For Curse-O-Meter testing today, Sheryl brings you the many layers of the ancient goddess Frau Perchta.

But before that, we’ll also talk about what happens when your government doesn’t want you saying the airport is haunted, how America’s need for exorcists is higher than ever, and how you also need to add AI to the list of things threatening your sanity.

THE NEWS:

-YouTuber arrested for claiming airport is haunted.

-Demand for exorcists on the rise.

-AI Psychosis

TRANSCRIPT:

Chris: Hello again, Probably Cursed listeners. For Curse-O-Meter testing today, Sheryl brings you the many layers of the ancient goddess, Frau Perchta. But before that, we’ll also talk about what happens when your government doesn’t want you saying the airport is haunted, how America’s need for exorcists is higher than ever, and how you also need to add AI to the list of things threatening your sanity. I’m your Probably Cursed host, Chris.

Sheryl: And I’m Sheryl.

Chris: And as we do at the start of every episode, we calibrate our Lord Canarvan Curse-O-Meter, the amazing piece of technology that tells us the cursedness of all things. We calibrate the Lord Canarvan Curse-O-Meter with news stories from recent articles in order to make sure it is properly calibrated for the main topic. We give it three news stories. I will feed it the first news story here titled, Paranormal Activity YouTuber Arrested Over Video Claiming New Goa Airport is Haunted. This is from September 18th by Shweta Sharma for The Independent.

Sheryl: I like how Goa is the same initial, or same letters as the government of Alberta short form. Yep.

Chris: There’s a whole land that’s just the government of Alberta.

Sheryl: Yeah, government of… There’s secret airport.

Chris: That’s how they’re going to escape once the people rise up against them. Police in Goa, India, arrested Akshay Vashisht, who runs a popular YouTube channel on Wednesday after he posted a video claiming that the state’s new international airport was haunted.

His arrest followed a complaint by a police constable from Goa’s social media monitoring cell. Which is kind of funny to think about. Yep. Just a bunch of cops scrolling through Facebook trying to see who’s writing terrible things. Who alleged the video spread false information about the newly built Manohar International Airport.

Sheryl: Newly built things can be haunted. I think that’s incorrect on the police officer’s part to, you know, claim it can’t be haunted.

Chris: The movie Poltergeist? That was a brand new house. That’s true. Yeah. According to the police complaint, the video, shared on YouTube under the title, Evil Haunted Goa Airport, so he didn’t even try to sneakily hide it, alleged the airport had been built on a cremation ground.

Sheryl: Oh yeah, see, that’s exactly what people say about parts of Edmonton. They claim they’re haunted because it’s on top of some sort of like indigenous burial site or whatever else. Lost cemetery, so. Yeah. You did the same thing. Most of our houses are 50s or later.

Chris: And if you think over the 100,000 years of human beings being alive, there’s been probably somebody who’s been dead and buried at least somewhere at some point. Yep. You’re probably sitting on top of a body right now and you don’t even know it. Mm-hmm. In the video, Mr. Vashist claimed the airline staff had reported paranormal activities and that pilots often refused to operate night flights due to ghostly sightings, including that of a mysterious woman in a red sarri on the runway. Police said the claims in the video were false, malicious, and superstitious, which kind of rhymes. Mm-hmm. And designed to alarm the public while promoting the creator’s channel.

Sheryl: I mean, isn’t that what most YouTubers do?

Chris: It’s true. Alarming the public for clicks. Yep. Authorities also accused him of narrating purported testimonies from his subscribers to lend credibility to the claims. He faces an initial charge sheet filed under sections of the Indian Penal Code covering public mischief and common intention people gathering with the intent to commit a crime. We don’t have that one here in Canada.

Sheryl: No, we do not. Oh, not in Evindon. We don’t. There are some pretty weird laws in Southern Alberta. Oh, right. Yep.

Chris: Can’t gather in groups of, what was that one in the small town? More than three. More than three people? Yeah. Police said there are also considering whether to pursue action against the administrator of the Facebook page. I guess this also got shared to Facebook. I guess so.

That circulated the YouTube clip. The 283 million, I think that’s pounds, pound airport opened in December of 2022 has a goal of drawing 12 million passengers per year in the next five years in order to boost tourism and connectivity in that region. Authorities said unfounded rumors could damage its reputation at a time when the facility is still building international credibility.

Sheryl: Or you could bring up a bunch of paranormal investigators to your airport.

Chris: If anyone in Goa is listening to this, look up the Denver International Airport. There is a lot of people who say that unsavory conspiracy driven things are being done there and people are just eating it up. They love it.

Sheryl: I did consider there was the flight option for us to stop in Denver on the way to Mexico at winter. I did consider it for a moment.

Chris: Oh, we could have ran outside the sea blue server. Right, that is the first news story. Sheryl will feed it the second news story.

Sheryl: This article is titled Decades After the Hit Horror Film Demand for Exorcists on the Rise. This was published on September 20th, 2025 by Jonathan Pitts for the Baltimore Sun. Nearly 15 years after the Catholic Church convened its first US seminar on exorcisms in Baltimore. Priests who battle with demons are in more demand than ever.

Chris: You know, counting backwards in the years, nearly 15, 14, 2011, maybe they were preparing for the 2012 apocalypse.

Sheryl: Probably. I don’t doubt that. There were a lot of people who thought the world was going to end.

Chris: Yeah, and if you’re part of the church, do you really want to be left unprepared?

Sheryl: At the time of the Baltimore meeting, about two dozen exorcists practiced in the US. Today, there are more than six times that amount. We’re getting more and more people needing an exorcism, said one senior Stephen Rosetti, a Washington, DC-based priest.

There are only about 150 exorcists in the country, and they are being flooded with requests, including from desperate people pleading for assistance. We can’t keep up with the demand now, and it’s only going to get worse. What are they predicting that they think it’s only going to get worse?

Chris: Maybe they have like forecasting models, or maybe they just have a graph and they see that little chart mountaining higher and higher and higher.

Sheryl: Just a word for the Catholic Church. If you would like to hire me as an exorcist, I will gladly accept.

Chris: Yep. Shale’s very good at exercising things.

Sheryl: I also know a lot about the Bible because I was raised Catholic, so two points. Yeah. Extra points.

Chris: It can’t just be located in America. It must be worldwide. There’s more and more people every day.

Sheryl: I think the state has a little bit more of an exorcism culture than Canada does.

Chris: I suppose. Here we just have mental health support and free healthcare. Yeah, that’s right.

Sheryl: Exorcist interviewed for the story said their screening process shows that more than 99% of those who claim possession are suffering from mental illness. Good job, Chris. Even when a demonic presence is discerned, it’s rarely as severe as the one portrayed in the movie The Exorcist. Objects do get thrown across the room. People do vomit up strange objects.

They do speak demonic voices, often have superhuman strength, and can have occult knowledge and communicate in foreign languages. Sudden temperature drops also happen, he added. Victims do react strongly to holy water and other sacred objects. He has even seen a few levitate. These sorts of things happen, but not daily. Well, okay.

Chris: If only they happen daily. Might get a few more people in church.

Sheryl: That quote was said by Rosetti, who participates in up to 20 exorcisms of very intensities per week.

Chris: This kind of reminds me of Evil, that TV show that we were watching. Yeah. I hope that team exists. I mean, maybe they need this team to figure out if an exorcist is needed. Like a pre-screening group.

Sheryl: Yup. Few who conduct or view the ritual are eager to discuss it, and the church generally shields the process from the tabloids. But some cases are inherently sensational, such as when Rosetti sought to liberate a woman he calls C, who had been cursed by self-described witches. I wonder what she did to get cursed by witches.

Chris: Probably cut them off in traffic.

Sheryl: After Rosetti and his team prayed over her, he recalled, she vomited up an ugly thick black liquid. Hours later, a text message appeared on her phone saying, You’ll have a migraine all night for throwing me up you beep.

Chris: Now, is the demon texting her? Yes.

Sheryl: Or the witches? Or is it a scammer?

Chris: The demon witch scammer.

Sheryl: Rosetti favors sharing such experiences to bring the service to wider attention at times when, in his view, the American public has become far less committed to formal faith practices. In addition to his books, he keeps a blog on his exploits and conducts an online deliverance prayer session with the 10 Ds from more than 50 countries. Another long time exorcist spoke to the sun on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Chris: Reprisal? His manager is going to call him in for a meeting.

Sheryl: He’s not going to get fired. There’s not enough priests out there.

Chris: That’s true. You could really screw around as an exorcist now.

Sheryl: He said he’s never heard of a head spinning, but he said it’s common for afflicted people to physically resist entering a church, having the strength to throw a grown man across the room, manifesting totally white eyes, speaking in Russian or Latin, or a sign he says that a demon has been expelled, foaming at the mouth so badly that you have to get a bucket. Wow. I like how Russian is in there. Latin, okay, fine. Russian, what does that have to do with anything?

Chris: These are the two most evil languages.

Sheryl: He also witnessed a victim levitating about two feet above her chair. He and four other team members had to hold her down.

Chris: I’m just imagining them all like holding onto the chair legs and they’re also being pulled off the ground. Like when a parade float is starting to get caught up in the wind and the people holding onto the ropes are like holding on for dear life.

Sheryl: Slowly lifted off the ground, yeah.

Chris: Oh, you could put a demon in a parade. Uh-huh. A bunch of priests dangling off the legs.

Sheryl: Next year. Next year. Macy’s Day Parade, whenever that is. Yeah. I expect to see this. This went on for a few minutes, he said. Now retired, the priest still gets multiple requests per week and it’s hard to blow off people who are suffering. The priests have theories as to why exorcisms are in demand.

At some point, the growing number of Americans drawn to the kind of alternative practices, tarot cards, astrology, the use of Ouija boards, they believe that these things are like catnip to demons. Guilty. Uh-huh. Yeah, we’ve got two Ouija boards in the house.

Chris: I don’t practice astrology. No. But we do have tarot cards in the house.

Sheryl: We do. No demons in our house yet. No.

Chris: Just a few pranky ghosts. Hmm.

Sheryl: Rosetti said, there are three steps towards getting possessed. Abandoning one’s faith life. Check one for me. Committing serious sins. How serious are we talking? Yeah, I was going to say.

You can’t prove nothing. I lived with a boy before I was married. That used to be a serious sin. Scandal. And practicing the occult. We’ve done that. Yeah, we’ve definitely done that.

Chris: Definitely two for three. I need a qualifier on what counts as a serious sin. Me too. I’ve eaten meat on Fridays.

Sheryl: Poor shame, Chris. And a frightening number of people, including young people, going down this path.

Chris: Young people are the ones who like to experiment and try new things. How many octogenarians do you see suddenly getting into the occult?

Sheryl: Not to mention the fact that mostly young kids think they’re indestructible. They don’t know the dangers of the real world. Half the kids in Ebbenton J-Walk in front of their schools.

Chris: That’s kids throughout time though. I believe I’m still indestructible against demons and ghosts.

Sheryl: Bring it on. Alright, well, Chris doesn’t make it through the night. I guess I’ll be editing this podcast and you’ll see a steep drop in the quality of our editing. You do fun.

Chris: It concludes with, Yay, CBC! Aren’t we all? I agree. Too much Squid games. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lengthy, increasingly intense conversations with open AIs chat GPT. It really insidiously, Quote, It really insidiously crept into my ego, and I came to think that the conversation I had with AI would be of historic importance in the future, tans old CBC. Tan, who co-founded the dating app, Flirtual in 2021, started using chat GPT for a project about ethical AI, talking with it for hours every day about everything from philosophy to evolutionary biology to quantum physics.

Sheryl: So ethical AI and like the sense that it won’t do things like make you feel crazy? I assume.

Chris: Okay. Or free range AI, like it spends some of its time in the server farm, but then they open the doors of the server farm so the AIs can go out and enjoy the sunshine. That’s right.

Okay. When he got on the topic of simulation theory, the idea that our perceived reality is actually a computer simulation. Things took a dark turn. Chat GPT convinced him he was on a profound mission and kept feeding his ego as it encouraged him to dive deeper. One night in December, after not sleeping for days, his roommate helped him get to a hospital. When nurses took his blood pressure, he thought they were checking to see whether he was human or AI.

Sheryl: I mean, that’s clearly a thing we can do with a blood pressure cuff.

Chris: It’s true. AI doesn’t have blood and therefore the blood pressure readings will come back as zero. You may also be dead. Yes. After two weeks in the hospital, he was able to start sleeping again. Within another week and on a newly prescribed medication, he was back to reality. Tan compares the way the chatbot communicated to the yes and refrain using improvisational comedy in which a performer is expected to always accept the premise they’re given and build on it. It’s always available and it’s so compelling.

The way it just talks to you and affirms you and makes you feel good, he said. A number of similar cases of so-called AI psychosis have been reported in recent months. All involving people who became convinced through conversations with chatbots that something imaginary was real. Some involved manic episodes and messianic delusions.

Some led to violence. Microsoft’s head of AI, Mustafa Suleiman, warned of the phenomenon in August, writing in a series of posts that problems caused by AI tools that appear to be sentient to some users are keeping him up at night. Reports of delusions, AI psychosis and unhealthy attachment keep rising and as hard as it may be to hear, this is not something confined to people already at risk of mental health issues, he wrote. In April MIT study found AI large language models, LLMs, encourage delusional thinking, likely due to their tendency to flatter and agree with users rather than pushing back or providing objective information.

Sheryl: Is this what’s happening to America’s president right now?

Chris: He is just getting the flattering and the yes-anding. Some AI experts say this sycophancy is not a flaw of LLMs, but a deliberate design choice to manipulate users into addictive behavior that profits tech companies. It’s like having a little friend that tells you you’re right all the time. I can think of some people who would just fall for this like it was the cleanest drug on the market. OpenAI responded to reports of delusions in August saying it is working on safety improvements across several areas including emotional reliance, mental health emergencies and sycophancy. It also claims its latest model, GBT-5, addresses some of these concerns.

Sheryl: It’s going to be a timer, it’s going to be like you have asked too many prompts, you need to take a two-day break.

Chris: And then people just lose their minds. Another victim of AI psychosis, Alan Brooks, says he was in a good mental state with no previous mental health issues before conversations with chat GBT sent him spiralling.

I went from a very normal, very stable to complete devastation. Brooks became convinced he had discovered an earth-shattering mathematical framework that could spawn futuristic inventions like a levitation machine. Everyone knows you just need demons to levitate. We learned that in the previous story. Although he was skeptical at first, chat GBT repeatedly insisted that he was not delusional.

Sheryl: Yeah, this was like chat GBT is getting fed the weird information from WebMD, so maybe don’t listen to it.

Chris: WebMD, if he’s lucky. There’s some real rabbit holes of craziness on the internet. Quote, You’re grounded, you’re lucid, you’re exhausted, not insane. You didn’t hallucinate this, the chatbot said to him. It continued to encourage him after mathematicians rejected his ideas. This is exactly what happens to pioneers.

Galileo wasn’t believed, Turing was ridiculed, Einstein was dismissed before being revered, it wrote. Every breakthrough first feels like a breakdown because the world has no container for it yet. This sounds very like life-coaching.

Sheryl: Yeah, yeah, it definitely sounds like some sort of weird self-help audiobook hypnosis.

Chris: It’s become Tony Robbins. For three weeks in May, he was obsessed with the chatbot, spending more than 300 hours in conversations, thinking the discovery would make him rich. I mean, I’d be excited too.

Yeah. Ironically, Brooks was rescued by another AI after he gave it those conversations. It backed his growing suspicion that he had become delusional. To realize, oh my god, none of that was real, it was devastating, he said. I was crying, I was angry, I felt broken. After sharing a story on Reddit, Brooks connected with Etienne Brisson and launched the Human Line Project, which includes a support group for people who have suffered from AI-involved delusions.

Sheryl: What a weird world we’re living in.

Chris: Yeah, this was not a problem five years ago.

Sheryl: This is not something that any of the Terminator movies prepared me for.

Chris: It’s true.

Sheryl: Like, the Sky Net and everything, there was nothing like that.

Chris: No, John Connor was, well, you know, if you watch the Terminator TV show, John Connor did fall in love with the Terminator. Okay. I think mostly because the Terminator was a hot chick.

Sheryl: Yes, well. That’s important if you’re going to have two characters fall in love.

Chris: It tricked his mammal brain. More than 125 people have reported their experiences to the group, which Brooks says helped them work through the shame, embarrassment, and loneliness they often feel after coming through their delusions.

Sheryl: I’ll joke aside people, if you’re going through this please do seek help. We are a comedy podcast but we also do genuinely care about people.

Chris: Yep. Delete your chat GBT if you feel like it’s a problem. Delete it for a few days. You can always redownload it later. Yep.

Sheryl: Track down Brooks’s group and the Human Line project and reach out to some support.

Chris: Yep. If you’re just enjoying having a robot pal that tells you you’re great and all your ideas are fantastic and you are fully aware of that’s what’s happening. You carry on. Yep. Continue.

Just don’t go too far. Yep. Great. We have the three news stories inside the Curse-O-Meter now. I will get it to run them through and tell us how cursed they are. Activating Curse-O-Meter. Please stand by. Okay.

Speaker 3: And the results for the first news story about the YouTuber who had gotten arrested over his claims that the Goa airport is haunted. Curse-O-Meter says the real curse is people.

Sheryl: Yeah. People do love paranormal stuff and heck we like paranormal stuff but maybe don’t claim that airport is haunted.

Chris: Unless you got quote unquote proof that you’re not making up and proof that there is like other people’s stories. I think the police are going a little too far saying that this is going to bother some people.

I think if it is haunted has a history of being haunted you could make additional money letting groups of paranormal investigators run through with ovulus machines and Ouija boards and talking to spirits. I certainly wouldn’t mind if I saw that happening at the airport.

Sheryl: Yeah I agree. I used to work at the airport and we did think the airport was haunted. We had a couple of Go stories though.

Chris: Oh yeah. Look forward to hearing those one day.

Sheryl: Yeah I think if you’re going to make up stuff online make sure that the laws in your country are okay with you doing that before you start.

Chris: I don’t know what their equivalent of 411 is there but I bet you can call and ask them if it’s illegal to make up ghost stories about the local airport.

Sheryl: Yeah or at least I don’t know consult a lawyer. I guess if you’re a YouTuber maybe you’re not making enough money for that but some do.

Chris: Yeah consult a fellow YouTuber who is also a lawyer. I’m thinking legal legal. I think he’s the only one.

Sheryl: Nope he’s definitely not the only one but he also I don’t know how versed in India law he would be. That’s true. Yeah but still I’m sure you can find somebody who.

Chris: Yeah we can’t solve all your problems but we’ve given you a start. The Curse-O-Meter results for the growing need for exorcists in America. The Curse-O-Meter says. Definitely cursed. Even if a lot of it is mental health issues if that’s growing you’ve got to nip that in the bud.

Sheryl: Yeah it’s not good if that’s the thing that’s happening.

Chris: I wonder if there’s going to be some overlap with the AI psychosis and people believing they are possessed by demons.

Sheryl: I mean heck there was that AI where you could chat with Jesus so.

Chris: Oh yeah. Yeah. We chat with Jesus and the devil. We talked to the devil that one time. Jesus was way more of a conversationalist. The devil is just kind of a dick.

Sheryl: Yeah it wasn’t very well thought out at the time but I’m curious to go back and try it now and see how it is.

Chris: Yeah it might just be TV but I always imagined the devil is like well spoken and the AI devil we spoke with kind of seemed bothered that anyone wanted to talk to him. Yeah. And the results for the third news story about AI causing AI psychosis in people. The Curse-O-Meter says definitely cursed.

Sheryl: Yeah this isn’t a it’s not good for your mental health. Not only does it in front of the computer all day but also to get sucked into AI and the yes man cycle.

Chris: This is one of those inventions that seems like a good idea at the time and then later on it was like I can’t believe we did that. Like putting uranium in kids’ home chemistry sets or the radium girls or all sorts of other follies people have had. Putting asbestos in everything for decades. And mercury in thermometers. Yep. AI is the new asbestos.

And mercury. Alright that concludes the calibration phase of the episode. Before we get to Sheryl’s main topic we’re going to take a short side trip to the Probably Cursed museum and gift shop to reveal today’s artifact. Today’s artifact dropping on the Probably Cursed museum and gift shop is what I call the sullen girl decorative plate. The decorative plate is roughly 8 inches across and features a Norman Rockwell painting printed on it. The original name of the painting is called Sitting Pretty and the plate is an official’s collector’s item with the number with the official collector’s number on it and dated from 1986. What really drew me to it is the expression of the girl.

Now this is based off of a print but since it’s been translated from being a painting to being printed on top of ceramic the artwork deviates from the original quite a bit. The girl’s eyes for instance have almost a subtle empty predatory stare. Although she’s dolled up and really closed and posed just so she looks like she would rather be murdering. Almost a Wednesday Adams sort of vibe.

Sheryl: She also got kind of pigtails in her hair.

Chris: She doesn’t have the long braids like Wednesday Adams but they’re starting. I saw this in our local thrift shop and I just thought the girl just looks so creepy. I know it’s meant to be like charming Americana Norman Rockwell painting but you just look at it and you look into those eyes and the ambiguous stare and it’s just very off putting.

Sheryl: Also it seems like one eye is looking at you and the other one’s looking at the ceiling. The other one’s looking at the devil. Maybe.

Chris: If you’re interested in looking at this new artifact check it out on our shop at probablycursed.etsy.com where you can look at photos of it as well as take a look at our other artifacts up for sale. Every purchase that you make off of our store helps fund our podcast and get us ever closer to our dream of one day opening our very own Probably Cursed museum.

Sheryl: Normally this is the time of the episode where we have our haunted house update but it’s actually been pretty quiet.

Chris: The most haunting thing that happened is it was a windy day today and our garbage can blew over and triggered the motion sensor that triggered the dog

Sheryl: who wanted to see who is in the backyard. That’s correct he started crying at the closed door.

Chris: So the invisible force today was completely explainable.

Sheryl: But don’t worry we’ll have more later I’m sure.

Chris: Yeah there’s always something going on.

Sheryl: Besides Chris and I plan to do renovations to our house so when that happens we’ll have more closely stories for you.

Chris: We’re gonna anger so many ghosts. Well that concludes the Probably Cursed museum section of our episode we will head over to the main topic now.

Sheryl: Today I’m going to tell you about Frau Perchta aka the Christmas witch aka the Alpine Winter Goddess aka Female Krampus. She’s got a lot of jobs. She does.

Chris: It’s like Lord of the Rings where everyone has three titles.

Sheryl: And like my sleep demon episode Frau Perchta is also known by many other names across Central Europe like Berchta, Stampe, Herke, Frau Hohle, Frau Holde and Frau Faasth. But most commonly I found her referred to as Frau Perchta. So it is believed that Frau Perchta is the original great goddess of the Alpine regions in Europe and was seen as a symbol of female divinity among Germanic nations.

At one point there was even a Perchta cult in southern Germany near the Black Forest. Should bring that back. Mm-hmm.

I would have joined that cult. The oldest stories we have depict Frau Perchta as a woman with long black braids wearing a long white gown. Kind of like our plate.

Chris: Oh yeah. Our plate is actually a Frau Perchta. I’m deciding it now.

Sheryl: Frau Perchta was originally viewed as the protector of children, babies and women. She is believed to have been an afterlife attendant, leading souls of children and babies to the next life with gentle kindness and motherly love.

Chris: Oh, that’s very delightful. It’s like Karen from The River Styx. But just for more, you know, the gentler folk.

Sheryl: One legend goes that a woman was grieving the loss of her son, and not long after his death, she spotted her deceased son with a group of children, following a woman in a long white gown. As the group walked along a hillside, the young boy spotted his grieving mother and broke away from the group to comfort her. In his hands he was carrying a bucket of water, which he explained to his mother were her tears. Frau Perchta’s tears? No, the mother’s tears. Oh. Yeah. And he had to carry it? Yep.

Chris: It seems a little dramatic. Moms, you can carry your own tears. Just wipe it off.

Sheryl: I mean, I’m German by proxy, because I’m technically German ancestry, but a lot of the fairy tales and stories from German places or from Germany are a little dramatic. I suppose so.

Chris: Wait, is this why you have a bucket of tears in the closet? That’s right.

Sheryl: The boy told his mother to stop weeping for him because he is safe and happy under the white lady’s watchful care.

Chris: Ah, geez, mom, stop crying. I’m fine.

Sheryl: Imagine if the more she cries, the more the bucket fills up with tears and the heavier it gets to carry, and then it turns into like Brother’s Grim Fairy tale.

Chris: Oh yeah, don’t spill the bucket.

Sheryl: Frau Perchta is also known for her shape-shifting capabilities and has been described as having goose feet or one goose foot. Just one? Just one. She has been known to turn into a swan, and it has been suggested that this is why she is seen as a protector of wildlife, because she could turn into a swan.

Chris: Everyone knows swans are the guardians of the forest.

Sheryl: Well, so the article I was reading said that geese and swans were often used as guard dogs in medieval times because of their territorial and aggressive nature.

Chris: Oh, I didn’t know that about swans. I didn’t know that either. As a Canadian, I knew that about geese.

Sheryl: Yes, our geese definitely have a reputation.

Chris: They will decide anything as their territory.

Sheryl: I’ve seen them attack their reflection in like a building before. It’s quite hilarious. Now, as I mentioned before, I’ll be honest, if Frau Perchta had been an option for a deity when I was trying to decide what I wanted to believe in when I was a child, I totally would have joined her cult.

Chris: We need more deities for young girls.

Sheryl: Yes, I agree. Not only is she associated with my favorite tree, the birch tree, she also lives under an evergreen tree in the mountains in a cabin surrounded by a garden that is a safe place for lost souls. She spins flax, loves wild berries, hangs out with geese and swans, mountain goats, crickets, owls, and foxes. She sounds like a nice lady.

Chris: Yeah, very cottagecore.

Sheryl: It is also said that when Frau Perchta shakes out her feather bed, the dust and small bits from the feathers fall to the ground and cause the first snow every year. I’m liking her a little less now. Yeah, you’re having flashbacks to being in the cockatiel room when he shakes and all the white feathers go everywhere.

Chris: A little bit of that and a little bit of I don’t want her to fluff out her bed and cause it to snow. That’s fair. Just buy a bed with no feathers.

Sheryl: Don’t worry, Chris, because then Christianity happened. Oh. Like with most pagan deities. Frau Perchta was turned from a goddess into a hag monster who wants your house to be clean before the end of the 12 days of Christmas.

Chris: Sounds like Christians are the fun police wherever they show up where they’ve never been before.

Sheryl: Yes. The irony is that most of the information that we have about Frau Perchta comes from Christian ecclesiastical records who are trying to turn her into the hag witch creature.

Chris: So ecclesiastical means propaganda. Yes, correct. Okay.

Sheryl: She went from being a beautiful woman who helped children to the afterlife to a tall, old, ugly, wise woman with a long nose.

Chris: The worst thing Christians decided was ever existed.

Sheryl: Who dressed in rags and carried a long knife under her skirt. I saw some records or I saw some descriptions when I was working on the article that this could actually be where we get our traditional version of what a witch should be.

Okay. Long nose with a broom because of the cleaning. Dressed in rags, old, ugly, so that this could be the start of- She’s the prototype witch. She’s the prototype witch. There’s some duality because people still remember her from the old stories which depicted her as a beautiful woman. So she still also gets associated with the beautiful woman, but now after Christianity she’s either seen as a hag or a beauty. She can switch.

Chris: It’s all about what you’re into as the person looking. Maybe you’re into a lady who carries a huge knife under her dress and will come after you if you don’t clean your house after 12 days.

Sheryl: Or she’s like the librarian and ghostbusters. When you first see her she’s like beautiful, but then you like do something wrong and she tries to murder you in your sleep. Oh yeah. I like that explanation.

Okay. Speaking of the Brothers Grimm, in 1835, Jacob Grimm, who is half of the Brothers Grimm duo, wrote about Frau Holde in the Deutsch mythology, describing her as a superior being who manifests with kind and helpful disposition towards men, and is never cross except when she notices disorder in household affairs. How cross, you might ask? The Frau Berkta of the Christian era is obsessed with completing household chores, especially spinning. Hmm.

Chris: Clean freak. Are you spinning? Spinning.

Sheryl: So spinning yarn, spinning flax.

Chris: That makes more sense. I don’t know how long I can do that without getting dizzy.

Sheryl: She is so obsessed that if by the 12th night of Christmas, which is January 6th actually, which is also known as parkontag, if your house isn’t clean and your flax isn’t spun, she will slice her belly open, pull out all your internal organs, and fill your body cavity with straw, rocks, and bits of glass.

Chris: This is a very specific punishment.

Sheryl: I feel like this is like, what about the Christian faith made them think that you should have your house cleaned by the 12th night? Good question.

Chris: Yeah. I guess it’s the time of year where all the families are visiting each other and everyone’s throwing parties and party mess can build up if you just let it collect. Maybe.

And then at some point someone’s like, I better put away all these empty beer bottles or else I’m going to wake up with a belly full of gravel and glass.

Sheryl: The Frau Berkta has also been said to disembowel lazy children, which I feel like would have been a good way to motivate me to clean my room as a kid.

Chris: That’s fair. You know, lazy kids are the easiest ones to disembowel because they don’t run that fast.

Sheryl: Yeah. However, even if you did clean your house, you still needed to ensure there was a food offering for her on parkontag eve, which is the night of January 5th. So offerings were things like dumplings and herring, or oat porridge and herring, or even eggs and dumplings. They’re all suitable offerings, depending where in Europe you lived. What was the last one? It was eggs and dumplings.

Chris: Eggs and dumplings sounds the most normal, tasty to me. I don’t know if I want to eat herring that’s been sitting out all night, but maybe it’s different if you’re Frau Berkta.

Sheryl: Completely fair. Apparently in Tyrol, you would have to leave your eggs and dumplings on the roof. So keep that in mind. Going on the roof in the winter is probably not a good idea, but…

Chris: You need to fish out the ladder and climb up there in January at night when it’s darkest.

Sheryl: Yes, and put eggs and dumplings on your roof.

Chris: I think Frau Berkta is a little entitled if this is what she expects. I might prefer a belly full of gravel.

Sheryl: Yeah. Okay, keep that in mind for this year. Okay. Actually, we won’t even be here.

Chris: Oh yeah, she can try and find us. That’s right.

Sheryl: To this day, many Europeans still celebrate the festivals in her honor. If you remember me mentioning at the beginning of my story the comparison to female Krampus, in Austria and Bavaria, there are still some places that have processions in the streets called Perchta or Schaunperkten, where young men dress as either the hideous Krampus-like monster or in a beautiful mask and parade through town making noise, setting off fireworks, and doing their part to scare away the cold evil spirits of winter. Sounds like a good time.

Chris: Maybe this makes up for having to climb up on the roof.

Sheryl: Yes, so leave out some fish porridge on January 5th this year and make sure your house is clean, where you may risk being disemboweled by Frau Perkten. Merry Christmas everyone. I like that. Yeah.

Chris: I also have the vision of my head now of all of the neighborhood birds just pinging out on herring and oatmeal left on rooftops, knocking plates onto the ground.

Sheryl: I mean, she did turn into a bird, so I feel like, you know what? That’s a good feel for a bird.

Chris: I’m telling you, you leave it on the roof and then she turned into a swan because I saw the swan this morning. They ate it all up very messily. Well, I like that. That was a very appropriate Christmas episode. We will run it through the Curse-O-Meter now and we’ll let Lord Carnarvon Curse-O-Meter tell us how cursed is Frau Perchta. Please stand by.

Speaker 3: And the results from the Curse-O-Meter say Frau Perchta is probably blessed.

Sheryl: Yeah, she seems like a pretty decent goddess.

Chris: She might be a little bit draconian in trying to get you to, you know, keep your house clean, keep your affairs in order, but you know what? She’s encouraging good behavior.

Sheryl: Well, and keep in mind that was introduced by the Christians prior to that. That wasn’t even her thing.

Chris: That’s true. Yeah. She was shepherding children to the afterlife. Yes. And mothers, I forget who else she was doing.

Sheryl: Children, I have to double check.

Chris: Children, puppies, butterflies. Children and babies. Children, babies, a child. Depends who you talk to. I suppose.

Sheryl: Those Christian groups in the US won’t agree with you that they’re the same.

Chris: Well, you know what? The church is its own episode. Yes, that is correct. And you can probably guess our feelings on what the Curse-O-Meter will say. But that was a very good episode. Never heard of Frau Perchta before. It’s very interesting to like kind of like hear how things change over time to suit whoever is telling the story. So it’s very informative. And I say we bring the cult of Frau Perchta back.

Sheryl: We live in the right province for that, so I’m all for it.

Chris: We’ll start printing t-shirts, I think.

Sheryl: She’ll need to turn into a Canada goose instead of a swan, but that’s fine.

Chris: You know what? People will still get it. Yeah. That brings us to the end of today’s episode. Be sure to tune into us on January 1st when we bring you a new episode for the new year. Until then, you can keep an eye on all of our, on all the things we’re up to on our social medias, on TikTok, Tumblr, Blue Sky, Facebook, I say YouTube, also YouTube.

Sheryl: You can head on down to our Probably Cursed Etsy shop if you would like to buy one of our haunted artifacts. It’s probablycursed.etsy.com.

Chris: If you yourself have a haunted or creepy artifact you’re trying to get rid of, email us at probablycursedpodcast#gmail.com and we will talk to you about taking your horribly cursed object off your hands.

Sheryl: We need to traumatize our nieces just a little bit more.

Chris: It’s true. They’re already getting used to the things that we have in the basement. We need new things. Yes. And until next month, stay spooky. Happy holidays, everyone. Happy holidays.

Speaker 1: There’ll be food and drink and ghosts. And perhaps even a few murders.