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CLASSIC: Was there a real-life Rapunzel? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: The fellow ridiculous historians. What is your favorite fairy tale?
0:05
Speaker 1: They're also dark? Yeah, the real ones, right, the original ones.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the red Shoes. You know about that one cutting
0:11
Speaker 2: the feet off. It's like I've heard that referenced in
0:13
Speaker 2: a movie recently. But Rapunzel, Uh, the prince I believe
0:18
Speaker 2: falls into a briar patch and is blinded, and it's
0:21
Speaker 2: you know, all kinds of horrible things happen to that guy.
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Speaker 2: I think we've talked about this, Ben, But my exposure
0:27
Speaker 2: to a lot of the dark versions of these fairy
0:29
Speaker 2: tales came from an anime series that played on Nick
0:33
Speaker 2: Junior back in the day that was, I believe just
0:35
Speaker 2: called Grim's fairy Tales, and it had a version of
0:39
Speaker 2: Rapunzel where all of that horrific stuff happened.
0:43
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And like so many other kids growing up
0:47
Speaker 1: in the anglosphere, we are familiar with all types of
0:51
Speaker 1: fairy tales. When we started to ask ourselves back in
0:53
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen whether there was some sort of grain of
0:58
Speaker 1: truth to this great game of telephone. So in today's
1:02
Speaker 1: classic episode, we're going to ask whether or not a
1:07
Speaker 1: lady really used her hair as a ladder h.
1:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that counts very Let's get into it.
1:19
Speaker 1: Ridiculous history is a production of iHeartRadio. Man. There are
1:48
Speaker 1: so many Catholic saints. Did you know there's a Saint
1:52
Speaker 1: Noel and a Saint Benjamin?
1:54
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
1:54
Speaker 1: Ben? I am not kidding you.
1:56
Speaker 2: What is the saint of?
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Speaker 1: I don't have his his patron saint information here, but
2:04
Speaker 1: I do know that he was a Jesuit saint, and
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Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought it was cool. Sometimes
2:10
Speaker 1: for my friends I search out saints with similar names,
2:13
Speaker 1: which is not how you decide which you know saint
2:16
Speaker 1: is your saint. Yes, I just thought it was neat
2:19
Speaker 1: that there was a Benjamin and a noble.
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Speaker 2: Both of whom were martyred. Correct? Who were marty Do
2:24
Speaker 2: you have to be martyred to become a saint? Is
2:26
Speaker 2: that like a requirement?
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Speaker 1: I want to say no, but I am not myself Catholic.
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Speaker 2: No, no, nor am I. But I did learn something
2:32
Speaker 2: very interesting today. There are several flavors of martyr. Did
2:36
Speaker 2: you know this? Yes, there's the proto martyr, who is
2:38
Speaker 2: like the first martyr in a given region. Then there's
2:41
Speaker 2: the great martyr, which is like a martyr who was
2:45
Speaker 2: martyred under the most nasty of circumstances, like involving torture
2:50
Speaker 2: and you know, consternation. You know, Jesus would have been
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Speaker 2: a great martyr, you know that kind of treatment. And
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Speaker 2: that brings us to today's story, which is about fairy tales.
3:00
Speaker 1: Yes, for anyone curious about the Saint Benjamin, it is
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Speaker 1: a deacon. He's a deacon and a martyr as well
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Speaker 1: in Persia, and he died from merciless torture.
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Speaker 2: So a great martyr perhaps, perhaps, Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But hopefully we're not torturing our super producer Casey Pegram.
3:17
Speaker 2: I just want to give a shout out to Proto Martyr.
3:20
Speaker 1: Fantastic band so good.
3:21
Speaker 2: I was listening to them today. Yeah, kind of sound
3:24
Speaker 2: like Nick Cave meets wire sure and a little bit
3:29
Speaker 2: of like television kind of thrown in there. Really really cool.
3:32
Speaker 2: I highly recommend checking them out as well. Good rat Casey,
3:35
Speaker 2: Good rat Casey on the case.
3:38
Speaker 1: So if you are a fan of this show, odds
3:41
Speaker 1: are that you, like us, are fascinated by fairy tales.
3:45
Speaker 1: I did a lot of research in a different life
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Speaker 1: into the origin of fairy tales, which't I'm sure everybody
3:54
Speaker 1: knows the origins of fairy tales are much more dark
3:57
Speaker 1: and grizzly than the Disney adaptations that you see today.
4:01
Speaker 1: Our subject today concerns of fairy tale. It's very well known,
4:06
Speaker 1: popularized perhaps by Disney's Tangled film, and that is the
4:11
Speaker 1: story of Rapunzel, the trope of a princess locked in
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Speaker 1: a tower who's got a ton of long hair.
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Speaker 2: It's so cool, Ben, because a lot of these stories
4:20
Speaker 2: that you're talking about that had very grizzly roots had
4:24
Speaker 2: even grizzlier roots before Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm got their
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Speaker 2: hands on them and kind of sanitize them, clean them
4:32
Speaker 2: up a little bit, because oftentimes the story that led
4:36
Speaker 2: to the story was just unbearably grizzly, as we're going
4:40
Speaker 2: to get into today. And then when you get to
4:42
Speaker 2: stuff like Tangled, another step removed from the Grim Brothers,
4:45
Speaker 2: it's even further sanitized. With Rapunzel. It turns out that
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Speaker 2: the origins of the story of the aforementioned long haired
4:54
Speaker 2: princess locked in a tower goes back to pay times. Yeah, yeah,
5:01
Speaker 2: you're pagan Rome.
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Speaker 1: It goes back to several different places, for sure. A
5:05
Speaker 1: lot of fairy tales kind of borrow things from a
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Speaker 1: lot of earlier, similar, pre existing stories. That's why the
5:13
Speaker 1: Princess locked in a Tower is a trope that occurs
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Speaker 1: in more than one place. But this story does have
5:21
Speaker 1: a real life incident that happens in Pagan Rome. It
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Speaker 1: concerns someone who became known as Saint Barbara. According to
5:31
Speaker 1: the legend, Barbara was the daughter of a wealthy man
5:35
Speaker 1: living in the third century in a place called Nicomedia,
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Speaker 1: which is part of modern day Turkey. Her father was
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Speaker 1: super protective and was very, very concerned that the evil
5:48
Speaker 1: influences of the outside world would corrupt his daughter lead
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Speaker 1: to her ruination and debauchment. So he locked her in
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Speaker 1: a tower, and this gave Barbara a lot of time
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Speaker 1: to think so over her period of isolation, according to
6:06
Speaker 1: the story, let me amend that this is a legend,
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Speaker 1: she what she became convinced that the pagan gods of
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Speaker 1: Rome weren't all they were cracked.
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Speaker 2: Up to be. Yeah, ben I actually saw a version
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Speaker 2: of the story where a Catholic priest crept in through
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Speaker 2: the window and like schooled her on Catholicism. Because my
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Speaker 2: question is if all she knew was the pagan ways.
6:30
Speaker 2: How she can all of a sudden have her a
6:32
Speaker 2: grasp of Christianity.
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Speaker 1: Right, that's a great plot hole to point out the
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Speaker 1: story where she encounters an agent of the Christian God
6:41
Speaker 1: rather than just realizing the Christian God says that the
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Speaker 1: priest was a Catholic and snuck into her chamber get this,
6:49
Speaker 1: disguised as a doctor, and that he kept coming and
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Speaker 1: over time he taught her the Catholic faith and eventually
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Speaker 1: baptized her.
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Speaker 2: That's right. There are other versions of the story that
7:00
Speaker 2: don't mention the priest at all that implied that she
7:02
Speaker 2: was just sort of immaculately gifted with the understanding of
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Speaker 2: the Trinity. And this goes back to this idea of
7:10
Speaker 2: her window arrangement in that tower, right, m.
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Speaker 1: Hmmm, Yes, because the story says that originally her father
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Speaker 1: locked her in a tower that had two windows, but
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Speaker 1: when she converted to Christianity, regardless of how she did it,
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Speaker 1: she installed a third window in the tower to symbolize
7:30
Speaker 1: not a stunning plot twist, the Holy Trinity.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, because all that time up there alone, she kind
7:35
Speaker 2: of figured out masonry too.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and how to make windows, uh, huh yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, with like what tools exactly. There's another version of
7:43
Speaker 2: the story where while her father was away, he had
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Speaker 2: workmen that were doing some improvements on the land, or
7:50
Speaker 2: maybe even installing the windows in the first place, and
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Speaker 2: that she asked them to put in a third window.
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Speaker 2: And then when the father returned and saw this third window,
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Speaker 2: he questioned, he said, daughter, what gives she and she
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Speaker 2: cops to her new found faith.
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Speaker 1: At which point he yeah, she said, father, I am
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Speaker 1: a Christian now, at which point he drew a sword
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Speaker 1: to kill her immediately. But she used the power of
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Speaker 1: prayer and created an opening in the wall and then teleported. Essentially,
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Speaker 1: she was magically transported or I guess in this case
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Speaker 1: you would say miraculously transported to a mountain gorge and
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Speaker 1: two shepherds saw her arrive.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's let's take a step back if if
8:35
Speaker 2: you're okay with this, Ben, let's pick up the kind
8:39
Speaker 2: of more grizzly version, the grim version of the Rapunzel
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Speaker 2: story that many people may be unfamiliar with. Do you
8:45
Speaker 2: remember a show that was broadcast on Nickelodeon in the
8:49
Speaker 2: mid nineties early nineties even that was called Grim's Fairy
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Speaker 2: tale classics. Yes, so it was a Japanese produced anime SI.
9:00
Speaker 2: I think they were like twelve episodes, and I think
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Speaker 2: it was distributed in America by ham Saban of Power
9:05
Speaker 2: Rangers Fame. And the thing I most remember is that
9:08
Speaker 2: the versions of the stories in this cartoon were the
9:14
Speaker 2: pretty weird, messed up versions. In the grim version of
9:17
Speaker 2: the Rapunzel story, it starts with a married couple. The
9:22
Speaker 2: wife is pregnant and she demands some lettuces from this garden,
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Speaker 2: this fenced in garden that belongs to it enchantress. Other
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Speaker 2: versions say that she's like a medicine woman that has
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Speaker 2: the power to use herbs to heal or to her
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Speaker 2: or evil witch exactly, and so she finally convinces her
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Speaker 2: husband to go in and get her this. It's rampion.
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Speaker 2: This is one thing, and also Rapunzel another name for
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Speaker 2: this kind of root vegetable. You can make a salad
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Speaker 2: out of the leaves. And the witch eventually catches him
9:51
Speaker 2: because he goes back and she agrees not to murder
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Speaker 2: him on site. But in that classic fairy tale trope,
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Speaker 2: he has to surrender his firstborn child that was the
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Speaker 2: cause of all of this. In the first place right well.
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Speaker 1: In her defense, she also, in addition to spirit his life, says,
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Speaker 1: I'll give you all the herbs you want.
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Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
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Speaker 1: So there's there's another plus.
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Speaker 2: But the irony is that the wife only is craving
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Speaker 2: these herbs because are the vegetables, because she's pregnant, right,
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Speaker 2: And that's a big part of the story too.
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Speaker 1: So he agrees, and fast forward to the time that
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Speaker 1: the child is born, a girl named Rapunzel of the
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Speaker 1: evil witch, by the way many versions of the story,
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Speaker 1: is named Dame Gothel. How Gothic is that super and
10:40
Speaker 1: Dame Gothel, upon the child's birth, takes her to raise
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Speaker 1: his her own and she actually gives her the name Rapunzel.
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Speaker 1: And Rapunzel grows up to be a real looker. She
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Speaker 1: is the most beautiful child in the world, with long
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Speaker 1: golden hair. But as soon as she turns twelve, the
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Speaker 1: witch or enchantress locks her up inside a tower in
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Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere in the woods. There are no stairs,
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Speaker 1: there's no door, there's just one room and one window,
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Speaker 1: and the way that the witch visits her is by
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Speaker 1: using her hair as rope. So that's where we get
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Speaker 1: the famous line Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair so
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Speaker 1: that I might climb thy golden stair, or just to
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Speaker 1: shout out to prefaf's the more popular modern version. Casey,
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Speaker 1: we were talking about this off airic. You guys think
11:28
Speaker 1: we could play a clip of that line without getting
11:30
Speaker 1: sued perfect perfect, So that's that's not the original line
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Speaker 1: is thy golden stairs.
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Speaker 2: And that's of course the Beastie Boys from the incredible
11:48
Speaker 2: album Paul's Boutique.
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Speaker 1: And this is how Rapunzel's life is set to be.
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Speaker 1: For the rest of her life. As you can imagine,
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Speaker 1: she's bored in this tower. She muses herself any number
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Speaker 1: of ways, combing her incredibly long.
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Speaker 2: Hair, possibly learning about masonry.
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Speaker 1: Possibly learning masries, singing to herself, building windows, whatever. But
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Speaker 1: singing is the key.
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Speaker 2: Singing is the key because the handsome prince, of course,
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Speaker 2: has got to be a handsome prince. Here's this mellifluous
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Speaker 2: singing and comes a calling, and then she lets down
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Speaker 2: the hair. He doesn't even know. I don't know. It's
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Speaker 2: unclear to me. How does he get up there in
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Speaker 2: the first place. He doesn't know how to ask for
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Speaker 2: the hair.
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Speaker 1: He stalks her.
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Speaker 2: Oh wait, a minute, he does know because he's overheard
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Speaker 2: the witch doing it. He stalked her at this point. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: that's not creepy at all. He keeps coming back to
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Speaker 2: listening to singing. It's like, what's going on, I'm so interesting.
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Speaker 2: Presumably he even impersonates the voice of the witch to
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Speaker 2: get her to let down the hair in the first place,
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Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden he appears to her
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Speaker 2: and she's like, whoa, who's this JABBRONI coming in through
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Speaker 2: my window? Trying to pretend to be my grandmama, because
12:53
Speaker 2: at this point she thinks the witch is like her family.
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Speaker 2: She doesn't remember her parents, and they get it on right.
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Speaker 1: Eventually, he continues to visit her. The number of visits
13:04
Speaker 1: depends on the version you read, and eventually the prince
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Speaker 1: ask Rapunzel to make an honest man of him, and
13:10
Speaker 1: they agree to get married, and they say, okay, next
13:13
Speaker 1: step is that we have to figure out how to
13:17
Speaker 1: get you the heck out of here. So they say, look,
13:21
Speaker 1: we know when Dame Gothel the enchantress or evil witch
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Speaker 1: comes by, So every time the witch comes by, I'll
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Speaker 1: be out aside, out of mind, but I'll visit you
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Speaker 1: in the night, and when I visit you, I will
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Speaker 1: bring you a piece of silk, and I won't bring
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Speaker 1: it all at one So just visit night after night,
13:37
Speaker 1: bring you a piece of silk, and then you will
13:40
Speaker 1: naturally make a ladder out of it, because she has
13:43
Speaker 1: also acquired that particular skill or craft. But something goes wrong.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, as things are wont to do in
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Speaker 2: the fairy tale world. The witch overhears this plan, and
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Speaker 2: while the prince is away, she goes up there, confronts
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Speaker 2: her Punzel, lobs off her hair with a butcher's knife
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Speaker 2: for like a par of scissors or whatever, depending on
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Speaker 2: this the version, and then sends her away into the wilderness.
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Speaker 1: Yes, in the first edition of the Grim Fairy Tales version,
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Speaker 1: she says to the witch, without knowing exactly what she's saying,
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Speaker 1: that her dress is growing tighter around her waist, which
14:24
Speaker 1: is an allusion to pregnancy. That's right, and the and
14:28
Speaker 1: the witch catches on. And then in the second edition,
14:31
Speaker 1: she cuts off Punzel's hair throws her out in the woods.
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Speaker 1: The prince comes calling that night, and the evil witch
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Speaker 1: lets down the hair that she has cut off. He
14:43
Speaker 1: climbs up. You know, we can imagine he's looking forward
14:46
Speaker 1: to spending some time with his fiancee, and to his
14:52
Speaker 1: utter and abject horror, he meets the witch instead of
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Speaker 1: her Punzel, and she says, you're never going to see
14:59
Speaker 1: that girl again. She throws him from the tower, which
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Speaker 1: I think in most versions of the story, he ends
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Speaker 1: up hitting a thornbush and he goes blind.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they poke his eyes out. And that's the thing, dude.
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Speaker 2: In that anime version I was telling you about, it
15:14
Speaker 2: does that. It has that happen, and it's sort of
15:16
Speaker 2: like it is not like bloody or like you know, scarred,
15:19
Speaker 2: weird gouged out eyes or anything, but he's kind of
15:21
Speaker 2: got like red, patchy kind of scratch marks all over
15:25
Speaker 2: his eyes and they're sort of like closed, you know.
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Speaker 2: And then he also wanders the wilderness and eventually here's
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Speaker 2: that singing that he liked so so well and realizes
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Speaker 2: that it's Rapunzel and she has given birth to twin boys,
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Speaker 2: I believe according to the Grim version, and then she
15:44
Speaker 2: cries tears of joy into his eye holes and he
15:47
Speaker 2: is cured and the sight is restored to him. So,
15:51
Speaker 2: you know, as much trials and tribulation as they go
15:53
Speaker 2: through it does ultimately end up with them all living together.
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Speaker 2: He takes her back to his kingdom because he can
15:57
Speaker 2: see now and find his way back, and they all happily.
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Speaker 2: Ever after, there's.
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Speaker 1: A Roguain moment in some versions of the story too,
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Speaker 1: because he touched. When he can see again, he touches
16:06
Speaker 1: her head and her hair magically grows back, just like
16:09
Speaker 1: Zup Yep Yep and the evil Witch. When she throws
16:13
Speaker 1: the guy out of the tower, she ends up dropping
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Speaker 1: Rapunzel's hair somehow, and it leaves her trapped in the tower.
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Speaker 1: But this, you know, how, we're talking about the amalgamated
16:24
Speaker 1: origin of what we call modern fairy tales. We do
16:28
Speaker 1: know that Rapunzel itself has, at least the Grimm's version
16:34
Speaker 1: does have a more recent than Roman times influence. A
16:39
Speaker 1: story called Petro Sinela or Parsley written by a guy
16:44
Speaker 1: named Giambattista Basile in his collection of fairy Tales in
16:48
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty four. Interesting, and it's kind of the same,
16:53
Speaker 1: but it's a little more r rated because the encounters
16:56
Speaker 1: between the prince and Rapunzel are much more explicit. Yeah,
17:01
Speaker 1: it's a little little more graphic, little more late night
17:05
Speaker 1: skinimax got a time, Yeah, indeed, And in the grim version,
17:09
Speaker 1: the sex is simply implied by the baby bump, by
17:13
Speaker 1: the tightening waist. So back to Saint Barbara. Did she
17:18
Speaker 1: have hair long enough to let someone climb up a
17:22
Speaker 1: tower using it? Could someone climb up a tower using
17:25
Speaker 1: anyone's hair? In Saint Barbara's case, the hair is not
17:31
Speaker 1: not as important, it's not really at all. Yeah, it's
17:34
Speaker 1: just like you assume she has shared, presumably had a cut,
17:38
Speaker 1: a pay cut.
17:39
Speaker 2: Sure.
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Speaker 1: So when we last left Barbara, her father, who in
17:46
Speaker 1: this version story is named Diascorus, pursues his daughter somehow
17:51
Speaker 1: finds this magic mountain gorge uh, and then he's like,
17:57
Speaker 1: where is she? Where is she? And the first share says,
18:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, don't talk to me. But the second
18:02
Speaker 1: betrays her, and for doing this, this shepherd gets turned
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Speaker 1: to stone and all the sheep and his flock are
18:09
Speaker 1: turned to locust. And because of this betrayal, Dioscorus does
18:14
Speaker 1: find his daughter and he decides what no, not to
18:18
Speaker 1: kill her himself.
18:19
Speaker 2: That's right, well, at least at that moment, but yeah,
18:23
Speaker 2: he felt like she deserved, you know, her day in
18:26
Speaker 2: kangaroo court.
18:28
Speaker 1: Right, which means that she was dragged before the prefect
18:33
Speaker 1: of the province, a guy named Martin Aus.
18:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is where it really starts to get ugly.
18:40
Speaker 2: The court, I guess you could call it, beat her
18:44
Speaker 2: mercilessly and beat her with pieces of raw hide on
18:49
Speaker 2: her back. They rubbed her wounds with what you'd call
18:54
Speaker 2: a fur cloth, I guess, just to kind of exacerbate
18:56
Speaker 2: the pain. And at night she, according to this legend
19:01
Speaker 2: or story, she prayed to what's referred to in this
19:06
Speaker 2: article from OCA dot org as the Heavenly Bridegroom and
19:12
Speaker 2: Jesus the Savior. And according to the story of this martyrdom,
19:17
Speaker 2: she her wounds were spontaneously healed. And then when they
19:23
Speaker 2: found her healed, they beat her and brutalized her even more.
19:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, they started to use torches to burn her, or
19:31
Speaker 1: attempt to. Those torches went out when they were getting
19:37
Speaker 1: close to her body, and they kept trying to torture.
19:40
Speaker 1: She kept healing through the power of prayer. OCA, by
19:45
Speaker 1: the way, is the Orthodox Church in America website, which
19:48
Speaker 1: is a great resource for stories of saints. Eventually, they say, well, look,
19:53
Speaker 1: she's not going to renounce her Christian faith. She's obviously,
19:57
Speaker 1: for some reason, healing very quickly, so they eventually decide
20:04
Speaker 1: that they are going to kill her. In one version
20:09
Speaker 1: of the story, they say, okay, well, let's see you
20:11
Speaker 1: heal from a beheading. In another version, the torture continues
20:16
Speaker 1: to where her body's raked, wounded with hooks, she's led
20:19
Speaker 1: naked through the city as people mock her. Then she
20:23
Speaker 1: is eventually beheaded by her father.
20:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And you know, and this version of the
20:30
Speaker 2: story that we're reading is from this religious site, so
20:33
Speaker 2: it's kind of presented as fact. It's clearly one version
20:38
Speaker 2: of the story that incorporates some of these mystical religious
20:41
Speaker 2: elements and an added element of come up. And her
20:46
Speaker 2: father and the prefect were apparently struck by lightning brought
20:51
Speaker 2: on by the wrath of God and instantly killed.
20:54
Speaker 1: What goes around comes around, right. This story continued because,
21:03
Speaker 1: as is the case with so many saints, relics of
21:08
Speaker 1: her body remained, and in the sixth century, the relics
21:11
Speaker 1: of this great martyr Barbara, because as you said, and O,
21:15
Speaker 1: there are different types of martyrs, the relics of the
21:18
Speaker 1: saint were transferred to Constantinople and then they stayed there
21:22
Speaker 1: for six hundred years before they were transferred to Kiev
21:26
Speaker 1: by a daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexius Komenos, who
21:32
Speaker 1: was also named Barbara. And that is where these relics
21:36
Speaker 1: rest today, at Kiev's Saint Vladimir Cathedral, where an Akathis
21:41
Speaker 1: to the Saint is served each Tuesday.
21:44
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. The Orthodox Church is largely what
21:49
Speaker 2: holds this martyrdom in such high esteem. Because of some
21:53
Speaker 2: of the scarcity of real historical records about this she
21:58
Speaker 2: actually was taken off the list of martyrs and saints
22:02
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty nine by the Roman Catholic Church.
22:05
Speaker 1: It's true, It's absolutely true. But there's pretty compelling evidence
22:09
Speaker 1: that this story, this Princess in a tower trope did lend,
22:15
Speaker 1: did lend some inspiration to the story that we now
22:20
Speaker 1: know as Rapunzel. And of course, if you have seen Tangled,
22:23
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff was cut out of this story.
22:27
Speaker 1: And have you seen Tangled?
22:29
Speaker 2: No, I have not.
22:30
Speaker 1: I have not, But I'm gonna go out on a
22:32
Speaker 1: limb and say there probably wasn't a beheading.
22:34
Speaker 2: No, I'm pretty sure not. But again, even in that
22:37
Speaker 2: I was pretty traumatized by that anime version where the
22:41
Speaker 2: prince gets his eyes gouged out by thorns, even that
22:44
Speaker 2: being the sort of more sanitized version. And it makes sense.
22:47
Speaker 2: The Grim brothers were essentially historians, and they collected oral tradition
22:53
Speaker 2: of all of these hundreds, I believe, of folk tales
22:56
Speaker 2: they then used as inspiration for their Grim's fairy tales.
23:02
Speaker 1: And a lot of these older folk tales from an
23:07
Speaker 1: academic perspective or a folklore perspective, are immensely and endlessly
23:12
Speaker 1: fascinating because they provide a window into the realities of
23:19
Speaker 1: the time. Because in the early versions of stories that
23:23
Speaker 1: would later inspire this fairy tale or the Grim version
23:27
Speaker 1: of the fairy tale, a lot more emphasis is put
23:31
Speaker 1: on the idea of pregnancy and the use of plants
23:35
Speaker 1: as medicinal aids for pregnant women or for people when
23:40
Speaker 1: they give birth. And the problem is that this is
23:43
Speaker 1: a very dangerous time in a woman's life, because it
23:47
Speaker 1: still is. You know, it was such a dangerous time
23:50
Speaker 1: because there were many many complications that could result in
23:54
Speaker 1: injury or death to the mother or the child. So
23:57
Speaker 1: this worry of having to trust someone who who is
24:00
Speaker 1: doing things that seem inexplicable, that's right, or him supernatural?
24:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
24:05
Speaker 1: Is a salient and immediate fear.
24:07
Speaker 2: I mean it's often a sign of a witchcraft or
24:10
Speaker 2: seen as such when a woman is close to nature
24:14
Speaker 2: and understands how to harness some of these herbs in
24:17
Speaker 2: ways that the average layperson does not, and that says
24:20
Speaker 2: looked upon with suspicion. And it's almost that thing where
24:23
Speaker 2: making a bargain with a woman like this, you're sort
24:26
Speaker 2: of rolling the dice because you don't know if she
24:28
Speaker 2: is there to heal or to harm, and you know
24:30
Speaker 2: that she potentially has the power to do either, and
24:33
Speaker 2: you have to trust her right to do that. So
24:35
Speaker 2: it's sort of it's kind of personifying that inherent paranoia
24:39
Speaker 2: that comes along with putting your faith in the hands
24:42
Speaker 2: of another person who you're not really sure of their
24:45
Speaker 2: motives I guess.
24:46
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, or you don't trust right sure. And as
24:50
Speaker 1: I believe I mentioned in an earlier episode, man, what
24:53
Speaker 1: a what a terrible gig to be a healer back
24:57
Speaker 1: in that time, because even if you did your best,
25:00
Speaker 1: something went wrong, people would decide you were a witch.
25:03
Speaker 1: There's one interesting thing that we should probably we have
25:07
Speaker 1: to mention right to me, the most fascinating thing about
25:11
Speaker 1: saints is that they're often called the patron saint of
25:14
Speaker 1: one thing or another. And Barbara des might surprising people
25:18
Speaker 1: to learn, is the patron saint of armorers, artillerymen, architects, mathematicians, miners,
25:24
Speaker 1: and the Italian Navy, the whole thing.
25:26
Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken, that comes from the idea
25:30
Speaker 2: in the story that her abusers were struck dead by lightning,
25:35
Speaker 2: because when you're a minor, you're often subject to caven's
25:39
Speaker 2: and even explosions from combustible minerals and things like that.
25:43
Speaker 2: And the idea that Saint Barbara would protect you from
25:48
Speaker 2: lightning or from those kind of pitfalls of that profession,
25:51
Speaker 2: right yep.
25:52
Speaker 1: Absolutely venerated by Catholics who face the danger of sudden
25:56
Speaker 1: and violent death at work as well. And her name
26:01
Speaker 1: is invoked against thunder and lightning and all accidents arising
26:04
Speaker 1: from explosions of gunpowder. And interesting side note, the Spanish
26:09
Speaker 1: word Santa Barbara then the corresponding word Santa Barbara signify
26:15
Speaker 1: the powder magazine of a ship or a fortress, and
26:18
Speaker 1: back in the day it used to be standard operating
26:21
Speaker 1: procedure to have a statue of this saint at the
26:24
Speaker 1: magazine to protect the structure from suddenly exploding. So there's
26:28
Speaker 1: the more, you know, star flying over my head.
26:31
Speaker 2: In Santa Barbara, California, which is on the coast, has
26:35
Speaker 2: a lot of oil and gas fields, and of course
26:37
Speaker 2: Santa Barbara is Spanish for Saint Barbara.
26:41
Speaker 1: Fascinating, And now we have to ask ourselves what other
26:46
Speaker 1: secrets do modern fairy tales or modern versions of fairy
26:49
Speaker 1: tales hold for us here in twenty nineteen. We'd like
26:53
Speaker 1: to hear your story about your favorite fairy tale secrets.
26:58
Speaker 1: I'd also like to before we close out the show,
27:01
Speaker 1: give a shout out to a new follower I have
27:04
Speaker 1: on Twitter that just made my day. I think, Casey Nolan,
27:08
Speaker 1: I think you'll both enjoy this. Somebody made a Twitter
27:11
Speaker 1: account called ridiculous History out of Context where they just
27:15
Speaker 1: take quotes or interactions from us and post them without
27:19
Speaker 1: explaining where they came from or what they pertain to.
27:22
Speaker 2: What we have a joke Twitter account?
27:24
Speaker 1: We do, and I don't know who. I don't know
27:27
Speaker 1: who does it. I assume you're listening. I just wanted
27:29
Speaker 1: to say thanks, so we've arrived. If you want to
27:32
Speaker 1: follow them, follow them at out Ridiculous on Twitter.
27:37
Speaker 2: I really just do the Instagram thing. You can follow
27:39
Speaker 2: me at Embryonic Insider.
27:42
Speaker 1: You can follow me at Ben Bollen. You can also
27:46
Speaker 1: meet the best part of this show, your fellow listeners
27:48
Speaker 1: on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. Big thanks as always
27:53
Speaker 1: to a super producer, Casey Pegram Casey, I've got to
27:57
Speaker 1: look up saints and see which which one you might
28:01
Speaker 1: identify with. I'll get back to you over the weekend.
28:03
Speaker 2: Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme. Thanks
28:07
Speaker 2: to Gabe Lucier, our research assistant associate, whatever you want
28:11
Speaker 2: to call him. He is the stuff, a genuine gem.
28:15
Speaker 2: That guy, Gabe is an absolute gift. We have some
28:18
Speaker 2: things coming up for you, so stay tuned. We might
28:21
Speaker 2: have some special guests in the mix. We might have
28:25
Speaker 2: the return of Christopher Hasiotis. That's right, and in the meantime,
28:29
Speaker 2: we would love it very much if you would say
28:31
Speaker 2: nice things about the show on iTunes or your podcast
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28:37
Speaker 1: Now they'll they'll say that you're supposed to call it
28:39
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts now, but don't let them fool.
28:41
Speaker 2: You can call it every on. You know what we need. Yeah,
28:44
Speaker 2: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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28:57
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.