10A-Hercules: Going into Labor

This is a little disclaimer. There's the mention of the existence of sex in this podcast, and by virtue of it being Greek mythology, and Zeus being horrific, there's the mention of sexual soul as well. As usual, I'm not graphic at all, but I just wanted to give you a heads up in the event that those are reasons you or those with you wouldn't listen to this episode. This week, on the Myths and Legends podcast, I start in on the labors of Hercules. We'll meet part of the Greek pantheon, and we'll see why they're the best case against humans having superpowers and immortality. The story of Hercules will start with a baby strangling two serpents, and only get more over the top from that point on. Then, on the creature of the week, it's a little pig with a big self-esteem problem, whose only method of defense is getting really sad and crying a lot. This is the Myths and Legends podcast, episode 10A, going into labor. This is a podcast where I tell stories that have shaped cultures throughout the world. Some are popular stories you think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories you probably haven't heard, but really should. Today, we're starting on the 12 labors of Hercules, an incredibly popular set of stories from Greek and Roman mythology. As I mentioned in the Kashi episodes, there's a difference between mythology, legends, and fairy tales. This is really the first story from mythology I'll be telling, exactly 20 episodes in, even though it's the first word in the title. As a quick recap, legends are loosely tied to historical events and people, and are possibly believable. Fairy tales are not really tied to reality, and don't seek to be, and Myths can have ties to history and reality, but are mainly religious in nature. Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and nearly every other God and Goddess I'll talk about today was worshiped by people in the ancient world. Something that's very different from anything we've touched on before. Also, it wouldn't make sense at all to try to date these stories, since they take place in time likely closer to the great creation of the universe than today. The Myths of Hercules were old during the Trojan War, which the Greeks thought took place around the 12th and 13th century BC. So these stories were already old 3200 years ago. So yeah, there's really no point in trying to place these stories historically. And before I go any farther, I absolutely know his name isn't Hercules, but Hera-Cleese, which means the glory of Hera. With his glory coming from the copious amounts of time, Hera tried to kill him. He was known as Hercules in Roman mythology, and that name has stuck since. I'll be calling him Hercules because that's the most common pronunciation in America, where I am. But I'll be referring to all the other gods and heroes by their Greek names, E.G. Zeus instead of Jupiter, Hera instead of Juno, etc. Just because I like being confusing. I'll back up and talk about Hera. I'm sure you all know Zeus. He's the king of the Great Pantheon. Well, he's married to Hera, who's his sister, who we actually shamed into marrying, but that's another story for another day. Zeus, however, was not faithful to Hera, like at all. Other than the thunder and lightning and him being king, he's known prominently as a philandrer. He cheated on Hera with many, many people, and his illegitimate kids are really prominent in Greek mythology, with Athena, Apollo, Hermes, Dionysus, Perseus, and many others being among the ranks. A good many of these encounters were not consensual. In fact, I personally was so put off by the true original Greek myths that I actually retold the whole podcast in the beginning to focus more on legendary figures, as opposed to only telling stories from mythology. Zeus' casual raping of anyone he either wanted to dominate, or found even moderately attractive, made me realize I didn't want to be on here week after week, telling these really unpalatable stories. As an example of mythology being pretty messed up, there's the very first story in Greek mythology. The story of the creation of the world. It has Uranus pushing his children back into the womb of the earth, Gaia, much to her very obvious pain. What does she do? She enlists a child to castrate his father, something that's described in great detail. It was actually Zeus' father, Cronus, who castrated his grandfather, and as you may know, Zeus eventually overthrows his father, though he doesn't castrate him. As you can see, there are years and years of daddy issues in that family. So these stories are pretty raw right out of the gate. The farther away you get from the modern day, the more you can just dial up the crazy to 11. Back to Hera. One of her most enduring traits is, surprise surprise, she does not like being cheated on, and she was always trying to get back at Zeus for sleeping around. But since he was king of the gods, she couldn't punish him, so she would try to take out her wrath on women who were often at best tricked by Zeus. And the children who, like the women, were not at all to blame. As an aside, they think that Zeus was a composite of many local chieftain gods, all rolled into one, as he's pretty contradictory. He's the super powerful king, but he'll go to great length to hide his affairs, sneaking around Hera, with her trapping him in his lies more often than not, enforcing some horrible consequences on his lover. If he's ever outright confronted, he'll just threaten force and people will back down. But he also seems legitimately scared of Hera in her reaction. As a small point before getting started on the story, though these stories are well known and well established, there's no definitive version, and they are sort of all over the place. I'll try to stick to the most generally accepted order of events and version of monsters, but know that there's no real official story, and all the accounts are different from one another. Anyway, that's enough of an introduction, and I'll get on with the story. The man who would be Hercules' stepfather was a way at war, and the woman who would be his mother had caught the eye of the king of the gods, Zeus. Zeus knew him fitrion, the king of thieves, and the husband, would be back very soon, so he took the king's likeness and entered the city. There was a joyous reunion, and the wife spent time with the man she thought was her husband that night. The next day, he was gone, and much like King Arthur's mother, she was surprised to learn that her actual husband had been out with the army the whole time when he showed up in the thieves later on that day. They were confused, but brushed it off. They, too, spent the night together. Nine months later, Alchemyne, the woman to be Hercules' mother, was screaming in labor. There are several different stories as to what happens when Hercules is born, so I'm just going to pick one. Heros somehow learns that Zeus impregnated yet another woman, and that Hercules would be the grandson of Perseus, and thus would be the contender for High King when he came of age. She talked to Zeus, and got him to decree that the next baby born in the line of Perseus would be High King. Zeus, thinking that it would be young Hercules, great. If you don't know, Perseus was the mythological king who killed Medusa, and whom the film Clash of the Titans is very loosely based off of. And he was the grandfather of Alchemyne, Hercules' mother. Herod then conspired with Ithia, the goddess of childbirth. She sped up the birth of another descendant of Perseus, Eurothius, and he was born two and a half months premature. As it's hard on babies in the modern day to be born that early, I can't imagine how dangerous that would have been thousands of years ago. Anyway, Alchemyne is having a bad time. She's in intense pain, but her contractions have just stopped. The goddess of childbirth is in the next room, and it's not clear if anyone can see her, but she's just sitting cross-legged with her clothes tied up in knots, halting the birth on behalf of Hera. Whether Alchemyne's servant sees her or not, I don't know, but she knows something with gods is going on. She runs out into the hallway, feigning joy, and yells that a child has been born. The goddess of childbirth springs up. This is impossible. She's confused, and here's screaming from the next room. It's Alchemyne. She's giving birth. The goddess of childbirth had lost focus long enough for the babies to be born. The servant's trick came in worked. And yeah, that's right. There are two babies in there. She was impregnated once by Zeus, and once by her husband, and so she had twins, though each with a different father. This is absolutely possible, and I'm not being sarcastic about that. It's when two eggs are released, and multiple fathers fertilize multiple eggs. There's only a very small window for something like this to happen, and it's exceedingly rare, but it exists. It's called "Hedro-Paternal Superficundation." And I thought Welsh city names were hard to pronounce. Hercules' twin brother, Ifocles, was born before him. Alchemyne exposes the boy who came out second. Hercules, she guessed that Zeus had impregnated her, and she intended to kill him to keep Hera from getting even with her. Hercules is pitted by Athena, who actually takes him to Hera. Hera, not knowing who the baby was, feels sorry for him, and nurses him. He's a bider, though, and she pushes him away. The milk that comes out of her goes into the sky, and that's apparently the origin of the Milky Way. So if you're ever an astronomy class, and someone asks about the origin of the Milky Way, just say that because it's definitely the right answer. Athena then takes the baby back to Alchemyne, who, despite just trying to kill him, takes him back no problem. Some say the little milk Hercules got was the origin of his supernatural powers, but that's not really definite. Eight months after his birth was when he earned his namesake. He and his brother were asleep in the same bed, and they were awoken by something moving at their feet. Ifocles scrambled away from whatever it was, but Hercules was curious. He crawled under the blanket. In the darkness, the baby Hercules could see two sets of eyes slothering up towards him, Glantinoff. the light coming through the blanket. The two serpents reared up and hissed when they saw the infant. Unlike his now tear-soaked brother, he didn't see these as anything other than playthings. Before they could strike, he grabbed them below their triangular heads. The baby watched the life fade from the would-be killers as his grip tightened, strangling them and listening to the small bones in their neck pop until they were limp, lifeless playthings. When the serpents pulled themselves awake to tend to the screaming if at least, they saw the baby hercules rolling around into the blanket, babbling and playing with something. When they yanked the blanket back, they were both horrified and impressed. It was already speculated that the baby's father had been zoos and this confirmed it. Herrah had just sent these snakes and the baby had passed this first trial. He had earned glory by way of Herrah and thus earned the name Heracles. As an aside, some say that the Delphi-Core call gave him the name Heracles, but I personally like this version better. Up until this point, he was named Al-Seed Ace, but I thought that would only stand to be more confusing with the ridiculous amount of names I've already thrown at you, so I didn't mention it. Herrah could see no mere animals could best the illegitimate son of Zeus, so she buys her time, and in the dark places of the world nurses, though not literally, some horrible, powerful monsters to one day destroy this child. Hercules grows him or now in power, being trained like the son of a king, in fighting and winning many battles. Time passes, and he has many, many, many, many, many children, and eventually gets married to a princess named Magara and has many more. Many of the kings we know later on in Greek myths claim they're right to the throne by way of their supposed connection to Hercules. Twenty-something years have passed since his birth, but Herrah still hasn't forgotten. Not only is he a walking reminder of Zeus' infidelity, but he's carrying the somewhat ironic name of Glory of Herrah. One night, when Hercules is relaxing with his family, Herrah snaps, and decides to take her revenge, sitting there with his wife, watching his many children playing peacefully on the floor, Hercules blacks out. Hercules wakes up days later, in chains, blood crusted on his hands, arm, and face, and the hair on his arms singed. He's strained against his chains, and demanded no where he was. What happened? The guards shake their heads, and wait for the king, who's happy to see that Hercules is out of the madness that he has been in over the past few days, and sad that Hercules is out of the madness, because now he'll know what he did. Hercules is absolutely horrified to learn that his family, his wife and all of his children that he had by her, are dead. Before Hercules can even grasp this much, another horrible way to stop him. They are dead by his hand. It's just said that he was sorrowful, but I can imagine him being sick to his stomach with the realization that the blood dried and crusted all over him, belonged to those he loved most. He cried out and wept bitterly. He knew that it was Hera, it had to be. Her hatred of him was legendary, even at this young age. She had finally found a weapon Hercules couldn't best. She had used his own mind against him, and taken everything from him. Days passed, then weeks. It was determined that he was mad when he did the act. It took several men to subdue and chain him, so that was not disputed. His deep sorrow was obvious to all around, too. After a period of time, the king purified him. I'm not exactly sure what this means, and I can't seem to find a reliable source on it. So if you know, please send me an email or tweet at me. My guess is that it was part ritualistic healing, part public proof that he was not mad anymore. He entered a self-imposed exile that very day, and left the city of Thebes. He travels the road to the Delphi-Goracle, where he was seeking to know what to do next, how he could regain his honor, and atone for these crimes. Basically, the Oracle was a priestess of Apollo at the Temple of Delphi. There was a lengthy process involving preparation and sacrifice before one could come to the priestess where they could ask a question. I could do a whole episode on the Delphi-Goracle, and since we're nearly halfway through this episode, and I haven't even gotten to the Namiya lying yet, I'm going to keep this brief. I think I might do an episode or two on fate or destiny in different mythologies, at some point down the road, because it's actually really interesting. Anyway, the Delphi-Goracle was a real person, and several prominent historical and pseudo-historical people, such as Socrates, Edepist, and Leonidas. Visited a priestess designated as the Oracle over the course of hundreds of years. Her prophecies seemed more akin to a fortune cookie, though, than something you could really plan around, many times being vague, and able to be read multiple ways. Hercules prepared and met with her. She was not vague, though, and told him exactly where he was to go as penance for his crimes. Weeks later, he stood before the High King, Eurostheus, his distant relative. The boy that had been born premature mere hours before him was the High King, yet he was vain, weak, and fearful. The Oracle was cryptic, of course, and said that he would need to serve this distant relative. If Hercules did this, the Oracle said something about Hercules achieving immortality in addition to a toning for his crimes, but did not say much more. Eurostheus may have been High King, but Hercules was despondent. He went seeking penance for his crime, a way to regain glory after becoming a child killer. And this is what he needed to do. But still, he didn't feel Eurostheus was worthy to have Hercules as a servant. Eurostheus, for his part, could see the halkey mass of a man before him. It had been set in place by the gods. Hercules came into serve him, but he still felt a shifting uneasiness in his stomach. It would be only days before Hercules was dead, he had been assured, but the faster the man was out of his city, the better. Herah had come to the King just days ago and told him what he must make Hercules do as part of his penance. Eurostheus was comforted by what Herah had told him. Even if Zeus was his father, no mortal could complete what she had laid out before him. Hercules had gone mad and killed his family, Eurostheus thought, and he would fail at even the first step of his penance. He would be remembered as a failure and a killer of innocence, and nothing more. Better yet, there would be one fewer claimant to the throne of High King. Even towering over Hercules, sitting on his throne and making the man humble himself before the King, Eurostheus was in Hercules' shadow. Even though Hercules now flitted from place to place in shame, he was still more beloved by the people than their true King. No, it would not do to have this one around. And as he looked on Hercules' impressive muscular frame, he was comforted that it would soon be nothing more than the brief sustenance for wild animals. He informed Hercules of the first task. He must kill a lion that's been terrorized in the people of Namiya, a territory not far out of the North. That's it. Hercules asks. He was already well known for killing a lion for a king a few years back. In fact, the king liked Hercules so much that it had led to Hercules' fathering 50 sons with the king's $50. And if you think that sounds over the top, and like the storytellers are really trying to sell you on Hercules' hypermanliness and virility, well, stay tuned. Like I said, these stories are not subtle at all, and the subsequent writers seem to trip over themselves to glorify Hercules. One has him fathering 50 children in the 50s. The next is like, you know what, he's Hercules, he can do better. He hasn't been doing it in seven nights. Not content with that. Yet another writer has him fathering all 50 in one night. Yes, we get it, he's manly. But back to the high king. Yuristhius says yes. That's it. Not bothering to hide his smirk. He tells Hercules to bring him the hide of this Namiya in line. And the first of his ten labors will be done. It would have been Heubors had Hercules not been really, really good at killing things. But he left with only enough provisions for a few days, since it was about as dangerous to him as us clearing bats out of an attic. He traveled to Namiya and met with some villagers in a town nearby. People are making sacrifices to Zeus to try to appease him, to get the lion to leave, and it's getting pretty desperate. One man is vowed to sacrifice himself in 30 days of the lion still there. Hercules chuckles until some of that won't be necessary. Tonight he would bring him the pelt of the beast. They don't really believe him and watch Hercules saunter off in the direction of the lion, as they had countless heroes before him. Later that day Hercules is seen in the field, watching for the beast, and it had been hours. He had a club, a long bow, and other items that had been gifted to him from some gods. As an aside, he gets a magical sword from the goddess Athena, and the stories don't really say how or why, but it comes up at the end of today's episode. I'm just mentioning it here because I have no idea how else to bring it in. Hercules' legs were asleep, and he braced himself on a tree as he stood up. He had a view of the surrounding countryside, and he was waiting for the lion to appear. He was confident that he would see the creature first, but was surprised to hear a barely audible thud coming from the field behind him. He spent around to see the lion nearly twice his size bounding toward him. The lion was still a bit of a distance away, but he was quickly closing the gap. Hercules snatched up his long bow, and arrow, aimed, and let one fly. He knew it was a good idea. was the arrow left the bow that it was a perfect shot. It hit the line just above its heart and bounced off the belt without killing it. That can't be right. Hercules thought to himself. He ratted another arrow and shot the beast again, this time squarely between the eyes. It clanded off the lines for and cland uselessly on the ground. Suddenly the high king's smirk made sense. The beast couldn't be hurt with his weapons and it was nearly here. He snatched up his club, cloak, and a few other things he could quickly grab and sprinted off. The line close after him. Over the next 25 days Hercules hunted the lion and the lion hunted him. He had tried all manner of ways he could to kill the thing. He had set traps for it but with its immense size and impervious hide it broke any way of containing it and survived any attempts to crush it. He tried bludging it with his club, stabbing it, setting it in a blaze and even punching it one time. Nothing worked. He was hungry as he had long since run out of provisions he had taken with him but refused to return to the town without his quarry. He scavenged meager meals but if this last plan didn't work, at least no one would ever find his body. He lured the nami and lion to a remote place, to a cave where Hercules had been able to stop up the other side. He had the creature follow him in but disappeared into a hiding place as soon as he and the lion entered the cave. He could now hear the beast somewhere in the darkness, searching the cave, smelling for him. He would have one chance at this. He was sitting above the mouth of the cave and the lion walked under him, confused that he was unable to find the man that he had been hunting for nearly a month. The lion squinted when he saw the sunlight outside and heard something from above. From the darkness, Hercules crashed down onto the back of the beast. The lion was stunned for half a second but that was all the time Hercules needed. He wrapped his arms around the nami and lion's neck, clasped his right wrist with his left hand and put all his legendary strength into the deadly hug. Hercules clung to the thing as it tried to scratch at him but he used all of his strength to lift it up so it was unable to use its powerful legs to break free. This was a dangerous gambit. He put himself closer to the lion for longer than he had ever been and he was hoping its strange supernatural gifts did not include a way to keep Hercules from crushing its whim pipe. All he had to do was hold on. Over the next several minutes the lion was able to kick off the wall of the cave and smash Hercules into the rocks behind him but Hercules held on. He was able to get a few swipes in with his claws and Hercules's blood poured on the floor but Hercules held on. Every part of him burned as his sweaty fingers began to slip from his wrist but Hercules held on. Finally the lion stopped fighting. Hercules slumped on on the floor but didn't let go of the beast's neck. It had just passed out so he remained for another 10 minutes, more than anything could hold its breath before he started to loose in his arms. Finally he relaxed and the creature thudded on the floor. He noticed for the first time in nearly a month how quiet it was out in the wilderness. He dragged the beast back to town and it was just in time to keep the man from sacrificing himself. He was able to skin the lion eventually when Athena came to him and hinted that he could use the lion's own razor sharp claws to cut the hide. Hercules' reputation proceeded in back to my Sine, where the high king presided. When he got there he was wearing the lion's hide and he found he wasn't allowed to enter the city. A herald for the king stood over the gate and acknowledged Hercules' completion of the first labor and told him about his next one. He didn't demand the pelt from Hercules so Hercules kept wearing it. Hercules shrugged. He wasn't sure what a hydro was but surely it was mortal. The king was terrified. If Hercules could kill the Neumian lion, maybe he could complete all the impossible tasks Hera had laid out for him. His anger and capriciousness were already legendary and when he was done the immortal might take it out on his weaker relative he was forced to serve for ten years. The high king quickly had a giant jar of bronze cast and buried halfway in the ground. When he had heard of Hercules' approach he would hide in the jar and have a herald give commands to the hero because like the writers weren't worried about overstating Hercules' manliness with the fifty daughters. They also didn't see a problem with really, really overstating iristhias' cowardice. As Hercules was walking on the road to learn to find the Hydra, he saw a figure approaching on the chariot, peeking up dust behind him. When he got close enough he relaxed. He knew this person though it had been some years since he saw the young man. It was Iolus, his nephew and son of Hercules' twin half-brother, the two men embraced. The young man had been searching for Hercules after he had exiled himself from thebes after killing his family. He had been following the rumors of the man, coming to Delphi, Mycenae and finally Namiya just days after Hercules had left each place. He had heard of the slain of the lion and was on his way back to Mycenae when he had a chance to put on Hercules. He heard of the penance Hercules must complete. It was unfair and Iolus wanted to help. After spending a month alone in the wilderness hunting the lion, Hercules smiled at the idea of this young man he loved coming with him and helping him. They walked together and in the first time to see blacked out in the robes, Hercules didn't feel alone. It was less than a day to travel to Learna and they left the chariot and were picking their way through the swamp. People they had run into on the way were hushed when Hercules had asked them about the location of the Hydra and then they could point in a general direction. That was all they were willing to do. One person had told him something though that the Hydra was poisonous like really really ridiculously poisonous. If he breathed in its presence you'd be dead, sure. But also if you found its tracks and breathed in near those, that would kill you as well. The trudging through the swamp and Iolus strikes a flint to light a torch to see better and often the distance they see a glint of metal. Hercules pulls out his club and moves towards it and sees Athena standing silently on an overhang over a cave. She looks down, looks at Hercules and vanishes. Setting his club down he pulls out his longbow, dowsing some cloth and oil, he wraps it around three or four arrows, lights them on fire and lets them fly into the cave. They hear a terrible roar and the Hydra comes barreling out at them. They barely have a moment to breathe deeply before it's upon them and they hold their breath to avoid the poison. Now the Hydra is a large creature with the body of what's said to be like a reptilian dog which I would picture somewhere in the ballpark of a Komodo dragon. And it's said to have somewhere between 9 and 10,000 heads. This is another case where the writers seem to be trying to outdo themselves. The Hydra ranges from a simple water snake to an immortal beast with nearly infinite heads who you can't breathe around. For simplicity's sake I'll just put the total at 9 heads. One of the heads is supposedly immortal but if you're able to sever that one you kill the creature. As the fight begins the Hydra is utterly uninterested in Isleless and he wraps himself around Hercules' ankle. He picked up his club at the last moment and brought it down hard on one of the heads. One down, eight to go. The creature shrieked and though his head was pinned under Hercules' club the neck was attached to strained upwards and spewing blood and poison pulled itself free. It was then Hercules realized the trick of this labor. The headless neck was twitching and out of it burst two heads to take the place of the one Hercules had destroyed. It was then Hercules felt the heat to his right. I always had tripped with the torch when the Hydra ran out and now a few trees were ablaze. They both looked on and whore as the Hydra not only healed itself from Hercules' blow but became stronger. While pinned down by the Hydra Hercules continued whaling on the heads but each time one was destroyed two more would take its place. Worse Hercules' body was screaming at him to take a breath. The feral panic that triggers in all of us was no different for Isleless or Hercules who not only struggled against the Hydra but against themselves. Isleless was off to the side and looked at the severed stump of a neck that just landed in front of him from the fight. There had been two heads on this one so logic held that four would regenerate. Unless I was snapped off a burning tree limb ran up to the stump and jammed it into the bleeding hole. It hissed, popped and the creature shrieked lurching the neck away from Iolus. But nothing else happened. No four heads. Nothing. He had cauterized the wound. Hercules noticed that and Iolus nodded at him. They went to work. Quickly Hercules dodged heads and claws as they were lunging at him and severed them from the body. Iolus would then jump in and cauterize the neck to keep them from growing. Oh, also, Hera is watching and she's really really angry that it looks like they might win so she sends a giant crab out. This being the worst ace in the whole ever, Hercules literally puts his foot through the thing's face as he's fighting the Hydra and it just dies. They're down to one head now, the immortal one. The darkness is starting to creep in on the edges of Hercules' vision and if he passes out now, his body will make him breathe and he'll be dead from the moon. the poison. He's tried to palmit with his club and separate it from sheer force like he did with the other heads, but it's immortal. He remembers the sword Athena had given him at the beginning of all this, pulls it out, and slices the last head off. I find the magic god sword a little Deus Ex Machina-E, or kind of a cop out, but that's what happened. The sources we have today are assembled from thousands of years of folklore, so we really can't expect the story to fit today's standards. As the last neck withers and flops on the ground, I elicit passes out, and Hercules waits as long as he can before breathing, and gasps at the air. The Hydra is dead, and he has completed the second labor. Also, just because the thing is dead, it doesn't mean the poison is any less potent. I mean, people were dying from smelling the things footsteps, and for some reason Hercules doesn't die now, despite poison literally being all around him from the bleeding neck hole he just made. This is far from the greatest gripe one can have with the realism in these stories, so I'll just let it go. They leave the head under a rock, and Hercules does a very smart thing, and dips his arrows in the hydrous poison. Thus giving him extremely poisonous arrows who'll use a couple of times during his labor. He's wearing the Nami'en lion's skin as armor, and its head is a helmet, and now he has the most poisonous arrows in the world. He might emerge from this whole ordeal stronger than he ever thought possible. He pats Iolus in the back, and they head back to my Sine. Two labor is down, eight to go. Next week on the podcast, it's actually only one labor down, because Iolus helped him. Eurostheus will tell Hercules that the last one didn't count, from his safe little bronze bunker, like a mile away. In fact, the king that hides every time Hercules gets close to the city will be surprisingly legalistic and technical when it comes to judging these things, so there'll be one more labor that won't count, thus bringing the total to 12 labor. I want to thank Slow Club, the Earthman, Ted from TX, or I'm guessing Texas, Timing is good, and Annelis Grace for reviews on iTunes. If you'd like to leave a review on iTunes, it's really good for helping people to discover it. And you can go to iTunes.mithpodcast.com. I've had someone ask me what they should do on Android, and I'm not exactly sure. The reason I mention iTunes so much is because something like 80% of people who listen to podcasts do so through Apple, and my numbers bear that out too. And until Google makes something similar to the iOS podcast app, to be used on all devices, it'll probably stay that way. Also, a lot of other pod catchers, including many Android ones, use the iTunes registry and rankings too. I have an Android, and I love Android, but if you listen to this through that, you can always use the iTunes program on a Mac or PC if you haven't installed, and really want to leave a review. Otherwise, just say hi on Twitter. My name is Mythpodcast. The creature this week is a small pig-like creature from the hemlock forests of Northern Pennsylvania, in America. Its name is the Squunk. Like the name kind of sounds, the Squunk is terrifically ugly. Its skin doesn't fit well, so it has odd folds all over its body, and in those folds are festering boils and all manner of blemishes. Unlike some of the other creatures which use their over-the-top ugliness to their advantage, I'm looking at you, Dullhand. The Squunk seems to have been cursed with self-awareness, and it not only knows how ugly it is, but that makes it really, really sad. It's so self-conscious that it won't come out during the day at all, for fear of being seen and judged. It only comes out at night, and even then only at nights where the moon isn't that bright, for fear of catching its reflection and water and being reminded of its hideousness. I know this thing isn't real, but I feel so sorry for it. For some reason, hunters in Pennsylvania at the turn of the 20th century wanted to catch the Squunk, and would go after it. When it gets cornered, it doesn't transform into a fearsome critter, or fight back, or vanish in a puff of smoke. No, it gets so sad that someone's all its ugliness that it sits back on its hajjas and cries. The defense mechanism is too fold. One, I'm guessing it makes the hunter feel super sad and hesitant about capturing it, maybe. And two, the tears pull up underneath it, and it dissolves into a pool of its own tears. Yes, its way of escaping is literally to sink into a pool of its own tears. If the hunter surprises it and catches it in a bag, he or she will find all that they have when they get back as a wet sack in which they had the Squunk, it having turned into tears, and dripped out on the way. It will reform later, after the danger and judgment have passed, but really it just puts it back into its world of intense self-loathing, since the only thing that's worse than being captured by a hunter is to spend another day as itself. This is a creature you just feel bad for, and if it would let you, it really just needs a hug. That being said, I don't want to hug it with its gross loose skin, getting pus from the boils all over my shirt. You know what, let's just all chip in for therapy. That's it for this week, the theme song is by the band Broke For Free, and the creature of the week music is by the stouthearted Steve Colmes. Links to the other music I used during the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.