This week I'm joined by Dr Ryan Denson, who really is the sea monster guy (though it's not on his socials yet) for a 'deep dive' into monsters.
We talk about the ketos, the hippocamps, and Scylla and Charybdis, including why Charybdis in the Odyssey is just a whirlpool and never actually gets a body.
Ryan explains how a lot of these monsters started with real animals and with people simply not knowing what was 'under the sea' (excuse the pun). He also talks about how ancient peoples passed these stories around, and how the monsters took on the imagery of each culture that told them.
We also cover ghosts and necromancy, Leviathan and Beelzebub, Beowulf's sea monsters, and the aspidochelone, a Byzantine sea creature so big that sailors thought it was an island.
This episode reminded us that there is no 'true' myth, and that ancient peoples travelled a great deal more than we give them credit for. Hence the transference of ideas, and monsters.
You can find Dr Denson's book here: A Zoobiography of the Ancient Sea Monster: : Ancient Environments Ryan Denson Bloomsbury Academic - Bloomsbury
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Music: Intro and outro — Spirits of the Woods by Rotem Moav.
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