[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As far back as Pliny the Elder's collection on natural history, we can see those less believable creatures pop up. He once wrote that thousands of sea nymphs, known as Nereids, had washed up on the shores of what is modern-day France, and that they looked just like the nymphs of the land, except that they were covered in fish scales.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He also wrote about that fiery bird of legend known as the phoenix, which was known to burst into flames before re-emerging from its own ashes. And of course, I've already mentioned his fascination with mermen and blemii.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems that Pliny the Elder had an obsession with gathering all known creatures, whether or not he had witnessed them with his own eyes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other historians added their own contributions to those mystical lists as well. And if I ran through it for you now, it would sound like a recap of the Harry Potter series.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hippos and elephants shared the same space as hippogriffs and mandrakes. There were dragons and tritons, giants and sea monsters. Honestly, it sometimes seemed that if a young child could draw a picture of it, that was good enough to get it included.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, some creatures were more popular than others, and that popularity varied from culture to culture. In Europe, one of the most talked about creatures of all was also one of the smallest. But don't let its size fool you, because there was nothing safe about the basilisk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our old friend Pliny the Elder wrote about it 2,000 years ago, describing it as a serpent with legs that was no larger than a foot in length.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what it lacked in size, it more than made up for with attitude and special features. A basilisk was said to stand tall on its back legs, and had a crown-like plume on top of its head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were dangerous too. According to the stories, basilisk were so poisonous that even looking at them could get you killed. Other creatures avoided them like the plague, and wherever they chose to make their nests, the plant life would die and wither away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One description I read said that if a man on horseback stabbed a basilisk with a spear, the poison was so powerful that it could climb up the spear, kill the man, and then kill the horse as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, when something is that powerful and deadly, it eventually becomes the centerpiece of Tales of Valor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's said that Alexander the Great once killed a basilisk, and like many of the other legends about him, he did it in a way that proved not just his might, but also his intelligence. It's said that he polished his shield until it was like a mirror, and then approached the creature, holding it outward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the basilisk saw its own reflection, it fell victim to its poisonous gaze and instantly dropped dead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can find images of the basilisk in just about every bestiary in existence, most of which look like a cross between a snake and a rooster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a statue of one in Vienna commemorating an 11th century hunt, and there's even a church in Sweden with a carved relief showing St. Michael stabbing one with a spear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So popular was this creature that people sold powders that they claimed to be ground-up basilisk. Something that most people purchased for use in alchemy, but more than a few used as an antidote to poison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everywhere you look through the Middle Ages and earlier, the basilisk is waiting to rear its poisonous little head. You can see society's attraction to it in their folklore and superstition, a mixture of fear and fascination, of wonder and disgust.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For centuries, it popped up in stories whispered all around Europe, like a well-loved character in a popular book series. But if one account is any indication, it might not be a work of fiction after all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The people of Warsaw had a problem on their hands. They were two decades into a new political structure, known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And while it gave a lot of freedom to the wealthy and elite, it left the lower class in a constant state of fear and oppression. Life in the city was challenging for many people. But that was the new normal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1587 though, something happened to put the people of Warsaw on edge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Folks had seen the two young girls playing near the ruins. They had watched them laugh and skip and revel in the freedom and joy that came with childhood, most likely muttering quiet prayers that it would last as long as possible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The neighbors knew what sort of hard life awaited those girls once they were old enough to work and carry their own weight. Their joy must have been bittersweet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then someone watched them step inside the ruins. That was the first reason to worry. Folks avoided the ruins for a good reason. It was dark and dangerous, and the cellar beneath it had been a den for all sorts of animals. So, whoever it was that watched them disappear into the shadows, most likely headed over to warn the girl's parents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When everyone arrived at the ruins to call them out though, they were no longer visible. While there was a good chance they had simply moved on to a new playground, someone decided to peer inside the dark cellar. And there, laying on the broken stone floor, were the sleeping forms of both girls. So one of the older women stepped inside to wake them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A moment later though, she collapsed into a heat beside the girls, sending the growing crowd into a panic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They didn't know what was causing the people inside the cellar to lose consciousness, but they knew there was something dangerous about the dark space. So they sent for a firehook, a long pole with a metal hook on the end, and then reached in and pulled each body out into the light. All three of them were dead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And not just dead, they were bloated and dark, as if they'd been dead for days. Most frightening of all though, was that their eyes seemed to be protruding from their sockets. No one could be sure, but it almost looked as if they'd been frightened to death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanting answers, they sent for Benedictus, the king's very own physician. If anyone would have the skill to identify the danger, it would be him. And sure enough, after taking a long look at the trio of bodies, he brought them a definitive answer. All of them had been killed by a basilisk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In an instant, the atmosphere around the old ruins changed. Newcomers came to watch while leaders gathered to form a plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A group of leaders from the community quickly headed to the local jail, where two men awaited execution for various capital crimes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Each man was given the same offer. Come kill the basilisk and you will receive a full pardon and your freedom as a reward. It seemed like an easy choice too. Inside jail, there was no chance of survival. Outside though, there was at least the possibility they might survive. It made sense to everyone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first criminal declined the offer, but the other one, a man named John Farrer, agreed to help. He was escorted from the jail to the old ruins, where Benedictus awaited him with tools and instructions. The townsfolk had quickly gathered dozens of small mirrors and sewn them onto a pair of leather pants and a coat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I imagine John gave the old physician a sideways glance at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. But at the same time, he would have known the folklore just as well as everyone else. Alexander the Great had defeated a basilisk using a mirror-like shield. So why would it not work for him?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With a crowd of over 2,000 witnesses watching, John began to carefully walk into the ruins where he entered the cellar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had a long rake in one hand and a torch in the other to light his way. And as soon as he stepped into the darkness below, he cried out that he could see it. A long serpent-like tail, with a head that resembled that of a rooster, right down to the crown-like plumage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Benedictus called out instructions to the man. Grab it with a rake, he told him, and then carry it out here into the light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] John shouted back that he understood, and the entire crowd began to shift and rumble. If a basilisk was going to be dragged out of the ruins, no one wanted to be around to see it. So they all ran for cover and hid their eyes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When John emerged, he held a writhing creature by the neck in one of his gloved hands. The daylight somehow made it weaker, and that gave Benedictus the courage to step closer and examine it. It looked exactly like the bestiaries of old had taught him. The body of a snake, four long legs, and a head that looked very much like a rooster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But sadly, this is where the account of the basilisk hunt ends. Whoever had been recording the events had most likely been in the crowd, and when John had begun to emerge from the cellar, they had followed the crowd into hiding. Which leaves the ending a bit of a mystery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who killed the creature when all was said and done? And how did they do it, knowing the risks the old legend spoke of?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What we do know is this. The Warsaw Basilisk Hunt of 1587 was the last time the creature was reported anywhere in Europe. Maybe it had been the last of its kind, and its death marked its extinction. Or perhaps the few that survived had a knack for staying out of sight. Like the platypus of Australia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either way, all that was left from that moment on were legends and stories. Like so many creatures that have once walked the earth, the basilisk, if it was ever real to begin with, has slipped into the shadows of the past. And it's never been seen again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There really is something delightful about the bestiaries of old. Their colorful pages and evocative descriptions were beyond sensational. In a world without television, radio, or easily accessible works of fiction, those catalogs of natural history were the closest most people could get to traveling the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, the things most authors chose to include in their bestiaries would probably never make the cut in our modern times. After all, headless tribesmen with eyes on their chests, unicorns, and sea nymphs all feel more like characters in a fantasy novel than entries in a study on the world's flora and fauna.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet some of those expectations have been broken over the years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For centuries, sailors told stories about the Kraken, enormous sea creatures that could reach out and drag an entire ship underwater with its long tentacles. King Svere of Norway recorded its description way back in 1180, and for hundreds of years, people claimed to spot them in the waters of the ocean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the century and a half since then, scientists have determined that there is indeed a giant sea creature that fits the ancient descriptions. Give or take a few sinking ships, of course. And while they've been challenging to catch on film, we now know they exist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many scientists and scholars now believe that old reports of mermaids could very well be mistaken sightings of an aquatic mammal known as the manatee. As is so often the case, our misunderstandings had given birth to frightening legends, only to have science bring a bit of clarity to the tale. Sometimes the monsters of the ancient world turn out to be real.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And sometimes legends inspire new discoveries. In the part of the world that stretches from Mexico to South America, scientists have been familiar for over a century with a lizard from the iguana family. It's not the largest reptile around, but it can grow to around two feet in length, and it can run at amazing speeds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some scientists refer to it as the Jesus Christ lizard because of its strange ability to run across the surface of water. But its most common name is based on other features, like its tendency to run on two legs and its serpent-like body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's something enticing about the mysteries that fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world around us. Looking back at the bestiaries of the Middle Ages, it's clear humans have had a lot of fun filling those holes. And the creativity of the past has continued to inspire stories today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there's one more creature I want to tell you about. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to learn all about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had fallen in love and it was something that would change their destiny forever. At least that's how the legend tells it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Long ago, a young man lived on a small island surrounded by deep blue seas. And in the process of hunting, one day he encountered a beautiful young woman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the hunter quickly learned that there was more to her than he could see with his eyes. The woman, it turns out, was a fairy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, she was well known to the locals there, who referred to her as the Dragon Princess. Despite their differences, him a normal human being, and her a magical fairy, the two of them fell in love and were soon married. And that helps this tale become one of those happily ever after stories that we all love so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The couple went on to have twins, a boy and a girl. And just like their parents, they were an odd pair. The boy was just like his father, a human with no magical powers of his own, while the girl took on after her mother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And because of that, both parents decided that the children should be raised in separate places to help them fully become who they were meant to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to the legend, it was many years later when the son was out hunting, just as his father had taught him. He was creeping through the forest, his spear balanced in one hand, when he spotted a deer. He quickly threw the weapon, which found its target, and a heartbeat later the young man was carefully making his way over to collect his prize. And that's when the dragon stepped out of the trees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was enormous and frightening, and it clearly wanted to take the deer that he had just killed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The young hunter spoke to it, begging it to leave his future meal alone, but the creature ignored him and proceeded to move toward the deer. So he lifted another spear and got ready to take aim at the dragon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Suddenly a figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest and stopped him. It was his mother, the fairy princess, who he had not seen since his childhood. And as she approached him, she spoke a word of warning. Do not throw that spear, she told him, for that is no ordinary dragon. That is your sister.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instead, she taught him to live in harmony with his sister, and according to the legend, that fateful meeting set the destiny of their entire community on a new path. Even today, if you were to visit the place where they lived, the people there would tell you that they are descended from dragons, illustrating how that harmony has continued.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course, this story is just one of many tales about dragons that fill the pages of folklore. In fact, most of us would be hard-pressed to find a creature mentioned more often than those magical beasts. From the 11th century legend of King George and the Dragon, to the fantasy novels and television shows of our modern world, they really do seem to be the king of monsters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dragons are also one of those nearly universal creatures. It seems just about every culture around the world has had some version of them in their folklore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ancient Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis, represented as a giant serpent. The Babylonians had their own god of chaos called Tiamat, and in Akkadian mythology, there were not one but three dragons on display.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Norse mythology features a giant serpent who gnaws at the roots of the world tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Ukrainian folklore, there is a dragon with three heads, while images of dragons can be found all over medieval heraldry. And of course, few cultures on Earth hold as tightly to their dragon mythology as the Chinese, who have been decorating objects with images of the creature at least as far back as the Neolithic period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we could speculate why, I'm sure. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how the accidental discovery of dinosaur bones might spark fear and wonder in the minds of humans thousands of years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The places where stories of dragons are most common are also places where such fossils have been uncovered. So it does make sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when Europeans arrived on an island in the Flores Sea, just south of Indonesia, they probably didn't think twice about the local stories about dragons. In fact, those tales were probably a bit old hat, as they say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dragons lived in caves, breathed fire, were vicious killers, and could fly when necessary. Nothing about all of that was new.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was new though, were the things they saw there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On an island surrounded by deep blue sea, an island full of people who believed they were descended from dragons, mind you, they discovered a creature that brought all of their legends to life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It lived in the caves along the shore. It was an enormous killer. And it sometimes even followed its prey up into the trees. It ticked all the boxes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These were 300-pound serpent-like monsters that could bring down a half-ton water buffalo. When they licked the air with their bright red tongue, it looked as if they were spitting fire. And they even dug into the graves of the dead, looking for treasure. Of course, that treasure was always food, not gold.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're still there, crawling across the sandy beaches of the island, living in harmony more or less with the people who still call the place their home. They might not have wings or piles of golden treasure to curl up on, but they are the largest lizard on Earth, measuring in at over 10 feet in length. And they're deadly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes the tales of the past stay shrouded in mystery, and other times we manage to crack the riddle and shed new light on the shadows that once frightened us. This living flesh and blood dragon seems to offer a fresh answer to an ancient question, however incomplete it might be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at least we now know that there really is one place in the world where that old cartographer warning is actually true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[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.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was Christmas time in Paris, 1898. But Marie and Pierre weren't looking at the glow of Paris city lights and soft snowfall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The couple were inside a dilapidated brick building that purchased as a makeshift laboratory, sitting on well-worn chairs at an odd wooden work table littered with an array of flimsy wires, scopes, and cheap instruments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A radiant, almost magical light broke the darkness surrounding them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having married just three years earlier, when Marie was 27 and Pierre was 36, the two didn't have a lot of money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yet, despite the tottering chairs, odd work tables, and the isolation chamber made out of wooden grocery crates, the couple couldn't be happier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Science had brought them together, and their love of it had become an intimate bond between them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Marie looked on, the beautiful gleaming object still nestled deep within one of her pockets. The shimmering glow bright enough to allow Pierre to jot down a single word in their notebook. They chose a name for it after the Latin word for ray. They called it radium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before long, though, this new discovery would enchant more than just the Curies. The whole world was about to encounter a scientific miracle, and, soon enough, interest in it would transform into obsession.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It all started back in February of 1898. Marie and Pierre had immersed themselves in their lab.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marie began working with a heavy black substance known as pitch blend, noting that the naturally occurring mineral contained uranium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After that uranium had been removed though, the material left behind was still highly radioactive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When she studied those remains, Marie discovered an unknown luminous element.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The couple worked tirelessly. Days after completing their notes, the Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on December 26, 1898. And radium quickly became a breakthrough discovery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Substance destroyed human tissue, but as ghastly as that sounds, scientists around the world would soon put that property to use in the fight against cancer. Radium didn't disappoint, either. Its effect on cancerous tumors proved nothing short of astounding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Newspapers printed articles that speculated on everything, from the use of radium as fertilizer to supercharge the growth of crops, to using it to make brilliantly glowing candies and shimmering cocktails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were seemingly practical uses too. Companies marketed paint for reflective house numbers. Radium Christmas tree lights were touted as being much safer than candles. Glowing light switches made it easier to find them in a dark room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In certain pharmacies, people bought radium-laced pills and bandages. New types of clinics and spas opened up, promising a variety of radium-induced health benefits. If you could afford them, that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1904, a Manhattan-based company produced a patented health water called Liquid Sunshine. The same company also created and sold a glow-in-the-dark ink. Another company made glow-in-the-dark eyes for children's toys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right now, creepy glowing doll eyes in the middle of the night aside, Radium's luminescence was indeed stunningly beautiful, and other products soon followed. Drinks, elixirs, salt, soaps, and even suppositories. Many products claimed Radium cured everything from acne to warts, and just about every ailment in between.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the general public though, most of these products were sham. Most didn't contain any radium at all because the stuff was outrageously expensive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, as you might expect, only the super rich were able to purchase anything with much radium in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That didn't stop the wave of products or the people who clamored for them though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Radium toothpaste promised to dazzle smiles, intensifying the brightness with every brushing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Radio or cosmetics sold creams, rouge, and powders designed to restore that youthful glow. Companies made radium butter and radium milk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even clothing like lingerie and jock straps boasted radium to boost virility.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No wonder officials began to warn citizens to be on the lookout for radium scams. Companies found instant wealth in radium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Factories cropped up to meet the demand for radium enhanced products, and they didn't just build factories in cities. Factories were built in the suburbs, too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While more and more commercial products continued to emerge, medical science, enamored with radium's groundbreaking use for cancer, researched the elements' impact on other diseases. Sick patients began to call for treatment with radium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doctors even wondered if radium might help them not only treat cancer, but actually cure it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the early 1900s, radium was referred to as one of history's greatest finds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1903, Marie Curie became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1911 she was awarded a second Nobel Prize, making her the first scientist to win two of these awards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Radium prompted the U.S. Surgeon General at the time to say that the element reminded him of a mythological super being. An English physician called radium the unknown god. Some had even said radium had been predicted in the Bible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Within a few short years, Radium's future grew to be the new bright and shiny object, bigger and brighter than a full moon on a clear night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the world, mesmerized by its brilliance and allure, couldn't get enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most people have been to a museum or two in their lifetime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether it's the small, local building that houses artifacts from the early days of our own community, or the massive metropolitan collections that have dinosaur skeletons in their lobby, museums are a wonderful gathering place of important objects. And yet, some things tend to get lost in the clutter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One such item is housed in the small museum located in the northern English seaside village of Whitby. There, hidden among old maps, Victorian clothing and Bronze Age weapons, is something that few people have seen. A mummified human hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, you might expect that sort of thing to be Egyptian or Peruvian, but this hand is most likely local in origin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was found about a century ago by a local historian and donated to the museum to keep it safe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it is one of the only surviving examples of an ancient tradition known as the Hand of Glory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But these severed hands also carried a secondary meaning. They were magical objects of great power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, one reason was that it was believed that owning and using one of these hands protected a home from burglary. A sort of medieval home security system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another tradition holds that criminals could tap into the power of the hand to obtain supernatural abilities, such as invisibility or unlocking doors. It's an idea known as sympathetic magic, a belief that objects could have powers related to their appearance or origin story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of it adds up to a larger idea though. The belief that the human body, however temporary and fragile it might be, also contains incredible power, and that this power can be transferred to others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And rather than extinguishing that power, death can oftentimes be the key that unlocks its fullest potential.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The human body is an amazing machine. Our physical potential, our individual uniqueness, and the interplay between our emotions, intelligence, and inner workings. All of it screams of complexity and impossibility. And yet, here we are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thousands of years that incredibleness of the human body has led people to ponder the notion of the divine. That buried inside our physical shapes are clues to help us understand our world just a little better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lines in our hands, the shape of our skull, the color of our hair or eyes, every characteristic is a clue and if we could just interpret them, we could become masters of the world around us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was the person responsible for the theory of humorism, the idea that the human body contained four substances called humors, and it was the balance of all four, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, that contributed to the personalities of each individual person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One common belief was that criminals had too much bile in their bodies, giving way to the term bad blood, which was a way of putting a scientific label on criminal activities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, I'm using liberal air quotes around the term scientific, but for Galen and his contemporaries nearly 2,000 years ago, this was cutting edge medicine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it led to the notion that if we looked hard enough and studied everyone around us, we could identify people who were susceptible to a life of crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Think of it like an ancient version of the Spielberg film Minority Report, where rather than dealing with criminal behavior after it happens, physicians were beginning to think it was possible to predict that behavior ahead of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this idea that the bodies of criminals were biologically different from others has led to horrible leaps in logic throughout history. And you don't have to look much further than the witch hunts of early modern Europe to see the results of that sort of misguided assumption.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's in the methods and superstitions surrounding the identification of witches that this old idea of humors comes into play, with deadly results.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you do any reading on the topic of witch trials across the 16th and 17th century Europe, you will eventually encounter the idea of the witch's mark. It was a physical clue that investigators looked for as proof that a person was a witch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These were small dark marks on their skin, such as moles or freckles, and their presence hinted at a dark lifestyle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He could remove their baptism and fill them with a new dark mission to be his agents in the land of the living. And there was something else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was believed that witches drew their power from younger victims, literally, by drinking their blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was the result of another complimentary line of thinking. While Galen had been looking at the human body through the lens of the Four Humors, a later Swiss man named Paracelsus had a different goal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was an early 16th century physician who believed that the soul was a biological part of the human body and it was located in our blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Admittedly, this is a lot to take in, and it's one giant leap in logic after another. It sounds ridiculous to our modern minds, and it's easy to dismiss it all as a result.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one thing to keep in mind is that this was all about the fear people had of criminals. Whether they were thieves or witches, the criminals among us represented a danger to society.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They also represented power though. And power, as we all know, is attractive and magnetic. Something supernatural existed in the blood of criminals. Like a performance enhancing drug. And while that was frightening on the surface, many people began to think and talk about how that could be harnessed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, in order to get that blood, a criminal would have to die. Something that happened all too often, centuries ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Crime was inherently violence, and if it didn't kill someone right away, it might very well end in execution. A sort of, live by the sword, die by the sword mentality, I suppose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which led to an incredible idea. However repulsive and extreme it might sound to us today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've said it before, but it bears repeating. There was very little about the practice of medicine that was scientific prior to the 20th century. It was basically a weird combination of religious convictions, folk medicine, and straight up guesswork.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is why human fat was an actual thing people used on their own bodies. Long before Brad Pitt and Ed Norton were making soap from it, people in the 17th and early 18th centuries were rubbing human fat on their sore feet and low back. In fact, it was so common that it was considered a precious commodity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where they obtained it is something I'll cover in a moment, but first let me answer the biggest question of them all. Why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it echoes back to that concept I talked about earlier, known as sympathetic magic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Using that same system of logic, people used powdered blood to treat bleeding. They also ground up human skulls and prescribe the dust as a cure for dizziness. Because like treated like as far as they were concerned. So however taboo it might seem to us, it made sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in doing so, all of this gave rise to the idea of corpse medicine. That actual parts of human corpses could be harvested and used as curative treatments for all sorts of common ailments. Of course, the concept wasn't new, just the name itself. And it actually has roots in the first century.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thanks to the writings of the Roman physician Pliny the Elder, there are accounts of people rubbing their sore gums with the tooth of someone who died a violent death. Another of his stories records a common prescription for epilepsy, which was to drink fresh spring water in the middle of the night out of the skull of an executed man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the ancient world transformed into the Middle Ages, and that in turn gave way to the Enlightenment, it would be easy to assume that primitive ideas like these faded away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instead, they seemed to thrive. And one of the most common traditions that permeated the 18th and 19th centuries was known as the hanged man's hand. How did it work?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, traditionally, people who suffered from skin conditions or things that could be felt or noticed beneath the skin like tumors or goiters would come to the public hanging of a criminal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, after it was all over, they would approach the executioner who would take the dead man's hand and brush it over the infected area. Sometimes touch was all that mattered, but others believed the number of strokes was significant, especially the number nine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to historian Owen Davies, who is hands down the expert on all things corpse medicine, the first recorded case of the hangman's hand appeared in 1758, with the final one being noted over a century later in 1863.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Folks, that's not a long time in the grand scheme of things, which flies in the face of the idea that these were primitive people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the executioner was the gatekeeper between the crowd and the body, they quickly became seen as a sort of dispenser of healing remedies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which was ironic, because at the same time, they were some of the most hated individuals in society. Yes, they were simply doing their job, but a lot of people saw them as little better than the criminals they killed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, that reputation made it difficult to find people willing to work as executioners. It was a dishonorable trade, and those who took on the job became social pariahs, an attitude that became almost superstitious over time. You could never enter the home of a hangman or even touch him without bringing dishonor upon yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except for one special moment. That moment when they stood before the crowd and performed their sworn duty by executing the latest criminal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In these moments, everyone seemed to forget that stigma and instead made it their goal to be as close to him as possible. Lines would form filled with the sick and dying, all of whom were simply looking for a cure or relief or some sort of supernatural fix that could make them whole again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not all executions were bloodless hangings, and not all people were content to rely on touching for the cure they were desperate to receive. Few ailments were truly skin deep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And many people understood that for their sickness to be addressed they had to interact with these corpses in a less traditional way. Sometimes they had to eat them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything changes over time, including the way people interacted with the corpses of executed criminals. And there were a couple of reasons for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, not every ailment was external. There were all sorts of conditions that seemed to be rooted deep inside the human body, and simply rubbing a dead man's hand on your skin just didn't feel like it was enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So ancient folk medicine involving herbs and potions and various ingestible cures began to blend with these new expectations. What was born has been given a bizarre and complex name by historians and anthropologists. Medicinal cannibalism. And of course, you'll probably have a few questions about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without going into too much detail, cannibalism as a way to find medical cures was already an ancient idea by the 17th century.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One first century Greek physician named Kelsis noted that a common treatment for epilepsy was to drink blood from the slashed throat of a gladiator while it was still hot. Pliny the Elder, who I mentioned earlier, records similar advice, and even Paracelsus recommended it about 1500 years later. Why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, there was an ancient belief that the vitality and life force of a person was contained within the blood, trapped and available to the living.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Paracelsus referred to this life force in his work, as did Leonardo da Vinci. He described it in the way we might describe picking a tomato. The moment it's removed from the vine, it dies, and yet it still has the power to nourish us and sustain our health.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I said there were at least two reasons for the change in our interaction with criminal corpses. The second is more forceful and yet incredibly logical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back when executions were done by hanging, the body was frequently left on the gallows for an extended period of time, which meant people could arrive late and still benefit from the dead man's touch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in beheading replaced hanging, all of that changed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some would come forward and drink the blood right there, as the executioner watched. Others would approach and request that a small vessel be filled with the blood which would then be taken home and used there. But the key was, as always, a violent death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to historian Owen Davies, sometimes the executioner's assistants would take charge by collecting the blood in large containers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That way, when the crowds approached, they didn't need to see the body itself, and the assistants would dispense the blood in a more professional manner, like a bartender, or a morbid twist on the Christian practice of communion. Step to the rail, and drink the blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From what Brown was able to learn, the criminal was a local farmer who had been wealthy and respected for years. But sometime prior to his trial and conviction, this farmer had taken on a significant amount of debt, enough that he worried about his ability to ever pay it back. And he was desperate to fix that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Months before Brown's arrival, this farmer hired a young woman who was making her way through the area, saving money to set up a better life for herself elsewhere. And when the farmer learned about this small fortune she carried with her, he plotted his way out of debt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One night a short while later, he lured her into a remote part of his property and brutally murdered her, taking her fortune for himself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, her body was soon discovered, and the farmer was found guilty of her murder, which led to his trial and conviction, and Brown had randomly entered the town right before his sentence was to be carried out. Death by beheading.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a cold morning when the farmer was led out of the prison by a pair of priests and seated on a wooden chair in the center of a large scaffold.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Guards surrounded the platform, keeping the enormous crowd of roughly 3,000 onlookers at bay. But despite the huge numbers and the event they had all come to witness, Brown described the crowd as solemn and orderly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, the executioner himself stepped forward, tossed aside his cloak, and drew an enormous longsword, which he held up for the crowd to see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was ready, he leveled the sword behind the neck of the man he was about to behead, like a golfer placing their club behind the ball. He made a few small practice motions, pulling back and then moving forward before he was finally ready. And then with a mighty swing, he struck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have now to record what would seem incredible in a civilized country. Standing near the scaffold, in close proximity to the criminal, within the guard of soldiers, were six to eight men from the mass of the people, said to be afflicted with epilepsy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The moment the head was off, these men rushed to the body with tumblers in their hands, caught the blood as it spouted smoking warm from the trunk, and drank it down with frantic eagerness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their hands, faces, and breasts were covered with the crimson flood that ebbed from the heaving corpse. One man, too late to catch the blood as it spurted from the neck, took hold of the body by the shoulders, inclined it over a horizontal position, poured out his tumbler full from the gory trunk, and drank it in a wild frenzy of joy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brown, of course, was caught off guard. You can hear that in his words, and honestly, any of us would feel the same if we had been there to watch it. It was surprising and shocking, and more than a little barbaric.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But aside from descriptions of the farmer's death, and the rush to consume his still-hot blood, there is one more detail that makes this event all the more unbelievable, despite the fact that it actually happened. The year that it took place. It wasn't the Middle Ages, or even the 16th century.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are a lot of traditions that seem easy to dismiss as primitive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Practices and beliefs that, when placed within the context of our modern, scientifically advanced world, almost seem like elements from a fantasy novel, or some millennia old epic poem, they seem like a snapshot from another time. And yet, well, here they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there's a fine line between taboo and practical. And as medical science has grown and matured, that line has become a bit more blurry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After all, what's an organ transplant if not a very refined and advanced form of corpse medicine? We've never really let go of the idea that there's power in the human body. And that if we do it just right, we can transfer that power from one person to another.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, we've spent today talking about how executed criminals were used as the centerpiece of this bizarre and unorthodox practice. But there wasn't always a hanging or beheading available when people needed it. So over the years, other branches of medicinal cannibalism began to sprout up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The pages of history are filled with recipes that use human blood as the main ingredient. One Franciscan pharmacy recorded the instructions for blood jam in 1679.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which involved letting the blood congeal before refining it down with heat and filtering it through a sieve. Then it was kept in a glass jar for, well, I don't know what, and I'm not sure I want to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course, that's where the tension lies. Yes, hearing about these old traditions certainly has a way of twisting our guts into a knot of uneasiness, but they happened and were part of human culture for a very long time, right up into the late 19th century, in fact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's even one record of an epileptic woman in Germany requesting blood from an executioner in 1908. But in her instance, she was turned away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Practices like that seem ancient and have thankfully faded away from their place of prominence. But others are still here with a modern twist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For example, in the 15th century, an Italian scholar recommended that elderly people who were looking for a boost of vitality should find a healthy and happy adolescent and suck their blood, preferably from the arm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if that sounds familiar, that's because the media has been infatuated these days with a brand new medical startup that takes blood from young donors and makes it available to older customers for a hefty price. There's no evidence it actually works, but that hasn't stopped them from opening multiple locations around the country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, and this medical startup takes its name from the Greek myth of Ambrosia, which was the name of a drink used by the gods to grant them immortality. It's a fitting name to borrow, but there's a darker side to the myth as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In one story, Ambrosia is actually a nymph and a man named Lycurgus of Thrace strikes her down with his axe in a fit of rage, turning her into a grapevine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there will always be those who line up to drink it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After everything we've discussed today, you would think I've covered all the bases when it comes to medicinal cannibalism. Sadly though, that's pretty far from the truth. Then I've picked out one more bit of story that I think you're going to love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While I think it would help all of us sleep better at night to think that ingesting human body parts for medicinal purposes was relatively uncommon, in the grand scheme of history, we'd be wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, while drinking blood was prevalent in the 16th century, there was an older tradition that began over 400 years earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a thick black substance, almost like a malleable wax, that's derived from petroleum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, around the 11th century, Europeans got their first glimpse of the ancient human remains scattered all across northern Egypt, and they noticed something. There, like dark stains on their corpses, was a thick black substance that felt like a soft wax.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now you also need to understand that Europeans had been told that the ancient Egyptians prepared their dead using bitumen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not sure how accurate that was. Yes, they removed the internal organs and replaced them with chemicals meant to preserve the body. And yes, those substances, along with the body's natural fluids, eventually seeped out through a process known as exudation. The result was a black substance on the surface of the corpse. And Europeans ate it up. Literally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They assumed if it's just the bitumen used in the embalming process leaking out to the surface, surely it would have the same healing effects as the bitumen used by ancient people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More, in fact, because it came from dead bodies. So around the 12th century, they began to transport these ancient Egyptian corpses home, where the entire body would be ground up and used as a medicine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a lot of ways, it was the gateway drug. First, these powdered human remains became popular because of their origin story and the substance associated with them. But that quickly spread to other uses for the human body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] King Charles II was known to carry around a glass vial filled with ground human skull in an alcohol solution. They called it king drops, and he would take a dose any time he felt ill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing beats the original, though. For centuries, ground-up Egyptian corpses were a hot commodity. It was exported all over and there are still records of it in 16th century English customs books.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Latin word for that black bitumen wax was the term mummia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And because the first encounters that Europeans had with ancient Egyptian corpses was essentially a mining effort to extract this mummia for their own gain, they started referring to the bodies as mummies. And the name has stuck around to this day. Bitumen is still around too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some people will do anything to feel better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. theworldoflore.com slash now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a moment I will never forget. We had just rounded the curve in London's Trinity Square Gardens, and there it was, a massive stretch of Roman wall, in the middle of a modern city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every single brick seemed to have been highlighted by centuries of erosion and exposure, but it still stands tall, bringing history into the present.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, the more knowledgeable would be quick to point out that only the first four meters of the wall are original. The top 60% or so, while still ancient, only date back to medieval times. But beyond the numbers is a larger message. Long ago, this wall contained a city. And now? Well, that city has swallowed it whole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that's the thing that jumped out at me the most when I first saw it. Not its age or its ancient design, but its place in our world today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walls are meant to create boundaries, to hedge people in, and even to defend against outside forces. So it felt odd to see this fragment of a wall surrounded by gleaming modern office buildings instead of wrapping it all up in a protective embrace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe that's because the walls of history often seem larger than life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Great Wall of China, for instance, is visible from space. The Walls of Troy are some of the oldest in the world, while the ruins of Hadrian's Wall still cut across the countryside between England and Scotland. And then, of course, there's the Western Wall of the Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Berlin Wall of the Cold War era.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The trouble is whenever you bring people into the picture,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get more than you bargain for. Because humans have an almost supernatural ability to leave a trail of pain and suffering behind them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hadn't intended to visit that wall. It's situated just to the north of the A100, which passes right by our real destination that day, the Tower of London. And talk about walls. That place is rich with them. Of course, much like the Roman wall I mentioned a moment ago, the Tower of London is a product of many eras of building. But at its core is something significant. A Norman Castle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Normans were incredibly good at building stone forts. The core of the White Tower in London is considered by many to be the best example of their work, but there are more all around England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was all part of their strategy after invading the country in 1066. First, a wooden fort would go up as quickly as possible, and then a massive stone version would follow, setting their dominance firmly in the pages of history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the Normans weren't content to stay in England. Within a century of their arrival, they were looking elsewhere with hunger. And then, in the second half of the 12th century, two things happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, Pope Adrian IV, who just happened to be the only English pope in history, granted King Henry II permission to invade Ireland, to bring the disobedient church there back in line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few years later, an Irish king arrived in England, exiled from his throne and looking for help to retake it. Together with the Pope's wish list, this was the perfect opportunity for King Henry to cross the water and extend his rule. So in 1169, the first wave was sent, and it crashed over an unprepared emerald isle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At that time, Irish settlements were not much more than ring forts, either rings of earthen mounds or a circle of low stone walls. In the face of the militarily advanced Normans, they were practically defenseless. Some Irish warriors were even reduced to throwing rocks at the invaders. But soon enough, England was embedded, and it would never go away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just as they had in England a century earlier, they started with castles of earth and wood, but then soon replaced them with permanent stone structures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These new castles looked exactly as you might imagine, with a central tower or keep surrounded by curtain walls and wide ditches. Compared to what the Irish had been using, these buildings were practically impenetrable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't all about military might and power, though. These castles served a number of practical purposes that don't often get mentioned. They were residential buildings for local rulers, they served as the administrative center for government over the surrounding people, and sometimes even guarded artificial fish ponds, stockpiles of provisions, and other valuables.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no matter what role they played, they were there, towering over the small wooden structures of the Irish people and making a point each and every time someone glanced at them. English power was right there, inside those thick stone walls, and no one was going to take it away from them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What no one could predict though, was that uncontrollable forces would begin to chip away at those castles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first wave happened in 1315 when the great European famine arrived thanks to extensive crop failures. This was a gut punch to both sides, really. The English felt their belts tighten everywhere, including Ireland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But right when the Irish were rising up under the banner of Edward Bruce, brother of Scotland's Robert the Bruce of Braveheart fame, the famine took the wind out of their sails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Edward died in battle in 1318 and the English held on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thirty years later, the plague arrived in Ireland. Roughly a third of the population there died as a result, although it wasn't evenly spread across the island. It seems that because the English preferred to live in close quarters inside their castles and the small support communities around them, they were the hardest hit by the plague.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The native Irish, though, tended to live more spread out and that distance helped them fare better than their oppressors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally, the introduction of gunpowder changed the fate of these Norman castles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems that while those keeps and curtain walls were fantastic for repelling sword-wielding warriors on foot, they were less resilient against cannonballs. And so the English rulers in Ireland began to change their strategy, leaving their imposing castles behind in favor of new, smaller structures, known now as tower houses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1429, King Henry VI offered ten pounds, a small fortune back then, to anyone who built these small tower houses around Dublin. But don't imagine these as tiny buildings. No, tower houses were just as impressive as the buildings they replaced, just crafted with more of an eye toward residential living.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, one of the best known castles in Ireland, Blarney Castle, with its legendary Blarney Stone, is a tower house. So are many others that still stand today. It's estimated that during that phase of castle building, upwards of 30,000 of them were constructed all across Ireland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They became homes, yes, but they also became focal points for some of the worst of humanity. And just like a piercing scream in the night, some of those tragedies have echoed well beyond their original moment. To explore them is to revisit some of their prior owners' most painful moments. And if you're ready, I'd like to take you there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The transition made a lot of sense. If those enormous Norman towers were no longer defensible against new methods of warfare, then why were the people inside them putting up with uncomfortable living conditions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The tower house was the answer. A fortified home that offered comfort and space. But no amount of renovating or expansion could eradicate the darkness inside the people who lived there. Home is where the heart is, yes. But it's also where people can be at their worst. Countless stories about those families make that perfectly clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take James Shaw for example. In 1625, he oversaw the construction of a fortified home in County Antrim, known as Ballygalley Castle. But in an era when the success and health of a family line was based upon whether or not there was a male heir, theirs was an unhappy home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After years of waiting for a son, Shaw apparently became furious with his wife, Lady Isabelle, and had her locked in one of the tower rooms. Legend says that she either took her own life by jumping from the window, or was thrown to her death. Either way, it was a tragic end to a horrifying situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today, the castle is a hotel, but you can still see elements of the original fortified home at its core, and those who stay there have made some unusual reports. Visitors have heard mysterious noises and witnessed human-like shapes inside their rooms. Locals even claim that a green mist can be seen hovering over the castle at night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether it's real or not, it's clear that the history of the place isn't easy to get rid of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Richard Nugent, the fourth Lord Delvin, was a man cut from the same cloth as James Shaw. In fact, he spent his entire life scrambling for the top run of the ladder, no matter what sort of pain it caused the people around him. He sat in the Irish Parliament and eventually rose to become Commander-in-Chief of a good portion of the English forces there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he reached that position just as England's grip on Ireland was at its weakest. Shortly after becoming Lord Deputy, he was kidnapped by Irish rebels and forced to pay for his freedom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After returning home, he decided that it was time to build a safer residence and began construction on what would become Ross Castle in County Meath. The fortified home was completed in 1536, about a year before his death, but that doesn't mean it escaped the family legacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nugent's grandson was said to have inherited that ruthless ambition. In order to keep the Irish from invading his lands, he was said to have gone on many raids throughout the region, burning crops and homes and killing without prejudice. He developed a reputation for having people hanged without reason and became a terrifying figure in his day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At home, it was more of the same. According to legend, his daughter Sabina fell in love with the son of a local Irish chieftain from the O'Reilly clan. They met while she was out on a ride along the edges of her father's land, and the two hit it off instantly. For weeks, they repeated their secret meeting, and soon enough they were discussing marriage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But marriage to an Irishman wasn't something her father would ever agree to. So the young couple packed one night and met along the shores of a lake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their plan was to row across, leaving her father's land and authority behind, and allowing them to build their own life someplace new. But as they crossed the dark waters, a fierce storm blew in and overturned the boat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both of them washed back to shore, but while Sabina survived, her lover drowned, sending her into a fit of grief and sorrow. Knowing she would find no sympathy from her father, she locked herself inside one of the rooms in the castle's tower and refused to eat or drink for days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She may have starved herself, yes, but the true cause of her death, according to the legend at least, was a broken heart. And then there's County Wexford.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Centuries before Shaw and Nugent, just a year after the English invaded Ireland in 1169, in fact, one of those English lords set about building a fortress for himself on a peninsula of land at the southeast corner of Ireland known as Hookhead. It wasn't the last castle he would build in the region, but it was the one to inherit his name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At his side were 10 knights and 70 archers, and together they ravaged the south of Ireland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he was also a bit of a black sheep among the other commanders sent by the English crown, and was known for being overly brutal. Some of his peers even claim that Raymond's true goal was to take Ireland for himself, not the king, although that's difficult to prove definitively.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regardless, his trail across the southern portion of Ireland earned Raymond the nickname Redmond, hinting at the blood he was so eager to spill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Redmond, like all of us, was mortal and passed away sometime in the 1190s. Over two centuries later, in 1350, that Norman Tower of his on Hookhead was also torn down, and a tower house was raised in its place. A house they called Redmond Hall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the generations flickered by, lives were lived and lost in and around those walls. Eventually the Redmond was dropped, and it just became known as the Hall to those who lived there. It faced cannon fire in the Irish Rebellion of 1641, and the blood of over 100 men was spilled on that land around it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But surprisingly, those aren't the events that the hall is remembered for the most.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instead, it's a series of events that began in the 1700s that put this fortified home on the map. At that point, the home had passed into the ownership of a different family, and the name of the hall had followed suit. But while names can change, darkness tends to remain the same. And in Ireland,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, as the well worn introduction always states, a dark and stormy night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The year was 1775 and the Loftus family had holed themselves inside their ancient home to shelter against the hard rain and howling wind. Lanterns had been lit and a fire burned on the hearth and the evening was destined to be a quiet one. Which is why the knock at their door was so surprising.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Upon opening it, they found the drenched figure of a young man standing hunched over, as if the rain were pelting him to the ground. Quickly, they invited him in and asked his business. It turns out that he was caught in the sudden storm, and their house was the only light he could see through the gloom, so he had pressed his horse to reach it as fast as it could.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Knowing the storm might rage all night, the family invited him to stay until morning. After changing clothes and returning to his guests, the group was said to have had a lovely evening together. Even Charles, the patriarch who had been known to be cold and unfriendly, took a liking to the young visitor. And together, they enjoyed conversation and drinks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't know how long he stayed, or whether or not he turned that one overnight into a longer visit, but we do know that Charles' daughter Anne fell in love with a young man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Her younger sister had already married and left the house, and she was the last child left. Being unmarried at 30 wasn't hopeless by any means, but in 1775 it certainly might have felt like that. But here was a lovely suitor, someone she connected with, and the pair seemed to have hit it off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When her father Charles found out about their budding romance though, he sent the young man away. Some say he caught the couple in bed, while others say it was just one of his general fits of anger. Either way, the young man left, and Anne was heartbroken. And once he was gone, Charles sent her to her bedchamber, and locked the door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that, according to the legend, is where she stayed for the rest of her life. Although, that death came within a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a story that invites all sorts of questions. And as we all know, questions are a breeding ground for folklore. And soon enough, new details flooded in to fill in the gaps. Details that take the story to a whole other level.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They say that one of the nights the guest was staying at Loftus Hall, they decided to play a game of cards. Anne and the guest worked as a pair against her father Charles and her stepmother. And the young man turned out to be unstoppable. Almost supernaturally so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at one point in the match, Anne apparently dropped one of her rings and bent beneath a table to grab it when she noticed something about her guests' feet. They were cloven. Like the devil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anne screamed, and the young man panicked. Thunder suddenly shook the room, and then, in a cloud of smoke, their guest vanished, leaving only the scent of brimstone as a reminder that he had been there at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shocked by what she had discovered, Anne went mad, and her father was forced to lock her away. At least, that was the new version of the story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But whether Anne's confinement and death were the result of seeing the devil in her own home, or punishment for an illicit love affair with a guest, it's the aftermath that has echoed through Loftus Hall ever since. Because not long after Anne's death,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Strange things began to happen all around the house. And despite being Protestants, the family became so desperate that they called on a local Catholic priest to come and perform an exorcism.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They say that a man named Father Thomas Broaders arrived and cleansed the house for the family. He moved from room to room over the course of a few days. But when he was finished, the house was safe again. All except for one room, that is. Try as he might, Father Broaders wasn't able to complete his work in one room. Anne's former bedroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After that, years went by. That bedroom was redecorated with a number of large, beautiful tapestries, earning it the highly creative nickname of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That guest, a local man named John Reed, happily settled in for a night of rest. But moments after he'd blown out the candles and climbed beneath the blankets, something large and heavy jumped onto the bed at his feet, and it was growling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Read practically ejected himself from the bed. Fumbling through the dark, he found his luggage and pulled his pistol from within. And then he waved it around while shouting at the intruder, threatening that he would use it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After receiving no reply though, it's said that Reed assumed the intruder had entered and exited through the chimney, so he fired a shot straight up into the darkness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amazingly, John Reed would return to Loftus Hall years later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometime around 1815, he came back for another visit, this time with his son George. And it seems that George wasn't told about his father's prior experience there, because when he saw the beautiful tapestries in that room, he picked it as the room he would stay in, without a word of warning from his father.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That night, rather than falling asleep, George stayed up late reading. But at some point his eye caught movement, and he looked over to see the door to the room open all on its own, and then shut again just as quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Passing through it was the figure of a young woman in what he described as a stiff dress who walked past the foot of his bed, opened one of the closet doors, and then stepped through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The following night, George stayed awake with the goal of seeing the young woman again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And sure enough, at the same time she had the night before, the woman appeared, silently entering the room before making her way toward the closet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hoping to ask her who she was and why she was in his room, George leapt from the bed and reached for her arm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But was shocked when his hand passed right through her. A moment later she vanished.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the years, more and more people had unusual experiences in that room. In 1858, another minister named Charles Dale visited the house and claimed that something invisible jumped onto his bed and growled at him. Others repeated similar claims.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But none were as chilling as the experience had by one of the servants a decade later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The current Lord of Loftus Hall at the time, John, had inherited the title when he was just a boy. But by his late teens, he was traveling with his own valet, Shannon, and conducting business for the family in both Ireland and across the water in England. And in 1868, John returned to Loftus Hall to visit his mother, Lady Jane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was apparently Shannon's first time staying at the house, so he didn't know the risks involved in being assigned to the tapestry room. Later that night though, a series of screams woke the entire household, who rushed out to see what had happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the process, they found Shannon writhing in terror on the floor of a room down the hall from where he had been sleeping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When asked what had happened, Shannon told them that he had been fast asleep when a sound woke him up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He sat up to see the curtains around the bed moving, as if someone were playing with them from the other side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We build walls for a lot of reasons. Most people use them to define a space, to separate one room in their house from another. Some people use them for privacy, or protection, or a general sense of ownership. And some, throughout history, have used walls to assert dominance over others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the end of the day though, walls contain things. Whether those things are family memories or collections of real objects, the walls seem to wrap them up and hold them tight, like a lover's embrace. And that's a good and natural thing. But walls can do more than that. They can also contain shadows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fortified houses of Ireland are stark reminders of the dual nature of walls. Yes, they were built to keep people out and to protect those within.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the end, thanks to the darker side of human nature, they also ended up holding on to something more. And for many of the people who visit or live inside them today, that something is still noticeable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back in the 1860s, John's mother, Lady Jane, had hopes that the contents of Loftus Hall might entice the Queen to pay a visit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lady Jane had become friends with Queen Victoria and even held the title of Lady of the Bedchamber to Her Majesty. So sometime around 1861, Jane told the Queen the details of the legend of Loftus Hall, hoping that she would want to come and see it all for herself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plan failed though. And Lady Jane moved on to more drastic methods. In 1870, she had a large portion of the hall torn down and then built a new, more modern manor home around it. Everything was bigger and better and more beautiful than ever. Except for a few of the rooms, which were preserved and reused. And that list included the tapestry room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It said that Lady Jane turned the bed chamber into a billiards room. It was a great idea, really, because it removed the room from the list of available spaces to sleep in. New guests to Loftus Hall wouldn't know what they were missing out on, and that was mostly a good thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except for George Reed, who returned to see the house later in his life, around the mid-1870s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he arrived, he was shocked that the tapestry room was no longer available as a place to stay. Maybe he hoped to see the ghostly young woman one last time. Or perhaps he simply wished for a familiar space inside the renovated mansion. So he asked around about the changes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the long-time housekeepers there nodded knowingly at the question. Yes, she said, that was young Anne you saw. But then she seemed to withdraw from the conversation. We shouldn't talk about her, the housekeeper told him. She made a horrid noise last night, knocking the billiard balls about. One last thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It said that something was discovered during the renovations of 1870, something that hinted at a clue to the origins of the legend. It said that inside one of the walls of the tapestry room, workers discovered bones, but they didn't belong to an adult. It was the skeleton of a baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ireland is a land of story. From its ancient past to modern times, there seems to be no end to the tales that have spilled out from the shores of the Emerald Isle, like some sort of magical well. And while we're still visiting, I'd like to take you to one last castle, because the story that surrounds it is one of my favorites.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stick around after this brief sponsor break and I'll tell you all about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connor wasn't her first husband. If we're honest, that wasn't uncommon in the 1640s, but I mention it because it was the seed of a lot of rumors about her. Rumors that paint her in a terrifying light. And while they might have only been stories, the true details of her life make those rumors a lot easier to fall for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mary McMahon had been married just once before, as far as historians can tell. In 1634, she married Daniel Nalin, and the couple built a life together. But within five years, Daniel was dead, leaving her with three young children to care for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thankfully, her next husband was a man of status. Connor O'Brien was from a long line of Irish rulers. High kings, in fact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marriage to him also meant moving into the family tower house, Liomene Castle, which had been built in the 1400s. By 1640, though, it was a little worse for wear, so the couple made some renovations, which added to its size and scope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But life was more complicated than that. It seems that Connor O'Brien was a bit of a hothead who had no problem raiding English settlements in the area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, Mary often rode alongside him, participating in these missions. In one document from 1642, we are told that Mary and Connor led a small band of fighters out on one such raid in February of that year, and brought home a wagon full of household goods, 14 pigs, and over 400 sheep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mary, it seems, had a thirst for adventure. And if the stories were true, that violence came home with her. It said that she would hang her servants by their necks or hair. If people trespassed on their land, she was rumored to murder them. And when she wasn't killing people, they said, she was happy to engage in a bit of torture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, these were the same rumors that said that she had married and killed over 20 men. The truth isn't found in the ravings of the mob or the propaganda of the jealous. No truth is found in the historical record. And while it might not include nearly two dozen murdered husbands,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mary's real story is more than terrifying as it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1641, a conflict arose in Ireland that became known as the Eleven Years' War. It was part of a larger conflict all throughout Ireland, Scotland, and England known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you've ever heard names like the Irish Rebellion of 1641, or the First, Second, and Third English Civil Wars, these were all smaller pieces under the larger umbrella of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Naturally, everyone had to pick a side. Mary's husband, Connor, eventually gave up his life of raiding local English settlements and became a commissioned officer in the Royalist army. But in 1651, during a particularly bloody skirmish, Connor was badly wounded. And in an effort to save him, some of his men carried his body back to his home and to Mary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's said that Mary looked out her window and saw them approaching and assumed Connor was dead. According to the legend, she leaned out the window and shouted at the approaching soldiers, We want no dead men here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But after a quick conversation, they informed her that her husband was still alive and in need of help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She put on one of her best dresses, climbed into a carriage, and made the perilous journey to the nearest parliamentarian camp, the very same forces that had killed her husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if the legends are true, she did it for two reasons, both of which require a bit of explanation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First she did it to make an offer. Being newly widowed she was free to marry again and had decided that the first officer in the enemy camp to come forward would earn her hand in marriage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't know if anyone stepped forward that day, but we do know that a short while later she was recorded as being married to a parliamentarian officer named John Cooper. I think it's safe to assume he was the one who took her up on that offer. But why do this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most historians think that Mary saw the writing on the wall. At least for the moment, the parliamentarians were the horse to bet on, and Mary had an estate and children to look after.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marrying into the conquering side was a way of buying a bit of insurance against tumultuous times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there's a second reason for her visit to the enemy camp that day. It gave her a chance to ask around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And identify the man who fired the shot that killed her husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Mary wasn't the sort of woman who let go of a grudge, or to let anyone else do the dirty work when it mattered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It said that a short while later, Mary herself hunted down the man responsible. I can picture her riding through the night on a black horse, gun and sword hanging at her side and creeping into the parliamentarian camp to abduct her target. It said that she then hanged the man to death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Putting an end to her quest for vengeance and allowing her life to move on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today she's known as Red Mary, maybe because of the color of her hair, or perhaps due to all the blood she was rumored to have spilled. Either way, she's managed to leave a mark on the past and found a way to stick around, all these centuries later. History like life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Isn't always neat and tidy. There are a lot of things we don't know about Mary McMahon, or whether or not the rumors about her were entirely true. But we do know that she was fierce, powerful, and more than a little bloody. And if history has taught us anything, it's darkness like that that can never be contained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Robin Minniter and Carl Nellis, and music by Chad Lawson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[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.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Erin Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured. And I think you'd enjoy both.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. And you can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. GrimAndMild.com


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even today, almost 60 years after her death, she still holds a special place in the minds of millions of people across the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ask anyone you know and they'll recognize her name. And how could they not? Marilyn Monroe is practically unforgettable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what most people have forgotten is just how important one particular building was to her career.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was already an institution when she first arrived, having played host to the elite stars of the 30s and 40s. So when a young model named Norma Jean needed a place to stay and work, the Roosevelt made a lot of sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marilyn Monroe lived at the Roosevelt for over two years, even meeting the playwright Arthur Miller, her future husband, during her stay there. So it's no wonder that even today, guests of the hotel occasionally claim to have seen the famous actress in the building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a lot of ways, the place was like a second home to her. So why would she ever want to leave?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hotels are funny that way. Not the franchise cookie cutter conference centers that we tend to see along the highways of our cities. I'm talking about the Old Guard, the mass of resorts built in another era by people of power to serve as both a business and a home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Bellevue Biltmore Hotel in Florida, the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, even the original Waldorf Astoria in New York City.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Each of these destination resorts burned bright for a while, drawing the wealthy elite to their attractive flames. But most of them eventually faded away, taking their secrets and stories with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while a handful have survived the changes of the last century, few seem to have held on to the magic of the Gilded Age like one particular jewel of New England. And I'd like to take you there. But be warned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because while this hotel has played host to the best and brightest over the years, tragedy has also passed through its doors. And if the stories are true, it hasn't checked out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Joseph wasn't born into money, or as part of some lofty social circle. He wasn't even born near that crowd. No, when he came into the world in 1840, it was in the small capital of New Hampshire, the city of Concord. But don't let his humble beginnings fool you. Before his work was done,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Joseph would leave his mark on the pages of history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Around the age of 20, he took an interest in a mineral known as anthracite. It's the most pure and energy-rich type of coal there is, making it the most valuable of them all. And in an era that would see incredible fortunes built by industries that used steel, everyone needed a good fuel to smelt it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A decade later, Joseph was one of the wealthiest men in the country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was the sort of gilded age cast member who might be referred to as a robber baron, managing his empire of coal mines and railroads from his home in New York City. But he was the sort of man who couldn't forget his birthplace. And honestly, if you've ever driven through the mountains of New Hampshire, you can understand why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1881, he returned to his home state to buy a massive 10,000 acre tract of land near New Hampshire's tallest mountain, Mount Washington.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Later that same year, he and a partner also purchased a resort nearby, the Mount Pleasant house, giving him and his circle of friends a place to stay in the north, while earning an income from others who wished to stay there as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the resort wasn't quite perfect enough for him when he bought it, so changes were made.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Simple things were added, like tennis courts and a pump house for the water system, but more complex projects followed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An entire new story was added to the resort, and then a bowling alley was constructed inside. The property gained a blacksmith shop, a golf course, and a private lake. Clearly Joseph had a vision, and he wasn't afraid to spend his money making that a reality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the early 1890s, Joseph was summering at his resort when he encountered a woman he had never met before. Carolyn was the daughter of a butcher from Waltham, Massachusetts, and their family had been staying near Mount Pleasant, providing cuts of meat for another of the resorts there. And Joseph fell in love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were complications though. He was 52 and she was only 25. He was one of the richest men in the nation and she was the poor daughter of a middle class butcher. But after spending time with him on his yacht in Boston Harbor, Carolyn set all those differences aside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They settled into a blissful life together, traveling the world and spending their time at the various homes that Joseph owned. But their hearts always brought them back to New Hampshire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in the late 1890s, the pair began plans for a new project. A resort that would make the Mount Pleasant house look like a starter home. A practice run for something bigger and more grand than they could ever have imagined.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They started by hiring architect Charles Elling Gifford, who set to work taking their vision and creating a roadmap to reality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would be built in the Spanish Renaissance style that had become popular at the time, with a bright red rooftop that hovered over a white structure, complete with large turrets spread across its length.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't cheap to build though, that's for sure. In modern American dollars, the hotel cost roughly 50 million from start to finish.