Episode 90: The Weevils Had a Lawyer (And Other Crop Rituals) HALLOWEEN EP

Meg (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom.

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old.

Meg (0:12)

The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom, Nordstrom.

Dagny (0:18)

Big or small, we're here for all of it.

SPEAKER_2 (0:21)

Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ahead.

Meg (0:25)

Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com.

Dagny (0:30)

Hi, garden friends. Welcome back to the Garden Girls Podcast. I'm Dagny.

Meg (0:40)

And I'm Meg.

Dagny (0:42)

And today we're going to be talking about the rituals of the field for a special Halloween edition. You know we love spooky season here. And so today I thought we could talk about the history and the magic and the necessity of these rituals throughout time. Because there are some weird stories. I know Meg was just peeking at the outline here. And she's like, wait a second.

Meg (1:05)

The bugs had a lawyer. I have some questions. There are bugs that have lawyers in this story. And I find that extremely wild.

Dagny (1:14)

It is confusing because I mean, where I did not think the outline is going to go this way, honestly, but that's where it took us. That's where the research led. So for thousands of years, agriculture, as we know, it was essentially a tightrope walk, right? Like there was a single late frost or a sudden hailstorm or an unexpected pest outbreak. It didn't just mean your higher grocery bills. It meant that winter starvation could happen for an entire community.

And when human survival depends entirely on the volatility of weather and nature, people are going to try pretty much anything to tip the scales in their favor. So out of this desperation grew two deeply intertwined traditions. The strange practice folk rituals used to preserve crops, and the botanical lore of the village herbalist, often labeled as witchcraft.

Meg (2:03)

I mean, it was hard times back then.

I would do the same thing. If nothing else is working and you're about to starve, I would be like, okay, we got to do something. Let's make a dance. Let's do some crazy stuff. We've just got to do something.

Dagny (2:19)

You're desperate. You're a lawyer. I mean, I guess many of these practices probably will sound unhinged to us to modern ears, but a surprising number of them were rooted in sound agricultural science, and others still served as vital psychological anchors against existential dread.

So should we talk about these lawyers for the bugs? Please. I am crazy.

Meg (2:42)

Please.

Dagny (2:43)

So we're going to go all the way back to 1587, where the residents of St. Julian, a small village in southeastern France, found themselves looking at a fierce legal battle. And they weren't suing a neighborhood lord, nor were they settling a boundary dispute. They were taking a swarm of leaf weevils to court.

Meg (3:02)

Okay. So they're taking weevils to court. How exactly are they doing that?

Dagny (3:10)

The insects were appointed a court designated public defender, who passionately argued that God had created the weevils, granted them the right to feed on vegetation, and therefore human beings had no right to deny them their sustenance. And this trial dragged on for months, Meg, until the villagers offered the insects a designated plot outside of town. This was a plea deal that the weevils lawyer rejected on the grounds that the land was too barren to support his clients.

Meg (3:46)

I just have so many questions. First of all, how are they expecting to round up all of the weevils and exile them, essentially? Like, you're going to get every weevil, and you're going to be like, oh, here's a plot for you to be. Also, the lawyer has a point.

Like, they're here, you know?

Dagny (4:13)

Like, they need sustenance too.

Yeah. No, unfortunately, the final court records cut off before a verdict, possibly because the pages were eaten by insects. But we will never know the result of this trial. And similarly, in 1522, there was a famous French jurist whose name I will absolutely butcher if I even attempt it, who made his reputation defending rats accused of destroying barley crops. When his rat clients failed to appear in court, the jurists successfully argued for an adjournment by claiming the court summons hadn't allowed sufficient travel time considering the vast distance and the local cats lurking along the roads waiting to ambush them.

Meg (5:00)

Is this real? Is this real?