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[Assistant] Well, not really, but he wanted it to appear that he had, and for a number of really good reasons.


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[Assistant] There was all that evidence hidden away in the castle, his ever growing criminal record, even the curious relatives of his victims. All of it threatened to catch up with him. It would be better if he just died, if only on paper.


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[Assistant] Then there was the financial payoff, because of course, he had a life insurance policy.


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[Assistant] So Holmes and Peitzel traveled to Rhode Island, of all places, where they watched a local morgue for a body that looked enough like Holmes to fool the authorities.


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[Assistant] When they found one, the corpse was taken to the beach near one of the many luxury resorts, and then burned.


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[Assistant] Holmes somehow managed to get the corpse identified as himself, and soon after, his crooked lawyer filed the claim with the insurance company. But after everything they'd gone through to get to that point, the plan began to fall apart. The insurance company didn't have a good feeling about the identity of the victim, and refused to pay the policy.


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[Assistant] Now, Holmes couldn't very well fight for the claim himself. There was no way to prove the body was really his own, other than the physical similarities. But the insurance company wanted irrefutable proof, and neither Howe nor Holmes could give them that.


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[Assistant] So instead, he and Peitzel dropped it and moved on to Philadelphia. The Holmes had a new idea, but it was going to take a lot of work to set up.


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[Assistant] And to do it, he would lean heavily on Pitesil for help.


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[Assistant] This time, it was Benjamin Peitzel's turn to die. It would be another insurance scam, involving yet another body double. But this time, they needed to do it right. In Holmes, they finally figured it out.


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[Assistant] You see, the insurance company would want solid proof. And a fake Peitzel wouldn't be enough, because just pointing at a body and claiming it was a specific person no longer worked.


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[Assistant] Instead, Holmes believed that the body needed to be found in a place only Peitzel should be. The proof, Holmes believed, would be in the location of the body, not the appearance.


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[Assistant] But all of this required a long game. Pitesil used a false identity to rent a storefront at 1316 Caliwell Street. The business would be a patent office and inventor's lab, perfect for a growing city at the height of the second industrial revolution.


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[Assistant] And then, Peitzel sent for his wife and children, who soon arrived to complete the picture of normal domestic life.


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[Assistant] At some point in late August, Heitzel bumped into a man named Eugene Smith, who was a carpenter looking for work.


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[Assistant] Beitzel told him about his inventor's laboratory and invited him to come by the following week to discuss employment.


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[Assistant] And on the afternoon of September 3rd, 1894, that's just what Smith did.


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[Assistant] When he knocked on the shop window, no one answered, but the door was unlocked and so he let himself in.


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[Assistant] He probably shouted hello into the empty room. A bit of confusion in his voice. And he probably walked a few steps in, to see if the man he'd come to meet had somehow not heard him. And that's when the smell reached his nose.


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[Assistant] It was the scent of a charnel house, the acrid, bitter smell of burned flesh and blood, which would probably have sent most of us running in the other direction.


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[Assistant] But Smith needed a job, and it was an inventor's workshop, so he probably just told himself it was part of some experiment, and forced his feet to take him deeper in.


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[Assistant] He pushed a curtain aside and stepped into the back room and then stopped.


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[Assistant] There was a body on the floor, surrounded by a pool of crimson.


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[Assistant] The clothing looked familiar, but the head was horribly burned, almost beyond recognition.


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[Assistant] Almost. If he squinted, he was pretty sure, sort of, that it might be the man who asked him to come by that day. He thought.


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[Assistant] So he called the authorities, gave them his statement, and then left them to do their job. And the Philadelphia police fell for it. They connected the dots between Smith's story and the name on the shop lease papers and stamped their seal of approval on the corpse's identity, which was what Holmes and the others had been waiting for.


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[Assistant] Al filed the paperwork with Fidelity Mutual Life Association, and soon the men were looking at a check for $10,000. Their hard work had paid off.


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[Assistant] Holmes gave Howe a quarter of the money, and another 500 to Peitzel's wife. Her husband had gone into hiding, which was pretty obvious given the circumstances. Except, it was all a lie.


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[Assistant] After all, Holmes was very good at lying. Benjamin Peitzel wasn't in hiding, and he would never return to claim his share of the money. Because he was dead.


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[Assistant] You see, while Peitzel was carrying out his part of the plan, Holmes had begun a second scheme behind the man's back.


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[Assistant] It began with forged letters to Pitesil from his wife Carrie. Holmes knew Pitesil was an alcoholic, and he knew that stress at home would set the man off. So he sent fake letters to him at the shop, hoping they would cause Pitesil to get drunk. And it worked.


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[Assistant] Early on the afternoon of September 5th, just a few hours before Eugene Smith showed up for his job interview, Holmes entered the shop and found Peitzel in a drunken stupor.


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[Assistant] Now think about that for a second. I know it's easy to hear all the commentary on how skilled Holmes was and brush it off as hyperbole, but this was a man that would make Dexter jealous.


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[Assistant] So with a bit of smug satisfaction, he took a length of rope from the closet and tied Peitzel's hands and feet.


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[Assistant] Then, he retrieved a bottle of benzene, a clear liquid used as an industrial solvent that also happens to be incredibly flammable. And then, well, why don't we let Holmes himself describe what happened next?


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[Assistant] But that was Holmes in a nutshell, after all. Heartless. And depraved.


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[Assistant] Anything and everything was nothing more than a means to an end. And that end was almost always money.


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[Assistant] So when he handed Carey Peitzel the $500 and lied to her about her husband, he did so with joy. He later told the police that he'd wanted to kill Peitzel since the moment he'd met the man. Morbid or not, Holmes was feeling pretty good about his long-term goals. But he wasn't done yet.


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[Assistant] First, he took the money back from Carrie Pitesel, telling her that he wanted to invest it for her. And she handed it over without an ounce of worry.


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[Assistant] Then, Holmes gathered everyone in his little community, his third wife Georgiana, Carrie Peitzel, and the five Peitzel children, and ushered them onto a train out of town.


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[Assistant] Wait, I'm sorry. I just called them his community. In reality, they were all potential witnesses. Eyes and ears that might notice something inconvenient to his plans. And as stereotypical as it might sound to our Hollywood-influenced minds, Holmes didn't want any loose ends.


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[Assistant] The witnesses, you see, would have to disappear.


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[Assistant] It wasn't as easy as pushing everyone onto a train and leaving town. If only it were.


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[Assistant] No, Holmes had a problem. There were enough adults in the group that if they got to talking, they might start putting the pieces together, which would be a very bad thing for him.


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[Assistant] So Holmes flexed his manipulative muscles and managed to split them into three separate groups. He booked his wife Georgiana in one train car, Carrie Peitzel in another with her oldest and youngest children, and then the three middle children, Alice, Nellie, and Howard, into a third.


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[Assistant] Over the next few weeks, the group traveled in the most bizarre fashion, all painstakingly managed by Holmes.


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[Assistant] In the entire time, Carrie Peitzel and Georgiana were unaware of the other woman's presence. When they stopped in various cities, homes would rent houses or rooms for them all that were just close enough, but never together, often keeping Carrie separated from her children. They seemed to travel everywhere.


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[Assistant] Indianapolis, Detroit, Cincinnati, New York. The homes led them all across the eastern half of the United States. He even slipped up into Canada for a short time, spending a few days in Toronto where he rented a house at 16 St. Vincent Lane.


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[Assistant] Not long after, at one of their many stops, Carey Peitzel asked Holmes if she could see her children, but he told her no.


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[Assistant] He'd left them with an old widow back in Indianapolis, but promised they'd be reunited soon enough. Which was another lie. One that Carrie fell for.


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[Assistant] The last big move happened in early November of 1894. He sent Georgiana to stay with her parents back in Indiana, and then took Carrie Peitzel north to Vermont. He rented her a house in Burlington before heading east to New Hampshire to visit his own elderly parents.


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[Assistant] Rumor says that while he was there, he also paid a visit to his first wife, Clara, and even bought their son a suit.


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[Assistant] But this deeply tangled web of lies that Holmes was stringing together was about to come unraveled. Weeks before, you see, Fidelity Mutual had become suspicious about the insurance claim that Holmes had collected on. It's not that they doubted the identity of the body. No, it was the manner of death. They didn't believe that it was an accident.


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[Assistant] So they hired an investigator named Frank Geier to help.


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[Assistant] Geier was a member of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, sort of a private security and investigation company founded by Alan Pinkerton back in 1850.


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[Assistant] And when Geier was handed the job, he dug in deep, quickly discovering that Henry Howard, the false name used by Holmes, had a criminal record. That name took him to Missouri.


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[Assistant] Where he interviewed Holmes' old cellmate, Marion Hedgepeth, the handsome bandit. The man, you'll recall, that Holmes had promised to pay $500 before changing his mind.


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[Assistant] Feeling cheated, Edgepeth was more than eager to return the favor. So he confessed everything he knew about Howard to Geyer.


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[Assistant] After that, it was a matter of following the clues, of which there were few. Holmes was good at being invisible, after all. Maguire was also good at his job.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was the paper trail left by Georgiana when she bailed Holmes out of prison, or their marriage certificate. Whatever it was, Geyer found it and was soon headed to Indiana to find her parents.


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[Assistant] Imagine his surprise, then, when he found Georgiana herself.


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[Assistant] And she pointed Geyer to Kerry Peitzel in Burlington, who, in turn, told him that Holmes had recently headed to Boston.


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[Assistant] Geier moved quickly. On November 17th of 1894, he and his associates finally caught up with Holmes, and he took him into custody.


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[Assistant] It was only after homes had been locked up in a Philadelphia jail cell on charges of insurance fraud that two significant things happened.


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[Assistant] First, the janitor for the building that Holmes had abandoned in Chicago decided to go to the police and tell them about the parts of the building that were off limits.


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[Assistant] Of course, evolved into the investigation that's taught us everything we know about the castle. But the second was Carey Peitzel's request for Geyer to find her three missing children, Alice, Nellie, and Howard.


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[Assistant] His first stop was Detroit, but he found no sign of them there. He did, however, find evidence that some of the floorboards had been pulled up where a shallow hole had been dug in the dirt.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until Geyer arrived in Toronto that his investigation began to gain traction.


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[Assistant] Interviews led him to the cottage at 16 St. Vincent Lane, where a neighbor recalled seeing a man with two little girls. A man, he said, who had borrowed a shovel to dig a potato patch.


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[Assistant] When the true meaning sank in, Gaert must have felt sick.


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[Assistant] The bodies of Nellie and Alice Peitzel were found beneath several feet of loose dirt.


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[Assistant] They'd been murdered. That much was clear. But how it had been done was a mystery. It was only after Geyer and the others discovered the large trunk in one of the upstairs bedrooms and the rubber tubing that ran between it and a gas pipe that the story came into focus.


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[Assistant] Miles from his precious castle, H. H. Holmes had crafted a temporary gas chamber to murder the Pitesil girls.


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[Assistant] But eight-year-old Howard Peitzel was still missing, so Geyer pressed on with urgency.


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[Assistant] Desperate, he traveled back to Indiana, where he interviewed hundreds of people with the hope of finding the house that Holmes had rented there near Indianapolis. Some estimates claim Geier followed up on over 900 leads, and that persistence eventually paid off.


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[Assistant] With a better understanding of how Holmes operated, Geyer had the house and property searched with incredible diligence. When they identified a bone fragment in the fireplace as human, the entire chimney was dismantled, which slowly exposed what little remained of young Howard.


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[Assistant] Later, under oath, Holmes described how he drugged the boy, and then burned his body piece by piece to destroy the evidence.


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[Assistant] Herman Mudgett spent his life building a tower of lies, his business ventures, his love affairs, his insurance scams, and his trail of bodies across so much of Northern America.


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[Assistant] Maybe that's why his Chicago murder castle is such a powerful image in our minds. That warren of body shoots, gas chambers, and torture rooms was a physical reminder of that world of lies.


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[Assistant] So it's no surprise that at the end of it all he headed back toward the only real life he ever had. The only place where there were no lies. Home.


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[Assistant] Maybe, just maybe, there was a small part of him that wished he could start over and do things differently. Then again, maybe not.


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[Assistant] And after his execution on May 7th of 1896, an execution that didn't go according to plan, mind you, with his body writhing at the end of the noose for over 15 minutes, Mudgett was finally buried in Philadelphia's Holy Cross Cemetery.


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[Assistant] At his request, his body was placed in a simple pine coffin, which was then filled with cement.


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[Assistant] After it was placed in the grave, more cement was poured on top.


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[Assistant] There are rumors, of course, that Mudgett faked his death, that he somehow escaped to live on in Europe. Even as I record this, three of his great-grandchildren have announced plans to exhume his remains and test them, just to be sure.


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[Assistant] But whether or not the body in the grave truly belongs to the man we call H.H. Holmes, there are those who believe that his evil was so deep, so horrific and powerful, that it managed to live on. That the noose and cement weren't enough to stop him from killing again.


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[Assistant] The first was a physician who testified during the trial, Dr. William Matten. He died of blood poisoning shortly after Holmes was buried.


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[Assistant] A trial judge was next, followed by another of the medical witnesses.


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[Assistant] One of the priests who visited Holmes in his final hours died mysteriously near his own church, and a member of the jury was killed in an unusual electrical accident. Even Frank Geier, the man who brought Holmes to justice, became seriously ill after the trial, although he somehow managed to survive.


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[Assistant] There were others too. The father of one of the victims who passed away suddenly. The Fidelity Mutual Insurance Office that burned to the ground.


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[Assistant] The prison superintendent who committed suicide. And, of course, the death of Marion Hedgepath in December of 1910.


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[Assistant] They call it the Holmes Curse, and it's built on a premise that's difficult to push aside completely, no matter how rational we might be.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research help from Marsette Crockett. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] On August 31st of 1944, a man in southern Illinois woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of something odd.


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[Assistant] It wasn't a skunk or that telltale odor of something burning. This was different.


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[Assistant] Partly because of the acrid, almost venomous nature of the smell. But mostly because of the effect it had on him. The man said that the smell left him feeling weak and nauseous, and that it induced a violent fit of vomiting. And his wife didn't fare any better.


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[Assistant] She wondered if maybe their gas stove was still on, so she tried to get out of bed and go check on it. But she couldn't. In fact, she seemed to be completely paralyzed.


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[Assistant] The next day, another resident of the same town reported a similar experience. An odd smell followed by paralyzing effects. Day after day, more reports just like those trickled in. The result, as you might imagine, was group panic. And everyone wanted to find the person responsible.


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[Assistant] They called him the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. And even now, over 70 years later, no one's really sure what happened.


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[Assistant] It's amazing how quickly hysteria can spread, isn't it?


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[Assistant] One minute, there's nothing, and the next? An entire community is wrapped up in something dark and horrifying.


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[Assistant] It might be political panic, or religious fervor, or a simple primal fear of the unexplained.


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[Assistant] Whatever its flavor, it always has the potential to be powerful. Sometimes, even deadly.


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[Assistant] Over two centuries ago, something took place that fit the definition of hysteria to the letter, but with a twist.


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[Assistant] This event had more depth and more power than usual. In fact, it had everything a good fairy tale needs. Cryptids and witchcraft and ghosts. Oh my.


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[Assistant] But it also had something else, something that's helped it survive to this day.


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[Assistant] The first British settlers along the Atlantic coast of North America stayed pretty close to the ocean, and for good reason. Those early colonies were deeply dependent on ships from England to bring them supplies and help, and to stray too far from the Atlantic meant putting yourself and your family at risk.


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[Assistant] But as time went on, settlers felt more and more comfortable moving farther inland.


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[Assistant] They followed the rivers. They aimed for the mountains they could see on the western horizon. They chased the dream of wide open territory, ripe for the taking, which wasn't a pleasant idea for the tens of thousands of Native Americans who already called those lands home and had so for millennia.


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[Assistant] To help, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited moving westward past the Appalachian Mountains.


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[Assistant] But when the British were forced out after the American Revolution, that political borderline evaporated. Thousands of newly independent Americans flooded westward, and by 1800, places like Kentucky and Tennessee had been transformed from wilderness into rustic civilization.


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[Assistant] By the time John and Lucy Bell rolled into the newly formed state of Tennessee in 1804, there were already a good number of people waiting there for them. Not that they needed more company. John and Lucy were traveling with their five children. Their sixth and oldest wasn't with them, having gotten married before the family left North Carolina.


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[Assistant] True to the social climate of pre-Civil War South, the family also traveled with a number of slaves. Nine by most accounts.


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[Assistant] The entire group aimed for the flatlands around the Red River, where a number of other settlers had already put down roots. And then they did what settlers were born to do. They built a new life in a strange place.


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[Assistant] And then a son. And then another son. And as their family was growing wider, it was also growing deeper.


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[Assistant] John's family deepened their friendship with the neighboring family, the Guns. So deep that their families were woven together by marriage. But in the early 1800s, the primary focus was on the mundane.


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[Assistant] He was out in the cornfield one day when he looked up to see an odd animal a dozen or so yards away. It was odd because it seemed to be a mixture of two very different creatures. The body was very clearly that of a dog. The head though, well, John was sure. It was a rabbit.


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[Assistant] John raised his gun. No settler on the edge of civilization went anywhere without a gun, after all, and fired at the unusual creature.


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[Assistant] The shot missed, so he fired again. And again.


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[Assistant] But whatever it was, it just turned and ran off toward the woods.


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[Assistant] By the time he walked back into the farmhouse that evening for dinner, he'd almost forgotten about it.


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[Assistant] There was a lot on his mind. The crops, the livestock, the approaching winter. Being a practical man, he wasn't one to dwell on what had so clearly been a figment of his imagination. That, however, is when they heard the noises.


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[Assistant] The sounds came from outside and sounded for all they could tell, like someone was beating on the house. They ran out to see who it was, but found nothing.


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[Assistant] A few days later, John's son Andrew was outside when he saw what he described as a giant turkey.


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[Assistant] It was larger than any bird he'd ever seen before, but it flew away before he could shoot it.


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[Assistant] John's daughter Elizabeth, just 11 years old at the time, was outside not long after that when she claimed to see a dead woman hanging from a tree on the property.


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[Assistant] The sight of it frightened her enough to send her running back to the house. But when she glanced back over her shoulder, there was nothing there.


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[Assistant] One of the most unusual stories came from one of their slaves, a man named Dean. Years before, he had found true love in the eyes of another slave at the nearby gun farm, and the couple had married shortly after that. So, each night, after Dean finished his work, he would walk over to the guns to see his wife and spend time with her.


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[Assistant] It was always late when he came back. Late and dark.


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[Assistant] But even though the frontier wasn't the safest place to walk alone, Dean knew the road well enough. It's just that...


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[Assistant] Well, he was seeing things lately that didn't seem normal. One thing, specifically, actually. A dog.


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[Assistant] Every night on his return trip home, a large black dog would step out of the darkness and cross his path.


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[Assistant] It wasn't random, according to Dean. It was regular, happening each night, and had for at least a week before he reported it. Large and unusual animals on the property.


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[Assistant] None of it was comforting, and all of it went on for months.


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[Assistant] But they could always run home, shut the door, and feel safe again.


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[Assistant] At first it was just knocking sounds. They seemed to creep in through the walls like a winter chill. Odd sounds in a distant part of the house, always without an explanation.


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[Assistant] But then it changed. Or maybe it adapted. It all depends on how you look at it, I suppose. Because not long after the noises moved indoors, the children began to complain about disturbances in the night.


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[Assistant] It sounded to them like rats were chewing on the bedposts.


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[Assistant] Some of the children claimed they could hear chains being dragged around the house. Others said that their blankets were being pulled off of them while they slept.


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[Assistant] On at least one occasion, Elizabeth ran into her parents' room in the middle of the night, crying hysterically.


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[Assistant] They lit a lantern and discovered that she was covered in red welts and bruises, as if she'd been beaten.


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[Assistant] That night set off a string of attacks that all seemed to focus on her.


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[Assistant] Noises that followed her. Physical assaults. Visions. The new focus wasn't contained to the house either. One story tells of how Elizabeth, known to her family and friends as Betsy, even tried spending the night at the home of a school friend. She hoped that the distance would help.


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[Assistant] She hoped it, whatever it was, would leave her alone. But it followed her. It always followed her.


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[Assistant] One of the odd symptoms of these unexplainable attacks was that John began to have trouble eating.


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[Assistant] He said it was like his tongue had a mind of its own. He would put food into his mouth but it would be pushed back out. It didn't happen all the time, but once was enough to put him on edge.


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[Assistant] John Bell was apparently a patient man, though. For a long while, he assumed that all the trouble would go away and be forgotten. For over a year, he and his family bravely endured their mysterious torment. The beatings. The noises. The blankets and chains and all of that.


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[Assistant] But when Betsy's friends found out, word began to spread.


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[Assistant] John didn't like that because he had a reputation to maintain.


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[Assistant] That might seem selfish, I know. On the surface, it looks like John was content to do nothing while his family suffered, and then, the moment his reputation seemed to be at risk, he gave in and started to worry.


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[Assistant] But before you judge him, you have to keep in mind the common beliefs of the time, especially in this part of the country.


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[Assistant] This all took place long after the witchcraft panic of the 17th century had died off. The Salem trials were the last of their kind in America, and that was over 125 years before the bells. But on the edges of the frontier, away from the civilized modern cities of the coast, old superstition still ran deep.


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[Assistant] So deep, in fact, that half a century later, in the very same town as the Bells, a man named James Smith would be murdered.


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[Assistant] The reason, according to his killers, was that Smith was a witch


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[Assistant] So yes, John Bell's obsession with his reputation does seem a little petty, but it was also rooted in self-preservation.


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[Assistant] To find help, John called on his local minister, James Johnston. Johnston arrived later that day with his wife and the couple agreed to spend the night at the farmhouse and offer their own opinion of the activity. And they apparently had a plan to help with whatever might come their way.


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[Assistant] After dinner, the Johnstons led the Bell family through a selection of Bible readings, and then followed that up with a few hymns and some prayer of blessing for the house and people inside.


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[Assistant] Then, with the evening at an end, everyone retired to their rooms for the night.


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[Assistant] It was only when the lights went out and the darkness took over that the invisible force became active.


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[Assistant] And that night it seems, the focus would be on the newcomers.


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[Assistant] That night, the Johnsons woke to the sound of loud noises, and then later, their blankets were pulled off the bed. Frustrated and more than a little frightened, the minister jumped out of bed and shouted into the darkness, In the name of the Lord, who are you and what do you want?


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[Assistant] But that silence wouldn't last long. In fact, it turned out to be the calm before the storm.


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[Assistant] Within hours, the spirit did something that no one else in the house expected. It spoke.


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[Assistant] When the Bell family gathered for breakfast the following morning, the Johnstons joined them. There was conversation about the previous night.


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[Assistant] There were panicked looks. There was frustration and fear and a lot of hopelessness. If the minister couldn't help them after all, what chance did they really have?


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[Assistant] It was sometime during that conversation that something unexpected happened. Something that defied all laws of nature. Because according to everyone at the table, that's the moment when the spirit in the house actually spoke to them.


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[Assistant] What did it say? Well it appears to have taken a liking to the words of the minister.


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[Assistant] The otherworldly, disembodied voice repeated back, word for word, the Bible passages the group had listened to the night before. It repeated the prayers, too. Then, it vanished.


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[Assistant] After that, word spread fast. John and Lucy received a letter from their oldest daughter back in North Carolina and she mentioned hearing of their troubles from someone else. This was more than just a bit of family drama now. It was a public spectacle. And the odd occurrences just kept piling up.


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[Assistant] Weeks later, the Bells hosted two local ministers for lunch on a Sunday afternoon. The two men were from churches separated by 13 miles and both had preached their sermons at the same time that day. Yet the spirit seemed to have heard both, reciting each of them back to the people gathered at the table, word for word.


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[Assistant] Which didn't help solve the mystery. Because if we assume one of the older children was responsible for all of this, then how could that one person have listened and memorized two sermons so far apart at the exact same time?


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[Assistant] Of course, they tried to figure out who or what the spirit was. Some thought maybe it was the ghost of a local Native American, angry about the settlers' presence.


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[Assistant] Others thought it was a demonic spirit that inhabited a local witch. The voice even identified itself as Kate, apparently named in honor of the witch in question.


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[Assistant] But having a name didn't make the problem go away.


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[Assistant] But things began to escalate. It got so bad that the family started to discuss moving away. Some of the older children suggested returning to North Carolina. Others didn't care where they went. They just wanted to leave the farmhouse forever. But could they really get away from it?


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[Assistant] It did, however, reveal a helpful side at least once during the spring of 1820. That's when Betsy's mother Lucy became horribly sick with a lung infection. It hurt to cough, it hurt to breathe, and she wasn't getting better. And that's when Kate, if that was her name, literally dropped the remedy into Lucy's hands.


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[Assistant] Grapes and hazelnuts, which were thought at the time to hold powerful medicinal purposes, simply appeared out of thin air. Lucy apparently recovered a short while later. The worst of it all, however, fell on John Bell.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was because he was the most prideful and resistant to believing the spirit actually existed.


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[Assistant] Did not care a bit for John. Insults would often be heard shouted at him from thin air. He was called names and told that his life wasn't worth carrying on, that he should end it. Other times though, the spirit became violent. And that odd thing with his tongue returned in force, leaving him unable to eat or even speak.


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[Assistant] Whether it was the lack of food or some other influence from the spirit, John spent much of 1820 very ill. By autumn, he was forced to spend over a month resting in bed. When he did recover, it wasn't for long. But John tried to make the most of it.


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[Assistant] My son Richard told the story of how John followed him outside one day when he needed to check on the pigs. I can imagine John was feeling a bit helpless and just wanted to contribute. Farms are a lot of work, after all. But while they were out of the house, Kate decided to attack. First, it was his shoes.


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[Assistant] Richard described how, no matter how tight John tied them, his father's shoes would fly off his feet. When they turned around to return to the house, Kate slapped John across the face. The older man sat down to recover himself, and the spirit filled the air with laughter and song.


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[Assistant] By early December of 1820, John took a turn for the worse and returned to bed for rest.


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[Assistant] On the 19th, John slipped into a coma. And no matter what the family or neighbors did, they couldn't wake him up.


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[Assistant] They didn't know what had brought it on, but they had a theory.


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[Assistant] John's wife Lucy found a small glass vial among their household medicines, but she'd never seen it before.


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[Assistant] There was a dark liquid inside, or at least there had been. There wasn't much left of it. So Lucy did what any desperate person would do in her situation. She shouted out to the spirit for answers. What was this mysterious medicine?


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[Assistant] The spirit refused to tell Lucy what it was, but she admitted giving it to John the night before.


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[Assistant] Horrified, Lucy opened the vial and gave the last few drops to one of the cats, who died just moments later.


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[Assistant] The following day, John's breathing slowed and his heartbeat became harder and harder to find. Until finally, hours later, it stopped for good.


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[Assistant] If fear were a virus, it would be declared highly infectious by the CDC. Fear has this way of spreading from person to person like the common cold in a grade school classroom. Give fear enough time, and it'll infect everyone in the room, or the house, or the town.


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[Assistant] Which is why we have folklore. Because folklore has this way of inoculating us against fear. It provides us with explanations and answers when there's just too much mystery.


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[Assistant] Unless, of course, that folklore is more frightening than the mystery it explains.


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[Assistant] It's hard enough to not be afraid of odd noises in your own home, but when the only explanation involves evil spirits and witchcraft, well, you can see how that might fan the flames.


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[Assistant] Of course, it could all have been a hoax. History is full of hoaxes that prey on the fears of the superstitious.


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[Assistant] It's possible that a few of the Bell children were in on that hoax, and that they somehow managed to work together to pull it all off.


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[Assistant] It's also possible that the whole family sat down, planned it out, and then performed the entire mystery. But for what reason?


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[Assistant] It's been two centuries since those events, and we still don't know what really happened.


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[Assistant] What we do know, however, is that the stories have fascinated people, and still do.


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[Assistant] Even while they were taking place, word spread far enough that hundreds of people traveled to witness them firsthand. And most of them got what they wished for.


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[Assistant] One story stands out above all the others. Five years before the events on the Bell Farm began, John's three eldest sons fought in the War of 1812. They fought in the Battle of New Orleans, serving under General Andrew Jackson.


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[Assistant] So when the evil spirit's reputation reached Jackson's ear, he decided to come see for himself.


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[Assistant] He arrived one day in 1819, along with several other travel companions. Just outside the Bell Farm though, their wagon became stuck.


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[Assistant] The men worked hard to make sure none of the wheels were caught on a rock or in thick mud. But no matter what they did, they couldn't get the wagon to roll free.


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[Assistant] That's when a voice spoke up and welcomed Jackson and his friends to the farm. A voice without a body.


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[Assistant] After that, the wagon miraculously unstuck itself, and they were able to move on.


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[Assistant] One of Jackson's friends didn't care for the suggestion that there was something supernatural going on at the farm. Later that night, after dinner, the man waved his pistol around in the air, claiming there was a silver bullet in the chamber and threatening to shoot the spirit or witch or whatever it was.


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[Assistant] Instead, the man was struck with a fit of seizures.


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[Assistant] He shouted out that someone was poking him with needles, that they were violently beating him, but no one was touching him.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke.


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


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[Assistant] Have you ever noticed just how many holidays there are? Not just the major ones, but all the smaller annual celebrations that seem to fill up the year. I'm not complaining per se, but it does seem like there are more of them than there were in my childhood, and it's honestly hard to keep them all straight.


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[Assistant] But before we go and assume that this is a problem unique to our modern culture, let me point out how history has a way of repeating itself. Because if you were to climb into a time machine, zip back to 1st century Rome, and ask around, you might discover the same sort of confusion. Take for example, the festival of Lucaria.


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[Assistant] It took place around the 20th of July each year at a specific location on a wooded hill just outside of the city. But who the festival was meant to honor and why are answers that are lost to history. And even the Romans weren't too sure.


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[Assistant] But modern historians have been trying to put the pieces of the puzzle back together, and they're closer to the full picture.


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[Assistant] It seems that deeper in Rome's past, it was believed that people shouldn't just clear a forest for farming without first asking permission.


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[Assistant] Writing about 2,200 years ago, Roman historian Cato described how it was important to sacrifice a pig inside the woods and then pray to whatever spirit ruled over that place. In doing so, they sort of bought the rights to develop the land. Over time, that occasional tradition turned into an annual festival.


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[Assistant] But hidden inside this ritual was a darker notion. That the spirits of the forest might not approve of having their home destroyed. And that they had the power to protect that kingdom.


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[Assistant] In other words, the woods were not a safe place, and to trespass there was to invite suffering into one's life.


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[Assistant] The idea wasn't unique, back then or even today. Around the world, countless cultures have viewed the forest as a place of darkness and danger. From the foot of Mount Fuji to the depths of Germany, people all throughout history have looked at the shadows between the trees as the home of something to be avoided at all cost.


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[Assistant] The woods have always been a place that demand respect. Whether the true danger comes from ancient forest deities or the inherent risk of entering the wilderness unprepared, the best course of action might just be to never step foot inside at all. Because if we do, we might not come back out.


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[Assistant] There's something special about the forest. I have crystal clear memories of exploring the woods around my home as a child. And even though I've grown up and learned a lot about the world around me, those memories are still filled with magic. In a lot of ways, stepping inside those trees felt like entering a whole other world. And it would be safe to assume that it's always been like that.


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[Assistant] Cultures around the world have treated the woods like sacred ground and filled its darkness with all sorts of stories, along with creatures and traditions to keep in mind. They have been seen as a place of rest and solitude, and of magic and wonder, but with danger and mystery always lurking not far behind.


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[Assistant] One of the primary ways that cultures around the world have processed this instinctive respect is by connecting the forest to their religious beliefs. The forest has served as a sort of liminal space, one that sits between heaven and earth, and a great example is found in the sacred texts of India.


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[Assistant] According to Hindu mythology, there is a great cosmic forest, and at the center of it is the mighty tree known as Jambu. On this tree grows an immortal golden fruit as large as an elephant, and from this fruit, a divine ambrosia is crafted by the physician of the gods.


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[Assistant] Beyond that, the woods feature heavily in the life of students of the Hindu scriptures. Each student can choose from one of four orders to shape their future around.


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[Assistant] And those that pick the way of the hermit end up making the forest a part of their very essence. They live in the woods, draw everything they need from it and never return to the outside world. In fact, this was said to be the very path taken by the Buddha.


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[Assistant] In Christianity, there are many connections to the forest. The Garden of Eden, for example, is a woodland paradise where heaven and earth seem to melt together. It was said to be filled with trees, most famously the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But it was also a place of danger where Adam and Eve encountered the serpent and were ultimately expelled.


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[Assistant] Far to the north, the Old Norse religions also held the forest in high esteem. The most obvious example would be the World Tree, Yggdrasil, which was believed to stand at the center of the universe. Beneath its roots are the three worlds of Hell, Humans, and the Frost Giants.


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[Assistant] But the woods have done more than simply act as a setting for stories. Throughout history, cultures have viewed the forest as a place for testing and opportunity. We can even find this in the world's oldest written story, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In it, we learn about the sacred Forest of Cedar, far beyond the world of humans.


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[Assistant] And it's to this forest that Gilgamesh travels in order to prove himself by defeating the legendary ogre Humbaba. The hero's friend and companion Inkidu tries to warn him off, telling him how dangerous the woods can be, but Gilgamesh refuses to be swayed.


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[Assistant] In the end he succeeds, returning from his test in the woods as a hero known for his courage.


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[Assistant] Now that's all well and good, but you and I might connect better with stories recorded by the Grimm Brothers. Just stop and think about how many of them feature the forest in some way.


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[Assistant] The tales of Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and so many others all depend heavily on the dangers of the woods.


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[Assistant] An interesting theme in many of the Grimm Brothers stories is that the forest is never an enchanted space, but it's a place where enchantment might take place. It acts like a location separated from normal social practices and stepping inside can help a person alter their life's path for good or for bad.


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[Assistant] But perhaps one of the most widely known stories with the forest at its core are the tales that make up the Arthurian legends.


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[Assistant] Now, most people have heard of King Arthur, and the key elements of the story are just as famous. The Grail, the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, and the Sword Excalibur. But the nuances of those stories are less well known.


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[Assistant] For example, one location that features heavily in many of the stories is the Forest of Brosellion. It's said to be the place where Merlin encountered Vivien, the Lady of the Lake, and fell in love with her. She was said to have imprisoned him there as well, entombed beneath a large stone.


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[Assistant] The forest is also the place where the most famous of Arthur's knights, Lancelot, was said to have been raised. According to early versions of the legends, Lancelot was taken from his mother as a baby by a beautiful woman.


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[Assistant] She was said to have plunged into a lake with him inside which was an entire forest where he was raised and trained to be the great knights that all the stories describe him as.


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[Assistant] But above all the forest-related stories in the Arthurian legend, few are as terrifying as the dangerous creatures known as the Corrigan. They were said to resemble beautiful young women and would appear to travelers passing through the woods, usually beside freshwater springs or rivers. But with the Corrigan, all was not as it seemed.


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[Assistant] She was said to have the power to capture the hearts of even the bravest and most noble of men, and once they fell in love with her, they were forever bound to the forest, never seen again.


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[Assistant] In other stories, Corrigan lures brave men to the illusion of a great castle. These knights would enter and find her inside, and then fall in love. When morning arrived though, the castle would be gone, and Corrigan would have transformed into an old hag.


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[Assistant] The stories of Corrigan serve as a warning to travelers. Enter the forest at your own peril, they seem to say, or else you might be tempted by a magical being and never allowed to leave.


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[Assistant] Corrigan is a literary figure that speaks to the danger of the forest and to the risks one takes upon entering. But amazingly, she's not the only one.


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[Assistant] Few places can be as dangerous as the forest. Between the wild animals, deadly plants, and difficult terrain, making your way through the woods can be a journey filled with risk.


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[Assistant] And then when you consider just how easy it is to confuse one tree with another, it becomes clear how people can step inside and lose their way.


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[Assistant] The forest can be confusing, and even today in our modern world hundreds of hikers get lost each year because they assume it's just a walk.


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[Assistant] In Scandinavian folklore, there are countless warnings to help people avoid that danger. The forest was frequently referred to with names like dark wood or murky wood, and children were often were warned not to step into the woods alone. But right at the edge of all that folklore are stories of something more sinister. The Skogsroa.


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[Assistant] Think of the Skogsroa as a supernatural forest creature who has always lived in the forests of Northern Europe. It's a belief that predates the presence of Christianity in those cultures, hinting back to a much older time. And the purpose of the Skogsroa is quite simple. To prevent those who have entered the woods from ever leaving again.


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[Assistant] One of the most frightening descriptions of the Skogsroa is that she looks like a beautiful young woman from the front, but from behind, she is a rotted log, or a hollowed out tree.


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[Assistant] But the folklore makes it clear that they can shape-shift to whatever form they want, such as animals or even rocks or tree stumps, all in an effort to capture travelers when they least expect it.


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[Assistant] Her powers go beyond that, though. The Skogsroa was said to be able to alter the environment to look different. She can hide trails or create fake ones. Think of her as a sort of master of the maze, and every time a traveler stepped into her domain, she would be there to confuse and trap them, laughing all the while in her high, shrill voice.


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[Assistant] About a century ago, a man named Albert Erickson spoke with a folklorist who was recording stories about the Skugs Roa and shared an experience from earlier in his life. The man recalled an evening when he needed to step outside and check on his charcoal kiln, which was located down by the lake. So he set out sometime after sunset.


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[Assistant] But although he was incredibly familiar with the area, he soon got lost. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was walking in circles. And from roughly 8pm until 2 in the morning, that's all he was able to do. And that's when he realized that he was dealing with a scogsroa.


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[Assistant] Folklore had a solution though. He stopped and took off his coat, rolled it up, and then put it on the roots of a nearby tree. Then he laid down, rested his head on the coat, and closed his eyes. After a few minutes he stood back up, and the way home was clearly visible for the first time in hours.


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[Assistant] Far to the west, across the North Sea, this folklore about creatures in the forest who refuse to let you leave had deep roots of its own.


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[Assistant] All across the British Isles, there were stories of the fairy folk.


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[Assistant] Although, let me be upfront here. Fairy folklore is like a cut gem. Every time you turn it, you see a new facet. A new spin on the old tales. Every culture and kingdom seem to have their own unique lore. So what I cover today is just one slice of a much larger pie.


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[Assistant] English folklore had this fantastic term for someone who got lost in the woods. They called them pixie-led, suggesting that travelers who got lost only did so because they trespassed into fairy lands and getting lost was the price they had to pay.


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[Assistant] In other stories, those travelers might get lost on their own, but the only way they can leave the forest is if the fairies help by revealing the way home.


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[Assistant] Which has given way to a term I can't help but love. The stray sod. It's a phrase that refers to a ground or path that fairies have enchanted, causing trespassers to lose their way.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of folklore, there's absolutely no proof connecting the disorientation to actual fairies. But it happened so frequently that people all across the British Isles just sort of assumed the connection was there. After all, why else would people become lost?


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[Assistant] And there's a powerful story from about a century ago that documents just how real this belief truly was.


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[Assistant] In June of 1916, the rector of a parish church in Ireland, a man named Reverend Harris, received word that one of his parishioners needed him.


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[Assistant] Now, Harris had lived in County Leitrim for many years, and he knew the landscape well. The trip that he was about to take was seven miles by road.


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[Assistant] But it was a winding road, and considering how late in the evening he was setting out, he knew he wanted to trim that distance a bit. And he knew how to do that. A shortcut.


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[Assistant] A little less than a mile down the road was a large clearing that some referred to as Seven Acre Field. It was this large, contained area of grass, surrounded on all sides by one continuous tall hedge and a deep ditch inside, with an ancient thorn tree standing tall in the center.


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[Assistant] And if he passed through this field, he could cut over half of his travel time, which was a significant incentive.


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[Assistant] So when he arrived at the field, Reverend Harris swung open the wooden gate and stepped inside.


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[Assistant] From there, the path was simple. Walk directly across the field, past the ancient thorn tree, and find the smaller gate on the other side. But when he got there, the gate was nowhere to be seen.


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[Assistant] Now, it was dark, and he was willing to admit that he might have aimed poorly, so he began to search along the tall hedge for the missing gate. But try as he might, he couldn't.


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[Assistant] I want to pause for a second here and make a personal observation. I've done a fair amount of walking through the countryside of England, and I know what an Iron Age hillfort looks like.


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[Assistant] Places like Uffington Castle come to mind. These old hillforts commonly have a border around them consisting of an outer hill and an inner ditch. And Ireland has its own fair share of them too.


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[Assistant] But over the centuries, since they were abandoned, these forts have taken on their own legends.


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[Assistant] In Ireland, many were viewed as fairy rings, places of mystery and power that clearly had something to do with the fairies. And when I read the description of the field Reverend Harris was trying to pass through, I can't help but think of those ancient forts.


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[Assistant] Perhaps without knowing it, he had stepped into a fairy ring, or at least a place with that sort of connotation.


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[Assistant] Frustrated and confused, Harris eventually decided that he had simply gotten his directions wrong and marched back to the main wooden gate he had entered through earlier. But when he reached the spot, his anxiety rose.


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[Assistant] The gate wasn't there. And that meant without a way to exit he was trapped.


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[Assistant] According to Reverend Harris later, this confusing adventure went on for hours. At one point, he walked the entire circumference of the field, his hand brushing the hedge, and found no trace of either gate. Gates that had been there for decades. Centuries, perhaps.


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[Assistant] And then, just as quickly as they had disappeared, the gates returned. One moment they were missing and the next, there they were.


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[Assistant] As quick as he could Harris exited the field and returned home. He decided that it would be safer to use his bicycle and the main road to complete his journey.


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[Assistant] And as far as we know, he had no further troubles.


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[Assistant] These stories, and the folklore behind them, are fascinating for a couple of reasons. First, they show us just how deeply held the belief in stray sod and enchanted forests really was. But they also provide something else. Context.


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[Assistant] Because I have one last tale to tell you, one that brings all of these ideas home. And while it would have been an entertaining one to hear as a standalone story, having all of this historical context only deepens the scope of the adventure. And it makes something else clear. Just how afraid we should be.


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[Assistant] Caroline was born in 1822 in the ancient, legendary American city of Salem, Massachusetts. She was born there, raised there, and spent the first couple decades of her adult life there. After a number of years in Boston, though, she returned to Salem and spent the last few years of her life writing down the stories of her youth on the North Shore.


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[Assistant] Her stories are best read while imagining her well into her 80s, entertaining a room full of younger relatives. The children would all gather around to hear what Caroline had to tell them, and her tales were always full of humor and thrills.


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[Assistant] One of them, though, stands out to me as both powerful and frightening, and I hope it's never forgotten or lost to time.


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[Assistant] The story begins with her childhood, and the summers spent a few miles from Salem in the town of Beverly. Back then, the town had a large wooded area known as the Beverly Commons. There's not much of it left today, cut up by development, highways, and railroad tracks, but there's enough still there to give you a feel for what it might have been like.


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[Assistant] But back when Caroline was growing up, the Beverly Commons went by a different name. The Witchwoods.


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[Assistant] It was the Witchwoods because that's what locals tended to call mysterious places in the early 19th century. It was the Witchwoods because it was near Salem, and there had been a rumor that Giles Corey, one of the accused witches from the Salem trials, had hid out there for a time. And in the center of the Witchwoods, according to the legend, sat the Witch Farm. Because anything else just wouldn't make sense, would it?


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[Assistant] Now, Caroline's family owned a summer home called Thistlewood that sat very near the Witchwoods. And it was there in 1841 that she and two of her friends left the safety of their house and walked into those mysterious woods.


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[Assistant] Caroline was 19 at the time, and with her was her 10-year-old cousin Nonny and Nonny's governess, Lucy Anne. Together they headed deep into the forest, following the well-worn trail through the trees.


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[Assistant] Caroline recalled the experience beginning pleasantly enough. The North Shore of Boston in the summer can be a glorious place to be. And even in Beverly you can smell the ocean on the wind. But at some point they stepped off the path to rest beside a grove of hemlock trees.


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[Assistant] It was a lovely pause in their casual hike through the woods. They ate some cookies that Lucienne had brought along for the walk. They chatted about life and everything they hoped to do that summer. And then when they were done, they stood back up. When they did though, they noticed something odd. The trail was gone.


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[Assistant] They searched in the direction they thought they had come from and found nothing but more forest. They circled around the hemlocks, thinking maybe they'd gotten their directions confused, but still, no sign of the main path. They even tried pushing through some of the undergrowth to spot it, but despite having walked in on a well-marked trail, that trail was now gone.


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[Assistant] Finally, in a moment of frustration, they all just stopped and listened. And that was when they caught the sound of the ocean on the wind. An idea occurred to them. If they could at least reach the nearby shore, they would certainly find their way home. At least, that was the idea. The Witchwoods, however, had a mind of their own.


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[Assistant] After ten minutes of walking toward the sounds of the crashing waves, they realized they hadn't even left the hemlock grove, however impossible that seemed to be.


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[Assistant] They didn't give up though, and after one last attempt they managed to arrive someplace new. But it wasn't the ocean. It was a clearing. And that clearing wasn't empty either.


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[Assistant] According to Caroline, in the middle of the open space in the trees they could all clearly see the remains of an old stone cellar, a broken chimney, and a collection of flowering bushes that had long since taken over.


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[Assistant] It was an image that tickled something in the back of Caroline's mind. This house she thought must have been the witch farm.


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[Assistant] They spent a few moments there, enchanted by the wonder of the old place. I can imagine them exploring the ruins, nudging rocks over with their feet to see what treasures lay beneath them, maybe even picking something up to examine. But it was just a temporary respite from their problem.


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[Assistant] Finally, in the treeline across the clearing, the youngest girl found another path and they all followed it out in hopes that it might lead them home, or to the ocean.


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[Assistant] This trail wound uphill though, until it finally stopped above the trees. And looking back, they realized that they could still see the clearing. But something was different about it this time. The house had returned.


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[Assistant] Caroline described it beautifully in a book she published later in life.


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[Assistant] Cows were grazing in a small green meadow, she later wrote. Hens and chickens and ducks were clamoring for their dinner around an open door with a broad stone doorstep. Clothes were hanging on a line in the yard, and milk pans were shining in the sun.


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[Assistant] It was idyllic and peaceful and almost magical, and all three of them were pulled into the vision. Then, as they watched smoke billowing from the chimney and the animals move about the yard, a woman stepped into the open doorway and tossed handfuls of grain to the chickens that had gathered there. And that's when Lucienne had an idea. They could return and ask the woman for help in getting home.


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[Assistant] Being the oldest of the three, she told the others to stay on the hill and then vanished back down the trail.


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[Assistant] Caroline and Nani watched the house down below for a long time before Lucienne returned.


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[Assistant] But the expression on her face told them everything they needed to know


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[Assistant] I could not find the clearing again, she told them. She did, however, find a dried up stream bed and, assuming it flowed to the ocean, suggested they follow it to see where it might lead them. A short while later, they emerged from the witch woods onto a rough old road and followed it back to the safety of Thistlewood.


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[Assistant] The forest, like so many others around the world, had tried to contain them, and for a time, it had actually worked. Whether they had been pixie-led or stepped on stray sod, we can never know for sure, but their experience certainly teaches us one thing.


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[Assistant] The forest is something that will always demand our respect and a healthy dose of fear.


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[Assistant] There aren't many places left in the world where mystery still finds a home. We wish that weren't the case. And all it takes is a few minutes of browsing your favorite streaming video platform to confirm that. People love the shadows and all the secrets they hold.


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[Assistant] And maybe that's one of the biggest reasons why the forest has mesmerized humans for thousands of years. Outside we can see most of the dangers of our world long before they reach us. But once we cross that boundary, we leave all of that safety behind and enter a world of mystery and the unknown. Oh, and more than a bit of danger.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned earlier, Caroline Howard King's record of her mysterious hike through the forest was included in her book, When I Lived in Salem. In it, she adds a small afterword to the story. Apparently, one of the guests staying at Thistlewood that summer was a young man named James Russell Lowell, who was only three years her senior.


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[Assistant] Lowell, of course, would go on to become one of America's best known romantic poets. He and his small circle of friends would later be known as the Fireside Poets, a group that would include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.


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[Assistant] At the time of his visit to Thistlewood, though, he was 22, engaged to be married, and still looking for a job.


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[Assistant] In her story, Caroline claims that she told Lowell about her experience, and that he was so enchanted by the details of the story that he later returned to the Witchwoods with them to try and find the farm again. But apparently, they were never successful.


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[Assistant] If the witch farm still stands at the center of the Beverly Commons today, it's just as hidden from our modern view as it was in the days of Caroline's adventure. And that's to be expected, I suppose. Over time, things tend to get forgotten. Or overlooked. Or lost.


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[Assistant] Most of the time we only really see what we want to.


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[Assistant] If Caroline's story is any indication though, there could be another reason we can't find it. Someone, or something, won't let us.


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[Assistant] Obviously, forests hold a special place in many stories from folklore. Most of the time they serve as a powerful setting, but every now and then it also becomes one of the main characters.


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[Assistant] Which leads me to something I want to share with you. I've been working on a project over the past year that aims to tick all the boxes you love. Terrifying folklore, supernatural mystery, and a whole lot of drama all set in the woods.


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[Assistant] Together with Lauren Shippen, the creator of The Bright Sessions, I've built a brand new audio fiction podcast, and it's called Bridgewater.


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[Assistant] And the cast is something to behold. The show stars Misha Collins, better known as Castiel from Supernatural, alongside Melissa Ponzio from Teen Wolf. And along the way we'll meet other characters, played by amazing folks like Nathan Fillion, Hilary Burton-Morgan, Will Wheaton, Jonathan Joss, and Kristen Bauer.


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[Assistant] Bridgewater arrives on Friday, August 6th, with the first two episodes. And then we'll run weekly after that until the 10th and final episode of the season. To make sure you don't miss out, be sure to subscribe in Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever it is that you listen to podcasts.


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[Assistant] It's an incredible story brought to life by an equally incredible cast. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll give you an extended sneak peek.


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


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] 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. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow this 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.


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[Assistant] Life is full of unpredictable moments, unexpected happenstance, unplanned detours, happy accidents. But while some people love to be surprised, what most of us really want is some consistency.


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[Assistant] Which is why a glance through a few decades of popular entertainment always seems to turn up the same fixtures.


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[Assistant] The superhero. The action star. The daring spy. From car chases and westerns to the big heist and the rom-com, the things we watch and read are really good at delivering comfort food.


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[Assistant] I firmly believe it's possible to sort through all that Hollywood has given us, and match it to a small group of popular categories and character types. It's not lazy, and it's not a trope. It's all about giving people what they want. What they love.


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[Assistant] And the same is true with folklore. Over the centuries, key figures and stories have been passed around with such regularity that most people just sort of take them for granted. They've always been there, and probably always will. So why give them much thought?


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[Assistant] A great way to see this in action is to dive into the roots of most animated Disney films. At their center is an older story, one that might not have seen the light of day for a while, but is instantly popular all over again. Because some stories never go out of style. Which is fine.


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[Assistant] But if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that whimsical stories are often just a costume wrapped around a darker core. And when it comes to one corner of folklore in particular,


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[Assistant] It doesn't take much to conjure up images of them. All I have to do is say the word, and your head will be swimming with pictures that represent everything you think you know about them. And that word is fairies.


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[Assistant] Thanks to Disney, we probably imagine tiny old women with wings, zipping around through the air on a trail of stardust with a magic wand in their hand. But Tinkerbell, the fairy godmother, and the sugar plum fairy are all just weak interpretations of an actual thing, like a two-year-old's drawing of a house.


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[Assistant] There's a darkness beneath that simple caricature. Because fairies, traditionally speaking, are monsters. No, not in the same way the werewolf and wendigo might be, but definitely in all the ways that count. So, let's explore them, shall we?


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[Assistant] Over the centuries, they've gone by a bunch of different names, depending on where the stories are told. To the Irish, they are the She. Others call them the Good Folk, or the Hidden People. They are the We Folk, the Others, and, one of my personal favorites, the Good Gentlemen of the Hills.


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[Assistant] And yes, in a lot of the stories about them, they are small. But of course, just how small varies from culture to culture. According to 12th century English writer Gervais of Tilbury, fairies were tiny people, no bigger than a human


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[Assistant] Their faces were covered in wrinkles and they could always be seen dressed in clothing made from scraps of cloth.


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[Assistant] In some stories, fairies were said to be tall and beautiful, though. Others described them as bent and gruesome. Early Europeans believed that they were the spirits of the dead, or later Christians preferred to think of them as fallen angels or demons. And where did they live?


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[Assistant] Well, that's probably the biggest question people wrestled with centuries ago. Most commonly they were associated with the forest, but also with mysterious hills and ring-shaped mounds. Fairies were said to live in a sort of alternate dimension, but could pass into ours whenever they wanted.


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[Assistant] And it seems they wanted to. A lot. While their motivation is never crystal clear in the tales about them, it's easy to walk away from those stories with an impression of creatures entirely absent of morality.


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[Assistant] While not necessarily malicious, they certainly never have trouble behaving either.


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[Assistant] If I can put them into the language of Dungeons and Dragons, fairies are chaotic neutral.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, there were some things people could do to protect themselves. Iron was a common repellent, often shaped into an amulet or a knife for protection.


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[Assistant] There were also things in nature that could be harvested and used. Plants like St. John's Wort or branches from a rowan tree. Why would people need protecting though?


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[Assistant] Well, fairies seem to love mischief. Sometimes it was harmless fun, like tying women's hair into knots, or luring travelers off the safe path.


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[Assistant] But the biggest risk was the changeling. The idea that fairies might come and take a loved one and replace them with a poor copy of the original. And it was an idea that led to some horrific human tragedy.


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[Assistant] In 1865, for example, the authorities in New York City were alerted to an Irish woman who had killed her own child. It turns out she had believed her child to be a changeling and forced them to stand on hot coals as a test.


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[Assistant] In 1909, a woman named Annie McIntyre showed up at the pension office in County Donegal and asked for money.


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[Assistant] When they asked her how old she was, she told them that she actually didn't know. She claimed that she had been kidnapped by fairies as a young girl, only to be rescued by her older brother a few months later. And many of her memories from before that have never returned.


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[Assistant] And the list goes on and on. History is filled with stories about fairies, who they are, where they live, what they want, especially in the Victorian era.


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[Assistant] Maybe it's no coincidence that the word glamour, one we think of today as relating to beauty and attraction, really has its roots in the idea of magic.


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[Assistant] Because it's fair to say that people have been taken with them for a very long time. But as you might imagine, that hasn't always been a good thing.


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[Assistant] It was an act of desperation. Thomas Keven was sick and his wife needed some sort of hope to cling onto. And for her, that hope came in the form of folklore.


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[Assistant] The Kevins lived in Carrick on Shore, a small town and county Tipperary, toward the southern end of Ireland. And in 1843, a newspaper covered the story of poor Thomas. He'd been paralyzed, although the article doesn't say how, but over time, that condition led to other problems.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, he was unable to eat or drink and began wasting away to what the newspaper referred to as


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[Assistant] A skeleton. And it's easy to sympathize with Thomas' unnamed wife.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, she had family and neighbors around her for support and comfort, so when his death was reported, everyone came together.


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[Assistant] But Mrs. Keevan had specific instructions about the funeral.


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[Assistant] She claimed that a fairy came to her and told her that the body wasting away all those years was nothing more than a changeling and there was a way to get her real husband back.


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[Assistant] All she had to do was make sure the coffin wasn't buried after the graveside service, and then go home.


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[Assistant] Sure enough, according to the account, Mrs. Keevan only permitted a couple of shovels full of dirt to be tossed into the grave. Then she asked everyone to leave, and the grave was left open and exposed throughout the night.


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[Assistant] Once home, she found her real husband waiting for her. A dream come true for sure.


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[Assistant] Out of curiosity, she and Thomas both went to the cemetery the next day to inspect the coffin. When they opened the lid, they found the changeling in its true form. Inside the shroud she had wrapped around Thomas' body the night before was nothing more than a simple wooden broom.


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[Assistant] Centuries before, another person became just as obsessed. Robert Kirk was born in Scotland, the son of a local minister in the town of Aberfoyle. And Robert's life followed the path you might expect from the son of a preacher. He attended St. Andrews, earned a degree in theology, and graduated in 1661.


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[Assistant] Robert lived during a time when the division between the Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity was generating a lot of fear and infighting. And a new extremist group, referred to by some as the Puritans, was also adding to that tension. It was a time when folks were very careful about what they discussed in public, with fears of witch trials hanging over them constantly.


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[Assistant] Robert was, as far as most people were concerned, the perfect minister. He was well-trained, politically correct, and deeply involved in scholarly stuff like the translation of the Bible into Gaelic. But he also had a secret. Robert Kirk, you see, believed in fairies.


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[Assistant] Well, it was a secret to most people. Certainly there was a lot of risk involved in making his thoughts public.


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[Assistant] Puritans viewed fairies as nothing more than demons, and any involvement with them was tantamount to witchcraft, punishable by law. But in his own church and around his house, Robert was clear about his personal beliefs.


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[Assistant] Over the course of his career, Robert opened his door to anyone and everyone who had stories of fairies to share with him and he wrote it all down.


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[Assistant] His goal was to document the folklore surrounding those little creatures as precisely and completely as possible. And along the way, to hopefully understand them a little better.


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[Assistant] Ferries weren't just stories to Robert Kirk. They were real. And he believed that one way to access them was through the various caverns and hills just outside of town. In fact, neighbors reported that he could frequently be seen walking to nearby Dune Hill, where he would often lay down and press his ear to the grass. Listening, he told them, were the ferries.


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[Assistant] In 1692, at the relatively young age of 48, Robert was found dead, laying on another hill near his house that he believed to be the home of fairies, wearing nothing more than his night shirt.


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[Assistant] His wife, Margaret, was pregnant at the time, and when it finally came time to give birth, some of his family, also believers in fairy lore, claimed that Robert's spirit would reappear to watch his child be christened.


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[Assistant] According to the family legend, one of Robert's cousins actually brought an iron knife to the christening. He was convinced that striking Robert's spirit with the blade would sever whatever bonds the fairies had on him and release him to heaven. Whether or not it worked is something we'll never know.


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[Assistant] The title of the pamphlet was guaranteed to catch the curious reader's eye. Strange and wonderful news from the county of Wicklow in Ireland or a full and true relation of what happened to Dr. Moore. Honestly, who could pass up a tease like that, right?


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[Assistant] Pamphlets were all the rage in the 1600s. Think of them as the podcasts of the era. Short and sweet, easy to make and distribute, but utterly captivating if produced well. And the pamphlet about Dr. Moore certainly met those requirements.


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[Assistant] It was essentially a story about travel, but not the sort that you might think. Also, it's best enjoyed with the right context, so perhaps we should back up and start at the beginning, in the year 1678.


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[Assistant] According to the pamphlet, the adventure began that autumn. Dr. Moore was a schoolmaster who worked in London but had recently acquired some property and a house on the east coast of Ireland in County Wicklow where he'd been born. So he boarded a ship with a pair of friends and went to visit and inspect his new purchase.


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[Assistant] These friends, Richard Uniac and Laughlin Moore, no relation by the way, recalled how the journey from port to the house took a number of days. So along the way, Dr. Moore shared stories from his youth in Ireland, and that included tales of the fairy folk.


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[Assistant] Apparently, he had been taken by the fairies a number of times as a boy, and although he was never harmed, his mother eventually hired a fairy woman, a person well-versed in fairy lore, to use magic to anchor him to this world more securely.


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[Assistant] Of course, his friends Richard and Laughlin thought that the stories were pure fantasy and more than a little ridiculous. In true English fashion, they told their Irish friend that beliefs like that were a bit provincial. In other words, unsophisticated and barbaric. But Dr. Moore ignored them.


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[Assistant] On the night before they reached his new property, Dr. Moore and his friends stopped in a small town and stayed at the inn. And that night, like all the others, the three men fell into an argument about the truth of fairy stories. And that's when something unusual happened.


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[Assistant] Right in the middle of their discussion, Dr. Moore began to rise off the ground as if an invisible hand were lifting him up into the air. He cried out as it happened, telling his friends that it was happening again. The fairies had come for him.


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[Assistant] His friends both recalled trying to grab his legs to pull him back down, but having to let go when they found themselves joining him in the air. A moment later he floated out the window. In a panic, both men ran downstairs and told the innkeeper what had happened.


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[Assistant] Their unbelievable news was greeted with a simple nod of understanding. So without as much as an argument, the man sent word for a local fairy woman. Again, not a fairy, but a woman who understood their magic. And when she arrived, she got to work.


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[Assistant] One thing that was important, she told both of them, was that Dr. Moore mustn't eat or drink while he was with the fairies, or else he would never come home. And then she closed her eyes and told them she would look for him.


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[Assistant] A moment later, she seemed to wake back up and had news to report. She could see him at a place nearby called Dane Fort, not too far away, in a gathering of fairy folk all singing and dancing like a celebration. And there was food and drink.


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[Assistant] At one point she even closed her eyes again and swatted at the air in front of the men, as if knocking something invisible out of a person's hands. Richard and Laughlin could only stare in wonder.


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[Assistant] The fairy woman finished by reciting a spell to free Dr. Moore and bring him home. And then she took payment for her services and left. The next morning around 6am, their friend reappeared.


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[Assistant] He was very tired and in need of nourishment, but he had another unbelievable story to share with his skeptical friends.


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[Assistant] According to him, after floating out the window of the inn, two score fairies on horseback rode him out into the night. Dr. Moore himself had been seated on a magnificent white horse, and together they all guided him out of town to a place nearby, Dane Fort.


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[Assistant] But while the gathering of fairy folk around him was joyful, he had never been able to eat or drink. It seems that every time he lifted his bread or wine glass to his lips, he was prevented from enjoying it. By what? his friends asked him.


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[Assistant] Fairy folklore is a well-traveled country. Over the centuries, people have tried to explore it. More than a few detailed accounts have been published by those claiming to have experienced it firsthand. And references to it have been appearing in popular fiction for, well, it seems like forever.


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[Assistant] Remember Robert Kirk, our 17th century minister obsessed with fairy folklore? If you recall, he spent most of his career gathering stories of the we-folk, writing them down in a book he planned to publish. But of course, his early death put a stop to that.


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[Assistant] Well, in 1815, another Scottish lover of fairy lore managed to track it down and finish it for him. In fact, the book, called Secret Commonwealth, is now considered by folklorists to be one of the most important works on fairies ever written. And the man who finished Robert Kirk's manuscript? Poet, playwright, and novelist, Sir Walter Scott.


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[Assistant] And our Irish friend, Dr. Moore? Well, he seemed to be the sort of man who stood by his beliefs and wanted to help others around him see the same truth. I can understand their reluctance to believe his fairy abduction story, but I also think it's clear that by the time he showed back up the next morning, they'd been given quite a lot to think about.


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[Assistant] So Dr. Moore decided to give them one last piece. Danefort, the supposed site of his fairy celebration, was just outside of town. So after eating breakfast, packing and changing clothes, he led his friends out into the countryside, perhaps as a way of beginning their last day of travel. And on the way, he took them to Danefort.


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[Assistant] It honestly wasn't much to look at. Three concentric rings of ditches surrounded a small hill upon which sat the ruins of a round tower. But of course, the tower wasn't why he'd brought them there. Instead, he motioned toward the flat lawn inside it, inside the inner ring. And as Richard and Loughlin examined it, they became speechless. The grass, you see, had been trampled, as if hundreds of feet had walked across it.


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[Assistant] Stories about fairies are often filled with danger and risk. They are portrayed as creatures of bad behavior. And that's left us with countless stories of loss and pain and tragic abuse.


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[Assistant] But there are also stories that show them in a more helpful light. It doesn't make them any less disturbing, but it also doesn't make it any less entertaining. And I've set aside a perfect example that I know you're going to enjoy.


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


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[Assistant] By all accounts, Anne was the perfect nanny. And truth be told, it was a job she needed.


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[Assistant] Born in 1626, her father was a poor laborer with a bunch of mouths to feed. So as soon as Anne was old enough, she left home to work as a servant in a string of homes. That income, for the most part, was sent home to help the entire family.


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[Assistant] But despite the long hours and difficult work, it seems that she really did excel at it.


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[Assistant] In 1645, at the age of 19, she took a job with the Pitt family in the parish of St. Teth in Cornwall. John and Jane Pitt owned a large farm that kept them busy and had two children, Mary and Moses, who needed looking after. So Anne moved in to help out with all the necessary chores.


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[Assistant] Later in life, Moses would tell people that Anne was energetic and curious. She was wonderful with children and had a level of courage that he greatly admired. According to him, one of her favorite hobbies, after all the work was done, of course, was to hike out into the nearby forest and look for fairies.


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[Assistant] Now, it probably needs to be said that belief in fairies was pretty universal at the time. But the way it was expressed in public had a very classist distribution. Those of a lower station in life were a lot more vocal in their belief, while the middle and upper classes tend to stay quiet about it all.


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[Assistant] But in 1645, lower class Anne forced her middle class employers to come face to face with fairies. It was late that summer when she was out in the Pitt's garden, when she claimed that six small figures dressed in green climbed over the tall hedges and approached her.


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[Assistant] So startling was their appearance that Anne fell into a seizure, which was how the pits found her moments later, convulsing on the ground.