We’ll be kind. We’ll put away the beard puns for the entirety of this article – once we’re done with this introductory paragraph. How’s that for a deal? No need to get prickly! It’ll shave us some space to tell you about World Beard Day, which is what today is!

World Beard Day is where we gather together with our beards and celebrate beardedness. It is also a day when beardos are fawned over by the beardless, given treats and treated like Sweyn Forkbeard himself (you’ll find out in the episode who that is).  

This episode had so much going on, it’s a wonder we managed to keep it to less than an hour! From the manly origins of beard pride to the very real-world advantages of having a luscious facial forest, we did our best to cover it all.

We couldn’t go without mentioning Viking beards and furthermore, we couldn’t go without mentioning one of our old friends – Harald Fairhair! If you’ve been with us since the beginning, you will remember Harald from our episode “Hat”; Good old Harald was, according to legend, owner of a truly magical hat that saved him from all manner of peril. Go listen to the episode here if you fancy!

From one well-known leader to others – Alexander the Great, Abraham Lincoln, Peter the Great, Guru Gobind Singh, Fidel Castro – we really went the distance and got you some interesting stories of forced fashion, taxation, vexation, assassination attempts and one an instruction in philosophical beards that will serve you well as a fun fact at dinner parties – you’re welcome.

Our particular favourite was the research papers we (very capably, not!) discussed about the correlation between coronary heart disease and beard growth that featured forced abstinence, a desert island, sexual tension and the weight of beard shavings! Now doesn’t that make you want to dive straight into this episode beard-first?

Note: Shar has copyrighted the name she came up with for a children’s book. You can use it ONLY if you give her full royalties. Thank you very much.

Let us know how it went! 

Links of Interest:

Learn more about World Beard Day

Beards, philosophically speaking

Victorian prescription beards

Sweyn Forkbeard

Shaving, Coronary Disease and Strokes

(Listen to Charita’s brand new track here! We highly recommend it.)

Now stop trawling through this blog post for more info and listen to the episode!

Episode edited by: Mohit Shandilya

Music for the episode: Charita Arora