Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep96: Loremen S3 Ep95 - Yorkshire Dragons

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

The Loremen go dragon-spotting in Yorkshire! From the Worm of Sexhow to the Dragon of Filey Brigg, Alasdair uncovers a simple traybake recipe that *you* can use to defeat a fiery serpent. Meanwhile, James dredges up a terrible childhood memory and irrevocably damages the dynamic of the podcast. So, a normal episode really. Listen out for fishy folklorist Ruth L. Tongue. and frenemy of the show Chris L. Cantrill. 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

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, slithering towards you today from the undergrowth. What is it? A slug? Are those wings? Is that the glimmering

embers of fire? Oh God. In its toothy maw? That's right. It's a Yorkshireman. And he brings you a tale of dragons. Whoa.

Hey up, James. I got a tale for thee of the dragon of Filey Brig. Here be the dragon. So here be the dragon. Why would you say that?

James. Yeah? Did I catch you in a ways? You did a little. I was just checking I wasn't in a well still. Just checking your mic works. Yes. Good. I'll try that again. James. Yes? Did I catch you in a ways? You did a little. I was just checking I wasn't in a well still. Just checking your mic works. Yes. Good.

I'll try that again. James. Yes. Hello. Hello, Alistair. Hello, James. I'm going to take you on a journey to Yorkshire today. Ooh.

But first, a question. Uh-oh. Yeah? How did the haddock get his spots? Um... The other information you need for this question is that haddocks have spots. Ah, okay. Puberty?

That's quite a good guess. The spots in question are not multiple spots. Haddocks have a black spot below the dorsal fin. I think one on either side, although you never see a picture that shows both sides of a fish. So I can't be certain that they're on both sides. No. But I think they're on both sides. Okay.

Can I give two options? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can have as many guesses as you want. Okay. One, fashion. Fashion, yeah. Like it have as many guesses as you want. Okay, one, fashion. Fashion, yeah. Like it's a bit of eyeshadow he's putting under there. Yeah, it's a very trendy haddock.

The other one, is it like a pirate's warning, like in Treasure Island? Those are really good guesses. Yeah? Maybe it would help if I told you that the spot is sometimes called the devil's thumbprint. Nah, hmm. I guess maybe thumb and fingerprint. I'm really giving you a lot of clues here. Is it picked up to have a look at

its genitalia just to be nosy like I imagine the devil is? Yes. The famously nosy devil. The devil themself. Picked up a haddock. According to David Pickering's dictionary of folklore, the devil himself. Graham! Was off the coast of Yorkshire. Bad Steve, the devil.

He was off the coast of Yorkshire constructing devil's, the devil. He was off the coast of Yorkshire constructing Devil's Bridge. He dropped his hammer into the water, went to pick it up. He picked up a haddock by mistake. Ah, it was in a sitcom. And tried to whack a nail in with a haddock. That'd be awful. That'd be disgusting. Don't put that on television.

So the reason I tell you that is that Devil's Bridge is now better known as the Rocky Peninsula of Filey Brig. Oh, I thought it was called the Rocky Peninsula. It was like a tie-in to the film or something. There are steps. So you could recreate the tiger scene. You could run up and punch the air. Yeah, you could, although the whole thing looks very slippery.

I need to describe this to you. It's a very weird geological oddity. It's like a long crooked finger stretching off the north end of Filey Bay into the North Sea. It's just a prong. It's like a causeway to nowhere. Or a devil's bridge to nowhere, if you like. Yeah. If you look at the panoramas people have put on Google Maps, there's some very atmospheric ones.

Like you could easily lose sight of the land if you walked out to the end on a foggy day. And it's got some nice place names along the way, some very famous five names like High Knob and Horseshoe Gully and Big Hole. Who could forget Big Hole? Horseshoe? Horseshoe Gully.

So it's a little U-shaped. Oh, horse shoe, not a horse chew, which I suppose is just grass. Oats, maybe they might chew oats. Yeah, they'd chew an oat. So the reason I bring that up is, listener to the show, the listener, Ben Ross, got in touch. Did he? And suggested we investigate the Filey dragon. Oh, thanks, Ben.

Thank you, Ben. And so I did. But what made that difficult is, there are so many dragons in Yorkshire. Oh, really, Ben. Thank you, Ben. And so I did. But what made that difficult is there are so many dragons in Yorkshire. Oh, really? It's thick with them. It's thick with dragons, James. Thick with dragons. Are these proper dragons or are these like never-ending story doggies?

Well, some of them are called worms. I mean, obviously, Yorkshire borders County Durham and the Lambton Worm. We're in a similar area. And there are some, I admit some features in the stories I'm going to mention that are similar to slash identical to the story of the Lambton Worm. I suppose that's the thing, if you cut a Lambton

Worm in half, you've got two Lambton's Worm. Yeah, and that's exactly what happens at the end of Lambton Worm, he chops them into a million bits, they go down river presumably to Yorkshire. Hence, a million Yorkshire dragons. So I looked these up in Reverend Parkinson's 1888 book of Yorkshire legends. Or as I've written in my notes, Yorkshire legends and Yorkshire legends.

I don't think that's what it's called. So Yorkshire they legend it twice. And Jacqueline Simpson's 1980 book of British Dragons, which is disappointingly not an I Spy book, but a serious investigation of folklore. We've got The Serpent of Handale.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got The Dragon of Loshy Wood. Oh, that's a nice word. The Dragon of Loshy Wood ends with the knight who kills the dragon getting the dragon's poison

on his face. And his faithful dog runs over and licks his face after his victory. And then the dog dies. And also he dies. There's the Serpent of Slingsby. Dog also dies in that one.

Oh, dear. A lot of tragedy. There's the Dragon of Sex How. What? How? And I will say, I don't know the story of that one, but Sex How is spelled S-E-X-H-O-W. Yeah. What I'm saying is if you Google it,

a lot of people have tried to answer the question, dragon sex how. At least it's not like dragon worm sex how. Yes, sometimes it's called the worm of sex how. There's the wantly dragon. That one's not even really a legend. That is a 17th century satire about a knight named Moor of Moor Hall. Right.

M-O-R-E of M-O-R-E Hall. Yeah. And he, in sort of Lampton Worm style, got a suit of armour made covered in spikes that made him look like some Egyptian porcupig, according to the song. Now, the porcu part of porcupine means

pig, so the pine bit is the spikes. A porcupine is just a piggy pig. A pig pig. A pig pig. Pig, pig, pig. And he wins the fight. He has a big spike on the end of his boot. And I'm directly quoting from the original text here.

So I apologise for the unavoidable bleeping of what will follow. He kicked the dragon in the dragon's gut oh and the dragon groaned kicked and died oh i didn't mince words in them days i'm no expert on satire what what were they satirizing i think the dragon represented like some local landowner or something like that. To be honest, if it was the 17th century and you just wrote something about poo, people went, what a satirist.

Rory Bremner over here. But forget about all those dragons. Oh? Forget about them, get them out of your mind, James. As long as they're all dead, I suppose I can. They're all long dead, including the knights and the knights' dogs involved in defeating them, especially the dogs. Especially the knights' dogs. Don't get attached to the dogs. The story I want to tell you is quite different. Oh? It's the story of the

finally dragon. It's also known as Billy Biter and the Parkin. I need to be clear about one thing, Billy Biter, not the dragon's name. What? Billy Biter is the name of the man in the story. Isn't Parkin Cake? Yes, well done. Parkin is a Yorkshire cake. This is going to be knowledge that you're going to need later for the story. Billy Biter is an old name for a blue tit, the little bird. Okay. So I think the name is supposed to suggest meekness on the part of the protagonist of the story, whose name was Ralph Parkin, and he was a peripatetic tailor in Yorkshire. What's peripatetic mean?

Travelling from place to place. Ah! Now, laying my cards on the table, this is a Yorkshire folktale, recorded, supposedly, from a Somerset stable by none other than Ruth Letung. Ruth Letung? Yes. by none other than Ruth Le Tongue. Ruth Le Tongue. Yes, who, as we discovered in a recent podcast, is not regarded as a particularly reliable source.

And it's interesting that this story doesn't appear in the 1888 book of Yorkshire Dragons that I mentioned earlier. Last time we took the Tongue's name in vain, there were repercussions. We also got a really annoying review, which I think is one of the tongue's cohorts leaving. It was a three star and it said, and this is by no means a call to arms for a pile on. It's annoying they bleep swears. We're all grownups. If we weren't bleeping swears and you were listening to this while having your breakfast,

that bit earlier would have made you put your spoon down and put your breakfast away. It's disgusting. Absolutely. I think the listeners don't know what he was kicked in. It's awful. Or what happened. Or what happened after he was kicked in it. Yes.

Although if they knew the first, they might be able to deduce the second. Yeah, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is very much a cause and effect okay so this comes from the tongue but i have one reason why i think it is not an invention from the brain of ruth yeah i'll present that when the time comes well yeah that's the thing i don't think i don't think anyone's saying that all her stuff was just completely made up. It's just that she doesn't cite sources, and some of the stuff is just remembered from stories that she heard when she was a kid.

Like, to be honest, we are very much in glass houses. I am very much in a glass house right now. You're not throwing stones, are you, James? I've got a whole bag of stones right here. Ooh! I don't know why. I just long to lob them, but I really mustn't. I don't think people who live in any house should throw stones within their house, to be honest.

Don't throw a stone in the house. Yeah. There's tellies, mirrors. Yeah. Pitch frames, other people. Sometimes you might have a vase on one of those stands that's just a stand for a vase. You never see one of those unless the vase falls off. That's brought back a real embarrassing memory of mine.

Have you broke, did you break a Ming vase as a child? No, I broke a little occasional table, which was no longer a table at any point after I was done with it. Temporary table would have been more accurate if they had known what was coming. It looked like a stool, but it wasn't. It was a very delicate table. You sat on it as an overly large child.

As a standard... No, I'm a two-portion man. We all know this. As a beefy child. Not even a child, as a teen. Oh, beefy teen Shake Shack comes in, sitting on your table. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Get out of here, you horrible giant.

Chase to the hills. I bumped my head on the door on the way out. All the villagers getting pitchforks and flaming torches. But fortunately, I could get away because of my long legs. Just loping off into the hills. They'd been given this table that was, their legs were all sort of intertwined, but all carved from one piece of wood.

But they were sort of carved in such a way that like you, you had to carve it. You couldn't make it. So there was like, they sort of went through each other kind of thing. Yeah. And I just sat on it straight away. Nothing really. To be honest, it's a bad way of making a table.

Yeah. If it can't support the weight of a well-fed teen. A minimum 12 stones. A 12 stone teen. What would that be in kilos for our European listeners? Or just straight up LBs. A 168 pound teen. Lad.

Tall teen. Yeah. Carried it well. Or a 76 kilo boy. I can see why you felt guilty about that. Thank you for sharing that story. Yeah, sorry. Thank you for Ruth L. Tunging that vague childhood memory.

I mean, it definitely happened because I regularly remember it. Just waking up cringing in the night. No, the table! Oh, why did I think that was a chair? So Ralph Parkin was a tailor with a horrible drunken wife named Hepzibah. Hepzibah. Hepzibah. Classic Yorkshire name.

And he would come home from work looking like a walking hodmydod. What's a hodmydod? Yeah. Well, I don't know. The text says that it's a snail and it is in Suffolk. But in Norfolk, it means a hedgehog, according to the Eastern Daily Press. And in Berkshire, it means a scarecrow. I think in East Anglia, a hod-me-dod might just mean anything that's curly.

So like snails roll up and hedgehogs roll up. So other things that curl might be called hod-me-dods. Oh. I don't know how it becomes a scarecrow, although it sounds way more like it means scarecrow. A hod-me-dod. Hod-me-dod. Yeah. Also, the great thing is you can sing it to the Lambton Worm song.

Wee slads, hod me dods. I tell you all an awful story. You can do that. Or like that meme, the hold my beer meme. Hod my dod. Yeah, hod my dod. Well, this can't be a more interesting way of walking home from work. Hod my dod.

Then he just rolls. Here's the thing ruth l tongue thinks he's saying that the guy walked home like a walking snail what does that mean ruth especially since norfolk and suffolk are miles away from somerset where she recorded the story that is supposedly from yorkshire isn't it more likely that the person telling the story was saying that he walked like a scarecrow like like a walking scarecrow? Mm-hmm. Berkshire being at least somewhat nearer to Somerset. This is my evidence, perhaps, that she did hear the story, because I don't think her explanation of what that means makes any sense.

But also, a snail doesn't need to walk home. No, because he's already home. He's there already, yeah. James, you've blown this case wide open. You've smashed it to pieces like an occasional table. Oh, not again. Sorry. I can see you feel genuine guilt about that.

Hod me, don't. So he'd walk home in a manner that we cannot be clear about. Either doing forward rolls or sort of stiffed leg and frightening birds. And his wife was so awful, she'd be drunk. He would have to spend the evening on the roof by the chimney next to his cat, Tom Puss. What? Tom Puss is the name of the cat. No, that's not the bit.

Oh, he'd have to spend the evening on the chimney. His wife was so drunk, he had to sit on the roof. Yeah, yeah, that's how bad his wife was. He had to go on the roof. All right. There was a local witch called Mrs. Greenaway, And she sort of, she looked after Billy a little bit, a.k.a. Ralph. And she also looked after a local dragon

that lived in the gully opposite. Oh, she's very community-minded. Nice lady. You need someone like that who's going to look in on your tailors and your dragons. Now, one day, Ralph Parkin, Billy Biter, is walking home and Mrs. Greenaway pops out with a bit of Parkin for him. Oh.

The cake. Now, his surname is also Parkin. Oh, that's nice. Did he invent it? No, but it's a common Yorkshire surname. Do you think a lot of people did that because of his name? Let's provide it in with cake. Oh, yeah, yeah.

You just say Ralph Parkin, you give him Parkin. Yeah, I might change my surname to Marsbar. You see Billy Biter, you bite him. So you gave him some Parkin. Now, if you don't know, Parkin is a sticky, syrupy ginger cake cut into squares. Yes, that's right, James. It's a Trebek. It's a Trebek.

It's a Yorkshire Trebek. It's a Trebek. It's a Yorkshire twist on the flapjack. Yes. Isn't it? Yeah, it's more spongy than that, but it's very Yorkshire twist on the flapjack yes isn't it yeah it's more spongy than that but it's very very sticky

I mean it could also be a loaf cake we don't really have a catchphrase for loaf loaf cake we don't have it no no no

we're keeping it in a tray tray there tray yes so he was on his way home bag of parking in his hand

BOP he was looking forward to you know getting on the roof with his cats watching a bit of netflix with old tom puss would you say he was holding his dod at this point he's holding the flip out of his dod oh in fact maybe a little bit too much because he slips and slides into the gully where the dragon lives oh what luckily the parking tumbles out of the bag yeah and the dragon's like oh what's this i'll have a bit of that bag. Yeah. And the dragon's like, oh, what's this? I'll have a bit of that. And he starts chewing up this sticky old parkin'.

I go, oh, oh, that's nice. I'm going to quote from the story, which, as a Yorkshire tale, is naturally recorded in Somerset dialect. What do we call this? I don't know what accent I'm doing, actually,

because I can't tell if it's written in Yorkshire or... Or Somerset. All right, I'm just, I'm going to read this in a non-specific regional accent. Ah. The dragon's eating the parking and the taste he finds so welcome

as flowers in May. What do we call this? He said through the sticky chumble. Parking, says Billy, still a Twitter. He's on Twitter. Then go back and bring me some more, says the dragon, sneezing out a crumb as it were tickling his gullet. That sneeze, fair blue billy biter clean out of the gully

and the top of Tom Puss by the cold cottage chimney. So shot him straight back to his chimney. Whoa. Which is where he was going anyway. And he's live tweeting it. Now, what happened was the remainder of the parking that he had, his bag, fell down the chimney, landed in the ashes of the fire, and Hepzibah, who's out cold on the floor because she's a drunkard, is woken up by the smell of parking. She gets suddenly very defensive.

Oh, popping down to the witch's house to get parking, are you? I can make parking. I'll show Mrs. Greenaway how you make parking. And she starts drunk cooking. Oh, don't drink and tray bake. Do not. She does it anyway. It comes out.

She's just loading in ingredients. It comes out round. And Billy's like, parking's supposed to be square. She's like, shut up. I've made parking. And I'm going to go and show old Mrs. Greenaway how good my parking is. So she sticks the big round parking in a bag, stomps off towards Mrs. Greenaway's place,

slides straight into the gully. Oh. Eaten by the dragon. Quick as you like. She's eaten? She's eaten. No. Pepsi bars off the board.

Right. Dead. We're not supposed to have warmed to her. Right, okay. Then the dragon spies the big round parking and goes, I could do with some afters after eating that horrible wife because she didn't taste that nice. A bit like a brandy snap, I guess.

So he grabs a hold of the great big parking and it's so sticky, James, that he can't really move his mouth. He can't open his mouth properly. He needs to wash his teeth. So he sets off and he flies out to sea to take a great big drink of seawater. Oh. And a splosh, he lands in the sea. Yeah. And then his spine forms Filey Brig.

Oh. That's where Filey Brig comes from. That's the dragon stretched out to sea. It's the dragon drinking some water because it ate some sticky cake. Of course. It is the classic dragon ate a cake that was too sticky became a peninsula tale as old as time we didn't do this in geography did we no i was more tectonic place yeah well sometimes it's a dragon oh sometimes it's a greedy greedy

dragon maybe maybe finally brick what is the remains of that dragon? Maybe. Or maybe the dragon is still underwater, still trying to wash the ever-sticky park in from his teeth. Ugh. Yeah, I've got a twist ending. Oh, go on. I refer you to Michael Bright's book,

There Are Giants in the Sea, 1989. Exclamation mark? No, but I feel like i said it with an exclamation mark yeah i don't i feel like it needs it it's i think it's a little bit of a passive aggressive thing you know like um oh that dish needs washing um why are the giants in the sea yeah oh is that where the giants live now in the sea and that of course is a crypto zoological tome. I gotta say he needs, even if it is quite pseudo-scientific, I think he does need an exclamation mark

to really hammer his point across. I don't think you should sit on that sort of information. I think you want to phrase it as exclamation mark, question mark, giants in the sea? There are giants in the sea? Yeah, exclamation, yeah, two together. Exclamation mark, question mark.

Interrobang. The interrobang sounds like a cryptid. That's the sound of his crying. The Tim the Tool Man Taylor noise. Whereas, yeah, as we've discussed before, it is patented by Scooby-Doo. I was thinking Tim Allen, but yeah, it's the same noise. Oh, is that what happened? Did they pull Scooby-Doo's head off and it was a mask and he was Tim Allen, but yeah, it's the same noise. Oh, is that what happened?

Did they pull Scooby-Doo's head off and it was a mask and he was Tim Allen all along? In 1934, a fisherman thought they saw a strange beast about three miles out to sea in Filey. And then, I'm quoting from Michael Bright's book now, one very dark, moonless night, according to a report by the Daily Telegraph, Filey Coast Guard Wilkinson Herbert was walking along Filey Brig, a mile-long, thin bill of rocks that protects Filey Beach from the northeast winds, when he came upon something quite extraordinary. And then it's a direct quote from the Daily Telegraph report.

Suddenly, I heard a growling like a dozen dogs ahead. Walking nearer, I switched on my torch and was confronted by a huge neck six yards ahead of me, rearing up eight feet high. The head was a startling sight, huge tortoise eyes like saucers glaring at me. The creature's mouth were a foot wide. I've made that were a foot wide. He actually said was. And its neck

would be a yard round. The monster appeared as startled as I was. Shining me torch along the ground, I saw a body about 30 feet long. I thought,

this is no place for me. And at a distance, I threw stones at the creature. Whoa. Yeah, just pelted it with stones. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

People on a moonless night faced with a 30-foot-long sea monster should not throw stones. No, no. It moved away, growling fiercely. And I saw the huge black body had two umps on it and four short legs with huge flappers on them. What? I could not see any tail.

Or what flappers are? I think it means flippers. Ah, right. Okay. I thought it was like a... Like flapper girls. Yeah. Like little dresses.

It moved quickly, rolling from side to side and went into the sea. From the cliff top, I looked down and saw two eyes like torchlights shining out to sea 300 yards away.

Like a car. Yeah, like a sea car. It was 1934. They didn't have cars in Yorkshire in 1934. It was all still riding pigs in those days. It were a most gruesome and thrilling experience. I've seen big animals abroad, but not like this.

Has he? I've changed it. It says was a nothing. I've added the was and the nowts to make it seem... Yeah, I'll allow it. I'll allow it. Yeah, yeah, okay. I'm Ruth L. Tunging this a little bit.

So maybe the Fiery Dragon is still down there. Very occasionally coming out. Once. Like it hasn't since 1934. Yeah. The idea that its eyes actually light up and shine beams a bit much. That's where he loses me, I think,

in terms of plausibility. That happened in the Isle of Wight one as well, didn't it? There was some underwater beast with glowing eyes. And they're always the size of saucers.

That's in the actual newspaper. Yeah, they put that in the newspaper. That's in the Daily Telegraph as well, a broadsheet. This isn't the Sunday Sport. Oh, what a terrifying worm. Nasty old worm.

Well, actually, it did everyone a favour. It killed Hepzibah, who everybody hated, and left Billy with all the parking he could eat. Yeah. What happened to old Ralph Park?

Is there any sort of what happened to him afterwards? Do you think the police might want to ask a few questions about where his wife was? I can tell you what happened. Oh, yeah.

Everyone was thrilled. The local people rejoiced at the fact that Hepzibah was dead. Oh. And they all came round Billy's for a slap-up dinner. Oh, okay. It's nice that everyone's happy. They came in and there was vittles on the table, a kettle on the crook,

Tompuss awashing himself in Chimbley Corner, and a nice square parking on a baking sheet before the fire. And there's Billy mending the seat of the rocking chair. That's how they found Billy. Absolutely fine. Post-Dragon. That's a lovely story. I mean, the broken chair is slightly triggering,

given my earlier confession, for honest. He was able to mend it, though. Yeah. So are you ready to lay some scores? Yeah, I think so. Like a judgmental hen yes for yorkshire dragons aka billy biter and the parkin aka the firely dragon we haven't touched upon this lawman cliche for a while but billy biter and the parkins it's not a bad band

is it yes they're challenging double album billy Biter, Brackets and the Parkins. It does sound like a student band, that's true. My first category, names. Oh, yes, good, yeah. The Dragon of Sex How. Sex How? I like Billy Biter. Billy Biter.

The Dragon isn't even called that. The Dragon's nameless, isn't it? I mean, if there's only one dragon in the area, you could just call it the Dragon. Mm, that's true. The one that likes parking. Yes, the dragon. We've got Wilkinson Herbert. What?

The Coast Guard. We've got Coast Guard Wilkinson Herbert. That's a good name. Yeah, who saw the sea serpent. Sea beast. I wonder if he perhaps, like Hepzibah, partook of a tipple of an evening. Is his parking coming out round, if you know what I mean? The Serpent of Slingsby. The Serpent of Slingsby.

The Serpent of Slingsby. That's another one. Lossy Wood. Yeah, it's got to be five. Yes. What's her name again? Hepzibah. Hepzibah.

Hepzibah. Sounds like a ship. Nice, nice. Strong start. Strong start. Second category. Oh, wait. I forgot about this one.

Supernatural. So, what. I forgot about this one. Supernatural. So, what's this witch's powers? Being nice to underdogs. Yeah. Yeah. Good at cakes. Keeping an eye on dragons. And a dragon, if real, is natural.

Again, the Shake Shaft paradox. Yes. Hits me. If it's real, it's not supernatural. If it's a real animal, if there are giants in the sea, exclamation mark. That's the musical. There are giants in the sea. What do you think makes the waves?

The sea, the sea. What do you think makes the waves? The chorus would be doing the sea, the sea. Yes, they'd be saying the sea, the waves. The chorus would be doing the sea, the sea. Yes. They'd be saying the sea, the sea. Salt water as a method of mouthwash is only good

if you've got a sore throat and you have been advised by an old wife as how to cure it. But if a dragon did turn into a geological formulation

that is supernatural. In that case I regret the bit where there's a sea serpent there. But that could have just been another dragon. Well, it was only the spine. Maybe these dragons can function without a spine. That's why it was so grumpy.

He didn't have a tail. Maybe it was just his tail. Yes. He might have just left his tail behind and joined the giants of the sea who had been driven there after breaking too many small tables. The land is not for you anymore, Shakespeare. Out! Out! Blast your eyes! Blast your slightly above average size.

They're pelting me with stones to get rid of me. Yeah, maybe the only people that can throw stones are people that live in caves. People who live in stone houses can throw stones. Yeah, they are the only people. But people who live in glass houses can't throw glass. That's dangerous too. That's dangerous in general. And people who live in... People who live in green

houses don't throw greens. No, that'll be fine. Like if you wanted to pass someone a courgette quickly. Yes. In a courgette crisis. Yes. A cucumber catastrophe. An aubergine accident. Yeah. Wait, aubergines aren't green. Delete that one and leave cucumber catastrophe. People think they're purple. Aubergines are accident. Yeah. Wait, aubergines aren't green. Delete that one and leave Cucumber Catastrophe. People think they're purple. Aubergines are purple. Yeah.

Purple and black. Apart from the white ones. All the white ones, which are white. Hence eggplant. I always thought, if you're going to compare any vegetable to an egg, I'd say it's the avocado. Yeah. Because it's got a shell, it's got a bit, and then it's got a little round bit in the middle. Which is the baby. I think they missed a trick there with the old avocado i think that is much more like an egg and i'm sorry to inform you

that a swift google suggests that the word avocado comes from the word for testicle lovely stuff the aztec word for testicle i'm gonna go i've got to go low but i want to respect the fact that there is a dragon yeah okay i'm gonna go two Okay. I think it's below average amount of supernaturality. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't want to show displeasure. All right, my next category, amount of dragon. There used to be too much dragon, but then nowadays they seem to have almost...

They've thinned out, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, whereas men with dogs are still going strong. They are licking faces like there's no tomorrow, them dogs. Is one man and his dog still on TV? Don't think so. Unless, if you're talking about specifically the television program or this is some weird channel that you found we've got handel loshy slingsby sex how wantley filey brig that's a lot of dragons this was too many dragons but you can get rid of them just

with some cake only one of them is defeatable via cake. The rest of them, you need a spike-ed suit of armour and a swift kick to the... And even then, chances are you and your dog will die. There definitely were too many dragons, but I'd say now there's too few dragons. Oh, okay, yeah. So I'm going to go... I'm not going to give you a full five for five.

I'm going to say four. Why? Even though there were like six dragons in the story, you're going with four because the dragons don't exist now they're seemingly quite defeatable i'm getting you on a syntax to be honest yeah you are final category go on gas marks out of five by which i mean if you were cooking yourself a nice little parking, what gas mark would you have to use in order to get a delicious cake? Not a horrible round Hepzibah monstrosity.

That's a good point. But a delicious Mrs. Greenaway square parking. Well, it's got to be gas mark five. You've really done... Correct. Yeah. It is gas mark five. Wait a minute.

I'm going to Google parking and see. No, come on. Don't check, James. Cooks in an hour at 160. No! Are you serious? 160 in Gasmark is, oh, it's a three. What?

It's a three. But, James, you... Okay, I'm going to have to break the format here. Yeah. You suggested this category because you told me that parkin cooked a gas mark five yep during the bit that we edited out i presumed it would i thought it would be a high you presumed it would you've set me up i've had for a three right now this is the worst outcome i could possibly have imagined a three this is the worst thing that has happened. Not just on this podcast.

This is one of the worst things that's ever happened. A three. I'm sorry. I genuinely thought you would cook it at a higher temperature. I can't believe you didn't check. You just told me and I took it in good faith that Harkin cooks a Gas Mark 5. Well, that's the end of the podcast. I'm sorry.

It may not be the end of the podcast. It's the end of trust between us, James. Oh, I like that table. I feel I've damaged it beyond repair. As you've sat on our French. I thought it could take the weight of my ignorance, but no, no. No.

I didn't expect the whole podcast and our friendship to dissolve so abruptly. Yeah, it's like an overcooked roux. It's just, it's gone. Like a scorched parking. Yeah, leaving a mucky mess behind if you'd like to pay us to continue working together despite the obvious acrimony developing between us you can go to our patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod and if you want to see this awkward and now forced in real life we're on at leicester comedy festival next weekend. That's 4pm on the 6th of February. And you can see us live and in person or through the magic of the internet.

On NextUp. Hi, everybody. Hello, all you almond dweebs. It's me, Chris Candrell, a.k.a. Professor Treybeck. It's me, Chris Candrell, a.k.a. Professor Trey Bake. And I'm here because I was sent a begging, begging WhatsApp message by Alistair and James, a.k.a. the Rusty Ghoul and the Big F***. And they were asking me about parking. First off, they were saying,

is parking a tray bake or just a traditional cake? And I'm going to sidestep that question. I'm just a man. I'm not some professor from Harvard, NYU, or I've let the nerds up at the CERN Collider figure that one out. But obviously the second question is, could parking theoretically be used to kill a dragon? Well, let me tell you this. From my personal research, I can confirm that when consumed in mass, parking can kill at least three dogs. Hope that puts this matter to rest. And as soon as we can agree on a fee,

I'll be back on Lowman with a new story about a ghost with a...