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CLASSIC: The Life and Times of Ol' Knife Hand · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Folks, it's time. You know what time it is. It's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: time for a classic episode of Ridiculous History where we're
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: hanging out with one of the uh with a guy
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: who has one of the coolest street names we've run into.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Old knife Hand. Oh man, I was thinking that we
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: had a bit of a run of spooky themed episodes here,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: and I'm realizing these were all from October twenty eighteen.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I guess we used to be a little more seasonal
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: with our episodes. Has since gone totally off the rails
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: in that department. So let's harken back to a perhaps
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: more seasonally organized time in the world of Ridiculous History,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: chewing Necropolis and what is now in northern Italy that
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: held a strange and at first glance terrifying corpse.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Oh so I should say, you know, I just remembered
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we're the guys who made up the nickname knife Hands.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Oh he did, That's okay, it's the name. He was
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: a lombard man and we call him Old knife Hands.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Fill in the blanks, let's throw it.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. No no no
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: no no no no no no no no no no
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: no knife Man. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. I'm Ben.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I can't how am I supposed to say my name
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: when it's not nearly as cool as a knife man.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I mean it's his name, I know, but his real
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: name is probably something like Giovanni.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably true. I'm Noel the Ordinary Brown.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: We are joined with our guest super producer. Give him
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a big hand, He's got his own sound. Cue super
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: producer Paul Dekint No Love Lost with super producer Casey Pegri,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: who will return to his regular American life.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Wait, no love lost? You mean that? Do you mean
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: they're they're bitter enemies? Isn't that what no love lost means?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I've been using it in this case to
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: say that we don't love Casey any less, we have
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: not lost love for him.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: That's I think That's how it always occurred to me.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Is it should be said? But I've always understood it
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: to mean some kind of enmity towards.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The foe, like there's no love lost between them exactly
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: because there was never any to begin with. Right, Well,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: let's let's take it back. I lets make it something
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: positive the way the Ghostbusters charged that goo and Ghostbusters too,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and made it a positive thing.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: You remember that that's a science joke, Ben, Is that
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: a science They charged it? You mean they charged it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: like because they it's an ion, right, isn't that an ion?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It positively charged it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Well, as you can tell from our intro, it's Friday,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it's been a long week.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: And today's episode is about Ghostbusters.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: No uh, it touches on something spooky. Yeah, there's that.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: We are still in the throes of holle yes month.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, the most hallowed of Ween's.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: And weirdly enough, the band Ween is doing a double
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: engagement at our famous Tabernacle theater tonight and tomorrow night.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Oh so it's all come full Weeen.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It's all happening. It's all happening. Well you like Ween? Yeah,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I like Ween. I would say I'm a Ween fan,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: me too. Today's episode as that's our that's our slow,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: circuitous route toward today's episode. Today's episode does not, as
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: far as we know, involve the band Ween, but it
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: does involve something grim, grizzly, and we'll say it badass.
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  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. It does strike me as the kind of
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: thing that Ween might write a song about because they're
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: all about weird stuff and badass stuff and like kind
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: of psychedelic trippy stuff, and I feel like this falls
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: into all of those categories.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: It does, and it takes us to our Our story
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  Speaker 1: begins long, long ago. But let's start in the middle
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of the story. Innineteen eighties Italy, in a region of
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: northern Italy called Vignetto. In nineteen eighty five, archaeologists made
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: a fascinating discovery. They found a necropolis that housed the
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  Speaker 1: corpses of people known as the Longo Bards.
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  Speaker 2: The Longo Bards also, it took me a minute to
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  Speaker 2: realize these were one and the same, known as the
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  Speaker 2: Lombards or the long Beards. Yes, it kind of mutated
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  Speaker 2: over time because these warring Germanic tribesmen who held sway
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: over a lot of Europe for a lot longer than
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: you would expect, which is I know, very vague. Maybe Ben,
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  Speaker 2: you can plug into some specific numbers in a minute,
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  Speaker 2: but they wore quite long beards.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and they were nothing to sneeze at, these these
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  Speaker 1: Germanic people. According to Lombard historian Paul the Deacon, they
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  Speaker 1: descended from a small tribe that Dwelt in southern Scandinavia
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  Speaker 1: tribe called the winil Wi Nili, and from this relatively
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  Speaker 1: humble beginning they would rise to eventually rule most of
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  Speaker 1: the Italian peninsula from five sixty eight a d. To
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  Speaker 1: the late seven seventies, like seven seventy four seventy five AD.
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  Speaker 1: And this this is the environment in which our story
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  Speaker 1: takes place. Noel, As you said, they were known for
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: being warlike.
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  Speaker 2: Ben, did you hear that story that Paul the Deacon
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  Speaker 2: wrote about how the long Beard's a nice apocryphal tale
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  Speaker 2: of how the long Beards may have had some divine
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  Speaker 2: intervention in getting that name.
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  Speaker 1: Oh it's great, Yeah, it's super cool.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So if you've played the new God of War game,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I guess it's not that new anymore, but apparently if
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: you get the update, it lets you like replay the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: entire game using all of your armor or unless you
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: like start over again. Just FYI. Really cool game game,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: but features Odin and Freya and a lot of this
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  Speaker 2: pantheon of Norse gods that these folks worship. I'll tell
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  Speaker 2: you who else worshiped them was the Winnilly's kind of rivals,
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  Speaker 2: who were the Vandals and they were in a conflict
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  Speaker 2: together because the Winillis refused to pay tribute to the
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  Speaker 2: leaders of the Vandals.
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  Speaker 1: And have a great quote here. The Winilli were a
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  Speaker 1: smaller tribe too in terms of numbers.
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  Speaker 2: The Vandals had them out numbered and out knived or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: Which is a nice bit of foreshadowing there. So the
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  Speaker 1: Winilli said it is better to maintain liberty by arms
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  Speaker 1: than to stain it by the payment of tribute. They
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  Speaker 1: thought it would be shameful to pay these people off. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and they said, you know what, if we go down,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to go down swinging, and we're going to
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  Speaker 1: ask our God for help. Godin, who we know is
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  Speaker 1: Odin today? Oh, Goden god An. I never heard it
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  Speaker 1: said that before. That's interesting.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, So the Vandals and the Winnelly both appealed
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  Speaker 2: to Odin and said, hey, we would like it very
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  Speaker 2: much if you would grant us a victory, to which
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  Speaker 2: Odin replied he would give a victory to the tribe
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  Speaker 2: he first saw at sunrise. And then apparently the mother
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  Speaker 2: of the two Winnilli leaders, whose names were Ibor and Io,
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  Speaker 2: went to Freya, who was Odin's wife.
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  Speaker 1: The mother's gimmed their mother.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, Gambara, and Freya told Gambara that the women
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  Speaker 2: of the tribe should take their hair and tie it
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  Speaker 2: in front of their faces so they looked like beard
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  Speaker 2: and then appear at sunrise.
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  Speaker 1: So that they seem to have more numbers than they do,
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  Speaker 1: more soldiers at least. And then Freya also, according to
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  Speaker 1: this story, loads the dice a little bit because she
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  Speaker 1: turns Odin's bed to face east at sunrise and she
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  Speaker 1: wakes him. And because of this, Odin sees the Winili
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  Speaker 1: tribe first and said, who are these long beards?
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  Speaker 2: And then, according to this article from about history dot com,
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  Speaker 2: Freya responded, well, since you've given their tribe a name,
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  Speaker 2: he should also give them a victory, and that he did.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, if you'd like to believe this legend, I.
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  Speaker 1: Like to believe this one. It's an inspiring story. We
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  Speaker 1: should also note that Paul the Deacon wrote his history
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  Speaker 1: of the Long Beards the Historia Longo Barderum, which is
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  Speaker 1: fun to say. Of course, he wrote this between Slate
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  Speaker 1: seven eighty a d SO seven eighty seven, seven eighty
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  Speaker 1: eight and seven ninety six, so he wrote this far
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  Speaker 1: far after the events had transpired.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, And I just want to back up what
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  Speaker 2: you said a minute ago. Ben, These women with the
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  Speaker 2: beards tied in front of their faces were added to
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  Speaker 2: the ranks of the men who already sported these long,
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  Speaker 2: bushy beards. They did not want to cut, so it
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  Speaker 2: would make them appear to have greater numbers. And I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know what Fray's logic was here.
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  Speaker 2: I can't get inside the head of a god.
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  Speaker 1: It's to be more intimidating. And also, you know, love,
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  Speaker 1: I love the moments in mythology and folklore where someone
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  Speaker 1: plays a trick where cleverness becomes as important as physical strength,
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  Speaker 1: like turning the bed east.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also like there's a lot of what
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  Speaker 2: one might consider cheating in some of these stories. Oh sure,
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  Speaker 2: you know, or like being dishonest, but sometimes that's just
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  Speaker 2: having gumption, tenacity, and you know, like you said, loading
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  Speaker 2: the dice a little bit in a clever.
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  Speaker 1: Way, and that's all. You know, that's classic longo bar.
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  Speaker 1: So these are long beards if you prefer, that might
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  Speaker 1: be more fun for some of us. So this is
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  Speaker 1: how the tribes started, and they expanded, possibly with the
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  Speaker 1: help of divine intervention. And as we said, they go
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  Speaker 1: on to for a not insignificant amount of time, rule
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  Speaker 1: a large swath of Italy. And in nineteen eighty five,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna jump around in time a little bit here
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  Speaker 1: for the sake of the story. In nineteen eighty five,
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  Speaker 1: archaeologists discover a necropolis for the Longo Barred people that
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  Speaker 1: has over two hundred corpses buried in side two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty two. And in these different areas of the
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  Speaker 1: necropolis they find some strange, weird things. They found one
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  Speaker 1: female corpse with two brooches that were used to estimate
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  Speaker 1: the time roughly when these people were interred. They also
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  Speaker 1: found two greyhounds and a horse, but they did not
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  Speaker 1: find the head of the horse.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't a headless horse, man. It was a
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  Speaker 2: headless horse. Still quite appropriate for Halloween times.
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  Speaker 1: And that's just the beginning, because, as we learned in
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  Speaker 1: the paper entitled Survival to Amputation in pre Antibiotic Era,
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  Speaker 1: a case study from a Longobarred Necropolis courtesy of Journal
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: of Anthropological Sciences, this necropolis contained one corpse that was extraordinary.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a lot of ways.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, in many ways they found. They found a man
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  Speaker 1: who was between forty and fifty years old. They say
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  Speaker 1: they pegged it at forty seven in the paper, and
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  Speaker 1: his body, even hundreds of years later, showed signs of
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  Speaker 1: extreme hardship and God is putting it very diplomatically, signs
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  Speaker 1: of extreme hardship and privation. His teeth were all kinds
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  Speaker 1: of messed up. The enamel was extremely worn down to
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  Speaker 1: the point where it was damaging his jaw. He had
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  Speaker 1: evidence of plenty of fighting, but most importantly for this story,
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  Speaker 1: archaeologists focused on something that he did not have, which
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  Speaker 1: was part of his right arm.
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  Speaker 2: Not only was he missing an arm, he was missing
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  Speaker 2: an arm in a very unusual way in that the bone,
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  Speaker 2: the nub of the bone where the arm had been amputated,
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  Speaker 2: was worn down and calloused in a very particular way
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  Speaker 2: that was caused by something else they found in in
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  Speaker 2: this grave.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, They literally buried the lead long enough. Let's
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  Speaker 1: just let's just let it out in the open. This
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  Speaker 1: guy had replaced his arm with a prosthetic blade. He
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  Speaker 1: had a knife hand.
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  Speaker 2: A knife hand, yeah, And the way it was attached
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  Speaker 2: was with like a kind of a cup that would
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  Speaker 2: attach over the nub, and then the blade was fast
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  Speaker 2: fashioned onto the cup. I guess it was like a
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  Speaker 2: leather cup of some kind. And then there were straps
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  Speaker 2: harnesses that would fasten it on. And you remember you
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  Speaker 2: mentioned a minute ago, Ben that he had some significant
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  Speaker 2: wear and tear to his teeth. One of the ideas
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: is that it was because he was constantly using his
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  Speaker 2: teeth to tighten the straps on the knife knife arm.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, as he was going through and dealing ungodly amounts
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  Speaker 1: of damage to his enemies. You can in the paper
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  Speaker 1: see up photographs of the fellow's teeth. We don't know
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a ton of details about this man. His name is
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  Speaker 1: lost to history. We don't know necessarily what he did
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  Speaker 1: in his free time, what his dreams were, what did
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  Speaker 1: he have children, and so on. But we do know
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  Speaker 1: a ton of things based entirely on the state of
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  Speaker 1: his body. We know, for instance, that the orientation of
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  Speaker 1: his amputated forearm, the orientation of the fracture that occurred,
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  Speaker 1: indicates that it was an angled cut by a single blow,
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  Speaker 1: made probably from a blunt instrument. And this amputation was
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  Speaker 1: the result of one of three things. An amputation through injury,
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  Speaker 1: and combat, which has its own fascinating rabbit hole to
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  Speaker 1: follow a medical intervention. Maybe he had a wound and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it got.
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  Speaker 2: Infected or some sort of judicial punishment, right how I
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  Speaker 2: put it in the paper, I believe.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. So he either gotten a beef, got sick,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: or or broke the law.
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  Speaker 2: I'm no you know, forensics guy or anything. But it
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  Speaker 2: does seem like the cleanness of the cut would indicate
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  Speaker 2: that he was, you know, had it positioned in such
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a way to receive the blow right, like on some
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: sort of like hard surface or maybe held down or
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: you know something. It doesn't seem like it would be
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: that clean if he just got a giant axe swung
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: at him in battle and got the arm lobbed off.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Right. And so there's an interesting thing I've been reading
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: about for something unrelated to this show that ties him
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: very well, and it's the problem of fighting on a
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: battlefield in these ancient days. You know, we see all
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: these depictions in fiction and in historical accounts of groups
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of people just yelling and running into each other until
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: they collide in blood, sweat and violence. But is it possible,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: this is the question was looking at. Is it possible
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that some people just faked their death. It just like
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: laid down and waited for the fighting to stop. The
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: answer is yes, and that's why soldiers from either side
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: would go through after a conflict to make sure the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: dead were dead.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: You've seen that in movies. They just go around just
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: stabbing the piles of bodies, you know.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And in some cases it was considered an act of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: mercy rather than an act of malevolence, because think about it,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: this is a time with no antibiotics. This is a
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: time where medicine is often administrated through a spiritual leader, right,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: rather than some sort of doctor. And additionally, this is
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the biggest point for the idea that this guy may
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: have been injured in battle. Additionally, every time that someone
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is attempting to recover from an injury, especially one of
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: this magnitude, that means that a community of other people
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  Speaker 1: has to take care of them.
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  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, so he's saying. The takeaway from this
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: weird knife arm Doude is that like people in his
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: lifetime were nice to.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Him, at least because he also the analysis of his teeth,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the strontium levels in his teeth proved that he was
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: not from this area. He was a stranger in a
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: strange land at the time.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And don't you think that forty or fifty years old
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: is a pretty decent lifetime in this day and age.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And as you said, from the callous, from the calluses
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and the wear on the on the amputated limb, we
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: know that this happened a long time before he died.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: He lived this way for years. Yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: I don't think we can stress enough how important it
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: is to think about the idea that they'd had no
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: antibiotics and no real way to intervene and stop the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: blood flow other than just to like rub it with
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: some sort of poultice or like, you know, physically bind
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: it and keep an eye on the guy and make
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: sure that he had stayed clean. Otherwise he would have
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: just gone septic and kicked it in no time.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. In the paper they say quote the longo
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: barred male survived the loss of a forearm even though
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: antibiotics were not readily available. This highlights a community level
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: effort to provide an ideal setting for healing to take place.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: This suggests a clean environment with intensive care during the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: early stages of healing, with the ability to prevent death
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: from blood loss and specific herbal balms were available to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the Longo barred people for this purpose. And they go
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: back and forth arguing the different cases that this could
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: have been combat and then he was saved by his community,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: or that it was a judicial punishment where they said, okay,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: maybe you have stolen something, so now you lose your hand,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: but we don't want to kill you.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: But if that was the case, why would they go
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: out of their way to keep him from bleeding out?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: That's the mystery, right, and I am tempted to place
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: this injury in the realm of combat or traumatic accident, because,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: as we mentioned, the Longo bar invaded in five sixty
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: eight a d right, and that's when they began to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: take over Italy. And it looks like this death. This
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: guy was interred in this necropolis not too long after,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: so he was definitely alive and kicking and maybe even
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: had both of his hands during the invasion. It's quite
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: possible that they took care of him because he was
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: helping with this takeover, with this regional takeover. By the way,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: if you're wondering why the Winilly became the Longo Bards
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and moved down south like this, the current best guess
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: is it was to seek better resources because they had
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: overpopulated their native land.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Unless we paint a picture of these Lombards as being
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: entirely like barbaric or some kind of like completely unhinged
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: warring you know, psychotic hun like force. I mean they
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: eventually when they kind of settled, they they built a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: bunch of incredible architecture. They became dukes and had a
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: very very robust system of government and created these territories
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: called duchies. And that's a term that was used moving forward.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I believe Ben that is true.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Noal, the term duchy did stick around. The Kingdom of
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the Lombards, also known as the Kingdom of Italy at
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the time, was established, as you said, in the later
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: part of the sixth century. And they they knew that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: this kind of game was going by King of the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Hill rules, not the not the cartoon, but the actual game.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: What I mean is they knew that there would be
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: people trying to oust them from their new kingdom. One
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of the groups that vehemently opposed them was the Byzantine Empire.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you had them. You had the Celts, the Celts, Celts, Celts,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: the Celts, the that's the worst, the worst one. Then
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: you had the Visi Goths ors. I like to refer
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to them as just the Goths, you know, it's uh.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And then you had the Franks, and they were the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: they were the big bads, they were the ultimate bosses,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the Franks. They're the ones who conquered the kingdom, right,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: it's true.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And yeah, the Franks. Ben. I don't know if you've
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: heard of this little guy named Charlemagne the Great. You know,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: you don't get the name the Great unless you're pretty
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: bad ass.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I'm skeptical of ye, that's fair.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: But it was like the big boss, Like you said,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: he was the big bad and he is the dude
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: that ultimately led to the downfall of the the the longbeards.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He even after after the Franks conquered most of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the kingdom, he even adopted the title King of the Lombards.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And the one city they never managed to gain control
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: of was Benevento, the most southern of the Lombard duchies.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: So at the time, at the time that this entire empire,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Rosen finally fell, the Kingdom of the Lombards was the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: last hold out, the last minor Germanic kingdom in Europe
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: other than the Frankish Empire, and we should mention too.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: There's a good question of how lombard these people were,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: or at least their rulers by the time they fell,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: because over the more than one hundred years that they
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: governed this area of the world, they gradually assimilated to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Roman culture. They would get Roman titles, they would start
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: naming their kids Roman names, they would start practicing Roman traditions.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: So at what level did their assimilation just make them
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Romans who historically were Lombards, You know what I mean exactly,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: But no one was at that level of PC at
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: this time. Of course, they were like die longbeards, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: they almost got our guy knife man.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: He would have been a beast on the battlefield.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine? There's some great details in here about well,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: they still are speculating about how his injury occur, but
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: there are some great details about his life after the injury.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: As we said, the teeth on the side of his
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: mouth that he used to tighten the strap were we
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: cannot overemphasize this. They were terribly worn down, like the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: pulp was out of his teeth. Someone had to extract
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: some of his teeth so he could eat.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he actually like had some sort of
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: serious infection because he ruptured the pulp sack, which is
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: a thing apparently in one of his teeth, and that
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: could have been fatal.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: This guy really dodged some serious bullets. Yeah, he won
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a brutal lottery for sure. We also know that he didn't. Okay,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: here's the question that I immediately had at least, and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've had it as well, ridiculous historians.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Did he survive long enough to use his blade arm
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: in battle?
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Well, one would think one would imagine. Here's the thing though.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: The speculation is like he maybe even used this to
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: like eat, But I don't buy that. Well, why not
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: have a fork arm if you're going to use it
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: to eat? I mean, a blade arm is clearly designed
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: to slice brothers.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And we know from the level of metal working that
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: was available at the time that they could make something
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: with times or yeah, it was they could make something
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: that wasn't just a blade arm. They chose blade arm,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm just I'm not I'm not being completely prejudiced here,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: but I'm saying that choice implies some things.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's intention, there's the implication. It's like it's
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: like Ash and the Evil Dead. He made himself a
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: chainsaw arm, right, you know, with which to slice demons
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the undead. I mean he didn't make himself, you know,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: some other non lethal type of arm, like a mannequin
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: hand or like a flagpole off a flagpole arm.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, he didn't make anything like that.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: He wasn't going to be a crossing garden. He was
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: going to be a demon's.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Layer, and we know that with knife Man. It appears
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that he did not whatever he did with this blade arm,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it appears that he didn't lift heavy weights with it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: But surprise, surprise, that would be kind of difficult anyway,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: just to keep the prosthetic on.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: He's saying that his arm was slightly like atropheet or something. No,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: we're saying that we.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Can tell from the strain that like obviously his left hand,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the one he still has, is going to be the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: new dominant hand.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Right, But so it wasn't like as evenly distributed between.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: The two right, so we can tell that we can
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: tell that he wasn't attempting to or did not successfully
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: for long periods of time lift heavy things, But.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: What about slashing?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Slashings totally different because that's more of an impact, right
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: than a strain.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, I guess that's true.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: So we would we would have to ask ourselves. They
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: don't really address it in the paper, but we'd have
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to ask ourselves whether there's some sort of research we
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: can do that would let us know whether he used
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it in combat.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: You don't think if he did enough slash and stabbing
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: that he wouldn't have a big muscle on that arm.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Right, wouldn't you imagine? I would think so. Yeah. But
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: then also, you know, we have to remember a lot
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of the stuff where a lot of stuff we're discovering
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: with the prosthetic is based on guesswork, because a lot
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of the leather has already decayed. This guy's been in
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the ground for a long time. I wish we knew
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: his name.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm fine with knife Man.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I'm fine with knife Man.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: He could be a boss in the Mega Man games.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: He could. That's a good call. He probably also, knowing
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the way that nicknames and stuff worked at that time,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: he probably also had a name that was something like that.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It was something like, you know, Gilbert knife Hand or
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Gilbert of the knife, Mac the Knife, Yeah, similar, similar, right,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: although Mac the Knife did not have a knife for
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a hand. You don't know that, pretty pretty sure.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: It's not in the song.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It's not in the song, which they probably would have
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: mentioned that, right, you'd think, you'd think. But this is
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: our spooky tale for the week and somewhat inspiring because,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: as we said at the beginning, it shows us that,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: regardless of how a community might be portrayed in history,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: love conquers all. Love conquers all. It certainly heals it,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: heals wounds.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: That's time.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That was probably a combination of both time and love,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and you have to marvel sometimes. That's just how how
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: tough these people were, you know what I mean? Like
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I freak out if I have a cough for more
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: than two weeks.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: So do you have any prosthetic limbs that are lethal
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: weapons of any kind? Write in let us know, send
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: us picks. We're interested.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Oh I tell you're asking me.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: No, I know, I know you don't have any.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: All right, man, man, let's keep moving. Yes, how can
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: you find us? You can, We're so glad you asked.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We'd like
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to give a special shout out to everybody's favorite community
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: page on the old f B that is Ridiculous Historians,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: where you can shoot the breeze, see some pretty top
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: tier memes and give us suggestions for episodes you would
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: like to hear in the future. As always, thanks to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: our super producers, especially to you super producer Paul for
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: filling in today.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks to Alex Williams who composed this theme. Thanks
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: to the one and only irreplaceable yet occasionally replaceable super
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: producer Casey pegram here in spirit. Thanks to our research
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: peeps Eves, Jeffcoat and Christopher Hasiotis, who we love dearly.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Who just love those folks. They're the best.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: He's a great guy.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: He's a very talented food critic as well.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I do know that. And Eves is also on a
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: show called Afropunk Solution Sessions and a show called stuff
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Mom Never told you should check those out.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Check them both out. We'd love to have Eves on
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the show one day soon too, definitely, so spoiler alert
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: with that. And you know what, Noel, thanks tonife Man
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: for making it through the tough days and giving us
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: an inspiring story. And thanks to you sniping around
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.