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[Assistant] Constable Deeprose returned to disperse them again, but he also wanted to know what it was they were hunting. Who killed these two mysterious boys, and why did they think that they could find the suspect there, in this particular graveyard? The killer, he was told, was a vampire. A vampire that stood over seven feet tall, with sharp teeth, and glowing eyes.


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[Assistant] Vampires. What would our world be like without them? They're a perennial favorite in popular culture and one of the most famous monsters in folklore. Would it be bad taste to say the vampires are in our blood?


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[Assistant] But not all tales of blood-drinking monsters have that Brom Stoker color palette and je ne sais quoi. Some actually come from more unlikely corners, and we've dug one up to share with you. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Vampires and vampire hunters are two sides of the same coin. Good versus evil, dark versus light. In popular culture, vampire hunters are often described as altruistic crusaders immune to the temptations of the devil. But the truth is often more complicated than fiction.


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[Assistant] And every now and then, the dark tends to bleed into the light.


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[Assistant] Pope Innocent VIII was a pious man who had commanded the likes of Heinrich Kramer, author of the Malleus Maleficarum, the book I mentioned earlier in the episode. But unlike his papal name, he was anything but innocent.


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[Assistant] Born in 1432 in Genoa, Italy, Innocent's true name was Giovanni Battista Saibo, a man of Greek descent and the son of Erano Saibo, the viceroy of Naples. Earlier in life, Giovanni had become a priest and advisor to Cardinal Calandrini, the half-brother of Pope Nicholas V.


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[Assistant] And he may have been a devoutly religious man, but he was also not naive. From a very young age, he knew how to play the political game, and focused his ambition toward the highest Catholic seat in the land. That of Pope.


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[Assistant] For years, Sibo operated in the shadows, along with Cardinal Juliano de la Rovere, who orchestrated everything. De la Rovere visited with several of his fellow cardinals in the night, promising them land, goods, and most importantly, power, as long as they voted for Sibo to become the next pope.


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[Assistant] And those backroom dealings worked. In August of 1484, Giovanni Battista Saibo was elected the new Pope. Dubbed Pope Innocent VIII, his name was almost ironic in its attribution, seeing as how he was involved in numerous moral, ethical, and financial scandals.


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[Assistant] For one, he participated in slavery, with the moral justification that slaves could eventually be converted to Catholicism. He was also a warmonger, funding various religious conflicts that wiped out the papal treasury. To make up his losses, innocent would invent new political and religious posts, and then sell them to who could afford to fill them. Like I said, he was anything but innocent.


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[Assistant] On top of his political machinations, the Pope was a staunch opponent of witches and witchcraft.


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[Assistant] He was known to dispatch inquisitors to Germany to put people on trial for witchcraft, and in 1484 did so under a papal bull called Sumus Desiderantes Effectibus, a Latin phrase that basically means to desire with supreme passion.


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[Assistant] This edict had been written in direct support of Heinrich Kramer's request for backup in his job of hunting witches. It outlined several important points. First, that witches did in fact exist. It also gave full permission to the Inquisition for, and this is a quote, correcting, imprisoning, punishing, and chastising anyone accused.


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[Assistant] By 1492, though, innocence, vim, and vigor was all but gone. He had become gravely ill and emaciated. One witness, Filippo Valori, described him as an inert mass of flesh incapable of assimilating any nourishment but a few drops of milk from a young woman's breast.


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[Assistant] You see, back then, lactating women were sent to the Pope to provide him with nourishment. Obviously, a gross abuse of power.


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[Assistant] But legend has it that breast milk wasn't the only liquid that passed his lips. He also drank other things to maintain his grip on what little life he had left. Italian historian and lawyer Stefano Infasura wrote in his diaries that Pope Innocent also ingested human blood.


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[Assistant] According to the tales, the Pope's condition had grown so bleak that he suffered a stroke and then slipped into a coma.


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[Assistant] Desperate to wake him and renew his vitality, his doctors decided the best course of action would be to feed him the blood of a child. Three ten-year-old boys were given one gold coin each in exchange for their blood, which was then fed to the unconscious pope.


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[Assistant] Sadly, all three of the boys died from the procedure, and so did the sick pope.


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[Assistant] So why did the doctors do it? Well, the idea of vampirism was commonly talked about even back then, and it was possible that they believed drinking blood, especially the youthful blood of a child, would grant eternal life, or at least a restoration of what had been lost. But perhaps the most important question of all is,


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[Assistant] Did this actually happen? Well, the Pope did indeed die in a sad and pitiful fashion, but the story about his vampiric attempt at revitalization is likely a later invention. In fact, the truth might actually be even darker, and it has to do with the fact that Infasura's diary entries highlighted the Jewish heritage of Innocence Physician.


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[Assistant] His story may have helped spread the horrific and false conspiracy of blood libel, or the belief that Jewish people killed young Christian boys and harvested their blood for dark religious rituals. It was, of course, just an absurd rumor, but one that damaged how Jewish people were perceived for centuries to come.


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[Assistant] Regardless of what you do believe, the story does one thing very well. It proves that the most terrifying monsters aren't the ones that fly at night and want to suck our blood. They're the ones who use belief to oppress others.


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


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


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


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[Assistant] Now don't get me wrong, I'm usually a planner. I love mapping out a schedule or building a roadmap for a new project. But every now and then, the unexpected is a welcome change.


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[Assistant] For the archaeologists working in northern Sudan back in 2018, I imagine they had similar hopes. They were working in an ancient cemetery that had already revealed a collection of human remains. But it was a small, 3000-year-old pyramid-shaped tomb that held the promise of surprise.


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[Assistant] You see, typically structures like that were the resting place of high-ranking officials. So I imagine the team was gearing up for something amazing that day. And yes, what they found was certainly unexpected, but it was way outside their assumptions. It was a horse.


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[Assistant] And not just any horse. The skeleton was completely intact, without a bone missing, and there were even pieces of the animal's coat still clinging to the bone. At 3,000 years old, that's practically unheard of. And yet it was still in the same position it had been buried in. Almost lifelike. Oh, and one more thing.


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[Assistant] Inside the horse's grave, archaeologists found the iron bit it had been buried with. It turns out it's one of the oldest pieces of worked iron ever discovered in Africa, and it shows us a powerful truth. For thousands of years, the rise and evolution of humanity has had one common ingredient. The horse.


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[Assistant] It's no wonder so many cultures have made a home for horses in their daily lives. Or that countless mythologies and ancient stories include them.


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[Assistant] But while all of that is fascinating, much of it pales in comparison to the darker tales, where horses serve as so much more than simple transportation. So saddle up and come along, because we're going for one thrilling ride.


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[Assistant] It all started with some protein. Some 50,000 years ago, horses were nothing more than another animal that our ancestors would hunt for food, right alongside mammoths, bears, deer, and others. They were, to borrow the phrase, good eats.


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[Assistant] It turns out protein was super important to how humans grew as a species. As hunter-gatherers, fuel was essential to give them the energy to do all of that hunting and gathering. So their food needed to be packed with nutrients. And horse, I'm sorry to say, was one of the best, with 50% more protein than beef.


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[Assistant] Of course, we eventually learn to partner with horses instead of eating them. Historians think that switch happened around 3500 BC, somewhere out on the expansive grasslands north of the Black Sea.


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[Assistant] But it didn't stay there before long horses as transportation and labor animals spread far and wide.


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[Assistant] And maybe because it felt like horses had always been there, a part of our lives and daily struggles, that they soon became part of the stories we told around the fire at night, or in public gathering places. Which is why you can find them scattered all throughout global folklore and mythology.


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[Assistant] The Greeks of course had Pegasus, that white-winged flying horse born to supernatural parents Poseidon and Medusa. And while they had no specific horse goddess, they did attach horse-like features to figures like Athena, Hera, and Demeter.


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[Assistant] And in stories where Greek gods transformed into animals, the horse was always a common favorite.


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[Assistant] Farther east, in India, we are told that the goddess Saranyu tried to escape from a bad marriage to Vivasvat by shape-shifting into a horse, although sadly that didn't end well for her. Oh, and their two sons, the Ashvins, they are described as twin horsemen, often depicted traveling by chariot.


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[Assistant] Speaking of which, in Nordic mythology, we have Slipnir, the favorite horse of Odin. It's said that because of its eight legs, it was the fastest horse in all the nine realms. Perhaps that's why Odin always rode Slipnir when he wanted to visit the world of the dead, knowing that he could escape thanks to the horse's speed.


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[Assistant] The Celts from Gaul had Epona, whose name literally just means horse. And once the Robins arrived in central Europe, they took the cult of Epona and transplanted it back home, where it thrived.


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[Assistant] And the Welsh had their own goddess, Rhiannon, who is described as a beautiful woman in golden silks, riding, you guessed it, a white horse.


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[Assistant] And when an animal is that important to so many cultures, it's common to have celebrities. In fact, history has a number of famous horses for us to enjoy. And the first of those might be Bucephalus, companion to Alexander the Great.


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[Assistant] So important was that horse that, when it died in battle in 326 BC, Alexander declared an entire city to be built on the spot of its death. Named, of course, Alexandria Bucephalus. It flourished for a couple of centuries, but today its precise location is unknown to historians.


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[Assistant] Another conqueror's horse is also on the list. Marengo, the warhorse of Napoleon Bonaparte. Now there are a lot of stories about how strong this horse was, with some claiming the steed carried Napoleon from Paris to Moscow and back again, a trip of over 3500 miles.


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[Assistant] But when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, the British captured Marengo, which might explain why the horse outlived its little owner. Today you can find Marengo's skeleton on display at the National Army Museum in London.


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[Assistant] Oh, and speaking of Waterloo, the man who defeated Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington,


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[Assistant] Well, it was apparently common for people to take snippets of hair from his mane and tail and actually turn it into jewelry. So maybe it should come as no surprise that upon Copenhagen's death, the Duke kept the location of his grave a secret for fear that people would come hunting for souvenirs.


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[Assistant] A heartfelt tribute to a courageous companion, for sure. But throughout history, horses have done more than carry us into battle. In fact, judging by the stories we find in folklore, they have been the vehicle upon which some pretty frightening things have arrived. And naturally, I want to tell you all about them.


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[Assistant] Like so many things, this one is a gift to us from the Irish. Because if there's any sort of granddaddy of horse-adjacent folklore, it's the Dulahan. But to understand some of this figure's meaning, we need to go back further to an old Celtic god named Cromdove, whose name literally means the dark and crooked one.


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[Assistant] It's said that the Dulahan is the physical embodiment of that god, depicted as a headless rider on a black horse, often with his head tucked under one arm.


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[Assistant] Sometimes, rather than a single horse, the stories about the Dulahan have him riding a full-on black carriage pulled along by a team of black horses, who he whips with a repurposed human spine. Horses, by the way, that are being driven so hard by their master that fire actually spits out of their nostrils and off their hooves.


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[Assistant] And look, I know a lot of legends have some sort of headless rider figure, but the Dullahan is believed to be the oldest, the darkest, and the most chilling. And because of that, it's also most likely the root of all the rest, including America's legend of Sleepy Hollow. But it's amazing how many other headless rider stories are scattered across England.


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[Assistant] For example, one man writing in his 1960s recorded that the little town of Brill, about 10 miles from Oxford, had not one, but four different horsemen legends. Not four versions, but four unique separate figures, each with their own backstory and different characteristics.


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[Assistant] One was said to be the ghost of a Roman soldier, while another was seated atop a black hearse. A third was described as a cavalier from the English Civil War era, and the final ghostly rider had no story at all, but simply haunted one of the roads into town.


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[Assistant] Farther north, in Stratfordshire, there are even more variations on the headless horseman theme. One story tells of a dark rider who travels the road outside the village of Ancot. Some say it's the spirit of a murdered peddler, while others believe it's a great knight killed in battle, or maybe one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.


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[Assistant] This rider has been described as sitting atop a white horse, rather than a black one, but headless like so many others. And over the years, a handful of locals have actually reported encounters with it. In fact, one man came face to face with the headless rider at the crossroads just after World War II, and he described it as an awful, gory sight.


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[Assistant] But England doesn't have a monopoly on headless writer stories. In fact, back in Europe, Germany has its own contribution to the larger story. And they call him Hans Jegenteufel.


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[Assistant] The general legend says that anyone who commits a crime punishable by beheading but gets away with it without getting caught will find that punishment after death in the form of wandering headless through the woods. Which is how Hans Jagen Teufel ended up prowling the forests of Germany back in the early parts of the 1500s.


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[Assistant] Now as difficult as it is to believe, one woman in 1644 claimed to have actually met this headless ghost. It said that she had gone into the woods one day to gather acorns from someone else's property. In other words, theft. Only to be startled by the sound of a great horn being blown in the distance.


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[Assistant] A moment later, a loud crashing sound began to approach her, so she hid her stolen acorns. And just in time too, when she looked up, there was a man on horseback before her, his head tucked neatly beneath one arm.


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[Assistant] You've stolen an entire sack of acorns, and yet no one has tried to punish you for it.


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[Assistant] No, the frightful woman replied, knowing full well what the ghostly man intended. But I pray for your forgiveness.


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[Assistant] Frustratingly though, I can't find an ending to the story, so I have no idea whether the woman suffered for her crimes. Clearly though, if she shared the experience, she'd live to talk about it.


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[Assistant] Which is a happy ending, because considering the alternatives, it could have gone worse.


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[Assistant] Because if you dig deep enough into the folklore around dark riders, headless or not, one theme always seems to rise to the surface. Ghostly horsemen often show up to deliver something that most people want to avoid. Death.


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[Assistant] Headless riders terrorizing locals is a frightening picture for sure, but it's just the tip of a darker iceberg. If you remember the two variations of the Dullahan, one on horseback and one atop a carriage, then you know we've only covered half the story.


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[Assistant] Nearly as common as headless horsemen are stories of phantom coaches or coaches of death. Why are they called that, you might wonder? Well, because they are believed to literally deliver death to your door. In fact, in some legends, simply encountering the headless coachman is enough to end your days in the land of the living.


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[Assistant] One story written down for us many years ago involved a team of men working on road repair outside the town of Sanford on Thames.


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[Assistant] That being out at night too long increased the likelihood that they might encounter the death coach.


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[Assistant] And it's the sort of folklore that runs the full social ladder, from local workmen all the way up to royalty. There's a legend that every year on the anniversary of Anne Boleyn's execution, she arrives at her childhood home of Blickling Hall, seated in a black carriage, drawn by four headless horsemen.


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[Assistant] The dead queen is said to be dressed in white, and she holds her severed head upon her lap.


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[Assistant] But there's one variation on the dead coach folklore that's especially powerful. In Ireland, the legend has the same flavor as that of the Banshee, in that it's a haunting that's said to be limited to the old families of wealth and power.


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[Assistant] But where the Banshees announce the arrival of death by wailing loudly, the death coach does it in a different way.


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[Assistant] It said that if the phantom coach is heard approaching, one can avoid death from stopping at your property by throwing the gate wide open.


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[Assistant] It's counterintuitive, I know. You'd think that opening the gate would make it easier for the carriage to roll up and deliver bad news. But the opposite is true. The death coach, it seems, is drawn to closed gates.


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[Assistant] And this is how things played out one evening in June of 1806 in Ireland's County Clare. That was where an elderly man named General Ralph Westrop lived safely inside his luxurious manor house complete with walls and a front gate.


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[Assistant] But General Westrop wasn't doing so well. In fact, on the night of June 18th, he was deathly ill in bed. So naturally, his family was gathered around him, praying for a miracle and yet fully expecting death to arrive at any moment. But at some point in the middle of the night, his sons went out for some fresh air. And that's when they heard the sound.


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[Assistant] It was a common enough sound, to be sure. Carriages rumble down roads nearby all the time. But at this hour? Well, that meant that it could only really be one coach in particular. One pulled by headless horses. The Death Coach.


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[Assistant] Both men rushed to the front gate, just as they caught sight of a ghostly carriage rumbling into the paved courtyard in front of the house. Just in time, as the carriage began to slow, they threw the iron gate wide open. Thankfully, the death coach continued on.


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[Assistant] But a moment later, they heard it stop at the neighbor's estate. Afraid that they had delivered death to someone else, both men dashed down the road, hoping to catch the gatekeeper in time to tell him to open it up. But when they arrived, there was no carriage to be seen, and the gate was still locked.


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[Assistant] Calling out for help, someone in the neighbor's house came down to see what the commotion was all about. And after hearing their story, they ran to check on the gatekeeper inside his booth nearby.


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[Assistant] They found him asleep and feverish and carried him inside to recover. But by morning, the man was dead.


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[Assistant] It's hard to go too far into the pages of history without bumping into horses.


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[Assistant] From the chariots of ancient Egypt to the streets of 19th century New York, horses feel like one of those rare historical constants. Always there, always moving things forward. Sometimes literally.


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[Assistant] And I can't help but wonder and wax poetical about what we lost as a society when horses were replaced by automobiles. In the same way that something inside us broke when we stopped growing and raising our own food and started buying it in bulk from chain stores.


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[Assistant] I sense that we, as humans, are worse off by not having a daily relationship with these powerful noble creatures.


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[Assistant] Me, I'm lucky enough to live in an area of the northeast that's famous for its horses. Anytime I take a drive, all I have to do is glance off into the fields to spot a handful of them, casually hanging out. Today, horses seem to be symbols of a lost age, a better time, and a piece of the past that's comforting and good. Clearly, though, that hasn't always been the case.


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[Assistant] Even just a century ago, if one were to imagine death traveling by some great distance to deliver bad news to you or your family, there was only one way to picture it traveling. By horseback.


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[Assistant] Headless or not, a dark rider galloping down the road in the middle of the night must have been a terrifying prospect.


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[Assistant] The story of General Westrop seems to suggest that death is something we can all escape, but clearly that's not an option. Which is why I enjoy another story from County Claire, because it plays with our hopes and expectations.


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[Assistant] On the night of December 11th of 1876, a servant working inside the house of a family by the name of McNamara was going about his evening rounds. His master, the Admiral Sir Burton McNamara, was away on business in London, but the household was a machine that needed to run smoothly and consistently.


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[Assistant] It was in that quiet hour of the night that this servant heard a troubling sound, the rumble of many horses and the clatter of carriage wheels. In his recounting of the experience, the man explained that because of the manor's remote location and the time of day, he knew it was no mortal vehicle. He knew what it represented.


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[Assistant] Rushing down to the front of the property, he found all three gates shut. As quickly as he could, he opened them, one after the other. It was such a close call that the man literally threw himself against the last gate and landed face down in the gravel as the black horse-drawn carriage slowed and then continued on. The crisis had been averted. Or had it?


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[Assistant] You see, no one in the house died that night, but that might simply be because the person Death was looking for wasn't actually home. The following day, far away in London, a servant called upon Admiral McNamara, but no one answered. So he let himself in, only to discover a journey that started in Ireland had finally reached its end. The Admiral was dead.


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[Assistant] Horses might be most at home galloping through fields of grassland, but they can actually travel through water pretty well, too. In fact, aqua therapy is a training method for a number of show horses because it allows for strong exertion without the impact, helping them to avoid injury.


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[Assistant] But when I tell you that I want to talk about water horses, we're going to need to leave all of that other stuff behind.


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[Assistant] Now there are a lot of cultures around the world that have some form of water horse. Australians have the bunyip, and in Germany they have the nyxie. Up in Scandinavia, it's the bakkenhasten, or brook horse. And ancient cultures had their own names for them too, like the hippocampus.


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[Assistant] But few countries have a more rich and textured folklore about water horses than Scotland.


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[Assistant] They call them the Ekushka, but most people know them as Kelpies. And for centuries, there have been a lot of ideas about what they are and where they come from. I won't have time to explore all of those avenues with you today, but I do want to focus on one of the more common ideas that Kelpies are servants of the devil.


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[Assistant] It's said that the Kelpie is a shapeshifter who is gifted with power by Satan himself in order to equip them to harvest souls for him. Their job, in a sense, is to deliver the spiritual goods, while their payment is on the physical side. Namely, they get to eat the bodies.


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[Assistant] Now, the way they hunt is supposed to be very tricky. You see, a Kelpie can't actually just run up and attack a person. They need to be touched or attacked first by a human. So they tend to shapeshift into the form of a beautiful horse, all decked out in a fancy bridle and wait for someone to come along and try to ride them.


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[Assistant] Once the person is in the saddle, the Kelpie shouts in victory, leaps into the air, and then dives deep underwater to devour their prize. And this of course is why Kelpies are only supposed to be found on roads near water.


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[Assistant] Where weary travelers can be lured by the promise of a free horse and get up close enough to the water for that big splash at the end.


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[Assistant] And that's how the story is meant to unfold, as it does in countless stories about the creatures. Two centuries ago, though, a Scottish folklorist named William Grant Stewart published what is believed to be the first collection of folklore from the Scottish Highlands, and in it is a Kelpie story that breaks the mold.


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[Assistant] In it, a man named James McGregor has an unusual adventure with a Kelpie near his home along Loch Ness. You see, McGregor was known throughout his area as a bit of a sorcerer, and when he learned that there was a Kelpie hunting and killing people in his area, he set out to stop it.


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[Assistant] McGregor knew his folklore well. He knew that Kelpies hunted travelers near water, and so he picked the most likely spot to find one. And find it, he did.


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[Assistant] There it was, in the space between the road and the water, a beautiful horse that seemed to be casually nibbling on grass. So McGregor approached it, pretending to be a thankful traveler.


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[Assistant] As he came within arm's reach of the creature, McGregor quickly drew his sword and slashed the blade across its head, cutting the flesh as well as the bridle itself. In fact, he managed to free the metal bit, which fell to the grass. With a flash, he plucked the bit from the ground and shoved it into a pocket.


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[Assistant] Hey, the Kelpie said to him, why would you go and do something like that? I didn't attack you after all.


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[Assistant] Ah, McGregor replied, but you were about to, weren't you? You've killed a number of people in this area, and I'm here to stop it.


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[Assistant] What ensued after that was a long conversation between the Warlock and the Kelpie. The creature made it clear that it wanted that bit returned and would go peacefully away.


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[Assistant] While the man made it clear that he didn't trust the beast and would not be handing its bit back, especially after the Kelpie revealed that the bit was a magical object that gifted it with the ability to shapeshift,


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[Assistant] Without it, it was forever stuck in the form of a normal, everyday horse.


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[Assistant] Knowing that he had the upper hand, McGregor turned and left.


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[Assistant] The entire walk home, the Kelpie, stuck in the shape of a horse, followed and begged to have the bit returned. But McGregor refused. After all, without its power, the Kelpie could no longer harm the people of the area.


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[Assistant] After arriving at his house, McGregor tried to enter, but the Kelpie ran to block his access to the door. A door topped with a Christian cross, carved of Rowan. So McGregor walked around to the side, tossed the bit to his wife through a window, and then returned.


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[Assistant] Learning that the bit was already inside, the Kelpie gave up and left. And according to Stewart, that metal bit from the bridle stayed in McGregor's family for generations. How did he know?


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[Assistant] Because the man who told him this tale was a man named George McGregor, descended from the original.


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[Assistant] George was the Arch Warlock of the North, as Stuart writes, from an illustrious line of warlocks, a line that apparently started with good ol' James McGregor and that stolen Kelpie bit. And as proof that the story was real, George McGregor showed Stuart not only the bit, but also the sword that cut it free.


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[Assistant] Some years after publishing the story, Stuart returned to the area to follow up on it, only to discover that old George MacGregor had passed away. But his children had inherited the sword and the bit, although by that time they claimed the magic of the items had essentially worn off.


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[Assistant] It's often said that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Which may very well be true, but no adage can ever be entirely correct.


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[Assistant] Lore has been a podcast since 2015 with over 375 million downloads to date. You can learn more about the show over at lorepodcast.com.


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


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[Assistant] Back in August of 2016, workers at St. John's College at the University of Cambridge opened up a section of wall to put in some new electrical wiring, and they stumbled upon something else. An old leather shoe.


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[Assistant] Now, let's be clear. Old buildings have a long history, and St. John's College has been around since 1511, making for plenty of time to accumulate old things.


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[Assistant] It wasn't anything fancy, just a dusty old shoe about the size of a modern six, and most likely worn by a man. But this simple old shoe, estimated to be about three centuries old, was more than just debris. It's a clue.


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[Assistant] You see, it's evidence of a practice that historians refer to as concealment. It was a folk ritual designed to protect the building that the object was hidden inside.


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[Assistant] How it was supposed to actually work is still a bit of a mystery, but there are some who believe that SHU is reviewed as capable of trapping the devil.


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[Assistant] And while thousands of old shoes have been found in walls, attics, and chimneys all across England and its former colonies, other items were concealed as well.


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[Assistant] We've talked about witch bottles here before, but folks also frequently hid locks of hair and wigs. It was believed that fairies or witches who might try to enter a home through the chimney would spot the hair, believe it was a real person standing guard, and then run away.


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[Assistant] But of all the types of objects found hidden inside the chimney or roof of an old home, one group always gets a bit more notice. Cats.


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[Assistant] Specifically, the mummified remains of entire cats concealed in hidden spaces to act as a charm to ward off invaders of both the spiritual and the material kind.


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[Assistant] Cats, you see, are special to a lot of people, and they have been for a very long time. From household companions to a central figure of the Halloween season, it's hard not to bump into them. And once you learn about the folklore, you'll understand why. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore.


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[Assistant] Ask any mythology and folklore fan about cats and they'll almost always make a common mistake. Most people will definitively state that the ancient Egyptians worshipped cats, which you might be surprised to learn is wrong.


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[Assistant] The ancient Egyptians had an entire pantheon of deities, some of which had animal-like features.


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[Assistant] Head of a jackal, head of a falcon, that sort of thing. And one of their gods was Bast, or Bastet, who is often depicted with the head of a cat.


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[Assistant] But the Egyptians didn't worship cats. They simply recognized that cats had a strong resemblance to best, and considered them special because of that. Is that nitpicky?


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[Assistant] Yeah, probably. But it'll make you popular at parties too, I'm sure.


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[Assistant] Bast had a number of different names, too. Lady of the East and Goddess of the Rising Sun were two common ones. Also, Goddess of the Moon. They even called her Sacred and All-Seen Eye, which I assume is a reference to that annoying thing that cats do when they walk away and lift their tails, but I could be totally wrong.


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[Assistant] Now one other place in Egyptian culture that cats made an appearance was in the home. Partly because they were helpful at killing pests like rodents, snakes, and scorpions. And partly because they were a living, breathing reminder of Bast, who was the goddess of health. Having cats around was thought to increase the health in the home.


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[Assistant] And they were revered so highly that whenever a cat died, they would be mummified, placed in a small coffin, and buried. Then the folks who lived in that home would celebrate their cats, often shaving their eyebrows as a sign of mourning, a period that would only end once their eyebrows had regrown.


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[Assistant] Now some cat mummies were manufactured on purpose. They were prepared by various priests available for purchase as a talisman and offering to Bast. In fact, some temples had mass tombs that they used to house all of these mummified animals that were brought to them.


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[Assistant] And friend, let me tell you, this was a big industry. Experts believe upwards of 70 million of these animal mummies were made and sold.


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[Assistant] But of course, Ancient Egypt didn't have a monopoly on cats. In fact, they feature quite heavily in a few other cultures around the world, too.


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[Assistant] The Babylonians considered them sacred as well, thanks to their resemblance to Nergal.


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[Assistant] Their god of death and war, who was often depicted in the form of a lion.


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[Assistant] Nearby in India, it was the tiger that was revered for its connection to Parvati, the goddess of power, motherhood, and balance. And centuries ago, the Scandinavian people loved and protected a breed of feline that they called the Skogkat, known today as the Norwegian forest cat.


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[Assistant] Why? Because the goddess Freya was said to have a chariot that was pulled by cats.


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[Assistant] In the folklore of the Ojibwe people in North America, there is even a creature known as the Mishi Peshu. It's commonly known as the Lake Panther and is said to resemble a giant cat with scales and horns of pure copper.


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[Assistant] And within the Buddhism of Siam, long ago, there was a particular sect that believed that those who lived a good enough life, the holiest and the best of the best, would be rewarded with the ultimate price. Their soul would be placed inside, you guessed it, a cat.


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[Assistant] It's honestly amazing just how many cultures and religions around the world have held them in high regard.


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[Assistant] They've been a protector of the living, a companion to the dead, and a symbol of fierce power. It's almost too easy to take it all for granted and just assume that everyone is on good terms with our feline friends.


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[Assistant] But the truth is, much of what we believe and discuss about cats falls into an entirely different camp. Because throughout history, there have been stories and superstitions that paint them in a darker light.


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[Assistant] Tales that have endured for centuries, altering the way we view these animals. But be warned, while these stories are fascinating, you may never look at cats the same way again.


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[Assistant] Chances are good that your Halloween decorations, or maybe that spooky t-shirt that you love to wear, displays one of the major symbols of the supernatural season. The black cat.


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[Assistant] But symbols often have more than one meaning, and the black cat is no exception.


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[Assistant] In England, for example, there's an old mining superstition that claims that it's bad luck to say the word cat while underground.


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[Assistant] In the Netherlands, it's thought to be a good idea to watch what you say around your cat, since they are considered to be terrible gossips.


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[Assistant] Cats have often been a source of divination over the centuries as well. In the area around Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, folks believe that you can tell the status of the tide by how wide a cat's eyes appear. And in Wales, the sound of a crying cat on board a ship means that there's a difficult voyage ahead.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, there's one folk belief that's shared between England and Japan, and it has to do with the dead.


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[Assistant] It seems that people in both countries, completely independently from what I can tell, believed that a cat had the power to reanimate the dead simply by jumping over the body.


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[Assistant] In England, those undead bodies became vampires. In Japan, though, they are simply puppets of a darker power. The cats themselves.


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[Assistant] Speaking of death, we can't forget about the Middle Ages and the deadly outbreak known as the Black Death. Many experts still believe that the illness was carried by fleas, which in turn were transported on rats. And knowing that, you and I might assume that cats were the hero of the day in any such outbreak. But sadly, it was quite the opposite.


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[Assistant] When the Black Death burned its way across Europe, hundreds of thousands of cats were killed in an effort to stop the spread. And one reason might just be connected to Pope Gregory IX.


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[Assistant] Why? Because in the year 1233, he issued a decree that declared Satan to be half cat, and therefore all cats were satanic, especially the black ones.


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[Assistant] Pope Innocent VIII added on to that idea in 1484 by stating that the cat was


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[Assistant] One more general bit of folklore concerning cats. It seems that for a very long time, people have believed that cats have the power to steal a baby's breath. And there are a lot of different explanations for why, and for how it works. But at the root, some scholars believe that it can all be traced back to the Renaissance belief that our soul is attached to our lips.


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[Assistant] This folklore first appeared in print in 1608, and within two centuries there were court cases blaming infant death on cats in the home. How? Well, some thought that the cats were drawn to the baby's lips because of the smell of milk, and then inadvertently licked the soul away.


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[Assistant] Others felt that it was more intentional, an attack by the cats on innocent children.


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[Assistant] This led to a more generalized folklore about how people shouldn't let their cats sleep near their infants, lest the animal put the baby at risk. But cats have always been a common household pet, and however tragic it may be, sometimes infants die. And you know how good people are at connecting the dots between two things that they feel must be related, even when they really aren't.


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[Assistant] Speaking of cats and babies, we can't forget the wonderful branch of folklore known as maternal impression. The belief that a pregnant woman's experiences might impress themselves upon the child that she will raise. And in England, it was believed that simply picking up a cat might cause the baby to be born with cat-like facial features.


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[Assistant] And look, I get it. People long ago held some pretty unusual beliefs. The amount of supernatural influence and power they attributed to the common house cat was practically at blockbuster superhero movie levels. And we do have to wonder just how committed most of those people were to those beliefs.


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[Assistant] But what's clear is that a good number of people did accept it all as the gospel truth. And we know that because of at least one story they left behind. A story that spread fear across an entire nation.


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[Assistant] There's a lot that we don't know about her story. Taking place in 1569, that's not unusual. Most people, for most of history, slipped through life without much by way of proof that they were ever there. And the same was almost true for Agnes.


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[Assistant] I say almost because the unusual nature of her story helped put a few more of the important details on record. As far as historians can tell, she was born around 1542, making her roughly 27 when her life took an unusual turn. Her father was a butcher, and she herself worked as a domestic servant in a house in Leicestershire, England.


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[Assistant] Now, back then, becoming a mother out of wedlock was practically a death sentence. She risked losing her job, being cut off from all of her friends, and being labeled by the church as a deviant. Needless to say, things weren't looking up for poor Agnes.


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[Assistant] In January of 1569, she went into labor. Whether or not the child would be welcomed by the community did not matter at that moment. But when it was over, folks noticed something. There was no baby. At least, not that they could hear or see.


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[Assistant] Now, for a woman in the position that Agnes found herself in, that was a problem, because people would start whispering that she had killed the infant herself to escape the stigma of motherhood outside of marriage. It wasn't a wildly common thing, but it also wasn't unheard of, and it was a crime, punishable by death.


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[Assistant] When asked, Agnes seemed to have an evolving story. At first, she told people that the child was healthy but being nursed by another woman in a nearby town. Then her story changed to a premature, stillborn birth sometime before Christmas a month earlier. But soon, one more explanation began to push all of the others out of people's minds.


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[Assistant] You see, later descriptions of the birth paint it that day in darkness. Literally, I mean. One of the women present, Margaret Harrison, later said that the midwives willed her to fetch a candle, for they had no light. And then when she returned with a candle, she saw something lying on the dirt floor, right where she expected to find the baby. But it was something else. Something unnatural.


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[Assistant] On January 22nd of 1569, just a couple of weeks after this rumored birth, Agnes was brought before the local archdeacon to testify in a religious court. That's where Margaret Harrison gave her description of a call for lights and of witnessing something odd. But others testified as well. One of the midwives, a woman named Margaret Rue,


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[Assistant] Claimed that prior to the birth that day she had examined Agnes to see how dilated she was and felt her finger get pricked by something sharp.


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[Assistant] The other midwife, Elizabeth Harrison, told the court about an experience that she had days before the birth while out walking with Agnes that came across a Dutch woman who saw the pregnant woman and, uninvited I would expect, predicted a moon calf would be born, an old name for something unnatural and inhuman.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth then attended the birth and claimed that the prediction came true. Agnes Baucher's child


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[Assistant] At first the midwives simply took it to a couple of local men to give it a look.


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[Assistant] After cutting it open, they found bits of bacon in its stomach, but noticed nothing else out of the ordinary. Then it was handed over to a deputy working for the Archdeacon, and he, if you'll pardon the pun, took another stab at the autopsy.


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[Assistant] With that, the story spread. And honestly, how could it not, right? Woman Gives Birth to Cat seems like a headline pulled straight from the pages of a 1986 copy of The Inquirer, right alongside photos of Batboy and the Loch Ness Monster. It was tailor-made for travelers to carry with them as they roamed far and wide. Agnes Bowker, they said, had done the unthinkable. She had given birth to a monster.


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[Assistant] From the ancient world to the modern home, cats have always had a place alongside us. And it's easy to understand why, given how important they were for protecting our ancestors, as well as the comfort and support that many folks today receive from them.


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[Assistant] One of the things that I love about folklore is that it acts as a sort of flypaper, capturing all of the things that people have considered important over the years.


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[Assistant] Some folklore deals with obtaining things of value like treasure or good health, while other bits reflect our hunger for safety and consistency. The fact that cats feature so heavily in global folklore is proof that they are, and always have been, an important part of human culture.


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[Assistant] For Agnes Bowker though, it seems cats were, at the very least,


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[Assistant] A scapegoat. To give birth and then stand before a church tribunal and claim that the baby had been a cat made for an entertaining and even horrifying revelation. So I hope you can see why the archdeacon needed to look into the matters.


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[Assistant] On the secular side though, the authorities needed other reassurances. You see, assuming the cat's story was just a curious tale, they still needed to determine the true events. Because if a human baby had been born, where had it gone?


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[Assistant] And if the answer was Infanticide, Agnes Bowker was on thin ice.


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[Assistant] On February 18th of 1569, about three weeks after her religious trial, the Earl of Huntingdon held his own as a representative of the Crown. Even the Secretary of State for Queen Elizabeth I, a guy named Edmund Grindle, got involved.


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[Assistant] And remember, they weren't looking for more stories of supernatural offspring. No, they needed firm evidence that a crime had or had not been committed.


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[Assistant] In the end, no one could prove that Agnes had killed her own baby. But the role of the cat seems to have been figured out. It turns out about a week before she gave birth, Agnes had asked her neighbor if she could borrow the lady's cat, but was told no.


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[Assistant] They went missing anyway though, perhaps lured into Agnes' home with a bit of bacon.


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[Assistant] Looking back, it's an unusual and bizarre collision between fact and fiction. Agnes found herself in a difficult place, and whatever the true outcome was going to be, history had taught her that there was a chance people might believe any outlandish story, as long as that story had enough folklore to back it up. And while it didn't work,


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[Assistant] It does serve as a reminder of just how easily the public can be swayed by a rumor and a bit of fear mongering, both then and even now.


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[Assistant] We want to believe in unusual connections, and I think it's fair to say that people will never give up looking for them. Because just like cats, our folklore seems to have nine lives.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned earlier, cats are found everywhere around the world. Whether characters of fiction or footnotes in history, just about everywhere you look, there's a cat to be found.


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[Assistant] Now before I explain one of these last feline traditions to you, we need to think back to the attitudes of medieval Europe toward cats. Remember, there was not one but two decrees by the Vatican concerning their connection to the devil, painting them with the brush of mistrust and fear. But of course, modern science might hold some of the answers.


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[Assistant] When it came to the dangers that cats pose to pregnant women, it might be helpful to look at the parasitic infection known as toxoplasmosis, which can be caused by contact with cat feces. The symptoms look a lot like the flu, too. Headache, fever, exhaustion, that sort of thing. But can also include blurry vision and seizures for both adults and their babies.


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[Assistant] Now of course we didn't invent toxoplasmosis. It's been around for centuries, maybe even thousands of years. Given the less sanitary conditions of the typical home way back then, people probably suffered from it a lot more often, too. And it probably didn't take long for folks to start drawing the connection between the illness and the cats.


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[Assistant] Throw in your normal everyday cat allergies with symptoms like coughing and wheeziness, and people might have started to think that their breath was being stolen. And with a couple of popes adding their own spin on the matter, I sometimes think it's a miracle the cats aren't extinct today.


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[Assistant] Which is the foundation for a bizarre tradition in the town of Ypres, in northwestern Belgium. You see, back in the Middle Ages, cats would be rounded up and captured, and then taken to the bell tower that overlooked the town square. And then, because they viewed these cats as agents of the devil,


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[Assistant] Some say they did it every spring to kill off the cats that they used throughout the winter to catch rats. Others think it was a warning shot aimed straight at the heart of local witches and the evil spirits that served them. Either way, it was a message written in blood.


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[Assistant] Back in 1955, though, a new tradition took the place of that ancient, more cruel one.


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[Assistant] Kattenstot, otherwise known as the Belgian cat-throwing festival, and it's just as delightful as the old version was deadly. Each May, people from all around gather in town for a celebration. At some point each year, a person dressed as a jester climbs up the many stairs that lead to the belfry, lugging a heavy sack over their shoulder.


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[Assistant] But the cats inside aren't alive, and they never were. They're just stuffed animals, to be tossed into the joyful arms of all the children who gather in a crowd down below in the square.


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[Assistant] And that's what I love about how the town handled their dark and twisted history. They remembered the past, yes, but they've also transformed it into a lesson about how wrong they once were and how it's possible to become better.


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[Assistant] It's good news for cat lovers for sure, but also a powerful lesson that any nation can look to for inspiration. History is valuable, but it's also full of mistakes. And it's our job as citizens of the modern world to hold both truths and tension, respecting the past while also demanding better of our future. A lesson we could all stand to learn from. All thanks to cats.


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[Assistant] As always folks, thanks so much for watching. Credits for today's episode are in the description below.


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[Assistant] Now Lore has been a podcast since 2015 with nearly 400 million downloads to dates. You can learn more about this show, plus the book series and the television adaptation on Amazon prime over at lorepodcast.com. And of course, be sure to click the subscribe button and the bell icon so that you don't miss future episodes. And if you enjoyed this one, click that thumbs up.


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


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[Assistant] There's something special about a family legacy. I'm sure we've all heard about people who have the same occupation as one of their parents, and I can't help but smile when that happens. The watchmaker who learned the trade from his father, or the artist who inherited the tools and training from hers.


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[Assistant] In some professions this family affair keeps old skills alive. It preserves them for one more lifetime, allowing the chain to keep going.


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[Assistant] But one family takes the prize for the most committed to that mission and they earned it by passing down the same occupation from generation to generation for over 170 years.


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[Assistant] The Knott family kicked off their amazing run in 1730. Founding father William Knott worked at the job for 50 years, passing away in 1780. But his son had entered the trade 13 years earlier and put in 41 years of his own.


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[Assistant] On and on they went, making sure the next generation understood the power and responsibility of their simple little jobs.


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[Assistant] Along the way, the Knots intermarried with the two other longest-serving families in their profession, creating one giant network of like-minded people. But while all of that is fascinating and even a bit delightful, what's most interesting is the career they all devoted their lives to. All of them, you see, were lighthouse keepers.


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[Assistant] It's a legacy worth celebrating, partly for the devotion and sheer longevity of it all, but also for the risk this family took in the call of duty. Their task might seem simple to us today, to keep the light burning all the time, but it was a job filled with countless dangers.


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[Assistant] And by taking a closer look at the lives of a few lighthouse keepers throughout history, one lesson seems to shine brighter than all the rest. The closer one stood to the light, the darker the shadows became.


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[Assistant] They are some of the most distinctive buildings in the world, and their recognition is almost universal. A tall tower of stone with a light on top. Maybe it's the simplicity of it all that's made them memorable, or perhaps it's the pure logic of their purpose.


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[Assistant] Humans have been building these coastal lights for thousands of years. And the rules have always been the same. The brighter the lights and the higher up it was placed, the more visible that light would be to passing ships. Lighthouses just make sense.


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[Assistant] The most famous one is probably the Lighthouse of Alexandria, officially called the Pharos. It was so magnificent that it was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but it was destroyed by a series of earthquakes, finally disappearing around the early 15th century.


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[Assistant] The oldest standing lighthouse in the world is most likely the Tower of Hercules in Spain, but it's no longer in use.


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[Assistant] One of the oldest lighthouses in the United States, though, still is. The Boston Light was constructed in the city's harbor back in 1716, the first on colonial soil, in fact, although it was rebuilt about 70 years later. Since then, it's kept Boston Harbor safe.


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[Assistant] But it's also the place where the first lighthouse keeper in what would one day become the United States died on the job. George Worthy Lake had been in the position of lighthouse keeper there for just over two years when he took his family to shore for a church service on November 3rd of 1718.


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[Assistant] On the way back, the canoe they were using capsized, and everyone on board tragically drowned.


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[Assistant] Clearly, the job of lighthouse keeper was one that came with a lot of risks. Bad weather, treacherous conditions, and the remote location of their workplace all increase the dangers of their job. And a powerful example can be found off the coast of southern Georgia, on St. Simons Island.


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[Assistant] The first lighthouse built on the island went up in 1810 and stood 75 feet tall. But during the Civil War, the Confederate forces were worried that the Union Navy might use the light for navigation, so they destroyed it. The structure that replaced it, and the one still standing today, was built in 1872.


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[Assistant] It was taller and brighter than its predecessor, but apparently no less susceptible to the darkness of life.


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[Assistant] In March of 1880, lighthouse keeper Frederick Osborne and his assistant John Stevens squared off for a duel. The reason for their argument is lost to time, although some speculate it was over an insult pointed at one of their wives. Regardless, Stevens won, thanks to the fact that he brought a shotgun to the duel when Osborne only had a pistol.


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[Assistant] Stevens was arrested for murder, then acquitted, and then returned to the lighthouse to keep working.


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[Assistant] In the years that followed, Stevens reported hearing footsteps climbing the long spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower. He was known to blame the sounds on Osborne, but whether or not it was actually a ghost, it's clear that Stevens was haunted by something. Most likely, guilt.


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[Assistant] Years later, in the early 1900s, the Svensson family moved in and worked there for decades. They too reported hearing the mysterious footsteps and even claimed to have received mechanical assistance from an invisible presence. Someone who knew the lighthouse and its inner workings better than them.


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[Assistant] Across the Atlantic, there is another lighthouse that has put its keepers at risk.


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[Assistant] Off the far west coast of Wales, and even farther west off the coast of a large island, is a tiny island. And standing there, overlooking the angry waters of the ocean, is the Southstack Lighthouse. Built in 1809, it stands nearly 100 feet tall, and its light can be seen nearly 30 miles away.


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[Assistant] Which is a good thing, because the coastline there is incredibly treacherous, thanks to the combination of the sharp rocks invisible beneath the surface and the violent storms that blow in to toss ships around like toys. But that's not the only dangerous feature of the lighthouse, because to get there, you have to cross the suspension bridge.


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[Assistant] It was constructed in 1829 to allow lighthouse keepers and their supplies to travel on foot from the big island to the small one. To reach it, one had to descend 400 steps down a winding path cut into the rock to where the bridge began.


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[Assistant] And on the night of October 25th of 1859, that metal walkway became the most dangerous place to be.


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[Assistant] A storm had blown in unexpectedly, one that was so powerful that it earned its own name, the Royal Charter Gale.


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[Assistant] The Royal Charter was a massive steamer that went down in the storm, claiming 500 lives. But it wasn't the only one. Over 130 ships were sunk by the hurricane-like wind and waves. And it was in the middle of all that chaos that the assistant lighthouse keeper, a man named Jack Jones, was returning to work.


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[Assistant] As he crossed the suspension footbridge, a stone was blown loose from one of the cliff faces, and it collided with his head, knocking him down and fracturing his skull. Somehow, despite the pain and the blood and the wind,


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[Assistant] Jones managed to crawl the rest of the way across the bridge and up the long grassy hill to the lighthouse where he pounded on the door for help.


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[Assistant] No matter how many times he knocked though, the headkeeper inside, Henry Bowen, didn't hear him. It wasn't until the next morning that Bowen stepped outside to inspect the damage from the storm that he found Jones still alive but unconscious. But although he held on for three long weeks, his injuries eventually proved too extensive to mend, and he tragically passed away.


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[Assistant] The vocation of a lighthouse keeper is clearly a dangerous one. Between the extreme conditions and remote locations, many keepers throughout history put their lives on the line just by showing up for work.


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[Assistant] But few can hold a candle to one of the darkest mysteries in the history of the job. Because in a profession known for always being there,


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[Assistant] The most frightening stories happen when the people responsible for the work are gone.


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[Assistant] Every mystery story has a powerful setting. Whether it's Agatha Christie's Orient Express or the mansion from Clue, the location of a story can be as important as the characters themselves. And this tale is no exception.


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[Assistant] First, let's get our geography settled. Scotland is the northernmost country on the island of Great Britain, but it has its own islands scattered around as well. Off the northwestern coast of Scotland is a collection of islands called the Hebrides. Some hug the mainland pretty tightly, but the rest are farther out in the Atlantic.


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[Assistant] And roughly 20 miles beyond them, deeper still into the ocean, is a tiny collection of islands that together add up to less than 150 acres of land. They are cold and harsh and unforgiving, and for a very long time they've been referred to as the Seven Hunters. Today though, most people know them as the Flannan Isles.


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[Assistant] The largest of these tiny islands, traditionally called Eiland Moor, is barely more than 43 acres, but it's incredibly inaccessible. That's because the island, like the others around it, is the very tip of an underwater mountain.


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[Assistant] And because of this, the surface of the island is close to 200 feet above the ocean waves, with sheer cliffs on all sides and only a small handful of grassy landings below.


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[Assistant] Now I can understand wondering why anyone would want to live there, but apparently humans have been in that area for a long time.


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[Assistant] And thanks to a 17th century document, we know that people have had some pretty strange beliefs about the place. Residents of the closest major island used to sail there once a year to collect bird eggs and feathers. But if the wind changed abruptly or their rituals were broken in some way, they would leave as quickly as they could.


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[Assistant] Shepherds were also reported to take their flocks to graze there on the small, grassy landings. But again, superstition ruled their activities.


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[Assistant] They believe something otherworldly lived there, and that same 17th century document, written by a Scottish writer named Martin Martin, described that small skeletons had once been dug out of the ground there. It's easy to see how some people could have believed that the remains were of fairy folk or some other creature.


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[Assistant] And it's in this place, isolated from the rest of the world, constantly thrashed by brutal weather and possibly haunted by otherworldly creatures, that the people of Scotland decided to build a lighthouse.


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[Assistant] As you can imagine, those tall cliffs proved a challenge. But after four years of construction, it was completed in 1899. And it was a welcome addition.


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[Assistant] Thanks to its high elevation, with the bright light being some 275 feet above sea level, it could easily be seen from 30 miles away.


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[Assistant] When the weather was good, that is, and it rarely was, but still, having a light out there among the dangerous rocks was necessary, so staff were sent there to operate it. They had an elaborate system, too.


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[Assistant] There were four lighthouse keepers scheduled on a rotation that always had three on site with a fourth away on leave. Every couple of weeks, a supply ship would sail up to one of the grassy landings, one on the west side and one on the east, and unload supplies and the returning keeper. Another keeper would then rotate out, get on the ship, and leave until the next trip.


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[Assistant] James Ducat was the primary lighthouse keeper there. He was 43 with a wife and four children back on the mainland and had over two decades of experience under his belt. And working with him was Donald MacArthur, a former soldier with a hot temper and brand new to the occupation.


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[Assistant] Thomas Marshall was the younger unmarried assistant lighthouse keeper, and Joseph Moore was the fourth.


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[Assistant] It was a good system in a challenging place. The weather was sometimes violent and the working conditions were stressful.


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[Assistant] But this was the job they signed up for and they knew it was important work. Ships passing near the Hebrides needed their guiding light to stay out of danger and these men kept the light burning. For the first year, this is how the lighthouse operated. In December of 1900 though, all of that changed.


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[Assistant] On the 15th, a passing ship called the Arctor noticed that the lighthouse was dark and made a note to inform the authorities when they reached port, all the way on the other side of Scotland, near Edinburgh. But along the way, they struck a rock and took on water, which slowed their trip considerably.


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[Assistant] By the time word was received and a rescue ship sent out, it had been 11 days since the Arctur had passed the Dark Island. So when supplies and relief finally arrived, they were hopeful to discover that it had just been a glitch, or a momentary lapse in the operations there.


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[Assistant] They should have known something was wrong when their signal went unanswered. The Hesperus arrived at Alyn Moore on December 26th with fresh supplies and the relief lighthouse keeper, Joseph Moore. But things didn't go according to plan when they approached the island.


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[Assistant] Typically, the ship would send up a flare to catch the attention of the people working up top, who would reply with a signal of their own. Then the keepers would head down to the landing at the base of the island to welcome them.


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[Assistant] But on this day, their flair didn't seem to do the trick.


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[Assistant] So Moore decided that he would go see what the problem was. He left the Hesperus and climbed into a smaller boat, rowing over to the landing. He would later record that the moment he stepped foot on the island, a sensation of foreboding seemed to descend upon him.


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[Assistant] Like a dark cold blanket. And other than the sounds of the wind and waves, the island seemed to be completely silent.


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[Assistant] Once he reached the top of the island, he entered the lighthouse. There he found the living quarters completely empty. In the kitchen, everything was clean and put away, just as it would have been between meals. And the beds had all been made as well.


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[Assistant] And there's a rumor that after climbing the stairs to the top of the tower, Moore found three enormous black birds waiting there, and they flew off when he approached.


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[Assistant] Unsettled and confused, he returned to the Hesperus and reported his findings. Together with the captain of the ship, Moore planned a deeper search. He and two crewmen returned to the lighthouse, while the Hesperus sailed back to the mainland to get in touch with officials about what seemed to have happened.


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[Assistant] And it was while the ship was gone that the search began to uncover darker clues.


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[Assistant] Now up to this point they had been using the east landing because the wind direction made it safer to approach from that side. But from the lighthouse, Moore and the others were finally able to climb down and inspect the west landing. But what they found left them confused and nervous.


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[Assistant] A box of mooring ropes lay on the landing, smashed to pieces from falling nearly 200 feet from the ledge above.


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[Assistant] Rope lay scattered about, but a good amount of it was missing. The iron railing that protected the West Landing was also mangled, as if something large had struck it, and the life preserver that had been secured nearby was gone as well.


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[Assistant] Back up top, Moore and the others noticed that a massive patch of soil had been ripped out of the top of the island. Now remember, he had worked there for months, so he knew those 40 acres like the back of his hand. And he also noted that a large rock, which experts estimate to have weighed nearly a ton, had been moved.


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[Assistant] The most mysterious thing of all though, was perhaps the fact that all of this damage was not mentioned in the lighthouse logbook. Had the missing keepers known about the damage, they would have recorded their findings there. And yet not a single mention of it could be found. And no one could ask the men, because they were gone.


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[Assistant] Now, there have been a lot of theories tossed around over the years. Some people have proposed that one of the lighthouse keepers had become violent, killed the other two, and then thrown himself into the ocean. Sort of a seaside murder-suicide.


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[Assistant] And it's true that Donald MacArthur, one of the assistant keepers, was a volatile man prone to angry outbursts. But it's a theory that doesn't explain why two raincoats were missing while the third still hung on a hook indoors.


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[Assistant] Clearly, they say, something otherworldly visited the place, and all three men were lost in whatever chaos followed. I've even read that some people suspect alien abduction. But while the legends about the place do provide a dark foundation, it's more likely that their disappearance was due to something much more natural.


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[Assistant] Let me also add this. The internet is filled with reports about food left on the table, chairs overturned, and entries in the logbook that show the crew going mad. Except the first time those pieces of information appeared in print was 1965. And it turns out the author made all of it up.


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[Assistant] But of course, people on the internet have always been good at taking information they like and confusing it with the truth.


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[Assistant] In the end though, we just don't know what happened to the three men of the Flannan lighthouse. The most likely story is that a major storm blew in and two of them stepped out into the rain and wind to secure anything that might blow away. And in the process, put themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bad weather and angry sea did the rest.


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[Assistant] Sadly, we will never know for sure. 120 years later, experts are still making guesses, feeling their way through uncharted waters in hopes of reaching the right destination and for the light of truth to lead them there. For the Flannan Lighthouse mystery though, the beacon has gone out.


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[Assistant] It's clear that lighthouses were a dangerous place to work. From their unbearable isolation to the harsh environment found at the boundary between land and sea, those towers of stone are a poor protection from the risk they invite.


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[Assistant] And while most of them have been automated over the past few decades, even that speaks to just how challenging the work really was. Things could be so bad there that it was better to just remove humans from the equation altogether.


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[Assistant] But it can't be overlooked that generations of people put their lives on the line to keep the light burning so that ships could navigate safely through dangerous waters. Selfless sacrifice is noble, but exceedingly rare.


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[Assistant] For the three men who went missing from the Flannan Lighthouse in December of 1900, that sacrifice took everything. All theories aside, from aliens or curses to hurricane winds or massive waves, it's clear that life there on that tiny island was one of constant risk, and eventually, the danger caught up with them. And if the stories are true, it didn't go away.


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[Assistant] One of the lighthouse keepers to follow in their footsteps was a man named John McLaughlin. In 1904, while working up near the light at the top of the tower, he somehow slipped and fell to his death. Other lighthouse keepers there reported hearing voices in the night, voices that sometimes spoke the names of the missing men.


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[Assistant] And do you remember how I told you that there were four men assigned to the lighthouse, three of which were always on and one was off? There was actually a fifth man named William Ross, who was away on medical leave. Donald MacArthur, the hot-headed soldier, was actually just his replacement.


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[Assistant] Well, after recovering, William Ross was assigned elsewhere, probably unwilling to return to where his friends and coworkers mysteriously vanished from. But just a year and a half after their disappearance, Ross dropped dead while working in the Lightroom. His cause of death was unknown.


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[Assistant] Over the years, the officials who oversaw the Flannan lighthouse had to fight an uphill battle against the rumors. They were so bad that for a while it was nearly impossible to find anyone else willing to be stationed there. And even the Arctur, the first ship to notice a problem there at the lighthouse, eventually disappeared as well, vanishing in the North Atlantic in 1912. One more thing.


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[Assistant] In the early 1950s, a man named Walter Adelbert was assigned to the Flannan Lighthouse and he arrived with a keen interest in the decades old mystery. So when he wasn't fulfilling his duties there, he spent his time documenting the weather conditions that assaulted the island. And what he discovered was frightening.


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[Assistant] In one of his photographs, Walter captured a wave so tall that the spray coming off it actually pelted the light room at the top of the tower, nearly 300 feet above sea level.


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[Assistant] And on another occasion, he reported stepping outside the lighthouse only to watch another wave roll across the open land at the top of the island. And as it receded, it nearly pulled him with it.


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[Assistant] Yes, the events of that cold December night in 1900 will forever remain a mystery. Without solid proof, we will never be able to button it up and close the case. But it seems as if the most likely answer has been crashing against the island all along, even though most people don't think it was possible.


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[Assistant] I think you'd agree that there's something magical and attractive about lighthouses. Maybe it's the romantic nature of life there on the ocean, or the simplicity of their purpose. Me, I think it's a bit of all of that, but I also think that irony is what pulls us in. That in a place of all that light, there can also be so much darkness.


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[Assistant] And I've saved one more amazing tale that I want to share with you that seems to capture all of those pieces. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] There is always more than one side to a story. Some claim that the location earned its name from the French term for only choice, while others say it comes from the local Ojibwe word for straight line. Either way, the tower that stands there today bears the name, the Seshwa Point Lighthouse.


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[Assistant] It was constructed back in 1892 on a long peninsula of land that sticks out into the very northernmost edge of Lake Michigan.


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[Assistant] Standing like a gleaming white bolt in the midst of so much green and blue, the light at its peak sits roughly 80 feet above the water. And even though it's a lakeside lighthouse, it's been doing the same job as any other lighthouse in the world, protecting the ships that pass by.


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[Assistant] It was a needed addition, too. According to some records, there have been dozens of shipwrecks along the coast there over the years, claiming more than 500 lives. And its first keeper was a local Native American man named Joseph Fountain. Two years into his time there, however, he got a bitter taste of just how dangerous the waters really were.


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[Assistant] In 1894, a schooner called the William Home was sailing past, carrying a massive load of iron bound for a construction project elsewhere on the coast. But as it passed the safety of the lighthouse, a strong wind blew in, shifting the cargo on the top deck of the ship.


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[Assistant] That shift in weight caused the wooden structure below it to break, and water began to flood in.


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[Assistant] All but one of the crew perished that day, and the one who managed to survive only did so thanks to the efforts of Joseph Fountain. After seeing the wreck, he rushed down to the water's edge to find one man laying unconscious on the rocky shore. Fountain carried him back to the lighthouse, where he worked carefully to care for the wounded sailor, ultimately saving his life.


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[Assistant] A few years later, a new keeper took over the lighthouse. This man, a former captain named Joseph Townsend, had moved to the United States from England and held his post there for nearly a decade. But sadly, he became sick in the winter of 1910 and eventually died right there in the lighthouse. The cause? Tuberculosis.


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[Assistant] Now there are a couple of versions of what happened next. Some records claim that Townsend was embalmed and placed in the basement to wait for the spring, when the ground would thaw enough to allow for burial. Other stories say the delay was due to the difficulty his family had in reaching the lighthouse for a funeral.


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[Assistant] Either way, Captain Townsend spent a lot of time lying in state before his burial.


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[Assistant] In the years that followed, people began to report strange experiences inside the Cheshaw Point Lighthouse. Some have heard footsteps slowly climbing the stairs to the top of the tower, while others have glimpsed foggy faces in the bedroom mirror.


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[Assistant] More disturbing yet, on more than one occasion, people working there have arrived in the morning to find an odd dip in the bed, as if someone had sat there during the night.


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[Assistant] But few experiences can top one that took place just a few years ago. A woman reported visiting the lighthouse on a beautiful day to take in the sights there. It's a gorgeous setting, and somehow she managed to have the place all to herself.


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[Assistant] But finally, as she was about to step inside the gift shop, she spotted another tourist across the yard. An older man, in a dark blue wool jacket. She waved, but the gentleman either didn't see her or chose not to respond. A moment later, he was out of sight.


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[Assistant] It was only later, after returning home to do some more personal research about the place and its history, that she realized who the man was.


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[Assistant] She figured it out as she looked through photos of the lighthouse.


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


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


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[Assistant] You can learn more about all of the shows we make and everything else going on over in one central place, GrimAndMild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi.


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[Assistant] Allow me to set the stage for you. It's 1863. America is in the middle of a civil war. Queen Victoria is seated on the throne of England. And the entire English-speaking world is obsessed with melodramatic theater.


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[Assistant] Ford's Theater in Washington DC has suffered a fire and undergone some renovations and was celebrating its reopening in August of that year.


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[Assistant] And on November 10th of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln sat down in a box seat to watch a performance of the Marble Heart. The exact same box seat, by the way, where he'd be shot a year and a half later.


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[Assistant] During the performance, one of Lincoln's guests named Mary Clay, the daughter of the U.S. Minister to Russia, pointed out that the actor playing the villain was doing a really good job of looking mean, and more than that, he seemed to know his audience well. Because every time he recited a line that threatened violence, he looked straight at their box seats.


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[Assistant] Lincoln was so impressed with the actor that he later invited the man to meet him at the White House. The trouble was that man had no desire to be social with the President because, and I'm sure you've already guessed this by now, that actor was John Wilkes Booth, the man who would be forever remembered as President Lincoln's assassin.


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[Assistant] Theater has long been the home of the unexpected. It's a realm where ego and skill are put on full display, and where audiences are thrilled by scenes they might never experience anywhere else. To attend a show is to guarantee a certain amount of surprise and thrill.


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[Assistant] But there's one truth above all others that's proven itself time and again over the centuries when it comes to those temples of performance and personality. The drama rarely ends just because the curtain has dropped.


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[Assistant] It's fair to say that most of us have a good understanding of fads. Depending on how long you've been on this planet and what eras you've lived through, you can probably list a few fads that have come and gone. I certainly know that I can.


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[Assistant] In the Victorian age, it was just the same, but one particular fad had its roots in the economy. You see, Queen Victoria's England was an economic powerhouse, and its expertise in things like industrialization


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[Assistant] At first, that was just the wealthiest individuals, but by the middle of the 19th century, more and more middle-class people were benefiting from it too.


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[Assistant] Which is why theaters and music halls really took off in that era. All of a sudden, a good percentage of people could afford to buy a ticket to a show, and by the 1870s, they were a powerful driving force behind the industry. In London, that growth became a place on the map, an area of central London known as the West End.


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[Assistant] Now, the oldest theater in the West End, the Theater Royal Drury Lane, had opened long before in 1663. But more and more competition arrived over the years. Today, there are nearly 40 theaters there, all offering a thrilling experience. But in the late 1800s, all anyone wanted was melodrama.


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[Assistant] These were plays that had outrageous plots, where some villainous individual ruined the life of the heroine and then everything is set right through a series of unbelievable scenes. In a lot of ways, the audience always knew what they were going to get, but that's why they bought the tickets. They wanted the thrill, and they wanted to see the stars perform. Stars, like William Terrace.


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[Assistant] He was actually born William Lewin, right there in London in 1847. His father passed away when he was just 10, although not that his educational situation changed much. He'd been in boarding schools already and continued to attend them all the way into his teens.


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[Assistant] But he always had an underlying attitude of dissatisfaction, as if he wanted more from life but wasn't really interested in working for it.


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[Assistant] After inheriting a good chunk of change from his uncle at the age of 17, William frivolously spent it all and then tried hanging around with his older brothers to see what he could mooch off them.


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[Assistant] One was a commissioner in India, but I think the manual labor of his tea plantation might have frightened William off.


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[Assistant] Back in England, he next visited with his other brother, who was a surgeon. That was more to his liking, I think. William loved to stand near successful people, hoping their wealth and power would rub off on him. But with no real interest in becoming a physician himself, he eventually went on his way.


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[Assistant] He found theater at the age of 21, and it was love at first sight. He changed his name for the stage. William Lewin became William Terrace and went on to build a powerful career, although it wasn't without its ups and downs.


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[Assistant] Early on, he actually left theater work to start a family with his wife, Isabelle. First trying to raise horses in the Falkland Islands, and then the American state of Kentucky. But the stage lured him back.


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[Assistant] When he returned in 1873, he was fully committed and that dedication paid off. For more than 20 years, he would thrill audiences, travel the world, and work with other amazing performers.


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[Assistant] One longtime partner was Jessie Milward, an English actress 14 years younger than him. And of course, their long run of performances opposite of each other generated all sorts of rumors, none of which seemed to be true.


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[Assistant] By the 1890s, William was the star of the stage in England. He took a better offer from the Adelphi Theatre, and Jesse joined him there. Everyone in the country knew his name, and everyone wanted to see him perform. It didn't matter what the play was, or what role he had been cast in. They just wanted William Terrace.


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[Assistant] It was supposed to be just another day in the life of a superstar. William Terrace was set to take the stage on the night of December 17th in the role of Captain Thorne, a spy caught up in the middle of the American Civil War, and ticket holders were eager to see another thrilling performance.


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[Assistant] He spent the majority of that day on personal errands. He visited the hospital to see his daughter, who was recovering from a medical emergency, and brought his son-in-law, Seymour Hicks, along for the trip. After that, they picked up another friend, John Graves, and the three men headed to the Green Room Club, located near the Adelphi Theater.


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[Assistant] At 7pm, after a few hours of card games, food, drinks, and even a short nap, William, John, and Seymour all grabbed their coats and headed out. Their destination was a private side door located on Maiden Lane, a door that only two people had keys to, the theater's manager and William Terrace.


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[Assistant] William pulled out his key and stooped low to push it into the lock.


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[Assistant] As he did though, a shape rushed across the dark street and seemed to roughly pat the actor on his back a couple of times. William turned to see who it was and was patted once again on the chest. And then the figure dashed away.


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[Assistant] But those paths weren't claps of appreciation from a fan.