Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep94: Loremen S3 Ep94 - The Well of Seven Heads

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

A grisly tale of revenge from the Scottish Highlands. In the shadow of Glengarry Castle, one bald man with nothing to lose seeks justice for the infamous Keppoch Murders. That’s right, the Lorebois are back! And everything you love is still here: -Wilful misunderstandings -Disturbing mascots from the 90s -Excellent Scottish accents -Also James also does his Scottish accent Plus, arbitrary scoring and beheadings. Bring on 2022*! *2022 Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @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, I have been cooking up a Scottish delicacy for you today. Yeah. A Caledonian feast. It's a bit like the bit in Temple of Doom. The monkey brains.

Yeah, it's a bit like that, but... But with oats. Yes. It's got blood. It's got betrayal. It's got Scottish people. What more could you want? Fresh running water.

James, you're going to be shocked. It has got that as well. What? It is the Well of the seven heads. Are you all right there, James? You sound like you're struggling. Oh, don't get me started. I've got started.

He's started, listener. It has begun begun we had a lovely new year's we had some pizzas in a little portable pizza oven nice and i had a metal peel and a peel is the bit the sort of the shovel that you use to get the pizzas in and out of a pizza oven i didn't know that it's called a peel the large sort of table tennis fat yeah yeah yeah like for rowing but pizzas for rowing pizzas we've got a sort of a metal one that doesn't really have much of a handle it's basically just just the the paddle end and chatting away having a lovely time on new years i popped it down on the pizza oven not thinking close up on that happening. Yep. And then me chatting for like another two minutes barely minutes. I picked it up

it was blooming hot. I yowled and dropped it. Basically my thumb is all blister. It's more blister than thumb now. Oh no. It was like I had two thumbs. It was such a big blister. The entire pad of my thumb had become

blistered. But at least now your fingerprint will be destroyed, so you can commit thumb crimes with impunity. Oh, yeah, thumb war crimes. Yes. Thumb war atrocities. That's an advantage. Does everyone know what a thumb war is?

Do people remember the thumb wars? A guy at the corner of the bar raises his head. Yep. Raises his thumb. Tries to give you a thumbs up. He can't. They're too scarred and gnarled from the thumb wars. He gives you a stump up.

So you'd sort of hold, I think it's called a monkey grip, isn't it? When you hold hands with someone, but just the fingers. I don't know, but I'll accept that name. And then your two thumbs are up like two combatants, like the Mitchell brothers. two thumbs are up like two combatants like like the mitchell brothers and then you tap their forefinger your forefinger on the beat as you chant one two three four i declare a thumb war and then you're into it you gotta try and pin the other person's thumb for three seconds right it's more like a thumb wrestle maybe it's called thumb wrestling in some places well you know james that story of thumb violence. Thumb on thumb crime.

It really sets the scene for a tale of clan warfare from Scotland, which is what I have brought to you today. Did they settle all their disputes via the medium of thumb war? Yes, but if you replace thumbs with full human bodies and being held down for five seconds with being killed. Oh. It's sort of a full-sized version of a thumb war, if you can imagine that, where people die.

During the Winterville period, I visited the Highlands of Scotland where my parents live near Loch Linney. Oh. Not far from the world-famous Pink Shop in Benderloch. I'm sure you're aware of it, James? The world-famous Pink Shop? Um. I mean, it's world-famous, so I assume...

I should know about it, but no. I'm afraid I don't. Well, I imagine the listeners overseas will be very familiar with the world famous pink shop in Bendeloch. If they're in the world. It's world famous. It's not just a pink shop, it's the world famous pink shop. I've never heard of another pink shop.

The High Street Hero award-winning world famous pink shop in Bendeloch. The HSH? Yeah, according to the Open shop. The High Street Hero award-winning, world-famous pink shop in Bendeloch. The HSH? Yeah, according to the Open Times, and this gives you a sense of the reach of the world-famous pink shop. Shop owner, Campbell Munro, I think you'll agree, a Scottish name, said the heroes were a big team of

volunteers and staff who all played their part in getting hundreds and hundreds of deliveries out to people in Bendeloch. That's just the first in the list, the place where the pink shop is. Connell, North Connell, Barcoldine and Bonneau. So, and bear in mind, North Connell's actually on the other side of a bit of water. Pretty impressive. That is good.

Now, Alistair. Yes. I need some clarification. Sadly, the fame, the renownedness of this pink shop has not reached me. Is it a shop that, one, is pink, two, exclusively sells pink things, three, is endorsed by the singer-songwriter Pink? It's unaffiliated with the musical artist Pink, I'm sorry to say.

It is a shop which is pink. Google auto-completed it for me, and I don't know if that's just because it knows my interests. I typed pink shop, and it was like, pink shop in Bendeloch. The world famous pink shop. I typed in world famous. And what came up was the pink shop in Bendeloch. Yes, the whole shop is painted pink.

Right. Exterior and int. I have not been on the inside, so I can't say maybe all the goods inside are themselves pink. But I think it's mostly just local supplies i don't think you would win a high street hero award just selling novelties or merchandise relating to the singer pink if they have tinted the windows pink as well on this pink shop for the full brand experience everything would look pink they'd look outside of thing but everyone must know about us and they're doing it in honor in our honor like the emerald city in the book of wizard of o Oz where everyone just wears green glasses because it's not really green.

Oh. Yeah, the whole thing's a scam in the book. He was good at scams, that old Wizard of Oz, wasn't he? He was a big old huckster. Anyway, that was just to set the scene. I thought, you know, as soon as I mentioned Pink Shop, you'd be like, oh yeah, Pink Shop in Bendelach. Just to let you know where we're talking. Oh, the world famous Pinkamous Pink Chopper Pendleton. And while I was there, I picked up my granddad's old copy

of the beloved Reader's Digest book of folklore myths and legends of Britain. I think you know the one with the scary face on it. The face is going, Yeah. He's got horns. He's one of them skull creatures. Is he? Is it the os or the ooze?

That goes around the town at certain times in the year, bullying people for money. Is that who's on the front? Like the Mary Lloyd or that one from Kent we talked about before. And therein, I picked up a Scottish tale. Now, the Scottish Highlands are divided by an anime-style slash from west to northeast. It's a really clear fault line. If you ever look at it on a map, you can just see it.

It's a fault line that stretches from Loughlinnie, where my parents live in the west, all the way up to Inverness and the Moray Firth at the northeast end. And slap bang in the middle of that fault line is Loch Oich. Oich. Oich. Oich. Oich. Or Loch Oich, if you want to pronounce it Englishly and wrong. Oich. Oich.

I've just looked that up and I've heard of Inverness. Yeah, yeah. But I'd never heard of the the i guess it's county that this is in what's that inver gary inver gary yeah as in glen gary oh we're gonna have castle gary later castle gary yeah castle gaz to his mates i think it's called glen gary castle these days shame and um and whenever i hear glen gary i think of gl glengarry glen ross which up until earlier today i've always assumed was a sort of braveheart kind of a film and i just found out it's about estate agents oh yeah so that's really confusing abc and all that always be estate agents realtors that's what americans call them it's apparently very good

i've never been bothered to watch it. So on Loch Oich, there's a place called Tobar Nan Kian, which is Gaelic for the Well of the Heads. And this story is the story of the Well of the Seven Heads. Severed? Seven. Seven? But also, footnote, severed.

They had been severed. Now, at this place, Tobar Nan and Kean the well of the heads there's going to be so much mispronounced Gaelic in this story I really apologize to Gaelic speaking listeners but there's a monument there and carved at the top of it are seven decapitated heads held up by a hand holding a knife what one hand holding seven heads and a knife I mean the hand is also dehanditated de-manitated. Mm. De-manitated? I don't know. Just de-bodied.

De-bodied. It's not supposed to be a severed hand. It's just that's where the carving ends. You've got to stop somewhere, yeah. You have to stop somewhere. I struggle with three pint glasses. Yeah, it's very impressive. They're coming back from the bar with seven heads. And a knife.

You'd expect them to give you a tray at least. So this monument was erected in 1812, and it has inscriptions in Latin, French, English and Gaelic telling a true crime tale of revenge, which I'm going to tell to you now, but slightly more accurately than those engravings. The year is 1663 and the local bigwig in this area is the chief of the Macdonald clan, Donald Glass, aka.k.a. Grey Donald. Ooh. Everyone's got an a.k.a. here. Oh, good. From Gaelic to English and about five nicknames.

If you get confused at any point, let me know. Okay. At the time that he died, his two young sons were being schooled overseas. And so these two boys, a couple of top lads, returned home to the house of Kepoch, where they lived. Their names were Alistair, great name, and Ranald. Ranald. Ranald. Ranald. MacDonald.

He's not... Is he in a just slightly off version of the model MacDonald outfit? Because he doesn't want to infringe on anyone's IP. Yeah, and they're made Mocky Mouse. No, he's not Ranald MacDonald. He's Ronald McDonald. Totally different. I mean, he's obviously the same name as McDonald.

How did I not notice that? So Alistair, a.k.a. Alexander. I'm sure I've mentioned it on the podcast before. Alistair is the Gaelic version of Alexander. So if you read this story elsewhere, you might hear these people referred to as Alexander. And the Burger King. My name is like a knockoff of Burger King.

Alistair Burger King. So he was due to become chief of the McDonald's when he reached maturity. When he got his five stars on his badge. I'm really sorry, Scottish people. I don't know if you've ever heard this joke before. There are loads of people called McDonald's. That's not just about the popular chain of restaurant. Don't get too invested in this kid, is my advice to you at this point in the story, James. According to Amelia McGregor's History of the Clan Gregor, written in 1898, what happened was one day all the servants were out in the fields shearing corn,

superintended by, and this guy's a really important character, Ian Loam, a.k.a. Bald Ian. Or Bald John, if you want to translate it into English. Bear John, some people call him, in the sense of bareheaded, I think, not burly. Right, or he's very John. He's Bear John. What Bear John had were bear rhymes because he was i'm sorry

to inform you a poet a bard but your opinion of poets james shouldn't influence this guy this was a tough guy aldean who was a fighter a renowned guide he was a man of action so he'd have a flick knife rather than a baby he definitely that's a reference to your nemesis, Simon Armitage. Simon Armitage. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yes, he would carry a bowie knife. And a baby. He would carry a bowie knife and a baby.

He had to multitask in those days. So he was out in the fields dealing with shearing when Alistair and Ranald's relatives arrived. Now, the relative is also called Alistair because this story happens in Scotland. Well, they've run out of names by this point. And his name was Alistair McDougall or Alistair Bute, a.k.a. Blonde Alexander, also known as Alistair Moore Mac McDougall, a.k.a. Big Al. Al Bute?

Alistair Moore means Big Alistair. As a very, very tiny sidebar, when I was at university, I had a friend who, his nickname was Al Bute. Oh yeah? Because when he became drunk, he would just say everything was Bute and he just became nicknamed Al Bute. So that's all I'm thinking. That's what I'm picturing him as now. Well, I may be mispronouncing it. It's spelt a couple of ways, but B-U-I-T-H-E and it's Gaelic for blonde. So presumably he was a blonde-haired Alistair. Sounds like a beauty.

Maybe I should mention that Big Al is a rival for the leadership of the clan, and is quite popular in the area. So he arrives with his six large adult sons. Maths fans will be adding the number of sons, but okay, just leaving that there. If you're smart enough to spot that, great. If not, it doesn't matter. The Shearers see them arrive, and a while later, they watch Alistair Moore and his kids take leave

of the young chieftains at the door. They don't see the young chieftains, but, you know, everything seems normal. Some time passes, and Bald Ian starts to think, oh, why haven't they come out to see us in the fields? That's a bit weird. And he pops back into Kepok house. Boys haven't emerged.

Goes inside, checks on them. What do you think he finds? More Alistairs. Alistair even more. It's one less Alistair, unfortunately. Oh, less fewer Alistairs. And one less Ranald. Oh no, Ranald MacDonald.

Ranald MacDonald is dead. And so is his older brother, Alistair. Is the Hombargalon. They've been murdered in a crime that comes to be known as the Kepoch murders. Now, I don't want to excuse the murder. The detail I have neglected to include is that they were educated in France, and there is a rumor printed in the Scotsman that they'd returned home with French accents. Oh.

So I don't want to say that homicide is justified, but let's maybe try and see it from Big Alistair's point of view, okay? Now, we don't know whether he intended to murder them or whether a perfectly understandable fight broke out due to them being unreasonably French. We just don't know. Pretentious. Imagine that. Scottish kid with a French accent. They're like, oh, where can we get a croissant round here? Like when someone's been on holiday

and they're like, all right, we have oats for breakfast. We have drawer oats for breakfast round here, mate. We have a variety of different foods, all of which are essentially oats. Oats left in different places. Yeah, leave them in a drawer, leave them in a cup, leave them in a body. It doesn't matter. Just go back to the murder of Ronald McDonald in Scotland. This is the time when Officer Big Mac, it could actually be someone's name involved in this story. That is a good point. I mean, his name is Alistair Moore Mac. That means Alistair Big Mac.

But he's the guy who did it, unfortunately. Well, it's the corruption. Oh my word. It's an inside job. This is incredible. Well, that explains the next part of the story, which is that basically- A big purple thing comes in. Nothing happens. Oh. Yeah, they get away with it. According to Amelia McGregor, the McDool murderers skulked seven years in different parts of the neighbouring counties,

which I think is her way of saying that basically nobody tried to bring them to justice because Big Alice was quite popular. But little sidebar, she's also keen to prove that the crime wasn't committed by a McGregor. You're probably aware that the McGregors have a bad reputation. No, but I am now. The McGregor clan, aka the Children of the Mist, had been outlawed earlier in the 17th century for castle rustling and lots of murders. Castle rustling? Cattle rustling, not castle rustling.

If you can rustle a castle, you've earned it, I think, if you have the skills. So she's including a letter from Robert McGregor in 1817 insisting that the imputation of this murder falsely made against the McGregors was founded on no better grounds than the circumstance

of a tribe of that clan being called Clan Duel, whereas there are many tribes and islands of other subnames bearing the patronymic of Clan Duel. It wasn't us, basically. There's a lot of people called Dougal around. But it's true that nobody cared about what had happened apart from old bald Ian and the

Kepoch brothers' sister. So he was left scratching his bald head about what to do. And he remembered what he was best at. Was he going to write a poem about it? He started writing. Oh, no. The Lament of the Clan Capoch. Good news for you.

It's in Gaelic. I can't read it. Excellent. Now, my mum, very similarly, she's quite similar to Baldy in this respect, a few years ago, someone got halfway through paving her drive and then left it unfinished to do another better paying job.

And she retaliated by publishing a satirical poem in the Durham Advertiser. Ouch. He came back quick sharp, the Durham Advertiser. Ouch. He came back quick-sharp, finished the job. Really? Yeah, don't mess with a Scottish poet. It also reminds me of the time that a wee Timorous Beastie really p***ed off Robbie Burns. So if you went to Loch Oik and you read the inscription on the monument,

you would think that Baldian appealed to Lord Macdonald and Eros, which he did, but in spite of what the inscription tells you, he wasn't really successful in doing that. He also appealed to Sir James Macdonald of Sleet, way up in Skye, the island. Sleet in the Skye. Sleet in the Isle of Skye. I love Skye. Eventually, Sir Jim took action and dispatched a small army of islemen, guided by Ian Lom. And what happened next is a siege worthy of Quinetin Tarantino.

Oh. According to Edward Charge Ellis's place names in Glengarry and Glencoich, 1898, it played out like this. Alistair Moore had fortified a body with his wife, not using his wife. She was in there too. Stuffed up holes using her. He put in loopholes and he was ready to defend the place. She was keeping a big fire burning and scorching anyone

who approached. Her leg was shattered by a bullet early on in the fight but she was still fighting back. Good on her. They held out for a long time but eventually the oilman decided to fight fire with fire. They went and got loads of dried bracken and started a fire of their own and smoked Big Al out.

He came out with his wife in his arms and they were cut to pieces. Oh no! Collapsed. in his arms. They were cut to pieces. Oh, no. Collapsed. Collaped. They were collaped. Oh, no. Alastor Moore and his sons were beheaded. Seven heads for seven bad lads.

And they put the head in what's nice is a specially designed bag. No pillar slips here. You'd think a pillar slip would actually count as a specially designed bag for the head. I think they used woven reeds or something. It may have been sort of basket-like. Either way, the heads were bound up and transported in the direction of Castle Gary to present them to Lord Macdonald. Now, according to Paul Ramsey's Loch St. Glens of Scotland, 1994, they stopped off at Loch Oich. And by the time they reached the loch, the heads were getting quite unhappy in the bag.

What, like smelly? No, a grinding of teeth, a grumbling and a groaning came from them. Their quarrelsome heads were starting an inter-bag Barney. No, an intra-bag Barney. Intra-bag? They were fighting amongst themselves, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ian Loam had to tell them to put a sock in it.

He had to be like, Oi, she's meant to be friends. She's supposed to be related. Come on. Can't you get along? He said something like that, but in Gaelic. He pulled the heads out and they washed them clean before laying them at the feet of the chief. And where they washed them is the place now known as the Well of the Heads. That's where the monument stands. And this is the story told in the inscription. Interestingly, as I say, the story is in French,

Latin, English, and Gaelic. And the Gaelic version is different. Not speaking Gaelic, you just assume that they were the same text, as is usually the case. So the English version, to read you a snatch of it, says something along the lines of, As a memorial of the ample and summary vengeance which in the swift course of feud of justice inflicted by the orders of the Lord Macdonald and Eros overtook the perpetrators of the foul murder of the Kepoch family. Right. As translated in Robert Southie's Journal of a Tour of Scotland, 1929, this is a section from the much longer Gaelic version. Traveller, approach and read a tale of the justice of the everlasting God.

Listen to the requital of the treachery which converted Kepoch into a cold habitation. The destroyers spread the snare of death round the glad table of their bounteous feasts and confounded the old and the young in the same heap in their stainless blood. Roused was the sudden wrath of the chief, the defending pillar of the hardy heroes, the lord of the McDonald's, whose badge is the health, the lion of renown, the tree of virtues, he ordered. That's like a third of it. It goes on for so long. It's like one of those bits you get in things when someone has a translator

and they'd say like a... What do you say? No. Yeah, they killed him. And this is not the only well of head or heads in Scotland. There's another well of the heads over in Ross where they also have a whole field of the heads. What? There's one on the outer Hebrides

and another one on Skye, which is Tobard Achin, well of the head. Achin? And the whole of the head. And the whole rest of the head. That one is supposedly haunted, but I don't think it's... By a ghost chin.

And there's also, I will tell you briefly before I bring my tale to a close, there's a well that heads over on Mull near Loch Buey. And Mull is quite near where my parents live, but an island. So according to J.P. Maclean in 1925, another well of the heads on Mull is mentioned in the tale of Ewan Maclean. Me and who? And Ewan Maclean the tale of Ewan McLean me and who? and Ewan McLean

oh Ewan like Ian well Hugh I think it translates as Hugh yeah

Hugh and Ewan after death he became your classic spectral horseman but I'm going to put that to one side okay

I can't not mention that he was the son of John Ogg also known himself as Hugh of the Little Head, and his wife was nicknamed Stingy the Bad Black Heron. Or the Black-Bottomed Heron. She wasn't popular.

Oh, that sounds like one of those nicknames that, like, with that Al Bute thing, it takes a bit of explaining and no one really cares. They just like the end product. It was during the lifetime of Tiny-Headed Hugh that his friend, named Duard, shot and killed a ploughman while out hunting. The ploughman may or may not have been ploughing

on Duard's land. So there might have been a reason. I'm not sure. Either way, you could get away with that sort of thing in those days. Or,

so Duard and Maclean thought. But when the ploughman's wife ran across Duard's and Hugh's sons, she chopped their heads off and hoid them down a well. Oh, my well. Yeah. So stop throwing heads in wells, Scotland.

Yeah. It's not hygienic. Yes. I mean, it was good that the first well was used to clean off these heads, but I hope that they took the water out of the well, then cleaned them rather than just dunked them in the well. That is... It's inconsiderate.

Yes, at best. I think, to be fair to Bald Ian, the Well of the Heads is actually a stream. So the water is flowing into the loch. So it's probably not too unhinged. Okay, nice one, Bald Ian. And so that is the tale of the Well of the Heads, plus several miscellaneous wells of heads.

Or chins. From across the lands of Scotland. Those are really good tales of beheadings. Quite violent. Yes, quite violent tales, I think. That really puts my thumb blister into context. Really puts a human face on the beheading of someone. Are you ready, in your Sassanach arrogance,

to pass judgment on this passage in Scottish history? Absolutely, big time. I am bringing Sassy back to the sassanacs. Are you putting the sass in sassanac? Yes. Not putting the knack in sassanac? No, I'm removing the knack, just adding more sass. Nice.

A sass of sass. A sass of sass. My first category for you is names. Right. And they had a lot of names. They did and they didn't. Oh? There was Alistair. There was Alistair they didn't. Oh? There was Alistair.

There was Alistair Moore. Yep. There was even more Alistair. There was... Yeah, yes, again, we've got another Alistair. Can you believe it? Yes, we do have Alistair. That's the tagline for Scotland.

I can't believe it's not Ewan. John Ogg. Stingy the Bad Black Heron. Stingy the Bad Black Heron. Thrown in somewhat irrelevantly at the end because the name was too weird. Bald Ian. Bald Ian. Castle Gary.

Castle Gary. What a spooky name. What a nice name. What would the decorations be like in Castle Gary? I think maybe, you know, those realist pencil drawings of footballers that you can get in the market? Yes. Maybe one of those. Just all of them throughout.

Instead of tapestries, just Panini sticker albums. It is good. It is really good. It's a lot of Alistair's. Yep. And Alexander's. Alexander's, which is also Alistair. So I'm going to go for a four, though, because I did love Castle Gary.

Okay. A four because you like Castle Gary. I'm glad. All right. Second category, Supernatural. So the well on Skye is supposedly haunted, but I didn't include that because it's clearly a lie. That's the chin one.

Yeah. I found a history book which explains that the murder that it relates to is, like all of these, a territorial dispute. But there is a story that a certain MacRang, a ghost who haunts the hills around there, murdered a woman and threw her head down the well, or murdered a woman at the well, and then later on murdered her brother when her brother challenged him. But the stories are all like, he murdered a woman at a place called Tobar Achin. So, okay, so it was called the Well of the Head before he

murdered her, was it? Don't work. You just haven't checked what that name means. So I don't think the ghost stories hold water. Like a head wouldn't, because it would leak out the nose and mouth. Oh yeah, I was thinking

you could turn it upside down. Yeah, well you could fill it up to the nose, which is not that much because there's all brain in there let's not get into how you would use a skull as a bucket so i concede that there's not that much supernatural in the story but there was a lot of post-fatal gibbering of heads yes which was weird that was really weird horrible yeahrible, yeah. I think as we talked about before, they wouldn't be able to make a noise because there's no air being pushed through them. Yeah.

So it'd just be the sort of smacking of lips and dark looks. They just sound like that sort of hoarse Glaswegian. Look, here you go. Here, big man. Here, big man. Here, get your ear out of my nose. Here, big man. You're at the. Hey, get your hair out of my nose. Hey, big man. I've been at the bottom of this sack for three days now.

Yeah, that would get annoying. Is this a seven-man sack? It says it's a seven-man sack, but you can only fit five or six real-sized heads in here. It's like tents. I'm doing my bit about tents. Yeah, so what? He didn't wash them,

he just drowned them. Did they just drown the heads to shut them up? I guess that's it. They do seem to have shut up after they were cleaned. Maybe they were just complaining about, okay, I'll get some of the goo

off my face, please. And my face is all gooey. I haven't got hands. And my head. And my head in a bag. So that's pretty spooky. And it's very weird because that's nothing else, really, in this actual story.

I'm going to go three. Oh, lovely. I'm going to engrave that inaccurately in four languages. Yeah, let's put it three in English. And then five in Gaelic. Coig. I'm pronouncing this wrong. So, yeah, that's probably what it would say.

English three, French trois, Latin tres. I don't know. I don't do Latin. I'm pronouncing this wrong. So yeah, that's probably what it would say. English three, French trois, Latin, tres. I don't know. I didn't do Latin. I'm not posh. And then... Coig. And then in Welsh, pimp. Just got that on as well.

Just get that in there. All right. My next category. Stop throwing heads in Wales. Sound advice. They should. They did, evidently, because they're less famous for that in Scotland. It's all more deep-fried Mars bars now.

It's true, but that's a symbolic recreation of the famous head in well dunking with the Mars bar representing the cranium of the condemned and the bubbling oil of a fryer representing the waters of justice. The babbling brook. Yeah, it works. But don't have seven, because that will kill you. You shouldn't. No, no, no, no, no.

Even if you've got a special bag for it. Even if you're gifted a special... Special carry-out bag. Special takeaway box. Sort of like an egg box, but quite tall, I imagine it to be. You're not going to get one for seven. It's going to be an even number. It's going to be six or eight, isn't it?

That's true. That's what I kind of imagined that bag to be like. Well, if it had had neat dividers, then they wouldn't have probably started fighting. They wouldn't have moaned. Yeah. I should have individually wrapped those heads. You stop throwing heads in wells, the Scots. I've never heard of it before.

And it turns out it's rampant. And I've never heard of it more. It's got to be a maximum five out of five. I think it's seven in a well. Seven in one well. There's at least five wells. It can't be less than five. Great.

Stop it, Putting Heads in Wells. Stop it, bracket, Putting Heads in Wells. The debut single from... Castle Gary, I think was the band's name. Castle Gary, Feet. Stingy the Bad Black Heron Final category I'm not loving it

Like a sinister version of I'm not loving it This was not a delicious tale of locally sourced meat or whatever it is they claim goes into it these days I think they don't say locally sourced meat or whatever it is they claim goes into it these days i think they

don't say locally sourced meat they they give it they can put a name on it at least like beef oh yeah yeah meat is too vague it's like when i was a student and we used to eat fruit jam oh and you were like what fruit and the jam was like don't ask questions do you want jam or not i'm sweet ain't i jam yeah i mean a lot of this tale made me do the name of the purple creature from the mcdonald's menagerie grimace weirdly they phased out that one from being a mascot of the McDonald's company. Do you know that Grimace used to have four arms? What? He was an insect.

Yep. Grimace used to have four arms and he was a villain who would steal milkshakes with all of his arms. And then they got rid of two of his arms and made him a good guy. Yeah. I'm not loving that. So he was originally an insect then? Yes.

It looks like a tardigrade. Uh-huh. The little sort of tiny little water bear. The little microscopic creature. Oh. Just Google tardigrade. It looks like Gr tardigrade. Uh-huh. The little sort of tiny little water bear, the little microscopic creature. Oh. Just Google tardigrade. It looks like Grimace with four arms. I'm going to do it.

I'm doing it live. Oh, they're small, aren't they? Are you looking at an actual tardigrade? That's minuscule. Wow. That's going to haunt my nightmares. Yep. So that's a good fact for you.

Grimace used to have four arms. Yes. I mean, this is the most McDonald's heavy episode I think we've ever done. Without anybody actually being called McDonald. Ronald McDonald. I can't believe that we even had Officer Big Mac involved in it. If you then told me that the leader of the civic council in Gary was called Mayor McCheese. Well, it's a little brown badge with the name Alistair on it,

and it's got five gold stars on that badge. Yes! Congratulations. Yes! You're off the chip counter. I'm moving on up, baby. To the Iron Brew Dispenser, because they have Iron Brew Dispensers in Scottish McDonald's.

You play your cards right, you'll be manager of this franchise one day. Thanks, James. So, James, I think you'll agree that was a happy meal. Oh! Did you see what I did you'll agree, that was a happy meal. Oh!

Did you see what I did there? Yes, that was... I set it up from the very start. Very nice. Oh, we're back. 2022. 2022. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

Pew, pew, pew, pew. Ah, yeah. I'm a bit tired. I'm already knackered, yeah. Hey, Alistair, is there any way people could get bonus episodes? Yes, patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. If you join that, you get to join the Law Folk Discord, and I love having a lovely chat with our lovely followers.

It sounds like a cult, whatever way you say it. Yeah. Stingy the bad black heron. Or the black-bottomed heron. Bam-a-lam. The Ram Jam song was originally about her. Could you ban a lamb? Yeah. What are you banning the lamb from?

I thought they were ramming a lamb. I think I'm wrong. You don't want to advise people to ram a lamb. Don't ram a lamb. Just bam a lamb. If you don't want to advise people to ram a lamb. Don't ram a lamb. Just bam a lamb. If you don't want lambs, don't ram them, just ban them. You could bam a ram. Ban all sheep.

Just have a blanket, no sheep policy. And I suppose a ram probably wouldn't be pregnant, but you could lamb a ram. Oh, gosh, yeah. I think we've gone off track. Yeah.