Loremen Podcast - Minisode - Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan (and also Northern Ireland)

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

The Loreboys are off galivanting! Well, Alasdair is on tour in the UK and James is on a family holiday in Japan. (Friend of the podcast: Japan.) So, think of this episode as a horror anthology. If you're afraid of talking cats and hairy trees, that is.

Psst, hello, it's another mini-sode, that's why I'm doing the mini-sode whisper. Yep, because me and Al are both off gallivanting in our own distinctly separate ways. Alistair is on tour around the UK with his hilarious comedy show, which you can see probably, check his website. And I am on holiday with my family, visiting relations in a little country I like to call Japan. I actually like to call it Pajan, but that's a family joke. I don't expect you to either get, understand or care about it. But Al sent a bunch of audio little postcards from his travels. of audio little postcards from his travels and I thought in between that I'd tell you a little tale from around where I am. I did actually try and do a field report on this but the tale takes

place up a mountain and we went up that mountain and the top of that mountain was in a cloud. Here's a clip of what I managed to do. Look at the view. As you can hear, it's awful. I'm going to try and do something where I re-record the audio. Anyway, this story takes place on Nekodake, which is one of the five central peaks of Aso. And it used to mean the cat's mountain. And say that that is because on february the third

all cats from all over the area would go to see the king cat who lived there right so keep that in mind but also just forget about that now so there was this traveler who was walking on the mountain mount asso and he got really tired and as it happens in a mountain mountainous regions night fell very quickly because there was there's big mountains basically as soon as the sun gets down a little bit boom it's night time and this guy was lost tired alone hungry he walked and walked and he couldn't seem to find his way out and his legs got tireder and tireder and then he thought he heard voices and he followed the sound of those voices. He found a massive house, almost like an inn, a traditional inn called a Ryokan.

And he thought, brilliant, I can get some food. They're going to have an onsen, which is like a hot bath thing. I can chill rest my legs get fed get off the mountain at sunrise lovely stuff so he asked if they've got rooms and they're like yeah sure come on in and he sits in a back room and then he he like calls out oh can i get some food please and they're like yeah no problem do you want to have a bath while you wait it's like lovely stuff yes please so he starts walking down the corridor to the bath and on his way he passes a middle-aged woman who kind of starts when she sees him like and uh she comes up to him she's like look you might not recognize me but i know you know you, and you need to get out of here right now, buddy.

Right now. And we'll find out what happened after the first of Alistair's Tales. Hello, lawfolk. Hi there, listener. It's me, Alistair Beckett-King. One half of the Lawman podcast. One half of the Lawman podcast, probably better known for being the 1999 winner of the Rotarian Society Junior Public Speaking Award, County Durham Division. I think that's what I'm most well liked for. But as you can probably tell from the audio quality, I am not in my flat.

I'm out on the road. I'm on tour. I'm beginning at a little leg, a small leg, an ankle, really, of a tour. I'm going to Newcastle, then Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, and finally Derry before returning home. And I thought it'd be nice, while I'm away, to take a little mic with me and to record a little piece of folklore about each town I go to. So we're in Newcastle. Let's hear about some Geordie spiritualists. In the early 20th century, Henry Holliday wrote reminiscences of my life, presumably referring to his life, not my life. Otherwise, that would be incredible foresight.

to his life, not my life. Otherwise, that would be incredible foresight. And in it, he describes an encounter with two seamstresses from Newcastle. These were no ordinary seamstresses. They were gifted mediums. And in the house of Mr. Arthur Balfour, they demonstrated an extraordinary spiritualist feat. Now, what they had was a giant set of scales. You know, like the witch is hung from in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They've got a giant set of scales for putting a woman on one side. They had exactly that. They put the woman in a sack and they put her on one half of the scales. And on the other half, they put out a counterpoise, as Holliday calls it,

a counterweight so that she was perfectly balanced, but concealed within a cabinet at the same time. The onlookers, the séance attendees, they could only see the other half of the scales and the counterweight. What happened then? Well, the lights were lowered till the room was nearly dark, and presently a small figure appeared on the floor and moved about among the persons present. And at the same time, the scale with the counterpoise descended till the persons present, and at the same time the scale with the counterpoise descended till the beam stood at an angle, indicating that the girl inside had lost half her weight. When the figure disappeared, the scale resumed its original position, and when the

lights were turned up, the girl was found in her scale, still enclosed in the sack, with the seals intact, and she was awaking from a trance in a very exhausted condition and it is speculated by mr arthur balfour and others who were there present that somehow the manifestation of the little creature that moved around the room was a physical emanation part of the medium's body had somehow escaped the sack and taken the form of a tiny little person and henry holiday mentions that mr arthur balfour himself was six foot four so that little guy must have looked really tiny to him so that's a that's a tale of geordie spiritualism bye for now

ah the geordies very nice so yeah what happened the tale? So the guy was knackered, lost up a mountain, found a mysterious house. No cause for alarm there. Goes in, is going to go and have a bath before dinner. And this middle-aged woman stops him and says, look, I know you, you got to listen to me. You got to get out of here right now. So his response was quite disparaging. He didn't seem to care. She impressed upon him that he was in mortal danger. You must escape, she said. And he was like, all right, all right, all right, fine. You seem pretty het up about this. I'll go. First, I'm going to have some dinner. And I'm also just going to have a quick bath because my legs are very stiff. To which the woman replies, between you and me, it was five years ago that I used to be a favourite with you.

Whenever toward the evening I came over to your home through the fence, you held me on your lap and you stroked my head i was the tortoiseshell cat your next door neighbor cat all right then well let's find out a little bit more of what happened with alistair hello there law folk law listeners i am in the very very echoey stand flat in edinburgh over the road from the stand. I'm about to do my by showing the stand. And on the way here on the train, 20 minutes delayed, but you don't see me complaining. 20 minute wait at Newcastle. We passed through Innewick. And there's an interesting story that comes from Innewick. It seems that the Reverend William Ogilvie

was the minister there. And when he died, a fascinating discovery was made. In his cupboard, they found documents which related a conversation between the Reverend Ogilvie and the ghost between the Reverend Ogilvie and the ghost of the Laird of Cool, which these days I think would be spelled C-U-I-L, but crucially in those days was spelled C-O-O-L, the Laird of Cool. Mr. Maxwell, the Laird of Cool. Max Cool. What a cool guy. Ogilvy was walking down the street and he saw a figure in front of him. And he thought that it was someone he knew playing a prank. So naturally, as a Christian and a man of the cloth, he tried to whack him with his cane, flung it out. And I think he's sort of showing off about how strong he is here, because what happened was the cane flew straight through the person and went 60 feet, which is simultaneously saying, oh, it was a ghost, but also, I'm strong. And what follows was not just one, but a series of

meetings between the Reverend Ogilvie and the ghost of the Laird of Cool. However, I'm sorry to inform you that they're extremely dull. I've tried to finish them. I can't. They've got absolutely no back. Can you imagine? I don't know if the listeners to this podcast will be able to imagine. Can you imagine two really boring guys just going on and on and on and nobody interrupting?

It's just, it's really, it's no crack. Bad show. The Laird of Cool is one of the least accurate names I've ever heard. Should be the Laird of Boring. Well, I hope you enjoyed that little piece of Edinburgh folklore. It's not Edinburgh

folklore. It's 36 miles away from Edinburgh folklore. Next time we meet, i'll be in glasgow well that was a lovely tale um well before we get back to our weird little story about the cat lady let's see what else i was up to well i'm not in a hotel room. As you can probably tell from the sound, there are other people here.

And if they were in my hotel room, I would say, excuse me, this is my hotel room. But it isn't my hotel room, it's the ferry between Cairnryan and Belfast because I forgot to record

a little bit of folklore in my hotel room. Basically, what happened was I did a gig in Glasgow, it went very well. I accidentally referred to Glasgow as Edinburgh, and I was chased out of the stand with pitchforks. I don't know where they got pitchforks from. It's not a farming community. But obviously they have a few pitchforks. a farming community.

But obviously they have a few pitchforks on standby in case an Englishman makes a small mistake. A very tired Englishman who's on tour makes a small mistake. And we're now travelling on a ferry. We, me and the microphone, and you, the law folk.

Ooh, I think I saw a jellyfish. We are now on a ferry. And I just saw Eilsa Craig, which is a very unusual little island. A round little dollop of an island. And it is the source of the granite that is in curling stones. Is that what they call them, curling stones?

The things that look like kettles? You've seen curling. You whiz out a kettle onto some ice, and then people, they sweep to encourage the kettle to continue its journey. It is, for my money, the only good sport. The only sport that's enjoyable to watch Curling Not very curly

As a sport But You know You can't have everything Ailsa Craig Is the Gaelic for Fairy Island But another name for that

Not Fairy Island Fairy Rock Craig Crag Krieg means rock but also it's also known as

Alistair's Rock Caddick Alistair and apparently King Sweeney Mad King Mad King Sweeney of Ireland lived there for about

a month and it's mostly puffins these days puffins and Mad King Sweeney of Ireland lived there for about a month. And it's mostly puffins these days. Puffins and people looking for curling equipment. And it can be seen from the town of Girvan. Not Govan, but Girvan. And there's an interesting connection with the Sawney Bean case. Supposedly, one of Sawney Bean's daughters, Elspeth,

escaped and made her way to Girvan where she started a new life and even planted a tree known as the Hairy Tree, which is within the site of Ailsa Crag. Tragically. Or, if you're against cannibalsals in a good turn of events, the villagers found out who she was and hanged her from that very tree, from the hairy tree. She was hung from her own hairy tree. Who among us can say we haven't been in that situation?

Well, what else is there to say? i'm looking forward to seeing tatos again of course the the legendary irish crisp well there's tatos from the republic of ireland and then there's northern irish tatos and they're completely different crisps obviously um i don't want to put my foot in it again um in they've got Taitos here at the ferry port on the Scottish side in case you can't wait for a Tait so I'll see you in Belfast

oh there's a seagull flying next to the ferry that's a gannet it's not a seagull it's a gannet the twitchers will be writing and saying there's actually no such thing as a seagull technically there's no such thing not a seagull it's a gannet the twitchers will be writing and saying oh there's actually no such thing as a seagull technically there's no such thing as a seagull well there is i've seen loads of them so where were we the guy finally heeded the warning from the woman

who reveals to him she is his old neighbor's cat in human form because as she reveals this is the house of the king of the cats if you eat the food and have a bath then cat hair will grow over you and you will turn into a cat it's your classic werecat situation and she is like act cash but get out of here right now and also if it comes out that i told you what was going on they'll kill me too so just make your excuses get the hell out of here finally the guy took her advice he hurried out of the house but evidently he'd been seen because he's followed by three young women running after him each holding a wooden bucket of hot water he ran and ran even though as i mentioned as did he that his legs were very tired and he reached the edge of a cliff and he found that

the three women had caught up to him he started scrambling down the slope and one of them flicked water on him and a few bits of spray landed on his ears and around his shins and he finally made it home to Miachi town. And they say that from that day forth, hair grew on the man's neck and legs because he got sprayed by the water. Ooh. Right, let's see what Al's up to. Hello, Lofog. You find myself in a Belfast hotel room and yourself. We find ourselves in a Belfast hotel room and yourself.

We find ourselves in a Belfast hotel room and it's nearly 11 o'clock. So we're about to be kicked out. Time to start packing up. But before I do, I'd like to share a little bit of Belfast legend with you. Now, this story is an odd one because it appears in a number of newsy papers, but it's not very well attested. I've tracked it down as best I can, and it seems to come from the classic online internet message board, Fark, F-A-R-K dot com, which is very much in the something awful vein. And seldom has a website been so accurately named as something awful. Back when message boards were still a thing

and social media was merely a glint in Satan's eye, someone told a story which was quite interesting and ended up getting repeated in a few newspapers about Belfast. Outside of Belfast, there is a place called the Giant's Ring, and it's a Neolithic ritual site or meeting place or burial site. There is a megalithic tomb in the middle of it, but it's a huge ring. And this this Internet, this anonymous Internet fellow or or or person was visiting Northern Ireland at the age of 10 with a 12 year old brother and an eight year old little sister. this person visited the giant's ring on a sunny winter's day and they were running around and having lots of fun and they approached what the writer calls the men here i think they mean the the megalithic tomb structure in the center and suddenly upon their approach an impenetrable mist closed in and they were unable to see. They got scared. They started

to cry. They tried to backtrack. They tried to get away from the grave site, from the megalithic structure. But whichever way they went, they found that they came back to it again and again and again. Eventually, the older brother came up with an idea. He would walk away and they would shout after him. He would walk away from their shouts until he reached the edge of the fog. And finally, they were able one by one to escape from that mysterious fog. And when they found their mother, she told them there had been, and I quote, no mist whatsoever. We ran to mum who was confused at first because according to her, it had never changed from sunny. She'd seen no change in the weather. So that's probably nonsense, because you can put anything on the internet, can't you? Now I've got to pack my bags and go to Derry. Bye! Well, I did my show in Derry, and it was a lot of fun, but it was also really weird.

What an interesting place, is what I will say there. I don't know if anybody who was at the show will hear this. If so, what's going on with you? What's going on? It's an interesting place, Derry. I got back from the gig to the hotel and the room I'm staying in, it's not really a hotel, but the room is not even really a room. It's so small.

I mean, I'm not proud. I don't need a palatial suite, but it's got a... You open the door and then there's a wall sooner than you would expect a wall. And then there's what I think is a child's bed. Spector Wall. And then there's what I think is a child's bed. So Derry is a town with an interesting history and two names. And I'm not going to get into that.

Even the recorded voice of the tannoy on the train seems a little nervous because the voice says both Derry and Londonderry as you approach. But because of the way the voice has been cut up, she sounds like she's sort of made a mistake. So it's like, the next station for this train will be Derry. Londonderry. But that wasn't really what struck me about Derry. When I got off the train, I crossed the bridge, and on the bridge they have the Derry coat of arms.

And it's incredible. I implore you to Google an image of it. The bottom half of it is all black and it has a turret, like a rook, like a chess piece. And then it's got like a full skeleton. And the skeleton is giving such sass. It's such a sassy skeleton. It's leaning on one hand like, oh, typical. I'm a skeleton. It's looking directly at you, the viewer, as if to say, oh, yeah, looking at a skeleton, are you? That's fine, I suppose, being alive. But I'm not.

I'm a skeleton. I looked up this skeleton to sort of find out what's going on. Is this a famous skeleton? It is. It's the skeleton of Walter Lyeth de Burg burr which i think is how it's pronounced is written de burr like as in chris but i think it's de burr and uh poor poor old wally the skeleton wally bones was starved to death in 1332 by his cousin william de burr a year later later, Jill de Boer, yep, a third de Boer, the sister of, you know, the bony guy,

she got her revenge and arranged the assassination of William. So that's the moral of the story. If you starve your cousin to death, you'll end up with a really kick-ass coat of arms. Well, it sounds like Alistair has had a blooming lovely time. Thanks, everyone, for looking after him while he was away. Will we be back to normal soon enough? I may be a little jet lagged next week.

Might pop something out from the Patreon bonus feed. We're going to open it up for everyone to have a little listen. There's a crow.