broadly, I only got to read Medusa for the book.

But let me see, Well, what does he have to say about Scilla. Well, here's what he says. For example, what is said about Scilla is that she was a beast who lived in Turania, a woman down to her navel from where dogs headscrew and the rest of her body was the snakes. But to imagine such a shape is really quite foolish. Here is the truth. The Turanians had ships which made piradical raids in the waters around Sicily and the Ionian Gulf. But particularly swift in those days was a try ream by the name of Silla, which had a figure on its prow. It was this trier which often sees the other boats and made a meal of them. There was indeed much talk about it. On one occasion a dish used to escape from this ship with the aid of a strong favorable wind. Later in corsaira he narrated to alcinous, how he was pursued, and how he escaped, and what the boat looked like. From this, the myth was formed. So I read that one because it's super short.

Yeah no, but it's so it is such what it's a good example of the work he was doing.

I don't know. Let's see, there's a media. There's one on media, but I'm still looking for Medusa. But uh, there's one about Pandora.

That's oh god, yes, please, Okay.

This is even shorter than the other one I read. So the story about Pandora is intolerable. That she was fashioned out of the earth and imparted her shape to others, that is, women, it hardly seems likely to me. No, Pandora was a wealthy Greek woman. Whenever she went out in public, she would dress up in her finest and rub her face with a cosmetic made of earth. It was she who first discovered how to apply such cosmetics to her skin. Nowadays, of course, many women do so, and none of them gained any special renown because the practice is so common. This is what happened, but the story was twisted in an impossible direction.

It's just it's so interesting and I love how certain the text is. It's like, no, this one is the truth. Oh here the Daughters of forkis. Oh it's very this one's long, so we won't try to go into it. But oh yes, there's something about there these three women of the Kingdom, and they had they had an eye. But he was just like there, you know, he he this guy who worked with them, and so they they're pulling in the story of the the the Gray Eye, and Percy is having to steal their eye. Oh and it was.

It's it's a ship again, right, yeah, it was called the ship is called the Gorgon.

And then he steals this this statue, cuts it up, names his ship that puts it on. And then when he arrives back in Saraphos or he goes there they say he's a pirate actually, and he goes there and demands money, and then he leaves while they collect it. And when he goes back, the Saraphians have have like put human sized rocks in a place, and he's like, oh, I guess they turned the stuff.

Yes, yeah, I mean, let's see. It ends like thereafter whenever any of the other island people would not pay their tribute preciuse would say, be careful that you two do not suffer what the people of Seraphos did, who saw the gorgon sat and were turned to stone. Yeah, that's why I didn't find it. It was listed under the Daughters of Forkiss. Yes, but yeah, no, that's a great one. Yes, these rationalizing mythographers from two thousand years ago.

Well, and particularly you know, I'm fascinated by the volume of female monsters and you know what that meant. And so to to then read these men writing this, like, you know, equally absurd, but in a more realistic way, these rationalizations, which of course never address any kind of gender dynamics that would have been at play, you know. And so it's interesting to see the way an ancient man would rationalize it. And I'm just always curious, like, how about the women see it? I wonder, well, And I always thought.

It was interesting that some of them would in fact say, there are these female bandits with groups of men following them. So that's sort of a tributing and attributing an interesting kind of an agency to women that you would normally have thought of necessarily. I mean, they're made out as they're made out as villains of course, but in terms of the sort of like power power dynamics. Yeah, you know, in a group like that, it's pretty interesting.

Well yeah, I mean in the ancient world, I will take a villain woman if it means I get to you know, look at a woman actually getting to do things that she wants, even if they're terrible, Medea being a great example.

Yeah. And oh but speaking of Medusa, I thought one of the great one of the great reinterpretations was that sculpture a few years back of Medusa with pursusis And it's really sort of you know, inverted the or subverb of the entire the entire myth.

That was great.

That was an amazing statue, which I guess got a little bit of criticism for Ideali Reduce's body, but it was still just I mean, it was you know, it was just an inversion of whose sculpture?

Yeah, it might because yeah in Florence. Yeah, yeah, well and it is it is so interesting, and I think the problem I think that that statue is really interesting. It was done by a man, which makes me go like, I don't know how I know, it just makes me wonder, But it is just Meduca to me as my endless obsession, purely because of the way that she has been like reinterpreted in recent years in all of these different ways that you know, I think a lot hold value and a lot are absurd and you know, it's such an interesting She is just so unique in that way. I think she's been kind of manipulated by the modern world in a way that's particularly interesting.

Yeah, if I'm remembering right, I think the sculptor had said that he was inspired by the Me Too movement. Actually, because it was several years ago.

I believe that, if I were call correctly, the sculpture is considerably older than the Me Too movement. But then it came it got renewed appreciation during that time, I believe. I know a friend of mine wrote a piece on it a while back. But yeah, no, it's it's it was an interesting thing.

I know.

It definitely was like very big around the Me Too movement in an interesting way.

That must have been what it was. Yeah, yeah, it was very striking.

Yeah, no, it's yeah. I mean I could talk about Medusa forever, but I will try not to. But I'm so interested in monsters broadly. You know, I was looking into your work, and I see that you have a new like Oxford Handbook of Monsters that you've edited. Yeah, is there anything you know? Well, I mean I'm also happy to keep hearing about some some serial killers as well, but I'm always I'm always down to hear about monsters or or just yeah, I don't this is not forming into a question, so I apologize. Do you have a favorite monster?

Maybe? Well, I actually I actually thought of something really to the book that that maybe would make a good topic for discussion. But yeah, I have, I have it right here. It came out on Halloween, so amazing, but it was it was actually delayed by something like seven months because of problems on the production, and so it was supposed to be like a lot sooner. But I think what I noticed when I was this is like, there are like forty essays in here, right, So one of the things I noticed was the, like I think the cyclopes, poly Femous is probably the best example of this. But what I noticed was that, you know a lot of the essays would approach the same monster from these different perspectives, and poly Famous really stood out in that respect because he got you know, interpreted from you know, disability studies perspective, and a colonialism perspective, and a few others that were just so interesting in terms of I mean, he's he was you know, obviously reinterpreted, you know before this decade, in terms of well, wait a minute, Odysius was the one intruding on him is home as was so up in the case with story, right, So disuse was a crap leader, let's.

Us truly but uh you know so uh so.

We had already seen you know, some sympathy for polyfemous uh you know, from a modern point of view, long before this volume came out. But just like there was a lot of it in there at once, just showing how why these ancient myths are these ancient monsters in particular, are very adaptable to the modern world. So for example, and a silver blank and Sheell Award wrote a chapter on disability that talked about the cyclops at length and how you know, we really need to sort of consider the physical environment and how it was disadvantageous for a disuse because you know, what was what worked for this very large cyclops was not going to work for a disuse. And so the perspective there of oh wait a minute, you know, this isn't built for everyone, and what happens when when it isn't. I mean, our disuse is the huge disadvantage. He cannot move that rock, right, and he even puts it in in terms that you know, are useful to him, like, oh, even if we had like a cart drawn by I don't remember exactly what was, but you know this many horses or whatever, they still wouldn't be able to pull that rock away. So uh So the focus on the physical environment and uh, you know, within the context of disability studies, I thought was really interesting and uh put put the whole story in a kind of a different perspective for me. And then you know, from colonialism studies and this is this is maybe a good thing to bring up too, because Nikki Giovanni recently died and poet and the Justine McConnell did a chapter on uh, you know, colonialism and used uh there was a lot of focus on pobly femous cyclops in that one too, and how he's been reinterpreted from this point of view, not justus as intruder, buts is colonial colonializer, colonizer, sorry, colonizers. The way I'm looking for colonizer, and you know, he just sort of waltzes in, decides what's best, is horrified by the savagery of the local. You know, there's a side question there of is it cannibalism or anthropophagy? Because is the cyclops really a different creature altogether or is he just a giant man? Because a dish Use in his narrative does refer to him as on air more than once. I mean maybe onis like a horror horrible man, a monstrous man, but still on air. So you know, so if a Dishus thinks of him as just a larger type of man, then that makes the crunching on a Dishues's companions as a snack even more horror faying. I suppose that if it were a mond, you know, somebody more monstrous or less humanoid or whatever. But the colonializing, colonializing aspect of this is taken up by reception in reception studies, and so the point of view of native people's as more chug like and savage unless sophisticated, it turns into something highly problematic in the case of a Disuse, where what kind of behavior is he expecting from someone that he's called less sophisticated, already not Greek enough whatever. Uh So there are all sorts of judgments from a discuss point of view, of course. But the Nikki Giovanni, I mean, what was gonna say is, yeah, but like Polyphemous and the poetry of Nikki Giovanni, I guess she just died. Was it earlier this week?

Or oh I'm not familiar with that to say, but that's okay.

She's a you know, she's she's a poet. And what Justine mccaull says is, if it's okay, I'll just read a laze bit here of it. But you know, she talks about how Giovanni's Polyphemous is unmistakably a small child and the poem crying out in pain for his father Giovanni Cyclops doesn't understand the humanity of others or the irreversibility of his actions. So the part of the poem is I didn't mean for the men to go. They were fun, but they broke and they cried, and then later on I mean, well, I'm sorry I should say part of what that seems to say. You know, as just eMac call points out us that poly Famous is seeing a disus has been as toys. They're small, they're cute, there's something to play with, and children bite their.

Toys all the time.

So Polypemous dehumanizes them as inanimate objects in a way that parallels Oditious is dehumanizing of Polyphemous. And if the Cyclops is sort of viewed from this, you know, as a sort of toddler, his inability to understand what he's doing, you know, kind of changes the power balance. So later in the poem, Giovanni, after Disus, you know, take the cyclopsis eye. Geovany's pump says, why did no man take my eye? I only wanted to play with him? Is he broken too? Make him give it back, Daddy, make him give it back. So it's a really you know, just you know, touching take on the story in this different point of view. And I know this won't be visible to you know people, But there's a painting that justin McConnell talks about also, which is romy or Bearden's painting or collage rather of the Cyclops, which also makes him rather childlike, sort of peeking out from his cave, maybe waving. There's a bird standing nearby who obviously isn't afraid of the Cyclops, and the ship is approaching, and the Cyclops isn't afraid and I'll just I don't know if you've seen, I'll show you, but but it's hard to see. But so so those those two chapters alone, the one on disability studies behind a Silver Blank and Chill Award, and then Justine McConnell's you know on postcolonial takes on some of these monsters has just been fascinating for me. I mean, this is one of the things I like about editing, but you know, collections like this is I get to see a lot of different points of view on you know this, the same sorts of things. Yeah, and then.

Oh, just it's interesting the way you phrased or the way you retold the disability studies aspect, because even as you were talking about it that way, my mind was going to colonialism, even in that kind of form, that way that it's you know, that the space was not made for Odysseus, because it was not for Odysseus, and and the way that that colonizing forces never know what to do with the land that they've colonized because it was not they are not the stewards of that land. They are not experienced in its in its care and stewardship and such, and so it's an interesting you know, it like it ties to disability studies in that accessible kind of way, and then similarly into the colonial as well, where it's just like this is not for you, and that is why you don't fit in with it, because it is another person and world that that you're you know, just coming in and saying that this is yours now, and it's yeah, it's it's interesting the way that those those can sort of overlap, I mean, disability studies and colonialism overlap in many, many, many ways.

Yeah, that's why I think I can't remember if those two chapters were right next to each other in the book or not, but they certainly were, you know, let me just check quickly. No, I guess there's some they're separated a slightly in terms of reception section versus theory section. But but yeah, no, and I think I mean Richard Buxton, you know, has pointed out, well, Odysseus isn't trying to colonize the island of the Cyclops necessarily, but the imagery is still there, right, I mean, you know, his end goal is well, he's stopping every place on the way and interfering. It's like where.

Spress colonialism in its way, like if you if you stop in a place, destroy it for its native inhabitants, that brave like you have still done all of the colonial the damage, the damage of colonialism and without even you know, hanging on to it. So yeah, it's it's interesting.

Yeah, well, especially you know when you consider the description that Audities himself gives of how you know, the the Cyclops's land is like it produces I mean, it's it's almost like Golden Age imagery for the backet I guess is at Avid and he's to have these you know, ages of man. So it's this little sort of Edenic state before they are invaded basically my and uh so you know he's just criticized in their way of life when they were doing just fine before he got there, right you know. Yeah, so this why you know, so again why I think one of the main points of collection like this Oxford Handbook is to show how adaptable these ancient monsters are to a lot of you know, other modern modern contexts, while still you know, maybe retaining some of that uh you know, some of these views who were also present in antiquity, they just weren't prevalent, you know, of a Dishes being sort of a wait, why did he go to the land of the you know, I mean, yeah, and uh, you know, especially when his men are like, why do we need to keep you know, doing this sort of thing? Although I guess they got more you know, more vocal about it a little later.

Yeah, yeah, I mean there's so many instances of him doing it, you know.

Oh yeah, the Leraconians, you know, starting off with with cos I think, and then just getting worse and worse as they go on until all his crew are gone. And yeah, you know, and anyway, but oh.

Now I can't stop thinking about the colonialism in the Odyssey. So thank you. I'm like this, you're giving me ideas.

Yeah, and I'm sure there's more been written about it in general. And I mean I think who was the reading that was talking about how I mean, it might have been Justine mccollin's essay where she has mentioned previous you know, takes on a disuse as colonizer and uh, you know, there's also a chapter in there about Latin American uh, monsters and how they you know, some of them came over from Greece v Spain and you and all and all of that, so they're like the like there's some the equivalent of sirens and and so forth. So that was a lot of fun also, And and yeah, I mean there's certainly a chapters discussing, you know, why some of these monsters are female for example, and even even a lot of the male ones, uh were produced by females, like produced by Gaya or you know, Terra or whatever.

So the women make the monsters definitely.

Yeah, and then with something like polyphemous, Well, isn't it really a disuse made them into a monster? I mean, you know, so a lot of different ways of looking, which makes which is what makes it a lot of a lot of fun to continually, you know, to keep reinventing them and to just keep reinterpreting them in new ways.

Well, and I mean it it's why I think mythology is so lasting in so many different ways, is that it is still that it is such a human thing. For for all that the stories have these fantastical elements, these these absurd monsters and moments and and all of this, you know that that seems so unrealistic, like, ultimately it is so based in humanity that we can keep looking for relevance and like reinterpreting it and finding new ways to understand this stuff because it is utterly timeless. This just reminded me that I recently had someone ask me about the use of AI in the field like that, and I just I can't get over the idea of of AI trying to to understand mythology and how it would never and will never and should never try because these things are they are so human that any attempt by AI to to interpret anything like we'll just will never actually pan out to anything, will never mean anything, because you absolutely have to have that that human understanding in order in order to appreciate anything from I mean mythology specifically, but the ancient world broadly. I'm not a fan of AI. If that doesn't clear.

I mean, I absolutely, I yeah, it's it's it's interesting that you mentioned that because just the other day I had checked something on I guess it was Google, because I teach a medical ternch class and the student come up with something strange for one of the roots. So I look up the thing on you know, in Google, and the AI says, like, the combining form nom n m is Latin for name, and that's where we get nomenclature. And I'm like, no, it's Greek for law and nomen is what you're thinking of. And now I know why the student had a wrong answer, because he just assumed that the AI was right, despite all of our warnings on the syllabus and in class that if you use the Internet and you get it wrong, it's to you know, the innet is wrong sometimes.

Yeah, so yeah, not.

A huge fan, you know, I know there are more sophisticated AIS out there, like you know, I mean the student had h you know, had a subscription to one of the more sophisticated AIS, you know, but I don't. I certainly don't encourage that. I would rather have them think for this.

Yeah, well, and this I need to say in every episode I mentioned AI. But also, aside from all of that being absolutely relevant, AI is one of the biggest producers of carbon today and is making climate change of just so much worse than it already is for everything else, and thus AI bad. But that is not the point of conversation. Well, no, it's it's well, no.

I'm gonna say, it's interesting that you mentioned because my husband actually researches AI and he's published, he's published about it. He published a book about the singularity, the technological singularity that's expected in this and that. So yeah, so you know, it's very much a topic of conversation in my household and has been for twenty years. I mean, he was talking about the singularity before it was a more mainstream not that it's super mainstream now, but it's definitely more in public awareness than it was twenty years ago.

It was a fasinatter.

Well. Yeah, and my son also was. He got a degree in computer science and he was very interested in me. I don't know that he's going into that necessarily, but he was. You know, he certainly has done some work in that area also. And so we sort of our brainstorming about how is there a good way to use it in our classes or can we just tell our students to try to think for themselves. I mean, shouldn't they have to make their own outlines instead of using an AI to help them make an outline? You know, shouldn't they write their own cover letters? I mean I get why they might want a little help, but I'm telling you, the people reading those cover letters are going to recognize the same patterns if they keep see them. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.

No, that's depending is so interesting. I Mean when I was in university, which you know was still very much I mean, we didn't have the level of Internet, but like we were just being told not to use Wikipedia. Ever, so the idea that the change now is from like don't trust Wikipedia to don't trust a robot. Like what a difference. You know that it's taken into just like fifteen years.

Well, I mean, you know, at least Wikipedia was put together by people, but they didn't always check their fact but they were well yeah, and you know, the thing with the students is like, you know, you should check more than one source to make sure you're getting consistent information. You have to be careful about whether this source got it from the first one you looked at, like the Google definition of you know, combining from nom or whatever. But but yeah, it's it's made teaching a bit tougher, a lot tougher actually in various ways. So so you know, yeah, well you know, and then of course, like you say, there's a whole environmental issue I mean, you know artists, I mean the kind of art that's being produced by AI. I mean some of it looks amazing and a lot of it looks like crap.

And you know, yeah, no exactly as a as a creative, I think that's the Yeah, that's where I get the biggest threat out of it. Between art and writing. It's like, keep me away.

Yeah, So that's a different kind of monsters.

We're going to make that one a male monster. If we have to give it a gender, I'm just going to say that now, it does not have feminine quality.

I mean, I think I even mentioned AI in one of the chapters in this Oxford handbook of Monsters and Classical and the last chapter is about well, it's about ancient monsters in modern science and how I guess what I was talking about. And the thing is, I wrote this like two years ago. It was just a lot in production for such a long time. But I actually have a section on computer science in there, you know, with computer scientists have proven adapted adapting classical mythology too. So you know, you've got the Trojan horse, Malwaary, You've got Malwarry, that saw different softwares named after things like Python or Basilisk, and then you know, yeah, AI is in here with the Roco's Basilisk thought experiment. I mean, don't even worry about it. But there's centaur Ai. There's yeah, there's it's in there. You know, it wasn't bad to bring up AI. Yeah again, really it is like this monstrous creation that you know, people is even being acknowledged with monstrous names a lot of the time too. Although you know what, I was wrong about Python though, because as I said in the chapter, I think that particular computer language was named by someone who's a fan of Monty Python.

Oh my god, Really, that's so funny.

I think that I think that's what it was. Again, it was like a while ago that I wrote this, but I think that that was the deal with that particular That's funny. I like that. I know I should just stumble chuck. Let's see, right, Regarding the Python programming language itself, it's creator, Guido van Rossum, took them not from a giant serpent of Greek myth, but from Antipla Python's Flying Circus, the nineteen seventies British comedy sketch show, of which he was a huge fan. Anti Python themselves also did not have Greek myth in mind. So even though Python's you know, symbol is two snakes, it doesn't have anything to do with the name's origin. That's like that.

So it's a good reminder because I mean, I obviously as someone in this realm, you know, I noticed any kind of of classical reception name that I've seen anywhere, and so it's, yeah, it's a good reminder like sometimes these things are coming from somewhere else entirely in a funny or more entertaining kind of way.

Yeah. I was surprised to learn that myself. Yeah, because when I saw the symbol for Python, which was the snakes, and then found out that well that wasn't the original intent behind the name at all, I was really surprised.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you just assume because it seems like it must be that, like, you know, kind of they always want to pull from Greek mythology in those ways. It seems very you know, very intellectual kind of thing. So it's fun to have it be like, no, it's mondy Python.

It's like a certain status to it if it's.

Been myth it's exactly Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, that whole chapter just sort of I mean, besides the computer science section, there's like bits from biology and just sort of other areas of science.

But interesting.

But I think it gets, you know, some of it gets out of date pretty quickly. I think half of the computer science stuff I mentioned, you know, when I wrote it two years ago isn't super relevant anymore. That's the problem with like, yeah, all of that, right, yeah, just yeah, to kind of close things out on something fun to the listeners. Uh, Debbie mentioned this off, Mike, but also it has been living in my head since you first talked about the Revenant in Pausanias, so I'm thrilled. Uh.

You mentioned that you enjoy Plenty's Haunted House story, which is a favorite as mine as well. I've I've shared it on the show a couple of times.

So it came up in the context of like, do I have a favorite monster or maybe a favorite monster story from antiquity, and it's it's kind of hard for me to choose, and I like Cerberus as a monster for various reasons, but my probably all time favorite story from antiquity is Pliny's Haunted House story from his letter to a friend named Surah. And in that letter he tells three ghost story. He actually starts off that letter by saying, do you believe in ghosts? I'm wondering if there is such a thing. And I've heard some stories, and tell me what you think of them. And so he tells, you know, a short story, and then he tells this long for antiquity, long haunted house story, which I said, by long, I mean like, you know, two or three paragraphs.

Not long enough, but it's better than nothing.

Well, what part of what I love about it is that it is so short, but it's still so atmospheric and descriptive. And so I don't know how you know how much your audience would have heard about the story. But basically, there's this you know house in Athens that it's big, has a bad reputation and an unhealthy pestilential air. And this is because there's a specter that shows up at night, rattling chains and terrifying everybody who lives there, and they eventually die from lack of sleep and fear. Anyway, I shouldn't laugh. It's a very serious. It's a surprisingly serious story, actually, And so the house sort of falls into disrepair, like your typical haunted house, and the owner sort of puts a toillette sign on it in case anybody wants to render buy it, like anybody who hasn't heard the story. So apparently there are no disclosure laws in the Ancients.

The story is that.

And so along comes this philosopher, Thenodorus, who is very skeptical. He sees the low price, He's like, wait a sec, what's wrong with the house? You like, it doesn't have mold or whatever. That's not actually in the story, but.

That's what that's what I would think, you know.

Anyways, so he's told the whole story, and that makes them all the more interested in staying in the place and checking it out, as opposed to saying, oh, forget it, I'm out of here. So he goes to the house, he sends his his servants to the back room, and he stays. You know, he stays up writing, trying to make sure he's being rational and distracting himself with a task so that he's not starting to imagine things. And just like everybody else who was in the house, he starts hearing the clanking of chains moving closer and closer in the middle of the night, and then he sees this phantom of the of this old man, you know, with chains on his wrists and light ankles, and basically Athenadorus kind of looks at the guy and the specter like he holds up his hand like talk to the hand, like hang on his sack, you know, and he's like right, He's like yeah, sure, sure, you're a ghost. Whatever. So he turns back to his writing, and then the ghost moves closer and rattles its chains right over at Thnadorsa's head, at which point he's like, Okay, I guess I'm not imagining this. This is a very modern paraphrase. By the way, this is not plays don't have voice. He follows the apparition and goes at least them into the courtyard of the house like the open space, yalla, and it goes to a certain spot it disappears. So Asenadorus marks the spot with some grass, you know, leaves, plucked grass, so that he'll know where the ghosts disappeared. He goes to the town magistrates in the morning and says, you might want to dig up that spot because I think there's something happening there, and they do. They listen to him because he's a respective figure. They dig up the spot, they find a skeleton entwined with chains, and then when they give the body a proper burial, the house isn't haunt it anymore. So the things I like about it are well, the writing itself, which is much better than my paraphrase and much less facetious than my paraphrase. It's very atmospheric, it's very descriptive. It uses a whole bunch of different words for the emotional effect that the story has on the inhabitants of the house and Thnodorus, and it turns from having this like terrifying specter to a sympathetic figure that was just trying to communicate with the living so that you know, somebody would finally pay attention and find the body and have it buried. So there's the whole like method and way the story is written, even for just two or three paragraphs, it's kind of an amazing piece of literature in the original Latin. And then there's the fact about how like basic it sounds in terms of every haunted house story ever written. If you take out just a couple of words like Athenadorus is the name of the character and the fact that he's writing with like a stylist, you know, and tablets instead of you know, pan andy ink or you know, a paper or whatever. If you just take out a couple of words, you couldn't tell where it was taking place, even if it wasn't in Latin.

I guess, yeah.

There. But you know, you translate the story, you take out a couple of words, and it could have been anywhere in the world, you know, and any time in the last you know, several thousand years. So it's kind of it has this timeless quality I guess too, in addition to being eerie and also still kind of mysterious, because it doesn't tell us how this bot it came to be buried there, why it was in chains. The implication, based on analogs from antiquity, is that this is one of those stories where a host had a guest and killed him for his money and then just governed the body, like the Polydorus story for example, or the story be made up in Pladus's Nostelaria on the spur of the Moment by Tranio. It's a calmic setting, but the story is basically the same. I'm a guest from overseas. The owner of this house killed me for my money and just buried me here. So it's my house, go away, you know. So that's that's one from the Mostellaria. But this so in the background of pliny story, maybe a trope like that, you know, a host killed a guest, burn the mirror, but we don't know, and he doesn't say, and it's not the main point of the story. But that sort of eeriness and like bit of mystery, and the sympathy for the apparition at the end, and Ethanodorus's behavior just really all make it a really nice little story and just so amazingly well told for its very short length.

Yeah, so I think that.

I think that's why it's one of my favorites. Plus I grew up really just interested in ghost stories.

You're not alone, You're not alone. I absolutely yeah, it was absolute the same. I mean, even just listening well ghost stories and and everything kind of Macob like listening to you talk about the serial killers too, I was just constantly reminded like, oh, yeah, there is still so much of this that lives in my brain. Despite I haven't looked into modern serial killers in a long time, but like everyone you talk about right now, you know a lot more than but like it's it when it comes to to Plenty, that story, you're you're right, it's so timeless. It's like a quintessential ghost story in so many ways. And I yeah, yeah, it fits everything. And that That's what really stood out to me too when I first read a couple of years ago, just that it does sound like it could be any other even the yeah, that end of like oh the ghost is gone once he's been properly buried, like that's yeah, it's so it is just so absolutely timeless. It's such a good story of.

Such a you know, that particular type of apparition with the clanking change. It seems so popular you know in later Victorian ghost story literature, you're like the Canterville Ghost or a Christmas Carol. Yeah.

I was just gonna say, yeah, straight out of Scrooge.

Yeah that that it was so well drawn, you know, two thousand years ago. It's just amazing.

And yeah, well you can tell that that Plenty had that scientific interest too write in that story of of that that sort of interest in sympathy. Yeah. Yeah, Well to close off on Cerberus real quick, do you like because you said his name, and I also love him particularly because and I think that this is just not mentioned enough in references to Cerberus, but that according to a great many sources, his man was made of snakes, and I think that that's just been lost in a way that it shouldn't be. Do you have anything else you particularly loves, well, I.

Was gonna say about the snakes. You can actually see those in some of the Greek face paintings, like little snakes on him, you know, to represent his sonic nature, that he's like an underworld creature. But it's you know, some of the fun things about him is how many heads he's over the centuries, because I think he had describes him as having fifty heads, but that's kind of impossible to paint, so you know, he started being, you know, depicted with three or even two heads. One of my favorite Greek face paintings of Cerberus is Heracles's last labor, where he's he's got the chain on him and he's basically petting right, and it's like I want to put a caps on that, like nice doggy, nice two headed doggie, you know. And then there are just these sort of adorable modern adaptations like what was that show recently with Jeff Goldholm Chaos?

Oh yeah, also not renewed, I can't.

But the Cerberuses or Cerberi or whatever, they had multiple ones as like you know, like like the equivalent of drug sniffing dogs at the entrance of haites, like let me sniff them and make sure they're really dead, you know, that kind of thing, making sure that no living people get into histe. So it's not just the figure of Serus himself, which you know, because he is a little terrifying in antiquity, but he gets muted over the centuries and like by the time Psyche gets down there and throws him some meat to put him to sleep, or or if use puts them to sleep, you know with music. Uh is just like you know, you can sort of picture him as as Hade's pet dog. And then the the incarnations, the modern ones like Fluffy in the Pot or or again, my favorite recent one has got to be the one in Chaos with multiple versions. And just the cg I was so I mean, instead of like some giant, you know, body with three heads, it was like a normal proportioned body with three heads. It seemed physically possible possible, which was incredible anyway, It's just it's just a very fun sort of concept of a creature with three heads, probably because of wanting to be able to look in all directions, like a typical sort of guardian who was very bad at his job, because how many living people got down there.

I mean, yeah, there's a good collection. And not even had to encounter him.

Right, yeah, a dog exactly. So I just, you know, and I just happened to like, you know, dogs and cats.

I wanted to bring him up.

Yeah, yeah, so he just sort of really appeals to me as a sort of monster with them for whom there's you know, I have a lot of.

Well, he's a good dog. He is absolutely a good dog.

He's a good boy.

Yeah, good, I mean good boys. I think, well, yeah, address the three heads.

What was the other iteration? Oh, the lightning sees like, oh yeah, always like throwing a ball if I'm remembering right. It's been a while.

I don't know, so I will agree with you completely. My listeners all know Percy Jackson and I don't, so they're probably screaming right now.

But well, I haven't read it in like fifteen like since my kid was five or.

Whatever, you know. See, and I was like seventeen when it came out, so I didn't read it, and then now I just haven't. So here we are so noticed a running thing in the show that I'm glad it exists, and I don't know much about it.

Yeah, I mean the thing is it keeps getting updated, right, like with Chaos, which was I'm still so upset that. I mean, I'm not furious, but it's like very disappointing. It was such a great show.

Well, and we there are so few like iterations of the reception of Greek myth that does actually really look at the myth in detail, and I mean like a level of accuracy. Yeah that it's Yeah.

And just the way that show wove together so many of the characters in appropriate ways.

To Admittedly, I haven't seen it all. I really need to because I keep hearing such great things. So you've made me more keen. I gotta go back.

Yeah, Well, don't get too attached to the cat.

I see, I do. I knew enough. I learned enough.

Ahead of time, you know, I didn't want to get to a test.

So yeah, cats are Yeah, Oh it's trouble. There's I have a my kitten just because now we're talking about cats. But my kitten got uh newter the other day. So I have a cat running around with a cone outside of this store that he has been just the oh my gosh, but he does not know how to calm down with it, so he is like full of all of the energy in the world but knocking everything over. Yeah, anyway, case, Oh, pets are great, whether or not they have three heads and guard the entrance to the underworld.

Or impenetrable skin, because, like the Nmian lion is one of the few I think that we can point to. Yeah, what are a few feelings I mean, yeah, yes, other than the attendance of Dionysus and the panthers.

Or whatever, they love a big cat. Yeah, well that came up recently. I did a Q and A episode that came out just today actually where people asked me about cats in ancient Greece and I had to say, like, well, they didn't. They didn't have like our version of small cats, you know, for a good long time, so they're not in the myths, and that's sort of interesting in itself.

Yeah, even though they were, they were domestic pets to a certain extent. The place you see a lot about them is Esop's Fables. Actually, I.

Was like looking into it and I thought they weren't kind of in or maybe it was mainland until more Hellenistic period. But now, okay, now you look back. Yeah, no, I actually.

Wrote, I wrote a paper recently about that, and I sort of so I had looked at some of the more recent studies about when did the cat make its way over there as you know, from Egypt or you know, ran around and whatnot, and I think it was early. It was generally earlier than you know, I might have originally thought. But they were mainly like you know, barn cats to kill rodents and thing. Yeah, sometimes they would you know, kill the little chickens too, which wasn't enough. But yeah, no, they are. They are definitely around, and there's some early takes on them, and there are some you know, paintings of girls playing with small pots and things.

So, oh that makes me happy. My cat's from Naxos. I brought him back a couple of months ago, so I need to tell him these stories of Greek cats. Yes, well, that's a joyful way to stop. And also I won't I won't keep you any longer. This has been so much fun. Clearly, I love when a conversation can go so many different places. And yeah, it's it's been lovely talking to you.

Thank you so much, thank you for having me. I love you know, I just I love subjects like this, And it's just, you know, the sort of stuff would have been considered fairly low brow. You know, twenty thirty years ago, when I was starting to write about, you know, ghosts, they were like, oh, you can't be serious. It's not a serious subject. You know, it has to be the monsters of Heracles as opposed to the ghosts and serial killers. You know, there's a lot of skepticism, but I think it's more more expectable now or more you know, people are more interested in bringing this sort of material forward because you know, it's a lot of it's more accessible in a lot of ways than say like, oh, here's the skullion on this line and Virgil's fourth echlog or whatever, you know, but all look serial killers, you know.

Yeah, Well, and now that it is so much easier to be able to share with a broader audience too, Like, yeah, that this topic is so perfect for for broader audiences. Who aren't necessarily as deep into the like academia side of it, but really want to learn about the ancient world. Like who doesn't want to hear about ghosts and serial killers from now long ago.

Well, thank you for the opportunity to disseminate that information to a broader audience.

It's absolutely my pleasure. Is there anything you want to share with my listeners about, like where they might read more from you, or or anything you might want to promote?

Well, I mean I do. I do have books on these topics. I've got the book called Haunted Greece and Rome, which is about the ghost well specifically about the hot house stories, but ghosts in general. And I have a book on serial killers in the ancient world. It's called Monsters and Monarchs serial Killers in Classical with in history. And then this Oxford Handbook of Monsters and Classical myth which I edited, has forty chapters on you know, I'm sure there's some monsters that we missed. This is what you know, in terms of getting people to agree to write during the pandemic business basic, But yeah, I mean, you know, they can always look me up at the University of Massachusetts on the faculty page for the Classics department, and then there are links to all these other things. And I've also got a blog called the Ancient Monsters Blog, which we just got that started this summer, and it's been a little erratic so far in terms of the amount of time I've had to devote to it, but we've actually got a good number of posts there starting last summer by a lot of the contributors to contributors to this handbook, but also other people like John Kotschuba, who's not a classicist but has written about shape shifters and ghosts and other monsters, contributed an essay on where it Wolves for example, and yes, we've you know, so it's uh. It is focused on ancient monsters but also their modern reception and it's not just a question of looking at it to read it. But we are accepting contributions. So if you or any of your listeners might be interested in writing something, you know, we'd be happy to have it. We do take work from students. I mean, we will be vetted and we'll you know, try to help people. You know, I'll slush it out if it needs to be in that sort of thing, But we want to sort of be like a community dedicated to specifically monsters and antiquity, because I mean, obviously there are a lot of you know, blogs, podcasts, this and that on monsters in general. You know, I hope we have a slightly different take or slightly different, more specific focus maybe than some. And anyway, so that's there, and I can send you the links.

Oh yeah, I can find them all to I'll link to everything in the episode's description. And that sounds wonderful. I'm definitely going to go Also, I didn't. I'm going to go put those for Mikaila when you're listening, do this to edit. Go ahead and put those two books that'll be mentioned on our list, because I would like a book of Haunted Greece in Rome and serial Killer.

Yeah. I don't know if you've seen it, but this.

Is no that's see now, I know this exists and I'm getting it, so.

I just I know that people can't see it. But I love how they sort of did. Like the mug shot. Yes, and I think that I don't it's not Nero, but you know, it looks like it could be, but it's not.

I I the only reason I know that's not neuro It's something I meant to bring up as a joke when you were talking about him, but that the only way I can tell Nero in statuary is that it's neck beard Nero and this is not No, he does not have enough of the neck beard.

Yeah, I mean there are portraits of him and this is clearly not him. But I think that was the sort of intent, was to evoke that kind of yeah seeing but I just I love that they came up.

That's great. Just just an ancient mugshot. I love it.

Yeah, the whole like board underneath.

Yeah, you might as well put his height. I love it. Well, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for doing this.

Thanks again for having me, and I'm glad I happened to have the pala fatus right here with the other stuff and you know, thanks thanks again, and you know for all of your knowledge as well, and the great questions and props to you know what to bring forward so great, you know, obviously very good at getting people to talk about the something better.

Thank you, I try, nerds, Thank you all for listening. As always. You can read more from Debbie at all the places that you mentioned, and you can find them in the episodes description. You can also look forward to an episode I recorded shortly after this one, again with Ryan Denson, returning guest who has some overlap as he's included in that Oxford handbook on Monsters which Debbie edited. So there's a lot of fun monstrosity in the works because you know, I will always talk, I mean anything in that realm and then we can make it feminist. It's all I need in the world, So huge thank you to Debbie for being such a fun guest and the first one back a It's a real thrill. Let's talk about MIT's Baby is written and produced by me Live Albert Mikaela Panga Wish is the hermes to my Olympians, my producer. Select music in this episode was by Luke Chaos. Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review on Apple for the chance to have it appear in a cat review which I recognize I'm behind on. I will return to it or comment on Spotify because it's fun and I get to reply. Such a thrill. Sign up for our new news letter, which will happen sometime soon. Mitsbaby dot com slash newsletter, I am live and I love this ship very much, very much. M.