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[Assistant] That man's name was Richard Archer Prince. He was a desperate actor who had fallen on hard times. And he was convinced that every setback he had experienced was the direct result of the actions of William Terrace.


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[Assistant] And yes, it is true that a few years before, Prince had made terrors feel so uncomfortable that the star had asked the theater manager to never cast them together.


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[Assistant] But he certainly never blacklisted him. In fact, when Terrace later found out about Prince's struggles, he made a number of donations to the actor's benevolent fund that were earmarked specifically for Prince.


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[Assistant] Basically, the anonymous charity Prince had come to depend on had been coming directly from the man he believed was out to ruin him. And that's why he brought a knife to the side door of the theater that night.


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[Assistant] William, meanwhile, had been carried inside by Seymour, and doctors had been called. As they all waited, Jesse Millward, his co-star of a dozen years, knelt beside him and held his hand. Sis, he said to her. I've been stabbed.


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[Assistant] For a while his eyes fluttered shut, but a moment later they opened again and he squeezed her hand one final time. Sis, he whispered. And then he was gone.


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[Assistant] The nation mourned. William Terrace had been a big deal and everyone was feeling that dark weight of loss. And that included Queen Victoria, who wrote a letter to William's widow to offer her condolences and kind words.


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[Assistant] His burial took place at the cemetery in West Brompton, and while it was meant to be a somber occasion, there was no way William's celebrity status was going to let that happen. It was reported that nearly 50,000 people swarmed the burial to pay their respects. But it wasn't the end of his story.


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[Assistant] At first, it was the trial of Richard Archer Prince that took over the headlines. Prince was found guilty, but rather than prison or execution, he was sentenced to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he lived out the rest of his life chasing glory as the conductor of the inmate orchestra. He passed away there in 1936.


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[Assistant] But William Terrace is apparently still with us. In 1927, a man by the name of Leonard Francis attended a meeting of the Ghost Club, a social club that had been formed in 1882 to give people a safe place to report ghostly encounters.


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[Assistant] And he brought with him a story. It seems that in December of 1926, he had received a visit from a spectral figure that he described as a middle-aged man, clean-shaven and professionally dressed.


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[Assistant] He had more visitations from the ghost in January of 1927, which prompted his trip to the ghost club.


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[Assistant] As a way of following up on the story, one of the group's members, a man by the name of Saunders, visited a medium looking for help. After being told to pray for the soul of William Terrace, the visitation stopped. Before a while, at least.


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[Assistant] In 1955, a number of unusual sightings occurred at the Covent Garden station of the London Underground. Now if you know the history of that area, you might find it odd for the ghost of a man to appear in a tube station that was built a decade after his murder.


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[Assistant] But it seems that William Terrace's favorite bakery once stood on that spot, so maybe we can blame this one on the scones.


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[Assistant] It was a ticket taker by the name of Jack who first spotted the stranger in the station that November night in 1955. Jack described the man as middle-aged, clean-shaven, and professionally dressed in old-fashioned clothing. He also mentioned that the man looked sad.


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[Assistant] And because this mysterious man had appeared inside the gate in the middle of the night, Jack assumed that he'd been locked in and needed to be let out. But after looking away to find his key and unlock the gate, the figure had vanished. Less than a week later, though, the man was back.


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[Assistant] Jack reported that the same figure in an old-fashioned suit approached him in the middle of a busy station. Jack even asked the man if he needed to find the cloakroom, but the figure just walked on by and disappeared into the crowd.


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[Assistant] A few days after that odd encounter, Jack was eating his lunch in the mess room when he heard screaming. A moment later a young worker named Victor burst into the room, claiming to have seen a ghost. His description?


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[Assistant] Middle aged, clean shaven, and dressed in an old fashioned suit. Of course.


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[Assistant] Finally, their foreman Eric Davey got involved when he spotted the ghost for himself a few days later. Instead of describing the mystery man with words though, Davey opted for having a drawing made. Sort of like those suspect sketches on a police drama.


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[Assistant] After showing the drawing to a newspaper, they brought out a number of photographs to compare them to. And the picture Davey pointed to as a match, a photo of William Terrace.


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[Assistant] Humans have loved drama for a very long time, so long in fact that our ancestors invented a home for it, a place where everyone could show up and watch the story unfold.


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[Assistant] Thanks to theater, we have a place to be entertained.


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[Assistant] But with the glow of the stage, of course, comes the stars. Performers who wowed and thrilled everyone who paid for a moment of escape. But it's always good to remember that the drama never truly ended when the show was over. And in a world of fear and tragedy, actors ranked right up there with sailors as some of the most superstitious in the world.


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[Assistant] Why? Well maybe it's because props could malfunction, set pieces could fall over, and fire could spread quickly if a candle or lamp were kicked over. Naturally, those who have worked in theaters over the years have built up a whole catalog of common beliefs.


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[Assistant] You've probably heard the most common one before, that uttering the name of Shakespeare's legendary play Macbeth inside a theater is bad luck. Scholars aren't sure where it started, but many performers still defend this belief with a passion.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of little things too, mostly centered around bad luck. Never bring a peacock feather on stage, or a mirror, or say, good luck, because all of those things are seen as bad omens. Don't whistle backstage, don't give a performer flowers before a show, and please, do your best to avoid flames on stage.


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[Assistant] My personal favorite though is the ghost light. It's a common practice to leave a lamp lit overnight, every night of the year, to do two things. Practically it helps anyone who wanders on stage see their way, but it's also said to ward off the ghosts who might haunt the theater and bother those who work there.


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[Assistant] Having performed in dozens of theaters around the country myself, I have seen with my own eyes just how prevalent and alive this tradition still is.


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[Assistant] For William Terrace's longtime co-star Jesse Milward, one of the traditions she found comfort in was the sound of William knocking twice on the side door. Because he was the only one other than the manager to have a key to that door, she always knew when he'd arrived. It had become a reassuring sound, a cue she could hear from her dressing room.


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[Assistant] In 1928, many years after Williams' murder, another actress was using Jessie's dressing room.


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[Assistant] She was sleeping in there between two performances, stretched out on a couch to rest her feet, when all of a sudden a sensation woke her up. It felt as if the entire room were being rocked by an earthquake.


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[Assistant] Before she could get up to see what was happening, she felt two invisible hands grip her arms, pinning her down to the couch and shaking her.


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[Assistant] For a moment she felt convinced that she was about to die.


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[Assistant] Well, she reported that everything came to an end the moment a sound echoed from the theater's nearby side door. The sound of two firm knocks.


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[Assistant] Clearly the stage is home to a lot of drama. Most of the time that's a very good thing. All one has to do is sit through a showing of Hamilton or Wicked to know just how moving that ancient art can still be.


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[Assistant] But the buildings where they take place are filled with more than just applause and curtain calls. In fact, if we pay a visit to London's oldest, we can find all manner of chilly tales.


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[Assistant] Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear some of my favorites.


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[Assistant] There's a lot that a building can hide, and the older the structure, the easier that can be. For the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane though, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, because what we can see today is simply the latest chapter in a book that was begun nearly 350 years ago.


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[Assistant] The first theater royal was built in 1663. It was impressive in its day, too, with three floors of seating that could hold over 700 people.


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[Assistant] Back then it was known as the Theater Royal in Bridges Street, because it was built in the large space between Bridges Street and Drury Lane. But like a lot of buildings that had been around for a while, it had other names as well. Most famously it was the King's Playhouse, because King Charles was a regular visitor.


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[Assistant] The first iteration of the theater was a bit rough. It was more of an open-air amphitheater though, because the audience area had no roof. Because of that, shows began around 3 in the afternoon to allow for better lighting.


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[Assistant] But they also used a good number of candles, and when your building is made of wood, that's a deadly combination. Which is why in 1672, the place burned to the ground.


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[Assistant] The second iteration of the theater was designed by Christopher Wren, the renowned architect behind St. Paul's Cathedral and many other churches in London.


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[Assistant] This version had a ceiling for the audiences to sit beneath, which made performances there much more palatable. But it was built on the foundation of the original structure and continued to grow after it was completed, with revisions and additional space being added over the years.


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[Assistant] Ren's version of the theater was torn down so that a new, larger building could take its place. Three years after that, it opened its doors, but it wouldn't last long. Just fifteen years after opening night, another fire consumed the building and everything inside it.


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[Assistant] The fourth and final generation of the theater opened up in 1812, and that's the version you can still see today. Like all the others, it still sits atop the original 1663 foundation, and beneath its modern structure is a labyrinth of ancient tunnels and staircases. But even above ground, the past seems to have refused to fade away.


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[Assistant] There are reports from numerous people, both visitors and theater staff.


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[Assistant] Some claim that the lower levels of the theater are filled with unusual sounds, cold spots, and the occasional vision of ghostly figures. Some performers have even encountered otherworldly visitors just off stage in the middle of live performances, and many of the sightings have been associated with one man.


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[Assistant] Charles Macklin was an actor who spent a good amount of his career at the theater royal Drury Lane.


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[Assistant] Born in 1690 in Dublin, he was involved in all aspects of the theater arts, from playwriting to acting, although it was never smooth sailing for him. It seems that he was a tough man to get along with, and had more than one legal battle with management over his contract.


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[Assistant] But those that admired him did so mostly for his performance in the role of Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. But his most memorable act was an offstage argument over a bit of wardrobe. In 1735, Macklin was getting ready for a performance when he noticed that his wig was missing.


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[Assistant] It said that he tracked it down in the possession of another actor, a man named Thomas Hallam, and Hallam denied stealing it.


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[Assistant] After their disagreement escalated to shouting, Macklin is rumored to have cried out, Damn you, you blackguard, scrub, and scoundrel, before grabbing his walking cane and driving it straight through Hallam's eye and into his brain.


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[Assistant] And naturally, Macklin was taken into custody, and when Hallam died a few days later, he was brought to court on the charge of murder.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, his attack had taken place in front of a crowd of people, and they vouched for his immediate remorse. But rather than hire a lawyer to defend him, Macklin did the job himself.


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[Assistant] And miraculously walked away with only a charge of manslaughter and a sentence of branding on the hand.


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[Assistant] Macklin, though, carried on, despite his new reputation as a violent, angry man. He would work at the theater for another 13 years before moving on.


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[Assistant] He taught acting, buried his first wife, married another, and patiently lived out his remaining years, finally passing away in 1797 at the reputed age of 107 years old.


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[Assistant] But some people think he's still around. Many performers at the Theatre Royal have seen the figure of a man dressed in grey, with a white shirt and a powdered wig, walking through the back hallways of the building.


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[Assistant] They call him the man in grey, and he's never been shy.


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[Assistant] During the 1939 run of the Dancing Years, for example, cast members spotted him backstage, as did countless others in the years that followed. Most of the time, the man in grey is seated on the upper level, only to stand up and walk toward a particular spot on the wall before vanishing through it.


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[Assistant] But there are some who don't think that the man in grey is Charles Macklin. After all, Macklin didn't die inside the theater.


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[Assistant] But others did, as one discovery in the 1840s suggests. It's said that during renovations to the theater at that time, the wall of the upper level was opened up to install new plumbing, only to reveal a horrifying sight.


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[Assistant] There, trapped inside the wall behind the plaster dust and fragments of wood, was the skeletal remains of a man.


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


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com.


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


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[Assistant] They weren't always close to the shore. When you stand there today, you might get the impression that they were constructed so close to the water on purpose. But time has a way of changing things. When they were first built, they stood much farther inland. But rising water levels and erosion have played a magic trick of sorts.


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[Assistant] Located at Orkney, on the tiny island of Papa Westray, the site is known as the Napa Power. It's a pair of structures made of stacked flat stones and rectangular doorways, all embedded in grassy mounds.


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[Assistant] The roofs might be open to the sky today, but evidence of post holes suggests that they once had proper tops. And inside, large thin pieces of slate have been used to divide the space into smaller rooms.


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[Assistant] Some believe the name Haur comes from the Old Norse word for burial mounds. And if you looked at them and made that assumption, I can't blame you. But that's not what they were. These amazing structures were something very familiar to all of us. Holmes.


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[Assistant] And they're ancient too. They date from around 3500 BC, which means they are early Neolithic and even older than the more famous Skara Brae site elsewhere in Orkney. They're older than Stonehenge, older even than the Great Pyramid, and they make something very clear.


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[Assistant] Wherever humans go, if we can't find a home waiting for us, we make one.


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[Assistant] And the same can be said about folklore. If you spend any amount of time reading the stories that have been passed down through various cultures over the years, it quickly becomes clear that those stories have spread right alongside the people who told them.


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[Assistant] But just like our innate need for a place to live, sometimes that new life in a new place required new stories to make it all come together. Folklore evolves, it grows, and sometimes it's invented from scratch to help a people feel a better sense of community. And one place in particular is famous for its stories, both in the ones they've made up and the ones that are too amazing to believe.


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[Assistant] There was a reason people began to move there. The area of the United States that we now know as Wisconsin started out as a sort of gold mine for early European settlers. Although the gold wasn't literal, it was everything else. And the reason was an idea called glaciation.


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[Assistant] And that's when an area of land is covered by glaciers for a very long time, which grinds the surface down and smooths out the hills and valleys.


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[Assistant] But southwestern Wisconsin is part of a region in the Midwest known as the Driftless area, where none of that happened. And that meant that all those valuable minerals and metals were more common on the surface, right for the picking, so to speak.


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[Assistant] And if you want proof, just look at the name of one of the oldest towns in that area. Mineral Point. If you were a settler looking for zinc and lead back in the early 1800s, Mineral Point was the place to be. Easy picking meant easy money. And soon enough, people flocked there from all over.


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[Assistant] In fact, so many miners moved there that there wasn't enough housing for them, so they started to carve out little caves for themselves in the hills. Soon enough, some people noticed that these caves had a striking resemblance to badger holds, and started referring to the miners as badgers themselves. So if you've ever wondered why Wisconsin's nickname is the Badger State, now you know.


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[Assistant] When the surface resources were picked over, people started digging into the earth. For a long while, the big target there was lead, and Mineral Point was the epicenter of that industry. But whenever humans have dug deep for resources, they've also found plenty of tragedy. And Wisconsin is no exception.


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[Assistant] In fact, mining accidents were so common that they didn't receive a lot of attention in the local papers. They were just sort of accepted as part of the job. Although every now and then, reports of larger accidents would appear. And when they did, the language was always highly descriptive.


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[Assistant] One man in 1893 was described as being blown to atoms when the explosive charge was set off too early. And in 1909, four other miners were killed when the entire powder house detonated as they were walking past it. The men were said to have been vaporized, which paints a pretty clear picture of how dangerous the job typically was.


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[Assistant] And how creative the newspapers had become with reporting it.


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[Assistant] But mining accidents weren't the only thing putting early settlers at risk. All those people packed into wooden buildings and surrounded by thick woodland made for a lot of fires, too.


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[Assistant] For example, in May of 1896, a massive fire broke out in northwestern Wisconsin near the city of Ashland. Three dock workers were killed in the blaze. And four years later, another fire claimed four more lives in the very same town.


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[Assistant] In Milwaukee, there was a hotel called the Newhall House, which had been built in 1856 by a local merchant named Daniel Newhall. Contemporary reports claim that it was one of the nicest hotels in America when it first went up, but within just 25 years, it had already started to look a bit run down.


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[Assistant] But in January of 1883, that no longer mattered. The fire broke out on the 10th of that month, starting inside the elevator shaft and quickly spreading throughout the rest of the hotel. And by the time it was over the next morning, the entire building had been reduced to rubble.


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[Assistant] The cause was more than likely just a product of the time. While the outer shell of the building had been brick, the insides were entirely wooden.


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[Assistant] And all throughout the hotel, gas light fixtures provided illumination for guests, which meant that there were hundreds of open flames dancing around at any given moment. Honestly, it's a miracle the place didn't burn down sooner.


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[Assistant] And while the guest records were also destroyed in the fire, at least 76 charred bodies were pulled from the ashes of the building. Most had died inside, while a few had tragically tried escaping the flames by leaping from their windows, only to die upon impact and then burn in the wreckage.


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[Assistant] One bright spot in an otherwise dark moment is how one pair of guests managed to survive. Charles Sherwood Stratton and his wife Lavinia were traveling performers known all over the United States, and they had been staying there at the hotel.


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[Assistant] When the fire broke out, they both apparently climbed out onto the ledge outside their window and waited for a fireman to pick them up and carry them to safety. And I mean that literally.


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[Assistant] In fact, the fireman was able to carry both of them down at the same time, tucked safely under his arm. That's because each of them were roughly three feet tall, being some of the most famous examples of dwarfism in their day. And while you might not recognize the name Charles Stretton, you will find his stage name familiar. General Tom Thumb.


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[Assistant] Clearly, the early days of life in Wisconsin came with challenges and risks. But all of it was in an effort to carve out a new home in a brand new place. A home that quickly began to brew some of its own stories and legends. And all it takes is a quick tour of that local lore to learn something inescapable. All the tragedy of the past has certainly left its mark.


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[Assistant] Some of it was imported. When settlers began to arrive in the region now referred to as Wisconsin, they brought beliefs with them from their old homes. It's something humans are very good at. When we migrate even when we can't carry belongings, there's always room for story.


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[Assistant] Cornish miners, attracted by the lead and zinc in the ground, brought stories of goblin-like guardians of the mine called Tommyknockers. And the German and Scandinavians, who made up a majority of early settlers, brought their own old world folklore. But it's the tales born right there, after everyone's arrival, that have truly left an impression.


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[Assistant] One of those stories comes to us from that old industrial center, Mineral Town. In February of 1842, a local man named William Caffey attended a formal party at the home of a captain.


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[Assistant] But Caffey wasn't the sort of man to play by the rules. They had a reputation for being a troublemaker with a violent temper. Basically, he was the worst sort of guest they could have asked for.


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[Assistant] When he arrived, Caffe discovered that guests were being announced as they entered through the main door. So he stepped aside to wait for his own name to be called.


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[Assistant] When it wasn't, he became angry, asking why he had been ignored. After being told that his name had indeed been called but that he had arrived too late to hear it, he stole the guest list and stormed out of the house into the cool night air.


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[Assistant] Outside, Kathy was confronted by a few of the more courageous gentlemen from the party. Without that guest list, new arrivals couldn't be announced, and they wanted it back, but Kathy refused. And in the heat of the argument, he pulled a pistol from his jacket and shot one of the men dead where he stood.


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[Assistant] Caffe stood trial for his crime, and in November of 1842, he was driven to the gallows in the back of a wagon. Local legend says that he sat atop his own coffin there, straddling it like a horse and tapping its hollow sides like a drum.


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[Assistant] Once in front of the gathered crowd, he refused to say his final words and dropped through the platform to his death a moment later.


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[Assistant] Ever since, there have been stories of people who claim to see Cathy's ghost walking through buildings in the area of his execution site. One location is the Walker House, which is an inn today, but was a tavern back in the mid-1800s. And while it has been remodeled many times over the years, some parts of the past refuse to go away.


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[Assistant] Guests there have seen a ghostly figure walking through the hallways at night, sometimes with his head where it belongs, and other times with it tucked under his arm. Others have heard disembodied voices in rooms that were supposed to be empty. Even doorknobs have been seen turning on their own.


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[Assistant] The inn might not sit on the exact location of Kathy's execution, but it seems his story has no intention of checking out. And there's a hotel in Milwaukee with a similar guest.


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[Assistant] Visitors to the Hilton Garden Inn have reported all sorts of unusual experiences, from doors that open and close on their own, to the sensation of being grabbed or pushed. And that would make it a creepy location all on its own, until I told you that it was originally built as a hotel called the Loyalty House, built on the very spot that once held the New Hall House Hotel.


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[Assistant] One of Milwaukee's darker tales, though, comes from an area called Allen's Addition, in a house at the corner of Alice and Whitcomb. It was there in 1874 that locals had one of the most unexplainable experiences in this state. And if it's true, it gives us plenty of reason to stop and consider the darkness it might have left behind.


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[Assistant] In August of that year, Mary Spiegel reported for work in the kitchen of the Giddings Boarding House, owned and run by Mr. and Mrs. Giddings. Mary was a teenager with a rough home life, and the job in the boarding house was meant to give her an escape from the anxiety and violence there. In the end, it only made things worse.


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[Assistant] On the morning of August 8th, Mary was working alongside Mrs. Giddings, preparing food for the residents of the house. When a number of the chairs around the kitchen table suddenly levitated up from the floor and crashed into the ceiling.


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[Assistant] Plates began to fly out of the closet nearby and shatter on the floor, and a boiling pot of tea on the stove somehow fell over, splashing hot water everywhere.


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[Assistant] Obviously, both women were terrified, as any of us would be if it had happened in our own kitchen. And it continued, too. Vegetables flew, lamps toppled, and potted plants left out of their spots. So young Mary rushed from the house to find help. When she returned, she had two neighborhood ladies in tow. Mrs. Mead and Mrs. Rowland.


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[Assistant] As soon as Mary brought them into the kitchen, the chaos began again. Mrs. Meade was so overcome with fright that she reported feeling sick and ran away from the house. Mrs. Rowland stuck it out longer, watching as objects flew from one place to another with no one near them to cause the movement. But eventually, they went looking for additional help.


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[Assistant] A short time later, two physicians arrived, Dr. Meacham and Dr. Gray, both of whom were struck by flying objects almost at once.


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[Assistant] And what's amazing about this entire encounter is just how thorough the local newspaper was in its investigation. Multiple people of high reputation were quoted with names to support the story, which stated that these things occurred without human agency is vouched for by scores of eyewitnesses.


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[Assistant] Clearly, something unexplainable happened in this house.


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[Assistant] Some of those who witnessed it all blamed young Mary Spiegel for the activity, even though they couldn't explain it logically.


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[Assistant] She was never seen throwing things, and oftentimes the objects that moved were doing so across the room from where she and others were standing. But she was young enough that some people just assumed that she was a troublemaker, as all children are supposed to be.


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[Assistant] Mary was sent home after that, back to her horrible father and life of loneliness and fear. According to the newspaper reports, this drove Mary to try and take her own life, although someone intervened. And taking sympathy on her, Mrs. Giddings invited Mary back to continue her employment there at the boarding house. The moment Mary stepped into the kitchen, however,


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[Assistant] Every topic seems to have an epicenter. If you want to discuss Civil War history, it's hard to do better than visit Gettysburg, the history of human flight. You better visit Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. And if you were interested in exploring Wisconsin's paranormal reputation, most would tell you that Whitewater was the place to be.


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[Assistant] The reason seems to be something that happened back in the late 1800s. That's when an unassuming man named Morris moved from New York to Wisconsin, settling in at Whitewater to work as a farmer. But soon enough, he was pulled into the growing world of spiritualism, attending seances and building his entire social circle around it.


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[Assistant] During one seance, it's reported that Morris asked a spirit where he might find a fortune. He promised that if it happened, he would devote his life and money to the cause of spiritualism, to work as its champion. And in response, the medium relayed information to him about where he might dig a profitable mine.


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[Assistant] With the location in hand, he found the owner of the property, purchased it, and immediately began mining for riches. And it worked. Soon enough, Morris was a wealthy man. And true to his words, he began to put that fortune to work promoting the teachings and the practice of spiritualism.


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[Assistant] Now, Morris was known around town for a lot of activities. He would speak publicly on the subject regularly and engage in lively debates with his critics. He was even known to get kicked out of local churches for showing up and interrupting their services with his own messages.


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[Assistant] But what Morris needed really was an epicenter for his life's work. So in 1888, he started construction on an entire school devoted to it.


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[Assistant] When it opened doors in 1903, the school had his name right there on the sign. The Morris Pratt Institute.


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[Assistant] And it had his passion inside with classrooms and curriculum devoted to the study of spiritualist beliefs and practices. And the pinnacle of all of that was a space on the third floor, known as the White Room, thanks to its white walls, white floor, and white furniture.


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[Assistant] It was there that only true mediums could enter and practice. Everyone who stepped inside had to be dressed entirely in white, and then they would gather around the table and make contact with the spirit realm.


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[Assistant] If it sounds like something pulled right out of a horror film, with a crazy old rich guy building a mansion devoted to spiritual energy, that's not too far from the truth. And that sort of story has a way of impacting the community around it.


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[Assistant] Morris Pratt died in 1902, but his school lived on for decades more. In the 1940s, the Institute sold their building and moved to a more modern facility, where they still operate today. But the old structure found new uses as the gears went on.


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[Assistant] And as you might imagine, with that sort of story at the center of city life, darker legends were bound to pop up, giving Whitewater a reputation and a nickname, The Second Salem.


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[Assistant] For example, there are rumors of a haunted book locked up in the basement of the local library. All sorts of legends have been attached to it too. That a number of students and even a local professor have all taken their lives after reading it. That the contents could drive a person to madness. That it was a gateway to a realm of darkness.


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[Assistant] But the story is larger than reality. It turns out that the only locked book in the library is an old Catholic hymnal. Thanks to its large size ornate gothic decorations and forbidden nature being locked in a cage, the community has crafted a story to fit it. It's all fiction, but it feels like it should be true.


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[Assistant] And it's not the first time that sort of thing has happened in Whitewater.


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[Assistant] There are a number of people who believe that there is a triangle of evil activity in town. In the corners of its territory are three local cemeteries. And sure enough, if you look at a map, those three points, Calvary Cemetery, Oak Grove Cemetery, and Hillside Cemetery, all seem to form an obvious and clear triangle. Whether the stories set within it are true, though, is up for debate.


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[Assistant] But geography doesn't lie. Right in the center of this triangle is the granddaddy of them all, the location of the old Morris Pratt Institute. And the largest complex of buildings in the center today belong to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, which has its own fair share of tales of haunted dormitories. But there's one building with more darkness than most.


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[Assistant] When Sarah Posey and her husband bought the place in the late 1800s, it was supposed to be their home.


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[Assistant] The house became the center for their life and they had two sons there. Sarah was an artist and helped support the family by teaching. And one of her passions was tile making, which she used to craft a number of beautiful tiles that were placed in among the woodwork along the grand staircase there.


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[Assistant] Two of the tiles, though, were special. Sarah crafted one with her own image on it and another with the face of her oldest, little Oliver. And they were mounted in a place of honor, right in the decorative facing of the dining room fireplace. But when opportunities in California pulled the family west, those tiles were left behind. Just one more part of the house they had turned into a home.


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[Assistant] And it's clear that it held a special place in their hearts. Because when little Oliver died young at the age of 37, he was brought back to be buried there in Whitewater. His mother, Sarah, followed him six years later, also returned home for burial in 1926. But one thing had changed since their time there. Little Oliver's tile on the fireplace had gone missing.


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[Assistant] Ever since, people who lived in the house reported seeing a woman in a white gown wandering the halls. Others claimed to wake in the middle of the night to find the figure of a little boy standing at the foot of their bed. As the stories flooded in over the years, many began to assume Sarah and Oliver Posey had returned to their beloved home. But it was clear that they were unsettled, perhaps looking for something.


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[Assistant] In the 1980s, the house went through a series of renovations to restore and update much of the home. And in the process, one of the workers made an amazing discovery. It was a hand-painted tile with the image of a little boy on it.


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[Assistant] Oliver Posey had been found, and the tile was returned to its home above the fireplace.


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[Assistant] Ever since, the ghostly figures of the woman and child have never been seen again.


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[Assistant] We humans have an intimate relationship with story. We build our lives around them. We entertain ourselves with them and we hold our hopes and dreams up against them like templates. Story drives us and arguably makes us more human in the process.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of stories that we've been telling for millennia. The obvious examples are classic mythologies from the ancient world. But even some of the fairy tales we think of as relatively modern, like Cinderella for example, are actually just descendants of older tales from places like China and Eastern Europe.


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[Assistant] When we find a story we love, we tend to hold onto it and pass it down through the ages.


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[Assistant] Sometimes though we find ourselves staring at a blank page. And sometimes there's something big and obvious that gets people talking. And those things have a way of kicking off stories that are new and fresh and really connected to the community who tells them. Which is what I think happened in Whitewater.


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[Assistant] A great example is the landmark known as the Witch's Tower.


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[Assistant] In fact, it's the second oldest continuously operating water tower in the state, but it also has an appearance that's generated quite a reputation, resembling a thick gothic tower, crowned by a metal tank up top.


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[Assistant] And that medieval image has led some to believe that the tower also serves as the home to a coven of witches who exit the structure at night to perform rituals around it.


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[Assistant] And for a long while, it seemed there was proof on the building that the town was trying to keep something trapped inside, because the barbed wire at the top of the surrounding fence faced inward rather than toward the outside.


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[Assistant] There was nothing more than a mistake by the installers, but it took on a life of its own.


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[Assistant] And I have one last story that stands out as a perfect example of that concept in action. To understand it though, we have to return to the home once owned by Sarah Posey and her husband.


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[Assistant] By the 1960s, the house was being used as fraternity housing for students attending the University of Wisconsin. As you might imagine, those frat members got up to a lot of mischief during their time there. And for one of those students, those memories were foundational, becoming stories that would live on through his work later in life.


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[Assistant] Specifically, one of the students reportedly drove his motorcycle up the stairs to the second floor. The very same staircase that once displayed Sara Posey's handmade tiles had become a ramp for a wild college student who left his own marks on the floor.


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[Assistant] That student who watched it happen right there in the Posey house would go on to start a career in entertainment, known for his wild antics and crazy behavior. And all of that bold personality fueled by memories of life in that whitewater frat house was poured into the 1978 film, Animal House. And that frat boy turned actor and comedian, the legend himself, John Belushi.


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[Assistant] There's something powerful about ghost stories when presented in their historical context. As we've learned from Sarah Posey's house, as well as other locations from within the center of Whitewater, Wisconsin, the two are inextricably tied. Where there are tales of hauntings, there's usually a backstory.


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[Assistant] Which brings me to an announcement. You know I have a healthy love for haunted locations, as well as the historical details that anchor them in the real world. And so does my good friend Amy Bruni.


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[Assistant] If you don't know her name, Amy is the star of the hit travel channel show, Kindred Spirits. And years before, she was a regular on the legendary show Ghost Hunters. And just like me, Amy loves the history behind the hauntings.


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[Assistant] So about a year ago I started talking with her about making a podcast of her own. And together we've crafted a really special show that I absolutely know you're going to love called The Haunted Road.


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[Assistant] In each episode, Amy will take a deep dive into the history of one of her favorite haunted locations and then sit down with paranormal investigators who have spent time there to hear about their experiences and impressions from the place.


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[Assistant] Haunted Road arrives July 7th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more and find a link to subscribe over at GrimAndMild.com slash haunted road.


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[Assistant] Since it's a Grim and Mild podcast, I have the power to share a bigger chunk with you, right here, right now. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll do just that.


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


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com.


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


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[Assistant] This unspeakable crime took place as they slept in their beds and horrified the small town of 2,000 people.


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[Assistant] Since then, the house has been dubbed the Veliska Axe Murder House.


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[Assistant] And is the site of many paranormal happenings, attracting paranormal investigators from around the globe.


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[Assistant] Robert Larson is one such paranormal investigator from Rhinelander, Wisconsin.


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[Assistant] He told them he wanted to attempt an experiment where he would recreate the scene the murderer left following the horrible crime that took place there.


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[Assistant] He asked them to leave him completely alone, but to monitor the building from outside from their DVR cameras.


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[Assistant] Robert proceeded to stage the home exactly as it had been found the morning of the murders, including covering all the mirrors with cloth, drawing the curtains, leaving a bloody bowl of water in the kitchen and even laying a large pile of bacon on the kitchen counter. We'll talk about the meaning of that later.


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[Assistant] Robert lay down in one of the beds in the downstairs bedroom and clutch the knife in his right hand.


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[Assistant] Robert proceeded to call out to what he believed to be the ghost of the killer in the dark.


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[Assistant] He hurled horrible names and insults at the killer and provoked unrelentingly.


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[Assistant] The last thing Robert remembers is a strange light anomaly emerging from the closet in the room he was in and heading straight for him.


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[Assistant] When he came to the knife he had been clutching was buried in his shoulder.


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[Assistant] He was screaming and his parents were calling for help.


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[Assistant] Robert was severely injured. He was actually lifelighted to the nearest hospital where he coded due to blood loss, but thankfully revived.


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[Assistant] He claims the knife was in his right shoulder at an angle that would have been impossible for him to do himself, and that even then he is right-handed and had the knife in his right hand.


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[Assistant] Try that for yourself. Hold something in your right hand and try to reach your right shoulder with enough force to bury a knife in it.


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[Assistant] We will never know the answers as to what happened that night. Robert's actions were just out of the camera frame, and his parents were so horrified by what they heard on the recorder Robert was running at the time that they destroyed it.


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[Assistant] Whatever happened there that night has left him a different person. And it was to this day, probably one of the most powerful interviews I've ever conducted with someone.


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[Assistant] Eventually we were able to get Robert to return to the house and I think that was incredibly therapeutic moment for him that he needed.


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[Assistant] But it was also in the middle of the day and he was surrounded by people.


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[Assistant] I don't think you could pay him enough to ever re-enter that home by himself.


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[Assistant] So I am now joined by Johnny Hauser, who is the, I guess, resident paranormal investigator at the Velisca House. Would that be your title?


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[Assistant] And so you actually live right next door, is that correct?


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[Assistant] I've investigated there for a few nights and I didn't really find any evidence of the children, but I do know that many people have. And then we did have an experience that we felt might have been with something more


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[Assistant] I don't like to say negative, but some, some, someone or something that was a little more angry and a little more malicious and


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[Assistant] You know, your thoughts go to, this must be the ghost of the murderer, you know, but what do you think that is? Who do you think that is?


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[Assistant] Hauntings react to the vibe and the space, you know, and that goes for the living and the dead. I want to give listeners kind of the vibe of the house because I experienced the gamut there. I experienced that kind of positive moment and the negative moment. So I'm just wondering if you could kind of pass on some of those.


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[Assistant] In 2001, archaeologists working on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus found something unexpected. Tucked away in a gravesite that contained a human skeleton, primitive jewelry, and other funerary artifacts was something else. A cat.


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[Assistant] Of course, cats are never unexpected when it comes to history.


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[Assistant] Most people are aware of just how important cats were to the ancient Egyptians, placing them firmly in the realm of the deep past. From the feline goddess Bastet, to the seemingly endless discovery of mummified cats in places like Saqqara, we know just how important cats were to the Egyptians.


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[Assistant] But the cat from Cyprus was certainly unexpected to the team who uncovered it because it predated the oldest known Egyptian cat artwork by over 4,000 years. And it's also important to note that cats aren't native to the island of Cyprus. They were brought there by humans.


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[Assistant] And yes, we could go back and forth on whether or not this particular cat was buried as a sacrifice or simply the act of someone taking their pet with them into the afterlife.


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[Assistant] Regardless, finding one inside a human grave speaks to a certain level of personal connection that is both surprising for its era and completely understandable to you and I today.


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[Assistant] We love our pets. The animals we welcome into our lives have a way of becoming part of our family. Some people dress them up like children, while others rely on their help to overcome physical challenges. It's weird to think about, but in a lot of ways, our pets make us more human, more complete.


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[Assistant] But not every animal companion has been viewed as friendly. And if you dig through the past long enough,


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[Assistant] In 1563, England's Queen Elizabeth I issued a statute against witchcraft. It was called an act against conjurations, enchantments, and witchcraft, making its contents and purpose pretty hard to miss.


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[Assistant] Then, 40 years later, her successor, King James I, passed a new edition of that law called An Act Against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits. By the title alone, we can see that something new had been added in. The concept? Of familiar spirits.


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[Assistant] At the basic level, familiar spirits were supernatural creatures that provided assistance to those who practiced magic. They could be good or bad, animal or human in form, and frequently witnessed or never seen. And at some point in the 40 years between those two versions of England's witchcraft laws, they just sort of appeared. Like magic.


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[Assistant] Obviously, there are hints of them in earlier folklore, and we've discussed a number of those stories on this show before. The legends of the black dog, the hounds of the wild hunt, the guardian hounds of the underworld, the bones of the concept were always there.


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[Assistant] But in the late 1500s they took on a life of their own.


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[Assistant] Experts in folklore agree that there are three common traits shared by almost all familiars. First, they take on a form that engenders trust, like an animal or a human. To call these a familiar shape would be a bit too on the nose, but I hope you see the underlying meaning.


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[Assistant] These supernatural beings or spirits would take on a familiar guise to interact with people.


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[Assistant] Second, familiars could be seen by anyone, not just the person benefiting from their help. They weren't invisible, hidden helpers. These were out in the open, plain as day. So much so that they were usually dismissed as just animals.


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[Assistant] And third, familiars gave powers to people. These spirits would enhance the abilities of those who practiced witchcraft, and protect them from harm. In a lot of ways, they were sort of like a living, breathing magical charm, and having them in your service meant that you were more powerful than you were without them.


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[Assistant] And we have got to stop for a moment and talk about their names. Because they have to be one of my favorite bits of English folklore of all time. And thanks to trial records, a ton of them have been saved. Some are pretty plain, like Russell the Grey Cat or Dunscat the Dog. And some just sound weird, like Elemancer or Mac Hector. But others are downright comical.


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[Assistant] We've got Grizzle and Greedygut and Makeshift the Weasel. There's Pinewhacket and Rory and Swine. There was even a toad called Lunch and a crow called Peckin. Honestly, they sound more like mascots for major American sports teams than magical spirits, but they're right there in the historical record, which you can't help but love a little.


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[Assistant] The folklore about familiars is deep, and sadly, I won't be able to cover all of it today. There are stories of how to summon them, how to bond with them, and how to care for them. Most of the stories, though, focus on familiars that enter a person's life and alter it in some way, usually by giving magical powers or assistance with difficult tasks.


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[Assistant] And early on, familiar spirits weren't necessarily good or evil in the way that we might understand morality today. They just were.


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[Assistant] Part of that is due to how comfortable the Catholic Church was early on with magical remedies. Part and parcel of the Christian faith was belief in the healing powers of dead saints and holy relics, and the exorcism of demonic spirits was a pretty public way of declaring the supernatural world to be fact and not fiction.


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[Assistant] Over time though, those stories fractured. Some spoke of good familiars, the animals that helped the local cunningfolk perform their job of healing the sick and helping the lost. Sometimes referred to as white magic, the work of the cunningfolk was largely beneficial to everyone around them. But that changed over time.


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[Assistant] One person we have to blame for that evolution is Matthew Hopkins, the self-professed witch-finder general. When he published his book, The Discovery of Witches, in 1647, he popularized stories of evil familiars who did the bidding of the criminal witches he hunted and executed.


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[Assistant] He wrote about all sorts of animals, from dogs and cats to rabbits and birds, that actively harmed innocent people upon the order of the witches who controlled them.


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[Assistant] He included eyewitness accounts of familiars that appeared during his interrogations and made it clear that the devil could take on any shape he wished.


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[Assistant] Today, we can look back with a mixture of fascination and laughter at these fantastical tales. But of course, to the people of that era, these weren't just stories. They were evidence of a larger, darker world. One that was just as obvious and accepted back then as science is to us today.


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[Assistant] Every witch hunter needs leverage. Some sort of physical evidence, or a story that was so wild that it must be true. And few were better at finding that than Scotland's King James VI.


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[Assistant] As a quick reminder, James VI was known for a few memorable things. He was the king of England during the infamous gunpowder plot that involved Guy Fawkes. He was the King James responsible for the creation of the King James Bible. And he personally wrote a book about demons and necromancy called Demonology.


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[Assistant] It was a book that combined political and theological ideas into a single guide, and it inspired future witch hunters in their work. In fact, Matthew Hopkins, the most prolific of them all, used demonology as one of his main guides, and central to much of their work was the search for familiars.


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[Assistant] King James himself got involved in a witch trial in 1590 in the Scottish town of North Berwick. He stepped in and helped torture the accused witches until they confessed. Many of those confessions involve stories of familiars, including a woman named Agnes Sampson who revealed that she worked with a magical dog named Elva.


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[Assistant] And the real world consequences of this search for familiars was the death of many innocent people.


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[Assistant] Two decades earlier, one of the very first accused witches in Scotland's history appeared on the records in the southwestern corner of the country. That's where a woman named Bessie Dunlop worked as a cattle driver, along with caring for her husband and her children.


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[Assistant] In 1572, Bessie was experiencing the worst of life. Her husband had become deathly ill, she lost one of her few cows, and her newborn child was sick as well. And it was in that moment of chaos and despair that she claimed she met her own familiar, Thomas Reed.


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[Assistant] Now her familiar wasn't an animal, but it was also far from human. According to Bessie, Thomas Reed was an old man with a long gray beard, and he claimed to come from the land of the fairies. Although she resisted his help at first, she eventually gave in, and learned much from Thomas.


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[Assistant] Just like most familiars in English history, this familiar provided Bessie with the core benefits we discussed earlier. He gave her the power to find lost objects, to heal the sick, and to see into the future. All of which probably sounded like wonderful news to a woman who was living through a storm of illness and loss.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, she leaned into her newfound powers.


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[Assistant] Over the years that followed, Bessie's reputation grew, and with that fame also came jealousy. So it shouldn't surprise us that others in the community began to attack her, accusing her of evil deeds. And at the center of it all was the claim that she served the devil through her familiar, Thomas Reed.


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[Assistant] In the end, Bessie Dunlop was tried and found guilty on November 8th of 1576. As punishment, she was taken to Castle Hill in Edinburgh, where she was strangled to death and then her body was burned to ash. All because of familiars.


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[Assistant] And finally, witches' familiars can even be found in the most famous trial of all. Salem.


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[Assistant] The story of the Salem trials in 1692 are sort of like a gemstone. You can hold them up to the light and rotate it, seeing one new facet after another. And when you look at it from a certain angle, you can see familiars all over it.


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[Assistant] The core of the events are the accusations and claims made by a group of young girls. Accusations that led to the arrest of innocent people. And when those cases went to trial, the court proceeded in a very unusual way.


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[Assistant] Today we rely on physical evidence and hard facts, but in Salem in 1692 they also allowed something called spectral evidence. In other words, sightings of a purely spiritual nature were admissible in court.


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[Assistant] One victim, Sarah Good, was accused of working with three birds and that these birds hurt the children and afflicted persons.


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[Assistant] Tituba, the enslaved woman who worked for the village minister, was accused of also having a bird, as well as a dog in her service. And another victim was accused of working with a creature that had two legs, wings, and the head of a woman.


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[Assistant] These accusations of involvement with familiars had real painful consequences, leading to the deaths of more than 25 people. Today, the events in Salem have become practically synonymous with the concept of a witch hunt, whether or not people remember the actual reasons why.


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[Assistant] By the end of the 1500s, the idea of familiars was deeply embedded in the minds of people all across the island of Great Britain. But looking back, one of the most popular familiars in English history arrived exactly when you'd expect, when fear and anxiety had driven a wedge between two sides of a fierce political battle.


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[Assistant] And in the center of that struggle between good and evil was the perfect mascot for the fight.


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[Assistant] The young man named Rupert was born into a fairy tale. Just a month before his birth in December of 1619, his parents were crowned the King and Queen of Bohemia, making him a prince from his very first breath. But there was trouble brewing outside the walls of the palace.


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[Assistant] It was a time when Europe was being ripped apart by conflict between Catholics and those who broke away from Rome in protest, the Protestants. And Rupert's parents soon found themselves on the losing end of a battle with Catholic Spain, and the family was forced to flee to the Netherlands.


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[Assistant] In 1632, Rupert's father died, leaving the family without support. And while his mother, Elizabeth, tried reaching out to her brother, King Charles I of England, for support, Rupert moved on to what would become his career. The military. Soon enough, he was known far and wide as a skilled and ruthless soldier.


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[Assistant] And that early military career eventually led him to England. But that's not all that followed him. It seems that from a very early age, Rupert's nickname had been Robert the Devil, a hint at a historical figure named Robert Duke of Normandy who was said to have been fathered by Satan himself. And this occult connection would follow Rupert over to England.


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[Assistant] It turns out that King Charles had his own military conflict brewing. He was king, but there was a growing group of people in England known as the Parliamentarians who wanted to do away with the monarchy. And his nephew Rupert, a seasoned cavalry officer, was a needed ally. But when Rupert arrived in August of 1642, he brought one more thing. His dog.


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[Assistant] The dog was described as a large white dog of great beauty that Rupert had named Boy. It went everywhere with him, even following him onto the battlefields of Europe. So naturally, Boy came with him to England and quickly became part of the gossip on both sides of the English Civil War.


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[Assistant] Now, it's easy to think of war as something only fought on the battlefield. But the English Civil War, like most conflicts throughout history, was also fought through rumor and propaganda. Back then, one of the biggest weapons of war was the printing press. And as the conflict carried on, pamphlets were printed on both sides, telling stories meant to frighten their enemy. So what were Rupert's enemies so afraid of?


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[Assistant] Well, the pamphlets started out attacking him by claiming that he massacred innocent victims, killing every man, woman, child, and animal he came across. It was a lie, but that's what propaganda is most of the time. Deception meant to sway minds toward a particular view.


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[Assistant] One of the next round of pamphlets to be printed by the parliamentarians declared Rupert to be a witch. They didn't explicitly say it, of course, but the hints were there and readers drew the desired conclusions, declaring him to be in league with the devil. There were more pamphlets to come, too.


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[Assistant] Rupert was a coward, they said. He dressed others in his armor and hid behind his troops, they said. And, oddly contradictory, he was also the devil and couldn't be struck by a single bullet no matter how many were fired at him. But then the enemy started to come for Boy.


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[Assistant] Boy, they claimed, was Rupert's familiar. It was an evil spirit in the shape of a large white dog, and just like its master, it couldn't be hit with the bullets of the enemy. One witness said that he watched as soldiers attempted to stab the dog with their daggers, and their blades simply slid off its fur as if it were wearing armor.


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[Assistant] Boy could also turn invisible, making the dog even more deadly. It could predict the future, it spoke multiple languages, and was able to lead its master to lost objects or hidden enemy encampments. Boy could even change shape if needed, making it the ultimate devil for all the parliamentarians to fear.


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[Assistant] And honestly, because Rupert actually did ride into battle with Boy at his side, I think it's easy to see how those stories came to life. So many young men marched off to war and never returned. And yet this dog walked away unscathed each and every time. It had to be magic.


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[Assistant] On November 22 of 1642, a man on Prince Rupert's side of the war decided to draft up some even more spectacular fantasies about the dog.


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[Assistant] This man, John Cleveland, hoped to slip it to the parliamentarians and claim that it was true, and then watch the lie spread. Because if the loyalists could cause their enemy to become more and more afraid, that only worked to their advantage. And work it did.


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[Assistant] The pamphlet created massive fear of the dog named Boy. Soon enough, more pamphlets were flowing from printing presses all around England, focusing entirely on that evil dog. The beast was impossible to kill, they claimed, and sometimes took the form of a man so it could spy on them.


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[Assistant] If there was one true enemy of the anti-monarchy forces, it's fair to say that boy was it.


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[Assistant] It was a plan designed to strike the heart of the enemy with the blade of fear. And it did that. But it also did two other things.


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[Assistant] First, Boy the Familiar became a mascot, in a sense, to the royalist forces, making it an incredibly valuable symbol. And second, because of that value, it hatched a new plan in the minds of the parliamentarians.


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[Assistant] Everything evolves, given enough time. Scientists can see that development in various species of animals, and whether the transition has taken centuries or millennia, the result is always fascinating. Landscapes evolve, and so do our cities, and the same can be said for ideas.


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[Assistant] In its earliest sense, the concept of a familiar spirit was something people noticed rather than named. It was clear that animals had a place in the folk magic of different cultures. Oftentimes, they were part of a cure, just like local plants might have been.


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[Assistant] In 1604, for example, a cunning woman named Catherine Thompson was convicted of using magic. Her crime? She apparently put a live duck in a patient's mouth and then muttered some incantations.


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[Assistant] Others like her used frogs or spiders as curative items to be eaten. But that combination of magic practitioners and living creatures was always there.


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[Assistant] Sometimes an animal was seen as the new destination of an illness that cunning folk promised to remove from a sick person. One woman in Scotland was said to have taken the labor pains from a birthing mother and cast them onto a dog, which ran away and was never seen again.


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[Assistant] In some instances, the animal who received the pain or illness was said to have died on the spot.


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[Assistant] Clearly, animals and magic have been linked in the minds of the public for a very long time.


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[Assistant] So, is it really surprising that it eventually worked its way into politics? I have a feeling that because Prince Rupert was the enemy of the parliamentarians and an outside one at that, it wouldn't have mattered what kind of animal he brought with him. Boy, the dog was simply a familiar because of its connection to Rupert.


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[Assistant] Eventually though, they were able to overcome their fear of the prince and his dog. On July 2nd of 1644, nearly two years after arriving in England, Rupert finally felt the sting of defeats at Marston Moor, just outside of the English city of York.


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[Assistant] All the success he had enjoyed during his time fighting for the king came to an end that day, and the parliamentarians were victorious.


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[Assistant] Perhaps sensing a shift in the tides of war, Rupert was said to have left his loyal companion, Boy the Dog, back at camp during the battle. There, one would assume the dog would be safe from harm, whether or not it was a servant of the devil. But assumption never makes something true, does it?


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[Assistant] The reports on the final moments of Boy's life are scarce, but what we do know is that it managed to break free from its bindings in camp and rush out onto the battlefield in search of Rupert. That was where a soldier aimed his musket and managed to put the animal down.


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[Assistant] A short while later, the battle was over and the Royalists were on the losing side, perhaps because their magical mascot was no longer there to help them. Within two years, the first English Civil War was over and Prince Rupert of the Rhine was banished from England. Oh, and one last detail.


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[Assistant] It's said that one of the many propaganda pamphlets that circulated had put forward the idea that the only way to kill a shapeshifter was to use an enchanted musket loaded with magical ammunition. It's thought that the soldier who killed Boy was only able to do so because he had followed those specific instructions.


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[Assistant] And his magical ammunition? The classic, almost stereotypical weapon of choice for so many monster hunters throughout history. The silver bullet.


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[Assistant] Familiars have been at the center of far too many tragic stories over the centuries, and while we've explored those roots and a number of powerful examples today, we've only scratched the surface. In fact, I have one last story to share, and it's a tale of just how far people will go to get rid of the things they fear.


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


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[Assistant] Elizabeth was old and blind and had been around longer than most in town. That was why everyone knew her, and probably why everyone feared her.


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[Assistant] For over 50 years, rumors had rippled through their little corner of Lancashire in the northwest of England. Rumors of dark magic. Rumors of witchcraft. Rumors of curses and afflictions. That's probably why folks referred to her by the nickname Old Demdike, which was slang for demon woman. And yet Elizabeth was left alone.


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[Assistant] It was a tenuous piece, but it all unraveled because of some pins.


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[Assistant] Her granddaughter Allison had stopped a peddler on the road to buy some pins. A man named John Law. But John refused to sell them to her. Maybe she didn't have enough money with her. Pins were notoriously expensive back then. But the most likely reason was because pins were often used in local folk magic. And John Law wanted no part in that.


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[Assistant] A short time after their encounter, John Law suffered a stroke. In the age when people searched every shadow for the reason behind a tragedy, they found that reason in Allison.


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[Assistant] Clearly, she was upset at being refused the pins, and had cursed him.


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[Assistant] After all, she was the granddaughter of a legendary witch.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, Allison was called to appear before the local magistrate, Roger Norwell, to respond to this accusation. But she didn't come alone. Her mother, also named Elizabeth, and her brother James accompanied her, and together the family answered questions. Allison, though, confessed to cursing the peddler. But then she took it further.


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[Assistant] She might belong to a family of witches, but there was another family, a rival family, that couldn't be ignored. And the matriarch of that clan was another elderly blind woman with an unusual nickname, Old Chattox. And Old Chattox had killed her father with witchcraft, all because he refused to pay her an annual protection fee.


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[Assistant] What followed was a long and complicated trial where both families were accused of murder. By some accounts, at least 10 victims were identified, all killed by the evil powers of the various family members. And it was during this trial process that stories of familiars began to appear.


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[Assistant] One of the accused, Allison's nine-year-old sister, Janet, claimed that her mother had worked for years with a familiar that took the shape of a large brown dog named Ball. She said that Ball would do anything her mother asked, including kill people.


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[Assistant] One of the most detailed confessions though came from old Chateaux herself, the matriarch of the Whittle family. She told her examiners about meeting her own familiar 15 years earlier, a creature she described as a thing like a Christian man, and how it asked her for her soul in return for power.


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[Assistant] This familiar, which she called Fancy, would come to her whenever she called and do her bidding. And that included assassinating people who wronged her. Names that were on the list of ten murdered victims. But as a price for all that help, Fancy had taken away most of her eyesight.


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[Assistant] And Old Demdike, whose granddaughter Allison had started it all, confessed to having one of her own spirit helpers. Hers was a black cat named Tibby, although it sometimes appeared in the shape of a rabbit or a doe. And this familiar would bring her food and drink whenever she wanted. Oh, and of course, it killed people for her.


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[Assistant] When all was said and done, at least eleven people were put on trial for accusations of witchcraft, and although one was acquitted and set free, nine others were sentenced to death by hanging, including Allison, her mother, and her brother, and rival matriarch Old Chattox. They took their final breaths on August 20th of 1612.


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[Assistant] The only victim to slip the noose was old Demdike, but she didn't walk free. Her death came before her scheduled execution date, passing away in her jail cell due to a mixture of illness, poor conditions, and old age.


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[Assistant] And the irony shouldn't be lost on any of us, no matter how blind the authorities were to it at the time. A woman they locked up for claiming to have the constant support from her familiar died on their watch because she wasn't cared for.


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[Assistant] Only through her death could Old Demdike prove her innocence. And that's the most tragic lesson of all.


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


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


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[Assistant] You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over at GrimAndMild.com


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


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[Assistant] One century ago, something exploded over Siberia. It happened on June 30th of 1908, and I need you to adjust your expectations. When I say exploded, you probably imagine a stick of dynamite, or maybe a bunch of them. But this one was different.


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[Assistant] First, this explosion didn't happen on the ground. It happened in the air over the Tunguska River, perhaps three to six miles above the surface of the Earth. And second, the explosion is estimated to have been at least 1,000 times greater than the single atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, over 15 megatons. And the effects were devastating.


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[Assistant] Close to 800 square miles of forest were flattened, like an enormous hand had brushed across the trees and laid them all down. An earthquake shook the region, and if the Richter scale had existed at the time, some scientists estimate that it would have clocked in at around 5.0. Had it happened over a major city, the damage would have been catastrophic.


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[Assistant] Even today, over a century after it happened, no one fully knows what it was. Yes, there are some really good theories, but thanks to how remote the event's location was and the available tools at the time, there's a good chance we won't ever know the full truth. However frustrating that might be. Everyone loves a good mystery, though.


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[Assistant] For those who enjoy all things historical, there are unsolved cases, like the lost colony of Roanoke or the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Some mysteries involve hidden treasure, like the Beale Papers or the secrets, while others ponder the truth behind larger events, like what really happened in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.


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[Assistant] A lot of the time these mysteries go unsolved and that's part of the real attraction about them. It's not the characters or the specific details of the legend that we love so much. It's the hunt, the chase, the connecting of the dots that might lead us from where we are to the finish line.


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[Assistant] We want answers, yes, but we love the search for them so much more.


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[Assistant] Psychologists call it apophenia. It's a tendency to see meaning or connection between unrelated things. It's natural, and a lot of us do it without even thinking about it. We see the pieces of the puzzle scattered about, and we feel drawn to put them all together. And people will do that when even science or solid evidence tells them otherwise.


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[Assistant] Most of the time, those puzzles are benign. They are safe and distant and rarely hold the possibility of answers that will harm us. They are mysteries that started out life as tragic or frustrating, but have become something a lot closer to entertainment over the years.


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[Assistant] But not every mystery is safe. In fact, some unsolved events seem to hide a certain level of darkness. From a distance they are just as enticing as all the others. But the closer we get to them, the more troublesome they become.


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[Assistant] They were driving south for a weekend of celebration. It was August of 1955, and despite the heat, all four of them had climbed into the truck and began that journey that would take them from their home in Pennsylvania to a small town in Kentucky.


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[Assistant] Elmer and Vera both worked in the traveling carnival business, as did their friends Billy Ray and his wife June. It was a job that kept them on the road most of the year, so having a bit of downtime, in the summer no less, was a rare treat. And with Elmer's 25th birthday approaching, the four of them decided to head south and visit Elmer's family.


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[Assistant] Palmer's mother, Glennie, lived on a small farm in the town of Kelly, in western Kentucky. She had been widowed twice by the age of 50, but didn't live there alone. She still had three children at home between the ages of 7 and 12, but also had help from one of her adult children, CJ.


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[Assistant] Add in CJ's wife and her brother, the visit from Elmer and crew certainly made for a full house. But that's what family gatherings are usually about, isn't it?


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[Assistant] You gather in one place, share food and stories, laugh and argue. It's what happens when family reunites after being apart for a while. And there was a lot of that on the first night.


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[Assistant] They had a big family meal and then settled into a series of card games. And having grown up in the Midwest myself, I can't help but wonder if they played a little Yooker, or maybe even some Tripoli.


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[Assistant] Later that night though, Elmer's friend Billy Ray got up to refill his water glass. Now this was rural Kentucky in 1955, so to do that he needed to walk outside to the well. They would later describe the evening as hot and dry, and I imagine the stars were brilliant in the night sky, so far from the nearest major city. But that's not all Billy Ray saw.


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[Assistant] Moments later, he burst through the screen door, a look of panic and fright painted across his face. Someone asked him what had happened, and he gestured back to the door and the darkness beyond it. Something bright had flown over the farmhouse, he said, something large and round and metallic, and then it had vanished into the woods.


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[Assistant] The folks around the table laughed out loud. Someone accused him of trying to prank them, while others just shook their heads and went back to the card game. But Billy Ray refused to give up. He turned to his wife and asked her if she believed him, hoping that at least one person in the room might give him a chance. But she joined the others in laughter. Everyone except Elmer.


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[Assistant] Elmer worked with Billy Ray. They spent a lot of time together, more than Elmer did with his family, even. They knew each other well enough that Billy Ray called Elmer Lucky as a nickname that seemed to have caught on. So, in an effort to help his friend out, Lucky stood up and headed toward the door. He wanted to see Billy Ray's flying disc with his own eyes.


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[Assistant] As if a light had been turned on inside the trees, a figure stepped out of the shadows, a figure unlike anything either of them had ever seen.


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[Assistant] They later described it as short, maybe the size of a child with thin legs and a larger torso. The figure was glowing with an unnatural light, and it moved toward them without taking steps, like a ghost floating out of the darkness. Even more frightening, its arms were stretched out toward the men, and when they saw it, they ran back inside.


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[Assistant] Back in the kitchen, the panicked expressions on their faces was enough to frighten Lucky's mother, Glenny. She quickly helped the younger children off to bed, and then returned to discuss the events more with her son. But when she came back downstairs, she found Lucky and Billy Ray both armed with guns, each man standing guard at one of the farmhouse's two doors. And that was the final straw.


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[Assistant] Glennie's rising anxiety erupted, and she demanded that her son and his friend stop their prank immediately. But Lucky refused to listen, his eyes watching the black rectangle of the doorway intently, finger resting near the trigger of his 12 gauge.


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[Assistant] A moment later, it was Billy Ray who turned to speak to her before returning to his vigil beside the door.


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[Assistant] When it appeared on the other side of the screen door, Glennie screamed and Billy Ray fired his weapon. The shot pierced a hole in the screen, but when he focused on the dark porch on the other side of it, he found nothing there. No body, no blood, no mysterious creature standing in the pale light that spilled out from the hall.


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[Assistant] Curious about what had happened, Billy Ray stepped out onto the porch to have a look around. The night air was quiet and still, but as he stood there on the edge of the porch, something brushed against the hair on the top of his head. Lynching, he caught a glimpse of a long, thin hand that had extended from above.


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[Assistant] The creature, it seems, had retreated to the roof of the porch.


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[Assistant] The next few moments honestly sound like something out of an action horror film. Billy Ray rushed back inside while Lucky replaced him, firing his own weapon straight up at where the hand had been.


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[Assistant] Inside, Lucky's older brother CJ saw something appear in the window that he described as an oddly shaped face with glowing eyes and a long claw-like hand. He too was armed and he too opened fire.


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[Assistant] The men would later claim two amazing details about these moments. First, the creatures never appeared to be hurt, even when the shots they fired clearly struck them. And second, when one of the men did fire, their target would almost always bounce or fly away, like some sort of gymnast or flying insect.


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[Assistant] The house may have seemed to become surrounded by small goblin-like creatures, but inside it was all chaos and noise. The gunshots had frightened the children who had been sleeping upstairs, and Glenny, now a firm believer in what her son had claimed,


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[Assistant] Praying out loud for God to save them. These goblins, she told them, had been sent by the devil himself.


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[Assistant] But the attacks continued. Or at least they felt like attacks. A creature would be spotted in a tree near the house and one of the men would open fire at it, forcing it to float away and out of sight for a while. It would return a few moments later in a different part of the yard and the process would repeat itself all over again. And Glenny was beginning to notice something.


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[Assistant] She pointed out to Lucky and Billy Ray that the creatures tended to approach the house with their arms raised high, almost as if they were surrendering or looking for help.


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[Assistant] What if, she suggested, they had been handling the situation all wrong this entire time? But in response, Lucky shook his head and then expressed that ancient sentiment most humans have been born with since the dawn of time. The creatures were unknown and frightening, he told her.


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[Assistant] And because of that he felt compelled to attack out of self-defense.


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[Assistant] It's an innate behavior that we humans have modeled for as long as we've been around, and even though it sounds primal, it still happens in our modern world today. We attack the things we don't understand. And sadly, we're very, very good at it.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, reason slowly took over the situation. Lucky and the others began to stop and think, to try and reason out what the creatures might be. Were they the goblins they'd heard about as children? Were they, as Glinney believed, evil demons sent to torment them?


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[Assistant] Or were they something else? Something from another world that simply defied their expectations and logic?


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[Assistant] Whatever the answer was, they soon came to a group consensus.


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[Assistant] If the creatures wouldn't leave them alone at the farmhouse and they needed to round everyone up,


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[Assistant] Their destination was nearby Hopkinsville. It was a city of about 20,000 that was located roughly 10 miles to the south. Even though it was the middle of the night, they knew they would at least be able to find an officer who might be able to help them. When the entire family stumbled into the Hopkinsville police station though, they only found one solitary officer on duty.


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[Assistant] I can't imagine what that moment must have felt like for the officer. A long stretch of midnight silence broken by a crowd of over a dozen frightened, angry people, some of whom were crying children. There must have been a lot of shouting and a lot of frustration, but they eventually got their story out for the officer to hear.


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[Assistant] That officer in turn got on the phone to call for help, reaching out to the police chief, Russell Greenwell.


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[Assistant] But remember, this was essentially a game of telephone, where the message was altered slightly in each retelling. The family hadn't entirely been clear about what they'd experienced, but after telling the officer what they believed they saw, he turned around and told Chief Greenwell that the family had been attacked by little men.


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[Assistant] Greenwell, though, seemed to keep an open mind. It turns out that he had his own unusual experience just three years before, and it had left him rather flexible in what he was willing to hear.


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[Assistant] Somehow along the way, the local newspaper, the Kentucky New Era, caught wind of what was going on and they managed to get to the farm around the same time. The darkness that had surrounded that little farm quickly transformed into a circus with lights and men and cameras spreading out to explore and investigate.


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[Assistant] While one of the officers asked the family more and more questions about what they claimed, others went looking for evidence that it happened at all.


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[Assistant] A lot of the physical clues pointed to gunfire, such as spent casings, holes in screen doors, and shattered windows. Not definitive proof of an attack by mysterious creatures, but certainly evidence of their reaction to one. Except one thing.


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[Assistant] It's said that investigators found traces of an unusual liquid that had stained a number of the surfaces, like the porch and areas outside the windows. Unusual because of its appearance. At first glance, it almost seemed like water, but when viewed at an angle, it seemed to glow ever so slightly.


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[Assistant] Whether or not they took samples of the liquid, I don't know. But it certainly leaves a lot of questions unanswered.


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[Assistant] The following day, the newspapers published their own version of the events. The article was titled, Story of Spaceship 12 Little Men Probed Today. Looking back, the use of the word probed is certainly a bit confusing, but it's clear from the context that what they simply meant was that the story was being looked into. But probe or not, the story the article unfolded was sensational. And the public ate it up. Remember the social context now.


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[Assistant] The events on this Kentucky farm took place just eight years after the Roswell, New Mexico incident. All throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, the American public was obsessed with UFOs and objects in the night sky. It created a constant low-level anxiety and captured imaginations everywhere.


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[Assistant] So the paper's headline was both a natural expression of that fear and an obvious attempt to cash in on it. And it worked. But there were critics.