Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep8: Loremen S3 Ep8 - Valentine's Special - Jenny Collier with The Mabinogion

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

Jenny Collier returns! After last year's Welsh Valentine's hilarity (pimp out of pimp across the board) we brought our favourite Welsh comedian back into the studio to give us the lowdown on an actual epic. We cover book two of The Mabinogion (Mabinogion 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold). The Mabinogion is a 12th Century text recounting ancient Welsh myths and legends. As you can imagine, it scores highly in Naming. Content Warnings: Two non-Welsh people doing their "best" Welsh accents, horse mutilation, references to Love Island.    @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK | @JenJenCollier

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And it's Valentine's special times. Last year we had Jenny Collier on doing a lovely Welsh Valentine story about Santa's Dwynywen and we enjoyed it so much we thought we'd have her back again.

And this story, it's very good but it's also, like Welsh town names, it's very long. Enjoy. Happy Valentines. Welcome back, Jenny. Hello. Hello, Jenny. Hi.

Borodar. Borodar i he hefyd. Hmm. back jenny hello hello jenny hi boroda boroda if you have it i've been doing duolingo catching up on my well really yeah yeah would you can you translate me okay i'll try uh dinner for mike where do you mind mike's dinner's gone no there was my bike gone it's probably not pronounced right so what about what happened to mike's dinner in the end it was on the bike it was it was a delivery this is a delivery drivers um tweet mike i can't believe he would leave the bike pamph you do why am i alive that's it is that correct was that correct yeah that was why am i alive i thought it was why me god but i guess it's oh yeah actually you're right but it's the same so dueling is going really, you're right. But it's the same meaning.

So Duolingo's going really well. All I've learnt to say is, do you like the wolf? And I want to buy five sheep. And I like eating insects. Whoa. Yeah. So it's tailored. It is very tailored.

Tailored to the Welsh thing. For the scenarios that you'll need. Yeah. With the wolf thing, does it have any chat about babysitting rates or anything? That's a callback to Jenny's previous, the story of Gellert and... Santus Dwinman. Santus Dwinman.

And also Rhys Amainir. Oh, yes. Because it was a Valentine's... Yes. Well, this is another Valentine's special. Happy Rhysamania. Oh, is it Rhysamania? WrestleMania? Happy WrestleMania. Oh, is it? WrestleMania.

Happy WrestleMania. Thanks for having me back. Is it going to be put out on Valentine's Day? Yeah, I think there's enough romance in this story as we'll find out. I think we've read quite different versions. What's your source? Myths and Legends of the British Isles by Richard Barber. A hardback book.

Which my dad stole from a library. I think a school library as well. And not like the school that he went to. He just got it from a school. I mean, is it really stealing or is it just taking out for a prolonged period? Because everybody steals the books but they always return them. Oh, like as the

French would say, le petit theft. Yeah. Is... Breakfast. Yeah. Wow, Duolingo. Is there anything you can't do? This is more like Triple Lingo. Or Four, whatever Four is. I didn't do Latin on it. Quatro?

Quadruple. Quadruple. Quadralingo. And now that we've heard it, it's quite a standard word, quadruple. Yeah. It's not quite as bizarre and unheard of as we thought it would be. It's a free app. I've watched a lot of adverts i've done

that and and to boost my jewels to double my jewels yeah but you often have to just watch adverts anyway don't you i don't know i'm clearly doing it wrong and i'm not learning the language are the adverts in welsh no oh yeah they're just like do you want to sort your teeth out it's when you discover what your tailored ads are i got one on facebook for um managed sort of wealth management i thought yes i have fooled the algorithm i've i bought some racking and i'm just all adverts for rapid racking now that's all i'm getting and now i'm advertising rapid it's working oh no because having bought racking you have an infinite capacity for more racking i liked it so much i think we should replace all our nice shelves with like, you know, like warehouse.

If you pronounce warehouse like that, you need wealth management. You've never been to a warehouse. My son, I mentioned a warehouse and he said, oh, daddy, is that like a werewolf? Which is suddenly a really cool idea and my and the premise of my young adult novel series that i'm gonna write

it's like twilight but set on an industrial estate in slough so jenny what what story have you this time i know because you told me about it and i couldn't help but look it up i got got Branwenverchler. Is that how you say that word? Yeah. The middle word. Verch. How do you spell it?

F-E-R-C-H. I thought it was a more sweary sounding word. Are we allowed to swear on this? No. Well, I didn't really. You didn't. I didn't, yeah. We're not bleeping that, otherwise it'll be confusing.

Yeah, and it's similar to firkin, which is an ancient word as well. Yeah, and the measure of size, isn't it? it oh i thought i got mistaken with the merkin which is not a measure of size no they're coming all sizes apparently you've been getting targeted advertising how many do you think I want? You buy one Merkin and they think that you're going to want to redecorate your house in them. So it's Branwen Verch Llyr. Okay, Branwen Verch Llyr.

Branwen Verch Llyr. I'm saying that, but you're looking at me like I'm not saying that. You are saying it quite well. Oh, OK. Yeah. And Vergh means daughter of, so it's like mak. Lear's like a sort of almighty king character. I mean, yeah, your sources have got all the backstory and stuff of Lear.

I don't actually know about that. I only know the little branch of the Mabinogi, which is this. And the Mabinogi is a collection of apparently four different massive i think it's the first english or the first british novel or like non-poetry story from like the 12th 13th century the mabinogi and this is part two of the mabinogi yeah this is mabinogi to the mabinog. Yeah. This is Mabinogi 2, the Mabinogging. Mabinogi, Mabinogia. Two Mab, two Nog. Noggy.

So Branwyn was the daughter, right, of Llyr. Of Llyr. And there's a lot of relations I've noticed in this story. Yeah, yeah. Bran, her brother, Bendiged Bran. Bendiged Bran. bendy gedig is another welsh thing i know bendy gedig brilliant so bran son of clear son of clear sister of bran is the king of the uk and his brothers are manna we're dan and then he's got two half brothers

nissian and f nissian Nisyan's kind of cool. Fnisyan, bit naughty. So if you forget which one's which, remember Fnisyan. It's like F-ing Nisyan. Yes. So the Siblai, we've got two half-brothers, Nisyan and Fnisyan. Manawydan, just a normal brother. Branwen is the sister.

One day, Matholoch comes across the sea from ireland to talk to bran to ask if he can marry branwen who is the greatest most beautiful um maiden in the world um my sources say she was top three oh no she was one of the top three matriarchs but she was the most beautiful maiden in the world maybe the person who wrote mine was trying to get off with her. But that's, yeah, one of the top three matriarchs. So she was very desired. And then Matholoch was like, we will unite the island of the mighty UK with Ireland by me marrying Branwen. And Bran said, I come to the land and we'll take counsel, have have a chat about it so he comes to the land because he said this

from the sea from the boat is this matching yours yeah yeah he was all I heard he was they kept mentioning he was sat at Harlech on a big rock and I looked up Harlech fun fact it's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the world's

steepest residential street right wow so it's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the world's steepest residential street. Right. Wow, so it's just been non-stop since the 12th century. Yeah, exactly. The Mabinogion like to point out little bits and bobs about where it is, like Harlech, very beautiful place, big rock. Well, because Bran, he's a big lad. He's a big lad.

Oh, yeah. He needed to sit on a rock. He's never been housed by a house big lad. He's a big lad. Oh, yeah. He needed to sit on a rock. He's never been housed by a house. Yeah. He's never been contained. I'm sorry. He's never been contained by a house. He's never been...

First of all, that's not the way we describe being in a house. It is if you translate it from Welsh into English. He's never been contained in a house. Yeah. I mean, it's just made homelessness sound so sexy. He can't be contained. Yeah, he's jumbo. He's been contained in a house. Yeah. I mean, it's just made homelessness sound so sexy. He can't be contained. Yeah, he's jumbo. He's too big.

He's too big to be in a house. I mean, we'll get to it later, how jumbo he is. He's really big. He's a giant. He's a big guy. He's a giant. You could say he was a giant. But nowhere does it say the word gaur.

No, gaur. Gaur. Maur. Which means big giant. But his surname translates. Bendiged Bran is bran the blessed yeah aka brian blessed who similarly no house can contain yeah so just imagine brian blessed whenever we talk about bran because that's what i've been doing yeah that is true unsurprisingly

the he could be on the short and be chatting to someone all the shit. Yeah. And he's like, I come and take counsel. There's a lot of taking counsel in this, which is, I think, just having a chat about it. Yeah. It's a bit Love Island, isn't it? Yeah. Sorry, can I just grab you for a quick counsel? Oh, my God, are you watching Love Island? Okay.

Now, this is the first I've heard of it. What is Love Island? It's sort of like a legendary thing. Is it? Island of Love. Sounds mythical. It's basically the secret life of four-year-olds, but with abs. That's a really good description.

Okay, so they have a bit of a council, and they have a great throng in the court where they decide to give Branwen to mathol they all decided that the first time that they would sleep together would be at abafrau so that's quite a weird thing they all decided yeah like in the court they were like the throng was involved yeah there was an orgy um no no they were just like the the marriage will begin, well, like the union will begin at Aberfrau. Of Matholoch. Matholoch and Branwen. Branwen, yeah.

Branwen. So everyone was like, the first time you two are going to, is going to be. Is going to be Aberfrau. How'd that pan out? Well, not great, I've got to say. So they were having a feast and it was on the table there was bran um manna wooden matholoch and branwen and they had to have the feast in a tent or

pavilions because again he couldn't fit in a hat i can't go in a house i told you this ceiling is too low find me a gazebo but they made it look like a hall fair play to them after they'd drunk enough that they thought no more good can come of drinking and the best thing to do is go to bed there's a lot of this like really deciding when to stop they went so they went and burned and then in the morning FNICN This is very Love Island for someone who hasn't watched Love Island. This is basically, yeah. So Efinician, good or bad? Bad.

Yeah. Efinician. Efinician comes out to, like, see what's happening, and he finds a bunch of horses around the place. And he goes to these, like, just guys around the place. He's like, who's are these horses? And they're like, Martholochs? And they're like, Matholochs. And he's like, what are Matholoch's horses doing here?

And he was like, well, oh, well, didn't you know? Branwen consummated her love for Matholoch last night. And then Efnician was like, I didn't know about this. So he was really annoyed that he hadn't been asked for consent i mean really well consent is important yeah from an evil stepbrother sorry half brother he was really rightly or wrongly he was angry he was angry and he thought i have to avenge this and then he did it in a really awful way you won't like this he demutilated some horses by chopping off their lips to their gums chopping off their ears to their heads chopping off the tail to their back

and wherever they could grab hold of the eyelids they chopped them back to the bone yeah so when james phil me and said let's get jenny on to do a romantic story did you say it was romantic for valentine's day yeah i knew there was horse mutilation in the pipeline they they go on about this eyelids james funnily enough they say about this and then they say these horses are now useless and they don't they sort of allude to there was another bit of mutilation so i think they might have chopped the old the horse oh well a bit later on as well say Motholoch was so annoyed because he could no longer get any joy from the horses. So I think they chopped the horse part off. The wang.

Yes. Right. See? Romance. What did he do with all of them, though? So he did that to all of them, I think. No, I mean, like, the parts. It is all the most seductive parts of the eyelashes and the lips and the gentles.

Pretty sexy bin bag. Yeah. He's just got, like, a load of bits. I didn't say what he did with the bits. Because you only need so many draft excluders. That we're using horse willies for? Oh, yeah. I was thinking the tails, but them as well, yeah.

I forgot where we are in the story. So that's a horrible act of horse exclusion. Horrific. Malar Tholukh comes back, and not surprisingly, he goes, well, who's done this? And they said, and he was like, if I'd have known that this was going to happen, I wouldn't have even come here. Of of course none of us would have gone there if we'd known that

was going to happen and then um then he's like right i'm leaving because this is just too horrible for them to have done like my brand new family what i think to do i'm leaving bran gets wind that math olukh's leaving so he asks math what like to stay and then math olukh goes um the thing that i find most odd is if if nisyan was so annoyed about it why didn't he do this insult chopping off all the bits of the horse before i bedded branwen to me chronology isn't important here but that's one of the things he found weird and then messengers said bran is more insulted than you are even because this is his half brother and he's done this and it's like ruined everything so if you think you're annoyed imagine what brian

blessed is going through so then um uh motholok is like all right let's take counsel to have a bit of counsel about it. And Bran is like, right, we're going to replace your horses. We're going to give you a silver rod as thick as... And then he holds up his little finger. Silver rod that thick. But he's a giant. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, and as tall as Motholach is.

Right. I don't know. Maybe, maybe. Now that you said that, I'm wondering. As thick as the giant's thing quite thick and as tall as either matholoch or like it would be impractical for a normal human to have a giant sized stick yeah so presumably as tall as matholoch with a gold plate the size of matholoch's face at the top of it basically like a lollipop lady stick so i don't really know like

what why what he thought was going to be like good such a weird bitch like yeah before you go one last thing sorry about chopping off all your horses various parts eyelids is yep and the rest um here you go here's a stick yeah i reckon he's probably still got some of that booze from the night before that he should have stopped drinking before and then he was like well i'm just not happy about this silver stick it's not enough so he goes right and then he's like we're going to replace all the horses but also i'll give you this cauldron and the peculiarity of the cauldron is that if you put somebody who's died in it that day the next morning they will rise and be like better than ever apart from they can't talk wow mitholoc is like this cauldron sounds cool so actually yeah i'll have that and he goes where did you get the cauldron from by the way and bran says an irishman gave it to me um whose

name was and his wife come a day day, comey nevol. These Irish people sound very Welsh. Exactly. There's a lot of things like this in Welsh literature. Like when I was in school, we watched a video about going off the rails and how people moved to London.

So they made you watch a warning video about the dangers of moving to London. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was like, if you move to London... What's wrong with just standing in a field have you seen the council tax rates well it was all that if you go to the bright lights and the um big smoke morgue that smoke in welsh then um you might get you know caught up in drugs and crime

and i watched it and it's like everyone in London speaks Welsh that's really surprising and so these Irish people sound like well Welsh and he was like yeah I got given it by and his wife and um because they escaped from the iron house when it had been white hot isn't it funny that you haven't heard about this math follow and math was like wait a minute this sounds familiar I do know about this white hot iron house and he goes because what happened was back in ireland i was near this lake and a ginger man came from out of the lake he was really big and had a really angry look on his face and there was a word that was so angry and scary that it can't even be translated into english and um and he comes out the lake and he's got a cauldron on his back and then a woman

comes with him um who's if you thought the red flame head man coming out of the lake was big the woman was twice as big the guy was like see this woman in a month she's gonna get pregnant and within a month and a week she's gonna to give birth to a full-grown fighting man my nephew's a bit like that so this is um saying this to to bran to brian blessed he's saying i know about this couple from ireland because i saw them coming out of a lake they tell me that they're going to give birth to fighting men within a month so they lived with me for a year which is the most unexpected sentence after hearing that like they came out of like then they lived with me for a year and for the

first year it was fine but after that they started insulting pestering and injuring all the townsfolk so everyone that he knew was like can you get rid of your mates because they're like ruining everything yeah yeah do you know what they did took a bit of counsel um mitholich was like right he gets all the all the smiths from the whole of ireland together and they build an iron morrissey ma the other two and then built an iron iron chamber stoked it with loads of charcoal had a feast in it or something got them together got these people together that were awful and i think they're like lots of fighting men children as well right stoked the whole thing burnt it till it was white hot yeah bellows they all had bellows and it's like i mean i get that

you wanted rid of them but like i think there must have been another way anyway they were like well maybe there wasn't they were just at their end of their tether there's a you know what there's only one thing we can do make a house out of metal yeah and put these people in the oven wow but it did say that the original man so the red-ha man, smashed his way out of the white hot chamber with his shoulder. And only him and the woman got out. Hold on. The main people who were put in. Exactly.

I think the reason it said the only people who got out was them. I think it must have meant either child or children or like maybe some of the townsfolk got hurt. I don't know. But the man and the woman got out. I mean, because like if the townsfolk got burned to death they didn't it very much backfired oh absolutely yeah they they had i would be calling for some serious council to discuss what went wrong yeah well with the giant hot house project but matholog's problems were over because they burst out and left and bran goes that's when they came to me and matholog's problems were over because they burst out and left and bran goes that's when they came to me and matholog's like that's when they came to you and give him the cauldron that could

reanimate the dead yeah yeah because that's why we were talking about them and so that's a little that's a little backstory yeah anyway matholog and bran had a lovely rest of the night they'd all kind of made up then they were were like, that's all fine. Math and Branwen set out for Ireland to start their new life together. And they had a really nice time. And so for the first year, again, like with the couple and the fighting children. First year, fine. It's always the first year.

It's like handleable. year fine it's always the first year it's like handleable um every nobleman and um great man who came to the house got given gifts and beautiful gems and jewels from branwen she was like hostess with the mosters then she had a boy gwarden gwarden and they put him straight into foster care now i don't know there wasn't any kind of explanation for what happened there um but around the same time as they're mentioning that they say that the news of matholog's humiliation on the isle of the mighty started to spread and people started to mock him for having his horses mutilated i would have thought they would have just been like shady we heard about the horses not mocking him yeah how are you doing yeah how you doing sorry we heard about your horse's eyelids and we we sympathize

i don't want to you know make it all about me but a similar thing happened to me i had my phone snatched out of my hands while I was playing Pokemon Go. And you did lose a lot of respect in the Isle of the Mighty. Yeah. And I went back to work and told them about it. And they laughed and gave me the nickname Muggins. And then I reported it to the police and they called me Snitch. What?

Snitchy Cunningham. The police called you Snitchy? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was going to say that. Yeah, that's really not. That's like Welcome Britain Shore. Oh, if I'm in grass. Both of us thought you meant the police called you Snitchy Cunningham.

Why Cunningham? Because of Richie Cunningham. Like the reference to Happy Days yeah why would the police have made a reference they didn't it wasn't the police

it was my workplace I told the police I didn't tell the police I was playing Pokemon Go I said I was doing doing a grown up text about mortgages and then

they said I should form a double act with the robber this is again workplace not the police and call it snitch and snatch.

Well, I hope you didn't get your butcher to punch up your wife as punishment to your friends for mocking you, because that's what Matholoch did. He got his butcher to do what? To box the ears of his wife every single day. Of his wife? Yeah. His own wife? Branwen.

Hold on. How does that solve anything? Exactly. His own wife? Branwen. Hold on. How does that solve anything? Exactly. No one can tell us. Also, the butcher's probably got a lot on anyway. So it's adding to his schedule. He's probably trying to make a stew out of it. Eyelids and wangs.

Yeah, he's still getting through a backlog of horses. It's still quite wangy. Is there anything we can do to make it less wangy? Well, in the version I read, it did say that after the butcher had finished with his meat every day he would punch her in the ear yeah so it was what was it was on his own time yeah yeah yeah she's even worse but he was made to he was made to it is important that we didn't do it of his own volition no no well i don't know what mythologues thinking because that's not going to solve anything exactly and. And he also got Branwen to work somewhere.

So she had been Lady Bountiful, and now he's like, you go and sit in the cellar. And just sent her off to be a drudge, which I had to Google, which is somebody who does lowly work. Meanwhile, so that went on for three years, the butcher boxing. Every day.

But she taught a starling to speak Welsh. Welsh people, everything's about the Welsh language. If I were being held prisoner and boxed by a butcher... I would long for the motherland, like she did. Teacher Starling, Welsh, told it what her brother looked like yeah he's a massive man he's a giant he's a giant and so yeah so so she was like listen starling if you find this massive dude she wrote a letter attached it to the base of the starling's wing yes i'm a bit like why didn't if the starling could speak welsh why didn't she just tell the starling to

tell him yeah but then i suppose she wrote the letter in English and then Welsh underneath so she sends it to Bran Bran gets it takes a bit of counsel and they goes right we're gonna attack Ireland we're gonna leave seven elders back on the Isle of the Mighty and the rest of us are gonna go and sort it out oh the names of the elders not a vowel between them apart from there's some of them which are called things like they've got a surname, which is things like Strongshoulder. I like the singular on that. Strongshoulder. Yeah.

Not Strongshoulder. Sounds like he could have broken out of a white hot box. Elch Bone Lip. Bone Lip? Yeah. That's just his surname. Isn't the Bone Lip guy a big fan of that horse soup? I don't know why.

I like it. Two elements of this I'm a big fan of. Okay. So they go across to Ireland, the batch of them, like a load of them. And then there's some Irishmen on the shore and they're like, a forest in the sea? What's going on? Like, there's a forest in the sea. So they go to Branwen and they're like, why would there be a forest in the sea what's going on like there's a forest in the sea so they go to branwen and they're like why would there be a forest in the sea and she's like that'll be my brother come to

avenge my punishments and they go also we can see these like two lakes and a ridge on this mountain in the sea what's that about and she's like that's just my brother's face so is that his eyes and his nose oh yeah yeah yeah. Hmm. Yeah. And when I read that, I was like, we did do this at school. And I remember us all trying to draw that. Imagine a child trying to draw that. Back then, the sea between Ireland and Wales was not as extensive as it is now. It was basically two rivers. And so Bran obviously was just wading across.

He was like, I don't even need to be in. I cannot be housed by a boat. A houseboat i won't go on a board um and a math i keep shortening it to math just like he's somebody out of saved by the bell but his name is math. But every time it makes me spit. So that's why I say. Math and all the other Irishmen retreat further away from Wales across the other river. And then, which did have a bridge.

They destroyed the bridge. And they were like, the funny thing about this river is no one can swim across it. And there's no lake. And Bran was like, nice try, Louché. And just turns himself into a bridge and he said classic yeah just and this is what i thought i might have touched on in the last thing is that this guy turned himself into a bridge yes yeah i remember that and he was like and let me be the bridge and in the thing i read it said and that was the first time anyone had said let me be the bridge and it's now a proverb to this day. I've never heard anyone say, let me be the bridge.

But I'm going to start trying to use it in sentence. Do people use it maybe figuratively or do you use it literally? He's literally saying, walk on my back across this gap. I'm going to start using it at parties when I introduce people. James, meet Alistair. Let me be the bridge. Yeah, I've got to go home. I'm going to call an Uber. Hold on. Let me be the bridge um yeah i've got to go in i'm gonna call an uber hold on let

me be the bridge i've got a discount code i'd use it more figuratively i think yeah so he made himself a bridge everyone clammed across and then math is like hey mate and he's like whatever you want may it's all good we're all pals here and made out like there was no badness but brown obviously was so angry that his face had turned into a lake and ridge and stuff he was so mad that matholog was like okay listen let's make it so that you and i reign here supreme in a big house we're gonna make a house big enough for you guern the son who's in foster care we're going to give him sovereignty so he's going to be like a royal is that okay and then

brown one was like i'll take it and so they built a giant house for brian blessed so they built a massive house but it had a naughty trap in it which was lots of bags of flour in inverted commas ethnician is strutting around, just trying to check out whether he agrees with what's going on. And he looks around the house, casting angry glances around the house. He's Lawrence Llewellyn Poe-ing it. Yeah. Right.

He's really, like, trying to find fault. And he's like, what are these? About the bags of flour? Yeah, they put 100 pillars in. On each pillar, they hung a leather sack, which was full of flour. Flour, supposedly. And then the people who were showing him around, he was like, what's this in these bags? And they were like, flour.

And FNICIAN puts his hand up. It wasn't flour, though. It wasn't flour. They were lying. They were as naughty as FNICIAN. But FNICIAN, he goes, I'll see your naughtiness and i'll raise you uh crushing someone's head with because in the bags was because in the bag sorry yeah there was naughty hiding fighters fighting oh yeah did you not know that oh sorry of course so like fighting children type yeah

in each in each sack each of the hundred sacks that they hung on an individual pillar around the house. They were just going to wait there and pounce out. So like the Trojan horse, but with loads of separate bags of flour. Exactly. The Trojan bags of flour. Okay. And so Evnissian was like, flour hay, puts his hand up, and he feels inside it that there's a human head.

And so he's like, he crushes it with his hand until he can feel the brain through the bone. So he starts off with the first one and then it said and then Efnizian played the same trick. I mean trick is quite a light hearted way of putting it.

Played the same murder. So did he do it twice? He did it a hundred times. And then he sang. How naive is the person showing him round? The estate agent, basically, in this scenario. Just really trying to save face. What's that red smear that's running down out of this flower bag? Oh, it's flower for a red velvet cake.

Yeah. Next one, pop. Yeah, he went round all of them. And when he'd done them all, he just sang a little Welsh song. He sounds dangerous. He sounds unhinged. No, but have you ever popped bubble wrap? You keep going.

You keep going. Do you want me to sing you the song that they sang after he killed all the fighters? Yeah, what is the song? In this bag there is a flower of a kind. Conquerors, defenders, dissenders to the grind. Facing, fighting men ready for the hour. And that's it. Really leaves you hanging that time.

So after all of that, after so many skull crushings, they're like, let's have a feast. Let's like move on. So they went to the feast and Gwern, the little boy, went round to all the brothers of Branwen and was like really lovely and nephew-y to them, apart from Efnissian. Efnissian got no nephew love. He's like, why won't he come to me? got no nephew love he's like why won't he come to me like even though he's irish i wouldn't have minded him showing me some love and so they like send the boy to ephnician the next thing he does chucks him on the fire what chucks the little boy on the fire head first yeah picks him up by his

feet and chucks him head first into the fire and then everyone goes whoa fight everyone goes for their weapons the irish start to kindle the cauldron of rebirth because they're like well if any of our men get killed we're gonna get them rebirthed and all right they won't be able to talk but we'll get them back and ephnician sees that the kin the cauldrons being kindled and being used so he's like i gotta stop this so he gets himself in amongst all the corpses of the irish ready to be put into the cauldron with the others and then two bare-bottomed irishmen i think obviously it's written by a welshman so he's like the irishman put him in the cauldron they just happen to have bare bums they just happen

to be wandering out with the bums out um so they throw ethnician into the cauldron as well and he stretches out and he breaks the cauldron into four pieces but also breaks his heart as well his heart yeah um and so the cauldron is now useless but so is his heart but yeah so he if he just hadn't caused the ruckus in the first place with the horse lips we wouldn't have been any of this mess and it turns out there's no there's really few people left after the fight the only there's only seven people left not including brian blessed or branwen there's no one left alive in ireland there's only five pregnant women yeah left lucky they were pregnant in a cave apparently in the version i read not ideal conditions for pregnant women they'd have their pick of all the they could go in that massive house that brian blessed therees literally no one there literally everyone's dead apart from seven welsh

people and brian blesses but he'd hurt his foot so he got a poison spear in the foot from one of the sneaky irish people and in this story the voice of the story there the sneaky irish with their horrible bare bottoms and poison spears and so bran but brian blessed is like do you know what chop my head off just be just do be done with it chop my head off and bran when um on the way back casts her eyes over and then also over Wales and she's like... And then dies. So she heaves a sigh of, like, I can't believe all the trouble I've wrought on these lands. She's wrought?

Yeah. Is she taking responsibility for this? Well, she was so goddamn hot. If she wasn't such a smoking piece of woman top three so she hadn't been so sexy no horses need to have been mutilated at all yeah that matholoch wouldn't have heard of her beauty from ireland and come over there asking to wed her and her half brother wouldn't have been so annoyed that someone had sex with her yeah no no you explain it it is clearly her fault yeah i mean

come on yeah and she was like why did i teach that starling welsh it all just led to so much more issues if i just learnt my place getting boxed around the ears we could have all just had a happy life um so that says she dies and then they chop off bendaged rand's head why did they do that well i think he was struggling anyway with his foot he was injured so he was gonna die and he all i think he was also like um he wanted to have his head like do some some work after he was gone yeah ultimately well james knows this story a little bit better than me is this where this is where i segue in yeah i don't think... The listeners will barely notice a difference.

It's just a sort of a little, funny little postscript. So the seven guys go back with Bran's head, Brian Blessed's head, and they go across back to Harlech again. Yeah.

Remember? Yeah, it's lovely. Beautiful scenery. Very steep residential street. Top three. You don't want to drop a head steep residential street. Top three. You don't want to drop a head on that street. No, so they go there with the heads, and all the pictures show them carrying this giant head above them.

They hear some beautiful birds singing at Harlech. In Welsh? What other language would they be singing? So the reason she had to do Sparrow Welsh was that it was an Irish sparrow. And it started up a Welsh bird voice choir. And they listened to that bird singing for seven years in Harlac. And then they go to Gwales, which is a place called Gwales. In Wales, there's Gwales.

I can't believe it's not Wales. Yeah, for branding purposes, it's called Gwales. And then they just party there with Brian Blessed's head entertaining them with tales for 80 years. Wow. They're in for 80 years. Wow. They're in Gwales. Yeah. And the thing was there was a prophecy saying you'll go

and you'll spend a lot of time having fun and not thinking about how the fact that an entire country died, two entire countries died apart from you, you'll just have a good time until you look at Cornwall. And when you look at Cornwall, that's the end of it. So they're there for 80 years being told. But it's the thing of, like, can you separate the artist from the art?

Because they're getting regaled with tales by this giant decapitated head having a great time. And it looks like two lakes and a ridge. That's like being too close to the cinema screen. You know, when you can't get the whole... So they're there for eight years, having a good time listening to the decapitated head. And then one of them notices that there's two doors,

one going that way, left, one going right, and another door that has never been opened. And he's like, well, I need to see what's behind this door. And he opens it up and it's Cornwall. And that's it. That's the end of it. that's the end of the fun part he's over someone looked at cornwall it wasn't even clear that they were in a building up until this point well i'm surprised it must i guess where is it in these guiles near enough i can't believe i'm cornwall and we missed the bit out where they built a oh no because it didn't have to house the whole of him

it's just the head which I suppose does fit in a hat yeah that could fit of course his head can get in a house even though it's the size of two lakes

and a ridge yeah but have you been to Wales Wales is so beautiful I went to university with someone from Boxford and she did not

like me saying it was just a knock-off Oxford. Yeah, so they see Cornwall, that's it, party's over, Brian shuts up, never to speak again, and they have to bury his head underneath the hill that the Tower of London's now built on,

looking out towards France to protect us from ever being invaded. The end. Right. And in mine, the hilarious postscript was, oh, it turned out there were five pregnant women in Ireland and they all gave birth to sons.

And to repopulate the country, they all had to have sex with each other's mothers. And that's... And that's where your ma started. with each other's mothers. And that's where your ma started. There's a sort of final attack on the character of the Irish. Yes.

Of the Welsh writers. Yeah. It's funny as well, isn't it, that it's called like the branch of Branwen, like the Mabinogion of Branwen. But she doesn't feature that much in it. She just gets bad stuff a little bit. Well, a lot of really bad stuff happened to her, but the main stuff is to do with like fires i guess it's like helen of droid doesn't do very much in the trojan wars right she starts it by just being beautiful and kidnapped going around being

blooming beautiful i mean we all know what that's like though so this is these are the scores for mabinogi 2 electric boogaloo mabinogi sorry mabinogi 2, Electric Boogaloo. Mabinogi. Sorry. Mabinogi 2, Electric Boogaloo. Electric Boogaloo. It's a beautiful language. So, OK, what's the first category? Names. Names. Yeah, I think we should the first category? Names. Names.

Yeah, I think we should go with names. There's a lot of great names. I mean, I haven't read much other mythology, but Welsh mythology seems to have pretty great names. A lot of names. Branwen Verch, Llyr for a start. Mabinogi. Mabinogi. There's someone called Hefydd the Tall.

Chuck a bit of English in there for his name, why don't you? That's a bit odd. Maybe he's called Hefydd y Tal. And this is just the English translation. Inig strong shoulder. And Inig means only. It's only strong shoulder. It's only strong shoulder.

Mathholoch. Nesien. Effin Nesien. Nesien. Effin Nesien. Llasar Llawes Gyfewyd. What was that grumpy man? Manawydion.

Manawydion. Man I would, Ian. Manawyd again. If you're really agreeing with Ian. Cymie day, Cymie main foll. Cymie the day, Cymie the may. And then we've also got, now these are the seven people who lived. Caradwawg, son of Bran.

Carado, oh God, I've had me already. Hefyd the Tall, Inig Strongshoulder. Idig, son of Anarawd. Walltgewm. Walltgewm. How does that Duolingo go? You don't learn names. They just call them things like Dewilingo.

Yeah. Any more names? Fodor, son of Ervill. Theodore, son of Elvis. Elch, bone lip. Oh, yeah. Lascha, son of Llasar Llaisgwygwynt. He invented the lash.

And Brian Blessive. And Brian Blessive. It's a lot of good names. It's a lot of great names. It's a lot of great names. And it would be offensive to Welsh people for me to just say that that was all phlegmy nonsense that I could make any sense of. So it's five out of five. Yes. Sorry.

It's pimp out of pimp. Thank you. We learned last time that pimp means five. And we never got over it. No. It changed us. What's the next category? Supernatural.

I don't think there's very much. There's loads. Is there? Yes. A man who can't be housed in a house. That's just a big man. I'm too big for your house. How is that supernatural?

Your houses are too small. I've been to actual Brian Blessed's house. Have you? Yeah. Or his daughter's house. Blessed wasn't there. Right. Well, Blessed Senior wasn't there.

His daughter was there. Oh, right. She's really nice. So I didn't see Brian Blessed in a house. So we have no evidence that Brian Blessed can be housed in a house. I've never seen him in a house. I used to live in Jeremy Paxman's house. Really?

Did he know? Was it like that story from Japan where the guy found out that there was someone living in his cupboard? Have you heard that one? No. I haven't heard that story. I haven't heard that. Oh, just in a nutshell. I thought it was a cupboard.

It was a guy who lived out of... He worked in a different city during the week and he'd just come home at weekends and then he started noticing that things were going from his fridge so he set up a webcam and what he saw will shock you um he watched the video and a woman got out of his cupboard the size of a nutshell a tiny woman who's housed in every house standard japanese-sized woman came out of his cupboard and was in his house basically while he wasn't there. That is so terrifying.

She snuck in. Oh, my God, that gives me goose pimps. Goose fives. Yes. You're in England now. What were we talking about? Oh, right. So, yeah, Brian Blessed.

Too big. No, Brian Blessed is a real man, not a supernatural entity. He's got eyes the size of lakes. If you saw somebody with eyes the size of lakes and a ridge for a nose and looked like a mountain and... To be honest, the only people that get this confused are the stupid Irish people of this story, in this story. I think it's saying the Irish people are a bit thick.

Because they didn't understand that boats weren't a forest. Well, no, but there were elder masts, older masts, so it looked like trees surely if you saw a load of trees in the sea your first thought would be those boats look like trees not there's some trees in the sea all i'm saying is all right if you saw if you were to see a human a non-magical human so big that they'd never been contained within a house i'm not saying you'd say it was magical but you wouldn't say it was. I'm not saying you'd say it was magical, but you wouldn't say it was natural.

And in that case, you'd say it was supernatural. That's a very good point that I'll remember for future episodes. All right, he did have an unnaturally big face. Yeah. All right. Oh, and he lived after he had his head chopped off. And he did keep telling stories after he had his head chopped off. For 87 years. Look, let's wait and see what happens to Brian Blessed,

because he is quite a recontour. I don't think decapitation would stop him. So we've got, OK, the head talks, that was magic. Yeah. What else, though? A starling that can talk Welsh. Oh, well, no, no. We know that the starling can understand Welsh.

Yeah, that's pretty magic. But, well, it can't speak Welsh, necessarily, because perhaps that's the reason it was given the message to pass on, because it could understand but not speak. But for it to understand so well the fact of, this is what my brother looks like, take this letter to him, that's quite magic. Yeah, but considering the size of his head, if it had just flown in the direction of Wales, the likelihood is it would have hit him. So I don't think that's that supernatural. Cauldron.

Yeah, what about a magic cauldron? We don't know that it works because it was smashed before it was put to use. So for all we know, that was just a phony, a big cauldron. If it had brought one burned child back to life, I'd be raining points on you. Listener can't hear how angry Jenny looks at this point. Here's a magic bit.

A woman gives birth to a massive fighting man. Yeah. Come on. Come on. Four out of five. Thank you. A one-week gestation period of a giant fighting Irishman. Four out of five.

Okay. But not five, because the bird couldn't speak. What's the next category? Missing the point somewhat. The category is missing the point somewhat the category is missing the point somewhat yeah missing the point somewhat could you give me some examples of that from there's so many uh they they just get distracted for 80 years kind of forgetting what they're trying to do they're on a journey back from a war and then they get distracted for well they get distracted for seven years just listening to bird song and then 80 years listening to a decapitated head.

They also missed the point of when Branwen was having a nice happily married time and Matholoch was in trouble. Instead of going, I'll just laugh off the mockery, I'll get the butcher to beat up my wife, that's somewhat missing the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you're stretching somewhat. Yes that's somewhat missing the point yeah yeah yeah i mean you're stretching somewhat yes that is missing the point missing the point of what a forest is at sea you can't bring a forest in support of everything damn oh there was another one so i've got three

examples of missing the point so i'm looking you're looking at a three out of five okay i mean there's definitely more oh a phoanician um being so so mad that his sister had been um betrothed to somebody without his knowledge that he um that he mutilated some horses it's like this has got nothing to do with those horses or you you're missing the point aphanician and he what we think he might have chopped off of the horses. They ended up missing a point, you could say. All right, it's four out of five. Four out of five for that, James. Well done.

And finally, category? Love Island. Love Island. We've chosen a category you know I don't know anything about. There's quite a few examples of Love Island in this story. Toxic masculinity. Exactly. Massive men who are too big to be inside a house.

Love Island, they're always outside the villa. Yeah. Pavilions. They go on dates in tents or pavilions sometimes. Branwen being the most beautiful woman in the world. All the women on Love Island are the most beautiful women in the world. Top three. Yeah, top three.

Yeah. No, some of them are absolutely stunningly surprising looking how good like um come over from ireland good um there's also um a large theme of love island is bare bottoms yes um it should be called wedgie island because they don't there's not even thongs they've just got their pants up their bum bare bottoms out all the time you can't look anywhere for bare but even in the evening when they're wearing dresses they're like see-through dresses like here's my bum wedgie island sounds like an island for bullies yes which is where your former co-workers uh people getting angry at other people having sex. That's very Love Island.

Absolutely. People they've just met. Yeah. Being annoyed that people they've just met have had sex with someone else. Oh, and also, I suppose, cutting the lips off the horses is akin to the surgery that people have in Love Island. Some of them have had some quite drastic surgery. Yeah. It looks like.

Because it used to be that you'd watch it and you'd go, oh, look, I think one of those people has got lip implants. That's unusual. And now you're looking at it and you're like, hang on, one of them hasn't got lip implants. That's really weird. And they've got that other thing on Love Island where a butcher punches you in your head.

Once a day. Yeah, once a day. Just once. It's for fun. And there's somebody in Love Island called Llasa Llais Giffenwood. There is. And you could argue that in doing a winter Love Island, they've sort of chucked a dead body into a cauldron

in an effort to rejuvenate it. Based on no information at all, I think it's clearly five out of five for Love Island. What a lovely island. And every episode of Love Island ends with a shot of Cornwall. Party's over, guys. I love so much that it has got five out of five for Love Island and that you were like, it's a romantic story.

It's like so nice. Like Love Island, it's not a romantic story at all. Very, very grim. Happy Valentine's Day. Yeah, WrestleMania. Happy WrestleMania, everyone. To you and your butcher. Yeah. How romantic was that?

Oh, it was so romantic. Join us next time for a tale known as The Roaring Bull of Bagbury. You've been listening to Lawmen with me, Alistair Beckett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. And me, James Shakeshaft. You Alistair Beckett-King. And me James Shakeshaft. And me James Shakeshaft. You say it like that every time. And me James Shakeshaft. Oh, it's me James Shakeshaft. I think I've broken me James Shakeshaft.

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