theater Archives - Bone and Sickle

The Dybbuk

By boneandsickle | August 22, 2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:52 — 57.1MB)

A dybbuk is a “clinging spirit” of Jewish folklore, a ghost that can possess a human host.

Stories of dybbuks (pl. dibbukim in Hebrew for sticklers) date to the 16th century but have never traditionally included the idea of trapping a dybbuk in a box, a trope that only dates to a 20o3 eBay ad placed by a Portland antique refinisher Kevin Mannis. Although Mannis would later confess to having made up his listing’s backstory as a sort of creative experiment, the box has continued to be the center of an evolving mythology advanced first by its 2003 buyer, Jason Haxton. In 2016, the box was purchased by Ghost Adventure‘s TV personality Zak Bagans, for display in his Haunted Museum in Las Vegas. We open the show with some clips from a July 2020 episode in which Bagans opens the box.

The dybbuk-in-a-box trope was also furthered by the “based on a true story” 2012 horror film, The Possession, for which Mannis and Haxton served as consultants. We hear a clip from that film as well as a clip from the ridiculous 2009 dybbuk-without-a-box film The Unborn. The 2015 Polish film (in English and Polish) Demon is also recommended as a more traditionally European take on the dybbuk folklore, thanks in part to its incorporation of a wedding motif.

A wedding dance with Death from 1937 film.

The idea of a dybbuk appearing at a wedding is borrowed from a classic 1937 film from Poland, The Dybbuk, a cinematic adaptation of Russian ethnographer S. Ansky’s highly successful 1914 play by the same name. Described as a sort of Romeo and Juliet meets The Exorcist, this classic of Yiddish theater was first performed in Warsaw in 1920, but was quickly was translated into dozens of languages and performed throughout Russia, Europe and the United States, popularizing this previously obscure figure of Yiddish or Ashkenazi folklore.

The story of the dybbuk begins with a 16^th-century explosion of incidents in Safed (Tsfat) a mountain city in Northern Israel considered one of Judaism’s four holiest cities thanks to its role in the development of the Kabbalah and the particularly saintly occupants of its hillside cemetery.

The first and foremost figure in Safed’s association with Kabbalah is Isaac Luria, whose teachings are recorded by his student Chaim Vital in The Tree of Life, foundational text of Lurianic Kabbalism, the dominant school of Kabbalistic thought since the 16^th century. Luria’s school converted Safed into a sort of spiritual hothouse, characterized by extremes of devotion, asceticism, and visionary experience — an environment that has been tied to the proliferation of dybbuk encounters recorded in 16th-century Safed.

Of these Safed accounts, we hear two lengthier narratives said to have transpired in 1571 and 1572 read by Mrs. Karswell, Without revealing too much that could spoil the stories, there are a few commonalities worth noting — the fact that dybbuks have a strange method of leaving their human host and that their hosts needn’t always be human.

We also learn the Kabbalistic explanation for the dybbuks compulsion to take a human host. It’s related to the notion of gilgul, or transmigration of souls, a process which ideally moves from lower forms to higher as ordered by the principle of tikkun olam, the “repair of the world,” or rectification.

A brief story from Chaim Vital’s spiritual autobiography, Book of Visions, illustrates a phenomenon paralelling that of the dybbuk, namely, the ibbur, the spirit of a good but still to be perfected individual, who may return to earth and possess a human host to accomplish required mitzvahs. We also hear of a strange grave rjte said to provoke encounters with these heavenly beings.

Our show wraps up with audio clips from modern instances of dybbuk possessions and banishings performed by Jerusalem Rabbis David Batzri and Menashe Amon between 1999 and 2019.

The Hellish Harlequin: Phantom Hordes to Father Christmas

By boneandsickle | December 5, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:31 — 43.5MB)

Harlequin is an enigmatic figure with roots in dark folklore of France, specifically that of the Wild Hunt (Chasse Sauvage) a nocturnal procession of ghosts or devils, particularly associated with the time around Christmas and New Year. The myth is also common to England and examined more closely in its Germanic manifestation in Episode 16, “The Haunted Season.” We open with a snippet from an album dedicated to Hellequin’s folkore by a Belgian band called Maisnée d’Hellequin.

In the show, we trace a thread leading from medieval stories of Hellequin (Harleqin’s ancestor in France) and King Herla (the English equivalent) to the more recent theatrical figure of Harlequin, along the way examining a link with the traditional English Christmas play (mummers’ play) and its role in the evolution of the figure of Father Christmas.

A darker Harlequin from the 1601 book, Compositions de rhétorique de Mr. Don Arlequin

Our first story comes from the French-Norman monk Oderic Vitalis, from volume two of his Ecclesiastical History. It was written in about 1140, making it not only the first account mentioning Hellequin (“Herlequin” in his text) but also the first European ghost story, one Vitalis relates as a true event transpiring on New Year’s Eve 1091, and told to him by an eyewitness, a priest, by the name of Vauquilin (Walkelin).

While returning from a visit to an ailing member of his parish, Vauquilin, hears the thunder of what sounds like an approaching army and is met by a giant with a club, whom he recognizes as Hellequin and who in this case serves as a sort of herald of the ghostly crew that follows. It’s a richly detailed and extravagantly ghoulish tale, splendidly read by our own Mrs. Karswell.

Without giving away too much, suffice it to say, that the spirits Vauquilin sees passing are enduring a sort of purgatorial torment for past sins, an apparently temporary but unenviable state of earthbound damnation. (For more on medival tales of ghosts visiting mortals from purgatory, see our “Ghosts from Purgatory” episode.) In the procession, these sinners are accompanied by devils who torture them, chief among these, apparently Hellequin.

Our next story, from around 1190 paints a more detailed picture of the English version of Hellequin, King Herla. It was written in Wales by the courtier Walter Map and contained in his eccentric collection of myths and pseudo-historical anecdotes called De Nugis Curialium, or “trifles for the court.” This one’s more of an origin story explaining King Herla’s transition from mortal king to ghostly rider. I won’t give away the details on this one either, but it involves a dwarf king’s wedding party inside a mountain, parting gifts, and bad gift etiquette.

Our third story comes from 14th-century France and is a bit different as it doesn’t describe what are supposed to be supernatural events but a representation of this, a fictional procession imitating Hellequin’s ride.

The procession in this text takes the form of a charivari, a sort of parade with participants noisily banging pots and pans or playing discordant music on various instruments. Charivaris were most commonly occasioned by weddings, in particular those which defied some social convention, such as the rushed wedding of a widow or widower who not honoring a suitable period of mourning.

In our story, the wedding is that of a figure named Fauvel, who is marrying the allegorical figure of Vainglory. Fauvel, by the way, is a horse representing all the worst traits of social climbers of the day.

The satiric Romance of Fauvel (“Romance” = “novel”) was written in 1316 by a Gervais du Bus, then much enlarged in 1316 with additions, including our charivari scene, by another writer by the name of de Pesstain. The text describes a particularly carnivalesque scene including a bizarre, wheeled noise-making machine, and all sorts of taboo-breaking behavior by the participants. The connection between the Wild Hunt and carnival is also noted in an 18th-century German carnival procession we hear described, one mimicking in this case Frau Holde and her retinue. The Fauvel passage ends with the narrator encountering a giant recognized as Hellequin, who is bringing up the rear — leading from behind in this case.

We then have a look at the theatrical, Harlequin who originated in the 16th century as a stock figure from the Italian commedia della’arte, where he’s known as Arlecchino. He wears a black half-mask along with a suit sewn with multicolored diamonds. And he always carries a sort of short club, an element that seems to be borrowed from the diabolical Hellequin. Though he’s most well known as an Italian figure, Arlecchino seems to have his source, as a theatrical entity, in a devil of this name from medieval French mystery plays. We also look at some supernatural Hellquins in secular plays including a 13th-century work by the Norman poet Bourdet and the satiric work, Le Jeu de la feuillée by Adam de la Halle.

We then follow the theatrical Harlequin to England where in the 18th century, the commedia plays morphed into were called “harliquinades,” frothy comedies, which eventually evolved into the British tradition of Christmas pantos/pantomimes.

We also examine a little remarked upon influence of the commedia and harliquinades on England’s seasonal mummer’s plays, particularly the traditional Christmas Play. An echo of Arlecchino’s trademark slapstick, or club, along with a mumming character called “Father Beelzebub” helps us connect the character of Father Christmas found in these plays with the devilish old Hellequin/Herla of French and Anglo-Norman folklore.

Father Christmas (on left) from Sandys Christmastide, its History, Festivities and Carols (1852)

Spook Shows

By boneandsickle | October 24, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:35 — 49.1MB)

Midnight Spook Shows featured stage illusions borrowing from techniques used in fraudulent seances alongside vaudeville-style comedy and burlesque. Performances were staged in movie theaters, paired with a film screening, usually but not exclusively from the horror genre. The tradition began in the mid to late 1930s and ran into the early ’70s, reaching its heyday in the ’50s. After World War II, shows began catering to younger audiences and emphasizing movie monsters, horror and gore.

In this episode we examine the history of the genre and a few of its colorful artists, sometimes called “ghostmasters.” Two leading lights in the field were (Dr.) Bill Neff, and Dr. Silkini (actually a pair of brothers Jack and Wyman Baker). Other practitioners we look at include Raymond Corbin (Ray-Mond), George Marquis, Phillip Morris (Dr. Evil), Kara-Kum, and the various shows presented by Joe Karston. Bela Lugosi dabbled in the field and is discussed.

This episode picks up the thread from last October’s show about unruly American Halloween celebrations, those of the teens and twenties. While the 1930s offered relatively sedate Spook Shows, by their 1950s heyday, as box-office lines wrapped the block and theater balconies sagged under the weight of screaming teenagers, the Spook Shows shared something of that unruly, possibly even dangerous, spirit of old Halloween.

The Frankenstein Method

By boneandsickle | August 20, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:59 — 56.1MB)

The method Frankenstein employed to create life is left mostly a mystery in Mary Shelley’s 1818 book. How then did the notion of stolen body parts stitched together and animated by lightning become so firmly entrenched in popular imagination?

Our episode begins with a clip from Universal’s pattern-setting 1931 production, Frankenstein, in which Henry Frankenstein rhapsodizes about building the creature’s body from the dead. While the idea’s suggested in Shelley’s novel, the process doesn’t quite seem to match the cinematic treatment in which the creature’s fabricated from whole human body parts stitched together. We’ll hear some passages read by Mrs. Karswell, that seem to suggest Shelley’s Frankenstein fabricates his creature instead from component materials — tissues and whole systems built up slowly over bones obtained from the charnel house. The creature’s large stature in films, however, matches the literary prototype — for very practical reasons, as is explained.

Next we have a look at how Shelley portrays Victor Frankenstein’s desire to create life as influenced by his study of alchemical texts (by Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus,) Of particular interest here is the work of his Swiss countryman, Paracelsus, who in the 16th century set down directions for the creation of a homunculus, a tiny human-like being grown in a glass bottle.

These comments, in a general way, seem to have influenced an odd inclusion in the script for 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, in which Frankenstein’s partner in monster-making, Dr. Pretorius, presents his own experiments in creating homunculi (as in the clip played).

Pretorius and “Devil” homunculus, Bride of Frankenstein

As further evidence that Bride’s screenwriters went digging in some rather obscure texts, the film’s portrayal of the miniature king escaping his bottle to pursue a homunculus-queen in an adjacent bottle appears to be directly lifted from a legend of an Austrian freemason Count Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein, creating homunculi in 1755 — a legend appearing only as a footnote in an 1896 biography of Paracelsus by the Theosophist Franz Hartmann.

While none of this appears in Shelley’s novel, some scholars have attempted to locate the inspiration for her novel in the work of another alchemist: Johann Conrad Dippel, in particular because the location of his birth in 1673 is listed as Burg Frankenstein, Castle Frankenstein on a hill near the city of Darmstadt Germany. We look at evidence for parallels in Shelley’s story and von Dippel’s career, and though the linkage appears to be fairly speculative, we end up with some good stories involving the misuse of bone oil, and a corpse dyed blue.

We next examine references to Victor Frankenstein’s interest in lightning and galvinism (early notions of electricity), and how this supplants his earlier interest in alchemy. The connection between galvinism, 18th-century researcher Luigi Galvani, and frog legs is explained, as is Mary’s husband Percy Shelley’s hands-on dabbling in this field.

While both Percy and Mary had an interest in this evolving field, their understanding of these matters could often be of a more poetic than scientific. In Mary’s introduction to the 1831 reissue of her novel, she references galvinism as a possible source of the creature’s animation, though the idea here is inspired by her highly idiosyncratic understanding of an experiment conducted by Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles). A reference to what seems to be living pasta is also muddled into all this.

Next we hear a a bit about Luigi Galvini’s nephew Giovanni Aldini, and his use of electricity to produce convulsions in the carcasses of oxen as well as a notorious 1803 experiment with the body of a recently executed convict from London’s Newgate Prison. We don’t know if Shelley was aware of these experiments, but it’s certainly possble.

Even more ambitious than Aldini’s experiment was one conducted by the Scottish physician Andrew Ure in Glasgow in 1818. Ure also worked with the body of an executed convict but with stated intention of actually reviving the deceased using electricity. The date on this one (the same year as Shelley’s composition of the novel) makes it highly unlikely to have influenced her composition, but the grisly details seem nonetheless worth relating.

Ure’s experiment, illustr. “Les merveilles de la science” 1867

Another suggested source of inspiration for Frankenstein is the researcher Andrew Crosse, known to locals living near his isolated mansion in Somerset’s Quantock Hills as “The Thunder and Lightning Man.” Crosse converted his home into a lab for the study of electrostatic energy produced in the atmosphere, channeling this into an immense array of homemade batteries, and releasing thunderous charges mistaken by neighbors for lightning of his own creation.

While the case for any of these serving as direct inspiration to Shelley is rather tentative, it’s actually the more familiar figure of Benjamin Franklin whom the author mentions in her novel. In a passage removed from the 1831 publication, Franklin’s kite experiment is referenced, making him the only contemporary electrical researcher mentioned in the text. An article about Franklin is also a likely source for the reference to Prometheus in the novel’s subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.

The Frankenstein of Universal films and beyond has its roots in theater. For many years Shelley’s novel was actually better known from theatrical adaptations, which began appearing not long after the book’s publication. The first was 1823’s, Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, which Shelley herself attended with a mix of irritation and delight. It’s in this play that the character of the laboratory assistant first appears, here as “Fritz” (as in the 1931 film) and later acquiring the name “Igor.” Only three years later, The Man and the Monster; or, the Fate of Frankenstein appeared giving audiences the first direct representation of the monster’s animation.

There is still no electricity involved in all of this by the time the first cinematic adaptation appears in 1910 — Edison Studio’s 13-minute production called simply Frankenstein. Here we see Victor Frankenstein brewing up his creation in a vat, pouring in flashing chemicals.

The 1927 play Frankenstein: An Adventure in the Macabre by Peggy Webling, served as the basis for Universal’s 1931 film, but even here, there is no electricity animating the creature, a feat accomplished instead by Frankenstein administering the alchemist’s “Elixir of Life.” In 1931, this play was itself reworked into another theatrical adaptation by writers of the studio’s Dracula, John Balderston and Garrett Fort. It’s only here that electrical apparatus is employed, an aspect director James Whale whole-heartedly embraced based on his fondness for the mad scientist’s lab in the 1927 film Metropolis.

We finish this novel-to-film progression with a quick look at elements of Shelley’s novel brought to the fore in 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein and the creator of the props that populated the film’s laboratory, Kenneth Strickfaden.

Then there’s a few bizarre footnotes on Ben Franklin from recent history. Very strange indeed!

Holy Puppets, Medieval Robots, and More

By boneandsickle | May 8, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:21 — 54.2MB)

This episode looks at puppets given life through magical or mechanical means, holy puppets of the Catholic Church, medieval robots, an early automata of gothic literature, some related films, and an Alpine sex puppet that only puts up with so much.

We begin at the end of Carolo Collodi’s original Pinocchio story, or at least the end of the story’s first draft as serialized by the Italian children’s magazine, Giornale per i bambini in 1881. As is our way, we examine some of the darker elements of the tale that never made it into the 1940 Disney film, (though we do hear a snippet of one particularly dark scene from that film.)

Pinocchio nearly fried in oil — from Collodi’s 1881 book.

Long before Collodi imagined his marionette, the medieval Church made use of puppets, or jointed figures, that could be manipulated to enact Christ’s Passion during Easter week. Along with jointed shoulders allowing a figure of the Savior to be naturalistically unpinned from the cross, many of these puppets featured joints at the knees, elbows, and hips; some had rotating heads, and some fingers jointed to match each skeletal bone. Others were rigged to bleed, roll their eyes, or even appear to speak. We hear a report of a particularly bizarre method used to simulate tears in one figure from Germany as well as some interesting trickery resorted to by Bernese monks in the 1600s.

One of the most famous of these figures, especially because of its strangely lifelike skin, is the Christ of Burgos, Spain. Mrs. Karswell reads for us a passage mentioning a particularly gruesome legend associated with the figure from French poet and writer Théophile Gautier’s 1843 book, Wanderings in Spain.

Another famed Christ puppet was the 15^th-century Rood of Grace once housed at a now ruined abbey in the town of Boxley in Kent. A number of miraculous abilities were attributed to this figure, which was attacked (literally) by Protestant Reformers as an example of Catholic chicanery. We hear of its unseemly end and an equally unseemly ballad by which Cromwell’s men mocked the figure in bawdy verse.

Puppet Christ — German Christ puppet, the “Miracle Man”

Spain’s particularly rich heritage of mechanically animated holy figures owes much to Muslim innovations there. It was from here that geared devices such as astrolabes entered the West, and here that that weight-driven clocks were employed almost two centuries before their use elsewhere in Europe. We hear a few examples of Eastern travelers tails of automated wonders (and automata) from the first century, including one describing the remarkable Palace of the Tree in Baghdad.

Such real-world (if a bit mythologized) accounts were an inspiration in the medieval West, particularly in the Anglo-Norman epic poems or Romances of the 13th century. We hear some passages describing the mechanical marvel’s of the fairy Esclarmonde’s bedhcamber from the Romance of Escanor by d’Amiens and of a confronation between the knight Huon de Bordeaux and a pair of giant men of copper armed with flails.

Esclamonde is an interesting figure as she is sometimes said to have been tutored by Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, who in medieval legends had become something of a wizard. There are dozens of tales of Virgil crafting of metal assorted mechanical or magical wonders: flies, horses, human figures, and a serpent (or lion) which predates the legends associated with the Bocca della Verità (mouth of truth) adored by tourists in Rome (and described by Cary Grant in the clip we hear from the 1953 film Roman Holiday). Virgil’s enchanted castle in Naples was also said to be guarded by men of copper, armed with flails — as in the Norman poem. And we hear of a strange ritual whereby the wizard was said to have attempted to cheat death, one involving a bit of butchery and grievous mistakes.

We also look at the 13^th century tale known as the “Prose Lancelot” as well as Chrétien de Troyes’ telling of the Perceval legend, both from the same era and both featuring animated men or beasts of metal with which the knights must grapple. In these cases, however, the figures are animated by demons who must also be defeated.

Often these medieval robots would be presented in scenes depicting underground treasure-houses or tombs. We hear one such story told in a William of Malmesbury’s chronicle Deeds of the Kings of the English, and another from the French Romance of Eneas.

The legends of Tristan and Isolde also furnishes us a similar example in a 12th-century version by Thomas of Britain. It features Tristan romancing a mechanical replica of his beloved Isolde, who resides in his secret “Hall of Images” along with a mechanical maidservant and mechanical dog.

The psychological morbidity of Tristan making out with a lost lover is reflected in a few bizarre horror films from the 1970s. We discuss 1979’s Tourist Trap and 1971’s Vincent Price vehicle, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, both of which feature automata. We also hear a bit about the 19th-century German writer E.T.A. Hoffman’s short story “The Sandman,” which features a mechanical woman who becomes the object of the narrator’s crazed obsession. You can read this delightfully dark and invenntive story in English here.

Our final lifelike puppet comes from the Alpine legend of the Sennentunschi or doll used (erotically) by the lonely herdsmen (or “Sennen”) during their long seasonal isolation on remote mountain pastures. Created out of rags, straw, and other odds and ends — initially out of boredom and mischief — the doll is brought to life by an irreverent “baptism,” and after serving the herdsmen enacts a gruesome revenge for the indignities it suffers at their hands. We hear a clip from the entertaining Swiss film of 2010, Sennentunschi, and hear of an actual specimen of a Sennentunschi doll (or one assumed to serve this function, sans supernatural animation) discovered in 1978.

Sennentunschi puppet, from Rätischen Museum, Chur, Switzerland.

There’s a parallel in the Sennentunschi story to the Czech legend of a childless couple adopting a log, which comes to life, which served as the basis for the 2000 film, Little Otik, by stop-motion master director Jan Švankmajer (We hear a clip from this too).

The show closes with a look at an unlikely connection between our topic and Alvin Schwartz’s juvenile folklore classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and a tragic tail connected to the 1940 production of Pinocchio featuring the artist formerly known as Ukulele Ike,

#29 The Bloody Chamber

By boneandsickle | July 1, 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:20 — 39.7MB)

Bluebeard and his bloody chamber full of murderous secrets is widely known as one of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, but it’s part of a larger family of folk tales and ballads we examine in this episode.

Our show begins with a brief summary of this tale in which a young woman is courted by the mysterious and strangely whiskered nobleman, Bluebeard. After lavishly entertaining the woman and her family in his castle, it’s agreed they should marry. Soon thereafter, Bluebeard departs on a journey leaving his bride keys to all the rooms of his estate, all of which to which may use — but one. Curiosity, however, getting the better of her, she unlocks the forbidden door and must face Bluebeard’s murderous rage at her disobedience.

1870s poster for Covent Garden pantomime

Perrault’s 1697 story, which draws upon older folk tales, is primarily known thanks to its inclusion in collections of fairy tales intended for children. Today, however, you’re unlikely to find the gruesome yarn anthologized for younger readers. If included at all, it may be sanitized, as it was in the 1970 children’s record from which we excerpted a clip at the show’s open.

Along with fairy tale collections and cheaply printed chapbooks, the Bluebeard story was largely preserved through theatrical representation. We look at a number of productions from the late 18th and early 19th century that treated the story in a semi-comic or melodramatic fashion, often combining elements of the Italian Commedia dell’arte, such as Harlequin and his antics. Wilkinson provides of some readings of the comedic dialogue as well as stage directions which often made the “bloody chamber” a lavishly designed and spooky centerpiece of the production.

Particularly important to how were think of Bluebeard today is the 1798 production Blue Beard, or Female Curiosity!, which moved the story to Turkey in order to exploit a growing fascination with the East. This image of Bluebeard and indeed its importance in the English-language repertoire is suggested by the inclusion of the play in the 1993 Jane Campion film, The Piano, a story set during this period. The theatrical tradition of representing Bluebeard’s wives as bloody heads severed from their bodies is demonstrated in this scene as well as many 19th-century photographs of such stagings.

1868 Harper's magazine article w/ illustrations by Winslow Homer. — 1868 Harper’s magazine article w/ illustrations by Winslow Homer.

Also discussed is 1 1903 Christmas staging of Mr. Bluebeard in Chicago, famous not so much for its musical numbers (such as the song “Raving,” which we hear excerpted) but more for a landmark fire, which claimed the lives of 602 theater-goers.

While there have been dozens of films that play with the theme of women marrying men with mysteriously deceased wives, only a few have directly addressed the tale. We very briefly discuss the 1944 Bluebeard with John Carradine, the 1972 Bluebeard with Richard Burton, and the 2009 French film, Barbe-Bleue (Bluebeard), which is the most traditional of the lot.

In the next part of our show, we look at related folktales including the Grimm’s story “Fitcher’s Bird,” which features bloody chambers that must not be opened, a skull dressed as a bride, a woman rolling in honey and feathers, and a wedding that’s diverted into an execution party. We also look at the English tale “Mr. Fox,” in which a woman spying on her bridegroom discovers his habit

The Grimms also gave us “The Robber Bridegroom,” in which a bride-to-be visits her intended’s home “out in the dark forest,” where she makes unnerving discovery similar to that in Mr. Fox (but with an added element of grisly horror thrown in).

As a sort of musical tonic to all these tales of women and the bloody chambers they might end up in, we close the show with two traditional ballads in which the woman more satisfyingly gains the upper hand, and ends up slaying the serial killer she is to wed. The frist of these, is a Dutch ballad “Lord Halewijn” and the second “Lady Isobel and the Outlandish (or “Elf”) Knight.”

We close with a peculiar tidbit from modern life, a weird parallel between ancient folk ballads and a true-crime oddity.

#21 A Deal with the Devil

By boneandsickle | February 27, 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:57 — 52.1MB)

The legend of Faust is the archetypal deal with the Devil. This episode looks at the figure as represented in folklore, local legends, plays, puppet shows, literature, films, and opera.

A precedent for the tale seems to be the story of St. Theophilus, a cleric in 6^th-century Adana (in modern Turkey) who, as legends have it, summoned the Devil to help elevate him to the status of bishop (and, yes, there is some repentence involved in this one, seeing as how he went down in Church history as a saint). He is the subject of a 13^th-century French play, The Miracle of Theophilus, which happens to be the source of a chant to summon Lucifer written in an unknown language — one, which made its way into Wiccan traditions via Gerald Gardner, and which even ended up in the lyrics of the 1969 album Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls by the band Coven. The segment starts with a snippet from this cult album.

There does seem to have been an actual magician, astrologer, or alchemist by the name of Faust wandering southern Germany in the late 15^thand early 16^thcentury, though very little is known of his life other than passing references in a few letters and some town records noting that individuals by this who were banned for fraudulent or roguish activities. We look at a few of these historic references.

Legends regarding the figure are more plentiful. We hear of a number of supposedly dangerous grimoires attributed to Faust said to be kept at sites in Germany and also discuss a number of legendary feats of magic (including conjuring an entire castle along with a sumptuous, if unsatisfying, banquet for castle guests). We also have a look at a number of towns offering “evidence” that they were the site where the Devil came to claim the doctor, including one town that rents a room in an ancient inn where the grim event was said to have transpired.

Frontispiece "The remarkable life of Dr. Faustus, a German astrologer and enchanter" (1838) — Frontispiece “The remarkable life of Dr. Faustus, a German astrologer and enchanter” (1838)

The meat of our show is a look at the earliest written narrative on Faust, a chapbook published anonymously in Frankfurt in 1587, The History of Doctor Johann Faustus. We hear a dramatic, even cinematic, passage describing Faust’s summoning of the Devil in Germany’s Spessart forest (an area rich in folklore and home to the Brother’s Grimm). Also related are Faust’s whirlwind tour of of Hell, a number of comic supernatural pranks he plays, and, of course, the dramatic hour of reckoning and its grisly aftermath.

Richard Burton in his 1967 film, Doctor Faustus

We next hear some snippets from one of the legend’s most prominent film treatments, the 1967 Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor vehicle Doctor Faustus. Though the subject of numerous negative reviews, the film may appeal to horror fans thanks to its visual styling similar to a Hammer film of the period. The wonderful 1926 German silent, Faust, by F.W. Murnau (director of Nosferatu) is also mentioned.

The script for Richard Burton’s film was the classic of Elizabethan stage,The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Though the story presented by Marlowe is rather similar to the chapbook version previously discussed, we hear of a few comic additions made then jump forward a bit in theater history to William Mountfort’s pointedly comic 1697 work, The Life and Death of Dr Faustus, Made into a Farce, with Harlequin and Scaramouche. Wilkinson shares some monologues from the play spoken by two of the Seven Deadly Sins. We also have a look at the legend’s treatment in Faust puppet shows popular in Germany and Bohemia, a tradition that proved influential on the 1994 Czech film, Faust, Jan Švankmajer’s must-watch stop-motion/live-action treatment of the story. We hear bits of the audio from the Švankmajer film as well as a couple more Faust films, the Peter Cooke-Dudley Moore comedy Bedazzled (1967) and the nicely dreadful 2000 horror-superhero film, Faust: Love of the Damned.

From Jan Švankmajer's Faust (1994) — From Jan Švankmajer’s Faust (1994)

The show closes with a look at Faust at the opera, namely Hector Berlioz’ 1846 work,The Damnation of Faust (with a nod to Charles Gounod’s operatic take on the tale). In particular we look at a famously disastrous staging of the Berlioz work by the Paris National Opera in 2015.