Latest / Ridiculous History / The Hand of Glory, Part 2: Recipes, Necropants and Toes

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The Hand of Glory, Part 2: Recipes, Necropants and Toes · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Uh, we have had some helping hands
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: with our research today. This is part two of our
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: episode on the true story of the Hand of Glory.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Let's get into it. So we're talking about more kind
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of confusion in these recipes. Uh, there is the words
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: zim ats and again I figured out nier pretty quickly.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That was like a sulfate situation or some kind of preservative,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: but zim at. Uh. The question was did it mean
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: something called vert degree, which is a green pigment or
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: was it Arabian sulfate of iron? Uh? You know this
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  Speaker 1: is this guy would have not done well and like
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  Speaker 1: a recipe you know, type book situation because these are
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  Speaker 1: all very vague and there's like not even any measurements,
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  Speaker 1: Like how how what if you get the proportions wrong? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Little Albert has talents, but I think you would be
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  Speaker 1: very bad at a recipe writing contest. Also, we got
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  Speaker 1: the name of the book is Little Albert. I'm just
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  Speaker 1: choosing to picture in my head a lovable diminutive, very
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  Speaker 1: creepy Adams Family esque guy, uh stave is little Albert.
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  Speaker 1: That's the only possibility here, ben um. But that's the
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  Speaker 1: thing though, Little Albert wasn't the only guy talking about
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  Speaker 1: this particular you know tool of the trade. Um. There
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  Speaker 1: were all kinds of different sources that gave different advice.
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  Speaker 1: In the Whitby Museum in nor of Yorkshire, you can
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  Speaker 1: see a genuine hand of glory on display there and
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  Speaker 1: it's it's about like you think it's kind of a
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  Speaker 1: CORPSI mummified looking thing, leathery long fingers. Um. They've been
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  Speaker 1: burnt so that the pigments have kind of like been
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  Speaker 1: leached out of the skin, so they look white around
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  Speaker 1: the tips. And this is actually found in it says
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  Speaker 1: to me like sort of like a witch house, a
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  Speaker 1: thatched cottage. Um. And it was thought to have come
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  Speaker 1: from the Gibbet how near the Yorkshire village of Caste
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  Speaker 1: la Um. Interesting that Gibbett is in the name there.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think that's I think that's a coincidence. Or
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  Speaker 1: was there this place notorious for hanging criminals? Well, I
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  Speaker 1: mean six in one hand of glory, half a dozen
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  Speaker 1: in the other maybe, uh agreed. Uh So, So the
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  Speaker 1: thing about this exhibit is that it also contains a
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  Speaker 1: page from a book that was published in eighteen and
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  Speaker 1: this book has a competing recipe for a hand of glory.
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  Speaker 1: Just like you know the situation where you may use
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: your search browser to find a recipe for eggs, benedict
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  Speaker 1: or something, and you're gonna get different takes on the
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  Speaker 1: same thing. This recipe says of the hand of glory,
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  Speaker 1: it must be cut from the body of a criminal
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  Speaker 1: on the gibbit, pickled in salt and the urine of man, woman,
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  Speaker 1: horse dog, and mayre smoked with herbs and hey for
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a month of fun. I like this variation. It's very
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  Speaker 1: p centric. Variation is, uh, what else do you need?
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  Speaker 1: Because they've got some timing that comes into play here. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it must obviously must be hung from an oak tree
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  Speaker 1: for three nights running, then laid at across roads, which
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  Speaker 1: I know you can appreciate ben then hung on a
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  Speaker 1: church door for one night while the maker keeps watch
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  Speaker 1: in the porch. Gotta have a porch on the church.
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  Speaker 1: Absolute must. And if it be that no fear hath
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  Speaker 1: driven you from the porch, then they had to be
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  Speaker 1: true one and it be yours. So bizarre the porch
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  Speaker 1: is really porch centric this one. This is a very
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  Speaker 1: porch centric recipe here after, you know, right after the
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  Speaker 1: reading of that. Gosh, if we wouldn't get sued, Casey,
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  Speaker 1: I would love to have had the ability for us
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: to throw in that how bizarre song just to clip
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  Speaker 1: from that. I wish we could use that one more often.
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  Speaker 1: I think you could just just do like literally like one. Note.
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  Speaker 1: People will not do that, Dad, Dan Dan until you
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  Speaker 1: need it's fair use because we're talking about the song structurally, right,
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  Speaker 1: don't see us exactly. We want to protect ourselves from
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  Speaker 1: legal liability. And there were people who believed in the
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  Speaker 1: hand of glory. You can imagine they wanted to protect
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  Speaker 1: themselves as well. So if you suspect that someone may
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  Speaker 1: try to render you comatose or motionless or rob you
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  Speaker 1: uh using a hand of glory, there are a few ways.
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  Speaker 1: There are a few preventative measures you can take. First,
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  Speaker 1: you can try to douse the flame. For some reason,
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  Speaker 1: you have to use milk for this. You don't ever
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  Speaker 1: say why, uh. And then second, you can counteract the
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  Speaker 1: magic by rubbing the threshold of all your doors and
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  Speaker 1: windows with an ungent made from the goal of a
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: black cat, the fat of a white hen, and the
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  Speaker 1: blood of a screech owl. So I guess you know
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: pantry staples right, right right? What would a magical protection
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  Speaker 1: be without some sort of paste made from animal parts? Yeah,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: this is this is a key here. Uh. And I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: am absolutely fine with pulverizing a screech owl. You know,
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  Speaker 1: good riddance is what I said. Well, screech owl is
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: not a great name, pr wise, Let's let's be honest.
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  Speaker 1: They could have called it song owl or something anyway. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: We know that there were severed hands that were used
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  Speaker 1: as public warnings and just not purported to have magical powers. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: There's a thief's arm that is still in a church
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  Speaker 1: and Prague to this day. Uh. And in Europe. Across Europe,
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  Speaker 1: you can find severed hands of criminals that are put
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  Speaker 1: up like public warnings. In most cases we don't know
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  Speaker 1: the owner of the hands, but the owner isn't really important.
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  Speaker 1: The idea that your hands can get removed for doing
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  Speaker 1: something bad is the real key takeaway. Like, there's a
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  Speaker 1: very old pub in Wiltshire, England. It's almost seven hundred
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  Speaker 1: years old. It's called the Haunch of Venison. And it
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  Speaker 1: was famous for a long time because it had a
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  Speaker 1: cursed gambler's hand on display. Apparently this guy was caught
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  Speaker 1: cheating during a game of whist a few hundred years ago,
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  Speaker 1: so a whicher chopped his hand off and threw it
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  Speaker 1: into the fireplace. In nineteen eleven, they found the hand
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  Speaker 1: during renovation work and then they put it in a
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  Speaker 1: glass case with some playing cards and they just set
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  Speaker 1: it up in the bar for people to look at
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  Speaker 1: while they're having a pint, a little bit, a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of curio. I can appreciate that. And if you
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  Speaker 1: are saying, guys, I want to see this hand, I
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  Speaker 1: want I want to see a real thing. What makes
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  Speaker 1: the Hand of Glory different from so many magical items, Well,
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  Speaker 1: the difference is that, unlike necro pants or something of
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  Speaker 1: that ilk, the Hands of Glory was actually made at
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  Speaker 1: different times in history and people try to use it
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  Speaker 1: for one reason or another. If you want to check
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  Speaker 1: out this the Hand of Glory, there is a real
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  Speaker 1: what it's on display, as you said, Noel, at the
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  Speaker 1: Whitby Museum. They are open now. I don't think they
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  Speaker 1: have a virtual tour about how cool would it be
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  Speaker 1: to see this in person. Pretty cool, pretty cool? Uh,
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  Speaker 1: I gotta say, Ben, you buried the lead there a
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  Speaker 1: little bit. Necro pants. I had to google that one. Uh. Literally,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: pant a pant is the fashion fashiony folks might like
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to refer to them made of the skin of a
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  Speaker 1: dead man that's sort of made into leather and cured. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And you can see those of different museums too. Is
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a really great article on Alice obscura called necro Pants
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  Speaker 1: and other Tales of seventeenth century Icelandic sorcery. So a
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  Speaker 1: whole another universe of creepy, morbid sorcery to to dig
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: into their Yeah, think about necro pants. It's a bill bummer.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: First off, the pictures of the necro pants are not
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  Speaker 1: safe for work. Uh. Secondly, they never they likely never
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  Speaker 1: existed outside of folklore. I got obsessed to the idea
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of Icelandic magic watching this, uh, this film called Spell.
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  Speaker 1: Did you guys hear about this one? No? No, it's
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: uh there's this guy was O C D. And his
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: partner passes away and he spontaneous. This is not a spoiler.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: This is like the first few minutes of the film,
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  Speaker 1: and so he spontaneously or impulsively decides to go to
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  Speaker 1: Iceland and he gets wrapped up in the uh the
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  Speaker 1: occult practices and traditions of the country, so rooms this
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  Speaker 1: guy to lofter comes into play. It's it's wild. The
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  Speaker 1: cinematography is beautiful because Iceland is a beautiful, pretty unforgiving place.
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  Speaker 1: But check it out. There are no necro pants, I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: will say that in this film. But it's still really
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  Speaker 1: good and it has grizzly magic in it. You know
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  Speaker 1: what this makes me think of been It's something I
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  Speaker 1: feel like we've talked about on the show before, if
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  Speaker 1: not at least off there. But there was a story
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  Speaker 1: that was making the rounds back in it was last year,
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  Speaker 1: UM about this bar in Canada that makes a cocktail
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  Speaker 1: that uses a severed toe that they have on hand.
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  Speaker 1: It's called the sour Toe Cocktail UM in the Downtown
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  Speaker 1: Hotels Sour Dough Saloon in Dawson City, Canada, and it's
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  Speaker 1: apparently dates back to this legend for the nineteen twenties
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  Speaker 1: about these bootlegging brothers who got frostbite and UM put
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  Speaker 1: one of their toes in a bottle of moonshine as
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  Speaker 1: a UH. The article that I'm looking out on USA
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  Speaker 1: today stylizes it as moment toe, and then there's a
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  Speaker 1: grown in parentheses that's just implied it's not really there um.
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  Speaker 1: And apparently this is a real thing, and it was
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  Speaker 1: discovered in nineteen seventy three, the preserved toe, and that
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  Speaker 1: led to what they're calling the Sour Toe cocktail club,
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  Speaker 1: where people come in and like they want to become
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  Speaker 1: It's like the Mile High Courts. You know. You just
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  Speaker 1: you get this drink and then you remember people travel
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  Speaker 1: from the world over to drink a drink with this
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  Speaker 1: mummified toe in it, and then I guess you returned
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  Speaker 1: the toe back to its preservative liquid. I wonder if
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  Speaker 1: it gives you thieven powers or bootlegging powers, maybe magical
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: bootlegging abilities, who knows. Maybe I'm learning a lot about
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  Speaker 1: myself right now because I remember this story, and now
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  Speaker 1: that I think about it, the thing that really grosses
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  Speaker 1: me out is uh, drinking after people more so than
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  Speaker 1: having a drink with a preserved body part in it.
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  Speaker 1: I just I don't like the idea, like I'm okay
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  Speaker 1: with preserved toe in a drink, you know, especially if
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  Speaker 1: it's chilled and it's kind of like an ice cube.
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  Speaker 1: I just don't like that the idea that was in
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  Speaker 1: someone else's drink first. That feels unsanitary. Oh absolutely, let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about on sanitary. The recipe for the sour toek
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  Speaker 1: cocktail is pretty basic. H it's the one ounce of
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  Speaker 1: alcohol that's a minimum, and one dehydrated toe garnish with
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  Speaker 1: courage as according to the website of the saloon UM.
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  Speaker 1: So you pay for your shot to be about eight
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  Speaker 1: bucks Canadian uh and to to one of the bartenders
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  Speaker 1: or toe captains um, and then the server will will
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  Speaker 1: put serve you your drink with the toe as the
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  Speaker 1: garnish um. And the rules are simple. You have to
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  Speaker 1: let the toe hit your lips, but no biting, chewing,
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  Speaker 1: or putting the toe in your mouth is allowed. I
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  Speaker 1: don't think anybody need to make a federal case out
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  Speaker 1: of that. Um. And apparently swallowing the toe will land
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  Speaker 1: you with a nineteen hundred dollar fine, which means someone
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  Speaker 1: did it. I guess. So I'm telling you, man, I
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: know we're a family show, but two people tell people,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: am I right? Watch out? Well, that's our that's our
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  Speaker 1: that's our show today. These are just like just a
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  Speaker 1: few examples of the wide world of morbid magical items.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I would love I don't know about you, guys, but
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  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from someone who's actually been to
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  Speaker 1: the Whippy Museum and seeing uh this actual hands of glory. Also,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you know, we do hope you enjoyed this episode, because
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: our search histories are very questionable after this. I do
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: have can you buy severed human hand? Uh in my
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: search history? Now Google knows about it? I all, can
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: you uh, it's it's not on Amazon. I'll tell you that.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: So so I did. I did try to do my
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: due diligence and also said it was I Also I
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: appended it with like can you buy severed human hand?
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Podcast research? Just to be clear, you've got to let
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the n s A know that your intentions are pure. Um.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: By the way that the speaking of which the idea
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of buying mummified parts, I'm sorry to keep God, I'm
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: fascinated by this and learning more as I'm reading about
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: this bar with his mummified toe. Um, they have multiples,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: not just not clear where they came from. I don't
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: think they were all from the bootlegging brothers, but I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: could probably do a little more digging and figure that out.
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  Speaker 1: But apparently it is considered sanitary. Uh. The proprietor of
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the bar says, quote, We've had the chief medical officer
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of the Yukon Big Big Deal look at it and
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: give it a clean bill of health as long as
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: we keep the toes mummified, which we do by keeping
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: them on salt and serving it in alcohol. That keeps
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: everything legal. Not following for it now, but thank you
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: for letting me know at least that there are some
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: kind of standards hygienically for these sour toe drinks. I would,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I I mean I would, I would want an unused toe.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I know there's very diva eskin entitled of me, but
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I just I don't like it might be possible, ben,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I did find they do source it from all over,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and not all of them are ancient or anything like that.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Apparently one came from a British marine who lost a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: toe to frostbite during the Yukon Arctic Ultramarathon very recently.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: This article was in October of twenty nineteen, and that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: one is just a year old. Um and apparently they
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: get him donated sometimes, like a guy who lost his
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: toe to out donated his so that's disgusting. Um, I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: don't think this is for you, Ben, and I don't
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: think used or unused. So this just might not be
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: your type of thrill seeking and it certainly is in mine.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and uh, it's not as glorious as a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: hand of glory. You know what, I'd love to hear
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: from our fellow listeners, ridiculous historians, right to us and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: let us know your favorite examples of the hand of
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: glory in folklore and fiction, whether comics, films, television shows, novels, etcetera.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: You can find us. We're all over the internet. Uh,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I think we still don't have any email address, but
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Do check out our community page,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. We can't wait to hear from you there.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: You can also find us as individuals online. Yep, I
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: am at how Now Noel Brown on the Instagram, exclusively
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the Instagram. I sound like Grandpapa. I am at them
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: bowling hsw on Twitter, and in a burst of creativity,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bolan on Instagram. No, thank you
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: as always, and thank you, uh super producer, Casey Crypt
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Keeper pegram Nold, Satan Brown as well. Yeah, thank you
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: so much, Ben Ben are you are you holding back
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: on the spooky nickname for yourself? We've got a couple more,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I think episodes for you to come up with one.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Don't don't feel rushed, Oh man, I you know, I
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: don't know if I have a weird thing like should
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I give myself a nickname that feels straight? Someone else
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: has to do it, you know, I guess I well,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I gave myself one, but you can
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: give me another one if you want. It doesn't have
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: to be no old Satan Brown. I was really just
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: more using it as an example, trying to understand the rules.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: So why don't we let's reserve. Let's maybe we could
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: do new nicknames every episode or something like that sounds
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: great for Halloween. How about Ben Boo Bolan. That's dumb,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: but that's great. Thank you Ken, I'm I'm blessed, and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: thank you uh and thanks to Alex Williams who composed
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: our track. Thanks to Christopher Hastiotis and our Pure podcast
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: or Eve's Jeff Coat. Indeed, big things coming soon from
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Eve's Jeff cot. In the meantime, a big thing is
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: already out in the world from us Jeff Code. This
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Day in History, a daily history rundown of stuff that
• 17:21
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• 17:24
  Speaker 1: UH A few days to Jonathan Strickland, the Quister. Do
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: for a drop in any day now, UM looking forward
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to that. I think, weirdly, I missed him. I missed
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the man, and he'll have nicknames a plenty for us
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: when he returns. We'll see you next time, folks. For
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