Hello, this is Let's talk about MIT's baby, and I am your host live who is still well sounds like this.

Hello, this is Let's talk about MIT's baby, and I am your host live who is still well sounds like this.

So today I am here with a very brief introduction because after nearly four years of managing to evade COVID, it is quite appropriately the Heiress variant that seems to have gotten me. And while I am thankfully, I have a fairly mild case of it, my brain is not up to par and I really I don't want to strain my voice and cause any damage. And oh my god, it's a well, it's strife. It's full of strife, essentially, and so today I am just bringing you not only appropriately the episode I have done featuring Airis, the goddess of strife, after whom the current dominant variant is named, but also just past spooky season favorites that I love and often wish that I could tell again for the first time, and therefore I've replayed them a couple of times now because well, like the ancient Greeks have an origin of werewolves and they have a Boogeyman, and we have Airiss and.

So today I am here with a very brief introduction because after nearly four years of managing to evade COVID, it is quite appropriately the Heiress variant that seems to have gotten me. And while I am thankfully, I have a fairly mild case of it, my brain is not up to par and I really I don't want to strain my voice and cause any damage. And oh my god, it's a well, it's strife. It's full of strife, essentially, and so today I am just bringing you not only appropriately the episode I have done featuring Airis, the goddess of strife, after whom the current dominant variant is named, but also just past spooky season favorites that I love and often wish that I could tell again for the first time, and therefore I've replayed them a couple of times now because well, like the ancient Greeks have an origin of werewolves and they have a Boogeyman, and we have Airiss and.

I just want to share it all. So here's a special combination Asian episode that I threw together, after I realized I would not be able to write something and record something new. They don't call Eires the Goddess of strife for nothing, revisiting more ancient horror. At the first chaos came to be, But next wide bosomed Earth, the ever sure foundations of all the deathless ones, who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus and dim Tartarus in the depths of the wide path Earth, and Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From chaos came forth Erebus and Black Night, But of Night were born Ether and Day, whom she conceiv'd and bare from union in love with Erebus and Night, bear hateful doom and black fate and death. And she bare Sleep and the tribe of dreams. And again the Goddess Murky Night, though she lay with none, bare blame and painful woe, and the hesperities who guard the rich golden apples and the trees bearing fruit beyond glorious ocean. Also she bare the destinies and ruthless avenging fates. Cloth of Lachisis and atropos, who give men at their birth evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods. And these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty. And also deadly Knight bear nemesis to afflict mortal men, and after her deceit and friendship, and hateful age and hard hearted strife, but abhorred strife, bear painful toil and forgetfulness and famine and tearful sorrows. Fightings, also battles, murders, manslaughters, quarrels, lying words, disputes, lawlessness and ruin all of one nature. And oath who most troubles men upon earth when anyone wilfully swears.

I just want to share it all. So here's a special combination Asian episode that I threw together, after I realized I would not be able to write something and record something new. They don't call Eires the Goddess of strife for nothing, revisiting more ancient horror. At the first chaos came to be, But next wide bosomed Earth, the ever sure foundations of all the deathless ones, who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus and dim Tartarus in the depths of the wide path Earth, and Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From chaos came forth Erebus and Black Night, But of Night were born Ether and Day, whom she conceiv'd and bare from union in love with Erebus and Night, bear hateful doom and black fate and death. And she bare Sleep and the tribe of dreams. And again the Goddess Murky Night, though she lay with none, bare blame and painful woe, and the hesperities who guard the rich golden apples and the trees bearing fruit beyond glorious ocean. Also she bare the destinies and ruthless avenging fates. Cloth of Lachisis and atropos, who give men at their birth evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods. And these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty. And also deadly Knight bear nemesis to afflict mortal men, and after her deceit and friendship, and hateful age and hard hearted strife, but abhorred strife, bear painful toil and forgetfulness and famine and tearful sorrows. Fightings, also battles, murders, manslaughters, quarrels, lying words, disputes, lawlessness and ruin all of one nature. And oath who most troubles men upon earth when anyone wilfully swears.

A false oath.

A false oath.

What you heard me recite to start this episode was a portion of Hesiod's Theogony, translated by Hugh Evelyn White. The Theogony is, of course the beginning of things. Nix, Knight and Heiress Strife, it seems, are the mothers of all the darkest things in the world, and no fathers needed from Nix are born. According to Hesiod, Doom Black fate and death, sleep and dreams, blame and woe, the hesperities and the fates and nemesis, deceit, friendship and age and strife, and from that strife from airas are born toil, forgetfulness and famine, tearful sorrows, fightings, battles, murders and manslaughters, quarrels, lying words, disputes, lawlessness, and ruin. In today's episode, we're going to cover as much about Nix and Heiress and their menacing children as possible, but we're also going to look at Eires's particular children murder and manslaughter, or i should say the things those children were personifications of today's episode, the last of this year's spooky season, is all about the darkest and dreariest gods and goddesses of Greek mythology, and well murderers, even serial killers of Greek mythology. Let's begin at the beginning. Nix, the goddess of the night, the personification of the night, was born of that primordial nothingness, chaos, one of the first beings to exist in the world. Nix is more ancient than most. Also, from that chaos was born Erebus darkness. These two got together because well, there was no one else else, and they suited one another. From them were born ether the light, bright air, that air that sits between the nothingness, chaos and Uranus, the actual sky, and Hemera, the personification of the day. But from Nix alone were born all those things I read to you. Included in those are gods like Thanatos, the god of death, Moros, the god of doom, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, the carries female demons, personifications of violent death, and according to many sources, if not Hesiod, Nix is also the mother of the irenaways, the furies themselves, and most importantly of all, Nix is the mother of Heiress, the goddess of strife. Now, I know many of you have requested an episode on stories of Nix, but they don't exist. I'm sorry. Nick's Knight is more a concept than anything else. She's mentioned in myths, but she's mentioned because she brings the night. She is the night. She's also mentioned as the mother of so many of those dark beings. She's one of those goddesses who's well known, well respected, important, but remains free of any particular drama within the mythology, itself. But while her daughter Heiress is similar in that way, she of course had a hand in one very important story. But before we get there, Heiress, one of my favorite goddesses, is also famous for being a mother, and similar to her mother Nix, she had her children all on her own. It's difficult to say whether we should take these stories to mean women held some kind of power in the ancient world. I think what it probably comes from our earlier representations of goddesses, from the time when the ancient people of the area actually did worship like a mother goddess. They were essentially a matriarchy for a long time before war came along and the men took over. And I think that these women being these sort of solo mothers for all of these concepts probably is a leftover from that that was then taken on by the patriarchy to mean women were the cause of problems. Either way, I think it's pretty badass. Nix was the mother of death and vengeance with no father in sight, and her daughter Heiress well, as I read to you in the intro to this episode, she's the mother of murder. Airis is the mother of the personifications of murder and manslaughter, the faunoi, and the androque tassee, the latter of which I definitely mispronounced. But she's also the mother of ponos, labor and toil lethe forgetfulness, limos, famine, the same thing and the plague, dearI, sichthon, the algaea pain and grief, the hismana i and the Machai, both personifications of types of combat, the nikea grievance, the pseudologoi lies, the amphilogoye disputes and altercations, dysnomia, lawlessness, aete ruin, and horkos oath. Basically, she's the mother of all things bad. It's pretty impressive, to be honest, I fucking love Airis beyond being the mother of all that badassory and straight evil. Eiris is known for one story. She started the Trojan War. I won't tell you the whole story again. You can listen to the episodes on the Origin of the Trojan War for that, but in essence, Airis was pissed she wasn't invited to a wedding and decided to really fuck things up for everyone as a result. That and she gave herself a war to ride her chariot through screaming for bloodshed. Here's a little easter egg. There's an illustration of Aras in my upcoming book of mythology. It's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. It might be my life's greatest accomplishment getting an illustration of that queen into a book. But as much as I want today's episode to be all about everything Airis ever did, that's really it. She started the war and then she ran through it screaming for blood. It's awesome, but it's limited. So instead, the rest of today's episode, the last spooky episode of the spookiest year in most of our generations, is all about her children, the Funnoy murder. In the very very early days of the ancient Greek world, or should I say the mythological ancient Greek world, there was a king in Arcadia named Laichaon. He's in the early days, we know because he was a contemporary of Noah. Before Noah, the ancient Greek mythological character Ducalion, who along with his wife Pierra, survived one of the many great deluges that happened across the ancient Mediterranean world. In mythology, the Egyptians, and I think the Mesopotamians too, have a flood story. There was almost certainly a real and major flood in the region, given how many stories tell of it. But this isn't the story of Ducalian and Pira and the Great Deluge. It's the story of one of the very first werewolves, if not the official first. Leichaon, like I said, was a king of Arcadia, and he had fifty sons, yes, fifty, all from a number of wives too. Seems like he was a real family man. According to some versions, Laikion is also the father of Callisto, the woman Zeus assaulted, who was eventually transformed into a bear and placed in the stars. I've told her story before. Leicheon, like so many stupid Greek mythological men before him, was a really proud man. He considered himself above the gods. Oh, how many of ancient Greece's most violent and gory stories begin just like this? How did they not learn from those who came before them? Leikion didn't learn, though, because there were none before him. He was the first to test the God's patience in this way. According to Avid's telling of the story and others, too. Laikion was so early in the world of Greek mythology that he was part of the early Ages of humanity, ages that described certain types of humans that lived on the earth, who often had to be taken out for their crimes, their actions, their general inability to worship the gods in the way they're supposed to, hence the deluge. But first chaon Zeus was so troubled by this early age of humanity that he headed down from Mount Olympus to the earth to see for himself, to see whether they were as bad as he'd heard. Were they all so proud, so full of hubris? Were they all just lost causes, not people who could be helped with their sins. Eventually, in his travels through this age of humans, Zeus arrived in Arcadia, where he found the king Lyichaon. Along the way, though, Zeus found that the people were just as bad as he expected, or as he feared, as Avid tells the story and Metamorphoses he described Zeus telling the same story to the other Olympians. Zeus tells the Olympians that what he saw down on earth was so bad he won't even bother to tell them about it. There was just so much sacrilege, he tells the Olympians, but nothing compared to his arrival in Arcadia at the home of Laicheon, who Zeus describes as a tyrant in his uninviting home. It was evening when he reached Arcadia, he tells the others, and knight was about to fall. He told the Arcadians that he was a god, or he made it known to them in some way, and so they worshiped him in response. Lycheon saw this and laughed at the Arcadian people. Heckled them for their worship of the god. He thought it was nonsense, pointless. He certainly wouldn't join in on the worship. He would only mock it. But the mocking only lasted so long Lychaon instead let his pride, his overall shit personality, take control of his plans. He would test the god, test Zeus himself. Lychaon sought to test Zeus in his gods. Just how divine was this man?

What you heard me recite to start this episode was a portion of Hesiod's Theogony, translated by Hugh Evelyn White. The Theogony is, of course the beginning of things. Nix, Knight and Heiress Strife, it seems, are the mothers of all the darkest things in the world, and no fathers needed from Nix are born. According to Hesiod, Doom Black fate and death, sleep and dreams, blame and woe, the hesperities and the fates and nemesis, deceit, friendship and age and strife, and from that strife from airas are born toil, forgetfulness and famine, tearful sorrows, fightings, battles, murders and manslaughters, quarrels, lying words, disputes, lawlessness, and ruin. In today's episode, we're going to cover as much about Nix and Heiress and their menacing children as possible, but we're also going to look at Eires's particular children murder and manslaughter, or i should say the things those children were personifications of today's episode, the last of this year's spooky season, is all about the darkest and dreariest gods and goddesses of Greek mythology, and well murderers, even serial killers of Greek mythology. Let's begin at the beginning. Nix, the goddess of the night, the personification of the night, was born of that primordial nothingness, chaos, one of the first beings to exist in the world. Nix is more ancient than most. Also, from that chaos was born Erebus darkness. These two got together because well, there was no one else else, and they suited one another. From them were born ether the light, bright air, that air that sits between the nothingness, chaos and Uranus, the actual sky, and Hemera, the personification of the day. But from Nix alone were born all those things I read to you. Included in those are gods like Thanatos, the god of death, Moros, the god of doom, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, the carries female demons, personifications of violent death, and according to many sources, if not Hesiod, Nix is also the mother of the irenaways, the furies themselves, and most importantly of all, Nix is the mother of Heiress, the goddess of strife. Now, I know many of you have requested an episode on stories of Nix, but they don't exist. I'm sorry. Nick's Knight is more a concept than anything else. She's mentioned in myths, but she's mentioned because she brings the night. She is the night. She's also mentioned as the mother of so many of those dark beings. She's one of those goddesses who's well known, well respected, important, but remains free of any particular drama within the mythology, itself. But while her daughter Heiress is similar in that way, she of course had a hand in one very important story. But before we get there, Heiress, one of my favorite goddesses, is also famous for being a mother, and similar to her mother Nix, she had her children all on her own. It's difficult to say whether we should take these stories to mean women held some kind of power in the ancient world. I think what it probably comes from our earlier representations of goddesses, from the time when the ancient people of the area actually did worship like a mother goddess. They were essentially a matriarchy for a long time before war came along and the men took over. And I think that these women being these sort of solo mothers for all of these concepts probably is a leftover from that that was then taken on by the patriarchy to mean women were the cause of problems. Either way, I think it's pretty badass. Nix was the mother of death and vengeance with no father in sight, and her daughter Heiress well, as I read to you in the intro to this episode, she's the mother of murder. Airis is the mother of the personifications of murder and manslaughter, the faunoi, and the androque tassee, the latter of which I definitely mispronounced. But she's also the mother of ponos, labor and toil lethe forgetfulness, limos, famine, the same thing and the plague, dearI, sichthon, the algaea pain and grief, the hismana i and the Machai, both personifications of types of combat, the nikea grievance, the pseudologoi lies, the amphilogoye disputes and altercations, dysnomia, lawlessness, aete ruin, and horkos oath. Basically, she's the mother of all things bad. It's pretty impressive, to be honest, I fucking love Airis beyond being the mother of all that badassory and straight evil. Eiris is known for one story. She started the Trojan War. I won't tell you the whole story again. You can listen to the episodes on the Origin of the Trojan War for that, but in essence, Airis was pissed she wasn't invited to a wedding and decided to really fuck things up for everyone as a result. That and she gave herself a war to ride her chariot through screaming for bloodshed. Here's a little easter egg. There's an illustration of Aras in my upcoming book of mythology. It's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. It might be my life's greatest accomplishment getting an illustration of that queen into a book. But as much as I want today's episode to be all about everything Airis ever did, that's really it. She started the war and then she ran through it screaming for blood. It's awesome, but it's limited. So instead, the rest of today's episode, the last spooky episode of the spookiest year in most of our generations, is all about her children, the Funnoy murder. In the very very early days of the ancient Greek world, or should I say the mythological ancient Greek world, there was a king in Arcadia named Laichaon. He's in the early days, we know because he was a contemporary of Noah. Before Noah, the ancient Greek mythological character Ducalion, who along with his wife Pierra, survived one of the many great deluges that happened across the ancient Mediterranean world. In mythology, the Egyptians, and I think the Mesopotamians too, have a flood story. There was almost certainly a real and major flood in the region, given how many stories tell of it. But this isn't the story of Ducalian and Pira and the Great Deluge. It's the story of one of the very first werewolves, if not the official first. Leichaon, like I said, was a king of Arcadia, and he had fifty sons, yes, fifty, all from a number of wives too. Seems like he was a real family man. According to some versions, Laikion is also the father of Callisto, the woman Zeus assaulted, who was eventually transformed into a bear and placed in the stars. I've told her story before. Leicheon, like so many stupid Greek mythological men before him, was a really proud man. He considered himself above the gods. Oh, how many of ancient Greece's most violent and gory stories begin just like this? How did they not learn from those who came before them? Leikion didn't learn, though, because there were none before him. He was the first to test the God's patience in this way. According to Avid's telling of the story and others, too. Laikion was so early in the world of Greek mythology that he was part of the early Ages of humanity, ages that described certain types of humans that lived on the earth, who often had to be taken out for their crimes, their actions, their general inability to worship the gods in the way they're supposed to, hence the deluge. But first chaon Zeus was so troubled by this early age of humanity that he headed down from Mount Olympus to the earth to see for himself, to see whether they were as bad as he'd heard. Were they all so proud, so full of hubris? Were they all just lost causes, not people who could be helped with their sins. Eventually, in his travels through this age of humans, Zeus arrived in Arcadia, where he found the king Lyichaon. Along the way, though, Zeus found that the people were just as bad as he expected, or as he feared, as Avid tells the story and Metamorphoses he described Zeus telling the same story to the other Olympians. Zeus tells the Olympians that what he saw down on earth was so bad he won't even bother to tell them about it. There was just so much sacrilege, he tells the Olympians, but nothing compared to his arrival in Arcadia at the home of Laicheon, who Zeus describes as a tyrant in his uninviting home. It was evening when he reached Arcadia, he tells the others, and knight was about to fall. He told the Arcadians that he was a god, or he made it known to them in some way, and so they worshiped him in response. Lycheon saw this and laughed at the Arcadian people. Heckled them for their worship of the god. He thought it was nonsense, pointless. He certainly wouldn't join in on the worship. He would only mock it. But the mocking only lasted so long Lychaon instead let his pride, his overall shit personality, take control of his plans. He would test the god, test Zeus himself. Lychaon sought to test Zeus in his gods. Just how divine was this man?

He thought?

He thought?

Was he entirely infallible? Or did he have some humanity deep deep down? Oh, how many stories do we have of humans testing the gods. They always go about it the same way, and it always has horrific results. But again, Laikion was the first. He started this shall we call it a trend of testing the gods with a feast. Who exactly it was that Laicheon kills, cut up and attempted to serve as dinner to Zeus varies between versions of this tale. Did he kill a hostage he had from whatever recent war or battle might have taken place. According to Avid, it was a hostage sent to him by the Melosians, Or was it his own son, a boy named Nicktimos, or perhaps his grandson Arcas, the son of Callisto and Zeus. Whoever it was that Laikion killed for his plan to test the god Zeus, he did it mercilessly, before cutting the poor man into pieces and roasting him in the fire, and finally serving him on a platter to Zeus, who was at Laichion's table for dinner as a guest. Zeus was not about to fall for this horrific trap. The instant the plate has been set down before him, Zeus leaped to his feet and raised his arm high in the air. A lightning bolt appears in his hand, and he aimed it. In a split second, the entire palace of Laichon was burnt to the ground, nothing left but smoldering rubble and smoke. Licheon, though wasn't the target of the lightning bolt. He ran as Zeus destroyed everything he had. He ran and ran until he reached some nearby fields. There in the fields, panting and out of breath, Leichion found himself howling. He tried to stop himself to form words instead, but he couldn't. It was only more frantic howling that erupted from within him, no matter how hard he tried. Furious, Leichion's howls transformed as he began to foam at the mouth and growl. As the transformation was complete, fur had grown over his whole body, his limbs transformed, He'd grown pointy, furry ears, and fell to walk on four legs. Leichion, because of his attempt to test Zeus a stupid mistake, was transformed into one of, if not the first, werewolf. His personality remained unchanged. Laichion was just as horrible and violent as a wolf than he was as a human, though his anger transferred to the local sheep rather than the humans or even the gods. He was not any wolf, though his fur was gray, just as his hair had been when he was a human, and his eyes remained the same. They still had their human quality, their fierce gaze. Laichion was again possibly the first instance of a werewolf in the world's mythologies. According to some, there's a werewolf first in the epic of Gilgamesh, where there's a reference to a former lover having been transformed into a wolf, but Laichion is certainly the most obvious example, a detailed example of a horrible man transformed into a wolf where he continues to terrorize the region. Laikion is also where we get the word licanthrope, literally a werewolf. Laikion maybe the first reference to a w werewolf and Greek mythology, but he wasn't the last. Patrons will remember last October when I released an episode of ghost and werewolf stories. But there are more than that. The ancient Greeks didn't necessarily have werewolves as we do now with the full moon and such. It was more so the general and often temporary transformation that makes these people werewolves. Stories of these transformations come in many forms. Herododus, the so called Father of History, the ancient Greek who traveled the Mediterranean world, documenting the people he met, their customs and beliefs, and who often shouldn't be believed at all. Documented a group of people we might now call werewolves. Herodotus tells of the people called the Neweri. He learned about them from the Scythians and Greeks living in scythea who explained to Herodotus that every year, every one of the Newery people would transform into wolves for just a few days before transforming back. Herododus doesn't have much more to say about this, except that he says he doesn't actually believe this about the Norri people, but that the Greeks and the Scithians who told him about it definitely believed what they said. Many of the stories from ancient Greece and Rome about what we might now call werewolves are also linked to what we would consider generally ghosts. While ghosts rarely come up in the mythology of the Greeks, they were certainly something many ancient Greeks believed in, believed they'd seen or heard about from others. According to the wildly fascinating and helpful source book Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden. Most of the stories of ghosts from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds fell into a number of categories of death, categories that are oh so similar to how we understand the concept of ghosts today. Whether you believe in them or not, the explanation of how they might come to be is fairly universal. There are the oroy, people dead before their time. Obviously, the supplies to a hell of a lot of people. Basically, if you didn't just die of old age, you could, in theory, come back as this type of ghost. It seems, though these were typically depicted as ghosts of children or babies agamoy died before they could be married. Men could fall into this category two, but it didn't matter much for them. Women, of course, who died before they were married essentially didn't live out any purpose to their lives, so no matter how long they lived, they didn't get married and therefore didn't have children. What was the even the point? Anyway, It was believed that women were far more haunting in this category. Atafoi were people who died and were not properly buried. This was a huge concern in ancient Greece, burial was incredibly important, and if you weren't buried, you would have serious trouble in the afterlife. Just think about the number of times I've brought up necessary funereal rites. Those who died and weren't buried with the necessary funeral rites couldn't have peace in death. And it's not just about putting their bodies in a hole. There were rites that must have been performed in order for them to pass into the underworld then successfully reach wherever they were headed. There Where exactly in the underworld the dead went varies depending on the palm, the mythology, and the time frame, but regardless of that, there was no peace without proper burial. And finally, biothenatoi were those who died by violence, people who died in war or were executed for their crimes, the scariest ones. I would imagine the dead in this category who were murdered or who died by suicide were apparently the most bitter of ghosts. Now, do I have any story examples of this A couple, they're good ones. The story of Euthemus and the ghost that most certainly falls under this biophenatoi category comes from Pausanius, the Greek travel writer from the second century. A. D Heads up, this is the story I reference at the top. It includes sexual assault. That's a bit more troubling than the usual stories of the gods. So trigger warning, though I don't go into any detail. There is one more story after this, so just hit the button a few times until I'm clearly talking about something different. Euthemus was a man who traveled to Italy and Sicily and landed in to Mesa, an ancient city on the Tirhenian Sea, but the exact location of which is still a bit of a mystery. There he learns of a story. It said that when Odysseus and his men were traveling back from Troy, on one of their many many stops along the way, they arrived there in Tomsa, one of Odysseus's men got drunk and raped a woman who was notably a virgin. For this, he was punished. Shocking, I know, consequences for one's actions, what a concept, But it was only because she was a virgin, not because she was raped anyway, Regardless of how shocking it is that a man was actually punished for assaulting a woman this sailor of Odysseus was indeed punished. He was doned to death by the locals and Timisa, who were very angry for what he'd done, and I mean good for them. He was stoned to death and in death went on to haunt the absolute fuck out of these poor people. In his ghostly demon state, he was called the Hero. The demon ghost Hero laid waste to Tamisa, killing its residents at random and in huge numbers. The haunting of these people got so bad that they thought about leaving Italy entirely. They didn't know what to do, but some brave soul sought the advice of the oracle, who told them that they couldn't leave the region and instead must appease the ghost. They were told they must build him a temple and every year give him the best and most beautiful of the city's virgin women, so ruining every piece of good WWY while I personally had given to them. They did as the oracle had instructed and built the ghost a temple and gave him their best and most beautiful virgin woman. And for a time this worked. The ghost was appeased and wasn't killing them all at random all the time. This is when Euthymus comes in. Also, virginity is a shitty construct meant to demonize women who have sex and emphasize their role as straight up property in a patriarchal world. It's bullshit. Euthymus travels to Tamisa, where he was told this story of the ghost they now called hero who had ravaged the town before being finally placated with the temple and sacrificial virgins. He was told this story in part because it happened to me that the annual offering was being made at that very moment. The poor woman had already been locked inside the temple to be offered to the rapist ghost. Euthymus, whose backstory we don't know, at least from the portion of the story I have access to, was feeling particularly heroic during his time in Temsa, and good for him, they needed it. Ethymus heard this story about the poor woman about to be sacrificed to this truly horrific, demonic ghost, he decided to venture into the temple himself to get a better idea of what exactly was going on in that plagued and haunted town. When he got inside the temple. The woman was quite unsurprisingly, very happy to see him. We're told that, in this happiness and hope to be saved from her fate, she promises that she would marry Euthemis if he saved her from the ghost. Isn't that always the promise? Anyway, there's the ancient patriarchy coming into play again. Can't save a woman from certain death unless she's promised to become your property in return. Regardless of the shitty way in which it comes about, Euthemis does save the woman before she can be sacrifice to the ghost, or he plans to. When he'd done away with the ghost, he made his preparations and remained in the temple waiting for it to appear. When it does, we're told, with absolutely no details at all, that Etheremist defeats the ghost in a battle. Of course, what I wish we had is an intricate explanation of what the ghost looked like, how terrifying it was, how exactly a man could so easily defeat a ghost in battle, But we have none of that. Euthimist defeated the ghost, which fled the temple, fled the city, and eventually dove headfirst into the sea. Euthemus and the woman were told had a very long and happy marriage. That's kind of nice that, and Tomisa was forever free of the horrible ghost. The women, I'm sure rejoiced. At the very end of this story, Pausanius tells us that after the death of Euthymus, which may have come by some magical means it or not have come at all, there was a shrine there in the city to him and his accomplishments, but it also included a shrine to the ghost hero who was depicted there with a wolf skin or perhaps as a wolf himself, and the shrine had a name inscribed Lycas, which means wolfie. So there you have it, a ghost story that is also a werewolf story. I wanted to end this episode with a less self cannibalistic bang Ersathon's story is so horrific for his poor daughter, who you guessed it isn't given a name. So let's finish today's episode with a look at some of the spookier women of mythology. I know I've mentioned some of these characters before, oh so so briefly in the very early days of this podcast, but they deserve a revisit. Lamia was the daughter of Poseidon, and whether she was always a sea monster or was trans formed into one is up for debate. In the story of her transformation, we must once again face the idea that Harah, goddess of women, punished yet another woman for the transgressions of her husband. Frankly, I'm getting tired of that version, though it's simply not realistic. I know Zeus was all powerful, and so could she really have punished him? Regardless, these stories just reek of the patriarchy of the men telling the stories and writting them down. They're tainted, but still they're what we have in the mythology. So according to that horrible tale, Lamia was with Zeus and bore him children. Haraah found out and kidnapped the children, driving Lamia to madness. The poor woman. It was believed then that she took out her anger at Harah on other children, snatching them from their beds. A boogeyman character. But again it seems a stretch, a very patriarchal stretch. There are two versions of Lamia. There's that one she became a child snatching boogeyman, and there's a version where she was always a sea monster, a great and horrible sea monster, in that she eventually became the mother of one of the early pythias of the Oracle and one of the possible origins of the monster Scilla, that famous sea monster of the Odyssey fame and the beautiful novel Circe. Lamia's name translates, according to the beloved website Theoi to large shark, which, let me tell you, makes me love her so much more. I fucking love sharks, and that there's a woman attributed to being a large shark, one of the most famous of Greek sea monsters.

Was he entirely infallible? Or did he have some humanity deep deep down? Oh, how many stories do we have of humans testing the gods. They always go about it the same way, and it always has horrific results. But again, Laikion was the first. He started this shall we call it a trend of testing the gods with a feast. Who exactly it was that Laicheon kills, cut up and attempted to serve as dinner to Zeus varies between versions of this tale. Did he kill a hostage he had from whatever recent war or battle might have taken place. According to Avid, it was a hostage sent to him by the Melosians, Or was it his own son, a boy named Nicktimos, or perhaps his grandson Arcas, the son of Callisto and Zeus. Whoever it was that Laikion killed for his plan to test the god Zeus, he did it mercilessly, before cutting the poor man into pieces and roasting him in the fire, and finally serving him on a platter to Zeus, who was at Laichion's table for dinner as a guest. Zeus was not about to fall for this horrific trap. The instant the plate has been set down before him, Zeus leaped to his feet and raised his arm high in the air. A lightning bolt appears in his hand, and he aimed it. In a split second, the entire palace of Laichon was burnt to the ground, nothing left but smoldering rubble and smoke. Licheon, though wasn't the target of the lightning bolt. He ran as Zeus destroyed everything he had. He ran and ran until he reached some nearby fields. There in the fields, panting and out of breath, Leichion found himself howling. He tried to stop himself to form words instead, but he couldn't. It was only more frantic howling that erupted from within him, no matter how hard he tried. Furious, Leichion's howls transformed as he began to foam at the mouth and growl. As the transformation was complete, fur had grown over his whole body, his limbs transformed, He'd grown pointy, furry ears, and fell to walk on four legs. Leichion, because of his attempt to test Zeus a stupid mistake, was transformed into one of, if not the first, werewolf. His personality remained unchanged. Laichion was just as horrible and violent as a wolf than he was as a human, though his anger transferred to the local sheep rather than the humans or even the gods. He was not any wolf, though his fur was gray, just as his hair had been when he was a human, and his eyes remained the same. They still had their human quality, their fierce gaze. Laichion was again possibly the first instance of a werewolf in the world's mythologies. According to some, there's a werewolf first in the epic of Gilgamesh, where there's a reference to a former lover having been transformed into a wolf, but Laichion is certainly the most obvious example, a detailed example of a horrible man transformed into a wolf where he continues to terrorize the region. Laikion is also where we get the word licanthrope, literally a werewolf. Laikion maybe the first reference to a w werewolf and Greek mythology, but he wasn't the last. Patrons will remember last October when I released an episode of ghost and werewolf stories. But there are more than that. The ancient Greeks didn't necessarily have werewolves as we do now with the full moon and such. It was more so the general and often temporary transformation that makes these people werewolves. Stories of these transformations come in many forms. Herododus, the so called Father of History, the ancient Greek who traveled the Mediterranean world, documenting the people he met, their customs and beliefs, and who often shouldn't be believed at all. Documented a group of people we might now call werewolves. Herodotus tells of the people called the Neweri. He learned about them from the Scythians and Greeks living in scythea who explained to Herodotus that every year, every one of the Newery people would transform into wolves for just a few days before transforming back. Herododus doesn't have much more to say about this, except that he says he doesn't actually believe this about the Norri people, but that the Greeks and the Scithians who told him about it definitely believed what they said. Many of the stories from ancient Greece and Rome about what we might now call werewolves are also linked to what we would consider generally ghosts. While ghosts rarely come up in the mythology of the Greeks, they were certainly something many ancient Greeks believed in, believed they'd seen or heard about from others. According to the wildly fascinating and helpful source book Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden. Most of the stories of ghosts from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds fell into a number of categories of death, categories that are oh so similar to how we understand the concept of ghosts today. Whether you believe in them or not, the explanation of how they might come to be is fairly universal. There are the oroy, people dead before their time. Obviously, the supplies to a hell of a lot of people. Basically, if you didn't just die of old age, you could, in theory, come back as this type of ghost. It seems, though these were typically depicted as ghosts of children or babies agamoy died before they could be married. Men could fall into this category two, but it didn't matter much for them. Women, of course, who died before they were married essentially didn't live out any purpose to their lives, so no matter how long they lived, they didn't get married and therefore didn't have children. What was the even the point? Anyway, It was believed that women were far more haunting in this category. Atafoi were people who died and were not properly buried. This was a huge concern in ancient Greece, burial was incredibly important, and if you weren't buried, you would have serious trouble in the afterlife. Just think about the number of times I've brought up necessary funereal rites. Those who died and weren't buried with the necessary funeral rites couldn't have peace in death. And it's not just about putting their bodies in a hole. There were rites that must have been performed in order for them to pass into the underworld then successfully reach wherever they were headed. There Where exactly in the underworld the dead went varies depending on the palm, the mythology, and the time frame, but regardless of that, there was no peace without proper burial. And finally, biothenatoi were those who died by violence, people who died in war or were executed for their crimes, the scariest ones. I would imagine the dead in this category who were murdered or who died by suicide were apparently the most bitter of ghosts. Now, do I have any story examples of this A couple, they're good ones. The story of Euthemus and the ghost that most certainly falls under this biophenatoi category comes from Pausanius, the Greek travel writer from the second century. A. D Heads up, this is the story I reference at the top. It includes sexual assault. That's a bit more troubling than the usual stories of the gods. So trigger warning, though I don't go into any detail. There is one more story after this, so just hit the button a few times until I'm clearly talking about something different. Euthemus was a man who traveled to Italy and Sicily and landed in to Mesa, an ancient city on the Tirhenian Sea, but the exact location of which is still a bit of a mystery. There he learns of a story. It said that when Odysseus and his men were traveling back from Troy, on one of their many many stops along the way, they arrived there in Tomsa, one of Odysseus's men got drunk and raped a woman who was notably a virgin. For this, he was punished. Shocking, I know, consequences for one's actions, what a concept, But it was only because she was a virgin, not because she was raped anyway, Regardless of how shocking it is that a man was actually punished for assaulting a woman this sailor of Odysseus was indeed punished. He was doned to death by the locals and Timisa, who were very angry for what he'd done, and I mean good for them. He was stoned to death and in death went on to haunt the absolute fuck out of these poor people. In his ghostly demon state, he was called the Hero. The demon ghost Hero laid waste to Tamisa, killing its residents at random and in huge numbers. The haunting of these people got so bad that they thought about leaving Italy entirely. They didn't know what to do, but some brave soul sought the advice of the oracle, who told them that they couldn't leave the region and instead must appease the ghost. They were told they must build him a temple and every year give him the best and most beautiful of the city's virgin women, so ruining every piece of good WWY while I personally had given to them. They did as the oracle had instructed and built the ghost a temple and gave him their best and most beautiful virgin woman. And for a time this worked. The ghost was appeased and wasn't killing them all at random all the time. This is when Euthymus comes in. Also, virginity is a shitty construct meant to demonize women who have sex and emphasize their role as straight up property in a patriarchal world. It's bullshit. Euthymus travels to Tamisa, where he was told this story of the ghost they now called hero who had ravaged the town before being finally placated with the temple and sacrificial virgins. He was told this story in part because it happened to me that the annual offering was being made at that very moment. The poor woman had already been locked inside the temple to be offered to the rapist ghost. Euthymus, whose backstory we don't know, at least from the portion of the story I have access to, was feeling particularly heroic during his time in Temsa, and good for him, they needed it. Ethymus heard this story about the poor woman about to be sacrificed to this truly horrific, demonic ghost, he decided to venture into the temple himself to get a better idea of what exactly was going on in that plagued and haunted town. When he got inside the temple. The woman was quite unsurprisingly, very happy to see him. We're told that, in this happiness and hope to be saved from her fate, she promises that she would marry Euthemis if he saved her from the ghost. Isn't that always the promise? Anyway, there's the ancient patriarchy coming into play again. Can't save a woman from certain death unless she's promised to become your property in return. Regardless of the shitty way in which it comes about, Euthemis does save the woman before she can be sacrifice to the ghost, or he plans to. When he'd done away with the ghost, he made his preparations and remained in the temple waiting for it to appear. When it does, we're told, with absolutely no details at all, that Etheremist defeats the ghost in a battle. Of course, what I wish we had is an intricate explanation of what the ghost looked like, how terrifying it was, how exactly a man could so easily defeat a ghost in battle, But we have none of that. Euthimist defeated the ghost, which fled the temple, fled the city, and eventually dove headfirst into the sea. Euthemus and the woman were told had a very long and happy marriage. That's kind of nice that, and Tomisa was forever free of the horrible ghost. The women, I'm sure rejoiced. At the very end of this story, Pausanius tells us that after the death of Euthymus, which may have come by some magical means it or not have come at all, there was a shrine there in the city to him and his accomplishments, but it also included a shrine to the ghost hero who was depicted there with a wolf skin or perhaps as a wolf himself, and the shrine had a name inscribed Lycas, which means wolfie. So there you have it, a ghost story that is also a werewolf story. I wanted to end this episode with a less self cannibalistic bang Ersathon's story is so horrific for his poor daughter, who you guessed it isn't given a name. So let's finish today's episode with a look at some of the spookier women of mythology. I know I've mentioned some of these characters before, oh so so briefly in the very early days of this podcast, but they deserve a revisit. Lamia was the daughter of Poseidon, and whether she was always a sea monster or was trans formed into one is up for debate. In the story of her transformation, we must once again face the idea that Harah, goddess of women, punished yet another woman for the transgressions of her husband. Frankly, I'm getting tired of that version, though it's simply not realistic. I know Zeus was all powerful, and so could she really have punished him? Regardless, these stories just reek of the patriarchy of the men telling the stories and writting them down. They're tainted, but still they're what we have in the mythology. So according to that horrible tale, Lamia was with Zeus and bore him children. Haraah found out and kidnapped the children, driving Lamia to madness. The poor woman. It was believed then that she took out her anger at Harah on other children, snatching them from their beds. A boogeyman character. But again it seems a stretch, a very patriarchal stretch. There are two versions of Lamia. There's that one she became a child snatching boogeyman, and there's a version where she was always a sea monster, a great and horrible sea monster, in that she eventually became the mother of one of the early pythias of the Oracle and one of the possible origins of the monster Scilla, that famous sea monster of the Odyssey fame and the beautiful novel Circe. Lamia's name translates, according to the beloved website Theoi to large shark, which, let me tell you, makes me love her so much more. I fucking love sharks, and that there's a woman attributed to being a large shark, one of the most famous of Greek sea monsters.

Yes please.

Yes please.

Some even conflate her with the famous sea monster Keto, the mother of Medusa, the sea monster who Andromeda was saved from the concept of Lamia, though is tricky to pin down. She a shark, a child snatching boogeyman both. Later her name was also pluralized beautiful ghostly women who lured men away to feast on their young flesh and blood. They were vampires, and speaking of there's also the ampusa. Sometimes in those later myths, lammiay A considered a type of empusa. Empusa are mysterious. They are monsters that's for sure, And as far as I can understand them, they're women too, but what they appear as can vary. There are the Lammia in the later myths, those women who are the most vampiric of ancient monsters. Other empusa could take on different forms, transforming from women into monsters or things with lots of legs. Many of these forms, though, would quite simply gorge on the flesh of men. The Queen, which herself Hekta, may have even employed the empusa to do her bidding at times, sending them out to frightened travelers. Hekta really enjoyed fucking with people. We may not have many stories about her, but those that we have include a lot of intentionally being scary or murderous, and I can of love it. I know you all love Hekata. So if you're needing more about her, go back to the episode from last year. It's called Spooky Halloween Special, Magic and Mayhem, the Origin of Medea and Witches of Ancient Greece. But back to Hecate's loyal ladies, the Ampoosa. They're sometimes described as having one bronze leg and one donkey leg or more legs. The leg situation is up for debate. Frankly doesn't sound too scary, so I like to imagine them a bit more mysteriously, just women in the darkness, there to scare the living shit out of you, maybe feast on a bit of your flesh in the process. It's said that the empusa, along with another class of somewhat generically ghostly women monsters, the mormo, were often used by parents as threats, as in, you better be good, or the empusa or the mormo will visit you tonight. This type of quality parenting has been around for so long. The fact that these types of monsters of Greek mythology, the ones people feared on a data day basis, who they thought possible to run into on the streets and the darkness of the forest at night, were almost always women, absolutely says something about the culture the patriarchy of ancient Greece. But frankly, I also kind of love it so many boogey women of ancient Greece. Thank you all so much for listening and for understanding why there isn't a new episode. Honestly, I am so hell bent on the spooky episode that I had originally planned for this week that I'm just going to delay it so with any luck, my brain will start functioning again soon and next week will be what I wanted to air. On a the fact that I have to miss the first episode in so long, if ever that actually falls on Halloween, I'm so upset about it.

Some even conflate her with the famous sea monster Keto, the mother of Medusa, the sea monster who Andromeda was saved from the concept of Lamia, though is tricky to pin down. She a shark, a child snatching boogeyman both. Later her name was also pluralized beautiful ghostly women who lured men away to feast on their young flesh and blood. They were vampires, and speaking of there's also the ampusa. Sometimes in those later myths, lammiay A considered a type of empusa. Empusa are mysterious. They are monsters that's for sure, And as far as I can understand them, they're women too, but what they appear as can vary. There are the Lammia in the later myths, those women who are the most vampiric of ancient monsters. Other empusa could take on different forms, transforming from women into monsters or things with lots of legs. Many of these forms, though, would quite simply gorge on the flesh of men. The Queen, which herself Hekta, may have even employed the empusa to do her bidding at times, sending them out to frightened travelers. Hekta really enjoyed fucking with people. We may not have many stories about her, but those that we have include a lot of intentionally being scary or murderous, and I can of love it. I know you all love Hekata. So if you're needing more about her, go back to the episode from last year. It's called Spooky Halloween Special, Magic and Mayhem, the Origin of Medea and Witches of Ancient Greece. But back to Hecate's loyal ladies, the Ampoosa. They're sometimes described as having one bronze leg and one donkey leg or more legs. The leg situation is up for debate. Frankly doesn't sound too scary, so I like to imagine them a bit more mysteriously, just women in the darkness, there to scare the living shit out of you, maybe feast on a bit of your flesh in the process. It's said that the empusa, along with another class of somewhat generically ghostly women monsters, the mormo, were often used by parents as threats, as in, you better be good, or the empusa or the mormo will visit you tonight. This type of quality parenting has been around for so long. The fact that these types of monsters of Greek mythology, the ones people feared on a data day basis, who they thought possible to run into on the streets and the darkness of the forest at night, were almost always women, absolutely says something about the culture the patriarchy of ancient Greece. But frankly, I also kind of love it so many boogey women of ancient Greece. Thank you all so much for listening and for understanding why there isn't a new episode. Honestly, I am so hell bent on the spooky episode that I had originally planned for this week that I'm just going to delay it so with any luck, my brain will start functioning again soon and next week will be what I wanted to air. On a the fact that I have to miss the first episode in so long, if ever that actually falls on Halloween, I'm so upset about it.

Also just a final reminder that I know capitalism wants us to believe otherwise, but COVID is.

Also just a final reminder that I know capitalism wants us to believe otherwise, but COVID is.

Still very real and it.

Still very real and it.

Is still heavily impacting the lives of a lot of people, namely people with compromised immune systems.

Is still heavily impacting the lives of a lot of people, namely people with compromised immune systems.

I don't know.

I don't know.

About you all, but I have someone in my life that very much falls under that, and I just you know, get vaccinated if you haven't, and get boosted anyway, and you know, maybe consider wearing a mask inside when you could help immuno compromise people, even if it's not necessarily directly helping yourself help others.

About you all, but I have someone in my life that very much falls under that, and I just you know, get vaccinated if you haven't, and get boosted anyway, and you know, maybe consider wearing a mask inside when you could help immuno compromise people, even if it's not necessarily directly helping yourself help others.

Thank you all so much. I am live, and I love this ship, and I can't wait to be able to do it again.

Thank you all so much. I am live, and I love this ship, and I can't wait to be able to do it again.