(spooky) okay but my favourite discussion around werewolves is exploring the cultural need to explain what people have to do in bad winters to survive.

Like wendigos, knowing that shit takes a toll on the soul and we need to seperate these parts of ourselves

Also I SWEAR IF I READ ONE MORE THING ABOUT ERGOT POISONING

YES

Iiiiindeed. I have a lot of feelings about The North(TM), and that folks down here really, really don't get it.

Like rabbit madness. Early settlers who didn't know better, didn't farm much and only raised and ate rabbits. Not enough fat on them, so they could eat and eat and kept losing weight.

i had a lecturer and protein poisoning was a whole thing like were you talking about food let him talk about rabbits (you could be talking about anything the man just loved to talk about protein poisoning to an audience)

In my case it's this theory that people think everyone in the 1600s had ergot poisoning from their bread and that's why they were all so paranoid about witches and monsters!!!

It's one woman's theory and she's been discredited multiple times but EVERYONE BRINGS IT UP

They did not have ergot poisoning, it was just their culture world views that they used to help them cope in a unforgiving death filled world

Ergot is such a dumb theory! /yells.

Instead of ~visions~ or St Vitus dancing, it's more likely to just make your limbs fall off.

Oh my favourite stupid part of that was that European nobility were drugging the population into docility for centuries with ergots.

They didn't need to??? They had the swords and the peasants did it and that was more than enough

I...have never heard that version.

It's dumb AF, but I am not surprised.

all these dumb theories made life so miserable back when i did plant bio because they're the loudest people trying to get their word about and it's like 'i'm researching the history of rye bread excuse me'

I had to read her full paper bc I was studying cultural significance of bread and you cant go three steps without people spouting it off - OH GOD YOU TOO I AM SO SORRY

i only miss the wild shit i could find on google scholar when i had uni access

just pages of idiocy and i'm trying to find out about what happened to cows i don't care about girls allegedly lost in the sauce

You wanted the reviews because no only were they most hilariously SCATHING shit I've read from one academic to another but they also broke down HEY THAT'S NOT HOW GRAIN PROCESSING WORKED IN THE 1600-1800S

I have a book that I hate-read now and again when I want to be mad at small stupid things that claims the Black Death was actually ergot poisoning.

What. Is with people's obsession with ergot?

Also update of my poor podcaster, 4 hours for a Spanish Catholic in prayer a day for the upper nobility is not intense. That's just a full mass.