Latest / Ridiculous History / The Hand of Glory, Part 1: A Thief's Theme

Transcript

The Hand of Glory, Part 1: A Thief's Theme · 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. As always, thank you
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Uh we just got done
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: exploring the folklore of which is in broomsticks in a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: very racy way and uh dare we say titilating? I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: don't know, but elating. Maybe there was a lot of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: butt stuff in that episode. We subably should have put
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a specific trigger warning right right. Uh, well, we are dive.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed that one. Because we're keeping the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Halloween Halloween, I like that. Leave it in when we're
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: keeping the Hall the Halloween train rolling and shout out
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: to anybody who just got their great seasonal nickname. Uh
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we talked about giving ourselves spooky nicknames, so I would
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: like to uh get some suggestions for the audience for now.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben. Yes, we talked about this superroducer Casey Pegram.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I think we're all big fans of the Simpsons Halloween
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: special Treehouse of Horror credit names. Isn't one of them
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: just like dead in the middle, you know, like yeah
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: instead of ed oh and okay, so that does have
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to rhyme or be connected in some way, So my
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: middle name is Christian. How about this Noel Satan Brown?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Here we go, There we go. I was thinking I
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: had a list somewhere, but obviously I've lost it. I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: was thinking Casey crypt Keeper, Pegram, Hey, I like the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: crypt keeper. That's pretty good, dude, got the alliteration going.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It also implies that you're sort of an into administrative role, right,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: And I think the rules aren't needs to have alliteration
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: or be a pun or rhyme. I think those are
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: like our three tiers. And I think Noel Satan Brown
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: sounds pretty cool too, like like people's actual name is evil. Anyway,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we're doing we're doing spooky stuff. You can't see our
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: zoom call today, but I am very conscious, gentlemen, of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: your hands because today, uh, this show is all about
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: hands in a very very grizzly way. Because we know
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that if you are a fan of fairy tales or
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: fantasies or horror stories, and you're familiar with the idea
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of magical items, right, didn't we do an episode on
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: grim wise here? Or is that stuff they don't want
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you to know? Yeah, it it all blurs together. Ben.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: That might have been stuff they don't want you to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: know grim Wise not ringing a podcast. Belford. Yeah, well
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get into that in this one. And uh,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want a little bit of a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: precursor or you should go check out The South that
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: wants you to do episode on grim Wise. Yeah. A
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: grimoise a magical work. You know, it's a it's a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: book of spells or a book of incantations, instructions and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: so on, and they're real bent a quick point of order.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: You know, some people say memoir, some people say memoir,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: do some people say grimoire, and some people say grimoire probably, Yeah, definitely.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Casey is nodding. I think that's the thing with Ernest this. Yeah,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I think so. Uh. We also see stories of magical clothing, right, uh.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But as it turns out, these stories aren't just made
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: up by some especially creative authors hallucinating or something. Human
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: history is chock full of real life things that were,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and in some cases still are considered imbued with magic powers.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: In fact, there are so many more than you might assume.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: In today's episode, we're going to explore one of the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: most morbid magical items in human history, the hand of
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: glory doesn't sound so bad. That sounds kind of nice. Yeah,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: it sounds like maybe the hand that makes the winning
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: pitch in a baseball game or something. Years later, there's
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: some guy in a bar somewhere and he's holding up
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: his hand and he's like, this is the hand that
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: won the World Series. The hand of glory. Everything it
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: touches is imbued with like a holy golden light, and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: light does play a role. Like. Okay, this is a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: weirdly specific one. Think of it this way. Let's say
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you are a professional second story artist somewhere in medieval Europe.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I am a professional second story artist. Are you familiar
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: with that? Here? No, it's it's a it's a euphemism
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: for a thief. Oh okay, I don't want to derail
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: it too quickly. But what is that where? What is
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the reference? It's the idea that you would break into
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the second story of a building. Got it? Get a
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: five finger discount with them glory hands there. Yes, let's
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: say that, your second story artist, you're a thief in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: medieval Europe and you are set to pull a life
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: changing heist. There's only one problem. There are dozens of
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: people inside this building and you have to make sure
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: that they do not wake up when you break in,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and that they're asleep for long enough for you to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: get away safely. Luckily, you have a special piece of
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: equipment from a thief, someone who tried a job like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: this weeks, days, or even centuries ago. Yeah, it's true,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and that that piece of kit that the in question
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: here is the hand of Glory, which is a severed, preserved, mummified,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: shriveled hand formerly belonging to an executed criminal, particularly the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: left hand. And we talked about this off Mike last week.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I am left handed, and that I write with my
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: left hand. I do pretty much everything else with my
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: right hand. That has so a few occasions these days
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to actually write hold on, hold on the moment of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: appreciation for the for the sentence I write with my
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: left hand. That's a good one. That's a good one.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That should go on a ridiculous history. Shut that you
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: can buy one day at the public dot com. But uh,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you know, other than like signing signing credit card receipts
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: that don't write very much anymore. Everything's bashed out on
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: this antiquated Apple keyboard that I have that sounds like
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: machine gun fire whenever, right time. But I digress. The
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: point is I think it's interesting that like redheads and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: left handed people somehow are evil or or get lumped
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: into this idea of of being sinister or wicked in
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: some way, right. I mean, just look at the etymology
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: of the word sinister. So the interesting thing here is, yeah,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the left hand was usually preferred for the hand of glory,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: but you'll also see accounts that say it must be
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the pickled, ampute right hand of a criminal. Here's the thing,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in general, if you're looking to make a hand of glory,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: it depends on the crime for which the criminal was executed.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: If they are executed for being a murderer, then you
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: want to find the hand that has done the deed right,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and that's the hand you need. That's the magically powerful hand.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: This concept of cutting off someone's hands and ritualistic lee
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: preserving it for magical purposes dates at least as far
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: back as the sixteen hundreds. That's when we see the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: folklore hand of glory mentioned. It's mentioned in a book.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I thought you guys would love this. It's mentioned in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: a book called The Petite Albert, the Little Albert. It
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: is a grim wi. It is the cutest name for
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a book of dark magic that I've ever seen. Uh.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It's it's a compendium of folk magic, alchemical lore and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: ballistic invocations and enchantments and so on. From France, and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: this was published. It was distributed in different languages across Europe.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: The thing about this book is our pal little Albert
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: has a step by step guide on creating a hand
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: of glory. Boy does he ever? And it's delightfully detailed. Um.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: It goes as as as such, take the right hand
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: or the left hand that he doesn't care, he doesn't,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to have a preference, you know, why not? Sure?
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Why not take the right or left hand of a
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: felon who is hanging from a gibbet beside a highway,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: which I assume is sort of like a pike or
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you know, a pole. It's the thing that people are
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: hung from, our hangs from. Yeah, they would need a
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: little crane bit at the top right to allow for
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: proper hanging. Um, So, a gibbet beside a highway. Apparently
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: highways were allousy with these things back in the day,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: just hanged criminal old bodies, just littering the side of
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the road, wrap it in part of a funeral paul,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: which is sort of muslin kind of right, like a cheesecloth,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: almost material. Uh, and so wrapped. Squeeze it well, squeeze
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: it well. Then put it in an earthenware vessel with
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: zimmit niter, salt and long peppers. Um the whole well powdered.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming night is sort of like nitrate like things
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that are like a preservative. Right, Yeah, exactly, potassium nitrate.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So we've got our marinade here. And uh. The author
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of Little Albert says, you leave it in the vessel
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: and fall a fortnight. Then take it out and expose
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it to full sunlight during the dog days, the hot
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: sultry days of July and early August, until it becomes
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: quite dry. If the sun is not strong enough, then
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: put it in an oven with their and vervaine. Next,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: make a candle from the fat of a gibbeted felon,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: virgin wax, sesame and pony p O n I E.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: And use the hand of Glory as a candlestick to
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: hold this candle when lighted. And then those in every
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: place into which you go with this baneful instrument shall
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: remain motionless. I love the word vervane. Put it in
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: an oven with fern and vervane. I'm assuming it's another
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: kind of herb of some sort. This all sounds the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: ways is described with, you know, the long peppers and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the herbs and spices. Doesn't sound too bad. Yeah. Also,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the turns of phrase here are are epic, gibbeted, give
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: me a break, virgin wax, sesame, and and pony. I
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: don't know what pony is, but it sounds really whimsical. Yeah,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: we'll get to this. Uh. It is interesting because there
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: are vagaries in this description, kind of like George Washington's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: weird instructions for his Uh what was that eggnog? Eggnog?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: A boozy, boozy eggnog? Um. Yeah, it's almost like his
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: magic stuff isn't an exact science. Oh wow, how could
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you say something so brave? Ye's so controversial? Hot take?
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I know. So what was the point? Okay? What was like?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: What did this magical, disgusting, creepy mummy hand give the bearer?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It's a great question. In Old European folklore, the hand
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of glory was specifically useful for thieves. It functioned as
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a kind of grizzly skeleton key. So one of the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: powers was attributed to it was the idea that I
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: could unlock any door it came across. But that wasn't
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the main power right way, Like, so do you jam
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: it's little mummy finger into the lock? Unclear? Uncle? You
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: hold it up, so you have to light it somehow,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: whether you're lighting the tips of the fingers or whether
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you have it holding that candle made of human fat.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: The idea, I think is that you hold it to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the door, and the doors like oh tight, and then opens.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I definitely now that you're staying like this,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen a finger candle mummy thing
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: as set dressing and like Tales from the Crypt or
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: something like that, or some spooky laboratory scene, you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: or a wizard's lair or what have you. But here's
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the thing. Yeah, to unlock the full potential of the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: hand of Glory, you have to kind of that. There's
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: some really specific um orders of operation to the whole procedure.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Earlier we mentioned the basic criteria was that it came
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: from a hanged criminal um presumably if you just happened
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: upon this hanged criminal. You wouldn't really know what crime
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: this this person committed, so a little extra knowledge goes
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a long way, as we know. So we've talked about
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the basics of of of a hand of glory, uh
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: from little Albert you know his his was pretty STOs.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I would say that's the most like kind of one
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: oh one version of of making a hand of glory.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: But it turns out to really get the full you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: bang for your your morbid buck. There's a kind of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: an order of operations, sort of a ghastly combo of sorts.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Right Ben, you found this story, Um, I think it
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: makes sense for you to kind of walk us through
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: some of the options here, uh, and some of the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: more elaborate versions of this set device. Ah. Yes, yes,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you do have more than one option with a hand
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of glory. You know. It's kind of like how there
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: are different flavors of Eminem's. They're still they're all still Eminem's,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: but they have, you know, different strokes for different folks.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: You could have a hand of glory wherein that human
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: fat candle is somehow placed on the hand or embedded
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: in it, and in that version the hand has the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: power or to render everyone who sees it motionless other
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: than presumably the magician of criminal holding it. And then
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in another version, just the human fat is not good enough,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: you also have to take the dead criminals hair and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: use that as the wick of the candle. In that version,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: when you burn this candle, you get a light that's
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: invisible to everyone else other than the person holding the hands.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: There's also the idea that you could just like the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: tips of the fingers that would provide the same powers,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: but you know, the individual mileage may vary. That's right,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and the fingertip light version is the is the is
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the one that I kind of picture is like set
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: dressing material for, you know, some kind of like macab
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: b movie or something like that, like an Alvira type situation.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Band back to the human hair real quick. Uh, that's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: kind of gross, Not that any of the stuff isn't gross,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: but I mean, what do you like you wax it
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: up a little bit so it sort of burns slower,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: because in my experience, human hair just kind of goes
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: up in a poof you know, I don't know that
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it would slow burn unless you treated it in some way,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: maybe like I said, coded it in wax like you
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: would a wick. That's smart. I like that your solution
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: oriented here. I also think it's hilarious that that's the
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: line for you. Uh for me, the human human hair
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: just smells terrible when it burns. You know, it does
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: smell cerebral. Yeah, Like, I can't imagine that human fat
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: smells particularly appetizing when you burn it. Either. These are
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: questions that are pal Little Albert does not explain. I'm
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: having such a hard time saying uh, Petite Albert or
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: little Albert without doing a baby voice. It's just the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: most ridiculous name for like a necronomicon book, right, there's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: zero gravitas. It makes me think a little Abner or
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Prince Albert, perhaps two very different things, different Alberts. Yeah,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it's true. Um, and again we've got a couple of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: different potential powers that come along with this thing. I
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: love the idea of the skeleton key. I don't quite
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: understand the logistics of it. Does it magically just give you,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: like mystical lock picking powers or do you actually cram
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the finger into the lock? Remember that movie House? I
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: always remember seeing the box of it. I never saw it, actually,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I've seen clips and it's very bad. But the box
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: freaked me out when I was a kid because there's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: this severed hand reaching for a doorbell. Yeah. No, there's
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: one with a key, though there's there's there's like there's
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a sequel where the finger is a key and it's
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: going into the lock or something like that. Maybe I'm
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: making that up now. They made like they made like
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: four or five House movies, and exactly I never saw
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the original because it was rated R and I was
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: too young to in it. But House Too was like
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: PG or PG thirteen, so I watched that when it
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: was terrible. That's pretty forward thinking. I didn't think they
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: did PG thirteen horror movies until more like the the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Japanese horror reboot period glory days of the early office
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: they did. I mean, there's a great calculation here. This
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: may be more appropriate Free Guys, other show movie crush,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: but uh, there's quite a successful franchising trend in which
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: you start off with straight up horror and then as
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you get to the sequels, it becomes increasingly camp increasingly comedic, right,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: evil dead, And I feel like that's what happened with House,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: because it seemed like it was more of a legit
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: horror movie maybe the first one, but the second one
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: was just kind of all over the place in silly,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: so that that could have been what happened there. Also
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: there's a hand of glory in Angel Hart, which I
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: think I mentioned uh in a previous episode um with
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Mickey Rourke and Robert de Niro as a very like
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: as the devil who went to a nail salon basically yeah,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and he's got a really on the nose like human
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: name that basically means the devil is it Is it
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: like an anagram or something really like obvious and dumb
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: like that. It's almost as bad as like Mr Natas
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: or something. By the way that the house box it
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is ringing the doorbell, but you can see in my
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: memory of a child sings as a shop you could
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: very easily mistake it for a finger going into a
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: lock because it's sort of a profile shot of this
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: like severed hand. And now that I'm looking at it, it
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: it is ringing like an old timey doorbell, but it
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: also kind of looks like a door knob and the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: finger is bony on the tip, and it makes me
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: think of like a key situation. So the cover for
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: House too. It is a key, So I think you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you're remembering it properly. You just saw how she instead. Okay,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you guys, I just I just remember
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Robert de Niro's character's name, and Angel Heart is Louis Cipher. Yes, yes,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that's Brutal Cipher. And that's right up there with like.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: And here's our newest visitor from Europe, Professor A. Lucard. Yes,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: sad evil, Professor Thaddius Evil. I think it's unfair that
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you're accusing Mr Antagonists of no foul play of some sort.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: How dare you? You've seen the hand of Glory before
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in fiction, even if you didn't know what it was.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: It's in great comic books like The Invisibles, which I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: highly recommend. It's clearly that cover of House is kind
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: of a call back to it. Right, it's a severed
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: hand attempting to open a door. Uh. And of course
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: many of our fellow ridiculous historians in the audience today
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: are shouting, I know, like a particular thing where I've
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: seen this Angel Hart or of course the Wickerman seventy
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: three version. But this has some other oddly specific powers
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to right, there's one other one that we should mention absolutely,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And I was actually getting to it earlier when we
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: got derailed by the Whole House video box finger key
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: uh child memory discussion. But um, one of the other
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: powers is this notion that the hand could uh put
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: everyone in a house into a deep magical slumber or
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: even something like a coma. And that was so that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you could go in and do your dirty work and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you know, steal the silver or whatever. Yeah, it's a
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: bit like the broomstick question. It sounds normal if you're
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: used to it, but if you're coming into this new
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: it's weirdly specific. How on earth does someone conceive of this?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's a tricky question, and the answer might be found
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in etymology. There's an etymologist named Walter Skeet who says
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the actual phrase hand of Glory might be an example
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of what we call folk etymology. Fulk etymology is like
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: when you over time see a word or phrase change.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Because somewhere in the Great Telephone Game of His three
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: People replaced an unfamiliar word or phrase with a more
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: familiar one, and Casey, I thought you would especially like this.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: The phrase itself derives from a French phrase, uh manda glory,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: which is, yeah, that's what I was seeing, like Mandel
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Laguire or something like that. Exactly. It's a corruption of
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: man drake. And there's a there's a book called Leechdoms,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: which is a much less cute name than Little Albert,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that describes a man drake as shining by night altogether
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: like a lamp. And so the phrase got corrupted into
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the English phrase hand of glory. But even if that
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: was just like an an old typo or an old mispronunciation,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: people believed it and they started really making these things,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: because it turns out human beings have attributed magical powers
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to the hands of the dead for a long long
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Dare I say, inglorious time? Yeah? And and and and folks,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: my remember I think man drake swear in Harry Potter,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but also in uh Pan's Labyrinth there was a whole
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: thing where you put a man drake root into like
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a bowl of milk and put it under somebody's bed,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and little and a pregnancy here. So there's all kinds
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of that. This is very similar to that type of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: magical thinking, you know, or if you you take a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: turnip and peel it using a rusty you know, spoon
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: once belonging to a hedge night or something like that,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: and then you put it in a mason jar. This
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: mixing all this stuff up from history. None of these
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: things existed together at the same time. You get what
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. But the name aside. It turns out that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: humans have been fascinated with all of this type of stuff, folklore,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: magical powers, the hands of the dead, all of this
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: for a very very long time. UH. In Sharia law
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: UH in particular, and in medieval Europe UM. Publicly amputating
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a criminal's body part, often the one used to commit
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the crime, was a particularly potent form of punishment. It's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: certainly sent a message and the pain was part of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the punishment, but also the it marked you. It was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: like a scarlet letter of sorts um, so people would
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: know that you were a thief or or what have you,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and it was a warning to any other people in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the crowd who may have considered violating the laws. This
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: is very very old. It dates back to what the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: first written code of laws that we know of, the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: code of Hammurabi, that's the Babylonian code of laws that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: dates back to ancient Mesopotamia. What we call Iraq today.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: The sixth Babylonian king Haberabi wrote down the set of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: laws that dates somewhere back, like into seventeen seventy two
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: b c e. Somewhere around there. It's when the oldest
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: translated writings in the war Old and has two two laws,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: some of which are very very harsh, uh. And it
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: has scaled penalties. One of those things is the famous
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: or infamous eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So you steal the bread, the hand that has committed
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the offense is removed. And we see these commonalities some
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of the same things you're talking about, the idea of
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: punishment of like for like, and the belief and sympathetic magic.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: The logic here is what better way to perform a
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: successful robbery than to enlist the help of a former thief.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I have a huge problem with this logic, you guys,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: because technically, aren't you getting the help of a very
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: unsuccessful thief, a thief so unsuccessful that they got caught
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and executed. Yeah, it's true. I didn't really think about that, Ben,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But you have a good point there. I don't know,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't necessarily have to do with the skill
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of the individual. It's just more what they represent. You know,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a out of this is all about optics, right, It's
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: all about representation or the idea of a you know,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Let's say you needed like a squirrel or something as
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: an ingredient for some sort of potion. It wouldn't necessarily
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: have to be like the most virile squirrel in the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: entire universe. Just a squirrel will do. Any thief will
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: do for the situation. Skills be damned. Yeah, yeah, I
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: mean that's definitely, Uh, that's definitely the approach that of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: folks were taking when they were practicing this magic and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: without spoiling it. We do have some stuff that we'll
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: get to towards the end of today's episode that shows
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you what makes the Hand of Glory different from so
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: many other grizzly stories of magical items. But back to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: those creepy hands, so little Albert's helpful this aside. Uh,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of debate about the instructions even
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: when the book first came out. Go back to the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: word pony po in I e. For instance, does that
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: word refer to horse dung or is it a specific
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: type of sesame? People were still we're fighting over the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: interpretation of the original French. Was it due sesame at
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the Laponi, which is of course, or was it do
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: sime de la uh sesame of Lapland? Two very different things.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely le anymore towards the horse. Uh excrements here Lapland?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: How does that even make sense? How could you use
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: lab the whole of Lapland in your recipe? Um? What
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: one tiny backtrack? I just want to bring this up
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: blast from the past. Didn't Josh Clark used to have
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the nickname Josh Creepy hands Clark? Did I make that up?
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, the quister, used to call him Josh Creepy
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: hands Clark? That was that was probably my fault. Actually,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: really well, you know I am with nicknames. Oh yeah,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: but where does this come from? Though? But it does
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: he particularly odd looking hands? Are they small? Uh? I
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: can't remember. This dates back to possibly the brain Stuff days.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So when I was running the writing side of brain
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Stuff videos and we had a bunch of a bunch
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: of our colleagues coming in as host Casey you and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I were working on this in the past. Uh. I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: also read a lot of the YouTube comments along with
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: our pal Lauren Vogel Bomb and we would have to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: respond to some of these questions and such. And one
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of my favorite weird questions was on a video that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Josh did one time again years and years ago, where
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: they said, uh, how come his hands are so weird
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: but his arms are normal? And I still don't know
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: what they meant by that. I got it, Okay, he
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: does have weird hands, he has normal, beautiful person hands.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Just making sure I I'm sorry, it just came to mind,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: um talking about all these this creepy hand stuff. Well,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in the words of Britney Spears, oops, we did it again,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: trying to think of a severed hand pun for Britney
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Spears lyric, it's not coming to mind to media. But
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: played with my hands with my heart's Backstreet boys. Oh yeah,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: that's right, stop playing games with my hand. There we go,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: not Britney Spears, but it'll do, it'll do. Got a
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: hand to do your casey uh? This is this has
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: turned into a two part episode. We've got some more
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: stuff on the way. We've got some surprising revelations in
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the modern day, and we're just scratching the surface of
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: morbid magical items. This one in particular yep scratching the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: surface with a creepy, cursed mummy hand. That's what we're doing.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: But we'll be back to do more surface scratching. That
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: sounds weird, but I'm gonna leave it um. In the meantime,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: you can check us out on social media where Ridiculous
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: History on Instagram and Twitters and Facebook and all the things. Uh.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: We like to point people to the Ridiculous Historians are
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: fan page dare we say community on Facebook where you
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: too can share silly history memes and have conversations with
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: your fellow ridiculous historians. Yes, yes, we'd love to hear
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: from you. Uh. We also like to give some shout
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: outs thinks as always to Alex the Abomination Williams of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: doing it, we're doing nicknames who composed our track thanks
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: to Casey the crypt keeper pegram huge thanks to Christopher
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: hack Saw hasiotis uh here in ghostly spirit looming over
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: us like some sort of sinister fog, and uh we
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: were we were looking for a good nickname for Eve's Casey.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: You knocked it out of the park. Just you can't
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: go wrong with the alteration. So he's Jacqueliner and Jeff
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: coat and who is Hallow? Wayne? We kept that one.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I love it. I'm I'm using it. I mean, you know,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's like you've seen that the new
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Adam Sandler movie, Hubie, Well, I want to see it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I'ven't watched. I watched it. It was you know, dumb
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: but cute and entertaining. I very much enjoyed it. Actually,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's you know, just dirt stupid. But uh,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: he's he's like a kind of he's basically the water
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: boy who really likes Halloween but uh inexplicably is terrified
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: of every part of it but loves it. But like
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you know, it goes into like existential fits of horror
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: if someone like spooks him or like where's creepy makeup?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And yet he adores Halloween, but he's more in it
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: for like, you know, keeping the kids safe. It's a
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: little confusing the character. But that could be a Halloweyn,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: you know, someone who really just digs Halloween, like David
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: s Pumpkins. You know, yeah, I'm thinking. Also maybe Wayne's
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: World special Hallo, Wayne's World. That's good. Also true story.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Apparently Adam Sandler wants to take all of his characters
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and build out a shared cinematic universe with him. Does
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that mean like there's multiple Adam Sandler characters that exist
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: in the same world, all like played by Adam Sandler.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: The man has the range for it. You certainly could
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: call it that. Uh yeah, yeah yeah. So maybe it's like,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: you know, the nutty professor kind of vibe. But good
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: luck to you, Adam. Uh, we'll we'll see you on
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the flip side, thinks. Also, of course, to Jonathan Jonathan
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Strickland a k a. The Spookster, thank you. Sorry, I'm sorry.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I thought no, I thought you were going somewhere. I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be Jonathan Strickland, the Spookster something else.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I've completely left you hanging on that one.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Then I was, I was thinking Jonathan Scarecrow Strickland. Yeah,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: also an option. He is a little gaunt and uh
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and and sinister. I will say that We'll see you
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: next time, folks to talk about more spooky, creepy hand
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: stuff on Ridiculous History. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.