Chris and Simon wing it through the strange world of feather folklore — from cursed peacock plumes to pillows that prevent the dying from slipping away. Do feather crowns signal a heavenly reward or a witch’s curse? Simon’s disturbed by beds hiding feather rats and spectral bouquets; Chris dares to suggest a rational explanation. There's a detour into swan-lined pits, angel relics, deer hunting and the suspiciously decorative world of Victorian featherwork. Listener beware: this one might leave you checking your pillow twice.

Simon and Chris dive into a rare cryptid case from Orkney where hundreds of witnesses saw a 'mermaid' swimming in the sea, sitting on a rock, snacking on fish and eels, and tending to her child. Stories of the mermaid went viral in the press. What in the watery world was the creature? Manatee, mutant seal, giant otter or, say it quietly, an actual mermaid? And why, after several years of summer visits to the bay at Deerness, did it vanish from the papers and from history? The duo trade notes about favorite cryptids. Chris goes off on a tangent about giant pink lizards, monsters in the nineteenth-century press and an escaped iguana, and she and Simon nearly come to blows over Cannock Chase and the supernatural/natural nature of unknown creatures.

The source book for the episode is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deerness-Mermaid-Attested-Nineteenth-Century-Cryptid/dp/1915574404/ref

Chris and Simon lift the stone on a nest of ancient terrors, with bosom serpents, snakes on tombs and in graves, helpful household ophidians, and the medicinal horrors of Asclepius’s temple. ('It did what to you?!') Simon tells of his own blood-chilling encounter with a poisonous hisser, while fake snake women, flying serpents, and the perils of vino alla vipera slither revoltingly into the podcast. The duo bicker over cryptozoological creatures’ credibility and ask whether a snake can suckle on a breast or udder: the lap vs suck debate. Also fairies and snakes? Prepare to be amazed amid the Sicilian rosemary.

Some biblio:

Boss snakes : stories and sightings of giant snakes in North America, Chad Arment

The bosom serpent : folklore and popular art, Harold Schechter

Towards a Critical Anthology of Pre-Modern Bosom Serpent Folklore, Davide Ermacora, Roberto Labanti, Andrea Marcon

Big Snake The Hunt for the World’s Longest Python, Robert Twigger.

https://richlandcountyhistory.com/2019/05/08/the-great-serpent-of-lexington/ [this needs to go up as a separate post on the page - wonderful story!]

http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/creature-feature-the-mexican-mine-monster/

Superfluous snakes – snake showers http://hauntedohiobooks.com/interesting-people/11830/

A Woman-Eating Serpent: Hissssteria over Snakes

http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/woman-eating-serpent-hissssteria-snakes/

https://www.the-daily-record.com/story/news/2012/08/19/when-wayne-was-whippersnapper-rogues/19462591007/

SNAIX: Vintage Snake Tales http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/snaix-vintage-snake-tales/

For a superlative story of snake-terror, see “The Cat of the Cane-Brake,” by Frederick Stuart Greene.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/snake-wine-china-vietnam#:~:text=Although%20this%20concoction%20is%20often,from%20rheumatism%20to%20hair%20loss.

https://strongspage.com/places/chester-bedell/ [This and the next one could also be put on the page]

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2010/07/11/mike-harden-commentary-atheist-snakes/23668024007/