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[Assistant] While most of the family was out of the house, fire broke out in the cellar.


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[Assistant] It was just by chance that Olive and Esther noticed the smoke, and when they rushed down to see what had happened, they found a barrel of wood shavings absolutely erupting with fire.


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[Assistant] Olive ran back up for a bucket of water, but spilled most of it in the panicked rush to get back downstairs.


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[Assistant] Esther ran out into the street where she found a stranger passing through town and begged him to come help. His assistance is what saved the house that day.


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[Assistant] A few nights later, Esther claimed to actually see the spirit that had been haunting her.


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[Assistant] She said it was a grey man with bright, evil eyes. And this grey man told her to leave the house or else he would burn everything she loved to the ground. So she did.


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[Assistant] She packed up and went to a neighbor's house, but the spirit followed her.


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[Assistant] Other times, it was the loud voices or unexplainable booms.


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[Assistant] More furniture moved and more objects levitated.


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[Assistant] Once she was even stabbed in the back with a knife that belonged to a boy in the shop where she worked.


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[Assistant] The knife had been in his pocket, but had somehow flown out and pierced her skin, not once, but twice.


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[Assistant] In June of 1879, she finally tried moving home, but almost immediately the fires began all over again. Daniel and Olive's landlord was finally forced to threaten the family. Either the fires go or you do. And although it pained everyone to do it, they agreed that Esther had to leave for good. In late July, at the age of just 19, she hugged her family goodbye and left town.


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[Assistant] It was close enough to Amherst that she could visit her family from time to time, but far enough away that everyone felt safe. I wish I could say that Esther's story ends there.


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[Assistant] That after that, she disappeared from public record because her life returned to normal. But it didn't. Not long after settling in at the farm, the barn burned to the ground. The owner accused Esther of arson. After a short trial, she was sentenced to four months in prison. She was released just one month later.


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[Assistant] Esther's story is a complex one. I can see how, at least on the surface, her tale sounds a lot like so many other haunted house or poltergeist stories, with the invisible entity and deadly occurrences. Been there, done that, right? And yet, well,


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[Assistant] It's hard to escape the notion that every story is worth telling.


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[Assistant] That every story holds a unique quality or element that makes it worth passing on. The common elements give us a baseline for understanding the plot, and the nuances add flavor and character.


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[Assistant] And the story of Esther Cox gives us all of that and more.


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[Assistant] In the end, it's impossible to say what the real source of the disturbance was, no matter how skeptical or open we might be.


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[Assistant] Perhaps it was the trauma of that evening attack in the woods. Bob McNeil seemed to step out of the story rather quickly, but so much of her emotional distress and suffering could easily be blamed on his assault.


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[Assistant] Or maybe it was the trauma of living in that house with so many other people. As an introvert who craves silence more than anything else, I can attest to the maddening nature of community.


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[Assistant] But then again, the benefits of having people around you, supporting you, caring for you.


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[Assistant] All of that more than makes up for the madness. And Esther experienced that side of it as well.


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[Assistant] Oftentimes the clues are found in the aftermath. The public eye has a way of wandering on in search of some new shiny thing long before the story has stopped kicking on the floor like a dying bug. And we can learn a lot from those last twitches.


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[Assistant] After being released from prison a month after her conviction for arson, an actor named Walter Hubbell reached out to her with a proposition.


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[Assistant] He'd been one of those countless supernatural tourists who had traveled to Amherst to witness the events the year before. And he'd written the experience up in a book he called The Great Amherst Mystery.


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[Assistant] His new idea was to travel the country and promote the story with Esther at his side every step of the way.


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[Assistant] And she agreed. And for a while, they worked together to tell her story throughout Canada and America. But when an angry ma broke out at one of these events, Esther refused to do another. So she packed up and left. Hubble went on to make a fortune from his book. Esther, though, stayed on the move.


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[Assistant] After two sons by two husbands, she finally settled in Brockton, Massachusetts, where she passed away in 1912 at the age of 55.


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[Assistant] Whether it had been paranormal and otherworldly, or just a manifestation of a flammable personality, the fire of Esther's youth is gone.


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[Assistant] Pulled apart by the winds of time. Like a fragile wisp of smoke.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke. Research assistance was provided by the talented Marsat Crockett.


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[Assistant] Lore is a lot more than just bi-weekly audio stories. Of course there are the upcoming tour dates I mentioned at the top of this episode. There's the upcoming book in my World of Lore series that's available for pre-order right now and releasing on October 24th.


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[Assistant] The Lore television show is also premiering on Amazon video this fall. And if you'd like to dive deeper into all of these episode topics, there's a Lore email newsletter called the Epitaph that delivers source material right to your inbox. And all of that can be found at one place, lorepodcast.com.


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[Assistant] And if you're a social media sort of person, you should follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and or Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click the follow button and be sure to say hello when you do. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] For those of us who are lucky enough to escape the urban jungle of modern city life every now and then, it's amazing just how gorgeous the natural world around us really is. The national parks of the American West. The green, rolling English countryside. The glaciers and mountains of Canada. It's all breathtaking.


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[Assistant] But that beauty sometimes steps aside to reveal something else. Something more frightening. The weather.


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[Assistant] From tornadoes and floods to wildfires and drought, there's always a new challenge facing humans somewhere in the world. Look no further than the tragic, seemingly endless barrage of hurricanes we've endured in the last few years, and it's clear that the world around us is more like a lion than a lamb. Beautiful, yes, but also deadly.


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[Assistant] All of that variety and unpredictability has left humans struggling to understand it all.


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[Assistant] Sure, modern science has answered most of the questions for us, but for thousands of years, it was folklore that filled in the gaps. There are dozens of old phrases in the languages of many cultures that attempt to manage the unmanageable.


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[Assistant] One common example is, red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.


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[Assistant] Another is rain before seven, fine before eleven.


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[Assistant] Some folklore focuses on the behavior of animals and insects, while others look to the natural world around us. But as refined by centuries of trial and error as they might be, they're all just shots in the dark.


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[Assistant] Weather is a mysterious force that humans have feared for most of our existence. On one hand, it has the power to bring life and beauty into a barren land, to nourish our crops and feed our livestock. But on the other, it can be unpredictable and chaotic. Even destructive.


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[Assistant] And when the delicate balance between life and death hinges on something so mysterious, so out of our control, it has a way of breeding panic and doubt and fear. And rightly so. Because sometimes our weather can be downright unexplainable.


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[Assistant] Life is unpredictable. We experience this everyday.


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[Assistant] How bad will my commute be today? How long will the line at the restaurant be when I arrive? Will my paycheck cover my bills this month?


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[Assistant] There's a lot we can control, for sure. But the vast majority of life is just going where the current takes us.


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[Assistant] And while it's always been this way, every era has its own flavor.


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[Assistant] Before our information age and the industrial revolution before that, the vast majority of the world was built around agriculture and they had their own pressing questions. How will my crops do this season? Will I get enough rain? Will enough of the livestock survive the winter?


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[Assistant] But the difference between our modern questions and those of humanity's early farmers is fear.


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[Assistant] Our commute might stress us out, but it's never a matter of life and death. But when humans first grew crops for survival, they were literally placing their lives in the hands of an unpredictable world. And that's the moment, according to most anthropologists, when religion winked into existence.


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[Assistant] Early religious icons reflected the world around us. Animals that we feared and respected. Fertility goddesses. And at the center of all of that was the weather, usually in the form of the sun.


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[Assistant] In fact, most early religious practices involved our attempts to make those higher powers happy, like pushing buttons on a cosmic vending machine and hoping for the best.


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[Assistant] And like it or not, most of our ancestors killed things. Cattle. Birds. Sometimes even each other.


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[Assistant] As abhorrent as it is to us today, human sacrifice was viewed by many cultures as the ultimate test of their faith. If they could go all the way and spill the blood of someone important or someone they loved,


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[Assistant] And perhaps that might convince the gods to bless their crops.


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[Assistant] And all of this happened because of the weather, that complex system of sunlight and precipitation, of feast and famine.


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[Assistant] You see, we have to understand one side of the coin before we can flip it over. Because if the gods can be happy, they can also get angry. Sure, they have the power to bless, but they also have the power to destroy. Which is why most religions feature tales of horrible meteorological mayhem.


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[Assistant] In the ancient Mesopotamian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, weather was used as a weapon against Enki as he descended into the netherworld. In the tale, Enki is faced with a shower of deadly hailstones, some as large as those used in ancient siege machines.


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[Assistant] One Chinese myth tells the story of how, thousands of years ago, the gods sent drought and famine to destroy the people of the land. In response, the legendary ruler named Tang the Conqueror sacrificed himself to end their suffering.


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[Assistant] In Sumerian mythology, the constant cycle between rain and drought was thought to be due to the struggle between the Storm Gods, Baal and Dagal.


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[Assistant] And of course, there's the story of Noah, found in the teachings of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.


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[Assistant] It's a tale of how an angry god destroys a sinful world with abnormal weather and how a small group was chosen to survive as a way of redeeming humanity. And while it varies in a number of secondary details, this flood story is found in most ancient cultures around the world.


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[Assistant] Something that's because a global flood actually happened. But another approach might be to see these stories as echoes of our own insecurity. Life comes to us from the sky. But so does death. Early humans were helpless for an answer.


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[Assistant] These ancient tales proposed reasons in the form of folktales.


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[Assistant] Stories. They stretch the imagination a bit too far. They ask us to accept as fact a whole slew of beliefs that fly in the face of science. If the suspension of disbelief is a bridge, these tales of horrific weather might be asking us to go a bit too far.


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[Assistant] But history has taught us that there are always exceptions to the rule.


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[Assistant] Unusual weather might be rare for sure, but meteorological events that we would view as extreme, bizarre, or even supernatural are more than just tales of fantasy. According to the historical record, they've actually happened.


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[Assistant] When you read the reports of its movement, being observed in town after town as the day went by, it sounds a bit like the nothing from the never ending story. Night had returned early.


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[Assistant] Livestock acted confused and agitated. Chickens put themselves back to roost. Even the people, rational and modern as they were, began to give up.


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[Assistant] Some people assumed it was the arrival of Judgment Day and fell on their knees in prayer. The real cause, it turns out, was less cosmic. Smoke from a massive forest fire, possibly in Algonquin Province Park in southern Ontario.


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[Assistant] In May of 1816, a group of writers settled into their accommodations on the northern shore of Lake Geneva. Among them were the poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, along with Shelley's mistress Mary and their four-month-old son.


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[Assistant] Forced to remain inside by unusually cold and dreary weather, they began to write their own entertainment.


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[Assistant] Mary began work on a novel that the world would eventually know as Frankenstein, while Lord Byron began a poem called Darkness.


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[Assistant] The first words paint a powerful picture of what they were experiencing.


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[Assistant] The sun had turned red, never a good sign, it seems, and the temperature had dropped significantly around the globe. In fact, summer never arrived that year. Instead, it snowed in New England, killing off crops and livestock. The northern half of the planet experienced the worst famine in decades. They called it the year without a summer. And it wasn't the fault of a forest fire.


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[Assistant] No, this time, the cause was a volcano in Indonesia called Mount Tambora.


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[Assistant] It had erupted in April of 1815 in a massive explosion which sent ash into the air for nearly a thousand miles. For two days, there was a 300-mile zone of complete darkness around the island, and as it dissipated, it spread for a full year. The result was beyond dramatic.


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[Assistant] But those stories have explanations. There's a source, a cause, something to point to and say, yeah, that's the trigger, even if it took scientists decades or centuries to figure it out. Sometimes, though, things just get, well, odd.


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[Assistant] It snowed in the northern parts of New York State back in April of 1889. April snow isn't as unusual as you might think, but this snow was different. It was black.


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[Assistant] At least 49 separate communities in the region reported it. It was only about half an inch deep, but that was enough to frighten more than a few people. When the snow melted, it left behind tiny grains of black dust. But just how it came into existence is still a mystery.


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[Assistant] In May of 1849, a 400 mile area of Ireland experienced showers of black rain. It was described as the color of ink, with a pungent odor and an unpleasant taste.


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[Assistant] It happened again in April of 1887, and yet again in October of 1907. And while I find the notion of a thick, fetid, black liquid falling from the sky pretty bizarre, the fact that someone had the initiative to actually taste it, well, that might be the most bizarre piece of the story.


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[Assistant] In March of 1888, another mysterious rain fell, this time in the Mediterranean. But it wasn't black.


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[Assistant] No, this rain was thick and red, with an acrid, copper-like smell. Some of the more scientific-minded of the locals actually tried burning a small sample and found that it smelled very much like rotting flesh. Don't worry, it gets much more weird.


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[Assistant] In August of 1804, near the French city of Toulouse, rain fell on a cloudless day, but no ordinary rain. No, it was a shower of frogs, hundreds of them, roughly a month or so old, and they were alive.


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[Assistant] That unpredictable source of life and death, of the power to quench our thirst or starve us out of existence, it's uncontrollable and mysterious.


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[Assistant] Sure, most of us will never experience anything more than rain or snow or the blazing heat of the sun on a summer day. But odd things do happen.


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[Assistant] Showers of blood, and hay, and frogs. Some places have even had fish fall from the sky, or gelatinous fungus, or pieces of coal. They are as unpredictable as the sky they fall from.


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[Assistant] The views from the farm were amazing, with a small mountain just half a mile to the west and a lush forest nearby as well.


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[Assistant] Both are still there today, part of the Olympian State Forest in Kentucky, but what happened in March of 1876 has remained firmly in the past, and honestly, I'm pretty glad for that. It happened on Friday, March 3rd.


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[Assistant] Alan Crouch and his adult son had gone to work in the field earlier that morning, and aside from a house guest named Sadie Robinson and a sick granddaughter, both of whom were indoors, Mrs. Crouch and her 11-year-old grandson were the only people in the yard outside near the house.


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[Assistant] According to their testimony later, sometime between 11am and noon, it began to rain.


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[Assistant] Not unusual, I know, but there were two details that make the rain a bit more out of the ordinary than you might expect.


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[Assistant] First, there were no clouds in the sky over the farm. In fact, Mrs. Crouch herself described how the sky was clear and the sun was shining. She did say that she'd predicted rain earlier,


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[Assistant] But it was just an educated guess after watching whirlwinds in the mountains around sunrise. Weather folklore, as it were.


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[Assistant] But that's where the second feature of this unusual reign comes in. Mrs. Crouch and her grandson, also named Alan, were about 40 feet from the house when it started, and they could both hear it. They could see it, too. All white on the ground around them.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Crouch turned to young Alan and asked him what it was, and the boy replied with a smile, Why, Grandma, it's snowing. It wasn't, though.


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[Assistant] The things that were landing on the grass around them were pale, but they weren't as white as snow, and honestly, they were much too large to be snowflakes. They both walked toward each other, staring at the ground as they moved, studying the mysterious substance with wide eyes.


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[Assistant] Which is when a large piece landed right behind Mrs. Crouch, making a snapping sound as it did.


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[Assistant] They both turned to look at it, and that's when it all clicked in their minds. It wasn't snow, or even ash from a nearby forest fire. It was meat.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Crouch gathered young Alan and quickly led him back inside. There, they waited in fear for her husband and son to return.


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[Assistant] For a brief moment, she claimed to entertain the idea that the flesh raining from the sky was theirs, having been torn to pieces by something wild. That fear vanished when they both returned shortly before dusk.


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[Assistant] The elder Alan Crouch examined the unusual objects all over his yard, which covered an area of roughly 40,000 square feet.


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[Assistant] Most of the pieces were small, maybe twice the size of a postage stamp, but some were larger, closer to the size of an adult hand. And in the places where the meat had landed on wooden objects, it left a dark stain that witnesses compared to blood.


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[Assistant] The best guess from witnesses said that if the pieces had all been gathered together, they probably wouldn't have amounted to much.


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[Assistant] Some estimates place the total volume at around half a bushel, roughly 30 pounds, which sounds like a lot until you spread it out over two acres of land. But again, this was meat. From the sky.


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[Assistant] The community around the Allen Farm, known then as Olympian Springs, was small, but close-knit. So word of the unusual weather traveled fast.


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[Assistant] Soon others were riding up to the farm for a closer look. One of those people, Harrison Gill, actually owned most of the county, which he had bought from Henry Clay, the well-known US politician and statesman.


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[Assistant] Gil arrived two days after the meat had showered down on the farm. Alan Crouch gave him a tour of the scene and allowed him to take a few samples, which he later placed in jars of alcohol.


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[Assistant] Some of those samples were sent away to places like the Newark Scientific Association in New Jersey. Which was good, because animals on the crouch farm were already eating it and getting sick. Knowing what it might be was a question everyone wanted answered.


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[Assistant] Farm animals weren't the only things putting the mysterious meat in their mouths, though. Local man Benjamin Franklin Ellington actually tasted it for himself.


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[Assistant] To give his actions a bit of context, Ellington was a trapper and hunter, and claimed to have eaten almost anything he could kill in the forest. Deer, squirrels, rats, and all sorts of other varmint, as he put it.


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[Assistant] According to his experienced palate, the meat was most definitely from a bear.


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[Assistant] This meat that fell from the heavens on Alan Crouch's farm, he later told a reporter from the New York Herald, has got that uncommon greasy feel that I am so well acquainted with. I know bear grease when I see it, and that's the kind of fluid what come out of that meat at old Alan's and got all over my hands when I was zammin' it.


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[Assistant] I smelt it too, he added, and I know that smell as well as I know the smell of liquor. Gentlemen, it's bear meat certain, or else my name's not Benjamin Franklin Ellington.


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[Assistant] It's a colorful testimony, for sure. But science might have proven Mr. Ellington wrong in the end. Are those samples that were sent out? Well, the American Journal of Microscopy and Popular Science declared it to be lung tissue. But they didn't say more.


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[Assistant] Dr. Edwards, from the Newark Scientific Association I mentioned earlier, did say more though.


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[Assistant] According to him the tissue sample was indeed from a lung.


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[Assistant] The sky above us is full of possibility.


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[Assistant] More often than not, that possibility is life-giving and wonderful. Sunshine for our crops, and rain to quench our thirst.


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[Assistant] We might take it for granted today, but for thousands of years, the sky was our source of life.


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[Assistant] But we always take a risk when we place our wellbeing into the care of something so unpredictable and chaotic.


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[Assistant] Sure, we might get what we need, but we might also get something else. Something darker.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, no matter how dark things get, we'll never experience another shower of raw meat.


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[Assistant] Although, if you're ever in Lexington, Kentucky, and more than a little curious, you can go see a piece of it. One of those original samples is still around and on display as part of the Arthur Bird cabinet at Transylvania University.


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[Assistant] And not only that, but we're a lot closer to understanding what exactly caused such an odd shower to begin with.


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[Assistant] It turns out that region of Kentucky, now known as Olympian State Forest, is home to a number of species of vultures. And vultures have a very unusual defense mechanism hardwired into their reflexes.


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[Assistant] Vultures are, of course, birds of prey that tend to feed on dead animals. They feast quickly, fill their stomachs, and then fly away to go digest the food in safety. But if they're startled in the middle of that process, they respond by lightening their load so they can fly faster.


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[Assistant] In other words, if you spook a freshly stuffed vulture, it will vomit everything up.


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[Assistant] So the working theory as to how the Kentucky meat shower actually happened is surprisingly simple. However, disgusting it might sound. More likely than not, a vulture high up over the Crouch Farm had been startled that day in 1876. And in response, it literally tossed its lunch.


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[Assistant] That lunch, in turn, rained down over Mrs. Crouch and her grandson, far below.


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[Assistant] History can be a bit messy, but can also be much worse as one tale from the northern edges of India makes clear.


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[Assistant] You see, when a team of British soldiers stepped into a Himalayan valley in 1942, it wasn't the beautiful view that stopped them in their tracks. It was the horror they discovered in the midst of it all.


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[Assistant] At least 300 human skeletons were visible right beneath the ice. And while those British soldiers at first assumed the bodies were a Japanese scouting party who died making a secret wartime Himalayan crossing, it soon became clear that they were much older than that.


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[Assistant] In fact, it's now believed those remains had been there for over a thousand years. Local folklore offers us a theory, though.


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[Assistant] Every 12 years, a Hindu pilgrimage takes place in the region, where people travel into the mountains to visit a shrine devoted to the goddess Nanda Devi. A journey, by the way.


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[Assistant] It takes every pilgrim right through this particular valley.


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[Assistant] According to the legend, a king and his entourage made that journey to the shrine many centuries ago, but they never returned.


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[Assistant] Bokal said that the goddess was displeased with them, and as a punishment, she rained death upon them all. A story that's since been passed along through legend and song.


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[Assistant] In 2004, scientists returned to the lake to further study the skeletons and, in the process, discovered what appeared to be solid proof that the legends were actually real.


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[Assistant] All of the people who died in that valley a thousand years ago did so from the exact same source. A blow from a heavy object roughly nine inches in diameter that shattered their skulls.


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[Assistant] But it hadn't been a weapon, or even a landslide of rocks.


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[Assistant] No, every single person in the lake had been killed by something else. Something that was both absurd in its likelihood and terrifying in its power.


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[Assistant] We should be grateful for the weather that provides our world with everything it needs to thrive. But don't forget to keep an eye on the sky above.


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[Assistant] Because every now and then, something falls from it that isn't meant to nourish life on Earth.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke. Research assistance was provided by Marsette Crockett with music from Chad Lawson and administrative help from Carl Nellis.


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[Assistant] Lore is a lot more than just bi-weekly audio stories. There is a book series from Penguin Random House, a television show on Amazon Prime, a live tour, a membership site with extra episodes,


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[Assistant] And so much more. And you can learn about everything over in one brand new place. theworldoflore.com slash now


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[Assistant] If you're a social media sort of person, you should follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Or all three. Just search for Lorepodcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, be sure to say hi.


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[Assistant] Until 2004, that is. That was the year things changed. That was the year that brought the Tower of Hopelessness and Doubt, a tower that took 86 years to construct, brick by brick, year after year, and brought it all crashing down. The wait was over.


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[Assistant] That's what I find fascinating. Humans are so very good at finding reasons.


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[Assistant] Lurking behind the Red Sox 86-year wait like a shadow, and 108 years for the Cubs, are the excuses. More specifically, the curses. How else are we to explain such droughts, such logic-defying gaps on their scorecards? Of course, both of those teams had to be cursed, right?


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[Assistant] But the Bambino and the Billy Goats weren't the first curses in history, and they were far from the last. And while some curses have been entertaining or even laughable, others have defied explanation long enough to make people wonder. Some, in fact, have been deadly.


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[Assistant] The word curse comes from the Old English word, curse.


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[Assistant] Now I'm no etymologist, but I think the word picture is actually pretty clear. Life is like a journey. Sometimes we walk along the path of our choosing and sometimes we're pushed off and into the woods.


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[Assistant] It's in those moments of chaos, of the unexpected and the unfortunate, that we feel like we've lost control. It's as if someone or something has knocked us off the path we were traveling. In those moments, it might be appropriate to say that we've been cursed.


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[Assistant] Once a curse is spoken aloud, they say it can float around a place until it finds its target. If the intended receiver wasn't in the room, a curse could drift around for up to seven years. Not aimlessly though, a curse was like a heat-seeking missile, waiting until the moment when the person would arrive.


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[Assistant] In Scandinavia, curses were more like bullets. A person might utter a curse at an enemy, but it could also be turned back or returned to the speaker, where it would deal the effects of the curse on the speaker instead. Think duels, if you will, just with words.


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[Assistant] If, after jumping through all of the correct hoops, his request for help was still refused though, a curse was said to descend upon those who refused him.


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[Assistant] Not a specific curse that he made up, but a general societal curse, as if tradition itself were punishing the unhelpful people.


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[Assistant] What did they pray for exactly? Well, they prayed that for as long as the stones remained unburnt, every possible curse would descend upon their landlords, his children, and all the generations after them.


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[Assistant] Then, rather than leave the stones in the fireplace where they could eventually become burned, thus ending the curse, they would gather them back up and scatter them around the countryside.


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[Assistant] Curses have been there since the beginning, it seems. But over time they have evolved to be more than just something you'd do to another person, as if they were weapons or tools. Many of the stories that we tell on dark nights around campfires have more to do with the implications.


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[Assistant] You see, sometimes the horrible tragedies of life refuse to be explained away without the mention of a deadly curse.


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[Assistant] Prince Amado of Savoy told his father in 1867 that he planned to marry Maria Vitoria Dal Pozzo. His father was enraged. Sure, she was of noble birth, but she was no princess and she certainly wasn't worthy of the son of a king. He was said to have cursed their union.


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[Assistant] On the morning of their wedding, Maria's dressmaker took her own life. Maria took the hint and found a different dress to wear. Later, as the bridal party made their way to the palace church in a grand procession, one of the military leaders fell off his horse and died right there in the street.


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[Assistant] The wedding procession continued on, though, and finally reached the palace gates, only to find them shut. A quick inspection revealed the reason why. The gatekeeper was found in the gatehouse, lying in a pool of his own blood.


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[Assistant] He was soon followed by the station master, who somehow got pulled under the royal train carriage and was crushed to death.


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[Assistant] The king apparently saw a pattern and recalled the entire party back to the palace. While they were leaving the train though, one of the noblemen with them fell beneath the same train car. A medallion on his chest, most likely a gift from the king, was pushed through his skin, stabbing him in the heart.


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[Assistant] Maria herself was the final victim of the curse, they say. She died in childbirth later at the age of just 29. Here's another.


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[Assistant] Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane as he was known, was the great-great-grandson of Genghis Khan, taking the throne in 1369.


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[Assistant] He was a vicious Mongol warlord and was known for bloody military campaigns. He often built pyramids after his victories. Not with stones, mind you. No, he preferred to use the heads of the defeated army, sometimes tens of thousands of them.


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[Assistant] Some reports say that another message referred to a great battle that would be unleashed should his grave be disturbed. You see where this is going, right?


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[Assistant] The body of Tamerlane was studied for over a year while the Soviet Union was torn apart and destroyed by Hitler's army. All told, the Soviet Union lost 26.6 million men and women to the invasion. More than any country in human history.


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[Assistant] It's unclear why, but in November of 1942, the Soviets decided to return Tamerlane's body to the tomb, complete with a proper Islamic burial. Days later, the German invasion was repelled at Stalingrad, finally pushing them back to the west and marking a turning point in the war. A turning point, some say, that was caused by a curse.


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[Assistant] There's an ancient Norse work called The King's Mirror that tells a fascinating story about St. Patrick.


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[Assistant] Patrick of course was known for his work spreading Christianity throughout Ireland in the 5th century, but he apparently did not always meet with success on his travels.


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[Assistant] According to the account, St. Patrick once visited a clan that lived in a southern kingdom of Ireland called Ossory. Like any other visit, Patrick's mission was to bring his message of Christianity to the people there. But it appears that he struck out.


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[Assistant] Instead, they did something that might seem incredibly odd to our modern ears. They howled like wolves.


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[Assistant] It's not that they laughed at him and it happened to sound like howling. These people literally howled at St. Patrick.


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[Assistant] The reason was incredibly logical. The totem or spirit animal for this clan happened to be the wolf. To them, they were just responding to the message of an outside deity with the sounds of their own.


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[Assistant] Now, this was pretty unheard of for St. Patrick, and the fact that this event was recorded in a Norse history book highlights just how unusual it was. But even more unusual was Patrick's response to this stubborn, insulting clan.


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[Assistant] Clearly upset, Patrick stopped speaking and began to pray. He asked God to punish the people of the village for their stubbornness. He wasn't specific, but he asked for some form of affliction that would be communal, that would carry on through the generations as a constant reminder of their disobedience.


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[Assistant] According to the story, God actually listened. It was said that the people of Assyria were forever cursed to become the very thing they worshipped, wolves. And this curse followed a very specific set of rules.


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[Assistant] Part of the curse was said to be how the people of Asuri maintained their human minds while in the form of a wolf.


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[Assistant] But although they thought and spoke as human, they were equally bound to the cravings of their new form, specifically the craving for human flesh. In this way, the curse affected everyone, from the man and woman transformed to the people around them who lived in constant fear of being attacked.


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[Assistant] Ever since that day, so the legend goes, the people of Osiri have been cursed.


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[Assistant] Either they've experienced the sting of unexplainable misfortune, or they've watched the lives of people around them crumble for no discernible reason. The human mind wants answers. It demands them. It seeks them out. People love story. But only the ones with closure. And that's what curses offer us.


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[Assistant] At the end of the day, curses help us make sense of a thing or person or place that seems to be haunted by misfortune. They act like a walking stick for people who are having a difficult time staying on the path. They help us make sense of life.


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[Assistant] I can imagine that life in 6th century Ireland was incredibly difficult. And it would make sense that eventually someone would begin to tell stories that tried to explain the harshness of that life. Stories about a curse, perhaps.


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[Assistant] When someone failed to return from battle or a hunting trip or even travel between villages, it was hard to not have all the answers. Stories about attacks from local werewolves certainly did their part in explaining these disappearances. But they were just stories, right?


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[Assistant] Gerald of Wales was a 12th century historian who recorded something interesting. He had been sent to Ireland by King Henry II to record the local history. According to him, a local priest requested his company while he was there. This priest sat down and told Gerald an amazing story.


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[Assistant] According to the report, this priest had been traveling near the western border of County Meath, close to what would have been ancient ossuary, and had camped for the night in the woods.


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[Assistant] That night with his fire burning low, someone approached from the darkness beyond the firelight and spoke to him.


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[Assistant] Reluctantly, the priest agreed. He gathered up his belongings and followed the voice into the woods. They traveled a short distance until they came to a large hollow tree.


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[Assistant] There the priest noticed two frightening things. First, there was something or someone lying inside the tree, presumably the sick wife. And secondly, he realized that the voice was not coming from a man at all, but a wolf.


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[Assistant] The priest was taken aback. How, he asked the wolf. Was he able to speak like a man?


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[Assistant] The wolf's answer was simple. Centuries before, his people had been cursed by a traveling priest, doomed forever to become wolves. With that, the priest prayed over the man's wife and tended to her illness. And the couple was gone by morning. Never to be seen again.


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[Assistant] Sometimes folklore can be addictive, and nowhere is that more true than within the subset of folklore that focuses on curses. They are typically neat, ready-made stories that explain away seemingly random events, offering an answer or entertainment. Often, a bit of both.


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[Assistant] So it should come as no surprise that I've got another one up my sleeve. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] And sometimes an event comes along that just doesn't fit the mold. Which is what happened back in 1973.


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[Assistant] But we actually need to start a bit earlier than that. Over five centuries earlier, to be exact. Because it was back in 1427 that a man named Kazimir was born in Poland.


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[Assistant] But while life was difficult for most people in the 15th century, Casimir's upbringing was a bit different. You see, his father was the king. And although he was not the oldest of the king's sons, a series of events would eventually lead to his coronation in 1447.


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[Assistant] Kazimir lived a relatively long life, considering the era he reigned over, finally passing away in June of 1492 at the age of 64. But in death, he seems to have turned out to be a lot less mild.


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[Assistant] It started early. You see, Casimir needed to be transported far south to Vavil Castle. But it was also June, and pretty soon after hitting the road, the King's attendants noticed that his body wasn't doing so well.


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[Assistant] To help keep the stink under control and maybe even keep the bugs at bay, they cover the corpse with powdered calcium and limestone and then draped a fancy cloth over it.


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[Assistant] A few days after his death on June 11th, his wooden coffin was placed inside the tomb and locked up for eternity.


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[Assistant] Or at least that's what they assumed. But five centuries later, all of that changed. Researchers wanted to better understand who Kazimir was, what led to his death, and why decay had arrived so quickly. So they opened up his tomb.


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[Assistant] When Kazimir's tomb was opened on April 13th of 1973, the researchers found what they expected. A wooden coffin that had crumbled to splinters and the decayed remains of the long-dead king. But they apparently also found something else.


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[Assistant] A curse. Because within just a few days, four of the twelve researchers present were dead.


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[Assistant] Because while the underlying idea was true that a dangerous and invisible force locked inside the tomb had been unleashed on the eager archaeologists, it wasn't actually an evil curse carried out by spirits. It was biology.


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[Assistant] Inside the tomb, most likely there since his rotting corpse was sealed up back in 1492, was a fungus known as Aspergillus flavus. It's toxic to humans, and if a person's immune system is weak enough, it can make them sick. And together with two other species of fungus in the tomb, it was a chance encounter with a deadly cocktail.


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[Assistant] Today, King Kazimir's remains are safely out of reach, reburied in his beautiful tomb. But the memory of that recent tragedy, all rooted in the unexpected death at the hands of an invisible entity, well, it's left a lot of people still whispering the easier and more sensational explanation.


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[Assistant] Science might tell us that there's no such thing as a curse, but for a lot of us, it's all a matter of perception. In the end, it might not matter much whether the deadly effects are from a spirit or a fungus. Either way, lives were unexpectedly lost after encountering an unseen enemy.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company Grim and Mild specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical.


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[Assistant] His name was John. Or at least that's what the legends say. There are a lot of versions of the story, after all.


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[Assistant] Some say that the figure appeared to the people of Tana through a drug-induced dream. Tana, by the way, is an island in the archipelago of Vanuatu, over in the South Pacific. Others say that he was a real visitor. Either way, they agree on the important details.


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[Assistant] John was a white man who arrived on their tiny island dressed in military clothing with the promise of goods. Things like food, technology, and even houses. Within a decade, the people had left their lives behind and retreated into deeper parts of the island to build more and more traditions about this mysterious individual.


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[Assistant] During the military activity of World War II, 50,000 American troops ended up being stationed on the islands there, giving life to the legends. The islanders watched as food and supplies literally rained down on them from above, thanks of course to the American airdrop operations.


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[Assistant] The folks of Tana leaned into this folklore so deeply that after the troops were gone, they built their own airstrips and control towers, believing that they could lure John from back. And every year, they gathered to celebrate his story, many of them dressed in American military uniforms.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of deeper concepts that could be discussed in relation to the tradition of John Frum. But the thing I want us all to notice is right there on the surface. It took just a couple of generations for an entire community to buy into a whole new piece of folklore. And it makes you wonder if something new can be that influential.


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[Assistant] Take a civilization, and they're bound to have something in their religion or culture that fits our notion of a demon. And you can go back pretty far into the past while doing so.


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[Assistant] For example, ancient Sumerians, who existed over 6,000 years ago, believed in a spirit known as Giddim. Literally translated the name means approaching darkness, and it was thought to be a spirit of illness, both physical and mental.


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[Assistant] Scholars have even uncovered ritual prayers that were designed to ask other deities for protection from Gedim.


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[Assistant] But of course, not all people were planning for the future. Some, it seems, were dealing with those dark forces already. And in those cases, they sought out the help of the ashippu, a sort of hybrid between a physician and a priest. And what they performed was a ritual that would, at least by name, sound familiar to most of us. An exorcism.


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[Assistant] In Egypt, there are similar concepts. Interestingly, ancient Egyptian ideas about demons break them into two separate categories. There are guardians who are evil spirits tied to specific locations, and there are wanderers who, as the name clearly explains, can travel anywhere they want.


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[Assistant] There were demons associated with illness, like Sha Akech, who was responsible for headaches, and Nisjet, who caused injury to the body. They even believe that nightmares were caused by demons, who entered the house at night to torment the living inside.


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[Assistant] The ancient Hebrews had their own elaborate system of angels and demons, much of which was passed down to the early Christians. And right there in the middle of those stories of demonic possession were examples of exorcism.


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[Assistant] They went hand in hand for the most part, no matter where you look. In West Africa, the Hausa and Magazawa people have a word for those who are possessed.


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[Assistant] They call them the Bori, and interestingly enough, they use that word in two situations. When someone appears to be possessed by a demon, and when someone is accused of witchcraft.


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[Assistant] The implication there is that witches are just people possessed by evil spirits, who are the true source of their power. And exorcism for them is a simple matter of speaking the word iron at them. Saying it three times is supposed to be enough to drive the spirit away, a sort of anti-beetlejuice. Without Michael Keaton, of course.


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[Assistant] And on and on through the centuries, culture after culture has followed suit.


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[Assistant] Each one has built a belief system that involve demons and their ability to possess human beings.


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[Assistant] And of course, other terms or explanations were proposed in the face of possessed individuals. Mental illness, mass hysteria, cries for attention, even ventriloquism. All of them were proposed to rationalize behavior that didn't fit the norm. But no matter what they called it, or how they tried to explain the odd behavior,


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[Assistant] Cultures everywhere have demonstrated a belief that something supernatural is going on behind the scenes. That humans are vulnerable pawns in a larger game. And if we're not careful, we might become host to something evil. Something dark. And for a brief window in English history, that belief found itself without tools, without options, and without hope. And if they are true, the stories from that period are otherworldly.


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[Assistant] So, a brief history lesson. For centuries, the driving force behind Christianity was the Catholic Church. Their monks and priests traveled the known world and carried their faith with them, building communities and churches. And they followed the leadership of their bishops and, of course, the pope in Rome.


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[Assistant] In 1517, though, a group of Christians broke off from the Catholic Church in protest of some beliefs and practices that they felt weren't biblical. They wanted to use this protest to reform the Church. Today, it's a movement known as the Protestant Reformation, with its purpose hidden right there in the name.


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[Assistant] King Henry VIII essentially kicked the Catholic Church out of the country and replaced it with a state-run English version, the Anglican Church. And in a lot of superficial ways, those two branches of the church look similar. Priests in white garments, high liturgy, even their church buildings look similar.


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[Assistant] And for some Protestants, that was seen as too risky. They wanted the differences to be drastic, more pared back, more pure.


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[Assistant] And so a lot of people called these critical people Puritans, although they refer to themselves as simply the godly. And yes, these are the same Puritans we imagine with tall black hats with buckles in the center, usually in the context of the Mayflower and Thanksgiving. But it all started in England.


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[Assistant] So that's the stage. We have three factions of the church. The boogeyman specter of old Catholicism, the new Protestant version known as Anglicanism, and the extremists that people called Puritans. And by the time Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne, tensions were pretty high.


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[Assistant] And thumping along quietly behind all of this, like a heartbeat, was the never-ending belief in the supernatural. And specifically, belief in demon possession.


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[Assistant] It was a tradition that dated back to the early Celtic people, long before the arrival of Christianity, and it wasn't going away. In fact, through the 1500s, it was growing at an unusual rate, thanks to the witchcraft panic many communities were dealing with.


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[Assistant] The trouble was, without the Catholic Church, people no longer had a very specific tool available to them. Exorcism.


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[Assistant] Yes, the Anglican church had provisions for it, but they were much more regulated and rare. So everyday English people were stuck. They believed that demons were real and dangerous, but they had no way to fight back.


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[Assistant] Enter John Darrell. He was the poor son of a large family from Mansfield, probably born sometime around 1562. But that's just a guess. What we do know is that he was a Puritan and a go-getter. Because his family had no money to put him through school at Cambridge, he worked the whole time to pay his own bills.


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[Assistant] By 1586, at the age of 24, he had already graduated, married, and had five children under his roof. And he had some ideas about demon possession bouncing around as well. So when another Puritan minister came knocking for help, John Darrell was ready.


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[Assistant] It seems there was a young woman named Catherine Wright who needed help. She had started to act bizarrely after a beating by her stepfather and things had been getting progressively worse. Daryl met with her and declared that she was possessed by an evil spirit and his solution would have made any Puritan happy. Dispossession by prayer and fasting. And it worked.


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[Assistant] But there was one other outcome. A woman was accused of being the witch who afflicted young Catherine, and her case was taken to a local magistrate who dismissed it all as unsubstantiated lies. And he threatened John Darryl with time in prison.


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[Assistant] Needless to say, John never performed an exorcism again.


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[Assistant] When that magistrate died in 1595 though, John felt like he had a new lease on life. And over the next two years, he started rebuilding his reputation as the man to see if you wanted a Puritan exorcism.


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[Assistant] First, there was the case of Thomas Darling, a 13-year-old boy who was determined to be possessed after medical treatment failed to help him recover. The boy himself, though, blamed a local woman for bewitching him by farting in his presence, and after his successful exorcism, that woman was arrested. Which stinks, I know.


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[Assistant] After that, there were the Lancashire Seven, a group of individuals under the roof of a man named Nicholas Starkey. Some were his own kids, and others were wards under his care.


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[Assistant] John brought along a helper named George Moore, and together the two men gathered all of the children as well as family and neighbors inside the house for an all-day marathon of sermons, prayer, and singing, all while the kids writhed and screamed on the floor behind them.


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[Assistant] Think Dust Bowl Big Tent Revivalist preachers only dressed up in Elizabethan garb. And of course, it was a successful event. The children were healed, demons were cast out, and their household was restored to order. John Darrell, exorcist for hire, is finally hitting his stride. But not everything, it seems, was on the up and up.


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[Assistant] I'd like to say the business was good, but there's no record that John Darrell charged for these services.


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[Assistant] Still, the late 16th century version of Yelp was bringing him all sorts of interested families, looking for a solution to the troubles that plagued them.


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[Assistant] In 1597, Daryl was called to help with a 14-year-old boy named William Summers. He worked as the servant in the household of an artist and was reportedly beaten and abused constantly.


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[Assistant] Understandably, he acted out against authority, and maybe he pretended to have fits to avoid future beatings. The definitive proof of his demonic possession, though,


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[Assistant] Apparently, young William liked to edit the Lord's Prayer, saying, lead us into temptation, rather than lead us not. It was teenage fun, labeled as heresy by the Puritan adults. And John Darrell saw it as proof the boy was troubled by a demon.


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[Assistant] This time, Daryl brought along three other ministers, and they gathered over 150 people to watch their all-day string of sermons and songs, together with prayer and fasting. And wouldn't you know it, it worked. William Summers walked away, healed and well.


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[Assistant] It worked so well, and was so successful and amazing that word spread far and wide, eventually reaching the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.


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[Assistant] John Darrell was arrested and put on trial, eventually being thrown in prison. 18 months later, in May of 1599, he was put on trial again and the court offered him a deal. Agree to stop performing exorcisms by prayer and fasting, and you can go free.


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[Assistant] Daryl refused and somehow a short while later he was quietly set free anyway. Immediately he picked back up where he left off, which didn't sit well with the Anglican authorities, including one man, the chaplain to the Bishop of London, Samuel Harsnett.


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[Assistant] What followed was a very public war of words. Think of it as the Elizabethan equivalent of dragging each other on social media, using only the printing press instead of the internet.


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[Assistant] Harsnett published a brutal thrashing of John Darryl, accusing him of setting all his exorcisms up ahead of time. In fact, in all but one instance, he had met with the families first before returning to put on his show. The deception seemed clear.


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[Assistant] Harstad's pamphlet, by the way, had a monster of a title.


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[Assistant] A discovery of the fraudulent practices of John Darrell, bachelor of arts in his proceedings concerning the pretend possessions and dispossessions of William Summers of Nottingham, Thomas Darling, the boy at Caldwell, and Catherine Wright at Mansfield.


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[Assistant] And of his dealings with one Mary Coop at Nottingham, detecting in some sort the deceitful trade in these latter days of casting out devils.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's the title. And I think I'm willing to break the rules and judge this book by its cover, you know?


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[Assistant] John Darrell shot back from a secret location, publishing his own pamphlet that claimed that he was the target of a smear campaign by the Anglican Church, who felt threatened by his power as a Puritan exorcist. And maybe there was some truth to that, but the evidence was already out there.


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[Assistant] However much he might have believed he was doing God's work, the truth was clear. Everything he had done to date had been a lie. He found homes where abuse, both verbal and physical, were driving children and teens to desperate behavior, and then he used religion to give those guilty parents someone else to blame.


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[Assistant] After the dust settled, John Darrell seems to have disappeared from the social and religious radar of his day. We know he returned to Mansfield, but what he did for the next decade or more is a bit of a mystery. Maybe he stopped altogether, or maybe he kept going, under an assumed name.


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[Assistant] Oh, and remember Thomas Darling, that 13 year old boy who wanted us to believe that a witch had cursed him by farting near him? He eventually went off to study at Oxford.


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[Assistant] There's something attractive about exorcism stories. It's a forbidden fruit, to be sure, but there's never not been a fascination about it, if we're honest.


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[Assistant] I'm of a generation that remembers how certain cable channels would scramble their picture and not the sound unless you paid extra.


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[Assistant] You couldn't see them, but you could certainly hear them. And the sounds were frustratingly tempting. And so it's no surprise that I remember the night of one particular sleepover at a friend's house when I finally saw the Exorcist.


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[Assistant] Seeing the head of a little girl spin 360 degrees around on her shoulders, however far-fetched and fantastical it might seem, left a deep impression on my young mind.


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[Assistant] And looking back decades later, it's easy to understand why.


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[Assistant] However primitive those special effects might have been, they made it clear to my young brain that I never wanted to be possessed. Which, I suppose, was where much of the horror came from.


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[Assistant] But just like any other topic of discussion or popular tradition, there is a nuance to conversations about possession stories. And more than that, there's power in the details, in the personal stories and players who are wrapped up in them. People like John Darrell.


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[Assistant] The fire was gone and all he wanted to ask for now was cooperation between religious factions.


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[Assistant] But his public rise and fall as a Puritan exorcist wouldn't entirely fade away. In fact, as those events played out in the last few years of the 16th century, their reports spread far and wide, and it's hard to put that sort of genie back in the bottle. People remembered. Honestly, how could they not?


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[Assistant] In 1601, a writer sat down to create a bit of entertainment. But as is so often the case, they drew upon current events and popular ideas.


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[Assistant] In his story, we watch a character's erratic behavior get blamed on demonic possession by his enemies. And then he's put through a fake and fraudulent exorcism by a fool dressed up as a priest.


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[Assistant] Clearly, John Daryl's fingerprints are all over the story. Little bits of influence that are visible if you know where to look.


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[Assistant] As always folks, thanks for watching. Credits for today's episode are in the description below. Of course, Lore has been a podcast since 2015 with over 350 million downloads to date. You can learn more about the show over at lorepodcast.com.


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[Assistant] If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to click the thumbs up and then click subscribe and the bell icon so that you don't miss future episodes. And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do say hi, I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think you'll be back next week. I said that last week, but he added this show. So unless he adds some more shows, he should be back next week. I want to hear about his special. I've yet to even.


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[Assistant] I get a little mad and a little jealous on some of the stuff cause you guys have two kids but somehow y'all manage to do so many.


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[Assistant] Usually you're out at the cabin doing all this work. I'm like, man, how do they have time to do all this? And then this week they're like, we've watched so many movies lately. Well, we put the kids to bed and then we have a little time. I mean, I feel like with us, by the time we get one to bed, you know, and then Ruth does other stuff around the house or whatever, it's like time to go to bed.


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[Assistant] So I'm still the worst so far, of the three episodes.


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[Assistant] All new stuff just for that crowd? From the special. Oh, right.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I was, well Friday night I was in Bowling Green, Kentucky, opening for Henry Cho, the theater there, that was great.


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[Assistant] Oh yeaah, what is that theater? I forgot the name of it. It's a big place. Uh, this one might be, not, are you talking about the Skypack?


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[Assistant] I don't think, no, it wasn't that. This wasn't that. It was right next door to the minor league. They have a minor league baseball team there. Bowling Green does? Yea. Alright. They're high A. I looked them up. Okay.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but they shut off fireworks while Henry was on stage, so he had a little bit of an innate experience with the fireworks. Anyway, that was a great show. Some folks came out. And then Saturday I was in Moberly, Missouri, uh, at the 4th Street Theater. A lot of folks came out. It was really fun. Worked with your buddy Will.


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[Assistant] My buddy now, I gotta stop just calling him your buddy. Uh, so it was, it was a great time. Alright. Moberly. Yeah, it's, uh.


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[Assistant] Not that anybody cares, but it's between St. Louis and Kansas City, kinda near Columbia, Missouri. Well, the people that live in Moberly Care.


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[Assistant] Yeah, this is years ago, but I feel like there was a viral video of a, he just got mad and charged the glass and rammed it and.


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[Assistant] It didn't escape but it shattered the glass enough to scare you.


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[Assistant] And if you don't want people looking at you, that's a good way to just block it out. Smear some feces on the glass. That's a way to do it.


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[Assistant] If you're in a slump or you mess up, but you're given a hundred percent, it's the effort that deserves booing that thing. Not that I boo often.


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[Assistant] Yeah. I mean, there's some major sports college teams. I don't know if I could say right off hand. Clemson.


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[Assistant] I was thinking about Michigan, South Bend. South Bend. It's actually Notre Dame, Indiana. We're incorporated. It's a city. So uhm, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just made think. So the NFL draft is this Thursday. It's one of my favorite nights. And most people think they're going to take a Notre Dame guy.


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[Assistant] Uh, what's his, I forgot his name, the, the transportation secretary.


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[Assistant] Oh, okay, I was about to say you went a different direction there, but brought it back a little bit.


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[Assistant] But sometimes people are like, ah, I went to such and such a game. The fans were the worst. Well, it might be a hundred thousand people there and you're in your one section. I don't know if that's a good, you know.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you want to experience it together. If somebody's on their phone, you're like, you're not getting it.


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[Assistant] And I've changed, slightly changed my opinion on them a little bit. Okay. Uh, one of my all time favorites is because it came out when I was a teen, it was The Breakfast Club. Yeah. I still love that movie, but I watched it the other night, Ruth and I watched it, and you know, it's not quite as great as I maybe remember.


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[Assistant] There's a quick turn at the end where they're hating each other more than ever. And then now they, they do a little.


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[Assistant] You know, smoke a little weed and then I guess that helps them come around. I'm fucking a dusty as I say that, but, uh.


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[Assistant] But I mean, it goes- I mean, they lighten up a little bit. They lighten up a lot and they go from hating each other so much to, you know, falling for each other and- Right. It just seemed kind of drastic there at the end.


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[Assistant] I mean, I used to have a joke about the Breakfast Club, how that was my big diversity movie as a kid. Five straight white teenagers forced to spend a day together. We're like, whoa, they're so different.


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[Assistant] Well they are, but nowadays if that movie was made, it would be a little bit different as far as the five kids forced to spend a day together. And then the other movie-


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[Assistant] Uhm, so I, in our sports movies episode, I said Hoosiers was my favorite sports movie. You kind of laughed at that a little bit because it seemed like an old person. Just trying to be funny on the podcast.


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[Assistant] And I do, I still do love Hoosiers. I rewatched it recently.


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[Assistant] And I still, still one of my top movies, but I also recently rewatched Rudy, which is my second favorite sports movie and Moneyball, which is one of my favorite sports movies. There was a period where sports movies, the actual sports scenes weren't that good. The action.


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[Assistant] What Moneyball does better than any sports movie I think is makes the baseball scene seem so legit.


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[Assistant] Even the actors, it's so good. Chris Pratt does a good job with it. Yep. And even-


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[Assistant] Excuse me, Rudy, which is now over 30 years old, still does a very good job, I think, for sports movies. All the practice scenes look legit. They do look legit. Hoosier still had some of that little bit of, oh, these are actors out there in a uniform.


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[Assistant] Yeah, your mom took you to that Auburn game. That's a great photo. But there is a Mother's Day day coming up. And if you want to win Mother's Day and submit your reputation as the best gift giver in the family, you know what you should give her?


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[Assistant] I did the same thing. I got Orifrein for my mom. I'd send pictures of her of Dusty. Not these kids, just Dusty.


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[Assistant] So she can see his latest merch that he's wearing on stage. No, I sent her photos of Eleanor. We've taken millions of pictures of Eleanor and I upload it and it goes instantly there.


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[Assistant] Off plus free shipping on their best selling frame. That's A U R A frames.com and use code Nate at checkout to save terms and conditions apply.


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[Assistant] Well, with this group, you just never know what's legit, what's not. When I said poem, I wasn't trying to be funny.


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[Assistant] I would just come into Tyler's defense if it's his last time to remember his team and he probably wants to remember them the way they're pronounced.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you sent me some photos though of two sons. I did. Out there. Two sons.


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[Assistant] I think you and the powers that be agree on most food related issues. I defended you on the food episode because I feel like you were.


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[Assistant] In agreement with most of them. Drink more water, less sodas, avoid fast food.


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[Assistant] Is it ever hard to just get out there in life when everyone's, you know...


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[Assistant] Well, there's a lot going on this week. Uhm, today, Monday is Earth Day. Oh, happy Earth Day, everybody. I got some little bit about that I want to talk about. Yes, sir. Uh, Passover starts at sundown.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I'm sorry, yeaah. I guess it technically starts Tuesday.


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[Assistant] Well, I think it starts today, Monday. Monday at sundown. Okay. All right. Uh, Thursday, NFL draft.


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[Assistant] So I look, oh I'm sorry, go ahead. I looked up Earth Day, I guess every year they have a, you know, a theme or something there. Let's focus on this this year. I think you're going to be on board with this, Dusty. Their goal is to reduce


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, all plastics by 60% by 2040. I'm into that. And they said how microplastics is becoming a really big problem.


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[Assistant] I've been hearing more and more about microplastics. I think it's becoming more mainstream.


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[Assistant] I mean, the club I do about 50 and the theater I do like an hour.


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[Assistant] Uh, so the other thing, I was walking another day in my neighborhood, I noticed, man, my neighbor has not cut their grass in a while. And I'm like, and they had a sign in their yard, apparently April is no-mo month. And the reason is, I guess- No-mo month. No-mo month.


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[Assistant] Have you heard this, Dusty? They're encouraging people not to mow their grass because people cut their grass too much, they say, and it helps the environment if you don't cut it so much. It helps groundwater, uh, absorb more if you, if you don't.


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[Assistant] What were you thinking? A serial killer? I had no...


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[Assistant] Uh, well I was gonna get into some cloud seeding stuff, but maybe we should just, uh, I'll just say this in Dubai, I guess it's very, uh,


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[Assistant] They have very few, little rain year round. So they do cloud seeding. Cloud seeding. They just had a, well, I should say this, they just had a flood in Dubai and they think it's.


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[Assistant] The article I read, they think it's because of cloud seeding where they-


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[Assistant] Where they put chemicals in the clouds to make it rain. And they think it kinda overdid it.


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[Assistant] Well, I don't know, but it's flooding in Dubai, so uhm.


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[Assistant] Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Well, Tennessee did just pass the law where you can't do that in Tennessee. Oh, that's good. They did pass it. The governor signed it. Oh, I don't know. They, I guess legislature. I called the governor.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, save it. Alright, this week, it's been a while since we talked about a state. Aaron just got back from Nebraska, so we should talk about Nebraska.


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[Assistant] I like Nebraska. I was just there with Nate a couple months ago. We did the arena there and he did the arena and I was long in Omaha.


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[Assistant] It's a company there in Omaha and I guess they just have some of the leading, uh, production of steaks anywhere in the country.


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[Assistant] Local grocer, they were having a late night poker game at a hotel and they were hungry and he whipped up a sandwich and this is 1925 in Omaha and one of the players who owned the hotel loved it and started serving it there in his hotel restaurant.


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[Assistant] Uh, I thought this was, Nebraska is the only triply landlocked US state.


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[Assistant] Meaning, any, uh, if you want to get to a body of water, you gotta go through three states to get there.


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[Assistant] Okay, uhm, when I say body of water, I mean an ocean or a gulf. I'm sure they've had one that be.


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[Assistant] Uhm, some clouds eating going on out there. Uh, it's capital is Lincoln. Most popular city, Omaha. I think you could guess that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I didn't even know this was a real thing. I've heard about ski resorts that can put chemicals to make it snow.


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[Assistant] There's something about, now I'm going to get off on this, there's something about nature though, and I know weather can...


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[Assistant] Kill so many people. So I don't want to be flipping about this, but in the world where we can do everything, I don't know, there's something I like about the fact that


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[Assistant] Nature can still, you can have rain outs.


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[Assistant] I don't know, I mean, I don't even know what I'm trying to say. When I watch, uh,


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[Assistant] Presidential inauguration and they're out there in the rain or whatever. There's only so much we can do as, as humans.


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[Assistant] Alright, so Nebraska became a state in 1867. I'd heard of the Homestead Act, didn't really know what it was. They offered families 160 acres of land if you would go out there and build and farm on it for five years. Wow. Pretty good deal.


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[Assistant] Well, I didn't say that in the thing I read, but I'm sure that's okay.


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[Assistant] They have no political party affiliation, like here in Tennessee, we have Republican, Democrat, whatever. It's just one, one party.


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[Assistant] Just for the state legislature, they still have Republican, Democrat. Sure. US.


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[Assistant] When you think of famous people from Nebraska, who do you think of?


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[Assistant] Do you know why he yells omaha? Or why he did?


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[Assistant] I looked at a clip and he, something about just, it's a three syllable, easy to...


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[Assistant] Yeah, I don't think there was any great reason behind it. I don't think he like had some affiliation with Omaha.


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[Assistant] I think Larry the Cable Guy, uh, Warren Buffett, and I mean this is kind of a given, but Tom Osborne, the long time coach in Nebraska.


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[Assistant] I would admit that people of a certain age, unless you're a Nebraska fan, may not know Tom Osborne, but he was the legendary coach there for years when they were so good. And then he was so popular, he ran for, for Senate after he left and was a US Senator from Nebraska for.


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[Assistant] Uh, now just last year, so their football stadium holds 90-something thousand people. That's awesome.


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[Assistant] It becomes the third largest city in effect every Saturday when they host a home game.


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[Assistant] But last year, they did a Nebraska women's volleyball game there, and it set a, I guess a world record for largest women's sporting event. 92,000 fans.


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[Assistant] Johnny W and I did some shows where we drove across Nebraska and Western Nebraska and Eastern Nebraska. It's a long state there.


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[Assistant] Like most places, they're, you know, pretty different. The terrain's different. It's much more mountainous in the western part of the state. And, um, but yeah, we had a great time.


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[Assistant] Eastern half is pretty flat. Right. And then as we drove further, I think, you know, it's bordering Colorado.


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[Assistant] Now I've never heard this, uhm, during World War II, Japan released a bunch of balloon bombs to fly over the United States. And uhm, most of them never detonated, but some did, and one detonated over Omaha.


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[Assistant] They made it that far inland, which is, you know, like you said, about as middle American as you can get. There's a plaque there now in Omaha where it, where it dropped.


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[Assistant] Did it kill anybody? No, of all the, most of them never even made it. There was one in Oregon that hit the ground and then a family found it in the woods and it detonated and killed some people. Did they launch it out of Japan?


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[Assistant] I'm guessing out, maybe from out in sea?


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[Assistant] Launch, I don't know where they launched it from, but their plan was just for it to take the jet stream, you know, and fly over and... Wow.


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[Assistant] I know. Maybe, I don't know where they must be.


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[Assistant] That's pretty far. So you already mentioned the Reuben sandwich. I'm impressed, Esti. You know your stuff.


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[Assistant] Well, I didn't, to be honest with you, I had not heard of it. And uhm, had you heard of it? No. Dusty. Uhm, there's 82 of them, just in Nebraska. Wow. And it's a, it's a chainana, that's what the dish is called, it's a hot stuff pastry, that's beloved by Nebraskans according to this.


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[Assistant] Now Arbor Day is this Friday, as I mentioned before, it started in Nebraska.


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[Assistant] There's a guy who proposed, uhm, see, a prize for whoever could plant the most trees. I guess Nebraska needs some trees. Or at least then they did. This is in the 1800s and roughly 1 million trees were planted on the first Arbor Day just in Nebraska. Wow.


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[Assistant] And it took off and a few years later it became a legal holiday in Nebraska and then eventually of course became a US holiday. Wow.


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[Assistant] I don't use delete me, I use find me because I want people, I've used that joke before, but anyway, I thought I'd try it again. It's a hot joke. I did just tell Leanne Morgan about it though, because, um, you know, she was like, oh, my information's out there. I said, you should try delete me. So there you go. We're spreading the word.


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[Assistant] But Nebraska with all the trees, it used to be called the tree planter state.


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[Assistant] A lot of companies headquartered in Nebraska.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is there in Omaha.


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[Assistant] It wasn't that bad. I'm joking. It wasn't so bad before talking about it, but it was fine. Um, Union Pacific railroads there. And you remember those. I do.


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[Assistant] Here's what I do remember. So, Mutual of Omaha Insurance is obviously there. When I was a kid, I loved this show called Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. It was this TV show where a couple of zoo guys would just go out and talk about animals and, uhm,


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[Assistant] I think his name is Marlon Perkins and as a kid, I loved watching the show.


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[Assistant] I mean, I would be so bored as a kid. I would just get our phone book and flip through the yellow pages. I think he was in Ace Ventura when nature calls. He might've been.


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[Assistant] I don't know, Jim Fowler, that guy right there was on an episode of Seinfeld. So he was also a regular on Johnny Carson. So anyway, I used to love this, but I would flip through our phone book and there would be an ad for mutual of Omaha, just the insurance company. And I thought it was the wild kingdom show. So I'd ask my mom to take me down there and see the chimpanzees.


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[Assistant] Oh, I forgot some famous people also from Nebraska. Adam Devine.


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[Assistant] I've worked with Adam and he's a huge Nebraska fan.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he was born in Omaha. No presidents have been from Nebraska, but Gerald Ford was born there.


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[Assistant] Well, he was born there, but he quickly moved to Michigan. I think Michigan.


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[Assistant] And Terrence Crawford is the pound for pound number one boxer in the world, Terrence Bud Crawford. And apparently, I don't follow boxing that closely, but he wears Omaha on his trunks, his boxing trunks to kind of honor his hometown.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I don't either. Oh, some more here. Uh, Godfrey. Comedian Godfrey was born. Really? There.


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[Assistant] It's from Nebraska. You guys ever seen the movies, uh, the movie Boys Don't Cry?


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[Assistant] I think that's what kinda made her, I think she maybe won an Academy Award for that movie, and that was set in Nebraska.


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[Assistant] Mhm. Yep, she was in that. A million dollar baby.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so now I watch Cobra Kai and they have worn out every previous storyline except her. I know, I'm hoping now.


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[Assistant] It's hardcore, like, you know, fight scenes. Some movies set in Nebraska.


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[Assistant] Well, I just mentioned Boys Don't Cry. Could you guys name a movie set in Nebraska? Even partially?


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[Assistant] That's Kansas. I think that's, it was Lori White was the woman. Did you know that? From Castaway? She's a country singer. I think she's passed away, but she was the woman that he delivers that package to. And I think that's in Texas. I could be wrong though.


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[Assistant] Alright, here's a few. Uh, one I knew, uhm, there's a movie called Nebraska. It's really good. Will Forte.


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[Assistant] Uh, came out a few years ago, uh, Bruce Dern and his father thinks he won like a sweepstakes, so they drive cross country to...


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[Assistant] It was, you know, it's not a hot place. Well, no movie theater now, I guess, is a real hot place, but it was the biggest movie theater supposedly east of the Mississippi when it opened. 27 screens when it opened back in the mid nineties. And it, it's huge and it was such a hot place and it has video games out in the lobby and stuff like that. I guess they all do now.


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[Assistant] And, and I see Laura Dern playing pinball.


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[Assistant] And I'm like, well, a friend was like, I think that's Laura Dern, but why would Laura Dern be here? By herself? She was with some guys, but just random people.


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[Assistant] And I'm like, maybe that just looks like her. And then I read later on, she was in town. She was either dating a guy in a band or her friend's band was playing in Nashville. And, uh, that was her.


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[Assistant] You guys have great, you know, a lot of people talked about your Spotify playlist.


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[Assistant] And I think you, with a couple exceptions with Dusty, I think you guys have great movies. I like your movies. I think you and I have a lot of the same favorite movies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Music that you tell me about that I don't know about, I like it. I'm like, this is good. Especially country music. You know some artists that I don't know about. Alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few more movies, Election, Reese Witherspoon, and- Oh that is-


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[Assistant] He didn't like her because she was so popular and he was kind of a loser. We're giving it away.


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[Assistant] I thought she was just running for class president and he didn't want her to win and I thought it was as simple as that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, up in the air with George Clooney. I love that movie. I like that movie too. I watched it recently. It's funny because I think it was came out like 15 years ago and he's this


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was like, whoa, how did I miss that? I flew home yesterday on Southwest. There was like 40 something people on the entire plane. Wow. So they had a whole row. Yeah. Everybody got a whole, well, let me ask you this though. Everybody could have gotten a whole row.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would you choose your own whole row or would you choose if someone's in the window seat and would you choose an aisle seat just to be further up? Or would you just choose to go back a little further?


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[Assistant] Because I saw people do that and I'm like, man, I think I would spread out a little bit more.


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[Assistant] And if the lady, you know, I saw the lady in the window seat and then somebody sits down in the aisle seat and she kind of looked like...


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[Assistant] And we got on and they announced the captain doesn't want anyone sitting in the first 20 rows to spread out. And we'd already sat down and nobody moved and then they never said anything again.


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[Assistant] I'm sorry, I said that as two sentences into one. He wants this to spread out so he doesn't want anybody sitting in the front 20 rows. He wants to balance the plane.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's like, yeah, you're like, yeah, you want that. But that ain't what you're gonna get.


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[Assistant] But bottom line is they wanted everyone to spread out, uhm, but everybody still kinda congregated closer to the fraud. Of course, yeaah, you're going to. Yeaah. So anyway, and then they announced the, uhm, A1 through 15, there was nobody, nobody bought the, you know, so the first number was A16.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, about Schmidt. Did you ever see that movie? Oh yeaah. That's a great one. Jack Nicholson? Uh huh. It is a good movie. I love that one.


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[Assistant] He's a retired salesman and I think he's just having a hard time fitting into retirement life.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Alien vs Predator. Also based on a true story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't seen Alien vs Predator, but apparently it's set in Nebraska. That seems hard to believe, but I haven't seen it, so I don't know.


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[Assistant] I was supposed to say, you're washing your hands of that comment. I was like, I don't know what I said inappropriate. Uh, some other things invented in Nebraska Kool-Aid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. It's where the Kool-Aid guy's from. It was invented by a guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hastings, Nebraska. They did say there was a Chef Boyardee statue in Omaha, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nashville Zoo's like that. I'm like, how are all these kids out of school, but they're field trips and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but I push Eleanor in a stroller and you can't get up close enough to the animals because there's so many people. Now when she gets older and can walk on her own and I can hold her up, but she was so young last time we went, you know, and the animals, they don't cooperate. They don't come over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, I feel like the sea animals are usually easier because you're usually underground looking through the tank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most of the animals are sleeping in the back of the thing and you're just looking at other people to try to figure out even, I do that, I walk up to exhibit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll just look to see where the other people are looking because I don't see anything in there. And they're like, oh, there it is. I act like I'm there all the time.