Before we get to whatever we’re rambling about today and then our topic, I feel like I need to address two points in our header image. Victoria is posed in front of an animated version of “Vision of Drythelm” we found on Youtube and hated so much we didn’t even talk about it, and that’s really saying something, our bar is pretty low. And Jacob is posing in front of the ruins of Melrose Abbey, where once Drythelm lived as a monk.
Where should we start? Drinks, obviously. This week, and we strongly suspect some earlier week, we’re kicking the episode off with a Corpse Reviver #2. On the subject of drinks, and Satan, we all went to a Satanic Temple “Black Mass” at The Crow Bar, on the East side of Austin. The Crow Bar’s decor is a sort of “viking/dracula/satanist/goth” melange, very nice, would recommend!
Brief callout to “The Bordello Cookbook.” Alas my copy is gone, it’s one of those cookbooks with a lively mix of history, anecdote, and recipes. I’ll copy the recipe for “Big Apple Bounce” here, and hope it finds some new readers.
We’re flashing backward, and forward, to The Vision of Tundale, a ~1250 AD precursur to Dante’s Inferno. The recording quality is a little low, but we did an episode on Tundale in 2024, at our “panel” at the amazing Devil 2024 conference in Halifax. Good times! But the work has a lot in common…a near-death experience, the guide’s guardian angel chasing off the demons, being left alone in the Deeper Dark…Tundale had 500 years to perfect his material, and Drythelm seems to be focusing more on the “third space” between Heaven and Hell. It took all our vast powers of concentration not to make this an episode on Purgatory, because Purgatory really deserves a few episodes entirely for itself.
Hell news!
We used a few different sources for this one, but Jacob particularly liked the title, “Co-Redemptrix title of Mary not absolutely prohibited“…basically, Mary is not as good a redeemer as Jesus, and we must be clear on this, but not unambiguously clear.
And, from Boing Boing, an article on Michaelangelo’s first painting, The Temptation…wait…The Torment of Saint Anthony.
If you happen to be in Rome in 2033 for Easter, join us for pimm’s cups as we celebrate the 2000th anniversary of Christ’s death, ressurrection, and the ascension of Beelzebub as regent of hell, and…well, let’s be honest, none of us are likely to get our sins exculpated, but if we’re still recording, the drink offer is there. Maybe this time they’ll open the Tomb of Lucifer. Or at least sit on his chair.
Dan Brown is, yes, still alive, still writing. His last book, The Secret of Secrets, was published in September 2025. Jacob notices that one of his books is themed around Dante’s Inferno, and this may come back to haunt Victoria and Jamin at a later date.
From The Bordello Cookbook, Jeanne Bauer and Jo Foxworth
Bounce, a drink that became popular in colonial times, was “brewed” by pouring a potent drink sucn as rum over fruit heaped with sugar and letting the mixture ferment. Although New York was not known [at the time] as “the Big Apple”…the apple home brew that inspired this recipe was still hugely enjoyed by the colonists. Surprise your friends with this one, for kicks. And we do mean kicks!
Big Apple Bounce
2 quarts sliced cored apples, including peel
1 cup sliced lemons, including peel
2 cups maple sugar
3 sticks whole cinnamon
10 whole cloves
1 quart rum
water
Place all ingredients except water into a large crock or other nonmetallic container and stir to combine. Add enough water to cover fruit. Cover top tightly with a lid or a cloth. Let sit for a week or more at room temperature until the mixture fernents. Strain and serve. Bottle remaining liquor for future use. [You may substitute other fruits or berries. Peaches and cherries are especially recommended.]
So who was Drythelm? Or Dryhthelm? He was a land-owner in “a district of Northumbria which is called ‘Incuneningum’,” an exciting spelling Jacob brings up. Very avant-guarde. He becomes ill, nearly dead, peeks into hell but doesn’t quite go there, tours an area between heaven and hell, and then peeks into heaven, but doesn’t get there. Then he goes and suffers for some reason for a few years and tells only the best people about his journey.
Callout to The Venerable Bede, 672-735, a monk, Sacred Historian, “the father of English History.” He lived in Northumbria, so was fairly close to Drythelm ground zero. He is a saint, and a Church Doctor, though the fact that his feast day was the same as St. Augustine may have caused him to be overshadowed. Mildly interestingly, he’s the only Englishman in Dante’s Paradiso.
Word for the week: Pentimenti
Well, technically, pentimento (Italian for “repentance), elements and evidence of earlier images, forms, designs, sketches, strokes, etc., that have been changed or painted over.
So far as Purgatory goes, we leaned heavily on The Birth of Purgatory by Jacques Le Goff, and will almost certainly come back to him soon. We also referenced Tom Sjoblom, “The Irish Origins of Purgatory,” and Linda Miller, “Drythelm’s Journey to the Other World: Bede’s Literary Use of Tradition.” We used two versions of The Vision of Drythelm: the legible one and the illegible one. Although we were also informed by The Good Place.
Victoria mentions a poem by Jane L. Swift on The Vision of Drythelm, from an 1855 journal. It…it goes on a while, and may be worth reading for the serious Drythelm fan. The conclusion:
A few days passed–the worthy thane was faithful to his vow,
And left the endearments of his home, in penury to bow
At superstition’s magic shrine until his life should close–
And thus, in penance, live and died the Hermit of Melrose.
So engage with this verse if you wish.
POWERED BY BLUBRRY
