Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep39: Loremen S3 Ep39 - The Midnight Library - The Great Lakes Monsters

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

The Loremen travel through time and space (which is literally the only way to travel) to visit the dark and delightful Midnight Library Podcast. Yes, this is a crossover episode! We meet the mysterious Miranda Merrick, who regales us with tales of the Great Lake Monsters. Are the monsters great? Or the lakes? The answer is yes. This time, your humble Loreboys are more than out of their depth. Pull on a slanket and join us. Sound design by https://soundslikeanearful.com/ Loreboys nether say die! ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK | @NightLibrary

Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia. Et même cumulez les ventes et les remises en argent.

C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Et Rakuten partage l'argent avec vous sous forme de remise. Téléchargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. C'est R-A-K-U-T-E-N. 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 this week, well, do you know what crossover episodes are? Yeah, I know what crossover episodes are. Well, this is a one of they. What? We've crossed over with the Midnight Library podcast, and we met Miranda Merrick and Mr Darling.

She was very nice, but I didn't like him. How did we get there? We don't know. How long did we stay there? About an hour. It was subtly unsettling, wasn't it? Subtly unsettling. Hmm. Have a little listen and check it out.

Fortunately, we were recording the whole thing. What a relief. I know. That really would have been a waste of time if we hadn't. Madam, your gentleman friends are here for your company. Well, don't make it sound like that. Sound like what? I was perfectly civil. You know very well it sounded salacious. You've been out of sorts for a week now. I'm starting to think you need a distemper booster. I have not been out

of sorts, and my distemper shot isn't due until August. Oh, good. This is September. Let me see the gentleman in for you to entertain. James, this place is weird, isn't it? Do you remember how you got here? I don't remember anything after the mysterious elevator. I was just putting the kids to bed. I let down for a little bit. And then when I opened my eyes, I was here. Yeah.

And all I've got is I've got a receipt from Uber on my phone. But it's spelled Uber. Look, I was just cracker shopping. And now I'm here here or as white people call it shopping yeah shopping right so we're obviously in the midnight library yes but i can't even work out what section we're in it's just like the dewy system it's more like a slime i see what you're doing now more the gooey system this book here is called sensual bread making oh and there's a sticker on it that says, Now a Major Motion Picture. What does that mean? It comes with yeast.

I tell you what, I, for one, have had enough of non-Euclidean geometry. It's like Tim Burton's yard sale in here. It's weird. Ooh, they've got the novelisation of the Goonies. Hey! Novelisation of the... Oh, just go and look at the photos.

Er, they've all been defaced. Er, it's grotesque. Hey, look, they've got the guide to British town name pronunciations from Edinburgh to Blenheim. I thought this wasn't allowed to leave the country. Yeah, that's why American podcasters can never pronounce British place names correctly. Yeah.

That's the rule. Maybe we better take this back with us. I want to hear Edinburgh. Marlborough. Is that how you pronounce Middlesbrough in America? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a book here. What is this?

It says How to Talk Like Vincent Price. I'm going to have a look at this one. Chapter one. Picture yourself on a moonlit night. This is not working. You have a go, James. Yeah, so look. Okay.

Oh, this page, it just says spiders. It's just the word spiders on that page, is it? Yeah. Just written again and again. Spiders. Spiders. I'm trying to read the book in page, is it? Yeah, just written again and again. Spiders. Spiders. I'm trying to read the book in the voice of Vincent Price, but it just glides ever so slowly towards Dr. Evil, no matter what I do.

Comfortable broomsticks for dummies. It's just a cushion and a belt. We've got the joy of sects. Oh. The potential for humorous misunderstandings is extraordinary here. There's a sign to the Bible. And a sticker that says, now a major motion picture. It's like every book here is a strained pun or wordplay of some kind.

Yeah. This is such a strange place. It's so big and there's so many books, but I think I'm going to stop looking at them now. Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming to the Midnight Library. Well, we didn't have a great deal of choice about it, but thank you for having us. It's been weird so far. Good. Please let me begin by saying how sorry I am for the loss of your friend. I understand that there were three of you. Alberto Balsam was the other gentleman. I do apologize that he's been lost. I didn't like him,

to be honest. And the weird thing is, though, I've got this photograph of the three of us, and he's faded out. That's what's weird. I'm afraid that does happen. I apologize. I'm so glad you're both here for a story this evening. I have something so special for the pair of you. That sounds very exciting.

I'm equally excited. Oh, fine. I'm just as excited as James is. It's not a competition. If it was a competition, we would have drawn, because we're the I'm equally excited. Oh, fine. I'm just as excited as James is. It's not a competition. If it was a competition, we would have drawn because we're the same amount of excited. I assume Mr. Darling saw you in safely. There were no issues? Or perhaps you can't recollect.

I'm having a bit of an allergic reaction and I'm not sure what, but I'm very scratchy. Oh, my. He could do with me in Alberto Balsam, if you don't mind me saying. We may have to do with a little bit of spraying around the library to get rid of any fleas or anything that may be an issue currently. That's what he was doing when I first saw him, but I think he was marking territory in some way. I don't even know where the spray comes out.

But it definitely does. Really confusing. It's hard to look directly at. Yes, he's strong in many, many ways, our Mr. Darling. Mostly scent. He generally wears a top hat. I don't know if he had it on this evening or not. I think he'd eaten it.

It goes over his ears so nicely. It's very hard to tell which end of him is the top, to be honest, in a place like this. Now, I hope you didn't touch any of the books as you were here, because many of the books are cursed were here, because many of the books are cursed. No, absolutely none of them. Good. I, yeah, I wanted to see if the slime was really as slimy as it looked, and it was. Well, you may need to see a priest when you leave here. It may or may not help. I mean, that's true of seeing priests in general, isn't it? Isn't it just? Quite a mixed bag as a group. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Mr. Darling, I want to make it clear for

those who don't know, he and I are not a couple. We are partners in crime, so to speak. And there is a rumor in the village that he's some sort of rescue. And I take offence to that, but the truth is we sort of rescued each other and we have a very, very lively and indelible friendship. That's nice. Yes. It's pretty much the same with me and James. You took me in. Yeah.

I was a little waif, just skin and bones. I fed you and you wouldn't leave. Yep, you shouldn't have put butter on my paws. I just licked it off and then I was home. That was your mistake. Yeah. I had you and you wouldn't leave. Yep, you shouldn't have put butter on my paws. I just licked it off and then I was home. That was your mistake. Yeah, I had you done. No, and it seemed cruel at the time, but I have calmed down a lot. I always thought that you put butter on a cat's paws

and that was to make them slide down easier. But maybe that's something else. Why do you butter a cat out of... Why would you butter any pet? No, just the paws. Right. And then that makes them stay at your house. That's the, that's the old wives wisdom. That's right. All four paws or just the front, the hand paws. If you're going to get out the butter and butter a cat, I think you should be generous with it. The last thing you'd want to

do is, is finish buttering half the paws, wash up and then have to butter the other half of the cat. That is true. Yeah. Who's got the time for that? Yeah. If you're going to butter a cat, butter a whole cat. That's my wisdom for you, James. What I do is I smear the butter on the train of ground and just dip the cat in. That's how I butter.

I'm just saying that's how I butter a cat's paws. If you think you're smarter than centuries of wisdom, centuries of folk wisdom, fine, go off. It's another episode of James Shakespeare's Life Hacks. How to butter Your Cat. Hey, there's a book here called How to Butter Your Cat. It's got your face on it, James. And it says, now a major

motion picture. Now, gentlemen, if you'd like to take a seat by the fire, I have a story for you this evening that I think you'll really like. As far as I can tell, it's just one big chair, but I guess we could both squeeze in. We'll snuggle in. Snuggle in, then?

Alright. Some of this slanky? Yeah, alright. Can I go in the left arm? Alright. Okay. This is cosy. What? Was that you? I think we're ready for the story. I think in think we're ready for the story. I think in conclusion we're ready for the story now.

My story for you, dear lore men, takes place in one of the rarest settings in the world, the Great Lakes of North America, the home of the largest freshwater lakes on the face of the earth. You may like to remember their five names by way of the acronym HOMES, H-O-M-E-S, for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior, although there is a campaign to include Lake Champlain, causing the new acronym to become S-C-H-M-O-E. Yes, really.

The Great Lakes are the watery graveyard of more than 6,000 shipwrecks, 30,000 corpses, numerous phantoms, ghosts, and ghost fleets of the doomed ships and their crews. They're also home to some of the most frightfully strange creatures rumored to exist. This tiny tale is the story of just a pair of the legendary Great Lakes Monsters. monsters. First, we have not Nessie, but Bessie, or South Bay Bessie, as the mighty water dragon of the appropriately named Lake Erie. Bessie, although this was not her name at the time, was first witnessed by Captain Patrick Labadie of the Sloop Felicity in 1793, whilst shooting at some ducks.

The gunfire having roused the flailing sea monster, said to be colossal, slick and grey, with a mammoth head like that of a serpent, or a turtle, or like that of a gigantic dog. When the vessel approached, the crazed beast appeared to be wrestling about in the waters as if it were fighting an unseen foe. When the creature relaxed, its size was estimated to be fifty feet, and its huge black eyes were said to emit a vicious sparkle.

So, not dissimilar to my own then. In 1817, the crew of the schooner Beaver caught sight of the alleged leviathan, making record of it being 60 feet in length, exceedingly broad across its back, and a brilliant copper color. It crested so closely to the beaver that the men fired upon the beast with their muskets, which had no effect at all. The musket balls were seen to simply bounce off the surface of the animal's shimmering skin. The creature was also reported to have hulking human arms. Our next monster is the mysterious Mishi Peshu, who has supposedly lived in the depths of Lake Superior and perhaps Lake Huron for centuries. Witnessed and revered by the Native American tribes of the Anishinaabe, the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and Algonquin people,

Mishi Peshu is the Great Lynx, the massive underwater cat monster. Lynx, the massive underwater cat monster. More than 50 feet long and having the enormous head and paws of a giant cat, but somehow also a monstrous serpentine body coated with glimmering iridescent scales the size of dinner plates and sporting rigid spike-like daggers that protrude from the top of its kitty cat head all the way down its ridged back to its man-stabbing prong of a tail. To the Algonquin people, Mishipeshu was known as the underwater panther, and was a powerful underworld shape-shifting, godlike creature who controlled the weather and decided the fate of men, men who made sacrifices to it in order to, and

I quote, make the sturgeon rise, which I can only assume was helpful. Which I can only assume was, um, helpful. However, to the Sioux tribe, the man-eating monster was built like a buffalo, had horns and muscular front legs, one giant eye, and a long whale-like body with tall razored fins, and may have been heard to shout or bray in some way, and was always regarded as eternal and exceptionally deadly. But once, two little Sioux girls paddling in a canoe cut off the tail of the watery beast with an oar and hauled it into their boat.

beast with an oar and hauled it into their boat. The tail then magically transformed into a long length of solid copper that was cut into talisman-type jewelry for everyone in their tribe, which they all reportedly wore as protection against evil forces, which I can tell you hardly ever works. Now, as a gift of goodwill from the Midnight Library to you, dear lore men, I've taken the step of acquiring for you a Great Lakes Cruise visit voucher. Cruise may be just a bit of an embellishment, though, as the coupon only covers a late-evening canoe or kayak venture, during which you will be permitted to bring a sack lunch

and supplied a set of waterproof directional suggestions and a semi-powerful flashlight guaranteed to have at least two hours of battery life. We like to think we're nothing if not generous here in the Midnight Library. Enjoy your trip. And that's my story, gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed it very much. I hope it colours your dreams. I really enjoyed it. I mean, James was hogging the slanket. That's because I was so engrossed in the story. You do do that when you're engrossed.

Yeah. I'm a bit concerned about the sack lunch, because we don't call them that here, and I have packed way too much food without realising. What do you refer to it to instead? A picnic lunch? Packed lunch, yeah. Packed lunch. Sack lunch. Yes, something perhaps we shouldn't be discussing in polite company.

I mean, I'm a little nervous, but normally what we would do, Miranda, is we would score a story after we hear it. But I'm a little bit on the back foot because of the, well, for want of a better word, kidnapping. Yeah. Please don't be frightened and I can take anything you can dish out. I suggest perhaps maybe we could begin with naming? Naming. Yes, classic.

Yes, yes please. We've got the underwater panther, James. Yes, I liked the underwater panther a lot. That's not normally where you expect a panther to be. No, not at all. So that's the first thing that struck me. I really enjoyed the lake names. In fact, I enjoyed the term for all of them being

the Great Lakes. It's got the review in there. Much better than the Decent Lakes, the Passable Lakes. The So-So Lakes. Great Lakes. It sounds a lot more impressive than our Lake District. Yeah, now that you say that, it's got a very municipal sort of vibe to it. Yeah. There's a crime in the Lake District. A lake has been stolen. Whereas you he gone to? The Great Lakes. I mean, Great Lakes. Welcome to the Schmo Lakes. That would be more like Great Lakes. What about the Great Schmo Lakes? The Great Schmo sounds

like one of the best clowns. The world's greatest schmo. The Great Schmo. One of them, I think, is really trying to hog the glory, though. Yes. Superior, yes? Yeah, Lake Superior, no. Maybe that's my Englishness, but, you know, I love an underdog. I like Lake Erie.

I didn't warm to Lake Superior, no. We had South Bay Bessie. South Bay Bessie. SBB. SBB. Finest sex worker of her era. South Bay Bessie. It sounds appropriate for the library somehow.

We have Captain Labadie. Or as library somehow. We have Captain Labadie. Or as the French call him, Captain Labadie. And also, he was shooting at ducks. Come on. I've never seen an armed duck. Don't tell me the duck started it. You coward. They might have been going...

Sarcastic mallards. Just taking the mickey. I hesitate to mention that we did have a boat named the felicity and the beaver and i doubt if you want to take that on but yeah no if i had eyebrows they would have raised on the phrase it crested so closely to the beaver but um i don't think you should name boats after animals it becomes confusing like in jaws the orca yeah like that's that's gonna cause a problem at some point yeah but i think you're the only person watching jaws thinking the nomenclature in this they are just asking for trouble right one you're gonna need a

bigger boat and two i'm gonna have to ask you to change the name i'm inclined to think it's a high score but i think captain labaddy is a little bit on the nose yeah that's not terribly sophisticated classic brash american character naming there you know we want something a little more understated the great lakes i liked it to begin with but now it's just coming off a little bit full-on a little bit in your face it's a bit too much with attitude for me oh well i apologize do i sound sincere yeah yeah i think it might be a four. What do you think, James? I'd go with a four. Yeah. Yeah? You could stretch to a four?

Four out of five. That's good. Yeah. That's one for each lake that I like. Superior can do one. Hoity-toity. Okay. I should rename that lake. It's all mineral water, the whole lake. That probably is true. I should have thought of something it wouldn't be.

Well, I shall take my four and be more than happy with it. What's the next category? I hesitate to say it, but let's try supernatural. This is a tricky one, as always, when we're dealing with cryptozoology or paranormal creatures. Do they fall into the category of unknown science or the category of magic? Are they natural or are they super? Are you asking me, James? Sorry, I was confused.

I thought you were being rhetorical, but then you just stopped waiting for an answer. I'm being rhetorical, but I never know what to follow up with after a rhetorical question. I think normally when people are rhetorical, they know the answer to it themselves. Oh, damn. I think you've been really cheating conversationally there by using rhetorical questions and allowing other people to supply the answers. That's how I got through my GCSEs. What does the liver do? The way I remember it is using that Paul McCartney song.

The liver makes bile. Liver makes bile. It's actually the gallbladder, but for GCSEs, that liver is good enough. You will actually the gallbladder, but for GCSEs, that liver is good enough, you will get the point. Yes, yeah. So we may not be able to put that very accurate rendition of Live and Let Die in the edit.

Don't know if we're going to run into copyright problems there. It was like McCartney was in the room, but singing really badly. It was. I thought you were playing a recording. It's like he was in the room, but tutting. Yes, just staring at the back of my neck going, what are you doing to my song? I'm making it educational. And he let Guns N' Roses cover it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't think there's any evidence for any of these guys that have been described for us, and so they must be supernatural. Yeah. Because we haven't seen the skeletons, the bones haven't washed up, so I think that they must be in the realm of the uncanny. Oh, I see. I really like, though, the sort of uncanny valley-ness of the first...

Was it the first one that had big human arms? So it's a 40-foot long water beast. Yes. And it looks like a dog, a lizard. Also, it can hail a taxi. Yeah, but it'll give you a high five. There's a guy with scales the size of dinner plates. Why is something always the size of dinner plates with these monsters?

It's either eyes the size of dinner plates or scales the size. It's such an unusual metric. You very rarely measure something as the size of a dinner plate. But then a sea monster appears and you're like, I better get the crockery. Yes. I'm going to have to check. Yeah, like eyes like saucers. Yep.

Antlers like mug trees. Yeah, exactly. Claws like fish knives. Yeah. Claws like sporks. Toenails like dessert spoons. Or those little cheese spoons that are just cut off

so they're a little bit sharp. Yes. Oh, be careful. The grapefruit spoon. Oh, yeah, grapefruit spoon. The grapefruit spoon are very dangerous. So in summary, I think it's a high score for supernatural. Yeah, but a low score for cutlery.

I think it was Mishupeshu that was the godlike creature that controlled the weather and the fate of men. And I thought, that's quite a workload for an animal that spends so much time on its belly under a lake. The monster would just say, Jeff, it's not up for debate. You're going to be a tax accountant and it's going to hail on Tuesday. So put that banjo down. That's very supernatural.

The weather. How do you explain it, James? Where does rain come from? No one knows. I'm sorry, you're saying there's water in the sky? I don't think so. I think it's five out of five, James. Yeah.

No, no. I don't think I've ever seen an underwater panther. No. And I don't think I ever will. Not even a tiger in a swimming pool. I would like to talk with you and be scored on anthropomorphism. First off, it's one of my favourite types of morphism. Yes. It's in my top one type of morphism, anthropomorphism. The only other one I can think of is body diss.

Yeah, and that guy's awful. I love that my creatures had heads like dogs, like buffalo, like snakes, like cats, like turtles, and human arms, that they had horns, and that they could shout or bray. I'm going to challenge this one because I think we're looking at a three. The reason being, if it's anthropomorphism, I want them acting like people. I want them walking on their hind legs. I want them smoking pipes. I want them riding little bicycles like a trained monkey. Making bad decisions.

I want them sitting, staring at at their phone just thinking, why? And I haven't seen any of that. I haven't seen any of that palaver from these guys. There is the shouting. To be fair, there is the shouting. Yes, that's very human. And I think shouting is, I think that's exclusive to humans. And goats.

Most. I've definitely heard a goat shout on YouTube. And it was shouting Jeff or Carl. Yeah, yeah, it sounds exactly like a person shouting Jeff. Yeah. It's like, Jeff! Jeff! Have you ever noticed when you, sometimes when you walk past a field of sheep and one of them sounds like it's a man saying, bah.

I think sometimes it is a man saying, bah. I actually do. Oh, right, okay. Don't you think that if anyone had spent a little more time with the animals instead of shooting at them or running from them or cutting their tails off and putting them in boats, they would have discovered that, you know, with their one giant eye and their human arms

and the ability to shout, they had a lot of information to convey, like what you should be doing for your fate, you know? I think more people should have listened. But on the other hand, if they truly were behaving like humans, they would have been shooting first and asking questions later and just causing chaos, destroying the local ecosystem. And I'm not saying any of that.

They'd have been using those human arms to flick the Vs. Yep, or give the finger for any Americans. Oh, yeah, sorry, for the Americans. They'd be giving the finger. In England, we give two fingers, which is twice as bad. Chucking a bird. Flipping a bird. Flipping a bird.

Yes, it's like flipping a bird. But in England, it's twice as much. So the bird returns back to the way it was originally. Like 360 degrees. I think it's a three. But you show me that monster flipping a bird. Then I'll take it up to a four. Yeah, I agree.

A provisional three, pending further study. I thought it was one of my strongest categories. I went ahead and gave myself eight ecto owls, which is nothing to do with me. It's from a book here in the Midnight Library called the Folklore Assessment Rating Tone. For sure, it's called the Fart Book. Oh, so that's that book. Sorry, I was just getting a bit worried about the slanket.

I now realize. The one who slanked it danked it. Yeah, you must be very, very careful when you handle that book. Yeah, don't riffle the pages. It's got that new book smell. Oh, no, it hasn't. So what's the final category? I was hoping to be graded on moisture content. The wetness.

It's high. Yeah. It's humid, to say the least. It's sopping. But I understand that moisture, most people hate that word. So let's say a degree of dampness. It's wet through.

It's sodden. It's satched. It's sodden. It's satched. Gushing with fluid. It's stair rods in there. It's five out of five. There's no two ways about it. Oh, I'm so pleased. A moist five, which I think was a jazz group, the Moist Five.

They played around Innsmouth, I think. Well, gentlemen, I thank you very kindly for coming to see us here in the Midnight Library, and I trust you've enjoyed yourselves. And again, I apologize for the loss of your friend Alberto Balsam. He'll turn up in some condition or another eventually. If you wouldn't mind staying seated until Mr. Darling can return and see you safely to the exits. Madam, please allow me to see your gentleman friends safely to the exit. Are they asleep?

Something like that, yes. May I eat them? No, I'm afraid they're very popular and expected back wherever they've come from. Aren't they cute while they're unconscious? I suppose. Oh, I see you've braided Mr. Beckett King's hair in a most exulting style. And you've made a little bracelet for yourself from a clipping. Yes, and I've given Mr. Shake Shaft a secret gift.

Look. Is that a tiny pentagram tattoo? It is. Very artistic. It's a shame he did a flashlight in a mirror to find it. Not to mention a priest to get rid of it. You know what? Very nice people, these Americans. What a nice lady, eh?

Um, just on a side note, have you been pooing cling film? I wouldn't tell you if I had been. I flushed it. Flushing it, of course. Yeah, they were friendly, but barmy. Real oddballs. And if you like the sound of their oddballs...

Oh, yeah? What? If you like the sound of them, then check out the Midnight Library podcast in the usual place that you find podcasts, which is the internet. And if you've enjoyed listening to our half of the podcast, you could listen to the other episodes of Lawmen. Yeah. We're also on the internet.

Yeah, it's not all about poo. No, meh. I mean, we can tell you which episodes have poo in. I think it'd be easier to say which ones don't, but we'll let you find out. You have to cut out me laughing in order to make it sound more serious. Rather than adding in laughter like I normally do.

Yes. We'll save these ones for the normal podcast, then. Yeah, that would be useful, yeah. Some actual laughs for once. Yes. Brilliant. Put those in the bank.