Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep48: Loremen S4Ep48 - Cornwall's Loneliest Vicar

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

James takes Alasdair way out west; as far west as you can go in the UK without getting wet. We're talking about the wall of corn itself: Cornwall, and the tale of a peculiar vicar who managed to alienate his entire community. Basically, this episode is like Wild Wild West, but with two Kevin Klines and no Will Smiths. Guest starring: a pack of dogs; a 14th Century heretic and some lovely, lovely apples!   Plus, eagle-eared listeners will spot some classic Loremen Mispronunciations™. 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 James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And this week, Alistair, we've got a story provided by a listener. Ooh! Yeah, one of the law folks sent us in a pamph. A pamph? A full pamph? Yeah, and that's led us to the story of Cornwall's loneliest vicar.

Which is also the title of your EP, isn't it? Yes. From your folk phase. Cider for one. James Shakespeare. Yeah? I thought I would try and trip you up by starting this episode as if I was the one telling the story. Oh yeah, go

on. But actually you are. I am. So James, do I want to hear a story? Yes, you do. Yeah, well go on then. Get on with it then. Come on. I'm going to actually. Well do actually. Can I just do a quick thank you at the beginning of this story?

Please, thank away, yes. Well, this story comes from a pamphlet entitled Cornwall's Haunted Houses, which was gifted to us by a member of the law folk. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Justin, that's very thoughtful. Very kind of you. And I was casting my eyes through it thinking, ah, Cornwall, eh? We haven't been down Cornwall for a little while.

We've been near it, but we've not been into the depths of Cornwall. We have not plumbed the peninsula of Cornwall, have we? No, not for a while. And I found something almost instantly which tickled me. I like it when you get tickled. Are you ready to be tickled? Well, I'm very excited because and this will shock you james yeah and i don't want to dox myself but i uh abk of the of

the lawman podcast yes i'm going to cornwall this week ah very little holiday oh lovely so this is great so uh it's good to have a little briefing on the folkloric occurrences and encounters that might be waiting for me in the wall of corn. This is more in the this is the obscure curiosities. Oh, I see. I want you personally and the listener while they're here to cast your mind back to 1931. Right. Yeah. your mind back to 1931 right yeah on the 23rd of may i'm painting a picture of giving you some context of the time it's the 23rd of may whipsnade zoo has just opened yeah first thing i thought of exactly and but two weeks later on the 7th of june it's the Dogger Bank earthquake. Which earthquake?

The Dogger Bank. Dogger Bank? Dogger Bank. It's a bit of the North Sea that appears on the shipping report. Right. Dogger, Fisher. And there was an earthquake there. So is this a phrase you think the listeners,

because they're kind of Radio 4-ish, aren't they? A lot of our listeners. You think they'll have heard of Dogger Bank. Oh, yeah. I'm sounding like a fool here by not having heard of that. I'm surprised I had to explain it to you, to be fair, Alistair. I thought you'd be explaining it to me. Unless it's appeared in the comedy slot on Radio 4. Ah, it's not for you.

Yeah. If it were the Giles Brandreth Bank, I would know who we were talking about. Well, no, it's off the north-east of England, and there was an earthquake. It was the strongest earthquake recorded in the UK since records began. Wow. Big up the northeast, a Geordie earthquake.

Oh, well. Rattling and shaking those soft southerners. Do you know Filey? Do you know Filey? Yeah, the Filey in Yorkshire? Yeah. Of dragon fame? The church's spire got twisted by the earthquake.

Twisted? Yeah, apparently. Now, nope. I don't think so. by the earthquake. Twisted? Yeah, apparently. Now, nope. I don't think so. Not having it. Twisted. In the 1930s, a church spire was twisted by an earthquake. Yep.

I just don't think torsion is one of the forces an earthquake applies. Well, maybe, Alistair, my tiny bit of research that I did on earthquakes will open your mind to the power to the potential powers of the earthquake yep sorry i apologize the the unstoppable force of my arrogance hit the immovable object of uh your internet research and it become twisted don't you twisted you tested me with your facts james so it was a 6.1 on the Richter scale. In my view, one of the best scales. Richter, Mohs, bathroom, kitchen.

Those are the only ones I can think of. Have you ever heard of the Macaulay intensity scale? No. It's another way of measuring earthquakes. Oh, there's a rival earthquake measuring scale. Yeah. We've got a fahrenheit celsius beef we do might also be known as the modified mccally intensity scale yeah oh sorry yes if

you said that to begin with i would have known what we were talking about yep it's named after the italian volcanologist volcanologist volcanologist volcanologist i believe it's pronounced volcano volcanologist volcano logist volcano logist yep the italian volcanologist Volcano-logist I believe it's pronounced Volcano-logist Volcano-logist Volcano-logist, yep The Italian Volcano-logist He formulated his first intensity scale in 1883 What was his name? Giuseppe Macalli

I'm guessing it wasn't pronounced Macalli Scottish Italian Hello, welcome to Italy I'm very into earthquakes at the moment Have you noticed The ground's shaking A wee bit there Well Allow me to explain

Well it's Fair shaky There's 12 levels 12 Ranging from Not felt Level 1 I'm not

Didn't you feel anything That time I didn't feel a thing I didn't feel anything That wasn't even An earthquake To 12 Which is extreme

Also 11 Is called extreme As is 10 What Yeah That wasn't even an earthquake. To 12, which is extreme. Also 11 is called extreme, as is 10. What? Yeah. Okay. This one was between a 6 and a 7, which is strong and very strong. So the same rating on both the Richter and the Macaulay scale. Yes. Do you want to know what the description of a mccally scale strong earthquake is yes please

it's felt by all and many are frightened many are frightened well we all felt it but um how many were frightened many i see well it's a six number seven the very strong damage is negligible in buildings of good design and construction uh Damages considerable in poorly built or badly designed structures And churches will get twisted Some chimneys are broken Okay Noticed by motorists Presumably whilst they're in a car, not just

Not just car owners Those with access Yeah Back to the Doggerbank earthquake Chimneys collapsed in Hull, Beverley and Bridlington Wow Any other listeners who aren't from the North East And want to know what happened in London Back to the Doggerbank earthquake. Chimneys collapsed in Hull, Beverley and Bridlington. Wow. Any other listeners who aren't from the North East and want to know what happened in London,

in Madame Tussauds, Dr Crippen's head fell off. The waxwork, the waxwork. Wow, that's really put a human face on it. Okay. Subsequently off it. A human murderer's face. That's put an approximation of a human face on it for me thank you but that wasn't the 1931 event that i wanted to talk to you about it was similarly

earth-shaking no that was just a completely different earthquake that you just brought in in order to say all that stuff about dr crippins yes that was that was just to remind the listener of what earthquakes were yes and to teach them about the Macaulay. The Macaulay scale. The Macaulay intensity scale. Put the hazard lights on. I think there's been an earthquake. No, in 1931, in Warligan, in Cornwall,

the Reverend Frederick William Dentham took over the reins of a church? The holy reins? Yeah. He hopped into the vestments. Yeah, of St Bartholomew's. It's on the edge of Bodmin. The moor.

The moor. Just juggling in with some facts that I know. That's a moor. At one point, it was the remotest town in Cornwall. Until they built a road then it became less remote hold on does that mean there were no towns remotest from where anywhere i think it was just it was difficult to get to right because because there's surely towns to the west of it yeah yeah exactly that would be more remote from me where i am now i think we've had a few of these

places it seems to be that the thing in Cornwall. To be the most remote. You're the most remote. And the locals initially found it to be a little bit strange, but they came to accept him. They come to regret it in a way that lays that comedic trope that when you first meet someone and their idiosyncrasies are quite cute and that, and then after a bit you come to resent them and, you know, that trope. Yes, absolutely, yes, yes. Bit like that, but with a vicar. Right, so what were his eccentricities and idiosyncrasies?

He hated organ music. Oh! He stopped Sunday school. What? Yep. I mean, both of these things rule so far, I have to say. These sound tolerable. He refused to hold services at convenient times.

Refused to hold them at convenient times? Yep. He had very strong views against smoking, drinking, gambling, and all forms of entertainment. And anything fun? Yep. Okay. Saying they were not in the Bible, so could not be right.

Okay, but it was the olden days in the Bible, wasn't it? There's loads of things that aren't in the Bible. Yeah. Imagine if he was confronted with a DVD of the film Goodfellas. Poof! Blow his mind. I tell you what he wouldn't do. He would not pirate that DVD.

So this guy was believed to have taught in India, and he was a big fan of Gandhi. He was a Fandi. Yes. He was part of the Gandham. The Gandhi fandom. Yep, yep, yep, yep, that makes sense. He named one of his Alsatians after it,

because shortly after he moved into the rectory, and this might have been one of the things that started to turn people against him, he bought a litter of Alsatians this might have been one of the things that started to turn people against him, he bought a litter of Alsatians and just let them roam around the village. What? Just a pack of wild dogs? Just a pack of wild dogs.

Until one of them, Gandhi, killed a sheep. That is very un-Gandhi. It's very un-Gandhi. So what Reverend Densham did is he built an eight-foot- high barbed wire fence around the rectory around the ships no around his own house around his own house okay that makes sense i would have just built a large fence around each individual sheep but i suppose you do you nice one densham but then you that meant that people couldn't come and visit their vicar very easily because he was

now protected by an eight foot wall yeah and a pack of dogs be like the great escape but in reverse like trying to get into a prisoner of war camp oh you spoke very good alzheimer's thank you very much damn but nearly got in he also painted the walls of the church red yellow and blue to try and perk people up yeah yeah i bet they loved that they didn't actually okay two years into his tenure he was murdered and no one saw anything they tried to sack him yeah yeah they went to the what you know like the the bishop or whatever and they had an investigation and he argued that he'd done nothing wrong in ecclesiastical law and he was exonerated.

There's nothing in the Bible against painting walls. A colour that upsets people, isn't there? Or having a big wall around your dogs. It did come out also that when the secretary of the church council tried to stop him from improving the church, Reverend Densham threatened to kill him. Ah, okay. Still fine though, turns out. Still fine? Yeah? turns out. Still fine. Yeah?

Is that fine? Yeah. There's nothing in the Bible against killing people, is there? Or threatening to kill people, maybe. Maybe he's got us on a technicality there. Yeah. The entire church council resigned, and people just stopped coming to church.

And this is the 30s. Yeah. Church is a big thing. They haven't got DVDs of Goodfellas. We've established they did not have DVDs. Legal or illegal. They didn't even have pirate DVDs. So he preached to an empty church for 20 years.

20 years? 20 years. Do we think he really did the sermons with no one in there? Well, yes. He made cardboard cutouts of the congregation. This is very odd behaviour. Yeah. He kept a meticulous log.

And here's a couple of examples. Say what you will about him. Kept a meticulous log. As in a diary. No. Because given how this bloke's going, it could have been bits of wood. Could have been a small piece of wood. It was clean, gosh darn it.

Ever so clean. Actually, he smashed up all the furniture and ripped up all the floorboards for his fire. Because he was constantly complaining about the cold. He's a very peculiar figure. So going back to his... Yeah, I mean, I'm just not sure everything's going that well there. No. Well, here's a couple of examples of what was in this log.

No fog, no wind, no rain, no congregation. Or it would say, severe gale with hail, very cold, no congregation. He made these sort of wooden cardboard figurines of congregation, and he wrote like little name slips of previous vicars this is according to the independent on sunday from 1981 there was a there was an article about him he can't still have been in in office not by then no no no no this seemed to have been an article because an american book came out called The Mad Emperor of the USA and Other Great Eccentrics. I see.

So he's mentioned in this book. To be honest, I feel, I mean, this is independent on Sunday. I feel this article is a little bit of filler. It's not front page news. 30 years ago, Vicar, odd. Was strange. Vicar was strange. The final sentence is, however, the truth

behind the legend is unlikely to be discovered now, and perhaps it's better left that way. It's not really incisive journalism. That's kind of what they did for Partygate here, though. Just a little bit of contemporary satire there for American listeners who might have no idea what

Partygate is. They're just like, this sounds like a cool gate. But actually, it wasn't cool. Anyway, back to this peculiar guy from the past. Reverend Densham, he was not known for his parties, although some people did stand up for him. Really? He had pals in the village. Mrs. Barbara Keast stood up for him, to be honest, in this 1981 article.

Oh, yeah. She said, as far as I'm concerned, the Reverend Denton was a very good man, and the reports of him being evil, which circulated at one time, are absolute rubbish. I haven't heard anything about him being evil. You haven't heard that he's been evil? Yeah. I haven't heard anybody say the word evil up until this point, Barbara.

No. Whenever he heard there was a sick person anywhere in the area, he would take them flowers from his own garden. And apparently also he would take apples from, he had a little orchard with some pretty fancy apple trees in it, actually. Those are my own. That last bit was my own.

That wasn't Barbara Keast. Evil vicar hoards nice apples. Continue to page six. Another article I read said that he built a playground for the kids and would have slideshows. Those two sentences put together created a peculiar picture in my head. He was basically just teasing kids about having the fact that he had a slide. But I think it meant he showed pictures.

Yeah, yeah. had a slide but i think it meant he showed pictures yeah yeah but then i read that he built the play park inside his the grounds of his house so that within the eight foot high barbed wire fence that you can only get to with a written you had to make a written appointment to see yeah i mean so far this is the plot of the oscar wilde story the giant's garden is it about a grumpy giant with a really nice garden but a high wall and the children have to climb over it. According to some reports, the children never enjoyed the playground.

He just built one. Oh, and the playground just sat empty, no children. Some fog. With his little log in the swings. Just dogs going up and down. Dogs going down the slides.

It's not designed for us. We don't enjoy it. But he basically became a hermit and his only interactions were with the occasional postman and a fortnightly visit from a Bodmin grocer who left oats, butter and margarine. He apparently lived entirely on porridge.

Well, I was going to say that's not enough to make anything apart from flapjacks. He'd lived off the flaps, Jack. No! Yeah. There's no vitamins. We all like fibre, but you can have too much. He might have had some apples, I guess, and some locals thought he put nettles. Nettles? Some of the locals said that he put nettles in it, but he never ate

fish or flesh. Kind of like Andy. Not the dog dog the man yes i misheard that as andy and muhammad andy is a very different proposition and on christmas day in 1952 he preached a sermon based on god is love and no one heard it oh this is such a sad story on the new year's day of 1953 he was visited by reporters from the Western Morning News and Life magazine. Life magazine? Yeah, from America.

Because they'd heard of this eccentric vicar. So he was such an odd vicar that news of it had reached Life magazine. Yeah. How? How? I don't know. We've got to send someone there. Oh, stations?

This is dynamite. But then a couple of days later, Alistair, it gets sadder still. What? Some of the villagers noticed that the chimney was not smoking as usual. What? A couple of days after Life magazine visited? Yeah. I'm not trying to imply anything.

Okay. More like Harbinger of Death magazine. The police were called and they found his body at the foot of the stairs. Dead. Sorry, you paused a long time there. And that is what I was expecting, I'm afraid. When you said they found his body at the foot of the stairs, I didn't think he was going to be playing Jenga.

Yeah. They found his body at the bottom of the stairs i didn't think he was going to be playing jenga yeah they found his body at the bottom of the stairs he was terrible at hide and seek just there you are he was like okay your turn that was easy and some people said that he had an expression of dreadful horror on his face but yeah that might just been stories well yeah i mean he had he had fallen downstairs so there was a pile of apples on the table ready for to distribute among the parish sick really to be lobbed at children or just eating it's cockily in front of children on the other side of the fence on a swing swinging his swing high enough just so that his head could peek above the eight foot fence and the children could just glimpse a moment oh no, no, he had a big hat. He had a shovel hat.

A shovel hat. A weird shovel hat. I've seen a picture of him. He's got a sort of, a bit of a, like a squished Abraham Lincoln kind of vibe. But grumpier. But Alistair, you want to know what he looks like? I do. They say, even to this day, on a moonlit night,

when owls hoot in the trees, a sad, dark figure walks around the rectory, goes to the church maybe to see if there's a congregation in there, and that's the ghost. Is that the ghost? Of Reverend Frederick William Densham. Mm. Sometimes in the garden with his big coat and hat and a walking stick. Do you want a little bonus ghost vicar while we're here?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, please. Yeah. I mean, that was just very sad. That was very sad. Is this ghost vicar going to be more upbeat? Because that one was... Oh, yeah.

Big time. Bit of a bummer. Okay, great. Yeah. This one's from 30 the 1300s ralph de tremer um his ghost can apparently be seen from time to time he was a heretic he apparently did the black mass oh they they wouldn't like that in the bodmin region and burned the host. Burning the host?

That's Jesus's body. If you're a Catholic in those days. The last two things might not be true, but he was one of the vicars at the time that was like, this thing about transubstantiation thing, that can't be right. He got in trouble.

Right, so he didn't believe that the host was literally the body of Christ, so maybe he burned it to make that point. That was quite a sticking point at the time. It wasn't the only thing he burned. He resigned in 1334 from being a vicar, but he did return to the vicarage to rob the next vicar and burn it down. What?

What? And he's like, so, yes, this is vicarage. That's your room. That lock doesn't really work but i won't i won't worry about that uh yeah so uh you got my number if you need anything no i can't smell smoke see you jingled off down the path do you want my theory to blow this case wide open. So that vicar, Densham, it said that when he made his congregation, he also would write down the names of previous vicars and sort of label some of his faux congregation

with those names. Maybe somehow... One of those congregants could have been the heretical... Ralph de Tremor, yeah. Ralph de Tremor. And he maybe somehow somehow using the power i don't know a black magic or something yeah yeah maybe accidentally brought him back clearly and he probably animated the is the the effigy made of made naively and sort of straw and cardboard exactly probably appeared to him on the landing.

Oh, well, I thought maybe like he was doing the church service and like the cardboard head slumped down and he went to grab it and he, oh, paper cut of a finger, dripped a little bit of blood on it. Ah, classic, yeah. And then, yeah, that night, that night he is a rustling. There's a cardboard gargoyle coming for him yeah two eyes made of wafers yes probably made of communion wafers mouth drenched with communion wine we can't know that didn't happen it definitely happened james i visualized it when you described it it clearly

happened yeah yeah yeah so that's uh the story of cornwall's loneliest vicar cornwall's most remote vicar he was i now i believe it he was cornwall's most remote vicar what a miserable tale i hope my holiday in cornwall isn't as sad as that well don't bring a pack of alsatians down if you if you want to make a good first impression. I will go on holiday the way I choose. When I want to relax, I want to do it my way. I'm going to be told how to behave. Yeah.

And you just ride off on a skidoo pulled by a pack of Alsatians. On Gandhi. Yeah. Other famous. On Gandhi. On Einsteinstein i can't think of any other famous people who aren't really bad like people who are famous for being nice that's sad isn't it and i don't think anything einstein did was could have been taken badly could have have misused in cinemas now? Right. So, you ready to score?

Did you see, sorry, did you see what Christopher Nolan said of Oppenheimer? That, like, he was the darkest character of any of his films, even darker than Batman. It's like, do you realise that Oppenheimer's a real person? You imagine, just, like like he created the bomb. It's such a big deal. It's almost insulting to go like,

wow, this is actually almost as serious as Batman. Three films I made about a man who dresses as a bat to punch people. Wow. This atom bomb stuff is a big deal. But there's that bit, isn't there, when I think, I don't know if it's in Batman Begins, and he's like, the criminal's like, who are you?

And he comes down and he goes, I have become death, the destroyer of worlds. Master Oppenheimer, I know you've made a bomb and you regret it, but we have to keep going. I don't want to bury another Oppenheimer, I know you've made a bomb and you regret it, but we'll have to keep going. I don't want to bury another Oppenheimer. Some people just want to see the enemies of America burn. Let's do the scores.

Why so physicist? That was it. That was all I could think of. That's very good. You ready to hit me with the scores? I'm going to lob them at you. Like an apple? Yeah. I'm going to lob them at you like a vicar would an apple as a child.

That is completely made up by you. I didn't even allude to that at any point. He was giving apples. He clearly did it, James. He clearly did it. In the same way that he created a sort of cardboard... Yeah, a grotesque sort of Wizard of Oz scarecrow of a 14th century heretic. It happened.

It definitely happened. Okay, first category then, names. Well, I do like the Cornish names. They're odd. Sorry, not odd. You know, they're sort of respectable in their own way. They're not the finest of the crop. There's no Zeds in it.

I like the inclusion of Zeds in Cornish place names. Yeah. There are better names in Cornwall than these, certainly. What was the Scottish-Italian? Macaulay. Volcanologist. Oh, Volcanologist. Macaulay.

Volcanologist. Oh, I like the name Volcano-logist That's good Volcano-logist Oh, it's the Modified Macaulay Intensity Scale The Modified Macaulay Intensity Scale That's a good name I think that could be used to rate my Scottish accent

The intensity of my Scottish accent James, motorists are noticing Please That Scottish accent is so strong It's twisted a church spire James, motorists are noticing. Please. That Scottish accent is so strong. It's twisted, a church spire. Okay, yes. The names are not that comical.

We haven't got any clear double entendres in the names. No. We're leaning heavily on one Scottish Italian man. I'm going to say it's a two. Yeah. The names, and both of those really are for Macaulay. Macaulay. It's a two. What is a two?

Because that's weak. It's felt only by a few people at rest. Delicately suspended objects may swing. That's a two on the Macaulay scale. And what is the entire premise of the scoring section of our podcast, if not a delicately suspended object? Weak. Second category, supernatural. Ah. if not a delicately suspended object weak second category supernatural

ah what was that satisfying little chuckle you did there you seemed confident for a second it was ever so supernatural at the end in the bits we made up i just realized actually yeah the bit we made up yeah you're right but then i i did say that that definitely happened, didn't I? Oh, yeah. You tricked me into saying that that stuff that we made up happened and is therefore canonically part of the story. Uh-huh. So I feel like my hands are tied, really. I want to give you a solid one, but I'm going to give you a four.

I'm going to subtract one because none of it happened. But I'm going to give you four because it wouldn't have been good if it did. Wouldn't it? Yeah. That's light. To be honest, a five is only moderate. Yeah, our scale is not quite the same as the Macaulay scale. Okay, third category.

This is like the wee Jamesian alley scale. That's what this one is it just goes up to five the third category then is cardboard congregation yeah first showing of a cardboard congregation on the podcast to my knowledge i don't think we've ever had so many we've had too many parsons but we've never really had too few congregants. Have I told you about there's that village in Japan that is full of scarecrows? No. So on one of the more remote islands in Japan called Shikoku, there is a village. If you look it up, it's full of scarecrows, literally.

They're all in like poses around this village as though they're getting on with their life there's like one in the telephone box a couple sort of waiting for a bus one fishing by the river and stuff like that and apparently it was someone had moved from a big city to his hometown and there was there weren't that many people living in the town so as a hobby they started wow so logically the only thing to do... Yeah, is fill your hometown with... Grotesque effigies. Effigies, yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at pictures of it now.

So I similarly had never heard of this place until one day my wife and I found ourselves driving through it. What a way to find out. Yeah, yeah. It was really like we needed directions as well as i should be i can see a picture of one pointing so that might have helped that was a human when we asked it but it turned it turned it is very 80s doc i might do this for some of my gigs, just to pad out the audience, frankly. Make a bunch of scarecrows. Yeah, I might just take a leaf out of this Vickers book.

But you might reanimate a heretic. It's always the chance, though, isn't it? Can I just check? Are you pronouncing heretic incorrectly on purpose for humorous effect, or are you mispronouncing it? No, I'm just mispronouncing heretic. Okay, well, I didn't want to mispronounce heretic. No wonder I haven't been able to get the Exorcist sequel

out from the video library. Oh, Philip, you've lured me into a trap. Heretic. Wait a minute, which one is it? Heretic. It's heretic, but it's heretical. So that ends the confusion. That is pathetical.

Oh, well. Yeah, cardboard congregation. I'm going to say it's five out of five because I am confident that another story is not going to appear with as strong a showing in this area. Good. And my final category is tremors in the night. Oh, do I sense a pun?

There is, of course, a pun. Yep. Can you explain it, though? Yeah uh yeah of course like all the best puns like yeah like all good jokes could you just really unfold that for me please we opened with the dogger bank earthquake we did tremors happen after an earthquake and we ended with the ghost of a guy called ral Tremor. De Tremor, yeah. And we can only imagine the fear that was struck into the heart of the vicar, who wasn't evil. No. Would have set him a tremor, probably.

Yes. Would have set him a trembling upon the top step. Yeah. Before he plummeted precipitously down. Mm-hmm. Probably hasn't got anything much to do with the story in the middle, but it does bookend it quite nicely. No, it was really nicely bookended by Tremors slash de Tremors.

So I'm going to go with a three, because I can think of three times Tremors appeared in the story. Excellent. Or my tap. And just for completeness sake, that will be felt quite noticeably by people indoors. Many people will not recognise it as an earthquake. Vibrations are similar to the passing of a truck.

Yeah. So there. Nice. Very respectable. So there it is. That's the Cornwall's loneliest vicar. A lovely little tale. With a sad man.

Yeah. You've got to make your own friends. Make friends. But not like that. Raise a pack of hounds. Yeah. I think there's a few lessons there for all of us. If you wanted to be, you know, a little bit more sociable,

maybe hang out with people online who listen to the same podcast as you in a discord of some kind what could you do james well you could go to patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod forward slash lawmen pod you say or cut down that eight foot high barbed wire fence that's around you no no no don't don't do that get get into the patreon yeah join the discord yes say hi to the other law folk. Yes, join us. My damn two swords. Sounds like a pirate that's complaining about too much weaponry.

Excess swords, yeah.