Month: July 2018

Episode 8: Dreadful Ships

Episode 8: Dreadful Ships

On this episode of Bone and Sickle, we look at the folklore of ghost ships, undead sailors, some nautical elements in gothic literature, a song about a ship piloted by the Devil, and other horror stories of the sea.

We begin with a little reminiscing about our last show on the Pied Piper and a story by George G. Toudouze that I’d wanted to include but didn’t have space for, “Three Skeleton Key,” It features both a ghost ship and a horde of ravenous rats like those devouring the wicked Bishop Hatto in Episode 7.  Clips from a 1956 radio dramatization featuring Vincent Price are included.

Discovery of the ghost ship Marlborough" 1913, from Supplément illustré du Petit Journal
Discovery of the ghost ship Marlborough” 1913, from Supplément illustré du Petit Journal

We then take a look at some notorious derelict ships from history, beginning with The Mary Celeste, which entered the popular imagination through a fictionalized account by Arthur Conan Doyle.  Ships adrift in the Arctic with frozen crews,  a ship cursed by malevolent spirits picked up in Zanzibar, and a ship discovered with its lifeless crew in a particularly grisly state are all discussed.

Edgar Allan Poe, in his only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, describes a ghost ship in ghastly detail in a passage dramatically interpreted by Wilkinson.

"Pym" Illustration for Jules Verne's essay "Edgard Poë et ses oeuvres" by Frederic Dargent, 1862
“Pym” Illustration for Jules Verne’s essay “Edgard Poë et ses oeuvres” by
Frederic Dargent, 1862

In between the Edgar Allen Poe passage and my introduction to the Flying Dutchman, you heard a snippet of David Coffin and friends singing the sea shanty “Roll the Old Chariot,” which you can hear in its entirety here.

We then have a look at the lore of The Flying Dutchman, best known as the supernatural ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean films or the opera by Richard Wagner,  Wilkinson relates some eerie accounts of Dutchman sightings from surprisingly recent times.

Hartwig & Vogel's Chocolate trading cards, "The Flying Dutchman" (1906)
Hartwig & Vogel’s Chocolate trading cards, “The Flying Dutchman” (1906)

A favorite explanation for stories, in which ghost ship are said to luminesce, is the phenomenon of St. Elmo’s fire, a weird electrical anomaly, which we find showing up everywhere from Melville’s Moby Dick to the laboratory of Nikola Tesla.

Ghost ships are sometimes said to arrive as omens of death, or their appearance may recreate the tragic end of ship and crew.  These otherworldly aspects have been noted in mariners’ accounts and served as the basis for a few poems, including a work by Longfellow, which we’ll hear.  Along the way, we learn about the Klabautermann, a strange sea-going gnome said to haunt ships on the Baltic and North Seas.

Klabautermann from Buch Zur See, 1885.
Klabautermann from Buch Zur See, 1885.

Next, it’s a musical break featuring the 17th-century  folk ballad “House Carpenter” also sometimes called “The Daemon Lover.”  This tale of demonic jealousy or the Devil’s retribution on the high seas is hauntingly rendered by Appalachian singer Jean Ritchie, Scottish singer A.L Lloyd, and in an instrumental arrangement by Adrian McHenry, and we hear bits of all these versions.

Samuel Coleridge’s epic poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” has often drawn comparison to the Flying Dutchman legend.  We have a look at its undead sailors, ominous allegorical figures, and how its arctic setting may have influenced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Gustave Doré illustration for "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1876)
Gustave Doré illustration for “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1876)

And who would’ve known, but it seems there’s a peculiar link between Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman.  I work it all out in the conclusion of the episode.

Claude-Joseph Vernet, "A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas" 1770.
Claude-Joseph Vernet, “A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas” 1770.
August 6: Episode Nine, “Cave Witches”

August 6: Episode Nine, “Cave Witches”

Our ninth episode upcoming August 6 will look at witches of a subterranean bent. (And our eighth on July 23 will be nautical horrors: “Dreadful Ships.”

Subscribe now so you don’t miss them!

"Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl in the Underworld," Jan Brueghel the Elder, ca 1630
“Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl in the Underworld,” Jan Brueghel the Elder, ca 1630
European Krampus Tour Invitation

European Krampus Tour Invitation

Photo courtesy Geek Nation Tours
Photo courtesy Geek Nation Tours

Have you ever wanted to experience an actual European Krampuslauf?

This winter (11/30-12/7) Bone and Sickle host, Al Ridenour will be hosting Geek Nation Tour’s “Kristmas with Krampus” trip to Austria and Bavaria where you can encounter not dozens but hundreds of the beasts in authentic costumes. He will be sharing Krampus lore from his book The Krampus and the Old Dark Christmas throughout the tour.

Included are TWO BIG KRAMPUS RUNS in SALZBURG and GRAZ as well as visiting other sites with the sort of darker, offbeat appeal that Krampus fans are sure to savor.


Other highlights include:
VIENNA: Anatomical Pathological Museum housed in the “Madhouse Tower” (former asylum). The semi-abandoned, gothically overgrown St. Marx cemetery where Mozart is interred. SALZBURG: “Mountains & Mythology” tour and ‘Hidden Corners” tour of the 12th-century Hohensalzburg fortress, accessing parts of the castle not normally visited. MUNICH: The famous bejeweled skeleton of St. Munditia in the St. Peters church. BERCHTESGADEN: world’s oldest functioning salt mine tour including boat trip across underground salt lake.
There will be plenty of unscheduled time for planning your own afternoon excursions.

PLEASE SEE LINK FOR COMPLETE DETAILS AND COSTS: http://geeknationtours.com/tours_post/kristmas-with-krampus-2018/

July 23: Episode Eight: “Dreadful Ships”

July 23: Episode Eight: “Dreadful Ships”

Discovery of the ghost ship Marlborough" 1913, from Supplément illustré du Petit Journal
Discovery of the ghost ship Marlborough” 1913, from Supplément illustré du Petit Journal

Next show: Monday, July 23. (We’re going 3 weeks instead of 2 this time because July has 5 Mondays.) The topic: “DREADFUL SHIPS,” including ghost ships, ships piloted by the Devil, and more!

Episode Seven: It is One Hundred Years Since Our Children Left

Episode Seven: It is One Hundred Years Since Our Children Left

In this episode, we explore the story of the Pied Piper, a folk tale uniquely anchored in grim historical realities. We begin with evidence of an actual historical mystery, including text inscribed on a gable of one of Hamelin’s medieval buildings as well as the initial 1384 entry in the Hamelin town chronicle, announcing, “It is 100 years since our children left.”

"The Pied Piper Of Hamelin" by Elizabeth Adela Stanhope Forbes
“The Pied Piper Of Hamelin” by Elizabeth Adela Stanhope Forbes

The Piper’s extermination of rats by drowning in them in the nearby river raises a question about rats swimming — which they do quite well — and how swimming rats figure into another German legend, one about the wicked Bishop Hatto and the famous “Mice Tower” located on an island in the Rhine near the city of Bingen. Wilkinson provides a fine reading of an early Romantic poem based on this horrific legend.

Bishop Hatto illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493
Bishop Hatto illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Certain elements of this Hatto story bring to mind the sub-subgenre of rat horror films and its prime exemplars, 1972’s Willard and its 1973 sequel Ben.  The 2006 remake of Willard starring Crispin Glover is featured in a special musical confection specially created for this episode.

Movie poster for Willard, 1972
Movie poster for Willard, 1972

We then take a side trip to Sweden where we learn of similarly macabre story featuring a mysterious musician leading  village youth away to the top of the fabled Hårga mountain.  Wilkinson’s reading of the tale is accompanied by the rather well known and rather spooky Swedish folk song by which the tale is known. The Hårgalåten song is popular enough in Sweden to have been covered by everything from metal bands to classical choirs.  Our favorite version (heard in this episode) is by Viktoria Tocca.

Next we discuss several of the theories that have been put forward to explain the disappearance of Hamelin’s children in 1284.  The Black Death, emigration, and participation in the ill-fated Children’s Crusades of the 13th century are all explored, as well as a recently advance, and more exotic notion about pagan rites and executions around the town of Coppenbrügge, in a swampy area known as the “Devil’s Kitchen, about 30 miles north of Hamelin.

"Pilgrimage of the St. Vitus Dancers" Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1564
“Pilgrimage of the St. Vitus Dancers” Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1564

A final theory — if not the best at least one of the more entertaining —  explains the disappearance of the Hamelin youth via the medieval phenomenon known as Dancing Plague or Dancing Mania, sometimes also called the St Vitus Dance.  We review a bit of its history and symptoms with dramatically rendered passages from Wilkinson, taking particular note of certain ludicrous and destructive extremes as well as incidents like that in the town of Erfurt, Germany, where in 1257 groups of children dancing their out the city gates call to mind the youth in the Piper’s tale.

Similar to the northern European Dancing Plagues is the slightly later phenomenon of tarantism in southern Italy.  Named for the “tarantula,” a local spider somewhat different from our own idea of the species, tarantism is a superstitious belief that the bite of this pest can cause bouts of mad dancing and other aberrant behaviors.   We recount a few historical examples of these outbursts, including incidents of the tradition all the way up into the early 1960s explored by the Italian scholar of religion Ernesto de Martino in his book and documentary film, La Terra Del Rimorso.

The show concludes with a visit to the delightfully named “Chapel of the Tarantula” in Galatino, Italy.