Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: Jack O'Lanterns and Sleepy Hollow

Transcript

Short Stuff: Jack O'Lanterns and Sleepy Hollow · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's chucking. Yes, Davis here in spirit. I don't think
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I even need to say it. Maybe next time i'll
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: say it is when Dave's actually here. How about that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: he's a disembodied spirit. That's right, chuck, nicely done. Because
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: this is a Halloween esque, halloween ish, nay Halloween e
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: short Stuff episode. Yeah, in October, we try and throw
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and throw you a couple of bones from the skeleton
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: dangling from behind you. That's right, nicely so dumb, I know,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I think we explained Jack Lanards at some point. We
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: didn't know we did. We did a Halloween episode that
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: we could either redo or re release. That was good. Yeah,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: but we definitely talked about Jack Lenerds in that one.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I think, well, we're gonna do it again, okay, uh yeah,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: because I don't really recall the story. But the whole
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: idea of Jack o Lanards is that they're based on
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a Irish legend of a man named Stingy Jack who's fascinating,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: but you probably wouldn't have wanted to be friends with him. No,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: not Stingy Jack, which is how I read it in
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: my head. Four times until just now when I said
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: stingy No, I finally figured it out, because it's pretty
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: obvious where he gets that name. But it was still
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: very thick headed and saying stingy Jack in my head.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: But Stingy well, he was stingy because his legend has it. Uh,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Stingy Jack was hanging around, said the devil comes walking
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: by and he says, hey, devil, let's go have a
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: cool one. You could use that. And the devil said, sure,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: let's do it. So Stingy Jack at the end of this, uh,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: this little drinking sessh says, I'm a little light devil,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I don't have Uh, I forgot my wallet. If you
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: could help me out here, uh, turn yourself into a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: coin so we can pay and get out of here.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So the Devil's like, all right, no harm, no foul,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I'll turn myself into a coin. And then Jack says,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I've got you. I'm gonna put you in my pocket
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to put you next to that silver
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: cross and you were just going to stay there as
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a little coin. Sorry devil. Yeah. No word on how
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: he got away without paying the drinks in the first place,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: but he got his drinks, and he got to keep
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the devil coin. Uh. And then finally the devil's like,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: come on, dude, I have things to do. Please let
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: me out of your pocket. And stingey Jack said, okay,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I'll let you out, but you have to promise not
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to bug me for a full year. And the devil said, fine, whatever,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I don't care, and Sol said, you invited me for drinks, right,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: He said, well, I didn't realize you're gonna bother me. Um.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So the devil, being a fine upstanding devil, uh, said
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I will honor that agreement and left Jack alone. Uh.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Sometime around the next year, Jack got in touch with
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this old friend devil, who by this time I had
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: forgotten that Jack had kept him trapped as a coin
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in his pocket. Said hey, you want to hang again?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Devil said sure, And I guess somehow stinge Jack got
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: it in the devil's head that the devil should climb
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a tree and pick him a piece of fruit. And
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that didn't go according to plane as far as the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: devil's concerned. There did it? No, it didn't, because the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: devil climbs up the tree and checks like, I got
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: you again, devil. Look, I've carved the sign of the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Cross into the tree bark, so you can't come down,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and um, how about this, don't bother me for ten years? Right?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And not only that, if I die, you can't take
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: my soul. And the Devil's like, good Lord, this guy
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: really drives a hard bargain. But okay, fine, I'll agree
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to all these terms. And not only will I agree
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to him, being the devil, a fine upstanding devil that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I am, I will honor these terms. I will not
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: go back on my word. And he didn't. He didn't
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: because Sinci Jack died and the devil didn't try to
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: take his soul. As a matter of fact, wouldn't let
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: him in Hell, and God wouldn't let him in heaven.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: So Cinci Jack was left to roam the earth. That's right.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And if you're wondering what all the us rigamarole has
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to do with Jack A Lanard's, he was sent off
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: in the dark, had, like you said, couldn't go to heaven,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: couldn't go to hell, stuck in between, and had a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: burning coal to light his way, and he put that
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: coal into a carved out turn up. And he was
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: known by the oirish as Jack of the lantern. Yes,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: but the Irish never said the word of in their
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: entire lives, the entire history of the Irish. So that's
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: where we get Jack a lantern, that's right. Uh. And
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: that turnip. Depending on where you were in the world
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and this legend moved around, that turn up might become
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a potato, it might become a beat if you're in
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: England or or if you're in the United States. One thing,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of us pumpkins. Yes, so when
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you're carving a Jack o lantern, you're paying homage to
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a double dealing satan advantage taking uh Irish guy named
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Stingia Jack. Okay, I love it. So there's part one.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: We're gonna take a break and we're gonna mix it
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: up just a little bit and go tangentially. Tangentially that's
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: absolutely right, Jack Leonard related right after this. Okay, Chuck,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: we're back and we're talking about now nothing that has
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: to do with check. Well, I guess a little bit
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: like you said, tangentially um one of the better, well
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: not better, one of the first ghost stories in American history,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I think one of the I mean, there's of course
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: been a lot of great ghost stories since. But the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: legend of Sleepy Hollow is great. It is great. But
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: if you've read other Washington Irving short stories, he's actually
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: written much scarier stuff than that. That's a little more
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: tongue in cheek than some of the other scarier stuff
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: he's written. All right, fair enough, it's fine though. Uh So,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the legend of Sleepy Hollow concerns the Headless Horseman. And
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I think, if you're a kid um, even if all
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you ever saw was that Disney cartoon, the idea of
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the Headless Horseman is utterly terrifying. Yes, totally, absolutely, one
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of the more terrifying figures in American history American lore agreed. Uh.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And it takes place in the real Sleepy Hollow in
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Westchester County, New York. And it is about a new
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: man in town, the sort of lanky, goofy schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: who is in love with in courts Katrina or all
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: thinks he's in love with Katrina von Tassel. Uh. And
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: when he is rebuff at a party by Katrina, he
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: that headless horseman appears seemingly out of nowhere and chases
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: him down. Uh and he vanishes. Yeah, Kabob Crane has
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: never found or heard from. Um, there's that jack O
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Lanard because you know he's he throws that flaming jack
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: O Lanard in the cartoon right. Well, in the story,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the headless horseman throws his head and connects with Akabod
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Crane's head and knocks him off of his horse. And um,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: all that's found near the spot the next day is
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a smashed pumpkin. So it's not entirely clear whether it
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was a headless horseman or somebody playing a prank or whatever.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: But um, if it was all in Iikabod Crane's imagination.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: But the upshot is is that he was never heard
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: from again, which is pretty mysterious. Um. The thing that's
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: so cool about the legend of Sleepy Hollow though, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: what makes it so interesting is that Washington Irving, like
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: kind of inner wove fact and fiction to come up
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: with this tail um quite brilliantly. Actually. I think it's
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it is so so creepy
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: is because you hear like, oh wait, there's a real
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: town called Sleepy Hollow in New York and stuff like that.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I wonder if you go to sleepy hollow.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: If there's a any sort of touristy things you can do, oh,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I would guess. So I wonder what they do. I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: don't know, but I guarantee there's a there's a headless horseman. Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if it's a thriving tourist industry
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: but all but it's a pretty respectable tourist industry they
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: got going on there, especially this time of year. Yeah,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but you're right, he wove a lot of real things
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: in their real locations. The old Dutch church, um, the churchyard,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Major Andre's Tree. Uh. There may have been a real
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Ichabod Crane. I mean there was. We just don't know
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: if there was any connection. I think the New York
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Times said there was a Colonel ichabad B. Crane who
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was alive at the same time as Irving, who was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a marine. Uh enlisted in eighteen o nine and served
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: for forty five years in the Marines. But they really
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: don't know if they met each other, or if that
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: name was just sort of a weird coincidence. I don't
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: think it was a coincidence. Um. Apparently Washington Irving was
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: a bit of a collector of weird Yankee names. Um,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and one of his stories he mentioned an actual New
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yorker named preserved Fish. But I think they would have
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: pronounced it preserved fish. But it's preserved fish when you
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: see it written down. Um, And so they were all.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: The other kind of bit of of info that that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: connects them is that they were both stationed at Fort Pike,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I believe around the same time. So they may not
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: have ever met, but um, Washington Irving probably did find
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the names, Like I am using that at some point. Yeah,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: and he's, uh, you know, there've been stories of headless
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: horsemen through the years. I think the Grim Brothers, which
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: we did a pretty great episode on two years ago.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yea was that a two parter. Well, one was on
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the Grim Brothers, the other was on folk Tales in general,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I think yeah, yeah, Um, they wrote about headless horsemen
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: other writers in other countries. I think, um, in Holland
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and I think in Ireland there were other legends of
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: headless horsemen. So it's definitely something that he you know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: he had his influences. Uh. He was also a friend
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of Sir Walter Scott, and in Walter Scott wrote The Chase,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: which was really just sort of a adaptation of a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: German poem The Wild Huntsman by Gottfried Berger. Uh, and
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: this was I think there was a headless horseman in
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that too, right, Yes, there was. He UM had he
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: was chased around by the hounds of hell for all
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: eternity basically, So it wasn't like an entirely new thing.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But one of the things, one of the other things
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that makes it so creepy is that Washington Irving took
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: a piece of actual like history of local New upstate
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: New York history, UM and used that as the basis
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: for his headless horseman. He said, it was a Heshian mercenary,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and there were Hessian mercenaries fighting in the Revolutionary War
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: alongside the English. Wasn't it the English they were fighting with?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I think it was. Yeah. Well, actually they're probably fighting
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: on either side because they were mercenaries and they didn't
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: really care. But um, in this case, there was a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Hessian mercenary who, at the Battle of White Plains around
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Halloween in seventeen seventy six, got his head taken off
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: by a cannon ball. And it was such a remarkable,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: unlikely event that UM people wrote down in their journals
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: about this. I can imagine the entire battle stopped and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: everybody went over and looked because that was just such
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a nuts so thing that happened. But that was an
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: actual event, and Washington Irving used that as the basis
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: for his Headless Horsemen. That's right. Uh. And all of
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: this to say is that maybe one reason why it
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: was so popular to begin with, because he was weaving
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: in these stories of folklore that other people had known,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: all these real places from the region that people knew
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: were real places, and that probably made it just a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: bit more interesting than your average ghost story for the time. Definitely,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And it is a great ghost story, everybody, So go
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: read it. Okay, Okay, are you asking me? Okay, I'm
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: looking for some support here. Yeah, everybody go read it.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Do what Josh says. So, since Chuck said that everybody short,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.