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[Assistant] Yes, there were rumors of real traditional witches who killed livestock and caused illness in the families of their neighbors. But the vast majority of the people there saw themselves as a sort of supernatural police force and armed themselves against those evil witches with powerful magic of their own.


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[Assistant] Rather than being black magic meant to harm the innocent, this tradition was known as countermagic.


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[Assistant] For example, it was common to place a pair of scissors or a sharp knife under the front doormat because it would prevent a witch from entering the house. And even in the 1950s, there were people still alive in town who clearly remembered a suspected witch being asked to sit on a pair of scissors to test her.


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[Assistant] There were other traditions too. Horseshoes would be placed over doorways, and small symbols might be drawn on window frames or interior walls, all in an effort to ward off evil witches. But at the end of the day, one of the most common was the type of item I mentioned earlier. The Witch Bottle.


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[Assistant] The typical ingredient list included a lot of the same items found in the bottle from the beginning of this episode. Pins, nails, alcohol, human hair, fingernail clippings, and urine. Not something anyone would ever drink. At least, not knowingly. And the idea behind these bizarre objects was that they repelled witches. But they were also used to attract them and to harm them.


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[Assistant] Local stories tell of particular people in town who were gifted at crafting powerful witch bottles. One of the ceremonies that employed them involved placing a witch bottle over a fire and slowly heating it up.


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[Assistant] One woman in the 1950s recalled how this was done years before. And when the bottle became hot enough, the sound of someone clawing at the door could clearly be heard.


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[Assistant] During his time in Knudin in the 1950s, Eric Maple recorded one story that perfectly illustrates the power of countermagic.


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[Assistant] According to him, one local woman claimed that when she was a young girl, she was haunted each night by the vision of a ghostly woman in a bonnet who hovered beside her bed. And after each of these visitations, the woman said she felt physically ill.


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[Assistant] These visits repeated night after night, sometimes lasting only a moment, while other times including actual conversation with the spectral image. And then, after many appearances, the ghostly woman told the girl that this would be her final visit, that she would be leaving soon. The next night, this prediction seemed to come true.


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[Assistant] That night, the spectral woman appeared as usual, but she seemed to be in pain. Just as she opened her mouth to speak to the young girl, though, the bedroom filled with the sharp sound of breaking glass, and the image of the woman immediately vanished. Somewhere in town, it was believed, someone had shattered a witch bottle.


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[Assistant] And for Canudin, that soil is rich and old, but also laced with the liberal amount of witchcraft. And if you know the larger story, it's easy to understand why.


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[Assistant] In fact, Essex County seemed to be a hotbed of English witchcraft. Close to 100 victims, mostly women, were hanged in the century leading up to the 1640s.


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[Assistant] And then Matthew Hopkins arrived. He was the infamous witch hunter who went on a rampage across parts of the south of England. In Essex alone, he tried and executed at least 60 people.


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[Assistant] And one of the biggest fixations that Hopkins had was his interest in familiars.


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[Assistant] These were the helpers that served a witch, either as agents of the devil who helped them use their power, or as bewitched creatures that simply carried out difficult tasks for them. And a common theme through a lot of the witch accusations in Essex County was, in fact, about familiars.


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[Assistant] According to the research that Eric Maple did in the village, it seems that all of the known familiars took the same unusual shape. White mice.


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[Assistant] Even their very function was unique. Here's how Mabel described the system they used.


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[Assistant] The imp, or familiar, often in the form of a white mouse, was regarded in southeast Essex as a main source of witch power. In Knudin, such mice were kept by their owner in a box and were handed on before death to a relative, who then inherited the witch power.


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[Assistant] He goes on to record a number of stories from the locals in Kanudin that illustrate all the different ways these mice were used or incorporated into village life. In one, as an elderly woman was dying, she asked her family to bring her a small box she kept in the closet.


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[Assistant] After handing it to the dying woman, she opened the lid to reveal that it was empty, but then proceeded to whistle. A moment later, a group of small white mice appeared and marched straight into the box.


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[Assistant] A common deathbed story was the handing down of the mice. Many of these tales show an elderly person insisting that a relative take ownership of the mice, and only when that deal has been struck can the person finally pass away. And if this handoff isn't completed properly, or heaven forbid, passed to the wrong person, horrible things could happen.


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[Assistant] In one story, a woman passed away before gifting her mice to another. When her neighbors found her body in bed, the mice were there as well and refused to be chased away. A priest was called in to conduct an exorcism, but that failed to get rid of them. In the end, the townsfolk simply had to bury the woman with her mice at her side.


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[Assistant] It was common for people there to invoke the white mice in normal everyday conversation.


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[Assistant] If a bad mistake was made, one might mutter the phrase, white mice, instead of swearing. The mice were used as threats upon occasion, and if someone experienced a run of bad luck, their friends might casually mention how the white mice are about, as if that was enough to explain it.


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[Assistant] It's almost like the tradition of familiars arrived in Canudin centuries ago and then experienced a Galapagos moment, evolving in a way that was unique to much of the rest of the surrounding area. No matter what the more common beliefs were regarding witchcraft and magic, this little village became a pocket of something different, something special.


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[Assistant] One last story. In the 1950s, there was a family in the village that was practically legendary for their powers. At the center of this household were a husband and wife team who seemed to be extraordinarily gifted in combating the forces of darkness with their own blend of white magic.


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[Assistant] And that caused the people around them to feel both safe and afraid all at the same time.


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[Assistant] Among their talents was the ability to predict death in the community, and their great skill at crafting witch bottles for others to use. The wife in particular was known to be fearless, almost like a soldier defending her village from the powers of the evil witches. But her husband had his own reputation, and it centered around those little white mice.


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[Assistant] According to the stories told by locals, this man had a bit of a temper. If anyone crossed him or made him angry, he would promise to pass his white mice to them after his death. And with all the other background I've explained to you, it's easy to see how this could be seen as a threat.


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[Assistant] Amazingly though, this power couple weren't the most feared and respected witches in the long history of Knudin. No, that honor falls to yet another individual. One who seemed to embody the very essence of 16th century witchcraft and folk magic. And his story is made all the more powerful by when it took place.


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[Assistant] There was always a light side and a dark side. I'm not talking about Jedi, although that's certainly true. No, this wasn't a bit of fiction. It was the way things always were in the world of witchcraft.


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[Assistant] It all came down to the skills the individual performed. There were the usual suspects, who were said to curse livestock with illness, kill their neighbor's children, and meet with the devil for a witch's Sabbath to plan out things like droughts and harsh winters. Those were witches, and by tradition, they were typically assumed to be women.


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[Assistant] Then there were the rest. These people performed useful tasks that still seemed like magic. They helped people find lost objects or money. They brought healing to sick homes. They offered advice on relationships and marriage. And they acted as defenders against witches. They were known as cunning folk and were typically assumed to be men.


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[Assistant] A light side and a dark side. The cunning folk and the witches, all vying for power and control over their community. And in Knudin, that battle was a bit more real and out in the open. But the village also had one other thing. They had the legend.


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[Assistant] Remember, as long as the church tower stood tall, there would be six witches in Knudin. But the legend said something else. It claimed that there was someone who could control them, a master of witches, so to speak. And this master was a man, and therefore, a practitioner of cunning magic.


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[Assistant] George Pickengill was born around 1816. Although he wasn't born inside the boundaries of Knudden, both of his parents hailed from that little village. And after a number of years of following work from town to town, he finally returned, where he set up shop in a cottage and worked as a farmer. But that's not all George Pickengill did with his time.


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[Assistant] It seems he was also one of the most powerful cunning men to ever live in the village. For example, villagers who knew him said that each harvest season, George would wander through the farms around town, and when he encountered the men working those fields, he would threaten to hex their horses or machines unless they gave him a beer.


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[Assistant] Another villager described how George once bragged to a farmer that he could work the field faster than anyone else. According to the story, the old man accomplished his task, all while sitting comfortably at the side of the field smoking his pipe.


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[Assistant] His solution? To have his magical familiars do it all for him.


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[Assistant] George Picking Gill was very open about his cunning magic and neighbors frequently knocked on his door to seek his help. He was skilled at helping people find lost items or recover things that were stolen. They say he could even control animals with his words or a mysterious gesture.


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[Assistant] But he did everything on his own terms, which didn't always sit well with the locals. Once, after being asked to cure a woman of painful ongoing arthritis, he did exactly that, but he didn't make it go away. No, it's said that he just transferred the illness to the woman's elderly father. Clearly, old George was a bit of a trickster.


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[Assistant] The reputation of his powers traveled a lot farther than the borders of Knudin, too. Villagers claim that George received visitors from all over England. They came looking for advice, for healing, and for a glimpse of his infamous skills. And old George gave them what they were looking for, time and time again. And he did so, well into his 90s.


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[Assistant] Over the years since, rumors have flooded in to fill in the gaps. That commentary falls into two camps. Some believe that George was more than just a cunning man. They believe he was the founder of a whole slew of witch covens all throughout Essex County, and that he was the world's preeminent expert on witchcraft


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[Assistant] Others have taken the opposite approach, actually downplaying the stories about him as nothing more than fiction.


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[Assistant] What is clear though, is that George Pickengill left behind a powerful legacy in a community already rich with legend and story.


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[Assistant] When he passed away in 1909 at the age of 93, he did so at the top of his game, taking the secrets to his power over the natural world with him. His cottage became a pilgrimage destination for years to come. But apparently, old George didn't go quietly.


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[Assistant] According to people who knew him, he promised to demonstrate his powers one last time at his own funeral. Local legend says that he did just that, because when the horse-drawn hearse was driven up to the church doors, the horses stepped from their shafts at the sight of his coffin.


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[Assistant] Oh, and one last thing. One woman still alive in the 1950s claimed that she actually visited George Pickengill on his deathbed. Old age and illness had robbed the man of his ability to take care of himself, but even on death's doorstep, he was still caring for one group of individuals in particular.


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[Assistant] There, she claimed, lying in the bed with him, were the familiar shapes of his closest companions, shapes that would have seemed out of place in any other community in the world.


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[Assistant] We view our world through a dark tinted lens. We see parts of the world around us, but miss other details completely. And in the end, one of our biggest failings just might be our tendency to assume.


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[Assistant] I can't help but think of the glass expert who took one look at an antique bottle and let his preconceptions convince him there was wine inside. How often do we do that in our own lives? Making a judgment at the drop of a hat? Or failing to notice the nuanced details in a sensational story? We are very good at missing things, and we have been for a very long time.


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[Assistant] Back in the days of Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general who was active during the 1640s, the Protestants found themselves struggling to fight that nuance. For centuries, there had been two sides to the witch coin. The dark, evil ones who harmed everyone around them, and their opposites, the protective and helpful cunning folk.


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[Assistant] To the vast majority of people, the distinctions were clear. But in their mission to purge England of witchcraft, those early Protestants invented a new term. The White Witch. It was meant to target those more helpful cunning folk and brand them as just one more group of people painted with the same broad brush.


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[Assistant] Of course, that didn't put an end to the traditions that were common in places like Knudin. To this day, historians and archaeologists are still uncovering signs of countermagic all over England, from carved symbols to objects of power. And they've found a good number of witch bottles too. Although thankfully, no one else seems to be willing to drink from them.


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[Assistant] A little known fact is that those witch bottles don't always contain the same things. Yes, urine and nails are common ingredients, but others have been found that contain nothing but a charm written on a piece of parchment.


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[Assistant] One witch bottle, discovered in Cornwall, contained tiny wooden carvings that represented the instruments of the crucifixion of Jesus. It seems impossible to predict what each new bottle will contain.


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[Assistant] And then there was the discovery made in 1976.


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[Assistant] While working to uncover the remains of a mid-17th century house, researchers found a bottle outside the walls of the original structure.


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[Assistant] The dark green glass bottle was found buried upside down, along with a bone from a bird and a large fragment of pottery. A small collection of pins was still inside the bottle and, as one might expect, it also contained traces of human urine.


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[Assistant] And these are all details that seem like they belong right at home in Knudin. But this witch bottle was actually found at a site on Tinicum Island, along the Delaware River, near Philadelphia. It was one of only eight that have ever been discovered in America. But that unusual location only proves a larger truth.


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[Assistant] Most of what we hear about witches centers around the darker stuff. The suspicious neighbors, the innocent victims, and of course the brutal executions. But every now and then it's possible to stumble upon the lighter side of a topic. And so I hope you enjoyed my attempt today to peel back those shadows.


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[Assistant] Still, Canudin has a long history with cunning folk and white witches, and if you know where to look, there's always another story to tell. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear about one last amazing character.


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[Assistant] Every community has their character. That one individual who stands out from the crowd. Maybe they dress a little bit odd, or behave in a way that swims against the stream. Perhaps they do it to draw attention to themselves, or maybe it's just the only way they know how to be. Either way, they're a character.


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[Assistant] In Canudin, finding that one single character was tricky, because so many of the figures from its past seemed to meet a lot of that criteria. That woman who was so good at making witch bottles, she apparently spotted a ghost inside the village church once, and then knelt beside it and waited for it to leave.


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[Assistant] And of course, old George Pickengill was quite the character too. Hexing farm machines in exchange for beer.


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[Assistant] But a century before Old George, there was another cunning man in the area who seems to have set the bar a little higher than the rest. And if the stories about him are true, he might also be one of the more powerful witches to have lived there. So, kick back, because I'd like to introduce you to him. And his name was James Morel.


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[Assistant] James lived in the town of Hadley, about seven miles to the south of Knudin. It was still witch country and a similar farming community like most of the others around it. And it was where James Morell was born in 1780. But he didn't always live there.


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[Assistant] After finishing his early education, James left Hadley in search of glory, or at least in search of a good job. He spent time working for a surveyor before moving to London and taking a job in the back room of a chemist shop, sort of an early version of a modern pharmacy.


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[Assistant] After that, he learned the shoemaking trade before finally returning to Hadley around 1810 at the age of 30.


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[Assistant] But I promised you a character, didn't I? And boy, did James Morell tick all the boxes.


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[Assistant] They said his typical outfit consisted of a short tailcoat, a hard hat, and a pair of iron goggles over his eyes, which must have been quite the sight. He also never left the house without his whalebone umbrella and a telescope in his pocket that he claimed was magical.


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[Assistant] Honestly, I picture Morel as sort of a cross between Back to the Future's Doc Brown and Seinfeld's Kramer, with the dash of Mad Eye Moody thrown in for good measure. And his reputation backed it up, too.


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[Assistant] From his return to Hadley in 1810 until his death 50 years later, he became the preeminent cunning man in town. If you ask just about anyone, he was practically a wizard.


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[Assistant] Some of that reputation came from his own behavior. He tended to keep to himself, doing most of his traveling and work at night.


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[Assistant] And then there were the books. Apparently Morel was one of the best read people in town. Even the local priest respected him for that and claimed that numerous theological debates had convinced him that Morel quite possibly knew the Bible better than he himself did.


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[Assistant] Along with the books that filled his cottage, there were also the herbs. Morel spent a good amount of his time wandering the fields at night picking them, and they hung by the bundle from the ceiling of his home. It must have smelled extraordinary in there, between the old books and the dry herbs. But his most famous power of all was the crafting of effective witch models. One story illustrates this perfectly.


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[Assistant] Apparently a young woman in town discovered that an older woman was living in her barn. She was a wanderer, most likely poor and living on the outskirts of accepted society. So of course, the younger woman decided that she must be a witch. And after ordering the old woman off of her property, this witch cursed her, which caused her to behave like an animal. And then the witch ran off into the countryside.


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[Assistant] James Morell was immediately summoned to the home, and he arrived with all the tools necessary. He collected hair and fingernail clippings from the afflicted younger woman, placing them into a witch bottle he had made specifically for moments like this. And then he sealed it, and placed it over a fire.


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[Assistant] As the bottle heated up, a knocking could be heard at the door. A moment later, the knocking became pounding and a woman's voice cried out as if from a great distance, begging for morale to stop. The fire, she claimed, was causing her immense pain. A moment later, the bottle burst and with it, the spell over the younger woman.


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[Assistant] The following morning, a charred corpse was found on a road outside of town. It was the old witch.


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[Assistant] There were more demonstrations like this over the five decades that James Morell served the people of Hadley, and each of them were terrifying and full of magic. But even cunning men eventually passed away. In 1860, he took his last breath and left the town forever.


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[Assistant] He had family, at least one son that I can tell, but apparently left no will behind to help take care of matters after his death.


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[Assistant] Instead, the landlord of his rented cottage gathered up his belongings and disposed of them. Many of his books, especially the old ones on astrology, were buried in a chest in the side yard. But his son did manage to get two things. The last remaining witch bottle in the house and that old magic telescope.


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[Assistant] That son eventually put the witch bottle on a fire one day to see what would happen. No witches burned, as far as anyone could tell, but he left it on the fire so long that the bottle exploded, taking out one of the cottage walls in the process.


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[Assistant] As for the telescope, James had actually promised that to his son, but had specifically told him never to sell it. Of course, that son never listened, and when a local gentleman offered him a gold half-guinea coin, the equivalent of about $30 in modern cash, he gladly parted with it.


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[Assistant] They say that every owner of that telescope experienced bad luck, and many attribute that to a curse put on it by Morel himself. But if the rumors were true, it was the first buyer who took the brunt of that dangerous magic.


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


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


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, including Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, all of which I think you'd enjoy.


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[Assistant] My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. GrimandMild.com


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


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[Assistant] There had been rumors, of course, but they were the sorts of stories that were too difficult to believe. But in the spring of 1984, one distraught phone call kicked off an amazing discovery.


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[Assistant] The caller had claimed the creature was over three feet long, with vicious looking fangs and a tail that whipped about. Hearing about something like that in the middle of Paris must have been frightening.


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[Assistant] Commander Goddard and his crew, however, found nothing in the River Sen. They even inspected the area around the bridge, but still, nothing. That's when they decided to look someplace else. Someplace most people tend to forget about. The sewers.


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[Assistant] And when they did, they walked straight into the monster's lair.


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[Assistant] But this monster turned out to be something less than supernatural. Was it unexpected? Absolutely. But it was a creature that just about everyone in the world has seen before. A crocodile.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, they were able to capture it without anyone getting hurt, and it was later taken away to the Paris Zoo.


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[Assistant] Is a whole other world. A world of hidden secrets and dangerous legends. And that even though we might carry on our normal lives in relative safety, the past is always lurking just below the surface. Like the shadow of a monstrous creature.


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[Assistant] It was over before it even began. In 259 BC, a Celtic tribe called the Parisi settled on the banks of the river Seine. Two centuries later, the Romans came and killed them all.


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[Assistant] Of course, it was a lot more nuanced than that. Yes, the Romans washed over them like a tidal wave, but the settlement the Celts had built there was burned by their own hands, rather than allow the Romans to take it. But that didn't stop them from taking the location, and soon enough, the Roman city of Lotitia was growing alongside the river.


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[Assistant] Over the centuries, the name of the city changed a few more times. Letitia eventually became Perisius, and then finally Paris around the 4th century. And, of course, those years were filled with many stories. One of the most popular from the time, though, is that of Saint Denis, a Christian martyr from the 3rd century.


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[Assistant] It's said that Dennis refused to renounce his faith and was beheaded for his crime against the Empire. But somehow, against logic and the laws of biology, the executed man bent down, picked up his own head, and then walked several miles north of the city, preaching the entire way.


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[Assistant] When his body finally fell to the ground, he was buried in that very spot. A spot that is now the location of a grand basilica built in his honor.


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[Assistant] Now look, there's absolutely no way that I can cover the entire history of the city of Paris in a brief span of time. Entire books have been written on just small portions of that history. And each of them is full of a tremendous amount of detail, drama, and a complicated list of rulers and cultures.


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[Assistant] So think of my brief survey of it all as more of an appetizer. And if you love what you taste, go read some books.


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[Assistant] But at the heart of all of that complexity is the city. The location and people and countless lives that have lived and been lost in this one specific place. Lives that have acted like instruments in an ongoing symphony, playing a song of not just strength and beauty, but also tragedy and pain.


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[Assistant] After all, when a city has been around as long as Paris has, there's no end to the stories it might collect. Many of those stories though are filled with death.


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[Assistant] 1337 saw the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, and then a decade later, when Paris was the most populous city in all of Europe, the bubonic plague arrived on her doorstep. Between disease and war, it's estimated that two-thirds of the city's population was lost, but the death toll would keep rising over the coming centuries.


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[Assistant] During the 16th century, the rift created by the Protestant Reformation led to more deaths in Paris. In France, the Protestants were known as Huguenots, and they were violently attacked by Catholics for what was perceived as heresy. Then, on August 24th of 1572, things erupted.


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[Assistant] Thousands of Huguenots had gathered in Paris just days earlier for the wedding between King Charles IX's sister Margaret and her Protestant husband. Seizing the opportunity, Catholic mobs rose up and killed every Protestant they could find, sending waves of violence out into the countryside like an earthquake.


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[Assistant] When it was all over several weeks later, it's estimated that upwards of 30,000 people had been killed.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, the late 17th century ushered in a bright spot with the advent of the Enlightenment. Writers like Voltaire and Rousseau made people stop and think and brought social causes to the forefront of public conversation.


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[Assistant] But that sort of intellectual revolution was too powerful to contain. And by the late 1780s, it was fueling an actual uprising in the streets of Paris.


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[Assistant] What followed was a lightning round of political upheaval. The Bastille was stormed in July of 1789, and within four years King Louis XVI had been executed.


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[Assistant] Then, between 1793 and 1794, France saw the Reign of Terror, during which close to 18,000 people were executed by guillotine. Between that and the Napoleonic Wars, it's estimated that close to 7 million people lost their lives.


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[Assistant] In 1871, there was a socialist uprising known as the Paris Commune, who took control of the city for ten days. By the time the French army put the rebellion down, close to 7,000 lives had been lost. And then, in 1940, Nazi Germany began an occupation of France that lasted over four years, resulting in even more deaths in Paris.


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[Assistant] And if you're exhausted after walking through all of that tragedy, I can't blame you.


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[Assistant] Countless dead, lives torn apart by religion and politics, waves of disease and warfare. It sounds so overwhelming, even if most of it is buried deep in the past.


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[Assistant] Partly because of how complicated it all is, yes, but also because it serves to remind us of how temporary and tenuous our peaceful lives can be.


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[Assistant] But all of that darkness serves as a sort of foundation to the present. A city can't endure that much death without it leaving a stain, a dark mark that can still be seen today. And if you know where to look, Paris is a treasure trove of unsettling tales. To explore them though, we need to follow the dead. Because if there's one thing Paris has an abundance of, it's graves. And if the stories are true, the dead still hold their sway.


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[Assistant] It's easy to think of Paris as a city for tourists. The Eiffel Tower, the River Seine, and Notre Dame are magnets for visitors, and they are all as charming and beautiful as the books tell us. But two centuries ago, Paris wanted to attract another sort of clientele. The dead.


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[Assistant] To understand why, we need to slip backward in time to the year 1804. That was when the Père Lachaise Cemetery was established outside the eastern edge of the city. Paris was growing and becoming more and more crowded and so the city government felt it was better to move future burials outside the city.


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[Assistant] But there was just one problem. The people of that era preferred to be buried inside the city. It was fashionable, and as we all know, Paris has long been a city where fashion takes priority. So the city government got creative. If the people of Paris weren't attracted to the location, perhaps they'd be drawn to the neighbors.


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[Assistant] In 1804, after opening to lackluster interests, the folks in charge of the place arranged to have some famous remains transferred to the cemetery.


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[Assistant] The first to make the trip were the bodies of Jean de la Fontaine and Molière, two famous French poets. A few years later, it was the remains of Abelard and Eloise, a pair of legendary lovers that had captured the public's imagination for centuries.


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[Assistant] And it worked. The more long-dead celebrities they moved to the cemetery, the more attractive the place became for future customers. The people of Paris began to set aside their preference for burial within city limits in exchange for an eternity in close proximity to greatness.


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[Assistant] Over the years though, the city itself expanded, as major cities always do. Then eventually, the Père Lachaise Cemetery found itself incorporated into Paris after all.


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[Assistant] Today, you can find the graves of nearly an endless list of significant personalities. Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, and legendary composer Chopin.


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[Assistant] But if the stories are true, visitors can see more than gravestones. Jim Morrison's ghostly figure has been spotted walking through the cemetery upon occasion, as has visions of Marcel Proust.


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[Assistant] It's not clear whether they're looking for a way out or just taking a stroll to enjoy the view.


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[Assistant] But the Père Lachaise Cemetery isn't the only place in Paris where the dead are connected to tourism and fame. Another location in the city has just as much power of attraction, but it's a lot more complicated and difficult to explore.


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[Assistant] Plus, it's full of millions of human bones, so it's not exactly for the faint of heart.


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[Assistant] What most people don't know about Paris is that it has a long history with mining.


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[Assistant] As the city was growing, there was a never-ending hunger for building materials. So people would dig down to the limestone and extract what they needed. But keep in mind, when this was happening in the 13th century, Paris was much smaller. And people weren't necessarily thinking long term.


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[Assistant] Some historians view those early days of mining as a sort of do-it-yourself enterprise. If someone owned a bit of land and needed a quick buck, they could just dig straight down and start cutting limestone. But all you need to do is look at a modern map of Paris to know how bad that could be. Because today, all of those mines are right beneath the city.


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[Assistant] And that became a problem in the latter part of the 1700s. In fact in 1774, one abandoned tunnel collapsed from the weight above it, taking an entire house with it.


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[Assistant] So, King Louis XVI set up a service called the Inspection of Minds, a government agency of sorts that was tasked with exploring these minds to assess the dangers they posed.


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[Assistant] And then, something happened that kicked off a historic change.


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[Assistant] On May 31st of 1780, the wall of a building collapsed, but it wasn't due to the mines below.


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[Assistant] It was actually a mass grave next door, just beneath the surface, that had destabilized the earth, causing the wall to give way. And so for the rest of the year, burials inside the city were put on hold until they could find a solution.


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[Assistant] It turns out that the man in charge of that cemetery problem, Alexandre Lenoir, was also in charge of the inspection of mines. And he looked at both challenges set before him and had a sort of chocolate and peanut butter moment. What if the solution, he suggested, was to put them together? So that's what he did.


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[Assistant] This team of engineers went throughout the mines and reinforced them with stonework to help support the city above. And in the process, they were also preparing that endless network of tunnels for new occupants. When they were ready, the remains of over 6 million dead were transferred down below.


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[Assistant] And just like that, the infamous catacombs of Paris were born.


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[Assistant] Of course, a place like that has a way of attracting attention. Today, public tours are offered to portions of the catacombs, although much of the tunnels are still off limits. But that hasn't stopped people from trying their luck. In fact, an entire culture has grown up around exploring them, and those people who participate are referred to as cataphiles.


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[Assistant] Don't let the popularity fool you, though. The catacombs aren't entirely safe. In fact, within a decade of their creation, at least one person disappeared inside them. His name was Filibert Asper, and he worked as a doorman at the Val de Grasse hospital. But on November 3rd of 1793, the 62-year-old man went missing.


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[Assistant] Because his post was near one of the entrances to the catacombs, many people assumed that he had wandered down to have a look. It was a rather new addition to the city, after all, and I wouldn't blame the man for wanting to take a peek.


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[Assistant] Others have speculated that Asper believe the tunnels below could lead him to a nearby brewery where he might be able to steal some beer. But there is no proof that's the case.


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[Assistant] Whatever the attraction was, he stepped inside and was never heard from again. It would be another 11 years before anyone would discover what had become of the Lost Doorman. In the spring of 1804, someone new ventured into the same part of the catacombs and stumbled upon the remains of someone in the middle of the tunnel.


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[Assistant] It was a spare. He had apparently lost his way and then lost his light before finally passing away on the cold stone floor alone in the dark.


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[Assistant] But for as horrifying as that might sound, it's made all the more worse by the irony of where his body was discovered. Just a few feet away. From the stairs to the surface.


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[Assistant] When you think of Paris, there's a good chance you might think of pastries. Although if we're honest, I probably think about pastries more than most, but that's beside the point. Paris, as a city and a culture, has a long history with tasty treats of all shapes and sizes.


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[Assistant] Back in the early 1400s, a patisserie once stood at the corner of the Rue de Marmusset and the Rue de du Hermite. But before you go looking for them on a map, those street names have changed over the centuries. And after you hear the story I'm about to tell you, you'll hopefully understand why.


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[Assistant] It's said that this particular patisserie was located in a busy neighborhood.


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[Assistant] Paris has always been a bustling, growing place, so it's easy to imagine, even back in the 1420s, just how crowded and alive the place must have felt. Dirt streets littered with refuse, the constant murmur of conversation and shouts from merchants. All of it would have created a rich tapestry for our story.


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[Assistant] Next door to the patisserie was a barber shop, the sort you might expect to find in that era. These shops performed a few of the duties you might still find today, like shaving and trimming. But they were also a place for those with medical needs. Herbal medicine, ointments, even primitive dental work, like having your teeth pulled, all of it could be found at the local barber shop.


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[Assistant] Which sounds perfect, right? You could swing in and have a little bloodletting done. And then go next door to the crowded patisserie for a pick me up.


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[Assistant] And you wouldn't be alone either. It's said that this particular shop was so popular that priests and monks from Notre Dame would regularly visit for a bite to eat. Even King Charles VI was known to be a fan of their delicious meat pies.


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[Assistant] And it turns out that the men who ran those shops, the barber shop and the patisserie next door, were well acquainted.


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[Assistant] So well acquainted, in fact, that they shared a lot of customers. But when I say share, it's a lot more dark than you might first assume.


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[Assistant] You see, the barber often met people at their most vulnerable. Whether they were suffering from a painful malady or just needed a sharp razor dragged across their face, his customers had to put their trust in his skilled work. And the barber had been using that trust to get a little richer.


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[Assistant] Every now and then, it seems, they would welcome in a patron, lock the door, and then slit their throat when they least expected it.


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[Assistant] After his customer had expired, this barber would drag their corpse to his cellar, where he would strip them of all their valuables and clothing. Then, using what I can only imagine was a set of very sharp, very deadly looking blades, he would butcher them, package it up, and then push the bundle through a small door in the wall. A door that led into the cellar of the shop above.


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[Assistant] And if you've been paying attention, you know exactly what shop that was. That's right. The Patisserie.


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[Assistant] It seemed that both men had been sharing, uhm, resources and no one in the city was aware that those delicious meat pies were more than they appeared to be.


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[Assistant] The public did eventually catch on though, and legend says that it happened around 1430.


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[Assistant] They say that one day a man and his dog paid a visit to the barber. But while the man was welcomed inside, he was told his pet had to remain outside on the street.


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[Assistant] As fate would have it though, that man never set foot outside the shop again, and his loyal dog stayed put.


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[Assistant] Eventually, it was the dog's constant barking that caught the attention of the neighbors who called upon the man's wife. She arrived completely distraught, not having heard from her husband for hours. The sight of their dog alone outside the barber shop was enough to send her to the authorities. When they arrived, you can imagine what happened next.


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[Assistant] The barber's murderous hobby was discovered, as was his trapdoor to the patisserie shop above. Both men were arrested, quickly found guilty, and then executed for their monstrous crimes.


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[Assistant] Can't find definitive proof, but legend has it that both men were executed by being placed inside large metal cages, and then burned over massive fires. It certainly sounds like a fitting end for a pair of killers who spent years cooking their victims. Thankfully, their own bodies were reduced to ashes. After being slow-roasted, of course.


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[Assistant] The city tried to move on and bury the past after that. The shops were torn down and for a long while no one was allowed to build on that land.


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[Assistant] It's even said that Paris officials had a small monument placed on the empty lot, described as a tall pyramid-shaped stone. No one knows where it is today and most people seem to be alright with that.


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[Assistant] Which is ironic, if you think about it. In a city that has spent centuries literally digging up its past in order to add character and charm to its offerings, it feels odd that the story of the murderous barber wouldn't be given a more prominent place, if only for the boost to tourism.


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[Assistant] Instead, it's been knocked down and wiped clean, which is the more fashionable approach, I suppose.


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[Assistant] Historians often talk about the need to help the past come to life, because we have a lot to learn from exploring it all. And while I think it's a wonderful sentiment in general, there are some exceptions to that rule.


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[Assistant] Paris is, in many ways, the city of light. It's beautiful and charming and full of life and laughter in a way that has earned it a reputation as the romance capital of the world.


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[Assistant] Millions of people travel to spend time there every year and all you really need to do is look at a few photographs of the place to understand why. And have I mentioned the pastries?


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[Assistant] But light casts shadows. For all the places of beauty you can find in the city, there are dark counterparts. The towering monuments above are echoed below by miles of tunnels full of millions of human bones. The cobbled streets and beautiful neighborhoods are built on soil that has soaked up the blood of tens of thousands over the years.


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[Assistant] And it's also a great metaphor for how we treat the past in general.


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[Assistant] Every city around the world has stains on the pages of its history. Every culture has a long list of tragedy and mistakes right next to its glorious achievements. Maybe that's the human legacy. We are capable of accomplishing so much and yet it almost always comes with a dark cost.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned earlier, in the aftermath of the discovery of the grisly crimes of those shop owners, Paris officials prohibited anyone from building on the land where the crimes took place. A century later though, those rules were relaxed, and ever since, the true location of the Bloody Barbershop has been lost to time. But not the story itself.


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[Assistant] Because tails like that have a way of sticking around, don't they?


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[Assistant] There's a grim attractiveness about them, and while they might not be shared in the most public of places, they certainly become part of the rumor mill.


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[Assistant] Which is why, over the centuries that followed, that story spread. Not just to the rest of Paris, or even the countryside around it, but outside of France as well. By the time it reached England, it was the perfect tale to include in one of the many penny dreadfuls that were printed and sold during the Victorian era.


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[Assistant] The basic elements of the tale found its way into a magazine called the People's Periodical and Family Library, who in 1846 published an 18-part story called The String of Pearls.


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[Assistant] Of course, the details had changed a bit by then and a lot of the plot with it. To be honest, if you didn't know the connection, you would just think it was another bit of entertaining fiction.


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[Assistant] But those who know, have a whole new appreciation for the story.


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[Assistant] And for the infamous main character that it all revolves around. A man who, thanks to Broadway and Hollywood, just about everyone today would recognize. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Sweeney Todd


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[Assistant] I hope you've enjoyed this tour through some of the less polished aspects of Paris. It's clear that there is a lot to discover, especially if one is looking for the darker side of the City of Light.


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[Assistant] But I'm not done just yet. I've saved one final tale that's sure to give you chills. And if you stick around after this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] You don't have to be a student of history to have at least heard the name Catherine de' Medici. It's a name that stirs up images of intrigue and plots among the nobility of her day. But there's so much more to her than that.


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[Assistant] Catherine was born in Italy into the once prominent Medici family. At the time of her birth though, things were becoming tense. At the age of eight, she became a political pawn and was captured and held hostage in a convent while the older generation battled for control of Florence.


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[Assistant] There were happy moments, though. And for all the turmoil, much of her childhood was spent in the presence of family members who also happened to be dukes and popes and kings. So when she was married off to Prince Henry, the son of Francis King Francis I, it was a transition that was less of a shock than it would have been for most others.


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[Assistant] Catherine's husband Henry finally ascended to the throne in March of 1547, and for the next twelve years she would reign by his side as Queen Consort.


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[Assistant] The couple also had ten children, three of whom would later go on to wear their father's crown at different points. So when people imagine Catherine de Medici as a spider at the center of a political web of intrigue, this is why. Because in a lot of ways, she was.


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[Assistant] In the 42 years between 1547, when her husband Henry became King of France, and 1589, when she passed away, Catherine wielded a powerful influence over much of Europe. Some of that power was visible and obvious, but there were also darker elements, and one of them involved a butcher named Jean Le Cocher.


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[Assistant] When Henry died in 1559, Catherine had a new palace built along the River Seine, in the St. Germain Parish of the city. It's said that Le Corchere had a cottage on the palace grounds, from where he conducted his business for her.


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[Assistant] By day, he was the official butcher for the palace. And by night, when required, he was a butcher of a different sort.


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[Assistant] It's said that he worked as an assassin for Catherine, as well as the shadowy figure that pulled political levers when they were too dirty for his employer to touch.


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[Assistant] But as the years went by, it became very clear to Catherine that Le Crochet knew too much. All of those dark tasks had armed him with power over her, and that was simply unacceptable.


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[Assistant] So Catherine hired someone else, a knight from out of town, to put an end to her butcher.


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[Assistant] Legend says that the new assassin found the old one working in his cottage at the palace and ran him through with a sword. And that, we would assume, was the end of a frightening situation for Catherine. But if history has taught us anything, it's that it's never safe to assume. Later that evening, the night had a dream.


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[Assistant] In it, Le Cocher appeared to him all covered in blood.


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[Assistant] The image frightened him so much that he told Catherine about it, but she dismissed his dream without a second thought.


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[Assistant] Or at least it seemed that she had. Later though she went to an astrologer and asked what he made of the dream. And his answer wasn't happy.


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[Assistant] It turns out he had also had a dream. Not of a bloody butcher, but of the ghost of a man surrounded in red mist. And in his dream, the spirit had uttered a curse. A curse that said that Catherine would die near Saint Germain.


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[Assistant] Naturally, that was an image she wished to forget, but it seems the palace never let her.


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[Assistant] Many times in the weeks that followed it said that Catherine herself saw the red ghost inside the palace, taunting her like the light of an oncoming train.


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[Assistant] And being a superstitious person who valued control and power over anything else, she decided to take matters into her own hands. If death was going to come for her near Saint Germain, then she would simply move away. If she no longer lived in the parish, she would be safe.


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[Assistant] Catherine lived on for many more years and enjoyed a level of power that few in Europe had at their disposal. And while she was very far from perfect, it's clear that she left her own particular marks on the pages of history. So when she passed away on the 5th of January of 1589, it's fair to say that the world lost someone unique. But that's not all.


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[Assistant] As she lay on her deathbed in Chateau du Blois, struggling to breathe from the infection around her lungs that would eventually kill her, she found solace in the words of a Benedictine monk who had come to give her her last rites.


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


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


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


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


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


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[Assistant] Chances are good that you have one in your pocket. It might be small, and it might be made of common elements, but there's something ubiquitous about the good old penny.


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[Assistant] The very first large one-cent coin produced by the American government was struck in 1793. And because only about 1,000 of them were ever made, anyone who finds one should feel incredibly fortunate. But luck has followed these little coins for a lot longer, and the folklore we have today is absolutely rich.


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[Assistant] Some people believe that carrying a penny in their pockets will attract new wealth. Others believe it needs to be three pennies. Some old wives tales suggest keeping that penny in your shoe instead and recommend placing one in the crib of a newborn to help them grow up to be wealthy and wise.


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[Assistant] And then, of course, there are wishing wells, where pennies become avatars of our deepest desires. Some people just toss them in as if they're dropping a pebble, while others believe you need to do it with your back to the well and toss the coin over your shoulder. And honestly, the list could go on and on.


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[Assistant] We humans have collected a lot of fears over the many thousands of years we've been around. Fear of death, or hunger, or loneliness, or illness. Fear of poverty and pain and not fitting in. So it's no wonder that along the way we've settled on some very unique ways of managing those fears.


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[Assistant] But while the folklore surrounding lucky coins is all about attracting good things, the vast majority of superstitions out there are different. They are beliefs designed to repel danger and suffering, either by watching for ominous signs or by actively tripping up the evil forces that might deliver the worst that life has to offer.


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[Assistant] Many of these superstitions have been with us for a very long time. And while they can be a bit divisive, splitting communities into those who believe and those who don't, it's undeniable that they hold a certain kind of power over us. A power


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[Assistant] I think it's fair to say that just about everyone has heard that saying before. If you're worried about something bad happening, they say you just need to knock on something made of wood to ward it off.


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[Assistant] But few people realize just how old that superstition really is. One way to view this is to look at wood in various ancient cultures. For example, the Egyptians revered Sycamore, while old Germanic tribes held ash in a place of honor.


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[Assistant] And a lot of these cultures added to the uniqueness of these trees by suggesting that otherworldly spirits actually lived inside them.


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[Assistant] When the ancient Greeks noticed how frequently lightning was attracted to oak, they assumed that it was because Zeus had blessed those trees.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, whenever they boasted about something they hoped would come true, the Greeks would knock on an oak tree to catch Zeus' attention. It was a tradition that would be passed on to the Romans, and then on to the Britons, which is why it's still present in most Western cultures today.


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[Assistant] Another common superstition is the warning to never walk beneath a ladder, especially if someone is using it at the time.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of theories about where it originated, including the ancient Egyptian obsession with pyramids. But that's a tricky culture to dive into. Yes, leaning a ladder up against a wall does create a pyramid-shaped opening. But the ladder is also one of the sacred symbols of Nut, the Egyptian sky goddess.


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[Assistant] Other historians believe that superstition regarding ladders comes from the early Christian church. Because in order to nail Jesus to the cross, it was assumed that a ladder was used, making them symbols of death. But the most common theory points to the use of ladders in the execution of criminals by way of hanging.


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[Assistant] In many communities across Europe, there was no official gallows. Condemned criminals would simply climb to the top of a ladder where the noose would be fitted over their heads before stepping off into death.


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[Assistant] As a result, walking beneath that ladder is viewed by many as a journey into the same death and tragedy, to literally mingle with misery and sorrow. A risky thing to do, for sure.


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[Assistant] Right up there with walking under ladders is the folklore surrounding broken mirrors. Now many people will tell you that this particular superstition has everything to do with the expensive nature of mirrors.


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[Assistant] In fact, up until just a couple of centuries ago, mirrors were expensive and rare.


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[Assistant] Making the destruction of one a bad thing from a financial perspective. But the idea might go back even further.


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[Assistant] You've probably heard that the cells in your body get replaced every few years, but that's only partially true. It turns out different cells in the human body die off at different rates. For skin cells, it's about two to four weeks, while liver cells regenerate every six to nine months.


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[Assistant] But it was the Romans who were the originators of this idea. And for them, it was all about seven.


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[Assistant] Essentially, if your reflection was damaged in some way, perhaps by dropping the bowl that a priest was using to scry your future, your current self would become damaged, and that damage would need to cycle out.


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[Assistant] Until that happened, they believed the person would face misfortune and bad health. Thus, seven years bad luck. One last superstition.


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[Assistant] For thousands of years, one of the most valuable substances on Earth wasn't gold, but salt. It was essential in preserving food through long winters. It was a key ingredient in the medicine of many ancient cultures. And it had a prominent place in religious ceremonies as well.


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[Assistant] No matter what slice of life you might explore, salt would be right there, in the middle of it all.


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[Assistant] Not only that, but Romans paid their soldiers, at least in parts, with salt. And the word for that salt money, salary, is still with us today. As are sayings like someone being worth their salt. Salt was a highly prized object and there were thousands of places all across Europe and the Mediterranean where it was produced.


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[Assistant] Fun, interesting side note. The Anglo-Saxons referred to saltworks as a witch. W-I-C-H. So anytime you bump into an English town with that suffix, there's a high probability that it was once home to a saltworks.


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[Assistant] My goal here is to help you understand how valuable salt was in the ancient world. So it's understandable that superstitions would pop up around that idea.


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[Assistant] Spilling salt would have been an expensive error and came with some very real-world consequences. Maybe you would no longer have enough salt to preserve your food to survive the winter. Or perhaps it would mean less medicine would be available.


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[Assistant] Salt was precious, and losing it could be tragic. And then of course, religion comes into play.


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[Assistant] In the Middle Ages, it was believed that the devil was always waiting just behind a person's left shoulder for a chance to tempt them or lead them astray. So if a person accidentally spilled salt, it was recommended that they immediately toss a pinch of it over their left shoulder to stop the devil from making his move.


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[Assistant] Oh, and that famous Leonardo da Vinci painting The Last Supper? It's an elaborate story told in a single image. And one of the clues that hints at the betrayal Judas was plotting against Jesus is right there on the table in front of him. His salt has been spilled.


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[Assistant] That painting, though, also employed another type of superstition that has been common for centuries. While the meaning behind it is complex and multi-layered, it was the sort of superstition that just about anyone could remember. As long as a person was able to count, they would be able to watch for the signs. Danger, some believed, could be found in numbers.


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[Assistant] Most people have a favorite number. Maybe it represents a cherished birthday from their childhood, or a number they always use when playing the lottery. Numbers are everywhere, in school and at home and all throughout our workplaces, so I can see why some people might pick a favorite.


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[Assistant] But some numbers have the opposite effect. There are a lot of people out there who have certain numbers that fill them with dread. They see them as omens of ill-fortune or symbols of chaos and avoid them at all costs. And a good example is the number four.


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[Assistant] Fear of the number four is most prominent in East Asia. It's thought to be bad luck to give presents to a friend or loved one in groups of four. It's even left out of phone numbers and addresses. Why?


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[Assistant] Well, it turns out that in many East Asian countries, the words for for and def sound exactly alike. And that's an association many people would like to avoid.


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[Assistant] There are others, too. The number 9 is considered unlucky in Japan for similar reasons. But hands down, across centuries and cultures, the most feared number of them all is 13. And it starts a lot farther back in time than you might have guessed.


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[Assistant] Long before Christianity arrived in Northern Europe, the Norse mythology was the driving force behind many beliefs and practices. In that universe of story, there's a tale of a banquet held for the various Norse gods. Twelve of them, in fact, all by invitation.


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[Assistant] But Loki, ever the rule breaker, showed up anyway, despite not being invited, making him the 13th guest. His arrival triggered a series of events that led to the death of Baldr, son of Odin and Frigg, which in turn sparked Ragnarok and the end of the world.


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[Assistant] As Christianity spread throughout Europe though, it added new layers to the belief system of millions of people.


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[Assistant] One of those iconic stories was the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples. I mentioned the Da Vinci painting earlier for its inclusion of spilled salt. But another message hidden in plain sight is the number of guests at the table. Thirteen. And not only that, but just like the Norse tale, one guest would break the rules and another would die.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, prior to Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church, English Christians believed that gatherings of 13 were a great way to emulate the Last Supper. But once the Anglican Church took over, those gatherings were outlawed because they were deemed too superstitious. Which, ironically, is an observation only a superstitious person could make.


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[Assistant] Which leads us to the 13 clubs. These social gatherings were the brainchild of a man named William Fowler, who founded the group in New York in 1880. Their goal was to debunk those old fears of the number 13, with 13 guests, 13 toasts, 13 courses, and so on and so on.


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[Assistant] And as if that weren't enough, the members also broke mirrors, spilled salt, walked under ladders, and generally taunted every single superstition they could think of, all in an effort to prove that none of it was true.


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[Assistant] And it turned out to be immensely popular too. Within seven years, they'd grown to be over 400 members. And while their membership included a number of future American presidents, interest fizzled out by the 1920s. But the fear of the number 13


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[Assistant] But if there's one representative of our ancient fear of 13 that's still as strong as ever, it's that infamous date. Friday the 13th.


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[Assistant] The origins of Friday the 13th are a lot more complex than Dan Brown's novel that Da Vinci Code would like us to believe.


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[Assistant] Tradition holds that because the Knights Templar were rounded up and arrested on Friday, October 13th of 1307, the Western world has never forgotten and still considers any Friday the 13th as a bad omen. But there's no evidence to suggest that it was that specific event that kicked it all off. In fact, it's probably a lot older.


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[Assistant] Remember Odin's wife Frigga, who I mentioned earlier? It's actually her name that gives us the English word for Friday. And when Christianity overtook the ancient Norse belief system, it was said that Frigga was branded a witch and then banished to the top of a tall mountain. Literally, one religion pushing another out of the way.


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[Assistant] But according to the folklore, Frigga wasn't quite finished. Once a week, she and 11 other witches would meet, along with the devil himself, to plan out ways to bring chaos and disaster to the rest of the world. Those gatherings of 13 individuals would become known as Witches Sabbath. Friday.


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[Assistant] I hope you can see how those pieces of folklore all sort of snowballed and turned into something larger than life. It's a classic example of what happens when we take a common fear and give it a lot of time to evolve and expand.


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[Assistant] But all that complexity also hides the true origins. Today, all we can do is make an educated guess.


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[Assistant] But whatever the true roots are for the fear of the number 13, it's clear that for centuries, people believed it to be a dark omen that needed to be avoided. Ignoring the signs could invite all manner of misfortune, suffering, and tragedy into a person's life.


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[Assistant] But few took that warning as seriously as one man in particular. And judging by the events of his life, the accuracy of the folklore is terrifying.


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[Assistant] Arnold was born to play music. Maybe he inherited that from his mother, who worked as a piano teacher. Or perhaps it was his father's work making shoes that instilled him with a desire to create things of his own. Either way, Arnold was practically born to rise above.


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[Assistant] That birth happened in 1874 in the Austrian city of Vienna. It was the city of Mozart and Beethoven and century upon century of the European love for the arts. So it should really be no surprise that Arnold started down the path toward music.


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[Assistant] All through the late 1890s, he supported himself by writing the music for local operas. Like a lot of people trying to break into a crowded scene, he supplemented his income with other related jobs, like teaching music to younger students. And then, in 1901, he got married and started a family.


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[Assistant] That was an unusual time in his life. Although he'd been born Jewish, he sensed a rising anti-Semitism all around him and so he converted to Christianity.


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[Assistant] He and his wife had two children together, but they spent a few months apart in 1908 when she left him to live with her lover, the painter Richard Gerstel, who lived in the same building as them.


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[Assistant] When his wife returned, Gerstel took his own life. Honestly, it can't have been an easy place to live.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of Europeans in 1916 though, he served in World War I and managed to survive. And then life got busy all over again.


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[Assistant] In 1922, he published a book of music theory, and then a year later, his wife passed away. A year after that, he married again, and then settled in as an instructor at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin.


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[Assistant] But during his time there, between 1926 and 1933, he watched as the political landscape slowly shifted in a terrifying direction.


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[Assistant] Adolf Hitler, a failed Austrian painter and the man behind an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government, had somehow managed to tap into a seething undercurrent of racism and hatred, and then used it to rise to power.


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[Assistant] As a man born into a Jewish family but hiding under the label of Christianity, the world around Arnold had suddenly become too hostile.


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[Assistant] It took a year, but in 1934, he and his family finally moved out of the country, first landing in the UK before following employment opportunities to the United States. By 1935, he was living in California, where he took a job teaching music at UCLA.


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[Assistant] But Arnold also had a secret. He suffered from a lifelong fear of the number 13.


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[Assistant] He believed that his birthdate, the 13th of September, hinted at dark consequences for his life. And he set out avoiding that number for as long as he lived. If he traveled and stayed in a hotel, he would refuse any room on the 13th floor. And the same if it was a meeting inside a tall building.


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[Assistant] But don't think of this as a superficial thing though. Arnold was all in with his fear of thirteen.


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[Assistant] Once, when looking for a house to rent, he flat out refused to even step inside the place because its address was 13 Pine Street.


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[Assistant] And we can even see this lifelong fear show up in his creative work. Between 1933 and 1934, Arnold composed an opera that he called Moses and Aaron.


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[Assistant] But if you add up the number of letters in the proper spelling of that title, you get 13 characters. So instead, he spelled Aaron with one A rather than two. And as a double A Aaron myself, I can't help but wince a little. As a lover of folklore though, I can understand why. As he grew older, that fear only deepened.


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[Assistant] He was utterly convinced that his death would somehow be connected to 13, and did his best to avoid it whenever possible. Which is why the year 1939 was so tough for him, because that was the year he would have turned 65. And 65, if you do the math, is a multiple of 13.


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[Assistant] In a panic, he consulted an astrologer, but he was told not to worry. Yes, they told him 1939 would be dangerous, but it wouldn't be fatal.


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[Assistant] So he pushed his fears aside, focused on work, and even completed another symphony that year. I can't imagine he ever fully let it go, but at the very least he refused to let it paralyze him. And he lived.


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[Assistant] However terrifying the number 13 might have seemed to Arnold Schoenberg, he somehow slipped through its imaginary noose. Despite all the anxiety and stress, there had been nothing to be afraid of. It was, after all, just folklore.


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[Assistant] For a very long time, people have struggled with fear. Whether that was a fear of the mysterious world all around them, or fears about specific, highly personal events or failures, fear has always been with us. And because of that, it's become one of the driving forces behind much of what we do.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, the ancient Greek word for superstition is dysa daemonia, the fear of demons. For our ancestors, these weren't clever little sayings or harmless traditions. They were real and powerful.


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[Assistant] Today we might laugh about not walking under a ladder, but centuries ago it was viewed by many as a matter of life and death.


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[Assistant] For some of these ancient writers, though, superstitions were more complex than simple fear. One of the earliest uses of the Latin word superstitiosus was used by Plautus, a 2nd century BC Roman playwright. To him, it was a word used to describe someone with a prophetic gift, an ability to see what's coming next.


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[Assistant] And some scholars also see a connection to the Latin superstus, which means a survivor.


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[Assistant] The pieces all come together into an intriguing picture. Superstitious people, from one point of view, are those who survive the dangers of life by paying attention to the signs of things to come.


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[Assistant] Over time, many superstitions have evolved to become preventative measures too. Rather than pointing to what is about to happen, they are believed to alter the future in our favor.


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[Assistant] Yes, his fear of the number 13 might seem a bit irrational to most of us today. But if he truly believed that he was predicting his own future, all those choices look a bit more logical in retrospect. After all, wouldn't you try to avoid death if you knew when it was coming?


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[Assistant] Thankfully, Arnold survived 1939. Two years later, he officially became a U.S. citizen. He would go on to publish more and continued to teach music theory for the rest of his life. But if he was at peace during that time, all of that came crashing down in 1950, when a friend pointed something out to him.


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[Assistant] Upon hearing this, it's said that Arnold was stunned. He had only been looking for multiples of 13 and dreaded his quickly approaching 78th birthday, but had completely missed this one. Once the reality of it sank in, he fell into a depression. At some point in his 76th year, he believed he was going to pass away.


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[Assistant] By the summer of 1951, with only a couple of months left in his 76th year, Arnold's health was failing. His breathing had become more labored, and his eyesight had begun to leave him. And over all of it, fear hovered like a cloud, driving him deeper and deeper into depression. What if death was truly on its way?


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[Assistant] According to his wife Gertrude, one night in mid July, Arnold was confined to bed and a physician was there to look in on him. She glanced at the clock and noticed that it was close to midnight and wondered if the worst was yet to come or somewhere behind them. And then the doctor stepped into the room and told her it was almost time.


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[Assistant] Gertrude and the physician were there at Arnold's side when he took his last breath just minutes later. And amazingly, he died just as he believed he would, at the age of 76.


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[Assistant] Superstitions have been around for a very long time. I hope this brief tour through some of the more common ones on the list has left you feeling a bit more in control.


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[Assistant] But as we all know, music and math go hand in hand. So it shouldn't be surprising to learn that Arnold wasn't the only composer with a numerical superstition. Stick around after this brief sponsor break and I'll introduce you to one more fearful musician.


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[Assistant] Most people today are aware that 13 is a number with a lot of baggage. They might not be sure why, but they know it's a feared number. And fewer still probably know the scientific term for that fear. Triskeidekaphobia.


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[Assistant] But there's another fear that almost no one has heard of, called Eniophobia. It too is a numerical fear, but this one is focused on the number nine. And while it has taken many shapes over the years, none are as amazing as what is known as the Curse of the Ninth.


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[Assistant] The basic idea is that for a composer, their ninth completed symphony is most likely to be their last.


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[Assistant] Granted, most composers have escaped this fate unharmed, but there's a not-so-insignificant list of those who didn't. Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, and Alexander Gluzunov are all in the club. Oh, and some guy named Beethoven.


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[Assistant] But one man was determined to get around it. Maybe he didn't believe it and was eager to prove the superstition false. Or perhaps he was so afraid of what might happen that he worked to avoid it. Either way, it was an idea that hung over him for most of his career.


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[Assistant] Gustav was born in Eastern Europe back in 1860, and right away, people noticed his talent.


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[Assistant] It might have been a product of his tense and difficult household. After all, his parents hated each other, having had their marriage arranged years earlier. His mother, it seems, was the kindest woman in town, while his father was known to be loud and abusive.


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[Assistant] At the age of four, he was playing piano. By the age of ten, he was performing it in front of public audiences. And by fifteen, he was composing music of his own. In fact, his first piece was an opera inspired by the death of one of his siblings. And he kept moving faster from there, graduating from the Vienna Conservatory at just eighteen.


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[Assistant] But after that, things slowed down. Rather than explode onto the scene like a classical rock star, he fizzled out. Soon enough, he was spending most of his time conducting other composers' work in front of various orchestras, and only managed to squeeze in a little composition of his own from time to time.


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[Assistant] If Gustav was one thing though, it was persistent. He lost his parents and one of his sisters early on and had to take care of his four youngest siblings. He suffered from constant health problems, career setbacks and struggles within his own marriage, including catching his wife having an affair. But through it all, he composed.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, he had a number of symphonies under his belt. Eight, in fact. But that meant that his next would be his ninth, and if the superstitions were true, his last. So he decided to game the system, so to speak, and left the word ninth out of his next symphony. Instead, he simply called it the Song of the Earth.


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[Assistant] When he was finished with it in 1909, he must have held his breath, waiting for the axe to fall. But it didn't. Death didn't come knocking on his door, and no tragedy swept him away. Somehow, he had dodged the curse of the Ninth, and lived to talk about it. So he did what any composer would do with the gift of time. He started writing new music.


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[Assistant] A year later, he completed another symphony. Now, technically, it was his tenth, but he hadn't numbered his previous one. And maybe he was feeling cocky, or perhaps he had finally put the curse of the ninth out of his mind as nothing but bad fiction. Either way,


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[Assistant] He did something courageous and named the new piece his Ninth Symphony.


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[Assistant] That was 1910, and with his superstitious fears seemingly erased, he pushed forward on a new composition. But at the same time, his health was rapidly failing, which meant the race was on. Because if he died before finishing his 10th symphony, all of that sneaky, name-changing work had been for nothing. The curse of the ninth, it seems, was still on his heels.


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[Assistant] In February of 1911, while fighting a fever of 104, he conducted a concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall, almost immediately after he traveled back to Europe where he sought out medical help in Vienna. Once there though, he caught pneumonia, fell into a coma, and then passed away.


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[Assistant] Now, some of the more superstitious among us might be interested to know that the date of his death was May 18th. And 18, of course, is a multiple of 9. It's also 9 in another way, by adding the 1 and the 8 together.


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[Assistant] But honestly, those are number games that can be played with just about any date and any historical figure. Famous or not.


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[Assistant] No, in the end, the only trace of unexplainable circumstances ultimately comes down to the curse of the Ninth. Despite everything Gustav Mahler tried to do to avoid it, it seems that fates had other plans for him. At least, that's what we're supposed to believe. After all,


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[Assistant] What good is folklore if it doesn't occasionally seem to work?


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


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


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


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


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[Assistant] They were afraid that everything would be lost. Their community in northwestern China, along the Silk Road, was under threat from a neighboring group. So they gathered their most valuable possessions and walled them up inside a cave. And then, a thousand years passed by.


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[Assistant] In 1900, a monk was exploring that very same cave when he encountered the hidden treasure. But it wasn't gold or precious gems that he stumbled upon. No, this hoard was a collection of over 40,000 scrolls and documents. A secret library that archaeologists today refer to as the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas.


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[Assistant] Among the seemingly endless collection of ancient scrolls was a document that is known today as the Diamond Sutra. It was printed in the year 868, according to the text on the document, making it the oldest printed and dated book in the world. But it's also the earliest example of one of the most common genres throughout history. It is a how-to guide.


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[Assistant] We like to teach things. It's how we pass along our knowledge to the next generation and how we grow as individuals. Whether we're switching professions in the middle of a career or a young student who's learning things for the first time, how-to guides can transform lives and open up worlds of possibility.


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[Assistant] But everything useful has a darker underbelly. Tools can be misused. Weapons designed for hunting can be turned on helpless people. And books can contain just as much evil as they can good.


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[Assistant] And few can hold a candle to the Malleus Maleficarum, a guidebook written in 1487 to help authorities identify and exterminate people accused of being witches.


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[Assistant] Instruction guides are meant to help us create. But when it came to books like the Malleus Maleficarum, all they typically built was panic, fear, and superstition.


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[Assistant] Historical witch trials are something that most of us are aware of. In America, we probably connect most closely to the Salem trials, the infamous events that took place in colonial Massachusetts in 1692.


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[Assistant] When that wildfire of panic had finally burned out, 20 innocent people had been executed, and another five had died in jail awaiting trial.


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[Assistant] Of course, Europe and England had their own witch trials that took the lives of thousands more. But what we rarely do is stop and ask the obvious question. Why?


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[Assistant] Why specifically were those people accused and tried, and so often killed? What brought the panic to their doorstep? The answers, though, are frustratingly simple.


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[Assistant] The most common traits shared among which trial victims is a list of characteristics that should stand out to any of us. Primarily, the accused were women who had drawn attention to themselves, either through their actions or some kind of physical or mental disability. And they often lived alone with no family to support or protect them. And what were they accused of in most cases?


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[Assistant] Well the most common claim was that these individuals had maliciously lashed out against their neighbors, causing them illness, loss, and even death.


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[Assistant] Spend any amount of time reading about the Salem trials and you'll see a number of testimonies where people claim to be attacked and beaten by evil forces that they attributed to their neighbor, and the courts believed them.


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[Assistant] One great example of this is Joan Wright, a midwife who lived and worked in colonial Virginia in 1626. She was accused of being a witch for the simple reason that she was left-handed.


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[Assistant] Her neighbors accused her of causing a servant girl to dance and of predicting a number of deaths. They even blamed a powerful storm on her because it destroyed their crops.


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[Assistant] Whether or not she was executed though, was never recorded.


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[Assistant] And then there's the other level of accusation that fits in neatly with our Halloween folklore of witches. Early on in the history of these witch trials, the focus was actually on the witch's involvement with fairies and ghosts and all sorts of supernatural creatures.


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[Assistant] It was only after Christianity spread throughout Europe and became part of their cultural foundation that the fairies were swapped out for something more threatening and believable. The devil himself.


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[Assistant] Later on, that grew into claims of pacts with the devil, or illicit relationships with him and his minions.


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[Assistant] And finally, the third most common accusation was that of treason. This is another of those ideas that dips back further into the past than Christianity, where some people believe that a witch could be hired to have someone else cursed to death. Others accuse them of offering predictions about royalty, typically to help one of the parties involved.


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[Assistant] We can see this on display in Shakespeare's Macbeth, when the three witches predict Macbeth's rise to the throne and then, of course, his demise.


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[Assistant] Oh, and interesting side note. For a long time, people have referred to the three witches in the story as the Weird Sisters, but the oldest manuscripts call them something else, and fans of Supernatural will love it. Shakespeare referred to them as the Wayward Sisters.


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[Assistant] In the end though, all of these claims were crafted with one goal in mind.


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[Assistant] Execution. And this is an area where people today make a lot of mistakes. Thanks to Hollywood films and decades of television, we assume that all witches were burned at the stake. But that's simply not the case. The victims of the Salem trials were hanged. That is, except for Giles Corey, who was crushed to death beneath a pile of stones.


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[Assistant] The difference in method of execution honestly came down to the type of Christianity involved, the specific crimes, and the country where the trials took place.


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[Assistant] The punishment had to fit the crime, however imaginary that crime might have been, so it varied from place to place. But when it was over, just about every accused witch was refused burial on consecrated grounds.


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[Assistant] Of course, centuries of folklore and pop culture have changed our perceptions and the stories that we tell.


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[Assistant] Today, witches are the protagonists of children's books and fantasy movies, and there is a nearly endless array of interpretation of them. Some people today will tell you that witches are neutral figures, while others still see them as a force of darkness that needs defeated.


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[Assistant] Most of us, though, probably think of them as characters in L. Frank Baum's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or its 1939 film adaptation. But whether we've seen the movie or not, most of us have heard the advice that Glinda the Good Witch passed on to Dorothy, that there's no place like home.


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[Assistant] I think I would be stating the obvious if I said that historians love records. A paper trail helps document social trends or nail down specific people and events to a particular time. When it comes to pre-medieval Scottish witch trials though, that's probably the biggest obstacle to painting a complete picture. The documents just aren't there.