Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep31: Loremen S3 Ep31 - The Magic Ointment of Netherwitton

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

Ah, the fae folk, they seem so carefree and jolly. But theirs is a society full of arbitrary rules and harsh punishments even for the most unintentional infractions. Also they're very small and get upset when you look directly at them. Sounds like working with Tom Cruise. In this episode, Alasdair takes us into the realm of the faeries (Northumberland) as your bold Loremen face a second wave of Lockdown Fever... May Pob have mercy on our souls. Loreboys nether say die! ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

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. And in this episode, the lockdown fever, it hits pretty bad. Yeah, it came back. Did it hit you as well, James? Yeah, we got that lockdown fever. We rebrand the podcast.

We write two or three theme tunes, I think. We spend a lot of time on theme tunes. But we do also tell what I think is a really good fairy story. Yes, a literal fairy tale. It's the magic ointment. Is that magic with a CK and also a J? You bet it is. So, James.

Yes. Before we started recording, you were telling me you could zoom into stuff with your eyes. Yeah, I used to think that I could zoom in to things that were far away, just use my eyes up until the age of 12. I thought that, not that I... That's when you got an upgrade and it no longer worked. Yeah, and I realised it was an imaginary idea because in films they sometimes zoom in. I think in Bill and Ted, the robots zoomed in. Yes. With their eyes and I thought I was them, evidently. And I realised it might have just been me moving my head a little bit closer. That sounds like a good explanation

for it to me. Yeah. I distinctly remember, and I think this is quite common, being able to, or believing I was able to leap downstairs in a single bound. Oh. For a very long time. I have a memory of that, which I now realise was a dream. Definitely a dream. I did fall down the stairs and hit my head on a radiator at one point. So I definitely can't do it. I've got evidence. Did you just, in general, think,

I can't be bothered to do it today, I'll do it another day? Yeah, I was confident that I had the ability to do it. I always move and stand at the top of the stairs and go nah not not feeling it i don't feel the um the sort of the slow-mo moving through treacle feeling that i got in the um dream yeah where i did it the only time i've ever felt really sort of affected by video games was after like playing do you remember max pain i have never played max pain but i have heard of him you could slow down time when you jump through the air so it sort of went into like john woo type bullet timey type thing you were this hardened new york policeman who said things like pills they help to ease pain. And you just go into a room and instantly dive

and go into slow motion. And then it was really difficult not to just jump into rooms whenever I went into them. I can relate to that, not because I've played Max Payne, which, to be frank, sounds dreadful, but because I have played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. If you tony hawk's pro skater 2 if you played tony hawk's pro skater 2 you cannot look at an awning on a building the same way again it is impossible to see a railing or an awning without some part of you thinking i could probably grind on that yeah i

could jump up there yep yep ollie grind shove it to. I don't know what any of these words mean. And then that one where you balance on your wheels. Yes. Yep. And another grind. Radical. Yeah. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. I think I've got that in the shed. Is that the one where you could be Spider-Man? Probably.

You could unlock Spider-Man. Why would Spider-Man need to skate? Just show it off. It's not within the remit of things a spider can is it skating you wouldn't see a spider on maybe roller skates but then they need eight yeah they need four pairs or maybe three pairs and then save two legs for waving it's spider-man spider-man does whatever a spider can also skates it spins a web just like that oh no he's a...

We're going to have to bleep that and it'll sound like you're being really much ruder about Spider-Man. But the rhyme! Surely you can work it out from the rhyme. I've got a little story for you, James. Oh, great! Is it about Spider-Man? It's not at all about Spider-Man or his skating abilities.

Okay, alright. I'm sure I'll find something to be interested in. Hopefully you will find something. It's about a small, small, very small town called Netherwitten. Hee hee hee. Yeah, we're not even dealing with central Witten here. This is Netherwitten. Netherwitten.

In Northumberland. Does nether mean low? Yes. So like netherlands, lowlands. Yeah, exactly. Kicked in his nethers, the lower parts of a gentleman or lady. Nether say nether again. Goonies nether say

die. It's a bit specific. Yeah. As if the listenership of this podcast wouldn't get that. Of course they'd get that. We're all goonies. Yeah. That ends when you go up there on Troy's Bucket, listener. Yeah, exactly. Stay down here where it's our time. Alistair, this one, this one right here, this was my wish, my dream, and it didn't come true.

So I'm taking them back. I'm taking them all back. What age were you when you felt differently about the name One-Eyed Willie? I guess that's why they called you One-Eyed Willie. One-Eyed Willie. I really hope that's why they called him that. The Wikipedia entry for Netherwitten. So this is why I think we should look things up in books

rather than Wikipedia, because this is an unreferenced sentence. And I think there's a typo in it, but I could be wrong. Wikipedia says about Netherwitten, after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Lord Lovett, a Jacobite leader, for a long while lay concealed in a priest's hole in an upper room of the hall. Now, I have never heard a priest hole referred to as a priest's hole. He loves it. Old Lord Lovett. You're right in the hole there, Lord Lovett.

What's your name and how do you feel about this situation? Answer in as few words as possible. there lord love it what's your name and how do you feel about this situation answer in as few words as possible listeners from countries with a different history of religious suppression might not know that a priest hole aka priest's hole according to no one is a little secret compartment uh in a lot of aristocratic houses for people that was a very saucy sentence i'm sorry for being unintentionally saucy. For people who had pretended to give up the Roman Catholic faith when it was prescribed,

I think mostly during the reign of Elizabeth I. Is Priest's Hole hyperlinked on Wikipedia? And did you click on it? It's tragically not hypertexted. I was unable to surf the information superhighway by clicking on that. It's not even got a footnote, that claim. Citation is needed here, but it's so unchecked that nobody has even noticed that a citation is needed for this claim. Aeneas Mackenzie, who was a 19th century historian, presumably named for Aeneas, the founder of the Roman race.

Mackenzie wrote an historical, topographical and descriptive view of the county of Northumberland in 1825. I'll give you a little description of it from him. Nether Witton, formerly called Witton by the Waters, is pleasantly situated about eight miles west-northwest

from Morpeth and is surrounded by a rich, fertile country through which runs the River Font, whose abrupt banks are clothed with fine woods. He mentions there's a school at Nether Witton

at which 60 children are educated, some of whom are paid for by the gentlemen of the chapelry. Nice. Nice, thanks. And the poor of Netherwitten are so very anxious to have their children instructed that there are a few instances of their not being able to read or write. That's according to the Vicar of Heartburn.

What? Yeah, very rich diet, I assume, in that area. The Reverend Gaviscon? Yeah, Pastor very rich diet, I assume, in that area. The Reverend Gaviscon? Yeah, Pastor Rennie, absolutely. And in what barely constitutes a fact, he adds that Lionel Winship, in 1778, left by will £10 to the poor of this chapelry. But the money, it is said, has all been appropriated.

I mean, first of all, it's £10. Yeah. How can you get into a history book by leaving the poor of the chapelry £10? Lionel. I mean, it was 1778,'s 10 quid. Yeah. How can you get into a history book by leaving the poor of the chapel with 10 quid? Lionel. I mean, it was 1778, so that's a little bit more money. But unappropriated, does that mean stolen? Maybe.

Is that all working its way into Reverend Gaviscon's pockets? Yeah. What's he blowing it on? Curries, probably. I see him eating sort of a rich pudding. Oh. You know, those kind of really suity pudding. Oh, yeah.

Why am I telling you about netherwitten in such detail i don't know i don't know i've realized that was a um rhetorical question it was a rhetorical question but um thank you for getting involved that's right the reason is and i'm going to put this in terms that i think you will understand netherwitten is thick with fairies. Ooh, yes. Yes. The fae folk. The little people. The elves. The tiny peddlers. Tim Tom Tit.

Oh. Can't think of any more synonyms for fairies. John Pickleherring. Yes. God's first drafts. Douglas Adams said, Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

To which we say, No, can we have fairies, please? I'll give you a mini account of a fairy in North Witton. Right. Stephen Oliver in Rambles in Northumberland, 1835, tells of a milkmaid who was walking home carrying a pail of milk on her head. Do you remember that? Not to become too Peter Kay and too mainstream in my references here, but do you remember how women used to carry pails of milk on their head all the time?

And you rarely see it these days. What's that all about? What's going on there? I do feel like as a kid, people carried more things on their head, like books and stuff. You'd see that a lot as a thing, people walking around with books on their head. But I think that's because of smartphones now. You don't need to carry your books on your head,

you've got books in your phone, mate. Yeah, so she was carrying a milk pail on her head. Because of the past. Because it was the past. Because she couldn't download it onto her Apple Blackberry phone. The kids are all probably vegan, lactose intolerant, they wouldn't even want a pail of milk. Yeah, you wouldn't carry a pail of oat milk on your head.

You can't even call it milk these days. There's political correctness gone mad. I'm not really sure whose side I'm on anymore. No, and I am a vegan, and I did just have Weetabix and oat milk. Yeah, but you can't call it milk these days, can you? And I didn't balance the bowl on my head. I just held it in my hands. How did you transport the Weetabix from the packet to the bowl?

Head, obviously. Top of the head. I mean, good. Yeah. Yes. Like a sort of Alistair Jenga. Yeah, I mean, some people might argue, Alistair, why don't you open the Weetabix box near the bowl

and not have to walk several miles in between? So fairies. So fairies. So she was carrying the milk pail on her head and she was walking back home with a few other girls and she saw a ring of fairies dancing, just chilling out and being themselves. But as much as she tried,

she couldn't persuade any of the people she was walking with to see the fairies. And she would say, look, there they are, there they are. But none of the rest of them could see them. Could she not really point properly because she had milk on her head? I presume there was an awful lot of eyebrow work going yeah just sort of not trying to nod but just with her eyes yeah like when you see someone when we used to be allowed to go in public

with other people you notice someone who looks like someone famous and you're trying to get someone's attention over to it just using psychic powers basically and a sort of nose twitch. Over there. Don't look. Don't say Christopher Walken with a beard, but it looks like Christopher Walken with a beard over there. What's Christopher Walken with a beard? If I'm whispering it, don't repeat

it really loud. As one of the people that people do that about. Are you? Oh yeah, yeah, we can hear. I can hear the phrase it's ginger jesus being said several streets away across a dual carriageway i can hear that if you say it's ginger jesus and then all your friends collapse in loud laughter i can hear that and jesus can hear you wherever you are a friend of a friend uh fireworks incident fireworks do not fireworks incident that sounds really bad

a fireworks night and these friends of a friend i saw them like sort of talking to each other and show one of them showed something to the other one on their phone and they laughed and it was sort of as i was going over to say hello and then they like saw me come over and quickly shut the phone off but as i i saw them with a picture On their phone of Jermaine Clement From Flight of the Conchords It was like You're just explaining who Jermaine Clement From Flight of the Conchords is to him aren't you

And he's going oh yes he does look like him I think you look more like the guy from Murder and Success film Ah yeah There's a picture of him in a goalkeepers kit Which is uncanny. You look like his small, emaciated brother, even though in your own right you are neither small nor emaciated. He looks like a mech suit of me.

Like if you formed a Megazord with another James. Yes, exactly that, yeah. Like in Bill & Ted Station. Like in Bill & Ted Station. The stations, yeah. Any listeners who didn't get that reference, why are you even here? Yeah. Get with the programme.

So there was an explanation to this mystery, which is that her weisse, W-E-I-S-E, was found to be filled with four-leaf clovers. What's a weisse? It's a little cushion that you would put on your head in order to be able to carry pails on your head. Oh. And it's on a pad.

And that squished all the lucky juice. Yep. And it ran down her face into her eyes. I assume she absorbed it magically through the old crown, through the old cranium. Yeah. Straight into her mind. It's the quickest way. Yeah.

It's like Elon Musk has come up with a way for people to listen to music directly into their brain. Oh. And everybody's just like, well, we've got ears, so could you do something else, please? And he's said, like, everybody with ears is a paedophile. Yeah. Well, that seems extreme. Stephen Oliver says, of four-leaf clovers, persons having about them a bunch, or even a single blade of four-leaf clovers, are supposed to possess the power of seeing fairies even though the elves should wish to be invisible

how do you know you've got a single blade of a four leaf clover surely that's just a one leaf i think by single blade he probably means a single four leaf clover because i don't know what a single blade clovers are called they're called trafoils aren't they but i suppose that means three leaf that does yeah they tend to So it should be like a quatre foil or something. It's a difficult thing to say. I was always very paranoid when going to the fish and chip shop that if I asked for two fish and chips, I would get two fish and some chips. So I always made a point of saying fish and chips twice, please. Yeah, that's a good part. It's like if you want a vodka and a coke separately yes not in the same glass yes but if you ask for it they look at you like your data from star trek

just to say can i have a vodka and a coke in a separate glass please what what do you know how to talk to humans can i have a vodka and a coke in a separate glass please fellow human i remember my greek friend when I was ordering a cup of tea, because I am English, and him saying, you know that if you say tea, they will give you it in a cup. It isn't necessary to specify the vessel. And he's right, but it would be incredibly insulting in our culture to just go up to someone at the counter and just say,

tea, coffee. Like, what? Can I have tea? They throw it directly in your face. There's your tea. Cup comes later, on request. And that bounced off your head as well. But the very real danger is that you might inadvertently end up with a glass of tea,

which tastes like washing up liquid. No, thank you. Not in my lifetime. At one time in Netherwitten, there lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were henceforth known as the farmer's wife. And they were very much in love, but they couldn't have children, which to me sounds ideal, but they were unhappy about it. One night, there was a knock at the door, and it was a finely dressed man and woman with a little baby boy. And they offered to pay the couple to look after the little baby boy while they went a-travelling. The farmer and farmer's wife were delighted.

They said, we'll do it for nothing. We don't need to be paid. Just the opportunity to love this little baby boy will be enough for us. Obviously, the father of the little boy was pleased and naturally, this being a fairy tale, he produced a curiously carved jar containing a mysterious ointment. A salve, if you will.

A balm. An unguent. An emollientollient a chapstick a balsam also a chapstick is it's quite difficult to say and can lead to some peculiar looks if they're not aware of the brand chapstick well i've just got that now it took me a little while we have to bleep that like with priest's hole as long as there isn't an apostrophe S, I think we're safe on chapstick. Balsam, the shampoo I use, I'm saying this because I just washed my hair before we did the recording. I use Alberto Balsam shampoo, not to advertise it.

Where'd you buy it from? The past? They got it in Sainsbury's, down our way. Really? Well, they run out of Timotay. I didn't realise until I looked up a list of synonyms for ointment, that Balsam meant ointment. Oh. I thought that was the name of the man who invented it, Alberto Balsam.

I've always pictured him as like a big Italian man with a sort of Super Mario moustache, and I want to know if that's true. I have emailed the company to say, who is Alberto Balsam? Where does the name come from? And I've not received a reply. Nothing. Do you do that for all companies?

Well, you're like, also also this mr sheen fella i know mr sheen and mr muscle are real i just it's not like alberto balsam's a character he's not in the adverts they don't even have adverts people buy them because they cost a pound did you think it was tim o'Tay, an Irish man. Anyway, the rules for this ointment salve, balm, emollient, balsam or unguent were that the farmer had to apply it to the little boy's eyes every night, but must never let it get into his own eyes. Oh. Seems reasonable. You've got a basic mogwai situation going on. Yeah. Wash hands, 20 seconds. Happy birthday twice. Boom. Absolutely.

Nice and clean. So they started to raise a little boy. They both loved him. And every night they applied the ointment. The father taught him farm business, I assume. And the mother told him English fairy tales. Oh, yeah. The Ladely Worm of Spindleston, Kate Crackernuts and Johnny Cake.

Is that one story or two that's three stories the ledley worm spindleston cake cracker nuts and separate story johnny cake oh i thought cake cracker nuts and johnny cake was like crime fighting duo yeah like a not mega band super group yes a super group formed of cake cracker nuts and johnny cake although i like mega band oh it's yeah like a live album johnny cake sort of like a rounder version of johnny cash it's like if mr tumble started doing johnny cash covers cake cracker nuts that's a good exclamation i might start using that one, after religiously and observantly putting the ointment in the kid's eyes, but not putting it in his own eyes, the dad thought,

well, if it's so good for his eyes, he's such a bright little boy, it can't hurt for me to maybe put it in my old eyes. So he rubbed a little bit of it into one of his eyes and bam, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Until a few days later, they travelled to the big city. Long Horsley. Whoa! Yeah, for Long Horsley Fair.

What did Aeneas Mackenzie say about Long Horsley? Not much. No? He said it was divided into four quarters, viz. Big's quarter, Riddle's quarter, Freeholder's quarter, and Longshaw's quarter. And near the village of Long Horsley is a moor, or common, several hundred acres in extent. It being the prolific source of contagious disorders incident to cattle, Wow. Which gives you a very 19th century perspective, I think, that you can't just look at a moor or a field without thinking,

what a waste of... You could build a farm there. What a disgusting natural stretch of land. I do like that the quarters of the city are actually... There are actually four of them because I always get really annoyed when you go somewhere

and there's like seven different quarters. Yeah. This is the Spanish quarter, but there are no other quarters. What you mean is there's a tapas restaurant. Yeah. Have you been to Manchester's northern quarter? I have.

Manchester is a northern quarter. So I guess it's just even more northern. They only serve chips on shoulders. Covering gravy. Not to disparage the northwest any further. Hey, what's that about? Just more Peter Kay stuff. Yep.

Yeah, just working on the mainstream act. That's a good idea. So at the fair, everything was going well. They were having a lovely day. And then the man spied the father of the boy, the man who had come to the door, the finely dressed gentleman, stealing cheeses from a cheese stall.

Oh, a cheese thief. Cheese thieves. Mmm, cheese thieves. And sadly for him, still did not realise at this point in the story that that man was in fact the king of the bad fairies. Oh. And I think it's sad. The story doesn't comment on this.

I think it's sad that the king of the bad fairies can't afford to pay for cheese. What does it mean to be king if you have to be a cheese thief? He's doing it for kicks, mate. Yeah? He could have bought for kicks, mate. Yeah? He could have bought that brie. You reckon like Anthony Warhol Thompson? Yes, exactly like that.

Is Anthony Warhol Thompson the king of the bad fairies? How tall is he? Three, four feet? Meh. American listeners, Anthony Warhol Thompson is a celebrity chef who was cautioned by police for stealing cheese. Yeah. Because Britain is a ridiculous country.

Yeah. Cheese thieves. Pop them on your head. See how many you can get out of the shop with. Now they've cancelled cops in America. Maybe that's a potential reality sort of. Yeah. Cheese thieves.

The suspect is proceeding on 12th and 13th Street with cheese on his head. He's got a concealed Parmigiano-Reggiano. Do you have a licence for that leicester cheese there's like a person with like a pixelated out face and they like open their jacket and it's just crafty slices in little plastic bags yeah lined it fully lined a big big loose plastic bag full of mozzarella yes bad boys bad boys on that subject i was thinking of changing the podcast name to law boys law boys law boys what you're gonna do when they come for you oh i would i was going to wild boys by duran duran

oh right law boys law boys never lose it that's an intro and an outro it's given us ah yes i see you as the funny will smith one and me as the less funny Martin Lawrence. Oh, great. Thanks, mate. Also, you're taller. Little boys. Little boys. I've never seen bad boys. Anyway, so King of the Bad Fairies is swiping the fromage and the farmer being a good-hearted gentleman goes over to him and

says, Oi, what are you playing at? You're doing stealing cheese. You can't steal cheese. And the king says, How come you can see me? Do you mean how can I see you? I can see you because you're stealing cheese. You can't steal cheese. And the king says, how come you can see me? He says, do you mean how can I see you? I can see you because you're stealing cheese, obviously. And he says, which eye can you see me in? And he says, I can see you with my right eye pointing to the eye into which

he rubbed the ointment. And the king goes, blows into his eye and poof, he immediately went blind in that eye. Oh. And the king and his wife vanished. Of course. And he remained blind in that eye for the rest king and his wife vanished of course and he remained blind in that eye for the rest of his life he went back to his wife but such as he might they could never find their wee little boy again oh what yeah oh sad story yeah snitches get stitches cheese

thief grasses end up needing glasses very good i don't think glasses actually cure blindness no i'm no optometrist. I mentioned a few of Joseph Jacobs' English fairy tales earlier. And by the way, this is the folklorist Joseph Jacobs, not our friend, the comedian and rapper Joe Jacobs. Oh. Not to be confused. Different man.

Okay. I've been imagining him. Bit disappointing. I mentioned a few of the stories he collected in his English fairy tales earlier. But in his version of this story, which is the much more popular version that appears not just in Northumberland, but across England, Wales and the rest of Europe, Germany and Norway. It is a tale about a midwife called Dame Goody. And she is called sometimes to a fine palace and sometimes to a cottage to give birth to

a lady's child. Not give birth to, what's the not give birth to what's the word um to midwife administer yeah pull out do they pull i don't know if they pull i don't know facilitate the birth yeah of a child yeah and she's handed the mystery ointment and told apply it all over the baby give it a good rub in but do not get any in your own eyes and uh while no one's looking she gives it a little bit of a rub in one of her eyes. And immediately, either the cottage turns into a fairy palace, or the palace that she thought she was in is revealed to be a dank cave,

and the beautiful lordly family become hideous trolls or fairies. And then she talks her way out, and then she goes to the fair and makes the same mistake. But instead of having her eye blown in, he punches her in eye and she goes blind forever oh don't mess with the lotions no i do that though like because i put sometimes put a bit of moisturizer on the on the babies that we that we have knocking around the place and as a sort of because of a side effect of having children is it very quickly ages your face so i pop a little bit i do pop dab a little bit of their ointments around my eyes this is probably where the temptation arises but there's a huge risk in doing that you could be popped in the eye about a cheese thing yeah i wondered if i could find a recipe for the magic ointment itself

yeah and it's much quoted apparently something called the ashmolean manuscript includes it oh really the recipe under the title choice proven secret made known which is a sentence that i know all of the words in but i don't know what that means choice proven secret made known i think some of it's a brand name uh so i thought i would i will read all this, if that's alright, in case any listeners want to mix it up at home, which I think would be a terrible idea, but here it goes. A precious unguent prepared according to

the receipts of a celebrated alchemist, which, applied to your visual orbs, will enable you to behold, without difficulty or danger, the most potent fairy or spirit you may encounter. I like the phrase visual orbs. Just say eyes. There's not many other orbs on the body though i suppose let's not get into that yeah no the eyeballs are definitely in the top two set of orbs

this is the form of the preparation a pint of salad oil what and put it into a vial glass but first wash it with rose water and marigold water i hate when i guess that's marigold i hate when recipes say do this but first do. I am doing this in order. Yes. Do not at this point tell me to put it into a preheated oven. Any recipe that begins a paragraph with the word, meanwhile, can take a flying... Not happy.

Wash it with rose water and merry gold water, the flowers to be gathered towards the east. Salad oil. Salad oil. Yeah, I don't think it means salad. I don't know what salad oil is wash it till the oil come white then put it into the glass and then put there to the buds of hollyhock the flowers of maddie gold the flowers or toppers of wild thyme the buds of young hazel the time must be gathered near the side of a hill where the fairies used to be and take the grass of a fairy throne. I feel like if you've found a fairy throne,

you're already well along the way. And then all these put into the oil, into the glass, and set it to dissolve three days in the sun and then keep it for thy use. I also wondered if you could buy it. Cool. And Etsy did not fail us.

Etsy will sell you Fairy Sight Ritual Oil, Fairy Magic Oil. Oh yeah, it's spelt with a K for £19.71 plus postage, although they are very clear that it should be used to anoint your third eye and not rub directly into your actual eyes. Oh, right. I see what they mean. Yeah, you were in a one-eyed willy situation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty certain the people selling these things on Etsy are skirting around the guidelines because they all have a disclaimer saying like this is sold as a curio like if you rub it on yourself that's nothing to do with us just selling a jar of ointment i didn't say rub it uh one of them goes a little bit further from erotic apothecary they sell the green fairy flying ointment, a bargain at £13.97. And they specifically tell you to apply it liberally to your armpits, behind knees, ears, nape of neck, soles of feet, third eye, and upon genital regions, if one feels so inclined. Whoa.

I feel like if you are going to fly, you don't want to be leaving your genitals behind. No, you've got to take them with you. Equally, though, you wouldn't want them to set off... At a different speed. Yeah, you really want to maintain consistency across the whole body. So I will draw my tale of nether-witten fairies to a close with my rebuttal to Douglas Adams. Isn't it enough to see that a fairy is beautiful

without having to believe it has a garden in its bottom? Very nice. Would you care to move into the scoring section of the podcast? Yeah, let's get to the score zone. Alright, follow me into this room. You pour the brandy. I'll light the fire. It's scoring time.

I was imagining it being a bit more Crystal Maze. Into the score zone. You're locked in. I think I would have been good at the mental ones, but I think agility I would have failed. I would You're locked in. I think I would have been good at the mental ones, but I think agility. I would have failed. I would have been locked in.

I think they would have struggled to find a boiler suit that fit me. You just won't be hemmed in by a boiler suit. Too much of an independent thinker. Well, I would be hemmed in and that would be the problem. Locked into just your clothes. I would have been locked in there. They wouldn't have sacrificed a diamond for me. Not worth it for Shakespeare. Leave him in there. Yeah. Some of have been locked in there. They wouldn't have sacrificed a diamond for me. Not worth it for Shakespeare.

Leave him in there. Yeah. Some of them are still in there. But scores to the score dome. Okay. Would you start the fans, please? So I'm just going to grab first category out of the air swirling around me. What's that?

It says names. Names. Names. Yes. Yes. Never Witten. Aeneas Mackenzie. The Vicar of Heartburn Johnny Cakes

Johnny Cake Cake Crackernuts the Lady Worm of Spindleston the River Font Alberto Balsam Tim Ote King of the Bad Fairies Anthony Worrell Thompson

sorry I'll put that differently the King of the Bad Fairies aka Anthony Worrell Thompson. What font do you think that river was? Monotype Corsifer, probably. Definitely a Serif font. Yeah, well those end up becoming Oxbow Lakes.

The Serifs just end up on their own, do they? Yeah, they get cut off. The Ashmolean Manuscript. Yes. Green Fairy Flying Ointment. That's a terrible name. That's silly, that's silly that's silly that's very silly yeah that is very liquid if you drink enough i mean the king of the bad fairies is only known by his job title isn't he hasn't got a name no i i guess oberon is usually king of the fairies it could be oberon that's got two spellings with an o but also an AU like aubergine. But when you take away the prefix, that's just two guys called Ron and Gene.

The Brothers Ober. I can't give you more than a three. What? Because I want some fun fairy names. I mean, you've got Jenny Crackerjacks. Crackernut. Yep, Jenny Tiswas. That was good.

Kate Crackernuts. Kate Crackernuts. Johnny Cakes. You want the fairies to have names. I want, but like in Shakespeare, the funny names they have. Yeah. I can't go past the three, I'm afraid. Even the main characters.

You've just got Farmer, Farmer's wife, nay, Farmer's fiancée. It was a small town, James. It wasn't necessary to be more specific than that. That's true. Everybody knew who they were. Lionel Winship. Oh, that's good. Ten quid for the kids.

Ten quid to the kids. Remember to put me in a book in 80 years' time. All right. Three. Three it is. Next category. I'm going to claw some points back here, I'm sure. Supernatural.

Yeah. Supernatural. Very. Yeah. Very supernatural. Magical ointments. It's got a magical ointment. Fairies. Fairies. Very. Yeah. Very supernatural. Magical ointments. It's got a magical ointment. Fairies.

Fairies. Glamours. Glamours? Yeah, like the fairy spells, where they make you think you're seeing one thing, but you're in fact seeing another. Ooh. Milk jug on the head lady.

How does it stay on her head? Ooh. It's not possible. Yeah, the magic properties of the four-leaf clover pillow. And just fairies in general. They've obviously got a very supernatural vibe. Yeah, fairies themselves are supernatural by their very nature. Yeah.

Cheese justice. They wouldn't even eat the cheese, surely. He's just nicking it for kicks. They probably ride around on wheels of cheese like that's their bikes or something right fairy folk oh probably with a couple of breadsticks for like the handlebars like and they reminisce about when they were kids and they had a rally cheddar yeah but little cracker wheat biscuits as clickety clacks spooky dokies i like yeah i like we called them clickety clacks not spooky dokes did you i

thought their official name was Spokydokies. Well, I've never let the man push me around, James, so I don't care what their official name is. Fine. Apart from when you're writing to the man to find out about Alberto Balsam. Who is he? What's his deal? What's Alberto Balsam's story?

Why does he love hair so much? Is it the Balsam of Alberto? Is it Alberto's Balsam? We're in a priest hole situation here. Is it Alberto's balsam of alberto is it alberto's balsam we're in a priest hole situation here is it alberto's balsam or is he alberto balsam where does it come from someone must have come up with it you're not interested in what the man has to say unless that man is alberto balsam put him on i'm phoning him up put him on the phone now or I'm calling the police. Well, it's high. It's a four, isn't it?

Because it's all supernatural. There's no... It's not like someone was mistaken. There was people getting blinded by the power of breath. Or the power of punching. Well, that's pretty normal. Yeah, it's not so odd. But she did see a palace transform into a dank cave.

Yeah. I'll just inscribe that on some kind of fairy paper that will vanish on a midsummer's morning. Yeah, me too. You can just say you're doing it, can't you? Yeah, you can just say it. It's an audio medium. We can do anything we want. I tidied up earlier and the blooming fairies must have made it all messy again.

Oh, you're bleeding fairies. Next category. Abre los ojos. Who? Open your eyes. But I said it in Spanish. Behind the veil, there are many worlds layered up, and we can only see the first layer.

Oh, yeah. But by dangerously rubbing stuff into your eyes, against all medical advice, you can penetrate the mysteries of reality. And see the other world that's there all along. It's there. They're there, laughing at us. She was in a dank cave the whole time.

That priest's hole was a monk's envelope. This reminds me of a thing I read the other day. Apparently, pigs can see wind. People used to think pigs can see the wind. What? How can... How did you... This podcast should have opened with you saying alistair

pigs can see wind turns out why did we wait till now i i wondered if it would come up in conversation and weirdly it has that's brilliant you know uh rachel my partner lover and confidant is a big fan of telling me animal facts oh yeah that aren't really necessarily accurate. And one of them is pig related. It's that you can't call pigs pigs on an island. What? Yep. Doesn't make any sense.

Ducks can't express emotions. That's another one of hers. Apart from sarcastically. They're like working class men because of all of the white bread that they get. That's the reason. And what's the other one?

Oh, cats have no terminal velocity, which I've tried to explain to her. That means if you dropped a cat out of a building, it would accelerate infinitely. That isn't true, that cats do that. Can't be true. What is the score for the category of animal facts? 10 out of 10. Open your eyes. But really, those animal facts are just opening you to a world.

I was going to be stingy and say it was only three because there were only three eyes opened. The two of the... There's the two eyes of the midwife. There's the two eyes of the farmer. He only put it in one eye, famously. There's the third eye of whoever purchased that absolute scam from Etsy. Well, I think the only eyes that would have been opened

would be them realising that it a potentially a scam afterwards yeah um or the doctor that treated them's eyes opening in shock or surprise yeah i do hope nobody buys that and rubs it in their eyes yeah but the animal facts brought it up to a five out of five for open your eyes yes That's what's really going on. Question everything. Subscribe to my four-hour-long YouTube lecture. Oh, God. Very bad infographics about what the MSN don't want you to know. MSN Messenger? Yeah, what MSN Messenger doesn't want you to know. Oh, gosh.

Which is... How to uninstall it. That WhatsApp exists. Hey, remember MSN? What was that all about? Hey? What was that about? Final category.

Breaking the law, breaking the law, breaking the law. Just breaking the law once. I just said it three times. Yeah. Yeah. We've got cheese thieves. Everyone's breaking the law. We've got a clear instruction not to rub the ointment in the eyes.

Avoid contact with eyes. If you leave them alone for long enough, you come in and they've just got a mouth full of silica gel. Yeah, it always annoys me, because I hate redundancies. It annoys me when silica gel says, throw away, do not eat. Because that one of those instructions should be enough. Throw away, alright.

But I'll give it a little nibble first. No! So what's your score for breaking the law? It's got to be five for that. Alone for the cheese rustling. Chussling. Chussling, yes. Curd larceny. Yes.

Grand theft edam. Oh, that's nice. I can't remember any cheese names. Cam-am burglary. Wait a minute. Let me just look up some cheese names. Oh, they'll end up in fetters.

I hope you enjoyed that lockdown fever episode of Lawmen with me, Alastair Pickett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. And that, what you just heard, is the stuff that we didn't cut out. Imagine. There's definitely one sentence that I started saying and I had no idea how it was going to end. And it didn't for that reason.

And that sentence continues to this day. And it didn't, for that reason. And that sentence continues to this day. If you'd like to help in any way at all, you can give us a couple of quid on coffee.com, ko-fi.com forward slash lawmen. Yes, it's a very simple way to donate. Thank you.

Thank you. I used that website Etsy for the first time recently. Yes. I wanted to get a snazzy face mask that made me look like I was a bandito. They're all the rage. What, banditos? Banditos have never been more popular. Yep, I can't go anywhere on a steam train or in a covered wagon. No, not these days.

Just as a quick side note, if you ever look up the biker gangs of America, there's some really funnily named ones. And one of them is called the Bandidos with a D. Bandidos? To me, it does sound like the person who was going down the biker gang naming office had a cold. What's the name of your gang? The Bandidos. Also, that is a real biker gang.

And if you're listening to this podcast, fair play for finding it. I mean, no disrespect. No, absolutely. is a real biker gang and if you're listening to this podcast fair play for finding it uh i mean no disrespect yeah no absolutely if you are a biker gang listen to the podcast um please recommend it to a friend pops an email um threaten a square yeah listening to it but whatever you do just please don't circle around me and james intimidatingly on your bikes revving yeah i hate revving could you not have a skull mounted on the handles please hey they can do what they want James, intimidatingly on your bikes. Revving. Yeah, I hate revving. Could you not have a skull mounted on the handles, please? Hey, they can do what they want, these bandidos.

Yeah, no, do what you want, do what you want. Yeah, fair enough, fair play. But if they're coming around to intimidate you, please do it sans skull. Just be respectful. Yeah. Etsy. Yeah, so I wanted to get one of these masks to look like a bandido,

and I bought it, and it was all going swimmingly it said hey james do you want to do a one-click payment on paypal damn right you do yeah of course i do i'm up for it being easy and then as soon as i did it uh got an email through to the lawman email address saying that i'd bought a thing on paypal and i didn't realise I'd been logged in on the lawmen PayPal. So I felt terrible about it because that's a rookie error. The listeners have been giving you their hard-earned money during an economic downturn, James. And you... I know.

That's not a podcast expense. Your ability to breathe. Or impersonate a bandido. Or impersonate a bandido. So I... Sounds like Norman Lovers when I say it. A bandido. bad d-do or impersonate a bad d-do um so i sounds like norman lovers when i said a bad d-do so i obviously had to flag that up with you because i presume you get the email as well at the same time to say sorry i've accidentally bought a thing i'll transfer the money over

for my paypal my real actual paypal that'll be fine and then I noticed the name of the company I bought it from on Etsy was called something like the Yorkshire Cotton Co. On the email, it was called FussyPussy.com. What? FussyPussy.com. Presumably a website devoted to very picky cats. I'd hope so. I haven't been to it. You haven't checked?

No. My internet provider flags it up as a warning site. But also, this bad Dedo mask was only like £7, so it can't be that fussy a pussy. No. So, yeah, that was a real embarrassing time for me because I had to then swiftly write an email to you saying, hey, I've bought a mask from a website that sounds like it's selling sex toys uh not that kind of mask it's a mask because i want to stay alert it's lockdown fever

don't worry about it it got me real bad the lockdown fever gotcha yeah little boys little boys what you're gonna do when they come for you little boys little boys