Shownotes Transcript
This time on Myths and Legends, we're back in the story of the Monkey King, and we'll see that no matter how good a deal you can get on a hotel room, if they steal your pants in the night, that's not a good deal. The creature this week is the bird who collects cinnamon sticks, and whose home someone needs to destroy every time they want cinnamon sticks. This is Myths and Legends, episode 404, Not Found. ♪
This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore. Some are incredibly popular tales you might think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories that might be new to you, but are definitely worth a listen. So if this is your first time listening, you can absolutely jump in here. The stories of the Monkey King are extremely episodic, and I'll give you all the backstory you need right now. The overall story is from a medieval Chinese novel called Meijing.
The Journey to the West, where the characters are, unsurprisingly, on a journey to the West to retrieve holy Buddhist scriptures at a temple. Our main monk, Xuanzong the Tang monk, is technically the protagonist, but he's a monk. In a world chock full of demons and monsters and evil kings, he needs some help.
The breakout character is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. He's a monkey that gained immortality and rose to challenge and nearly defeat heaven itself. And he was imprisoned under a mountain for 800 years, when he ultimately failed. Promised freedom if he can protect the monk. He can shapeshift, turn his hair into any number of things. He has an iron rod that can change shape, size, and density. And he can fly on clouds.
Pigsy is a humanoid pig man with a range of appetites. Those appetites got him in a lot of trouble and, like Monkey, he needs to redeem himself. He carries a rake, hates wearing a shirt and bathing, and, despite being a pig, is generally seen as the least intelligent member of the group. Sandy is an indigo sandman. He
He's dour and serious, and he can shapeshift by having his sand take different forms. He, too, was cast out and spent his time devouring travelers until the Tang monk came along. Finally, we have Yulong the dragon horse, a dragon in the form of a horse that almost never leaves that form. So, yeah, it's a horse.
These four, technically five, are traveling west to get the scriptures, and they constantly run into demons and dangers like in their current predicament. We'll catch up with Xuanzong, the Tang monk, tied up in a monster's lair. The Tang monk, Xuanzong, struggled against his ropes. A mole cricket landed next to him. After everything bugs were landing on him, he turned and blew on it.
Get out of here. Go. I don't need this right now. He tried to wiggle a little bit and swatted away. Where was Monkey? He should be by by now. He's supposed to take any form, like a mole cricket. So when Wukong took his monkey form and bowed, Hi, Master.
Monkey, I'm glad you're here. I have some theories on what was eating all those monks at the monastery. Xuanzong nodded thoughtfully. Monkey said, oh, really? Was it the young woman they met on the road tied to that tree? And Monkey was like, don't rescue her, she's a secret monster. But Master pulled rank and demanded that he rescue her, taking her to a monastery where monks just happened to be getting devoured in the night. And then she kidnapped the Tang monk when the net started to close around her
and now she was going to marry the Tang monk for some reason before consuming his flesh to live forever. Does that track with your theory? Does that... Am I in the ballpark? One of them, yes. Xuanzang looked to the cave floor. Okay, just like agree to marry her, but say that you want to go on a walk outside in the orchard. I'll be in the form of a peach, and then I'll use her liver and lungs as a speed bag until she agrees to let you go. Sounds good, Xuanzang said when the mole cricket hopped away as the young woman approached.
What sounds good? Um, who has two thumbs and is willing to forsake everything he believes in in order to marry a woman who kidnapped him? Xuanzang paused. Well, actually, it was him. He was chained to a pole, so he couldn't do the thumb thing, but it was him. He wanted to do the forsaking bit. Monkey rolled his eyes, listening outside. A peach dropped to the ground. That took way longer than I thought it would, Monkey said.
A whole legal drama in heaven when the peach thing didn't work out? Ugh. Glad everyone was okay, though. Well, except for all those monks that got eaten. Yeah, kinda. Kinda surprising that the city wasn't evil for once. Just a group of monks trying their best. Also kind of ironic that we were the ones that brought the demon to them, Sandy pointed out. Yeah, like, I am the danger, Pigsy laughed. But no, a lot of monks were eaten. That was actually really sad.
"'Priest, you must stop now!' a voice cried out from ahead. A woman, hunched and wizened, stood next to a boy who held her hand and helped her along the road. "'Oh?' Xuanzang asked, slowing his horse, "'and why is that?' The Tang Monk, Pigsy, and Sandy walked forward to confront the... I mean, let's be real, obviously sketchy stranger."
Up ahead, about five miles down the road, is the Dharma-destroying kingdom, the elderly woman warned. Two years ago, the king of the city made a vow. He was going to kill 10,000 Buddhist priests. Why? Sandy asked. The woman said she didn't know. Sinning? If he made a goal to kill 10,000 people, specifically priests, he obviously wasn't making rational decisions. The woman sighed. Eh?
Anyway, in 24 months he had succeeded in slaughtering 9,996 monks. Over 9,000? Pigsy blurted out. The woman looked up to the pig man she apparently wasn't phased by. I'm sorry, I think I have questions. Pigsy raised a hoof. Those were impressive numbers, horrifying of course, but still. To be this remote, this far west, and still be able to kill over 9,000 monks? I mean...
They had been at this for years and had seen maybe a few dozen total on the road. Xuanzang sighed. She was doing the right thing in trying to warn them. Bad guy bad. He needed four monks to complete his murdery bucket list. They were four monks. Is there any way around the city? Xuanzang asked. Maybe go around a mountain? It's not like they were on a time crunch. I mean, they were already four volumes into this thing.
No way around, the woman giggled, according to the text. What do you mean no way around? It's a city. Does it span the earth? There had to be a way around. Pigsy looked back. Big brother's son, what do you make of this? But Monkey didn't respond. He was on the ground, bowing. Big brother? Guan yun. What? Fawn den? No, this is a robe, big brother. Pigsy laughed. Guan yun.
"Con men? Monkey, one of them is a woman and she seems harmless. Though so did that one who ate all those monks recently." "Guan! Yan!" Monkey hissed through his teeth. "Shan Pen!" Pigsy squinted.
Then, a gasp from up in the front of the group. Xuanzang understood what Monkey had been saying this whole time. Mainly because Guan Yan and Red Boy, the Bodhisattva, and her reforming demon, Page, had taken their actual forms, and were now atop a pink cloud shaped like a petal. Sandy, Pigsy, Xuanzang, and even Yulong the Dragon Horse joined Monkey in deference to the spiritual entity that had started them on this quest. With a smile, Guan Yan ascended to heaven. So...
"'What was all that about?' Sandy took the form of a not-kneeling Sandy as the others rose to their feet-slash-hooves. "'And why didn't you tell us it was Guan Yan?' Pigsy full-on squealed. "'Oh, I'm sorry that my bowing and saying Guan Yan over and over was so unclear to you,' Monkey glowered. "'It was obviously a warning. Guan Yan didn't want them to turn back, though.'
She had sent them on this quest. And honestly, what was a city that wanted them dead? If Guan Yan was to be believed, and she was, then this wasn't even a city full of demons, or run by demons, or under siege by demons. Man, we run into so many demons. It did present certain other problems for Monkey, though. Namely, that he didn't have a blank check to massacre any antagonists, because...
because, as has been firmly established in the story, the Buddhist exhortation not to kill or harm any living beings apparently doesn't count at all when it comes to demons. Not only that, but it seems to be relatively celebrated. Still, they should get off the road.
By virtue of it being a normal city, people might be out traveling or on business. And if they know the king is looking for Buddhist priests to murder, and they happen to see Buddhist priests, things might get a little inconvenient for any snitches wanting to stay alive. Xuanzang shook his head. Okay, fine, it might get inconvenient for their group's safe passage through the city. Monkey grumbled. Just testing out those waters.
Once they got Xuanzong off the road, Monkey said he was going to transform and scout ahead. And Xuanzong gripped his hairy wrist. Monkey needed to be careful. He was going up against the law of a king. Monkey cocked and said, yeah, it was a bad law and violated like a couple precepts of their religion. He was pretty okay violating an obvious unjust and unethical law. Also, if it was a safety master was worried about, he literally had his head cut off and carried it away.
he would be fine. I brought up Xuanzang's protest right there because it seemed really bizarre to me that he would give seemingly equal weight to the obviously immoral edict from a king, by virtue of it being a king's order, and one of the foundational precepts of his religion. Monkey took to the air on a cloud to close the distance between camp and the city, and then took the form of a moth, because a monkey-monk form was never a good way to blend in.
Apparently, Monkey didn't realize when he turned into a moth at night just how much he would like lanterns and candles, and he spent more time than he intended just circling one. Eventually, though, he managed to pull himself away and flutter down to the street, where he saw a hotel.
As he watched the group of men getting undressed for the night, he had an idea. But as his plan involving opportunistic nudity and theft came together in his mind, the hotel owner, Stuart Wong, chimed in. He was gonna be real. This hotel was in a rough area of town. Many thieves frequented this area,
This shouldn't come as a surprise to them, their nightly rate reflected that, but for their convenience, he did have a service where he locked up their money bags, head wraps, cloaks, and pants for the night. So no one steals them. And just to get ahead of the questions, yes, even pants. The patrons apparently didn't balk at this. I guess when they made the reservation at that price, they recognized the possibility of someone arriving in the night to steal their pants.
They stripped down, got into bed, and Steward Wong gathered up their valuables to keep them safe deeper in the house. Just in time for Monkey to steal them. Monkey swaggered back into camp. He had a plan. And borrowed pants.
"Why are you so burned?" Xuanzang said, as he took the pants and smelled them. "I was a moth and you have no idea how appealing a candle is." My need to touch that flame kind of dovetailed with the mission, so I got to dive into a flame. Turned out the actual idea was way more appealing than actually setting my body on fire.
Anyway, he put out the flame, changed into a rat, borrowed the clothes, and now they were just going to walk through town. He got head coverings and everything, so no one had to know they were monks. As long as they got dressed quickly, they could be through the city gates before they closed tonight and then out the other side as they opened tomorrow morning, after staying in the city, of course. Done and done.
Xuanzong, as he dressed, said the story as Monkey told it sounded a lot like theft. Monkey said he appreciated that thought from his master and while yes, it might sound like that, Monkey told the hotel owner that he was taking the clothes.
and told him their mission and the hotel owner agreed, so it was all above board. Monkey didn't tell his boss that, while all of that was technically true, he used his disembodied demon voice and left the man and his family cowering. Those other details didn't feel super relevant though, because as previously noted, what he already told his boss was technically
technically true. So they all got dressed, and surprisingly, the clothes pretty much fit. Well, except for Pigsy's head covering, which needed some emergency tailoring because Pigsy's head was absolutely massive compared to a normal human head. Not sure how or why that's relevant, but if you wind up at trivia night and the person asks you which one of the scripture pilgrims had the biggest head, probably find a new trivia night. Those questions are too hard.
They would have to dispense with the master and the disciple stuff when they entered the city, instead pretending they were part of a fraternal order. Xuanzong, the Tang monk, would be Grand Master Tang, which feels like it should set off some alarm bells, but maybe they were far enough from China that it wouldn't necessarily be like someone from Canada calling themselves Grand Master Canada. Pigsy would be Third Master Zhu, Sandy would be Fourth Master Sha, and Monkey would be Second Master Sun.
There was a neigh behind them, and Monkey turned to face Yulong the dragon horse, who never leaves the form of a horse. Monkey rolled his eyes. Yulong could leave the form of a horse sometimes. He knew that, right? He's so method, Pigsy marveled.
Monkey said that was good because he was part of the ruse. They were horse traders and this was their sample. Do medieval Chinese horse traders give samples like a Costco? Pigsy wondered. Monkey said, ha, it was a demonstration of the quality of their goods, not like an eating sample. Then say that. Pigsy crossed his arms and then shot them down to his side, fuming. Man, he hated wearing a shirt.
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On the walk up to the city, Monkey stopped every now and then and picked bits from the refuse pits they passed. Pigsy looked over. Why was Monkey collecting bits of broken tile? You mean silver? Monkey opened his palm to reveal the transformed tile with a wink. Monkey, don't cheat the innkeeper. You've already robbed him. Xuanzang asked. Borrowed. I borrowed the clothes and informed him where they would be. And then he gave them to me. It was a verbal contract. Monkey told his boss.
briefly remembering the dribble of urine from the innkeeper as he clutched his family close and screamed for the voice that seemed to fill the room to take the clothes. Please. Besides, he would pay the innkeeper what he wanted with silver, and it would be silver at the time of purchase. Monkey were monks, Xuanzang said, and though the street inside the gate wasn't busy, they started to draw glances from two of the men's staggering home.
"'Nope, we are horse traders. Look at this horse. I'm gonna cheat an innkeeper,' Monkey said loudly. "'Right, Captain Tang, or whatever we're calling you?' Second Master's son looked at his boss. The eavesdroppers went about their business at the mention of obvious fraud. "'As long as it was that, not monk stuff like kindness and generosity,'
I've lost my head wrap. I've lost my cloak. I've lost my pants. I knew I should have paid attention to those one-star TripAdvisor reviews about the pants theft. The men inside the hotel said as Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, and Xuanzang approached, wearing the men's head wraps, cloaks, and pants. And we're not sponsored by TripAdvisor.
But if you do see a preponderance of one-star reviews anywhere that warn of rampant pants theft, it's probably a good idea to heed that very specific warning. I don't think this places any vacancies. Let's try the one across the street. Monkey pointed. The one across the street did, in fact, have a room available. And as four monks stretched out, they remarked that, wow, why hadn't they stayed in a hotel before? This really beats sleeping on the side of the road. And why would...
Why would grand merchants sleep on the side of the road? The owner, a woman of 57 or 58, asked, the story says, getting oddly specific about her age. Because we're sleeping beside our herd of horses, Monkey narrowed his eyes at the woman. She said, oh, is that why they all had different surnames? What was it? Sun, Tang, Zhu, and Sha?
Yes, and there are ten more outside the city with our horses. It's a fraternal order. Winky didn't expect to be grilled so hard by the hotel owner, but he was pretty nimble. He explained how they had a hundred horses outside the city, and they were looking for a place to stay. The horses were the same as the sample horse in the stable below, but...
As previously established, it was like the knife sellers at Costco in that it was a demonstration horse and not like the samples at Costco that you eat, so please don't eat their horse. Oh, and Costco, if you're listening and want to throw some ad dollars our way, we're every other week now and we could use the sport. The hotel owner might have had her suspicions about who these four men, who still hadn't taken their head coverings off, were, but...
But seeing dollar signs or a more period-appropriate currency like the one, she decided that all these guys were above board. They here at this hotel had a massive courtyard stocked with feed and very little pants theft, almost none.
She said that she was the Widow Zhao. She took over the hotel when her husband died. It was probably pretty obvious by her position and name, and they didn't need to go into the whole story, though the original absolutely does. Like an inn in the most recent Zelda games, Widow Zhao's inn had tiers of service, but they are much more complex and considerably more sketchy, with superior accommodations that
They got a five-course banquet with special candles, a table that they shared with only one other person, and they each got a hostess who both drink and rest with them. Read into that what you will, but yes, that is the subtext and also very nearly the text. That was five silver coins per person. The moderate accommodations meant everyone shared a table and ate fruits and drank hot wine. No hostesses for this one. This was only two silvers.
The inferior accommodations, as they were called, weren't even worth mentioning. Master Sun said they would hear it and then make their own decisions,
and she shrugged... for the inferior accommodations. There was no one to serve them. They could scoop out all the rice they could eat, and then grab some straw and sleep on the ground. No room charge for this one, but in the morning it would be a few pennies, or whatever the period equivalent cost would be for the rice. Pigsy was down for the inferior option. Pigsy wanted to do it not because it was the most monk-like service...
but because he wouldn't have waiters pestering him with fancy dishes, and he could just load up on as much rice as he wanted before pushing some hay together and sleeping on the floor like the animal he was. Widow Zhao narrowed her eyes. Hmm, that tier was a bit... austere, don't they think? Monkey dug into his pack. Of course it was, and Master Zhu was only joking. They'd take the superior service. Also, one has to assume that the lowest tier, the inferior service...
was like the jukebox from the movie Talladega Nights, mainly there for profiling purposes in order to suss out potential monks in their midst. The woman took the 20 pieces of silver with a smile and rushed to get their feast ready, calling out to the kitchen about all the animals that needed to be slaughtered. Xuanzong looked to Monkey in panic.
But Master Sun rose, saying, actually, they observed a vegetarian diet. The woman's eyes narrowed. Oh, did they now? And was this vegetarianism temporary, or was it a more perpetual, say, monk-like diet? Second Master Sun said neither. They kept the Genshin diet. You see, on Genshin, today, they must keep a vegetarian Genshin diet.
on Xinyu, tomorrow, or after the third watch is passed that night, they could eat meat. Widow Zhao, who, like me, doesn't know enough about medieval Chinese culture or language to make heads or tails of that, gave them the benefit of the doubt, especially when they would pay superior prices for a vegetarian feast.
The story goes full Redwall, in detailing the sumptuous vegetarian feast, but I won't read it because we've lingered too long in this scene already. But the group began to grow concerned when they heard voices outside. Young men, they were gonna fetch the, um, hostesses. Monkey said that they could hold off on that. As excited and as rich as they currently were, they would rather wait until tomorrow, when they had the proceeds from the sale to really let loose with all their friends. Widow Zhao agreed,
and told the men to hold off going into the village. "'We can't sleep here,' Xuanzang said, looking at the beds and feeling his head covering anxiously when they were finally alone. Monkey said that actually, according to his master's teaching, sleeping was like the one thing they could do here."
Xuanzang pointed to the plush, comfortable bed. And what happened when a servant walked in in the morning and saw them with their head coverings slipped off in the night? Or, even more likely, asked why they were going to sleep with their head coverings on? Monkey rolled his eyes and smiled at the servants bringing the dishes in as they set them down at the tables. Fine. He would think of... something.
After the meal, Master Sun pulled Widow Zhao aside. They had something of a problem. He went on to lay out several maladies, like arthritis and allergies, and the fact that neither he nor his first master, Tang, could sleep unless in perfect darkness. And Widow Zhao began to fret that they were trying to weasel out of their room, but then her daughter came up with an idea. Downstairs, Monkey, Sandy, Pigsy, and Xuanzong looked at the...
The wardrobe, it was giant, big enough to fit four full-grown men. Monkey sighed, alright, they would all sleep in the wardrobe. So for the group to give up a room like that, to sleep four in a wardrobe, would be like someone nowadays giving up a room at like the Four Seasons to, well, I guess, sleep in a wardrobe.
Because of the Tang monk's paranoia at being discovered without his head covering, he wouldn't rest until Monkey had papered over all the potential holes. Though, which while yes, that helps to avoid any light and prying eyes from the inside of the wardrobe, it also kept out any air. So, not even a few minutes in, and the wardrobe was hot, humid, and if you've ever been to the zoo, smelled a lot like that. They also couldn't keep the little grains of sandy from getting everywhere. It was miserable.
And then, it was moving. It had been an hour since the wardrobe closed, and while the widow's house place was nice, it was across the street from a place where people had to lock up their pants at night to keep them from getting stolen. And when the fire tenders and the porters at the hotel heard that there were some big shots who bought the superior package, even though they didn't even need the meat or the companionship, they knew that those guys probably wore some pretty nice pants.
and those pants might be locked up in the wardrobe. So, they decided to rob the group. Unfortunately for the robbers, the talk of them staying in the wardrobe had been limited to Widow Zhao and her daughter, so they had no idea the group in the luxury room wasn't actually in the luxury room. So they went downstairs and grabbed the wardrobe, and why was there a horse...
Tied to the wardrobe? And yeah, Yulong the Dragon Horse, at Monkey's insistence, had been tied up next to the wardrobe. Not wanting a whole 15 minutes of walking into a hotel and threatening some people go to waste, the robbers decided that they should at least get something out of this. So they looked at the big locked wardrobe. Well, that obviously was locked for a reason, and since someone had already beaten them to robbing the guy across the street, and he kept everything in a wardrobe...
Well, before they knew it, they were fitting the giant wardrobe through the door. No, not that way, the other way. Okay, now you're pinching my hand in the doorframe. Yeah, we need to take the feet off this thing and then reassess. You have to admire not just their commitment to this robbery, but their sheer strength. Despite the fact that they were being burgled, not their things, but they themselves, the party of monks whispered inside the wardrobe.
The pigsy was freaking out, and his panic was spreading to Xuanzang. They were being kidnapped! Monkey laughed. Yeah, kidnapped by robbers. Human robbers. I mean, relax, this is like a vacation for us. If we're lucky, they'll carry us all the way to the Western Heaven. Monkey's plan was, presumably, when they accomplished their goal of cracking open the wardrobe, he would crack some heads. And they could escape, hopefully on the other side of the city.
As for now, they just had to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. The ride, unfortunately, had a soundtrack. You might think that the thieves had a way out of the city that didn't involve going through one of the heavily armed enclosed gates.
You and I would be wrong about that. There was a struggle, a splat, and a gurgle. Monkey shook his head, that could be anything. There was a, no, no, no, please, I have a family, why are you doing this? I'll even open the gate for you. And then a thud. That was a little less ambiguous. Then things got a bit rocky. For both the monks and their unwitting kidnappers.
For all the theft, pants and otherwise, the city was pretty quick to snap to action when the thieves were actively murdering guards at the gate. The problem with murdering people who know how to work the gate before they've opened the gate is pretty self-evident from that sentence. This gave the regional patrol commander of the East City Warden's office time to summon mounted warriors and archers and...
When the thieves were being shot at by the wall, and heard the shouts of the cavalry coming from the city, they knew they were in a your money or your life situation. And since they weren't actually sure the wardrobe contained any money to begin with, they chose the latter. Later, at their hideout, they both wondered if, when they finally dropped that wardrobe, they had actually heard someone say, ow. And yeah,
They got away, but the regional patrol commander was riding at the front of his own version of the Roman triumph, and his captured prize was this locked wardrobe with a horse tied to it, for which they didn't know the owner or the contents. And during the chase, they probably missed like five more robberies. Still, got a wardrobe. Inside, the group could hear the terrible, terrible news.
The commander was very proud of this wardrobe. In fact, he was going to have it taken before the king the following day. They sealed it up with a tape, which I guess they had at the time, and set a watch. No one was going to steal this wardrobe. Again. Inside, Xuanzang was despairing. After everything they had gone through that night, they would be taken directly before the king in the morning.
the king who only needed four more monks to murder, before he could finish out his long and gruesome punch card. Monkey laughed. When they were released the following day from the wardrobe, they'd be either bound or hanged. Actually, more likely bound than hanged. But his master shouldn't worry. Monkey had his own way of dealing with these things.
the Tang monk wouldn't be harmed one bit. Go to sleep. You'll be fine. Xuanzong did actually manage to sleep. I mean, if you can spend years meditating on a mountaintop, you can probably spend the night in a wardrobe with a monkey, pig, and a pile of sand. Come morning, though, Xuanzong was so anxious, it was like his soul was going to leave his body.
Monkey told him to, again, relax. The room would bow down before him. They saw the sword through the crack, cutting the tape as the commander explained the great wardrobe recovering from the night before, even as he apologized profusely for his appearance. It didn't mean anything. The king said it was fine. Everyone was having a weird morning. Please open up the wardrobe.
They did. They saw the bald Tang monk cowering in the darkness of the wardrobe with the three other monks. The four needed to fulfill his 10,000 murders. And, true to Monkey's word, the room bowed down to the Buddhist monks. But even more than the bowing, Xuanzang noticed something else. Every single person in this room, from the lowliest courtier to the king and queen themselves,
every person was bald. Turning to look at the grinning monkey king, Xuanzang asked, what did he do?
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Monkey heard the rhythmic breathing of his master and knew that it was time. He turned into a drill, a tiny drill that dropped to the bottom of the wardrobe and made a tiny hole through which a tiny monkey-faced ant crawled. It emerged out into the throne room in the dead of night and found that it was alone. Monkey turned back. Okay.
Time to get to work. He pulled hair from his right arm until it was nearly bald and sprinkled it on the floor. He pulled about half as many hairs from the left side and blew on them. And they turned into row after row of Monkey Kings waiting for orders. Go get the spirits and be quick about it, Sun Wukong said. And the legion of Monkey Kings nodded and took to the air. When they were gone, the other pile of hair was nearly done. It was insects. Monkey told them to go immediately.
and feast. Ten minutes later, the bugs returned to being hair and returned to his arm. And everyone in the palace, as far as the bugs had been able to make it, was asleep. The bite of the bugs made them sleep so heavily they didn't even roll over, as the story tells us. When the monkey kings returned, they did so with all the local spirits from all the nearby mountains, streams, and villages. Monkey needed them to do some light barber work. At
At that, he tapped his iron rod against the ground, and it fell into a thousand pieces. A thousand razor blades.
It actually takes a good amount of training to become a barber, but considerably less if you don't care how your clients look and won't wake up if you cut them. Under those circumstances, I could probably shave someone's scalp with a straight razor. I don't want to do that at all, and neither did the local gods. But after a half night of non-consensual barbering, they were done. Everyone in the kingdom of any importance was bald.
They didn't understand what was going on. Could they please go back to bed? Monkey dismissed them, but said they had to take all the hair with them, so they had to spend the next hour sweeping up. Monkey recalled the monkeys back to his arm, somehow pressed all the razors into a staff, despite that being dangerous and impossible, turned back into an ant, crawled into the wardrobe, and waited for morning. From inside the wardrobe, he could hear the cries of everyone in the palace, and the king and queen who came rushing to the throne room,
and the queen saying that she warned him. She warned him that murdering 10,000 monks for no real reason was a bad thing to do. Now the gods were angry. They had all become Buddhist priests. The king asked how he was supposed to know that obvious bad things were bad. And in his defense, he didn't think he would ever face the consequences of his actions. So, you know, the queen said that that wasn't a defense. Okay, they had to hide this.
They thought, until their ministers came in, also confused and bald. Everyone was bald. Also, what's this wardrobe doing here? That's why, when they cut the tape of the wardrobe and Xuanzang and the others walked out, the court bowed low to them.
They learned about Xuanzong and his journey to the West, and the king begged for forgiveness. First for killing the monks, but also making such an illustrious one as Xuanzong fear for his life. It was just, those mean words.
Xuanzong asked, what mean words? The king chuckled. The Tang monk would find it hilarious. But the whole reason behind the 10,000 monk murders was that two years ago, a Buddhist monk had slandered him, said something mean.
Why would I find that hilarious? But what did he say? Xuanzang asked. And the king thought about it. You know what? That's the weirdest thing. He couldn't even remember. And now heaven had made him a monk.
Xuan Zong, who had been a practicing monk basically since birth, was about to say that there was way more to being a monk than shaving your head, but Monkey cut him off. And what a monk! The king said he was still on his journey, though. He needed a master. They all did. And they all looked at the Tang monk, Xuan Zong, who sighed and said, Sure.
Up until this morning, these people were going to hang him for a slight the king couldn't even remember from two years ago. Now they were doing a complete about-face and they were all monks. Probably not the best people to try to reason with. Sure. Yeah. They could all be his disciples. As they walked off, he did not have high hopes for the city.
The only stipulations he put on them was to feed the travelers and certify their travel rescript so they could take a break from needing that for a little while. The king laughed that wow, being a monk was so easy. He should have done this years ago. They even went about renaming the city from Dharma Destroying Kingdom to Dharma Honoring Kingdom. And as much as Xuanzang would have liked to hold the powerful to account for literally thousands of murders, they had to keep moving.
He did have high hopes for Monkey, though, who, without violence or threats of violence, had not only gotten them through the kingdom, but converted an entire city to Buddhism and helped them to see the error of their ways. All with just a few haircuts.
Monkey smiled and thanked his master and said it was all thanks to his teachings. This was as the group passed, ooh, yikes, pantsless beggars. Monkey gave them some money and the group continued on and then Monkey said he would be right back. He zipped back to the wardrobe to grab the pants and cloaks and gold and dropped it off with the beggars. So sorry, he just needed to borrow all that. Also, probably don't try to spend that silver he gave them, it was mostly pot shards. ♪
That's where we'll leave Sun Wukong and company. I do like, and Xuanzang does point out in the original, that Monkey defeated an entire murderous kingdom with just a few haircuts. I think that's really good growth for his character. But I do like, and Xuanzang does point out in the original,
Next time, it's the king of beers, and no, I'm not reaching for yet another sponsorship opportunity. It's about a young man who can't really make it as anything else, and so he decides to become an immortal king of beer. We'll see how that goes.
If you'd like to support the show, we still have a membership thing in the site and on Apple Podcasts. For less than the price of a human femur you can buy online for some reason, you can get extra episodes and ad-free versions of the show that are like a part of me, but not like a part of me. Anyway, check out mythpodcast.com slash membership or find the show on Apple Podcasts. And if you'd like to connect with us, there's a Myths and Legends Discord server and we're on Instagram. There are links to all those in the show notes.
The creature this time is Cinnamologus, the cinnamon bird, from the bestiaries of medieval Europe. So this sent me on something of a deep dive because, frankly, I had no idea how cinnamon was made. I knew it came in sticks, and that's about it. Well, if you asked someone 1,700 years ago, they would say that those sticks came from the nests of a mythical bird called the cinnamon bird.
who collected cinnamon sticks from some unknown land where they apparently littered the ground and used them to construct their nests on sheer cliff faces. There were a few ways people could bring down the nests and collect the cinnamon sticks.
The first, described by Herodotus, was by being really nice to the cinnamologus, not the oxen you're cutting up to leave out for the cinnamologus. Yes, you kill way too many oxen, dice them into weighty cubes, and leave them by the cliff where the cinnamologus lives, waiting for them to load up. Since you don't know when the next heaps of cubed oxen are coming, a problem that plagues us to our modern day, the cinnamologus stocks up, and then some,
collapsing under the weight of way too much dead ox. The nest tumbles to the ground. The cinnamologus flapped away to start again, and the people collected the cinnamon. The other way was one mentioned by Aristotle, and is likely still extremely accurate Historia and Amalium, the
the history of animals. In that, the cinnamologus is essentially the same, but instead of ox bits, people just used arrows with lead tips until the nest collapsed. These stories were spread by merchants to entice people, making them think that cinnamon was some legendary material, and for a time, it kind of was. It was more expensive than gold. That's probably because the truth of how cinnamon is collected is way more complicated than just cutting up an unlucky ox or shooting a lead arrow.
I posted a video, but it involves identifying and carefully cutting the right type of tree, stripping the outer bark, and then carefully shaving the inner bark, which forms the eventual cinnamon stick. It's a process that's both physically taxing and which requires intense skill and experience. Apparently, though, people in the Middle Ages prefer the story where the cinnamon sticks were covered in bird feces and brought down by being weighted down by ox chunks or contaminated with lead. Delicious.
That's it for this time. Myths and Legends is by Jason and Carissa Weiser. Our theme song is by Broke for Free, and the Creature of the Week music is by Steve Combs. There are links to even more of the music we used in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.