Ep4. All About Beowulf & Neanderthals
Was the Old English Saga of Beowulf actually a story of memory, rather than of fiction? Nikki is an award nominated author and trained cultural anthropologist who has 15 years of research and exploration into global folklore and mythology and she discusses her revolutionary interpretation of the beloved story.
The post Ep4. All About Beowulf & Neanderthals appeared first on Fabric of Folklore.
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00;00;21;11 – 00;00;47;21
Speaker 1
A welcome. Welcome to Fabric of folklore. My name is Vanessa Rogers, and this is the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of folklore and uncover the why behind the folk tales, the music and the art. And hopefully you come away today with a deeper understanding of the world around you and maybe some tidbits you can share at your dinner table.
00;00;47;27 – 00;01;18;14
Speaker 1
And if you want to continue the conversation we have on Facebook group where you can do that. So definitely share what you think about the conversation that we’ve had today on our Facebook group. We’ve got a wonderful show today for you. Our guest is a trained cultural anthropologist, Nicky Advocate, who, among other things, will be speaking to us about the epic old English saga, Beowulf, and some exciting new theories, including the idea that this the famous poem is less myth and more memory.
00;01;18;22 – 00;01;44;15
Speaker 1
The last and possibly only documented encounter between Homo sapiens and Neanderthal. Nikki Advocaat has nearly 15 years of research and exploration into global folklore and mythology and biblical archeology. She is an award nominated author and loves to weave her research and social science expertise into her love of fantasy fiction. She’s a lover of all things weird, unusual, and also fey.
00;01;45;22 – 00;02;00;21
Speaker 1
So welcome, Meggie. We’re so glad to have you. And so let’s get started. And can you tell us can you tell us a little bit about you and maybe your journey about how you decided to go into cultural anthropology?
00;02;01;07 – 00;02;27;02
Speaker 2
Yes. I’m one of those weirdos who decided that when I was a kid, I actually one of my heroes, LeVar Burton. I blamed him first and foremost because of Reading Rainbow. I was a nineties kid and not only was I doing that show, but they would pull or he would pull out and he made the decision that somebody decided to put a lot of global folklore as far as the books that were being read.
00;02;27;11 – 00;02;59;07
Speaker 2
And so I had a lot more exposure to international works. And then with the library that my grandparents had compiled over the decades and my mother and her siblings, I grew up with a lot of literature from all over the world. The tales and a lot of people never really heard us before. I was I definitely had that sort of introduction to the anthropology side, but it was Indiana Jones when I was seven that got me convinced I was going to be an archeologist.
00;02;59;07 – 00;03;17;24
Speaker 2
You know, I was a lost ark. I said, Mom, I’m going to be him. And it’s funny because your kid that the story goes like, Well, I was like, okay, honey, that’s nice. But she noticed that years had passed and what she thought was this, like random ol statement, like, I’m going to be a nurse or I’m going to be a fireman or.
00;03;18;15 – 00;03;39;25
Speaker 2
No, I was dead serious. I mean, to be honest, I was also a three year old who was playing paleontologist because Jurassic Park was the thing, you know, like, yeah, I don’t feel like, well, I’m on to the weird stuff. But no, by the time I got to high school, I was dead set on becoming an archeologist. And I actually got into my dream college for my dream program, which is biblical archeology.
00;03;40;11 – 00;04;06;11
Speaker 2
But their program required that I learn one of two would technically dead languages, and I chose the one that was closest to English, and I still failed it. So. So my advisor might agree I’m sorry and kind of agree I couldn’t get the right guttural pronunciation. But my professor is like, You’re learning and you’re doing better, but you’re still failing the class.
00;04;06;18 – 00;04;32;28
Speaker 2
Like, okay. So I was advised, Hey, did you know that archeology is actually just a branch of a larger field of study, which is anthropology? I’m like, Actually, I didn’t know that. And like Professor who was inviting me for that, he said, Actually, I have really good colleagues who are amazing anthropologists who do study archeology. They just didn’t get that as a degree because they just couldn’t pass the language requirements.
00;04;33;24 – 00;04;54;10
Speaker 2
Yeah, and that’s actually what started my my path down anthropology and not like it was a perfect fit because I didn’t actually care about the artifacts. I cared about the stories of the people who made the artifacts. Yeah. And then the minute I started studying anthropology, I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is exactly what this is actually what I thought archeology was.
00;04;54;26 – 00;05;22;27
Speaker 2
And to be fair, there are a lot of archeologists out there, one who actually ended up being my advisor when I made the switch, who are actually anthropologists, but they focus on archeology and they make huge archeological discoveries, but they’re still actually just anthropologists interested because they focus on the stories more than archeology really focuses like, okay, I found this clay pot, what kind of minerals went into it?
00;05;23;04 – 00;05;43;29
Speaker 2
What’s the paint made of? Was the size or the anthropologist who at the same dig, Okay, that’s great. But who made it? Was it a man? Was it a woman? Was it somebody who identified as neither? Because we were finding that the thing you know, what was it made for refining or for actually finding a lot of it.
00;05;44;18 – 00;06;08;20
Speaker 2
And I guess I’m actually the field day where we we have superhumans. You know, we have like our comic books that are graphic novels. Well, the ancient world actually had very similar scenes. And if we find pottery, we find artifacts that basically merchandise your lunchboxes with your local god on it, you know. And that’s what I anthropologists looks at, you know, the archeologist, it’s like, okay, cool.
00;06;08;20 – 00;06;36;20
Speaker 2
What’s it made of The anthropologist is like, is that Superman on there? You know Yeah so yeah so and then for me, I really wanted to see the connection between the ancient world and the stories that we tell from it. And I started seeing a lot of, a lot of connections between what we have established as like, understood science and some very well known stories.
00;06;36;28 – 00;06;45;09
Speaker 2
And Beowulf was one of those just slap me in the face like, Wait a minute, there’s something going on here. So, yeah, so recapping.
00;06;46;16 – 00;06;53;09
Speaker 1
Can you talk about what what really slaps you in the face? What was it about Beowulf.
00;06;53;09 – 00;07;23;15
Speaker 2
Um, I think, I think first I was just a fan of the story itself. And remember, like, how human, like, became aware that it was a thing. Maybe it was the Gerard Butler film. I’m not sure I’m a big movie buff. Can’t tell which is from our storytelling, but I think just one day. Oh, okay. So in Beowulf towards the beginning, there is mentions.
00;07;23;15 – 00;07;55;18
Speaker 2
I think it’s actually one of the first paragraphs, actually there’s mentions of the wolf and his kind, the orcs and the trolls and the just all the non-humans coming from the line of Cain and Tolkien had surmised that that might be a post Christian addition to a pre Christianized story, but there are still some research into that. But it was something that I kind of put on the side because we don’t know much about the line of Cain.
00;07;55;19 – 00;08;29;20
Speaker 2
We really don’t like. Between a biblical history and secular history, there are some connections that we just don’t know a whole lot. So that that was interesting that they would they would take all the humanoid but non-human and really enemy structure and attribute them to be in the sense of Cain so dog eared that in my brain for later And then one day in my one of my cultural anthropology classes actually I think it was like anthropology went to one at a different university we’re talking about this is going into established science, what we know about the origins of the human species.
00;08;30;03 – 00;08;55;02
Speaker 2
And it is actually this is where it gets really interesting. You can take the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible and how it then identifies where the Garden of Eden was between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And then you can look at where we found Lucy and her symbols and actual physical appearance. Like all these, really, they’re from the same region, right?
00;08;55;05 – 00;09;26;24
Speaker 2
They’re from the exact same region in northeast Africa, which is between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and account for erosion and millenniums. But we’re looking at that. Well, that’s interesting. Yeah, it really caught my attention was when we were talking about in the human scientific record, there was a point in the early homo history where things branch off and were there identify that there is just like this family settlement, so to speak.
00;09;27;10 – 00;09;41;14
Speaker 2
And for one reason or another, at least one of them, if not two of them, but at least one of them just suddenly just leaves. Yeah. And I’m well, I’m sitting there in class. I’m like, well, there’s a story about that happening. Right?
00;09;41;17 – 00;09;41;28
Speaker 1
Right.
00;09;42;06 – 00;10;10;19
Speaker 2
What happened there for a very tragic, very tragic reason. It is kind of gets up and lays and and we’re following the archeological and again, this is the established science side, the pattern we’re following word that that wayward person goes. They actually go into Europe. The rest of the family, the genetic family, the rest of them stays in the region, kind of goes around the Mesopotamia civilization, birth, etc..
00;10;11;00 – 00;10;41;12
Speaker 2
But then this one guy goes all the way into Europe and the last known marker we have of his genetic mark is north the way northern Europe up in Scandinavia and Oh wow. Yeah. That’s far we attribute. Yeah. Yeah. And that is the line of Neanderthal. And what’s really interesting is that in the rock I was in, in class, listen, who else in my brain is just like piecing together in Neanderthal records that were researching?
00;10;42;07 – 00;10;47;17
Speaker 2
They were never able to actually master agriculture. They were.
00;10;47;21 – 00;10;48;07
Speaker 1
Neanderthal.
00;10;48;07 – 00;11;13;16
Speaker 2
Hunter gatherers. Mm hmm. You can see the there is evidence of them trying, but there is no evidence that they ever actually succeeded at growing their own food, that the agricultural towns were not happening. Mm. Which you know the story. Yeah. I say it like a sandwich if you remember the story or if you know the story. Cain was coerced that way.
00;11;13;18 – 00;11;32;04
Speaker 2
He was a farmer and he was part of his curse was to look different in a way that people would know not to mess with him. If you think about there’s possibility of that mark being just being a flat form, but the big one being you’re going to wander the earth forever and you’ll never be able to grow anything ever again.
00;11;33;12 – 00;11;40;20
Speaker 2
Good luck with that.
00;11;40;20 – 00;11;52;04
Speaker 3
Mm.
00;11;52;04 – 00;12;13;06
Speaker 2
Right, Right.
00;12;13;06 – 00;13;08;12
Speaker 3
Mm hmm. Mm.
00;13;09;02 – 00;13;13;27
Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah.
00;13;17;17 – 00;13;33;21
Speaker 2
No, I disagree with you because I was sitting there. Oh, you’re asked me how I got into the hillbillies. This is all happening in my head. In one class, I was watching him, recalls the map of these of these records that I like. But I know that story, you know, like I grew up on that story, Like, we all know that story.
00;13;34;07 – 00;13;50;20
Speaker 2
And it was it’s a lot to take in. And even when I did my paper and I present it to my class before I did the conference, usually people have questions and it was crickets when I was done and I was like, Oh, is this a big deal? The any questions? And one of the I said, Oh, we have a billion.
00;13;50;20 – 00;14;15;12
Speaker 2
We’re just trying to process something that I feel like none of us have ever considered before, like it. And I’ll just say like I will say like I am Christian. So I grew up on these stories. I grew up on the Bible. But at the same time, I do want to let people know, even if you didn’t grow up on that, even if you aren’t Christian, this is saying, Oh my gosh, Genesis is absolutely one 2% correct.
00;14;15;12 – 00;14;52;06
Speaker 2
Or it’s also not saying that this incorrect. What people often forget, especially about the earliest chapters and we are talking about chapters one through four, maybe six. That’s oral tradition happening. What we have written down is a summarization of stories that were told by word of mouth. And when stories are told by word of mouth over several generations, the Reader’s Digest versions of what really happened, they’re about as summarized as you could possibly go, because you have to be able to remember everything and to pass it on to your children who have to remember that to pass on to theirs.
00;14;52;16 – 00;16;10;15
Speaker 2
So stories like Cain and Abel, stories of creation, it’s as as written, basic as you can possibly get. But we are missing a lot of extra information that we wish we had. It is. And we do it today in fiction a lot. A vast majority of books and even movies that we consume today are fiction because it’s easier for us to absorb the truth through that.
00;16;11;16 – 00;16;37;03
Speaker 2
There are a lot of hot topics that we struggle to talk about peacefully when we know it’s nonfiction, like good news, you know? But if you encompass the news, if Carnival Row is a very good example of this, they they and they cover all the hot topics, but it’s fantasy. They’re fairy folk. You know, you’ve got your centers and you have your singers and you have your Pixies and, you know, and it’s far removed from here.
00;16;37;03 – 00;17;05;05
Speaker 2
Even though it covers, it talks about very openly immigration, refugees, discrimination, racism, discrimination overall. Absolutely. And so I celebrate those. So happy season two is coming out going forever. Yeah. You know it’s and they even said they did it for that reason. It’s a lot easier to absorb heavy topics and think about you think about Neanderthal. You think about Cain and Abel as the first murder as a heavy topic.
00;17;05;15 – 00;17;33;02
Speaker 2
And a lot of people even say, this is me on a on a side. A lot of people just assume Cain just outright murdered Abel. And, you know, he’s evil. But again, that’s the first time that ever happened. So I’ve always wondered, didn’t even know what he was doing, was never, never experienced death before this. And that is the first time in our in our oral tradition, as much as just as we know, as humans, even secular shows like Supernatural attribute him as the first murderer.
00;17;33;02 – 00;17;54;23
Speaker 2
And that’s that’s the first time humans ever experienced death in our own species the very first time. So there’s a strong possibility that no one knew what was going on. He probably had no idea what was going on. And that’s really tragic when you think about it. It’s not just a murder. It’s probably an accidental manslaughter. You know, like go put it on a judge and then what happens?
00;17;54;23 – 00;18;19;07
Speaker 2
Well, he gets marked by the God of gods at that time, and you’ll hear people talk about it literally, like physically stamped on the forehead as murderer and can never do what he was born and raised to do ever, ever again. He just has to wander the earth. And it just fascinated me that we see such an identical story happening and the records that we file in Neanderthal.
00;18;20;04 – 00;19;00;27
Speaker 2
And then when I was reading, yeah, it can kind of because we’re also finding out that Neanderthals existed a lot more recently than we assumed. We’re finding out that our concept of time is very askew. So it can, in a way, if you if you consider like you can, you can date the story in terms of relationships, the story of the exodus, for example, the Hebrews leaving Egypt.
00;19;01;11 – 00;19;41;03
Speaker 2
No one will touch that. No one, I have to tell you this. No one will ever, ever place a date on that. But can you guess within like a 99.9% accuracy based on surrounding records? Yeah. Yeah. We all kind of pretty much know when it happened because there are extra biblical and there are secular texts that confirm there was a sudden giant migration of a particular subset of people coming out of Egypt that actually left Egypt completely, almost completely depleted of its military right in time for the sea peoples of the fallen Mycenaean empire to come to North and Ramsey is the second is like the heck and he’s the one who wrote it himself.
00;19;41;03 – 00;20;04;04
Speaker 2
He’s like I was lost a vast majority of my military power because they dissolved the left. And those same people are circling around to the wall while he’s dealing with the sea peoples who are also dealing with the Hebrews to go to their homeland and like, Wait, what are you doing here? And the Mycenaean sailors who are now known as the Philistines are like, Well, what are you doing here?
00;20;04;29 – 00;20;29;00
Speaker 2
And and so you see all these stories pop up, but they really all have a central focus. We just don’t want to put a date on it because we don’t want to put dates on things because it it makes it real. It makes it real. I think. I think that’s what it is. It makes it real. It’s easier for us to categorize scenes as folk work, and it’s very, very challenging On folklore becomes fact.
00;20;29;19 – 00;20;30;00
Speaker 1
Mm hmm.
00;20;30;11 – 00;20;31;09
Speaker 3
Mm hmm.
00;20;31;09 – 00;20;59;23
Speaker 2
Mm hmm. Sure. Sure.
00;20;59;23 – 00;21;10;24
Speaker 3
Mm.
00;21;10;24 – 00;21;47;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, that would. No, no, I’m. We’re going to pull from Tolkien, and I’m still mad. I lost my books. I told you, you can go on Amazon and grab it if you’re interested. Um, Tolkien was Beowulf, and so they actually pulled those notes together. You can get a copy Beowulf with Tolkien’s notes, but actually, Tolkien’s notes are longer than Beowulf itself.
00;21;48;11 – 00;21;50;11
Speaker 1
So of course, of course they are.
00;21;51;09 – 00;22;13;07
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. And they’re fascinating. I love his his spirit. I feel like if he was alive today, we could have a really fun lunch. You know, like, I feel like personalities who just naturally just based on the notes I was reading from him and he was actually trying to figure that out, too, because when he was alive, we understood Neanderthals to be completely separate from Homo sapiens, completely separate.
00;22;13;07 – 00;22;40;04
Speaker 2
And actually, up until the last couple of decades, we held on to that belief. I mean, I’ll get to that in a second. Yes, we have that something now. But he also was looking at pre Christianized Scandinavian records and post-Christian Scandinavian records and trying to pick out from the epic saga as we have today, what belongs where, for example, is this reference to the descendants of Cain?
00;22;40;13 – 00;23;04;11
Speaker 2
Is that something that got added to the story after the Christians came into the region, or is that something that that was in the story already and the pre Christianized region had pre knowledge of the story, which is always possible because aside from religious spread, you can’t you can’t forget about trade. People are constantly trading on each other all the time.
00;23;04;11 – 00;23;29;21
Speaker 2
Stories spread that way as well. So you try to figure out what belongs where. Now again, it gets a little tricky because in Beowulf there is actually a missionary, a monk with that. So you have and if you see in the animated the CGI film, which is fantastic, Ray Winstone just nailed it. But John Malkovich actually plays a priest.
00;23;29;29 – 00;24;01;06
Speaker 2
So you have the the Running I the Holy Roman Empire to differentiate between the spiritual side and the political side. You just have a politically Christian influence and presence there in the story itself. But again, trying to figure out, was that added in or was that actually literally part of what happened? And the reason why that’s important is because how we date our calendars, you have B.C before Christ and then during this time, I should clarify it.
00;24;01;07 – 00;24;32;17
Speaker 2
B.C. before Christ, we have zero in Christ was born and then everything after that is A.D. And so trying to figure out what actually was part of the original story is also trying to figure out, okay, what’s B.C versus A.D.? Does that make sense? You know, so that’s a lot of what he was trying to figure out. Now, with modern discoveries, what’s been happening with our DNA testing is there’s actually a project in Europe.
00;24;32;17 – 00;24;59;02
Speaker 2
I cannot remember what it’s called or actually try and test. There are people who still care the Neanderthal gene, and they want to see how strong is it. And all the strength of the Neanderthal gene in your system will tell you how recently were the Neanderthals here? And there were a couple of people who had very strong Neanderthal genes at reaches unlike anything that was found before.
00;24;59;02 – 00;25;17;00
Speaker 2
I think that might actually be in the paper I published, and that just blew our brains mind because that’s irrefutable proof that Neanderthal was here while Homo sapiens was here. And for the DNA to exist means that.
00;25;18;23 – 00;25;19;24
Speaker 1
There’s intermingling.
00;25;19;25 – 00;25;46;26
Speaker 2
Stuff happen. Yes. Yes. And some some skeletal reconstruction would like. The facial reconstruction has kind of went towards that refining just by going off, trying to reconstruct the tissue depth and all that Neanderthal women are understood to have been actually quite beautiful. So we can definitely see things happening that way. So sorry.
00;25;47;02 – 00;25;52;12
Speaker 1
How do we know that the women were beautiful? Like who? Who says that.
00;25;52;25 – 00;26;15;00
Speaker 2
You you can take the skeletal remains and you can they survive the bone structure. And then and then by the end, then you look at like, the diet, like were they mostly meat eaters and the sense of the protein nutrition. So you can kind of get a sense of like the muscle and tissue and then just it’s always a guess, it’s a pretty good guess.
00;26;16;03 – 00;26;41;16
Speaker 2
And yeah, when you get the finished result, typically the Neanderthal women are actually the the popstar. Now, actress Billie Piper, who I absolutely love, shoes and Doctor Who and she had a heading to be like back in the late nineties she holds a very, very strong resemblance to the Neanderthal woman reconstruction that we have found in anthropology that.
00;26;42;10 – 00;26;42;24
Speaker 1
She knew her.
00;26;42;26 – 00;27;02;17
Speaker 2
Next one, and I don’t know, I wondered this like I watch Doctor Who like the old seasons and I’m like, does she know that she’s basically a Neanderthal woman and she’s gorgeous? But if you want to think like, yeah, like she’s gorgeous and she basically embodies what we have, figure it out. Neanderthal women probably look like on a regular basis.
00;27;02;17 – 00;27;19;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so it’s easy to see that there would be some intermingling. But Beowulf is not about well, it is about Neanderthal woman technically, but not in the balletic about way. It’s about an angry mother because her son was right.
00;27;20;17 – 00;27;25;24
Speaker 1
Well, why don’t you give us a recap of available for those of us who haven’t read Beowulf since high school?
00;27;27;06 – 00;27;55;08
Speaker 2
Yes or no? Why? People never even heard of it. Beowulf is the oldest, oldest story in the English language, and we count it because it’s also the oldest form of English language that we have on record. Language changes all the time. What we have today is just a conglomeration of many languages, but Beowulf was in all the old English and it talks about a war.
00;27;55;15 – 00;28;28;28
Speaker 2
Actually. Sorry, I am so sorry. It talks about a problem. Prof. GA This king is had because he built this huge hall, this huge party place, a big venue for his warriors and they all get brutally murdered and in some variations, devoured by a local monster who they call Grendel. And he he’s got a problem because he he wants to have his venue.
00;28;29;14 – 00;29;01;24
Speaker 2
He wants to have his party house, but he also has a warriors and he lost most of them. So he’s calling out for heroes. He’s calling out for help. Beowulf is this he’s a he’s actually a prince. He’s a son of the king. But he’s more you know, he’s kind of like an Aragorn. If you thinking of like Lord of the Rings where yeah, he knows is technically can is as far as a water as Beowulf so he he is well he goes answers the call and he he does not get destroyed or murdered or eaten by Grendel.
00;29;01;24 – 00;29;29;07
Speaker 2
He actually through a series of lots of fighting. And what he does is he actually tells him to reopen the hall, reopen the party house, have a party. You know, it was like, are you crazy? And I was like, Yes, that’s why I’m here. And then they have the party and Grendel comes in, wrecks havoc, tries to murder people, tries to eat them, and they say, and Beowulf fights him and actually Beowulf fights him naked because he wants it to be a fair fight.
00;29;29;07 – 00;29;49;28
Speaker 2
He’s like, If I were armor, if I have weapons, it’s not a fair fight. Grendel is naked socially, so he fights this guy naked and rips off Grendel’s. Ah, right, right, right. Yeah. And then he rips off Grendel’s arm, and Grendel runs off into the hills where he bleed to death. He does not have. And we still like why?
00;29;49;28 – 00;30;15;09
Speaker 2
Why does his armor. I feel other stories. We think about the time the region in Grendel being Grendel. He’s not going to the hospital, but he does go home where we can assume based on the text that he bled to death in his mother’s arms. Now his mother, we thought Grendel was scary. His mother is a thousand times far more terrifying just on her own.
00;30;15;17 – 00;30;34;22
Speaker 2
But also now she’s a very angry mother who’s grieving the loss of her son. And she’s causing problems and she’s and people are finding out she’s far more terrifying, but she tends to stick to the water. So she’s not necessarily coming in to shore in the hall like her son did. But people are very much recognizing we have a bigger problem.
00;30;34;22 – 00;30;59;13
Speaker 2
We thought there was one. There’s actually two, and the second one’s. So Beowulf goes out to meet her in her cave dwelling, which is important to remember. We’re talking about the archeology side. It goes to meet her in her cave dwelling and there and it actually describes in great detail what he finds there. He finds the the morning that she has been doing for her son.
00;30;59;21 – 00;31;22;06
Speaker 2
And he realizes like, oh, he looks for some looks and he sees the missing arm and he sees Grendel laying there and Grendel has recently passed away. He can tell that that this is a very recent death and that’s how we kind of figure out he bled to death and he confronts the mother or she confronts him. She nearly kills him, but then he gets the upper hand.
00;31;22;17 – 00;31;57;21
Speaker 2
Now, here’s what’s really interesting. There is no other witnesses. And as I’m pointing this out, because talking points out the other witnesses, the only way anybody knows what happens inside there is from what Beowulf told them. But there’s a shift in how Beowulf relays the story. He goes in looking for a monster, and in the last bits of prose as he’s leaving, he’s not describing a monster as much as he’s describing a grieving mother.
00;31;58;13 – 00;32;22;19
Speaker 2
And this creature who’s, by the way, becomes very humanized in the way the story is told. It’s subtle, but it’s there and there’s no actual proof he killed her because he comes back, he’s actually missing his sword. As as people ask, the sword is like, Oh, I lost it. I’m like, oh, so where is where is your head?
00;32;22;19 – 00;32;44;23
Speaker 2
You said your brain or right. He’s like, lost that too. And sometimes they’re asking them like, So where is the person you killed? There is like, Oh, gosh darn it. You know, the tide came in and so your chaos battle, stuff like that Sounds good. Sword and she’s good. She’s God, she’s good. But there’s no actual proof that he did anything.
00;32;44;23 – 00;33;08;27
Speaker 2
What I pulled from that was that he probably again remembered that she’s a Neanderthal woman. If we’re thinking that way, probably facing down someone who suddenly looks far more human and far more relatable and sympathetic and probably beautiful than he expected. And that’s really where the story shifts and that’s where the story ends. Grendel is dead, the place is saved.
00;33;09;03 – 00;33;12;18
Speaker 2
Beowulf is the hero. They don’t happen to the mom, but we assume she’s dead.
00;33;13;15 – 00;33;21;10
Speaker 1
Okay. And now why is Beowulf so famous? Why is it important to our history?
00;33;21;10 – 00;33;47;06
Speaker 2
Oh, okay. So I’m like, I’m like, how many movies can I quote in a single song recently? And I think you then try. I think I started the pandemic, but all I know is refines the story and the dig the film, the dig that came out on Netflix. And it was pretty popular for a while. That is actually why I what was found on the Hill.
00;33;47;06 – 00;34;19;09
Speaker 2
So so for centuries, literally centuries, we just assume Beowulf was a really good bedtime story. Folktale part of linguistic history, you know, that we’re happy to preserve. But that was it. And then the dig happened, like literally happened. And the son who was unearth the reason why this is important is because the artifacts found at Sutton Hill matched the depictions of the funeral that Beowulf was emerging from at the very beginning of the epic saga.
00;34;19;09 – 00;34;51;21
Speaker 2
Yes. So Sutton, who when we are digging everything up, what we found in Sutton, who matches the the actual the framework of the beginning of the saga of Beowulf there, Wolf, was leaving a funeral. And they describe the sibling came and he is I think it was pronounced that it’s not severe. And it’s a scathing case because I don’t speak I mean, he’s leading this big funeral that just happened.
00;34;51;21 – 00;35;19;19
Speaker 2
And it actually describes the funeral in great detail. And it also describes in role in relation to where he’s going, where it was located. Again, we thought, okay, cool, that that’s great folklore. Well, Sutton, who is the actual funeral that he had attended, now we have archeological evidence of a real life event occurring that we had previously thought was just part of the story.
00;35;19;19 – 00;35;44;27
Speaker 2
Suddenly Beowulf is being reexamined because, well, why would you tie in such a huge, momentous event, which it does happen a lot in folklore. But then there are other things that led to wondering, okay, well, was a real king, was there an actual hall of your funny? Yeah, he was actually. And it was an actual hall. Yeah. As slaves.
00;35;44;27 – 00;36;19;18
Speaker 2
And they were trying to figure out, okay, so where was this hall located? Is that important to the story? And it is actually important to the story not only because, oh my gosh, we’re finding more and more the story was actually real, but they were they think we don’t know for sure, but we’re they are thinking the hall was located was a big party house of the local acoustics of the valley would make sound reverberate very loudly and very clearly, which I do actually applaud.
00;36;19;18 – 00;36;42;17
Speaker 2
The people who did this is they make that a point to establish. It’s the sound that bothers Grendel and draws him in. And that makes sense. If you think about you, you live in a very nice remote, maybe like a remote farms, peaceful and quiet in got your fireflies or crickets chirping. That’s nice. And then a frat house moves in next door, starts partying at 3 a.m..
00;36;44;11 – 00;37;07;15
Speaker 2
What are you going to do? Okay, You may not destroy their house and eat the people, but you’re going to call the cops. Let things are. And he is the police for the area, you know, and and it’s a little more research to look at. Okay. Was actually real the more the whole story becomes very plausible because interestingly enough, at no point in the story there anything really mystical or magical happening.
00;37;08;12 – 00;37;22;22
Speaker 2
It’s a very blunt. This could have literally happened story, but then you have to ask, okay, but then who was Grendel? What was Grendel? Because they differentiate him. He’s definitely not Homo sapiens.
00;37;24;06 – 00;37;31;29
Speaker 1
And what were the characteristics that you saw in the story that made you think, well, maybe he was Neanderthal, maybe he was humanoid?
00;37;33;14 – 00;37;58;29
Speaker 2
It was actually where he lived. It wasn’t so much what he looked like, it was more about where he lived was when Beowulf in the story goes in to confront his mother, Grendel’s mother. What she’s wearing matches a lot of what we know. Neanderthal woman where to wear the lots of shells, a lot of aquatic jewelry, aquatic clothing.
00;37;58;29 – 00;38;18;02
Speaker 2
They would use aquatic plants to weave into their hair and stuff. And she is described as a water nymph. Well, I mean, if you don’t know that this is Neanderthal woman who just happens to be her fashion choice, you’d probably think she is a water nut because she also prefers to stick near the water. Oh, water happens to give fish.
00;38;18;22 – 00;38;54;27
Speaker 2
Water is a good source for food and drink, so that makes sense for her as a gatherer to to say where the gathering is good. And she’s probably bedecked in the same way that Neanderthal woman would have been bedecked. But also when he goes in the way he describes the the inner dwelling and the cave, which we know Neanderthals are prone to utilizing the layer of the slab, the flowers that are spread around her son’s body, just just all the little artifacts and details that are woven into that.
00;38;54;27 – 00;39;18;10
Speaker 2
You can look at pretty much any Neanderthal dwelling being excavated today and they pretty much match. And that’s what really made me go, okay, this this could be a thing. This could definitely be a thing. We do know that Neanderthals did have a mourning process. They did have a concept of the afterlife. They did have a concept of death and grief.
00;39;19;06 – 00;39;24;22
Speaker 2
And this is very much highlighted in the ending. Some parts of Beowulf.
00;39;25;17 – 00;39;29;18
Speaker 1
So we know that they had funeral rituals.
00;39;29;18 – 00;40;45;11
Speaker 2
Yes, actually, the flowers with the flowers being placed on top of or with the dead, we can actually tie to Neanderthal culture or maybe. Yes. Well, also, yes, that’s what we’re trying to find out. And that’s why we’re doing the DNA testing and we’re finding out the more people get tested, especially in Europe, for the the NFL gene, the more the data is suggesting that if we keep testing, we could find yes, actually, no.
00;40;45;11 – 00;41;12;16
Speaker 2
We also what we also probably should clarify, there is a huge difference between a population and the last remnants of if you think of like zombie movies, are there humans? Yes, but there’s only only probably two years old. So you can say, yeah, there’s humans because the world of zombies. Oh, but, but there’s only two of them. I imagine, like the last one as far as you know.
00;41;12;16 – 00;41;35;27
Speaker 2
But there are still humans in the story. That’s really what it is. And it’s actually I actually studied zombies too. It’s very interesting for this reason. The way we we grapple with colonization, for example, sometimes you can actually use zombie story structure to talk about that. We did actually, I am Legend and the Last Man on Earth is more about that.
00;41;36;14 – 00;41;55;00
Speaker 2
We think about, you know, what you know, and then a bunch of strangers come in and take over everything and wipe out everything that you know. And that does actually echo probably Grendel’s experience. It’s just him and his mom, like in the story establish is just him and his mom. For all they know, they are the last of their kind.
00;41;55;22 – 00;42;26;00
Speaker 2
And you got these weirdos moving in and destroying everything, hunting their food, pillows in their lab, noise and everything up at three, you know, like it’s very much an invasion that’s happening. So, Grendel, the air fall as an analog could have very much been around only a couple of thousand years ago. That doesn’t mean that Neanderthals in general were that could just mean that somehow his particular family managed to survive that long, but no more, because we know that after Beowulf is done.
00;42;26;13 – 00;42;47;02
Speaker 1
And what are the characteristics of Neanderthal? How are they different with a larger? I always picture them as larger and more and stronger. Like I think I remember reading something that if you put a Homo sapiens in a Neanderthal together in a fight, the Neanderthal would definitely win because of its physical attributes.
00;42;47;02 – 00;43;12;16
Speaker 2
Based on brawn and strength. Yes, the Homo sapiens could win based on agility and and like more mental skills. We don’t know. Yeah. Neanderthals, though we’re finding more and more are extremely intelligent. But yeah, they were built differently. Which hearkens back to the concept of maybe that was part of the mark of gaining 1 million actual mark was in the story.
00;43;12;21 – 00;43;33;28
Speaker 2
It’s never describe and some people have wondered was that literally a change in the skull, a change in the structure and the even says, you know, anybody who kills you or tries to kill you will be punished. 70 times said that they might try to kill you, but you’ll be able to destroy them and their neighbors and their neighbors, neighbors and their neighbors.
00;43;34;17 – 00;43;54;26
Speaker 2
And we know, like you said, from the innards. Well, that’s very true. You could try to attack a Neanderthal will probably wipe out you and your friends in 30 seconds flat. And that’s what happens in Beowulf. In the story. He goes over and he wipes out the entire hull. There are no survivors except for maybe your guy who probably went away.
00;43;55;09 – 00;44;07;21
Speaker 2
You know, it’s it’s a very quick and it’s a very bloody and it’s a very brutal attack by one, we’ll say Neanderthal who has no weapons. It’s just sheer brawn, strength.
00;44;07;21 – 00;44;18;28
Speaker 1
So let’s go into it. Talking is Tolkien was really interested in Beowulf. Can you talk a little bit about why he was so interested in what what his work around Beowulf look like?
00;44;19;08 – 00;44;46;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think. I can’t say for sure. That’s just from what I got from his notes, but I think it starts or started with the fact that he has very core as a linguist. He was a linguistic expert. That’s how he wrote a lot of languages for one of the reigns and Beowulf is the standard. If you study English language literature, you say any English degree in America, even a Beowulf is standard from what I’ve been told.
00;44;46;28 – 00;45;06;22
Speaker 2
You have to read it in the old English as well as the current language and understand translations because this equal this version. So Tolkien would have by profession it needed to know it anyways. And from what I found in his notes, just so it is more like how he wrote them, not just that he wrote them, but how he wrote them.
00;45;07;14 – 00;45;32;22
Speaker 2
It seems like he was making a lot of these similar discoveries that I was starting to piece together, you know, like he was wondering, okay, what’s pre-Christian, what’s post-Christian influence? What is happening over here? Is it really a water it or is this just a grieving mother close to just a lot of he’s focusing most in his annotations, focusing more on the language.
00;45;33;08 – 00;45;51;21
Speaker 2
But out of the lake where she’s pulling these questions, most of the titles only answer them. But I think you just trying to figure out the translations, trying to figure out the linguistic usage and cultural influences, I think it just seems like he started asking all these questions that we’re still trying to answer.
00;45;52;20 – 00;45;58;21
Speaker 1
The old English version is written in poem version. Is that correct? Is it a poem?
00;45;58;29 – 00;46;04;05
Speaker 2
It’s an epic saga. Kind of like a homer with the Iliad.
00;46;04;17 – 00;46;28;05
Speaker 1
Okay, so I misunderstood that. But in when I was when I when I was reading your paper and I saw that Tolkien was referenced, I went and did a little Wikipedia search, and it said that he had he translated it two times, one as an alliteration and then one. Yes. So is his version when when you say alliteration and.
00;46;29;18 – 00;46;29;24
Speaker 3
How.
00;46;29;24 – 00;46;32;03
Speaker 1
Does that flow and what does it look like?
00;46;34;00 – 00;46;54;16
Speaker 2
There’s there’s two ways this happens a lot, especially like the older the record is, the more this happens because the direct translation can oftentimes have gaps. We just we either don’t have actual words that translate. I’m trying to think of which languages, but there’s a couple of languages. I have friends who speak native. They don’t have a word for orange.
00;46;55;22 – 00;47;20;14
Speaker 2
You know, this friend from Saudi Arabia, they don’t have a word for Auburn or they don’t have a word for. There’s a there’s a there’s it’s a word that they have to describe a color that Hedman makes. It does not exist in English. That’s what it doesn’t exist in English. So she was talking to and trying to describe how she got her hair done.
00;47;20;14 – 00;47;39;12
Speaker 2
And we see that a lot. What we’re trying to translate languages to because nobody speaks like and in her case, I could probably find somebody else who speaks Arabic and they could probably help her out like, well, it’s kind of orange or whatnot, but we don’t have any native Sumerian speakers and we don’t have any native old English speakers.
00;47;39;12 – 00;48;05;04
Speaker 2
So you’ll see a lot of cuneiform as a great example because there’s only 13 people in the world who can even read it, let alone translate it. And even then they have to figure out, okay, do we agree that this is how it translates? Because we’re the only 13 people who there’s no other panel discussion, and because we don’t have a native speaker, there’s a lot of gaps that occur.
00;48;06;06 – 00;48;24;00
Speaker 2
And so then we have to fill in those gaps for it to make sense. One of the recent ones with that is is a recipe for bread. We got to make sure we know how to translate it correctly because otherwise a bread recipe just isn’t going to work. So with with Toki, that’s what he’s doing the first time around.
00;48;24;05 – 00;48;51;26
Speaker 2
He’s taken the old English and he’s translated it to the absolute best who is possibilities as a linguistic expert and as someone who knows old English very, very well, and then identifying the gaps, identifying the areas that it is that you like the sentence structure just doesn’t really make sense. But he knows how it should make sense. And then going through and rewriting it in a way that we can digest it and get the actual story from.
00;48;51;26 – 00;49;17;23
Speaker 2
And we hope, yeah, because that is actually what happened with the Bible. Going back with that, people were like, Well, the Bible is not true. It’s a well, that actually happens because of this exact thing. This is the translation part. It’s trying to figure out how to make it cohesive to whoever is supposed to be receiving the information from a language that nobody speaks anymore.
00;49;17;23 – 00;49;42;02
Speaker 2
And so a lot of executive decisions were made in the process of rewriting these translations. Right. And now we’re find now we do have experts who are very good in Aramaic. We have experts are really good in ancient Hebrew, and we have Hebrew experts who are really good at kind of piecing together and finding out, oh, yeah, no know, a middle aged lot of executive and wrong decisions are made to try to translate for.
00;49;42;02 – 00;49;47;07
Speaker 2
Oh, no, that’s not what that meant at all. And Tolkien is trying to avoid that, would they.
00;49;47;15 – 00;50;02;12
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Can you talk a little bit about that? You were talking about the pagan versus post Christianity. What are elements in the story that made you start looking at the OR? Tolkien?
00;50;03;21 – 00;50;29;05
Speaker 2
Yes, definitely. The one the first notes I remember them having was when they’re describing Grendel and actually the name in describing Grendel specifically, the first hole, if you think about it like a poem, like the column, the first column is actually it’s talking it’s not talking about the creation of the world, but it’s the framing and the introduction of the characters to come.
00;50;29;26 – 00;51;03;29
Speaker 2
So and one of the first things it frames is the existence of who will be introduced as Grendel. So the first thing that they will be the talks about is the descendants of K orcs and the trolls and the dark elves or even, yeah, the Elvish and the orcas and and the trolls. Yeah, there’s a whole it reads really, even in old English, it is actually the elimination, the audition and going through and they’re tying that in because later on they’re like, Oh yeah, Grendel all use this way because he’s the descent of Kane.
00;51;04;27 – 00;51;38;03
Speaker 2
Well, Cain and Abel is a biblical story, and that’s a big question that comes up. As I mentioned earlier, was this framework introduced after the Christian missionaries came or even after the vampire came through, or did they know about it already and didn’t need Christian influence? Was it part of their. Because if you remember, we talk about the very beginning of this, the Neanderthal branching off from Northeast Africa and going up.
00;51;38;03 – 00;52;05;06
Speaker 2
We do have that established. Is it possible? We don’t know, but only is it possible they carried with them that memory? We don’t know. That’s definitely a big question. The talking hat and you want to mark there’s also some linguistics that he marks. I’m not an expert as I couldn’t directly quote, but there’s just some language usage that he notice was very post-Christian in a very pre Christian frame story.
00;52;07;27 – 00;52;08;17
Speaker 1
As things.
00;52;08;19 – 00;52;08;23
Speaker 2
And.
00;52;09;02 – 00;52;09;19
Speaker 1
He could.
00;52;11;14 – 00;52;35;28
Speaker 2
Distinguish yes yes. Well like if you were to tell somebody today like, oh, can I have your number, just call me. We’re used to hearing that a lot. But you wouldn’t find Oh, just call me in a document from the 1400s. I mean, like you would say, come visit some time or I shall send my servant. You know, you’ll find, like, different things, but it wouldn’t be phrased like I just call me, text me.
00;52;36;01 – 00;52;58;17
Speaker 2
You. Yeah, there’s a good one. They’re like, Oh, they’re going to just text me. We’ll see that all the time. But if that popped up in a text or like an actual missive that you found from like 1493, you’re going to wonder, okay, who translated this again, They weren’t from 1493. It seems like the little things like that were like, okay, there’s some there’s something happening here.
00;52;58;27 – 00;53;22;18
Speaker 2
A bacchanal was a big one. No, that was like a more of an unanswered question, though, because and that’s another thing that that it’s one of those things that can swing either way. It could honestly swing either way. A lot of a lot of misconceptions people have today and always have is that borderlands exist where they currently exist and have always existed.
00;53;23;03 – 00;53;43;16
Speaker 2
The Mexican border is the one I always quote. People are always wondering like, why are we having such a strong problem with immigration? Well, here’s the thing. Borders only exist where the political powers place them. The political powers are not eternal. They change all the time. Mexico used to span all the way up to Canada as we geographically know it.
00;53;43;27 – 00;54;04;02
Speaker 2
So you’re not dealing with immigration issues. You’re dealing with the fact that someone laid down an invisible fence that nobody can see smack dab in the middle of a eons war and migration pattern of people who they what they would move because of the seasons. It gets warmer over here, the food. But over here and even today with farming, we still have that happen.
00;54;05;21 – 00;54;29;27
Speaker 2
When it comes to cultural references, we see that a lot of people are shocked to find Muslim influence in Scandinavia. Like, well, the Vikings found some really efficient trade routes and they’re just like, I’m bored. I want to go get something good from down south. We came back up, had some great jewelry, Awesome. Or maybe they picked up some things, but it happened without anybody else’s help.
00;54;31;02 – 00;54;49;00
Speaker 2
And so that’s where we Token’s also looking like how much of this happened because of the Christian expansion or how much of it was already there because it’s still possible. That could always already be. There were a lot smarter than we give ourselves credit for, you know, like capable of doing a lot more than we give ourselves credit for.
00;54;49;00 – 00;55;01;20
Speaker 1
All right. So let’s talk a little bit about what you’re working on now and how your your culture anthropology informs your writing and whatever it is your you’re working on.
00;55;01;29 – 00;55;20;21
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. Well, I have a couple different book series to book series. I’ve been working on. I like 8000 other story ideas in my head, but both of them actually pull from my research. And just like a lot of the questions I tell people, I don’t really have a answer as much as I have questions that I like to play around with.
00;55;22;10 – 00;55;50;25
Speaker 2
And so the one that they made last year was the first book of the Garden of the Gods series on PAX and pulling from global mythologies and just kind of framing it like, okay, in a very direct sense, what if they all decide to retire and live in the least active area of North America? And that’s the whole tagline is it’s like nothing.
00;55;51;03 – 00;56;15;02
Speaker 2
Everything happens here because nothing happens here. You know, again, the assumption, but it’s also based a lot in real life cases that I have personally been there for. The first book actually was inspired by a still currently cold case with two missing girls who vanished from my hometown, where we still know what happened to them. Well, we know what happened to them, but nobody wants to talk about what happened.
00;56;15;08 – 00;56;42;06
Speaker 2
Again, going into fiction, is it a very easy way to frame things? Because we’re able to talk about things a lot easier. And actually, when oh, that happened, when Pax came out, we found a resurgence in trying to find out what happened to these girls. Nobody was talking about it, but I had some friends point out, Well, it’s interesting how we want to find out more information about what really like we’re restarting the search on a month after your book came out.
00;56;43;06 – 00;57;14;24
Speaker 2
I’m like, okay, I’m just saying that. But the whole series, The Garden of the Gods series, actually also explores the concept of the gods of the ancient world. We call them gods, but again, taking a biblical record for account of the talk about the gods as well, very openly and going all the way back to in Genesis as well, talking about the heroes of all the demigods to cause a lot of problems.
00;57;14;24 – 00;57;34;18
Speaker 2
And then we had the flood. But there’s a side to this question of like, well, what if’s? Because it even talks about there are angels in the principalities. A lot of that phrase gets misquoted. A lot of preachers, street preachers who will say principalities as if they’re demons. The Bible actually uses them as guardian angels of entire cities.
00;57;35;12 – 00;57;59;05
Speaker 2
That should sound familiar, because it’s exactly what it was. She was the right one. We have this concept in Greek and Roman mythology. You have Athena of Athens. You have all these. Well, that’s also in the Bible. And so I had this question, Well, how would it work if we just call the you if we just did it that way and you have and so there will there will be more into that.
00;57;59;05 – 00;58;20;22
Speaker 2
But but that’s that’s the first one is out practice. The second one is Gorgon. That one I was supposed to have come out this spring and delayed it because my other series, the one I actually ran for 23 years, is based on the 12th I did on it and Comorian Legends, which is really fascinating I highly recommend you get it.
00;58;20;22 – 00;59;03;05
Speaker 2
And I really mispronounced it. I had a guy from Ireland tell me what did they. They are the, the oldest people of Ireland and that’s another interesting pre-Christian post-Christian influence debate having been had in scholarly discussion post Christian influence. They’re considered the gods, the ancient gods of Ireland, to then get demoted into the AC or the coast, to basically become the she, the faith, the faithful, the pre-Christian record identifies them as just really, really advanced artist.
00;59;03;09 – 00;59;24;20
Speaker 2
And they were just above and beyond everything that we would ever expect from the ancient world and the Holy Roman Empire, which at the time very political, not so much spiritual, but they’re saying we’re Christian now, they’re just political. They did not like because that position, the title Darwin as far more advanced than they were. And that’s frightening.
00;59;25;17 – 00;59;44;17
Speaker 2
There are records of Saint Patrick in his own writing, standing between them and telling the Holy Roman Empire, You got to go. And he and his records, he made friends of the two out of Darwin and they liked him. But what’s really interesting and what led me down this path to write the song of the Sheet, that’s a series that just debuted this year.
00;59;44;28 – 01;00;14;27
Speaker 2
I was the Fillmore, and so I’m trying to figure out like what a dollar and what’s going on. And there are there are longstanding hatred Warriors who the former warriors were invaders. They came and firmer again, I’m probably really grossly mispronouncing that. So it’s always like it’s not how you say it, but former is from under and the Fillmore in name is from Trauma from Under, and it’s understood that came out of the sea, from under the sea.
01;00;15;14 – 01;00;44;18
Speaker 2
Then I saw this phrase being used that made me go, Oh my gosh, like the sea peoples. They’re also described in Powwow as the Sea Peoples. And I’m from I was more earlier but that phrase happens in other parts of the world. And the sea peoples pop up with the Hebrews in Palestine and Israel, in the Philistines, Samson and David and Goliath and all that.
01;00;45;00 – 01;01;16;03
Speaker 2
Sea peoples also pop up in northern Egypt. They’re invading from the ocean there as well. Or they up in this record of Irish mythology, which we can pretty much date to around the same time. And they’re just everywhere. And again, the Marines are considered an invading force, but the trotted out in the Marines also constantly and I read a lot there is very much like, we hate you, we hate you, You want to go?
01;01;16;12 – 01;01;45;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay, cool. And then and the minute that happens. But what rocked my world, literally tens actually dropped in this one course I took. It was on the last course I took in grad school and I’m from Warren in Europe hands my drop to I want to say my jaw could not lift off the floor it was they all have one connection the sea peoples we say they came from follow in my Cynthia but why did my snow fall?
01;01;45;25 – 01;02;09;21
Speaker 2
Because their military power was gone for a very long stretch of time. About 10 to 12 years. We know where they were. I do think the story of Samson and his fight against the Philistines. Who were these people? David and Goliath. Goliath being fellow, saying he’s part of these people. You have the invaders north of Egypt. He had the firm orients going against the ancient gods of Ireland.
01;02;09;21 – 01;02;19;08
Speaker 2
You have all the sea peoples can all be pinned back to Troy and the Trojan War.
01;02;19;29 – 01;02;20;21
Speaker 1
To Troy.
01;02;21;03 – 01;02;34;18
Speaker 2
Yes. Which we do have an established archeological record was a real place that did actually exist. And the war probably did happen.
01;02;34;18 – 01;02;34;25
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01;02;35;07 – 01;02;36;02
Speaker 1
You’ve been there.
01;02;36;21 – 01;02;59;15
Speaker 2
Met? Yes. Yes. And the Sea Peoples.
01;03;04;16 – 01;03;04;22
Speaker 3
Are.
01;03;05;28 – 01;03;23;21
Speaker 2
The sea peoples. Insomuch as these records go, it’s anything.
01;03;23;21 – 01;03;23;26
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01;03;24;15 – 01;04;06;04
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes, it eventually. Yes, eventually they do become a mixture of, I don’t know, the very same people that went to Ireland I found interesting was the same usage of the phrase and, and the timing of them showing up in Ireland. Lou is really close to the timing that they show up in the Palestinian region, which is also the same time.
01;04;06;04 – 01;04;27;12
Speaker 2
They show up in Northern Ireland. It’s just the timing. And then why would you call them the same peoples? Why can’t you just call them? I don’t know. Those guys you’ll hear like, why is it that particular word almost? They’re calling themselves that and it’s very possible. No, we know they’re I agree with you. There’s also lot of migrations happening, a lot of things.
01;04;27;20 – 01;05;05;28
Speaker 2
They definitely could have absolutely blended with other people. This particular group we can establish with a strong sense of certainty really were Mycenaean. And as my one professor explained, we can establish the spell because the Philistines are actually we know from like literal paintings definitely Greek, which was the came out of myself, but we know from from the story of the Trojan War that they were at it at war for a very long time and it took a bunch of them a very long time to get back.
01;05;05;28 – 01;05;39;10
Speaker 2
We have both the Iliad and we have the Odysseys. We have long stretches of time where they’re not home and at that particular time and it’s interesting because the cost of what was happening is also taught against them. And not just Hebrew record, but like other records, they’re like basically when they arm I want to use this right when Jesus said don’t hero worship, it comes out of all a lot of other hearsay in don’t hero worship mainly because that’s exactly what Mycenaean was doing right when the Trojan War started, they were hero worshiping.
01;05;39;10 – 01;05;59;23
Speaker 2
It was a huge honor and a huge deal for you to be a warrior in the sense of you need to go kill people. You need to go to war, you need to go to battle, you need to do all these things. And what happened out of that was when the call for the war happened, well, everybody wants to go do that because this is our moment for glory and mortality.
01;06;00;04 – 01;06;23;01
Speaker 2
And it left the entire nation of my scenario with just women and children. Time passes. What happens with children? They grow up and obviously they have to figure things out on their own and right. And we’re smart. We figure things out. And so by the time the the Warriors come back and those is around the time they come back, I love how old my professor put it.
01;06;23;01 – 01;06;51;29
Speaker 2
It’s not their home anymore. A decade at least has passed. Their children are now adults. The government systems are now run by the toddlers they left behind who are now grown men and grown women. Even their wives are grandparents now, like an entire shift in evolution in society has occurred. And you have all these warriors returning what they knew, what they loved, what their culture and their existing was about no longer exists.
01;06;52;00 – 01;08;23;05
Speaker 2
They are basically homeless and there is just one particular thing they know how to do very well, and that’s set sail. Yeah, very much is very much. Yup. Mm. Yes. Right, right. And if you and we know that’s possible because of the Mediterranean borderline France and Spain, we know that the Roman Empire definitely had Spain. So If you you can figure out if one group of people figure it out, you can easily surmise other groups of people figure it out.
01;08;23;19 – 01;08;46;03
Speaker 2
Hey, we could sail through here, stop over here. Want to stop over? Basically, you just hop. You sail for a time. You go to the coastal is next thing you know. Here’s England. You’re a Britannia. The tides, like you said, go up to Cornwall all the way over, which is. It’ll be fun when my hometown in Iowa has the 10th largest Irish festival in the whole nation every year.
01;08;46;03 – 01;09;07;10
Speaker 2
It’s it’s great. And there are a lot of Scots, the Scots folk there my my father’s Scottish, but my mother’s side is Irish. And I go, I’m like, Why are all these kilts around? Why about these Scots with around, where are the Scottish here? We’re like, Well that’s actually what Irish person told me. Well, the distance between Ireland and Scotland is basically a puddle.
01;09;07;10 – 01;09;24;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you got your trade and the way the language is so similar in many ways, you can easily identify. Oh yeah, they figure it out. They were neighbors a long time ago. They like their respective homes, but there is a lot of trading of cups of sugar happening.
01;09;29;21 – 01;09;30;24
Speaker 2
Yup, yup.
01;09;31;11 – 01;10;00;28
Speaker 3
Yup.
01;10;00;28 – 01;10;56;11
Speaker 2
That’s okay, honey. That’s so neat. You okay? Okay.
01;10;56;11 – 01;11;06;24
Speaker 1
I and my microphone crashed, and I was hearing anything anyone was saying, and then I got a notification that I had to leave. Anyway, so I fixed it. I restarted then. So. Yeah.
01;11;07;19 – 01;11;10;13
Speaker 2
Oh, that’s why it disappeared.
01;11;11;02 – 01;11;15;03
Speaker 1
But I’m glad you continue the conversation. It sounds like you had a very interesting.
01;11;16;05 – 01;11;34;20
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, This is a whole other potential episode, but you really want to make people mad. And I know, I know for a fact it makes people mad because I mention it on Tik Tok and wow, did I get bashed by archeologists? I wanted that to happen. A lot of such an approach. Like she said, I know.
01;11;34;20 – 01;11;45;12
Speaker 2
What’s funny is I’m like, I can tell you guys aren’t used oral tradition because you didn’t listen to a darn word. I said, but you said.
01;11;46;09 – 01;11;48;14
Speaker 1
So what was it that made people mad?
01;11;50;15 – 01;11;52;26
Speaker 1
What did you say that made them mad?
01;11;52;26 – 01;12;12;04
Speaker 2
I want to write a book one day after I get a whole put together called The Mormons Were Right and other unpopular archeological really, really quick. I have family who is Mormon, so I know a lot from them. And also just it’s an American thing and now they’re global. But there is there’s this idea like I see like Jesus, probably the Cornwall.
01;12;12;04 – 01;12;32;07
Speaker 2
Well, here in North America, the the Church of Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons have this idea that Jesus came North America. And there is also like a huge war between these two peoples. And that was then that’s where we got the slaves. Like it’s yeah, there’s a lot of political races overtones, but there’s also jokes like that.
01;12;32;07 – 01;12;52;15
Speaker 2
They think it’s really happened and there’s Moroni and there just a lot happening. But one of the things that people are like lot, this is crazy. You made it up is that there’s a large tribe of Israel so there’s not 12 tribes is 13 or depends on who you talk to. Some say there’s 12 tribes, but only 11 of them stayed there.
01;12;52;15 – 01;13;14;06
Speaker 2
The 12th one came over here, however you put it, and this is where you get the kind of personal life heard Mormons say. Either way, in my own family, they split on what that was. But there’s this idea that you have people from Israel coming over to America. And as you said, you know, you think it’s a long shot between a Mycenaean in Ireland.
01;13;14;27 – 01;13;39;24
Speaker 2
It’s a really long shot between anything in Europe, in the ancient world, all the way to North America. So people are like, no, there is no way. And we all know Hebrew water, like they have reasons for hating water. They don’t sail. Guess what we’re finding scattered all over North America and wandering. There is something actually here in Chicago and people debate on this that even exist.
01;13;39;24 – 01;14;00;19
Speaker 2
But I’ve seen things like when I was studying here in the Chicago area from archeology, I was very privileged to go into one of the warehouses for Field Museum, which expands six miles underneath the lake. It is very top secret. It is I had I had archeologists yelling at me and people yelling at me for saying that they like this idea.
01;14;00;19 – 01;14;24;09
Speaker 2
It’s like that makes it toxic. All like, no, no. Actually, there are museums that do actually keep very top secret under walking. You cannot talk about what’s in their warehouse 31 level stuff to work directly from going and stealing it. Mainly that’s what it is. It’s prevent theft. So I have actually been into one of those areas. I can’t really talk about what was under there.
01;14;24;09 – 01;14;48;27
Speaker 2
He didn’t let us go. No, really super top secret. But I’m watching this documentary about this artifact found in Chicago, actually right by where I used to live downtown. And they’re saying, well, we took it to this top secret place, and they’re kind of giving here. So, like, I know about it, I’ve been there, you know, and it is a Tina night sacrificial altar and there’s no arguing.
01;14;49;04 – 01;15;19;09
Speaker 2
It’s Canaanite. But the to term tonight is Phoenician. So you’ll hear the word Phoenician use a lot more here about like what is Phoenician. I remember go through I know Phoenicia is a fancier word for Cana McCain Knights. And we know from biblical records that the Israelites had a very, very common problem of blending in with the Canaanite culture and looking at people in the language far more than God wanted them to, and far more than spiritual leaders wanted them to.
01;15;20;07 – 01;15;52;02
Speaker 2
And now we’re finding it’s not just in Chicago. We have we have a Phoenicians Canaanite temple sort of set up. We found it in the Boston region. And there’s other places that we’re finding like this isn’t Native American, like this is a Iroquois, this is it. Like, this is what we don’t hear. This is very nice. And actually in Archer National Park, I, I personally went to see one of their, their big the big arch that’s usually they would like their merchandise and stuff like that.
01;15;52;02 – 01;16;14;12
Speaker 2
Oh my my father took me out there and on the way up they have I forget the term they’re they’re just they’re etchings from the ancient people who were there before. You know, I’m looking at that. I was actually in my archeology studies at that time, so I had my textbooks. L’m looking at it. I like that. That is so Canaanite.
01;16;14;17 – 01;16;36;12
Speaker 2
I don’t understand the Soviet know about all this other discoveries, but we’re in the middle of Utah, in the middle desert. I’m looking at this and I’m like, Why are drawings from my biblical archeology textbook? This particular wall like that is Atomic and Niger cattle. That’s how they came out. I see your people and I’ve heard arguments like, well, it’s just an efficient way to draw a camel.
01;16;36;12 – 01;16;54;13
Speaker 2
You know, you can’t see. It’s purely like, No, I see how other people around the world draw cattle and they’re very round. And there’s other ways you see like the cave in France and stuff. They have their own ways of drawing livestock. The Canaanites are very, very particular, just like the Egyptians are very, very particular in how they draw things.
01;16;54;25 – 01;17;33;23
Speaker 2
And you’re seeing drawings to show up in North America over is and it takes off a lot of people because they don’t want to entertain the idea. I don’t know why. I actually don’t know why. I don’t know why nobody to even entertain the idea that we could have spread a lot more than we originally thought. But I think I think it’s going back to if you if folklore and mythology and fantasy that, well, we have to start rewriting what we thought we knew and we don’t like change as a species.
01;17;34;01 – 01;18;01;07
Speaker 2
We’re very anti. We like our patterns. No, no. I mean, we we don’t like the fact Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America. We don’t like that. Not even the Vikings actually were thinking thought of Darwin may have discovered North America before. We’re finding some linguistic records that suggest all these different things. We don’t like pulling fact fantasy.
01;18;01;07 – 01;18;16;19
Speaker 1
But like you said, it’s easier. It’s easier to digest important things when it is actually fiction. And so it’s often, you know, intertwined together. So it’s very difficult to.
01;18;17;04 – 01;18;39;08
Speaker 2
Tell them apart. Definitely. Yeah. And we do that today just, just to handle these things. So. So yeah, so and I threw in that Phoenicians in America thing because we’re they see peoples we don’t know where the the sea people actually reached that far. We don’t know but we do know that we have a lot of folklore that come from the sea peoples.
01;18;39;08 – 01;19;01;02
Speaker 2
My gosh, the story of Hercules is definitely a product of the sea peoples trade. And we are the the down in the comorian struggle and all the fantasy, the fairy tales baler and look and all those come out of a very real life event that we just kind of mystify a really, really good book that kind of shows us in a for and say what?
01;19;01;02 – 01;19;27;11
Speaker 2
Like looking back, what’s actually looking forward is, oh my God, oh my gosh, I like a really good book. And then the title just flew Out of My Brain The World of the Invisible, that’s what’s called and Earth Advice. And it starts in modern day. And a virus has gone through and basically wiped out the whole population, except for this one guy who happened to be camping up in the hills and he missed the spread.
01;19;27;11 – 01;19;58;25
Speaker 2
And there’s a couple of other people who survived. But what makes it so fascinating and it really kind of gives a good perspective, you know, it’s fiction. It gives a good perspective and is a reason professor had us read it is it shows the progression of fact into folklore and it shows how like a simple tool that he had on hand from his toolbox, like a hammer, that it was like the only thing he had to defend himself with is the only thing he, as a basic, you know, stick with metal on the end.
01;19;59;17 – 01;20;23;06
Speaker 2
By the time the book ends, he’s basically Thor now, you know, he’s basically Thor will be in his mind all near his guard something. And it just showed. But it shows a very logical progression from the hey, Dad’s hammer is dad’s and you can’t touch it because it says to hey Grandpa Hammer is kind of important. You know, all that you can’t touch because it’s his.
01;20;23;11 – 01;20;47;25
Speaker 2
And I have great children, grandchildren, great great grandchildren are like deifying the hammer. But we know from the, you know, the start, it was just a hammer. It was just what he happened to have. And so it brings up an anthropologist. Why again, why the process of how to read It raises this question How much of our mythology and our folklore is the result of generational distance from very factual events?
01;20;47;25 – 01;21;07;02
Speaker 2
How much of that? That’s why I’m so fascinated by the concept of the gods, really just being angels. You decided to stay here. How much of stories we have of the scene really are just a distance from a time when angels did walk the Earth and guard the cities and people forgot who God was. We don’t know. You know, it’s just interesting.
01;21;07;02 – 01;21;20;08
Speaker 2
A lot of different things going on there. Yeah, just very just fascinated me. And so I start writing my own ideas and the stories that when it gets hands on.
01;21;20;08 – 01;21;32;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, it is so it is so fascinating. Well, I feel like we could stay here all day, but we, we’ve gotten quite over a bit of an hour, so doing through where people can find you.
01;21;32;23 – 01;22;06;04
Speaker 2
Yes. If you’re looking for my books and just me as a person. Author Nikki Albrecht dot com. My new website just put it up. I’m also on Instagram at Nikki Burkett. I am also the developmental editor and I and I own a drug company, so I work with self-publishing, work at independent publishing. And so Tor editorial dot com is a great way to learn more about what that looks like, and especially for someone who really does want have stories to tell, but you don’t want to wait to tell them.
01;22;06;10 – 01;22;11;21
Speaker 2
It’s a really good avenue to pursue and we’re all about preserving stories so well.
01;22;11;21 – 01;22;20;14
Speaker 1
That just sounds amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been a fantastic conversation. I feel like we can definitely have conversations, other topics at the time.
01;22;20;14 – 01;22;28;10
Speaker 2
So I’m always going to encourage archeologists everywhere. I love it.
01;22;28;10 – 01;22;53;10
Speaker 1
Great. All right. Well, and so I also want to thank our listeners for joining us today on another episode of Fabric of Folklore. If you enjoyed the show, make sure that you like, subscribe and give us all the stars, especially if you are on listening on iTunes. Please share with someone, even if it’s just the next person that you’re sending it next to in the elevator.
01;22;53;27 – 01;23;34;19
Speaker 1
Because as we talk about in folklore, words have power. And so sharing with other people is how we get listeners and let us know what your favorite part of the show was on our Facebook group page. And Oh, yes, and I think that is it. So thanks so much. And we look forward to our next show.