Shawna Potter

SHOW NOTES:

If messages from the past are warning us about the future, are we more likely to listen? Join host Shawna Potter for a quick chat with historian Mike Dash about “Hunger Stones.” In his second appearance on the pod he gives some background on what could be a War On Women song but just isn’t…yet? Folklore versus bureaucracy. Science versus the middle ages. A cool story, or a warning to save the planet? And are the melancholy vibes literally carved into stone more emo or metal? You decide!

The official sponsors of this episode are First Defense Krav Maga, and Pupcakes and Pawstries.

Episode transcripts, important links, and ways to support Shawna and this podcast can be found at shawnapotter.com. Everything War On Women can be found at linktr.ee/waronwomen. For bonus episodes, behind the scenes content, and the chance to make special requests and get shoutouts on air, become a patron at patreon.com/shawnapotter.

Thanks to Brooks Harlan for chopping up War On Women’s song “Her?” to create the podcast theme song. Main podcast photo: Justin Borucki.

SHOW LINKS:

10 things you can do right now: https://www.wwf.org.uk/thingsyoucando

https://mikedashhistory.com

“Aqua Tofana” new music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVi3KiEwfHE

Mike Dash bio: “I read history at Cambridge and went on to complete a PhD at King’s College London back in 1990. Since then I’ve enjoyed an eclectic career as a journalist, magazine publisher, teacher, and author, in the course of which I’ve written five (and counting) heavily-researched popular histories: Tulipomania, Batavia’s Graveyard, Thug, Satan’s Circus and The First Family – if you really want the full story, go here. Oh, and I live in London.”

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

{intro music}

Shawna Potter:

Welcome to But Her Lyrics...the show where we delve into the meaning and politics behind the songs of War On Women and other artists you love. I’m Shawna Potter, singer and lyricist for War On Women - and your host. 

This time around we’re talking about an interesting…phenomena? Warning? Time travel technique? OK actually it’s a type of hydrological landmark commonly referred to as a Hunger Stone that I read about online when it randomly showed up in my feed and it was so intriguing that I grabbed my lyric book and started jotting down notes. Now what they are, why I found them intriguing, and what I wrote down in my lyric book - it’s all going to be covered in my interview coming up with Historian Mike Dash, who was the very first official guest of BHL - he helped me break down the War On Women song “Aqua Tofana,” on episode one so definitely listen to that if you’re into Italian history, poisons, misandry, and satirical thought experiments about a world without men. I’ve invited him back to talk about all things hunger stones. But before I chat with Mike again, 

[Patreon]

Got a question from Pupcakes & Pawstries! How does the band go about choosing the set list for shows? Do you mix it up per show or stick with a setlist for a tour?

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[INTERVIEW TIME]

Speaking of patreon, I’ll share a screenshot of the potential future hunger stone lyric scribbles from my lyric book with patrons (so if you want to see that, sign up) but it’s right next to the first lyrics to our song “Big Words,” with the same pen even, so I’m guessing I was exposed to this topic around January of 2019. Now, I have yet to be fully inspired to write a song about Hunger Stones, to find my connection to it, but maybe that will change after my interview with Mike. Mike Dash is a London-based historian, a journalist, an author, a teacher, I’ll put some of his links in the show notes.

[interview is transcribed automatically - please get in touch about any errors and ignore time stamps]

Mike Dash welcome back to but her lyrics

I'm so glad that you're here very happy

to be you're one of my favorite guests

and I think you're a fan favorite for

the three people that actually regularly

listen to this podcast

um so it was you were at the top of my

list for people to tap on this season

when talking about things that I think

maybe could or should be worn women's

songs but just for whatever reason

aren't yet and one of those things is

hungerstones so Mike what is a hunger

Stone

well I mean I suppose we should start

with you know the general

um generally accepted idea about

hungerstones are large carved rocks that

appear in rivers mostly in what's

another Czech Republic and uh lower

Germany during times of drought and

certainly if you read about them in in

most of the sources they are normally

regarded as sort of you know

commemorations of tragedy dirt they've

got um they've got all sorts of um

horrible inscriptions on them along the

lines of We Cried we cry and you will

cry Very Metal that sort of kind of

commemorations and Dreadful warnings for

the future of um you know poor

conditions uh normally drought so

obviously today you know with climate

change we're paying a lot more attention

to them

um and they have become increasingly

popular as a sort of cultural artifact

online

uh over the last four or five years how

common was this practice to inscribe

warnings on rocks

well I mean the the hungerstones that

are sort of you know the genuine article

are restricted to the Rhine and the old

Rivers so that's in sort of Central

Europe going from the Czech Republic

sort of through Germany up towards

Hamburg we know a few dozen examples

um most of them are in what's now the

Czech Republic there are sort of similar

or equivalent types of carving I mean

there's one set that exists um on a

river in Pennsylvania for example but

they're not quite the same sort of thing

um and the original state back I think I

mean the earliest one that we have some

record of is around about just after

1300 but they were most commonly carved

um in the late 19th and 20th centuries

are there other versions of this in

different cultures like maybe not uh you

know the water line goes down you're in

a drought here's a warning is there some

something else that like common warnings

that you would only see when things are

already bad I'm not familiar with

anything else sort of associated with

with water with the exception of these

um American

um petroglyphs that I mentioned so these

come from the um Susquehanna River hope

I'm pronouncing that right in

Pennsylvania that sounds good to me yeah

although it is a site of German

immigration they're actually associated

with some of the indigenous peoples the

shanks Ferry peoples and they are a

series of petrogroups that we can't

really interpret but they have been they

have been it's been suggested that they

are similar to hungerstones and that

they they Mark low water marks which

have effect on the crops that were grown

by this Aquarian people they grew what

were called the three sisters that's uh

Maize beans and squash and so they could

potentially be commemorations of of drag

but they could equally well be find

remarks or navigation AIDS or something

like that until we can translate the

penderglyphs or interpret them better we

can't be sure and you know much the same

thing applies to the hungerstones

actually I'll come on to in a minute oh

really because I yeah I wrote down you

know I read some article and I wrote

down in my lyric book

um if you see me weep uh and then and

that's like a direct quote I think from

one of these hunger stones and then and

then some other things that I wrote down

my ideas just from the story is have we

learned nothing what we learned we let

the water wash away and all that's left

behind is trash and bombs and grenades

so that's my very good poetic lyrics for

the song that has yet to come to pass

and and yeah I mean appropriate for for

where we are now I mean

I think the thing to say is I mean you

know you're absolutely right these sorts

of inscriptions do exist I mean it's

another one that says um when this Stone

sinks life will become more colorful

again or just one that says uh they

which is misery in German so so

certainly they do exist um wow the

slightly tricksy thing about them is

that these are actually focus homologies

and that's a sort of technical term we

would use for something where a later

people put an interpretation on an

earlier set of symbols or something like

that and um assume that this is what it

means so I mean you know the the

quotation that you just gave us if you

see me weep which appears on a sort of

Van sic Stone in the elb

um near a check town called uh dating

dates in 1904.

um and it was carved there by an

Innkeeper during a period of drought and

it's genuine in that sense but the stone

itself dates back to to 1616 and it had

a previous usage so the most interesting

useful work that's been done on this was

done by a guy called Elida and a group

of people he was running and it appeared

in a journal called climate of the past

and eleada uh says that actually these

are originally

um hydrological inscriptions that

they're a set of markings that

townspeople carved to Mark the low water

mark on Rivers for navigational purposes

dating back actually to the Middle Ages

um but they were normally ordered to be

put in place by you know the local judge

or hydrological official

um and although yes some of them do have

those rather romantic and and doom Laden

and memorable inscriptions uh most of

them say things like that's about

Direction 9000 act 1.50 which translates

into Hydraulic Engineering Direction

1842 that's a much more common type of

instrument foreign

so you're saying that they they might

have just been

like the rulers we see coming out of

rivers that are like zeroes exactly what

they were I mean so to be clear you know

I mean climate uh uh scientists can use

to show where droughts occurred because

they Mark the lowest of low water marks

so they're sort of like a baseline

essentially

um but they weren't originally

associated with sort of Doom Laden

Prophecies of disasters cup um they were

just sort of Fairly fairly

straightforward markings which were

applied by the local bureaucracy

essentially to to Aid navigation and to

allow them to measure water levels are

you saying that we've gotten something

from the past wrong in our telling of it

in the present

I'm saying that well no I mean you know

I mean to be clear I mean folklorists

would would say that's a very

um parsimonious interpretation I mean it

to repurpose things and and give them

new meanings is actually something that

folklorists are very interested in

studying and then they have considerable

me I mean if we are taking them

separately or applying warnings now then

that you know they have meaning for us

that is separate but no less valid than

the meetings needs to have for the

hydrological engineers of the of bohemia

uh who originally made them I like that

idea because I I something that struck

me about these hungerstones is that

there's almost this weird element of

time travel to me someone in the past

writing this thing if you see me weep

telling people of the future giving them

a message and I think that that aligns a

little bit with what you just said of uh

we might have a separate meaning than

the original When It Was Written but

it's still as valid and we're still

getting something out of it

yes and you know we're paying more

attention because it's more serious I

mean it was pretty serious if you were

living in in the Czech lands in in 1300

and there's a drag but obviously we're

facing something more apocalyptic than

that

um and that would help to explain why

certainly they're becoming a landmark

online so to speak I mean there's a huge

amount of um retellings of this story

that have been popping up and almost all

of them date from sort of about 2015. so

they're definitely acquiring a new

meaning you know when the when the

Innkeeper carved the inscription you're

referring to back in 1904 I don't think

he was doing it as a joke he was doing

in response to a drought that took place

in 1904 so yeah I mean they they shift

me but the meanings themselves remain

useful to people who are looking into

the past and they just to have different

meanings makes them more useful arguably

is there anything else we should know

about them uh anything cool you came

across in your in your research well I

mean I I suppose that the only other

thing to say is that you know there are

actually I mean yeah and this is me as a

historian speaking so to speak about I

think I'm I'm fascinated by the fact

that you know these are actually

tremendously valuable records I mean

this may not mean much from the point of

view of song lyrics but in terms of us

understanding you'd be surprised but in

terms of understanding climate change we

need records like this and actually

these markings that sort of Show Low low

water lines are some of the longest

running and most useful series of

scientific data that we've got because

we've got them going in Cairo for

example there's a set of data that go

back to 622

uh and end in 1933 so that's over 1300

years of continuous data I mean this

scientists can do a huge amount of that

sort of information there are similar

Series in Europe that are located in

magdeburg and Paris so although that

might be a little bit dry in a sense

without that we wouldn't have the data

to tell us as much about what's going on

now and we need that data for sure so I

am interested in the idea that people

have been keeping these records going

back to the I mean 622 is before Islam

it was about 10 years

is for Islam emerged from Arabia and

conquered Cairo so that's a very very

old series of data wow yeah I thought it

was just a cool story from olden times I

didn't know how how valuable the uh and

how much data was contained in in these

things that's amazing Mike tell everyone

where to find you

uh you can find my history online at

mikedashistory.com and that's probably

the best place so I write about this

sort of stuff uh on a semi-regular basis

there

cool thank you so much again for joining

me it's always a pleasure and

um maybe I'll need you next season so

stay on your toes always glad to hear

from Sean

thank you

[music]

Thanks again to Mike Dash for joining me - again - always a great guest, we appreciate you taking the time. OK, I think I have an angle to write this song, now. I love the idea that a form of communication could serve as time travel. I’m also gravitating towards the idea of these warnings being a bit anarchic. Like, the people are trying to take care of themselves and future generations without the help of the government. I am not saying that’s how Mike explained them or that he was alluding to that in any way, it’s just what I’m interested in. 

Of course, this is a show about the politics of social justice issues and if you’re wondering how is this political? Just look to the climate change deniers, big oil and other corporate polluters, and the politicians who would rather line their pockets than save the fucking planet. Things are dyer. And if we don’t heed the warnings of the past, there will not be a future. Pretty heavy stuff, y’all. Probably hard to hear. Certainly hard to say. In the show notes, I’m gonna put a link up with 10 things you can do to help save the planet right now from the World Wildlife Fund, so check that out, and on socials or posts, share your go-to resources and organizations doing good work that you want people to know about. You can tag me and I’ll reshare them, or not, I don’t care, I just want to live on a habitable planet. On a lighter note, If you beat me to the punch and write a song about Hunger Stones before I do, please share it! I wanna hear it. Or, if you know of another artist that’s done it, share those links, I want to hear it.

[end music]

You can support this podcast by sharing, subscribing, and reviewing it - it’s free and it helps. To find the transcripts, or find out more about what I do, my book, my trainings, my patreon, head to shawnapotter.com

To learn about all things WOW, head to linktr.ee/waronwomen

If you have an idea of who I should interview next or what you want me to try and write a song about, message me on socials or make an official request on my patreon. Thanks for listening! Rosie says hi, she misses you.