Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep68: Loremen S3 Ep68 - The Mystery of the Arthur's Seat Coffins

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

The Loreboys go rambling up Scotland's third most famous seat* and make a very spooky discovery: a Victorian mystery that remains unsolved. (Spoiler: we didn't solve it). Guest stars in this episode include: Scottish Columbo, a poisoned pig and Mrs. Doubtfire. Warning: James does the full gamut of 'Scottish' accents, ranging from 'Elderly Nanny' to 'He Will Get Chinned If He Goes There Now.' *after the Stone of Scone and Mel Gibson's bum in Braveheart. Loreboys nether say die! 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 @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 James, we got together for one of our little live streams the other day, didn't we? We did. It was really good fun. And we sort of joked that we were going to steal all the good lines that people in the chat had said and pass them off as ours.

And looking at the edit, we actually have done that. Yes, we did. It's gone from being a joke to being a content generation strategy. There is definitely one that I stole from Tea Cake 2000. Thank you, Tea Cake 2000. Alistair, cut that bit out. This is a really magical tale about Scottish voodoo dolls

and the Arthur's Seat coffins. Scoodoo dolls. Now, James Shakespeare, I've been listening back to some of our recent podcasts and you have done a lot of Scottish accents in them Oh aye Is that fair to say? Well I've done one or two Sorry

But I've done them many times You have done the same Scottish accent many times in previous episodes Oh aye Now my concern is are you worried that you may have angered Scottish people? No I think I would have calmed their angry breast with my Scots. Okay, so now James is passing judgment on Scottish people's breast. Breasts, actually, plural. Breasts, sorry.

Multiple people, multiple breasts. That's how it works. So you haven't been experiencing retribution of any kind? No oats in the bed? No, I don't think so. No bagpipes just as you're about to drop off to sleep? I've not heard the bagpipes. Someone tried to throw a deep-fried pizza through my window,

but it didn't work. Ricocheted off, did it? Straight off. Oh, we've got glass in our windows down south. Yes. Oh, our windows aren't a hole covered by a rag or a piece of calf skin. Excuse me. I'm warning you

because the last thing I would want is for you to get up in the middle of night needing a wee, find yourself in the bathroom, floor covered with bros. You slip over,

you hit your head, you're dead. Covered with bros? Bros. What, like American dudes? As you well know from the Lawmen podcast, bros is an oat-based

drink slash biscuit. It's not quite clear to me what it is. Oh, you mean your draw thing? What you would get in a Scottish lady's draw. The opposite of the trebic.

The draw leave. The saddest trebic. So have you got like pants, I don't know if I said this before, have you got pants, socks, t-shirt

and then cooking flapjack bros? Yes, that's how it works. Is that why some drawers have that layer of paper at the bottom? Is that like greaseproof paper so they're ready to be used as a bro manufacturing? That little bit of wallpaper at the bottom is to just lever out the bros. Oh. The reason I ask, James, is that if you were to have angered a Scottish person in Auld Lang Syne,

you might have found yourself staring down the barrel of a corp crea. Is this a sandwich? Is this another type of sandwich? It is not a scary type of Scottish food. You'll be shocked to hear. It is a clay body, a clay corpse, a tiny little poppet. You're familiar with

the cultural concept of the voodoo doll, I assume. Yes. The angry action man. Exactly. Now, I may be wrong about this, but I believe the voodoo doll tradition is a European tradition, wrongly associated with the voodoon religion. And the Scottish version of it is the

corp crea, a tiny little clay figurine, which you would form in the likeness of an enemy, but smaller. Oh. Do not make them life-sized. Yes. You won't be able to get enough clay.

So what we're talking about is morph gone bad. What, that lighter coloured morph that they had? The evil morph, yes. Oh. Once you've created your little clay body in the likeness of your enemy, you could drown it or you could cast it into a fire. Saying, according to Sir Walter Scott, the Sir Walter Scott. The original Scott.

The first Scottish man. According to him, you would repeat the words, We put it into the fire to burn them up, stook and stoor, that they be burned with our will like any stickle in a kiln. Do you know what a stickle is? It's the sort of the thing, the base you use to make stickle bricks. It's a very small stick. Oh, a little stickle.

Yeah, so it's stick, stickle, twig, twiglet. Oh, mick, mickle. And pick, pickle. Yes. It's just how language works, James. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Corp Crea featured in Scotland's most confusing murder case. And I say murder case because there were a lot of murders involved in this case.

And it is the story of Lady Foulis. And was she the foulest lady? Yeah, she was. Not great. She makes Lord Soulless look like Lord All Right-less. Lady Foulis was knocking around the mid to late 16th century, and she stood trial for witchcraft. Lady Fowlis, also known as Catherine Ross.

Now, she allegedly hired 26 witches. Whoa. Or as Alexander McGregor, the folklorist, described them, assistant hags. Lovely phrase. She hired 26 witches or assistant hags lovely phrase she hired 26 witches or assistant hags there's an entry-level position

assistant to the hag it's mostly for exposure but you know you can eat as many newts as you like so you know as sort of a first job out of Hogwarts it's not bad and she hired them to perpetrate

what I am calling the most confusing murder plot in history she is alleged to have killed over 30 people, most of them by accident. Whoa. I'm going to have to read this next bit. I'm going to do this with a deep breath. And this is what I spent an hour trying to make sense of earlier today. Is it in poem form?

The one blessing of this is, as far as I'm aware, nobody has written a poem because it's too confusing, James. Too confusing even for poem! Lady Fowlis, a.k.a. Catherine Ross, wanted her son George to inherit her husband's wealth. But her husband already had six children from his first marriage.

So, she plotted to kill her stepsons, Hector and Robert. And the first step in this plot was trying to kill her brother's wife, for reasons that I don't understand, but will try to explain. Practice. The first thing she did was she, quote, seduced into her schemes Catherine Ross, who is a different person with the same name as her. And they tried to kill Lady Balnagowan, who was her brother's wife, so that he could marry Lady Fowlis,

who is a different Lady Fowlis to her, I think her stepson's wife. And her brother's name was George, which is also the name of her son. No wonder she killed 30 people. How could you possibly have any idea who anyone was? They've all got the same name. Yeah. It's so extremely confusing. And the reason I bring up Lady Fowlis' terribly confusing murder plot is that she was fairly enthusiastic when it came to murder.

She tried to murder them using basically every means she could think of, hence 26 witches. So the first thing they did was form little corp crea, little clay figures. But in this case,

instead of trying to burn them, they hung them up at the far end of the room and they fired fairy arrows, also known as elf arrows, into them. Is that a type of nerf? It sounds like it should be. An elf arrow, as far as I can tell,

elf arrows are like prehistoric flint arrowheads that people found. So they're like archaeology that people would dig up and go, oh, must have been elves, and then use in witchcraft. That didn't work, you'll be shocked to hear. On this occasion, the Corp Creas were not effective, and so she moved on to poisoning. You can't poison clay.

What she did was, rather than trying to poison the little action men, she just tried to poison the people directly. Oh, okay. According to George Moyers, Magic and Witchcraft, 1852, the first composition she prepared for her victims was a stoopful, that is one whole stoop, full of poisoned ale. And this is a really confusing phrase. Apparently, it ran out in making. We've all misjudged quantities while cooking, but I don't understand how you can be making a whole stoopful of poisoned ale and then at the end of it, there not be any of it.

There's no ale. Unless she was sort of cooking with wine, kind of. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So she came up with her second plan, which was, well, in fact, she gave orders that her assistant hags prepare a pig of rancor poison that would kill shortly. And by pig, I am guessing she means like a pigskin full of poisoned wine. Oh, right. Like a bottle made out of it, not just an inflatable pig.

Or it could be you get like those bed warmers, don't you, which are like made of pigs. So it could be like a stopper. The stopper wouldn't be in the bum, of course. That's a ridiculous idea. You'd have an apple stopper in the mouth. If you were pouring out of a pig, you would want to pour out of the head of the pig, wouldn't you?

Yeah, the face and mouth. Or the eyes, so it looked like it was crying. This plan, James, you'll be shocked to hear, also didn't work. A nurse was told to carry the pig full of poison, the poisoned pig. The Trojan pig of poison. The Trojan pig to its intended victim.

She dropped it along the way and it split open. And she, with a spirit of waste not want not, drank the poisoned contents of the pig and immediately fell down dead. And in fact, the grass in that area never grew again. So poisonous was the poison in the poisoned pig. Sounds like this poison that she's making is a little bit too strong for any sort of vessel. Yeah, it's like the alien's blood in Alien. It's like right the way down through the ship.

It's the ultimate killing machine. A pig full of horrible off beer. It's game over, Lady Foulness. So Lady Foulness did not completely escape justice. In 1588, she was formally accused of witchcraft by her stepson, Hector, one of the people what she was trying to murder. That's anyone. She doesn't appear to have successfully killed any of the people she was trying to murder. That's anyone. She doesn't appear to have successfully killed

any of the people she was trying to kill. But what's incredible is she stood trial and was acquitted by a jury, presumably because they were confused about what had happened because the story was too difficult to understand. Amazingly, her stepson Hector, who accused her of witchcraft,

also stood trial for witchcraft in the same year and was also acquitted having been arrested presumably on the ancient scottish legal principle of he who smelt it dealt it uh or maybe he went undercover as a hag assistant assistant to the hag he went undercover as that to get to the bottom of the mess maybe he corkscrewed the old stoop to let the ale out maybe he tripped over the lady with the piggy. Oh, you've blown this case wide open, James. Like a pig full of bad

beer, I've blown it wide open. Do not drink of that beer, James. That is horrible. It's been inside a pig. Enough of a reason not to drink it. So why have I told you all of that? I wanted to give some supernatural context for events that occurred in Edinburgh

in 1836. Oh. You're familiar, I assume, with the great rocky outcrop just outside Edinburgh known as Arthur's Seat. Yes. How would you describe it? Um, big. Yeah.

There. It's a hill, or if you're from London, a mountain, that during the Edinburgh Festival you tell yourself you're going to climb every day and then you don't. That's the kind of hill it is. I did once, but I think I was driven up half of it and then went up the rest. If you look at it from the right angle, it looks like a lion. And next to it is Salisbury Crag, which is a long strip of cliffs that look like they've just sort of been punched out of the ground

by some Terterranean Pluto. Pluto from Greek myths or Pluto from Disney? I think it's a volcano, right? A former volcano. It's a dormant volcano. I think the whole of Edinburgh. Former volcano, now fallen on hard times. I actually did go up Arthur's Seat every single day for one Edinburgh.

What? It is possible to do. Did you lose your keys on the first day? I actually did go up Arthur's Seat every single day for one Edinburgh. What? It is possible to do. Did you lose your keys on the first day? Went back up there to look for them, yeah. It's one of those things that the first time you do it, it's really tiring. And then you can do it the next day and it isn't difficult at all. Your body just goes, oh, we do this now.

And you're suddenly able to do it. But the first time you do it, it's flipping exhausting because it's not that tall but the rote is extremely steep and i have seen americans give up within meters of the top are we nearly at the top of arthur is this arthur's seat am i in scotland and i just pretend to be scottish and then just lie about scotland for as long as i can get away with and i pretend to be scottish yeah do you pretend to be scottish it doesn last long. Once you get past, aye. What would you tell people if you were pretending to be Scottish? I don't know. I dropped my phone in the coffee, so I don't know if it's going to work anymore. Did you actually drop your phone into the coffee? No, I once wanted to find out if my phone insurance covered my phone getting wet yeah so i rang up with the persona of a little old scottish lady who dropped her phone in the tea a classic

shakeshaft wheeze because i didn't want them to when i made the claim or whatever i'd be like yeah we know you dropped it because you rang up to say is your insurance cover it so i put on the persona of a little old lady who she dropped her foot in the tea and they were so nice to me they really were shades of mrs doubtfire oh yeah i set fire to my boobs of course i bought a dvd read writer do you remember in the old days when we used to use optical media remember a dvd yeah so it's like me saying i had to get my penny farthing repaired i bought a dvd read writer because it's not good enough to just read dvds i wanted to burn those babies and within a week the draw mechanism on it stopped working so i took it out of my computer and i took it back to the

shop the local shop not you know not none of your pc worlds. Oh, you didn't go all the way to Chester the street? No. And I said, this is broken. After a week, I would like a refund. And the man was very, very polite. And he said, well, that's absolutely fine. Of course you can have your refund. Let's just see what's wrong with the mechanism.

And then he brought out a special magic wand and poked it into a hole that I had not noticed on the DVD read writer. And the mechanism relaxed and he pulled it right out. And there was a little gear and around that gear, James, was the longest ginger hair you've ever seen. Where could that have come from? I feel like both of us, in a way, knew what had happened at that moment

as he drew the ginger hair out he didn't he didn't go like oh i see what's happened he didn't say anything at all he just silently drew it out of the mechanism did he hand it back he didn't say anything about it he never mentioned it he gave me the refund and i just never went in the shop again but we both knew we both knew what had happened i had shed into the dvd drive you tried to read right your hair and so i just switched to blu-ray didn't i so on arthur's seat in 1836 a group of boys were according to the scotsman searching for rabbit burrows on the northeast range we should probably point out the scotsman's a new newspaper yes the scotsman, searching for rabbit burrows on the North East Range. We should probably point out the Scotsman's a newspaper. Yes, the Scotsman is a newspaper,

not just an opinionated man who hates comedy. He just gives awful reviews. Actually, I've got quite a good review from the Scotsman, but still. Knows nothing about comedy. Charles Fort. Chucky Fortian. Gave us the word Fortian To describe absolute bobbins

Recorded what happened Versely And once again I'm going to do the Orson Welles slash Vincent Price Slash Doctor Evil voice Oh yes Early in July 1836 Some boys were searching for rabbits burrows in the rocky formation

near Edinburgh, known as Arthur's Seat. In the side of a cliff they came upon some thin sheets of slate which they pulled out. A little cave. Seventeen tiny coffins. Three or four inches long. In the coffins were miniature wooden figures. They were dressed differently in both style and material. There were two tiers of eight coffins each, and a third one begun with one coffin.

The extraordinary datum which has especially made mystery here, that the coffins had been deposited singly in the cave and at intervals of many years. In the first tier the coffins were quite decayed, and the wrappings had mouldered away. In the second tier, the effects of age had not advanced so far, and the top coffin was quite recent-looking. I thought you were going to say the top one was in, like, a spaceman's outfit. The top one was wearing, like, flares.

A wide 70s lapel. Yeah, well, it sounds like a bunch of action men. It does sound like a bunch of action men. If you want to picture them, they're about four inches long, about 12 centimetres long, appropriately wide. Some of them were perfectly square. Some of them tapered like a normal coffin. All of them carved from a single piece of wood

with lids that were nailed on and adorned with tin, the kind that would have been used in buckles. That's some good whittling. And the dolls inside, interestingly, appeared not to have been made to be buried. They may have been toy soldiers, because some of them have had to have arms removed in order that they could fit inside the coffins. But they were all men, all fully clothed, and they all had their eyes open. That's creepy. Why are their eyes open?

Eagle eyes. Was there a little thing on the back? Their eyes did not do eagle eyes, unfortunately. They all had a little scar. There's reason to be somewhat sceptical of Fort's account there, because we don't really know what order they were in when they were found, because the first thing... Well, let's put yourself into the minds of those little Scottish boys.

James, you're a little Scottish boy. Oh, hello. You're out looking for rabbits. Don't do the voice. You're out looking for rabbits. Where's my rabbit? They're not pet rabbits. You're hunting them for food.

I'm so hungry. I could eat a rabbit. That's perfect. You're in character now. You come across this mysterious sight, redolent of witchcraft and mystery. What would you do? It's a magic toy shop.

I've got loads of toys. I've got 17 toys now. I'm going to play with them. Probably going to attack them with an axe as I did a transformer once. Why did you have an axe as a kid? You shouldn't have had an axe. We had access to an axe. Access. I can't believe you had axe access. And we also shot it with an air

rifle and burned it and it burned a big patch out of the grass wow we're at my mate's house i'm like is dad's gonna know that we've been messing around because there's a big patch of grass missing what we'll do is we'll tear up bits of grass from around the other place in the garden and patch over the hole clever idea right a, right? A fantastic idea. Did it work? No, he has a fly-mo. So it just blew it. Your garden comb-over was unsuccessful, that's for sure.

Yes. Basically, what you described is exactly what the boys did, but the 18th century version of setting fire to a transformer, which was just pelting them at each other, just absolutely leathering each other with them and smashing them to pieces. Good lads. They found these treasures, these utterly unique creations, the likes of which have never been seen afore or hence,

and they just absolutely went to town on them. So we don't really know what kind of estate they were in when they were found because of these little rascals. There is, however, a slightly more colourful account of how the boys found them. And that comes from John Pavan Phillips writing into a book called Notes and Queries. Published in 1863, Notes and Queries describes itself as being a medium of intercommunication for literary men, general readers, etc. And then it has a quote from one Captain Cuttle. And the quote, the motto of Notes and Queries is,

When found, make a note of. What does that mean? Make a note of. How is that? It doesn't... Now, you, like me, James, probably assume that Captain Cuttle was a crab of some kind, in which case his ability to speak at all would be notable. And the fact that when found, make a note of, doesn't mean anything, wouldn't be an issue.

So I googled who Captain Cuttle was. And, of course, Captain Cuttle was a horse winner of the 1922 Epsom Derby. Good on you, Captain Cuttle. People in the chat who are better read than me may be jumping in to point out that Captain Cuttle is a character from a... I've got to make sure I get the title of it right. I didn't write it down. When found, Alistair, make a note of. If only I had made a note of.

A character from the Charles Dickens novel, Dombey and Son, Dolbey and Son, Doobie and Son. The Doobie Brothers. I'm going to edit it down to which one is actually the... The Charles Dickens novel, The Doobie Brothers. It's not one of his big ones, is it? And apparently Captain Cuttle says... Make a note of.

According to one page on the internet, he immortalised the phrase when found, make a note of, a phrase which means nothing and which nobody has ever said. Apart from us 20 times. Apart from make a note of a phrase which means nothing and which nobody has ever said apart from us 20 times apart from me a lot of times i'm gonna have to go away and read duby and sons and uh find out what they were up to make a note of but according to john pavin phillips's account that was popular among the people of edinburgh at the time the boys had been climbing not on the side of arthur's seat but on the side of Arthur's Seat, but on the side of Salisbury Crag. And in fact, one of the boys had been attempting to climb up only to find that the

slate he grabbed onto was loose and tumbled down to the ground. On his second attempt, he realised he'd opened up the mouth of a large cave. And that was where he found the 17 coffins arrayed in exactly the way we've described. That's a bit more dramatic, isn't it? Yet another account recorded in 1957, even later, by Robert Chapman, says that it wasn't the boys who brought the figurines down and introduced them to the world at all. It was their schoolmaster, a Mr. Ferguson, who retrieved them. But at that point, the newspapers found out about it and theories started to be formed.

Do you have a favoured theory at the moment? I think's just a toy someone's tried to start a toy shop business a creepy toy shop creepy toy shop and didn't think that there wouldn't be as much pass and trade although they know the one time they leave the toy shop unattended 10 toy hungry boys come by and wreck the place. There's something I'm unhappy with in the phrase toy-hungry boys, but I can't put my finger on it. I was watching an episode of Columbo yesterday,

and Columbo walked up to the mechanic and asked the mechanic his alibi. And there's something quite innocent about the period of the 1970s. He said, where were you at the time of the murder? And the mechanic says, I wasn't here. I was taking an underage kid to an r-rated movie like that's his alibi it makes perfect sense in the episode but it's like i don't know if you would say that now so back on track here are some of the the theories that explain the figurines theory the first satanic spell manufactory oh i'm gonna to say it in a Scottish accent to give it a little bit more stank.

Satanic Spell Manufactory. What, like a factory? Yeah. Manufactory is like a factory for people who have a little bit too much time on their hands. You could say manufacturers or factory. I suppose it's just implying that it's done on an industrial scale. This is the Scotsman, 16th of July, 1836. Possibly in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way,

they write that there are still some of the weird sisters hovering about Mushat's Cairn or the Windy Gowl who retain their ancient power to work the spells of death by entombing the likenesses of those they wish to destroy. So that's one theory.

The Edinburgh Evening Post suggests a slightly more sober theory that it may be a remnant of an ancient custom which prevailed in Saxony of burying in effigy departed friends who had died in a distant land. Oh, right. Nice idea. Similarly, the Caledonian Mercury, by far the rockinest paper name we've dealt with so far. That's brilliant. They thought it might be a burial for people who had died at sea. And then, James, it's 1994. What?

Yeah, I'm jumping ahead in time. Picture the scene. It's 1994. Okay. I was going to say cool Britannia. Hasn't happened yet. John Major is Prime Minister. Britain remains uncool.

I went to the Royal Shakespeare Company on a school trip. Ooh, I've got glass in my windows. Just off to see a play at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I think I saw Midsummer Night's Dream and I bought the cassette of Blur Parklife to listen to in the coach on the way. Yes. On my Walkman with

Megabase. So, it's 1994 and researchers Simpson and Menefee come up with a new theory that the 17 coffins correspond to the 17 victims of famous murderers burke and hare let's get it out of the way this is a podcast for pedants but burke and hare are not an obscure historical curiosity they're really famous so we have no business dealing with them on this podcast there's a film they're extremely well known and they are widely referred to as being body snatchers i.e people who dig up bodies and hand them over for dissection but of course what they actually were is murderers they cut out the middleman and skipped over the the the resurrection

part of being a resurrection man yes just killed people who were alive. It's the easiest one to kill, the alive person. That's their theory, that the 17 dolls represented the 17 victims of Burke and Hare. Problems with that theory are that Burke and Hare mostly killed women and all of the figurines in the collection were men or appeared to be wearing men's clothes. Let's not be too prescriptive about this. That's one theory. And then, and this is the last theory I'll present to you, the author Jeff Nisbet proposed a new radical theory. And that's actually

a very clever piece of wordplay that I've done there, James, because his theory centres around the radical uprising of 1820, which was something that I don't know very much about. But as far as I can tell... Did it involve the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? It was not that sort of radical. It wasn't bodacious in any way. Because if this came about in the 94, you could see how they might have been. It was more of the sort of political radicals.

Basically, in those days, James, there were some Scottish people who were very unhappy with Westminster rule. If you could imagine that, it's like a science fiction thing. They sort of thought things would be better if Scotland, if they were allowed to basically do what they want, make their own rules and not be told what to do by like a bunch of awful,

like the worst English people imaginable is what they thought. Times have changed. It's just crazy, wasn't it? And so there was an uprising of mostly craftsmen, people who were weavers, Romany travellers, you know, skilled craftsmen. And it didn't succeed. In fact, it was punished quite harshly.

Three men were executed and 19 people were transported to Australia, a fate worse than death. And Sir Walter Scott, from earlier, because he had his finger in a lot of pies, came up with a punishment for the remaining craftsmen, a way of keeping them occupied so they didn't have enough time for politics. And he suggested that they create something called

the Radical Road. Where do you think that road is, James? The Radical Road? The Radical Road. It does sound like a level in Mario Kart, it's not. Does it go up to Arthur's seat? It is. And you've probably been on it.

I certainly have. It is the road that runs along Salisbury Crag. Is that the Radical Road? That's the Radical Road. I thought it was pretty darn awesome. People can't go along it without doing a wheelie on their bike. Yeah. That's how radical it is.

I went up it in Heelys, which is... They're not mountain climbing shoes. First man to scale Everest in Heelys, which is they're not mountain climbing shoes. First man to scale Everest in Heelys, James Shakespeare, died this afternoon for obvious reasons. He got down quick though. His body has been recovered. It just sort of wheeled into base

camp by itself. So James Nisbet's theory is that the weavers, as they were building this road, probably mightily irritated by old Wally Scott telling them what to do. Some of them may have created little mementos, little testaments to the people who had been executed and shipped overseas. And two of them they just didn't like very much. Except for a few because they were not the right number.

Ignoring that, it's a very nice ending to the story. There might have been two of them that had just been like, just, we're not going to do them. They were just scene-sters. They weren't really in it for real. How do you like that? I mean, they're all theories, definitely. Are you ready then to move into the scores, James?

Yes. Yes, I am. What would you give me in the category of names? We've got Captain Cuttle. We've got Captain Cuttle. We've got Captain Cuttle, very much crowbarred in. Captain Cuttle loves to scuttle. Yes, his assistant is a lobster called Captain Scuttle, obviously. Sergeant Scuttle. We've got...

Apart from Captain Cuttle, Walter the Scot. Yeah, we've got Sir Walter Scott. But I'm not saying that the names involved in the Lady Fowler story are good. But it's definitely a feature of the story. But there's definitely two names in that whole story. That's like two times two names. Wow. What would that add up to?

Three. Three? I mean, I'll have to take your word for it because I haven't got a calculator to check. Okay. It's a three. Seems wrong, but I'll accept it. My next category is supernatural. What do you mean?

More like, oh. I researched the most confusing murder in history just in order to crowbar some witchcraft into this story, James. It took an hour and a half. I said it was an hour before, but I was playing it down. Oh, yeah, no, we've got 26 assistants to the hag. 26, James. assistants to the hag.

26, James. 26. And all of them couldn't get poison anywhere near the intended target. So many unsuccessful murders. Two bakers, dozens of witches. What else? What else? We've got grass that won't grow to this day

because of the poison pig. But that's just like pollution. That sadly is not supernatural. That's a very real problem those boys finding the toys and then smashing them to pieces is possibly one of the most natural things you're talking about a satanic spell manufactory james that's quite a funny thing a satanic spell manufactory churning out it's 17 17 yes i don't actually we don't know how many had been shipped off already, and this was just the stock that they kept to hand in case someone came by.

You're still on the creepy toy shop. Welcome to the creepy toy shop. Yes. Hello. Please peruse my wares. Each toy is creepier than the last, apart from the first one. No, I couldn't have committed the murder. I was taking a child to an R-rated movie.

Scottish Columbo. Hey, just one more question for you. Columbo. Come on, James, this is a pretty supernatural story. It is weird. I'm going to go for, because there were just so many assistants to the hag. It was spooky. We don't know what those weird little things were for.

And I think they were somewhat not right. My next category is radical. Whoa. Yeah. Okay, Grandpa. Can I hang ten on that? You betcha. We've got 19 radicals.

16 of them are worth effigizing exactly you got a radical road we've got the radical road lady found this is not very radical in her naming choices though very traditional there you could say yeah okay that's that's not particularly radical but putting poisoned wine into a pig i haven't seen that done before. The only time I can think of an animal being so misused is when they put a load of gold... Inside a dog. In what I think might be the first or second episode of the Lawmen podcast.

And now we've got a pig full of horrible wine. Ooh, the pig iron brew. Well, there's only sort of two bits of radicalism. Radical? Oh, man, these tiny figurines. The kids were probably like that. Those kids must have been pretty cool. Yeah, they were pretty cool.

Oh, man, look what these things we found. They're not in school. They're out hunting rabbits. That's pretty radical. It's pretty radical. They went in the library, were they? Like a nerd, like we would be. TK-2000 suggesting taking an underage child to an R-rated movie as an alibi is a radical move.

It is. It's a radical move. It's bold. It's the very least bold. It's a risk. Three. That is the least radical choice you could have made. I don't think it's that radical, apart from all those radicals.

Final category, Cheeky Boys. Oh, those Cheeky Boys. Cheeky, Cheeky Boys. And we are Cheeky Boys. We're Cheeky Boys. We are Cheeky Boys. The Cheeky Boys. Cheeky, cheeky boys. And we are cheeky boys. We're cheeky boys. We are cheeky boys. Cheeky boys are cheeky boys. How many kids were there?

This is the great thing about this, James. You, I can see you rubbing your tiny little hooves together in glee, anticipating that I will say there were three boys, because that is the standard number of boys. As far as I can tell, we don't know how many there were. The accounts just say that some boys were there. So, I would say it could be anywhere up to the number

five. Cheeky boys. Any number up to the number five, you say? Well, not any number up to the number five. There definitely wasn't one. It's multi-boy action. Yeah. I'm glad you finally found a use for the alternative name we had for this podcast, multi-boy action.

I'm glad you managed found a use for the alternative name we had for this podcast, Multiboy Action. I'm glad you managed to slip that in. I'd say there's us two cheeky boys. There's them two cheeky boys, which takes you to a four. Okay. But there's one more cheeky boy. Who's the cheekiest boy? In this story, Hector. Hector.

Who's pointing the finger at someone for being a witch. And what happens? And it turned out he was into supernatural manufacturing all along. How cheeky is that? That's a full five for cheeky boys. When you point at someone else, your thumb is pointing back at you if you're above it slightly. When you point at someone,

you're doing a thumbs up to justice. I have to make a correction. Burke and Hare didn't kill 17 people. They killed 16 people. Weren't they caught because one of their victims didn't die? Oh. One of the theories is that it was one of them making them.

As a sort of rudimentary 3D spreadsheet. I'm halfway murdering tonight, so I need to make sure that I've made a wee little person to represent the person that I'm going to be murdering. You can support this podcast by going to patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. And sure, you'll get yourself a wee rod if you do. Maybe a little something in it

for you. How is your Irish accent so much better than your Scottish? Is it just that I can't tell when an Irish accent is ridiculous? At drama school, I started in the playboy of the Western world. I played the lead, Chrissie Mahon, and we extensively interviewed my mate's nan. This is my mate whose nan,

who thought it was the character from Neighbours' name. Do you know anything about Neighbours at all? Do you remember Toadie? Yes, I remember Toadie. She was a little hard of hearing and she thought his name was Tony Oh sure that Tony is a cheeky one isn't he? And she thought that

the footballer Wayne Rooney was called Ray Mooney Oh right! Sure that Ray Mooney is a good young footballer isn't he? Music