Episode 116 – Dreams and Omens – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 116 Show Notes

Source: Jewish Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re going to get into the weird world of dream interpretation. You’ll discover why you shouldn’t eat corpse candy, why you shouldn’t murder magic birds, and why you shouldn’t send demons to live with relatives. Then, in Gods and Monsters, Death is coming to ruin a wedding. 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 116, “Dreams and Omens”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week’s story again comes to us from the Jewish Folktales collection by Pinhas Sadeh. Once upon a time, long ago, a Muslim man was making the pilgrimage to Mecca. This isn’t terribly important to the story beyond explaining why he was on the road and that we’re at a point in history where the local kings would have been Muslim. Anywho. The journey there was uneventful though fulfilling but, on the way back, the man encountered a human skull lying in the middle of the road. There was something odd about it and looking closer, he saw that something had been inscribed in the skull’s forehead: ‘No peace shall I have until I kill forty.’ It was an odd sight and it made the man laugh. In a burst of mirth and contempt for this not-at-all scary threat from a bleached skull, he gave the thing a kick into the desert. Something fell out as the skull sailed off. Curious, the man picked it up and was surprised to find a piece of candy. Shrugging, he put it in his pocket and continued on his way home. He didn’t want to just throw it away, but he wasn’t about to eat random candy that fell of a human skull either.
When he finally reached his house again, he was tired and sweaty and his clothes were coated in the dust of the road. He stripped and left the dirty outfit in a pile for his daughter to wash while he went and cleaned himself off. His daughter soon followed behind to wash up and, being diligent, she went through all of the pockets first so that nothing got ruined in the process. She found the piece of candy in her father’s pocket and assumed that he had meant it to be a present for her, so she swallowed it down without giving it much thought. Surely something good will happen by eating the candy that dropped as loot from a cursed skull, right?
Yeah, right. The daughter became immediately pregnant, which was strange as she was very much a virgin. The baby grew faster than anyone had ever seen and, when the child was born, he was walking about and talking almost immediately. Clearly something supernatural was at work, and the boy’s grandfather was very afraid of what he had set in motion. Maybe desecrating a corpse for no reason wasn’t a good idea. People quickly realized that this baby boy was clearly a demon made flesh. They lived in a fairly large town and the family realized that soon everyone would know about this terrible problem bringing shame on the family. Clearly, the boy couldn’t be raised at home, so they sent him off to live with an uncle out in the country. “Our uncle is a peasant living way out in the middle of nowhere,” they said to themselves. “The demon will have to labor in the fields, working hard all day every day and there will be no one around to gossip and whisper about him.
And so they did. The boy lived with his uncle and worked in the fields with him. They soon learned that the demon child could also tell the future, which was only a little surprising – who knew what other kinds of demonic powers the child might develop as he grew? On one particular day, the king’s vizier happened to ride by the small farm of the uncle and the demon boy. The noble’s donkey carried two saddlebags, which was pretty common. The boy saw this one-man procession going by, and he called out to him “Hey rich dude – you want me to tell you what’s in your saddlebags?” Without waiting for a response, he answered his own question. “One’s full of gold and the other’s stuffed with diamonds.”
The vizier was understandably amazed about this perfectly correct guess. There was nothing visible that would have clued the boy into the bags’ contents, and those were not exactly the most common things for a donkey’s saddlebags to hold so it seemed like more than a lucky guess (because, as we know, it was actually demon magic). He wasn’t done yet though. “I can do you one better, rich dude. You’re headed to the king’s palace to finish decorating the main gate. Too bad that the harder you try to please him, the more you piss him off. That sucks, bro.” The vizier stopped his donkey and turned back to speak with this incredible young boy who knew things he couldn’t possibly know. The vizier had indeed been struggling with the king’s constant displeasure no matter how hard he worked to satisfy his royal desires.
“You know much, my boy. Do you also know how I should decorate the king’s gate to actually satisfy him?” The boy grinned impishly. “Shit yeah, that’s easy. All you need to know is what’s buried beneath the gate. If you dig down seven fathoms (or 42 feet), you’ll find seven chests of gold inlaid with precious stones. Dig those up and use them to decorate the gate, and the king will finally be impressed with your work.” Figuring he had nothing to lose, the vizier rushed back to the palace and dug beneath the gate. Sure enough, the seven chests were waiting exactly where the boy had said and, when he used them to bedazzle the gate, the king was thrilled with the result.
Duly impressed, the vizier couldn’t help but think that the boy’s talents were wasted on a farm in the middle of fucking nowhere. “This boy knows more than anyone else I’ve ever met, maybe more than anyone else in the world. Such a prophet should be at my side to advise the king.” Thus resolved, he returned to the farm and promptly bought the boy from his uncle (which the uncle probably didn’t actually have the right to do, but his family wasn’t about to complain about losing the demon child). The uncle was super thrilled to not only be rid of the demon but to have made a profit in the process.
Now as you might have guessed, the royal vizier who bought a child as his personal Magic 8 ball is a pretty evil fucker. No sooner had he settled back in the palace with his wunderkind than he began to worry about being replaced. “What will the king do if he finds out there’s someone wiser than me right under his nose? Shit, he might very well hang me and appoint the boy as my replacement. Can’t let that happen, now can we?” Thus did the vizier call for his daughter “I need you to do something for me, daughter. You know that boy I just brought home? Slit his throat, butcher his flesh and serve it for dinner with his blood in a cup as my wine.” Totally used to her evil ass father being a total bastard, she agreed without hesitation.
Of course, there was one little hitch in this murder plot: the demon boy who knows everything knew what the vizier was planning. Really should have seen that one coming. As she approached with the knife, he put on his best wide-eyed innocent look, lip quivering. “But miss, why would you want to kill a little bitty child? Do you really want to be a murderer because your father told you to? If you serve him mutton with the sheep’s blood in his cup, he’ll never know the difference and you can keep your hands clean. So to speak. They’ll still have sheep blood on them, I guess, but who cares right?” The daughter considered the boy’s words and decided that she wasn’t really interested in slaughtering a child for a cannibalistic feast, so she took his advice.
That night, the king had a very strange dream. In it, forty crows swooped down out of the sky to harass and attack him, pecking and clawing at his vulnerable flesh. They swirled around him, flapping and cawing until the king was utterly confused and overwhelmed, lying in a cowering heap as the crows ripped him to shreds. He awoke in a cold sweat in the morning, certain that this had been no ordinary nightmare. This had been a portentous dream, perhaps a prophecy of some sort. He summoned his advisers and wise men and, telling them of his dream, demanded that they interpret it for him. None of them could make heads nor tails of the dream’s meaning.
“This is completely unacceptable! I pay you to be wise men, so make with the wisdom already! You’ve got 15 days to figure out what it means, or I’ll hang each and every one of you. Chop chop!” The vizier, who was naturally enough one of the summoned advisers, returned home shaking with fear. He had no idea what the dream meant and his obedient daughter had just killed the only person he knew who could have told him. He sat down to dinner and was served what, as far as he knew, was the flesh of the dead child with his blood in a wine glass. Being an evil asshole, he couldn’t take responsibility for his own bad decision. “Why the hell did you kill that boy? I needed him!”
His daughter eyed him, afraid and confused by this sudden change of heart. “Um, actually I didn’t kill him. He’s still alive.” The vizier needed the boy badly enough that he wasn’t even angry that his daughter had disobeyed a direct order. “That’s fantastic news!” The boy stepped out of the shadows with a wide smile. “Fantastic news indeed. I can indeed interpret the king’s dream for you.” “Fuck yes! So tell me – what does it mean?” The boy wagged his finger. “Nuh uh uh. I’ll tell you, but not until the end of the allotted 15 days and then only in the presence of the king.” The vizier hated being defied but the boy had him over a barrel so he had no choice but to agree to the terms.
The days passed uneasily with the vizier sweating each and every one. On the 15th day, the vizier brough the demon boy before the king. “Your Majesty, I understand you have a dream that you wish to be interpreted. But I ask you – which dream? Your own? Your father’s? Your grandfather’s?” The king was baffled by this strange, smiling boy and his unsettling words. “Uh, my grandfather’s I guess.” “Once, when your grandfather was walking in the desert with his favorite dove sitting on his shoulder, he grew quite thirsty. Looking for water to slake his thirst, he spied a tall cliff with a thin stream of water trickling down it.
“Reaching into his pocket, your grandfather pulled out his cup and tried to fill it with the thin trickle. It was about a quarter full when the dove flapped its wings and knocked it from his hands, spilling every last precious drop. Annoyed, your grandfather picked up the cup and tried again but yet again the dove knocked the cup away when it was a quarter full. A third time, your grandfather repeated this process and, after the dove spilled his water again, he ripped it to bloody shreds with his bare hands, killing it. Turning to his vizier, he told his servant to climb the cliff and fill his cup from the spring that must surely be at the top. The obedient vizier did so and was surprised to find an enormous serpent instead, fangs dripping a venom that sizzled on the rock as it fell in huge, ghastly drops. Your grandfather was ashamed of his earlier behavior and laid the dead dove to rest in a golden casket and placed it inside seven silver boxes before burying it all deep in the earth, where it remains to this day.”
The confused king ordered the ground dug up in the place the boy indicated and found the seven silver boxes containing the golden casket of the dead dove as promised. This was supposed to be a dream, so I’m not sure how the boxes are real. The story doesn’t explain where the line between dream and reality is. Amazed, the king went away with his newfound discovery. That night, he dreamed again of the forty crows surrounding and attacking him, leaving him in a huddled, cowering heap. Awaking in the morning in another cold sweat, the king called immediately for the demon boy.
“Good morning, Your Majesty. Whose dream do you want interpreted?” “My father’s, I think.” The boy nodded with another wide smile. “Once, your father gave a banquet for all of the kings of the neighboring lands. Your father had himself a wondrous black bird, an enormous beast that never left his side. All through the banquet, the mighty bird stood by his chair and ate from the royal plate. As kings are wont to do when they get together, they each began to boast of the great treasures each had amassed.
“The first claimed to have some great bauble and the next would claim to have double that, and the third would claim to have seven times as much as the second, and so on and so forth. When all of them had made their claim, your father simply gestured to his great black bird and said that there was nothing that could match its wondrous beauty and power. The other kings all agreed that it was a very pretty bird but it had better be able to do something incredible for anyone to believe the king’s boast that it was better than every other king’s treasure. The king nodded and told the bird to fly away and bring him back something special.
“The bird flapped its massive wings and soared off, returning shortly with a stick in its beak. The assembled kings laughed at this obvious failure, shaming your father so greatly that he flew into a rage and strangled his beloved bird. The worthless stick, he tossed aside. No sooner did it touch the ground than a huge apple tree suddenly sprouted and bloomed on the spot. The kings all agreed that this was truly a wonder – in all their lives, they had never seen such a potent magical object. Your father was so greatly aggrieved by his terrible mistake that he had the black bird’s body placed in a golden casket and had that placed inside seven silver boxes and then had all of them buried in the earth. They are still there to this day.”
The astonished king ordered the ground dug up where the boy had indicated. Again, the series of boxes with the corpse of the bird were found right were promised. Beside himself with wonder and admiration for the boy’s incredible knowledge, the king thanked the boy and left. That night, the king had the crow dream for the third time. When he awoke, he once again called for the wise boy’s help. “Whose dream would you like this time, Your Majesty? Your grandfather’s, your father’s or your own?” “My own this time.” The boy nodded. “As you wish. Know then that the thirty-nine crows are the thirty-nine slaves in your household who the queen brings to her bedchamber to fuck in secret. The fortieth is the one who knows this secret and has kept it from you.”
The king was enraged at this news, which should come as no surprise. Furious, unthinking anger seems to be something of a family tradition based on those stories. “Bring those motherfuckers to me right this fucking instant! I will behead each and every one of them on the spot for daring to fuck my royal wife!” Nodding, the demon boy reached out a hand towards absolutely nothing. He made a fist, seizing a handful of empty air and then yanked. As he did, a man appeared from nowhere, hair gripped by the child’s hand. Confused and terrified, the man (who was indeed one of the king’s slaves) was forced to his knees and, with one swift motion, the king chopped his head off with a sword.
One by one, the boy conjured up all 39 slaves and one by one, the king beheaded them as fast as they appeared. He didn’t give them so much as an instant to realize what was happening, let alone to attempt to defend themselves or plead for mercy. This is pretty brutal and not really justice. First, the king is taking only the word of one magical child (although the story does indicate that everything he says is absolutely true, so it’s unlikely that any of these men were a case of mistaken identity). Second (and more importantly), all of these men are slaves, so I doubt they had much autonomy to turn down the queen’s advances regardless of their own feelings. She could have them executed for refusing her demands just as easily, putting them in an impossible situation. Of course, we already know that the king is a pretty shitty guy, so his immediate leap to furious violence isn’t really surprising and this whole gruesome scene serves to emphasize that point with a bloody exclamation point.
Finally, 39 men lay dead on the ground, their blood turning the king’s chamber into a charnel house. Panting, the king looked down at the little child who had interpreted his dream. “Where’s number 40?” “Your Majesty, can you not find some pity in your heart for this last person? There has already been so much bloodshed today and all of those who cuckolded you lie dead. Can you not show mercy to someone whose only crime was knowing a secret? If you cannot, hear my warning that you will live to regret it as did your father and your grandfather before you.” The king was, as I mentioned, a total dick and mercy was simply not in the cards. “Abso-fucking-lutely not. There will be no mercy and no pity! Having knowledge of a crime, knowing that someone is fucking my fucking wife, and not reporting it makes that man every bit as wicked and guilty as the corpses at my feet. Make him appear and I will send him to join his fellows in hell!”
Nodding solemnly, the boy reached out his hand once more. Snarling, the king raised his gore-drenched sword above his head. With a jerk, the boy snatched the fortieth crow from the air to appear before the king’s already whistling sword. Glinting metal met flesh as the boy himself appeared at the king’s feet and dropped dead beside the 39 slaves. And thus did the skull’s proclamation come to pass – the demon was done only after 40 souls lay dead.
And that’s the story. For all that his family kept being terrified that the demon child was going to cause all kinds of problems, he proved to be a pretty competent advisor. His words were always true and it’s not his fault if the adults in the room didn’t always ask the right questions. He had to have known exactly how this was going to go down when he forced the vizier to bring him along to interpret the king’s dream in person, but I don’t know if that decision was an impish trick to show the king the error of his ways or a merciful way to save the vizier from the king’s wrath. Maybe it’s both. He told the king two maybe-true but definitely informative stories about his predecessors destroying creatures that were precious to them because they were impatient and angry, which should have been a tip-off to the king, especially when the boy straight up asked the king to show mercy and warned him obliquely what the cost would be.
And so with the king probably regretting his rashness and wrath now that he has no magical demon advisor (and maybe buying some silver boxes for a gold casket), 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 wedding crasher is the Angel of Death.
This story also comes from the Jewish Folklore collection (which has so many very cool stories I’ve never seen in any other book). Long, long, long ago, there lived a very rich man who was very kind and very learned – a virtuous scholar. As is so often the case in these kinds of stories, this man had a daughter who everyone agreed was as kind and good as she was beautiful (and she was a real smokeshow). It came as a surprise to no one when her father found a suitable husband and the two were wed but joy soon turned to sorrow as the poor groom dropped dead on the wedding night, leaving the poor girl a widow by morning. Three times the girl was wed, and three times her husband was dead of completely natural causes by morning.
From the outside, this looks suspicious as hell and anyone would be justified in thinking this young woman might be a serial killer, but this is a folktale and she really is just cursed with absolutely terrible luck. After being widowed for the third time, the poor thing was absolutely wrecked with grief and depression and felt guilty as hell. She hadn’t done anything wrong but she was clearly cursed somehow and so she declared that she would never marry again. She simply couldn’t stand the thought of opening her heart to another kind young man only for him to shuffle off this mortal coil by morning. “I will remain a widow until God has pity on me – for the rest of my life if need be.” And so she spent her days in mourning, sitting around her father’s house waiting for some sign that the curse had been broken and God had taken pity on her.
Now it just so happened that the rich scholar had a brother living in another city who was not nearly so well off. It didn’t help matters that he had ten sons to raise. He didn’t have the same knack for scholarship that his brother had and so he made a living by going into the nearby forest and chopping wood to sell in the city. As his boys grew older, they went out with him to cut and sell wood but it was a hard job and not terribly well paying. If they weren’t able to sell wood on a given day, then they had no money to buy bread and they simply didn’t eat that day.
On one such luckless day, the eldest son looked at his nine starving brothers and wept at the wretchedness of their abject poverty. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing, so he asked his mother and father for permission to journey to see his rich uncle. It was a long journey, so the two brothers didn’t see each other very often and the boy’s parents were happy to arrange such a trip. When their letters reached the rich scholar, he and his wife were also thrilled at the prospect of seeing their nephew.
The story doesn’t explain why the rich brother wasn’t helping out the poor brother, but my guess is pride. The story is very clear that the rich scholar is kind and generous and I imagine he would be perfectly willing to help his brother out if he asked but is also wise enough to realize that the poor woodcutter’s pride would be wrecked at having to accept charity and so he doesn’t push the issue. They welcomed their nephew into their home with open arms, happy to have him living with them.
The young man had lived with his aunt and uncle for seven days when he reached a decision and asked to speak with his uncle in private. “Uncle, I have a favor to ask of you and I’m begging you not to refuse me this request.” The scholar smiled at his beloved nephew. “Of course, anything you wish, my boy!” “I’m glad you agreed so easily. Uncle, I wish to marry your daughter.” As a reminder, the thrice-widowed young woman is his cousin, so I’m not super duper in favor of this plan but this sort of thing was more common back in the day. The older man began to weep at this request which, as so many did in these old stories, he had made the mistake of agreeing to without hearing the request first. “My boy, I beg of you not to ask this of me. Haven’t you heard that all of her husbands die on their wedding night?”
The young man nodded, face set in a determined expression. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” “But why? If it’s her dowry you’re after, I’ll happily just give you the money! You’re family and what’s more, you’re a good, kind, intelligent young man – I’d be happy to give you all the gold and silver you could ever desire. There’s no need to take this kind of chance!” But the young man refused to be dissuaded. “I’ve made up my mind, uncle. I want to marry your daughter.”
He spent a bit longer trying to convince his nephew to change his mind and take back the promise, but eventually he realized that there was no changing his mind so he went to speak with his daughter. She too wept when she heard the news that she was to be wed a fourth time but she agreed to the marriage all the same. When her father had left, she fell to her knees and prayed. “Lord of the heavens, if someone has to die on my wedding night this time, please let it be my soul you take and not his! Spare this innocent boy!”
A lot less pomp and circumstance goes into a fourth marriage, especially when everyone’s expecting to have a funeral the next day so the planning didn’t take long. The rich scholar threw a great feast for everyone who was anyone in the town. As everyone was setting up, the young man found himself seated alone beneath the chuppah, or the bridal canopy. An old man he didn’t recognize came up to speak with him and, according to the story, it was none other than the Torah and Old Testament prophet Elijah come to see him. “Lovely wedding, my boy. Care for some advice from an old man?” The boy nodded. “Good, good. Listen carefully. When you sit down to eat dinner, you’re going to be approached by a haggard looking beggar, walking barefoot and clad in threadbare black rags with wild hair like spikes.” Which makes him sound a bit like a Final Fantasy protagonist. “As soon as you see him, stand up and give him the seat of honor beside you. Then you need to wait on him hand and foot, serving him all the choicest food and drink from the feast. Did you get all of that?” The young man said that he understood and would do all the old man had advised. Elijah blessed the groom, then wandered back to his place in the crowd and was lost to sight.
When the feast was ready, everyone sat down at the table to eat and, sure enough, a barefoot beggar in black rags appeared in the doorway. The young man immediately leapt to his feet and offered the haggard beggar the place of honor at the feast. He fetched anything and everything the poor man wanted, leaping to obey his smallest wish. When the banquet was over, the bride and groom retired to their separate bridal rooms for a nerve-filled night of looming death. The beggar followed, looming menacingly. “My son, your death is at hand. I am here to take your life at the Lord’s bidding.” The young man dropped to his knees. “Please, spare me! At least give me one more year or even just six months – there’s so much I haven’t done and I just got married.” The beggar, who was now revealed as the Angel of Death, shook his head solemnly. “I cannot.”
“A month then. No? The week of the wedding feast at least!” Death shook his head. “Your time is up; your life is over. I can give you no grace. I am sorry.” The young man bowed his head and wept. “I understand. Can I at least have time to say goodbye to my wife? She deserves that much surely.” The Angel considered and then nodded slowly. “This much I can manage. You were kind to me when I was a stranger, so I will do you a kindness in return. Say goodbye to your wife, but be quick. Death waits for no man.” The groom trod mournfully to his new wife and soon-to-be-widow’s room to say goodbye.
He found her alone, sitting by the window and weeping. He called to her from outside the closed door and she rushed to open it, throwing her arms around him and kissing him deeply. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be dead by now!” He kissed her back and then held her at arm’s length. “I’m afraid I only have a few minutes. The Angel of Death is waiting in my room and says the hour of my doom is at hand. He gave me only enough time to say goodbye to you and then he’s taking my soul away.” The young bride’s eyes flashed with anger and fierce determination. “The fuck he is! Stay here and do NOT leave this room. I’m gonna give Death a piece of my mind.”
She stormed into her husband’s room to find Death waiting. “So you’re the Angel of Death huh? Come for another of my husbands?” “I am.” “You are NOT killing my husband, not today. It is written in the Torah that ‘when a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, and neither shall he be sent away to do any business; for one year, he shall be free to stay with his wife and make her happy, as he has agreed.’ The Lord above is good and His Law is unbreakable, but if you take my husband’s soul away on his wedding night, you will make a liar of the Law. You don’t want to make God a liar, do you? If my word isn’t good enough, we can go get a council of rabbis to debate the point and render a judgment.”
History shows that rabbis love to debate the finer points of the Torah – just look at the examples of the Shabbos dragon or the kaiju plague of frogs to see what I mean. The Angel of Death knew this and considered the young bride’s argument. “You make a strong case, mortal, and your husband was kind to me as few ever are. I cannot spare your husband’s life but I can go and ask my manager. I will bring your case to the Lord and see if I can convince him.” And so the Angel vanished in a quiet rustle of wings only to return mere heartbeats later with the verdict: the woman’s husband would be spared.
The scholar and his wife spent that entire night awake and brooding. They were terrified that not only would their daughter be devastated by another dead husband, they would simultaneously be losing their beloved nephew! It’s unsurprising that they spent a sleepless night pacing and worrying. At midnight, they could stand it no longer and went to dig a grave for their nephew who was surely dead. They wanted it to be ready at dawn so they wouldn’t have to deal with this while also grieving themselves and comforting a depressed daughter. As they left however, they heard sounds of merriment and enthusiastic sex coming from the couple. They spied on them only long enough to verify that their new son-in-law had survived his wedding night and was apparently a very giving lover. And thus was the curse ended by a kind hearted groom and a clever and determined bride.
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, on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod, and on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. 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.
I recently did a guest spot on the fantastic movie podcast Wait, You Haven’t Seen? with the one and only TV’s Travis. There are a lot of movies I haven’t seen including 1993’s The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. It was a lot of fun and definitely something you should check out at TVsTravis.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Next time, we’re going to meet one of those extra famous characters from classic folklore – Jack the Giant-Killer. You’ll discover that Jack lived in King Arthur’s England, that giants were apparently annoyingly common, and that you can make a real mess with enough porridge. Then in Gods and Monsters, all play and no work makes Jack a thieving creep. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.