Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 82. Sawney Bean And His Cannibal Clan

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82. Sawney Bean And His Cannibal Clan · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
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Speaker 1: welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast that's
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Speaker 1: not your history class with me your host Kittie Charlewood,
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Speaker 1: history Harlotte and reader of books. And first things first,
0:30
Speaker 1: I want to apologize if I sound funny. I am
0:34
Speaker 1: quite unwell and I've got a chest infection and a
0:39
Speaker 1: bunch of other stuff wrong away like just so much.
0:41
Speaker 1: I'm just a broken human. But you know that. So
0:45
Speaker 1: I'm late in getting this out to you. But it's
0:49
Speaker 1: spooky season and I have to and I can't. I
0:52
Speaker 1: can't let you down with this, and so here I
0:56
Speaker 1: am desperately trying to do this and hoping the pink
1:00
Speaker 1: I was will kick in soon. Drugs give me all
1:03
Speaker 1: the drugs. There was so much booky stuff I want
1:06
Speaker 1: to cover this month. We've got vampires and cannibals and
1:11
Speaker 1: witches and other things historically that I can actually explain
1:16
Speaker 1: to you. But they're coming and and they're they're gonna
1:19
Speaker 1: be here, and I'm very excited to talk to you
1:21
Speaker 1: about it. But I also want to thank everybody who
1:24
Speaker 1: has been stell giving me wonderful five star reviews. You're
1:29
Speaker 1: just You're just amazing, and it's it's really been cheerful
1:33
Speaker 1: when I'm like hold up in bed feeling like crap
1:37
Speaker 1: and posting pre recorded videos because I just I don't
1:41
Speaker 1: have the energy to film right now, and I'm just
1:44
Speaker 1: like this is getting these really nice comments. It's just
1:49
Speaker 1: it's very nice when you're like stock feeling measurable like this.
1:54
Speaker 1: Also so I can feel here like chest wheezing. Also, uh,
2:00
Speaker 1: The Irish Podcast Awards are on in November, the day
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Speaker 1: after my birthday, by the way, So I'm just saying
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Speaker 1: voting's up until October nineteenth, so hope you're great to
2:42
Speaker 1: have like a late rush of stuff going in. I'm
2:45
Speaker 1: just saying, but also this October, what is happening is
2:51
Speaker 1: I am doing my first live Irish show in Dublin,
2:57
Speaker 1: not in Irish, and we're going to do all in Irish.
2:59
Speaker 1: It's going to be an Ireland but not an Irish. Kids. God,
3:02
Speaker 1: I I'm not that fluent. Nona, Nona no. But anyway,
3:07
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, quit your gibber
3:09
Speaker 1: jabber in fact me, in fact you I will. But
3:12
Speaker 1: first we're going to get our source on. Our sources
3:16
Speaker 1: are A General History of the Lives, Murderers and Adventures
3:20
Speaker 1: of the most Notorious Rogues by Captain Charles Johnson, Horrible
3:26
Speaker 1: History Scotland by Terry Deary. Come on, you think I
3:30
Speaker 1: was not going to do something without Horrible History in
3:31
Speaker 1: here ay one bloody thing after another by Jacob f Field,
3:38
Speaker 1: The History of the Kingdom of Scotland by Richard Burton,
3:42
Speaker 1: The Newgate Calendar, Historic UK, and of course our favorites
3:48
Speaker 1: History dot Com atless Obscura, and a bonus shout out
3:53
Speaker 1: to the Edinburgh Dungeon. IOSI didn't comfortably good, then let's
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Speaker 1: be gain. Let me take you back, gentle friend, to
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Speaker 1: the sixteenth century and young Alexander Bean. Was he an
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Speaker 1: only child? Did he have siblings? I don't know, we
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Speaker 1: don't know that there's no information. But young Alexander Bean,
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Speaker 1: which honestly very unusual name in Scotland, just saying and
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Speaker 1: when after this, if you were called Bean, you would
4:25
Speaker 1: probably just change your name because you could. But anyway,
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Speaker 1: Alexander was the son of a ditch digger. His father
4:36
Speaker 1: was well liked in the community. He worked hard, he
4:40
Speaker 1: was just you know, salt of the earth, just a
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Speaker 1: really good fella, you know. And he was a ditch digger.
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Speaker 1: And you're thinking that seems like an occupation. It was
4:52
Speaker 1: because you're in the fucking countryside and it's the sixteenth
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Speaker 1: century and irrigation is a thing. You need to make
4:59
Speaker 1: sure all your land is drained properly, you know, you
5:03
Speaker 1: need to make sure that your plants and your agriculture
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Speaker 1: is going to get you know, the right amount of
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Speaker 1: water isn't going to get flooded, so on and so forth.
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Speaker 1: There's a purpose to ditches. Also, depending on the region,
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Speaker 1: there's a possibility that could have been digging tough or
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Speaker 1: peaked if the ground has enough nutrients in it, you know.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, his father was known for being helpful and
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Speaker 1: kind and just a really hard worker, you know, And
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Speaker 1: this is close to Edinburgh in the vicinity Esh and Alexander.
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Speaker 1: He is a workshy, right workshy. Basically, he doesn't want
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Speaker 1: to dig ditches because that just seems like a bit
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Speaker 1: too much work. Like I get it, I mean, manual
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Speaker 1: labor is hard. So he decides, you know, I'm going
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Speaker 1: to make my own way. I'm going to live my
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Speaker 1: best life. I'm going to go out into the world,
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Speaker 1: and as he you know, stops out, leaves his family
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Speaker 1: behind to defend for themselves because like, once they get
6:19
Speaker 1: to a certain point, like their age is going to
6:21
Speaker 1: become an issue. But I think because there were such
6:24
Speaker 1: upstanding members of the community, they probably got some help
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Speaker 1: later on. But Sonny, as he becomes known, falls in
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Speaker 1: love with Agnes Douglas, known as Black Agnes Douglas. Now,
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Speaker 1: I don't know if this is to do with her
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Speaker 1: having like sallow skin and dark hair, or if it's
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Speaker 1: something to do with her being like dirty, like actually
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Speaker 1: like mucky, because I know, up until I was a child,
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Speaker 1: the phrase that's black would mean that something was dirty,
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Speaker 1: like mock it, you know, same kind of difference or
7:06
Speaker 1: behind mister Wado number three Black refers to black magic
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Speaker 1: because black Agnes Douglas was a witch, or many people
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Speaker 1: claimed she was. Now Agnes and Sonny they get married,
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Speaker 1: how I'm not sure. Was it in a church, Probably not.
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Speaker 1: She's a fucking witch generally look down upon by you know,
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Speaker 1: the clergy as a general rule. Maybe it was a
7:34
Speaker 1: non denominational ceremony. Maybe she wasn't actually a witch and
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Speaker 1: people just didn't like her. Hom's to say, him's to say.
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Speaker 1: So Agnes and Alexander Sonny to his friends, they leave,
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Speaker 1: he slowly in because wherever they go, things just aren't
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Speaker 1: working out for them, you know, probably because he's workshy
7:57
Speaker 1: and she's a fucking witch. So but if an is
7:59
Speaker 1: she there. So they're going around trying to find places
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Speaker 1: to stay, but they don't have steady work, they don't
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Speaker 1: have an income, and neither one of them has a
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Speaker 1: skill in order to maintain an income, and so they're
8:14
Speaker 1: doing general thievery, this, that and the other, scrounging, begging,
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Speaker 1: other such things. And so they end up leaving East Lothian,
8:25
Speaker 1: which is just as said Edinburgh, right, and they go
8:31
Speaker 1: all the way across the country in Scotland. Did I
8:36
Speaker 1: mention we're in Scotland? I feel like I should have
8:38
Speaker 1: mentioned we're in Scotland. We're in Scotland, by the way,
8:41
Speaker 1: sixteenth century Scotland Queen Elizabeth the First is still on
8:45
Speaker 1: the throne in England, and King James the Sixth of
8:49
Speaker 1: Scotland soon to be James the First of England is
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Speaker 1: sitting on the throne in Edinburgh. King James the sixth
8:58
Speaker 1: is Mary, Queen of scott Son context. So Sony, he
9:06
Speaker 1: and Agnes make it all the way to Ayrshire, which
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Speaker 1: incidentally is where I used to live. So they're in Ayrshire.
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Speaker 1: I used to live in Commarnock, which I think is
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Speaker 1: North Ayrshire. I think. Anyway, they get to South Ayrshire
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Speaker 1: and they get to Garvin in Search and Sony, like
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Speaker 1: most of is not a big fan of landlords, and
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Speaker 1: he proposes an idea to Agnes, babe, wifey, love of
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Speaker 1: my life. Imagine this, instead of living and the town
9:49
Speaker 1: and a building that we have to pay for, why
9:54
Speaker 1: don't we go live in a cave by the sea,
9:58
Speaker 1: which is free. Now I know what you're thinking. Living
10:03
Speaker 1: in a cave by the sea in a country known
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Speaker 1: for wind and rain may not seem like the most
10:10
Speaker 1: ideal of choices. But it worked for these two. Now
10:17
Speaker 1: geographically it's a little hard to pin down. However, the
10:22
Speaker 1: belief is that the cave that the Beans resided in
10:27
Speaker 1: was between the basically Balan Tree and Garvan. The Balan
10:33
Speaker 1: Tary is a tiny weee town and it has sidebar
10:37
Speaker 1: and it has this little shop in it. I got
10:42
Speaker 1: stranded there because the river burst and I got stranded
10:45
Speaker 1: there one time when I was traveling between Scotland and
10:48
Speaker 1: Ireland and there was a way shop and it made
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Speaker 1: the best rolling slice I have ever enjoyed a rolling
11:02
Speaker 1: slice like I have in that way shop. I hope
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Speaker 1: they did not use Sonny Bean's recipe. Anyway. This cave
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Speaker 1: basically in bene and Head and people say it's Sonny
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Speaker 1: Bean's cave. That's the theory. See a cave like this
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Speaker 1: is really fucking handy, right because instead of the cave
11:26
Speaker 1: entrance going down, the cave entrance goes up. It's really
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Speaker 1: hard to get You can have to scale it to
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Speaker 1: get in. And because it goes uphill instead of downhill.
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Speaker 1: When the tide rises, the entrance is blocked by the sea,
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Speaker 1: so when the tide's in, you don't notice it's there.
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Speaker 1: It's really fucking clever. I mean, how long he took
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Speaker 1: like trying to find the perfect cave? Like was it
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Speaker 1: like location, location, location, He's just trying to like scare it.
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Speaker 1: This is the perfect one. How did you find it? Well?
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Speaker 1: I scaled a bunch of these rocks and decided this
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Speaker 1: was just the exact place I want to be with
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Speaker 1: my wife, raise a family and whatnot. So there we go.
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Speaker 1: He has what some could call an abode. Another thing
12:17
Speaker 1: about Scotland, it's a temperate zone. It's not quite you know,
12:22
Speaker 1: the warmest of places. So when the tide rises and
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Speaker 1: it blocks the entrance by like whatever how many one
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Speaker 1: hundred meters, I don't know. My special awareness isn't great,
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Speaker 1: but like, well that's all blocked off. It stops the
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Speaker 1: wind coming in, you know, So it's kind of it's
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Speaker 1: kind of avoiding that cold there, like I don't know,
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Speaker 1: like a natural draft excluder, one could say. And there
12:48
Speaker 1: we go, the first on the step of Maslow's hierarchy
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Speaker 1: of needs. Come on, you thought I wasn't going to
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Speaker 1: mention it, because I'm going to mention it, right, So
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Speaker 1: they have shelter. They have shelter, or that's one now,
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Speaker 1: they need security, so he asked to find a way
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Speaker 1: to you know, earn a living. And you know, again
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Speaker 1: workshy and a witch. What the fuck are they gonna do? Well, Agnes,
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Speaker 1: she generally stays in the cave, like I mean, I
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Speaker 1: I don't know if it was like too much hassle
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Speaker 1: to get out of the cave, or maybe she just
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Speaker 1: liked being in the cave all the time, or perhaps
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Speaker 1: she was agrophobic and was quite happy staying in the cave,
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Speaker 1: you know, maybe hm hm. Anyway, he's like, I got
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Speaker 1: to provide mynu wifey. So what does he do? Obviously,
13:47
Speaker 1: lots of little roads along the coast going from one
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Speaker 1: town to another, travelers, traders, so on and so forth.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I was gonna say daily robbery. It's not
14:01
Speaker 1: daylight though, nighttime robbery under the cover of darkness, And
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Speaker 1: so Sony starts being a highwayman. They're not like Dick Turpin. Oh,
14:13
Speaker 1: by the way, Dick Turpin also a dick, but we'll
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Speaker 1: discuss that another time. He starts just robbing people, which is,
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Speaker 1: you know, fair enough sixteenth century Scotland. You live in
14:26
Speaker 1: a cave, I'm gonna rob some people. And so he
14:30
Speaker 1: starts robbing them, and then he's like, oh, okay, what
14:35
Speaker 1: if they recognize me? The best thing to do is
14:38
Speaker 1: to get rid of the witnesses, right, so he just
14:40
Speaker 1: starts killing them after he robs them, or kills them
14:44
Speaker 1: then robs them. I'm not sure exactly how that process worked.
14:48
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was a trial and error thing. He
14:50
Speaker 1: would rob them first, then kill them, or he would
14:53
Speaker 1: then kill them then rob them because the last thing
14:56
Speaker 1: he wanted was to lead people back to his cave
14:58
Speaker 1: where his lovely wife was. And so over a period
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Speaker 1: of time, he's thinking, what am I going to do
15:05
Speaker 1: with these dead bodies? People are going to start noticing
15:07
Speaker 1: them because he might be workshy, but you know, not
15:12
Speaker 1: an idiot thinking logically about this rationally, some might say,
15:18
Speaker 1: is it No, it's not fucking rational at all. This
15:20
Speaker 1: is crazy. He's like, what am I gonna do? Oh,
15:25
Speaker 1: I know, We'll just eat them, which, by the way,
15:30
Speaker 1: absolutely bonkers. Here's the thing. If the answer is cannibalism,
15:36
Speaker 1: ask a different fucking question, because here's the thing. I
15:40
Speaker 1: feel like murdering, transporting, boochering, and then disposing of the
15:47
Speaker 1: remains of the human body seems a lot more complicated
15:52
Speaker 1: than I don't know, poaching, foraging, stealing carrots from the
15:58
Speaker 1: farm down the road. It seems like you really just
16:02
Speaker 1: wanted the other other white meat. I mean, let's says it.
16:05
Speaker 1: It is a high protein diet, but God have some
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Speaker 1: veggies man Like no. I mean, I'm saying no, but
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Speaker 1: clearly Sony and Agnes are saying yes. Well, she doesn't
16:17
Speaker 1: really have much choice in the matter. She's stuck in
16:19
Speaker 1: the fucking cave and also pregnant. Because see what happens
16:25
Speaker 1: is this couple start having babies and they have at
16:32
Speaker 1: least was it fifteen I think, no, fourteen? They had
16:38
Speaker 1: fourteen beanie babies. I regret nothing. So they had six daughters,
16:46
Speaker 1: eight sons that survived into adulthood. I feel like there
16:50
Speaker 1: was probably more, and it's probably best we don't dwell
16:53
Speaker 1: upon that concept of what would happen to stillborn babies
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Speaker 1: and the bean clan. That's just fucking horrible. And so
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Speaker 1: for the next twenty five years, the Cannibal clan grows
17:15
Speaker 1: and grows, continuing to terrorize the roads of South Ayrshire.
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Speaker 1: And as this family grows, multiplying within itself. Remember how
17:30
Speaker 1: I keep saying, your family tree should not be a wreath.
17:34
Speaker 1: Your family tree should not be a bloody wreath. So
17:39
Speaker 1: here it goes, swirling and swirling. They end up with
17:44
Speaker 1: fourteen children, six daughters, eight sons, eighteen grandsons and fourteen granddaughters.
18:00
Speaker 1: Is a fucked on of Bani Bay babies, fucked on
18:02
Speaker 1: Banie babies, so many. So there they are, and over
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Speaker 1: twenty five years. I mean, you're thinking Sony isn't so
18:13
Speaker 1: spry at this point, but apparently that incredibly high protein
18:17
Speaker 1: diet seems to work for all. The gym rats also
18:21
Speaker 1: worked for Sony and his cannibal clan. So the girls
18:27
Speaker 1: and women they would stay inside the cave. They had
18:32
Speaker 1: learned to butcher and strip the bones and you know
18:41
Speaker 1: all the things that women do in sixteenth century caves.
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Speaker 1: I guess, well, the men and the boys are from
18:51
Speaker 1: like the infants. One would assume they had spent the
18:58
Speaker 1: last quarter of a century refinding their craft. And by
19:04
Speaker 1: refinding their craft, I mean got really really good at
19:08
Speaker 1: like gorilla murder. That's that's basically it. Like gorilla murder,
19:16
Speaker 1: not the murder of gorillas, the other type of gorilla,
19:20
Speaker 1: like gorilla warfare. They would go out under the cover
19:24
Speaker 1: of darkness, like they were generally nocturnal at this point anyway,
19:29
Speaker 1: because they would stay in the cave during the day.
19:32
Speaker 1: I remember, the tide comes up, they're blocked from sunlight,
19:37
Speaker 1: like I don't even know if they have oil lamps
19:39
Speaker 1: in there or whether they just got accustomed to the darkness.
19:44
Speaker 1: So they're doing this, and they would quit in the
19:51
Speaker 1: night and wait for travelers to go across the road
19:55
Speaker 1: easier in like autumn winter when the days are shorter,
19:59
Speaker 1: more night time, easier to catch spring summer, limited window,
20:07
Speaker 1: just just spit out there, like you're gotta be quick
20:10
Speaker 1: when it comes to spring summer. Just facts. So they
20:18
Speaker 1: had become like a well oiled machine. They were really
20:21
Speaker 1: good at like catching grabbing a person. And I would
20:26
Speaker 1: assume also their horse. You'd think they would eat more horse.
20:33
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd assume they would eat some horse, right,
20:36
Speaker 1: they wouldn't just waste the horse, you like it wouldn't
20:41
Speaker 1: be surprised if there wasn't a commotion, you know, at
20:44
Speaker 1: the amount of random horses without people on them, or
20:49
Speaker 1: why is there an abundance of horse corpses along this road.
20:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, no, no, no, clearly the horses
20:58
Speaker 1: would be involved. So they would take everything back to
21:01
Speaker 1: their cave and they would you know, the bodies and
21:08
Speaker 1: also trinkets, clothes, jewelry, you know, general stuff people had,
21:20
Speaker 1: they collected, they hoarded in their cave like shitty dragons. Now,
21:27
Speaker 1: one of the jobs that belonged to the women of
21:30
Speaker 1: the cave was obviously the preparation of the meat and
21:35
Speaker 1: also preservation of the meat. One of the things they
21:42
Speaker 1: did was pickling. Now how they did this in a
21:47
Speaker 1: cave when you really needed heat and a lot of vinegar,
21:53
Speaker 1: like effectively in order to pickle it and have sealed insecure.
22:03
Speaker 1: You heat it up, you boil it. Are they sitting
22:06
Speaker 1: fires in a cave would not be able to notice
22:07
Speaker 1: smoke coming from a cave. It just anyway. They would
22:12
Speaker 1: pickle body parts, you know, for a letter, for a
22:15
Speaker 1: midnight snack, you know, and nubble. And they were doing
22:22
Speaker 1: this over the years. And here's the thing. People did
22:25
Speaker 1: notice that travels were going missing. But again, sixteenth century Scotland.
22:31
Speaker 1: There's animals you've got like foxes, maybe a will for two,
22:40
Speaker 1: a stray dog, I don't know, but deer that's disgruntled,
22:48
Speaker 1: I think the bears would probably died out by then,
22:51
Speaker 1: like way ancient, like fucking elks, Like there are these
22:58
Speaker 1: like ancient deer that were massive, but I think they're
23:00
Speaker 1: probably all gone at this point. That being said, I'm
23:03
Speaker 1: not exactly an expert on sixteenth century Scottish fauna, but
23:08
Speaker 1: I still think wolves were about. I feel like wolves
23:11
Speaker 1: or again, rabid dogs, an angry badger. I'm just listing
23:16
Speaker 1: countries said animals. Now I'm like animals from the British countryside,
23:21
Speaker 1: a badger. But no. Initially, you know, the thought was
23:28
Speaker 1: these are animal attacks, you know, nothing untoward, because you
23:35
Speaker 1: know it's the fifteen hundreds. Sometimes, badge, it just happens.
23:40
Speaker 1: You know, we've already had plagues, wars, reformations, you know,
23:46
Speaker 1: shit goes down in Scotland. But then over time more
23:52
Speaker 1: people were going missing, especially travelers, and suspicions started to
23:57
Speaker 1: fall on tavern owners and innkeepers because generally these were
24:03
Speaker 1: the last people to say travelers before they you know,
24:08
Speaker 1: disappeared off the face of the earth. So then when
24:11
Speaker 1: you know, body parts started washing up on the shore,
24:15
Speaker 1: people started to get suspicious, and then they started to
24:19
Speaker 1: get bloodthirsty, and a bunch of innocent innkeepers, tavern owners,
24:26
Speaker 1: so on and so forth got accused of murdering these people,
24:31
Speaker 1: and under vigilante mob justice, they were hanged for those crimes,
24:39
Speaker 1: crimes committed by the clandestine cannibal clan of Sonny Bean
24:47
Speaker 1: and his bloodthirsty brood. But the clan's luck was not
24:53
Speaker 1: going to last forever. In one of the villages nearby,
24:59
Speaker 1: a fai is being held. Which village, We're not sure
25:03
Speaker 1: what fare, no clue, it's not written down anywhere, but
25:07
Speaker 1: there's an event happening, and a man and his wife
25:11
Speaker 1: are traveling back from the festivities when they are set
25:15
Speaker 1: upon on a practically moonless night, hands reach out from
25:20
Speaker 1: the darkness and grab the woman from her horse, forcing
25:26
Speaker 1: her to the ground. The boys must have been particularly
25:30
Speaker 1: hungry this night, because they didn't drag her back to
25:34
Speaker 1: the cave first. No, they sunk their teeth and their
25:40
Speaker 1: hands into her, ripping her throat apart with their teeth
25:45
Speaker 1: and drinking her blood straight from the jugular. Her husband,
25:50
Speaker 1: absolutely freaking out of what he's just seen, then feels
25:55
Speaker 1: hands upon his clothes and he has yanked from his horse,
26:01
Speaker 1: and as he lands to the ground with a thud,
26:05
Speaker 1: he thinks, fuck this for a game of soldiers, because
26:08
Speaker 1: he's just seen his wife ripped apart before his very eyes.
26:14
Speaker 1: And he fights back. He's got a sword and a pistol,
26:18
Speaker 1: or at least a dagger and a pistol. There was
26:20
Speaker 1: a blade involved somehow, and he is shouting and hitting,
26:25
Speaker 1: and he is making a lot of fucking noise. And
26:29
Speaker 1: as he's starting to weaken, as he feels this, his
26:33
Speaker 1: muscles weakened and his boy being overpowered by the sheer
26:38
Speaker 1: might of this group of men, horses start galloping towards him.
26:46
Speaker 1: He had made such a racket fighting the beans. I'm
26:52
Speaker 1: sorry that just hauded so anti climatic, like he was
26:55
Speaker 1: fighting the beans. Yeah, yeah, the lagoomes. Don't mind them.
27:01
Speaker 1: Couple of lentils. We chickpea and they're not beans, but
27:06
Speaker 1: still same idea. They're all pulses in the end, are
27:11
Speaker 1: they so? Anyway, a bunch of people who were like
27:15
Speaker 1: either fair or near the fair. They had been at
27:17
Speaker 1: the fair at one point anyway, and they show up
27:21
Speaker 1: torches in hand. Now naturally, because the way the clan
27:26
Speaker 1: worked was they would attack sneakily to be there ice
27:30
Speaker 1: sleek it right, and their whole thing was being clandestine
27:35
Speaker 1: and then overpowering, you know, many against one. But now
27:41
Speaker 1: a fuck town of people have shown up and they're
27:43
Speaker 1: like no, and they buger off, right, They get the
27:46
Speaker 1: heck at a dodge and they buger off back to
27:48
Speaker 1: their cave. So this bunch of fairgoers, they're like, what
27:55
Speaker 1: the actual fuck just happened, and they're freaking out. There
27:59
Speaker 1: have solutely freaking out. So they got to the local
28:01
Speaker 1: magistrate and they're like, hey, there's this dude who was
28:07
Speaker 1: attacked by a bunch of people and watched his wife
28:11
Speaker 1: get murdered and eaten before his eyes. So, yeah, this
28:17
Speaker 1: was the one thing the banklan have never had to
28:21
Speaker 1: deal with, a living witness like. No one had ever
28:25
Speaker 1: survived this long, no one had ever made it past them,
28:30
Speaker 1: no one could describe them, no one could explain what
28:33
Speaker 1: had happened, and here he was living proof of what
28:38
Speaker 1: had really been happening to those travelers for twenty five years.
28:45
Speaker 1: The magistrate is like, well, this is kind of the
28:48
Speaker 1: big deal, and we certainly don't have the manpower to
28:52
Speaker 1: deal with it because the police force doesn't exist yet.
28:56
Speaker 1: So I'm going to send a message to the King
29:00
Speaker 1: so King James the sixth shows up with four hundred soldiers, right,
29:07
Speaker 1: and a bunch of bloodhounds, And so the bloodhounds lad
29:12
Speaker 1: the soldiers and of course King James to the cave,
29:17
Speaker 1: the cave which was so often overlooked because you know,
29:23
Speaker 1: Hi tied everything else mentioned before. They're like, nobody could
29:27
Speaker 1: live in this cave. It's a fucking cave. Who lives
29:30
Speaker 1: in a cave the past, not as now? No, no, no,
29:34
Speaker 1: no no. And as they step into the cave, the stench,
29:41
Speaker 1: the repugnant and putrid odor stings the nostrils, and a
29:49
Speaker 1: bunch of the soldiers of these kings men are so
29:54
Speaker 1: disgusted by what they're seeing lining the walls of these caves,
30:00
Speaker 1: they just start throwing up, like they are just puking
30:05
Speaker 1: everywhere because there are entrails and blood and you know,
30:11
Speaker 1: fecal matter and whatnot, because you know, hygiene not top
30:16
Speaker 1: of the list in a cave. And the clan are
30:22
Speaker 1: holding themselves to the sides of the wall. As these
30:26
Speaker 1: men storm through with their torches, they find barrels with
30:31
Speaker 1: body parts. There are items and trinkets, jewelry, just a
30:38
Speaker 1: bunch of random shit. They just stole all these people before,
30:42
Speaker 1: you know, eating them, and the clan they're just frozen,
30:49
Speaker 1: you know, because they've never really been confronted. They never
30:53
Speaker 1: had to do with this, because everything they did was
30:56
Speaker 1: overpowering other people. Now what happens now? I've heard it
31:03
Speaker 1: two ways, the first of which, being so disgusted and
31:11
Speaker 1: horrified are the King's men and the King at this
31:15
Speaker 1: just awful, vile cave and its inhabitants that they decide
31:23
Speaker 1: to fill the entrance with gunpowder and just blow it up,
31:30
Speaker 1: sealing the Beans in the cave, leaving them to suffocate. Now,
31:37
Speaker 1: the other version is that when discovered the entire clan
31:43
Speaker 1: they just give up. They don't fight, they just allow
31:47
Speaker 1: themselves to be captured. And so they are, and they're
31:51
Speaker 1: taken over to Toboth Jail in Edinburgh, and then they're
31:58
Speaker 1: moved to Leith and then Glasgow, and there isn't a
32:05
Speaker 1: trial as such because you know, overwhelming evidence, definitely guilty.
32:10
Speaker 1: And also if the king says he wants you to die,
32:14
Speaker 1: it's kind of gonna happen, you know. Yeah. Also, the
32:19
Speaker 1: Bean clan are seen as subhuman, you know, probably doesn't
32:24
Speaker 1: help that you've lived in darkness most of your life,
32:28
Speaker 1: and you've had a diet of you know, human flesh
32:33
Speaker 1: for most of it, if not all of it, and
32:35
Speaker 1: also probably having issues because you know, all of the
32:40
Speaker 1: incest a clan that has existed for twenty five years,
32:48
Speaker 1: with Sonya and Agnes, their children and then their children
32:59
Speaker 1: they're being to death, fucking children. We don't know if
33:05
Speaker 1: there's infants. It's not explained. We're just told. But if
33:09
Speaker 1: you look at this timeline, it's twenty five years. That's
33:14
Speaker 1: you take puberty into it, like there's going to be
33:17
Speaker 1: kids here. So all of the men, all of the
33:23
Speaker 1: men of the Bean Klan, they have this gently ah.
33:32
Speaker 1: They chop off their gullies yep, mating two vege hacked
33:38
Speaker 1: off and then thrown into the fire. Then they do
33:41
Speaker 1: the same with their hands and their feet, and then
33:47
Speaker 1: they let them bleed out. And while this is happening,
33:53
Speaker 1: all of the women and children are watching. And once
33:58
Speaker 1: the men are dead, the women and the children are
34:03
Speaker 1: tied to steaks and burnt alive, and the citizens of
34:09
Speaker 1: Scotland rejoiced. Now what's weird about this is like, effectively
34:16
Speaker 1: it sounds like the punishment for treason because the punishment
34:21
Speaker 1: for treason at this time was being hung, drawn and quartered.
34:25
Speaker 1: If you're a man, and if you're woman burnt at
34:27
Speaker 1: the steak. Now how you can charge a child with treason,
34:32
Speaker 1: I don't know. But it is a weird a weird death,
34:37
Speaker 1: I'm just to say. And so ends the horrific tale
34:43
Speaker 1: of Sonny Ban and his Cannibal claan, or does it. Now.
34:49
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, I am obsessed with stories like this.
34:53
Speaker 1: I went to the edge of a dungeon when I
34:56
Speaker 1: was like twelve or something and they did a thing
35:02
Speaker 1: about Sonny Bean and they still do it now. And
35:05
Speaker 1: I was unfairly targeted by the Cannibal clan. I was
35:10
Speaker 1: also put in a jail cell. And I'm just saying.
35:14
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I was very almost barked too. I
35:17
Speaker 1: just I felt targeted. I'm just saying. But the thing
35:22
Speaker 1: about Sonny Bean is I I'm obsessive, I hyper fixate,
35:27
Speaker 1: and I look into things and what sounds like a
35:31
Speaker 1: horrific story from the past is well my speciality sensationalism,
35:41
Speaker 1: misinformation and fucking propaganda. You see, there is no historical
35:49
Speaker 1: record of Sonny Bean ever existing nothing. There's no documentation
35:59
Speaker 1: of the crime of the punishment. You know, it doesn't exist.
36:06
Speaker 1: It's not in any any sixteenth century lowbo like, it's
36:11
Speaker 1: not logged, it's not there. And most importantly, this is
36:17
Speaker 1: a story involving King James, the sixth. King James are
36:22
Speaker 1: the one who did the Bible. King James the fucking arsehole.
36:26
Speaker 1: I hear him so much. I hate King James. I
36:28
Speaker 1: hear him. One day I'll do an episode on him
36:31
Speaker 1: and it will just be me calling him a bastard
36:33
Speaker 1: of the entire time. King James when he did something,
36:40
Speaker 1: he was kind of vocal about it, Like we all
36:43
Speaker 1: know about the gunpowder plot. We all know about guy Fox,
36:46
Speaker 1: and nothing really happened. He wasn't even assassinated. There wasn't
36:50
Speaker 1: even a tiny explosion. There wasn't even the possibility of
36:54
Speaker 1: an explosion, because there was a fucking rat, you know
36:56
Speaker 1: what I mean. And everybody he knows all about it.
37:01
Speaker 1: He kept talking about how he survived, like the plot
37:03
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah blah blah. He made such a
37:06
Speaker 1: big fucking deal about it that we all know about.
37:10
Speaker 1: Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder treason and plot.
37:15
Speaker 1: We know it. You know, he made a big deal
37:18
Speaker 1: about it. He didn't say shit about this, which should
37:22
Speaker 1: tell you something. There were no contemporary accounts to anything
37:28
Speaker 1: related to Sonny Bean. The first sort of written information
37:37
Speaker 1: we have regarding Shanny Bean, Shanny Bean, shany Bean like
37:43
Speaker 1: Sean Connery. No, no, Sonny Bean is in the seventeenth century,
37:50
Speaker 1: so like a century later and weirdly, crazy random happenstance,
38:00
Speaker 1: it shows up in the Newgate Calendar. Now, the Newgate
38:04
Speaker 1: Calendar was basically this newspaper newsletter book some might say
38:13
Speaker 1: released by Newgate Prison because like a lot of famous people,
38:20
Speaker 1: famous killers and whatnot, like the origin of true crime.
38:23
Speaker 1: Some might say it got published. They would write the
38:29
Speaker 1: tales of like this person and the crimes they did
38:32
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But something that started getting really popular was
38:38
Speaker 1: crime fiction like like a penny Dreadfuls, which wouldn't come
38:44
Speaker 1: around a little bit later, like I think Oliver Twist
38:46
Speaker 1: was referred to as like a Newgate calendar. It was
38:50
Speaker 1: basically seen as sort of I don't know, tabloidy, sort
38:55
Speaker 1: of you know, not highbrow effectively, but anything that's made
39:00
Speaker 1: for you know, regular people, who has often seen as
39:02
Speaker 1: not highbrow, like Shakespeare wasn't made for the elites. It
39:07
Speaker 1: was made for the masses. But because language is evolved,
39:11
Speaker 1: we assume that it's elite, when really it's just for
39:14
Speaker 1: the dick jokes man. I don't know what to tell you.
39:16
Speaker 1: It's just full of jokes and also incidentally crime fiction.
39:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, like the Newgate Calendar things like that. It
39:25
Speaker 1: would be like the chat books. If you listen to
39:29
Speaker 1: my series on the five Caronical Victims of Jack the Ripper.
39:34
Speaker 1: I think it was Catherine Edoes, who is with Thomas Conway,
39:38
Speaker 1: who would sell chat books. So chat books would have
39:42
Speaker 1: the tales of true crime, not so true crime, so
39:47
Speaker 1: on and so forth, just entertainment for you know, the
39:51
Speaker 1: regular folk. You know. So this story appears and chap
39:56
Speaker 1: books in the Newgate Calendar, and like the seventeenth century
40:02
Speaker 1: in a very convenient time, which was after I think
40:08
Speaker 1: the third Jacobite Rebellion against King Charles first. And the
40:14
Speaker 1: way that Sony and his family are described in this story.
40:21
Speaker 1: They are seen as wild and horrid, and this is
40:25
Speaker 1: what happens if you leave them to their own devices,
40:29
Speaker 1: if you don't control them. You know, this was a
40:33
Speaker 1: way of showing how savage and wild and just how
40:40
Speaker 1: uncivilized the Scots were in comparison to the English. Now
40:45
Speaker 1: the tales about like English killers and whatnot Welsh even
40:50
Speaker 1: during this time period, they're never as horrid, is what
40:56
Speaker 1: is happening in this particular tale. Now, this story itself
41:01
Speaker 1: does have inspiration before this, because there's the story of
41:05
Speaker 1: Christie Creek, I think is and he was a man
41:09
Speaker 1: who was out hunting. There was a hunting party and
41:13
Speaker 1: you know, there's not a lot of game going on.
41:15
Speaker 1: He was a butcher, and they're like, wasn't I got skills,
41:19
Speaker 1: Let's go out with hunt some food. Let's go fellas
41:22
Speaker 1: and so out they go into the hills and they're
41:27
Speaker 1: not finding anything. And the first thing they do is
41:32
Speaker 1: start eating their horses. And then when one man dies
41:37
Speaker 1: of starvation, Christie's like, waste not what not, and thus
41:44
Speaker 1: starts the craving for human flesh. There are some similarities
41:50
Speaker 1: between this tale and the tale of Sonny Bean, except
41:53
Speaker 1: this happened an entire century before. Oh and I almost
41:57
Speaker 1: forgot like the name the name right, Okay, So Sonny Bean.
42:03
Speaker 1: You see, Sony is short for Alexander, or at least
42:06
Speaker 1: it was at the time. It has gone out of fashion.
42:09
Speaker 1: I can see why. So you know, we would say
42:13
Speaker 1: like Alex or Xander or whatever. Back in the day
42:18
Speaker 1: they would go Sonny, you know, but Sonny the way
42:22
Speaker 1: that it was used, it was kind of like a
42:24
Speaker 1: mockery name, like way jock is today, Like she calls
42:30
Speaker 1: someone jock. It's like a sort of detrimental term for
42:34
Speaker 1: a Scottish person. It's kind of like if you call
42:38
Speaker 1: an American like boy, just calling them chad. It's always
42:44
Speaker 1: a Chad. And I was trying to like of like
42:47
Speaker 1: an Irish one, and the only thing I can think
42:49
Speaker 1: of is Paddy, except for the fact that, like there
42:52
Speaker 1: are so many paddies here that are known as Paddy,
42:54
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't even it's not even a thing like
42:58
Speaker 1: are you going to try and sell this? Go on
43:00
Speaker 1: that dig a crack at it? Like but yeah, that's
43:06
Speaker 1: that's one of those things about this tale. It's just
43:08
Speaker 1: pure bullshit, some absolute bollocks. And I love this story,
43:14
Speaker 1: like I have been obsessed with it since forever, and
43:17
Speaker 1: as much as how horrible and how much we like
43:21
Speaker 1: to think this is what happens to people. Generally, aggressive
43:26
Speaker 1: incestuous cannibal clans not really a common occurrence you know where.
43:35
Speaker 1: If ever, some might say, but that is the end
43:39
Speaker 1: of our story. Now. Yeah, if you want to go
43:44
Speaker 1: to my Dublin gig by the way, if you're in
43:46
Speaker 1: Ireland on October twenty second, twenty twenty three, then just
43:51
Speaker 1: click the link in the description down below. Also, if
43:55
Speaker 1: you haven't voted to me in the podcast towards, go
43:57
Speaker 1: ahead and do that. Yay, it'd be amazing. And I
44:02
Speaker 1: do actually have to have any to post on the
44:03
Speaker 1: Patreon because it's getting ridiculous now, like I haven't there.
44:07
Speaker 1: It's ready to go. I just need to like physically
44:11
Speaker 1: post it. It's all I've got to do this thing.
44:17
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean having to transfer through like one phone
44:20
Speaker 1: to the other, I know, which is like the hasshole
44:22
Speaker 1: part of it. But I'm going to take some limbs up.
44:26
Speaker 1: I'm going to take more drugs and I am going
44:29
Speaker 1: to try and get some sleep to beget. You can
44:32
Speaker 1: follow me again whips yeah on the socials. Oh, if
44:37
Speaker 1: this is your first time here, I'm sorry, I'm second.
44:40
Speaker 1: I'm usually funnier than this. Okay, So recommendation time. I'm
44:51
Speaker 1: going to recommend because it is spooky season, after all,
44:56
Speaker 1: I'm going to recommend for reading The Haunting of how
45:00
Speaker 1: House by Shirley Jackson. For listening Hmmm, just thriller on repeat,
45:09
Speaker 1: no bit. Seriously, you should listen to my delicious friend
45:15
Speaker 1: Paul's podcast Kraken's Cabin. I think he's reading some really
45:21
Speaker 1: interesting sort of horror stuff, some spooky things over October.
45:27
Speaker 1: You should definitely give him a lesson. And for watching
45:34
Speaker 1: Adam's Family Values. I don't care. You shouldn't watch it.
45:37
Speaker 1: It's the best. Go watch it, Debbie. I love Debbie.
45:41
Speaker 1: Debbie would fit in so well with the Adams family
45:44
Speaker 1: if she just wasn't so sneaky. I'm just saying like
45:48
Speaker 1: they would help her, that's all. Like, maybe for the
45:54
Speaker 1: right reasons. I feel like they would. But yeah, Adam's
45:57
Speaker 1: Family Values perfect, perfect movie. So yes, with that, I'm
46:03
Speaker 1: going to bid you all good night. Ariios au revoir
46:07
Speaker 1: of What Is In My Friends? Ah Bye bye