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[Assistant] There are names, of course. Stories of early individuals who were tried and executed for witchcraft centuries ago.


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[Assistant] In 1537, Lady Glam's was accused of using charms against King James V, who responded by burning her at the stake. But her crime was treason, not witchcraft, so it's not remembered as the first witchcraft execution.


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[Assistant] No, that honor falls to someone else. A woman named Janet Boyman. But her story is also plagued by that frustrating lack of documents, so her early life is still a mystery to historians. The best guess is that she was born in the early 1540s, because by the late 1560s, she was a married woman.


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[Assistant] Janet and her husband William Steele lived on Cowgate, a well-known Edinburgh street located southeast of the castle. They didn't have any children, as far as I can tell, and were not sure what William's occupation was. But Janet herself worked as a healer. It was a calling that she discovered through her own pain.


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[Assistant] It said that Janet suffered from a mysterious illness that had plagued her for years, which finally drove her to seek out a local healer named Maggie Denholm. Maggie instructed Janet to join her at the foot of Arthur's Seat, a volcanic hill just east of Edinburgh Castle, where she would perform a ritual designed to heal her. And apparently, it worked. It wasn't subtle, either.


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[Assistant] It's said that the ritual caused the sky above them to rumble like a thunderstorm, and the very mountain they stood beside heaved and shook as if an earthquake had rocked it. When it was over though, Janet was healed, and was also so moved by Maggie's power that she asked to apprentice with her. And Maggie, thankfully, agreed.


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[Assistant] Within a few years, Janet was a popular healer known throughout the city as a woman who could get results. As her reputation spread, more and more clients found their way to her home. And one of those clients was the wife of a local blacksmith named Alan Lauderstone.


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[Assistant] Thanks to the social norms of the time and poor documentation, we don't know what her name was, but it's fully apparent that she was concerned for her husband's health. In fact, she feared that he was dying, so she begged Janet Boyman to help him. When Janet agreed, she gave the blacksmith the same instructions that her teacher Maggie had given to her. Meet me at the foot of Arthur's seat. And then she got to work.


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[Assistant] Janet first told the man to remove his shirt, and then summoned a spirit to examine it for her. She called upon the names of the father, the son, King Arthur and Queen Elspeth, and demanded the spirit tell her how to heal her patient. In response, the spirit told her to give the shirt back to the man, who was supposed to wash it in a stream that flowed south.


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[Assistant] Then, after he was done with that, his wife was supposed to lay the wet shirt on their bed as if he was laying there himself.


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[Assistant] And that's where the plan broke down, though. Instead of following Janet's instructions, the blacksmith's wife hung the shirt in a doorway, most likely because it was a better place to dry wet clothing. But breaking rules always comes with consequences.


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[Assistant] That night, it's said that a powerful wind pounded against the outside of the blacksmith's house, knocking dishes from their shelves and toppling furniture. Janet arrived the next day to scold the wife and then sent the blacksmith off to the same south running stream to start the ritual all over again. And this time, they say it worked.


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[Assistant] As you can imagine, stories like this helped spread Janet's name around the city. A healer who could command the spirits. Who could do things few others would even attempt. As far as they were concerned, she was a wonder worker. Although, they probably ignored the stories of her failures in the process.


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[Assistant] In fact, that same blacksmith returned three years later with a new case of the same illness. It was so serious that he feared that he would die at any moment. His wife begged Janet to help again, but the healer explained that she couldn't help this time. They had approached her on All Hallows Eve, a night when the spirits and fairies were busy with other matters. The blacksmith died the next day.


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[Assistant] But the adoring public focused on Janet's successful cases. She was the person you called if you needed something done that sat just a little outside the natural world. She was, like a number of healers at the time, something of a superstar. But she also sat in a precarious position.


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[Assistant] Because while she was certainly famous for her deeds, her name had become synonymous with something that was increasingly taboo to even speak about. Something that would come back to haunt her in the end. Janet Boyman, they said, was a witch.


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[Assistant] The thing that got Janet into trouble was that she branched out. Sure, her healing needed to be spoken about with massive air quotes, and it was drenched in supernatural elements like spirits and fairies, but it was still easy to wrap it up in a tidy little bundle under the heading of Healing Arts, which made it a lot less controversial.


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[Assistant] But things got complicated when she veered into prophecy territory. Remember, some of the most ancient stories about witches were deeply tied to prophecy, something we see echoes of in Macbeth's Wayward Sisters.


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[Assistant] Plus there were all the political elements to think about. While healing was a win-win situation for just about everyone involved, prophecy always favored one party over another. Good old Macbeth could tell us all about that.


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[Assistant] She had actually been dabbling in prophecy for a while, although it usually stayed clear of the upper echelons of society. One recorded instance actually involved the widow of the dead blacksmith. It seemed that Janet was never really able to rid herself of that relationship, so when widow Lauderstone needed help, it was Janet she reached out to.


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[Assistant] The widow had actually remarried and now the new couple had welcomed their first child into the world. Like a lot of women throughout history though, this new child, a son, was struggling to latch on and breastfeed. Naturally, the mother was distraught and so she went to Janet for help with her desperate situation. But it didn't end well.


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[Assistant] Janet arrived and quickly prophesied that the boy was destined to die regardless of what they did to help him. Because of that, Janet refused to try and the baby died a few days later. And I mention this story because in a twist of irony, it would be another case involving a baby that would draw her toward her end.


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[Assistant] In 1568, Janet received a summons from two powerful Scottish noblemen, Sir William Stuart and Sir Archibald Napier. It seems that these two men had some plans they were putting together and they wanted Janet's help to make it all happen. And those plans revolved around the tumultuous royal drama that had been playing out around them.


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[Assistant] In July of the previous year, Scottish Queen Mary was forced to abdicate the throne, passing the crown to her 13-month-old son, James.


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[Assistant] While Mary fled south to seek help from her powerful cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, little James was placed into the care of nursemaids, while his power was temporarily placed into the hands of a regent, his uncle, the first Earl of Moray, James Stuart.


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[Assistant] But it wasn't a wonderful life. It was clear from the very beginning that Uncle James had his eyes set on the crown, and Baby James was in danger. But the former queen, Mary, and her son, Baby James, still had plenty of supporters in the country. They just needed to find a way to remove Uncle James from the picture.


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[Assistant] And that's where Sir William and Sir Archibald came into the picture. They had already consulted with a witch from Norway who claimed that the Regent would survive. It wasn't the answer they wanted though, so they went looking for a second opinion from Janet Boyman, the local superstar.


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[Assistant] Surprisingly, Janet predicted the death of Uncle James.


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[Assistant] What happened next is a bit fuzzy, thanks to a lack of proper documents to build a complete picture. But we know that Uncle James was assassinated and that his death put a spotlight on all the political tension that had been boiling below the surface. A spotlight that eventually exposed Janet's prophecy about his death.


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[Assistant] And remember, there was very little difference in the minds of 16th century Scottish folks between prophesying something and attacking someone with a curse. Because of this confusion, Janet's minor role in the plot was seen as proof of some supernatural power. If she hadn't been viewed as a witch before, this was the moment that sealed the deal.


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[Assistant] Janet was arrested in 1570 and charged with a multitude of crimes, although witchcraft, sorcery, and making deals with fairies was the bulk of them.


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[Assistant] She somehow managed to slip out of town though and headed west to the coast southwest of Glasgow, but she wouldn't be safe forever. She was eventually tracked down in 1572 and taken into custody and then dragged back to Edinburgh for her trial.


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[Assistant] And look, the knee-jerk reaction to superstition that we see here isn't necessarily a surprise. If you've heard enough stories of accused witches, mostly women, usually practitioners of some atypical skill set, and almost always socially different, then you probably saw Janet's demise coming from a mile away.


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[Assistant] But what is surprising is that despite all the horrific stories of witch trial torture that we have on record, Janet's imprisonment seems to have been violence-free.


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[Assistant] No, that doesn't make it any less unjust, but it does show a small glimmer of humanity in a process that was so very good at dehumanizing whole swaths of people.


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[Assistant] In the end though, Janet's fate was the same as thousands of innocent victims all across Europe. After a brief trial, she was found guilty of things that science would never have been able to prove and then sentenced to death without a single hope for redemption.


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[Assistant] We are very good at burning what we don't understand. Whether it's an internet flame war or the genocide of an entire culture, history has shown time and time again just how good humans are at lashing out at the different and the misunderstood among us.


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[Assistant] When it comes to the ancient superstitions of the Scottish people, it's easy to see how that sort of social battlefield was ripe for bloodshed.


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[Assistant] Between the spirits and fairies and even the Christian devil, there was so much to be afraid of. And whenever someone claimed to work with them or to use their power, it wasn't difficult to take it one step further and assume that they were a threat.


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[Assistant] At the time of Janet Boyman's trial and execution, the Malleus Maleficarum was less than a century old. But in that short time, that how-to guide written by Heinrich Kramer, known in English as the Hammer of Witches, had already leveled a heavy blow. Witch trials had popped up all across Europe and the English countryside. And they would sadly continue.


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[Assistant] In fact, Scotland's darkest days were ahead of them. A man would eventually sit on the throne who held a powerful obsession with rooting witchcraft out of his kingdom, thanks in part to a mysterious storm that separated him from his new bride. A storm that her advisors blamed squarely on witches.


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[Assistant] This king married Anne, daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark, by proxy. That meant that each of them had a ceremony in their own country with a legal representative standing in for the missing partner.


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[Assistant] Less than two weeks later, though, Anne attempted to sail to Scotland to be united with her new husband when a freak storm forced her ship to seek shelter in Norway.


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[Assistant] The King of Scotland rushed to meet her there, boarding a ship and leading a fleet across the waves. And he made it. But when he and Anne were ready to leave for Scotland, another storm blew in, preventing them from setting sail. And it was there, while trapped in Norway, that this King was exposed to radical ideas about witches, how to spot them, and how to hunt them.


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[Assistant] Along with writing his own how-to guide for witch hunts that he called demonology, he personally presided over the tragic North Berwick Trials of 1590, an event seen by many as the moment when brutal Germanic witch trial methods were injected deep into Scottish culture.


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[Assistant] In A Twist of Fate, this king was James, the son of Queen Mary who had been forced to give up her throne. The very same James who had been watched over by a predatory uncle, and who had sat at the center of a political firestorm that had literally consumed Janet Boyman's life.


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[Assistant] The irony in their story is more than bitter. The woman who had been asked to help save the life of a baby king was paid for her efforts with a fiery death. And it was the very success of that plot that allowed James to grow up, wear the crown, and elevate witch trials to a new, horrific level.


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[Assistant] Janet Boyman might be an all but forgotten figure in the crowded halls of history, but without her, the most vicious witch-hunting king in Scotland's history might never have worn a crown at all. But there's something else.


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[Assistant] It seems that King James's passion and life were so influential that elements of his story and witch trial propaganda were actually used to craft one of the most beloved and powerful plays ever written.


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[Assistant] A play that involves the prediction by witches of one man's rise to the Scottish throne.


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[Assistant] It would be easy to walk away from today's story, thinking that King James VI of Scotland was the only ruler to attack witchcraft with a violent passion, but that would be wrong. In fact, there's a story from England that predates Janet Boyman by a few decades, and it's a powerful one in its own way.


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


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[Assistant] James VI of Scotland was a king obsessed with witchcraft. The historical record pretty much makes that impossible to dispute. This was a guy so paranoid about potential plots to remove him from the throne that he used witch hunts as an outlet for his fear.


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[Assistant] It said that he actively participated in the brutal torture of accused witches. He even had jurymen who disagreed with him thrown in prison. According to most historians, he was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. The man who felt it was his place to label other people as monsters turned out to be the biggest one of them all. Go figure.


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[Assistant] But James VI, who would also rule over England as James I, was an outlier. Most English monarchs preferred to let the local courts handle accusations of witchcraft. Most, but not all.


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[Assistant] A notable exception to that rule was King Henry VIII, and one story in particular illustrates just how different of a ruler he was.


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[Assistant] On Easter day in 1525, a 19 year old woman named Elizabeth Barton fell ill. I say ill, but what I really mean is that the people around her believed that she was sick. You see, Elizabeth claimed that she was having visions, sent to her by God.


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[Assistant] The content of these visions, as far as we can tell, centered around the new but growing tension between the ancient Roman Catholic Church and the people of England.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth believed that it was imperative for England to stay within the Catholic Church and began to travel and speak about the issue. And she drew quite a following. And of course, whenever someone stands out from the crowd and draws attention, the authorities have a tendency to jump in and make a fuss. And that's exactly what various leaders in England did.


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[Assistant] A commission was formed, and when it was over, they had all decided in favor of Elizabeth Barton. Her mission to keep England inside the Catholic Church was deemed a positive thing, and as a result, she was welcomed into the Priory of Canterbury as a nun. And they also gave her a special title, the Holy Maid of Kent.


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[Assistant] In 1527, King Henry VIII requested his infamous annulment from the Pope, but was turned down.


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[Assistant] As you can imagine, and with history to provide a bit of helpful hindsight, this didn't sit well with Henry. All of a sudden, the Catholic Church was his enemy, and all who supported it were included in that generalization. And that included Elizabeth Barton. And then Elizabeth made a mistake.


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[Assistant] In 1532, she prophesied that if Henry went through with his plans to annul his marriage and remarry another woman, he would die a short while later. And she took it one step further too, claiming that God had shown her another vision, this one containing Henry's place in hell. And it wasn't pretty. Elizabeth had crossed a line.


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[Assistant] She had done the very same thing Janet Boyman would do in Scotland four decades later. She had prophesied the death of a ruler, something that many people equated to witchcraft. In fact, many, including Henry himself, viewed it as an act of treason. But there was a problem. Elizabeth was incredibly popular with the general public.


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[Assistant] An entire year would go by without any repercussions for her actions. It wasn't that Henry had given up or that Elizabeth had somehow received a pardon or his grace. No, Henry simply wanted enough time to build his case. When he came for her, he wanted to do so with every gun blazing, so to speak.


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[Assistant] Rumors were created about how promiscuous Elizabeth was, and that she was unstable mentally. They were classic labels in the history of witchcraft, so I'm not sure if she was even shocked to hear them herself. Despite being false though, they took root and spread. Because many people, both then and now,


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[Assistant] Can't tell the difference between destructive weeds and useful crops.


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[Assistant] In 1533, Elizabeth and five of her closest supporters were arrested. Under threat of torture, she was forced to confess that she had fabricated all of her prophecies about the king. They were kept at Newgate Prison in London for months, under charges of witchcraft and treason. After the winter was over though, their execution date was set.


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[Assistant] On April 20th of 1534, Elizabeth Barton and her supporters were led out of Newgate toward the Tyburn gallows, located close to where the marble arch stands today. And then, with a crowd gathered to watch it all, they were hanged. Elizabeth was just 28 years old.


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[Assistant] The aftermath, as you might imagine, was a bit messy. King Henry VIII declared himself the official head of the Church of England, and by the end of the year, England's separation from the Catholic Church was complete.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth's body was buried at Greyfriars Church nearby, but her head was removed from her body. Henry had it placed on a spike and then set up at the London Bridge.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Alexandra Steed 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. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


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[Assistant] And 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] It's an unremarkable stretch of land by most standards. Wide open fields surround the place, with marshland and the occasional rise in the landscape. It's the Scottish Highlands in just about every way you can imagine. Windy, wet, and steel grey. And immensely beautiful. But it's also haunted.


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[Assistant] Many who visit this patch of land due east of Ivernest have reported the most unusual experiences. Some visitors have seen injured men lying in the tall grass, only to watch them vanish as they move in for a closer look.


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[Assistant] Others have witnessed men in military uniforms walking out of the marsh toward them. And oddest of all, local birds either avoid the area altogether or somehow feel compelled to remain silent, adding to the eerie atmosphere.


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[Assistant] That's because the land is the site of a bloody battle known as the Battle of Culloden. It was a confrontation that took place in 1746 between British forces and rebels from the Jacobite uprising and a conflict that saw the loss of nearly 2,500 lives.


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[Assistant] And every year on the anniversary of that tragic event, the past, it seems, returns to make itself known.


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[Assistant] Because some tragedies are too difficult to move on from, and as a result, they gnaw at the present. Either through unusual experiences or the details of the stories we still tell about them today.


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[Assistant] But it's not the only battlefield known to be haunted by the events they once played host to. All over the world, there are locations where soldiers fought and died that still seem to have an atmosphere of their own. Where the darkness has yet to let go.


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[Assistant] And it's easy to understand why. All of that pain and suffering and death, concentrated into one location, can't help but leave a mark.


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[Assistant] Even in a relatively new country like the United States, there are countless battlefields with the reputation for something darker. As if the past still waits for us behind a thin veil.


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[Assistant] And thanks to its pivotal role in American history and the magnitude of suffering that took place, there is one battlefield that most people today have heard of. Even if they don't know about the shadows it contains. Gettysburg.


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[Assistant] It wasn't just a battle. That's probably not a shock to many people, but if we're honest, most of the time someone says the name Gettysburg, it's in reference to the battle. But long before shots were fired, Gettysburg was a community.


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[Assistant] It was first settled in 1761 when a tavern was built at a well-traveled crossroads for people journeying between Baltimore and Philadelphia.


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[Assistant] In what could be seen as a bit of foreshadowing, most of those travelers were soldiers, and their frequent stops helped turn the tavern into something more. By the 1790s, locals were referring to the community there as Gettysburg.


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[Assistant] By the time the dark clouds of the American Civil War were gathering on the horizon, Gettysburg was home to nearly 500 buildings, most of which were homes, but also businesses and centers for manufacturing. And of course, there was the railroad line that passed through, which also contributed to the community's growth.


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[Assistant] Gettysburg was also more than a battle in another way. While the infamous battle most people remember only took place over the course of three days, it was part of a larger campaign called, creatively, the Gettysburg Campaign.


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[Assistant] For most of June and July of 1863, military activity swirled around the little community there, like a large beehive hanging from the branch of a small tree. But that would change soon enough.


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[Assistant] His hope was that if he succeeded, he might force President Lincoln to consider some kind of peaceful agreement. But Lincoln wasn't going to let that happen. In the weeks leading up to the main battle, Union forces under the command of General Joseph Hooker positioned themselves in the area around Gettysburg, hoping to act like a barrier between Lee and the North.


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[Assistant] What took place between July 1st and July 3rd was the bloodiest battle of the entire civil war.


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[Assistant] Despite replacing General Joseph Hooker just three days earlier, Union General George Meade managed to repel the Confederate forces and send General Lee back south. It saved the north from invasion and helped turn the tide in the larger conflict.


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[Assistant] That victory came at an enormous cost, with over 51,000 casualties between the two sides, roughly 30% of everyone involved.


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[Assistant] Historian Drew Gilpin-Faust puts that figure into morbid perspective by equating it to six million pounds of dead bodies. And those bodies were left to rot in the hot July sun, too, because the long-held tradition of the victors burying the dead had been tossed out the window earlier in the war. It was just too hard to keep up.


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[Assistant] But it's not just that the Union forces didn't have time to dig graves. It turns out there weren't enough supplies to get the job done, either. A key tool in that process was shovels, obviously, and there weren't enough to go around. And so the dead, for a long while, were simply left in the sun.


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[Assistant] Because of this, the people of Gettysburg reportedly began using scented oils like pennyroyal and peppermint as a way of masking the stench.


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[Assistant] He went beyond smells, though. After the battle, farmers headed back out into their fields, only to find dead soldiers littered throughout their crops. One farmer, George Rose, found at least 50 bodies in his field, while another farmer discovered an entire front line of 80 soldiers that had died in a tidy row.


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[Assistant] Everywhere people looked, there were dead horses and dead men.


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[Assistant] It wouldn't be until October that the National Cemetery was set up at Gettysburg. The battle might have been four and a half months in their past, but I can't imagine anyone there felt as if it was over or had begun to forget. That's because there was something else going on in the hearts and minds of those connected to the Battle of Gettysburg.


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[Assistant] You see, the people of the late 19th century lived in a world where death was more of a community event. The overwhelming majority of people from that era died in the presence of loved ones, almost always at home. It was viewed as a good death where the final moments and words of the dying might be recorded.


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[Assistant] But war robbed families of that experience. All throughout the Civil War, parents and spouses had to wrestle with the knowledge that their loved ones had traveled far from home only to die suddenly in battle with no one to witness or comfort them. That wasn't a good death as far as they were concerned.


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[Assistant] One common fear that came out of this bitter side effect of war was that the dead might linger. That the lack of a good death had the potential to create a cloud of souls who were separated from their bodies in a less than ideal way.


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[Assistant] People put their lives back together. Businesses reopened and farmers went on to plant and harvest new crops. But the specter of all those bad deaths lingered on. We know this because of the stories they told. Stories that have held on to this day. Of tragic loss and painful death.


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[Assistant] If the shifting battle lines were waves, the community of Gettysburg was the shoreline. Depending on the time and day of the conflict, you never knew which side would have control over the homes and businesses there.


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[Assistant] Barns were used as military hospitals. Kitchens and dining rooms played host to officers planning their next moves. Naturally, the people of Gettysburg did their best to disappear and stay out of harm's way. And for the most part, it worked.


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[Assistant] The home of local farmers Daniel and Rebecca Lady was taken over by Confederate forces around July 2nd. It was stressful for the family on a number of levels, not least of which was the fact that Rebecca had just given birth to their fourth child a week before.


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[Assistant] But the beautiful Fieldstone farmhouse quickly became a hospital for injured troops, and that meant that there was a lot of blood.


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[Assistant] Again, the house is made of stone, so it fared better than its wooden neighbors against stray mini balls. But inside, the Confederates got creative with everything they could find in order to help their injured soldiers.


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[Assistant] Doors were taken off hinges and used as stretchers. The dining room table served as a location for emergency operations. And amputated limbs were piled outside the kitchen window. A pile that reached so high that it was visible from inside.


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[Assistant] Today, there are still visible blood stains in various parts of the house, remnants of that painful and tragic week. But some believe the stains aren't the home's only reminders of the past. Visitors have seen ghostly figures in military uniforms throughout the property, while others have heard screams of pain as if someone were injured and afraid, like a dying soldier.


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[Assistant] Another place with its own connection to the battle is the Fairfield Inn, which was already nearly a century old by the time the battle washed over the community there. Some people tell stories about its use as a Confederate hospital, but there's no solid proof to back up that claim. What we do know is that the property was used as the site of a mass grave for dead Confederates.


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[Assistant] As the story goes, the Southern forces retreated westward at the end of the battle, a path that took them directly past the house.


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[Assistant] Whispers rippled through the broken Confederate soldiers that a physician lived in the house, and as a result, hundreds of injured stopped there for help.


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[Assistant] In addition, wagons filled with corpses were guided into the yard and emptied there, leaving the owners with over 800 bodies to bury. That's nearly a thousand lives that were lost to violence, only to be buried with no identification or honor, far from their home and loved ones. They might have dreamed of a good death, but what they received was far worse.


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[Assistant] Today the house seems filled with echoes of that tragic past. Objects have been known to move on their own, such as dishes in the kitchen.


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[Assistant] Mysterious sounds are often heard throughout the house, like footsteps in an empty room, and doors have been seen to open and close on their own. Others have felt cold spots and photographed orbs, those classic visual clues that ghost hunters look for.


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[Assistant] Most frightening of all though, many visitors have claimed to see the pale figure of an older man, sometimes dressed in military uniform. He's most commonly seen in the main floor of the dining area, a portion of the house that was built on top of the mass grave of Confederate soldiers. He never speaks, but it's hard not to feel disturbed by his presence.


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[Assistant] And I could go on, because there never seems to be a shortage of structures in Gettysburg that claim a connection to the infamous Battle of 1863. And with them comes just as many stories of the dead who refused to leave.


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[Assistant] In fact, I've been told that the local police there receive so many calls about unusual sightings that they have their own response code for such reports. 1863


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[Assistant] Some locations in town seem to have more activity than others. It's not a competition, of course, but there's certainly a difference from one place to the next. At the top of that list, though, is a building that seems to have experienced more echoes of the past than most. And if you're up for it, I'd like to take you there.


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[Assistant] It was built before the war, and its story continued long after it was over. The house that stands today at 401 Baltimore Street was constructed in the early 1800s by its original owner, a man named John McFarlane, who lived there until his death in 1851.


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[Assistant] His death, however, would be the first of many to take place in the life of the home he built.


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[Assistant] Today it's known as the Farnsworth House Inn, but in July of 1863, when the armies of the North and the South converged upon the community there in Gettysburg, the house was owned by Harvey Sweeney and his wife Catherine. They lived there with their daughter Elizabeth, as well as some lodgers who rented a room.


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[Assistant] But when the Union forces arrived, they also took on larger duties.


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[Assistant] Those Union troops needed space for supplies and safe medical care, and set up camp at the Baltimore street house. But after just one day of fighting, the Union had lost ground, and the Sweeney's home became a meeting place for the Confederates instead.


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[Assistant] In fact, it said that Southern sharpshooters actually fired at the Northern line from within the house, literally placing part of the battle inside the Sweeney home.


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[Assistant] For three days, the Sweeney's were forced to stay away from the house and probably wondered if they would ever get back. We can look back today and know that the battle would end on July 3rd, but to those in the middle of it, it must have seemed like a new reality with little hope.


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[Assistant] According to the stories told about the house, Catherine and Elizabeth were the first to step back inside. And when they did, they discovered a scene of horror and destruction. The interior of the home was in disarray. Windows were broken. Furniture had been destroyed.


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[Assistant] And blood was everywhere, including the walls.


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[Assistant] That wasn't the worst of it though. They apparently discovered a room on the second floor that was absolutely covered in blood. And when they examined it more closely, they noticed drag marks that led out into the hall and then down the stairs.


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[Assistant] Following the red smears, they were led to the cellar, where they discovered a horrifying scene. The bodies of two Confederate soldiers, one of which had nearly been decapitated.


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[Assistant] Most people have assumed that these two soldiers had been stationed in the upstairs room as sharpshooters, but had retreated after being mortally wounded. A retreat that led them to the dark silence of the house's cellar.


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[Assistant] And that same cellar has been reported to be the location of a number of unusual things over the years. Some claim that an aggressive Confederate spirit fills the place, which some are quick to blame on the two bodies that the Sweeney women had discovered there. But there's also a mysterious mirror down there that seems to have a mind of its own.


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[Assistant] It leans against one of the walls down in the cellar, and while it doesn't have a menacing appearance, many who have spent time with it come away feeling threatened and oppressed.


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[Assistant] Others have seen ghostly images behind themselves when looking into the mirror, and some have even captured mysterious shapes on film. It's even been known to move overnight, as has the plain white sheet that sometimes covers it.


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[Assistant] It's not the only space in the house that's reported to be haunted though. Upstairs on the second floor is a room known today as the Sarah Black Room, named after one of the previous owners of the building. Witnesses claim that visions have been so strong inside that room that they've even been photographed from the street below, although I haven't been able to track down images to back up that claim completely.


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[Assistant] But if you ask most people in Gettysburg today what the most famous ghost is in the entire house, nearly everyone will agree that it's Jeremy. Legend says that Jeremy is the ghost of a young boy who died outside in the street due to a tragic carriage accident.


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[Assistant] The injured boy was apparently brought inside for medical attention, but passed away before he could be saved. And perhaps because of his painful death, some think the boy has simply refused to move on and find peace.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, the stories claim that the room he died in eventually became a bathroom. The bathroom, in fact, that's connected to the Sarah Black room that I mentioned a moment ago. Jeremy has also been seen or felt in other parts of the house, including the cellar and the kitchen. But it's one particular story that has left many people scratching their heads. And if it's true, it's more than a little frightening.


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[Assistant] In another room in the house where Jeremy has been known to frequent, a red wooden toy box has been kept, perhaps to let him know that he's still remembered. Once, a visitor used a recording device to listen in the room, and apparently captured a small quiet voice that whispered, Jeremy, red box.


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[Assistant] Later in that same room, another visitor became frustrated by a table lamp that kept switching on and off. Despite everything they tried and making sure to press the button firmly until the light came on, it would switch back off a few minutes later.


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[Assistant] It was only after hearing what they believed to be the gentle laughter of a small child that this guest decided to see if the lamp perhaps had a faulty cord. They approached the table one more time and then knelt to trace the cord down to the outlet where they hoped to find an answer.


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[Assistant] Instead, they discovered something that caused them to catch their breath.


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[Assistant] Everyone wants a good death. We envision a peaceful ending to a lifetime of challenges and joys, preferably surrounded by those who love us. It's an ideal, and thankfully many people still get to experience that in our modern world. But nothing is guaranteed.


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[Assistant] That idea of a good death wasn't new in the 1860s, but it had certainly reached its peak in the zeitgeist of the day.


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[Assistant] It was helped along by Protestant Christianity and found a foothold almost everywhere, including popular literature and books on health and wellness. But the Civil War offered it a new stage and the way it was handled can still be seen in the folklore surrounding battles like those at Gettysburg.


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[Assistant] The war pulled people out of their comfortable plans and forced them into a situation where death was always around the corner.


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[Assistant] There was fear and anxiety, but also a good amount of plain old coming to terms with it all. I mean, you and I go through life thinking about death as a someday sort of thing, but the soldiers that converged on Gettysburg knew it was a lot closer than that. And if it arrived the next day, it would more than likely not be a good one.


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[Assistant] War is complex. It's not a black and white issue that we can easily parse and declare fixed. It's messy and difficult to pin down. And it's out of those complex situations that the shadows of life tend to grow.


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[Assistant] Tragedy, heartbreak, suffering and pain. We are powerless to stop it and that can be absolutely frightening to many people.


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[Assistant] So it's no wonder that whole forests of stories have sprouted up on the battlefields like Gettysburg.


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[Assistant] And honestly, it's stories like those that show us the full power of folklore. In the face of lost records and destroyed lives, those stories help us keep the past alive. Are they always the most accurate? Absolutely not. But they perfectly capture the overwhelming feelings of loss and suffering that the people of Gettysburg felt.


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[Assistant] Stories like those about another room in the Sweeney's house. Today it's known as the Garrett Room, but in 1863, it was most likely the location those Confederate sharpshooters were stationed in and where they received their bloody injuries. And for a long while, guests in that room have reported unusual things.


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[Assistant] None, though, speak to the tragedy of war more than one experience from 1993. According to the tale, a mother and her young son arrived to spend the weekend there in town. They toured all over Gettysburg that first day and returned to the Farnsworth House Inn in the evening to get ready for bed.


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[Assistant] Because their room didn't have its own bathroom, each of them took turns using the one on the floor below them. First the mother and then her son, Daniel.


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[Assistant] But while he was gone, the boy's mother heard him scream and rushed down to see if he was alright.


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[Assistant] She found him curled up on the floor outside the bathroom door, crying and covering his face.


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[Assistant] Other guests arrived as well, and together they all tried to figure out what had happened to the boy. When his mother asked him what had happened, Daniel simply replied, Blood mommy, blood everywhere, while pointing at the door.


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[Assistant] One of the guests checked the bathroom, only to find that it was clean and safe with no signs of blood anywhere. After apologizing to the other guests for disturbing them, the mother then led her son back upstairs, where he hopefully slept well and forgot all about it.


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[Assistant] And it's easy to listen to a story like that and let logic take over, isn't it? The boy had spent all day touring Civil War sites, and his overactive imagination simply got the better of him, filling his head with horrible visions.


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[Assistant] But it's difficult to miss the coincidence of a mother and child returning home to a bloody scene. Because that's exactly what happened to Catherine and Elizabeth Sweeney in the very same house on July 4th.


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[Assistant] The battlefields of our world have played host to immeasurable pain and suffering, and few can hold a candle to the fields and streets of Gettysburg. And while I've given you a glimpse into its shadows, there's one more story I just have to share. Stick around after this brief sponsor break, and I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] Death is frightening, but death on a grand scale is something more complex. Yes, it's disturbing, but it's also easier to distance ourselves from it. All of that tragedy happened over there, we might say, but it didn't follow us home. And Gettysburg was no exception.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned before, the loss of life during those three days of battle is a number that's difficult to fathom, with the casualties totaling over 50,000 soldiers.


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[Assistant] More surprising though is the fact that, as far as we can tell, only one civilian lost their life during the conflict. Meaning, for one family, the war did follow them home.


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[Assistant] The Wade family had lived in Gettysburg for quite some time, although life wasn't always the easiest.


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[Assistant] While I haven't been able to track down the father's name, we do know that he was arrested and sent to prison in 1850 for the crime of larceny. When he returned two years later, his wife took steps to protect her family from him and had him declared insane before sending him away.


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[Assistant] That left Mrs. Wade with four children to care for on her own, and by all accounts, she did a wonderful job. Her oldest, Georgia, married a Union soldier in 1862, and her younger daughter Jenny became engaged just a year later.


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[Assistant] Herbetroth was actually a childhood friend named Johnson Skelly, although most people just called him Jack. But due to his active service in the military, it seemed that their wedding would have to wait. Jack Skelly wouldn't return now.


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[Assistant] On June 15th of 1863, he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Winchester before being taken captive by the Confederates. Before he passed away though, fate brought him comfort in the form of another childhood friend, a young man named Wesley Culp. On his deathbed, Jack Skelly asked Culp to carry a message to his true love, Jenny Wade.


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[Assistant] We don't know what that message was, but it's safe to assume it was not unlike the countless other letters from soldiers of loved ones that have been preserved over the years. But we do know that Wesley Culp was guided home by the March of War just a couple of weeks later, joining his regiment to fight in the Battle of Gettysburg. War had come home for a lot of people though.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned earlier, the Union and Confederate forces played tug of war with the homes and businesses of the town, and many of those who lived there were forced to find shelter elsewhere. Some, though, stayed, either because they wanted to help or because running wasn't an option.


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[Assistant] It was the latter case for the Wade's. Georgia and her husband welcomed their first child into the world on the first day of battle, July 1st. And because of that, they were essentially trapped at home.


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[Assistant] To help them, her sister Jenny and their two younger brothers, along with their mother, all converged on George's house at 548 Baltimore Street.


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[Assistant] It had to have been a bittersweet time in the house. On one hand they had the joy of a new baby to put a smile on their faces. But just outside their walls, the rumble of battle shook them to the core, reminding them that while life was precious, it was also precarious. Death could come for anyone without warning.


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[Assistant] In fact, historians know of at least 150 bullets that struck their home during the battle. Most people believe that the family would have spent their time hiding in the cellar, but we also know that Jenny and her mother lended their support to the Union troops by baking loaves of bread for them. But that of course meant leaving the safety below in order to work in the kitchen above.


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[Assistant] On July 3rd, Jenny was standing in her sister's kitchen, kneading the dough that would be used to bake yet another batch of bread, when a stray shot pierced the house.


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[Assistant] Historians say that it passed through the parlor door and the kitchen door without losing its lethal velocity. That's when it struck Jenny from behind, just below her shoulder blade, allowing it to penetrate her heart.


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[Assistant] Jenny slumped into a heap where she had stood, and moments later her mother discovered her lifeless body on the kitchen floor. There was wailing and tears, but also a rush of panic from fear that more bullets would follow the first.


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[Assistant] Still, they managed to bring Jenny's body back down into the cellar, where they would mourn in the darkness by candlelight.


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[Assistant] That final message from her beloved, Jack Skelly, would never reach her ears. Although, it wouldn't have, even if she had survived. It seems that less than a mile away, Jack's childhood friend, Wesley Culp, had also been shot. And whatever the message he had been tasked with had truly been, he took it with him to the grave.


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[Assistant] It's said that Wesley Culp died on Culp Hill, a piece of land named after his own family.


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[Assistant] But that wasn't the only coincidence that would haunt the Wade family as they move forward into life without Jenny. Those steps would be slow.


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[Assistant] Because of the battle, Jenny's body had to remain in the cold, damp cellar of her sister's house. When it was over, they quickly buried her in the backyard in a borrowed coffin, probably out of fear that her body would decay before a proper funeral could be planned.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until January of 1864, roughly six months after her death, that they disinterred her and removed her remains to a local graveyard, along with the proper burial service.


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[Assistant] But Jenny wasn't finished moving quite yet. Just a year later in 1865, she was moved one last time to be closer to the grave of her beloved, Jack Skelly, who had been buried nearby in Evergreen Cemetery. Both of them had died alone, denied the good death that most people craved.


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[Assistant] Evergreen Cemetery might be home to the tragic couple, Jenny and Jack, but it's also the site of something else. Because less than two years earlier, in November of 1863, a ceremony was held to dedicate the Gettysburg National Cemetery, which sits right beside the Evergreen.


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[Assistant] And to do so, locals built a platform inside Evergreen Cemetery where an important dignitary would later stand and deliver a powerful message. A message that transformed the enormous tragic loss of life into something more meaningful. Into a good death. And the man?


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Taylor Haggardorn 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. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


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[Assistant] 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] It's one of the most popular activities in America. According to the most recent statistics, roughly 45 million people love to do it whenever they can, or about 13% of the U.S. population. Every day, people head outside and go hiking.


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[Assistant] And it's hard to blame them. That fresh air, that distance from the bustle of everyday life, and that connection to the natural world. Those are attractive things.


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[Assistant] Sure, it can also be physically challenging, but that's the price of admission for anyone who wants to take a trek into the wilderness.


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[Assistant] But there are shadows in the forest as well. If you've ever hiked alone, you're all too familiar with that anxious feeling that happens when you hear a sound you can't identify or catch movement out of the corner of your eye. Despite all that beauty, what the woods have more than anything else is darkness.


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[Assistant] For thousands of years, people have filled that gloom with something that could help them come to grips with the unknown. Stories.


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[Assistant] Even today, our collective folklore is a treasure chest of legends about who and what roam through the wooded areas of our world. The forest, for many people, is sacred space.


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[Assistant] But the woods are more than just a place to visit. They are home to challenges, risks, and even dangers. Wild animals, difficult terrain, and the dark side of all that peace and quiet, the lack of human assistance, can all conspire to turn a pleasant afternoon into an unexpected tragedy. And it's been that way for as long as humans have been around.


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[Assistant] I could start with legends of supernatural creatures. I could start with the intricacies of fairies or deities or the mythology of various cultures. But if I'm honest, the best and most efficient way to journey deep into the folklore of the forest is through one very specific bit of legend. And it's called the Wild Hunt.


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[Assistant] It's a small segment of European folklore that historians can trace back to at least the post-medieval period, but those scraps are clearly evidence of something much older. And in a lot of ways, it's unlike many of the tales we bump into on a regular basis. It might involve common players or ideas, but the way it's all put together is something special. And very dark as well.


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[Assistant] Those who study the hunt typically break it into two distinct variations, each one originating from different parts of Germany. In the southern region of the country, we can find tales of the Wutendes Herr, or the Furious Host. This is the sighting of a mysterious hunting party in the forest, accompanied by the sounds of horns and shouting voices.


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[Assistant] The Furious Host is typically seen as a sort of omen, a sign that some kind of catastrophe was headed toward the people who witnessed it. It could be a natural disaster, or one brought on by the darker aspects of our human nature, such as war or murder, or even the loss of a beloved leader.


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[Assistant] In the northern parts of Germany, they call it the Wilde Jagd, and this one is much more fearsome than its southern counterpart. Stories of this hunt describe it as a party of warlike riders, or a band of deadly hunters. It's always led by a prominent figure, but rather than bring an omen of impending doom, this type of hunt has the chance of taking something with them. Often, a loved one.


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[Assistant] From one perspective, it's a supernatural hunt, with otherworldly creatures on both sides of the chase.


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[Assistant] Those riding through the woods are thought to be the spirits of the dead or revenants, the dead who have returned to the land of the living. While the quarry are monstrous creatures. Some legends say the hunters chase a dragon, while others feature them tracking down the devil himself.


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[Assistant] Sometimes these witnesses would stand up to the hunter and refuse to let them pass. For those people would be punished for that. Others chose to help the hunt. And if they did so, they would receive a reward. Either in the form of money or some other valuable portion of the slain animal. But making a deal with these ghostly hunters always came with a risk.


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[Assistant] Those who witnessed the Wild Hunt were said to be at risk of contracting the plague or of bringing war down on their homeland. Others said that they risked being kidnapped by the fairies or dragged off to the underworld. But what's clear from all the legends is that the people believed these hunts really happened and they feared what could result from encountering them.


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[Assistant] And then, of course, there's the typical bit of suspicion that creeps into society in these stories. Just as countless Europeans spent centuries afraid that their neighbors might be witches, some people were also accused of willingly participating in the wild hunt. Locals claimed that these people could lay asleep in bed and yet send their spirits out to ride with the hunters. Whether Europeans were punished for these suspected crimes is something I've been unable to track down.


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[Assistant] And then of course there were the leaders of the hunt. They varied from place to place, but usually took on a few key characteristics. Each hunt leader was someone who had failed morally in some way. In these legends, their membership in the hunting party was a punishment for sins committed while alive.


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[Assistant] A good example was the undead nobleman, Count von Hacklberg. It was said that when he was mortal, this count blew off church in favor of taking his friends on a hunt.


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[Assistant] During the course of their fun that morning they encountered two mysterious travelers. One angelic and one devilish. After mocking the angelic one for some unknown reason, Pecount's entire hunting party was cursed to ride off into the other world and is still hunting to this day.


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[Assistant] Other leaders of the hunt have included Woden, also known in the northern lands as Odin. And elsewhere in Germany, the leader was said to be Birkta, the goddess of the Alpine region, whose name translates as The Bright One.


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[Assistant] Her southern counterpart, the goddess Holda, was similar in a lot of respects, even known as the White Lady. But she was also referred to as the Dark Grandmother and was closely associated with German witchcraft. Early depictions of Holda show her riding a broom through the night sky, if that tells you what people thought of her. Over the centuries, these legends have evolved.


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[Assistant] We can blame a lot of that change on Jacob Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm fame. His 1835 book, Deutsch Mythologie, included a collection of stories about the wild hunt. But in the process, he also blended them with more ancient theories about where they might have come from, giving them new life in an old school sort of way.


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[Assistant] But just because these tales are old doesn't mean they've stopped evolving. As nations rose and fell, and cultures spread out from Germany, they took their stories of the wild hunt with them. So it should come as no surprise that these old ideas found new soil on an island that was steeped in Germanic culture. Great Britain.


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[Assistant] On the surface, Germany and the UK are very different. They speak different languages, enjoy different foods, and have cultures that are incredibly distinct. But as with much of life, all you need to do is dig a little deeper to find the commonalities.


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[Assistant] For example, the English language is actually Germanic in origin. And when you hear people talk about the Anglo-Saxons of Great Britain, that's a reference to one of the older people groups that settled on the island. And they came from, you guessed it, Germany.


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[Assistant] So naturally, if we go back far enough, we're bound to find some common beliefs and folktales. And the stories of the Wild Hunt are one of them.


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[Assistant] In fact, there's a lot about the English version of that legend that will sound familiar. These hunts were seen as evil omens. There was always the risk that the hunt could sweep away innocent victims, and the leader of these hunts was always someone of corrupt moral standing.


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[Assistant] Of course, they also took on new elements after crossing the North Sea.


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[Assistant] England's love affair with tales of black dogs, sometimes referred to as Black Shuck or The Grimm, found a wonderful home in the Wild Hunt stories, which meant that the legend became more frightening over time because now, instead of just a hunter and their party, locals also had to fear a gathering of powerful, magical black hounds.


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[Assistant] One tale from 1127 illustrates this perfectly, written down by one of the scribes at Peterborough Abbey, which was located in a deeply Anglo-Saxon area.


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[Assistant] According to the scribe, their new abbot, recently assigned there by the church, was a grasping, greedy man who had somehow received the appointment despite already serving as abbot over another abbey elsewhere.


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[Assistant] During his time in Peterborough he didn't make a good impression. The scribe goes on to say that this abbot, and I quote, lived like a drone in a beehive. All the other bees gathered in, but he devoured. All that he could take within and outside the abbey, he took.


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[Assistant] It's then said that he put all of his gatherings onto a ship and sailed them back to his other abbey.


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[Assistant] According to this scribe, this man's sin caused a rupture in the veil between this world and the next, which allowed in a dark host. Soon enough, a troop of mysterious hunters was seen in the woods around Peterborough, described as being pure shadows, riding upon the backs of enormous black stags. And all around them, he claims, were dozens of pitch-black hounds.


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[Assistant] Of course, folklore assigned all manner of leaders to these shadowy hunting parties.


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[Assistant] Some associated them with folklore about the fairies, while others connected them to ancient Welsh warriors. Some believed that the leader of the Wild Hunt was none other than King Arthur himself, doomed to lead the hunt because of his adultery. But one of the most common names attached to it is a character known as Wild Edric.


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[Assistant] It's said that long ago, Edric was an Earl in Shropshire, a county that sits on the border between England and Wales. Edric was said to be incredibly wealthy and a fierce warlord who was known by some as Edric the Savage or Edric the Wild. And when the Normans arrived in 1066, he gathered his soldiers and fought against William the Conqueror.


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[Assistant] Sadly, Edric was unable to defeat him, and in the end he was forced to surrender and swear loyalty to the invaders. In response, his own people turned against him, imprisoning Edric and his wife Lady Gaada, along with their entire army inside an old lead mine beneath the ancient outcroppings known as the stipper stones.


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[Assistant] To this day, many still believe that Edric takes his party out on hunts through the region, and is always on call should England ever be threatened again. In fact, there have been reports over the last century and a half of just that.


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[Assistant] And in the case of the Crimean War, it's said that a local girl even witnessed Edric's hunting party pass overhead in the sky. She claimed that the legendary warlord wore a long green cloak over a green shirt, with a flashing sword and a long hunting horn at his side.


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[Assistant] And that's an interesting detail, because the color green comes into the Legends of the Wild Hunt through another character as well. The Celtic god, Cernunnus.


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[Assistant] According to tradition, Cernunnus was known as the Lord of the Animals or the Lord of the Wild Things. He was often depicted as a bearded man with long horns or antlers, showing off his affinity to the creatures that he watched over. And in some regions, he's deeply linked to yet another mythical being that's much more well known to us, the Green Man.


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[Assistant] Like Cernunnus, the green man is a bearded deity with close ties to nature. In fact, so close are those ties that he's actually depicted as a green man, thus the obvious name.


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[Assistant] But in one small region of England, the tales of Curnunus and the Green Man blend together under the skin of one more legendary figure with close ties to the Wild Hunt. The ghostly figure of Hearn.


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[Assistant] He's less mythology and more local legend. But as we all know, it's those local stories that dig deep and feel vibrant. Probably because they lean so heavily on locations we can see and visit. And Hearn the Hunter is no exception.


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[Assistant] Compared to figures like King Arthur or even Wild Edrick, there's not a lot known about Hearn, although that doesn't mean he's difficult to find. In fact, all you have to do is open up a copy of Shakespeare's comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Right there, in Act 4, is most likely the first popular mention of him.


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[Assistant] Here's a modern transliteration of the old Shakespearean text.


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[Assistant] There's an old story that her and the hunter, who used to be a gamekeeper here in Windsor Forest, walks around an oak tree at the quiet hour of midnight all winter.


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[Assistant] He has big jagged horns and he strikes the trees with disease and casts spells on the cattle and makes the dairy cows give blood instead of milk and shakes a chain in the most terrible and frightening way.


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[Assistant] Other writers since Shakespeare's day have also worked her and the hunter into their stories. William Harrison Ainsworth discusses the legend in his 1843 novel Windsor Castle. And our ever intrepid collector of folklore, Jacob Grimm, weighed in on the tales as well.


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[Assistant] It's not much, but it does show how well known of a figure he was to the people of the day.


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[Assistant] Hearn, according to all of these retellings, was a hunter god who was closely associated with nature and the creatures of the forest, much like Cernunnus. He even wore a crown or helmet of stag antlers, which were said to be a gift from the devil after he saved Hearn from a mortal injury, an injury caused by that same stag.


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[Assistant] But Hearn's story really comes to life when you pay attention to the smaller details. There are two things included in almost every popular retelling of his legend, aside from those horns. That he haunts a specific area of Windsor Forest, and that he is connected to a specific tree there. A tree, according to legend, where he was killed.


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[Assistant] Today the area that Shakespeare would have known as Windsor Forest is called the Windsor Great Park. It's a 5,000 acre patch of land that was once a royal hunting ground and is now mostly accessible to the public.


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[Assistant] Don't imagine it as all trees, though. Much of the park is wide open grass. But somewhere within that area, at least according to legend, stood Hearn's Tree.


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[Assistant] One 16th century map even pinpointed its location. But in 1798, that tree was rumored to have been cut down. A few decades later, in 1838, a new tree was identified as herns. But a storm blew it over in 1863, leading Queen Victoria to plant a new one in its place.


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[Assistant] One final replacement happened in 1906, and that one is still standing today. A living reminder of an ancient legend. But that's not all that's still around.


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[Assistant] According to many, Hearn himself has never really left the forest there. Countless sightings of him and his hunting party have been recorded over the centuries, even up into the 20th century. And if they're true, they're also terrifying.


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[Assistant] In 1926, a local woman who lived in a farmhouse near the forest reported hearing the distant sounds of hounds barking. As she sat up in bed, the sounds became louder and louder until it passed, along with the pounding of many riders right past her window. A moment later, the noise faded off into the distance.


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[Assistant] In 1947, a woman reached out to the London Evening News with a horrifying story. She had been walking along the edge of the park very late at night, and caught movement in the shadows out of the corner of her eye. Stopping to peer deeper into the trees, she caught sight of something that simply should not have been there.


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[Assistant] According to this woman, when the shadowy rider noticed her, he threw his head back and let loose an evil laugh before raising his hunting horn to his mouth and blowing it loudly as he rode away. As you might imagine, this woman ran home as quickly as she could and most likely locked the door behind her.


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[Assistant] But the most recent story might also be the most chilling. In 1926, a group of schoolboys claimed that they were exploring the woods of Windsor Great Park when they stumbled across an ancient looking horn. It was hollowed out, decorated with intricate lines, and strung on a length of cord.


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[Assistant] One of the boys claimed that he actually lifted the horn to his lips and blew as hard as he could.


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[Assistant] For a moment, only the fading sound of the horn blast could be heard in the quiet park. But then, off in the distance,


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[Assistant] A second horn replied to theirs, and then the sounds of baying hounds and pounding hooves began to approach them.


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[Assistant] What arrived a moment later was enough to send the boys running for their homes, frightened beyond words at what they had witnessed. It was a pack of black dogs, all standing around the legs of a tall man on a dark horse.


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[Assistant] Not the sort of trail you might find after letting a wet and muddy dog back into the house, but something more like genetics. A trail that evolves as the centuries pass by, where the original strand becomes entwined with new elements, giving it texture and life.


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[Assistant] But if you look closely enough, you can see elements of that original story in its descendants.


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[Assistant] I think that's one of the most important lessons for us to learn about stories, really. Old holidays like Christmas, Halloween, or Thanksgiving might look a certain way to us today, with small variations from family to family, of course. But it would be wrong to assume we would even recognize those traditions two or three centuries ago.


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[Assistant] Time has a way of reshaping everything. Even story.


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[Assistant] Which is why it shouldn't be surprising to watch, in retrospect, the traditions of the Wild Hunt evolve over the centuries into something different. It's what they were made to do, in a way, to ride outside of Germany and take their stories with them.


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[Assistant] And on the island of Great Britain, that's certainly what they did. Yes, the tales changed to incorporate local legends and key historical figures, but they never lost their core elements that described the hunt. It remained an omen of impending doom guided by a morally corrupt leader.


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[Assistant] But the English weren't known for staying in one place, were they? So while they were colonizing the New World by transporting people and supplies and everything they needed to set up a New England far from home, they also brought stories with them.


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[Assistant] And those stories, just like the crops they planted, took root and spread.


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[Assistant] Around 1820, a young author put pen to paper and wrote a bit of fiction that incorporated elements of the Wild Hunt. But he also added in local details, continuing that tradition of evolution and transformation. He had heard tales of a revolutionary war battle in New York known as the Battle of White Plains that resulted in a frightening legend.


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[Assistant] In the battle, one of the enemy soldiers was reported to have been tragically decapitated by an American cannonball.


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[Assistant] Unable to locate the man's head, his body was buried nearby and life moved on.


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[Assistant] But soon, rumors began to spread, saying that the soldier had been returning from the dead each night to ride through the countryside looking for his head.


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[Assistant] And this soldier, as it happens, was Hessian. A mercenary hired by the English to help them fight the war. A soldier from Germany.


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[Assistant] And these Hessian mercenaries were hated by the colonial rebels, who considered them morally corrupt and agents of the enemy. So naturally, this soldier made a good stand-in for the leader of the Wild Hunt.


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[Assistant] This story about the hunter and the town he terrorized along the Hudson River, part of a larger collection of tales, went on to be a bestseller, and is considered today to be one of the defining bits of folklore in American history.


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[Assistant] The writer, the tale, and the town it was set in were all works of fiction, of course. But their ties to the ancient legends of the Wild Hunt has helped provide centuries of entertainment. So much entertainment, in fact, that the real town situated roughly where the author set his fictional story,


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[Assistant] A tour through the legend of the Wild Hunt is certainly one of folklore's more thrilling rides, so I hope you've enjoyed the journey. But mysterious riders aren't unique to Germany or the English, and while they take on a lot of different forms, I've dug up one that I think you'll love. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] The notion of a dead writer who returns to haunt a living is ancient and widespread. Even the specific folklore around headless writers like the one found in Sleepy Hollow aren't as unique as you might think.


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[Assistant] In Ireland, for example, there's the legend of the Dulahan. This figure is a type of fairy, or supernatural creature, that is known for being headless, as well as riding across the countryside on a black horse.


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[Assistant] It's also rumored to use human spines as a whip to drive that horse along. A horse that sometimes pulls a wagon adorned with skulls and funerary objects.


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[Assistant] The Dulahan certainly has its own distinct flavor, but ghostly riders can be found in many other places, and one such story comes to us from East Texas in the decades before the Civil War.


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[Assistant] It was a time of plantations, slave owners, and elaborate social gatherings, but it was also a time of mystery, as this story will demonstrate.


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[Assistant] It's said that in Sabine County, a local plantation owner loved to host parties at his large home. He and his wife were the perfect hosts, welcoming neighbors and distant friends alike, and these gatherings were a regular occurrence for years.


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[Assistant] When the guests arrived, their coachmen would steer the carriages into the drive, drop off their passengers and then park along the edge of the grass in front of the house. Then they would all gather around a small fire, share stories, laugh and enjoy some rare free time while they were looking after the carriages.


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[Assistant] And so it was that on one summer evening, the hosts threw another of their famous parties indoors, while the coachmen all gathered around their fire outside. One of the guests that evening was a young man, a relative of one of the neighbors who frequently attended.


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[Assistant] And as it happened, this young man caught the eye of the daughter of the hosts. It's said that the young couple hit it off at once and snuck away to enjoy some time together while the older guests laughed and drank. It's hard to say how much time they were able to spend, but soon enough, they were inseparable.


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[Assistant] The following month brought another large party at the young woman's home. And that evening, she and the young man stepped into the crowd, called for their attention, and announced their engagement.


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[Assistant] And much to their delight, every single person there, including her parents, were fully supportive of them. It was the way things worked, after all, and they were congratulated by everyone.


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[Assistant] To celebrate, the young couple slipped outside for fresh air and a chance to get away. That's when the young man spotted the line of carriages along the drive. Taking her hand, he led her to the closest one, took the reins, and urged the horses forward. A moment later, they were thundering down the road.


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[Assistant] The man in charge of that carriage, an enslaved man named Ben Smiley, chased after them. He shouted for them to stop, but the young man simply leaned over the side, looked back at him with a grin and said that he would be back soon. But they weren't. In fact, the young couple never returned home.


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[Assistant] He believed that their crime, stealing one of the carriages, had made them targets of the spirit world. And much like the way the wild hunt could sweep through a community and take away loved ones, he believed that the spirits had tracked the couple down and ushered them off to the land of the dead.


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[Assistant] Well, life went on after that, however tragic it was. The owners of the plantation still held regular parties, although I have to think that those were tainted with a feeling of loss and grief. But they gathered nonetheless.


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[Assistant] And it was many years later when Ben and the other coachmen were sitting around their small fire outside, sharing old stories with the younger men, that one of them looked up and pointed toward the woods at the edge of the property. There, drifting out of the dark trees, was a bright glowing object.


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[Assistant] At first it appeared to be formless, but as it moved down the drive toward them it took on the familiar shape of a carriage, and all of the men stood there in a loose circle around the fire and watched in awe as the ghostly carriage rolled past.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Alexandra Steed 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. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


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[Assistant] 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] The farmers around the lake had known about them for centuries. The stories they whispered were so unbelievable that they spread far and wide, drawing in curious explorers and trophy hunters. But it wasn't until 1928 when someone figured out how to reach them. They would simply have to drain the lake.


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[Assistant] It took a team of archeologists and civil engineers, and even a few members of the Italian Navy, nearly three years to drain enough water from the lake. But when they were done, they had uncovered something mind-boggling.


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[Assistant] It was a pair of enormous ships built entirely out of cedar, each one stretching nearly 250 feet in length.


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[Assistant] Granted, this was 1931, so the world had already seen larger ships. The Titanic, for example, measured over 800 feet long, so three of these wooden ships could have sat on her top deck.


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[Assistant] When they were constructed though, there was nothing like them in the world. That's because they had been built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Caligula, making them nearly 2,000 years old.


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[Assistant] And they aren't just large ships. They had internal plumbing that included hot and cold running water, mosaic tile floors, and bathrooms. They were even decorated with gold and silver and had statues installed on ball bearings that allowed them to rotate and operate mundane tasks. They were pleasure barges fit for an emperor. And then they sunk beneath the waves.


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[Assistant] That's the problem with ships. Each one is a labor of love, and the culmination of thousands of years of technological advancement. And yet, when they're complete, we place them in the most unpredictable environment on the planet. The sea.


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[Assistant] And given enough time, the sea will demand payment, even if that payment is large or valuable or just too painful to bear.


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[Assistant] Every now and then, however, the rules get broken.


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[Assistant] As far back as the late 1600s, Maine has been a source of materials that shipbuilders need


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[Assistant] We know, for example, that in 1692, Massachusetts Governor Sir William Phipps traveled north to Maine to oversee a massive shipment of timber. They would be loaded onto a ship and transported back across the Atlantic to be used by the Royal Shipyards in their efforts to grow the British Navy.


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[Assistant] The New World represented new resources, and in an age before steel ocean liners, the vast forests of Maine were a gold mine for anyone interested in shipbuilding.


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[Assistant] But even after America won independence from England, that legacy continued. And as global trade accelerated, more and more people along the coastline put their fortunes into shipping.


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[Assistant] For a while, those ships from Maine did a lot of exporting. That strong old timber was needed in a lot of places, even south in the Caribbean. But as trade in molasses and sugar increased, those ships began to bring goods back with an ever-increasing urgency. And some of that business and wealth poured back into coastal Maine.


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[Assistant] That was the world that the Porter Brothers lived in back in the early 1800s. The Porters were a large family of 12 brothers, most of whom were involved in some aspect of the shipping industry.


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[Assistant] And it was right there at Porter's Landing in Freeport, Maine, that William Porter, along with master shipbuilder James Brewer, completed work on a brand new schooner.


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[Assistant] It was built for speed and agility, something that had become increasingly important as the War of 1812 crept closer and closer to Maine. And one of the side effects of that war was a British blockade that threatened their shipping business.


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[Assistant] A fast and maneuverable ship was exactly what they needed to outrun the authorities and maintain their livelihood. And this ship was so fast that they gave it the world's most obvious name. The Dash.


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[Assistant] The Dash spent about a year doing exactly that. On their very first run, the crew of the Dash sailed out of Portland, Maine and headed south towards Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. New England goods were traded for essentials like coffee and sugar, and then they headed back north.


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[Assistant] Along the way, they encountered a British blockade who ordered the Dash to surrender. Instead,


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[Assistant] They raised their sails and sped away, outrunning a deadly British man of war. By the time they arrived safely back in Portland Harbor, they were a legend.


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[Assistant] In September of 1814, that reputation earned them a job offer. The US government wanted to hire them as privateers. Sure, it came with official orders, and that made their actions legal, at least from the American point of view. But it was essentially an offer to become something most of us have heard about all throughout our lives. Pirates.


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[Assistant] Her mission was to hunt down and capture enemy vessels, whether they were serving duty as military ships or not. What the crew did with those captured ships was entirely up to them. All the government wanted was for them to be removed from the board, so to speak. To be taken out of play.


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[Assistant] Most privateers would bring their captured ships back home and sell them off, cargo and all, making it a lucrative enterprise.


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[Assistant] And The Dash was good at it. She was the 19th century version of the Mini Cooper in the film The Italian Job. Light and quick and impossible to catch. And thanks to some military provided guns, she could also sting when she had to. So the crew went hunting.


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[Assistant] Their first official catch was a British cruiser. After that they defeated the HMS Lacedemonian, a massive 38 gun warship.


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[Assistant] Naturally, they took it back to Portland. And those victories brought them two things. Fame and wealth. The Dash had developed a reputation for being unstoppable, which was probably fun and encouraging for the crew. But they were also making money hand over fist.


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[Assistant] Between October of 1814 and January of 1815, just a four month span, the Dash managed to capture at least five enemy ships.


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[Assistant] By selling off their cargo at market rates, her crew was able to bring in a payday of around $120,000. In modern currency, that would be worth nearly $2 million today.


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[Assistant] All told, over the course of seven missions as a privateer, the Dash never let an enemy vessel get away, and she was never shot.


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[Assistant] Financially, she was one of the most successful privateer ships of the entire war. But she was also untouchable. No other ship managed to build such a spotless reputation over such a short amount of time. The Dash was practically legendary. But every legend must come to an end. And the Dash was no exception.


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[Assistant] Our world moves a lot faster than it used to. At least that's how it feels. But in some ways things definitely have sped up. Communication is a great example of that. Today we can send a text message to a friend across the country and they'll receive it in an instant. It's magical and so normal that we take it all for granted.


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[Assistant] But in 1814, things were different. There was no internet, no cellular network, not even a telephone. If you wanted to let the world know something, it took time. Like setting an ice cube on the counter and waiting for it all to melt. And to be honest, there's a lot about that that's attractive. Slowing down can sometimes be a good thing.


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[Assistant] Other times, though, it can cause problems. Take the end of the War of 1812, for example. On Christmas Eve of 1814, representatives from the United States and Britain gathered in Belgium to sign the Treaty of Ghent to end the war. And that was it. On paper, the war was over. But news still had to spread.


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[Assistant] So in early January of 1815, as Captain John Porter was preparing the dash for another mission out into the Atlantic, he and his crew had no idea their job was over. So they went about all the tasks involved in getting ready to set sail. Supplies were brought on board, and the sailors made preparations for departure. It was a good crew that day.


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[Assistant] Captain Porter was just 22 years old, but had a lifetime of experience under his belt. It was his family that had built the dash, after all. And while his wife was safe at home and pregnant with their first child, family was close at hand.


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[Assistant] Two of his brothers were serving on the ship, 24 year old Ebenezer and 18 year old Jeremiah. Alongside them were dozens of other men, many of whom were from the local Freeport area.


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[Assistant] When they were ready, they began to leave Portland Harbor, a narrow stretch of water where the river meets the ocean. But before they could exit, they were approached by another ship, and the newcomer hailed them down.


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[Assistant] It was the Champlain, a newly commissioned privateer who was joining their ranks to help fight the war. Well, that's what they assumed, but we've already covered that, haven't we?


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[Assistant] The crew of the Champlain had heard all the stories about the Dash. They had heard the tales of her untouched record, of the massive fortune her crew had earned, and of course, of that unmatchable speed that made it all possible. And the Champlain wanted to do something about it. They wanted a race.


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[Assistant] Captain Porter and his crew could have said no. They could have made it clear that they had places to be and ships to steal. They could have thanked the crew of the Champlain for their kind words and welcomed them onto the team, so to speak, and then moved on.


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[Assistant] But instead, they took the challenge to heart. Sort of like Marty McFly in Back to the Future. When presented with the challenge, The Dash was always quick to accept it.


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[Assistant] The two ships sped north from Portland Harbor, out into the dark cold waters of the Atlantic. Remember, it was January, so the wind would have been painfully cold as both vessels raced across the waves.


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[Assistant] Over time, it became clear exactly why the Dash had earned the reputation people whispered about. It pulled ahead, and then kept going.


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[Assistant] Before long the Champlain was so far behind that they simply gave up and stopped.


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[Assistant] But when they did, they noticed something alarming. In all the excitement surrounding the race, they failed to notice that they were sailing straight into a dark ominous storm coming down from the north.


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[Assistant] The crew of the Champlain turned their ship around and began to head home. Looking back over their shoulders though, they could see the dash continuing north, straight into the storm.


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[Assistant] No one knows for certain why Captain Porter failed to turn back. Perhaps it was an error in judgment, or maybe it was his passionate desire to prove his ship's superiority.


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[Assistant] Whatever his reason might have been, it kept them from returning home safely.


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[Assistant] Most people assume the ship was pummeled by the massive storm. It might have been the waves that did her in, reaching up from the sea to pull the dash down into the depths. Or it could have been the wind that ended it all, driving the vessel too far east where it floundered off the coast of Nova Scotia. In the end though, all we can do is guess.


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[Assistant] Most of the time, the things we lose never come back to us. They slip into another realm and cease to exist. All we're left with is a memory, perhaps an emotion or just a feeling on certain days of the year. Most things that are lost are never found.


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[Assistant] But I'm not so sure that's the case with The Dash. Because in the years that followed her tragic and mysterious disappearance, stories began to spread. Stories about how The Dash had come back. And it was the fisherman who noticed it first.