The Girl with the Green Ribbon
/Hot girl summer is over, it’s girl with the green ribbon autumn. If you were scarred by this story when you were a kid, you’re going to love this episode where we dig into the history of beheadings, hangings, and Washington Irving’s kink, which led to a tale that we have told over and over again.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, illness, execution, beheading, hanging, sexual content, necrophilia, war, animal death, murder, violence against women, and suicide.
Housekeeping
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: Julia, we are one of those podcasts where we're BFFs.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: We've known each other since pre-K, kindergarten, and here we are in our mid-30s, living life.
JULIA: Look at that.
AMANDA: And one of the duties you have as my best friend is to tell me if a fashion choice I'm making is not good.
JULIA: Okay. Yeah, that's fair.
AMANDA: And so I want to just run something by you real quick.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: All the girlies are doing a little bandanas and kerchiefs and stuff. And so I was wondering, what you think—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —if I just kind of did, like, a sort of, like, homage to the '90s choker, maybe, because I'm— I— you know, my grandma has all kinds of, like, cute, little like, ribbons and stuff. So, like, what do you think?
JULIA: Amanda, just chic. I'm gonna do a quick pause for you here.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I think there is a moment in a lot of people's lives where they read a story that is going to stick with them for the rest of their lives, especially spooky stories, right?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And I think for a lot of people, especially people around our age as people in our mid-30s. Some of those stories come from the oeuvre of a writer named Alvin Schwartz.
AMANDA: Oh, scary stories man?
JULIA: Scary stories to tell in the dark and all of the other scary stories, anthologies that he worked on, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Tales To Chill Your Bones, and In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories, for example, right?
AMANDA: I'm sorry, this seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to my new fashion choice.
JULIA: I know. We'll get there. We'll get there.
AMANDA: Oh, okay, okay.
JULIA: For me, like one of those stories that kind of haunted me after reading it from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark oeuvre was one about a hairless dog that a couple adopted while on vacation that ended up being a rat with rabies.
AMANDA: Yes. There was one where, like a lady had a mole, but it was like a spider eggs.
JULIA: Amanda, the spider eggs hatching out of the woman's face. Yep, that one stuck with me, too. Absolutely.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Is there any other ones that you remember really sticking with you?
AMANDA: I think that was it. And then there was a cover illustration at some point of a lady with a beehive hairdo, which felt very old-timey.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And I think there was something to do with real bees.
JULIA: Yeah, probably. I don't quite recall that one, but I do feel like, you know, woman's hair turns into actual beehive feels appropriate for the kind of stuff that Alvin Schwartz is writing, for sure. Now, for a lot of people, Amanda, they might remember another story, and I think this is relevant to you.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: But also, I think a lot of youths from this time period were first exposed to the story in a book called In A Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. It came out in 1984 and it was titled The Green Ribbon. Amanda, are you familiar with this story at all?
AMANDA: Not really ringing a bell, except that, you know—
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: —reminds me of my, like, chic, kind of patterned toile tie dye situation I have going on.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. I think what I need to do, Amanda, is I need to tell you this story in order for you to see maybe why this isn't the appropriate fashion choice, at least for October, at least for the spooky season, right?
AMANDA: Oh, okay. Well, if it's not working then, okay, I'm just gonna take off the ribbon around my neck just really quickly.
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: But I will leave it right here just kind of in front of me, in case I change my mind by the end of the episode.
JULIA: Yeah. Okay. So The Green Ribbon, as told by Alvin Schwartz, is about a girl named Jenny who wears a green ribbon and never takes it off. And it's a short enough story that I'm going to read you exactly what Alvin Schwartz wrote. Okay?
AMANDA: Let's go primary text.
JULIA: And I feel like you should definitely check this out if you can find it at your local library or anything, because the illustrations are very cute in a creepy way, is how I would describe it. As Alvin Schwartz writes, "Once there was a girl named Jenny. She was like all the other girls, except for one thing, she always wore a green ribbon around her neck. There was a boy named Alfred in her class. Alfred liked Jenny, and Jenny liked Alfred. One day, he asked her, 'Why do you wear that ribbon all the time?' 'I cannot tell you,' said Jenny. But Alfred kept asking, 'Why do you wear it?' And Jenny would say, 'It's not important.' Jenny and Alfred grew up and fell in love. One day, they got married. After their wedding, Alfred said, 'Now that we are married, you must tell me about the green ribbon.' 'You still must wait,' said Jenny. 'I will tell you when the right time comes.' Years passed, Alfred and Jenny grew old. One day, Jenny became very sick. The doctor told her she was dying. Jenny called Alfred to her side, 'Alfred,' she said, 'Now I can tell you about the green ribbon. Untie it, and you will see why I could not tell you before.' Slowly and carefully, Alfred untied the ribbon, and Jenny's head fell off."
AMANDA: It hits so good, Julia.
JULIA: So when you were like, "Oh, I'm taking my ribbon off." I'm like, "Uh-oh. Uh-oh, Amanda. I'm not ready for that."
AMANDA: This is an iconic story, Julia. Carmen Maria Machado has done a retelling of this—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —that I highly—
JULIA: Oh, I'll get there, Amanda. Don't worry.
AMANDA: Oh, thank God. One of the tropes I love the most in folklore and something that every time I see a girly wearing a ribbon as a accessory, especially goth girlies appreciative. I do just assume they're making a reference, and I appreciate that.
JULIA: Hell yeah. So that's the story. That is the end of the story. It is quite short, and this is a wild story that really made an impact on a lot of '80s and '90s kids. And, again, this is a, like, illustrated short story that is designed for children.
AMANDA: Sticks with us.
JULIA: Shout out to millennials, we are constantly being scarred by the media that we consume. Now, did Alvin Schwartz, Amanda, create this story whole cloth, green cloth? Is that anything?
AMANDA: I would expect not because it feels like a thing that we have seen in many, many cultures and places.
JULIA: Hmm, yes. So the answer is a little bit yes, little bit no. So first, I think we should talk about the man himself. So Alvin Schwartz born in 1927, a Brooklyn kid, son of a taxi driver. We love to see it. Mad respect.
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: He ended up doing a stint in the Navy, but during that period of time, he became interested in not only writing, but also like kind of collecting folklore stories. So he ended up using the GI Bill, shout out, to get a degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and wound up working as a reporter for the Binghamton Press for about four years. During that time period, he's like, "Reporting isn't really what I'm looking for. I would much rather be interested in writing books, specifically books for children."
AMANDA: I love the upstate New York, you know, son of the system, working that GI Bill, working at Regional Press. I'm liking what I'm hearing of Alvin's story.
JULIA: We love it. So Alvin Schwartz was, first and foremost, a collector of folklore. We think of him as an author, and that is absolutely true. But many of his stories were inspired by or based on legends from around the world. So his first book, for example, was a folklore book that was written for children called A Twister of Twists, A Tangler of Tongues, which was published in 1972.
AMANDA: Cool/
JULIA: Now, over his career, he compiled over two dozen books of folklore specifically for young readers that explored various different legends in the lens of humor, but also horror, right? For example, he wrote a book called I Saw You in the Bathroom and Other Folk Rhymes, as well as Ghosts: Ghostly Tales from Folklore.
AMANDA: I Saw You in the Bathroom and Other Folk Rhymes could also be a, like, under the radar 1930s, sort of, like, lesbian pulp novel or short story collection, which—
JULIA: So good. Love it.
AMANDA: So into it.
JULIA: So in many of the books, he would usually include a section about where the stories come from. Like that is what the section was called, which personally loves someone who cites his sources and inspiration. We love to hear it. We love to see it. So in particular, when he was talking about The Green Ribbon, he wrote, "The Green Ribbon is based on a European folk motif in which a red thread marks the place where a head is cut off then reattached."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And as we know, Amanda, there is a lot of history in folklore around beheadings. We're going to have to talk about where we got these stories and how they evolved.
AMANDA: The Green Ribbon story is basically PG-13 beheading, and so I am— or it's a pre-beheading, a liminal beheading, if you will.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Has the beheading happened or has it not? Does it happen when the ribbon comes off or did it happen before the ribbon went on? We'll have to find out.
JULIA: It's a great question. And I think, depending on which story we're going to be talking about, some of those answer your questions, but some of them don't, so let's see.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So let's start with a story from 1824, from an author who will probably be familiar to many people, Washington Irving.
AMANDA: Oh, this guy, pumpkin head man.
JULIA: Well, this man really loves the idea of headless characters, or beheaded characters in general, because if you're not familiar with his work, he is the man that wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
AMANDA: Didn't he had a headless kink? I'm sorry to say it, but someone has to.
JULIA: Someone has to. Someone has to say, "Washington Irving, what's up? Why do you want head separated from body so bad?"
AMANDA: Somebody has to ask it.
JULIA: Do you think he prefers the beheaded head, or do you think he likes the body without the head?
AMANDA: Stump.
JULIA: He likes the stump? Okay.
AMANDA: Stump.
JULIA: Gross.
AMANDA: You're welcome.
JULIA: So he wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but in 1824, four years after he published the story of the Headless Horseman, he published a collection of stories called Tales of a Traveler.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Kind of a vague title, I will say that much. For the purposes of our episode, we are going to discuss a story within this collection called The Adventure of the German Student.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: In this story, the main character is named Gottfried Wolfgang.
AMANDA: That's a German character. That's a Moony Moonshin. [10:23]
JULIA: It sure is an American writing a German character name. Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: He decides he is going to visit France because he's been having a tough time lately. He's been studying too much. He has been isolating himself. He's basically having a breakdown.
AMANDA: Aw. German school boys are always having breakdowns in fiction.
JULIA: So he's hoping that visiting France and the change of the scenery is going to help out his mental health a little bit. But the change of scenery doesn't really do much for him. He is still keeping to himself. He is staying in his rented rooms. He is retreating further and further into his imagination. He is described in the story, Amanda, as becoming, quote, "A literary ghoul feeding in the charnel house of decayed literature."
AMANDA: Oh, my God. Dream.
JULIA: That's the sexiest thing I've ever heard, honestly. Also, and this is important, Gottfried has decided to visit Paris during, I would say, an interesting period of France's history, because he's there during the 1790s. Do you know what was happening in France in the 1790s, Amanda?
AMANDA: Julia, I'm no expert on European history, but I'm gonna guess a bunch of beheadings.
JULIA: I'm gonna tell you it was the French Revolution. Gottfried is losing it more than a little bit in the story. And on a dark and stormy night, he leaves his rooms and goes for a walk. You know, like you do, it's storming out, and you say, "Oh, yeah, time for a walk. Perfect. Love that."
AMANDA: You know, I bemoan the time in which we live a lot, Julia, on the show and interest in my life. But I do have to just really compliment 2025 on allowing me to play my Switch in bed when I can't sleep, instead of taking a walk in the stormy streets of Paris.
JULIA: That's true. That's true. And you'll especially appreciate that after I tell you how the story ends.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So he goes into the town square where the Madame Guillotine— you know— did you know that was the nickname for the guillotine? They've called her Madame Guillotine.
AMANDA: No, but that's incredibly French.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Yep. So she is set up for public executions, right?
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: And on the steps below the guillotine, he comes across a woman. Now, here's how she's described, quote, "Her face was pale, but of a dazzling fairness, set off by a profusion of raven hair that hung clustering about. Her eyes were large and brilliant, with a singular expression approaching almost to wildness. As far as her black dress permitted her shape to be seen, it was a perfect symmetry. Her whole appearance was highly striking, though she was dressed in the simplest of style. The only thing approaching to an ornament which she wore was a broad, black band round her neck, clasped by diamonds."
AMANDA: Hmm. Hottie at the guillotine, Julia, story at 8:00.
JULIA: So Gottfried offers to take her home to get her out of the storm. She, like, gestures up at the guillotine dramatically, and tells him she has no friends to return to. Her home has been turned into a grave.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Like, kind of implying all of her friends have been publicly executed.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: So then he's like, "Okay, dramatic. How about you come back to my apartment and just get out of the storm?" And she agrees to go with him. Like I said before, Gottfried has been having wild kind of emotional swings. And in particular, it is outlined that he's been having very strange dreams lately. And so when he gets back to his apartment, he realizes that he has dreamed of this woman before, and instantly becomes infatuated with her. He basically is like, "I'm gonna pledge myself to you for eternity, like we should pledge ourselves to each other. I was meant to find you here. Like, Let's get married, essentially."
AMANDA: These are lesbians.
JULIA: Well, yes, because she enthusiastically agrees. They sleep. The implication unclear as to what may or may not have happened in the night.
AMANDA: They sleep, unmarried, in the same room, AKA, they definitely had sex.
JULIA: Right. So the next morning, Gottfried leaves her sleeping in his bed and goes out. He's like, "Well, we're gonna get married and move in together. I have to find a bigger apartment for two, right?" You have to find a new place to move into.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: "So he goes out and he does that, but when he arrives back home, he finds that he cannot rouse her awake. And when touching her, finds that she is cold to the touch with no pulse."
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
JULIA: "The police are summoned, and the officer who enters the room is shocked to find this woman here, and I'll read a little bit from the story, 'Great heaven,' cried he. 'How did this woman come here? Do you know anything about her?' Said Wolfgang eagerly. 'Do I?' Exclaimed the police officer, 'She was guillotined yesterday.'"
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "He stepped forward, undid the black collar round the neck of the corpse, and the head rolled on the floor!" Exclamation point at the end of that sentence.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: "The student burst into a frenzy, 'The fiend, The fiend has gained possession of me,' shrieked he. 'I am lost forever.' They tried to soothe him, but in vain, he was possessed with the frightful belief that an evil spirit had reanimated the dead body to ensnare him. He went distracted and died in a mad house.
AMANDA: I mean, he was successfully ensnared. You know, he was ensnared all night long.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Uh-hmm. All night long was he ensnared in the sheets, in her thighs, hmm.
AMANDA: That's right, Julia. Wow. I didn't expect the full corpse the next day, but, I mean, that's pretty rad.
JULIA: That makes sense, though, right? Like, if she was guillotined, maybe she's had a little bit of juice left in her.
AMANDA: Not at all how bodies work, but, you know, we didn't know much in the 1790s.
JULIA: No, it's fine. We saw chickens roaming without heads and like—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —part of us was like, "Yeah, maybe."
AMANDA: Why not?
JULIA: We know that Washington Irving already was a bit of a ghost-y guy. But Amanda, do you think that he created this story whole cloth?
AMANDA: No. I think he saw an opportunity to write himself some headless erotica, and went for it.
JULIA: I will not disagree with you. I will allow the premise, at least. But he iterated this story off of one that he had heard from the Irish writer Thomas Moore, who, in turn, had heard it from an English writer named Horace Smith.
AMANDA: Hmm. Went through the prism of Ireland, Julia, so I'm going to guess that a drowning is inserted somewhere.
JULIA: Didn't see any drowning in the Washington Irving one, so there you go. I don't know.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: So Thomas Moore basically had a correspondence with Washington Irving, and so in telling the story to Irving, even told him in a letter that Horace Smith had been meaning to use the story for himself, and probably had already published or written something.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: Which was true. Horace Smith published a story in 1823 just a year before Washington Irving's called Sir Guy Eveling's Dream.
AMANDA: Sir Guy is so transman-coded, and I'm really into it.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It might be Guy because I think that's how you pronounce the—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —French pronunciation of that, but I like Guy. It's fun.
AMANDA: That's really good. I also just want to put out there, if anybody has, like, a friend with benefits that you are struggling to sort of describe or, you know, you want to use, like, the word lovers, it's too much.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But you're not going to say friend with benefits because you're an adult. Like, I don't know. I just want to offer want to offer, "We have a correspondence"—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —as a phrase that can perhaps, sort of include a, like, ongoing— you know, you're chatting. You meet up. It's flirty. You know, you got, like, some— your private time is your private time, but like, you have a correspondence.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right.
AMANDA: See how it fits.
JULIA: So this story has very similar beats to Washington Irving's, The Adventure of a German Student, but there are some important differences. First off, it's set in London, and it is an English gentleman rather than a German student, because, of course, write what you know, I guess, Horace.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: The gentleman is, in fact, a bit of a rake, and when he meets the woman in the story, she is wearing what is described as an, quote, "Ungainly rough as well as a bejeweled velvet necklace."
AMANDA: Yeah, there is definitely that common denominator of, like, simple gown, very expensive necklace.
JULIA: Much like the German student after he spends the night with this woman, and then returns home from a morning errand, he finds her dead. But unlike the Irving version, she is not a victim of the guillotine, but rather— this is just a, like, weird kind of English-ism, I guess. She is the lover of an Italian ambassador who was hanged for murdering that ambassador, and the removal of the necklace doesn't result in the head rolling away, just that the marks left by the noose are now exposed, showing that she's dead.
AMANDA: Oh, okay. Less impact, I must say. But sounds like perhaps he had an ex he was trying to scorn.
JULIA: I think it's that, and I think also you're going back to Washington Irving having his beheading kink. Washington Irving's like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —"No, no. It would be better if the head rolled away."
AMANDA: The story— Julia, story is great, but I'm just gonna ha— I'm gonna need you to add in the head completely coming off, because that is my non-negotiable here.
JULIA: I hate that you've made me do this. I truly hate this.
AMANDA: Yay. I love you, too.
JULIA: So Amanda, Horace Smith, however, didn't pull this story from mid-air either, but we'll get to where he got the story just as soon as we grab our refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, it's. Julia, and welcome to the refill. Thank you, as always, to our patrons, including our newest patron, Katie. Katie, thank you so much for joining us. You join the ranks of our supporting producer-level patrons Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Rikoelike, Lily, and Wil. And of course, our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And hey, if you want cool rewards, like ad-free episodes, bonus urban legends episodes, recipe cards for every single episode, and so much more. You can join the ranks of those peoples whose names I just said by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast today. And hey, if you sign up for an annual membership, you actually get two months for free, so check that out. Or you can try out our seven-day free trial and listen to all those bonus urban legends that we have made many, many, many of over the past couple years, so check that out. That is patreon.com/spiritspodcast. I want to tell you about another show here at Multitude that I love, that is Pale Blue Pod. Pale Blue Pod is an astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but still want to be its friend, astrophysicist Dr. Moiya McTier, and a new guest each week, demystify space one topic at a time, with open eyes, open arms, and open mouths from so much laughing and jaw dropping. I can attest to the fact that there is a lot of laughing and also jaw dropping, because I was recently on an episode of Pale Blue Pod where Moiya taught me about telescopes. And as someone who does not have a science background, I got to ask a lot of questions that I thought I knew a lot about, but Moiya is so insightful and so great at teaching folks, whether you are an expert in the matters of all things space, or if you're fairly new to space things in general. Check that out, Pale Blue Pod. By the end of each episode, the cosmos will feel a little less, "Ah, too scary," and a lot more, "Ooh, so cool." You can find new episodes every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Check them out, Pale Blue Pod. This episode is sponsored by Uncommon Goods. And listen, it is the middle of spooky season, but the holidays sneak up on you fast. I know that once November hits, I go into panic mode when it comes to thinking about what I need to get for my friends and family for the holidays. But there is a place where it makes it easier for me to get my shopping done all in one place, and I actually have fun with it. Uncommon Goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joyful with thousands of one of a kind gifts you can't find anywhere else. Listen, I really like Uncommon Goods. I have bought many gifts from them over the course of several years at this point, and it's because they have great products. They are high-quality, they are unique. They're oftentimes handmade or made in the U.S., and many are crafted by independent artists and small businesses, because they're made in small batches. And the best finds they can sell out fast, so you gotta go check it out. One of the things that I am kind of really into, that I'm really thinking about getting Jake for the holidays, is they have, like, a custom reel viewer. You remember when you were a kid and you had that thing, and you would click— you hold it up to your eyes, and you'd click it, and it would show you a different photo, and it would go around in a reel? You can make your own with your own photos. So I am definitely thinking about getting that for Jake for the holidays. He loves a very, like, nostalgic, personalized gift, and this seems absolutely perfect for him. And Uncommon Goods has something for everyone, from moms and dads, to kids and teens, from book lovers, history buffs, die-hard football fans, if you have one of those in your family, foodies, mixologists, avid gardeners. You can find thousands of new gift ideas that you won't find anywhere else. And when you shop at Uncommon Goods, you are supporting artists and small independent businesses. Many of their handcrafted products are made in small batches, so you have to shop now so that, you know, they don't sell out before the holiday season. And with every purchase you make at Uncommon Goods, they give back $1 to a non-profit partner of your choice, and they've donated more than $3 million to date. So shop early, have fun, and cross some names off your list today. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com/spirits. That's uncommongoods.com/spirits for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon Goods, we're all out of the ordinary. And now, let's get back to our show.
[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we are back. and I wanted to create something inspired by the green ribbon that we're talking about. And I know what you're thinking, "Oh, no, Julia's gonna make another green Chartreuse cocktail again." Wrong.
AMANDA: I was thinking it, but I'm glad. I'm surprised.
JULIA: No, I'm taking my inspiration for my green ribbon cocktail from the cocktail called the Japanese slipper.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: Which is traditionally made with Triple sec, Lemon juice, and Midori, which is a melon liqueur.
AMANDA: I am here for melon, Julia. I'm gonna call it right now. I'm growing honeydew melon next year, baby.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: I'm starring those seeds. I'm growing that melon. I think honeydew has a bad rap. I'm gonna grow her.
JULIA: I'm not a huge melon fan, but I like melon-flavored things, so—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —I think we can make the Japanese slipper even more of a green cocktail. So what I'm going to say is we use lime juice instead of lemon.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I think we keep the Midori. I think we do gin instead of Triple sec.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then I say we add about half an ounce of some, like, herbal simple syrup, whether that is rosemary, or thyme, or basil, or what have you. Whatever your, like, green herb is of choice. I think we just add a little bit of that.
AMANDA: Yum.
JULIA: Or, honestly, some mint, a little mint syrup in that would actually be really refreshing and probably, like, really, like— you know what I mean?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. Some, like, cooling aftertaste. Like, perhaps, I don't know, feeling the breeze on your newly revealed stump neck.
JULIA: Just something that's gonna make it feel extra green. That's all I'm saying. That's what I'm putting out there. That is what is going to be our green ribbon cocktail. So, Amanda, tightening the necklace up. We gotta keep going.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: So we left off with Horace Smith, whose Sir Guy or Guy Eveling's Dream was most likely pulled from a story that is traced back to a French pamphlet first printed in 1613.
AMANDA: Dang.
JULIA: Now, I want to give a shout out to the historian Maria Beliaeva Solomon, who is a French literature historian and who published a great paper titled Fatal Attraction: Loving the Guillotined Woman from Washington Irving to Alexandre Dumas.
AMANDA: Oh, my God. Iconic. I love this.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Definitely. If you have the opportunity to read it, please do. I think it's super interesting. And she digs a little deeper into, like, the various different iterations of this story. But she was the one who unearthed this French pamphlet and kind of brought it into the public eye, which essentially tells the story of, quote, "A rake's moral reckoning after an act of inadvertent necrophilia with a recently executed woman reanimated by the devil to trick him."
AMANDA: Happens, Julia, to all of us. In today's cancel culture, I think it's just really important to kind of have empathy and realize that for every person you're judging, for the accidental necrophilia of making out what the woman he finds distressed on the steps of a guillotine, think, "That could have been me."
JULIA: I'm just realizing this episode comes out on my birthday, and what a wild birthday present to myself that I've given me. Yeah.
AMANDA: Happy birthday to you.
JULIA: Wow.
AMANDA: I will never gift you a green ribbon necklace.
JULIA: Maybe I want it. Maybe we can reclaim it. We'll talk about that at the end. So in this pamphlet, though, from 1613, woman is hanged rather than guillotined, which is probably where Horace Smith gets it.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then Washington Irving was the one that took it a step further and said, "No, no, my kink."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: You can't libel the dead, Julia. You can't libel the dead. You can say that Washington Irving had a beheading kink. It's fine.
AMANDA: Yes. Yes, that's what Dr. Claire Aubin, real historian, has taught us.
JULIA: All right. So why is the version that we retell time after time a beheaded woman instead of a hanged woman, then? I think part of it certainly is the shock value of a head rolling away from a body, but also, Amanda, the reign of terror and the French Revolution left a, I'll say, an incredible impact on history and literature. And Washington Irving's version of the tale was the one that picked up steam. So that was the version that would then inspire the work of Alexandre Dumas, who told his story in a novella titled The Woman with the Velvet Necklace, which was published in 1849.
AMANDA: And interesting, I never put together that velvet is a expensive fabric and a decadent signifier of wealth. But going from the diamond-clasped necklace, all the way to a velvet ribbon shows a through line.
JULIA: Yeah, exactly. It is a, like, class signifier. And all of these women, except for Schwartz's version of young Jenny, seem to have a sort of, like, this is a rich woman who— something happened to her, or at least a connected woman that something happened to her.
AMANDA: Someone respectable enough that the protagonist is forgiven for sort of dealing with them. Because I'm sure seeing a woman asleep on the street is, you know, nothing to write home about, but seeing a respectable woman out past—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —bedtime that is sort of the hook of the premise.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. So Dumas' version of the story is interesting because one, it's longer than any other version that we've seen so far. It's— they've all been short stories at this point. And two, he decides that he's going to base the characters of his story off of historical figures, which is a choice, I would say. You know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Doing political commentary can get you in trouble sometimes.
AMANDA: It sure can.
JULIA: So for example, his German protagonist is named Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, which also just happens to be the name of a famous gothic horror writer. He's like, "Hmm, hmm, hmm. My guy, my inspiration."
AMANDA: Writer on writer violence in this story. Oh, my God.
JULIA: Amanda, do you know the Nutcracker, the opera?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Hoffman was the one who wrote the story that inspired the Nutcracker.
AMANDA: Oh, damn.
JULIA: Isn't that interesting?
AMANDA: Does— is someone, like, going to NYU on Nutcracker money right now? Like, did they have—
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: —like, royalties from that?
JULIA: Maybe. Who knows?
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So his beheaded woman, Amanda, in his story, she is a ballerina named Arsene, and while she is fictional, he portrays her as being the lover of a very real French revolutionary whose name was Georges Danton. But for the most part, it hits the same beats that Washington Irving did about 20 years before. Finding the woman distraught below the guillotine, spending the night together, and then finding that her head is only being attached by this black velvet necklace that she wore when it rolls off her shoulders. Now, what differentiates the two more than anything is themes and vibes, right? So Washington Irving's is very much a ghost story, I would say, in the very traditional sense of the early 1800s.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: With some sort of religious tone to it, which again, makes sense for a man who basically grew up in New England during that time period. But Dumas was aiming more for a, like, psychological thriller mixed with romantic drama.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Which also feels very appropriate for the time period that he was writing in, and also being a Frenchman. The French loved Dumas version of the story, though, and it inspired another iteration from another famous French author. This is Gaston Leroux.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Do you recognize his name, Amanda?
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: You might know him as the author of the original Phantom of the Opera.
AMANDA: Oh, really? Yeah, not—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —a musical in my canon, but obviously, huge impact still being played today.
JULIA: Phantom of the Opera was then adapted as one of the earliest universal monster movies, where it was played by Lon Chaney. That version was then turned into a separate play, which was then turned into a musical.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: But then a different musical was then written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is the one that is now running as a interactive musical piece, not on Broadway, but off Broadway, called Masquerade. So lot of— long storyline for the Phantom of the Opera, for sure.
AMANDA: Deep lore, y'all.
JULIA: I love it. They're— actually, on my birthday, they're playing a— when this episode comes out.
AMANDA: Today. Yeah.
JULIA: They are playing a double feature of Nosferatu and Phantom of the Opera at the, like, movie arts center that I really like, with a live orchestra. So I'm like, "Do I have time to go see that tonight? Maybe I should. Who knows?"
AMANDA: That sounds amazing.
JULIA: So Gaston Leroux, original Phantom of the Opera, he published his own version of The Girl with the Velvet Necklace, titled The Woman with the Velvet Necklace. Wow. So original. Same exact title as Dumas, in 1924. So he uses a fun, little framing device, which I think you'll like. Amanda. I like a fun, little framing device like I love the fact that Dracula's written a series of letters, right? So he uses this fun, little framing device, which is an old, retired sea captain who is recounting the tale that he heard while he was in Corsica 30 years before.
AMANDA: Really good, really good.
JULIA: So he's telling the story to another younger sailor, and we cut back to 30 years earlier, where the mayor of Corsica is throwing a costume ball, which is, for whatever reason, French Revolution-themed.
AMANDA: Listen, Julia, they knew when it was happening that it was giving, okay? The French Revolution was mother, and they knew it at the time, and it remains mother to this day, to the extent that we have banned it from RuPaul's Drag Race TV show, because people do Marie Antoinette too much.
JULIA: The wigs are just so big. So this mayor of Corsica, he has this wife whose name is Angie Lucia. [34:40]
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Which I love that name, so beautiful.
AMANDA: Yeah, right?
JULIA: So she, much like her name, is beautiful, but also unfaithful.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: So she dresses up as Marie Antoinette for the party. The centerpiece of this event is the mayor's French Revolution era guillotine, which has now been newly restored.
AMANDA: Now, why restore it?
JULIA: I mean, I guess, why not?
AMANDA: That's my main thing. Why restore that? If feels like an antique that can stay antique.
JULIA: You don't want it falling apart, though. It's a piece of history, Amanda.
AMANDA: But restoring it implies that it's, like, usable, and usable for what?
JULIA: Imagine going to a party, though, and the mayor, who's hosting the party, is like, "Welcome, welcome. French Revolution-themed party, Masquerade. Would you like to see the guillotine?" And you're like, "Excuse me? What is that? What are you talking about?"
AMANDA: And people are like, "Yeah, let me get in there. Let me try it."
JULIA: So he wants to do a sort of stage demonstration of the guillotine.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Kind of like a little magic trick situation. And so he's like—
AMANDA: Nope.
JULIA: —"Wife, would you like to volunteer for that?"
AMANDA: Uh-uh.
JULIA: And she's like, "Well, I am dressed as Marie Antoinette. That makes total sense to me.
AMANDA: Fucking yoinkers. This is like a guy on a Murder She Wrote Episode who hates his wife and is trying to stage her accidental murder.
JULIA: The mayor, knowing his wife has been untrue, doesn't switch out the blade for the dull blade, the trick blade, and so it slices through her neck.
AMANDA: Fucking, hey.
JULIA: Now at this point in the story, the implication is Angie Lucia [36:12] survives her husband's attempted murder, but the guests at the party swore that they saw her head fully detached from her body. But after the event, first off, the mayor goes into hiding. Everyone assumes that he, like, throws himself off a cliff.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Because he just kind of publicly murdered his wife.
AMANDA: I mean, yeah.
JULIA: But after the event, she was seen in public, still alive, but always wearing a black velvet necklace. And the rumors—
AMANDA: Uh-uh.
JULIA: —said that the necklace wasn't simply to hide the scar that her ex-husband left her during his murder attempt, but rather, it was what was keeping her head attached to her body.
AMANDA: Incredible rumor. And I have come fully around on this, Julia. I want this rumor about me. I want to be, like, in my 70s, in, you know, a given town, wear an iconic fit, and then people are like, "That's keeping her head on right there."
JULIA: Amanda, if we end up, like, in the same, I don't know, like, retirement community or something like that.
AMANDA: Coastal New England village, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JULIA: A 100% I will do that for you.
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: I will make that happen. I'll be like, "Yeah. So you know what happened with Amanda, though, right? Back in the day?"
AMANDA: "Haven't seen her without it, have you?"
JULIA: "I was at that French Revolution guillotine party, and I know what happened." My gift to you, then. Remind me in, like, 40 years, and we'll make it happen.
AMANDA: Head came full off.
JULIA: What's interesting, too, is there's a whole, like, secondary, like— not even like plot situation, but it's basically like the mayor faked his death, then she remarried, the mayor comes back, and, like, finishes the job, essentially. And so someone goes to warn her that they spotted the, you know, presumed dead mayor in town. And when they get to her, they go to wake her up, because she's, like, sitting in a— asleep in a chair, and they touch the velvet necklace, and, you guessed it, her head falls off.
AMANDA: Yoinks.
JULIA: Spoiler alert for Gaston Leroux's 1924, The Woman with the Velvet Necklace, a fun read, regardless of whether or not you know the spoilers at the end, for sure.
AMANDA: That's a good twist. I'll give it to them.
JULIA: I think so.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: As you can imagine, Amanda, and as you already pointed out, there have been plenty of modern interpretations of The Girl with the Green Ribbon, both before and after Alvin Schwartz shared it with a generation of millennials and inadvertently scarred us all.
AMANDA: And you know what? If Washington Irving had lived to see its publication, he would have been worried, but then satisfied.
JULIA: There are a couple that I wanted to highlight, though. So first is Ann McGovern's, The Velvet Ribbon from her 1970s collection called Ghostly Fun. And around a similar time was Judith Bauer Stamper's, The Black Velvet Ribbon, which was published in her 1977, Tales for the Midnight Hour. Now, these were published pretty close together, and they have more or less the same beats. Man marries woman, woman tells him before the wedding that he cannot untie the black velvet ribbon necklace from her neck, and that if he does, he will be sorry. Time goes on, the man becomes more and more infuriated with, essentially, the boundaries that his wife has set for him from day one, to the point where one night, while his wife is sleeping, he cuts off the necklace and her head rolls off.
AMANDA: Uh-uh. Uh-uh.
JULIA: These versions and the more modern retellings of the story, including Carmen Maria Machado's The Husband Stitch from her collection, Her Body and Other Parties are very interesting because they take another step in the story, and they focus on themes that I would say are still very relevant to this day, like consent and bodily autonomy, and abusive and controlling relationships. So these stories are really interesting because we get more of a personification of the women in these stories. In the writings that we have from Washington Irving pretty much onward, until we get into the 1970s, the women are set pieces, right? They are plot points, but not actual complete people. But in these stories, we get to understand their interiority much more. Which, I think, you know, it's important to retell stories like this, because we need to change with the time, so to speak, you know? And we need to center women, not as like these monsters, necessarily, but as people who get to feel a certain way about how their body is treated.
AMANDA: And something I think that horror really pushes us to do, particularly people who are privileged in various ways in society, is to say that the thing that feels like a completely unexpected, horrific, out of the blue event to you, or a worst-case scenario is happening to somebody else and likely has been happening for a very long time.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And it is only our, you know, our privilege and our kind of, like, social insulation that lets us be freaked out by that and surprised by that, instead of seeing it as a another reality and another just kind of day in the life. So I love the empathy that horror forces us to take on or invites us to take on by putting ourselves in that scenario, so that we can hopefully extend that same empathy to the people in our real life that are undergoing, what to us would be, a horrific situation.
JULIA: And Amanda, this is to a certain extent why I also really like Schwartz's telling for children, right? So not only are we able to, like, frame this story for children in a way that they will understand, but, like, his Jenny is never betrayed, right? She doesn't die because of the actions of the men in her life. She is able to reveal her secret when she decides, and she chooses to do it after living a long life, and coming to peace with her mortality in revealing her secret, literally only in the last of her living moments.
AMANDA: Also, I would say, choosing and having some agency over her death, which is something that I think we are really not prepared to talk about in as a culture, specifically in the U.S.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: It's something that I pay a lot of attention to, and that I think disability rights advocates have really brought to the forefront of, at least, my kind of lefty social circles.
JULIA: Yes, absolutely. So part of that, Amanda, I think, is why we have been so fascinated by this story for so long, and why we have retold it over and over again. And for all of the retellings and the variations, it is still a very simple story, right? You could tell it in just a few sentences, but it still feels like it has such an impact. So I think, personally, it is our duty to keep retelling the story, to scar another generation of kids, but also to remind them that even if the story is simple, it can have important meaning, as well as being admittedly pretty fucking scary.
AMANDA: And Julia, I can think of no better birthday present and birthday homage to you, my bestie, happy 33rd birthday. I love you.
JULIA: I love you. Thank you for letting me share this story with you. It was a really fun time.
AMANDA: Well, folks, next time you see a suspiciously rich-looking hottie collapsed at the feet of the guillotine, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
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