Legacy Podcast Summary

Episode: "Women and Healing | The Strange Story of the Penis Nest Trapped in a Tree | Part 1"

Hosts: Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan
Release Date: January 29, 2026

Main Theme and Purpose

This episode of Legacy explores the historical roles of women in healing, medicine, and wellness, tracing their contributions from prehistoric times through the Middle Ages. Using surprising and sometimes bizarre anecdotes—most infamously the “penis nest trapped in a tree” tale from the Malleus Maleficarum—the hosts challenge received wisdom on gender, knowledge, and power. The episode investigates why women became synonymous with healing, how their expertise was later marginalized and vilified, and why their legacy remains contested.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to Modern and Ancient Wellness (01:15 – 04:04)

• The conversation opens with reflections on modern wellness trends like IV vitamin drips, questioning what these say about our current health priorities and estrangement from more “natural” approaches.
  • Afua Hirsch: “It's basically saying the way we live is so completely unnatural and unhealthy that burnout is inevitable. But here’s a way you can pay someone to infuse you with an also unnatural amount of intensive vitamins so that you don’t suffer the natural consequences of the unhinged way you're living.“ (02:10)
• Sets up the central question: What is the historical role of women in healing, and why has it been challenged or erased?

Prehistoric and Ancient Women as Healers (04:30 – 11:28)

• Archaeology and anthropology reveal women’s historic expertise in plant-based healing, shamanism, and reproductive health across global societies:
  • Early shamans were women, with evidence dating back 30,000 years.
  • Women’s knowledge of plants underpins all medicine: “Women have tended...to have more expertise about the properties of plants. And the properties of plants are...the foundation of all medicine and healing.” (04:30)
• Fertility and childbirth made women’s medical knowledge central to community survival.
  • Examples include ancient contraception methods in Egypt.

Case Studies: Egypt, Greece, and Rome (12:57 – 19:59)

• Ancient Egypt:
  • Universal worship of Isis, goddess of medicine.
  • Women acted as priestesses and physician-healers, were educated in royal medical schools, and depicted as surgeons and doctors in art.
  • Peter Frankopan: “We’ve got all these images of women performing surgery, and they’re quite common on tombs and on temples throughout Egypt, suggesting that women doctors and physicians were widely accepted.” (13:47)
• Ancient Greece:
  • Goddesses like Athena and Hera venerated for healing.
  • Notable but often overlooked female practitioners: “There were women in Greece who were renowned physicians, but we don’t know their names. We haven’t had the oath that doctors still take named after them.” (15:45)
  • Gradual male takeover of medical institutions, excluding women even from women’s health.
• Rome:
  • Female medicae ran busy practices and enjoyed high status—until their knowledge was gradually marginalized as the profession professionalized.

Status, Gender, and Shifting Authority (17:08 – 21:27)

• Repeated pattern: As healing becomes high-status and lucrative, men move in and push women out.
• Modern contrasts: In some societies, doctors enjoy near-celebrity status and wealth; in others, their social standing is modest.

The Witch-Hunts: From Empiricism to Persecution (24:40 – 37:57)

• The hosts explain how women’s healing knowledge became criminalized as “witchcraft”, especially as social structures changed and single, independent women became more common (16th century).
  • Afua Hirsch: “You have this rising phenomenon of the single woman...by the time you get to the 16th century, you’ve got an increase...from 5% to 15 to 20%. And these newly independent spinsters and widows are seen as a threat to a paternalistic society.” (25:05)
• The Church’s role in demonizing empiricism, sensuality, and women’s autonomy.
  • Cites St. Augustine’s attitude: “The senses are the devil’s playground, the arena into which he will try to lure men away from faith and into the conceits of the intellect or the delusions of carnality.” (quoted at 28:39)
• Knowledge transfer—now via university-trained male doctors—becomes another way to exclude women.

The “Penis Nest” and the Malleus Maleficarum (39:50 – 43:27)

• Introduction of Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches, 1487) by Heinrich Kramer, which marks a turning point.
• Outlandish claims: Witches keep nests of penises in trees, harvest male genitalia via demonic pacts.
  • Peter Frankopan (reading): “He says [witches] take 20 or 30 penises and shut them all up together in a bird’s nest or another box. And they move around like living members, eating oats or other feed.” (41:48)
  • Afua Hirsch: “You’d think that this was an idea that seems so fringe, that no one would take it seriously, but on the contrary, this deranged book goes on to become completely viral. It’s a European bestseller...outsold only by the Bible for the next 200 years.” (43:27)
• Dangerous fusion of misogyny, supernatural fears, and folk medicine: Malleus becomes central to legal and social persecution of women across Europe for centuries.

Closing Reflections and Next Episode Tease (44:30 – 45:01)

• The story will continue with a deeper exploration of witch hunts and their roots in controlling women’s autonomy and knowledge.
  • Afua Hirsch: “It would inform how they treated hundreds of thousands of women for centuries.” (44:30)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We have lost a lot of more wise approaches to wellness. Hence the reason that we’re going and plugging into ridiculous IV drips. And one of the reasons for that is that I think the role that women have played in wellness and healing has been under assault for centuries.”
  — Afua Hirsch (03:22)
• “It’s kind of ironic that men become specialists in things that they don’t have any firsthand experience of.”
  — Peter Frankopan on men dominating women’s health (17:08)
• “Witchcraft...has meant women who still have the skills we discussed earlier...of understanding how the supernatural and the natural world connect, how they can use the power of plants and elements and divine inspiration to heal...”
  — Afua Hirsch (25:05)
• “He wrote a book called the Malleus Maleficarum, which roughly translates as The Hammer of Witches...Kramer believes that women become witches not by inheriting generations of useful knowledge about healing and herbs, but by sleeping with the devil...and then signing a pact on Satan’s anus, which is their pledge to deprive men of his virile member so that she can then collect them in trees. I mean, it’s completely bananas.”
  — Afua Hirsch (42:22)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:15 – Introduction to IV vitamin drips and debate about modern wellness
• 04:30 – History of women as shamans and plant healers (prehistoric evidence)
• 09:39 – Women's healing tied to fertility, contraception, and childbirth
• 12:57 – The central role of women healers in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome
• 17:50 – How medicine becomes male-dominated, link to social hierarchy
• 24:40 – Reframing witchcraft: women’s knowledge, independence, and the rise of persecution
• 28:39 – The Church, empiricism, and the policing of women’s bodies
• 39:50 – Introduction of the Malleus Maleficarum and the penis nest legend
• 43:27 – Impact and popularity of the Malleus; transition to mass persecution

Overall Tone and Takeaway

Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan blend scholarly rigor with a conversational, sometimes humorous style, making heavy historical material accessible. They use both scholarly sources and pop culture as touchstones. The episode is critical of how history has marginalized women’s contributions to healing—and warns of the dangers when folk wisdom is recast as heresy or madness. Their dialog invites listeners to reconsider inherited narratives about gender, medicine, science, and power.

End of summary.