This week on myths and legends we're back in the journey to the west with the story of the monkey king and we'll see why you shouldn't bathe with monsters and how many eyes is too many eyes when it comes to dinner guests.

The creature this week is a lake monster,

with the body of a snake and the head of a cat,

who was officially an endangered species for 20 years. This is a

a mythson legends episode 375. The Eyes Habit.

This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore.

Some are incredibly popular stories you might think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are tales that might be new to you, but

are definitely worth a listen. We're back in the story of the Monkey King. As a brief background, in the story of the Journey to the West, we follow Schwann-Zong, the human monk, who is tasked with

retrieving the holy scriptures from the Thunderclap temple in the West.

Since the road is impossibly long and dangerous, he was granted four guards, essentially monsters on a redemption

arc for his trip. There was Sun Wuh Kong, the Monkey King, a super-powered monkey who turned

against heaven about 800 years ago and nearly won.

There's also Piggs, a stinky appetite-driven pigman

who fights with a rake, and Sandy, a dower indigo sand monster man.

There's also their horse, which is actually a dragon, but who almost never

leaves the form of a horse. Today, well, today is a relaxing day, as they walk up to a monastery that perhaps maybe possibly just this one time is not

haunted or full of demons or secretly a monster lair. A lot of bowing was going on. Monkey was wary but optimistic. A Taoist

monastery had sat like an emperor atop a hill and well some of them had to be good

monasteries right like they couldn't all be secret evil places please could

they just give this one a look?

It had been months of sleeping on a bed roll,

and while yes, they were austere and renouncing the world

...