The Sirens
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2024
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The word 'Sirens' conjures up many images, possibly of beautiful mermaid-like creatures luring sailors to their watery deaths. These ancient Greek mythical creatures, linked to the Queen of the Underworld Persephone, feature in well known myths such as Jason and the Argonauts and Homer’s story of Odysseus - The Odyssey. But their popular modern portrayal as 'sexy maidens' does not originate from ancient Greece, that is a much later invention.
Sarah Clegg joins Tristan Hughes to discuss the story of the Sirens and how their legacy is intertwined with a number of other mythical creatures such as nymphs, the Mesopotamian demoness Lilith and, of course mermaids.
Listen to Tristan and Sarah Clegg's previous episode on Lillith here: https://podfollow.com/the-ancients/episode/83e3167b27baefea4d862da99ce26425ba43e291/view
Presented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Meet Sarah. |
| 0:01.0 | Hi there. |
| 0:02.0 | Sarah's pranged her car miles from home. |
| 0:04.7 | And she's not sure if her insurance covers getting back. |
| 0:07.6 | Thankfully, Aviva can help solve this car insurance conundrum. |
| 0:11.3 | If you've had an accident and your car's not safe to drive, |
| 0:14.1 | we'll get you safely home. |
| 0:15.6 | Yell up your feet up in no time, Sarah. Thank goodness. Helping solve your |
| 0:19.2 | car insurance puzzle, it takes Aviva. Get a quote today at aviva.co. UK on with travel |
| 0:25.2 | arrangements on comprehensive cover geographical restrictions apply. |
| 0:27.8 | A cast recommends so you're either on the A-Cast recommends. |
| 0:33.6 | So you're either on the LGBT-plus bus yourself or you know people who are. |
| 0:39.3 | Means you need to check out Pride Daily with me, Kev McGraw. |
| 0:43.3 | A poor little man-babies suing Los Angeles County in the US |
| 0:47.9 | over its pride flags. |
| 0:49.3 | Were you aware, there's such a thing as homophobic road signs and there's plans for the first |
| 0:55.3 | same sex wedding in space that's pride daily listen now The Sirens. Your mind might immediately think of sexy maidens on an island, their beauty |
| 1:16.1 | luring sailors to their death. That's the regular image we have of these mythical |
| 1:20.8 | creatures today, but the original sirens, well, they were in fact very different. |
| 1:25.3 | They weren't sexy, they were bird women. |
| 1:29.3 | It's the ancients on history hit. |
| 1:31.5 | I'm Tristan Hughes, your your host and today we're exploring the |
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