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[Assistant] Now, historians believe the word hodag comes from old lumberjack slang. It could relate to the term for a kind of gardening hoe, or maybe a pickaxe. Although, based on pictographs discovered on the shores of Lake Superior, it's possible the hodag might be connected to Mishapeshu, the Ojibwe water panther.


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[Assistant] The Hodag was first spotted by a local man named Gene Shepard, who worked in the logging industry in 1893.


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[Assistant] His job was known as timber cruising, or land looking. He was like a baseball scout, except instead of up and coming players, Shepard evaluated areas of land based on how much money could be made from harvesting the trees for lumber.


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[Assistant] He also owned a hotel where he had rigged a fake leaping fish in the nearby lake to convince anglers that it was fully stocked.


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[Assistant] So, his claim of having witnessed a hodag probably wasn't something that people were quick to accept.


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[Assistant] The same article also reported how some locals took up arms against the creature and ventured into the woods to hunt it down. They grabbed their rifles, and according to the article, and I quote,


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[Assistant] And then they tracked the beast down to a tamarack swamp. With the Hodag cornered, the hunters released their bravest dogs, which were of course quickly torn to pieces.


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[Assistant] In a rage, the Hodag started knocking down trees around the hunters, while its breath turned into black tar coal smoke. And that smoke, plus the stench of the dog's remains, mixed together, creating an unholy fog of death.


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[Assistant] But eventually the hunters prevailed and successfully burned the Hodag to death after an exhausting nine-hour battle. They dragged its charred carcass back to town in victory. Three years later, Gene Shepard returned and brought with him an even more outrageous claim. Not only had he spotted another Hodag, but he had captured it alive.


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[Assistant] He blocked off the entrance to its den with large rocks before using a long stick to insert a chloroform rag into the cave, rendering the beast unconscious. For a time, Shepard told people that he'd been keeping the beast in his barn, a declaration that unsurprisingly garnered him attention. And of course, visitors.


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[Assistant] And so when people would come to his home, he would put on a nice suit and venture down to where he was keeping the hoedag. His guests would listen as Shepard screams and cries for help, mingled with the creature's own growls and roars. They would hear glass breaking and wood snapping. Until Shepard returned, his suit ripped to shreds.


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[Assistant] He would then apologize, saying that the Hodag could not be seen that day, as it was too angry.


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[Assistant] At the Oneida County Fair, for example, Shepherd put the Hodag on display in a tent, requesting that fairgoers leave their dogs at home for fear of them tempting the Hodag into eating them.


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[Assistant] And what people saw there was chilling. The hodag that Shepard had captured measured seven feet long and thirty inches high. Its skin was black and covered in horns, two on its head and another twelve on its back. And on the ends of its short legs were long, sharp claws.


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[Assistant] According to Shepard, the Hodag only ate on Sundays and subsisted on a diet of white bulldogs. It also laid 13 eggs at a time, from which its young hatched.


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[Assistant] Unsurprisingly, nobody stayed in the tent for too long. Shepard was always quick to move them out, for fear of their own safety, he said.


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[Assistant] But that wasn't the true reason. It was because his Hodag wasn't real. It was a wood sculpture carved by an artist named Luke Dearney, and it had been covered in old, smelly hides from a local tannery and was operated by his son like a puppet to frighten the fairgoers.


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[Assistant] Shepard would go on to use his Hodag in a staged photograph recreating that legendary capture, but all he really did was show how absurd the whole charade turned out to be. But that still hasn't stopped locals from spreading and even buying into the Hodag lore. After all, we all need excuses to blame for our problems. And what's better than a monster?


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[Assistant] Every corner of our world seems to have a monster. And every monster has a story to go along with it.


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[Assistant] Like I mentioned earlier, the Hodag's wild origin is tied to the burning of a lumber ox. If tall tales and oxen sound familiar, then it should come as no surprise that the Hodag legend eventually became intertwined with one of the most famous lumberjack stories of all time.


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[Assistant] In the 1920s, Gene Shepard wrote a series of stories about Paul Bunyan and his faithful Blue Ox babe. In fact, Shepard would sometimes claim to be the originator of all Bunyan stories. And one historian, Michael Edmonds from Wisconsin, thinks this might actually be one of the few true things that Shepard ever said.


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[Assistant] The earliest Bunyan stories appear to have emerged from Wisconsin logging camps in the 1880s, while a young Eugene Shepherd was working in the area. And the first stories about the giant lumberjack were recorded not far from his camp. They'd been told by a man named Bill Mulholland during the winter of 1885.


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[Assistant] Now we don't know for certain whether Shepard and Mulholland ever met, but it's likely, and they would have run in the same circles. And one of the stories that Bill liked to tell was about Paul Bunyan using a moose to pull his sled.


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[Assistant] Now, a moose-driven sled might sound fantastical, but the funny thing about this tale is that it was true, and it happened to Gene Shepard. In 1896, he apparently had a pair of moose brought to Wisconsin from Minnesota for the purpose of pulling his carriage.


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[Assistant] Once they'd been trained, he had postcards made of him in the driver's seat, the two moose up front ready to go. And he even claimed that they were faster than any horse-drawn carriage, even though he never actually proved it.


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[Assistant] The first Bunyan stories appeared in print in the Duluth News Tribune in 1904, around the time that Shepard retired, and the legend has only grown ever since. Some claim that Paul Bunyan hunted down and killed all the Hodags with a special 8-inch claw, which he used as a toothpick.


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[Assistant] Others say that the original Hodag was formed from the flaming corpse of Bunyan's faithful ox, which burned for seven long years, only to transform into the legendary beast.


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[Assistant] Like I said before, monsters are everywhere you look. From the forests of Europe to the woods of America's heartland, there seems to be a creature for every community. Which is why it was so hard to pick the ones we discussed today.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, we've got time for one more tale, and this one has some teeth to it. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Most of the things that haunt the shadows of the forest exist where roads and skyscrapers cannot go. But if you think you're safe from monsters and beasts just because you're snug in a big city apartment, think again.


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[Assistant] Toronto is not only the capital of Ontario, Canada, but it's also the largest city in the country, and the fourth largest in all of North America. It had originally been home to a number of Algonquin-speaking native tribes, but the area gained popularity among French fur trappers during the 19th century.


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[Assistant] But here's the thing. As the city grew up, it also grew down. City workers carved out tunnels for Toronto's massive plumbing infrastructure, as well as its subway system. It also built sheltered passages between the buildings to protect residents and workers during frigid winter months.


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[Assistant] But as Toronto carved and shifted its underground landscape, it also rerouted various natural rivers and waterways that had existed there for eons. And the city quickly learned that when you mess with nature, nature tends to mess back.


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[Assistant] One resident who identified himself to the newspapers only as Ernest had a terrifying experience in the tunnels below the city's Cabbage Town neighborhood in 1978. The reporters stressed that Ernest hadn't been the one to flag them down. They had actually come to him after learning about what he had witnessed down there.


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[Assistant] He told the Toronto Sun in 1979 the story of how he had gone down into the tunnel beside his house to look for a lost kitten. Except when he got there, he didn't find a cute defenseless creature. He found something else.


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[Assistant] And not only did they exchange glances, but the beast spoke to Ernest as well.


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[Assistant] Go away, go away, it hissed at him, before bolting down one of the many tunnels in Toronto's underground labyrinth.


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[Assistant] Ernest, stricken with fear, fled immediately, as any of us probably would have done. And that fear only grew as he began to hear odd sounds coming from the tunnel after his encounter. They were described as animals in pain.


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[Assistant] The journalist never found out the true source of the sounds. The tunnel entrance eventually collapsed. Some believe that the creature destroyed it intentionally to keep others from finding him.


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[Assistant] Now, some who have read about Ernest's encounter believe that he might have come face to face with the Memegwese, a dwarf-like creature with a hairy face. It was often part of the stories told by the Ojibwa and other nearby tribes. Memegwese weren't known to be hostile, but behaved in a more joking and curious manner, a lot like the Russian Leshy.


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[Assistant] At worst, they might send a canoe off course or steal things from those who did not show them some respect. But what Ernest saw in the tunnel that day was nothing like that. It was angry. Could it have been a Memegüese that had spent a little too long living underground? Or maybe a creature normally seen south of the border in Mexico? The blood-sucking Chupacabra.


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[Assistant] No one knows for sure, not even Ernest, but it's probably safe to say, whatever it was, it wanted nothing to do with the humans living above. Nothing good, anyway.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Harry Marks, and research by Cassandra de Alba. Lore is much more than just a podcast, there is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video.


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[Assistant] Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. Information about all of that and more is available over at lorepodcast.com.


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


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[Assistant] Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books. So if you're ready, let's begin.


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[Assistant] There's nothing like the open sea, the sound of gulls overhead squawking as they hunt for their next meal, the sound of waves lapping against the sides of the ship, the promise of adventure just beyond the horizon. It's no wonder swashbucklers like Blackbeard and Grace O'Malley call the ocean home for so many years.


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[Assistant] Beneath that glistening surface of salt water though, and under millions of grains of sand,


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[Assistant] Some of them just wait to be uncovered. Others should not be searched for at all. There's a reason buried treasure has remained buried for so long. And not just because the X has worn off the map. It's because those who buried it weren't able to recover it and didn't want anyone else to find it either.


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[Assistant] Pirates may be romanticized today as daring seafarers in pursuit of riches and freedom, but they were not exactly loved during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many were hardened criminals, murderers, thieves, and scoundrels alike, and if they weren't chased out of one location, they were arrested and hanged for their crimes in another.


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[Assistant] In Death, these pirates left behind quite a lot. Their legacies were built on stories of their exploits exchanged over mugs of ale and whispers of the gold they had stashed on distant shores.


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[Assistant] But while the exploits and treasures might have made for good story fodder, it also led to some serious consequences for the men and women involved.


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[Assistant] Today we set sail to explore some classic and creepy tales of pirates who chased luxury and liberation only to catch heartache instead. And sometimes, the hangman's noose.


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[Assistant] Not everyone is called to their profession. For every apprentice who spends hours studying and honing their particular skill, there's a John Quelch.


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[Assistant] Quelch was born in England in 1666. He grew up to become a lieutenant on the Charles, an 80-ton ship outfitted with all the weapons a privateer would need to take on an enemy of the Crown.


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[Assistant] Captain by one, Daniel Plowman, the Charles, along with Quelch and a full crew, sailed out of Marblehead, Massachusetts, a seaport north of Boston and, incidentally, just down the road from where I'm recording this. They'd been given instructions to take down any French and Spanish ships along their way, all the way up to Canada.


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[Assistant] But Captain Plowman wasn't feeling too well. Not long into the trip, he took to his cabin sickbed and siloed himself away from the rest of the crew. Left to their own devices, the men decided that there was only one course of action for them, and it wasn't a get well soon card. They mutinied instead.


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[Assistant] To keep the captain from leaving his cabin, one of the crewmen jammed a marlin spike into the doorframe. A marlin spike was a tool used to separate strands of rope, and it made a pretty good doorstop, too.


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[Assistant] Some say Plowman was tossed overboard, dead or alive, while others believe that he died inside his cabin. The details aren't too important, though. All that matters is that John Quelch quickly shed his role of second-in-command and began a new life as Captain of the Charles.


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[Assistant] With a new captain came new orders. No longer would they sail to Canada. Quelch had them turn the ship around. They were going south, to Brazil, in fact, with a new target in mind. Gold.


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[Assistant] The Brazilian gold rush had begun in the 1690s and other ships had already begun harvesting all that they could find. Between August of 1703 and February of 1704, the Charles and her men relieved nine Portuguese ships of their plunder.


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[Assistant] Gold coins, furs, sugar, and other treasures filled the ship's hold. And there was probably no shortage of bloodshed over it either. Pirates weren't exactly known to be friendly to the vessels they were looting. There was just one problem. England and Portugal had just signed a treaty aligning their governments against the French.


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[Assistant] Although the treaty had been signed before the Charles had set sail, it's unclear if news of it would have reached Massachusetts by that time.


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[Assistant] To let others know his ship was no longer a privateering vessel,


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[Assistant] Quelch designed a new flag. It depicted a white humanoid figure holding an hourglass in one hand and a spear in the other.


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[Assistant] At the end of that spear was a heart, with drops of blood coming down from it, all set against a black background. He called it the Old Roger, though it's believed that this is merely just a myth used to bolster his legend.


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[Assistant] After less than a year at sea, Quelch and his crew made the decision to head back to Massachusetts and divide up their fortune. They'd assumed that they'd gotten away with a perfect crime, with the people funding them back home none the wiser. They didn't know how wrong they were.


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[Assistant] The ship's backers quickly discovered damning evidence tying the Charles to the pirated Portuguese ships, including Portuguese coins of gold and silver, along with bundles of sugar that had been labeled in the Portuguese language. It was clear that Quelch and his men had targeted allied vessels as opposed to Spanish or French.


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[Assistant] Quelch had instructed his men to tell the authorities that the treasure was taken from a shipwreck that they'd stumbled upon and to get rid of anything that might link them to the Portuguese. He even tore out pages of a crew member's diary that mentioned what they had done.


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[Assistant] But these were pirates. They weren't known for playing things cool or keeping a low profile. They not only started spending their loot all over Marblehead, but they also bragged to the townsfolk about their adventures.


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[Assistant] Within a week of returning home, Quelch was arrested and his crew wasn't far behind.


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[Assistant] By June of 1704, he and his men would stand trial for piracy in the British Admiralty Court and become the first people to do so outside of England.


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[Assistant] This trial, though, was different from others. Unlike most regular criminal trials in colonial Massachusetts, those of the Admiralty Court variety did not include a jury, even though some locals believed that they were less fair that way.


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[Assistant] Quelch built his defense on ignorance of the treaty between England and Portugal at the time of his piracy.


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[Assistant] But ignorance did not equate innocence. Certainly not to Samuel Sewell, who was not only one of the judges presiding over Quilch's case, but had also made a name for himself when he presided over another trial just a decade earlier that you have probably heard of. The Salem witch trials.


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[Assistant] Following their guilty verdict, Quelch and five of his compatriots were marched through the streets of Boston before they were hanged for their crimes on June 30th of 1704.


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[Assistant] Nobody knows what happened to Quilch's body after he was hanged. It's possible that he was buried in an unmarked grave in what is now Cops Hill Burying Ground in Boston. And some believe that a stash of his gold is actually hidden on Star Island in New Hampshire's Isle of Shoals, where some of his men fled after the warrant was issued for their arrest.


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[Assistant] They didn't last long there, by the way. They were quickly tracked down and arrested. But the Isle of Shoals may hold more treasure than we know. It's been rumored that Blackbeard's loot was buried there as well. Although, despite a number of gold seekers having combed its shores over the years, no gold has ever been found.


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[Assistant] Massachusetts wasn't just known for its pirates, it was also home to their treasure.


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[Assistant] North of Boston is the coastal city of Lynn, also known as Lynn Lynn the City of Sin. And while many versions of this story claim to take place in 1658, the events that I'm about to talk about likely date back 20 years earlier to 1638, the year a strong earthquake rocked New England.


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[Assistant] The quake hits on June 1st of that year. The ground shook for four minutes from New Hampshire to Connecticut, and its strength was estimated at 6.5 to 7 on the modern Richter scale.


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[Assistant] It was such an event for New Englanders that they started using June 1st, 1638 as a reference for other dates. For example, instead of saying a specific year like 1636, they would say two years before the Great Earthquake.


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[Assistant] According to the lore, sometime before the earthquake struck, a ship appeared off the coast of Lynn. The small vessel had been painted black, and it wasn't flying a flag. Lynn residents knew exactly what the ship had on board, too.


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[Assistant] The following day, the townsfolk went looking for the pirates, but found a note on the door of the local ironworks instead.


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[Assistant] Whoever had written it had scrawled out a list of items that they needed, such as handcuffs and hatchets, which they wanted left somewhere in the Lin Woods in a clandestine location. In exchange for their cooperation, the letters said that townsfolk would receive some silver.


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[Assistant] Not ones to pass up easy money, the locals did as the pirates asked and left their supplies in a secret place in the woods. The pirates then used those supplies to set up camp by building living quarters and other necessities. The area is known today as Pirates Glen.


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[Assistant] But the interlopers soon learned that their paradise would not last forever. The authorities eventually discovered their hideout and arrested three of the four men. They were sent back to England to be tried for their crimes. The fourth pirate, though, a man named Thomas Veal,


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[Assistant] Escaped into what is now the Lynn Woods Reservation and took the treasure with him. He allegedly sought shelter in a cave with his ill-gotten loot and even excavated it further to make it a comfortable place to live.


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[Assistant] Veal stayed in the woods, only venturing into town to buy supplies and other necessary goods. He also worked as a shoemaker, but called the cave his home for as long as he lived in Lynn. That is, until the earthquake struck.


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[Assistant] The tremors caused the floor below him to open up, swallowing him whole as the cave, well, caved in. He was trapped for good in what is now known as Dungeon Rock.


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[Assistant] A few hundred years later, a spiritualist from Charlton named Hiram Marble bought the land where Dungeon Rock sits. And for one very lucrative reason, too. He wanted to find the treasure. But how did he know that it was there? Well, someone had told him. The ghost of Thomas Veal himself.


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[Assistant] Marble would hold seances and transcribe Veal's instructions through automatic writing, which not only informed him of where to dig, but also helped him prove that spiritualism was not a scam.


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[Assistant] Well, Marble blasted and shoveled his way through the cave for years, excavating close to 200 feet of tunnel. He even built a house next to its entrance to make things easier for himself.


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[Assistant] But he never found the treasure. And neither did his son Edwin who continued to search for it until his own death in 1880.


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[Assistant] But it wasn't all for nothing. Marble wanted to use the treasure money to buy more land so that he could gift it to Lin to make a public forest.


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[Assistant] Unsurprisingly, the legend of ocean-born Mary begins at sea. Her parents, James and Elizabeth Wilson, were Scottish-Irish immigrants on a ship bound for the American colonies in July of 1720. And Elizabeth was pregnant. So pregnant that she gave birth on board.


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[Assistant] But on that very day, which might have been July 28th according to the legend, the ship was attacked by pirates. Some tellings claim Elizabeth actually went into labor due to the shock of the pirate attack. And as soon as the baby was born, it did what babies usually do. It cried out.


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[Assistant] The pirate captain heard the cry and stopped his men in order to meet the parents and their newborn. He took one look at the child, a girl, and told the ship's crew that he would let everyone go if the baby was named after Mary, one of his relatives. It's been suggested that Mary was either the pirate captain's wife or his late mother.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth agreed right away and the pirates left, but not before the captain did one more thing. He gave the girl a long piece of green silk to be sewn into a dress for her eventual wedding day. Some say it was a beautiful length of Chinese brocade that had been presented to her.


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[Assistant] Interestingly enough, according to ocean-born Mary historian Jeremy Dantremont of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, the ship that they were traveling on was likely the Essex, which had in fact been attacked by pirates on July 28th of 1720.


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[Assistant] And if that's true, that would make the compassionate pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts, also known as Black Bart, a pirate who was known to have captured over 400 ships during his lifetime, more than any other pirate at the time, even more than Blackbeard or Captain Kidd.


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[Assistant] He was also known to occasionally bestow gifts on the passengers of the ships that he plundered.


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[Assistant] Well, after they reached land, Mary's family settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, and it's believed that early settlers there held a yearly holiday in her honor to give thanks for their survival, although no contemporary proof of this holiday currently exists.


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[Assistant] In 1742, she married a man named James Wallace, and she did wear a dress made of the green silk that had been given to her by that pirate captain all those years before. She and her husband had five children together, and after his death, she spent the remainder of her life in Hennicker, New Hampshire, living with one of her sons.


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[Assistant] She passed away in 1814 and was buried in the town cemetery. All in all, she led a fairly normal life, aside from what had occurred when she had taken her first breaths. So, what makes her a lore legend? Well, it's not how she lived that had people asking questions. It's what happened after she died.


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[Assistant] In 1917, just over a hundred years after her death, a man named Louis Gussie Roy bought a Georgian-style house in Hennicker, belonging to one of Mary's other sons, and he wasted no time in capitalizing on his purchase by promoting it as the Oceanborn Mary House.


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[Assistant] As you would expect, he charged guests for tours, and on those tours he would weave ghostly tales of how Mary's spirit would haunt her old rocking chair.


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[Assistant] Except, Mary never lived in that house. Most of Roy's stories about her were invented to sell tickets. As for the rocking chair, he positioned it over a loose floorboard that ran across the room. And as he told customers about the home's history and Mary's ghost, he would press down on the board and cause the chair to rock.


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[Assistant] But that hasn't stopped people from claiming that they've seen her with their own eyes. According to Dantremont, many visitors to the ocean-born merry house in Henneker have seen her ghost arriving at the house in a phantom coach drawn by four horses, her fiery red hair streaming in the wind.


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[Assistant] So, why is she returning to the house? Well, some say she comes back to locate an unnamed item that she's left in a nearby well alongside the building, and that she arrives in her coach every Halloween. Others have said that they've seen her walking down the staircase or standing next to a window, her long red locks on full display.


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[Assistant] One apocryphal story suggests that Mary lived in Hennicker with none other than the pirate captain who had given her the silk.


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[Assistant] Black Bart. The legend states that the pirate had retired to the small town and welcomed Mary as his housekeeper. Even Roy added to the rumor with the claim that the ocean-born Mary house had been built by Captain Roberts himself, and that the fireplace's hearthstone might be hiding both his treasure and his corpse.


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[Assistant] But none of this can be true, as Black Bart was killed off the coast of Africa in 1722, two years after Mary was born. Still, the truth hasn't discouraged ghost hunters and treasure seekers from visiting Henneker, searching for proof of the supernatural or the pirate's gold.


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[Assistant] The story of the Oceanborn Merry House doesn't end with Roy's death. In fact, it has one more claim to fame.


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[Assistant] Around 1949, a young couple who had heard the tales of the hauntings decided to stop in and visit the home.


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[Assistant] Roy was only too happy to show them around. While the couple chatted with him, the woman fell into a trance. Nothing her husband or Roy could do would shake her out of it. She could not communicate with them, nor could she be communicated with.


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[Assistant] Her husband was concerned, but Roy explained that this often happened to clairvoyants when they visited his house. Well, according to one report, the man replied, He literally did not know the meaning of the word.


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[Assistant] The woman, meanwhile, shook as though she'd been hit between the shoulders. According to her, her consciousness left her body and floated up to the second floor of the house, where she was able to look down on her husband and Roy below. A true out-of-body experience. This was the first time that she had ever had a psychic incident.


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[Assistant] She later told her son-in-law about the event, stating that for the first time in her life, she no longer feared death. She knew that body and soul were two separate entities existing together.


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[Assistant] Oh, and that couple who just happened to stop by the Oceanborn Mary House? None other than Ed and Lorraine Warren, the famous paranormal investigators behind the Perrin family haunting of 1974, as well as Annabelle the doll.


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[Assistant] The Warrens would go on to become the most famous ghost hunters in history, and they credited Roy and his invented ghosts with the beginning of their storied careers.


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[Assistant] Everyone loves a good pirate tale. Between their penchant for bloodshed and hunger for gold, they offer a sort of blank canvas that storytellers love to paint upon. And just like so much in the world of folklore, all it takes is a small nugget of truth to really make these legends come to life.


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[Assistant] But we haven't finished digging up treasures just yet. In fact, we've saved another gem to share with you. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.


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[Assistant] According to a history of the area written in 1880 by James Robinson Newell, Dungeon Rock isn't the only place near Lynn, Massachusetts that conceals potential pirate treasure. As the story goes, rumors started swirling around in the late 1600s about a treasure chest that had been buried at Point of Pines in nearby Revere, at the mouth of the Saugus River.


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[Assistant] And depending on who you believe, that treasure was buried by the same pirates who'd made pirates glen their homes.


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[Assistant] These rumors are often believed to have originated at the Anchor Tavern, which was once known as the Blue Anchor. Located halfway between Boston and Salem, the tavern was quite popular with travelers and became a hotbed of gossip.


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[Assistant] A group of men had overheard some discussion about the treasure and decided to go hunting for it themselves. They engaged a local Pentecook man named David Conkshamusha to help. He was known for skill with divining rods made of witch hazel, which would prove useful in tracking down a chest full of lost gold.


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[Assistant] One quiet night, the party set off from the Anchor Tavern, the light of the moon and David's divining rods leading the way, along with a few pints of liquid courage lining their bellies, most likely. Soon enough, the three men stopped as David's hazel rods pointed toward what they'd been looking for, the burial site of the lost pirate treasure.


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[Assistant] According to Newell, it was allegedly located beneath a large flat stone.


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[Assistant] David, not one to take chances, created a magic protective circle around the site using witch hazel bark, a toad, and the foot of an owl, the tongue from a snake, rosemary, and dragon root. And with it, he gave the party only two rules.


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[Assistant] First, as long as the men didn't step outside the circle, they would be protected. However, should they set one toe beyond its borders, they would place their lives at risk from the evil spirits that would be unleashed once they broke ground.


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[Assistant] And secondly, no one was to utter a word as they dug, or their efforts would be fruitless.


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[Assistant] And so the men got to work, shoveling and digging their way toward fortune. It wasn't long before their tools clanged against what they'd been looking for. The stone said to conceal the treasure chest.


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[Assistant] However, just as they laid their eyes on it, a fierce gust of wind blew in, kicking up sand and debris all around, and breaking the protective seal of their circle.


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[Assistant] Naturally, the men were afraid. Clearly, whatever was watching over this loot didn't want them digging it up. But once the wind died down, David redrew the circle and the men got back to work.


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[Assistant] They began trying to pry up the stone with a lever, and just as they were making progress, a horse's neigh called out from the distance, loud enough that it could have come from right behind them.


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[Assistant] Their arms trembled and they dropped the stone, but it wasn't enough to keep them from pressing forward. With a new charmed circle drawn around them, they picked up the lever and continued to heave the blockage out of their way. Then came another gust of wind, pelting them with more sand and salt water. And then they heard it. The sound of a horse approaching.


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[Assistant] It was massive with a long flowing mane and a nasty temperament. And on its back rode a large, imposing man. He had long, stringy hair that sat lifeless on his shoulders. And when he smiled at them, his tight lips revealed a mouth that had shed every last one of its teeth.


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[Assistant] As he belted his foreboding words, his horse reared up over David, its hooves poised above his head like the sword of Damocles waiting to come down. David muttered only a few words, but they were enough.


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[Assistant] He'd broken the spell, and the stone fell back over the chest, which sank deeper into the earth.


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[Assistant] The rider, having protected his treasure from the three treasure hunters, galloped off into the night, and the men fled from the site, never to search for pirate gold again.


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[Assistant] Some say the treasure is still right where they left it too, waiting to be dug up. If, of course, you can get past the pirate who's protecting it.


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


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[Assistant] Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. Information about all of that and more is available over at lorepodcast.com.


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


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[Assistant] I don't know about you, but I love a good mystery. From watching Goonies as a kid to growing up with Indiana Jones on the big screen, and even the national treasure films, I feel like I've been constantly surrounded by compelling mysteries. And believe me, I am not complaining.


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[Assistant] So I have to wonder how the early settlers of West Virginia must have felt when they started to spread out and explore, only to discover mysterious objects scattered all across the region. Large stones along riverbanks and flat surfaces inside caves, all bearing an intriguing puzzle. Petroglyphs.


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[Assistant] Now on the surface, they aren't too cryptic. These are carvings and drawings left behind by the Ojibwa and other Algonquin tribes that once lived in the area there. They capture pieces of their mythology and document the significant animals that made up the world around them. At the same time though,


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[Assistant] Most people who stumbled upon them didn't know any of that. They just saw ancient carvings in a landscape that they had just entered. And it made them feel much less alone. It made them feel nervous. It made them feel fear.


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[Assistant] Today, archaeologists think these petroglyphs could be as new as the early 1600s or as old as 1500 years ago, but it's probably impossible to narrow that down. A lot of them have disappeared over the years as humans have engineered the rivers of the region to suit their needs, causing them to rise and conceal a lot of the stones.


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[Assistant] Of those that remain, a lot of them are being kept secret by historians and archaeologists in an effort to protect them. It seems that all sorts of folks want to see them, to touch them, and even to take them home. And I sort of get that.


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[Assistant] People arrived in West Virginia to begin new lives and write new chapters of their personal stories.


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[Assistant] We probably need to start with the most obvious question. Why? What is it about West Virginia that generates so much folklore? Why do stories seem to take up residence there more than most other states in America?


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[Assistant] And maybe this is a good time to remind everyone that we have visited West Virginia a couple of times here before. We've already explored the River Monster Monongui, the Grafton Monster, and some oddly named creatures called the Grantown Goon, and Sheep Squatch, which, yes, is a real legend. And of course, the state's most famous visitor, Mothman, right?


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[Assistant] But it goes so far beyond that. There are stories about snakes so poisonous that their venom kills all the plants around them and even turns water green.


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[Assistant] One folktale even tells of a snake that coiled around an apple tree, and when two children that were hiding in the tree ate the apples, they fell down dead. So powerful was that poison.


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[Assistant] It's not just cryptids and mythic snakes, though. There are also animal omens. In one account collected in an issue of Midwest folklore, as told by a woman named Mrs. Gypsy Scott,


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[Assistant] A neighbor was paying a visit to a sickly old woman when a bird flew into the window and then flapped at the head of the sick woman's bed. The neighbor interpreted the bird as an omen of death, and sure enough, the old woman died the next morning.


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[Assistant] So again, what is it about West Virginia that makes it so prone to these stories and sightings of monstrous creatures?


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[Assistant] Well, one answer a lot of people propose is its location. You see, out of the 13 states that have some sort of foothold in the region known as Appalachia, only West Virginia is fully inside it. And Appalachia is where a huge spectrum of cultures arrived, mingled, and then set down roots.


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[Assistant] It was the coal mines that drew them in. The English, Irish, Scottish, all brought their fairy tales and those mingled with local Cherokee legends and the religious stories found in their faith.


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[Assistant] Newcomers also arrived from Czechoslovakia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, and more. There's a lot of people in a brand new place there trying to set up new lives while maintaining a connection to their past.


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[Assistant] Toss in the new landscape and all the strange animals they had never encountered before. And you have a recipe for mystery. Basically, people were primed with a slew of old supernatural beliefs from their homeland.


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[Assistant] New superstitions that they have learned from their multicultural West Virginia neighbors, and the uncanny magical thinking that rises out of being in an unknown, unpredictable environment.


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[Assistant] Oh, and that landscape? It's dotted with caves. Yes, they're mostly a result of mining that's taken place there for a long, long time. But dark holes in the ground have always been a breeding ground for story. And don't get me started on the forests, either. West Virginia is the third most forested state in America.


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[Assistant] Heck, just the Monongahela National Forest alone covers nearly a million acres. That is a lot of hiding places.


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[Assistant] But not all of West Virginia's monsters are speculative or animal. Some of them, it seems, are human.


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[Assistant] Take for example, Louis Wetzel, who was a complex individual. Born in 1763 in Pennsylvania, his family moved to West Virginia when he was still just a boy.


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[Assistant] And you have to remember, white Europeans were seen as invaders and thieves by the indigenous people who owned the land. So when Louis and his brother were kidnapped by a group of Wyandotte warriors during a raid, it was a situation with cruelty on both sides of the coin.


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[Assistant] It's not right to kidnap children, but any of us would also stand tall and defend our property. Like I said, it's complex.


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[Assistant] The boys managed to escape later that night, and as a result of the experience, young Lewis dedicated his life to murdering any Native American he could find.


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[Assistant] He didn't live a long life, dying at the young age of just 45, but over that short span, he managed to kill hundreds of people. By every definition of the term, Louis Wetzel was a serial killer.


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[Assistant] But despite that, he was lauded as a hero. Folks mentioned his name in the same breath as Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett, Teddy Roosevelt sang his praises, and the local Shawnee people talked about him too, but they called him by something different. The Dark Destroyer.


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[Assistant] Today there's Wetzel County, named after him. And just like the rest of the state, it's a county absolutely filled with ghost stories.


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[Assistant] Remember the phantom airship panic of the 1890s? One of them was spotted in that area. People have discovered ancient burial mounds, reported supernatural creatures, and strange lights in the sky.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the things that go bump in the night are nothing but legend. Sometimes they are simply dangerous, misguided men. But sometimes, if the stories are true, they are something more. And the story that makes that distinction clear, descended from the sky.


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[Assistant] The three boys had been playing in the local schoolyard just after sunset when something massive appeared in the sky.


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[Assistant] What they didn't know though was just how much it would change their lives.


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[Assistant] Brothers Ed and Freddie May were 13 and 12 respectively. Their pal, Tommy Heyer, was a bit younger, at 10.


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[Assistant] But all of them knew what they saw. A big red object they described as a fireball streaking across the September night sky and crashing onto a hill on a nearby farm.


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[Assistant] Now you have to get in the right mood and set up your mind before we continue. This was 1952 in the tiny rural West Virginia county of Braxton. Just five years earlier, the country had been taken by storm by the events in Roswell, New Mexico, where some people claimed a mysterious object fell out of the sky and crashed to earth.


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[Assistant] These three boys probably felt a lot of things in that moment. Fear, of course. I mean, fireballs falling from the sky never seems like a good thing, right? But also a bit of excitement. I mean, their personal Roswell fantasies could very well be coming true. So they bolted for home to tell their mother and find out what to do next.


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[Assistant] Freddie and Ed's mom was a 32-year-old beautician named Kathleen May, and I would imagine that she was trying to relax after a long hard day on her feet, probably even still cleaning up after the mess of the evening meal. But the look of excitement on those young faces immediately drove her into action.


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[Assistant] Two other neighborhood boys heard the commotion. Neil Nunley, who was 14, and Ronnie Shaver, who was 10, and they wanted to join in on the fun. But Kathleen wanted another person who resembled a responsible adult. So she called on Gene Lemon, a 17-year-old who was freshly minted as a National Guardsman.


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[Assistant] Together with the family dog Ricky, the whole gang of them headed off like some 1950s version of Stranger Things. They were nervous, but curious. Who knew what waited for them atop that hill on the nearby farm?


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[Assistant] Ricky was a good dog and ran ahead of them, but soon the rest of them started to hear barking, and then Ricky came rushing back, tail between its legs. And when they all crested the hill, they understood why.


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[Assistant] Right there, about a hundred yards away from where they stood, was a ball of fire they described as roughly ten feet in diameter, and it was pulsing with light and hissing.


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[Assistant] Now to be fair, it was hard to see everything clearly. The hilltop was covered in a strange mist, and the air had a weird, metallic smell to it. In fact, their eyes and noses were starting to burn and water. But they pressed on.


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[Assistant] They were nearly there, maybe 50 feet away from the strange glowing object, when a sound to their left caught their attention.


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[Assistant] Turning, they spotted two green glowing eyes, but the proportions weren't right. These eyes were roughly a foot apart, which would make the head they resided in unnaturally big. So the young national guardsman, Gene, aimed his flashlight at them. What they all saw


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[Assistant] Each of them had their own take on the creature's description, but as a whole, the common elements were as bizarre and frightening as you would imagine. The creature whose eyes those belonged to stood roughly 10 feet tall, with some sort of a


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[Assistant] Now, setting aside her all too common misunderstanding that Mary Shelley's terrifying creature was named Frankenstein, it seems that Kathleen's words reflected the horror of everyone there. And a moment later, it got worse, as the creature, whatever it might have been, let out a high-pitched hissing sound and began rushing toward them.


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[Assistant] Gene dropped his flashlight. One of the younger boys wet his pants. A few of them probably screamed, and then all of them in unison bolted back in the direction they'd come, and they didn't stop running until they were safely home. Once there, a few of them vomited, either from the terrifying experience or from that unusual mist that had burned their eyes. And then Kathleen called the police. What did they find?


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[Assistant] Well, according to later accounts, the top of the hill was empty. No glowing fireball. No ten foot tall metallic monster in a dress. It was quiet and calm, as if everything that took place had vanished into thin air. Except for one thing.


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[Assistant] All of the men who visited the hill that night reported that the air had a very unusual odor. They said it smelled metallic.


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[Assistant] Kathleen hadn't just called the police, though. In her moment of panic that night, she also dialed up the local newspaper and told them everything. And that, it seems, is why the entire country knew about their walk in the dark.


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[Assistant] The strange arrival took place on the evening of September 12th, which was a Friday. By the following Monday morning, people all over the United States were opening newspapers with headlines about it.


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[Assistant] In Michigan, one paper proclaimed, some believe, some doubt reports of mysterious glowing monster. Down in Tennessee, a paper carried the headline, glowing monster reported skulking in West Virginia. And then up in New York, the article declared, the thing ten feet tall terrifies seven.


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[Assistant] I get that this wasn't the age of the internet. There was no short-form video platform where millions of people could turn a single post into a trending topic.


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[Assistant] But in every other sense of the concept, the events in Flatwoods, West Virginia went viral.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, hundreds of tourists were pouring into the little town of less than 300 residents. And they all had one thing on their mind. To catch a glimpse of the glowing monster. One of these visitors was a minister from Brooklyn.


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[Assistant] Who had recently witnessed a creature that fit Kathleen's description perfectly. But in his dreams, apparently.


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[Assistant] Some of the visitors were more than just tourists, too. Ivan Sanderson was a famous paranormal investigator from New York, and he ended up spending a number of days wandering around the area with a team of researchers.


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[Assistant] And a local guy named Gray Barker drove over to get material for a future article in Fate Magazine.


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[Assistant] Barker, by the way, would later go on to invent a term that has become one of the key elements of the UFO conspiracy story. His term? Men in black.


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[Assistant] Speaking of names, the mysterious creature earned a few of them that year.


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[Assistant] The Braxton County Monster seems a bit too on the nose, but Braxy sounds pretty fun and laid back. Others called it the Thing, and someone, clearly not from Boston, referred to it as the Green Monster. But the one that stuck around all these years later? The Flatwoods Monster.


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[Assistant] And I mentioned a little while ago how the timing of this event couldn't have been more poignant. Since the Roswell incident, there had been a growing national interest in visitors from the sky. UFOs and all things alien. And just four months before the fireball crashed down in Flatwoods, Time Magazine ran an article titled, Have We Visitors From Outer Space? Listen to this opening paragraph.


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[Assistant] The Air Force is now ready to concede that many saucer and fireball sightings still defy explanation. Here, life offers some scientific evidence that there is a real case for interplanetary saucers.


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[Assistant] How could anyone not look up at the night sky with fear after reading that?


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[Assistant] Throw in the growing tension about the Cold War, and folks were honestly just low-key anxious all the time about threats from above.


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[Assistant] But of course there were all sorts of explanations put forward to toss cold water on the UFO theory.


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[Assistant] A lot of people have pointed out that there was indeed a meteor shower that night, visible across the night sky in three states. And what a lot of people don't know is that when a meteor crests the horizon, they often look like they're landing or crashing on the ground. It's a common optical illusion, and explains what the boys would have seen in the air.


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[Assistant] But what about that flaming ball they witnessed on the ground at the top of the hill? That's a lot harder to dismiss. Although many have tried, suggesting light from a passing aircraft as a possible solution.


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[Assistant] People have even justified the strange metallic odor as coming from a bad smelling grass that grows in the area there. But if it was that common, why didn't people report smelling it and then experiencing burning eyes and vomiting more often?


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[Assistant] As for the monster itself, critics think that the 10-foot-tall metal-clad creature was just a local owl, startled by the group of kids investigating around its tree. And yes, owls do make strange hissing sounds, and some have a cowl-shaped head, like the alien they all described.


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[Assistant] But I'm honestly stuck trying to figure out how that sort of animal could look even remotely close to what Kathleen described to newspapers shortly after. A lot of people have stayed curious in the years since it all happened.


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[Assistant] To this day, they keep flooding to Flatwoods to experience a bit of it all for themselves. The town has leaned into it too.


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[Assistant] Since the visitors bring in some much needed revenue. And honestly, can you blame them?


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[Assistant] Yes, the Flatwoods Monster represented fear and panic for a lot of people in 1952. It tapped into their growing anxiety over visitors from outer space, or attacks from an aggressive nation. But it also seems to have represented hope.


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[Assistant] Hope that there was more out there than cold stars and empty planets. Hope that while life seems so precarious on Earth, there might be something bigger than nuclear annihilation. Hope that perhaps we are not alone.


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[Assistant] If you have the chance to look up at the stars from a place that's not polluted with light from a big city, you've probably been able to see just how overwhelming it can all be. It's easy to imagine that there's something out there, just beyond our grasp.


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[Assistant] Over the years I've noticed how a lot of folklore seems to exist as a sort of band-aid over gaps in our understanding.


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[Assistant] Unanswered questions can fill us with fear, and fear can drive us to do horrible, irrational things. The stories we find in folklore often help explain the noises in the dark, or that sudden illness that took a loved one without warning. Stories give us something to hold onto.


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[Assistant] Flatwoods has now become a sort of theme park for the glowing monster of 1952. There are massive chairs there, carved in the image of the creature that tourists can sit in for photographs. The visitor's bureau has started displaying memorabilia in an official Flatwoods Monster Museum.


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[Assistant] There's even a local ice cream shop that serves a Flatwoods Monster Burger.


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[Assistant] Which is just a double patty, double cheese version of the classic.


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[Assistant] And of course you can buy t-shirts, keychains, and shot glasses all emblazoned with the monster's image.


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[Assistant] The hilltop where it all happened though, the owners never allow visitors up there. It's a refusal to participate in the hype that, in a weird sort of way, makes the hype bigger. One last story.


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[Assistant] The day after the Flatwoods Monster sighting, on Saturday, September 13th, a couple named George and Edith Snitowski, along with their 18-month-old son, were driving through the mountains of Frametown, West Virginia, about 20 miles from Flatwoods, when all of a sudden, their engine died and the car rolled to a stop.


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[Assistant] George opened his door and then immediately closed it. The air outside smelled strongly of sulfur and something metallic.


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[Assistant] It was a creature they described as roughly 10 feet tall with a cowl-shaped garment behind its head and an odd metal dress


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[Assistant] A heartbeat later, but one that must have felt like an eternity to them, the monster dragged its hand across the hood of the car and then slowly lumbered off toward the tree line at the edge of the road.


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[Assistant] When it vanished, the car mysteriously started back up on its own.


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[Assistant] George didn't waste any time wondering what had just taken place. He shifted the car into drive, and then pressed down hard on the gas. And they never looked back. Again.


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[Assistant] Strange arrivals from a distant place. Mysterious creatures in the nearby hills. Lights and smells that don't seem natural. I can see why the legend of the Flatwoods Monster has stuck around for over 70 years. And I hope you can too.


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[Assistant] But there are even older stories that have defied solid answers. In fact, my team has tracked down one particular topic that is hard to grasp.


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[Assistant] But despite that, it's packed with creepy stories. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] One of the earliest descriptions was written down by the Venerable Bede, an English monk who was alive and active in the early part of the 8th century.


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[Assistant] A phlegm-like substance in the fields, which he assumed was poisonous.


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[Assistant] John of Gadsden, a 14th century English physician, wrote about a certain mucilaginous substance lying upon the earth.


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[Assistant] He called it Stella Terre, or the Star of the Earth. In other words, it was the physical residue of stars. 16th century scientist Paracelsus agreed, claiming it was a jelly-like excrement created when stars purify themselves. Whatever that means.


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[Assistant] In 1619, a mystical writer named Robert Flood witnessed a meteor land near his home and he followed after it. Instead of fragments of space rocks though, he discovered a mass of white, slippery substance with small black spots in it. And I know this is weird science stuff.


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[Assistant] Stay with me, because these real historical sightings of an unusual substance


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[Assistant] Have defied explanation for centuries and our infrequent brushes with it, as humans, have been fascinating.


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[Assistant] In 1821, a chemist in Amherst, Massachusetts named Rufus Graves spotted his own meteor and wandered out to the landing site the next morning. There, on the ground, was an 8 inch wide circular object, but it wasn't stone.


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[Assistant] It was jelly, and the longer it sat exposed to the air, the more runny it became.


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[Assistant] One night in 1846 in the town of Lowville, New York, a meteor described as larger than the sun entered the sky from the west, lighting up the landscape for five long minutes until it seemed like day.


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[Assistant] When it crash-landed in a nearby field, a whole bunch of townsfolk traveled out to see it, only to find a mass of foul-smelling jelly measuring four feet in diameter.


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[Assistant] Today, most people call it star jelly, although there are other terms as well. Star blubber, fallen star, spittle of the stars, star and fall, and the favorite of my researcher on this episode, slime of the stera, an old Dutch word for star. But what exactly was it? The short answer is that we don't know.


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[Assistant] Some people think that it's an algae that's invisible, but then it's activated by dew on the grass in the morning, causing it to expand.


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[Assistant] Others have proposed it's just bird vomit, which takes whatever little romance there might have been in it right out of it.


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[Assistant] There are those who think it's just the remains of jellyfish, or potatoes reduced to pulp by frost, but no genetic material has ever been found inside samples of it. I don't have a lot of answers for you, but I do have one last story.


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[Assistant] You see, back in September of 1950, two policemen in Philadelphia were driving their cruiser around town on their nightly rounds when they spotted a shimmering object float down from the sky and land in a nearby field.


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[Assistant] Curious, they turned their car in that direction and headed off to investigate. But when they arrived, they claimed to have stumbled across a massive, six foot wide, one foot thick, saucer shaped object.


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[Assistant] And I say object instead of craft for one big reason. It seems that this thing glowed with a purple light, and according to the article, it quivered as if it were alive.


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[Assistant] Naturally, the officers were unable to make heads or tails of it, so they called in for help. Two other officers joined them, but they were equally stumped.


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[Assistant] So that's when one of the original officers tried to grab hold of the saucer. And when he did...


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[Assistant] It literally disintegrated in his hands, leaving nothing behind but a sticky residue on his fingers.


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[Assistant] We can question stories like this all we want, but enough people believe it to be true that it quickly spread through rumors and whispers.


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[Assistant] And that's why some think this Philadelphia encounter with a mysterious craft made of star jelly went on to inspire a bit of pop culture from that era. The 1958 film. The Blob.


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[Assistant] As always folks, thanks so much for watching. Credits for today's episode are in the description below. Lore has been a podcast since 2015 with over 415 million downloads to date. You can learn more about this show plus the book series and television adaptation over at Lore podcast


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


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[Assistant] The Beatles said it best, noting that sometimes, if we hope to get by, we're going to need a little help from our friends. And that was the situation an archaeologist found himself in back in the late 1920s.


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[Assistant] He had two objects on his desk that were found 100 miles apart, but they were somehow connected.


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[Assistant] The other found many years later and many miles away at the site of an old Celtic temple.


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[Assistant] Now the archaeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, wanted answers to their mysterious connection, but he needed someone who was better with translating Old Latin than he was.


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[Assistant] So he called on his friend John, who, among other career highlights, had worked on the Oxford English Dictionary. And as Wheeler predicted, John was able to shed some light on the mystery.


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[Assistant] It turns out the ring had belonged to a Roman man named Silvianus, but was stolen by another man named Senechianus. And while the thief carved his own name into his precious prize, the old owner had carved something else. Not just a memo, but a curse tablet.


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[Assistant] It's an ancient idea, but one that held on for thousands of years. When in need, a curse could be written down and offered up just the right way, bending the threat of fate to their wishes, often for nefarious reasons, like heaping misfortune upon a thief.


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[Assistant] It's at the center of so many parts of life. It's been the cause of war, the path to peace, and the reason for communities to stick together through difficult times. No matter where you go around the world or who you talk to, it has proven to be of universal value. Love.


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[Assistant] And just like everything else that humans have wanted or needed over the millennia, like food, resources, safety, and good health, the desire for love has driven people to find ways to control it. Enter the love spell.


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[Assistant] The earliest known example of love magic is pretty old, dating back over 4,200 years ago. It's found on a clay tablet from an area of Iraq that was once home to the ancient city of Kish, and its message is surprisingly timeless.


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[Assistant] By Ishtar and Ishara, I conjure you. So long as his neck and your neck are not entwined, may you not find peace.


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[Assistant] It's an example of what's known as a binding spell. Words designed to control and constrain the actions of another person. And of course, it was an idea that didn't stay in Mesopotamia. Centuries later, it was alive and well in ancient Egypt as well.


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[Assistant] One Egyptian love spell begins by hailing the gods, naming the man's love interest, and then requesting that she be drawn to him, and I quote, like a cow after grass.


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[Assistant] Which, yeaah, doesn't sound that romantic, I know. But cows do love grass. They actually need it, right? So logically, it does make sense.


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[Assistant] It's an example that leans on the emotional side of love, evoking desire and need.


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[Assistant] But most Egyptian love spells actually ignored things like affection and instead focused on controlling the circumstances that kept them apart. Factors like family, social station in life, politics, they all got in the way of love, so naturally these spells tried to manipulate all of that.


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[Assistant] Even the ancient Greeks got in on the fun. Now there were two primary types of love magic in their culture, Eros and Phylia.


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[Assistant] The best way to differentiate them would be to say that Eros dealt with the physical attraction side of things like desire, while Philia focused on romantic affection. Two sides of the same coin that most people were looking for.


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[Assistant] Love magic that leaned toward the Eros side of things was mostly practiced by men. The goal was to induce lust and passion in the person they were interested in. And it's worth pointing out that the ancient Greeks viewed erotic love as a disease inflicted upon humans by gods like Pan and Aphrodite.


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[Assistant] Love spells with that focus tended to have intense, sometimes violent, language. Eros love spells sometimes even used physical charms known as agogue, and fruit, oddly enough, things like apples and quince. Because, well, why not?


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[Assistant] And on the Phileas side of things, the language was more centered around faithfulness and affection. These were love spells primarily used by women to keep their partners interested in staying together, and were usually implemented when they noticed that their partner was starting to stray.


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[Assistant] This side of love magic for the ancient Greeks had amulets of its own, and a lot of the focus was on beautification, sort of a magical cosmetic industry in a way. That hope that if one was able to make themselves more attractive, their partner wouldn't wander away.


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[Assistant] But all things change as time goes by, and love spells have been no exception. As culture shifted in different places, the ways in which love magic was used also shifted with it. And a good example is the Italian Renaissance.


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[Assistant] Not because of romance, mind you, but because marriage had become the glue that connected business and political alliances. This was a time when success or failure of a marriage could determine the success or failure of an entire community.


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[Assistant] Which meant that love magic had to evolve. Gone were the spells that aimed at physical attraction or feelings of affection, and in their place arrived a new focus, removing the obstacles to that important alliance.


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[Assistant] Love magic of that era tried to help people climb the social ladder or encourage one family to accept a husband or wife for their heir that they might have overlooked.


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[Assistant] Which of course leads us to the Inquisition, as most roads do. Yes, it's most often associated with witchcraft and heretics, but through these socially manipulative love spells, all of a sudden women were vying for power through means that were seen as supernatural. Because the assumption was, if a woman was in control, there had to be a devilish reason why.


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[Assistant] A little bit of context first. There's an old collection of Greek magical spells from the 2nd century BC that really shows off the scope of this folklore. It might not be the most story-driven content, but it'll be fun for you to share with friends at a party someday. One object described in this manuscript is the love doll.


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[Assistant] Think of these as the stereotypical voodoo doll, except their purpose was to inflict romance and desire instead of pain and suffering. A person would craft a doll that looked like their love interest, and then anything they did to that doll would be transferred to that person. Sort of a remote control romance, I guess.


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[Assistant] But a lot of the elements described in the manuscript deal with a concept called sympathetic magic. This is where the ingredients or amulet that resembles a thing affects that thing magically.


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[Assistant] For example, asparagus was often fed to grooms before their wedding night to serve as an aphrodisiac, because if plants help the body parts that they look like, then asparagus, well, you get the idea.


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[Assistant] There was also Spanish Fly, otherwise known as the blister beetle. The wings of the bug would be dried and crushed into a powder, and then used in tonics as an aphrodisiac. And folks certainly did feel a bit flush and warm from the stuff, but that's because it was poisonous. As little as 32 milligrams could shut down a person's kidneys. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Oh, and don't forget periwinkle flowers crushed up with worms, or stolen sacramental bread from the Catholic Church, or human elements such as blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids, usually baked into a cake of some kind.


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[Assistant] Which should sound familiar to you if you remember the story of La Boisaine, the French woman who served the social elites of Paris in the 1670s. She was said to have created love potions by crushing up the bones and blood of infants, which obviously wasn't looked too kindly upon once people found out.


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[Assistant] And how far did her human flesh-based potions go? All the way to the top, it seems. King Louis XIV's own mistress, Madame de Montespan, bought this stuff from Lavoisin for over a decade, adding it daily to the king's meals in an attempt to win his affections and become his queen.


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[Assistant] But remember what I said about how society, and more specifically the Catholic Church, viewed women who used love magic to get ahead in life?


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[Assistant] Madame de Montespan was viewed as overly ambitious and power hungry, which led to an investigation and the arrest of her supplier, Lavoisin. Whether Montespan's motive was anything more than a simple desire for love, though, will forever be a mystery. And then there's Anne Boleyn.


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[Assistant] When King Henry VIII abandoned Catherine of Aragon, folks would have assumed that it would be for political reasons, right? A better alliance or some other union that delivered power to the crown. But instead he married Anne, a woman with no political clout at all.


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[Assistant] Naturally, rumors started because, well, that's what people do. They whispered that Anne had bewitched the king, and she had used magic or the dark arts to entrap him.


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[Assistant] And these lies weren't helped by the fact that Anne actually had six fingers on her right hand, as well as visible moles and a protruding tooth, all things that were often seen as a sign that a woman was a witch.


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[Assistant] And then her miscarriage in 1536 was even used as proof of the witchcraft accusations. You see, back then, a number of events could be classified as a monstrous birth, and those who were looking for an excuse to paint Anne Boleyn as a power-hungry witch had a lot to work with.


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[Assistant] Today it's clear that there is no evidence that a love spell was ever involved in her relationship with King Henry VIII. But the fact that most people assume there was can be seen as proof of just how common that belief was at the time. What is clear though?


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[Assistant] Is just how intertwined love magic has always been with the pursuit of wealth and power.


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[Assistant] These days, help is always around the corner. If you want something to help with your headache, or a vitamin to better balance your nutrition, you might go to your local pharmacy to get it. But the Greek word at the root of that, pharmakon, can actually mean medicine and poison.


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[Assistant] Judging by the drug commercials on TV these days and their seemingly endless list of complications and side effects, maybe that's still true. The things crafted to help us also do us harm, and that even applied to love potions.


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[Assistant] Mary was considered by many to be an old maid. In 1746, she was roughly 26 years old and had yet to get married like the rest of her peers.


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[Assistant] And exactly why was a mystery, considering that she was kind, skilled, and the daughter of a wealthy lawyer. In fact, her father, Francis Blandy, was pretty well known throughout Oxfordshire. He was ready to see Mary


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[Assistant] That's when Captain William Henry Cranston showed up. He was descended from Scottish royalty and moved south to England to start a new life. And at some point in 1746, he met and fell in love with Mary Blandy.


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[Assistant] Now considering all the things that we've discussed about social barriers and difficult families, it might be safe to assume that Mary's father might have resisted the newcomer to town, but instead, he welcomed him in.


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[Assistant] Literally, too. Cranston was welcomed into their home where he lived with Mary and her father.


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[Assistant] But close quarters tend to breed discomfort, and soon enough it became clear that there was a problem with the young captain. It seems that he was already married.


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[Assistant] His wife's name was Anne Murray, and she, along with their child, still lived in Scotland. But Cranston swore that the marriage wasn't legitimate, and promised to resolve the matter. He sent letters to Anne, but they went unanswered, so he ultimately made a trip north to see her in person.


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[Assistant] Eventually though, Mary's father got fed up and called the whole thing off. Everything about this other marriage smelled fishy to him, and Mary would no longer be allowed to wed the captain. He kicked the young man out and told him to stay away.


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[Assistant] Love is a powerful force. And while her father might have lost interest, Mary couldn't let go. And that's when Cranston came to her with a plan.


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[Assistant] Every day she prepared the meals for her father and added a bit of the white powder with a hope and a prayer that her troubles would all go away. This went on for months too, until one day her father did respond to the magic powder. By dying.


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[Assistant] The aftermath was a bit of a blur of panic and emotions. Mary tried to get rid of the rest of the love charm, but a household servant managed to save some of it. The authorities were called and Mary was caught trying to leave town to join Cranston, after which they planned to head to France.


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[Assistant] And while this was long before the age of modern forensic science, a local doctor did try to test the powder that the servant had saved. He suspected that it was arsenic and performed a number of tests on both the mysterious powder and a sample of actual arsenic. And in each case, Mary's love charm performed the same way the poison did. With that, Mary went to trial.


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[Assistant] Of course, she proclaimed her innocence. She had no idea the powder was anything dangerous, just a love potion given to her by Cranston. But the young man, who incidentally turned out to be penniless, and therefore deeply interested in Mary's dowry, was nowhere to be found. So Mary was convicted of murder instead. On April 6th of 1752, she was hanged for her mistake.


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[Assistant] Cranston never got a penny of her money though, but he did slip away to France in the end. And he died there.


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[Assistant] They are, without a doubt, one of humankind's oldest forms of magic. From binding spells carved on clay tablets and magic scrolls, to poisonous elixirs and miniature dolls, it seems one thing has always been true. Love makes us do crazy things.


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[Assistant] But sometimes love isn't the true motivation. Sometimes the actions of those who use love charms is really about something deeper, something even more core to who we are as a species. Love magic is ultimately about control and power.


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[Assistant] And here's the wild part of it all. There are many who believe that these charms actually worked. Just not for the reasons you might think.


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[Assistant] You see, the very act of obtaining or creating a love charm had a way of boosting a person's confidence. And confidence is attractive.


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[Assistant] And for the innocent target of those charms and spells, learning that someone was trying to win their affection often made this situation better. I mean, what better way to know a person is truly committed to you than learning that they employed magic to keep you together?


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[Assistant] Of course, that doesn't make it right. Should we really be manipulating other people with attempted charms and magic?


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[Assistant] Definitely not. But history makes it clear that a lot of people have refused to play by the rules.


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[Assistant] And the relics and evidence they left behind is fascinating. Oh, one last thing.


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[Assistant] Remember our archaeologist from the beginning, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and his helpful friend John? Now there's no way to know if that cursed tablet ever actually had the power to bring the stolen ring back to its owner. My guess, considering how the two objects were found so far apart, is that Silvianus never saw his precious jewelry again.


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[Assistant] There aren't many people who remember those artifacts today, which is understandable. They're just two small fragments of the past, grains of sand on the beach of archaeology. But even still, they made an impact on John, whose Latin translation brought them to life.


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[Assistant] So he wrote his own version of their story. A precious ring inscribed with old language and a spiteful owner who wanted it back.


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[Assistant] And that story, I'm glad to say, is known by all. Because it's the main thread running through the fictional world he built. A world that's been enjoyed by millions and millions of readers over the years.


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[Assistant] Juan arrived in New Jersey in 1953, when he was in his mid-forties. It was a chance for a new life, a fresh start, and that meant two things, finding a job and finding true love.


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[Assistant] Now, like a lot of newly arrived immigrants, Juan quickly found work doing manual labor, in this case on a local farm. But he also caught wind of a company writing a Spanish-English dictionary, and being bilingual and well-read, he offered his services. The company quickly hired him.


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[Assistant] But while working there, he discovered the constant stream of advertisements that were sent to his employer. Magazines and books of all topics, shapes, and flavors. And that included some that dealt with the occult and black magic.


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[Assistant] More than a little curious, Juan placed an order for a few of them.


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[Assistant] And that's how he found himself spending his nights in his little shack on the farm reading through books on the dark arts. Spells of all kinds were offered up in these books as real and powerful. And there was one particular kind of spell that he was keen on trying. A love spell.


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[Assistant] All Wan had to do was sort through the instructions and the ingredients necessary to make it all happen. And most of the stuff was easy to find, and the ritual itself was going to be simple, just a circle on the ground that he would use to summon the devil, who would have to grant him his wish, making his love spell become real.


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[Assistant] The only tough piece of the puzzle to crack was an item on the list. The Cranium of a Murderer.


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[Assistant] Juan really didn't want to get caught robbing a grave, so he twisted the meaning of the object to also include the cranium of someone killed by a murderer. And that murderer would be him.


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[Assistant] On the night of October 13th of 1956, Juan waited for one of the other farmhands, a young teenager named Roger Carletto, to come into his shack and bum a cigarette like he did most every night. But this time when Roger turned his back, Juan struck him down and ended his life.


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[Assistant] Then while the owners of the farm, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenblum, were asleep, he buried the boy's body beneath the chicken yard. And then, he waited.


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[Assistant] Week after week, Juan maintained his patience as he waited for the corpse to decompose enough to allow him to harvest the cranium that he needed for the ritual.


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[Assistant] And finally, seven months later, it was time. Digging down to Rogers' remains, Juan used a knife to cut the cranium away, and then reburied the rest of the evidence.


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[Assistant] That night he set up his magic circle, all the necessary ingredients on hand, including the fragment of skull from a murder victim. He recited the incantation, followed the instructions, and did everything by the book. And then, nothing.


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[Assistant] No arrival of the devil, no clear sign that his spell had worked, nothing.


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[Assistant] Frustrated, Juan decided to wait a little while. Maybe love spells need time to click into place. But after another two months of hoping for success, he finally decided that the ritual had failed. So he began to plan his final move, turning himself in to the police.


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[Assistant] At first, that plan involved breaking into the home of his employers there on the farm, making a scene and allowing them to call the police.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was a nervousness thing, or maybe he just wanted to maintain a way out. I'm guessing the latter because once he got inside and woke the old couple up and the police arrived, he chickened out and blamed the murder of Roger on them.


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[Assistant] But his guilty conscience caught up in the end. Unable to live with what he had done, between murdering one person and trying to ruin the lives of another two, he finally crumbled under the weight of it all and confessed. The Rosenblums were set free, and Roger Carlotto's true killer was finally behind bars.


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[Assistant] And it's a powerful lesson about the true danger of magic. Like so many others throughout history, Juan Rivera Aponte never did manage to get his love spell to work. What he did get, though, was life in prison.


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


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


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


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[Assistant] Seeing is believing. That's what we've always been told, anyway. To see something with our own eyes is just the push that our minds need to fully believe it's true. And for a very long time, it's worked.


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[Assistant] The careers of people like P.T. Barnum stand as monuments to this sort of notion. Folks saw it in the mummified creature that he declared was a real-life mermaid, but was in fact just half a monkey and half a fish crudely sewn together.


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[Assistant] And people saw it when he paraded Joyce Heath around the country. A blind, paralyzed, enslaved woman who he claimed was over 160 years old, and the former nursemaid to George Washington. It seems that as long as there was some sort of physical proof to set their eyes upon, there were no limits to the stories people would believe.


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[Assistant] And it's a deception that historically has run the spectrum from the innocent to the criminal. After all, snake oil salesmen wouldn't have been as believable without those little glass vials of liquid to accompany their wild fantastical promises.


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[Assistant] Popping the cork and downing the potion added a visceral concrete layer to an otherwise intangible idea.


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[Assistant] To some folks, something isn't real until they can set their eyes upon it. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Think about all the Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster stories that you've heard. What's at their core? The search for confirmation. Proof that can be touched and seen.


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[Assistant] Skepticism can be healthy and should always be a part of the scientific process we use to better understand our world.


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[Assistant] But when it comes to matters of life and death, belief in the invisible might be just as important. In fact, sometimes it's the things you can't see that are the most dangerous of all.


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[Assistant] Beautiful lady. That's what they called it. Although in Italian that meant people said, belladonna, which admittedly sounds even more romantic. And it certainly is beautiful, for a shrub at least, complete with little purple bell-shaped flowers and dark, glossy berries.


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[Assistant] But the secret inside the plant is that just about everything, from the leaves and the flowers to the berries themselves, contain a number of highly poisonous toxins, which is why it has another, more descriptive name. Deadly Nightshade.


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[Assistant] During the middle ages, the berries were mashed up and diluted to make a liquid used for all sorts of things. Women rubbed it on their cheeks as a blush. And centuries later, it was used by eye doctors to dilate the pupils of their patients during exams. In fact, the eye drops that we use today are just synthetic versions of that age old tool, a toxic plant.


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[Assistant] Of course, Nightshade found other uses throughout history, primarily as a tool for murder. But it wasn't alone, because for thousands of years people have used poisons to remove obstacles and create new opportunities, by killing those who stood in the way.


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[Assistant] Poison became such a risk that many rulers throughout history had to rely on people whose main job it was, was to taste their food and drink to see if it was safe.


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[Assistant] And for the discerning poisoner, there were many options out there. There was nightshade, as I mentioned a moment ago, a poison that some historians think was used by the real Macbeth to kill Danish invaders in Scotland a thousand years ago.


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[Assistant] Strychnine is another plant-based poison, which, it probably goes without saying, were the easiest type of toxins for foes to get their hands on for a very long time. This poison comes from the plant's seeds, and has no known antidote. Although, in an ironic twist, the process to make strychnine also results in quinine, a substance used to treat malaria and save lives. And just about everyone has heard of cyanide.


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[Assistant] This is the one that we bump into in all those murder mystery shows and films where the body of the victim has a bluish tint and someone clever notices the smell of burnt almonds. That blue color is a result of the poison's ability to essentially stop the victim's ability to process oxygen, suffocating them to death.


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[Assistant] But those bits of evidence were also things that eventually made cyanide less popular among poisoners. Because remember, the point of poison was that it was the invisible killer. In the age before forensic science and chemical analysis, there was really no way of knowing whether poison had been used at all.


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[Assistant] And cyanide left too many clues, and because of that it fell out of style. Although it was supposedly used by the men who killed Rasputin, the Russian monk who advised Tsar Nicholas II. Some of those men claimed that they had put poison in the wine and the cakes that they served to him that night. But if they truly did, Rasputin showed no symptoms.


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[Assistant] But the most famous and most common poison by far isn't the byproduct of a plant found in the wild.


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[Assistant] No, it's actually a common chemical element that's found almost everywhere in nature. It's in the air we breathe and the water we drink, although not at levels that can kill us. It's truly invisible and the perfect tool for any would-be killer looking to put a bit of distance between themselves and their victim. Arsenic.