Tune into the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much, like Easy Listening, but for fiction.

If you've overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.

I'm Catherine Nikolai and I'm an architect of Cozy.

Come spend some time where everyone is welcome and the default is kindness.

Listen, relax, enjoy.

Listen to stories from the Village of Nothing Much,

on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I-Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The Monster Fact, a short form series from

stuff to blow your mind focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

Yesterday's core episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind concerned the fabled rat king in which it is

said the tales of rats become intertwined and knotted, a dire omen of impending doom.

But what about elsewhere in the natural and unnatural worlds?

To begin with, folklore is rife with magical knots.

Is Cyrus L. Day pointed out in knots and knot lore back in 1950. Just as the use of knots extends back

through prehistoric human times, so too does the idea that we might work magic with the various

intricate knots that we might work magic with the various intricate knots that we tie.

They observed that ancient peoples attempted to control the weather, biology, reproduction,

death, and various supernatural entities via the working of knots.

Not magic was sometimes maleficent and other times beneficial.

It could be an intentional magical effect or something invoked by accident.

It might be said to work at close range, across vast distances, and across various stretches of

...