368: Indian Fairy Tales: Eye Love You

This week on Myths and Legends, it's a story from India, and you'll see how you can get unfathomably rich selling dead pigeons and how to build the back cave with unlimited rice.

The creature this week is all-you-can-eat ham sandwiches.

This is Myths and Legends, episode 368.

I love you.

This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore.

Some are incredibly popular stories you might think you know, but with surprising origins.

Others are tales that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen.

Today's story is from India.

It was a fairy tale collected by British folklorist Joseph Jacobs in the late 19th century.

So, unfortunately, it's not super descriptive on places or time periods.

In that way, it's kind of like most fairy tales, but I do wish we had more info.

We'll jump in with a king about to leave on a hunt, but first, he has to say goodbye.

Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you.

The king said, I love you to his queens.

All seven of them.

A sigh followed.

A sigh that they all knew the reason for, but he was going to tell them about it anyway.

I'm really glad you're all such an amicable group, the king started.

There's no jealousy, no scheming.

They all wanted what was best for one another, and they were all on Team Air.

But Team Air was without its MVP.

Because I don't have an heir, despite seven wives, the king said.

The women looked to each other and didn't need to state the obvious that when you marry seven women of various ages, backgrounds, and families, and none of them conceive, it started to seem like maybe the common denominator was to blame.

They did not say this, though.

They had all resigned themselves to the outcome that if it happened for one of them, fantastic.

If not, then at least it wasn't a Henry VIII situation, and they weren't with a guy who would behead them if they didn't produce an heir.

They said, heir question aside, they did want to talk to him about something.

He was going hunting today, right?

I'm a king.

What else am I going to do?

Govern?

Psh.

They said, um, okay.

But if he goes hunting, please just don't go north.

He asked, uh, why not?

When someone has a dream about someone else, it's a curiosity.

When another person has that same dream, it's a little weird.

When the king's seven wives all had the dream the previous night where evil befell him on a hunting trip in the north, and then he informed them that he was taking a hunting trip in the north, that's maybe worth considering.

The king was more in a getting them to let him leave on his hunting trip mood and less of a hearing what they said mood, so he promised.

Yes, he would hunt in the south, no worries, goodbye.

He wasn't five steps out the door when one of his wise men came running up to him.

The king tried to ignore him, but when the man shouted, Your prayers have been heard.

One of your queens will bear a son.

The king spun on a heel.

That that's it, the wise man said.

He was going to have a son.

Didn't know who would conceive it, didn't know when, but yeah, son.

Despite the vagaries, it was still good news that it was definitely probably going to happen in the near or far future for someone married to the king.

So the hunting trip was now a celebratory hunting trip, except three days in and no dead things.

The king didn't feel like celebrating.

They barely saw any animals, and when they did, their bowstrings snapped or their shots went wide.

Their horses died underneath them.

When they moved on from the south to the east and the west, their luck wasn't much better.

It was only when the group moved north, the king feeling like there was something he was supposed to remember about that particular cardinal direction in hunting, but whatever.

That was where they saw the white hind.

A white hind is like legendary king catnip.

It's that pie smell from the old Looney Tunes cartoons where it picks up the dog or wolf and they follow it without even thinking, the king, not considering that it was suspicious that a white hind with silver hooves and golden horns existed at all in the area that all of his wives told him to avoid, gave chase.

Now, they go into details for the hunt and it's largely irrelevant, except to show how much the king should not have been hunting this hind.

It ended with the men closing around it in a semicircle, with no chance for the animal to escape, but then it leapt clean over his horse.

Now, the king wasn't much of a reader, so he didn't know that you never follow the white hind into the forest unless you really want to be lured into a trap or, I guess, leave Narnia.

So when he saw the miserable hovel and the elderly woman sitting by the spinning wheel, he really had no awareness of the story he was in.

He should have guessed when the elderly woman called out to her stunning daughter, who was transforming from deer to human.

But by then, the actual witch had already worked her literal magic, and he was in love, which was why he agreed to marry her she said that the wise man spoke of her she would be his wife and she would bear his son but she didn't want to be one of eight she wanted to be one of one so to marry her he would have to make room in the palace the king paused at that shaking away the enchantment he He didn't think he could kill them.

He loved all seven of his wives.

They had an understanding and a weirdly supportive thing going on.

The white witch laughed.

Oh, she didn't want the king to kill his wives.

No, no, no, that would be horrible.

Simply scoop out their eyeballs, make a necklace from 14 eyes, and present it to her mother as a bribe price.

Then throw them into a forgotten area of the dungeon for the rest of their lives.

The king, once again under the enchantment, breathed.

Okay, good.

He thought he was gonna have to do something horrible.

Yeah, this thing is really unpleasant and wet, and the king paused as the young woman's mother took the silver chain that pierced the 14 eyeballs and put it around her neck.

Oh, just gonna wear it like jewelry then.

That was

really something.

At that point, the king really regretted piercing the eyeballs so that they were looking out from the necklace.

That was just off-putting.

And all this had to be magic, because I really don't know how you rationalize that away.

Leaving his soon-to-be mother-in-law rocking in the woods, the king took the daughter home, where, marrying her, he set her up in the house of his seven

ex-wives.

Not sure if they divorced, but in a time where the king had seven wives, I'm not sure that's really necessary.

The palace, the clothes, and the enslaved women to wait upon her, the story says she, quote, really had everything even a witch could desire, even the deaths of her enemies.

It really didn't make sense to anyone in the king's inner circle that the queen should take command of the dungeon, and it annoyed them that she turned out to be the progressive type, slowly shuttering the dungeons and having portions walled off in favor of rehabilitation that she also handled personally on the outskirts of town without witnesses.

Someone might have raised the question of, um,

what about the seven women who were kept in the dungeon?

You know, the former queens that still had a lot of friends and supporters?

But assured that they wouldn't just leave people in there and that someone was surely handling that, it was all good.

It was dropped by everyone but the witch queen, who put up enough walls that no one would ever hear their cries.

They already hadn't been able to hear their cries, though.

Because a crying baby, that's a distinct sound that I feel, as humans, we're wired for that to be attention-grabbing.

No one heard the baby, though, born to the youngest of the wives, and all the women kept him quiet.

That became less and less of a concern, though, as the walls went up.

Being a parent is challenging.

Being a parent in a forgotten dungeon, probably more so.

I thankfully don't have experience with that.

One perk, though, would probably be the babysitting.

Another is that, no matter how unruly or active the child, they're not going anywhere.

Because, you know, the prison.

Except that one morning, all the mothers awoke to fresh fruit, vegetables, cooked meat.

They devoured the food.

They were saved.

It was a miracle.

It wasn't.

Kids will find a way to mess with stuff.

It can be a little annoying when you just want to keep your Batman comic collection just so, but kind of great if that toddler's hobby is slowly clawing away at one of the holes in the brick and mortar until that hole is big enough to fit a toddler, and then said toddler wanders out into the streets, is so cute that people shower it with fruits and vegetables and cooked meat, and then he takes all those things back to his seven moms in the darkness.

Eventually, this moved beyond a vague notion of, my moms are starving and I want them to not die, to actively taking care of the seven women.

He made the hole bigger, and even though the women of the city had been beloved in their time, years had passed and no one had seen them.

The city, their servants and former friends, all just assumed that the former queens had all gone to live in a nunnery upstate and got to romp and play with all the other former queens, like the current queen explained.

The little prince didn't exist, so that's why no one gave a second glance to the pre-teen who hunted in the woods for his mothers.

Since he was no longer cute enough to garner free sweetmeats and wheat cakes, he had to work, but he didn't mind it.

One day, though, he passed a tower by the edge of the wall.

the tower where, unbeknownst to him, his moms had once lived, and where the white witch lived in, quote, wicked splendor and magnificence.

Looking out her window, she saw him,

the kid,

and she knew.

How did she know?

Well, some stories are pretty clear that royalty is beautiful, and probably the kid was handsome.

Also, it should come as no surprise that these stories were often collected and told for royalty.

Maybe it was Monty Python logic that he was the only one not covered in, well, you know.

Also, it could have just been magic.

Regardless, the White Witch seethed.

He threatened everything.

Something had to be done about this boy, who somehow had survived.

Hi, hi, child, little, little boy.

The young man paused, picking up the pigeon he had just shot.

He looked up to the tower.

Um, hi?

May I buy that pigeon from you, child?

Not realizing that money can be exchanged for goods and services and that the gold she was offering could buy many dead pigeons, the boy looked down at the bird in his hand.

He needed the pigeon to feed his seven mothers.

If there had been any question, that only confirmed it.

He was the child of the queens, and they were still alive.

Seven mothers, the queen gasped.

She looked to the boy.

Had his mothers been blinded?

The young man thought that that was pretty specific, but yes, they had.

And would he like to get their eyes back for them?

The boy, and I didn't know that that was a thing that was possible, but he imagined they might like that.

Yes.

Give me the pigeon and I will show you where to find their eyes, the queen said, inexplicably still going for that pigeon.

When she wants something, she's gonna get it, even if it's a dead bird.

Even though he hadn't cleared it with them, the young man figured that his moms probably would want their eyes more than a single pigeon split seven ways.

So, when the woman descended the tower, he traded her the bird for the slip of paper.

He opened it up and froed his brow at the inscrutable words that, to everyone else who could read, read, kill the bearer at once and sprinkle his blood like water.

Of course, being raised in the dark by seven mothers who themselves could not see, the young man had never learned to read.

The queen, the white witch, told the young man where to go in the forest to find the witch with eyeballs around her neck.

She would follow the queen's bidding.

And give me the eyeballs, the prince intended to finish her sentence for her.

There was a long pause and

give me the eyeballs?

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I have to get to the witch in the woods to get eyeballs for my seven moms is probably a phrase that could get you arrested, maybe.

It depends on the kingdom and how dangerous you are acting, but when stopped and questioned by guards on the road and the next kingdom over, the young man explained the situation with his seven moms and he was detained because he was getting married.

Kind of.

Whether because she understood fatalism and knew that there was a prophecy that she would marry the man that had seven mothers, or she had a very specific type, The princess of that land was waiting for a man with seven mothers to make his way through the kingdom.

Everyone knew about this.

Everyone thought it was a stall tactic on the part of the princess to not marry someone she didn't like, but they humored her until her dad would eventually grow tired of the whole thing and make her marry anyway, until the young man walked through the front door of the palace on his stated quest.

Well, walked is a generous term.

The guards were a bit overzealous and he was dragged through.

But with a hasty doctor visit and profuse apologies, the kid was set right.

Sitting down with his new fiancé, he explained that he would love to marry her.

He was just on a quest to save his moms from the witch.

The princess had a healthy suspicion that the boy did not, and also the ability to read, so she asked to see the message.

She held it up.

Oh, it's a little crumpled and slightly got a little bit of blood smearing it from the guard's greeting.

She would have her servants clean it off for him while still maintaining the seal of the queen's ring.

They, of course, changed it to read, Take care of this lad and give him all he desires.

My daughter wrote this?

The witch in the woods studied the paper.

The young man shook his head.

He didn't know who the woman's daughter was.

The queen wrote this, though.

The witch of the woods shrugged.

It was her girl's seal.

She meant the queen's seal, not her daughter's.

So what did the kid want?

The young man said he wanted the eyeballs, and the witch of the woods shrugged and unclasped them.

Those eyeballs looked remarkably good for essentially 15 years sitting in the open air.

I lost one last week, so there are only 13 there, the witch of the woods actually said in the original story, and she apologized as she handed the very squishy jewelry to the young man.

Sorry, mom, I'll be your little eye, though, the kids said to the youngest queen, his actual biological mom, when he came up an eye short.

It was a nice gesture, but it wasn't an actual eye.

The next day, the young man returned to hunting pigeons on the outskirts of the city.

His moms had to eat, after all, and he found that same nice woman who now seemed oddly confused as to why he was breathing.

The young man had not had a lot of social exposure, and so didn't know that this was a strange observation to make and speak aloud, but thanked the stranger for all her wonderful gifts, mainly the 13 squishy eyeballs.

Clenching her jaw so much that she might crack a tooth, the queen said that she was so happy, but getting his moms their eyes back was really only the start.

Did they want a cow whose milk flowed all day and makes a pond as big as a kingdom?

The young man didn't note that that didn't really sound like a pond anymore.

It's more like a sea, but yeah, unlimited milk?

Sure.

He got a pot shard that read, seriously, kill this kid this time, mom, but that he thought was a coupon for a lifetime supply of cow's milk in exchange for a dead pigeon, and traveled to the witch of the woods.

After a stop-off to see his fiancée, who was once again very interested in the message, the young man was on his way.

The witch looked at the message, looked at the young man, looked back at the message.

How old are you?

She asked.

He said, 15.

The witch shook her head.

That must be the reason.

All right.

The message says to give you whatever you asked for, and I don't want to get on your mom's bad side.

So here's how to get a cow with endless milk.

A few days later, when the kids spotted the cow in the midst of 18,000 demons, all standing knee-deep in a basically a giant kiddie pool full of milk, he began to wonder just how much they needed that milk.

Still, he knew how to get past this.

He only needed to have faith in the woman who had worn his mother's eyes for the past 15 years and also lost one of them.

The gaze of the demons began to find him all around the cavern, and saliva dripped in the milk around their knees.

And the young man gasped.

He had to sing, or rather whistle.

Yes, the story tells us that there's a simple tune that you can whistle, one that's so terrible that it makes demons instantly flee from you.

It doesn't tell you what that tune is,

might be kind of helpful.

I won't be mean and reference a terrible real-life band because I'm super out of touch musically now.

The boy took a few deep breaths when he was finished making his way to the center of the pool.

To the demon that was side-eyeing him, but who kept milking his cow, the boy grimaced, okay, just like he'd rehearsed with the woman in the woods.

I'm gonna skin you now.

The demon at the center said the boy wanted to do what now?

Skin you the boy brought out the dagger, inspecting it.

The demon said that he could see the boy meant business, because that was one evil-looking dagger.

The boy looked down at the dagger, all curved and glowing red in spots.

Skulls on the hilt and faces screaming on the wide part of the blade.

It did look pretty evil.

The kid didn't, though, and he was clearly uncomfortable holding a dagger to the neck of anyone.

Even Jogi, the king of all the demons who sat milking his cow day and night.

Indra wants wants your skin, the kid shrugged.

Indra was making a new drum, and the demon's skin was known to be tough.

Indra is the king of the Devas in Hinduism.

He fights evil, he's a god of order.

We don't need to super go into it other than to make it clear that the king of all the demons really wanted to literally save his own skin.

The boy looked back and forth.

Hey, maybe they could

um

work something out.

Notice by uh how high-pitched my voice is getting that I'm fishing to see if you'd be open to a bribe?

The demon pointed to himself and said, um, demon.

So yes, he was definitely receptive to a bribe.

100%.

He loved being evil.

It went pretty much exactly how you'd think, with the young man wading through the pool of milk, cow trailing behind him, and the demon happy with the deal he just made.

I like to think that as the young man and his seven moms grew richer and richer with their cow's endless milk, the kid had the secret exit for the dungeon he clawed out when he was a toddler revamped.

So it was something like the bat cave.

Like maybe he jumped into a waterfall or had a switch in a statue open up a bookcase or something.

Regardless, the seven women stayed secret.

And even though they were rich enough to afford to buy anything they wanted, and the kid didn't need to hunt pigeons, he just, I don't know, loved killing pigeons, I guess.

The queen asked a lot of strange non-sequiturs like, why have you not been murdered by the witch in the woods yet, like all the messages told her to do.

The kid did not get her weird sense of humor, but he was totally interested in the unlimited rice on offer.

By now, the young man saw the benefit of stacking his trips, and he visited his fiancée on the way to the witch of the woods.

She, again, edited the message, but this time wrote, Yet again, give this lad all he requires, for his blood shall be as your blood.

A million-fold rice, huh?

The witch of the woods said.

Yeah, she could do it.

He remembered the song so bad that even the demons couldn't handle it, right?

That was good, because this time he was going to have to walk through a crowd of 18 million demons while singing it, so

hydrate.

They congregated in a rice field where, at the center, the tallest spike, if brought home and planted, would grow instantly and endlessly.

Thing was, though, The young man couldn't look back.

Once he had the rice plant, if he looked back, he would be be instantly immolated, turned to ash, not even any teeth.

She didn't know why, it wasn't her rule, though she wished she had that ability.

The young man remembered the evil-looking dagger and once again questioned if this woman might actually be evil?

The actual plucking of the rice was pretty easy, and the demons snarling and saying evil things was not welcome, but it was expected, and it didn't deter the young man from his goal.

It wasn't the demons on the long walk back out of the rice fields, but the other voices that gave him pause.

Pluck me too.

The young man stopped singing for a bit and listened.

Smaller voices were calling out to him, Yeah, pluck me.

Pluck you?

No, pluck me.

That one came from his feet, and he had to see what in the world was talking to him.

They were rice plants, calling out to him to get plucked.

I, too, would be curious if voices were calling out for me to pluck them as I was walking through a a field.

As the old saying goes, curiosity immolated the child and the young man burst, screaming, into flames.

The demons, very into this particular type of content, clapped and cheered as the young man crumbled to ash.

And that's how he died.

He is actually dead.

We'll finish the story, but that will, once again, be right after this.

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A few weeks later, in that very same rice field, the Witch of the Woods looked down with a sigh.

Just what she thought.

That's why she brought the dustpan.

She set down her Bluetooth speaker.

It was, yes, a tiny tooth that she gave sentience to so it could sing the song that repelled the demons.

And yeah, I made that joke.

When the young man didn't come around a fourth time, the witch of the woods feared the worst.

Not her mistaken grandson being dead, but her daughter, the white witch, being angry that the grandson was dead.

So for nearly three days, she pushed aside 18 million demons to find the ash heap in the demon crowd.

She scooped it up, gathered the rice plant, and took them all back home.

There she mixed the dust with water, kneaded it into a paste, formed it in the shape of a teen boy, and put her blood in his mouth and blew on him.

The young man gasped awake.

Don't you disobey orders again, grumbled the old woman, or next time I'll leave you alone.

Now be off, before I repent of my kindness.

The young man, I guess, ran away naked because his clothes were burned up and the story doesn't really address that.

Once he returned for a change of clothes, he and his moms got to work using their milk money to buy a field in which they planted the million-fold rice, which gave them unlimited instant rice.

They became incredibly rich and, seeing as they wanted for nothing, the young man could finally marry the princess because, in stories where people get married the day or week they meet, a two-month engagement was absolutely ridiculously long.

So the young man and his seven moms lived in the kingdom of his now wife.

They got married in an extravagant wedding, and the young man, well, the young man was happy.

As he laid in bed with his new wife, he reflected on his life and how, through hard work and perseverance, he overcame every obstacle set before him, and now he could live in peace.

The

nope, nope, sorry, sorry, I can't do it.

The princess, the young man's new wife, said, sitting up in bed and crossing her arms.

The young man said, but the message that you can let the past go, w wasn't that a good one?

The princess laughed.

Uh, no.

The white witch, the queen, plucked out his mom's eyes and left them for dead.

She tried to kill the young man multiple times.

No, she didn't deserve forgiveness.

The princess wanted the white witch's story to end with her dead, buried in a field used for farming, her body plowed over over indiscriminately and covered in manure.

The husband, the young man, grimaced.

That was really specific and dark.

The princess nodded, oh, oh, she had ideas.

This was happening.

She rose and got to work.

The young man and his seven moms looked around the palace.

Cool, cool palace?

The dowry went to the palace the princess had built, and it was a nice palace.

The moms, though, couldn't believe it.

The palace looked just like the one they had lived in when they had all been wives of the king.

The prince nodded.

Ah, that was why those guys had been relentlessly interviewing his moms for months and months about every detail of the old palace.

Now there was only one thing left to do.

The following week, the king bounced in the carriage.

Not because the carriage bounced, it was actually a very smooth ride.

No, because he was excited.

Why are you doing this?

It's dinner in a palace, the white witch, the queen, rolled her eyes.

We eat dinner in a palace every night.

The king made fists and seemed to grip the air.

It was the prince, the son of seven moms.

He was so excited.

Like, how did that even work?

To be real, he barely understood how it worked normally.

And hey, wait a second, wasn't she supposed to give him an air?

Wasn't that the reason why with the eye boop?

She touched his forehead and his eyes went blank.

He shook his head.

What was he talking about?

Oh, yeah, seven moms.

The marvels of modern science slash magic.

The white witch had a visible unease that the king noticed but didn't really care to address because seven moms.

He entered the palace and hmm.

Something seemed vaguely extremely familiar about this place.

Down to even the wall carvings and the placement of the furniture.

This was wait, this was his house.

The servants directed them toward the back, and both the king and queen grew in realization.

The king felt a sadness that had remained buried for over a decade, and the queen a growing dread that she had somehow lost a chess game she had been on the cusp of losing the whole time, what with the prince's miraculous returns to pigeon hunting.

Both felt the full force of the revelation when the doors were opened to reveal the king's seven wives sitting on their same thrones, looking just as they had the day the king had their eyes plucked out and turned into a necklace.

He remembered having their eyes plucked out and turned into a necklace, and he broke down.

He was so, so sorry.

He didn't know what came over him, and no, actually,

he did.

He did know.

He turned to see the white witch backing up, a strange smile on her face, until she bumped into the prince, standing behind her.

Guards, arrest that woman, the king said.

The guards didn't do it.

Instead, they looked to the princess and the young man, who nodded.

The guards then dogpiled the white witch, the queen.

As the king reunited with his seven wives, who took him back despite him having taken their eyes, not sure how you get past that one, the king shook his head.

She, the queen, was too dangerous, but he had no idea what they would do with her.

The princess chimed in.

Oh, she had ideas.

The seven wives, the king, and the young man watched as the white witch's body was covered by manure in a shallow grave and then plowed over.

The king and his wives winced.

The young man threw up.

Yeah, that's too much.

I could have just had her executed, the king said.

Aw, where's the fun in that?

The princess laughed.

Where's the fun in this?

It's gross.

The king shook his head.

Well, at least she was gone, and there would never be any repercussions.

But in the kingdom, no one thought about the witch of the woods, the mother of the white witch, and what she would think.

And they didn't need to.

She was more afraid of her daughter than anyone.

What with the woman sending her eyeball necklaces that she had to wear for years, and then sending her a child to try to kill over and over again?

She was not down with any of that at all.

She knew that she was the witch of the woods, but she didn't need her daughter out there perpetuating damaging stereotypes.

It really was the princess pushing for justice in the original, which good for her, I guess.

The White Witch wasn't deterred when her several clumsy murder attempts went poorly, and you have to think she would have just kept going.

And I was surprised at first by how the witch in the woods didn't come for vengeance, but then I looked back over the story and saw, yeah, she was actually afraid of her daughter and didn't actually do anything wrong, save wear the eyeballs for 15 years, but even that can be attributed to her daughter forcing her to, because, I mean, who would want to do that?

Next week, we're back in Japanese folklore, but if you'd like more episodes in the meantime and would like to support the show, there's still a membership thing on the site.

For less than the price of a dog wig, a wig you put on your dog for some reason, you can get extra episodes and add-free versions of the show that dogs might still hate.

My dog hates podcasts, who knows?

Check out mythpodcast.com/slash membership for more info on the membership.

The creature this week is Sehrimnir from Norse Mythology.

In Norse myth, Tricky Odin gets warriors to die in their prime so they can be ready for Ragnarok, the end of the world.

Episode 80, by the way.

They hang out in part in a place called Valhalla where they await to battle with the Jotnar and the wolf.

The problem, as anyone who has ever had a big group of unruly boys in their house, is, what are you going to feed them?

The drink is easy.

For the warriors of Ragnarok, a goat sits on the roof, and, from its goat udders, mead flows down for all the men and teens to drink.

Mead being honey wine.

Not sure what the mechanics are for honey fermenting in a goat's body, but it apparently works.

For food, well, they get ham sandwiches.

Yes, Sehrimnir is a boar that is hunted, killed, and cooked by Antrimnir, who is apparently defined by his time in the kitchen because his name means the one exposed to soot.

The boar is slaughtered and fed to the warriors.

The boar is resurrected in the evening.

Not sure if the cook has something something against factory farming or just enjoys the hunt, but he lets the boar go each night.

And it's allowed to play and frolic all night and all morning, and then it's caught and slaughtered the following day.

Not sure it appreciates this, though, because the Poetic Edda, one of the major books on Norse myth, describes the boar as seething.

I would be too if I existed only to be constantly hunted and killed.

Apparently though, he makes, quote, the best of bacons.

There are theories regarding the ultimate meaning behind this creature, which you know I I love and find worthwhile.

Some say it points to sacrificial shaman practices.

Some that Snorri, the writer, was trying to make a Norse paradise of pork and alcohol, and something of a Christian tradition.

People quote Jacob Grimm, the 19th century German author, comparing Scandinavian myths to Grecian legends, linking it to hero worship, despite hero worship not really being mentioned in the text at all.

For me, well, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes an otherworldly resurrected giant boar is just an otherworldly resurrected giant boar.

Despite the all-you-can-eat best bacon, Odin does not partake.

He has a liquid lunch and dinner and breakfast.

Odin, in the Eddas, assures us that he needs no food and consumes only wine.

That's it for this time.

Myths and Legends is by Jason and Carissa Wiser.

Our theme song is by Broke for Free, and the The Creature of the Week music is by Steve Colmes.

There are links to even more of the music we used in the show notes.

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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