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[Assistant] The Spirit said that Johnson was the navigator on a government project called the R-101. And according to Hinchcliffe's ghost, it was doomed to crash.


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[Assistant] Eileen, though, didn't know what to do with this information. That is, until a year later, in 1929, when she had her third vision of the Silvery airship, followed by a newspaper article claiming that the government was working on a pair of large, rigid airships, one of which was called the R-101.


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[Assistant] Eileen tried to reach out to the authorities, but they laughed her off. The director of civil aviation was deeply invested in the project, and weird visions from a strange woman weren't going to stop him. Even when his own pilot, Lieutenant Herbert Irwin, expressed his own doubts about the ship, it was quickly ignored.


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[Assistant] Of course, you know where this is going, don't you? On October 4th of 1930, the massive, silvery R101 took off from London, bound for India. It was over 700 feet long and carried 54 people on board between passengers and crew, including that Civil Aviation Director, Sir Sefton Branker.


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[Assistant] Less than 24 hours later, the trip ended in a fiery crash in France.


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[Assistant] A mixture of heavy rain, a lack of engine power, and poor balance led to the dirigible losing altitude. It fell to earth in a real-life slow-motion dive, gently touching down, before a spark ignited a buildup of flammable gas, engulfing the entire craft. All but six crew members died as a result.


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[Assistant] Eileen Garrett had experienced multiple premonitions of the tragic accident over a span of years. She had received messages from beyond the veil, warning her and others about the risks involved in the airship's flight, and she had tried to warn those with the power to stop it, all without success.


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[Assistant] In a weird twist on history repeating itself, Eileen had found herself at the center of an event that repeatedly announced itself backward in time. But despite her unusual gifts and supernatural abilities, talents that set her apart from the rest of the world, she found herself leveled by one insurmountable challenge. She had been powerless to keep it from happening.


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[Assistant] I think almost everyone would agree, history does repeat itself. Sometimes it's the arrival of a particular kind of figure on the world stage, or an event that seems to resonate with a similar one from deeper in the past. Heck, even fashion has a way of coming back around, as all the mid-century modern furniture in my house can attest to.


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[Assistant] History comes back, whether we like it or not.


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[Assistant] In the world of folklore though, that's often coupled with an eerie tone.


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[Assistant] Tragedies and losses in the past that were so painful or violent that they left shadows that live on into the present. I have a number of friends who are professional ghost hunters, and all of them would agree. Sometimes spirits stick around, replaying difficult moments from their lives long after their deaths.


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[Assistant] But if my team's research on this topic has taught us anything else, it's that those spirits are often invested heavily in how our present events play out.


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[Assistant] Remember the ghostly sightings of Lieutenant Desmond Arthur? They only began in the days following the release of that second investigation, the one that blamed him for the accident instead of faulty repair work. More than that, those sightings stopped around the same time that report was retracted.


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[Assistant] Now, maybe Lieutenant Arthur was just upset that people were blaming him for something he hadn't done. Perhaps his ghost was doing more than simply reminding people he existed. It could also have been showing people in some small way that he was still watching and still invested. And Eileen Garrett?


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[Assistant] Well, following the tragedy of the R-101, she spent countless hours in new seances, speaking with members of the crew who perished in the accident. Each of the spirits she spoke to offered detailed technical information about the airship, things that would not have been known to the public, something that was confirmed by the few survivors of the crash.


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[Assistant] And more than that, some of those spirits told her that they had been documenting the flaws and dangers of the airship for months, writing them down in personal journals. They even told Eileen where to find those records. But try as they might, surviving family members were unable to locate the journals.


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[Assistant] To some, it was a sign of a government cover-up, whitewashing a preventable tragedy. To others, it was proof that Eileen wasn't nearly as prescient as she claimed to be.


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[Assistant] That was the year a documentarian named Michael Cox was working on a program about the R-101. And he managed to track down the widow of one of the crew members who died in the accident. And what did she have?


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[Assistant] His personal journal. A book that contained countless notes written down in the year leading up to the crash.


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[Assistant] The last entry in the book was dated two days before the airship took off, and it carried a frightening message. There are very many unknown factors, he wrote, and I feel that luck will figure rather conspicuously into our flight. Let's hope for good luck and our best.


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[Assistant] Today's journey through the tragic history of powered human flight might seem benign on the surface, but it has been a joy to uncover the more unusual aspects of these stories for you. And of course, we're not done just yet, with one more unexplainable aviation mystery for you to consider. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] On March 3rd of 1945, a US Navy pilot named James Houston Jr. died in combat. He had taken off from an aircraft carrier named the USS Natoma Bay during the Battle of Iwo Jima, but was struck by enemy fire.


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[Assistant] When the propeller of his fighter plane was knocked off and his engine destroyed, he lost all ability to stay in the air. Moments later, he and the plane both crashed into the Pacific Ocean, vanishing forever.


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[Assistant] Now, you don't have to be a military historian to know that there were a lot of moments like this in World War II. Thousands upon thousands, sadly. And oftentimes, the only thing differentiating one tragedy like this from the rest is the name of the pilot. James Houston Jr. was no different in this regard.


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[Assistant] But what happened next might very well be unique.


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[Assistant] James Leninger was born in 1998. By all accounts, he seemed like a normal little boy. But in 2000, at the age of two, he started having nightmares. These horrible dreams would happen upwards of five times a week, his panic crying, always bringing his parents into the room to see what was wrong.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, little James Leninger was a well-spoken child. Even at two years old, he was ready to help his parents understand. And what did he tell them his nightmares were about? He had dreamed about an airplane crash. Plane on fire, he told them. Man can't get out.


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[Assistant] As the months went on, James offered more information about those dreams. Slowly, his parents were able to learn that this plane had been shot down by Japanese forces after taking off from a big boat. A boat, by the way, the James said was an American ship called the Natoma.


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[Assistant] More intriguing, as the months went on, James began to enact these dreams with his toys, breaking off their propellers and crashing them into the carpet. Even his artwork took on elements of an aerial battle between American and Japanese forces.


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[Assistant] Of course, his parents were curious, so they began to research the details of his story. What they discovered, though, was far from what they expected. A real-life pilot named James Houston Jr., who had died in the Battle of Iwo Jima, which might also have explained why their son signed his artwork with a curious title, James 3.


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[Assistant] The Leningers actually traveled to the USS Natoma Bay reunion and claimed that their son recognized one of the veterans there purely by his voice. Several other crew members agreed that little James looked an awful lot like James Houston Jr.


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[Assistant] Then, in 2006, at the age of eight, the family went even further, paying a visit to Chichijima, the closest island to Houston's last known location in 1945.


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[Assistant] There, James threw a bouquet into the water, marking the spot as a memorial, while saying goodbye to Houston. And according to reports about his unique experience, that was a turning point for the young boy. After that, the nightmare stopped, and his artwork took on a more peaceful tone.


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[Assistant] And look, I can't tell you what to believe in regards to this story. The critics of their claims all say that the story ignores just how obsessed the father was with World War II, taking the family to visit aviation museums and watching videos of actual war footage from 1945.


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[Assistant] The footage they claim that little James could have seen and internalized.


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[Assistant] Others, though, point to this story as proof that reincarnation is a real, possible thing. They see James Leninger as James Houston Jr. reborn, complete with memories of his final moments.


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[Assistant] All I can say is that history always seems to find new and unique ways to repeat itself. Maybe an open mind will help us find new examples of that age-old pattern. Or perhaps we've become so accustomed to repetitive historical elements that we've started spotting them in places they don't actually exist. Like shapes in the clouds.


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[Assistant] I'll let you decide for yourself. But whichever side you end up on, don't forget the power of that one simple act that got us here in the first place. Keeping one eye on the future, and one on the past.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Cassandra Dayalba and music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Don't like hearing ads? We've got a solution. There's a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Plus, subscribers also get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast, though. There's the World of Lore three-book series, plus two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more over at lorepodcast.com. And you can also follow this show on threads, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Special guest. Yep. Today. Bit of a rock star over here. Bit of a rock star hockey legend. That's a taking.


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[Assistant] Eighty-five you started, right? Yep. You know, in the oil? Five Stanley cups, pretty amazing.


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[Assistant] So, I gotta ask you, right out of the game, what was it like fucking being on the ice playing Gretzky?


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[Assistant] What about the other guys, like you talked coffee and, yary curry and those guys?


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[Assistant] Well that's not we everywhere over here.


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[Assistant] Oh wow, that's really fucking fascinating, Julian.


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[Assistant] Oh, he said, yeaah, I beat up Dave Samankoff. He's full of shit. Oh, I know, he's full of shit. He was only, the guy was only about 5'9".


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[Assistant] You said he beat up Davis Semenko? He used to say that all the time. Who's that? What's his name? The guy that works down at the, down at the pizza shop. Walter.


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[Assistant] That's a great war cry. Remember you used to scream something like that? Grab their balls, was it? I have no idea what you're talking about. Remember when we used to play ball hockey?


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[Assistant] Ricky, what, would you, what do you mean? Would you just marry a great big lady, just so you'd win more beer? Well...


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[Assistant] Yeah, linebackers in the NFL aren't that big. That's a lot of beer though. Ricky, are you sure there's no weed over here? Because...


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[Assistant] The distance a reindeer can walk before needing to stop and take a piss as they can't do it at the same time.


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[Assistant] When's the last time you remember pestin' yourself? You told us a story about, about, uh, Gerald Ford.


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[Assistant] No, I didn't. It was pretty weird. It was weird. He's like, oh, I just looked up the airplane. Oh, I got pissed in the face again. You guys are lying.


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[Assistant] What's a half cough? Like paw coffee?


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[Assistant] Pizza face. We met Paul Coffee. He has a car dealership now.


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[Assistant] What do you got about him? Let's hear a coffee story.


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[Assistant] Ross Courtney. Oh Ross, yeaah. Ross Courtney and me and Paul Coffey and first shift, guess who gets the fucking gold? Coffey sets me up in the slot, boom.


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[Assistant] Watch himself. I'll fight Reggie Leach.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that would be wicked, that would be cool. Oh, you just tell me when and I'll be there. People call me, like when we play ball hockey in Sunnyvale, everybody refers to me as young Wayne Gretzky. Don't they?


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[Assistant] I don't know, just the way I move, you know, reminds people of Gretzky.


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[Assistant] Glenn Sather. Glenn Sather said he saw me.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he's, I mean, there you go. That's right. There you fucking go. Maybe I do look like him. Maybe we're both very cool looking. Do you ever think of that?


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[Assistant] People in Helsinki walk their cats in the park on leashes. No free range kitties allowed. And hold cat agility competitions.


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[Assistant] Con Air, Marty McSully was in that. Was he? I was supposed to be in it. They were.


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[Assistant] Everybody just remembers the fucking final score.


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[Assistant] It's true. And if you won, you know, five Stanley Cops, obviously you're doing something right.


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[Assistant] The liquor is fucking just like drinking gasoline, in my opinion. Well, I'll have to try it out, bubs.


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[Assistant] Oh, I'm keeping the vodka. I'll just drink that straight.


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[Assistant] Maybe we should go to the bar and have a drink. Last night in Helsinki.


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[Assistant] Oh, straight, like not, not drunk. What the fuck did you think?


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[Assistant] You know, I haven't met Wayne yet. Gotta meet him someday. Gotta meet Masha, Gary Curry. I met.


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[Assistant] He was, you know, it seemed like he was like superhuman. He was. He was lefty. Yeaah. He was unbelievable. Grand Fuhrer.


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[Assistant] Samyaki, alright. This is Over and Out from Helsinki, Finland.


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[Assistant] It wasn't the sort of trouble that you'd expect from an unhappy tenant and his cranky landlord, but the way it all went down, well, it's the perfect sort of story that lore fans love.


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[Assistant] William Kent was a loan shark from Norfolk, England, whose wife passed away in 1758.


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[Assistant] A year later he found love again, but this time with his dead wife's sister. And since church law prevented marriage between a widower and close family like that, they did the next best thing. They moved to London, got a room together, and kept a low profile.


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[Assistant] Except, well, their landlord Richard Parsons wasn't the easiest to get along with. I won't bore you with the specifics, but the end result was a legal battle between William and Richard that created a lot of bad blood. When Richard's new lover passed away from smallpox, it must have felt like the world was crashing down around him. And that's when the hauntings began.


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[Assistant] A spirit filled William's lodgings with all sorts of odd noises. And after large crowds and a seance or two, William's old landlord claimed that the ghost told him a secret. That William had murdered his lover and possibly his wife before as well.


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[Assistant] But the ghost, it turns out, was nothing more than the landlord's daughter, Elizabeth. The father was prosecuted, found guilty, and sentenced to two years in prison, while the rest of the community had to come to terms with the realization that the whole haunting story had been just one big lie.


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[Assistant] Oh, and because both my American and British listeners meet a good giggle every once in a while, the haunted house was located on Cock Lane, and the dead mistress's name was Fanny. Do with that what you will.


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[Assistant] In all seriousness though, some things are too good to be true. A guaranteed investment, a sure bet, and yes, even a good old-fashioned haunting. We want to believe, but at the end of the day, all we're guaranteed to find is disappointment.


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[Assistant] At least, that's usually the case. Because as frightening as it is to consider, as with most things in life, there are always exceptions.


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[Assistant] To understand their story, we first need to understand the family. The Burnettes were farmers living a simple life in rural South Carolina in the early 1800s. If you want specifics, their homestead was situated in Greenwood County, pretty close to where US Highway 25 is today.


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[Assistant] At the time, folks would have told you their farm was in the town of Edgefield. To the Burnett family though, it was just home.


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[Assistant] Isaac and Hetty had lived there for a long while too, and had been, well, busy. By the time this story kicks off in 1828, they had eight children. The oldest was 17, and the youngest wasn't even a year old yet. Like I said, busy.


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[Assistant] In October of 1828 though, something arrived to test their metal. It started about 20 yards from the family home, in a thicket at the edge of the property. What was it?


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[Assistant] No one could see it exactly, but they could certainly hear it. The sounds rotated through imitations of all sorts of common noises, like a spinning wheel, ducks and hens, that sort of thing. And when Isaac couldn't find the source, he assumed it was a neighbor's kid having some fun.


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[Assistant] But that all changed one afternoon when Isaac and Hetty were sitting outside on their porch, and they heard whistling coming up the path toward their house. Isaac wondered out loud if it was one of their neighbors, a guy named Bob Jones, who had told Isaac that he planned to take his kids possum hunting that evening. But try as they might, they couldn't see the person doing the whistling.


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[Assistant] Which was all the more frightening when the invisible voice grew louder, moved straight up the path to the house, and then said good evening before passing through the open door. A moment later, everyone could hear the whistling again, this time from the loft above their living space.


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[Assistant] Now, it's important to understand the geography of the Burnett household. It was a simple farmhouse that consisted of one massive room where everything happened. There was no basement beneath it, and the loft that I just mentioned was honestly just a handful of planks that had been laid across the rafters above the room.


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[Assistant] So when you imagine the interior of their home, just think of the phrase, nowhere to hide, because that pretty much sums it up.


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[Assistant] The mysterious noises weren't a frequent occurrence at this point. One report says that they happened about once a month. But in a household with only three adults, counting Mr. and Mrs. Burnett and an older enslaved woman, it was bound to be the kids who became the most involved. Yes, Isaac Burnett was irritated by it. But the children? Well, they started to communicate with it.


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[Assistant] One of the kids, we don't have a record of which one, sadly, claimed that he could interpret the odd sounds and chirps that the invisible entity was making. He even asked it questions, and this sort of interaction caused the parents to worry quite a bit. Although, at that point, there was something bigger to be concerned about. The visitors.


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[Assistant] You see, people are curious by nature. So when a community hears that there's a house in town that has some ghostly lodger answering questions from the kids, they all wanted to see it. In a matter of speaking, of course. Pretty soon, the Burnett household was packed with neighbors and strangers alike.


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[Assistant] They came from both near and far, but there are two visitors that played a more central role. The first was the local minister, Reverend Nicholas Ware Hodges, who showed up ready to fight, expecting this ghost to be a demon of some sort. After holding a handful of meetings there at the house in an attempt to communicate with the spirit,


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[Assistant] One thing became clear. The ghost did not care for Reverend Hodges or his religious talk.


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[Assistant] And then there was James Shepherd, one of the Burnett's neighbors. He apparently managed to have full conversations with the ghost. He asked it all sorts of questions about the people in the neighborhood, and the voice replied with correct answers, astounding everyone who had gathered to watch.


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[Assistant] At one point he even asked the ghost why it had picked the Burnett's Loft as a place to live. Its reply?


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[Assistant] Because there was no other place to go. Which honestly sounds like a great answer to that age-old riddle. Why did the chicken cross the road, right?


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[Assistant] And then Shepard made a mistake. Looking for more questions to ask and wanting to please his tight-knit Baptist community, he asked one last question. Did the ghost love Jesus Christ? Its response? Silence.


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[Assistant] Apparently the answer was an unspoken no. Something that worried those who had gathered there. And with that, James Shepherd, the man who had become a sort of ghost whisperer for the Burnettes, lost his access. And he would never get it back.


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[Assistant] There will always be skeptics. I don't mean that in a negative way. Skepticism is a healthy part of the search for truth. We will always need people who question popular assumptions. In the case of the Burnett family though, there were plenty of people who weren't exactly convinced about this ghostly voice.


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[Assistant] There was, as you'd expect, that old accusation of ventriloquism. One of the kids, they suggested, was simply throwing their voice, playing the entire community for a fool.


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[Assistant] But right away, some problems with that idea arose. For one, if it really was the kids, you'd expect that they would play the same tricks at school or over at friends' houses. But they never did.


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[Assistant] If the sounds seemed like they were coming from the fireplace, for example, someone would creep around to that spot on the outside of the house, presumably where the tricky child could not see, and then catch them. Instead, the voice would simply stop when they approached, each and every time.


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[Assistant] Others suspected the enslaved black woman who had an outdoor kitchen a few yards from the house. But the voice had been heard when no one else was home beside the three-year-old and the infant. And some just assumed one of the kids was hiding in the shadows of the corner of the main room. But the voice was also heard in broad daylight when there were no shadows to hide in. People just assumed it was fake.


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[Assistant] One article from the time in the New York Post said,


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[Assistant] The Edgefield ghost is almost as ingenious and mysterious a spirit as the celebrated Cock Lane ghost, which puzzled so many wise and worthy men in London fifty years ago. It will turn out that somebody is practicing upon the credulity of the good people of Edgefield.


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[Assistant] Try as they might though, no one was able to offer proof that the voice was just a prank, which led to the most common assumption of all, that the Burnettes were the victims of a supernatural visitor. And as the voice started to be heard more and more frequently, that didn't feel like a good thing.


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[Assistant] Most disturbing of all, though, was the way the invisible entity began to focus on one of their children, their younger daughter, Martha. But while the ghost seemed to care for her, it wasn't mutual. In fact, Martha would frequently run out of the house to escape it, and even then, that wasn't always enough.


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[Assistant] Once while returning home from school, the voice called out that she got close to the house, declaring that she got a whipping at school today. Martha was terrified, partly because of the ghostly voice, but mostly because what it said was true, which means it was following her and watching her.


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[Assistant] As kids do, Martha told one of her good friends about the problem, and that pious friend offered another solution. Remembering that the ghost didn't care for Reverend Hodges and went silent when James Shepherd mentioned Jesus, Martha's friend recommended that she memorize a Bible passage and quote that to the voice whenever it harassed her.


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[Assistant] As predicted, the voice appeared to her not long after that. And Martha, having done her homework, managed to remember the scripture she had committed to memory. Summoning as much courage as she could, the little girl recited the words out loud to the invisible entity. And the response was telling. Hold your jaw, the voice told her. But Martha kept going. And just like the Reverend and their neighbor, James Shepherd, the ghost got the hint. It never bothered poor Martha.


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[Assistant] By May of 1829, it had been seven months. That's seven months of living with eight kids in a one-room house with an invisible being haunting you from the loft space above everything you do. Seven months of visits from curious neighbors and strangers alike. Seven months of no peace.


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[Assistant] Newspapers everywhere were covering the events. I quoted the New York Post a few minutes ago and that should tell you how far and why the tales were spreading. Everyone was watching to see what would happen next, an early 19th century version of the O.J. Simpson trial in a way.


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[Assistant] It tended to communicate in whistles and bird-like sounds, and could be summoned by calling upon it. Someone even managed to get the voice to name itself, although I can't seem to discover whether anyone ever wrote it down for us.


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[Assistant] And of course, they now understood how much it hated religious talk. Passages from the Bible, church hymns, and even just questions about religious matters. All of it had a way of shutting the ghost up for a while.


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[Assistant] But on May 26th of 1829, a way out of their mess presented itself, and they took advantage of it.


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[Assistant] That was the day Reverend Hodges heard from a local woman that the spirit was active and talking. So he grabbed James Shepherd, our former ghost whisperer, and together they headed over to the Burnett farm.


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[Assistant] The two men wouldn't go inside, though. You see, they knew that the voice spent most of its time talking to the kids, and they were certain that it would go silent the moment the reverend stepped foot inside the house. So instead, they got creative.


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[Assistant] The men asked the kids to stay inside and keep the spirit talking to them. Hodges and Shepard listened from the other side of the door, which was ever so slightly ajar. And as they did, they passed questions to one of the young Burnett boys who stood on the other side. And he, in turn, would ask those questions of the ghost.


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[Assistant] According to Hodges, most of the replies from the invisible voice sounded more like bird sounds than actual words. But despite that, the boy interpreted the noises for him, whispering them back through the cracked door. And then he had the boy ask about him specifically.


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[Assistant] The ghost, in reply, made it clear that it did not care for Reverend Hodges. And that's when Hodges burst into the house and shouted out that he had come to drive the spirits away. Considering how much the ghost seemed to be aware of things outside of the home, it was caught off guard. Still, it pushed back.


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[Assistant] Do if you dare, it challenged the minister. So Hodges asked it to whistle the tune of one of his favorite church hymns. The ghost declined though, opting instead to whistle Yankee Doodle. It seems that Reverend Hodges had failed, but the head of the household, Isaac Burnett, would eventually manage to get the job done.


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[Assistant] It's reported that he took the family Bible up into the loft and left it there.


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[Assistant] Instantly, according to an article in the Evening Post, it left the place, came down into the house, and said it was going away. They asked it why it was going away. It replied it was obliged to go. It could stay no longer and bade them farewell.


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[Assistant] So, where did it go? Well it seems that it spent the next two weeks touring the rest of the Edgefield community, popping into a number of other houses, where the people inside all heard the voice clearly. And the most amazing thing about those supernatural house calls?


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[Assistant] No member of the Burnett family was present in any of the houses in which the voice appeared.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of unexplainable things in our world. Even now, deep into the era of modern science and groundbreaking technology, we're still left baffled by the occasional mystery. And I think that's why the story of the brunettes in Edgefield, South Carolina hits home for so many of us. We are, even today, part of a long line of people with questions, and we just want answers.


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[Assistant] It's easy to resonate with the frustration that the Burnettes must have felt. From the general disturbances inside their family home, to the specific harassment of little Martha, there's nothing about their experience that seems fun or benign. They were haunted, in the literal sense of the word, month after month after month.


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[Assistant] That two week break at the end of May of 1929 must have been wonderful though. But like all vacations, that moment of bliss had to come to an end. In early June, the voice was back. But rather than head back up into the loft, it called out from all sorts of other corners and locations. Maybe that family bible was doing the trick.


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[Assistant] Instances of hearing the voice, however, dwindled over the coming weeks. The last time it was heard in the Burnett house was in October, marking a full calendar year since its arrival. But just because the voice seemed to be gone doesn't mean that it would soon be forgotten. In fact, the Burnettes and others would be writing about it for decades to come.


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[Assistant] Over the years, people have speculated. What exactly was the Edgefield Ghost? Some believe it was an evil spirit, like a demon. One apocryphal story has Reverend Hodges using that popular quote, Get thee behind me, Satan, and causing the voice to vanish forever. But that only appears in the 1950s.


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[Assistant] To this day, no good explanation has been offered. At least none that have the proof to back them up.


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[Assistant] And while the stories of the ghostly voice have remained like a spirit that haunts the area's history, the Burnett farm has sadly gone away. Fire consumed the place in the 1940s, leaving us nothing but tall grass and trees. Thanks to that, and the passage of nearly two centuries,


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[Assistant] The story of the Edgefield Ghost has become one of those iconic episodes in South Carolina's more unusual history. An entire family, held hostage by an invisible entity for an entire year. It's hard to find another haunting with as many interesting lessons and unanswered questions.


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[Assistant] But South Carolina has more in store for us, and if we head toward the coast, there's one more tale of ghostly visitors that needs retold. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] The east coast of the United States has a few popular seaside destinations for those who want to get away. The Outer Banks, the Hamptons, even Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket come to mind.


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[Assistant] But 200 years ago, the first big seaside resort was Pawleys Island, just off the coast of South Carolina. It was a popular spot for wealthy plantation owners to get away from their life deeper inland and spend time in their fancy ocean view properties.


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[Assistant] Polly's Island is a lot like the Outer Banks farther north, being less of a stereotypical island and more of a slice of coastline that's become separated from the mainland. It's basically four miles of beaches and houses, right at the edge of nature. And nature, as we know, can sometimes be brutal. Polly's Island, though, has one other feature.


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[Assistant] A ghost. And there are a few different stories at the root of it. Explanations by people over the years for why the ghost is even there. And most of them start centuries ago.


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[Assistant] One legend tells the story of a young sailor in Charleston who was in love with the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. In 1822, after two years of passionate letters and boundless love, he boarded a ship and made way to Pauley's Island, where his true love was staying at her family's summer home.


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[Assistant] But the weather did not play along with his romantic plans, and even though the household prepared a grand dinner to receive him, his ship went down in a terrible storm.


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[Assistant] The young man though somehow managed to survive, only to make it to shore and be swallowed up by a pit of quicksand.


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[Assistant] However the young sailor died, his beloved was left to grieve and mourn, and took to long walks on the beach. Maybe she needed time by herself, or perhaps being close to the cold gray sea was her way of staying close to him. But one day while out on her walk, she spotted a figure in the gray clothing of a sailor, so she approached him.


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[Assistant] The legend tells us that it was the ghost of her dead lover, and he had a warning for her. Another terrible storm was coming, and if she did not urge her family to leave, they would lose everything.


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[Assistant] Taking the ghost at its word, she rushed home, forced her household to pack up, and they escaped the storm. Every house in the area was destroyed, they say. Except hers.


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[Assistant] One other theory claims that the story actually begins in the 1700s.


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[Assistant] When a young woman from a wealthy Charleston family rejected all of her suitors in favor of a man known to be a little wild and rebellious. And because both of their parents refused to allow the young couple to get married, the man is sent by his family to tour Europe for a few months, hoping that it would put an end to their romance.


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[Assistant] But word soon came to the young woman that her lover died in a duel in Europe, and after a period of mourning she eventually married a rich widower. Maybe it was their shared grief that brought them together, or just the need for companionship. Soon though, they had a growing family and found a path toward happiness.


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[Assistant] In the summer of 1778 though, a ship was wrecked off the coast of Polly's island where she was staying with her children, and only one sailor survived. The servants of the house brought the man into one of the bedrooms and provided medical help, saving his life. And in the morning, the mistress of the house came in to see how he was doing. When she saw the man, she fainted.


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[Assistant] It was her long lost beloved, back from Europe where he did not in fact, die tragically in a duel.


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[Assistant] Frightened by her response, the man jumped out of the bed and left the house. True to the fairy tale nature of the story, it's said that he died a short time later, possibly from some tragic illness.


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[Assistant] Whatever the truth at the center of the legend really is, it manifests today in a common sighting known as the Grey Man. Just like the first story, he is often seen as a ghostly man dressed in the grey clothing of an old sailor, right down to the jackets and hat.


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[Assistant] Whenever people spot him, it's apparently an ill omen that should definitely be heeded. All before vanishing in a puff of mist, his voice blending into the sounds of the harsh wind of the approaching storm.


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[Assistant] In 1893, for example, the Grey Man was spotted right before a tidal wave caused by a hurricane crashed over the island.


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[Assistant] In 1954, he was seen again, followed immediately by Hurricane Hazel. Locals spotted him just before Hurricane Hugo made landfall in 1989, and again before 2018's Hurricane Florence.


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[Assistant] Most chilling of all, though, is how his appearance seems to have helped certain households escape the ravages of these storms. One woman claimed that a neighbor of hers on the island had encountered the Grey Man, and after returning to the island after Hurricane Hazel in 1954, that neighbor discovered all of the other houses destroyed. Theirs, however, was still standing.


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[Assistant] Most chilling of all is the claim that nothing near their house had moved an inch. Even the beach towels they left on their railing, they said, were right where they'd left them.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Cassandra de Alba and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life.


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[Assistant] Information about all of that and more is available over at LorePodcast.com.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow this show on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Not really Ricky, I don't think you can sue the man cause he's...


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[Assistant] Okay, so what's the most fucked up thing you've ever had to deal with? Ricky.


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[Assistant] How come, I noticed on the set, how come you always keep like a bunch of young, young boys around?


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[Assistant] I, you wouldn't believe I've seen kitties do things that would blow your mind. I guarantee you, he probably heard it. They have lightning quick ear flexes, ear reflexes. So he heard it. He probably assessed the situation very quickly.


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[Assistant] You know, triangulate it where the shot came from, with a super hearing, saw the bullet coming through, and just lapped in front of it. I guarantee you, there's not a chance. Why is there not a chance?


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[Assistant] You ever hear the fucking saying, Ricky, reflexes like a cat? That's why they can hear bullets coming and they can...


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[Assistant] Ronnie Pumpkin had, he was a supercat. He came to me one day, I was in the shed cocking, and I hear, meh, meh, and I look down and there's Ronnie and he's doing this.


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[Assistant] I did that so I followed him. I was like, what is it? So he started running and he keeps looking back over his shoulder to make sure I'm following him. And I followed him down.


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[Assistant] Past the firm there, old, the old firm. Down to where the store is.


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[Assistant] I'm telling ya, and I fucking saw him and I went over to the phone booth and I called 911 and I said, uh, me and my cat would like to report a armed robbery in progress at the store.


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[Assistant] Ronnie Pumpkin did that, he saved the day. Now you tell me that's not a fucking super cat.


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[Assistant] Judge Joe Brown was fighting another judge? Well yeaah.


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[Assistant] It's actually here, Julian Luck. $50 in free Star Kiss Tuna or $25 check from class action lawsuit.


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[Assistant] No, I tell them straight up, I say, this is a treat, guys. Just so you know, don't get accustomed to it. But I've been feeding them, I've been giving them nice fucking grass-fed organic stuff.


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[Assistant] But is he saying put up a wall and then that's it, there's no borders, there's nobody in or out? Or is he saying let's put up a wall but we'll


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[Assistant] Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books. So if you're ready, let's begin.


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[Assistant] Word association is a powerful concept. It's that thing that happens when someone says a word and hearing it immediately triggers something else.


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[Assistant] If I say vampire, you'll most likely think of Dracula, despite popular culture being filled with other examples. And the word clown, for most of you, triggers the image of the grinning monster from Stephen King's masterpiece, It.


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[Assistant] For Americans, if I mention witchcraft, the first thing that would come to mind is actually the name of a location. It's a place that has become synonymous with false accusations, kangaroo courts, and hangings that occurred during the early 1690s. Salem.


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[Assistant] But witchcraft wasn't confined to just one part of New England. In fact, witches were prominent all over the eastern seaboard, including some places you might not have expected. After all, a witch wasn't a witch because of where she lived.


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[Assistant] And if there's one thing that women all over the colonies of early New England could count on, it was that they would always have challenges to face. Which is why so many of their stories have such a familiar flavor.


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[Assistant] In central New Jersey, about 10 minutes from Rutgers University, there is a town. It was once home to a band of indigenous Lenape, known as the Raritan, who were pushed out when the Europeans arrived during the 17th century.


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[Assistant] The village that was built there was called Piscataway Town, and at its center was the St. James Church. Piscataway Town eventually broke up into several different settlements, mainly Piscataway, Raritan Township, and Woodbridge.


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[Assistant] But in 1876, inventor Thomas Edison moved to the area and set up shop in a small unincorporated community known as Menlo Park.


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[Assistant] Clearly, Edison made a name for himself, and folks were proud to call him one of their own. So in 1954, to honor the controversial inventor, Raritan Township was renamed after him. It has been known ever since as Edison.


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[Assistant] The big part of Edison, New Jersey is that St. James Church I mentioned a moment ago, along with its accompanying burial ground. The Piscataway Town burial ground is amongst the oldest in Middlesex County, and the oldest grave within its borders dates all the way back to 1693.


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[Assistant] It belongs to the Hooper Brothers, two young children who tragically died after eating poisonous mushrooms.


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[Assistant] But the grounds are also home to many other notable individuals who shaped the landscape of both the Garden State and the country as a whole. Among those interred are members of the town's founding families, British Revolutionary War soldiers, Civil War soldiers, and a man named Thomas Harper.


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[Assistant] Harper apparently declined to move for an incoming tornado in 1835, refusing to give in to the fear of the wrath of God. Needless to say, that didn't work out too well for him. But perhaps the most well-known burial of them all is that of Mary Moore, the witch of Edison.


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[Assistant] It's hard to know what of Mary's story, if anything, is true, as there are contradicting variations, but much of her legend centers on several key details.


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[Assistant] For example, Mary was a local colonial woman who was not on the best terms with her neighbors. They thought that she was odd. According to the local historical society, Mary, and I quote, caused animals to do strange things, she grew strange plants, and she dressed like a witch.


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[Assistant] Unsurprisingly, Mary was formally accused of witchcraft and was executed in October of 1731. She was only 40 years old at the time.


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[Assistant] Now, according to some people, she was hanged for her crimes. Others believe that she was burned at the stake, although that's just an expression of the common misconception that American witches were burned. One version of events even claim that she poisoned herself after murdering her own husband.


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[Assistant] But regardless of the method of her death, things started to take a dark turn after she was gone. The prevailing story is that Mary was buried beneath a simple headstone in the back corner of the Piscataway town burial ground. But that's not the tale known by locals.


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[Assistant] They heard that after her execution, the townsfolk feared that Mary would rise from the dead, so they did what any unreasonable mob would do. They cut her body into three separate pieces and buried them in three separate cemeteries.


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[Assistant] Since then, her legend has only grown. It's said that Mary Moore's spirit haunts Piscataway town burial ground, and that if you walk around her grave three times and spit, her ghost will appear.


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[Assistant] Back in the 1970s, a local named Deborah once snuck into the cemetery with a few of her middle school classmates. They claimed that they stood a lit lighter on the ground in place of a candle in an attempt to conjure Mary's ghost.


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[Assistant] After a short time, the lighter began sliding across the ground, as if being pushed by an invisible force. They moved a good seven feet, although neither Deborah nor her friends had their hands anywhere near it. Panicked, the kids fled the scene, with one of them snatching up the lighter on the way out.


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[Assistant] Another witness remembered school children whispering about the terrible curse that would befall anyone who circled her grave while chanting, I hate Mary Moore. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to verify the accuracy of the claims today. And now, Mary's headstone is no longer in the cemetery. Which, honestly, might be a good thing. Where did it go?


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[Assistant] Well, it was stolen by two teenage brothers back in 1975. It's said that the boys had been dragging Mary's gravestone across Route 1, a major highway that runs from the tip of Florida through New Jersey and all the way to the Canadian border in Maine. And while doing so, one of the young thieves was struck by a passing car and killed.


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[Assistant] The other boy, terrified that Mary had placed a curse on them, smashed the marker into several pieces, destroying it. And because of that, those who visit the cemetery today have no way of locating Mary Moore's final resting place.


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[Assistant] Of course, skeptics claim that this is just a convenient way to explain the absence of a grave that never existed in the first place. But many people still believe the headstone was indeed stolen.


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[Assistant] But why are they so sure? Because they remember the names of the boys who took it, John and Michael Porubski. Sadly, John died when he was 19 years old, on Christmas Eve, no less. And how did he die? He was hit by a car, crossing Route 1.


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[Assistant] One last legend. It's been said that Mary's damaged headstone did eventually get returned to the cemetery, but what little remains of it has become overgrown over the years by poison ivy.


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[Assistant] Thanks to the stories about her, it seems that even in death, no one is willing to get too close to her. Lest they suffer. The consequences.


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[Assistant] Eunice Cole was born in England around 1580. She and her husband William had worked as indentured servants for Matthew Craddock, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. But he allowed them to pay off their debts early and to join other settlers heading to the New World.


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[Assistant] And so in 1638, William and Eunice packed up their lives and headed across the Atlantic to start again. They first arrived in Quincy, Massachusetts, before finally settling in Hampton, New Hampshire on a gorgeous 40-acre parcel of land.


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[Assistant] Now, back then, just like today, people who move to a new area often use the opportunity as a clean slate. A way to reinvent themselves and establish good relations with their community. Eunice, though, apparently didn't get that memo.


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[Assistant] In fact, she had numerous run-ins with the law after her arrival, which did not endear her to the local magistrates. Among her charges? Being accused of slanderous speech. And it was that specific charge that would lead to one of the most dreaded accusations any woman could face at the time. That she was, in fact, a witch.


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[Assistant] She had become associated with witchcraft after making loud claims about knowing there were witches in town and where they lived. To the other colonists, she must have been one of them if she knew so much. She was often seen mumbling to herself, and her appearance was disheveled, which her neighbors used as evidence against her.


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[Assistant] Looking back though, it's clear that Eunice, who everyone referred to as Goodie Cole, was being targeted because she was just a rude, strong-willed woman who didn't shy away from speaking her mind.


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[Assistant] There were other rumors after that, like the claim that she had hexed two calves belonging to Thomas Philbrick after catching them grazing on her lawn. She told Philbrick that if she saw them on her property again, she'd hope the grass would choke them to death. And a short time later, those cows died.


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[Assistant] Those rumors and accusations eventually culminated in her first witch trial, which was held in Boston in 1656. Much of the community made the trip to the courthouse to accuse her and testify against her. That's how unliked she was.


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[Assistant] Salisbury Constable Richard Ornsby also conducted an examination of her body. He stripped her down and found a witch's mark on her skin, which he described as, and I quote, a blue thing like unto a teat hanging downward, about three quarters of an inch long.


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[Assistant] And this birthmark, along with the community's testimony against her, were enough to convict Goodie Cole of familiarity with the devil. She was sentenced to be whipped, and then imprisoned indefinitely for her crimes.


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[Assistant] For the next 17 years, Goody Cole moved in and out of jail. During that time, she was given repeated chances to return to life on the farm, on the condition that she behave herself. But, you know Goody Cole, that just wasn't possible.


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[Assistant] More jail, the death of her husband, and the loss of her estates pretty much took everything she had away.


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[Assistant] In 1673, things came to a head when she was accused of the unthinkable, stealing someone else's child. According to one local woman, Goody Cole had approached a young girl named Ann Smith and tried to bribe her with food to come live with her.


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[Assistant] When she refused, Goody Cole used threats of violence and even transformed into a variety of animals. But none of her efforts worked.


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[Assistant] This sordid tale, compounded with other accusations of witchcraft, was enough to put her on trial once more. Surprisingly though, the court didn't think they had enough evidence to convict her, and so she was released yet again. No matter what she did though, she could not escape the scorn of the community.


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[Assistant] In 1680, she was hauled before the court for a third time and then thrown in jail. It seems a local mother was convinced that her new baby had been replaced with a changeling and that Goody Cole was responsible.


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[Assistant] Driven mad by this perceived loss of her child, the woman begged her husband to put the child in the fire. A common folk remedy for that sort of situation. But thankfully, he refused, and she quickly came to her senses.


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[Assistant] Realizing her terrible mistake, she hurried to the courthouse to plead for Goody Cole's freedom. And it worked. The 90-year-old Goody was set free once more, although sadly she died about a month after her return home.


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[Assistant] According to the legends about her, the townsfolk drove an iron stake through her heart following her death. Then her frail, lifeless body was dumped in a ditch at a crossroads, and her grave was marked with a horseshoe, preventative measures often used in the burial of witches.


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[Assistant] Today her restless spirit is rumored to haunt Hampton, perhaps as punishment for the way she was treated by her neighbors. But her story is also a miraculous one. Not only did she live to be 90, but she survived not one, but three witch trials and was allowed to pass away in her own home. And more importantly, on her own terms.


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[Assistant] In 1691, a magazine called the Athenian Mercury published an article about a ship. It was called the Recovery, and it had experienced a series of small disasters in its relatively short life.


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[Assistant] But those small disasters had started to add up to bigger problems while the recovery was at sea. Parts of the ship started to break, the crew came down with a terrible sickness, and people on board were dying.


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[Assistant] Now, clearly, life on the high seas was rough, even more so back then. Not everyone was cut out for it. Maybe these stories were just their way of coping with the fact that they couldn't hack it as sailors. Or perhaps there was something more nefarious at play.


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[Assistant] It started on October 23rd of 1674, when the recovery first set sail from Plymouth, England, bound for Virginia. The ship was immediately met with bad winds that split several masts and sails, broke the running rigging, and caused the loss of the anchors. You don't have to know a lot about ships to know that the wind seemed to break everything.


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[Assistant] According to the Captain, what was mended one day would the next be in pieces.


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[Assistant] But before long, the winds calmed down and the ship continued onward. It was headed toward Portugal, where it was supposed to collect a shipment of wine. But the recovery's bad fortune seemed to follow it wherever it sailed.


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[Assistant] Started to believe them, because after that their problems only got worse.


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[Assistant] Once they were back on the water, they noticed how pieces of the ship continued to break and fall off. As the captain put it, neither iron, wood, ropes, or canvas would hold. Ironic that a ship called the Recovery could not bounce back from its problems, no matter how hard the crew tried.


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[Assistant] But that wasn't all, because misfortune only escalated from there.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, the ship had to face its first death when a passenger fell overboard and drowned. And that event opened a proverbial can of worms. Or maybe Pandora's Box, depending on how you look at it.


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[Assistant] One death soon became two after a man was hurled off the main top mast toward the stern of the ship and drowned underneath. And then a third death quickly followed when another man tumbled over the upper deck and also drowned.


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[Assistant] On top of these freak accidents, the surviving passengers and crew were also struck by illness. It didn't kill them, but it didn't make them stronger either. It left them weakened and incapacitated. And so the whispers about witchcraft continued to grow.


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[Assistant] One afternoon, word spread across the ship that there was not only one witch on board the recovery, but also two in England conspiring against them. The ship's master prayed for God to reveal the reason for their miseries, and as though he were being answered by God directly, he spotted one particular passenger acting in a strange manner.


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[Assistant] Her name was Elizabeth Masters. She was the only woman on deck, and she was on her knees near the ship's tack, the rope holding down the lower corner of one of the sails, and her hands were lifted in prayer.


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[Assistant] The following day, that same tack snapped, despite there being almost no wind. Soon after, the foresail broke, and it looked as though someone was deliberately tampering with the recovery. So the shipmaster did the only thing he could do.


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[Assistant] He locked Elizabeth Masters in steerage, hoping that keeping her off the deck would prevent any further catastrophes.


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[Assistant] But moving her to a different part of the ship didn't help. As they headed toward the West Indies, the crew decided to take stock of the beverages they still had on hand. A long journey required copious amounts of alcohol and water for everyone on board.


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[Assistant] As they inventoried the hold though, they noticed that much of their beer was missing, and a short time later, the water ran out.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, more of the ship continued to break as ropes snapped and sails collapsed. One man, a passenger named William Reynolds, claimed that Elizabeth Masters had come to him in the dead of night asking him to join her gang, offering him vast riches if he complied. She claimed to have known his mother, who she declared was also a witch.


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[Assistant] There was just one problem. Elizabeth was still locked in steerage with no method of escape.


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[Assistant] Reynolds refused her offer, of course, a decision that seemed to have an ill effect on the rest of the recovery.


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[Assistant] Ghostly black cats began to appear on board, running and disappearing before they could be caught. One passenger managed to corner one of the black cats and attack it with a sword. He hit it three times before it vanished into thin air. The demonic cats popped up sporadically after that though, leaving everyone on edge.


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[Assistant] Quartermaster Frederick Johnson reported that while out for a smoke late on the evening of December 6th, a black cat appeared from out of steerage, where Elizabeth Masters was still being held. According to his testimony, no cats had ever been brought onto the ship.


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[Assistant] And then one night the hauntings became more tangible. A crew member named William Goodfellow awoke in the night to the strange sensation of something heavy walking on him. He opened his eyes and looked around, but nothing was there.


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[Assistant] When he examined his body though, he discovered something that sent a chill down his spine.


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[Assistant] Right there, imprinted on his thigh in purple and black, like a bruise that was a week old, was a curious mark he couldn't explain away. It was as if whatever had walked over him had been so heavy, it had gone right through his clothes. It was the footprint of a cat.


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[Assistant] Some stories are just too classic to be ignored. There's a reason Hollywood keeps coming back to vampires and monsters, after all. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And when it comes to witchcraft, that couldn't be more true.


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[Assistant] The stories about witches that people have whispered over the centuries always seem to have a certain common element. They frequently feature women who were either outsiders or rebels against the common social codes of their day. And in most stories, the community was experiencing mysterious and unfortunate events.


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[Assistant] No one likes bad news, and everyone needs someone to blame for their troubles. And that's pretty much the core of most witch tales. And on the recovery, that was certainly the reality they were all dealing with.


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[Assistant] After William Goodfellow's mysterious cat paw-shaped bruise, months passed by, and Elizabeth remained locked up in steerage. Yet, despite being out of sight, she refused to let the crew put her out of mind.


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[Assistant] In December of 1674, a woman on board named Mary Leary had discovered bruises along her lower back, hips, and buttocks. She was convinced that it was the witch's doing, but she also had an idea for a helpful remedy. Perhaps Elizabeth's blood could heal her.


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[Assistant] And it must have worked, too, because word of Elizabeth's healing blood spread among everyone on board. Pretty soon, sick and injured passengers were pricking the witch with knives and needles, drawing a bit of her magical blood to smear on themselves.


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[Assistant] What became of them, though, we don't know, because that's where the story of the recovery and its alleged witch, Elizabeth Masters, comes to an end.


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[Assistant] Was the ship truly hexed, or was this a case of superstition and paranoia simply run amok, fueled by a poorly built vessel and an old woman in the wrong place at the wrong time?


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[Assistant] Or worse still, was the entire story, only reported by the Athenian Mercury, simply the creation of someone's imagination?


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[Assistant] We may never get the answer, just like we may never know what happened to Elizabeth Masters. The article ends without ever revealing her fate, but I think it's safe to assume. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.


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[Assistant] Legends of witches litter the halls of history. Everywhere you go, it seems, there are stories about them. So much so that they've become caricatures of their former selves. Nothing more than old hags in black robes and a pointy hat with a cauldron, a broom, and a black hat by their side.


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[Assistant] But that cat isn't always obviously evil. In fact, sometimes the question doesn't have an immediate answer. And one other legend we've tracked down makes that clear.


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[Assistant] Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth Masters may or may not have been a witch, but the men aboard the recovery certainly believe she was. According to their stories, she had been responsible for the mysterious deaths, the damages, and the sickness that plagued their ship for months.


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[Assistant] In all likelihood though, they were simply blaming an innocent woman for the hardships of being at sea. But they also might have been onto something, because deep in the smoky mountains of Georgia, another group of men faced off against an invisible evil. One that would stop at nothing until they were all dead.


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[Assistant] The tale originally appeared in the Journal of American Folklore back in 1894. Although its origins aren't very clear, it began with a mill owned by a man known only as Mr. H.


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[Assistant] Now Mr. H employed a number of workers at his mill, all of whom were unmarried and lived there in the mill when they weren't on the clock.


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[Assistant] But after a while, Mr. H started to notice that the men working for him were getting sick and not recovering. In fact, three Millers in a row had died only a short time apart. Doctors couldn't figure out what was causing these men to perish. It was unlike any disease they had seen before.


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[Assistant] The workers didn't suffer long though, and each one tried to say something to his fellow men before he passed on. It was like they were trying to let others know what was killing them.


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[Assistant] And as they died, one by one, the facility grew increasingly emptier. It developed a reputation of dread and foreboding among the locals, particularly the long, low room near the entrance where all those dead mill workers had once slept.


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[Assistant] After a while, nobody wanted to go near the mill for fear of what might be waiting there for them to strike next. Not until one neighbor volunteered to run the abandoned facility himself. He gathered his things, sharpened his axe, and arrived at his new place of employment, ready to work.


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[Assistant] On his first night, he started a fire in the hearth. It warmed his cold, tired body as he fed it more wood to keep it going. And that's when he spied a dark figure in the shadows, between the chimney and the door.


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[Assistant] It was a small brown cat, crouched low and watching him, presumably trying to get warm itself. The man paid the cat no mind and continued to stoke the fire.


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[Assistant] And when it had finally come to a roar, he sat down in his chair and pulled out his Bible for an evening of study. But something was wrong. He could feel it. A growing sense of dread had washed over him, deepening and soon blossoming into outright horror.


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[Assistant] The cat, also sensing something, crept out from its corner and began yowling and scratching at the door. It wanted out of the room. It turned to the man and rubbed against his legs before looking up at him. And the man went pale.


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[Assistant] It screamed, but not like a cat-like yelp, more like a human woman's pained shriek. It fled the room up the chimney and vanished into the night. Immediately the man left the mill as well and headed home, unwilling to spend the rest of his evening in such a haunted place.


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[Assistant] When he got home, he opened his door to discover his wife on the floor writhing in pain. She was bleeding to death and one of her hands was missing.


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[Assistant] The animals we love and welcome into our homes are more than just pets. They're friends, even family. But they haven't always been seen that way. Because if the legends from folklore are any indication, that cat in the corner licking its paw may not be the mouse-hunting companion that we thought it was.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Jenna Rose Nethercott.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. Information about all of that and more is available over at lorepodcast.com.


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[Assistant] And for fans of video content, lore is also on YouTube. Each new episode is released alongside the podcast, but in talking head style video format. Be sure to subscribe.


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[Assistant] I sometimes wonder if we really, truly understand what the word old means.


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[Assistant] For example, I grew up in a central Illinois town that had old buildings, but it turns out it was only founded in the 1860s.


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[Assistant] Moving out to New England changed my perception of what old actually means. Here we have houses that are close to 400 years old. There's a graveyard about 100 yards from my office window that has tombstones that are older than 95% of this country.


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[Assistant] And if you go to the UK or Europe, that perception is challenged even more.


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[Assistant] We always think the things around us are old, until we discover stuff that's even older. Honestly, it never fails.


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[Assistant] The oldest mummy ever discovered in Egypt was the body of a woman named Lady Rai. Archaeologists believe that she was about 30 years old when she died over 3500 years ago. And her remains have given scientists a great window into the past. And for a century and a half, she has represented a watermark. Until now, that is.


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[Assistant] In late January of 2023, Egyptian archaeologists announced that they had found the mummy of a man who was buried 800 years before Lady Rai, way back in 2300 BC. And it's a discovery that proves yet again that there's always something older just waiting to be discovered.


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[Assistant] Some things feel old simply because we've known about them our entire lives. But for those who know where to look, even the oldest things, like the stories we tell, are hiding an even more ancient origin.


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[Assistant] It's the well from which so many stories have been pulled. Young adult novels, television shows, movies, and comic books, all of them on a pretty regular basis, have lowered their buckets into the depths to pull up a fresh take on an old story. Fairy Tales.


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[Assistant] Of course, Disney is probably the biggest example that comes to mind. Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, these are all stories that existed long before their animators set pen to paper. But just how long before might surprise you?


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[Assistant] That classic story, Beauty and the Beast, according to some scholars, can be traced all the way back to a world before English, French, and Italian were even a thing. Researchers, doctors Sarah Grassa de Silva and Jamshid J. Tarani, published a paper a few years ago that followed the tale back as far as 6,000 years.


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[Assistant] Think about that for a moment. We consider Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, for example, as a classic, and yet it's only a century and a half old. I'm not sure my brain can even classify Beauty and the Beast. A tale as old as time, indeed.


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[Assistant] There are others, too. The story of Rumpelstiltskin might be just as old. And there's a 5,000 year old fairy tale known as The Boy Who Stole the Ogre's Treasure, which we would immediately recognize as Jack and the Beanstalk.


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[Assistant] Now, I think all of us understand how the evolution of these tales worked, right? Over all the centuries, for most of the time, the stories were being passed on by word of mouth. The versions that we have today are mostly the work of curators, like Frenchman Charles Perrault and, a century later, the Grimm brothers. But they did more than just write these tales down. They changed them.


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[Assistant] Perot was a master at this. He loved to add in a key, iconic element to each of his stories. Remember Little Red Riding Hood? Well, she didn't have a red hood until Charles Perot got a hold of her story in the 1690s. Before then, she was just a girl with no identity. Perot's addition helped make her identifiable.


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[Assistant] A century later, the Grimm brothers nicely added the bit where the huntsman saves her by cutting her out of the wolf's stomach, which means that for centuries, perhaps thousands of years, Little Red Riding Hood was simply a terrifying story of an unnamed little girl who gets eaten by a wild animal. The end.


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[Assistant] And how about Snow White? Well, in the oldest version of that story, the woman who wants to kill her is her own mother, not her stepmother, which somehow feels darker, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] And when the Grimm's got a hold of her tail, the Evil Queen becomes her stepmother, but is also a cannibal, requesting that a huntsman bring her the liver and the lungs of Snow White so that she can eat them.


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[Assistant] Oh, and if that wasn't dark enough for you, the Grimm version also features a very dead Snow White. Not just sleeping, dead. And yet, when the prince discovers her body, he tells his men that he wants to bring it home anyway, for, uhm, romantic purposes, shall we say.


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[Assistant] On the way home, they accidentally drop her coffin, and when her body hits the ground, a piece of the poisoned apple gets dislodged from her throat, and she comes back to life. I imagine that was an awkward moment for the two of them.


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[Assistant] One last example, The Little Mermaid. Now that one was written down by Hans Christian Andersen, and has that well-known magical moment where she trades her voice for a pair of human legs. But most people forget that that deal comes with two conditions. First,


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[Assistant] And then Anderson goes on to show us how the mermaid dances for the prince to earn his attention, something that must have been absolute torture for her to do. And in the end, he marries someone else, at which point the mermaid explodes in a cloud of foam. Happy ending? Yeah, maybe. I don't know.


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[Assistant] And that's the thing about these tales. Few of them truly ever are happy stories. Today we see fairy tales as little bite-sized children's stories that teach heartwarming moral lessons. But centuries ago, they were something more. Something darker.


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[Assistant] And yet the darkest of them all is a fairy tale on a whole other level. Not just because it's bloody and violent, but because where it comes from as well. It's a story pulled from the pages of real life.


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[Assistant] Many of you already know the basic story, but let's review it anyway, just in case. It's another gem written down by our good friend Charles Perot as part of a collection that he published in 1697, and it's called Bluebeard.


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[Assistant] The story introduces us to a young woman who marries a wealthy nobleman from the area. He's got a blue beard, too, which was a Charles Perot addition. After their wedding, the couple returned to Bluebeard's massive manor house, and everything seems good and fine. Well, except for the rumor that Bluebeard's previous wives had all mysteriously disappeared.


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[Assistant] Well then one day, he needs to make a trip, and he hands the keys to the manor to his new wife. Explore, he tells her. Go enjoy the luxury I've surrounded you with. But he does have one small condition. The closet door at the end of the Great Hall is off limits. Open any door you want, he tells her. Accept that one. If she does, he'll be sure to punish her.


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[Assistant] And you know how this is going to play out, right? Bluebeard leaves, she goes exploring, and she's never really satisfied until she sees what's behind that forbidden door. Perhaps it's treasure. Maybe it's like Monica's closet on Friends, and that's where he puts all of his mess and chaos. She just wants to know.


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[Assistant] Upon opening the door though, she discovers the bodies of all of his previous wives hanging from hooks in the ceiling, with pools of blood all over the floor.


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[Assistant] In her fright, she drops the key to the room, and when she picks it up, she notices that there's blood on it. No problem, right? She can just clean it.


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[Assistant] Well she tries, but she's never able to get all of the blood off.


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[Assistant] And then Bluebeard returns home. He inspects the key and spots the blood, like some medieval CSI expert. And naturally he gets very upset and is about to kill her when, surprise surprise, her brothers burst the door in and rescue her, killing him instead.


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[Assistant] Now, a lot of people think that the roots of this story can actually be found in the mid-6th century, in a region of northwestern France called Brittany. That's where a man named Connemore the Cursed ruled over the people, allegedly by killing the previous king and taking the throne for himself.


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[Assistant] Time and folklore has sort of muddled our information about Conamore, but we know that he was a real actual person, and he had a reputation for cruelty. Remember that king that he killed? It said that Conamore forced the man's widow to marry him, and then treated her and her son so horribly that they were forced to escape and run away. Yeah, nice guy, right?


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[Assistant] But the really famous bit is the story about how he ended up marrying Trophine, the daughter of the Count of Van. Now initially, Conamore simply asked, but Trophine's father refused. So the king invaded the Count's land, and then the Counts caved. Conamore rode home with a new wife, and Trophine lost her freedom. And soon enough, she was pregnant.


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[Assistant] But she was also starting to hear rumors about Conamore that frightened her.


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[Assistant] Specifically that he killed his four previous wives while they were pregnant.


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[Assistant] In one version of the story, she even stumbled upon a room full of macabre trophies taken from those dead wives, and the ghost of one of them warns her to run for her life. So, she does. Only, Kanemora manages to catch her.


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[Assistant] Now in some versions of the story, this happened after she gives birth to a son, and in others, she's still very pregnant. Either way, Conamore kills both of them, just as he had done to all of his other wives.


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[Assistant] Trophine, for her part, would go on to become the patron saint of sickly children and overdue babies.


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[Assistant] That's about as happy an ending as we can expect, given the circumstances.


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[Assistant] Baconomor, according to many historians, gains a darker reputation.


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[Assistant] He too goes down in history as a symbol of a bigger concept. But for him, that concept...


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[Assistant] ...is murder and abuse. And we might never know for sure if his story truly is the origin of the Bluebeard legend, but the glass slipper certainly seems to fit.


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[Assistant] I'd even go as far as to consider the case solved and closed, if it wasn't for one more possibility, and as hard as it might be to believe, this one is even darker.


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[Assistant] He was born rich. His father had been given the title of Baron de Rey by the final member of the de Rey bloodline, and along with it came a whole lot of money. Throw in an also rich mother, and little Gilles was set for life.


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[Assistant] But around 14, 15, when he was just 9 years old, that wonderful world fell apart when both of his parents died.


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[Assistant] Gilles packed up and was sent to live with his maternal grandfather, Jean de Cron, and that's where he grew up.


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[Assistant] He was highly educated, he wanted for nothing, and as a result, quickly gained a reputation for being a little narcissistic and reckless.


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[Assistant] Life moved pretty fast for young Gilles de Ré. He was betrothed at the age of 13, but that didn't end up working out. At 16, he went to war in a conflict between two noble families, serving, luckily, for the winning side.


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[Assistant] With his grandfather's permission, I know, not the best family life, right?


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[Assistant] Oh, and that cousin, it turns out, was insanely rich. In fact, through that marriage, Gilles becomes the wealthiest nobleman in the entire country. Money that he spent with abandon on parties, artwork, more and more homes.


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[Assistant] And his own private army. He even funded the production of a play that he wrote himself, paying the actors and the musicians to follow him wherever he traveled.


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[Assistant] At the young age of 18, he was invited to spend a year at the royal court and quickly became a general and a commander. And it was during his time there that he earned a new reputation. That of cruelty. For example, he was fond of having prisoners executed even when their crimes did not warrant such a sentence. He was just doing it for the fun of it. In 1429, when he was about 25 years old,


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[Assistant] He met a military leader who won his loyalty. It was one of those hero-worshipping situations, and Gilles was enamored. He found purpose serving under this leader, and whatever was modeled for him, he copied. Religious devotion, military might, you name it, Gilles copied his heroes every quality.


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[Assistant] It was a relationship that took him into the fray of the Hundred Years' War and the siege of Orléans. The king made him Marshal of France, and he was chosen to be one of only four lords who were assigned to bring the Holy Ampula to the consecration of King Charles VII.


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[Assistant] Life was good for a while, but when his military hero was killed, he packed all of that in and headed home.


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[Assistant] With nothing to do, he threw himself into his play again. Now I won't go into detail on it, but it's worth looking up. The production was huge and expensive, and it sucked up most of his vast wealth.


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[Assistant] But his bigger hobby was something darker. He had developed a taste for killing children.


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[Assistant] Right there in the castle that he inherited from his grandfather, Gilles de Rey worked with a handful of accomplices to lure local children into his circle and then murder them in cold blood. There are a lot of stories about what he did, how he did it, and the depths of his depravity, but that's not the sort of thing I'm going to cover here.


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[Assistant] Just know that during this phase of his life, Gilles was reported to have killed at least 100 boys and girls, although some reports put that number closer to 700. And that's the sort of thing that can generate a storm of rumors, like a dark cloud that followed him wherever he went.


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[Assistant] In 1439, he sold one of his properties and then immediately regretted it. So he did a very reasonable thing. He raised his personal army and took it back by force. But in the process, he imprisoned an important cleric, which brought the attention of the authorities. And when they investigated his properties, you can guess what they discovered.


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[Assistant] Gilles de Rey was arrested on September 13th of 1440 for the crimes of child murder and occult violence. And rather than confess under torture, he freely admitted to all of it. He was proud of his unspeakable deeds. It gave him pleasure, he said. The only thing he regretted, it seems, was that he had to stop. His sentence was sort of complex.


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[Assistant] He was to be both hanged and burned, something usually done when they didn't want the criminal to suffer through the burning. Although it's also easy to see it as a sort of statement. What you did was so evil, they seem to say, that you deserve to be killed twice.


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[Assistant] Except their plan failed. Apparently, Gilles had enough supporters that after his hanging they rushed the platform and took down his body, giving him a chance at a normal burial.


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[Assistant] All of this for a man who claimed to feel genuine pleasure, he told them, for the torture, blood, and tears of children.


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[Assistant] Our favorite stories are often older than we think. Maybe that's why they are our favorites. Because they've stood the test of time. They've evolved to reflect the world that we live in, and have been refined and shaped by every retelling to become pure storytelling devices.


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[Assistant] Maybe it's also important to point out that no single person can claim to own these tales. Sure, some have put their own spin on them, like the candy-coated versions that Disney sells us. But at the root of all of them is an older, more brutal core. A word-of-mouth shadow that has cast darkness over the hearts of people for thousands of years.


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[Assistant] In a way, the idea of a happy ending is a gaudy add-on that spits in the face of the originals. But light or dark, the stories have always been, and always will be, a place where we might learn a lesson or two. Just like the story of Gilles de Rey.


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[Assistant] After his execution and rescue by his disillusioned fans, his name took on a life of its own.


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[Assistant] He became a sort of boogeyman used by parents to frighten children into good behavior. In France, his name became practically synonymous with Satan, and eventually even spawned new, darker tales. And as some might claim, one of those stories was even the fairy tale of Bluebeard.


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[Assistant] Oh, and that military leader that Gilles De Ré worshipped and imitated for a short while, they went on to become the centerpiece of their own stories too, whispered by people everywhere.


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[Assistant] The devil himself, Gilles de Ray, served as the personal bodyguard and champion in arms to the legendary French saint, Joan of Arc.


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[Assistant] I hope you enjoyed today's deep dive into the ancient roots of our most beloved fairy tales. It's fascinating just how old they really are, and how much they've changed over the centuries to become the stories that we hold so dearly today.


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[Assistant] To that end, I've got one more classic to unpack for you. Stick around through this brief sponsor break and I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of these ancient fairy tales, there's a lot of guesswork built into the efforts of scholars today. They compare stories across cultures and time, and look at how certain details remain preserved or changed as the centuries passed by.


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[Assistant] Sometimes that leads to one definitive source, but most of the time it just highlights an incredibly powerful truth, that we as humans seem to be drawn to telling certain kinds of stories, and that causes them to appear in multiple places in the ancient world, seemingly at the same time.


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[Assistant] The one I want to share with you right now, though, is well known throughout China, and tells us about a young woman named Yaxiang, who was the daughter of a local chieftain.


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[Assistant] In the story, though, the girl's father dies unexpectedly, leaving her in the care of his widow, her stepmother.


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[Assistant] But between the woman's cruel behavior toward her and her jealous step-sister Qing Li, poor young Yaxiang began to suffer horribly. She had gone from a life of privilege to poverty in a heartbeat, and as a result was forced to work for the others as a servant.


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[Assistant] She did have one little escape though. A magic fish who could talk to her, giving her one true friend in a world of darkness and suffering. We learn later on that this fish is a spirit guide sent to Earth by her dead mother to protect and teach her. And for a while, that's exactly what happens.


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[Assistant] But then her stepmother discovers the magic fish, and, being a cruel woman, has it killed so that she and Qing Li can eat it. Which, as you might imagine, was devastating for our hero, Yaxiang. But then she gets a small glimmer of hope.


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[Assistant] An ancestral spirit shows up and tells her that if she could gather up the fish's bones and place them in four corners of her bedroom, the magic fish would still work, allowing her to have any wish granted that she might desire.


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[Assistant] So yes, Shiang does exactly that. Although, to be fair, I have to wonder about the smell that she had to put up with.


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[Assistant] Fishy odors aside, the spell works, and she is once again able to talk with her friend, the Magic Fish. And then, when the new year approached, Yaxiang made a very specific wish, to be able to attend the upcoming festival, complete with a dazzling outfit and golden slippers.


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[Assistant] The magic fish gives her what she asks for, and after dressing up in her new fancy clothes, Yaxiang heads to the festival to party with everyone else. Except while she's there, she spots her stepmother and stepsister, she freaks out that she might get caught and punished, and so she runs away from the party.


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[Assistant] But not before losing one of those nice golden slippers. Of course.


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[Assistant] Little does she know, the king has come into possession of that shoe, and he is so intrigued by its tiny size and beautiful construction that he puts it on public display, hoping that the shoe's true owner might come forward.


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[Assistant] Yaxiang eventually does, and manages to convince the king that the slipper is hers. To prove it, she tries it on right there in front of him. Immediately he marries her and makes her his queen, and together they, you guessed it, live happily ever after.


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[Assistant] And it's a story that I really don't need to dissect for you, do I? You probably recognize all the major bones of the story. The young woman who's lost her father, the step-family that abuses her, and the magical assistance that leads her to a grand celebration and a lost shoe. It's Cinderella. But it's not. All at the same time.