Ep. 9: Summon the Father-in-Law: The Vyne Ring

Speaker A: Hello. Hi, I'm Shannon. I'm Emma. And this is this podcast doesn't exist. Welcome. Did you hear my brain figuring out room did this and this? Yeah, it's all right. It was fine. It was a choice. It was fine. All right, what are we talking about today? Is it something I need to buckle.
Speaker B: In for, or shall I stay unbuckled?
Speaker A: I mean, you should always buckle for safety.
Speaker B: Okay, well, then give me a second.
Speaker A: Okay. Because it's stuck. There we go. I love that we do this visual bit. Yeah. Nobody can see it. Yeah, it's great. But just picture it.
Speaker B: And it's accompanied by a wonderful sound for people, too.
Speaker A: You're welcome. Um especially if you're wearing headphones. Yeah, it's great just all up in there.
Speaker B: You are.
Speaker A: Welcome. Fred. Yes. Shout out to Fred, who is enjoying his Bachelor day, as he does every time that uh we record comes to record this podcast with me. All right. So I started off my notes by saying this might be short today, but then the sub bullet point of but every time we say that, it's never actually uh that much shorter. But we'll see.
Speaker B: So what is it?
Speaker A: So today we're getting into December. Yes, it's the holiday season. I mean, it was the holiday season last week with um the Thanksgiving vibes and everything, but we're officially in December. So we have some holiday themes in today's story. We've got pettiness, uh we've got kind of ugly jewelry.
Speaker B: Going.
Speaker A: We'll get there. Okay. All right. So today also, I made myself a little pronunciation uh guide.
Speaker B: She literally has an index card. It's an index card.
Speaker A: I didn't want to have to uh write it out every time in my notes. Um so today's topic is the vine ring, which is also known as the Ring of uh Sylvianus or the Ring of um I wrote myself a pronunciation guide, and I still don't know what I'm using. Senes. Okay, caveat for this entire episode. I don't speak Latin. I know nobody speaks Latin anymore, but I haven't studied Latin. So don't come for me.
Speaker B: We'll just have to summon my father in law.
Speaker A: Hot tier, hot tier, hot tear. Shout out to the family of Fred. Yes on Facebook for your entertaining exchanges.
Speaker B: Which happened like half an hour ago, 20 minutes ago.
Speaker A: Thank you for the Sunday entertainment. Yes. So don't come for me for the pronunciations. Just don't. I'm uh going to show Emma some photos which you can find on our Instagram, which is at this podcast doesn't exist. Nice and upfront. And also found on our Instagram, you can find our bingo card. It's in our link and bio if you'd like to play along, if you're not driving or doing something else right now. But. So uh this is the ring that we will be. Oh, it's an actual ring. Yes. Okay.
Speaker B: See, in my brain, I went like.
Speaker A: Fairy ring, like in grass or something. No.
Speaker B: Oh, it's a genuine ring.
Speaker A: I am so excited. Hence the kind of ugly jewelry. I get it now. That's really cool.
Speaker B: Is it a seal on it?
Speaker A: We'll get there. Okay. Sorry. I won't ask questions. I will sit here nicely. Fine. When uh do we ever just sit here?
Speaker B: We don't.
Speaker A: Hence the kind of ugly jewelry uh people. More usually, gentlemen, your wife doesn't want that ugly um heart necklace thing at the jewelry store. Yeah, the clunky thing that you go.
Speaker B: Oh, maybe I'll get this because she doesn't.
Speaker A: It's December 24 or the night before the end of Hanukkah, and you're like, I need something. No, don't do it. All right. But back to the ringing question. We're going to kind of cover some actual details, we're going to cover some historical fact, and then we're going to expound upon.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: I'm so excited. All right, so the ringing question is from the fourth century Ad. So circa 350 to 450. So it is of Romano British craftsmanship. Um it's a ten sided or faceted circle or loop with a square bezel attached. So um it's very large for uh a ring. And because of this, it's thought to be a Signet ring in that you would wear it on the outside of a glove on your hand. So um you're really just showing off your style. Also, the engraving on the bezel, which is like the popped out part, um is in reverse, so that if you pushed it into wax, it would be mirrored, that it would be correct. We got some uh stats. The ring is 2.5 CM or point 98 inches in diameter and is 12 grams in weight. And I'm not going to bother with ounces. No, but uh that's still I mean.
Speaker B: You already said it was big, but.
Speaker A: In my head was like, oh, so it fits on a thumb. That's a very big thumb wearing a glove also. Yeah, but still large. So there are two Latin inscriptions on the ring. The first is um on the band, and it translates to Senesias, uh lives in God, or Lives with God uh in Latin. Um but it translates to that. And it's important to note, which will come back to you, that it's incorrectly spelled that the final o in day zero is missing. It's not on there, and the inscription is kind of rough. I mean, also, it's fourth century. I was going to say cools are not super mobile, but just interesting that you took the time to write or to uh inscribe that, but you missed the final o in day mhm o. Um and then the other engraving is on the bezel, which is, again, the popped out part. And it's an engraved portrait, as well as the Roman term abbreviation for Venus. The goddess of Venus is uh on the bezel. Um the portrait is not a recognized icon of Venus, so it's not like, oh, you see this in temples all over the place. Okay. So it's like an individual artist interpretation, really. Yes. Um it's interesting the combination of the two of them, because the bezel seems to show loyalty to a Roman deity. But the band is more Christian in its text and its meaning. We'll come back to that as to theories as to why those two are on the same piece of jewelry. The story about the actual artifact that is in question. Yes. So in um around 1785, a farmer unearths the ring during his plowing in fields near Silchester in Hampshire, England. Yes. Hence the Romano. Got it. British? Yeah. Craftsmanship. Uh okay, so it shows up at the Society of Antiquaries. I got excited. You didn't get queries, but it's shown at the Society of Antiquaries in London in 1786 to the following year by uh a Lord Arden, and then it kind of disappears. No one really talks about it. I think not, like disappears in a spooky sense. Just we don't have any record of it because it didn't really matter. Okay, so maybe Lord Arden held onto.
Speaker B: It and just didn't do anything with it.
Speaker A: Or maybe gifted it to somebody. Yeah. So I'm not really sure who Lord Arden is in relation to the following event, but his name did come up. My primary source um for this is the National Trust, like the official government organization, um because most of the other articles are just regurgitating most of the same information, but with a little more, like, fanciful elements to it. So I'm using the National Trust as my primary source. Um somehow it ends up in the collection. The ring ends up in the collection of the Chute family. I'm assuming that's how you pronounce it. C-H-U because Chute feels too aggressive for the English and they um reside in a home called the vine. It's like the property, the name of the property. Grand properties always have a name associated with it. That's not necessarily like the actual name of the house, but that's what people end up calling it. Yeah. Named home. It pronounced the vine. But all during my research, I've been pronouncing it the Vin in my head. I don't know why. Vyne. Oh, yeah, I don't know why. There's uh a lot. So anyway, it ends up with the Shoot family. The residence is called the vine. Okay. And some sources indicated that the farmer who found the ring sold it to them and others didn't really explain that's where. I don't understand where Lord Arden came in. Maybe the farmer was like, you want to share this with the world, but it's still mine. I'm not quite sure, but um the ring was found approximately 4 miles or 6.4 km from the vine. So maybe land rights made it theirs by default. And Lord Arden was part of the Shoot family. They didn't go into it in a ton of detail. Okay. But it ends up um with the Shoot family. The Ring comes back into public relevance in conjunction with a discovery related to the Temple of Knowns at the Romano British site at Lindley Park in Gloucestershire. I referred to my little index card because. I'm sorry, I know we speak English.
Speaker B: But the way things are pronounced over.
Speaker A: In England, you got so many vowels and you don't even use them. Um if we ever do an Irish story.
Speaker B: Oh, forget it, forget it. Because the Irish went, oh, the English have conquered us. All right, great.
Speaker A: So they want Latin words or Latin.
Speaker B: Letters to be used.
Speaker A: Fine. We're just going to make them all.
Speaker B: Nay mashed up so that they can't pronounce anything.
Speaker A: Yeah, no, it just boggles my mind that you look at this word that looks like it's pronounced Glauchester, and it's Gloucestershire. Like any town in New England. Clusters, anybody? Um this location is approximately 80 miles, 130 km from Design. Okay, so you have the ring, and then 80 miles away, you have this new discovery, which brings us to the legend of the Ring. We're going um to go back in time. Sounds like Lord of the Rings. The legend of the Rings. So we're going to go back. A Roman soldier named Sylvianus was stationed in Gloucestershire while there were visiting there, we don't really know. He visits the baths at Nodens. Which Noden is a Celtic God of healing the uh sea and hunting. I inserted a note here that said, I feel like there's a Nordic pun, like Freya got sick of Odin messing around and was like, notice.
Speaker B: And yet this is a Celtic God?
Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. It's just related somehow. It's fine. Yeah. So at some point during this visit, which could have potentially been overnight, because pilgrims to these temples and baths, there was like a dormitory for the pilgrims to sleep overnight or because um there were baths there's, like, disrobing involved. Somewhere along the line, Sylvians, his ring gets snatched. And one source, which is actually a book that first directed me towards the subject, it's called Cursed Objects by JW. Ocker. Okay, so I want that for Christmas, please.
Speaker B: Noted.
Speaker A: But basically, um the author describes this as the ancient equivalent of somebody taking your phone from the locker room.
Speaker B: Oh, rude, but, like, you're probably not.
Speaker A: Going to wear your twelve gram gold ring into the bath with you, especially if you're used to wearing it with an over glove. Probably just going to slide off your hand. Okay, so I have a story. Oh, boy. All right.
Speaker B: Because I used to wear a lot.
Speaker A: Of rings when I was in middle.
Speaker B: School and high school, and in particularly.
Speaker A: Middle school, I had this one ring.
Speaker B: That was kind of in the shape.
Speaker A: Of an S. It was kind of like swirly or something. It was fairly large. And so I wore it on my.
Speaker B: Middle finger because I have very thin fingers.
Speaker A: And as I was talking at the lunch table one day, I was gesturing with my hands, and this ring, because.
Speaker B: It was a little bit too large.
Speaker A: Went flying across the lunch room and.
Speaker B: Landed inside of a trash can because.
Speaker A: The trash can didn't have lid. It was just this open just landed inside the trash can.
Speaker B: And I literally just went, no, I'm.
Speaker A: Not digging through that. I'm just going to leave it. Uh no, I don't need it anymore. This is not the vibe I was really hoping. And then it hit a nun in the back of the head.
Speaker B: No, it was a Catholic school, but we weren't taught by nuns there.
Speaker A: There was uh just a nun who was like the principal. What kind of Catholic school? You know, you were too far south.
Speaker B: No, actually, you were in Rhode Island.
Speaker A: Yeah. Well, then I don't know what's going on. I don't know. Rhode island is so small. You only got one nun person.
Speaker B: They only have so many nuns that.
Speaker A: They have to disperse them. They were like, they're way more people in New Jersey, more troublemakers. Like my father, who I'm allowed to make uh fun of because he stopped in the middle of my episode to.
Speaker B: Listen to my episode, which, just so you know, John McCarthy, if you're listening.
Speaker A: To this one, which I think you'll.
Speaker B: Find interesting because it's very historical, maybe then the next episode should be one.
Speaker A: That you're interested in as well, which will be my hosted episodes.
Speaker B: So listen to this one all the way through and then turn on mine next week.
Speaker A: Yeah. All right. I have to read on the app for him anyway. Who knows when he'll be listening to this too?
Speaker B: Mccarthy.
Speaker A: All right. But still be honest. He's at the bath, he's at the temple. Somebody snatches his ring. What does he do? He uh creates a curse tablet.
Speaker B: Obviously, um the level of pettiness is.
Speaker A: Unmatched and um one to which I aspire truly, I feel like it's a little over.
Speaker B: An overreaction?
Speaker A: Nah. No. Okay, so these lead tablets, which the Latin word for this is a dafixio, which I'm pronouncing. It just how it looks. We're actually pretty common um during this time. There are actually some pretty funny uh ones. They were like, kind of off the beaten path of this story, so I didn't include them, but they gave me a chuffle. I am going to detour slightly to ask Emma. Yes? What is your favorite modern day, like, petty curse off the top of your head? Mine would probably be something along the lines of May your WiFi always be unstable, or I hope you stub your toe on every piece of furniture in your house.
Speaker B: See, I think my favorite uh is May.
Speaker A: Everywhere you step be on a Lego. Oh, no. Wow. Aggressive. I know. Savage. Yeah. All right, so another photo, please refer to the Instagram. This is the tablet. The lead tablet. Kind of pretty, actually. Yeah. I will say the only um good image I could find of it was through MJR. So if it's not accurate, I'm sorry, I did um look on the National Trust website and they did not have a photo for me. Okay, that's their fault. Also, I love this person's username on Imzer. Uh i made this name while Tipsy.
Speaker B: Which is such a great, precious.
Speaker A: Such a great thing. But anyway, so this lead uh tablet that has this inscription, the translation of the Latin curse is as follows. To the God nodins, Sylvians has lost his ring and given half its value to uh Nodens among those who are called senesianus, do not allow health until he brings it back to the temple of Notin's, which basically, hey, someone stole my ring. I'll give you half the value if you curse this jerk that took it until he brings it back. It's amazing. So petty, but so great. Half the value to the gods, to the God. But you can't donate it if you don't have the ring. I mean, I don't know what the plan was. If you got your ring back, would then you donate the money or would you melt you? I don't know. I don't know. I know the logic of the 14. I'm sure there was some kind of, like, sacrificial, but I just love that it's bargaining with the guy over petty theft. All right, uh so we're back in the timeline. This engraving was discovered in 1888, and it came to the attention of another name that I do not think I'm going to pronounce correctly. And for the record, I did look on YouTube to see if anyone had made, like, little news clips about this so I could hear actual a British people or uh B archeologists say any of these names. Not a one. No, not a one. So I apologize again. So it came to the attention of Shalliner um Wiggot. Shoot. Whoa. Who was the then owner of the house?
Speaker UNK: Okay.
Speaker A: And he was in the process of writing his book, The History of the vine. And so he had both items, both the ring and the lead plaque drawn to include in his book. And a plaster mold of the lead curse was also added to the Vines collection. Okay, so the plaster copy is the one that's in the National Trust collection got it because the vine um collection is part of the National Trust, but there was no photo, so hence the image. Okay, so it does exist. Based upon the national trip, they didn't speak to the remaining existence of the lead plaque, but rather just the plaster. Yes. At least in relation to this ring. Okay. And most um of the other sources claim that a connection between the two artifacts was not made until 1929. But the National Trust States the circumstances I just laid out. So in 1888, they both were included in the History of the Vine Book. So I'm going with the National Trust as opposed to legendary Icons.com or whatever else there is some kind of Providence.
Speaker B: That you can trust um currently.
Speaker A: That's what I'm going with. Okay. In either case, we end up in 1929 with archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.
Speaker B: Mortimer?
Speaker A: Yeah. What a good name. He was excavating at the Lindenie site Glossier, and he made a more concrete or definitive claim, or he made more of an official connection between the two of, like, say, to be honest, not a very common name, even back in the fourth century. What are the chances that this ring that has that name on it shows up 80 miles away from this curse calling out, does it have seyius on it or did it have Sylvania on it? Seaciana.
Speaker B: So that was the name of the ring?
Speaker A: No. When the ring was found, that inscription that says Live with God was on there. The idea is that we'll print it.
Speaker B: Off and put it.
Speaker A: Okay, sorry.
Speaker B: I'm trying to make guesses, like educated guesses, and it's not working.
Speaker A: So Sir Mortimer multima. Yes, 1929. He makes this connection, and this is where elves come into the picture.
Speaker B: I forgot about the elves.
Speaker A: Ugly jewelry. Pettiness elves. Elves. That's why it's Christmassyish. Yes, if you squint. Okay. So to get some more context on the God nodins, Sir Mortimer calls in a well respected professor of Anglo Saxon studies uh at Oxford University, one J-R-R. Tolkie.
Speaker B: Oh, I'm so excited.
Speaker A: So less than ten years later, Tolkien's the Hobbit. Yes.
Speaker B: Was that.
Speaker A: Yes. So the Ring of Sylvianus is supposedly the inspiration. Got it for the one ring in all of Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings novels. Wonderful. Also, I will point out that the Dafixio curse plaque was discovered in an area that is referred to as Dwarfs Hill. So there's that Sylvia and Gollum both have their rings stolen. They um both have a pretty good idea of who did it and put out a curse on them. Also, I believe that Tolkien's ring was created by dwarves, so I think it's funny that dwarves hell. So, yes, there's no official record from Tolkien of like, yes, I got called into this archeological dig and was inspired. But less than ten years later, he wrote that novel. So it's fun to speculate.
Speaker B: I find that very cool.
Speaker A: Officially, the national trust States that it's unlikely that these two artifacts are actually linked, mainly due to the distance 80 miles between the two discovery sites. But maybe he likes to win with it. Well, exactly. Believers cite the curse as the cause for their be subsistence. Like, maybe, Say Honest was trying to discard the ring that he stole after facing misfortune. Maybe he was trying to yeet it off a more and get rid of it to get the bad uh Juju out of the way. Also, like I said, that name was apparently um not super common back in the fourth century.
Speaker B: So for it to be both in.
Speaker A: Connection to a ring. Yeah, exactly. One. It's not like, oh, this plaque just was generally against some guy. It was a generally specific name. No, this um specific guy took this specific item, which is a ring. I wonder what their beef was.
Speaker B: Maybe they had a beef before and that's why you took it.
Speaker A: We'll never know. I know just one thing. We'll never know about the 1600 year old drama. So while we don't have any record of actual curse havoc wreaking, it's not like we have, say, a Tiana Journal of, like, oh, uh no, my house burned down or whatever. It is interesting that the um ring has those mismatched inscriptions like we were talking about. So some believe that the bezel is the original. So the Roman Venus portion of the ring is the original status state of the ring, and that the Christian inscription uh on the band was added later by the thief in an attempt to protect himself from the curse.
Speaker B: Oh, I see.
Speaker A: So that makes sense.
Speaker B: There wasn't anything maybe potentially there wasn't.
Speaker A: Anything written on it before it was exhausted. Yes, got it. So believers believe that when Sylvians had it, it was just the Venus portion on the bezel part of the ring. And some point to that as explaining the misspelling of the inscription, like he was in such a rush to get it done that he misspelled Theo, and it's all um shaky and kind of a mess. Interesting. And then others claim that the bezel was added later and is therefore covering up the o in day o, because that's where the two pieces were welded together. From a scholarly standpoint, it's more likely that the owner of the ring was merely repurposing an existing piece of jewelry to show a conversion to a new faith. So still that the Venus version was original, but then it was added, which I guess makes sense. Gold uh probably still wasn't an ample resource. So if you had one ring, you were like, well, we're going to make this work. And then the National Trust also posited that it could be that Venus is associated with love. We tend to think of it more romantic love, but that person could be making a connection to showing a love for a new religion. It's all very interesting um in that regardless um of if you take out the curse and all the kind of, like, Woo elements of it, it's still an interesting artifact historically because it's showing this kind of transitionary period between very Roman ideals. And then as the Romans start to lose power in Britain, Christianity coming through and kind of um adapting things nowadays. You can view the ring. Oh, so it's still around. Yes.
Speaker B: Okay, it is.
Speaker A: Yes. You can view the ring at an exhibition at the vine with Covet. Who knows what they're doing right now. But they also have displayed their assigned first edition of The Hobbit by Tolkien. They also have a Hobbit inspired play uh area outside.
Speaker B: That is the most adorable thing.
Speaker A: It truly is. I will show you this video after we're done recording it'll. Be in the show notes. It's a quick little two minute YouTube video of these adorable British school children uh road testing this playground. And there are little Hobbit hole tunnels. And it's very I want to go. Do you think I'm small enough to.
Speaker B: Fit through those tunnels or are they fairly small? No, I think you could.
Speaker A: They're like human sized. Normal human size? I think so. Kayla, when we go to visit the.
Speaker B: Carrot um Museum, we're going to go.
Speaker A: To Glossish or two carriage Museum. Seriously love it. And then not specific to the Ring in question, but sort of related. A team of Tolkien actors uh that have been in a lot of the movies, including Sir Ian McCullen and Martin Freeman, are fundraising to buy Tolkien's home to convert it to a literary center in his honor, which is cool. And if you want to learn more and join their Fellowship of Funders, which is so sweet, you can visit Projectnorthmore, uh.org, Moore with two O's. Yeah. And then I have my uh sources, which will be in the show notes, but I just love that my sources include the National Trust, Ripley's Believe It or not, MJR, and CNN. What a journey. So, yes. Not maybe traditionally holiday related. That's really cool. I mean, in terms of a literary.
Speaker B: Aspect, as an English major person, as a literary person.
Speaker A: I find that fascinating.
Speaker B: Also, Fred's family, his mom used to.
Speaker A: Live down the street from Tolkien's son, and she uh knew the family pretty well. Um of course she did. Yeah. When Tolkien's son passed away, I think.
Speaker B: It was a couple of years ago.
Speaker A: They were already in discussions about what.
Speaker B: Was going to be um happening with the house.
Speaker A: So that's an Oxford, I think. Have um you been to Oxford? Uh did you go? I want to say yes. Did you go to The Eagle and Child? I think we walked past it. I don't think we have time. But Oxford is the one right across from Eaton, right? Sure. Eaton is like the boys high school. Sure. Okay.
Speaker B: I don't know.
Speaker A: I don't know. I know we went uh to one of the big two while I was studying um abroad. I want to say it was Oxford because I did really want to go to the Eagle and Child because CS Lewis, but we just didn't uh have time. We were too busy walking around. Everything was beautiful, but we weren't really learning anything. We were just kind of looking at stuff, wandering around. I was like, do we have to do this as a group? That was me on that trip. I was always ready to grab two friends and pretend to be locals. Not on purpose, but when you're walking alone and you're not wearing the stereotypical big backpack.
Speaker B: Yeah. You'd rather go to the Oxford market and not be targeted for pickpocking then?
Speaker A: Well, not even that. I know that Americans in general abroad have a certain reputation, and I do everything in my power to avoid falling into that stereotype. That's totally fair. Like, any time we were going somewhere as a class, like as a group, we were going to the Globe to uh see Anthony and Cleopatra. Great. But on uh the way there, I grabbed my two friends, like, flatmates. I was like, let's get in the next tube car so that we're not with a loud group of Americans College students. And whenever we were by ourselves with just a few of us, we got approached and asked for directions all the time. And then we'd open our mouths and people would be like, oh, you're not English either. We're like, Sorry, no, we don't know where we're going. Yeah. So I've been to the Eagle and Child twice, and once was when I.
Speaker B: Was studying abroad at Cambridge. We went for a trip to Oxford. And so, of course, it was makes sense. But uh was with the whole group.
Speaker A: Of American uh College students, the majority.
Speaker B: Of whom had never been to England before. And so when we got there, which.
Speaker A: The England and Child isn't necessarily a large space, but um everyone that was with um us, it was maybe about 35 people.
Speaker B: We pile into this place and the locals looked so annoyed.
Speaker A: It must happen to them all the time. But it's probably what, like 03:00 um on a Tuesday or something?
Speaker B: It was on a weekend, though, I think. But it was like in the middle of the day. So it was like not they were so angry. And then the second time I went with actually Fred's brother and sister in.
Speaker A: Law met them when we were all staying in Oxford um with Fred's grandmother.
Speaker B: Because she still lives there and we.
Speaker A: Had a wonderful time.
Speaker B: I had that first um encounter with.
Speaker A: It and I was like, this is.
Speaker B: A cool place, uh but I can't be here right now. And I left with my friend because we were both like, this is too much.
Speaker A: Whenever I walk into a place, I immediately want locals to like you to vibe with me and know and sense that I'm not here to disrupt your life. I'm here to appreciate it by not getting your way. Do you think it's maybe a military kid thing? I don't know. Maybe because I have a feeling that.
Speaker B: People don't seem to.
Speaker A: I don't know. I was definitely in school with some little jerk faces. Probably would have been awful also. Yeah. Well, yeah. Anyway. Well, that's all the info I have, I guess. Mainly when I was looking through our topics, I picked this one because I could make the joke about elves. It's like a flight. It's an easy into the holiday season. I just didn't have the energy to do the Yeti. Yeah.
Speaker B: We will do him one day.
Speaker A: Someday. Someday he will be done.
Speaker B: He's on your socks right now.
Speaker A: I know.
Speaker B: He's really cute.
Speaker A: Shout out to Target dollar Spot um for cute socks. Yes. And then uh I think both of us just want to leave America. We just want to travel.
Speaker B: We've been stuck in this country for so long now, it feels like we were supposed to go so many places this year too. Anyway.
Speaker A: Well, that was a fairly short episode.
Speaker B: There you go. So hopefully you weren't hoping to listen.
Speaker A: To this on your extended road trip. I mean, just go back and listen to our other episodes again.
Speaker B: Yeah, please do. Specifically my little brother which if you didn't listen to last week's episode is very funny and has a very first guest, my younger brother, Liam.
Speaker A: Liam. And we loved doing that.
Speaker B: That was a lot of fun.
Speaker A: Thank you, Liam. Um except for the part where we almost died from the ghosts. Yeah.
Speaker B: If you don't know what we're talking.
Speaker A: About, go listen to it.
Speaker B: French also told me his diner order.
Speaker A: Uh what is it? He's the secret. I don't remember what it was because.
Speaker B: He had issues with my ascertain of.
Speaker A: Mama Steve not being a diner because.
Speaker B: He was like the only thing that.
Speaker A: Has it docked against it being a.
Speaker B: Diner is that it closes at five.
Speaker A: If it stayed open late, it makes it a restaurant. That makes it a breakfast restaurant. Fred, that late is not a diner pancake home. Can we put that on the merch? Sure. Thank you.
Speaker B: Whenever we do eventually have merch even if it's just for ourselves and puffy paint I will make it.
Speaker A: My God, puffy paint. Speaking of College, gotta go also and this is for Jordan Illuminati.
Speaker B: Uh she had such a hard time with last week's episode Freemasons.
Speaker A: There you go.
Speaker B: It doesn't count if you just play it. I'm just cheating. You're right.
Speaker A: Although I will say there is a musical reference in last week's episode.
Speaker B: There is.
Speaker A: Unless you're a Hamilton fan. Maybe you didn't get it, but that's okay.
Speaker B: You're more than welcome to go back and listen. But if you want to see any of these pictures as mentioned before, please go to our Instagram and this podcast doesn't exist.
Speaker A: Or if you have any stories you'd like to share with us or suggestions um of topics, what's your diner order? You can email us. This podcast doesn't exist@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you and.
Speaker B: As always, please remember this podcast doesn't exist.

Sources: 
The National Trust: http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/719789
Astonishing Legends: https://www.astonishinglegends.com/astonishing-legends/2018/7/7/the-ring-of-senicianus
Cursed Objects: Strange but True Stories of the World's Most Infamous Items by J.W. Ocker (https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781683692362)
Imgur: “Behold the cursed ring that may have inspired Tolkien's One Ring” (https://imgur.com/gallery/0I1wu)
Ripley’s Believe It or Not: “One Ring to Curse Them All” (https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/one-ring-to-curse-them-all/)
YouTube: The Vyne - A Tolkien-inspired experience for children (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mMxjzaSoTs)
CNN: “'The Lord of the Rings' cast is crowdfunding to buy J.R.R. Tolkien's home and turn it into a literary center” by Scottie Andrew (https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/entertainment/tolkien-home-lord-of-the-rings-trnd/index.html)