Episode 52 – If I Only Had a Brain – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 52 Show Notes

Source: Brazilian Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re gonna take another jaunt off to Giant Land in Brazil. You’ll learn that stupid is as stupid does, that impulse shopping is always a good idea, and that you should always believe impossible claims. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll meet a sassy magical crocodile in a blonde wig. 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 52, “If I Only Had a Brain”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
We haven’t been down to South America for a while, so I think we’re due, especially since things are going to get a little chilly during our annual winter holiday special next episode. This particular tale is a weird one that, like our tale back in Episode 40, will involve a foray into the mystical, jungle world of Giant Land, deep in the Amazon Rainforest, and will show that just because someone does poorly in school doesn’t mean they’re stupid.
Once, long ago in a kingdom far away, there lived a noble king. He was an average ruler, not great but not terrible, which was fine. Unfortunately, his son, the prince, was a total dumbass. The king had realized pretty early that the prince wasn’t the sharpest arrow in the quiver and had sent him to school with the best teachers and the best tutors that money could buy for years. He did everything in his power to try and help the boy learn something, anything, but it was useless. He was a good-hearted lad, and he tried, he really did, but all of his lessons just went in one ear and out the other. He just couldn’t seem to pay attention to what he was being taught or to retain any of it. It’s entirely possible, based on some of the later events, that the prince wasn’t stupid so much as afflicted with one or more learning disabilities, and was getting a bad rap he didn’t deserve. Either way, one by one, all of the prince’s teachers had written him off as hopeless. Each had come to the king with some variation on the same thought: the prince was hopelessly dense and trying to teach him anything was a waste of their valuable time as educators.
After several highly-regarded tutors had quit this way, the king decided he’d had enough. He called together a council of all of the wisest men in the country to discuss what was to be done with the prince. It simply wouldn’t do to have the heir to the throne be completely unprepared for taking over the reins of the kingdom when the time came. After much discussion, which lasted a year and a day, it was decided that the prince needed to spend some time out of the country, broadening his horizons – a version of a study abroad program mixed with independent study. The wise men were unanimous on this decision at the end of the year – they believed that journeying through many of the nearby lands of the kingdom would give the prince practical experience he simply couldn’t learn in the coddled environment of the palace and maybe expose him to lessons that he could learn from in a way that he never had been able to from books.
The prince was therefore outfitted in fine travel clothes and given a splendid black stallion to ride and a fat sack of gold to pay for whatever he might need on his travels. With this equipment and a vague direction to wander the world for a while, the prince set out from the palace one bright morning, seen off on the first leg of his journey by his father and the assembled wise men.
It quickly became apparent to the prince that he was not, in fact, stupid. Although he had always struggled to focus on his books and lessons in the stuffy rooms of the palace, he found that the world at large made a much finer classroom. He traveled through many lands, learning many languages and lessons. He soon realized that there was no kingdom so small or so poor that it didn’t have something to teach him about how to rule wisely and well, or how to engage with other kingdoms and cultures with tact and diplomacy, or even simply how to be a better person. He approached each new place with an open mind, and he left each a wiser man than he had entered.
After many wanderings and adventures that aren’t important to the story, the prince arrived at a city. As he walked through the streets, he heard the unmistakable sound of an auction in full swing. He stopped to watch as a songbird was brought up for sale. The price seemed high for a simple bird, so the prince was curious. “What’s so special about that little bird?” “Ah, you have a good eye, sir! This little songbird sings a special song indeed. Whenever its owner commands, this little creature will burst forth with magical music that will put anyone who hears it to sleep.” “Well that sounds completely plausible, so I definitely don’t need a demonstration or, in fact, any evidence whatsoever that this is real. I’ll buy it!”
The prince prepared to walk away with his brand new magical bird, but the next item up for sale caught his eye. It was a huge horned beetle, so black that it was almost iridescent in the sunlight. Again, the price asked was way too high to be reasonable for just a beetle, so the prince asked what was so special about it. “Ah, you truly do have an eye for the incredible, sir! This beetle is indeed special. When set free and directed by its owner, it will chew through any wall in the world, no matter what it’s made of!” “Well, that also sounds completely plausible, so I’ll take this beetle at the high price you named with absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it actually does have magical properties!”
The prince again prepared to leave with his incredible, impossible purchases as he had spent quite a pretty penny and, although he had been given a lot of money, his bag of gold was looking decidedly lighter. Then he saw the magnificent butterfly that came up for sale next. It was a wonder, large delicate wings splashed in swirls of the most incredible colors the prince had ever seen. The prince thought he might buy this butterfly just as a living art piece, but when the price was named, it seemed high, even for something so lovely. “And what is so special about this butterfly, apart from its evident beauty?” “This, my good sir, would neatly round out your new collection of magical creatures for you see, this butterfly is strong enough to bear any weight that is put upon its wings and bear it aloft!” The prince eyed the delicate, paper-thin wings with some skepticism, but it was just too lovely to pass up and besides, the story might be true. “I’ll take that too!”
The prince very deliberately did not look at whatever the next item up for sale was, but set back out into the city. With bird, beetle, and butterfly, he journeyed on the next day, leaving the city behind and traveling out into the dense jungle. And promptly became lost.
Traveling the rainforest is not something easily done, especially with no guide or knowledge of the area, and the prince had neither. The foliage was so dense that he could not see more than a few feet in any direction, so he was completely turned around. The canopy was so thick that he couldn’t even make out the sun to get a vague idea of his bearings. He thought about it, and decided that the only option he had was to climb the tallest tree he could see until he could get a better view. He found one and, being strong and fit from his time on the road, climbed easily until he could see out over the forest. The tree trunk was uncomfortably thin and swaying more than was good for his peace of mind before he was high enough, but it worked: from the top, the prince could see a mountain far off in the distance, towering over the jungle. It looked like it would be a pretty straight shot from here to the mountain, and it was big enough that he didn’t think he’d be able to miss it very easily.
The prince set out and by the next day, had reached the mountain. Only, now that he was close, he could see that it wasn’t a mountain at all, but an impossibly high stone wall, built on cyclopean proportions. The prince had heard tales of the mythical Giant Land in his travels, but no one had ever seemed to have a clear idea of exactly where it was, other than somewhere deep in the jungle out beyond civilization. Looking up at the impossibly huge fortifications, the prince realized that he’d just stumbled across something that many people weren’t even entirely sure was real.
Standing guard at this particular stretch of the long unbroken wall was a gargantuan giant, his head stretching up into the very clouds. The prince was very tiny compared to the guard, and it was possible that he could dart past without being noticed, but all it would take would be one unfortunate step from the giant and the prince would be nothing but a smear on the earth, even if the giant never noticed him. Fortunately, the prince happened to have just the thing – the little songbird he’d bought in the last city.
It turned out that the prince had been absolutely right to have faith in the auctioneer from the city, in spite of having been offered no evidence whatsoever. As soon as the little bird began to sing at the request of the prince, he could see the giant begin to sway on his feet. His massive head drooped, and he slumped exhausted against the wall and immediately passed out.
That solved one problem, but another immediately presented itself. Sure, the guard was no longer a threat, but the wall was unbroken as far as his eye could see. He had no way of knowing how far the nearest gate might be, or in what direction. He could easily wander for days, weeks, or maybe until his supplies ran out, and never find an entrance. Fortunately, the prince once again had just the thing – the black beetle he’d bought in the last city. He set the little beetle down and, at a word, it began to gnaw its way through the heavy stone. It chewed a path through the thick wall large enough for the prince to walk through with ease in a surprisingly short amount of time. He was through; the prince had officially entered the land of the giants.
As he cleared the thick stone tunnel his beetle had made, the prince found himself standing in what was unmistakably a dungeon. It seemed that he had happened upon the back of the city and had accidentally made himself his own private entrance into the most secure part of it. In a cage with thick metal bars sized for a human, the prince could see a beautiful woman sitting on a rough bench and looking absolutely miserable. He delicately cleared his throat to get her attention, and she nearly fell off the bench at the unexpected sound. Her eyes grew huge with wonder at the impossible sight of a human man standing in the depths of the giants’ dungeon.
While the princess was busy losing her shit, the prince was thinking hard. He had learned many lessons on his journey, some broadly applicable, and some unbelievably and necessarily specific. One of the latter lessons was ‘always rescue a fair maiden in distress’. He waited patiently for the princess to process her mental breakdown and, as she was calming down, he politely but firmly asked if she needed rescuing. This offer from a total stranger who couldn’t possibly be there, threw her off balance yet again. “I mean, yeah, I’d love to get the hell out of this awful prison, but I can’t ask you to attempt this impossible task. You’d die in the attempt, and I can’t have your blood on my hands. There is a giant standing guard at the door out of this prison, and that bastard never sleeps. It’s hopeless.”
The prince smiled. “We’ll see about that.” “We will see indeed,” boomed the giant guard who just then strode into the dungeon, having heard their voices and gotten suspicious. The prince craned his neck all the way up at his distant, distant head and smiled even wider. “Sing, my little bird. Sing this giant to sleep.” A gorgeous, haunting melody burst forth from the little bird’s throat. At the first few notes, the giant who had never slept a single moment in his entire life fell into a deep slumber.
“See, princess? I can help. I’ve got just what I need to get you out of here. The guard is down for the count, and as you can see behind me, I’ve already managed to create a backdoor into here that we can just as easily use to get out. We won’t have to sneak through the city or try to climb the impossibly high wall that surrounds Giant Land. Come on!” “But what about the giant who guards the wall? The one who’s head stretches all the way to the clouds?” “He’s asleep too. If we hurry, we can get away before he wakes.”
The princess looked briefly hopeful, then abruptly collapsed back into despair. “I can’t. I’ve been trapped in the tiny cell for so long that my legs can’t carry my weight. It feels like I’ve forgotten how to walk. It will take me far too long to try and make my way out. You’ll have to leave me here and save yourself.” One noble, glistening tear made its way down her delicate cheek. “I have just the thing, fair princess. This butterfly looks delicate, but like you, it hides an inner strength. It’s more than strong enough to bear you on its back and get you out of here.”
With her permission, he boosted her up onto the butterfly’s back, between its wings, and the butterfly continued to flap its wings and hang in the sky without drooping at all, even with her full weight upon it. Together, they headed out of the beetle’s tunnel and into the surrounding jungle. The guard was still asleep against the wall as they left, snoring faintly (or at least, faintly for a giant, which was still a low thunderous rumble). He yawned as they passed, and the prince remarked that he’d probably sleep for another hour (although I have no idea how he knew that).
He had a pretty good idea of how to get back to the last city he’d visited, and he was able to lead the princess back with only a few missteps. From there, he was able to obtain directions to his home kingdom. They journeyed there together, the princess on the butterfly (she was spending time working on walking again, but her legs had atrophied a lot during her captivity and it took time). Presumably, he found out why she was being held prisoner by the giants, but if he did, the story doesn’t say. The people were amazed to see him walk into the city with this beautiful princess beside him. They cheered him, forming an impromptu parade all the way to the palace where his father was waiting, having been notified of the approaching group.
Tears of joy in his eyes, he welcomed his son back with open arms and greeted the woman on his arm. The story doesn’t say why they didn’t go back to her own kingdom, or if there was any burgeoning romance between them, so you can make up your own favorite version. What we do know is that he told his father and the court all about his travels, and they were duly amazed. His father was incredibly proud of his son’s growth. “Never again will my son, our prince, be called stupid. With his singing bird, gnawing beetle, and strong-winged butterfly, he has proven himself to be the cleverest lad in all the kingdom!”
The story kind of comes to an abrupt end, with the princess having absolutely no agency or inner life, and not even being considered enough to be a love interest. It’s odd for a fairy tale, but I don’t hate the part where they aren’t automatically assumed to be in love because he helped her out of a jam. It’s also another story where the protagonist manages to obtain some ridiculously bizarre tools that are custom-tailored for an impossibly specific challenge that he had no way of knowing was ahead of him. It’s wildly unbelievable, but then again, what good fairy tale isn’t?
With the prince and princess safely away from the land of the giants, 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 Cuca the witch, who was suggested on Instagram from GilbertoBorges00.
Cuca, also known as Coco or Cucuy depending on who you’re talking to and where you are, is a multinational myth that began in Portugal and Catalonia (later Spain), and traveled to the new world, especially Brazil. The Cuca acts a a boogeyman, invoked by parents to bring unruly children to heel with threats of being eaten alive if they don’t obey their parents. Beyond that one fact, pretty much everything else about the Cuca changes depending on where you’re looking for it. Her name comes from Portugal, but the word ‘cuca’ happens to mean ‘to swallow something with a single gulp’ in Tupi, an indigenous language in Brazil, which might help explain how she became such a huge thing there.
Many stories say that the Cuca is a shapeshifter, which might help to explain why it looks so different in different parts of the world. At least one version of the monster, on the Iberian Peninsula, was originally a female dragon who fought St. George the dragon-slayer in various medieval festivals. One such dragon, named Santa Coca (or St. Coca), still survives in Portugal, where she is wheeled out to fight St. George as part of the Corpus Christi celebration. If she wins the fight by scaring his horse, it will be a bad year for crops; if St. George wins by cutting off one of her ears and her tongue, then it will be a fertile year. Despite her victory boding ill for the populace, plenty of people cheer on the plucky dragon in her fights.
In Catalonia, she is the cuca fera de Tortosa, which roughly translates as the skull beast of Tortosa, where she looks like a massive tortoise with a horned spine, razor sharp claws, and a dragon’s head (not unlike the tarrasque of Episode 39F). Legends there say that each night, she must feed on three cats and three children. If they’re being naughty, parents will warn their children that the Cuca is nearby and looking for her three nightly children.
Some versions of the myth have the Coco, which is male, but most of the better known versions are females. Descriptions vary wildly, from the reptilian (as we have seen above), to some shapeless, amorphous, toothy horror, to a hairy monster that hides in closets or under beds. All stories agree that, although she is terrifying to look at, the real horror of the Cuca is her tendency to kidnap children for her dinner. If kids are lucky, she’ll eat them on the spot, ripping them to bloody shreds scattered all over the place; if they are unlucky, she will throw them in her sack and drag them back to her lair, a place of no return, to eat slowly and at her leisure (although many stories say this particular horror is only reserved for the especially bad kids). She can turn invisible or take the form of a shadow, and could be watching any child at any time from whatever lurking pool of darkness or distant rooftop is around, kind of an inverse guardian angel.
Perhaps the most famous version of Cuca is the humanoid alligator witch from Brazil. She dresses like an old woman with long wiry hair and, often carrying a sack to kidnap naughty children. She became famous throughout Brazil as the main villain in a series of children’s books written by Monteiro Lobato in the 1930s, where the witch in an alligator’s body brews potions, eats children, and only sleeps one night every seven years.
Coco is also the name of a Portuguese form of jack-o-lantern, with the pumpkins hollowed out and carved into a rough human face, lit with a lantern, and left in dark places to scare people. In parts of Portugal, especially the Beiras, these cocas would be stuck on top of wooden stakes and carried around town by village boys, a custom thought to date back to at least 469 BC when Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian, noted that Iberian warriors hung the heads of their fallen enemies on their spears after the Battle of Selinunte. The coconut actually gets its name from this tradition, as Portuguese sailors thought that the hard, hairy shells looked like the carved pumpkin cocos, and the name stuck.
Cuca, the Brazilian alligator witch, has made a comeback recently on social media. The books by Moneiro Lobato were adapted into an early-2000s live action television show called Sitio do Pica Pau Amarelo (or Yellow Woodpecker Ranch), which follows the adventures of two children with their living, thinking toys. Cuca is there in all her scaly glory, complete with her now-iconic blonde wig. Her sassy, no-nonsense attitude has made her a favorite of Brazilian children and, from there, the internet at large where, like the babadook, she has become something of a gay icon.
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, 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 like what you’ve heard, I’d appreciate a review on iTunes. These reviews really help increase the show’s standing and let more people know it exists. 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, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, we’ll be roasting chestnuts on an open fire for our annual holiday special! You’ll learn that soup is the best medicine, that giants are always evil, and that you should never let strange butchers pick you up. Then, in Gods and Monsters, Dwight Schrute will find out if you’re impish or adorable! That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.