From the Vault: Lightning-Struck Wood and the Rowan

Stuff To Blow Your Mind

iHeartPodcasts

Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Life Sciences, Science

4.4 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe continue their look at sacred trees of the world with a look at lightning-struck trees in European traditions, as well as the sacred rowan tree. (originally published 12/10/2024)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:02.5	Guaranteed human.
0:10.2	Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
0:13.3	My name is Robert Lamb.
0:14.5	It is Saturday.
0:15.1	And in this classic episode, we're going to be discussing lightning struck wood and the Rowan. This originally
0:23.3	published 12, 10, 2024. Let's dive right in.
0:30.0	Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio.
0:42.3	Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb.
0:43.8	And I am Joe McCormick.
0:45.8	And hey, everybody, I got to apologize right here at the start for my voice and my brain, possibly, today.
0:51.7	I am rassling a pretty nasty cold. But we're plowing right through. And today we're going to be talking about a topic. We're actually returning to a topic we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the subject of sacred trees. In that previous episode, Rob, you talked about the giant sequoia of Western North America, arguably the largest tree in the world, depending on how you measure. And we talked about the history of how people regarded these massive plants with reverence. And I ended up talking about the Ohia the Huia, the Hua tree of Hawaii and a lot of interesting, beautiful ways that it interlocks with Hawaiian religion
1:29.3	and traditional practices. In some cases, it's the physical embodiment of a god. In other cases,
1:35.2	it's like a tree beloved by the gods in storytelling and so forth. But when we were researching
1:40.7	that episode, we thought, man, there are so many interesting angles on sacred
1:44.2	trees that we could come back to. So that's what we're doing today. Here's a new installment.
1:49.2	I'm sure this is something we'll probably return to again in the future. Yeah, and it's a good
1:53.3	month for it since we're into December here and a lot of December holiday traditions center around
1:58.4	a sacred tree. I guess one of the things I think we
2:02.0	both encountered it in the last episode, especially in this episode, is the thing about sacred
2:06.7	trees is that it's never just a case of like, oh, well, you know, there's this tree around. And at one
2:12.0	point, there's a group of people that thought it was sacred, and then they stopped. You know,
	...

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