Episode 102 – What Big Teeth You Have – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 102 Show Notes

Source: Italian Folklore, Taiwanese Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re donning a red cloak for some variations on a classic fairy tale. You’ll see that you shouldn’t make pancakes out of donkey dung, that falling asleep on the toilet can get you killed, and that you should be careful with someone’s skillet. Then, in Gods and Monsters, putting snail eyes on your face doesn’t make you someone’s grandmother. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 102, “What Big Teeth You Have”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week’s story is an unfamiliar version of a much more famous story. This particular iteration comes from the Italian Folktales collection by Italo Calvino from 1956, which was a deliberate attempt to create an Italian version of the Brothers Grimm – collecting Italian folktales from the oral tradition and setting them down in print. I’m sure you’ll be able to guess which one before too long, so here we go. Once upon a time, there was a very greedy little girl. It so happened that carnival time was coming up and the girl’s class was getting rowdy at the prospect of the upcoming merriment. To try and regain some semblance of control over her classroom, the schoolmistress promised the class that if they were good and focused on their knitting lessons, she would give them all pancakes. All in all, that seems like a pretty fair trade to me. Pancakes are awesome.
Our greedy little girl didn’t know how to knit (she’d probably been daydreaming about pancakes when she should have been listening to the teacher explain how to knit). She didn’t want to admit her ignorance so instead, she did what school kids have always done to get out of work – she asked to go to the bathroom, which in this case was an outhouse. The teacher may have suspected what the little girl was up to but she also wasn’t a heartless monster and so she of course granted permission to go to the bathroom. She didn’t have a phone to kill time with so she did the next best thing – she fell asleep on the shitter. Oops.
It took the little girl a little time to get the feeling back in her legs but, when she could finally stand without wobbling on jelly legs, she hurried back to class. Good to her word, the teacher had indeed provided pancakes to everyone who had been in the class and finished their knitting assignments. By the time the greedy girl got there, all of the pancakes had been eaten already, leaving none for her. To be fair, she hadn’t exactly upheld her end of the bargain, what with not having even attempted to do her work. Of course, people aren’t always logical when pancakes are involved, especially children, and so the little girl went home crying to her mother about the grave injustice that had been done in school that day.
Shockingly for a fairy tale, the young girl’s mother was both alive and a good person. Rather than chastising her very upset daughter, the mother dried her tears and promised that she would make the girl some pancakes for dinner that very night so she wouldn’t feel entirely left out. Unfortunately, their family was very, very poor and so the woman didn’t actually own a skillet (which any accomplished pancakateer knows is crucial for making good pancakes) so she sent her daughter off to ask Uncle Wolf if they could borrow his skillet for the evening.
The little girl, excited at the renewed prospect of pancakes, hurried off to Uncle Wolf’s house out in the woods and knocked politely on his door. A gruff voice sounded from inside. “Who’s that knocking at my door?” From outside, a small voice answered “It’s me!” That doesn’t actually do a whole lot to clarify things but the story doesn’t bother to name the little girl, so I guess it’s lucky that Uncle Wolf apparently recognized her voice. Somehow. Something about it makes me uncomfy though.
“Well isn’t this a surprise. No one has knocked on that door for months, years even! What brings you out to my little house in the woods?” “Mama wanted me to ask if we could borrow your skillet to make pancakes for dinner tonight.” There was a pause as Uncle Wolf considered this request. “Give me a moment while I put on a shirt.” There was rustling inside, but the door didn’t open. Impatient for pancakes, the little girl knocked again. “Just another minute while I put on underwear.” If cartoons have taught me anything (and I’m not sure that they have) it’s that Uncle Wolf definitely wears boxers with hearts on them.
More rustling but still no progress in the pancake department, so the greedy little girl knocked again, more impatiently than before. “Hold your horses, girlie – let me put some damn pants on.” Again there were indistinct sounds but the door didn’t open, so the little girl knocked yet again (she’s definitely venturing into rude territory by knocking that many times on the door of someone who’s about to do her a favor). “Almost ready – I just need to put on my overcoat. Hold on.” More indistinct sounds and, at last, the door opened. Uncle Wolf stood there in his overcoat and pants but still very much a wolf, but a wolf holding a skillet. “Alright, tell your mother that you can borrow the skillet, but I’d appreciate it greatly if she sent it back with some pancakes for me. And maybe a loaf of bread and some wine. That way, everyone gets dinner out of this arrangement.” The little girl, who was already imagining how good the pancakes were going to be, readily agreed to Uncle Wolf’s terms.
The little girl hurried home, skillet clutched in her tiny arms. Her mother promptly set to work cooking a whole stack of pancakes for each of them and another stack for Uncle Wolf in thanks for his generosity. Mother and daughter happily devoured their delicious pancakes while they were fresh and hot. Once they had eaten, mother packed up the second stack of pancakes along with the requested bread and wine into a neat package. “Here, take all of this to Uncle Wolf with my thanks. His skillet is cleaned and packed up with the pancakes. Take it back to him, along with the bread and wine he asked for. Hurry up, before it gets dark!”
The greedy little girl hurried out the door with the fragrant package in her hands. It wasn’t a terribly long walk, but it felt quite long indeed with the delicious smell of pancakes filling her nose. Sure, she’d just eaten a whole stack of them, but I haven’t been calling her a greedy little girl this whole time for shits and giggles. They just smelled so damned good and, she knew from experience, they tasted even better. “Uncle Wolf doesn’t know how many pancakes Mother cooked for him. He won’t miss just one.” She opened the pack and scarfed the first pancake down. It tasted so good that she figured he wouldn’t miss a second pancake either. Before she knew what had happened, all of the pancakes had mysteriously vanished followed by the bread and even the bottle of wine (except for the crumbs she idly licked off her fingers, but that proved nothing). Well, shit. Now what?
The little girl shouldn’t have done any of that, but she definitely shouldn’t have finished off an entire fucking bottle of wine. If she hadn’t been somewhere between tipsy and drunk off her ass, she might have made a different decision next. She considered admitting to Uncle Wolf and her mother that she had lived up to her description and gotten greedy, eating the food prepared for the generous wolf, but if she did that, she would probably get in trouble. Instead, she decided to try trickery. Unfortunately, she wasn’t very good at it.
She looked around for something she could make replacement pancakes out of, but the only thing she saw that was even close were several piles of donkey shit. Shrugging, she scooped up the literal shit into the wolf’s skillet and formed it into roughly pancake shape. She kept walking and stopped by a dirty little stream to wash her hands, then refilled the empty wine bottle with the same disgusting water. Do you want dysentery? Because that’s how you get dysentery. Nearby, she saw where a mason had been working on building a new wall. There was still some cement and lime (the stony kind, not the fruity kind), which she formed into a very heavy loaf to replace the bread. This little asshole is going to kill Uncle Wolf for being generous.
Without stopping to consider whether this was a good idea (it wasn’t), she knocked on Uncle Wolf’s door and handed him the skillet of donkey shit, the bottle of dirty water, and the loaf of bread made out of rock. I don’t know how his sensitive canine nose didn’t notice something off, but maybe he just assumed the shit smell was coming from her, especially since there was enough lingering pancake smell to sell the very weak illusion. Whatever the reason, Uncle Wolf took a great big bite of pancake and gagged on the awful taste. “What the actual fuck? This isn’t pancakes, it’s donkey shit!” He uncorked the bottle of wine to get the truly terribly taste out of his mouth and gagged all over again. “What the…that’s filthy water!” Desperate, he took a big bite of the loaf of bread and nearly chipped a tooth on it. “Lime and cement? What the hell are you trying to pull, you little shit? I was nothing but nice and you treat me like this. Fuck it, if I can’t have pancakes for dinner, then I’m going to have greedy little girl instead. As soon as I get the taste of the awful shit you tried to poison me with out of my mouth, I’m going to find you and I’m going to eat you.”
Understandably terrified, the little girl ran home crying to her mother. She raced inside the door screaming “Uncle Wolf said he’s gonna eat me! He’s coming tonight to kill me and eat me!” The girl’s mother didn’t waste time asking questions – she immediately hurried around the house closing windows and barring doors. She even stopped up all of the holes she could find to make sure Uncle Wolf couldn’t squeeze his way in somehow. Her heart was racing in panic but, looking around, neither of them saw any way into the house so they went to their beds and tried to get some sleep. Maybe they could talk Uncle Wolf down tomorrow and apologize.
Night fell and the little girl lay awake in bed, far too scared to sleep. As she lay there, she heard a voice just outside the house. “I’m coming to eat you like I promised. I’m right outside!” The little girl froze in terror. She heard clattering on the walls as the wolf explored the house and found all of the ways in barred. Then, she heard more clattering followed by the sound of footsteps on the roof and a low, evil-sounding chuckle. “I’m going to eat you now – I’m on the roof.” The heavy steps walked across the roof to the chimney which, with a horrible start, she realized that both she and her mother had forgotten about when they were sealing up the house. “I’m in the chimney now, and I’m coming to eat you!”
The little girl screamed in mortal terror. “Mama, mama – the wolf is here!” Her mother whispered to her “Quick, hide under the covers.” From the main room, they both heard the wolf exit the chimney. “I’m inside the house now, on your hearth, and I’m coming to eat you!” The little girl was shivering in terror and had curled up under the covers into the smallest ball she could make with her little body, trying to hide in the corner of the bed. The wolf snarled as it entered the girl’s room. The story doesn’t say where the mother was at this point. Maybe she had barricaded herself in her own room not wanting to die along with her daughter (who definitely brought this on herself in a fairy tale morality sort of way). The little girl held her breath as the wolf sniffed the air. “I’m here at the foot of the bed. I see you, little girl, and now it’s time to die!” And, as he had promised, he devoured the little girl and left and all because she had been greedy.
And…that’s it. There’s no heroic woodsman riding in to save the day and no one else suffers for the little girl’s transgressions. She tried and failed to trick the wolf after eating the offering meant for him, and she paid the price. I mean, death is an incredibly harsh punishment for the little girl’s crimes, but people in fairy tales have died for far more accidental transgressions, so it’s hard to feel too bad for her. She had to know that eating a wolf’s food and replacing it with literal shit wasn’t going to end well. As you likely guessed, this is one of many versions of the story most people know better as Little Red Riding Hood. This is one of those broad story tropes where variations show up in all sorts of cultures with all sorts of unique twists.
The earliest known version of Red Riding Hood proper comes from our old buddy Charles Perrault from 1697. It was in this tale, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge that we first see the iconic red hood appear in the story. This is the familiar fairy tale with a young girl in a red hood heading out into the country to visit her grandmother with some tasty treats and encountering a wolf. Red helpfully points out her grandmother’s house to the hungry creature, who playfully offers to race the girl to her grandmother’s house to see which of them can get there first. Red dallies in the fields, picking flowers and chasing butterflies while the wolf races straight there. He imitates Red Riding Hood’s voice, tricking the grandmother into telling him how to unlock the door and devouring her.
Red shows up in due time and finds the wolf dressed in her grandmother’s clothes and lying in the bed. We have the classic conversation of course: “Grandmother, what big arms you have!” “The better to hug you with, my dear.” “And grandmother, what big legs you have!” “The better to run with, my dear.” “And grandmother, what big ears you have!” “Rude. The better to hear with, my dear.” “And grandmother, what big eyes you have!” “The better to see with, my dear.” “Oh, and grandmother, what big teeth you have!” “The better to eat little girls who make hurtful comments about my appearance!” And the wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood up with no helpful huntsman to come along and free her. Nope, that’s the end of Red in this early version but Perrault does add that the moral is that children, especially well-bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers lest they become dinner for a wolf. He even helpfully clarifies that the most dangerous wolves are the charming, polite, sweet, and gentle-seeming wolves who pursue young women in the cities.
In a surprising twist, it was the Brothers Grimm who added the woodsman coming along to skin the wolf and accidentally free the trapped women (though the earlier sections are so similar to Perrault’s version that it’s almost certainly the source for their story). The story continues on however with the grandmother and the little girl trapping and killing a second wolf with the help of the lessons learned in their first nasty brush with death.
France adds its own unique twist to the story by having Red encounter not a wolf but a bzou – a type of werewolf. Because ‘fairy tale’, Red has two paths to choose from after meeting the bzou – needles or pins, though it’s unclear what the distinction really is. The bzou naturally gets to grandma’s house first and slaughters her, but he doesn’t just devour her. He’s a civilized werewolf, after all, so he butchers grandma instead, putting choice cuts of meat in the pantry along with a bottle of her blood to wash it down with. When Red arrives, the bzou has her fetch some of the food from the pantry and eat it with her, thus accidentally becoming a cannibal. She is then ordered to throw her clothes in the fire and climb into the bed with grandma bzou, which prompts that same famous conversation. This version of Red isn’t just asking mean questions, she’s realizing that something is very, very wrong. Before she gets around to asking about grandmother’s teeth, she says she has to go outside and take a leak.
Feigning concern, the bzou allows her to go outside, but only if she ties a woolen thread to her foot. Red has a heart-pounding moment where she has to carefully slip the thread off her foot without giving away her intentions and then tie it to a plum tree in the yard. She then flees to safety into the night, with both herself and the werewolf very much alive. This version of Red is much cleverer than some of her counterparts and thus earns her escape. And so, with at least one little girl in a red hood alive and well thanks to her own cunning and determination, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monster is Hoo-Koo-Po.
In a bit of a break from form, this particular creature doesn’t come from Italy like Uncle Wolf but is instead a spiritual relative – Great-Aunt Tiger. This earlier story comes from Taiwan (and was later picked up by the early Qing Dynasty of mainland China). The name Hoo-Koo-Po is a fairly literal translation from the Taiwanese for Tiger Aunt and pretty accurately describes the villain of this story.
Once upon a time, there were two young sisters who lived with their loving parents in a remote part of Taiwan – and yes, both parents are actually both alive and not shitheads. It’s a fairy tale miracle. There came a time when the parents had to go on a business trip away from home for a couple of days (the specifics of the business in question are not given). They instructed the two young women to stay inside the house and not open the door for anyone. The two girls replied that they understood and ushered their parents out the door, excited for a little home alone adventure.
Unbeknownst to any of them, an ancient tigress spirit was hiding in the bushes near the house and watching all of this. She smiled a toothy grin at the thought of two young, tasty-looking girls all on their own. She had survived for a thousand years, training herself in the arts of magic, especially transformation, so that she could more easily find sweet young children to eat.
Obtaining a bag of delectable sugary sweets from…somewhere (hey, it’s an ancient shapeshifting tiger spirit – is candy really where we’re going to start asking questions about plausibility?) she headed to the door and knocked. “Who are you?” “Oh you girls have grown up so much – you were just babies when I saw you last. I’m your great aunt Hoo-Koo-Po – your parents asked me to come by and check on you while they’re away on business. I brought you girls a present – candy!” She held up the bag and shook it to emphasize the tasty treats inside. The girls whispered quietly behind the door. Their parents had said not to let anyone in, but this wasn’t anyone, this was family. They must have just forgotten to mention she would be coming by. Besides, she had candy. How could anyone who brought you candy be bad? They opened the door wide and invited the tigress inside.
The two girls devoured the candy and played with their aunt until it was time for bed. They fell asleep full and happy and looking forward to more fun the next day. In the middle of the night, the elder girl awakened. Some instinct told her to be quiet and listen. She soon heard it – the strange sound from nearby that had awakened her from her sleep. Looking over slowly, she saw the thing that had been her great aunt twisted into some warped tiger-human hybrid standing over her sister’s bed. She had to bite her tongue hard enough to draw blood to avoid screaming as she saw her sister’s feet disappear into the creature’s bloody maw. Even as she watched, the monster shrunk back into the wizened form of the old woman they had first met.
Taking a steadying breath, the girl sat up in bed with a long stretch, pretending not to have seen the brutal murder of her sister. She smiled as best she could at Hoo-Koo-Po and told her she needed to head to the outhouse to take a wizz. As soon as she was out the door, she climbed the tallest tree in the yard and hoped that tigers couldn’t climb trees. It turns out that tigers can very much climb trees if they want, but they rarely bother with the effort and this particular tigress was pretty full from the little girl she’d literally just finished devouring, so she didn’t feel up to climbing after the elder sister when she realized what had happened.
“Child, get your ass down out of that tree right now! There could be tigers up there for all you know!” “Nu-uh! There are tigers down there right now! I saw you eat my sister, you monster and I’m not coming down.” She sobbed loudly. “I can’t believe you ate her, and even worse, you ate her raw! You’d think you’d want to use some boiled peanut oil or something for better flavor.” Hoo-Koo-Po smiled wickedly. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.” The elder girl began to cry harder. “You’re gonna eat me, aren’t you? I can’t escape, but if I’m gonna be dinner, I want to at least taste good. If you fetch me the peanut oil, I’ll coat myself in it before I come down.” The tigress was thrilled at the little girl’s fatalism and hurried to fetch the oil. Tying the pot to a rope, the little girl hauled the oil up into her tree to cover herself in the bubbling, boiling oil. Of course,as you’ve probably already guessed, she had no intention of marinating herself. Instead, she poured the boiling oil directly down the throat of Hoo-Koo-Po, killing her with the savory treat she’d hoped to enjoy. Thus did the little girl escape her death and free Taiwan from a particularly vicious spirit, but that memory of her sister’s death haunted her forever after.
As you can imagine, the version that made its way to China is similar but does have some slight variations. The little girl is sent out with her younger brother to visit their grandmother, who they’ve never met before, with a basket of dates. As anyone who thought about it for more than a few seconds could have guessed, the two kids get lost while traveling alone to a place they’ve never been before. The sun is setting and the shadows are lengthening, so the kids are relieved to finally come across another person – an old woman.
She kindly asks the kids where they’re headed, and they reply ‘our waizumu’s house’, which means their maternal grandmother. The old woman beams. “Why, you’re in luck then kiddos because it just so happens that I’m your waizumu!” The little girl considers the old woman doubtfully. “Are you sure? My mother told me that she had seven black spots on her face, but I don’t see any on yours.” The old woman nodded. “Ah yes, of course. I do indeed have seven spots, scars from an old rash I got from winnowing rice and drying husks, which I am very allergic to. You can’t see them because I’m wearing makeup – here, let me wash my face for you.” She hurried to a nearby stream, plucked the eyes off some water snails, and stuck the severed eyes to her face. Yup, this is not a good woman. “See, I have the spots you mentioned.”
The little girl was relieved to see that the old woman was telling the truth, having completely believed her impromptu lie and disguise. She led them down a dark path into the forest, which led beneath tree cover so thick that barely any moonlight shone down as they approached a deep cave. “Your grandfather and I live in a fine house in the village, but it’s full of workmen right now since it needs a lot of repairs. We’re staying here in the meantime – I hope you don’t mind! I’m sorry for being such a poor hostess and not making things more comfortable for your stay.”
The children followed the woman inside the cave with a little hesitation, but were assuaged by a nice dinner. After they had eaten their fill, it was bedtime. “Now let’s see – which of you is fatter? Your old grandma is old and bony and needs someone to help keep her warm at night.” Despite the mention of a grandfather also staying here, he never showed up (because he didn’t exist) and no one asked about it. The little boy happily waved a pudgy hand in the air. “Ooh, ooh! Me, I’m the fattest and the cutest!” The old woman smiled. “And so you are! Climb on up into bed with Grandma.”
The young boy slept cuddled up to the woman while the older sister slept at the foot of the bed, near her legs. To keep her feet warm, or so she claimed. Everyone fell asleep, but something woke the older girl up in the middle of the night. Uh oh, we’ve seen this before. As she turned over groggily in the bed, she couldn’t help but notice that the blankets had gotten tangled in the night, revealing some of the old woman’s torso. It was covered with a disturbing amount of thick, coarse hair. “Grandmother, your skin is so hairy!” The old woman shook her head. “No, dear, that’s not my skin. I’m wearing your grandfather’s woolen jacket to help keep me warm. I told you how chilly my old bones get in the night.” Satisfied with this answer, the little girl closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
It was hard to do that though because she heard a strange wet slurping sound coming from somewhere in the bed. “Grandmother, what’s that noise?” “Oh, I’m eating those dates you brought. The older I get, the harder I find it to not eat whenever I’m even a little bit hungry.” “Oh, okay. Actually, now that you mention it, I’m pretty hungry too. Can I have a date?” There was a smile in the old woman’s voice. “Of course, dearie. Here you go.” It was very dark in the cave, but as she took the small object from her grandmother, it didn’t feel like any date she’d ever held before. She peered at it closely, and there was just enough light from the dying fire to see that she was right – it wasn’t a date at all, but a small human finger.
The little girl was old enough to keep herself from screaming but young enough to have no doubts that the old woman was in fact a monster that had eaten her little brother. She knew that, if she didn’t do something very clever very soon, she would soon join him in the beast’s belly. “Grandmother, I need to pee. Is the bathroom outside?” The old woman tsked. “Are you sure you really need to go? Tigers roam the mountains in the night and other beasts live in the woods as well. I wouldn’t want something eating you, now would I? No, I think it’s better if you stay here.”
The little girl saw through this ruse. “I’ll be very careful, Grandmother, but I really have to go. Tell you what – if you’re worried, tie one end of a rope to me and hold on to the other end. If there’s any danger, I’ll tug the rope and you can pull me back or come get me.” The old woman wasn’t sure she liked this plan, but she didn’t want to sleep in child piss either, so she reluctantly agreed.
The old woman pulled out a rope from somewhere and tied it to the girl’s ankle. Thus secured, the child went outside to pretend to pee. In a thin beam of moonlight that managed to sneak through the trees, she saw that the rope…wasn’t a rope at all. She stifled another scream as she realized it was her brother’s intestines tied around her ankle. She untied it as quickly as she could then hurried up a nearby tree to hide, worried that she had alerted the monster to her escape attempt. She was just in time too, because the thing that pretended to be an old woman absolutely felt the rope go slack and came out to investigate.
Following the rope, she found the tree and spotted the little girl high in the branches. Feigning concern, she tried to talk the little girl into coming down so she wouldn’t get sick or get eaten by a tiger, because how could she explain that to their mother? It didn’t work of course, and her cries soon turned to angry screams and then guttural roars. As the little girl watched, the old woman slowly turned into a monstrous tiger, pacing around the tree. Lucky for her, this tiger was too old and tired to try and climb such a tall tree. She could outwait the little girl. Realizing that she was still very much in danger, the little girl began to scream for help at the top of her lungs.
The tigress roared in anger and then disappeared; the woods were probably empty, but the sun was coming up which made her much weaker. She would go and fetch some help to end this troublesome little girl. The girl screamed and screamed all alone in the big forest. And then, to her surprise and terror, she heard something crashing through the underbrush. She was afraid the tiger had come back, but it turned out to be some men who had been working in the mountains and heard her screams. They helped the terrified, exhausted child down from the tree though her clothes caught in the branches in her haste to come down and large pieces tore off and were left behind. They carried her back towards the safety of the village.
Not long after that, the tigress came back with two strong young tigers trailing behind her. Seeing the clothing nestled in the branches, the tigress snarled and indicated the child’s hiding place. “She’s up there! Get her down, and the two of you can share her sweet flesh.” The tree was very tall and they weren’t sure they could climb it, so they decided to bring it down instead. They chewed on the trunk until at last the whole tree toppled over. Hungrily, they searched the tree but found nothing but scraps of clothing. Thinking the old tigress was playing a cruel joke, they whirled on her in fury and ripped her to bloody shreds, feasting on her corpse in place of the promised child. Thus, at last, one of the children makes it out alive thanks to her cleverness and the wicked monster is punished for their cruel appetite.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, it’s an annual holiday tradition – the Halloween special. You’ll see that you can totally dance with the devil in the pale moonlight, that demons are remarkably easy to trick, and that the Devil is a real straight-shooter. Then, in Gods and Monsters, have you ever wondered why we carve pumpkins into creepy faces for Halloween? That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.