Actually, the Murdoch Mysteries** episode is titled Victor, Victorian (Season 3, Episode 3). A major plot point in this episode is Freemasonry. They got a couple of things correct–barely–about Freemasonry, but quite a lot wrong, and those wrong things really were essential to the episode’s mystery. It’s quite a fun episode, IMHO, but I got to wondering where the odd things, such as drinking wine from a skull as part of the initiation, came from.
So, any idea where they got these ideas from or were they just invented for the purpose of the episode’s plot?
I don’t have much of an answer for you, but I did want to thank you for the Murdoch Mysteries recommendation. Your first link didn’t seem to work, but I found it on Hulu and enjoyed the first episode with Nikola Tesla. Judging by the pilot episode and your descrIption of the Freemason episode, the formula seems to be a fun mix of a bit of history and a lot of fictionalization (I don’t think Nikola Tesla ever helped the Toronto Police solve a murder). I’ve been looking for a long-running series to have on while I hit the elliptical or do other stuff, at at 12 or 13 seasons it will keep me occupied for awhile.
I will say that the trope of ‘drinking wine from skulls’ and specifically the skulls of vanquished enemies has been a historic rumor applied to different cultures over the years. I was thinking it may have been a rumored practice of Yale’s Skull and Bones Society, but googling found nothing about that. I think I may be conflating it with the rumor that they possessed the stolen skull of Geronimo, but nothing about drinking wine out of it.
I got addicted to Murdoch Mysteries when my cable service in South Korea offered it.
The first link is to a Chinese video site; I don’t have any idea why it doesn’t work. It’s worked for me outside of China–of course it works inside of China when I have my VPN turned off.
Drat! The second link is to the Chinese site. I stupidly left out the link to the first one. Scroll down to Episode 3 if you have a membership. That’s on the show’s official site. Sorry about leaving out the link.
I have no answer to your question, besides this awesome comic, but I wanted to point out that Murdoch Mysteries is also available on Hulu.
It’s an interesting show - it veers between simplistic mysteries and PG content, to full on bonkers plots (secret Canadian dirigibles?) and some pretty deep social commentary (homosexuality and abortion in the late 19th/early 20th century).