Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - Episode Fifty-Four： Funayūrei, Japanese Ghost Ships 🌊 it's Testicle Tuesday!

00:00:00.000 for some reason there's a guy doing autopsies on tiktok so he'll show like just very like

00:00:22.660 macro micro like angles of like whatever he's dissecting but he was i know it's it's really

00:00:29.680 weird it actually came up on you in this tiktok i was like that's strange it's like something that

00:00:32.660 would come up for me but um also that feels like it's a violation of some sort although i guess if

00:00:38.700 he has a yeah he's not like identifying anyone and it's i think it's like an educational thing

00:00:45.000 also side note i really hope he is a real autopsy technician 0.98

00:00:48.660 where the fuck is he getting these bodies like what if he was a murderer oh my god and that was 0.98

00:00:55.920 like he got off doing that yeah and everyone's just watching anyway he was uh dissecting a 1.00

00:01:02.640 testicle well like he was actually dissecting an entire scrotum the other day uh when he came up 0.81

00:01:08.220 on like our feed and he was like showing like all of the different tubes and the sack if you will 0.98

00:01:15.780 and all that but like the top comment was just perfect it was just like oh and can you show us

00:01:20.540 where they store the audacity 1.00

00:01:21.860 women are so fucking funny that is really good the tubes and stuff i don't it's just like 1.00

00:01:31.840 yucks me out yeah the vase vase deference of the the ducts yeah testicle accoutrements 1.00

00:01:41.600 but it all just looked like a piece of chicken like yeah i mean you know that's kind of what 0.92

00:01:50.940 it is it's all meat yep that's all we are in the end just meat welcome to the podcast yeah hi i'm 0.97

00:01:58.380 emily and i'm neve emily's back yay we started out with some dead testicles

00:02:06.400 and now here we are um yeah and it's sea timbre emily has not been on for a sea timbre since

00:02:16.400 2024 so i don't think have i ever been on a sea timbre yeah you're here for the mermaids episode

00:02:23.740 i yes you are we even started recording i was telling neve i was like i don't remember anything

00:02:28.860 i really don't we were recording an ad for our um our podcast network and um because our ad has

00:02:38.100 not been updated since i think before emily had her second child which baby was it

00:02:46.720 um so i was like yeah we really need to update that and uh she had no memory of doing the first

00:02:55.560 sad because i was like trying to tell i was like yeah we have this other and you're like was i on

00:02:59.640 it did you make that one without me it is insane and it's funny because i actually just learned

00:03:08.180 recently that uh like the gray matter in your brain physically changes in pregnancy and child

00:03:16.500 birth and like postpartum and it never it never goes back jesus christ and it it changes in such

00:03:24.980 a way that your brain just like will hang on to mostly information that's like about your kids

00:03:33.340 and about their feeding and all that stuff and like especially now that makes sense for like

00:03:39.960 doctor appointments evolution yeah yeah and so it's like oh okay so it's not that i am it's like

00:03:51.200 no my brain actually physically changed and it's like pruning stuff that it doesn't need from the

00:03:55.520 last few years which is sad because i'm like no we do need this yeah i guess it's a little bit

00:04:03.180 validating to know that there's a biological explanation for it for sure especially because

00:04:08.540 but also it's scary yeah it's just wild when i'm just like wow i had three kids in three years

00:04:15.740 you're a crazy woman yeah so this is episode 54 it's our sea timber release for 2026 this is our

00:04:25.540 third year of sea timbers which is pretty crazy it's a concept that i sort of came up with without 0.99

00:04:30.960 emily you just told her we were doing it called sea timber i was like okay sounds great

00:04:35.400 well i know like a fairy tale fix who we just had in our damsels in distress episodes um the one

00:04:45.400 not last episode but the one before

00:04:47.720 they do Mermaid

00:04:48.800 which is very cute

00:04:49.980 and is

00:04:53.420 arguably a much better pun

00:04:55.260 than Sea Timber

00:04:57.220 but I've already committed to Sea Timber

00:04:59.400 I like Sea Timber

00:05:01.280 I like both

00:05:03.540 I like Mermaid and Sea Timber

00:05:05.300 Sea Timber is where we focus

00:05:09.440 on maritime ocean

00:05:11.380 themed folklore

00:05:13.020 in 2024 we did

00:05:14.960 our episode on mermaids in 2025 we had the amazing podcast it came from the maritimes which is an

00:05:24.040 atlantic canada folklore podcast and they helped me cover selkies which was a lot of fun and now

00:05:32.860 we have emily back for seatember 2026 where we are heading to japan we're covering funayore and

00:05:42.000 i'm really hoping that i'm saying all of these japanese words right because there are a lot of

00:05:45.800 them in this script that's all when it's hard is when it's like oh man like word after word is

00:05:53.040 not only is it a foreign language but it's also like a hard word i also feel like if anyone's

00:06:02.300 going to correct me it won't be like japanese people it'll be weebs

00:06:05.580 the only time i ever got corrected on any japanese pronunciation was when i worked in

00:06:13.520 hmv in canada and i said studio ghibli in front of a weeb and he was like i think you'll find

00:06:21.320 it's ghibli and i was like okay please stop talking to me did he really say it like that

00:06:27.220 he did oh yeah yeah i think you'll find and then he was kind of like do you really work here and

00:06:35.100 you don't know that and i was like i'm not in charge of the japanese section so wait where

00:06:40.860 what is hmv it's like a kind of like a tower records um oh okay like a chain of record stores

00:06:47.700 but they do like movies and physical media all that stuff that people are telling us we should

00:06:53.220 invest in again because the streaming services own our asses and can just take away all of our

00:06:57.760 access whenever they want oh yeah for sure like when we were um almost two months ago now which

00:07:03.480 is so weird when our power went out for like a couple days and it's like the kids oh can i watch

00:07:10.860 it's like no you can't watch anything we can't do anything yeah i'm also like really regretting

00:07:20.340 that like when we moved into this house because this was ewan's childhood home we like got rid

00:07:26.200 of like recycled sold off like i'm not kidding his his like dvd and blu-ray collection he must

00:07:32.280 had like over a thousand titles and we got rid of them all yeah because he's like hugely into

00:07:38.820 like movies and even like his games that he had and he was just like no i don't need them like

00:07:43.660 let's just get rid of them we got rid of all of them and now everyone's like hold on to your

00:07:48.640 physical media like shit what have we done we have i never had a lot of dvds but i do i still 0.51

00:07:57.560 have mine I probably have like 10 of them or something maybe 20 but yeah so I still have all 0.97

00:08:02.680 of those and then there's like the Christmas classics that I love the like claymation ones

00:08:07.500 yeah that like a lot of people don't like which is upsetting to me no I'm like how do you not like

00:08:16.280 this um but those like the 1980s kind of things I'm like picturing in my head I believe they're

00:08:24.420 from the 60s oh maybe the rank maybe they just didn't make it to ireland until the 80s like

00:08:32.200 you know like the claymation like rudolph the red-nosed reindeer why did i think they're all

00:08:37.300 much newer than that they're from like the 60s wow that's so cute yeah but i love those those

00:08:45.840 are like my favorite christmas movies and i have all those on dvd and last year that's a good

00:08:53.320 investment to have yeah i thought they were i don't know but yeah a lot of haters out there

00:09:00.920 apparently the sales of blu-ray players has like gone up for the first time in like decades

00:09:07.160 because loads of people are buying blu-ray players again so i guess if you have good forethought

00:09:13.900 rather than me um hold on to your physical media i'm not bitter i still have all of my old cds

00:09:22.820 and dvds i have my cds too um i also have like a sleeve of there's a missing you know one of the 0.94

00:09:31.340 car like leather zip up things i have all of the fucking cases and none of the actual cds so 0.89

00:09:37.480 there's definitely a sleeve missing and i have no idea where it is but i refuse to get rid of 0.94

00:09:42.880 the cases because i feel like it's going to show up it's like either in my parents house or was

00:09:48.320 left i don't know anyway it's beside the point

00:09:51.980 anywho sea timber not dvd timber not dvd timber this episode easily could have expanded into a

00:10:04.620 massive multi-part series on japanese maritime folklore as an island nation japan's history is

00:10:10.140 inextricably linked to the sea and seafaring nations do if i say so myself have the best

00:10:16.580 folklore hence why sea timber is a recurring theme there's just so much because ireland has

00:10:22.220 some great sea folklore too so i appreciate a good spooky sea tale for island nations like japan the

00:10:29.160 sea is a vast unpredictable expanse that was and is both a vital source of life and a vast

00:10:34.980 unknown beast centuries of isolated coastal living created a rich deeply woven net

00:10:41.260 of maritime myths

00:10:44.020 it took Emily a second

00:10:46.900 to get my pun

00:10:48.320 ranging from protective deities

00:10:55.220 to spooky coastal phantoms

00:10:57.380 and this

00:10:59.360 was actually such a difficult episode

00:11:01.580 to narrow down because I came across so many

00:11:03.420 weird watery wonders

00:11:04.820 that I could have talked about

00:11:06.240 but I jotted some down and who knows

00:11:09.140 if there's interest maybe there will be

00:11:11.020 other episodes on these there were the ocean monks or umbozu they're giant 10 meter tall black

00:11:18.680 humanoids that emerge just as giant heads and shoulders out of the sea during calm weather to

00:11:24.880 smash ships into or flood them with barrels sailors can only escape by tossing them a

00:11:31.020 bottomless barrel which confuses them long enough for the ship to slip away yeah like it's it's

00:11:36.780 literally just shoulders up emerging out of the sea yeah um but they look like monks which is like

00:11:44.000 why we have the ancient water dragons of mizuchi these venom spitting dragon guardians require

00:11:52.040 strict appeasement to prevent catastrophic floods if they sound familiar it's because

00:11:57.520 they inspired the shape-shifting dragon haku in studio ghibli spirited away i hate that i've seen

00:12:04.940 that movie and i don't remember um i don't think it's like a huge part okay i'm gonna look up uh

00:12:11.440 yes it kind of looks like a dog you know like the white thing with the it's got green on the back

00:12:18.080 you're looking at the like dragon yeah so that's that's what they are they're sea dragons they kind

00:12:23.040 of look like it's kind of got like a dog head yeah yeah so those were inspired by muzuchi

00:12:29.360 then we have the Bakegujira which is a ghost whale this colossal living skeleton of a baleen

00:12:37.040 whale haunts the coastline on rainy nights accompanied by strange birds unknown fish

00:12:42.300 and phantom islands its legend is deeply tied to historic whale cults where whales were viewed as

00:12:48.840 visiting gods that could save a village from famine or curse it and if you look this up there's some

00:12:54.060 really cool like artwork and like sculpted archways on the shorelines of these places

00:13:00.020 where like there are shrines to these these ghost whales um as part of the cults i feel like japanese

00:13:06.700 folklore is like so cool because it's so ingrained in the the culture because they do have stuff like

00:13:14.120 that where it's like carved in places and it just kind of like appears like integrated it's very

00:13:19.240 integrated into like modern daily life it's not like one of those things where you have to like

00:13:25.200 seek it out i guess it's not like a specifically preserved part where like they're keeping it

00:13:31.400 separate and it's like something that you go to and experience it that way it's like part of

00:13:35.480 yeah part of the architecture or part of the the landscape and i feel like i remember when i did

00:13:42.540 the house spirits zashiki warashi yeah yeah i feel like i remember they would build um like a room

00:13:50.920 for it in the house so it's like it's so cool because it's not just like oh maybe some people

00:13:57.440 believe in this and some people don't it's like no it's here like it yeah it's a designated um

00:14:03.880 part of life and part of our the architecture of our home yeah the saze one which are the

00:14:09.540 shellfish ogres these are sea snails i love this shellfish ogres sea snails who transform into

00:14:17.660 shape-shifting monsters once they turn 30 so they live to 30 and then they turn into these ogres

00:14:25.320 they then sneak into coastal inns to devour innkeepers they also star in a bizarre legend 0.99

00:14:34.040 where love this one disguised herself as a beautiful woman stole a pirate crew's testicles

00:14:40.260 and successfully ransomed them back for actual gold the queen i love how this conversation came 0.98

00:14:46.720 back to testicles yeah i completely forgot there was this story in here because i i scripted this 0.98

00:14:53.180 like a couple of weeks ago it's so funny it's testicle tuesday 1.00

00:14:58.620 just this bad bitch turned 30 and she was like fuck this she stole a pirate girl's testicles 1.00

00:15:06.740 perfect perfect girl power probably sold him to that uh autopsy guy 1.00

00:15:12.380 yeah it's even funnier if i just i can never find that autopsy guy again maybe he was like a

00:15:18.840 fever dream because he was on you and it's like tiktok feed i'll probably never find him again

00:15:23.240 anyway oh i thought this was somebody who watched like regularly no no no he just came up and he was 0.99

00:15:30.640 like and now we have the the scrotal sack and ewan was like what the fuck because i mean there are 0.98

00:15:37.120 like um there were like live autopsies on british tv a few years back what in the world 0.97

00:15:45.860 and it was sort of okay like it was so interesting and so cool but can i just show you this guy 0.88

00:15:54.780 the technician was the creepiest looking man i've ever seen in my fucking life oh i was like i don't 0.80

00:15:59.640 want to see any blood and guts i'm like yeah it was called the autopsy oh jesus it was in 2002 0.99

00:16:06.420 what the fuck i thought that was like way more recent i hate when you're like yeah it was like 0.85

00:16:11.580 five years ago and it's like that was 20 years ago yeah gunther von haggens right he's probably 0.98

00:16:18.520 a perfectly nice guy but i'm gonna send you a link to what he looks like and he keep in mind 0.82

00:16:27.440 he wore this fucking hat the entire time oh okay and he wore the hat the whole time he was doing 0.95

00:16:39.560 the autopsies in a white coat i'm not i'm not gonna say he looks like a cannibal but he doesn't 0.99

00:16:45.960 look like he's not a cannibal you were trying to like costume design uh like uh somebody who

00:16:52.840 autopsies people against their will against their will well like some people donate their

00:16:59.880 bodies to science and stuff um yeah i mean like he's he's very celebrated like a controversial

00:17:05.940 but yeah

00:17:06.880 just an interesting

00:17:09.620 guy I just I think it's

00:17:11.660 the hat the hat just makes him very

00:17:13.700 I don't know very creepy

00:17:14.980 he also looks like he just doesn't have any

00:17:17.960 facial hair or like

00:17:19.920 eyebrows let me look again

00:17:21.340 oh no he has eyebrows

00:17:22.620 they're very like close to his eyes

00:17:26.020 yeah and maybe

00:17:27.880 it's a skin texture thing

00:17:29.060 I'm sure he's fine but it's just

00:17:31.380 this coupled with the fact

00:17:33.920 that he was doing autopsies on television 0.96

00:17:35.920 it's just like what the fuck is going on here yeah it's all on youtube like he doesn't really 0.97

00:17:42.480 have eyelashes or eyebrows and i think that it's kind of like he's wearing a mask yeah he looks 0.98

00:17:48.480 like he's wearing a skin mask yeah yeah um he's dead now so oh because i just saw like a an

00:17:58.300 obituary post and then there was what looked like his body preserved and on display but i don't know 0.99

00:18:03.220 if it actually was or just a waxwork probably was his body um yeah he's probably like fuck it 0.74

00:18:09.140 yeah i mean if you dedicate your life to educating people about anatomy like yeah i guess why not 0.98

00:18:16.120 honestly it would be kind of hypocritical if you're like yeah i'll cut all these other people

00:18:21.060 open and show you the inside of them and then you don't do that yourself exactly i want my body

00:18:27.900 preserved yeah like nobody is able to cut me open back to the folklore then we have this is

00:18:35.680 fun because it's going to be what our pine cones episode this month will be

00:18:39.740 rugyu no tsukai which is the japanese or fish have you seen actually this is going to be

00:18:45.740 another one to look up have you seen these i don't like or fish you've seen them she's shaking her

00:18:51.920 head she's like i don't like them yeah they're all the weird all the weird fish it's a hard no

00:18:57.100 for me yeah and they live at like the like really really really deep in the ocean they were

00:19:03.140 anciently revered as a glowing holy messenger of the sea that brought health and prosperity

00:19:07.840 but so that was the folkloric character but then it's the name that's now ascribed to a real world

00:19:15.960 deep sea fish that has a modern reputation saying that their appearance in shallow waters is an omen

00:19:22.760 of earthquakes. Pretty well

00:19:24.820 founded. The belief resurfaced

00:19:26.800 when 20 oarfish washed

00:19:28.860 ashore right before the 2011

00:19:31.180 Tohoku tsunami.

00:19:33.300 So when these things

00:19:34.760 show up, it's not good.

00:19:36.920 Absolutely get out of dodge.

00:19:38.900 For multiple reasons. 0.99

00:19:40.380 Not just because they're fucking terrifying. 0.99

00:19:43.120 They're so huge. Like one 0.99

00:19:44.640 washed up on the shore in Ireland?

00:19:46.760 Like, was it end of

00:19:48.840 last year? What is time?

00:19:50.360 i was like oh that's a crazy looking fish and then i saw like the pictures of people standing 0.68

00:19:55.340 beside it and i was like what the fuck it's so big it's huge yeah i just like i'm not i'm already 0.98

00:20:02.120 not a fan of fish but like the deep sea fish she's like fish in general fuck fish 0.97

00:20:08.100 yeah i just i don't know i just but they're just weird to me they don't blink their mouths are

00:20:16.340 was like slightly open i don't know just all of it bothers me i don't mind a little tropical fish

00:20:22.980 oh yeah a little salmon or something yeah like little cute ones like where it's like oh i'm

00:20:27.960 purple but these like do you ever accidentally end up on like monsters of the deep and you're

00:20:34.400 just like excuse me and there's like pilot fish and yeah somebody sent me it was like a meme

00:20:42.400 and it was like a fish with like tons of rows of teeth it's a pilot fish and it has the thing

00:20:49.420 or is it a pilot fish that has the little thing dangling the angler fish angler fish what's a

00:20:56.140 pilot fish then i don't know this is so off topic this looked like it was just like a fresh water

00:21:00.520 fish it was just with like tons of teeth oh my god it was like okay no pilot fish are are cute

00:21:08.280 so that's not what i was thinking of pilot fish look like zebras oh little nemos kind of yeah

00:21:15.620 they're like black and white but and slightly longer but yeah um i don't know why i kept

00:21:20.980 kept thinking they were called pilot that those and angler fish were the same thing

00:21:24.660 anyway it's like both an occupation a pilot and yeah maybe a fish with a job 1.00

00:21:32.440 we don't like the broke ass fish yeah the clown fish fuck them 1.00

00:21:40.700 hey clown is a very what it's a legitimate job it's a legitimate job i was gonna say a respect 1.00

00:21:50.480 respected job but i don't know how respected it is well they have to go to school and stuff 0.84

00:21:56.640 or something. I always hear about

00:21:58.440 Cloud College.

00:22:01.660 This is

00:22:02.360 I was, we were just

00:22:04.520 about to get on a very long tangent, but

00:22:06.520 I will save it. 0.99

00:22:10.500 I'm just like, what the fuck does she 0.97

00:22:12.200 possibly have to say about Cloud 0.99

00:22:14.640 College?

00:22:16.860 So keep an eye out for

00:22:18.460 upcoming Pinecones short

00:22:20.600 episode, which will be out directly

00:22:22.600 after this one, directly as in

00:22:24.420 the direct release after this one, where

00:22:26.440 we'll take a dedicated deep dive look

00:22:28.340 into the legendary oarfish and

00:22:30.300 the legend of Ryugyu

00:22:32.200 no Tsukai. I'm gonna

00:22:33.920 be able to say that better for the actual episode

00:22:36.260 I swear. You got it.

00:22:38.320 I believe in you. The oarfish isn't the

00:22:40.360 only entity associated with shipwrecks

00:22:42.560 and the deadly depths.

00:22:44.940 We will now set sail

00:22:46.000 I just, I wanted to put as many sea puns

00:22:48.540 into this to get the whole

00:22:50.340 sea timber thing. We will now set sail

00:22:52.460 to our main feature today 0.99

00:22:53.820 the terrifying Huna Yore

00:22:56.280 we need to dock at some basic 0.72

00:22:58.940 Japanese mythology before we get there

00:23:00.700 Emily's shaking her head

00:23:01.660 why don't you like my puns Emily

00:23:03.340 I see puns

00:23:05.640 I like them I think it's the fact that you are reacting

00:23:08.660 to your own

00:23:09.580 you're like so satisfied

00:23:11.960 I'm so proud of myself

00:23:12.460 I'm a nerd okay

00:23:16.860 I didn't say it was cool

00:23:17.960 you're like we're going to dock

00:23:20.980 ourselves yeah right

00:23:22.960 yeah I need to explain

00:23:25.120 about yurei and yokai so yokai as listeners may remember from our japanese witchcraft episode

00:23:32.040 that emily doesn't remember is often translated simply as monsters or demons but the concept of

00:23:40.920 yokai is much broader its literal meaning is alluring mystery so it could be like any event

00:23:47.200 that is sort of like unsolved or you know a little bit mysterious or you know yurei are then

00:23:53.860 are a subset of yokai triggered by the death of a person with either unfinished business improper

00:24:00.780 burial ceremonies or unnatural causes so we have yokai which is like the whole like blanket term

00:24:07.580 for like strange stuff and then yorei or a type of yokai i'm gonna have to try and keep like

00:24:13.340 reiterating this because it's hard to keep track of even when i was writing this i had to like

00:24:17.520 rewrite it so many times i was like this isn't making sense even to me oh no although generally

00:24:22.540 translated as ghost the japanese word yorai's characters literally mean dark soul it's a

00:24:28.520 concept best contextualized in a cosmology combining buddhism and shintoism the emergence

00:24:35.340 of a yorai is the result of a profound disruption in the cosmic order so it's a failure in the

00:24:41.700 transition of the tama which is the life force to the afterlife so like we could maybe call it a

00:24:47.360 soul of the movement of your soul to the afterlife this could be a neglect of the living to fulfill

00:24:53.580 gimu gimu is a binding spiritual obligation to care for the dead in exchange for their protection

00:24:59.600 so if the dead aren't cared for properly they cannot move on properly which is also kind of

00:25:05.020 like a similar there's a similar concept in catholicism where um people can end up in purgatory

00:25:10.880 if you don't pray for them enough this is i i have to tell you about this because it just got

00:25:18.580 brought up again i can't remember what the situation was a few years ago this family like

00:25:26.560 didn't want to have to like pay for funeral services so they like took their like dad or

00:25:32.220 whoever it was and they just set him by the dumpster out back by the apartment buildings

00:25:36.680 stop and like the police showed up and they're like like what the fuck is going on and it was 0.55

00:25:43.520 just like oh you know like he died of a heart attack but we don't want to pay for a funeral 0.99

00:25:47.380 like we don't have the money so they thought like the trash was just gonna take him 0.99

00:25:51.360 oh my god isn't that insane that was like crazy the fuck like crowdsource it or something like 0.99

00:26:01.900 i don't know like that's yeah i'm like in what universe do you think that you can just like 0.98

00:26:09.500 literally like put it out like by the curb and just be like yeah they'll take this

00:26:14.860 and like that nobody was going to question it or like ask them what happened or 0.99

00:26:21.320 like garbage services just shows up and they're just like oh my god holy fuck yeah 0.97

00:26:29.800 in japanese culture the concept of giri which is a transactional family obligation that's these 0.99

00:26:38.800 are things you do to repay your family for bringing you into the world and gimu which is

00:26:43.960 your lifelong unpayable spiritual debt extends beyond the living it forms the moral foundation

00:26:50.620 of how family must treat their deceased ancestors in the japanese family structure a child is born

00:26:56.340 with an immense moral debt called on to their parents and ancestors the ancestors gave you

00:27:01.960 your life your family name and the physical and social foundation you stand on because they spent

00:27:07.440 their lives providing for the lineage the living are locked into a permanent lifelong state of giddy

00:27:12.480 to repay that kindness you cannot repay a dead ancestor with a physical gift so giddy is paid

00:27:18.960 through rigorous ritual maintenance such as maintaining a family altar for somebody who has

00:27:25.640 passed on so like lighting candles and honoring them after they have moved on I've seen this a lot

00:27:31.660 in like Japanese media like you know things that I've seen like I've noticed these altars and things

00:27:37.180 and I just I was always a little bit curious about like what is the what is the ritual behind them

00:27:41.860 and what is the meaning behind them so I thought it was it's pretty interesting that this is like

00:27:46.060 it's this feeling of obligation to your family for providing you the name and reputation that

00:27:54.120 you use to go throughout the world yeah um i also wonder now i understand like family dynamics can

00:28:01.080 be really complicated it must be so rough if you don't have a good relationship or like a positive

00:28:06.980 relationship with your older family members but you do have this moral obligation to them which

00:28:12.620 is sort of imposed by virtue of your society yeah i think it's just something that struck me while i

00:28:18.060 was reading this yeah I think that's still a thing with you know other societies but it's not

00:28:24.680 I'm trying to like articulate my thoughts just the way like our cultures are like don't speak

00:28:29.520 ill of the dead and like a lot of people don't want to have bad relationships with their parents

00:28:35.020 because like well what if something happens to my parents and then there's that kind of like

00:28:40.020 weirdness of well they passed away and now how do I feel and what am I gonna do and you know

00:28:48.020 like stuff like that i don't know i yeah but this is so like outward i guess it's very prescribed

00:28:56.740 like there are steps that you must take yeah like and if you do not fulfill these steps then this is

00:29:02.720 when these spiritual consequences happen i wonder how that impacts grief yeah i don't know that's

00:29:09.820 just really interesting to me to because like i don't remember if i said it on this podcast

00:29:14.820 but when my grandpa died the i think she was the funeral director i don't know who she was

00:29:21.820 but i feel like she was somebody that like worked with him when he was alive i don't know

00:29:25.820 but she was like trying to tell us that like we had to see him dead in the casket he wasn't

00:29:31.780 gonna have an open casket she was like but we really encourage you guys to like look at him

00:29:36.540 foreclosure yeah which is like weird to me i don't need that um i'm able to like understand

00:29:45.040 that someone's dead yeah i mean this is sorry just to just to cut in because people might be

00:29:51.620 listening to this um emily has not heard our previous episode yet but megan and i actually

00:29:56.140 got into this discussion um about irish wake practices and how i find it very cathartic and

00:30:04.040 comforting to see somebody in an open casket and to touch their hand and to help register it whereas

00:30:10.620 megan finds the absolute opposite of that yeah which is just interesting that you're also the

00:30:14.980 same like you don't need that yeah megan finds it quite traumatic that's and that's what happened

00:30:20.120 like with my grandpa it was like pretty traumatic because like they opened the casket and i remember

00:30:25.500 just like immediately sobbing and because he did not look like him you know they put like all

00:30:32.240 pounds of makeup on them and stuff like that to like make them look like i don't know like alive 0.92

00:30:37.280 it's like what are we trying to do here they're fucking dead yeah and he just was like my grandpa 0.96

00:30:44.340 did not he had als and so he had gotten just very very very sickly before he had passed away 0.97

00:30:51.200 and so he was very thin and he just like at toward the end he didn't look like himself and

00:30:58.480 then so like slabbing a ton of makeup on him really didn't look like him and now i have this

00:31:03.980 like memory of that and that is just like i i don't that's not comforting for me at all that's

00:31:12.500 very much the opposite it's very much just like i didn't need that i knew he was gone and i do

00:31:17.940 think well because it's such the norm here that it's when you go to an irish wake you know unless

00:31:23.740 the person had a very violent death like if it was it's usually the only real form of violent

00:31:30.100 deaths that we have in ireland for the most part are car accidents um oh my god people don't get

00:31:35.640 shot in the face with like semi-automatic weapons over there i may sicken you by saying this but we

00:31:41.040 didn't have a single gun death in ireland in 2025 not one must be nice sorry but yeah like it's i 0.56

00:31:51.620 mean that's not to say we didn't have other and our femicide rate is disgusting i could go on

00:31:55.740 with that forever oh yeah but this is like when like no offense or not not no offense but sorry

00:32:01.300 for taking this here full offense when when like very obviously like right-wing people will be like

00:32:09.260 oh well like england has like they don't allow guns and they have like a higher rate of stabbings

00:32:15.200 and my argument is like can you have a mass stabbing can you go in and 30 seconds kill 0.99

00:32:22.840 50 people with a knife i don't think you can so go fuck yourself i mean there have been mass like 0.99

00:32:31.100 mass stabbing incidents in the just in case like anybody's like well that has happened and eve 1.00

00:32:35.820 didn't correct her it has happened in the state of in the way that like people have done machete

00:32:41.280 attacks and things like that but at the same time exactly to your point it's not in the same scale

00:32:45.920 as somebody with a semi-automatic automatic weapon right and but whoa we're way off topic

00:32:50.880 that what i was what i was saying is like when you go to a wake in ireland and not to rehash the

00:32:56.600 subject that i was talking about last episode you sort of know what you're getting into so if you

00:33:00.440 don't feel like you want to see a dead body or if maybe the last time like i've gone to wakes where

00:33:05.300 i've not gone into the room where the person is because i haven't seen them in like over a year

00:33:10.500 and i know that they went through a really tough illness so i know that they're not going to look

00:33:14.640 good and i would prefer to remember them the way i remembered them but like that's a choice that

00:33:18.920 you can make because you know what the whole setup is going to be you know that they're in

00:33:22.960 there you're not going to be taken by surprise and it's not somebody forcing you to go and look

00:33:26.360 yeah you know yeah that's what i that's what really i think it's the way you approach these

00:33:30.260 things yeah and she wasn't like we can do this if you feel it will help you it was we're gonna do

00:33:37.340 this because it's going to help you and i don't really it sounds like a weird like thing that she

00:33:42.880 had like that she what she liked like yeah like seeing people's reactions or something yeah like 0.90

00:33:48.080 something's fucking wrong with her i mean it made me very very mad i was just like i don't fucking 0.68

00:33:54.380 need that terrible yeah you don't dictate other people's grief to them no or how they process 0.98

00:34:01.160 brief which is again to this point like i just i would i would love if anybody is has grown up with

00:34:07.640 japanese culture in this way please like dm like our instagram like let me know like your thoughts

00:34:12.920 on this like how how do you process this like is it something that's maybe is it still a thing is

00:34:19.220 this maybe some sort of like you know it's a it's falling out of vogue now like is it still very much

00:34:26.260 like how people treat death um in japanese culture i would be interested to know but i

00:34:31.240 find this all like just super fascinating the way we process death is just it can be really sad it

00:34:37.420 could be really like joyful it could be really just it's always interesting no matter what way

00:34:42.000 we do it well just like all the rituals surrounding it and stuff like that when giri is paid so this

00:34:48.520 is when the deceased comfortably transitions into a protective spirit known as a kami or hotoke

00:34:54.720 watching over the family bringing them good fortune and returning peacefully once a year

00:34:59.240 during the obon festival which we spoke about the obon festival i think briefly in one of our

00:35:05.680 halloween i think our first halloween episode i believe and the only reason i know that is because

00:35:09.660 i did a search of our google drive have we talked about this before wait a minute when giri is

00:35:16.200 broken this is if a family completely neglects their ancestors like leaving graves to deteriorate

00:35:22.580 and offering no prayers

00:35:23.860 the dead are stripped of their peace

00:35:26.160 this breakdown of spiritual obligation

00:35:28.580 or gimu

00:35:29.460 transforms the neglected dead into a bitter

00:35:32.440 starving yore

00:35:33.560 no longer bound to protect the family

00:35:35.780 they may return to haunt or bring misfortune

00:35:38.300 to the living as punishment

00:35:39.580 for breaking the social contract of the lineage

00:35:42.500 so it's an extra

00:35:44.340 incentive because it's not just that

00:35:46.100 they won't move on, they'll come back to 0.99

00:35:48.260 fucking haunt you 0.99

00:35:49.320 if you haven't like honoured them 1.00

00:35:51.880 in the right way get your ass in appearance yurei can look so remarkably human that they are 0.92

00:35:58.420 occasionally mistaken for the living though female yurei are traditionally depicted with 0.98

00:36:03.500 long black hair and clothed in a white kimono the customary funeral attire for the dead i'm

00:36:09.780 just picturing samara from the ring yurei serves as the overarching term for any ghost or spirit

00:36:17.720 encompassing diverse entities like

00:36:19.800 Kosodate Yurei, the protective

00:36:22.020 spirits of mothers who died in childbirth

00:36:24.140 the Zashiki 1.00

00:36:26.040 Warashi, the mischief

00:36:28.080 loving ghost children or house ghosts

00:36:30.140 the Jibakurei

00:36:31.640 which are cursed location bound 1.00

00:36:33.840 spirits that endanger the living

00:36:35.840 or Onryo, usually

00:36:37.880 a murder victim with a wrathful

00:36:39.840 grudge to seek justice or vengeance

00:36:41.680 against those who wronged them

00:36:43.520 when a Yurei is formed from

00:36:46.000 individuals who drowned or perished in maritime disasters we are seeing both an unnatural death

00:36:51.700 and a failure of gimu so they're not being buried correctly so they are classified as

00:36:56.900 the ghosts of the sea quick recap yokai are broadly supernatural phenomena

00:37:03.060 yurai are a type of yokai triggered by a failure of proper death practices

00:37:07.860 and when it happens at sea they are called funai yurai let's get into the funai yurai the whole

00:37:13.360 meaning of the episode let's do it hi everyone emily here and neve over here we're just popping

00:37:20.040 in right before the ads to let you know that a rating review or recommendation is like a magic

00:37:26.080 growth potion for your favorite podcast as an indie podcast we really do rely on word of mouth

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00:37:40.820 you're doing while you listen we're nosy we love that or if you don't want anything to do with that

00:37:44.700 whole mess just a rating or a review will do the links to all of our socials are in the link tree

00:37:50.500 which is in the episode description that includes our patreon which is where we upload everything 0.97

00:37:55.600 early and ad free including some fun extras for paid tier members go check it out and fuck yeah

00:38:02.040 folklore canada is known for its beauty its quiet towns endless forests and peaceful landscapes 0.85

00:38:14.180 but it also has a darker side one that doesn't get talked about enough yeah those are the ones

00:38:20.320 we are talking about all of them true crime hauntings unexplained encounters and the stories

00:38:28.600 that should have stayed buried, but didn't.

00:38:31.520 We're Thick Thighs and Creepy Vibes,

00:38:33.440 a Canadian podcast digging into the stories

00:38:36.040 behind the headlines.

00:38:37.580 And the ones that never made it there in the first place.

00:38:40.840 Every week, we cover real cases,

00:38:43.660 real places, and real people from across the country.

00:38:46.860 Because nothing ever happens here is rarely true.

00:38:50.960 And once a month, we bring you some Sunday scaries,

00:38:54.640 a little collaboration of real-life horror stories.

00:38:57.200 no filters just straight chaos content warning we cover violence disappearances and disturbing

00:39:04.020 events listener discretion is advised so if you like your stories dark your humor is slightly

00:39:09.580 inappropriate and your curiosity is a little too strong for your own good then you're in the right

00:39:14.540 place because canada is not a boring place it's just really good at hiding things so if you want

00:39:20.220 to hear more about canada's dark side then listen to thick thighs and creepy vibes wherever you find

00:39:24.760 your podcast. Literally translating to ship ghosts, these restless spirits haunt the vast

00:39:35.980 expanses of Japan's seas, oceans, and coastal bays. Because they are already dead, they require

00:39:41.880 no diet or sustenance, only a relentless, vengeful desire to drag the living down into the dark

00:39:47.280 depths with them. What makes this lore so fascinating is that there are truly as many

00:39:53.100 Funeure stories as there are fishing villages in Japan. Depending on where you sail, locals might

00:39:58.880 call them Mojibune, which means dead man ships, Boko or Ayakashi. With each region, they tend to

00:40:05.780 throw in their own unique twists regarding the appearance and habits of the Funeure. Funeure,

00:40:11.860 as I said, rarely look the same twice. At their core, these apparitions are the shades of drowned

00:40:17.680 sailors remaining in this world, driven by a dark compulsion to hunt for their former friends, 0.97

00:40:23.100 comrades and any living crew so that they can drag them down into the deep to join them

00:40:28.180 they most commonly manifest as a ghostly crew of corpses dressed in white funerary robes

00:40:34.920 emerging from the ocean depths that image is just i mean it's like ghost ships but like

00:40:41.740 in a lot of these stories they there's not even a ship they just like appear out of the sea like

00:40:47.580 in the ship like as they would be standing on a ship but there's no ship

00:40:51.620 like floating above the waves

00:40:53.680 ugh

00:40:54.920 also I'm just like

00:40:57.320 it's kind of rude that they're like oh they're looking for their

00:40:59.380 friends to drag them down into the sea

00:41:01.500 with them like wait a minute

00:41:03.120 yeah it's like this

00:41:05.140 vengeful like feeling that

00:41:07.360 they were robbed of like an

00:41:09.120 honourable burial and

00:41:11.240 they

00:41:12.740 just want to take it out on the living I

00:41:14.760 expect and I think

00:41:17.200 that like maybe as it goes on

00:41:19.360 it's just like maybe sailors

00:41:21.160 who are much younger coming along after them like it's that's the only commonality is that it's just

00:41:26.640 other sailors and they want them to suffer yeah because they're not dead yeah because i'm like

00:41:31.560 why would you want your friend to suffer i suppose it is part of this um the failure of their death

00:41:38.420 practices that they're just they just become so warped like the unreal the the murder victim

00:41:44.220 spirits a lot of times you know like a murder victim wouldn't have been a bitter person but

00:41:49.580 the the violent death would turn them into turn their ghost into an embittered ghost yeah that

00:41:54.760 makes sense and a spirit that wants other people to pay right there it's like crazy thing to me

00:41:59.960 it's like you're trying to get through your trauma after your death yeah earlier when we were talking

00:42:05.000 about like unfinished business it just made me think of casper because wasn't that the whole

00:42:09.300 thing in casper like they always explain ghosts as having unfinished business yeah i think that

00:42:14.420 was like her dad's theory yeah in casper he was like oh the these people just have unfinished

00:42:19.680 business and that's how wasn't it because didn't he have like an ad or something wait because he's

00:42:24.400 like a ghost therapist right and he like had like a commercial and i think that's when casper is

00:42:29.060 like oh my god i gotta get him to my house yeah and he is like literally like you're saying like

00:42:34.560 working through their trauma by like after their death like that's that's also this concept you

00:42:40.280 know i remember i think i watched casper like two years ago it was after i had my first child

00:42:46.760 and it was just like hearing him like talk about his story about like how he passed away i was like

00:42:52.780 oh my god it's so sad yeah so sad like so so sad also side note just would love to acknowledge that 0.80

00:43:02.760 both christina ritchie and um oh my god what's his name devon sauer devon sauer really fucking

00:43:11.300 cool people both of them like judging by their posts online christina ritchie we knew that

00:43:15.500 already but devon sauer if you follow if you don't follow him on instagram anybody follow

00:43:19.880 him on instagram he is a cool ass guy like he is he's real leftist like real punk like he's i

00:43:26.280 really like him yeah yeah he posts a lot of like stuff against the current administration so i'm 0.96

00:43:31.580 glad the two of them grew up so well um he's also hot as fuck still because he remember i text you 0.85

00:43:38.640 i text you because he was in hacks yeah i was like devon sour 0.99

00:43:42.920 it's nice when your childhood crushes uh turn out good yeah like not pieces of shit 0.98

00:43:50.000 they favor the cover of darkness showing themselves during moonlit foggy or particularly 0.99

00:43:58.180 stormy nights during a new

00:44:00.280 or full moon or during the

00:44:02.280 festival of Obon.

00:44:04.060 The ghosts themselves carry large ladles

00:44:06.440 and buckets which they use to fill

00:44:08.400 ships with seawater, sinking

00:44:10.400 the ships and adding more souls to their

00:44:12.480 funerary crew.

00:44:14.460 The ladles is like the big

00:44:16.320 part of their imagery.

00:44:18.700 Yeah, and it's like, it seems like a very

00:44:20.300 time consuming way of

00:44:22.180 sinking a ship. You could just

00:44:24.200 blast a hole in the side of it, but apparently not. 0.97

00:44:26.380 yeah it's like you're already a ghost 0.89

00:44:28.420 I feel like you could do something that's better

00:44:30.620 exactly

00:44:32.900 while the classic image is a

00:44:34.820 phantom crew of ghosts that appear either above

00:44:36.800 the water or on ships with these ladles

00:44:38.920 the lore shifts wildly

00:44:40.560 depending on where you sail

00:44:42.200 their manifestations generally fall into

00:44:44.800 three other distinct types

00:44:46.420 so they'll often begin as an

00:44:48.840 airy glowing fog that creeps

00:44:50.940 closer and closer across the water

00:44:52.800 until it solidifies into a physical

00:44:55.000 ship land by spirits

00:44:56.420 the fog also just reminds me of Widow's Bay

00:44:59.100 I was gonna say for Sea Timber

00:45:01.020 we should try to like chat about

00:45:02.960 Widow's Bay

00:45:03.680 yeah I can't believe we actually haven't mentioned it yet

00:45:06.940 like the two of us like absolutely adored

00:45:08.840 Widow's Bay

00:45:09.340 I'm probably gonna watch it again

00:45:11.760 I feel like me too

00:45:13.720 I feel like a lot of our

00:45:16.180 our new listeners maybe found

00:45:18.920 us through Widow's Bay like cause we had

00:45:20.980 a couple of Widow's Bay Instagram reels go

00:45:22.980 super viral so if you're one of those people please make yourself known come out because yeah

00:45:28.800 i was actually going to mention patricia when you said uh your antlers earlier

00:45:32.620 in nagasaki yamaguchi and saga prefectures the fiona yore don't look like ships at all instead

00:45:42.960 they appear as floating atmospheric ghost lights called ayakashi and they dance above the water

00:45:49.620 but it's still a bad time when you see them coming in various coastal areas these ghost

00:45:57.100 lights can expand to look like massive sudden mountains rising out of the sea to obstruct a

00:46:02.800 captain's path much like the ghost ships themselves these phantom mountains instantly vanish if a

00:46:09.280 brave crew refuses to steer away and intentionally tries to sail directly into them i mean brave or 1.00

00:46:16.520 stupid. Yeah, right. On 1.00

00:46:18.360 Tsushima Island, the legend

00:46:20.320 takes the creepiest turn.

00:46:23.020 Here, the Funa Yorei

00:46:24.620 are said to haunt the beaches in the evening

00:46:26.600 appearing as a solitary child

00:46:28.780 walking right through the

00:46:30.520 middle of a blazing fire.

00:46:33.140 And that will like lure

00:46:34.160 you know, kind of like a lighthouse

00:46:36.260 sort of thing. And that will like lure

00:46:38.060 sailors towards the shore. 0.96

00:46:41.620 While we

00:46:42.740 always associate these spirits with the open

00:46:44.640 ocean local folklore warns that the fiona yorei aren't entirely confined to salt water legends

00:46:51.080 across japan document these exact same ghostly crews and lights manifesting inland haunting 0.59

00:46:56.940 rivers lakes and swamps now it could have gone into a whole fucking thing about like rivers and

00:47:02.340 lake sightings but this is already long enough yeah right so sea timber sea timber exactly that

00:47:11.640 was also why thank you it's not river timber it's not river timber right so let's get into like their

00:47:18.760 behavior and like what what these things actually do because that's always my favorite part of like

00:47:22.640 learning about a folklore creature or like phenomenon what actually happens to people

00:47:27.620 yeah when a few new yarae targets a vessel their behavioral patterns utilize everything from ghostly

00:47:34.720 tools to psychological tricks illusions and even environmental manipulation like their physical

00:47:41.140 manifestations. Funiorai

00:47:43.520 methods of attack vary

00:47:45.200 drastically by region, though their

00:47:47.280 goal is always to sink the living.

00:47:49.720 So, we have the headlong

00:47:51.220 charge. This is where a ghost ship

00:47:53.160 will often barrel directly

00:47:55.140 toward a living vessel at full speed.

00:47:57.500 This forces the captain to steer away

00:47:59.240 so sharply that the boat capsizes

00:48:01.140 under its own momentum.

00:48:03.580 Yikes. We have

00:48:04.940 the reef trap. On

00:48:07.240 exceptionally foggy evenings, the spirits

00:48:09.280 create illusions of sudden cliffs

00:48:11.240 rocky landmasses

00:48:12.660 or ships without pulleys

00:48:14.740 in the Ehime prefecture folklore

00:48:17.320 warns that trying to change your route

00:48:19.360 to avoid these sudden obstacles

00:48:21.340 is a trap doing so

00:48:23.300 invariably runs your boat aground

00:48:25.200 on a hidden reef

00:48:26.180 as with their appearance the only escape is to

00:48:29.200 maintain your course and sail directly through

00:48:31.220 the illusion to shatter it but like

00:48:33.020 that is so disorienting

00:48:35.720 because

00:48:36.460 yeah like if you see something how are you supposed to know if it's real and you should

00:48:41.560 avoid it or if it's not real and you should just keep going exactly and the fact that they're doing

00:48:46.260 this on foggy nights and have you ever seen people take like from like fishing trawlers the videos of

00:48:53.480 outside at night what it looks like like it's just black there is nothing like you cannot see

00:48:59.600 anything yeah that's terrifying i've driven in like very thick fog which is scary yeah if you

00:49:07.300 can't see something normally you can try and rely on your other senses but when you're driving

00:49:11.800 something or you know sailing something i mean you're relying on equipment but you know obviously

00:49:17.540 back in the day they didn't have those like it's did you see it was like an image going around and

00:49:22.720 it's like this is what a it looks like in the cockpit of an airplane at night no and it's just

00:49:28.260 black like you can see like the all the lights like of the like i don't know if they call it

00:49:34.060 the dashboard or like the control center or whatever but all those lights are lit up but

00:49:38.900 it's like looking out the window it's just black oh god yeah that i that fucks me up to think about

00:49:44.280 so wild i can't i can't do it i don't know i mean i know that they rely on you know the navigation

00:49:50.660 is mostly just you know fly this way but it would be hard to train your brain to

00:49:58.020 try to like move a vehicle forward when you don't have any clue like yeah like there's no like

00:50:04.780 landmarks to know where you're going yeah and there's like you're not like even like looking

00:50:09.000 at a cloud and going right we're about to pass that it must be so disorienting not to have like

00:50:13.140 any frame of reference for like your movement through space right well when i think i was

00:50:19.440 telling you about we had that really bad wildfire smoke here in chicago and when i was driving home

00:50:26.140 I could see the road but I couldn't see any of the like normal like landmarks that I passed by

00:50:31.340 and so it was just like you know where it would be like oh there's like a gas station here there's

00:50:36.640 like a tower over here there's you know whatever like I couldn't see any of those things so I kept

00:50:42.040 being like where am I even though I like knew where I was kind of it was like Silent Hill vibes

00:50:47.940 christ also was it you that sent me that video of the the people in the tesla driving through

00:50:56.180 a graveyard nope and they're like looking at their like it's like their parking sensor

00:51:05.060 yeah and it's sensing people but oh my gosh and there's like they're like filming around

00:51:13.380 there's nobody there and it's like showing like the outline shapes of people what oh my gosh yeah

00:51:19.200 so it's like this it's almost like a bird's eye view of the car so like the front of the car and

00:51:23.940 the back of the car but like yeah every now and then and it's like glitching in and out and there's 0.74

00:51:27.780 like people appearing on the fucking the thing like it is god chilling like the proper outlines

00:51:37.120 and everything yeah well that's like with the um when they invented that like xbox uh 0.91

00:51:43.540 oh what is it called where they would do it for like dancing games and stuff like that oh the

00:51:50.360 wii pick up your figure or was it the nintendo was it oh yeah box yeah so it was like it filmed

00:51:58.420 you there was like a camera as part of it yeah and so you don't like you could like play sports

00:52:05.100 or whatever and it would pick up your figure but then people found that it was like adding these

00:52:09.720 characters and it was like because it was picking up like figures in the room oh so weird yeah so

00:52:17.560 uh so crazy if i can find like the tesla video or any of those i will put them as because i've

00:52:24.300 started doing those posts where i do like a slideshow of stuff we talked about in the episode

00:52:28.780 that's where i put those videos and stuff so yeah i'll try and find some of those and put them up

00:52:33.300 on our instagram page when this gets released because yeah that tesla one is just that gives

00:52:40.040 me the heebie-jeebies then we have the false bonfire historically coastal communities like

00:52:47.040 i was talking about before lit bonfires on land to guide ships safely to port during foul weather

00:52:52.180 the funerary counter this by lighting deceptive fires in the open sea then misled boatmen steer

00:52:59.880 towards the light and they're

00:53:01.880 lured into the treacherous deep waters

00:53:04.020 where they drown

00:53:04.780 absolutely diabolical

00:53:07.240 diabolical

00:53:10.320 occasionally they forgo

00:53:12.140 a full crew a solitary

00:53:14.060 massive funeral yorai will rise

00:53:15.960 from the deep to instantly capsize a

00:53:18.000 ship so that is like

00:53:19.960 the monks that we were talking about before

00:53:21.980 this giant variant

00:53:24.020 typically demands a barrel from the crew

00:53:25.960 to flood the deck a behaviour

00:53:27.880 are so identical to the umbozu that the two are frequently confused and then the most famous

00:53:34.100 tactic involves the phantom crew pulling directly alongside a ship the ghosts swarm the deck

00:53:40.620 carrying large buckets and ladles called hushaku relentlessly scooping seawater into the vessel

00:53:46.760 until it sinks in certain places the torment becomes psychological or entirely fatal before

00:53:53.440 the ship even sinks these are spooky in the town of otsuki in the kochi prefecture the spirits

00:54:01.260 possess the ship's instruments causing the compass to spin wildly and leaving the crew hopelessly

00:54:07.020 lost once again at night in the middle of a fog and if it's a new moon there's not even any moonlight

00:54:12.480 right this is so terrifying isn't it like the sea the sea is so scary as it is and then you

00:54:19.720 of all this bullshit on top of it oh yeah i i mean i don't really like flying but the fact that

00:54:26.780 people used to like sail across the atlantic it's so insane to me it is just like go on a ship for 0.79

00:54:35.740 three months i'm like i complain about like i haven't flown much but the thing that keeps me

00:54:41.680 from flying is like i would have to be on a plane for how many hours i know and the thought that you

00:54:47.820 can't get off like that's the one thing about planes with me it's like you can't even open a

00:54:52.200 window i don't know why that freaks me out so much but you can't just get fresh air too right yeah

00:54:57.280 and like people like oh well you like because we drive to minnesota they're like you drive to

00:55:01.440 minnesota for eight hours and i'm like i could pull over exactly i can get out yeah and also

00:55:09.220 you're in charge of like the car or like you just have to ask whoever's driving or is like right you

00:55:14.580 can't be like hey we're over the ocean can you like make a pit stop yeah right trapped in this

00:55:19.900 box with a bunch of strangers yeah sorry to anybody listening to this on a plane by the way

00:55:24.560 yeah yeah hopefully you're not on a plane that anxiety hopefully not

00:55:30.280 imagine terrible we're terrible people we are awful in the toyama prefecture legends speak of

00:55:42.160 a malevolent curse where fishing boats

00:55:44.280 traveling towards Hokkaido

00:55:45.920 are fundamentally corrupted 1.00

00:55:47.700 turning into Funa Yorai 1.00

00:55:49.840 mid-voyage and driving the entire

00:55:52.040 crew to hang themselves

00:55:53.440 I need to know

00:55:56.280 if there's a TV show or a movie based

00:55:58.220 on that because I would watch the 0.95

00:55:59.840 fuck out of that 0.87

00:56:01.200 I like maybe 1.00

00:56:04.100 there's something wrong with me now I do

00:56:05.760 I was gonna say all of a sudden I'm just

00:56:08.040 like realizing you're really into like very

00:56:09.780 unsettling things

00:56:11.000 well like uh one of the series that you and i rewatched it which if you if anybody's ever seen 0.95

00:56:16.540 it you'd be like you crazy bastards so um there's a series called the terror um that is the first 0.82

00:56:24.180 the first season is based on the franklin expedition do you know you know what the 0.99

00:56:27.960 franklin expedition is no so they were trying to find the northwest passage and they got shipwrecked

00:56:35.920 and the they were like stuck in the ice and like it's like it turns to cannibalism and all that but

00:56:42.420 typical yeah the tv show deals with the folklore of the area like the inuit folklore oh cool so

00:56:50.760 it gets a little bit supernatural and it's just it's an incredible show really it's it's not a

00:56:55.980 good time but it's very good but terrible but incredible they're like the actors playing the

00:57:04.640 crew is amazing and all of that so like it's based on the true story of the the air the franklin

00:57:10.020 expedition and they only found those ships in like 2014 oh wow like that's how long they were stuck

00:57:15.400 in the ice but i think is it to yes so the second season takes place on the west coast of the united

00:57:24.640 states during world war ii and centers on the japanese folklore of bakemono which harasses

00:57:31.020 the Japanese-American community

00:57:33.180 in Southern California. Once again,

00:57:35.120 were these people not suffering enough during

00:57:37.080 World War II and tournament camps?

00:57:39.980 But

00:57:40.500 I need to check that out

00:57:42.640 and watch it.

00:57:45.420 Considering all of the research that

00:57:47.140 I put into this episode, I

00:57:49.000 need to see a

00:57:50.800 TV show based on the Hokkaido

00:57:53.060 curse where the crew are all driven

00:57:55.040 crazy. I'm sorry.

00:57:57.520 I'm sorry, I just have to see it.

00:57:59.280 I'm sure there is something out there if I do some digging.

00:58:02.620 Or you can make it happen.

00:58:04.480 Or I'll make it happen, yeah.

00:58:06.000 Now we are going to transition into our folktale.

00:58:09.800 So this is adapted from a translation by Zach Davison on his blog Hayaku Montagari.

00:58:20.140 In times past, it was said that if a boat was put out to sea on New Year's Eve,

00:58:24.780 it was sure to catch the eyes of the Fionnoyorai. 1.00

00:58:27.560 these are the restless souls of drowning victims they are bitter and wrathful toward the living 0.98

00:58:33.640 eternally rising from the ocean floor to drag vessels down into the deep one new year's eve

00:58:40.780 at mizushi manada in the seto inland sea a lone boat crossed the water heavy with goods for the

00:58:47.420 coming festival because of the nature of its precious cargo the crew had no choice but to

00:58:53.860 sail on this forbidden night, their hull already being tossed about by the white-capped waves.

00:59:00.740 To keep their spirits up, the crew shouted over the roaring wind,

00:59:04.960 What, do you fear to sail on New Year's Eve? Are we boatmen to lose our livelihoods out of fear of

00:59:10.480 the funer you're eye? The sky may be black as ink without a single star, but the wind is favourable.

00:59:17.000 If we hold our course steady, we'll be home before we know it.

00:59:19.840 cheering themselves in this manner

00:59:23.200 they pressed on into the pitch black sea

00:59:25.880 for a time fortune favoured them

00:59:28.720 their sails caught the full force of the wind

00:59:31.140 and they travelled so fast

00:59:33.060 it felt as if they were flying over the dark water

00:59:35.520 but suddenly the skies opened up

00:59:39.080 and a hammering rain began to fall

00:59:41.080 the fortunes have turned against us

00:59:43.700 the captain muttered

00:59:44.660 his eyes fixed on the blackening sea

00:59:46.900 yet the boatmen didn't stop their work

00:59:49.460 for even a moment, keeping the vessel steady as the violence of the storm increased.

00:59:55.360 Then, without warning, the boat ground to a sudden, dead halt, as if something massive

01:00:01.160 had reached up from behind and grabbed the hull. In that exact instant, the howling wind fell

01:00:07.620 into a dead calm. The wind is dead, a sailor gasped into the sudden, terrifying silence.

01:00:14.740 The sails have gone slack.

01:00:17.200 Before anyone could answer, they were blasted by a fierce, freezing breeze that seemed to blow straight from the abyss.

01:00:24.320 Everyone, push us ahead! Heave to those oars!

01:00:27.880 To the shock of the crew, the boat held its ground, frozen to the spot as if it had set down roots in the deep.

01:00:35.180 What is that? a sailor gasped, pointing over the gunwale.

01:00:39.480 From deep under the black water, something was drifting up towards the surface.

01:00:44.040 At first, they looked like floating balls of white cotton, but the pale shapes moved relentlessly upward, growing larger and more distinct.

01:00:53.000 The boatmen froze in terror as the forms finally breached the surface.

01:00:58.920 Wrapped in funeral robes, as white as snow, their hair floated wildly in the waves.

01:01:05.280 From below, a ghastly bioluminescent light lined their sunken faces. 0.98

01:01:09.960 There was no doubt that these were the dreaded Funa Yurei. 0.99

01:01:14.040 Their ghostly hands stretched up from the foam, their voices carrying a bitter, chilling grudge against the living.

01:01:26.260 Every sailor knows the rules of the sea.

01:01:29.000 If you are overcome by fear and hand over the ladle they request, you are as good as dead.

01:01:34.660 Every sailor knows the moment you give them a single Hishaku, it will split into multiple spoons.

01:01:40.160 Uncountable arms will stretch out from the ocean 0.82

01:01:42.320 while they sing a loathsome song filled with hate.

01:01:46.700 Eia, eia, eia.

01:01:51.020 With their infinite spoons,

01:01:53.000 the Funa Yirei will ladle seawater onto your deck

01:01:55.840 until the boat is swamped,

01:01:57.660 dragging the remaining crew to the bottom.

01:02:00.620 Every sailor knows because hundreds of ships

01:02:02.880 have met their end in this exact manner.

01:02:06.140 No, no, no, not to you.

01:02:07.480 we will never lend you a spoon the captain roared. Shivering so badly they could barely grip the

01:02:13.120 wood the boatmen refused the demands and pulled against the water with all their remaining

01:02:17.940 strength. This did not discourage the ghosts. As the boat slowly painfully crawled forward

01:02:24.720 the Funa Yorai matched its speed swimming alongside the hull. Go away leave us be. Desperate 1.00

01:02:32.400 the men raised their heavy oars and began to beat with all their might on the heads of the spirits.

01:02:37.480 but the ghosts merely absorbed the blows, their empty eyes fixed on the crew.

01:02:42.620 Let us stay, Shaku. Let us stay.

01:02:47.240 Suddenly, a pale, waterlogged hand gripped one of the oars.

01:02:51.880 With an unnatural strength, the spirit wrenched backward,

01:02:55.360 dragging a boatman over the side and into the freezing ocean.

01:02:59.740 Refusing to be pulled under, the sailor let go of the oar

01:03:02.760 and frantically clambered back up to the side of the hull.

01:03:06.280 In his blind panic, his boat caught the ship's guide lantern, sending it crashing to the deck.

01:03:12.160 The lantern shattered, brilliant sparks and bright flames flew across the wood,

01:03:16.800 casting a sudden blinding light over the water. 0.99

01:03:20.120 At the mere sight of the fire, the Funa Yorai shrieked and fled back into the darkness.

01:03:25.500 With the spirits broken, the heavy weight holding the ship vanished. 0.96

01:03:29.120 the boat broke free of its unseen bonds

01:03:32.080 and instantly sped forward

01:03:33.900 gliding smoothly across the waves

01:03:35.780 the light has saved us

01:03:37.880 the boatmen breathed in awe

01:03:39.200 watching the dark waters close over the place

01:03:41.860 where the phantoms had been

01:03:42.940 without looking back again

01:03:45.060 the boatmen summoned every ounce of their remaining strength

01:03:48.120 desperate to reach the safety

01:03:49.940 of the shore before the new year dawned

01:03:59.120 this legend comes from the okayama prefecture from an edo period book called kashi yawa

01:04:07.680 the fishing village in this area still sells specially made hishaku spoons with holes that

01:04:13.220 are said to ward off if you know your eye isn't that cool wow yeah so that just brought back

01:04:23.780 this memory of my mom took us to it was like family church camp we were like 12 i think

01:04:33.440 which that's like funny in itself for me no offense moms you're listening the idea of you

01:04:39.900 in a church camp is just so funny to me um but yeah it was a different uh era of emily

01:04:46.700 i'm like taylor swift i also have eras but they had these super cool like i don't even know if

01:04:54.980 you call it like a boat or what but you would stand on it and like hold the string and the

01:05:00.080 string was like holding on to like the front it was kind of like shaped like a it was kind of

01:05:05.160 triangular but it was like this big like plastic thing and you would pedal okay push down on each

01:05:11.960 side almost like you're riding a bike and it would like move so you could like pedal around

01:05:17.120 the lake i my mom and i took a canoe out and it was when like the sun was going down and it was

01:05:25.360 like when the sun like hits a certain point the lake like just turns black because there's just

01:05:32.200 no light reflecting out of it anymore yeah and all of a sudden it was like the water was very

01:05:37.840 still and the water was like black and my mom and i just like looked at each other and i was like

01:05:43.260 what if a hand just came out of the water and my mom was like emily no and then she's like

01:05:49.760 we're like paddling back to shore she's like we gotta get out of this lake jesus

01:05:56.300 and you say i'm a spooky one yeah i have terrible thoughts um but also i think what made the lake

01:06:08.820 like creepier is when i was on that like little paddle boat thing a bunch of trees had fallen

01:06:14.580 into the lake and the lake was like pretty clear so you could see all these like trees underneath

01:06:19.620 the water yeah like gnarled like yeah and it just kind of like gives this weirdness of like

01:06:25.920 like an underwater like village that drowned or something like that i don't know it just

01:06:30.740 it's like cool but creepy and then so i think i already had it in my head that it's like

01:06:36.340 there's probably dead people in this lake there was something hidden down there yeah

01:06:40.600 yeah something happened we like you just remind me as well we were talking like last week about

01:06:46.260 how we're well overdue out like a haunted lake episode or like a lake lake folklore because i

01:06:52.080 mean yeah wouldn't even have to do just lakes we could just pick a one or two lakes and just

01:06:56.840 well i yeah i lived in the land of 10 000 lakes that's what minnesota is called

01:07:03.600 oh yeah because it's just like there's tons of lakes there um but there i live in like the great

01:07:09.680 lakes region because now i live like on lake michigan and i used to live on lake superior

01:07:14.700 well not on it but

01:07:16.840 yeah she lives in a houseboat

01:07:18.920 yeah

01:07:20.320 I get seasick

01:07:23.600 way too easily for that

01:07:24.760 oh my god

01:07:25.760 I do wish I could live like on some body of water

01:07:29.600 yeah so that could be in your back

01:07:31.480 pocket for like eventually

01:07:32.720 I'll leave that as like an Emily episode if you want to do like

01:07:35.180 haunted lakes or

01:07:36.800 or spooky lakes

01:07:37.820 I feel like

01:07:40.100 cool

01:07:40.400 okay

01:07:43.080 right so now we're gonna like give advice to all of our listeners who are japanese sailors

01:07:48.880 um for what to do if you encounter one yeah i want to know if there's somebody who is a japanese

01:07:55.480 sailor if you as a japanese sailor ever find your ship cornered by a funeral yari sailing lore

01:08:02.580 offers a tactical toolkit to survive the encounter depending on which regional waters you're

01:08:07.660 navigating. Ancient sailors relied on a mix of psychological warfare, deceptive offerings and

01:08:14.200 direct defiance to banish the spirits. The most famous countermeasure targets the ghost's

01:08:21.600 relentless scooping behaviour directly. Crews would never set sail without ensuring their

01:08:26.220 inventory included buckets and ladles or hishaku with holes completely drilled out or knocked

01:08:32.440 through the bottom. When the

01:08:34.400 Funuyere pull alongside and demand 0.98

01:08:36.620 a tool, the sailors

01:08:38.280 willingly hand over the broken ones.

01:08:40.360 The ghosts, bound by their ritualistic

01:08:42.420 curse, will futilely attempt to

01:08:44.500 flood the vessel using the useless 1.00

01:08:46.580 gear, giving the living plenty

01:08:48.520 of time to slip away.

01:08:50.280 Aha!

01:08:52.700 Fooled ya! 1.00

01:08:54.460 Got your ass! 1.00

01:08:56.480 It's just so fun 1.00

01:08:57.700 to me that they, you know,

01:08:59.700 when you think of the vast inventory

01:09:01.660 of stuff that they would have to bring on a ship

01:09:03.540 that they were including buckets

01:09:05.680 with holes in them and ladles with holes

01:09:07.600 drilled into them because of this

01:09:09.460 folklore. I just love that

01:09:11.680 so much. Aren't there weight restrictions

01:09:13.900 on planes?

01:09:15.980 Mm-hmm.

01:09:16.860 So it just makes me think of like

01:09:18.760 no, you gotta put your sweater back so we can

01:09:21.600 take this bucket and ladle on.

01:09:24.920 Yeah.

01:09:26.480 Yeah, we gotta drop weight.

01:09:28.500 Like throwing stuff overboard.

01:09:29.700 No, not the ladles. 0.54

01:09:31.660 she's taking on water 0.85

01:09:33.580 for crews without modified ladles 1.00

01:09:35.880 or those dealing with a ravenous

01:09:37.940 ghostly horde, throwing the ship's

01:09:39.760 actual food and provisions overboard

01:09:41.640 acts as an immediate distraction

01:09:43.540 you're just like

01:09:46.180 chucking food at these people

01:09:47.320 the hungry ghosts will reliably

01:09:49.780 break off their attack to chase after

01:09:51.780 the floating offerings instead of the crew

01:09:53.680 seems to be, I mean

01:09:55.440 it's not good on long voyages because you're

01:09:57.760 losing your food but that's a

01:09:59.700 quick fix

01:10:00.600 yeah although like i don't know it's one of those things where it's like that's scary because if you

01:10:07.120 did get stuck out there then you don't have your food yeah your provisions are gone not my provisions

01:10:13.640 not my provisions across japan's coastal prefectures localized folklore outlines highly

01:10:19.760 specific items that must be thrown into the sea to ward off an encroaching phantom in kozushima

01:10:25.400 sailors throw flowers, incense sticks

01:10:28.720 dango, which are sweet

01:10:30.620 rice dumplings, washed rice

01:10:32.640 and fresh water

01:10:33.740 this just sounds like flowers and incense

01:10:36.820 sticks, I would just love

01:10:38.720 that if somebody was offering those to me

01:10:40.620 in the

01:10:42.340 Kochi prefecture, General Lord

01:10:44.560 dictates scattering ashes

01:10:46.480 and exactly 49 rice

01:10:48.660 cakes into the waves

01:10:50.360 I love those 49, however

01:10:52.300 if you're specifically in

01:10:54.560 the town of otsuki the offering changes strictly to summer beans not rice rice cakes summer beans

01:11:01.360 i feel like rice cakes would float too yeah and also i rice cakes seem like good food for fish

01:11:09.000 i think they would like that so by the way you're just if you're a fisherman you're probably

01:11:13.920 getting bait out does it seem good for fish because like they usually eat just like dried

01:11:18.600 things yes yeah i think so it's probably terrible for them like you know the way people tell you

01:11:25.460 not to throw rice at weddings anymore because birds ate them and then they explode and bread

01:11:29.800 they're not supposed to eat bread either yeah but people do it anyway they're like oh feed the ducks

01:11:35.060 bread and it's like it's not good for them stop yeah they say you should feed ducks peas they seem

01:11:40.700 to like peas well all the tiktok ducks love peas the tiktok ducks if you ever want to hear the most

01:11:47.820 delightful sound um look up like ducks eating peas on tiktoks because their little beaks and

01:11:54.260 eating the peas they do this little clapping oh my god it's so cute so that's that's everybody's

01:11:59.600 homework after the psychological terror that i'm inflicting upon you with these ghost ships all

01:12:03.480 right ducks and peas in nagasaki prefecture the spirits are driven away by throwing woven mats

01:12:12.000 ashes and burnt firewood into the water this is just littering at this stage i'm sorry

01:12:16.400 yeah for real woven mats 0.99

01:12:18.960 i feel like somebody came up with this so that they could just like get rid of their shit and 0.98

01:12:25.140 not feel bad about it yeah it's like oh it's an offering it's all the shit that was in my house 0.99

01:12:31.420 that i didn't know what to do with fucking woven mat that my mother-in-law made that i hate 0.98

01:12:35.780 the bin men won't take it away next it'll be like fridges you know all that stuff that you 0.98

01:12:41.880 have to get taken away specifically by specific people yeah yeah oh no just going into the ocean

01:12:49.060 no big deal and like our folk tale in the ehime prefecture a remarkably simple trick works

01:12:56.160 sailors can instantly disperse the funeral by lighting a single match and tossing it into the

01:13:01.560 sea now that seems to be the least invasive and impactful just one match a single match

01:13:07.600 you're not poisoning any fish

01:13:09.820 you're not littering

01:13:11.520 just one match

01:13:12.660 I mean you are still littering

01:13:15.100 yeah but like you know

01:13:17.560 in the grand scheme of things

01:13:18.920 it's not a fridge

01:13:20.200 it's not the size of something larger

01:13:23.500 it's not like a flat screen TV

01:13:26.240 yeah

01:13:26.900 when it's like wood so that's not like the most

01:13:29.820 it's not plastic

01:13:31.180 it's not like a lighter

01:13:32.600 like just chucking a lighter

01:13:36.040 into the sea

01:13:36.580 yeah if your ship is entirely out of offerings survival comes down to sheer nerve in miyagi

01:13:43.500 prefecture sailors believe that if a funigari appears you must immediately drop your sails

01:13:49.260 bring the boat to a dead stop and stare fixedly at the ghost without looking away this sounds awful

01:13:56.880 after a tense silent standoff the spirit will simply vanish yeah but how after how long 0.99

01:14:04.620 jesus christ you just have to stare them in the face and like pull down your sails what the fuck 0.88

01:14:08.720 yeah just like wait alternatively aggressively stirring up the water around the hole with a 0.98

01:14:15.240 wooden stick is said to break their magical hold i think that's a little bit better than just

01:14:21.640 staring at them yeah because it's like when you have to stare at them it's like when you're

01:14:26.800 watching like a really scary movie and you like kind of hide behind your hands yeah but you can't

01:14:31.300 do that if part

01:14:33.420 of the deal is staring at them. I don't know

01:14:35.300 it's just not being able to look away

01:14:37.420 from something that's terrifying is like

01:14:39.320 that's just very

01:14:41.280 unsettling. Yes, it sounds

01:14:43.240 awful. Perhaps the most metal

01:14:45.540 defense, insert

01:14:47.460 metal sound

01:14:49.280 effect here that I used to use for Krampus

01:14:51.360 I'll have to go find that

01:14:52.840 Perhaps

01:14:55.240 the most metal defense comes from

01:14:57.280 the Kochi Prefecture where fishermen

01:14:59.360 practice vocal identity

01:15:01.240 theft. By shouting into

01:15:03.280 the fog, I am a dozemun

01:15:05.300 an old nautical slang term

01:15:07.260 meaning a bloated, drowned corpse

01:15:09.080 the sailors boldly assert that they are

01:15:11.320 already dead. Deceived

01:15:13.240 into thinking the boat is already manned

01:15:15.300 by fellow spirits, the funerary

01:15:17.160 call off the raid.

01:15:19.180 Cosplay is a zombie. 0.72

01:15:21.120 A little get rid of them. 0.92

01:15:22.640 Have you heard that thing that's like 1.00

01:15:24.600 when men hit on you

01:15:26.980 to be like, oh my god, you can see me?

01:15:29.780 No, I'm not.

01:15:31.240 i love that amazing i thought you were just gonna say just bark at them which i also like no

01:15:39.040 but yeah to make it seem like you're a ghost just be like wait you can see me

01:15:46.140 amazing i've been dead for 50 years

01:15:51.860 yeah just start using like slang terms from the 1940s or something

01:15:57.480 develop a transatlantic accent

01:16:00.720 darling I can't believe you can see me

01:16:04.800 maybe you'll take me to the bunny hop later

01:16:08.460 let's go get a soda

01:16:10.000 you can buy me a root beer float

01:16:11.960 and I'll let you fill me up

01:16:13.480 finally there is the ultimate gamble

01:16:19.760 refusing to alter your course

01:16:21.600 if you're facing a phantom ship

01:16:23.280 or the deceptive illusions of sudden cliffs

01:16:25.740 and false guide fires designed by the

01:16:28.060 ghosts to run you aground. Maritime

01:16:30.020 tradition says you must maintain your heading

01:16:31.860 and boldly sail directly through the apparition.

01:16:34.560 It shatters the magic instantly

01:16:36.120 assuming, of course,

01:16:37.980 that the ship looming out of the fog is

01:16:39.960 actually a ghost and not a

01:16:42.060 real solid vessel.

01:16:43.760 So this, I think, is where you, modern day,

01:16:46.080 would rely on your equipment.

01:16:48.280 Unless it's like

01:16:49.800 Tesla level where it's

01:16:51.960 registering ghosts that are

01:16:53.640 that aren't actually really humans. 1.00

01:16:55.740 check the manufacturer if tesla made your navigation equipment then you're fucked 1.00

01:17:01.020 you're fucked otherwise but still you're fucked for this specific reason 1.00

01:17:07.000 you're fucked in many ways at this point yeah if you're supporting elon musk in 2026 1.00

01:17:13.300 in the year of our lord 2026 0.99

01:17:15.940 if you're in 2026 i think it's pretty apparent we don't have a lord

01:17:21.940 no

01:17:23.160 where's your god now

01:17:25.280 he's not Elon Musk

01:17:26.780 so now we have a little bit about

01:17:29.700 what could the actual

01:17:31.280 scientific explanation for

01:17:33.780 Fioniere be

01:17:34.840 because I always like to have a little bit of grinding

01:17:37.540 at the end just in case anybody's scared

01:17:39.360 it's easy to listen

01:17:41.820 to a tale like the ghosts of

01:17:43.480 Mizushima Nada and chalk it up

01:17:45.440 entirely to the overactive

01:17:47.240 imaginations of exhausted terrified

01:17:49.760 sailors

01:17:50.320 um i mean emily had a little ghost encounter potential ghost encounter lately and i didn't

01:17:56.580 want to be like you're also sleep deprived emily but it could have been a ghost i'm actually

01:18:04.800 this is the most sleep we have gotten with a nearly four month old baby okay but where is

01:18:13.220 your what's your frame of reference here because how much sleep are we talking because you could

01:18:17.060 be like this is the most sleep and it's like four hours oh okay yeah i guess um well my first born

01:18:24.660 for probably like a solid three months i was up like every 90 minutes oh no well she was up every

01:18:33.120 90 minutes so i was up like every 30 minutes yeah and i truly thought i was losing my mind

01:18:38.820 um no but this baby knock on wood where's the wood because i really need wood 0.99

01:18:45.000 um she has she might wake up once a night so she'll go to sleep for the night at like 11 0.99

01:18:57.080 which is late and i wish it was a little earlier but um yeah she'll go to sleep at 11 and sleep 0.99

01:19:03.400 till like 8 in the morning wow sleepy girl just fucking crazy holy shit but lately she's been 0.96

01:19:12.100 waking up at like 4 or 6 a.m but still i'm just like it's not even bad yeah because she'll wake 0.99

01:19:18.720 up and eat and then go back to sleep so you're saying your ghost and kinder was real then because

01:19:22.900 you're not sleep deprived yeah it probably was real do you want to tell the people what your

01:19:28.240 little and kinder was i was nursing my baby on my bed and she was laying on the bed next to me

01:19:37.720 fell asleep so I sat up and so her feet weren't far like from my thighs it's hard to really

01:19:45.680 explain without like being able to see it but um so she's like my legs were hanging off the bed

01:19:53.980 at this point um but I was sitting kind of like sideways so her feet are to the left of me and

01:20:04.500 then my cat was sitting like in front of my knees on the bed and i thought that my baby kicked me

01:20:11.420 and she at the at the same time as i like went to like look over at her my cat like perked up and

01:20:21.080 like looked in the same direction and my child was asleep and she was too far to even kick me

01:20:27.520 yeah so that was creepy

01:20:30.420 fully believing that animals can see things that we can't like my cats are really interested in

01:20:37.860 the little crawl space behind our bed again but i'm i mean it's either ghosts or mice and neither

01:20:43.920 one is appealing to me yeah neither is ideal no because balor keeps trying to get into the little

01:20:50.580 like there's like a little kind of half door that i i can get into and ewan can't get into it so i

01:20:56.340 should just go in there sometimes when i'm like sick of him um i was gonna say you can run away

01:21:01.460 now so like yeah there's a little half door and balor keeps like last night he like jumped off

01:21:08.320 the bed and went running straight up to him was like sticking his little nose up oh my god um

01:21:13.080 but it's probably mice i mean that makes the most sense yeah unfortunately i don't think you have a

01:21:21.580 ghost yes unfortunately i'm a capricorn so as we have very much said like i will find a way to

01:21:29.300 explain everything did i tell the story of the ceiling fan on the podcast no i don't think you

01:21:35.360 told me the story of the ceiling fan i feel like i did it was a few months ago i was putting my son

01:21:42.180 to sleep in his bedroom and he has a ceiling fan in his bedroom i had shut it off um and then i was

01:21:50.540 like sitting in his chair with him just holding him and the ceiling fan had come to a stop

01:21:56.520 and then all of a sudden it like turned back on again but it was going the opposite direction

01:22:02.580 and it was going like it was going at a rate that like didn't make sense if it had been like

01:22:10.020 a breeze or something that blew it but it wouldn't yeah everything was seemed like there was power

01:22:13.980 behind it yeah so it went the opposite direction that it like it normally does and then it stopped

01:22:22.000 and then it turned back the other direction and stopped again oh my god and it wasn't like a it

01:22:29.840 wasn't a slow down stop it was just like a straight up stop oh god and i was like interesting

01:22:37.780 clockwise versus counterclockwise

01:22:42.040 in witchcraft

01:22:43.720 in witchcraft 0.66

01:22:45.460 the movement direction dictates the energetic goal

01:22:48.300 clockwise is

01:22:49.640 deosil, builds, attracts and creates

01:22:52.180 why counterclockwise

01:22:54.300 which is widdershins

01:22:55.460 banishes, releases and undoes

01:22:57.960 so it could be somebody

01:23:00.300 protecting him

01:23:01.180 that would be nice

01:23:02.380 he needs all the protection he can get

01:23:05.580 do you from himself um do you need do you remember which direction it was going

01:23:14.420 like first and then second so it normally goes what's that counterclockwise so it was going

01:23:22.200 so it normally goes anti-clockwise okay so that's widdershins so that's the banishing

01:23:26.820 and then the clockwise ones is builds attracts and creates

01:23:31.600 huh

01:23:32.580 interesting

01:23:34.380 yeah cause conjure clockwise cleanses

01:23:36.880 spaces, breaks hexes

01:23:39.120 dissolves sacred circles

01:23:41.580 at the end of a ritual

01:23:42.560 it could also just be cause it normally goes one direction

01:23:45.680 it was like

01:23:46.580 undoing whatever it normally was

01:23:49.740 who knows

01:23:50.240 yeah it was just

01:23:52.000 I mean we do have, this is a very old house

01:23:54.440 and I know that like the wiring and stuff is old

01:23:57.520 cause we do have like random like

01:23:59.180 sometimes lights in our house just don't work and then they'll work like the next day 0.98

01:24:03.740 same at this house so yeah so it could just be like you know the faulty wiring in this fucking 0.85

01:24:11.160 house but yeah we're just gonna capricorn it out we're just gonna we're just gonna explain it 0.94

01:24:16.480 yeah but yeah it was one of those things where i was just like oh that's weird i don't like it

01:24:22.680 am I going to have to deal with a haunting now 0.99

01:24:25.180 yeah fuck 1.00

01:24:26.900 three kids and a haunting 1.00

01:24:28.340 put that on a t-shirt

01:24:32.300 right 1.00

01:24:33.800 fuck three kids and a haunting 1.00

01:24:36.340 we were 1.00

01:24:37.960 we were just at a wedding

01:24:39.840 on Sunday and they had like a

01:24:42.300 big bowl of Caesar salad

01:24:44.880 and we sat

01:24:46.860 down at the table and we sat next to

01:24:48.940 like my friend

01:24:50.760 who got married it was one of her friends

01:24:52.680 and i was like you're gonna eat that caesar salad and she goes yeah i i put it on my plate

01:25:00.040 and then i thought about it and it was just like i have to take a plane in two days so i don't think

01:25:06.300 i'm gonna eat it and i was like i was like yeah people say you can wash it and stuff like that

01:25:11.660 but i'm actively avoiding lettuce yeah the diarrhea lettuce yeah i was like i have three 0.96

01:25:19.180 kids three and under i don't have fucking time for explosive diarrhea oh my god yeah it used to 0.96

01:25:25.000 be that i would be like oh well you know go vegetarian because you very rarely get food 0.99

01:25:28.920 poisoning but you can't even fucking say that anymore no they're putting the diarrhea in the 0.82

01:25:33.660 lettuce it's not fair can we have nothing yeah i'm just like i like really want a salad but i 0.97

01:25:40.540 can't have it is it all lettuce or is like just impossible to know like not all men because they

01:25:46.100 did all the like staffing cuts and stuff they're like the reaction time to this has been super slow

01:25:52.700 and like it's been like impossible to really like narrow down exactly where it's coming from

01:25:59.400 so they're like okay try to avoid or you know beware that um it's lettuce cilantro green

01:26:10.260 onions like those are like the usual culprits mm-hmm jesus and during the summer too when you

01:26:17.020 want all that stuff exactly it's like well this is when it's crispy and really good so yeah

01:26:22.320 okay so speaking of um being capricorns and capricording out and having the scientific

01:26:30.980 explanations for things it's easy to listen to a tale like the ghost of mizushi monada like i said

01:26:35.640 this and chalk it up entirely to the overactive imaginations of exhausted terrified sailors but

01:26:40.140 there could be a real physical force

01:26:42.220 mimicking the grasp of the Funiurei.

01:26:45.280 Centuries later,

01:26:46.520 modern oceanography actually provided

01:26:48.400 a fascinating scientific explanation

01:26:50.480 for ships suddenly being

01:26:52.200 quote-unquote possessed and frozen

01:26:54.300 in place. It's a phenomenon

01:26:56.240 known as dead water. So

01:26:58.000 the way it happens is at the mouth

01:27:00.320 of large, at the mouths of large

01:27:02.160 rivers, light, low

01:27:04.220 salinity freshwater stagnates

01:27:06.160 directly on top of the heavier

01:27:07.960 your high salinity sea saltwater creating a sharp invisible boundary beneath the surface and then

01:27:14.980 when a vessel hits that exact boundary the ship's energy gets completely trapped so the momentum

01:27:20.580 stops and instead of propelling the craft forward the oars or propellers merely stir the boundary

01:27:27.000 layer expending all their power to generate hidden internal waves and then so when you think of like

01:27:33.800 what that seemed like to ancient mariners it would just seem like the ship just stopped in place

01:27:39.180 yeah despite sails being full the crew rowing like as hard as they can

01:27:45.060 and then put on top of that it's in the pitch black of a stormy night 0.95

01:27:50.060 with fog around probably no moonlight um and then your imagination fucking runs wild it feels like 0.84

01:27:57.940 there's something like literally physically stopping the ship from below yeah that's crazy

01:28:04.140 yeah it's crazy that there's there's like a like i can't imagine how scary that would be even 0.59

01:28:10.080 knowing this scientific like reason for it because you would be like what the fuck do we do like our

01:28:15.660 we don't have the power you know to get out of this we're just basically it's kind of like

01:28:21.160 quicksand because you're kind of just stuck there or like driving on ice yeah exactly exactly

01:28:28.140 whether it was the trickery of the ocean's currents or the vengeful spirits of the drowned

01:28:33.880 demanding a ladle the horror behind the maritime folklore of japan is not for the faint-hearted

01:28:39.400 so thank you for joining us for this sea timber dive into the dark waters of japan's coastlines

01:28:46.840 keep an eye out for our upcoming pinecone short episode

01:28:50.000 where we'll explore the real world

01:28:51.940 earthquake fish behind the

01:28:53.920 legendary Rugu no Tsukai

01:28:56.380 and that is

01:28:58.100 our episode for Sea Timber

01:28:59.940 2026

01:29:00.860 and Niamh I just gotta tell

01:29:04.060 you that you took the wind

01:29:06.140 out of my sails by

01:29:07.860 providing a scientific explanation

01:29:10.160 I know I'm sorry

01:29:11.380 I always wonder should we do that

01:29:13.240 should I bother doing that

01:29:14.600 i just had to put a pun in there somewhere yeah well i got all the puns in so you got to you got

01:29:20.840 to get your own pun yeah at the very end i was like i need to put one in here so yes that is the

01:29:26.680 i we don't do enough japanese folklore episodes because it is so hard to find books and like

01:29:34.440 articles like literature about it that's not just blogs and i'm always very wary of just like

01:29:40.100 reproducing or like taking all the information from a blog written by a white person yeah um

01:29:47.180 because i'm i'm sure it's all you know correct and well researched for the most part but like

01:29:52.940 i would love to have some like from japanese sources so yeah it's it can be quite difficult

01:29:58.440 to find things um yeah but i adore japanese folklore and i love i love these episodes

01:30:04.980 same they're so fun thanks for listening everybody uh we have some truly exciting stuff

01:30:14.580 planned for october we don't want to say what it is yet um but trust me if you have been a

01:30:21.280 rowan and pine listener you're not gonna want to miss what we're doing in october that's all i'm

01:30:26.860 gonna say on that so far i love how it feels like one of those things where we're hyping

01:30:32.140 something up and it's actually not that exciting but it actually is very exciting it actually is

01:30:38.360 very exciting it's actually hard not to say what it is but um yeah people will probably have certain 0.91

01:30:44.340 guesses uh we're not going to tell you until it comes out um so suck it so yeah so suck it we're 0.78

01:30:50.180 gonna do that influencer thing when like i have big news that i can't tell you yet right i really 0.98

01:30:55.980 want to share it but i can't i can't tell you because i'm kind of it's not that we're contracted

01:31:01.080 we're just um we just want to surprise you because it's spooky season it's the best season of all

01:31:05.860 so uh for episode 54 i had to check my notes this has been fiona yarae c timber i am neve

01:31:15.220 and i'm emily enjoy my voice while you have it because you probably couldn't miss out on a few 0.98

01:31:22.620 episodes from me for a while she's gonna peace out and fuck yeah folklore fuck yeah folklore 0.99

01:31:32.300 see ya see ya 0.99

01:31:52.620 let's do it

01:31:57.420 good input yeah you tell them

01:32:03.060 this is so cute so cute her little her little grunts

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Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - September 09, 2026

Episode Fifty-Four： Funayūrei, Japanese Ghost Ships 🌊 it's Testicle Tuesday!

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