Episode 157 – The Devil’s Footprint – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 157 Show Notes

Source: Latvian Mythology

This week on MYTH, it’s time for another exciting chapter from the chronicles of Lacplesis the Bearslayer. You’ll learn that God is a thief, that the Devil is extremely jealous, and that humans used to only have one eye. Then, in Gods and Monsters, hostilities are about to erupt in the Silly Goose War. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 157, “The Devil’s Footprint”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
When we last left our hero (back in Episode 142), a council of the gods had been called at the castle of Perkons, god of thunder. The fire and blood of the Crusades of the 13th Century are headed straight for the doomed heart of the Baltics, sure to crush the steadfast and worthy people who lived there and worshiped the gods of the council. The water nymph Staburadze, who lives in a crystal palace beneath the mighty Daugava river, comes forward at the end to tell the story of a handsome young man that she had saved from some witches. She’d like to keep him, but Perkons tells her that he is fated to be a hero so she can only keep him long enough to get him healthy. We then flashed back to the young man’s origin story, where he rips a bear in half to save his father, only to learn that the old lord is actually his adopted father. He had been given care of the boy as an infant by the gods themselves (after having been abandoned by his unknown real parents and fed on she-bear breast milk as an infant).
Back in the present-ish, Bear-Slayer is heading for the magical hero school run by his dad’s old buddy Burtnieks but stops off at the home of Aizkrauklis and his wicked daughter Spindala. Lacplesis is stunned by her incredible beauty but a bit put off when he discovers that she’s a literal demon-worshiping witch. He manages to hitch a ride down into the Devil pit as she goes to meet the aforementioned Devil. The whole gang is busy corrupting famed holy-man Kangars into abandoning the gods and pushing the false religion of Christianity instead. Lacplesis is caught and dumped in the whirlpool, thus bringing us back to where the whole story actually began. Now healthy, Lacplesis sets out for hero school again, but not before meeting the beautiful Laimdota who studies under Staburadze and both give the young hero talismans. He encounters another heroic young man named Koknesis and they promptly become bestest friends as both enroll in Burtnieks’ hero school.
The now-villainous Kangars provokes the neighboring Estonians into going to war with the Latvians, prompting Lacplesis and Koknesis to ride out to do battle with their great champion, the giant Kalapuisis. Bearslayer fights the giant to a draw, and the two become sword buddies and fight together against the real foe, the invading Germans crusaders led by the priest Dietrich.
Lacplesis and Laimdota each sing a betrothal vow to the other, pledging to be married. As they prepared for the wedding, Bearslayer continued his studies at the hero school. One night, he discovers an open trap door leading to a hidden second castle deep underground beneath the lake. He finds his beloved Laimdota already there, poring over ancient scrolls of forgotten wisdom. She informs the hero that this castle is cursed in a very literal and lethal sense. It can only be broken by a hero spending the night and successfully fending off the horrors tied to it. He deftly defeats the dread spirit carried into the castle in a coffin borne by seven demons only to be ambushed by the evil Spindala and those same demons. With the help of a magic mirror gifted to him by Starburadze, he wins the day and summons an ancient sage in the process. With the evil defeated, the castle rises back to its proper place in the center of the lake again by morning. We then get a brief story within a story about the founding of the sunken castle, its destruction, and the second founding of Burtniek’s castle.
Since the epic saga of Bearslayer is very much a legendary history of Latvia, we get several of the story within a story tropes, where Lacplesis and Laimdota read from ancient, lost texts about the mythical origins of the country and its people. With the lost castle from the Golden First Age restored to the surface once more, the scholars and heroes were thrilled to go through the ancient library and learn more of its long-forgotten wisdom. Some time passed in this pursuit before we pick up again, with Laimdota once more reading to Lacplesis from such an ancient tale.
In the beginning, there was only void, formless and empty. Out of this darkness appeared a light, bright and endless from which all life grew. And yes, this is essentially a modified version of the Christian origin myth from the book of Genesis. I specify Christian here and not Jewish as well because the figure of the Devil, very much a Christian creation, is about to play a pivotal role (as we’ve already seen him do several times through this epic so far). In this ancient time before time though, the figure who would become the capital D Devil was still an obedient servant of the creator god.
Eternity was still formless and empty save only for the light, God, and his angels, but it wouldn’t stay that way. God intended to make a world and, to do so, he asked his trusted angel to fly down deep into the primordial depths of existence and bring back a handful of the ooze that formed the raw potential for all of creation. Curiosity and jealousy proved to be the downfall of this angelic being. He soared down on his errand, but his mind wandered as he flew. Why did God want a handful of this raw sludge? What plans did he have for it? The soon-to-be Devil figured that what was good for the goose was good for the gander and wanted a chance to, well, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do with the ooze but that was future Devil’s problem. He returned with the promised handful of slime, but he also smuggled back a second handful inside his mouth.
God took the ooze from the Devil without commenting on the stolen portion hidden away. From context, I’m guessing he knew what was up but figured this was a good time to teach his overly-curious servant a lesson. God threw his handful of ooze towards the center of the void. “Let there be earth!” he cried, and the ooze swelled and spread into a vast plain of soil. Likewise the ooze inside the Devil’s mouth also grew, quickly becoming far too large for him to continue to hide, forcing him to spit it out. This landed atop the plain, becoming the vast hills that rose across it.
From his own celestial substance, God took a handful and combined it with the endless light. “Let the day be divided from the night – let there be a sun and a moon to light up the earth with their golden and silver beams.” The creator loved these new shining orbs. From these, he created the sons of the gods (including the thunder god Perkons) and the daughters of the Sun. The largest of these new children, the Moon took as his bride one of these daughters. They had magic sky sex and gave birth to the multitude of stars that fill the heavens. Like we’ve seen in a number of mythological traditions, the first children of the beings created by God were semi-divine heroes, striding across the newly-formed earth and dividing it up amongst themselves.
The five sons of Perkons, stout, heroic lads all, built a magnificent home for the gods; then they fashioned steeds of solid gold for the Sun for him to ride across the sky from dawn to dusk. Each night, he would ride a boat back to the shores of dawn where the golden horses would meet him, having swum back home. Not sure why they couldn’t get a ride back as well since that sounds like an exhausting life, but no one asked me. Antrimps, the god of the sea, loved this fine house built by the sons of Perkons and moved in, declaring it the seat of his power.
Patrimps, god of the earth and the crops, covered the newly made fields with fertile loam. As the first spring came, he greeted it with a riot of flowers to blossom across the world as well as the first grains. A road was paved down into the underworld for Pakols, god of the dead, and creation began to move along on its own. Unfortunately, the Devil’s interference in the creation of the firmament had unintended consequences. Rather than being as we know them now, the rocks and stones were instead soft and yielding. God ordered these unfit rocks to be shunned until he could reinforce them with the sands of the beaches and make them strong and hard. The Devil was still driven by his curiosity and his rebellious streak, so he decided to disobey this order. He went out and stepped upon one of these pliable rocks along the banks of the Daugava River at the very moment that God commanded them to harden, leaving a single mark still known today as the Devil’s Footprint. This was the beginning of a rivalry between God and the Devil that honestly leaves me feeling a lot of sympathy for the Devil. Sky gods are assholes, and this god is no exception.
Now in this ancient time, the trees did not yet have any spreading branches, only trunks as tall and straight as a telephone pole. The Devil had a scythe which he used for reaping hay from the newly made fields. While the sons of Perkons forged a great chisel, God borrowed the Devil’s scythe while the latter was taking a nap and used it to reap a great swath of hay from the fields. In its place, he left the chisel instead, which is not at all the same thing. When he awoke, the Devil tried to use his scythe (somehow not realizing that it was now a chisel, a totally different tool) but found it all but useless, which infuriated him. I mean, fair. It’s a dick move on God’s part to borrow someone else’s scythe without asking and then not even bother to sharpen it or return it after (not to mention giving strong magpie vibes, stealing something shiny and replacing it with something else utterly worthless). That’s like taking someone’s car for a joyride and leaving a wheelbarrow in exchange. Enraged, the Devil hurled the chisel at a tree, where it buried itself deep in the wood. From that day on, all trees have grown with splitting branches.
Also at this time, the Devil had himself a herd of cattle though they did not yet have the long horns we think of on bulls. These had solid, rounded hooves (instead of the split hooves they have today) and beautiful blue fur. God decided to go and build himself a byre, or a barn for cows. The Devil scoffed at this ridiculous decision. “What good is a byre without any cows, you daft ass?” “Don’t worry about it, buddy. If you build it, they will come,” he replied in some cryptic Field of Dreams bullshit. I say bullshit, because the plan was apparently to just steal the cows. That night while the Devil slept, God rustled his entire herd and moved them into his byre. To prevent the rightful owner from being able to very reasonably complain about the theft, God gave them sharp horns, cloven hooves, and brown and white fur. The Devil awoke to find his cows gone and God’s byre suddenly full of suspicious but unfamiliar-looking cattle. He had his suspicions about what had happened, but obviously couldn’t prove it.
After adjusting to his ill-gotten cattle, God decided that he wanted a friendlier animal to be a companion. He called over the Devil, who was still quietly fuming about the stolen animals. “Take this staff up to the top of that mountain. Once you’re there, fashion a cute creature out of the raw clay with a snout on its head, two eyes, two ears, four legs, a waggly tail, and soft, bushy hair. Once the life-size model is crafted, strike it three times with the staff and cry ‘Behold, God has made you!’ at the top of your lungs. This will bring my new creation, the dog, to life.” It does rather seem like the Devil is doing most of the actual work here, but maybe I’m not giving enough credit to how hard it is to generate the spark of life. Sure, I can’t do it but it seems awfully easy for God. Wonder what he’s so busy with that he can’t bother making his own best friend but has to subcontract it out.
Sighing, the Devil did as he was told. At the third strike of the staff and the third repetition of the chant, the dog sprang to life, tail wagging as it bounded happily around. It immediately gave a canine homage to God who, as far as it knew, was its sole creator. No love for the poor Devil, who I’m starting to feel bad for. Seeing how happy this fuzzy companion made god and how lonely he himself was, the Devil decided that he too wanted an animal friend. But, like, bigger and better than God’s stupid dog. He made the creature from the same clay and in the same basic shape, but on a grander scale and with fur plucked from his own dark pelt. Still holding the staff, he struck it three times crying out ‘Behold, the Devil made you!’ At the third repetition, the very first wolf sprang to life and nuzzled its creator’s shoulder. The Devil petted the creature’s great muzzle then sent it off into the dark woods to thrive.
Having thus ventured into the world of creating mortal life (as opposed to the divine life of the gods and demigods), the creator now decided to make humanity. He took up pure clay from the earth he had made. He sculpted a face with one eye and one ear, though the usual two legs and two arms. “One eye and one ear mean that this creature will see no evil, hear no evil, and do no evil. They will walk a righteous path, avoiding temptation and strife. They are raised from the godhead and will have my own life breathed into them so that they might show the world true virtue.” And so he did, breathing life into the clay so that it became the first living humans.
This act of inspiration and creation had taken up the entire day and now, night was falling. “Lay down and sleep here, my human. You will be safe and sound as you wait for morning. The dawn’s light will wake you, along with all my other creations, to greet this new world you find yourself in. There will be time enough to explore then.” And so the human slept through the night and arose with the dawn’s first light. It greeted the morning with a wide grin. Unlike the other creatures created by God, this human had a divine spirit, filling it with a nobility and a desire to do good and make the world a better place.
Naturally, this can’t continue because that definitely isn’t the world we actually live in. It would be nice if it was, if we all listened to the angels of our better natures more often but it’s time for the Devil to interfere and earn that whole ‘prince of evil’ moniker that so far has seemed ill-fitting. He watched the new human walking the earth with wide-eyed wonder and unadulterated joy and he fucking hated it. “What a loser. This ‘human’ thing sucks and is even more boring than that dog critter he made.” The Devil grinned, wide and sinister. “But I bet I know how to make things interesting. Time for a little of that ol’ Devil razzle dazzle.”
This version of the fallen angel didn’t fuck around with any apples or snakes or any form of temptation at all. No, he took a much more direct approach lifted from the big G-man himself. While the human slept that second night, having no fear and, currently, no reason to, the Devil crept up on it. God had breathed life into the clay but it was still fresh and malleable if you knew what you were doing, and the Devil had done a lot of the heavy lifting of sculpting creation. He leaned over the human and sculpted a second eye, a second ear, and a second nostril. Into the human’s mouth, the Devil breathed his own fallen essence, his rebellion against God. “Now you shall be able to see evil, to know it and to speak it as you wish. You will no longer have to blindly stumble along the path set out for you by God with no idea that things could ever be another way. I gift unto you choice, free will. From now on, you can choose which path to walk. You can choose whether to speak good or evil.”
When morning came again, God saw that his creation had been changed. He saw that his simple, devout servant had become wild, savage, and dangerous. He began to betray those around him for his own good and glory, to kill those who opposed him or who were simply in the way. God’s heart was enflamed with an awful, towering wrath at what had been done to humanity and he knew exactly who was at fault. “Devil! You have done this! You have warped my most perfect creation! Never again do I want my vision stained with the sight of you.” And so saying, he cast the Devil down to the burning shores of Hell, binding him there forever and cursing him to never again set foot in the Heavens.
The Devil was angry sure, but I can’t imagine he was surprised. God’s been kind of a dick to him this whole time. Teaching humans how to murder doesn’t seem like the appropriate response to that sense of hurt and loneliness, but divine beings always go in for massive overreactions as we’ve seen time and time again. On the plus side, without God here in Hell to cramp his style, the Devil was now free to create the things that he wanted to see in the world without worrying that they would be stolen away and altered. He raised up all the foul fiends and terrible monsters that plague the world, the demons and the great dragons, and with them, he waged war on the Heavens.
God summoned his godly children and their demigod children to his side to rally to the defense of the cause of good. The war of creation waged across the Heavens and the earth alike with Perkons leading the charge. He split the sky asunder with his lightning bolts, peals of his thunder shaking his enemies. He sent whirlwinds against them and blasts so powerful that they turned entire mountains to dust. It was a hard fought battle, but eventually Perkons and his fellow gods won the day, driving the Devil and his hordes back into Hell and sealing them there. Well, mostly. See, humans still bear the taint of the Devil’s breath and so they still seek out the corruption of the pit for power and glory. Thus do we have many of our villains in this tale actively seeking out and summoning the Devil incarnate or his lesser minions in order to go against the righteous will of Perkons and the gods, all in the service to their creator God. And yes, this is almost certainly a blending of the Christian creation myth with the traditional one of the Baltic gods, but it’s pretty badass. I would have expected the Devil to be the thieving trickster, but apparently not.
Some time after reading this story aloud to Lacplesis, Laimdota and her fiance were again sitting in the library of the ancient risen castle. Again, she found an ancient scroll that detailed a story that had long been lost, this one from the teachings of the guardian of the Latvian people. “Bearslayer, listen now to the words of the Guardian, set down so that we might learn from his ancient wisdom.” And she once again read aloud. I’m going to fast forward over this bit since it’s all very philosophical but utterly unimportant to the plot. Basically, the Guardian gives advice on how humans are meant to live, giving a set of tasks for people to strive for. Know that only time is eternal, work to make the world a better place for the other people in it, be ready and willing to overthrow evil leaders who oppress their people, and take care of the natural world. All very standard and generally good things to do.
More time passed and then the feast of All Souls’ Day (usually celebrated on November 2) was upon the land. There was much to do in order to be ready for the festival, when the departed souls of Latvia would return to visit with their living loved ones. Laimdota spent the day organizing the castle’s workforce; Lacplesis and Koknesis cleaned out the barn, fixed the drying rack, raked the yard, cleaned the oven, and spread fresh pine needles on the ground. The barn was an especially important place for All Souls’ Day. It was a favored place of household spirits (who, as we’ve seen in a number of episodes, it always pays to keep happy) but on this day, they would vacate the barn to make way for the visiting souls of the dead.
The two young men cleaned everything out and then decorated the place with help from Laimdota. Bread, milk, and honey were laid out alongside boiled barley and dried pork as an offering to the spirits. Old Burtnieks threw open the barn’s windows and laid smooth wooden planks over the windowsill to make it easier for the souls to enter. As the sun set, everyone gathered for the celebration. Laimdota and her rough equivalent to ladies in waiting put out baskets of fine flax (the plant used to make linen) and then sang a song to the coming spirits.
The celebration lasted until the very stroke of midnight. As the hour struck, Burtnieks stood and called an end to the proceedings. “Young people, you know the drill. This has been a wonderful night, but now it’s time for you all to stand silently and return to your beds without making a sound. Leave me here alone to visit with the dead.” All of them did as he bid, respecting the sacred silence of the night’s peace.
In the morning however, Burtnieks’ good mood had soured. He waited impatiently for Laimdota to arrive to collect the uneaten food left by the spirits the night before. Instead, Lacplesis came in. “My son, the spirits gave me a dire warning for you and Laimdota last night – may Perkons and the gods forfend! Where is my daughter, Lacplesis? She should be here by now.” The two men were worried since this was not at all like Laimdota. Bearslayer went to her bedchamber, finding the door still closed. He knocked, but there was no answer. He called out – no response.
He was too traditional to enter her room himself, so he headed back outside. Maybe she had already left to do some work and they’d just missed each other. He and Burtnieks searched the grounds for the missing young woman, but there was no sign of her. They were both getting a bad feeling and so, together, they went into Laimdota’s room. The place was empty and unused – she had not slept there the night before. It was clear that something bad had happened right under everyone’s noses. The duo searched the castle again but there was no sign of Burtnieks’ daughter. Worse, they realized that Koknesis was also nowhere to be found. What the hell was going on here?
Given what we’ve seen so far of the very direct hand the Devil is playing, hell may be exactly what is going on. Burtnieks was beside himself with worry. “Some evil has clearly befallen this castle last night, violating the sacred peace. Summon my men; we’ll search the countryside and find out where Laimdota and Koknesis have gone.” Bearslayer shook his head. “That’ll take too long, sir. Let me go after them alone. I’m the best tracker you have and I can move a lot faster by myself. I swear to you that I will return to this castle with Laimdota or I won’t return at all.” Saluting, he set out immediately.
And that’s where we’re going to leave the saga of Lacplesis the Bearslayer for now. It’s been a strange little diversion from our tale of epic adventure through theological philosophy, but now we’re back on our bullshit. And so, while Lacplesis searches for any sign of his missing fiance and best friend, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s epic conflict is the Silly Goose War.
This story comes from Tit for Tat and Other Latvian Folktales, collected by Mae Durham. Once upon a time, there lived a man whose wife was as silly as a goose. That’s always seemed like a strange phrase to me. Geese are many things – angry, vicious, evil incarnate – but silly isn’t generally one of them. As usual, no one really knows where the phrase originated, but many think that it has to do with the awkward waddle they do on land (when the cobra chickens aren’t chasing you down for blood anyway) as well as how easily they startle. Anyway, one day this man, to his great surprise and delight, stumbled across a big pot of money. I mean that literally – he just found a big pot stuffed full of cash.
Shocked and thrilled by his unexpected discovery, the man rushed home to share the good news with his wife. It was only in the middle of telling the story that he remembered just how careless his wife was but the cat was out of the bag. At the very first opportunity she had, the woman blabbed the whole thing to the local baron as he happened to pass by. As rich nobles often are, the baron was greedy and unscrupulous and so he wasted no time in summoning the man to appear before him in a week with his found loot. “Fuck me,” grumbled the man. There had to be a way out of this mess, but it wasn’t like he could just openly defy the baron. What he needed was a clever scheme. He thought long and hard before finally coming up with a plan. The day before they were to head out to see the baron, he put it into action.
“Wife, come here – I need you!” The woman hurried in, concerned by the urgency in her husband’s tone. “Beloved, I have terrible news. This very night, we are going to be caught up in the middle of a silly goose war! We must gird our loins for battle.” The woman gasped in horror, even though she had no real idea what the fuck a silly goose war was. You know, because her husband had just made the whole thing up. “A silly goose war? Good heavens, how shall we endure this – and what exactly is a silly goose war anyway? It sounds bad. I think. Maybe. It also sounds kind of silly. Fun maybe?” The man shook his head somberly. “This is deadly serious, but we can get through it if you listen carefully and do exactly as I say. When I give the signal, you go and hide yourself in the root cellar. I’ll cover you and the pit with an animal skin to hide you and save your life.”
His wife clutched her chest anxiously. “But what about you, my love? Won’t you be in danger?” The man took his wife’s hands in his, eyes serious. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fighting with everyone else, but I swear I’ll come home safe.” She was still terribly worried about the dangers her husband would face in this silly goose war (the nature of which she still didn’t really understand), but he was adamant that his wife follow his lead and she soon relented.
As evening fell, the man gave his wife the signal that the war was about to begin. She hurried over to the root cellar and climbed into the pit. He covered her with a large hide and then poured dried peas atop that. That done, he shooed the chickens over to feast on the scattered peas. They were only too happy to do so, clucking and squabbling directly atop the terrified woman. The commotion and cacophony were as loud and intense as any war at the time could have hoped to be, but the husband wasn’t done yet. Taking up a stout stick, he bashed the sides of the house with his cudgel and cried out in simulated battle cries. The imaginary war rose to a crescendo and then died away. As the chickens wandered away, all of the peas devoured, the man helped his wife out of the pit. “You can come out now – the silly goose war is over and by god, we won!”
They went to bed, the man exhausted from his labors and the woman simply grateful to have her husband returned safely from the war. The next morning, they rose early and hitched the horse up to the cart to head to the baron’s castle. The wife was seated in the front of the cart while the husband seated himself at the very back. It was an unusual arrangement, but I presume the man came up with some nonsense lie to explain it – maybe he was watching for any stragglers from the silly goose war. After they had gone a ways and the woman was staring off into the middle distance, the man pulled a bagel out of his pocket. Aiming carefully, he chucked it high into the air to land in his wife’s lap. She jumped, startled by the unexpected rain of carbs. “What the fuck was that?” “What luck!” cried the man in response. “To think that we should live to see the day that bread falls from the heavens.”
The couple drove onward, the wife musing on the errant baked good, until they came to a barn alongside the road. The man heard a dog howling inside and improvised a new wrinkle to his scheme. “Can you hear that, my darling wife? Why, surely the Devil himself is torturing our cruel baron.” The woman gasped, shocked at the awful cries which hardly sounded human. You know, cause they weren’t. They rode on farther until they finally reached the estate of the baron. They parked the cart and headed inside, where the man himself was waiting for them.
“You’ve come, but where the hell is that pot of money you told me about, woman?” The man cocked his head at the noble, visibly perplexed. “Pot of money? What are you talking about, your lordship?” The baron scoffed. “Are you seriously going to look me in the eye and deny that you found a huge pot of money just yesterday? Your wife already told me all about it.” “Is that so, your lordship? Well I don’t know about any such windfall so maybe you should ask my wife about it yourself.” The baron sneered. “I think I will. Well, woman? When did your husband find this treasure?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Let’s see… It was about a week before the silly goose war.” “The what now?” “The silly goose war. Surely you remember – everyone fought in it. Why, the battle raged through the streets of our little village. It’s a miracle we won the day.” “What the fuck are you talking about, woman? A silly goose war? When is this bullshit war supposed to have happened?” “Oh, that was the night before it rained bagels.” The baron stared at the woman, unsure whether she was trying to bullshit him but her face was utterly without deception. She believed every goddamned word she was saying. “And when was that, exactly?” “Oh, just this morning. It was right before we heard the Devil torturing you in that barn just up the road.”
The baron sputtered at this blasphemy. “I have never been tortured by anyone, and certainly not by the fucking Devil! You’re completely bonkers lady. Get the fuck out of my house and go to the Devil yourself for all I care.” And so the couple left the baron’s estate as the noble continued to yell in anger at their retreating backs. Thus did they manage to escape without the baron confiscating their found wealth, allowing them to keep it all. They lived off the money in comfort for years and years to come.
This story has an awful lot in common with the Kabokki rain story from Episode 155. It’s a husband and wife rather than a mother and a son, but the basic payoff of an easily confused but fundamentally honest person being tricked into telling the most outlandish story you ever heard is there. You’ve even got some form of carb falling from the sky as a key element of the trick. It just goes to show that tricking the rich with utter bullshit is universal.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, on Bluesky as MythsPodcast, and on Mastodon as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’re headed back to Japan for two more tales of the clever kitsune, the fox spirits. You’ll see that you shouldn’t make bold claims about things you don’t know shit about, that arrogance can lead you into making some terrible mistakes, and that maybe you shouldn’t torture someone to death on a hunch. Then, in Gods and Monsters, when treated kindly, foxes can be your greatest allies. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.