Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep105: Loremen S3 Ep105 - The Public Universal Friend and the Fresno Nightcrawlers

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

The Loreboys share two legends from the other side of the extremely big pond (the Atlantic). Shakeshaft goes west to Yosemite National Park and encounters the Fresno Nightcrawlers. Meanwhile, ABK meets Rhode Island's Public Universal Friend. This episode was originally a livestream/shambles, beset by jetlag and the untimely demise of the Loremen laptop/loretop. But it came out surprisingly OK! Why not listen on your drive to the Cow Palace? Or check out the full stream here: youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.Patreon.com/loremenpod Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. Sorry, I said that really weirdly because I felt like I was going to hiccup the whole time. Did you scare yourself into not hiccuping though? You scared me. You scared me. Were you so scared of doing bad broadcasting?

I'm recording this upside down. You're talking backwards. James, this has been a disastrous introduction. I think we need a record scratch. Yeah, do it. Drop it. Okay. To be fair, a disastrous introduction is quite fitting.

Whoa. This is a slow down on the motorway to watch this episode episode. Yes, definitely. This was recorded under duress. This was recorded. I had bags of jet lag as I was setting up in the shed for the live stream that this is the audio from. My computer screen stopped working. If you're not a computer expert,

the screen's quite an important bit. Yes. Because that's where the things are. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Icons. All of that. Sometimes there's a picture of a field with a blue sky. That's where Clippy lives.

Lived there, died there. He's buried in that field on Windows XP. Is he? Yeah. Clippy RIP. You look like you're trying to write a letter of condolence. My brain was completely scrambled, added on absolute rage that I had that my computer had stopped working.

I think it's quite a good episode. It went all right. Yeah. I think it's the first one we've ever done which starts with a sigh. And has no scoring, really. Do your own scores. Here's my suggestion, James.

Yeah? You've had a bloody hard week, excuse my language. You've been flying. Definitely. You jet lagged. My suggestion is, how about I tell a little bit of a story from America, and then you tell a little bit of a story from America and then you tell a little bit of your story from America and then afterwards, that'll be the end of the podcast.

That's a good idea. How about that? Yeah, I like it. Just take a bit of the pressure off. Yeah. With that in mind, welcome to Lawmen. I am Alistair Beckett-King.

And I'm Furious James Shakespeare. Still got it. Still full of bile down here. His wrestling name is Furious James Shakespeare. Yeah, I. Still full of bile down here. His wrestling name is Furious James Shakespeare. Yeah, I think so. Or Colonel Panic. Colonel Panic.

Did you just come up with that? No, it's Colonel Panic is what happens to your computers when they go completely broken. You get a Colonel Panic. Oh, very good. It's like wordplay. Colonel.

It is like a wordplay. Very good. Well, James, I was thrilled to hear about America for the first time when you visited. Yes. And so I did a little bit of research. I found a very interesting story recently, which comes from quite the opposite side of the Americas. And I was hoping we could set up some kind of East Coast, West Coast rivalry. Oh, that's a new thing that's not been done before. Good. I'm glad I thought of that.

My little local legend comes from Rhode Island. Have you heard of Rhode Island? Yes. It's not a road. It's not an island. It's not even an island. What a bunch of liar. I googled Rhode Island on a map. It is a state. Most of it is landlocked. Most of it is land. And a small bit of it is island. It's road doll he's not he was neither a road nor a doll nor was he a delicious lentil based dish

you're right so the story is that i found that comes from rhode island are the many many legends of the public universal friend are you familiar at all with the public universal friend no but i feel like i could do with one right now you're having a bit of a hard time well james i'll be your public universal friend oh thanks the public universal friend has had a bit of a renaissance lately because they were a legend in their own lifetime, a genderless Christian prophet and possible non-binary pioneer. The legend and history overlap in murky ways. What we do know is that Jemima Wilkinson was born to parents, Jeremiah Wilkinson and Amy Whipple Wilkinson. Whipple. Yes. Is that a middle name then? It was her maiden name. So she was Amy Whipple Wilkinson. Mm-hmm. Whipple. Yes. Is that a middle name then?

It was her maiden name. So she was Amy Whipple, and then she married Mr. Wilkinson. She became Amy Whipple Wilkinson. That's nice. The only thing that would have made that better is if the mum was called Gemma and the dad was called Jeremiah. She became Jemima, yes. Jemima Wilkinson was born, well, I've written in the 1752s. Oh, yeah.

Well, around in the 1752s. A, yeah. Well, around in the 1752s. More accurate to say, in 1752. And she was the eighth of 12 children. And her mum died when she was quite young for, I think, obvious reasons. Poor Amy Whipple. Even her initials, A-W-W, are like, oh. That is basically the last thing I'm going to tell you about Jemima Wilkinson, because Jemima Wilkinson left time when she was quite young and was replaced with the public universal friend. And the public universal friend has no gendered pronouns. And because every historical account of this refers to the public universal friend with female pronouns i'm bound to get it wrong

at some point rest assured it will be scrupulously edited out of the podcast version as if i didn't make any mistakes absolutely apologies in advance yes i'm gonna apologize in advance as well not for that not for anything we talked about just i what time of day does it feel like it is to you with the jet lag james it's coming up for 1pm for me. Right, so it's lunchtime, but you've been up since yesterday. Yes, yeah, it's lunchtime today, but I've been up since our English lunchtime yesterday. A proper English lunchtime. Since roast dinner.

So from the records of the public universal friend, I give you a memorandum of the introduction of that fatal fever, called in the year 1776, the Columbus fever. On the fourth day of the tenth month, on the seventh day of the week, at night, a certain young woman known by the name of Jemima Wilkinson was seized with this mortal disease, and on the second day of her illness was rendered almost incapable of helping herself. And the fever continuing to increase until the fifth day of the week, about midnight, she appeared to meet the shock of death. What actual disease Wilkinson had is somewhat disputed. What isn't disputed is that she was really ill. Dr. Mann attended her. Oh no. Some say she laid in a death-like state,

sort of trance for ages. Some stories say she was actually placed in a coffin and was about to be buried and did the old classic banging on the lid. Oh, my word. One way or another, the body awoke. But when it awoke, it was the public universal friend. And I'm reading from Herbert Wisby's 1964 book, Pioneer Prophetess. I beg your pardon, what was his name? Herbert Wisby.by so we got a whipple and a wisby one of each yeah so he writes the delirious hallucinations of her feverish

troubled mind were to her a vision from god so real that she was able to record it in detail after she recovered she was under its influence when after the fever left her she announced to her startled attendants that the old Jemima Wilkinson was dead and that a new spirit inhabited her body. This reborn spirit was to be called the Public Universal Friend, whose mission it was to preach to a sinful and dying world. She called for her clothes and dressed,

and except for this curious religious monomania, soon appeared to be well again. And that is by far the most generous account of the friend that I can find. The friend went on to oppose slavery, good, and preach celibacy, that's fine, and built up a small following known as the Jemima Kins. That's nice. Very nice. I think that might have been sarcastic. But the reason I had to look to the 60s for an

account is that all of the contemporaneous and 19th century accounts absolutely hated the public universal friend. 19th century biographers are all like, horrible woman tells devilish lies, or suspiciously attractive fraud pretended to be Jesus to seduce my husband. They're very, very angry about a lot of stuff. Basically, until recently, the Public Universal Friend was regarded as a megalomaniacal huckster, and the rumours and folklore that grew up around them were just repeated as fact by almost everyone. So I'm going to repeat some of those legends with the caveat that they probably aren't true.

Could I just briefly interject? I think this word came up maybe a couple of episodes ago and I pretended I knew what it meant. What was the word? Monomania. Monomania is a specific obsession with something. Okay. Big, big time popular word in the 19th century. I seemed really literate there. And then I used the sentence big time popular word. If only there was a way of describing everyone focusing in on that one thing. Alas, history hasn't helped us out there. Unfortunately not.

One of the big legends about the public universal friend was that the friend claimed to be able to walk on water. I'm quoting here from the end of Bertrand Russell, a.k.a. Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss' essay, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, which is a really good title for an essay. Nice. I admire especially a certain prophetess who lived beside a lake in northern New York State about the year 1820. She announced to her numerous followers that she possessed the power of walking on water and that she proposed to do so at 11 o'clock on a certain morning.

At a certain time, the faithful assembled in their thousands beside the lake. She spoke to them, saying, Are you all entirely persuaded that I can walk on water? With one voice, they replied, We are. In that case, she announced, There is no need for me to do so. And they all went home, much edified. That is, that's clever. That story is repeated by almost everyone.

No reason to believe that it happened. And isn't it kind of funny that a famous sceptic like Bertrand Russell repeated the story because it confirmed his preconceptions about fraudsters? A little bit of irony there, Bertrand Russell. Maybe you want to look at the log in your own eye, perhaps. Maybe. I move straight over to a section I've titled, Knicking Husbands. A woman called Mrs. Rose accused a friend of trying to steal her husband using a classic, classic method of sending a poisoned cake.

To the wife. Yeah. Took me a really long time to understand the story. Yes. Hoping that Mrs. Rose would eat it. It's a real gamble because what if the husband eats it? Yeah. What actually happened was, fortunately, a child had some.

Oh. So no harm done. The child was ill, but did not die. Or fall in love. Oh, dear. It wasn't a magic love cake. Let's hope not. A second occasion of husband nicking.

A young girl supposedly saw local man Judge Potter climbing into the friend's window. Although, the way the little girl reported it, an angel was seen going into the window, although he wore the same buttons as Judge Potter. That's the kind of way that people identified people in the olden days. Ah, buttons. Is this pre-DNA, pre-fingerprinting, pre-dental records? It's buttons all the way, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just like, oh, those were his buttons. And also, I could see his face and body, and it was him. And he was dressed in long red, and he had this sort of white wig on. Yeah. And he had a small gavel, which judges don't really have. They might do in America. Maybe they do. When Mrs. Potter, at one occasion, burst into the room,

she found the friend and Mr. Potter together, and the friend said that the friend had been ministering to one of her lambs. Mrs. Potter retorted, minister to your lambs all you want, but in future, please leave my old ram alone. Nice. Quite sassy. I have to say, the public universal friend preached celibacy and notably surrounded themselves with supposedly beautiful young women. I just have to say, I'm really not getting massive husband-seducing vibes from the public universal friend. It seems against their MO.

The friend seemed an awful lot keener to me on the Potter's daughter, Susanna, who tragically died at the age of 22 on a day known as the Dark Day.

Have you heard about the Dark Day? The Dark Day? It's like a mini year without a summer. How long did it last? A day. It was the 19th of May, 1780. In the 1780s?

And again, according to Wisby, the sun was blotted out and it became as dark as night. The strange darkness was not an eclipse of the sun. Combined with a smoky smell and copper, red or yellow clouds, it lasted until about two o'clock in the afternoon and was a terrifying experience for many. The event is recorded in many diaries and journals and in the newspapers of the day. And for the generation, people remembered and spoke of the dark day with awe. And on that dark day, young Susanna Potter died in the arms of the public universal friend.

And it's variously said that the friend knelt by the coffin hoping to be able to resurrect Susanna Potter, but was unable to do so. In some versions of it, they staged an elaborate hoax where someone pretended to be dead, and then people were gathered around in order for the friend to resurrect them. And then a nearby soldier said, do you mind if I run my bayonet through the corpse just to check 100% that it's dead? Whereupon the corpse in its shroud leapt out of the coffin and ran away.

Again, these are obviously made up joke stories that clearly didn't happen. That leads me on to the final section, obvious lies. Obvious lies. A particular Jemima kin was supposedly heard, this is quite unpleasant,

squashing a newborn infant between two mattresses, which is a thing that you cannot hear. Absolute nonsense. In 1787, an account of attempted murder appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper. Oh no. I've called it attempted murder, but a better description would be a dream. At a religious meeting of the Jemima Kinn's, Sarah Wilson and Abigail Dayton got into a scrap. It gets very EastEnders.

That night, Sarah accused Abigail of sneaking into the room that she was sleeping in and trying to strangle her in the night. She escaped death only because Abigail became confused in the dark and actually choked her bedmate, a woman called Anna Stiers. Sounds pretty dramatic. They asked Anna about that, and Anna said that nothing had happened and it must have been a dream. And Sarah said, okay, but I better tell the newspapers just to be safe. Obviously, nothing happened. It was a

nightmare. But the story evolved over time so that the friend, who wasn't even in the state at the time, was the one who was responsible for the attempted murder. And if you like the sound of the public universal friend, you can buy a mask, you know, a COVID-19 style mask with the words public universal friend with benefits. Who's that joke for? Who's that for? Yeah. No one's going to get that. It's very niche. It's extremely niche. And from the sound of things, not what they were about. Very much not what the friend was about. It's extremely niche. And from the sound of things, not what they were about. Very much not what The Friend was about. At least on paper.

Depends who you ask. Unless you ask Bertram Russell. So that was, hopefully quite briefly, the story of The Public Universal Friend. Without benefits. That was a lovely story about The Public Universal Friend without benefits, unless you ask Bertram Russell. Unless you ask Bertram Russell. Unless you ask Bertram Russell. So I was in San Francisco, which is very handy for Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is the home to Bigfoot sightings.

I haven't got any specific details because, again, the time I should have been preparing for this, I was simply sorting out the technical aspect. The home to more than one Bigfoots, Bigfeets. The hairy boy. You know the sort. Mr. Legs. Well, actually, the one in the video, the famous video, you know.

The classic. Oh, I'm a moth. With the angry look back. Yeah. That is most likely female. Once you've noticed why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't not notice why.

You can see her public universal friend. Yes. It is most likely female, but it is also definitely a costume. Oh, yeah, it's absolutely a costume. 100% a costume. But the attention to detail... You know what would make this Bigfoot better? One word that I'm not going to say.

You know what it is. People don't like feet. Wait, the feet ain't even going to be in the shot. There's a whole other cryptid based in Fresno, which is an area. I thought that was a nickname for a place, but that's a real place. Oh, a couple of other things, actually. I got a couple of the San Franciscan notifications for you. Blim.

Okay. I didn't want to look it up because I didn't want to spoil the image that this place name gave me. But there is, well signposted in San Francisco, a place called the Cow Palace. Do you think you're fit for an audience with the Cow King? No, no, no, no. Three trials must you complete.

First, put upon your neck this bell. So what do you imagine when you imagine a cow palace? What's your sort of... Cow palace. It could... I see one of those, you know, where they have medieval diners in America where out-of-work actors go to waste away.

Yeah. I imagine that sort of... But they're dressed as cows. Oh, so it's... They're serving burgers as if the cows want to feed you burgers. Conflict of interest, surely. Yeah, surely.

I wouldn't... I definitely wouldn't trust a burger that a cow gave me. No Booze has pointed out. Cow King? Surely Dairy Queen. Nice. Very good. Very nice. Yeah, I approve of that pun. trust a burger that a cow gave me no booze has pointed out cow king surely dairy queen nice very good very nice yeah i approve of that pun very much you're responding with the speed of like the local council when you submit a request you just process it and come back with a sort of pro form or response your pun has been registered and you will receive a response in due course. Thank you very much.

Yep. It's been seconded and I can't see anyone raising any objections with this pun. I asked my wife what she imagined for a cow palace. It was kind of a chaise lounge and a kind of a cow in a toga. Oh, yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Type of vibe. Being fanned with grasses and then just having a little bit of grass.

That is nice. You don't need the peeling grapes. No. You can do it all with just one thing. Oh, yeah. Nice. That's quite good of that emperor cow. Efficient.

Say what you will about the emperor cow. Very efficient. Very efficient with the cow staff because I presume it's a cow society. I imagine it's sort of like King Louis Palace from the Jungle Book, but cows. Yeah. So less jazz, and it's a bit more slower ambient music going on there. There's already a little bit of excitement in the chat

about the cryptid that you touched upon. Oh, yes. The Fresno. It is a Fresno Nightcrawler. bit of excitement in the chat about the cryptid that you touched upon oh yes the fresno that it is a fresno nightcrawler that is a good name it's a half accurate name in as much as it is in fresno it was first recorded and spotted in fresno there have been three video ings of it uh the first one is in fresno the second one was in Yosemite, which is why I feel like I can talk about it today. And the third, I believe, was in Poland. Poland?

Yeah. That's unexpected. That is an unexpected twist. I have the Fresno video here, I think. And actually, it is quite creepy. You can just see... It's very creepy. I see what you mean now. It is nighttime, but they are not crawling. And I don't think they could crawl because they appear to just be... Parachute pants.

...legs with a head atop those legs. There is something billowy and strange about the way the feet bend when they touch the ground. They move, I don't want to sound like a sceptic here, but they almost move in a sort of puppet-like fashion. To me, they move like somebody who's got a really big pair of trousers and they pulled up to their neck. I did a bit of research after you sent me that video. The height that they come up to is about the height of just above the waist of a human. Oh, yeah.

Because the trees aren't quite as big as they look. And if only there was such a thing as a less-than-average-height human. Like a human that only... I know two humans, actually, right now. I could wake them up. I could shake them and get them awake two humans that only come up to around waist height and what i like is it's sort of cctv you know when you know when you set up a cctv camera and you point it at a small patch of path that has nothing of value in it you know when you do that james oh yeah yeah yeah from quite a low angle like like the height of a tripod yes Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one of those general, normal CCTV cameras

that you would use that for, that just happened to catch the Nightcrawlers walking in a way that would be incredibly easy to do in After Effects. Yes. Oh, I think even in real life, I reckon I could do a decent... You think you could do a Nightcrawl? I could do a decent Nightcrawl, I reckon. I don't a decent... You could do a night crawl? I could do a decent night crawl, I reckon. I don't know what...

There is something scary, uncanny, unheimlich about that video. The way the legs bend is genuinely creepy. And that's why I can think of a couple of ways that they could have done it. But the effect is actually really good because I thought like, okay, it's parachute pants where they're wearing one leg and then the other leg is a puppeted leg because i've just realized how boring this is getting it's surprisingly well achieved however the fact that it's an incredibly incredibly low quality video means

that i can't say with any confidence how they do it but you could do it like six different ways that's cctv for you isn't it that is cctv yeah pointed at a path they've got a real mr soft vibe yeah they they sort of they bend yeah that's what's that's what's creepy about them as they go i think they look like kind t-rexes there was a proposed link to a native american um thing which was it was obviously a lie because these are fake and someone said oh i think it's i think it's a native american god thing right and then from the sound of it they are some native americans and they just went yeah yeah it's actually it's an alien that is there to teach people to love nature now will you leave me alone i made the end bit up in a sort of reverse Professor Yakult name.

He's not Professor Yakult, is he? What's his name? Good bacteria. I do love you. Bifidus Digestivus. That wasn't him. That was the biscuit gang, wasn't it? Someone pointed out that our dynamic is Mulder and Scully.

And it's like, did we not pitch the show like that? Did people not that our dynamic is Mulder and Scully. And it's like, did we not pitch the show like that? Did people not realise that we're Mulder and Scully? I'm the sexy redhead. Yeah. And you're the sexy brownhead. Yes. Yes, exactly. I don't believe it.

And James, believe it. Yeah, and I've been stuck down in this basement. Yeah, with the nickname Spooky Shake Shaft. And a poster that says, I want to believe that he must have made himself. Yes. They weren't available until after the X-Files came out. So unless he's got a time machine. spooky shake shaft and a poster that says i want to believe that he must have made himself yes they weren't available until after the x-files came out so unless he's got a time machine exactly it's really confusing well i don't i don't think we're going to do scores for this episode because it was barely an episode oh yeah would you like to score your trip to san francisco yeah i'd give

it a five out of five very nice and i'd give the amount of hours i've been up a five out of five. Very nice. And I'd give the amount of hours I've been up a 20 out of 24. I must say, contrary to what the song says, this is my best dad joke from the trip. San Jose is very well signposted. I only did that four times in the whole two weeks. Can you believe it? Can you believe it?

We're definitely going to end the podcast on that joke. So anything we say now is superfluous. Well, there we go. There you go. If you're worried about James, if you want to help him out a little bit, you can join the Patreon. He loves it when that happens.

Yes, I do. I would normally say, like, if you want more of this, check out the Patreon. But if you want better stuff than this... Yeah, if you want things that are up to our usual high standards. Listen to almost any other episode and join the Patreon for bonus episodes. That's patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. And may the fifth be with you.

You say that every day right in May. I've been doing it for the past four days. People only smiled once. That was, yeah, I think I found the problem oh okay and I won't be doing that again and I'm absolutely furious understood

I think we better get going hello hi James how are you I'm alright how are you oh terrible I was wondering if you were going to lie because just before we went on I said Hello. Hi, James. How are you? I'm all right. How are you? Oh, terrible. I was wondering if you were going to lie, because just before we went on, I said,

is everything all right? And you said, I'm really angry. I think I said, I'm furious. So am I right in thinking that the official Lawman laptop, the Lawtop, died just before this? Yes, it did.