Episode 176 – The Vagina Dialogues – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 175 Show Notes

Source: French Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’ll dive into a particularly bawdy tale of French folklore. You’ll learn that fairies can grant some very strange powers, that it’s hard to speak around a mouthful of cotton, and that knights can make a fortune with this one weird trick. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a woman will get tired of her sexuality and separate herself from it. Literally. 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 176, “The Vagina Dialogues”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Before we get started, I want to apologize for my voice. I’m coming off a few days of being sick, and I’m still a little congested, so please bear with me. I’ll hopefully be back to my usual dulcet tones by next time. This week’s story is one of the weirder ones we’ve covered so far, and that’s saying something. It comes from an Old French fabliau (a comic, anonymous, and often sexual tale). The original title is Le Chevalier qui fist Parler les Cons, which literally translates to The Knight who Knew How to Make Cunts Speak and whose author is only given as Guerin (almost certainly a pseudonym). The version I’ll be using comes from the Harley Manuscript from 1340 (one of only seven surviving copies) as translated by Susanna Fein, David Raybin, and Jan Ziolkowski. And from what I can tell, cunt is indeed the most accurate translation of the French word used, so I’ll be sticking with it throughout.
Our author Guerin opens by saying quote “Adventures and a lesson very often bring solace, and solace brings refreshment – so says Guerin, who doesn’t lie. And in order to provide solace, I want to begin a trifling jest. When one speaks of trifles and foolery, he doesn’t think of injuring anyone.” Given that the author is definitely using a fake name here, they know that not everyone is going to appreciate this bawdy tale and are using the ‘it’s just a joke’ defense right up front. And now that that’s out of the way, on to the tale proper.
Once upon a time, there was a handsome young knight. He was everything you expected from such a person, handsome, noble, and brave, an honorable and worthy knight. To know him was to love him and, as a wandering knight-errant, he had earned admirers all over the kingdom. Indeed, he was a hedge knight (much like Ser Dunk the Tall on the new Knight of the Seven Kingdoms show though of nobler birth). If you’re not familiar with that show, check it out. But the important bit is that a hedge knight is so-called because he must sleep in the hedges as he wanders, having no land or income to support himself off of. Being a knight is an expensive profession between the horses, arms, and armor, which require food, repair, and upkeep, all of which are expensive.
He had earned his knighthood through his noble bearing and brave deeds and soon wandered the land, earning his keep by selling his sword to those in need as a mercenary. As any good knight should, our protagonist had a squire to travel with him. The squire, whose name was Huet, was tasked with taking care of the knight, helping him get into and out of armor, and other menial tasks that were required in exchange for learning the art of knighthood. The knight made a good living but alas, he had no head for money and a soft heart, so he gave most of it away through gifts and generosity. He managed to survive the entire year mostly by borrowing to supplement the money he was spending on things he definitely couldn’t afford. In one version, he had to sell off his armor and wargear in a desperate attempt to hold off his creditors, leaving him with no real way to make money.
He knew enough to recognize that his financial situation was getting dire so when word reached our knight about a tournament, it perked his ears up. He called over Huet the squire to talk it over with him. He needed his squire’s advice but he also had enough pride that he didn’t want anyone to know that he asked his squire for advice, so he made sure to wait until they were alone at camp that night. Huet was very much in favor of entering this new tourney. “You should absolutely enter the lists, ser. If you win, you may actually be able to pay off your debts, or at least pay them down some.” In the version where he sold off his gear, the knight tells Huet to buy it all back by whatever means necessary. The only option he has is to sell off their spare horse; that combined with literally all of their money is just enough to get the armor back but now they’re in a position where a single loss in the tourney will mean an end to their whole knight errant career.
They slept the night away under the stars and, at dawn, rose and packed up their gear. As soon as they could, they headed off towards the town where the tournament was to be held. Huet planned out the route, passing by as many priories and abbeys as he could along the way. They had very little cash at the moment, and a wandering knight could stay at one of the holy places and get a meal for free, which was very much not the case at an inn. Luckily it was still early summer, so traveling through the countryside wasn’t at all miserable. The flowers were in bloom, gently perfuming the air with sweet scents, and the birds were singing brightly to accompany the horses’ footfalls.
They walked easily across a plain towards a spring up ahead that was fed by the small stream they had recently crossed. It was a very small pool but quite idyllic and lovely all the same. As they approached, the knight and the squire saw three ladies bathing in the stream. All three were young, fair, wise and courteous (though I’m guessing the young men would only notice the first two adjectives). Now, when I say that they are fair, that’s underselling it a bit. These three women were almost impossibly beautiful, and their clothes lying on the rocks and hanging in the bushes were exquisitely embroidered in thread of gold. Huet was riding ahead to scout the path, so it was he who spotted the three naked young women sporting in the pool first. “My lord, ride on ahead. I’ll refill our water skins and catch up as soon as I can.” The knight shrugged and decided to follow his squire’s advice. It’s unclear to me whether he didn’t see the three bathing women or if he did and was simply being chivalrous and giving them space. Either way, he trotted on ahead and left Huet behind.
He gave the knight a head start and then hurried over to the pool. The three young women lowered themselves deeper into the water, covering themselves at the unexpected approach of this stranger. With a creepy smile, Huet snatched all of their clothes from the rocks they had been laid out on. “What are you doing, you pervert! Give those back!” “Hell no! You’re going to have to come get them from me, or I’m keeping them as a souvenir.” He grinned even wider. The terrified young women called out for help from the knight they had seen riding by in the distance. “Please, brave ser, come and help three poor damsels in distress! This creepy asshole has stolen our clothes and refuses to give them back – please come and make him return them to us. If you do, we’d be ever so grateful and give you a reward that you’ll always be thankful for.”
The gallant young knight could hardly refuse such a worthy request, especially when it was his own squire who was the creepy culprit. It’s unclear to me if the three ladies realize that Huet is with the knight or not. The wording is confusing, so choose whichever option you prefer. It was obviously child’s play for the knight to get the women’s clothing back from his squire and return it to the rightful owners. Regardless of the perceived relationship or lack thereof between their rescuing hero and their creepy thief, the young woman held good to their promise of a reward. The eldest spoke first. “Sir Knight, I wish to give you a gift in thanks for your noble deed. From this day forward, everywhere you go you will be honored by all, deeply cherished and loved as long as you stay in any place, and any you meet will be thrilled to have you stay with them.” For a hedge knight, that’s a pretty potent gift, though the story offers no explanation as to how the young woman is able to promise such a magical outcome. My guess – fairies.
The knight thanked the woman for her generous gift, and the youngest of the ladies stepped forward in the water (they still had not emerged and gotten dressed of course – the men were still present). “A gift I likewise give you, brave ser. There’s no woman or girl – no matter how lovely she may be – who will not grant you her love if you wish it and ask her to love you.” Love is being used a bit euphemistically here – she means the sexy type of love. I’m not especially enthused about the inclusion of ‘girl’ there, but looking at the original French here, I think girl refers more to young women (damoisele) and woman refers to more mature ladies (dames). Maybe I’m just being optimistic.
Regardless, the knight thanked the second woman for her generous gift with identical grace and gallantry to the first. The third woman stepped forward to offer her gift. “Ser Knight, so courteous and brave, I offer a gift that will astonish many. I grant you the power to make assholes and cunts talk. At your request, a person’s front hole and back hole will answer whatever you want to know, and you can know that their answer will be trustworthy and honest.” I can’t imagine that the young knight expected the third gift to be such a curveball, but he handled it with commendable aplomb. Managing the exact same grace and charm, he thanked the third young woman for her gift as well and then bid them adieu. I get the impression that he doesn’t really believe that their gifts are real, and assumes that they are mocking him or, at best, batshit, but he’s too polite to call them out on their magical bullshit.
As promised, he left the clothes laid safely on the rocks once more and took the troublemaking pervert with him. Again, I don’t know if they think that Huet is off to face justice or if they realize that he’s the knight’s squire (which still might mean a sound beating at the knight’s gauntlet). They hadn’t traveled far before they met a chaplain riding on a mare. The man of the cloth and his horse ambled briskly along the road until they saw the knight and squire coming the other direction. The chaplain’s face lit up with joy at the sight and he greeted the pair warmly, offering them a place to stay for the night. So it seemed that the first woman’s gift is indeed working.
Huet noticed this as well and eyed his knight sidelong. “You know, ser, now would be a good chance to test out that third gift. Why not see if you can get the mare’s cunt to speak?” The knight tilted his head to the side. He’d nearly forgotten all about that strange gift offer, but he too was intrigued to see if it actually worked. “By Saint Richer, you’re right! Let’s give it a try.” He looked over at the mare. “Where are you going Master Cunt? Don’t hide anything.” And sure enough, the mare’s vagina responded (which I have to imagine is a very strange experience). “My Lord, I’m carrying the priest home to his mistress.” “His mistress? Does this priest really have a mistress?” “Yes indeed, ser. He also has ten marks in his alms sack that he intends to give her.” That’s a fairly substantial amount of money that he’s definitely stolen from his parishioners.
The priest has overheard this whole exchange, which means that the knight isn’t just magically understanding the mare’s vagina, it is actually speaking aloud. “Have mercy on me, I beg you! I’ll give you everything I have if you’ll just save me from this disgrace.” He left the ten marks with the knight and rode on ahead to his mistress at a much faster pace than before. In another version, the priest drops his belt and hat to flee faster, leaving the money behind because it was slowing him down. The priest’s mistress slash concubine had been expecting the money that he’d promised her, so she was very cross with her philandering priest boyfriend for that and for being so late in getting to her.
The knight and his squire, on the other hand, were utterly delighted by the exchange. It was a strange magic the woman had gifted, but it worked like a charm! There was no telling how much these three new gifts would allow the gallant but poor young knight and his squire to prosper. Surely God must be on their side to have been so richly rewarded for so small an aid. I do wonder if Huet is just a pervert or if he was trying to set up a situation where his knight could ride in and save the day, earning a small reward from three obviously wealthy ladies. I honestly lean more towards that latter. It’s still creepy, make no mistake, but in a more machiavellian kind of way.
The duo traveled on until nightfall, laughing and joking together at how surprised and horrified the priest had been to have his dirty little secret revealed. Up ahead, they spied a castle standing on a picturesque little hill. It was a tall, stout, and attractive structure, so it clearly belonged to someone with money and power. And indeed it was so – this castle belonged to a mighty count, as did all of the land around it. A castle that fine must surely have spare beds, which would be a lot more comfortable to sleep on than their cloaks, so they decided to ask for lodging. The first gift should allow them to achieve it without a problem. With the third power tested so clearly, the knight was more than happy to lean on the first a little too.
As promised, they were well-received when they knocked on the castle gates, greeted almost as returning friends instead of strangers and ushered immediately in to see the count himself. The knight and the squire were again greeted heartily and made welcome by the count and the countess, but also by the squires, valets, and servants. All loved the knight, the great and the humble. The visitors were feasted richly that evening with the young knight seated next to a beautiful young lady. She was the most incredible woman he had ever seen, and he fell head over heels for her immediately.
Remembering the gift of the second lady of the pool, the young knight leaned over to her and asked her if she would consent to love him. And by love, I’m pretty sure I actually mean fuck. What was the point of saying more? Either the gift worked and conversation was needless or it didn’t and no amount of charm would convince her to jump into bed with a hedge knight she just met. It’s hard to really argue that someone is consenting however when they’re being magically compelled. She smiled at her dinner companion, and promised to come to his bedchamber that night to be with him. The knight was practically beaming the rest of the dinner and couldn’t get finished and to bed fast enough. In this version, she goes because of magical compulsion. In another, she goes because the Countess orders her to sleep with the knight naked and quote ‘serve his needs’, which she can’t do herself because her lord husband is home.
As promised, the young lady came to him that night and climbed into bed with him. They got naked and they got frisky, both of them having a very pleasant evening. After his orgasm though, the young knight had a thought. “Master Cunt, can you speak?” And her vagina responded immediately, much to the young lady’s shock. “Yes of course, my lord. I’m entirely at your command.” “Is your lady still a virgin?” I’m assuming he meant before the naughty business they just got down to. The story isn’t overly clear on whether they actually had sex or just had an ‘everything but’ night. “Oh fuck no. She’s had more than a hundred balls slapping her ass that have split her banner asunder.” And that’s pretty much a direct quote, just so you know. The young lady was mortified, because who wouldn’t be? It’s a rude fucking question, especially from someone who was about to have a one night stand with her and leave her behind. He’s got a lot of nerve judging her about this (and I doubt very much that he’s a virgin either, but that’s what double standards are for). She covered herself with the sheet in horror. “Alas that I came here at your invitation. I’ve been vilely tricked and now I’m horribly disgraced!” Gathering up her clothes as quickly as possible, she fled the room and the knight. In the version where she was sent by the countess, her vagina instead confesses that she was sent to seduce the knight on behalf of the countess.
In the morning, the young woman went to see her lady (who I assume is the countess but it isn’t really clear) and threw herself prostrate on the floor before her. She begged repeatedly for mercy and forgiveness, though the noble lady wasn’t entirely clear on what it was the young woman was asking forgiveness for. After a little coaxing, the younger woman agreed to tell the story, eyes red from weeping. “My lady, I am disgraced! I want to tell you what happened, but you must promise to keep it secret.” The older woman nodded. “Of course, my dear. As far as I’m able, I’ll hide your secret.” “The knight who dined with us last night asked me to love him, and more the fool, I did as he asked. I came to his bed last night, we embraced joyfully and I granted him his delight.” That’s the term used, which sounds an awful lot like a euphemism for sex but like I said, it isn’t clear.
The young woman took a deep breath to steady her nerves. “After we finished, he got this weird look on his face, and then he made my cunt talk to him! The things it said brought me such shame that I had to get out of there and away from him. I fled his bed and hid out in my own until this morning.” This proclamation was met with stunned silence, which is totally fair. Without genre knowledge, this would seem utterly ridiculous to me as well. The countess shook her head, refusing to believe such nonsense. “That’s absurd! What’s really going on here?” The young woman crawled forward on her knees, willing her lady to believe her with all her soul. “I swear, my lady, I’m not lying! Every word is true.” The story is obviously impossible but the countess knew her younger charge and she heard the ring of truth in her voice. Something strange was clearly at work here, and she vowed to get to the bottom of it. She would discover the truth, no matter where it led.
That very evening after dinner, the countess went to speak with the count. “My lord, I have heard a very strange tale. It is said that in your house right this minute, there is a knight with the power to make cunts speak.” The count scoffed, both at the absurdity of the statement and the strangeness of that image coming from his wife. “That’s impossible! I’ve never heard anything like it before. Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley. It is that knight right over there,” she said, indicating the visiting hedge knight. “He is the one I have been told has this power.” All dinner conversation had come to a screeching halt to listen to this bizarre exchange. The count looked over at the hedge knight, who doesn’t seem to be nearly as uncomfortable as I would be in this situation. “Ser Knight, does she speak the truth? Do you possess this power?”
“Yes, my lord, she does. Cunts do often speak at my command.” Well now, the count hadn’t expected the young knight to agree to such an improbable power so readily. Just what the actual fuck was going on here? He nodded to the countess, who stepped forward. “Alright then, I’ll ask you to prove it. Step forward, Ser Knight. I’ll bet 100 marks that you can’t possibly get my cunt so drunk that you’ll get an answer from it about anything you wish to ask.” The knight stood and walked forward as bid. “I accept, my Lady. And I’ll bet my best horse that it will respond in front of everyone here, though I can’t make any promises about what it will say.”
The countess smiled. “Your terms are agreeable. Give me a moment to return to my chambers and then I’ll return to test your claims and your cunning.” With a bow, the knight assented to her request and the lady swept out of the great hall. Back in her bedroom, she took loose cotton and began filling her cunt up as full as it could possibly get. She used a full four pounds of cotton before it was literally so stuffed that not a single ounce more could be forced in. The countess returned to the hall and I have to assume she was walking a bit uncomfortably. That’s just a whole mess of cotton. “Alright, Ser Knight. Prove your claim. Make my cunt speak.” To the knight’s surprise and dismay, there was no response when he called out to Master Cunt this time (except perhaps a muffled mm hmm mmm mm mhph).
Three times, he called out for her cunt to speak and three times, there was no response. The hedge knight bowed his head in defeat, wishing now that he hadn’t risked his best warhorse on a party trick he’d only done twice. Squire Huet came to the rescue. “My lord, try her asshole! The woman in the pool gave you power over cunts and assholes, remember?” The knight straightened back up with a nervous smile. “Master Asshole, what is keeping Master Cunt so quiet?” And to the countess’ great shock, her asshole responded. “My Lord, it’s filled to the brim with cotton. Hell, it’s so very full of the stuff that it’s squishing me too, making it really hard to get a word out. Master Cunt can’t possibly get a word out around it all.”
The crowd was amazed at the hedge knight’s ability to make this noble lady’s asshole talk like something out of Ace Ventura, but they were also a little disgusted with their lady. Not because her asshole is speaking mind you but because she tried to cheat by stuffing her cunt full of cotton. “My lady, you wrong the good Ser Knight! It’s not fair to try and cheat that way.” Ashamed, the countess didn’t fight as someone fetched a hook to pull out all of the cotton right there in the great hall. Once they were pretty sure they had it all out, the knight spoke to her cunt again. “Master Cunt, why didn’t you answer me before when I spoke to you?” “I tried, my lord, but I was so choked up with cotton that I couldn’t manage a word. My deepest apologies.”
The count declared the contest over with the knight as the winner. I have to wonder if he was at least a little worried about what secrets his wife’s nether regions would divulge if given the chance. “My lady, I command you to make peace with this good knight and permit him to go.” The lady conceded defeat and paid him his hundred marks. It was more than enough to pay off all his debts, so he was now free to return to his home country and establish himself with a proper manner like a proper knight. Word of this naturally spread far and wide (because of course gossip about a knight who won a bunch of money by making ladies’ cunts and assholes speak would be hot tea). He soon became known as Knight of the Cunt, and Squire Huet became Little Asshole.
This is an exceptionally weird tale to be sure, but the lewdness and vulgarity of it are very much in keeping with a lot of the popular entertainment of the time. Just look at Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which are absolutely full of dicks, cunts, and assholes doing all kinds of filthy things. Modern people tend to think that people from the medieval period were deeply repressed and never even thought about sex, but dick and fart jokes have always been funny. It often just gets lost in the archaic language. And so, with the Knight of the Cunt and Little Asshole living in fame and prosperity, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s chatty genitalia is the White Rose Thorn.
This story comes from Der Rosendorn, a 13th century German poem with an unknown author. This version (one of only three to survive to the modern day, including a partial fragment recently discovered as part of the binding of another book in Melk Abbey) comes from Illustrated History of Manners from the Middle Ages to the Present by Eduard Fuchs. The tale opens with an unnamed narrator stumbling across a carefully cultivated herb garden surrounded by a fence. Inside stands a magnificent white rosebush, so massive that it stood taller than a man and could have provided shade to twelve knights beneath it.
A maiden was seated beside the rosebush, extracting rosewater from the petals. Every morning, this young lady-in-waiting (who had never had sex) would sneak out to this garden before sunrise with a glass full of the rosewater. Then she would strip naked and pour it over herself under the rosebush. She had done so again on this particular morning, not realizing that our narrator had snuck into the garden, intent on stealing some of those marvelous roses. Or rather, had tried to. The garden had proved quite secure except for a small hole just big enough to watch and eavesdrop from. The would-be thief heard someone in the garden and, rather than hightailing it out of there, decided to ogle the beautiful, naked young woman.
Now, according to the story, there exists a certain kind of root that, if eaten, will allow any to speak even if they weren’t able to before. It apparently also makes a serviceable dildo because the young woman was using it to masturbate in the garden (not knowing she was being watched). She was apparently unaware of this particular magical property of the herb because she was more than a little surprised when her cunt (again the most accurate translation of the original wording) suddenly spoke to her. “Nice to finally get a little attention, I guess. You seem to do a fantastic job taking care of every part of your body except me. What gives?” The woman looked down at her speaking cunt in confusion. “I, uh, wasn’t exactly expecting to hear you talk to me like this. How are you doing that?” “You know that root you put in my mouth? Well, turns out that aside from giving you an orgasm, it also lets me talk. And I have a lot to say to you.
You are seen as a beauty, I know, and the young men in this town shower you with attention and gifts. So how come I never get any? I’m the real reason they’re interested in you anyway. If you were to get rid of me, the young men would stop coming around anymore. Why not just stop worrying so much about your appearance, and let me do the work? You know it’s true. You’d be worthless.” The woman scoffed. “You really think that all of my beauty is really just you? Men are interested in me because of all of my beautiful aspects – my appearance, my personality, my charm, my wit. They tell me all the time that they would love to just sit and stare at me or to serve me. Me, not you. None of them would care about you at all if you weren’t attached to me. I mean really – you’re brown and rough and ruffled on your belly. Hardly what I’d call a beauty. They want you because of me, not the other way around.”
The cunt bristled at these insults. “Sure, they like to look at you the way they might look at a painting. Everything should be praised for being what it is, and that includes me. My tan suits me. I should be tan and rough and with a curvy tummy. No one serves a painting, girl. They praise your beauty in service to me. I give them (and you) sexual pleasure. I keep them coming back. And I do mean coming. If you were without your cunt, no one would think you beautiful for long. You need me more than I need you. You should be flaunting me, but instead you hide me behind a bunch of bullshit clothing.”
The woman was getting fucking annoyed by her cunt. “Stop your gaping and whining, damn! Would you be happier if I lifted my skirts and showed you to the world? How do you really think that would go over? You’re an evil sign, as rough as a sea monster and ugly besides. Stop your gaping! I plan to keep right on ignoring you just the way that you ignore me. You always want gross stuff. You make everything sexual. Hell, plenty of what you want will actively harm you (and me for that matter). You’ve got terrible judgment, cunt. You know what? I’m sick of your endless complaining. You think you don’t need me? Fine, let’s find out once and for all whether people really like me for you or you for me.” And so saying, she separated from her cunt (the specifics of this anatomical impossibility are not provided) and they each went their own way in the world. And yes, that does mean that a talking vagina is wandering around all by itself now.
The young woman headed into town to find a college student who had always been one of her most ardent admirers. She was done being a virgin, and this was the young man she wanted to try sex with for the first time. If anyone would admire her without her cunt, it would be this handsome young student. She did her best to seduce him, offering to take him to her bed (something she had always figured he wanted desperately). The language is a bit vague here; it’s not clear if they actually do get naked and the young man encounters the young woman’s now Barbie-doll smooth crotch or if he just senses somehow that she and her cunt have parted ways. Whichever it was, the young student had suddenly lost all interest in the young woman (who was every bit as beautiful as she had ever been). This situation repeated many times, but every man she approached quickly became disinterested because of her lack of a cunt. They began to refer to her as The Cuntless, a name that spread quickly across the land. People began to avoid her eyes when she walked down the street, treating her with scorn and derision where previously they had praised and admired her. Which honestly feels similar to the way a lot of people react to trans people that they were lusting after just moments ago. It’s some bullshit, is what I’m saying. She became depressed and miserable and began to regret her hasty decision.
In another version, the young woman isn’t ignored by the disappointed men. When they find that the young woman is literally unable to satisfy their sexual urges, they become restless, turning into a mob that ends up chasing and trampling the poor young woman. Either way, things are definitely not going the way that she had expected. So what happened to the suddenly emancipated cunt in the meantime? Well, things didn’t go much better for her. She started off by strutting proudly down the street, expecting to be admired for her raw sexuality. Instead, everyone avoided looking at her except in secret leers. Many thought her an ugly toad hopping down the road. None wanted to be seen with her in public, and she was often kicked for trying to approach men openly. She too began to long for a unified life with her human once more. It turns out that slut shaming also applies to anthropomorphic genitalia. Being a walking, talking cunt wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Thus it was that the woman and her cunt both came back to the walled garden where they had parted ways. Each was desperately glad to see the other, embracing tearfully. The two of them shared their stories of hardship, and each was kind and comforting about the abuses suffered. They spent a great deal of time complaining about how shitty the men had been for one reason or another (which is fair). It wasn’t long before the topic of being reunited was broached, and both were wildly in favor of it. There was only one problem – how to actually go about that? Since the story doesn’t say how they were able to separate in the first place, there’s no way to know how to undo the process but it appears to be irreversible.
That is until our narrator steps in. Like a little creep, he’s apparently been following both of the parts of the young lady-in-waiting who, despite the best efforts of both herself and her cunt, was still a virgin. He claims that she sent for him, but I don’t know how that could possibly be since he was hiding from her at the beginning. She had no idea that he even existed until he revealed himself, so that sounds like some bullshit justification. She asks the man to advise her on how to let the world know that she has her cunt back and is no longer the Cuntless. “Teach me to keep it well. If you can be in charge, then maybe I won’t ever be separated from it again.”
Oh don’t worry, the patriarchal bullshit is about to get a whole lot worse. The man smiles and says that he does indeed have an idea for how to reattach her cunt to her body. “That’s easy – you just need to have your cunt nailed firmly to your body.” And yes, he’s definitely using nailed in exactly the same euphemistic way you think he is. The woman wasn’t sure exactly how that would work (because she’s a virgin, remember), so she begs the man to help her so that her cunt should always remain firmly inside where it belongs. Leading the young woman over to the hole in the fence around the garden, he basically fucks her through a glory hole. To quote “I did what she asked of me as best I could, nailing her cunt to her body, a nail so fast that her cunt would not escape.” So his technique is the jackhammer then. That tracks. The narrator closes the tale by recommending that every man do the same if he wants to keep his wife’s love.
Having thus been ravished in the rose garden, both the young woman and the garden are deflowered (he was there to steal roses, remember). She was previously independent of men, satisfying her sexual needs with masturbation all on her own. This would have led the contemporary audiences to understand the young woman as taking on aspects of masculinity. At the end, she has returned herself literally and figuratively beneath the sexual aggression of the masculine. Her own independence from the rule of men is permanently shattered, as is the quiet isolation of the garden, both penetrated literally and figuratively by an especially aggressive dick. I don’t love that particular theme, but it’s hardly surprising in 13th century literature. Still, it’s a fascinating peek into the depiction of women in general and female sexuality in particular.
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, and on Bluesky as MythsPodcast. 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’ll be going back to our old pals the Brothers Grimm for a listener request story. You’ll discover that you shouldn’t be jealous of a child, that silk laces can be deadly, and that dwarfs are fastidious magical creatures. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a strange little kid with a strange name will do something normal and get into a strange predicament. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.