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[Assistant] Back then, it was simply called the homestead, and historians believe that it had been a major hotbed of revolutionary activity in the years leading up to the war. Although despite much of the Northeast's hatred of Great Britain, Oyster Bay was aligned with the British cause. But not the Townsends.


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[Assistant] They even struck out after the British won the Battle of Long Island in 1776, taking over the area as the war waged on. For six months, in 1778 and 1779, British soldiers commandeered the Townshend's home, forcing the family to keep them fed and housed, despite their support for independence.


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[Assistant] But one Townsend used the situation to his advantage. Samuel's son, Robert, joined George Washington's Culper spy ring in 1779, unbeknownst to the rest of the family. He would report back to General Washington on what the British were up to, thanks to his unique connections.


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[Assistant] But of all the Townsends, it was Samuel's daughter Sarah, or Sally as she was known, whose life would truly be changed by the British occupation. She was only 19 years old when enemy soldiers took over her home, and yet despite their political differences, one of those soldiers, 30-something Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, fell in love with her.


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[Assistant] On February 14th of 1779, Simcoe gave her a poem that teamed with emotion and ardor for the young woman. He poured his heart into his words, holding nothing back.


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[Assistant] They didn't know it at the time, but John's letter would become the first documented Valentine ever exchanged in the United States. It explored one person's difficulty in navigating the feelings they had developed towards someone else who was meant to be their enemy.


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[Assistant] And although we don't know if Sarah gave him a card of her own or shared even a fraction of the love that he had for her, she did keep his poem for the rest of her life. It was discovered among her personal effects after her death at the age of 82.


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[Assistant] Sarah never married. She spent her life at Raynham Hall. John, on the other hand, was eventually deployed to Canada where he met and married another young woman. And he didn't just begin the act of exchanging valentines in America. He also founded the city of Toronto.


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[Assistant] Today, it's believed that Sarah's spirit continues to haunt Raynham Hall, which has since been turned into a museum. Some speculate that she really did love Lieutenant Colonel John Simcoe, but for whatever reason, could not be with him. And so she remains at the site where she first met her lost love.


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[Assistant] Her presence is often felt in her old bedroom on the second floor, which is always unusually cold. She's also been sensed in the children's room because she never became a mother.


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[Assistant] Downstairs in the dining room is a female mannequin that has been known to move on its own, and those who have tried taking photographs inside the house have discovered orbs of light all over the final images.


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[Assistant] But Sarah isn't the only ghost who has made a permanent home at Raynham Hall. At night, when everyone else is in bed and the house is still, the nursery will suddenly become bathed in light from an overhead bulb.


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[Assistant] A young boy, perhaps a child who died of an illness decades or centuries ago, has turned it back on because of his fear of the dark.


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[Assistant] Visitors have also smelled apple pies baking in the kitchen while nobody is there, as though some long-gone person was still doing their job. New hires at the museum often smell the phantom pies when they start and are simply told that one of the Townsends is welcoming them onto staff.


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[Assistant] Of course, Raynham Hall also had a number of enslaved people living on the property while the Townsends lived there. Their spirits have been seen and felt throughout the museum by staff and visitors alike.


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[Assistant] Ghost sightings are a common occurrence at the museum. In 1999, one guest was walking past a staircase when they heard footsteps and rustling petticoats nearby. They looked around for the sound of the commotion, only to see part of a female's figure wearing a Victorian dress just standing there.


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[Assistant] It glided by, past the guest, and off toward the rear of the house. Nobody knows who she was.


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[Assistant] Others have witnessed British soldiers drifting throughout the grounds, one of whom is presumed to be the spirit of Major John Andre. It seems that Andre had been staying at the house along with the Townsend family. Allegedly, while he was conspiring to deliver West Point to the British along with Benedict Arnold, Sarah Townsend overheard his plans.


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[Assistant] And as the story goes, she got word of the plot over to General Washington's headquarters, although newer research pours water on that story. This message, and several others, may have actually been delivered by a 17-year-old enslaved woman named Lys, who was also a member of the Culper Spiring.


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[Assistant] Raynham Hall is rich with history, and ghosts, apparently, dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War. But its heritage actually extends further back. Before Samuel Townsend built the homestead in Oyster Bay, his family lived in Norfolk, England, in a home called Raynham Hall.


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[Assistant] As it turns out, that was the same Raynham Hall where the infamous photograph of the brown lady ghost would eventually be taken in 1936. The Townsends, it seems, could never escape the spirit world, no matter where they went.


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[Assistant] Sex murderers and witches aren't the only things roaming the woods of Mt. Misery. Police officers also patrol the area, looking to either ward off thrill-seeking ghost hunters or to protect the public from untold evils lurking among the trees.


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[Assistant] It really depends on who you talk to. And of course, some conspiracy-minded locals also think that the cops are there to guard a secret government facility tucked away in the depths of the hillside.


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[Assistant] But according to legend, if you see swirling lights in your rearview mirror on Sweet Hollow Road, you might get more than just a ticket. The story begins when a police officer signals an innocent driver to pull over on the side of the road. As the driver gathers their credentials, the officer questions them, then lets them leave. No ticket, no hassle.


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[Assistant] Relieved, the driver checks his mirror as the officer walks away, only to see that the back of that officer's head has a massive hole in it, presumably inflicted by a shotgun blast.


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[Assistant] Those who have witnessed this gruesome sight have allegedly seen the ghost of a police officer who was killed long ago on Sweet Hollow Road. And the lack of evidence or police records proving this ever actually happened doesn't change people's opinions.


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[Assistant] Mount Misery certainly has enough creepy legends to back up that name. I hope you enjoyed our tour through those ominous woods and the many tales that snake through its shadows. But we're not done just yet. I've got one more legend to share with you from this dark location.


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


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[Assistant] Long Island may have its fair share of ghostly residents, but they don't always confine themselves to the island proper. Just off the coast is the popular summer destination, Fire Island. Fire Island has long been a vacation spot when the weather heats up each year. In fact, the island boasts few permanent residents, and even fewer of them are living.


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[Assistant] In 1826, the Fire Island gained its first lighthouse. The local preservation society described it as a 70-foot high, cream-colored octagonal pyramid made of Connecticut River blue split stone. And that sounds pretty tall. But it became clear after it was completed that it wasn't going to be enough to effectively guide ships in the night.


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[Assistant] On July 19th of 1850, a gale lashed the coastline, sending an Italian ship called the Elizabeth crashing into a sandbar. Everyone survived the collision, but no one on shore made any attempt to rescue the people on board.


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[Assistant] As a result, the waves eventually split the ship apart. Many crew and passengers died, including the rider Margaret Fuller, her husband, and their two-year-old son. Her body, sadly, was never recovered from the wreckage.


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[Assistant] Henry David Thoreau traveled to Fire Island in an attempt to locate her remains, as well as an unpublished manuscript on the political situation in Italy that she had been carrying. Neither, it seems, were found.


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[Assistant] As for the lighthouse, it was eventually removed except for the ring of bricks along the bottom. Seven years later, Congress approved $40,000 in funds to have a new tower built, one that would incorporate the remnants of the original lighthouse and be more than twice as tall.


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[Assistant] Construction soon began, and the lighthouse keeper, Benjamin Smith, moved into a nearby shack on the dunes along with his wife and daughter. But Smith was distraught. He complained to administrators that the shack wouldn't be enough to keep his family warm during the harsh island winters. And yet, nobody listened.


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[Assistant] Smith's daughter had already been suffering from a serious lung condition. He knew what was at stake if his concerns were not taken seriously. And just as he'd expected, the drafty shack led to the poor girl getting sick.


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[Assistant] He's sent for a doctor. It's been said that Smith would climb to the top of the lighthouse each day and watch in vain for the doctor's boat to come into view.


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[Assistant] It was three days before someone arrived, by which time Smith's daughter had already died. The grief that followed drove the lighthouse keeper and his wife apart. She left for the mainland to bury their daughter and never returned.


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[Assistant] Smith, on the other hand, couldn't deal with the loss of both his little girl and her mother. Legend states that he hanged himself right there, in the lighthouse.


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[Assistant] The new lighthouse began working on November 1st of 1858, and it ran continuously for a number of years. It was briefly decommissioned during the 20th century, but once again became operational in 1986.


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[Assistant] Those who visit Fire Island Lighthouse won't just get a clear view of the Atlantic Ocean stretching for miles to the horizon. They'll also meet the man who kept things running.


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[Assistant] Those who have spent time there have reported hearing footsteps race up the stairs, much like Benjamin Smith would do as he waited for the doctor's ship to appear.


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[Assistant] Often, those footsteps are followed by moaning from the top of the lighthouse. Some say it's the sounds of the keeper shouting for help, while others claim they are the mournful wails of a father who has just lost his child.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, the writing by Harry Marks, and research by Cassandra de Alba.


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


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


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[Assistant] Today's episode marks the 50th classic episode of Lore that I've remastered. In other words, my mission to re-record and re-score the first, oldest, and roughest 50 episodes has reached the end. And it's been a huge success.


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[Assistant] Of course, all of the original versions are still available to listen to, but the perfectionist in me is glad to have more modern versions of these early episodes for new listeners to enjoy.


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[Assistant] What's next? Well, it's something big. Starting next week, lore is going weekly. That means instead of 28 new episodes each year, you'll be getting 52. And the stories we have planned for you are phenomenal.


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[Assistant] Every other week you'll be getting a true and tried lore episode focusing on some of the more historical tales we tell. But in between, in the spot these remastered used to fill up, you'll be getting something new. We call them Lore Legends.


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[Assistant] These will be episodes devoted to those powerful local legends found around the world. Stories with a bit less historical accuracy, but just as much influence and chills. They'll be researched and written in the same style that you love and expect from us, but thanks to their distinct subject matter, they'll have a slightly more old lore feel.


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[Assistant] And I'll kick each of them off with a special intro to let you know you're about to enjoy Allure Legends.


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[Assistant] So there you go. Lore is going weekly, the stories are getting even more creepy, and you'll have a lot more to fall in love with. That's a win-win-win, if you're keeping track. Hard to argue with that. And now, on with the show.


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[Assistant] Planes aren't supposed to collide with each other. Just taking statistics into account, you're a lot more likely to hear about automobile collisions than airplanes because of the simple fact that there are a lot more cars on the road today than planes in the air. Still, as unusual as it sounds, it happens.


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[Assistant] In the late 50s, two military planes were flying off the coast of Georgia, above the waters of the Atlantic that feed into Savannah's Tybee roads. It's a busy shipping lane on the surface of the water. But on February 5th of 1958, the sky above was busy as well.


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[Assistant] At 2am that morning, a B-47 bomber was running a simulated mission along the coast, heading up from Florida. At the same time, an F-86 fighter plane was patrolling from the north. When they collided, it wasn't disastrous like you might see in a movie. Neither plane exploded, but they were both badly damaged.


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[Assistant] The pilot of the fighter plane had to eject and let his plane drop into the sea. The bomber, though, managed to stay in the air. It lost a lot of altitude, though, and it was clear that they were going to need to make an emergency landing and fast. To help, they requested permission to jettison some extra weight, which they did.


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[Assistant] They only dropped one thing though. Onboard was a bomb that weighed nearly 8,000 pounds.


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[Assistant] A nuclear bomb. And they released it off the coast of Tybee Island, where it plummeted into the sea below. And although the military tried to recover it later that year, that mission was a failure. It's still there, to this day.


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[Assistant] That's the trouble with a world as big as ours. Things, even big things, are easy to hide. It adds a layer of mystery to our experience, an element of unknown risk.


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[Assistant] Her muscles twitched uncontrollably, and the pupils of her eyes dilated. Her parents, Asa and Anne Roth, were of course sick with worry. The seizure, which seemed to be epileptic, left Mary unconscious for several days, and for a while they assumed the worst. Still, she recovered, and life moved on.


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[Assistant] In an effort to find some relief for their daughter, the family moved from Indiana to Texas when she was about 10. A year later, they followed the newly built Peoria Railroad back north and settled in the brand new town of South Middleport, Illinois. They built one of the first homes there, started a new life, and hoped for the best. But Mary's seizures continued.


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[Assistant] By the time they moved to Illinois, she was having them at least once a day. This was before even the earliest anti-epileptic drugs, such as potassium bromide, and that lack of options left Mary and her parents feeling depressed and hopeless.


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[Assistant] Add to this the intense physical drain that regular seizures had on her health, and it's easy to see how dark those days must have been for her.


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[Assistant] One of the methods they tried for a while was bloodletting. It's a practice that dates back thousands of years, and it's appeared in many forms, from knives and needles to spring-loaded cutting devices. One of the professions that historically delivered bloodletting services was, of all people, the barber.


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[Assistant] Even today, you can find barber shops that still use the red and white candy stripe pole outside. That's a carryover from another era, designed to represent blood and bandages.


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[Assistant] Mary's preferred method of choice, though, was actually leeches. And because she complained constantly of headaches, she would place them on her temples, believing that they would help. She used them so often that she even began to view them as pets. And like a child with a kitten, time spent with her leeches would often put a smile on Mary's face.


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[Assistant] As an aside, if your kid asked for a dog for Christmas, I can't help but feel like they're missing out on a fun pet option here. Leeches are really cheap to feed, and you don't have to walk them. Just putting it out there.


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[Assistant] Mary's condition went on like this for about three years, with the use of the leeches escalating slowly. All the while, she was a sad young woman, and rightly so. But she was also bright, excelling in her studies, and even becoming an accomplished pianist. But her music choices reflected her mood, leaning more toward the dark and the melancholy.


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[Assistant] In 1864, at the age of 18, she took the bloodletting to a new level, cutting herself on the arm with a knife.


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[Assistant] The loss of blood was so heavy that it caused her to pass out. When she did regain consciousness, something seemed off. She spent days screaming and thrashing around on the bed. There were periods of several hours at a time when multiple adults had to hold her down to prevent her from hurting herself.


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[Assistant] And then, like a tropical storm that's passed through a city, everything went calm.


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[Assistant] Instead of uprooted trees and leveled buildings though, Mary was left awake but unresponsive. It was as if something inside her had broken. People would walk into the room and speak to her, but she didn't seem to notice them. No eye contact, no replies. If she could see and hear them, she certainly wasn't acknowledging it.


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[Assistant] But in exchange for those new flaws, Mary could do things.


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[Assistant] It started with mundane tasks like dressing herself or putting her hair up with pins, but her parents started to notice something odd about it all. When Mary did those things, her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to be using them. She was completing tasks that required sight, but her eyes never moved, never shifted or focused on the task at hand. It was as if she wasn't really seeing anything at all.


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[Assistant] So they decided to test it out. They put a blindfold on her and then asked her to repeat the same tasks. Mary complied, and successfully too. Even with a dark blindfold on, she could dress herself completely, even picking up pins off the dressing table and using them to do her hair.


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[Assistant] Of course, all of that could have been muscle memory, but there were other, less explainable things that she could do as well.


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[Assistant] And this made a lot of people in town curious. She was doing something that no one should be able to do, and they wanted answers, so they began to come to the house to test her.


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[Assistant] One person who visited suggested that she might have memorized the encyclopedia entry. She'd been obsessed with blood for years, of course, so they asked her for a deeper test. They took a few of Mary's personal letters written in her own hand and then shuffled them into a larger stack of papers.


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[Assistant] Still blindfolded, Mary was able to pull out her own and then read them aloud to the people in the room.


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[Assistant] A local newspaper editor even stopped by to do an experiment of his own, and his was the most astounding of them all. He arrived with an envelope in his coat pocket. It was still sealed, and inside it, he told everyone, was a letter from a friend who lived far away.


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[Assistant] He then handed the envelope to a blindfolded Mary, who turned it over and over but never opened it, and then without hesitation she announced the name of the person whose signature was on the letter. The editor opened it up and checked. Mary had been correct.


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[Assistant] But it wasn't all magic shows and wonder. No, Mary was still having seizures on a daily basis, and as a result, her depression was deepening, and that led to more cutting. It's tragic, really. Mental health care was practically medieval in the middle of the 19th century, and that meant that Mary was left to suffer largely without help outside of her own family.


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[Assistant] A year before the tragic death of Mary Roth, Thomas and Lucinda Venom welcomed a daughter into their family. Mary Venom was born in April of 1864, and almost immediately, the family took to calling her by her middle name, Larancy.


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[Assistant] In 1871, when Larancy was just seven, her family moved up from Milford County to South Middleport. But in those years between Mary Roff's death and the Venom's move, the township had incorporated. The newly formed city was called Watsika, in honor of a well-known Native American woman who'd been born in the area.


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[Assistant] For a while, Lorancy's childhood was nondescript. She was healthy and happy, and that continued to be true for a number of years. But then, in early July of 1877, at the age of 13, Lorancy started to complain that she'd been hearing voices in her bedroom.


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[Assistant] She claimed that they were calling out to her, saying her name over and over. Her parents chalking it up to the overactive imagination of a child largely ignored her.


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[Assistant] And then, on the night of July 5th, Larancy had a small seizure that left her in an odd state.


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[Assistant] She was still conscious, but stayed mysteriously rigid for nearly five hours. When she finally did snap out of whatever trance she seemed to have been in, she told her parents that she felt rather strange. Of course she did, they said. She'd had a seizure, after all.


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[Assistant] The following day, Larancy had a second seizure and entered into that awake yet stiff state once more. This time though, she spoke. Her parents sat beside her bed and listened as she told them what she could see. But even though her eyes were open, she didn't describe the bedroom to them. She described heaven.


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[Assistant] Specifically, she described seeing her two siblings, her sister Laura and her brother Bertie, both of whom had passed away young. In fact, Lorancy had only been three when her brother had died, and the family rarely talked about those obviously painful memories, which made her description even more unusual.


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[Assistant] All through the summer and well into November, Larancy continued to have these trances. Each time, she would describe another world, the world beyond the veil of reality. Beyond that curtain that separates life and death, there were angels, spirits, heaven, and all of the details she attached to it. It seemed surreal. And then, on November 27th, things


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[Assistant] Well, they took a turn at Weird and cruised down Crazy Street, if you know what I mean.


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[Assistant] The seizure she had that night was extremely violent. She laid before her parents on the bed and would violently arch her back with each episode. One report claims that she bent so sharply at the waist that her feet touched her head, though I'm honestly not sure how that's possible.


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[Assistant] If it happened, I can't imagine a more creepy scene than watching a young woman bend in half backwards while screaming in pain.


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[Assistant] It wasn't a one-time thing, either. These new seizures went on for weeks, leaving the family distraught and Larancy exhausted and in pain.


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[Assistant] And this pattern, first seizures, then visions, repeated itself regularly for nearly three months. Outside family members were beginning to think that the young woman had lost her mind. They begged the venoms to send her to Peoria, where there was an asylum well equipped to help her with her illness.


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[Assistant] Instead, the venoms pushed on alone. Their doctor didn't know how to help. And while the seizures were something that he could at least put a medical name to, it was her visions of the afterlife, full of spirits and angels and the like, that defied his expertise.


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[Assistant] One person who did arrive and offer them answers was a man named Dr. E. Winchester Stevens. He was a friendly man in his mid-fifties from Janesville, Wisconsin, and he worked as a spiritualist doctor, offering a mixture of medical cures and otherworldly solutions to people just like the Venoms.


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[Assistant] He had heard of Lorentzi's story through the Venom's neighbors, an older couple with an interest in spiritualism and the afterlife. But when Dr. Stevens entered her room for the first time on the 31st of January, he didn't meet Lorentzi. Instead, the voice that came out of the young woman claimed to be that of an elderly German woman named Katrina Hogan.


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[Assistant] She had been 63 years old when she passed away years before, and now she was in possession of Lorenzi's body. And she wasn't nice, apparently. This elderly spirit, speaking through the young woman's mouth, insulted and verbally abused Thomas and Lucinda Venom. This went on for a few moments before shifting into another spirit entirely.


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[Assistant] This one claimed to be that of a young man named Willie Canning, who had died after running away from his family. But he too vanished after just a few minutes.


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[Assistant] Dr. Stevens, who'd simply been an observer up until this point, stepped in to help. According to the historical count of the events, Stevens used mesmerism, what we would call hypnosis today, in an attempt to help the rancy calm down.


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[Assistant] And the seizures stopped. The young woman managed to tell all the adults in the room, her parents, Dr. Stevens, and the neighbors who had brought the spiritualist to the venom home that evil spirits wanted to control her. She was afraid and she wanted help. Dr. Stevens suggested that perhaps she could find a good spirit instead. Larancy nodded and then closed her eyes.


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[Assistant] Mr. and Mrs. Roth were understandably full of mixed emotions. They'd spent the last 12 years getting over the loss of their daughter. Mr. Roth had even gone to see a medium more than once, hoping for answers, or at least closure.


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[Assistant] In one instance, the medium handed him a note claiming it had been communicated to her by his dead daughter.


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[Assistant] There was a lot of guilt there, obviously. They had left their daughter alone for three whole days after all, and when they returned from their trip, she was dead. They'd spent years getting over that. Mary had been a joy and a challenge and a blessing all at the same time, but for over a decade she had been gone from their life. Until now.


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[Assistant] She didn't recognize anyone in the Venom household at all. They were strangers to her, so she asked them if she could go live with her parents at their house. She wanted to return to the home that she knew and loved and asked continuously for days.


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[Assistant] Finally, nearly a week after Mary's arrival, the Venoms relented and they escorted their daughter out of the house, down the street, and up to the front door of their neighbors, the Roths. Once there, she immediately fell into a comfortable routine.


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[Assistant] She used nicknames for her parents and siblings that no one but Mary Roth would have known. She recognized family friends and would mention others from out of town that the Roths knew. People who had never visited Watsika in all the years the Venoms had lived there. There was simply no way for anyone other than Mary Roth to know these things.


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[Assistant] When she did see them, she treated the Venoms as if they were just some nice family she had only recently met. She was polite to them, for sure, but it never evolved into anything more. But Mary knew of Lorentzi. In fact, she claimed to understand better than anyone else what was really going on with her. It was just a really difficult story to believe.


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[Assistant] Mary said that Lorancy was sick. Her seizures were a symptom of that illness. But Mary had gone through all of that in her own lifetime and she knew how to help. So Lorancy, at least according to Mary, was in heaven getting better. And when she'd recovered, Mary would leave and allow the young woman back into her own body.


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[Assistant] And look, I get the skepticism. I'm right there with you. This is pretty bizarre stuff, no doubt about it. And these people were obviously primed for this story too.


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[Assistant] Spiritualism was hot in 1878. The Amazing Fox Sisters were three decades deep into their career as world-famous mediums, traveling around performing seances for sell-out audiences. It wouldn't be another ten years before their act was exposed as a fraud.


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[Assistant] To the Venoms and the Roths, and especially to Dr. Stevens, these things were real and possible and undeniable.


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[Assistant] To our modern minds, though, there's a lot to question. Larancy had to have known her neighbors prior to that day. She'd most likely heard the tragic story of Mary Roff, if not from their own mouths, then from others in town. Surely, at some point in her childhood, someone looked at her and said, oh, you live next door to the Roffs. It's not a story that you forget.


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[Assistant] But there were things that are harder to dismiss. Being able to name out of town friends was one of them, but the woman claiming to be Mary Roff could do a lot more than that. She had dozens of conversations with old friends, people who had known Mary well before her death. And in each of those chats, she mentioned details and events that no one other than Mary could have known.


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[Assistant] One day during this time, Mary walked into the Roth's sitting room and pointed to the velvet headdress sitting on a table. Mrs. Roth had pulled it out of Mary's things and left it for the young woman to discover. When Mary saw it, she lifted it up and described how she had worn it when her hair was short. Mrs. Roth nodded in disbelief.


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[Assistant] Another time, Mary approached Mr. Roth and told him that she had sent him a note once, through a medium he had gone to see. She told him the date and he confirmed it with others. How she knew it though, was a mystery. Unless of course, she really was Mary. Back from the dead.


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[Assistant] All of this went on for over 15 weeks. There were periods here and there when Mary seemed to disappear and Larancy would return to her body, but these were brief moments and Larancy never seemed to be fully there. She was confused, especially by her surroundings in the Roth House. She asked to be taken home, but before anything could be done, Mary would return.


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[Assistant] On May 7th, Mary announced to the Roths that Larancy was ready to return for good. There were more brief switches between the two spirits for another two weeks, and then it was over. On May 21st, Mary stood in the parlor of the Roth home and said tearful goodbyes to her family.


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[Assistant] Then, one of the Roth daughters took her by the arm and escorted her down the sidewalk to the Venoms.


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[Assistant] They chatted as they did, with Mary discussing family matters and giving life advice to the other woman. And then, they arrived.


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[Assistant] Mary mounted the steps alone and knocked on the front door. When the venoms opened it, Mary vanished. Larancy was in full control of her own body again, awake and aware. She said she'd felt as if she'd been dreaming and then embraced her parents. They wept for joy and welcomed her home. And for as long as she lived, she never had another seizure.


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[Assistant] This is one of those events that's difficult to accept. I fully admit that. Many people believe Larancy Venom made the whole thing up. It was a cry for attention, or a youthful prank, or maybe even a stunt put on by both families together.


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[Assistant] Others, though, think it's possible that she suffered from some sort of psychosis, which ultimately manifested as schizophrenia. They believe that, had the Roths not taken her in and given the girl time to recover, the Venoms might have sent her to a mental asylum, which, in the 1870s, was a one-way ticket to suffering and possible death.


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[Assistant] But too many questions are left on the table for us to sort through.


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[Assistant] How did symptoms as dramatic and serious as powerful seizures simply vanish after just 15 weeks?


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[Assistant] There was even a moment during the ordeal when Lorancy, claiming to be Mary, told Dr. Stevens that she had seen his deceased daughter in heaven. Mary described a cross-shaped scar on his daughter's cheek.


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[Assistant] Dr. Stevens, amazed, confirmed that the scar was from a surgery that she'd undergone to stop an infection.


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[Assistant] Whatever we end up believing here and now today, Larancy's parents were convinced. They said that their daughter had returned to their home and, I quote, more intelligent, more industrious, more womanly, and more polite than before. She'd grown up somehow, and she was physically restored. No more seizures, no more random trances. It was all gone.


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[Assistant] For a couple of years though, Lorentzi tried her hand at being a medium. Maybe the Roths talked her into it, or maybe she wanted to see if she could still do all the things that she had become famous for.


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[Assistant] Four years after that, she married a farmer named George Binning. George, it seems, had no interest in spiritualism. And shortly after, her efforts to work as a medium sort of ground to a halt.


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[Assistant] Two years later, they left town, moving to a farm in Kansas. They raised thirteen kids, and naturally, life got busy. But she stayed in touch with folks back home as best she could.


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[Assistant] One of the people who wrote her often was Mr. Roth. It's understandable, really. For a little while his daughter Mary had come back and he was attached to Laurency because of it.


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[Assistant] And on the rare occasions that she returned to Watsika to visit her parents, she would always make it a point to walk next door and visit the Roths.


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[Assistant] So she would knock, of course. It wasn't really her home, after all, but they would always welcome her in. I imagine that they would make her a cup of tea and gather together in the sitting room. I have to wonder if Mary's velvet headdress was still sitting out on the table and if Laurency ever felt like it looked familiar somehow.


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[Assistant] There's something strange at the intersection of illness and spirituality. I hope our journey today made that more than clear. There seems to be something else just beyond the veil that separates life from death. Exactly what? We can only guess.


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[Assistant] But Mary and Lorentzi aren't the only women to dance along this mystical borderline. In fact, I have one more tale I'd like to share with you that will feel right at home on today's exploration. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Spiritualism was so rampant in the 19th century, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting someone who claimed to speak to the dead, or would fall into a trance and write as though the ghosts themselves were operating their hands.


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[Assistant] So many stories of spiritualism were eventually found out as nothing but magic tricks, illusions of light and sound to convince audiences that the other's side wasn't so far away.


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[Assistant] Nowadays when something that amazing happens, we're skeptical. It's not that we don't want to believe, we do. But we're afraid to put our faith in it for fear of being let down.


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[Assistant] We're worried it's being done for fame or money, but what happens when someone who doesn't need the money or fame suddenly develops special gifts? Is it more believable then? And to answer that question, we need to talk about Hildegard.


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[Assistant] Hildegard was born in Bremenscheim, Germany in 1098. She was the tenth child of wealthy noble parents and was sent to live with a nun, Jutta von Spanheim, when she was eight years old. Jutta cared for the girl and taught her in a small cloister attached to the monastery there about 66 miles northwest of her hometown.


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[Assistant] When Hildegard was old enough, she chose to follow in her mentor's footsteps, joining the cloister to become a Benedictine nun. But that wasn't the start of her holy journey. No, that had begun years earlier when she was only three years old, because that's when she had her first divine vision.


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[Assistant] The visions weren't rare or regular. They appeared at any time, day or night, while she was awake and alert. One vision was described as a great star, splendid and beautiful, which followed a bunch of other falling stars southward.


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[Assistant] Suddenly, the stars were gone, having transformed into black coals and disappearing into a void until they could no longer be seen.


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[Assistant] Despite these miraculous visions, Hildegard kept them to herself. She worried that she wouldn't be taken seriously in a religion dominated by powerful men. It's also possible that she didn't want to stand out, choosing instead to remain humble and discreet like other nuns.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, Hildegard's gift came at a high cost. She was beset by pain so severe it rendered her paralyzed and bedridden. She believed that God was punishing her for refusing to share her visions.


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[Assistant] Finally, when she was 42, God sent down a vision that she couldn't ignore. He commanded her to write down what she was seeing and hearing. It was after she had done as he had asked that the pain she suffered from for so long finally relented. Over the next decade, a monk named Volmar assisted her with writing down her visions.


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[Assistant] First, she would scribble them down on a wax tablet she rested on her knee, which she would then pass to Volmar to transcribe onto parchment. The visions were compiled into a book called the Skivias, the first of a trilogy. Now that others knew that she was capable of, word started to spread as far as the Vatican.


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[Assistant] Pope Eugene III read pieces of Scevius and encouraged her to keep going.


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[Assistant] This was on top of the other work that she'd been doing. Hildegard was a busy bee, simultaneously working on a collection of musical compositions, a nine-volume medical text, and a mystery play. She could do it all, then became famous during a time when women were often discouraged from learning or moving up through society.


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[Assistant] She was something of an iconoclast, but was she for real? Had Hildegard truly received visions of light from God? A number of explanations have emerged over the years. In 1917, for example, historian Charles Singer posthumously diagnosed her with something called scintillating scotoma, which would have caused her to hallucinate light patterns.


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[Assistant] A Dr. Oliver Sacks expanded on Singer's diagnosis by writing that scotoma is one of the most common features of migraine headaches. He thought that it was even more common than the headaches themselves and claimed that they were caused by, and I quote, when an individual confronts essentially unsolvable problems.


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[Assistant] And it's important to note that Hildegard grew up in a time when being a female theologian, cosmologist, and thinker was frowned upon and even shunned within the Church. Existing as a female polymath in a man's world would have made her problem seem unsolvable, and then exacerbate her condition.


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[Assistant] Barbara Newman, Hildegard's biographer, however, believed her visions were actually a tool that she used to function within that patriarchal society, allowing her to feel empowered and able to advocate for herself.


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[Assistant] We may never know the truth, but in the end, the truth pales in comparison to Hildegard herself. She was one of the greatest Renaissance women and mystics the world had ever seen. To this day, she's revered by feminist scholars, esoteric practitioners, composers, holistic healers, and others for the work that she did.


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


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


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


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[Assistant] Paul was on a roll. About 15 years ago, he managed to pick the winner of four out of six of Germany's matches in the Euro 2008 Championship. Not too bad, all things considered. But for the two years that followed, he pretty much kept to himself.


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[Assistant] In 2010 though, soccer fans across the world gathered to bask in the glory that is the World Cup. Then Paul, being a resident of Germany, started up his predictions again.


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[Assistant] And this time he stunned the country, going 8 for 8. He literally could not have done any better.


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[Assistant] But of course, this is the modern world, right? When you've got someone out there predicting your loss in a professional sports competition, it's easy to let passion get in the way.


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[Assistant] So when Paul picked Germany to beat Argentina in the quarterfinals, fans of Argentina sent him death threats. Oh, and one guy, a chef from Argentina, even posted a recipe on Facebook, should anyone want to cook Paul and eat him. Which sounds utterly unspeakable, until you learn one key thing about Paul. He was an octopus.


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[Assistant] Yes, right there from his home at the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, Paul made a number of predictions over the years, by picking between the team's logos on clear boxes containing food. And he was just one more name on an ever-growing list of animals who have done the same over the years.


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[Assistant] Humans have always been enchanted by the creatures around us. And while we usually have them live with us as pets and companions, to some they are so much more. They are beings of magic with one eye on their food dish and another on the future. And their tales are absolutely fascinating.


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[Assistant] To understand the story of the learned pig, we have to start with his owner. Samuel Bissett was a former shoemaker from Scotland who somehow managed to wind up at the animal business.


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[Assistant] During the 1770s, he was known to tour around with an entire troop of trained creatures, which provided entertainment for anyone willing to part with a bit of coin. What kind of animals?


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[Assistant] Let's see, there were the tightrope walking monkeys, a turtle that had been trained to fetch things like a dog, and even a trio of kittens that had been taught to hit their paws on tiny dulcimers in order to make music. And if the history is true, some of them even meowed as they did so.


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[Assistant] Now, before you scoff, please understand that people were willing to pay for a glimpse of this. During a single one-week run of performances in London, this cat opera earned Samuel Bissett a whopping £1,000, worth roughly $200,000 today.


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[Assistant] It took Samuel two whole years to train the pig, but when he was done he had quite the act on his hands. And people loved it. Wearing a tiny red waistcoat, the pig was able to do things like count figures and identify people by name.


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[Assistant] How did he do it? Well, Samuel would lay out a series of cards, each with their own letter or number, and the pig would just sort of point to them in order. For example, he could apparently look at the pocket watch of any person present and then replicate the time on the cards, or count the number of people in the audience.


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[Assistant] It all sounds great, but a few months later, Bissett took his animals to Dublin where a local man attacked Samuel with a sword


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[Assistant] Because he failed to obtain permission from the city to perform there.


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[Assistant] He died a couple of weeks later from his injuries. And then a man named John Nicholson bought the whole menagerie because, well, the show must go on, right?


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[Assistant] I can't begin to tell you how popular the learned pig was throughout Ireland, Scotland, and England.


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[Assistant] Writing, a couple of decades later, poet Robert Southey claimed that the little pig was even more popular than Sir Isaac Newton. But with popularity comes critics. And this being the late 18th century, some of that criticism claimed that the pig's powers came from the devil.


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[Assistant] Amazingly, there would be more learned pigs to follow, too. And while it's not central to the folklore of gifted animals, I do need to mention that most of these pigs were named Toby. Why? Well, some historians think that it's a play on the Shakespearean line, to be or not to be. And that's from the play called Hamlet. I know, it's bad.


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[Assistant] Now, they say that the original learned pig was psychic because of his training, but other animals throughout history have exhibited that skill without any help at all. Back in 1918, for example, there was a snuffer the dog, a stray dog picked up by an American air squadron in France.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of pets, Snuffer loved to be in the cookhouse, hoping for scraps to be dropped. But one day he demonstrated an entirely different skill.


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[Assistant] First he started acting skittish, and then he started howling like a wolf.


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[Assistant] Believing that the dog just wanted to be let outside, they tried to do that, but Snuffer gently bit one of the men's hands and then tried leading him away out of the tent. On a whim, the rest of the staff in the cookhouse followed along, stepping outside. A moment later, a German shell landed directly on the building.


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[Assistant] Snuffers, it seems, had saved their lives through a premonition.


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[Assistant] And then there was Toto. No, not the dog from the Wizard of Oz. This Toto was a cat owned by an elderly couple who lived in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. And one night in March of 1944, the couple was asleep in bed when Toto woke them up.


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[Assistant] Of course, they swatted the cat away and went back to sleep, but that only made things worse.


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[Assistant] After the husband climbed out of bed and chased the cat around the room trying to catch it, the man's wife sat up and stopped him. Something about Toto's behavior was unusual, and she felt the sudden urge to pack up and get out of the house.


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[Assistant] So they did, right there in the middle of the night, taking everything they could carry to her sister's house. Within an hour, Vesuvius erupted, and the flow of lava, utterly destroyed their home.


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[Assistant] The notion of psychic animals is an intriguing one, a pet or creature gifted with the power to see into the future or to do unusual things. Unsurprisingly, history has featured a number of them.


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[Assistant] But a truly spectacular example comes to us from the Isle of Man, located between Ireland and the west coast of England. It was there, in the fall of 1931, that normal everyday life took a sudden turn toward the weird and the bizarre. And even now, decades later, people are still debating whether it was real or not.


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[Assistant] The Irvings lived on their family farm, a place they called Cashion's Gap, which was a couple of miles away from the rest of the community and up a steep hill. They were poor, isolated, and pretty much left out from the growth of the modern world. They had no electricity or telephone. And for James and his wife Margaret and their 12-year-old daughter, Viri, it had to have been hard.


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[Assistant] For a while that year, the family claimed to have noticed a strange animal on their farmland, usually just out of sight. They said it had a small, long, yellow body with a long tail and sort of resembled a weasel. But after a while, those sightings started to happen inside their house too. And then there were the noises.


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[Assistant] Now, if you've ever lived in a house older than a couple of decades, you've probably experienced those sounds yourself. Scratching and rustling. Sometimes even growling. It was enough to keep the Irvings awake at night. But soon, even that would change.


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[Assistant] The animal began to imitate sounds that came from inside the house. For example, if someone dropped an object, the animal would repeat the knocking sound from behind the wall. And it wasn't just noises either, because apparently this creature started to mimic their speech a short time later. And although its voice was higher than humans, it was clear and understandable.


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[Assistant] What did it say? Well, it claimed to be just a clever mongoose of about 80 years old, despite the fact that mongoose only live about six to ten years in the wild. It also claimed to be just a ghost, but also that it had hands and feet and the ability to turn anyone who looked upon it into stone. Oh, and his name, he claimed, was Jeff. Jeff the mongoose.


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[Assistant] Now, early on, Jeff seems to have only made noise and talked in Viri's room. Believing that their daughter was in danger, James and Margaret discussed moving her bed into their own room.


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[Assistant] But Jeff was listening and told them, I'll follow her wherever you move her. He also told them once, I could kill you all, but I won't. Charming, I know.


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[Assistant] But Jeff had his good traits too. He apparently left dead rabbits for the family to cook, and they would pay him for his effort with a bit of sausage or fruit. And as you might imagine, word about this unusual, unseen creature began to spread out from their isolated farm at Cashion's Gap.


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[Assistant] To the rest of the island and then beyond. And as people learned of Jeff, some of the more curious wanted to see him for themselves.


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[Assistant] Over the next couple of years, a number of investigations were conducted. The Irvings provided hair samples that they claimed had been collected from Jeff, and even produced clay casts of his teeth, claws, and footprints. The Zoological Society, however, couldn't match the casts up to any known animal, including the mongoose. Their opinion? All of the prints had been made with a stick.


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[Assistant] A number of investigators even showed up at the farm, but Jeff never showed himself to them. And while he was photographed, those photos are all blurry, and the creature in question is either clearly a stray cat or just a clump of grass that looks a bit animal-like.


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[Assistant] Ever since, people have pondered who or what was behind the activity blamed on Jeff. There are some who think that he was real, and that everything should be believed without an ounce of doubt. But those folks I gather are in the minority. The rest are skeptical and have a variety of theories about the truth behind the mongoose.


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[Assistant] Perhaps Jeff was just an invention by an isolated and lonely child. Viri was reputed to have quite the knack for ventriloquism. Although, when confronted with this fact, she denied it.


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[Assistant] Claiming if she had been that talented, she would have traveled the world getting rich. Others think the entire family suffered through a delusional episode.


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[Assistant] And still more believe that Jeff was less an animal and more a poltergeist, haunting the property because his remains had been disturbed years before. If we take Jeff's own word for it though,


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[Assistant] I can split the atom. I am the fifth dimension. I am the eighth wonder of the world.


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[Assistant] But he wasn't, it turns out, the most mysterious animal of his day.


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[Assistant] Claudia started to notice her horse was different, almost from birth.


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[Assistant] Little Brown Foll had been born in 1925, and Claudia bottle-fed her personally, and the pair spent a lot of time together.


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[Assistant] But the biggest clues started showing up about a year later.


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[Assistant] Claudia noticed that if she was outside the house and merely thought about the horse, the horse would come trotting over to her as if she had used her voice, which led to the horse's name, Lady Wonder. Oh, and it also kicked off a bit of training too.


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[Assistant] At first, Claudia would just use wooded blocks, the sort that kids play with, with letters and numbers on them, asking the horse a series of questions and then watching as the animal pointed to the blocks to spell out her answer. It was stunning, and Claudia wanted to take it further.


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[Assistant] The next step was a contraption that sort of resembled a giant typewriter. It was as big as a piano and had two rows of large buttons, each connected by a wire to a large card bearing a letter or a number. Whenever Claudia asked Lady Wonder a question, the horse would lean down and literally type out her answer. I do need to mention that Lady Wonder's spelling


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[Assistant] Wasn't that great. But having never attended school, who could blame her, right? But whenever it was off, it was a phonetic mistake, swapping out a K for a C for example, things like that, which caused one newspaper reporter to refer to her as an alphalphabetical horse, which is just next level dad joke humor, right? But Lady Wonder could do more than type.


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[Assistant] Over the course of her life, it's said that more than 150,000 people visited Claudia's farm to pay a dollar for a glimpse of their future. Most of her patrons were interested in things like the sex of their unborn baby, or just having their names spelled out without ever speaking them to the horse.


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[Assistant] But because of the farm's proximity to Washington DC, some of those visitors were actually politicians who were tired of their palm readers in the city.


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[Assistant] Lady Wonder was said to have predicted the stock market crash of 1929 and the election victories of Presidents FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower.


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[Assistant] She even made the prediction in December of 1940 that America would enter World War II, which it did a year later.


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[Assistant] But Lady Wonder also helped to bring closure to a number of missing person cases. In December of 1952, for example, she told experts about the location of a missing Massachusetts boy, Danny Matson. The police found his body exactly where she told them it would be, in the field and wild water pit.


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[Assistant] And later that same month, she did the same for another distraught family.


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[Assistant] It took a few weeks, but the body of her missing son was also located thanks to the horse's information.


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[Assistant] And these successes brought national attention to Lady Wonder, growing the number of people who believed in her psychic powers, and also those who doubted her authenticity.


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[Assistant] John Scarn was a traveling magician in 1928, which meant that he was very well-versed in all of the sleight of hand tricks that performers like himself used to fool people.


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[Assistant] Then after visiting Lady Wonder on her farm, he left convinced that he had witnessed similar tricks from the horse's owner, Claudia. Movements of the horse whip in her hand that could possibly have been signals that guided the horse's behavior. Claudia, of course, denied it.


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[Assistant] But despite the doubters, most people accepted Lady Wonder for what she was. An extraordinary horse with a gift that defied logic. Regardless of whether that power was some psychic ability or just the ability to recognize signs and type out words related to them, she was special. And her death in 1957 shocked many.


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[Assistant] It was a heart attack that ended her life at the age of 33. Just three years of life more than she had predicted for herself.


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[Assistant] Magician and doubter John Scarn publicly claimed that she must have died from embarrassment at being a fake, but most people honestly mourn.


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[Assistant] There were 25 people at her funeral, which was held at Pet Memorial Park in Virginia. Someone read aloud from a poem titled, An Arab's Farewell to His Horse, by Caroline Norton. And there were many a tearful eye in the crowd.


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[Assistant] And I can't help but wonder if some of them spent that day thinking about one of Lady Wonder's spelling tricks in particular. You see, back in 1952, a newspaper reporter had visited the farm and asked the horse a very particular question. Would you, they asked, like to be human?


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[Assistant] Real or not, there's one thing we can all agree was accurate about that horse. She certainly lived up to her name.


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[Assistant] We humans have always had a connection to the animals around us. They helped us hunt and protected us long ago, and have stuck around ever since, becoming companions and even service animals for those of us who have the need.


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[Assistant] And through it all, they've demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt and learn new things.


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[Assistant] I honestly don't think it's a surprise that animals like Toto the Cat or the Learned Pig or Lady Wonder have left indelible marks on the pages of history. Every now and then it seems an animal comes around that defies explanation.


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[Assistant] They bewilder us, entrance us, and leave us wondering where the boundaries really are between the possible and the impossible.


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[Assistant] And sure, we can sit down and debate the truth behind the claim that some of these animals have been psychic. Honestly, we can have the same debate about humans who claim to be as well. But no amount of logic or arguing will erase the fact that there have always been believers and there will always be doubters.


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[Assistant] John Scarn wasn't the only person to doubt the claims of Claudia Fonda about her horse Lady Wonder. A couple of years after the magician visited her, another man, Jack Woodford, paid his own visit, and he had quite the experience.


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[Assistant] Lady Wonder was said to have taken an instant dislike to him. Maybe it was her psychic power that tipped her off toward Woodford's hatred of her.


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[Assistant] Or perhaps he just behaved like a nasty person and the horse noticed.


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[Assistant] Whatever the reason, the pair weren't a good match. Jack said it best himself.


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[Assistant] The woman was unfriendly, he wrote. The horse hated me. I hated the horse. The surroundings were most uncongenial, and there was no place to sit.


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[Assistant] But on one visit, Lady Wonder mystified the skeptic.


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[Assistant] He asked the horse to guess what his name was, and without pause she leaned over her enormous typewriter and tapped out the correct answer. J-A-C-K.


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[Assistant] Jack was stunned. Only his long-dead grandmother had ever called him Josh. And yet here, standing outside a rundown stable on a dirty farm, a horse had guessed correctly.


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[Assistant] Many years later, Jack returned to the farm and brought along his daughter so that she could meet the horse herself.


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[Assistant] Lady Wonder didn't care for the daughter either, it seems, but when she saw the pair approaching, she leaned over her contraption and typed out a greeting for them nonetheless.


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[Assistant] Jim was the smallest of his siblings when he was born in 1925, but what he lacked in size he made up for with his large, intense eyes.


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[Assistant] Unexpected for a child, I'm sure, but even more so for a dog. Jim, you see, was a Llewellyn setter, all black and white with floppy ears, and yes, he was small, but he was also pretty stubborn and opinionated.


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[Assistant] And one story from his early days illustrates that perfectly.


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[Assistant] Sam Van Arsdale owned and trained a number of dogs. Getting them ready for hunting required constant work, and so he was frequently outside with the dogs, barking commands at them and watching how they responded and obeyed.


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[Assistant] And all of them did, except for Jim. Instead of doing what he was told, Jim had a habit of just slinking off toward a patch of shade and laying down for a nap. I think all of us can relate.


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[Assistant] One day though, Sam took all of the dogs out on a hunt. The sun was high in the sky, and the air was hot, and perhaps with a slight bit of sarcasm, Sam looked at Jim, his disobedient, shade-loving rebel, and told the pup that he should just go find a hickory tree to rest beneath.


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[Assistant] Amazingly though, Jim did exactly that, finding the lone hickory nearby and curling up.


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[Assistant] Now, I probably don't need to tell you that it's quite unusual for a dog to be able to identify trees by name. I'll freely admit that I can't even do that myself, at least not without help from an app on my phone. But Jim proved to be the exception to the rule. Over time, Sam tested the dog out, and he identified even more.


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[Assistant] After that, Sam branched out and started asking Jim to distinguish between colors that he called out or the make and model of nearby cars.


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[Assistant] And Jim the Wonder Dog handled it all without breaking a sweat. Pretty soon, Sam was asking even harder questions. If someone is feeling unwell, he once asked the dog, who should they go see?


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[Assistant] To answer him, Jim would trot over to the local physician standing nearby and rub his nose on the man's pant leg.


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[Assistant] Of course, talent like that is hard to keep a secret, right? Folks in their corner of Missouri started to whisper and those whispers grew until finally people from all over started to pay Jim a visit, hoping for answers to their own questions.


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[Assistant] Many, in an echo of lady wonder, simply came looking to know about their unborn babies, but others asked about sports results as well.


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[Assistant] The one person took all of the names of the horses competing in the Kentucky Derby that year and wrote each one out on a slip of paper. And then after spreading those slips on the ground,


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[Assistant] There were skeptics, of course, because there will always be skeptics about this sort of thing. One investigator asked for Jim to perform his usual tricks, but with owner Sam standing perfectly still so that no signals or cues could be given to the dog. Jim, however, passed with flying colors.


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[Assistant] And that age-old assumption also reared its ugly head, despite it being the 20th century, with at least one man claiming that the dog's powers were occult in origin.


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[Assistant] And I get the desire to look for answers, believe me. I think all of us would prefer truth over fiction, especially in the face of unbelievable stories like these.


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[Assistant] But none of the theories explain how the dog could identify a walnut tree, but never learn to respond to a simpler command like sit or roll over.


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[Assistant] What he wanted was to bury Jim in the family plot at Ridge Park Cemetery, but there was a rule against that. So instead, he tracked down the owner of the open field beside the cemetery and got permission to bury Jim as close as possible, right along the property line.


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[Assistant] Years later, Ridge Park Cemetery started to run out of room, which isn't all that uncommon, honestly, but they were able to expand by purchasing the field that Jim was buried in, which means that even now, in death, Jim and Sam will always be together.


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[Assistant] Lore is a podcast that's been around since 2015 with nearly 400 million downloads to date. You can learn more about this show plus the book series and the television adaptation over at lorepodcast.com.


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[Assistant] And of course, be sure to click on the subscribe button and the bell icon so that you don't miss future episodes. And if you enjoyed this one, click the thumbs up too.


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[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...


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[Assistant] For almost as long as we've had motion pictures, we've also had vampire stories. And rightly so. The tale of Dracula is a story of fear and suspense, and it's been told over and over again over the last century.


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[Assistant] Theater productions, early black and white films, and every successive film since the 1930s has proven that our love of the story of Dracula is just as undying as the monster himself.


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[Assistant] One of the results of this obsession with Dracula is that we often ignore or forget the other major players in that story. Mina Murray is a powerful, heroic woman who spends the bulk of the story fighting to destroy Dracula rather than wallowing in self-pity.


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[Assistant] Quincy Morris sacrifices himself to defeat the monster. And Jonathan Harker, Mina's eventual husband, strikes one of the killing blows. The novel is full of characters, but all seem to fade into the shadow cast by the vampire lord himself.


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[Assistant] Over the decades, his character has received a good amount of attention from fans of the book, and honestly, how can you blame them? He was intelligent, brave, and skilled in his craft, and in a lot of ways, Van Helsing represented something that we all aspire to be.


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[Assistant] It's a side effect of growing up with stories of creatures who want to hurt us. If there really is something living under the bed, or in the closet, or in that dark, damp corner of the basement.


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[Assistant] Then shouldn't someone care enough to protect us? If these creatures are the antagonists of our nightmares, then surely there are also protagonists. The heroes. The champions. Those brave souls who are tasked with fighting back.


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[Assistant] Van Helsing was a fictional construct, of course, but his character echoes an ancient, widespread belief that can be found in some form or another within many folktales. It seems that no matter what the monster might be, there are always those who fight them. And amazingly, those hunters still walk among us.


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[Assistant] Some of the earliest folk tales involving hunters of the supernatural can be found in Bulgaria and nearby countries. After five centuries of occupation by the Ottoman Empire, the Turks were finally pushed out of Bulgaria in the 1890s.


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[Assistant] During those first few years of freedom, the country's rich folklore and traditions were gathered up and recorded for the first time.


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[Assistant] And right at the center of these records were tales of the vampire.


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[Assistant] Tales with such power that people today still believe them and follow their prescriptions, such as the ritual exhumation of suspected vampires. It's a belief that runs deep, mostly because of intense fear and superstition. To many though, vampires were real, and they needed to be hunted down.


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[Assistant] As a result, there were people in these ancient Bulgarian communities called Sabatnik who could detect vampires. They were called upon when a village suspected a vampire was hunting and harming them.


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[Assistant] Once the grave of a suspect was dug up and the body exposed, the sabatnik would determine whether or not the corpse was really a vampire. If it was, they were also responsible for destroying it.


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[Assistant] This was a power each subotnique inherited at birth, according to the stories. You just had to be lucky enough to be born either on one of the days between Christmas and January 6th, a time known to ancient Catholics as the unclean days, or on a Saturday, which sounds pretty random to me, but hey, whatever.


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[Assistant] Another group of vampire hunters was known as the Vampyrsia. These were more akin to the modern version of Van Helsing that we know today. Destined to hunt vampires from birth, they traveled the land armed with weapons and tools, looking for battle.


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[Assistant] And they did all of this while following prescribed methods, like hunting on Saturdays and leading the vampires into graveyards where they were somehow weaker.


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[Assistant] And these Vampired Zia were heroes, often earning a good living from the gifts and donations of fearful villagers. There are even records of the provincial capital of Tarnovo actually employing a number of them full-time and sending them out to investigate and hunt when reports of vampires popped up.


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[Assistant] Honestly, you could film this stuff and pass it off as an underworld sequel, but it happened. And to me, that's what makes it so much more compelling.


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[Assistant] The idea of hunting wasn't isolated to Bulgaria though, or even limited to the concept of the vampire. Contemporary to these vampard zia tales were stories that highlighted another dangerous creature, one that walked right among us.


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[Assistant] The witch. And yes, we all already know that there was hysteria and persecution. Yes, there were hangings and burnings and other superstition-fueled acts of violence. But at the center of much of it, there were hunters.


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[Assistant] In 1486, a German Dominican friar named Heinrich Kramer wrote a book that he called the Malleus Maleficarum, the hammer of the witches. Kramer was more than a friar, though. He'd served for years as an inquisitor with orders from Pope Innocent VIII.


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[Assistant] After his retirement, he wrote what he believed to be the gold standard for understanding and identifying witches.


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[Assistant] The Catholic Church condemned the book just three years after it was published, but by then it was too late. The Malleus Maleficarum acted like an accelerant, thanks in part to Gutenberg's printing press, and it spread across Europe where it fueled the flames of religious hysteria and social unrest.


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[Assistant] The book was used for centuries to teach others about witches, where they came from, how to detect them, and what to do when you found one.


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[Assistant] And this was the world that Matthew Hopkins was born into in 1620 England. He was the son of a Puritan minister and was raised to fear the devil and lash out at what he saw as heresy.


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[Assistant] By the age of just 24, Hopkins had set up shop in Sussex under the title of Witchfinder General and began a short but devastating career in the discovery and conviction of witches.


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[Assistant] In the 350 years that spanned the early 1400s to the late 1700s, it's estimated that less than 500 people in total were executed for witchcraft in all of England.


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[Assistant] That's less than two executions per year, right? During their short two-year operation, though, Hopkins and his team were responsible for 300 of those deaths.


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[Assistant] This is the man who invented the swimming test for witchcraft that most people have heard about. The accused would be tied to a chair and tossed into a pond or a lake, and then Hopkins would wait to see if they floated. If they did, they were a witch and would be killed. If they sunk? Well, they still died, but with a clear name.


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[Assistant] It doesn't make sense to us, I know, but in the 1640s, Hopkins could do no wrong. People trusted him. His book, The Discovery of Witches, went on to fuel witch trials in the American colonies in the late 1600s, and some of his interrogation methods were even used in Salem, Massachusetts.


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[Assistant] Don't get me wrong, the man was a monster, but he also clearly left his mark as a witch hunter.


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[Assistant] One last thing. According to the Bulgarian folklore surrounding vampire hunters, there was one big risk for those in the profession. Anyone who served as a sabatnik or a vampirtsiya were the most at risk of becoming a vampire themselves.


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[Assistant] Even in England, Hopkins didn't die a hero. Instead he was viewed as a monster and a boogeyman.


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[Assistant] Rather than going down in history as some sort of heroic hunter, he inherited his own evil reputation because sometimes


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[Assistant] Whether the creature is a thing of our own invention, or simply the focus of a personal obsession.


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[Assistant] The hunter is always at risk of becoming the very thing they pursue.


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[Assistant] In 1968, Paramount released Rosemary's Baby, based on the hit novel from a year before.


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[Assistant] 1973 saw the release of the original Exorcist, followed by the Omen in 76. There was a satanic craze sweeping through America, a mixture of fear and fascination, and Hollywood wanted to capitalize on it. But it's often overlooked that that craze was preceded by an earlier wave of fear, way across the Atlantic and England.


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[Assistant] And during the late 1960s, everywhere parents looked, they saw danger and darkness. Reports of kidnappings and drug use led to panic, and as a result, it took on the flavor of a witch hunt.


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[Assistant] And that's ironic, because one of the recurring tropes in stories that portrayed Satanists as monsters was the idea that they kill infants. And that's an idea that was born centuries before in the pages of none other than the Malleus Maleficarum.


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[Assistant] For many, that connection was more than a coincidence. They saw conspiracy. And as we know, fear has a way of clouding our perceptions. So when London locals began to notice graffiti and vandalism inside the historic Highgate Cemetery, they jumped to dark conclusions.


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[Assistant] Now, Highgate is an old cemetery. 200 years old, in fact. It was popular for the first century, but then tastes changed and war broke out. During World War II, most of the men who served as groundskeepers and caretakers in the cemetery were called into military service, leaving the place unattended.


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[Assistant] Later on, German bombs left parts of the graveyard damaged and exposed. And over the following decades, trees and brush began to overtake the property.


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[Assistant] After that, young people in vandals began to spend more time inside the cemetery, and reports circulated of occult symbols, open graves, and bodies that had been moved for unknown reasons. Obsessed with the dangers of Satanism, the public began to do what the public has always been very good at doing. They lashed out.


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[Assistant] In early 1969, a group emerged that promised to help. They called themselves the British Occult Society, and their aim was to investigate the unusual events and vandalism taking place in the cemetery. Unlike a lot of the general public, this group was even brave enough to enter the overgrown graveyard and explore it with hopes of finding answers.


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[Assistant] According to the two men at the center of the group, Sean Manchester and David Ferent, what they found confirmed earlier reports, and they also listened to others in the neighborhood who had stories of their own to share. Which is where they first encountered the rumors of something, maybe a person, or maybe something else, that prowled the graveyard at night.


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[Assistant] The stories described it as a tall, dark figure that could paralyze those who encountered it. Ferent was intrigued, and so on December 21st of 1969, he camped out in the cemetery overnight.


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[Assistant] It was the Winter Solstice. He was a paranormal investigator. It all sort of lined up in his mind, at least. And according to him, the night was a huge success.


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[Assistant] The way he described it, at some point during the hours between dusk and dawn, Ferent witnessed a person that stood over seven feet tall. This figure apparently had eyes that glowed brightly, but when Ferent looked away for a moment, it vanished.


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[Assistant] He wrote to the local paper and asked if others had seen the same figure. Amazingly, for about two months, letters flooded in from others who described similar experiences. About the same time, though, Ferent's partner, Sean Manchester, left the group to start his own and made further discoveries. His findings, though, were more bloody.


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[Assistant] He believed the stories of the mysterious dark figure, but he also found numerous animals in the cemetery that had been drained of blood. Upon inspection, he reported that each of them had small holes in their neck.


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[Assistant] When the local papers asked him if he had a theory he told them he did. The figure, according to Manchester, was clearly a vampire.


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[Assistant] And not just any vampire, this was what he called a king vampire, brought over from Wallachia in the 1700s by a curious noble, and then buried on the estate that eventually became Highgate.


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[Assistant] All of the satanic activity, according to him, was the work of local occultists trying to resurrect this creature.


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[Assistant] So Manchester offered to hunt it down and exercise it. He acknowledged that the law made it a bit, uh, difficult to go around plunging wooden stakes into corpses, but he had already done it twice before. According to him, he was willing to put his life on the line to track down and destroy the king vampire.


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[Assistant] Few people bought it. They did believe that something was going on inside the cemetery though, so the police began to patrol the area, watching for anything out of the ordinary. Over the next few months, they chased a number of vandals out of the graveyard, but none of them turned out to be anything more than teenagers pretending to be vampire hunters, just out looking for a thrill.


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[Assistant] And then, on August 1st of 1970, something happened that changed all of that. That night, police were called to Highgate Cemetery and directed to one particular crypt that was deep inside the property. When they arrived, they found the tomb door standing wide open, and inside, stretched out on the cold stone floor, was a body.


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[Assistant] not particularly odd given the location but it was the condition of the body that alarmed them it had been charred beyond recognition and then decapitated


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[Assistant] The police went public with the discovery and admitted that this, of all the things they'd found in Highgate so far, could actually be the work of occultists. And that was all the public needed.


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[Assistant] The paper is filled with headlines, people couldn't help but jump to conclusions, and both Sean Manchester and David Ferent were right in the middle of it, examining the clues and trying to make sense of it all.


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[Assistant] They weren't on the same side anymore though. Each man had started to adopt his own unique methods of investigation, some of which were a bit unorthodox. Two weeks after the burned body was discovered, Ferent was discovered by police to be wandering the cemetery at night.


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[Assistant] When they arrested him for trespassing, he was found to be carrying a large crucifix and a sharp wooden stake.


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[Assistant] His group didn't stop though. They began to camp overnight in the graveyard on a more regular basis, finding more unusual clues, all of which pointed, to them at least, to the work of a group bent on resurrecting the King Vampire.


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[Assistant] One night, Ferent took a reporter from the evening news into Highgate with him, and together they discovered a crypt with an eerie scene. The body had been removed from the coffin inside the building and placed in the center of a large pentagram that had been drawn on the stone floor.


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[Assistant] Ferent and his group also claimed to find bodies with voodoo dolls, bodies with missing heads, skulls placed in odd locations, and symbols that hinted at rituals from previous nights. All of it, they said, pointed to a dark evil that needed to be stopped. Their efforts, as risky as they seemed, were aimed at doing just that.


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[Assistant] Months later, Ferret was arrested a second time, and this time his girlfriend joined him. The police apparently thought the couple was transporting marijuana, but it turned out to be a plastic bag of chamomile, of all things. They claimed that it was an ingredient in one of their rituals.


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[Assistant] According to them, they had found a crypt that showed signs of a recent black magic ceremony and so their group had gone there to cleanse it.


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[Assistant] Once they had all gathered inside the tomb, they stood in a circle around the perimeter of the room, reading passages from the Bible along with spells they claimed had been lifted from ancient books of magic. Some of the women in the group even stripped to dance naked in the center of the room. They were symbols of purity, according to Ferent.


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[Assistant] Manchester publicly disapproved. He preferred to conduct his exorcisms in broad daylight, which allowed him to be safer and, as some critics pointed out, also made it more likely that there would be an audience around to watch him. But that didn't mean that his rituals were any less entertaining.


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[Assistant] At one point, Manchester claimed that he was led to a tomb by a young woman possessed by a demonic spirit named Lucia. Inside the tomb, he claimed, was an ancient coffin with no nameplate. He had opened the coffin and was about to plunge a wooden stake into the corpse when another member of his group stopped him.


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[Assistant] Instead, Manchester simply sprinkled the body with holy water and cloves of garlic.


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[Assistant] According to witnesses, as he did this, loud rhythmic booms could be heard, growing louder the deeper into the ritual they went.


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[Assistant] Events in Highgate seemed to end shortly after January of 1974. On the 12th of that month, local police were called to inspect the car of a local resident parked near the cemetery. Inside, they found an embalmed corpse seated at the wheel, its head removed, and nowhere to be found.


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[Assistant] Ferent was interviewed as a suspect, but in the end it turned out to be a prank put on by a group of local teenagers. One of them had actually taken the head home and kept it on his mantle. Until it began to smell, that is.


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[Assistant] Over the past few decades, Manchester has found a way to make a career out of his adventures in Highgates and has become known as a vampire expert appearing in many television documentaries on the subject. He's written two books, one about the Highgate vampire and another, a handbook for would-be hunters.


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[Assistant] David Ferent experienced less success in the wake of the events. He was arrested in 1974 for vandalizing property within the cemetery.


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[Assistant] He denied any involvement, of course, but the police were hungry for a real suspect after nearly five years of activity. He was sentenced to four years in prison but was paroled after just two when it was determined that his rights had been violated. He went back to heading up the British Occult Society where he still works today.


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[Assistant] Newspapers at the time featured photos of him with his vampire hunting tools. He was referred to as the Graveyard Ghoul by one local paper, and another called him a Wicked Witch. In a book written by Manchester in 1991, he refers to Ferent as a wayward witch who dabbled in the black arts.


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[Assistant] It seems that in the eyes of some, at least, David Ferent suffered a fate similar to Matthew Hopkins. Rather than succeeding, the young man became the very thing that he was hunting.


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[Assistant] When this episode first published, it was Halloween. It's one of my favorite times of the year. It's one of the few moments when we stop and acknowledge the shadows, the mystery, and the unknown. Because life without mystery is stale and flat, and days like Halloween help to add texture to our lives.


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[Assistant] On Halloween, millions of children are going to dress up and walk through their neighborhoods. They've each got a favorite creature, something they want to become for this one night of the year when it's expected and normal. And they'll do all of this like hunters on a mission.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, the teens who live near Highgate still creep into the graveyard every year. Each Halloween, they find a way inside, gather together, and go on their unique vampire hunts. And that's no easy task these days. The cemetery has been cleaned up, locked up, and opened to the public only for paid guided tours.


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[Assistant] Still, the youth of the area managed to celebrate Halloween there each and every year.


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[Assistant] Twenty years before the events in Highgate Cemetery, though, there was another gathering of youth farther north, in the Scottish city of Glasgow. Glasgow is a port city that straddles the River Clyde and is the second largest in the country.


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[Assistant] South of the river, just north of the M74, is a neighborhood known as the Gorbals.


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[Assistant] It's an area of the city that has a rough history. The industrialization and overpopulation of the late 1800s led to the construction of tenement slums throughout the first half of the 20th century. It's gone through some attempted redevelopment, but in the 1950s it was probably at its lowest point.


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[Assistant] One night in September of 1954, a police constable named Alex Deeprose was called to investigate a disturbance at the Southern Necropolis, a burial ground as old as Highgate and just as textured and creepy in its own way.


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[Assistant] When the officer got to the cemetery, he found that some of the neighborhood children had gathered there. Hundreds of children, in fact, ranging in ages from 4 to 14. And they were armed.


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[Assistant] Deep Rose managed to gather them all together and lead them out of the graveyard, but the following night they were back. Each of the children carried something dangerous with them. Knives, sticks, metal bars. Some even brought dogs along. And Deep Rose wanted to know why.


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[Assistant] Some of the children told him that two local boys had been killed and they had come to the graveyard for revenge. The constable didn't know of any murders in the area, but then again there was a lot that went on in the gorbals that went unreported. But he was concerned about the gatherings and so he spoke to some of the parents.


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[Assistant] Understandably, they were concerned. Some were worried about the safety of their children. Some were concerned about the stories and what it said about their fascination with violence and danger. But despite the concern, hundreds more arrived at the cemetery the very next night.