CLASSIC: How the Black Death Came To Norway On A Ghost Ship

Summary

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Ridiculous History: CLASSIC – How the Black Death Came To Norway On A Ghost Ship

Podcast: Ridiculous History (iHeartPodcasts)
Episode Date: June 13, 2026
Hosts: Ben Bowlin, Christopher Haciotes (guest), with references to Noel Brown
Theme: Exploring the chilling tale of the Black Death’s arrival in Norway via a ghost ship, and examining the historical, cultural, and folkloric ripples it created.

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Overview

This classic episode brings listeners into one of history’s most eerie and consequential "what-ifs": what happens when a plague ship, emptied by death, drifts ashore and unleashes devastation despite all safeguards? Ben Bowlin and returning guest Christopher Haciotes (filling in for Noel Brown) recount the true story of how the Black Death spread to Norway in the 14th century, specifically via a ghost ship that ran aground near Bergen. They provide historical context, myth-bust some famous plague imagery, and connect the historical horror to modern cultural echoes like folklore and zombie films, all while keeping things lively, darkly humorous, and in the Ridiculous History style.

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Detailed Discussion & Key Segments

1. Setting the Scene: Ghost Ships and Disease Spread

[05:41 – 06:31]

• Christopher vividly describes the atmospheric arrival of an ominous ship on a gloomy Norwegian fjord:

  “It's a ship. It's a dark ship... but there's something different about this ship. The sails are slightly tattered. There doesn't seem to be much life on board. Ben, what you're looking at is a ship of death...”
  (Christopher Haciotes, 05:41)

2. Background: The Black Death in Europe

[07:17 – 09:31]

• The pandemic known as the Black Death (1346-1353) “killed millions... [and] fundamentally changed history.”
• The term Black Death is a retronym; it wasn’t used at the time.
• Origin likely Central Asia, spread via Silk Road, reached Europe (Sicily) through Genoese ships.
• Estimates suggest about a third of Europe’s population perished (population data sketchy, but even the lowest guesses indicate immense loss).

3. Science Behind the Plague’s Spread

[09:31 – 14:14]

• Caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the plague spread in several forms; fleas on rats were the main vectors.
• “If you wanted to spread a disease internationally at this time, spreading it via a merchant ship is brilliant.” (Ben, 09:46)
• Fleas could also infest other rodents (not just rats) ― possibly squirrels or chipmunks.
• Even when rats on board died, “their fleas would survive, and they would find new rat hosts wherever they landed… and when you're on a ship... who are you going to jump to? People.” (Christopher, 14:14)

4. Medieval Public Health: Understanding and Quarantine

[16:20 – 18:06]

• Medieval people didn’t understand germ theory or invisible pathogens.
• Coastal towns, especially in Norway, imposed quarantines: infected ships were kept offshore, only healthy crew allowed to land to minimize the spread.
• “It totally worked... when a few of the crew members had plague... It did not work so well when everybody died.” (Christopher, 18:06)

5. The Ghost Ship Arrives in Norway

[22:55 – 26:55]

• In 1349, an English merchant ship (carrying wool) was overwhelmed by the plague.
• Sick crew quarantined, but “the people who were surviving or who had not yet contracted the plague attempted to quarantine the sick… It doesn’t work… they’re a buck short and a day late.” (Ben, 22:59)
• When the entire crew perished, the ship “teeming with rats… still have fleas on them, they're still plague on them,” drifted and crashed in Bergen’s harbor. (Christopher, 23:53)
• “All your preventative measures... ship of death's gonna get you.” (Christopher, 24:52)
• The consequence: perhaps a third of Norway’s population died as a direct result; even a conservative estimate is “one out of every five” (Ben, 26:54).
• The story is likened to a zombie movie: despite all safeguards, one breach means disaster.

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6. Folklore Response: The Tale of Pesta

[28:10 – 31:13]

• The Black Death’s trauma shaped Norwegian folklore—creating the witch Pesta, personification of the plague.
• Pesta “travels from one village to the next. She has a broomstick, but she's also doubled down. She possesses a rake. If you Happen upon the witch Pesta with her rake, then you know she will spare some... But if she’s sweeping with her broomstick, there’s no point in running. You’re dead and so is everyone around you.” (Ben, 29:32 & Christopher, 30:05)
• Metaphors reinforce fatalism: sometimes only a ‘few survive’ (the rake), sometimes ‘none’ (the broom).

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7. Myth Busting: “Plague Doctor” Masks

[31:13 – 32:57]

• The iconic “beaked” plague masks, often featured in plague imagery, were not used during the 14th-century Black Death.
• These originated about 300 years later (17th century), invented by Charles Delorme as early hazmat gear.
• “There's no concrete evidence that people in the 14th century were wearing these…” (Ben, 32:25)

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8. Silver Linings & Societal Shifts

[39:54 – 43:14]

• Christopher lightens the mood with a zombie-ghost ship movie rec: The Ghost Galleon (1974, “El Buque Maldito”):

  “I don't know that it's even good, but it's really enjoyable… zombie Knights Templar... two swimsuit models who see a ghost ship. The answer is zombies.” (Christopher, 38:37)

• Ben shares a scientific tidbit:

  “There is compelling evidence that the evolutionary pressure of the Black Plague led to the HIV resistant genes that exist in parts of Europe today.” (Ben, 41:01)

• Other theorized impacts:
  • Spread and popularization of vernacular languages (like English) as “learned monks and scholars” perished.
  • The need for distributed universities and education, possibly prompting the invention of the printing press.

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9. Listener Engagement & Modern Echoes

[44:23 – 45:33]

• Christopher notes a modern “ship of death” attraction in Wales—the abandoned Duke of Lancaster “now a zombie-infection experience.”
• The hosts invite listeners (especially locals) to report back on the experience.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On bleak inevitability:

  “Ship of death's gonna get you.”
  (Christopher Haciotes, 24:52)

• On population loss:

  “Contemporary accounts… seem to indicate that around a third of the population of Norway died… even if it was just 20%, it’s still one out of every five people dying. It’s a lot of people.”
  (Ben Bowlin, 26:54)

• On folklore:

  “If she rakes through your community… some people will make their way through. But if she’s sweeping with a broom, you’re all done for.”
  (Christopher Haciotes, 30:05)

• On myth-busting plague doctors:

  “There's no concrete evidence that people in the 14th century were wearing these [plague doctor masks]... they were not invented until 300 years later.”
  (Ben Bowlin, 32:25)

• On scientific surprises:

  “The same infection and disease that killed so many people in Europe... may have made us more resistant to HIV and ultimately AIDS.”
  (Ben Bowlin, 41:01)

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Flow, Style, and Tone

The hosts use their trademark macabre humor and lively banter even as they detail the somber events, turning historical horror into compelling, approachable storytelling. They move from chilling narrative (the ghost ship’s approach) to hard history, then to myth, pop culture, and listener engagement, all the while keeping the tone accessible and somewhat playful.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:41]: Christopher’s atmospheric “ship of death” intro
• [07:17 – 09:31]: Black Death’s European devastation and origins
• [09:31 – 14:14]: Science of plague transmission
• [16:20 – 18:06]: Historic quarantines and their failure
• [22:55 – 26:55]: The ghost ship reaches Bergen—massive consequences
• [28:10 – 31:13]: The rise of Pesta in Norwegian folklore
• [31:13 – 32:57]: Plague doctor mask myth-busting
• [39:54 – 43:14]: Unexpected benefits—genetics, education, and “The Ghost Galleon”
• [44:23]: Modern “ship of death” attraction in Wales

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Conclusion

This episode layers chilling narrative, medical history, and dark folklore with Ridiculous History’s wit and questioning spirit. For listeners new or seasoned, it paints a vivid picture of how a single drifting ship—despite all human precautions—could forever alter the fate and psyche of a remote country like Norway. And, as the hosts remind us, history’s silver linings (HIV resistance, educational spread, a great zombie movie) can be as unexpected as its disasters.

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Listener Call to Action:
Have tales of silver linings from dark chapters in history? Visited Norway, Wales, or another historic “ship of death”? Join the Ridiculous Historians group on Facebook or follow the hosts on Instagram to share your stories and questions.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Ben Bolam]

Fellow ridiculous historians. We are fun at parties, and in a classic episode from 2019, we got super obsessed with just telling random people about ghost ships and the Black Death.

[George Severis]

Ghost ships, plague ships, dealer's choice.

[Noel Brown]

We were recently talking on our sister podcast Stuff they don't want you to know about the hantavirus and the way it potentially may have been brought on a ship of sorts. A cruise ship, not a ghost ship. But this is something that throughout history we often hear about. Rats in the galley, carrying all kinds of icky diseases that come from faraway lands and then infect the places where the ships dock.

[Ben Bolam]

In the 1300s, what we call the Black Death today sprang up in Central Asia and it swept across continents and it killed millions, millions of people. It fundamentally changed history. And you know, to that earlier point, man, I gotta say, history does rhyme a little bit. And ghost ships are fascinating.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, history's got bars for sure. Norway, however, might have been spared from some of this Black Death were it not for the aforementioned mysterious ghost ship. Tune in and find out how

[Unknown Advertiser]

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[Ben Bolam]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Foreign. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. My name is Ben. My co host Noel, who usually fills in here with me is on Adventures. However, never fear because we have our returning special guest with us here today, Christopher Haciotes. Thanks again for saving the show.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Good afternoon or good evening. Good morning. I really have no idea what time it is. We're here in the studio. There's a fake sun outside, a fake moon. I think that maybe actually that's just Casey's face shining and beaming in a rays of goodness.

[Ben Bolam]

The radiant face of super producer Casey Pegram. Thank you. Casey, we need your light for this episode because things are about to get very, very dark.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah. Ben, let me set the stage for you. It's a gloomy evening. You're in the northern, northern reaches of Europe. The sun doesn't get too high, the clouds get low, the light even lower. You're sitting by the water by a fjord. Maybe because you're in Norway and just in the distance you start to see a shadow coming. It's moving. That's on the Water. It's listing from side to side. It's a ship. It's a dark ship. It's a big ship, but there's something different about this ship. The sails are slightly tattered. There doesn't seem to be much life on board. Ben, what you're looking at is a ship of death, and that's what I'm gonna tell you for right now. I just creeped myself out a little bit.

[Ben Bolam]

Wow, that was great.

[Christopher Haciotes]

There's a ship of death coming towards you. Let's see. Let's rewind a little bit and get a little context.

[Ben Bolam]

Yeah, let's rewind. So I was spellbound. Man. Casey, did you like that? I was wrapped with attention over here. Yeah. Casey on the case. That was great. So, yes, let's step back just a tad here.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Why are we talking about Norway now? And when are we talking about.

[Ben Bolam]

Right. Why and when? Two very important questions for this show.

[Christopher Haciotes]

How? Whom? Wherefore? So whence?

[Ben Bolam]

Whence Wither.

[Christopher Haciotes]

I'm going to toss them all to you.

[Ben Bolam]

Oh, don't forget wither. I feel like wither needs to get wither.

[Christopher Haciotes]

The point of this story. Yes, yes.

[Ben Bolam]

To the very same Christopher. So we are traveling back to the 14th century, to the 1300s. If you are on some level aware of European history at the time, then you will have heard of the catastrophic, fatal affliction known today as the Black Death. From the years 1346 to 1353, this spread across the European continent. The name only came several centuries later. We called it the Black Death or the Black Plague as a retronym.

[Unknown Advertiser]

But.

[Ben Bolam]

But Genoese merchant ships brought this plague to Sicily in the early 1340s, and no one was quite prepared for the magnitude of damage that this. And havoc that this thing would wreak.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah, I mean, the bubonic plague, as it's more technically known because one of the symptoms are these buboes or growths that infected people get. And it's just got such a magnificently high mortality rate. And when a human contracts a disease, you have about a couple days for it to show up, a couple days of symptoms, and then you die. It's a miserable way to go. The plague and the time we're talking about in the middle of the 14th century was generally regarded as the first Black Death and Black Plague.

[Ben Bolam]

Right.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Europe, the Middle east, northern Africa, parts of Western Asia all kind of experienced different waves. And then there was a bigger return of the plague in kind of the 1700s. But, yeah, it's. It. It wiped out massive portions of the Population estimates are really hard to come by. And sometimes, you know, things are inflated. Population counts aren't as accurate. But if you said a third of the population of Europe died over the span of time, that's pretty right on.

[Ben Bolam]

Right, Right. Yeah. Nowadays, we can reasonably guess that this was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. This resulted in several different forms of plague. And our best guess for the origin point of this affliction is somewhere in Central Asia, in the dry plains of Central as, traveling along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea in the, as you said, the mid 14th century. Most likely, it was carried by not rats, but the fleas living on the rats, technically black rats that traveled on these merchant ships, which was one of the most efficacious. If you wanted to spread a disease internationally at this time, spreading it via a merchant ship is brilliant. You could not have planned it better if you were trying to, you know.

[Christopher Haciotes]

So there's this concept of rats being plague bearers and carrying this pestilence. But I believe, and our good [e-mail] may have dug into this in the past, that there's something is ringing a bell in my deep, in my memory, that there's been some research done that it was actually not rats that originated the black plague, kind of rodent zero, if you will, but it was more something like a squirrel or a chipmunk or something much cuter, but still more sinister.

[Ben Bolam]

Yeah, okay. You know what? I could see that because the flea would probably not discriminate. And a lot of, historically, a lot of human leisure time has been spent vilifying rats. Yeah.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Well, what I will do is I will dig into the [e-mail] and when I figure that out, I will share that on Ridiculous Historians, the Facebook group for this podcast that you're listening to right now. If you guys are not on Facebook, let me just switch from death and disease mode to promotional and social media mode. Point your machines over towards Facebook and look at Ridiculous Historians. You can chat with Ben, you can chat with Noel. Casey's there. Sometimes I'm around. Yeah, we're just sharing info about stories, but I will post a link to that story over there on the site.

[Ben Bolam]

Thank you so much, Christopher.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Trying to find some light in this. This grim, grim tale.

[Ben Bolam]

This is a very grim, grim tale. And we know that the disease itself appears to be ancient. We have some fairly compelling arguments that it hit parts of the world and the human population way before the 1300s. In how stuff Works. In an article by our own Tracy Wilson, good friend of ours, good friend of the show, one of the hosts of Stuff youf Missed in History class. In her work on how stuff works, she notes that Justinian's plague from 542 to 546 A.D. was thought to be one of the pandemics caused by, you know, the. The bubonic plague or the black plague. As you said, Christopher, this thing, when it strikes, strikes hard, it strikes fast. It doesn't tick all the boxes for a perfect disease, because a perfect disease would hopefully have a longer gestation rate such that it allows for more infections. And this thing was knocking people down left and right. So we mentioned Norway. Right. When we mention Norway, we need to talk a little bit about the cycle of infection for this disease. So plague was spread considerable distances by these rats on these ships. And the first thing you would think is, well, how long does a rat live in the wild? How long does a rat live running for its life in a ship, right, where it's probably gonna be maybe tolerated but killed if the opportunity presents?

[Christopher Haciotes]

Swept overboard, tossed in a bag. Eaten. Yeah, eaten.

[Ben Bolam]

Worse comes to worse. So these rats would and did die at a pretty high rate, right?

[Christopher Haciotes]

I mean, they had plague.

[Ben Bolam]

They had the plague. That's a really good point. But their fleas would survive, and they would find new rat hosts wherever they landed. Because docks were dirty, filthy places that were home to lots of, like, rats and. And insects and other things for all

[Christopher Haciotes]

of those things to eat.

[Ben Bolam]

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[Christopher Haciotes]

And those rats would die, but then the fleas who lived on them didn't necessarily die, and they needed a new place to live. And when you're on a ship, if you don't have the rats to live on, who are you going to jump to, people?

[Ben Bolam]

Whatever the next warm mammal is.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah, you and me and old swabby over there on.

[Ben Bolam]

Oh, your pony from the previous episode.

[Christopher Haciotes]

My pony's name is not Swabby. My pony does not swap the day. Although, you know what? Actually, maybe she does. I think if we could train a pony to tie a mop to her tail and swab decks and avoid the plague. Okay, I'm down with that.

[Ben Bolam]

All right, let's, let's, let's.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Listeners, if you don't know what we're talking about, and if this is your first episode of Ridiculous History, go check out last, our most previous episode where we talked about something a little more lighthearted than boils and pustules and death, where we talked about ponies and princesses. It was a little more Fun, Yes, A lot more fun. No, it's always fun being here with you, Ben and Casey.

[Ben Bolam]

Ah, thanks, man. And Noel, of course, is here in spirit, but he doesn't have to deal

[Christopher Haciotes]

with boils and pustules and Black Death and rats and fleas and scratching and itching and bleeding and creepy ghost ships.

[Ben Bolam]

I don't know that. I don't know. I don't know what he's doing.

[Christopher Haciotes]

That's true.

[Ben Bolam]

Yeah, he might be.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Noel's idea of a vacation is very different than mine, I have found over the years that's quite true.

[Ben Bolam]

So, speaking of what we could call Noel's idea of a vacation, the bubonic plague. At least at the time of this particular wave of plague, this particular pandemic, people didn't have, for instance, germ theory, the idea of washing one's hands, the idea that infections could be carried by a life form as small as to be invisible to the naked eye. It was. It was an alien concept, you know, and a lot of what we would consider medical treatment at this time was fundamentally intertwined with religious belief.

[Christopher Haciotes]

That's true. But while the specifics of transmission of bubonic plague weren't known to people at the time, there was knowledge that people would transmit it from person to person, perhaps from animal to person, not knowing how, but knowing that it did happen. And so word of plague spread before plague itself spread, necessarily. And so a lot of these communities, especially the merchant marine communities, the ones on the coast, put in place safeguards so they knew that an infected person could spread plague to another infected person. So if we're back in Norway, you know, they essentially established offshore quarantines where if a ship is coming in to trade goods, you couldn't just bring the ship into harbor and have no control over who or what gets off board. You would have to stay a little bit offshore and only uninfected sailors or crewmen could then come into town. And this was a way of these cities, which are in pretty remote places, remaining plague free and trying to protect themselves and putting in place as much as they could preventative measures to keep their population safe. And it totally worked. When a ship that had, let's say half the crew had plague, they wouldn't come into shore, they would stop and the ones without plague would come in and do the trading. Everything was working fine, ideally. Ideally, right. And that worked fine. When a few of the crew members had plagued. It worked fine. When some of the crew members had plague or even many of the crew members had plague, it did not work so well when everybody died.

[Ben Bolam]

Right? Right. And this, this is where our story takes the turn to Norway.

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[Ben Bolam]

In 1349, an English merchant ship carrying wool set out northward. They were bound for the north, and along the way they realized they had lost the lottery of disease and crew members were getting the plague. They didn't all die at once, but they were dying one by one and not being dummies themselves. The people who were surviving or who had not yet contracted the plague attempted to quarantine the sick. They said, these people have the plague again. They don't know that it's carried by these parasites on these smaller creatures or these parasites, these fleas that are probably on all of them to some degree. So they try to quarantine the people who are ill and it doesn't work, they're a buck short and a day late.

[Christopher Haciotes]

I mean, that's the thing. When everyone on the ship dies, you have no control over what happens to the ship. And so let's go back to the way we started this show. We have this looming, hulking, empty vessel, somewhat devoid of human life, but teeming with rats. The rats still have fleas on them. They're still plague on them. And so we're. We're near the town of Bergen in Norway. Normally, this would have been, you know, not a great situation, but they would have dealt with it. But no, this ship had a completely dead crew and just. It ran aground, it crashed, which is

[Ben Bolam]

such an unfortunate lottery to win because it could have also plausibly just drifted off into the sea and then sank in rough water.

[Christopher Haciotes]

The very last living person aboard could

[Ben Bolam]

have thrown down an anchor or scuttled it, you know what I mean?

[Christopher Haciotes]

But didn't. And that's the thing. It's literally a ship of death. And that, you know, there's not too much ridiculous about this history today. But that, to me, is touches on the verge of the absurd in that it's so scary, so cinematic and terrifying to have a literal ship of death going to the frosty north, where it also seems like sort of a death metal kind of way to go, you know, and that music is super popular up in those parts. But to have this. Yeah, just a ship of death crashing into your town, despite all your preventative measures and everything you've tried to do to save your town from plague. Ship of death's gonna get you the

[Ben Bolam]

ship of death's gonna get you to the tune of. The rhythm is gonna get you. I think our syllables are slightly off, but the gist is there. And this is a terrifying moment. I think that's why Casey and I both felt so enthralled when you were painting that image for us at the beginning. Because this, like most of the scariest of stories, is a true story. And when we say that it ran aground in Bergen harbor, we don't mean that it just infected the people of Bergen Harbor. Contemporary accounts, although exaggerated, seem to indicate that around a third of the population of Norway died. And the thing with. You know, I think you made a tremendous point about how much margin of error we have with any kind of population estimate or death toll estimate for things that occurred at this point in time in history. Despite that, you have to admit that even if it was just 20%, it's still one out of every five people

[Christopher Haciotes]

dying, it's a lot of people.

[Ben Bolam]

So it's more than one out of every five, possibly around one out of every three people died because this one ship washed up in this one place. And it didn't stop there, did it? Because it expanded beyond Norway.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah, just all over. And what this really reminds me of is, you know, in any zombie film or TV show, where the people have taken all the safeguards they can, they've holed up inside of a safe house, right. And then someone makes a fatal mistake, one bite comes through and then that's it. Then things crumble from there. So all the Walking Dead and all those series and show there may be something to it. That's how society crumbles.

[Ben Bolam]

Perhaps, perhaps not with a bang, but with a whimper. And here's another thing. This plague, this catastrophe, affected Norway in more ways than one. It did not just kill 1/5 to 1/3 of the population. It made a fundamental impact on their culture and folklore, which remains in the modern day.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah. This is not a story just about corpses and people dying. I mean, the. The experience of the Black Death and the Black Plague really manifests itself not just with a death count, but in the culture, in the story of Pesta the witch. Pesta, as listeners may guess for themselves rightly, is, you know, related to the terms of pestilence and pustules and not pesto. That's. I. Everything that I just thought because of what you just said is disgusting to me and disgusting to everyone. Yeah.

[Ben Bolam]

But I had to do it.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah. No, so Pesta, right, so Pesta is, in Norwegian folklore, this witch, a harbinger of doom and death. She's the embodiment of the plague, but she's not an embodiment of complete annihilation. Right. Because the plague didn't kill everyone. So what. What do we know about the story of Pesta and who she is and what happens if you encounter her on a dark and gloomy Norwegian road?

[Ben Bolam]

Oh, yes, Check this out, Christopher, I love the way you're differentiating, too, between pestilence and straight death. Right. They're two very different but related things.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah. In. In this case, they're usually. You know, that Venn diagram is almost just a circle, but. Yes, yeah, yeah, but it's not always that way.

[Ben Bolam]

It's not always that way, but it's a tremendously unfortunate occurrence to encounter. You see, Pesta travels from one village to the next. She has a broomstick, but she's also doubled down. She possesses a rake. If you Happen upon the witch Pesta with her rake, then you know she will spare some of the people in your community. But if she begins sweeping with her broomstick, there's no point in running.

[Christopher Haciotes]

You're dead and so is everyone around you. Yeah, that's the thing. So Pesta, the embodiment, not just of death, but the embodiment of this specific type of death linked to this illness. If she rakes through your community, those claws will tear up your loved ones, your neighbors. But there are gaps between the teeth of a rake and some people will make it their way through. But if she's sweeping with a broom, you're all done for. And it's just a. It's a really creepy, really kind of terrifying embodiment of this experience. To think that it's not just something that happens, but that there's some will behind it, that there's this terrifying woman in a deep red skirt who will just clean the earth as she sees fit. And you and your friends and neighbors have little to do with the way things turn out.

[Ben Bolam]

And there's a fatalism there as well, you know, because your odds of survival are already very, very low. The best you can hope is that some survive. I do want to point out one myth busting thing here.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Let's do it.

[Ben Bolam]

That may be of interest to many of us listening. You know those really cool masks that they always show the doctors wearing?

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah, they show up in like in Brazilian Carnival and in New Orleans and then also in the sci fi remake of the 12 Monkeys series.

[Ben Bolam]

Ah, yeah, yeah. Those Pestilence masks. The way that they're depicted, is this the concept being before they were totally taken over by goth kids in this country? The concept was that the people wearing them were protecting themselves from exposure to diseased bodies. And that the long bird bill snout looking thing is actually a container for herbs and that the herbs would be ignited sometimes and that they would gently burn.

[Christopher Haciotes]

And the mask you're talking about has got that sort of conical long proboscis that's sort of like creepy bird, ibis, Egyptian God kind of vibe going on.

[Ben Bolam]

Right, right, right. Sort of abstract attempt at rendering an anteater.

[Christopher Haciotes]

So there's a myth about that, Is that not a thing?

[Ben Bolam]

There's no concrete evidence that people in the 14th century were wearing these. And medical historians were wearing these at the time. And medical historians will say that they were not invented until 300 years later when a 16th century French doctor named Charles Delorme designed what could be described as one of the world's earliest hazmat suits. So it did occur in response to the plague, but in a later wave of the plague. Okay, that's the other myth that I think we busted pretty effectively.

[Christopher Haciotes]

There was not just one black Death.

[Ben Bolam]

It was. No, no. Things just kept being terrible.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Great, great.

[Ben Bolam]

We don't have to end it that way.

[Christopher Haciotes]

No. Let's talk about some good news.

[Ben Bolam]

Yeah,

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[Christopher Haciotes]

I don't know how much good news this is, but Ben, let me ask you, you seem like the kind of person who likes all of These things. Do you like swimsuit models?

[Ben Bolam]

I like. In general, yeah. In general, yeah, sure. Models. You know, I'm not opposed to swimsuits or people modeling.

[Jennie Garth]

Okay.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Do you. How do you feel about European men in flashy cravats?

[Ben Bolam]

I'm in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not opposed to either of these.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Okay. What about zombified Knights Templar?

[Ben Bolam]

I mean, if I have to choose between the three, I'm going with number three.

[Christopher Haciotes]

What if I told you, Ben. Ben Bolam, that you could in one film have all three of those?

[Ben Bolam]

I would say thank you for saving my weekend, Christopher haciotes.

[Christopher Haciotes]

All right. 1974's film the Ghost Galleon is a film that I want to put on your radar. Then it's a Spanish movie. It's not great. I don't know that it's even good, but it's really enjoyable. In Spanish, it's called El buque maldito, which means like the, you know, the damned vessel or the ship of the damned. Yeah, but in English, it's the Ghost Galleon. It's really campy, but it's got a lot of zombie Knights Templar, who. There are these two swimsuit models who see a ghost ship off the coast and decide to, hey, let's go see what's on that ghost ship. The answer is zombies. So, yeah, zombified Knights Templar who have come back from, I. I guess crusading. And then there's like, some real, like, flashy dudes wearing ascots and trying to punch skeletons. This is another thing I will share with the Facebook community group. I will put the trailer for the Ghost Galleon up for your enjoyment, and you can decide for yourself if you want to dig into the film as a whole. I love it. I also really love low budget, questionably acted horror from the 70s.

[Ben Bolam]

Yes, yes. As you should, Christopher. Thank you for this recommendation. You beat me to the punch. We have to put the trailer up. I'm actually. I'm gonna watch this after. After we finish recording today. I did. While you were talking about this, I did remember one piece of good news that baffled me. I kid you not. This is actual good news from the series of pandemics known collectively as the Black Plague or the Bubonic Plague. There is a book which I may have mentioned in previous episodes by a fellow named Norman Cantor. Name of this book is in the Wake of the Plague. When I first read this book, there's something that Cantor tosses aside in a fairly cavalier fashion, and it is that there is compelling evidence that that the evolutionary pressure of the Black Plague led to the HIV resistant genes that exist in parts of Europe today. Because you remember, we've seen those stories in years past about bone marrow transplant recipients who also find that their hiv, their viral load has gone down and then it has disappeared. It appears that there is compelling evidence, while not 100%, there's compelling evidence that the same infection and disease that killed so many people in Europe, Eurasia and beyond may have made us more resistant to HIV and ultimately aids.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Oh, that's fascinating. And yeah, there are myriad ways you can look at a terrible, terrible instance in history like the Black Death and glom some sort of positive from it. I mean, that is a wonderful thing and not the sort of thing you would ever expect, but it's the way history unfolds. I mean, there are a number of other things attributed to the Black Death and kind of what society had to do afterwards. There's an idea that a lot of the smaller universities around Europe really developed because people didn't want to travel when they went to school. Because the more, the more you travel, the more you risk coming across people who had plague. So more schools had. Or more communities had to develop their own local universities and colleges. And so that led to some education. It is also credited with perhaps popularizing English across the continent. The idea was that so many learned monks and scholars passed away because of Black Death that more people who spoke the, the vulgar tongues, your German, your English, they had to assume those positions of power in universities, in higher learning. And so English became more widespread. It's the same idea why the printing press had to be invented because so many monks died. They didn't have enough people to hand copy Bibles, so they needed to find a way to kind of adapt to a situation where you've lost a significant portion of your population. You know, whether you can say it's a one to one causal relationship is a little tricky. But these are some theories that are out there and I think they're pretty interesting.

[Ben Bolam]

That's fascinating. And it feels like we are on the verge of a completely new conversation. The upsides of terrible events throughout world history. That may be an episode of for another day, but for now, why don't we throw it to you fellow ridiculous historians. What are some of the unintended, how do we put it? Silver linings of terrible events throughout human history. I think we illustrated just a couple with the Black Plague to keep what may indeed be our most death metal of episodes from being completely grimy and grim. But let Us know, you can visit us on Facebook. As you said, Christopher, at our community page, ridiculous historians, you can see Casey, Noel, Christopher Haciotes himself and yours truly dropping in to field questions to check out and share some of the amazing stories throughout our species. Collective adventures. Let's see what else in the meantime.

[Christopher Haciotes]

In the meantime, I have a question for any listeners here who happened to be round about northern Wales, maybe over near Liverpool. I read about a ship of death that they've got going on right there. It just launched. Apparently for the past 30 years, there's been a ship called the Duke of Lancaster, which was kind of run aground and abandoned near, I think the town is called Holwell or Holywell in Wales, northern Wales. And there's this company who kind of. I think it's comparable to like escape rooms here in the US and they kind of put on those haunted houses, but they've turned this ship into a ship of death and you can kind of go on there and experience a zombie attack on the ship.

[Ben Bolam]

What?

[Christopher Haciotes]

Yeah, I just read up. I read. I remember reading about this at the end of 2018 and apparently this is a thing that has opened in this year. 2019. Zombie infection is, I believe, the. The company. Not. Not that we're giving props or speaking to their merit, but if anyone's listening who is in kind of like around the corner from Liverpool and you've been on this ship of death, or you want to go on the ship of death and report back, I'd like to hear about it.

[Ben Bolam]

Me too. Sign me up. I want to hear if it lives up to the hype. You can tell us about that on the aforementioned ridiculous historians Facebook page. You can find us on Twitter, you can find us on Instagram. You can find my pal Noel on Instagram. He's at Embryonic Insider. You can find me on Instagram as well. Follow my adventures as I get kicked into and out of various countries. Ben Bolin, in the meantime, we hope that you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much as always to super producer Casey Pegram. I know we can't see it because it's an audio podcast and Casey, I know you can't see me do this because there's a barrier between us, but every time I say your name, I like to throw my right arm wide in a. In a grand gesture towards you, sir. We'd also like to thank Alex Williams who composed our track. As always, thanks to Noel Brown. And thanks to you, Christopher Ociotes. You know, I know after we, after we did our grifter episode. You had me questioning everything. So I'm I'm I'm still going to stick with with the alias you provided when we met all those years ago.

[Christopher Haciotes]

Remain questioning. It's good to be a skeptic. Thanks for having me. It's been really, really nice talking about the end of so many people's lives.

[Ben Bolam]

We'll see you again soon.

[Noel Brown]

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Jennie Garth]

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