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[Assistant] Unsurprisingly, the Abenaki were systematically wiped out and moved away from the Springs. Over time, the area became overrun with white residents who had converted portions of their homes into boarding houses for ill tourists hoping to be treated by the miracle Springs of Brunswick.


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[Assistant] By 1820, there were 12 Brunswick families hosting borders as patients and running their operations around the rumored properties of the springs. They claimed that the spring water could cure almost everything, from tuberculosis and kidney disease to rheumatism and glandular problems.


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[Assistant] And when a railroad was built through the area, the spring water tourism hit a fever pitch. A man named Charles Bailey arrived in town in 1860 and built a hotel there called the Brunswick Springs House, which he sold 20 years later to a dentist named D.C. Rawls.


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[Assistant] Raal not only ran the hotel, but followed in that original legendary soldier's footsteps. He bottled up and sold the spring's water. And maybe he didn't know about the curse, or perhaps he just didn't care about it. Whatever the case, he soon felt its wrath.


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[Assistant] Brunswick Springs House went up in flames in 1894 and kicked off a series of disasters that would follow for years to come. In response, Raoul built a new resort elsewhere near the Springs, naming it the Pinecrest Lodge. When he died in 1910, so too did the resort he started. How? It collapsed into the Connecticut River.


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[Assistant] John Hutchins was next. He was a wealthy land developer and real estate agent, as well as a mortician and a drugist, and he set his eyes on the magical waters of Brunswick Springs. As with those who had come before him, though, Hutchins didn't see magnesium or bromide. All he saw was dollar signs.


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[Assistant] He tried his hand at building a grand luxury resort with a focus on the spring water's healing properties. But on September 19th of 1929, before anyone could sleep in its beds or even turn its locks, the building burned down. Maybe his problem was his ambition.


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[Assistant] A smaller hotel surely would have been a better start, right? So he got to work with a modern four and a half story building with plate glass windows. Of the 60 rooms, 30 received fresh water from the springs. A good vision. Until that hotel burst into flames and turned into a pile of ash in May of 1930.


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[Assistant] You know that old Einstein quote? The one that goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? It's hard to believe that that wasn't written about anyone other than John Hutchins.


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[Assistant] He soon got to work on yet another hotel. One that would be built with 100 rooms and plumbing to carry spring water directly into each one. He even appropriated Native American imagery for his brochures. You know, to sell the whole package as authentic.


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[Assistant] It didn't work though. On April 23rd of 1931, this third hotel met the same fiery fate as all the others. It seems that when it came to opening hotels near the Springs, the colonizers were 0 for 5.


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[Assistant] Hutchins finally got wise and refused to build anything else there, as did every other developer going forward. To this day, no one has tried constructing a hotel or a boarding house near Brunswick Springs.


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[Assistant] But this story, surprisingly, doesn't end on a sour note. The Swanton Abenaki that reside near the springs today formed a non-profit. Their goal? To raise money and buy the land back for themselves. Which amazingly, they did.


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[Assistant] The area is once again under Indigenous ownership, safe from outsiders and their business plans, for the first time in over 250 years.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with additional research help from Jenna Rose Nethercott, and additional writing from Harry Marks, and music from Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video.


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[Assistant] Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. You can find more information on all of those things and more over at lorepodcast.com. You can also follow the show on YouTube, 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] Uh, it is October, which means Halloween and Lore is one of those, you know, spooky supernatural folklore sort of podcasts slash video channels here on YouTube. And I wanted to give you, uh, just a quick announcement about what's going on with Lore this month.


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[Assistant] Uh, some other things that are going on in the world of lore and a look ahead into 2023. Super brief.


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[Assistant] Let me just, uh, take five minutes of your time. So first of all, lore is normally every other week. Every other week, every two weeks, you get a brand new episode. And lately we've been filling the off weeks in between those releases with remastered classic episodes.


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[Assistant] Uh, but in October, because it's Halloween season, we go completely weekly. So there are five brand new episodes of lore in October. Uhm, and I realize that you've probably noticed this already because you keep getting new episodes. Uhm, and we're here on the, uh, the 12th already. So.


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[Assistant] Um, moving into October, you're just going to get weekly episodes and then we'll resume that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, regular schedule of, you know, a new episode, then a remastered, then a new episode, then a remastered. Uh, folks have asked me about the remastered, uh, how long are you going to do them for, Aaron? My goal is through episode 50. So we're, you know, like two thirds of the way there right now. And that'll get us, I think, into about May of next year. I've got something planned to replace that, but in the meantime,


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[Assistant] I think you should enjoy those classic episodes are great with the modern production and


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[Assistant] Narration and scoring from Chad Lawson and all those pieces. So Laura's weekly in October.


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[Assistant] What else? Okay, Lore is on Apple Podcasts, like a lot of other platforms, but Apple Podcasts offers this thing called subscriptions, paid subscriptions. And for $4 a month on Apple Podcasts, you can get ad-free episodes of the entire catalog.


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[Assistant] If you're tired of hearing ads or you just recently realized that you're hearing more of them and you want to get rid of them, you can subscribe to Apple podcasts for four bucks a month and you'll get rid of all the ads. You'll be getting the ad free versions.


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[Assistant] You'll also be getting something else on Apple Podcasts, which is a small five-minute story every week called Lore Bites. They're just bite-sized lore episodes. Uhm, it's one story about five minutes long. Same, uh, same research, same writing style, same, uhm,


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[Assistant] Audio production. Everything's going to feel like a lore episode. Just about five minutes long. So that's what's going on with Apple podcast subscriptions. Uhm, if you're on an Android device and you don't use Apple podcasts, you can go over to patreon.com slash lore podcast.


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[Assistant] And Patreon, uhm, members get access to ad free episodes. They don't have lore bites right now, but there is a back catalog of lore extras, which are similar. And, uhm, Patreon backers also have access to a separate podcast called Behind the Lore, which is a conversation with


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[Assistant] Ali Steed, who's one of my researchers, uhm, with whoever researched the most recent episode of Lore.


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[Assistant] And she sits down with them, talks about the research, the strategy, the ideas, the things that came up, the things that were left out when I wrote the script. It's a great show and you would love that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, outside of the lore, uh, space, we've got 13 Days of Halloween, which is a serialized fiction show that's released over the course of 13 days starting on October 19th.


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[Assistant] That's taking place, uh, through Devil's Night in the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. And, uh, it stars a great young actor named Carter Rockwood, but also Clancy Brown from Shawshank Redemption and The Highlander. Yeah, that Clancy Brown. So that's exciting. It starts up next week on Wednesday, the 19th.


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[Assistant] Grab a podcast app, look for 13 days of Halloween and hit subscribe. And the bonus is there are two seasons already waiting for you from last year and the year before. Uh, last year had Kathy and Jimmy and the year before that, our first season had Keegan-Michael Key. So these are great, uh, talent driven audio storytelling experiences and you will love them.


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[Assistant] Speaking of audio fiction, Bridgewater is coming back for season two in January of 2023. Uhm, I want to tell you more about it, but I can't right now. It's in post-production.


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[Assistant] Putting together all the episodes and throwing in that great 3D audio sound design and it's just going to blow you away. There's more stuff coming in the Bridgewater world that I want to talk to you about, but right now we're holding off.


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[Assistant] I'm building out that, that manky verse of uh, of supernatural audio fiction and I hope you're going to love it. I'm working with some great writers on some new shows and there's even more planned. So uhm, we're not slowing down. It's going to be really fun.


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[Assistant] And that's it. That's it for my announcements for this month. Thanks for watching. Stay subscribed. Click that bell icon so you don't miss out on future videos and I'll see you next time.


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[Assistant] Everyone loves to collect things. It might run the spectrum from the casual gathering of favorite toys to the intricate organization of classic valuable collectibles, but there's no denying the popularity of the act.


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[Assistant] I'm sure you can remember one or two of your childhood collections. I know I can. And let me tell you, no one else in my neighborhood had as many Buckeyes as me in the third grade. Honestly, if it was significant, valuable, or just plain cool, all of us, at one time or another, have started a collection.


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[Assistant] Most people accumulate normal objects, but every now and then you can bump into things that are more unusual. We've all seen the TV episodes over the years that dive deep into this weird world.


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[Assistant] Homes filled with beer cans. Basements overflowing with boxes of beanie babies. Name a pop culture icon and there are probably dozens, even hundreds of people out there who collect anything related to it.


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[Assistant] When I think about big collections, I always remember one of my father's friends. He retired very young and spent years converting his home into a paradise for lovers of baseball memorabilia. Game-worn uniforms, signed baseballs, cards, toys. You name it, he had it. But if there's one thing I've learned about people over the years,


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[Assistant] It's that humans, as a species, are very good at crossing the line. We have a tendency to take things too far and when we do, it often makes an impression.


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[Assistant] Some people have never been satisfied with accumulating happy meal toys or rare coins. They're drawn to something different. Something darker.


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[Assistant] And their collections across history have demonstrated one truth that's difficult for many of us to swallow.


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[Assistant] If there's one thing humans have always been good at collecting, it's ourselves.


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[Assistant] Let's be honest, none of us are strangers to seeing dead things on display. After all, that's what taxidermy is, right? Technically, it's the art of preserving an animal's skin, together with everything else that makes it what it is. It's feathers, or fur, or even scales. And the practice has been around for thousands of years.


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[Assistant] Is it a serious field? Absolutely. And did it help advance natural science through the 18th and 19th centuries? For sure. But it's also left us with some truly unusual collections.


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[Assistant] For example, did you know that the oldest surviving example of taxidermy is a crocodile that's on display in a cathedral in Pantanosa, Italy? Actually, no one is sure just how old it is, but there are records of it being temporarily moved during some renovations in 1534.


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[Assistant] So at the very least, it's nearly 500 years old. Why it's been kept in a cathedral, of all places, is a mystery to me. But I have to assume the people there believe it's beneficial in some way. You know, for the gator good.


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[Assistant] But beyond taxidermy, humans have been using animal parts as charms for a very long time.


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[Assistant] The rabbit's foot is a great example, showing how people have attached supernatural powers to ordinary objects purely because they came from a living thing.


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[Assistant] US President Grover Cleveland owned one, given to him as a gift to bring him luck during his campaign. Interestingly, it was said to have come from a rabbit that had been killed on the grave of the outlaw Jesse James, giving the charm even more power and significance.


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[Assistant] But if you look back on the pages of history and scan for body parts that were collected because of their significance, the truly dark stories are about something else. Human bodies. And while their use runs the spectrum, you can boil most of them down to two categories. Relics and trophies.


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[Assistant] Now, relics are something most people have a rough understanding of. In a number of religions around the world, human body parts have taken on powerful meaning. In the Christian world, that began nearly 2,000 years ago with a movement that some scholars call the Cult of the Saints.


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[Assistant] These people would disinter the graves of revered and famous Christian leaders and martyrs and bring their bodies, or at least pieces of them, back home to put on display in their own places of worship.


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[Assistant] Today it's hard to tour a European cathedral or castle and not see a gilded container on display with a sign that claims the bone of some early Christian saint is resting safely inside.


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[Assistant] But Christians weren't the only people who were collecting human body parts to enhance their faith. There are many images of Hindu deities wearing human skulls as jewelry or drinking from them like cups. And that's mirrored in the practices of a small group of Hindu followers known as the Aghori who use human bones in their rituals.


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[Assistant] And in the middle of Sri Lanka is a Buddhist temple known as the Temple of the Tooth. Without overstating the obvious, this temple holds a tooth that was said to belong to the Buddha, taken from his funeral pyre by a disciple. And like a lot of religious relics across the world, this tooth is said to give healing powers to the temple that possesses it. But there are only so many relics to go around, right?


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[Assistant] And that's where trophies come in. They don't draw their power from connection to a major world religion, though. Instead, their power is in how they were taken. And a great example is the global practice of scalping.


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[Assistant] From the indigenous peoples of North and South America to Central European cultures like the Scythians, the winners in battle often brought home the scalps of their enemies. But what most people don't know is that it's an evolution of an older tradition of bringing home their entire heads.


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[Assistant] The trouble with human heads though is that they're heavy, and they take up a lot of space. And if your army was particularly successful, it became difficult to bring home all the heads necessary to make cups out of those skulls. So cultures evolved, opting to cut off lighter, more portable parts of the human body.


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[Assistant] In Japan though, they pick something else. Noses and ears. And many scholars think we have one man to thank for that. A Japanese feudal lord named Toyotomi Hideyoshi.


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[Assistant] In the early 1590s, he led his forces to invade the Korean peninsula and demanded that his soldiers prove their loyalty by bringing back severed noses and ears.


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[Assistant] The invasion failed, but the Japanese ended up with more than a hundred thousand of these human trophies on their hands. So they were buried.


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[Assistant] In the city of Kyoto, there's a place called Mimizuka, which means ear mound. It's estimated that nearly 40,000 human ears and noses are buried inside, each one having first been pickled in brine and then inspected before it was placed inside.


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[Assistant] And there's a joke in there somewhere about picking your friend's nose, but I'm going to leave that one for you to figure out.


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[Assistant] People have always been drawn to human body parts. Whether as tools of faith or conquest, they have been central to many cultures around the world.


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[Assistant] But those aren't the only reasons that people have collected human remains. For some, it's been a lot more personal.


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[Assistant] Every society has had to deal with killers. People who take the lives of other human beings without regard for their value and sanctity. But every now and then, a killer comes along who takes a bit more than that.


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[Assistant] I don't know a single person who hasn't heard of Jack the Ripper. In fact, he just might be the most famous murderer in history thanks to sensationalist newspapers and our never-ending hunger for unsolved mysteries. And most people can give you the basic details about the case.


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[Assistant] What they often forget though is that Jack the Ripper did more than kill his victims. In many cases, he left with his own personal trophies. Of the five victims that are accepted by historians as clearly the work of the Ripper, there are instances of missing organs.


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[Assistant] The body of victim number two, for example, Annie Chapman, was found with her uterus missing. Victim number four, Catherine Eddowes, also had her uterus taken by the killer, as well as one of her kidneys. And the last victim, Mary Kelly, was mutilated so badly that physicians were honestly unsure what organs might have been missing.


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[Assistant] And it's also important to point out that when the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee received the infamous From Hell letter in October of 1888, it came with half a human kidney.


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[Assistant] The author of the letter claimed that he kept the other half for himself, which he fried and ate and found it very nice.


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[Assistant] And if America has their own counterpart to Jack the Ripper, it's probably H.H. Holmes, a figure we've discussed here a couple of times before. On the surface, Holmes was a predator who used his position as the owner of an apartment building in the middle of the busy 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago to find his victims.


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[Assistant] But Holmes was more than that. He started out as a medical student at the University of Michigan, where he routinely stole corpses and tried to use them in insurance fraud schemes. Even earlier than that, he was known as the kid who loved to torture animals. So yeah, he had a lot of experience before arriving in Chicago. It was there though, in his house of horrors, that he truly came into his own.


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[Assistant] And as he claimed the lives of more and more victims, they were each transported to the basement of the building where he made the evidence go away. Yes, a lot of it was dissolved in acid but he did keep some parts for himself.


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[Assistant] The skeletons. Once cleaned and articulated, many of those were sold to medical professionals as tools, passing his trophies over to someone else who would prize them for different reasons.


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[Assistant] But there are few killers from history that hold a candle to Ed Gein.


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[Assistant] Born in Wisconsin in 1906, he was raised in a troubled home by an abusive mother. She refused to let him form friendships outside the house, forcing him to spend his childhood pretty much alone. And it had a visible effect on his personality, something his teachers noticed early on.


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[Assistant] As he got older though, those odd quirks began to evolve into deadly hobbies. It's believed by many that his first murder victim was his own brother, Henry, and there were others after that. But it was the murder of a woman named Bernice Worden, the owner of the local hardware store, that led authorities to his door.


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[Assistant] When they arrived, they discovered something out of a horror film. The body of Bernice Worden had been hung up and eviscerated like an animal. Her head, though, was in the kitchen. But as they looked around, the police found other items that were older and equally chilling. There was a wastebasket covered in human skin.


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[Assistant] Bowls made from human skulls. More skulls were found like ornaments on his bedposts. And a lampshade that was made from more human skin. They even found a pair of homemade leggings that Gein had crafted from actual legs of another victim.


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[Assistant] And I wish that was his full list, but sadly Ed Gein was a busy man. If you have a strong stomach and are a bit more adventurous, you can do your own research easily. But I think the message is clear. Some people throughout history have taken their hunger for human remains to a dark, horrific place.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, we can rest easy knowing people like Jack the Ripper and Ed Gein were rare outliers. They aren't the norm and are certainly not very common. At least, that's the hope, isn't it?


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[Assistant] On a beautiful spring day in May of 1858, some neighborhood boys took a shortcut through the graveyard in the Irish village of Drumcliff. They might have been looking for a faster way home, but what they found was something much more terrifying. It was an open grave, and inside it, the violated remains of a man.


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[Assistant] That man, it turns out, was the former sheriff of Limerick, Ralph Westrop Brereton. He had been a man with a reputation for large living. A sort of extrovert who loved to throw parties, entertain friends, and laugh loudly.


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[Assistant] Some of the more reserved folks in town blame that on the years he spent in Paris decades earlier, but that was just a theory.


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[Assistant] Brereton had passed away from apparent natural causes on March 23rd, just about five weeks prior to the crime. But what exactly that crime was, was still a mystery. So the authorities got to work, because not only had his grave been dug up and his coffin opened, but his body had also been brutally cut into.


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[Assistant] Now the first theory was a common one. Someone must have poisoned him and then returned after burial to steal his stomach.


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[Assistant] In a day and age when it was almost impossible to detect poisons in an autopsy, the stomach was one of the very few places they might have looked for proof. Killers in the past had done exactly the same thing, returning later to cut out the stomach and dispose of it elsewhere.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, before they could go knocking on doors of people they believed might be suspects, someone noticed that it wasn't actually the stomach that had been taken.


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[Assistant] I can't blame them though. From what I've read, the thieves weren't the most precise anatomists around, and they made quite a mess of the poor old man. No, it turns out that something else had been stolen from Mr. Brereton. His fat.


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[Assistant] Now I know what you're thinking. Most of us are doing our best to get rid of fat, so who in the world might actually dig up a month-old corpse for it? Well, the answer may surprise you. Because even in 1858, there was a good amount of superstition still lingering from an older era. And one of those folktales had to do with butter.


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[Assistant] Work with me here. I promise it will all make sense to you when I'm finished. You see, back then there was a lot riding on the health of livestock.


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[Assistant] Cows provided milk, a lot of which was turned into butter. So the healthier the cows, the more butter you might have around the house.


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[Assistant] But rather than blame things like the weather or disease if their butter production was low, locals would often blame witchcraft. Not witches per se. Apparently anyone could recite a simple spell, turning every cranky neighbor into a potential source for curses.


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[Assistant] Thankfully though, there was a way to beat them at their own game.


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[Assistant] And clues to that are embedded in the details of the crime.


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[Assistant] First, the date of the crime. Brereton's body had been dug up and mutilated on May 1st, otherwise known as May Day, or Beltane. It was an ancient day of celebrating a lot of things, including fertility and the return of life to the world in the spring.


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[Assistant] It was the beginning of a new phase of the year, and because of that it was a liminal space, a time of transition, when superstitions and magic had more power.


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[Assistant] And one of the most vulnerable elements in their lives at that time of the year was dairy produce. In fact, an unusually high percentage of mayday related superstitions have to do with the production of butter.


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[Assistant] Weird, I know, but this was incredibly important to folks at the time.


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[Assistant] Because as the authorities started to poke around looking for answers, they quickly encountered the widely held belief that a butter charm could be crafted by anyone looking to protect their butter production.


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[Assistant] All you needed was some human fat molded into the shape of a candle, which you would burn throughout May, when the risk was the greatest.


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[Assistant] Like I said earlier, humans have a knack for crossing the line. Over the past few thousand years, people from cultures around the world have turned a healthy love for collecting things into a dark obsession involving human remains, frequently by violating a grave and almost always to support a superstitious belief.


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[Assistant] Stealing the fat from a corpse and then burning it like a candle certainly fits that description. And it probably didn't smell very good either.


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[Assistant] I'm a collector. The odds are pretty good that you are too. Maybe for you the hobby is casual and it looks more like you're saving important objects from your past than any sort of specific theme.


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[Assistant] Or maybe you inherited a collection from someone in your family, turning you into a custodian of something larger than yourself.


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[Assistant] That's how the Mütter Museum started back in 1858. Thomas Dent Mütter was a physician in Philadelphia back in the first half of the 19th century. And over his years in practice, he built up quite the collection of medical specimens.


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[Assistant] You know, brutal looking metal instruments in glass jars filled with human organs and tumors suspended in preserving agents.


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[Assistant] It's one of those rare collections of human remains that transcends the line. Instead of crossing it in some bizarre way, it gathers a whole bunch of useful objects that have helped medical students grow in their knowledge and understanding. Because sometimes, even the oddest collections manage to serve a good purpose.


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[Assistant] The human fat thief from Drumcliff, Ireland was not one of those collectors, though. Did it work?


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[Assistant] We honestly have no way of knowing that. As far as I can tell, there are no records from the summer or fall of 1858 documenting some increase in butter production. No locals were implicated in a plot to bewitch their neighbors' livestock, and no suspects were ever arrested or put on trial for the theft.


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[Assistant] Still, it was the single most exciting thing to happen in the Drumcliffe Cemetery. That is, until 1939, when legendary poet William Butler Yeats was buried there, turning the place into holy ground for fans of Irish literature.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, no one has ever dug him up looking for a relic.


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[Assistant] But if history is any indication, that doesn't necessarily mean no one has ever thought about it. They just weren't willing to cross the line.


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[Assistant] Tales of those who have collected human remains will always be entertaining and more than a little horrifying. And there doesn't seem to be an end to them, either. In fact, I've saved one more unique story of trophies and tragedy, and if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] Her story was pretty common for Scotland in the early 1700s. Even the records of her final days show the sort of prejudice and bias she was up against by listing her name half a dozen different ways. Sometimes she was called Lily and other times some variation on the name Lilius.


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[Assistant] Either way, she was in trouble. In June of 1704, a neighbor accused Lily of witchcraft, probably after some sort of disagreement. Lily was around 60 years old at the time, and there's no record of her having a husband. So she made the perfect target. She was old and unmarried, making her an outsider to many.


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[Assistant] And I don't have to explain to you why it was bad to be accused of witchcraft in Scotland in those days. Between 1560 and 1730, roughly 3500 women were executed as witches, although some estimates put that number much higher.


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[Assistant] After all, good record keeping wasn't important when it came to outsiders and heretics.


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[Assistant] So Lily was arrested and then they questioned her. And it was exactly the sort of interrogation you might imagine from a witch trial too. Lots of leading the witness, lots of questions about pacts with the devil, and lots and lots of torture to make sure they received the answers they were looking for.


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[Assistant] One of the women who testified against her, Jean Bizet, was recorded as seeming drunk, and yet her claims of witchcraft aimed at Lily were believed by the court. The deck was stacked against her, and it was the sort of situation where you might expect her to fight back. But she didn't. No, Lily did something different. She confessed.


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[Assistant] Her trial documents are filled with stories she told to the court, each one more detailed than the last. I have no idea why she did it. Maybe she saw the futility in defending herself against a town that was hell-bent on convicting her. But she just sort of leaned into her crime. And went deep.


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[Assistant] After she was officially charged and found guilty by the court, they discovered that they had a new problem on their hands. Because Lily took control of the trial one final time, taking her own life while still in jail. Which meant that she died before having a chance to repent, a bad sign in their eyes.


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[Assistant] Stripped of their options, the authorities decided to give her a deviant burial. A burial meant to prevent the body from coming back to life. Otherwise, her lord, the devil, would return for her, resurrect her, and then set her corpse loose on the community. And honestly, no one wants an undead witch terrorizing their village.


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[Assistant] So Lily's remains were placed in a box, probably much smaller than a coffin, and then buried in the tidal area along the shore. It was one of those liminal spaces, a place that's in between two worlds, the sea and the earth, and therefore in a powerful supernatural place as well.


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[Assistant] After burying the box, a large stone was placed on top, just an added measure to prevent her resurrection. After that, life moved on, and soon enough, Lily Addie was forgotten, buried in the past just as she had been interred in the wet sand along the shore. Nearly a century and a half later though,


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[Assistant] That changed. A local antiquarian named Joseph Neil Patton discovered the location of Lily's grave and hired some workers to help him dig her up.


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[Assistant] He was interested in her skull, being a follower of a new discipline called phrenology. But the rest of her remains were scattered among a handful of owners.


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[Assistant] Interesting side note, modern forensic experts have been able to use photographs of that skull to reconstruct her face, giving us the only known accurate likeness of a Scottish witch trial victim. But that's not the only thing people built.


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[Assistant] Remember that small box that she was buried in? Well, it was broken down into smaller pieces of wood and then crafted into a handful of ornate walking sticks. They might not have been actual human remains, but they had a deep connection to a woman executed for witchcraft and that was attractive to some people.


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[Assistant] Many of the walking sticks found their way into private hands, and at least two of them are in a museum in Scotland today. One of them though was owned for a time by a man named Robert Brimmer, who helped dig up her remains in 1852. But he wasn't its last owner.


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[Assistant] No, he eventually gave that walking stick to another man as a gift. A Scottish-born immigrant to the United States who grew up to become one of the wealthiest men in the world. He forged his wealth in the steel industry and then poured much of it into libraries all across America. His name? Andrew Carnegie.


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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's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] 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 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] Some of the things we see aren't what they appear to be.


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[Assistant] Heather Bowie and her cousins learned that lesson back in 1989. She was 11 at the time, and according to her mother Karen, it was a bright winter day. The sort of day where the sun reflects off every inch of snow, which always has a way of making dark objects like houses and trees stand out.


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[Assistant] Heather and her cousins were walking along a small country road that ran between their town and the next when they saw a dog sitting in a stream near the roadside.


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[Assistant] Well, stream might be too strong of a term. It was just a bunch of runoff, the sort that passes beneath roads through those big metal tunnels. It was a drainage ditch, basically.


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[Assistant] But kids love dogs, so Heather and the others veered off the roadside and into the snow to walk toward it.


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[Assistant] They assumed it was a local pet that had wandered a bit too far from home, so they planned to check its collar and see what they could do.


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[Assistant] They stopped because that's when the dog turned to look at them.


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[Assistant] And as it did so, it did something they weren't expecting. It stood up on its hind legs like a human.


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[Assistant] Obviously frightened. The girls ran home as fast as they could.


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[Assistant] We live with them in our homes. We depend on them for food and resources.


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[Assistant] We identify with them, sometimes even treating them more like people than beasts.


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[Assistant] We speak to them, we name them, and we project human personalities on them.


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[Assistant] For thousands of years, we've treated them as if they were more than animals. But of course, that's just our imagination. If we believe the stories, though, it might be more true than we expected.


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[Assistant] Our connection to animals is nearly as old as humanity itself. We've almost always treated them as important parts of the world around us, although different cultures have expressed that importance in a variety of ways. The common thread, though, is that animals have always helped us better understand our world.


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[Assistant] Some cultures have revered them as gods to worship. Others have seen them as valuable sacrifices to offer to whatever deity they wanted to please.


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[Assistant] In many cultures, animals have served as our companions through daily life, and in others, they've journeyed with the dead into the afterlife.


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[Assistant] Just think of what we know of ancient Egyptian culture. There were entire cults built around specific animals, like bulls and cats.


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[Assistant] Their dead were frequently buried alongside animals that held personal or spiritual significance. And many of the Egyptian gods and goddesses were represented through simple animal symbolism. Anubis, for example, was part man, part jackal. Sekhmet was a woman with the head of a lion.


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[Assistant] Ancient Hindu teachings for thousands of years have demanded deep respect for the animals around us.


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[Assistant] In China, the ancient philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism both stress the same thing.


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[Assistant] For the Hindus that respect is founded on the idea of reincarnation. In China, it's rooted more in moral responsibility.


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[Assistant] But the result is the same. Animals are, and always have been, important to us. And yes, I know that ancient cultures focused a lot of their religion and practice around the sun and moon and stars


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[Assistant] They often framed those complex systems with simple animal language. That's why so many cultures have their own zodiac symbol, where the major constellations are represented by animals. The Greek root of zodiac, by the way, literally means circle of little animals.


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[Assistant] Just an aside, the ancient Egyptian word for cat was mew, which sounds a lot like the noise that cats actually make. And that classic stereotypical dog name, Fido, it comes from the Latin word fidelis, which means loyal and faithful.


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[Assistant] Sometimes those themes took the form of religion, as was the case in Egypt with the bull cult. Sometimes it's more of a totem thing, where an entire tribe or community built their identity around a significant animal from their environment. Sometimes they did it for a feeling of safety. Sometimes it was a symbol of power.


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[Assistant] In Icelandic folklore, the Norse warrior class known as berserkers were members of the bear cult. Berserker in Old Norse literally meant bear shirt, but it also embodied that fierce, powerful nature that they wanted for themselves as warriors.


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[Assistant] They were often depicted wearing bare skins and sometimes even bare heads as head coverings. That's a tradition that still survives, by the way. You can see it in the ceremonial military caps worn by some personnel in multiple European countries.


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[Assistant] The most common tribal animal, though, has always been the wolf.


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[Assistant] It's a global fascination with examples found in Mexico, North America, India, Mongolia, and the Middle East. And this is probably because wolves represented so much of what early humanity identified with. They moved in packs, they hunted their food, and they have a distinct social order.


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[Assistant] Any hunter-gatherer community would instantly admire those qualities.


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[Assistant] And, like bears, wolves were also seen as brave and powerful warriors.


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[Assistant] Ancient Persian and Hittite warriors were known to dress in wolfskins for battle.


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[Assistant] Interestingly though, they also had a reputation for tossing their weapons aside and just jumping on their enemies, literally biting them like wolves.


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[Assistant] Which of course, led to stories where that was the case. Animals that became people. People that became animals.


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[Assistant] It's an idea so powerful that we can find it hiding inside the folklore of dozens of cultures.


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[Assistant] Artifacts from another time, when animals were gods and humans desperately wanted to imitate the divine. And yes, these stories also address our dual nature because we are, in so many ways, nothing more than animals ourselves.


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[Assistant] But those moral lessons have a way of distracting us from the plot. For thousands of years, people have told stories about mysterious beasts.


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[Assistant] In Lorraine Andreesi's case, it was well after sunset, so she was doing the responsible thing and scanning the edges of her headlights for wild animals. Wisconsin has plenty of deer, after all, and deer don't mix well with windshields and front ends.


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[Assistant] Lorraine worked as a manager at one of the local bars in Elkhorn and had just wrapped up a very long, very tiring shift. All she really wanted to do was get home safely.


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[Assistant] But when she did notice something unusual, it wasn't in the periphery of her headlights. It was right in the road in front of her.


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[Assistant] Seeing it early gave her the chance to slow down and swerve to avoid hitting it, but it also helped her get a good look at it.


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[Assistant] From a distance, it looked as if there was an animal hunched low to the pavement of the oncoming lane. Its head was gently bobbing at an irregular rhythm. She couldn't tell for sure, but it almost seemed to be eating.


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[Assistant] As she slowly passed it, she claims she saw everything.


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[Assistant] It was eating alright. Whatever it was, the creature was hunched over a pile of roadkill, pulling big chunks of flesh off the dead animal.


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[Assistant] Two years later, on Halloween night in fact, it was Doris Gibson's turn.


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[Assistant] She was just 18 at the time and had been driving out to pick a friend up for some trick or treating back in town.


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[Assistant] Like Lorraine before her, she was driving that same stretch of country road, named for the old Bray family farm that it passed.


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[Assistant] According to the story Doris later told to a local reporter, she'd briefly taken her eyes off the road to switch channels on the radio when she felt the car lurch. It was as if, she said, she'd run something over.


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[Assistant] Frightened by the possibility of what had just happened, she stopped her car, put it in park, and then got out for a look.


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[Assistant] Doris, it seems, wasn't a big horror movie fan. Because anyone who knows anything about horror films knows that you never, ever get out of the car. Ever.


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[Assistant] Still, there wasn't a scratch on her car. The bumper was spotless. There was no sign of blood or fur or anything else that might hint at fresh roadkill. And even more convincing, there was nothing on the road. No dead animal. No unlucky farmer out for an evening walk. Not even a pothole.


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[Assistant] There was no clue anywhere that could explain the bump she'd felt.


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[Assistant] She was about to turn and head back to her car when movement caught her attention.


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[Assistant] There is something in the trees and shadows along the roadside.


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[Assistant] According to her, it was a large figure that stood upright like a man but seemed hairy and very muscular, which, as you might imagine, was a pretty shocking thing to see on a dark, lonely country road.


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[Assistant] So Doris did the smart thing and bolted for her car door.


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[Assistant] As she did, this thing, whatever it was, chased after her.


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[Assistant] Dora said she could hear the heavy thud of the creature's feet on the pavement behind her and the sound of the deep panting breaths.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, she managed to get into the car and shifted quickly back into drive. But as she pulled away, she felt her car shudder once more. When she looked in the rearview mirror, all she could see was the dark silhouette of the creature filling her back window. It had jumped onto the trunk.


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[Assistant] Whatever her attacker was, she claims that it fell off once she got her car moving quickly enough. But she wasn't willing to stop for another look.


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[Assistant] She did, however, continue on to her friend's house, and eventually, they both headed back to town for some Halloween fun.


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[Assistant] Later that night, on her way back along Bray Road to drop her friend back off at home, Doris swears she saw the figure one more time. It was far off in the distance, at the edge of her headlights, but it was the same unmistakable shape. Tall, thick, and very animal-like, but standing upright on two legs.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until the next day, in the safety of her own driveway and by the light of the noonday sun, that she took another look at her car. There, on the trunk.


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[Assistant] She found evidence that something very unusual and very dangerous had taken place the night before.


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[Assistant] This is the point in the story where you're probably expecting me to clarify what the creature was. All of the physical descriptions certainly point toward the folklore regarding werewolves, but almost no one in Elkhorn made that connection.


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[Assistant] Maybe that's because there were never any stories of humans transforming into the monster. Or perhaps it's because the sightings weren't limited to full moon nights. In the end, whatever it might have been, the people of the area took to calling it the Beast of Bray Road. But there were other theories, of course.


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[Assistant] One common suggestion was rooted in the Native American folklore about a giant wolf known as the Shunka Warakan, which was described as sort of a hybrid between a wolf and a coyote.


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[Assistant] Others have made comparisons to the Inuit stories of the Amarok or the Wehala, both of which were enormous, monstrous wolves. But, honestly, there are far too many human characteristics attributed to the Bray Road creature to make the comparisons stick.


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[Assistant] And that's without taking into account the additional sightings. Because Lorraine and Doris weren't the only witnesses to see something strange along that stretch of country road. And once they spoke to a local reporter, others found the courage to come forward with their own tales. Marvin Kerschnick was one of them.


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[Assistant] According to his testimony, he had his own encounter way back in 1981, a full decade before Doris Gibson. Unlike the others though, his sighting didn't happen in the dark.


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[Assistant] He'd been driving along Highway 11, which runs just northeast of Elkhorn, and as he approached the turnoff for Bray Road, he saw an unusual animal in the trees along the side of the road.


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[Assistant] Khrushnik slowed down when he saw it and then pulled over to get a better look.


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[Assistant] The way he described it, much of the creature was obscured by the underbrush, but it was clearly wolf-like.


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[Assistant] They stared at each other for a moment before the beast moved toward the car. Frightened, Kirshnik drove away quickly.


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[Assistant] Five years later, in 1986, Diane Koenig was traveling in the same area, returning home after a day in nearby Burlington.


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[Assistant] From a distance, her headlights didn't give her a very clear view, so at first it just looked like a tall man was walking along the side of the road with something heavy in his arms.


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[Assistant] As she drew closer though, all of that came into focus.


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[Assistant] According to Koenig, this man had the head of a wolf. And the heavy burden that it held in its arms turned out to be a full-sized deer.


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[Assistant] Unlike Kirshnik though, Koenig didn't stop for a closer look and instead sped up, just in case the creature decided to give chase. She kept the story to herself for years out of fear that she'd be considered a lunatic.


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[Assistant] One unnamed girl told the authorities that she'd been chased up a tree by a wolf and had to stay there for over an hour while it paced around trying to find a way to climb up after her.


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[Assistant] What struck her as odd, though, was that the wolf walked around the tree on its hind legs.


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[Assistant] When she led her parents back to the tree the next day, they found large claw marks on the lower portion of the trunk.


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[Assistant] Even Scott Bray, who lived on the family farm that gave the road its name, claimed to have seen unusual things, including enormous wolf tracks on his property.


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[Assistant] Local animal control authorities were called to several homes in the area to examine and collect a large number of mutilated animal corpses. A few townsfolk tried to blame that one on satanic cults, but everyone else agreed it was just the beast of Bray Road.


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[Assistant] There was a good amount of fear in town, as you might expect. But the sightings were also creating something else that's lasted to this day. A reputation.


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[Assistant] The bar where Lorraine and Dreezy worked eventually created a menu item called the Silver Bullet Special. A bakery in town started making wolf-shaped cookies. Think Roswell, New Mexico and UFO collectibles, but with wolves, and I think you'll get the idea.


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[Assistant] Even Chuck Coleman, a local state representative, got involved by using the beast of Bray Road in his election marketing. He ran an ad that showed a man dressed up as the beast casting his vote for Coleman.


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[Assistant] Perhaps proof of the popularity of the Braybeast stories, Coleman won his election.


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[Assistant] Doris Gibson's encounter also seemed to have been the last sighting of the creature by travelers on Bray Road. After that, Elkhorn, Wisconsin sort of became quiet. For a while, at least.


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[Assistant] You see, in the spring of 1992, County Animal Control Officer John Fredrickson was called to a field outside of town, to the east, near Bray Road.


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[Assistant] This is a man who was used to the occasional roadkill or injured farm animal. He'd seen a lot in his career. But when he arrived at the field, he was well out of his depth. Because there, laying in the pasture, were the bodies of five horses. Their throats had all been slashed.


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[Assistant] It seems that people are drawn to animals. And we always have been. And if the internet's collection of cat videos and dog tricks tells us anything, it's that our passion for these animals isn't fading anytime soon.


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[Assistant] Perhaps they meet a deep unspoken need in our soul. Or maybe they just trigger the right pleasure center in our brains. Whatever the reason might be. Animals are significant to us.


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[Assistant] Then every time I see someone dress up their dog in a sweater,


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[Assistant] I can't help but think of how for a very long time, humans used to be the ones dressed up as animals. We envy their grace, their strength, and their power.


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[Assistant] And that envy has woven itself into the very fabric of global folklore.


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[Assistant] But what if there's another reason why we tell stories of animals that act human?


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[Assistant] Or that our ancestors told just enough stories about human-like animals that we wonder, just a little.


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[Assistant] Whatever it was lurking in the trees and shadows of Elkhorn, Wisconsin back in the early 90s remains a mystery to this day.


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[Assistant] No answers have been uncovered. No unusual corpses have been found in the woods or along the roadside. No nests or dens or whatever sort of dwelling a creature like the beast of Bray Road might have lived in. All we have is story. Sometimes all we ever have is story.


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[Assistant] All of the witnesses who came forward to tell their stories seemed to agree on the details. And surprisingly, all of them appeared to be telling the truth. When a documentary on the events was being produced in 2008, all of the witnesses agreed to take a polygraph exam. And each of them passed. It's not irrefutable proof, I know. But it's enough to make you wonder.


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[Assistant] Sometime after the events of the early 90s, a local who lived along Bray Road looked out his window to see a man standing in his driveway with a handgun.


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[Assistant] Obviously frightened by the sight of an armed stranger in his yard, he called the police, who quickly arrived. Jose Contreras was immediately arrested and his handgun, along with 50 rounds of ammunition, was confiscated.


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[Assistant] He eventually went to trial, and his lawyer attempted to build a case around self-defense. Contreras, he told the judge, was looking for the beast of Bray Road, which he believed was a werewolf. That meant, according to his defense, he wasn't a danger to anyone else.


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[Assistant] The judge, though, dismissed the notion and convicted Contreras anyway. His reason?


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[Assistant] Apparently, none of the bullets in the gun had been silver.


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[Assistant] But it's amazing, in the very least, how parts of fantasy can become so accepted that they play a role in something as significant as a criminal trial. One final tale.


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[Assistant] Just six years ago, more witnesses came forward about a new sighting. One night in October of 2010, six people were driving together down Bray Road.


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[Assistant] Down the road ahead they watched as shadows seemed to move across their path.


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[Assistant] As they drew closer they watched the shape run into the open field to their right.


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[Assistant] What they say might seem hard to believe, so we'll have to take them at their word.


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[Assistant] They claimed it was an animal, covered in fur and similar in appearance to a wolf. Except it was running on two legs, not four.


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[Assistant] Once it reached the field, the beast dropped to all fours and bolted off into the darkness.


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[Assistant] One final detail sets this report apart from all the others, though. Because unlike every other encounter dating back over 30 years, this one finds a way to make the Beast of Bray Road even more frightening. According to the witnesses, it wasn't a single creature. There were two of them.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research help from Marset Crockett.


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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] They built it to honor one man, but it's clear they had another in mind. It's a red sandstone tower jutting up from the ruins of a much older structure, the thousand-year-old Castle Kiffhausen. And if you visit the monument, you'll see two different men on display.


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[Assistant] The first, set in copper, riding atop a horse, is Emperor William I, who ruled Germany about a century and a half ago.


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[Assistant] But at the base of the tower, hidden inside an open-air cave surrounded by terraces for visitors to walk along, is someone older and more legendary. The 12th century Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa.


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[Assistant] He's carved into the back wall of the space, an ancient figure sleeping on a throne, with his beard flowing down past his knees. And he's sleeping because of the legend about him, a legend that will sound familiar to fans of King Arthur.


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[Assistant] They say that Barbarossa isn't really dead, but is simply hidden away under a mountain in Germany, sleeping until he is needed again.


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[Assistant] The King Under the Mountain legend is a lot more common than most people realize. Yes, it's a prominent feature at the end of the King Arthur story, but it's also a legend told about Charlemagne and a handful of other historic leaders.


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[Assistant] Why? Because it speaks of hope. That while our suffering might be great, it's only temporary, and soon enough the hero will return to set things right.


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[Assistant] But one story echoes this ancient belief in the returning hero more than any other. It's not as famous as the rest, but it represents an entire nation oppressed under the thumb of a foreign ruler and the hope they placed in their hero's return. And to hear it,


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[Assistant] And that's something the Normans were very good at. When they invaded England in 1066, they spent the next decade conquering every corner of the land. And everywhere they went, they built tall fortresses. They served as seats of power, but also enormous physical reminders that they were now in charge.


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[Assistant] So it shouldn't be a surprise that when the Normans invaded Ireland a century later, they did the same thing. Although, at the beginning it was less an invasion and more an invitation.


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[Assistant] You see, the King of Leinster had lost his throne, and so he sailed to England looking for help. When he returned, it was with English allies, and together they reclaimed his crown.


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[Assistant] In the years to come, England would insert itself into the Irish landscape, both politically and physically. And it's a conflict that has never really gone away.


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[Assistant] And all of that background is essential to understand when you look upon the walls of Kilkeay Castle. Because as the oldest continuously occupied castle in Ireland, it's been there through it all.


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[Assistant] Built in the year 1180, just a few years after the English arrived, it has stood watch over a never ending game of conquest and rebellion.


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[Assistant] And if I spent time telling you about any of those events, you would immediately recognize the pattern. The people of Ireland would rise up, fight for their freedom, and then be crushed by the fist of English military power.


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[Assistant] But something happened over the years inside the walls of Kilkeay Castle. You see, the family who called the place home, the Fitzgeralds, had deep Norman roots and were descended from the same royal line as the Tudors who ruled England.


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[Assistant] By the early 16th century, the Earl of Kildare also served as the Lord Deputy of Ireland. On paper, they fully represented English power over the Irish people.


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[Assistant] That's when Gerald Fitzgerald, the ninth Earl of Kildare, was called to England by King Henry VIII. So he and his wife and daughters all boarded a ship and set sail. Within the year, the Earl was dead from his time in the Tower of London, and his wife and daughters were forced to serve the royal family for life.


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[Assistant] Back home at Kilkay Castle, the new Earl of Kildare was 23-year-old Thomas. Along with his 12-year-old brother Gerald, they represented the last of their line.


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[Assistant] Later that year, Thomas would go on to lead a revolt against the English in Ireland. In July of 1534, he and a small army attacked Dublin Castle, but were quickly defeated. Thomas and five of his uncles were eventually taken prisoner, transported to London and executed there for all to see.


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[Assistant] And if you're keeping track, that just leaves young Gerald. He represented the last of the Fitzgeralds, sure, but he was more than that. To Irish rebels, he was their best chance at a future without the English. His family had been cousins to King Henry VIII, powerful in their own right, and loved by the people of the land. But at just 12 years old, he wasn't ready to lead them.


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[Assistant] And to make matters worse, he was sick. Around the time that his older brother Thomas was preparing to try to capture Dublin Castle, young Gerald lay sick and dying from smallpox. Knowing that Henry VIII would send agents to kill him, Thomas had his sick brother placed in a large basket and smuggled out of the castle.


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[Assistant] And then left him in the care of a beloved family friend. A priest named Thomas Leverus.


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[Assistant] At first, they believed it would be simple enough to move Gerald to his aunt's estate, well outside the lands controlled by the English around Dublin, known as the Pale. It was there that his health recovered, fighting off the deadly disease. But after his brother's execution, King Henry sent an army back to Ireland to stamp out any remaining rebel pockets, and to find young Gerald. He did more than that, too.


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[Assistant] Remember, Henry VIII was the man responsible for England leaving the Catholic Church, setting up the Protestant replacement known as the Church of England.


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[Assistant] So in an effort to rid himself of pro-Catholic rebels in Ireland, he shut down all Catholic monasteries, seized their wealth, and then, in a final blow to the Fitzgeralds, stripped them of their land and titles.


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[Assistant] But hope is a lot harder to extinguish, and for a people who had spent so many long centuries enduring foreign rule, the Irish had hope in abundance. It might not have felt like it at the time, with their Earl and his rebellion gone, but they knew if they waited, a hero would return.


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[Assistant] What they didn't know however was that when he did, he would return to them in the most unexpected way.


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[Assistant] To become a wizard, you need a reputation for the unexpected. And if there's one thing that Gerald Fitzgerald was good at, it was surprising people.


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[Assistant] Now the important thing to keep in mind as we explore the next decade or so of his life is that there's a difference between reality and perception. Real events would take place over and over for Gerald and they would have reasonable logical explanations. But the perception? Well, it created the legend of the Wizard Earl.


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[Assistant] His first trick was slipping out of King Henry VIII's grasp. Impressive when you consider that Henry was one of the most powerful monarchs in the world. But Gerald managed to pull it off, thanks to a network of loyal supporters known as the Geraldine League.


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[Assistant] They protected him whenever he was in hiding, helped transport him safely to the next hideout, and maintained a network of scouts to watch for English spies.


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[Assistant] And that game of cat and mouse eventually led the Geraldine League to move the boy out of Ireland altogether. Their first stop?


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[Assistant] France. And keep in mind, this was a moment in history when France and England weren't on the best of terms. So that old adage that says the enemy of my enemy is my friend proved true. He found supporters there at the royal court and was provided protection, funding, and a place to be free.


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[Assistant] For a while, at least. France was close enough to England that there were still spies to contend with. Thankfully, Gerald always had his two companions by his side. Both friends of his father. His tutor, Thomas Leverus, and an old cranky servant named Robert Walsh. But all good things must come to an end.


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[Assistant] When the English ambassador to France caught wind of Gerald's stay there, he sent an agent to capture the boy. Gerald and his protectors managed to slip away, but it meant leaving the safety of France behind. Oh, and that English agent who pursued them? His name was Sherlock, which honestly just sounds perfect, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] After France, the boy fugitive traveled to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. But that stay didn't last very long. So after wandering Europe a bit, Gerald and his protectors landed in Italy under the protection of Henry VIII's biggest enemy around, the Catholic Church.


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[Assistant] And that's where he spent the rest of his exile. It turned out that one of his distant relatives was a cardinal by the name of Reginald Pole. Yes, an English priest. Right there in Italy. And through those connections, Gerald was able to settle down and begin his education.


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[Assistant] But Gerald was more interested in action than books, and during his teens he learned of the efforts of an order of Catholic soldiers known as the Knights of St. John to fight the Ottoman Empire in Northern Africa.


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[Assistant] So he left Italy and threw himself into the conflict near Tripoli. And while he never officially joined the Knights of Saint John, he did walk away with an intense military training and a reputation for great skill in combat.


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[Assistant] Upon returning to Italy, he was hired by Cosimo de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to serve as his master of horse.


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[Assistant] And we need to just stop and reflect on this for a moment. Smuggled out of Ireland as a sick and dying child, and hunted by the King of England across much of Europe, Gerald had transformed himself into a strong, wealthy courtier with responsibility over the vast horse business of one of Italy's most powerful men. If that's not sorcery, I don't know what is.


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[Assistant] And then in 1549, Gerald made a trip back to the French court when a messenger approached him out of the crowd.


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[Assistant] He carried a letter from his mother, letting him know that she was still alive and well, and something even more joyous. King Henry VIII, the man who had hunted him for years, was dead, and his passing meant that Gerald was now safe.


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[Assistant] A year later, he was on a ship bound for England. At his side were Thomas Leveras and Robert Walsh, his faithful protectors and advisors. And what transpired next set off a new chapter in his life.


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[Assistant] During a social gathering thrown by the new 12-year-old boy king, Edward VI, he met a young woman named Mabel, and their romance quickly led to marriage.


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[Assistant] And then three years after his return to England, another door opened for him. Young King Edward died, and after a brief struggle for the crown with Lady Jane Grey, Edward's sister Mary became Queen. And Mary was good news for Gerald because she, unlike her father and brother, was Catholic. Oh, and one more thing.


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[Assistant] Remember when Gerald's father was called to England and summarily thrown into prison in the Tower of London, leaving his wife and daughters to face punishment by Henry VIII? Do you know who those women had been ordered to serve as ladies-in-waiting? Henry's daughters. And that included Mary.


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[Assistant] Which means that all of a sudden, not only did Gerald find himself living in an England that no longer outlawed Catholicism, but his mother and sisters had been constant companions and servants to the new Queen.


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[Assistant] It's no wonder people began to believe that Gerald was a wizard.


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[Assistant] All of this good fortune just screamed magic.


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[Assistant] Soon he had a written pardon and his ancestral lands and titles had been restored. So Gerald and his new wife Mabel packed up and headed home.


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[Assistant] His real home. The home he hadn't seen since childhood.


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[Assistant] He punished the men under his power by burning their fields and raiding their storehouses if they didn't make their wives and daughters available to him. And this was where the real Gerald messes up the image of that returned hero. Because in a lot of ways, he was the bad guy. And just as bad as the English overlords he hated.


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[Assistant] The decline of Gerald Fitzgerald, Wizard Earl of Kildare, began in 1558, when his friendly patron Queen Mary passed away. Because when she did, her sister Elizabeth took the throne. Her Protestant sister.


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[Assistant] And despite being on friendly terms with Gerald's sisters, Elizabeth had no patience for anyone who encouraged rebellion. Something that Gerald was still doing over in Ireland.


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[Assistant] Twice he was called to testify before her, and twice he was thrown into the Tower of London. And both times,


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[Assistant] And that's where he stayed, unable to magic himself out of this one final jam.


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[Assistant] Historians assume that's where he passed away. Never to return to Ireland again.


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[Assistant] But there are some who disagree. In fact, there are stories about one last performance by the Wizard Earl of Kildare. Exactly where it falls on the scale between folklore and fact is something I'll leave up to you. But it's certainly part of the collection of details that make him the man we still talk about today. The Wizard, it seems, had one more trick up his sleeve.


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[Assistant] In a lot of ways, Gerald's magic was simply coincidence. Somehow managing to slip through the fingers of the powerful King of England, outliving him, and then finding himself in good graces with Henry's daughter, Mary, thanks to his family connections.


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[Assistant] And those are just a few examples from a long list of unbelievable happenstance.


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[Assistant] Gerald Fitzgerald had a way of avoiding death and punishment that led some to believe that he could never be caught. And those same people believed that he never really died. That he simply stepped into a cave to sleep until Ireland would need him again. In a clear echo of the King Under the Mountain folklore.


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[Assistant] But where he obtained those powers is a matter of rumor and speculation. Remember, he was alive and active in the middle of the 1500s, a time when few could tell the difference between astrology and astronomy.


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[Assistant] And so putting those specific pieces together would have convinced many that he had traveled Europe learning sorcery and black magic along the way. So not only was he someone who represented hope for the Irish to win back their freedom, but he could help them do that with his arcane powers and elusive presence.


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[Assistant] As I said before, some believe the history books hide the truth about Gerald's final days, that he never actually died in that prison cell in the Tower of London, but that his powers allowed him to escape once more and return home.


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[Assistant] When he did though, his surprise arrival was the final straw for his wife Mabel.


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[Assistant] She had been hearing rumors about magical powers for years, but being devoutly Catholic, she chose to ignore them. It was only when he managed to escape his final imprisonment by Queen Elizabeth that Mabel sat Gerald down in the sitting room in the castle and demanded that he demonstrate his powers for her own eyes.


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[Assistant] Reluctantly, Gerald agreed, but he prefaced his demonstration with a warning. I'll show you my powers, he said, but you need to observe them without fear. If you show any sign of fear at all, you will never see me again.


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[Assistant] And of course, Mabel agreed. Probably because she had a hard time believing that her husband had any powers at all. Let alone powers that might frighten her. So with that, Gerald began. I have three tests for you, he told her. And they shall be convincing proof of my powers.


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[Assistant] First, he motioned toward the window and the property beyond, where a small stream ran through the castle grounds. And then with a flick of his wrist, the stream rose up within the room they were seated and climbed as high as Maples' lips.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was the sheer ridiculousness of the trick, the absolute unbelieveableness of their sitting room flooded with waters from the stream, but Mabel didn't flinch a bit. Satisfied that she had shown no fear, Gerald made another motion and the water receded, vanishing back into the little stream outside.


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[Assistant] Next, he turned and gestured toward the room's door, and a heartbeat later it opened. Standing in the doorway was an old family friend, a man they had both known and respected for a long time. The trouble was, this man had passed away many years before, so the sight of him in their sitting room should have been a frightening shock.


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[Assistant] And yet Mabel didn't show fear. Even when the shape of this dead friend shambled over to where she sat and took her hand in a greeting, she held fast and observed it all as if it were a stage performance and nothing more. A moment later, the undead visitor vanished.


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[Assistant] And finally, an enormous snake slithered out from beneath her seat and began to wrap itself around her legs.


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[Assistant] Now, I'll be honest, this is the moment when I would have lost it. But Mabel? Not a single sign of fear. Even when the snake had fully wrapped her body in its cold embrace, its head positioned directly in front of her own face.


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[Assistant] And then it was over. Mabel had passed each of the tests, although whether she still believed his powers were real or just skillful parlor tricks is up for debate. Regardless, he had done what she had asked him to do, but it seems that Gerald had one last trick to show her.


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[Assistant] He asked his wife to close her eyes and then instructed her to stay that way until he tapped his foot four times. Mabel nodded and did as he asked and then waited in silence for the signal.


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[Assistant] There was a long pause, and I imagine she began to wonder what he was doing. But soon enough she heard the sound. Four distinct taps on the floor.


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[Assistant] When she opened her eyes, Gerald was gone. In his place was a little bird, which flew into the air and landed on her shoulder, singing a quiet song to her. She laughed as it flew off again, zipping around the room, landing here and there as it continued to sing. But then, another movement caught her eye.


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[Assistant] A cat had crept into the room, moving beneath the furniture with its eyes locked on that bird. Before she could stop it, the animal pounced, and Mabel cried out in fear. And that, according to the legend, is when she failed the test.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the most magical thing in our world is hope. Whether that's because we've stayed innocent in the face of cynicism, or we just prefer to view everything through rose-colored glass, our ability to be hopeful can drive us to hold on, to never give up.


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[Assistant] And in many ways, Gerald Fitzgerald fits that concept well.


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[Assistant] He was seen by his contemporaries as a figure of hope, someone who might very well help them obtain the freedom they desperately wanted. And his adolescence in Europe with all its trappings of adventure, black magic, and military experience, all just added to his reputation.


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[Assistant] Of course, he was far from perfect. His actions alongside the Knights of the Order of St. John involved more than warfare. There was a good amount of prisoner taking as well. Prisoners that were sold into slavery for Gerald's profit. And he treated the autonomy of women in his territory in Ireland with just as much disregard.


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[Assistant] Gerald was a man that a lot of people placed hope in. And because of that, a legend began to grow around his story. That he hadn't really died, but had instead slipped off to some cave or hidden chamber and just gone to sleep. And when Ireland needs him most, he will miraculously return.


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[Assistant] The years have been kind to his story. People still whisper about the wizard Earl when they visit the castle today. There's even a room at the top of the tower that is said to be his alchemy workshop. Of course, they call it the haunted room, because, well, why not, right?


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[Assistant] But the castle itself didn't age so well. Gerald called it home in the second half of the 1500s, and after his time there, it was handed on down the line. In fact, it stayed in Fitzgerald hands until the 1960s, meaning one family owned the castle for nearly 800 years. Pretty impressive for sure.


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[Assistant] In 1849 though, the family decided to give the castle some much needed restoration. It seems that previous generations had done a bit of treasure hunting on the land, and many of the battlements had been destroyed or dismantled. And as they started work, pieces of the past began to come back to life.


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[Assistant] In one part of the house, a recess was uncovered that contained a number of ancient glass bottles, still sealed and containing an unknown liquid.


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[Assistant] Knowing the stories of the Wizard Earl and his experiments with alchemy, the workmen assumed the bottles contained some sort of magical potion. And despite how crazy we all know it would be to drink from old unmarked bottles, that's exactly what they did. Thankfully, there's no record of anyone dying.


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[Assistant] But the bigger discovery was waiting deeper inside the recess in the wall. As the workmen brought light into the opening, they realized that the space inside was much larger than they had expected. And right in the middle of it all was a table and a chair. A chair. With someone seated in it.


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[Assistant] Now remember, these were men who had been raised on the legend of the sleeping wizard earl. They would have whispered stories as they worked, half serious and half for fun, about whether or not the earl would ever be found. And here, right inside a lost room in the wizard earl's own castle, was something that fit the story to a tee.


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[Assistant] The ancient figure instantly fell to pieces, crumbling into a pile of dust before his eyes.


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[Assistant] The life and adventures of Gerald Fitzgerald are certainly unbelievable, even though much of it is actually true.


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[Assistant] But while his alchemy and sorcery are fascinating, it might be good to spend just a bit more time discussing his connection to an older tradition. One that has a good chance of leaving you with a few chills. Stick around after this brief sponsor break and I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] Some legends can't be contained. They transcend the boundaries of kingdoms and migrate into new languages and histories, and the legend of the hero king under the mountain is one of them.


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[Assistant] The folklore DNA of these stories though is always the same. It works something like this.


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[Assistant] Kingdom or nation falls in love with a hero. Think King Arthur or Charlemagne, and then that hero goes away. But they haven't really died. Instead, they've just gone into hiding, to a cavern or chamber hidden away somewhere where they might sleep, waiting until they are needed again.


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[Assistant] A lot of the stories claim that these sleeping heroes are not alone. That they've brought their loyal knights with them, and sometimes even their horses. And together, like some sort of medieval slumber party, they all lay waiting for the call that will drive them out and back to the battle.


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[Assistant] Interesting side notes, a lot of these stories bleed into the folklore of the Wild Hunt. In some places, that sleeping hero and their band of warrior companions will occasionally ride forth and hunt across the landscape, giving birth to stories of their own. But most of the time, they simply sleep in the earth, waiting for the moment when they are needed most.


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[Assistant] Before that day though, there are always sightings. People who stumble upon that hiding place. And usually that stranger disturbs the sleeping hero but runs away in fright before anything significant can happen. Never able to find the chamber again.


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[Assistant] And of course, these stories find home in the life and legend of the wizard Earl of Kildare. The most commonly told tale is of his frequent return for a ride through the castle's property. Once every seven years, they say, the Earl appears on a mighty steed and rushes across the land.


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[Assistant] Those who have seen him claim that he rides straight to the castle and then up the high walls. When he and his horse reach the top of the tower, they both vanish. And his ghostly ride is supposed to happen over and over, every seven years, until the silver horseshoes on his steed are worn down to the thickness of a cat's ear.


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[Assistant] After that, he will return for good, defeat the English and rule as a king over all of Ireland.


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[Assistant] And with a legend like that, it's easy to understand why some people have even gone looking for him. In fact, many believe that if the wizard earl is sleeping anywhere, it's in a cavern beneath an ancient hillfort known as the Wrath of Mullamast, which is right there in County Kildare.


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[Assistant] And just like many stories like it, Fitzgerald is said to be waiting alongside a troop of knights, all dressed in shimmering armor with their horses nearby. But the entrance to that chamber is only visible on the knight his ghostly form rides up the castle walls, something that was apparently confirmed in the late 1700s.


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[Assistant] According to an Irish historian writing in the 19th century, a man was said to be wandering home late one night after an evening of drinking with friends.


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[Assistant] As he passed the wrath in the darkness, a light caught his eye, and he turned to follow it. Eventually he found himself entering a wide cavern lit by torches, and the space was filled with people, all of whom were asleep.


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[Assistant] Surprised and a little shaken by what he saw, it's said that the man dropped something. And as it hit the stone floor, the sound of it echoed through the chamber, stirring one of the nearest nights. The man claimed that the armored figure slowly lifted its head, and a rough, deep voice came from inside the helmet.


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[Assistant] Is it time? the figure asked. The traveler, not knowing what else to say, shook his head. No, he replied. But it will be soon.


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[Assistant] And with that, the knight's head dropped back to his chest and went silent.


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[Assistant] Disturbed by the experience, the traveler turned and ran out of the cavern, and back into the darkness of the night. After a few paces though, he turned to get one last look at the warm glow of the hidden chamber beneath the hillforts, and then caught his breath.


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[Assistant] The entrance to the chamber was gone, and he was never able to find it again.


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


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[Assistant] 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'll learn more about all of these 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] If there's one thing horror film lovers enjoy, it's a thrilling demon possession story. Ask any lover of the genre and they'll gush about the 1973 film that kicked it all off, The Exorcist, based on the novel by William Peter Blatty from a couple of years before.


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[Assistant] That film is almost sacred ground to many people, the soil from which grew an entirely new genre.


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[Assistant] And it's no wonder. I can't think of a person who doesn't enjoy having control over their lives, their bodies, and their experiences. That idea that someone could climb inside, grab the controls like some sort of supernatural gamer, and just take over the human machine is pretty frightening.


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[Assistant] But the most powerful exorcist stories, the ones that most people know and repeat to their friends, are the ones supplied to us by Hollywood.


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[Assistant] That's not bad, but it does ignore the role of history. Because for as frightening as the idea of demonic possession might be, the fact that it's been documented for centuries might just be the most terrifying story of all.


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[Assistant] It might not surprise you to learn that I'm convinced history can be just as entertaining as any hit film or television sensation.


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[Assistant] Is right there. Written down for us all those years ago.


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[Assistant] So let's take a trip together, a journey into the past, where possession stories were rarely taken for granted, and where real lives were impacted by real superstitions, where the devil himself showed up, and lives were destroyed in the process. But hold on to something solid, lock the door, and maybe turn on a light or two.


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[Assistant] Because this one is bound to get under your skin.


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[Assistant] Is there any idea more universally feared than that? For thousands of years and across countless cultures, the concept of evil has lurked in the shadows, influencing just about everything.


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[Assistant] Now, because of that, the topic is too complex to boil down to a simple, easy to memorize definition. It's one of those words you just sort of have to feel. If order and peace and safety are good, then anything that attacks those values, chaos, hostility, destruction, all fall under the umbrella of evil.


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[Assistant] And for nearly as long as people have spoken of evil, they've personified it, given it a name and a personality. In some cultures, that meant pouring all of its negative traits into the persona of one of their many gods. Take a brief tour through the Greek or Roman pantheon, and you'll see what I mean.


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[Assistant] But it was probably the Zoroastrians that first made this conceptual choice. It's one of the world's most ancient religions, and part of their belief system involves thinking of good and evil as two opposing forces, like the positive and negative ends of a magnet.


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[Assistant] Both sides have a name and each are thought of as spirits rather than just words on a page.


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[Assistant] In religions and cultures around the world that concept of evil started to take on various names. The Hindu faith has Kali, a deity that has many of those chaotic destructive qualities. The Babylonians had Beelzebub, a god borrowed from an even older culture.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, some scholars think the word Beelzebub literally means Lord of the Flies, suggesting an image of decay and rot.


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[Assistant] In Islam, there is Iblis, the figure who has stood against God since creation and was cast out of heaven for refusing to show respect to Adam, the first human being.