Episode 97 – Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 97 Show Notes

Source: Abrahamic Story

This week on MYTH, we’re going to meet the owner of one of the most famous heads of hair. You’ll discover that judging can be very hands-on, that killing a lion is a right of passage for folk heroes, and that not all riddles are good. Then, in Gods and Monsters, two best buddy beasties learn the true meaning of the Safety Dance. 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 97, “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week’s story comes from the shared tradition of the Nevi’im from the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament. Specifically, it comes from the Book of Judges (with additional details in the Talmud), which picks up after the death of Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Isrealites. The version in the Bible and the version in the Talmud differ slightly in the details, so I’ll be mostly sticking to the Talmud version since it is the earlier one. It tells the stories of a series of Jewish leaders known as shoftim, which translates literally to judges (hence the title) although the position was more of a leader or a champion sent by Yahweh to rescue the Jewish people from their enemies and restore justice. The judges described in these stories have more in common with Judge Dredd than with the robed (and wigged if you’re British) figures we think of today. In fact, these leaders were not described as ‘a judge’, saying instead that they ‘judged Israel’ for a number of years.
Long, long ago, there lived a couple from the tribe of Dan (one of the 12 tribes of Israel) named Moanoah and Zealphonis. They grew old together and, although they wanted them very much, they had no children. Still, they loved each other and had made a good life together in the small town of Zorah. One night, an angel appeared before the woman and declared that Zealphonis would soon conceive and give birth to a son who would grow up to save the Jews from the Philistines. Zealphonis went to her husband as soon as the angel had left and told him that she had been visited by a holy man who seemed almost like an angel (though she hadn’t caught the man’s name). Moanoah prayed for the strange figure to return and teach them how to bring up this miracle baby. That afternoon, Zealphonis was out in the fields and saw the strange man again, so she quickly called for her husband. To his credit, he didn’t ask for confirmation of what his wife had already told him, he just wanted to know how to raise a miracle baby.
The stranger explained that this boy would be very special – from birth, he was to be a nazirite and was to remain such for his entire life. The term comes from nazir, which means separate (although the Hebrew letters can also be read as crown, referring to their anointing by their god). Most of the time, this vow was for a set period, often 30 days, and ended with a sin offering (a specific type of sacrifice) at the temple. This child was charged to live this vow for his entire life, which included not drinking any wine or any other grape byproduct (though other alcoholic beverages are cool) and not removing a single hair, which includes cutting, shaving, and even vigorous brushing likely to remove even a strand of hair. They asked the stranger his name and he rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand it even if I told you.” They did offer him a young goat for lunch, but were told to offer it as a sacrifice to Yahweh instead, which they did. The angel ascended to heaven upon the sacrificial flames, further confirming his supernatural identity. Moanoah was understandably freaked the fuck out at this. There are stories of mortals dying after gazing upon the divine (Moses was warned that to look upon the face of Yahweh would be fatal, not unlike poor Semele and Zeus from Episode 72A). Zealphonis kept a cooler head, explaining to her panicky husband that if their god wanted them dead, then they would already be dead. Since their offering had been accepted instead, they were clearly okay.
By now, you may have guessed who the hero of this story is. In due course, Zealphonis did indeed get preggers and give birth to a son, who they named Shimshon, though he’s better known today as Samson. His name derives from the word shemesh, which means ‘sun’ and also from the term shemesh u’magen, which means shield and protector. This is a reference to a Hebrew epithet for Yahweh as a sun and a shield, such that Samson bore a version of his god’s name as a mark of his destined role. The name might also be translated as ‘sun man’ and is meant as foreshadowing of his future role as a figure who embodied the strength of the sun and acted as a shield to his people. In this, he shares a lot of similarities with other folk heroes of the same region, including Enkidu from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (which I do want to cover one day) and our old buddy Heracles from the Greeks as you’ll soon see.
From the days of his youth, it was clear that Samson was indeed destined for great things and displayed incredible physical strength. It was said that he could bear burdens up to 60 cubits wide (or roughly 30 meters, which is freaking huge) and that he could step in one great stride from Zorah to Eshtaol, the hairs on his head clashing like thunder in warning of his approach. It was also said that he could lift a mountain in either hand and rub them together into dust like you or I might a clod of muddy earth. For all his greatness, he retained his humility, never asking another to do anything for him that he was perfectly capable of doing for himself.
One day, the young man was wandering alone in the woods when he heard something rustling quietly in the brush. He turned just in time to see a fucking lion leaping towards him, a bone-chilling roar promising bloody death. Samson was young and completely unarmed and, if he were pretty much anyone else, he’d be fucked. Lucky for him, Samson was a divinely anointed hero and he could feel the strength of Yahweh flowing through him. Roaring his defiance back at the pouncing lion, Samson seized the big kitty in his powerful hands, wrestled it to the ground, and slew it with his bare hands (not unlike the aforementioned Herakles and the Nemean Lion). For the first time, Samson realized that he had been endowed with supernatural strength and, as the Spiderman films are fond of reminding us, with great power comes great responsibility. If he had the power to best a lion with nothing but his fists, then he needed to use that power to take the fight to his people’s enemy – the Philistines. No one else was present when he ripped the lion apart and he decided to keep that particular feat a secret. Samson was actually a relatively humble man.
The name has become a synonym for an uncouth, uncultured barbarian, but the Philistines were an actual group of people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until they were subjugated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and eventually destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire that followed. Most of what we know about them comes from the Tanakh, the collection of Hebrew holy books, but they also appear in the reliefs of the temple of Ramses III of Egypt. At the time this story takes place, the Philistines were a powerful nation who were constantly raiding and pillaging their neighbors, especially the Isrealites who are the subject of and told these stories. They had been especially bold about their deadly raids into Jewish territory for the last few decades, which made them public enemy number one as far as Samson was concerned. He had been granted superhuman strength and endurance for a reason, and that reason was killing Philistines. It’s clobberin’ time.
Now, if I were planning to take on an entire enemy nation, I’d probably want to start by gathering an army. However to paraphrase Iron Man from the Avengers movie, you don’t need any army when you have a Hulk and Samson was definitely someone you didn’t want to make angry. He was much more Professor Hulk from Endgame than Hulk smash from Avengers, and he knew that he needed to be careful about this – if he played this wrong, he could bring down the entire Philistine army on his people’s head, making things much, much worse by trying to make things better. Samson decided to walk a very careful line – he would only engage in personal conflicts with the Philistines, making it very clear that he was acting as a free agent and using his strength to try and intimidate them into thinking twice about raiding into Jewish territory. He was very much a superhuman vigilante, so he began to deliberately wander into Philistine territory looking for trouble.
On one particular day, he found himself in the Philistine village of Timnah with his parents. He met a maiden there and decided to make her his wife. In one version of the story, the incident with the lion happens between the first time Samson met this woman and deciding to meet her. That timeline feels wonky, so I’ve gone with this version instead. His parents were not exactly thrilled with their son, who had been anointed by a fucking angel to save his people from their conquering neighbors, deciding to marry into said conquerers. Samson was nothing if not stubborn, and he did in fact convince everyone to go through with the wedding. If you already know the bare basics of this story, you’re probably already guessing who this mystery woman is – but you’re wrong. Don’t read ahead.
Everyone figured that Samson had just been blinded by love (or at least lust), but he had himself a scheme. Or at least the vague inklings of one. He would just improvise the rest. On the way back to Timnah to marry his Philistine bride, Samson happened past the spot where he had ripped the lion in half. Its carcass was still there, but a swarm of bees had built their hive in the lion’s corpse, which is pretty fucking metal. Not one to pass up a brutal but sweet treat, he scooped out a handful of honey and continued on his way to Timnah. At the wedding feast, he decided to use this knowledge to make a riddle. But, you know, a riddle in the same way that Bilbo Baggins’ famous ‘what do I have in my pockets’ is a riddle. He challenged 30 of his Philistine guests to answer his peculiar question. If they could figure it out, he would give each of them a fancy new suit of clothes; if not, they would owe him 30 suits of clothes amongst them. Here’s his bullshit riddle: “Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet. What is it?”
The Philistine guests understandably requested until the end of the feast, which traditionally lasted seven days, to come up with the answer and, like Gollum in our Hobbit example, they validated that bullshit as a real riddle by agreeing to answer. Figuring that if anyone knew the answer, it would be Sampson’s new bride they demanded that she coax the answer from him. To her credit, she stuck up for her new spouse, even in the face of her kinsmen, and pushed back. Miffed, they demanded that she get the answer and deliver it to them or they would burn down her father’s house claiming that she was helping Samson steal from them. Well that escalated quickly.
Under this blackmail, Samson’s new wife did indeed convince her husband to tell her the answer to his perplexing riddle. Desperate, she threw herself at his feet, claiming that he must not really love her since he hadn’t given her the answer to his riddle. He shrugged, saying that he hadn’t told his parents either so she shouldn’t worry about it. She cried and begged for the next seven days until he finally caved and told her, and then she dutifully passed the information along.
At the end of the seven days, the 30 Philistines came to Samson with their answer. “What is sweeter than honey and what is stronger than a lion?” Recognizing immediately that there was no way they had come up with that answer themselves (because how the fuck could they), he exclaimed “if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle” which is a pretty terrible way to phrase it. Storming out, he vowed vengeance on those cheating assholes. But, like, creative vengeance. He went to the town of Ashkelon about 30 miles away, picked 30 random Philistines, and murdered the shit out of them. He then stripped their corpses and sent their clothes to the 30 wedding guests from Timnah. They had technically won the bet, so Samson technically paid them their winnings.
After his little rampage, Samson returned to Timnah for his wife, bringing her a young goat as a gift, only she wasn’t his wife anymore. While Samson had been out a-murdering, his wife had been remarried to one of the 30 wedding guets (the story is silent on her opinion on the matter). More than a little perturbed by this shocking development, Samson went to confront the man who was recently his father-in-law. Heaping terrible on horrible, the Philistine man said he figured that Samson had hated his wife and so hadn’t thought remarrying her while he was away would be a big deal; in exchange, her father offered the angry now ex-husband his former wife’s younger sister because, you know, women are completely interchangeable objects. Gross.
Samson was justifiably incensed by this terrible, terrible offer and even more so that not a single person in Timnah had raised a protest about any of it. Time for more vengeance. I told you that Samson had a scheme. Well, the rough outline of one. I don’t think he knew exactly how he was going to start this feud when he stumbled across the lion corpse, but he knew he was going to do something. He took his justified anger and blew it out of proportion. The time of the wheat harvest was upon them, so Samson rushed out into the fields and caught 300 foxes. Yeah, it gets worse. He tied the poor beasties by their tails in pairs, bound burning torches to their tails, and turned them loose in the wheat fields, the storage buildings, the vineyards, and the olive tree groves. The terrified foxes tried to flee the flames, setting the crops ablaze in all directions. Samson watched the wheat turn to ash, satisfied that he had achieved a measure of vengeance for himself and for his people.
Enraged, the Philistine leaders demanded to know who had wrought such terrible destruction and soon learned that it was Samson, angry about his wife being married to another man. Samson himself wasn’t near at hand, so the leaders grabbed the next best thing – his former wife and father-in-law – and burned them alive as a cruel form of poetic justice. Some sources say that this was actually an attempt to placate the juggernaut into ending his feud before it got out of hand, figuring that he’d be happy about their violent deaths. Samson, either from genuine anger at this horror or because it played perfectly into his scheming (likely both), vowed undying vengeance on his dead ex-wife’s killers. Storming their village, he went on a rampage, killing many of the Philistine leaders who had ordered and carried out the executions.
Samson had begun to get something of a reputation for his incredible strength and ferocity, which was literally superhuman. He wasn’t just strong, he was imbued with divine power tied to his lifelong vow of the nazarite. This also meant that his strength was indelibly linked to his commitment to Yahweh and that his actions were all divinely inspired – including his short marriage to the Philistine woman (who had likely converted to Judaism before the marriage, given the religious laws of the time). According to the Talmud, the Divine Presence would sound before him like a bell when he was called to some particular action, guiding his steps on his ordained path. Some sources even go so far as to claim that Samson had an unspecified condition in both of his legs that left him struggling to walk except at those times where he was endowed with holy power.
The Philistines gathered a massive army, realizing that Samson was a very serious danger. They marched down to the town of Lehi in Judea where Samson was rumored to be staying. The Jewish citizens were understandably terrified by the sudden arrival of an enemy army large enough to raze the city to the ground. The arrival of a messenger from the Philistines demanding that they hand over Samson to answer for his actions or be slaughtered didn’t make them feel at all better. Some of the frightened Judean men went out to the cave known as the Rock of Etam where Samson was living, which lay not far from their town, and related to him the demands of the very angry army. “Do you realize how bad you’ve made things for us? Did you forget that the Philistines are in charge here?” Samson shrugged nonchalantly. “I just did to them what they did to me. Seems fair from where I’m standing.” “Cool, I love that journey for you, but now they’re going to kill all of us because of what you did unless we hand you over.”
Samson considered this. “That’s valid. The whole point of this is to make things better for my people, not worse. Tell you what – if you promise not to kill me yourselves, I’ll let you tie me up and hand me over to the Philistine army. They’ll leave you alone, and I’ll be right where I want to be. They’ll think I’m trapped with them, but I’ll know that they’re really trapped with me. Deal?” The people of Lehi were relieved that Samson was taking this whole thing so well and readily agreed to his terms. They bound him tightly in two brand-new ropes and carried him out to the assembled army and left him there. The Philistine army, overjoyed to finally have their hated enemy helpless before them, swarmed around him with much cheering and smiling.
With a vicious smile, Samson flexed his mighty muscles and snapped the stout cords binding him like they were made of paper. The Philistines were stunned at this unexpected development, but hell they still had overwhelming numerical superiority right? What could one man do against an army? Glancing around, Samson spotted the broken jawbone of a donkey. Picking it up, the holy warrior launched himself into the army and tore through it like a hot knife through butter. Bloody, screaming butter. By the time it was all said and done, Samson had slaughtered a thousand soldiers with nothing but the jawbone and brute strength. When all of the Philistines were either dead or in terrified flight, Samson tossed his blood-soaked weapon aside and joked that he had used an ass’ bone to make asses of the soldiers. He has a wicked sense of humor. The place thereafter was known as Ramath Lehi, which means Jawbone Hill in Hebrew. The assembled Judeans, beholding this miraculous and awe-inspiring victory, agreed that this man was truly touched by Yahweh and appointed him as judge, a position he would hold for 20 years (although it was never more than an informal position).
During those two decades, Samson continued to ravage the occupying Philistine army. At some point, Samson found his way to the city of Gaza where he saw a particularly beautiful prostitute. Gaza was one of the major Philistine cities at the time, with thick walls barred with strong gates. He was a folk hero and well-known leader of Judea by this point, so the people recognized him like the celebrity he was. An armed militia formed to take on Samson, but tales of his feats of destruction were widespread by now and they weren’t about to take him on in a standup fight. Instead, they closed and barred the gates from the outside, intending to trap Samson inside the city and kill him in the morning when he tried to leave. Catching word of the enemy camped outside in ambush, he rose at midnight, lifted the massive gates off their hinges, heavy bars and all, and carried them away with him out into the night, thus leaving the city less protected from attack and escaping his pursuers at the same time. The gates were planted atop the hill that faces Hebron, where they remained.
Since his ex-wife had been married to someone else and then politically murdered, Samson was single and ready to mingle. He met a woman in the Valley of Sorek and yes, it’s finally time for us to meet the famous Delilah. Like his previous wife, she was a Philistine who had converted to Judaism in order to marry the super strong holy warrior. The tales are silent on the subject, but I have to wonder if she’d had a say in the marriage. If she’d been treated like property the way that the nameless woman from Timnah was, it would go a long way towards explaining what happens next.
It didn’t take long for the Philistine leaders to learn about Samson’s marriage to one of their own. They approached her in secret while her husband was away doing hero shit and offered her eleven hundred shekels from each of the leaders if she would discover the secret to Samson’s great strength. He’d had two decades to make himself a real threat to the occupying Philistines and they were willing to pay ridiculous amounts to find his kryptonite. Delilah agreed to these generous terms.
She began to weedle her husband, trying to sweet talk him into revealing his secret. Each and every day, she would try to convince him to tell her. It took time, but she eventually wore him down and he sighed. “If you really want to know so bad, I’ll tell you. All you have to do is tie me up with seven fresh, raw bowstrings and I’ll lose all my strength, become just like any other man.” Proud of herself for having solved it but also nobody’s fool, Delilah decided to test this one weird trick. She went to the Philistine leaders and told them what she had learned before returning to try it with armed men hiding in the closets. She waited until he fell asleep, brought out the seven undried bowstrings she had been given, and tied up her unconscious husband. “Samson, wake up! The Philistines are coming for you!”
Awaking instantly, Samson leapt to his feet, easily snapping the wet ropes (which were obviously not the real secret). The armed men stayed hidden, not wanting to try and fight him in any kind of fair way. Seeing the broken ropes around him, Samson…did absolutely nothing. Maybe he was into some kinky shit, maybe he was extremely gullible, or maybe he was simply following his divine guidance, but he just kind of ignored the whole ‘being tied up while sleeping’ thing. Since Samson didn’t seem to suspect anything, Delilah kept trying to get the real secret out of him. He held out for a while each time and then would break down and tell her some new bullshit. You had to weave his seven braids on a loom and tighten it with a pin. You had to use brand new ropes that had never been tested or used. Each time he presented some new supposed secret, Delilah would call the armed men to hide out and tie Samson up while he was sleeping. Each time, he woke to her call and easily snapped the binding cords like they weren’t even there.
Realizing that playful wheedling wasn’t getting the job done, Delilah changed tactics. She went to her husband in tears looking as pitiful as she could, which was pretty damned pitiful. “How can you say you love me when you don’t even trust me? You’ve lied to me three times about your great strength, mocking me and our marriage. Why can I not share your life?” Samson was strong enough to withstand an entire army, but his tearful wife was too much for his resolve. With a deep sigh, he finally told her the truth about his nazirite vow. “No razor has ever touched my head as I have been a nazirite from the day I was born. Were I to be shaved, I would lose my strength and be like any other man.”
Something in his voice told Delilah that, this time, he was actually telling her the truth. She sent word to the Philistine leaders that she was sure she had the secret this time and to bring her payment with them. Thrilled to finally have Samson at their mercy, the leaders came with all of the promised silver as well as the usual armed men. Bidding her husband to lay down with his head in her lap, Delilah soothed Samson to sleep, smoothing his hair and singing softly. When he was out, she called in one of the men (or a servant) to shave his hair while she kept him soothed and asleep. Once his head was completely shaven, the men backed up and Delilah called out once again that the Philistines had come for him. As before, he leapt to his feet to defend himself and, unlike the three previous times, he actually needed to. Unfortunately, he really had told his treacherous wife the secret. His vow was broken and so his divine strength was gone. Without it, Samson was still one hell of a fighter, but he never had a chance against so many. They beat him bloody until he could no longer fight back, and then they gouged out his eyes in punishment for all the bloody mischief he’d caused them over the last two decades (as well as for looking so lustfully at so many Philistine women over the years).
Bound in heavy bronze chains, the soldiers marched their captured foe down to Gaza to answer for his crimes. As a further indignity, they set Samson to pushing a massive millstone to grind up grain, an exhausting drudgery ill-suited for a soldier. The Philistines meanwhile couldn’t have been happier. They threw a massive feast in the temple to celebrate their great victory over the most-feared fighter for many miles, a man who had been a bloody thorn in their sides for 20 years. They offered a great sacrifice to their god Dagan, an ancient Mesopotamian god of fertility and prosperity similar in power and position to Enlil or Marduk, who we’ve met before. The celebration grew bigger and wilder and they sang songs of joy that their personal boogeyman had finally been brought low and delivered into their hands by the power of their god. Eventually, someone decided to bring out the guest of honor, and the blinded Samson was trotted out of the prison to entertain the assembled guests. And by entertain, I mean suffer their insults, cruel jokes, and physical torment.
Word of the celebration and of the great Samson’s capture had spread throughout the city of Gaza. Everyone came by to see for themselves, filling the great temple to capacity and then beyond, even climbing up onto the roof for a better view. Samson was understandably furious at his treatment but also utterly unable to do anything about it. An idea occurred to him. Maybe there was still something he could do. He turned to the serving boy who had been assigned to guide him (it wouldn’t do for Samson to kill himself before they were done torturing him, either by accident or design) and asked for a small favor. “Could you lead me to the pillars holding up the roof of this great hall? I’m tired from grinding grain all day and from everything happening to me here tonight and I just need to rest for a moment. Please, I just want to lean against them for a few moments to catch my breath.”
The serving boy saw no reason not to do as he was asked and led Samson over to the huge pillars at the center of the temple. They had to push through the crowd to get there, some 3000 people in total, including all of the leaders of the Philistines. Afire with pain and righteous fury, Samson prayed to his god. “Lend me your strength just one more time. Let me avenge my cruel treatment on my captors and prove that you are stronger than their Dagon. I don’t care if I must die here with them, as long as I get this last chance to smash.” As he finished, he felt that old power flow through his veins once more renewing and revitalizing him. Standing between the two pillars, he placed one hand on each and gave them both a mighty shove. Solid stone cracked into powder beneath his hands and the two pillars came crashing down, bringing the roof with them in a thunderous explosion of rubble.
When the dust had settled, the entire building had collapsed, killing every last soul who had been inside, including Samson himself. In his last impossible act, he killed more of his hated enemy than he had throughout all of his guerilla campaigns and clever schemes through his entire life. When word spread of what had happened, Samson’s brothers and his whole extended family came to dig his body out of the ruin (where it had miraculously avoided being crushed to a pulp) and bring it home to be buried in the land of his people. And with his last act of destruction, Samson managed to not only get his vengeance, but to decapitate the leadership of the Philistines in the process. He had served as judge for 20 years, but his influence was felt across the land for another 20, his sacrifice shielding his homeland from beyond his own death. And with the great judge laid to rest, 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 dynamic duo is a donkey and a camel.
This story comes once again from the Jewish Folktales collection from Pinhas Sadeh. Once upon a time, there was a small village like any other. In this small village, there lived a donkey and a camel and, like all the best online videos, these two animals were friends. They both worked for the same farmer, who drove them mercilessly from sunup to sundown day after day. As anyone would, these two grew sick of this endless rise and grind bullshit and they began to plot together. Why should they break their backs for an ungrateful farmer who seemed to reap all the rewards? All they ever got for their misery was water and a little bit of hay. How was that fair? They decided they’d have much better lives on their own and be much happier to boot.
They soon saw their chance and they bolted out of the fields to freedom, losing the farmer in a nearby forest. In a lot of stories, that could spell trouble in and of itself, but this turned out to be a very nice forest, peaceful and full of food for an enterprising camel and donkey pair. They lived happy lives and grew fat on the easy food. It was nice.
One day, a caravan of travelers made its way through the forest trails. Their pack animals wore harnesses with lots of little bells that tinkled merrily as they plodded along. The camel heard them coming and shushed his good friend the donkey. “Keep it down, bud! If they hear us, they’ll want to catch us and add us to their caravan and that will be the end of the good life for us! Whatever you do, don’t make a sound.”
The donkey pranced nervously in place, eyes bulging slightly. “Ooh, I can’t help it, pal! The music of those bells is so damned beautiful, it just makes me want to sing.” He tried to hold his lips closed, but he had the music in him and it needed to get out. Laying back his ears, the donkey brayed long and loud. The traders had absolutely no trouble hearing something that loud and they came to investigate. The camel and the donkey tried to flee to safety, but their years of easy living had caught up with them and they were too slow. They threw ropes around both of the animals’ necks and pulled them into the caravan. Since they now had two new pack animals, the travelers took some of their supplies from the other camels and donkeys and loaded them up on the newcomers. Being, well, a stubborn ass, the donkey dug in his heels and refused to move until they took all of that shit off him. Shrugging, they put it on the camel instead and drove them along the trail.
Camel was understandably furious about this fucking terrible arrangement. He’d had exactly the life he wanted and if that asshole had just kept his big fucking mouth shut, he’d still have it. To make it even worse, the camel was now having to pick up the donkey’s slack when it was his fault they were in this mess. He hated it. They walked like this for a long time with the camel refusing to speak to his now-former friend the donkey. Eventually, the path left the forest and came to a bridge over a swift-flowing river. With a wicked gleam in his eye, the camel looked over at the donkey. “You know what, donkey? You were right about those bells. The music really is infectious and it makes me want to dance.” The donkey looked around nervously. “Uh, right now, pal? We’re kind of in the middle of a freaking bridge right now. Is this really the best place to dance?”
The camel glared at the donkey. “Was back there really the best place to sing? You didn’t care about me then, so I don’t care about you now. I can dance if I want to. I can leave you far behind because donkeys don’t dance and since you don’t dance then you’re no friend of mine!” So saying, the camel kicked his powerful legs into the air in a wild dance, knocking the terrified donkey right over the edge of the bridge and into the rushing water below. The story doesn’t say whether the donkey survived that fall, so pick the ending that feels best to you.
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, we’ll mount a horse and ride for merry old England for the origin story of one of the most famous wizards ever. You’ll see that Merlin was a real bastard, that giants build the best monuments, and that dragons make for good prophecy but bad construction. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll meet the guy you can blame for the British. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.