Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep28: Loremen S4 Ep28 - The Twelve Pigs of Xmas

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

In honour of twelfth night, the Loreboys present the twelve pigs of Christmas. Get your snout into a bevy of porcine tales. But remember, only one swine will be crowned Monarch of Sowternalia*. From the subterranean hogs of Hampstead to the black pigs of Durham, this episode meets ALL your porky needs. Relive the stream, live and uncut, here: https://youtu.be/FVyTWtlXyuM *That is a really good pun, honestly. 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.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakejaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And this one, Alistair, was a very festive Xmas Pig episode. It was just in time for Christmas being a really long way away. Released just in time for 12th Pig Night. And it was a live stream. Well, I think we better let it speak for itself.

I think things got a little out of trotter. Should we explain, in case there are new listeners, new law folk in the stream, why we say Christmas pig. Can you also explain it to me? Because I have forgotten. Okay. What I did, because I wasn't sure why we said Christmas pig, but I just say it.

Yeah, yeah, I just say it. It's just one of those things. It's become tradition. Why do we say it? I looked back at the live stream from last Christmas. Last Christmas, I gave you my pig. Yes, we gave the world Christmas pig. And the very next day.

Give it away. Give that pig away. What happened was, I sort of pieced together the timeline. What it was, we were doing an episode about Fiend of the Show Jesus. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The ultimate serial killer jesus christ yes because it's his birthday and so we were telling some stories about jesus and that involved the story that where either jesus or paul cursed a load of pigs and they

jumped off a cliff right and then i was scrabbling around for some stories so i just had some more stories about unfortunate pigs but then how come in sweden they have christmas cards with pigs on them is that just a coincidence yeah maybe i assumed that we were talking about it because of that no we were talking about it because that was the only link i could find for stories was jesus killed some pigs one time here's some ghost pigs. But it turns out Christmas pigs are a real thing. So we just happened to stumble upon a real Christmas tradition.

Yeah, I did a little bit. I did a slightly more research, just totally pig-based. And according to actual friend of the show, Reader's Digest, Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain, at Hwinwick in Lancashire. Hire winwick i won't do the accent um the flourish the figure of a pig has been carved in the west front of the church a pig fig uh yeah a fit fig a pig fig a pig a favorite pig radio head album Pig A. Favourite Pig Radiohead album, that. Real change of direction. Yep, there's Pig A, OK, Pig Pewter, and The Bendy Tale. Yep.

Amnesie Snack, which is pork scratching. Hail to the pig thief. Well, we've got some pig thieves coming up, actually, so... Yes! Don't you worry. Yeah, at Hwinwick, the figure of a pig, Fig E, Pig E, was carved in the west front of the church. And local tradition has it that the animal carried stones

for the construction of the sacred building in its mouth. So either Big Pig or... Very small church. Or Pebbled Church. Very small church. 100% that didn't happen, but what a story do you want some more pig fact fun but we all do why do you think we're on the internet yes is pig folklore fact fun pfff pig folklore fact yeah yeah yeah a poof it's poof which is the noise a lot of people

make when they listen to our podcast pigs are intelligent animals they seem to like music and respond to being fussed over so maybe we're not so different pig and i um there's an old hampshire tale of a piglet that was held on a wall to watch a band go past a piglet was held on a wall to watch a band go past yes just need to be clear on what's happening here yep yep yep there's yep. There's a band going past. The pig can't see, so someone lifted the pig up to have a look. The pig saw the band. I mean... That's the whole story. Yeah, that's the whole story.

All right, sorry. The setup was as confusing as... It was the whole story. The setup of the story was the story. The pig saw a band. Yeah. Pig wanted to see a band. Turns out he saw it.

This is like if the film Babe was a lot shorter and less narratively satisfying but the music it would be radiohead covers obviously pigs love radiohead pigs love radiohead well according to this book the same book a sensible saying is unless your bacon would ma kill not your pig without the r now would you like me to explain that to you yes please obviously i understand but some of the listeners might be confused pigs should not be killed during any month which lacks the letter r in its name for they are all hot months when pork will spoil oh right so during summer pigs are safe yes july august june may that's it that's it apart from that it's pig season it's pig season yeah and they're strong swimmers which um brings me to

my next i was gonna say which which rarely comes up but okay if you've got a story about pig swimming have at it it was just an order of business which was um apologies to any fishermen because fishermen fear the pig sorry i just laughed heartily at this the superstitious fisherman if i were an mr james character i would then go on a boat and be murdered by a pig to teach me a lesson this engine's making a funny noise it sounds like it's oinking i'll see to that ah big pig i'm about to watch the peter euston version of death on the nile and if it doesn't turn out that it was a pig i'm gonna be really disappointed i've gathered you all here together and there's one's a pig in a little like a chippendales outfit yeah just a little bow tie just a bow tie yeah well fishermen fear the pig

pigs are reputedly the most dangerous of all the animals. Fishermen fear a lot of animals and will not refer to them directly. They can't name cats, hares, foxes or salmon. They call the salmon the gentleman. The gentleman. Now he's wearing a little Chippendale bow tie. gentlemen. Now he's wearing a little Chippendale bow tie. Or they call it, confusingly,

the fish with scales. That's still the salmon, not the pig, by the way. They call it the salmon, the fish with scales. Yeah. These fishermen sound like this is the first day on the job. Yeah, you need to sit them down and explain what a euphemism is. They fear the pig potentially because pigs can see the wind. because pigs can see the wind.

Pigs can see the wind. I don't think that's a good reason for fishermen to fear them. No. No, I say work with the pigs. If you weren't so pig hostile. Yes. Some of the bywords that fishermen use for the pig

are gumphy, curly tail. Yep, you've got them there. Guffy. Guffy. Okay. They can smell. Well, yes, yes them there. Guffy. Guffy? Okay. They can smell. Well, yes, yes, yes. They're not known for hygiene.

The Grecian. Some pigs have curly hair, and all the ancient Greek statues, they've all got quite tight curls, haven't they? Right. Is that because statue technology wasn't at a state where you could do more elaborate haircuts, like feathered mullets and whatnot. Or like an undercut. Or did everyone really have very tight hair to their heads in Greek times?

I don't have an answer to that. Anyway, also the article is another nickname for pig. You know, I've heard that. And I thought, as you naturally would, that that was a completely nonsensical statement. And if they ever hear one of the forbidden words, they either have to touch a ring bolt, say cold iron, or hold up their thumbs and crossed forefingers.

Sort of like Timmy Mallet. Seems like something he would do. So there we go. An apology to Fisherman. Sorry, Fisherman. Soz. Christmas article An apology to Fisherman. Sorry, Fisherman. Soz. Christmas article to you, Fisherman. Christmas guffies all round.

Yeah, perhaps later in the day. Yeah, so what I would like to bring to you today is a selection of pig treats. Don't worry, Alistair. It's fully vegan. These are just stories about pigs. Phew. Sadly, some terrible things happen to some of these pigs several pigs were harmed in the regarding of this episode so I'm going I want to present a bunch of pigs at you I don't want you the law folk to judge the

Christmas pig I want you to crown the monarch of of salt andalia oh wow i'm i'm speechless souternalia souternalia listener i mean how good is that i if i don't know if they have like stock sound effects of like trotters clapping but if they do we can edit those in there definitely so they're gonna put blaze them the meaty pork crown upon the head of the pig king. So first of all, I went to other friend of the show, Law of the Land, and went straight to the P for pig section in the index. But do our books all have a pig finder?

If you scroll to the back of most books, I've got a pig finder. There's some sort of porcine location system, yes. Yeah. So the first one I've got, we actually have covered covered this this is from bridgewater in somerset we talked about it with rosie holt when we were chatting witches from that region in 1853 a bridgewater man believed his pig was bewitched and he consulted a wise woman she gave him a spell to cure the pig he had to draw blood from the pig's ears and feet let it drip onto a cloth pierced with two cross pins then burn the

cloth while reciting something from the bible just anything from the bible doesn't matter it's all good could be the index just a pig finder the pig recovered yeah okay well being cursed isn't a thing being bewitched is not a thing so it recovered from having its hands and ears cut i know i said hands apologies for anthropomorphizing the pig it recovered from having its ears pricked and its its paws cut right that's not a big deal trotters what are pigs made of ham and bacon. I'm under the weather, James. I just don't know my pig parts.

Please continue. That's for the best. But he wanted revenge because he thought that a witch had done it. Right. And he thought this witch was a woman who used often to come and ask how his pig was doing. Oh, yes. I remember her. Unless she said it in a really sarcastic way or with a way that she was like, when are you going to sell me some bacon?

Yeah, yeah. So that's Pig 1. Next one is also a flashback. It is to Leicester, where, if you'll remember rightly, from a, I think it was from a pre-Leicester Comedy Festival mini-sode. A mini-sode. A mini-sode? We learned that in Leicester, pigs choose the mayor. James, I will not accept these slurs against the people of Leicester.

No. How dare you? According to an article in St James' Magazine in 1762, aspiring candidates for the mayor would sit with a hat full of beans on their lap. Of course. And the new mayor would be the one that the clever sow would eat the beans of first. I'm telling you, I think the pigs are more into the beans than they are democracy. Let the pigs decide.

That's another pig for your consideration. I mean, those pigs are pretty good. But I suppose, are we recycling previous pigs or are these pig cameos would you say i think recycling previous pigs is something that the sausage industry would be in favor of in the last of our recyclings of earlier pig-based stories, the next pig I present is the OG pig. It is the pig that gave us Christmas Pig. Oh. It is from Merripit in Devon,

where at certain times of year, there's a ghost sow and a ghost litter of piglets that cross across the moors saying, starving, starving. And they're going to eat the corpse of a horse and they're also saying dead horse dead horse when they get there some other plucky pig has got in there already and eaten that horse and they say skin and bones skin and bones and then they just sort of wander back, these ghost pigs. So those are the pigs from the past.

I didn't want to disrespect the pigs from the past in this pig selection. I need to think of another word than pig. I just keep saying pig. Someone in the Discord wrote a Christmas song based on that story. Oh, really? Christmas pig, Christmas pig, dashing through the gorse

what a treat it is to eat the skin of a dead horse from plazan very nice just to remind everyone that that took place around an area of devon called runnage bottom oh yes Oh, I still enjoy it. Now then, I did tease you with a story of pig pilfery, of someone thieving a pig. Pig theft. Is this new content, this pig? This is a new pig. You're dropping a brand new, a hot new pig.

We've got hot new pigs. About to drop, wow. This is from beading in sussex it is from a collection of sussex folklore from 1878 collected by charlotte latham a vicar's wife thank you nice you get them charlotte nab that vicar carry on sorry two men stole a fine pig from a farmyard. The first pig was not fine enough. The third pig was too fine. But the pig in the middle was fine. Just fine. Fine.

This pig is fine. They got it in a sack and they were trying to carry it over the downs to their home. They had to go up the steep slopes of Beading Hill on a very hot day well they're not going to be able to kill this pig for months so this is a mistake yeah that's a good point that's and that's why the pig is still alive i'm presuming in the sand yes yeah yeah yeah because they're gonna have to keep it until autumn spoiler alert the pig gets away don't worry no

pigs were harmed on this particular story yep all the other ones yeah yep they've definitely died and considering how long ago these stories happened even even the pigs that live must have died of natural causes you'd hope so unless they're just wandering on wizened like the vampire listat yeah that's a pig yeah should we just pause while we all try and think of a vampire pig pun I don't think it can be done I've got porkula because it's got some of the same sort of noises

but it is bad all I can think of is Brad Pig and he doesn't even play the main vampire no but he does play one of the vampires though so that's good

yeah well send us a postcard any ideas of what a pig vampire would be called Hogsferatu that's good. Most of the time I was trying to remember the name of that film.

Guffey the Vampire Slayer. Oh, lovely. I mean, that's not exactly a vampire, but it's pretty close. Yes. Right, so they've stopped. It's a hot day. Little did they know they rested their pig sack on a fairy's hole. You should never.

And then they set off again. And before they'd gone very far the one who was carrying the sack saw a little figure running beside him crying they described the voice of the person as being a shrill and mournful little voice i don't know what that would be it's sounding friendly the way you're doing it. Yeah, it's too friendly if anything. I'm a little guy. But yeah, the little guy was shouting,

Dick! Dick! He was shouting, Dick! Dick! Dick! Where be you? And he was obviously scared. Carried on a little bit further, and a voice answered from inside the sack, In a sack! Pickaback! Going up Beedon Hill!

And the guy threw down the sack, terrified, thieves ran away, I don't know how, but the pig had got out on the ferry hull, a ferry had got in, Dick had got in the sack, they carried the ferry away, and... Yes. It's your classic pig-ferry-Dick-sw away. Yes.

It's your classic pig fairy dick swap. Classic. Yeah. Pig sack fairy hole. Dick swap. Yeah. I think. Does that get us just banned from YouTube?

I don't think you can say any of those words. You're definitely not going to be able to run ads against this. But the farmer got his pig back. He was a friend of the fairies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is... Happy ending. A happy ending. It's better than not getting to eat a dead horse.

Alistair, have you got any big pig action? Why, actually, yes. You told me that this was going to be a pig-focused episode. Well, we've got a spooky old pig up in County Durham. The Palatinate? The Palatinate County of Durham. Oh, I'm the very same. Near Langley Hall.

You know the way all across the country you've got your standard headless coachman? Yeah. You've got a coach, the coach is headless, and the horses pulling the coach, also headless. Yeah. I worry about how they're tackling them up, to be honest. Tacking them up.

Because you slip off the... Yeah, if they braked suddenly, do horses brake? I'm sure I've asked this before. If they wha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- It's like a balloon going round a room. It's that noise. Well, you don't have to worry about any of that because obviously we have headless horsemen in the North East. But according to the diary of one Jacob B, there's quite a different coach. Is that B for a swear or is that his surname?

Is it a dead thing to be protected? It's B-double-E, JB, Jacob B. So the headless coachman presages the death of an important figure in the community. But I infer that this is what happens if a non-important figure in the community is about to die. According to William Henderson, 1879, it is recorded in B's diary that the death of one John Borough of Durham was presaged by a vision of a coach drawn by six black swine and driven by a black driver. Pig coach. Yeah. Headless pig drawn coach. It doesn't say that they're headless. So I think they have heads, but just the fact that they're pigs is scary. I agree. I think they must have had heads because you wouldn't be

able to tell it's a pig you just think it was a maybe a i don't know a barrel just a bald dog do you think if you cut a pig's head off that's what's left is like a dog well it'd be hard to tell at speed it would have to be able to there'd have to be a lot of motion blur. The tail. The tail, Alistair. I forgot about the tail there. Famous. Famous for it. Classic error. But that, those six black pigs are not the only bit of pig lore I've got for you.

Oh, no. Allow me to take you to a part of London known as Hampstead. Oh, yeah. In the sewers of Hampstead. Oh, yeah. In the sewers of Hampstead. Well, according to an editorial in the Daily Telegraph from 1859, as quoted in Law of the Land, it is said that the Hampstead sewers shelter a monstrous breed of black swine which have propagated and run wild among the slimy feculents and whose ferocious snouts will one day uproot Highgate Archway while they make Holloway intolerable with their grunting.

What? That didn't happen. Sewer pigs. That was an editorial. That was like someone wrote as their opinion. What do you think will happen in London? Probably subterranean pigs will uproot the archway and make Holloway intolerable with their grunting, probably.

Is this a Clarkson column? It does sound a little bit like that, yeah. You can't go to North London these days for the intolerable pig grunting. Because of all the sewer pigs? But this is not the only source I have. Henry Mayhew, friend of the podcast, who wrote, you might remember Londonondon labour and the poor which is about all the different things that you know the miserable lives that poor people

lead and the last chapter was just about those who will not work if you remember it's the that's from the punch and judy episode i believe that's right he's the john ronson louis theroux type who goes out interviewing poor people saying how horrible horrible is your life? And they go quite. How many pigs are there in that sewer? Is that the voice? Do I do John Ronson's voice for Henry Mayfew? Because I can't remember. I'll do John Ronson.

This is quite a long quote. So let's hope I can maintain. Or did I just do a generic, posh, olden days man voice? Victorian man voice. I'd like to hear actual John Ronson voice. I'm sure you can. Okay. Victorian man voice, but I'd like to hear actual John Ronson voice. I'm sure you can. I can, let's just, okay. Many wondrous tales are still told among the people of men having lost their way in the sewers

and having wandered among the filthy passages, their lights extinguished by the noisome vapours till, faint and overpowered, they dropped down and died on the spot. Other stories are told of sewer hunters beset by myriads of enormous rats and slaying thousands of them in their struggle for life till at length the swarms of the savage things overpowered them and in a few days afterwards, their skeletons were discovered picked to the very bones.

Like in a cartoon. Yeah, like a cartoon. None of this happened. I'm going to go back into posh old man voice for Mayhew now. The sewer hunters were formerly, and indeed are still, called by the name of toshers. The articles which they pick up, of course, to be clear, when he says articles here, he doesn't mean pigs.

Right. Does he mean poos? In the course of the... What do you think sewer hunters are hunting for? Well, I'm thinking what's down there. It's pig or poo. Some of it's probably pig poo. It's sort of a needle haystack situation,

and you've just gone, Hey! Brilliant! Yes! The articles which they pick up in the course of their wanderings along the shore being known amongst themselves by the general term tosh, a word more particularly applied to them by anything made of copper.

So I don't know whether our current word tosh, meaning nonsense, rubbish, comes from this meaning tosh, meaning scrap copper or rubbish. Don't know. Where there's muck, there's brass. Or copper in this sense, but brass is a copper alloy. It is a format of copper, right? right yeah you make it out of copper i've i can only say that phrase in a northern accent for some reason it doesn't work there's muck there's brass yeah where there's brass say it in a southern accent where there's muck there's brass oh disgusting you're on qvc trying to sell us some dirty metal i've guys i've just been down the sewer and you won't believe what you can find down there bargains are plenty i don't think that's the voice that the sewer hunters spoke with

uh because there's a quote um which i will read to you now the reason i likes this sort of life is because i can sit down when i likes and nobody can't order me about yeah you can sit down in a sewer yes um yes james you'll be sitting on poo but a lot of the time mate you will be sitting on poo when i'm hard up i knows as how i must work and then i goes at it like sticks are breaking and though the times isn't as they was. Because you can be nostalgic even as a sewer hunter. It's not what it used to be. Breaking through poo. I can go now and pick up my four or five bob a day

where another wouldn't know how to get a brass farden. Which I assume means farthing, maybe? There is a strange tale in existence among the shawl workers, now we're getting to it, of a race of wild hogs. Wild hogs? Inhabiting the sewers in the neighbourhood of Hampstead. The story runs that a Samhain young, by some accident,

got down the sewer through an opening and wandering away from the spot, littered and reared her offspring in the drain, feeding on the offal and garbage washed into it continually. That's not how we say garbage. Here it is alleged. The breed multiplied exceedingly and have become almost as ferocious as they are numerous. Now, Mayhew thinks the story is apocryphal. He's got his doubts. However, there's a good argument as to why no one has seen the pigs, which is, for the pigs to

escape, they'd have to go downstream, essentially. But it is the obstinate nature of a pig to swim against the stream. And therefore, the wild hogs of the sewers invariably work their way back to their original quarters, and are thus never to be seen.

They are strong swimmers. They are strong swimmers, and thus, the lack of pig proves the presence of pig because if they weren't there, the pigs would swim out. Yeah, if they weren't pigs, they would swim out because pigs don't swim downstream. But because they are there, they swim upstream. Very much the salmon of the pig world. Sorry.

The gentleman. Sorry, fisherman. The fish with scales of the pig world. You know, I could lure those pigs out. How could you lure the pigs? A little bit of Radiohead down by the sea. They love a bit of music. Love a little tinkle on the old Joanna.

It's like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but with pigs instead of turtles and radio instead of pizza well the final uh sow for your con sow duration configuration no consideration um it's from another friend of the show it's from ghosts over britain ghosts over Britain. As I say, I was going to all of my folklore books, to the index pages, down to pee. No pigs in this one.

Chucking it over my shoulder. Just tearing the book apart, throwing it under the fire. No pigs here. This is from towards the rear of the book. is called simply clarissa's pig peter moss uh opens up by explaining that some religions believe that human beings can be reincarnated as animals as punishment for evil ways in their life an example of this type of haunting comes from hobenham near newbury so at the beginning of the century the century being 1900 at labanum villa at Hobenham, near Newbury. So at the beginning of the century, the century being 1900, at Labanham Villa at Hobenham,

lived two artists, Oswald Pittman and Reginald Waud. Waud. W-A-U-D. How would you say that? I'd say Waud. Waud. I like to think he said Waud. On the morning of the 2nd of November, 1907,

they were painting in the garden studio and they awaited the arrival of their friend miss clarissa miles and about 10 a.m pitman went up to the cottage to give the jug to the milkman just to check if that's a euphemism i believe that that was all genuine right okay okay he gave a jug to the milkman and he saw his friend arriving with an easel and palette and much to his, accompanied by a very large white pig with an abnormally long snout. And when he told Ward, Ward rather tartly commented that he hoped Clarissa would leave her new friend outside and close the gate securely, as she knew very well the pride they took in their garden. And when Miss Miles arrived, she was on her own, pigless, like most of my books.

And she was somewhat taken aback when she heard what had happened. She'd seen no pig. You think, if I'm walking along a country road, I'm going to notice if there's a big pig next to me. You would notice. You'd notice. They were that convinced that there had been a pig with her. They retraced her steps and asked everyone that they'd seen on the way. They asked the milkman.

He signed a statement that said that she'd been alone they made him sign a statement they made him sign a statement they saw some kids who'd been playing in the lane and they had seen no pig i've seen no pig as it says here there were no animals loose in the whole area due to the swine fever and any straying livestock was liable to be destroyed so it's very unlikely there would have been a pig loose anyway. The artists went to London for a bit, and they returned in February to continue painting, and they hadn't really mixed with the villagers. They were kind of hoity-toity London artists.

Yeah, I know the type. But the tale of the phantom pig broke the reserve. They were inundated with accounts of earlier animal apparitions, and it's believed to have stemmed from a farmer named Tommy King, who had died in quite extreme circumstances. Tommy King seems still to be very much in evidence. The parish register recorded the deaths of two different Tommy Kings. Now, it could have been one of the two Tommy Kings haunting in the format of Big Pig.

Right. One elderly villager, John Barrett, told Pittman and Ward how as a lad in 1850 he'd been returning with seven or eight men in a hay wagon along the lane when near the farm the horses suddenly went wild. They sound like they're giggling. Everyone in the wagon saw a white shape dancing

above the horse's heads this white thing kept a bobbing and a bobbing and the horses kept a snorting and a snorting until they reached a spot where the white shape floated into the field and vanished wow could have been a sheet could have been a sheet. Could have been a sheet. Reading that back now. Sounds kind of sheety. Yeah. And at the same spot, though, 23 years later, in 1873. A mere 23 years later. John Barrett, again, saw in broad daylight a creature somewhat like a sheep. Oh, pretty suspicious. So he saw a sheep in the countryside 23 years later.

Yeah, it was pouring at the ground in the middle of the road. Well, let's add that to the board of suspicious activity. He hit at it with his stick, but the blow went right through it. It vanished. Fair enough. Yeah, the vanishing. You should have got to the vanishing sooner, and I would look less foolish.

Albert Thorne reported in the autumn of 1904, he heard a buzzing noise like a whizzing of leaves and saw something like a calf knuckled down the animal was about two and a half feet high and five feet long with glowing eyes and though he kept his eyes on it it gradually faded from sight another witness said that in january 1905 he saw a large black animal which he assumed to be the curate's dog near these gates on the lane and he was about to grab it and return it to its owner when it seemed to

turn into a black donkey which reared on its hind legs before vanishing that's quite an odd bit sorry, that again? that's the sort of confused and angry donkey can we just have it once more? It's become more tired as the repetitions went on.

They wandered out a bit and on their return, they heard an unearthly scream from that point in the track. And they assumed that that is the spot. The very spot. They had seen the phantom pig. Wow. Christmas pig, everyone. Don't have nightmares, Christmas pig.

Don't have pig nightmares. A series of really vague animal ghosts. Yes, exactly. Well then, Alice, that brings to a close the pigs, the selection of pigs. You're sealing up the spectral porkers for another year, cramming them back in.

You put them neatly away and then they come out tangled from the attic every year. It's the tails. It's the tails, isn't it? That's the problem. So am I right in thinking that you're going to put those pigs

up to the test? Yes. And allow the law folk to vote. This is the bit I've not really thought this bit through properly. Let's have you, the law folk, score these pigs. All right. What have we got? So first up, for your consideration, it's the Bridgewater Bewitched Pig.

Listener, it was at this point that your narrator, James Shakeshaft, realised he hadn't thought through how to tally up the scores. And if you watch on the YouTube, you'll see the face of a man in a panic. Were you actually writing things down at this point? I was doing the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 tally chart. The ch-ch-ch-ch-ch gate. Yes, yeah. Is it called the gate post?

Is it our name? Let's call it gate posts or tally charts. Yeah, the little gate posts tally. I'm doing that as fast as I can. He's gate posting as quickly as he can, listener. If that is a euphemism, I apologise or I don't for gate posting. I think gate posting is when you put pictures of gates on your Twitter or Instagram.

Yes. Yeah. Or you just, whenever someone makes a comment, you go like, yeah, but what has it got a gate just to deliberately wind people up. Uh,

I feel this apology has gotten off track. Yeah. Yeah. So basically I tallied up the scores if you do go back to the youtube and look at the live comments and i've made a mistake keep it to yourself pop that under your hat listener anyway back to the episode let's see who won right so james um we're coming over to you. Have you managed to tot up the scores, then? Yeah, using my highly scientific method of panicking,

it was tight. The Friend of the Fairies did well. They came in third place. In second place... No, I'm going to go straight to first, because otherwise... It would be obvious. Yes.

The winners are... the... Subterranean Hogs of hamstead yes they have won yes they've won on their platform of putting the ham in hamstead yes poo pigs poo pigs poo pigs i assume the listeners are cheering with me they're chanting at home home. Poo, pigs, poo, pigs. They've thrown all their windows open. You boy, bring me the poo pig. Well, Christmas poo to you, James. Christmas poo pig to you. Next time you're in London and you pass over a sewer grate

and you hear a sort of echoey honking noise. Honking? What noise do you think pigs make? I don't know. Maybe they're bred with ducks? Is there a pig in the room? Is there a pig? What do you think a pig is?

At the moment, it's a donkey that's trodden on a clown. Amazing that we got this far before we discovered that you don't know what a pig is. It's not a honk, is it? Just Google pig before you come on the podcast next time. So I think that slightly spoiled the flow of my spooky little... Yeah, wrap it up now. Just get straight back into it.

Story about underground pigs in London. And you look down at the sewer grate and you hear an echoing, oinking noise. Uh-huh. Just think, there's probably pigs down there. There's probably pigs down there. That's probably scary, wouldn't it?

Those pigs love it down there, though, because they can sit down whenever they want. Well, Alistair. Yes, James. It was a lot of fun. It was. I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

Some really good contributions from the chat in that, which we've mostly edited out or taken credit for ourselves. Yeah, as usual. Thanks a lot, as usual. Thanks, law folk. As expected, the saucy nature of some of the things we were talking about led to that YouTube video being demonetized.

What's the opposite of cha-ching, where you don't get anything? Well, go and watch it because it's a real experience. It's on youtube.com forward slash lawmen podcast. But if you want to reimburse us in any way for our sins, yeah, you can join us on patreon.com forward slash lawmen podcast but if you want to reimburse us in any way for for us in yeah you could join us on patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod you'll get stuff as well or you can sling us a couple of bucks on coffee.com forward slash lawmen and join us next week for more law not more's law not going to be half as long. Yeah, let's wrap this up like a pig in a blanket.

Horrifically. Some sewers, some pigs.