Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 136 as they explore urban legends, liminality, the Bunnyman Bridge, and resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: Dead Canaries and Sas-Swatches
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 136 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting from the basement of the RHB bookstore—affectionately known as Vomitorium South—your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, return to the microphones.
Recording on a blustery December evening, the hosts detail their metaphorical descent into the bunker, joking about passing dead canaries on their way down the mine shaft. Dave admits to feeling like a curmudgeon, declaring that his middle initial “C” reflects his grumpy mood. Jeff counters that his own middle initial “T” stands for “touchy,” though he clarifies he is actually feeling quite even-keeled as he recovers from a lingering illness.
Setting the table for the episode, Jeff announces the topic: urban legends, narrative archetypes, and his favorite conceptual framework, liminality. They begin by noting the irony that most “urban” legends are actually rural. This prompts a humorous theological tangent from Dave regarding the Yeti. He compares the cryptid to the eschatological concept of the “already but not yet,” dubbing the monster the “All-Ready-But-Not-Yeti”. The conversation pivots to Bigfoot, which triggers Jeff’s nostalgic memory of the “Sas-Swatch”—a joke referencing the transparent, fashionable Swiss watches popular in the 1980s. Dave admits he suffered from severe Swatch envy until he eventually found one at a thrift store while in college.
A Shout-Out to Sam
Opening the mailbag, the podcast delivers a shout-out to a former student, Sam Auyeung. Originally from Colorado, Sam attended Calvin College as a mathematics major before falling in love with the humanities. After taking Jeff’s Classical Mythology course, Sam enrolled in Dave’s Latin and Greek classes, where he developed a deep appreciation for spoken Latin and metrical recitation. Sam graduated with majors in math, philosophy, and Greek, eventually earning a doctorate in geometry and topology. He currently serves as a visiting assistant math professor at Trinity College.
The Black Angel and the Melon Heads
To anchor the academic discussion, Jeff reads from a 1994 article in Western Folklore by S. Elizabeth Bird, titled “Playing with Fear, Interpreting the Adolescent Legend Trip”. The article examines a famous piece of Iowa City folklore: the Black Angel. Standing over the grave of Teresa Felderbert, who died in 1924, this oxidized, blackened statue of a weeping angel serves as a pilgrimage site where local adolescents gather at midnight to tempt fate.
Jeff was introduced to the Black Angel while dating a woman from Iowa City during his graduate studies at Northwestern. He recalls visiting the eerie statue during the daylight hours. This experience mirrors his later introduction to the “Melon Heads,” an urban legend he encountered after moving to Holland, Michigan. His wife, a local high school teacher, reported that her students frequently told stories about a mutant, large-headed family haunting the nearby woods of Saugatuck. Having grown up merely thirty minutes away in Jenison without ever hearing the story, Jeff realized how fiercely localized these myths truly are.
Gefurismus and Apotropaic Herms
Despite their localized sheen, Jeff argues that these seemingly autochthonous stories rely on universal narrative archetypes. They consistently feature liminal times (midnight), liminal spaces (bridges, crossroads, and cemeteries), and liminal creatures (composite monsters).
Bridges are inherently liminal, serving as structures that are neither land nor water, connecting side A to side B without belonging to either. The Greeks recognized the unique psychological tension of these crossings, using the term gephurismos to describe “bridginess”. The hosts connect this ancient concept to modern childhood rituals, such as holding one’s breath through a tunnel or lifting one’s feet off the floorboards while driving across a monumental bridge like the Chicago Skyway.
The ancients understood the spiritual vulnerability of unbounded places and marked them explicitly. The Greeks placed “herms”—statues featuring the head of Hermes and human genitalia—at crossroads to serve as apotropaic wards against evil. Similarly, the Romans placed the two-headed god Janus at the gates of the Forum and embedded phallic mosaics at the thresholds of houses in Pompeii and Ostia.
In modern Americana, this anxiety surrounding crossroads persists. Jeff notes the famous legend of blues musician Robert Johnson, who supposedly went to a rural crossroad at midnight to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for musical prowess. This myth has roots in West African folklore regarding the threshold spirit Legba. Furthermore, untamed American landscapes often bear the moniker of the devil, such as Devil’s Gulch or Devil’s Tower, marking them as places of spiritual danger.
The Hatchet of the Bunnyman
To illustrate the anatomy of a localized myth, Jeff recounts the legend of the Bunnyman Bridge. Unlike most folklore, the origins of this story can be carbon-dated to documented police reports from Burke, Virginia, in the fall of 1970.
On October 19, a young couple parked along a rural road late at night. A man dressed head-to-toe in a bunny suit emerged from the woods, yelled that they were trespassing on private property, and threw a hatchet through the passenger side window. Ten days later, a security guard patrolling an unfinished apartment complex encountered the same costumed figure, who yielded an axe and shouted identical threats before vanishing into the trees. The original hatchet currently hangs on a plaque in the local police department.
Over the ensuing decade, the historical reality morphed into a full-fledged legend and migrated to the tiny town of Clifton, Virginia. The folklore evolved to feature a crashing asylum transport truck and the escape of a genetically modified, half-bunny, half-man mental patient. According to the modern myth, the creature hangs skinned rabbit carcasses from a local train trestle. Local teenagers now venture into the pedestrian tunnel beneath the tracks at midnight, daring each other to listen for the soft footfalls of the Bunnyman.
Stephen King and the Do-It-Yourself Ritual
The hosts observe that composite creatures are staples of mythology, pointing to the Minotaur, the Sphinx, and the Chimera. However, the rabbit remains absent from ancient bestiaries. Jeff notes that mutating a harmless, cuddly rabbit into an axe-wielding killer aligns with author Stephen King’s horror techniques—taking something innocent and twisting it to create an unsettling psychological dissonance. Dave connects this to the Greek god Pan, the half-goat deity of the woods who instills literal “panic” in travelers, setting the template for other modern cryptids like the Goat Man of Pope Lick, Kentucky.
Jeff concludes his analysis by examining the sociological purpose of the “legend trip”. He questions why adolescents deliberately visit these terrifying, liminal spaces to enact physical rituals. He hypothesizes that as Western society becomes increasingly secularized and abandons structured, communal coming-of-age rites, young people are left with a cultural vacuum. Testing their courage against the Bunnyman or the Black Angel serves as a do-it-yourself ritual, allowing adolescents—who exist in a liminal stage of life themselves—to cross the threshold into adulthood on their own terms.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Before sharing the parting shot, the hosts extend their gratitude to the sponsors keeping the podcast operational.
- Ratio Coffee: Dave recently penned a short, original limerick to honor Ratio Coffee, declaring: “For Ratio doth brew and pour right”. Jeff highly recommends their beautiful, heirloom-quality machines, noting that the company will soon release the highly anticipated Ratio 4 half-batch brewer. Visit ratiocoffee.com and enter the promo code ANCO5R (the ‘R’ stands for Revolutionary) for a 15% discount on your order.
- Hackett Publishing: For decades, Hackett Publishing has provided high-quality translations spanning classical literature, East Asian studies, and modern philosophy. The hosts frequently rely on Hackett editions, including Stanley Lombardo’s Aeneid and Deborah Roberts’s Prometheus Bound. Build a personal library at hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2023 to receive a 20% discount and free shipping on your entire order.
- LatinPerDiem & MossMethod: For listeners inspired to master the Latin language and ancient Greek, Dave offers tailored educational solutions. Visit mossmethod.com to pursue Greek using the reading-focused methods of Charles Melville Moss. Alternatively, explore latinperdiem.com to tackle Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, a course designed to take students from neophyte to erudite.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
Dave then delivers a Gustatory Parting Shot courtesy of the food writer Bee Wilson. From her book First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, Wilson offers this observation regarding childhood nutrition:
“The problem with lunch boxes is the problem with the way we feed children in general. Parents trust that anything they place in this magical box will be good for the child because it comes with their love.”
Reflecting on their own childhoods, the hosts reject the premise. Jeff fondly remembers his NFL-themed lunch box, while Dave recalls carrying a Mickey Mouse box equipped with a tiny thermos. Both agree that their parents possessed no magical illusions about the nutritional value of their lunches, operating on pure utilitarian necessity.A special thanks goes out to Mishka the sound engineer for her rapid turnaround times. Musical gratitude is extended to Ken Tamplin and Scott Van Zen for providing shredding lead guitar tracks and the rhythm section and bumper music. Check out the “Lurch with Merch” section on the website, beware of the mutant Melon Heads, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
