Mt. Pilatus | Dragon Mountain | Road Snack

Join us as we explore the fascinating legends surrounding Mount Pilatus in Switzerland, from its name rooted in the haunted story of Pontius Pilate to mysterious sightings of dragons and supernatural occurrences. Discover how history and myth intertwine in this alpine marvel.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I have to have my snacks. Snacks for just when I feel like snacking. Just give me some ammo, little water, some chips if you have.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hi everyone. Welcome to Rebel Road Road Snacks. Thank you for listening and sharing some time with us. And let me tell you, have we got a mountain of quick weird for you all today? I see what you did there, Haley. You know, I just can't resist the good puns. But today we're bringing everyone some legends from the Swiss Alps and more specifically, Mount Pilatus. And you just never know what kind of tasty road snack Mary's gonna dig up. And she's delivered this week. Mary, I'm so proud of you. Thanks, Haley.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

You know, I try to find things that maybe people aren't too familiar with. And this mountain and some of its stranger legends, I uncovered during my research for two episodes, and that was the Shroud of Turin and the CERN episode, which we have not done yet. And they kind of intersected into this mountain, and I thought, well, that's kind of wild and weird. So let's do a quick legend look at Mount Pilatus, or what some call Dragon Mountain.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Well, our listeners, they do know we like to get right to it. So let's start with our first legend, a tale of the origins of the mountain's name.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

According to the legend, Pontius Pilate's life after the crucifixion fell into misfortune as divine justice for the ordering of Jesus' death. It is said Pilate's rule fell into disapproval from Caligula, whose reign began in 37 AD. And sometime between 38 or 39 AD, a final tragedy knocked on Pilate's door. Pontius Pilate committed suicide by his own will, or possibly even by force from the emperor.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Legend says his final breath was drawn in Vienna, in the south of France. The tale continues to lay claim that, in the final years of his life, he became taunted by evil spirits, plagued by the unseen, and after his death, the spirits didn't leave his body. So his corpse was cast in the river Tiber, but due to the tainted nature of his act against God, the river rejected his body and evil spirits did not abandon his corpse. So once again, his body was relocated and thrown into a second river, the river Rhone. Again, however, the waters resisted the corrupt spirits that followed his body, and so the body of Pontius Pilate was relocated to Mount Pilatus.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Cacian thought to be high enough and isolated enough to contain the hellish corruption that followed his body. But the legend persisted. It is said that every year on Good Friday, Pilate's Spectre rises from a lake in Pilatus in a feeble attempt to wash his hands from the blood of Christ. Many have claimed to see his specter through the years, and those who have claimed so have supposedly died within the same day, or at least within that year. Even bad weather conditions of Mount Pilatus were considered the byproduct of the evil spirits that still haunt the domain of Pilate's corpse. So from this tale, Mount Pilatus received its name from Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, who reluctantly was responsible for ordering the crucifixion of Jesus and whose haunted corpse has dominion over the mountain.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Mary, I have to say, that's an incredible story. I've never heard that. So did Pilate commit suicide? Is that how you found this legend?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

He did commit suicide, and it is widely suspected that he was forced to end his own life under the force of Caligula. So when I learned that, I found this legend and this mountain, and Mount Pilates is in Switzerland and a part of the Alps. And as we all know, CERN is in Switzerland, and it's very close to the Alps. And that was my two-episode intersect right there. I had to include it.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I love when weird comes together. And you know, we do love some dragon stories. So is that why it's called Dragon Mountain?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Well, interestingly enough, with the bad weather conditions that this mountain is still known for today, there are numerous stories of eyewitness accounts of dragons residing in the mountains. And these all started around the 16th century when it became legal to climb the mountain. They were so afraid of this mountain that it was off limits. Nobody could go there until the 16th century. Isn't that wild? That is something.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

You mentioned eyewitness accounts. What kind of eyewitness accounts are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Well, I have an eyewitness account written by Christopher Asscheer, a prefect from the Counton of Arian, Switzerland. And this account is found in a collection of scientific writings called Mundus Subterraneus, and that was published in 1665. So you can go and you can find this book if you're lucky enough to, and you can actually read this eyewitness account. And Haley, I have it written out here. Would you like to read this account? You know I will, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

In 1619, I was contemplating the serene sky by night. I saw a very bright dragon with flapping wings go from a cave in a great rock in the mount called Pilates towards another cave. Arrows flew on the opposite side of the lake, Lucerne. Its wings were agitated with much clarity. Its body was long, as well as its tail and its neck. Its head was that of a serpent with teeth, and when it was flying, sparks were coming out of it like embers thrown from an incandescent iron when struck by a Smith's anvil. At first I thought it was a meteor, but after observing more closely, it was truly a dragon from the recognizable motions of its members. This I write to you, your reverence, in case you should be in doubt that dragons truly exist in nature.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Do you know what I love about this eyewitness account, Haley? I love that he knew it was a dragon. He had a name for it. He didn't call it some winged beast or giant lizard, but he used the actual word dragon. But I think the most famous tale of a dragon on Mount Pilatus is the 1421 dragon crash. Let's tell that story. During the summer of 1421, Stimplin was working in his fields when he witnessed an enormous winged dragon flying from Mount Rigga towards Mount Pilatus. As he watched the gigantic beast soaring, it suddenly dropped in altitude and began to fly erratically, and the dragon soon plummeted to the ground. The ground shook as the dragon smashed into the earth and its body was sliding towards Stemplin at an alarming speed. It stopped just feet from the farmer. The smell of the dragon so overwhelmed Stemplin, combined with the shock of almost being run over by its enormous body, the farmer fainted.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

When Stemplin regained consciousness, the dragon was gone. However, it had left behind a grisly scene. A massive pool of clotted blood was at the site where the dragon had crashed. And laying within the giant pool of blood, the farmer found a smooth round stone etched with mysterious symbols. The dragon stone.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Stemplin regained his composure, took the stone, and made his way back to Lucerne, where the dragon stone quickly became legend. For the stone not only was dropped from a dragon and dipped in its blood, it also held miraculous powers of healing.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

In 1509, the stone's medicinal properties were legally confirmed and documented in an official document. It was reported to be used as a remedy for bleeding, poisoning, plague, and dysentery. It was also said that binding the stone to an ankle could draw poison from the body.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Today, the dragon stone is displayed at the Lucerne Natural History Museum. And while most suspect it is a meteorite, a 2007 study revealed it is actually a man-made ball of clay, though the origins and markings are still unknown.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

You can visit Lucerne and go see the actual dragon stone from that story. I think that's another one of our weird and wonderful destinations for our travel agency that we are yet to start up. I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, this is an actual documented legend of a dragon and a stone that he left behind. And you can go and visit that said stone there in Lucerne. Isn't that wild?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, I love it. So do we have time for one more dragon story? Because we have more.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, there's a lot more, and we always have time for one more dragon tale.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Around 1420, a young man from Lucerne was wandering the slopes of Mount Pilatus in autumn, searching for wood to make barrels. While marveling at the beauty around him, he lost his footing and slipped into a deep dark cavern.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

The cave was so deep his own shouts for help were mere whispers by the time they reached the surface. He wandered in the dark, feeling for a way to climb up, but the walls were too smooth. There was no escape. So, alone in the dark, despair seized the young man.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

As he lay in the pit, he began to realize he was not alone. With him was not one, but two massive dragons. He pulled back in instant terror, but rather than attacking the young man, the dragons welcomed him into their lair. The days passed, and autumn turned to winter. Cooper remained with his dragon guardians. They kept him safe and warm as the harsh alpine winter raged on.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

To survive, the young man followed the dragon's lead and ate a mysterious liquid that dripped from the cave walls. Legend calls the substance moon milk. He spent six months in the cave with the dragons from November to April.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

When spring finally arrived and the snow began to melt, the dragons prepared to leave the cave. One of the dragons nudged the young man and extended its tail to him. He climbed onto the dragon's back and held on for dear life as the dragon flew out of the cavern and down the mountain, where the dragon left him in a large meadow.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

When the young man finally made it back to Lucerne, the town was overwhelmed, for they had presumed he had died months ago. While he was overjoyed to be back home, he told his tale of his dragon companions to all who asked. But the long diet of moon milk had taken its toll on his digestive system. It is said he was no longer able to eat normal food and died two months later due to starvation. Well, that's a sad story. He died.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And really, does that even sound real? And you can eat it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

No. While historically it was used as a remedy for infected wounds on livestock or for external cosmetic uses, it is definitely not a food source. It is uh simply a mineral deposit. It does not provide calories, protein, or essential nutrients for human survival. So there must have been some other mythical oozing liquid coming from those cave walls if we're gonna believe that he lived on milk for six months.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Well, I don't think I'm gonna be licking any creamy substance from a cave wall that just sounds really disgusting, diabolical, solid no for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah. High on the weird meter for sure, but there's so many more dragon legends and stories we could tell that surround this mountain and a lot of other weird things too, like UFOs, Loch Ness type monsters, and just it's just surrounded and weird, but it is wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Well, I enjoyed it, and I really can't wait to do a full episode on the dragons. I know we drop uh the word dragon here and there through all of our episodes, uh, but since we landed on Switzerland, I gotta ask Mary, are we ready to tackle CERN yet? Haley, we are.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

So, to all of our listeners and friends, join us next week. We're gonna put on our thinking caps and explore the science and the conspiracies surrounding CERN and the large hadron collider there in Switzerland.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

I'm really excited about that. I am ready to talk all about the weird that comes with that. So thanks again so much, friends, for joining us for our tasty little episode today. We hope you enjoyed it. And as always, if you loved it, please hit that subscribe button. If you listen to us on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, and please share this episode with another weird loving friend.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, we don't know why, but hitting that subscribe button and sharing the episodes and leaving that five-star review really help us out in the algorithm world.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yeah, thanks for doing that. And until next week, keep it weird. And remember, when the weird gets too weird, what do we do? We pull it back to Jesus all the time. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Bye. Okay, I think that's good.